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 Freak +0 | Danger -1 | Trouble +2 | Superior +0 | Menace +2 Curses: 0/5 | Conditions: None | Location: The Nexus Bastion The Nexus Bastion The First Page Top Panel: Copycat can be seen exiting an office, looking aside to a little thought bubble to the left with a Jailbird trapped in it, before saying: Copycat: "Already? I guess I'm caught. Still, I'm done with my business... wanted to help them out a little more..." Middle Left Panel: A close up of Copycat's smirk. Copycat: "Guess I better face the music." Middle Right Panel: A form can be seen exiting the alleyway portal to the Nexus Bastion... Bottom Left Panel: ... as Rose and Twitch and Jailbird look over in surprise... Copycat: "The tea was excellent, and don't tell me you've forgotten..." The OK Café The Next Page Large top left panel: Lady Circe emerges from the portal out of nowhere. Copycat: "... Lady Circe!" Copycat (thinking to Rose): . o O (It's Copycat, Rose. Don't shoot.) Top right panel: "Lady Circe", clearly a disguised Copycat, laughs stereotypically. Copycat: "Ha, and you'll never guess what I've done... until it's too late! Teleportare!" Middle right panel: A spell is cast, with arcane gestures, and then... Bottom left panel: ... "Lady Circe" vanishes before the trio of observers can respond. Copycat (thinking to Rose): . o O (I'm still here, just invisible, let's slip.) Bottom middle panel: Jailbird looks unimpressed. Bottom right panel: Then, as if thinking better of it, he paws at Rose with a relatively half-assed: Jailbird: "Mew?" Let's Abscond from the Bastion with a 12. That'll get her away and add a Plan to the pool. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 21:20
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 Freak +1 / Danger 0 / Trouble +2 / Superior 0 / Menace 0 Integrity 1 Curses! 0/5 Conditions: Location: Mobius Crib / Brass Juggernaut Everyone's been riding high the last few days, except me. Grins and grudging acknowledgment all around as we watched Mobius wrangle the Brass Juggernaut out of the Silver Myrmidon, but all I could think about was an armada of Juggernauts raining destruction over the Western Seaboard while novice superheroes try ineffectually to stop them. (After all, he's hardly a real threat to the world, so why not let the Little Leaguers have a shot?) I know Centipede thinks I was trying to sabotage the jailbreak operation, it's written all over him whenever he looks at me, but I only wish I had been that brave. No, I was just following orders, like a good little minion - they asked for a distraction, so I gave them one. What did they think my birds would be doing, writing YOU SUCK in the sky? While the others wrap up the bits and pieces, scouting out the Bastion and moving the ship into position, I spend some time with the Egg I retrieved from Betty's stash. I don't know how I could have mistaken it for anything except an egg, which only makes me more curious about how it ended up in that container. Did Betty know about it? I decide to hold off on asking her for now - partly in case she was setting me up, partly because I think she'd expect me to do some research of my own. But what little I do only leaves me more confused. P'an Ku is or was a primordial deity in Chinese mythology, and he supposedly hatched from a cosmic egg, but I've got no idea about the reality status (for lack of a better term) of Chinese gods. Unsurprisingly, the People's Beast and Legend Authority keeps that information classified. Besides, the egg is pretty clearly modern technology - it's a dull, minimally reflective silver egg, covered with fine ridges in geometric patterns, warm to the touch and hums very quietly. Definitely not the sort of thing a god would hatch from. Once this job's over, perhaps I'll ask STRAIN about it, but for now, it's my secret, stashed in one of my costume's artfully concealed pockets along with the Key to the City. As for the people who were after it, I'm doing a little better. I can't find anything on the two detectives, if that's even what they were - there are definitely advantages to being nondescript. On the other hand, I think I've identified the teleporting girl - there's someone matching her description on YUMADD's minimally classified database, listed as Imp, a trainee member of the Mystic Force. Of course, we're not privy to any further information than that - that would be too easy. When I found out she was part of the exact group of people we're going to be up against all too soon, part of me wanted to throw the egg out of the interdimensional window and never think about it again. But at that moment, as if it could read my mind, the Egg shook. It's been doing that more and more since then - even a layman could tell it's going to hatch soon. And at that moment, I decided I was going to keep it. Because animals hatch from eggs, and the thought of any animal ending up in some CRISIS research facility makes me want to scream. -- Wide panel: STRAIN is center frame, her back turned, looking out over the bridge of the Brass Juggernaut. Dark Eagle is approaching from the left foreground, identifiable by her silhouette. Caption: "The others were surprised when I asked to be aboard the Juggernaut for the assault on the Nexus. I admit, it's not my usual role." Panel: Closeup of Dark Eagle's armoured gauntlet, with a brass sparrow perched on a finger. Caption: "Fortunately, the Legion provided me with an excuse." Panel: Dark Eagle seated on the floor, cross-legged, with a handful of starlings and a goose gathered around her. The same brass drone can be seen on her outstretched hand. Caption: "While I obviously can't control the Legion's drones, their flocking behaviour should integrate seamlessly with my own birds." Panel: Dark Eagle walking down a corridor aboard the juggernaut, towards the viewer, hemmed in by brass pipes, gears, and seams of STRAIN's nanites. Caption: "Of course, I could never share my real reason." Panel: Dark Eagle crouched in front of an old-fashioned display resembling a radar, albeit covered in unnecessary clockwork. Caption: "I found a number of interesting things aboard the Juggernaut. Such as navigational data for their entire fleet." Panel: Close up of Dark Eagle's mouth, smiling. Caption: "The sort of information that could save a lot of lives." Panel: STRAIN stands center stage on the bridge, giving orders; Dark Eagle stands to her side a step behind. Caption: "That'll have to wait for now, though." Panel: The view from the bridge's panoramic windows: the Nexus Bastion, looming close. Caption: "We've got a castle to conquer." Big panel: The Brass Juggernaut looms large in the sky, as seen from the ramparts of the Nexus Bastion. Countless miniature drones fill the sky, along with a few flesh-and-blood birds. Dark Eagle's silhouette is unmistakeable, standing tall on the prow of the Juggernaut. Caption: "And I'm going to be leading the charge." Execute the Plan!: 2d6+3 10 Burning 3 Plan, leaving us with 3. Dark Eagle gets 1 Infamy.
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Jan 2, 2017 23:23
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 Freak: +0 | Danger: +3 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +1 Curses: 3/5 | Infamy: +0 | Location: Astroplasm Cafe Here I am again, in the Astroplasm Cafe. Where this whole rotten thing started. Only this time, I am alone. Only these pointless drinks for company that would not even get me frigging drunk even if they had any goddamn alcohol in them. Curse of unlife. Maybe. Maybe the goddamn hungers in me making sure there nothing else inside me, beside them, that can make me feel good. Can make me forget. But it's good there's nobody else here. That everyone in here is giving me a wide berth also. They can see it in my eyes. That right now, my kunckles are itching and there is a cold, sick anger nesting beneath my heart. And that if anyone, anyone, looked at me the wrong way right now - well, what would happen might not really make me feel better, but it'd make them feel a whole lot worse. Zapper found out about that frigging magiGuffin. What it was good for. Lots of tech crap. But the thing was, it was going to allow me to get into the Triad base, here, in La Reina. The Omnidepository would have been made useless, but what the hell, that's what villains do, isn't it? Just look out for number one and screw the consequences. Only that's not how it happened. That's not what I did, in the end. I delivered that thing to the others like a good henchgirl. I'd like to tell myself I did it because I was a better person, but I know that's not true. And it'd do nothing about me feeling like this. Like crap. Guilty, sick to my stomach. Like I want to bash someone's head in. Like I want to bash my own head in. The Triad, they are here. In La Reina. And I let them slip through my finger. And I know that I will know that, that that will fester inside me for a long long time, the regret, of not doing what should have been necessary. I want to hurt someone. I want to terrorize someone, see them lose their humanity and give in to animal fear. I'm not even sure that that would help. For the moment, yeah. But after that? This feeling would just come back. Because no matter how hard I fight, how powerful I am, there's one thing I can't run away from - myself. That mess inside my head. Hah. Listen to me. Trite crap. My smartphone lies next to me, on the table. Switched off. Those goddamn communicators I was so proud of, thinking they'd be the perfect thing for a professional like me - lost control. Someone was contacting me, and I couldn't deal with it, not in that moment. Broke them. I need to be alone right now. A part of me knows that's bullshit, that I'm just punishing myself by cutting myself off - but right now I don't care. I study footage of the Mystic Force fighting. That's one thing that still gets through this cold, angry haze in my head. Weaknesses Techniques. Imagining my fists hitting home, until I am victorious, though I know I'll feel like this soon afterwards again. I down another one of the pointless drinks. Dull. Lifeless. Cold. nil__> Blackguard Cook Up Scheme <nil__> !r 2d6+3 <Krysmbot> nil__, 5+3 = 8 Exhausting asset Communicators. +1 Plan, increasing plan from 6 to 7. nil. fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 22:06
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    At the OK Cafe, La Reina, Earlier in the Day (Copycat, Royal Rose)The panel frames the breaking of the tension of Tween Twitch's uncertainty, and she all but throws away the cat, translated through the next panels into the disguised Royal Rose's arms, as she seems far more concerned with Lady Circe. "Cissy, get back here!" Betraying a little more familiarity than might be expected, disappearing with a crackle of magic. Luckily, a little slip of topomancy from Knobstradamus had kept either Copycat or Rose from attracting too much attention, leaving both open to deal with the assault later that night.  Above the Western Seaboard Holding Facility, CRISIS, the Sierra Nevada, Third Night After Christmas (Möbius, Centipede, Any)On the deck of the soon to be bequeathed Brass Juggernaut, already the Silver Myrmidon, in the first panel, has his attendants using their typewriters, clicking and clackin in the background, to write up a contract, when the picture is placed down of the Golden Vizier. "Harumph." Steam whistling through in indignation at what was obviously expected to be a shock. "Of course that serpent is meddling in my plans. How else could I have been captured if not for such perfidy in my own ranks! Hm, but everything is off schedule as it is. It may have to wait." He offers the contract, looking squarely at any who decided they would be present. "A gentlepersons' agreement then. Do return this to me as intact as possible, and in return, I'll not claim this castle as spoils. That should altogether be agreeable..." He addresses Möbius straightforwardly. "You are wasting your time with this Association, lad. There's no vision, no danger to what they do. When you're ready to be a true threat to the world, there are better options." He places a thin, metal card that somehow is completely black and formless in any other way, more business card than ID compared to your "golden ticket" from MADD. The Myrmidon didn't care to wait for agreement, a pneumatic stamp from his arm placing down an embossing on the contract as he sweeps away, adjusting his tophot. "Come now, comrades. We've a jolly good fight ahead of us!"  Möbius: The Silver Myrmidon is complimenting you, but you can tell in a very back-handed way, that shows no real gratitude for having been freed. Rather, it is obvious that he doesn't find you all that dangerous at all! If you accept what he says about who you are, shift Danger down and shift Trouble up. Otherwise, you can reject his influence as a reactive move in addition to any others you make. Centipede: Hold 1 Infamy from that successful use of Danger Diabolik, and you are for sure privy to this exchange between Myrmidon and Mobius. Your exposure was expertly timed, but you suddenly sense something, that's a little alarming to sense at all. Your transformation can get a little messy, and you can "feel" the traces of your DNA left on the scene. Now, that won't at all be too conclusive for anything (you aren't on any CRISIS gene banks that would be gross referenced with any testing), but what might they find out about the Centipede through testing any trace DNA on the scene? In the skies above Nexus Bastion, coastal mountains north of La Reina, later that same night... (All) The Vector is a super vehicle that is usable as an Asset for all alliance members to wager or exhaust as they wish.The next page after Dark Eagle's full page splash of starting the siege on Nexus Bastion gives us a deep detail view of the modified Brass Juggernaut, which reflects now the character of the slapped together villainous alliance arming it. Cancerous grey-goo nanites expand out plates of shielding and seal up the cogs and gears and give it a biomechanical bent, and almost a creature-like cast. Its armament means that true bombardment and sieging, here in the skies over La Reina, can start in the increasingly small window of time that the alliance has before suddenly things heat up and a heroic response is inevitable! STRAIN: You've permanently modified this Juggernaut to your own specifications, and the nanites self-replicating mean that it has something of a "life" of its own. After all, you are a race of nanites in a sense, and separate from your meat-body host, the nanites that inhabit the ship, while subordinate to you, are starting to develop a separate identity as "Vector" to your own semi-identity as Nicky Newton. Do you cultivate this, or try and quash it in its infancy? Zapper: Are you really just going to let STRAIN have free reigns over this major piece of tech your alliance has just got its hands on? Will you make any personal modifications or customization of your own? Have you really had any success in dealing with the alien nanotechnology that STRAIN is capable of pulling together by sheer force of will, anyway? The Nexus Bastion, having been transported around a few times before reaching its current 90265 zip code. Most of the Mystic Force are dispersed, and even their junior members are out and about on various tasks when the attack comes, thus the mansion is almost all but undefended, until Gwydion appears on the rooftop. With an antique looking crank machine gun, that he raises up, crackling with arcane sigils and power upon it, and begins firing up at the Vector, providing the first and so far only returning fire before the flock of birds quickly overwhelms him as well. However, the window of opportunity is short to act with any sort of impunity, counting in minutes rather than hours. Dark Eagle: The Nexus Bastion is build nestled in low mountains and hills overlooking a coastal town that is essentially Malibu, meaning that it is rather closer to collateral damage than comfort. At the same time, this is one of the more opulent places in the world, and this oddly Gothic castle in the middle of upscale California is a bit of an eyesore. Since you are in direction of the flock of automatons, how much damage are you looking to deal? Melody: The information you gained from Gwydion might be key at this point for any of the others looking to infiltrate, or you might take the opportunity yourself to make use of it for your own means and ends. What information that will help the D4C infiltrate the Nexus Bastion did you uncover, and how does it get put into use? Copycat: So where have you been this entire time? At some point, you'll have to show your pretty face for the caper proper. Whereas some limit themselves to stealing only what is not bolted down, you and the team are about to take the whole kit-and-kaboodle, but does anything you learned from your previous schemes come into play here at the final assault? Astroplasm Cafe, La Reina (Blackguard)As if to match the mood of our erstwhile protagonist, the Astroplasm Cafe is cooler in color and tone, with hardly any other visible patrons and hardly the young and "hip" crowd that were present earlier, as the armored Blackguard nursing her cold and lifeless drink sticks out all the more, while even the music tends to follow a similar line. Slowly rising in silhouette within the panel across the booth, there is a tutting sound. "No, we're gonna have to belay this whole pity party right away." A thin smile on the ghastly expression of the Star Spectress as she appears, mixing a little lemon and rum for herself just across the table and arching her brow over those glowering red eyes. "Before you complain, I'm not prone to fits of responsibility like this, but while I'm fine with tykes going three sheets to the wind, drinking alone isn't a good sign. Not even for our kind." She then raises her glass in the next panel, and sips from it. "You wanna talk about it?" Blackguard: Maybe the last thing you need is an adult telling you who you are or how the world works right about now, but right now Noemi is just asking if there's something you want to talk about. You don't really have an outside support network past the alliance, and even your sponsor, Old Scratch, feels more like a disapproving, distant uncle than anything like a real relationship, and facing him after basically doing nothing with the information he went out of his way to give you is probably not high on your agenda. Is this something you feel you might need? Or do you just need to be alone?
