Story 12: The 20th Century Caper: Difference between revisions
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The pigeon is not being obvious about letting Clark follow it. On one level it is seemingly just fluttering down Main Street and pecking at any garbage on the street. On another level it is never going out of line of sight of the assorted people around, and when its path would take it somewhere empty, it will use pecking at garbage as an excuse to hang around places until someone moves around so that it can keep going and stay in sight. | The pigeon is not being obvious about letting Clark follow it. On one level it is seemingly just fluttering down Main Street and pecking at any garbage on the street. On another level it is never going out of line of sight of the assorted people around, and when its path would take it somewhere empty, it will use pecking at garbage as an excuse to hang around places until someone moves around so that it can keep going and stay in sight. | ||
''Hmmm.'' Clark thinks, as he watches the pigeon stay just ahead of him. | ''Hmmm.'' Clark thinks, as he watches the pigeon stay just ahead of him. ''Let’s see if this works.'' | ||
He turns around and starts walking slowly back toward the Ben Franklin, stopping often to see whether the pigeon follows and keeps him in sight. | He turns around and starts walking slowly back toward the Ben Franklin, stopping often to see whether the pigeon follows and keeps him in sight. | ||
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[JK: this works for me. The address is vaguely plausible--it's an address that's been being constructed, but which Clark -knows- hasn't yet been finished, much less been put up on the market yet. We might want to argue about the band name though. The Legionairres sounds too much like a marching band, and the Odettes or Futurians take too much from one member even if Ode will clearly be centerpiece in the band. Should probably be an injoke or whatnot. Could just call it "The Super Heroes?" | [JK: this works for me. The address is vaguely plausible--it's an address that's been being constructed, but which Clark -knows- hasn't yet been finished, much less been put up on the market yet. We might want to argue about the band name though. The Legionairres sounds too much like a marching band, and the Odettes or Futurians take too much from one member even if Ode will clearly be centerpiece in the band. Should probably be an injoke or whatnot. Could just call it "The Super Heroes?" | ||
Clark’s thought balloon: | Clark’s thought balloon: ''What the…?'' | ||
Slipping the card into his front shirt pocket, he frowns at his friend, closely examining her dreamy expression. “Lana, did they say anything that seemed….odd to you?" | Slipping the card into his front shirt pocket, he frowns at his friend, closely examining her dreamy expression. “Lana, did they say anything that seemed….odd to you?" | ||
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Clark looked up and saw a bight beam lancing into the night over the quarry. It took a couple seconds for him to realize that no one was reacting to it because it was in ultraviolet. Birds, moths, and him, all being drawn to this glowing, possibly deadly, light. | Clark looked up and saw a bight beam lancing into the night over the quarry. It took a couple seconds for him to realize that no one was reacting to it because it was in ultraviolet. Birds, moths, and him, all being drawn to this glowing, possibly deadly, light. | ||
''All right, Clark — use reason,'' he thinks. ''They know, somehow, that I can see in the UV. And all that rigamarole with the card in the store tells me they also know that other folks around here _can’t_. Do they know anything about my other…gifts? Clearly, they’ve got some of their own.'' | |||
About a quarter mile away from the light, Clark is positioned to be able to see but not be seen, hear but not be overheard, and it turns his attention to the source of the light. | About a quarter mile away from the light, Clark is positioned to be able to see but not be seen, hear but not be overheard, and it turns his attention to the source of the light. | ||
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Instead of seeing what he expected to see - the strange boy he met, and the two people Lana described - there's... nothing. The light is starting about 10 feet off the ground, and otherwise there's no sign that anyone is there, just forest. He focuses his hearing and there's a dead spot in the night surrounding the light. Switching to his IR and UV vision doesn't produce anything else of note. Shifting to X-rays and... there's a wall there. A solid hemisphere, impervious to X-rays. | Instead of seeing what he expected to see - the strange boy he met, and the two people Lana described - there's... nothing. The light is starting about 10 feet off the ground, and otherwise there's no sign that anyone is there, just forest. He focuses his hearing and there's a dead spot in the night surrounding the light. Switching to his IR and UV vision doesn't produce anything else of note. Shifting to X-rays and... there's a wall there. A solid hemisphere, impervious to X-rays. | ||
''And there you are. Now what? Walk up and knock?'' He squares his shoulders. ''Why not? They said they wanted to meet here, let’s meet.'' | |||
The last panel in this sequence shows Clark heading down the road toward the beacon. (Or is it…destiny?) | The last panel in this sequence shows Clark heading down the road toward the beacon. (Or is it…destiny?) | ||
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Ode looks at the others. If no one else does it, he moves to, er, answer the door. | Ode looks at the others. If no one else does it, he moves to, er, answer the door. | ||
"Ooh!" Bubble Boy stifles a squeak of delight. "Superboy, for real. He's right outside my force field. "How are we going to introduce | "Ooh!" Bubble Boy stifles a squeak of delight. "Superboy, for real. He's right outside my force field. "How are we going to introduce ourselves? Who goes first? What if he gets startled?” | ||
ourselves? Who goes first? What if he gets startled?” | |||
"C'mon Tok! Don't keep him waiting!” | "C'mon Tok! Don't keep him waiting!” | ||
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With the flick of a switch and a nod to Gorvo, the Legion drops their hologram and force field, and stands before Clark Kent. For two of them it is meeting the young form of the literal savior of their race. | With the flick of a switch and a nod to Gorvo, the Legion drops their hologram and force field, and stands before Clark Kent. For two of them it is meeting the young form of the literal savior of their race. | ||
Lisa: | Lisa: | ||
I think Ode's looking like he is in that picture on his character sheet, possibly strumming a guitar. I mean, we're not expecting a fight, right? The players are genre savvy, not the characters. | I think Ode's looking like he is in that picture on his character sheet, possibly strumming a guitar. I mean, we're not expecting a fight, right? The players are genre savvy, not the characters. | ||
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He points at Tok, “and this is only because I know Clark here knows how to be careful.” | He points at Tok, “and this is only because I know Clark here knows how to be careful.” | ||
==Page 4 Bottom Tier== | |||
Back at the quarry office, the squad from Gatling Restoration are moving with practiced silence in their high tech (for the 20th century) camouflage suits. Their faces, while painted with asymmetrical stripes, are visible, and we can tell that Dr. Rivera is with them as the 5th person on their team. The three larger men are keeping lookout on the room while Galting and Rivera pull open a drawer in one of the flat filing cabinets and check a map of the quarry tunnels, comparing it to the one Rivera produced produces from his pocket. To keep with the theme his is on aged paper with crinkly edges. | |||
Both point to the same spot on the map, and Gatling makes a quick notaton on a pad before sliding the drawer back into place. He turns his head at a snapping from one of his men, who has spotted Bogucki coming back to the office. | |||
“Something must have thrown his schedule off. Damn. Too bad for him.” Gatling gestures for everyone to take cover as he scoots to behind where the office door will open. Bogucki steps in, flicks on the light, and is immediately pistol whipped with the grip of Gatling’s antique revolver. | |||
“Are you sure he won’t wake up?” Dr, Rivera whispers. | |||
“Not for a long time. Not from this gun,” Gatling says. “Everyone move; keep to the timetable as if he’s still active. I don’t know what trew him off schedule and I don’t want it to bite us in the butt. | |||
The men hustle with incredible stealth into the mine tunnels, leaving no trace behind. | |||
==Page 5: Everyone== | |||
The Legion is quickly packing up their gear when, again, both Clark and Ode hear something unusual. Clark is able to make out the sound of metal hitting flesh, and of someone collapsing to the ground. There are other people nearby doing something, but Clark can't make them out over the sudden arrythmia of Bogucki's heart. | |||
Ode hears a sudden extremely frightened exhalation of breath carry over the rhythm of the evening air, and ragged, pained, but emotionless breathing after that. There was also a moment of hearing a… doscongruity. Not exactly the same as when the Entropy Monk did something, but similar. A sense of terminal magical intrusion into the order of the universe. If left unchecked, the person who was struck will die. | |||
"Something's wrong," says Ode. "Someone's in trouble." | |||
"It’s Mr. Bogucki!” Clark replies. “Something’s happening to his heart — We’ve got to go help! C’mon!” | |||
He starts to run down the path toward the quarry office, trusting the Legionnaires will follow. | |||
Jinnjahl follows at a sprint, not necessarily along the path, but keeping Clark in sight and not preceding him in the unlikely event she can (say she starts off closer.) She wants the Kryptonian between her and hostile humans. This situation where any trouble has to be assumed to be humans is kinda scary. | |||
"Lead the way, Clark," Tok says, activating his new-version Legion jetpack -- now small enough that it can be concealed under clothing until activated, and staying close to the ground, but high enough that | |||
he can keep up with the others without effort. "We'll keep up...or catch up, if needs be!" | |||
"He was attacked," says Ode, still a bit shocked. It seemed like such a peaceful town! "Deliberately. It was like the Entropy Monk. Not the same, but similar. Someone deliberately hit him!" | |||
Hearing Tok’s assurance that they’ll catch up, Clark shifts into high gear. He’s a blur. | |||
This allows Jinnjahl to speed up, and for a few seconds she is keeping pace with the boy of steel with her acrobatic leaping. Then he's gone. She catches up a few moments later to find Clark cradling the terran security guard. The man's face is pale, his breathing shallow, and something truly terrifying must have happened to have laid a Terran so low so quickly. Well, whoever did this would be a Terran, and Terrans have weapons calibrated for Terrans. That's part of what's so scary about hostilities here. "I'll get medical help," she says, "he won't be Terran - human - but he'll know humans." She pulls out a different pad and starts flipping through it. | |||
[Diane, Clark can hear Bogucki's arrhythmia has moved into high gear, his heart is likely to give out any second. Clark isn't sure he's safe to move, and the only damage to his body is a small goose egg from being hit on the head. He can't see a single logical reason for Bogucki to be responding like this.] | |||
It's not long before the other three Legionnaires arrive, flying in to their position on flat jet packs that had been hidden under their jackets. Bubble Boy suppressed the urge to shout "Whee!" as he drops to the ground outside the security hut. His face grows serious when he sees the fallen Mr. Bogucki. "Miss Anima, we're going to need a medic!" | |||
Ode starts playing again, the same song, hoping to help Bogucki hold on until medical help arrives, one way or another. | |||
"On it." She reaches the page she's looking for, hesitates, and keeps going and pulls out a piece of paper from a nearby page. (She's opted for the combat medic she's called before over the doctor she first had in mind. The combat medic is a lot more familiar with Terrans than the doctor who makes house calls.) | |||
Jerrlann materializes in a rainbow of energy and immediately assesses the situation. | |||
''Hold him steady'' Clark hears as the second member of Miss Anima's species waves a handheld scanner over the pale and shaking man in his arms. As he's looking at him Mr. Music's song washes over Bogucki, and the man's face calms somewhat - there's still an emergency going on, but the harmony monk has bought them some extra time. | |||
[BR: Lisa, attack roll is a 3, and you gave Bogucki back 14 Vitality. Lisa, Beth, I am tracking your Vitality expenditure on these should a fight happen right away....] | |||
''There's an underlying physical condition that weakened this Terran's heart, but I don't see a medical cause for the current problem.'' Jerlann transmits to everyone ''There's a small contusion at the base of his skull but that shouldn't have initiated these symptoms. I'm about to inject him with quazihexisimprafram to treat the symptoms, but I'm not sanguine.'' | |||
He looks at Clark, mistaking him for the other terran here, and speaks aloud "Is this Terran allergic to quazihexisimprafram?" | |||
Clark looks utterly bewildered. “I….don’t even know what that is." | |||
Jerrlann shrugs and injects the Terran in the chest, keeping careful track of his condition. [BR: For these purposes Animations use Miss Anima's mental stats with backgrounds appropriate to the person; her 15 Int +5 Profession (combat medic) means a 20 Partial success. Die roll is an 11, so a full success at under 3/5ths that. He's not out of the woods, but he's better.] Over the next few seconds Boguki's situation seems to improve. | |||
''I have dealt with the immediate symptoms, but I'm no closer to the underlying cause. If this is something that his Terran endurance will let him muscle through in the next few minutes he should recover. If it's not....'' | |||
[BR What is everyone doing during this time, aside from Clark and Ode, who are occupied?] | |||
Future boy examines the area, looking for signs of a struggle (or other people than the group and Boguki). "He just came out of here, and Clark and Ode both heard something going on?" He thinks holding his thoughts for now to not distract those trying to save a man's life, "I don't think this was an accident -- someone -did- this to him, and we need to find out who and stop them!" | |||
Tok starts walking around the now crowded office trying to make sense of what might have happened, He's not in enough of an altered state of mind to draw on his mutation, but he's still a brilliant young man. | |||
[BR: save vs. his normal 17 Int was a 2, for a superior level of success] | |||
There's no sign of a struggle - whoever struck Bogucki did so with total surprise - which means the attacker was hiding behind the door. He takes a step to occupy that space and re-scans the room. What would someone be waiting here for? What would they need? The flat map filing cabinet stands out. There's no sign that it had been disturbed, but this almost has to have been it. | |||
He slides it open and flips through the maps, and finds one that is slightly off line, with small flecks of some weathered paper that fell between the maps. | |||
Jinnjahl looks over at Tok, who has started tapping out a rhythm of an old Terran song with his fingers on the map as he's contemplating the situation. "Anything I can do to help?" | |||
''This is... not good.'' Jerrlann transmits, ''it's not visible on the scanners but I can sense a malevolent...force...preying on his injury, striving to take his life. Most other species would be long since dead. It feels like its...gathering its strength for one last push. If he can survive that he should recover. It's out of my hands'' | |||
Jinnjahl looks into midair as she puts the pad away. Nope, no combat telepaths in her repertoire. Maybe she should look for one when they go home. She looks at Clark. "Medicine has advanced in the last millennium. Almost all of my people - the Slan - are telepaths, I'm one of the less-than-one-percent who aren't. Part of Jerrlann's medical training is how to use that for medicine. What Jerrlann senses may or may not have a physical body, but if it does, it's probably not *here*. Among the political grouping that includes humanity, humans are well-known for surviving things that would kill almost anyone else, and for just healing up from things that would send other people to the hospital, broken bones and whatnot. This is generally attributed to humans being the only species evolved from endurance hunters." | |||
Ode switches over to "Living on a Prayer" [which Josh suggested and I agree makes sense, as we want something the man would know from his own time]. He's focusing on strengthening Boguki's inner harmonies and pushing against the malevolent forces of entropy.] | |||
[BR: song choice ends up being a bit ironic given JBJ's death this week….] | |||
As Ode is playing Bogucki starts to seizure, and Clark has to apply just touch of his superhuman strength to keep the man from injuring himself further. The man' heart goes from hammering madly out of synch to stopping completely second before Ode goes from quietly singing and playing to belting out the chorus of a song from just a few years ago. With that opening line Bogucki's heart re-starts, falling perfectly in rhythm with the baseline that Tok had been tapping out across the room. Ode keeps up singing through the chorus, sweat drenched and obviously pouring his own life into this. | |||
When Bogucki stabilizes the teen singer collapses back into Gorvo's arms. | |||
Ode's thought balloon: I... could get... used... to this... | |||
Gorvo creates a soft bubble for Ode to sink back into, cradling him like a beanbag. | |||
Clark looks up at Ode with wonder. The feeling of elation Ode's music had imparted just… half an hour ago?…was small potatoes compared to this. | |||
“He…was dead. And now he’s not. You’re selling yourself short with that hero name. If you can do that, they should be calling you ‘Orpheus’." | |||
Ode tries to shake his head and regrets it. "'S Terran biology. I just cancelled the entropy." | |||
"And gave him the heart to push through," Tok adds. "It's not nothing; very far from it. But...terrans are tough. Not invulnerable and super-strong like you," he nods at Clark, "but they have reserves almost nobody can touch. Nobody survives like a Terran." | |||
''Jinnjahl'' the slan hears in her head ''Now that I am no longer focused on the patient, I can sense five more Terrans nearby with avaricious intentions. They are thieves. One of them had a flash of thought being afraid their victim might wake up and alert the authorities. They are thieves, not intentional murderers..'' | |||
Jinnjahl's head jerks towards the medic, then towards the door. "Heads up," she says, "Jerrlann says there are five Terran - human - thieves around, one of whom has just thought that their victim might wake up and call the police. Also that they're thieves, not intentional killers." | |||
