DP 7 Issue Guide #7

Issue 17:
Madhouse

As the situation inside the Clinic rapidly spirals out of control, fights begin to break out regularly between the various paranormal factions within. Our tale begins with one such fight, between Bazooka and Scrap Iron. After the latter calls the former something he really dislikes, Bazooka blasts him clean through a wall, intending to dish out even more punishment once he catches up to the man.

Of course, Scrap Iron wasn't put down by that act, and was ready to dish out some payback of his own. The two strong (but not super-strong) men then proceeded to brawl through the Clinic's halls, punching and blasting all the while. This fight almost sucked Charlotte and Squirm up in its bedlam, but was stopped soon enough by David Landers and Stalagmite - the Clinic's new security force.

As the two dragged Bazooka and Scrap Iron off to the Clinic's head office, Charlotte and Squirm walked off, the danger seemingly over. Of course, while passing the security room, they spied Tangler and Freefall, both of which were now out of the Clinic's infirmary... and looking quite surly. Still a part of Indigo's Black Powers gang, Squirm ran off to tell her what was up, while Charlotte went back to her job at the front desk.

Down the hall, Jeffrey was talking with his family on the phone, who were visiting Pittsburgh. After his call ended, Mothball chased the monstrous-looking Mutator down the hall, picking on him relentlessly. Jeffrey broke this up (much to Mutator's delight) and then went to talk to Charlotte. He then tried to convince her, now that she was no longer in the Black Powers, to return to her old therapy group.

Nearby, David and Stalagmite had ushered the brawling bozos they'd interrupted into the office of Ms. Newhouse, the Clinic's head administrator. She tried to get to the bottom of this brawl, during which time Scrap Iron indicated he was good friends with Bazooka until he joined Indigo's Black Powers group - and started acting like he owned the place. Bazooka, meanwhile, didn't have anything to add to this.

As they and Stalagmite left, Ms. Newhouse asked David to stay, as she had to ask him for some advice. Laying out the situation to him, David indicated that things had gotten out of control, for better or worse, since the Clinic stopped using mind control on its patients. Though this got much worse after everyone started forming their own paranormal 'special interest' groups, which just exasperated personality conflicts.

Outside, at the receptionist's desk, Jeffrey had left Charlotte to her own devices, though now Scuzz was trying to recruit her into his D.D.Teens gang. Despite the fact that she was barely a teenager still. The fact that Scuzz was in the process of defacing her desk with his corrosive powers all the while wasn't helping things any, which just caused her to shout the little punk off.

As he in turn walked off, Scuzz was spied upon by the Black Powers, who were looking for trouble. Expecting Tangler and Freefall to pull something, they were about to pounce when they realized Scuzz wasn't who they wanted. Indigo's paranoia wasn't helped any by the fact that Blindspot was late to their meeting, having inexplicably vanished from the Clinic - even though that's kind of what he does.

That night, Tangler and Freefall broke into Chill's room and used their powers to viciously kill the man, as a bit of payback for what the Black Powers did to them a few months ago. Naturally, one of Randy's antibodies spied Chill as he fell to his death, if not the reason why. It tried to wake Randy up but he was having a bizarre dream about Charlotte, and couldn't seem to wake him. So, it went looking for David instead.

Finding the body, David then got help, and informed Ms. Newhouse of the death. Making a decision, Ms. Newhouse told David to inform everyone at the Clinic that she was going to address them all come noon tomorrow. David proceeded to do just that, though this took him quite a while. As he spread the news, David passed a meeting of the Clinic's women in one of its many rec rooms, where Charlotte was propositioned yet again.

This time, the womens' group wanted her in on their action. Begging off from their meeting, Charlotte was interrupted by a raving Indigo, who told Charlotte what had happened to Chill - and what she assumed had happened to Blindspot. She then let Charlotte know that she was going to deal with them tomorrow at Ms. Newhouse's meeting permanently... and demanded that Charlotte help her out. Or else.

Mind you, Tangler and Freefall weren't resting on their laurels, and took out their aggression on another of the Black Powers, Squirm, while Indigo was planning in turn to kill them. They suffocated the poor, rubbery paranormal and stuffed him into a drainage pipe. Little did they know, however, that this wasn't enough to kill ol' Squirm - who would eventually get discovered a few days later.

Anyway, at noon the next day, the various paranormals that hadn't been murdered yet assembled in the Clinic's meeting room, at which point Ms. Newhouse told the patients that their 'special interest' groups - i.e., their gangs - were to be disbanded immediately, and that the paranormals all had to resume their original therapy groups. And, if they didn't like that, they could clearly find the door by themselves.

Indigo took that exact moment to start up a ruckus, and had Bazooka make a kill shot on their enemies. He blasted Tangler out the Clinic window entirely, though he survived... as did Freefall, who barely managed to catch him in time to save him from a lethal fall. Those two then hightailed it out of the Clinic for good, but the damage they'd caused was pretty severe, as an all-out riot had broken out there!

