Campaign:Zero Day/Hyperion City

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The Zero Day

Hyperion City, the not too far future.

It's just another day in the bustling city, people going about their business, be it legit or otherwise. Millions of people swarming along the city's streets. Many others still at work or home. But all of a sudden, many of these people drop where they are in a collective grand mal seizure. People trip over those who fell on the sidewalk, cars with blacked-out people swerve into traffic, pedestrians, and store fronts, friends and family rush to help those who fell near them. The whole experience lasts about two or three minutes before most of those who fell came to and got back onto their feet as if nothing happened.

But something did happen.

These people who had just recovered from the seizure began to show the signs of superhuman abilities. One of them burst into flames, but did not feel pain from it. Another accidentally crushed a car's hood by grabbing it to get up. Yet another started to leave the ground without even thinking about it. All over the city, the emergence of these supers set the city into a panic. Days after what would be called the Zero Day, many of these supers would learn to better control their newly found powers, many of them starting to find a use for them. Naturally, there are those wanting to use their powers to fight the City's infamous forces of crime, others using them to commit crimes otherwise impossible. But there were also many who wanted to remain neutral and keep their powers out of the public eye. With the police barely able to deal with the more criminal supers and a tenuous trust of those willing to help, instability and war seemed to be just over the horizon.

One Month after the Zero Day

Blackout

Setting his plan to eradicate the city of the lawful supers who ended his entrepreneurial plans, Blackout begins searching for worthy supers to join his cause. Along the way, he taps into the communications system of the Hyperion City Prison using his DAWN system. There, he tries to barter the services of the Rush during Typhon's raid upon the U-Block. Unfortunately, the plan doesn't go through, but it is certain that Blackout has other avenues to seek help in his task.

The Butcher

The Butcher has become more and more animal-like in the passing months. Currently has a den of sorts in Rusty Towers, though his hunting grounds cover much of the southern half of Hyperion City.

His Animal Mimicry skills require him to consume copious amounts of food... Plentiful for the Predator of Predators. Starts his hunts at sundown, ending them just before the sun rises. Spends the mornings sleeping, tossing in constant nightmares and shifting between horrible, nightmarish forms.

...

The Butcher scowled. New smells had begun to creep into his hunting grounds... Delicious smells. Whatever they were, they would serve to make a better meal than the homeless and destitute he had been eating as of late. These smells poked into his mind, as if taunting him. In no time at all, he was salivating. The smell of the Supers kicked his hunting instincts into overdrive, as if killing and eating a Super would somehow sate the hunger he now always felt.

He pulled himself out of the mound of clothing and bones he had collected from his victims. Cracked skulls lay in a neat pile in one corner of the room, some still with bits of brain matter attached to the jagged cracks made to suck them out.

The smashed mirror was just whole enough to allow The Butcher to look at his face; during the night his nose had become wolf-like. A quick shake and it was back to normal. He looked down to his hands, now almost permanently shifted to sickening mimicry bear claws and human hands. A low growl escaped his throat as his bones cracked and contorted, giving himself legs designed to jump and hooked claw feet to attach to walls.

Clever

Robert has been in a heated argument with one of his future selves for the past hour or two. The whole debate started after his future self mentioned that he was going to get shot multiple times pretty soon. He was rather pissed that his future self wouldn't tell him where it why it was going to happen.

He was also somewhat annoyed that his future selves had the nerve to get angry at him for his recent decisions, it didn't really make sense that they'd get angry at him for making the same "mistakes" he did. The past few days Robert has been attracting some unwanted attention. He's been raking in cash from one of the cities casinos, and he was scared.

He made a couple thousand dollars playing poker and blackjack, he'd consult his future selves beforehand and they'd give him all the info he'd need to win every time.

As he thought of what to do next, he suddenly felt very sick. He mutters "Oh fuck, I gotta get out of here..." as he fights back the urge to vomit. He sluggishly grabs his backpack full of his ill gotten gains, and dashes out of the backdoor to his house just as an ominous unmarked van pulls up to his home.

