Story 11: Oh Cursed Spite!

Page 1 Top: Dragon Maiden, Botany Girl, Rubbermaid

In the privacy of their hidden bower in one of New Metropolises many parks, the three members of the fledgling Substitute Legion listen to the third day of news reports of the triumphant Legionnaires who, fresh off of their driving off of the pirates that had threatened the Boundless Stars had also intervened in a crisis on a H3 mining colony on one of the spectacular gas giants along the ships route - quelling panic, creating a massive gondola of force field to support the damaged station and repairing it via metal bending - and in so doing made themselves ever more the darlings of the interstellar media.

Alas, for two of the substitutes joining this nascent force for good was (at least for the foreseeable future) out of the question, and the third was wondering whether her “powers” even merited the attempt....

BR: some general space to reintroduce the subs. The canonical subs insisted on doing their heroics in secret, but I don’t see the point of that little weirdness....

First and fierce, there is Dragon Girl [JK: listed in the spreadsheet as Dragon Maiden; that doesn't roll off the tongue well. Dragon Maid would work, maybe as long as nobody was confused by her not wearing a circa 1900s maid costume!], Jandar to her friends. She is sitting in front of a prominent "No Smoking" sign such that the first few letters is obscured, just reading "Smoking." As is her wont during the day, she is dressed in a smart and daring outfit (I'm asssuming this meeting is done in regular outfits rather than costumes, given that they hardly have a private base!); a short skirt, an asymmetric and skin-showing top, and a headband with an ivory-ish tooth ornament completes the look. Fortunately for the local flora, Jandar is well medicated, so nobody needs to worry about an unexpected scare setting off a park fire!

[JK: Hmm. I'll note that Jandar entered play at level 2 due to starting as a threat -- I'm assuming the drop back to level 1 with 0 xp is because with the gap it's plausible and we want her entering play at the same level as the other Substitutes?]

[BR: also I completely reworked the XP system. But I like the idea that she's much more dangerous a fighter when staggered and off her meds... that works for the barely controlled warrior race.]

Rubbermaid moves about the bower, keeping herself busy cleaning up fallen leaves. She's dressed in her usual jumpsuit/leotard combo in broad, bright yellow and blue stripes. She maintains a stream of commentary to herself under her breath about the day, the leaves, the dragon girl, how she forgot to bring a flask of tea, and so on.

Flora’s woody body is barely visible inside the bower, so many vines wrap around the plant-girl's limbs and torso, but her face is clearly framed by her bright purple florets. As they listen to the datacast, she’s idly growing and dying back one vine to create an elaborate topiary spaceship.

"The Legion can’t be everywhere, and if they're helping out with the big threats, maybe we should help out with smaller problems? But if we want to do that, we should figure out how to make our powers work together."

"That's a chewy question, Flora. I can't see you being safe around Jandar if she's using her powers, and you and I are both vulnerable to cold."

She pauses in thought. "At least I assumed you are vulnerable to cold, what with the vines and leaves and everything. Does the cold slow you down? It leaves me in a sticky spot."

"Don't worry," Jandar says with a smile, "I can keep you warm!"

The conversation is interrupted by an upset/fearful shriek nearby, a child's given the tone and pitch. A CRISIS!

<space for the Subs to represent leaping into action

"But first," Jandar say, "maybe we should find out about the commotion."

Once the trio are in the open they can see a small girl - eight, maybe nine years old - shrieking because her cat (for the sake of simplicity we will assume that Terran cats got into space and ingratiated themselves into every Terran and Wynathian society with their usual insouciant charm) is caught up in a tree, but the cat is also being dive bombed by black winged birds with bright scarlet breasts and doesn't seem to be doing well.

[BR: yes, the Sub's first case is rescuing a cat from a tree. Classic Superman!]

"That poor cat!" cries Virak, "We must help." With a bouncing gait, she slips out of the bower and trots towards the child.

"Don't worry! We're here to help!"

"First -- I'll scare away the birds. Don't worry--my fire is perfectly under control!" Jander breathes a stream of fire towards the birds, staying well clear of the tree and cat (and anything else flammable). The tightly focused flame has the desired effect, scattering the two-toned birds. They move up and away from the cat, but are still nearby...

Flora's leap into action still leaves her trailing far behind her friends. But as she slowly and inexorably moves toward the commotion, she’s making the whispery sounds that encourage plants to grow. In response, the twigs near the cat first twist and grow around the animal, forming a protective cage.

[DK: her next step would be to have the branches grow toward the ground and carry the cat carrier within reach, but we’ll see what else happens in the scene first…]

"Don't worry," Virak reassures the little girl. Dragon Maid is perfectly in control of her flame. Your kitty is safe. And look! Flora has made it a little cage to keep it from falling."

Rubbermaid claps her hands in delight. "What's your name? I'm Rubbermaid!"

"I'm Chelli." she looks mollified, as the cage slowly starts descending to the ground under Flora's guidance. She glances back up at Rubbermaid, "It was just so strange, the birds just attacked Mr. Whiskers out of nowhere."

"Look, they're still angry," she says pointing at one of the birds that alighted on the cage to stare at the cat with a cocked head, sending the cage it twirling as it descends. Chelli proudly adds "But Mr. Whiskers isn't afraid, he's..."

Page 1 Middle: Miss Anima

Jinnjahl is back at her ‘day job’ at the institute for Last Chance Medicine, in a meeting with Dr. Plact, who is leaning against his desk.

“I have to say, Jinnjahl, the message you sent us from Mr. ,ahem, Dr. Wyla created quite a stir. A stir.” He looks abashed, coughed, and goes on, “In a good way of course, all institutions need a little stirring from time to time. To time.”

"Everything needs to be stirred up sometime," Jinnjahl says peaceably "And everything needs time to settle down. The question is proportions....."

Plact smiles at this, "Almost like cooking! like cooking!"

“We had an extensive discussion amongst the senior members regarding the animation’s requests overriding the executors of his estate and funders of his care, his care, but in the end, I prevailed with the opinion that your animations have been found to be remarkably accurate in their representation of the original. The original.” He smiles broadly at this, “and as such we implemented some of the suggestions he made in terms of his care and the funding for same, with some remarkable effects. Effects”

Jinnjahl beams. "Oh, that's wonderful news. How *is* the original?"

Plact obviously shares her enthusiasm at the patient's improvement. "We've finally be able to identify the signature of what he terms 'negative space energy' in his tissues and are working on ways to ameliorate that. Ameliorate that. Doing so has improved his biological processes to a slight but noticeable degree, and most specifically around his cerebral activity. Cerebral activity. It appears that the negative space energy was partially holding bio-chronological movement in abeyance, and as we reduce it he is starting to wake up. Wake up."

“The change meant cutting off one of the funding streams, but Mr…Dr Wyla provided us access to hitherto unknown accounts to compensate. To compensate. A very forward-thinking man, he was. He is.”

She blinks. "Dr. Wyla seems to have thought of everything." (Hitherto unknown accounts? Since he didn't go to whoever was handling his affairs while he was in a medical coma and ask them to support this, uh, I guess having unknown accounts is a good thing. But why does he have unknown accounts in the *first* place.)

Plact can see the confusion on her face, "I understand and I agree. Agree. Dr. Wyla is by far our most complex case in these issues with his extensive finances and previously isolationist, almost misanthropic nature. Misanthropic nature. Fortunately with the affirmation the Science Police have made concerning the validity of your animations vs a vis the law the board is comfortable moving forward secure that these changes are according to his intent. His intent.

Plact stands up, indicating that the meeting is coming to an end, “In addition, some of his theoretical notes in other areas have allowed a great advancement in our other projects. Other projects. I suspect that sooner rather than later we’ll succeed in our goal of preemptively working ourselves out of a job. A job.” This last is said with an avuncular chuckle.

Jinnjahl smiles. "Since I think that's too unrealistic even to hope for I'll settle for hoping the researchers make such great strides that whole classes of cases become not a matter for the Last Chance Institute at all."

Plact walks her out to the front of the building, "Oh, Miss Anima, as they call you in the press, our heroic little band of scientists might surprise you. Surprise you."

Page 1 Bottom: Future Boy. Robot Boy, Ree The Strange Badger-Dog Thing That Lives In the Ship

“Respectful Statement: I suggest that I be the first test subject for the time travel experiment. I am by far the most durable Legionnaire.” Adom says as he installs the last piece of the Time Cube, which is resting in the transport cradle. The cradle itself is four curved arms coming up from a platform, nearly touching at the top. The cube has a door for entry and will travel back in time with the traveler to facilitate the return trip to the cradle.

The workspace inside the Legion-Ship headquarters (which is also now fully space-worthy, as Adom is a tireless worker and Tok seldom sleeps) is less of a mess than you’d think, as Ree, the Strange badger-Dog Thing, has developed a game of picking up the tools Tok leaves around in his inventive frenzy and returning them to their rightful places. Apparently, it’s learned that this makes Adom happy, and a happy Adom makes a happy Proty, and a happy Proty helps steal treats from the kitchen. It’s a circle of life thing.

That general cleanliness doesn’t mean it’s not full of scientific excellence in the form of advanced technology, fabricator stations and lights set up to highlight the Time Cube and keep it in an uncontaminated environment. The whole of the room radiates Disco SF Aesthetic.

[BR: general space to chat about this, for Tok to hypothesize on time travel theory, Ree to do whatever strange badger-dog things do and generally reacquaint the new reader with the current state of things. I figure you’re going to wait for Miss Anima to get back before actually trying the thing.]

"I'd like to go," Tok says, "but...you make an excellent point. Multiple ones. We'll want to establish, if you end up getting stuck, where you'd like us to look for you; you're the only one of us we know can survive that kind of trip. But if things go well I want to make sure I'm on the second trip. And I'll want to make a some instrumentation for you to bring; if something goes wrong we can't waste the opportunity!

"I mean, there's one other possibility too--if we've miscalculated and you don't end up in our history at all, it's possible that this won't be this timeline's past. Or if you change something irrevocable on the way--which means that if you want to have a hope of returning to this present, you'll need to make sure you stay extremely well hidden on the way back."

Adom turns to face Tok "Attempt at Deadpan Humor: I am very much looking forward to being trapped in the oceans of Charkesh for a thousand years. It will be like coming home."

[JK: I totally laughed out loud at this. For a while!]

Tok laughs, long and loud. "We will...giggle...try....really hard...not to leave you trapped in the past for another thousand years."

"Honest Statement: Future Boy, I trust my Fellow Legionnaires with protecting my ongoing existence. This experiment is no different. I am sure we can develop sufficient contingency plans."

He leans down to scratch the strange badger-dog thing that lives in the ship on behind its ear. "We will also have to make contingencies for Ree to have someone to play with should Proty and I be delayed."

"Reeeee!" The badger-dog thing sighs contentedly, as Adom seems to have figured out how to find the optimal scritching location.

"Fine, fine," Tok says, sitting expectantly. "if we are going to have to comfort Ree during your long and unexpected stay in Time Prison, I should learn what they like. I take it that they don't bite? I am a fragile Wythian, after all; I don't react well to being bit."

"Comforting Statement: While Ree is, by calculation, consuming sufficient foodstuffs for an mammal close to eight times its mass, there has never been an indication that it is violent. Even in Gorvo's occasionally rough place with the beast has it indicated a tendency to bite the force-fielded or metallic hand that feed it."

"Statement: In many ways my analysis of the creature shows it has a remarkably well-developed intellect."

Ree seems fascinated by its own left rear foot and tries to catch it. After several attempts, it succeeds.

"Reeeee!" it says, proudly.

Page 2 Top: Dragon Maid, Botany Girl, Rubbermaid

"But Mr. Whiskers isn't afraid, he's...AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Chelli screams, pointing, as the crow's red breast opens up at its center into a maw of teeth, and tongues with rough, almost spiked bulbs on the end lash out through the bars of the twig cage at the cat.