Then she asks Jerrlann, "Are they broadcasting any sense of WHAT they want to steal?" She waves a hand in the direction of the quarry. ”It's a stone quarry full of water and some offices. The amount of stone and water five men can carry isn't worth stealing." | |||
''One of their minds is closed to me - he carries a darkness with him that shields him. Three others are focused on the task, apparently they are paid to recover lost treasures. They are... Tomb Raiders? The last has the belief that there is a magical artifact here. He seeks personal power.'' | |||
''I'm sorry I cannot tell you more. At this range, these minds, the shadow the dark man carries. And I am nearly out of time.'' | |||
"You've already done more than I asked," Jinnjahl assures Jerrlann. To the others, she says, "One of their minds has a darkness he can't read, which might be what made the guard take a worse injury than otherwise. One of them thinks he's going to find something magic. The other three are just hired thieves." | |||
"And whatever they're looking for, it's marked by this map," Tok adds. | |||
Gorvo pipes up. "It doesn't matter what they're trying to steal. We can't let them get away with this. Superboy, can you hear them digging or moving about?" | |||
“Wait a minute,” Clark cautions. “Before we run off half-cocked, we need to make sure Mr. Bogucki will be OK if we leave him here alone. And if these thieves are afraid of the police, we should definitely put in a call to the station before we go. Mr. Bogucki used to be on the force — they’ll be pretty motivated to catch whoever did this — but it’s a long drive, and they won’t get here for at least 20 minutes. We can help in the gap before they get here.” | |||
He looks around the office at the other young alien faces. “Are we agreed?” | |||
Ode nods, still shaky, not attempting to move from the force field bean bag. "I can stay with him." (He's not entirely clear on whether the whole team is staying until police arrive, but figures that he's probably less useful in a fight until he gets a second wind, so if folks do want to split the team...) | |||
"Mr. Music," Tok says, "you're the boss. But...while I agree with calling the local authorities and making sure Bogucki will be ok, you're the one that was able to counteract whatever he got hit with. Are you sure we aren't going to need you against whatever, and whoever we're facing?" | |||
[BR: GM clarification here: Going back over my game notes, going into the next scene ode is Winded (all non-attack tests have even results reduced by one level). It's not a huge burden but it does mean he's going to be less sneaky and less perceptive in the immediate "tracking down the bad guys" scene than he would be otherwise. By the time you finish sneaking and engage the opponents there will be no real reflection on his combat abilities.] | |||
[BR: If you guys want to split up I'm OK with it, but it is going to sideline Lisa for much of the rest of the session just so Clark can get a boy scout role playing beat. Jerrlann the 30th century doctor has already declared Bogucki is going to be OK now, so someone could argue that point with Clark, or some other answer might present.] | |||
Clark frowns, thinking hard. "If the doctor really thinks Mr. Bogucki will be OK until the police get here, we should all go together. I don’t like that bit about ‘minds with a darkness' at all.” | |||
He nods, and walks to the huge phone on the office desk. “OK guys, I’ll dial 911, but someone else needs to make the report. Dispatcher might recognize my voice. Just sound scared and keep it vague — you’re up at the quarry, you heard some noise in the office, and now Mr. Bogucki is hurt, please come quickly. Kids aren’t supposed to be up here anyway, so they shouldn’t think that call’s too weird.” | |||
Gorvo takes the receiver from Clark. "Hello! Help, we need help. We're up at the quarry and Mr. Bogucki's been hurt. He looks bad... Please, come quick! The quarry near Smallville. Quick!" | |||
Covering the mouthpiece, he says to Clark, "That should do the trick, right?" | |||
==Page 6 Top: Everyone== | |||
The quintet of teens moves into the tunnels, following a holo of the map that Future Boy found, looking for the thieves that Jinnjahl's friend detected. The Legionnaires fall into position quickly, with Bubble Boy taking point, alert to project a field over the team as protection should something happen. Future Boy is right beside him to provide direction and keep a keen eye out. Mr. Music is hanging back just slightly, and Clark can almost feel the Legion leader's preternatural awareness straining for sound of that entropic darkness despite his completely relaxed, casual demeanor. Miss Anima trails ever so slightly behind, occasionally moving to handholds in the wall to stay partially concealed and keep an eye on any side paths. | |||
It's been scant months since the Legion formed, but already their coordination and comradery are visible to Clark. | |||
Mr. Music is taking slow, deep breaths, centering himself. Thought balloon: "Need to focus. These are ruthless people. And if one of them does even a little of what entropy monks do..." | |||
Bubble Boy creates a string of small bubbles to roll along the floor in front of the group as they proceed, checking for pitfalls or other hidden perils. "It's like LARPing," he whispers to himself. "I wonder if I can backstab with a force bubble?" | |||
Future Boy's array of holos is somewhat dizzying, beyond the main map -- a couple of holographic displays showing imagery -- heat, sonar from his sensors of the tunnels, another showing a local TV news broadcast, a fourth with what looks like a scan of a paper that Mr. Boguki had at the office, and a smaller fifth one with what looks like a live feed from the office--but he barely looks at them, his view ahead as clear as ever, and he several times directs the group to choose between two equally likely paths, with what he calls a "hunch." | |||
[Re Clark--what about dead center? Were he more integrated with the group, front would probably make the most sense given his inate toughness--but as it is, having him in center lets him deploy as he sees fit--while not keeping him out of the group's cohesion more than necessary.] | |||
[DK: agreed that it’s a reasonable spot!] | |||
Clark’s never been this deep in the mine before — invulnerable or not, it's easy to get lost in these tunnels — but he can’t help glancing at both Future Boy’s holos ahead of him and over his shoulder at what looks like Mr. Music’s preternatural calm. | |||
‘I’m the tank in this group,' he thinks. 'They’ve got experience and great teamwork, but I need to remember that if things go south in a hurry.' | |||
The quintet follow the maps and Future Boy's instincts until Clark and Ode both hear something up ahead, a brief shout that is echoing through the tunnels. Ode can tell from the emotional undertones that the speaker is deeply angry and disappointed. Clark can tell them same thing because he knows enough Spanish to know that "Maldito hijo de puta!" is not at all polite, but allowed in the comic because who translates anything anyway. | |||
Clark shuts his eyes and listens hard, trying to determine which tunnel the sound has come from — and whether a group of angry and disappointed men are heading their way. | |||
They aren't moving your way just yet, but you have an excellent idea where they are. | |||
==Page 6 Middle: Gatling Restoration== | |||
The members of Gatling Recovery are staring alternately at the empty space they've broken into and at their client, who just launched an expletive that is echoing through the corridors. | |||
"Looks like this is a bust, boss," one of the mercenaries says to their leader. "The Prof's maps were wrong." | |||
"No!" Rivera says vehemently, "No, they can't have been wrong! There has to be another chamber here." | |||
"Where?" is the response, "You show me where else there is to dig here and I'll happily dig. Point me to where I can blow a hole in a wall to get gold and I'll gladly do so. I get paid a LOT more when we find stuff." | |||
Gatling is leaning down, rolling the loose earth back and forth under his fingers, then picking some up and smelling it. He sees something, stands up, moves over, crouches again, and comes up with a small gold ring, sized for a woman's hand, with an onyx and amber striped insect design for its stone. "Holster it. He…" Gatling pauses, corrects himself, "It was here. Someone moved it – both what the Prof was looking for and everything else." | |||
He pauses again, running his hand along the edge of the wall that they had pry-barred through to get here. "But it's gone now. I reckon' 40 years or so ago. Probably about when the quarry was established." | |||
"You were close, Rivera. Real close. Pick up the trail from here and call us when you have a new lead. We're saddling up." | |||
==Page 6 Bottom: Everyone== | |||
“Hssssst”, Clark whispers, trying to get everyone’s attention without making a lot of noise. He points down the branch of the tunnel where he’s heard the men, and signals with his hands that there are four people down there. “What do you guys think? They’re not coming this way yet, but if they do, y'think Gorvo could drop a force bubble over them? Could we use that to herd them out of the mine?" | |||
"Can do," replies Gorvo. "Corral and subdue seems like our best option. What do you think, boss?" He nods to Mr. Music for confirmation. | |||
Mr. Music nods confirmation. | |||
"Bubble prison it is!" Gorov cracks his knuckles and looks round for a good hiding place to stage an ambush from. | |||
"I could draw a wall," Miss Anima says, "and make it real when they get close?" | |||
About to merely nod again, Ode remembers his conversations with Diskette. (Why, yes, he's thinking "What Would Diskette Do?") "Good thinking," he says. | |||
"Just pull it up behind me", Future Boy says. "I'm better guarding the side than in the thick of things. | |||
==Page 7: Everyone== | |||
The Legionnaies quickly array themselves at a T juncture, some to the side and some hiding up front, with the stated intention of ambushing them to disarm, corral and subdue them | |||
Clark's x-ray vision is still stymied by the lead in the limestone, but even denuded he can combine that with his hearing to see shadows of the men approaching and clearly hear the four heartbeats and breathing patterns. | |||
The men reach the ambush point and Buble Boy attacks with his signature power, dropping a force field cage over them. His aim isn't perfect, and the one in front manages to jump free before the field closes completely, but the remaining three are englobed in the faint blue double banded glow of the Tellai force field. | |||
[BR: attack rolls were 19, 4, 6 and 5, so the three in the globe take movement damage. As Power 1 opponents their move is 12, and the rolls are 12, 15 and 17, so all three are Stuck (can't move, but can attack, albeit any attacks need to getthrough the force field defense, wich makes sense.] | |||
The one that jumped free is turning back to see what just happened while fumbling with something on his belt. The Legion has time for one more action in surprise before we convert to initiative. What's the next move? | |||
[Unless anyone objects…] Clark dashes forward with a burst of super-speed to grab whatever the un-corralled man is trying to get from his belt. | |||
[BR: Clark is a getting a big advantage from his power base here... Die roll on the attack is a 16 out of 18 and the attack does 13 points on 3d10 movement damage, which is JUUUUUUUST almost enough. It's a good example of how he has a ton of raw power but not a ton of practical experience.] | |||
Confident that the shadows of the mine will keep his face hidden, Clark dashes over and snatches the thing on the man's belt just as he manages to get it free. Clark finds himself holding a now-pinless flash-bang grenade, and has the presence of mind to wrap his hands around it before it explodes. The heat of the explosion in his hand would have seriously burned any normal person, but Clark is both unscathed and completely contains the searing light and harsh deafening crack of the device. | |||
The man he grabbed it from is already making tracks towards the cave entrance, fully expecting the explosion to buy him more getaway time. | |||
And we're in regular combat time now | |||
18 MISS ANIMA, GATLING (not accounted for, will act after Anima) | |||
There's a rainbow of light from a shadowed corner of the wall and the fleeing man runs smack into a wall blocking the tunnel that wasn't there before. He hits it with a thud and nearly falls backwards, but keeps his feet. | |||
Seconds later there's a bright light - a top line 20th C high intensity flashlight, Future Boy surmises - pouring down the mine tunnel from the way that the thieves had come. The light makes it impossible to clearly see anyone past it, but there is someone back there. Bubble Boy and Future Boy are clearly inside the light. Clark is visible, but on the other side of the captured thieves and the blue bubble of the force field. Whoever it is _might_ be able to make out Mr. Music's position, but you can't be sure. Miss Anima is still in shadow, but the rainbow might have given her away. | |||
Wherever he is, he starts to talk, "Kids, I don't know who you are, but I reckon you bit off more than you were expecting. Saw some strange folks head into the mine, thought you'd snoop around, solve a big mystery. I respect the gumption. But now there are guys with guns and grenades and almighty knows what else, and I figure you're rethinking things. You ought to be. You step aside, everyone goes their own separate, and you have a story to tell the other kids. You start something, someone may die. Think it over. | |||
Clark can't hear any heartbeat from whoever it is, or any breathing for that matter. How he's making sound without breathing is a darn good question. The flashlight is pouring out both visible and UV light, at least temporarily flooding his super-vision. He'll be able to compensate and get a clear bead on this individual, but not yet (i.e. once your action rolls around). | |||
Ode can hear a doscontunity in the voice, an entropy creeping into the music of the spheres. There's a cold awareness in his heart that whoever this is, they are extremely deadly. | |||
Tok's mutant brain runs through several thousand possible combinations and knows full well that whoever this is, they are pointing a deadly weapon at either Gorvo or himself and are ready to use it at the slightest provocation. | |||
Tok raises his hands, showing that he is (apparently, his staff currently shaped into his costume for easy travel) unarmed--and showing anyone who can see the gesture that he thinks this a genuine threat. "Someone almost did," he replies. | |||
While no one can see the figure's shrug they can hear it in his voice, "Then you know the someones who might die are more likely on your side than mine. No profit in hurting you kids, but I won't worry much on it. So step back." | |||
17 BUBBLE BOY, RESTORATIONS SQUAD (the three guys inside the bubble) | |||
Gorvo puts his trust in his personal force field and braces for impact before yanking the larger bubble and its human contents across the T-junction, hoping to let Superboy get a run at Grave Gatling in the process. | |||
The second the blue glow of the force field starts to move the shadowy figure acts, fanning his revolver to unleash six shots into the Tellagi. Future Boy and Mr. Music see Gorvo take the bullets into his chest and fold up like an origami corpse before collapsing face first on the ground. | |||
Ode's thought balloon: No! | |||
Mr. Music's hand moves to his guitar. | |||
Thought balloon: They think... they can just... | |||
His eyes narrow. | |||
Thought balloon: I'll show them who's made a mistake... | |||
He starts working out the chords to set the men at each other's throats. | |||
But the force field holding the thieves holds, shoving two of the three of them hard (the third was already near the moving edge), and the blue field closes the gap between the collapsed Bubble Boy and the gunman (as well as protecting the other two Legionnaires) | |||
Bubble Boy pulls himself upward with one hand, blood dribbling from a bit lip. "Hah! You missed all my vital spots." | |||
Thought bubble: **But it hurts like a kick from a Tallagi Megamule! I'm seeing double but I've gotta keep my bubble up to protect the others.** | |||
<BR: Bubble Boy is currently at 0 Movement and will be Hampered until he makes a Superior success on an Endurance save (2 or less)> | |||
16 MR. MUSIC, FUTURE BOY | |||
Ode's thought balloon: He's... alive? He's alive! | |||
His hand stills before it can touch the strings. | |||
Then it moves, and Mr. Music lets out a sequence of power chords, then settles into an easy melody, getting his team and Clark subconsciously swaying to the same beat, each able to anticipate and support each other's actions, as if the fight has become a dance. | |||
Future Boy's hands move quickly to the rhythm of the music as soon as the way is blocked. "It's too hard to plan while that flashlight is shining at us," he thinks, "and the holographic displays would be washed out, too if I hadn't damped them for the ambush. But if I route sound through my visor's visual processing center, I should get an effect much like sonar," his hands move down near his waist, miming typing into a keyboard, "and I think I can get some use out of the holographic displays, too." | |||
Inside the bubble The man who had been knocked down executes an effective leg spin to get back to his feet but doesn't manage anything else. The one who had been bumped but not knocked over braces himself on the field and then lays his hand on it. After a second, he slams it with the butt of his gun to no effect. "What the hell is this?" he says out loud. | |||
The third one pulls a gun and aims it through the field towards the prone Bubble Boy's head "I bet the kid the boss shot has the gizmo that's responsible for it" he says and prepares to pull the trigger when suddenly the space in front of him explodes in the light and sound from Future Boy's holographic projectors. He pulls his gun up in shock, unable to complete his action. | |||
Tok's The modifications of his visor give him a crude night-vision but, as expected, he loses contact with the gunman as the sonar is blocked by Bubble Boy's field. Still, with very clear awareness of where that field is he's able to easily target the inside of the field with his audiovisual cacophony | |||
<Restorations Squad are now Hampered from the bubble and Disoriented from the AV displays. The disorientation made his attempt to break out fail because his Even roll of 2 was reduced one success level.> | |||
Future smiles, as he hears the melody. "There it is," he says. "Don't fight it, Clark--that's Mr. Music's 'Synchronicity Ballad!'" | |||
[JK: Obviously, if this were the comic, "Synchronicity Ballad" would be in a brightly colored Metal style font.] | |||
15: RIVERA (the one who is running away) | |||
<BR: I'm really going back and forth as to whether Rivera has a one use charm or magic item that might make him able to take down or get through the wall because I know he's into that sort of thing and eventually finds his magic jade mask, but I'm landing against it because it runs counter to the general sense of the adventure.> | |||
