Bindweed

I know that I should really wake up in the mornin' slavin' for bread, sir, so that every mouth can beee fed... but today I felt like doing this instead:

Bambi Delight

I guess it might look good coloured but I don't have Photoshop anymore, but if anyone feels like playing in Photoshop, feel free to practice on Bambi

Holy Pammie-as-Barb-Wire! I TOTALLY got the wrong idea when I read the title of this thread...

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...Deleted all his 50s then wished he hadn't? Same friend or another one doing the same thing?

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Maybe CoX should have a Windows-style "Recycle Bin" from which we could retrieve those level 30+ blasters that we deleted in a moment of inebriation late on a Friday night after being battered to a drunken puddle by something that may well have been either an AV or a GM but whatever it was we may just possibly have had one or two too many to be able to notice...

Not that it's ever happened to me...er...

But back on topic...

I have to 'fess up to drifting over to that barbarian thing from Funcom for a bit, and after coming back to CoH the first thing I noticed (apart from the fact that the different UI tended to make me panic as I ran into a pack of purples and couldn't remember which button to push to stop) was how busy CoH (Union) was.

My experience may not have been typical but apart from the very early days when the game was swamped (as all good new games apparently are), things still strike me as being much tha same as they always have been. People certainly do leave, but people are still coming into CoX - which surely says something for the quality of both the game and the community here.

My gut feeling (as I have no stats either) is that the OP may have hit a run of bad luck, team-wise. I seem to remember speculation that Zukunft would be canned back in early 2006, and they're still here. Fact is, we don't have to make the business case - but I think we can rest assured that someone, somewhere, looks regularly at the subs per server and that if there are sound reasons to merge servers we will find out well in advance. The fact that the notion seems, still, way out in left field bodes pretty well, I think.

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I think there are some silly regulations from the gaming commission that require competitions that are basically free draws to have come kind of qualifying question, so they ask stupidly easy ones to get around it.

It's not REALLY a competition folks, it's a free draw (not that that's a bad thing!).

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I thought they did it so that more people would be tempted to enter (because the answer is so obvious), thus increasing the revenue they get from the text messaging tarif for entering. But then I'm horribly cynical

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I believe it's as simple as the UK Gaming Commission requires you be licensed for raffles but not for "quizzes" - so that makes you both right . The free lucky dip (non)raffle snags a bunch of extra punters for Mirror Group, someone makes a hatful of lettuce through the phone tariffs, NCSoft promotes the game, and it will make one lucky winner very happy.
Everyone wins.
Except those that don't.
Which will naturally include me.

The last time I did any PvP was just before SG base raids were turned off, and my uselessness was disguised by the fact that there were a couple of dozen other people too busy to notice Before that, however, I remember I sucked like a Dyson at PvP although when it wasn't a remotely serious competition it could be fun, in a bizarre fashion.

Assuming OOC my opponent and I could come up with a fudge to explain why Major Villain or Captain Hero are "auto exemped" or "auto sk" or just plain rubbish when they get pounded by a 3-foot tall talking blue kitten fresh out of Atlas/Mercy (no offence to 3-foot tall, talking blue kittens fresh out of Atlas/Mercy, btw ) then I'll give it a go.

Like Loup, I find it tricky to harmonise my OOC PVP ability with some of my characters' IC combat abilities. Some of them would, IC, be about as much use as Norman Wisdom in a wrestling match with Godzilla, but others are supposed to be a bit more competent, and although IC it's convincing that someone like Liberty Girl or Bambi Delight would find themselves whupped by experienced opponents like (and just off the top of my head, here, just plucking names out of the air as they occur to me) a Cassandra Zero, a Tiger White, a Shadowe or a Loup Garou, getting creamed by the aforementioned diminutive level 6 kitty-scrapper just throws me a curve when it comes to thinking up an explanation.

But that's what fudge is for, so as long the OOC/IC harmony is maintained, it should be fun. So I'll give it a try

"Venus in Furs" always seems appropriate for one of my Dominators in particular, although not Velvet Underground but rather a more recent John Cale version - I never really liked Lou Reed's voice on that song.

Buzzcocks, Hendrix and most good guitar pop all often seem to work for me, so let's leave all this "ancient" stuff alone now, shall we...?

Thankfully all these guys have industrial backgrounds. My idea for a genius with a background in agriculture wasn't as successful: the Plant Control might work but there's no Secondary to replicate the stomach-churning effects of spraying slurry (although Trip Mines could become anti-personnel Cow Pats, with a little imagination). And the Character Creator falls woefully short when it comes to tractor-parts. Oh well, I'll save the mighty Muckspreader for another day...

For me, it's Tony Stark who is interesting, not really Iron Man. At one point in Iron Man continuity Marvel gave the suit to another character (Rhodey?) and it just didn't work for me. I don't think you need have any worries about plagiarising "Iron Man" - nor, really, about plagiarising Tony Stark (flawed mega-rich genius with emotional issues turning his personal tragedies into a subjective response to threats to a fragile society...Bruce Wayne - I mean, Tony Stark was himself "inspired" by those that had gone before. As, indeed, was Bruce Wayne). The thing to avoid is making your "Iron Man" inhabited by "Tony Stark" - break the combination of that particular suit with that particular personality and you're in the same place as the other comic creators & movie makers who've given us fare as entertaining and widely different as Robocop and Ellen Ripley in her Alien-bashing loader.