Mr. Whiskers, quite reasonably, freaks out, yowling and trying to claw through the twig cage. 16: DRAGON GIRL, RUBBERMAID "Oh my!" cries Rubbermaid before she launches herself upwards with a *SPROING* sound effect towards the disturbing bird. "Get away, you rotten bird! Shoo!"

She attempts to careen into the bird with a thump to knock it away from the cat in the cage.

[BR: Given the need to hit just the bird and not the cage I'm going to ask for a Special Attack here with two rolls to hit however, since you're just trying to thump the bird away and not clobber it outright you'e clearly using your beach ball rather than dense ball form, so the chance to hit is 16 or less. rolls of 10 and 8 qualify, Damage roll is 3 points to HP]

Chelli steps back a little as Vikrak inflates to a sphere of rubbery mass, bounces once off of a nearby tree to get the right angle and flees into the strange bird. There's an slight woomph of air as the bird sinks slightly into Rubbermaid's form and then flies out again from the impact. Utterly stunned, the avian falls to the ground with a thud.

The other birds are continuing to flit about, and one might be fanciful enough to consider that they are planning a counter-attack.

...an actual threat? Of monstrous beasts? For a moment, Dragon Girl seems relieved to be facing something simpler than "cat stuck in a tree", before she recalls that the cat is still in danger and the child is now screaming, and not unreasonably. "Don't worry, she says to the girl; we've got things way more dangerous at home!" as she climbs up into the tree to try to get closer to (or even in front of) the cat -- and braces to wait for the birds' attack before breathing defensively. (keeping in mind that yes, only Rubbermaid is resistant to her breath, and that hasn't been tested yet).

ROUND 1

14: BIRDS [BR: OK, it's some movement to climb the tree and another 15 to use the flame defense. I'm also going charge the action as you're trying to sue the defense to protect others. Unfortunately the 4 remaining birds rolled REALLY well, with two 1s along with a 15 and an 8, so that's two hits, which I'm going to say are one on you and one on Mr. Whiskers. Sucks, but you are Subs and aren't supposed to be ready for prime time yet. Jandar takes 3 damage, which I am assuming she rolls with to Vitality as this wasn't actually a 'surprise' attack. Her current Vitality is 39.]

[JK: Absolutely. Hey, this is a subs episode; it's ok if it's often funny and puts the characters into awkward situations!]

[BR: IN THAT CASE...!]

Jandar has barely had a chance to position herself when the birds swoop in with a single minded determination on the cat, and by extension, her. The two dive bombing directly towards Mr. Whiskers are easily driven off by controlled breaths of flame, but then a black and scarlet shape comes directly into Jandar's face from an unexpected angle of below and to her right, The cawing, flapping, crow is also extending tendrils from its toothy chest maw, and Dragon Girl is forced to slap it away with her free hand.

That causes her to overbalance, slip from her handhold and dangle precariously upside down as her foot get caught in the crook of the tree.

In that moment of distraction one of the birds slams into the cage full force, shattering part of the construction. Mr. Whiskers in panic leaps backward, causing the cage to overbalance, and the cat is now hanging by its front claws, lower half of its body dangling out and unprotected as the birds regroup to attack.

8: BOTANY GIRL “Hey, what has that cat ever done to you!?” Flora shouts at the birds. She is still moving toward the fray, inexorably and comically slowly. Her plant-speech shifts to a higher register, and some branches start rapidly growing outward to punch at the birds, while others weave a platform under Mr. Whiskers.

[DK: If this doesn’t help, the pollen's next. But she needs to get closer for that to work….]

The branches catch the bird attacking Mr Whiskers completely off guard, slapping it hard on the head. The be-mawed avian collapses to the ground in a thud. The other birds take wing from the scene to evaluate the new situation.

1: DRAGON MAID, RUBBERMAID "Just checking, but...tentacled birds aren't a native species I didn't run into before, right?" Dragon maid asks...anyone, really; biology isn't her specialty. "I mean, I'd have thought I've have noticed that from the guide books. If not, we have -got- to capture some of these. Whatever's left, anyway." She breathes fire again at the birds (trying to catch two if she can; if not focusing on the one that got her earlier), this time trying to catch the birds in the blast, figuring that if they're weird enough to have tentacles, they might not be killed instantly by flame, and...well, they are murderous animals, after all.

A wider gout of flame explodes from the inverted Dragon Maid’s mouth, causing several people nearby to scream in shock. She succeeds in her goal, however, badly singing one of the birds and roasting a second with a direct hit. It caws for a second while the mouth in its torso let’s out an ear piercing shriek. She's then able to yank herself back upright and free her foot from the tree.

Left in the sky is one unharmed bird and one singed one that, while in pain, is struggling to stay airborne in its war on that cat.

Vikrak jumps in place to build up momentum to spring up to the cat, trying to grab the terrified moggie and get it clear of the attacking birds.

There's two "gloing' noises as she bounces and then springs, snagging Mr. Wiskers in her inflated arms and carrying her a significant distance away. The remaining bird turns to follow with a laser like-focus. However, both are stunned by what they see over the skyline once they clear the park's green and pleasant confines...

A shadow falls across them, but that's all we can see of the disturbance for the moment. The bird utters a profoudly terrified "squack" and turns to flee.

Page 2 Middle: Instutite for Last Change Medicine

Seeing Jinnjahl out the door with a wave, Dr. Plact turns and heads back into the building. We follow him through the winding corridors and into the room where the Legion, on their tour, found the Institute was experimenting with tachyon bombardment to inoculate people against diseases they've already caught before they could catch them.

"Yes, we might end up surprising Jinnjhal quite a bit. A bit." He gets a big smile and starts flicking switches that light up the room, revealing that the tachyon projectors had been augmented with new technology eerily reminiscent of Dr. Wyla's original energy containment manifold design.

"Now then," Plact says, speaking to an institute assistant who had just come in to take notes on the procedure. "Temporal Inoculation, experiment one: based on the approval of measures given in the last email with the animation of Mr... Dr. Wyla we are using a combination of negative space and tachyon bombardment to introduce negative energy absorbing nanites into Dr. Wyla's system in the crucial moments before his accident. His accident. This will cause an acceptable momentary spike in his negative energy levels but should tamp down on the energy he absorbs in the accident, ripping forward to cause his revival in the present. The present."

"Initiating Process in Three, two, one... initiate!" Caught up in the moment Plact's exceedingly annoying verbal tick fades as he flicks the switch and the machine works the exact way it's supposed to. For all that this looks like mad science this is all perfectly logical, meticulously tested, and well documented within the confines of comic book science endeavors.

It does it exactly what it was meant to do... almost.

Plact flicks on the communicator, "Stasis Room 3: any change in the patient?"

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" Comes through the comms unit, and Dr. Plact pushes past the assistant to take off at a surprisingly spry, adrenaline-fueled run to Wyla's room.

There he finds the staff who were monitoring Mans Wyla's condition huddled in the corner in panic as this figure is hovering in the middle of the room, discharging energy into the equipment.

"M...Dr. Wyla?" Plact asks, correcting himself before he can make what he fears would be a terminal breach of protocol. "are you feeling quite well? Quite well?"

"Very well. You must be Dr. Plact. But i am Mans Wyla no longer. You can call me... THE NEGATIVE MAN."

The Negative Man looks at Plact and the other members of the staff with momentary confusion, then glances at his hand. “Yes. I see. This is obviously disconcerting. Allow me to remove the source of your terror until things can be rectified.”

The creature that was Wyla glances at the wall, which simply ceases to exist, eliciting a shriek from the young man who cowering in the corner. The Negative Man ignores this as he steps out into the open air four stories up. Plact runs to the opening to keep an eye on his charge.

“There is another negative space emission in the city. I require a better view.”

The last panel of the row is Placts face staring up at something astounding.

Page 2 Bottom: Future Boy, Miss Anima, Ree the strange badger-dog thing that lives in the ship

As the conversation on Ree's obvious intellectual ability goes on, Jinnjal returns from her visit to the Institute to be present for the historic first use of the time machine. This is perfectly timed as the Legionnaires most likely to say "Hey, ae we sure we want to do this" and have the authority to make it stick are off planet.

"Cheerful Greeting: Hello, Jinnjahl. Question: I hope that Dr Wyla's corporeal form is improving?"

"Yes. Dr. Plact says they've been following his - his animated's - advice and something about counteracting the negative energy and no longer suppressing the brain activity and they expected him to wake up soon. He seemed very optimistic." She smiles. "Of course, Dr. Plact *is* very optimistic. Necessary trait to rise to the top in an organization where if you save a couple in every hundred you're doing brilliantly."

Adom's lights and gears move in a pattern that Jinnjahl's study of Robot Boy leads her to believe indicates a smile. "Agreement: From your descriptions he is a remarkable man."

"He is," Tok agrees, "and I do hope the treatment on Dr. Wyla works! He's a brilliant physicist and it will be great to see him at work once again!"

Robot Boy turns to Tok, "Calm but eager recitation: I believe that we are ready to begin the experiment. Due to the nature of the tachyon wave the safest point of arrival is 1048 years in the past. Since this will pre-date the construction of this city I will be landing on the closest habitable island whose geography indicates that it has been extant longer than 2000 years. I will stay there 30 minutes, long enough to bury the time capsule as proof of maintaining presence inside this timeline, and then return within 30 seconds of my point of departure. Future Boy, is this an accurate statement of the plan?"

"Of course!" Future Boy replies. "If you can bring some dirt back with you, that wouls be helpful, since we can carbon-date it for extra verification."

Adom hefts the two tubes- the time capsule and the sterile sealed soil collector - and then steps into the Time Cube.

“Statement intended for posterity: Robot Boy of the Legion recording and transmitting historic first time travel attempt. Closing safety interlocks. Confirming temporal coordinates. Powering up tachyon engine. Initiating time tra....”

And with a pop, the Time Cube is gone.

Seconds after it disappears, Toks sensor array picks up a tachyon spike, then shorts out as a massive flux of negative space energy hits it and the rest of the sensitive Time Cradle.

Seeing the 10,000 possible outcome of the short out Future Boy is already beginning to move when the first sparks arc from the machine, but it’s clear to Ree that the bipeds won’t be able to make it to safety unaided....

Ree wriggles out of Tok's grasp, hits the floor, and with a "Reeeeee!" squawk, rolls back into Tok's legs, knocking him backwards into Miss Anima as sparks fly.

It's no doubt the others' imagination if Ree seems to blur while dropping or to feel a lot heavier than usual as everyone goes tumbling backwards, away from the sparks. Obviously, a coincidence. Obviously.

[Well, I leave whether folks think it's a coincidence up to them as two bipeds and one strange badger dog thing sit dizzily up.]

Split seconds after the two are down and clear, the control console explodes in a classic Star Trek "Of course we wire the system so a power surge causes the control panel to explosively short out" way.

[JK: This serves to distract entirely from the "we were just shoves out of the way by a Ree that was five times as large as he should have been" weirdness]

That's when the alarms go off.

"Lets go," Tok says, "the fire alarms will deal with the mess, but those alarms aren't from this disaster!" [what alarms are they?]

Page 3, top two tiers: Rubbermaid, Botany Girl, Dragon Maid

The top two tiers of the page are now an _almost_ splash page, where we see the Subs gaping up at the three story high figure of the Negative Man, who has stepped outside the disintegrated wall of the Institute onto thin air and then increased his height six-fold. Now, hovering at the 4th floor and his head clearing the top of seven story buildings the Mans Wyla that was is nearly the tallest thing in the city.

The enormous figure is still radiating a cloud of hypothetical particles that are phasing in and out of existence while still being visible to the naked eye, and that cloud is fulled with flashes of energy.

There's already panic inside the city, and one gravskim that found its path blocked by the sudden appearance has totally lost control, clipped a second gravskim and is now spiraling down towards the park containing the Substitute Legionnaires. The second gravskim is struggling to keep control but may slam into the Negative Man's back.

