"Erm. My skill set is more suited towards daylight," Goodwill said, countering Usagi's statement. She could sneak. He could not. "I glow when I use my powers. I'm about as sneaky as a man on fire."

"That seems fine. Good, even," says Usagi. "It's fine if Green Dragon pays attention to you-- we want him to look at you, long enough to shine the flashlight in his eyes. It's me he shouldn't see-- until it's too late."
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:17, Sun 30 Apr 2023.

"That does sound a better plan to me," Cosmic Girl reflected. "I tend to glow a lot as  well." She held her hand up, and it was engulfed by her cosmic aura. "Great for pleasing the crowd, but terrible for stealth."

She then considered options. "Since have some time to kill, a little rest, some food, and some television might be a good idea. We need to know a bit more about this universe, and watching some current affairs and news might be good research." And if she caught a few cartoons as well, she would not be at all unhappy. Provided they were not awful.

The news right now is full of how Agent Devil tore up a block of the city and smashed up some (empty) police cars, along with a mysterious hero in white with powers similar to the Crimson Comet.

Local politics are also very careful to praise the authority of The Mayors and to criticize Washington D.C. as not being as good as running the country as The Mayors run the NYC area.

There's also a clown, Knickerbocker the Clown, who hosts a cartoon show for kids. The cartoons are slightly odd-- they're most like the old Fleischer-Brothers cartoons from the '30s, with songs and animals singing and very elaborate moving backgrounds. But some of them are pulpy, Flash-Gordon-Buck-Rogers stuff. It seems to be the hot new thing, at least in kids' entertainment: retro-pulp, pulp-futurism.

Many of both kinds of cartoons are sort of surreal, dream-like, almost psychedelic.

The plan mostly figured out at this point, Lynx pealed off. Cosmos was very right in that they needed to know more about what all was going on. At first, she'd gone for some of the newspapers around the area; after all, that was the news source she'd grown most comfortable with on Earth. But once she'd heard on their televised source about the 'mysterious hero in white,' well... She couldn't help but be curious about what all the news sources had managed to figure out from her brief 'debut.'

Cosmos watched the shows with a growing sense of bafflement. This was not what she expected. These were not the Saturday Morning Cartoons she loved, nor were they the current affairs shows that her parents insisted she had to watch, to better understand why she had to protect America and the American Way Of Life.

She did not like them. Oh, the pulp was all right in its own way, she supposed, but that sort of thing had gone out in the Forties back in the home universe. She was also a little disappointed that they did not have the music shows she liked. A musical revolution was going on back home. It seemed that this place did not have the same sort of values - and it did not produce the same sort of music.

Oh boy, that Ricky Nelson... sigh... this place did not know what it was missing!

White Lynx can't find any non-NYC newspapers. All the ones she can find are just sucking up to the Mayors. Seems that non-NYC newspapers aren't allowed in Manhattan.

She also notes that there are heavily-armed checkpoints at all roads leading out of the city, and lots of very armed guards at the airports, train stations, and docks. This island is run like a prison or something.

The news is all wondering whose side this new white-suited speedster is on... has the Crimson Comet started an intern program or something?




Cosmic Girl snaps the television set off in disdain as a new show starts, "Space Patrol." It's just more rockets-and-bug-eyed-monsters-and-jetpacks stuff, but less than animation, it seems to involve just drawings of people with human mouths and jaws added on through camera trickery so that they seem to talk. Bizarre.

And so, the time comes.


--Goodwill and Usagi head to Times Square to draw out Green Dragon.

--White Lynx and Twist head to City Hall (now located at a 50-story skyscraper on the Upper West Side) to draw out The Crimson Comet.

--Cosmic Girl heads to Central Park to meet Agent Devil there to catch The Black Mummy...

(Anyone wanna give a reaction post before I try to get things going//before the bad guys show up?)

--Goodwill and Usagi head to Times Square to draw out Green Dragon:

Everyone else, seeing Ultima-Usagi and a non-sanctioned hero show up, has already fled Times Square...

"I told the others I wanted to deal with you myself, Usagi--" She and Goodwill turn, and there's Green Dragon, a guy in a costume like Scorch Scale, but all green. "Believe me, Black Mummy wanted a shot, but I won a coin flip."

He's a good 40 feet away from both heroes so far...

---

--White Lynx and Twist head to City Hall (now located at a 50-story skyscraper on the Upper West Side) to draw out The Crimson Comet.


At the main entrance to the skyscraper, White Lynx and Twist--

--WHOA! White Lynx's reflexes kick in-- there's a red streak running right at Twist!

What should White Lynx do?

--Attack Crimson Comet?
--Move Twist?
--Just try to warn Twist, since she's kinda made of rubber and who knows if Crimson Comet can actually hurt her exactly? (Also: am I correct that Twist is currently holding Professor Norwood's special flashlight?)

---

--Cosmic Girl heads to Central Park to meet Agent Devil there to catch The Black Mummy...

In the (so-called) Sheep Meadow of Central Park, Cosmic Girl finds Agent Devil... No sign of the Black Mummy so far...

"A cop saw me and called me in almost 10 minutes ago, so it shouldn't be much longer..." Agent Devil says when she sees Cosmic Girl. "So what's yer name, girly?"

She could jump in to get Twist out of the way or warn her... But Lynx had a better idea. Like a flash, she stepped in, shooting out sparks that lit up the night and, more importantly, spread out and aimed just right to block Crimson Comet's path and, hopefully, box the 'hero' in.

