|
Imma stare at this and think about it Lucky Ted the Beacon will ride again! Lucky Ted, the Beacon [MY SEXY PICTURE HERE SOON] quote:- How did you gain your skills? "Short answer, one part genetics, two parts au naturale talent." "The long answer is a bit more complicated then that. When I was a kid, I loved sports, I really loved sports. I never was any good at them to start but it was a dream of mine to play baseball professionally and wanted to give it a good college try. So I played, and I trained, and I played until one day it just sort of, clicked. That happened around puberty, something that with the hindsight of a few years should have really raised a few flags but, suddenly I was kicking rear end. I was tearing up the minor leagues, then the junior leagues, then I was getting scouted for the New Arcadia Satyrs - Go Satyrs! - and I was seeing a future in front of me doing something I loved doing and was good at doing, it was a dream come true. "And then the first blood tests came back and I was confirmed to have mutagenic genes. And the rules are very clear on people with superpowers competing against people without superpowers, it's a complete no go, further tests after the initial detection uncovered some weird photographic reflexes power and well, that was it right there and then. Suddenly I wasn't talented I just got lucky. Never-mind the peak physical fitness I tried drat hard to maintain, never-mind all the work I put in before the drat thing even triggered when I hit puberty, my career was over before it even begun." "Good thing I found one just as rewarding." quote:- When did you first put on your costume? "Oh this old thing? I've had it for ages before I was even a superhero." He turns his back to the interviewer and with two thumbs points to his back, he looks over his shoulder. "Check it, Lucky Palmer, Number 7, this was when I actually had a career in baseball to look forward to, you know you've made it when you get your own jersey." He visibly slumps. "But when the allegations came out, well that was it for that dream and so I used to just wear it when I went out to practice. Pretty stupid really, I could have just thrown it away but I kept it and wore it for dumb sentimental reasons." "It's around the time where I met my sponsor, saved his life and accidentally became a superhero that it rather became my superhero costume too. We'll get back to that in a moment though, those questions are further down the list." quote:- Who, outside of the team, thinks you shouldn’t be a superhero?  "Well I can think of a few detractors but the biggest pain in my rear end right now is this guy." "Flyboy over here is one Professor Hector Ramirez, also known as Tango, He was one of the founding members of the Hero Academy and he doesn't really approve of me or my like in this school no sirree. You see whilst the school has always been accommodating for those with the genetic powers to vomit flames everywhere; or incredible psionic/magical talent, or even those people who just built their own powers from the ground up with their own two hands, it's where you get to people with some might say 'street level' ability is where the rules get a bit, conflicting." "The academy's problem - Well Hector's problem - is that the profession of being a superhero is an incredibly dangerous one at the best of times even for your fire-spewers and spell-slingers, for every cape that you see reach retirement and become living legends, you get plenty more that weren't so lucky even with all their power. So what do you do when you get the kind of people who don't have those kinds of powers? Maybe they are pretty good with a bow and arrow, or are good at kicking rear end with hand and foot or maybe they are a dab hand with a sword but in the most base and practical definition of the word they are completely human. Completely human, and expected to go up against the same kinds of threats the slingers and the spewers and the smart boys have to fight with nothing more then guts and gusto." "That's why Hector has always been dead against the inclusion of natural ability heroes within the ranks of the Academy, but, he is only one man on the board and the other members feel that when the person in question has exceptional natural abilities and the drive to succeed that they shouldn't be denied access to the Academy because they aren't 'strong' enough." "As for me? Well the fact that I am not even someone with a background in combat skills but baseball really chafes with him, which is why he has made it his business to be on my rear end for any mistakes I make. You're going to have to try harder then that to discourage me sir, Lucky Ted is no quitter." quote:- Why do you try to be a hero? "There were two things I obsessively followed when I was a kid, baseball, and superheroes. At first I gave up on the superhero stuff, I wasn't all that smart, or strong, and I couldn't shoot lightning out of my hands I had no chance of being a superhero in my mind, but a star baseball player? That was the dream, that was what I decided to aim for. But when what happened happened, I was suddenly stuck with nowhere to go, and that's where I would have been for the rest of my life practically." "And then my favorite hero. Not just a hero, not just a famous hero, my personal number one - had the posters; bought the comics, bought the action figures, followed every interview - that hero, my idol, right there, I saved his life and he offered me a chance to enroll in one of the most famous academies in the entire country, because he was certain that I had the right chops for it after what I did that day." "Do you say no to that offer? Even if you think you aren't good enough? Even if you think it's a really hard job to live up to? Would you honestly turn down the offer of a lifetime?" "I might be inadequate in some areas and hopeless in others, but I'm not gonna squander this chance, I'll practice to my fingers bleed if I have to." quote:- Why do you care about the team? "I love superheroes man! Is it weird to be a superhero fanboy when you yourself are a superhero? Is it kosher to ask for autographs before or after a mission? Would it be weird? I don't know but the fact that I get to be on the same team as some of the up and coming rising stars in the country and I get to be counted amongst their number? It's almost a dream come true." "You guys are the best!" quote:- Which hero sponsored your entrance into the academy? What did you do to impress them? "Oooh I can answer both of these in one!"  