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Jan 5, 2017 22:44
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 |Freak -1 Danger 0 Trouble +2 Superior +1 Menace +1 Infamy: 1 Curses! 0/5 Conditions: Angry Location: the Rooftops of La Reina Paola refreshes the homepage of HBoard, the most popular villainous news' site. This place has really gone downhill ever since they stoped calling themselves Hermes' Board. She thinks, as she stares at the latest title in there. "A thief from the Defiant D4C steals from the Terror Tribe. Her name: Sapper!" Sapper. She looks at that uppercase S, mocking her with how blatantly wrong it is. Why is she even getting upset? Her current name is just a placeholder, who cares if people get it wrong? And yet she does care. She's about to say something about this to Blackguard when she notices that she's staring out to the city's lights for a while. Man, it's so hard to get a read on her, even without the helm. Her expression is so...dead. Rose and Mobius might be unbearable at time, but at least they're straightforward about what they think. What she's told her about the Omnidepository must have been more noteworthy for her than she anticipated. "Uh, would it be prying to ask why did you ask about that?" Several moments pass. Than her teammate answers. "Yes. It would. Would also be fair to ask." Zapper slowly nods. This is...unusually open on Blackguard's part. But she doesn't sound comfortable talking about this, not really. "Riiight. It's... cool if you don't want to talk about it, just so you know." But she does want to talk about it, apparently. "The things we do. Normal people. They don't decide to do it." Beat. She turns around, arches an eyebrow at Zapper. "Well. Maybe." She continues. "Some people are... broken. Some make themselves broken. Some have others to thank for it, or tell themselves it's so." Zapper crosses her arms. Well that was uncalled for. She didn't miss that shot at her, but neither did she miss her teammate's getting pretty real with her. Which is unusual, since they're not really...friends? Another moment passes, then BG points at the Omnidepository. "I need it, for something else. To hunt something - someone down." Paola's eyes go wide, and she clutches the piece of tech, taking a step back. "What? Look, if you want it after we've done with the mission, sure, why not. But this is our best shot to get our hands on Fort Nexus. We can't just- just ditch the whole plan for that!" Her posture relaxes a bit, as she tries to be comforting but firm at the same time. "Look, I get this is important to you. I get it. I promise that I'll help you track down...whatever you need to track down when this is over." "But not before." Several extremely uncomfortable moment pass, before Blackguard starts pacing, putting her head in her hands - while compared to someone normal it is nothing, this is the most distressed Paola has seen her. She puts her hand on the undead's back. Later, she couldn't explain to herself why she did that. She just did, and it felt like the right thing to do. "Hey... I meant what I said earlier. I'll help you out, if I can." Blackguard, of course, grabs her wrist, and for a moment it seems like she's going to keep pressing (Paola's hand is just about to reach for the taser) - then she releases it, pushes it away. She seems to gather herself, stand up straight again. "I will carry it." Then she grabs the Omnirepository and drops down from the rooftop. The Tribe has moved on, and they have no reason to stay here. Neither of them speaks on her way back, but Paola's mind is abuzz with questions. What does Blackguard want with the builders of the Omnidepository? What does she need it for? ...why did I feel the need to comfort her?
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Jan 6, 2017 00:47
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 Fre: +1 | Dan: +0 | Tro: -1 | Sup: +3 | Men: +0 Curses!: 1/5 | Infamy: 1| Conditions: None Location: Mobius Place / Skies Above Nexus Bastion Past - OK Cafe, La Reina Panel: A delighted looking sorority girl walking out with "her" cat in tow during the confusion, Rose visible underneath the illusion, translucent outline of Copycat next to her. Dialogue: Royal Rose (via telepathy): "Yeah slipping on out of here sounds good, got everything we need out of him - now I know how to get all of us in safely." Pink-Red Caption: Interesting that Tween Twitch and Lady Circe are so familiar though... filing that bit of info away for later use~ Panel: As they leave the Cafe, Rose pets Jailbird a few times, genuinely smiling herself, though she's glancing at her invisible compatriot. Dialogue: Royal Rose (via telepathy): "Find out what you need with my powers too?" Panel: Climbing into the back of the car and leaving the door open for long enough for Copycat to bum a ride if she'd like, Royal Rose is still holding Jailbird affectionately. Dialogue: Royal Rose (via telepathy): "Or no, lemme guess, you were just casing the place before we got there? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone..." Pink-Red Caption: So long as I get my Castle, I don't really even care - though I am keeping a closer eye on my stuff with her around. Accusing Copycat of having the secret agenda - secretly loot Nexus Bastion of something or somethings without letting the rest of us know. Probably wrong, but she needed to have someone accuse her at some point. ------------------------------------- Planning - Mobius' Place It's amazing how much less dysfunctional when everyone in our Alliance has something to do. While I was busy securing the information necessary for us to actually take Nexus Bastion, the others did their parts too, and for moment at least we're all too busy salivating at the very real possibility we actually pull this off to go for each other's throats. Not that there's not tension, of course, it's unavoidable - even Delilah seems on edge, though she hasn't been willing to talk about whatever it is that's bothering her. Honesty is rarely the best possibility, but an exception should be the two of us. I don't even read her mind at all, which I definitely could... and only part of it is because even I'm scared of just what I might learn. Regardless, I'm letting her brood like she wants, but I've made sure she knows I'm here for her when she wants to talk. I'm sure she will soon, and she'll admit how foolish she's been being, and I'll tell her I forgive her - and I probably will. That drama aside, we've got what we need. Silver Myrmidon's supplied us with a ship and won't personally be interfering, which I am very much a fan of. We have the Omnidepository, which should make translocating or teleporting or however Mobius plans on doing things a snap for his nerd-magick. And most importantly, I've had time to research what I needed to learn since I plucked quite a few secrets from Gwydion's head - namely, the incantation for attuning people to the defenses of the Nexus Bastion. Gehannah cast one on him, and it's why neither mystic defenses nor arcane guardian creatures present in our soon-to-be new base target him - the castle, in essence, recognizes him as one of their own. Thanks to his memory of that experience, and my own magical talent (while Mobius may brag enough for the both of us, he's only half of our magical firepower), I've been able to create my own version of the spell. All that's left now is the assault itself, and I have some thoughts on that subject... ------------------------------------- Present - Aboard the Brass Juggernaut, above the Nexus Bastion Two-Page Spread: The whole team's assembled, suited up, and geared for war aboard their temporary (new) ship, assembled more or less in a circle for ease of visibility for the reader. What controls the helmeted and eerie Strain and her nanomachines aren't managing while the D4C gathers up, Centipede's got covered with a creepily long tendril. Copycat and Jailbird are sitting on top of one of the consoles, cat in her lap, while the zealous Dark Eagle's mechanical and natural pets have taken flight already. Zapper's got some piece of tech in hand, Mobius a bit of magic between his, while the armored and imposing Blackguard looms large in the corner. Seemingly approaching the center is the resplendent Royal Rose, smile on her lips and eyes practically glowing with violet light. Panel: Now in the midst of the group, the Fae Princess raises a hand, two fingers outstretched, both of them beginning to glow. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Looks like it's showtime everyone - time for my contribution." Pink-Red Caption: Once we've got the Omnidepository and - *sigh* - Silver Myrmidon's assistance, all that's left is to secure the Nexus Bastion itself... luckily, that'll be easy. Thanks to me. Panel: The Magic energy Rose is conjuring seems to flow out from her, briefly washing over everyone on the team. Neon-pink sigils vaguely reminsicent of the Mystic Force's symbol hover over each villain's head, the Fae Enchantress in the midst of an incantation. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Mín mellono ai cardhon sina sinome!" Pink-Red Caption: I know how their guards and wards work - and I know how to bypass them. Make them treat us as the rightful owners of the place, so to speak, at least for long enough. Panel: With the last vestiges of magic dissipating, Melody uses her other hand to snap her fingers, conjuring her phone and glancing at it, rapidly typing a text of her own Dialogue: Royal Rose: "There, we're Attuned to the Bastion - the Mystic Force's defenses won't recognize that there's anything wrong with us being there - and we have our plan. Oh yeah, also..." Royal Rose's text to Delilah: <3 Pink-Red Caption: Oh yeah, where are we moving the castle to? Pocketplane? Underground? The leyline convergence should remain centered, so I don't really care so long as the view's nice! Panel: Rose starts to vanish from their midst, action lines and magical lights indicating she's teleporting into the Nexus Bastion beneath them. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "We can use their Teleportation Circle~ Just think happy thoughts and focus on the castle!" Pink-Red Caption: After all, our target is an acceptable starter base, but it's nothing compared to Avalon - to my birthright! Just think... if Mother had never treated me so unfairly, we wouldn't be stealing this base from her friends and former comrades! This whole thing is completely her fault! <Rauri-phone> Royal Rose Snatch Victory <PXGentleman> Go Rauri! <Rauri-phone> !r 2d6 <Krysmbot> Rauri-phone, 7 = 7 <Rauri-phone> Phew <PXGentleman> God enough! <TrickyDickNixon> drat! Holding 1 infamy for hit. On a 7-9, you’re caught in the act, and must work quickly. Everyone participates in the action scene that follows. Rauri fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 04:54
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Freak: +0 | Danger: +3 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +1 Curses: 3/5 | Infamy: +0 | Location: Nexus Bastion Present - Aboard the Brass Juggernaut, above the Nexus Bastion I stand aboard the Brass Juggernaut - our Juggernaut - in my full, black, shadow-bathed armor, arms across my chest. I have positioned myself to the side of Melody, behind her, yes - but I know I loom large enough. The deep rumblings of the ship around us, our entire team assembled, with our final purpose before us, Nexus Bastion finally visible on the view screen, growing ever closer - it fills me with a dark calm. Something to focus on, something to put away the thoughts that plagues me before. They're not gone, I know. But now they are put aside, even if it is for just this moment. Perhaps it was my talk with Star Spectress, or maybe it was just the fact that I didn't want to feel the way I felt in the Astroplasm Cafe anymore. Because there was one thing I lost sight of, one thing I remembered when I came to join the others for the final assault and saw The Vector in all it's jagged, menacing, badass glory: This is what I wanted. When I first escaped that drat Triad's lab, my head was a mess, doubt and self-loathing way worse than earlier today. And I chose this to deal with it. The counterpart to all the complexity, the messy tangle of loathing and want and loss and hunger. I chose to stand astride an interdimensional war juggernaut, clad in grandiose dread armor, aiming to take an actual castle from a powerful foe, a foe I will no doubt face in chaotic, savage, glorious combat. That's what I chose. The simplicity of fighting, vanquishing - a focus in all this insanity. I just had to remember that. And so I bide my time, and put my mind in order. Because for this to work, to truly be Blackguard for this - it's not just all about muscles, reactions, tactics. I need to become something more, or less. To truly inhabit my mask, my armor. Because that's what they'll need to see, whoever is unlucky enough to face us. Not a girl in a giant black armor, no - they need to see a force of nature, unstoppable. They must not be able to console themselves with the fact that their opponent is just human, like them. Fear and helplessness must sweep those thoughts away until they can only see the mask, the symbol, their focus as narrow as that of an animal. And that is when they won't be able to contain that thing inside their heads anymore, that thing that even today tells people not to go out alone in the dark. And so I push away all other things, only focus on the battle ahead and- Oh, text from Melody. Hm. How sweet. Uh, 'sweet'; that's kind of not fitting my, what, mental preparations. Still, I'd by lying if I said that seeing her and standing at her side didn't help calm me down earlier. Because, despite everything, even if all that crap I just pumped myself up with was true, just being some scary badass, that's not all I want to be. To Melody posted:Love you too. Don't plan the celebration with everyone right away. I have a feeling that I'll need you for a private meeting. All the excitement that's to come. Before and after we kick rear end and get you a castle. Where was I? Being knocked out of my thoughts like that put things in perspective, makes all those things earlier seem vaguely ridiculous - but then again, my entire life is ridiculous. Okay. So. An overblown meditation on masks. Fear. Power. I am the Blackguard... --- Panel: Blackguard is shot from behind, with Royal Rose and some of the others in the foreground. Everyone is getting ready to teleport into the Nexus Bastion. Gwydion being overwhelmed by Dark Eagle's birds is prominently displayed on The Vector's view screen. Dialogue: