AndyC

Avengers: Heroes United!

Marko winced as his arm fell away from his body, more a gesture of frustration than actual pain. Turning to face his assailant, his grimace turned into a wicked grin.

"Well, well, well," the Sandman sneered, "Cap'n America, the one an' only. I've always wanted a shot at you, one kid from the streets to another."

The mass of sand that was his severed arm pooled around his feet, piling back into his body as the sands shifted to grow a new arm.

" 'course, you was here back when the Dodgers was here, too," he said, his hands turning into masses of quills. "Speakin' of, why dontcha try dodgin' these!!!"

As the quills hardened to jagged rocky spears, Sandman flung them towards the Star-Spangled Avenger, a hail of tiny darts speeding towards the hero in a blur.

---

Elsewhere...

"Sir, we've just received confirmation," an aide stated, hesitantly approaching the figure cloaked in shadows, "Captain America has arrived on the scene and is engaging the Sandman."

"Excellent," the figure responded, the voice dripping with malice. "The Captain has no weapons that can hurt Marko; at best, he can delay for others to arrive."

"Should...should we begin Phase Two, then, sir?"

There was a pause as the figure contemplated, before responding.

"Not yet," came the answer. "Stark and the others are unaccounted for just yet. Once they are occupied, we shall proceed."

Avengers: Heroes United!

IC is live, folks!

Thor looks good so far. Once you get a sample post in you should be good to go.

Avengers: Heroes United!

HEROES UNITED

Undisclosed Location
May 14, 2018
4:00pm EST

A group of children played with their new puppy in Central Park. Sparks flew from an alien artifact as SHIELD scientists prodded it in a remote facility in the South Pacific. A bored Secret Service agent coughed into his hand as he stood at post outside the Oval Office. These images and a dozen more played out across an array of monitors, the blue electric glow of the screens the only light in the otherwise darkened room.

Watching these monitors was a solitary figure, standing at ease. Months had been spent meticulously plotting out every step of this plan, making sure every piece would be in place, and that those who could stop it would be so overwhelmed as to be rendered powerless.

Very soon, this world would fall, to be replaced with the glorious new order that was always meant to be.

"The time has come," the figure announced, a simple hand gesture changing the entire array of monitors to a single display: the crowded streets of an American metropolis. "Let us begin Phase One."

---

Times Square, Manhattan

Even in the mid-afternoon on a Monday, Times Square was jam-packed. Horns blared as cars, buses, and taxis shuttled people to countless destinations. Hundreds waited in line for tickets to the latest shows on Broadway. Street performers strummed guitars, danced, did their best impersonations of statues, anything to get passing tourists to throw a dollar or two their way. Overhead, the clusters of skyscrapers were clad in a jumble of billboards and LED displays, telling the public to watch new shows and movies, to buy the latest electronics, or to enjoy a refreshing ice-cold Coca-Cola. Though far removed from rustic images of apple pie and Norman Rockwell, the cacophony of consumerism was every bit as much of a slice of pure Americana at its most crass, its most commercialized, and its most exciting.

So busy, so humming with activity was this artery of the city that most didn't even notice that the ground had begun to rumble. Or that a light beige haze had wafted in, coating the area in a thin film of gritty dust.....

.....or rather, sand.

As the rumble grew strong enough that the crowds of pedestrians and motorists began to notice it, a geyser of sand erupted from a manhole in the street, the steel manhole-cover shattering the windshield of a taxi as it came down. The sand swirled about in the air, whirling into a tornado that scraped the skin and choked the lungs of screaming bystanders, before it began to take form.

An enormous sandy hammer slammed into the side of a police cruiser, sending the car tumbling. At the end of that hammer, an arm began to form, and beyond the arm, the torso and head of a burly man in a striped green shirt.

"Awright, New Yawkers!" shouted Flint "The Sandman" Marko in his honking Queens tone. "You'd betta start runnin' while ya can, 'cuz today, the Sandman's really hittin' the town!"

With that, Marko's fist formed a giant spiked wrecking ball and smashed into the facade of the Hotel Carter, knocking the historic neon sign off of its supports. With a groan of twisting metal, the sign began to give way, threatening to rain down metal, glass, and stonework on the panicked crowd below.

---

CRISIS: NEW YORK CITY

VILLAIN ATTACK: THE SANDMAN

Threat Level:
6
Minor Threats:

• Falling Neon Sign, falling debris
• Panicked crowd, foot and traffic

Avengers: Heroes United!

I'm gonna give y'all through the weekend to allow for some more folks to sign up, and then barring some unforeseen catastrophe, IC will go live on Monday.

Avengers: Heroes United!

THE MASTERMIND

---

Identity: UNKNOWN
Master Plan: UNKNOWN

THREAT LEVEL: 25

---

CLUES

• The Mastermind speaks with a thick accent

Clues Found: 1
Mastermind Interrupts Earned: 1
Mastermind Interrupts Remaining: 1

---

World Status: Alarmed
Stability Level: 20

Crises In Progress:
New York City- Villain Attack: The Sandman (Threat Level 6)
Boston- Hero/Villain Battle: The X-Men vs The Brotherhood of Mutants (Threat Level 13)
The Carribbean- Villain Attack: Unknown (Threat Level 6)

Avengers: Heroes United!

Andy, should we start putting things in the "Characters" section? Wasn't sure if you wanted to put something in the first post on there or what. Might be a good place to store the "clues" that we find about the Big Bad

@HenryJonesJr

That's a good idea. I'm gonna do that.

Likewise will stability points and earned interrupts be kept up to date IC or in periodic OOC posts?

@Hound55

Both, most likely. I'll make sure there's a tally in the OP once IC goes live, but I'll also post to draw folks' attention whenever there's a change.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Well, let's not all spend the whole time getting misty-eyed over the Basement. We had our share of frustrations and problem-players over there, too, and a graveyard full of games that never got off the ground. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast there, but let's not sour the experience here by putting the past on a pedestal.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Yeah, I'm going to take things one step at a time, and not get overconfident again. I just recently made the mistake of assuming everyone else was going to be as excited about my Marvel Knights game as I was, spent the better part of a month meticulously detailing the game world and what I wanted to do with it....only to have the game peeter out after about two weeks. Which was a real knife in the heart, since I was finally playing out a version of the Black Suit Spider-Man saga I'd wanted to do since All-Star Marvel v1.0 all the way back in '09.

Still, I think this time we've got ourselves a winner.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Well, like I said, we're playing fast-and-loose with canon, so the exact specifics of lore and history really aren't all that important. What matters is that it's recognizable as the character; you can mix-and-match stuff to your heart's content as long as people can look at the end result and go "okay, yeah, that's Thor."

Bear in mind that given the nature of the game, there's probably going to be little to no time for solo posting or character arcs, so if you go with Unworthy Thor, he's probably gonna stay that way.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Pshaw, you've probably never heard of him. He's pretty underground.

(Sips cold brew coffee through ironic lumberjack beard before riding a fixie to the local micro-brewery on the way to the latest ukelele-and-toy-piano-band concert)