Professor Rivera glances incredulously at the boy who took his grenade and somehow stifled it (fortunately Clarks back was to him so the illumination that did get through didn't reveal his face), to the the newly materialized wall in front of him, and then he pulls his flashlight out to better see what's happening. He plays the light across the created wall, then the tunnel wall, and then the diminuitive, humanoid, tendril-haired alien clinging to the wall with the tendrils on the backs of her hands and tops of her feet and he lets out a surprised shriek. He pulls his gun and fires in blind terror at the spot where he thought he saw the figure, but the bullet ricochets off with a whine and imbeds itself in the newly created wall. | |||
<BR: His attack on Miss Anima was an 8, enough to do Movement damage, and he rolled 6 pts. Miss Anima was therefore forced to jump free into the shadows as soon as she saw his gun come out and he's left with a bewildering unprovable encounter with the otherworldly artist.> | |||
14 SUPERBOY | |||
Clark’s first impulse is to disarm the guy who still has five bullets, but he feels the music pushing him toward the gap between Gorvo’s force bubble and the wall of the tunnel. The music somehow pushes him into contact with the Legionarries, and he can feel how Bubble Boy moved the force field with the intent to give Clark at shot at the man further in the tunnel. | |||
*This is weird, but they must know what they’re doing.* he thinks. *Just go with it.* And with another burst of speed, Superboy buttons his glasses into the pocket of his shirt and dashes through the gap, ready to disarm the deadly (dead?) man. | |||
His vision finishes adapting the the bright visual and uv light and he can make out a few things: one, the gunman further down the tunnel doesn't have an IR signature to speak of, apparently lacking all body heat. | |||
Two, what he can make out past the light glare is the man moving with incredibly practiced speed. He's already broken open his antique pistol, flicked out the spent casings, and is slipping a speed loader of new bullets in. Clark hears them slide into the cylander in slow motion as he starts moving, the bullets dropping fully into place as Clark is slipping between the force field and the wall, the flick of the wrist as the Smith & Wesson Model 2 ratchets back into its complete form just as Clark reaches out to take it from the gunman in a blur… | |||
[BR: Clark's baseline attack is an 18, but level vs. level reduces that by 4 points (the immortal civil war gunslinger is higher level, go figure…), so he needs a 14 or less on 2 rolls for the special attack to the item to disarm. The rolls are 10 and 14! Cutting it close there Clark! Per the rules I sent out we go with the effect of the better roll, which is 3d10 HP; if it had been movement I would have ruled the gun slapped 130 feet down the quarry tunnel, but since it's hit points you've grabbed it and of course in Superboy fasion try to render it inoperable, so 23 damage. Also, per the Smallville VT show rules you stop running almost immediately after completing the action.] | |||
Clark snatches the weapon from the figure just as it is complete, stopping about 10 feet later to apply super strength to make the weapon inoperable. A quick bend of the… | |||
A quick squeeze of the… | |||
Even apply his full strength the gun doesn't bend or move or change at all. The thing is as invulerale as he is! | |||
3 GRAVE GATLING, MISS ANIMA | |||
"There's a new fastest draw in Kansas?" Galting says. "Huh." | |||
And with that he sprints with staggering speed back the way Clark just came, snatching the the industrial flashlight he had attached to the wall as he goes. The light illuminates the shocked Rivera, the animated wall, and the slan-sized hole Miss Anima had sketched in it if she needed a path to escape an attack. Gatling accelerates and then drops to a slide, his narrow frame slipping just barely through the space, his cowboy hat being knocked off as he goes through. | |||
[BR: Because he's a Power 3 characrer (not nearly as versatile as Superboy, but his powers are on the same ultimate scale) Gatling's base Movement is half again a Power 2 character like the Legionnaires present, and 3 times that of a normal person (die Todten Reiten schnell…). His save against his Treasure Hunter hobby (because if diving through narrow spots in mine walls with people chasing you isn't an Agility save for 'Treasure Hunter' I don't know what is – I was tempted to have him reach back for his hat) was a 2, for a superior success.] | |||
[BR: Beth, with your Slan movement power you're easily fast enough to catch up – you have 22 Move left this round and it counts at 4 times normal if you're running and jumping. It's also a trivial action if you want to dismiss the animation of the wall.] | |||
Miss Anima jumps through the hole, dislodging the hat, reaching into a fold of her skirt to grab a prepared image. The sprinting man is barely visible, rounding a corner that will lead him out of the mine, and Jinnjahl is forced to put on a burst of bounding speed in order to catch up. Just as he's about to exit the mine she finds her shot and animates a huge net into the space over and in front of him. | |||
[Roll is a 1. This means automatic maximum effect, or in this case 24 Movement damage. You have the best dice luck on this guy, Beth!] | |||
The net hits him square just as he thinks hes clear, sending him tossing headlong into the limestone quarry's operating area. He stands, struggling under the weight of the net, when the flashers from the police and ambulance lights hit him. In the sudden red and blue glare he raises his hands. | |||
Miss Amima, still in the shadow of the mine, sees the disarmed figure surrendering to the police. | |||
(This is basically an attack for movement damage only, I think, where movement represents having to | |||
get free of the net. | |||
2 BUBBLE BOY | |||
Bubble Boy wants to make sure he's got a good hold on the captives. He suspect can't risk a second bubble to strike at Grave Gatling while maintaining the one holding the other three. So he gives them another rattle for good measure before calling out, "Watch out for that cowboy! He's playing for keeps." | |||
The sudden back and forth shaking of the already discombobulated mercenaries sends them rattling like dried peas in a jar. After a couple of seconds the men have all been separated from the weapons they were holding, tossed end over end and are clearly no longer a real threat. | |||
[BR: There are Power 1 opponents who have been effectively neutralized for the rest of this round, and one at all appropriate action from either Mr. Music or Future Boy will remove them from the fight entirely rather than spending time figuring out how to deal with them in a whittling down points way. This leaves Rivera and whatever is happening with Miss Anima.] | |||
[Beth, you have time to radio back the appearance of the local constabulary outside the mine, which will certainly set the tenor for next steps.] | |||
"The police have arrived and have the runner," Miss Anima says quietly over the radio. "Ducking behind a stalactite; I need to watch for when the police aren't looking at my net to recall it, and I need to recall my wall before they get close enough to see it too." | |||
1 MR. MUSIC, FUTURE BOY | |||
"We should be done in a moment," Future Boy says, "after that....there's a lot more cave here and we've got Superboy, survaliance maps, and imaging tech from our time. We can make our own way out elsewhere in the cave system." | |||
"I suppose you're thinking," Ode says, music of Peace in his voice, "That you should grab your weapons--if you can find them--and turn the tables. But, you know, we're not just ordinary kids, and we've got invisible walls, bright lights, super-speed--all sorts of weirdness. And your boss fled. Wouldn't it be easier to sit down, keep your hands visible, and relax? Don't want someone to get hurt." | |||
Tok, meanwhile, turns to Rivera, his staff forming as he approaches the man, his visor both concealing his features and protecting him from any issues with Rivera's wildly swinging flashlight. "I don't think your friends will be much mroe trouble, but as for you," he says, "we can't have you swinging that gun much more; someone might get hurt. LI mean, not me;" he sidesteps a shot, swinging down at Rivera's wrist, "since I know where you're going to shoot before you do. Anyway, I'm doing you a favor; you don't want to be waving it like that when the cops show up." | |||
[BR: Technically it is the first full round of combat, just not the first action, but this one I'm giving to you as Rivera is, at this point in his personal timeline, a Power 1 opponent, the fight is all but over and there's no harm is showing off Future Boy's other power to Clark.] | |||
The whine of the bullet lets Tok know Rivera's panicked shot wasn't even close, and the staff connects with a bone snapping thud that sends the pistol skittering into the darkness. Rivera drops to his knees, clutching his wrist and clearly out of the fight. | |||
"Ode?" Future boy asks. "You heard Miss Anima." | |||
"Let's move," Ode says. | |||
It’s a couple seconds later when Miss Anima sees her opportunity to recall the net at a moment when the police won’t see the rainbow of light while still giving them a chance apprehend the surrendering Gatling. | |||
“What the heck...?” Says one of the cops, catching just the edge of the rainbow effect in the spotlights and flashers from their archaic land vehicles. But it’s the work of a moment for them to cuff the slender man and toss him in the back of the vehicle. | |||
Miss Anima is able to bound deeper into the cave when the lights turn in her direction. She’s quickly back with the Legionnaires, who are preparing to move from the stunned and wounded criminals. | |||
==Page 8 Top Row: Legionnaires== | |||
Not far from the holo-cloaked time ship there's a sudden eruption of dirt and stone as a figure bursts out of the ground. Clark, flying forward and spinning at super speed, using his invulnerable body as a drill, has finished carving an escape tunnel for the Legionnaires out of the tunnel. The rest of the team clambers out in short order. | |||
Based on the sounds below, Ode figures they have a few minutes before some enterprising police officer does a sweep of the area that might put their time ship at risk. The emotional tenor of the babble of conversation is confused but the in control, and the local constabulary obviously has the situation in hand, even if they don't know what the heck is going on. | |||
[BR: Big fan of the first Superman movie. Big fan. You have time to make plans for Clarks' coming to the future, say goodbye, and do a cursory examination of Gatling's apparently indestructible revolver.] | |||
“I guess all this means you have to go.” Clark says, gesturing at the tunnel and the search below. “It’s too bad — my parents would have loved to meet you. Thank you for everything — if you hadn’t been here, Mr Bogucki might have met those guys by himself, and no one could have helped him before it was too late.” | |||
He holds out the mysterious antique pistol. “But before you head back to the future, do any of you have a clue what this thing _is_? It _looks_ like an old pistol, but I can’t even *dent* it." | |||
Ode looks at it and recoils slightly. | |||
"This is it," he says. "The discontinuity." He forces himself to focus on it and concentrates. | |||
"...I can't undo it," he says, after a moment. "The discontinuity," he adds, realizing that "undo" is a tad ambiguous. | |||
"That's the gun Grave Gatling was using," Jinnjahl identifies, "more than a thousand years from now. Unchanged after all that time. It -- the bullets it fires aren't bullets." | |||
"And..." Future Boy has brought up the sonar picture he took at high speed as the grim gunman ran past him, and laid it side by side against newsfeed footage obsessively archived from the fight on the bridge. The 30th century figure is more weathered, cadavorusly thin – Gorvo's xenobiologist estimate from the images is their contemporary figure is some 30 kilos lighter than the slender man they just fought – but Tok's quick image analysis finds 17 points of commonality between the faces, "He was more gaunt when you fought him in the future, but..that's not a descendant! That's the same man!" | |||
To everyone's shock, the pistol suddenl fades out of existence, as if it had never been…. | |||
Gorvo gasps at the disappearing weapon. "Gone! Like it never existed. Was Grave Gatling time travelling too? Has his timeline stretched out of shape?" | |||
[BR: I kinda like the hanging ambiguity of ending the panel there] | |||
As the group makes their farewells, Bubble Boy shakes Clark's hand vigorously. "It's been an honour working with you, Superboy. I hope you can make a trip to our time soon and we can show you around the future. You're welcome at the Legion HQ anytime!" | |||
Clark smiles at the team of teens, but can’t hide his bewilderment. “Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it... but you do know I don’t own a time machine?" | |||
"According to history," Future Boy says, "you don't need one. You just fly really fast in a circle, and it creates enough of a gravitational anomaly to let you travel through time. Um. You probably shouldn't try that in an atmosphere, though; might mess up the local weather a lot, but in space it should be safe to experiment." | |||
Clark’s bewilderment shifts into incredulity. “Is telling me this going to create some kind of weird paradox...Wait…what? I can *TRAVEL THROUGH TIME*?!!! That’s insane!” | |||
He breaks into a wide grin. “Yeah, definitely going to be trying *that* out. I guess I’ll be seeing you if it works." | |||
[JK: What is the science on our continuity for Superman space travel? Does he just hold onto air John Byrne-style, or not need to breathe in space, or for comfort will he prefer a space suit? I ask only partially because I also plan to play a kryptonian character at some point and the answers here will be relevant to my interests] | |||
[BR: in V&V terms Kryptonians has both Adaptation (Full to Total defense against most environmental defense) and Life Support (can go 33 days without food, water or air). No need for a space suit, no need to hold his breath. Breathing is nice and feels good and helps with talking but it's not what one would call _necessary_] | |||
[JK: That would make sense, given Kryptonian invulnerability and ability to fly way past the speed limit. He might eventually wear some apparatus when operating in space, to communicate with Legionairres more easily and because it's comfy, but if it gets damaged, no big. Or...we'll see what develops.] | |||
==Page 8 Middle: Grave Gatling== | |||
First panel is of the inside of the Smallville police car, with Police Chief Parker's new officers driving the thin, silent figure to the police station. He angles his rear-view mirror down to get a look at his prisoner, who is staring out the window. "So, you seem to be the cowboy type. That's new. Yup you get all kinds driving the police car. Drunks, kids, people driving crazy, the occasional domestic. This is the first empty mine robbery though. Care to tell me what the story is? What you boys were up to? No? Laconic type, huh. Just the phone call for a lawyer and nothing else? Well, hopefully one of your buddies will be more talkative. Chief Parker's called in the big wagon for everyone else but he asks me special to get you off the scene first, make it easier to control. I figure this means he's got his eye on me. Gonna make detective some day I am and then…" | |||
In the second panel the figure in the back seat is free from his cuffs and somehow, impossibly, has his revolver. "Shut. Up." He growls, laying the cold steel barrel against the back of the officers head to get his attention before pulling it far enough away that the driver couldn't try some stupid head-butt the barrel maneuver and get himself dead. "Pull Over. No profit in killing you, kid." | |||
Third panel is the police car pulled to the side of the road and we hear a loud "thud" of the pistol whipping of the driver. | |||
Final panel is Gatling, some moments later, back on his horse. "Now that's interesting. That's reeeeeeal interesting" he thinks. "I can't help but think I'm gonna cross paths with those kids again. And at that point…" he spits, "Profit ain't everything." | |||
==Page 8 Bottom: Lana Lang== | |||
After it's all over – the police have cleared out, the Legionnares gone in their strange ship, the night is quiet – we see a slender figure in sensible boots slip under the police tape at the front gate and play a flashlight over the place. After a few moments she spots something dropped in the dirt and lost in the commotion. She bends down, picks it up and brings it close to look at. The final panel of the issue is Lana Lang looking at small gold ring, sized for a woman's hand, with an onyx and amber striped insect design for its stone. She's clearly enraptured with her find. | |||
And that's where we close out our initial year's worth of stories as the 8-page backup in Action Comics! If you're wondering what's going on with Lana, google "Lana Lang, Insect Queen". | |||
Thanks for the fun ride, everyone! | |||
Latest revision as of 06:13, 30 January 2021
LSH STORY 12: THE 20TH CENTURY CAPER
Page 1, Top: Bubble Boy, Mr. Music, Miss Anima, Future Boy
The Time Cube has settled down in a wooded space on the outskirts of Smallville, not terribly far away from the old quarry.
Three of the four Legionnaires are glancing outside as the door opens, getting their first taste of pre-spaceflight Terran air, with the crisp smell of Autumn corn and the whispering of the dying year in the leaves of the trees. The temperature is a crisp 12C and the area feels almost… serene. For the Wynathains on board, this is an experience of intense cultural import – shortly they’ll be meeting Superman!
Bubby Boy is likely the first down the ramp, his personal force field protecting him from anything unexpected that they might not be able to see. Gorvo bounces down the ramp, a spring in his step. This is a whole new world to explore!
Miss Anima is just outside the door way, with a sketchbook in hand filled with all the gear and people she thought might come in handy on this venture, and her eyes on the nearby tree cover that she could reach with a leap. At the door, Mr. Music can hear Future Boy behind him, still working on the controls and sensors, and can hear from the change in Tok’s breathing that something is very, very, wrong….
[BR: this is where you all can discuss how you’re 24 years too early, the Time Cube isn’t set up for anything other than a jaunt home, and the data from this trip indicates that this might be the only chronological space they can get it at all close to where they need. For better or worse, 1993 is their only chance.]
"Problem?" says Mr. Music.
"You could say that," Future Boy says. "We're not where I expected, and the sun's not in the right place either, so I checked the positions of the stars <ref>Letterer-Josh -- Yes, you can see stars during the day if you have advanced insturmentation like Tok's! Actually, you can see a star during the day with binoculars or a telescope if you know -exactly- where to look! Normally, the sun's glare blinds you to the presence of stars during the day, but looking at exactly the right spot with enough magnification will easily let you see a bright star!</ref>. And...we're 24 years to early. There is no Superman at this point -- Clark should still have his powers, but around our age, and he's not revealed them to the world yet!"
