B-Team: Lights Out

Disaster / Destruction

The lights have gone out throughout Bathala City and the temperatures are plummeting. The B-team is forced to split up and deal with a whole night of emergencies ranging from the mundane to the surreal in the hopes of keeping the civilian population of the town safe until the power comes back on.

Last time...    Leaving Harmony behind to assist with reactivating the nuclear reactor, the rest of the team make their way back into the City to help with the impending crisis as the temperatures begin to dip once more and a blizzard starts to bear down on them. They elect to return to the convoy on their way back to the Tower and discover that it's been ransacked, the guards knocked out or killed, and the prisoner transport van seemingly broken into with some sort of cutting torch. Most disturbingly of all, The Sovereign is missing.   With Rue's impeccable tracking skill at their disposal, the team is quickly on the trail and follow the villain's scent down into the underground railway network. They make their way onto the tracks and follow further into the tunnel, certain that with the power off the trains would be at a standstill, until they come across a section of tunnel with the lights still on. Confused but not slowed, they realise that the scent leads into one of the service exits a little further up, but a sudden ambush stops them in their tracks.   A man in purple, with a skull mask and calling himself The Joltergeist stands between them and their target, using his electrokinetic powers to activate a train down the line and attack the heroes.   Satisfied that Pagan and Warp could handle the villain, Rue and Mercy begin speeding in opposite directions, the former electing to go back to the station and warn the few people milling around there, while the latter heads to the train and begins hitting its emergency breaks, taking a handbag to the face from a particularly feisty old woman on his way.   Pagan and Warp proceed to engage the villain while making their way to one of the service alcoves. While Pagan blasts him with magical force, he directs his own mischief towards Warp's utility belt, setting off his explosives and flashbangs. Rue has a little trouble with a drunk on the platform, but before long the Joltergeist is defeated by a sharp uppercut to the jaw, the train is stopped and the people on the train painstakingly led out of the darkness.   Reconvening moments later, the team are able to bust their way into the utility corridor and find a pair of henchman and, in the most heroic way possible, threatening them with incredible violence should they refuse to surrender. Naturally, the two henchmen surrendered their boss without further fight, though there was a lot of crying, and screaming of "Petunia!" as they became aware of one man's unnatural attachment to his gun.   With the two supervillains and two henchmen in custody, the team decide to make their way back to Vigilant Tower and report back about the cause of the blackout. As they approach the tower, it appears like a beacon of light amidst the darkness of the city, Cryogen having apparently gotten The Starshine Device up and running. Within, they can immediately see why, as the foyer is rammed with the chaos of hundreds of people trying to find a safe and warm shelter from the increasingly dire weather conditions outside.   As they enter the building, the heroes are immediately accosted by Kelly Dawson, who begins to panic about the sudden presence of supervillains inside what has become a safe haven for the city's most vulnerable residents. Her anxiety is akin to a psychic distress call and eventually draws the attention of Brainiac, who allows for the use of the few basement containment cells that the tower has.   After they've dealt with the villains, Brainiac reveals to them that a supply truck was supposed to arrive several hours ago from Martins Mart, a supermarket roughly half a mile away. She says that the supplies should be enough to feed the growing number of civilians under their care, but they need someone to go and see what's become of them. The heroes agree and are soon on their way out, stopping via Kelly back in the main foyer to grab a satellite phone for keeping in contact.   At Martins Mart, the crew are confronted by a scared and desperate population that have decided that it's time to take survival into their own hands, ransacking the store and taking anything that isn't nailed down. The team attempt to intimidate and force the civilians to comply, but are quickly stymied in their attempts, and soon some toughs from The Azimov Syndicate arrive to make trouble for the populace at the behest of their gang leaders.   While at first they try to seem amicable, once the heroes prove that they're not going to be intimidated, a fight breaks out between three of the Syndicate members and the team. It is soon revealed that the toughs are in fact robots of some description, allowing the team to engage in all the wanton violence that is seemingly always bubbling beneath the surface. While warp disarms one of the gangsters and begins beating him with those same arms, Rue proceeds to burn the flesh of another, leaving him as a burned endoskeleton, and Mercy engages in a fairly even fistfight with their leader, eventually dropping him too.   With the robotic gangsters defeated, the team quickly notice some sort of signal coming from the head of their boss, and they quickly realise that another fight is quickly approaching. They do their best to fortify their position, but are quickly surrounded by black sedans from which more members of the Syndicate begin to emerge. It seems like a full-scale assault is just about to occur when the local plant life springs into action and begins to attack the assailants, soon joined by a number of crystalline creatures and Rue quickly knows who's come to their aid.   Once the carnage is over, the team emerge and are met by the smiling faces of Mary-Jane and Lucy in the Sky, having left rehab in order to aid with the ongoing crisis. A brief catch-up with their favourite heroes reveals that, while they did in fact sneak out of Blackmoore, they had no intention of escaping, and were in fact doing a lot better there ever since Rue and Harmony took care of Null. They're quickly brought up to speed on the current situation and Mary-Jane quickly realises that they may be able to help. She uses her powers to quickly produce large quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables while Lucy's LSDemons begin to load it into the back of the lorry.   Warp decides to drive the truck back to the tower and the team part ways with the ex-villains, assured that once they are no longer needed, they'll head back to rehab. They're of course not given a moment's respite however as, the moment they finish with the delivery, Cryogen calls them up to her workshop. She's finally managed to pinpoint the source of the storm, and it seems to be emanating from an area on the outskirts of the Administrative District.   The team waste no time in heading to the scene of the disturbance, and are greeted by the sight of a man stood on a rooftop and screaming at the top of his lungs about the 'true villains' while lightning bolts strike against the walls of the Verisimilitude Insurance corporate office. Rue and Mercy, being somewhat more mobile than the other team members, quickly make their way up to the roof and try to talk to the man in question. He identifies himself as Terry Daniels, an insurance adjuster turned would-be supervillain due to the company refusing to pay out when his house was destroyed, leaving him both homeless and effectively penniless.   