I do like the differentiation between IC and Roleplayer characters - how very true. I have characters that raced through the levels because I played them all the time, until they became involved in regular RP, when suddenly they seemed to stop doing missions altogether and spend all their time at GG or PD. Meanwhile, the ones I just can't get to break in to RP either don't get played or have started streaking through the levels because they actually do missions! Inspired not least by ShadowGhost's "toon for every possible dark/dark AT across CoH & CoV", I too have created different variations of the same character across multiple ATs, and am having top fun with some of them.

A small, stocky, sand-haired man in the red uniform of a Longbow nullifier put his hand between the shoulders of the nervous looking young man beside him and led him gently over the rubble-strewn sidewalk. The man’s right hand clutched the left of a tiny little boy, no more than two or three years old, and whose own right hand clung to the paw of a teddy-bear called Barney. Barney was already showing the signs of loving wear and tear, and the child’s right hand gripped him almost as tightly as his left was locked into his father’s. The man and his son stepped out of the ring of yellow plastic sheets that were dotted amidst the rubble in an almost perfect circle. The boy watched as sticky liquid ran in small rivulets from under the sheets to drain into the dust and broken concrete. He watched as men in red and white uniforms draped a yellow sheet over the last of the fallen, torn, giant monsters. And he watched as his father and he were led to the side of the road, where a pretty young lady with hair the colour of chestnuts wrapped a blanket over his shoulders and gave him a drink that tasted of oranges.

“OK Pete,” the sand-haired man said to the boy’s father, “tell Warden Grimes what you just told me.”

Warden Grimes was very tall. Much taller than his father, and very stern, the boy thought. He wore a helmet and a cloak over his red-and-white. The boy looked up at his father, and remembered how he looked in his own Longbow uniform. Maybe this Warden was his father’s boss?

“Good morning, sir,” his father said.

“Morning, Pete,” said the Warden. “Way to spend your off-duty time.”

“Yeh,” the boy’s father grinned, but not happily like when they played. “Little Pete and I were caught out in the street when the alarms sounded – we were running home when it happened…” The boy watched as his father started to grow agitated, until the lady with the blanket came back and passed plastic cups around the men.

“Take your time, Pete,” the warden said gently, “don’t worry…just take your time…it’s all OK now…”

----0----

Leatherette took a deep, deep breath and heaved a heavy sigh as she tried to quell the almighty irritation she felt. She had been counting notes when the sirens’ blaring caused her to lose count for the third time in 5 minutes. She’d taken the notes from the safe of a Marcone family casino; counting them was slow because they were so filthy and crumpled: no other money since Croesus had ever needed laundering quite so urgently. ‘Rette grit her teeth and swore. There was no point in doing this now. It had been a beautiful day, and the roof top was quiet and warm. Until those damn dropships appeared. She’d have to find somewhere else to do this now…

Stuffing the notes back into their canvas hold-all, she stared across the islands in the direction of the empty officeblock she temporarily called home. She sighed again and lifted herself into the air, and started to fly across the green sky.

Rikti bombs and Rikti troops were dropping everywhere. She saw the lights of their teleport beams streaking through the sky to the streets below. Bombs occasionally erupted amidst the buildings below her, but ‘Rette just grunted with contempt and flew on. The dust and soot of the blasted streets was filling the air, but she knew she could fly no higher without coming under the guns of the damn dropships, so she flew low, clamping her mouth tightly shut and blowing the stench and the soot and the dust out of her nostrils.

It was oddly quiet below her. Yes there was weapons fire, and the shouts and yells of angry men and women bringing their own destructive resources to bear on the swarming aliens – but the sounds of everyday life had gone. Voices that you could swear you had heard forever were gone. Sounds that hummed so constantly in your ears you never heard them – until they were stilled.

Maybe that’s why ‘Rette heard the child’s crying amidst the boom of the war beow her. It was unique.

She could not see the child clearly, but she saw the bear lying in the dirt and dust of a shattered storefront, and she saw the man shielding the boy with his body. ‘Rette saw maybe a dozen, maybe more, Rikti materialize around them in a circle. The Chief Soldier was raising his weapon…

----0----

“As far as we can gauge, something just tore their heads clean off.” The Warden was staring now at the yellow plastic shrouds over the fallen aliens, flapping in the light breeze. “It was like some kind of animal just…well…”

“I didn’t really see what happened, sir… I just saw that they were going to kill us and I tried to protect Little Pete as best I could by shielding him… I didn’t see what killed them…”

“Just that their heads were…gone…?”

“Yes sir, when I looked up – like some animal had just upped and ripped their heads clean off.”

Warden Grimes took off his helmet and scratched his shaven head. "Thirteen decapitated Rikti, arranged in a circle... Do you smell 'Cult' as much as I do, Pete?"

"Well if it looks like magic, and it smells like magic..." supposed Little Pete's father.

“The MAGI guys have detected something magic was here…” offered the Nullifier.

The Warden shrugged. “Well there are no Rikti heads lying around. I guess maybe something just vaporized them…”

“Barney killed them!” shouted the boy, holding aloft his bear. “The angel came and Barney saved us! He killed them and he ate their heads!”

The Warden knelt before the boy and asked “May I see Barney?”

Little Pete lifted the bear and let the Warden take him. His father had told the story as best he could, but there was so much that neither he nor they could understand, because none of them had seen it. Little Pete had seen it though. The giant monsters were stopped. The angel came and gave them such a headache that they couldn’t move. Then she picked Barney up from the ground and dusted him off. He watched the angel from behind his father as she looked at Barney, and Barney must have made her happy because she smiled as she turned to look around the circle of giant monsters. Little Pete didn’t look up again until after the angel had placed Barney back in his hand.