"I assume there's a reason you're not suggesting we just go home and retarget," Jinnjahl says, "but what is it?"
"Two reasons." Tok is clearly getting more agitated as he talks. "One, we're using an experimental time-travel device on its maiden voyage. We had a little extra in case we encountered some kind of issue like Robot Boy did on the first trip--and indeed we did; it's basically used up. So we've only got enough juice left to come back; that's it. On top of that, we didn't miss the mark randomly. There's some kind of temporal anomaly--or maybe series of interlocked temporal anomalies; I can't tell--around the time we were trying to get to; something like that, anyway, and there's basically no way for us to get there. Then.
"So that's it; we're never going to see Superman! We failed."
"Why can't we just go back and try again," asks Ode.
"I told you!" Tok says. "Temporal anomalies! It is, quite literally, now or never!"
Page 1 Middle: Superboy
Clark is coming back up to the house after his shift helping out at the Ben Franklin with his mom. After doing farm chores all morning and school all day. If he weren’t who... what... he was there’d be no way to keep up.
Another day of listening in to the NPR and BBC broadcasts while pretending to have a Walkman on. It’s not that the chores aren’t important, but the world is so big....
“Deep thoughts?” Jonathan Kent asks from the porch as Clark approaches. The prototypical American farmer was clearly waiting for him, reading a well-thumbed copy of an account of the Seven Soldiers of Victory , the costumed adventurer team in WWII....
“Not so deep, Dad.” Clark hops lightly up the stairs and settles into the Adirondack chair next to Kent's. “The guidance councilor gave a presentation today at school about signing up for the PSAT and the National Merit Scholarships. So I was thinking about that, and how Mom says that right now school is my job, and wishing I could….do more. Y’know, for other people."
Jonathan Kent smiles a rueful grin, and slides a bookmark into place. "You will. 'This farm ain't big enough for the two of us!'" he says, cocking a finger pistol at his son. "well, mostly just for you. What you can do, it's too big for a farm, or for Smallville, or Kansas. Hell, it might even be too big for the planet. And that's the worry."
"You remember the first time I showed you how to run the riding mower? And then you decided to drive it yourself and couldn't steer right and cut that gash into the paint of my new Ford?**" both men look over at the battered red truck that's been due to be replaced for a while, but that Jonathan insists still has some good miles left in it. "Right now, we have to focus on a way to get you better at being you, and figure out how you can be you..." he gestures with the book to encompass all the super-human stuff, "while still being..." he pokes the book at Clark's chest, "You."
"That could have been clearer," Jonathan admits after a moment.
Clark laughs. “It’s OK. I think I know what you mean.” He points at his father’s book. "But it would have been nice if those guys had written a *manual* or something."
"I don't think any of them ever anticipated someone like you would need it," Jonathan says, opening the book to one of the rare photos of the team. "Most of them look to be in their late 20's, early 30's when they were doing this. You've got some time to figure things out. It's not on teenagers to save the world."
Page 1 Bottom: Bubble Boy, Mr. Music, Miss Anima, Future Boy
"Well, I say it's now," exclaims Bubble Boy. "Can you smell that air? Look at this place; it's a paradise. Nothing's attacked me!"
He breathes in a big lungful of air.
"I don't want to turn around and head home yet. This is the past! And Superman is round here somewhere. We can't just bug out."
Tok, having done what he could at the controls, has packed up and starts heading for the ramp himself. "It's...well, it's very green. But sure. Lets see if we can find Clark Kent. He may not be Superman yet, but I'm sure he's still pretty Super already. Even if he's only 13."
Page 2 Top: Superboy
The cozy confines of the Smallville Ben Franklin is invaded by aliens (!) when young Clark Kent (oh…) enters to start his work shift. Due to extracurricular time spent at the Smallville High “Torch” <ref>Established in TV show _Smallville_</ref>, Clark’s shift starts later than Lana’s giving him a walk from the school to the store to contemplate just how… boring his bucolic small town is. After the excitement of breaking the story of Officer Hayes’ ‘speed trap’ behind the travel agency billboard <ref>Deep cut to the closing shots of Superboy (1994) Issue 8, where the “Welcome to Smallville, home of Superboy” billboard is replaced with “Visit Hawaii, Home of Superboy”</ref> the edge of town being used to disproportionately target out of state vehicles (picked up by the Sentinel <ref>Established in The New Adventures of Superboy</ref>, with a shared byline), there hasn’t really been much going on for the boy the Miss Taylor <ref>https://smallville.fandom.com/wiki/Truth</ref>, paper’s student advisor, has started referring to as “Crusading Reporter Clark Kent”.
Looking to fill column inches, Clark had been going through old “Smallville Stars and Celebrities: Do They Know Things?” <ref>Holy Anachronistic Netflix Show Reference, Batman!</ref> columns to see if any were worth revisiting. Police Chief Parker probably wasn’t going to want to grant an interview, the last time someone interviewed monks training service dogs at the Alano de Dios monastery made it sound all so deadly dull, he’d just done a review on the nearby inventor Phineas Potter (whose work populated many a late night ‘as seen on TV’) turning him from a butt of local jokes to someone with grudging respect in the school for how his work was focused on helping adults with disabilities… and then getting chewed out by Lana because her Uncle Phineas had preferred the anonymity of being the local eccentric. Any attempt to revisit those was scrapped for another piece on the football team. It’s not that there wasn’t enough going on in Smallville to fill the school paper, but that the walls of the school are just so confining.
There’s a small reassuring tinkle of the bell as Clark enters. The store came into his life two years ago, when his grand aunt Ciara passed and his mother and her best friend Laura took over the main street franchise. His mother, her hair starting the graceful slide from coppery red, letting her joke that soon she’ll bring the only silver into the farmhouse <ref name = “Superman The Movie”[1]</ref>, looked up from the register.
“Hi sweetie – truck came in today, Lana’s already in back breaking the shipment down. Can you give her a hand?”
“Sure thing, Mom. Is this the order with more Beanie Babies? I promised Miss Taylor I’d do a story about the fad.”
Clark sees several heads snap around at the statement, including one person popping up like a prairie dog from another row, at his casual mention of the new fad. His mom shoots him an exasperated look, “Just go help Lana, please”
As he enters the back room, he hears “Clark?”
[BR: as Diane and I discussed, the tenor of Clark and Lana’s long term relationship is defined by this exchange. I have no idea if she’s pining for him, he’s pining for her, they’re just good friends, they’re making out in the stockroom, whatever…]
“Hi Lana, what’s up? Besides,” he looks around at the half-opened boxes, “stationary, Warheads, and flannel shirts?"
Lana is struggling to fold together the cardboard “WE HAVE BEANIE BABIES” display.
She gives Clark a once over with a grin. “coming from Mr. Red Flannel Shirt Over Blue Tee, that’s rich. How does it feel, Clark, having the fashion world finally catch up with your tastes?”
Lana has abandoned her Smallville Crows sweatshirt in the stale air of the back room, and is now displaying her homemade silkscreen “Late Jurassic Park” Tee Shirt (bearing the image of the Archaeopteryx fossil and the phrase “worlds greatest bird sanctuary”)
“I honestly don’t know why we have to put this together - a magic marker sign in the window will lure them in and then we just chuck these little alien monstrosities at the ravening hordes.”
“Here, let me help you.” Clark takes the oversized piece of pre-cut cardboard from Lana and snaps it together with a few deft gestures. “These triangular displays are annoying, but I’ve had practice.” He grabs an under-stuffed platypus and a dolphin out of a box and holds them facing one another.
“Hey Patti, ready to get smushed by the Carson twins?"
“Oh noooooo, I just got the ice cream out of my fur, Flash!"
The last shot in this scene, regardless, includes a window where a pigeon is perched outside, looking in.
References:
Page 2 Middle: Bubble Boy, Future Boy, Miss Anima, Mr. Music
The scene shifts to watching the holo monitor on the control unit for Miss Anima’s drone bird, which picked up Clark at the Torch offices and followed him to the local store. His working at both the school newspaper and at a local store corresponds with the bulk of the historical record (as opposed to him being a school sports hero, or him living in Hawaii, the latter of which is from a highly dubious source). The quartet are stationed nearby, out of sight.
Young Clark is in place. It’s time to activate the plan….
Watching Clark through the screen, Tok says "So, there have to be other aliens around. Other then Clark, I mean? Maybe the Terrans haven't figured it out yet, but nothing like this happens all at once."
Gorvo is occupied applying flesh-toned body paint and grunts. "Not if they have to go through this rigmarole just to go to the local store. I'm STICKY."
[BR: Lisa, with Ode’s knowledge of Mystery Novels he can name some early 20th century Earth Heroes who may or may not have been fictional – the Shadow, the Spider, The Vigilante, Congorilla – but not anything late 20th century. No one ever defined an Earth 10 Martian Manhunter, the Hawks are French and immortal and not aliens, there’s no Oa for the Green Lantern Corps to have come from. Superman will eventually meey a ton of aliens in space, but they are thin on the ground to Ode’s knowledge of the time period.]
"I'm sorry, but... not really," says Ode. "Not here and now." (What is Ode's understanding of current fashion? Lisa's isn't all that great. I mean, worst case, Ode probably knows blue jeans are always acceptable for informal occasions.)
[BR: yes he would know that. He would also know anything that comes up from a google search of 1990s Rock Fashion. And any era of Bowie is universal.]
[EC: We can always replay the drone's video to see how people are dressed.]
[LP: Oh come now, you can't apply that kind of logic to Ode's thinking process! He's probably wearing blue jeans, a white shirt, and a black leather jacket. And boots. I mean, those never go out of style. Now, whether he's looking like a rockstar wannabe, a juvenile delinquent, a normal person, or an alien trying to blend in? That's not my problem, though it may become Ode's.]
"We don't know that!" Tok protests. "They could be as well hidden as we are! Anyway, I guess we're not beong overheard"
Page 2 Bottom: Everyone
One of the many problems Clark has learned to live with is how well all sounds carry in the incredibly quiet Earth atmosphere. He tries hard to not overhear every conversation going on around him, but sometimes he just can't help it.
As he's quick stocking the Beanies into the new display before bring them out to the ravening hordes, and chatting with Lana who is sticking hangers into each of the new shirts that need hanging and folding the ones that don't, her conversation about Pete Ross' latest antic in Chemistry class fades out as he hears
(These are just free floating word balloons) "So, there have to be other aliens around. Other than Clark, I mean? Maybe the Terrans haven't figured it out yet, but nothing like this happens all at once."
"Not if they have to go through this rigmarole just to go to the local store. I'm STICKY."
"I'm sorry, but... not really, Not here and now"
"We don't know that! They could be as well hidden as we are!"
Clark stops, frog in one hand, lobster in the other… listening.
Other aliens? And…how would they know my name?
"Clark, are you OK?" Lana asks.
“I’m fine. Just…thinking” Clark risks a quick glance around the small storeroom, scanning with X-ray vision to see if he can spot anything out of the ordinary.
Small Inset Panel of Miss Anima raising a hand to let everyone know Clark has heard them and to not talk for a minute so they neither give away their location nor say anything that gives up the game.
Ode shifts into meditation mode. (I'm not saying someone _would_ mistake that for a battle trance or something sinister, but just noting someone _could_ make mistake...)
Gorvo buttons his lip with a 'my lips are sealed' gesture, smearing his face paint. Thought bubble: **Globular clusters! My facepaint!**
Tok turns visibly red [I assume Wythian blood is red so they blush red?] from the effort of staying silent, but, with difficulty, manages, eventually releasing his tension by starting a complex space game to distract himself while things cool off.
The sweep of x-ray vision reveals an incredibly complex - impossibly complex - mechanical construction wearing the skin of a pigeon. Literally. There's a small layer of skin and feathers over the construction. It's an avian Terminator. And it's looking right at him.
Small inset panel, Jinnjahl can see that he has spotted the mechanical pigeon. [Beth, you can discorporate it at any time you want. I'm assuming you pushed your ability in extremis earlier today to make the drone for 2+ hours; you'll be Tired for this scene but it's nearly over so not really an issue. The drone has about 30 minutes of 'life' left.]
Jinnjahl has the pigeon take another look around and then fly off to look at other things.
In a text box, she types, "If he follows, where do we want to lead Clark? Or, what direction do we want to aim his searches at? ... I'd rather *not* lead him to the quarry. If there's a problem I don't want him deciding to sabotage our spacecraft before we signal for reinforcements or something -- recreating it with current Terran tech would be a nightmare."
She steps back to let others at the main keyboard.
Gorvo types: Can you have the pigeon lead him away from the store? We don't want him on high alert when we show up. He'd easily spot us for strangers if he used his x-ray vision on us.
“Hey Lana, I’m going to bring this thing out front. I’ll be back in a few minutes, unless I’m buried by the hordes." Clark carefully hefts the Beanied-up display box and carries it into the main room of the store, finally setting it down next to the cash register.
“Mom, I heard something strange, so I’m going to take a quick walk around the store, OK?"
His mom gives him a funny look but nods “I’m really gonna need you later.”
Clark hustles at normal speed around the back. The pigeon has taken wing and is flying away from the store.
[DK: Clark will look around to make sure no one is watching; if he’s in the clear, he’ll run after the Terminatopigeon and leap up to catch it, then walk (normally) back to the rear of the store.]
[BR: beth are you actively dodging (Clark is guaranteed to grab it otherwise), just letting it dissolve, a combination of the two, or something else.]
[EC: Oh, by all means try to dodge. Jinnjhal doubts it will work. But she can let it go - or try to push it to dissolve early - if he catches it as easy as she can now. Doesn't actually care if Clark gets a good look at it. Doesn't want anyone else to get a good look at it. Well ... Clark's parents would be fine, but she doesn't know from her vantage point who else would know about aliens. ]
Clark confirms he’s alone and then sprints after the pigeon - his sprint is close to 100 miles an hour - and he closes the gap in a flash. The leap, not even backed by his flight, clears the upward distance easily. It should be simple. Except the pigeon doesn’t follow the laws of aerodynamics and it drops 4 meters under his leap as if it had no angular momentum at all. Clark has to continue his planned jump to make sure he stays out of sight.
By the time he lands the pigeon is fluttering innocently down Main Street.
[BR: Mechanics - Clark rolled a 17, good enough for a partial success and movement damage only. Damage roll was 18, but Miss Animas generic constructs have a move of twice her INT, or 30. So it burned a ton of movement on avoiding acrobatics and is now running away, slow enough for Clark to follow if he wants to travel at normal speeds down Main Street....]
The pigeon is not being obvious about letting Clark follow it. On one level it is seemingly just fluttering down Main Street and pecking at any garbage on the street. On another level it is never going out of line of sight of the assorted people around, and when its path would take it somewhere empty, it will use pecking at garbage as an excuse to hang around places until someone moves around so that it can keep going and stay in sight.
Hmmm. Clark thinks, as he watches the pigeon stay just ahead of him. Let’s see if this works.
He turns around and starts walking slowly back toward the Ben Franklin, stopping often to see whether the pigeon follows and keeps him in sight.
[BR: Beth, I’m assunming you play along with this as it’s a clean transition that keeps everyone looking smart. Diane, please don’t let your non-confrontational instincts deny Myles his much desired hero identity confusion fight!]
Once he and the pigeon are in the alley behind the store and no one else is around, he’ll say to the air “I’m really curious about what I’d learn by following this bird around, but Mom really needs my help at the store today. I hope it’s still hanging around when my shift’s over at 5"
<ref> [BR my thought had been that phase 2 was Tok and Ode entering the store while Clark is out and asking after him. Maybe leave a card that says something innocent in normal ink where on the back there’s UV ink that has the House of El symbol and a time to meet? Then Gorvo can pass through but Clark won’t be able to chase after him because he can’t leave the shop again? And if he is somehow grabbed he turns out to be another Animation...? That ought to prime things for after work when you’re shining a UV light over the meeting place? Just thoughts. Feel free to develop something else.]
[JK: It depends. If Clark keeps following the bird, it may make sense to have an accelerated phase 2 (and it makes sense for that to be the plan; it's simple and relatively straightforward, so maybe something should disrupt it so that doesn't happen?) where Clark follows the bird to the meetings place and the group meets him there. Presuming plan "follow the bird" falls through, Yeah, leaving an innocent-looking card with a hidden message makes sense. Oh, I get it, the idea is that Clark can read UV so he'll be able to read the back of the card and see the light over the meeting place as a spotlight (albeit one that washes out colors)? Yeah, that makes sense--a a way to make sure the Boy of Steel can find the way(*).
