'The Ridge', island of Guadalcanal, Night of 13-14 September, 1942
In the hot, humid night on a small island in the South Pacific; the bitter conflict engulfing the globe reached some new points of fury as Axis Talents met Allied Talents in battle.....
In a haphazard line more or less abreast, though separated in a couple of different Foxholes and the trench that connected them; from South to North all looking to their left (i.e. East) were RD3 Elias Tucker, 2nd LT Marvin Acme, CPL Wade MacGyver, RFL Lalbahadur Gurung, SSGT Charles Van Horn and RM2 Fred Roker. They were all facing off against an incoming quartet of Japanese Talents including one flying in the form of a large bird-of-prey; another whose body looked to be solid Copper; a third who had greenish-yellow fas billowing from his fists and the last who had flames flickering from his fingers.....
Behind the other members of SST 4 was PFC Roger Myers and PH2 Carl 'Doc' Franklin; both of whom realized a new threat was revealing itself to the South....
Elias Tucker stood up, aimed VERY carefully around the large, copper-covered Talent in the front rank and fired a FANTASTIC shot from his Springfield Rifle that caught his opponent right in the throat; causing the gas-spewing IJA Talent to drop, clutch his neck futilely and then fall over. The Radarman dropped down, let out a breath; let his Invisibility Power 'turn off' and worked the bolt to put another .30-06 round into the chamber. He then carefully rose up to aim at another target when suddenly both the sense of a new-yet-familiar Talent Power came over him and then he saw a strange reddish light beam playing over his right arm and shoulder. Turning in that direction, he saw the reddish beam emanating from a Japanese Sniper Talent about a hundred yards away to the South and then a moment later he felt like he'd been punched in the chest by a Heavy-weight and he fell down to his knees and then keeled over to his side as he felt the spreading wetness of blood on his chest and looking down, he saw that the shot had hit him high in the left side of his torso, a mere couple of inches from his heart.* He coughed up some blood and part of his brain was logically figuring 'well, I probably caught it in the lung' while most of his brain was panicking......
2nd LT Marvin Acme took aim with his BAR and cut loose a 5 shot burst at the Eagle Talent, but the damn, fast-moving foe was able to wheel round and dodge his fire. Marvin let loose a curse and took a quick look at the others and was happy to see the gas-bag Talent get dropped, but he was very concerned the the Copper-Body had closed to within about 15 yards and looked like he was eager to tear them apart with his metallic fists. Then a slim, little IJA soldier stepped out from behind him and threw his hands forward, unleashing jets of flame from each finger tip. Acme felt heat come over him and the smell of burnt flesh assaulted his nostrils and he quickly dropped down into his foxhole and die a mini-roll to put out his flaming uniform and screamed from the pain of his burns**, but he was able to determine he was still in the fight**....
Wade had finished reloading his Trench Gun and had popped up in the foxhole next to the El-Tee when he saw 'Fire-Hands' step out from behind Copper-Top and cut loose flames at Acme and him. He instinctually summoned his SHIELD Talent Power and a split second later, the disk of force was interposed between the Flames and his body and only a few sparks fell on his body, singing his hands and uniform for a moment, but doing no real harm***. Then Fire-Hands ducked back behind his Metallic Teammate, who was now all of 15 yards away and closing fast....
Rifleman Gurung reloaded his SMLE, noting it had a full magazine, but he was down to only 3 spare rounds after that. His bruised chest was now felling better (no more penalty) and he soon popped up to see that the gas-spewing Talent was down, as was the Flyer and that just left the Copper-Body and the Flame Hands Talents to worry about....and they were now 15 yards away and moving in fast.....
SSGT Dutch Van Horn took aim at the flying, Eagle-Man and doing his best to ignore his wounds, he fired once, missed, tracked his target and fired again, pleased he had hit the target, causing a screech of anger and pain. Then, a moment later, the Eagle was in a sprawling melee of claws, teeth, talons and beak with Wolf-man Roker and the Marine did what he could to assess what the situation was outside of that spectacle. It looked like the Gas-User was KIA; but both Tucker and the El-Tee were down in the Fox Hole with injuries while Wade had put up his Shield and Gurung looked okay. The Copper-Bodied Japanese Talent and the one with fire-spewing fingers were closing on their position fast and would be on them in a second or two....
