Net Run Away

The heroes were assembled in the studio when Snow Crash appeared on the screen behind them. Snow Crash then explained that Aeon City would be the host this year’s Netrunner Tournament and that the heroes would act as obstacles to this year’s competitors. The objective of these competitors was to steal a large sum of money from a bank in Aeon city. There were five competitors:

 ·            Worm

 ·            Red Guest

 ·            Trole

 ·            Black Hat

 ·            Hascale

A leader board then appeared on the screen behind the heroes showing the progress of the various Netrunners. Worm was making huge progress and as such Crimson Devil and Kinesis attempted to trace him over the internet. This caused Worm to try to hack Kinesis’ phone and Crimson Devil’s visor. While he failed to hack the visor the phone was successfully hacked and red worms began emerging from Kinesis’ phone. These worms began to form a body and attempted to attack kinesis. When these worms were damaged it was found that their blood was acidic. The worms were defeated but Vogue then noticed worms beginning to fall out of the camera lens. She cut the cables to the camera while the others fought the worms. While this was happening Crimson Devil rushed to the control room and turned off the studio systems, saving an employee in the process. Unfortunately the judges had to get involved in the fight below.

Crimson Devil then found the location of the Worm and created a hunter virus to destroy any traces of the worm in servers around the city. While this was happening the heroes were notified of a bank being robbed by creatures created from old pieces of technology. Athena, Ampage and Vogue went to the bank while Crimson Devil, Kinesis and Tact Rat tracked Worm down to the sewers beneath a recycling plant.

Crimson Devil, Tact Rat and Kinesis tracked the worm down to a small room underground. After being attacked by Worm, Crimson Devil isolated the computer Worm was operating from other computers. While this was happening Tact Rat was causing Worm to feel confusion while Kinesis dealt with the worms. After heading into an adjacent room they found what appeared to be a woman in a glass tube attached to a number of machines. This woman identified as Worm Version Roger later turned into a multitude of worms after Tact Rat tried to manipulate her emotions. The worms also disappeared after this glass tube was accidently disconnected from what appeared to be a life support machine. The heroes then discover that ht money was not the objective of this tournament, instead a “flag” was palnted

Ampage, Athena and Vogue went to a bank under attack by computers. Officers Whitacre and Keating were there and a computer with spider legs made of trash tried to attack them. It was killed before this happened, and a spirit-thing flew out of the now dead computer. They went inside and fought several more spider-computers, a few hunchbacked monkey-like things which had computer faces and wielded nailguns, and a large snake-computer that shot nails out the end of its tail. All of these were made of scrap metal. Athena immediately impaled the snake, killing it instantly. Everyone fought the computers and the fight ended quickly. Ampage ripped the arms and legs off of one of the monkeys, and Vogue managed to get a trace of where they were being controlled from, using the crippled one.

They followed the trace to a junkyard, where we found heaps of scrap and a small office building. We tried to get info from a computer in the building but it failed to turn on or work properly, so Ampage hit it. This broke it further. Athena scouted the yard from above and found a scrapheap that looked suspicious. They inspected this trash heap and Athena tore the top off it. The heap was hollow and a woman in a black outfit and top hat, weilding a tin and copper staff, was inside.She stood inside a circle of white chalk and raised her staff. More spirits like the ones that flew out of the destroyed computers flew into the scrap heap nearby and two more snake-computers formed. Athena and Vogue attacked them, Athena slamming down on one from above and grievously wounding it. While they finished off the robots, Ampage tried to grapple the woman to pull the staff away from her, but when she touched him he felt his life being pulled out of him and into her. He stumbled away and settled for blasting her from afar. Vogue and Athena rushed over after finishing their fight, and Vogue spotted the circle and broke the line of chalk with her foot. Many of those spirits flew up into the air and disappeared across the city, and the hacker, Black Hat, instantly surrendered. She was flown off into custody by Athena after revealing that the Coyne Memorial Bank was currently being attacked across town, and that the hackers were competing for something other than money.

