Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

When we last left off, the group was back in the states at a medical facility. Commander got a full on physical as he was in the states of malnutrition and starvation, having lost about sixty pounds over the past few months. The rest of the team gets congratulated for finding the Commander and completing the mission while Marduk gets put into his natural electric state.

A week goes by for getting back up to speed. Commander inspect the Cavalry and finds that they’re doing alright with The Rat Queen running the secondary team and Katana the primary team. The team knows that over half of the AEGIS agency has disappeared or gone AWOL and the new Metahuman Intervention Agency has been set up within Homeland Security as a small department that has been pulling from other agencies to bolster their ranks added by Arc-Light’s widow leasing the battlesuit technology to them. They’re reworking how metahumans are dealt with as it had been privatized about 15 years ago. Some metahumans have been deputized as essentially bounty hunters and the MIA are trying to show that it isn’t working, though the mayor of New York is trying to resist. Out on the west coast the MIA is gaining traction.

Back Stateside

Nyx, Amar, The Commander, and Marduk
MAPS Headquarters
Monday, March 20th, 2017, 10:00 am (EST)
157 West 57th Street, New York, NY, 10019

Nyx, unfortunately for being on work release doesn’t get to do too much during his downtown, but they still get to deal with going with debriefs. The team is being asked some suspiciously detailed questions by an MIA liaison aimed to embarrass and then get to speak with a mayor of New York. A nice older woman in their late 40s/early 50s with strangely white hair, she’s not a meta herself, but her daughter is. She lays down a thick folder offering them a job. On the cover is labeled Project Vanguard. She’s not pleased that the government (read MIA) is trying to crack down on her MAPS program and some states have already shut it down. The gentleman from MIA gets shooed out of the room before the mayor continues.

She wants to create a pilot program to show off how useful having privatized superhuman team would be. Worried about passing a Metahuman registration act, and with having Blackwell as president he might try to get the act passed again, especially with the Yankee Stadium incident. Her idea would be to get together with some of the other countries and create a global initiative and use them to show that the idea is working both domestic and foreign. With AEGIS being defunded, it’s possible for rogue metahumans to go on the rise. And it’s not going to be one person from one program. It would be the work release program from Riker’s island, Commander from the military, Marduk from the R&D sector, and Amar from the Travelers program, and several others. They’re in the process of building a facility in upstate New York using funds bestowed by Maxwell Robinson. She’s approaching the Commander as being a leader in Project Vanguard.

The Commander asks to see what the folder says for himself and gets shown it, there’s a bit of paper in there with backdated signature from General Legend. Apparently they had originally wanted him in MIA, but he was already assigned elsewhere even during his disappearance. Even Nyx is extended a special deal to lower his ever increasing multiple life sentences for petty theft which he decides to accept since it probably won’t hurt. They’re going to be paid via a worldwide fund set up, which Nyx hopes doesn’t include Zimbabwe.

Their mission is going to be taking done a density-manipulator named Cosgrove. A Mercenary by nature and currently hiding out in the Irish country-side. The mayor stresses that he’s killed the last three teams that attempted to apprehend him. The Commander wants everything they have on the past attempts while Amar suggests just asking him to come with them while the Commander suggests they just pay him to kill the Commander to get Cosgrove to come to them. It seems like a somewhat solid plan to keep things away from casualties, such as if he was on training at a remote base.

The major problem is that he might be unlikely to leave the country at the moment. He’s still got money from his last jobs and isn’t too likely to take a job until he’s a bit more squeezed. Going through the profile, apparently for Cosgrove then Cash is King for him and doesn’t trust banks. He enjoys the traditional vices, fast women, loose cars, the full Monty. He’s definitely a narcissistic sociopath and the fact that he was born with density manipulation abilities. He could level a city block within 20-30 minutes by causing things to implode. He can fly, he’s super strong when need to be, and there’s rumors that he can create black holes, but that’s unsubstantiated and they say it’s probably just microscopic black holes. All in all, a very dangerous individual. While he isn’t Irish, his mother was and he enjoys pretending to be full blooded Irish. They might be able to bait him out with a political lie about the Commander.

Aftermath

The team uses a VTOL to get over to Ireland. The Commander gets to spend a few days training with the SAS out in the woods while the rest get to do surveillance against Cosgrove. Nyx, deciding that their original idea of making him hurt in the wallet was good, he slowly drains the man’s mattress bank account by warping in and out of the man’s house. During the three days, they also get to catch Cosgrove in action, including when he implodes a man causing all of his bones to completely break. They’ve stolen from him, they know him better than he knows himself, and they have the Commander doing training nearby.

They managed to arrange with a middle man to get in contact with Cosgrove and with the pinch on the wallet and Cosgrove agrees to meet with them outside of town for payment and term discussions. With this news, the crew tries to decide the best place to fight him.

After Action Report (GM)

This week I ended up having to cut the session short due to some stuff I needed to do, but we got together anyways and hashed out a few things. I gave the team a mission introducing a dangerous super that had information the MAPS/I-MAPS program needed. They’re in the middle of investigating a high-value target and they can’t just accuse them without some evidence. Overall, the players were engaged and came up with a brilliant plan to get close to Cosgrove – now they just need to survive the encounter that’s coming.

Other Notes

Merlin was missing tonight so Doctor Thanatos was sent elsewhere in-game.

Soundtrack

“New York State of Mind” by Billy Joel (Opening Song)

“Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson

“Top O’ The Morning To Ya” by House Of Pain  (Closing Song)