Making Lemonade

Previous Session: The Shadow Controlling the Flame

Lucia (Bruja the Doomed) has a long interview in AEGIS.
Agent Jones appears to be the lead and she’s keen to discover exactly what went on. Not just at the Gala and in the hotel, but also on that lonely farm near the border.

She's much less together than she hoped, but still manage to cooperate.
Jones learns about her personal beef with Armstrong and are disinclined to give Lucia's ‘conspiracy theories’ much weight.
They dig into her past, the moment her powers activated and identify Julie Perkins as a person of interest.
They sign her up to undergo ongoing psychological assessments with Dr. Keen

But, near the end of the process she loses her cool and has had enough of this bullshit. They’ll definitely wary of her now.


Javi (El Serpiente the Nova) disappeared for the final encounter between Lucia & Barbarossa.

He runs into Anaconda, and over a casual (but not too casual) conversation, he picks up that Javi was involved in the (almost) final showdown with The Beast.
Blackjack catches him unawares and in the fight Javi cause a lot of destruction downtown.
He loses track of Anita (7 missed calls later!) and from that last voicemail it would appear that she’s had enough of him.

They're all back together again, wondering how they can use their vaccine (that they plan to produce) against Brad Armstrong, to get him on the scales of justice! Do they finish it off, open-source it through K-0S' channels, or offer to sell it back to him (with their silence) and use that to bring him down because he was in league with the Red Queen?

First though, they need a test subject. (After a chorus of 'not it') They decide that BlackJack would be a good person to use. He's a villain, so it's best if his powers were taken out of the equation anyway, and he's in league with the Red Queen too (they're trying to convince themselves that it's ok, but honestly they daren't even think of using it on themselves).

BlackJack
Now, a literal Bronze-Age SuperVillain

Lucia has Dark Visions to locate him for the rest of the team. She uses the VR rigs throughout the city as a kind of neural net, and finally she tracks him down on a building above a blind alleyway. It's near Hank's Arcade, but she doesn't notice that it's the Halcyon Herald's offices. He's in a 'practical' suit of bronze armour.

El Serpiente charges up the side of the building, unleashing his serpentine arms to knock him off his perch, while Tag (Gus the Innocent) winds up to catch him as he falls.

BlackJack kicks back hard against El Serpiente as he falls, and the Nova's attempt to keep the raygun away from his head just result in the building getting splashed with a lot of damage. BlackJack is caught by Tag just as he completes his destructive fall through the fire escape and they rampage through the building.

Between Tag's sonic boom and BlackJack's raygun going haywire, the building is seriously damaged and the workers are put in immediate peril!

Shadow starts the evacuation, incredulous at the damage Tag has allowed to take place (where Lynettte works!) and El Serpiente tries to hold the building up to give everyone time to get out.

While Shadow's rushing to get people out of the upper levels of the newsroom, he spots April Meyers' unattended desk. A drawer has been left slightly ajar and inside he finds her shorthand notebook - she's an incisive journalist with an inside track into Halcyon Analytica and Brad Armstrong. He nabs it and escapes, the last person out of the building before it starts its dangerous collapse.

**

There's more collateral damage, BlackJack's raygun is destroying power pylons now as he and Tag race out towards the lake. BlackJack finally gets rid of Tag, flinging him out on the water. When Tag regains his bearings to come back around BlackJack is ready for him and breaks his arm, bringing the speedster's activity to a sharp halt.

Bruja appears through one of her portals to intervene, leaping to Tag's defence, just as BlackJack is zooming back around to strafe the helpless Tag. She brings him down to earth with a nifty feat of telekinesis, knocking him out cold.

She ignores him, and rushes to Tag's aid. They find her cradling his head and relieving his pain with her mystical powers. Shadow has to finish BlackJack himself. Even with Bruja comforting Tag, Shadow doesn't care, going off on Tag for such a reckless use of his powers - he's destroyed so much of the city and put countless people in jeopardy!


They wonder how to heal Gus' arm quick enough to get him back into action for the necessary showdown. He wants HYPERION to accelerate the whole process, but Lucia suggests a bone & muscle regeneration along cyber lines; and afterwards Gus has never felt so powerful. Even if her joyous hug is kind of painful.

*

After getting the vaccine sorted, locking BlackJack in Lucia's sanctuary, and getting the data dump
that they need; they're all ready for their showdown with Brad Armstrong.

Brad Armstrong
CEO of Halcyon Analytica
Bruja's Nemesis.

From the Gala, Javi has his private number, and he calls it for a private conversation about PROJECT ATHENA - a low-key meeting in the hotel. They set up with a VR rig to record the meeting between the two - every last detail, admission, and slip-up will be captured for posterity and media release.

Javi starts off well enough, but his prodding appears to have zero affect on Armstrong. In fact,  Armstrong starts pulling strings himself; it would appear that he knows exactly which of Javi's weakpoints he needs to apply pressure to.

Javi loses his cool and hits Armstrong. His bodyguards swoop in to protect their principal, but he waves them off, brushing himself off with a smile. The others starts to intervene, and they're part of this now.

Lucia realises that he's going to get away with this - he's got PR firms, and AEGIS and Supers on side. She yells accusations at him but he gets up close and personal and warns her that she'll tear herself apart by the end. He doesn't explain, but his words echo her certain knowledge of her Doom.

Gus tries to provoke him, with Simon standing in the wings - all too aware that his talents are useless right now. Armstrong wryly shakes his head, walking away to the car that's pulling up outside. He quips back at Gus that Catcher would be proud...

FIN(ish)