Vogue and Ampage rushed to the bank, where they encountered many traps, including a nauseating gas placed at the doors, grenades filled with some adhesive foam (which they avoided) and a carpet which drained electricity. Ampage had attempted to go through the skylight to avoid the traps and fell right onto this carpet trap, losing much of his power. Vogue rushed in and saw that in the centre of the carpet was a table with many hostages tied together and gagged on it. There was also a large vault door, with a man in a red mask hacking into the terminal beside it. Vogue managed to knock Ampage off of the carpet, and got onto the table to check the hostages. Then 4 men in similar masks appeared from behind the pillars in the room and began to fire on the two heroes. Ampage charged at the hacker at the vault, going as fast as he could to hit the man from behind at full speed, using his momentum as a weapon... and ran straight through what turned out to be a hologram of a hacker, slamming into the metal door annd injuring himself Vogue leapt off the table and attacked the gunmen, and with Ampage's help they took out the mooks right as the other heroes arrived. Kinesis, brilliantly, had run straight into the foam grenades they earlier managed to avoid while Crimson Devil, in his attempt to avoid a trip wire, activated a nerve gas trap. Bomb disposal was called to assist in the rescuing of hostages, the hostages were tied to grenades and the masked hacker taunted the heroes.

Vogue, Crimson Devil, Ampage and Kinesis were then notified that there was an attack on another bank. Crimson Devil traced the source of the cyber attack to the Four Seasons and attempted to slow down the hack. The rest of the team went to the Four Season to track down the source. The team arrived to find a fight occurring and they attempt to protect the civilians there. While this happens Ampage attempts to help a little girl. This girl runs away from Ampage and a blue light strikes Ampage from her gameboy. Ampage and Vogue give chase to the girl while Kinesis tries to assist the wounded. Crimson Devil made his way to the scene as this occurred. Ampage is struck by the blue light again and loses track of the girl and Vogue. Vogue transforms into a teenage girl and befriends the fleeing girl. She is then led to her hideout where she finds out that the girl’s name is Cassie and that she is protected by a being or AI known as Bug. Vogue asks Cassie is it okay to call her friends because they might be worried about her, when Cassie says yes she informs the team of her location. Bug does not like adults as he sees them as a threat to Cassie, as such he acts hostile when Kinesis and Crimson Devil enter Cassie’s hideout. Vogue attempts to talk Cassie into making Bug stop the hack while Crimson Devil attempts to talk to Bug directly. Vogue succeeds in talking Bug out of the hack, Bug then gave the location supplied by the “flag” he was given. This “flag” helped create a triangle on a map with Aeon City Bank in its centre. Ampage was outside this entire time as Cassie did not like him, while outside he saw Sabotage. The team then decide to move Cassie from her hideout; Lady Winterbourne agreed to take care of her until the Netrunner Tournament was over.

The four heroes then headed to the bank. When the security chief of the bank did not answer the call from a teller the heroes decided to investigate downstairs. There they found a huge server room containing important global financial information. After inspecting a server rack Crimson Devil found plastic explosives. After disarming the explosives a heart shaped laser sight appears on his chest and he is shot. The wound is fatal and he is left bleeding out on the floor. Ampage abandons the chasing of Snow Crash to operate on Crimson Devil, thus saving his life. Crimson Devil then modifies his visor into a make shift explosive detector so Amapage can find the C4. Ampage then moves Crimson Devil to the elevator and begins to search for the explosives. While this occured Vogue and Kinesis fight Snow Crash. Ampage finds the explosives and Vogue steals the detonator from Snow Crash. Snow Crash then escapes by disabling the heroes and nearby electronics with some form of energy explosion from his hands. He escapes through a large hole in the back wall. While this is going on Crimson Devil is slowly making his way out of the bank. He is stopped by a bow wielding man who identifies himself as cupid. These arrows he uses are remarkably similar to ones Crimson Devil has encountered before when he failed to save a business man from assassination. Cupid is about to kill Crimson Devil when he gets a call, he is instructed not to kill him for an unknown reason. After stating that this will cost extra he is notified that the money is already in his account. Before leaving he remarks that somebody must like Devil very much. Crimson Devil then makes his way out of the bank to paramedics with the help of his grapple.