The first session starts up with five players: Chris (Lieutenant Jack Holland, the pill-popping psychic cop), Nick (The Faceless, a former hitman with no name), Tim (Crusader, the enforcing arm of the mysterious Grail organization), Bruce (The Sentinel, the grenade-shooting, skill-sucking rich boy), and Dave (Holocaust, a fire-using super).
New York is a city dotted with supers: it has a population of at least twenty-five known, and possibly many more. The city's supers are dominated by the presence of the New York IST, with eight members. The Cadre is a team of four supers, and is the second-largest team in the city. The remaining supers in the city operate alone, as far as anybody knows.
The eight supers in the New York IST are predominantly not native New Yorkers, with the notable exceptions of Elementalist and Falcon.
Cadre consists of four supers: Lady Steele (an armor-clad super specializing in blade weapons), Night Racer, Powerhouse (reputed to be able to pick up a bus) and Prism. Though not formally affiliated with the IST, they have been retained for specific tasks by Kane under the aegis of the IST.
Other supers (including metavillains) in the New York area include:
Sentinel finds some big, black, terminator-like guys with huge guns shaking down the inhabitants of an apartment. He shoots one of them between the eyes, knocking him down, before another of them hits him with a gun whose barrel is as wide as a baseball bat. He flees, desperately healing his wounds.
During his flight, he runs into Jack Holland, who had been staking out a nearby crack house. There is a brief misunderstanding, wherein Jack orders the Sentinel to get down on his belly and give up his guns. This misunderstanding ends abruptly as the pursuring goons open fire on Jack. Everyone takes refuge behind a car, which swiftly gets large pieces shot off it. During the scuffle, Jack makes himself useful by incapacitating one of the cyborg goons with Psychic Vampirism. Moments later, the Faceless shows up armed with a blowgun and a handful of nitroglycerin pellets. Faceless makes his own contribution to the conflict by dropping one of the pellets, personally absorbing the explosion but leaving enough damage outstanding to knock Jack out.
By the end of the conflict, Crusader and Holocaust (bearing a 35mm camera) show up on the scene to clean up. Crusader, his high-tech launch pistol ready, swiftly determines that the cyborgs are equipped with similar weapons. He pursues them into an alleyway and guns down the only one who is still moving.
Crusader's brief gyroc exchange with the cyborgs left the alleyway in ruins. Both Crusader and Holocaust endure a certain amount of abuse from the locals as they drag the one incapacitated (but still living) cyborg out to where Faceless (who has spent his time assuming the identity of Jack, who is too unconscious to care) is calling for an ambulance.
Before the ambulance shows up, Crusader uses a lot of TL8 drugs on Jack to bring him back to health while Sentinel and Faceless bicker with each other over who is and who isn't a physician. Jack regains consciousness in significant pain and just a touch disoriented, and immediately returns to form, demanding that everyone in the area throw down their guns.
Looking at the area, Crusader comments with an indignant tone: "Hey! Those guys were using APEX rounds! The Grail won't let me have those because they do too much damage to the area!"
Meanwhile, Holocaust passes around business cards introducing himself as Matthew Jenkins, a freelance reporter and photographer. This is a completely convincing show, as he really is Matthew Jenkins and is dressed as such.
While everyone is waiting for a meat wagon to cart away the two dead and one wounded cyborgs, a sleek black van with a distinctive super-tech look shows up and two guys in body armor reminiscent of Crusader's. One of them is carrying a massive gun attached to a backpack. While Jack Holland protests, the armored man carrying the huge gun uses it to disintegrate the dead body with a blast of plasma.
As the situation disintegrates, Holocaust is overcome with the excitement and bursts into flames ("My camera!"). Jack deduces that the man with the plasma gun must have shot Holocaust and tries to shoot him. This attempt is not wholly successful, as Crusader distracts him with an abortive attack that is quickly ended by Jack's Psychic Vampirism for his troubles. Once the initial crisis is ended, Sentinel manages to get the armored men to put their guns back into their van (as they appear very unwilling to actually surrender them). In the process, he unsuccessfully attempts to Mimic their Guns and Driving skills.
Jack makes sure to collect business cards from everyone present, just so they can meet up later on. Everyone heads off to the police station in several different vehicles (the paddy wagon, Faceless' pizza-delivery truck, etc.). At the station, the group is met by Jack Sharp, who purports to be the attorney for the several armored men and Crusader. He makes sure that nobody's armor is removed, though Jack ensures that all of them are safely escorted to a cell. Eventually, Jack Sharp's arguments are found to be valid, and everyone is released.
