Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Session 1.10 Index Session 2.2
Events Between Parts 1 and 2
Molinya, using some of the cash she and Napalm took off various mafioski, presents everyone with a new cell phone; they seem to have a lot of pre-paid credit - at least no-one has had a bill yet.
Akula has figured out how to radioactively heat himself to avoid his water form's freezing in the winter chill. Napalm's fire powers seem to have increased their potency, and she has been living with Mother Bear, out of pity on Mother Bear's part.
It is normal February weather - temperatures from -5 to -12 degrees Celsius, and it snows a lot.
Napalm wants to spend the $5000 they were given by the Guardians - she has run out of cash, having spent her share of the loot she and Molinya acquired on booze (especially since she started having really bad dreams recently). The others object to this and it is left in their bank account.
Mirov is currently out of the city - busy.
General Winter is also busy with unknown matters (well, as far as the rest of the group is concerned).
Mother Bear wants to investigate her feelings of 'discomfort a long way off to the North East'. She discusses this with Napalm and Akula, and as a result a train journey is planned. They decide to go to Krasnoyarsk, on the Yenisei River in Siberia, about halfway across Russia from Moscow and investigate further from there.
In their civilian identities they go to Yaroslavl station, on Komsomolskaya Ploshchad, that being where trains to and from Siberia (as well as other places) are found. It is just outside the Garden Ring in the north-east of the city, on the unpleasant Young Communists (Three Stations) Square, a 'style moderne' buildings with a big hooded arch covered in reliefs of Arctic fisherman and Soviet crests.
They queue and tickets to Krasnoyarsk (halfway to the Pacific coast) are purchased. They cost $500 for the three of them, a price which is somewhat reduced from the original when Mother Bear pays in US dollars. The train goes at 2pm tomorrow (Tuesday) and arrives in Krasnoyarsk at 8pm Thursday (well, that's what the timetable says anyway).
While they queue Napalm goes looking for alcohol (though she has no cash) and gets kicked out of a bar in the station for drinking the dregs from the glasses once people are done with them.
Both Mother Bear and Akula will have to take leave from work and spouses as appropriate. All the Dollars will be taken along. Food, drink and warm clothing will also have to be purchased.
The three have just met up and stepped outside the station when Captain Ostranko (The police's Superhuman Liaison Officer) calls all their mobile phones. He says a monster has appeared in Otradnoe, the industrial/high rise area of northern Moscow, has wiped out a patrol car, and is attacking Nikolai's Bar (a mafioski haunt discovered in part 1).
They depart for the scene by flight (Napalm), the sewers (Akula) and an old official taxi - a pale blue Volga (Mother Bear, following some negotiation with the taxi driver regarding the fare; he's only taking her to Dimitrovskaya Metro station, still a couple of kilometres from the scene).
In his business meeting General Winter also receives the call from Captain Ostranko and gets Adrik, his driver and manservant, to take him to the scene.
In Otradnoe, Napalm arrives at Nikolai's bar - it is a warehouse-like building on a street of similar buildings and run-down tower blocks. The place is on fire and has been smashed into. Several cars (including a police car) and a truck lie wrecked in the street.
Napalm puts out the fire, sucking all the flames into herself.
As she does this a ten foot tall creature smashes out through the wall of the bar and sees her. It is hugely broad (8 feet across the shoulders) with four hugely thick and muscular arms and thick, leathery, but Caucasian-coloured skin. Its head, and indeed the whole top of its shoulders is covered by a-canoe like structure - a helmet or something?
Napalm attacks; her fire blasts seem to cause it great pain, but she can see its wounds visibly closing, though not as fast as she can do damage to it. It picks up a car and throws it; Napalm dodges nimbly.
While Napalm blasts it, it throws cars and debris at her. Occasional near misses on Napalm cause some collateral damage on the local area, but nothing too serious. Her continued attacks break open one side of the 'canoe' to reveal several human heads inside - some very burnt, all looking mad, drooling, and very angry! Napalm recognises one of them as Boris, another Afghan War veteran from the Foundation!
