Dramatis Personae

• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
• Jodie R. Swann aka Surferboy (NPC): Dude. Aero- and Hydrokinetic. Really laid back, but wants to make a difference. Has a advanced glider/drone he rides on. Tagline: “Like. Let’s just chill, dude.”
• Layla A. de Blackburn aka Nox (NPC): CIA-trained child assassin all grown up to be Daddy’s Little Monster. Maybe a little mad. Argues with her shadow often. Tagline: “No, we shouldn’t do that…should we?”
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): Bo’s best friend and assistant. A sentient drone in the shape of a stylized shiny metal rat mindlinked to Bo. Specialties are rapid repair construction and modifications. Imagine if K-9 and R2D2 made a baby and it looks a bit like a rodent. Tagline: “Repairs and upgrades in progress”
• Tierney M. Ward aka Rush (NPC): Speedster and former member of the Bullet Hell Brigade. Tagline: “Was that fast? I thought that was fast.”
• Zubayr Sajjad Marou aka Five Stars (NPC): Driver. Pilot. Klubbe gig worker.. From N’Djamena, Chad. Used to go by Darryl Bell to sound more American. Tagline: “I can get you there in time.”

Previously . . .

While the team was originally supposed to head to Caracas, Threshold, Nyx, Whisper, and Nox instead get called in by the Director and is told that there’s trouble being had in Syria at the moment in a small town known as Al-Sabe’ Biyar. There’s rumored to be a metahuman there along with numerous insurgents and a reporter that was kidnapped. There’s not much more information available to the team other than the fact that NATO has asked for their aid. Wirerat, Surferboy, and Rush are on another plane with Five Stars at the helm.

The protocol for the assault is to wipe them out, retrieve the reporter, and come back which seems to suit Whisper just fine as she’s piloting their high-tech jet after they get permission to enter Syrian airspace and to watch out as there are RPGs on the ground. There’s a small goat village outside of the area, desolated walls and empty highways. Whisper wants to set the plane down a decent way away from the location, about a quarter of a mile at least. According to the vehicle’s tracking system, there’s six people on a roof in the village, three of which are armed with RPGs and then the sensors cut out when one of the men looks upwards at the plane. Whisper announces that they seem to know they’re there.

Insurgents Abound

Nyx, Threshold, and Whisper
Almarakhu’s Camp
Thursday, May 30th, 2019, 1200 hours (GMT+3)
Al-Sabe’ Biyar, Rif Dimashq, Syria

Landing, they seem to be unmolested and Threshold looks over the briefing. Their information doesn’t look like normal field intelligence as it looks like someone was actively drawing something that was being described, with Threshold assuming it came from someone with remote viewing abilities and some artistry. As they come in from the east, Threshold scans with his different vision modes and describes the scenery to everyone else and notes that he can’t seem to be able to see into some of the buildings and he isn’t too sure why, noting them out.

Whisper and Threshold get into a conversation of tactics where Nyx says that he’s not much good in full sunlight. They suggest Nyx just get into the nearest shielded building while the rest draw fire down the center. Checking out the armaments of the insurgents, he determines that they’re wielding futuristic looking weaponry and warns the rest. Making plans for Threshold to knock out three on the south while Whisper moves to strike the three along the south side.

Threshold starts his attack by blasting three soldiers on the at their feet with his obliteration beam, planning on making the people fall through the roof while they remain untouched by the beam itself, the insurgents let out squawks of startlement as they fall through. Nox speeds towards the building, arguing with her shadow, while Nyx silently follows behind her. Whisper, however, plants her tomahawk into an insurgent’s left leg but only barely manages to make it through his armor, he’s bleeding and still standing from the first attack when she swings again at his neck killing him.

She parkours up onto a nearby rooftop and slashes at another insurgent’s neck, dealing damage only on one while the slashing victim is none too happy. The insurgents that fell through the roof start getting to their feet while several fire on Threshold who manages to get struck in the face and chest, leaving him stunned on the rooftop while Whisper also gets peppered with fire from one of the insurgents, the bullets not even causing enough damage to wind her for a second as they slam into her arm and abdomen as she turns to stare at him, causing him to wee a bit in terror while she dodges full rapid fire from point blank range and still takes several more shots. Nyx runs towards the building with Nox getting there first and giggling as it’s dark in there while Threshold recovers from his stun after being shot.

Whisper rolls over and down off the wall to prevent being a larger target. The Insurgents move towards the edges of the roof looking for more targets to shoot with at least one following Whisper and firing at her. Nyx runs into the hut behind Nox, finding it nice and dark and devoid of anything except a small football shaped device emitting pulses of energy as Nyx finds a familiar sensation as a past thing while Nox cackles madly and asks for Nyx to team up with her, what’s more disturbing is that it seems like her shadow is also cackling. Not much choice is given as she takes over his powers in a link-up, draining him of energy and then she blots out a 2.5 mile radius around them in pure darkness while excluding her allies. Threshold teleports over to another rooftop and sends out another obliteration beam, targeting the insurgent’s weapons and rooftop, vaporizing their weapons and their footing at once.

