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Ace Sterling, G-Man extraordinaire, meets with Professor Archibald Sweet, aka The Sweet Scientist. The White House is worried about things to come, and wants to recruit a team of super-normal troubleshooters to work alongside the government. As much as The Crimebusters are regarded, most of them rely on gadgets and skills. Sterling tells Sweet that they feel he would be the perfect man to lead this new team once it's recruited. He seems interested, but hesitant to take on a leadership role. He mentions that this new "Mystery Man" named Dr. Mysterious is next on his list of possible recruits.
He tells Sweet about The Council of Crime, a group of gang leaders who've aligned themselves with someone calling himself The Big Shot, and who plan on taking control of all crime in the Big Apple. This will mean a gang war with the five families, and Sterling hopes Sweet (and anyone else they can recruit) can nip that in the bud. He then tells Sweet about a man calling himself Electru, who supposedly can fire bolts of lightning from his hands. This ruthless criminal led an attack on the Panama Canal, and now wants to be part of the Council of Crime. He's in New York, and stopping him is their first priority.
At that point, Professor Hern (aka Dr. Mysterious) barges in, complaining about being double booked for a lecture. Sweet is irritated, as the man's specialties in Eastern Philosophy and the Power of the Mind are not real avenues of science in his mind. As he straightens out the schedule, Sterling mentions he knows of Hern, as the man once assisted his fellow Crimebuster, Mordecai the Magnificent with some "good advice".
A commotion is heard in the outer office, and Sweet's assistant tells someone they can't enter. A sound of someone getting hit is heard, and two men barge into Sweet's office, holding saps. One of them looks at Sterling and says "There you are Fed. The boss wants a word with ya".
Before anyone else can move, Sweet comes around the desk, and levels the thug with a left hook. The man crumples like a piece of paper, and while the other thug is in awe of this, Sweet checks on his assistant. He orders Hern to take the man to get medical assistance, then confronts the other thug. Before the thug can react, he disarms him, and takes his car keys.
As Sweet starts to question him, Hern turns the assistant over to someone who can help him, then heads back to Sweet's office. Using his powers of Illusion, he creates both his costume and a cloud of smoke. As the thug refuses to tell Sweet who he works for, Dr. Mysterious's "smoke" enters the room, with the Doctor stepping out of it. Using a disguised voice, he aids Sweet in scaring the thug enough to admit he works for Electru, and that he wants Sterling brought to him. They convince the thug to drive him to Electru's hideout, tie up the unconscious thug (and Sweet calls the police to pick him up), then drive off to face Electru.
The thug brings them to an abandoned warehouse in the South Street Seaport area. They truss up the thug and put him in the trunk, and Dr. Mysterious creates an illusion that he and Sweet are the two thugs sent to Sweet's office. Another illusion makes Sterling look restrained and roughed up. They bring Sterling inside, and see 8 thugs, but no Electru. One of them questions why they took so long (seeing them as their fellow gang members), and they tell them there were too many people around the college, and they had to be discreet.
They find out Electru has gone to the 1st Precinct, and is going to kill a group of high ranking police officers who are meeting in secret to discuss how to handle the Council of Crime. Electru believes if he kills them all, he'll be granted membership to the council. Sweet sucker punches the thug he's talking to, while Sterling jumps one cleaning a tommy gun. As more of them (who were playing cards) go for their guns, Mysterious creates an illusion of the Police kicking in the door, and taking up positions. The thugs open fire on the "cops", hitting their partner near the entrance.
Sweet uses the distraction to knock out two of them with his fists, and Mysterious, showing he can use his fists also, knocks out a third. Sterling, now armed with the Tommy Gun, convinces the remaining two to surrender. He tells Sweet where the meeting is, and tells them to save the police officers, while he rounds up the goons. Sweet & Mysterious race off in the thugs car, trying to get to the precinct. Even though they drive fast, Sweet still makes sure to signal turns, obeying the law like a good citizen.
When they arrive at the precinct, it is under siege! Four cars are out front, and Electru's men, armed with Shotguns and Tommy Guns, have many police officers pinned down at the entrance. Seeing a few officers down on the steps leading to the entrance, Sweet guns the engine. He tells Mysterious to jump before they collide with the thugs, but Sweet is unable to get out in time! The car smashes through two of the thugs cars, flips over, and tumbles onto the steps! While the thugs are disoriented from this assault (and half their number taken out), the police swarm out of the precinct, and arrest the remainder.
Mysterious checks on sweet, who while bruised and a little bloody, is amazingly unharmed. The two race into the precinct, with Sweet flashing his draft card in case anyone tries to stop them. Sweet complains to Mysterious that whatever kind of gas he uses to create the hallucinations he's seen is affecting his motor functions.
They see more injured police inside, as well as a few who have died. Fueled with anger, the heroes enter the stairwell, hoping to find the police captains safe. On the way up, they find a dead officer, electrical burns covering his face.
They continue to the 3rd floor, and as they arrive outside the meeting room, they see a flash of lightning inside, and see an officer electrocuted. Sweet dives through the window, but his foot catches on the wall, and he falls to the floor. Another lightning bolt fries an officer, and a voice says "What the? Take him out Jimmy!", before a pistol armed thug walks up to Sweet, pointing his gun down at him.
Mysterious creates an illusion of himself standing next to the thug, who whirls on it. Sweet uses the distraction to get up, and knock out the thug. He sees Electru, a humongous man standing at least 8 feet tall! Electru fires a bolt at Sweet, who slightly reels at the shock. Mysterious creates a new illusion, so now Sweet and Electru's switch appearance, which causes Electru's last thug to fire on him!
Sweet lands two blows to Electru's head, and he retaliates with another lightning bolt that singes his opponent Mysterious charges through the door, and takes out the last thug from behind. As Sweet rope a dopes Electru, he gets off one last lightning bolt, nailing Dr. Mysterious, before he collapses in a heap on the floor.
Ignoring the pain, Sweet checks Electru for the devices that generate the lightning. Seeing none, he immediately works out how to restrain the large man, realizing his power is internal. Mysterious checks on the remaining officers, who are thankful for being saved. Following Sweet's instructions, they take necessary steps to properly incarcerate Electru.
As the police clean up their precinct, one of them notices a trail of blood leading away from the car Sweet crashed. It ends at an open sewer lid...
Epilogue: A week later, the mayor holds a press conference on the steps of City Hall. He hails the heroes for saving many police officers from certain death, and for capturing a dangerous criminal. He gives them both keys to the city, and they are officially deputized, with full police powers. After making a grandiose speech, followed by some overly long answers to reporters questions, the Mayor ushers sweet off the podium so he can have photos of himself taken with the heroes (likely to boost his own profile for associating with them). After the whole event winds down, Sterling (who had been hanging back to avoid the spotlight) tells them they did good, and that a "certain man with an infirmity" was proud of them. He told them the start of their little group has gotten off to a good start, and hopefully when they can recruit more members, they'll be the team the country will need one day.
He then asks Sweet how he feels about a "Statue that walks"; when Sweet replies that's impossible, Sterling laughs and says "You have no idea Doc!"
The End.
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[TAS] Issue #1: When Electru Strikes! (Read 897 times)
