"That's Goodwill." Breakneck had a temper, and it seemed to make him act really stupidly. And he didn't seem to be all that smart in the first place. Time now to see how enraged he could get. It might not be the best plan, but it was all Goodwill could think of: get Breakneck off guard and hit him when he wasn't paying attention. "Not Good guy. Goodwill."

He rose a foot off the ground, and flew in a standing orientation into the center of the lawn. Slowly he lowered himself until he was almost touching the ground. Hidden by the grass, his feet still floated. Even Goodwill's flight speed wasn't as fast as Breakneck, but it made him a lot faster than he could go while running.

"Think you can remember that, Bareback?"

He needed Breakneck to come right at him. Ticking him off seemed the best way to accomplish that.

Gods! What the heck? “He’d” thought that the bandaged man would’ve just made his way inside, not grab “him” by the gods-damned throat! Okay, okay, calm down, “Streak.” This isn’t entirely bad. Sure, this was causing a fair bit of pain, but “he” wasn’t dead yet. Not to mention that this meant “his” kidnapper wasn’t going inside. That meant an easier time for Cosmos’s and Scraps’ mission. Tack on the fact that they weren’t reporting Goodwill’s presence to anybody, and suddenly, getting choked out didn’t seem all that bad. Probably.

Yeah, stay positive. Just fight through the pain. That’s all “he” needed to do. Wait and bear it. There was nothing else to do. Maybe struggle against Bing Chokesby, but that would probably just make him mad. And this one seemed to have a cooler head than Breaknuts over there.

Seriously though. Next time they were going to join a crime-fighting team, they were going to trash-talk as much as they wanted. Not being able to sling these names was almost as agonizing as the hand around their neck.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:08, Sun 08 Mar 2020.

Goodwill rolled 11 using 2d6+1 ((4,6)).

Breakneck is super irritated. He grabs a tree branch and attacks. Since Goodwill is standing still, he hits... but it's not a good hit (it would be okay-ish against a less-tough opponent, but not against Goodwill), and the branch just breaks. Goodwill takes no damage (not yet, anyway).

Breakneck's particularly good and mad that Goodwill doesn't appear to have been hurt by this. (Maybe now would be a good time for someone to try to do something to change the situation...?)

Wow. Was it always a struggle for that guy to be calm? At least his attention was off of them now. Still, that left Bandage Boy and His Firm Grasp. It wasn’t a great idea to antagonize somebody who had you in a precarious situation like this, but what other choice did they have? Talk it out? Bah! Even if they could get a word out, he’d be able to tell that they were a decoy in an instant. So, kicking it was. Maybe he’d drop them, maybe he’d crush their neck. Only one way to find out! So they tried to swing their legs to kick him in his...

White Lynx rolled 2 using 2d6-1 with rolls of 1,2.  Forceful. For a kick to the legs.

And missed completely. Crap. It was not their day.

Breakneck was coming at him almost before Goodwill could even blink, but that was okay. He'd already telegraphed that he punched like a little girl, when he said he'd be looking for a tree branch or something to hit Goodwill with. So Goodwill was prepared to take the hit and ignore it, in order to make his own move.

As a speedster, Breakneck had to run past Goodwill to hit him, or he had to stop still in front of him long enough to throw a punch and then move again. Running past him and swinging the branch like a bat seemed the more likely way Breakneck would use his speed. So, taking this gamble, Goodwill didn't try to swing at a target moving at super-speed. Instead, he aimed in front of him, and let momentum do the hard work for him.

Goodwill rolled 9 using 2d6+3 ((2,4)).
-He hit hard


It wasn't the most expertly executed maneuver, but he managed to clothesline the jerk as planned.

Scraps stayed close to the woman and child.   He wasn't sure what to do right now, but knew that he had to be close to the boy, when the right opportunity presented itself.

"Hrr. Stop that," says Blackjack, and squeezes.

(White Lynx gets 1 xp, and 2 stress.)

---

(Breakneck takes 3 stress)

Breakneck coughs several times, hacking and choking. Then, red-faced, he grabs a new tree branch and attempts to wallop Goodwill again... But, half-choked, his strength isn't really in it, and Goodwill feels nothing...

This all takes Breakneck about a second and a half, so it's not surprising that Blackjack does nothing, especially since he's slightly distracted by punishing White Lynx right about then...

Aggggh! That smarts! Note to self: Don’t antagonize someone holding your neck. At least, not without a plan.

If they were going to be stuck here, maybe they could, say, take a minute to look around? Hopefully, Goodwill could keep keeping Breakneck from taking a break. Maybe Look Before They Leapt again? Trees were being thrown around. There had to be something they could use. Right?