Who am I? I am a boy who lives my township I'm the boy who loves the stars They call me I am the son of the Smallville Kents, I am descended from Krypton It calls me I can run faster than a speeding train, I can travel farther, I've learned justice, morals, heart and more, And it calls me And the call isn't out there at all, it's inside me It's like the grain, always growing and falling I will carry you here in my heart, you'll remind me, That come what might, I'll do what's right I'm Superboy!
What? Both stories have green glowing stones in them! ]
[LP: This all works for me, and while I know he wants to tinker with the lyrics to make them better, I'm fine with Josh writing Ode's band's lyrics. So, do we play out the giving the card scene or just take it as done?]
[JK: Play it out, surely! I think I had a bit that was the start of an appropriate scene at the bottom of an earlier post before we weren't sure how the bird thing was going to go? Um.]</ref> Seconds after Clark leaves to investigate the pigeon, Tok, dressed in something vaguely resembling local clothing (except on a molecular level, where it's pretty clearly some kind of pollimer weave and NOT cotton twill) comes strolling along with Ode, dressed in black skinny jeans, black boots, white open collar shirt and leather jacket, enters the local convenience store, and starts browsing the ancient goods idly.
Lana Lang is out stocking shelves when the pair enter and glances over at the bell. Her eyes lock on to Ode and she gets a look of almost predatory longing equivalent to Lea Thompson playing Loranne Baines in Back to the Future when she spies the almost ethereal beauty of the questing harmony monk. Ode can’t help but hear the sharp intake of breath and the emotional change behind it, and there’s a split second when he glances at the girl before she can compose her features into something more dignified.
She moves to put the clothes she's supposed to be shelving down but misses the shelf, sending things temporarily flying and her skittering to pick them up. Her hand encounters his as Ode has come over to help>her pick up. “Can I… help you find anything?”
Ode's oh dear. I should buy something.
"I --"
Wait. Money. They use money. We don't have any. oh dear.
“Lana!” She blurts out “I’m Lang. Lana. I’m Lana.” She’s struggling to keep her composure, not knowing that every inch of her fast blossoming teenage infatuation is etched into her voice for Ode to read.
She takes the clothes from Ode and lays them carefully on the shelf. “Are you new in town?”
Tok can see all of this and knows that they have limited time before Clark either catches the pigeon or gets bored. Both boys know that Lana is the person best positioned to get the card to Clark no questions asked.
"Yes we are," Tok says. "We're a bit short on cash--you don't take bitcoin, do you? I'd try to change it, but we don't have a lot of time." He gives a significant glance to Ode, hoping he'll get the message.
"Short on time? No!" Lana recovers, and is clearly taking a second to try to puzzle out Ode's accent "Wait, is that a credit card type? We do take Visa and MasterCard...."
"'Fraid so," says Ode. "We're just passing through. We were Hoping to... see Clark." He looks around, obviously not seeing Clark. "We could leave him a message?"
"Clark? Of course you can leave a message with me, he's my best friend. Why do you need to talk to Clark?"
... Ode's thought balloon is blank.
...um...
...he's a reporter. Reporters report on... stuff. News. What's news?...
Picture of Ode's Band, with Lana in the audience and Clark with a notebook.
"...our band," says Ode. "He... Our band. He'll write the truth about it, even if he likes us. He'll tell us whether it's any good or we should... not quit our day jobs?"
“Oh," Lana says, her face working through the idea, "Clark is relentlessly honest, I'll give him that."
She takes the card from Tok, "I'll let him know you came by."
Clark is rounding the corner back to the storefront as Ode and Tok leave,and the two of them turn smoothly and walk in the other direction with no telltale signs of guilt or concern. He finds Lana staring at the door in something of a fugue state.
“Uh… Earth to Lana… are you OK?
"What? Oh yeah. Hi Clark. Someone came by to see you. Wanted you to review their band for the paper." She hands him a business card.
The front of the card reads "LSH" and an address in town that Clark knows >to be fraudulent. turning the card over, he sees written on it in UV ink "7 PM. The Old Limestone Quarry." and the strange S shield image that was in the swaddling clothes his parents told him came from his crashed ship.
[BR: Legionnaires, feel free to change what's on the front of the card if you want it to read something else. I'm just trying to keep momentum. Diane, Clark's reaction to this?]
[JK: this works for me. The address is vaguely plausible--it's an address that's been being constructed, but which Clark -knows- hasn't yet been finished, much less been put up on the market yet. We might want to argue about the band name though. The Legionairres sounds too much like a marching band, and the Odettes or Futurians take too much from one member even if Ode will clearly be centerpiece in the band. Should probably be an injoke or whatnot. Could just call it "The Super Heroes?"
Clark’s thought balloon: What the…?
Slipping the card into his front shirt pocket, he frowns at his friend, closely examining her dreamy expression. “Lana, did they say anything that seemed….odd to you?"
“He was... dreamy.” Her eyes cleared. “They had accents. The pretty one sounded like David Bowie. The other one sounded... like he was from Central Europe?”
Page 3 Top: Superboy, Bubble Boy
Clark, regardless of how much he may want to chanse after these people, is confined to the store until 5. There’s a lot of business – every person bying a “limit 2 to a customer” Beanie Babies is picking up something else, plus helping the older customers get bags of gardening supplies out to their vehicles (“All part fo the service, ma’am”) and the watcheful eye of his mother keep him from doing more than the occasional sweep with his super-senses to see if there’s anything strange going on. > He catches the new figure seconds after he walks in.
Gorvo, the Bubble Boy, strolls into the store, looking decidedly shiny with all that stage makeup on to cover his distinctive blue and grey skin. Thought bubble: **Stay out from under the bright lights, Bubble Boy. Your makeup will run.**
He's dressed in a black tee-shirt under a shiny grey suit, much like Devo on the cover of Freedom of Choice (https://townsquare.media/site/295/files/2013/06/DevoFreedomofChoice.jpg). He lacks the red ziggurat hat, unfortunately, and scans the shelves for a suitable place filler.
No matter how normal he looked, no human had those organs in its torso – a central one off center just next to the heart connected with a half dozen more symmetrically laid out from shoulders to hips, all of them blocking his X-Ray Vision. Lead? Did he have lead in his chest?!?
Clark’s thought balloon this time: *“WHAT THE???** And after a second discreet scan to make sure he’s not imagining things. **OK, so, I’m not the only alien. Time to investigate, Boy Journalist.**
Picking up a stack of thank-you note boxes from behind the front desk for cover, he walks over to the stranger. “Can I help you find anything, sir?"
Bubble Boy freezes for a moment, his personal force field quivering so much it produces an ultrasonic hum that Clark is bound to hear. "Help? Me?"
He coughs. "Ah, yes. I wonder if your store has any CDs, those collectible disc things. My friend would love some classical music, like Van Halen or Strauss." Clark looks the stranger up and down again, while putting the stationary on the shelf. “We have a few — we can’t compete with the big CD store in the mall two towns over, but we do carry some novelty titles for gifts. They’re in the back of the store. Follow me.”
With that, he turns and walks to a half rack of CDs mounted on the wall at the back of the store.
Gorvo follows.
The rack contains an array of hard plastic boxes, each sporting a photo or a drawing on its surface. Some of the images are decidedly….weird. Gorvo can spot pictures of four Terrans in silhouette on a yellow square (a handwritten index card taped to it reads “POLKA ON!!!”), a bright pink flat-nosed animal on a bright green square, and what looks like a naked Terran man floating next to some kind of …pastry?" “This used to just be stuff like Elvis and Spike Jones and Weird Al,” Clark says, gesturing at the naked man box, “but the owners let me add some more eclectic stuff that the store in the mall won’t carry.”
“Let’s see,” he muses. “Someone who likes to mix Van Halen and…Strauss, might like this —“ The box he points at has a colorful collage superimposed with the words 'Archers of Loaf'. “So.. are you new in town? Have I met this friend of yours? "
Gorvo stares at the array of precious cultural artefacts, transfixed.
"Huh? Oh, yes. I'm new in town. Very new. Just visiting. I don't know if you've met my friend. He's very musical; he'd love this..." He gestures at the rack of CDs. "I'm not sure if we have a means of playing them, but I'm sure Tok would..."
He clams up suddenly, remembering who he's talking to. "I mean, he'd love this collection of music. It's Super... Boy, would he ever!"
Gorvo turns to leave. "I'd better get going. Places to see, people to be!" Clark moves to put a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, is your friend the guy who did something to Lana? Why are you here, and what are you trying to do?"
Clark’s hand stops an inch away from the boys sleeve, as if blocked by a wall. Clark can temporarily see a blue double-line glow where he’s in contact with... whatever this is. The surprise on the Kryptonian’s face is unmistakable.
“How are you doing that? Where did you come from?"
"That would be telling. You'll find out soon enough. We have an appointment later today, I think. My friends are dying to meet you."
Gorvo contracts his force field and slips free of the Kryptonian's hand. "Don't worry; it'll be fun!" he throws over his shoulder as he leaves the store.
Behind both young men, from at the door of the stock room, a young woman in a custom screened tee-shirt watches the exchange, her eyes narrowing.
Page 3 Middle: An Interesting Aside
On one of the few promontories outside town, there’s a dusty track that currently holds a beaten-up, decade-old pick up truck, a incredibly generic Econoline van, and a saddled horse. Lever readers will spot the same symbol on the horse’s saddle as the side of the van, a ‘brand’ reading GR. Standing beside the horse is a thinly built stereotypical ‘cowboy’ with an antique design flat brimmed cowboy hat and a revolver openly carried on his right thigh. Standing beside the van are three other men in generic boots, black jeans and black tee shirts covering their muscular frames, all wearing the classic brimmed cowboy hat. Finally, next to the pick-up truck is a man whose features would place his family somewhere well south of the border, likely of Nuahu ancestry. He’s wearing blue jeans, boots and a green flannel shirt that, like his truck, were designed weather a lot of hard work. His air and demeanor make it clear that for all he’s a field academic, he’s still an academic.
“You want to explain this crazy scheme again, Doc?” asks one of the men by the van.
“As I said when I contacted you, there was a treasure hidden when Spain ruled this part of the new world. I think it’s here.”
“That’s plum loco,” the man replied, but glancing over at the cowboy by the horse, “When did the Spanish rule Kansas?”
The academic dons a set of wire frame, round rimmed glasses and then pulls out a small leather-bound journal, undoing a strap before opening to a page almost randomly – it’s clear he’s got the placement of the journal’s contents memorized. “With the Treaty of Fontainebleau in November of 1762, France secretly ceded control of the Louisiana territory to Spain. They had lost control of Canada, you see, and didn’t see the point in staying in the Americas. King Charles III accepted the offer, but it was at the urging of the Spanish Inquisition that the treaty be kept secret, which it was until April of 1764.” He looks over his glasses at the man who question him, “Now why would they do that?”
Waiting a beat, he goes on “The day the treaty was signed the Inquisition emptied one of their secret vaults of antiquities onto a ship to the Americas. That ship, el Último Recurso, the Last Resort, landed in Louisiana on New Year’s Day. Four of the crew entered a seminary in New Orleans over the next week. The Inquisitor who oversaw the transfer hired an all Catholic crew and went North. I located a journal of one of those men in a monastery in California where he included a sketchy account of the journey. They made it as far north as the River of the Padoucas, what the natives called the Chetolah. The US Geographic Survey calls that the Smoky Hill River.”
He points to the winding, looping line at the south end of Smallville. “That river” He puts the journal away, takes off the wire-rims. “The Spanish Inquisition was moving something so important that they made sure they had years of secrecy that the place in the empire they buried it was even in their empire. Something that put the fear of god into the men carrying it that most of them joined the priesthood.” He looks back at the man who questioned him. “It’s out there. And I want it.”
The questioner swallows, then looks back the cowboy, failing to cover his fear with a sneer “Beau, are you buyin’ this? That the Spaniards hid the _holy grail_ out here?”
Beau finishes rolling his cigarette, and lights it, considering, and the flare of the light shows us his timeworn face. “Yup. Prof’s done his homework. I know this land. Been here before. Comanche and Kiowa used to hunt here, pretty well travelled trail in the gold rush and by the Indians centuries before that. It ain’t the grail, and I ain’t sayin’ it’s a lock, but it’s a good gamble.”
He looks over at the professor, “Well, Professor Tlayolotl Rivera, Gatling Recoveries is convinced you ain’t wasting my time. But why here? Why Smallville?”
Professor Rivera nods, satisfied, “The journal of the Californian Monk, Brother Joseph, he mentioned some geographic features and travel times. The river used to wind all over before the Army Corps of Engineers dammed it up after World War II, but the hills remain in the same place. If they buried it anywhere, they buried it” He points to the old limestone quarry, with which made use of the river-cut tunnels. “There.”
“You sound obsessed.”
He looks back at Beau, “So what obsession pushes you to be a treasure hunter, Mr. Beauregard Gatling?”
We can just see Gatling’s smile under the shadows cast by his hat. “Well, ain’t much call for gunslingers these days. Treasure hunting fills the years.”
“No,” Rivera, “I think there is more to it than that.”
“Anything else is between me and the devil, Professor. Saddle up, boys. That quarry ain’y active now, but it’s still private property. I want a nice clean insert and recovery, and you know how I hate surprises.
<ref>[BR: OK, so this is a wildly deep cut in my own imagination, but Professor Rivera will be a foe of the Earth 10 Green Lantern when he eventually finds what he’s looking for – a Aztec Jade Mask with the same green energy wishing powers as the Magic Ring/Lantern and the Axe used by the Green Knight, another Earth 10 GL villain. People who read widely in the Earth 10 DC comics would catch this reference, so I’m passing it along here.]</ref>
Page 4: Everyone
Clark slips out of the house at 6:30, going for another one of his familiar nightly rambles, and makes his way towards the old limestone quarry. He's been up there countless times, not just with the rest of the kids slipping in to swim in the cold water during the heat of summer, but also to interview Ted Bogucki, the night watchman up there for “Smallville Stars and Celebrities: Do They Know Things?” Mr. Bogucki was a Vietnam vet whose recent heart condition moved him off the Smallville PD, and who saw his job at the quarry as a line of defense to keep the kids from getting themsevles killed swimming unsupervised in the sometimes ice cold quarry pools. Hopefully these... aliens?... hadn't done anything to him.
Clark looked up and saw a bight beam lancing into the night over the quarry. It took a couple seconds for him to realize that no one was reacting to it because it was in ultraviolet. Birds, moths, and him, all being drawn to this glowing, possibly deadly, light.
All right, Clark — use reason, he thinks. They know, somehow, that I can see in the UV. And all that rigamarole with the card in the store tells me they also know that other folks around here _can’t_. Do they know anything about my other…gifts? Clearly, they’ve got some of their own.
About a quarter mile away from the light, Clark is positioned to be able to see but not be seen, hear but not be overheard, and it turns his attention to the source of the light.
[BR: assuming that Gorvo is keeping up a force field and Tok erected a hologram curtain, and the UV spotlight is coming through a small hole at the top of the force field - please correct if wrong. Alternately the spotlight might be right outside the field.]
Instead of seeing what he expected to see - the strange boy he met, and the two people Lana described - there's... nothing. The light is starting about 10 feet off the ground, and otherwise there's no sign that anyone is there, just forest. He focuses his hearing and there's a dead spot in the night surrounding the light. Switching to his IR and UV vision doesn't produce anything else of note. Shifting to X-rays and... there's a wall there. A solid hemisphere, impervious to X-rays.
And there you are. Now what? Walk up and knock? He squares his shoulders. Why not? They said they wanted to meet here, let’s meet.
The last panel in this sequence shows Clark heading down the road toward the beacon. (Or is it…destiny?)
Inside the bubble:
Ode looks at the others. If no one else does it, he moves to, er, answer the door.
"Ooh!" Bubble Boy stifles a squeak of delight. "Superboy, for real. He's right outside my force field. "How are we going to introduce ourselves? Who goes first? What if he gets startled?”
"C'mon Tok! Don't keep him waiting!”
"Me?" Tok asks. "I mean, surely one of the older--I mean, more mature--I mean, higher seniority members should speak first?
"But if nobody minds -- we need to drop the bubble, right, and the illusion? He can't hear us...right? Well, here goes nothing.”
