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

[fridgeflower]

A. Confluence Incoming

Shit!

[ Cursing is about the greatest action Laurie can take. She suddenly becomes aware, and then she's falling. She's barely has time to realize that she's going to die (again!) when she hits the ground before... she doesn't. She opens her eyes, sucking in deep, shaky breaths, and she's sitting in a crater with her intact self and belongings.

She world comes back into focus slowly, the ringing in her ears clarified into the hum of a crowd. There are people standing over her, many filming on their phones as she pushes herself upright. There's snippets of exclamations and questions. Nobody offers her a hand up, but... Maybe that's understandable. She's just inflicted a lot more property damage that she ought to be way to squishy to inflict.

She groans and grumbles and gets to her feet, and-- These people are really intrusive. They aren't helping. She's confused, she's scared, she's irritated. Where is she? This isn't-- Dammit. God dammit. ]

Would you all just back off?

[ Some civilians gathered around the crater turn and leave hurriedly right away, some take their time, expressions turning slowly to anxiety before they back away and leave the immediate scene. A lighter dose of pheromones, but effective all the same.

Laurie climbs out of her stupid hole and starts down the street. Is this an isolated, freak situation or a Whole Thing? Better yet: ] Geez. Where even am I?


B. Power Restored

[ Laurie just barely restrains herself from a short, loud rage-scream (to be a little hyperbolic) when she suddenly blink into a new, new somewhere. She'd just spend the last little while wading through bad weather and worse overall situation, and-- She doesn't know what's going on, exactly, but she's drawn at least one reasonable conclusion... She hasn't made it to her own world. She'd been lied to, or she luck's just that/i> terrible.

She drops into the nearest chair, leaning forward to put her face in her hands (which doesn't help her running mascara situation). She holds this for a few seconds, huffs, and then starts digging around in her bag for a hair elastic.

As she's tugging her damp hair into a quick bun, she heaves a sigh and looks around at her fellow... imPorts? Transplants? Prisoners? She's looking for the familiar, not really registering the speech welcoming them to Wherever. Someone nearby gets: ] Hey. Can I ask you a question?


C. Diadem

[ Laurie's in room 404 of the Diadem. Fairly standard hotel setup. She's unsure whether they're being booked in pairs or single--there are two beds--but she's not worried about waiting around for the answer. She digs her spare set of clothes from her bag, grateful to incidentally have a second set of clothes, and enters the bathroom.

She's in there for a while. She showers, moisturizes, dries her hair, and redresses. When she emerges, she's not alone. Double-booked it is. ] Oh. Hey.


C. Hotel Bar

[ She only stays in her room briefly. Mostly, she's restless. Partially... Well, she might as well get any re-acclimating over with and take advantage of a free meal. So it's downstairs for dinner, and then afterwards...

Drinking. Obviously.

So sits Laurie Collins at the Diadem's bar, glass of wine in her hand and placid expression on her face. She's too tired, too jerked-around, to land on very solid feelings right now. ]

b

[the_caped_crusader]

Sure.

[ the voice might sound familiar to her, though his appearance is a little more uncharacteristic than what she might remember. rather than a $5,000 suit, bruce is dressed down in jeans, t-shirt, and jacket. his hair is slightly tousled, and his five o'clock shadow is just starting to sculpt his face. he reaches into his pocket to retrieve a napkin and holds it out to her. ]

[fridgeflower]

[ Laurie hadn't been paying great attention to her neighbor's face. Bruce's turn towards her gets a surprised reaction for a second before it scrunches down into slight confusion. Does he recognize her? Has he been regressed? She reaches up to accept the napkin, bordering on careful in her movements, like something might ripple and banish him to another realm beyond her.

... Given his outfit, he might be from another world entirely. But, right, question! ]

Uh. Do you... Did you just get here today?

[the_caped_crusader]

Mm. [ he shakes his head. ] No. I arrived with the second round, about a month ago now. Similar situation.

[ he gives a cursory glance around the room. ]

Anybody you know?

[fridgeflower]

[ She stops short of an exasperated laugh at the question. Just barely. ] Oh, kinda-sorta.