By then the monsters were dead.

“Little Pete, would you mind if I looked after Barney for a while?” asked the Warden.

“Sir?” asked the boy’s father.

Warden Grimes passed the bear to the Nullifier, “Maybe I’m clutching at straws but I’ve seen enough weird stuff in this job that I just…just… Just ask MAGI to take a look at the bear, will you?”

The Nullifier took the bear and left. He had the discipline not to shake his head in disbelief. Little Pete watched the man and bear go. The Warden knelt down again “We’ll get Barney back to you as soon as we can, son…”

“I don’t want him anymore,” said Little Pete. “I’m gunna get a new one.”

The Warden grinned at the boy’s father as he straightened up, acknowledging that a new bear was the least the man could do for his son after their ordeal.

“I’m gunna get a new one myself!” said Little Pete, plunging his hand into his pocket and pulling out a hundred-dollar bill.

It was filthy.

It was crumpled.

And it was the gift of an angel.

((This was put together very quickly to try and fit the compromise between RP and RL circumstances I hope it works! ))

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Liberty Girl: Scorned (Part Three)


Whatever Rosa had done, it seemed to be working. Bambi didn’t give up any part of herself for Linda; she did it because Rosa had asked her. Bambi healed fast – not as fast as Linda would, under normal circumstances, but fast enough. Allowing Rosa to draw some of Bambi’s living energy to kick-start Linda’s recovery was easy.

Dealing with Linda was much less so. The only reason Bambi hadn’t tried to put the stubborn heroine back into her sick bed the hard way was because Rosa had got between them. Linda felt exactly the same. It didn’t seem to matter now that, having found out that same, hard way that Lulu and Columbia were alive, Linda no longer had a reason to hate Bambi. The two of them just went on wanting to bust each other up anyway.

“So…” Rosa tried to open a channel of arbitration between them. “The two women who attacked you were…well, dead!” She couldn’t stop herself smiling.

“The blonde who did most of the knuckle-work,” Bambi added, trying in vain to hide her pleasure in seeing her nemesis in pain, “was Scorned. At least, that’s the name she goes by these days – but I saw her, and I know that was certainly Lulu. Which means I didn’t kill her. Like I always said I didn’t…”

“And the brunette who worked with her?” continued Rosa, shooting Bambi a glance that warned her to behave herself, “Well, she’s been operating out here in the Isles under the name Fallen-Star – but you know that’s not all she is – you yourself identified her before, on the CCTV footage from that warehouse stunt we pulled – she’s Columbia, your old mentor.”

“Which means I never killed her, either,” grunted Bambi. “Just like I always said I never…”

Linda tried to ignore Bambi, and continued to lace up the black leather bodice over her bandaged ribs. “Well,” she grunted, flinching suddenly as the pain in her stomach muscles flared up again, “I don’t know what kind of hold Lulu has over her, but Roxie – Columbia – would never go rogue like this, not of her own accord. Someone’s been screwing up her mind…”

Rosa and Bambi exchanged glances “Someone like…a powerful mentalist?” Rosa asked, fishing the papers from the table and passing them to Linda. “What’s going on with this picture you had in your boot?”

Linda checked the photo and handed it back. “I was tipped off about Scorned – about Lulu’s date in Nerva by a Carnival Ring Mistress called Mariette, out of St Martial. She wanted me to bring this renegade Carnie to her in exchange for the info.”

“Her working name is Leatherette,” said Rosa. “We didn’t know she was renegade Carnival, we just knew she was working with Scorned and that she once tried to kill Bambi. We snatched her, and were holding her here…until last night…” Rosa looked at Bambi.

“She’s very good at what she does,” sighed Bambi, nursing the embarrassment of having been mind-[censored] – there was no other phrase for it – into helping Leatherette escape.

“Well, I guess she is,” agreed Rosa, gently mocking Bambi’s mental susceptibility. “She’d certainly be good enough to keep Columbia thinking she was someone else…like Scorned’s partner in crime.”

Linda picked up one of her black boots, but grimaced with pain as she tried to bend enough to pull the long leather tube over her leg. “OK then…since you lost them in Nerva, we’ll have to go back to St Martial to find Mariette again…”

“I lost them…?” Bambi stood up, looking like she didn’t need much provocation. “Pardon me for being too busy saving your [censored]..!”

Rosa waved Bambi back to her seat on the table, calming her down. She knelt before Linda and helped her with her boots. “Even you need more time to heal, Linda,” she said. “We’ll go – all of us – but not today. You need more time…”

The sound of something breaking came from the back of the old warehouse. Rosa and Bambi exchanged glances, and Bambi slipped from the table and disappeared toward the back of the building.

“We have the neighbourhood peppered with Skulls who owe me,” Rosa assured Linda. “But if there was a threat, I wouldn’t count on them to warn us…”

Again she was interrupted. This time by a woman yelling. Bambi.

Linda was still unable to move quickly, and so Rosa helped her out of the room and into the main, open space of the dilapidated warehouse. Bambi was there…

On her knees, her mouth open in a silent scream, Bambi shuddered in pain – the kind of pain only a Carnival Ring Mistress, or a Succubus of the Circle of Thorns, might delight in stabbing into the mind.

It could be either because they were both there. The Ring Mistress giggled like a lunatic on nitrous oxide, standing over Bambi’s quivering body. The succubus stood beside her, smiling with an almost sexual satisfaction as she drank Bambi’s pain. Behind them, and to both sides of Linda and Rosa, stood the others. The Carnival and the Circle…together?

