Wildwind

The doors opened again, and a lone figure stood in the doorway for a moment, surveying the scene, her eyes pausing a moment on each of the patrons before she stepped inside. "Never know what you'll find in a place that caters to heroes," Dancing Edge thought to herself, the corners of her lips turning upward in a wry smirk. Still, evidently arriving too late to see what had just transpired, she walked across the room to the bar, finding herself a seat.

She cut a striking image; not so much beautiful as dangerous, though she was not attractive by any means. Flame-red hair, almost unnatural in the intensity of its color, fell about her shoulders, and the green of her eyes stood out even at a distance. She was dressed in a black leather jacket and pants, trimmed in the same red and blue one would find on a flag. Her movements were graceful and measured, as those of a dancer or a martial artist... and the nature of her art was clearly displayed by the katana that hung at her belt.

Once seated, she looked up at the bartender. "The weapon isn't a problem, is it? I mean, this being a hero bar I figure there's others that could do a lot more damage than me..."

Dancing Edge is a mutant. Her Regeneration and her Superspeed abilities are powers that come from her genes. However, those powers have been experimented on, and were almost completely burned out before coming back a little stronger than they originally were... and are still not quite 100% stable (though she doesn't tell ANYONE about this, and you'd have to be around her at one of her 'glitch' moments to tell.).

Her swordskill is simply something she's been training since she was a child, augmented by further military training.

She also has a lot of abilties that are matters of training and knowledge, not power. She was a government agent for some years, and as such has extensive training in stealth, surveillance, espionage, combat forms other than the sword, demolitions (yes, she really *can* disarm all those bombs), security systems, and the like. And she knows things about certain factions that your average hero does not know, due to her government work.

This is the biographical information for my hero Dancing Edge. There will be a story following in this space soon, as soon as I have time to write it, but I wanted to get this out there so I could participate more effectively in the Open RP (because of Edge's background, there are certain people who might know things about her, and that's a useful RP tool...) Hopefully the first part of the story should be forthcoming in the next couple of days...

History File: Dancing Edge:

Public Version: (this is what would be known to anyone with connections in the Hero community)

Name: Not Available
Codename: Dancing Edge
Age: Unknown, speculated to be mid-twenties
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 125 lbs.
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green

Known Abilities: Mutant regeneration and superspeed powers. Combat training in multiple styles, with an emphasis in Eastern sword forms.

Favored Enemies: 5th Column, Rikti

Background:
There is at least as much false information to be found about the hero known as Dancing Edge as there is true, and even that which is known about her is difficult to positively verify. It is known that she served for several years as an agent of the United States government, though exactly what capacity she served in is buried under multiple levels of official secrecy. What official records can be obtained at low to moderate security clearance identify her only as Delta (note, it would take a certain amount of research to identify Dancing Edge with Delta if you don't fall into the category with access to her private information below). There is some reference to military training in covert and special operations, but she does not appear to have been military personnel. This has led to speculation that she worked for the CIA, NSA, or some other and even more secret organization. It is believed that she left government service in mid-2003 after an experimental treatment to amplify her mutant powers caused those powers to be burned out, but her recent re-appearance as a registered hero in Paragon City casts some doubt upon that theory... and raises questions as to whether she has actually left government service at all...



Private Version: (almost nobody knows all of this information, except those who employed her. Those with strong government/intelligence/military contacts would have access to bits and pieces of this information, though they are likely to know her more by her reputation as Delta than anything else. This is provided for those with strong miltiary/intelligence backgrounds as a reference, and also to provide certain clues to her personality. If you don't want to be spoiled about her story, skip this part.)

Name: O'Carter, Anna
Codenames: Delta, Dancing Edge
Age: 28 years (DOB 7/24/1976)
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 125 lbs.
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green

Known Abilities: Mutant regeneration and superspeed powers. Powers temporarily enhanced by experimental techniques, however this caused her powers to cease functioning entirely for almost six months. Powers have returned and appear to have stabilized at a level somewhat above her original natural capabilities. Combat training in multiple styles, has been practicing Eastern sword forms since she was old enough to hold a blade. Extensive training in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency techniques and tactics.

