Plots!
Thunderbolts"Lightning Strikes Twice"
1) While trying to prevent an AIM cell from stealing an experimental matter duplication device from a M.I.T. lab, the Thunderbolts are exposed to the device's radiation when it goes off and are duplicated. With twice as many T-Bolts suddenly in the fight, AIM doesn't stand a chance.
2) Social scenes while they try to figure out what happened (which
definitely needs to include a visit from Steve Barton). During this time, the doubles slowly start showing signs of being slightly off.
3) The doubles turn on an imprison their counterparts. They then go steal the device from M.I.T. themselves.
4) bringing it back to HQ, the doubles reveal that they know they're unstable... but that they can become real if they unmake the originals using the device.
5) Somehow (we'll figure it out when we get to this point), the T-Bolts break free and battle the doubles.
6) During the fight, the doubles break down and fall apart, dissolving to protoplasm. How the T-Bolts deal with seeing themselves die like that, well, time will tell.
Guardians of the Galaxy"Welcome to War World!"
1) While searching for signs of Thanos, the Guardians respond to a distress call coming from a derelict ship. Investigating, they find no signs of any survivors, or anything else, for that matter.
2) This is revealed to be a trap and they are attacked by space pirates, with weaponry designed to suppress cosmic energy (not to mention really threaten the others with explosive decompression). The Guardians are captured.
3) They're taken to a massive, spherical battleship called War World, current home to all kinds of illegal activities, including Galactic Death Matches. Azura, Iason, and Dae are put in the arena, Alex with the sanitation workers, Red in the kitchens, and Eliza with the casino show girls. An energy field on the station dampens any cosmic energies just enough to make things interesting and keep the Eternals from just blasting their way out.
4) While Azura, Dae, and Iason fight, Alex engineers an escape, freeing Eliza and Red. Those three work to free the other prisoners and slaves.
5) After overwhelming victory in the arena, Azura, Dae, and Iason fight the master of War World, the Pirate King Galaxar, son of Nebula, powerful enough to hold his own against the weakened heroes.
6) Alex and the others arrive with the other prisoners/slaves, overpowering the pirates and guards, and smashing the power suppressor.
7) Galaxar teleports away. The Guardians call in the Nova Corps to seize War World.
Force Works"Gamer"
1) Shortly after a new virtual reality video game, "Tech Warrior" hits the market, a rash of mysterious events pop up. a teen murders his classmates, shouting "Death to Gyroids!", a girl jumps from a tall building thinking she can fly, a boy tries to attack a city bus and ends up roadkill, etc. When one of these happens in Kansas City, Rhodey, out of a nagging sense of connectedness, tasks Force Works to investigate, even though it's outside their mandate.
2) When talking to the deceased teen's mom, she tells them he'd been playing this new video game a lot, shutting out most of the rest of his life. They confiscate it for evidence.
3) Finding nothing immediately wrong, one of the more tech minded of the teen starts playing the game and becoming addicted. Getting good at it very quickly, they start believing they're in the game when they're not, and go into a similar (and possibly suited-up) pattern of destructive behavior.
4) Fortunately, the other members stop them and snap them out of it.
5) Examining the VR game more closely, they discover its receiving a low-electromagnetic spectrum threshold signal, which they track to the game manufacturer's corporate HQ... which just so happens to be local.
6) Once there, robotic defenses keep them out, until superior firepower gets them inside. A bit of computer hacking reveals subbasemets not on the legal floor plan.
7) Underground, FW discovers that the company is a front for MAIM (Murderously Advanced Idea Mechanics), an AIM splinter-group led by MODAM.
8) The VR game has been, in fact, a field test of a new brainwashing/identity replacement technology. FW battles MAIN dreadnaughts and MODAM. MODAM escapes.
9) With this evidence, FW gets the corporation shut down and the VR system seized.
