Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Session 2.8 Index Session 2.10
Molinya has finished bumping off her latest lot of drug dealers in St Petersburg. She knows of a new drug delivery arriving in a few days, but has decided to come to Moscow in the meantime to assist us with our problems, and see what really happened to them in Siberia.
Two days ago, in Moscow, Andrey Vladimirovich Sichul (aka Nut), has just woken up in his apartment above his shop which he was pleased to find still intact when he returned, although he pays a lot of 'insurance' to make this so. As he opens up the shop he sights a large black BMW parked across the street. He puts the kettle on, expecting visitors. A few minutes later a couple of large men get out of the BMW and enter the shop. Andrey does not recognise them though, and is wary of them. They do not appear to be armed but Andrey scans them lightly to see their intentions - they are here to intimidate him lightly, nothing more.
"Ah, Andrey Vladimirovich!" says the more intelligent-looking one of the pair in a highly over-familiar way given that Andrey has never seen him before.
"Dear good, erm, ur, sirs how may I be of erm, assistance to you?" stutters Andrey.
"Shut up shop - we wish to speak to you," he says.
Andrey shuts up shop, checking the BMW and seeing it is now empty as he does so. He takes them into his back room, where the tea is brewing.
Glasses of tea are provided. Andrey asks them nicely, but nervously, to take care, as some of the items in the room are 'important to his business'. He telepathically but unobtrusively scans them to see what is going on.
"You have suffered a change in management Andrey Vladimirovich. Vladimir," (the previous incumbent), "has, shall we say, retired from the business."
"Ah, erm, but business will be as usual though?"
"Indeed, yes."
The thug introduces himself as 'Mr Alexander.' Business matters are discussed - import, export, the high price of insurance, the avoidance of tax liabilities, documentation authentication, and other such topics. It is agreed that all business should continue without 'any hitch'.
Then Mr Alexander says, "There are some items in the city of Karkhov (in the Ukraine), a couple of icons, which we require authenticated and carried back here to Moscow. You will have to leave immediately."
Andrey says yes, on the basis that the second thug appears to be hoping that he will say no and he will get to 'persuade' Andrey. He gathers his equipment, mostly sealed boxes, packs a suitcase, and follows them to the BMW.
Andrey if flown out of Moscow in the company of the two thugs, and spends a couple of nights in Karkhov. He confirms the icons as authentic. They used to belong to a high ranking Ukrainian Communist who needs to sell them to avoid local Ukrainian Mafioski doing nasty things to him and his family. It is illegal to sell Ukrainian religious relics out of the country. On the other hand this is a relatively mild crime for the Mafioski.
Mr Alexander, it turns out from surreptitious mind-scanning, works for the Viper organisation, who are currently consolidating their hold on organised crime in Moscow. Andrey knows little of Viper, but spends some time while they are together reading what he can from the thugs' surface thoughts.
Andrey gathers some intelligence from Mr Alexander's mind about Viper:
On returning to Moscow and his apartment early in the morning of the 28th February, Andrey is rewarded for his trouble with an envelope filled with American Dollars - equivalent to about ten days worth of normal turnover. Whoopee!
Andrey decides to find out where the mansion he says in Mr Alexander's mind is. He is wondering how he will contact the Moscow Super heroes when he turns on the TV news (on his old black and white set) and sees a report of interest:
"Live from outside Belarus Station! There is a stand-off between the Moscow Super Heroes and some unknown super villains!" The TV picture shows the station, still working despite damage from the attack of the Sleeper six months ago, the shattered remains of a van, lots of ice, General Winter (looking injured), twelve attractive blond women hovering in the air having guns pointed at them by many police officers, two singed people next to Napalm, a large black metal woman being held by mother bear and a tiger wrapped up in something unidentifiable.
Andrey heads off towards Belarus Station. He catches the bus.
Molinya is heading through the sky, in lightening form, towards Moscow. She rings Napalm as she enters the Moscow mobile phone network. Napalm answers and describes the 'situation' at the station. Molinya says she will "join you shortly." She looks for a railway track and enters it in lightning form, travelling towards Belarus station at the speed of light.