He's so cool! "Justiciar is the most every man good guy doing what he can hero in the entire country and he is just, the best. Like a genuinely good guy and an amazingly skilled hero with his super strength and cosmic blasters. I always wanted to meet the man in person you know? Tell him what a true inspiration he was to me, sappy fanboy nonsense, that kind of thing.  "But the day I actually met him in person, he was fighting the Metalocalypse (If you don't know the backstory the ghost of a crazy roadie inhabited a construction robot and now it's a giant metal robot with it's own tiny roadies.) I knew this because he was thrown through the wall of the leisure center I was hanging out in. And he was looking beat up, the Metalocalypse is a handful at the best of times but this time he was amped up on some weird magic stuff and he was even more dangerous. And he was doing as villains do taunting Justicar about it, dangling it out of his reach, gloating." "He stopped when I smashed it right out of his hand with a corker of a pitch. I was always known for my pinpoint fastballs, I didn't know what I was doing but it was there, and I had a ball, so I just hurled it and knocked it right out of his hand. And when you think you've done something really stupid you go into overdrive, so I clear the distance of the hall, snatched the thing up and just ran. Ran whilst a now very angry robot screaming bloody murder pounded down the street after me, and when he cornered me in an alleyway I thought I was done for. But that stalling tactic was all Justicar needed to power himself back up and bring him down with with his signature STARLIGHT CRUSHER. It was over before the reinforcements even turned up." "Of course I got yelled at by the other veteran superheroes for needlessly putting my life in danger and trying to take on a supervillain with a bat, but what was I supposed to do? I wasn't about to see my idol get mushed, and he knew it, so after my mandatory chastising by the man, he took me out of earshot of the other heroes and thanked me. Me! I was just in the right place at the right time and because of that the legendary Justicar was thanking me for saving his life! "The next day I got a letter from him and that letter contained two things. One of them was an enrollment letter for the Hero Training Academy, and the other was a letter from the man himself, telling me that after he had informed the board about what transpired and what I did, he convinced them to let me try out at the academy if I wanted to go for it." "It's been hard work since then, but it's worth it." quote:- Tell me about that one interesting person in your class!  "Turns out I'm not the only sports fan who made it into the Academy." "This is Blitzer, he used to play the quarterback at his high-school until a freak accident gave him super-speed abilities and he transferred to the Academy to begin learning how to control his powers. He has a rather weird subset of superspeed that only lets him go fast in a straight line, no curves, no fast movements, just straight lines and sharp right angles almost like a living light-bike really. But once he gets going boy does he get going, he is definitely in the upper tier in terms of powers. "The only thing is he doesn't seem all that keen to be here, like he has the power set to become a great hero but seems more interested in just passing his classes and graduating from the academy at the end of the day, rather then actually going into the career proper. Maybe he needs the right morale boost? I've been there buddy, I know what it's like to have your future take a sudden sharp swerve because of stuff out of your control, you can talk to good old Ted about it. I don't bite." quote:- What's your favorite class? What about least favorite? "Take a guess... Did you guess Physical Education? Well..." "Actually I really like Field Work lessons, which is essentially P.E but on steroids. This isn't learning how to play football, this is learning how you handle yourself during say, a flood, or a giant robot attack, or maybe a bomb has gone off and you are doing search and rescue efforts. And some times you get days where teams of supers are pitted against each other to test their capabilities, it's awesome! It's the closest you can get to feeling like a real life superhero without the inherent risk of death! Mostly. I mean serious injuries are an unfortunate possibility but at least when your class mate throws you out a window there's a medic nearby." As for least favorite? Did you know Superheroic Law is mandatory? I didn't, and boy let me tell you if you ever thought that learning about the intricacies and nitty gritties of the 'Superheroic Registration Act' or 'Plutonious v. The City of Metropolis' or 'The Extraterritorial Boundaries Act' would be anything but the most grinding hour you've ever been willingly subjected to, then