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Session 1
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Finishing up some after hours lab work for
his Biology 101 class in his Secret ID,
Apex was ambushed by a VIPER 8 Team,
Ogre, and Lazer as he
was getting into his car. Ogre leaped from
the shadows and destroyed Apex's sweet ride,
and shooters opened fire from their hidden
sniper position. In the ensuing donnybrook
Apex was sorely pressed and almost knocked
unconscious, but managed to careen off into
the biology building, smashing through walls
and lab equipment with desperate recklessness.
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Ogre pursued him into the building, and
clinging to consciousness Apex weaved a
path of destruction through the building
like an out of control cannonball, trying
to get a breather, but briefly passed out
from the strain. Ogre closed the distance,
as a few of the VIPER agents left their
shooting positions and moved into the building
to assist. The super-resilient Apex recovered
consciousness just as Ogre caught up to
him and was ready to smash him into oblivion,
and managed to regain his feet as Ogre slipped
in the rubble and fell on his brutish face.
Apex quickly took advantage of the situation
and smashed Ogre through an outside wall.
But Ogre fought back and the two ended up
on the floor, wrestling for control. Briefly
gaining the upper hand again, Apex cleverly
punted Ogre sideway through another wall
and into the building's atrium.
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Ogre was briefly out of the fight, but a
couple of VIPER agents had maneuvered into
a position to fire upon Apex in the building,
including one sporting a massive heavy automatic
energy rifle. Shots pattered around Apex,
and he wisely moved out of their immediate
line of fire into the atrium, trying to
keep pressure on Ogre before he could recover.
Seeing Ogre sprawled across the second floor
balcony where he landed after being kicked,
Apex flew up to take another kick at Ogre,
but the thuggish palooka regained his feet
and blocked the attempt. Worse for APEX,
some of the VIPER shooters that were on
the roof of the building had maneuvered
around tactically to cover avenues of escape
from the building, and a couple were able
to see him in the atrium, plus the agents
in the building moved into position as well.
As shots rained around him, Apex realized
he was like a fish in a barrel and dove
over Ogre's head through the atrium facing
windows of a second floor classroom.
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Ogre dove in right after him and the two
began grappling again. This time Ogre got
the upper hand and threw Apex almost a 150
feet through several walls, clear out of
the building, across a parking lot, and
smack into the side of the next building
over. Nevertheless the incredibly resilient
Apex clung to consciousness, but a well
placed shot from the over watching Lazer
caught him in the back of the head. Apex
finally succumbed to the abuse and passed
out, and wasn't given the opportunity to
recover by his merciless opponents.
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Session 2
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Puttering around in the basement of his
(rented) home in the hills north of Balboa
Park, Pete Mazza (geeky alter ego of the
hero known as Makeshift!) was
working on a hinged & locked lid for the
hidden entry / exit tunnel he dug through
the foundation and away to a hidden exit
point in a nearby canyon. He had the news
on the TV running in the background, when
the weather was interrupted for a super-alert.
Reports were coming in from campus security
that what appeared to be a VIPER raid was
in progress at USD. Looking at the map on
his wall, Pete saw that it was only about
9 miles away, and quickly got into the Makeshift
armor and dove into his escape tunnel.
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Making good time, Makeshift got to USD and
moved into a good observation position (ironically,
a position one of the VIPER snipers had
previously occupied). In the increasing
gloom of twilight he was able to make out
a team of what were obviously VIPER agents
arrayed around the top of the biology building,
while Ogre amused himself smashing to bits
the remains of an expensive sports car.
He could also see the dead or unconsious
body of what appeared to be a civilian laying
near a big hole in the side of the building.
