ic League of Their Own

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Tea Time, Around 4PM, May 15th, 2020

All Across Emerald City

 

Hello, hello, all my new friends! I am the White Rabbit. The man on the screen looked smart, in his long tailed jacket. The jacket was black, with a red and white pattern on the lapel, with the red on each side looking suspiciously like half of a heart. He wore an off-white vest under it, with a white dress shirt and a neatly tied dark red tie. On his head, a black bowler hat, with a pair of white rabbit ears under it, pointing down. His hair was short and blonde, but he sported some impressive sideburns. The man looked so happy, a wide smile on his lips, as he looked down at a golden pocket watch in his hand. To most, he probably looked like a slightly deranged kids' show host. Some saw him on their television, where he had suddenly appeared. Some heard him on the radio. For others still, his image had suddenly appeared on the screen of their smart phones. Anything connected to the public air waves, he was there. Oh my, would you look at the time? It is tea time! The very best time of the day! And oh, what a party we will have! So come, my friends! Come, and let us have tea! Join us, my friends and I, and come for tea! We even have cake! He threw his head back, laughing quickly at himself, before turning back to the screen. My old friends are out there already, y'know. Go and find them, they will tell you what to do. They'll show you how to really get the party started! Now, hurry up! After all, you're late, you're late, for a very important date.

 

All across Emerald City, the effect was instant: Anarchy. As they were drawn into the White Rabbit's power, the citizens of Emerald City took to the streets. Even to those that escaped the madness of the mind, the city seemed to take on a brand new life. Everything was changing, twisting and turning. A cartoony world of wonder, with giant flowers, playing cards and more, spreading all across Emerald. It was almost enough to make one go mad. A fairy tale wonderland, spreading out across the city streets, as the White Rabbit's new friends began to spread into shops, stores, homes, banks, government offices and more.

 

A group of heroes were among the unaffected. Whether by chance or design, they had escaped the White Rabbit's friendship. It wouldn't take long for them to notice that the greatest concentration of White Rabbit's friends seemed to be centered near the Yellow Brick Row shopping district...

Edited May 28, 2020 by RocketLord

[Dr Archeville]

Protectron

 

One of Emerald City's newest transplants was walking around The Cannery Marketplace's two-story Rotunda, moving among the assorted farm stands and fish stalls.  It rarely stopped moving, scanning all available items as it passed slowly through the area.  Most bystanders weren't sure what to make of the gold & chrome robot with an emerald green cape, and kept their distance, though several took pictures or video.  Occasionally it would talk to one of the vendors, politely introducing itself and asking questions about the growing conditions for some item of produce, or the methods of capture used for the seafood.

 

Spoiler

Estimate analysis of food items 37% complete.  Adequate data to begin formulation of optimal meals for organics.

Primary Goal: Salvation of Earth.

Secondary Goal: Preservation of dominant sapient organic, Homo sapiens.

Tertiary Goal: Preserve as much organic life as possible.

 

Suddenly, a commotion!  People reacting to the White Rabbit's broadcast on their smartphones, on small radios at the stands, on tvs in the hole-in-the-wall shops.  Even in Protectron's mind!  The golden guardian faltered in its steps as it dealt with the broadcast.
 

Spoiler

Incoming transmission detected

RANDOM INPUT DOES NOT COMPUTE

DOES COMPUTE

DOES NOT COMPUTE

SYSTEMS COMPROMISED

FORCING REBOOT

 

The mighty machine's optics dimmed, and it was still as a statue.  Moments passed as chaos erupted around it, as customers, vendors, and the Market itself all succumbed to the White Rabbit's power.  Then, just as abruptly, the robot's optics flared back on, and it quickly looked around at its surroundings and judged what it must do.