With the flick of a switch and a nod to Gorvo, the Legion drops their hologram and force field, and stands before Clark Kent. For two of them it is meeting the young form of the literal savior of their race.
Lisa: I think Ode's looking like he is in that picture on his character sheet, possibly strumming a guitar. I mean, we're not expecting a fight, right? The players are genre savvy, not the characters.
Josh: I was thinking that we would have done something stupid but in-character, like building a giant Superman statue in the quarry out of available materials (I mean, we have to be hiding -something- behind the big "no peeking" present box!). But to play more into the less-silly vision, maybe we've made a superhero podium, with an empty spot, just sized for Clark, if he wants it (and close to the center). In which case, yeah, Tok's in his Future Boy jammies, his staff out and dramatically in it's most iconic form (which probably looks like a wizard's staff, only all in orange with a twist up towards the top into an hourglass shape).
Myles: Gorvo is dressed in his best suit, which unfortunately has more than a passing resemblance to a high collared, grey military uniform, complete with collar insignia indicating membership in the Tallag Cadets, the Young Science Explorers Society and the Mickey Mouse Club. Disney is eternal.
Beth Jinnjahl is about the size of a human child, thin enough to be malnourished if she were human. She doesn't look like a human child, however: the joints are in subtly the wrong places, the fingers are much too long, and she has ultra-fine tentacles in place of her hair and coming from the tops of her feet.
She's sitting on a rock in front of a keyboard that looks vaguely like a typewriter, accompanied by a pair of video game controllers and a large bizarrely thin television, one hand on a video game controller, the other hand on what looks like a perfectly normal pencil. There's a sketchpad in her lap. She's looking at Clark, rather than at the television - which is rapidly cycling through scenes from nearby areas - or at her sketchpad.
She's wearing a white shirt, a multicolored pleated skirt, and a very wide belt.
To X-Ray vision: her bones are hollow like a bird's, the tentacles have some musculature but very little and no bones, each pleat of the skirt contains a pencil, there are several miniature sketchbooks and part of a first-aid kit in the belt, and a metallic something [30th C cellphone] tucked in her shirt.
"Welcome Clark Kent," Tok says, his voice amplified many times by his science and the microphone in his staff. "We are the Legion of Super Heroes, who have travelled through time and space to meet you. The people of Earth may not yet know you, but to us, you will always be..." Tok trailes off for a moment, remembering that Clark isn't Superman yet.
"Superboy," Tok says. "To us, you are Superboy.
“Superboy?” Clark exclaims. “Wait. You’re ALL superheroes? From different planets? And you’re kids?” (A beat passes as he parses Tok’s tatement.) “And you’re from the…future?"
"Yup," Ode says.
"Got it in one," Tok says. "You really are Super. I'm Future Boy. Because I can invent things, like time travel, and also see the future. He's Mister Music. Because he does special things with music.
Gorvo pipes up. "I'm Bubble Boy, force bubbles and derring do. Sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff at the store earlier."
"Miss Anima," Jinnjahl says, in a voice much more human than her appearance, "I can make my drawings temporarily real." She flips to a drawing of a pigeon -- which just looks like a pigeon, albeit possibly a familiar one, but with an arcade joystick and a television screen in the background. "I'm sorry I worried you, but I wanted to see for myself, and I didn't think it was a good idea to *go* for myself."
“Yeah, I understand,” Clark answers, “I hate to think what would have happened to me after the crash if I hadn't looked human.”
He turns to Tok. “When are you from? And you said you’re the *Legion* of Superheroes. Are there more of you? Where are they?"
"2990," Tok shoots back. "Give or take a few months. There are more of us, and growing, but not here and now. The time machine could only carry four at the moment...well, six at a pinch, but five would be safer. Plus....well, it's not our first test, but it's the first time we've gone back this far, or sent more than one person. But don't think we're, like, a Roman legion or something. It's just a name. I didn't choose it; I was the first recruit, not a founding member, but I think the idea is to show that the Legion is willing to accept anyone willing and able to live their life like a superhero of old."
"My powers are fairly difficult to demonstrate unless you were to set up a very large shell game," Tok says, but I did invent this," he gestures with his staff, and it shifts and flows, extremely quickly but slowly enough for the Teen of Steel to see it's movement, reforming in the shape of two sticks as the platform below 'Future Boy' rises up into a set of humps and spines that if squinted at, vaguely resemble a drum kit invented by futuristic coral. Future Boy taps and kicks out a rhythm, and it does, in fact, sound like a drum kit--an advanced electric one, by where the sound is coming from. "Well, I suppose we did promise you a band. On the cards." He smiles wryly.
Ode, delighted, starts playing his guitar. Joy pours out of the instrument.
Clark has a moment where absolute joy washes over him. He’s six and it’s it’s Christmas morning the year that Santa put all the presents in a lead lined box. He’s 11 and it’s the end of harvest dance where he and Pete and Lana are dancing with absolute abandon to some 60s rock tunes they would find embarrassing now. He’s 15 and it’s the first time he flew.
He’s not alone in the universe. Regardless of what happens he knows he never again has to feel alone.
"I'm afraid the extent of my musical abilities is limited to percussion," Bubble Boy shrugs. He fires off a quick succession of popping force bubbles to produce a reasonable facsimile of "Shave and a Hair Cut, Two Cents".
“That’s all….amazing. I have a million questions. I never expected I’d ever meet anyone else like me,” Clark says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how I could help other people with the things I can do. So…how do you do that?"
Bubble Boy grins. "We generally bumble along and help where we can. No, I'm joking. We're members of a sort of club, who do go and use our powers to help others. Sometimes it's rescuing people from danger, sometimes it's rounding up escaped animals, and occasionally it's time travel to meet ... well to meet you!"
"You're going to be really important to a lot of people back in our time. Or is that forward in our time? Whatever. I think you'll figure out how to help lots of people. Lots and lots of people."
Before Clark can respond, both he and Ode hear someone approaching. Single person, approaching through the woods with some degree of stealth. Ode can hear in his clenched breathing the irritation of an adult knowing he's about to deal with teenagers. Clark can quickly scan with his x-ray vision to confirm it's Mr/ Bogucki, the old quarry's security guard.
Clark holds up one hand and hisses through his teeth “Miss Anima, Bubble Boy, hide! Everyone else — start playing something, anything, NOW!"
Miss Anima powers down the computer with one hand, tucks her notebook away with the other, leaves the pencil she'd been using where it is, grabs the overcoat she'd be wearing if she *had* gone out into human society, and sprints for a crevice in the rock face, throwing the overcoat over her shoulder jumping straight up and proceeding to climb rapidly. The tentacle-hair on her head and feet doesn't seem to be loadbearing, but she uses it to probe for handholds. Assuming she can reach the first ridge before anything else happens, she gets behind a rock or into a crevice, and throws the overcoat on top of herself. (She can slave the pigeon to her phone and find out what's happening that way, and she does NOT want to get seen by a potentially-unfriendly persistence hunter of distant brachiator lineage! Humans are scary.)
Ode starts playing something mellow (possibly The 59th Street Bridge Song).
Gorvo nods and sets off at a sprint for the nearest hiding spot behind a big rock or fissure in the cliff face large enough to squeeze into. He tucks in, hunkers down and thinks 'I'm a rock. I'm a rock,' really hard.
Clark looks meaningfully at Future Boy and his futuristic drum kit, moving his hands in an invisible drumroll. With a quick glance in the direction of Mr. Bogucki’s approach, he plucks a notebook and a pen out of the front pocket of his flannel shirt, brushes back his hair, and relaxes into the stance of an interested-but-otherwise-neutral observer.
“So,” he says, pitched loudly enough so Mr. Bogucki can hear him, “are you planning to be a cover band, or will you write your own songs, too?"
Future Boy taps a hidden button on the side of his "drum kit", and almost as if he has planned ahead for exactly this eventuality, the drums reshape themselves to match the dimensions of a contemporary drum kit, all while the hologram projector starts up again, this time completing the look for the drum kit and also covering the gaps in the bits of scenery that Bubble Boy and Miss Anima are hiding behind, as he strikes up a basic but solid 4-beat behind Ode's song.
"Oh, we'll definitely want to do originals," he says. "Ode's written lots of them, so we just need to find the right ones. Are you interested in joining us? We're starting small, but I think--I hope--we have a great future."
"What the fudge are you kids doing up here?!" Bogucki yells as he comes out of the shadows behind Clark. He's a big man, broad shouldered, former footballer, going a little to fat. (If you want a visual reference, imagine Sheriff Hopper from Stranger Things) There's a slight redness around his that reveals his irritation bordering on anger.
"This is..." his face calms a little as the perfect calming tones of the 59th Street Bridge Song wash over him, "Now Clark Kent. You were the last kid I expected to find up here. You know this quarry isn't a playground."
"Sorry, Mr Bogucki” Clark replies. “These are….” he pauses for a second, realizing that he doesn’t actually know Future Boy’s name, “…Todd and Otis. They’re new at school, and they’re putting together a band for the spring Battle of the Bands contest. I guess they didn’t want anyone to hear them practicing, so they hauled all their stuff up here. I got wind of it and came up here to make sure they didn’t get into trouble. And then I _heard_ them — they’re pretty good, don’t you think?"
Bogucki smiles, “Pretty good’s an understatement.” He waves at Ode, “I’ve seen them in concert, you know. Back in the day, and this may be the best....”
He smiles “you kids just keep it down, OK? I don’t want to hear anything for the rest of the night.”
He points at Tok, “and this is only because I know Clark here knows how to be careful.”
Page 4 Bottom Tier
Back at the quarry office, the squad from Gatling Restoration are moving with practiced silence in their high tech (for the 20th century) camouflage suits. Their faces, while painted with asymmetrical stripes, are visible, and we can tell that Dr. Rivera is with them as the 5th person on their team. The three larger men are keeping lookout on the room while Galting and Rivera pull open a drawer in one of the flat filing cabinets and check a map of the quarry tunnels, comparing it to the one Rivera produced produces from his pocket. To keep with the theme his is on aged paper with crinkly edges.
Both point to the same spot on the map, and Gatling makes a quick notaton on a pad before sliding the drawer back into place. He turns his head at a snapping from one of his men, who has spotted Bogucki coming back to the office.
“Something must have thrown his schedule off. Damn. Too bad for him.” Gatling gestures for everyone to take cover as he scoots to behind where the office door will open. Bogucki steps in, flicks on the light, and is immediately pistol whipped with the grip of Gatling’s antique revolver.
“Are you sure he won’t wake up?” Dr, Rivera whispers.
“Not for a long time. Not from this gun,” Gatling says. “Everyone move; keep to the timetable as if he’s still active. I don’t know what trew him off schedule and I don’t want it to bite us in the butt.
The men hustle with incredible stealth into the mine tunnels, leaving no trace behind.
Page 5: Everyone
The Legion is quickly packing up their gear when, again, both Clark and Ode hear something unusual. Clark is able to make out the sound of metal hitting flesh, and of someone collapsing to the ground. There are other people nearby doing something, but Clark can't make them out over the sudden arrythmia of Bogucki's heart.
Ode hears a sudden extremely frightened exhalation of breath carry over the rhythm of the evening air, and ragged, pained, but emotionless breathing after that. There was also a moment of hearing a… doscongruity. Not exactly the same as when the Entropy Monk did something, but similar. A sense of terminal magical intrusion into the order of the universe. If left unchecked, the person who was struck will die.
"Something's wrong," says Ode. "Someone's in trouble."
"It’s Mr. Bogucki!” Clark replies. “Something’s happening to his heart — We’ve got to go help! C’mon!”
He starts to run down the path toward the quarry office, trusting the Legionnaires will follow.
Jinnjahl follows at a sprint, not necessarily along the path, but keeping Clark in sight and not preceding him in the unlikely event she can (say she starts off closer.) She wants the Kryptonian between her and hostile humans. This situation where any trouble has to be assumed to be humans is kinda scary.
"Lead the way, Clark," Tok says, activating his new-version Legion jetpack -- now small enough that it can be concealed under clothing until activated, and staying close to the ground, but high enough that
he can keep up with the others without effort. "We'll keep up...or catch up, if needs be!"
"He was attacked," says Ode, still a bit shocked. It seemed like such a peaceful town! "Deliberately. It was like the Entropy Monk. Not the same, but similar. Someone deliberately hit him!"
Hearing Tok’s assurance that they’ll catch up, Clark shifts into high gear. He’s a blur.
This allows Jinnjahl to speed up, and for a few seconds she is keeping pace with the boy of steel with her acrobatic leaping. Then he's gone. She catches up a few moments later to find Clark cradling the terran security guard. The man's face is pale, his breathing shallow, and something truly terrifying must have happened to have laid a Terran so low so quickly. Well, whoever did this would be a Terran, and Terrans have weapons calibrated for Terrans. That's part of what's so scary about hostilities here. "I'll get medical help," she says, "he won't be Terran - human - but he'll know humans." She pulls out a different pad and starts flipping through it.
[Diane, Clark can hear Bogucki's arrhythmia has moved into high gear, his heart is likely to give out any second. Clark isn't sure he's safe to move, and the only damage to his body is a small goose egg from being hit on the head. He can't see a single logical reason for Bogucki to be responding like this.]
It's not long before the other three Legionnaires arrive, flying in to their position on flat jet packs that had been hidden under their jackets. Bubble Boy suppressed the urge to shout "Whee!" as he drops to the ground outside the security hut. His face grows serious when he sees the fallen Mr. Bogucki. "Miss Anima, we're going to need a medic!"
Ode starts playing again, the same song, hoping to help Bogucki hold on until medical help arrives, one way or another.
"On it." She reaches the page she's looking for, hesitates, and keeps going and pulls out a piece of paper from a nearby page. (She's opted for the combat medic she's called before over the doctor she first had in mind. The combat medic is a lot more familiar with Terrans than the doctor who makes house calls.)
Jerrlann materializes in a rainbow of energy and immediately assesses the situation.
Hold him steady Clark hears as the second member of Miss Anima's species waves a handheld scanner over the pale and shaking man in his arms. As he's looking at him Mr. Music's song washes over Bogucki, and the man's face calms somewhat - there's still an emergency going on, but the harmony monk has bought them some extra time.
[BR: Lisa, attack roll is a 3, and you gave Bogucki back 14 Vitality. Lisa, Beth, I am tracking your Vitality expenditure on these should a fight happen right away....]
There's an underlying physical condition that weakened this Terran's heart, but I don't see a medical cause for the current problem. Jerlann transmits to everyone There's a small contusion at the base of his skull but that shouldn't have initiated these symptoms. I'm about to inject him with quazihexisimprafram to treat the symptoms, but I'm not sanguine.
He looks at Clark, mistaking him for the other terran here, and speaks aloud "Is this Terran allergic to quazihexisimprafram?"
Clark looks utterly bewildered. “I….don’t even know what that is."
Jerrlann shrugs and injects the Terran in the chest, keeping careful track of his condition. [BR: For these purposes Animations use Miss Anima's mental stats with backgrounds appropriate to the person; her 15 Int +5 Profession (combat medic) means a 20 Partial success. Die roll is an 11, so a full success at under 3/5ths that. He's not out of the woods, but he's better.] Over the next few seconds Boguki's situation seems to improve.
I have dealt with the immediate symptoms, but I'm no closer to the underlying cause. If this is something that his Terran endurance will let him muscle through in the next few minutes he should recover. If it's not....
[BR What is everyone doing during this time, aside from Clark and Ode, who are occupied?]
Future boy examines the area, looking for signs of a struggle (or other people than the group and Boguki). "He just came out of here, and Clark and Ode both heard something going on?" He thinks holding his thoughts for now to not distract those trying to save a man's life, "I don't think this was an accident -- someone -did- this to him, and we need to find out who and stop them!"
Tok starts walking around the now crowded office trying to make sense of what might have happened, He's not in enough of an altered state of mind to draw on his mutation, but he's still a brilliant young man.
[BR: save vs. his normal 17 Int was a 2, for a superior level of success]
There's no sign of a struggle - whoever struck Bogucki did so with total surprise - which means the attacker was hiding behind the door. He takes a step to occupy that space and re-scans the room. What would someone be waiting here for? What would they need? The flat map filing cabinet stands out. There's no sign that it had been disturbed, but this almost has to have been it.
He slides it open and flips through the maps, and finds one that is slightly off line, with small flecks of some weathered paper that fell between the maps.
Jinnjahl looks over at Tok, who has started tapping out a rhythm of an old Terran song with his fingers on the map as he's contemplating the situation. "Anything I can do to help?"