Akula arrives, flowing up out of a drain (and leaving all the gunk of the sewers behind!). He sees what is happening and fires a fan of water at the ground around the monster to cover it with ice and make it fall over - it eventually freezes but the monster has stepped away by then.
Napalm takes a glancing blow from a car and fluffs her shot - hitting a nearby building. The monster roars in triumph. Akula hits it with his immobilisation power; it isn't stopped, but it is definitely slowed. Akula keeps doing this.
Mother Bear's taxi eventually arrives at Dimitrovskaya Metro station - which is still some distance from the scene, as the driver was charging extortionate amounts to go into Otradnoe. She ducks into an alley, changes to Mother Bear form and charges off towards the action.
Adrik drives General Winter's limo to the scene, and he is dropped off 'round the block'. He transforms into Superhero guise and approaches the scene on his ice slide.
Napalm focuses a tight beam of fire on one of the creature's heads - one on one side, not Boris - it goes through the eye and the head slumps limply, apparently dead. The other heads roar in pain and the creature fights on - slower than before, though. [OOC: NB - the monster is NOT Wurzel Gummidge!]
Akula blasts it again - it turns towards him.
General Winter arrives on the scene. Icy winds and snow swirl from his hands, encasing the monster in a huge (7m on a side) block of ice - up to but not including its heads.
Napalm continues to fire on it. Akula tries to stop her by firing a jet of water at her flame to deflect it - he misses but she notices and stops.
The creature continues to struggle. Cracks appear in the ice holding it so that General Winter has to keep reinforcing the ice block.
Mother Bear arrives. She turns into human form.
Napalm absorbs some fires she started in nearby buildings.
General Winter goes to talk to the monster. It says nothing coherent, just frothing, snarling and staring madly. He has to keep repairing the ice to keep it imprisoned. The 'canoe' is removed.
Close up it is clear that the monster has been assembled from parts - there are lines (scars) of healed wounds all over it in a patchwork, as if it has been sewn together. There is also a strange chemical smell, Mother Bear notices.
One of the heads is Boris, an ex-veteran, previously cured of psychological problems! Another is Vladimir, another 'cured' veteran Napalm knows. She thinks about it and says they all went to Dr Borodinsky at the Veterans Foundation and the new doctor, Dr. Viktor Xavierovitch Stregoi, treated them. Three or four months ago they were discharged, apparently cured.
Napalm is not happy - she proposes putting them all out of their misery. Akula objects to this. The others aren't sure.
Sirens are heard and the police arrive, two police cars coming in, one from each direction. The group speculates that the police were lurking round the corner until they had dealt with the dangerous stuff, but there's no evidence for this.
The police begin to seal off the area and look for clues.
Akula senses a radiation source flying nearby (he is the only one who can detect it) - it feels to him like a ball of X-rays. It flits about, a couple of stories up. He watches for a while, then blasts it. It dodges but he hits it on his second shot. The blast is dispersed by it, around the 'ball', but at least this reveals the object to the others. Water (fired by Akula) and snow (fired by General Winter) go straight through it, as does fire (from Napalm with Akula's help in aiming) - which then goes on to destroy a window in a nearby tower block!
General Winter records the scene with a police camera.
An ambulance arrives and one of the paramedics reluctantly sedates each head as Napalm holds her in the air. The heads go unconscious.
The police call for a low loader to carry the creature off and once it arrives the police winch it, and its huge ice cube (reduced in size a bit by General Winter so it fits on the truck at all), onto a low loader. Other police cars and ambulances arrive.
People speculate about hurting the X-ray ball with lead. A cop offers his gun - "I've got some lead right here." Akula borrows it and shoots at the radiation source. The bullets go straight through.
Akula gets really mad and fires continually at the source with his paralysis beam. Several of his shots are reflected back - he is temporarily paralysed each time that happens but continues regardless. He tries absorbing its radiation (but can't do that, and it is 10m or more away). He tries to pump it full of radiation - it reflects some, dissipates some, and absorbs some. General Winter cools the area as it becomes visible by doing this - and suddenly it disappears.