[JK: Oh, NICE echo back to the origin of the Legionairres, with the two gravskims out of control. That said, my PC in this iteration has a power set more or less entirely unsuitable to helping with this sitaution!]

[BR: thanks! And yeah, this is a subs story and we know Rubbermaid joins the Legion so we needed a threat that let her take center stage. I’m sure you’ll come up with something....]

Dragon Girl, from her vantage in the tree, breathes out of a diffuse cloud of flames, hoping the resulting warm and rising air will cushion the gravskim's fall.

[BR: ... and you don’t disappoint. that is the most glorious piece of Silver age comic science I’ve seen in ages!]

The hastily assembled thermal buffets the falling gravskim, stopping its wild spinning. While it is still falling, the pilot has been given a chance to wrench its path away from the crowded picnic field and towards the parks ornamental lake, just past the extensive shrubbery that creates the lake’s secluded “lovers walk”.

While the pilot and his passengers are still likely to perish in the watery crash unless they can lose speed, Dragon Maids power and the pilots level head have saved everyone picnicking in Tartary Sward.

[Myles, you’re best positioned to do something about the other skim. And the particle field around Negative Man is just a special effect that your rubber form will easily ignore. Diane, you’re still in the park surrounded by plants. Never say I’m not a kind GM] Flora turns and shouts at the shrubs — in response, branches covered in soft puffs of leaves shoot upwards from the bushes between her and the lake, forming an arc along the gravskim’s falling path.

[DK: Don’t know whether the gravskim’s passengers are going to appreciate replicating the effect of a falling cartoon character hitting a series of awnings on the way down, but it’s better than nothing…]

Whump! "Oof!" Whump "Ouch!" Whump "Aaagh!" SPLASH!

The gravskim hits the lake, but thanks to the multiple smaller impacts it hits at less than lethal speed. Everyone inside is likely unconscious, but the airbags and water landing led to a non-explosive, no blood spatter landing.

Rubbermaid hastily drops the cat at ground level as she bounds towards the towering figure of Negative Man and the second gravskim. "Hang on! I'm coming."

She accelerates, bouncing higher with a series of Sproinnggg! FX to intercept the gravskim at the apogee of her last bounce, before trying to soften herself for the inevitable hard landing underneath the skimmer.

"Brace yourselves!"

The foam rubber fantastique flattens against the skimmers undercarriage, sending it flying in a new direction that doesn’t involve crashing into the mysterious energy covered giant.

Unfortunately her new path does so, and she feels a frisson of static as she bounces off his shoulder. As she flies off she hears

“Perhaps there’s an error in my new senses. I’m seeing spots” he casually flicks out a hand with enormous speed.

On the ground Dragon Maid and Flora see the giant hand slap their friend aside and Rubbermaid takes off for the horizon like a perfectly struck Moopsball.

[BR: OK Myles he missed you because of your defense so you just absorbed 27 points (!) that you can use to add to various things. However for dramas sake your next challenge is figuring out how to not land in the ocean when your parabola isn’t taking you near any buildings. You tell me how you manage that.]

[27 points from bouncing off him? Yow!]

Rubbermaid calls on her gymnastics training to spin in the air, rounding her body and increasing her density to draw in and spin even faster. "Bernoulli (or Union of Planets equivalent), don't fail me now!"

Her aerodynamics qualities change and with them, her trajectory. "Who knows where I'll end up after a wallop like that, but at least I'll have some spring in my step to hurry back to the park."

Her arc now takes her towards a massive vid-screen near the beach. She slams into it with considerable force, and the image of the sports match on the screen splinters as she rebounds back towards the park. Her elongated word balloon reads "Sooooorrrrry!"

Page 3 Bottom: Future Boy, Miss Anima, Ree the strange badger-dog thing that lives in the ship

As Future Boy reaches the monitor board to see what is causing the half dozen alerts from various communication channel monitoring programs (which reveal many people gibbering apocalypticly about the existence of an enormous indigo man hovering over the city inside a storm cloud), Miss Anima [BR: not sure if she’s staying in the room to oversee the emergency measures & watch for Adom’s return or following to the monitor board] receives a call.

“Jinnjahl”, says Dr Plact, his voice and demeanor that of a man who witnessed a miracle, “Doctor Wyla woke up. It’s... extraordinary...”

"You sound like he more than woke up," Jinnjahl observes, as she programs an alert into the local machinery, to ping her with details if anything happens here. (She'll be following to the monitor board in a moment, after she finishes this and leaves a note. Maybe she can do something there; she can't really do anything here. But if Adom returns to an empty room she wants to know it, and she wants him to know why.)

"I'm seeing elevated levels of negative energy--far more than I'd expect from just our experiment, and...the alerts are because of a giant floating man. Near the heart of town--"

"Forgive me if I'm distracted; we just had an experiment go wrong and Robot Boy go missing, and several news alerts went off at once."

"--he disintegrated the wall to the Institute, oh, no, this..."

“Ummm... about those alerts. Those alerts.” Plact says, still clearly a little stunned. “They are likely connected. The very large individual hovering over the city is... was...Doctor Wyla. Wyla. What he is now, we can’t know. Can’t know.”

"...this is our fault. Partially our fault. Probably. They told us that they were performing therapies using tachyons--time travel, and they sent negative energy back in time at the same time we were performing a time travel experiment.

"And it turned Dr. Wyla into this. He pops up a holo of Wyla as Negative Man. A being composed entirely of negative energy. We have to get there, now. He...just disintegrated part of a building, just because it was in his way. I don't know if we need to talk to him, help him, or stop him, but we need to be there." Tok visibly collects himself, hitting buttons on his consoles furiously as he assumes the persona of Future Boy once again. Some kind of device rises out of the floor of his lab. "Fortunately, I have just the thing.

"Legionairres, I present the Legion rocket pack, mark IV. Smaller, faster, more maneuverable, and more reliable. And they'll handle enough like what you're used to that you should't need extra practice on them, which is good, because you won't have time."

Page 4: Everyone

OK, the visual for this page is an almost splash page where we have what would be normal panels but the Negative Man at full height is superimposed onto all of them, overlapping panel borders. The center row center panels are translucent spaces on his body.

We can see Miss Anima and Future Boy approaching, airborne with the latest model of jetpack. Rubbermaid is still in recovery mode and flying back to the scene to be inserted when logical, Dragon Maid and Flora are still in the park, which the Negative Man is now standing almost directly over, just inside range of their powers, as he is striding across the city towards the Legion's HQ.

There are now a half dozen small camera's drones, sensors, what have you flitting around the enormous Negative Man for the news media, Science Police and perhaps other interested parties, but after those initial gravskim crashes every manned vehicle has steered well clear. There are also dozens of people in the rooftop bar of the Hotel Diplomatique gawping at events.

"The Negative Space Emission was ahead...Ahhh...it's the...Legion?...Why is it so hard to think?"

He shakes his head, "My perceptions are expanding beyond my capacity to absorb them. Observer effect generating instability in my bio-aura. Too many observers."

And with that the unmanned drones wink out of existence.

[BR: you have a few minutes to act before his eyes land on the people in the Hotel. He wouldn't just disintegrate people, would he?]

"Miss Anima," Future Boy says, "We need a box, quick. Or something else to shield our friend from the observer effect."

Miss Anima eyes the huge man. "Nothing solid. I've got ... a black cloud intended to signal at a distance. That's *too* big: it shouldn't actually hurt anybody, but we'll all be operating blind."

"Can you position it enough off the ground that it won't blind too many people? I don't mind not being able to see Wyla. That's the point; if we have to fight someone who can think things out of existence we're already in trouble. And...I have a sensor suite set up,-" (if only Robot Boy was here, Future Boy thinks; his senses are different from ours and rival or exceed my instruments) "- so I should be able to get an idea of what's happening inside the cloud and relay."

Jinnjahl places her hand on an indistinct, monochromatic picture on her notebook and is rewarded by a brief rainbow of light that turns into a pitch black cloud engulfing a considerable space of the city center. From the park Dragon Maid and Botany Girl - who can see the figure from the ankles down - see it's feet freeze in place, then take a step back in thin air as he were stumbling.

"Oh. What? Darkness. Not Void. Did I? What did I...? I don't think I..." The enormous figure disappears from sight, immediately reappearing with his feet planted in the park, crushing some of the elaborate gardens but through great good fortune no people.

"...'ve moved position. But..." The Negative Man's head is still inside the shroud of darkness even as the majority of his body is outside it. "This is better. I feel more... anchored. Lack of visual cues helping to orient other senses..."

"I need more time to process..." He starts to take a step forward, still clearly confused as to his location, and Flora and Jandar can see that where he's heading would involve a sizable amount of structural damage and possible loss of life if his foot were allowed to land in the historic cafe.

From their positions the Legionaries can see hear everything Wyla is saying – and see the cloud curve and contort when something that was in it is no longer there – but is somewhere else in it. Future Boy can discern that the Negative Man is folding in and out of negative space, altering the nature of the spacetime contiuum as he does so.

"I'll try to find him in there and guide him. He knows me best," Jinnjahl says, "Can you guide *me*?"

"I can," Future Boys says, "But remember, depending on his new nature, he may or may not know you at all -- you know him best, but you've only ever met his duplicates!"

Any nervousness Miss Anima may feel isn’t visible as she drives her Legion rocket pack, mark IV into the slowly disappating cloud. She knows it’s a collection of lightly inozied, biologically inert particles custom designed to stay together and airborn for the few minutes she expected the cloud to exist.

“Someone’s coming… I can feel her curving through spacetime. We’ve intersected before but we haven’t but we have but…”

“Miss Anima, I'm going to give you detailed directions for where to go. Please follow my directions exactly if you can--the space around Dr. Wyla is..given his powers, we wouldn't want any wrong steps! Forward. Right. Forward. A bit more foreward, if you will. Up straight, and turn to the left. Forward. Good, you should be audible where you are!

Miss Anima follows Future Boy's directions as exactly as she can, and then says, "Dr. Wyla? I'm Jinnjahl, Miss Anima, from the Legion of Super-Heroes. I don't know if you remember me, but I've spoken a lot with your animated image, who passed on treatment instructions through me..... Anyway, whether you remember me or not, what you were saying made us think you found the crowd disorienting, so I came over to try to guide you somewhere more comfortable."

"Not disorienting," exactly, Future Boy responds through the communicators. "He's become a being of pure negative energy--which is a Quantum anomaly! Based on what he's said, I assume he's made of trillions of quantum anomalies like we have cells! His existence is a delightful miracle, but like all quantum anomalies, he exists along the axis of the uncertainty principle.

Being observed too closely causes quantum anomalis to wink out as their uncertainties turn into certainties. Fortunately, our friend is sustained by an enormous number of these things, and it would be nigh-impossible to observe all of them at once. But he's going to be under less observation, and probably fewer points of view in order to stabilize his form and mind. Of course, we'll need to conduct some limited amount of observation to learn what he's become, and how he can control it.”

[BR: not what I had in mind but watch me “yes and” the hell out of that! Charisma check for Miss Anima is a 3! So you’re in good shape!]

Wylas voice is confused, but hopeful, “I don’t recall...Miss Anima, was it? There was an explosion. In my lab. And now here. But I can see me talking to you in your timeline. You’re not lying. We’ve met. I trust you.”

"I'm going to do my best to help," Miss Anima says. "Let's start by getting you inside. Future Boy will direct me through the cloud and I'll direct you."

Meanwhile, in the park…

Flora’s eyes widen at the sight of the single enormous foot arcing toward the cafe, and again, she starts whistling in the whispery language of plants.

[Rough Translation: *Hey! You willows over there! You’d better grow a springy screen FAST if you don’t want to be crushed into a hole!]

The plants heed the call to arms, brusting upaward in size and bushing outwarward to prevent them from being crushed, the café is at least temporarily spared as the Negative Man is temporarily unable to lower his enormous foot…

[BR: simple die roll on a midrange save yields a 3 out of 20! Success!]

