Told you all I'd been plotting...
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White Menace in Metropolis – Part 1
Location: Metropolis, Delaware
Time: Approximately 1:30 pm, Tuesday, give or take a month after the last installment of Dead in America
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“THANK YOU, SUPERMAN! WE LOVE YOU, SUPERMAN!” the throngs of children from Sunny Day Preschool shouted as the
Man of Steel flew off into the Metropolis sky.
“Take care, kids and be good!” he exhorted as he turned and flew off slowly, smiling and waving at his adoring fans all the while.
I really need to make time to do that more often, he thought as he reflected on his visit with the children.
I get so caught up in crime fighting that sometimes I forget that it doesn’t always take throwing a meteor into space or beating up a monster to make the world a better place, all it takes is smiling at a 4-year-old who is wearing a t-shirt with your insignia on it. But I need to get back to the Planet before Perry starts asking Lois too many questions.
As he flew out of sight of the kids, his state of satisfaction was broken by his super hearing picking up screams, car horns blasting and what sounded like several car crashes. Increasing his speed, he changed direction towards the sounds and within a few seconds he came upon a scene that would be out of place for most places, but far too commonplace for his adopted home city. In the middle of the street was a tall white humanoid monster roaring at the panicked, fleeing crowd and making its way toward a woman who was trying desperately to get out of her wrecked car. Fortunately, the beast wasn’t looking in her direction at the time. It kept looking around and seemed to be scanning the area as if it was looking for something.
Then again, sometimes it DOES take beating up a monster to make the world a better place…thought the Man of Steel as he swooped down and landed between the beast and its potential victim.
But I always have to give them the benefit of the doubt, so…
“OK, big fella, let’s calm down,” he said in a calm, but firm tone to the beast looming before him. The monster was over 10 feet tall, with a thick muscular body covered in white fur, and sported large fangs and claws. “I’m Superman, I’d like to help you.”
The creature paused for a brief second then said softly in a deep, guttural voice, “Wen-di-go…”
“Wendigo?” Superman repeated.
“WEN-DI-GO!!!” the creature shouted as it suddenly lunged at the man of steel and slashed at him with its razor sharp claws. He winced as they tore into the skin of his shoulder and he saw blood squirt from the wound.
Great Rao, he thought as he gathered himself, what is this thing? How can it be so powerful? I need to end this quickly before he hurts anyone else…
Ignoring the pain, he drew back and unleashed a haymaker with his right hand, knocking the beast back a step, but not dropping him.
This is not good, the Last Son of Krypton thought.
He can dish it out and take it. I may be in for a real fight here.
The beast again lunged at Superman, but he was able to block the blow and followed up with a right uppercut that sent the beast flying back into a building across the street. As Superman prepared to press his attack again, he heard more screams from the people in the area. He looked around to see at least a dozen more creatures similar to the Wendigo moving into the area, attacking people and demolishing cars and any other property in their path. He quickly scanned the city and felt a chill go down his spine as he saw dozens more
Wendigo all across the city wreaking widespread panic.
Oh no, he thought as he saw 4-5 of the creatures heading directly towards the Daily Planet.
Lois…
As he took a wicked shot from the Wendigo, he knew that there was no way he would be handle a hundred of these things on his own, and even if he could, there was definitely no way he could do it before the beasts killed untold numbers of people and did millions of dollars in damages.
Only one thing to do, he thought.
I don’t know if the new team is ready for this yet, but ready or not, I have to have the help. He quickly tapped his JLA commlink. “J’onn, I have a situation. I need as much help as you can get me,
NOW.”
“Read you loud and clear, Superman,” the
Martian Manhunter responded as he elongated his arms and fingers to reach panels and switches across the monitor board at the Justice League Watchtower. “Switching camera views to Metropolis and…what the…?”
The new chairperson of the JLA was standing behind J’onn, flanked by
Wonder Woman,
Jack Hawksmoor and
Green Lantern John Stewart. Within a second of seeing the carnage, he immediately took charge of the situation as those that knew him expected he would.
“Diana, Jack and I will teleport down immediately to help Superman,”
Cyclops said confidently. “Get a priority alert out to all current members, as well as Nick Fury, the X-Men and the US Avengers. And if you can raise Luke Cage’s new team, call them in, too. And get someone to come relieve you at monitor duty ASAP, we’ll need you as well.”
“Scott, the League has handled situations like this on our own before,” Wonder Woman said as they all ran over to the teleporting bay. “Is there really a need for all these other people to get involved?”
“Absolutely, Wonder Woman,” he replied as he motioned to J’onn to send them down. “For one thing, these are Wendigos. Just one of these things is able to go toe-to-toe with The Hulk and we’re looking at a hundred of them at least. Not to mention the fact that they apparently popped up in Metropolis out of nowhere when they normally roam the Canadian wilderness. Kind of hard to believe they migrated all the way here from Canada and no one knew about it before now. We need to get this contained fast and figure out who’s behind this as quickly as possible before lives are lost and before more of them show up.”
