When the Leviathan began to awake, every superhero in the city of Horizon rushed to keep the corpse of the supermassive alien slumbering. The ensuing battle could have gone better.
Now, it's up to you to use a superpower-granting serum to replenish the city's hero population, rebuild Justice Unlimited, and avoid dealing with your feelings. Should be easy, right?
Horizon, City of Leviathan's Rest – Location Unknown – September 8, 2067
Dr. Mammoth Ibis awoke and was pleased to note that he was still alive.
Most mornings—or whatever time of day it was in this dimly-lit room—it would be something he would take for granted. His days were routine: upon waking, he would immediately sterilize himself, eat a nutrition bar, and check how his latest children were developing. It was a simple life, but quiet in the world before the sun rose was when he felt most at peace. It was just him, the soothing hum of the incubators, and the endless possibility of discovery.
Ah, but he was navel-gazing, as it were. Trying to not think about why this was not most mornings.
The alien god that loomed over the city was waking up. Foolish, to build a metropolis so close to an unknown entity from stars spreading its infection. There were things rising out of the QZ. A desperate call to action rang out—if it had come from any but Uiara, it would have gone unheeded. But it was her, and soon every metahuman in the city was rushing toward the Leviathan, fighting, containing, resisting. He watched Steadfast dissolve into a mist of goldnine as even his invincible body was converted to more of the Leviathan's Blood.
Why was it waking up? It had loomed over the City of Horizon, dead, for nearly fifty years. Yet now even his children could hear its silent screams in their minds. Four voices. One unfathomably large and low; a crushing pressure who would erase them all without noticing. Another, high and sweet and full of rage. A third, deluded and cunning, begging for all, unearned. A fourth, confused and hurt and trying to still troubled waters the way you smoothed out wrinkles on a sheet.
Ah, and then there was a fifth, new. The psychic equivalent of someone opening their window and shouting at the neighbors to keep it down. Valiant Silver, arrogant as ever, even in her desperation.
The cacophony raged and bit and bled and then—Mammoth Ibis knew silence.
He rose to his feet, disquieted. It was unlike him to dwell on the past, things already done. He was a seeker of knowledge, a bearer of light against the darkness of ignorance, a man ever with an eye to the future. And yet, how small he really was. Ibis felt maudlin, lost, reflective for the first in years.
Oh, wait. His serotonin implant had been damaged. Well, that would explain it! A quick fix and then back to the lab—incubator #3348 looked quite promising!
"Excuse me, doctor, but it is upsetting to see how quickly your face changed just now."
"It can't be helped!" Ibis replied, turning to the portly figure who had just entered the room, "Early on, I realized that I could work more if I was always in a good mood! I've trained myself to not get too caught up with sentiment."
"I see." The man gave him a disapproving glance before continuing, "Well, may I impose upon you to hold onto your feelings until after we have had a chance to speak?"
"No!" the doctor replied instantly, " Much too much to do! I've wasted enough time today playing the hero as is."
Ibis tried to move past the man, but the rotund fellow smoothly stepped in the way. Frowning, Ibis tried to barrel through, but his opponent was deceptively strong. A small struggle later, and the doctor was forced to concede that he might have to actually further delay getting back to work. Vexing.
He let out a great sigh and decided to use valuable brainpower to pay attention.
The room he was in appeared to be some kind of infirmary. There was a Gatch bed behind him and some basic equipment used to monitor vitals. Aside from that, the room was bare. In fact, it was unusually small for a recovery ward—a medical professional would be tripping over themselves just trying to observe the patient. Also, the air had an odd, stale quality to it. It was clearly being fed through carbon scrubbers, which would indicate—
"Aha! I see that I am aboard Jacob's Ladder. I appreciate the medical attention, but I insist you book me a shuttle to the surface immediately."
Ibis allowed himself a microsecond of satisfaction. Jacob's Ladder, of course! The space elevator was equipped with state of the art scientific facilities, including a medbay, and was located near the Leviathan's Rest. A perfectly logical place to treat the injured.
But the man did not immediately move to obey Dr. Mammoth Ibis. Instead, he shook his head gravely.
"I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment, doctor."
Ibis flared his nostrils and let out a noisy breath. Distractions! Must he actually look at this person? Bah, fine, if he must!
Thankfully, the man was immediately recognizable. Joelle Chaucer, also known as the hero "The Famine Slayer".
His title as hero was somewhat ironic, however. Chaucer hadn't been an active metahuman for decades. He had first emerged with the hero team "SLAYERS '' as the "Thunder Slayer", with the lackluster power to produce electric jolts with a snap of his fingers. He seemed doomed to mediocrity, until he retired and entered into the world of business. Now, he was one of Horizon's most beloved philanthropists. His title as "The Famine Slayer" was more marketing than anything, but it didn't stop him from sticking his nose into others' business.
Ibis sneered at the man with the kindly face and nice suit. How dare he take up space in Ibis' brain with such triviality!
Said kindly face remained grave. "You are correct, doctor. We are on Jacob's Ladder. Somehow, Lady Leizi secured Justice Unlimited an entire base on the elevator and kept it secret. You're in their medical ward."
"Playing messenger then? Valiant Silver or Uiara were too busy, hmm?"
Chaucer didn't answer. Instead, he activated a viewscreen built into the wall like a window. It displayed a view of Horizon from above, the lights of megapolis splayed across the island of Marajó like a river of fireflies. It was an excellent view. The doctor could even make out the patch of icy wasteland in the middle of the city that marked The Frozen Throne.
But most striking, directly across the space elevator, surrounded by the fence of the Quarantine Zone and forever patrolled by the R-Train, was the Leviathan's body. Its ossified corpse towered over the city like a mountain, dwarfed only by Jacob's Ladder itself.
It was several yards closer to the city than it had been this morning. Its "head" was tilted slightly upwards. Ibis hated how the sight made him shiver.
Chaucer sat down in the room's only chair like he was buckling under a great weight. Ibis considered making a dash for it right then, but he had already invested the time. He may as well wait for Chaucer to get to the point.
However, the Famine Slayer didn't speak. He just stared at the city for several minutes in silence. His eyes were haunted, his face pale. Had Ibis cared enough to have an opinion, he would have thought the hero looked terrible.
Finally, right as Ibis' patience gave out, Chaucer spoke. He didn't even look at Ibis; he continued to stare out the window while speaking.
"She . . . had a contingency plan. I supposed she always did."
"Who?" Ibis replied, "Valiant Silver?"
"Yes," Chaucer confirmed. "If she were to die or become indefinitely incapacitated, all of Justice Unlimited's assets and resources would automatically pass to Uiara. If Uiara were similarly indisposed, it would go to Adamant, then Lady Leizi, and then every other member in order of seniority."
Ibis was tapping his foot. "Yes, yes, she's always been so brilliant. As if inventing a toaster you can control with your mind makes you some sort of genius. What of it?"
Chaucer finally moved his gaze to Ibis. "If every member of Justice Unlimited were to die, then control of their assets were to pass to me."
Ah.
"Unfortunate."
Ibis meant it. While he found their brand of do-gooding baffling at best and sanctimonious at worst, Justice Unlimited was excellent at keeping the city's more disruptive elements quiet.
"Wait, even Radiant Silvergirl? Shame. I actually liked her."
Chaucer's glare was a pleasant change of pace from his previous expression of morose emptiness.
"Oh, stop that. I'm certain Novalight will be thrilled to fill in the gap with New Dawn. She's just been aching to move back into the spotlight."
Chaucer stared him down. Ibis began to feel his scalp prickle.
"Oh. New Dawn as well? All of them? All of them? My word."
"Every hero who could fight was there, doctor. Even you."
"Do not lump in with the rest of those infants play-acting psychodramas with superpowers! I am a man of science."
"And yet," Chaucer said, unmoving, "You were there."
Now Ibis was growing irate. His timetables for the day were in tatters.
"Well, I suppose Global Justice will rule the city now!" he sneered, "All hail our lord and master, Justiciar! The Americans will be thrilled, I'm certain."
"Justiciar is dead. The Foot of the Ladder is in chaos."
Ibis peered back over the viewscreen. Come to think of it, some of those lights on Horizon looked less like electric illumination and more like fires. Well.
"The Four Seasons?"
"Little Automne is gone. I don't know about the rest."
"SLAYERS?"
"Gone." Chaucer's expression somehow became even bleaker. "Abigail just got engaged, did you know? She even asked me to be in her wedding party, man or no. . ."
Ibis hid the roll of his eyes. He cared little for the now-defunct, personal life of The Giant Slayer.
"Powers?"
Chaucer snapped out of it and grimaced. "Scarlet Maturity is still alive, but . . ."
"It would probably be better if he was dead. Of course that brute would outlive us all. And King has disappeared as usual?"
Chaucer sighed. "Yes, just when we need him most."
No wonder he looked ready to jump off the Ladder. The situation was truly dire. Still, it had very little to do with Dr. Mammoth Ibis.
"Well, I appreciate your warning. It was almost worth the delay. Now, my shuttle . . . ?"
Chaucer gave him a withering look and walked deliberately out the room. Did. . . did he assume that Ibis would just follow him? The gall of the man! That he was right was besides the point!
As Ibis hurried to match The Famine Slayer's determined strides, the haunted man began speaking.
"Doctor, you don't understand. Everyone came to stop the Leviathan from waking up. Every hero. The more villainously inclined did not," he said, "Now they rampage across the city! If it were not for The R-Train still patrolling the QZ, there would be total anarchy."
"So those were fires . . . Perhaps I'll let the more martial of my children stretch their legs when I return home."
"I'll thank you very much to not pour accelerant all over the city, doctor!" Chaucer barked, "The reason you must stay up here is that with Cisma and Steelheart both dead, Wonderland has failed. The prisoners inside have escaped. Including—"
"Le Petit Prince." The cold hatred that suddenly flowed through Ibis was quite invigorating. Maybe he had been overusing his implant. "You're mistaken, Famine Slayer. Now, I must return more than ever. I have unfinished business with that twisted lilliputian."
"Not when you're vulnerable to him! And not when you're the only person who can help solve this mess!" Chaucer thundered. With a sharp movement, he placed a hand on a panel and opened a door in a previously featureless wall. With a great pull, he yanked Ibis inside and dragged him to a contraption in the middle of the room. It was there that Ibis could see a golden liquid suspended in several layers of glass, floating in a magnetic field.
Ibis' mouth went dry. Leviathan's Blood. Goldnine. One of the most dangerous substances in existence. An ounce of it could destroy a continent. This much could end the planet.
". . . I'm listening."
* * *
Wonderful! Marvelous! Scientudenous, even! Ibis was so pleased that he was making playful exclamations! Today seemed like a total waste, but this . . . this alone made it all worth it.
He had never been this close to raw goldnine before. It was one of the few laws that were sacrosanct in Horizon: do not deal in the Leviathan's Blood. And that name was literal! Goldnine was an amber liquid that constantly seeped from the body of the Leviathan. It was the strange matter of biological material—any organic compound that made contact with goldnine would instantly be converted into more of it. When the Leviathan first impacted the Earth nearly 20% of Marajó was instantly turned. Dumb luck kept it from swallowing the rest of the island.
That was the true purpose of the QZ. Most people assumed it was to protect the city from the strange creatures that occasionally emerged near the Leviathan, but it was really to prevent any smuggling of a substance that could end the world. How Ibis rued that he was never able to properly analyze it!
Think of it! Real biological matter from an extraterrestrial creature! He salivated at the thought of what he could learn from it. Certainly dangerous, rightfully kept from lesser minds, but to deny it from someone like himself? Criminal!
"—Adamant's metallic body protected him from contamination long enough to get you and a sample of goldnine out of the QZ. His last act was to send a message to me—"
Oh goodness. Was the Famine Slayer still blathering on?
"Yes, yes, yes Chaucer. I'm certain Adamant was appropriately heroic. Heroic enough to risk transporting Levithan's Blood through the city."
Chaucer gave him a severe look. "He saved your life."
"I haven't the faintest idea why. I hardly knew the man. Good on him, I suppose."
The Famine Slayer ran a hand over his face and began to rub his temples. He looked as if he hadn't slept in days.
"I see rumors of your . . . disposition were true. Very well, doctor, I will get to the point. In front of you is one of the only samples of goldnine in the world. One of the greatest heroes in the city brought it here at the cost of his life for one simple reason: it is the key ingredient in this."
Chaucer pulled out a dataslate, bit his thumb, and fed the blood to an authenticator on its surface. Only then did it illuminate, and Chaucer thrust it into Ibis' hands.
Ibis broke away from staring longingly at the goldnine to look at the tablet in his hands. Physical media? Ibis frowned. He hadn't seen something like this in years. As he began to read its contents, eyes wide and mouth open, he immediately realized why:
This was the early work for a formula to grant superpowers.
Ibis simultaneously was gripped with admiration and envy. It was primitive, needed a great deal of additional work, but the theory was sound. Valiant Silver had begun to discover something that had eluded the world for over five decades—how to grant superpowers on demand.
Whether you were a metahuman was decided at birth, although most did not begin to express their powers until adolescence. Sure, you had fringe cases who manifested powers at birth, but those were the exception. Depending on what their power was, some people could go their whole life without knowing they were a metahuman.
It didn't help that metahumanity appeared to be random. Two metahumans had no greater chance of having a child with powers than two regular humans. Millions had been spent by every major corporation in Horizon trying to, unsuccessfully, solve the riddle of where powers came from, and here was the start of the answer sitting in his hands. He didn't know whether to shout or cry.
"Valiant Silver was holding out on us! 'Psychic fields' . . . 'backstage' . . . 'sympathetic links' . . . goldnine was the key! I knew it!" Ibis shouted.
"Then you can finish it?" Chaucer leaned forward, a wild look in his eyes.
"Can I finish it? Can I finish it? I can finish anything that upstart power-armor jockey started! She wishes she had an ounce of the brilliance that I have in one pinky finger!"
Chaucer began pacing, his eyes filled with an agonizing kind of hope.
"Then . . . then we can rebuild! This was their final contingency. The plan if all hope was lost." Chaucer captured Ibis' arm in a firm grasp. "Doctor. I will provide you with resources, a safe haven, goldnine, anything. Anything if you can complete this formula."
"I'll need test subjects . . ." Ibis said, realizing he should have played it more canny, "And equipment from my home lab. Non-negotiable."
"Of course." Chaucer bobbed his head. "And I know people. Good people who would volunteer if it meant saving this city—no. Saving this world."
Ibis greedily rubbed his hands together. "I'll give you an army to lead, Famine Slayer. Just give me what I need."
"Me? No." Chaucer shook his head. "I am no leader. It will not be I who is in charge of Justice Unlimited." Chaucer beckoned with one hand for Ibis to follow him, which he reluctantly did. Again.
They walked back down the hall to the medical wing. They stopped in front of a room labeled "ICU", but did not enter. Instead, Chaucer activated a pane of polarized glass that let them view the room inside. On the other side of the glass, nearly totally hidden by all of the machines keeping them alive, was someone Ibis recognized.
"Oh. Oh. I see."
"Yes, doctor," Chaucer said, "There was one other survivor."
* * *
At first, all you are aware of is the ache of your body and the hum of machines. Your head feels like someone tried to kick their way out of it from the inside. You need to use the bathroom, but you don't know where it is and if you also still have legs. You spend a moment annoyed and in pain. That moment is bliss, because, in the next, you remember that your team is dead.
And yet, you persist. That is what a hero does after all. For good or ill, you are . . .
[ ] . . . Nora Kim, a.k.a. Valiant Silver.
You are the most intelligent person in Horizon. While you were a starving university student, you invented "psitech" technology—technology that allowed the human mind to directly interface with machinery. You publicly outed yourself as a metahuman while defending your classmates from a villain attack and, in the process, inadvertently founded Justice Unlimited. You were the team's leader, and under your stewardship Justice Unlimited rose to be the preeminent heroic organization in Horizon. Were it not for your quick actions in the QZ, the brewing psychic storm would have engulfed the city and awoken the Leviathan.
Like Dr. Mammoth Ibis, you are an "Algernon-type" metahuman. Your power allows you to rapidly absorb, process, and synthesize information at a superhuman rate. You can learn in a day what would take most people a lifetime. You can become a master of any field of knowledge practically overnight, and can make scientific advances that can catapult humanity into the future in an instant. However, use of this power comes at a terrible cost, one that was beginning to catch up with you. Unknown to the public, your team had forced you into a "soft retirement", leaving you out of fieldwork.
When you were in the field, you fought in power armor that the Toei Company's legal team agreed was "legally distinct enough", and which granted you a suite of powers ranging from super-strength to pyrokinesis. Your versatility in battle was unmatched—many a foe of Justice Unlimited's was defeated with your bag of tricks. However, your armor was recently destroyed, and it will be costly in both time and resources to rebuild. Until you do, you remain a liability in combat.
STATS: HIT 2, ESPIONAGE 6, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 10.
[ ] . . . Lei Zixuan, a.k.a. Lady Leizi.
You are the one person in Horizon who knows where all the bodies are buried. The heiress to an organized crime syndicate, being defeated by a nascent Justice Unlimited changed the trajectory of your life. Rather than swear revenge, you offered your services and became one of the most connected spymasters in all of Horizon. You've cultivated contacts on both sides of the law, and a metahuman can't so much as draw breath in the city without word of it reaching your ears. While your team provided the power and resources, you provided them the means to use it effectively and with panache.
A martial arts prodigy, your already formidable hand-to-hand skills became lethal when your powers manifested. You command the power of lighting with every strike of your fist, every kick of your leg, and even in the gentlest touch. You can produce electricity on par with lightning strikes or a subtle as a static shock. Your contact electric blasts make you a master of close-quarter combat that all but the strongest metahumans in Horizon fear. On top of that, a childhood spent evading law enforcement has given you a keen power of observation and an intuitive knowledge of who to trust.
However, your power grants you no defensive capabilities—a bullet would end you as readily as anyone else. Additionally, as powerful as you are behind the scenes, you are not-well known to the public writ-large. Those who are aware of you know you as Justice Unlimited's hatchet-woman, and you are more feared than trusted. Becoming the new "face" of Justice Unlimited will involve significant growing pains.
STATS: HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 8, REPUTATION 3, OPERATIONS 5.
[ ] . . . Yazmin Oliviera, a.k.a. Uiara.
You are the one hero that everyone in Horizon respects. You are the granddaughter of Ọsanyìn, the first metahuman, who founded his namesake megacorporation and built Horizon. But you eschewed your family's wealth, power, and petty squabbles to directly serve the people of Horizon. You were the conscience of Justice Unlimited, refusing to let your team cross the line that separates justice from tyranny. It was the strength of your reputation that drew the city's heroes to stop the Leviathan's awakening and save the city, possibly the world.
You are one of the strongest hydrokinetics in the world. Your command of water starts slow, but eventually ramps up to the point where you can drown cities. You can freely shape and move water like it is part of your body, and you can flash freeze or boil it with a thought. Additionally, while you are not invincible, you are what Valiant Silver once described as "super-durable"; you are not immune to harm, but you can take a beating well past the point where a normal person would die.
However, by your own admission, you are not the strongest planner. You're not unintelligent, far from it, but, put kindly, you think in terms of tactics instead of strategy. Put unkindly, you are hot-headed and prone to being impulsive. Additionally, you and technology have never really mixed. If you have a nickel for every time Valiant Silver or Moon River chewed you out for breaking your equipment, you would be able to buy your family's company a dozen times over.
STATS: HIT 6, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 8, OPERATIONS 4.
You are now the most dangerous metahuman in Horizon. You are the rare metahuman who was born with her powers. As an infant, you were kidnapped by an extremist paramilitary group and raised to be a weapon. However, your personality proved entirely unconducive to this and deeply frustrating to your instructors. News reports about Justice Unlimited in Horizon filled you with a deep longing, and you eventually escaped and joined Justice Unlimited as their most junior member.
You hold power over gravity on a cosmic level. Your power has left with a permanently altered appearance; your skin is like a silver glass, whorls and eddies of power visibly flowing under the surface. Spin the power clockwise and your skin turns white as ivory, allowing you to create a "white hole" in any spot you can see. Said white hole pushes all forms of matter and energy away from it with a force in proportion to its size. Spin the power counter-clockwise, and your skin turns black as onyx. Your power then becomes the ability to generate black holes wherever you wish, with all the crushing, attracting force of gravity that implies. Your gravity control lets you fly, and you're much stronger than your slender frame would belie.
However, you're whatever the opposite of a "people person" is. You struggle with social cues, don't intuitively read facial expressions, and prefer to speak directly at all times. The Red Huntress once asked you if you wanted to get a formal diagnosis, but you never saw the point. Your social deficiencies coupled with your unconventional childhood make public relations an extreme effort. And yet, now if you don't do it, there's no one else left to.
STATS: HIT 9, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 4, OPERATIONS 6.
* * *
Hey everyone! I am a long time quest-lurker, first time quest maker-poster-writer person. This is an original superhero setting that's been cooking in the back of my head for a while. I've never quite run a game like this, so there's gonna be hiccups. Please bear with me and I promise we will have, at least, and adequate time!
You will be tasked with rebuilding Justice Unlimited, saving Horizon, and maybe finally getting around that giant alien body that's been here for 50 years. You will be doing so by turning regular people into superheroes. Rules will be in the post below; good luck!
