Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Session 3.7 Index Session 3.9
Events While the Characters Were Away
The London Knights all react to the shadowy thing attacking the Amazon. Chronos zips off and appears next to the Amazon. He can see that the creature is a dark green scaly lion-like creature with a mane of blade-tipped tentacles wearing a Viper waistcoat. Chronos tries to age the thing to death, but his attack seems to have no effect. However, he starts to feel a bit woozy.
Noesis mentally attacks the creature, but fails to lock on to its mind.
Blitz flies up and looks around the area, trying to see if there is anything else lurking in the shadows. He can't see anything.
John Doe turns into a copy of Avenger, complete with blasters, and steps out of the plane. "Smokin'," he says.
Truth also scans the area, but like Blitz can't see any other lurking attackers.
The creature whips its tentacles at everyone, and spikes fly from their tips, hitting Blitz, Chronos, John Doe (who has bits of body ripped off), Sven and Servo, plus the Amazon and her three followers, and the aircraft, all to little effect. The creature laughs loudly and nastily.
The Amazon throws the creature off her; it twists as it flies through the air, and lands on its feet.
The Amazon's followers react. The huge rock creature raises its hand and a bolt of molten lava shoots from it towards the creature, but misses. The average-looking man growls and shifts form into a humanoid hyena-thing which leaps forward. The last, imposing, man bursts into flames and takes to the air.
The creature leaps onto the Amazon again. Chronos attacks it again, to little effect. John Doe (as Avenger) puts his blasters away, pulls out a machete and runs towards the creature. Noesis flies upwards. Servo fires his Taser at the creature, but misses.
The rock creature fires another lave blast, misses again, and destroys one wall of the terminal building by accident. The hyena-creature leaps at the creature and slashes it from head to tail, making a large wound which heals up almost immediately. The flaming man fires a blast of fire at the thing, hitting, to little effect.
Chronos fires his blaster at the creature and hits. It staggers back, this wound not closing immediately, but instead leaking clear fluid.
Noesis telekinetically grabs the creature, lifting it up into the air. While it is suspended, John Doe turns into a rocket-propelled spike and launches himself at it, impaling it.
The creature breaks free of Noesis' telekinesis and drops to the ground, landing on its hind legs with John Doe still driven through it. Chronos fires the blaster again but misses. John Doe rockets back up into the air with the creature still attached.
Noesis attacks it mentally and the creature glares at him. Noesis notices that the creatures mind seems very diffuse, as if it was decentralised, making it very hard to damage.
The were-hyena leaps at the creature, slashing it. The flaming man fires another blast of fire at the thing, hitting, to little effect.
Servo fires his taser at it, hitting. Electricity crackles through the creature.
Chronos fires, missing again. John Doe continues to rocket upwards, and as he goes genetically samples the creature. He finds that it is all too familiar - it is a massively complex genetic structure, not dissimilar to his own, but more complex - the same as that of his parent who he met in the future (session 2.9), in fact. Oops!
Blitz flies up alongside the creature as John Doe rockets up, and fires at it to little effect.
Down on the ground, the were-hyena goes over to the Amazon, who is unconscious on the ground. Servo gets out his healing box and goes over too, using it on the Amazon. Sven also assists.
Chronos fires up at the creature again, but misses again.
The flaming man fires a blast of fire at the thing, hitting, again, to little effect.
John Doe feels something infiltrating him from the creature and turns into a puddle to try and avoid this. It turns into a puddle too, and the combined blob starts to fall towards the ground.
Noesis telekinetically grabs them, and they start to rise again.
John Doe turns into Avenger, but still has a blob on his chest, which he tries to remove but fails.
Blitz flies up to the side, and puts his hand on the blob in an attempt to blow it off John Doe. Unfortunately, his hand passes right through the blob and he touches 'Avenger's chest. He tries to pull his hand out, but now he seems to be stuck. Blitz flies upwards, taking the weight of John Doe and the blob as he pulls them up faster than Noesis telekinesis is doing so.
John Doe turns into a mirror image of Blitz, with his hand, linked to the real Blitz by the hand, which is still inside the blob.
Noesis lets go with his telekinesis and attacks the blob to little effect. Blitz fires on the blob, but his blast goes right through it and hits John Doe, who goes limp, and is absorbed by the blob. However, the blob does let Blitz go and he pulls his hand free. The combined blob starts to fall.
Truth remembers that John Doe has problems with heat and flame, and points this out to the flaming man on the assumption that the blob will be similarly affected.
Chronos fires at the creature to little effect. Blitz fires, also with little effect.