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Thinking it unwise to get into it with the
obviously superstrong Ogre, Makeshift tunneled
deep below the building and the next one
over, coming up on the far side. He then
leaped up and grabbed onto the roof lip
of the four story building across the parking
lot from the biology building and roll over
to the roof. However his clanking metal
armor clanged and scraped, and was heard
by one of the alert VIPER agents across
the way. Some of the VIPER agents were equipped
with nightvision via their helmets and were
able to easily see the armored interloper
as he gained the rooftop, and they quickly
opened fire on his position. With shots
raining around him, Makeshift took cover
behind an AC unit on the roof and returned
fire but missed, causing more damage to
the bellaguered biology building. One of
the VIPER agents with the big repeater rifles
opened up on the AC unit and blasted it
to shreds, but Makeshift sprinted across
to another large roof installation. Lazer
took to the air and pinpointed Makeshift,
only narrowly missing and melting a hole
through the roof.
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Unwilling to test his armor against such
a strong lazer, Makeshift burned his way
down through the roof and all four stories
all the way down to the ground floor. But
Lazer moved into position over his head
and fired a blinding wide beam down onto
Makeshift blinding him for the better part
of twelve seconds. Makeshift blindly stumbled
out of the line of fire into the building,
his thick metal armor pushing desks and
detritus out of his way. Finding a wall,
he bored through it and took cover on the
far side of it to wait for his vision to
clear. Things weren't working out quite
has he had planned! Lazer decided not to
follow the unknown super into the tight
confines of the building and pulled back
into a better shooting position in case
Makeshift left the building on the ground
floor.
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Meanwhile, Ogre had been alerted to the
new threat by one of the VIPER agents, and
the ever eager brute grabbed Apex, who he
was supposed to be watching, and leaped
clear over the biology building onto the
roof where Makeshift had been. Seeing the
hole tunneled straight down, Ogre leaped
into it with total abandon. Meanwhile Makeshift,
having heard the receding sound of Lazer's
jetpack, had been blindly stumbling around
looking for a door and had tunneled through
another wall in the process, moving out
into the lobby / students lounge area. His
vision finally returning and hearing Ogre's
entrance, Makeshift moved back into a shooting
position into the classroom via the hole
he had made in the adjoining wall and drew
a bead on Ogre before the thug realized
he was in danger in the darkened building,
but by the emergency lights Makeshift was
able to see that Ogre had draped over his
shoulder the body of the civilian Makeshift
had seen earlier. Silently cursing the luck,
Makeshift held his fire, and Ogre noticed
him out of the corner of his eye. With a
callous disregard for his orders, Ogre hurled
his captive, who of course was Apex, at
this new power armored opponent.
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However in the darkened room, with such
an unweildy missile, Ogre missed Makeshift
by a bare margin. Apex's unconscious form
sailed past Makeshift's shoulder through
the hole in the wall and into the lobby.
His dilemna of accidentally hitting a civilian
solved, Makeshift let Ogre have both barels;
both an energy blast and gout of high pressure
water coursed across the intervening space
and slammed into Ogre, bowling him back
a few feet and letting him know he might
be in trouble vs. his new foe. Awakened
by the jarring, and without Ogre giving
him a few love taps to keep him under, Apex
finally recovered and, thought shaky and
wobbly, regained his feet. Assessing the
situation quickly, Apex moved up to stand
next to Makeshift, knocking in a door adjoining
Makeshift's hole in the process. After such
a display of raw casual strength, Makeshift
quickly realized that despite appearances
the disheveled young man was not normal
and revised his plans accordingly.
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Ogre regained his feet and rushed the two
heroes, attempting to take them with a double
clothesline and bear them out of the building.
Makeshift managed to duck out of the way,
but the still wobbly Apex was taken and
was borne along with the rushing Ogre clear
through the building and into the parking
lot and into the line of fire of the VIPER
agents and Lazer yet again. Things did not
look good for Apex, but his newfound ally
quickly moved into position, directing covering
fire at the shooters on the roof, knocking
Lazer out of position with a well placed
blast, and sent Ogre flying as well with
a blast of his water cannon giving Apex
a chance to regain his feet once again.