This game will run a bastardization of CKII-style quests of my own making. This is my first time designing something this in-depth, so I reserve the right to make tweaks as we go if things aren't working as intended. I'm always open to input on how to improve, so if you see an obvious flaw or just have a thought, please let me know.
Organization:
You will be tasked with rebuilding Justice Unlimited from scratch. You have virtually no resources, no reputation, and no income. Thankfully, you do have access to the remainder of Justice Unlimited's emergency funds. You have just enough to create, outfit, and train a new metahuman and keep the lights on for a bit. Upkeep costs will be kept on the main character page. As of now, they are zero. If you wish to expand Justice Unlimited, that will change.
Horizon is divided into about a dozen boroughs that all have their own governing apparatus. The primary way to make money in Horizon is to enter into a contract to protect a given borough. You agree to deal with metahuman threats in their borders, and they agree to pay you a fee every turn.
Justice Unlimited used to be contracted to protect, and thus controlled, a number of boroughs in Horizon. The destruction of the organization has called that into question. If you want to keep your old contracts, you're going to have to prove you can do the job.
This will be done via missions. Certain missions may grant a point of control over a given borough as a reward for successfully completing it. Different boroughs will require different amounts of control points to be willing to contract with Justice Unlimited.
Personal Stats:
Personal stats work off the "HERO" system. They are:
HIT - direct combat ability
ESPIONAGE - instinct, ability to engage in intrigue and otherwise ferret out hidden information REPUTATION - Leadership, ability to inspire others, how much others trust you OPERATIONS - ability to plan strategically, technological know-how, run day to day business
Each hero will have an assigned value for each stat. The value is not static and may be increased or decreased depending on events in the story. Stats are primarily increased through training and the administration of doses of Ambrosia, but more on that later. For the purpose of missions, all heroes stats will be added together. During mini-arcs during missions, a hero will roll with their individual stats.
Missions:
At the start of each turn, players will be presented with a list of missions they may choose to undertake. Multiple missions may be taken, but the amount of missions that may be taken on one turn is determined by Justice Unlimited's Action Points (AP) and overall HERO stats. Accepting a mission begins a mini-arc that will contain one or multiple votes and DCs to determine whether it is completed successfully and to what degree.
Undertaking a mission requires that you have sufficient AP and enough overall HERO. For example:
You select the following missions:
Pick Up Milk. (AP 1, HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 1, OPERATIONS 2)
Take a Shower. (AP 1, ESPIONAGE 2, REPUTATION 1, OPERATIONS 1.
Final Stat Requirements: (AP 2, HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 1, OPERATIONS 3)
In this example, let's say Justice Unlimited's has the following stats: AP 2, HIT 2, ESPIONAGE 6, REPUTATION 2, OPERATIONS 2
Justice Unlimited would not be able to take on the listed missions because it was lacking one OPERATIONS point, although you have sufficient AP.
Some missions will have special story requirements, while others will only be available for a certain number of turns before auto-resolving without player input. Such missions will be marked.
During mini-arcs, heroes taking actions will roll with their individual stats. All rolls will be done with a D20 with a DC you will know ahead of time. Each DC will also have an associated stat check on it. If a hero has less of a HERO stat than the stat check, they may still attempt the DC. However, there will be a -1 modifier to the roll for every 2 points they are below the requirement. If a hero has more of a HERO stat than is required, the will receive a +1 modifier for every 2 points they have above the requirement.
For example, let's use Radiant Silvergirl. She has the following stats: HIT 9, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 4, OPERATIONS 6.
During a mini-arc, Radiant Silvergirl encounters the following DC:
[ ] Jump really high. (DC 5, HIT 2).
Radiant Silvergirl has a HIT that is 7 over the requirement. She thus will roll with a +2.
Now, let's say she encounters this DC:
[ ] Call a waiter over. (DC 5, ESPIONAGE 5).
Radiant Silvergirl has an ESPIONAGE that is 2 less than the requirement. She thus will roll with a -1.
Some missions may have an associated Income cost. You cannot begin a turn with a negative Income balance. Any mission requiring Income you do not have will auto-fail.
Action points can be earned by gaining bases or increasing the roster-size of Justice Unlimited. At this point, it will take two new metahumans to gain 1AP.
BUILDING HEROES:
Ambrosia
Dr. Mammoth Ibis has named his power-granting serum "Ambrosia". Yes, really. You will create the dose of Ambrosia by voting on what power sets from various deceased metahumans to include in each dose. There is no guarantee of the power that will be granted by a dose of Ambrosia, but I will take the thread's rationale for making a particular dose into consideration. In other words, if you're trying to make a stealthy hero and include powers for that purpose, I won't give the candidate a power that makes them glow really bright.
Each dose of Ambrosia will have a potency rating from 1 to 10. The higher the potency rating, the more powerful the metahuman power that will be granted by the dose of Ambrosia (and thus the higher the stat increase). However, a higher potency also means there is a higher chance of a mutation with a negative side effect.
The risk of a negative side effect is as follows:
Potency:
1-3: No chance of a side effect.
4-6: Chance of a minor side effect.
7-8: Chance of a moderate side effect.
9-10: Chance of a major side effect.
To determine if a dose has a side effect, a d100 will be rolled. 1 to 39 and there is no side effect. 40 to 69 and there is a minor side effect. 70 to 89 and there is a moderate side effect. 90 to 99 and there is a major side effect. At 100 something special happens, but that will remain a surprise for now. If a dose only has a chance to cause a lesser side effect but a roll for a higher side effect happens, then only the most serious side effect possible for the dose will take effect. For example:
There is a dose of Ambrosia with a potency of 7. A 95 is rolled. Only a moderate side effect will occur.
You will have the option of decreasing a dose's potency by 1 without making the expressed power weaker. This can be done up to three times. However, each time you do it adds a +5 modifier to the chance of a negative side effect.
I have a table of minor, moderate, and major side effects. I'll roll to determine which one takes effect. I know looking at the odds, there is a low chance of a major side effect ever taking place. Trust me though, they're nasty. Side effects have stat penalties and other factors that have long term ramifications for the candidates. Speaking of which:
Candidates
You have to have someone to whom to give the Ambrosia. Candidates come with their own HERO stats and an Ambrosia tolerance level. A candidate's tolerance must match or exceed a dose's potency level for them to be able to take it. Dr. Mammoth Ibis' research shows that higher neuroplasticity is correlated with a higher tolerance. Which is to say, candidates with crappier stats can take more potent doses.
Your candidate pool can be expanded through missions or naturally as Justice Unlimited's reputation grows.
Combat
Failing a HIT check in a combat situation will result in a character taking one injury level. The levels are as follows:
1 Injury Level -- Superficial Injury (no mechanical change)
2 Injury Levels -- Severe Injury (all HIT checks rolled with a -1)
3 Injury Levels -- Critical Injury, Adrenaline (all Hit checks rolled with +2)
4 Injury Levels -- Death or Incapacity
Injury levels are cumulative per turn. At the end of a turn, all characters heal all injuries. Any character with the tag "invulnerable" cannot take an injury level unless narratively it makes sense for them to do so, and cannot die due to injuries. Any character with the tag "regeneration" will heal an injury level between missions or when the specific conditions of their regeneration are met.
Characters may suffer injury levels from ambushes and other unexpected events, but I will not put a character in a situation where they could die or be incapacitated without a thread vote.
I reserve the right to break any of these rules if it would be cool narratively. Feel free to call me out on it though!
You are the one person in Horizon who knows where all the bodies are buried. The heiress to an organized crime syndicate, being defeated by a nascent Justice Unlimited changed the trajectory of your life. Rather than swear revenge, you offered your services and became one of the most connected spymasters in all of Horizon. You've cultivated contacts on both sides of the law, and a metahuman can't so much as draw breath in the city without word of it reaching your ears. While your team provided the power and resources, you provided them the means to use it effectively and with panache.
A martial arts prodigy, your already formidable hand-to-hand skills became lethal when your powers manifested. You command the power of lighting with every strike of your fist, every kick of your leg, and even in the gentlest touch. You can produce electricity on par with lightning strikes or a subtle as a static shock. Your contact electric blasts make you a master of close-quarter combat that all but the strongest metahumans in Horizon fear. On top of that, a childhood spent evading law enforcement has given you a keen power of observation and an intuitive knowledge of who to trust.
However, your power grants you no defensive capabilities—a bullet would end you as readily as anyone else. Additionally, as powerful as you are behind the scenes, you are not-well known to the public writ-large. Those who are aware of you know you as Justice Unlimited's hatchet-woman, and you are more feared than trusted. Becoming the new "face" of Justice Unlimited will involve significant growing pains.
JUSTICE UNLIMITED
Headquarters: The Apiary, (7/10 Metahumans) Other Bases: Unnamed Base on Jacob's Ladder, The Zenith Current Income: 0 Income/Turn: 1000/Turn Available Action Points: 8 Available Global Actions: 6
Roster:
Lady Leizi - HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 8, REPUTATION 6, OPERATIONS 5.
You are Lady Leizi, the spymaster of Horizon. As Lady Leizi, you will receive extra intel for every potential metahuman candidate. Additionally, because of your extensive spy-network, you may once per turn mission reduce the difficulty of any ESPIONAGE check for yourself or others by 3.
Name: Black Swan, Mona Merola-Morales Keywords:Fundamental Force Manipulation, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Flight Side Effect: Extreme Psychic Field Sensitivity Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 13 Stats: HIT 12, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 10, OPERATIONS 4
Ibis' Notes: The subject's power has turned her body into a hyperdense gravity anomaly, not unlike a supermassive black hole and with the density of several galaxies. Her external "body" is an ablative shell of orbiting energy. Subject can control the gravity at her core and reabsorb the energy body into her core body. Doing so creates a massive amount of friction resulting in magnetic fields. Said fields can launch matter from her body at relativistic speeds. Doing so will result in a reduction of her overall body's mass, which can be regenerated by absorbing radiation.
Subject can use control of gravity to fly at supersonic speeds, possibly even relativistic speeds. Abilities:
Hypernovae Mode
If a sufficient source of radiation exists, Black Swan may spend the scene absorbing said source of radiation. Black Swan will recover injury levels depending on the sufficiency of the source, as well as potentially gaining "shielded" status. If Black Swan can absorb energy beyond that, she will enter Hypernovae Mode, adding +5 to her next HIT check.
Lightspeed Dash
Black Swan may fly at speeds approaching the speed of light. Doing so will trigger atomic fusion and explosions that will not harm Black Swan, but will cause damage to the areas through which she flies. If Black Swan is in Hypernovae Mode, she can absorb the energy of the explosions to continue Hypernovae Mode and prevent any damage, except for damage to what she flies through and where she stops.
Name: Menagerie Witch, Madeline du Marseille
Keywords: Construct Creation, Energy Manipulation, Autonomous Creature Creation
Faction: Justice Unlimited
Stats: HIT 4, ESPIONAGE 6, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 7 Dr. Ibis' Notes: Menagerie Witch's powers are exceptionally well-developed for someone her age. Fourteen years old and already she's reached full-maturation as a metahuman.
Clovis Laurent will burn in hell.
Ahem. Regardless of the circumstance, Menagerie Witch's power affords her amazing flexibility, if not direct combat ability. She's able to freely move her shadow and use it to "clone" any non-sapient living creature. Her clones are solid energy constructs that resemble shadows with red eyes. She's able to pour more energy into the creature during creation to make it stronger, larger, faster, more durable, or in any shape she can imagine. Her only limitations are the amount of time she has to create a creature, the energy she can spare, and the energy taken from the cloned subject.
Menagerie Witch should not use her power to the extent she did during the Third North Tower Incident. A physical revealed she is severely malnourished with a bone density only witnessed in those with osteoporosis. Her pets are not doing much better. It will take time for the damage to heal, if it ever fully does.
Once created, her constructs display a shocking degree of autonomy, by all accounts acting the same as their living counterparts including a loyalty to Menagerie Witch. They can understand and follow verbal orders from Menagerie Witch, though she cannot control them directly nor share senses with them. Once created, they appear to be able to persist for several weeks if left unharmed.
The only drawback is the constructs must remain within several hundred yards of Menagerie Witch. Once that threshold is exceeded, they will automatically disperse. Abilities:
Chimera
In exchange for taking one injury level, Menagerie Witch may combine the clones of whatever members of her menagerie she has access to in order to create a beast with all of their traits. Said chimera will boost her HIT, ESPIONAGE, REPUTATION, or OPERATIONS stat by one for each member of her menagerie involved in the creation of the chimera. She may only maintain one chimera at a time.
Name: Handyman, Rhys Gardner Keywords: Autobiokinesis, Enhanced Strength Side Effect: None Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 9
Stats: HIT 8, ESPIONAGE 9, REPUTATION 3, OPERATIONS 3
Ibis' Notes: Subject's power has changed the composition of his body into an organic compound known as "clay". Subject can manipulate the structure, shape, and composition of his body including being able to make scales, feathers, chitin, bone, bioluminescent sacs, secondary pairs of organs, and so on. Subject can also make constructs in his body as well—for example, the subject made organic pile-bunkers in his elbows that greatly increased the strength of the subject's punches and, after being given a diagram, the subject could create crude crossbows out of his hands.
Subject possesses enhanced regeneration and strength. The subject can also change size. The subject can change into something smaller than his base form with a proportional increase in density. The subject's ability to grow has no limitations except the square-cube law. The subject was able to reliably get to about twenty feet in height before moving required the subject's body to be made of materials too brittle to be of use.
Name: Châtelet, Opale Houdin-Reyes Keywords:Fundamental Force Manipulation, Construct Creation Faction: Justice Unlimited Stats: HIT 7, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 9, OPERATIONS 6
Ibis' Notes:Châtelet can create tube-shaped barriers in any location she can see, including around objects. The outside of the barrier can withstand strong physical damage, while the area inside the barrier has a gravitational orientation chosen by Châtelet. The barriers are not permeable, but the top and bottoms are not enclosed, allowing Châteletto fire them like a "beam" if she so chooses. The barriers can be any thickness she wishes, but the gravitational effect occurs in a strength proportional to the size of the barrier. The more barriers she creates at once, the weaker they all become collectively.
Name: Doctor Silver, John Henry Rhodes Keywords: Force Fields, Ally Empowerment, Clairvoyance Side Effect: Minor Psychic Field Sensitivity Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 10 Stats: HIT 3, ESPIONAGE 6, REPUTATION 7, OPERATIONS 7 Ibis' Notes: My BFF is soooooo coooooool! He has total spatial awareness of the area around himself within a 100 yard radius! He can sense movement and know what's going on in enclosed spaces within his range! Who cares if he can't technically "see", so his sense is blind to things like papers and screens?!
And he can make force fields! He has a set pool of energy he can spend to make force fields he can spontaneously manifest anywhere in his area of detection, in any shape, attached to a person, object, or just hanging in the air. Sure, the force fields decrease in strength with number or size, but he can make up to three at a time that can stop a bullet. And, and, annnnnnnd he has a second kind of barrier he can place on objects or people. This barrier absorbs part of any physical or energetic impact and then adds it back to his pool of energy. He can keep his 'Hustle' going indefinitely! And he can make three absorbing force fields at a time. He's the best! The bestest friend for the bestest doctor! Ride or die, baby!
Abilities:
The Hustle
John Henry can create shields for himself or allies that will absorb injury levels when struck. He can create three injury levels worth of shields at once. This means he can create one shield that absorbs three injury levels, one shield that can absorb two injury levels and one that can absorb one injury level, or three shields that can each absorb one injury level. These cannot stack with shield generators at the same time, but he can apply a shield to a character who has used their shield generator. If all his shields are deployed, he may only create extremely weak force fields.
John Henry may tag up to three objects or people with a "red barrier". The barrier provides no shielding, but for every injury level that occurs to an object or person with a red barrier, John Henry recharges one injury level's worth of energy to use in other shields or force fields. He may only store three injury levels worth of energy at a time.
Name: Valiant Gold, Noelle "Ellie" Han Power: The EXCEED-BEYOND Armor Side Effect: Extreme Psychic Field Sensitivity Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 13
Stats: HIT 9, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 7, OPERATIONS 9 Notes: Ellie wields the EXCEED-BEYOND armor, which has four modules with different power sets. Modules must be selected for a scene and may be changed between scenes. Using any power in blue will disable the module until the end of a combat encounter. Using module "dynamite" will disable the EXCEED-BEYOND armor until the end of the mission. Always Active: Anti-gravity, Energy Shielding, Mental Manipulation Immunity Module "Paper": Pyrokinesis, Energy Blaster, Drones, Targeting Suite, Railgun Module "Scissors": Psychic Energy Blades, Agility Suite, Telekinesis, Pilebunker Module "Rock": Enhanced Strength, Advanced Energy Shielding, Power Nullification Module "Dynamite": O̵̺͓̊͌͊p̵̞͕̔̚ē̵͔͜ņ̵͍͎̊ ̸͎̌̄̌ẗ̶̖͘h̶̝̮͐̋ë̵̺̺́ ̷̺͊S̵͍̊̈̕t̷̮̎͝ą̶̩̞̄g̶̮͘e̶̦̲̟͌
Reach Heaven Through Violence
Ellie's cool head under fire is contagious. Any time there is a HIT check where Justice Unlimited is subject to an ambush or sneak attack, add +3 to the roll if Ellie is present!
Algernon-Type
It was always meant for two. Qe̵̛̞n̶̫͗j̵̥̾ ̷̫̉ẕ̵̈ḃ̴̪ě̴̤ŗ̷̇ ̵̯͒O̸̭͗ÿ̴̪n̶͙̒p̵̼̚x̸̰̄t̴̪̎b̶͖̂ý̸̘q̶͖̍ ̸̬̆l̶̜̆ḧ̷͈́e̷̝͊v̸̢͛.̶̖̆ ̵̩͐W̸̙̑x̵͖̊,̶͈̎ ̸̥̓w̶̠͝x̷̨̓.̷̮̈ ̸̫̽Ő̸͍h̵̖̉g̶̠̕ ̷̛̱l̷̰̎b̶̖́h̷̻͗ ̶͚̽q̵̌ͅb̸̼̃a̷̡̔'̷͔͆ġ̸̻ ̸̱͑x̵̝́ạ̷̒b̶͕̒j̴͈̾ ̸̗͠ ̵̢̓u̴͍̾b̴̘̑j̷͚͑ ̴̯̍g̵̫̕u̶̖͐v̸̼̇f̴̺͒ ̷̟̃n̴̟̆ǒ̴͉v̴͓̒y̸͎̍v̸̟̍g̵͖̃l̷͎͘ ̷͙͗j̸̭̚b̸͘ͅé̷̢ẋ̴̪f̵͚̆ ̷̼̀l̴͚͛r̴̬̽g̶̠͋!̶̔ͅ
Global Stat Modifiers: +1 HIT, -4 REPUTATION, +1 ESPIONAGE, +1 OPERATIONS
Total Available Stats: HIT 49, ESPIONAGE 40, REPUTATION 43, OPERATIONS 42.
Affiliate Members: Dr. Mammoth Ibis (Head of Research), Joelle Chaucer the "Famine Slayer" (Director of Operations), Dr. Massive Ibis (Chief Research Assistant), Takanashi Chihiro (Director of Communications)
Analytical Precognition
Wolong has a set number of charges for his power for each mission. By expending one charge on a mission where he is presnt, Wolong can ensure Justice Unlimited will automatically pass any OPERATIONS check.
The No Spin Zone (Now with Spin!)
Once per mission, when Chihiro is present in a scene, or reasonably reachable through remote means, you may re-roll any failed REPUTATION check that relates to public relations. The re-roll is done with advantage and Chihiro adds +3 to the final result.
You Little Shit!
Chihiro has maintained her journalistic integrity in an industry that demands she abandon it, but she's still got hands. Once per mission, if Chihiro is present in a scene, or reasonably reachable by remote means, you may automatically pass any REPUTATION check where you attempt to damage a foe's credibility or reputation in the eyes of the public, so long as your negative claims are factually accurate.
Allies: Mendicant, Alice Lawson; Wolong, Gabriel Kwan; New Dawn Assets Ronin, Egawa Akane; White Tiger
Name: Gentleman James, Andre Machado Faction: New Dawn Stats: HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 7, OPERATIONS 6
Ibis' Notes:Gentleman James can connect two points in space that he can see with unbreakable chains. He is able to shrink the chains at will bringing the points together, or extend the length of the chain as he so chooses. The weight of the objects does not affect the strength of the retraction, although it can be resisted by very heavy objects or objects fixed to the ground.
Name: Dreamcatcher, Juan Castellanos Faction: New Dawn Stats: HIT 3-9 (variable), ESPIONAGE 2, REPUTATION 4, OPERATIONS 4
Ibis' Notes:Dreamcatcher is able to manifest one object or creature from the dream he had last night into reality. The object maintains its characteristics from the dream, but the more Dreamcatcher himself begins to question the underlying logic of the item the less effective it becomes. Unfortunately, he has no ability to control what he dreams about and firmly believes that lucid dreaming is "total bullshit". (Mechanics: Roll a d20 on any mission with Dreamcatcher to determine the strength of his dream item)
Name: Palisade, Renee Mathews Faction: New Dawn Stats: HIT 7, ESPIONAGE 5, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 5
Ibis' Notes:Palisade has an invisible forcefield around her body that she can freely reposition in any share or location within a thirty foot radius of herself. The barrier becomes visible when damaged, and is a dark, transparent shade of purple. If her barrier is broken, it takes approximately an hour to return to full strength, though she can use it in a diminished form before then.