Favored Enemies: 5th Column, Rikti, Sky Raiders

Background:
Most of the truth of Dancing Edge's history is highly classified, but the widely believed rumors among those with connections are more correct than she would like to be known. Anna O'carter was recruited out of college at twenty-two years of age after her kenjutsu skills and mutant powers attracted the attention of government agents. Having a personality that was attracted to adventure, and feeling a high degree of civic responsiblity, she was trained as a counterterrorism and counterinsurgency specialist to deal with the rising threats of the subversive forces which would later come to be identified as the Fifth Column and the Sky Raiders. She acted in this role for several years, through a mixture of infiltration, sabotage, government-sanctioned kidnapping and assassination of terrorist leaders, and other activities whose details are still too highly classified to be revealed even to those who worked closely beside her. Her assignment was to a special counterterrorism task force which was formed as a one of numerous secret replacements for the failed Vigilance unit, to work behind the scenes... and dependent more on a few gifted personnel whose loyalty was certain, rather than a large unit of men and equipment. The Rikti invasion, however, necessitated a change in her operational parameters. For nearly a year after the invasion, she acted in a counterinsurgency role, seeking to foil the operations of the invading forces wherever they could be isolated. It was this role, which proved to be more dangerous even than her previous work, that led to the experimental effort to amplify her mutant abilities. The experiment was a partial success; she enjoyed the benefits of her boosted powers for several months before accumulated shock to her system caused the regeneration abilities to simply shut down, an event which was very nearly fatal. It was almost six months before her powers began to return, and it was a slow return, at that. Now it appears those powers are stabilizing at a level somewhere between her original natural ability and the amplified results of the experiments. Once she became confident in her ability to function in a combat environment again, she registered herself as a hero in Paragon City, her hometown. Though she is no longer in direct government employ, she cannot (and has not sought to) sever her ties completely with government service, and it is not uncommon for her reserve activation clause to be invoked when a specific threat arises...

[ QUOTE ]
So, um... Maybe I missed this somewhere. What does SSOCS stand for? Misspelled foot garments?

/clueless

[/ QUOTE ]

This has been asked and answered at least once already in this thread. Did you read it?

However, as not to be completely unhelpful... it stands for Super Secret Out of Combat System.

Well, my character description on Justice includes a reference to this interview and a promise that it would be posted on the boards soon... so here goes. This is in script format due to the nature of the piece; I usually prefer to write in prose. Also, it's somewhat hastily done, so the quality might not be as good as I would like... but it should provide some insight into the character. (btw, those of you on Justice who RP, please look me up! I can never find anyone to RP with...!)

-------------------

An Interview with a Miss Creant

(cue news broadcast in process)

Anchorman: ...and tonight we have a very special interview for our viewers. I'm sure many of you recall the recent bomb plot carried out by the "Skull" street gang at the Emerson Tower in Steel Canyon. Paragon News Tonight has learned the identity of the hero who defused the bombs and brought the offending Skulls to justice. What sort of person is this hero? You might be surprised at the answer. With this very special interview, we send you now to Nancy McDaniel.

(cue change of scenery to one of those standard 'interview' sets like you see on so many newscasts)

Nancy: Thank you, Jim. I have with me here tonight the hero who saved hundreds of lives just in that one day, to say nothing of other deeds done in service of the people of our city. Allow me to introduce to our viewers, Miss Creant.

(camera turns to face a woman in her early twenties, with short red hair, dark green eyes, and a somewhat sharp look to her features. There is a certain intensity to her gaze even now, and she seems a bit uncomfortable. She is dressed in costume, a dark green leather bustier, spiked collar, black pants, dark green short gloves, and combat boots.)

Miss Creant: Hi.

Nancy: So... Miss Creant. An unusual name for a hero, is it not? How did you come by it?

