Seth Vimes2
You sift through the back of your head for something, anything to inspire you. But the Muses aren't forthcoming, and despite yourself, you zone out to the teenager's furiously monotonous rant. Suddenly, you snap out of it and check the clock on the wall. It's
9:00 and you tell him as much, then he panics and the two of you scramble to be on-time for the meeting. You reach
Room 458, knock on it four times fast, three times slow, and two times loud. Ten seconds later, the door swings open to reveal a chubby neckbeard straight out of the history books in military surplus brandishing a sawn-off shotgun. His voice is simultaneously nasally and throaty but it has so much childlike enthusiasm you can't bring yourself to hate it.
"Greetings my friends! You're here for the Local Patrol meeting, I take it? I'm Sergeant Morlock, we don't use our true names here, lest we be discovered by the evildoers whose schemes we thwart and our loved ones are placed into grave danger! Tell me, what should I call you?' This isn't quite what you were expecting, but you're in too deep to go back now.
What's your Call-Sign?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Trump- Can cancel the powers of other supers within a radius of themselves, and temporarily strip a super of their powers with a touch at the cost of their radius.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 512- $300 rent, (3 weeks remaining)
Equipment:
$90 in cash
Street Clothes
16
”Well ya’ got a car, a bike, or something that I can put these eh’ fellow enthusiasts of LGBT rights, as well just driving there much faster, or do I got to walk there with a pair of meta on my hands, well on my barbs. It’ll be annoying to hide them while walking in the alley and avoiding eyesight from the peeps." His skull-mask obscures his smile, but his body language betrays it.
"The peeps? HA! Damn, you're going to be fun to work with, I can tell. There's a beat-up hatchback two blocks that way," he points,
"we shouldn't have much trouble getting them there." When Peter waves a hand toward the vigilantes, the two surviving thugs lift them to their feet and start marching them. Near as you can tell, there's no insignia on their uniforms, but he seems to be the de-facto leader of the group.
“Hmm I guess you know a little about me except being a meta, well first I off I think Nazism is a somewhat okay ideology to follow, but if the meta pair allowed me to speak without a crowbar to the chest, they would of realized I think some form of social democracy is probably the best form of government. Nazism is basically the same thing, it’s still socialism except you replace the democracy part with fascism and dictatorship. I bet you got some propaganda nerds in your gang to convince me otherwise, and it be an entertaining thing to listen too. Note that I really am not eh’ a fan of people who are LGBT, Feminism, and all other forms of radical human rights. Their a bit too uhh wild for me, I prefer the straight and narrow, if ya catch my drift.” The neo-nazi shrugs.
"Fair 'nough. People are always going on about sovereignty this, or, equality that, but the way I see it, if most people are lazy and selfish idiots, it's absurd to let the will of the majority dictate the course of society. Deep inside, we're all violent tribal apes and unless society acknowledges that, it's not going anywhere."“As well I guess you want some ol’ qualification from me, put a good word in the boss and all that, well I was in a gang before my event of being triggered. I was a skilled interrogator for the gang, you know reading up on the psychology books and other things, you could say except the problem is the gang didn’t really like my “sadistic” methods I employed during my work, so they had to let me go. I still could handle myself in a fight, and perform thievery and other things, but that was main role. Though I did do a bit of stand-up comedy as a side to pay my bills.” By now, you've reached the hatchback and both vigilantes are forced to crawl into the trunk at gunpoint. Peter takes a jar filled with what looks like puke-green jello out of his pocket, and slathers it all over the cracks, where it molds with the vehicle and hardens. Noticing your curiosity, he rambles.
"This is some of Sauerkraut's mix, foul shit, but it works like a charm. Sticks like glue, seals like concrete, and air still gets through. If we could mass-produce it, we'd make millions, and if we could find a Tinker who knew his shit, we just might."The two thugs loudly argue over who got their asses kicked first and get into the back seat, while the mini-boss gets in the driver's. He turns to you and says,
"I'm the designated driver, you wanna ride shotgun or..." Your climb into the passenger seat answers his question, and when he starts to drive down the road you start talking.
