coalition/spice of life, second draft

Coalition Comic, Second Draft

 

COLETTE: Power. Has gauntlets with super-strength, able to absorb gravitational potential energy from an object and use it to power her attacks. Short-sighted in battle and in the real world, prefers acting in the moment to long-term planning (because a good superhero is never too late to save people). Prioritises heroics over legal protocol. Acts as the voice of reason to Conrad.

 

CONRAD: Knowledge. Has a gun and a trench-coat, along with brilliant mind and a penchant for LARPing as a noir detective/vigilante. Generally uses his gun as a last resort to intimidate, never to wound or kill, but has no qualms with physical violence and traps (lots of traps, mostly to revel in his own cunning). A strong defender of the truth to the point of suspecting anyone and everyone (because a good detective never messes up when finding their perp), resulting in paranoid webs of strategies and forces being spread too thin or abandoned altogether. Acts as the voice of reason to Colette.

 

CONATA: Laughter. Has an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop-culture and a brilliant athletic prowess with fine-tuned reflexes. A strong fangirl of Colette and Conrad, she worships the two and wants to emulate them even at the expense of abandoning her own strengths (because a good kid sidekick doesn't annoy or obstruct her idols).

 

PROLOGUE: there's a system of abandoned tunnels underneath the city that lead to different districts. The villainous Strawman, Dr Light and the Criminal Mime navigate their way towards a vault as the Strawman details the insides of the vault. The Mime simulates setting down detonation charges in front of the vault door and blows it off the hinges, but when the terrible trio step inside they're promptly arrested by Conrad, Colette and Conata. The Mime holds the Coalition at bay so his partners can escape, but they are ambushed on the other side of the tunnel by the police. How did Conrad have the fortitude and insight to surprise these villains? He didn't - Conrad, Conata and Colette had been hiding out in the vault for three weeks waiting for a surprise attack. In fact he has several friends hiding out at all the vaults around town in case such a thing happened.

 

STRAWMAN - a translucent bioborg that vaguely resembles a french maid. Has super strong vacuums in his arms to liquify and absorb materials inside his body, firing them out with a stronger pressure than a standard fire hose. Prefers storing bottled/spring water to feel 'clean', rather than just liquifying and ingesting every opponent he meets. Has a dandy attitude to hide his short temper.

 

DR LIGHT - a humpbacked human whose head is located in the middle of his chest, leaving an absence where his neck would be. His face can act as a flashlight to pierce darkness and blind opponents, but this light can also be concentrated into potent eye beams. Has unusual/limited field of vision due to the placement of his head. Used to be a telemarketer, so he has experience in selling people on bullshit.

 

THE CRIMINAL MIME - a silent man who can make anything under his control reality, so long as he acts it out. Average human strength and speed, supplanted by the tools and tricks he conjures up. Amiable to a fault, his conscience and need to pay the rent are at constant odds - his face tells no tales, but his acting never lies.

 

STORY: In the centre of town there's a food festival in full-swing, the crown of the carny being the chili cook-offs. Supervising the cook-offs is local sweet-baker Billy Temporaryname, an amiable but indecisive young man who lacks confidence in his own judging and cooking. However he is shortly introduced to celebrity chef Chili-Con Carnie, owner of the biggest five-star restaurant on the earth, who apparently just happened to be in the area and wanted to help supervise the cook-offs with Billy. Chili-Con Carnie's boisterous attitude and history of excellent cooking turn many heads, gossip of his legacy spreading through the rest of the festival. Colette wants to arrest Chili-Con on the charge of looking suspicious and supervillain-esque, but Conrad talks her out of it - they require evidence of current/potential wrong-doing, and anyway he's not particularly fond of spicy foods. Conrad perches on the rooftops and wants to do the entire sting in Dark Knight mode (despite it being daytime), whereas Colette wants to just rough heads and get things over with. There's a conflict of patience. Conata sides with Conrad because she worships him as a cool dark hero, and thus Conrad sends Conata in to supervise the chili cook-offs - to Conata it's a task to prove her worth, to Colette it's a compromise, to Conrad it's getting "Connie" out of his hair. She fucking loves spicy foods.