Miss Creant: *shrugs* It suits me. I'm not exactly the shining example of the 'kinder, gentler hero', by anybody's standards. It came, actually, from my fifth grade teacher. I was always in fights in school... my mutant regeneration powers manifested early, and I had a temper, so I was always in fights. I guess you could say I was the schoolyard bully. So I got labeled as "that little miscreant". I guess you could say it stuck.

Nancy: I... see. You seem to have a fine grasp of irony, if I may say so.

Miss Creant: (smiles a bit thinly) Thank you. It's not all irony, though. I'm not really a very nice person sometimes. Even less when I'm fighting. Y'see, I'm a claw fighter. Been using them since even before I became a hero. Claws aren't a nice weapon. They're bloody, messy... you don't want to see what the badguys look like between when I get 'em and when they get out of the hospital. It ain't pretty.

Nancy: (seems a little shaken by that) Yes... I can imagine. Have you ever killed with your claws?

Miss Creant: Yes. (pauses a moment) A few times. That's not even counting the Vahz zombies... they're already dead, so I don't hold back at all. Usually I can bring other guys down without killin' 'em... but sometimes they fight too hard and I don't have a choice, it's them or me. (pauses again) And it's not gonna be me.

Nancy: How exactly did you become a hero?

Miss Creant: That's a long story... and a messy one. My parents died when I was young, and things just went downhill from there. Never really had any family, got bounced around from place to place... (voice trails off a bit) ...let's skip that part, okay? Okay. By the time I was fifteen, I was already in a gang. Any girls out there watching this, let me tell you now. Don't go there. You don't know what it's like, and you don't want to. But I did, 'cause I was stupid and didn't have anywhere else to turn. With my powers, I was lucky, moved up pretty fast... most people were afraid to fight me, 'cause I wouldn't stay down.

(long pause)

...then, one night I was out with some of the others in my gang when we ran into these walking dead guys. I know who they are, now... Vahzilok. If I ever get my hands on the man behind those zombies, well... the cops can have what's left of him. My friends were dead before I even realized what was going on. They stuck two of those harpoons of theirs in me, too... but I'm a mutant. It takes more than a couple of foot-long metal darts to bring me down. I lost it. Just went berserk. I was using the claws even back then; they kept people from (censored)'ing with me a lot of the time... well, when it was done there was just me, three dead friends of mine, and a pile of zombie pieces.

(pauses again as Nancy looks ill)

I told you, it's not pretty. And neither was I, then. Like I said, they stuck two of those big darts in me, and those butcher knives they carry do a lot of damage. I don't know what kept me going... they hit me harder than I could regenerate, but I just couldn't stop. Anger, I guess. Adrenaline, maybe. But the last thing I remember from that night was seeing some big guy jump outta the sky right in front of me, right before I collapsed at his feet.

Nancy: A hero.

Miss Creant: Yeah. I woke up in the hospital, and he was still with me. I guess he took me in. He smoothed things over with the cops, too... I wasn't the worst of the street thugs, but I had a rap sheet long enough for them to put me away. He saw something, he said. Didnt want me to go to jail. Said I could help people with this power of mine.

(she looks away from the camera, then down at her lap) I just wanted a chance to get back at the Vahz for killing my friends. I didn't even know about the worse things out there... and there are plenty of worse things that I've seen since. I signed up.

Nancy: What about the hero who recruited you? Do you still talk to him?

Miss Creant: ...he's dead. About a month after he saved me, his medicom just stopped transmitting one day. They found him a week after that in the sewers, all cut up. (she clenches her fist, and her eyes narrow) I still haven't found who did that. But I will.

Nancy: That must be difficult to deal with.

Miss Creant: ...yeah. This isn't a safe business, you know. People forget that. We take our lives in our hands every time we put on the costume. But for some of us, it's all we can do, all we know how. If I wasn't a hero, I'd probably be dead by now anyway. I used to think I was one of the badguys. Maybe I was, but I had nothing on some of the monsters that are still out there. And as long as they're out there, there's a job for me to do. And I don't mean to quit.

Nancy: Well, we're out of time. Thank you for the interview, and be careful out there. There are a lot of us whose hopes are riding on you and the other heroes.

