The team is gathering at their HQ for a weekly meeting to set patrol schedules, review police calls in the area, etc. Before the meeting, Vinny is leaning back watching TV on one of the monitors the given to them by the East Coast Protectors. A commercial comes on:
“Do you have an awesome superpower that’s been overlooked by the superhero community? Do you want to work for a better world but aren’t sure how you can help? You might be just the kind of person CUSP is looking for! We’re the Coalition of Unlicensed Special Protectors: Skip the cumbersome licensing process and enjoy the protection of our legal team while you use your abilities for the benefit of mankind! We’re now forming teams in most states along the eastern seaboard! Inquire by phone or through our web site!”
The commercial is accompanied by video of three men dressed almost like 1920s gangster movie characters emerging from a bank with handfuls of bags marked “$”, shooting at police in the vicinity. A man in a painfully-colorful output appears on the scene and summons a swarm of low-budget CG butterflies. The insects swirl around the bank robbers, spinning them around until they pass out from dizziness.
Before anyone can comment on the ad, UVG‘s voice interrupts: “Um, like, are you expecting, like, twelve visitors with only two faces between them all? ‘Cause that’s what’s walking up to the door.”
BusyBody is dropping by to visit, knowing that the weekly meeting is on, but she’s got the kids so all 4 of her are each pushing a double stroller. Her kids are essentially young toddlers now. “Doctors say their fast maturing has slowed down to a normal pace, so at least by this time next year I won’t be trying to feed eight teenagers.” (Her voice sounds half joking, half desperate as she says this.)
She asks the others if they wouldn’t mind watching the kids for a few minutes while she uses the bathroom. She re-combines before going in (“There are some things that go faster this way… otherwise I have to wait in line behind myselves!”)
The children start crying when BB disappears from view. Vinny tries to comfort one and it’s afraid of him; they all turn to ooze and merge into a single giant naked toddler standing in front of Vinny… who then pees on him and giggles. It smashes through the front window & runs outside. It notices a bright pink “smart” car in the parking lot, picks it up with a happy noise and starts teething on in, and stumbles off toward downtown.
BB emerges: “I left you alone with my kids for three minutes! THREE! MINUTES!”
Vinny: “Go get them- er, him? I’ll catch up to you after I get a shower.”
(Let them chase the baby around town for a while, seeing what ideas they can come up with to calm, subdue, or capture him. Remember because he’s sharing multiple minds in one body, he’s resistant to mind & emotion control. The basic goal is to keep him from hurting anyone – and vice-versa – until he tires. He’s currently having too much fun to listen to anything his mother says.)
(Eventually Vinny will return, run into a nearby pub, and emerge outside dragging an amp and a karaoke machine behind him. )
How It Played
For this session I re-drew the town map from back in Chapter 5, but with a church in place of the bank
When it became clear that team members’ efforts to use mind and emotion control weren’t working because they encountered multiple streams of consciousness and couldn’t isolate them, they hit on the idea of finding each individual child’s favorite toy and trying to lure the individuals out of the whole. So one of the BusyBodies hopped into Vanny and drove back to her car outside HQ to collect the toys (and Vinny).
The toy ploy looked for a moment like it was working… but then the church bells rang, capturing BusyBaby’s attention. He scaled the building up to the steeple, then ripped out the bell and started to giddily shake it like a rattle. At this point, Vinny began his musical gambit, cranking up the volume to be heard over the clanging bell:
“Rock-a-bye baby on the church top,
put the bell down, your climbing should stop.
When the roof breaks, the ceiling will fall,
and down will come baby, onto us all.”
BusyBaby started to look sleepy at this point, so everyone joined in the singing while positioning themselves to try to catch him if he fell down.
They missed. He laid down and dozed on the rooftop, rolling off just as they begin to try to climb after him. He landed in the back of a parked pickup truck, absorbing any damage BusyBody-style, but it’s enough to make him groggily awake.
The team circles around him and starts offering the toys again; after a few rounds of task checks, the individuals all separated themselves from the whole and fell back to sleep clutching their preferred playthings.