Log:Tarot, Scene 1

Tarot: Wheel of Fortune 2014/01/02 	 Gossamer Victory Mage Pleiades 1

Mount Pleasant Village

''This small rural community a few miles south of Portsmouth is centred around the intersection of the 165 Mt Pleasant Road and the Centuryville Turnpike. There's a white wooden colonial style church, a quiet roadside dinner, a general store, and gas station, as well as about a dozen residential dwellings. ''

''On the outskirts half a mile to the west is a disused railway station and level crossing. Trains still run on the track between Portsmouth and Elizabeth City. They just no longer stop at the village station. The last buildings to the on the 165 west, before the road exits the village, is the local elementary school. ''

At 2:34pm EST the PDA's of Wade, Pleiades, Mage and Gossamer receive a message. The message comprises the image of a Tarot card; the Wheel of Fortune, a set of GPS co-ordinates in which the last three digits of Latitude and Longitude have been replaced by question marks, today's date and a time; 3:47pm.

Wade grimaces a bit. "Two weird events in one day." He uses his PDA to try to estimate where the location might be.

Gossamer is extremely curious about this. She may have attracted attention on the TV recently, but still this seems an odd thing to receive out of the blue! Stll, she's not the sort not to investigate. She heads to the GPS coordinates, gliding high so she can survey the territory.

With the last digits of Lat and Long missing it's possible only to narrow the location down to a roughly mile by mile area centered on the village of Mt. Pleasant, a small rural community about a hundred miles from Colonial Bay, six miles south of the city of Portsmouth.

Wade checks his watch, "Going to have to push to get there in time, I bet." He grabs his car (actually owned by his parents, but he's using it while it college), and heads up toward the area.

Pleiades scratches her head. "Comamander Siata, it looks like something for me to investigate has come up." Her bespectacled superior officer nods. "Very well, Sergeant Nachtmann, keep me informed as needed." With that, Pleiades rocketed off, racing out along the highway to the location.

Gossamer thinks. o O (I suppose the message could refer to the who area, which might be why the message isn't specific...)

Gossamer has a thought, pulls out her PDA and sees if she can find anything on the web connected to both the town and 'wheel of fortune'.

Gossamer is confident of her web search's thoroughness but finds no apparent link.

Gossamer shrugs and puts away her PDA - and enjoys the speeding ride she's getting after hitching a lift from Pleiades!

Gossamer says, "Do you think you can give me a good launch? Then I can check the town out from the air!"

Pleiades grins, "Sure! As light as you are, I can throw you pretty far!" When they're in range, she activates her overcharge strength and hurls Gossamer into the air!

The village of Mt Pleasant seems a fairly sleepy settlement, quiet and peaceful. There's some through traffic, and what is probably local farm folk going in to buy from the general store. Gossamer sees nothing that appears out of place, or especially interesting.

Gossamer glides about the town on her silklike wings, but sees nothing amiss. "I don't get it, why were we called here?"

Wade rolls into town and parks in a convenient spot along the road. He didn't have time to get into full costume, but the shirt of his costume is visible under his jacket.

After a couple of minutes of her aerial survey, Gossamer can see Yellow Buses pulling out of a barn and driving over to the front of the school, then parking.

The time is 3:28pm

Gossamer follows the buses, as about the only thing happening, of course keeping an eye out for anything odd. Well, coming from a barn may itself be odd.

The drivers stay in the buses, suggesting their expected parking time won't be long. From the school a road crossing officer in high visibility clothing walks out and stands by the side of the road, stop sign in her hand. She chats to one of the waiting drivers.

Pleiades slows as she skates into town, droping down to match the 30mph local speed limit, trying to get as close to the coordinates as she can.

The time is 3:32pm

Wade gets out of his car, and looks around at the sleepy town. "Well...this is fairly close to the place."

At the school the kids are filing out of the school. A few cars are starting to arrive as the kids are gathered into grade groupings in the school front courtyard before being allowed to leave.

Wade furrows his brow a bit as he hears something. Quickly, he checks the map on his PDA to see where the train line goes past the town.

The level crossing for the railway track is to the west of the village, about two hundred yards from the school gates.

Gossamer has the feeling something bad may be going to happen, but she can't spot it. So she calls out to the crossing officer, "Anything unusual today? Other than me?"

