Rapture

Interrogating their captive with a little help from Disco's bright lights, they learned that Corrosive Soul was going to use the brains to power a dimensional spike to unleash demons on Beta City. She was also using the bodies to make cybernetic vampires. She was working in Joe Casanelli's old mansion on the north face of the volcano, abandoned since Darkshade and Groovy Lad took down the Necrodon (from a convention game, so it never got written up here).

Back at Scrap Pile HQ, the heroes discussed their next move. Well, most of them did. Disco was mostly concerned with discovering whether or not Land Shark was gay. He enlisted Fire of Saturn to commence a program of temptations designed to bring out the big lug's true preferences. Not too well-versed in seduction but eager to fit in with the heroes, she agreed to follow Disco's prompts. When the team decided to go to the hideout as the Dastards, Disco made an incredibly skimpy (and, of course, shiny) costume for her, which she at first covered in a robe.

Despite surreptitious radio suggestions from Disco, Fire of Saturn's "moves" were awkward at best. Once she even turned an ankle on the ridiculous heels she was wearing. Did I mention there were demons stealing brains and making vampires and stuff? Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute.

So, the Dastards (Land Pirate, Bad Fish, Blacklight, and Space Invaders) pulled up to the mansion in the Chevy Malibu of Evil and demanded to talk to whoever was in charge about joining up.  They saw more vampires and some normal humans, mostly working with the machinery.

They were led downstairs, where there was a high-tech lair with big glass panels overlooking the channel between Lightfoot proper and Weatherhead. Corrosive Soul was down there with captured B-Team members, a big glass vessel full of bees, a skeleton labeled "Von Meyer," and a blue-glowing rock. At some point they learned that this was all part of a cult called "Rapture."

I don't remember exactly how things went here. Seems like Torpedo went through a cave from the junk yard on the west edge of the volcano or something. I know he communed with lava spirits and found out something. I should have written this while it was all still fresh in my mind, but it was a busy week.

Fire of Saturn left for some reason before the big fight, or they just left her with the car. Anyway, they fought vampires and Corrosive Soul, who crowed while being Torpedo-lava-punched that human hands did not summon her, nor could they truly destroy her. Then she literally fell apart. There were also some surprise werewolves.

There was a cut scene where we saw a man with mechanical hands and a scarred face leading a hornetroid toward a lava pool where he was going to do some kind of ritual. Then, because of the lava spirits Torpedo had spoken to, the lava pool started getting frisky. Tendrils of lava reached up, pulled the mechanical hornet down, and consumed it. Then it rose again, transformed into a living cyber-magic lava monster. The dude who had been leading it screamed and ran away.

So anyway, while the Scrap Pile's fight continued, the glass broke and the bees swarmed over the glowing rock. Eventually they started saying "Swarm, Swarm, Swarm," and formed into a humanoid shape with big glowing blue eyes. It turned out to be hard to hurt, but Disco and Torpedo were able to damage it with their sizzling auras. In the course of doing so, however, Disco was badly stung and lost consciousness. Then the ground started shaking.

Fire of Saturn, who had seen the giant lava hornet fly out and start attacking the city, showed up and said, "Guys, I think we have a new problem."

Working at the Car Wash

The Scrap Pile is back! Well, mostly. We're still hoping to get an occasional Giant Size issue with Magi, but complications bleeding in from the lesser world make it hard for him to be around much.

Back from their disturbing ordeal with the Warmaster; Land Shark, Torpedo, and Disco came home to find that they had been away for over six months. A lot of people thought they were dead, but Morgana had kept everything running in their base, despite Caravel's attempt to talk her into selling everything and renting the building out to Boost Mobile.

After they got settled in and announced their return, they were invited to be on the talk show, "Literal Hotness" with Thod (pronounced "Todd") Roades. Disco got out his tightest spandex outfit and helped Land Shark spruce up his look as well.

Once they got there, Thod ambushed them with questions about the imperialist message in Torpedo's origin story, the toxic masculinity of Land Shark's destructive powers, and concerns about representation, calling them, "The Sausage Pile" at one point. Torpedo took the opportunity to claim all of America as a colony of Atlantis. Then Thod asked them why they were showboating on a talk show instead of investigating the brain thief at Patriot's Landing.

On their way out, Disco befriended a cat with light powers. They learned to communicate with each other on an empathic level using strobing color shifts. Disco also discovered pretty quickly that Rainbow Kitty could also teleport. Somebody said this meant they were replacing Magi with a cat.

Checking with Hero Corps, Torpedo learned that the organization was looking for someone to investigate a DMV office in Patriot's Landing, a rough Lightfoot Island dockside neighborhood named for the hero, Acting Patriot.

At the office, they found a woman wearing high tech, if somewhat haphazardly assembled, gadgetry interviewing customers. While Torpedo and Land Shark went to talk to management, Disco checked out the costumed stranger. An assortment of conversations told them:

• The woman was Fire of Saturn, who had been known to associate with the Lizard Moll, but wasn't otherwise listed as a known criminal. 
• The people whose brains had been stolen had all recently gotten a new or renewed license from the same clerk.
• The clerk, Brian Ferrys, had started acting strangely after taking a weekend job promoting a run-down car wash on Weatherhead Island, a smaller island immediately adjacent to and generally treated as part of Lightfoot Island. 

Fire of Saturn

Fire of Saturn got a little antsy as the questions continued, and left. The rest of the team decided to follow her back to the Lizard Moll's office over the Mermaid Tavern. Because the B Team had some history with the Lizard Moll and Joe Casanelli, they checked in with them first, but they were busy investigating the theft of Nazi mad scientist Fritz von Meyer's skeleton.

The Lizard Moll gave them some additional information, saying she believed that a poorly conjured spirit in a self-constructed biomechanical body was the problem. It had taken to calling itself "Corrosive Soul" and was attempting to carve out its own territory in the Lightfoot Island underworld.

The Lizard Moll, aware that the Scrap Pile had recently lost its tech guy, suggested that Fire of Saturn help them out. Fire of Saturn took this opportunity and several others to explain that she wasn't really a criminal, just a well-meaning inventor who had been "put in a bad situation" by her former employers. She was happy for the opportunity to prove herself to the good guys.

Taking the Scrap Van over to the car wash, they were greeted by a conspicuously immobile clerk and asked to put on hospital gowns while they waited. Meanwhile, the car wash started spraying some kind of foul-looking fluid on the Scrap Van and pelting it with ball bearings. Pushing aside the gowns, they found that the operators were thinly disguised floating brains with tentacles. They fought the brains, giving Fire of Saturn a chance to use her fire and ice powers.

Once the brains were dealt with, they looked around, finding some extracted brains in coolers and a bunch of de-brained corpses stashed nearby. There were quite a few more bodies than brains. They waited and some cyber-vampires showed up in a van to collect the brains, so they ambushed those guys or at least tried to and got caught. Anyway, they won that fight too, with one vampire still conscious in a block of ice for interrogation.