Finally having a chance to shake it off,
Apex heroically rose to the occasion and
rejoined battle with Ogre in a display of
super-strength blows and grapples. Meanwhile
Makeshift rabbited around distracting the
shooters on the roof and convincing Lazer
to pull back out of effective range for
his own safety.
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However, on the roof a VIPER hover vehicle
had flown in from the far side of the conflict
and the VIPER 8 Team, their leader having
apparantly finished whatever it was he was
doing inside the building, began and orderly
withdrawal into the transport. With Lazer
extracting himself, that just left Ogre
who was gamely battling on against the two
heroes. Fully loaded the hover transport
manuevered down into a firing position on
the parking lot and opened fire on Apex
and Makeshift, and then moved in to scrape
Ogre out of the altercation on the lip of
it's loading ramp; the VIPER leader reaching
out to help pull the recalcitrant thug into
the vehicle. The hover van wasted no time
and picked up speed, heading north easterly.
Makeshift fired upon its fleeing back, scoring
a decent hit but not stopping it, and Apex
attempted pursuit but quickly realized he
couldn't match its pace without going into
hyper flight and overshooting them entirely.
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In the aftermath the two heroes introduced
themselves and moved to investigate the
biology labe before authorities arrived,
to see if they could figure out what VIPER
had been after. Searching the building,
on the ground floor they found one of the
labs basically fire bombed, almost everything
destroyed. However they found bits and pieces
of abnormally large frogs scattered around
the room, and one bit -- a large red-skinned
leg, scored nasty chemical burns on Makeshift's
gauntlet; he secured it in a sample jar
scavenged from an adjoining lab for future
study. The second floor appeared to be untouched
save from the battle damage from Apex's
struggle with Ogre. On the third floor they
found the office of the head of the biology
department, Professor Dale McAdams, ransacked,
an office computer destroyed by some form
of energy weapon, and the body of the professor
with his head shot in execution style.
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Makeshift recovered a badly damaged hard
drive from the computer, and found a stack
of pictures knocked off the desk that were
lab photos of what appeared to be a series
of mutation tests conducted on frogs. The
test subjects all showed massive growth
over a short period of time, but most apparantly
died from the process. One of the pictures
was of some kind of a small red tree frog,
that over the course of a few days almost
tripled in size and also seemed to have
the toxic chemical properties of its skin
magnified based upon some pH measurements
displayed in the photos; Makeshift correctly
assumed the leg he had found belonged to
that particular frog.
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However, their investigation was cut short
by the sound of approaching sirens, and
the duo made their way to the parking lot
where they first spoke with campus security
and then with police as they arrived. They
were taken downtown to give statements,
and were soon met by Lt. Thomas from the
LA PRIMUS office, who flew down for the
occasion in a PRIMUS hover car. Apex agreed
to sanction and was quickly debriefed and
allowed to go. Makeshift argued with the
Lt. and refused to sanction, and thus was
subjected to the full hostile witness treatment
and kept for 24 hours "on suspicion". Left
to cool his heels in a cell, in his armor
and fully capable of busting out at will
if he wanted to live with the consequences,
Makeshift became even more determined to
make a name for himself so as to feel comfortable
with coming clean with PRIMUS and facing
down his abuse of his former position as
a PRIMUS field tech.
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Prior to parting, Apex gave Makeshift his
phone number, and Makeshift promised to
get in touch soon to pursue the VIPER matter
further.
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Interlude
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CONTINUITY: Three weeks between Sessions
2 and 3.
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CRIME SCENE |
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A PRIMUS team came down from LA and did
an initial sweep of the biology building
and the general ed building that some of
the combat spilled out into. They took a
lot of pictures, did a tactical analysis,
initial forensics on the Professor, and
had a couple of specialists go over the
Professor's office and lab with a fine tooth
comb. Afterwards the area was police-taped
off and the local cops took over.
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The University of San Diego issued a generic
statement of loss and canceled classes in
the two buildings until they can make other
arrangements or have the facilities repaired.
