I Hope You Aren't Afraid Of Clowns

I Hope You Aren't Afraid Of Clowns
Date 2082-09-11 GM Aurora Location Redmond Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Scatterbrains
Babylon Cherry Bomb Voltage Gremlin	Quarterwise Nickelwise Various Other Scatterbrains

Summary

Ether hires some Ancients members to re-prank The Scatterbrains after they pranked The Ancients first.

Background

The Scatterbrains have pranked The Ancients, and Ether is pretty pressed about this. They broke into several Ancients smuggling vehicles and replaced their horns with clown horn sound effects and then coated the interiors with Ultra-Glide Industrial Lubricant, as well as painting the outsides with crass symbols and phrases... in Cutters yellow. Knowing they're backed by the Mafia and not looking to get into a war with the Mob, Ether hires the runners to get The Scatterbrains back.

The Meet

Ether is upset and explains what happened to the team. She wants them to make sure The Scatterbrains get the message to not mess with The Ancients without sparking a war with the Mafia.

The Plan

The team heads out to Redmond to Babylon's safe house. Gommorrah meets them there, having an animal-shaped balloon inexplicably. When asked where she got it, she points to the corner where no one is currently and says a clown gave it to her. Babylon makes a Trid Phantasm of the clown's face from Gomorrah's description, and Voltage, who is afraid of clowns, freaks out and gets stuck in a street lamp briefly. Then the balloon explodes dousing the area in Ultra-Glide Industrial Lubricant. They notice a flyspy nearby and the spirit snatches it out of the air. Babylon goes into her safe house to do some disguise and magic while Cherry Bomb, Voltage, and Gremlin extricate themselves from the lube.

Meanwhile the Flyspy Gomorrah is holding has a flag pop out of it that says "GOT YOU!". Cherry Bomb hacks the Flyspy and gets two marks on it to Trace Icon, but it also gets a mark on her. This causes The Scatterbrains to detonate the Flashbang inside the Flyspy, destroying it. However, they do find a building about 4 blocks away that contains The Scatterbrains. They decide to head over after getting some flour.

The Run

While The Ancients are heading over, The Scatterbrains are leaving. Quarterwise is fleeing under Improved Invisibility and Masking as a free water spirit. The building is protected a Force 6, 2 Watchers, and a Force 6 Guardian spirit on the astral. Cherry Bomb looks on the matrix and sees a few commlinks and appliances. Voltage notices that there aren't any vehicles nearby. Babylon tries to get through the ward three times, before deciding that she didn't want to go through that ward anyway. Gremlin notices a number of blurry vaguely humanoid shapes moving around inside. The Guardian Spirit asks Babylon to like... not go through that ward? Babylon banishes and resummons the spirit, who then points out that Quarterwise, the summonerer, left while masking as the previously-seen free spirit.

The team chases after Quarterwise, who has a 6-hit Improved Invisibility sustained. He's running down an alley that he's booby-trapped with monowire and Ultra-Glide, though Gomorrah spots a glimpse of him turning a corner behind a building. Babylon and Gomorrah fly while Voltage takes point and manages to spot the monowire traps that connect to pipes filled with Ultra-Glide. Babylon attempts to disarm the traps, but notes that there's something on the other side holding it taut. Voltage punches through the wall (and the power line inside it). They discover that those traps were set up such that the lubricant would flow into the alley if the monowire stopped being taut. They enter the building and look around through the dust from the broken wall, and spot two clowns inside. Queue a fight. The two nearby unnamed clowns and Quarterwise and Nickelwise also join in.

After The Scatterbrains are utterly defeated and humiliated (with two of them dead) and there's tons of clown puke everywhere, the team calls Ether and fills her in. She's... actually happy? for once.

Aftermath

The Scatterbrains will definitely think twice before messing with the Ancients again.

Rewards

• 1 karma - 1 RVP
• 4k nuyen in drugs - 1 RVP
• 16k nuyen in vehicles with less than 6 BOD and weapons - 4 RVP
• 16k nuyen in armor - 4 RVP
• 24k nuyen in standard grade 'ware - 6 RVP
• 2 CDP

All nuyen not spent on gear rewards can be taken as half the amount of nuyen to be spent on anything. Everything up to 18 availability.

Optionals: Babylon:

• Too Pretty To Hit for -3 RVP

Gremlin:

• Honest Face for -5 RVP
• +1 Chip on Ether

Voltage:

• Spec Mods 1 for -5 RVP

Cherry Bomb:

• Fractal Punch for -5 RVP

Game Quotes

GM: BONK BONK BONK BONK

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Gremlin

Super glad Voltage was there--punching through the wall and into the powerline was so nova. Less nova was the whole getting shot thing, blood is going to take forever to come out.

Voltage

I. Hate. Clowns. The fact that a whole-ass stupid thrill gang wanted to model themselves after stupid crazy clowns is stupid. Like, at least pick a cool aesthetic that doesn't suck. (Don't tell the rest of the crew this, but I'm like... really afraid of clowns. I've always hated their stupid makeup and I still sometimes have nightmares where they're chasin' me through halls of mirrors with axes.)

I got over my fear of clowns a little bit, though! Those Scatterbrains were no match for us, and I definitely looked cool as frag punching through the wall of the building where they were hiding out. I'm really, really glad that Babylon got that on a trid recording, 'cause it was fuckin' nova and I really didn't think it'd work.

Babylon

Well, this was entirely beneath me. Clowns. Actual, literal clowns. Remarkable. I told Ether it would be lowering ourselves to their level to respond, but she insisted that force needed to be projected, so I responded appropriately. Fucking clowns. Never liked them. At least I got some real sweet footage of Voltage smashing through a wall and into a power line, that was real wiz.