Clove Black

"Clove, report to build site 1a12. Continue your work on the foundations. Honestly I don't know how we managed before you came along."

Laying foundations was... boring. But it paid well. Clove had always imagined going into Information technology, and now he built brick walls and made cement shuffle around construction sites. Still it was better than his first business venture, coming up with comedic things for mannequins to do was... more difficult than he thought at first. Clove hunched into his jacket as he walked, kept his eyes ahead and desperately hoped that he could go one more day without some superpowered psycho screaming for his blood.

A scream, a woman crying. A male voice, more sobbing from the woman. Raw fear suffused Clove's being. This was why he hated the world outside his bedroom, bad things happened. Still, he couldn't just stand here and do nothing. He pressed himself against a particularly dark wall and slid behind a tall, grimy trash can which was over flowing with trash. He just had to reach out and he'd find something, a rat in this case, male, large and scarred, an old alley survivor. In the old days he'd become lost in the instincts and the sensations but by now he was an old hand at banishing the animal mind to a dark corner of their shared consciousness. Clove/rat scurried along the floor of the alleyway, garbage, piss, food, shit all of these smells were secondary to the one thing that filled the alleyway. Fear, its primal stink filled the air and was impossible to ignore. Whatever was going on, it wasn't fake.

It's a pimp, no question. Who the fuck else wears a bright pink fur coat? He's got... well it's not a woman, its a very effeminate boy. Whatever, they're speaking English but by now clove/rat isn't listening. A man who makes his living by beating up desperate people doesn't deserve to live. He extends his consciousness further the slick muck that coats the alleyway floor begins to congeal, rocks, garbage, dead organic matter all begin to fuse together into a vaguely humanoid form.

It takes seconds, there's a grunt, a squeal. The girly-boy hooker runs screaming, as if anyone in this part of the city would pay attention. There's a loud crunch as the pimp's life ends forever.

And as Clove returns to his cold, sweat coated body a new fear has joined his checklist of neurosis and phobias. He's beginning to enjoy killing. What type of person is he becoming? Shaken the man rises and quickly begins to move along his way. He has a job to do after all.

The Puppeteer

After having his breakdown and invariably rendering his former home unlivable, Edmund Leach, or The Puppeteer as he had taken to calling himself, seeing that his abilities revolved around inanimate matter, began to search for a place where he could freely use and abuse any material he got his hands on.

He found himself living day to day on the streets of Hyperion City, feeding off of snacks from vending machines that he had animated and painstakingly convinced to dispense food for him. He tried animating vehicles but they were too much strain on his mind, they tired him out too fast.

Though a stroke of good luck soon found him, because through his wanderings he found Rusty Towers. His eyes nearly fell out of his head as he wandered around the dilapidated warehouses and run down buildings.

Wandering further, he found his current home, Rusty Towers' biggest junkyard, or as Edmund now calls it, the Boneyard.

...

The Puppeteer sat in his tetanus-inducing new home, listening to the creak of the discarded pieces of metal as they shifted under each others weight and fell from their perches at the peak of the junk piles. It was like they were speaking to him, calling out to be used.

"They will all be under my employ soon enough," he mused as he grabbed a dirt and grime-covered toaster from the ground and tucked it under his arm, "But for now we needed to familiarise ourselves with our surroundings." He laughed shakily while brushing off his new friend, slowly advancing towards the prison, which sounded to be alight with activity.

The Puppeteer moseyed through the streets of Rusty Towers, drawing odd looks from all around as he hunched over and continued to whisper and clean his newfound toaster friend. Glancing up from this pal, aptly named 'Toasty', he began to take in his surroundings and familiarise himself. Looking at stores, glaring at people who gave him judging looks and trying to memorise the general street layout.

After a while though, he began to become sick walking, and of the judging eyes all around him. He just wanted to go back to his junkyard, he wanted to go back to The Boneyard. He closed his eyes and felt as though his body was being pulled through an oncoming torrent of water, he began to panic. 'Did a water main burst?! Did I fall into the sewer?!'