Wade starts to run across teh street...noticing Pleiades, who he's met several times before. "That way, I think!" He points off to the west. "At least if you're here for the reason I am!"

Wade smiles. "It's a hunch, but I could be wrong. Keep an eye out."

The road crossing officer looks up and blinks in shock at the sight of a gliding Gossamer above her. After a few moments she gathers her wits and shouts up in reply, "Uh.. No... It all seems normal. Apart from you!"

Gossamer calls back, "Thanks!" and begins to circle wider again. Looks like nothing is wrong with the buses given the chat between the crossing officer and the drivers - at least that they've noticed.

Mage arrives in his car. His GPS has an easier time with latitude and longitude than his spells.

The kids are being led out, some to the waiting cars, most going onto the yellow buses waiting for them.

Wade keeps heading toward the train tracks, crossing the couple of hundred yards fairly easily, but not exactly with superhuman speed, either.

Mage is dressed for trouble, as opposed to his usual suit and tie. Looking around with nothing horrid going on, he looks a bit embarrassed.

Pleiades whispers, "Panzerfaust, get prepare for Armor Barrier, just in case."

Gossamer and Pleiades faintly hear the sound of a racing hover vehicle. The sound seems strangely muted.

Gossamer looks about for the muted sound she just heard.

The first bus sets off, full of chattering elementary school kids, turning left and heading towards the village.

Pleiades looks around, trying to see if she can spot the source of the sound, her gauntleted hand clenching into a fist.

Pleiades skates alongside the buses, at a slight remove.

The time is 3:47pm.

Wade remains where he is fairly close to the tracks, expecting to see the train at any moment. He checks his watch, just to confirm the time.

The first school bus to leave the school is crossing the level crossing as the muted sound of the hover vehicle peaks in Pleiades' ears. A gust of displaced air buffets her and then a sudden crumping metallic impact is clearly heard. For an instant the school bus become half transparent, and colliding with it is a equally half transparent armored courier van. The front off-side wheel of the school bus is rent from its axle and rolls away along the street, leaving the school bus sagging down at that corner on the level crossing.

Mage's gold-trimmed red cape spreads out and he rushes toward the suddenly visible accident.

A train whistle is heard, clearly this time as the train approaches at speed, coming into sight on the track around a bend from behind trees.

A moment later the armored courier van has torn itself free of the damaged school bus. As it does it resumes invisibility, and the school bus becomes fully visible again.

Gossamer swears and heads straight for the tracks. Not having the strength to do anything about the bus, she intends instead to build up barriers of 'gossamer' to slow the train...

.

Mage flies closer, has hands moving frantically as he attempts to casts a mass healing over the accident scene

Gasps and cries of shock come from the damaged bus as childern with bruises and cuts are suddenly healed of their injuries.

Wade is fairly close to the tracks. He hurries over to the damaged vehicle and attempts to push the vehicle off of the tracks. . o O (I don't know if I'm strong enough to do this, but I don't have a choice...I have to try.) He grits his teeth, and pushes with everything he can, hoping he can get some momentum going...and the wheels can do the rest.

Wade lifts the corner where the torn off wheel was...gasping from the extertion. He then pushes forward as hard as he can.

Wade manages to roll the bus forward enough and out of the way. Once he's out of the way himself, he places his hands on his knees, taking a few deep breaths. He's now on the far side of the tracks along with the bus.

Gossamer,relieved that Wade has rescued the bus and the people on it, changes direction, swinging on a gossamer line, and chases after the dangerous invisible vehicle, trying to stop it by blocking the road in front of it.

Fence posts go flying and then corn cobs as the invisible van swerves off the road to avoid the gossamer barrier appearing in front of it and crashes through the chain link fence of a corn field.

Pleiades gives a sigh of relief as she sees that Wade has saved the bus full of children. Seeing what Gossamer is doing, she skates over and raises her gauntlet, a triangle of runes appearing beneath her skates. "Armor Barrier!" A 8m x 2m wall of slowing spinning triangular runes appears in front of where the invisible van might be.

The driver slams the van into full reverse thrust and slows it in the split second he has before the van strikes the barrier. The van is brought to a halt but the quick reaction by the driver means the occupants are merely shaken up rather than battered severely.

Mage flies toward the van, again casting a spell. This one an ugly brown color instead of pastel green.

Wade's first concern is for the people on the bus. He saw the healing spell earlier, but only as a glance. He opens the door to the bus, and pokes his head inside. "Is everyone okay in here?"

