The day opens to find everyone in attendance except for Tim (Sylvan Sentinel). Ernest looks over his charges like a benevolent father figure. Bruce (Sting Ray) scurries about announcing the availability of a variety of unpalatable beverage options. Chris (Scarecrow) politely refuses, instead preferring to sip furtively upon a bottle that he claims is full of frozen water. Chuck (Archangel) proceeds to out Chris by proclaiming, "That's not water! It's actually gin!" Paul (Darren Stone) looks at Chuck as if he'd grown a third eye and asks, "Then how does he get it to freeze?" Chuck bats his third eye frantically in an effort to distract the others.
An uneventful week passes. The characters actually manage to perform their day jobs. Their supervisors are staggered and amazed. Channel 3 Action News has a big segment on the characters' "encounter" at the Ashton Mall. The characters are just glad that they don't look like total Nazi Sturmtruppen in front of the cameras. Then they head off to follow their own pursuits for a while.
Darren Stone spends his spare time trying to get his good-fer-nothing brother a decent, honest job. He manages to convince his brother to show up on time by explaining that if he doesn't, he'll go to prison and be ass-raped every day. Trouble is, Darren hasn't got much charisma but he does have a great Intimidate score.
Scarecrow resolves to become the scourge of the biker community until he gets a lead on the Wolf Pack gang. He burns down their buildings, he dumps their bikes in the river, and he does the "Rorschach Visits a Bar" thing. Darren Stone convinces him that he'd better make himself known to the bikers or he'll see headlines like, "Hidden Vandal Plagues Criminal Biker Community." Scarecrow suspects that such a headline would only appear on a really slow news day.
He also hangs out at Eclipse, the techno-goth club that doesn't seem like a great place to find bikers, but does seem like a neat place to score with crazy vampire LARP chicks. If any of them actually existed. Scarecrow figures out that once there was a real batch of vampires that hung out at Eclipse until Foreshadow came in and busted them all up. After that, the LARPers got really scarce.
Scarecrow shows up in the club on a night when the punk band Sissy Cyst is playing. The lead singer is a heavily pierced goth chick with blue lips who really seems to be his type. He checks out the crowd and sees some punks off in the corner, scheming. He sneaks up on them to listen in. He manages to catch that whatever they're up to, it's going to go down this weekend. He hears, "Those skinhead bastards will never know what hit them..." Scarecrow isn't sure if they're talking about Hare Krishnas or white supremacists. There's a lot of posturing bullshit in the conversation, but the group seems to actually have some amount of organization going on. They're very anti-capitalist and eco-friendly. One of them is wearing a T-shirt with a logo that reads, "No WTO! Go! Go! Go!" Scarecrow wonders just how far the designer of the logo had descended into the forbidden depths of ADD.
Suddenly, a heavy hand falls upon Scarecrow's shoulder. A voice says, "Hey buddy! Move along!" Scarecrow turns to see the lead singer of Sissy Cyst looking gothically intimidating. She curses, "Back to the rest of the norms!" Scarecrow understands that he has been insulted. He slinks off, then attempts to find the band's equipment van in the back so he can follow them, Cape Fear-style. He ends up waiting for a while, as the band isn't going anywhere until the club closes down.
The band drives to a nearby motel, a seedy place with a buzzing fluorescent sign and an overweight clerk with bad arteries and patchy hair. Scarecrow watches the lead singer and her three under-muscled bandmates exchange a quick cheer ("Fuck Disneyland! Fuck the Freedom League! And Fuck America!") then go into their rooms. Scarecrow thinks, "I doubt these guys are going to fight any bikers real soon. And I like Disneyland." He decides to hang around for a while to see if he can stalk any spare goth chicks who show up. He notices that there is a big box full of fur in the back of one of the band's trucks. He puts on surgical gloves and checks it out. He finds a collection of gorilla suits. He shouts out his cry to battle, "To the library!" and heads off to research crimes involving gorilla suits. He finds out that Doctor Simian leads a group of real gorillas in terrorist acts. He doubts they're related, except inasmuch as they fight Johnny Rocket. Then he sees an article about a WTO meeting being disrupted by some activists in gorilla suits. The Global Action Network (GAN) claimed responsibility for the event.
