Turn 6, Player 1

1) Dominic attacks Huntress to finish her off. Rolls (2, 5) for a hit, dealing 2 damage and the KO.

2) Cole will push to target Mr. Miracle and Booster Gold with his turret. Rolls (6, 2) for a 17, which misses both. Cole takes a push click.

3) Dr. Light flies up to Q10.

4) Captain Atom pushes to shoot Fire & Ice with RCE. Rolls (5, 3) to hit. Booster still hasn't used his PC yet so I'm assuming he would use it here. Second roll is (6, 4) for a better hit. (2 + 2 - 1) damage to Fire & Ice, and a click to Atom.

Justice League International

1) V CD Superman (9/9) U4 @
* w/ Automatic Regeneration
2) V CR Blue Beetle (3/6) X4
3) V Or Booster Gold (6/8) S7
4) V Elongated Man (6/6) T7 @
5) E Fire & Ice (4/8) R/S3 @@
6) V Vixen (3/6) U11 (Stealth)
7) E Mr. Miracle (7/7) T5 @
8) R Big Barda (6/7) V4 @
9) R HT Huntress (-1/5) *KO'ed*


The Human Defense Corps:

1) V Captain Atom (7/10) J-13 @@
2) E JL Dr. Light (5/6) Q-10 @
3) LE Dmitri Pushkin (7/8) T-8
4) R Mary Marvel (4/8) R-10
5) E Marcus Fenix (7/7) R-9
6) E Dominic Santiago (2/7) Q-11 @
7) E Augustus Cole (6/7) R-15 (Raven Turret) @@
8) E Damon Baird (4/6) O-12

Grenade Pool) 7
Raven Turret) R15

LO: L15, Q11
HO: U15, R9

Map: Docks

I'm back! For a bit... Still leaving this weekend again. Sorry for how much time I've been away. I know it isn't as fun to play when your opponent is barely around for the game. At least you're getting a good tour of play with the Gears gang. I actually really like how their dials work, and I'm pleased to see how effective they are in play.

Turn 6 (Player 2)

1) Booster breaks away with a 5; charges to R11 and attacks Dominic Santiago; rolls a 7 (2,5) for a 17/hit, 2 clicks and the KO.

2) Vixen moves to U7.

3) Blue Beetle moves to S8.

Free) Mr. Miracle will outwit Damon's "Lay there and bleed..." special power.

Justice League International

1) V CD Superman (9/9) U4
* w/ Automatic Regeneration
2) V CR Blue Beetle (3/6) S8 @
3) V Or Booster Gold (6/8) R11 @
4) V Elongated Man (6/6) T7 @
5) E Fire & Ice (4/8) R/S3 @@
6) V Vixen (3/6) U7
7) E Mr. Miracle (7/7) T5 @
8) R Big Barda (6/7) V4 @
9) R HT Huntress (-1/5) *KO'ed*


The Human Defense Corps:

1) V Captain Atom (7/10) J-13 @@
2) E JL Dr. Light (5/6) Q-10 @
3) LE Dmitri Pushkin (7/8) T-8
4) R Mary Marvel (4/8) R-10
5) E Marcus Fenix (7/7) R-9
6) E Dominic Santiago (0/7) *KO'ed*
7) E Augustus Cole (6/7) R-15 (Raven Turret) @@
8) E Damon Baird (4/6) O-12

Grenade Pool) 7
Raven Turret) R15

LO: L15, Q11
HO: U15, R9

Map: Docks[/quote]

Turn 7, Player 1

Free) Marcus Fenix rolls Leadership, gets a 5. He takes an action token off Dr. Light.

1) Dr. Light will incap Booster with a close combat attack. Rolls (3, 5) for a hit; Booster uses PC to reroll that and the second attempt is (1, 1) for a critical miss. Dr. Light takes 1 click of damage. Ouch!

2) Mary Marvel will attempt to clobber Booster. Rolls (6, 3) for a hit, dealing 3 damage to Booster.

3) Dmitri uses Force Blast on Beetle, pushing him into the water in Q8. Splash!

free) Damon will perplex up Cole's damage +1, which boosts his own damage +1 as a result.

4) Damon will shoot at Beetle, rolling (6, 1) for a hit, dealing 3 damage and the KO.

5) Marcus Fenix will shoot at Fire & Ice. Rolls (5, 6) for a hit. Elongated Man's PC rerolls it to (3, 3) for a hit, dealing 3 damage (-1 for toughness). Since the second roll was doubles, Fenix can use his "Fast Reload" power to take a free shot at Mr. Miracle up there. Rolls (5, 6) for a hit. Miracle's Supersenses roll is (3) so he finally gets tagged for 2 clicks.

