[Phantasm]

Session 8: The Ghost of Big Moose Lake, pt 2

It turns out Chel was not zapped unconscious, but having analyzed the Ghost's shifted herself slightly out of phase with reality, becoming both invisible and intangible in the process. Looking down, she saw Ghost's gloved hand sticking out of her chest holding a stun gun. As a side effect of this shift, the world appeared much more gray-scale, save the Ghost herself.

The two talked for a bit, with Chel attempting to figure out why Ghost was trying to drive them off. As the two returned to the 'real' world, the others in the team arrived. Seeing them arriving, Ghost turned intangible (though not invisible) and started running through the underbrush, yelling out, "Start the plane! We're outta here!" On the other side of the island, a seaplane's engine started up. Mag and Meat took off after Ghost, while Jim took to the air to circle around to the plane.

Chel cast a spell, disrupting Ghost's powers, causing Ghost to run headlong into a tree she planned to pass through. Mag, being slightly faster, even in the underbrush, caught up easily, telling her, "Excuse me! Do you have time to talk about our lord and savior Cthulhu?" the moment Ghost bounced off the tree.

Meat, seeing that Mag had things well in hand with the Ghost, ran on and caught up with the plane. One super-strength powered leap later, and Meat landed on the plane's pontoon, as Jim shot at the engine with his EMP gun. Between the two of them, they stopped the plane.

Admitting defeat, Ghost admitted that she and the pilot - who she identified as "Andy" - were smuggling drugs from across the Canadian border, using the island as a safe house and short-term storage while the heat from the border patrol died down enough for them to transport it to their distributors.

At the plane, Andy exited the plane to land in the water, firing his shotgun at Meat, with the expected results (not even a scratch!).

Doc at first put forth the hare-brained conspiracy theory that the drugs were being supplied by the communists to weaken the populace for an eventual invasion, to which both Mag and Ghost were like, "Dude, what are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?" Dimitri, however, put forth the more probable theory that the drugs being smuggled were generic equivalents (due to big pharma's lobbyists making generic equivalents of many drugs illegal in the US at the time) of prescription medications. When asked about disappearances, Ghost denied being involved, but admitted there was a second crew working the route that could have been involved.

About this time, Jim and Meat dragged Andy over. Ghost didn't struggle at all while Jim applied a set of Rigellian power-dampening cuffs, though Andy struggled in Meat's arms as he was cuffed. When asked about the disappearances, Andy admitted to the kid in the wheelchair - Timmy - saying that the kid showed up on the island in a canoe and asked to be flown south, which Andy then did, flying him down to the Chesapeake. Given a time frame, Ghost denied having been part of the operation at the time.

Doc and Meat returned to the plane to search it, checking out the story. One quick search later (Doc having a Search-15), they uncovered a military duffel bag in the plane's back seat filled with drugs. While most of the drugs in the duffel were as Dimitri expected, there were also several other drugs found: marijuana, cocaine, another white powder, and two kinds of blue powder. The powders are identified as Crash, Sizzle, and Velocity: Crash being a drug that'd give a person super-strength and durability for a short time before the crash afterward rendering one near comatose, Sizzle being the early experimental version of Squelch, designed for power suppression but with a nasty side-effect of (95% of the time) burning out someone's powers, and Velocity being an adrenal intended to enhance one's speed and reflexes.

Meatshield and Chelsea angrily confronted Ghost and Andy about the drugs found, prompting Ghost to turn on her partner. At this point, the team decided to contact Agent Duncan, as Ghost offered to turn state's evidence against him. At the same time, Chel scanned Andy's mouth for a cyanide capsule; and Doc reached for a sample of the Sizzle, only to be stopped by Jim. It didn't take a genius to figure out why Doc would want a sample of the drug, and Jim is a genius, so he offered to make Doc some (generic Rigellian version of) Squelch instead.

Duncan directed the team to contact the park ranger, as it would take him two hours or more to get to the Lake. They did so, with Andy and Ghost (now unmasked) being taken into police custody. Mag - due to her past experiences - was understandably upset at both Doc and Jim.

So then the wrap-up happened: Ghost and Andy were arrested by the park ranger (my grandfather, Dana Poyer, Sr), Duncan arrived and received the evidence and statements from the team, and the buyers identified: the Romero family in the Maggia (later to become the Hammerhead family). Duncan mentioned that SHIELD was training its own team of supers - under Gyrich's supervision - one of whom was described as a "shapeshifter". (Not at all ominous, that.) Duncan finished his time with, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to read some rights to a ghost. ... I did not just say that."


And the smugglers would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling superheroes - and their dog!

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<+Meatshield> "How do you think the Daily Bugle will headline this?"
<+Doc> "Masked Marauders deny low cost drugs to those in need."