Name: Miss Naught, Virginia Cunningham Faction: New Dawn Stats: HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 6, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 6
Ibis' Notes:Miss Naught can "mark" a target that she can see. The mark is physical and can be seen when placed. Any objects fired by her or her allies at the target will home in on the mark. To facilitate the most effective use of her powers, she carries a quiver of "trick" arrows with various effects.
Wolong's Insight—Once per mission where New Dawn is involved, Wolong can use his power to autocrit any OPERATIONS check.
Controlled Territory: Worker's Mitt Available Territory: Old Industrial District (0/5) (+2000 Income/turn) The Worker's Mitt and OID pay their Income/per turn immediately upon being retaken in the form of a penalty clause) Resources: 3 personal shield generators, 1 healing symboite, 2 Ambrosia doses worth of goldnine Available Candidates:
Candidate #1
Name: Song Yu-Jin Age: 61 Stats: HIT 4, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 4 Tolerance: 3 Chaucer's Notes: Mr. Song originally hails from the Old Industrial District, where he ran a small martial arts studio. He's since relocated to the Apiary following his home's destruction. A widower with a college-age son abroad, Yu-Jin has become something of a pillar of the community in his golden years. He runs a small daycare that caters to working-class families, he teaches a Tai Chi class in the morning, and he's reportedly still quite the martial artist. Rumors hold that he was the instructor of Counterstrike, a popular vigilante working out of the OID. If he's truly skilled enough to teach even metahumans, he may be a welcome addition to Justice Unlimited. Lady Leizi: My shīfù once told me there are only two kinds of aged warriors: those who abandon the fight altogether and age gracefully into infirmary, and those who bitterly resent time's theft of their prowess and train relentlessly to not give up one iota of their skill. That kind is all the more dangerous for their experience along with their ability. Mr. Song reminds me of the latter. He plays the role of the kindly grandfather, but I have a feeling that still waters run deep. The true problem presented by his age is what to do about his cover. We either give him a subtle power that could have plausibly remained hidden, conceal his identity, or somehow find a way to reverse aging. Candidate #2
Name: Soraia Del Rosario Age: 31 Stats: HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 6, OPERATIONS 4 Tolerance: 5 Chaucer's Notes:One of the refugees who settled in the Apiary after the Movement, she quickly became one of the group's leaders. She helped distribute resources to those that most needed them, organized events to boost morale, and kept the refugees from devolving into infighting while under siege by Floating Venom Morpheme. She actually already works for us as a member of our administrative staff. She has something of a reputation as a firecracker—she has her beliefs and is not shy about sharing them. Thankfully, her beliefs seem to be of a heroic disposition: most often she voices disagreement when she is concerned that the refugees—now residents of the Apiary—are not being well-cared for or treated fairly. Lady Leizi:Nora would have loved her immediately and then found her deeply frustrating, partially because she reminds me of Yazmin. Soraia has a history of involvement in local and workplace politics, notably helping found an union in her previous workplace. It was successful until their jobs were outsourced to cheaper suppliers, after which she started a semi-legal cooperative dedicated to producing licensed medicine to distribute either for free or at very low prices. She's well-known and well-loved around the Worker's Mitt, and would certainly help differentiate us from other, more corporate hero organizations. However, she would also certainly object to some of our more . . . questionable methods if she felt they were not adequately considered or justified.
Candidate #3
Name: Shelley Marie Age: 27 Stats: HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 5 REPUTATION 4, OPERATIONS 3 Tolerance: 6 Chaucer's Notes:Ms. Marie originally hails from the Worker's Mitt, where she worked as a music teacher. She gained a reputation for her advocacy for strong unions and fair pay for those employed in the music industry in the Mitt. She eventually found her way to us with the refugees after her home was destroyed, and she was one of the people sheltering from Floating Venom Morpheme when we retook the Apiary. She is by all means pleasant and charming, but she has a habit of finding herself in places she doesn't belong. She claims she is merely "unlucky", but I believe Ms. Marie may have more of a nose for trouble than she lets on. Lady Leizi:I've heard of Shelley before— she used to occasionally make large donations to reconstruction efforts in the Mitt wherever it was damaged by metahuman combat. I know she's involved in multiple unions, and is a fixture at town hall meetings. I would say she's unremarkable, except for uncanny knack of being at the right place at the right time to do the most good. I've not been able to find hard proof, but I'm fairly certain she was the one to agitate the protests against DeLeon after we rescued Menagerie Witch. Useful to have on our side, though I'd keep a close eye on her.
Candidate #4
Name: Simão Cruzes da Silva Neto, alias "Cain" Age: 30 Stats: HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 1, OPERATION 4 Tolerance: 7 Chaucer's Notes: What is this submission doing here? Has someone taken leave of their senses? Why in the world have we taken the time to screen this man?
For any enterprising soul who finds this file by accident, let me be very clear: "Cain" is a spree killer, a non-powered "vigilante" who was active in Brazil and infamous for his crimes. He is perhaps the most dangerous non-metahuman on the continent! It is rumored his first kill happened when he was twelve, and for years afterwards he waged a one-man war against the cartels. He killed anyone he believed to be a member without pause, despite being involved in the drug trade himself. He has an estimated murder count in the triple digits, including his own father!
I cannot fathom why this man would ever be considered for Project Prometheus. Lady Leizi: I was the one who submitted Cain for screening. Cain's life has been unbearably tragic, and it has shaped him to the hardened killer he is today. By all accounts, his father was an abusive monster responsible for the death of his mother—I am in no position to judge what one does in that situation.
My reasoning for his consideration is simple—his abnormal, natural tolerance is too high to simply disregard outright, and there is something to be said for having disposable assets. He's currently on parole, and is in Horizon to help raise his sister, Fernanda, raise her son, Afonso, following the death of her husband. The strings controlling Cain are easy to spot—we will ensure his family will always be taken care of, and he will participate on any assignment we send him on without question.
I just don't ever expect him to be a team player. No doubt his mere presence would offend some of our current members. Some may even refuse to work with him. And if his inclusion on Justice Unlimited's roster were ever made public, there would be severe consequences for us. One can only imagine what Crusade would do with that information. It is an extreme risk, but one I believe is at least worth discussing.
Available Ambrosia Samples:
KNOWN SYNERGIES: [Energy Manipulation] + [Elemental Manipulation] + [Solar Absorption] = [Fundamental Force Manipulation]
Name: Soldier X, True Name Unknown Keywords: Fitness, Regeneration Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Justice Unlimited would have samples of The Defiance Unit's DNA on file. They were the first villain organization defeated by Justice Unlimited. Soldier X was a Jane Doe, thought to be from the Democratic Republic of Congo based on her accent. Regardless, she acted as the field commander of The Defiance Unit.
It was a matter of debate whether she had powers at all—a debate now put to bed by Dr. Mammoth Ibis! She possessed peak human physical capabilities—fitness, coordinate, agility, eyesight, etc. It appears her body naturally maintained this state without upkeep, although she did not have a healing factor.
Name: Mister Hunch, Remy Deniau Power: Clairvoyance Faction: Independent Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: ~Mister Hunch! Mister Hunch! Work with him to save a bunch!~ Ah, I remember that blasted commercial jingle well. It's taking up precious space in my brain! Mister Hunch was a private detective who was known for being psychometric. He could touch an inanimate object and then "watch" everything that happened within a five-foot radius of the object in the last 24 hours. He was particularly beloved by those suing corporations and was a frequent collaborator with Lady Leizi. Unfortunately, his talents brought him the wrong kind of attention and he was murdered in an attack by the Demon Flamez.
Name: Daggermaw, Christian Soler Power: Transformation, Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Senses Faction: New Dawn Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: Daggermaw was an auxiliary hero of New Dawn. He was one of the better-known dysmorphic metahumans in Horizon—a metahuman whose power has caused some sort of permanent transformation or physical mutation. Many are uncomfortable with dysmorphic metahumans—lesser minds unable to appreciate the beauty of science.
While alive, Daggermaw resembled a bipedal reptile. He was something like a mix between a crocodile and an iguana, I would say. He had enhanced strength, though nothing extraordinary, and stronger senses than the average human. In particular, he could sense vibrations through his skin from great distances away.
Name: Multiplex, Ahn Jin Soo Power: Transformation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: Multiplex had the somewhat underwhelming power to change his form to a copy of any inanimate object who did not exceed his body's mass. He kept himself overweight as a result. He was more of an infiltration specialist, but did stop a robbery by turning into a particularly vicious roomba on one memorable occasion. He was well-loved in the community for his jolly nature and commitment to the kayfabe of being a hero.
"Kayfabe". Ha! I've been getting into professional wrestling lately! I've become such a well-rounded person.
Name: Millions Minefield, Russel Whitney Power: Energy Manipulation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: Millions Minefield was a member of New's Dawn's first-response team for metahuman attacks, Denial, and was something of a one-trick pony. Note to self: create a one-trick pony. Preferably with fangs.
Millions Minefield was usually the first member to respond to a scene. He could redirect and absorb energy that he then could store in orbs and deploy over an area like, well, a minefield. His job was to arrive at a fight and immediately take control of the battlefield while suppressing enemy attacks. The orbs would detonate if physical contact was made with them or Millions Minefield chose to have them explode. He could change the size of the mines, but the force of the blast was in proportion to its relative size. So, often he would hide larger orbs and then deploy smaller, harder to see orbs that could chain react and trigger their larger counterparts.
Name: Hydrocity, LaTrell Johnsmith Power: Elemental Manipulation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: Hydrocity was a case of hyperhidrosis gone wrong. His body was always emitting fresh water from various . . . places. He could control where it came out of, but it had to come out of somewhere or the build up would cause it immense pain. He could not manipulate the water once it was produced, and, while the water was potable, there was nothing special about it.
That is how metahuman powers work. Sometimes you get the ability to level mountains and fly. Sometimes powers are intrusive and horrifying. And sometimes they're just weird and uncomfortable. Hydrocity would have been a joke if Wolong hadn't hand picked him to serve on Denial. While Hydrocity himself was no fighter, Denial's leader, Umibōzu, was a powerful hydrokinetic but one who could not produce water ex nihilo. Hydrocity's synergy with Umibōzu became an iconic feature of Denial and won him many accolades. His sense of duty prevented him from staying out of the QZ when the Leviathan awoke.
Name: Eastwood, Charlotte Martin Power: Mental Manipulation, Construct Creation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 2 Ibis' Notes: Ever have a good day and say to yourself, "Wish I could bottle this feeling?" Well, Dr. Mammoth Ibis has been saying that more often! I'm considering dating again! Wait. Then John Henry, Sandra, myself, and my paramor could double date! Genius!
Anyway, that was essentially Eastwood's power. She was another member of Denial and could "store" an emotion for later in a physical form and then deploy it. She could even mix more "volatile" emotions together and create explosions. She was most commonly used in a non-lethal context, causing enemies to surrender with bombs made of apathy and despair.
Now, to set up my dating profile . . . name? THE Dr. Emeril "Mammoth" Ibis. Sex? Sure, why not? Ha! I'm hilarious.
Name: Crimson Soprano, Balduína "Bidu" Rios Barroso Power: Flight, Solar Absorption, Energy Manipulation Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 2 Ibis' Notes: Another member of the Defiance Unit, this was one of their heavy strikers. Crimson Soprana was the rare metahuman who could fly. That coupled with her devastating energy blasts made her a feared presence on the battlefield. However, her power relied on her absorbing solar radiation—too long without sunlight and her powers waned. It explains why they only ever struck on sunny days, I suppose. Her name referred to her tendency to "announce" each Defiance Unit attack with an operatic serenade—she was a failed opera singer as it were.
Ironically enough, she was contralto.
Name: Steadfast, Lamar Thompson Power: Invulnerability Faction: New Dawn Potency: 2 Ibis' Notes: One of the founding members of New Dawn, later turned lackey for Global Justice, I was surprised to see his DNA on file. It only made sense when I learned he was the father of Adamant. I suppose that was something they kept quiet. Steadfast was in every way a baseline human except in one regard: he had the most potent form of invulnerability on record. He simply could not be injured in any way. He could not be stabbed, struck, crushed, or burned; he couldn't even starve or drown. To be honest, if his death wasn't confirmed multiple times over from direct goldnine exposure, I wouldn't believe he was dead.
Name: Adamant, Rakeem Wade Power: Transformation, Enhanced Strength, Regeneration Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: One of founders of Justice Unlimited and the day-to-day commander. I suppose I owe the man my life. Honestly, I'm surprised at the lack of potency of his power—a testament to a keen mind over a superior might, I suppose.
Justice Unlimited's internal notes describe Adamant as less a person who could turn their body to metal and more of an endless fount of liquid metal wrapped in human skin. Adamant's body, when he transformed, was made of hereto-unknown metal "creatively" called adamantium. It was non-ferrous, had a melting point greater than tungsten, and was extremely durable. When Adamant touched or extruded adamantium it took the property of liquid and hardened at his command. He was able to slowly heal injuries over time by remaining in his metal form and replacing the damaged parts of his body with new metal. Upon transforming back, it would revert to uninjured flesh.
Name: Dragonsteeth, Rebecca Wade Power: Energy Manipulation, Construct Creation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: Another original member of New Dawn and the other parent of Adamant. I'm beginning to sense nepotism. Dragonsteeth had retired from life as a public hero after the Susurration, but apparently she came to stop the Leviathan's awakening nonetheless. Pity.
Like in the myth of the Argonauts, Dragonsteeth could seed the ground around her with energy, which would slowly grow into solid-light constructs. The constructs were not under her direct command, but were capable of following limited orders. She had a set energy "limit" she could spend at once. She could concentrate it all into one powerful construct, or spread it out around many different ones. While she most commonly made armored soldiers, the shapes her autonomous constructs could take could be as varied as her imagination.
Name: Miss Conception, Park Myung-Hee Power: Energy Manipulation, Invisibility Faction: Independent Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: Ah, the unfortunately named Miss Conception was a thief who made a name for herself with a string of high-profile burglaries from secure facilities including New Dawn's Zenith and Dominion Security Concerns HQ. She eventually tried to break into the Apiary where she was caught and placed on parole—which she immediately violated trying again. Rumor has it that she was imprisoned for seven days and mended her ways after an intense "chat" with Lady Leizi. Have I mentioned how, um, "fashion-forward" her glasses are? They're not impractical indoors at all!
Miss Conception could create illusions that would persist for several days if left undisturbed. An odd quirk of her power is that it could fool three of the five traditional senses, but not all five at once. An object could be seen, smelt, and touched but not tasted or heard, for example. It was very confusing! She could also render herself invisible by putting an illusion around herself.
. . . I never did get those baseball cards she stole from my lab back.
Name: Wild Speaker, Inmaculada Ruiz Power: Mental Manipulation, Ally Empowerment Faction: SLAYERS Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: The history of SLAYERS is somewhat convoluted and tedious. But Chaucer has become a regular at our "boys-night" poker games and he agreed to not tell everyone I was counting cards if I "made a reasonable attempt at being respectful". Note to self: Edit out recorded admission that I cheat at cards.
SLAYERS began as a three person team with an "edgy" theme. The Bloody Slayer, The Shadow Slayer, and our own Chaucer, the Thunder Slayer. Abigail Reyes would later join as The Giant Slayer. Shortly after Chacuer left to go into business, The Bloody Slayer and Shadow Slayer would split over creative disagreements about the direction of the team. SLAYERS seemed doomed to fall apart until The Giant Slayer recruited the team's now-iconic roster and slew Hundred-Hands Hecatoncheires.
Wild Speaker had the ability to talk to animals. When she did, the animal's intelligence was raised to humanesque levels. It sounds like an idyllic power, but apparently animals are terrible conversation partners. Birds mostly discuss wind-speeds and the location of seeds, dogs and cats swear like sailors, and bugs are apparently uniformly "total jerkwads". Still, Wild Speaker could order them to fight, which they often did if only for the novelty of committing violence with a purpose.
Name: Sewer Rat, ??? Power: Transformation, Enhanced Senses, Self-Enhancement Faction: New Dawn Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: Sewer Rat was a mammalian, dysmorphic metahuman whose body resembled, well, a large bipedal rat. His head was entirely human however, making his appearance all the more upsetting to the feeble-minded. He was an affiliate member of New Dawn, no doubt too "unmarketable" to allow him onto the team proper.
His primary abilities were his incredibly sensitive hearing and smell, as well as his ability to control his hair like a prehensile limb and harden it until it was more durable than steel. However, his most frequently used trick was his ability to shrink himself down to the size of an actual rat with the strength of a human, making him a potent infiltration specialist.
Name: Antaeus, Doug Matthews Power: Invulnerability, Energy Manipulation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: Following his defeat at the hands of Adamant, Antaeus tried to join New Dawn. He never got past probationary status, likely because he insisted on not changing his name.
Antaeus was invincible with the ability to generate earthquakes from where he stood, but with the condition that he was touching the ground. Why he chose the name of a mythological figure with the exact same weakness is a mystery not even the great Dr. Mammoth Ibis can solve. His earthquakes grew in magnitude the longer he stood still, eventually reaching the upper limits of the Richter scale. He could generate similar forces in substances like concrete, but to a lesser effect.
Name: Fast Track, David Rhodes Keywords: Self-Enhancement, Ally Empowerment, Enhanced Speed Faction: Independent hero. Potency: 3 Creator: SaberFail Ibis' Notes: Fast Track was a relatively unknown figure, mostly due to the fact he had only been active for a few weeks before the Movement. He could project an invisible, two-foot tall and long field around himself, which would rob anything that entered it of its "speed". The "speed" would be transferred to Fast Track, who could in turn use it to increase the speed of himself or allies and objects he could touch.
His power kept him safe from the effects of his increased movement, but nothing else. If he struck someone at sonic speeds, his hand would shatter and so forth. Hence why he mostly sped himself up to escape rather than attack.
In order to steal the speed of an object, that object had to be fully inside of the field. If any part remained outside of it of the field, then it would continue as normal. This limitation led to his death as he died during the Movement when a Behemoth ran him through with its arm—the creature was too large to fit inside the field.
There is no relationship between him and my best friend, John Henry. I checked!
Name: Frostbite, Randolph Lindstrom Power: Elemental Manipulation, Enhanced Strength, Invulnerability Faction: Independent Potency: 3 Author: ScorpioSting Ibis's Notes:I must say, this one does not surprise me in the slightest. Frostbite was a prickly hero at the best of times. One could say he had a cold heart, even! Hahahaha!
. . .I digress. Frostbite was a cryokinetic, able to create ice with a thought. An odd facet of his power was that it was self-focused. He had quite a bit of range, but attacks had to extend out from him. For example, a ranged attack would cause a slick of ice to slide along the ground before spiking upwards. He was unable to freeze anything without some point of contact back to himself. Frostbite was also stronger than average, though nothing to write home about. He used his strength to wield a blade of ice he created as a melee weapon, and he'd often stab it into the ground to freeze things at range. He also used it to create an armor of ice around his body, which was more resistant to cold than average.
B-Class Powers
Name: iSpy, Iolanda Guedes Bosco Power: Clairvoyance, Invisibility Faction: New Dawn Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: iSpy was one of New Dawn's espionage specialists. Unlike many samples in our system, her death did not occur in the QZ, but rather was the result of her cover being blown. iSpy could "tag" up to a dozen people and then, at will, perceive the world through their senses. She would hear what they heard, feel what they felt, smell what they smelled . . . if she wanted to for some reason. That, coupled with her ability to turn invisible, put her on the top of the hit list for all clandestine criminal elements. Unfortunately, it seems one caught up to her.
Name: Chatroom, Yolando Gibbons Power: Clairvoyance, Ally Empowerment Faction: New Dawn Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: Chatroom was a support type metahuman, who never was on the frontlines. Unfortunately, her power was necessary at the QZ and she was killed by a rough Named-Behemoth, Frigg of the Dancing Mistletoe. Chatroom could link an unlimited number of allies together telepathically, allowing them to instantaneously communicate and share images and feelings with one another. She had to be within several hundred yards to maintain the effect, but it was invaluable in the heat of battle. I just wish she didn't insist on solely communicating through metal "emojis". I can't even use them on my screen, let alone in reality!
Name: Memoria, Marcos Medeiros de Canto Power: Teleportation, Clairvoyance Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: Memoria's death marked the downfall of The Defiance Unit, so imagine my surprise to learn that he was very much alive until recently. It seems Uiara spared him and Lady Leizi helped him disappear. He was working as a "free agent" until his (real) demise in the QZ.
Memoria had the ability to take pictures of a location that would display what was happening in that location in real-time, like a fixed video feed. He could then freely teleport himself and others to any location of which he had a photograph. His file shows he could only maintain five such photographs at once. An extremely useful utility power, even if he himself was vulnerable to attack.
As an aside, I don't see DNA profiles for Nox Esurientem or Zeno—the heavy-hitters of The Defiance Unit—so I have to assume they either don't exist or are kept in the Apiary on Horizon.