Akula, back in water form, leaves the remains of the van and asks Napalm where his double went. "To a better place," replies Napalm!
Solstice looks at the police below her, from twelve different angles. She discusses terms with Napalm. The police insist on attempting to arrest them all. Solstice is amused.
At this point Molinya emerges, with a clap of thunder, from one of the railway lines in the station. Napalm beckons her outside and introduces her to Solstice. Solstice knows of Molinya. Napalm describes the situation to Molinya - basically Solstice wants us to release her friends or she will release more canoe-helmeted monsters into the city.
The bus Andrey is riding on makes good speed through the city until it arrives at the traffic jam that has formed near the scene at Belarus Station. Andrey gets off. He heads for a quiet area, darkness descends in that area and Nut appears. She approaches the scene and joins the rest of the group.
Molinya touches the black metal woman and discharges a few volts - nothing appears to happen. She jumps into her metal body, which starts to crackle with electricity. She emerges a few minutes later, having found that the woman is solid black metal but not having done her more harm than that.
Akula suggests we 'Get them.' Napalm is not enthusiastic about this idea.
Molinya attacks all twelve of the figures in the sky with a bolt of chain lightning. She hits them all, but has no effect. Nut leaps into the air to attack one, but she goes straight through. Akula blasts one of the figures with his paralysis beam. This time it gets reflected back onto Napalm, who tries to dodge but is hit anyway and slowed, but not immobilised. Napalm toasts the two figures on the ground again, just in case they get away while she is slowed - well, that is her excuse later. Mother Bear protests "Oi! Napalm, No! Bad Napalm!"
All the various bits of Mirov convulse and then go limp. The tiger breaks free of Mirov's now limp bonds. Molinya, who has been winding up a large charge in the meantime to use on Solstice, spots the new target and lets loose. The tiger takes the lightning bolt full on, shrieks, and convulses, falling to the ground. Molinya investigates and finds the tiger stunned and unconscious, as she planned. It is slowly reverting back to Eskimo form. The woman is handed over to the police.
It seems that The Operator is still unconscious, if more singed than before, but Dr Stregoi is now dead... The two of them, dead and unconscious, are handed over to the police too.
Nut searches for the mind of Solstice with her telepathy. It is not in any of the visible bodies but much higher up in the air where there is nothing to be seen. It is a strong and not very happy mind.
She approaches a police officer and takes his gun off of him after a struggle. Other cops point guns at her. Nut points the gun, an automatic pistol, in the air in the direction of the mind she has detected.
Nut pulls the trigger, but the gun jams. Akula demands to know what she is doing. "The evil slut is not where she appears to be!" explains Nut.
"What?"
Nut focuses darkness on the area of Solstices mind, which has moved since she first detected it.
Napalm fishes the bit of Mirov she was carrying out of her pocket. He dribbles through her fingers. Molinya tries an electric shock to revive him. He twitches but shows no other signs of life. Napalm wipes him off her hand onto the dead body of the Doctor.
Darkness forms in a patch in the sky. "Ouch, that stings you bitch!" says the twelve Solstices.
"Fire at the darkness, that is where she is!" shouts Nut. All the cops, Akula, Napalm and Molinya open fire on the darkness with their various attacks. Nut pre-emptively dodges but it doesn't work - a bolt of blue white light pierces her through the shoulder. Nut swears liberally.
Molinya comments "There is something wrong here, we are in a battle between darkness (Nut) and light (Solstice) but we are on the side of Dark!"
"You will regret this!" exclaims Solstice, and disappears.
"The powers of darkness triumph yet again!" gloats Nut.
Mother Bear is still holding the Black metal woman, Tungsten, but it is taking all of her strength now that Mirov, who was also wrapping Tungsten up, seems to have liquefied. Tungsten vomits up the bits of Mirov that where stuck in her throat.
Nut suggests dropping Tungsten into the middle of the Atlantic. "It will take her a long time to walk back." The Atlantic is chosen on Molinya's suggestion so that when Tungsten inevitably does walk out she will only trouble capitalists. Dropping her into Lake Superior is also suggested for the same reason. Nut says she can do it tonight, after dark. Molinya grabs a couple of girders from the station rebuilding and ties up the Black Metal Woman's legs with them, assisted by Mother Bear who keeps hold of her.