Though when he opened his eyes, he found himself back in his junkyard, exactly where he started. Though he was a little bit spooked, a small smile crept onto his face as he stroked Toasty again and walked deeper into the junkyard.

Pygmalion

The dwarfish Pygmalion would soon find himself entrenched within Typhon's New Rome mob, becoming known as a dependable strongman. This quality came to great use when he and his boss cut their way through the heavily armed force guarding the still-in-construction U-Block. Knowing better than to get in the way of Typhon, he seems to be at least in his boss's good graces for now.

Replay

As time went by, Eric has been trying to lay low in his apartment in Mid City, not leaving except to go to work. Others with powers have started showing up, all which was gained around the time when he gained his, Zero Day as it was dubbed by reporters on the news. He's been getting the hang of his powers through experimentation, some planned, some not. The ability to look back, or forward in time is useful and has helped him, although his inability to control said power when applied to organisms has led him to avoid all physical contact with people after witnessing a few things he'd rather of not known. Some at work have asked him about the new scar on his face, but he waved them off saying he accidentally fell onto one of his ashtrays. His learning about his kinetic absorption ability however has been slower, what with him not wanting to jump off of tall buildings to test. However due to an accident at work involving an argument from across the room, a thrown coffee mug, and his forehead, he has learned that kinetic impacts don't seem to affect him, like when he saw himself fall off the apartment building. The coffee still burned though.

The Rush

Things seemed almost too easy for the Rush early on. Super speed multiplied by being pure energy equals total domination! But then he ran into a bit of a roadblock once he had to deal with more than one super at a time. He remembers a shiny guy, some other no-names, but also this happy little fucking kid with WAY too much goddamned energy. Reminds him of himself a little too much for comfort. Sure, the little shit wasn't as far as him by a long shot, but the kid could reorient himself at every move, as if he were breaking the laws of physics, at least that of inertia. As fast as the Rush was, this child was able to evade him at every turn, outmaneuvering his super speed with well-timed jumps and balance. The Rush was so absorbed by trying to best him that the others got a hold of him and that was that, thrown into the new U-Block in the pokey.

While there, he ended up learning of his name - Kid Kinetic. Kid. Kinetic. Lame fucking name! It's like he tried too hard! His name, the Rush, simple, to the point, strikes fear into the hearts of men. Ooooh, when he figures out how to overcome the anti-energy field in his cell and shift back he would...

That alarm... something's going on... the Rush could feel his energy coming back to him. Time to go!

As the Rush made his way out of his cell, he encountered a lizard-like man whose name he didn't bother to pick up, offering him a spot in his crime group. While dealing with him, a mysterious voice rang through the loudspeakers of the U-Block, claiming to know the whereabouts of his nemesis, Kid Kinetic. Not liking the idea of being a lackey under either the reptilian shapeshifter or the disembodied voice, he sped out of the weakened guard at the entrance to find his own way.

Shell Game

In only a month since Zero Day, the man known as Shell Game, a prolific leader of a notable drug cartel in the south of town, has made his mark. He rose to the top of the ranks in gruesome fashion. Presenting himself as an invincible force of nature after his strategic killings, the cartel soon fell in line. Sure, some of them fled to groups such as New Rome and the Bianchi family, but by and large Shell Game would turn the group of disparate drug dealers and runners into a tight-knit organization.

Though small at present, the Snow Walker cartel is starting to make ripples through Hyperion City.

Shining Man

It has been a month or so after the Zero Day, a month or so after Brandon Wells had his scare. It didn't take too long before he understood his power, the power to bring Shining Man into the world. Yet he had to find himself a good place to hide while Shining Man was doing his bidding. He ended up being contacted by a mysterious benefactor and brought him to an undisclosed location within the city. This benefactor, a man only identified as Doctor Doe, now provides Brandon all the protection and care he can need from this protected location as he done his work.