Blackguard: "All too easy." Caption: I should have know better. Because it was too easy. Panel: The bridge of The Vector, from another perspective showing more of the crew, with Royal Rose already missing. The bridge shakes as the ship is as the attacked by some outside force! Caption: Things weren't that easy. To be honest, I would have been disappointed otherwise. Split Panel: The Vector from the outside - being attacked by magically animated gargoyles swarming the air over Nexus Bastion! / Blackguard watching a monitor, providing some arcane readouts. Caption: They weren't true Gargoyles - not alive, or, thinking, anyway. Royal Rose deactivated all the Bastion's normal defenses, so they must have been an emergency defense animated by that butler before he shot at us with his old-timey minigun. Some magic crap that can animate anything as a last-ditch defense? Panel: Blackguard in some sort of elevator aboard t´The Vector, shot from below, making her seem large and imposing. Dialogue: Blackguard: I'll take care of it. Panel: The Vector from outside, shot from below and swarmed by Gargoyles - and Blackguard leaping out of the back of the craft, towards one of the mindless animated guardians! Caption: This is stupid. And this is awesome. Panel: Blackguard wrestles with a gargoyle mid-air. Nexus Bastion is visible below. Speed lines show that the fighting pair are falling towards the castle with great speed! Large Panel: A giant cloud of dust and debris, shot from the side and with some distance, indicates where Blackguard and her victim crashed onto Nexus Bastion, the castle's spires lovingly rendered by the artist. The detached rock head of the gargoyle Blackguard was fighting with flies toward 'the camera'! Panel: Blackguard, still clouded in some of the dust and thus only shown in silhouette, rises to her feet, unharmed. Caption: That should have gotten their attention. Let them come. Large Panel: The inside of Nexus Bastion, both classy with it's rich tapestries and fine furniture and also imposing with the harsh imperiousness of its architecture. The focus is on the battle-ready figure of Blackguard in the middle of the panel, casting a gigantic shadow. In the background a wooden gate has been kicked in and the light of day falls in through it - alongside several gargoyles chasing after Blackguard! In the foreground, shot only from the torso up - are several empty suits of armor, brandishing their swords at Blackguard, animated as a last line of defense just like their stone brethren! Caption: Getting to Royal Rose was going to be more complicated than simply remembering the route from the blueprints I studied. But I would be lying if I said I didn't relish this. This was what I wanted, needed, right now. Something pure, something simple. Spending one plan to help Royal Rose, Snatch Victory result increases to 8, Plan decreases from 4 to 3. nil. fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 19:00
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 Fre: +1 | Dan: -2 | Tro: +1 | Sup: +2 | Men: +1 Curses!: 0/5 | Conditions: Angry | Cards: 2 Location: Brass Juggernaut Jonathan scoffed internally (however one does that) as the Silver Myrmidon offered his backhanded compliments. Perhaps people didn't yet view him as properly dangerous. Well, that was merely their blindness. And it wasn't as if being viewed as dangerous was strictly his plan anyway. All that mattered was that they viewed him as great. The rest was irrelevant. OOC: Not rejecting the Silver Myrmidon's influence. _____________________________ Panel: A grand door, flanked on both sides by gilded pieces of full platemail armor with small glowy blue spheres twinkling behind their visors, is shown. Sound effects akin to trumpets and drums are pasted against the door in fairly small font, as if something was approaching from the other side. Gray Caption: "The final step of our plan approaches." Gray Caption: "Indeed, should our fae ally prove successful, there should be little left for us to do but to march in." Panel: The door is slammed open, showing Möbius, arm outreached towards the viewer in a pushing motion with an accompanying force-distortion emanating from his open palm, blasting the suits of armor off their feet. Behind him there are Clockwork Legion heralds with trumpets and other assorted wind and percussive instruments in hand, playing a pompous tune with the sound effects now being appropriately large. Panel: A sideways view of Möbius walking through a corridor, with a clockwork legionnaire carrying the omnidepository behind him. Möbius walks straight forward with a scowl on his face, not paying any attention to his escorts piercing the flatfooted suits. On the background, through a window, a horde of gargoyles can be seen chasing what seemed like a mid-air wrestling match. Gray Caption: "With the proper distractions, I cannot see how we could possibly fail at this point. The whole idea seems inconceivable." Gray Caption: "At this point, the only thing that remains to be decided is our destination. No demiplane or brane-centric orbital pattern can be stabilized without a Planelock Tesseract, but almost any actually currently extant location ought to be within our reach." Panel: Möbius is shown, in a circular room, arms wide in incantation. The omnidepository is set in front of him, with strange tendrils of the Interplanar Void emanating from it in waves, casting angular shadows across Möbius' grinning face and the gloomy interior of the chamber. OOC: Not rejecting the Silver Myrmidon's influence. Using 1 Plan to help out Rose, putting her roll at 9, and putting us at 2 Plan. Theantero fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 20:02
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 Freak: 2 | Danger: 0 | Trouble: -1 | Superior: 2 | Menace: 0 Curses!: 1/5 | Conditions: Paranoid | Location: On board the During the Approach... It's alive! I am a genius! Not that... I hadn't considered the possibility. They're my nanites after all, I know how they work and to suggest otherwise would be ridiculous. Some of my own personality matrix must have carried over from the sheer amount I dispensed, or this pesky Cold Virus acted as a catalyst, or some non-sense magic. Regardless! A true breakthrough has been achieved. By me. Of course... if this is based off of me then this could be a potential problem because the only thing that has a chance to stand up to me is, naturally, another me. If I send a big enough charge through the system I could probably snuff it out before it has a chance to develop. My hand is hovering over the button and all I have to do to have peace of mind is to push it. Then why am I hesitating? I'm not that alone, am I? And even if I was, why would that bother me! Am I really that pathetic that I'm considering the company of this amalgamate of brass and nanites being worth the risk? And it does already have a name. The thought that it'd be cruel to sentence it to death right away never really crosses my mind, I suppose the consideration to allow it to exist is mostly selfish. I slowly move my hand away. I suppose I'll have to live with the risk that it might grow a mind of it's own. I'd much prefer a loyal pet, but if there's even a trace of myself in there then I have to be honest, that's not going to happen. "Hey guys, just a heads-up, I might have accidentally given the ship a mind of it's own, so try to give it some respect, yeah?" Maybe this isn't the right moment for this, right before the moment of truth, but at least this cuts down on the odds of them having the time to try and berate me for what is obviously a glorious scientific accomplishment. The fact that it just so happened to occur only goes to show that I don't even have to try, yet still manage to exceed myself. I'd claim it as intentional, but Möbius is already pissy enough as it is about this whole thing. I think he genuinely was going to give this ship back to the Silver Myrmidon. What the hell? Anyway, now I got grounds to keep it beyond just wanting it for myself and he'll look cruel arguing to send a semi-sentient being away. As I said, genius. And since it was an accident I am clearly not to blame for it, it just so happened that we can't give it back. Whoops. I place my hand on the console and try to establish contact with the nascent mind in the ship. "Hey there, little buddy. Who's a good flying engine of destruction? You are! Yes you are!" ------------------------------ Assault on the Nexus Bastion! Panel: Strain, standing at the console where she seems to have been planted the last couple hours, paying only nominal attention to her team-mates around her. Wavy green lines indicate her mind's connection to the controls in front of her. Caption: While everyone is preparing my focus is on the Vector, letting it's signals and readouts flood my mind. I don't need my eyes and ears when I can borrow those of a much larger vessel. Panel: As Blackguard leaps off to tackle one of the attacking gargoyles, the Vector veers off tot he side, coaxed into an evasive maneuver by Strain. Caption: With Blackguard drawing their attention away the ship manages to bring itself about... Panel: Close-up of the two front-facing cannons opening fire. Caption: ...bringing the rest of the stone-creatures into the frontal arc of the ship's main cannons. Panel: A number of Gargoyles that were just about to converge on the cloud of dust that was Blackguard's point of impact explode into chunks of inanimate rock in front of the Vector. Dialogue: "There's only room for one kind of animated machinery in my sky!" Panel: The ship continues on through the clattering of bits of rock against it's hull, maneuvering into position to align the rear-hatch with the parapet of the castle. Spending 1 Plan to increase Royal Rose's result to 10, decreasing Plan to 1
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Jan 6, 2017 21:26
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Freak +1 / Danger 0 / Trouble +2 / Superior 0 / Menace 0 Integrity 1 Curses! 0/5 Conditions: Location: Nexus Bastion FLASHBACK: We see two girls, aged perhaps 14 or 15, sitting in the dark on a threadbare sofa, lit by the glow of a TV. The girl on the right is a petite African-American with thick glasses; the girl on the left is tall and lanky, with Middle Eastern features and unruly hair. GIRL ON RIGHT: Seriously, I don't get it. What do they think they're going to achieve? GIRL ON LEFT: Come on, Maya, they're sending a message. What's not to get? The TV screen shows the instantly recognizable Marvels' Memorial in New Metro City. Graffiti reading COPS NOT CAPES is clearly visible on the memorial. We catch the tail end of the news anchor's report: "...act of protest at the recent, controversial decision to reduce the municipal police budget due to recent superhero..." MAYA: All they're going to do is piss off the people who they need on their side. GIRL ON LEFT: Because those people were really going to listen to them - MAYA: They're not going to listen now! GIRL ON LEFT: The system doesn't change, Maya, it doesn't give you anything if you don't fight - MAYA: It's going to change. We're going to change it... if I can even get in, that is..." GIRL ON LEFT: Of course you'll get in. You're the smartest person I know, Maya. It's just... MAYA: What? GIRL ON LEFT: It's just, maybe there's a reason things don't change. Maybe everyone goes into the machine just like you, and they come out like - MAYA: Like what, Leila? Look, you can sit around and complain all day, but it's not like you've got a better idea. LEILA: ...yeah. Not yet... The scene fades on the image of the TV screen, where workers are starting to clean the graffiti off the monument. LEILA: ...but I'll think of something. -- Standing on the battlements of the Nexus Bastion, I pause to catch my breath. The plan is working exactly as intended - the arrival of the Juggernaut drew the castle's defenders onto the roof while the rest of the team teleported inside. Said defenders consisted of all of a bunch of gargoyles and one butler with a magic gatling gun, which was probably the best possible outcome - we'll be several dimensions away before the rest of the Mystic Force catches up. The butler is out cold on the roof behind me, Sundown preening herself on his unconscious chest. I know we don't have too much time before Jonathan whisks us away, so I take the opportunity to enjoy the view. It's quite a panorama, the green hills falling away towards the azure sea. And of course, there's Esmeralda, home of the rich and beautiful, spread over the hills like a rash, the swimming pools clearly visible even from the castle. I feel an old anger rising in me as I gaze over the gaudy mansions. This is the future we're taught to aspire to - each family of five consuming enough water for a city block, policemen and doctors at our beck and call, spared the sight of the beggar on the corner by our 10-foot walls. If I take out this loan, if I suck up to my boss enough, maybe I'll end up in one of those Esmeralda houses one day. Maybe I'll be a superhero's secretary, and maybe one day she'll marry me and we we can have a pool in our backyard. And if I have to close some run-down kids' home to do it, well, that's the way the world turns. As my thoughts spiral faster I don't even have to command the birds still circling over the castle - they wheel towards the town in unison, clockwork birds flying wing-to-wing with their flesh-and-blood cousins. I drive the flock - no, the swarm - through the town, planting image after image into those tiny minds - satellite dishes, solar panels, fences, tiled roofs, windshields, power lines, traffic lights. I drive one arm of the swarm into the town's cell phone mast and another down the waterfront and over the beach. It takes a conscious effort to make them leave people alone, but they're not my goal here. I want the world to see how fragile their rulers are, to laugh the beautiful people weeping on the evening news, to see the disproportionate attention and resources all this petty vandalism will draw. I want people to look at the chaos in Esmeralda and think: it was the weakest of beings that did this, and the system could do nothing to stop it. I gather the swarm together one last time, and tell the birds to disperse. The clockwork drones remain in formation, sweeping over the town in a slow circle. They'll stay like that until the Juggernaut leaves with the castle; without the command signal they'll fall on the town like so many shooting stars. It's a shame I won't be there to see it. Unleash Powers: 2d6+1 8 I'm going to mark a Condition, to be decided shortly. Gato fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 22:02