The bus driver, pale faced, looks at Wade, "NOW we are!" he says with heartfelt gratitude. "You saved a lot of kids today. You're a real hero!" The kids in the bus, too young to have realised fully what risk they were in, and now healed, are more interested in staring awestuck at Wade than anything else.

Wade nods to the driver, feeling slightly self-concious now, "I saw a few more heroes in town. I think they're dealing with the cause. Just stay here until the police and medical folks arrive, okay?"

The driver nods.

Pleiades skates over to the stopped van. "Panzerfaust, Cyber Overcharge!" A swirling buzzsaw of runes appears beneath her feet and her eyes glow red. She feels for the hover van and tries to flip it over on its top.

Pleiades grabs the van with both hands and heaves it over on to its top. "You may as well come out with your hands up. And turn off that cloaking field."

Gossamer decides to give whoever's in the van a surprise if they try to make a dash for it afoot - she covers the ground around the invisible van in a lot of sticky goop.

The van shimmers into visibility. The rear doors flop open and someone emerges, on his hands and knees at first, but standing as he steps clear of the van. He's human it seems, wearing a hoodeed black robe with a white ramshead skull sigil on the front of the robes. His face is in shadow but enough can be seen to observe the pulsating ruby red gem cruelly embedded in his forehead above his cold eyes.

Gossamer says, "OK. That look just says 'bad guy' to me."

The figure points a finger at Pleiades and smiles in icy hatred, "Death's Grasp." he says as a pale gray beam shoots from his fingertip towards Pleiades.

Pleiades nods, "Stupid bad guy."

The grey beam misses Pleiades and flies past her. It hits a tree top and the branches crumple to dry dead dust.

A second later another person crawls out of the van rear, and from the cab a third person emerges. These latter two are wearing body armor and helmets that bear the same ramshead skull symbol. They are also carrying weapons, short barrelled energy carbines.One shoots at Gossamer and the other at Mage.

Gossamer is relieved to find her costume absorbs the blast fully!

Pleiades looks at the withered tree. Looks at the Demon guy. Sighs. "It's times like this that I remember what my chief instructor would tell us at the Academy. 'When faced with a powerful foe, use Full Power, Absolute Destruction.'" Her gauntlet comments in german, "Loading Zaubermuntion." A chamber on her gauntlet racks and ejects a smoking brass cartridge as a circle of runes appears at her feet. She holds her left hand palm up in front of the villain, an orb of pink energy forming over it. "I learned this spell when I was 15. Heaven..." Her gauntlet's bands rev to high speed as she punched the orb sending a blast at the villain! "BREAKER!!!"

Gossamer blinks at the exchange of displays of power. . o O (Have I got in over my head?)

The DEMON Morbane is lifted off his feet and slamed hard back against the van, hard enough to rock the heavy vehicle. He looks at Pleiades with unfocused shocked eyes for a moment, and then crumples to the ground.

The two DEMON agents, bereft of their leader and intimidated by the sheer power displayed by Pleiades, drop their weapons and raise arms in surrender.

Gossamer wraps the bad guys up in xeno-polymers, just in case they change their minds.

Gossamer says to Pleiades, "That was pretty amazing!"

Pleiades grins sheepishly, "Ehehe. I guess you guys aren't really ready to face super heroes yet."

One of the agents asks plaintively, "How did you get ahead of us. Nobody should have been able to see us."

Gossamer smiles. "Why's that?"

Pleiades blushes in response to Gossamer, "Thanks! But I couldn't have done it without you stopping them in the first place! And Victory saving the bus." She blinks incredulously at the agent, "If you hadn't rammed that bus, we never would have even known you were there."

"The Morbane was making the van invisible." The agent says, "When he saw heroes ahead of us he ordered me to ram the bus and strand it on the crossing to distract you from coming after us."

The train roars past... no danger to the bus or the kids.

Gossamer says, "So what were to up to to be doing something so damned stupid as to drive about invisibly?"

The agent shrugs, "There's somerthing in the van the Morbane wanted. Don't ask me what. I don't know."

Pleiades uses her Starguard comm to call for a cleanup crew to take the agents and morban into custody.

Pleiades shrugs, "I guess we'll ask him when he wakes up."

Gossamer goes to check out the van then. The goop doesn't seem to restrict her.