White Lynx rolled 8 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 3,4.  Insight. To Look Before You Leap.
Where is something I can use to help?

As Tetsubo started to grow, Cosmic Girl rapidly considered her options. If he got tougher, that meant more fighting, and sooner or later, she felt that the child would be in serious danger of catching a stray blast, or something of that ilk. On the other hand, if she did not try to take down this self-inflating goon, she was probably going to get squashed like a bug. He was growing, getting stronger, gaining more mass...

More mass...

Cosmos was not the brightest star in the firmament, but she had a surprisingly advanced knowledge of physics. After all, her powers were pretty reliant on cosmic forces, and her parents were both physicists. More mass meant that he was probably getting a lot heavier, and Tetsubo looked like he was no fairy cake to start with. So rather than attack him, she changed tactics.

With a sudden swoosh-woosh!!! sort of noise, she let rip with a long beam of cosmic energy from her eyes!!! But she did not aim it directly at the growing villain. Oh no! Instead, she aimed it at his feet... and the floor beneath him, in particular. If she could blast away enough of that, weaken it directly beneath him by eroding it, then she reasoned that someone with his considerable weight might just fall right through it, leaving her to deal with what appeared to be a human woman - and then make her escape with the little boy and the very brave wonder dog!!!

That, of course, was presuming this would actually work...


20:55, Today: Cosmic Girl rolled 7 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 1,4.  Let's blast away that nefarious... floor!

This message was last edited by the player at 21:03, Mon 09 Mar 2020.

The clothesline attack had worked to perfection. The villain was coughing and choking, and being absolutely ineffective in his counterattack. Now was the exact time when Goodwill didn't have to try anything special. All he needed to do was hit the guy.

Goodwill rolled 14 using 2d6+3 ((5,6)).
--Hit Hard
--Avoid Counter-attack


That was satisfying!

(White Lynx, I'm not sure what you want, so I'll let you answer. Take +1 when acting on the answer. There's tree branches, there's a long rubber hose nearby the front porch, there's gravel on the driveway, I'm not sure what you would want to use, or how, or most importantly how you plan to get out of Blackjack's super-strong grip.)

---

Tetsubo falls through the floor... but Shawna, holding the toddler, fell too.

OOPS!

Catch 'em or something, quick!

(Scraps did not fall, so Scraps may attempt to chomp-grab just the toddler (it won't be easy, because Shawna's hugging him tight to protect him)...)

---

(Breakneck takes three new stress.)

"HEY THERE," Blackjack says loudly. "LAUGHING BOY." Goodwill grasps that this is meant to refer to himself. "YOU THROWING AWAY YOUR LITTLE SUPER-FRIEND HERE?" Blackjack's grip tightens as tight around White Lynx's neck as possible without doing any more damage. He shakes her, gently, to illustrate his point. "HOW THIS WORKS IS, YOU DO WHAT BREAKNECK SAYS AND DON'T HIT BACK, OR ELSE. IF I WERE YOU, I'D HAVE HIT HIM, TOO... BUT I'M NOT YOU. YOU SURE YOU WANT THE CONSEQUENCES? LAST CHANCE TO HOLD STILL AND NOT FIGHT BACK..."

This message was last updated by the player at 21:59, Tue 24 Mar 2020.

There was not a moment to loose ... not even enough time to think.
But Scraps the Wonder Dog didn't need to think, his instincts and heroic soul leapt into action the moment the floor began to crumble ... and as the woman and child began to disappear downwards into chaos, uncertainty and danger, Scraps sailed past, nimbly and carefully snatching the child from the jaws of death, in his own heroic jaws of awesomeness ...
            - rolled 12 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 3,6.  rescue the kid ... LIKE A ROMANTIC IDIOT.
... hopefully landing on the far side of the imploding floor, with enough momentum to take himself and the kid out through the doorway (perhaps in a scrabbling mess) and into the saver hallway.

Drat. Maybe if they were closer to the hose, they could’ve, like, maybe kicked it up at the guy to shock him into dropping them. Like that would even work. Okay, fine. So there wasn’t any crazy plan possible to get them out of this alone. And everyone was looking at Goodwill, so if he did any more, they’d be in a tight spot. Well. It’s not like they weren’t already. What was a better term for that, then? A tighter spot? Sure, let’s go with that. Gods, they were even rambling in their head now. Not being able to speak was so annoying. If they couldn’t hurt The Strangler or shock him into letting go, then...

Shock him...