”Oh and one last thing, I was only trafficked for slave labor, not sensual... labor. Ya’ got that, and you make any mention of it or perform any jokes, I’ll make you sure you don’t walk right in the morning.” He gives a nod of approval.
"Ah, indentured servitude without the free travel or the time limit... That's muuuch better, but seriously though. It's a shitty economic system, the slaves have no incentive to do any more than the least they possibly can, and the master's gotta feed and house 'em outta his own pocket. Wage-slavery's way better on both-sides of the pyramid, they're both shit though, which is why we need an authoritarian socialist state, by the white race, for the white race." "Uh-huh. So, where's this base at again?" "Gimme another forty-or-so minutes and we'll get there sooner or later."Sure enough, in forty-four minutes, wherein the entire hatchback rambles on and on about the virtues of militant fascism while you reminisce on the past, you've reached their base. It looks like a refurbished crack-house on the north-side of
Southside, probably because it
is a refurbished crack-house on the north-side of
Southside. There's nine or ten tattooed skinheads milling around outside, and maybe twice as many regular-looking white guys in black clothes and identity-concealing skull-masks. They all stop talking to stare when the hatchback rolls into the drive-way, and break out into cheers and roman salutes when a thug takes a lighter to the green goo, melts it, and pops open the trunk to reveal the terrified duo.
By the time you get out of the car a small crowd's formed to jeer and spit on the couple, but when a woman shouts, they disperse without complaint. A pair of people that could only be Metas are standing near the rear of the vehicle. One is eight feet tall, nearly as broad as the car you came in, and wields half a dozen rebars welded together to hold a fifty-pound chunk of steel crudely bent into the shape of a hammer. He might've once been a man, but something's changed him. Ironically enough, his already muscular body is made of ruddy brown stone and must weigh at least two-thousand pounds, and seeing he's strong enough to move normally, he must have strength to spare. The other is much less obvious, a thin and nondescript woman in a green ski-mask, khakis, and a jean jacket. There's no clear tell, but something about the way they move belies incredible danger. She motions for you to leave the vehicle and not wanting to get into a fight outnumbered thirty-to-one, you comply. Once you're out, she speaks in a cutting, clipped tone.
"Greetings, mein bruder. I am Sauerkraut, the behemoth statue is Heavyweight. Peter tells us you are a Meta, and defeated Body Swap and Six-Flick single-handedly, helping us to capture them. You've done well for the Fifth Reich, and I cannot express my gratitude, but I can offer an award and an opportunity for employment. The bounty for either of their heads was $500, and you've brought them both, so you'll be getting $1,000. In one week's time, we'll be robbing a bank and staging an ambush on Volton's Crew, and should you wish to assist, you'll be receiving a fifth of the captured funds, more, should you manage to neutralize Volton or one of his cronies. What do you say?"Do you want to take their blood-money and go, or do you want to take it and agree to assist? Or are you having second thoughts and want to spring a rescue on the vigilante duo? Or maybe you want to attack either of the Metas for whatever reason?
What do you want to say and do?Status:
Lightly bruised chest
Traits:
Changer- Can shift arms and legs into obsidian-black, bladed, strong, and precise tentacles with half a minute's effort.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 636- $300 rent every month, (3 weeks remaining)
Equipment:
$816 in cash
Edgy Costume, worn over Street Clothes
Black Backpack, containing:
- A slightly rusty sewing kit
Richard's right, with your superpowered tongue you're a danger to everyone around you. But, maybe that isn't such a bad thing. Think of all the good you could do as an intermediary, or in a hostage situation! Law enforcement, that's what you'll do!
13
Half an hour of skimming through websites on your phone, you find that a nearby police station desperately needs a new secretary because the previous one walked out to pursue a full-time career in
interpreting the law as a lawyer. It sounds like boring work, but the pay seems stable, and it's a foot in the door. With your power, snagging a promotion or reassignment would be child's play, but is that really something you want to do? You could always work honestly, but that'd be hours of mind-numbingly boring number crunching and paper-shredding for a step above minimum wage, or you could always go ahead and join the MRI, they're open to anyone with superpowers, and seeing that they're essentially a celebrity police force, you might be able to do some good there.