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|Freak -1 Danger 0 Trouble +2 Superior +1 Menace +1 Infamy: 1 Curses! 0/5 Conditions: Angry Location: The Vector/Nexus Castle Are you really just going to let STRAIN have free reigns over this major piece of tech your alliance has just got its hands on? Will you make any personal modifications or customization of your own? Have you really had any success in dealing with the alien nanotechnology that STRAIN is capable of pulling together by sheer force of will, anyway? White Caption: Some time ago... Panel: We are in Paola's workship. She is sitting down at a metal table, looking through a mircroscope. Yellow Caption: This is frustrating, but in a good way. Panel: View through the microscope. Small, elongated robots that look slightly like squids can be seen through the round frame, thick as sand.  Yellow Caption: I can understand this. Minuscule, self-powered robots, each relaying information to the other, coordinating their efforts according to a given signal. They can deconstruct or repurpose technology on an almost molecular level. Panel: Paola is holding a sealed container, showing STRAIN's signature grey nanite mist. The inventor looks satisfied and intrigued. Yellow Caption: Sure, I can't really replicate these with what I have here. But this is something I can wrap my head around. I can even use some of the principles in these bad boys for other inventions. Borrowing them was worth it for the educational value alone. White Caption: Some time ago, but not as much... Panel: We are in the interior of the Brass Juggernaut. The shot is in the same pose to the one in the workshop, but Paola has her hands in her hair, and looks frustrated. A pair of goggles stands on the table in front of her. Yellow Caption: These, on the other hand?  Yellow Caption: This is a fat load of horse hockey, is what this is. Bigger, Angrier Yellow Caption: These are just goggles with a bunch of garbage attached. THESE SHOULDN'T DO ANYTHING! Panel: Zoom in on the goggles, which look like the sort of thing you'd see on the brow of the average steampunk fan. Yellow Caption: I found these in the hold of the recently renamed Vector. The Silver Myrmidon isn't likely to miss them, since I don't think we're giving him his ship back. I don't think he'd even want it, now that it's full of STRAIN's nanites. Panel: Similar to the one with the nanite container. Paola is holding the goggles, and looks downright spiteful. Upper Yellow Caption: Mad science. Each invention ignores physics, thermodinamics or any other rule except the ones that its creator arbitrarily decided were how the world works, even with ample evidence that that is not the case. Lower Yellow Caption: It's magic that put on a labcoat and decided it could call itself Professor without a PHD. Panel: Still looking somewhat sour, Paola slips on the goggles. Yellow Caption: And yet, if I remove one gear, this piece of garbage doesn't work. I'm taking them with me anyway, even if I don't understand the (arbitrary, antiscientic, idiotic) principles that it works with. Depending on which lever I pull, it reads something called "aetheric presence", which apparently covers both magnetism and Mobius' magic, or "phlogiston percentage", which as far as I can tell measures how much something is inflammable. Smaller Yellow Caption: (I could almost admire how much information you can fit in so little a gadget if it wasn't delivered in this nonsense.) Assault on Nexus Bastion: Panel: Paola appears in a shower of eldritch energy, inside Nexus Bastion. She looks mildly confused, and still has the goggles on. Yellow Caption: Yep, still not used to moving via teleport. Another Panel: Zapper and Royal Rose are walking side to side through a long corridor, with a red carpet and paintings on the wall. Speech: Alright, we're in. Can you do your magic in here, or do we need to go deeper? The sooner we end this, the better. Yellow Caption: I don't really have anything to do in this part of the caper, and that makes me nervous. I don't want someone accusing me of not pulling my weight. Of course, I did steal the Omnidepository, but you never know. quote:I got permission from TDN to get a sweet piece of gear for my Bag of Tricks if I don't use my caper move, so I'm doing that. paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jan 6, 2017 |
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Jan 6, 2017 23:09
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 Freak: +3 | Danger: +0 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +1 Curses!: 2/5 | Conditions: Paranoid | Infamy: 1 | Location: Nexus Battlements. White Caption: 3 Hours after the Myrmidon incident Panel: A tiny piece of what seems to be the joint of a finger, twitches on the ground after the Centipede's flamboyant departure from the scene with the prisoner. It seems as though that teleportation spell lopped a tiny piece off by accident. A shadow falls over the piece, and a pair of tweezers reach down off panel to grab it. As the panel pans to focus on the finger joint as it is dropped into an evidence bag, the words Inspector Parks, LRPD can be seen on a badge. --- White Caption: CRISIS Lab, 2 days after the Myrmidon incident. Panel: A scientist examines something through a microscope, whilst an assistant takes notes on a computer. Leaning against the desk impatiently is Police Inspector Rosie Parks. She detaches herself from the desk. Rosie: "Anything concrete doc? Do we have any matches on the data-bank?" Senior Scientist: The scientist shakes his head "I'm afraid not inspector, we ran the test almost five times since you gave this to us, we seemed to get different results every single time we ran the analysis." Junior Scientist: "I'm not sure whether I should be worried or astounded, the finger joint has been completely separated from this Centipede, and it's DNA is still in constant flux, how is that even possible?" Senior Scientist: "This is what I am trying to find out, but there was another thing. Well two other things to be exact" Panel: The Scientist brings up on the screen another set of strands alongside the five recently taken from analyzing the finger joint. Junior Scientist: "Do you remember that other test you asked us to do a few months ago? With some of those blood samples you found in Lord Howler's meat locker?" Senior Scientist: "We got extremely similar results on those samples as well. We are pretty certain that the person who did the Silverfang job also broke out the Silver Myrmidon." Rosie: "Somehow I knew this was going to be the case, and the other thing?" Panel: The two scientists look somewhat pensive, the Junior Scientist brings up another screen, this time of what appears to be medical documents. Junior Scientist: "When we were checking these samples next to the more recent ones looking for any kind of connecting genomes, something that could maybe help narrow your search." The Junior Scientist avoids Rosie's searching gaze. "We think we may have found something, but it's somewhat unsettling." Senior Scientist: The scientist adjusts his glasses. 'Dorokhov's Syndrome' Panel: An image of the past, lines and lines of hospital beds hooked up with ICUs, complete with many desperate doctors and nurses moving quickly around the scene Rosie: "The Para-Epidemic? You mean to tell me our suspect was exposed to a rift at some point?" Junior Scientist: "Not necessarily, although the first instances of the disease were indeed caused by exposure to unknown energies from the rifts created by the Infinite Empire, enough of that radiation has saturated our world as a result of that calamity, that unfortunately the disease still occasionally crops up, normally from survivors of the war and their descendants or those who live within the area of a past rift breach for an extended period of time." Senior Scientist: "And that's the problem really, even today we have a lot of trouble telling the difference between what could be termed 'regular' diseases of the blood, and Dorokhov's Syndrome. Not without an extensive analysis of the subjects blood, and there are many people on the medical register in this state. We may find exactly one person with the disease after we test a thousand patients. Panel: Inspector Parks seems deep in thought with the information received, then she looks up Rosie: "But it's normally a fatal condition?" Junior Scientist: "If not treated most certainly." Rosie: "And quite deliberating?" Senior Scientist: "It very well could be in it's later stages. Late-stage sufferers are known to become almost completely bed-bound or even comatose in severe cases." Rosie: "Then, I don't think we'll have to try hard to find him doctor. Someone suffering from a terminal disease and becomes a super villain? Either that man has some sort of death wish, or he is trying to finance his treatment with his super-villainy..." --- White Caption: The Vector, present time. Panel: The Centipede clambers over the walls of the Bastion like some freaky spider-man as he seems to be heading to the top in a bit of a hurry. His face is one of intense concentration Rosie Caption: "And If it's the latter, they're going to become pretty desperate as time goes on. All we need to do is wait for him to slip up." Blue Caption: "I'm going to pay for this later I am sure, if I'm not careful I'll be lucky to have enough in me to get out of bed tomorrow. But if I take a breather now, when we are about to win this thing, what will that make me look like?" Panel: A crane shot shows what the Centipede is making his way towards, the end of the ramparts where Dark Eagle is preparing to command the hordes of her birds to wreak total havoc/minor inconvenience on the unsuspecting populace below. Blue Caption: "But sometimes you have to take a step back, and see what exactly you are dealing with. I think this is the time I step in." The Centipede will MEDDLE in Dark Eagle's business. Panel: As Dark Eagle prepares for the most villainous Disney princess performance ever , a shadow falls over the scene, the Centipede uses his special talent of appearing suddenly out of nowhere to loom over her in that way he has of looming. "Whatcha doin' Dark Eagle?" 00:04 TheNabster Centipede is gonna Cow/Rebuke Dark Eagle for her rampant pyromania 00:04 TheNabster !r 2d6+1 00:04 Krysmbot TheNabster, 7+1 = 8 00:04 TheNabster Neat >On a hit, they hear you: They mark Curses!, clear a condition, or shift labels if they respond. He waits for any reaction, and takes a step back to lean on the battlements "Because it looks like whilst we are preparing to do something very important and very dangerous, you are bunking off from your duties to start more random fires and cause more pointless property damage. Again." He wiggles a little finger in his ear as if he was cleaning out some wax. "I mean, Paola, - or Zapper if you prefer - she really hates those people who scammed her out of her inventions, and Melody is the poster-girl for 'mummy issues', Blackguard is, well Blackguard and Mobius is so far up his own rear end he'd probably meet the stick half way. Everyone brought their baggage with them, it's rather the point of being a super-villain honestly." "But everyone when we are on the job it seems, knows to check that baggage at the door when the chips are down and the knives are out, because engaging in that silly playground bullcrap when you're on the job is a good way to screw the pooch for everyone involved. Everyone understands this instinctively." He stops cleaning, and gives her all of his undivided attention. "Except you." He gives a sweeping motion to birds and the mansions below. "What is this, Leila? What are you exactly trying to accomplish. You're really going to stick it to the man by burning a few properties and ending up on the local news. I'm sure a headline like 'Birdemic Sweeps Malibu' will be just the flash-point needed for real social change." "Except whilst you are patting yourself on the back for your one woman crusade against 'the system' you have smashed someones house out of spite and now that person doesn't have a home. Someone who you've never met and, alright, could be a total knobsticle sandwich with his own baby seal slippers and real African blood diamonds, or he could be just a normal man with a wife and kids whose house you callously ruined because he has a nice house. And you don't. They're aren't your straw-men to bash around for cheap class warfare points Dark Eagle, these are real people, and you smashed that real person's house when you should be fighting superheroes. And you keep doing this, you can't just keep the private life and the job separate, everyone else does it, even I can do it, but you are completely incapable of putting down your bloody banner for a second and that's bit us in the rear end more than once. Why can't you just leave it alone for once, just like, once until everything is done, and then you can kick over as many trashcans and spray-paint all the logos you want just not whilst you're supposed to be doing your job." "What is wrong with you?" OOC: Gato here's my move : When you meddle in the plots of others… ask them if they think they can see past the hood. They can’t, but they may lie to you. If they lie and say they do, take Influence on them, and they may shift Labels. If they tell the truth and say they do not, shift Menace up and any other label down. TheNabster fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 02:24