Archangel decides to stake out the Iron Horse. He hopes to drag off the manager or the owner for a meaningful conversation about Spasm and the Wolf Pack. For the first couple of days he's there, he has to make liberal use of his Intimidate skills to keep away aggressive bikers. Part of his problem is his outfit: he's wearing clothing he got from Sting Ray's closet. The first night, he shows up wearing a "Freedom City Country Club Charity Golf League 2003" shirt. He learns better the second night. After two nights, he sees the owner come in. The guy was once a slab of solid muscle, but he's spent the last few years going to seed. He's dressed in an interesting mix of biker chic and small-business-owner style. He chats with the staff, then heads to the back. Archangel knows that his name is Tiny (given him by his girlfriend; it's unfortunate that his last name is Limp).
As the week goes on, Archangel sees the crowd get a lot more colorful: there are a lot more skinhead bikers. Archangel almost thinks that they might be coming to town for some specific reason. One particularly lively bunch with a lot of vaguely Christian imagery in their wardrobe spends a lot of time talking about religion. And how much they hate the Jews. Most of them are marked with a distinctive "Crowned N" symbol.
Archangel asks Randy, a staff member he maintains a relationship with, about the religious bikers. Randy thinks they're some kind of Klan group and says he just stays clear of them when they're in town. He thinks they're bringing some kind of band to the bar this Friday.
Archangel finally goes to talk to Tiny Limp. He barges into Tiny's office, settles himself down into a chair, parks his feet on the desk, and implies that Tiny is so little of a threat that he'll get his spine broken if he tries anything. He thinks of this as his air of "silent menace." Tiny clams up real quick and makes lame claims about not wanting any trouble. He tells Archangel that he already told the cops everything he knew about Spasm and the Wolf Pack. Archangel feels that this is unconvincing and tells Tiny as much. Tiny offers up that he isn't very intimidated by Archangel right now. Archangel turns on the backlighting and grates out, "I'm an angel!" He catches a foot on the chair, then snags a wing on a file cabinet and plants his face in the wall. Tiny seems to be choking down laughter. Tiny tells him, "Hey man, you better leave or I'll call the cops." Archangel meekly says, "Okay, I'll be back later."
Archangel returns on Friday with a more appropriate wardrobe, purchased at Nordstrom's on Sting Ray's credit card. There is a veritable ocean of skinheads in the bar. The band is Third Generation, and the skinheads are really getting into their unique brand of high-intensity white-power music. There's quite a mosh pit in operation. Eventually things degenerate into a moderate-sized riot. Archangel thinks, "Let 'em riot..."
Sting Ray has resolved that he is going to use his professional connections to help the less fortunate. He spends some time working on the upper management at the Eastern Seaboard Bank. His goal is to persuade them that doing more business in the "traditionally underserved" districts of Lincoln and Southside can help both the community and the bank. The bank can reap lots of good attitude, plus improve the neighborhood, and make boatloads of money on the side. He does a nice job of putting together a business plan, and manages to raise management's attitude to "Indifferent." He maintains hopes that with only a little more badgering they will see reason.
He also checks out his nascent contacts in the city's drug underworld to find out what has happened to the Ice supply ever since the characters took down the Wolf Pack's manufacturing operation. He finds out that Ice was something new, apparently mostly manufactured by the Wolf Pack. The supply has dramatically been reduced since historic Radley Manor burned to the ground, but there are a number of other rather newish drugs that have come into circulation in the last six months. All of them have the trappings of designer drugs, the sorts of things that were originally developed by guys with PhD's and flexible senses of morality.
Sunday rolls around and Archangel goes to church. At the cathedral, Archangel notices that Lady Tarot and her goons are once again in the front pew. She shows up early and heads off to a side chapel, shooing her goons away as she goes. Archangel takes this as an invitation to slip on in to have a quick word with her. Scarecrow whispers, "Tell her you've come to fill her with the Seed of the Lord!" Archangel spits back, "Book of Enoch! Book of Enoch, dude! We don't want another Nimrod running around."