Dragon Girl guards another side of the cafe, breathing out a pool of unlit gas into the air above the cafe, letting it drift up and away for a few moments before coughting out a single lick of flame to cause it to all go up at once (if it seems effective, she'll also warn people to get down and do so herself before the concussive blast goes off).

[BR: Simple die roll on a midrange save yields a 20 out of 20! Ooof! Life of a substitute hero, I’m afraid.]

The explosion goes off under his foot, and he clearly feels it like a match against the skin. He hops backwards to get away from it, his one settled foot moving to crush the Gravskim in the lake (fortunately the occupants have already been pulled free by helpful New Metropolis citizens). The sharp edges from that are apparently also not good, and he flails backwards. Apparently touching down has made him forget he was able to levitate for a moment, and his flailing arms spread the smoke around as he starts to crash towards a fairly open piece of parkland.

One flailing arm is whistling through the inky blackness towards Miss Anima - most likely by accident - when something big and hairy slams into her from above, dragging her down. She feels the wind of Wylas arm passing through where she was as the warm fuzzy shape pulls her downward.

She sits down heavily on the board and says, "Uh...." (Miss Anima is a Slan, smaller than humans, and normally nervous about unidentified fuzzy things, but being knocked down was a really good thing just then.)

[Future Boy, this whatever it is showed up on your sensors out of nowhere - there are mass limitations on the scanner so you aren’t registering anything under a kilogram - but this 60 kilo organic just appeared out of nowhere.]

[Beth, actions? You have warm heavy mammal all over your torso, but it doesn’t seem to be biting or clawing at you]

Try to keep going with warm heavy mammal, it doesn't seem to be hurting me, and Negative Man is scaring her.

[Josh, Diane and Myles who is bouncing back on the scene, how do you handle the collapsing and mentally fraying giant?]

Once Rubbermaid gets back to the scene of chaos, she'll bounce around the park rounding up citizens (and pets!) that may still be in the danger zone created by the Negative Man.

"I can't see how Rubbermaid can stop this giant, but I can at least protect the people of Meridian City from his clumsy feet."

The amazing rebounding Rubbermaid expands to her more pliable form and with suprising skill ricochets around the park, sending civilians and pets flying with loud wumphs so that everyone is clear of the Negative Man’s landing zone when he finally hits the ground with a shuddering thud.

Future Boy has maneuvered around the smoke cloud and witnessed Rubbermaid’s actions, and is able to calculate the amount of kinetic energy the spherical wonder is carrying with her to be moving fast enough to clear the field. It’s a lot… and yet none of the people she’s bumping clear seem more than stunned…

[BR: Josh, Future Boy’s weakness detection has kicked in. Unless you can render Negative Man unconscious or someone block all sensory imput Wyla’s mind isn’t going to have time to catch up with his new form. If you can buy him just 15-30 minutes of time where he can’t think his rational mind will be back in control. Unfortunately, by the game mechanics for growth you have to have an attack that does at least 21 points of damage for him to even feel it. ]

Miss Anima lets herself fall free of the cloud before re-engaging the jetpack, and finds her arms full of baby owlbear. The soft fur and feathers of the creature, along with its enormous eyes, are deeply comforting.

“AAAAAAARGH!” the Negative Man bellows, his eyes beginning to spark and go glassy from the sensory overload. He’s struggling to return to standing at this point, and his flailing limbs shatter some trees and small structures. Half rainbows that start in the yellow-green and extend into the ultraviolet start forming around him as spacetime bends, prisiming light.

[BR: Everyone has time for a couple of seconds of conversation and one action before things go wrong, and then a couple more seconds and possibly one more action before things to catastrophically wrong.]

Miss Anima frees a hand from the Owlbear to call Future Boy, “Maybe a Slan doctor could knock Negative Man out, with his cooperation? Or block all sensory input but telepathy?”

Miss Anima knows things are going bad, but she doesn't know things are about to go critically bad.

"At his size?" Future Boy replies. "Unless you can summon a giant slan doctor?"

"Although...what about just a giant narcotics dose? That rubber girl down there. She's carrying a lot of force. If you could make a giant needle with a giant narcotics dose, she might be able to hit it with enough force to slam it home."

"Uh .... " Miss Anima reaches for a little-used book of drawings and starts thumbing through it with one hand while reaching for a pencil with another. "Cross-species hexoprodium, thirty cc's in a four-inch hypodermic. What should the length of the hypodermic become?"

"He's about...50 feet tall, and volume scales the same way for both, so 40 inches should do the job." Future Boy pulls out a conical object from his ample pockets, and clips it to his neckpiece so it makes a hands free portable megaphone. "HEY, PLANT GIRL! WE NEED TO IMMOBOLIZE THE NEGATIVE MAN SO HE DOESN'T MOVE WHILE WE TRY TO PUT A NEEDLE INTO HIM.

"RUBBER BOUNCY PERSON, YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WITH A SHOT OF PENETRATING WYLA'S SKIN. WHEN WE'VE GOT THE GIANT NEEDLE MATERIALIZED AND POSITIONED, WE'LL NEED YOU TO POUND IT HOME--HARD ENOUGH TO PIERCE HIS SKIN, BUT NOT SO HARD THAT IT BREAKS THE SYRINGE.

"AND JAN--DRAGON GIRL--WYLA INSTINCTIVELY FLINCHED WHEN YOU BURNED HIM EARLIER. WE HOPEFULLY WON'T NEED YOU, BUT IF WE RUN INTO TROUBLE, I'LL NEED YOU TO GET HIM TO MOVE BACK INTO POSITION!"

Dragon Girl, finishes a couple from where their vehicle had turned over, keeping her fireproof body between them and their burning vehicle, and starts heading back towards the downed and critical scientist.

• Wow, that's loud* thinks Rubbermaid., as she shifts her weight to arc round towards the man with the megaphone and into position. She gestures with the galactic 'thumbs up' affirmative.

<Hey grass, you heard him!>, Flora whistles. <Don't just cover his eyes — tie down his limbs, too!> And grass and reeds start whipping towards Wyla’s arms and legs like the tiny ropes at the start of an Adventures of Gulliver movie.

[BR: entanling attack roll: 8! Good enough!]

The grass does a creditable job of wrapping around the goliath. It’s clear that if the Negative Man made a concerted effort to break free this wouldn’t hold him at all, but in his current state it’s enough.

Miss Anima touches the hastily altered sketch; the Owlbear is clinging to her leg like a koala, but seems unconcerned by the rainboy shimmer erupting from the page as a row of five meter-plus long hypodermic needles materializes in the air next to Negative Man, with four of them crashing to the ground while the fifit is suspended by a crude metal scaffolding that includes a large bullseye target suspended over te punger to make it as clear a target as possible.

[BR: Rubbermaid attack roll… 1! Damage roll is a 4, plus 27 pts of absorbed kinetic energy means 31 damage. Growth means damage is divided by 40, so 1 pt of damage. GOOD ENOUGH!]

There’s a loud spring that echoes around the open park as Rubbermaid caroms off a wall and flies with staggering accuracy into the target. The needle pierces into the giant’s side, with the narcotic in the syringe pouring into Negative Man’s vein.

Negative Man screams, and the sound shatters windows nearby. Flora’s desperate grass tendrils snap instantly under the force of his muscles, but before Wyla can regain his feet, his eyes return to relatively normal appearance, then cross, and he collapses back towards the ground.

Everyone can see the shadow of the giant fall over Flora as he collapses. With her sap-driven reflexes she has no time to move out of the way. Rubbermaid is already arcing far above the scene. Miss Anima is staggered from the unorthodox use of her power and Future Boy is just too far away….

Dragon Girl, already positioned to help out, is in motion as soon as the shadow tops Flora, grabbing on to her friend, swinging around to conserve momentum, and using an explosive fire breath puff to try to help push...but with Flora's mass, it just isn't enough--the two of them slide a couple of feet out of the way, but are going to be easily caught in the giant's struggles -- when the owlbear detaches itself from Miss Anima and propels itself towards the two of them in haste, suddenly growing into a charging mammoth as it builds up speed, and picking up the two of them in its trunk as it goes. The giant's arm comes down with a crash and the mammoth vanishes, sending the girls flying -- Flora landing first, then Jandar landing and twisting to brace herself against Flora, and accidentally catching a miniature mammoth, only two hands wide, which seems to be all that is left of the previously huge creature.

"Reeeee?" It says.

As people are processing that there's a vertiginous shift in reality and the Negative Man is restored to his original human size. He's still unconscious, and still radiating violet energy, but at least he's no longer huge.

Page 5: Everyone

We have switched to the inside of the Legion HQ - Robot Boy is still missing, but Future Boy and Miss Anima are currently splitting their attention between the unconscious and purple-indigo colored Mans Wyla and the now strange-badger-dog-thing-that-lives-in-the ship, now back in the Owlbear shape that rescued Miss Anima in the darkness.

Wyla, at least, makes sense - there's still an enormous amount of negative energy in his body, that body is now confirming, for the most part, to what we would consider a biology. He has brainwaves, respiration, etc. to go along with the circulatory system that let Miss Anima and Rubbermaid knock him out, but it's not entirely clear that he needs them - just in case he's hooked up to an IV with some anesthetic mixed in. His brainwaves are calming over time, hitting at moments the more ordered flow of a 'normal' person. Hopefully the crisis has passed.

Ree, in contrast, is a complete enigma.

[The team moved Wyle here on an animated gravskim, but there's been plenty of time passed for Miss Anima to have her wind back; Bubble Boy may or may not be on a monitor screen as the teams other 'doctor']

Miss Anima has assembled the same package she showed Dr. Wyla's animation, the letter he had her send, and whatever information she can get from Dr. Plact about Dr. Wyla's treatment. She looks at Future Boy. "What do you have in writing about what we were doing here? Or what can you write in a hurry? I'd like to give Dr. Wyla as much information as I can quickly about what's happened to him. Give him some context, connect him to reality, however you'd like to phrase it."

"Um." Future Boy stammers. "I guess I have some notes? He'll hopefully be out for bit more time so his system has enough time to stablize more, but I'll do what I can. But I'm more mystified by...Ree.

"We had more detection running than normal because of Wyla, so I got some readings when he shapechanged, and..it's not the same as the Negative Man, but it's not completely different, either. He can change shape, massively increase or decrease his own mass, and all incredibly fast. We don't even know where he came from or what his true form is. It could be the badger dog, or this owlbear thing, or...anything, really. We know he only revealed his powers because you were in danger...and before, when he knocked us out of range before my equipment blew. So, he's friendly." Future boy pets the Ree-owlbear as he talks. "Still, there are a lot of questions only he can answer. If only you could talk, little mystery."

Off in the corner of the room are the three substitute heroes, watching this deeply strange scene unfold.... [BR: Subs, feel free to chatter amongst yourselves]

Eyeing the recumbent Dr. Wyla uneasily, Vikrak the Rubbermaid whispers to her fellow subs. "He's normal-sized now, but what can we do if he grows enormous again. He's not going to fall for that hypodermic trick a second time."

Flora leans towards her resilient friend. “I heard the busy looking one over there….Future Boy, I think?…say that he was enormous because his transformation confused him. Once he gets some sleep, his mind should get a chance to settle into his new body.”

"Yes," Dragon Girl has relaxed now that they're in relatively safe conditions and nobody is trying to destroy them--or the city, and is lounging comfortably against the wall as she sits on the floor. "I trust Tok -- Future Boy; he's the one that helped me get control of myself during the trials, you know; caught me before I started setting fire to things after the girl with the lightshow made everything all weird. If he says Wyla will be better after a rest, I think he'll be better. But I really hope they won't ask us to stop helping out; we were useful out there!"

"We were!" beams Vikrak. "I hope they have new trials soon. We'd definitely have a chance, right?"