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MEDIA |
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The press came around and the murder got
some play, but there aren't many hard facts
about what VIPER was doing. The TV news
concentrated on the damage to the buildings
as a "raging super battle rampaged out of
control" and speculation over whether the
"new supers" that "the police have under
questioning in relation to the VIPER attack"
are a good or bad thing for San Diego.
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The Union Tribune mostly focused on the
Dr's past accomplishments in the field of
biology and community work and conspicuously
avoided speculation of any sort, yet somehow
still managed to not convey anything newsworthy.
The North County times actually managed
to get a blurry picture of the VIPER hover
van snapped by someone who saw it flying
low somewhere after it left the scene, but
didn't publish the name.
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Channels 8 and 5 would like to know more
about the "possible new supers" making San
Diego their home, and Channel 8 recalled
Makeshift from the Mantara nab, which was
partially televised. Channel 3 announced
plans for a special VIPER in the Sun City
videtorial later in the week in response
to this latest outbreak of VIPER interloping.
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AEGIS |
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In other news the large defense contractor
Aesir, reported that their labs and hangers
located off the 5 near the airport were
the victim of yet another of what they claim
to be sabotage raids conducted by a gang
of super powered saboteurs. They have taken
the unusual and media worthy tact of issuing
an open call for a corporate sponsored super
team to protect their facilities, and San
Diego in general, from superhuman threats.
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They will subsidize a respectable base and
support equipment & personnel. The team
will be called Aegis, and try outs will
be held over the weekend April 15th thru
17th (a few weeks away). Applicants will
have to prove themselves vs a series of
challenges framed up by Aesir's famed senior
engineer and all around design genius Dr.
Hans Bors and a panel of "superhero experts"
including a staff writer from HERO Magazine
(Paul Vorheez) and a top reporter from SNN
(Anita Dales) and some analysts to advise
her. Some combat will be expected from "potentially
qualified applicants".
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APEX |
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In the weekend after the VIPER attack, Apex
was found by a couple of detectives, Sgt's
Holbert and Croft due to his car being found
destroyed at the scene, who took a statement
from him. He claimed that he had been picked
up by friends and left his car parked on
the campus so that he wouldn't be tempted
to drink & drive. After that he spent
time at a few parties over the weekend and
subtly got as much information about the
Professor as he could without appearing
suspicious. Since the prof had just been
gakked though it was a common topic of discussion,
so it was fairly easy to accomplish.
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Of particular note he heard tale about a
doctoral student that was working as a lab
assistant for Prof McAdams who had his thesis
rejected and got expelled for unknown reasons
at the Professor's behest. This student
was named Joey Tarbanelli. Apex decided
this sounded interesting and deteremined
to follow up on it later.
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On Monday Apex flew to L.A. to register
at the PRIMUS offices as he had promised,
and was given a typical battery of tests
to gauge his abilities. A team of three
scientists lead by Dr. Gary Brooks conducted
a standardized battery of tests and a few
specifically tailored to Apex based upon
the preliminary data. The scientists seemed
very interested in the results, and Dr.
Brooks expressed interest in having Apex
come in for further tests after the team
has time to analyze the readings. Of note,
Apex did not detect as a mutant or as a
mystic being, but on the other hand Dr.
Brooks informed him that not all mutants
or mystic beings detect as such, just the
large majority of them, so we wasn't ruling
anything out.
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For the first time in his brief career as
a practicing superhuman Apex had the opportunity
to test his boundaries. He almost pegged
out the super strength equipment the L.A.
office had on hand, discovered that he could
lift approximately 300 tons over his head
without undue strain, and could deadlift
around 400 tons, and that his skin has enough
tensile strength to repulse a .50 round
fired from a high powered military crew
served weapon (simulated). The PRIMUS guys
all seemed very impressed with him.
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Returning to San Diego later in the week
he met w/ Makeshift as Apex at Fiesta Island
after dark. They caught each other up on
their individual investigations, and Makeshift
gave Apex the harddrive which he had not
been able to get anything off of. The two
talked about the AEGIS open call and both
agreed to show up. Apex was interested in
some pocket money and figured if he was
going to fight crime anyway, might as well
not go hungry to do it.