 

"Please remain calm," it announced.  "Authorities are being contacted, and will be here soon to render aid."  Protectron was indeed sending out a radio signal on police bands requesting aid, but was unsure if the message was getting through the White Rabbit's interference.  Which meant Protectron had to secure things here for the moment.  Fortunately, it came equipped with a matter replicator, and so began producing something it hoped would work with the command to distract them, (biodegradable) paper cups of

 

"Tea here!  Come get your tea!  With cream, lemon, or sugar!  Tea here!"

 

[EternalPhoenix]

Waverider

 

Naomi was very, very, very confused. Her classmates and professor, after that guy popped on the computer projector, all went crazy at once. Then the classroom warped into something out of Lewis Carroll’s most nonsensical dreams. Except her vibration sense told her that no, nothing had changed at all. Her brain, completely baffled by the sensory dissonance, went kerflooey for a little while. She regained awareness in midair. On a sound wave. In costume. She wasn’t out of sensory range, exactly. Her vibration sense stretched a bit further than her eyes. But yeah, the sensory confusion was gone. Clearly, she’d gotten into costume and fled into the air to escape the sensory confusion. And anything else that happened when she was all kerflooey could be dealt with by Future Naomi, because there was superheroing to do! Yeah. Say, was that the largest group congregating around Yellow Brick Row. Let’s go have a look at that…from a nice, discreet, nonconfusion height. Yeah.

[RocketLord]

Justice

 

It was luck. Pure dumb luck. A quick bathroom break away from her work station, and when Robin returned her coworkers and the students at the university were all going mad. And if that wasn't bad enough, the rest of the world seemed to be heading in the same direction. Twisting, turning, more and more cartoony. She'd dealt with a lot of stuff so far, but this? This was all new.

 

Henshin!

 

Diving back into the bathroom before she was noticed, she'd called her armor, and then, she was out in it. Everywhere she went, people were acting out like this. Looting, trashing things. At least her armor seemed to be cancelling out the noise as she raced through the city on the Law Rider. 

 

She saw something, at least. Up there, in the sky. The purple and yellow had to be Waverider. She seemed to be heading towards Yellow Brick Row. Alright, two had to be better than one here, so Robin headed in the same direction.

[Growth Spurt]

Visionary

 

Visionary was flying over the city when the madness began, for the simple reason of enjoying flying. He didn't hear or see White Rabbit's message, he just saw thousands of people suddenly  lose it. After a very confused few minutes of trying to find out whats going on by questioning the increasingly mad civilians he noticed something flying towards the yellow brick row...and he found himself following it.

[Tiffany Korta]

Emerald Spider

She didn’t have to do the maintenance on the air conditioners now, she was a manager type after all, but she liked to do it now and again just to keep in practice. You never knew when things would change after all. In the guts of the machine, music playing to pass the time, so she’d missed the message the only tell was the weird tingling she felt with her quantum sense. By the time she’d gotten to the point to see what had happened people were already moving to whatever siren called they’d received.

 

Figure something was wrong, obviously, she began to follow the crowd leaping from building to building and keeping out of sight. She didn’t need to bother with her costume until she knew what was going on, and the crowd didn’t look up at the best of time and this wasn’t the best of times.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Protectron tried. A few stopped by him, grabbing cups, but most others just went by him. They didn't seem to care about him in the least, instead simply continuing their looting. They all seemed to be heading in the same direction with their loot. A normally busy intersection not far down the road. One where Protectron would soon see quite an unusual sight: A pair of the White Rabbit's old friends. An overgrown lizard-man and a small mouse-man, both dressed in a manner much like the White Rabbit. The lizard accepted the loot, all smiles and thank yous, shoving it all into a door that the mouse in the white vest and black top hat held open. It was quite a curious sight, yes.

 

Anyone approaching from above, such a Waverider, Visionary or the Emerald Spider, would be able to easily see the flow of mind controlled people as they moved through the streets, towards the lizard-man and the mouse-man. Protectron stood out from the crowds, as did Justice as she raced down the streets on her bike. They would easily start to spot each other, evne if the lizard-man and the mouse-man didn't seem to see them.

