CONFLUENCE 03

[metamods]

THUNDERSTRUCK

This time there was warning. Any being with precognitive abilities finds themselves brought to their knees a few hours before the event, plagued with a hazy vision of chaos and fear. There's not enough detail to say what is to happen, but at least they have the where and when.

Excelsior, Washington.

The people seem annoyed when they are told to evacuate. After all, Excelsior was built to last. This is a city exempt from the unpredictability of nature. They have weather control systems set up to ensure nothing disrupts their research. This a city built upon scientific advancement, with every inch of infrastructure reliant upon it, and they are confident that they are safe within its borders.

And even without the stubborn minority, the Alliance knows there isn't enough time for a full evacuation. But still, they try. They call upon every available hero to race toward whatever chaos may be about to drop over the city. The Society has sent a few faces too, more quietly. Whether to help or hinder is anyone's guess, as there's whispered encouragement to do both.

The city isn't anywhere near empty when the air goes very still. Everyone and everything pauses and looks skyward as a few drops of rain begin to fall, and the artificial sky fades to reveal roiling clouds.

The Confluence begins.

ITS RAINING (SUPER) MEN

Rain slashes sideways as the skies darken, taking unnatural colors with every flash of lightning. It's beautiful and awe-striking, but knowing that somehow this bizarre phenomenon is the calm before the storm keeps anyone on the ground from enjoying it. Even the those who lack self preservation in the scientific community don't want to investigate the cause of this.

There's a flash of light and a boom. Those still caught in the streets waiting evacuation brace themselves.

And then people begin to fall.

If you are one of these people, you awaken to find yourself hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. You come into awareness just in time to register you're about to make impact with the ground, or a car, a building, whatever is underneath you. The impact pulverizes the surface strike, leaving a sizable crater, and as you pull yourself up you find yourself unharmed. Yet there's energy crackling in the air around you. If there are bystanders near you they whip out cellphones to capture the occurrence for their followers or for scientific posterities, crowding around the craters a buzz of excitement. Some of the more fearful ones simply turn and begin running in hopes they can beat the storm.

CRYPTO OR CRYPTID

Confluences give people powers. That's part of the deal. And while those of you who just fell from the sky are discovering your new gifts, others are also suddenly uncovering their own brand new talents.

Excelsior isn't exactly known for natural superpowers. Most of its heroes are self-made geniuses, armed with metasuits or other augments. Those that do have powers got them from scientific accidents, transforming due to experiments gone wrong or accidentally tumbling into toxic waste. They have emergency medical protocols ready for that - not for random people on the street suddenly gaining abilities.

Newly empowered townspeople may jump in to help deal with the evolving chaos, but their lack of control of their powers makes them a bigger threat than whatever threat they were trying to stop. Others will shamelessly take advantage of the chaos to live their villainous dreams, robbing stores and taking revenge on their shitty bosses, landlords, or exes.

The reserve members of the Guardian Alliance spring into action. The heavy hitters are elsewhere, trying to deal with the loss of power and getting the city back online, and so you're left with the rookies trying to keep pace. Many of them are inexperienced and unable to keep up with the raw power and ruthlessness of newly awakened metas. Fantastic, an aerokinetic and one of the newer recruits, seems to be the only one even remotely holding his own.

It's clear they need your help to contain this!

The storm doesn't peter out after the new arrivals have all landed, either. The panic and chaos below seems to fuel it to a second peak. Clouds roil, electricity snakes, and the thunder builds into a deafening crescendo. Then with one final, blinding burst of light, everything goes dark and quiet.

The power is out.

More than just the power — Excelsior is out. The powergrid has been downed, its internal networks corrupted, anything that makes the city function is completely fried, that last surge of the storm apparently having acted as an EMP blast. All of Excelsior's internal systems are now offline. The lights are all out.

Vehicles are stalled out in the streets. And then comes the first crashing boom of a falling hover car. There are more still in the air, but anyone who might be in a position to save them will have only moments to do so before they smash apart on whatever or whoever is unlucky enough to be stuck below them.

