It was the first superhero game I ever played.

One guy built a hero

that essentially read "superman v2" named Olympian, and the power-
gamer took abilities that made him adapt to almost anything if he
makes a couple of save throws named Adept who was kinda like
Martian Manhunter.. There was one other 'vigilante' dude that was like
Rorschach met TRON, who was a wiz with computers named Protocol.

Our DM had also decided to run two villains in tandem to the heroes. I
played a bombastic mad scientist named Doktor who was prone to
mad cackling, was bald, and spoke with a super heavy German accent.
My friend, who was extremely patient and loved roleplaying, played a
simple street thug named Solomon. No real powers, but instead
dumped all his points into arbitrary skills like assembling explosives
and picking locks, things minions resorted to. He did, however,
apparently enjoy my character OOC whenever we met, but IC,
Solomon was quiet, thoughtful, and had almost no backstory. He didn't
even really have a costume, just wearing the simple white tank top, a
medium length trenchcoat with a hood, and a hat with the local
baseball team logo on it.

As the game progressed and we gained levels, the Adept became

infamous for his flawless streak of crime solving and defeating the
villains of the week, Protocol became the Batman of his city and foiled
thug after thug, the Olympian slowly became the Superman of the
world, becoming adored and famous to almost everyone.

The problem came when we realized that Olympians player was

becoming That Guy with no turning back. With every level, he became
more and more enamored with himself, and starting mixing up his
OOC speak with his IC taunts. On more than one occasion when he
and Doktor fought, the Olympian would actually let a few racial slurs
out. He shrugged, thought 'meh, he'll get over it'. But he didn't. He got
worse. Much, much worse. And then as if it was the icebreaker, both
Protocol and Adept began to follow suit.

Slowly, the three 'heroes' became even more dickish than the villains
they were fighting, often using their oh-so-subtle influence to get
themselves free shit from the city they were protecting, the one that
they we're supposed to because it was the right thing to do. Doktor
and Solomon continued their operations, which converged quite a lot
and we found ourselves become steadfast allies, honor among thieves
and all that. I, being the one with the most connections, supplied us
with various NEFARIOUS TOOLS OF EVIL, while he sunk points into
stealth to the point that most people couldn't pick him out of a lineup,
he was so 'uninteresting'. He acted as my hands, and we became
brothers in blood.

Until we failed the heist.

I do not blame Solomon (If you're reading this, I know it was a bad
roll man, and I'm sorry this happened to you) for the series of
unfortunate events that unfolded, but what eventually happened was
we were discovered by Protocol, who called in Olympian and Adept to
help him pummel the two criminals and their henchmen into the
ground. Both Solomon and I were not designed for combat, so after
they inevitably cleared out our goons, they attacked us. Doktor went
down after his exoskeleton failed, and was promptly thrown against a
wall, dealing a massive amount of damage. Solomon tried to help, but
Adept becomes as strong as Olympian and begins to toss the broken
body of the Doktor back to Olympian in a sick game of catch, laughing
when the purposely miss the rolls and let my soon-to-be-corpse splat
aginst the ground. This went on for an hour in game, and I broke
character to ask them to stop. That only made them take it farther.
Olympian picks up the Doktor, who is a bleeding mess of pulp,
shattered teeth, and more than a few crushed organs. The Olympian
looks over at Solomon, smiles heroically, and just flicks his finger
under my chin. With superhuman strength. DM rules I'm as dead as
they come, at least for the moment.

He threw my corpse in front of poor Solomon, who to this point, was

upset that his partner-in-crime had taken such a beating from the so
called 'heroes'. OOC, Solomon asks for a time out and turns on
Olympian and the heroes, asking them what posessed them into
thinking that was how heroes acted, and why they thought it would be
okay to be such monsters fighting a villain like that.

Olympian shrugged and said that's how heroes work. As long as the
bad guy is defeated, he's the hero, and therefore, he's right. I asked
the DM if I could have my brain saved, and he allowed it, lest we had
to roll a new villain for the setting. Solomon decides to sneak away,
and slips from his bonds before sneaking away into the night, carrying
the body of Doktor into the secret lab and allowing the machines to
place his brain in a jar and sticking him into a new version of the
exoskeleton.

Overall, I was upset they took me so easily and so cruelly, but Doktor
set back to work and quickly got used to the lack of a body. Not
Solomon. He just got very, very quiet. He started working seperate
from me, popping in to purchase explosives and equipment, often
trading it for simple tools, a few tips about what was going on in the
NEFARIOUS UNDERWORLD the Doktor was a part of. I thought he was
playing it safe, not trying to draw attention to his actions or anything
so he could just continue on forever, but he had different plans
apparently.

