Gate Crasher
From Grigbertz
Contents |
A Job for the Dominatrix Coven
Mistress Medusa has found a job for the Dominatrix Coven; the official opening of the Shining Brite club. The dominatrixes are to be hostesses. Mistress Alexandra gets some VIP tickets for Phoenix and Sonia Wight. They all show up dressed in various amounts of black for the occasion; Sonia Wight in a leather two-piece skirt and jacket that almost looks like a police uniform, Mistress Alexandra in her trademark latex Deathsuit and Phoenix in a leather bomber jacket, high boots, and absolutely nothing else.
On the way there, Our Heroines saw the Swasticats, A Policlub of racists Cat Critters, beat up a group of Rat Critter refugees from Technotown. Phoenix interveined and beat the Swasticats out of their senses, but the Rat Critters ran. All in all, the Dominatrix Coven had a good laugh.
The Shining Brite club
Mistress Alexandra gets in by the stage door, but Sonia Wight and Phoenix must wait in line, even if it is the VIP line. While waiting, Sonia Wight spot some very nervous-looking Men In Black, while Phoenix spot a handsome man in a jacket, vertically split between black and white, and with a jin-jang symbol in reverse colors. They smile at one another, but nothing happens at this point. This later turns out to be Ayrtan Davis.
Once inside, it turns out that the theme of the place is light; the place is one huge room, open towards a central atrium, and an immense light panel is mounted there. Phoenix reaches out with her Technomagical senses, and realizes that the place is overloaded with power. This place is set to burn like the sun, and not just from electricity, but from Chi Energy; it seems the place is somehow conneted to a Power Line. Sonia Wight and Phoenix react very differenty to this. Phoenix is worried, but there is not much she can do at this point. Sonia Wight thinks it is cool.
Slowly, the light is turned up. The hostesses from the Dominatrix Coven play their part, moving in what looks to be spotlights of darkness; dark spots in the growing sea of light. People begin to let go of their Dark City gloom. The overall effect of the light is magnificent.
When the light is turned on, Sonia Wight relishes the first truly bright light she has had since coming to Dark City. When she spots some Men In Black investigating it, she even reaches out with her Influence Magic and shuts down their communication with home base, causing them to quietly disappear. She then decides to style herself in white, and goes to the Delivery Tube in the club; a Dominatrix Coven hostess offers her to dress up in her sphere of dark, intensifying the darkness around them and sensually helping Sonia Wight take of her old clothes and put on the new ones. Sonia Wight is too cool about it at this point, so nothing more happens.
Mistress Alexandra and Phoenix are worried, but there is not much they can do. However, Phoenix makes contact with Ayrtan Davis; he comes up to her as she stands brooding over the light panel, and they share their worries. Mistress Alexandra has to keep up her job.
Demon Alpha
This is where things start to go seriously wrong. The humming of the light panel change pitch, and the catwalks around the central atrium start to change and mutate. Soon a Technodemon begin to materialize. It is a part flesh and part machine, a huge Supernatural Creature twice the height of a human.
The crowd start to panic, and Phoenix takes to the air on huge wings of fire, trying to draw the demon's attacks upon herself so that the patrons are spared. Mistress Alexandra follows her on dark Arcanotech wings. Phoenix uses Mind Blast and Mistress Alexandra uses her Pain Whip, both to great effect. But the demon is very powerful, and Sonia Wight finds that her bullets just bounce.
As the Technodemon begins to assume physical form, it begins to assimilate parts of the metal structure of the club. The catwalks become cyberarms tipped with razor-sharp claws. Mistress Alexandra is impaled by one of the claws which breaks, leaving her staked on the wall like a latex butterfly.
Phoenix powerful Mind Blast attacks distract the Technodemon, which gives Sonia Wight the chance to go down on the floor and cut the Power Line connection. The resulting Power Surge rips right through her thin linen suit, supercharges her magical powers and overloads her senses. She tries to force the demon to submit through sheer magical might, but fails utterly.
The Technodemon is is mortally wounded by the Mind Blasts, but it is still fighting. Mistress Alexandra finally manages to free herself, and delivers the killing blow with her Pain Whip.
The Technodemon vanishes into thin air. It is gone, but it seems certain that it will come back. Our Heroines somewhow feel that they have all been Marked For Death by the demon. They decide to call the entity Demon Alpha.
Lights Out
At this point, reinforcements start to arrive. Troopers in Power Armor with a C surrounded by a laurel wreath as their logo. Our Heroines decide to split, Sonia Wight reaching out through the fabric of space to replace her ruined linen outfit with her usual leathers.
Phoenix spends the night with Ayrtan Davis and is swept away by her feelings for the man. Sonia Wight has trouble settling in for the night. With the Power Surge still fresh in her memory, the girls of the Dominatrix Coven laugh at her self-indulgence.
Investigation
Our Heroines return to the Shinging Brite bar the following day to investigate. Mistress Alexandra plants a Chi Energy collection device that Sonia Wight had built near the Power Line. In much less time than expected, it is full. When retreived, it starts to move about by itself, turning into a miniature Technodemon. Sonia Wight uses her Time Magic to freeze it up for later study.
Now follows a long discussions of what to do, and upon the very nature of the Chi Energy from the Power Line. Sonia Wight claims the energy itself is neither good nor evil, but only takes shape when channeled by desire, turning dark when it encounters dark fantasies. Phoenix claims it is evil by nature, related to Arcanotech, and that the mutations are intrinsic to the energy.
No conclusion can be reached, so the heroes move on, following the Power Line. They find that it has been patched in several places, and History Reconstruction shows battles between Power Armor troopers with the laurel-C logo and Cult Gangs. At this point, Ayrtan Davis remembers that the laurel-C logo stands for City Hall, a semi-mythical organization representing the city itself in various televised fairytales that were a fad twenty years ago.
Following the Power Line, Our Heroines come to a point where it reaches a blank wall, the outer circumference of what seems to be an immense, vertical Power Line. Then the realization hits them; this is Chute 404, the main Level Chute of Sector 23. As they move onto the surface and watch the huge, round chute, with lines of Grav Cars riding accross, up and down in slow-moving lines, they realize this is somehow simultaneously a huge conduit for Chi Energy.