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As Ezil he continued to pursue finding out
more information about Joey Tarbenelli,
and also sought out and used his charms
on a cute chick who happened to be into
computer hardware at UCSD. She delivered
the goods a few days later; a largely restored
data dump on a thumb drive the day before
the AEGIS trials, so APEX figured he'd use
that opportunity to pass it on to Makeshift.
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MAKESHIFT |
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In the weeks after the VIPER attack, Pete
took the opportunity to hit the books and
educate himself on biology in general and
Professor McAdam's contributions to the
field in particular. In addition to hitting
the internet for whatever he could find,
he also went to the USD campus library as
they had several copies of the Professor's
various out of print books and articles.
It was boring stuff, but as people's lives
could depend upon it Pete pushed himself
to the task. Much of it was beyond him,
but he got the basics...enough to realize
the potential ramifications of a mutagen
capable of producing the lab results Pete
had seen in the photos he found in the Professor's
office after the VIPER attack. This was
serious stuff!
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In the evenings he tried to restore the
harddrive he had taken as well, but it was
too far gone for him to do anything with,
so he gave it over to Apex to work on when
they rendezvoused at Fiesta Island one evening
in the second week. The two heroes caught
each other up on their individual investigations
and also talked about the AEGIS open call
which both agreed to show up for. Makeshift
was not crazy about becoming a "corporate
wage slave", but figured it would be a good
opportunity to see what kind of local talent
was around.
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Finally, Pete tried to find out who took
the picture of the fleeing VIPER hover van
that appeared in the North County Times
so that he could track them down and find
out where the picture was taken, exactly.
However the paper was unwilling to divulge
a source. Not giving up so easily Pete ordered
a large print of the photo with plans of
trying to do some photo interpretation of
it.
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Session 3
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The area around the Aesir facility was quite the media circus on the starting day
for the AEGIS open trials. SSN has an exclusive, so all "lesser" news venues were
forced to crowd around the guarded front gates to try and interview candidates as
they entered. There was also quite a crowd of looky-loos and hero afficianados packed
into the parking lot and any available space. Two large flat screen displays were
set up to televise the trials once they started, but were initially dark.
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Makeshift arrived on foot after manuevering around in the nearby bay to avoid having
his route potentially traced, and chose to run in at high speed and vault the gate
and assorted media, waving at a few onlookers yelling out "MAKESHIFT!!!!!"
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Apex on the other hand put on a good show, coming in slow and majestic, letting
the press and crowd get a good look at him. He made nice for the cameras for a few,
and then entered the facilities to join the other applicants in a courtyard shielded
from view from the gate by an intervening building.
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There was a passel of sixteen other would be contestants already present when Makeshift
and Apex arrived, and a final contestant calling himself Triage arrived last. He
answered a few questions for the press, and made his way to join the others.
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The contestants chatted amongst themselves for a bit, with some taking to each other,
and some personality conflicts already starting to arise. The charismatic Apex became
a center of attention, but came into almost immediate conflict with one of the potential
candidates called Furnace, getting into a "who's is bigger" sort of verbal one-ups-manship.
Similarly Makeshift did not hit it off well with the gadgeteer called Prefab after
Prefab criticized some of the (to him) clear deficiencies of the Makeshift armor.
Triage on the other hand made nice with everyone, and was particularly interested
in the physically challenged contestant called Longarm, who is a quadrapalegic.
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Prior to the trials beginning, famous SNN reporter (and a member of the judges panel)
Anita Dales came through and gave each of the contestants a brief interview. Makeshift
did suprisingly well with his time on the mike, but Apex stumbled a bit when asked
a few leading questions though he managed to recover and play it off. Triage was
fairly flat, and refrained from disclosing the nature of his abilities on film.
Of them all, the young Kamikaze was the most entertaining, and Furnace proved to
be a bit dark. Some of the would be heroes abstained from appearing on camera, perhaps
not realizing that such a decision might hurt their chances in the competition.