In the middle of the halftime show for the city, the lights went dead
before rebooting up in the middle of an inning. Suddenly, all the
screens boot up to show a video of Protocol fighting crime. It was a
clip from the local news that was used in the latest 'Who is Protocol?'
segement to talk about his vigilantism. It wasn't anything new, not to
the crowd, until it started playing longer than it most clips, and
showed Protocol taking the beating a little too far. After leaving the
thugs for dead, Protocol begins to sadistically torture them and then
takes cash out of their wallet. What stung most for the Protocol player
was that this wasn't edited; He actually did this on numerous
occasions. The player demanded the feed stop, but the DM says that
the video is being streamed from a private server with a direct cable
connection, and there's no way for Protocol to stop the hundreds of
clips and images of his once heroic visage being shown to be just as
cruel as the thugs he fought. The final image? Protocol without his
mask. And the words: "HYPOCRITE. HE IS JUST AS DANGEROUS AS
THE CRIMINALS."

Solomon, it turns out, had dumped EVERYTHING into sneak points,

effectively becoming an un-person with such little presence that he
was free to go where-ever the hell he wanted without a hero noticing
him. He used this to trace Protocol and film him without his
knowledge, gathering evidence which he then streamed from, and
here's the kicker, Protocol's own home computer. Protocol was killed
by cops when they attempted to arrest him and he responded with a
threatening motion that would have activated some kind of electric
weapon had the cops not shot first.

Now the heroes are mad, and the city is in uproar with the idea of
non-cops having a say in the justice system. Olympian, however, still
has enough sway to calm them down and keep them happy with Adept
and Olympian serving the public good. They devote a considerable
amount of gametime to trying to locate Solomon for JUSTICE, but no
dice. Doktor is approached by him, gives him a device called the
'phase-net' that I had made to create a containment field for
Olympian. He promises me he'll put it to use and I give it to him on
credit.

Adept goes about is job, foiling a few crimes by himself. He chases

after a few droids made by DOKTOR INKORPORATED, which lead him
into a small brick room before stopping and promptly being smashed
by his temporary strength. As he turns to leave, the door locks and the
phase-net activates, stunning him momentarily before the DM informs
him his head is starting to hurt.

See, in the game, there are two kinds of attacks: Physical and Other.
Physical is fists, kicks, physical force, etc. Other is energy, magic, or
spiritual. The phase-net operates using psychic energy as a weapon to
stun characters, but because Olympian is so bullshit, he powers
through it because reasons. Adept was trying to, until Solomon pointed
out a flaw in Adept's power description: He adapts PHYSICAL defenses,
not Other.

Adept screams and grabs his head as the psychic power overtakes
him, Solomon describing the setup as 'Gerry-rigging the power source
into the city's power-grid', meaning the pain would only go up until the
city ran out of power, and this is a metropolis size city we're talking
about here. Adept tells the DM he needs to adapt out of the psychic
hold, and the DM asks him if he's sure he want's to adapt, and Adept
says he's absolutely sure. Because Adept can't adapt an Other
defense, and because his power is described as 'nature making the
straightest line between a problem and solution', Adept automatically
adapts the best trait for the current 'psychic damage' predicament: His
body breaks down his brain and leaves him without any cerebral tissue
more advanced than the functions needed to keep breathing. Since his
ability to adapt and change MUST be a conscious choice to do so, he is
stuck in his current adaptation with no method of revival. Solomon
drags the drooling, brain-dead hero to the front of a hospital and
leaves him in the care of the nurses who happen upon him in the
morning.

By this point, Olympian was PISSED. The players for Adept and
Protocol demanded that they get rescued/ revived, and that Olympian
bring both Solomon and I to justice. Olympian sweeps the city and
urges a marshal law into effect, turning the entire city into a
nightmare. Police gun down Vigilantes left and right, superheroes save
for Olympian have all but gone into hiding, and Solomon is still one
stealthy bastard hiding amongst the dark alleys and secret tunnels,
with no hop of rolling high enough to locate him by this point.
Olympian flies through the streets at nearly subsonic speeds, and I
narrowly avoid his rampage through my lab (After last time, I had
learned that as long as my WUNDERFUL MIND survives, I'm okay, so I
built a heli-bot into my suit that took my brain away faster than he
could fly), and still no sign of the thug named Solomon.

And then he gets the call.