The flaming man fires on the blob and hits. Unfortunately, the outside of the blob seems to be John Doe, and it is he who takes the damage. The blob lands without bouncing on the tarmac. Chronos fires at it, and again the wound does not close up and leaks clear fluid.
The blob turns into a stunning oriental woman in a Viper uniform. She puts her hands up and says, "I surrender." There is no sign of John Doe, though.
Blitz demands that she return John Doe. She refuses. Blitz (who is somewhat short-tempered) fires at her. It doesn't have much effect.
The woman demands that the group not only et her go, but give her a lift back to London as well. This goes down about as well as might be expected.
Blitz again demands that she let John Doe go.
Truth goes back into the plane (which is very nicely appointed inside) and by desolidly playing with his internal organs makes sure that the unconscious Cull remains unconscious.
The oriental woman walks towards the plane.
Blitz and Chronos attack again, as usual to little effect. Blitz moves onto the air stair, blocking the way up into the plane.
Meanwhile, inside the woman, John Doe, who has been conscious for quite a while, and net at all happy to be in here, has been trying to break free of her. As the woman reaches the bottom of the stair up to the plane, he finally manages it (or perhaps she lets him go). The woman's head falls off.
John Doe is essentially berserk with fear. The head (which is in fact John Doe) grows spikes and rocket motors and shoots off at random. Unfortunately its flight takes it straight at Blitz, who is impaled in the chest and propelled up the stairs and into the plane.
Tendrils of flesh extrude up from the woman's neck and forms into a new head, the same as the last. She uses her new head to laugh heartily. This does not please the others, who can't help taking the rocket propelled head thing as an attack. Chronos fires at her again, to little effect.
Behind the group, the Amazon has regained consciousness, and come up with the rest of her group; her costume is ripped and bloodstained, but she seems unharmed under it. "Stop this fighting," she tells everyone in a voice which doesn't brook much argument. When this doesn't have much effect she pulls the large assault blaster off her back and points it at the group in general.
Back inside the plane, Truth is still keeping the Cull creature unconscious. She can't help notice Blitz come flying in through the door with a rocket-propelled spiky head stuck in his chest - not something you see every day! Blitz manages to remove the head from his chest, and throws it away. It ricochets about the cabin.
Outside, the woman tells the Amazon that she has surrendered and handed herself over to the London Knights. Everyone is dubious about this.
Noesis tells her to put down her mental defences. Eventually she agrees, and Noesis tries to read her surface thoughts. Unfortunately, the decentralised nature of her mind means that he can't actually lock on enough to read her mind. He calls for Truth, who comes down out of the plane, and after things are explained tries to mind control the woman. Silver vapours swirl around the woman, but again the attack has no effect.
"Perhaps you'll have better luck next time, little girl," says the woman, patronisingly.
Blitz recovers and goes towards the head. The head also pulls itself together, turns off its rockets and opens its eyes. Blitz, still thinking it's hostile fires at it.
Outside, Truth tries to mind control the woman again. Again, it has no effect. The woman suggests that she tries some easier targets first, to practise. Truth says she has, and they are no problem - for example, John Doe. The woman says she entirely understands.
Inside the plane John Doe tells Blitz to stop fighting. Blitz does. John Doe transforms into Avenger, picks up the unconscious Cull (ignoring the fact that the sharp edges on Cull armours cuts his hands) and heads out of the plane.
Outside, Chronos draws his blaster again, but before he can fire one of the woman's arms extends into a long tentacle and grows a large blade at the tip with which she cuts Chronos' blaster in half. The tentacle shrinks back into an arm. The woman wags a finger at Chronos.
John Doe charges down the stairs from the plane, Cull held to use as a club on the woman. "NO," the Amazon tells him. John Doe is suddenly gripped by an irrational fear frenzy and leaps to the attack, swinging Cull. Unfortunately the blood on his hands means he loses his grip on Cull, who flies off, landing on the runway some way away. John Doe leaps into the air and rockets off, gripped with fear.
The woman tells the group that she wishes to speak to her child (John Doe, that is), and says that she won't hurt anyone here or in London if she's allowed to so. It is pointed out that her child is currently flying towards the horizon at high speed. She shrugs.
The woman mentions that for the sake of argument they can call her Shikari.
Truth goes back into the aircraft, and raids the galley for all the good stuff that's there, leaving what she doesn't want for everyone else. She also visits the cockpit, worrying the pilot and co-pilot a bit, and generally searches the plane. She does find a synopsis of events since the London Knights went into Canary Wharf, and once she's finished her poking around, settles down to read it.
Noesis making a telepathic link to John Doe (who is still visible by the glare of his rockets), and eventually manages to break him out of his fear frenzy. He tells John Doe to come back. He starts to return.