Whisper throws a grenade over her shoulder and into the center of a large group of opponents before throwing a second one across the road into the roofless building and on top of people. Nyx is generally confused by what Nox has done and stands there looking around, mentally marking the football sized device for Wirerat’s study. Nox teleports into another shielded building with a confused Nyx in tow, shredding the device inside allowing Nyx to see once more. Threshold warps across the town and obliterates the wall leading into another shielded room, leaving the building standing and revealing the reporter, several insurgents.

A second later, two grenades go off, one of which was lodged under an insurgent’s armor, killing several before she throws yet another grenade at the few survivors. The big boss of the insurgents, Almarakhu, spots Threshold easily before reaching over and touching his soldiers on the neck to do something to them which causes them to grow larger and almost hulked out. The soldiers charge through the hole in the wall to strike at Threshold to miss. At least one of the insurgents, smart enough to be able to detect that a grenade went off, jumps from the building’s rooftop. Nyx, getting a hold of things, takes a second to shift into his shadow form alongside Nox. Threshold manages to spot that the reporter is restrained in literal chains, shifting to away from the hulked soldiers and fires his obliteration beam at Almarakhu, the strange device, and the building beyond when Almarakhu hulks out and dodges out of the way of the beam.

The second grenade goes off, killing a single man, while Whisper runs towards Threshold’s location and lobs another grenade towards the hulked out soldiers while readying her pistol. Almarakhu picks up the reporter while Threshold sees a sickly green glow form around them and the reporter starts to scream as several hulked out insurgents jump on the roof towards Threshold. Nyx, effectively blind without his Shadar power, keeps hearing screams and explosions from outside the room and he walks outside to see burning buildings, people screaming and weaponless causing him to have trouble summoning the will to fight any of them. Nox, sensing something is amiss, moves to adjust her blackout ability. Threshold adjusts his sights towards the hulked soldiers coming towards him and hits them with his obliteration beam. Scorching the clothes off of them and the roof out from under them.

The grenade goes off to no avail as Whisper moves towards the nearest insurgent to snap the man’s neck, killing him instantly. Almarakhu steps backwards away from Threshold, still holding the reporter hostage. As one of the hulked out insurgents jump upwards through the hole to attack Threshold, he warps out of the way. Nyx, seeing the insurgents stumbling through the blackness, moves towards the closest one and drains him of stamina, forcing him into unconsciousness while Nox moves forwards, using shadow puppetry against one of the insurgents, taking control of them. Threshold sizes up the rather agile looking insurgents before warping to the side and throwing out an obliteration beam at Almarakhu knocking him unconscious along with everyone else that is still up and moving as though they were connected.

Aftermath

Threshold immediately moves to bandage up Almarakhu, observing him slowly getting smaller alongside the soldiers that he enhanced. They zip tie the living soldiers after treating them and then gather the rifles and spherical devices. The spheres themselves are quite dense, almost 50 pounds each. Threshold gives a once over of the reporter before sending her through a tunnel back to the US. They get the plane in close and loaded while they send in a clean up crew to clean out the rest of the damage, and probably the village after they’ve scavenged what they could. In one of the rooms with the spheres they find a Delta Force team that’s barely alive and have been repeatedly tortured and in a state of severe privation. Threshold opens up a portal to Vanguard HQ again and gets them to the hospital suite immediately.

They arrive back to the Vanguard HQ about six hours later while the other team is still out at Caracas. Lynch has shown up yet again with pictures of where they just were as they slowly start telling a story of the area growing darker and darker and darker before it lightens back up slowly and asking what the hell Nyx just did only for him to sit there quietly, apparently they’re calling it one of the plagues of Syria.

After Action Report (GM)

This was a bit of a filler session – Brice was out and I didn’t want to continue the main storyline without him. Still, the PCs got to flex their muscles in combat again and got to know their characters better. Rory in particular played around a lot with his powers and used them to great effect.

Almarakhu was an interesting build. He had only one power: the ability to physically amp up himself or others. Think Bane from Batman but he can affect an unlimited number of subjects including himself. Downside to his power was if he was knocked out so were they and if he died so would they. There were 15 total insurgents and only 5 were killed, the rest were taken captive so I call that a win. Almarakhu was also taken captive and the PCs went along with the genre rules for the session.

Other Notes

Bonus Report from Rory.

Soundtrack

“Gunslinger” by Avenged Sevenfold

“It Serves You Right to Suffer (The Avener rework)” by The Avener & John Lee Hooker

“Desert Rose” by Sting