“We don’t have her, Mariette,” Linda said, to the Ring Mistress. “She was here, but - ”

Mariette made a movement with her eyes and Linda was silenced by a flurry of yellow fists rushing from behind them. Rosa turned in time to see Linda – already badly wounded – sink to her knees and fall face-forward onto the concrete floor. A Paragon Protector turned its faceless mask toward her.

“We have what we came for,” said a hulking Power Tank in a middle-European accent, stepping up behind the Protector. “Let’s just go.”

“Crey, too?” breathed Rosa. “What’s going on?”

“Never you mind, my pretty,” Mariette’s voice was like a song.

Rosa didn’t see what came next. But it hurt.

Thanks - I'm still several levels away from Psi Shockwave, and tbh Psychic Scream is something I picked up for a team role. I'm thinking Telekinesis is more use as a team dom, and wish I hadn't removed it in the last respec. Think I'll probably swap the Scream for Subdue since I'm mostly soloing, and with TK next time, then Shockwave. Scream can come after that, I guess - I'm not exactly trembling with anticipation for the Patron sets, so probably will round off with more primary/secondary or pool powers.

Been thinking about Psychic Scream - I don't dislike the notion of a coned moderate damage attack with -Recharge that I can wash over a group I've previously terrified, but the damage seems a bit...well, pants. There are already too many things competing for the slots, so any views on Psychic Scream would be helpful.

Similarly Subdue - it looks from Mids that it does a decent amount of damage - is it a fun pick, anyone?

((Again with the spoilers, but like the last part - nothing that can't be teased from witnesses...))



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Liberty Girl: Scorned (Part Three)



“If Rosa knew I was doing this without her, she’d kill me, “ Bambi thought, as she peered through the gaps between the planks of the hut’s doorway. Desiccated by salt and sun and long-dead worms, the door and walls of the flimsy shack would have crumbled virtually to dust had Liberty Girl been flung in that direction. Her assailants were not in much of a mood for tossing around the blonde heroine, just in the mood for holding her steady while they pounded her.

Bambi thought about intervening, but remembered the last time she’d seen Liberty Girl, and recalled the pain she’d been in when it was Linda doing the pounding. She also saw in Rosa’s eyes what had happened when Rosa had told Linda the truth about her and Bambi. There were bruises on Rosa’s body. Bambi knew without having to ask that they were made by Liberty Girl’s fist and boot.

So Bambi didn’t intervene. For the past several days Linda had been tearing such a swathe through the Isles, blood and broken bones in her wake, that tracking her wasn’t hard. Bambi watched her from inside a dilapidated shack on the waterfront. Watched her waiting. Watched her confront Scorned. Watched the strange fish-guy zap her with whatever frosty fish-power it was – probably something painful, by the looks of things, and which somehow either sapped her strength or completely borked her annoying self-healing power, or both. She watched Fallen-Star hit her from behind, and Scorned hit her from the front. Then she watched them pound her, over and over, until she dropped to the cobbles like a sack of Hamidon goo.

Bambi watched, but she wasn’t really interested in the mighty Liberty Girl getting a thumping – although that brought its own joy. No. She was much more interested in the thumper than the thumpee. When Bambi had been the one under Scorned’s tenderising knuckles, she had been too preoccupied with getting beaten up to take good, clear stock of her assailant. This time she took it all in. The way she moved. The sound of her voice. The joy she experienced in beating Liberty Girl to a pulp.

This time, Bambi knew.

Scorned and Fallen-Star stood over Linda’s unmoving form, checking to see she was properly settled by kicking her heavily a few times before they shared a joke that Bambi couldn’t hear and started to walk away, down the slope toward the water. Bambi opened the door silently and stepped outside, ready to follow them all night if needs be.

Three of the Verandi family’s wiseguys were already all over Liberty Girl’s fallen body. Like Bambi, they’d been watching the heroine’s demolition from a quiet hiding place. Now they saw an opportunity to score a point with their bosses. All three of them pulled artillery from their jackets when they saw Bambi step out of the shack. All three of them unloaded their clips at point blank range.

When the smoke cleared, Bambi watched the maniac grins on their faces melt away as realisation dawned. Before anyone could say “bulletproof” all three goons were out cold. Bambi checked Liberty Girl. Still breathing. Well, you can’t have everything.

Scorned and ‘Star were already out of sight and Bambi would have to hurry to catch up – although she’d have to be very careful to make absolutely sure she wouldn’t be seen. Two or three steps later, though…

“Stay exactly where you are…”

Under her breath, Bambi swore like a sailor. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at a small, curvy girl in form-hugging red-and-white Longbow spandex and crimson thigh-high boots. Her raptor pack was fizzing quietly as its motor started to cool after landing, and she was pointing a blaster at Bambi’s back.

“What?” asked Bambi.

“D..don’t move…” suggested the Eagle.

Bambi looked back down the slope and realised that she’d lost her targets. “Or what…Rookie?” Bambi sighed, turning to step back up the slope toward this latest interruption. “You think that toy’ll do any more good to you than theirs did the three of them?” She cocked her head towards the trio of unconscious hoods spread across the cobbled road.

Ignoring the Eagle with the quivering blaster, Bambi stooped to pick up Liberty Girl’s body. “Good for you,” she said to the girl. “You just took down three Verandi goons all on your lonesome. Should be worth a commendation.”

Shaking slightly, the Eagle pointed the trembling business end of her weapon in Bambi’s face, while she stood, with a trickle of sweat rolling down her temple, watching Bambi toss Liberty Girl over her shoulder. Bambi slapped her cargo on the backside and grinned at the rookie Eagle. “Be seein’ ya!”