Lady Tarot notices Archangel sidling up to her. She whispers in her cute little gypsy accent, "The cards told me I should speak to you." Archangel asks, "Do your cards hold anything in them about Spasm and the Wolf Pack? Also, do you know anything about Foreshadow? He threatened me like a jealous boyfriend." A thoughtful expression runs fleetingly across Lady Tarot's face. Archangel thinks, "Aha! If she denies everything, then she was dating him!" She tells him, "I do not know of him, but I have consulted the cards for you." She hands him a Tarot card then drifts back to the pews. Archangel looks down to see that it is The Moon. From his extensive study of hairless monkey occult beliefs, he knows that the Moon card symbolizes Fear, Illusion, Imagination and Bewilderment. Archangel thinks, "Scarecrow is obviously fear, and I'm Illusion. Sting Ray must be Bewilderment. But I don't understand how Darren Stone could be Imagination: he just hits things with rocks."
The characters reconvene around noon at Sting Ray's place. Sylvan Sentinel is not in attendance because he's been really grumpy lately. A thousand yahoos have descended upon his park, so he's just staying in his arboreal oubliette for the day. Archangel tells the others, "Hey! Some skinheads are coming to town!"
Scarecrow asks, "When?"
Archangel replies, "Oh, they're already here."
Scarecrow is skeptical, offering, "So, what you're saying is that your ability to engage in linear thought processes is still scrambled by this morning's Church download."
Archangel complains back, "It's this damn communicator shard! It's so disorienting!"
Scarecrow becomes suspicious. He asks the angel, "Have you been filling anyone with the Seed of the Lord?"
Archangel objects, "No! Besides, every time I try to pick up chicks you guys laugh at me. Anyhow, two of the Wolf Pack gang members are in custody, Wrench and Zom. One of them is turning state's evidence. And if you had a lot of skinhead bikers in town and have a supervillain called Spasm around, if you could find out where they were being kept you'd try and kill them."
Darren Stone listens to this and responds, "You know, that's the most intelligent thing anyone has ever said in this game. Let's do it!" The characters head out to look for the witnesses.
Darren Stone asks around among his gang contacts to see where they usually get held when the cops pick them up for loitering. He finds out there is a special holding area downtown for lower-powered supers and very dangerous normals. Wrench is probably there. The characters also figure out that Wrench's lawyer isn't a public defender. He's an associate with McVicious, Gillnet, Katar and Hook. They aren't able to figure out who is paying his bills, but they're pretty sure he isn't picking them up himself.
Scarecrow heads over to the fleabag motel on Sunday afternoon to check on the members of Sissy Cyst. They appear to be gone, as are their gorilla costumes. Their van is still in the parking lot. Scarecrow asks the desk clerk if he saw them leave. The clerk scratches a collapsed vein and mumbles, "Oh yeah, those freaks. Yesterday, some guy in a panel truck picked them up. Haven't seen them since." Scarecrow gets a description of the truck. He doesn't bother to ask if the clerk got a license number.
Sting Ray spends a moment at the Iron Horse. It's before six, so the place is closed. But there's a van painted in spray paint black parked out behind the building. There is a sort of a target insignia and the name "Third Generation" painted on the side. Sting Ray sneaks up to see what's going on. He sees a lot of band gear inside the truck. There's a weird, small scorch mark on the side of the van, apparently caused by electricity: two pinholes with a zorch between them. It looks recent. Sting Ray proclaims, "Aha! My arch-nemesis the Shock Adder!"
Sting Ray scuffs around the parking lot. He comes up with a keychain with a Chevy key and a crude leather death's head. His conclusion is that someone whacked Third Generation. Sting Ray suggests that Sissy Cyst did it, and that they're trying to replace the band. Scarecrow comments, "I'll even go with the idea that they consumed their corpses to better pull off the imitation. Those guys don't look anything alike! And we don't know if Third Generation is even playing anywhere!"
