PROGENITOR: WORM (A Wormquest AU)

1970: Black
You frowned at the three Soviets, then sighed. "Well, if it's important, we should go quick, right?"

Lisa owned an entire media company. She could deal with the press.

Globetrotter inclined her head - and then red light flared out, and swept you away...


***
"Okay," you say, slowly, looking up and down and up and down again. "I can see why you needed help."

You, Rachel, Theo and the three Reds were all standing in a mountainous region that looked like it had once been a boarder between one country and another - you could see thanks to the boarder checkpoint and the highway that wound in and out of the passes. The only problem is the highway has been cut, completely in half, at the exact point on the map where you're sure the boarder is drawn...because someone has created a titanic black forcefield of irregular size that sweeps along the entire horizon. The outer edge follows the boarder precisely - meaning that it curves jaggedly along mountains, cuts along a river rather than across it, and then sweeps along a plain - but the upper edge of the field becomes more and more regular - more and more like a dome, until it finishes, almost as high up as Olympus Mons.

"It appeared here twenty four hours ago, no warning," Globetrotter said, quietly.

"Uh, question, Comrade..." Theo said. "The fuck is that?"

"Our backup, obviously," the old granny says, cheerfully.

The backup in question was barely visible from this distance. Theo had better eyes than you. Rachel whistled, quietly, shading her forehead with her hand as you stepped forward, some tiny pebbles sliding away under your feet.

The horizon has been crested by an army.

An army of houses.

An army of houses on chicken legs.

They're not cottages - er, at least, not all cottages. The majority of them looked more like garages where armored vehicles would be parked, with four stubby legs mounted on each of their corners, running in unison, churning up the flat plains that lead towards Russia. The cottages were interspsersed among them and the sound of their thundering feet began to reach you. In a shockingly short time, the cottages and the garages had reached a staging ground before the black dome and hunched down. The doors burst open and Soviet troops began to storm out of them. Each cottage had held an infantry squad - machine guns and rifles in their hands - while the garages opened and out came the tanks, their engines bursting with steam and smoke as a few of them trundled out of their garages before they had even fully lowered to the ground.

In less than ten minutes, a small city had sprung up along the boarder and vomited out the whole damn Red Army!

"Neat trick," Rachel says as you look at the old granny.

"And your name is..."

"Baba Yaga, of course," she says, her voice a creaky croak.

"Of course," you say, frowning. "So, you just mobilized your entire freaking army?"

Globetrotter looked confused. "Why would we not? This is a clear threat to our national sovereignty."

"You know the United States has satelites, right? They're going to see you mobilizing - shit, they're going to see THAT!" You thrust your palm at the legged cottages. "You know how much that is going to..." You shake your head. "You know what, nevermind, not important right now. What do we know about this big old orby thing?"

"It appeared at approximately 2400 hours on the 2nd - within a minute, it had entirely enclosed the Socialist Republic of Moldovia," Globetrotter said. "We have attempted to breach it, but my teleporting abilities...don't...go through." She frowned. "We have attempted limited forms of attack against it..." She nodded to the blond fellow. "Comrade-Lieutenant Mendeleev created detonations upon it, but none penetrated."

You nodded.

"And we did not wish to go to nuclear scale attacks, not without other options, as these are our citizens. Further...the open air test ban..." She trailed off. "Treaties." She waved her hand, faintly.

Rachel frowned slightly. "We might want to get Andy and Beta for this. Or Yiggy."

"That is the other thing," Globetrotter said. "Any thing flying overhead has been attacked."

"Oh great," you say.

"We have lost several planes," Globetrotter said, her voice grim.

You rub your palm along your chin, looking at the field of energy, your brows knitting - but the damn thing wasn't just...a wall. It was somehow...slippery, as if it was trying to hide its precise construction from your own perceptions. Your brow furrowed harder and you glared at it. Oh, okay, someone was definitely playing silly buggers. But you didn't need specific details like how it had been made or what it was constructed out of to know two very obvious facts.

This was a high tier threat.

"Has...have there been any demands?" Theo asks.

"No, there-"

A booming voice echoed from the wall of the dome - literally, the dome trembled and jounced, as if it was quivering...and thus, creating the voice, speaking out in an echoing rumble like the roar of a dark god. You had been studying Russian and Vietnamese over the past year - under Andy's tutelage, it hadn't even been that difficult. You just had had no idea that your first real world application of Russian wouldn't be, like, buying some apples or something from a Russian grocery store or something.

No.

It was understanding this.

"TREMBLE, MORTALS! KNOW ANY THAT ATTACK MY KINGDOM SHALL SUFFER ETERNALLY FOR THEIR TEMERITY, FOR I AM TCHERNOBOG, DARK GOD OF THESE LANDS, AND I SHALL BROOK NO INTERFERENCE."

You pursed your lips as the booming Russian continued to echo off the mountains.

Globetrotter gaped. Even Baba Yaga looked as if she had been faintly thrown off her game - before she began to burst out cackling.

"The cheek on this one! The absolute cheek!"

"Well, that does clear some things up," you say, quietly.

---
What is your initial plan?
[ ] Get the rest of the Nine here and try and blast a hole through with your physics fuckery. Or, heck, just throw a mountain at it.
[ ] Try something more subtle? Tori and Lisa working together as a sneaking in
[ ] Deescalate. Get the Red Army to back the fuck off and try talking to this...Tchernobog.
[ ] Write In
 
1970: Quiet as the Grave
The Red Army moved back, grudgingly, as you and Rachel watched from a small hill that led up to the mountain range that you'd arrived on. You huffed. "Took them long enough."

Rachel snorted, quietly. "You're complaining that it took, what, a few hours to convince an entire army of the Soviet Union to move back and away while some American metas deal with a problem without them getting to oversee it all?" she asks, her voice soft as you watched the tanks grumble and the chicken legs get back under the feet of buildings - which rose from the ground trailing bits of earth and stone as they shook themselves clean and began to back away - but you notice that they moved back a lot more grudgingly than they moved forward.

The Stonewall Nine were deployed around the former nation of Moldovia. Currently, Tori, Brian and Lisa were parked up in the hills, rendered invisible thanks to Tori's skill, while Sabah and Theo were both moving back with the army - Sabah had brought along a lot of healer and helper muppets, who were bright flashes of color among the dun colored uniforms and dark painted tanks. You sighed and shouldered Rachel. "Go on, you're supposed to be helping them," you say, softly.

Rachel frowns. "Okay," she says, then leans in close and kisses your cheek. Then she pauses, then she grabs your cape, then yanks you forward with it. Your hat crumples against her forehead as she leans in and she kisses you, fierce and warm. She jolts you with a tiny spurt of healing energy, before she draws back, then hops onto Yordle's paw, and Yorlde tosses her up and takes to the air. You sigh softly, as Yordle flies your girlfriend away, then turn back to face the rest of the meet and greet team. Andy is wearing his Time Thief Costume, and Marsha has her powers formatted to her defensive ability - you can tell thanks to the thin skein of bark she has formed around herself. She smiles, gently.

"You know, you two are really cute together," she says, her voice playful, as you snort, then start to walk towards the shimmering black dome.

"Thanks," you say. "Lets hope Tchernobog or...Chernobog or however you say it is willing to talk before they bust out that artillery."

You glance back. You're not sure the Red Army has actually pulled out of the range of their terrifying looking rocket truck things. You'd counted the number of missiles on them and they freaked you out - mostly because you could calculate out the amounts of force they could drop into which area, at what speed. It was a higher amount of force and a smaller amount of area at a greater speed than you were comfortable with, considering it'd be aimed near you.

The black dome loomed before you as you came to the agreed upon greeting point - about twenty meters away from the dome, close enough you could shout at it without being too hard to hear, far enough away to not seem entirely threatening, and not so close that it could easily grab you. This was, of course, assuming that it could move. Or that it couldn't move more than a few yards. There was an indication that power radii scaled on a quasi-exponential level, so that as it got bigger it got bigger faster, but no one had really pushed their powers that hard, that far.

...yet.

"So, uh, Marsha, you wanna do the honors?" Andy asked.

Marsha gulped. "Right," she says, rolling her shoulders, then stepped up to the dome. "Greetings, Tchernobog...I am Gaia, a member of the Stonewall Nine, an international metahuman emergency response organization - we've been asked to mediate any differences you have between the USSR and yourself in a way that prevents any loss of life or international conflict. Are you willing to allow for our mediation?"

There was a long pause.

The long pause stretched on. You fidgeted, then kicked at the thick clumps of grass that blew, gently, in the wind.

"Can he even hear us?" Marsha whispered, turning to face you and Andy.

"Well, uh, the dome vibrated to produce a voice - there's no reason it can't pick up vibrations too...but...also, no reason why it has too," he admitted. "Tchernobog didn't exactly need fine grained attentiveness or crazy go-stupid perception to respond to the Red Army showing up." He frowned a bit, rubbing his palm along his cheek.