The girl watched Bambi leap straight up and disappear into the darkness, following her trajectory for a second with her blaster. When she knew she was finally alone, she pulled her commslink to her mouth and took a deep breath. “Despatch…? Eagle Thirty-Twenty in Sector Charlie Charlie Four…three for pick-up…”

((The second part - much like the first part - contains spoilers to what happened to Liberty Girl when she got to where she was told to go... so be warned about that. However, since the event was quite possibly witnessed by several people to whom most members of the UV team can access easily, here's part two, with three to follow.

Warning though, there's a load of violent action in here, so be warned.))




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Liberty Girl: Scorned (Part Two)



It was just after two in the morning. The breeze blowing from the sea into Crimson Cove was a chilly one, and Linda had lost her coat when the Carnival had set it on fire back in St Martial. She’d also lost her black wig, and her mane of blonde hair didn’t lend her the villainous look she’d been trying to achieve whilst undercover in the Isles, pretending to be muscle-for-hire by the name of Candy Crash. At least she had the black leather. Rule number one out here seemed to be “wear black leather.”

She’d arrived early, and was lounging against the shingled wall of a salt-blasted boat-hut, under the shadow of a crumbling porch, surrounded by someone’s impressively piled collection of driftwood and flotsam. She slid folded papers from the top of her thigh-high boot and looked at the pictures of the brunette that the Carnival’s Ring Mistress Mariette had given her, and read the notes as best she could in the moonlight. She didn’t need to see them clearly, really – she’d already read them several times before. The woman in these pictures was a real piece of work – and a renegade Carnie to boot. Once she found her, Linda would have no problem at all turning this chick, “Leatherette,” back over to her former playmates in return for their setting her up with this…what should she call it…rendezvous?

Linda had spent enough time lurking silently in the shadows of Recluse’s island shanties in the dead of night to recognise the sounds made by streetwalkers and night haunters prowling in leather and metal. She heard that sound now, and slipped the folded papers back into their hiding place inside her boot.

Oh, this just had to be her…she listened to the sounds drifting toward her on the breeze. The creaking of leather. The partially muffled clatter of chains. The click and scrape of heels on cobbles.

“If that’s not Scorned, it’s one of the local hookers,” opined Linda, stepping from the shadows into the moonlight.

The blonde before her came to a standstill, and stood there, calmly and casually. She was in partial shadow but even so, in this moonlight Linda could see the mask, and make out the grin. Stainless steel chains wrapped around Scorned’s chest, arms, waist and fists all sparkled in the moonlight, which shone in patches of silver reflected in straps and leather, steel buckles and glistening boots. “You must be the chick who’s been asking ‘bout me all over…” smiled Scorned. “You look... blonder than I imagined.”

“You know what happens next,” Linda told her, calmly. “How it goes down is up to you now. It can go easy or it can go hard. Let me tell, though, honey, my hard is very hard indeed…”

The other blonde made a short chuckling sound and grinned as she shook her head. “The reason you’re talking so much is…what? What’s your deal? What are you going to suggest I do for you to avoid the horrific beating you’re about to threaten me with, followed by the rest of my natural in the Zigg?”

“Fallen-Star,” answered Linda. It was the name Rosa had given her. The name by which Columbia seemed to be going in the Rogue Isles. “I don’t really want you, Scorned – I want her. I want Fallen-Star.”

Scorned’s smile dropped suddenly. “Oh cut the [censored], Linda,” she sighed. “And don’t look so surprised – of course I know it’s you. And you’re right – I do know what happens next…and it ain’t gonna be easy at all. Least…not for you…”

That the Carnival – specifically Mistress Mariette - had known her identity was surprise enough…but that this woman knew who she was… Linda was still stunned by the surprise when the cold suddenly enveloped her.

It was bitter…biting. Something like an ice dagger had suddenly pierced the core of her – no, not a dagger – a hand; a bitter fist of ice seized her heart and fingers colder than the deepest hell gripped and squeezed her soul. It was so cold she gasped for breath and almost dropped to her booted knees on the cobbles…what the hell is this? She turned away from the blonde to look for whatever it was that was freezing her like this.

She didn’t have time to see anything, because from the darkness swept a rush of air and faster than Linda could see a glistening black block of leather-sheathed knuckles crashed into the side of her head and sent her spinning across the road. She almost fell, but she didn’t. Scorned’s wrecking-ball of a fist, swinging up into her belly, made sure she stayed up, one way or another. Staying on her feet was never going to last, though: another wrecking-ball – this time a left – crunched into her ribs, then the right made a return visit, before something that felt like an 88 millimetre shell boomed into her kidneys. She dropped to her knees, groaning, taken down like a dodo.

More footsteps behind her…stupid, stupid, stupid not to have listened for them before now… and a pair of boots just like Scorned’s stepped around her. She heard a voice that she guessed belonged to Scorned, but to be honest she couldn’t tell right now. “I heard Liberty Girl’s been building quite a rep…” One of the new boots lunged like a piston and buried itself in Linda’s midsection, lifting her up off her hands and knees and turning her over onto her back on the cold cobbles. “Must be some other Liberty Girl…this one’s just…all…wrong…”

Her body was yelling at her to lie down and curl up, but instead Linda was back on her feet…not her own doing, of course. The new girl, whoever she was – and right now Linda didn’t care - had hoisted her from the cobbles like she was a big bag of peas and was holding her up from behind, locking her arms. Linda’s body felt impossibly heavy with the weight of all the sudden pain she’d been gifted, but this new girl was way strong and held her steady even as Linda’s legs were threatening to dissolve. Meanwhile the freezing grip on her very core tightened again, and she let out a series of involuntary groans. Someone must’ve liked the sound, because suddenly it was raining knuckles and knees and fists and feet and the air was full of her involuntary groans.