Of course, Charlotte had talked to Lenore the night before, begging for her to help in the event of just such a riot. Lenore really didn't want to, having worked so hard to control her urges to feed on the energies of others... but fate forced her hand yet again. Spying the absolute mayhem unfolding below her from the observation deck she hid within, Lenore then disrobed herself, exposing all present to her deleterious light.

Within seconds it was over. Even the most energetic amongst the paranormals below fell to her power, leaving her all alone in the Clinic once more. Having lost her restored youth after months of not using her abilities, Lenore had immediately regained it again, though she wasn't craving the energy any more. She thought, anyway. Seemingly cured, she then went to work off all their excess power before it affected her badly...!

Issue 18:
Bad Road

Late on December 23rd, Jeffrey Walters burst out of the Clinic at maximum speed, screaming at the top of his lungs. Of course, he's so quick that no one could understand what he was saying - much less even saw him running. His exit smashed the glass door of the Clinic's main office, leaving a distraught David Landers to ponder if the mayhem that had died down after the riot last week had started back up again.

Going to clean up the shattered glass, David was quickly helped by Merrian Sorensen - Sponge - who was acting awfully friendly towards him. While trying to figure out why, David spied Lenore jogging outside the Clinic, and upon being questioned she revealed she'd been out there burning off excess energy ever since she ended the riot days ago... by using her powers on everyone involved.

Elsewhere, in the Clinic's infirmary, Randy was working hard to monitor the many patients there who'd been injured in the recent fracas. And naturally, Indigo didn't want Randy touching her since he wasn't black (or something). Bazooka wasn't so picky however, and gladly took the morphine that Randy offered him to ease the pain of his burned hands. Once he was done with that, Randy went off to get some sleep.

With him gone, Indigo waited for the security guard, Stalagmite, to fall asleep. Once he finally did, she wandered out of the infirmary and set upon Charlotte Beck, intent on killing her for not helping her gang during that riot she'd instigated. Indigo broke into her room and tried to crush her in her own bed frame, but Charlotte was able to use her friction powers to slip out of that would-be coffin and fight back.

The two began to brawl as Charlotte tried to get away, a ruckus that drew the attention of Randy's antibodies - which was a good thing, since Indigo managed to gain the upper hand on her imagined enemy. Based on Randy's mind, the antibodies also had feelings for Charlotte as well, and proceeded to beat the tar out of Indigo in no time flat - only stopping when Randy himself called them off... eventually.

As David and several others also responded to the noise, one of the antibodies carried Charlotte off to the infirmary, where Randy checked up on her. The two managed to slightly reconcile their earlier differences somewhat - though any further bonding was set aside when David brought the battered Indigo in as well - which caused Charlotte to panic. Not that, in her now-worsened condition, Indigo wasn't about to start anything else.

Come morning, things had settled down somewhat. As folks started noticing that Jeffrey wasn't around, his friends from therapy group c started wondering what was up, when the Mutator - George Mullaney - said he knew what happened. He mentioned that Jeffrey became very upset when he heard disaster had befallen the city of Pittsburgh - the city that his mother and siblings were out visiting for Christmas!

Realizing that Jeffrey must've gone to Pittsburgh, Randy decided he was going to help - and Charlotte decided to go with, what with Indigo wanting to kill her and all. He asked David if he would go too, and David said he had to talk it over with Stephanie first... the comatose Stephanie. David had been reading to her and checking on her daily, to let her know that someone was there for her.

After saying his goodbyes, David left her hospital room... only to just miss her sparkles returning. Assuming she was staying behind, David went to Lenore's room to ask her to keep an eye on Stephanie, but she said she'd much rather join him and Randy on their little expedition to Pittsburgh. Shrugging, David said he'd find someone else to watch out for Stephanie, and then made preparations to leave.

By nightfall, he had his Winnebago ready to go. Though it was originally just to be the four of them going, Sponge offered to cover their expenses if they let her join the group - her dad was apparently super rich. David didn't want her to, what with her always being underfoot and all, but the others didn't seem to mind... so he just put up with it. Once the five paranormals were ready, they set off!

Except that there really were six in the Winnebago... as Mutator had stowed himself into the bathroom while the others were getting ready to go. Jeffrey was just about the only person at the Clinic that had been friendly to him, you see, so Mutator wanted to help him out if he could. Having discovered him an hour into their trip, the others just dealt with it and took him along for the ride too.

Driving full-bore, the group made it to within fifty miles of Pittsburgh in just fifteen hours... but then complications arose. The Army had begun blocking off traffic towards the area while facilitating a mass evacuation, and weren't about to let our paranormals through. After Lenore disabled them, they drove on further, but found that the area was tightly buttoned up by the military.

