47.2 - Destruction from Beyond Space

The Decommissioned Extraterrestrial Craft Storage Yard (sometimes called “ Welcome to Earth ” due to a homemade sign hung up outside the lot after the second Decopodian Invasion, a photo of which went viral online; the employees just call it “Deck-C”) brings tourists north of Halcyon City year round.  It is truly a sight to behold: several square miles of various damaged and decommissioned alien starships.  While most were partial destroyed either due to violent conflict with Earth’s various defense forces or crash landings on the planet, some are still in near pristine condition and merely have been stored in the yard following thorough scientific research.  While they won’t let you in or even near any of the vehicles, it is still draws in anyone with a love of science, exploration, and the unknown. Except Keri Maldonado.  She usually just shows up to throw rocks at the Charzo Science Vessel in lot 113. A two-ton boulder sails through the air and explodes through the left impulse thruster of the Science Vessel, finally snapping the strut that was barely holding it up.  It drops to the ground, crumbling into further pieces as it slams into the ground and smaller vessels parked below it.  The noise almost drowns out Keri’s shouted curses at the former crew of the ship. Keri was hovering about five-hundred feet outside the fence, glowering as she watches the destruction.  It’s one of her bad days and she doesn’t care restraining order she got slapped with the last time.  The HHL were push overs anyway.  They’d never follow up with the suspension threats. Keri was scanning for another rock to throw when she heard a scream.  After first she started to slowly fly away, thinking that someone noticed the destruction a lot earlier than normal—security normally only does walk through of the lot once every three hours and Keri had waited an hour after their last patrol before taking out her frustration on the Science Vessel (it gave her enough time to find a very big rock and fly back with it)—but the screams continued and Keri heard them take on a frantic tone. The members of the HHL always emphasized taking stock of the situation and assessing what was going on before getting involved in any sort of heroic encounter with the members of the JHHL.  Keri frequently was on the receiving end of these lectures.  “Always call in for backup.”  “Alert others of the danger.”  “Don’t get in over your head.”  These were fine ideas, Keri thought, but they never took into account all the bad stuff that could happen while you were waiting around.  Besides, none of the JHHL were as strong or tough as her. She could handle whatever this was on her own. So it seemed like Bill was having so much fun with these solo sessions that I figured I'd join in.  And since the theme seemed to be " what happened during the time skip " I figured I'd shine a light on Keri.  This gave me an opportunity to delve into some backstory (something that Keri is someone lacking in).  Well, hinting at some backstory.  Hopefully it's make some sense by the end. Probably will follow up late Friday night or Saturday.

Nice! 

Got to this a little quicker than I imagined. The Erkonian recon drone has seen better days, but the frame is still stable and most of its internal equipment is intact.  Only the power source has been removed, but a Rook mobile D-Generator will power it long enough to complete the transfer and leave.  Ilsa wishes she her current form had more dexterous manipulators to perform the needed adjustments herself, but the featureless androids perform their duties well enough.  If all went well, Ilsa would provide the needed assurances to her peers that any tampering to Rosa’s henchbots was gone and better than ever. Screams from outside the mother ship docking bay alert Ilsa that this section of the yard was not as abandoned as she’d thought.  She slowly stands and turns to deal with the issue, but the two henchbots that she had set to stand guard are already bringing her the source of the screams—a woman, mid-thirties, dressed in a tan and beige uniform.  One of the yard caretakers. Ilsa gives a deferent shake of her head and commands the drones, “Silent her.” The android on the woman’s right raises up a metal hand and clamps it over her mouth.  She continues to try screaming for help, but the sound is mostly muffled. “Hmmm,” Ilsa muses silently, “discretion?  Not defaulting to violence?  Rosa must have made more than a few changes to these.  Have to remember that for my recommendation.” Ilsa starts to turn back to the Erkonian drone when the squeal of stressed metal catches her attention.  She barely has enough time to dryly wonder what’s happening now when Super Chica tears her way in through the side of the mother ship and rams into Ilsa’s hulking metal body. The force sends her flying through the ship, tearing through wall after wall in her tumbling trajectory.  Keri, however, stops on a dime and scans the room. So quick bit of setup.  Super Chica is a Bull who is a Listener with the moves Punch Everyone and In a China Shop .  We’re using the Snapping Turtle from the Deck of Villainy because how could you pass up a giant robotic turtle as your villain?  We’re also giving the Snapping Turtle some robotic minions (about a dozen), which we’re just treating as a single four-shift clock. Keri is going to Directly Engage a Threat .  Since she’s not hedging her bets, she’ll shift up her Danger (+3) and shift down her Mundane (-1) with Punch Everyone .  A 9 on the roll will give her a single option off Directly Engage a Threat (impress, surprise, or frighten the opposition), but she’ll take some collateral damage to take a second option (resist or avoid their blows) from In a China Shop .  The Snapping Turtle will mark Afraid and hide out of harm’s way and let the minions deal with this… for now. The super structure of the ship begins to groan and the walls begin to slightly.  Keri doesn’t pay any of this much mind.  She locks on to the woman being held by the androids and barrels towards into them.  She only gets half way there before one of the other robots moves to intercept her.  Keri grabs the henchbot by its blank face and haphazardly flings it away.  The pleasant sound of a crash and tearing metal makes Keri smile knowing she sent it rocketing through one of the walls.  "One less to deal with." But that hole seems was the final straw before the floor gave out entirely. Robots, alien tech, and the woman all fall together.  Keri’s eyes go wide and she dives into the falling debris to follow... Keri is going to try and  Defend  this lady.  Her Savior isn’t that good (-1) though and she only gets a 5 on the roll.  Without any team to help her, it looks like it is time to  show her the costs of collateral damage  (that paid off much quicker than I imagined). And that's where we'll leave things for now.  Hopefully I can get to some more tonight.