The beating went on for quite a while. Well, that’s what it seemed like. Although the blows made oddly familiar sounds – like a thorough chambermaid plumping up all the pillows in the Waldorf – it was quiet. No-one said anything. Except Linda, whose hoarse yelps and hollow woofs escaped on the breeze every time one of those wrecking balls buried itself in her. After what felt like an eternity but was probably less than a minute of working out on her new, blonde, gym equipment, Scorned must’ve needed a break. She broke her exercise and lifted Linda’s chin with a hand gloved in black leather and steel chain. “Poor girl…want to know where your strength has gone? Not mention your handy little instantaneous healing party-piece?” Somewhere into her peripheral vision, blurred as it was, Linda caught sight of someone with what looked like blue skin. The air surrounding the fuzzy vision sparkled as frost formed within it. “Do you know how expensive it is to hire someone reliable who can manipulate cold thoroughly enough to numb your regeneration power? It ain’t cheap, babe, let me tell you.”

“Y…you sh…shouldn’t have…” Linda managed to force the words. “I tho…I thought we said we… we weren’t buying presents for each other this year…”

The wrecking-ball struck again. And again. After a few of those, Linda didn’t have the breath to do more than grunt as each one thudded into her Villains-“R”-Us leather bodice.

The gloved fist stopped mashing her for a moment to unfold into a hand and lift her chin up once again. Linda didn’t have the strength to lift an eyelid to try and look at Scorned’s face, but she could feel the breath. What was that? Strawberries?

“We’re not going to kill you, Linda. Not tonight. But we are going to make it so you have to go away for a while. Think of yourself as a message. You’re my message to Mariette and her little gaggle of Carnie freaks…and to Bambi and her weird green friends…”

Scorned experimented with punctuation after that. After every word there was a set of knuckles wrapped in chain, a knee sheathed in leather, an elbow, a foot.

“LEAVE! US! THE HELL! ALONE!”

There was more, but by then Linda wasn’t listening. At some point something hard made a booming sound on her skull and set off the last in a series of coloured lights somewhere behind her eyes. She slipped into darkness, and the pain no longer troubled her. At least, not for a while.

((Given that there's a bunch of eager rescuers dashing to the Isles as I type :here's some background to what happened to Libby in the run up to these events. There are some spoilers in here for people who want to wait and find out in the natural course of events, so please be warned - otherwise I figure that once the Unity Vigil team starts digging around in the Isles they'll soon find out what happened.))



-----------------------o-----------------------






Liberty Girl: Scorned (Part 1)

Concrete and cement that had endured a century of hobnailed industrial footfalls splintered and cracked with a dull toll as the enormous iron-sheathed sledgehammer boomed down upon it. The giant who had swung the huge weapon moaned a battle cry like a wounded phantom, and hoisted it yet again.

Candy Crash flashed out a black leather boot, making a sound like a muffled bell as it slammed into the huge man’s iron helmet. The kick snapped the giant’s head back and sent him tumbling into a shrieking blonde Attendant whose petite frame was robed in colours so bright they made the eyes dizzy. The giant Carnival Strongman didn’t get back up, and his huge unconscious frame crushed the Attendant against the concrete where she could do no harm – at least for now.

Linda hadn’t had much to go on after her explosive row with Rosa, but she had come away with two very useful clues: one was a ‘where’ – St Martial; the other was a ‘who’ - the Carnival of Shadows. From there it was just a simple exercise in applied physics…applying her own physical techniques to every contact and deal-maker she ran across through the Isles. Rosa’ CCTV footage had proven that Columbia was alive. In her guise as Liberty Girl, Linda’s obsession with bringing to justice the murderer of her former mentor had forced clashes of increasing acrimony with her subsequent overlords in Longbow. Even Longbow’s dismissal of her from their ranks hadn’t discouraged her, and in the red-white-and-blue of Liberty Girl she had pursued Columbia’s killers wherever the clues led her. Now, in her black leather and black wig disguise as the mercenary Candy Crash, knowing that Columbia was alive and linked somehow to the violent criminal Scorned, Linda had torn through half the Isles beating information from whoever she thought might have it. Eventually a whiny sleazeball called Willie Wheeler gave her something on a Carnie princess who was mugging citizens in Peregrine Island. Linda donned her red-white-and-blue for that one, and as Liberty Girl she busted up the gang of muggers, and busted up their Illusionist, too. The Illusionist gave her a name. Mistress Mariette. In St Martial. And so she came to this place…this dead factory, rotting on the fringe of Recluse’s fish-stinking Vegas-by-the-Sea…

Candy leapt as another equally huge iron-wrapped hammer shattered the wall beside the spot where she’d been standing. She spun in the air and lashed out with another booted leg, this time cracking the side of the second giant’s helmet and twisting him around. She spun again and drove another kick, this time into his chest, before lifting the whole heavy beast into the air with a ferocious boot to his dented helmet.

Flames engulfed her, and she rolled, sliding out of her burning trenchcoat and flinging it back toward her assailant – the burning coat wrapped itself around the white Carnival mask of the flame-haired Seneschal and bought Candy precious time to stamp a finishing blow to the head of the fallen strongman before darting toward the red-headed female and slamming her head into the decaying plaster and cold, hard bricks beside her.