The policeman demands his gun back from Nut. She returns it.
All of the Mirov bits are scraped up and placed into a bucket half-filled with solid concrete that is borrowed from the building site. He appears to be deeply unconscious. All three separate bits of him seem to have liquified, but are not mixing together.
Napalm heals her wound with her healing box. Nut doesn't want to be healed as she has taken the attack on her as a personal affront.
Captain Ostranko arrives in a police car. He comes over and wants to know what is going on. We say that the group was responsible for the canoe-helmeted monsters and that Solstice is now going to release the rest of them. Molinya talks to Tungsten, then we discuss selling Tungsten for scrap metal, then about turning her over to the American's for sinister research. Tungsten does not look at all impressed by this talk.
Ostranko says it is good to see Molinya but she is doing good work in St Petersburg. Nut is introduced to Ostranko.
Molinya hits Tungsten with a girder. It has no effect. Then she tries to pump electricity into the woman. This also has no effect.
Then we discuss Mirov. Napalm tries the healing box on him, to no effect. She says the box cannot help General Winter, so it isn't used on him (there is no evidence for this one way or the other in reality, but no one disputes her statement).
Akula gets a paramedic from one of the ambulances which has arrived to help General Winter, who is not looking at all well. On the way he sees the people he water-cannoned out of the way of General Winter's ice column being treated by other paramedics. The General does manage to encase Tungsten in a block of ice so she is doubly immobilised. The paramedic starts treating General Winter.
Nut takes Mother Bear aside and tells her that Viper have moved into Moscow. Headed by Dr V.
General Winter is patched up as much as possible and taken away to a private hospital for treatment. There is some discussion about how to help Mirov - no conclusions are reached, so he is left in the bucket for now.
Ostranko finally agrees that they probably cannot contain the Black Metal Woman. There is much discussion about what to do. Ostranko wanders off, shaking his head.
Molinya dials 1-800-THEGUARDIANS, their toll-free number. When the phone is answered, she explains (after the person at the other end switches to perfect Russian), "This is Molinya of the Moscow Superheroes Team, we have here a super villain by the name of Tungsten and we are having some concern as to how to dispose of her. Plan A is to drop her into Lake Superior and thus avoid us having to deal with her. However, if you have any other suggestions, we would like to hear them."
"Putting you through," says the voice at the other end, hastily.
"Hello, This is Magus." (The leader of the Guardians)
"Hello, this is Molinya..." She repeats what she said to the first person who answered.
"I personally have not heard of her before. What did you mean by Lake Superior?"
"We have noticed some reluctance in the past to help us, it was a ploy to get your attention, although it is a much favoured plan."
"I would seriously recommend against that course of action."
Some discussion about sending her to, or avoiding capitalist nations ensues.
Magus agrees to have somebody look into it and will phone us back. He does not bother taking our number and hangs up.
Mother Bear phones Ostranko and gets him to organise an early preliminary judicial hearing for Tungsten. He contacts us some time later (amid much discussion about how to detain Tungsten) with a time of midday - which is in two hours time.
Molinya goes down into the sewers and searches them for clues.
Mother Bear and Akula stand watch over Tungsten.
Napalm and Nut play with the bits of Mirov. Mother Bear and Akula occasionally tell them to stop when they get carried away.
Molinya finds various homeless people living in the dryer areas of the sewers. She questions them about canoe-helmeted monsters. One has not seen anything; the other is not in a fit state to answer questions. She gets hold of some of her Moscow stash of cash (hidden where Napalm cannot find and drink it) before returning to the others.
Nut gets some cash - she enters a public toilet cubical, turns into Andrey, who has cash. Andrey puts the cash on the floor and then turns back into Nut. Nut picks up the cash and leaves the toilets. Complex.
After about an hour all of our mobile phones go off at once. It is Captain Ostranko. He says that canoe-helmeted monsters are attacking across the city - at Moscow State University, the Kremlin, the White House (the Russian Parliament), and Police Headquarters. Ostranko says he is calling from a police car away from police HQ.