There's a series of panels as Future Boy pets Ree. One row shows the owlbear getting progressively bigger and more humanoid. The first panel of the next row shows a nude-but-carefully-covered-by-furniture-and-the-like humanoid Ree saying "...oops...". Successive panels finish that sentence. "...I forgot..." "...I..." "...could talk."

“Woaaah,” sighed Flora. “Didn’t expect /that/.”

A trio of panels shows her swinging her head to the left...

“Wait…"

...and the right, taking in the wide eyes, blushes, and shocked expressions of the other Legionnaires...

“...what’s wrong?”

…before looking straight at the naked Ree.

“Ohhhhhhh.”

She turns to one of the plants in the room, and with soft whistles coaxes it to grow a pair of pants, which she picks and hands to Ree.

“You may want these."

Vikrak blushes mightily, throws her hands up to cover her eyes and turns away, only to turn back just enough to peek through her fingers.

"Wait," she whispers, "was he always a cute boy or have I missed something?"

Ree taks the plant pants and puts them on (again, artistically concealed) and mumbles, "m'Durlan."

"But you can't be," Tok says, at the same time Jandar says "A what?"

“Shapeshifters,” Flora whispers in Jandar’s ear. “Some of them have done awful things."

Jinnjahl blinks, pauses for a beat, and then says. "Thank you for saving me. I'd've tried to grab something if I'd been knocked off the board, but I don't think I'd've managed it."

“Though this one — obviously — hasn’t,” Flora finishes.

Turning toward Ree, her hair-branches stretch upward to reveal her full height, waving in a repetitive (ritual?) pattern. She is surprisingly tall when she doesn’t slouch.

“Your actions have preserved K’kk’Kshhhh, a twig of Cr’e’kkk’e’kk’Ksh who continues the trunk of Fhhhh’kK’r'sssk, and so hath earned the gratitude of all her kind, root and graft alike.”

She slouches and her hair drops back into its usual place. “THAT should make my progenitor happy. Well, that and not having to graft a new rootling. So, who are you, anyway?"

He mumbles, "...Reep Daggle. Pleasetomeetyou."

"He's awfully cute for a shapeshifter," Vivkrak whispers under her breath. "I mean, I suppose a shapeshifter could be as cute as they wanted, but if they were rotten why would they be so cute and..."

She stops abruptly when she realises that her voice has risen. "Anyway," *cough* "Why were you a badger?"

"...wanted to join... so I thought..." The Durlan colors, either blushing or doing a good imitation of it. "...People don't like Durlan, and... you can tell a lot about someone by how they treat their pets, so... um, and then... I forgot."

"It's a good way for us to get to know you," Future Boy says, "and get a feel of who you really are without worrying that you're really a spy or assassin or something. You helped out so many times without even remembering...how much did you forget, anyway...that we'd have to be jerks to distrust you now."

Page 6 Top Tier: Everyone

This page opens with a panel showing kaleidoscope of images over Future Boy's head as he idly shuffles through Miss Anima's research while the group discusses Reep - armed men attacking the Legion HQ, some sort of neural stunner weapon, a negative space inversion device, other men entering the Institute, Dr. Place lyin dead, the intitute going up in flames - and then back to the exact same panel as the end of the last page except Future Boy has dropped the research and it's fluttering around the room.

The Legion is about to come under attack. The people - the conspiracy, he's suddently sure of that, possibly one driven from outside the UP - who were funding to have Wyla kept unconscious can't possibly allow him to live, never mind become a godlike being, and all evidence of their activities can too easily be handled by the excuse of an Intitute project going explosivly wrong.

They have almost no time to prepare. The conspirators are very well armed, and hitting both places at once, moments from now.

"Something bad is happening--I can explain on the way but we need to move now," Future Boy says. "Dragon Girl, Ree, and Miss Anima, go to the Institute. There's about to be an attack, but Ree's fast enough to get there in time and can carry two. Stay close to Miss Anima for a bit; I'll give her more details on the way. Go, now!"

“Rubbermaid…”

“I'm sticking with Dragon Girl and Ree," exclaims Rubbermaid, as she throws herself at the nearest wall to begin building up momentum.

"Let's get goinnnng!"

"I was going to ask her to stay," Future Boy says, "But she -is- fast. Still, I was hoping to have more than two people here.”

Miss Anima smiles, and pulls out a notbook and with a shimmer there is another figure in the room - a Slan of slightly more than Jinnjah's height, wearing a set of harnesses hold dozens of medical tools in varioous pouches, he is deliberately drawn in a Rob Liefield style - who quickly accimlates. Is someone in trouble Jinnjahl and Tok hear in their minds.

Dr. Wyla - science doctor, but he knows a lot about his own conditions, when he's conscious - underwent a phase change when being treated with negative energy to help him recover from an induced coma due to negative energy injuries, and was struggling to acclimate to a new form when we drugged him to give his body a chance to acclimate before his mind had to. His size has adjusted correctly since, which I think is a positive sign. Future Boy, who foresees the future through summation of gestalt facts, predicts an attempt to attack us, and his doctors elsewhere, momentarily. She grimaces. Future Boy might be able to tell you more; he hasn't had a chance to tell *me* more, and I need to go help protect the doctors.

With that Miss Anima throttles up the jetpack and races out of the room to lead her ragtag team of substitute Legionnaires.

"The rest of us...” at this Future Boy looks at Flora and… Jerrlann he hears in his mind… “there's also an attack coming here, with stunners and they've got some kind of negative-space based weapon or teleporter. We're about to have company, so let’s give them a warm welcome."

Page 6 Middle Tier: Miss Anima, Rubbermaid, Dragon Maid, Chameleon Boy

The bounce from the panel in tier one has sent Rubbermaid _through the panel borders_ into tier two, where Miss Anima is leading the Substitute Legionnaires to the institute. Jinnjahl is using the Mark VI rocketpack, while Ree has taken the shape of a <LISA INSERT WHAT SHAPE REE IS IN HERE> to carry Dragon Maid.

<space for any discussion about plans, the nature of the institute, how cute Ree can make himself if he wants to, etc....> In the next panel, the quartet can see a cluster of men at the front door of the institute, their passage being barred by Dr. Plact. Three of the men of business - conservatively cut suits, well-coiffed hair, stances that indicated they are really uncomfortable with this turn of events, and Miss Anima can place them as some of the ones who were responsible for keeping Wyla in a coma - there are also two men of rougher appearance and one hulking individual standing with the confidence of a ready fighter, with a wooden club in his hand.

Miss Anima immediately recognizes him as Black Mace, the individual who was responsible for the Diplomatic Academy assaults, and after a moment Dragon Maid also places him as the man who whacked her in the temple and set into motion the chain of events that made her an arsonist.

Rubbermaid and Chameleon Boy both notice something else, the men are coming into view from the heads down as if they were surrounded by a curtain. Rubbermaid is able to make out a dozen small drones, hovering in place around the men in a circle. Vikrak is able to identify these from a recent story in "Bloody Big Killings" (as opposed to her other subscription to its sister magazine "Cozy Little Murders") that these privacy curtains usually applied to white table restaraunts have been repurposed for hiding public criminal acts, but they only work to shield the permiter, not the circuference. By approaching from the air the Legionnaires can see what's happening when anyone on the street wouldn't see it.

Plact is barring the door, "No. Absolutely not. Not. This is a place of healing, and to my shame I let you twist that to your own ends. Own ends. But That Has Ended, Odenkirk. I will not allow you in, or let you put the patients I have inside at risk. At risk."

Black Mace smiles, "Yer lucky me and the gang were between assignments, Odenkirk. 'Cause you ain't got the stones to do what you know needs doin'. Gatlin'?"

And with that one of the thugs raises his antique slugthrower pistol and prepares to fire.... [BR: You have a few seconds here to make an immediate plan of action, share data, what have you before we move on to initiative on page 7.]

Ree lets others do the quick data share, as he's still learning to remember to talk in non-human form. He does have a tactical suggestion, though. "Dive bomb?"

"Let me get their attention first," Miss Anima says, "and when I do, look away from me. I expect they'll all look at me, either to shoot me or to see what I'm going to conjure up -- so I'm going to conjure up a really bright light. Then go for someone who didn't look away in time." She glances around, looking for reflective surfaces.

(She's summoning a searchlight which can go from just generally blindingly bright into a narrow-arc flashlight if you twist the shape, only shining in one direction but even brighter. And *still* no one's going to look at her, but they might look at a reflective steel building.)

"In that case," Dragon Girl says, "lets circle around to their flank while Miss Anima gets their attention. That way, when there's a blinding flare, we can dive, and I should be able to get in a blast from behind them as we go in. And Rubbermaid is immune to my fire, so she can land on the other side and trap them. "Once we're there--concentrate on the others, but leave the big guy with the club to me. I've got a score to settle with him."

"Great! Let's bust some bad guys!" calls out Rubbermaid. She careens forward, hoping to build momentum to knock the thugs flying like ninepins. "Let me at 'em!"

"Reeee!" says Ree, happily. Tactics! Strategy! Things he's not good at -- but his teammates are!

Ree's thought balloon: Team! I'm on a TEAM!...at least for now... TEAM!

Page 6 Bottom Tier: Future Boy, Botany Girl, Jerrlann the Slan Medic

Future Boy, Flora and the Slan Medic have just a minute to put together a defense to stop attackers from penetrating the base to the medlab area and killing Wyla. Josh, Tok can come up with (int/10) 3.4 brilliant plans to slow them down, while Diane, Flora can can add (Int/10) 0.9. That is to say you have 4 brillaint plans between you, and one that will be 1/3rd finished before time runs out.

“About that warm welcome?” says Flora, looking embarrassed. “I do have something that might help.”

Reaching up, she plucks four closed, bulbous, deep purple florets from her shoulders. “Take these,” she tells Future Boy. “Most of you animal-types are allergic to Arcadian pollen. If you can get them into the bad guys’ faces, it should slow 'em down.”

“Be careful!” she adds as Tok reaches for the pods. “Sometimes they just explode."

[JK: Beth, do you want to play the medic? If not, I suppose we could have Lisa, or Myles play him--I'm the only player with two PCs as yet]

[BR: First come first serve, whoever kicks in an idea for him (other than Josh) gets to play him in this scene… such as it is.]

"Those are helpful, "Future Boy says to Flora. ", but maybe for stage two. There's a small lifter I can use to drive you entrances so we can prep them, but for a peremeter defense, I was thinking we might want to play the ancient game of Tower Defense. As it happens, I've been working on trying to fix a number of the ship's systems, not always successfully--but if I activate a number of my experiments at once, and perhaps tie them in to proximity alarms, our attackers may find the result inconvenient." He finishes a sequence of rapid coding on his workstation, which finishes up as he transfers his attention and the controls to a portable screen. "There. Failed and unfortunately sometimes explosive flight rigs, some tiny lifters we can load with your cargoes, and the working but not yet properly anchored landing jets for the base, those should prove reasonable inconvenient for our guests. Although...I'd hate to have someone get hit with any of this stuff accidentally."

Future Boy picks up and activates a radio microphone which looks very much like an old style microphone. "Hello, anyone in the vicinity of the Legion base. We're about to test some experiments that could be dangerous for the unprepared, so if you would, please leave the premises immediately. If you do not, you are responsible for the consequences.

"Thank you."

Outside we see people near the Legion HQ looking up in some alarm, except for one gaggle of individuals – mixed genders, mostly Wynathian but not all – who look pleased. There’s one nervous looking business type in front who had been walking ‘incogneto’ with a woman on his arm. Said woman is wearing a long violet cloak that covers uo most of her body. E turns to her “I… I guess this is lucky for us. No one will be around to… to witness…” He swallows audibly.

“Oh for Clark’s sake,” says the cloaked woman. “Taurus Gang, move in. According to the boss these kids can be tricky, but we’re taking them by surprise.”

Nine of the dozen individuals reach into their collars and pull up masks that cover from ther eyes down. The masks have stylaized bull’s heads on them. The group heads in, their ostensible leader being pushed forward by the scum and villainy following him.