Miss Creant: Don't mention it.

Nancy: Now, back to Jim at the anchor desk, with a run-down of today's heroic deeds...

(camera goes back to Jim, and the newscast resumes)


--------------------------------

Well, that really wasn't particularly good by my standards, and I may redo it another time... but it tells what I wanted to tell.

I may eventually write some of her backstory in more detail than it was told here, in a narrative form... but actually some of my other characters I think would be more interesting to write, so I may go to them first.

As someone who has written a lot of fanfiction (a lot of it bad, it took several years before I reached the point that I could write anything that is good by my current standards), there is one thing that rules over all in terms of improving one's writing.

Practice.

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

Writing is like any other skill, the only way to get better at it is to do it. Nobody's first piece of writing is good. That's a simple fact. One becomes a good writer by writing, looking at it, having other people look at it, finding out why it sucks, and then writing something else employing the lessons you learned from it. Then repeating this process. After some time of this, you will look back at the first things you wrote and wonder how you could even tolerate to show it to anyone else, because you will have improved. I know that's how it is for me... I hesitate to show anyone my early writing (even if it is on my website, I cringed when I put it up there), because by my current standards, it's bad.

Practice, and you will get better. Getting good advice from people who are willing to take the time to read your writing and help you with it is important also... such people can be hard to find, sadly, but keep trying.

Stick with it and you will improve. Don't be discouraged!

Hmm. A ton of characters I have, as tends to happen with me, each with their own backgrounds, but there is a certain commonality in inspiration for all of them.

I write fiction as a hobby. My favorite part of such is creating characters and watching them come to life in the story. As such, I am always tinkering with different ideas for characters and the stories they might have to tell... and inspiration rarely comes from any one place but draws from a lot of different sources...

Anyway...
Miss Creant - Claw/Regeneration Scrapper (Mutation Origin)

The primary inspiration for this character was the name. I wanted to create a claw scrapper, and as I was pondering this it occurred to me that the claw type in the game is, well, an extremely vicious weapon, and anyone who would use such a bloody weapon is not likely to be the nicest of individuals, even if he or she is a goodguy. This led me to the name (a pun, of course), and her history and background grew out of that.

Starblade - Energy/Energy Blaster (Science Origin)
Really, this character concept kind of developed even as I was creating (and to an extent, after I created) the character. I knew I wanted to do a science origin for her, but I didn't want it to be an "accident" type origin. However, it can be kind of hard to justify an origin where a character was willingly experimented on... I mean, there are whole ethical concerns and such with that. Well, the answer to this dilemna came to me after I created the character's look. You see, she has a simple costume (very Teen Titans-ish, one of my friends commented), and because of her ponytail hairstyle she looks young. So I started thinking about why a girl her age would have been part of an experimental process that gave her powers... and I came up with the idea of the girl having been a cripple, her metabolism all but shut down by a childhood disease. So this led to the experiment on her (presented to her as an opportunity to cure her disease), and the accidental (or WAS it an accident?) gift of superpowers that came out of this effort. Thus, we have a teenaged girl who six months ago could not even summon the energy to walk more than a few feet at a time, now literally overflowing with energy, flying around, wreaking havoc on the city's villainous population... she's one of my favorite concepts, and I wish I had more opportunity to roleplay with her...

Firedancer - Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper (Magic Origin)
This came out of fact that I wanted to generate a broadsword-based hero, but didn't think broadsword seemed like, well, a very superhero-like power. I wanted a character with a superheroic feel, after all. After some discussion with a friend of mine, he pointed out to me that there are a number of sword-wielders in the anime "magical girl" genre and some of its spinoffs. This led me to the idea of a professional demon hunter, who uses magic for her defense and wields a magical sword. She just happens to moonlight as a superhero, because, well... she can.

Dancing Edge - Broadsword/Regeneration scrapper (Mutation Origin)
Getting frustrated with my Broadsword/Invlun scrapper, I decided to build one with Regen. Still, I didn't want to copy my own concept, so I decided to go in a different route. Borrowing an idea from the Externals in the Marvel Universe and adapting it to my needs, I came up with the idea of a mutant whose regeneration power was so strong that it rendered her basically immortal. Her background is still kind of in development in my mind, I'm trying to flesh out the era and part of the world that she grew up in to fill in the details of her history.