The characters finally realize that Third Generation is playing down at the CORE revival in Liberty Park. They head to the park in Sting Ray's car. It's a nice car, so the cops let them through. The parking lot is a sea of SUVs bearing Bush-Cheney bumper stickers and fishes. Darren Stone is wearing his brown suit, his thick-rimmed Nation of Islam glasses and his nice red bow tie.
The day is hot, so there are a lot of sweaty white people around. And a substantial police presence. Scarecrow looks for panel trucks. Archangel looks for Amy Feng. Their interests coincide in the row of panel trucks from all the local and regional TV and radio stations. The characters can see Sylvan Sentinel glaring at the crowds from his little dark stand of trees, the one surrounded by the little stacks of white bones. Up on the stage, the speaker is whipping the crowd into a religious rampage. He howls, "AND THE LORD! WILL COME DOWN! FOR JUSTICE! AND THE RIGHTEOUS! WILL ASCEND! INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!"
Sting Ray picks up a program and notices that there is quite a list of invited speakers. Even the local evangelical churches have contributed speakers: "Dr. Morris speaks upon sin and why it's a good idea to avoid doing it." Up on stage, a local black evangelist calls out, "You ain't never going to get nowhere smoking the pipe! You ain't never going to get nowhere doing them drugs! You ain't never going to get nowhere drinking that booze! Embrace the Lord!"
Scarecrow tries to investigate the row of panel trucks, but quickly finds out that he doesn't get far without a media pass. Some of the area cops hassle him when he gets too close to the equipment.
Sting Ray starts asking people if they've seen any bikers or Goths or gorilla-suited people, in appropriate terms ("I heard Gorilla Mutants for the Lord was gonna be here. You know where their pavilion is?"). He ends up wandering over to talk to the Bikers for Jesus ("So, do ya like to... kill?")
Another speaker takes the stage. His topic is unusual: he talks down superheroes. the characters deduce that he must be sponsored by CODE. They listen to him as he proclaims, "These superheroes claim to be gods, but there is only one God! There is only one salvation, and it is only for men, not for ro-bots and super-monkeys and aaa-liens!" While he talks, volunteers circulate through the crowd handing out tracts with a crowned W logo on them. Sting Ray checks the program to find that his name is John Warden.
Someone bumps into Scarecrow in the crowd, but he doesn't see who it is.
The people with the pamphlets look pretty tough. All of them seem to have very short hair, maybe only a week's worth. John Warden proclaims, "The sheep go to heaven! The goats go to hell!" And then a bunch of goats come walking out onto the stage. Both Warden and the audience seem confused. Archangel listens to them to see if any of them bleat, "I wa-a-a-ant your soul! A-a-allahu a-a-akbar!"
Scarecrow follows a pamphleteer to the back to see where the pamphlets are stored behind the stage. He notices one stack of pamphlets with the crowned "N" logo on it.
Then the panel truck belonging to the local Christian radio station opens up and a bunch of gorillas come piling out, led by a gorilla figure on a big hover-chair. He does not have a crown, but he does have a loudspeaker, which he uses to tell the crowd, "Weep in fear, huu-mans!" Darren Stone decides that this looks like Doctor Simian.
Sting Ray moves up to challenge two gorillas. He draws up his aura and challenges them, "What is the meaning of this?" He sees that the gorillas are actually men in gorilla suits. One is shaken by his demand, but resumes running at him after pausing for a second. Sting Ray hears something that sounds like "zzt!"
Archangel manifests on stage to grab the minister. Some people flee. Some people scream. Reverend Warden dodges behind his podium.
Scarecrow notices that the pamphlet guys are just as surprised as anyone else. One of them screams, "Run! Monkeys!" He announces, "There's something going on, but first I want a prisoner!" He decides to grab a pamphleteer. He becomes Scarecrow, runs up to a pamphleteer and starts pummeling him. It takes one punch to put the guy down. Scarecrow drags the guy and his pamphlets over to Sylvan Sentinel's copse for "safekeeping."
Darren Stone hides behind the stage. He sees another guy with spiky blonde hair hiding there. The other guy sees him. Blonde spiky hair runs. Darren Stone pulls on his rocky armor and entombs the guy's legs in earth and stone. Then he completely embeds him in earth, just to be sure.