Was it time? They hadn’t heard anything, but Breakneck was focused on somebody else and seemed to be far from healthy, much like themselves. Once they got free, they could do more, like toss gravel in their captor’s face to maybe blind them, or at least keep them away from the rubber hose. Maybe they could even trip Breakneck on the hose? Getting free was important, but so was their cover. Ah, screw it. Breakneck was down soon, but if they didn’t do something quick, that would never happen. They’d just have to hope Cosmos and Scraps did their bit already. Heck, maybe things wouldn’t immediately go to crap after this.

Taking the shaking in stride, White Lynx sparked electricity directly into the Handsy Villain.

White Lynx rolled 4 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 1,1.  Hold Them Off, to get his hands off.

Well shit. There could’ve been more of a spark there, body. He barely felt that!

Cosmic Girl gave a satisfied toss of her head - never one to pass over a chance to be a cliché. She quickly zipped out to the hallway and looked at the dog, and the little boy. She knelt down and took him by the arms, gently. "We're going to take you out now, little soldier! You're being wonderfully brave!" She then looked at Scraps, then the boy, then Scraps once more.

"I can't carry both of you!" she fretted. "Can you get out on your own?" she asked the dog, not remotely sure he could understand.

Also, there was now a problem with downstairs, as it was full of horrible villains who would squish them all like a bug if they got too close. Well, she could deal with that easily enough! There'd already been a lot of property damage, some more wouldn't matter much. So, she gathered the little boy into her arms, and then turned to glare at the exterior wall. Her cosmic eye ray blasted out... and she prepared herself to fly right out of that hole she planned to make, taking the boy to safety at once!

OOC:

13:46, Today: Cosmic Girl rolled 9 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 2,5.  Bye bye, wall! Hello, FREEDOM!!!

Clobberin' Time! No collateral damage to bystanders would be the best option here!

Goodwill was stymied. He was beating Breakneck, and doing it easily, but if he continued he might get Lynx killed. She just wasn't holding her own, somehow. She needed help, but Goodwill couldn't do anything for her while Breakneck was still up... and Blackjack's demands were going to keep him that way.

He could either risk Lynx's life, or his own.

Goodwill might've come to a different conclusion if Lynx wasn't a girl, but he couldn't let Blackjack just throttle her. He'd have to take the hit.

"Fine," he said, waggling a finger at Breakneck in a 'come here' gesture. "Free shot, Speedy."

He braced himself.

(White Lynx gets 1 new xp but takes -1 forward.)

---

---

Scraps triumphantly saved the toddler!




There was a lot of crashing below-- how big was the tough guy going to get? --and a scream-- Shawna, the henchwoman.

(Cosmic Girl, give me a Confident check, please.)

---

Breakneck's (new) free shot at Goodwill was interrupted before it had quite begun, by  a crash-- at least one crash-- maybe a couple of explosions, too? --from inside the large house, which Blackjack, especially, couldn't miss, standing in the doorway of the front entrance.

Blackjack and everyone else in the front yard paused for three heartbeats. "I get it," said Blackjack in his voice like a ton of gravel. "There's not just these two. They brought more. Naughty naughty. Cheaters never prosper. Must be fighting Tetsubo..."

(Insightful check: 13:13, Today: Blackjack rolled 7 using 2d6 ((6,1)).)

"If they're fighting Tetsubo, then he doesn't have the boy," Blackjack decided. "So we should leave. Time to finish these two off-- no more playing around. Kill this," he said, tossing White Lynx at Breakneck.

Then Blackjack ran toward Goodwill...

(13:18, Today: Blackjack rolled 10 using 2d6+3 ((4,3)).

--You hit hard (+1 Stun)
--You avoid most of their retaliation (-1 Stun)

Goodwill takes 2 new stress.)

However, the one thing that Blackjack didn't factor in was that he threw someone with super-speed. White Lynx was once again free to act!

Sure, she was currently flying through the air at Breakneck, but...

(By White Lynx's perspective of time, she has a few several seconds to act before Breakneck activates his own super-speed to deal with her... just remember that she has -1 forward right now...)

OOC: 18:32, Today: Cosmic Girl rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,3.  Oh no! Am I confident?

Cosmic Girl gritted her teeth. The henchwoman's scream bothered her... but not enough that she forgot to focus on the present moment.

(Okay, proceed. This choice isn't going to bite you in the posterior right now, though it would a little if you'd failed it flat out. Go ahead with whatever you want to do next.)

Ouch. That did not sound good. But then again, those who deal in wicked deeds always end up coming a cropper, her mom always said. And that cropper sounded especially unfortunate.