Marsha put her hands on her hips. "Then we wait," she said.

"Ugh, I hate waiting," you say, frowning at the dome. "I had things I wanted to fucking do today, Tchernobog!"

---
What do you do?
[ ] Wait. If no response, then...
-[ ] For how long?
-[ ] Then we...(write in!)
[ ] Fuck this. There's almost a million people in there. Use your physics fuckery to open a hole inside and go in.
[ ] Write In
 
1970: The Cloud
"Okay, we give em five minutes," you say, nodding as you cross your arms over your chest. "Then we-"

The ground rumbled. Your arms spread and you frowned, while plants grew up around Marsha, propping her up. Next to you, Andy grabs onto your arm and holds onto you to keep himself from faceplanting. Your worries that this is an attack are broken up by your certainty that it's an attack...once the cries of alarm start reaching you.

"Shit!" you hiss, snapping your head around as you see that the Red Army hasn't drawn back enough for someone's tastes. Massive stones of grayish rock are shoving up and out of the ground - talon like, they shove entire tanks over, push into the bellies of the walking houses, though most of the tinier ones are able to dart nimbly aside, their legs thumping into the ground as they do so. You can see, distantly, Rachel and her dogs soaring overhead, while the com crackles and you hear Sabah's voice.

"Guys, what the hell is this!?" She coughed and you can see that the rock is crumbling and powdering, filling the air with dust.

Andy has cupped his hand over his eyes, narrowing them. "Can you get a spectrograph on that?" He asks, but you've already run the scan...

Your blood runs cold.

"Shit, shit, shit! It's fucking polonium, metric fucking tons of deliberately fucking powdered polonium!"

"What does that mean!?" Marsha exclaims.

"It means..." Andy freezes - and one of the big problems with being so smart, he can do the math really fast. You did the same - but you had some advantages. Your math was just the physics and some minor overlap in biology. Andy had the biology, sciology, psychology, enough to make it all a series of gut punches.

The math was that ten nanograms of inhaled polonium dust was lethal.

And someone had just released what had to be a hundred tons of the stuff into an expanding cloud of death - which has already swept around two of your friends. In a few minutes - hell, maybe a few seconds considering the amount of the shit they'd have inhaled by now - they'd be vomiting up their internal organs.

---
What do you do? Everyone in the cloud is taking 2k to the head per round. At 4k, they die, but your friends have willpower that can help them cling to life for a while...
[ ] Write In
 
1970: Mr. Invisible Dickhead and his Buddies
"Oh you assholes!" You snarl as, behind you...a bunch of stuff happens at once.

The first thing is the orb ripples and things start to come out of it. There are dozens of them - low, fast, many limbed creatures if shimmering darkness, with bladelike limbs and glaring eyes. They're fast and they're mean. But intermixed among them are several human figures - dressed in flamboyant costumes and crackling with dark energy. The first one is a man made of pure obsidian with a glowing crown of lava around his head, dripping bits of magma behind him. He's dressed in pale white, with a flowing cape and holds a scepter in his hands. The second one looks like a scrawny, kinda weasly looking man dressed in an artfully tattered Soviet Army, splattered with blood that looks too bright red to be real. He's got circles under his eyes and looks pissed. The next is a girl, quite chubby with a cherubic face and long blond hair, her face a smear of freckles. She's completely surrounded by glittering globes of pale white light that seem to be holding her about a foot off the ground as she floats forward. She's dressed the most reasonably of the group - warm clothes for a cold country, with a furry hat.

The last guy is hard to see because he's surrounded by bones. Just a swirling mass of bones, which then draw back, revealing that he's a terrified looking teenager, youngish, maybe younger than you, but grimly determined despite that. He's wearing a black shirt and black jeans (dyed, you think) and his bones clack and rattle as they format themselves into a bunch of fists.

The second thing is Lisa announces herself.

The crack of the bullet and the scared teenager's leg exploding off his body comes at almost the same time. The bullet rips through his knee and fills the air under him with blood. He screams and drops. The other bullet slams into the Red Army guy's knee too - Lisa literally kneecapping the opposition. But you see that the Red Army guy, for all that he looks like a scrawny weasel, is tough as hell - the bullet actually ricohcettes off him. Of course, a ricocheting fifty cal (Jesus, Lisa!) is still a fucking fifty cal (again, JESUS, Lisa!) and his knee pops out of the joint and he drops too, also screaming in shock.

"Jesus, Lisa!" escapes your lips, despite yourself.

The guy with the magma crown snarled and sprang forward as Andy lifted his hands, as if he was about to explain. The scepter smashed into Andy's face. Blood and teeth misted the air around him and Andy dropped to the ground before you even knew what happened - while blood splattered Red Army guy glared at you from where he lay next to his gasping friend - who was clutching at his leg, his face white with shock.

"Sunt un tun," he said.

You didn't know what it meant.

But then you heard the BANG.

You snapped your head to the side - but something cracked against your temple, jarring your head to the side, filling your vision with white. Your hand clapped to your skull and you clutched your temple as blood poured through your fingers - lots and lots and lots of blood. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck. You stumbled - and barely noticed as the horrifying monsters that had seemed so threatening started to get grabbed out of the air. The world behind you was exploding - you had no idea why, but the ground was erupting with fire like an artillery barrage was landing between you and the Red Army. If they were trying to stop any help from coming to you, they hadn't counted on Theo, because through the haze of pain, you could see Theo's arms shimmering to life. Dust swirled, became fists, and those fists grabbed onto the critters and began to pummel them.

Next to you, Marsha threw up her arms - and grass exploded upwards, webbing upwards as the chubby girl thrust out with both of her hands, shouting: "Scuze pentru asta!"

A beam of searing white light slammed into the grass, which burst into flames - but did not wilt. Marsha was okay!

You saw that the guy who had shot you was being smashed around by Theo's arms, his own arms lifting up - but his toughened body took the blows with ease, while the legless guy got another fist to the head - Theo either couldn't see or didn't care that he didn't have a leg currently. Of course, since one of those boney hand was reaching towards you before the near miss distracted him, maybe Theo had a fucking point. You stumbled and heard, screaming over your coms.

"LILY! CATCH!"

It was Tori!

You turned and, through the smoke and flames, an orb flying at you.

You caught it from the air and realized...yes! Tori had collected the polonium dust and compacted it into a big chunk for you. You focused through the pain and gritted your teeth and broke down the barriers on radioactive decay. The polonium heated against your palms, so you enfolded it in a field of blackness, letting the polonium radioactively decay in safety. The blackness snapped away and you were holding a fifty ton hunk of lead in your hands, smoothed into a fine orb by Tori's powers - and you thanked god she hadn't turned it invisible.

You flicked your glance around - and saw Rex and Bart were sweeping inwards, while the scepter wielding motherfucker was glaring at you - clearly planning to clobber you next. The bone-boy was looking like he was going to work more on the gushing leg wound he had than focus on you, and the chubby girl was going to keep trying to blast Marsha - all this flashed through your awareness in a second.

---
The Dark One is going to attack you. Manifold is going to keep up her shooting on Marsha! Undead Fist is formatting his power to healing and healing, while Gunhead declares after you, so you don't know what he's up too!
[ ] What do you do?

CURRENT STATUS
Health: Ow ow ow ow (3K to the head)
Willpower: 33


Combat sitch! Bad guy names are assumed to be translated from Romanian

DECLARES: The Beasts, Red Army (treated as a minion mob with 5 parts - infantry, infantry, infantry, armored, armored), the Muppets, the Dogs (Yordle, Rex and Bart) Statuestorm, Dark One, Manifold, Tori, Shade, Sabah, Rachel, Undead Fist, Theo, Andy, Brian, Marsha, Lily, Gun Head, Lisa

ROUND ONE, DECLARES

The Beasts are gonna come out swinging at Marsha, Theo and Lily
The Red Army is going to try and effect NBC emergency protocols
The Muppets are waiting for orders
Statuestorm is going to start turning chunks of landscape ahead of the Beasts into explosions to disrupt any attacks (using his defense to block incoming attacks)
Dark One is going to clobber Andy
Manifold is going to clobber Marsha
Tori is going to freeze the radioactive dust with her mind and hold it in place so no one inhales
Shade is going to turn invisible and creep out
Sabah is going to direct her healing Muppets to heal anyone who loosk in a bad way
Rachel is going to order Yordle to drop her by the Red army, while Rex and Bart go after the Dark One and Manifold)
Undead Fist is going to clobber Lily
Theo is going punch every single one of the visible motherfuckers with his arm field
Andy is going to duck AND take cover
Brian is going to Grue Cloud the nearest badguy (Statuestorm)
Marsha is going to throw up a defense on herself
Lily is going to stick with her plan to shunt radioactive dust and hope that she's getting enough cover
Gunhead is going to shoot Lily (with his gunhead)
Lisa is going to shoot Gunhead and Undead Fist in the kneecaps with her sniper rifle from cover
The GM's declare is to ask why the fuck he let you guys make NINE superheroes???