Doctor Simian continues floating forwards, escorted by his twitchy monkeys. Several cops have drawn pistols and make threats implying that Doctor Simian might float into a fusillade of gunfire.
Sting Ray grapples one of the gorilla-suited men and uses his electricity sense to search for electrical devices on the guy. He senses a harness that appears to be emitting electrical shocks. He shuts the device down. There is a smoky explosion from the vicinity of the monkey's ass. The guy jerks, falls to the ground and rolls. He appears to be in grave discomfort.
Archangel zooms back on down to grab his televangelist. He concludes that the guy must have divine protection: he swoops right past, but the minister evades him again. Scarecrow yells, "Disintegrate the stage!"
Scarecrow notices that two monkeys are about to be shot up by cops. He generates an enclosure of shadow around them to trap them, with a small breathing hole. They are trapped. Scarecrow can see through his own darkness, so he can see them struggling against the boundaries of their cage. He thinks, "That must really suck. I hope those control devices aren't actually up their asses. How bad would that be?" Archangel offers, "I don't know..." Scarecrow protests, "It was a rhetorical question!" The cops start shooting, but the darkness stops the bullets.
Darren Stone watches as a chain shoots around one of the stage supports. The chain tightens and a huge mental wave goes through him. He becomes stunned. He is even more stunned when he sees Sting Ray explode another monkey's ass with a lightning bolt. The first victim stands and looks both stunned and sheepish.
By this time, someone has peeled the radio station logo off the panel van to reveal a big painted "GAN!", complete with an Anarchy symbol for the A.
Archangel floats up behind Doctor Simian and sends a blast straight into him. There is a huge sparking explosion and the animatronic monkey that was liberated from a kid's pizza place spins off across the stage spraying smoke and sparks.
Scarecrow throws his captive skinhead into Sylvan Sentinel's copse and averts his gaze as evil vines crawl up around the captive's legs and body. He runs back to the excitement, charges into the last monkey and knocks him over with a shadow-energized punch. The man lies motionless, except that his pelvis twitches every several seconds.
Darren watches as the chain scuttles over and knocks the stone off spiky-hair, who runs for it.
Cops are everywhere. People are panicking. Someone yells, "Get the truck!" Sting Ray zaps the starter. He also gets all the running lights. It stops.
Archangel continues looking for Reverend Warden. There are a lot of guys with slicked-back hair in the crowd, and they all basically look the same. Archangel sadly admits that Warden has gotten away clean.
Scarecrow pulls off monkey-boy's pants to see what is shocking him. He finds a length of metallized tape with electrodes across the guy's ass. Someone has written "thump" across it in magic marker. Scarecrow tears off the thing and throws it away. He takes off the guy's mask and finds out that he's looking at an unconscious skinhead.
Darren Stone recovers from stun, dons his rock armor again, and heads out to attack something. He reaches the vans as the stage collapses behind him. He sees two cops leveling guns at Scarecrow. He puts an earth wall between the two of them.
Sting Ray sees that there is a gorilla dummy in the disabled vehicle. He returns to civilian guise and walks into the crowd. The Archangel lands on the podium, delivers some words about false prophets bringing bad fruit, then flies off into the sky. Scarecrow and Darren Stone return to civilian identity and slink away.
The characters reassemble at Eclipse. Sissy Cyst is playing again tonight. The characters arrive as they are singing a song called, "The Police Can Bite Me." None of them can make out any lyrics. Scarecrow works to intercept the lead singer when they take a break between sets.
Sting Ray pretends to be from a record label and plies the crowd for information. He learns that the lead singer is Molly Duncan. She's not from around here: the band is based in Portland, OR. It is rumored that she has spent some time inside. Sting Ray tells Scarecrow these interesting facts before he goes over to talk to her.