Starflash - Radiation/Radiation Defender (Technology Origin)
This is my contribution to the "reluctant hero" genre. Well, she's not really reluctant... but she feels unworthy of the power she wields. You see, Starflash is a physicist, a member of a team of scientists and engineers who worked to develop a powersuit which could take down even the most powerful criminals in a nonlethal manner. However, the team and their benefactor did not feel that such power should be given to someone who would not appreciate the magnitude of it and the responsibilities that went along with it... so the decision was made that one of their number would be the hero. By vote, they settled on this young woman because she was the youngest and most vocally idealistic of the group. In a sense, the inspiration here was that I wanted to do a powersuit type hero in sort of an anime vein... someone who had the high heroic ideals and the desire to do good, but didn't really feel confident in her abilities... or really even know what she was doing at first. She is a character who, to me, has a lot of growth potential to be an interesting person to roleplay. Sadly, I don't get many opportunites to do so.

Liberty Star - Martial Arts/Super Reflexes Scrapper (Natural Origin)
This character is another who was inspired by her name. I actually came up with that name while trying to create a tanker with a patriotic theme... after trying some fifty-some-odd patriotic names, I finally found one that wasn't taken. I later scrapped the tanker, but decided I could have fun with a scrapper with the same name. As I was pondering her background, a sort of interview-question popped in my mind.

"So... Liberty Star. Obviously, you have the patriotic theme going. Where did you come up with the name?"

"My birth certificate."

Thus, Liberty Star is actually her REAL name, not her superhero name. I think we can see what might have led her to go into the hero business, yes? And her backstory just grew out of that.

And last (for now), but not least...
Selyana Storm - Dark Melee/Regeneration Scrapper (Natural Origin)
This is another one that grew out of the nature of her power. I wanted to try Dark Melee, but I am not a real fan of antiheroic types (even Miss Creant is more heroic than she would like to admit!). Since Dark Melee is very martial-arts-like (not like CoH MA, but the fact that it's a hand-to-hand style), I came up with the idea that she had mastered some sort of ki manipulation technique that drew the evil out of her enemies and used it against them. It's sort of an odd concept with a definite anime feel to it. Of course, with a background like that, she couldn't really be a "superhero", so she ended up just being someone who couldn't sit back and watch the city fall apart around her anymore... she had to do something with the power she had.

Anyway, that's where my multitude came from...

Little bit of an old thread, but...

I've got a bunch of different characters with different feels, haven't settled into a favorite yet... so here's each of their viewpoints.

Miss Creant: "...hero? I'm lucky not to be one of the badguys. Thought I was, 'til I saw some of the baddies in this city... some things even I can't stand by and watch, though."

Liberty Star: "I guess I am. I mean, it seems kinda pretentious to call myself that, but I do the whole costume thing. Maybe it'd be best to say I'm still training to be a superhero. I've got a long way to go, still..."

Starblade: "Superhero? Yep, that's me. Flying around, blasting the badguys, saving the city. Kinda seems silly now that I say it, but how else am I going to describe myself? My life is a comic book... may as well embrace it. Beats the heck out of being crippled, that's for sure..."

Selyana Storm: "You're kidding, right? I bust up a few street gangs and now you want to call me a superhero? I don't even have a costume."

Starflash: "Superhero? Well... yeah. But it's not me, y'know? I mean, anyone could put on the suit, and then they'd be the hero. The team picked me, though, so I do my best not to let them down... they all work so hard to support me, I've got to give it everything I've got!"

Firedancer: "Superhero? How about 'professional demon hunter'? But yeah, I moonlight a bit. I mean, there's more trouble than just dark magic in this town, and if I can help out a bit, why not? Besides, it's kinda fun."

...so that's my characters in a box. There's another, but Dancing Edge's response to this question would take more time to put to the page than I have at the moment...