This is... not good. Jerrlann transmits, it's not visible on the scanners but I can sense a malevolent...force...preying on his injury, striving to take his life. Most other species would be long since dead. It feels like its...gathering its strength for one last push. If he can survive that he should recover. It's out of my hands
Jinnjahl looks into midair as she puts the pad away. Nope, no combat telepaths in her repertoire. Maybe she should look for one when they go home. She looks at Clark. "Medicine has advanced in the last millennium. Almost all of my people - the Slan - are telepaths, I'm one of the less-than-one-percent who aren't. Part of Jerrlann's medical training is how to use that for medicine. What Jerrlann senses may or may not have a physical body, but if it does, it's probably not *here*. Among the political grouping that includes humanity, humans are well-known for surviving things that would kill almost anyone else, and for just healing up from things that would send other people to the hospital, broken bones and whatnot. This is generally attributed to humans being the only species evolved from endurance hunters."
Ode switches over to "Living on a Prayer" [which Josh suggested and I agree makes sense, as we want something the man would know from his own time]. He's focusing on strengthening Boguki's inner harmonies and pushing against the malevolent forces of entropy.]
[BR: song choice ends up being a bit ironic given JBJ's death this week….]
As Ode is playing Bogucki starts to seizure, and Clark has to apply just touch of his superhuman strength to keep the man from injuring himself further. The man' heart goes from hammering madly out of synch to stopping completely second before Ode goes from quietly singing and playing to belting out the chorus of a song from just a few years ago. With that opening line Bogucki's heart re-starts, falling perfectly in rhythm with the baseline that Tok had been tapping out across the room. Ode keeps up singing through the chorus, sweat drenched and obviously pouring his own life into this.
When Bogucki stabilizes the teen singer collapses back into Gorvo's arms.
Ode's thought balloon: I... could get... used... to this...
Gorvo creates a soft bubble for Ode to sink back into, cradling him like a beanbag.
Clark looks up at Ode with wonder. The feeling of elation Ode's music had imparted just… half an hour ago?…was small potatoes compared to this.
“He…was dead. And now he’s not. You’re selling yourself short with that hero name. If you can do that, they should be calling you ‘Orpheus’."
Ode tries to shake his head and regrets it. "'S Terran biology. I just cancelled the entropy."
"And gave him the heart to push through," Tok adds. "It's not nothing; very far from it. But...terrans are tough. Not invulnerable and super-strong like you," he nods at Clark, "but they have reserves almost nobody can touch. Nobody survives like a Terran."
Jinnjahl the slan hears in her head Now that I am no longer focused on the patient, I can sense five more Terrans nearby with avaricious intentions. They are thieves. One of them had a flash of thought being afraid their victim might wake up and alert the authorities. They are thieves, not intentional murderers..
Jinnjahl's head jerks towards the medic, then towards the door. "Heads up," she says, "Jerrlann says there are five Terran - human - thieves around, one of whom has just thought that their victim might wake up and call the police. Also that they're thieves, not intentional killers."
Then she asks Jerrlann, "Are they broadcasting any sense of WHAT they want to steal?" She waves a hand in the direction of the quarry. ”It's a stone quarry full of water and some offices. The amount of stone and water five men can carry isn't worth stealing."
One of their minds is closed to me - he carries a darkness with him that shields him. Three others are focused on the task, apparently they are paid to recover lost treasures. They are... Tomb Raiders? The last has the belief that there is a magical artifact here. He seeks personal power.
I'm sorry I cannot tell you more. At this range, these minds, the shadow the dark man carries. And I am nearly out of time.
"You've already done more than I asked," Jinnjahl assures Jerrlann. To the others, she says, "One of their minds has a darkness he can't read, which might be what made the guard take a worse injury than otherwise. One of them thinks he's going to find something magic. The other three are just hired thieves."
"And whatever they're looking for, it's marked by this map," Tok adds.
Gorvo pipes up. "It doesn't matter what they're trying to steal. We can't let them get away with this. Superboy, can you hear them digging or moving about?"
“Wait a minute,” Clark cautions. “Before we run off half-cocked, we need to make sure Mr. Bogucki will be OK if we leave him here alone. And if these thieves are afraid of the police, we should definitely put in a call to the station before we go. Mr. Bogucki used to be on the force — they’ll be pretty motivated to catch whoever did this — but it’s a long drive, and they won’t get here for at least 20 minutes. We can help in the gap before they get here.”
He looks around the office at the other young alien faces. “Are we agreed?”
Ode nods, still shaky, not attempting to move from the force field bean bag. "I can stay with him." (He's not entirely clear on whether the whole team is staying until police arrive, but figures that he's probably less useful in a fight until he gets a second wind, so if folks do want to split the team...)
"Mr. Music," Tok says, "you're the boss. But...while I agree with calling the local authorities and making sure Bogucki will be ok, you're the one that was able to counteract whatever he got hit with. Are you sure we aren't going to need you against whatever, and whoever we're facing?"
[BR: GM clarification here: Going back over my game notes, going into the next scene ode is Winded (all non-attack tests have even results reduced by one level). It's not a huge burden but it does mean he's going to be less sneaky and less perceptive in the immediate "tracking down the bad guys" scene than he would be otherwise. By the time you finish sneaking and engage the opponents there will be no real reflection on his combat abilities.]
[BR: If you guys want to split up I'm OK with it, but it is going to sideline Lisa for much of the rest of the session just so Clark can get a boy scout role playing beat. Jerrlann the 30th century doctor has already declared Bogucki is going to be OK now, so someone could argue that point with Clark, or some other answer might present.]
Clark frowns, thinking hard. "If the doctor really thinks Mr. Bogucki will be OK until the police get here, we should all go together. I don’t like that bit about ‘minds with a darkness' at all.”
He nods, and walks to the huge phone on the office desk. “OK guys, I’ll dial 911, but someone else needs to make the report. Dispatcher might recognize my voice. Just sound scared and keep it vague — you’re up at the quarry, you heard some noise in the office, and now Mr. Bogucki is hurt, please come quickly. Kids aren’t supposed to be up here anyway, so they shouldn’t think that call’s too weird.”
Gorvo takes the receiver from Clark. "Hello! Help, we need help. We're up at the quarry and Mr. Bogucki's been hurt. He looks bad... Please, come quick! The quarry near Smallville. Quick!"
Covering the mouthpiece, he says to Clark, "That should do the trick, right?"
Page 6 Top: Everyone
The quintet of teens moves into the tunnels, following a holo of the map that Future Boy found, looking for the thieves that Jinnjahl's friend detected. The Legionnaires fall into position quickly, with Bubble Boy taking point, alert to project a field over the team as protection should something happen. Future Boy is right beside him to provide direction and keep a keen eye out. Mr. Music is hanging back just slightly, and Clark can almost feel the Legion leader's preternatural awareness straining for sound of that entropic darkness despite his completely relaxed, casual demeanor. Miss Anima trails ever so slightly behind, occasionally moving to handholds in the wall to stay partially concealed and keep an eye on any side paths.
It's been scant months since the Legion formed, but already their coordination and comradery are visible to Clark.
Mr. Music is taking slow, deep breaths, centering himself. Thought balloon: "Need to focus. These are ruthless people. And if one of them does even a little of what entropy monks do..."
Bubble Boy creates a string of small bubbles to roll along the floor in front of the group as they proceed, checking for pitfalls or other hidden perils. "It's like LARPing," he whispers to himself. "I wonder if I can backstab with a force bubble?"
Future Boy's array of holos is somewhat dizzying, beyond the main map -- a couple of holographic displays showing imagery -- heat, sonar from his sensors of the tunnels, another showing a local TV news broadcast, a fourth with what looks like a scan of a paper that Mr. Boguki had at the office, and a smaller fifth one with what looks like a live feed from the office--but he barely looks at them, his view ahead as clear as ever, and he several times directs the group to choose between two equally likely paths, with what he calls a "hunch."
[Re Clark--what about dead center? Were he more integrated with the group, front would probably make the most sense given his inate toughness--but as it is, having him in center lets him deploy as he sees fit--while not keeping him out of the group's cohesion more than necessary.]
[DK: agreed that it’s a reasonable spot!]
Clark’s never been this deep in the mine before — invulnerable or not, it's easy to get lost in these tunnels — but he can’t help glancing at both Future Boy’s holos ahead of him and over his shoulder at what looks like Mr. Music’s preternatural calm.
‘I’m the tank in this group,' he thinks. 'They’ve got experience and great teamwork, but I need to remember that if things go south in a hurry.'
The quintet follow the maps and Future Boy's instincts until Clark and Ode both hear something up ahead, a brief shout that is echoing through the tunnels. Ode can tell from the emotional undertones that the speaker is deeply angry and disappointed. Clark can tell them same thing because he knows enough Spanish to know that "Maldito hijo de puta!" is not at all polite, but allowed in the comic because who translates anything anyway.
Clark shuts his eyes and listens hard, trying to determine which tunnel the sound has come from — and whether a group of angry and disappointed men are heading their way.
They aren't moving your way just yet, but you have an excellent idea where they are.
Page 6 Middle: Gatling Restoration
The members of Gatling Recovery are staring alternately at the empty space they've broken into and at their client, who just launched an expletive that is echoing through the corridors.
"Looks like this is a bust, boss," one of the mercenaries says to their leader. "The Prof's maps were wrong."
"No!" Rivera says vehemently, "No, they can't have been wrong! There has to be another chamber here."
"Where?" is the response, "You show me where else there is to dig here and I'll happily dig. Point me to where I can blow a hole in a wall to get gold and I'll gladly do so. I get paid a LOT more when we find stuff."
Gatling is leaning down, rolling the loose earth back and forth under his fingers, then picking some up and smelling it. He sees something, stands up, moves over, crouches again, and comes up with a small gold ring, sized for a woman's hand, with an onyx and amber striped insect design for its stone. "Holster it. He…" Gatling pauses, corrects himself, "It was here. Someone moved it – both what the Prof was looking for and everything else."
He pauses again, running his hand along the edge of the wall that they had pry-barred through to get here. "But it's gone now. I reckon' 40 years or so ago. Probably about when the quarry was established."
"You were close, Rivera. Real close. Pick up the trail from here and call us when you have a new lead. We're saddling up."
Page 6 Bottom: Everyone
“Hssssst”, Clark whispers, trying to get everyone’s attention without making a lot of noise. He points down the branch of the tunnel where he’s heard the men, and signals with his hands that there are four people down there. “What do you guys think? They’re not coming this way yet, but if they do, y'think Gorvo could drop a force bubble over them? Could we use that to herd them out of the mine?"
"Can do," replies Gorvo. "Corral and subdue seems like our best option. What do you think, boss?" He nods to Mr. Music for confirmation.
Mr. Music nods confirmation.
"Bubble prison it is!" Gorov cracks his knuckles and looks round for a good hiding place to stage an ambush from.
"I could draw a wall," Miss Anima says, "and make it real when they get close?"
About to merely nod again, Ode remembers his conversations with Diskette. (Why, yes, he's thinking "What Would Diskette Do?") "Good thinking," he says.
"Just pull it up behind me", Future Boy says. "I'm better guarding the side than in the thick of things.
Page 7: Everyone
The Legionnaies quickly array themselves at a T juncture, some to the side and some hiding up front, with the stated intention of ambushing them to disarm, corral and subdue them
Clark's x-ray vision is still stymied by the lead in the limestone, but even denuded he can combine that with his hearing to see shadows of the men approaching and clearly hear the four heartbeats and breathing patterns.
The men reach the ambush point and Buble Boy attacks with his signature power, dropping a force field cage over them. His aim isn't perfect, and the one in front manages to jump free before the field closes completely, but the remaining three are englobed in the faint blue double banded glow of the Tellai force field.
[BR: attack rolls were 19, 4, 6 and 5, so the three in the globe take movement damage. As Power 1 opponents their move is 12, and the rolls are 12, 15 and 17, so all three are Stuck (can't move, but can attack, albeit any attacks need to getthrough the force field defense, wich makes sense.]
The one that jumped free is turning back to see what just happened while fumbling with something on his belt. The Legion has time for one more action in surprise before we convert to initiative. What's the next move?
[Unless anyone objects…] Clark dashes forward with a burst of super-speed to grab whatever the un-corralled man is trying to get from his belt.
[BR: Clark is a getting a big advantage from his power base here... Die roll on the attack is a 16 out of 18 and the attack does 13 points on 3d10 movement damage, which is JUUUUUUUST almost enough. It's a good example of how he has a ton of raw power but not a ton of practical experience.]
Confident that the shadows of the mine will keep his face hidden, Clark dashes over and snatches the thing on the man's belt just as he manages to get it free. Clark finds himself holding a now-pinless flash-bang grenade, and has the presence of mind to wrap his hands around it before it explodes. The heat of the explosion in his hand would have seriously burned any normal person, but Clark is both unscathed and completely contains the searing light and harsh deafening crack of the device.
The man he grabbed it from is already making tracks towards the cave entrance, fully expecting the explosion to buy him more getaway time.
And we're in regular combat time now
18 MISS ANIMA, GATLING (not accounted for, will act after Anima)
There's a rainbow of light from a shadowed corner of the wall and the fleeing man runs smack into a wall blocking the tunnel that wasn't there before. He hits it with a thud and nearly falls backwards, but keeps his feet.
Seconds later there's a bright light - a top line 20th C high intensity flashlight, Future Boy surmises - pouring down the mine tunnel from the way that the thieves had come. The light makes it impossible to clearly see anyone past it, but there is someone back there. Bubble Boy and Future Boy are clearly inside the light. Clark is visible, but on the other side of the captured thieves and the blue bubble of the force field. Whoever it is _might_ be able to make out Mr. Music's position, but you can't be sure. Miss Anima is still in shadow, but the rainbow might have given her away.
Wherever he is, he starts to talk, "Kids, I don't know who you are, but I reckon you bit off more than you were expecting. Saw some strange folks head into the mine, thought you'd snoop around, solve a big mystery. I respect the gumption. But now there are guys with guns and grenades and almighty knows what else, and I figure you're rethinking things. You ought to be. You step aside, everyone goes their own separate, and you have a story to tell the other kids. You start something, someone may die. Think it over.
Clark can't hear any heartbeat from whoever it is, or any breathing for that matter. How he's making sound without breathing is a darn good question. The flashlight is pouring out both visible and UV light, at least temporarily flooding his super-vision. He'll be able to compensate and get a clear bead on this individual, but not yet (i.e. once your action rolls around).
Ode can hear a doscontunity in the voice, an entropy creeping into the music of the spheres. There's a cold awareness in his heart that whoever this is, they are extremely deadly.
Tok's mutant brain runs through several thousand possible combinations and knows full well that whoever this is, they are pointing a deadly weapon at either Gorvo or himself and are ready to use it at the slightest provocation.
Tok raises his hands, showing that he is (apparently, his staff currently shaped into his costume for easy travel) unarmed--and showing anyone who can see the gesture that he thinks this a genuine threat. "Someone almost did," he replies.
While no one can see the figure's shrug they can hear it in his voice, "Then you know the someones who might die are more likely on your side than mine. No profit in hurting you kids, but I won't worry much on it. So step back."
17 BUBBLE BOY, RESTORATIONS SQUAD (the three guys inside the bubble)
Gorvo puts his trust in his personal force field and braces for impact before yanking the larger bubble and its human contents across the T-junction, hoping to let Superboy get a run at Grave Gatling in the process.
The second the blue glow of the force field starts to move the shadowy figure acts, fanning his revolver to unleash six shots into the Tellagi. Future Boy and Mr. Music see Gorvo take the bullets into his chest and fold up like an origami corpse before collapsing face first on the ground.
Ode's thought balloon: No!
Mr. Music's hand moves to his guitar.
Thought balloon: They think... they can just...
His eyes narrow.
Thought balloon: I'll show them who's made a mistake...
He starts working out the chords to set the men at each other's throats.
But the force field holding the thieves holds, shoving two of the three of them hard (the third was already near the moving edge), and the blue field closes the gap between the collapsed Bubble Boy and the gunman (as well as protecting the other two Legionnaires)
Bubble Boy pulls himself upward with one hand, blood dribbling from a bit lip. "Hah! You missed all my vital spots."
Thought bubble: **But it hurts like a kick from a Tallagi Megamule! I'm seeing double but I've gotta keep my bubble up to protect the others.**
<BR: Bubble Boy is currently at 0 Movement and will be Hampered until he makes a Superior success on an Endurance save (2 or less)>
16 MR. MUSIC, FUTURE BOY
Ode's thought balloon: He's... alive? He's alive!
