12: The Moriarty of Mars arc part 4-5
11. the Evil Eight
Having stymied the imprisonment and death threats from the
Red Queen the Centurions now face the whole of her super-human army in a battle
royale!
10.2: Red Queen’s Rain
With the centurions and several inner-system heroes out of
the way – and her adversaries weakened by her machinations pitting the
Centurions against them (in case you were wondering who was being targeted in
the Jupiter system atatcks) the Red Queen is making her move to claim full
control of the inner system. Her first step there is taking control of earth
via pluviculture (artificial rainmaking) with mind controlling chemicals.
Eventually someone is going to have to bring Gaia Girl home
since she’s powerless off earth. Once they are there the heroes will be
attacked by the earth defense network since those are the Red Queen’s orders.
The PCs will have to figure out what’s going on and how to reverse the process
(easy enough to do with Gaia Girl’s powers), but they should have to spend a
little bit of time on the run.
11.1: Evil Eight 1: Magno Boy
Any Heroes not with the rest of the group – or any with
really fast super speed flight that gets them back to Ganymede – will find the
HQ abandoned since Janus Lad is back with his boss. The alarms are going
haywire, but the key one is either a) a breakout underway to free Magno Boy
from prison or b) some high tech mercenaries at the Fusion PowerStation where
Magno Boy disappeared. Clearly some sort of rescue attempt is underway.
This is somewhat foreordained – once the PCs get there the
key parts are done in that Magno Boy/ Superconductor Man (as Magno Boy but
increase his powers by a factor of 10 and his endurance to a 70) is now free.
Allow for a single round of combat before the villain is warped away by Janus
Lad in something that should really irritate the heroes. If any of them dive
through the portal have them be the ones in chapter 9.5, otherwise continue as
listed below.
9.5: The Two-faced God
Whatever PC was most sympathetic to Janus Lad (or any who
jumped through the warp) find themselves on an asteroid with that faceless
failed Centurion. Janus lad will let them know he has next to no time to talk,
but that he is being forced to work for the Red Queen on the threat of his
death. He urges the Centurions to disband, saying that right now the Red Queen
is planning some horrible act on all of them but that he might convince her to
forestall it if the group completely disbands.
If pressed he’ll stress that the Red Queen is all about
balance and that one of the Centurions has disrupted it in some way. In order
to restore it she’s willing to unleash a plague of criminality and destruction
to undo any good the Centurions have done.
He might even recall the phrase ‘the dynamics of an asteroid’ if the PCs
do some skillful questioning. This should be flagged as a talking scene either
by making the players think they have the upper hand or because they know Janus
Lad could disappear at any time. If the PCs do insist on knocking him out they
will hear a beeping from his neck band and he will still vanish. If the
conversation proceeds normally the PC will be returned to wherever they came
from once the short interlude is over.
10.3: Capricorn One
Another of the Red Queen’s activities is the destruction of
a shuttle flying between Demios and Olympus Mons. There have been any number of
shuttle and ship explosions on Mars since the Centurions disappeared as part of
apparent blackmailers who end up not wanting terribly much money. The first and
most immediate threat for the heroes returning Red Raven and Shieldmaiden to
Mars are the hunks of debris falling down on the city. The second is
investigating who is doing this, and reasonable superhuman efforts will let
them track down the agent provocateurs, though not the leader. The group was
actually acting to seize control of all transport off of Mars, the central
transport hub between the inner and out worlds.
Once Demon Boy sees the list of dead from the shuttle
crashes he will be able to identify who the Red Queen really is – she’s Moira
Ty-Re, his old math teacher, who had been the most fervent voice against his
setting up a lab off of Deimos. Her name is on the list of the deceased, but
she would never have left Deimos willingly – she felt that Demons were above
any other world’s inhabitants.
11.2: Evil Eight 2-3: the Terra Twins
Some group of the Centurions will be called upon to prevent
another jailbreak, this time for the Terra Twins (assuming they were captured,
otherwise they will be up to some nefarious ungood somewhere that the PCs will
be called on to stop). Again there will be high tech mercenaries involved in
the breakout just as with Magno Boy , and they will also have a ship specially
made out of earth and live plants if the twins were imprisoned somewhere that
they would have access to neither.
Again once the conflict goes against them the Twins are
whisked away by Janus Lad. At this point the Evil Eight are complete – the Red
Queen has constructed her own mirror image Centurions consisting of Ablative
Boy, Dragon Boy, Janus Lad, Magno Boy, the Terra Twins, Quad Kid and herself.
Never before has the system seen such a malefic force.
