Issue #4 (August 9th, 2003)

 

"TWO BALLS - YER OUT!"

 


CAST:
Judge LAW........Jeff
Mercury..............Mark
Orland.................Robert
Rift......................Jim
Paul.....................Billy Ray
Rodeo Clown......Joe
Duplicity.............Joe
 

The characters know of two major events happening just a mile and half apart. 1) A protest rally in favor of "The Doctor" at the keep. The ACLU (among others) have organized a protest for the fact that The Doctor's files have not been made public and that no one knows specifically what he was convicted of, and yet in 24 Days he would be executed. 2) The players were given tickets to the opening day of the Lazarus Prophets baseball game. Judge & Mercury go to the protest, Orland and Rift go to the Game. Rodeo Clown and Billy Ray wind up at the game by virtue of showing up when the combat has already joined.

Introduced as throwing out the first pitch is Karen Bernhard, the first female pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball. She pitched two games (Total of 6 Innings) two years ago. The problem: She was sent down to the minors thereafter and is angered to where she thinks that the whole thing was a publicity stunt; that the Prophets never gave her a fair chance because she was a woman and that all men suck. She has since developed some kind of superpower involving throwing balls of energy. First she charges the ball and nails the catcher. Then she gives a speech to the home audience about how they've forgotten her and that they used and threw her away. Then she produces her new uniform, which is a mockery of the Lazarus uniforms, instead black with blood-red pinstripes and a flaming skull and crossbones emblem. (Prompting the quip: "So she's joined the pirates?")

The players noticed before hand, at first base side, Cipher, being very much the tourist with all the baseball memorabilia he could carry.

The fight is joined. In a nifty bit of combat engineering, an explosive ball of energy is thrown at the owner's booth (right next door to the character's booth), and Rift--without the casual STR to shrug off the very tough glass instead teleports outside the glass and into the path of the ball, taking the impact. This breaks the windows and hurts him slightly, but he tumbles to the ground one level down and lands on his feet. Rift does the old time-stop on the pitcher, but then out of the bullpen comes the bullpen car! It's shaped like a giant baseball hat, but has been reconfigured with spikes across the brim for that extra spikey impact. It lurches onto the field through the chain-link fence. Then a mentalist is attacking from somewhere out in the bleachers. That's the fun part of having a pre-organized attack: This guy sat there with binoculars from the stands and got a line-of-sight attack on whoever he wanted... jumping into the dugout was a good move as it forced the sniper, Rodeo Clown's 'hunted' named "Sharpshooter", to spend a few phases repositioning himself near centerfield.

Eventually, a figure in gray emerges from beneath the baseball pitcher's mound, just somehow moving up out of the earth, and he chides the young pitcher for her failure thus far and releases her from her entangle. Rift re-timestops the pitcher, then Rift and Orland do a good job of getting the gray guy's attention with shots that do some damage; Billy Ray does a nice move by reaching out and smacking the driver of the cart (who missed his move through) and manages to send the cart careening out of control and into the center-field fence; However, he has less luck with the gray guy, who ignores all of BR's punches. The judge does some mental damage to the psychic, who eventually blinds the judged (just in time for Jeff to depart). Rodeo Clown ties him up for a while, but the mentalist is having a field day with knocking people down. [Note to self: Looks like psi's are trouble for this group.]

Ultimately, sharpshooter is taken out and the mentalist is captured trying to flee, and the pitcher is time-stopped while the driver of the cart plants it in the center field wall. Orland gets a glimpse of something through his strange psychic power; he gets a glimpse of a box with a timer, a striped sunlight effect, and a red-discolored section of grass. Timer says 51 seconds. Mercury has no luck, as each time he runs after a foe, someone else brings him down before he can get there. The Gray guy emerges from the bleachers and whacks the nearest 'suit', which in this case is cipher, who appears to be trying to be heroic. Cipher is pulped and crumples to the ground in a heap of flesh. That's when Rift gets mad and whips out the killing attack for it's first use in the campaign and does some good solid damage to the gray guy, taking him out before he can flee (which was to be his move next phase).

The Villains:

  • Pitcher...Wildchild (Not her choice of name. It's the nickname she got after several wild pitches in her second apperance.)
  • Gray Guy... Zero (Of unknown origin at this point)
  • Gunman... Sharpshooter (A Hollywood 'zen cowboy'. He's an actor who had one or two great films and lots of flops. The largest of said flops was his epic directorial debut "Ice World" about an apocalyptic world frozen over, where thawed water is the currency).
  • Mentalist... Blackout (A guy who affects the nerve centers and areas of the brain)
  • Driver... (Irrelevant) He was just a lackey of the crew, a local road racer approached about a one-time driving gig.



Characters locate the bomb through deduction and search rolls but are unsure how to handle it. Guess it's not so easy when you don't have robots to do your dirty work ;-)

Audra can offer no guidance, though she tries. "I need more information. A box with a timer isn't enough." Eventually they decide phaser the heck out of it. Rift takes cover and levels his weapon at it and fries it to a crisp. It appeared to be biological in nature rather than explosive; whatever was in there is destroyed, though it leaves a ring of wilting grass around it right up to just before where the characters were standing.

The characters then see the captives to the keep, which is a difficult voyage. It seems that the protest is in full swing and people are pounding on the van as it goes through with the prisoners. A few heroes have to clear the way of people who've thrown themselves on the ground in front of the vehicle.

UN-NATURAL HISTORY

Duplicity calls. It seems that he was doing research on the people who captured the doctor. Through a long involved process he managed to procure a photo of six individuals, three of which are the heroes reported to have captured the Doctor (Sentry, Parasite, and Sundown). The other three are younger, and are later identified as Jackhammer (the hero who plunged to his death last week), and two other women. Duplicity is calling because the base's computer while monitoring the news broadcasts, identified via biometrics, one of the two girls as being in the background shot on the news. She's at the rally where the characters are. She's the young blond of the two.

The characters use Orland as their representative to locate her. However, she is being paranoid and looking around when she notices his gun and attempts to flee. He has to chase her and corners her on a rooftop where she realizes he's faster and just stops to prepare to defend herself. He convinces her to talk, but she won't do it there. He suggests the Museum, so she recommends the wing that is still being worked on, because no one will be in there.

When the characters arrive, she does indeed show as promised. She tells them that there were six heroes who captured the Doctor and that she hasn't been able to find Sundown and that may be fine (he may be in hiding) but that she thinks "Aces" (the other girl) may have come to harm because she's not contacted people she would have contacted.

Suddenly, the player character's hunted, Viper, shows upon the scene and a round of agent bashing commences. Suddenly the characters are fighting off agents. There were twenty in all, and easily disposed of. But the girl, who identified herself as Anthem, tries to flee during the fight after she sees the heroes can handle themselves. Orland is too perceptive for this and tracks her down and gives her his cell phone. She accepts it and leaves.