Well well wishers and forum viewers,

Since we didn't have a full roster of heroes Saturday we've gone and done a prequel to Ebony for your reading pleasure.


We start deep into the night at 11pm on a weekday. Baltimore isn't quiet, but not entirely jumping tonight and four superheroes are out on the town minding their own business. It's a fine night for a dust up.

Down at the Hard Rock Officer Turk is winding down from a hard day of patroling on their outside deck. Drinking something hard but cheap and bemoaning his current inability to get even a slight buzz from buckets of booze he sits at a table and watches the scenery.

In the Aquarium Kitty is hanging out pressed against the glass, making some people nervous. She knows each fish by her own pet name and has recipies for all of them she'd just love to try out.

In his office uptown Cybershift works quietly on his micro spybots. He grins as he gets images of places here and there in the city over their mini cams and generally patrols without leaving his desk as he takes tools to yet another little gadget.

Slightly north of Cybershift Cass is just finishing up with a thief who'd just pulled a snatch and grab at an atm. She's having her usual fun hanging the perp off the building and introducing him to the masonry. Into this she gets the feeling of something unnatural to the south, appearing only one block away, and heads out to investigate. By the time she gets there there are screams coming from a gala being held within the Maryland Historical Society. One of her old friends from the Chaste smiles and waves at her from where he sits outside the building as she rushes past him with barely a hint of notice.

Cybershift himself picks up the disturbance next door and has his spybots check out the scene. It seems like a number of featureless black beings are robbing the place. Their leader, another being of inky blackness who supports within his frame what look to be bones and pieces of antiquated armor, steps to the fore as Cass rushes in the font door. In a split second Shift has ridden the wires and pops out of an electrical outlet near his spybot.

As the excitement really starts the black energy leader opens the main display and removes a large leather bound book moments before Cass leaps over his bodyguard of strangely moving servants, beings of all but puddy like consistency. With a flourish Cass brings her sword down on the leader only for him to slide eerily out of the way. Shift calls for the patrons to stand back as he approaches the action himself.

It isn't all roses for the other two heroes either. Kitty smells something horrible and heads out of the aquarium for a look. Something green and scaled, with a stubby tail and a horrifically outdated supervillian outfit is crawling out of the water in front of the Barnes and Noble. She wrinkles her nose at it and goes looking for a harpoon gun, not wanting to get anywhere near that but figuring she won't be lucky enough just to leave it alone.

The first reason Turk knows there's a problem is when dazed looking people come shambling over from the bookstore next to the Hard Rock and start attacking his fellow guests with crude flopping arm motions. Looking them over he sees they're coated with some strange glittering substance and he grimiaces as he stands up, thinking that this is some sort of new drug or a twitard raid or something.

Nearby a strange cry sounds out.

Sub-OOOOOOman-or!!!!

Blinking, and having a hard time believing it he looks over in front of the bookstore to see a strange fish man puff glittering sparkles all over the nearby people. To make matters worse whoever the glitter lands on starts shambling around randomly attacking people. Shaking his head he gets on his radio and calls in SWAT. When querried as to why they should arrive he just tells them they wouldn't believe it and to just come.

Back at the Historical Society it's time for a headcount. Scads of helpless people, check, Two heroes, check. Fifteen puddies and one leader, check. THWACK... Shift turning his hand into a mallet and slamming a puddy across the room to puff on the far wall... ok fourteen puddies, check.

In the middle of all this the lead creature makes a hand gesture and runs out of the back door of the building with two assistants in tow. The other creatures, six for each hero, turn and try a gang tackle. Cass just slips away and the puddies beat one of their own up. Shift turns into a pincushion and ends up looking like a strange piece of modern art. In a moment Cass is battling the creatures in a bobing and weaving fight while Shift just starts sending his spikes spinning in different directions. The target they're attached to suddenly being set to puree poofs those six puddies like the remnants of bad gas.

It takes Kitty only a few moments to come up with a harpoon gun, gawd knows where she scraped it up in the aquarium. On the other side of the water Turk calls for the people around him to get their acts together and run, which they do, but the Subhumanor is now firmly focused on him. Before he can act the beast poofs him with sparkles and he bravely fights off their hypnotic effects, then cringes as a launched spear goes over his shoulder and misses the beast.

As Cass tussles with the puddies uptown, slowly cutting down their number first with her swords, then as she gets angry with her fists, shift turns into a big wheel and chases after the leader only to find him jumping a fence and landing on the metro train as it passes by heading south. He's soon left with only a pair of puddies in his way but finds himself unable to run them over. Meanwhile Cass finally finishes her puddies and gets out the back door only for Shift to leave her his two as he pursues the train and finds it full of puddies.