His hand stills before it can touch the strings.
Then it moves, and Mr. Music lets out a sequence of power chords, then settles into an easy melody, getting his team and Clark subconsciously swaying to the same beat, each able to anticipate and support each other's actions, as if the fight has become a dance.
Future Boy's hands move quickly to the rhythm of the music as soon as the way is blocked. "It's too hard to plan while that flashlight is shining at us," he thinks, "and the holographic displays would be washed out, too if I hadn't damped them for the ambush. But if I route sound through my visor's visual processing center, I should get an effect much like sonar," his hands move down near his waist, miming typing into a keyboard, "and I think I can get some use out of the holographic displays, too."
Inside the bubble The man who had been knocked down executes an effective leg spin to get back to his feet but doesn't manage anything else. The one who had been bumped but not knocked over braces himself on the field and then lays his hand on it. After a second, he slams it with the butt of his gun to no effect. "What the hell is this?" he says out loud.
The third one pulls a gun and aims it through the field towards the prone Bubble Boy's head "I bet the kid the boss shot has the gizmo that's responsible for it" he says and prepares to pull the trigger when suddenly the space in front of him explodes in the light and sound from Future Boy's holographic projectors. He pulls his gun up in shock, unable to complete his action.
Tok's The modifications of his visor give him a crude night-vision but, as expected, he loses contact with the gunman as the sonar is blocked by Bubble Boy's field. Still, with very clear awareness of where that field is he's able to easily target the inside of the field with his audiovisual cacophony
<Restorations Squad are now Hampered from the bubble and Disoriented from the AV displays. The disorientation made his attempt to break out fail because his Even roll of 2 was reduced one success level.>
Future smiles, as he hears the melody. "There it is," he says. "Don't fight it, Clark--that's Mr. Music's 'Synchronicity Ballad!'"
[JK: Obviously, if this were the comic, "Synchronicity Ballad" would be in a brightly colored Metal style font.]
15: RIVERA (the one who is running away) <BR: I'm really going back and forth as to whether Rivera has a one use charm or magic item that might make him able to take down or get through the wall because I know he's into that sort of thing and eventually finds his magic jade mask, but I'm landing against it because it runs counter to the general sense of the adventure.>
Professor Rivera glances incredulously at the boy who took his grenade and somehow stifled it (fortunately Clarks back was to him so the illumination that did get through didn't reveal his face), to the the newly materialized wall in front of him, and then he pulls his flashlight out to better see what's happening. He plays the light across the created wall, then the tunnel wall, and then the diminuitive, humanoid, tendril-haired alien clinging to the wall with the tendrils on the backs of her hands and tops of her feet and he lets out a surprised shriek. He pulls his gun and fires in blind terror at the spot where he thought he saw the figure, but the bullet ricochets off with a whine and imbeds itself in the newly created wall.
<BR: His attack on Miss Anima was an 8, enough to do Movement damage, and he rolled 6 pts. Miss Anima was therefore forced to jump free into the shadows as soon as she saw his gun come out and he's left with a bewildering unprovable encounter with the otherworldly artist.>
14 SUPERBOY Clark’s first impulse is to disarm the guy who still has five bullets, but he feels the music pushing him toward the gap between Gorvo’s force bubble and the wall of the tunnel. The music somehow pushes him into contact with the Legionarries, and he can feel how Bubble Boy moved the force field with the intent to give Clark at shot at the man further in the tunnel.
- This is weird, but they must know what they’re doing.* he thinks. *Just go with it.* And with another burst of speed, Superboy buttons his glasses into the pocket of his shirt and dashes through the gap, ready to disarm the deadly (dead?) man.
His vision finishes adapting the the bright visual and uv light and he can make out a few things: one, the gunman further down the tunnel doesn't have an IR signature to speak of, apparently lacking all body heat.
Two, what he can make out past the light glare is the man moving with incredibly practiced speed. He's already broken open his antique pistol, flicked out the spent casings, and is slipping a speed loader of new bullets in. Clark hears them slide into the cylander in slow motion as he starts moving, the bullets dropping fully into place as Clark is slipping between the force field and the wall, the flick of the wrist as the Smith & Wesson Model 2 ratchets back into its complete form just as Clark reaches out to take it from the gunman in a blur…
[BR: Clark's baseline attack is an 18, but level vs. level reduces that by 4 points (the immortal civil war gunslinger is higher level, go figure…), so he needs a 14 or less on 2 rolls for the special attack to the item to disarm. The rolls are 10 and 14! Cutting it close there Clark! Per the rules I sent out we go with the effect of the better roll, which is 3d10 HP; if it had been movement I would have ruled the gun slapped 130 feet down the quarry tunnel, but since it's hit points you've grabbed it and of course in Superboy fasion try to render it inoperable, so 23 damage. Also, per the Smallville VT show rules you stop running almost immediately after completing the action.]
Clark snatches the weapon from the figure just as it is complete, stopping about 10 feet later to apply super strength to make the weapon inoperable. A quick bend of the… A quick squeeze of the…
Even apply his full strength the gun doesn't bend or move or change at all. The thing is as invulerale as he is!
3 GRAVE GATLING, MISS ANIMA "There's a new fastest draw in Kansas?" Galting says. "Huh." And with that he sprints with staggering speed back the way Clark just came, snatching the the industrial flashlight he had attached to the wall as he goes. The light illuminates the shocked Rivera, the animated wall, and the slan-sized hole Miss Anima had sketched in it if she needed a path to escape an attack. Gatling accelerates and then drops to a slide, his narrow frame slipping just barely through the space, his cowboy hat being knocked off as he goes through.
[BR: Because he's a Power 3 characrer (not nearly as versatile as Superboy, but his powers are on the same ultimate scale) Gatling's base Movement is half again a Power 2 character like the Legionnaires present, and 3 times that of a normal person (die Todten Reiten schnell…). His save against his Treasure Hunter hobby (because if diving through narrow spots in mine walls with people chasing you isn't an Agility save for 'Treasure Hunter' I don't know what is – I was tempted to have him reach back for his hat) was a 2, for a superior success.]
[BR: Beth, with your Slan movement power you're easily fast enough to catch up – you have 22 Move left this round and it counts at 4 times normal if you're running and jumping. It's also a trivial action if you want to dismiss the animation of the wall.]
Miss Anima jumps through the hole, dislodging the hat, reaching into a fold of her skirt to grab a prepared image. The sprinting man is barely visible, rounding a corner that will lead him out of the mine, and Jinnjahl is forced to put on a burst of bounding speed in order to catch up. Just as he's about to exit the mine she finds her shot and animates a huge net into the space over and in front of him.
[Roll is a 1. This means automatic maximum effect, or in this case 24 Movement damage. You have the best dice luck on this guy, Beth!]
The net hits him square just as he thinks hes clear, sending him tossing headlong into the limestone quarry's operating area. He stands, struggling under the weight of the net, when the flashers from the police and ambulance lights hit him. In the sudden red and blue glare he raises his hands.
Miss Amima, still in the shadow of the mine, sees the disarmed figure surrendering to the police.
(This is basically an attack for movement damage only, I think, where movement represents having to get free of the net.
2 BUBBLE BOY
Bubble Boy wants to make sure he's got a good hold on the captives. He suspect can't risk a second bubble to strike at Grave Gatling while maintaining the one holding the other three. So he gives them another rattle for good measure before calling out, "Watch out for that cowboy! He's playing for keeps."
The sudden back and forth shaking of the already discombobulated mercenaries sends them rattling like dried peas in a jar. After a couple of seconds the men have all been separated from the weapons they were holding, tossed end over end and are clearly no longer a real threat.
[BR: There are Power 1 opponents who have been effectively neutralized for the rest of this round, and one at all appropriate action from either Mr. Music or Future Boy will remove them from the fight entirely rather than spending time figuring out how to deal with them in a whittling down points way. This leaves Rivera and whatever is happening with Miss Anima.]
[Beth, you have time to radio back the appearance of the local constabulary outside the mine, which will certainly set the tenor for next steps.]
"The police have arrived and have the runner," Miss Anima says quietly over the radio. "Ducking behind a stalactite; I need to watch for when the police aren't looking at my net to recall it, and I need to recall my wall before they get close enough to see it too."
1 MR. MUSIC, FUTURE BOY "We should be done in a moment," Future Boy says, "after that....there's a lot more cave here and we've got Superboy, survaliance maps, and imaging tech from our time. We can make our own way out elsewhere in the cave system."
"I suppose you're thinking," Ode says, music of Peace in his voice, "That you should grab your weapons--if you can find them--and turn the tables. But, you know, we're not just ordinary kids, and we've got invisible walls, bright lights, super-speed--all sorts of weirdness. And your boss fled. Wouldn't it be easier to sit down, keep your hands visible, and relax? Don't want someone to get hurt."
Tok, meanwhile, turns to Rivera, his staff forming as he approaches the man, his visor both concealing his features and protecting him from any issues with Rivera's wildly swinging flashlight. "I don't think your friends will be much mroe trouble, but as for you," he says, "we can't have you swinging that gun much more; someone might get hurt. LI mean, not me;" he sidesteps a shot, swinging down at Rivera's wrist, "since I know where you're going to shoot before you do. Anyway, I'm doing you a favor; you don't want to be waving it like that when the cops show up."
[BR: Technically it is the first full round of combat, just not the first action, but this one I'm giving to you as Rivera is, at this point in his personal timeline, a Power 1 opponent, the fight is all but over and there's no harm is showing off Future Boy's other power to Clark.]
The whine of the bullet lets Tok know Rivera's panicked shot wasn't even close, and the staff connects with a bone snapping thud that sends the pistol skittering into the darkness. Rivera drops to his knees, clutching his wrist and clearly out of the fight.
"Ode?" Future boy asks. "You heard Miss Anima."
"Let's move," Ode says.
It’s a couple seconds later when Miss Anima sees her opportunity to recall the net at a moment when the police won’t see the rainbow of light while still giving them a chance apprehend the surrendering Gatling.
“What the heck...?” Says one of the cops, catching just the edge of the rainbow effect in the spotlights and flashers from their archaic land vehicles. But it’s the work of a moment for them to cuff the slender man and toss him in the back of the vehicle.
Miss Anima is able to bound deeper into the cave when the lights turn in her direction. She’s quickly back with the Legionnaires, who are preparing to move from the stunned and wounded criminals.
Page 8 Top Row: Legionnaires
Not far from the holo-cloaked time ship there's a sudden eruption of dirt and stone as a figure bursts out of the ground. Clark, flying forward and spinning at super speed, using his invulnerable body as a drill, has finished carving an escape tunnel for the Legionnaires out of the tunnel. The rest of the team clambers out in short order.
Based on the sounds below, Ode figures they have a few minutes before some enterprising police officer does a sweep of the area that might put their time ship at risk. The emotional tenor of the babble of conversation is confused but the in control, and the local constabulary obviously has the situation in hand, even if they don't know what the heck is going on.
[BR: Big fan of the first Superman movie. Big fan. You have time to make plans for Clarks' coming to the future, say goodbye, and do a cursory examination of Gatling's apparently indestructible revolver.]
“I guess all this means you have to go.” Clark says, gesturing at the tunnel and the search below. “It’s too bad — my parents would have loved to meet you. Thank you for everything — if you hadn’t been here, Mr Bogucki might have met those guys by himself, and no one could have helped him before it was too late.”
He holds out the mysterious antique pistol. “But before you head back to the future, do any of you have a clue what this thing _is_? It _looks_ like an old pistol, but I can’t even *dent* it."
Ode looks at it and recoils slightly.
"This is it," he says. "The discontinuity." He forces himself to focus on it and concentrates.
"...I can't undo it," he says, after a moment. "The discontinuity," he adds, realizing that "undo" is a tad ambiguous.
"That's the gun Grave Gatling was using," Jinnjahl identifies, "more than a thousand years from now. Unchanged after all that time. It -- the bullets it fires aren't bullets."
"And..." Future Boy has brought up the sonar picture he took at high speed as the grim gunman ran past him, and laid it side by side against newsfeed footage obsessively archived from the fight on the bridge. The 30th century figure is more weathered, cadavorusly thin – Gorvo's xenobiologist estimate from the images is their contemporary figure is some 30 kilos lighter than the slender man they just fought – but Tok's quick image analysis finds 17 points of commonality between the faces, "He was more gaunt when you fought him in the future, but..that's not a descendant! That's the same man!"
To everyone's shock, the pistol suddenl fades out of existence, as if it had never been….
Gorvo gasps at the disappearing weapon. "Gone! Like it never existed. Was Grave Gatling time travelling too? Has his timeline stretched out of shape?"
[BR: I kinda like the hanging ambiguity of ending the panel there]
As the group makes their farewells, Bubble Boy shakes Clark's hand vigorously. "It's been an honour working with you, Superboy. I hope you can make a trip to our time soon and we can show you around the future. You're welcome at the Legion HQ anytime!"
Clark smiles at the team of teens, but can’t hide his bewilderment. “Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it... but you do know I don’t own a time machine?"
"According to history," Future Boy says, "you don't need one. You just fly really fast in a circle, and it creates enough of a gravitational anomaly to let you travel through time. Um. You probably shouldn't try that in an atmosphere, though; might mess up the local weather a lot, but in space it should be safe to experiment."
Clark’s bewilderment shifts into incredulity. “Is telling me this going to create some kind of weird paradox...Wait…what? I can *TRAVEL THROUGH TIME*?!!! That’s insane!”
He breaks into a wide grin. “Yeah, definitely going to be trying *that* out. I guess I’ll be seeing you if it works."
[JK: What is the science on our continuity for Superman space travel? Does he just hold onto air John Byrne-style, or not need to breathe in space, or for comfort will he prefer a space suit? I ask only partially because I also plan to play a kryptonian character at some point and the answers here will be relevant to my interests]
[BR: in V&V terms Kryptonians has both Adaptation (Full to Total defense against most environmental defense) and Life Support (can go 33 days without food, water or air). No need for a space suit, no need to hold his breath. Breathing is nice and feels good and helps with talking but it's not what one would call _necessary_]
[JK: That would make sense, given Kryptonian invulnerability and ability to fly way past the speed limit. He might eventually wear some apparatus when operating in space, to communicate with Legionairres more easily and because it's comfy, but if it gets damaged, no big. Or...we'll see what develops.]
Page 8 Middle: Grave Gatling
First panel is of the inside of the Smallville police car, with Police Chief Parker's new officers driving the thin, silent figure to the police station. He angles his rear-view mirror down to get a look at his prisoner, who is staring out the window. "So, you seem to be the cowboy type. That's new. Yup you get all kinds driving the police car. Drunks, kids, people driving crazy, the occasional domestic. This is the first empty mine robbery though. Care to tell me what the story is? What you boys were up to? No? Laconic type, huh. Just the phone call for a lawyer and nothing else? Well, hopefully one of your buddies will be more talkative. Chief Parker's called in the big wagon for everyone else but he asks me special to get you off the scene first, make it easier to control. I figure this means he's got his eye on me. Gonna make detective some day I am and then…"
In the second panel the figure in the back seat is free from his cuffs and somehow, impossibly, has his revolver. "Shut. Up." He growls, laying the cold steel barrel against the back of the officers head to get his attention before pulling it far enough away that the driver couldn't try some stupid head-butt the barrel maneuver and get himself dead. "Pull Over. No profit in killing you, kid."
Third panel is the police car pulled to the side of the road and we hear a loud "thud" of the pistol whipping of the driver.
Final panel is Gatling, some moments later, back on his horse. "Now that's interesting. That's reeeeeeal interesting" he thinks. "I can't help but think I'm gonna cross paths with those kids again. And at that point…" he spits, "Profit ain't everything."
Page 8 Bottom: Lana Lang
After it's all over – the police have cleared out, the Legionnares gone in their strange ship, the night is quiet – we see a slender figure in sensible boots slip under the police tape at the front gate and play a flashlight over the place. After a few moments she spots something dropped in the dirt and lost in the commotion. She bends down, picks it up and brings it close to look at. The final panel of the issue is Lana Lang looking at small gold ring, sized for a woman's hand, with an onyx and amber striped insect design for its stone. She's clearly enraptured with her find.
And that's where we close out our initial year's worth of stories as the 8-page backup in Action Comics! If you're wondering what's going on with Lana, google "Lana Lang, Insect Queen".
Thanks for the fun ride, everyone!