"C'mon, Crimsy. Pick on a gal your own speed."

And maybe she could taunt him a little bit too.

White Lynx rolled 13 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 5,6.  Slow down a tick, why don't you? Hold Them Off, Confident -1 Forward.

Hold them off
When you slow down or get in the way of enemies, roll +Forceful.  On a 10+ pick 2, on a 7-9 pick 1.  Their retaliation will always be limited (-1 Stun) but you don’t stun them.
--They can’t act as effectively (-1 Stun ongoing until your actions are countered)
--Give them a choice between backing off or be stunned

(Admittedly, what I wanna do is box him in enough that I can keep the fight and Crimson Comet within a given area to make it easier for Twist to hit him with the flashlight [or for me to do that if I have it]. If that wouldn't be covered by "Give them a choice between backing off or be stunned", then I'll go with "You draw them away from people you choose" instead, with the people I choose being Twist.)

"I will give you one chance to surrender," Goodwill said. "Then I start beating on you. It's nothing personal. It just needs to be done."

(With a roll of 13, you bet you've got the result you want.)

Crimson Comet comes to a dead stop for a moment. "That... what... what was that? I can't do that? I thought you were-- were just another speedster, like me...?!"

---

(Roll Charming, buddy)

Goodwill rolled 9 using 2d6+1 ((4,4)).

"Cute," says Green Dragon-- and he breathes fire.

But he's too far away-- I mean come on, Goodwill can fly (and Usagi can phase). Even with his ability to cover a whole area//multiple targets in flames, the heroes are too mobile for this to work.

So much for surrender without violence, then...

Lynx raised her eyebrow, a mocking glint shining off her eye. "Oh, so you can't do that? Lucky me! You'll find we're not all one trick ponies, Crumbly Comet." With a harsh laugh, she kept the teasing and the sparks going. "If you must know, this is electricity! Tell me, Crimsy: have you ever experienced the pure agony of uncontained electrical bursts coursing through your veins? You might find it enlightening!"

The split-second he stopped dead, Twist flicks on Doctor Norwood's handy-dandy flashlight and plays the beam over Crimson Comet. Using her acrobatic talents to her advantage, she keeps the beam on him as long as possible. "Oops! Flashlight got your powers, sugar?"

---

10:06, Today: Twist rolled 10 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 5,3.  Remain Undaunted (Acrobatics). Did what I intended, yay!

He hadn't really expected a surrender, but he needed to offer. Now that that was out of the way, he'd just have to fight the Green Dragon until he submitted.

With a bit of practiced flair, Goodwill swooped around the fire blast and dive-bombed the Dragon, hopefully knocking him senseless with a good right cross. Goodwill knew he was really just the distraction here, but if he could actually take the fight out of their opponent, then all the better.

Goodwill rolled 5 using 2d6+3 ((1,1)).


...or not.

"What th-- what was that? You--" He runs at high speed toward Twist--

Well, speed, anyway. Like maybe 30 miles an hour. Definitely not blurred like before.

Then he trips, and falls. "What th--"

He hops up-- slowly. Takes a few steps to the side-- groggily. "What... What did you just do...?!?!?"

He seems neutralized, no faster than any other human (who just tripped and fell on the owwy hard ground). It just took a couple of seconds...




Green Dragon side-steps, and blasts Goodwill. Goodwill is tough, but ow.

(Goodwill takes 1 new stress... and gets 1 new xp...)

Zipping up to be behind the Crimson Comet, Lynx let out a sharp bark of a laugh. "Apologies there, did I say 'one trick pony,' Mr. Mayor, sir? I must have misspoke. Still... it looks like someone won't be running for reelection any time soon!" Her lips taking on a menacing smirk and her hands splaying out, Lynx allowed another set of sparks to fire off as a warning shot. "Now, care to surrender? Or would you rather someone run circles around you for a change?"

Inspired by her teammate's spirited sarcasm, Twist practiced her own particular brand of shenanigans on the newly-nullified speedster by darting around him, super-stretchy style. "Only so much humiliation a man can take, sugar. My girl's got you dead to rights. Gonna recommend you offer your complete, unconditional, and immediate surrender." She accompanied the quip with a toothy grin

"Is that all you've got?" Goodwill asked, allowing bravado to substitute for skill. He arced away from Green dragon, patting out the flames where his costume had ignited. Everyone was entitled to a bad day, but he'd basically flown right into the counter-attack like he'd wanted to get burned. It had been his lamest attack aver.

"Let's try that again," he said, coming back around for another go at his opponent.

Goodwill rolled 10 using 2d6+3 ((4,3)).

"I... um... I... I, uh... surrender... for now," says Crimson Comet. "Um, was that light permanent...?"

---

(On a 10+ choose 2:
--You hit hard (+1 Stress)
--You avoid most of their retaliation (-1 Stress)
--There isn’t much collateral damage and no bystanders are left in danger)

Let's hit hard and avoid collateral damage.

POW. Green Dragon is smacked hard and flies (not of his own volition) yards, coming to a stop only when he hits the concrete wall of a building.

He stands up, though, and shakes his head... He's not at all down for the count yet...

Twist wagged a finger at the disempowered villain. "That would be telling, sugar. Wouldn't be a surprise, otherwise."