ROUND ONE, ROLLS!
The Beasts: 2x3, 2x3, 2x2
The Red Army: 3x6, 2x10, 2x2
The Muppets: No roll
Statuestorm: 2x10, 2x9, 2x2
Dark One: 6x10
Manifold: 3x10
Tori: 3x4
Shade: 10x10
Sabah: 2x1
Rachel: 2x9
Undead Fist: 4x7 (effectively 2x7)
Theo: 4x5, 2x10, 2x7, 2x6,
Andy: 2x10
Brian: 1x10 (effectively)
Marsha: 2x10 (+1 width for initiative)
Lily: 3x10 to format, 2x10 to impact
Gunhead: 5x10 (4x10)
Lisa: Gets +1d for sneak attacking, -1d to get +1 width for initiative purposes. 5x1 and 5x1 (going on tick 6 for initiative reasons)

RESULTS
Shade turns invisible heheh

Lisa takes the shot. Her sniper rifle (a .50 caliber armor piercing antimaterial rifle) does +1K with Pen 1. Gunhead has 5 LAR and 2 HAR, so her shot gets one die dobbled by the HAR, doing 5s/5k, which is turned to 5s/1k, which completely fills his leg with shock and knocks him over and gobbles up one of his dice (putting him at 4x10.) Undead Fist has no armor up (his power is VE and he's just attacking) so he takes 6s/6k to a leg with 5 health boxes. So, it fills, then the 6s becomes 3k, leaving 4k that goes to his chest, meaning he's bleeding. Cause the leg's gone! HIs attack drops to 3x7, and then 2x7 thanks to him taking 1s to the chest from his bleeder.

At the same time, the Dark One lashes out with a tentacle of pure blackness and smashes Andy's head for 6s/6k. Andy eats it and starts spending WP to cling to life.

Gunhead, sprawled on the ground, fires off his 4x10 before Lily formats. This does 4s/4k. Lily has 39 WP thanks to the time passing and team morale, so she'll spend 6 of that to eat up 4 shock and 1 killing and remain in the fight with 3K to the head. This eats a set from her 3x10, putting her at 2x10.

Theo manifests a bunch of fists with his 4x5, blasting like, the entire Beast Swarm with punches thanks to radius and them being minions. Hah!

Marsha throws up a defense with 2x10 (on tic 3) which makes 2 gobble die that just barely beats Manifold's laser blast (gobbling 3x10 to 1x10, a fail)

The Red Army starts getting masks on some of their men with a 3x6 but,

Tori grabs the dust with 3x4 and compacts it into a single small chunk that she tosses towards Lily.

Statuestorm's defenses go off, but it is too late, Theo's already clobbered the beasts.

The Red army continues NBC actions

Theo manifests an arm that punches Gunhead and Undead Fist. Gunhead takes 2s/2k, which he resists handily, while Undead Fist just has to eat 2s/2k, which he resist using his WP (6 WP in total) to keep himself conscious. This does negate his 2x7 though. Poor Undead Fist.

Lily snatches the orb of polonium from the air, and transmutes it to lead with her 2x10. Lily has acquired ORB OF LEAD!

Theo then hits Manifold with his 2x7 and 2x6, doing 2s/2k to the chest and 2s/2k to the right arm - which Manifold doesn't block because his power isn't on defensive yet. Battered torso, bruised arm, nothing debilitating yet.

END RESULTS: Andy is out and dying, Manifold is a bit beat up but not incapacitated in any way. Undead Fist is missing a leg and bleeding out but still dangerous. Gunhead has a broken leg and is still VERY dangerous. Dark One and Statuestorm haven't been touched yet. The Beasts are entirely down.
 
1970: Seeing Red
Gunhead opened his mouth.

You didn't hear, not over the sound of battle, the crack.

You did see the gushing spurt of blood as a .50 caliber round clipped his jugular like Lisa was a long ranged surgeon. Gunhead's voice died in a gurgle and rather than blowing your head off, he instead sagged to his knees, his hands clapped over his throat, blood spurting between his fingertips. He was clearly more worried about that than you, which...good enough!

Roaring sounds filled the air above you - flashes, explosions. The sky itself is detonating, much like the ground earlier.

Sweeping through it, unharmed, is Yorlde, Rex and Bart. Bart is a new member of Rachel's hound family, and he was a Dalmatian before he had become a tank sized flying Dalmatian with-

Bart's eyes glowed red. As did Rex's and Yordle's. Beams of searing heat exploded from them and you saw one intersect with the shimmering force field surrounding the chubby Moldovian girl with the energy powers. Her shield cracked and exploded and she let out a scream as her hair bust into flames. The other beam slammed into the guy with the crown and the scepter, but he flung himself aside and lifted his scepter at the same time, smashing the beams of light upwards, causing the lasers to bend which was the sixth most impossible thing you'd seen all fucking week.

The big buff obsidian dude didn't seem to be dissuaded from you, even with flying, tank sized dogs shooting laser beams at him. He strode forward as you started to work out how to best break the laws of physics to utterly ruin his fucking day - but he was so damn fast. A glowing fist shimmered to life and slammed into his face, then again and again and again, more fists appearing around him. He walked through them as if the fists weren't even there, and you knew Theo had to be going crazy at how little effect his blows were having. You'd seen Theo lift skyscrapers with his arms.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit!

You felt something grip your body. And then, quite suddenly, you couldn't see anything. You were utterly blind - though you could hear an angry grunt and a whistling of air, deadly close to your head. You realized, suddenly, why, when the blindness vanished and you had moved a few inches to the left.

Tori!

Tori could grab people and...make them invisible. Light going through you meant...no eyeballs to see, of course!

Tall, dark and psychopathic swung his head around.

And then the boulder smashed into his head at what had to be fifty KPH.

The explosion of stone and splintering fragments clouded the air and he sprawled on the ground, knocked out cold. Considering the number of people on your team who could throw tons of matter at obscene speeds, you weren't sure WHO to thank for that, so you decided you'd give everyone a kiss later.

Over your head, more explosions were going off. Yordle let out a yipe of alarm, but a glance up let you see that his tank size wasn't the only tanky thing about him. The massive mutt was being hit with what looked like the next best thing to anti-aircraft guns, and he was shrugging it off like a fucking champ. You had to kiss Rachel twice for her dogs.

Fortunately, by then, you could figure out how best to deal with these Moldovians. The only one who was still up was the guy with skeleton hands, which were currently grabbing hold of his body, each one glowing with eldrich light. You had no idea what he was going to do, but you decided that 'nothing' was the best choice for him. So, you negated the mass on the orb of polonium-cum-lead you held just a tiny bit, then swung it down and smashed it into his chest hard enough to drive the air from his lungs, but not break any bones. He wheezed, then groaned and laid back as you rolled the lead ball away with a shove.

"Destul pentru mine azi," he groaned.

You huffed.

A shimmering cloud snapped to life around the prone obsidian colored jerk - and that was another set of powers for-

Yordle cried out, a barking howling noise that made you snap your head up.

And...

Red.

So much red.

Rachel, falling.

Her right arm was...

Her right arm was gone, trailing-

"RACHEL!" you shouted, then sprang upwards, your clothing crackling and rumbling as you caught her. Your heart was in your throat as you dropped down among the smoldering debris of the field of battle. You grabbed onto time and froze it solid in the air around you, holding yourself and Rachel in the moment - barely noticing that you had caught up a few of the Moldavians in the shimmering field. You leaned close, whispering. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay..." you knew that time was stopped for Rachel. That she wouldn't hear you. But...

Still.

The muppets that entered into the bubble were shrouded by the normal glimmer of temporal disturbances. They had bright red patches sewn on them and they got to work, their hands glowing as they touched Rachel, who's ragged stump stopped bleeding, then grew muscle and tissue and bone, until the fingers wriggled at the end of it and clenched, then unclenched, leaving her with an entirely fixed up arm. She opened her eyes as the time bubble faded and the Muppets went to the others, who were being restrained by Theo's arms.

The guy who had almost blown your head off was currently being gagged, while the obsidian guy was piled up under heavy rocks that were then pushed down by Theo's arms, and the Muppets were working cautiously - clearly trying to keep them unconscious while not letting them bleed to death.

"Fuck..." you whisper, while Rachel groaned, opening her eyes.

"That was my line..." she said.

"Oh great, we lost Andy!"