Hiding the Winnebago amidst some rubble, the Clinic patients then hijacked an Army truck, and used it to get as far as they could... which wasn't too far. You see, the debris in the road was rapidly building up, and soon enough it was nigh-impassable. Even with David clearing things out as they drove, they only managed a mile before he was completely exhausted.

Setting out on foot, the six paranormals slowly clambered over increasing amounts of rubble, until one of Randy's antibodies showed him what it had seen - though Randy couldn't make sense of it. Thinking perhaps they should stop for a bit to get their bearings, the group was suddenly rocked when the ground below them gave way... and they began to fall - into a seemingly endless Pitt!

Issue 19:
Pittfall

The Pitt!

Our six paranormal adventurers had just blundered right over its edge, and were falling to their doom as a result. David tried to find something to get a grip on, but the surface was so smooth there was no purchase. Mutator had recently lost his wall crawling ability, as a part of her perpetual mutation, so he could not stick to the Pitt's side. Randy's antibodies caught him, but what about the others?

Jarred into action by Sponge, Charlotte attempted to use her power on the face of the Pitt they fell next to. Soon enough, she'd brought her and her friends' descent to a stop, though David had managed to do so seconds before by punching a hand-hold into the Pitt's smooth side, and caught Lenore for good measure. Now, it was just a matter of getting everyone back to the top!

Randy had his antibodies ferry Lenore, Sponge and Mutator back to the surface, while another brought him closer to Charlotte - as she didn't want to be left alone. On their second trip, one of the antibodies had disappeared, so Randy had them bring everyone but David up, since he was too heavy for anything but four of his antibodies to haul out. He figured he'd just stand by until everyone else was safe.

Since he had a firm grip on the Pitt's wall at this point. As David pondered his future, his thoughts wandered back to Stephanie, who he was still crushing on badly. At about that time, her dirt bag husband was driving up to the Clinic to get her out, having suddenly developed a need for her and her healing powers... and having no clue that she'd been in a coma for months on end (not having cared until now).

At the edge of the Pitt, Randy tried to account for his missing antibody, as well as Sponge, who it was carrying. For some reason it had carried her farther away from the edge than the others, and it had come across a strange threat: a giant red robot! When it didn't heed the robot's call to stop, the antibody was then fired upon, so it put Sponge on a nearby roof so it could combat this bizarre new enemy.

Not that it lasted too long. You see, the robot had missile launchers handy, and since it couldn't peg the creature with small-arms fire, it launched the projectile at it - blowing it up! Randy and the others had responded to the sounds of combat just in time to catch the antibody's head as it bounced down onto the ground. Mourning the loss of his friend, Randy tuned out the immediate crisis.

This left Lenore and Charlotte to try and fight it with their powers, which ultimately managed to down the strange robot. Holding it motionless with her power, Charlotte watched Randy try to interrogate the thing, which was when the paranormals found out that it wasn't a robot, so much as a redhead in a cybernetic exoskeleton: Spitfire! As the fight ceased, Randy hoped Dave was able to hold on all this time.

And he wasn't.

While David had a good hold of the Pitt thanks to the holes he'd punched in it, they finally gave way under his immense weight, leaving him sliding down the Pitt's side. Towards the bottom, David finally found an outcropping he could use to stop himself, at which point he discovered a death worse than falling: lava. There was an insane amount of it pooling up at the bottom of the Pitt, where he'd found himself.

As he tried to get his bearings, David thought he saw something whiz by - after several more passes, David recognized it as Jeffrey, and tried to stop him. Since Jeffrey couldn't hear him, David had to physically cut his run short, which broke several of the man's ribs. But Jeffrey didn't care, he just wanted to die, having lost his entire extended family as a result of the Pitt incident.

While the two rested for a moment and talked it out, David and Jeffrey both noted that the volcanic activity was getting worse. As such, David threw the wounded Jeffrey over his shoulder and started climbing his way back up, punching in his own grips all the while. It was slow going, to be sure, but it beat being consumed by the inexorable rise of the boiling Pitt-juice and molten earth...!

Back in Wisconsin, Chuck was rambling about how bad he felt to his comatose wife, going on about how he'd found God or something, when in truth he'd been sleeping around with anyone that would have him in the mean time. Hence his current 'problem'. He begged for her forgiveness, at which point Stephanie actually moved, being able to put her hand through his hair... if only a little bit.

Back in the Pitt, David was continuing his climb, and wondering when Randy would ever get around to pulling him out of this mess; he couldn't keep up his climb indefinitely after all. At that point the rock face he was ascending crumbled, throwing him back down who knows how far. Landing badly on a rock slowly sinking into the lava, David broke his foot and ankle, and the heat quickly overcame even his resilience.

Luckily for him and Jeffrey, several of Randy's antibodies - joined by the repaired Spitfire suit - managed to find them at just that perfect moment. Right as their perch was sinking beneath the lava, Jeffrey and David were lifted out of the Pitt by their rescuers - literally a last second rescue!

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