It's a better scuffle between the subhumanor and his opponents as the beast starts to vibrate, cracking the concrete, making the deck sway wildly and knocking Turk off his feet. Kitty weighs her options and wonders if she can hit at this distance with a harpoon, but Turk is already back up and he whacks the subhumanor a hard one. The beast lets loose a directed sonic attack in response... just in the wrong direction belatedly realizing his opponent is beside him not in front of him.

It's enough to convince the cat to rush over the bridge and come about the back of the platform instead of trying to reload the harpoon gun. She crashes into the subhumanor from behind and manages nothing, though seeing there are now too foes the beast poofs both of them with glitter and this time Turk starts to sway menacingly as he is dazzled by the pretty colors.

Shift finds himself having little more luck. A quick wire ride into the front of the metro train only finds the vehicle stuck at full speed with it's controls broken. While he stands there at a loss for a moment five of the puddies behind him blend together to make another leader form. Cass finishes her two puddy buddies and sprints like a madman to catch the train from behind, just managing it at best speed and climbing up on it.

Before the leader can engage Shift in combat he suddenly wire rides away with a plan, a great and cunning plan. He races out three blocks in front of the puddy metro and before he can implement his plan finds yet another metro train stopped and picking up passengers. He quickly calls out to the conductor to get that train moving because there's another out of control one of it's ilk coming up right behind it.

And now we pause for villian identification because I'm getting tired and this wall of text has gotten particularly long enough.

Villians so far:

Lead Shadow Construct

F: RM (30)
A: IN (40)
S: RM(30)
E: IN (40)
R: TY (6)
I: RM (30)
P: EX (20)

Health: 140
Karma: 0

Powers: None Known

Shadow Construct(Puddy):

F: GD (10)
A: GD (10)
S: GD (10)
E: GD (10)
R: TY (6)
I: TY (6)
P: TY (6)

Health: 40
Karma: 0

Known Powers: Dying in droves. Five can merge to form a leader.
Note: They drop a small sliver of metal when they're destroyed.

Subhumanor

F: TY (6)
A: EX (20)
S: IN (40)
E: IN (40)
R: PR (4)
I: EX (20)
P: EX (20)

Health: 106
Karma: 24

Known Powers:
Hypnotic Control Dust: GD (10) hypnotic control in an IN (40) spray
Vibration: AM(50)
Sonic Generation: IN(40)

And that'll do it for tonight adventure lovers. Tune in soon to hear how Cybershift's great plan went, the finish of the battle with Subhumanor and even more puddy hyjinks.

It's time to continue.

We pick up a little to the southeast of where we left off, on the deck of the Hard Rock Cafe. Turk has just been poofed by the Subhumanor and the fish beast points at the cat and orders the attack while pulling back to the bookstore. The feline hero is forced to avoid a couple of half hearted swings by the mighty Turk before they both nearly get shaken off their feet. Turk comes too just in time for Subhumanor to shatter the deck with his vibration power and dump both the heroes in the Inner Harbor.

Back on the train Cass is marching forwards menacingly with her swords drawn as the puddies swing at her in utter futility. She prooves just to slippery for the strange shadow men to catch but as she marches forward a larger one swings out the train's window and lands in front of her. The new shadow leader forms a sword from black energies and approaches Cass only to get caught off guard and slashed a few times before he can get his guard up.

Crawling from the dirty water Kitty and Turk shake themselves off, disgusted by what they were just put through. Subhumanor doesn't give them time to form up as he blasts another concentrated wave of sound at them, though as usual his aim leaves a LOT to be desired. The Kitty steps back trying to figure out her next move as Turk glances around not wanting to get in close with the sticky sparkles again. He hits on an idea and before the cat has time to think he grabs her and hurls her one handed at the Subhumanor who fails to get out of the way and they both roll around as a ball of alternating cat and fish. Too make things worse for the creature the cat is in no mood to be close to such a stinky beast and she claws him all over in a panic, rending away his health and leaving him mauled horribly. The Subhumanor disengages from his attacker and rolls into the water. Not wanting to go into the oily drink again neither hero bothers to pursue.

Atop the train Cass and the second shadow lead trade blows in a furious display of swordsmanship. All of the shadow's attacks and most of Cass's are parried. In a burst of speed Cass drives forward and skewers her opponent and tosses him off the train then sets up to attack the next batch of puddies only to watch them and the first leader disembarking in quick order like rats off a sinking ship. She looks on in confusion.

Out in front of the Hard Rock Turk gets a call on his radio about another altercation going on down the way. Shrugging and seeing he might as well get into another fight he turns to the cat, asks if she's coming and hauls keester along Pratt street as fast as his legs will carry him.