Soon enough, Brandon would be joined by other supers who Doctor Doe had assembles, including a very bright and sunny boy that goes by the name Kid Kinetic. More and more, Brandon became sure that the Zero Day is indeed a beacon of hope for him, and in return, Shining Man shall become a beacon of hope for Hyperion City.

The Solution

He was contacted by Typhon, leader of the New Rome mob to bring his powers to their line of assassins. He would politely refuse the offer, but said he would "keep in touch." Given the nature of assassins though, he felt it best to be careful himself to make sure that he isn't killed himself.

Statuary

Samantha has heard a lot in the past two months. In the quiet days at the book, she'll sit there with a text in hand; open and unread as she would just listen to the chatter around her. Focusing more on one then another, blocking them all out, seeing how deep she could push. It felt invasive and on some level she felt sick. It had gotten easier to tune out it all but when in the city proper, people everywhere, it was agony. Constant cacophony smothered her.

She would flit away from crowds, try to avoid as many as possible. Occasionally she would hear something, see something that made her ill or feel violated. Other times there were some whose minds were soft and gentle, like a song or poem. She liked those people.

Rarely when she was out with Amanda it was easiest. Concentrate on her friend, who was nothing but faint whispers by now, and she would miss most of the world around her.

Today wasn't such a day.

She was sitting alone late in the afternoon, deep into one of the parks on the University grounds; her usual attempts to turn out or even turn off her powers were being met with the usual lack of success as she nursed her head. She wasn't paying particular attention to her surroundings, mental or otherwise, but she started to get a sickening feeling, phantom tastes of bile much like what she noticed when she happened to see inside the minds of those that seemed the most criminal. She had never acted on this in the past except to avoid them. A telepath who couldn't even control her own power in a city that had started to see all powers as an incoming threat. The modern day Communist or Muslim. What would happen if she went to the police, she’d become the criminal?

And Amanda, if Amanda was implicated? Friend and Roommate with a monster?

This was distracting; the background noise took on a distracting, malicious intent.

Against her own better judgement, like witnesses to a horrible accident, she focused on that voice and sight.

He was about thirty meters away, the horizontal edge of her sight as she focused. Straight away she was struck with ideas of power and abuse. She felt sick.

Telepathy was strange. She didn't so much as see or hear what was there but something altogether unique.

Stray emotions, dream-like glances through their eyes, their thoughts yelled across the reflecting ether, their own self-form for her to see.

What she was experiencing here was sickening. A knife drawn, torn clothing, the taste of blood and tears.

Under that was worse. A voice to quiet to be heard over this chocking malaise. Samantha had to tune it out; it was enough to make her retch.

Then the actual sound could be heard. Rustling or material, some low grunting and muffled sobs.

Samantha stood slowly, unsteady on her feet. She shuffled over to the thick brush that help conceal her and awkwardly pushed her head through to see.

She had to push aside more branches to get a good look; there was a person on the ground, bunched up.

No, two people, one atop another. There was an aggressive motion about it; it looked like a knife was held against the prone figure.

Samantha could hear the crying now, it broke her concentration and it all washed through her mind again.

She fell back through the brush, stunned.

This wasn't right, what would she do? What should she do?

The crying ceased. A voice, coarse and aggressive, broke through; ‘Who’s there?’

Samantha started to panic, the very thing she tried to avoid was about to come to fruition. She was to secluded to hope to run, she’d be seen before she got far at all. The park was largely empty, this far from anyone minimises the noise.

The hours after the seizures had been complete chaos. Crimes, looting, violence had spiked dramatically as many, drunk and overwhelmed by the powers they now held demonstrated human nature to a text-book degree.

Samantha spent it in agony trapped with her mind that just would not remain quiet.

This was probably as good a time as any then to have a post-power rampage.

‘STOP!’

She yelled as loud as she imagined she could across the reflective ether.

“What?!” The figure from behind the brush called out.

Samantha concentrated on that shadow she saw moments earlier, the figure with the knife.

He, it? was standing now she thought. She wasn't looking through their eyes but rather their mental perception. It made little sense but it seemed to reflect the basics.

