[IC] Justice League: Men and Champions

[lord pringle]

It's another day in Ward Park, in Gotham city. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands walk through, locals using it as a shortcut and tourists actually looking around. People cross through hedge arches and past hundreds of years old trees without caring. A man smokes a cigarette by a tree that was used to hang people in the 1800s, without even knowing.

A man in a suit talks on his phone. "The experiment is ready," he says grimly. The person on the other end gives a signal and the man hangs up. He pushes a button on his phone and hangs back.

A woman is holding her daughter's hand in a crowd in the park. They are waiting for a free production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The woman's skin begins itching tremendously and she looks at her daughter worriedly. Her stomach hurts and she drops her daughter's hand. She takes a step back, expecting to be sick, when lightning bursts forth from her hands into the crowd. She tries to scream, but lightning shoots out of her mouth. The man in the suit smiles.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The triplets were sitting at their favorite pizza place, a quaint little restaurant whose patio overlooked the nearby park. They had just placed their orders, and were discussing their current cases, trying to get the second half of their day organized and tasks divvied up.

"-just get all the paperwork done back at home tonight. If we all work on it it'll be done in no time," Amy was saying.

"Yeah. If we all work on it," Caleb said in teasing tones, eyeing Nadia.

"Just so long as it's done by nine," Nadia returned.

"Fair enough. One of you want to take the Carmichaels' visit? I'm thinking to drop in on the Andersons."

"Didn't you do that just three days ago?"

"Any truly random event should occasionally happen multiple times in anomalously quick succession."

"Not sure 'random' is the word I'd use in this case."

"I'll cover Melissa's visit."

"Cool. And then we need to figure out-"

KZZZAP!

The triplets shot from their seats fast as, well, lightning, when the blasts began. Amy's eyes were wide with concern, Nadia standing on her tiptoes to try and get a look at what was going on. Caleb's hand was already aglow with the silver light of his defensive magic.

"What in the world...?" Caleb murmured, eyes narrow.

"C-come on! People could be hurt!" Amy returned, taking to the air.

As her siblings followed her into the sky and towards the disturbance, Nadia confidently added, "Double points if we handle whatever it is and get back before our pizza arrives!"

[AirApparent]

A young man with a camera about his neck is in the park on his phone with somebody.

"Mr. Jameson, I...
*No, Parker. It seems that you were right about the Batman moving to Gotham. Since you've gotten there, there's been numerous sightings of the man. I want you on him like white on rice. We're going to bring down this guy, and it'll be your pictures that do it.*

Peter sighed. "Alright. Mr. Jameson, I'll..."
ZZZZZZZZZZZZAP

Peter's head spun to the source of the lightning. "...have to call you back. Gotta go." Peter hangs up on his boss, putting his phone on silent in the process. He ducks into a bathroom, thankfully empty, and starts a high pitched hum. The resonance with his suit causes it to crawl up and around his body, turning the unassuming Peter Parker into the Batman.

Back outside a winged figure leaps from the roof of the building and soars towards the woman shooting the lightning. Jameson's gonna kill me for not getting pics of this one.

[Galenti]

Robin was lounging on a bench in the park, enjoying the weather and trying to ignore the buzzing of a fly near his ear.

Well, it's not Themyscira, that's for sure.
I'm pretty sure comparing Gotham with an enchanted island was never gonna end well, was it?
Ok fair point, why did I choose this city again?
Because I needed a mentor, obviously.
And now I need a job. Can't really imagining going to Bruce with that.
What skills do I even have?
Talking to myself apparently...

ZZZZZAAAAAPPPPP!

The blast of lightning tore Robin from his musings and he leaped up, drawing a foot-long stave from inside his jacket as he bounded towards the noise with a big grin on his face

Time to test out these powers for real!

[Beige]

Wow, was he beat; He'd gotten the hang of fighting criminals, the hang of pulling a triple-shift most days, so why was it that a simple board meeting that left him drained and exhausted?

say what you will about park benches - and since this was Gotham Bruce could say a lot about them, not much of it good - but damn if they weren't a nice place to catch your breath and enjoy the sun. Ward Park was in the nice part of Gotham, one of the few safe places, and hopefully it was only going to get better, if the renovation plans went ahead. He'd seen a few flyers for an am-dram performance today, perhaps he'd use his little bit of time off to take in the sights.