[ She dabs carefully under her eyes, trying with probable futility to clean up her smudged makeup, or to at least look slightly less drowned. After a moment, she pauses in that to offer her hand. ]

Laurie Collins. Wallflower.

[ Not ringing any bells, huh? ]

C

[helpdesk_hero]

[It's been a long day for everyone, and long enough that David, after showing young Loki from his room, had gone searching for a drink. Which led to him coming down to the bar because he felt that if he was going to go and get something of quality he should bring it up to Balthier's room and offer it. The bar, though, he couldn't take that with him, so he could be more likely to drink in moderation.

So he strode up to the bar, made an order, and then looked at the woman next to him. Then froze and did a double take. Oh.

Accepting his mixed drink he turned his attention to Laurie.]

Well, you're a sight for tired eyes.

[fridgeflower]

Oh, god. David. [ Laurie turns to face him more fully. She'd been staring off into space so hard that she hadn't even registered him properly. She reaches out to lay a hand on his chest, relief in her demeanor. ]

I don't know what happened. I didn't know if you were here or not.

[helpdesk_hero]

[Her hand settles on his chest and he smiles. She's one of only three people that could touch him like that without him immediately jerking away and rubbing at where there was no longer a scar. Thanks, Vidana, for bring that nervous habit back.]

Josh and I made it through early last month. We thought you didn't. God, he's going to be so happy to see you, especially since you're clearly our Laurie.

[Oh fuck it, he sets his drink aside and moves to hug her. She wouldn't deny a guy a hug, would she?]

[fridgeflower]

[ Of course she wouldn't deny a hug. She slips her arms around his rib cage and across his back, squeezing securely while trying not to slip off her bar stool. ]

Yeah, I-- I thought I was going to have to start over completely. Geez. [ There a sniff, and she pulls back, dabbing at her eyes. She really is relieved for something to build from, the most valuable thing she could have been granted. ] Sorry, I-- Long day.

[helpdesk_hero]

[Dont' worry, he's still standing enough to support them both.]

You're not going to lose me that easily Laurie. I swear it. I'm here for you. We're starting over, but it's together. And yeah, trust me, I get it. Confluences are a bit intense here, like the welcome ceremonies used to be before the world shifted. I admit, I was running all over the city after this guy calling himself Filter. Got turned into a cat boy apparently, and Balthier became a pirate, it was all a mess. And of course, THEN I got back to my room and there was Kid Loki, just lying in my bed, drinking my sodas. I needed a hard drink.

B

[anthropophagite]

[ It always happens. They are always brought to this room without even a word about it. At least they could give them a small heads up, but that would be too kind, it seems.

At the same time, because everyone is brought to this room, kaneki has the chance to try finding a familiar face among the crowd, although that's wishful thinking. He finds no one, and thus he ends up against a wall, waiting for Atomight to finish his speech and give all the new arrivals credit cards and keys to the Hotel.

That's when he hears Laurie, looking back at her afterwards ]

Yes?

[fridgeflower]

[ Not the first minor surprise on top of everything else, but at least this one's happened before. Ken's... complicated. Kind of. Most of the complication comes from the tendency of the powers that be to jerk him around, sending back and forth through time and place.

This is, of course, thus far avoided here. He never has to know if he doesn't know now, and that's probably for the best. So there's a moment of faltering when the recognition hits her, and she proceeds with generic questioning. ] You're part of group that's been here a little while, right? Have they mentioned how the group teleportation works?

[anthropophagite]

[ some people already broke the news to him, so he wouldn't be extremely freaked out if Laurie did tell him she knows him. But still, Kaneki doesn't suspect it and if she doesn't mention it, then he won't know ]

"A while"... only two months. [ not a lot ]

But they never did. I think someone has that sort of abilities but... they always do this. I think I've been in this room far too many times. [ and they never warn anyone they are about to teleport them either ]

[fridgeflower]

Yeesh. They could at least give the people who are already here a break. [ The otherworldly citizenry could at least pick whether they'd attend Swear-Ins back in Porter-town, for the most part.