Still there was no time to pause. A harlequin fencer slashed with a streak of blue energy that Candy couldn’t dodge in time – she grunted as the pain burned between her ribs, but lashed out behind her and grinned as her elbow crashed against a white mask and broke the nose behind it.

Two jugglers, one in scarlet and one in blue, leapt at her from behind – a scarlet booted knee rammed her in the small of her back while blue thighs clamped around her head, determinedly trying to twist it from her shoulders. Arching in response to the knee in her back, Candy slipped to her own knees, forcing the blue juggler to fall from her head. The two Carnies stared for a second at the mass of raven-black hair wrapped around the blue juggler’s legs, and while they hesitated Candy crashed a kick to the side of the scarlet juggler’s head that sent her thudding into bricks and out of consciousness. Too late the blue juggler recovered from her surprise at finding a wig between her knees and had time to no more than gape as the blonde’s fist lifted her through the air with an uppercut that broke several front teeth.

She stood, panting a little, amidst the fallen Carnies, and cursed as she watched what was left of her expensive leather coat burning on the oily concrete floor of damp, putrid-smelling former factory in this rancid corner of St Martial. She picked up the raven wig that the juggler had torn from her head, and realised that it, too, was ruined.

“I guess that’s the end of Candy Crash,” a voice like tubular bells sounded behind her. “Welcome back, Liberty Girl…”

Linda turned slowly. The Ring Mistress was flanked by half a dozen Harlequin Fencers. This would probably hurt…

“Don’t worry,” the beautiful voice lilted again, as the Ring Mistress held up her open palms. “You’re far too tired to fight any more…let’s just chat a while, shall we?”

“Ring Mistress Mariette, I guess…OK, so I’m kinda sorta impressed – a teeny bit – that you know who I am…” Linda said. “Now what the hell do you want to chat to me about, all of a sudden?”

Mariette smiled like a prom queen and swayed up to Linda, giggling. “Liberty Girl….” She mused, tracing patterns with her fingertip on Linda’s shoulder as she circled her, wafting an odd scent of magnolia and brimstone, “…Libby Libby Libby Girlie Girlie Girlie …I have to say we don’t see you enough in these parts. It’s a shame you didn’t bring your red-white and blue costume – the one with the high white boots…I like that one especially…”

Linda grabbed the woman’s arm as she turned past her right shoulder. “Fine. I’ll wear it to your next cocktail party. What do you want?”

Mistress Mariette made a kissing noise at Linda from beneath her mask, and held up a hand to hold back the Fencers, who had taken a step forward at Linda’s sudden movement. “I’d like that. But meanwhile…” she sighed, like a bored schoolgirl. “You’ve been asking questions about some muscle for hire…called Scorned. I guess it’s not a happy relationship you share…?” Linda didn’t answer, and so the woman went on: “This woman, Scorned…she is known to us…in fact…we know her very, very well…”

“She works for you – or so I’m told.”

“Oh nonononono!” the Mistress laughed, tunefully, making a sound like the peal of sleighbells. “She’s not our friend…not at all. In fact…if you were to…’arrest’ her…we’d be far from disappointed…”

“Keep this up and cocktails may not be as far off as you think, “ Linda deadpanned.

“Nerva…Crimson Cove…2am…she’ll be there. She thinks she’s meeting a friend of hers…who’ll never turn up…”

“Why? Why are you giving me this?”

“If I give you this…then you owe me a favour – nonono don’t fret, my love – this is a favour you can perform…” Mariette pulled a small fold of papers from her boot, and slid them into the top of Linda’s. “This is another…familiar of ours… but this one we want returned to us. Do that, and we’re B.F.F., you and I…” She touched the tip of her forefinger to the painted lips of her mask, and then to Linda’s own, impassively set lips. “The details are all there, my dove…now go be heroic…for me!” She giggled like Christmas once again and waved the Fencers aside, opening a path through which Linda stepped cautiously. As she approached the heavy iron-bound doors of the dead factory she turned, but there was no sign of the Carnival…just the fading echo of musical laughter tinkling in the dark distance.



(Edited for a couple of typos)

CHANNEL 7 LUNCHTIME NEWS

"What do you do when you lose a superhero? Don Jones is in the Etoile Isles, and will tell us. What do you do when you lose a superhero, Don?"

"Well, that's the question, Gary. It seems that we've yet to find out. Two nights ago, here in Crimson Cove, which is an area of the Nerva Archipelago here in the Isles that has seen its fair share of trouble in recent years, there appears to have been an incident involving the heroine Liberty Girl.

Early in the hours of Friday morning a Longbow patrol apparently came across the scene of an attack which had left the young heroine severely beaten and unconscious, here on that cobbled street which you can see behind me. Liberty Girl had recently joined the well-known Unity Vigil superhero organisation, but they insisted that their heroine was not in the Etoile Isles when the attack too place. In spite of the Longbow incident report, the Vigil are sticking to their assertion, but so far they have failed to produce Liberty Girl - which lends credence to the reports, emanating from Longbow, that after the attack the heroine's body was removed by an unknown woman."

"So is there no sign of the heroine at all, Don?"

"Not a glimpse, Gary. Unity Vigil seem to have lost one of their newest members - possibly to a very serious attack indeed. Now this incident is believed to be entirely unrelated to the recent attempt on the life of the Vigil's founder and CEO Zorielle Rolando, but speculation is surfacing that the inability of the Vigil to keep track of and support their members, like the poor girl who was savagely attacked here, may indicate a diminishing of Ms Rolando's - and the Vigil's - capacity to effectively manage their affairs in the wake of that attempt."