Everyone looked over at Lisa, who had come down from her shooting roost - she was kneeling on the ground, scowling as she did so. Yes, she did have a .50 caliber rifle that was normally used for blowing away tanks slung over her shoulder.

"What do you mean-" you stop, seeing that Andy's body is gone.

"The footprints lead to the dome - I think there was an invisible dickhead who snatched him," Lisa says, her ears pinning back, scowling slightly. Then she smiled. "Still, we came out ahead!" She gestured to the chubby girl, the skinny gunhead dude, the obsidian skinned guy, and the dude with the skeleton hands, who was the only one of them who was still conscious - but he was also too beat up to do anything but groan.

"Are you okay?" Rachel asked, putting her finger to your head - and then you felt a warm glow suffusing you and the pounding headache you had felt vanished. "There, now you're okay." She closed her eyes, then muttered. "Remind me to never again."

"Yeah, agreed," you say, frowning at the dome.

You could hear the grumbling of tanks approaching.
---
They have Andy!
[ ] Bust the dome open and charge in after him
[ ] Try and arrange an exchange - we just kicked their fucking asses, now is the time to negotiate before we do worse
[ ] Write In

And the Red Army?
[ ] Waive them off - this is still a semi-active metacombat scene, they might explode if they get too close
[ ] Bring em in, we need more backup
[ ] Write In

CURRENT STATUS
HEALTH: Fine! Thanks Rachel!
WILLPOWER: 38 (see rolls)

DECLARES: Red Army (treated as a minion mob with 5 parts - infantry, infantry, infantry, armored, armored), the Muppets, the Dogs (Yordle, Rex and Bart) Statuestorm, Dark One, Manifold, Tori, Shade, Sabah, Rachel, Undead Fist, Theo, Andy, Brian, Marsha, Lily, Gun Head, Lisa

ROUND TWO DECLARES
Red Army: The infantry can't help. ...but the tanks can. The armored core are going to drive over!
The Muppets: Healing time~
Dogs: Yordle, Rex and Bart are going to swoop down and fire at the Dark One, Manifold and Gunhead
Statuestorm: Statuestorm is going to make the air around the dogs explode! Yordle! No!
Dark One: Going to clobber Lily
Manifold: Blast Marsha
Tori: Tori's going to try and turn Lily invisible before Dark One can punch her
Shade: Shade is going to steal Andy!
Sabah: Going to start throwing rocks at the Dark One
Rachel: Going to prep to heal her dogs
Undead Fist: Undead Fist is healing himself
Theo: Gonna punch the fuck out of Undead Fist, Dark One and Gunhead
Brian: Going to Gruecloud Dark One
Marsha: Going to defend and attack Manifold
Lily: Shoot the Moldavians. You know, gently.
Gunhead: Going to shoot Lily. You know. In the head.
Lisa: Going to shoot Gunhead. You know. In the neck.

ROLLS!
10x10: Lisa pots Gunhead in the neck. Facing 5s/6k to the head, he can either tank his WP to negate the damage or drop and hope he doesn't bleed to death first. He drops.
5x10, 5x10, 5x10: Yordle, Rex and Bart drop down. Bart calls off his shot on Gunhead since he's down, but Yordle and Rex both hit the Dark One and Manifold. Manifold doesn't have enough WP and drops. The Dark One's HAR...is penetrated by the laser eye vision, but TDO spends 15 WP to keep standing!
(5) -x10: Theo hits the Dark One in the head as hard as he can. Dark one's 5 HAR gobbles it.
(5) 4x8: Tori turns Lily invisible for 2 WP (she bought bonus dice to buff her pool.) Upon realizing Dark One would go first, she BURNS A BASE WILL to save Lily's life, bumping her from 3x8 to 4x8!
4x10: Dark One tries to swing at Lily - but he can't. His roll flubs automatically.
-x1: Statuestorm detones the air next to Yorlde's left back leg, but Yorlde has HAR that soaks it. The AOE though hits Rachel for 2s to every location, 2s/2k to the chest, 2s/2k to the left arm and 2s/1k to the right leg.
(3) -x9: Theo punches the Dark One in the chest. Dark One's 5 HAR gobbles it.
(3) 2x10: Sabah throws a 1.4 ton boulder at the Dark One's head. It has 5 HAR. This gives her attack 5 pen, blowing through his hard armor and smacking him with 2s/2k | 3x10: Undead Fist formats for healing.
(3) 2x8: Lily blasts Undead Fist with 10s to the chest for the cost of 1 WP
(3) 2x7: Lily blasts Dark One in the with 10s to the chest for the cost of 1 WP
3x6: Shade steals Andy. Oh no!
2x10: Marsha defends | -x10: Manifold is KO'd from earlier | -x10: Undead Fist's healing is gobbled by taking damage. He's out of it.
2x4: Marsha doesn't whip Manifold!
2x3: Another explosion near Yorlde. This one again bounces off him, but does 2s to every part of Rachel's body, but 2s/1k to the head, 2s/1k to the chest, 2s/2k to the right arm, and 2s/2k to the left arm. combined, that's 4s/1k to the head, 4s/3k to the chest, 4s/4k to the right arm, 4s/2k to the left arm, 4s/1k to the right leg and 4s to the left leg! Shit! Rachel is DOWN AN ARM!?!?!
(1) 10x10: Brian drops a gruecloud on the Dark One. He has his power now! I will write it later!

Results: Manifold, Gunhead and the Dark One are down. Undead Fist can't move as he has -5d to both coordination and body thanks to having a chest full of shock. Shade escapes, as had Statuestorm (who never left the bubble.)

POST BATTLE
So, you get 4 WP for the metas you defeated, 1 for superheroing, but -12 for Rachel being so badly wounded, putting you at 26. Then you spend 2 more to get +2d for your trauma check and pass with a 2x6! So, you have 24 WP, then gain 12 WP for healing Rachel!
 
1970: Knock Knock
You lifted your hands as the Red Army started to draw closer, shouting into your com. "Tori! Theo, someone, tell the Russians to stand back! This is an active battle scene, they have some metapowers that can blow up tanks!" You shout, frantically, as the other tanks start to slow, while Rachel glances at you.

"What are you going to do?" she whispers.

"Open the fucking door," you growl. "These dickheads came out swinging and I'm gonna show them why that's a real fucking bad fucking idea." You turned, then leaped forward - your body sailing through the air as you shot up, then dropped down at the hillock about a hundred yards away from the edge of the shimmering dome. You glanced down at it, then over at the dome, then at the Red Army and your friends. Theo's hands were dragging the captured Moldavian metas away, and you were able to get a clear shot.

So, you did some math. Adjusted yourself.

Then you touched the side of the hill and canceled a few dozen tons of earth and stone's lateral momentum. Now, rather than rotating with the Earth at approximately four hundred and sixty meters per second around the planetary axis, the hillface was essentially stationary, with all the mass just sitting perfectly still. The difference, visually and physically, between mass sitting still while everything spun around it and the mass moving was-

The entire hillside roared as it shot towards the dome like a hyperkinetic shotgun and struck the dome like the fist of an angry god.

You could have just nuked them, but this had way less radiation. The smoke and dust kicked up swept around your body as your cape and hat billowed around you as the roaring sound filled the air - and when the smoke cleared, you could see that the dome had shattered inwards like a vast cathedral of glass, smashed by some bully-giant. You grinned, then leaped away from the ragged hole you'd just blown in the landscape and landed by the ragged hole you had just blown into the dome and peered into Moldavia.

The place looked like someone had been busy. The highway that had been cut cleanly in half was gone - in its place was thick black forest that rose up towards a darkened sky. A pale moon glowed overhead on the part of the dome that was untouched by your blast, and from the inside, the dome looked entirely like a natural world. You saw no sign of Andy or the other metas that they had to have in there, but before you stepped forward, Marsha grabbed your shoulder, having rushed forward by riding on a rapidly growing carpet of vines.

"Wait," she whispered.

"What?" you ask, while Lisa popped up on your other side, her eyes narrowed.

"Those trees are evil trees," Lisa said, quietly.

Marsha nodded, solemnly.

"Evil fucking trees?" You asked. "How evil are we talking here?"

"They're animate," Marsha said, then placed her palm on the ground, her eyes closing, her green skin seeming to glow faintly. "Animate and mean."

"They're stealing all our gimmicks!" you grump quietly.

"G-Gimmicks?" The voice makes you turn as you see Sabah and Tori flying over, Tori carrying them on a small chunk of metal that she'd grabbed from somewhere. "You're worrying about gimicks, Rachel almost died! You almost died, what the fuck are we doing here!?" Tori sounded like she was about to go into hysterics, and you could see Sabah looked only marginally less panicky, the two of them looking at you while the muppets hurried to help Sabah off the platform. "This is the Soviet's territory! We blew open the dome! Lets go home b-before..." She blinked. "Where's Andy?"

You and Rachel exchanged a glance.