At least this room isn't exploding or anything. (Knock on wood.) Anyway... ]

What do you think of them? The hero-types, I mean.

[anthropophagite]

Hmm.... [ kaneki touches his own chin, mostly because he doesn't really speak his mind often and he probably still will not. he doesn't want to badmouth the people that are currently providing him with a place to live and food ]

I think-- they are doing their best. [ wow. That was bad. ]

I mean, they aren't the ones doing the Confluences and want to make sure this place is safe, while still helping us. So, I'm thankful for that. [ yeah, that was much better ]

[resurrxion]

[ as usual, a crisis means that josh foley is up to his elbows in bodies that need healing. this world doesn't limit his powers the way the last one did, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't take a toll on him to keep half a hospital alive. he's thankful for the teleport out of there, even if there's now more people that need healing here.

and her.

he knows her anywhere. the same way he could pick david out from a thousand people. relief floods his face and tears immediately burn at his eyes, and he doesn't care how loud he's being when he breaks into a sprint, shoving people aside to get to her. ]

Laurie!

[fridgeflower]

[ There's the slight commotion of shoved-aside people, which she hardly notices in the jumble of things, before her same rings out. Her own expression when she turns is relief, even if it doesn't completely cancel out her already-soured demeanor. A moment's observation shifts things, though. The understanding of misplaced memories here, of possible timeline hiccups, coupled with Josh's near-panic...

He's not shocked by her very existence, so at least there's that. This is her Josh. God, it had better be. Her demeanor softens, eyebrows pinching in slight worry, and she greets him with open arms, never mind that she's a little soggy. ]

Hi. Hey. [ She tips up to kiss him, light and quick. They're in a tense public situation and they're already making a scene as it is. ] Are you alright?

[resurrxion]

Hi. Hi.

[ clearly he doesn't mind the sogginess. he scoops her up into his arms and kisses her, and - doesn't really seem to care what anyone thinks. but laurie tends to, so he carefully sets her back down. ]

I'm fine. Are you?

[fridgeflower]

Yeah. I guess so. I'm here.

[ It's both a statement and an affirmation. And she's careful about polite amount of PDA, but she doesn't abandon it altogether, standing with an arm looped around his waist, her thumb stroking over the fabric of his shirt.

She's not sure why she's here specifically, but... As long as she's somewhere, right? ]

Have you done this already? Confluence?

[resurrxion]

Yeah, I fell in through the first one. This is the... third, I think?

[ man. he turns to kiss the side of her head, keeping an arm looped around her and - doing a quick inventory on how she's doing health wise. ]

Nobody knew what the hell was going on.

b;

[forasecond]

I doubt I'll have an answer, but I'm not stopping you.

[Five is already capital-T Tired™ and he just got here. He has things he needs to be doing, and places he needs to be that are decidedly not here, but none of that seems to matter at the moment. So, why not indulge a random question?]

[fridgeflower]

[ She's half-sure she recognizes this kid, as well. One of the Hargreaves? She's less familiar with him than a couple more of his siblings, and she could also be completely wrong. Thus, this potential moment of recognition is less shocking that it could be. She's able to continue smoothly enough into her intended question. ]

You seem pretty calm. [ Not serene, but certainly not visibly distressed or particularly confused. ] Are you used to this sort of thing?

[forasecond]

[Calm. Now, that is not a word he would use to describe himself. Pretty much ever, but especially not right now. A smirk crosses his face at the comment, making the boy look a little more like a shark in that moment.]

Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't say I'm used to falling from the sky into another universe, but... I've got my own experiences that have taught me how to keep my shit together.

[fridgeflower]

[ The smirk, admission, casual cussing... Yeah, this is a weird kid, if absolutely nothing else, and Laurie's 99% sure there is something else. If it really is someone she can only vaguely remember, she's certainly not remembering what his deal is. Not that it matters all that much. ]

That's probably good. If this is anything like my last stint in another universe, keeping your shit together's a great habit to have.

I'm Laurie.

[forasecond]

Probably. [He agrees with a nod.] So, you've done this before.

[Statement. Not a question.]

I'm Number Five.