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After Anita had made her rounds, the proceedings got under way. The CEO of Aesir,
Paul Barnes, took the podium and briefly gave a media-friendly corporate sponsorship
"we are pleased and honored" blah blah blah speech, and quickly turned it over to
Hans Bors and departed. Mr. Bors, the head technology expert and all around genius
behind the success of Aesir, got to the point quickly, explained that he, Anita,
and Paul Vorheez of HERO Magazine would make up a panel of judges would have the
final decision over who made the team and who didn't, but that the actual trials
were to be conducted by Showdown,
the leader of the PRIMUS associated HERONet Initiative.
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On queue Showdown emerged
from the opening doors of one of the large Aesir hangers, leading a team of three
other superheroes from the HERONet initiative...his trusty number two Spiker, the metallic brick Ferrous, and the flying electricty blaster Amp. Showdown gave a motivational speech, pimped
the HERONet initiative and urged all the supers present to register, lauded Apex
for his recent registration, and then got down to business. He and his team would
be coming around and screening the applicants, and picking which ones would be able
to compete.
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In total the contestants who passed initial screening were:
- Apex: 350 point Flying
Brickness
- Makeshift: 350 point
Power Armored Blaster
- Triage: 350 point Bio-Manipulator
- Seizure: 305 point Brick
/ Martial Artist
- Harrier: 295 point Flying
Psychokinetic
- Neuro: 320 point Blaster
/ Damage Shielder
- Prefab: 305 point Gadgeteer
/ Blaster
- Murk: Has the ability to "step between" into a space between this dimension
and some other, and is able to still affect the physical world while he does so
with his STR and some effects based upon projecting the "between space" into the
normal world, but the environment of the place he goes is inimical to life and it
starts to kill him. Its also hard for him to come back; he has to make an Activation
roll to do so. Every time he uses his powers he might die. He also has a kind of
"don't see me" effect when in the normal world that isn't true invisibility, but
makes it difficult for humans to notice or remember him.
While the contestants that were screened out were:
- Chatterbox: Has numerous Sonic based powers vs AVLD: Flash Defense (Hearing),
but all of her abilities also have a Linked Flash vs Hearing, severely crippling
her usefulness.
- Questor: has total molecular control over Questionite, Kendrium, Nuetronium,
highly refined Titanium, Ferinium and other very rare extremely strong metals allowing
him to mold it into various forms by will alone. Of course such materials are in
extremely short supply, making this ability of marginal usefulness. Turned away
due to insufficient ability
- Longarm: Quadraplegic in a wheelchair with fully invisible TK and Fine Manip
that he can use on anything he can see even if its via (live) television (modeled
as Clairsentience only via live broadcast). However the TK has low STR, and he has
no combat capable abilities. Turned away due to...well, for obvious reasons.
- Kamikaze: A tweener
move through speedster who generates a kinetic wave in front of himself. However
he's got major ADD and hyperactivity issues. Kamikaze was later recruited into the
Violators supervillain team. Turned away due to age and instability.
- Furnace: His core
temperature is insanely hot. In addition to the predictable damage shield, his body
is superhumanly tough to withstand his own heat, he has a major CE to raise the
Temp Level around him with Personal Immunity, and brutal heat projection powers.
However, all of his effects are at full strength, and the heat he projects is so
hot it randomly causes secondary high intensity fires that he has no control over.
Actually quite powerful, but very unstable and dangerous to be around. Furnace was
later recruited into the Violators supervillain team and has become a mainstay for
them. He did not get along with either Apex or Seizure. Turned away due to liability
concerns.
- Powderkeg: A former championship lady body builder who took an experimental
"health supplement" and developed respectable superstrength, decent durability,
and the ability to cause a kinetic explosion of force around herself with strain
and a lot of flexing. Well meaning, but not very bright.