Back by Cass and unknown to the female hero the puddies had good reason to get off the out of control train. Ahead of it Cybershift has morphed into a tilted ramp on the tracks. The metro lifts as it rides up Shifts ramp, then with a mighty crash the whole thing derails and topples over. Cass nimbly leaps off the train and breaks her fall on the back of a puddy as the derailed Metro jacknifes and begins sliding down the sloped street, trailing sparks and chasing the few panicked commuters and pedestrians out of the way. Cybershift himself wobbles shakily to his feet and begins to limp after it.

Not missing a beat the lead shadow races along the metro tracks and jumps on the second metro Shift warned off earlier as it flees down the track as best it can. Cass narrows her eyes in annoyance, weaving around the startled puddies and gives chase at her best speed.

Soon the battle turns into a race as all the involved parties race towards the intersection of Pratt and Howard streets. Turk leaps cars and runs past pedestrians as he blasts around the fountains and makes it to the convention center in record time. Cass chases the fleeing metro on foot her superhuman endurance enabling her to both gain on the train and outrun the sliding detrailed metro until it comes to a jarring hault behind the Mariner arena.

With his strength enhanced speed Turk makes it to the corner first and looks around. He spots a metro coming to a hault just before Pratt street, unable to cross the busy road, and it's downed sister train behind it. Not knowing quite what's going on he keeps trying to figure the happenings when there is a commotion behind him. Turk turns to see the doors of the convention center flung open and dozens of shadow men burst out through them. The big man nods toughtfully, at least now aware of where a problem is. He starts to move towards the group as the cat finally catches up to him and her luck catches up to her... and things get worse.

On Pratt street a tire just on the edge of it's lifespan blows, causing it's car to veer off course into a neighboring vehicle and set off a chain reaction. Soon the intersection of Pratt and Howard is full of crashing swerving cars, trucks and busses. Through this the lead shadow weaves with near superhuman dexterity. Cass not any slouch on avoidance either leaps through the air and tries to ram him into traffic only to find the being still capable of sensing her at the last second. The shadow leader slides out of the way of her charge by a hairsbredth and she rams into a ferrari, wrecking the driver's side.

Dozens of puddies converge on Turk as he looks them over trying to figure out what's up with the situation. They raise their hands and pound on him relentlessly yet it does them absolutely no good. The large hero just shrugs and looks for something to hit a lot of them with. Outside the crowd Kitty pokes around and gets swung at a couple of times for her curiosity.

Apparently more capable than he looked the lead shadow bounded off the front of the ferrari Cass wrecked and in a blink a disk of energy formed under his feet. Using the flying disk as a transport the lead quickly buzzed up over the convention center. Cass was hot on his trail, leaping over guard rails and up supports to stay on his tail. The Kitty also noticed the lead and following a cat's instinct to chase interesting things bounded up the side of the convention center after it.

In a burst of electricity CyberShift arrived on the scene and took it in quickly with a practiced eye. Forming a spike rolling ball he headed to make some flat puddy as Turk wandered over and grabbed a light pole, but was unable to hit the creatures surrounding him as they ducked and evaded. The group wasn't so lucky the against Shift though and he rolled over half of them. From down Howard street the puddies from the train finally caught up and the heroes just shook their heads. There was going to be a lot of cleaning up to do.

Over the convention center the last lead fled on his disk with Cass and Kitty falling slightly behind. He buzzed down towards an open grassed area atop the building and ducked under a glass roofed patio. There was a burst of energy as Cass leapt across Sharp street in one bound and landed on the patio to find no one there. A quick scan with her environmental awareness picked up only five shards of strange metal. The cat, her prey gone, decided to up and wander off.

As the lead disappeared the rest of the puddies fell back on their destructive regular programming and started to attack the snarl of cars on Pratt street. Rolling up their sleeves, litterally and figuratively the remaining heroes dove into a quick one sided battle with them.

After it all was over the costumed heroes slipped back into the night, while Turk started to help with the triage and cleanup operation. It was all over except for doling out karma and counting up popularity.


New Villian Notes: While Subhumanor didn't show anything new besides an average ability to take damage and live through it, and the puddies were just puddies the lead shadows showed some interesting abilities. In particular they showed the ability to shape forcefields of the darkforce energies that they were tied to into for some creative effects that mimiced edged weapons and flying disks. If this is the limit of their power is unknown.

Thanks for making it through that wall of text. We'll continue back in "And the darkness that will follow", as it resumes this Saturday.

If anyone feels like helping, could someone count up who got what for Karma and Popularity on both sides, just to double check what I came up with? I know it's a chore but I haven't played for more than a decade and the people who ran that game barely ever doled out karma.

See ya all later!