Supers: Broken Glass

The group is made up of:

• Guts, a warrior from another time and place, clothed in what seems to be living armor
• Black Jaguar, a man in a catsuit who has with feline abilities. I have it on good authority that he is not, actually, a furry, but time will tell.
• Kiree Myrr, a mind-reading blogger
• Gray Blacklock, a lich with arcane powers
• The Crimson Dredd, bearer of a mystical bow
• And last but not least, Aaron Avery Ayers, a normal kind of guy.

The group returned to their base; as Susan, aka Hacksaw, brought the team up to speed and introduced them to another member of the Foundation. She asked a few interesting, if terse, questions, such as "6? 8?" or the health of his dog and his grandmother. To the numbers, he responded, "No contact." The health of his pets and relatives seemed ambivalent. Though he seemed otherwise quite guarded, he mentioned three areas that may need assistance: LA, Chicago, and Washington, DC.

Meanwhile, Kiree took the girl to make supper. As a prank, they made a lovely salad, with a backup of spaghetti and meatballs, which they revealed with no small amount of glee. Oddly, the girl was the one that cooked the meatballs, and managed to cook them in under three minutes, even though she "burned them a couple times first."

After supper, the group decided to take a look around DC. They set up the teleporter, and leaving the girl in the company of another member of the team.

In DC, they found... everything was normal. No one seemed to be acting strangely, apart from the fact that everyone was acting strangely. It was a war with Nazi-aliens, but no one seemed to be upset about it. Indeed, it didn't look like there were any signs of damage! Kiree Myrr, probing a nearby mind, found that everyone had had their mind altered...

The Emblem of the Foundation

Susan lead the way to an elaborate entry point. After Susan entered a combination on a park bathroom's sink handle, the floor dropped out, sliding the group to a locked room, where Susan entered yet another password. The revealed a normal-looking subway train, which they took to another platform. This platform, meanwhile, was filled with over thirty well-armed men. After a bit of a standoff, the group was allowed to enter the base, where they finally met with a serious looking man, wearing a patch (pictured right).

The numbers Susan had asked about were, in fact, Foundation organizations. Level 6 is a black-book organization, filled with spies and data analysis; level 8 is... well, let's just say no one has ever heard of them, and for a very good reason.

The team was given the location of another base, which they immediately set off to find. It was in a warehouse district; inside, Kiree tried speaking a few different languages, indicating her need of a bathroom, but the secretary at the desk firmly indicated there were no public facilities. Undeterred, Kiree traded places with the rest of the group. As they entered the building, she pulled out her laptop and started a quick blog.

As soon as the party had entered the building, this time equipped with swords, a bow, and a smattering of arcane power, the doors slammed shut. Before anyone could react, the secretary blasted them with a vehicle-size flamethrower! Severely singed, the party - and Guts in particular - wasted no time in cutting down the secretary, two guards, and what seemed to be a normal person who whipped out a shotgun at the first sign of trouble. Hoping the guards were merely mind-controlled, Blacklock healed one of them... but the moment he turned his back, the man pulled out a revolver and scattered his brains across the wall.

The other guard was quickly knocked out.

Susan, stuck outside, was about to try breaking the door when Dredd opened it for her. Well, the glass, anyway. Stepping inside, Susan took a cursory glance around the room, then with a shake of her arm, popped a buzzsaw out of her wrist and chopped through the locked door at the back of the room. "Care to join me?"

Inside, the group ran into a rather large defense turret; Blacklock teleported next to it, and blasted it in one quick action. Hearing some noises in a nearby closet, Guts opened the door, only to find a man in a furry costume hanging from some coat-hangers. It seems that he had been brought in for questioning, and when the building was attacked, he was tossed into the closet "for his own safety."

Meanwhile, Kiree found something quite disturbing... while the yet-living guard was merely mind-controlled, the other man in the lobby seemed to have no natural memories before three days ago; a clone? A body blank? Whatever he was, he was definitely not natural. The woman, meanwhile, had a few more memories, though nothing useful that Kiree could find. After clearing the last day from the mind of the guard, she pushed him out the door, telling him to go home. The other two... she casually killed. Kiree, it seems, is hardcore.

In the next room, three thugs and a robot waited for the group. The normal chucked a grenade inside... only to have it flung back at him! Luckily, there was enough cover that it didn't go far, and no one was seriously injured. Susan leaped past into a doorway, and with a flick of her wrist, fired a plasma blast into a second thug. Armor... would have been useful. The blast burned a hole completely through the thug, and he dropped without a sound. A quick exploding arrow later, and the thugs (and the robot) were disabled. The group entered the elevator, which took them down... then over... then back up again, this time all the way to the roof.

Guts, seeing the helicopter there was about to take off, leaped out, and with a slash of his blade, chopped the end of the chopper cleanly off! Suddenly both lighter, and unable to steer, the chopper slid sideways until it hit the lip of the building, where it tilted over, and plunged through the side of the warehouse across the street! Just in case, Guts leaped after it. Inside, he found the smouldering remains of the chopper, with the pilot and two men in suits inside. What he didn't find, however, was any glass. The windows were plucked clean. As he straightened, he heard a voice above him: "You've picked the wrong side! You've already lost, you just don't know it yet!"

A figure flashed through a broken skylight and was gone. Or... rather... would have been gone, except that the Crimson Dredd was keeping a lookout. An arrow slammed into the man, followed by two more; severely wounded, the figure screamed, and returned fire before jumping to the alley behind the warehouse. Guts jumped to the roof, the followed. The man ran for the end of the alley, windows exploding behind him. Broken bottles, shattered windows, even decorative glass bricks exploded into a wall of glass. With a yell, the man tossed an enormous shard of glass towards Guts, slamming into him, even as more glass surrounded the figure. Guts shook it off, and swung his blade at the man, but flying glass deflected most of his attack. Dredd leaped down from the Foundation building's roof.

The man waved a dismissive hand at Guts, trying to hide his obvious injuries. A wall of glass snapped together over Guts' head, blocking his way; he had to run back and leap onto a neighboring building, and by that time, whoever that was had escaped. Dredd joined him, but could only surmise he had found a vehicle - or commandeered one.

Battered, and with a new enemy to look out for, the party regrouped...

The mysterious figure could have been none other than Baneul, a master of glass; but why was he there? Was he working for the Nazi aliens? Or was he part of another faction? Was he in cahoots with whoever was controlling all those people? Or did he have his own agenda? All these questions and more, next time on Supers!