To Defeat A Villain
| To Defeat A Villain | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Hail to the Pumpking | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Elijah Warrington | Halloweeners | ||||||||
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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