The Amazon asks the London Knights and Shikari to leave her country.
Blitz and Chronos don't want to go on the plane with John Doe's 'mother'. A sensible attitude. Chronos considers sing his powers to return home, then considers that he'll have to walk (or run) all of the 6000km or so back to London. Even for him, it'll take a while, as he still has to eat, sleep and rest.
They suspect that Shikari will use the opportunity of getting to London to kill lots of people there. She points out that she can go there and do that whenever she wants to anyway.
John Doe returns.
Eventually everyone is persuaded to go back to London on the plane provided by the Amazon. Partly by the Amazon getting increasingly insistent that she wants everyone out of her country now please.
The Amazon quickly checks out the plane (inside and out) to ensure it is still air-worthy, flying up into the air to do so. After a bit she pronounces it fit to fly. Everyone piles on board, and the plane takes off. Blitz and Chronos are not particularly happy.
As the plane heads for London John Doe asks Shikari lots of questions about himself and her, most of which she just doesn't answer. How irritating. She seems to have read all of his memories, and copied his alien genetic codes. This doesn't stop her asking him how he came by them anyway.
She does mention that John Doe is damaged, something from long ago, she thinks, and asks his permission to heal him. He agrees, and she reaches out and merges her hand with his. John Doe feels something being fixed within him which had been broken for so long he was unaware it was even broken; it had just become part of his existence. She withdraws her hand, and says he will now no longer forget when he puts himself into hibernation. He asks about his memories of his past, but she says that they have gone, and she cannot recover them. Ah well.
She is asked where she gets her morality (or lack of same) from. She says that most of it comes from humanity. They ask why she isn't the head of Viper, rather than working for it. She shrugs, and says she could be if she wanted to be, but it would be so tedious.
Also, as the plane travels, Servo uses the parts and equipment provided by the Amazon to do a lot of repair and upgrade work on his armour, so that by the time they arrive it looks better than new.
Eventually the plane lands at Heathrow. As it comes in to land, Shikari says that in a million years John Doe will have learned enough, and she will begin to hunt him down. She says that by that time he will have learnt enough to have become the most dangerous prey, good to hunt. John Doe considers this, then agrees. By a million years hence he reckons he'll have become bored enough to go for it...
Also, John Doe makes fake passports out of his flesh for everyone but Shikari. Probably not the most convincing ones ever, but they should do the trick. They think.
Once the plane has landed, and attached itself to a boarding tunnel, the pilot comes out of the cockpit and says good bye to everyone. He seems a bit nervous. Funny that.
Truth desolidifies out of the door into the end of the boarding tunnel. A couple of airport personnel are rather taken aback by this. She heads through the walls, and makes her way to the Heathrow tube station, where she starts to make her way back into central London.
In the plane, Shikari shapechanges her Viper uniform into a smart business suit. The door of the plane is opened, and everyone leaves. They head off for passport control. John Doe is looking like Avenger again, and carrying a big bag.
Everyone is let through passport control. The customs officers don't seem too inclined to make a fuss abut this bunch of superhumans. The group can't help but notice another customs officer off to one side making a phone call. They try to accuse Shikari of being a supervillain, but she shrugs this off and produces a passport saying her name is Elaine Chang and she too is let through.
As they go through customs 'Avenger' is asked to open his bag. He does so, but has things obviously in hidden compartments. When he's asked to open them, they move around. After a little bit of this the customs officers arrest him, and take him off. As he's led away, he says good-bye to 'mum'. She waves after him.
They leave the airport terminal and head for taxis, Noesis telekinetically carrying the still-unconscious Cull. The remainder of the London Knights pile into a black cab, apart from Blitz. Shikari heads for another cab, but can't resist some parting comments. Blitz blasts her (that short temper again), to no visible effect. Her cab drives off.
Blitz flies off towards STOP HQ. Servo heads for Colmar Technology. The remaining London Knights tell the cabby to take them to STOP headquarters, too.
Back at customs, John Doe gets intensively questioned. After a bit he gets bored of this, does a puddle impersonation, and trickles away, being pursued and stamped upon (to no effect) by customs officers until he trickles down a drain.
He reforms outside the airport, turns into a giant toad and hops off towards STOP HQ.
The group in the taxi can't help noticing the giant toad hopping past them (it's largely ignoring the traffic congestion). Noesis telepathically identifies it as John Doe, and so it is ignored.
The tube train Truth is riding reaches central London. Truth picks up a change of clothes from one of her hidey-holes (there are lots of places to stash clothes which can only be entered when desolid) and heads off to the Salvation Army place where she used to work.