Samantha quickly grabbed her scarf and tied it roughly around her face. Her hair and eyes were visible but there was little she could do at this point. The figure shuffled around the border of the tangled bush-shrubs, they’d likely see her soon.

What could she do? Yell at him? Could she control him? She didn't even want to pry into Amanda’s mind, could she do anything?

That statuette!

In the first few days she became aware she had been slowly moving that small soapstone keepsake in the hall of the apartment. It was driving Amanda to paranoia at first. Even now she would keep an eye on it whenever she had to pass it in the hall.

Statue, where was there a statue? They populated the campus. Art-projects mostly.

There was one in this park. A Grecianesque Athena statue. Scroll in hand. Knowledge and Wisdom.

About a hundred meters from here.

Awkwardly she bounded after it. Unfortunately, she was no more than halfway before she was spotted by the knife-wielding shadow. It, he? Was clutching the other figure, rag dolled in his hands.

“I suggest ya stop. Ya Fucking Freak!” Samantha started to panic.

“Ya think you gonna play Hero?”

Samantha paused. She had him in her centre vision; the statue was just at the edge of her peripheral. If it would just move.

The arm with the scroll shifted, it had to of.

‘Just move’

“Wha- Ya lips?”

A stone leg rose slowly from the plinth.

‘Just Move!’

The figure shook his head, seemingly with a sick grin across his lips.

“Make Me!”

The sound of tearing cement signified the other leg was free now from the base.

It was strange, moving a statue didn't require much effort. It seemed to utilise the same parts of her mind that governed her own movement. But the strange sensation of observing this in Third Person was just another mental oddity for Samantha to explore later.

“What? Stop, ya hear? I’ll kill her!” He yelled as he watched the lime ash construct goddess drunkenly stumble towards him.

‘QUIET!’

Her scream was directed, she focused as much as possible on his mind. For a moment they were directly connected.

Nausea washed over her, seemed to wash over him as well. His arm fell for a moment and his hostage slipped out of his grasp.

The Statue stopped moving. Samantha’s control broken.

“I’m Gonna Fucking Gut You, Ya Bitch!”

He moved faster than Samantha could track through her sickening haze, there was a painful numbing sensation deep into her diaphragm as the knife sunk in.

He pulled out the gore coated blade as Samantha’s body slumped to the dirt. He stared in shock before a smile crawled across his face.

“I killed a fucking Super.”

Samantha mind was a haze. She’d clutch her stomach if she could move.

‘Is this dying?’

The pain subsided slowly and all she could feel anymore was the numbness. Her vision had faded and all she saw was a vague shadow of her attacker.

“See ya bitch.”

Just behind the shadow she could see another, the Statue…

Just move.

…‘just… move…’

“What?”

The further shadow lurched forwards.

‘just move’

“Oh no… Not again you bitch!”

He quickly stabbed her again. Pain flared across the shoulder but as soon as the blade was withdrawn the wound already had started to bind back together, collagen already laying down laced maze.

“Ya fucking Super”

‘MOVE!’

He paused for a moment, looking back behind himself just as a stone hand lurched forwards, grabbing his knife hand.

There was a sickening sound as the stone agent tightened its grip before its movement ceased. He started to scream in pain.

Samantha slowly got back to her feet, her shoulder and stomach pulsed in phantom pain and she stumbled slightly.

She slowly hobbled over to the fallen, still comatose hostage. She’d seen her before on campus, another student.

Samantha withdrew her own mobile and dialled emergency services.

“Police and Ambulance, Athena park at Sanderson U. Rape and coma.” The voice on the other end started to speak but Samantha was already flicking the phone off again. She slowly turned to the attacker trapped in the cement grip of a stone goddess.

‘I’m Statuary, you bastard’

She started her long walk home.

Typhon

With his New Rome mob gaining steam in the west part of the city, Typhon is now beginning to recruit other supers into the fold. Already getting the services of the robust Pygmalion, he goes into the heart of the prison's U-Block to get more talent. He ends up picking up two supers, codenamed Hermes and Zeus, but loses the Rush, who seems intent on finding his own way in this new world.