"They took Andy!?" Tori's near hysteria looked like it was getting close to actual hysteria and...you...realized, with a lurch, that...you couldn't blame her. It...was easy to forget that you'd been fighting your whole life. Tori was a bit more sheltered and...actually, now that you considered it, you did seem to take being a superhero in stride. It was part of your personality that you'd been slammed with when Abbie Hoffman had hit you with that big brain whammy - it wasn't just that you had power, it was that the idea of using it in situations like this...less...scary than it should be. Maybe it was a part of your powers. Maybe you were just weird.

As it was, Tori looked like she wanted to curl up and cry.

Theo, who was swinging down with his arms, looked ready to throw hands. Which was a very Theo thing to do. "We're going in right?"

You realized everyone was looking to you. Well, not everyone, Lisa was looking into the hole, her eyes narrowing as she peered in. She muttered, under her breath. "Well, I don't like the looks of that..."

"Looks of what?" you ask, turning to her.

She scoffs. "Your eyes are useless," she said, then points. "I can just barely see a road past the trees." She glances your way. "They're lined with gibbets."

"...gibbets?" you ask.

"You know," she says, dryly. "Hanging cages with people in them. From the middle ages."

You frown.

"They've got spikes," she said.

"...in the cages?" you frown.

Lisa nods, her ears pinned back against her head - the only sign she showed on how she really felt about what she saw.

---
Oh BOY! This just gets better and better! What do you do?
[ ] We'll go over the trees with flight.
[ ] We'll go through the trees by just blowing them apart with...you know, bang bang, shoot shoot.
[ ] Marsha, try and subvert the trees
[ ] Write IN

Also...
[ ] Send Sabah and Tori back to the Red Army with some comforting words
[ ] Try and get Tori's head back in the game with a quick speech
-[ ] Write in, remember time is of the essence
[ ] Write in

CHECK: Lily spends 1 WP and hits the shield with a mountain.
ROLL: 4x6, 3x4
RESULT: That's 14s/14k and 13s/13k with Area 10 and pen 10, which (when hitting an object) becomes 14s/24k and 13s/23k. This is enough damage to completely destroy a skyscraper! ...four times over! And change!
 
1970: Moldovian (well, technically, Hungarian because the Witch is from the same army that Tchernobog is from and the Soviets pulled in troops from across the Warsaw Pact, but who's counting) Death Curse!
You put your hands on Sabah and Tori's shoulders, looking at them. You smile, shyly, remembering the fluttery feeling you used to get every time you were near Sabah. It...was weird, you...still did know she was cute as hell. But...like, it was like all your fluttery feelings had gotten invested in Rachel. Now, you and Sabah were just friends.

Why did part of that make you kinda sad?

You powered forward: "Listen. You both did great. I know it's scary - but...well, if we stick together, there's nothing we can't do." You leaned in, kissing both of them on the cheeks. "Now go back and help with the Russians - they did suck down a worrying amount of rads before you threw the polonium away."

"That's what that was?" Sabah asked. "...what's polonium?"

"You really don't wanna know," you say, chuckling, while several muppets walked over, eager to escort them back.

Over the com, you could hear Rachel's voice. "We need you overhead, providing tactical advice."

"Why?" Beta asked, sounding a bit distracted. "I was doing deep space telescopic observations, isn't Andy there? He can do-"

"Andy's been kidnapped by the bad guys," Rachel said, blunt as ever.

"...oh." There was a pause. You couldn't see the Yiggy moving into orbit overhead, but you were fairly sure it was there. Faster than light could go. That still made your temples twinge faintly. "Okay, I've got a view on the orb and you, and am prepared to provide what analysis I can." She sighed. "I am going to need some givens to work with here, though."

Rachel and Theo both looked at you. You saw a faint flash of motion - and then Brian landed next to you, having leaped the whole way. Lisa was shading her eyes and looking into the hole. Marsha was kneeling down, her eyes closed as she reached out to the trees. You wished her the best of luck as you closed your eyes, then began to adjust entropy and light, dropping a physical law controlling the movement of particles and their interactions with your nerves in artful, tiny ways. The end result was when you opened your eyes, you could see beads of glowing light, all around you. They writhed throughout all your friends, and a few dots back at the Red Army...

And ahead?

You counted five of them. One of them was brighter than the others...and one of them was familiar.

Andy was in the center of the dome, right near to Tchernobog, if you didn't miss your guess.

"I got him," you say, quietly. "He's, uh, about...jeeze, five thousand, five hundred and sixty seven meters that'a'way." You point.

"Interesting. Appears to be in the capital city of Chișinău," Beta said. "It seems that our friend Tchernobog has claimed it as his home. How many metas are we dealing here?"

"Not counting the baddies we've already bagged? Four. There's one brighter than the other - Tchernobog is a tier up from all his buddies. So, they must have known one another, right?" You frown slightly, then started to count on your fingers.

"Estimate him to be a Tier Three then...shit," Beta whispered. "The Red Army invaded Vietnam a few months ago. Set stopped them."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," you say, quietly, turning to look at the others.

"He's a power sib of yours, then," Brian says.

"And they say you can't choose your family," Theo says, his voice bitter. "I thought Set just left fine ash whenever he dropped one of those booms of his."

You shake your head. "I think I can snatch him back."

"All right," Beta said. "It's possible they have a teleport blocker, so don't throw yourself too hard against it-"

You've already focused and put out your palm. You felt the space between you and Andy - and then felt your normally perfect powers skidding and sliding along something that stops you. It is as if your power is fraying apart at the far end, snapping and whipping around. Dust and grit whips past your head as errant fragments of entropic decay flung bits of terrain back at you. "Fuck, fuck!" You hissed as your head bust with a flare - like a migraine. You recognized it as something that happened when you pushed yourself a bit too hard - but as your powers snapped down, you wobbled backwards.

"you okay?" Rachel asks as you shake your head, then laugh.

"Yeah, just, they have a-"

And that was when the black furred, long limbed wolf manifested out of thin air, wrapped its shockingly flexible feet around your throat, and started to strangle you. It gargled and vomited a stream of black material onto your head - glittering flashes of white and light as you stumble backwards, clutching at your throat, while everyone around you screamed.

Something heavy and yellow thonked into your head.

You saw stars.

Literally, the black glop had swept past your eyes and you you were surrounded by a hazy field of stars, with a sun and moon bobbing around your head as the creature snarled and let out a eerie, howling bark.

No.

You focused and the creature exploded apart in a hazy wave of sparks as a black orb appeared in its belly and whipped outwards. You panted, heavily, rubbing at your scratched up throat. "I'm ok-" you started.

Then another one appeared, this one at your front, locking its jaws against your neck. Before the teeth even broke skin, you flung it off you by dropping gravity and friction in the right directions. It splatted against the dome - but before it had even landed, a third had appeared. By now, you'd managed to get a rhyme up. Between the creatures appearing and trying to strangle you (or vomit the night sky on you), you snarled out: "What!-" splat! "-the fuck-" crackle "-is going on!?"

"I don't know!" Lisa said. "...pretty funny, though." She casually ducked a thrown wolf-thing. "You know, in a kinda dark comedy sorta way."

"LISA!" You shouted, then pointed and exploded another one. "They're trying to FUCKING KILL ME!"

"Oh come on, Morgana, everyone's trying to-"

Theo earned a million friend points by clapping physical hands over Lisa's mouth. Her ears pinned back and she squirmed - which meant she didn't actually mind it, since if she wanted to, she could have cut his tendons out of his body without even flinching.

"Beta!" Rachel snapped. "What the fuck!?"

"Uh, uh, analyzing!" Beta said. "Gaia, can you give me a scan and beam it up?"

Marsha nodded and a flower grew from her palm - it swept its petals at you as you flung off what had to be the fifteenth of the wolf-things. Then the flower whipped up into the air, twirling like a helicopter, rushing towards the orbital Yiggy.

In the delay, you blasted three more of them.

"Beta!" Rachel's voice was tight.

"Okay! Okay! I have...oh." Beta paused. "Well, shit."

Rachel made a noise closer to her dogs than to a human noise.

"Uh, okay, it looks like there's a dark energy construction around Morgana's head," Beta said, sounding almost frantic. "It'll, uh, keep trying to kill her. It's summoning a Markoláb, a kind of, uh, mythological creature - it doesn't normally strangle people, it eats the sun and vomits out the-"

"How do we get rid of it!?" Rachel shouted into her com.

"You can't!" Beta said. "It'll just keep attacking, uh...forever. I don't think even the creator can turn it off."

---
Well, shit.
[ ] Pull back, maybe it has a range limit. Get far enough away, it'll stop trying to kill you?
[ ] Marsha, HELP! (Marsha can spend WP to make a permanent defense that will block it.)
[ ] Write in (remember, multiple actions are in effect - you need to constantly double action and unless you get a 4x10 on your No Field, the Hungarian Death Curse will fucking kill you!)

