Thursday, March 12, 2015

Giant Size Scrap Pile #1

I wasn't quite prepared for what I wanted to come next in the campaign, so I whipped up this goofy one-shot instead and figured it would be like an Annual sort of thing. Annuals are usually in the summer, though, so I reached even farther back for the "Giant Size" tradition.

Lounging around the Scrap Pile base, the team was surprised to see an inter-dimensional portal open up before them. Out stepped a young man with heavily styled blond hair. "People of 1983, my name is Jonathan Chance. I come to you from 2015 to bring you a grim warning of days to come. Help me change the future!"

Upon being informed that this wasn't 1983, Chance expressed confusion and asked where the household Roboto guards were and if this was a rebel stronghold. Eventually, thanks in part to Magi's interest in dimensional travel, they worked out that Chance had in fact traveled across time to an alternate reality, instead of back in time as he intended.

Chance explained that, in his reality, a politician called Doctor Righteous had seized control of virtually everything by stirring up a panic about rock and roll. Using the death of one of his followers in a concert riot, he had gotten a performer named Kilroy prosecuted for manslaughter. For some reason, he used imported Japanese robots as his enforcers. Soon, people were burning albums and guitars in the street. Chance was a member of an underground movement that was trying to stop Dr. Righteous and bring back rock 'n roll.

They were trying to help Chance return to his overwrought concept album reality when the device went off on its own, transporting them all to a crater with some other well-coiffed rebels. They were in the midst of fighting robots led by a man in a black uniform. The robots had faces that were sculpted to resemble a grotesque parody of stereotypical Japanese features. In short order, all of the rebels but Chance had been disintegrated by ray guns. The robots had some kind of telepathic attack in addition to their guns, but this proved ineffective against the heroes.

The unformed man turned out to be a skilled teleporter, able to blink away from attacks and respond with several of his own, but they eventually took him down as well. Chance recognized him as Lt. Vanish, one of Dr. Righteous's lead enforcers.

Chance mentioned that he had made contact with Kilroy, who had recently escaped and wanted to meet at the old Paradise Theater, so they piled into Vanish's van and headed over there while a giant holographic Righteous head lectured the public about purging the poison of rock 'n roll from society. In the abandoned theater, they found a "museum of rock 'n roll depravity" complete with cheesy automatons. Among other things, it depicted an enraged Kilroy beating a clean-cut Majority for Musical Morality protester to death with his guitar.

Anyway, Kilroy showed up disguised as a Roboto and they discussed strategy. It was decided that Kilroy and Chance would hold a concert to rile people up and to create a distraction while the others broke in to Righteous Towers to take down the Doctor himself. Except Disco. Disco was helping with the concert.

All of that worked out pretty well. The concert was a hit, thanks in no small part to a spectacular Disco lightshow. Righteous and his attendant, Colonel Hyde, were taken down relatively quickly once the team reached the top of the tower. Magi was able to fix up the cross-time gadget and talk the rockin' rebels into letting him keep it, so they all went home to their own version of reality.