you are some sort of crazy person! Even the teacher seems to be aware that it's something the government pushed for rather then something pushed by the school itself. quote:- What do you like to do in your free time? "I practice, a lot, like large amounts of the day spent in the gym or or the danger room or even in the library to keep in peak physical and mental condition." "Why? Because I'm the one normal guy among superheroes man! If I'm not at peak performance at all times, and if I'm not doing my damnedest to learn anything new that I possibly can, then I have no right to even think about calling myself a superhero, let alone attending lessons at this academy. But to be fair, it's opened me up to a lot of things I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. Gymnastics for example, photographic reflexes made it really easy to catch up from what was a several years late start to some of the people in my class. And some sword-fighting too although it's a little weird when you apply that to a bat. And other sports clubs, and let me tell you, if you think you've played basketball before, wait until you play 3 on 3 basketball against an elastic man, a falcon-man hybrid, and a 7 foot tall living statue. Then you've played ball for real. "And also also every Sunday I head over to the Lander's Grove Stadium to watch the Satyrs play - Go Satyrs! - You gotta support the home team right? And I have done so religiously ever since my dad took me when I was just a kid. I've even been considering bringing some of the others along with me but I haven't been able to catch them at a good time yet, a shame really, I think some of them would enjoy it." quote:- New Arcadia’s a pretty sweet place, isn’t it? Tell me about that one cool place you like!  The Heliodome was a building constructed during Olympics in New Arcadia way back, and since then it has mostly been gathering dust. Until it was bought out by the Hero Training Academy and converted into an artificial city state for the purpose of training exercises! Retrofitted with artificial weather, self converting environments it puts the 'art' into state of the art. The words 'practical lessons' have a whole new meaning when it's a perfectly constructed recreation of an abandoned factory area in heavy rain and 4 teams of 5 facing of against each other in the most extreme game of tag you have ever seen, it's great! It's even used on occasion by the emergency services for their training and they can still turn it back into a plain old sports field when they want to use it for plain old sports games or concerts and the like. It's pretty awesome. quote:- (Optional) Suggest a name for the IC thread. >High Stakes and Higher Education. >An A+ for Effort. >It's Just Like One of My Japanese Animes! quote:Hero Name: Lucky Ted TheNabster fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 23, 2017 |
#
¿
Jan 19, 2017 22:58
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 00:42 |
|
|
Tardzilla posted:Round 1 Questions "Oh I know I get some dirty looks in the hallway from people with proper powers but I mostly brush them off. Screw 'em, they don't know Lucky Ted, Lucky Ted gets here on his own merits and that is all that matters. But... Ehhhh~"  I never saw the appeal of all black outfits, especially in this weather "Pointman, is a hard rear end motherfucker. I don't often swear but on this occasion it's appropriate because jesus man, if Justiciar is the image of a traditional good guy superhero, then Pointman is the image of the new breed of hard-line no bullshit rear end kickers. Those sort of heroes that tread the line between being tough on crime and an out and out vigilante because that is the only treatment they feel the new criminal class of today will actually respect and for all of it's detractors and understandable legal trouble it gets results. He got his hard knocks from the Omega Squadron at Fort Knox from an early age and is for all intents and purposes a well oiled fighting machine. He trained his whole life for this and thus is one of the strongest 'natural ability' heroes in the school." "And the fact that I got in by essentially getting strings pulled by an older hero despite my actual experience in actual combat mostly totalling a few fist fights at school and one fight with a supervillain means he thinks pretty poorly of me, in fact I think the first time we met his exact words were 'You motherfucker, you're one of the people representing the natural talent heroes in this school and you don't even know how to fight? Is this some sort of game you drat rookie? You think you're a big man because you beat one villain with help and now you think your hot poo poo? You're not worth the poo poo on my boot you clown, I'd quit whilst your ahead before you get yourself hurt kid." "So yeah we most defiantly have not hit it off in our first meeting, and my attempts to mollify him from his furious dislike of me only seems to make him angrier. I think he's far more dangerous for my health then any of the other people here in this school right now, the dude has a stick so far up his rear end you could practically see him from space and he has made it his personal business to show me up as some sort of superposer. Oh ye of little faith Pointman." Tardzilla posted:- Being the only normal guy in a school filled with people with fantastical powers must be pretty tough. Has there ever been a time when you doubted yourself? What keeps you motivated, even when things look impossible for you? When you are working yourself to the bone to try and keep pace with the superhumans, something has to give sometimes. Before I found the Secret Lucky Ted Tactic, I tried to take on the superhumans on their