CURRENT STATUS
HEALTH: 1s to the head, light migraine
WILLPOWER: 27

CHECK: Comforting words
ROLL: 2x5
RESULT: Comfort applied!

CHECK: Scan
ROLL: 5x10 to format slow (-2) and 2 booster to cover the whole area. 5x10 to scan
RESULT: We count Shade, Statuestorm, Tchernobog, Witch, and Andy!

CHECK: Teleport
ROLL: 5x10 to format. Slow (-2), Obvious (-1), Fragile (-1), Direct Feed (-2), Mental Strain (-2), Loopy (-1), to get 2 levels of go first, mass quality, and 5 levels of booster. 3d are devoted to mass (for 200 lbs) and 2d are to range (for 20 yards) which are boostered to 2,000,000 yards, which is enough to snatch!
RESULT: Witch has a 5x10 teleport block up with Interference. So, your power would go off first, but the gobbling effect whammies it down before it takes effect thanks to interference. Also, you take 1s to the head and are rendered loopy.

CHECK: Loopy!
ROLL: 2x2
RESULT: You're not loopy when the witch's curse comes in!

CHECK: Witch Return Fire
ROLL: The witch has an attached 50,000 kilometer ranged 4hd Death Curse. It has Permanent (+4) and Always On!
RESULT: 4x10 means 4s/4k to the head!. Spend 12 WP to block it!

CHECK: NO NO NO NO
ROLL: 10x10
RESULT: No!
 
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1970: Keepsakes and Offers
You pointed and the Markoláb that had manifested next to your head exploded apart in a spray of black light. "Any ideas!?"

"Uh, can we trick it? Make another Morgana, maybe a puppet?" Theo suggested.

"No!" Sabah exclaimed. "Puppets are people-"

"I meant, like, a fake puppet, not a puppet puppet!" Theo said, then splattered with bits of black liquid and muscle as another Markoláb exploded.

"Can someone just fucking give me a few-" Splat. "-fucking seconds!?"

The ground before you rumbled and creaked as tanks started to arrive. Globetrotter, who was riding on the top of one of the tanks, gaped in confusion as she watched the next Markoláb appear and explode. Baba Yaga, who was riding a chicken leg attached to a bit of wood that hopped forward with an ungainly waddly, cackled.

"Oh fuck you!" you snapped in Russian. "I hope your-" Splat, splat, spalt! You had to point three times as more Markolábs appeared and tried to sink their fangs into your head. The ground, though, hadn't just been rumbling due to tanks. You yelped and sprang backwards as a flowering tree burst from the ground, spreading its arms and reaching out towards the heavens. Then a sense of utter peace and serenity filled you as lillies began to bloom, then slowly drift down from the tree, twirling, twirling, and landing around you. You tensed, readying for another Markoláb attack...but nothing. YOu breathed a sigh of relief, then leaned against the tree, sagging a bit. "Thank you, Gaia."

"You're welcome, honey," Marsha said, her legs drawn up under her as she hovered off the ground, surrounded in a nimbus of greenish light. "But we need a more permanent solution than this - I'm keeping up the effort."

"Right," you say as Rachel hurries to your side, worriedly brushing her fingers through your hair - your hat had been knocked off during the first Markoláb attack, you realized, and felt rather disconcerted about how naked you felt without your big witchy hat. Rachel's fingers began to crumble the blood from your hair, wincing as she did so, while a glow suffused your head and the scratches that the Markoláb had managed to leave faded away. "Thanks, baby."

Rachel had a hard time talking when she was this emotional. So, she just kissed the top of your head.

"Any ideas, Beta?" Lisa asked, having freed herself from Theo's gag.

"We need a stabilized platform to contain the dark energy construct that can be thought of as-" you ignored the continual spiel coming from your com and instead looked up at the big, meaty Soviet tank and at the big, meaty, Soviet woman atop it.

"Hey, Globetrotter," you say. "I need a physical object, yae big." You held out your fingers. "...also, I thought we told you to stay back."

Globetrotter blinked, then pulled one of the banana shaped clips from her bandolier, popped a bullet from it, and tossed it to you. "What is going on?" she asked in Russian as you focused. There was a one in ten to the twenty sixth thousandth chance that this semi-sentient, self-guided eternal chunk of dark energy fuckery could be convinced that this bullet was you. So, you shrugged and glared at the bullet, then kicked entropy in the stomach as hard as you could until the bullet flashed with a pale purple light.

To your left, the oxygen five meters off spontaneously configured itself into a perfect replica of a grumpy, wrinkly faced old man with a bulldog expression made entirely out of gold.

"...Morgana..." Tori said, her voice a bit ragged, her arms still sliding against her chest, her hands cupping her own shoulders.

"Don't ask," you say, starting to sand up. "Gaia, we got the death curse squared away!"

"...if I fire this bullet from my rifle, will..." Globetrotter starts, then trails off, her brow furrowing.

"Yup!" you say. "And, remember when I told you to stay back?"

Globetrotter frowned at you. Right. Of course. You didn't give orders here. How irritating.

"Why Winston Churchill, though?" Lisa muttered, eying the golden statue. You, faintly, heard Beta's response as you turned to face the dome and the distant lair of Tchernobog.

"Well, the probability of oxygen spontaneously assembling itself-"

You narrowed your eyes. Lisa, who had stepped over to you while the tree slowly settled and stopped emitting a sense of raw peace - it'd still be there, a tree, but it was no longer suffused with dark energy and, so, wasn't protecting anyone from anything - huffed as she shook her head. "Well, isn't that interesting."

"What?" Marsha asked, stepping over to your other side.

You pointed and Lisa frowned and flicked her ears back.

Moldovia's current rulers were sending some people out. One of them was a...kind of rippling shadow that reminded you disconcertingly of Schism B. Johnghost. The other was a non-descript man with a balding spot and a kind of ratty old suit who was looking rather shaken. They were both walking together towards the edge of the woods, untouched by anything within - though, you did notice that there was something...very subtly off. You weren't sure what it was until Lisa huffed. "They're just illusions," she said.

When you looked at her, she grinned, and continued: "Holographic projection, I guess, but illusions fits the theme better, I think!"

The two illusory metas reached the edge of the woods as the Russians who had come to support you whether you wanted them to or not aimed their guns at them, the tank barrels whirring and clicking around - but by now, the two were close enough that you could see Mr. Bald Patch was carrying a white flag and was waving it gently. He called out, in Russian: "We seek to parlay and find a peaceful end to this conflict before any more people are hurt. We have a prisoner. You have prisoners. There needs be no more violence, thus speaks...my dark lord Tchernobog."

"He doesn't fucking like Tchernobog one bit," Lisa says, frowning. "But he's scared shitless of him. Also, they're honest, they are here to parlay."

You nod, trusting Lisa's instant assessmnet.

Of course, Lisa can never just leave things where they lay.

"Or at least, they think they're being honest," Lisa said, then grinned, showing sharp, sharp canines. "Tchernobog may have lied to them."

Rachel smacked the back of Lisa's head. Lisa made a piteous whining noise.

You looked around. Your hat was knocked over there, and it was easy enough to fuck around with gravity and bring the hat flipping up, whistling through the air, and slapping into your palm. You placed it on your head, then stepped to the front of your group, your cape blowing dramatically behind you. It was times like this where...you actually had to admit, in a teeny, secret part of your soul? You actually did kinda love being a metahero. It was wild and weird and silly and scary, deeply, fucking scary. But also, you could stand between two armies and look at the most powerful people on the planet and stand on equal footing with them.

It was...

Heady.

"Okay," you called out in Russian. "I am listening. We have four of your people - alive, unconscious, we haven't hurt any of them."

Well. Other than the fight.

The rippling shadow nodded. His voice sounded like knives on metal - scraping and screeching. But he was speaking Russian, still. "The dark lord has your friend in one of his pain shells, but hasn't activated it yet. But...you must know, the time dilation in them is something fierce."

"...pain shell..."
you say the word slowly.

"The dark lord Tchernobog does not wish to use the pain spheres," Mr. Bald Spot said, hurriedly. "They are only used upon rapists, pedophiles, the worst criminals. But y-you do have us quite outnumbered. And outpowered." He gulped and even you could see he'd never negotiated before and was desperately terrified he had just said the exact wrong thing, because he was stumbling onwards, pushing out more words. "The Dark Lord can use pain, construct it into domes, fields, items, h-he empowered us with the pain he harvested from...from bad people..." He trailed off.

"Is that actually true, though," Beta whispered in your ear in English. "I could see how you'd do it."

You snapped your head to the side, hissing into the com. "What!?"