And it's not just that. Hospitals are now without power.

VLOG SQUAD STRIKES BACK

In every disaster, the best and worst of human nature can be found. The best shines in every outstretched hand and combined effort, in every life saved. The worst is a gaggle of young adults that live together in the city's least favorite content creator house, known with equal parts irritation and secondhand embarrassment as The Vlog Squad. It seems five of the eight streamer/vlogger/influencers have developed meta powers, including one with the power to record, edit, and broadcast with her mind. The entire group made an on-stream pact to become (non-guild affiliated) supervillains, and their views are skyrocketing.

One of them jumps off a building to demonstrate how he can put holes in everything below him.

Playlist, the ringleader with a sizable following on Youtube and TikTok, has the ability to Freeze, Rewind, Fast Forward reality. Be unlucky enough to be caught in her gaze and find yourself frozen in place, talking in reverse, or zipping around faster than you can control. Good luck getting someone to understand you when you sound like a chipmunk.

Then there's there's the second in command, Filter, an up and coming Instagram star. Filter's powers seem to be tied to their phone. If they get a picture of you in the air - welcome to anti-gravity, you're now stuck floating like a balloon until someone can get you back to Earth. If they slap a sepia filter on an unflattering photo of you, you're now encased in stone until someone drops a compliment. Each filter does something a little different and the unfortunate effects are yours to find out.

The rest of their squad is less notable, both in terms of power and in terms of following. There's a young man who can project his voice for miles around. A young woman who can compel people to dance to the beats dropped by her literal soundcloud. There's one unfortunate fellow whose only real power seems to be to turn people's heads into emojis for 30 seconds.

They're targeting known heroes, but will settle for property damage if it means getting attention. New metas may find themselves accosted by a unpleasant young adult with a camera, mockingly asking if they plan to become heroes. No matter the answer, the result is the same - they'll mock your choice and reasoning and try to get away with a cruel prank.

POWER RESTORED

The power is restored. With it, a belated message makes it to guild and society phones: the guild says restrain the Vlog Squad however you can and await authorities.

Meanwhile a very different message hits the airwaves. Mechanima's digitized voice comes across official channels, torn between amusement and annoyance. He says deal with them, don't care how you do it, but start with the broadcaster.

Once that's done, the guild places a call back to its headquarters to bring everyone back with a teleportation spell. The spell reaches out for whatever metahumans it can find in the area and pulls.

All the metahumans who were involved in the Confluence — new arrivals and old — to a white training space that has already transformed into a luxurious waiting room.

Atomight arrives quickly and makes the following announcement:

Thank you for your help out there. The casualties would be so much higher were it not for those of you who risked your lives to save strangers. To those of you grappling with your new abilities, please rest assured that this room will give you a much needed reprieve. We have staff on site who can work with you to gain control of you new abilities, and nullifiers if you find it's still too much.

You are the third set of newly powered individuals this confluence has brought. Though many of you are native to this world, others among you have come from far off universes. To those of you who have been flung far from home, we'll put you in connection with the others. Many of them are here today and can advise you of what your new reality is here.

We of the Guardian Alliance are committed to doing everything we can to get you home, and to give you some time to get your feet under you. And as this may be your home for a while longer, I wish to formally extend an invitation to those of you who wish to use your powers to defend the innocent to join us.

They hand out cellphones to all present. Once everyone gathered has been looked over and attended to they're directed to the Diadem in and handed a credit card.

Later into the night, another message comes across those phones. The Society of Villainous Reformation formally extends an invitation to all those villainously inclined. Reply for more info.

IN SUMMARY

• New arrivals are falling from the skies. They're unharmed despite what should be a lethal impact. People in the city also begin developing superpowers upon landing.


• Players are free to create their own powered NPCs for these encounters and can use them.


• A notable group of online content creators called the Vlog Squad have developed powers and are terrorizing the city and are livestreaming every minute thanks to their powers.


