These are short pieces of fiction that introduce plot lines and game sessions.
DAA da DEE, DAA da DEE, daa daa da-de-da DEE DAAAA...
Not even Nazis get good elevator music, Envoy thought glumly, trying to ignore the tinny patriotic waltz droning through the speakers. He didn't bother to wipe the pained look off his face. He was pretty sure most of the elevator's occupants would have felt the same way. If anything, the grimace added to his believability. Of course, the uniform helped more.
He wasn't thrilled about the outfit. It didn't fit him badly; the first guard's clothes had been too big, but they'd taken down enough Nazis that he now cut a relatively smooth figure in his borrowed uniform. There was a time when wearing it would have slipped him into playacting, Maxim Isayev against the forces of evil, but the situation now was all too real for childhood games. And the swastika on his arm made his skin crawl every time he caught his reflection in the elevator's shiny interior. He didn't like how convincing he looked.
DAA da DEE, DAA da DEE, daa da da-de-da DAA DAAAA...
Strange, too, to see only himself in the reflective metal. Usually he was the one hidden safely from sight, leaving the walking target duty to Tensile and Steel Violet, who could take hit after hit without even being winded. But none of them could pass for Nazis – well, maybe Marlene, he thought, but thanks to Doc Otaku and Charlotta, she wasn't exactly low-profile. So they were all hidden now, which was vaguely creepy and unsettling; he'd gotten used to being able to detect them when they were nearby. With Onyx blocking his ability to detect super-powers, it really felt like he was alone – he had only their word that they were even in the elevator with him.
DEE da-de DAA de-da DEEE daa DEEEE...
He yawned and immediately stifled it. The waltz was putting him to sleep. Not that that would take much. God, he was tired. He'd finally gotten a good eight hours of sleep in, but that still left him several days behind – three? four? He'd lost count.
DEE da DEEE de DAAA DAAA...
"Anyone know what day it is?" He tried to keep the exhaustion out of his voice. Everyone else was just as worn out; they didn't need a reminder from him.
Onyx's voice popped up. "It's your birthday."
DAA da DEE, DAA da DEE...
Birthday? "You gotta be kidding me, right?" He did the math as the elevator slowed to a stop. She was right.
DEE da da-da de DAA DAA...
"Holy shit, I'm 18."
He composed himself quickly as the elevator doors slid open, and found himself staring into some sort of subterranean throne room. Three dozen Nazis stared back at him, rifles raised and aimed. Behind them, the Iron Cross sat broodingly on a large chair on a raised dais. As Envoy stepped forward, the supervillain looked up.
"You are very good, but you are not good enough to escape the notice of a true neo-Aryan." The Iron Cross stood up and pointed directly at him. "Schießen Sie ihn!"
Three dozen safeties clicked off in unison as the rifles they belonged to locked position on Envoy.
Well, he thought, tensing his muscles and trying to figure out which way to dodge. Happy birthday to me.
DEE da da-da de DAA DAA.
Freedom City, California, USA
She fell, leaden, toward the earth.
"It's not you I'm here for," he had said, and then he had dropped her, and she fell toward the earth. He had ripped from around her neck the ankh, and she fell toward the earth. She could fly. She could save herself and fly. But she didn’t feel like it. She always wore that ankh. It was so obvious to anyone who'd paid attention while battling Freedom Watch. The ankh controlled the nano-forms, and the nano-forms could do just about anything. It was what made her so versatile. Tommy One-Suit -- her Uncle Tom -- had taken it and then dropped her like she was nothing. He didn't even have a use for her anymore, now that he knew about the ankh.
She fell, leaden, toward the earth.
Anyone could have taken it from her at any time, really. At one point, when she'd started all this, she'd had two. One of them was the source of her force field and her power blasts and her flight. But she'd integrated offense, defense, and travel into the suit so she couldn't be easily disarmed. She'd dispensed with the second ankh, but she kept the one her mother gave her. She never took it off, not since her mother had given it to her back before she could remember everything. Now it was gone. Her mother's brother. No, that wasn't right, though it was close enough. He took it. She didn't feel like flying. She liked the sensation of falling. It was the physical equivalent of what she'd been feeling metaphorically since she'd heard about her Uncle's escape from jail.
She calculated that she had another second before she hit the ground and then calculated the odds that her impact suit would prevent the fall from killing her. It seemed likely to her that striking the ground wouldn't hurt at all, but she never found out. Strong arms caught her, more gently than she'd expected from Brian, and then she was standing, still in something of a daze, saying "Thanks, Brian," with a certain airy quality to her tone. And then Professor Xenon was calling, demanding that Freedom Watch return to the school at once, so she recalibrated the teleportation device she'd built into her suit, and away they went.
She felt leaden as she gazed at the ruin. Her head and limbs felt heavy. Professor Xenon was talking and she could see the pulses of light as Blue Jay invoked her healing powers. She could almost feel the energy flow from the other girl. It was disconcerting. Professor Xenon attempted to act calm as he thanked Blue Jay for her efforts, for making sure no one died as the result of the attack on the school, but it was clear to her that he was anything but calm. Whereas it was still unclear what had happened, so she turned toward the Professor after looking around at the damage, after walking around in small, dazed circles and looking around, detached, at all the things that were broken, she turned toward the Professor to ask him what, exactly, had happened, but everyone was talking at once, suddenly and loudly and in a panic, so instead she said, her tone, she was quite sure, indicative of her annoyance at their juvenility, "Will you all please shut the fuck up?" Her hands were over her ears but she could still hear them all babbling and chattering in their panic. It was giving her a headache.