 

CHILI-CON CARNIE - A maniacal con artist who infiltrates carnivals, festivals, carnevale, concerts, etc. to KILL people with EVIL FOOD. He also happens to own and cook for the largest five star restaurant in the world. An expert in cuisine in his own right, his business has an extra edge thanks to his unethical tactics, resulting in viruses and antidotes and schemes that lead people to being addicted to eating his food and emptying their wallets. [Spoilers: he's actually the bad guy.]

 

In the town jail Strawman and Dr Light are shacked up in the same cell with a Reverend by the name of Jeremiah Pinesoul - with Criminal Mime in his own invisible jail. A teenager called Harvey appears through the floor of the cell, ostensibly to rescue the villains, before he realises his intangibility doesn't transfer to others. Strawman starts losing his temper when the Reverend suggests he turn to water and slip through the bars, but Dr Light calms him down with a mantra. When up-and-coming superheroine Windbreaker pays a visit to Pinesoul's cell he unexpectedly flips and calls her demon-spawn, pumping the cell full of air freshener. Windbreaker laments that she has enough to deal with what with Chili-Con in town, whereas Strawman laments the fact that Carnie still owes him 20 bucks. Dr Light spins the indignation into a tale of betrayal, convincing Windbreaker that they're all reformed villains unjustly imprisoned thanks to Chili-Con Carnie. (Strawman almost calls him out on his bullshit but stops when he realises what Dr Light's intention is. Pinesoul doesn't have any history with Dr Light, but he's also not affiliated with Chili-Con Carnie and misses out on crossover events in general - so while the story Dr Light spins is news to him he just sees it as everyday supervillain business. Harvey hasn't a clue about anything and the Criminal Mime is a mime.)

 

As a result Windbreaker decides to free Dr Light, Strawman and the Reverend from their cell. She finds the keys in the next room with a middle-aged guard, who despite the allure of the food festival refuses to leave his post - and so is subdued with a dose of sleeping gas. Criminal Mime refuses to leave his own cell for fear of breaking his mime code of honor, so Dr Light has to drag him out of prison. Strawman suggests Harvey come along also in case he can redeem himself later. Pinesoul refuses help from the "demon-spawn" and stubbornly sits in the prison while everyone else leaves. Strawman rationalises that the old man will slow them down anyway, but when Windbreaker notices he's not coming she asks Dr Light to restrain him, to better keep an eye on him. Dr Light in turn asks Criminal Mime to lasso Pinesoul along.

 

HARVEY- a feminine young boy with the superpower of intangibility, effectively allowing him to no-clip through everything.

 

REVEREND JEREMIAH PINESOUL - An evangelical priest who aims to spread the word through his ministry that Windbreaker is a foul, devilish woman sent straight from hell. He thinks that farts are things of the devil and carries air freshener cans with him at all times. Nobody knows where he stores them.

 

WINDBREAKER - a superheroine who gains powers depending on what she's eaten. Can induce smokescreens, explosive attacks, super-speed, and flight... with the side effect of different noxious fumes depending on what she's eaten.

 

Chili-Con Carnie's presence is overshadowing the cook-offs and the festival in itself, the rest of the district dwindling in population. People come in droves for Chili-Con's cooking, often for second or third helpings. Carnie's attitude and advice gives Billy a lift in spirits, motivating him to worker harder alongside the celebrity chef. However Conata witnesses people staggering out of the festival groaning and vomiting, and questions them on what they've eaten recently. Overwhelmingly the sick respond the same - Chili-Con Carnie's cuisine. Despite this Conrad doesn't trust Conata's judgement, as there are several stands in the food festival and these people could have eaten from elsewhere before or after eating Carnie's food. Colette is itching to intervene to prevent more people from getting hurt, whereas Conrad doesn't want her getting into trouble for attacking people based on conjecture. Seems fair.

 

Conrad then receives a phone call from Cobalt, who is guarding another vault in the city that has been intercepted by Dr Light and the goons. Conrad congratulates himself for the his forward-thinking in putting heroes at the vaults, but when Colette asks how MANY heroes were stationed at each vault as a result, his answer ("...one") isn't very comforting. When Conrad tries to justify his brainstorming on the heroes being prepared for every eventuality ("tentacle monsters, shape-shifting villains, eye lasers, intangibility, etc etc"), Colette realises that he got so overwhelmed with the planning that he never carried any of it out - the heroes are fighting blind. Colette orders Conrad to apprehend Chili-Con while she goes to support Cobalt.