• The Vlog Squad has declared on camera that they do not intend to join any guild and are already showing signs of disrespecting the code. For those already committed to guilds, this means:

  Atomight will ask player characters in the Guardian Alliance to deal with them peacefully.
  
  Mechanima demands that members of the Society of Villainous Reformation deal with them — whether this means incapacitating them, forcing them to join, or killing them is their choice.

• If anyone wants to engage Mechanima or Atomight, HERE is a top level where we will summarize their responses to PC questions and comments. Please also reply to this comment with what your character plans to do with the Vlog Squad. We encourage you to make posts on the OOC comm plotting out conflict and responses. You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

VLOG SQUAD ENCOUNTERS

For each event with a clear antagonistic NPC force — such as the Vlog Squad, in the February arrival — interested players can pitch their characters' encounters with those NPCs. Whether characters are heroic and suited to the role or not, the aim is the group effort of pitching in, so we highly encourage collaborating on these encounters. Once enough NPC encounters have been submitted, we'll determine if and how the trouble has been addressed, and select one of those encounters to be the final, conclusive one in the game. Everyone else's encounters will also have taken place, but may have been temporary stopgaps in addressing the conflict rather than a conclusive blow. For this Confluence, we are asking that submissions be finalized by 3/5.

How it works:

• Reply to the relevant top-level comment with an encounter and/or questions about the encounter. The mods are happy to go back and forth with before locking in exactly what a character or group of characters does. Any conversations between characters and NPCs will most likely be happening prior to combat unless specified by the players.


• The mods ask that players present two options. In one version, the character or group of characters kills, immobilizes, or otherwise apprehend the villain(s). In the other version, one way or another, the villain escapes or overcomes the character or group of characters. Players who wish to have a specific spot in the timeline (near to the beginning or near to the end) should make this request explicit, and the mods will make efforts to accommodate this.


• The mods will RNG the results for the final encounter. For all other submissions, the escape/overcome option is selected. Open calls for collaboration which result in multiple player characters contributing to an idea or solution (see: Kamala Khan's solution to the Cerberus fight) have a much higher chance of being the final encounter, as we want to reward player collaboration and innovation. Please be sure that after everyone has weighed in you return to the top-level comment to report exactly what is happening and who is doing what.


• The mods will reply to player submissions with a brief outline of how all of the run-ins go, whether it's a fight or a slapstick series of hilarious accidents that involves the character(s).

Request NPC encounters using the following form —
<B>Characters involved:</b> Name (username) <b>Details of the encounter:</b> What's the plan? <B>How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)?</b> <B>How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain?</b>

EXAMPLE—

Character(s) involved: The Iron Giant and Hank Hill
Details of the encounter: Hank will ride in Iron Giant's hand as they search the city for the Vlog Squad, eventually spotting them in a public park. They land explosively in the middle, throwing all of the squad off of their feet while the Iron Giant sends out a signal to scramble their livestreams and begins trying to catch the offenders up in both hands. Hank will try to tackle at least one of them.

How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)? Playlist slow motions Iron Giant and they easily duck its grasp, and Filter leaves Hank floating upside down as they make their escape.

How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain? Iron Giant grabs Playlist before she can slow it, then picks up and captures all but Emoji; Hank throws a branch and beans that guy right in the head. Iron Giant gathers him up too, and they turn them in to the first batch of emergency responders they find.

Comments

[helpdesk_hero]

Three bruises actually, but David doesn't think about it right now. He does see the bird, though, and his ears twitch and flatten. So close. He bounds to his feet and chases it. He wants to get closer to it, jumping and grabbing for it.

"Bird!" he hissed as he chased it. "My bird!"

[portolan]

It is very strange to see David like this, and if he wasn't sincerely worried for his boyfriend's wellbeing, it might be hilarious. Or cute.

Balthier leads the bird -- and with it, David -- back toward him, close enough to grab David again. He drops the illusion and begins to scratch David on one of those big fluffy ears, holding onto him with his other arm. If he's a cat, then maybe Balthier can use cat tricks to get him to stop moving.