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Fre: +1 | Dan: -2 | Tro: +1 | Sup: +2 | Men: +1 Curses!: 0/5 | Conditions: Angry | Cards: 2 Location: Nexus Bastion Jonathan paced around the Omnidepository, a variety of magical tools floating around him as they drew the charts and maps on the air in a strict, perfectly orchestrated choreography. Indeed, Jonathan was very much in his element doing this. This was what he was good at. This was what he excelled at more so than any other. In a just world, he would be moving the Iron Spire around just like this. A flash of anger overtook him as his thoughts wandered onto that, and thus inevitably to Allison, that irredeemably idiotic roach. What the Zeitgeist had seen in her he would never know. Or well, he did: idiots attracted idiots, after all. But as much as they denied him his rightful position, and his RIGHTFUL glory, they could never deny his superiority or his genius. He would force them to. He would demonstrate it repeatedly, and so, oh so very crushingly that even their clouded minds could not deny it. And as such, Möbius continued his work. He added to his initial incantations, grafting layers upon layers of twisting maze and barrier, impossibly warping fractals and portals to nowhere, surrounding the fifth-dimensional space around the Bastion and their route with such an impenetrable array of spatial distortion that the likes of Allison could never navigate it. Nor penetrate it, for the distortion was great enough that any attempt to pierce through it would activate the sigils and punish her for her impudence* (which would be hilarious, to see the protege of the Zeitgeist be smitten by their very own countermeasures). No, all she could do was to sit on the sidelines and cry, faced with indubitable proof of her inferiority, of the fact that she was nothing but an insect in comparison to him, completely unable to help her friends to get in or intercept them. Of the fact that she would never, EVER be his equal. Jonathan smiled. She would learn her place. Caption: *See Sinister Summer #5, and recall Möbius' (and topomancers' in general) weakness! quote:Theantero: MÖBIUS! UNLEASH YOUR TRUUUEEE POWERRRRR OOC: Putting up some Planar Barriers and such around the castle so that Allison can't gate in others and is forced to wallow in her inferiority, worthlessness and ineptitude as she can do nothing but watch as Möbius makes away with the castle due to his SUPERIOR ABILITY Theantero fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 15:53
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Fre: +1 | Dan: +0 | Tro: -1 | Sup: +3 | Men: +0 Curses!: 1/5 | Infamy: 1| Conditions: None Location: Nexus Bastion Series of Panels: Zapper and Royal Rose progressing further into the castle through a couple different rooms, Rose using her sorcery to float just above the ground. The defenses all seem to be inactive, the pair bypassing wards and defenses without effort. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Further inside the castle's better. Don't worry - I know just the place, been here before." Zapper: "How much farther inside? Mobius should be starting up his spell or whatever soon, we need to hurry." Royal Rose: "Not far - second stairwell to the right, and then straight up 'til it stops. Should be simple." Pink-Red Caption: After all, I know my way around this place. It's practically a second home. I've been to all the Mystic Force's bases - not that they really compare to Hollywood premieres or Royal Functions - but this one was always special for whatever reason. Sepia-Toned Flashback Panel: A long hallway inside the Bastion adorned with tapestries and trophies - and a child's toys, and walking down it are Gehannah and a much younger Royal Rose - probably ten - looking upset. Dialogue: Melody: "Why should I have to learn Demonology? Can't we just play Hide and Seek again? Or go Pegasus riding? Please? Demons are BORING!" Aunt Gehannah: "Listen kid... just put up with me for an hour and a half, and there'll be cookies at the end, OK? Gingersnaps sound good? And a pegasus ride if you do it without any sass!" Melody: "Hmm... at least three gingernsnaps, and sure!" Pink-Red Caption: No, that's not why I want the place. This isn't some sentimental thing. These people betrayed me, they deserve to lose this castle to me, and it'll help me seize the throne and crown from Mother - that's all that matters. Panel: The pair emerging into the same corridor, the door in front of them defended by a looming stone golem, glowing runes carved into its surface, the massive thing easily thrice the height of the two villains before it. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Hmm... guess it's immune to the enchantment on us. Ah well - Querana Hyelle!" Pink-Red Caption: They were supposed to be my friends - but now I've got new friends. Panel: Between Rose's spell transmuting the Golem to glass, and Zapper's sonic gadget, the thing is utterly destroyed, raining down shards the pair are already moving around, the door behind the magical defender opening in accordance with Rose's incantation. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Palime." Pink-Red Caption: And they're going to help me get what I want. Flashback Panel: An even younger Melody and Stanley Howler walking into what looks like a shining and ornate throne room, bustling with light and splendor. There's a round table flanked by chairs, and Melody looks IMPRESSED from her vantage point on the werewolf's shoulder's, the team's former victim looking substantially younger, healthier, and happier himself. Dialogue: Uncle Stan: "Alright clever girl, if you manage to guess what room we're in now, promise I'll let you stay up a half hour past your bedtime. Where are we?" Melody: "Oh I know this! We're in the Heart Of the Castle! Mom told me about here! Which seat is mom's?" Uncle Stan: "Right in one! Hah, that one right there. Maybe you'll have one of your own one day?" Two Panels: Both emerge into what looks like a throne room - though there's quite a few chairs arranged in a circle around a large table, with a golden seal complete with magical runes in its center. It's large, ornate, and intimidating, and there's a couple other entranceways, though only one's open in the first panel. The second features a door being battered open, animated armor crashing into the room in pieces as a result, and Blackguard emerging partially obscured by smoke in the door behind it, Zapper and Rose looking a bit surprised. Pink-Red Caption: And what I want is to be queen. To be loved, and respected, like I should be. Panel: Melody heads closer to both her girlfriend and the center of the room, smiling happily, conjuring her cellphone with a freehand. Zapper is left behind without a thought, though since she's free to examine the heart of one of the Mystic Force's bases she doesn't seem to mind too much. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Delilah! There you are! Good timing!" Pink-Red Caption: And soon I will be. Panel: Rose in front of Blackguard, it is shot in such a way that the usual intimidating nature is downplayed. Blackguard has one hand on Melody's hip, another on her cheek, and her visor up. Rose is leaning into her girlfriend, summoning her phone in a burst of magical light as well after uttering the incantation. Dialogue: Blackguard: "Blackguard. Anyone could burst in. But. You look great." Royal Rose: "Of /course/ I do, but thanks~ Anyways, Meilecarme!" Pink-Red Caption: I was BORN to be Queen. Mom cheated me out of it, and her friends helped her. Series of Panels, selfies taken from a cellphone as it magically moves about the room: Pictures of Blackguard, Royal Rose, and Zapper (but mostly the first two), Rose at least looking perfectly composed and prepared for the occasion, giving the phone a winning smile in every panel. In some, Blackguard is doing the 'arms menacingly crossed behind Melody' thing, in some she's just next to her, her expression lifeless in comparison to Melody, and in just one she has lifted Royal Rose off her feet and is carrying her in her arms, looking down at her. Blackguard is looking down at Melody in that picture, her expression quite focused and the beginning of a grin on her face. Panel: Smiling up at Blackguard, Melody starts to explain a few things to her and Zapper, her violet eyes starting to glow. The Fae Sorceress is smiling up at her girlfriend, subtly pointing her in the right direction aka closer to the seal, but otherwise lying back in her arms. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "We'd regret it if we hadn't taken those, sooo putting one up on Twitter - anyways! With Mobius doing his thing, the Vector attatched, and everyone inside, all that's left is me editing that magical seal there to destroy the Mystic Force's hold over the place and replace it with our own. Should be a pretty cool meeting place too!" Pink-Red Caption: This castle is just a stepping stone. Split Panel: Blackguard's head swivels quickly towards Zapper, as if only now remembering she's in the room. Blackguard takes up her more usual stance again, helmet back on, though the astute reader can see one of her hands is still around melody's hip. Dialogue: Blackguard: "Yeah. Nexus bastion will be ours. Only post one where I have my helmet on, okay?" Pink-Red Caption: To bigger and better things. To my CROWN, to being a Queen instead of a Princess. To having real power. Half Page Panel: Royal Rose floating out of her girlfriend's grasp, lazily drifting over towards the seal on her back via magic even as she aims a rose-coloured beam of arcane energy at it, striking it with obvious effect. Dialogue: Royal Rose: "Aratrunya Lairenar! Promise I won't~ Will need some help though, from you both. There's a /chance/ they might show up here to defend the place..." Pink-Red Caption: All we have to do is defeat whatever broken down relics or inadequate inheritors the Mystic Force has to spare, and the Nexus Bastion is ours. I've even decided what chair in their meeting room is going to be mine - Mom's old one, of course. We HAVE to take this place! Panel: Blackguard is taking up a fighting stance, shown in the meeting room. One of the corridors leading to the central room they are all in is shown, a vague light showing that something is approaching. Caption: [Clatter] Dialogue: Blackguard: "Let them come." Split panel: Blackguard facing right, thinking. / Blackguard, with her head turned, grinning at Melody, who winks back despite being in the midst of her ritual. We've fully seized the objective and are ready for their response, barring a Copycat post. Rauri fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 10:13
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Freak +1 / Danger 0 / Trouble +2 / Superior 0 / Menace 0 Curses! 0+1/5 Conditions: Angry Integrity 1 Location: Nexus Bastion ...at least, I would have done all that if Centipede - of all people! - hadn't interrupted me. Some crap about causing unnecessary trouble for the team, sounding for all the world like a scared middle manager. There's about a dozen points I could take him up on - last I checked, there weren't any superheroes to fight, causing a small-scale public disaster will tie CRISIS up, bringing down the phone mast will delay enemy reinforcements. All excuses, of course, but it's not like he's contributing much to the operation either at this point. I open my mouth to interrupt, but he keeps going, and I realize what's going on. He cares, drat him. He actually gives a drat about all those poor one-percenters down there. This isn't some sneaky political play, some desperate attempt to undermine me for some nebulous goal - no, he actually wants me to leave Esmeralda alone because of all the feelings I might hurt. Unbelievable. I let my concentration drop and turn to him, matching his stare evenly. Sundown senses my hostility and prepares to take off, but I wave her down. Not this time. Below me, the swarm surges forwards after its targets, content to seek the images I've planted, but they'll need new orders soon. "You're going to have to try harder than that if you want me to feel sorry for those people down there." My voice is one step above a snarl. I desperately want to grab his fear and push it as far as it will go, but we still need him functional. For now. "Poor little film producer has to do without TV for a few days. He'll live. He can get therapy if he's traumatised or...whatever. I don't think the people of Esmeralda are going to be lacking in assistance. You really don't have a clue, do you?" I don't know where he's from, but maybe he's more sheltered than I thought. The people down there matter in a way the other 99% don't, and this is the only way to show it to the world - but I suppose it was too much to hope he'd understand. "You think I can't put down the banner? What the hell do you think this is?" A sweep of my arms takes in the Bastion and the Juggernaut moving in to dock. "I'm helping a goddamn aristocrat take back her ancestral castle. I helped you release an extra-dimensional maniac from prison on the off-chance he'd owe us a favour - which is what you were arguing for all along, wasn't it? How many people do you think he'll hurt when the Legion invades? "Don't you dare think I can't put my goals to one side when I need to. One day I won't have to deal with any of this crap, I'll be able to do so much more than mess up one drat town, but for now I've got to put up with this. Putting my life on the line to enable a princess and her ego." Another sweep of my arms. "But when I see an opportunity, a chance to do what's important to me, I'll take it. Whereas you... you're weak. You want to talk about private lives? At least I've got one! At least I've got something I care about! What the hell do you want? What are you after? Because I don't think there's anything there." I jab my finger at him, and I feel Sundown twitch behind me. "All I see is some lackey who'll go along with anything and whine whenever anybody has an agenda. I guess we'll just have to get used to a lot of whining. " I laugh mirthlessly and turn away, looking back over the town, ordering my birds into formation again. "I don't know why you're even here." OOC: So DE needs to take two Conditions, one from her 'getting meddled with' move (since she definitely does not class Centipede as a fellow traveller) and one from her Unleash Powers roll earlier. She gets to clear one from Centipede's Cow/Rebuke, leaving her with one Condition - Angry. Marking Curses! from the same meddled with move. DE is telling Centipede the truth, so he shifts Menace up and something else down. e: removed some info DE shouldn't have, and made it clear birdemic is still happening Gato fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 20:13