Name: Bulwark, Robin McIntrye Power: Energy Manipulation, Ally Empowerment Faction: Independant Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: Is that lawsuit still pending? Everyone is well aware of the facts. Bulwark came to the Apiary attempting to sell his services to Justice Unlimited in a mercenary capacity. He had the useful ability to shroud any person or object he could hit with a beam in a forcefield that would disperse after enough impact damage or over a period of time. However, Valiant Silver immediately recognized how his power worked and managed to replicate it mechanically.
Not gonna lie. Hell of a power move. Dr. Mammoth Ibis respects the hustle!
Bulwark grew so furious that he tried to sue Valiant Silver for "copyright infringement", but, since he had never thought to patent his powers, it went nowhere. Didn't mean he gave up though; he refiled the lawsuit in every jurisdiction he could. As far as I know, a few are still hanging around.
Name: The Outsider, Kwame Davis Power: Transformation, Energy Manipulation, Invisibility Faction: New Dawn Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: I'm honestly not certain howDNA could be acquired for The Outsider. They were an affiliate hero of New Dawn—known more for their social advocacy than any heroics. Their power turned them into a spherical biological nucleus surrounded by an energy "body" they could freely shape and control. This included the ability to turn invisible, change their relative size and mass, and shoot blasts of energy. The Outsider was something of a spook for New Dawn and a frequent collaborator with Lady Leizi. I just . . . where did the sample come from? Their nucleus? How? Why? Why do I only get to know this after they have died?! Think of what I could have done with this knowledge!
Name: Solferina, Linh Nguyen Power: Energy Manipulation, Ally Empowerment, Mental Manipulation Faction: Independent Potency: 4 Author: Kermie Ibis' Notes:This is an interesting one—a metahuman who did the opposite of most. Unlike the average metahuman, who might find a normal job after their hero career (like Chaucer! Hey, I remembered that!) she became a metahuman after 10 years of being a successful street and stage performer. Even so, she and Crimson Soprano weirdly never held any enmity towards one another— they were even seen having a friendly coffee with each other once. She perished in the QZ, fighting a Behemoth and punching it in the eye while she was on her way out.
During her short time—5 years—as a metahuman, she proved how well a weak power could do in the hands of the right person. She could either weaken someone and make them depressed or apathetic, or strengthen someone and lift their spirits. If only I had gotten her expertise on my serotonin implant… ahem. These effects would be implanted based on the mood of whatever she was singing, as long as any person she was aiming to affect was within hearing distance and as long as they could understand the words. Notably, anyone who would hear her song would be affected unconditionally, so she used her services to hunt down a few Behemoths as an independent hire, and managed to get both of her kids full rides to their preferred universities before her death.
Name: Deadman, Richard Michaels Power: Elemental Manipulation, Regeneration Faction: New Dawn Potency: 5 Ibis' Notes: Deadman dressed like a noir detective and apparently smoked like one. I'm glad I never met him; he sounds exhausting and I despise smoking! He was a probationary member of New Dawn—probationary because he did not trust their leadership and constantly had them under investigation. It appears he was feeding information to Justice Unlimited. He's noted to have been an excellent detective, his commitment to questionable gimmicks notwithstanding, but that had nothing to do with his power.
Speaking of which, his power didn't activate until his biological functions ceased. Upon "death" his body would self-immolate and then reform itself. During that time, his blood appeared to turn to magma which he could manipulate and control. Likewise, he could summon magma from the ground, even if there was no source of such near him. Like Adamant and Steadfast, his power met its match surrounded by goldnine, and Deadman met his end.
Name: Nephthys, Hana Antar Power: Construct Creation, Ally Empowerment, Energy Manipulation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 5 Ibis' Notes: Nephthys was another member of Denial, and had an "Egyptian necromancer"theme to her which Madeline has told me was "Archmage as hell". I don't know what that means and I'm too scared to ask. Madeline acts demure in front of Lady Leizi, but she's a clear social alpha in the Apiary and I'm going to respect that!
Nephthys could revive the bodies of deceased animals and command them to do her bidding. The control only lasted a few days, and it's my understanding Denial had their own industrial freezer marked "Animal Corpses, Do Not Eat". She denied being able to manipulate human bodies, but her records clearly indicate that she could, though metahuman puppets did not retain their powers. She mostly contributed to Denial with hordes of disposable shock troopers.
Wait, someone with an Egyptian goddess theme on "Denial"? I just got that! Hilarious! Hey, Madeline, listen to this joke—!
Name: Epoxy, Chung Hye-Jin Power:Fundamental Force Manipulation Faction: SLAYERS Potency: 5 Ibis' Notes: Epoxy, also known as "The Last Nail in the Coffin" was the second-in-command of SLAYERS and a member of Powers in her individual capacity. Her power allowed her to stick objects together on a molecular level through a subtle manipulation of the strong nuclear force. The objects she stuck together could only be released by her, and apparently she charged double to unstick things than stick them together.
Her nickname comes from her uncanny ability to place enemies in positions where she could stick them to objects that would completely immobilize them. Deadman famously broke his own neck to escape from her during one fight, and revived with his head facing the wrong direction. This gave her a bloodthirsty reputation that appears to have "ruined her dating life". She and The Giant Slayer were often at metahuman mixers and speed dating events, though it appears Epoxy was usually there against her will.
It was something of an irony that a group named "SLAYERS" and who was famous for killing a Named-Ranked Behemoth would make most of their money doing non-combat civilian work. Epoxy and Vulcan were popular in construction, Wild Speaker in pest control, and even The Giant Slayer mostly did bodyguard work. They had their moments of combat as all metahumans do, but if you wanted a "blue-collar" team, SLAYERS was as close as you were going to get.
Name: Golem, Samson Road Keywords: Elemental Manipulation, Invulnerability, Enhanced Strength Faction: Independent Potency: 5 Author: wing101r Ibis' Notes: Ah, Behemoth Hunter Golem. Golem primarily specialized in hunting the odd Behemoth that escaped the QZ. He tended to avoid contracts within boroughs, although, like all heroically-inclined metahumans, he could not resist combating villainy when he happened upon it. In any case, he debuted shortly before The Susurration occurred and survived the events in the QZ, though it appears to have soured him enough on New Dawn that he remained independent throughout his whole career.
Golem's power allowed him to cover himself in an armor of earth and rocks. Doing so granted him a level of enhanced strength and invulnerability, and the more material he used in the creation of the armor the more powerful he became. He could also separate from his armor and remotely control it. While Golem could freely control any earthen material he could touch, he could not produce it ex nihilo. Thus his preference for contracts outside of Horizon proper. He died at the QZ taking down the Named-Rank Behemoth Endlessly Explosive Armordillo, sacrificing himself to use his armor to contain the explosion when it turned its entire body into a bomb. Name: Printemps, Jean-Luc Villeneuve Power: Construct Creation, Energy Manipulation, Transmutation Faction: The Four Seasons Potency:6 Ibis' Notes: We are well familiar with Printemps and his powers. But . . . there is something wrong with this sample. There is still an energy in it.
Lingering.
Name: The Red Huntress, Harper English Power: Transformation, Enhanced Senses, Fitness, Enhanced Speed, Invisibility, Energy Manipulation, Clairvoyance Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 6 Ibis' Notes: Well. It seems Justice Unlimited had its own secrets. The Red Huntress always seemed something like a legacy admission to me—she was an ally of Uiara and Valiant Silver before they formed Justice Unlimited. She had a great number of powers, all loosely organized around the concept of "predation", but none were particularly powerful. She had keener sense than the average person, but not that much keener. She could run faster than a non-metahuman, but not as fast as, say, a car. She could turn invisible, but it was an imperfect optical camouflage. She was a true "jack of all trades, master of none."
Or that's how it appeared. The Red Huntress had one more power that was not publicly known—she could place a "mark" on any living creature that was unremovable. The mark would let her know where the marked creature was at all times, and her body and powers would "scale up" to match the threat posed by the marked creature. She would get faster, stronger, her invisibility would improve, and so forth. How a creature's level was quantified is unknown, but the file shows The Red Huntress undergoing some dramatic transformations into a feline creature to combat particularly strong metahumans. In that form, she would gain the ability to extend blades of energy that would grow stronger to injure her prey.
Her power is . . . frightening. The Red Huntress was always the smiling face of Justice Unlimited along with Uiara, so it is disturbing to know her true capability as an assassin.
Name: Nox Esurientem, Gaspard Girardot Power: Mental Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Transformation, Regeneration, Teleportation, Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Speed Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 6 Ibis' Notes: Nox Esurientem was one of the heavy-hitters of The Defiance Unit. Once Crimson Soprano softened up a target, he would arrive to engage any defenders. He dressed like a vampire, complete with cravat and breeches. This was likely a nod to his primary power: emotional vampirism—he would gain strength by draining the emotions of nearby people which would give him a suit of powers based on what emotion his victims were feeling at the time. The breakdown was:
Fear = enhanced strength
Anger = increased size
Happiness = healing factor
Sadness = energy blasts
Disgust = teleportation
Surprise = enhanced speed
He was something a provocateur to ensure he could elicit the correct emotion from a person to gain the power he sought. His victims would be rendered insensate for a period of a day or so before recovering without any memory of the incident.
Name: Féth Fíada, Saoirse Brennan Power: Elemental Manipulation, Clairvoyance, Invisibility, Ally Empowerment, Mental Manipulation Faction: Independent Potency: 6 Author: Suleverf Ibis' Notes: Féth Fíada was a fairly free-spirited metahuman who chose to do hero work or petty crime on a whim rather than for any specific goal. Her refusal to join any metahuman organizations or stay firmly in the civilian world was well-known, though it left her with few friends in the end.
She had fine control over fog in a wide area, though what exactly qualified had a hazy definition, including mist and even smoke at times. Ha! Get it? Hazy. Dr. Mammoth Ibis is truly a great mind and wit.
Anyway, for sunny days she was capable of generating a special fog that shrouded her and slowly filled her zone of control. Unlike natural fog controlled by her, this shroud couldn't be dissipated by external forces like strong winds or hydrokinetics.
Inside her fog, she could turn herself and others invisible to light, including infrared and radar. Scents and sounds coming from them could also be masked selectively, and other clairvoyant abilities trying to peer in the fog became fuzzy. On the flip side, she could perceive anything inside her fog, but couldn't bestow that power to allies.
It was rumored that she could also turn into mist to dodge attacks, but, as you can clearly see in this report, that is not the case. The rumors were likely the result of her most bizarre ability: she could "curse" those in her fog, causing torpor and hallucinations the longer they spent in it. It wore off outside her fog, and she mostly only cared to use it to terrorize tourists in accordance with urban myths.
Name: Lightstep, Lloyd Morgan Power: Enhanced Speed, Invulnerability, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Strength Faction: New Dawn Potency: 7 Ibis' Notes: I know about him now! I do! I watched a boxing match with John Henry and he told me all about "Lightstep Morgan"! Former professional heavyweight boxer and world champion. Well, okay, his championships were stripped from him after his status as a metahuman became public, but there's never been proof he cheated! He retired because he had nothing left to prove and wished to help New Dawn recover after the Susurration. By all accounts he saved their public image, but many claim he was to blame for the change in organizational ethos afterward.
Lightstep was able to accelerate his movements to supersonic speeds for brief moments. When he did, his body grew invulnerable and his senses became stronger to compensate. He could devastate opponents with just one jab—in and out of the ring! No one could survive a lightspeed punch from the Lightstep!
Name: Umibōzu, Shishiro Ami Power: Elemental Manipulation, Construct Creation, Enhanced Senses Faction: New Dawn Potency: 7 Ibis' Notes: Umibōzu was the leader of New Dawn's task-force, Denial, and was an extremely potent hydrokinetic. She and Uiara had a famous rivalry; for some reasons hydrokinetics never seem to get along. Such unnecessary competitiveness! Dr. Mammoth Ibis would never have a petty rivalry with a peer merely because we shared the same power, believe that!
Umibōzu differed from Uiara in that she needed a source of water to control, and her control was finer, if not capable of feats on the same scale. Her preferred method of attack was to fire narrow streams of water at extremely high speeds that could pierce opponents and cut metal like paper. She could create "sentries" of water that could also fire jet streams of water and through which she could see. She was a tactical genius and staunch supporter of Wolong, which is likely why her career stalled out. She, along with Uiara, fought most of the aquatic Behemoths in the QZ before meeting her end.
A-Class Powers
Name: Automne, Ophélie du Arceneaux Power: Elemental Manipulation, Flight Faction: The Four Seasons Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: Ah. Automne. I actually liked her. She and Radiant Silvergirl. They were . . . dating? Best friends? It was a weird little relationship. But the two of them are some of the only other people with the ability to appreciate the art of my children. They would make sure to take every job that would impact my work, and, even when they opposed me, they showed due respect. They even invited me to participate in their competitive beetle-fighting league! I was disqualified for creating a bipedal stag beetle the size of a housecat, but I appreciated being included.
Automne was too young for how powerful she was. She was an aerokinetic, one of the most powerful in the world. She could create tornadoes, generate hurricane-force winds, move the clouds themselves, and so forth. She was always present at every major crisis on Horizon, often trying to prevent collateral damage. Despite all that, her favorite thing to do was to just fly freely on the winds.
I . . . I actually think I will miss her. Goodness. I need to fix my implant immediately.
Name: Novalight, Yelena Sokolov Power: Elemental Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Flight Faction: New Dawn Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: Now, this is explosive. Novalight was the leader of New Dawn and a hard woman to say the least. Some would say paranoid, but I always respected refusal to compromise her beliefs. She was the architect behind Wonderland—the detention facility for metahumans too dangerous to allow to go free. She controlled New Dawn's territory in Horizon with an iron fist, but the University District was among the city's safest for it.
Her relationship with Justice Unlimited was strained. Both Justice Unlimited and New Dawn were heroic organizations, but they were bitter rivals. Justice Unlimited started as a junior team under New Dawn, and Novalight never forgave them for going independent. She would have taken them keeping her DNA profile as an act of war.
Novalight was one of the three strongest metahumans in the city. She was photokinetic, radiokinetic, and capable of supersonic flight. Her energy blasts were capable of leveling the city, and nearly did during the Susurration. She would end many a fight simply by appearing and glowing too brightly for anyone to be able to see. With her radiokinesis, she could generate heat intense enough to melt even adamantium. Her weakness, if she truly even had one, was that her power gave her no defensive capabilities. But she ended fights quickly and decisively enough that it didn't matter.
I can think of several reasons why her DNA is here, and none of them are charitable. It's not my concern, but perhaps we should keep this one quiet.
Name: Man o' War, Julio Câmara Meireles Power:Autonomous Creature Creation, Self-Enhancement, Invulnerability, Enhanced Strength Faction: New Dawn Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: Man o' War was a violent brute who somehow found himself gaining membership in New Dawn proper. I say "somehow", but it's very clear why: he was happy to follow orders and restrain himself so long as he could harm others to his heart's content when the time came. His powerset matches that of a famous villain who terrorized the Corporate Playground, and said villain disappeared around the same time Man o' War first debuted. Rumor has it he cut a deal to keep himself out of Wonderland, and I believe it. He was firmly in Novalight's faction, which only adds further evidence to the pile.
Man o' War could manifest extra limbs from his body that appeared with a melee weapon chosen at random—swords, axes, spears, nets, tridents, a golf club once, what have you. The arms moved autonomously and were masters of their chosen weapon. The more arms Man o' War manifested, the stronger and more durable he became. Pfft, growing extra arms? That's nothing! Dr. Mammoth Ibis could give you all the extra arms you could want!
. . . is that anything? I'm working on my flirtatious small talk. I'm not very good at it! Name: The Giant Slayer, Abigail Reyes Power:Transmutation, Enhanced Strength Faction: SLAYERS Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: The Giant Slayer was the former leader of SLAYERS and the paramour of Ms. Opale. Before she and Opale started dating, her desperation to get married was something of a running joke in the metahuman community. She, famously, is one of the only people to make King flee a battle, if only because her constant flirting made him uncomfortable.
Perhaps The Giant Slayer was merely waiting for Opale, or perhaps her hyper-competence and destructive power frightened any potential partner. The Giant Slayer had the power to increase an object's size and mass to exponential levels, and then be able to swing the object as if it were its regular size. The Giant Slayer had immense strength, so this could result in her swinging swords the size of skyscrapers. This power let her become a regular hunter of Gold-Rank Behemoths and even Named-Rank on occasion.
Name: Zeno, Camdyn Poole Power:Space-Time Manipulation, Invulnerability Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 9 Ibis' Notes: Zeno was the final member of The Defiance Unit and was their ace in the hole. If any heroes responded to an attack, if it got too dangerous for the unit, Zeno was their ticket out of the situation. Zeno's power came in threes, and matched his namesake's paradoxes.
First, was the impossibility of motion. To advance any distance, a person must first walk halfway there, to get halfway there, they must move halfway of that distance, and so on to infinity. This manifested in his ability to arrest the motion of anything in his light of sight, including technically non-visible things like air molecules.
Next, was the similar, but distinct, impossibility of distance. If one object was following another moving object, then by the time the first object has caught up to the second object, the second object has also moved and the first object must travel further to catch up, in which time the second object will travel further. Thus, the first object can never catch up. This manifested in an inability of any object to actually touch Zeno without his consent. Anything attempting to hit him would have to travel an infinite distance to do so. This power was exclusive and automatic.
Finally, was the impossibility of time. If time was made of infinite moments, then at any particular movement a moving object would be stationary, neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. This was his final ability—the power to lock any one person in temporal stasis for 24 hours. There was no defense to this attack, and it only worked on one person at a time.
Zeno's weakness was his lack of offensive power. He relied on conventional weapons like firearms to deal damage, which proved ineffective against more robust metahumans. Name: Vulcan, Augustus "Gus" Schulte Power:Algernon-type Faction: SLAYERS Potency: 13 Ibis' Notes: It seems doomed love and SLAYERS are inextricably intertwined, because Vulcan is the former lover of our Handyman.
He was an Algernon-type, specialized in metallurgy. He made all of the weapons and armor used by SLAYERS and often sold his creations to clients such as Steelheart and Valiant Silver.
He never pushed his power too far. He was too afraid of the Rebound. There is a certain wisdom in that, perhaps.
Name: Apiary, Rosemary Ward Power: Transformation, Matter Conversion, Construct Creation Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 14, Major Side Effect Guaranteed - Permanent Dysmorphic Transformation Ibis' Notes: Apiary was one of the original members of Justice Unlimited, back when they were known as NuGen, and she perished at the conclusion of The Defiance Unit saga. I never met her myself, but by all accounts she was very much beloved by her team. I know multiple memorials to her exist and they named their headquarters in Horizon after her.
Apiary was a dysmorphic metahuman—she resembled a large, four-armed, bipedal insect, not unlike a honeybee. She had vestigial wings and a full insectoid abdomen. If that was the extent of her power, I wouldn't blink twice. That's a Tuesday for Dr. Mammoth Ibis! No, the true terror of Apiary was her ability to consume and convert living matter. She would ingest organic matter and then extrude into a plasticine-like substance she could control. She often would create drones, including large combat forms. Her mind was like a hive—each body was as much her as any other. Those bodies in turn could convert matter, and now the terror should be obvious. She was living goldnine or, more accurately, a proto-Leviathan.
I will never let Lady Leizi know this, but Scarlet Maturity may have done the world a favor by cutting Apiary's life short. No matter how well-intentioned, she could have been an extinction-level threat.
We should only use her profile with great caution. Her DNA is extremely unstable, and adding it to a dose of goldnine will certainly produce a major side effect. Lady Leizi: Doctor. My office. Now.
It's been one month since the Movement—one week since you were medically cleared to use your powers—and you've yet to do anything about the world burning around you.
That is unlike you. Hesitation, doubt, ceding the initiative—those are the furthest things from who Lei Zixuan is. Your entire life, you have survived by being one step ahead, being a little more prepared, being that much better informed. Stagnation is death, and to have stopped completely makes you feel like you're no longer yourself.
And yet.
"When we first met, I hated you immediately," you speak into the empty room, "Both of you."
You're in your personal quarters in the Ladder. Securing a base here was a stroke of luck; a subcontractor was illegally using an unmapped area for heavy machine storage during the construction of the ladder and decided to sell its location rather than let it be reabsorbed by a corp. You wasted no time having Yazmin buy the subcontractor out, sending Towarri and Harper to impress upon him the need to not double-cross you, and letting Nora, Rakeem, and Evie turn the area into a functional headquarters. In a matter of months, Justice Unlimited had a secret base on the most coveted real estate in Horizon.
Your room, naturally, was the largest.
"I had worked so hard to escape from Father's grasp. There was only one role for a metahuman in his world, and I did not wish to be an attack dog."
In that largest room, you were kneeling before your bed and speaking to a picture. The dim flicker of candlelight illuminated the world around you. You felt preposterous.
"I had my own men, my own territory, my own organization. My name was becoming something to be feared."
And yet.
"I lost all of that in an instant. Two fools defeated me like an afterthought. The people I thought I had so thoroughly cowed, turned on me, without a moment of hesitation. They fed my location to two amateur heroes, all for the promise of a 'better tomorrow.'"
The faces of Nora and Yazmin, Valiant Silver and Uiara, stared back at you. Technically, you were looking at two photos, both contained in a double frame. The photo on the left was nearly ten years old, showing a much younger version of yourself, Nora, Yazmin, Rakeem, Harper, Evie and Rosemary. The photo on the right was taken a year after Rosemary's death and had Towarri in her place.