Page 7: Fulture Boy, Botany Girl, Miss Anima

Panel 1: Two mooks are knocked out as small flying machines come out of nowhere, separate, and slam into one another, exploding. “What the?!?” says one of the mooks, while the businessman goes “I have a bad feeling about this…”

The woman in the Violet Cloak makes a motion with her hand, and the businessman lurches forward as if falling for a second. “In for a credit, in for a kilo. Keep moving.”

Panel 2: The mooks are creeped out as the grass in front of them seems to be growing visibly.

Panel 3: Pits open up underneath the group (pulled apart by root growth). one mook goes down, screaming, while a Violet Witch again gestures and Grey Arrow, who had falled for a second into another pit, reverses direction, falling up for a second before dropping back down outside the range of and to stable ground.

The businessman says “What kind of experiments are these?”

Panel 4: The reduced group goes on, as Tok's voice comes over saying "our testing is about to become significantly more serious for the unaware. If you have ignored our warnings thus far, I implore you to leave."

Grey Arrow mutters"All right, they definately know we're here."

Panel 5: The area in front of the group is incinerated, as Future Boy activates the one rocket he's so far been able to get running from the station's former life as a ship. There’s a loud shiek from the businessman whose shoes catch fire, but the Grey Archer moves with blinding speed to place a foam spreading extinguisher arrow directly between his legs, dousing the lower half of hos body.

“Listen, Violet,” Says one of the mooks, “They clearly know we’re here. We should fall back, come in another way…”

The two in back nod, and start backing up into a sudden undergrowth. The businessman says “I don’t recall their having a hedge in the front yard…” and the lead mook says “Honestly, Reginald.” Then the hedge swallows the two backing up completely.

Grey Archer tosses the lead mook a sonic knife “Cut them loose, then fall back and report. Everyone else keep moving.”

We have a moment to see the line of unconscious mooks or just their neural-stunners lying about the path they took to the Legion HQ.

Panel 6: Grey Arrow pulls the the access port they'd picked as a "secret" entrance, there is a puff of green, and a puff of green gas explodes out. The two remaining mooks collapse, felled by Flora's poioson pods, but Grey Arrow appears unaffected – her mask covering her mouth and nose, perhaps - as the villains enter the base.

Once they are inside the woman in grey lays her hand briefly on the wall before she says “this way” It takes just a few moments for them to enter the room with the Legionnaires and the unconscious Wyla.

[BR: yes, for simplicity’s sake we’re having the battle now here rather than a long running one in the base because we were always gonna get to this point.]

ROUND 1

18 GREY ARCHER The woman in grey enters the room at a smooth run, leaping in a roll to evade the final line of defneses Future Boy set up… he could swear that the quickly modified stun beams hit her even as she was dodging, but he can’t be certain… but by then she has launched three arrows into the room, all of them trailing filament nets that pin him firmly to the wall. He’s not totally incapacitate3d – he can talk, and due to his staff being out has some space for his hands to move and reach things on his belt, but actuial fistcuffs are past him. He’s at a loss as to what the filiments are made of, other than they are strong.

The woman, impossibly, has another arrow nocked and pointed at him. His mutant brain can just make out the strange, almost invisible inversion of her mask – she isn’t wearing a mask to cover the lower half of her face. She’s wearing a WYNATHIAN mask with hair over the top of her head to make her pass for normal.

[BR: Her attack roll with her REDACTED attack type was a 3, so an easy hit. You’re bound with two cubic feet of Structural Rating 6 material, where ever full 6 points of damage takes out one cubic foot. Feel free to talk all you want, intimidate/appeal to the bettr angels fo the clearly in over his head Reginald (who you have information on from Miss Anima’s files – he’s the head of a small but growing hig energy engineering company pushing hard for UP contracts), state you have a pre-programmed voice activated last line of defense, whatever]

17 VIOLET WITCH The woman in the violet cloak enters immediately afterwards, and the two heroes can see around her an array of small cloudy forms, some of which are holding her up off the ground. These didn’t appear in security video, and their malevolent chittering like the wind blowing dead leaves and dying branches about in the last days of autumn didn’t carry through the intercom.

Her lips move in a silent command and several of the spirits slit away from her, snagging on to Flora and with a tug hurling her against the ceiling. The impact rattles her rings and shakes her branches. She’s pinned against the ceiling with air spirits chittering at her in a language she feels in her sap as waiting for the wind to rip her roots from the clean soil.

“Kajsa?! But they’re not real!” Flora wails.

[BR: in game speak, she rolled an 8 on her Gravity Control attack. But that’s so bland… You take 3 points of damage and are pinned to the ceiling with 4 times your weight. That’s about 140 lbs more than you can lift, but it wouldn’t be impossible to make a strength check to move some (15 or less d20) or even stand up against the ceiling (10 or less) or move completely (3 or less) because you’re stronger than you look and while she didn’t under estimate you entirely, she came close….]

With the Legionnaires out fo the way, Witch turns to Reginald. “As contracted, we got you this far. Now end it.”

Reginald pulls a hand sized device from his pocket, one that his fingers just barely wrap around, and there’s an indigo light slichering inside it as it aims the concentric circles in its flat face to the unconscious Wyla. Tok recognizes it as a negative space quantum collapser. And if it does what it is supposed to , it would obliterate the billions of singularities that make up Negative Man’s physical form, eradicating him from existance.

A bead of sweat forms on Reginald’s brow and starts dropping down. He runs his tongue nervously along his lower lip, and then bites it. Is eyes dart around the room as he struggles to press the actuator.

16 FUTURE BOY, SLAN MEDIC Jerrlann, who has been hiding behind Wyla’s stasis tube, using his long gripping fingers and tows to cling somewhere well out of sight., reaches out to Future Boy Of the two outsiders in the room, the woman is confident and determined, but isn’t being paid to ‘finish the job’, just make it possible. The man is acting on pure fear. I can connect you with him telepathically if you think it would help, but the bulk of my focus is on rousing Wyla before it is too late.”

From their positions, Tok and Flora can see the status indicators on Wyla’s chamber flicker. The Negative Man is waking up… assuming he lives that long!

If it will give us more time to talk, yes, do it. Otherwise...if they're not going to interefere--if they've done what they're paid for, I might as well just talk to him and you should devote yourself to waking up Wyla before it's too late.

It will be as you wish, Jerrlann says, and redoubles his efforts to rouse his patient.

"They're using you you know," Future Boy says. "Making you take the heat--be the one to pull the trigger--is a classic tactic; it commits you; makes it impossible to back out of a bad deal. The next time they ask you for something it will be bigger, something you'd never do now, and after that it will just get worse.

"But you don't have to. Your company is part of this to profit off negative space--the science Wyla pioneered, but think of how much more he'll know now--now that this science isn't just something he's studied, but part of him. He's had some issues, but he's stablizing--if you put that thing away--work with us--we can protect you, and Wyla will need partners he can trust. People who can use and bring to the world what he's discovered, now that he's become ...what he is. You could save yourself, your company, Mans, and help the UP. Just put away the collapser."

Future Boy can see the bio-indicator on the stasis tube switch to all green....

14 ROBOT BOY, REGINALD Reginald stares at Future Boy, trying to read the young scientist's expression, then is eyes dart back and forth between Grey Archer and Violet Witch, he starts to lower his hand when Archer says, "Your boss is our boss." Just loud enough that Future Boy only learns exactly what she said later, when he can play back the radio in the room. Reginald jerks his his hand up again, but as he does so there is a roar of boot jets as a large silver-grey figure leaps into the room, interposing himself between Wyla and the collapser.

Reginald thumbs the activator probably out of shock as much as anything else, but the energy plays harmlessly off of Robot Boy's invunerable body.

"Statement: Apologies for not arriving in a timelier fashion. The negative space distortion hindering my return ended seconds ago. I made the best time I could."

Proty zips into the room, evading Gray Archer's attempts to draw a bead on it, and in passing yanks the collapsor from Reginald's hand with a tractor beam. The immediate threat passed, Robot Boy turns to face Future Boy, and Tok is the first to witness the loweing of Robot Boy's central armor, revealing a thoracic furnace that melts away the material holding him to the wall.

Reginald, completely at a loss as to what just happened, turns and flees the room.

8 BOTANY GIRL

[BR: Diane, you're up. On the ceiling, but up.]

[BR: strength check is a 7 on a d20, success for some movement!]

Slowly and steadily, like the ripple of branches in the wind, Flora pushes her arm toward the spring-loaded latch on her seed pouch.

As a cascade of seeds drops from her belt pouch, Flora whistles Kudzu, GO!

[DK: Figured an explosion of fast-growing vines like one of those novelty cans filled with spring snakes would be comic-book enough.]

[BR: Oh, it’s comic booky enough. But the dice rolls for the attacks of 14 and 15 mean that the dice know that for all her well-meaning passion, She’s still a Substitute Hero. Still, her action has one definite positive outcome in hiding from them what’s coming….]

The vines explode outward, filling almost a quarter of the room in a green fury. It’s almost impossible to see for a moment but when the initial creaking abates she sees that Violet is hovering inches over the half meter of kudzu vines, and Grey Arrow, somehow, is balancing En Pointe on one of the still exposes pieces of scientific equipment. Flora, attuned as she is to the plants she’s interacting with, might be the only one to sense the interlocks on the stasis chamber open under the mass of plants.

He’s awake. Jerrlann tells Future Boy and Miss Anima via telepathy. But groggy

• *You're under attack. Defend yourself. Please wake up all the way before hitting back, friendlies there. Jinnjahl, not a telepath but completely familiar with telepathy, overlays the quick update with concern for both Wyla and her friends present.

• *You're about to be, anyway, Future Boy think. Try to be careful; you're stronger than you may know, Dr. Wyla. And....welcome back.

3 GREY ARCHER Archer, from her impossibly balanced position, points her arrow at the Arcadian pinned to the ceiling. Flora has a moment of seeing the figure for what it is – the ‘mask’ of wynathain skin and hair atop her cranium slightly askew, the featureless ‘face’ under it utterly impossible to read – and then the arrow flies true, thunking deeply into her body

Of course, Arcadian’s are not human. It’s not that Flora didn’t feel it, but it hurt her no more than a tree is hurt from a broadhead arrow.

[BR: never mind Flora’s Dense Form defense, Grey Arrow rolled a 19. I’m glad Flora’s defense gives an explanation for how the master archer didn’t ‘miss’…]

2 VIOLET WITCH The hovering figure arches an eyebrow at her companion’s attack of pique, and then says “Since your little wooden friend decided to pin you down for us,” and we see Future Boy and Robot Boy are visibly ankle deep in the kudzu, though both individuals and feel that Flora’s control is good enough that while the vines are _around_ them they are in no way _binding_ them, “I’ll just finish what we came here for,”

There’s a visible effort on her part as spirits flit around her to the stasis unit and yank it up. There’s a harsh wind flowing through the room and judging from the speed of the ascent and the displacement of air Tok calculates that the unit is being yanked upward with at least 10G of force. It shatters explosively against the ceiling, but rather than the person inside being pulverized into goo, the Negative Man steps free from the wreckage, standing comfortably on the ceiling.

He inverts himself and is now standing in air, covered in indigo light, his eyes crackling

“I’ve never met you and you’re trying to destroy me. Is this what the universe is?”

1 FUTURE BOY, MISS ANIMA, NEGATIVE MAN: [BR: so technically this is page 9, ut we’re going to resolve it here. And I’m not saying there’s any pressure here, but the future of the universe does depend on what the two of you do here. And yes, Jerrlann is making sure Miss Anima is involved with this as Mans Wyla was always her plotline, so thanks for giving me a way to integrate them….]

Miss Anima replays Dr. Plack trying to keep the whole gang out of the Institute, Black Mace striking down Dr. Plack, Dragon Maid dropping down to stand against Black Mace, and Chameleon Boy catching Dr. Plack. Good and evil are a big part of what the universe is. There's more good than evil, but it's a big universe so there's a lot of evil too.