home terms and man, I got rocked. When you are in a contest of strength versus someone with super-strength and you are pushing as hard as you can, and they sort of lean forward a little and your shoulder muscles just tear? It sort of puts holes in your perception that you can compete on an even playing field, especially when you know they did it on purpose to show up the dumb normie So when you are laid up in a hospital bed thinking about how if it wasn't for our advances in medical technology that it would have just ended my career right there and then? Not a great feeling, lying there awake, half delirious over a lack of sleep and strong painkillers thinking about all those people who think I shouldn't be here and how they were right, a tiny thought popped right into my mind. "Why am I trying to fight fairly?" Because I am a superhero and that's what Justiciar would do. ... "But, Justiciar fights like that because he is on a level playing field a lot of the time." He has the power to hold back you can't "I can't win a fair fight on those rules, I'll never win a fair fight on those rules." Then stop treating it as a competition, this isn't a game anymore. You need play to win from this day, there is no second place in a battle. When you are several levels below your opponent and they have the overwhelming odds in their favour, what will you do? The Secret Lucky Ted Tactic bloomed in the middle of the night and it was all the inspiration I needed. "You take every opportunity to turn those overwhelming odds, into underwhelming odds. Play. To. Win." So when the next day I went back into class, and we were practice sparring, and I got the same guy who dislocated my shoulder last week he was prepared to embarrass me in front of the class again. So I smiled, I let him get the hold, then I leaned back. And kicked the smug prick as hard as I could in the crotch, with the steel-toe caps I had brought that day, for this exact purpose. And when he folded up like a sack of potatoes and the match was over right there and then, that was all the encouragement I needed. Tardzilla posted:- Something went wrong during your last Field Work lessons, but you managed to save the day! ...Kinda. It could have gone a lot better, all things considered, but at least nobody was seriously injured. What happened? "Last time we did Field Work we ran a scenario mission. They throw these out from time to time, meant to test the heroes ability to cooperate as a team whilst operating on restrictions or with secondary objectives to consider like fake hostages; bombs to defuse, VIPs to escort, having to put cuffs on the people you defeat, that kind of thing. On this particular occasion one side had an objective, a briefcase of sorts it had to protect and the other side of course had to grab it. As part of the exercise, the teams were kept secret, keep this in mind for the rest of the story. So Lucky Ted gets put on one team with three powerhouses (including the guy who I kicked in the nuts in the previous story so, he wasn't very happy about that), and in something that was very coincidental some of the like top 4 people in the entire class all got put on one team, these people not only are way up there on the power chart, they work together as a well oiled machine and are pretty much locked in to be a group once they graduated. And they were probably going to run roughshod over us especially since Ted's team was convinced it was 3 vs 4 going in because Ted was on that team. People underestimating Ted is a theme of this story. And they indeed got crushed, because whilst my three goobers were quite powerful, perhaps even more so then individual members of the dream team, the dream team was better at working together and Ted team was squabbling the whole time. They were dispatched, rounded up, counted and at this point the Dream Team realizes three critical points. One, when they should have had four captured members, they only had three. Two, when they were going to immediately dispatch the enemy team as part of their tactics, they left the briefcase in the nearby base. With no one watching it. Three, they realize the fight was going on way longer then they expected. They weren't exactly paying much attention to what was going on around them. The klaxon sounds at this point, as Lucky Ted slams home the Briefcase at their capture point and scores a victory for Team Ted. Because whilst his super powered teammates were getting the stuffing knocked out of them, Lucky Ted made out like a bandit with the goods and ran like buggery before they realized what had happened. Overwhelming Odds into Underwhelming Odds was in play, the other team is better coordinated? Play for the objectives, always play to win. Lucky Ted tried to tell his teammates this but they shrugged him off. Of course we still got slapped with a fairly unimpressive grade at the end despite our win because whilst Ted's Team won, the purpose of the exercise is not merely to win but to test the heroes ability to work together as a team, and Ted's Team was infighting even before the B squad dropped on us. After all in a real mission, getting away with the objective but leaving the rest of your team incapacitated would have been a pretty dire situation to be in, so the exact words used to our motley band were that we 'succeeded the actual mission, but failed the lesson.' The one thing I actually got out of that whole mess, was that one of the members of Dream Team came up to me afterwards and offered to treat Ted to lunch. And people say there's no such thing as a free lunch. TheNabster fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jan 25, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2017 23:48
|
|