- Flicker: Middle aged man who has superstrong fingers; is able to flick small
objects (like pennys) at high speed. He can also freescale, has a nasty iron grip,
and can do a few other things due to his superstrong fingers, but the rest of his
body is of normal strength and toughness. Turned away due to insufficient ability.
- Abolisher: Middle aged man, former military, highly trained "commando". Uses
guns, and has a mild reputation as a vigilante. Reputedly he has a healing factor
or is otherwise strangely difficult to get rid of, but he himself has never made
such a claim. Turned away due to image concerns.
- Gard: Young man. Claims to have the ability to generate invisible force fields,
but no one seems to see them or think they work other than him. Turned away due
to insufficient (i.e. demonstrateable) ability.
- Polecat: Young and highly attractive woman who claims to be able to control
the minds of men, but only while dancing. Turned away due to image concerns.
- The Yeti: Burly, fat, hairy, ugly guy of indeterminant age who has low level
superhuman strength and an unknown degree of superhuman durability (he claims to
be unkillable). He works as a bouncer at the Freakzone club in downtown San Diego.
Turned away due to image concerns.
- Strobe: Apparant teen ager with the ability to generate and to a lesser extent
control light, but not (yet) lazers or anything of obvious combat application other
than a relatively ineffective flash. Turned away due to insufficient ability and
age.
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There was some drama from Kamikaze and particularly Furnace when they were let go,
but for the most part those cut maintained their composure and or dignity and departed.
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That difficult task accomplished, there was a quick photo op for the selected, and
then Showdown escorted them into the hanger he had emerged from. Inside the hanger
had been set up to contain a replica of a park, complete with 9 tracked robots serving
as civilians. Ferrous, Amp, and Spiker took the field and would be playing the role
of villains rampaging through the park. The contestants mission is to save the civilians
by getting them out of the "danger zone" (a 20 x 20 hex square) first, and secondarily
to stop the villains. Each civilian saved would be worth a point to the person that
saved them. Each civilian destroyed would cause all the heroes to lose half a point.
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In the ensuing chaos, Apex soared around saving five of the civilians by himself,
while Neuro saved one, and Triage eventually managed to save one despite a close
call with Amp. Makeshift moved to neutralize Spiker but was hurt in the process,
her dangerous neural spikes bypassing his armor almost completely. Seizure charged
in and successfully fought Ferrous, giving the more experienced hero quite a fight
and completely occupying his attention and even Spiker's after she initially took
out Makeshift. However, Makeshift returned to the struggle towards the end and managed
to knock Ferrous flying with his water cannon (no mean feat) and save a civilian
as the buzzer rang out. Harrier and Amp fought an arial battle, that was mostly
one sided in the more nimble Amp's favor, but ultimately was resolved when Harrier
managed to knock Amp out of the sky into a painful impact with the ground giving
her just enough time to get a "civie" out of the danger zone before the buzzer.
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However, Prefab proved to be the most valuable player of all, with the possible
exception of Apex (who saved most of the civilians single handedly). Using his amazing
gun and gadgets to his best advantage, Prefab almost flashed Amp, returned Makeshift
to the struggle with a healing ray, caused Seizure to grow considerably and turn
the tide against Ferrous and Spiker, englobed Spiker in a force bubble she couldn't
get out of, and sniped Amp out once he had been knocked out of the sky by Harrier,
preventing any last second intervention from Amp against Triage, Harrier, and Makeshift
who were each rescuing a civilian in the final seconds.
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Murk on the other hand stepped "between" at the beginning of the trial and had no
further contribution...or at least none that was noticed.
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Showdown was pleased with the results; the contestants exceeded his expectations.
In addition to saving all the civilians (though one was badly damaged, it was still
"alive"), they also took out all three villains in the process, and did so with
at least some of the heroes displaying rudiments of teamwork, particularly Prefab.
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Murk eventually reemerged from "between", blue in the lips and almost dead. He went
too deep into his other dimension and almost couldn't get out. Consequently he was
dropped from the competition and taken for medical treatment.
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