10.4: On the Dynamics of an Asteroid
The Centurions now have a name for their mysterious foe, but
alas the last thing she did was fake her death and she did so very well.
Investigations on Deimos will turn up nothing of particular value as she will
have guarded her base with devices specific to countering their powers. More
troubling is the fact that she is a supra genius and intent on undoing
everything Demon Boy and the centurions have done.
Research into her past is only slightly more illuminating –
a master of mathematics, hyperspace physics and various other fields she has a
sizable if abstruse CV, the crowning glory of which was proof that the asteroid
belt was once the fifth planet before it had collapsed in a cataclysm. Any
smart and or scientific character can held Demon Boy paw through it for
details, and they will turn up that in her youth she was briefly censured for
an idea that built on her discovery – she developed the method for repeating
the event, a device that would destroy a moderate sized planet. This was beyond
the pale even for Deimos and the information was suppressed. Given that the
centurions are her target it’s not hard to figure out where she intends to
unleash this.
11.3: The Evil Eight Strike
The whole of the Evil Eight (less the Red Queen, of course)
materialize outside of the Centurion Clubhouse for a brawl. They even have a
space dragon for Dragon Boy to control. While this is a nice big fight it is
also a delaying tactic to prevent the heroes from finding and shutting down the
world destroying bomb. The team – which might already be split up – will have
to split up more in order to deal with the real threat. Split away from the
main team after the first round to see how the planet-saving is going.
10.5: At Ganymede’s Core
The “On the Dynamics of an Asteroid” threat (and mind you I
am stealing this plot concept in toto from an Isaac Asimov Black Widowers
story”) requires the bomb be planted near the planets core. The centurions
learn that a test of a vessel meant to explore under Io left for Ganymede’s
core several days earlier, but it doesn't leave a tunnel. Someone will have to chase it to the planets core in order
to stop the explosion – clearly a job for one or more of the 21st
Century Heroes!
Getting there will require three successive Strength feats
at d% (with power cost on each) backed by their flight power. They have 5 tries
to get there– having more than one hero in this increases the chances someone
will get through, and if one gets through the others can follow. Once down
there they find the ship is on remote control and the bomb will detonate if
just crushed – they have to find a way to stop it that isn’t immediately
obvious, but any good idea should have a chance of success. Otherwise, well,
you have to blow up the planet. Oops.
11.4 The End of the Evil Eight
Once we know if the planet is saved or not jump back to the
main fight. In this if any of the PCs try to talk to Janus Lad and appeal to
his heroic side, or if any of the PCs who were sympathetic to him are placed in
real jeopardy, he will switch sides. Ideally this will be when the Evil Eight
are about to kill one of the heroes, but it doesn’t have to be. He changes
sides by teleporting away either the Space Dragon or Superconductor man (the
latter if he’s present) will seriously changes the odds of the fight.
One turn after his changing sides his headband will start to
smoke and he will reveal it has a failsafe detonator to insure he cooperation.
But before he goes he will see the Red Queen defeated. He teleports a group of
PCs (one for each player, plus Demon Boy if present) to the Red Queen’s base.
11.5: Checkmate
This is the final, final showdown with the Red Queen, who
quite unexpectedly has a passel of irate (if damaged) super heroes on her
doorstep. If the 21st century heroes have not managed to stop the
bomb it is possible for someone to do so from here (OK, you don’t have to blow
up the planet) while the others have a confrontation with the Red Queen. This
may be emotionally cathartic but it’s anti-climactic – she’s armed with her
devices but probably stands very little chance. Instead she rants about how
Demon Boy’s leaving Deimos produced an unacceptable shift in the system’s
balance of power, made worse by his formation of the centurions.
As she’s ranting a pale, almost translucent figure appears
and, with a gesture reduces her to an ashy skeleton and then to nothing (though
this might be a trick if you want to bring her back later) . “She failed us.
The next ones will not. The Centurion must fall for our future to be assured”
the fragile one hisses before vanishing back into the timestream.
Where do things go from here? That, my good GM, us up to
you.
The Red Queen aka Moira Ty-Re
A genius from Deimos, she has turned her attentions to crime
to undo the good that the Demon Boy and the Centurions have done to maintain a
balance of power.
S: 9 E: 12 A: 12
I: 45 C: 16 Level 5
Background: Science and Engineering
1) Heightened Intelligence B +30
2) Force Field Device: 20 charges, Provides a force field
defense or can push people back for 1d12 damage. Each use as a defense burns up
one charge.
3) Prejudice: citizens of Deimos are dislikes amongst the
system. All Charisma modifiers are at -4
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