[Dr Archeville]

Protectron

 

"Please, remain calm and have some tea," the robot announced in its precise yet flat electronic tone.  It marched inexorably along with the crowd, continuing its attempts to distract them, and searching online for any references to the man seen on the broadcasts earlier.  Little useful information was found at first -- lots of hits for steampunk conventions, Jefferson Airplane songs, and assorted psychedelia -- but eventually it was able to winnow through that and focus on criminal reports.  The first several it found were focused on White Rabbit's accomplices and their group activities.

 

And it was at about that time that the group reached Yellow Brick Row, and the Magnanimous Mechanoid saw two of White Rabbit's associates!

 

"Bill the Lizard!  Doormouse!," it announced, "cease your criminal activities immediately, and have White Rabbit undo his influence upon these innocent people."

[Growth Spurt]

After a few minutes of flying after the person he now realized was the hero called Waverider, he noticed a bit of a ruckus around...Protectron!

"Protectron! Sir!" The Visionary flies over to his fellow mechanical hero, hovering over the crowd. "Are you in need of any assistance?"

[Tiffany Korta]

Emerald Spider

From her vantage point Peri could she where the assembled crowd was heading towards, taking a moment to appreciate the theming even if it was from the wrong book. Same for the mouse and the lizard, so she could get the theme if not who they were exactly there wasn’t exactly spotter cards for all the villains within and without the city. So this was obviously a job for Emerald Spider after all, as tempted as it was to go back to basics an appearance in costume would have a better impact. Besides Procteron had thing sorted for now so she could quickly change in the costume.

 

I mean what could go wrong in the few minutes that it would take to get change?

[EternalPhoenix]

Waverider

 

Oh, god. She had to go down there. Naomi frowned as she kept pace with Justice’s bike. She was…hesitant, understandably. There was, however a solution to this problem. She reached into her pockets (because no self respecting superheroine should be without pockets in their costume, in her opinion), and tracked down the rest of her mask’s material. There had been a bit left over, and…here we go. A very nice blindfold. This was probably a bad plan. But what the heck, she knew where Justice and the others were, anyway. Quickly (as she didn’t  have anything resembling traffic to go through), she joined Justice as she roared down the streets. Just high enough to avoid any vehicles, but still easily visible.

[RocketLord]

Justice

 

"Hey! Waverider!" Oh, right. She was deaf. Resorting to waving instead, Robin paused briefly when she noticed the blindfold. Alright, made sense. But how could she move around? Or even hear them.

 

She seemed to do alright moving about, at least. 

 

"Guess the blindfold makes sense. We need to figure out how that transmission messes with people." She was talking to herself as much as Waverider. It wasn't like Waverider could hear her anyway, right? But she needed to figure this out.

 

Up ahead, she could see Protectron and Visionary. Alright, they could probably deal with all of this without White Rabbit getting to them, right?

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Bill the Lizard looked up, the very little lizard that was not so little. His eyes went wide as he spied the robots in the capes, and he reached for his head, shaking his head. "Oh my, oh my. Nothing to see, nothing wrong here, my dear fellows! Is that not right, my dear Dormouse?"

 

The Dormouse looked away from the door he was holding up, shaking his head. "The ball bounces around the signals, from the start to the end, back and forth, it never ends." 

 

"Quite right, quite right." Bill the Lizard was not so little right now. In fact, he was quite large, as he stared down at Protectron, and up at the Visionary. He raised a scaly hand, and snapped his fingers. "My dear partygoers, it appears that we have some party poopers here! They want to ruin our tea party!"

 

As if by one, everyone around, all the mesmerized men, women and children turned to glare at Protectron and Visionary. It was quite an eerie effect, their eyes emotionless and glaring.