The monster is driven off on the low-loader truck (it has healed all the wounds except that on the dead head) - Napalm and Mother Bear follow; Napalm flies alongside; Mother Bear sits by the creature on the truck. Several police cars and an ambulance escort the lorry too. They drive to the Altuferskoe Shosse and north to the Moscow Ring Road where they turn east.
General Winter and Akula investigate the scene. The monster appears to have burst from inside the wrecked truck, which appears to have been directly outside Nikolai's. In the back is the wreckage of a huge chair with leather straps at the wrists and ankles plus empty IV bags on the wall behind it, the IV tubes torn loose. They ask the police to check out its registration number. It looks like the sedative's running out released the creature.
Akula questions onlookers trying to find some witnesses, with little success.
In the convoy some of the heads seem to be coming round. Mother Bear puts them back under by hitting them. Their struggling weakens the ice cube. The cycle is repeated as the heads wake and are knocked out again, but the cube is getting weaker.
The lorry slows and turns into the Losniy Ostrov park, for public safety in case the creature gets free. The police radio for help, but the only forces the Moscow police really have to deal with super-powered threats are the Moscow Superheroes.
As the creature regains consciousness once more and the block takes more damage Mother Bear and Napalm start killing heads. But before they finish - with only one head remaining (Boris) - the creature cracks the block of ice asunder and gets up.
The creature picks up the entire low loader and swings it at Napalm. She ducks aside but having to do so makes her miss with her own shot. Mother Bear slashes a knee out from under it. It stumbles to one knee causing it to miss with its next low loader attack. It reaches for Mother Bear with its arms, grabbing her, and she bear hugs it in return. She finds that the creature is stronger, so Mother Bear switches to biting. As she does the creature pummels her brutally with its two spare arms. Napalm blasts its good leg, causing it to slump to the ground, taking Mother Bear with it. Mother Bear bites the front of its remaining head off. The creature goes limp and slumps to the ground. The low-loader falls with a crash.
Napalm zips down and pulls the driver and co-driver from their smashed up cab as the police and ambulance crews from the escorting vehicles rush over. The low-loader crew have various broken bones but will be OK with medical treatment. The ambulance takes them away.
Another van arrives to take away the monsters body. It is no longer healing its wounds!
Back at the Nikolai's Bar, no witnesses come forward to Akula.
He and General Winter examine the destroyed truck. It is unmarked and looks fairly new. The registration, engine and chassis numbers are taken down. The cab contains nothing useful in the way of clues - it looks as if it has been deliberately stripped of possible evidence.
The creature's body is driven, with its escort, Napalm and Mother Bear, back to the Moscow Ring Road and around to Shosse Entuziastov, then back into the city, eventually arriving at the stucco and stone Lubyanka, headquarters of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FCIS) with no further incident. Captain Sulko (who helped them before in the Sleeper affair) meets them. Details of the incident, and the heads whom Napalm knows, are handed over to him. He says he'll see what he can found out.
Back at Nikolai's Bar, a policeman comes over with the information that the truck belongs to Lurmentov Electronics, and was purchased with cash last week. They phone Napalm and Mother Bear and the four of them compare notes before splitting up for the night.
Napalm visits the Afghan Veteran's Foundation (and, for her and others rehabilitation centre). She meets a few other veterans and talks to them about Boris and Vladimir, not finding out anything she didn't know anyway. She scrounges a drink from some of them - some really hideous moonshine, just the sort of thing she's used to. She thinks about going to Dr Borodinski's office (she should go every week, but it's been six weeks or so since she's made it), then doesn't.
Akula, General Winter and Mother Bear go to sort out their details before the trip.
Akula asks the head of the Moscow State University reactor facility, for which he works as Chief Reactor Technician, for some leave. As Vladimir Kutuzov is the most valued employee at the reactor facility, his boss is quite happy to give him a bit of leave.
General Winter just tells his people he's going to be away for a while.
Mother Bear, as Ludmilla Karolevna, returns home and is greeted by her large family. She tells her husband that she'll be off work for a while, and asks him to pass on her excuses - she'll be 'visiting the workers organisation at a sister factory (to the tractor factory she works in) in Krasnoyarsk'.
She and her husband retire to spend a last night together...