The impromptu psychology session that ensues lasts for several minutes as Warp in particular tries to convince Terry that the best way to get back at Verisimilitude is not by destroying their building, but by going into business against them. By the end, the team cannot be sure whether he's planning on competing with them or simply destroying the buildings they insure in stead, but they do manage to convince Terry to end the storm. The lightning stops and, as the team with Terry in tow begin to make their way to the nearest safe space (a local firehouse), the air begins to slow and warm slightly.   By the time they get to the firehouse however, it appears to be deserted and completely covered by a dome of magic that Pagan in particular is loathe to mess with. She sends her familiar forth to investigate, and it says that it is a lovely, sunny day inside, as opposed to the overcast night outside. Eventually the team and Terry decide to enter, heroically using the inexperienced wannabe supervillain as trap-monkey by forcing him into the dome first.   Inside, it is indeed a perfect summer afternoon and the team is immediately on-edge, with various discussions about what might be going on and who might be behind it. The discussions eventually devolve into bickering as time goes on, inevitably drawing the attention of one of the people within. Much to the surprise of the gathered heroes, the man that steps out to greet them is none other than Napoleon Bonaparte, the long-dead French emperor. Through broken English, he explains that he's here at a gathering hosted by his good friend Alexi, featuring Genghis Khan, Atilla the Hun, and a baby.   Concerned about the displaced firehouse, the team decide to disband this little get together and begin marching into the back rooms, with Napoleon taking the opportunity to disappear. They do indeed quickly find none other than The Chronaturge, sat in the common room of the building with the two aforementioned emperors and a baby in a high seat, watching "Friends" on an old-fashioned TV.   With the party thoroughly crashed, the various time-displaced guests make a run for it and the Chronaturge takes a moment to explain himself in order to keep the heroes at bay. He tells them that the dome is a small pocket of the year 1999, when the firehouse was first commissioned, and that the present-day building and its residents are perfectly safe. While buying himself time to send the various historical characters back to their respective times, he explains that the baby would eventually grow into an unethical researcher that he felt deserved some karmic justice for his experiments on babies. He also inadvertently reveals that Cryogen would die in the year 2032, having forgotten her name in the evident gulf of time between the heroes' present and his own. He reluctantly allows the party to come to an end and the heroes realise that there's no point in trying to arrest him as he's already incarcerated in their own time. As he releases his grip on the firehouse, the heroes are shunted back into the present-day version and realise a little too late that Napoleon had disappeared during their conversation with the supervillain, escaping into the year 2025.   With no time to track down the time-displaced emperor right now, the team make their way back to the tower with Terry in tow, eventually shoving him into the cells with the Sovereign Citizens that they'd arrested earlier. With the sun threatening to rise, the team decides to tell Cryogen about the grim premonition they'd just received, only to be shocked that she knew it already, having taken a look into it herself at some point. She seemed about as caring about the matter as ever, that is to say not, and she quickly moved on, informing the team that Transonic had requested help up at Bathala City General Hospital. Apparently some sort of gravitational disturbance was threatening to tear the whole building apart.   The team agree to investigate but point out that, without an alternative means of transportation after Warp's car was destroyed, they'll take some time to get there. A moment's thought crosses Cryogen's face as she points out that, with Ghost still in the hospital, he couldn't complain if she allowed them to use his van.   Piling into the Ghostmobile, the heroes are impressed that it's far more than the simple transport they were expecting, managing to fall somewhere between the Mystery Machine and the Batmobile, packed with all sorts of features and even an assortment of weapons for dealing with threats both mundane and supernatural. It's fast too, and Warp has a little trouble controlling it as the team makes their way to the hospital.   When they arrive, they're met by Zero, a member of Blue's new team of young heroes; The Vanguard. He explains to them that, while other heroes were helping with the civilian presence in the tower and the rest of the city, Blue and the Vanguard were dealing with some of the more nefarious elements trying to take advantage of people's vulnerability. Apparently, while dealing with a particularly aggressive burglar, his friend and teammate Graviton was hit in the head with a brick, knocking him unconscious. He's been in and out of consciousness since, but the concussion and his fragile state mean his powers are going haywire, causing gravity in the hospital to spontaneously shift.   Despite the reluctance of two of their number, Rue because of hospitals and Pagan due to the possibility of falls, the team decide that there's no time to waste, and begin to make their way inside. Therein, they find that every few seconds, the direction of gravity would indeed change and throw them against a wall or the ceiling. By the time the team make it to the room holding then young hero, Pagan's nerves are shot and she can do little more than curl up until a mixture of pep-talks from her teammates give her the strength to cast the necessary healing spell on Graviton.   The spell works and the young man begins to stir from his unconscious state as gravity returns to normal within the hospital. Reunited with Zero, the two of them make sure to pay the team their thanks but feel the need to ask one question. They explain that their teammate and friend Blaze failed to show up at their latest meeting and they haven't seen her in roughly two weeks. The heroes' hearts sink as they think back to the events of two weeks prior  and the last time they saw Blaze, none of them having made a point to check in on her since her possession.   The group leaves the hospital, their minds reeling with this latest piece of information, as the sun begins to rise on the horizon. They begin to try and figure out what might've happened to the young hero, but before they get a chance, they receive a call on the satellite phone. It's Amelia's number and they quickly answer it on speaker, expecting an update about the situation with Century, but the voice on the other end of the line certainly isn't Amelia.   "You have something of mine, Rue," the corrupted voice of Masie Petrov taunts over the phone line, "Looks like school is back in session..."   To be continued...