"I suspected the truth then, but I needed confirmation. I followed you two relentlessly, determined to learn where I went wrong. I would not be a footnote." Your lips twitch at the memory, so absurd now. "Until, to my surprise, one day you asked me to join you. It always irked you that I was member 003, didn't it Rakeem?"
Adamant's softly smiling face doesn't answer you. Of course it doesn't. The Adamantium Man is dead. What exactly are you trying to accomplish with this? You nearly get up, but something tugs the words out of you. They pour from your lips like water from a faucet.
"I joined Justice Unlimited, and, to even my surprise, I stayed. I stayed after we separated from New Dawn. I stayed after we lost dear Rosemary. I even stayed after we turned our backs on our dear leader."
Yours was the only vote against benching Valiant Silver. You understood why she had to keep fighting. Perfection for an instant or mediocrity for a lifetime? That wasn't a real choice at all.
"I forgot about my search. I grew complacent. And now I am alone."
The photographs were The Red Huntress' idea. Harper insisted it would be "cute" to take a yearly photo of the team and look back to see how everyone grew. She insisted you would appreciate it when "Your memory started failing." At age 33, you are—were—the oldest member of Justice Unlimited and that fact was endlessly amusing to Harper.
That bitch. How you miss her. You squeeze your hands and bow your head.
"How dare you? How dare all of you?"
Your voice is a hiss, like gas escaping from a valve.
"It was here! It was here all alongand now it is gone."
The photograph does not answer you.
"The truth is," you say, your head still bowed, "Is that there is something wrong with me. Something missing."
In both pictures you smirk behind your sunglasses, partially hidden behind Rosemary in one and Rakeem in the other. Separate from everyone else, yet unquestionably one of them. You look so blissfully relaxed that you can't recognize yourself.
"I can't make people feel the way all of you could," you confess, "I can make them fear me. I can even make them love me. But I cannot make them believe in me."
Everytime you look at the photos, you remember the warmth you felt those days. A warmth you still don't understand.
"And now, Justice Unlimited is mine. How dare you fools die and leave it all to me?"
Your heavy breathing is the only sound in the room. There's something flowing through your veins that you don't understand. It's a heat, a warmth that's foreign and familiar all at once. You try to cling to it, but, as always, it slips through your grasp.
You then tilt the photo over, face down on the bed, and rise. You feel . . . better. Cleansed.
"I cannot remake Unlimited into what it was. I cannot build the future you all saw without you. All I can ever be is myself."
You extinguish the candles to end whatever this ludicrous ritual was. As you begin to leave the room, something turns your legs to lead. The feeling comes back. One more admission then.
"I don't know if there is any love in my heart to give. But if there is, it has always belonged to all of you."
The room does not reply with either contrition or condemnation. You feel cold.
* * *
You are Lady Leizi. The world saw fit to take everything from Justice Unlimited, except for its hidden knife. You will make it regret doing so.
* * *
When you next walk down the sterile halls of Jacob's Ladder, you do so as a new person. You move with an assured, calculated step meant to convey the importance of your task without any urgency. What little support staff is on site scurries out of your way with nary a word.
You allow yourself a small, satisfied smile and continue on your way to your meeting with Dr. Ibis and Mssr. Chaucer. The meeting that will determine the future of Justice Unlimited, Horizon, and, if a little melodrama can be forgiven, quite possibly the entire world.
Naturally, you come to them not as Lei Zixuan, but as the superhero Lady Leizi.
To that end, you are wearing your uniform. Not costume—you'll leave the spandex to others, thank you—but your outfit that makes your identity clear. A sleeveless, purple qipao-top embroidered with golden flowers, black pants that cinch at the waist and flare at the bottoms for style, pointed, steel-toe black boot heels, and a great, black coat worn across the shoulders.
Mostly because you get cold.
You stop to readjust your fingerless gloves and ensure that not a strand of your long, slicked back hair was out of place. Towarri had once commented that you looked less like a superhero and more like a gangster from a wuxia movie. You told her that was exactly right.
You were never a fan of the "superhero" aesthetic. Too much garish clothing and displaying oneself for attention, like a peacock. You preferred to dress like a coral snake, giving the world fair warning to your danger.
The one allowance to impracticality you indulged were the dark, round sunglasses that covered your eyes. They did nearly nothing to hide your identity the way a mask would. You just liked how they looked.
You waited a moment until you were just late enough to be fashionable—but not late enough to be rude—and entered the cramped meeting room.
"Joelle, dear, it's so lovely to see you!" you call to the burly man sitting at a round table, "What a terrible burden you've been given."
Chaucer stands and you greet him with a quick kiss on each cheek. There are dark circles under his eyes and his clothing hangs noticeably looser than before. But there's a steely glint in his eye and a determined set to his jaw.
"No more terrible than yours, Ms. Lei. Or should I call you . . .?
"Lady Leizi," you affirm, "Today, we are here on business, not pleasure."
"I would say so!" a petulant person pipes in, "There's no pleasure to be had blathering on!"
On the other side of a table is a decidedly unkempt man, wiry thin with spindly arms and long arms, like his namesake.
"Of course, Dr. Ibis," you say with a sharp nod, "We should proceed immediately. Wasting even a moment the time of a man of your brilliance is something the world cannot afford."
"More talking, my—oh." The doctor stopped cold. "Uh, yes, exactly."
"Exactly," you coo, moving to his side of the table. "And just allow me to say, thank you for being a part of Project Prometheus, Doctor. Without your intelligence, it's safe to say that the world would be doomed. Truly, you will be remembered as a man among men."
"Y-yes, of course." Ibis blinked. "Well, it's nice to see someone appreciates genius! Yes, I, Dr. Mammoth Ibis, am happy to move humanity forward!"
"Thank you, Doctor," you say with an easy smile. Goodness. If the doctor puffed himself up any further, his chest would pop.
"No need to thank me!" he said with false modesty, "It was my duty! Who else, but Dr. Mammoth Ibis could complete that dunce, Valiant Silver's, formula? Truly, it was an act of magnanimity."
"Ah." Your smile becomes a trifle fixed. "Did you know dear Nora well, Doctor?"
"Valiant Silver? No. That arrogant buffoon never deigned to speak with me. The gall! The lack of respect for the mind of a generation!"
"I see," you say, moving behind the doctor and placing a hand on his shoulder, "And what a mind it is. But, I feel I must inform you there are currently twenty-three known Algernon-type metahumans active in Horizon."
"Oh?" Dr. Ibis said, nonplussed, "What do they have to do with anything?"
"Because, Doctor," you begin. Your expression doesn't change but your grip becomes vise-like, sparks jumping between your knuckles, "If you continue to insult my former team, I'll be forced to throw you off the top of the Ladder and get one of them to administer the formula instead."
Before he can fully process what you said, you place a hand on his cheek and lean forward, electrical current dancing on your fingers.
"That would be a terrible waste, Doctor. A terrible waste. One that would keep me up at night. Don't do that to me. Please?"
"A-ah," Ibis stammered, "B-but of course."
"Thank you, Doctor," you say with a smile. Then, without another word, you move to the head of the table and sit down.
Chaucer shoots you a grateful expression and then begins pulling up several graphs on the table's holographic display. Ibis remains in a disturbed stupor, but eventually shakes himself out of it.
You allow yourself an insouciant grin. "Shall we begin, gentlemen?"
* * *
". . . and that concludes an assessment of available assets," Chaucer says, "We have enough remaining funds to maintain our base on the Ladder for a few more months as well as train and equip exactly one new metahuman. Most of our support staff are more than happy just to have a safe place to stay, but once things hopefully stabilize on Horizon proper they'll be wanting to be compensated as well."
You nod. "More than I feared, less than I hoped."
"I don't suppose you have any funds stashed away, Lady Leizi?"
[REQUIRED: You are Uiara. Requirement not met.]
"No," you shake your head, "My personal funds are meager compared to our needs. And most of them are tied up in investments in the city."
Chaucer sighs, looking resigned. "I anticipated as much. I'm lacking any further liquidity at the moment as well. I suppose we must make sources of revenue a priority, then."
"None of the boroughs are honoring our old contracts?" you ask.
[REQUIRED: You are Radiant Silvergirl. Requirement not met.]
"No. They've all suspended them out of concern of an 'inability to perform.' The representatives from the Worker's Mitt and Old Industrial District at least expressed a willingness to renew if we can demonstrate we have the power to keep them safe."
"Unfortunate," you say, "But not unexpected. From what I can glean, the whole city is in chaos after the Movement. There is a fear the Leviathan might wake up again."
Chaucer looks at you desperately. "Can we be certain it will not? Do you understand anything about what happened a month ago?"
[REQUIRED: You are Valiant Silver. Requirement not met.]
You sigh in genuine frustration. "Only that there was some sort of psychic event that Nora put a stop to. How and why are beyond even my knowledge."
"Then Project Prometheus truly is our best hope."
At that, the dozing Dr. Ibis snaps to attention. "Yes! As I have been saying. We should be mass-producing metahumans before word gets out and every government on the planet comes after my Ambrosia!"
[REQUIRED: You are Lady Leizi. Requirement met.]
"That's nothing we need to worry about in the immediate future." You hadn't been entirely idle this last month. "As far as the world at large knows, Dr. Ibis is dead and an imposter is using his identity. They also believe that I've contacted the cartels on the mainland seeking metahumans in exchange for an alliance."
"What?" Dr. Ibis said.
"Brilliant," Chaucer replied at the same time, "We'll have to make an effort to hide our recruits' civilian identities, but this will buy us some time from discovery."
"Speaking of which," you say, tapping the data slate in front of you, "I've reviewed our candidates and added my own observations."
Candidate #1: Name: Rhys Gardner Age: 28 Stats: HIT 3, ESPIONAGE 5, REPUTATION 2, OPERATIONS 2 Tolerance: 6 Chaucer's Notes: Mr. Gardner is a member of the support staff on Jacob's Ladder. He's something of a floater apparently; they have him doing a bit of everything including maintenance, security, and administrative work. He's been on the Ladder for five years and has never had a complaint lodged against him—a rare feat indeed given the, ah, exacting clientele that frequent the Elysium Station. By all accounts, he's got a solid head on his shoulders and is well-regarded by nearly everyone we've interviewed.
Unfortunately, he is almost certainly an American intelligence asset. We know because he told us that was the case when he first approached us. Word somehow got to him that we were recruiting civilians for a potentially dangerous project, and he wanted in. He claims to be willing to flip his allegiances as he now considers Horizon his true home. It speaks well to his cunning and observation skills that he managed to find us, the results of his military-training speak for themselves, but I can't help but call his loyalty into question. Every organization in Horizon has had to deal with agents from AGL trying to infiltrate their ranks, and we would be potentially inviting one into our midst. He claims to be a collaborator of yours, Lady Leizi, but I'll leave that to you to verify.
Lady Leizi: Yes, Rhys is one of mine. I can also confirm that his change of allegiance is genuine. He was in a relationship with Vulcan of SLAYERS before his passing. By all accounts, Rhys is looking for stability, which we could very well provide him and secure his loyalty. However, I must say Rhys is not much for leadership material. He's more comfortable taking orders than giving them. He would be a wonderful subordinate—a good soldier if that is what we are truly looking for.
Candidate #2 Name: Mona Merola-Morales Age: 19 Stats: HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 2, REPUTATION 2, OPERATIONS 1 Tolerance: 10 Chaucer's Notes: Mona is not a conventional candidate. She was an intern at the Apiary, Justice Unlimited's now-abandoned base in Horizon proper. She's been with Justice Unlimited for three years—apparently they were one of the only agencies in Horizon that had paid internships. She's never distinguished herself outside of winning the annual bake-off two years in a row and being a notably large fan of Justice Unlimited. Word is that her collection of branded merchandise is quite a sight to behold.
Honestly, I would not even be considering her for Project Prometheus if it were not for two things. First, she has the highest Ambrosia tolerance level we've ever recorded. Dr. Ibis threatened to jump off the Ladder if we didn't at least consider her as a candidate. Second, she somehow found us and demanded to participate. I'm not sure how she managed to get onto the Ladder, let alone find our base—her explanation involves exchanging gossip with at least seven different people and begging her way past three sets of guards—but she managed it all the same. Perhaps there is hidden potential in young Mona in more ways than one. Lady Leizi: I remember Mona well. She reminds me of a damselfish; she shows the world a false face to hide the real on beneath. She appears to be little more than a ditzy teenage girl, but she has the idealism and nose for trouble that all good heroes have. Eminently moldable, but we must be very careful to not break her.
I'll also note that if we are to use Ms. Merola-Morales potential to its fullest, she will be more powerful than I. For good or ill, she will be one of the faces of Justice Unlimited.
Candidate #3 Name: John Henry Rhodes Age: 41 Stats: HIT 1, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 6. Tolerance: 4 Chaucer's Notes: John's name should be familiar to you. He was one of the most senior members of Valiant Silver's research staff. He's been with Justice Unlimited from the start, back when it was just an offshoot of New Dawn called "NuGen". While he was not a field operative by any stretch of the imagination, he would routinely assist Valiant Silver with maintaining her armor and repairing damaged equipment. He's a brilliant man without question.
I took the liberty of discussing Project Prometheus in depth with John. I apologize for the indiscretion, but he is married with several young children. I did not want him to volunteer if he did not fully understand the risks involved. John understands the chance he is taking if he is selected as a candidate and insists on submitting his name. Speaking frankly, I think he feels some level of survivor's guilt at Justice Unlimited's decimation. He's a decade older than all of you were, and he watched you grow up. No doubt, he feels that joining is his duty. Lady Leizi: Oh, dear John. I'm afraid his motives might not be so pure. His oldest daughter, Natasha, was killed in an attack from the Demon Flamez in the Old Industrial District following the Movement. I have a feeling revenge is as much behind his desire to join as duty.
John has been here from the beginning and would provide excellent continuity for us. However, he is a middle-aged man, and is who he is. He'll be easy to work with, but he'll do things his way.
"Aha, so we can finally begin then!" Dr. Ibis shouted, his eyes gleaming, "At last!"
"Yes, Doctor," you agree, "I believe the first member of our new Justice Unlimited will be . . ."
[ ] . . . Rhys Gardner.
[ ] . . . Mona Merola-Morales.
[ ] . . . John Henry Rhodes.
* * *
You are Lady Leizi, the spymaster of Horizon. As Lady Leizi, you will receive extra intel for every potential metahuman candidate. Additionally, because of your extensive spy-network, you may once per turn mission reduce the difficulty of any ESPIONAGE check for yourself or others by 3.
". . . Ms. Merola-Morales," you announce, tapping the open file in front of you.
"Are you quite sure, Lady Leizi?" Chaucer says, looking uneasy, "I understand her potential, but Mona's age . . ."
"Balderdash!" Ibis interrupts, "We are here to usher in a new era of mankind! That can only be done with bold action!"
"Even at the risk of a teenage girl's life, Doctor? Surely, even you can see she is too young."
"And what does that mean? These glasses are decorative! Decorative!" Ibis leans forward, a sneer on his face, "I didn't take you for a coward, Famine Slayer."
"Consideration of others is not cowardice, Doctor. If you understood that, perhaps your podcast would have more than two subscribers."
"Well, you're talking about it, aren't you?!"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, we are all allies here," you interrupt. You do not sigh. You do not. "The fact is, Mona is the best candidate we have right now."
You turn to Chaucer who is still staring down Ibis.
"Joelle, I understand your concerns about her age, but we need the power she can give us." You raise a fist and squeeze it, lighting dancing on your fist. "Even with my strongest strikes, I would struggle against a Behemoth if one were to escape the QZ. And against someone like Scarlet Maturity? I may as well be tickling him."
It's a bitter truth you've learned over the years. You are either one of the deadliest combatants in a fight, or totally ineffective. That you had to touch something to use your electric strikes put you at a great disadvantage against anything you couldn't immediately incapacitate.
"We need power. Especially if the Leviathan tries to awaken again."
That thought echoes through the room. It took nearly every hero in the city to stop the Leviathan the first time. What would happen if it were to happen again now that almost everyone was gone?
Chaucer rubs his face. "Lady Leizi . . . she is a child."
"One who does not have the luxury of growing up in a peaceful world. Besides, I don't believe you're giving Mona enough credit. She will have the chance to say no before taking any Ambrosia. I don't think she will."
"Wait, she can refuse?!"
"Yes, Doctor," you and Chaucer say in unison.
"Tch," Ibis sounds, "Well, she probably won't, right? How could she?"
You choose to ignore that. "Besides, Joelle, you're not thinking about how her age could be an asset for us."
"What do you mean, Lady Leizi?" he asks.
"Mona is nineteen years old. Metahuman powers manifest during adolescence."
"Rarely that late," Ibis says, throwing up his hands, "And even if her powers had manifested naturally now, it takes years for them to reach maturity. With the kind of power she should have, it won't fit the timeline."
"Yes," you agree, "If her powers manifested now. Not if she developed them three years ago when she started as an 'intern' with Justice Unlimited."
The look of realization on Chaucer's face seems almost painful for him. "Yes . . . yes of course. It's perfect."
"What? What's perfect? You two are leaving me out!" Ibis squawks.
"Mona didn't just develop her powers," you say slyly, "She first got them at age sixteen. The same age as her idol, Uiara. Said idol noticed this, took an interest in her, and helped secretly train and develop her powers under the guise of an internship. But, also, just when Mona is finally is ready to debut, tragedy strikes."
"Justice Unlimited is lost. But their legacy lives on in a new, incredibly powerful heroine they trained before their demise," Chaucer sighs, leaning back in his chair, "Now, she is the rightful heir of the most popular heroic organization in Horizon. She will protect the city the way her mentors did, in honor of their memory."
You smirk behind your glasses. "Led by the organization's sole surviving member. It works, Chaucer. We wouldn't even need to be cagey about her identity."
[HIDDEN BONUS: Mona has a plausible backstory that will play well in the backpages! Mona will gain +2 to REPUTATION regardless of the results of administering Ambrosia.]
"So . . . can we move on?" Ibis says, looking between the two of you.
Chaucer closes his eyes. "We'd better, before I come to my senses. Your design document, Dr. Ibis?"
"Wonderful, wonderful! I have it here . . ."
* * *
Chaucer has insisted that I transcribe some sort of "instructions" on how my beautiful Ambrosia functions before I am allowed to experiment further. The joke is on that fool however, I can dictate notes and work at the same time! I say it again: fool!
I have dubbed my superpower-granting serum "Ambrosia" for, like Prometheus stealing fire, I have brought the province of the gods to humankind. Part of the reason Valiant Silver never perfected the formula—aside from being a dullard—is the highly-mutagenic properties of goldnine. In its raw form, the smallest drop causes all organic matter it makes contact with to turn into more of itself. We've known since the time of Ọsanyìn that it can be rendered inert through a costly refining process, but the resulting compound is useless for anything other than giving yourself cancer. Only I, finally given the resources and time I have always deserved, could possibly take the Leviathan's Blood and make it useful—
What? What do you mean that Valiant Silver was the one who figured it out? What, I'm just profiteering off her work? Out! Out of my lab! How dare you?!? No, wait, come back here—!
[At this point, there is approximately two hours of dead air in the recording. It has been omitted for all of our sanity. - Chaucer]
Bah, " stop bullying the support staff"—how dare that jumped up bureaucrat tell me what to do?! No one ever shows the proper respect! I am the Dr. Mammoth Ibis! I went to Standford and—fine! Fine, Chaucer! I will finish the instructions as soon as I am alone! Now get out!
Philistine. Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, making goldnine useful. The secret was to hijack the substance's self-replicating properties for our own use. My great innovation is to splice DNA samples from metahumans into goldnine and then refine it. It now acts like a retrovirus, re-writing a subject's DNA but with the elusive properties that grant a metahuman their powers. The exact mechanisms of what changes to DNA produce powers remains a black box, however. Answering that question would cost me too much time, and I have so much more to do. But I can reliably produce serums that will turn a non-metahuman into a metahuman.
Unfortunately, the kind of serums of Ambrosia we can produce is limited by the metahuman DNA samples we have on file on the Ladder. I'm certain Justice Unlimited kept more at their base in Horizon, but it's currently beyond our grasp. Additionally, the way the body processes Ambrosia is unique to each individual. Two individuals given the same dose of Ambrosia will receive similar, but not identical, powers. Creating a new King or Valkyrie is no guarantee. On the bright side, this means we can freely mix multiple hero DNA profiles into one dose of Ambrosia to create new power manifestations.
There is some risk of side effects based on the potency of the Ambrosia dose. I've detailed the potency each hero profile will add if included. A candidate cannot take a dose of Ambrosia that exceeds their tolerance level without it resulting in an instant, painful death. There might be worthwhile data from observing such a failure a few dozen times, but I'm told we only have so many interns. Thanks to my genius, we can artificially lower a dose's potency level without affecting the strength of the expressed power, but at the cost of increasing the odds of negative side effects.
I've also included a number of "keywords" that describe the powers we can expect to see manifest. The inclusion of a particular keyword does not guarantee an expression of that trait, but the more of the same keywords, the greater the probability of that power. We could do more with more metahuman profiles, but we only have access to what was kept on Justice Unlimited's base on the Ladder. As far as it appears, those are limited to metahumans who received medical treatment here. We must make acquiring more metahuman DNA a priority! We must!
