7/17/13: MONKEY MADNESS

PARTICIPANTS: ZEPHYR

Zephyr responded to a disturbance at the LA zoo, in which a priestess of a bizarre monkey cult was freeing primates. When she came on the scene, she saw the priestess commanding five silverback gorillas and ten chimpanzees and baboons to release all the primates at the zoo, creating chaos.

Using her air control from above, Zephyr scattered the smaller primates, and sent the gorillas (who were unable to leap up to her height to attack her) running for cover as well. Although they put up a valiant struggle, they had no weapons to attack Zephyr in the sky, and eventually the Priestess surrendered rather than see her gorillas harmed.

Instead of turning her over to the PTA, Zephyr assisted the Priestess to escape, and took her to AlertForce mansion, along with her primates, to sort out better methods of animal protection. Zephyr used her AlertForce communicator to learn that the Monkey Cult Priestess was only trying to release the primates because her religious beliefs indicate that imprisoning primates is a crime against nature. She intended no harm to humans.

Zephyr intends to help the priestess track down and rescue all the primates that were released (at least to see them to safety and prevent them harming anyone).

AWARD: 4hp

7/16/13: FIRE IN THE SKY

Participants: Loup Garou

Loup responded to a structure fire at a high rise in downtown LA (see report on main campaign archive page). When he arrived, he got a news chopper to get him to where he could jump on the roof. He saw POLECAT parachuting from the roof, and was again forced to try to save people rather than pursuing the villain.

Loup successfully evacuated 100 people from the upper floors of the building (above the fire) to the roof, and coordinated evacuation of 70 by chopper before conditions got too bad for choppers to reach the roof. Just as death seemed imminent for some or all of the victims (Loup was contemplating trying to leap off the roof with all 30 people), two unknown supers appeared, clad in blue uniforms with a triangle and an atom logo on them, and calmly created a blue energy field that doused the fire in the entire building. They had a strange conversation about some kind of contest, then disappeared.

The reporters quickly dubbed them "Triangle Man" and "Particle man."

AWARD: 6hp

7/6/13: Tracker don't play that

PLAYERS: IRONIC

(GM note: This is a bit of a time loop -- this event took place on the same night in AlertForce time as Ironic's last adventure.)

Ironic had found the correct building and decided to wait for Tracker Jack to show up. A few hours later (shortly after midnight), Ironic heard footsteps in the hallway leading to the room he was waiting in. The door opened and Jack walked in.

So that's when the battle started, right? Nope. That is when the conversation started.

Ironic's side of the argument: Jack. You don't have to be a criminal to have fun. You can have just as much fun fighting villains as you have ripping off rich people.

Jack's side of the argument: That may sound like fun to you, but to me, that is boring. I like what I do. And besides.... I'm nuts.

Both sides stood solidly behind his basic philosophy and eventually talks broke down. Ironic offered his hand so the two could shake and then move to the appropriate corner and wait for the bell. Tracker passed on the handshake ("Hey, if I shake your hand, that means you tagged me and I would be it. Only way for that to happen is for you to get to me and touch me. I am not gonna stand still and LET you touch me.") and let Ironic walk out.

Ironic found a public telephone and called AF but no one was home to pickup the phone and Hal could not contact anyone. Ironic then called Mike Samuels to get the LAPD to the address he was near to pick up Tracker Jack. He let Samuels know that Jack was probably already gone, but there would at least be stuff for the forensics people to work with. The police were there 5 minutes later with a SWAT team to make sure it was safe in there. They stormed the front door and there were a lot of "Hoo" and "Hah" and "Clear" sounds coming from inside the building. 2 minutes later, the team walked out and directed the forensic people to take over. Ironic went inside and saw that nothing was left in the storage building. NOTHING was left. What they did find suggested that the whole room structure was actually a stage design and Jack was actually able to strip and move the whole thing in less than 10 minutes.

Points awarded: Ironic 3.

7/5/13: I know he's around here somewhere....

PARTICIPANT: Ironic

Trapper Jack has been busy over the past few weeks. Homes all over LA have been broken into and a great deal of money has been stolen. Ironic was using the time to find some sort of pattern to give him direction but no pattern was found. The only thing that was common about the break-ins was the fact that the people were well off. No one was hurt during these robberies, though on two occasions, the elderly women whose homes were broken into came home. The women were not hurt, but they were frightened. Both were tied up and... oddly enough... served tea. They told the police that "the young man was a little goofy, but so polite."

