Issue #1 summary esmp "the pitch that never lands"

A Note Before You Read

I’m proud to share something I’ve been building toward for a long time.

Below is the first full issue summary with a soft intro to the Evany Starr & Midnight Penn world — the story I’ve carried from dream to sketchbook to script. It’s ready for the next stage, but for now, this is the clearest look at where it all begins.

If you’ve come this far, you might as well stay for the read. It won’t take long - YG

BEFORE ISSUE #1 — A GLIMPSE INTO NEW VERANCE CITY™
Welcome to New Verance City™.
Its 2029. On the surface, it looks like any other modern metropolis. Neon signs, crowded streets, tall modern day buildings, 24 hour bodegas. But beneath that familiar vibe, something is off. Time doesn’t always move forward. Pockets of the city are frozen in the 1970s or 80s — old phone booths, yellow cab stations, half‑burnt neon signs still inhabit when they should not. Most people walk past them without noticing. Their minds not aware of the inconsistency, forgetting what they just saw.
But the cracks are spreading.
The Coda Network runs the underground. They move stolen tech, rare artifacts, contraband and things most people wouldn’t believe. On the street, they look like your security and private investigator firms, pawn/jewelry shops, night clubs and vip lounges, antique shops, electronics & repair, logistics warehouses, financial consultancies, high end auction houses and art galleries, all with hawkers and thieves who are under Coda employ or influence. But someone higher up is pulling strings, collecting items that shouldn’t exist — Vein Cores, ancient relics that warp reality just by existing.
And then there are the three women who never asked to be at the center of it.
Midnight Penn™ Known as Penn
She owns a small relics shop, but that’s just the cover. Her bloodline is old, powerful, and mostly forgotten — even by her. She has flashes of a hidden vault, a family museum, a legacy erased. She doesn’t chase power. She chases a sense of safety and structure around her. When things start breaking, she’s the one who tries to put them back together.
Evany Rae™
An orphan, former baseball player, and part time engineer who once dreamed of inventing a new sport. When the Inventors Guild rejected her, she kept her prototype bat anyway and it became her protection. Then she found a Coda “battery” — a Vein Core Relic™ — and built a regulator for it. The bat started doing things she never designed. Now it’s the only edge she has, and she refuses to let it go.
Emma Rae™
Evany’s twin sister. She can walk into her own memories — literally. Anyone can see the memory if you walk into one with her. She rebuilds them as physical places, searching for clues about their missing parents. Each time she does, she loses a piece of the present. And something inside those memories is watching her. This faceless figure that mimics her and pushes her out before she can find the truth.
“The Pitch That Never Lands”
Its about a championship they won. A trophy that no longer exists. A father whose face is only a photograph.
This is where the story begins. Not with a hero answering a call, but with a stolen knife, a library explosion, and two sisters running from a reality that’s already starting to crack.
Turn the page.
Issue #1 summary follows below.

EVANY STARR & MIDNIGHT PENN: STARFALL – ISSUE #1
“The Pitch That Never Lands”

Cold Open – Memory Break
On a pitcher’s mound inside a memory construct, Emma Rae throws. The ball stops mid‑air. The field freezes. A faceless figure in the stands mimics her motion. A portal tears open and drags Emma through. Her body disintegrates. The memory detonates. Black.

The Theft
A young thief breaks into Penn’s relics shop and steals a strange artifact. Penn chases him into a Coda hardware storefront, where she finds evidence he was only a hired hand.

The Explosion
An explosion rips through the neighboring library. The thief escapes. Penn rushes inside to help survivors and discovers two sisters – Evany and Emma – at the blast’s center. Emma is limp. Evany convinces Penn to get them out before authorities arrive.

Escape
Penn leads the twins to her vehicle. As they flee, a shadowy Acolyte watches from a shattered library window. A single caption: “Similarity is here.”

The Car Conversation
Evany insists hospitals are unsafe. The twins offer fragments of the truth in exchange for passage. Penn learns they are low‑level Coda vendors. She agrees to take them to a hidden warehouse.

The Aftermath
At the destroyed library, the same Acolyte blends into the crowd, calmly measuring the disturbance.

Regroup – The Warehouse
Emma collapses from exhaustion. Evany explains Emma can walk into memories. Penn realizes the thefts are connected. Evany drops a lead: a secret rooftop auction run by a Coda Delegate named Ledger.

Dark Revelation – The Blade
In the Coda shop basement, a Technician Delegate joins a stolen knife housing with a Vein Core. The ancient Milican Blade is restored.

Awakenings
The Milican Blade pulses. Elsewhere, in a locker at an orphanage clubhouse, Evany’s black bat begins to glow in response.

Final Splash – Penn Witnesses the Collapse
Penn enters the ruined library and finds herself inside Emma’s collapsing stadium memory. Evany holds Emma as the illusion dissolves. The spinning portal and the baseball that opened it hangs in the air. Then it’s gone. Penn alone witnesses the impossible overlap – something familiar, something wrong.

End of Issue #1