Also, while Valiant Silver's theories about "ontological resonance" are ridiculous, there are enough concerns about negative effects that we should not use DNA profiles of still-living heroes. Likewise, we should not use a particular formula more than once. Can we use a similar formula? Should be within acceptable risk thresholds. Identical? Maybe once for the data, but even I would need to be cautious.
There! Let's see Valiant Silver create something this unprecedentedly genius! Ha!
. . .Why don't I have an action figure? Wait, the light is still on—is this still recording?
-Notes of Dr. Mammoth Ibis
Given the doctor's tendency to . . . lose focus, I've taken the liberty of cleaning up some of his notes. Mostly by omitting irrelevant information and including relevant background where necessary.
-Chaucer
C-Class Powers
Name: Soldier X, True Name Unknown Keywords: Fitness, Regeneration Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Justice Unlimited would have samples of The Defiance Unit's DNA on file. They were the first villain organization defeated by Justice Unlimited. Soldier X was a Jane Doe, thought to be from the Democratic Republic of Congo based on her accent. Regardless, she acted as the field commander of The Defiance Unit.
It was a matter of debate whether she had powers at all—a debate now put to bed by Dr. Mammoth Ibis! She possessed peak human physical capabilities—fitness, coordinate, agility, eyesight, etc. It appears her body naturally maintained this state without upkeep, although she did not have a healing factor.
Name: Daggermaw, Christian Soler Power: Transformation, Enhanced Strength, Enhanced Senses Faction: New Dawn Potency: 1 Ibis' Notes: Daggermaw was an auxiliary hero of New Dawn. He was one of the better-known dysmorphic metahumans in Horizon—a metahuman whose power has caused some sort of permanent transformation or physical mutation. Many are uncomfortable with dysmorphic metahumans—lesser minds unable to appreciate the beauty of science.
While alive, Daggermaw resembled a bipedal reptile. He was something like a mix between a crocodile and an iguana, I would say. He had enhanced strength, though nothing extraordinary, and stronger senses than the average human. In particular, he could sense vibrations through his skin from great distances away.
Name: Crimson Soprano, Balduína "Bidu" Rios Barroso Power: Flight, Solar Absorption, Energy Manipulation Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 2 Ibis' Notes: Another member of the Defiance Unit, this was one of their heavy strikers. Crimson Soprano was the rare metahuman who could fly. That coupled with her devastating energy blasts made her a feared presence on the battlefield. However, her power relied on her absorbing solar radiation—too long without sunlight and her powers waned. It explains why they only ever struck on sunny days, I suppose. Her name referred to her tendency to "announce" each Defiance Unit attack with an operatic serenade—she was a failed opera singer as it were.
Ironically enough, she was contralto.
Name: Steadfast, Lamar Thompson Power: Invulnerability Faction: New Dawn Potency: 2 Ibis' Notes: One of the founding members of New Dawn, later turned lackey for Global Justice, I was surprised to see his DNA on file. It only made sense when I learned he was the father of Adamant. I suppose that was something they kept quiet. Steadfast was in every way a baseline human except in one regard: he had the most potent form of invulnerability on record. He simply could not be injured in any way. He could not be stabbed, struck, crushed, or burned; he couldn't even starve or drown. To be honest, if his death wasn't confirmed multiple times over from direct goldnine exposure, I wouldn't believe he was dead.
Name: Adamant, Rakeem Wade Power: Transformation, Enhanced Strength, Regeneration Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: One of founders of Justice Unlimited and the day-to-day commander. I suppose I owe the man my life. Honestly, I'm surprised at the lack of potency of his power—a testament to a keen mind over a superior might, I suppose.
Justice Unlimited's internal notes describe Adamant as less a person who could turn their body to metal and more of an endless fount of liquid metal wrapped in human skin. Adamant's body, when he transformed, was made of hereto-unknown metal "creatively" called adamantium. It was non-ferrous, had a melting point greater than tungsten, and was extremely durable. When Adamant touched or extruded adamantium it took the property of liquid and hardened at his command. He was able to slowly heal injuries over time by remaining in his metal form and replacing the damaged parts of his body with new metal. Upon transforming back, it would revert to uninjured flesh.
Name: Dragonsteeth, Rebecca Wade Power: Energy Manipulation, Construct Creation Faction: New Dawn Potency: 3 Ibis' Notes: Another original member of New Dawn and the other parent of Adamant. I'm beginning to sense nepotism. Dragonsteeth had retired from life as a public hero after the Susurration, but apparently she came to stop the Leviathan's awakening nonetheless. Pity.
Like in the myth of the Argonauts, Dragonsteeth could seed the ground around her with energy, which would slowly grow into solid-light constructs. The constructs were not under her direct command, but were capable of following limited orders. She had a set energy "limit" she could spend at once. She could concentrate it all into one powerful construct, or spread it out around many different ones. While she most commonly made armored soldiers, the shapes her autonomous constructs could take could be as varied as her imagination.
B-Class Powers
Name: Memoria, Marcos Medeiros de Canto Power: Teleportation, Clairvoyance Faction: The Defiance Unit Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: Memoria's death marked the downfall of The Defiance Unit, so imagine my surprise to learn that he was very much alive until recently. It seems Uiara spared him and Lady Leizi helped him disappear. He was working as a "free agent" until his (real) demise in the QZ.
Memoria had the ability to take pictures of a location that would display what was happening in that location in real-time, like a fixed video feed. He could then freely teleport himself and others to any location of which he had a photograph. His file shows he could only maintain five such photographs at once. An extremely useful utility power, even if he himself was vulnerable to attack.
As an aside, I don't see DNA profiles for Nox Esurientem or Zeno—the heavy-hitters of The Defiance Unit—so I have to assume they either don't exist or are kept in the Apiary on Horizon.
Name: The Outsider, Kwame Davis Power: Transformation, Energy Manipulation, Invisibility Faction: New Dawn Potency: 4 Ibis' Notes: I'm honestly not certain howDNA could be acquired for The Outsider. They were an affiliate hero of New Dawn—known more for their social advocacy than any heroics. Their power turned them into a spherical biological nucleus surrounded by an energy "body" they could freely shape and control. This included the ability to turn invisible, change their relative size and mass, and shoot blasts of energy. The Outsider was something of a spook for New Dawn and a frequent collaborator with Lady Leizi. I just . . . where did the sample come from? Their nucleus? How? Why? Why do I only get to know this after they have died?! Think of what I could have done with this knowledge!
Name: Deadman, Richard Michaels Power: Elemental Manipulation, Regeneration Faction: New Dawn Potency: 5 Ibis' Notes: Deadman dressed like a noir detective and apparently smoked like one. I'm glad I never met him; he sounds exhausting and I despise smoking! He was a probationary member of New Dawn—probationary because he did not trust their leadership and constantly had them under investigation. It appears he was feeding information to Justice Unlimited. He's noted to have been an excellent detective, his commitment to questionable gimmicks notwithstanding, but that had nothing to do with his power.
Speaking of which, his power didn't activate until his biological functions ceased. Upon "death" his body would self-immolate and then reform itself. During that time, his blood appeared to turn to magma which he could manipulate and control. Likewise, he could summon magma from the ground, even if there was no source of such near him. Like Adamant and Steadfast, his power met its match surrounded by goldnine, and Deadman met his end.
Name: The Red Huntress, Harper English Power: Transformation, Enhanced Senses, Fitness, Speed, Invisibility, Energy Manipulation, Clairvoyance Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 6 Ibis' Notes: Well. It seems Justice Unlimited had its own secrets. The Red Huntress always seemed something like a legacy admission to me—she was an ally of Uiara and Valiant Silver before they formed Justice Unlimited. She had a great number of powers, all loosely organized around the concept of "predation", but none were particularly powerful. She had keener sense than the average person, but not that much keener. She could run faster than a non-metahuman, but not as fast as, say, a car. She could turn invisible, but it was an imperfect optical camouflage. She was a true "jack of all trades, master of none."
Or that's how it appeared. The Red Huntress had one more power that was not publicly known—she could place a "mark" on any living creature that was unremovable. The mark would let her know where the marked creature was at all times, and her body and powers would "scale up" to match the threat posed by the marked creature. She would get faster, stronger, her invisibility would improve, and so forth. How a creature's level was quantified is unknown, but the file shows The Red Huntress undergoing some dramatic transformations into a feline creature to combat particularly strong metahumans. In that form, she would gain the ability to extend blades of energy that would grow stronger to injure her prey.
Her power is . . . frightening. The Red Huntress was always the smiling face of Justice Unlimited along with Uiara, so it is disturbing to know her true capability as an assassin.
A-Class Powers
Name: Automne, Ophélie du Arceneaux Power: Elemental Manipulation, Flight Faction: The Four Seasons Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: Ah. Automne. I actually liked her. She and Radiant Silvergirl. They were . . . dating? Best friends? It was a weird little relationship. But the two of them are some of the only other people with the ability to appreciate the art of my children. They would make sure to take every job that would impact my work, and, even when they opposed me, they showed due respect. They even invited me to participate in their competitive beetle-fighting league! I was disqualified for creating a bipedal stag beetle the size of a housecat, but I appreciated being included.
Automne was too young for how powerful she was. She was an aerokinetic, one of the most powerful in the world. She could create tornadoes, generate hurricane-force winds, move the clouds themselves, and so forth. She was always present at every major crisis on Horizon, often trying to prevent collateral damage. Despite all that, her favorite thing to do was to just fly freely on the winds.
I . . . I actually think I will miss her. Goodness. I need to fix my implant immediately.
Name: Novalight, Yelena Sokolov Power: Elemental Manipulation, Energy Manipulation, Flight Faction: New Dawn Potency: 8 Ibis' Notes: Now, this is explosive. Novalight was the leader of New Dawn and a hard woman to say the least. Some would say paranoid, but I always respected refusal to compromise her beliefs. She was the architect behind Wonderland—the detention facility for metahumans too dangerous to allow to go free. She controlled New Dawn's territory in Horizon with an iron fist, but the University District was among the city's safest for it.
Her relationship with Justice Unlimited was strained. Both Justice Unlimited and New Dawn were heroic organizations, but they were bitter rivals. Justice Unlimited started as a junior team under New Dawn, and Novalight never forgave them for going independent. She would have taken them keeping her DNA profile as an act of war.
Novalight was one of the three strongest metahumans in the city. She was photokinetic, radiokinetic, and capable of supersonic flight. Her energy blasts were capable of leveling the city, and nearly did during the Susurration. She would end many a fight simply by appearing and glowing too brightly for anyone to be able to see. With her radiokinesis, she could generate heat intense enough to melt even adamantium. Her weakness, if she truly even had one, was that her power gave her no defensive capabilities. But she ended fights quickly and decisively enough that it didn't matter.
I can think of several reasons why her DNA is here, and none of them are charitable. It's not my concern, but perhaps we should keep this one quiet.
* * *
Now is the time to create the first dose of Ambrosia of the game. Please refer to the first informational post for the rules of Ambrosia creation. Please format your votes like the following:
[ ] Plan More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and the Incredible Hulk Put Together
[DNA PROFILE 1] (POTENCY)
[DNA PROFILE 2] (POTENCY)
POTENCY REDUCTIONS (- POTENCY)
TOTAL POTENCY OF DOSE: X
If you want to throw in the number of keywords or side-effect odds, please do so separately from the vote-block.
It remains the eternal shame of scientists and amateur astronomers everywhere that no one noticed the Leviathan until it was already here.
To be fair to the starwatchers, its arrival was sudden. One moment there was a patch of empty sky, and, the next, it was filled with a creature the size of Manhattan. No satellites or telescopes clocked its arrival, nor could anyone who isn't a liar say where it came from, or even how long it had been there before it was spotted. It could have hung above the atmosphere for hours without anyone noticing, but for the sun behind the Leviathan casting its shadow over where people lived. And those people looked up.
And then immediately looked back down. They rubbed their eyes, took a few deep breaths, maybe pinched themselves to make sure they were awake, and then reluctantly looked back up.
Above them floated an uneven cylinder, made of a thick side and thin side. From the thin side emerged two symmetrical, gangly protrusions that extended into long, double-jointed limbs that terminated into endless tendrils. Between them was a bulbous prow, oblong and twisted, with a gaping pit in the middle, empty, wanting, and unignorable.
Like a man screaming.
Most people did not look up a third time. But a few did, and swiftly regretted it, as they saw something even more horrifying: the Leviathan was getting bigger. It was getting closer. Impact was inevitable.
Decades later, the world would collectively agree to never mention the, frankly embarrassing, mass panic that ensued. Yes, they would insist, humanity did not fold in the face of imminent annihilation. We banded together, bringing together our best and brightest to forestall Armageddon. The riots and lootings were merely the result of a particularly contentious soccer match. Oh, you didn't hear about it? Guess you had to be there.
Thankfully, collective action proved to be unnecessary. As quickly Leviathan grew to fill the sky, it just as quickly, miraculously, began to shrink. What could so easily float in the vacuum in space had no defense to the atmosphere of Earth upon entry. The Leviathan burned in a holocaust of flame, losing over 90% of its mass in a matter of hours. What seemed like an extinction level event charred away into a mere catastrophe.
Certain members of the population were disappointed. The wave wasn't even very big when it hit the ocean.
That isn't to say that 10% the mass of Manhattan hitting the planet didn't wreak devastation. It absolutely did. Wreaked like crazy. Wreaked like you wouldn't believe. The Leviathan hit the south Atlantic Ocean at an angle and skipped like a stone into the Brazilian island of Marajó with the force of millions of megatons of TNT. The impact cracked the land like a walnut, killing thousands. Millions more across the globe died as a result of the famine caused by the dust cloud it kicked up, lowering global temperatures for years. The famine triggered several wars, the global economy was crippled, even more people died, moved, or were displaced. The ripples from the impact were endless, impossible to ever summarize in on place, but one thing was clear:
On the island of Marajó, above the trees, rising like obelisk, was a face. It was all that remained of the Leviathan, the "head" and, next to it, part of a "hand". It had the peculiar effect of looking like a man trying to claw himself out of the grave--hand desperately reaching to pull the head from the loam. It rose high into the sky, a mountain of material not from this world.
It still looked like it was screaming.
An endless font of amber liquid poured out of the Leviathan's corpse, a mutagenic substance later dubbed "goldnine." Goldnine had the peculiar—here "peculiar" means "absolutely terrifying"—property of instantly converting any organic matter it made contact with into more of itself. In an instant, 20% of the island became an alien landscape of bubbling, frothing material. Had the Leviathan landed somewhere with less marshland, it could have been even worse.
As if a shattered land, destroyed economy, and staggering loss of life wasn't bad enough for the country of Brazil, suddenly Marajó became the most coveted real estate in the world. Every nation wanted the Leviathan for itself, for what it was, and what it promised it could be. Most did not ask politely or even ask at all. Unable, or unwilling, to resist the rest of the world, nor willing to pick a side and anger everyone else, the leaders of Brazil took a page out of King Solomon's book and gave every country a piece of the Leviathan.
Or, a piece of what could be extracted. The outer shell of the Levithan had hardened into a chitin that could wear diamond drills dull. The only viable part was an organic inner core, spongy like a mushroom, accessible through the mouth and a river of the now-most dangerous substance on the planet. That was what was divided and shared, every major nation given a piece.
The Blooming was in many ways both completely avoidable and totally unpredictable. Avoidable, because of course you shouldn't take pieces of a self-replicating biological entity and send it all over the world, duh. Unpredictable, because a lot of important people get real upset if you say otherwise.
The interior "flesh" of the Leviathan was something akin to a myconid crystal—vast networks of tubular filament encases in layers and layers of lattice patterns. The flesh was dead, but first-hand accounts describe it slowly pulsing and undulating the longer you stared it at, twitching and writhing, only to become motionless just as you became certain it was alive. Every available scientific measurement read that the Leviathan's core was inert, but the sole survivor from the Quantico Research Institute insisted it was tricking you:
You would be alone when, out of the corner of your eye, you saw something move. You'd look around, but you would still be alone. Then, you feel a whisper-soft touch on the back of your neck. Your hair would rise like someone was watching you. Then you would see it: a piece of the corpse of the Leviathan. You'd want to look away, but something would compel you to keep watching. An instinct from our ancient ancestors, maybe. The knowledge that, as soon as you looked away, it would get you.
- Unnamed Researcher, two days after The Blooming.
If the Leviathan kept secrets in its flesh, then it guarded them jealously. The core was almost certainly a different material then the main body, because it refused to burn. One estimate indicated it could survive prolonged exposure to the sun's corona at two million degrees fahrenheit. It proved similarly resistant to impact damage; attempts to slice, split, or puncture the core flesh proved ineffective. Likewise, it was nearly totally impermeable to radiation—no kind of electromagnetic, radio, or even gamma waves could pass through it.
If there was something on this Earth that could destroy the core, it would take the planet with it on the way out.
Then, almost exactly two years to the day of the Leviathan falling, everyone within one hundred yards of a piece of the core died.
There was no blood. No broken bones, no damaged organs, no signs that there was anything medically wrong. Every person within range simply . . . stopped living. Animals were unaffected; only human beings, living people, were affected. In some places, where the core was kept isolated, the loss of life was minor. In others—like where the Americans kept it—the death toll was staggering.
People on the outer band of The Blooming reported feeling dizzy, disoriented, and, most importantly, hearing something. But not with their ears. In the back of their minds, people hear a faint sound through static.
It sounded like something screaming.
The pieces of the Leviathan's core all changed, in proportion to the number of people affected. Like a child waking up, the filaments rose from the core and wove together into buds that bloomed. The flowers tilted and moved, like a sunflower seeking the sun, and all pointed in the same direction: the body of the Leviathan.
They, too, looked like they were screaming.
The first metahuman appeared twenty years later. His name was Ọsanyìn. People who insist these events are unrelated are not serious and should be mocked.
Horizon, City of Levithan's Rest – Old Industrial District – October 18, 2067
[X] Plan Hypernovae (Unquenchable Star Ver)
-[X] [Novalight] (8 POTENCY)
-[X] [Crimson Soprano] (2 POTENCY)
-[X] [Soldier X] (1 POTENCY)
-[X] POTENCY REDUCTIONS (-3 POTENCY)
-[X] TOTAL POTENCY OF DOSE: 10
"Stop! Stop! Be careful, you fool!"
"Now, Doctor, what did I say about bullying members of our staff?"
The look Ibis shoots Chaucer is positively venomous, but it spares John Henry Rhodes his ire. Of all the difficulties you anticipated would be involved with building a remote testing facility on Horizon proper, Dr. Ibis' reaction was the thing you felt was the most inevitable.
John Henry, the darling man, doesn't react to Ibis' haranguing, but calmly finishes assembling the last of the machine's components and smoothly rises to his feet.
"Finished. I'll need to do a dry run to calibrate, but that should do her," he says, fondly patting the overlarge device in front of him. It looks like a giant centrifuge attached to a series of tubes, which probably isn't far from what it is.
"Finally! I can't believe the time we've wasted! Why must we even build a facility down here?"
"Ha! Good one, doc!" Rhys Gardner says from his position by the door. You wanted to keep the number of people who were aware of Project Prometheus small, and Rhys and John Henry were both excellent at their jobs and already aware of what you were doing. "That's a pretty good imitation of those dumbasses from earlier, yeah? Like it isn't obvious why we can't test an unproven superhero-serum while in outer space! You believe those guys? What if it blows up or something? What am I supposed to breathe? Ain't no air in space! "
"Yes . . . um . . ."
"Yeah, John Henry was saying earlier how this was all your idea," Rhys continues, gesturing at the other man, "I was like 'woah'! That Dr. Mammoth Ibis sure is a smart cookie. No wonder he's in charge."
"Oh, yes. Yes, of course! That's exactly what I was saying earlier, wasn't it Rhodes?"
"Of course, Doctor," John Henry says without looking away from his work, "I made sure everyone knew this was your idea."
Dr. Ibis preens. "Well, thank you Rhodes. I'll give Valiant Silver this: she trained excellent staff!"
Chaucer gives Ibis such a look of deep disgust behind his back that you have to hide your smile behind your hand. John Henry is as impassive as ever, but Rhys throws you a wink. It is a pleasure to have such competent subordinates. If either man took offense at not being selected for Project Prometheus' maiden voyage, neither of them showed it.
Speaking of which, you had one more thing to do.
Mona sits in the adjoining room, shivering slightly in nothing but a hospital gown. Mona was a true Horizon native, finding ways to be cold even on this balmy evening. She is kicking her legs nervously, biting her lip.
"This is your last chance to change your mind," you tell her, "Not a soul in Horizon would blame you. What we're doing is unprecedented. Dangerous. If Uiara or Adamant were here, rest their souls, they would tell you to reconsider."
Mona looks up at you with an all-too-familiar set to her jaw and look in her eyes. "They would? Well . . .what would you tell me?"
You smile. "Would you rather be perfect for an instant? Or mediocre for a lifetime?"
Mona nods. "I want to do this. I . . . I have to keep everyone safe."
As good a reason as any. "Very well. I believe we'll be ready to begin shortly. Do prepare yourself."
"Umm, Lady Leizi? Before you go . . ."
