Atlantaverse: Full of Dread

   We sat down for some old-school superhero action and ran the new Discord server for it.

The Heroes:

Jack- Sirius the Winderdog. Exposed to a meteorite the faithful hound was imbued with incredible powers, keen intelligence, and a thirst for justice.

Sam- Emerald Guardian. Billionaire. Aristocrat. Inventor. Man of Action. Leader of the Emerald Guardsmen he uses his base on Emerald Island as a crime-fighting headquarters as he fights evil across the globe.

Nick- Phoenix. A powerful magician that can assume the fiery form of the phoenix he opposes all dastardly deeds.

The Session:

  The heroes have been dealing with relatively mundane crimes recently (bank robberies, highway heists, etc.) but the local police warn them that there are strange things afoot - in Mableton someone ripped a carwash to pieces. And i, obviously with their bare hands shredded steel. At Little Five Points a warehouse was torn apart and witnesses saw flashes of green lightning from inside. Lastly someone in silver armor was seen ripping beams from the crown of the King Building.

   After some research the heroes realized that someone was stealing the components for the teleportation network created by the first Champions of Atlanta team over a decade previously. None of the current heroes (in the New Champions) had even met an original Champion and had no idea where their base had been hidden. Crusader, the head of the first Champions, was off planet and they decided to do it the old fashioned way - investigation.

  Emerald Guardian had the staff of his base (followers are great) do research and his guardsmen (field agents) scour the city and, after a few days, narrowed down the location of the old Champions base to downtown Atlanta off the storm drain system. The three heroes went underground to look for it and found it. Unfortunately, they found two other people also just arriving:

Doctor Dread, leader of the Terror League, and the Terror League's premier brick, Bodycount!

 The fight began with Phoenix hitting Bodycount with a STR Drain that seemed to do other things. Sirius focused his attention on Dr. Dread (made a PRE attack by posing dramatically and barking) and Emerald Guardian closed to melee with Bodycount.

  Dr. Dread spouted a soliloquy at Sirius, Bodycount started beating the determination out of Emerald Guardian, and Phoenix tried another Drain on Bodycount.

  And Dr Dread's shouldergun began firing on its own, seriously messing with Phoenix.

  Emerald Guardian was down, but it was now obvious that the Drains Phoenix used were really knocking Bodycount for a loop, including dropping his defenses and speed! Sirius was trading blasts with Dread as Emerald Guardian got back up.

  Then unexpectedly Bodycount went down! The heroes dogpiled (sorry, Sirius) on Dr Dread and were able to knock his shouldergun off his power armor. Dread was still hurting someone, and hard, every time he fired, but they had reduced his firepower.

  Turns out Bodycount was faking to take a recovery, so there was a nasty surprise when he hit Guardian, hard, but by the then number advantage plus the major drop on Bodycount's effectiveness from the Drains was in full play. After 5 turns of fighting, Dread's contingency system teleported him away and Bodycount was captured.

  Bodycount was more than willing to talk (Dread always breaks him out of prison) and had a lot to say. Dread was finally out of captivity and was 'getting the band back together'. he wanted Crusader's teleportation technology (arguably the most advanced on Earth) for a new scheme and to make sure none of the Terror League would even go to prison again. And Dread was considering teaming up with Twilight on another 'make a supervillain nation' scheme again.

  The heroes got Crusader's teleportation controls out of the old base and to Crusader in DC and got Bodycount to ICICLE who promptly sent him to the Vault.

Quotes from the table: 

"Great. We're fighting a villain literally named 'Bodycount'. Huzzah."
"The shoulder gun has its own DEX and SPD? It's a follower, isn't it you evil jerk!" [it is]
"I am so very glad I left my agent followers guarding the car."