BlueBattler

They stop at Yin’s store to pick up Fusionette.

“I’m sorry, CK! I tried to save her--”

“It’s not your fault, ‘Nette.”

“You are not to blame for my daughter’s abduction, Fusionette.” Mr. Yin had applied first aid to Fusionette’s injuries-- the blaster had not gone down easily when the Lost came. “The fault lies in those who seek to use her gifts for their own purposes.”

There’s something about Yin’s eyes that disturb him. Yin does not have Penny’s abilities, but somehow his eyes suggest that he knows more than he should. He feels exposed, and he doesn’t like it.

“Jimmy, you and ‘Nette stay here and protect Mr. Yin. I’ll go save Penny.”

“Right. Like we’re going to let you go off half-cocked to save Penny all by your lonesome, CK. She’s our friend-- and so are you. Blue Steel’s sidekick or not, I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

He knows better than to argue any more. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Mr. Yin’s eyes hold him again. “I have a word of advice for you, my young friend.”

“Mr. Yin, we don’t have time--”

“Those who try to deny their fates are always lost to themselves, Clockwork … Kid. Only those who accept their destiny can surpass it.”

“I … see.”

“Go now. Save my daughter. I know that you will do it.”

“Yes.” It’s a promise, as much to himself as to Yin. “No matter what it takes, I’ll save Penny. Let’s go, guys.”

And with that, he heads off to face his bitter destiny …

“You know, CK, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get so choked up over a tuna sandwich before.”

“It’s a really good sandwich, Jimmy.”

“I guess. It’s just-- who would have thought that the mighty Clockwork Kid, sidekick to Blue Steel himself, would wind up teary eyed over a tuna sandwich?”

“Penny made me this sandwich.”

“Yeah, well, Fusionette made me coffee this morning and you don’t see me getting all sentimental over it.”

“I’ve had Fusionette’s coffee. Being a tank is probably the only thing that lets you drink it and survive.”

“Hey now--”

“Jimmy, even the Vahzilok turn aside when you hold up that thermos. Don’t even go there.”

“Yeah, well, I dare you to say that to ‘Nette’s face.”

“I wouldn’t do that. She’s a sweet kid. Wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings for the world.”

“Yeah, well, everyone says you’re a nice guy.”

“Tell that to those cops that--”

“Don’t even go there, CK. That wasn’t your fault. It was all a tragic mistake. You didn’t know what you were doing. You’ve done your best to make up for it in the years since. The whole darn Freedom Phalanx testified at your hearing and Blue Steel himself volunteered to be your mentor.”

“Yes, sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Blue Steel hadn’t managed to control his temper when he found me in Boomtown …”

“Well, he did. And he got Sister Psyche herself to teach you how to control your powers. You’ve fought as hard as anyone for this city, CK. But you always act like you expect it to all go away-- that we’re all going to treat you like some kind of monster.”

“I almost became a monster, Jimmy. There was so much blood …”

“CK, it’s over. Paragon City has forgiven you. Forgive yourself.”

“It’s not that easy, old friend.”

“Yeah, well, don’t forget you have more penance ahead of you, buddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Penny’s senior prom. You know she’s expecting you to take her.”

“That won’t be so bad. Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with my girlfriend?”

“I have three words for you, CK: Powder blue tuxedo.”

“You fiend!”

“Yeah, well, you know the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree …”

“Now don’t you go all maudlin on me, Jimmy. ‘Nette’s right. Something about the whole mess with your father doesn’t add up. Sooner or later, we’re going to learn the real story. Doc Delilah has promised to let me know if she turns up anything.”

“Yeah, I hope so. So what’s on the agenda today?”

“I thought we could maybe run another patrol on the Lost. I don’t like the way they’ve been sniffing around Mr. Yin’s store.”

“That’ll work for me. Want me to see if Fusionette can come with us?”

“Sure. It won’t hurt to have another hero in on this. Fusionette’s got a good head on her shoulders. She just needed you to watch her back.”

“Yeah, well I’m still not joining the two of you in wearing spandex.”

“I don’t wear spandex. I wear armor.”

“You wear giant gears for shoulder ornaments, CK. That’s not exactly better than spandex.”

“You just wish you had my fashion sense.”

“Right. Hey, ‘Nette. It’s Jimmy. CK and I wanted to know if you could join us on patrol… honey, calm down! I can’t understand what you’re saying when you get so excited. Breathe. What is it, baby? What’s wrong?”

The words come so loudly that even CK can hear them: “They took Penny! The Lost took Penny!”