Mother Bear stays behind to guard Tungsten. Akula heads off to the university (as he has ties there). Molinya heads off to police headquarters (as she has ties there). Napalm (as the fastest moving of the group) will drop Nut off at the Kremlin and then carry on to the White House. Mirov stays to 'help' Mother Bear; he is decanted into a petrol can obtained from a police officer.
Akula goes down the sewers, into a fast-flowing ring main and swims for the University.
Napalm arrives at the Kremlin. In a back alley a black van has been parked near to St Basil's Cathedral. The van has been torn apart from the inside and the monster inside has broken into the Kremlin through its walls and is breaking things inside it. Nut is put on the ground outside the Kremlin and Napalm flies off.
Molinya arrives at the police headquarters. There are lots of dead police around, and a large hole in the back of the headquarters building. Gunfire can be heard from inside.
Akula arrives at the university, finds broken pipes, broken vans and then a broken building. He follows the trail of the monster.
Napalm arrives at the White House. Again, there is a van nearby which has been torn apart, a large hole in the wall, and dead security guards. Inside she finds various dead office workers and a trail of destruction that quickly leads to the monster. Napalm burns off a head or two and draws the monster out of the building, dodging variously large chunks of masonry that the monster throws at her (though she does get a bit bruised by near-misses).
Nut too quickly locates 'her' monster and finds it has one not very strong mind. She finds the canoe-shaped helmet has been sewn on as per the monster being put together out of parts. She attacks it using martial arts and tries to smash the helmet. She does this, the helmet smashes and she sees that there are four heads underneath, all mad-looking and frothing. Nut kicks one of the heads, trying to knock it out, and backs off. She uses acrobatics to avoid its attack, and also uses a cloud of darkness to keep out of its reach.
Molinya enters the police station and finds the monster facing a barricade behind which police officers are making what is probably their last stand. She lightning bolts the monster at close range. A large hole appears in it, which starts to heal visibly. She then sweeps it's legs out from under it, and it falls. Keeping it disorientated she drags it out of the building, bashing it on all the rubble on the way. Outside the station she swings the monster around and clubs its heads (or at least its helmet) onto the floor.
At the University, Akula locates the monster and does repeated paralysis blasts at it. It slows, but it will still be moving when it reaches him. He flows into a puddle and appears behind it.
At the train station, Tungsten is loaded on to back of a police low-loader truck that has arrived. Mother Bear, in human form, joins Tungsten on the back of the truck.
At the White House Napalm is distracted by the monster throwing blocks of concrete at her, but it is lured out of the building. Fortuitously the damage it has done to the building has left a large overhanging chunk of masonry over the hole it made, held up only by a couple of reinforcing rods. Napalm, more or less uninjured, burns through the rods, the huge slab of concrete falls, and the monster is crushed underneath. It tries to break free but before it can get loose Napalm blasts it until it is dead.
At the Kremlin the monster, heads exposed but the one Nut knocked out no longer bleeding or unconscious, staggers back towards Nut, flailing wildly in the darkness. Nut's area of darkness expands to fill most of the room and Nut attacks the monster under its cover. Unfortunately she has trouble knocking its heads out - they are recovering too quickly so that when she knocks one or two out they have recovered before she can knock out the rest. She reverts to attempting to break its necks and starts to succeed at this.
At Police Headquarters the monster lands on its helmet, which splits open (as does the road surface underneath). Molinya swings the monster back and forth into the pavement, knocking some of the heads out. It breaks free after a couple of blows and advances on Molinya, but she dodges out of the way. She heads away from crowded areas and leads/prods the monster towards the nearby Yauza river (a small river which flows through the city into the Moscow River). People flee before them and traffic screeches to a halt nearby, but the monster's attention is clearly focused on Molinya.
At the University Akula blasts the monster. It slows at each blast but then reaches a point where it will slow no more. Akula dodges as the monster throws a couple of vast chucks of rubble, and attempts to knock the monster off its feet with a water blast. Unfortunately the first attempt at this fails.
At the White House Napalm examines the body of the monster, recognising some of the heads as more ex-Afghanistan veterans. She is unhappy at this, but heads off to the nearest other incident - the Kremlin.