 

COBALT - A jaded Asian woman with an athletic build who lost her legs in an accident, robbing her of her Olympic dreams. She now wears a protective exo-skeleton to fight crime, and a protective fake torso because of self-image issues.

 

It turns out that the vault Cobalt is valiantly guarding used to belong to Strawman, being stockpiled with bottles of spring water. Harvey is able to determine it's the correct vault, but once again fails to actually phase any material through the walls or floors. Windbreaker makes the deduction that Strawman needs so much water because he's a soluble supervillain, and then asks why he doesn't just turn into water to squeeze between the hinges in the vault. The Strawman pointedly reminds her that he has a solid frame and "isn't one of those STUPID liquidy villains that TURNS INTO LIQUID THAT'S SO BLOODY CONVENIENT APPARENTLY! [awkward silence] I just prefer clean water, that's all. It keeps me... pure, on the inside."

 

Windbreaker is losing confidence in her new-found friends being reformed allies of justice, but helps create an entrance to the vault with explosives (and distracting Cobalt by turning around and squatting, before distracting her for real with a smokescreen). When Colette arrives to apprehend the villains Dr Light chides her for arresting innocent civilians, reformed civilians using self-defense even - is there any harm in breaking into your own vault? Colette trusts her gut instinct and makes to stop them, but Cobalt talks her out of it before she gets into trouble. Dr Light taunts Colette and Cobalt as the gang leaves, preparing to storm the festival (the realisation of which gives Reverend Pinesoul the willies). This gives Colette an idea.

 

Conrad does an investigation of the food festival and finds that more people are rapidly deteriorating in health. Seeing that many of the victims were people running other food stands, Conrad comes to the conclusion that they could have all simultaneously prepared sloppy food or shared an ingredient that started the virus. Conata deduces that their lack of business and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of meeting Chili-Con Carnie led them to abandoning their stands. Conrad can't disagree, but he's convinced that there's an alternative explanation to just 'Chili-Con is the bad guy'. When Conata asks why, Conrad reasons that there's always a setup for these weird mysteries and that it's almost always never as it seems.

 

Despite this Conrad and Conata decide to meet Chili-Con in person to question him about the food - and he surprises the duo when he claims full responsibility for everything that transpired. Chili-Con confesses that he poisoned his own food and has an antidote on standby that has the side-effect of being further addicted to Chili-Con cuisine. Breaking Billy's trust and heart, Chili-Con Carnie boasts that his celebrity status alone would basically get him pardoned for everything. Conrad as a mortal man is powerless to stop him without Colette's help, and while he aims his pistol he can't bring himself to use it. His rage is impotent in the face of a supervillain.

 

Conata holds her hand over her stomach as she questions why Chili-Con Carnie is even doing this in the first place - poisoning an entire town of people, where's the motivation? Chili-Con says that while he'd like to blame it on his tragic backstory, a man who looks to destroy the joy of men and women everywhere the same way they destroyed his father's career, leaving him on the streets with only his father's prized cook book - Chili-Con states that the real reason is there's a person in town who is a threat to his well-being, a person that he needs to take care of. Which of course means he has to incapacitate every single person in town to sort them out, one by one. Chili-Con is interrupted in his pitiless ego-wanking by Windbreaker, Strawman, Dr Light, the Criminal Mime, Harvey and Reverend Pinesoul - along with Colette and Cobalt. Ostensibly Strawman and friends are just innocent civilians, so Colette and Cobalt are also innocent civilians who happen to be supervising them, "making sure nothing happens to them" (wink wink).

 

Conrad is disgusted that Cobalt isn't at her post, but relents when he realises what's going on (and even then reminds Cobalt to get back to guarding the vault afterwards, in case someone else tries to break in). Reverend Pinesoul sees the weeping, vomiting, farting masses and launches into hysterics. Strawman launches an assault on Chili-Con Carnie to save face in front of Windbreaker and Dr Light, but mellows out when Chili-Con gives him back his twenty dollars ("and that's the threat taken care of"). Windbreaker chides Strawman for not standing up to Chili-Con, and Dr Light's spaghetti of lies starts to unravel. Harvey asks for an explanation on what's going and Strawman just screams at him for being absolutely useless throughout the entire story. Things rapidly deteriorate.