This is a good reminder for me to look at the Playbook GM moves more closely, thanks :) EDIT: I should actually put those onto Summer's sheet so anyone looking has an easy reference.

“ I should have known this thing was so old it was going to fall apart ,” Keri chides herself as she zooms downward towards the falling woman.  She shoves debris out of her way, finally seeing the woman.  The androids are nowhere to be seen, but they weren’t on Keri’s radar anyway. Keri swoops in and grabs onto the woman.  There’s a shout of pain and Keri flinches. “Woah what’s up, Bacana?” “I think my arm’s broken,” said the woman, struggling with each part. Keri winced and looked around.  She’d already gotten them clear of the debris and now it was time to find someplace to set down. “It’s going to be okay,” Keri said, reassuring herself as she spoke, “we’re going to get you some help and find those bots.” Keri tries another Defend (this time to rescue the woman from the fall) and it fortunately goes much better with a Full Hit.  We’re still showing the costs of collateral damage though, so the lady is worse for the experience.  The GM asks Keri if she feels guilty for what happened and her player agrees, checking Guilty .  Keri does take Influence over her (from the 10+), however. The interior is trashed from the docking bay collapsing in on the rest of the ship, but Keri eventually finds a stable section to land it.  It looks like it was once part of a corridor, but an entire side of the doors now leads to a drop off further into the ship.  Whatever once was here has been scavenged by AEGIS or the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Research.  Either way, it has more than enough solid floor to set down and look this woman over. “Uh hey, what’s your name?” Keri asks. “Bobbi.  Bobbi Gaines,” answers the woman. “Jevi.  Okay Bobbi, I’m just going to check you over, nothing to worry about.” Keri takes one hand and loosely grips Bobbi’s to keep her arm steady and then runs the other over her arm.  Keri’s limp fingers run over Bobbi’s arm.  She isn’t feeling for anything—she wouldn’t know it if she found it—but instead just looking for a reaction from Bobbi.  And she gets it.  As Keri’s fingers get about half way up Bobbi’s forearm, Bobbi’s face tightens in pain. “Okay, there’s two bones in that part of the arm and one—“ “Wait, do you know what you’re doing?” Bobbi interrupts.  She’s using her other hand to wipe tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “Yeah, of course.  The HHL gives us training on taking care of injuries all the time.”  This was true, the HHL made sure that the JHHL members and candidates took an emergency responder course once a quarter to stay sharp and fill any gaps in the training.  What Keri wasn’t mentioned was that she tended to skip these courses.  She was a fighter after all, people like Stingray and Kinetica dealt with civilians. Keri wants to try and Comfort Bobbi to try and keep her calm.  The dice are not kind to her, however, and she rolls a 4.  The GM responds with turning their move back on them and revealing dark secrets of their past . “You’re lying,” Bobbi said flatly.  “Once you assessed the situations and got me to safety, you should have made some sort of report to other authorities for backup and medical assistance.” “Uhm, yeah and…” “We get the same training here.”  Bobbi lifts up her good arm and raises four fingers, closing them as she recites the steps, “Assess, Report, Investigate, and Coordinate.” Keri’s face runs red with embarrassment.  She starts to try and say something, but Bobbi cuts her off with a wave of her good arm.  “Look, I know who you are.  You’re that girl who chucks boulders at the South Yard every couple of months.  I know you don’t want to let anyone know you’re here, but you are over your head right now.  Get me a damn ambulance and leave this to the professionals.” Bobbi is definitely trying to tell Keri who to be here.  As an adult, she automatically has Influence over Keri.  The GM thinks that this speech is going to push down Superior and raise Mundane (alternatively, this could be +Danger/-Savior, but the GM thinks Mundane is the more interesting option here).  Keri wants none of that though, and rolls to reject her Influence .  Unfortunately, the dice continue to be unkind (3).  Per the move, Keri checks Angry and has her labels shifted. Keri’s face twists into a sneer.  Her hands clench into fists and for a moment, her anger builds almost to the boiling point.  She wants to yell at Bobbi, cuss her out and call her every mean thing she can think of.  Instead she just blows her breath out in a puff and reaches up to her ear.  With a bit of struggle, she frees the JHHL communicator and throws it at Bobbi’s chest.  It strikes and bounces off to the cold alien floor. “You’re trained, you can handle this.  I’m going to find the robots and smash them.” Our summer house guest flew home today, so I finally got time to get back to this.  Apologies for the wait. So Keri's not doing great.  She's got Guilty and Angry both checked.  A solo Bull who is heavy into the punching part of being a superhero is really out of their element trying to tend to hurt civilians, and so Keri's trying to get back into her element.  She really wants to wreck Snapping Turtle at this point, both to blow off some steam and to show Bobbi she knows what she's doing (which is the exact opposite of what's going on).  This couldn't possibly come back to bite her.

Nice.