The flat bed truck drives off, away from Belarus Station. It heads for the Moscow Ring Road, then turns north around it, anti-clockwise.
Over near Police Headquarters, Molinya phones Mother Bear while continuing to dodge the monster. "It has just occurred to me that this may be a distraction to draw us away from the - arrghh!" she tells Mother Bear. As she is distracted by talking on the phone the monster manages to hit her in the side and spin her across the road. She loses her grip on her phone, which skitters off across the road. Molinya recovers and continues her monster-leading towards the Yauza River.
Mother Bear continues to listen on the phone and goes up to the cab to stop the driver. She explains and asks him to head in the direction of Police Headquarters. He does so, performing an illegal U-turn on the ring road, and speeds off south again, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
At the Kremlin Nut is twisting monster necks in the dark. The Kremlin is suffering collateral damage from this as the monster flails around, clearly unable to see.
Molinya reaches the Yauza River. A TV camera truck is on the opposite bank, apparently doing a documentary on something local. Molinya plays for the camera, as she wants to be seen to be away from St Petersburg to lure the criminals there into a false sense of security. She starts to fight the monster. She grabs it's legs and tumbles over the embankment, through the ice and into the icy depths of the Yauza. The TV camera focuses on it as it flails in the water, smashing the ice. Molinya repeatedly recharges and blasts the monster for all she is worth. Neon lights nearby dim as she sucks power from the local electrical grid. The river assists the affects of the blasts and the monster heals less slowly.
At the University Akula manages to lure 'his' monster up to the roof of the University tower, 36 floors tall. The stairways take a lot of damage as he does this. He stands on the edge of the roof and uses his wrestling skills to throw the monster off the edge of the roof. It stops roaring as it falls away, and Akula goes to the edge to look and sees it hit the ground and stop moving. He starts running down to the ground to check on it. Halfway down he hears a very angry roar...
At the Kremlin Napalm arrives. Nut notices her, and stands back, contracting her darkness to cover only herself to let Napalm see (though Napalm can actually see in Nut's darkness, Nut doesn't know this). Napalm blasts at one of the heads but misses and hits a shoulder instead. Nut takes advantage of the distraction and attacks but cannot get a grip on the head, so she dodges away again. Napalm blasts the back of one head, which lolls.
Only one head is left now but the monster turns and picks up a chunk of concrete, throwing it at the dark area around Nut. The chunk grazes Nut's arm but does no other damage. Napalm attacks again, damaging the last head and distracting it long enough for Nut to leap in and break its neck. It falls dead.
By the riverside the monster is slowing. Molinya fires continuous lightening at it as it tries to climb out of the river. Eventually it stops moving altogether, face down in the river. Molinya goes back and recovers her mobile phone, then investigates the monster. It is still alive so she phones the rest of the party to ask advice. Napalm and then Ostranko advise killing it. Molinya does so by breaking its necks.
At the University Akula reaches the ground floor to find the monster rampaging around on that level. The whole structure of the building is starting to shake from the damage it has taken. The monster's helmet has split open and a couple of heads are lolling with broken necks. Akula realises he has killed them, and is troubled by this violation of his personal code against killing. Then he wrestles it to the floor and punches a head unconscious - for a couple of seconds.
"Might I assist?" says a voice from behind Akula. He sees a beautiful woman in her late teens, slightly below average height, wearing a long black coat with a fur collar, fur hat, gloves and a black butterfly-shaped domino mask - could it be the Black Butterfly? Akula stands up and is about to tick her off for being a very naughty girl (because of her killing of various mafioskis) when the monster attacks again. Akula is hit hard, and flies back from the force of the blow. The Black Butterfly steps nimbly aside, then beams of yellow-white light shoot from her eyes at a head and burn through it. The head lolls, dead.
"Don't kill it - they are innocent people, incapacitate it so we can rescue them," Akula tells her.
"What are you going to do? Unpick the stitches?" says the Black Butterfly, sarcastically.
Akula leaps again and punches the last head unconscious. He has to keep punching it every few seconds to keep it that way. He discusses morals with The Butterfly while punching the head repeatedly.