Olympian bursts through the roof of a hotel room filled with electronics
and finds Solomon standing in front of him, not a glimmer of emotion
on his face. The chat box is tense as the DM describes the room as
dark and unremarkable save for the random webcameras strewn
around the room. Olympian OOC tells the DM to shut up, and the chat
goes silent for a moment.

Olympian launches into this description about how his fist is about to
explode from anger and how he readies himself to kill Solomon with
one punch.

And then Solomon turns the cameras on. All around the city,
televisions turn on and stream the confrontation, Solomon revealing in
his hand that he's carrying a small button, a detonator. TO what? He
explains, very calmly: "In my hand is a detonation tool. Somewhere,
in this city, a random room with a citizen will explode. And then, 30
seconds later, another one will. And then another. And so on, until this
city is reduced into the largest graveyard the world will ever see. That
happens if I press this button."

Olympian tries to move for it but Solomon continues: "If you so much
as touch me on this pressure plate, the detonator activates anyways,
and the scenario plays out, so you stand there and look pretty while I
talk a bit more."

Solomon doesn't rant, he just calmly watches Olympian cross his

arms, obviously annoyed at the standstill.

"To your left, there is a container full of toxin. You are going to drink
that or else I won't turn off the mechanism. Don't drink it, and I press
the button, mechanism activates. Stop me from pressing the button,
the mechanism activates. You leave, I press the button, and the
mechanism activates."

"I'm not going to kill myself."

"It's for the city, hero."

The DM informs the group that another server activates, and starts
streaming the terrible cruelty that Olympian had done to every
television and news outlet, revealing every gruesome detail, every
racial slur, every death they blamed on 'accidents'. Olympians super-
hearing informs him that people are seeing him doing these terrible
things, and now they're starting to think he's not so much a hero as he
thought.

"You have one minute to choose. The City, or yourself."

Olympian smashes the toxins, and punches Solomon, impaling him

with his fist and gutting him. Solomon smiles as his organs spill, and
Olympian listens for the first explosion.

But it never comes. There are no explosives.

Olympian picks up Solomon, who only has moments left to live, and
demands to know what trickery this is. Solomon then tells him that he
can't kill Olympian, and he can't drop enough weight to crush him, so
he did the next best things.

"I killed the city's faith in you. And now I'm dropping the world on
you." "You can't kill heroes, you're a villain." "Then it's a good thing
you're not a hero, you bastard."

Solomon died, and the setting's equivalent of the Justice League shows
up to investigate what happened. Olympian tries to charm his way
around them, saying he had no choice, and that he would have had to
kill himself to save the city and that Solomon would have blown it up
anyways, but the League, and the DM by extension, is done with his
routine. The league points out that there were no explosives, and that
killing a man like that on live television was barbaric. When he argues
the toxins again, the leader of the League asks him if he was
vulnerable to toxins in such a small dosage, if vulnerable at all. And
then they realize that his hand he used to smash it is covered not in
some scientific experimental super-toxin, but a simple mixture of
lemonade. He didn't try to roll perception on it.
Olympian then tries to argue that he has the right to protect people
how he sees fit, but the League leader raises his hand to silence him,
and then points to the screen behind him, showing him tossing the
broken corpse of Doktor with a smile on his face.

The fight was brief, but in the end, no matter how powerful the
Olympian is, he simply can't fight an army of superheroes by himself.
The player left the game and the DM informed us Olympian is serving
his life-long sentence on a super-dense giant that renders him as weak
as a toddler, watched over by machines with lasers trained on him at
all times. He has no chance for parole.

Doktor recovered Solomon's body, but he was already gone, and

instead made him a memorial in his lair. The anti-vigilante force of
police in the city continue their crusade to this day, and doctors try to
find any way to prompt Adept back to normal from inside his padded
cell (serving 40 to life for accessory, low security) and the town rips
down the statue of Olympian that stood in the center of town after
many agreed that he had risked the entire safety of the city for his
own revenge.

When the game ended, Protocol was the only one who apologized for
his behavior, Adept ignoring the chat and eventually leaving. When he
asked Solomon why he didn't kill Olympian, Solomon responded with a
very calm, calculated response:

"When someone sees a Hero, they don't care about the man. They
care about the faith they have in him, his records. Killing Olympian still
left him a hero. SO I did the next best. I killed the city's faith in him.
Maybe this time, they can have a real hero, and not some monster
with the right look about him."

And that's how a single thug defeated a world's Superman, Batman,

Martian Manhunter. I refuse to be play against him in any form to this
day.