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Freak: +2 | Danger: +0 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +2 Curses!: 2/5 | Conditions: Paranoid | Infamy: 1 | Location: Nexus Battlements. Centipede will shift Freak Down and Menace Up. Lackey. Well yes, that was the role he had sort of painted for himself but still. It was a really unappealing title. But, he was prepared to have the last word in this conversation. "What I want doesn't matter in this instance, and I will never tell you in any case. But let's talk about the question, 'How many people do you think he'll hurt when the Legion invades?' I like hypothetical questions." He sidled up to her as the fire rained down over Esmerelda. It was like a fireworks display but nowhere near as romantic, and with more danger. And this wasn't a date either. "Around a hundred, that is my answer, even if the science of predicting exactly what he will do is down to the minute details there would still be people caught in the crossfire, and I won't pretend I knew exactly what we were doing when we set him free." He leaned in close to her ear. "Now here's a little curve-ball for your world view, did you know there were elements of his high command who weren't going to sign the armistice? The Myrmidon would be the Shoebox where you are certain he belongs and is no longer in charge of the legion, it's amazing what people will say when they think no one is eavesdropping, including the part where they were intending to give control back to the invisible masters through a promoted officer taking orders from the Golden Vizier himself. You know what that means right?" "You are a smart girl, Leila, run that little scenario I just painted to it's logical conclusion. An unpredictable legion, in command of a puppet-ed commander, taking orders from the Infinite Empire itself unleashed on the world because we didn't break the Myrmidon out, and they'd know exactly where our defenses would be placed because it's been that way for years. How many hundreds, no, how many thousands would have died as a result if you had stuck to your convictions? In the end you can always pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you did it for all the right reasons, I'm sure that'll help you sleep at night." The voice left her ear as he retreated down the battlements towards the castle. It returned barely a moment later to whisper into her other ear "Incidentally, be careful who you call a lackey. Some people might take offense" And once again, the voice was gone. TheNabster fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 21:12
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Freak +0 | Danger -1 | Trouble +2 | Superior +0 | Menace +2 Curses: 0/5 | Conditions: None | Location: The Nexus Bastion Three Days Ago, Columbia Top Left Panel: Copycat looks over to Dayknight from where she's sitting on the bridge railing. Dayknight: But Santa's real! Doesn't that change anything for you? Top Center Panel: Close-up on Copycat's face as she looks out over the bay. Copycat: Look, there are two kinds of people. The naughty we know, and the naughty we don't. Top Right Panel: Close-up on Dayknight's face as she looks away. Dayknight: You two could do real good, you know. Being cynical isn't going to change that. Center Left Panel: Close-up on Jailbird, word-balloons from "off-panel". Copycat: What if I could prove to you that everybody's got a little dirt? Dayknight: Even if you could, what would that matter? Center Right Panel: A shot of Copycat and Dayknight from her back as it gives a view of this city. Copycat: That everything you built Dayknight on was a lie. Bottom Left Panel: Close-up where Jailbird hops onto Copycat's lap. Copycat: Besides... Bottom Right panel: Same lap, but her hand pats her pocket. Copycat: ... I already stole my coal. One Day Ago, La Reina Center Right Panel: Copycat's translucent form slips in. Bottom Left Panel: Both Copycat and Rose can be seen from a "driver's eye view" as she fades back in. Copycat: "Of course I cased it. Somebody had to." Bottom Center Panel: The driver rubs his eyes for a moment, doing a double-take. Copycat: "I didn't need to grab anything. I mean, one it's ours, loot and loot alike, right?" Bottom Right Panel: The driver can be seen shrugging to himself as we see the back of the two villain's heads. Copycat: "Unless you were planning to claim it all for yourself..." Now-ish, Nexus Bastion Top Panel: As the gargoyles can be seen taking on Blackguard in the distance, Copycat can be seen from behind slipping off the ship with Jailbird. Copycat: "Given it was just Christmas, they should have left the wards down in one key area..." Center Panel: Copycat and Jailbird can be seen peering down an empty chimney. Copycat: "Ugh. Try and let me give you a bath later, okay? But this should get us in deep into the fortress. With the holidays, they've probably left the wards down for Santa." Bottom Panel: Copycat can be seen brushing ash off in the main common room. Jailbird looks positively grey. Copycat: "But while everybody else is busy with their thing, let's take the tour..." Assess the Situation for an 11! Let's go with "how could we best end this quickly?" and "who on the Mystic Force is most vulnerable to me?" (or, given the fiction, maybe she can find something that gives her an edge against them).
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Jan 10, 2017 13:40
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In the deepest part of Nexus Bastion, in the Hall of Doors (Möbius) Here is the eponymous nexus beneath the bastion, a circular chamber filled with many portals, collected artifacts in the shape of archways, mirrors, and other thresholds to other worlds that the Mystic Force have gathered to steal away. What better place to be the focus of the spell? Zapper had set the device and left by this point, to regroup with Melody to deal with the seal magic, leaving Möbius mostly alone to extend his planar barriers and try and set the stage. Of course, he was successful, but there was one complication. As the planar barriers moved in every direction, and the teleportation spell took effect, there was a deep feeling, like a gravity well deep inside, anchoring one down. There was a counter-spell. But not in the direction expected. Instead of attempting to get in to the castle... Something suddenly turned it into a prison. That one thing everyone has been talking around: A planar tesseract. One has been placed, prepared as a trap, and instead of arriving at its destination, the Nexus Bastion is trapped in the Astral Plane, a pocket plane. But how? There isn't too much time for Möbius to decide what to do with it, as the same gargoyles that were easily dispatched by the rest of the group descend down upon him as he's alone, to try and harry his steps as he must find what is keeping the spell from completing its journey to their destination, wherever that may be! Möbius: You know this is the work of Allison. How did she act so quickly? Was it your revealing the plan at that meeting? Or (obviously more likely) did one of your compatriots leak the information? While you are completely successful in shutting out any intrusions, you know your barriers won't last for long against a concerted effort. You have only a limited amount of time to find the tesseract, dispel the trap, all the while evading the magical wards and defenses of the Nexus Bastion? What do you do? Copycat: Luckily, you're already on top of it. You're not prissy topomancy like Knobstradamus but you know exactly where to find the tesseract, and know it's very important to ending this as quickly as possible, but may not know what exactly to do with it. Where is it? Further, you manage to crack into Tween Twitch's room, and find some books and interest in black magic and the like. It looks like she might have some darker sympathies that could be used against her, but the Mystic Force doesn't always shy away from that sort of thing. Regardless, what do you do with that information? On the Battlements outside Nexus Bastion (Centipede, Dark Eagle)The scene is at once framed with the airship above you, attached at the top parts of the castle, as well as the upscale town of Esmeralda beneath you. The spat might have had opportunity to continue, save for a high-pitched whirr that fills a splash page, as sudden CRISIS arrives, making to beat back the same forces of destruction and evacuate the people in question. The same efficiency used back at the Holding Facility is in use here, but it's obvious that they are much behind the curve to keep things from getting out of control.  That's when a sword cuts through the air, and through the next panel Christopher Knight, grasping a scroll of power, steps through, flanked by two CRISIS agents. "Where is the Myrmidon!?" The tracking spell hadn't helped him previously and it's obvious that's peeved off the hero, but those same traces left behind made for a sympathetic connection enough to make a teleportation spell with a little preparation it looks like. That's when you feel the magic hit. When Knobstradamus's spell goes off, there's a ripple of space-time warping across the panels of the page. It looks as if the page itself is being rewritten, as Esmeralda seems to disappear, the subject of this short spat fading away, to be replaced by something else in the translation... Except, nothing does. It seems as if everything is frozen into place, and the Bastion is locked into place. It's immediately clear something with the spell is incomplete, but neither the Centipede nor Dark Eagle has much opportunity to deal with this, as it quickly becomes apparent that Christopher Knight is trapped along with them on the battlements. Centipede: You've got a pretty good opportunity to be all but gone and let Dark Eagle take all the heat from Christopher Knight if you want out of this. The chips are down and the jig is up, that much is obvious. Might show her for calling you a lacky... It's pretty obvious that that neither of you are going to be much a match for someone like Christopher Knight on your own. What do you do? Dark Eagle: There's a lot of anger and it only intensifies your own. The situation has escalated far beyond any of the Mystic Force were expecting, and you can tell that some of the Knight's own inhibitions are low. That could be used against him, but also means he can be very dangerous. What do you do? Above Nexus Bastion, on the bridge of the Vector (STRAIN)Everything is going according to plan, and from her vantage point, somewhat distant from the rest of the caper, STRAIN has a lot to admire, as the increasingly sapient Vector seems to perch atop the castle like some biomechanical dragon, more than airship. Its shadow seems to mirror the magic of Möbius's spell, as they are transported it seems into some intermediary dimensional space... And it becomes clear on the instruments that something is wrong. In adjoining panels, the same clockwork legionnaires that crewed the ship seem to suddenly glow in their eye-sockets a golden color, and turn on the ship itself, dismantling pieces here and tearing down the new growths of sleek gray metal, and unloading pressurized steam and electricity to denature and destabilize the streams of nanites used to control it. They are working in perfect order, but not according to the whims of the Myrmidon.  You hear scuttling in the bridge that slithering creature, and it does begin to show itself in the upper rafters over the instruments. "You foolish, meddlesome children. Do you think I did not plan in anticipation of some interruption? If I cannot have the whole army, then I shall take what I can get!" The Vizier clacks and hisses with steam from its perch, as suddenly from every angle and door, clockwork soldiers begin to close in on STRAIN's position! STRAIN: The legionnairies are not as easily subverted by your technopathy, they'll need some conversion and the sheer number that are under the control of the Vizier means you're in a tight spot. You'll have to think quickly if you want to keep your position, and protect your new asset from being torn apart. Unfortunately, you have no backup, at least presently. What do you do? Last, but certainly not least, at the Heart of the Castle, our final confrontation looms... (Royal Rose, Zapper, Blackguard)The spell goes off, but there's a tension in the air that makes it obvious even if it's not immediately communicated to the rest of the team that something has gone awry, and that there is a limited window in which the heroes will have a chance to catch an opportunity. Yet as the three of you wait here at the heart, the heroes fall easily into whatever trap you have lain. It's the three junior members of the Mystic Force, introduced in three inset panels over a splash page, as Tween Twitch takes the lead. "I think we have something to add to your article on "Unsung Heroes," Merry Melody." Sounds like somebody looked up the official CRISIS accreditation on the ID. Tween Twitch, the canny Imp, and edgelord Ghostface are all three present, and while they aren't the heavy hitters the Mystic Force are, they at least equal your numbers. But it's obvious they aren't going to leave it at that, and they obviously move as a team, beginning to cast a spell. "You see, while all the aunties and uncles are out, we've still got a little fire..." Imp burns a summoning circle on the ground before them. "A pinch of magic," Twitch casts some light down upon it in the next panel. "And the shadows," Ghostface tries his best to growl, but his voice cracks in the process... That does a little to detract from what comes next, but it's still not great, as something is called forth with the mix of tenebrous, demonic, and arcane power. A magical guardian is to be expected. But did it have to be a giant death dog?  With the odds somewhat shifted, Tween Twitch rides forward on her broom alongside with the guardian, while Imp appears hanging from the chandelier above you, ready, to pounce down, and Ghostface just sort of floats forward, laughing in a spooky, if kooky way. It's on. Melody: Why did it have to be a dog? God, does Twitch even know? She's the worst. Unlike your group, you can tell these three know how to work as a team, but that doesn't mean there aren't fault-lines here. They are obviously all very different, and maybe if you can find the most vulnerable one to take off, that will get rid of the guardians as well, but if no one deals with the giant death dog, well, that's gonna be a problem. What do you do? Zapper: This is a bit out of your league. You were able to take down some low-ranking animal-themed villains, but you're looking now at some serious magical firepower. Even these teenage junior scouts are capable of things you could only dream of trying to replicate with a little galvanic science. So, time to show them what you had prepared with the time you had. This was a trap, after all, wasn't it? Or after seeing what they can do, are you just gonna get the heck out of Dodge? What do you do? Blackguard: So far the caper has been pretty low action, and now it has it in spades. At least this time you have full control of your faculties, no weird shadow-magic to hold you back... But yo uget the impression your Krueger tricks aren't going to do much against this death dog. You could isolate one of the teen heroes, of course, but then who will take care of Fido? Melody? Zapper? You've got some choices to make. What do you do? Remember, take +1 forward on your first roll in this scene, as you have caught the heroes flat-footed and succeeded at the core of the caper.