"Yes, darling?"
"Umm." There she is, biting her lip again. "N-never mind. I'll ask you afterwards."
You crook an eyebrow, but, when Mona looks away, you decide to let the matter lie. Let the girl have her secrets for now.
Thirty minutes later, your decision to administer the Ambrosia outside of Jacob's Ladder proves prescient.
* * *
Mona lies sedated in a patient chair, with a large number of intravenous catheters in her arms. Behind her, John Henry and Dr. Ibis carefully, carefully, deliver the refined goldnine into the machine at one end, and the slurry of DNA to the other. Ibis had insisted they must be combined at the last possible moment, and you see both substances collide in the center of the machine before rapidly flowing toward Mona.
The Ambrosia gives an unearthly, golden glow for a second before disappearing into Mona's veins. At first, nothing happens.
Then, annihilation.
Mona's chest thrusts forward as, in the center, an anomalous divot forms. Her chest seems to collapse under its own weight before expanding again, with a sphere that is less black in color than a gaping absence. It reminds you of something Towarri could make, but, before you can finish the thought, Mona's body explodes with a blinding light. Her flesh becomes photons, streaking and swirling around the dark sphere, expanding ever outward. Suddenly, she sits up, her eyes open but filled with so much luminescence you can't see if she's awake.
What saves everyone next is your years of experience and Rhys' instinctual obedience.
"Everyone out!"
You hook John Henry around the arm and drag him with you, sprinting as fast as you can run. Rhys follows you closely with Dr. Ibis slung over his shoulder like a rag doll and dragging Chaucer with his other arm. You don't break to explain yourself; you just run.
The glowing light becomes unbearable, even with your sunglasses. You are running blind, literally, and feel the sting of sunburn on the back of your neck, a gentle touch of radiation. Still, you move your legs as fast as they will go, outside the converted warehouse, running. You just hope you'll be far enough when—
Night turns to day as you go blind again, even behind your closed eyes. It's like being in the heart of a star before, just as suddenly as it came, all of the light pulls back.
The warehouse in front of you is now a smoking crater, the ground around it melted.
"Stay here!" you command, expecting to heeded, and run back towards the center. You check the ground, but it's rapidly cooled. Your screen, made by Nora herself, shows there's a raised level of radiation but nothing immediately dangerous. You navigate back to where Mona was, your stride measured and controlled. You all needed to get out of here immediately before someone came to investigate what that was.
But first you had to get Mona. In the center of the crater you found her.
Or what was left of her.
It was like a jet-black, wax impression of Mona's head and torso, limbless, her eyes closed peacefully, glowing with an anti-light. You call out to her, but there's no response. You have no idea if she's still alive.
You carefully touch her body, and when nothing happens, you try to lift her.
Oh my. She's . . . heavy. You're going to need some help.
* * *
You are Mona Merola-Morales, and you have no idea where you are.
Weren't you . . . weren't you about to get superpowers? It was dangerous and junk, but you totally had to do it! The world needs Justice Unlimited! Needs it! When Lady Leizi came to you, you thought you were in trouble. But then she offered to give you superpowers and join Justice Unlimited? Like, what? You could have just died right then, but you kept it cool! You were so chill and all, "Yeah, that sounds cool with me if it's cool with you." Then you winked, which wasn't cool but—
Wait. Did you die?
You fall to your knees in despair. That's so unfair! You didn't even get to see Valiant Silver's lab!
And . . . and you chickened out asking Lady Leizi if they could take care of your mom. The hospital was out of her medicine—everywhere was—and she was getting sick again. You didn't want to seem like you were trying to guilt her or anything, so you decided to wait until after they did their science-thing.
And now you are dead! And here! Today sucks!
But . . . where was here?
The area around you was a featureless void. It was creepy, to be real. But something was making your hair stand up on end. You stood up, because it felt like someone was watching you.
You looked around and—there! You saw it! An eye! It was maybe thirty feet near you, but then it pulled away. Wanting for anything else to do, you followed it.
And then wish you hadn't. Because what you found was super-duper grody, ew!
It was a sea of wriggling, purple flesh that was only differentiated up by long, swaying squid-like tentacles topped with innumerable eyes. In the center was a suspended cocoon, vaguely shaped like a woman with a great eye in the center of her forehead.
"Aw, yucky."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say because every one of the thousands of eyes looked in your direction.
"O-oh. Sorry! I was just surprised! I'll . . . I'll be going now—"
But it was not to be. Dozens of tentacles whipped towards you, faster than you could see, and suspended you into the air. You fought and struggled, but they were strong and you didn't have your superpowers yet. Slowly, they transferred you to other tentacles which passed you, in turn, to other tentacles until, before you knew it, you were face to face with the cocoon woman. She looked at you the same way you would look at a particularly audacious fly in your soup. With a rasping voice, she croaked out a single word.
"You . . ."
"Stop! Wait! My heart isn't ready!"
"W-what?" she said, apparently dumbfounded.
"Wait a second. I'm dead!" you realize, "You can't hurt me!"
". . . you're not dead. You're just unconscious." An eyestalk suddenly whips past your ear and disappears for a second before returning. "Lady Leizi is moving your body back to Jacob's Ladder as we speak—wait. You can see me?"
". . . no?"
"You can see me. How can you see me?"
"With . . . with my eyes?"
"What are you?" she snarls, the tentacles tighten and shake you violently, "No one can see me!"
"M-maybe y-your just h-having an o-off day?" you stutter out through all of the shaking.
"No one can see me!"
Well, this isn't how you hoped your day would go. You feel the pasta you had for dinner start to rise in your throat but, before you vomit, you notice there's a mark on the cocoon-woman's face. You squint to see it . . .
Moderate Success: DC 10. Major Success: DC 15.
Stat Check: ESPIONAGE 5. Mona has ESPIONAGE 2.
You rolled: 9.
9 - 1 = 8. Failure!
. . . but the shaking is too violent.
"NO ONE CAN SEE ME!"
The shaking stops, but you kind of miss it, because now she's trying to rip you apart. She pulls you tight, like a child trying to snap a rubber band, but she can't. It's only a matter of time before you break in half but—wait a second—she can't do it!
Your body feels hard. Like a diamond but somehow even more resilient. You feel something boil and bubble at your fingertips before—
A stream of nuclear light erupts from your fingers and severs the tentacles holding you. You expect to fall, but, before you do, your body stops mid-air.
You're flying! Holy poop! You're flying!
The creature roars in pain, pulling her main body away from you.
"Take that!" you say with a smirk, hands on your hip, standing on air, "Didn't your mother teach you how to treat a lady?"
Good one, Mona! Man, you wish Lady Leizi was here to see how cool you looked.
But instead of swearing revenge and bantering back, the cocoon-lady starts sobbing. Big, ugly sobs, like a heartbroken child.
"It hurts!" she moans, "Father, please! Help me! It hurts! I don't want to watch anymore today!"
You drop your hands, not having expected . . . well, this.
"Y-you, um, good?" you ask. But she just sobs harder. Ah, dang, you were starting to feel bad. "Hey, I'm sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot . . ."
But she doesn't hear you, or, if she does, she ignores you. "It hurts! It hurts! Father, please! I want to go home today! I'll be good, I promise!"
Oh, crapbaskets, did you just laser a sad child? Come on, Mona, you're supposed to be a hero! You try to think of how to comfort this . . . young lady, but, before you can, you feel the presence of something else.
Something large. Something fetid and disgusting that sets your stomach roiling again. The voice that speaks is deluded and cunning, begging for all, unearned.
"WHATEVER HAS UPSET YOU SO, CHILD?"
You don't look at it. You don't look at it. You don't look at it. You just turn around and blast it with all of your might, screaming.
You are Lady Leizi, you allow yourself to slump back in your chair.
You are exhausted. Two days. Two days of calling in favors and running interference to prevent anyone from learning about your . . . explosive first administration of Ambrosia.
"I must say, I am both in awe and terror of you, Lady Leizi," Chaucer says, reading an article on his screen, "'McLeod-English Heavy Industries denies all allegations that the explosion in the OID two days ago was caused by the failed testing of a new spacecraft engine . . .' Well, of course they would, if they were avoiding a lawsuit. Or, if it wasn't true."
"I have no idea what you mean, dear," you lie, "I don't keep track of corporate intrigue."
Chaucer snorts while you wait for Dr. Ibis to arrive. Through a window, you see Mona excitedly showing her mother around the base.
"I still can't believe she's the same girl who exploded up two days ago," Chaucer says, "There's not a mark on her. You couldn't tell her apart from any other girl her age."
"I assure you, Chaucer, she is nothing like any other girl her age," a new voice in the room says.
"Dr. Ibis, thank you for joining us," you say, "I know you've been hard at work these past few days."
For once Dr. Ibis isn't manic or ranting. He looks focused.
"I've prepared a report of the subject's powers," he says without preamble, "They're extraordinary."
"Well, don't keep us in suspense, Doctor. Please. The floor is yours."
Dr. Ibis sits down and activates a display in the center of the table. A holographic rendition of Mona's head and torso after the administration of Ambrosia appears.
"The subject's power is gravitational in nature. This part of her is her 'core', if you will. It is actually a hyperdense gravity anomaly, not unlike a supermassive black hole."
"My God," Chaucer breathes.
"God has nothing to do with it, just Dr. Mammoth Ibis," Ibis says absentmindedly, "But if he did, I'm not sure even he could damage her. Her body has the density of several galaxies. Trying to damage it would be like trying to destroy a solar system with a toothpick."
"What about the rest of her body?" you ask.
"It appears to be trapped energy, orbiting her core. How it resembles her old appearance and how she can still perceive sensation from it is a mystery that is currently beyond me," Ibis says in a rare admission of ignorance, "But it's also the source of her destructive potential. It orbits her body at an angle. The light we saw during the administration was caused by the friction of all the matter rubbing against each other as it swirled into her core."
"And she has control of it?" Chaucer says, giving Mona an uneasy look through the window, "The gravity?"
"Nearly perfectly. It's how she's able to fly—she can go so far as to even change the direction her personal gravitation field pulls her."
"That power isn't especially helpful if it can only come out in a great destructive burst," you comment.
"Well, it's fortunate she has other ways of controlling it, then. That same friction creates powerful magnetic fields she can aim. Then she can eject matter from her body at near-relativistic speeds through the fields like a particle accelerator. She could easily level the city if she applied herself."
Dr. Ibis rubs his face and changes the display to Mona in a testing ground. There's a deep furrow in the earth the size of a football field in front of her. Mona is missing an arm but seemingly in no distress. She's sticking her tongue out and lightly hitting herself on the head with her remaining hand.
You feel a headache coming on.
"The only limit to the subject's power is that she uses her body for 'fuel'. This makes sense since she's literally blasting parts of herself away. Her body regenerates by absorbing radiation. The ambient ultraviolet light in the atmosphere is enough to do this over time, but I imagine it would happen more quickly with other sources."
"So she's indestructible, naturally regenerates, and has energy weapons more powerful than even Novalight?" you summarize.
"Indeed."
"Wonderful," you smile, "As green as she is now, I would say Towarri probably could have defeated her in battle. But with proper training and instruction? I can only think of four other metahumans, ever, who could stand against her."
Chaucer clears his throat. "That's well and all, but how is her mental state, Doctor? That's a radical change for anyone to go through. Let alone with all of this responsibility on her shoulders."
Ibis snorts. "She's fine. She's more concerned with what her costume will look like and that strange vision she had."
"Yes," Chaucer says, "About that. Do we have any knowledge about the creatures Mona saw, Lady Leizi?"
DC 10.
Stat Check: OPERATIONS 5. Lady Leizi has OPERATIONS 5.
You rolled: 5.
5 + 0 = 5. Failure!
"None whatsoever," you're forced to admit, "It's possible it was a hallucination caused by the Ambrosia, but I'm not going to make any assumptions. We'll be on the lookout for anything matching the description of what Mona saw."
What Mona described was repulsive. However, more concerning was its "Father" and obsession with being unobserved.
"Very well," Chaucer says, "Then, before we go, I believe there is one more matter to decide."
Ibis groans and you hide a sigh. You're also not a great fan of marketing.
Name: [Name Undecided], Mona Merola-Morales Keywords: Fundamental Force Manipulation, Invulnerability, Regeneration, Flight Side Effect: ??? Faction: Justice Unlimited Potency: 13 Stats: HIT 8, REPUTATION 8, ESPIONAGE 3, OPERATIONS 4
Ibis' Notes: The subject's power has turned her body into a hyperdense gravity anomaly, not unlike a supermassive black hole and with the density of several galaxies. Her external "body" is an ablative shell of orbiting energy. Subject can control the gravity at her core and reabsorb the energy body into her core body. Doing so creates a massive amount of friction resulting in magnetic fields. Said fields can launch matter from her body at relativistic speeds. Doing so will result in a reduction of her overall body's mass, which can be regenerated by absorbing radiation.
Subject can use control of gravity to fly at supersonic speeds, possibly even relativistic speeds.
Now the fun part! What will we call our newest hero:
[ ] Hypernovae
[ ] Starlight Knight
[ ] Quasar Girl
Write-in (subject to QM veto) [ ]
What will her costume/general vibe be?
Write-in (subject to QM veto) [ ]
What is Mona's Emblem? Write-in (subject to QM veto) [ ]
What is her costume's primary color? Write-in (subject to QM veto) [ ]
Hey, there you are star-girl! I see you hiding under the bed. You wanna come out?
No? Okay. . . I'll just come under there with you!
Ooh! It's nice and cool down here. I see why you didn't want to come out. It's quiet too . . . very zen.
Umm, it means "peaceful".
Yeah, so, Daddy owes you an apology, star-girl. I shouldn't have gotten so upset. I know you didn't break it on purpose.
No, no! Don't cry! It's okay, really. But that's why Daddy told you to be careful with his stuff. I know they look like toys, but . . . well, okay, actually they are toys. But they're not the kind of toys you play with! They're more for looking at.
It's an adult thing! And that was a first-edition commemorative figure of Valiant Red!
Yeah, he's Daddy's favorite hero. Have I ever told you about Valiant Red and New Dawn?
I have? Well, guess what? I'm gonna tell you again!
Back before Horizon was built, all that was here was the Leviathan and the QZ. Lots of countries sent all their armies to surround the QZ to make sure nothing got out.
What was there? Monsters. Behemoths. The scary stuff heroes keep us safe from!
Anyway there was a biiiig military base here and not much else. But then Ọsanyin—yeah! The funny old man from the commercials—had an idea: what if there was a city for all those soldiers to buy stuff from? So he bought up all the land, made a bunch of stores, and made a lot of money. So much money!
A million dollars? More like a billion dollars! A bazillion? . . . umm, y'know, he might have, actually.
Well, Ọsanyin made so much money he decided to make the city bigger. And then it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until it was the biggest city in the world! But to build that city, they needed lots of workers. Luckily for Ọsanyin—wait, I guess this part is really tragic—after the Leviathan fell, a bunch of countries ran out of food and got into wars, and people needed a palace to go. Like Daddy and your halmeoni. So they all came to Horizon to build the city!
Problem was, the people Ọsanyin put in charge after he died didn't treat all of the workers very nicely. They didn't pay them very much or take care of them when they got hurt. Then, some tried to make everybody work for free and there was a big riot. The bad men hired their own soldiers who hurt the workers, and for a while things looked really bad.
And then, Valiant Red appeared! He was so cool! He had this red costume and an awesome scarf! He had all these gadgets like a laser sword, and he did this really cool kick like, "Vaaaaaliant Kick!"
Don't laugh at Daddy! It's cool!
Valiant Red fought off the bad people's soldiers and protected all the workers like Halmeoni. Oh, it made them so mad! So mad they hired soldiers with super powers to get Valiant Red. But, Valiant Red had his own friends with superpowers!
Wait, come with me to the living room. I have figures of all of them! I'll show you.
The bed will be here later if you want to go back under it, come on!
Okay, so that's Steadfast, he's invincible. Dragonsteeth is here with her energy soldiers . . . Oh! I have Ali Baba—this is a rare one, you can see here turning into her ghost form. Novalight, check. Here's Cisma—she can lock people in different dimensions, which is why she's in charge of Wonderland. And here is Valkyrie. Oh, poor Valkyrie.
Oh, Daddy's not sad. Just . . . remembering. Valkyrie was the strongest hero in the city. Maybe even stronger than King—I have his figure over here by the way. Valkyrie was psychic. Should move stuff with her mind, talk to people without speaking, and even fly! She was dating Valiant Ret; get this, your Dad once saw them in public kissing.
I know, ew, gross!
Yeah, New Dawn was the best. But Valiant Red was their leader. He kind of defined what a hero was. Before him, no one wore costumes or protected the public or anything. But after Valiant Red did, they all copied him. Without Ọsanyin you wouldn't have metahumans. But without Valiant Red, you wouldn't have heroes.
What happened to them? Well . . . okay, sit down star-girl.
You know the big tower in the sky? The one that goes to space? Ọsanyin wanted to build it. It's called Jacob's Ladder. It has an official name, but I can't even remember what it is. They started building it when he was alive, but it took so long, he was dead by the time they finished it. By then, New Dawn had lots of members and was the biggest team of superheroes in the world.
But, as it turns out, Valkyrie was sick. Not sick in her body; she had a sickness in her head. It made her think things that weren't true. When they went to open Jacob's Ladder, she thought it was going to end the world. So, she tried to destroy it.
If Jacob's Ladder fell, it was going to hit the city and hurt a lot of people. So, everyone tried to stop her. But, she was way stronger than everyone thought. King had to come to fight her and he barely won. But he did.
So, Valkyrie ran to the QZ. I don't know why. But she destroyed a big part of the military base and a bunch of Behemoths got out. New Dawn followed in the QZ to stop her, but . . . she got too close to the Leviathan and the R-Train activated.
It doesn't matter why you're in the QZ; if you get too close to the Leviathan or try to leave with goldnine, the R-Train will come after you. You could see the units it deployed fighting New Dawn all the way from our house. King joined the fight and . . . it was really scary.
You okay, star-girl? We can stop here if you want.
You sure? You want to hear the end? Okay.
Just when it looked like the fighting was over, the whispers started. I still remember it. Mommy was pregnant with you and were going to a hospital when we heard it. It was . . . a quiet voice. But you didn't hear it with your ears. It was in your head. It was like a person very far away shouting very loudly, but you couldn't tell what they were saying. That's why they called it "The Susurration."
I know you know what that means! You're my smart, little star-girl and you get a gold star!
But yeah. Everyone in the city heard the Susurration. And then we all saw Valkyrie. She was in the sky and glowing really brightly. She raised an arm, lifted a gigantic amount of goldnine, and began to throw it at the city.
It would have hit everyone if King hadn't blocked it. But he couldn't stop the goldnine and Valkyrie at the same time. She started attacking him and it looked like she was going to win. So Novalight attacked her.
We didn't know how strong Novalight was at the time. She was a very private person. But she hit Valkyrie with a large amount of radiation—light that makes you sick. It was enough to stop Valkyrie, but there was so much light it made a bunch of people in the city sick too. You still can't go into parts of the OID to this day.
So, King and New Dawn won. But. . . Valiant Red and Ali Baba died. Then Steadfast left the team and went back to the American army. Dragonsteeth quit. And Novalight and Cisma put Valkyrie in Wonderland forever. New Dawn won, but they also lost.
Yes, I know what "pyrrhic victory" means! Man, you are too smart!
Everyone was mad at New Dawn. Other teams began to come to Horizon. The Amercians sent Global Justice—they say they didn't, but everyone knows—and then Dominion Security created Hero for Hire where anyone could pay a metahuman to work for them. They have an official team called "Powers" but it's mostly Scarlet Maturity doing whatever he wants.
People still dress up in costumes, but they don't act like heroes anymore.
New Dawn is still here, and still the biggest team in the city, but Novalight doesn't let them do much anymore. It's nice if you live in the Uni District where they patrol, but they don't help workers like us anymore. So yeah. That's the end of the story.
Aww, it's okay star-girl. I'm not sad! I'm happy because I got to talk to my favorite person: you!
So what if you're heard this story a million times? I'll tell you it a billion times! A bazillion! Now, come on Nora, let's get a hot-glue gun and see if we can save Valiant Red's head!
Your pace as you stride to your meeting is calm and measured. You are not annoyed. You are not. And anyone who thinks differently can join you for a round of CQC training. With powers.
Minor Success: DC 5. Moderate Success: DC 10. Major Success: DC 15.
Stat Check: ESPIONAGE 6. Lady Leizi has ESPIONAGE 8.
You rolled: 10.
10 + 1 = 11. Moderate Success!
Your intelligence network had degraded more than you thought. Or rather, you had grown complacent. Major news reached your ears, but the small things, hidden things, that revealed a greater picture eluded you.
It was trivial being a spymistress when half the city was falling over themselves to leak information to you. Whether it be for power, influence, or just to brag they had spoken to someone from "the" Justice Unlimited, things were easy when you were powerful.
Now you were not. Corrections would have to be made.
"Umm, you o-okay Lady Leizi? You're kinda . . . sparking."
"Fine, darling," you reply instantly, smoothing over your expression. "Just . . . ruminating."
"I don't know what that means but it sounds very intimidating, um, ma'am."
You give an arch smile. "Don't worry about me. Worry about making sure you're prepared for this meeting, Black Swan."