[JK: that's a good response; I think it's best to see what the Negative Man says before I respond rather than stepping over one another]

[BR: rolls the d20 and... ooooohhh!]

The Negative Man looks around the room and time seems to still. It doesn't really, but such is the nature of his vast presence. Tok and JinnJahl hear his response in their mind

And this is the nature of your argument? That I should accept these attacks because on balance the universe is 53% ‘Good’?

when it is in my power to deal with these killers once and for...*

And at that Jerrlann’s time of animation is up. Future Boy never hears the completed thought as The Negative Man flashes beams from his eyes, one at each of the two women mercenaries in the room, and they vanish. Those eye beams flash again and again, passing harmlessly through walls but striking the mercenaries captured across the Legions yard, leaving nothing behind.

And is a second, the Negative Man is gone as well.

[BR: Josh, I know it looks to all the world like he just vaporized these people and I didn't give you a chance to go, but actually Beth rolled a 1 on her "Convince the bad guy not to kill people roll" so Tok didn't have to act. Wyla's done something else here before teleporting over to where Jinnjahl and the other fight is going on. I just want to let that other fight play out before I deus ex machina up the place because the player actions there should count for something. But I am wondering how FB would react to what he just saw, and he can see on the scanners that Reginald is still present and still trying to flee. Consciously let Reginal go as a commentary on the human condition? collapse and weep over what just happened instead of acting? venting your quite reasonable impotent fury on Reginald? something else I'm not thinking of? have at!]

Robot Boy moves to catch Flora as she falls from the ceiling, the air spirits having disappeared along with their mistress.

"Interrogative: I don't understand. The animated Mans Wyla would not..."

“You missed him being giant and flailing all over downtown.” Flora interrupts. “I don’t think we know what he would do now.”

“And thanks for the catch. If you can put me down, I’ll take care of my friends on the floor."

A shocked looking Future Boy is unresponsive, then he turns to the security panel.

Reginald flees; his plans unmade, his allies--his captures--gone as if they had never been. All around him, a voice--Future Boy's, but in a maudlin, hopeless mood that belies his previous cheerfulness even when he was at a disadvantage, follows him mercelessly.

"Don't go. Why leave so soon--the guests are all gone, but the party's just beginning."

A promising corridor leading to daylight is shrouded in darkness, and when he finishes stumbling to the closed door and keys it open, a now dim gymnasium lies beyond it.

"Really, Reginald, what are you leaving for? Your boss will probably want to kill you now, after all. You should stay here, where absolutely nobody wants to kill you, and incidentally no, I have no idea where the Dr. Wyla--the Negative Man is."

Finally, exhausted, he stumbles towards what is unmistakably an airlock. It hisses open as he keys the controls, but closes up behind him, while the other side remains, stubornly closed.

"It's locked," Future boy, says, emerging out of an access door. "I guess that's not really why they call it that. Look I'm tired; you're tired, and I'm half sure we're all going to die in the next hour, so to keep our minds off it, why don't you tell me everything you know, who you work for--all that stuff. After that, if you want, I'll let you go off to probably get yourself killed--or we can discuss plans to maybe keep you alive for a bit--assuming the universe still exists next month, that is. No guaruntees."

Page 8 Miss Anima, Dragon Maid, Chameleon Boy, Rubbermaid

And here we go! ==+ROUND 1==+

18 MISS ANIMA, GRAVE GATLING Miss Anima charges forward, before Dr. Plact gets shot or anyone notices her companions. (Unless there's a reason not to make a call, she has Officer Erin on speeddial....) "Stop there! Dr. Plact said to go away, you aren't welcome here! Doctor, go inside!" She lands on a balcony, the jetpack cutting out, a piece of paper in her hand.

She expects that gun, maybe others, to be turned towards her; regardless, she's going to animate that paper into a flare and jump for another balcony. When she gets under cover elsewhere she'll twist the flare into a long-range bright flashlight. (I assume the jetpacks make at least some noise, if the noise vanishes when she flew in here, she hopes they won't remember she's quite capable of getting to different places on the outside of a building without flying. She's volunteering to draw fire because it makes sense, but she is very well aware that she's LITTLE and does not want to actually get hit with a bullet.)

[BR: so I’m reading this as animating the flare (PR 8, which added to the animating the Slan Medic and recovery time flying here leaves her at 37 Vitality), and using it as a Light Powers attack to blind the people below when they all look up, then using her Speed Bonus to silently get somewhere else where hopefully blinded people can’t see her. This requires 6 (!) special attack rolls to blind her targets yielding 4 successes – Talon Lad, Odenkirk and the two other businessmen are at least temporarily blinded by the glare]

At her speech, the men below all turn and look (saving Plact, who cannot take his eyes off that gun). “Ah Heck,” Black Mace mutters, “Glad I charged full rate on this one….” Before the flare hit. There are cries of shick and surprise from the would be invaders, saving Black Mace, who is just too canny to be caught off guard by something like that, and the man he called ‘Gatling’, who was already aiming up at Miss Anima the moment she started speaking but doesn’t seem to care about the glare.

[BR: his attack roll is a 20 so no chance of hitting, Miss Anima gets maximum cool]

The gre-skinned figure opens fire with his antique slugthrower, ‘fanning that smokewagon’ as the slang of his anachronistic clothing might suggest, but Miss Anima is simply too fast and agile for him to draw a bead on. She leaps from her initial position just as a shot gives off a plume of smoke at where he feet once were, climbing, sumping and scrambling with speed and grace impossible for a human to emulate. Once she hears the hammer land on an empty 7th chamber she pauses for breath, and sees the grey, slack face of the gunman glaring at her – the only life in his expression in his now respectful eyes as his hands effortlessly slide another 6-shot cylander into the broken open revolver before snapping it back together.

The smoke from the shots surrounds him, making him look almost like a ghost in the mist.

17 BLACK MACE, TALON LAD The other thug like individual is grasping at his eyes from the flare, and takes a minute to try to clear his vision to no avail. While he’s doing this the Legionnaires can see his sleeves split open as his arms grow and distend, his fingers turning to talons of bone and stone….

Black Mace grimaces and grabs one of the businessmen – one carrying a small satchel – and shoves the blinded man into the institute. The man bangs half-blind off the door but makes it inside.

Mace then swings his signature weapon at the institute’s administrator. There’s a loud crack and thud, and Plact goes flying easily some the feet into the air. It’s obvious to everyone that even if the aging medico had survived the hit, he won’t survive the landing.

16 CHAMELEON BOY, RUBBERMAID , DRAGON MAID Unless one of his teammates tells him otherwise, Chameleon Boy is assuming that's his job and will fly to catch him. He'll also do a bit of shifting -- like, if he's getting under the man, he'll make his back softer to cushion the fall, but if he's grabbing the man, he'll make his appendages bigger, more flexible, and also softer..

Dragon Maid stays mounted on the giant bird as it swoops down towards the flying Institute doctor, laying down a line of fire among their foes as she does so. The blinded businessmen shy away from the heat, screaming and running to get clear, and the lingering flames act as a wall separating Gatling from Black Mace for at least the next few minutes.

At the last second she rolls off the birds back, dropping smoothly to the ground in three point landing she's mastered from many a midnight mosh pit toss. She flicks her hair up out of her face and stares at the flame-bracketed Black Mace, who smiles back.

"Looking for a rematch?"

"You ambushed me. And used me to hurt people. I haven't forgotten."

Overhead, with his flight capacity freed up, Ree swoops down, modying his feet slightly to better capture the wounded doctor and bring him gently to ground a safe distance away. The doctor is breathingly shallowly, white faced with pain, but still conscious.

Rubbermaid is already moving at quite a clip when she comes on the scene, and hurls herself forward even more vigorously when the bullets start flying. She caroms off a lamppost towards Grave Gatling ululating a fierce cry as she attempts to bowl him clean over.

The ashen-faced anachronism has just enough time to turn at the ululation and get a look of shock on his face as the rebounding marvel flies through the hologram curtain before she slams into him. He hardly weighs anything (just skin and bones) and as such doesn’t give her anything to really bound off off. Instead she flies for several yards with him plastered across her before he manages to roll off…just before they would have hit another wall.

Rubbermaid hits the wall and is able to redirect for her next pass, but she can’t be sure how much damage she really did to the eerie figure, who is rolling to his feet and taking aim at her.

[BR: roll to hit was an 18, so you didn’t actually do _anything_ but I’d be damned if I had her just miss outright….]

13: DR. PLACT Plact’s breathing is shallow, sweat has broken out all over his body as he struggles to talk, but he’s able to whisper “they are going to blow up the institute. All our patients. Please…”

[BR: Lisa, Cham has time to amplify this confirmation to the rest of the team.]

12 ODENKIRK AND OTHER BUSINESSMEN Odenkirk and the other blinded businessman still outside struggle to get away, to clear their eyes, to survive a situation that is now so clearly out of their control. Odenkirk manages to recover his vision enough to grab his comrade by the hand and yank him away from the conflict. The priavy screen is slaved to the unit on Odekirk’s belt, so the hologram curtain is following them, creating a strange distortion in downtown New Metropolis.

[BR: if someone doesn’t chase them, they are going to get away.]

For the blinded businessman who was shoved into the institute, we hear “You can’t come in here…” Whack! And the sound of a falling body as the half blind businessman clobbers the Intsittue security guard with his satchel and makes a run for seeper in the interior.

[BR: something bad may happen if someone doesn’t grab him… but no guaurantee. He is half blind, not a natural combatant, terrified of what black Mace may do to him, etc…]

3 MISS ANIMA, GRAVE GATLING Miss Anima hesitates for an instant, caught between imperatives - attack Talon Lad while he's not seeing straight, stop the businessmen getting away, stop the guy inside the Institute. She decides the first priority is immediate risk to noncombatants, but.... She doesn't have many flying images, but the Legion had been experimenting with drones to film themselves for critiques afterwards. If she has a drone with her (unlikely, but she might next time), she sends it after the businessmen so they can be followed; if she doesn't, she definitely has a picture, so she animates one for the purpose. The businessmen and Talon Lad are mostly blind, Grave Gatling has Rubbermaid, Black Mace has Dragon Maid -- they might not even see. And heck, if it draws fire that's worthwhile too.

Whether she animates a drone or just activates one, she heads inside the Institute, to stop the businessmen there from doing whatever. She works there, she knows her way around.

As she goes in, she takes Officer Erin off mute. "Sorry, was trying to hide. Kinda busy, apologize more later."

The drone materializes in a rainbow shimmer and zips off after Odenkirk and the other businessman. As it’s moving she makes two Perfectly executed lease in order to dive through the front door of the Institute. It doesn’t take her long to find the stun security guard, and then some short distance later the businessman still half blinded attempting to open and fumble with something in his satchel.

The man is clearly terrified, out of his depth, and desperately afraid of not completing what he’s doing.

"I'm guessing you never meant it to come to this?"

(She'd love to talk him down, but most of all she wants him *talking*, instead of doing whatever it is he's doing -- or at least taking a bunch of his attention away from whatever it is he's doing.)

[BR: d20 charisma chek comes up a 3, so not quite her best possible outcome but....]

He yells "I just wanted to gain a minor competitive advantage! Is that so wrong!"

He looks at her, and it's hard to tell if he's crying or if his eyes are watering because of the lingering flash-blindness. Then she see's that what he's holding is a trigger to wahtever is in the case, and he has two ways out here....

"They'll kill me" he whispers in a very small voice. "Me and everyone I've ever touched."

Before she can say anything else she feel's Jerrlann's telepathic touch in her mind...

Outwside Grave Gatling takes careful aim at the wildly rebounding figure of Rubbermaid and unleashes another set of six shots. Vikrak bounces madly to get out of the way, realixing just shy of too late that he is bracketing her in. A sudden unfolding and acrobatic twist and the... bullet?... passes through where she would have been. She feels a moment of pain just from being near the projectile that is there and gone almost too fast to register, and it's enough to knock her off balance. She hits the wall with a rubbery thud, but has time enough to go soft and spongy before she hits the ground.