After everyone is introduced and the dead and unconscious cyborgs have been carted off to the coroner's office, Jack (the cop) gives everyone a really hard time until Jack suggests (and Sentinel bankrolls) a monumental drinking binge that convinces everyone that under all of it, they share a common ground: they're all borderline psychopaths. During this process, it comes out that Jack is a bit eager to put himself in front of cameras, especially if there is some chance that the resulting photographs may end up on the front page of the newspaper.
During the drinking binge, Jack Holland realizes that he is suffering some… digestive problems. After he tries several remedies that have no noticeable effects, he decides that Faceless must have slipped some Ex-Lax into his pill bottle. Late that night, he forges a prescription for a diuretic and visits the all-night pharmacy.
The following morning, Holocaust learns that there has been another Gargoyle sighting over the night. Apparently, the creature hid in Central Park, then rushed out and tore several people to shreds. Holocaust provides the group with gruesome photos of the event. Crusader mentions that he has fought the creature several times: not only is the beast unnaturally strong and equipped with functional wings, but it can also turn people and things to stone. The characters talk for a while, then decide that the best plan is still to hunt out the cyborg thugs.
Lieutenant Holland gets a search warrant to be able to legally spy upon one of the gangs that has recently suffered a lot of fatalities at the hands of the gyroc-wielding cyborgs. To aid in this venture, Crusader produces an advanced (TL8) laser listening device, explaining that, "it's like a boom mike."
The gangers' hideout is located in a dilapidated crack house. Holland is quickly able to hear that they are talking about giving their tribute to "Raven." Holland, desiring quicker results, walks down to speak to the two gang members (armed with machine guns). Everyone else scatters to watch this conversation. Before he goes, Sentinel makes sure to mimic Holland's Streetwise skill.
At the door, Holland tells the guards that he's a NY cop, and wants to talk to Spike, their leader. He points out that he's got a search warrant and a lot of vigilantes with guns, so unless he wants to flush all his drugs down the john he'll have to come to the door. Eventually, the gang members assent and Spike appears. Spike refuses to admit that he knows anything about anyone named Raven. Despite several threats, including arrest and jail, Spike holds to his line: "I'm not going to get any more of my guys killed by talking to you." Spike then hits Holland to provoke him, an attempt that succeeds: Holland responds by draining down Spike's fatigue and arresting him.
Spike stays arrested up until Holland gets him into the police station, whereupon a sleazeball lawyer appears and tells Spike "remember, you don't need to say anything." Even with the lawyer around, Holland manages to get Spike into an interrogation room. Spike spills his guts. He says that up to about six months ago, there were three roughly evenly-matched gangs in the area. Then, one of them started to get money and strange equipment from someone named "Raven." Now, the other two gangs are forced to pay tribute and toady to their onetime peers. Spike things there are about fifteen cyborg gangers now. He also says that Raven is a white guy with long black hair and nice grooming. Spike tells Holland that
While Holland talks to Spike, Faceless changes himself into Spike and arranges to meet with the sleazy lawyer. Faceless does a minimalist job of pretending to be Spike until Holland gets him off the hook by letting him know that they're letting the real Spike go. The lawyer comments that he should have gotten there sooner, as "this is part of what you pay Raven for." Faceless asks the lawyer when he can meet with Raven, upon which the lawyer comments that, "You never meet Raven: only me or one of the boys."
After the sleazy lawyer leaves the police station, Holocaust (carefully flying out of sight) follows him back to his office. Once there, he alerts Holland and Crusader. Holland gets Crusader to get over there and point his laser mike at the lawyer's window. Holocaust changes back to mundane shape and checks the directory to figure out which window to aim the laser at. He learns that the lawyer works for the firm of Leibowitz, Mauskowitz and O'Donnell, on the fifth floor.
Holocaust and Crusader then spend many entertaining hours listening to recordings of lawyers gossiping about which partner is sleeping with which interns.
Holland, Faceless and Sentinel head off to stake out the neighborhood cited by Spike as the home turf for the gang Raven has co-opted, near East Elmhurst street, near Riker's Island. To prepare for this venture, Sentinel mimics Holland's Acting and Disguise skills, while Holland attempts to obtain another search warrant and several listening devices. Holland quickly determines that filling out the paperwork to get the listening devices will take at least half a day. In the meantime, Faceless heads home to sleep and Sentinel disguises himself as a vagrant and wanders around the area. In the process, he happens to see the apparent android F.A.S.T. stopping several minor crimes. F.A.S.T.'s typical technique is to drag the miscreants to the side, restrain them, and tell them sternly, "you should not do that." He also sees more of the hulking cyborgs shaking down the locals. Oddly enough, though they act like they are talking to each other, they don't seem to actually speak. They also appear to gather at a bar called Trevor's. They also appear to travel in groups of two or three.
At the end of the session, the characters are prepared to make an assault upon Trevor's bar. No specific experience reward was granted for the session.