Steel Violet touched her shoulder, but she shook off the hand and stepped away. "Onyx, what's wrong," she asked, and Envoy asked. And Durga asked and they were all suddenly looking at her and saying, "what’s wrong what's WRONG with her what's wrong with HER" like it didn't matter or she was making it up, and she staggered away from them, mumbling, "I don't feel well at all," and knowing she didn't sound cool or mature anymore, her head aching now, from the babble from the noise and her stomach aching suddenly too, nausea and vertigo causing her to stagger away (hadn't she already stepped away from them?) and shudder, her hair feeling like it was standing on end the way it sometimes did when she was experiencing something that fascinated her or something like Déjà vu and she staggered away from her friends and shuddered the way she shuddered when she had a very high fever, and she retched, and she was gone.
***
Blackstone Federal Penitentiary
The man known to the world as Doctor Otaku sat in his cell, thinking. He thought it possible that Chernobyl would send someone for him or leave a door ajar or something, but it was by no means a certainty, especially if the Russian now had Wallflower and the Charlotta in his employ. The number of genius-level intellects in the villain business was diluting his importance, and that was unacceptable. It was something he intended to fix posthaste, but at present it was a reality, and it lessened the likelihood that Chernobyl would feel the need to send someone for him. So he had been planning several potential solo escapes, most of them hinging upon the fact that that everyone he'd met so far had treated him with derision. This, he was quite certain, was an indication that they were, in fact, terrified of him, but that they felt he had been defanged. Thus, he reasoned, the suggestion that he had access to technology or tools or information -- anything, really, so long as the prison staff were convinced that it was real and uncertain as to what it was -- would be enough to provoke a panicked reaction on the part of the prison staff. It was how to best exploit that reaction that he was mulling over now.
He looked up and there was suddenly, curled up on the floor in front of him, pale and naked, a nubile girl, her features, and all the, ah, feminine parts, concealed by a mane of flowing black hair. It was like some sort of dream come true, and he intended to treat it as such. But as he slid off his cot to approach her, she lifted her head, fixed him with a pale-eyed stare and hissed, "If you're doing this, I'm going to kill you." He stood frozen, mouth opened as if to say something, but the vision was gone.
***
Freedom City, California, USA
"She must have teleported away," Sanje said, the first to speak after Onyx's bizarre little stunt almost overshadowed the catastrophe that had befallen the school. It seemed obvious, but it also seemed like someone had to say something, and that was the first thing that came to mind. "But she'll, uh, be fine. She's a smart kid."
"But I can't get her on comm," Steel Violet said, looking concerned as she canted her head slightly skyward. Blue Jay and Brian both took on that slightly distracted expression the team got when they were using the commlink and not doing anything else. They answered, simultaneously, "Me neither."
"That's because her commlink is right here," Envoy rejoined. He was crouched over an inky black pile of what looked like molten rubber and holding Onyx's goggles. "And unless I am mistaken -- which I highly doubt" he said, lifting the black object gingerly and looking at it, "her teleportation device is built into her costume." At which he stood, allowing the object to unfold to its full length, revealing a glossy black body suit with silvery tracings and an Eye of Horus emblazoned across the chest.
***
Somewhere Else
A woman was watching television. A naked girl appeared, suddenly, between the couch where she was seated and the television itself. The girl was obscuring her view. That was her first thought, and it amused her that she thought that, even while the disconcerting appearance of a naked human being from what amounted to thin air filled her with something like panic.
But the girl was crying audibly, though her long, black tresses concealed this fact from view. As the woman got to her feet, not entirely sure what she was going to do, the girl swept her hair from her face, and the woman recognized her and froze, whispering, "Oh my god." The moment of stunned recognition passed and she closed the gap between herself and the girl, crouched near her regardless of the smell of sweat and sickness that surrounded her and strokes her hair, murmuring, "It's alright now, Samantha, tell me what's wrong."
"I—I can't control it. I can't make the voices stop. I can't -- I can't stay in one place," the girl answered, her own voice ragged. "I feel like I'm coming apart," she managed, and then she disappeared.
***
Volcano Island, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean
Doctor Tomorrow looked up, his instincts warning him of a small disturbance in the continuum. It was a sense he'd managed to hone to such an extent that he could not only detect tachyon variance, but could sometimes even see the eddies left by a teleporter or sense quantum disturbances. As much as he had liked spending time with his daughter, her presence, and that of Freedom Watch as a whole, had played havoc with this ability almost to the point of making it useless, and so he had been slightly relieved see them go. And he thought that thought just as he realized he was looking at Samantha, at his daughter, curled up, and rocking, the sharp, acidic scent of vomit causing him to wrinkle his nose, his head to unconsciously rear slightly backward with revulsion. She looked up at him, pale eyes red-rimmed, face streaked with tears. And she looked suddenly shocked, perhaps even horrified, and she seemed to curl up more tightly as she wiped her mouth with her bare wrist and whimpered, "I know you don't want me here but please, daddy, help me."
But before he could so much as get up from his chair, she was gone.
Doctor Tomorrow narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to one side as he attuned himself to the plenum of reality, but before he could quite catch the scent, as it were, his communicator alerted him. It was one of the custom alerts. One he hadn't heard in some time.
"Tom," came the voice over his communicator, recognizable even after so long. "It's about Samantha."