[EternalPhoenix]

Waverider

 

Naomi was done. Nope, not dealing with this nonsense. This Lewis Carroll themed insanity was coming to an end right now. The big one (for blindfolded and relying only on her vibration sense, the details were different) could go down first. He could eat vibrations so that she could find that guy on the screen who started this and blast him too. She wanted to save the city, protect the people from this menace, etcetera. Obviously. That was Priority One. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it. Did she know exactly what everyone was saying? Well, no. But she got the gist of it. So yeah, a vibration blast for the big guy. While she was flying out of melee reach like a f’n boss.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

For poor Bill the Lizard, everything shook. His entire body seemed to shake and vibrate, almost like a personalized earthquake. He steadied himself, he tried to remain up, shaking his head and tried to remain calm. 

 

The Dormouse looked at his friend, as he shook about. He looked positively puzzled, perplexed and surprised. Whatever was happening to his friend, the little lizard? "A time to go and a time to stay, I dare say." He stepped into the door he had held open. It closed behind him, leaving Bill the Lizard and the party goers with the people in the street. 

[Dr Archeville]

Protectron

 

Spoiler

Observation: While Bill the Lizard poses a more immediate physical threat, The Doormouse's portals mark him as a more crucial target.  Proceeding to intercept...

 

"Halt!," Protectron called out to the Doormouse, kicking its jets on to close the gap between them.  But it was not enough, and by the time the golden guardian reached the Doormouse's door, it had already closed behind him.

 

"Halt!," it repeated, pushing the door open, "you must cea-"  But the door opened to an empty building, with no sign of Doormouse or of the loot that Bill the Lizard had been shoving through.

 

Spoiler

 

ERROR Doormouse has escaped, along with stolen goods.

Secondary Objective: Subdue Bill the Lizard, detain for questioning.

 

 

Protectron quickly spun around and fly at Bill the Lizard, arms wide, "your criminal activities must cease."

[RocketLord]

Justice

 

Everyone was going straight for the Lizard, and the Mouse just disappeared. This was weird. They looked like Wonderland rejects or something, but then again, that made a certain kind of sense for someone calling himself the White Rabbit, didn't it? 

 

Taking down the Lizard and the Mouse had to be priority, no question there, but still, all these people around them were starting to look really unhappy with the party crashers. They couldn't hurt them, they had just been trapped by whatever the White Rabbit was doing to them, but they had to do something before they hurt themselves.

 

Fortunately, Robin had many useful devices. Reaching into a portal she pulled out a Snare Grenade. She turned her bike up towards a wall of a nearby building, quickly driving up it as she dropped the grenade behind her. It didn't explode where it hit among the ground, instead a wire mesh rapidly expanded from it, quickly growing larger and ever more complicated, trapping anyone caught in it.

 

"Everyone, watch out for people here! We gotta keep 'em safe!" Maybe the others would listen? She hoped they would, at least.

[Growth Spurt]

Visionary wasn't 100% sure what was happening, only that the Protectron had charged at the two Animal People, which likely meant they were the bad guys. After the Doormouse escaped he ran up to the Lizard.

Spoiler

All power to kinetic strike systems, cut power to anti gravity systems until after subject is subdued

After closing the gap, Visionary threw a clumsy punch that quite literally went over the villains head. "...So. Uh. Might need to learn to through a punch."

 

[RocketLord]

GM

 

Oh no, oh my, these party crashers were causing quite a stir, disrupting the lovely little Tea Party. What was worse, they were actually hurting Bill the Lizard! And he was such a nice lizard too, all happy and smiles, helping the party goers find their way to the party!

 

That simply would not do!

 

As if by one, the people trapped in the White Rabbit's thrall swarmed towards Bill the Lizard, or, more accurately, towards Protectron and Visionary. They moved quick, far quicker than they would have thought, and then they were on them, grabbing and tearing and holding and just generally getting in the way of the heroes. A few even tried to jump towards Justice as she raced along the wall and the flying Waverider, but they were out of reach!