What was that?!?

[GM Secret: They're not game mechanically guns - he has a Death Touch item. Still, she only took some movement damage that will recover quickly. Hopefully. ]

2 BLACK MACE, TALON LAD The big man sizes Jandar up and then leaps, far further than Jandar would have expected a Wynathian to cover, landing inside her defensive permiter.

[LP: I'm fine with this, but out of curiosity: is there EVER a big foe who DOESN'T move with more speed and agility than his bulk would suggest? I'm not sure there is.]

[JK: There should be more! Big guys who don't move that fast, but are incredibly tough and hit hard (and maybe are smart enough that their reach is deceptive, so you can't just dodge), so it doesn't entirely matter! In this case I think it's game mechanical, though--he has a high agility rating!] [JK: I do like the effect of the current combat system that it's movement-centric and generates results like "insert a chase scene or odd hijinks" when a high pushback is generated.]

[BR: Trope directed and corrected. And no, he’s both Terran (stronger than Wynathians, so can jump further) and very well trained, (Ht. Expertese). I was trying to lay out clues to that effect and got lazy]

He swings several times with his mace, forcing Jandar to leap backward and dodge around him to keep from being pulverized. It certainly looks like she's doing well when suddenly his free hand lashes out and grabs her throat. She's yanked off her feet and pulled up to his face.

"Got my fingers around your fuel glands, don't I? That's why you ain't scorching my pretty mug off right now." He chuckles. "You ain't bad, kid, but yer still small enough to be a catch and release." And with that he lobs her into the path of an incoming gravskim.

Jandar's path is high enough to bounce off the hood and she is skilled enough to roll with the impact, flipping across the windscreen, over the driver and landing in an ungainly heap in space past him. The only thing that really stings is her pride. The panicked gravskim driver is desperately trying to figure out what happened and why a beautiful girl is splayed across his back seat. [BR: He ended up hitting for just movement damage, but it was 12" of movement after subtracting your mass. He's strong, but not strong enough to send you flying 60 feet, hence landing in the gravskim which is flying away. You start your turn with him just at the barest edge of your flame breath range.]

[JK: I do like the effect of the current combat system that it's movement-centric and generates results like "insert a chase scene or odd hijinks" when a high pushback is generated.]

[BR: thanks! I’m really happy with it. Of course, I’m continuing to fiddle….]

"Hey cutie!" Dragon lass says, cheerfully. "Sorry to drop in!"

Talon Lad lowers his hands and his eyes are still watering, reddend and unfocused, but he's clearly got some vision left as he is leaping in the general vicinity of the big blur that is Chamaleon Boy and Dr. Plact. It's surprising how young he looks compared to the rest of the gang - the boy can't be older than 15.

There's no time to speculate more as he descends on them, his oversized hands made of rock with bone-tipped spikes and veins of metal running through them. Chameleon Boy is able to dodge the first blow with a POP! as he changes into a cat and leaps free, but he sees the boy's apparently random backswing is about to tag him. A second POP and he's an armadillo, taking the blow on his nine banded armor, bouncing and rolling a few times before POP and he's a humanoid again, nursing his ribs and weighing his options.

[BR: He rolled a 3, and tagged Ree for 8 damage. Ree could roll with 4 of that in is inimitable fashion, took 4 to HP and has 2 HP left. Plact can't move and if Talon Lad is merciless he will likely gut the poor professor in a moment]

1 Chameleon Boy, Rubbermaid , Dragon Maid BR: And the new kids get their inning!

Presumably, Chameleon Boy isn't carrying Dr. Plact if he's shifted shape like that. He'll shift to something heavy that can either rolls at Talon Lad or straight out charge him to get him off his feet and away from Plact. If that something heavy can also be armored, great, but there's only so many tactical variables one can do on the fly mid-combat.

Chamelion Boy starts running and there’s another POP. He is now a a small (for some measure of small) Tundro, an armored, horned beast from from the planet Amzot, and due to the wonders of comic book super powers continues with the momentum he had generated at the smaller size in this 500 lb frame. Talon Lad has just enough time to bring his signature hands up to block his torso, but Ree catches the criminal with his horn under the boys legs (ouch!) even as his crest slams into the veritable wall of earth. The charge continues until Ree can slam the boy into a nearby wall.

[BR Roll is a 2, getting past his Dense Form defense, and doing both HP and movement damage, 6 points. The kid rolled with some of it but he’s blinded, hurt and groggy, lying on the ground, one hand shrunk to normal to clutch at his bruised groin.]

Dragon Maid has at this point talked the driver into turning around, and she jumps out of the gravskim as it zooms past, attempting to catch Black Mace with her breath as she uses it to slow her jump.

The white hot spurt of flame turns what would have been a damaging fall into a softer landing, even as it liquifies the concrete where Black Mace had been standing. The criminal leader started to leap clear when he realized the gravskim had turned, but not fast enough to avoid the spillover heat from Dragon Maid’s flame.

“OK, that was clever,” he admits. “Welcome to the big leagues, kid.”

[Roll is a 7, good enough to hit for her maximum effect of lighting things not inside a living being bio aura on fire, hence the melted concrete. She then rolled 12 on her damage! He rolls with 7 points of it (!), takes 5 and only as 22 (!) HP left.]

"Sorry," Dragon Maid [JK--I'm coming around to this one, even though it's strange] says, "but it's not your club I want to join."

Shaking her head and limbs to clear the odd sensation of Grave Gatling's peculiar bullet, Vikrak hops back to her feet and attempts a sprint and flip over GG to a) build up momentum and b) to bounce off the nearest solid object behind him and rebound squarely into his back (or his front if he turns as she flips over him). "Got to keep moving! Don't want another bullet like that. My insides are like a Wynathian blancmange!"

She's a little shaky but recovers well, her run--jump-flip being something in permanent muscle memory. In seconds she's airborne again and flying right past Grave Gatlin, who smiles as she 'misses' him, taking a moment to ratchet in a new cylinder. He's turning slowly, like he has all the time in the world, only to get clobbered by 120 lbs of dense Esotian flesh. This time she catches him while he's partially braced and is able to reangle her momentum some as he staggers back several steps and then... falls over.

[BR: assumed a dense form attack, roll was an 8 so higher damage. Damage roll was a 12. He could roll with 5, but the KO % roll came up an 06, so he's at least temporarily stunned.]

Before anyone can do anything else, Negative Man appears next to Miss Anima in all of his energized glory (but at least at a normal human height). His eyebeams flash out to the satchel -bomb the businessman may be about to activate, and then past and around Miss Anima through the walls. The teens outside the Institute see beams of light strike Black Mace, and the recumbent forms of Talon Lad and Grave Gatling. All three vanish.

"Your calculation is sufficient," He says to Miss Anima with a smile. "I will not be part of the 47%. I have shifted all the immediate threats to the life support unit of my asteroid lab. It's quite remote, still functioning and lacks a means of egress unless any of these individuals can fly in space."

The Negative Man looks down at the stunned businessman. "I don't think I've ever met you. And you have a chance, right now, to hope I never meet you again."

He looks meaningfully at Jinnjahl, and then walks outside, clearly hoping for her to follow.

Jinnjahl cranes her head at the businessman. "I'll be back. Don't run away. You have not-horrible choices again, don't lose them."

And she sprints after Negative Man. "How much of a guess is fifty-three percent?" she asks curiously. [Facepalm. Do you remember from when I animated you? Where's this asteroid lab? Where are you going? No. She's got to ask if he has insight into the moral makeup of the universe, or if he's just basing that off experience the same way she was.]

He looks at her and grins the lopsided grin she had come to know from Mans Wyla's animation when he was engaged in their project. "It's an educated one."

Once outside the lab Negative Man goes down on one knee next to Dr. Plact "I'd like to thank you for everything. You're a remarkable man, Dr. Plact."

Plact looks at him in amazement, and there's a light in his eyes as he realizes something he's struggling to articulate, but Wyla has already looked back at Jinnjahl. "And I owe you more than I can ever repay. I'm afraid I've left your allies in a state of confusion. I have to rectify that before I start exploring." He turns and looks up. "Spacetime is so big, Jinnjahl. You can't know...."

And with that he's gone.

"No, wait!" Plact says, clearly in pain trying to get the words out audibly.

"He's gone," Jinnjahl says softly. "I wanted to talk to him more, too."

"No... You don't understand..." and at this point Jinnjahl has to crouch down to hear him. "The experiment was to send back mamites that would disperse the energy... in his system... <cough! face whitens in pain> They are still there. Probably still working...He's on a time limit..."

"Got it." She starts reaching through a book of sketches while attempting to call Future Boy on the team communicator. (Negative Man suggested he was going to communicate with her allies, which would include Future Boy, and she can reach Future Boy faster than she can find and animate a sketch; however, the odds are greater that he's within Medic Jerilan's range than that he's with Future Boy right now....)

She quickly reaches Tok on the communicator, only to hear that Mans is already gone.

[BR: Because encounters with cosmic entities always end on ambiguous notes. It's super-heroing 101!]

Before Jinnjahl can get further on other options, Officer Erin sprints onto the scene. "Can someone PLEASE tell me what the Grife is going on?!?"

"Supposition: there was a conspiracy to keep Mans Wyla inactive, which included his guardian. Fact: when Dr. Wyla's animated form became aware that his guardian had ordered the Last Chance Institute to simply keep him suspended animation, performing no experimentation, he sent a message saying he *did*, in fact, want to take risks to not be in a coma. The Institute performed an experiment, which interacted with one of Future Boy's experiments to turn Mans Wyla into a superpowered giant with negative energy. We tranquilized him to give his body time to acclimate to his new form. Some group presumably this conspiracy launched an attack on the Institute -" she looks at the badly hurt Dr. Plact - "which you saw some of, and on the Legion headquarters. We woke Mans Wyla in the middle of the attack, and he moved the attackers he considered dangerous to his asteroid base. Dr. Plact says the experiment was supposed to dissipate the negative energy; what this will do to Mans Wyla / Negative Man is unknown. We did not manage to reach him before he disappeared. It sounded like he wanted to explore. One of the attackers not considered dangerous is hopefully still inside; he said that if he failed to cooperate an unspecified way they would kill not only him but his loved ones. Two attackers who fled are under observation by an animated drone, feed at <communicator address>, which will expire in three minutes. I haven't found out exactly what happened at Legion headquarters, but Future Boy answered his communicator, so it's still around." (I don't think she's found out about the Dominators yet.)

Erin pulls out a stylus and data pad, sighs and says "OK, let's go through that again...."

Page 8, Final Panels: Future Boy

"It", Reginald swallows, "It was Dominators. We were all contacted by their agents. They sabotaged Wyla's work. We were given access to parts of his technology as long as his work wasn't able to continue in any form. So we kept him in stasis. it's not like WE killed him. I, we, we didn't even set the bomb. We didn't even know who was responsible for it until we were too far in. And now it's all over. Everything. Everywhere."

There's a shimmer of indigo light and Negative Man is back. "I'm sorry, Tok. There was a potentially explosive incident at the Institute and I had to intervene before lives were lost." He glances at Reginald "I don't know you either. Am I _that_ bad at face retention?"

"No," Tok says, "he's...a junior partner. Mans..."

"I believe you have the coordinates for my asteroid lab in your files. You'll find our assailants corralled there. I realized after the fact that my actions might have left you with a wrong impression...."

"So...you didn't kill anyone?" Tok is jubillant. "You're...yourself again! That's great! We won! Um. The Dominators are behind this." Tok's phone beeps and he glances down at them for a few seconds. "Hmm. Your problems aren't over yet," he says, looking back up.

"They never are. Goodbye, Tok." And he vanishes before Future Boy can utter a warning.