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Jan 10, 2017 15:46
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Fre: +1 | Dan: -2 | Tro: +1 | Sup: +2 | Men: +1 Curses!: 0/5 | Conditions: Angry | Cards: 1 Location: Nexus Bastion Flashback (In the LAIR) Jonathan, still pacing around, nodded to himself ever so slightly as the plan coalesced in his mind. So clear that he could almost see it unfolding before his very eyes. "Yes", he intoned, "All seems to be accounted for. Except our actual destination. Once again, no demiplane or pocketplane or freefloating planelocked orbital pattern can be achieved without a Planelock Tesseract, so unless by some miraculous fluke we happen to find one, those are out of our bounds. Any suggestions? If none are coming, I'll just put it on The Moon. It's a classic, and has a nice view. A perfectly good option." ___________________ Back at the Bastion A pair of gargoyles charge, only for the space around them to crack, slightly at first, but quickly expanding into a criss cross of gaping tears as it was being shattered into the void, taking the gargoyles with it into the endless abyss of the Interplanar Void. Möbius merely sped past this wound in spacetime, an expression of unbridled fury on his face as his gaze swept the corridors, in a desperate attempt to find the Tesseract left by that perfidious sneak. Now, Möbius had enough self-awareness to recognize that he should have expected something like this. After all, how else would his inferior gain advantage except by trickery? But a far larger part of his psyche was yelling and screeching at his 'allies'. This was exactly like the incident with the Topomantic Lodestone. Once again he had been let down by those buffoons. His knuckles whitened as he gripped Parallax, his infuriated state of mind incapable of holding back his disappointment any longer, and slammed it against the floor, powerful enough even its drained state to generate spatial disturbance forceful enough to carry his voice to every nook and cranny of the castle. "IDIOTS!" "INGRATES!" "Once more your inane bumbling has let me down! Once again you have failed to inform me of traps laid for us by our inferiors!" "I grow tired of your incompetence. It seems I truly have to do EVERYTHING MYSELF!" Then there was... a feeling. There was no sound, but there was a sense of some calamity hanging in the air. The void compasses aboard The Vector went haywire, the glowing eyes of the animated creatures flickered slightly due to thaumic interference. But it was only the magically sensitive who could sense what was coming before anything happened. The sheer weight of all those wards, spatial distortions, mazes and impossible shapes that Möbius had constructed with the power of the Omnidepository suddenly turning inwards, rushing towards the bastion at their center, imploding to the scene. There was a second of weighty, oppressive silence. Then everything exploded, then came back together, then twisted like a pretzel as the Bastion folded into itself through fifth dimensional loops, and the internal geometries of the place very suddenly stopped making any sort of sense to those used to only three spatial dimensions. To call the resultant, twisting mess Escherian would have been an understatement, as rooms and corridors changed shape, dimension, and broke every conceivable geometric law in kaleidoscopic glory. Giant tears to the Interplanar Void opened and closed seemingly at random, throwing gargoyles, suits of armor, and everything else that held any sort of hostile enchantment right out into the aether. It was chaos. Except it wasn't. It was all carefully orchestrated, as Jonathan forcefully squeezed this bubble of space he had created, combing it for the Tesseract by force as rooms and bits of furniture flashed before his very eyes from his new, fifth dimensional perspective. "FOOLS. YOU'RE IN MY WORLD NOW!" "Try not to lose your way." There was a mocking, almost crazed sort of laughter, and then silence. quote:Theantero: But regardless, Möbius Directly Engages the Castle Defenses via Discard, burning 1 Card (+1 from the Forward) Right. I am Taking Something From Them, in this case securing the Tesseract as Möbius scours every little bit of the mansion from his new perspective. Also, Impressing, Surprising, or Frightening the opposition because Möbius is going all out and  and those little kids need to be shown WHO THEY'RE DEALING WITHAlso, the part I am uncovering about my larger plans (due to Discard) is our destination, since all those cool wards and covers that Möbius made are spent to rattle the Bastion instead of cowering it, and thus it ought to be easy for Allison to track. Also reopening the discussion about the destination since we actually kinda need one. Theantero fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 18:10
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Freak: +2 | Danger: +0 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +2 Curses!: 3/5 | Conditions: Paranoid | Infamy: 1 | Location: Nexus Battlements. Centipede looked at the great spacial anomaly, and at the castle, then at the very angry hero in front of him. Well, this just wasn't his day now was it? Now he ran the numbers in his head real quick. The villain part of his brain told him, that if he just ditched Dark Eagle to let her face Christopher right now he could probably get away scott free and let her deal with the consequences. Being that she was more then happy to attack unaffiliated civilian targets in the midst of a mission it might be for the best in the long run, since it was only a matter of time before she started flaying bankers alive for the cause. Best that she gets mullered by an angry superhero now and then Wilbur could say she accidentally fell down some stairs or something. This was the plan, this was the plan his brain attempted to deliver to his body. But it ran into traffic, because right in at the heart of Wilbur, Trevor, The Centipede and Multiplex was the instincts of a superhero. Stupid instincts, stupid instincts that had arranged the thought of 'she can't fight this hero, and neither can I, but I'm more likely to survive an attack then she is.' And despite everything that he could accuse Leila from, he could never bring it in his heart of hearts to sell out a comrade something that his villain parts were telling him was going to bite him in the rear end later. And so his super-heroic instincts were there nanoseconds before the villain parts of the brain even got the first word in, to do something really stupid. "Think Fast!" 17:52 TheNabster Centipede uses POCKET HANDS. Distracting Christopher Knight 17:52 TheNabster !r 2d6 17:52 Krysmbot TheNabster, 3 = 3 17:52 TheNabster Pocket hands didn't work In a lightning fast moment, The Centipede's hand lashed out of his pocket, throwing straight at Christopher what looked all the world like four hands out stretched towards his face. Around half way to the target, it flopped on the floor with a very embarrassing plap. An awkward silence descends over the battlements, as the hands right themselves, and scuttled their way back to Wilbur disappearing under his coat. As he held that throwing pose as still as a statue, he wished in that instant for the whole world to swallow him up right now to escape this colossal failure in front of a teammate he was trying to save. Blue Caption: Oh $%*^ me. His other arm elbowed Dark Eagle. "Run." TheNabster fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 19:17
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Freak: +0 | Danger: +3 | Trouble: +0 | Superior: -1 | Menace: +1 Curses: 3/5 | Infamy: +0 | Location: Nexus Bastion Flashback: At Möbius' Crib So I'm still getting my head in the game after that whole crap after the Omnidepository, The Triad and the talk with Star Spectres at the Astroplasm Café. And yeah, what Möbius brings up, where we're actually going to move the castle to is important, but right now, I really have to force myself to care about it. Not just lash out in annoyance, even though I know it doesn't have anything to do with the matter at hand. "The Moon. You're already talking about it being tough to teleport it. Now you're talking about putting into a place where, if our magical whatevers ever fail..." I wave my hand. "...we're gonna suffocate and float off into space." Well. I might not actually suffocate, but screw you if you think I'll test that crap. "Looked something up in the databases some time back. Area, eastern US. Got a real Trannsylvania vibe." I pause. Pretty sure it's clear why I think that'd fit our actual evil castle. "Our boy Dracula used it. Used to. That's why it was on the databases." Picking up with our castle - literal castle! - in the footsteps of the literal Dracula. This life I live. Idiotic. Ridiculous. Kind of awesome. Present: Nexus Bastion I can feel, smell it like a storm on the horizon. I can't tell right away what it is, but I know in my guts that it is something exciting. And there are so few things in my life that excite me. A thunderstorm in all its glory, its destruction, its power, its clarity. It makes you want to storm out into the pouring rain, let it wash over your skin, raise your hands towards the sky. A small part of my mind, not caught up in this, asks itself whether it can be anything good that's coming if it breaks through the cold walls of what I normally am like this. But I shut it up. Wait for it to come, like waiting for the chorus to kick in in a song you already know. And then it happens, only it is not just one thing, but a metric crap ton of things all at the same time - or at least my head mixes them all together like they are. I can feel a… loosening of reality - and I don't even care about why I'm suddenly thinking in those terms - a jumble of what should normally be straightforward, familiar. Part of me is trying to make sense of it, of the impossibly moving halls I can see out of the corner of my eye. But another part of me knows this. Is familiar with this. Paths leading in circles, back to where you want to be the least - the thing controlling where you end up no longer logic, what came before, but you. What is in your head. Emotions. That's the logic of dreams. No. Nightmares. And, a small voice adds, not so different from what often is going on in my head. But then all that abstract crap is pushed aside by something more immediate. Closer to the sickness at my heart. Those gargoyles and armors, yeah, it felt good to thrash them, but it was just like doing pushups on your own. Not the real thing. They were empty, unthinking, unfeeling. For better or worse, I suppose, I am… a social animal. I'm driven to be with others. With other animals. And so I perk up right away when I see them - or do I sense them first? - the three teenage Mystic Force juniors. At first I think it is one of them - when I think again, that is. Because I can feel it, raw and sweet, in the room. Fear. Not slow, stretched out dread, but immediate, almost animal fear. Under my armor, I shudder, clench my teeth, try to enjoy it without going too far. Like I always do. But then I frown - I can't see it in their eyes, the giving up of rationality to something more primal. Instead, they are doing some half dance / half kids show magic routine, finishing each others sentences, each others magic whatevers. Then who…? Oh. Oh no. I can feel the impulse running through my head to put my hand to my mouth, to turn back to her, but it never reaches my body. Melody. And with that, the whole thing is poisoned again, not least because a part of me is not… disgusted by knowing it was Melody that was so afraid, so close to me. I want to go to her, but right now I can't trust myself, don't know why I want to go to her. To comfort her, or to... something else. I push it away. I push it away harder. Beat it away, wrestle it down. I let myself feel angry, cold and unforgiving. Make myself turn the anger on them, the three of them, that little show they put on. Channel that anger into a purpose, something I have already sworn myself to, as if I were some actual frigging knight. Black as the depth of the sea, but still a knight. Sworn to protect my lady. Protect Melody. Even though I know better, I give part of myself to that insanity, to that delusion. I already decided to put a frigging big-rear end black armor some time ago, not going all the way would just be hypocrisy. It feels like I am standing up straight again, taller, even though I know rationally I haven't moved an inch this whole time. Do the shadows grow deeper, or is it all in my head? Who the crap cares? Right now, I feel - no, not powerful. But I have a straightforward, cold purpose. And at times, that seems like enough to ask for. Large Panel: Blackguard is shot from behind, from a low angle. Royal Rose are partially visible on the left and right edge. Balckguard steps forward towards the Junior Mystic Force, visible in the background. The halls of the Nexus Bastion are now coloured in a purple shade, to indicate the dimensional shenanigans going on. Caption: I won'the speak, not yet. It is much better this way. Panel: The junior Mystic Force now shot from behind, the Blackguard before them, standing tall, ready for battle. The part of the panel with the forces of the Defiant D4C is shadowy, the part of the panel with the Mystic Force comparatively light. Caption: Fine by me if they make the first move. Want to see who hesitates. Who wants to prove themselves. Who looks at who for support. And when they move... what comes, they brought it on themselves. Split panel: Tween Twitch, Imp and Ghost face - all their faces shown under the eye of the Blackguard, her helmeted visage in the central panel! nil__> Blackguard Assess <nil__> !r 2d6-1+1 <Krysmbot> nil__, 7-1+1 = 7 Asking: How can we end this quickly? nil. fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 21:37