[helpdesk_hero]

It wasn't nice that there wasn't a bird anymore, but oh, the Mine was giving scritches and he loved that. The purring returned as he pressed himself into the contact, even though his ear was also twitching.

"Better than bird," he said, even if he did want a bird. But this one is good too. His and he wasn't going to share.

[portolan]

Definitely purring. David melts onto him, head pushing hard against his hand. If Balthier had ever in his childhood wanted a couerl for a pet, the urge is gone. Better to have a pet you can pick up and move, rather than one that can knock you over when it's pleased with you.

"Flattered and humbled, dear one," he says. "David, what if we got on my bike and I took you somewhere with...lots of birds."

He'll have to go slow. And stay low to the ground. Gods if he had his magick from home he could stun him, not that he really wants to stun his clearly cursed boyfriend.

He also has a teleport coin and could take them back to the Guilds, but with how busy everything is, he thinks right now they have a better chance on their own.

[helpdesk_hero]

Hey, he's not just someone who can knock Balthier over when he's pleased. He can do that when angry too. But for now, he sees that his Mine is definitely not clean. Grooming is a good choice. Good social choice, good for being friendly. So David leans in and licks at a spot of dirt on Balthier's neck.

"Birds later. Clean now."

[portolan]

Yeah, this is the most Balthier has been aware of their strength difference. Maybe he should work out more. Not that he expects David to be like this ever again. Gods, please do not let this be permanent.

As David's tongue slides across his neck, he lets out a sound that is equal parts startled, repulsed, and weirdly into it. This is definitely not how he imagined David using tongue for the first time. His shoulders curl up involuntarily as he tries to pull away from the licking, scratching the back of David's head to try to distract him.

"I'm plenty clean, thank you. Why don't we sit down for a minute?" He eases his body toward the ground, hoping David will follow but not knock him over. Maybe he can get him to -- lay down? Curl up? In the middle of this alley. With meta terrorists on the loose.

[helpdesk_hero]

No, don't work out more. David likes you just how you are, Balthier. Especially since he can carry you around. But the distraction is helping for now, David left purring still and starting to lean into the scratching, which of course meant away from Balthier's neck.

Still, the idea of sitting isn't bad, and as Balthier sits, so does David, right in Balthier's lap. His now.

"Warm Mine."

[portolan]

Definitely tell him sometime, David. And pick him up again. But not right now. Right now you will definitely

Under other circumstances having David in his lap would be extremely distracting. Now he just feels like he’s on the ground dealing with this instead of standing dealing with this. He’s not sure that was an improvement.

He keeps scratching David’s head and sighs. “What are we going to do with you?” Maybe there’s a way to undo the spell. Does he need to…get David a bird?

He does try a quick peck on the lips. Just in case.

[helpdesk_hero]

He doesn't know what to tell Balthier if he doesn't know that the thought has even occurred to the other.

David, though, truly did feel this was a process improvement, the sitting in Balthier's lap. It was cozy and comfy. And the kiss, light and nice, earns a deepening of the purr. Given how deep his voice already was, well, it was an experience. Hell, even David could feel it down in his bones. But for now he just moved to nuzzle Balthier's neck again.

"Like you. Very pretty. Mine. Fight for you."

[portolan]

Okay Balthier felt that, the deep vibrating purr. It’s very disorienting to be so attracted to David and his voice and his smell and his gorgeous body in Balthier’s lap and simultaneously very repulsed by this pointedly not being fully David and genuinely alarming.

At the words though, he is at least convinced David is in there, and that this spell has not altered his feelings.

“Well darling I’ll give you that you make a very good cat.” Definitely not planning to fight anything while he’s like this though. He’s using his free hand to search around for his teleport token.

[helpdesk_hero]

Yes, he does. And Balthier, by sheer luck, makes a very good filter breaker? Curse breaker? Well, whatever he was, magic were were indeed said. And, after a few moments where the purring tapered off, there was silence. Silence and then, after an awkward moment, a question.

"Balthier? What... am I doing?"

[portolan]

“Oh thank the scions.”