But she was staying on mission! Her eye-beam blew the side of the building out appropriately, and she was out of the hole in a trice! With the fwoosh-vworp!!! noise that accompanied her flight, she rocketed out, and right over the heads of the battling heroes and villains, with the boy held tightly to her. She felt bad about leaving Scraps, and would have liked to have helped her fellows, but while holding a child, she could hardly risk engaging in combat!

Cosmic Girl heads to the drop-off, and soon the toddler (who really enjoyed flying with her) is reunited with her grandfather, and he and his plainclothes police escort are driving away...

(Cosmic Girl is away from the action for a short while. I'll tell you when you can rejoin the action... (I don't expect it to be more than one or two rounds))

At least she was finally where she needed to be. Of course, she was no match for Breakneck in a straight-up fight, but she had a few seconds to do something. She was just glad to have taken the time to look around first!

Quickly splaying her fingers towards the ground, Lynx shot a spark of electrical force at the ground, or rather, the gravel. With this angle and this much force...it would be enough to blind Breakneck. At least, temporarily!

White Lynx rolled 9 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 5,2.  Hold Them Off on the Guy Who Breaks Necks (-1 Forward + +1 Look Before You Leap).
--They can’t act as effectively (-1 Stun ongoing until your actions are countered)

There! That did it! “In your face, Brakes!”

Blackjack was a tough customer, but Goodwill was confident he could take him in a fair fight. However, there was no evidence on hand to suggest Blackjack would ever fight fairly to begin with. Still, he was beatable. In fact, with his ability to anchor himself in place, he made himself into an excellent target.

Goodwill took the hit with a grin. Sure, it hurt. But it told him that for once he didn't need to hold anything back. He was always afraid of hurting someone. He hadn't even wanted to punch Spite, as much as she'd been begging for it. Always afraid of breaking the other guy — even killing someone.

But not today.

His blow was nothing fancy... just a good, old-fashioned haymaker.

Goodwill rolled 12 using 2d6+3 ((4,5)).
--He hit hard
--Avoid retaliation

"One of us is going down," Goodwill said. "And it's not going to be me."

"Gahh!" Breakneck is momentarily half-blinded.

(09:40, Today: Breakneck rolled 10 using 2d6 ((4,6)).

--You hit hard (+1 Stun)
--You avoid most of their retaliation (-1 Stun))

Ooops. But only half-blinded. Pow! Ow! That hurt!

(White Lynx takes three new stress.)

Breakneck hit White Lynx so hard... her Silver Streak helmet flies off.

"What th' HELL? You're not Silver Streak! I saw 'im before he got the formula-- he was a black kid! They found another speedster?!? Does Silver Streak have the old man's recipe for the formula? Did he share it with you...?! Or... or have you really been Silver Streak all along...?" Breakneck, still half-blinded, can't examine the details of White Lynx's figure right now...

---

(Blackjack takes two new stress.

Confident check: 09:50, Today: Blackjack rolled 6 using 2d6+2 ((1,3)). Fail.

Agile check: 09:50, Today: Blackjack rolled 9 using 2d6+1 ((6,2)).)

Blackjack's confidence is shaken by the punches he's taken from Goodwill, but more from the plan increasingly falling apart around him. He attempts to flee the scene...

(Run Away
When you flee the scene roll +agile.  On a 10+ you get somewhere safe.  On a 7-9 pick 2.
--You don’t get made a laughing-stock
--You don’t run into something worse)

With a mighty leap, Blackjack vaults for the treeline... and he's gone.

(Goodwill, you may feel free to mock, jeer, and taunt Blackjack (if you're loud enough, he'll hear your words, but he's not coming back, no matter what you say), but you also notice that he's apparently dropped something, a piece of paper...))

There was part of Goodwill, buried deep — but not that deep — that understood in this moment why the dominant gorilla would beat his chest and roar after defeating a challenger. There was a satisfaction, a sense of pride, that came along with it that was hard to deny. But he was raised not to flog his own ego, and he ignored the faint urgings of his more primal core.

Instead, he leaped forward and snatched up the paper that Blackjack had dropped before it could get caught up in the breeze and stolen away.

They still had to deal with Breakneck and his other cohorts and minions and thugs (oh my!) so Goodwill stuffed the paper into his pocket and turned to Breakneck.

"Two on one," he said. "Give up now and it'll go a lot easier on you."

Talk Things Out
Goodwill rolled 4 using 2d6+1 ((2,1)).

Did that sound like a taunt instead of a suggestion to surrender? Did he just poke the bear?