"Oh, it's simple, human emotions have resonant effects with dark energy, we've seen that much, so, you just need to build-" Beta cut herself off. "Not that I would! I just, I can see HOW you'd build it!"

You frowned, but next to you, Globetrotter leaned in. Her voice was a soft growl. "With the dome down, we can teleport right in there, right now, and end this madness once and for all."

---
What do you do?
[ ] Continue to parlay?
-[ ] What do you offer?
[ ] Fuck this. Pain spheres? Fuck that! Globetrotter, drop us into his court and lets kick some ass!

CURRENT STATUS
HEALTH: Fine
WILLPOWER: 40 (major superheroing, major yourself)


CHECK: Marsha and company protecc!
ROLL: Marsha takes her time to format her power to be obvious (-1), foci (-2 with bulky), willpower investment (-1) and delayed effect (-2) to get Interference (+3) with range (+2) so she can use it to defend Lily, and +1 defense level.
RESULT: 3x10! This means that it creates 4 gobble dice (3 for the width, +1 for the defense add), and those gobbles go off before the power takes effect. Thus, she negates it! And, every round she can garuntee she gets at least a 2x10, which means she has 3 gobble dice, which always go off before the attack, ergo, 4x10 to hit the head becomes 1x10 which is a miss! She's done it!

CHECK: Lily puts the death curse in the bullet
ROLL: She's gonna format physics fuckery with Foci [adaptation, accessible] (-3), Obvious (-1) and Permanent (+4) to put the death curse in the bullet
RESULT: 6x10, then 6x10, means she's done it!

CHECK: Awareness check that doesn't matter cause Lisa is here
ROLL: 3x9!
RESULT: Not better than 10x10, but still!
 
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1970: Tier Three
"Pain spheres?" you mutter, in English. Then, in Russian. "I think the right word is fuck this, and lets drop in and take those fuckers down."

Globetrotter nodded, but you held up your hand, thinking. "But not right on top." Your hand rubbed against your throat, remembering the feeling of the death curse. You didn't want that again.

Fortunately, you had a plan.

***
The portal snapped open and you, Yordle, Red and Bart dropped into the air above Tchernobog's castle. It looked exactly like how you'd fucking expect it to. Whatever the capital of Moldovia had looked like before Tchernobog had shown up, it had been replaced by a swath of glittering black buildings that looked like they were carved out of pure night and made of spikes. Bladed corners, edges that came to serrated arcs like a madman's attempt to do art deco. The centerpiece, though, was the castle: Four towers reaching towards the heaven around and onion dome in the middle made of shimmering blackness.

Your hat flapped in the air as you gripped the top of your head to keep it on.

Rachel had argued against splitting up this way. You had pointed out, Tchernobog was a tier three, and he still had an unknown number of buddies that they had to deal with. Andy had to be rescued and healed.

You?

You were able to take care of yourself.

Rachel had insisted the dogs come with - and you figured they would at least make for good doorknockers.

"NOW!" you shouted over the wind as your cape fluttered behind you.

The three dogs swept forward in a delta chevron and their eyes glowed, then ruby red beams of light slammed into the dome of the castle. Dust - black, crumbly dust - exploded outwards in every direction and you dropped into it, through it. You felt rather than saw the bolt of energy shooting directly at your head and effortlessly dispersed it without even trying - your no-field crackling and buzzing as you dropped through the cloud.

You snapped away gravity, grunted, and landed, your cape rustling around yourself as bits of rubble and dust fell from the ceiling hole around you and you stood before Tchernobog and his throne.

Fuck it.

Cerno. You weren't being paid by the syllable here.

He didn't look even remotely human. He was a titanic figure, broad shouldered and muscular, his head a shadowy blob of darkness with a pair of glowing eyes, broad wings fanning behind his back - they looked like they couldn't support his body weight in the air. But considering dark energy fuckery, you were fairly sure that he could fly if he set his mind to it. He was completely naked, but utterly lacking in anything but Ken Doll smoothness between his thighs, which you were honestly...a bit thankful for.

"You're trying to save them, aren't you?" he growled. "Too late. This is my land now."

The dogs swept down.

You felt the energy building and slammed your palms into the ground.

The air before you spontaneously collapsed into neutronium. In the few seconds before it dropped through the floor, it was slammed into by a chunk of black, jagged crystal, flung out of Cerno's palm. The impact rang like a gong, while more black crystal - the building stuff that he was surrounded by, you realized - appeared around his head as the dogs circled around overhead. Their beams slammed into them and the crystal exploded. Cerno roared in fury as his head was surrounded by a nimbus of ruby red light. You grinned - then your eyes widened as you saw that not only was Cerno not going down...

He was grabbing onto his throne.

He hefted it up and threw it through the air, directly up at the dogs.

Rex and Yordle tried to sweep and fire at the same time, while Bark let out a loud woofing noise - but the throne caught each of them. The broad edge of the back crashed into Yorldle's temple with a sickening crunch, and the flat bottom smashed into Rex's nose. Blood sprayed and both dogs began to drop, while Bark let out a whimpering gasp and you could see blood bursting from his muzzle. Despite the impact, he kept himself in the air, paws scrabbling at the air.

His eyes beamed down.

Cerno roared.

And you touched the ground and turned a large chunk of it into a hyperkinetic shotgun. Chunks of black masonry slammed into Cerno's head, chest, arms, exploding as they powdered against him, forcing his wings to sweep forward and cup around his body - blocking the majority of them, but putting him on the serious back foot. You spared a glance, saw Yorlde and Rex's unconscious (they were unconscious, because they fucking had to be) bodies landing on Barker's back as he swept underneath them in the nick of time, then looked back, Cerno spreading his wings.

"You can't kill me!" He laughed. "Every bit of pain in this fallen world is mine! Pathetic witchling."

You smirked.

"Witchling?" you grinned. "I'm Morgana la Fucking Fey. And this is over."

Then you shut off the strong/weak nuclear bonds in a clump of atoms in the air right infront of his smug face.

The roaring sound was like the end of the world - but you snapped a no-field around him at the last second, to keep it from blowing apart the area. It still sent him flying backwards, smashing into the wall with a CRASH. The light was blinding - you closed your eyes just in time, but still saw nothing but spots and smears as the air filled with dust and crumbling noises. You blinked the smears away and saw that the wall across from you was nothing but a smear of black glop. You sighed. "Ugh..." You whispered, softly, while the throne next to you - having landed, undamaged - began to rattle and tremble. The walls around you began to shimmer...

THen you felt the breeze...

And the walls and the buildings literally blew away, like dust. The dust vanished before it got more than a few inches away - leaving the city of Chișinău looking like someone had taken big bites out of it. A few buildings were missing fronts, a few were missing roofs. None of them collapsed, thank god, but all of them looked like they'd need fixing before they'd be ready for this weather. The castle that you were in was, in truth, the upper half of what looked like the main administration building, with a lot of the Soviet brutalism blown to pieces about you.

The throne had dissolved as well.

In its place was a trembling man in a half destroyed brownish coverall. The back was tattered and the front was scorched. Half his face was a melted ruin, as if someone had set him fire and barely tried to put him out - the healing had been impossibly arrested...like he was caught, perpetually, between sickness and health. He should be gangrenous. Instead, he just looked like a living ruin. His hands were over his head, and his knees were drawn up taut against his chest as he mumbled something in Russian, over and over again. You stepped closer, slowly.

"R-Regiment commanders m-must take full responsibility f-for preparing and organizing c-combat units..." He whimpered as your shadow fell over him, then curled forward. "R-Regiment commanders m-must take full responsibility for...preparing...I...I didn't...I didn't mean to...mother, please, I...I didn't mean to leave them in the tank, I didn't, I didn't..."

You could hear distant rattling noises. People were coming. You glanced over at the dogs. Bark was nosing nervously at Yordle and Rex, who were both breathing, even if they were out cold and bleeding.

The Reds were going to be here quick. You scanned the guy and...shit.

He was to Cerno like Bright was to the Devil - except Cerno was able to draw power from pain and suffering in a way that the Devil wasn't. And, unlike the Devil, he'd stick around forever until he was killed. And, worse, if this guy used his power again...Cerno would be right back.

You weren't sure what the fuck it took to screw someone up as bad as this - but you were pretty sure...you didn't really want to know.