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Freak +1 / Danger 0 / Trouble +2 / Superior 0 / Menace 0 Curses! 1/5 Conditions: Angry Integrity 1+1 Location: Nexus Bastion I'm still sorting through Centipede's attempted parting shot when everything goes wrong. Knight appears out of nowhere, Jonathan's disconcerting magic lets us down, and now I'm standing here with my new least favorite teammate and one of the many Mystic Force heroes I'd hoped to never meet. Christopher Knight could comfortably beat any of us hand-to-hand, Blackguard probably included, and he's a master sorcerer on top of that. He's furious, understandably, and his fury could easily send us both to the hospital... or the morgue. Anger is a powerful button to push, but only when you've got a way of taking advantage of it. No, the smart thing to do here would be to run, find the others, regroup and hope that the eight of us together can match him... but that's assuming nobody else is in any sort of trouble, which is never how the world works. Centipede clearly has the same idea, and I can sense his intention to distract Knight seconds before his hand goes to his pocket...and he embarrasses us both. The CRISIS goons smirk at each other, and I sense a flicker of amusement behind Knight's glare. It's probably just as well they can't see my face inside this helmet. So, Plan B. Ideally, I'd have attempted this before Centipede jumped the gun, but it's the best I've got. I take a moment to ready my business voice, then stride forward, radiating confidence. Knight doesn't have a lot of surprise or respect to work with but it's easier to find some in the grunts he's brought with him, and I can use that to amplify the effect. "The Myrmidon's not here, gentlemen. Looks like your response time could use some improvement. I wonder what the public will think? The most predictable villain in the universe, and he's slipped through your fingers. I wonder, would it be better or worse if they thought it was deliberate?" I push shame carefully, trying not to let anger take precedence, trying not to let my own anger flood through and wreck everything. You screwed up. You want to make this right. Not for the first time, I find myself wishing I could implant the thoughts directly. "But you know what is here? Navigational data for his entire fleet. Each one of those ships is connected to every other one, and it's all laid out in nice simple charts. It's all up there." I point up to the Juggernaut hanging above the castle. "Which was really the first place you should have looked." One of the goons shifts on his feet uncomfortably, and I take the opportunity to push confusion a little, and dampen down anger. "You're wondering why you should trust me. You think I'm just playing for time. Well, you're right to be suspicious. The truth is..." I can feel my train of thought rolling to an unpleasant halt...and then it hits me. Centipede's words come flooding back in a rush. I take a deep breath and let my voice rise triumphantly. "The truth is, we have a common cause, gentlemen! We have no interest in seeing the Legion on the loose either. But unlike some people, we actually did our homework! Did you know the Golden Vizier was planning to betray the Myrmidon? Did you know he was taking orders from the Infinite Empire?" Of course, Centipede's evidence for that link hardly seemed solid...but the Mystic Force can work that one out in their own time. "You were happy to imprison an obvious figurehead, and the Legion would have invaded anyway, more powerful than ever! But now, the Vizier has been neutralized, and the Legion's weaknesses will be exposed for all to see. It's taken us a few days to achieve what you couldn't in decades!" I shrug theatrically, and tilt my head upwards. "But I suppose we'll have to be content with letting you take the credit. You'll have to hurry, though...I don't know how well that ship is tethered to this dimension." I've got no idea if that's true or not, but it sounds plausible. I search for every scrap of agreement and respect and enthusiasm and pull them towards the surface. Provoke Knight: 2d6+1 9 +1 from catching him flat-footed. I get +1 forward against him, we gain a critical opportunity, or I get Influence over him - GM's choice. Dark Eagle's extensive gloating about the Caper lets her swap our 1 remaining Plan for a point of Integrity. Because that might be the only way to make this right. If I'm going to be sleeping in a goddamn castle tonight, the only way I'll get any rest is knowing that someone is taking care of the threat we've unleashed. e: spelling Gato fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 22:30
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Fre: +1 | Dan: +0 | Tro: -1 | Sup: +3 | Men: +0 Curses!: 1/5 | Infamy: 1| Conditions: None Location: Nexus Bastion Of COURSE it doesn't go just as planned, nothing ever seems to anymore - except when I use my Magic to make the world right, anyways, but that has limits, and I was sort of preoccupied with the ritual here! In this instance that turns out to be a localized spatial anomaly, Mobius' ranting over the communicators, and a trio of heroes here to try and stop us - too late for that friends. I make sure to give them a sarcastic wave as they enter the room, images of rose petals trailing my hand's movements. I'm tempted to just try and blast them, but we gotta do this right: exchange banter and taunts first, then go for things. They get right to that of course - I'm starting to feel the beginnings of a 'we're not so different' speech coming on, though given how inferior they are to me it'd be an utterly unconvincing performance. Tween Twitch has decided to try and taunt me with my official villain name, and that she knows she's been tricked - which seems like a dumb thing to brag about, but I'm not accusing her of being all that bright. Ghostface just looks all spooky and weird, and therefore I assume he's who Delilah will match off against. Imp's hanging from the chandolier, which earns her a disapproving look. This is about to be our base, I don't want her wrecking the place and especially not when it's brand new. Their triple-summoning-spell is cute, I'll give it that, but I can just magically compel their summon to ob- DOG! gently caress IT'S A HUGE DOG AHHHHH! Staggering backwards immediately, every instinct is telling me to just RUN. I cannot STAND big dogs, they're terrifying! They're even worse than spiders, they're literally the scariest animal I ever have to deal with - and that includes magical ones. Eyes wide, the drat thing's even flying, and there are three heroes here on top of the GIANT DEATH DOG, and I CANNOT deal with this right now. Not when we're so close! Focusing on the summoned monster, I wave my hands about as I utter an incantation, knowing exactly how to get rid of the drat thing for a while - it's clearly my top priority! "S... S-SIHUO RYN NEUMA!" I shout, arcane energy whipping my hair and waist sash about, and then a giant Golden and Silver cage reinforced with magical runes forms around the death dog in a flash of ruby light, leaving it both grounded and trapped, raging at its bars in a (temporarily) futile gesture. <Rauri> Unleash Powers to Cage the Death Dog <Rauri> !r 2d6+2 <Krysmbot> Rauri, 10+2 = 12 <Yamifenrir> CAN WE HAVE SOME OF THOSE ROLLS Reshaping landscape to seal the dog away for a while. Phew - that's a lot better. Grinning now that their puppy's put away, I step forward once again to face these Mystic Force's idiot apprentices, looking elegant and composed and beautiful and not freaking out over a dog. "That thing doesn't seem house trained, I insist you remove it from our new base immediately." There's a weird dichotomy between how friendly I seem and the look in my eyes. "You're no match for the three of us. Leave now, or you're all going to end up getting hurt." Glancing at my teamates, I want them to make sure they understand who I'm speaking to now. "Blackguard's more than a match for Ghostface, while the Imp's tricks are nothing compared to Zapper's. And Twitch, you can't even tell what's real around me... do you really want to embarrass yourself again?" I'm really smug while that dog's locked up and I'm careful to not look at it.
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Jan 11, 2017 08:28
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Freak: 2 | Danger: 0 | Trouble: -1 | Superior: 2 | Menace: 0 Curses!: 1/5 | Conditions: Paranoid | Location: On board the Vector Previously, in the Möbius Crib "I hear someone recently bought a tropical island with their Unobtainium haul. Would be a shame if someone laid claim to it by parking a castle on it. I'm fairly certain I could determine it's location due to certain members of the Masters of Disaster being not very careful. It would serve them well for showing us up at the club." I provide. I would rather use Holograftic to spread my nanites across all of them eventually, but the idea of sticking it to them feels strangely alluring. Enough so that I'd be willing to show my hand by dredging up the information necessary. The look on their faces when we materialize the Nexus Bastion on top of them would be well worth it. "Although I have to admit that the Moon might be... okay. I would be nice to stake a claim among the stars. Technically." Currently, on the Vector What? What!? Even before this stupid wanna-be dragon speaks up I can sense that something is wrong. Connections are going dark, conduits disrupted. Somebody is hurting the Vector! And naturally it can't help but reveal itself. I mean, that's just proper protocol, really and I appreciate the courtesy of it gloating, even if it's gloating at me. Damnit, I should have spend more time on the constructs. But if they're rebelling then they are doing so under the Vizier's command. Unlike my genius creation, if I take out him then the legionnaires should stop. Hopefully. I pull myself away from the console and draw my blasters from their holsters and fire at the advancing clockwork robots. "Jealous that it took me mere hours what you had to plot and scheme for? It's alright, you can't help that you're an inferior inorganic being than me." Most of the shots go stray, but then they're not my real target anyway. I vaguely hear Möbius rant and rave about something but I really don't care right now. Something's not gone as planned with his magic. What a surprise. "You're so much smaller than the ship, I wonder how many nanites it'll take to take you over the way I did with the Vector." Under my mask I grin, despite the advancing clockwork soldiers. When the first one reaches me I jump backwards, hover-pack engaging to push me into the air as I flip backwards, the clockwork soldier's weapon narrowly missing me just as planned. Möbius was right, they are predictable. My feet make contact with one of the rafters and I push myself off to change directions, energy-pistols drawn and just waiting for the corner the Vizier is hiding into come into view through the rafters. This is my ship now and he might have almost gotten the jump on me once but now that I know he's here there's few places to hide. I see the glimpse of brass shimmer in the sights of my weapons and I squeeze the trigger, bright energy bolts discharging at the little metal snake. <Atropha> Directly Engaging's the way to go. Hopefully. <Atropha> !roll 2d6+1 <Krysmbot> Atropha, 10+1 = 11 Going with avoiding his blows (or the clockwork soldier's) and frightening the Vizier Atropha fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 11, 2017 |
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Jan 11, 2017 17:27
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|Freak -1 Danger 0 Trouble +2 Superior +1 Menace +1 Infamy: 1 Curses! 0/5 Conditions: Angry Location: Nexus Bastion, Heart of the Castle Even the power couple making eyes at each other isn't enough to dampen Paola's mood. They're in, it's done, they've made it. Now all that remains to do is ride it out and wait for the castle to land on- The whole building shakes, and as she regains her footing the inventor notices her communicator vibrating. "drat it!" she whispers as she answers it. "Zapper here, what is-" "ATES!" Mobius' voice is so explosive she has to pulls it away from her ear. "Once more your inane bumbling has let me down! Once again you have-" Zapper turns off the comunicator, groaning in frustration. She's not getting anything useful out of him when he's like this. Mental note: talk about only using communicators for, you now, actually communicating and not venting your rage like a twelve year old. She's about to comment on this to Blackguard and Rose when the Junior Mystic Force arrives on the scene, cheesier than a saturday morning cartoon; she's tempted to come up with a biting quip but the appearance of some sort of hellhound shuts her up. Zapper's eyes follow her companions trap the beast and step in front of its summoners. All eyes are on Blackguard now, which means this is the perfect time to sneak to the side and approach them from there. Bouncing Betty was right; they really do immediately focus on the one they see as the biggest threat. She bites her lip, as she looks over the opposition. Is that a pang of jealousy? Does she want to be the one they're scared of? No time to thing about that now. She needs a plan of attack. She holds the grappling hook in her hand. She recently got some new parts from Joan, her friend with the pawn shop, and fiddled with it a bit, giving it an extra setting: now it can either pull her up comfortably and without rush, ideal for wall-climbing, or rapidly, for combat situation. Is this the right time to test that? The only one in this group of heroes that she's 100% sure can even feel her tasers is Tween Twitch, and she's flying out of her reach... As Paola, unnoticed, makes her way towards the young heroes, sneaking from one column to the next, her goggles catch a pool of "aetheric resonance" coming from a low, large window on her right. There's plenty of that stuff already whenever Mobius does magic, traversing the room in long, sharp lines turning at recise angle, forming complicated patterns through the air and on walls, ceiling and pavement. But this window... a bunch of whatever it is that powers Mobius magic pooled there (or maybe these junky goggles picked up something else and just called it "aetheric resonance as well") and formed... she turns off the goggles , she sees the same room she's standing in, but seen from about five meters off the ground, from the side the Junior Mystic Force entered. She turns to look at that side, and sure enough, another window, identical to this one is there. It also has the same aetheric presence. Flabbergasted, Paola puts her hand in the window, and sees it come out from the twin window. It loops. Why does it loop? It this an effect of Mobius' magic? Something the castle itself did? The scientist in her wonders at the possibilities, but only for a moment. The villain sees an opportunity and she won't let it pass her by. She aims her grappling hook. She takes a deep breath. From the point of view of the heroes, a grappling hook shoots out of nowhere from the window behind them, and attaches itself to the ceiling. With a mighty battle cry (that is not at all the result of the hook flying more forcefully than expected) Zapper flies in, shattering the window in the process. She lets go of the gadget just in time to land onto Imp, squarely on her shoulders just as she was about to teleport somewhere else. Mad with adrenaline and knowing full well of exposed she is, she grabs her by the horn and beats her head into the pavement, hoping to knock her out before she can react. quote:
paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jan 13, 2017 |
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Jan 12, 2017 00:56
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Freak +0 | Danger -1 | Trouble +2 | Superior +0 | Menace +2 Curses: 0/5 | Conditions: None | Location: The Nexus Bastion Walking out of the quarters area, Copycat walks on the... ceiling? Floor? Möbius is at it again, but this isn't her first time at the topomancy rodeo, and she knows that if you often just try really hard to keep your perspective fluid, things'll work out. Jailbird actually meanders a little has he follows, though, his tail high and hair on end. She pulls out her smartphone - jailbroken, as if you had to ask - and pulls on the memories she got during the time at the coffee shop. "Kind of amazing that has somebody that remembers cell phone numbers in this day and age..." Thumbing away, she sends a message. A moment later, on Tween Twitch's cell... pre:> has your fam seen your little black book > they will unless you throw this fight > nice room > i think i'll take it > luv cats And another text, this time to Möbius.... pre:> mobby > chapel's at the tesseract > tesseract's at the chapel > let's pack this up Gloating about her master plan and targeting Tween Twitch. She's got +1 forward from assessing, for a... 14, which should add a Plan to the pool and take Twitch out of the conflict, presuming my use is legit.
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Jan 13, 2017 08:24
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