He heard his phone buzzing away, the civilian number; He supposed he had ducked out of the board meeting early, but he'd trust Lucius with anything, and he was confident the man could wrap up the deal in a way that benefited everyone involved. That, and Bruce had felt the seconds of his life ticking away whenever the representative from lexcorp was talking. Probably just finalizing the details or something. He'd sort it out in a little while, after he was done rela...

Then he heard the screams, the slight smell of ozone, the low-level buzz of being near a power-plant. Looks like he was needed for his real job.

"Never a dull moment" Bruce said with a half-smirk, half-grimace, unbuttoning the suit jacket and laying it over the back of the bench, then fishing out his phone "Gotham Knight, moving out. Alfred, is my suit pressed and ready to go?"

---

A few minutes later, an armored figure flew through the skies of Ward Park, leaving a trail of blue light behind him from the two large thrusters build into the suit, each attached to half of the cape. The armor is a dark, nearly black, silver and blue, styled as a combination of modern military gear and a medieval knights armor, a nod to the monastery where he trained and found his purpose. Bruce's face is concealed behind a sculpted helmet, a wide visor glowing with yellow light spread across his face, the inbuilt scanners providing a mass of information as he returned, and an insignia of a dragon, wings spread, is set into a yellow circle on his armored chest.

Following the flashes of light, he sets down quickly, keeping his Kinetic Blade sheathed and hoping for a peaceful solution; Damn, right near the pavilion, he guessed the play was out of the question

Rolling Perception: [roll0] to take in anything/everything

[OrganicEvil]

In the small, blocked-off backstage area, Deadpool looked up. "Did you just hear that?" she asked the man whose costume she was in the process of stealing.

"Mmmmph!" The poor actor's words were muffled by the strip of duct tape over his mouth. Deadpool frowned.

"You've got something there. Like, on your face," Deadpool said, pointing. "Seriously, though. I just heard something. Like, a ZZZZZZZZZZZZAP, you know? No, wait, more like a ZZZZZZZZZZZZAP. Yeah, like that." She sighed. "I've got to go; I think the game's starting. So much for my acting career, I guess." She bent down to pat the trussed up thespian- "You had to use that word?" Deadpool giggled at her extremely immature reaction to the use of a perfectly fine word for one of the acting profession. "Dude... Head-voice man, give up. That word is ruined. It's dead." Okay, okay, fine. Whatever. So anyway, the annoying backseat driver bent down to pat the hog-tied actor on the face. "If we shadows have offended, all that crap," she said. "Later, dude." And then she just left him there, tied up, on the ground, in his boxer shorts, like she's some kind of jackass or something. I cannot believe this woman.

Outside, she noticed that she wasn't the only hero--using the term in, you know, a loose sense. Very loose, actually, and not much sense at all come to that, but still--who had responded to the spectacle of the lightning-vomiting Shakespeare mom. Specifically, there was By-Your-Powers-Combined, Supertwink, Batman, and Other Batman. The 'Pool wasn't sure how she felt about that third one. She knew thing she didn't know. It made her head all gummy. She didn't like remembering that. She covered with a smile, which was in turn covered by a cool mask, for that super-secure double coverage feeling. "Oh my god," she said to the Bat as he landed. "I'm not, like, prepared for this. I don't know what I should be singing. I mean, do I go with the 'does whatever a whatever can' one, or the one with all the 'na's? It's too much! I am only a simple girl, with simple song choosage capacities!"

[AirApparent]

Streaking through the sky, Batman sees the woman shooting lightning and nearly hitting innocent bystanders. One such bystander standing dangerously close appeared to be the woman's daughter.
Batman flies through the crowd yelling as loud as he can, "EVERYBODY BACK!" He weaves just above the crowd and scoops the daughter up in his arm. depositing her in a playground a few hundred feet away. He crouches down next to her and says "I need you to stay here, ok? I'll come back to get you as soon as your mommy is, uh, better, ok?" He finds a trustworthy looking parent, and says, Please look after this girl. Her mom is in trouble and I don't want anything to happen to her. I'll be back as soon as I can."

[Galenti]

Robin saw that he wasn't the only one who had responded to the commotion: a man with bat-like wings had already ferried a girl to safety, and Robin's own mentor the Gotham Knight was sailing into view in his jet-propelled suit of armour.