Fred 'Mediocre' Roker was bound and determined to stay in his 'Wolf-man' form as long as possible during this fight and his hackle went up and growl burst worth as the Eagle-Talent screeched and dove at him while dodging fire from some of Fred's less hirsute teammates. One of those bullets clipped his opponent, who let out a piercing wail of anger and anguish and then the Talons were flashing forward even as Fred loped forward and leaped for his delicious-smelling Target. The talons tore into Roker's chest, drawing a high-pitched yip of pain, but then it was Fred's turn and his claws and teeth tore into his delectable target and a long moment later, he was on the ground, shaking and then hurling his now limp opponent to the ground. The Eagle turned back into a Japanese man, now bloody and torn to shreds and laying unmoving on the ground. Fred, fighting off the messages from his subconscious to 'turn back', turned to look and he saw the Copper-Man charging forward and hiding behind him, a man with orangish-yellow fingertips****.....
Behind the others, a still bleeding and exhausted PFC Myers asked an equally exhausted-though-not-bleeding 'Doc' Franklin to hand him his Johnson LMG, which the Corpsman did. Roger was relieved to see it was in fine working order, though dismayed to realize he only had 15 rounds left for it. As the assault of Talent Powers came across both men, they looked to their left to see their Teammates mixing it up with the Japanese Talents. Then the feel of new Talents and the sight of red beam of light caught their eyes and they looked to the South.....
First, about a hundred yards away, a Japanese Talent who could manifest some kind of beam of reddish light, was using it to play over the members of SST 4 while sighting down his scoped Ariska Rifle. A moment later he fired and Elias Tucker was hit hard in the chest and he fell to the ground of the foxhole, out of sight. Before Myers and Doc could do anything however, yet ANOTHER threat revealed itself....
A Japanese Talent who was of average size but who was glowing with some kind of eerie blue light, was pulling a 70mm Type 92 Battalion Gun to a small hill-top, by himself, about 100 yards away and then started to position it to aim at Colonel Edson, who was still yelling and directing Marines to meet the enemy at the Top of Hill 120. A Japanese Officer or NCO came rushing up with 2 other soldiers who were carrying crates containing shells for the Artillery Piece soon followed and they were soon swarming around the gun. Myers had to figure out what target(s) to aim at as Doc Franklin suddenly burst into motion to run towards the down Tucker*****......
Type 92 70mm Battalion Gun:
OOC:
*I made a Fantastic roll for Tucker's shot, so the Chlorine Gas spewing Talent was dropped easily....then, unfortunately, I made an even better roll for the Japanese 'Red-Beam' Talent.....and the resulting shot actually would've Mortally Wounded poor Elias, so I spent a Luck Point for him and reduced the damage to just 'Seriously Wounded'. He can't do anything for a round and then after that, he can only take small movement actions and these are at -2D until treated. He DOES still have 2 more Luck Points, so there's that. Sorry man!
**Acme is Wounded from the Burns (-1D to all actions) but otherwise is okay. Copper-Top is 15 yards away and closing, Fire-Hands is hiding behind, so it'll be difficult-but not impossible-to hit him with any attack.
***I spent 2 WPs for Mac on his SHIELD Power roll activation, it worked well enough to make the damage from the Fire Attack nothing more than a 'Graze' result. His situation is the same as Acme's, i.e. he's at 15 yards from Copper Top and Fire Hands is right behind him and difficult-though-not-impossible to target.
****Roker is Wounded (-1D to all actions until Treated) and is at the point where each round is going to get harder and harder to stay in Wolf-Man form; I spent 5 WPs; he has 12 left.....next Difficulty roll to stay in Wolf-Man form (after this coming round) will be 20.
*****Myers has 5 total targets; a group of 4 around the Gun with the Super Strong Talent, the Officer and 2 troops....and then by himself, the Red Beam Sniper Talent. He has 15 rounds (3 bursts or 1 Suppressing Fire attack leaving 5 rounds for 1 burst) left and the range is Medium (i.e. Difficulty 15) and he's still at -1D for being Wounded Just a thought.....might be Luck Point time.