Mona, or Black Swan, turns pale and swallows. The sight of the girl quaking in fear soothes your temper. Perhaps you are suited to mentorship.
Ah, and what a cute mentee she was. Chaucer, bless his heart, had no mind for fashion, and Dr. Ibis had been wearing the same stained lab coat for as long as you had known him. Thankfully, Mona had entire notebooks filled with ideas for superhero costumes and names. It was something of a hobby of hers. You used your own eye for style and, after much debate, you finally settled on a costume.
Credit BKNK_Shop for the art.
It was touch and go for a moment—the argument over whether to use a black and orange color scheme or a black and gold nearly turned ugly—but you were satisfied Black Swan was ready to meet the world.
"Now, come, Black Swan. Chaucer and Dr. Ibis will be interested to hear what you think we should do next."
"Umm, okay. But, uh, you'll be helping too right? 'Cuz, I'm new and stuff. . ."
"Relax," you say, "Just think of it like an orientation."
"O-orientation? Oh, I'm bisexual. I've had a few boyfriends, but I've never dated a girl before. They look . . . soft? Hey, wait! Lady Leizi, why are you laughing? Where are you going? Come back!"
* * *
By the time you're all seated for the meeting, Black Swan has her blush mostly under control.
Chaucer looks as exhausted as ever, but he greets you and Black Swan jovially and compliments her outfit. Dr. Ibis hasn't looked up from his screen since you came in; he was still in shock over what his Ambrosia had created and was acting unlike himself. Which was actually an improvement in his behavior.
You clear your throat and get everyone's attention. "Black Swan, why don't you begin. What is the current status of Justice Unlimited?"
"We're broke!" Black Swan says with a snappy salute.
"And . . . ?"
"Oh, um, right." Black Swan's flush returns. "So, we had enough money to set up the base that I destroyed . . . and um, for my costume. Thank you by the way, I love it. If we're going to do anything else, including, uh, making new heroes, we need a source of income."
"A vexing problem," Chaucer says, "The most expedient solution would be to resume Justice Unlimited's old contracts, but we'll have to earn back some goodwill first."
You raise an eyebrow at Black Swan.
She jerks up. "Right! But if we take on their metahuman problems, they'll have to renew our contracts. I think they'll have to pay a penalty clause too!"
"Just right," you say, "The Worker's Mitt is closer to renewing than the OID. It was always the seat of our power. Money is frustrating, but a fact of life."
Black Swan nods and stares at you until she realizes she's supposed to keep speaking.
"Uh, and we're almost out of goldnine. Dr. Ibis says we have enough for one more dose of Ambrosia, but after that we're tapped."
Dr. Ibis raises his head at the sound of his own name.
"That's right," he says, "The refinement process consumes more goldnine than anticipated. We need to find a steady supply. I'll leave that to all of you."
Chaucer gives him a cool glance. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm certain you will be ready to process the goldnine immediately once we have it."
"No," Ibis replies distractedly, "I'll need weeks to refine a new dose of Ambrosia."
"Wha—weeks? Doctor, you created Mona—er, Black Swan's dose in two days!"
"Yes. And I had to use my power to do so. Each dose of Ambrosia involves having to carefully balance several mutagenic profiles that a simple mind like yours couldn't even dream of. If I keep making doses at that rate, I'll have to use my power every time. If I do that, I'll hit the Rebound in two years."
"Doctor, the world is at stake. Surely you can—"
"Chancer," you say soft and sharp. "You've never worked closely with an Algernon-type metahuman, have you?"
"No. I can't say I have, Lady Leizi."
"Then you can be forgiven for your ignorance." Your voice is ice cold. "You don't understand what you're asking of Dr. Ibis."
The room goes quiet except for the sound of Ibis tapping away on his screen. Finally, Black Swan pipes in.
"Um, Rebound?"
"The eventual fate of all Algernon-type metahumans," you think of Nora, losing time and growing forgetful, "But now is not the time to discuss that. It seems that if we obtain any new DNA profiles, then it will take some time for Dr. Ibis to integrate them into our selection for Ambrosia, isn't that right, Doctor?"
"What? Yes. I said that already. Pay attention!"
"Of course. Chaucer, how are our recruiting efforts?"
Chaucer shakes himself, "As of now they are limited. It will be easier to hire staff once Justice Unlimited is revealed again to the world, but the genetic screening necessary to determine Ambrosia tolerance is unusual even in Horizon. We're going to have to be careful if we don't want word of Project Prometheus to leak."
"Leave it to me, Chaucer," you say. You haven't lost your touch that badly.
"Then give the word and I will redouble our efforts."
"Very well. Black Swan, an acceptable job for your first time." You see Black Swan smile at that. "Now, we must discuss the state of Horizon. A new order has begun to form, but it's tenuous at this stage."
You stand and activate the holographic display. First, you pull up an emblem of a sunrise—the symbol of New Dawn.
"New Dawn fared badly during the Movement, but the sheer number of metahumans at their disposal have allowed them to weather the storm."
You change the image to a man in traditional Chinese robes wearing a hechang and a woman dressed like a Knight.
"All of New Dawn's governing council perished except for these two, Wolong and Arc," you say, "Wolong is an analytical metahuman. He can instantly synthesize vast quantities of information and simultaneously simulate thousands of scenarios in his mind, giving him limited precognition. Arc possesses the power to reflect anything. And I mean anything, energy, physical blows, even conceptual attacks."
"Wait, I knew about the first two, but what does 'reflect conceptual attacks' mean?" Black Swan says, confused.
"I once was at a charity gala with Arc. A man made an insulting remark that she "reflected" back at him. Said man promptly burst into tears and ran away."
"Cool."
"Very." You take a sip of water. "With the two of them in charge, New Dawn should persevere. On top of that, estimates put their current manpower between ten and fifteen metahumans. Which is why it's odd that Wolong has been telling every contact I have that he needs to meet with me."
"Why is that? Shouldn't, like, heroes all work together."
Chaucer answers for you. "It's not quite so, Black Swan. Justice Unlimited and New Dawn have been at each other's metaphorical throats for years, even since Justice Unlimited broke away from New Dawn. I couldn't imagine New Dawn ever asking for a meeting before. Perhaps it's the change in leadership."
"Or maybe things are not as stable as they appear," you venture, "I would have ignored Wolong entirely, except for the fact New Dawn must have a simply enormous bank of metahuman DNA. Perfect for our needs. I tried to feel the Uni District out, but my search didn't turn up anything for certain. Something about this situation is suspicious; things have gone too well for a team that's lost two-thirds of their metahumans."
"Maybe they just got lucky?" Black Swan says.
"Perhaps. But for now it is a mystery." A frustrating one. "What isn't a mystery is the overtures we've received from Global Justice. Of everyone who appeared at the QZ, they suffered the worst losses."
The image before you changes to a set of scales over top two crossed gavels.
"The leader of Global Justice was Justiciar. Black Swan, you've felt her Rules before, haven't you?"
"Y-yeah," Black Swan fiddled with her fingers, "Whenever I went to the Foot. I heard a voice in my head tell me to not break the law or I would lose the ability to move for thirty minutes. There were others, but, uh, I don't remember them."
"A common symptom. Justiciar could control a certain geographic area and establish "Rules" that everyone in that area would have to obey or face a punishment Justiciar set. Her power was why the crime rate in the Foot was virtually zero and a favorite location to live for the most wealthy in Horizon."
You frown. Something still irks you, "Which begs the question: why was she at the QZ?"
Black Swan jumps at your voice.
"H-huh? Well, to help stop the Leviathan—wait."
"Exactly," you say, "Her power, mighty as it is, would be useless against something like the Leviathan. Yet, she, and most of Global Justice, were there. And now they're in ruins."
You tap and the display becomes a young boy, Black Swan's age, wearing a blue costume with a color scheme that resembles a battery.
"Global Justice is now led by Stockpile, an Algernon-type metahuman who is nineteen years-old. He's in well over his head and desperate to speak with us. So desperate, he's offering a massive amount of money just for a meeting."
"It is quite a sum," Chaucer says, "But Global Justice is the corporate team of Allied Global Logistics. AGL is a front for the American government. Nothing from Global Justice is free."
"Agreed." You change the holo-display one last time. It shows a golden sphere with seven bands. "Lastly, Powers. Unfortunately, they're best poised of all the teams in Horizon."
"That's bad?" Black Swan says.
"Yes." The display shows a twelve-foot, shirtless man. Countless glowing red veins cover his body, as well as large, red spikes coming from his body pointing upwards. His jaw was bestial with two horns on the crown of his head.
"This is Scarlet Maturity," you tell Black Swan, "If you see him, you are to disengage immediately. You are no match for him as you are. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes," Black Swan says, "Got it."
"Scarlet Maturity survived the QZ, unfortunately. Since then he's expanded his personal team, Powers, recruiting every metahuman he can get his hands on."
"An easy task for him, unfortunately," Chaucer rumbles, "Powers is a subsidiary of Dominion Security Concerns. They manage Hero-for-Hire, the mercenary service for metahumans. He has a direct line to . . . easily persuadable heroes."
"A fact he's taking advantage of. I couldn't get a read on his moves, but he's planning something big. We must be prepared."
You wave your hand and dismiss the image. You're tired of looking at the man who killed Rosemary.
"That's as much of the current state of Horizon as we know. The prisoners from Wonderland are still at large, but they've as a whole stayed under radar. But there is one more matter I wanted to discuss."
Black Swan, who has been attentively listening, sits up straighter. Chaucer rises at your tone. Ibis remains distracted until he feels your gaze on his back.
"Moon River is still missing."
Chaucer blinks. "Valiant Silver's A.I.? Surely it's stored in the Apiary or somewhere you can reactivate it?"
"Not so, Chaucer," you say, "Because Eve wasn't an A.I. or anything synthetic. Eve—Moon River—was a technopath. We pretended she was an A.I. to protect her identity."
"What?!" Ibis jumps to his feet. "Moon River . . . was a metahuman? But Valiant Silver received all that praise for making her! They called her the greatest mind since Ọsanyìn! And it was a lie?"
"Yes, Doctor," you say gravely, "One with a good reason. Eve had no sensorium aside from technopathy. She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. Without technology to control, she was numb to the world. And . . . she didn't know where she was."
"W-what?" Black Swan furrows her brow.
"Eve didn't know where her real body was. She didn't even know what she looked like. Her avatar was a digital construction she made." You let them process that. You remember how shocked you were to learn it yourself. "Nora . . . found her for lack of a better term. We built her proxies to control, but were never able to locate her. I sometimes think she didn't want to be found. But now she's missing."
Chaucer hedges for a second before speaking. "Lady Leizi, I understand how you feel, but it sounds like she could be anywhere in the world. With so many other pressing matters, how would we even—"
"We have to find her!" Black Swan says, rising to her feet, "We have to! She's a member of Justice Unlimited isn't she?"
Her commanding gaze sweeps the room and brings a smile to your face.
Then she blushes again. "R-right?"
"Right," you agree, "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We must plan first. Now in that regard . . ."
* * *
Available AP: 3
Available HERO stats:
Lady Leizi: HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 8, REPUTATION 3, OPERATIONS 5.
Black Swan: HIT 8, ESPIONAGE 3, REPUTATION 8, , OPERATIONS 4
TOTAL: HIT 13, REPUTATION 11, ESPIONAGE 11, OPERATIONS 9
MISSIONS
Making the Rounds (AP 1, HIT 2, REPUTATION 3): The Worker's Mitt is a series of "blue-collar" neighborhoods in Horizon, and the former territory of Justice Unlimited. The strife there is not as bad as in other parts of the city—perfect for a rookie hero on her first patrol. Go show the flag and remind everyone Justice Unlimited is still here. (Chance of permanent global +1 to REPUTATION, Income +500, +1 to Control of Worker's Mitt, ???)
Pest Control (AP 1, HIT 3, REPUTATION 2): Odd monsters called Behemoths live in the QZ. It's a fact of life in Horizon, but, since the Leviathan stirred, they've been more active than normal. A few have even tried to get into the city proper, which would be very bad. A general call has gone out to anyone willing to help thin their numbers near the border. It might be good training for a newly-revived Justice Unlimited. (Income +1000, Chance of +1 to HIT, Intel about current state of QZ, ???)
Cenotaph (AP 1, REPUTATION 3, OPERATIONS 2): You've had your private ceremony, but your team was beloved by many in the city. You owe it to them to let them mourn too. You owe it to your team. You owe it to yourself. Have a public ceremony to honor the fallen members of Justice Unlimited. (Chance of permanent global +1 to REPUTATION, New Candidates)
Meet the Rookie (AP 1, REPTATION 4, ESPIONAGE 3. OPERATIONS 1): The public needs to meet the newest member of Justice Unlimited. Surely, a carefully vetted interview will be a harmless way to introduce Black Swan? What could possibly go wrong? (Chance of increase to REPUTATION and/or ESPIONAGE for Black Swan, ???)
Smoke on the Water (AP 1, ESPIONAGE 4, OPERATIONS 4): The Demon Flamez were a gang of metahumans notable for their lack of concern for collateral damage and their fire-based powers. They were inmates of Wonderland until recently, and word is they've made moves to secure their former territory in the Old Industrial District. Which makes it all the odder that you've received a private communication from one of their members asking for a clandestine meeting. (Unlocks mission Fire in the Sky, Intel of current state of Horizon, Chance of new metahuman DNA, +1 to control of OID)
Mahou Shoujo no Justice Unlimited (AP 1, HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 3, OPERATIONS 2): Good news! Justice Unlimited's new, affiliate hero-squad is a massive success. Bad news! Justice Unlimited doesn't have a new, affiliate hero-squad. What is happening? (Unlocks mission Puella Magi Justice Unlimited Magica, Chance of new metahuman DNA, +1 to control of Worker's Mitt, Chance of Income, ???)
Seid ihr das Essen? Nein, wir sind der Jäger (AP 1, HIT 5, ESPIONAGE 4): Wonderland was home to some of the worst, most dangerous metahumans in Horizon. And some less-monstrous metahumans who were more politically expedient to make disappear. Its extralegal nature always offended Justice Unlimited, but, now that it's fallen, some monsters are on the streets. Find them and stop them. (Chance of new metahuman DNA, Chance of global +1 to HIT, +1 to control of Worker's Mitt, Income +1000, Intel on current state of Horizon)
The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Doctor Mammoth Ibis (AP 1, HIT 5, OPERATIONS 5): Dr. Mammoth Ibis insists he can improve the Ambrosia doses with equipment from his lab. He also mentioned that he left several incubators running and some of his "children" may have gotten loose. And are probably hungry. Go get what he needs and take the kids for a walk. (Improves doses of Ambrosia, Chance of global +1 to HIT, Chance of global +1 to OPERATIONS, ???)
Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here (AP 1, HIT 9, ESPIONAGE 7, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 11): Time to go home. The Apiary was the headquarters of Justice Unlimited, and your home, for the last decade. The automatic defenses should last that long and more. Going back will be painful, but there are all the resources, tech, and information you could want. It's just not going to be the same. (Gain the Apiary as a base, +1 Global Action, More Metahuman Roster Slots, +1 to OPERATIONS, New Metahuman DNA, +3 to control of Worker's Mitt, unlock new personal actions, -1000 income per turn, ???, ???)
Revelations (???): Someone tried to wake up the Leviathan. How? And more importantly, why? [Story requirements not met]
Fear and Panic (AP 2, HIT 5, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 2): Birds! Birds? Birds. Gigantic, mutated shadow-creatures are currently swarming all over the Worker's Mitt, attacking everyone in sight. The situation is contained for now, but someone should really deal with it. Preferably you. (Chance of recruiting ???, Chance of new metahuman DNA, +3 control of Worker's Mitt, Intel about ???) [2 Turns Until Expiration]
The Dragon of the New Dawn (AP 2, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 5, OPERATIONS 3): New Dawn was the original, and largest, hero team in Horizon, and the bitter rivals of Justice Unlimited. Like you, they suffered heavy losses stopping the Leviathan from awakening. Now, they're under new management, by Wolong, a.k.a Gabriel Qwan, a metahuman who is a potent force multiplier but individually weak. He now proposes an alliance to keep the city from burning. You could at least hear him out. (Unlocks mission Long Shadows of Night, Unlocks mission The Air in the Valley, Unlocks mission Grand Theft Person, Chance of New metahuman DNA, Intel about ???, Income, Unlocks University District as potential territory for Justice Unlimited) [2 Turns Until Expiration]
Who's Left Behind (AP 2, HIT 6, ESPIONAGE 5, REPUTATION 4): Les Quatre Saisons, or The Four Seasons as they were better known, were a four-person hero team with powers themed around the seasons. They were also all family members. Which makes the death of Automne, their youngest and most powerful member, all the more painful. The team is desperately proud, so the fact they're requesting a meeting and possible alliance with you means they must truly be in dire straits. You can give them a meeting, if for Automne's memory if nothing else. (Chance of recruiting ???, Intel about ???, Chance of new metahuman DNA, Chance of Income, Chance of +1 to control of OID) [2 Turns Until Expiration]
Olympus has Fallen (AP 2, ESPIONAGE 4, REPUTATION 6, OPERATIONS 4): Of all the heroic teams in Horizon, Global Justice fared perhaps the worst in the QZ. No loss was more significant than Justicar, their leader whole single-handedly kept the Foot of the Ladder under control. Justicar's death has plunged the area beneath your feet into anarchy and it's not clear help is coming anytime soon. They are now led by Stockpile, an Algernon-type hero who, notably, is nineteen years old. That he's in charge does not bode well to how many of their members survived. No wonder he's willing to pay you just to speak with him. (Chance of new metahuman DNA, Income +2000, Chance of ???, Intel about ???, Unlocks Foot of the Ladder as territory for Justice Unlimited) [2 Turns Until Expiration]
Wider than a Mile (AP 4, HIT 15, ESPIONAGE 19, REPUTATION 13, OPERATIONS 18): Moon River was the seventh member of Justice Unlimited. To the world, she was a super-advanced AI created by Valiant Silver. In reality, she was the world's greatest technopath, able to control technology like it was her body. The only problem was, she had no ability to sense the world aside from technopathy. She didn't even know where in the physical world her actual body was. And now she's disappeared. Everyone else is gone; you won't lose her too. Find her. (Recruit Moon River, Intel about ???, Unlocks mission ???, ???) [10 Turns Until Expiration]
PERSONAL ACTIONS (Chose 1 Per Hero)
Lady Leizi
A Face that Toils So Close to Stones is Already Stone Itself (AP 0): You could always use some practice. Now, more than ever. Take some time to train a skill, maybe see if you can improve yourself. [Must Choose to Train HIT, ESPIONAGE, REPUTATION, or OPERATIONS] (Chance of improvement contingent on how high a skill already is. Higher skills will have a higher DC to raise)
Pieces of the People We Love (AP 0): A long time ago, after Rosemary died, you and the rest of Justice Unlimited all decided to record and leave messages for one another, just in case. You just never thought you would need to ever watch them. Take the time and listen to your team's last words. (Unlocks Mission Train Came a Rollin', Unlocks Mission Hero Worship, Unlocks Mission Break Glass in Case of Emergency, Intel about ???, Intel about ???)
Black Swan
Who Doesn't Love a Power Testing Scene? (AP 0): Your newest member has an unknown power granted to them through untested super-science. It's probably a good idea to figure out exactly what they can do. Hopefully, somewhere deserted. (+1 HIT for Black Swan)
Whispers Through the Web (AP 0): Intelligence work isn't all glamor. In fact, it's mostly boring. A lot of sitting around, watching, and occasionally talking to the right person at the right time. Have the rookie go do some of it. (+1 ESPIONAGE for Black Swan)
The Fourth Estate (AP 0): Public relations? More like public rela. . . shames? Right? Right. Something like that. Point is, you don't want to do it. Thankfully, you have a Black Swan for that. (+1 to REPUTATION for Black Swan)
Read the Manual (AP 0): Adamant was obsessed with creating proper procedure and protocol for basically every situation you could imagine. And he documented all of it. In 47 thick, thick volumes. If you had to suffer through reading them, so does Black Swan. (+1 to OPERATIONS for Black Swan)
Water-Cooler Talk (AP 0): Black Swan is new on the job. Maybe she should get to know the people around her. (Choose to talk to Joelle Chaucer or Dr. Mammoth Ibis) (Chance of Intel depend on who is chosen)
Global Actions (Choose 1)
Justice Unlimited Wants You! (AP 0): If you're going to make new heroes, you'll need candidates who are the best of the best. Your current crop is fine, but small. Get out there yourself and find new candidates for Ambrosia. (New candidates, number depends on DC, - 500 Income, DC 5 ESPIONAGE Check to avoid revealing Project Prometheus)
Project Prometheus (AP 0): You have candidates. You have enough goldnine for one more dose of Ambrosia. Time to meet the newest member of Justice Unlimited. (Create new metahuman, -1000 Income)
* * *
It is time. Horizon awaits.
Please format your plans as the following:
[ ] Plan IF Chew Bubblegum and Kick Butt, AND Bubblegum = 0, THEN Kick Butt MISSION 1 MISSION 2 TOTAL AP: X TOTAL HERO: HIT X, ESPIONAGE X, REPUTATION X, OPERATIONS X.