 

Away from the scene of the argument Conrad fills Colette in on the details, as Windbreaker starts fighting Chili-Con. More accurately, Chili-Con orders Strawman to load up on the evil food he's prepared, to use it as a poisonous weapon against Windbreaker, while Chili-Con attempts to subdue her with physical violence; Dr Light uses his blinding power and eye beams to fight Cobalt and her exoskeleton; the Criminal Mime finds the antidote and distributes it to the stricken townsfolk (inadvertently making things worse) while stealing the occasional wallet; Harvey disappears in a sulk; and Reverend Pinesoul gleefully harasses the townsfolk. FIGHT SCENES WOOOOO

 

Conrad's impotent rage gives away as the superheroes give the supervillains their just desserts, as it transpires that the deadly new recipe actually exacerbates Windbreaker's powers, and eventually Conrad and Colette reach an understanding - that while it's good to look past perceptions, sometimes what you see is just what you get and there's not always a twist ending to a mystery. Then Conata starts vomiting. Turns out she really fucking loved those spicy foods. On cue, Chili-Con escapes from the battlefield to find the Coalition in dire straits.

 

CONRAD: "Why didn't you tell me?!"

CONATA: "I'm just a nuisance to you guys. A stupid kid sidekick. I didn't want to worry you."

COLETTE: "Connie, that's stupid! You're supposed to tell someone if you're feeling poorly! And you're not just a kid sidekick, you're--"

CHILI-CON: "Is something wrong over there? ...Oh, the little poppet's tossed her cookies. Well, I think we have something to fix that up--"

CONRAD: [fires a bullet at Chili-Con]

CHILI-CON: "Woah, now, I was only--"

CONRAD: [continues firing]

CHILI-CON: "Alright, alright--"

CONRAD: [continues firing]

CHILI-CON: "Forget this--" [runs]

CONRAD: [runs after Chili-Con, continues firing and screaming]

 

Strawman is defeated and low on sustenance, beefing out on the ground; Cobalt is incapacitated and Dr Light has disappeared; Reverend Pinesoul has disappeared; Harvey has disappeared; Conrad's potent rage distracts Chili-Con Carnie long enough for Windbreaker to get the drop on him via smokescreen, and he is forced at gunpoint to reveal the antidote to the antidote - which the Coalition, Chili-Con, Windbreaker and the Criminal Mime use to restore everyone downtown back on the road to recovery. Conrad is satisfied that everyone's OK, Windbreaker is satisfied that Chili-Con has been thwarted, Chili-Con is satisfied that Strawman isn't harassing him for money anymore and he's finished dealing with these plebians. Colette wants to punch his lights out, Conrad gives her the OK, but Windbreaker states that she has to deliver Carnie to the authorities - at which point Chili-Con falls through the floor, right as she finishes her sentence.

 

Back in the town jail, Chili-Con Carnie rises through the floor and is unceremoniously dumped into a cell with Strawman, Reverend Jeremiah and Dr Light. It turns out Harvey is able to phase people through solid matter now. Outside the prison Cobalt pardons Harvey and the Criminal Mime for their actions and asks if they'd like to volunteer working with her. Despite the break-in Cobalt has been "asked" to keep guarding the vault and she'd like the backup - but first the Criminal Mime is "asked" to return the wallets he pinched.

 

In the immediate aftermath of the festival Windbreaker shares stories of her heroics with Colette and an eager, woozy Conata. Conrad is interviewing citizens for any information they have on Chili-Con Carnie and his cronies, despite the fact that they're currently in jail. As Conrad meets with Billy he consoles the baker on being manipulated by the supervillain, but Billy takes offense at the implication that Carnie was a phony chef - Carnie and Temporaryname had a genuine bonding experience through food. Conrad shakes his head and leaves.

 

EPILOGUE: the supervillains are gathered in the prison cafeteria. Dr Light patronises Chili-Con Carnie as he loudly laments the poor quality of the food, Strawman squirms in his seat as he's still loaded with minced meat and basil, and Reverend Jeremiah is squirming in general. The criticism continues until Chili-Con is apprehended by the prison cooks who despise his high and mighty nature. If the great so-called celebrity chef thinks he can do better, prove it! Here's everything you need, now get on with it and feed everybody! Dr Light and Chili-Con Carnie can't believe their luck, and they share an evil grin as their escape plan is set into motion...