Dramatis Personae
Amar Gupta aka The Iron Sikh (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”- Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): Cold War era super-soldier/spy that got put in the Freezer, because she got poisoned. After getting thawed out and cured she tried to back to work, and was given an “adjustment period”. Uncle Sam called 2 years later, with work… because once you’re in, you’re in for life. Tagline: “In and out without a whisper.”
- Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): Technopath, inventor, and hacker. He specializes in co-opting enemy systems and tech assets. Tagline: “Nice tech – I’ll borrow that.”
- Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic petty thief still on work release several years later, on his way to becoming a true agent and hero. Tagline: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
- Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): Doctor, Mathematician, and Scientist (yes, capitals) and Spatial Manipulator. Threshold can bend space like a pretzel, teleport, obliterate things, and has extraordinary senses. He’d rather be in a research lab than fight. Better known for his work with Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations, and disaster relief than famous battles. Tagline: “I can be there in a snap!”
- Derrick K. Ratnam aka Legerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
- Layla A. de Blackburn aka Nox (NPC): CIA-trained child assassin all grown up to be Daddy’s Little Monster. Maybe a little mad. Argues with her shadow often. Tagline: “No, we shouldn’t do that…should we?”
- Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): Bo’s best friend and assistant. A sentient drone in the shape of a stylized shiny metal rat mindlinked to Bo. Specialties are rapid repair construction and modifications. Imagine if K-9 and R2D2 made a baby and it looks a bit like a rodent. Tagline: “Repairs and upgrades in progress.”
Previously . . .
The group is hearing rumbling and grumbling somewhere in the middle of Flushing while Threshold nurses a headache. Then the sound of two distinct explosions sounds through the air, one right after the other, close enough for the windows to rattle. The interns are quite disturbed while things start happening about three miles away. The group knocked awake with Nyx rolling out of bed and heading downstairs to figure out what’s going on. Threshold, at the hospital, gets to hear that there’s been three separate explosions, one in Manhattan, one in Flushing, and one at LaGuardia Airport. Threshold immediately teleports into the HQ to find Nyx half-dressed from rolling out of bed, Whisper already getting ready to suit up, and Nox summoning a black shadowy suit of armor. Fridge Boy rushes in and stumbles over his words saying that there’s been explosions over the police band, some private development and they’ve got cops incoming.
Threshold suits up, tells the group to meet upstairs before looking in the direction to determine if he can see what’s going on with the explosion. He can see smoking coming from somewhere in downtown Flushing but not a definite idea where with a casual glance. Looking closer with his powers, he’s able to tell it’s someplace that he’s been to before and immediately creates a portal to the location for the group to head through whereupon they immediately see something freaky.
She’s Lindy McCall!
Nyx, Threshold, Whisper, and Wirerat
Eastern Mirage Project
Wednesday, May 6th, 2020, 1600 hours (EST)
42-31 Union St, Queens, NY 11355
On the other side, they’re at a construction site where there’s something going deep and pushing matter upwards that then disintegrates into very familiar sparkles putting out a thoom, thoom sound and is going pretty deep. The sparkles look remarkably like what happens when Threshold obliterates something and Whisper calls Legerdemain to ask if there’s any news about a film being done with special effects. She also asks Wirerat what sort of comms are going freaky at the area. On the other side of the spectacular geyser they can see a series of rats and cats, one floating in the air, another with tech gadgets, another is the size of a large dog, another touches the large rat and suddenly there’s two there and they can see Lindy McCall there talking to the rats, and once she’s there she can smiles maniacally and points a finger at Threshold
She says that it’s good he came, that he should be there for it. However, he doesn’t remember her prompting her to ask if he at least remembers what he did to her father, but even with his memory he can’t recall her which just makes it worse as she screams at him and the rats rush forwards.
Whisper, figuring that the woman is obviously mad, rushes forwards while Nox moves to the side. Nyx has set himself up under a construction office and keeps an eye on the situation at large. SSR, and Wirerat, reaches out to determine what sort of tech they’re using and cat with tech around it realizes that it’s being sensed and Wirerat immediately takes more damage to the brain when the cat objects to his sensing. The floating cat teleports and fires a beam at Threshold which he dodges. One of the huge rats rushes Whisper where she can see it’s got a surprisingly humanoid face before it punches Whisper at the groin which she parries, realizing that its claws are easily as hard as steel. The tech-cat moves to take over SSR but SSR refuses. Another large rat is copied and runs up to Whisper only to faceplant upon attempting to attack. Threshold folds space and steps close to the space-cat and throwing an obliteration beam at the space-cat that warps out of the way, along with Nox behind it, warping next to Nyx’s position, once she realizes that the beam is coming for her.
