To Defeat A Villain

To Defeat A Villain
Part of Hail to the Pumpking
Date 2082-01-30 GM Asmodeus Location Redmond, Sophocles Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Elijah Warrington	Halloweeners
Pell Samsara Skimmer	Halloween Flamers, Grenadiers & Pump King Jack
Casualties and losses
None	Heavy

Summary

Runners save a street hero in the making from getting murdered.

Background

Ever since Pump King Jack got back to the surface, he's redoubled his efforts to recruit as many Halloweeners as possible to his overthrowing campaign. It was only a matter of time before things became overtly violent.

The Meet

Many of the runners' fixers got wind of a community bounty for those that help in the explosive Sophocles street riots as Knight-Errant and Halloweeners clashed in a brutal street war. Elijah Warrington's been providing medical assistance via a shaggy clinic near the edge of Sophocles' police cordon. Samsara hears of this due to her teammate, Pell, and the three organize a plan: Pell approaches through the surface, since Elijah can likely vouch for her as a bodyguard, and Samsara and Skimmer make use of Ghaz, who while short on capable hands, knows the Underground and its smuggling routes. Promising to pay it back later, Samsara calls a favor from the sheriff and manages to smuggle all of their gear that the cops might not look upon favourably. All that they know is that there's a folk hero from the streets going around, trying to keep regular folk safe. The community wants to pay back with more than their gratitude and will pay runners to make sure she's safe.

The Plan

Upon meeting up near Elijah's clinic, the trio keep an ear out and hear three distinct firefights going on. They've gathered some basic identifiable traits of their target: red hair, teenage girl, wears panda-themed clothes, appears to be on fire. Led by Skimmer's sharp senses, they go into the Sophocles riots together.

The Run

Almost immediately the runners get into a fight between Halloweeners and a Knight-Errant strike team. There is an unknown third party matching the description of their heroine and the team springs into action, beating the Halloweeners back with the help of Knight-Errant's barricades. After the fighting quiets down, however, the officers are more than aggressive in telling the interlopers to freeze and identify themselves. Not content with getting arrested, all four run away under the cover of smoke grenades.

The target of their job introduces herself as Irene, a local physical adept who once prayed for the ability to keep people safe. This power was given to her by some kind of influence that caused her to Awaken and ever since she's been beating up 'villains' of all sorts to keep the neighborhood safe. Now, however, she's bitten off more than she can chew and while the team gives her stim patches, Long Haul and tries their hardest to convince her that they're on the same side, she's not convinced and runs off to keep doing her civic duty.

The team rushes after her, only to see her squaring off against Pump King Jack himself. Not intending on killing her on the spot, Jack spins his axe around and hits Irene several city blocks away with a bludgeoning home run, using the blunt side of his axe. He leaves the rest of his mooks to stay and clean the place up, and although Skimmer briefly succumbs to his aura of terror that's become increasingly cultivated, he manages to snap out of it. Irene's severely injured and while the three do manage to put up a fight with stun rounds, lighting magic and in Samsara's case extreme sports (by eating molotovs with her helmet), eventually they do end up retreating and giving the Halloweeners the slip.

Aftermath

Irene appreciates the help and exchanges numbers with Samsara, but while she refuses to leave the riots outright, she'll agree to stick back a little bit by protecting Elijah's clinic from incursions instead. Several locals come to thank her as well as the runners for keeping the gangers occupied long enough for them to slip out of their homes and run away. Irene's a distrustful lone wolf, but at least she's safe. Mission accomplished.

Rewards

• 4,000 Nuyen
• 11 Karma
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Skimmer

"Be a hero by saving a hero? Yeah, I can do that. Problem is, Samsara is to caught up in the fight to pull back, which would be good tactics. Feeding off the energy of the young hero Irene, Samsara seems to be filled with self-righteousness, even when we are clearly outnumbered and outgunned. I want to grab the principal and beat feat, and Pell is okay with this, but it takes some verbal shenanigans to get the two heroic figures to back down from the fight. I kinda wanted to drop them all myself, but the job was clear; save the hero without becoming casualties our selves. Anyway, it all worked out in the end, the hero was saved, and nobody got dead. Not a bad day really; I feel pretty good about this one."

Samsara

Oh man, Irene was so cool! She has flame fists and kicks people and fights villains, and even has an cool mentor named Hero Panda! Just like, seriously, actual Friendly Neighborhood Superhero, it was awesome! I wish we'd gotten to beat up more bad guys together, but she seemed a bit slow to trust, which makes sense. I didn't want to take money for helping her out, so I got her a commlink to keep in touch and gave her CAPTAIN FREEFALL's number so she has a superhero pal to call if she needs backup. Frag I need to get a cape or something...

I dunno what was up with Pell and Skimmer though - they seemed really freaked out when they saw that big spirit with the axe that whooped Irene, and wanted to get out of there really fast when there were still plenty of people to fight. I was ready to scrap with the Halloweeners (who were like, all juiced up on drugs or evil magic or some combination of the two), but Pell grabbed Irene and Skimmer grabbed me and they just high-tailed it out of there, convincing us that discretion was the better part of valor or whatever. Well frag that, there were people getting hurt and it wasn't like KE was stopping it, plus it's not as if those guys were actually scary after the stuff I've gone up against with those two (I mean Skimmer and I went to the jungle to hunt a monster, they were just gangers!)

I dunno, maybe they're not as brave and tough as I thought - or maybe this new pain editor just makes me reckless. Whatever, I won't hold it against them (Skimmer especially, after that thing in Amazonia literally tore his guts out I get being a little hesitant to run headlong into another fight) but I'm not running away from a fight again if I can help it - superheroing was great, and if it gives me an excuse to fight bad guys and help people at the same time then I'm all in!

Pell

So that was what Jack is up to nowadays.

Anyway, Irene's a good kid; not the sharpest tool in the shed, but means well. Can't say I'm proud of getting her out of the midst of like 15 'weeners, but we're probably outmatched if we're needing to protect her and win that fight.