...

Operator: hello this is aGniMal, how may I help you, sir?

Typhon: I would like to place an order.

Operator: okay, and is it you want?

Typhon: one number three and a number seven

Operator: so that is a spined snake and a glider gecko

Typhon: Yes and when will they ready for pick-up?

Operator:how large do you wish for them to be?

Typhon: the snake, five feet. For the gecko, a foot and a half.

Operator: okay, they will be ready for pickup in two weeks. For an additional 50 grand we can train them to be loyal to you.

Typhon: okay do that.

Operator: yes sir, would you like me to put it on your tab?

Typhon: yes, thanks, Henry.

Operator: Is there anything else you need, sir?

Typhon: No, that is all, Henry.

Vitamin X

Once a mild-mannered office worker, the man who would become known as Vitamin X found himself making good ties with the Hyperion Police Department, especially when some of the more powered supers went rogue. At first, he was employed with the SWAT team on operations to take down some of the more pesky supers. He would stay close by with the front line of men in the unit, ready to merge with any of them at a moment's notice, just in case things get dicey. Though the experience was always jarring for the non-super involved, they were grateful.

That was until he was fired from the force.

To this day, Vitamin X doesn't know why he was offed from the force, but he's had enough of a reputation at this point to where more law-abiding supers tend to contract his help for their own missions. It seemed to be a good move, since his abilities are amplified when merged with a super, making them nigh invincible when together.

Six Months after the Zero Day

After Zero Day happened, Hyperion City changed. However, most people still tried to resume their lives as if it hadn't happened at all. And for the most part, it was working. Once the supers got a handle on how their powers worked, they were used more judiciously, at least for those who have eluded the reach of the law by this point in time. The reckless few who wanted to use their powers for an orgy of chaos would be dealt with by the supers who have aligned themselves with law enforcement and sent to the nearly completed U-Block at the Hyperion City Prison.

This does not mean that the city is free of evil. Rather, the subtler, more dangerous evils remain untouched.

One super of note is the leader of the New Rome crime group, Typhon, a man capable of assuming a multitude of bestial forms as well as lighting himself on fire. He struck on the Prison four months ago during the early days of the U-Block's construction, freeing the dozen or so inmates who were locked up there. Some of these supers would remain under Typhon's supervision, including the bloodthirsty Pygmalion, the manipulative Hermes, and the calculating Zeus. He is also rumored to have contacts within one of Sanderson University's genetic engineering laboratories to further his own powers.

However, a force has been slowly gathering under the leadership of a man only known as Doctor Doe. The nameless band of vigilantes began as a small collective of relatively small-powered supers until Doctor Doe managed to catch the attention of the ethereal Shining Man. From there, its membership has skyrocketed especially after Shining Man took the mantle as spokesman for the organization. Another notable addition would be the very public and exuberant Kid Kinetic not too long after, making for an excellent crimefighting team as well as a reliable public relations unit. Given this exposure, the media has started calling this group, still officially unnamed, the "Shining Stars."

At first, the Shining Stars would simply act as a super-powered police department, dispatching individual members to situations which can use their powers. But their first team mission - stopping Typhon's mass-breakout of the prison's U-Block under construction - didn't quite go according to plan, leading to the deaths of many of the prison personnel as well as a young recruit to the Stars, Kid Rainbow. Most of the supers there were some of the early low-powered people who were caught by individual Stars, but a prime target of Typhon's operation managed to escape his grasp.

The Rush, a speedster obsessed with the destruction of his captor Kid Kinetic, sped away from Typhon when the two were interrupted by a mysterious voice on a loudspeaker claiming to know the young hero's whereabouts. Typhon was distracted by this man interfering with his plans when the Rush opted to continue his search on his own, making his way through the weakened defenses at the opening of the U-Block.

Ever since Typhon's raid on the U-Block, Hyperion City is at its most quiet since Zero Day. Where will things go next?