Justice League International

1) V CD Superman (9/9) U4
* w/ Automatic Regeneration
2) V CR Blue Beetle (0/6) *ko'ed*
3) V Or Booster Gold (3/8) R11 @
4) V Elongated Man (6/6) T7
5) E Fire & Ice (2/8) R/S3
6) V Vixen (3/6) U7 @
7) E Mr. Miracle (5/7) T5
8) R Big Barda (6/7) V4
9) R HT Huntress (-1/5) *KO'ed*


The Human Defense Corps:

1) V Captain Atom (7/10) J-13
2) E JL Dr. Light (4/6) Q-10 @
3) LE Dmitri Pushkin (7/8) T-8 @
4) R Mary Marvel (4/8) R-10 @
5) E Marcus Fenix (7/7) R-9 @
6) E Dominic Santiago (0/7) *KO'ed*
7) E Augustus Cole (6/7) R-15 (Raven Turret)
8) E Damon Baird (4/6) O-12 @

Grenade Pool) 7
Raven Turret) R15

LO: L15, Q11
HO: U15, R9

Map: Docks

End Post:

Blue Beetle fell back to the roof, firing random blasts from his gauntlets as he took shelter. Beside him, Mr. Miracle staggered back slightly, his shoulder hit by the blast from an HDC trooper. He had no idea what the ordinance was that these guys were packing, but they were clearly geared and trained to take on metahumans.

“This *huff* this isn’t going so well,” he said to the visored Superman, breathing heavily. “Captain Atom’s new f--*huff* friends are better equipped than I was ready for.”

“We can hold them off,” Superman said in the same flat monotone he might have used to describe their odds of getting the dishes washed. But Ted looked out on the field, saw how his team was struggling in the fight they hadn’t wanted – a fight against their own friends and teammates. None of them could put their hearts into it; they were holding back, knowing they didn’t want to hurt each other. But it was making the outcome more or less a foregone conclusion.

“No we can’t,” he shook his head. “We’re going to lose. It might be close, but it’ll be a loss just the same.”

He looked at Superman, tried to gauge the emotion in his face and imagine what might be going on in his head. He couldn’t do it. Ted couldn’t believe that this man was the same Superman who had been one of his heroes. This cold, calculating, so often callow man didn’t have an ounce of the real Superman’s heart. But at the same time, Ted believed his story – this wasn’t a villain. Letting him be captured and scapegoated by Lex Luthor would be a disaster.

“You need to get out of here,” he said. “We can keep them off you, but you have to make it out to get that Cyborg son of a b#tch and stop him from doing… whatever it is he’s planning.”

“I… I do not wish to abandon you to this,” the man who would be Superman said, struggling with the words. “I have been so wrong—so far from what I was meant to be. I don’t want to add the abandonment of my teammates… my only friends… to my list of offenses.”

“You may be the only one who can stop the Cyborg,” Beetle insisted. “You have to do this. And we have to do this. Go, get help, get the truth out there and—and be Superman!”

“And you?”

“We’ll be what we’ve always been,” he sighed. “The backup Justice League. The B-listers who throw their bodies at the problems so that the big-guns can save the day. Don’t worry about us. One way or another, we’ll land on our feet.”

Superman nodded, looking like he wanted to say more, but instead took flight and soared away.

“The target is retreating!” Captain Atom shouted. “Open fire! Don’t let him get away!”

“Cover him, League!” Beetle ordered in return. “Leave it all on the field!”

They threw everything they had at the HDC. Booster extended his force field to create a wall that deflected Captain Atom’s blasts, but it left his suit’s power supply stretched too thin, and one of the commandos dropped him with a spray of gunfire to his torso. As he fell, Elongated Man stretched up to catch him, but Dmitri was ready for it and attacked the now distracted hero. Ice put up a frozen barrier to cover Superman’s exit, and though it held admirably, the strain of keeping it up and solid despite the heavy gunfire was wearing her out fast.

“Miracle,” Beetle called out. “You can fly the Bug, right?”

“I’m the master of—“

“Great! We’re in it pretty deep now, but I think Superman’s safe. Get to the Bug and lay us down some aerial cover while we retreat. Can you do that for us, buddy?”

“On it!” the Apokaliptian said with a broad grin and a big thumbs-up. He hovered off on his hover-discs, and Ted turned to add his own firepower to defending his friends.