Whisper starts off by just hacking at the Gemini-Rats, hacking at the knee and torso of one of them, barely damaging it at all. Nox takes her time evaluating McCall. Nyx slips forwards and binds the Fracture-Rat and then setting his viewpoint next to McCall and whispers in her ear asking if she really wants to do this, causing her to look around. SSR detects brainwave problems and starts running towards the fight while Wirerat creates a fine mesh screening around a large group of their opponents, including Tech-Cat, McCall, one of the Gemini-Rats, and Fracture-Rat. Space-Cat teleports the Fracture-Cat outside of the binding while the Gemini-Rats attack Whisper while Lindy attempts to get outside of the wire mesh while Tech-Cat uses its power to turn the mesh into something more useful for it while Fracture Rat makes another Gemini-Rat. Threshold uses his singularity focused on Fracture-Rat, the Gemini-Rats are unaffected by the pull, same as Whisper, while the Fracture-Rat slowly turns into meaty paste as Whisper parries the Gemini-Rats.
Whisper kicks the Gemini-Rats into the singularity while Nox murders Tech-Cat with her shattering darkness. Nyx, taking a chance, whispers again into McCall’s ear asking if it was worth getting the animals killed and while distracted warps behind McCall and drains her of her stamina, knocking her down. Wirerat marks the Gemini-Rat in the pit as a target for SSR. As Wirerat remakes some of the weaponry on SSR and fires it remotely at Space-Cat who warps away while SSR unloads with net missiles at Space-Cat that bind him down but teleports out of them immediately. Fracture-Rat gets blended while the Gemini-Rat that ended up in the pit is obliterated, the other two Gemini-Rats manage to escape the singularity. Threshold attempts to control space to counteract Space-Cat’s use of powers, making manipulation really hard in the area.
Whisper runs forwards and grabs a Gemini-Rat that escaped and throws it back into the singularity as Nox kills another Gemini-Rat. Nyx, trying to think of the best way to deal with Space-Cat calls it closer with a pspsps which confuses it momentarily. Wirerat and SSR look towards Space-Cat, firing a ranged taser at the distracted being, knocking it unconscious. The Gemini-Rat left gets dragged towards the center of the singularity while Threshold moves along.
Whisper moves to throw the remaining Gemini-Rat into the center of the singularity, finishing off the rats.
Aftermath
The pit, however, keeps going. Threshold looks over the hole, looking down he sees a spherical device at the bottom that he cannot see within that looks like his energy signature. It’s causing a massive amount of kyberic energy pulses. Threshold attempts to send out a message to the teams at Manhattan and LaGuardia to ask if they’re experiencing the same problem but all the comms are down after a single last transmission calling for help from Rikers’ Island, that there’s something coming out of the ground. The sphere in the ground stops making noises and working and then a pulse of energy erupts from the west knocking them out for a few minutes. Threshold is still obsessed with the sphere and gets Whisper to pull it from the pit, but it slips out of her grasp and falls open on the ground revealing a cloned copy of Threshold’s head that screams and then passes away.
Over the comms, they can hear the Commissioner of MAPS saying that there’s a mass breakout of Riker’s Island and that it was likely coordinated and ready. Most have abandoned the island already but communication with the guards within have been cut off. The orders are to get to MAPS HQ or start patrolling to find and detain criminals. Threshold says they should drop the sphere back at their lab for later analysis and then get to the MAPs HQ. Wirerat wants to delay a moment or so to get the best idea of what the device has done so he has a good chance to find the rest of them. June gets there and neutralizes Space-Cat while McCall is still unconscious and they’re taken to the brig at the HQ.
After Action Report (GM)
A really great end to the season with more promised action for the next.
Other Notes
Bonus Report from Rory.
Soundtrack
“Before the Fight Ends You” by Hatebreed
“Renegade” by Styx