What do you want to do?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Master- Can command others with their voice, but only so long as they don't realize they're being influenced.
Residence:
N/A
Equipment:
$430 in cash
Street Clothes
Cheap smart phone
18
The aging gangster runs his fingers through what's left of his hair and sighs.
"When you Triggered they were workin' on you with knives, so the pain must've been unimaginable, but you said they broke somethin' inside and made you stronger, right?" You feel the faint outline of a scar on your forearm, and after a brief shudder, nod.
"Humph. Then your pain's somehow related to your power, and your strength's been fadin' more and more the longer it's been since the torture, right?" You nod again, worried about where he's headed with this.
"Huh, I think I gotta handle on it lil' girl. I got a hunch that, the more pain you're in, the stronger and tougher you get, kinda like the hulk from the ol' comics, 'cept with agony 'stead of anger. Whadya think lil' girl? Am I scorching hot, or cold as snow? We could always test the theory, but only's long as you're on-board."What do you say?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Brute- Their strength and durability scales with the pain they're suffering.
Residence:
N/A
Equipment:
$600 in cash
9mm Pistol, (13 rounds)
Street Clothes
Oh shit. You're about to help a super-vigilante take-down a super-villain, using your trash-to-treasure Tinker-tech. Oh shit, you can't believe it. It feels like a dream, but damn, you don't want to wake up. Using your
Meta Listings account, you attempt to contact
Ironclad and acquire further information on
Fracture's capabilities.
4
You manage to reach
Ironclad, and the two of you exchange text-based chitchat for two hours before you ask about the job. Your heart sinks through the floor when he tells you he knows next-to-nothing about
Fracture besides what's already common knowledge. That is, he can turn into a shifting cloud of euclidean geometry and back, and while in shape-form, he can conjure and control impossibly sharp and sturdy hard-light structures, but is limited to a few at a time, and can only make thick two-dimensional shapes. That's not much to work on, but it's something. From the text, you get the impression
Irconclad's heart is in the right place, but he's far too trusting, and either he's confronting brilliant masterminds on a daily basis, or he's only a step past stupid himself.
What do you want to do?Status:
Healthy
Traits:
Tinker- Can build futuristic technology, specializing in Information Acquisition and Adaption.
Residence:
Green Rose Tenements, Room 485- $300 rent every month, (3 weeks remaining)
Supplies:
Half-charged car battery
8 units of electronic scrap
19 units of metal scrap
Equipment:
$360 in cash
The Third Eye
Intact antique tool-box
Street Clothes
You'd never hurt Amie but as long as you look like a monster he'll think you are! Fast as they can move, your hands are tearing off the scrap armor quicker than it can weld back, and your eyes are welling full of tears.
18-2=16
Recognizing the sound of your voice, Amie crawls out of his fetal position and scrambles to his feet.
"H-holy shit, J-Jackie, is that you?" You nod like a demented bobble-head and he reaches to grab your shoulder.
"OK Lewis, listen to me, you gotta calm down, and you gotta take deep breaths, OK? Are you hurt? There any gut shankin' or bone breakin' I need to hear about or are you A-OK? Now, uh, t-tell me, whaddafuckhappentoyouholyshit!?!"What do you say?Status:
Black eye
Bloody Nose
Lightly bruised left shoulder
Heavily bruised stomach
Traits:
Striker- Can form nearby inanimate objects into weapons and armor.
Changer- Can harmlessly incorporate inanimate objects into their body.
Brute- Can unleash an energy blast that devastates inorganic matter but only concusses organic matter.
Brute- Can release an energy aura that rapidly corrodes inorganic matter they're not currently using.
Residence:
Amie's Place- No rent
Equipment:
X-Acto Arm Blade
Partial Scrap Armor, worn over Street Clothes
Author
Topic: Near-Future Street Level Super (6/6) IC Thread (Read 2194 times)