He embraces David in relief. Not having to drag him through the Guild, in front of people they both have to see again, is probably a good thing.

“It would seem one of the Vloggers new abilities made you think you were a cat.”

[helpdesk_hero]

Yeah, this was probably better, especially if Balthier's token was now keyed to the Society base, but David didn't know how the things worked at all.

"That's, uh," David frowned as he tries to process that. "So that's not a drink?"

[portolan]

“Did it black out your memory too? You were enchanted for five maybe ten minutes.”

His hand comes up to David’s face, gently touching his cheek, some concern back in his own voice.

“You tried to catch some birds and were very insistent on rubbing my neck with your ears. Which do seem gone at least.”

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh no. David groaned. He knew enough of cat behavior to be horribly embarrassed.

"I was marking my territory. Cats, they have these very subtle scent glands behind their ears. That's why they rub up against stuff. It's a way of saying 'this is mine'."

And he felt awkward about that. Oops.

"Oh god, that's horribly embarrassing, Please forgive me."

[portolan]

Ah, there’s David. Balthier grins. The danger is passed and he’d rather laugh than risk a darker emotion manifesting. That won’t help anything right now.

“I am your territory. You seemed insistent on that and that I am pretty, so correct on all accounts. I will pass on future tongue baths though.”

[helpdesk_hero]

Oh the danger hasn't passed. It's just pushed a bit further down the road. Still, he is relieved Balthier isn't pissed about the 'territory' thing.

The comment of tongue baths has David staring at him and looking horrified.

"Please tell me you're kidding. Please."

[portolan]

David’s face is so mortified that Balthier is tempted to lie to him.

“I’m afraid I promised you honesty. That’s the end of it though. Oh you did fall off a bench.

I have my bike. You want to go after him?”

Honestly Balthier wants that infuriating child off the streets. And he can probably create a good enough decoy for David to capture him. That said he does not want to get caught in another of Filter’s effects. But he doesn’t want other people getting stuck in them either.

[helpdesk_hero]

Fell off a bench.

"At least I can explain why I'm sore."

Does he want to go after the guy? Fuck no. David's powers, his abilities, they aren't suited for this. He should though. Fuck if he should do it.

"I think I want to see if we can find him, and if we can't, I'm not going to be that upset. I don't know that my powers are a good match for his at all."

[portolan]

“I should be able to make us effectively invisible. We can sweep and if we don’t find him, fine. But I really wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to find you like that — i was about ready to take you back to the Society with me and ask for help. I don’t like him being out here.”

Balthier weighs his next comment because he doesn’t know how David will feel about it.

“I have my gun. I’m a good shot, if it comes to that. I can dehabilitate.”

[helpdesk_hero]

Yeah, no, he doesn't think he'd want to have anyone see him like that either. That would be a bad life choice. But the suggestion Balthier gives after that, it makes David shake his head.

"We can look for him, cloaked, but I would really prefer not to injure. It's not how we do it if we can. And if we can't find him, I don't even know how much I care about that so much as keeping people safe from him."

[portolan]

“Okay,” Balthier agrees. “No injuries.” Unless he goes for David. Then nothings off the table. But he doesn’t need to argue about that unless it happens.

“I agree on focusing on getting more people out. Let’s go get my bike. But first, dear one, you do have to get off of me. You have me pinned.”

[helpdesk_hero]

Get off of...?

David really sseems to process where he is then, and oh dear he's blushing. And hopping quickly to his feet.

"I'm sorry. Really sorry. That wasn't right. Oh god. Yeah, I hate this guy. I should have gotten in this position for the first time out of choice."

[portolan]

Balthier gets to his feet, brushing the worst of the debris off his pants. These are probably ruined.

But he takes David’s hand, making sure to catch his gaze before he speaks. “Nothing that happened changes my opinion of you. I’m sorry he took your agency.”

[helpdesk_hero]

They're not ruined, just give them to a dry cleaner, dear.

The hand is good in his, though, a comfort in the face of all of the panic he was going through.

"I don't even think he fully intended it, the asshole. That somehow makes it worse."