"Thanks Don Jones, in the Etoile Isles. Channel 7 News will keep you up to date with that, and all our stories. Just stay tuned... Coming up - the household pet who helped this 7-year old chase off Freakshow thugs! That and more, after these words..."

Well, as secret things go, this is possibly somewhat compromised now you've posted about it here

Are you planning a freebie affair, Scarlet? Or are you going to charge $100 a pop and make us all rich? I think I know the answer, but it's no bad idea to ask

I have to admit I don't post anything on Deviant Art anymore since their service and support is a bit cludgy, so a nice home for my "City of" comic would be swell, as Liberty Girl would say.

((A squad of Longbow Eagles finishes circling Galaxy City and lands for a coffee break))

Eagle 1: "Y'see Jimmy Singh this morning?"
Eagle 2: "Jimmy's back? I thought he was still on that Nerva tour."
Eagle 1: "Nah, he still is - he was just making a delivery to Section with the QM detail - he's prob'ly on his way back to the Isles now."
Eagle 2: Jimmy, eh? Cool! I miss that guy. Wish he hadn't transferred..."
Eagle 1: "Yeh...well rather him than me. Galaxy is one soft gig compared to Nerva, lemme tell ya... I mean Jimmy said even heroes have a tough time of it over there - like last night, that Liberty Girl chick - "
Eagle 2: "The Ms Liberty?
Eagle 1: "No, doofus, not Ms. Liberty, Liberty Girl"
Eagle 2: "Oh I seen her - heard about her, too, from Lopez -"
Eagle 1:"Yeh, well she ain't no pantywaist, is she? An' yet she got the ever lovin' snot beat out of her in Crimson Cove last night..."
Eagle 2: "No way! They mess her up?"
Eagle 1: "Messed her up good - busted up every which way, she was - 'ccording to Jimmy, who got it from Jablonski, who got it from Stinky Joe, who does the rotas over there now, and who filed the paperwork from the rookie who saw the whole thing"
Eagle 2: "No way!"
Eagle 1: "Yes, way!"
Eagle 2: "Stinky Joe's doin' the rota's now? Man, I never knew that guy could even write!" *laughs*
Eagle 1: *laughs*

Interesting idea, although I'm not going to bet the rest of the lovely Toblerone in front of me that I'm entirely sure how it could be successfully managed, what with the games' two sides being so separated as they are, for one example.

I have heroes as well as villains who'd suit having a personal nemesis, given a little thinking time and the resolution of one or two current plots. I can imagine there being fun here

Is this one of those ideas where it might be useful to sticky the thread so that people can use it over the long term to set up relationships? (Not unlike the SG sticky...only more harmful to your avatars' health, I guess).

You're not the only one, Point - we've all been there!

- and Veskit, Jester and Shadowe are all correct!

As for avoiding it in the future - I don't think you can, entirely - the fact is that it's fun to make new alts and its fun to RP - but often the new alt doesn't seem as much fun as that new one in your head, just waiting to be made... It's not your fault, it's not my fault - it's that accursed addictive character creation feature! We're all helpless before it's irresistible power!!!!

((Liberty Girl has been part-time undercover in the Rogue Isles trying to solve the mystery of her mentor's disappearance - she would be fired up to do something about a similar attack on another friend and would be champing at the bit to get her hands on the people who clobbered Cindersnap - she's available if you can use her))

Gimp? Hardly. Quite possibly I'll look at a respec in the future for MP, but for the time being I have no frequent need to close to melee range with so many rapid range attacks and Domination building so fast. The numbers do look nice though, and it's only now, at 28, that the secondary is making more room for itself, what with the primary being so darn good.

(Quite late to this thread, but here goes, anyway)

I kinda go with what Shannon said earlier - I have no space for Mind Probe on my Level 28, but then I do have Sands of Mu set on Auto And like Echo, I thoroughly endorse Terrify. Sadly the mobs do not exactly "tremble uncontrollably" as it says on the tin (they are prone to shoot and thump every now and again) but they are locked down for the most part, and Terrify + Psychic Scream, used together, wreaks an awful lot of havoc. I love Mind/Psi.

Anything for Domination. I would buy Domination fine wines and Belgian chocolates.

And I know it's been said, but here it is again: some Dommies solo nicely from quite early on (Mind/Psi is very tasty - and if you can't be bothered spending forever nibbling at the mindless Arachnobots, just Confuse their chums till they're gone) and some take a while to get going (my Fire/Fire has Frequent Flyer Points from the Port Oakes A&E). I've not tried Grav/* but Mind is good for mass holds/sleeps - the AoE sleep is reasonably fast to recharge and makes soloing a piece of cake. Fire has nothing like that but, as has been said, rotating the hold through a small mob can work well - and Char is a very good hold. Later on i suppose you get a not dissimilar effect from Fire Cages + Flashfire (Cages to stop the Disoriented mobs from wandering off faster than you can run...how do they do that?) Like almost everyone else here, I'll add my opinion that Dominators are very, very cool. Play about with the powers and see what they do. Play about with tactics. Try it out and be patient and have fun.

My Mind/Psi reached 28 recently, and so far has all (bar the final) primaries but only 3 secondaries: Dart, Blast and Scream. Mind/Psi is a fast set, and using Mesmerise, Domination and Levitate as required there is no downtime at all in the attack chain, Domination builds very fast and Mental Blast is a handy, reasonably quick, decent range, moderate attack. I agree that it's not going to rock anyone's world, but it's a decent power. With Mind/Psi you have nothing but time, anyway...