[EternalPhoenix]

Waverider

 

Naomi agreed. They had to keep the civilians safe. Somehow. Well, the effect that mind controlled them in the first place was auditory, right? So if she deafened them all for a while, maybe that would take it down? Or at the very least make them unable to hear any commands from any of the villains here? God, would she be embarrassed and upset if this didn’t do anything. From her perch up riding some sound waves, she snapped her fingers once. The sound was intense and dischordant. Like nails on a chalkboard, only a thousand times worst. Her fellow heroes didn’t hear it directly so they were spared the detrimental effects, but they heard it all the same. She did it full force, as well. Every civilian and supervillain in a 250 foot radius from her got to hear the terrible sound.

[RocketLord]

GM

 

The terrible sound caused the guests to scream, to grab their heads. They were deaf, they could not hear, no sounds of party, no revelry. It was most horrible, most terrible, and eventually, someone would need to be punished for something like that.

 

But at this moment, Bill the Lizard was otherwise occupied. "Good sir, you are quite mistaken!" Bill sounded honestly offended at Protectron's accusations, as the large lizard man deftly moved towards the robotic hero. "All is fine, all is good! These happy fellows are simply giving us gifts! Yes, such wonderful gifts!" He lashed out with his long tail, hitting Protectron with the full force he could muster, then, quickly started to wrap the tail around his target, entangling his enemy.

 

"Up, up, down, down, into the maze you go to run!" Visionary heard the voice from below his feet, just in time to watch a small door opened under his feet. A small rodent like hand shot out from it and touched his foot. Then everything started to spin. All he saw was a maze, unending, unstoppable, everywhere and nowhere, chaos, dark, light, splashes of colors, vines, laughing voices, all whirling around him. Would he be strong enough to break through, to find the exit, or would he be stuck forever?

 

To the rest of the heroes, Visionary merely froze... maybe for a moment, maybe for far longer. It all depended on how strong he was.

[Dr Archeville]

Protectron

 

The emerald green cape Protectron wore was no mere fashion accessory: it contains thousands of tiny high-capacity batteries -- based on studies of the strange robot’s own power source -- which can provide it with a few bursts of extra energy.  Which is exactly what it needed now, as Bill's tail coiled tightly around it!

 

"Observation," it announced, while straining against its opponent, "the citizens are not authentically happy, nor are they operating of their own free will.  Therefore, they cannot be said to be giving anything to you or your associates."  With a surge of energy through its mechanical muscles, Protectron shrugged off the lizard tail from around it, then quickly brought its arms back in to clinch Bill's tail!  But the larcenous lizard proved too tough to be affected by the blow, and fast enough to slip his tail from its grasp!

[Tiffany Korta]

Emerald Spider

She’d like a little more time to prepare and plan out how to share the information she’d gathered but now wasn’t really time for a sit down chat. Taking her best guess as to the quantum signature she beamed a quick message to Protectron.

 

Here’s the portal Quantum Signature, hopefully we can use it to track the destination

 

-Emerald Spider XXX

 

To back this up she swung down from her changing place and with the appropriate hand signals firing off a stream of “sticky” quantum filaments at the giant Lizard man. Hopefully it should hold him long enough to hold the guy for a while.

 

“Maybe we should take his somewhere else and talk this all out. How about Vasquez Rocks?”

[RocketLord]

Justice

 

Wait, what was that, under Visionary? A door? A hand? Oh hell no.

 

A quick reach into a portal, and Robin pulled out the Justice Buster, quickly, but carefully, taking aim. He was down there, the crowds were in the way and she really didn't want to him them, but she had way around that, at least. 

 

"Visionary, look out below!"

 

She fired. She had set the Justice Buster to lightning. An electric blast surged from the weapon, directly into a rainbow colored swirling portal. Another portal opened up right in front of the door, between Visionary and the Dormouse, releasing the lightning blast directly at him.

 

Moving along the wall, she pulled down into the street again, doing her best to steer the Law Rider around people.

[Growth Spurt]

Visionary stares into into space as the maze spreads through his mind, just barely snapping out of it. Enraged by this...mental hijacking he fires off a blast of Protonic energy from his eyes, only to...hit nothing

 

"This is getting us nowhere!"