---
You have a few minutes before the others arrive. What do you do before healing Yordle and Rex?
[ ] This guy is a Russian army officer. They should take him into custody.
[ ] "Beta, this is Morgana. We have one to beam up for immediate psychiatric care."
[ ] Write In

CURRENT STATUS
Health: Fine
Willpower: 122 (+102 from defeating Cerno solo)

Song for the writing:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asDlYjJqzWE

Declares: Yordle, Bark, Rex, Tchernobog, Lily

ROUND ONE
Declare: Yordle, Bark and Rex are going to eyebeam their way into the castle. Techernobog is going to try and blast Lily out of the SKY. Lily is going to NO FIELD him!
ROLLS:
10x10: Lily blocks!
5x10, 5x10, 5x10: The doggos blast the roof with their eyelasers, blowing it to shimmering chunks of dust!
4x10: Tchernobog hits - his power deflected away as Lily lands before him

ROUND TWO
Declares: Yordle, Bark and Rex are going to eyebeam Tchernobog. Tchernobog is going to block and blast, spending 20, 20 and 20 WP (dropping him from his willpower pool of, I shit you not, 102 WP to 42!) to add +10 to the widths. Lily, realizing this, is going to format fuckery and defend with it, getting a Obvious (-1), Armored Defense (-2), Interference (+3), Defend (+2), which will cost her - for formatting two dice to it - 16 WP out of her 40.)
ROLLS:
12x10: A blast that, with 2 dice, hits with 12s/12k on initative 12! Impossibly fast!!!!
12x10: A block that, with 2 dice, will go up on initiative 12! Preposterous!
12x4: A blast that, with 2 dice, go up on ini 12! What the fuck, dude!
5x10, 5x10, 5x10: Doggo beam blasts! So, here is where Tchernobog makes a mistake. 5x10 with five dice versus 12x10 with 2 dice means that the two dice become gobble dice, which means, each doggo loses two dice from their sets! ...meaning its still 3x10, 3x10 and 3x10 for their blasts, doing 3s/3k three times, which Tchernobog has to soak up with 27 WP (putting him at 15)
4x10: Lily Formats (She got the extra ten by spending 1 WP, putting her at 23 WP)
2x10: Lily defends! She gets 2x10...with INTERFERENCE. Which means the gobble dice go off first, no matter what and, wouldn't you know it, she has 4 gobble dice, which devour both blasts. She's fine.

ROUND THREE
Declares: Yorlde, Bark, and Rex are going to keep up with the beaming. Tchernobog is going to pick up his obsidian throne and throw it at the three dogs using his mighty strength, spending 6, 6 and 6 WP to add +3 width to each roll, putting him at -3 WP. He burns one of his 'i love torture' base WP to get +10 WP, putting him at 7. Lily is going to blast him with not a gun!
ROLLS:
5x10: 2x10 bumped up by 3 width.
5x10: Likewise!
6x9: This is a 3x9 that he rolled as well, bumped up!
5x10: Yordle fires!
5x10: Rex fires!
5x10: Bark fires!
3x8: Lily slams him for 5s/5k to the chest (spending 1 WP for augment to buff the damage up, putting her at 22 WP)
2x10: Lily whammies him for 2s/2k to the head
2x5: Lily also hits his arm for 3s/3k (spending 1 WP to augment, putting her at 21 WP.)
RESULTS: The obsidian throne has a HAR of 5, giving it 5 pen. He does 5s/5k to Yordle's head, 5s/5k to Bark's head, and 6s/6k to Rex's chest. FORTUNATELY, they are BIG DOGS: Remember! They get +5 to each hit location for health levels, meaning Yorlde has 9 head hit locations, not 4! So, 4s/5k means he's out cold, but he's not dead! Same with Bark! Rex meanwhile has 6s/6k to the chest, meaning he's not incapcitated though he is bleeding. This means that while Yordle and Bark cannot fire their eyelasers, due to being knocked out cold, REX CAN! He does 5s/5k to Tchernobog, who...unfortunately, has gained a major "causing pain and suffering" and 4 WP from defeating the two dogs, putting him at 64 WP. He spends 15 WP to negate the hit! ...then Lily hits him for a combined 8s and 8k spread across his body. He spends down to 25 WP to resist it.

ROUND FOUR
Declare: Rex is gonna save Yordle and Bark before they hit the ground. Tchernobog is going to throw everything he's got at Lily, spending 20 WP to get +10 width. Lily is going to absolutely destroy this motherfucker while also negating his attack.
14x10: 4x10 bumped up by 10 width, you know how Tchernobog works now!
3x10: Remember physics fuckery? Remember how it stays formatted. Remember how multiple actions let you use the smaller of the dice pool? Did you know 5wd is smaller than 8d+1wd? So, she makes 3x10 with interference. It gobbles three of Tchernobog's four dice. His power fails.
2x10: Lily spends 1 WP. She is now at 20 WP. She does 12s/12k with 10 booster and 10 penetration. Tchernobog has 5 WP. He is flung backwards 84 yards in 4 yard chamber, hitting the far wall with an impact that does another 2s/7k to every part of his body at once. He is absolutely, completely, and utterly dead. Get fucked!
 
1970: More Equal Than Others
"Beta, this is Morgana. One to beam up, in need of immediate psychological care," you say into your com. You touch the trembling man. He tenses, looks up at you, terrified. You smile at him, and then whisper, softly, in Russian. "It's okay. It's all going to be okay."

"F-For everyone?" he whispered. "Tell them, I won't take them away. I won't."

You nod, not sure what he means. "I'll tell them."

***
By the time you had managed to get away from Rachel and the dogs - all three of them had been quite eager to lick and slobber all over you in gratitude and eagerness. But you were honestly okay with that. It helped you feel calmer and less like ripping off the next Soviet's face you saw - because you didn't need to be a hyperbrain to see exactly what had happened.

And you could count.

What you saw when you and Rachel returned to the edge of the dome, where the Red Army was setting up an engineering corps that was mostly then sitting back and watching as Baba Yaga incanted and waved her hands and caused stone and rubble to emerge from the earth and reach out towards the severed highway as if it had never been destroyed...confirmed what you had been thinking.

The tents where the Moldavian metas had been taken was under guard, and Globetrotter stood beside it, with a rather well dressed man that looked every inch the Party Official standing beside her. Her face was a glacial mask and when you walked forward, Rachel walking with you, Globetrotter moved to stand in your way.

"Minister Pasternak will be dealing with the prisoners," she said. "He has told me to thank the Stonewall Nine and offer you transport back to America."

"That's it, huh?" you ask. "You're not even slightly curious about Tchernobog?"

Globetrotter frowned. "Minister Pasternak was in communication with your comrade, Beta and Richter and the artificial intelligence-"

"Tessa," Rachel said, flatly.

"We are willing to remand Tchernobog to your custody," Globetrotter said, lifting her chin.

You crossed your arms over your chest. You get a buzz on your com. Flicking your eyes down, you see it is a text: Comrade-Colonel Oleg Prodan, Armored Services. And with Globetrotter's expression, you've got all the pieces. The Soviet Union had invaded Vietnam with everything they had. They had been kicked out so hard that their heads were spinning. And out of it had come Tchernobog - a burned up officer with a power born out of trauma. And the fucking hell of it? It had fucking worked. If he was a Tier Three...then...

You frowned. "Were you the last one he infected, or the first?"

Globetrotter was silent for a long time. She looked aside. "The first. Baba Yaga was my first power progeny - the Ministry for Metahuman affairs are nominating my next, after Minister Pasternak."

"What's his power, huh?"

Globetrotter frowned, then looked at you. "He prefers not to say."

You scowl. "Are you going to throw all these rebellious kids into prison or something?"

"Morgana, don't be absurd," Globetrotter said, huffing. "The USSR went from having no metahumans to having eight tier fours. Do you know the maximum on them? If they are all...catching." She arches an eyebrow.

Rachel frowns, then looks at you, clearly not up to doing the math in her head.

"Seventeen thousand metahumans," you say, quietly. "...most of them, more than half, will be Tier 9s. I've met a Tier 9, his main ability was to make cheese taste really good. And that number, by the way, is assuming each one infects the maximum number and none of them have self contained powers..."

Globetrotter pursed her lips. Her eyes said: And?

You glanced at the tent. "So, your boss is in there, saying if they show up and start spreading the powers to the people you choose, they get the nice stuff? The fancier houses? The better food? How very revolutionary, it's almost identical to how things work in the United States." You don't even try and hide your bitterness.

"But they will be serving the people of the Soviet Union, not a corporation." Globetrotter frowned. "Those people thank you. You have saved many lives today. Do you wish a ride home?"

The land around you felt a lot vaster, a lot colder, than it had before. You thought not only of Colonel-Comrade Prodan...but of the thousands of piles of ash that had been everyone who had been closer to the center of Sets blasts.

You wondered how the hell Set slept at night.

You wondered how the hell Khrushchev did. Or...whoever the fuck was in charge of the Soviet Union right now.

Heh.

How the fuck were you going to sleep after this?

---
How do you close the Iron Curtain?
[ ] Give them each a chance to leave. You do not keep metahumans bottled up. Not without...that. (Point at Moldovia.) And next time might be worse...because we're not going to help again if it's like this.
[ ] Just leave. You've had enough of superpowers for now.
[ ] Write in.
 
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