Encounter (Season One, Pilot)

## Introduction

After meeting at the Griffith Observatory to check out some concerning data, a team sent out by the General United States Response Force heads to Catalina Island to investigate the landing site of the largest meteor that has been seen to date.

## Characters

* Ariadne
* Apollo
* Lurch
* Mockingbird
* Oversight
* Phoenix
* Prestige
* Right
* Rigor
* Sarcophagus
* The Speaker
* Vehicular Manslaughter

## Plot Summary

1. They watch as the meteor speeds towards Earth, then suddenly slows and seems to teleport the rest of the way down. The meteor then opens, and an Alien steps out.
2. The more diplomatic members of the team approach and begin a frustrating dialogue with the creature. It asks how many superpowered humans there are on Earth. The team estimates to the best of their ability and are relatively cooperative, to the point that they begin to negotiate with the creature. It will tell them what it wants if they give it a list of all the powered humans on this planet. The team refuses, citing ethical complications, and it retaliates by stabbing Rigor in the chest. Rigor defensively changes into Ruin
3. The team realizes they don't have radio communications after they see the alien *pluck signals out of the air.* so Mockingbird sends Wren with a jetpack to the mainland to tell them the alien is hostile and they need backup ASAP
4. The diplomatic characters scurry backwards while the combat oriented characters surge forward. Phoenix does his best to attack the alien with a sword (it doesn’t do much) while the various characters with guns shoot it. Mockingbird sends Dove and Jay into the portal to get a machine gun and taser-pike respectively. Mockingbird pulls out a crossbow for himself.
5. Ruin repeatedly hits it in the head. That plus the bullets open a small fissure. Right looks at it to try and determine weaknesses. There are multiple reports of meteors dissolving in water, though it’s definitely not a sure thing. She asks Oversight to check whether or not water can hurt it.
6. Oversight checks the numbers and realizes that although water doesn’t have a high chance of hurting it, both oil and benzine do. Benzine has a higher success rate, more than 80 percent chance of causing debilitating damage if poured directly in the head wound. Oversight relays this information and Mockingbird immediately sends Dove and Jay into the portal to get two tubs of benzine. the snipers continue shooting and Phoenix attacks its leg with his sword (which doesn’t do much damage)
7. Mockingbird and Ariadne dip crossbow bolts in the benzine and Jay rolls the unopened tub down to the close combat characters in the pit. The alien changes its hands so they vaguely conform to Ruin’s major veins, then rips outwards, immediately killing him. Lurch gets the benzine and pours it into the alien’s head wound.The alien immediately reacts as if acid had just been poured on its head. It steps back and writhes in pain. The strategy appears to work.
8. Except that Ariadne’s danger sense is going off the charts. It’s not actually hurt. She screams that its just faking it over the mind link and, almost as if it heard her, the alien grabs Lurch and tries to force his soul out of his body.
9. Right notices that while the alien and Lurch struggle, what look like veins raise all over the alien’s body. She slows time to take a better look. There’s no documentation about the veins, but acting on a hunch, she asks Oversight to check the effectiveness of attacking the veins. Oversight confirms that there’s about a ninety percent chance of seriously injuring it by hitting the veins. They’re gone by the time either can do anything though.
10. Mockingbird immediately swaps out his crossbow for a bazooka. The alien rips Lurch in half and speeds up to the ledge Mockingbird and Ariadne are standing on. Ariadne is about to charge the alien, but her danger sense warns her that that is a very bad idea. She holds off for now. The alien however, doesn’t give her a chance to think of a different strategy. It attacks and hamstrings Ariadne as she attempts to dodge, before chasing her down and crushing her head.
11. Mockingbird shoots the bazooka at it, doing relatively little damage. Phoenix runs up to join the fight on the upper ledge. Lurch, left barely alive in the pit, finally dies, his soul leaving his body. It judges its options, then decides that Right is the least tactically important team-member at this juncture and decides to posses her body, breaking his parole. Right spasms and falls, shuddering and jerking as her body swells with muscles and begins to resemble Lurch. Right-Lurch jumps onto the upper ledge and, from there, onto the alien.
12. After enduring a couple of hits, the alien grabs the area near Right-Lurch and disappears. The thinker types all do their best to figure out where it went, invisible? intangible? dimension hopping? but can’t figure out anything for sure. Phoenix just swings his sword around, in case he hits something- he doesn’t. Meanwhile, Right-Lurch collapses. The alien has brought Lurch into a soul dimension and is trying to tear the soul apart. Somehow he manages to keep it together.
13. Wren arrives with reinforcements on her tail (though they’re not there yet) and jumps into the portal and returns with four mines. She lays two of them at the bottom of the pit
14. The alien destroys Lurch’s soul. Right’s body dies. The alien returns, right next to Oversight. It grabs her and plucks out both her eyes. She screams, cursing very elaborately, over the psychic link which the alien is keeping open with its own power.
15. The reinforcements, Vehicular Manslaughter, Prestige, Apollo and Sarcophagus land a helicopter on the ledge with Phoenix, Mockingbird and two dead bodies. Sarcophagus gets out and does his best to rally the team. Despite their rapidly dropping morale (with the sound of Oversight still cursing in the background) he insists that these reinforcements are enough and he’s convincing enough that everyone believes him.
16. With renewed confidence, Mockingbird and Phoenix joins the birds on the lower ledge and prepares to face the alien. When it’s done torturing Oversight, the alien runs across the pit and up to the second ledge triggering the three mines it its path. It stops in front of Mockingbird, Jay and Phoenix, legs somewhat damaged from the mines.
17. Mockingbird yells to try and catch Speaker’s attention, asking if it’s an appropriate time to use his final defense, a cancellation power that he only uses as a last resort because of how exhausted it makes him. Speaker affirms that yes, it’s time to use that power. The alien, buying the bluff, flares up with veins, ready to counteract Mockingbird’s power.
18. Everyone takes that for the signal it is and immediately attacks. Jay lunges and buries his taser pike in its chest, Dove unloads with the machine gun, Speaker shoots the veins specifically and Phoenix lunges for the closest veins to him. The combined attack does enough damage. The veins shatter and the alien itself shifts into a perfect sphere, about the size of a head. The battle is over, the supers won, although the losses are severe, and the questions raised are numerous.