A quick assessment of the situation showed him that the woman vomiting lightning was still the biggest threat: gotta neutralise her first then!

In one motion he ripped off his shirt to reveal the bright red and green colours that he had adopted under Bruce's tutelage (much to the billionaire's chagrin) and leapt into the air. A golden whip-like weapon appeared in his right hand whilst the stave he had been carrying expanded to become a quarterstaff. He then sent the tip of his golden whip snaking out towards the woman and it wrapped itself around her almost of it's own accord.

Lasso of Truth: [roll0] Ranged Affliction vs Will DC 27 Impaired > Disabled > Incapacitated

[Quellian-dyrae]

The triplets arrived to see other heroes already on scene. That was good. And a woman breathing lightning apparently at random. That was bad.

People needed healing. But, let's be honest, they needed the lightning breathing woman neutralized more. Amy and Nadia flew in, coming at the woman from opposite sides, their hands and eyes shining with soft pink and sky blue light respectively as they reached out towards her. On a touch, she would be assailed by overwhelming feelings of Hope and Love, degrading her ability to defend herself or resist the efforts of the other heroes.

Caleb hovered a few feet back. Silver light poured from his hands, but at Amy rather than the woman. The power of Faith would not only bolster his sister's conviction, but augment her power, hopefully allowing her magic to entirely pacify the woman without further harm.

Free Action: Use Triplecast to create a Divine Magic alternate, using Castigate as a base. Remove one dose of Extra Condition and remove Limited Degree. Final power is Affliction 12 (Will; Vulnerable+Impaired/Defenseless+Disabled/Incapacitated; Cumulative, Extra Condition).

Move Action: Move. Amy and Nadia to within Close range of the lightning woman. Caleb to about ten feet away.

Standard Action: Attack with modified Castigate at [roll0]. On a hit, Will DC 22 vs. Vulnerable+Impaired/Defenseless+Disabled/Incapacitated Affliction. This attack is Cumulative, so I believe the Impaired/Disabled/Incapacitated portion should stack degrees with Robin's Lasso of Truth. Although I could be wrong here; the Cumulative Extra is written in such a way that it only really addresses being hit with the same attack; the way it's written, I think it could be argued equally validly that it stacks with other Afflictions with the same conditions, that it stacks with any other Cumulative Afflictions (regardless of conditions) but not with non-Cumulative, that it stacks only with other Cumulative Afflictions that impose the same conditions, or that it only stacks with itself. I tend to play it the first way, but it's definitely a GM call.

[OrganicEvil]

"Hmmph," Deadpool frowned. She'd drawn a pair of pistols, of course, and never mind how utterly stupid and impractical dual-wielding guns was. From a mechanical perspective, there wasn't really any reason she couldn't shoot the lightning lady nonlethally--rubber bullets and all that--but at the same time... ****, her kid was there. Deadpool didn't have many rules, or even guidelines for that matter, but shooting people's mommies right in front of them was a no-no, even if you were careful about it. Besides, it looked like the heroes had that whole mess under control.

Deadpool walked over to where Batsy had deposited the woman's kid and, as an afterthought, holstered her guns; she didn't want to send the wrong message, after all. "Hiya kiddo," she said. "I'm sure that your mom will be all better in a second. While the superheroes help her, can you tell me if you saw anything weird at all, anything that might, um, make her shoot lightning everywhere?"

Deadpool has morals! Barely. But still!
Persuasion: [roll0]

[Beige]

Arriving on the scene, Gotham Knight took a moment to assess the situation, bringing up the targeting functions on his visor


One Hostile: Woman. actions seem unfocused and sporradic. Likely powers have recently activated and are uncontrolled, or is being influenced by outside sources. running a scan to confirm any prior criminal activity or
Civilians: being evacuated already by other swift response. Somebody also needs to neutralize the threat. Will leave civilians to the others.
Other heroes: Man in bat costume, the triplets and the woman in the red and black attire unknown. Robin is back in Gotham it seems. Should be able to handle situation



"Madam, Please try to relax and keep calm. No-one has been injured, just try to control the surges before someone is inured, and we can work to sort this out."

well informed to make an info roll for the woman and other heroes. just because :smalltongue:

[roll0]