Scarecrow approaches her, very carefully ensuring that her feet touch the ground before introducing himself. As it happens, they do. She's wearing Doc Martens and a garter belt. He tells her, "I really liked that last song. But I've got just one question: why ape suits, bitch?" She regards him with a cool and deprecating gaze. She shoots back, "Ape suits? Oh yeah, I heard about that at the park this afternoon." Scarecrow explains, "No really. I've been stalking you for days, and I know you had the ape suits in your van. And I want to know where you got the animatronic ape." Duncan gets even more suspicious, "You a cop? Or a lackey of the oppressive status quo?" Scarecrow tells her, "I'm not a cop. I'm a licensed librarian." Duncan sneers, "You should get back to your books, norm."
Scarecrow decides he's had enough. He turns out the lights, changes costume, then tries to drag Molly Duncan out back by the ears. Darren Stone mourns, "Oh no, he's going it again." Archangel asks, "Kidnapping women? Or turning out the lights?" Darren Stone answers simply, "Yes." Everyone else thinks the power failed, except that the music is (oddly) still playing.
Scarecrow finds out that Ms. Duncan is surprisingly strong. Really surprisingly strong. She screams, "Get yer mitts off me!" Scarecrow finds himself making a DC 25 Will save. He takes a stun hit. He quickly gives the other characters the ability to see. They see him getting beaten up by the goth singer. He howls, "She's got super powers!" Archangel yells back, "You say that every time." Darren Stone comments, "The last time you said that we ended up having to take a midnight trip to the dump." Scarecrow protests, "I swear I don't know how she ended up dead in bed with me!"
Molly Duncan reaches out and produces a length of chain from someplace slightly beyond Scarecrow's view. She whips it around Scarecrow and starts strangling him. Darren Stone scoffs, "That's the trouble with the suffocation power: it just takes forever to work." Scarecrow disagrees, "It seems to be working just fine on me!" He takes another stun hit. The darkness goes away.
Darren Stone crashes into Duncan. She seems pretty stout for a punk rocker chick. Archangel slams into her. She staggers a bit but still refuses to go down. Sting Ray decides that things are looking very bad. He notices that the club has a big breaker box over on the wall. He shuts it down. It gets dark again, except for the emergency lights over the Exit sign.
Molly Duncan picks up Scarecrow with her chain and flings him into Darren Stone. Then she runs out the back, down the corridor and past the restrooms. Darren Stone runs after her. His attack leaves her with another stun hit. Archangel heals Scarecrow, removing his pain. The taste of blood in his mouth turns into the taste of grape juice. Healed, Scarecrow leaps up and follows her too. He finds Darren Stone bludgeoning Molly Duncan in the restrooms.
Sting Ray moves over to the exit and yells, "Everyone out! Now!" It doesn't work. Some punks start breaking things. Others try to attack Darren Stone. Sting Ray loses patience. He spends a Hero Point and mind-controls everyone in earshot to leave. People start filing out of the club.
Meanwhile over by the restrooms, Molly Duncan is screaming, "Die, patriarchal oppressor!" Whack! Darren Stone takes a chain strike to the side of the head and gets stunned. Scarecrow gets stunned too. Darren Stone spends a hero point, gets back up and hits her in return, stunning her. Archangel beats her some more. She goes unconscious.
Scarecrow is confused, "Wha? We defeated her?" Darren Stone replies, "No, actually the angel and I defeated her. What exactly was the crime that precipitated this?" Scarecrow muses, "Well, she did call me a norm... I say we staple a note to her forehead saying 'Hi Police! Check the gorilla costumes for my prints, 'cause me and my buddies caused the disturbance at the park' then dump her duct-taped ass in front of the police station." The others are a bit dubious about this plan, but tentatively agree to give it a try.
The characters head out of the building, right into a pile of STAR Squad guys. They hold up Molly Duncan and protest, "She's bad! She did the monkey thing!" Captain Bill "Bulldog" Maddox walks his cigar-chomping self out front and tells them, "Let's just talk about that downtown!" Everyone heads down to the station. The characters explain about the monkey thing. Assistant District Attorney Robert Sissman mentions that Molly Duncan has quite the criminal record. Plus she's a wanted fugitive. The characters think that he is rather a nervous looking guy.
The session ends with the characters downtown, chatting with the law. Everyone probably gains two experience points, but Ernest didn't specifically mention.