Blitz arrives at STOP HQ in north London. He arranges a conference room for himself, the rest of the London Knights, and some STOP people. D.I. Dickinson arrives as he is doing this, and they wait together in the conference room.
After a while John Doe hops up. He changes into Avenger, but (having been hassled before by STOP for looking like Avenger), changes one arm into a bunch of bananas so they can tell it is him and not really Avenger. He is ushered to the conference room.
A little while later everyone else arrives. Cull is handed over to STOP to be looked after. They wheel him away. They too are ushered to the conference room, where John Doe's 'mother' is discussed.
In the East End, Truth arrives at the Salvation Army and goes in. They don't seem to be too happy to see her, and finds out that someone posing as her, who they have often seen 'tarting' as they put it, in the East End pubs, had told the Salvation Army where to get off, and that because of this impostor she is no longer welcome there. Not good. When asked where she has been if the person they've been seeing for the last six months was an impostor, Truth says she was kidnapped by Aliens (the truth!); strangely this doesn't go down too well. She does ask them the last place she was seen. She gets a funny look, but it told she was in the 'Dog and Rabbit' last Saturday.
She leaves, and phone's Noesis. She tells him what has happened.
She then goes to the area where the impersonator was last seen.
Truth goes to find some of her contacts from the old days (before she became a superheroine), saying that she was really out of the country for the last six months. After a while she finds one who says she's gone back to her old ways after being in the Salvation Army (they think she was pulling a scam on then), and is often around in the East End pubs. And says she's become a bit of a goer, too, kissing Truth. Truth fobs him off, but does get a drink off him.
Truth carries on her investigations.
Back at STOP HQ the rest of the group tell their story. Dickinson initially suggests psychiatric help for everyone when alien abduction is mentioned, but starts to listen after a bit, especially when John Doe turns into a Brood for him.
As an aside, he says he knows nothing about the Black Hammers, or the ATD.
The group ask him to inform STOP's American counterpart, SAT (Special American Tactics). He sends someone to do so.
Truth carries on searching for more on her impostor, talking to lots of her old contacts and making her presence felt, using any means she can - mind control, persuasion and the like, preferring to question people who are drunk as they're less likely to notice. She is operating on her own to avoid revealing too much about her past to the group...
Chronos briefly leaves and zips to Canary Wharf to have a look around.
D.I. Dickinson can't support the group at present as they will be thought of as mad, and more importantly they have no physical evidence which could convince him they are on the level.
Chronos arrives at Canary Wharf. He sees a security guard behind the locked front doors, so zips round to a fire door and breaks in using his superior strength. Alarms go off. He rushes about in fast-time, looking for the door in the back of a lift shaft through they entered the building core the last time. As he rushes about he breaks the alarms wherever he finds them. A bit too late, really.
He finds the door after a while, and forces the fake panelling off the back of the lift shaft to reveal the real door. Two panels, above and below, open and blaster lift out on mechanical arms, firing at him. He dodges, then hips rapidly back to STOP and tells everyone what happened.
D.I. Dickinson decides this is probably enough to go on for now. Everyone heads for canary Wharf, apart for Sven, who decides to stay at STOP HQ.
Chronos zips back ahead of everyone else, and goes in through the fire door he's already broken, up to the security guard. He tells the guard that he should leave the tower, or there's a chance he could get hurt. The guard asks for a warrant. Chronos says it's on the way. The guard says he'll stay until it arrives - he's got his job to think about, then gets on the phone to someone and tells them what's happening.
Off in the East End, Truth gets a phone call from D.I. Dickinson asking her to join the rest of the group at Canary Wharf. Truth starts to make her way there, then decides that finding her impostor is more important than perhaps saving the world from alien invaders, and goes back into the East End to continue her search.
The London Knights who were at STOP HQ arrive at Canary Wharf, along with D.I. Dickinson and three STOP vans. Servo (who was also called by D.I. Dickinson) flies up too. They discuss what to do.
Noesis suggests demolishing the Canary Wharf tower. Dickinson is very against this citing property damage and loss of life. However, he is prepared to start evacuating the area.
Chronos is all for entering the core of the tower through the same door as they used last time. Servo and D.I. Dickinson are very against this, thinking that it is a stupid idea, especially after John Doe describes what happened last time - they cut through the doors, went into an empty room with more door in front of them, more door covered the hole out, and concealed blasters cut everyone down.
It is suggested that missile launchers are set up nearby to shoot down the tower when (if) it takes off. Dickinson looks even more sceptical about this idea, and with good reason.
Eventually it is agreed that Servo will cut through the wall of the core of the tower in a different place to where they entered previously. The group enter the tower, and start to do just this.
Session 3.7 Index Session 3.9
Events While the Characters Were Away