“And secondly, I left the X-Men, for now anyway, and came here at Superman and Captain America’s request to help bring the superhero community back together. And if we keep functioning our like we did before; each hero or team in their own little world, we’ll never get there. We need be part of the bigger team if we’re to be trusted by the public and/or each other again.”
“Understood, Cyclops,” Wonder Woman said with a smile. As the teleporter kicked in, she thought,
He is as good as Clark said. Within a second they appeared in the middle of Metropolis a few feet away from Superman.
“Help has arrived, Superman!” Jack Hawksmoor said to the Man of Steel as he gestured and the city street itself seemed to come alive and flung itself at a group of Wendigos as a wave of concrete and steel. The barrage sent one of the Wendigos flying, but the others seemed more annoyed by it than anything, and it definitely drew their attention to the newly arrived heroes.
“And fortunately, more is coming ASAP,” Jack continued as he prepared to take evasive action. “We’ll take these bastards down.”
“Thanks, but please, remember your language, Jack,” Superman said as he sent the Wendigo flying with a wicked uppercut. “You’re Justice League now. I have to go secure another part of the city, hold the line.”
As Wonder Woman, John Stewart and Cyclops joined the fray, Superman flew off at top speed towards the Daily Planet.
To be continued...
(Really it is! I’m going to keep up this time!
)
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Set Up – Superman and the Wendigo are in melee range of each other as this starts and neither is surprised. However, I will give the Wendigo a free shot at Supes to set this off right. This GM Fiat gives Superman another HP, giving him 5 to start out the battle. Trust me, he’ll need them. The Wendigo all-out/power attacks for 3, hitting with an adjusted 20. I am going to rule that the Wendigos are considered mystical creatures so Superman’s Impervious is gone. He has to save at 36, and he fails by 1 to take a bruised/injured since the Wendigos are using lethal damage as one would expect. Now we’ll go to initiative.
Initiative – Superman 23, Wendigo 11. Minion rule is in effect for the PL10 Wendigos mixed in with the PL12 “bosses”.
Round 1 – Superman all-out/power attacks the Wendigo for 3. He hits with an adjusted 32. The Wendigo has to save at 36, he gets a 27 to take a bruise and stunned. We’ll fiat to shake off the stun, giving Superman another HP. The Wendigo AA/PA for 5 again, and misses.
Status – Superman bruised/injured, 6 HP; Wendigo bruised.
Round 2 – Superman AA/PA for 3 again and hits. The Wendigo blows the save badly, we’ll fiat to re-roll and this time he fails the DC36 by 11 to be staggered and stunned. No fiat this time.
Status – Superman bruised/injured, 7 HP; Wendigo bruised, staggered and stunned.
Round 3 – At this point Superman will notice the other Wendigos coming into view. He will survey the city as a move action (since he has to switch his array around as well, which I believe is actually a free action, but seems cheap to me in this situation) and call for help as a free action. He will surge for another move action to fly over and attack the still moving Wendigo and AA/PA for 5, and he hits with an adjusted 26. The Wendigo has to save at a whopping 38. He blows the save by 3 and is bruised again. He’ll AA/PA with his claws again for 5 and hits. Superman has to save at 36 and he gets a 28. He’ll take the bruised/injured and stunned. The other Wendigos do not engage Superman yet and I’ll say it takes the JL a couple rounds to teleport in.
Status – Superman bruised/injured x2, stunned, 6 HP; Wendigo bruised x2, staggered.
Round 4 – Superman burns an HP to shake off the stun, and AA/PA for 5 to hit easily with a 23. The Wendigo again has a DC38 save, he blows it by 10 and with the 2nd staggered for the Wendigo, he's out. Again, the other Wendigos are busy wreaking havoc in the city.
Status – Superman bruised/injured x2, 5 HP; Wendigo bruised x2, unconscious.
Round 5 – I’m going to handle the rest of the heroes against the Wendigos in later installments, but I need a segue to move on, so I will have Jack Hawksmoor go against some of the Wendigos for one round to get that segue. Initiative – Hawksmoor 18, Wendigos 17. Superman takes off for the Daily Planet. Hawksmoor uses his Targeted Area blast which I’ll say can get 5 Wendigos. 2 make the Reflex save, 3 fail. The 2 that made their Ref save pass their Toughness save of 21 easily. 2 of the others make their save of 26. One fails and since I am considering the majority of these Minions, he drops. The response from the Wendigos will wait until the next segment...
Summary – That will do it for this portion of the big fight. Supes was Supes and I think I am going to have fun with Jack during his feature. And hopefully the builds I plan to use will work well against the Wendigos, but I guess we’ll see. Part 2 coming shortly.
