AEON B-Team: Season 5, Session 5 – That Wasn’t Such a Chore, Now Was It?

Dramatis Personae

  • Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic and a petty thief out of prison on work release. Tagline: “Not for glory, not for fame…. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”
  • Amar Gupta (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”
  • Ian Owari aka The Commander (played by Douglas): Telekinetic super-soldier with a really angry dog (Yukio). Tagline: “TBA”
  • Marduk (played by James): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”
  • Kenneth Rhames aka Doctor Thanatos (played by Merlin): TBA. Tagline: “TBA”
  • Yukio (NPC Ally): Very intelligent and very, very aggressive.. Tagline: “Woof.”

Previously . . .

Last time the group managed to make their way through an encampment of terrorists and Spetsnaz, killing or binding everyone. It doesn’t take long for Ravil to hear the excitement and leave the building, taking a moment to watch what other people are doing. Amar calls out to their opponent to surrender that is only met with a derisive smile and points his hammer at Amar. Marduk charges Ravil with his electrical aura causing no problem to the super strong villain. Thanatos’s attempt to drain Ravil fails, seemingly unable to get a hold of him. The Commander rolls off the building heading towards Ravil while Nyx attempts to initialize the previous plan, drop the opponent through a tunnel and into the air. But even that seems not to affect him.

Annihliation vs.

Doctor Thantos, Iron Sikh, Marduk, Nyx, and the Commander
Armanaz
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2017, 12:00 am (UTC+3)
Armanaz, Idlib. Syria

Ravil smacks Marduk with the hammer to not do much at the electrical being so he changes targets towards Amar which causes some trouble when Amar returns the attack with a rather explosive parry that causes Ravil’s weapon to completely disintegrate. An exchange of fists ends up with Ravil retreating from Amar and Marduk ducks into the power grid to investigate. He finds a rather large generator that supplies power to the base. The Commander runs forwards and leaps into the back of a Technical to man a machine gun. Nyx takes the opportunity to nail down the Spetsnaz some more while investigating some shadows and discovering that he can’t sense Ravil’s.

The villain takes the opportunity to punch at Amar, who fails to defend spectacularly and takes a blow on the chin, taking some nice damage to power himself up and then turns around with a feint and a punch. Marduk, not finding anything good in the power system, pops out to rejoin the battlefield as Commander lets loose with the KPV on the two super strengths in a fisticuff match. The Russian manages to dodge out of the way while Amar gets stronger and stronger. Deciding that it would be better to make sure the Spetsnaz are no longer a threat, Nyx moves to disarm everyone. While Thanatos gets down to business to analyze why they cannot detect Ravil’s life.

Ravil, in return, kicks out behind him and knocks Yukio back several yards while Amar dodges Ravil’s attempt to grab him and punches back. Ravil manages to get out of the way of both with ease. Marduk’s channeling of a lot of electricity causes not too much other than singeing the man while Commander knocks him in the back of the head with his PKE rifle as Thanatos informs the rest that Ravil has anti-power abilities, conveniently revealing it the same moment that Nyx’s shadow binding is disrupted.

Ravil, incensed by the hit, chokes Yukio as if to suggest that they attack him again before he can kill the dog. Amar fails in charging over and slides down in front while Thanatos attempts to stab Ravil but doesn’t get past his skin. Commander takes a page from Thantos’s book and swipes at Ravil with his katana, a single parried while he failed to parry the second with Yukio. Nyx, with nothing much left to lose, uses his shadow whips in a whirlwind attack managing to sever a leg and severely injure most before he warps across the compound.

Ravil, breaks one of Yukio’s collar bones and attempts to grab the Commander’s sword while Amar grabs at him from behind, getting a hold of Ravil and forces the Russian to drop the dog while Marduk intrudes on their hug and sets up a reflection to bounce lightning off of. Thanatos attempts to swizzlestick Ravil’s eye but it barely even scratches the cornea. The Commander’s attacks, on the other hand, attempts a non-ritualistic disemboweling on Ravil for harming Yukio. Nyx modifies his Shadow Tendrils to move away from a downed enemy, causing trauma to multiple feet.

Ravil attempts to break free but fails as Amar exerts more control over Ravil, effectively calling him a bad boy for hurting the dog. Marduk lets loose some electricity that sparks between the two reflector shields causing damage. Thanatos attempts to talk Ravil into surrendering, but it works just as well as previously while the Commander pulls out a pair of fancy power-nullifying handcuffs and moves to subdue and handcuff the man, depowering him onto the ground. Amar takes the opportunity to break Ravil’s arms as well while the Spetsnaz run screaming from a mass of shadowy tendrils following them across the battlefield.

Aftermath

With Ravil down, the Spetsnaz disarmed and downed, and Yukio being treated, poorly, by Doctor Thanatos. They’ve managed to get the 10th most wanted metahuman. They pack up the still living into the technicals and drive out of the city over the border into Turkey where they’re picked up. Nyx manages to obtain several kukri from the Russians.

Once back in the US, Lynch is surprised to find that they found and captured Ravil in such a short amount of time, along with several other Russian special forces. Of course since it’s a Project Vanguard mission, they don’t get paid by the CIA, which hopefully means that they get to keep the operational funds.

After Action Report (GM)

In GURPS terms the last two combats (really just one combat) lasted 16 seconds. 22 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Al-Qaeda) and 12 ex-Spetsnaz were taken down in 4 seconds with the PCs coordinating their actions flawlessly. The main objective, Ravil Vinogradova, took 12 seconds. The PCs tried all manner of dirty tricks – which I applaud them for their creative thinking – but Ravil was not built with the word “fair” in mind. He has two powers: 1) the experiments done to him made him nearly invulnerable super-strong; 2) his metahuman power is the ability to take away others abilities. This makes him SUPER SUPER dangerous to metahumans. His master (oops? Did I say that he was merely a lieutenant?) used him to kill superhumans who became annoying. And he was good at it. His personal band of spec ops were meant to be a multiplier to his power in the combat, but that didn’t work out due to excellent planning on the PCs part. Basically, he was leading a death squad for someone, that someone has yet to be revealed yet.

We ended up quitting an hour early because I was both tired and I expected the combat to last longer. The PCs also spent some Karma to have a better ratio of those killed vs. those knocked out. Total death toll was 10 Al-Qaeda and the rest of the enemies were taken back to the US. The interrogation of Ravil aka Annihliation should prove interesting.

Other Notes

We opted to skip a week so everyone can upgrade their characters and since one of our number was moving we all thought it best to let them get settled in. So our next game will be 5/6/19.

Soundtrack

“Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth (Opening Song)
“I Love My Dog” by Cat Stevens
“Fight the Good Fight” by Triumph (Closing Song)

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