At the Kremlin Napalm and Nut help rescue the injured from the rubble. There are a lot of them. When the worst is over Napalm phones Mother Bear, who does not answer, and then Molinya, who does. They discuss the situation. Molinya goes to check with Mother Bear after also failing to get through on the phone.
Napalm then phones Akula. She tries to convince him to kill the final head, but he refuses. The Black Butterfly is amused but does not intervene. Akula sends a civilian who comes to investigate off to the University Veterinary College to get some Horse tranquillisers.
Molinya is concerned about Mother Bear and the truck. She also phones Captain Ostranko and tells him of her concerns, then goes off in search of the truck. On the Moscow Ring Road the truck is spotted in a lay-by.
Chunks of ice and girder are lying around, both looking as if they have been melted neatly into chunks. The truck drivers and Mother Bear, in human form, are unconscious under the truck. The petrol can is still in the cabin, intact. The ends of the girders are still warm, and it is below freezing out here, so the incident was relatively recent. Tungsten sized footprints are seen leaving the scene where she jumped down off the ring road into a bit of waste ground behind a light industrial unit which backs onto the ring road here, but Molinya loses the trail after a short distance. She takes to the skies, looking for the obvious calamity that Tungsten should cause while fleeing through the city.
Akula switches to using his paralysing energy blasts to keep the monster out of action. The Black Butterfly watches the monster.
The civilian he sent off returns with a vet who has a medical bag with lots of horse tranquillisers in it. The vet asks Akula to take full responsibility. Akula agrees, and he pumps lots of tranquilliser into the monster. Akula phones Captain Ostranko to arrest the monster. Ostranko is not keen but will send some people round.
Molinya does not find any trace of Tungsten. She returns to Police HQ to assist in the rescue operation there. She saves several lives, some of which she knows. Ostranko goes past saying, "Bloody hell, bloody hell! They've gone! The Operator and the other one. The guard let them out, he said that someone invaded his mind."
After mopping up Napalm and Molinya go to visit Akula. Nut stays at the Kremlin for now. Ostranko has asked them to convince Akula that putting it out of its misery is the best thing to do. They arrive just after the monster has been tranquillised.
Akula introduces them to the Black Butterfly. Molinya passes her a paper message, which she reads, then and smiles and nods. She claims that the Moscow Super Heroes were her inspiration.
Molinya picks the monster up and carries it off towards Police HQ. She has to jog as she cannot carry it any other way, and doesn't trust it to arrive if it goes by truck. The idea of putting it in the bed next to General Winter so that the 'Beware the Canoe-helmeted monster' prediction made by Skikari-Doe can come true is discussed, then rejected.
Napalm and the Black Butterfly exchange calling cards and the Black Butterfly leaves, slipping away into the shadows. Napalm takes the bag of drugs to Molinya, just in case they are needed. On the way she checks out the vet's bag and finds it contains syringes and drugs. She notes this for future reference.
Akula makes his own way to Police HQ, by way of the water system. He arrives there first.
At police HQ Akula warns a sergeant that the monster is on its way. As she carries the monster along, Molinya cannot bring herself to give it an 'accident' that will finish it off, so it gets to live.
Napalm and Molinya receive a police and press escort before they have gone too far. They are taking it in turns to carry the monster; Molinya is stronger but has less stamina; Napalm is not as strong, but keeps going longer. Crowds turn out to watch them go by. There is some cheering.
They arrive at police HQ after a twelve-kilometre jog through the city. Molinya is tired, but does her public relations routine. She is provided with girders to tie up the monster with, and with advice from Akula works out a way of doing so that should prevent the monster using its strength (which is much more than hers) to lever them apart again.
Molinya checks her watch and realises that it is about time she returned to St Petersburg to intercept the latest drug delivery. As St Petersburg's only superhero she is needed there. Captain Ostranko thanks all for their assistance.
Before she goes Molinya gives Napalm some more booze money, and they go to a nearby bar and have some drinks. Then Molinya enters a phone box, calls the number of a discretely placed St Petersburg pay phone and phones herself back to that city.
Napalm keeps the vet's black bag and sells off the drugs and syringes in it for even more money.
Akula starts investigations into underworld gangs as targets for his new solo crimefighting career...