Ironic was keeping up on these cases by talking to Mike Samuelson (a friend of Loup's in the LAPD), but the lack of a pattern made Ironic look elsewhere for information. He realised that the neuro-psychologist he is working with now had also spent some time working at Arkham. He went to the UCLA facility and found Dr. Charles Marshal. Marshal remembered the individual that Ironic was referring to, but was not involved in the case. His memory of the case only comes from discussions he had with a fellow Harvard graduate, Dr. Kenneth Pryce, who was one of the psychiatrists working with Jack. Marshal picked up the phone and gave Pryce a call and handed the phone to Ironic. Ironic learned in this conversation that Jack was an extreme case in ADHD. Even on 4 times the average prescription of Ritalin, Jack was hard to keep up with. There were also some feelings of abandonment related to parents who were very wealthy and spent very little time with the child. His nanny was his surrogate mother. Pryce could not go into many details, but when asked about housing, he sent Ironic two photographs on file -- the room that Jack spent his childhood in, and the room in the asylum. The room structures were different, but the decorations were the same, down to the curtains in the windows and the bed.

Ironic thought that that was something to work with. He was able to get a floor plan of the original apartment and Marshal suggested that, if he wants to figure out who Jack would need to hire to get the apartment designed, he should talk to Geoffry Evans in the Architecture Department of UCLA. Evans' secretary was a little intimidated when a large, grey skinned man walked into the office. When asked where Evans' office was, she stared blankly and pointed to the door behind her. When asked where Evans was, she pointed to the same door. Ironic went through the door and the gentleman behind the desk looked up from the papers he was reading only to drop his jaw. Ironic calmed the man down and got him to talk about what architects in the area he thinks would be the best to hire to work on a specific design (showing Evans the schematics of the NY apartment). Evans said he could think of maybe 10 buildings in the area which could be used to deal with this architectural design and 4 architects working in LA which could pull it off.

Ironic checked out the 10 buildings and found that 4 had recently had changes. He then looked up the 4 architects. One was in the hospital (skying accident), two were out of the country on other projects so the last name on the list was the one he had to talk to. In that conversation he found out that this architect had been hired 2 weeks earlier to go blindfolded to a specific construction sight and work with material supplied by the person who hired him and with a crew of builders who had also agreed, for an increased fee, to come in blindfolded. The architect was payed 1.2 million for his work and the rooms he worked on looked a great deal like the rooms in the schematics Ironic showed him. But only a few of the rooms -- the 6 rooms in the lower left corner of the design. These rooms were a kitchen, bathroom, pantry, playing room, and bedrooms for the nanny and Jack.

Ironic now had 4 buildings to choose from. Having nothing to direct him to any building directly, Ironic simply started at the top of the list and went from there. Each of the first three buildings had area, but could not be used. There were businesses present in each building which would present the possibility of too many new people showing up and the possibility for each to go through the wrong door in the building. The last building on the list had Trapper Jack written all over it... figuratively speaking. Ironic looked at his watch and thought, 10 pm. He is out on the move at this time. But he is going to be back in the next 2 hours. I have to take the time to figure out the best strategy to deal with this guy. And MAYBE call in some backup.

Points awarded: Ironic 4.

7/1/13: BAKED ALASKA

PARTICIPANTS: SCOTSMAN, ZEPHYR, GREEN LANTERN, BANE, LOUP GAROU

Zephyr was ordered to Alaska to deal with the Alaska8 once and for all. General Crabass informed her that the military had found where the renegade mutants were holed up, and expected an attack on Phillips AFB immminently. Zephyr was ordered to take AlertForce to Alaska by military chopper and intercept Alaska8 before they attacked.

When the team approached the hideout, the chopper quickly swung in the other direction. The Pilot reported that the base was already under attack.

Shortly thereafter, AlertForce arrived at the base during a full scale attack. The base was in ruin, and Alaska8 (now all sporting some kind of new green uniforms) was in full combat with 15 military men in similar outfits, but with helmets obscuring their eyes and covering their ears.

AlertForce entered the fray, and the three-way battle raged for some time, with the Military attacking Alaska8, Alaska8 attacking both the military and AlertForce, and eventually the military attacking AlertForce as well.

During the battle, while Bane fought Stinger, Stinger yelled asking why AlertForce was attacking. Stinger claimed the soldiers had been enslaved and Alaska8 was rescuing them. Indeed, when one of the soldiers' helmets was knocked off, the soldier looked as if he did not know where he was or what was happening. AlertForce quickly changed its tactics and began trying to knock the helmets off the soldiers, with some success.

When the dust cleared and the battle finally ended, all the soldiers had been released from the helmets, AlertForce had captured one member of Alaska8 (Masker), the remaining 7 had escaped, and General Crabass arrived with a team of army rangers and took over the base. He told Zephyr that the military program under way there, whatever it was, was unauthorized and he was going to look into it. He ordered Zephyr to take AlertForce back to LA immediately. Reluctantly, the team boarded the chopper and headed home (but not before Zephyr got Loup to steal two of the helmets, and Green Lantern got Masker out of the battle and zoomed her to Bane's island, far from rescue by her teammates.

AWARD: 10hp