“Dammit, Beetle,” Captain Atom gritted his teeth as the two clashed on the battlefield. “How could you defend that man? You’ve seen what he’s capable of!”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, forming a shield to block a haymaker, then cycling his stun gauntlet through a range of energy fields as his suit tried to find a frequency that could affect the Captain. “I’ve also seen how Guy acts, but nobody’s hunting him down, so I figured what the hey?”

“Gardner never destroyed a city! He didn’t endanger millions of lives!”

“Neither did that guy! And if you’d listen for two minutes instead of just clicking your heels and doing whatever your bosses say, maybe you’d realize that!”

“Oh, so he sold you a story and you bought it? I knew you were thick, Ted, but that is just—“

“Up high!” one of the troopers shouted. “Air support!”

The HDC Captain squinted his eyes as the Bug came soaring in, opening up with strobing lights and flashes of stunning energy from a turret. He signaled to the trooper with the heavy munitions on the rooftop.

“Take it down. Maximum prejudice.”

“No, wait!” Captain Atom shouted, but it was too late. A missile was already flying toward the Bug, just as Mr. Miracle was opening the hatch to let his friends in. The payload struck him directly in the chest and exploded. The Bug went up in a massive conflagration of fire and shrapnel. Dr. Light put up a hard-light shield to protect them as the debris fell to the ground in flaming chunks.

“S-scott?” Barda choked. “Scott?!”

“Oh, no,” Mary said, covering her mouth as the shattered remains of the Bug crashed into the bay. “Oh no, no, no…”

“SCOTT!” Barda screamed as she ran for the water and dove in. The fight was forgotten for the JLI, but the HDC opened fire. In their distraction, Elongated Man, Fire, and Ice went down before they even realized the battle was back on.

“Dammit, no!” Beetle shouted, charging to their defense.

“Hold it, hold fire!” Captain Atom shouted, trying to bring his team under control. “Hold your goddamn fire, you grunts! Stand down!”

“Sir?” the HDC Captain asked, not knowing what was happening.

“You heard me,” he said. “This was a capture mission, dammit. Non-lethal rounds only, we corral them and we bring them in for questioning. Your men killed somebody!”

“We were controlling the lay of the field, sir. The aircraft looked like it posed a viable threat to--”

“I don’t care if it looked like a damned nuke with a cowboy riding it, you were not authorized to use lethal force! Now bring your men in and check the wounded.”

“What’s the deal, Cap?” Beetle said nervously as he stood protectively near what was left of his team. They’d huddled themselves up with the wounded in a protective circle, not knowing what was going to happen now and still reeling from Scott’s fatal crash.

“You tell me, Ted. We still have to bring you in.”

“You have your orders, huh.”

“Yes. I do. I didn’t want it to be this way, but… it doesn’t change that.”

“Then I surrender. The League surrenders. Just… just stop trying to kill us.”

“It wasn’t supposed to—“

“Right. Of course it wasn’t. Tell it to Barda, see how far it gets you, pal.”

At that moment, they heard Barda climb from the pier, dragging herself over the ledge and up to her knees. She held what was left of Scott Free in her arms. None of them could stand to look at her, but none could look away. When she looked up, it was with a kind of pain and torment and heart-rending sadness that none of them had ever seen before.

She screamed; a brutal, primal, tortured scream that reverberated in the air like a cathedral bell. Rising to her feet, she simply lifted off the ground as her hover-discs formed beneath her boots and flew away.

“I hope you realize how lucky you just got,” Beetle said to Captain Atom as he allowed himself to be handcuffed by the HDC. “I expected her to kill you.”

“…So did I,” he whispered, watching her fly away.

As the HDC loaded up the JLI, Captain Atom called in to base.

“This is the Wall, good to hear from you Captain. Team two is in an electronic blackout with no response - tell me you have good news.”

“Secondary target apprehended, though there were casualties. Primary target escaped; headed north.”

“We know where he’s likely to go, don’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am. But my team took some pretty bad hits. I don’t know if we’re all fit to fly, and if I don’t have—“

“Don’t worry about it, Captain,” she cut him off. “The rest of your special unit is ready and en route to your location. They will rendezvous with you at your current coordinates and you will pick up Subject 2’s trail from there. Copy?”

“Roger that, Command. We’ll apprehend the target when—“

“Negative. Orders have changed, Captain. When you find Subject 2, you are to terminate it. That goes for all four Subjects, as well – if it has an ‘S’ on its chest, you shoot to kill. Clear?”

“…Roger, Command. Captain Atom out.”

To Be Continued…