No! Not again! It can’t happen again!

I was supposed to fix time …

“You’re not welcome here, hero!”

He can feel the pride the Aberrant Rector has in his own abilities. He recognizes the kind of bittersweet vindication that comes from having the power to strike back at those who made you an outcast, regardless of the price you paid for it. There is a power in pain, after all.

The Rector’s pride shatters like a pain of glass when his deadly blade is caught by a hand of steel.

“Unfortunately for you, I am no hero.” He yanks the sword out of the Lost’s hands with a clumsy effort and snaps it in half. “I’ve come for the girl.”

“She belongs to us now!” The Rector unleashes the full fury of his considerable psychic talents.

If he could, the Clockwork King would blink. That’s all the effect that it has on him.

“Idiot.” He slaps the Rector aside and continues on his journey.

Penny? Are you there?

As he expected, he gets no response. He’s been looking for her for hours, crawling through the wreckage of yet another abandoned Supergroup base. He knows that she’s still alive, but he can’t hear her. At times, he can almost imagine that he hears her whisper, but it’s like her voice is drowned under an ocean of silence.

If he thought anyone would listen to him, he’d be praying right now.

And then he feels it. At first he thinks its Penny, but he knows almost immediately its not. The power it has surpasses hers as the sun exceeds a candle flame. The power is not organic, but somehow it seems almost alive. Alive with possibility, with potential…

And there’s yet another of the Lost kneeling beside the burning small device. The hood it wears conceals its features, but he knows from experience that there would be little of humanity left in the creature.

“Where is the girl?”

The Pariah Prelate turns burning eyes at him. “She’s gone. Nothing of her remains now.”

“No! She’s not dead!”

“She is not dead. She is gone. You will never hear from your precious Penny again … CK.”

With a roar of anger, he lumbers towards the Prelate. He’ll tear it apart, rip its throat out …!

And he’s knocked back by a blast of psychic energy.

“You cannot win, CK. You’re just a brain in a bottle, a mockery of a man. Do you really think she would have loved you? You?”

He’s pinned to the wall by sheer telekinetic might. All his formidable strength is useless without leverage. He struggles to unleash his hatred and power at the Prelate, but every thought seems to take an eternity.

“You’re still the same small little man you were when Blue Steel smashed you to pulp. You’re nothing. And with the PsychoChronoMetron, the Lost will be able to bring the future even more swiftly than we thought!” For a second, the voice of the Prelate seems … sad? “She counted on you to save her.”

“What?” He can’t move. He’s like some an insect pinned on a board. Why did he think he could save Penny when he can’t even move his own metal limbs?

“She expected you to save her. She believed in you so much. She fought so hard …”

Penny. Penny had fought. How can he not fight on?

Penny needs me!

He does not know why this Prelate is so much more powerful than the others he has fought were. He does not know how its strength can seem to exceed his own. All he cares about now is that the Prelate must be overcome in order for him to save Penny.

And he is not just a brain in a bottle. He is more than just a living engine of destruction. He is the Clockwork King!

“Penny …”

The Prelate looks at him expectantly. Expecting his admission of defeat, perhaps?

No. He will not fair. He cannot fail. There has to be a way …

The Base was all but destroyed. Fallen girders, shattered pieces of rebar, all sorts broken machinery litter the ground. He looks at it with greedy eyes.

And because of Penny, for the first time in his life he lets himself know how he truly builds his Clockwork.

“Live my faithful minions! Live!”

One of the most powerful minds on Earth put together steel springs, brass gears, and pieces of pipe together with nothing but sheer will. Where there was nothing but rubble, he creates life. From nothing, he creates … hope.

The Prelate makes a startled cry as the Clockwork swarm over it. It has time for little more than a gurgle before its hold over him is shattered.

His Clockwork respectfully step aside to allow him to look at the body of his foe. One of them hands him the device-- the PsychoChronoMetron, the Prelate called it. He takes it in hand, somehow able to feel its heat through his metal hands …

“CK …”

“Penny?” And then he understands just who the Prelate is … rather, who it had been. Who she had been.

“CK.” The Prelate coughs, and he gently pushes the hood from its-- from HER-- face. Even through the Change, he can still recognize her innocent features.

“Penny!” He wails psychically because he cannot do so physically. “No! I’m supposed to save you! I’m supposed to save you!”

“You … still can. Use it, CK. Use the … PCM.”

“Use it?”

“Fix me. Fix you. Fix time …” And Penny says nothing more.

He stares at the device, his grief momentarily lost in the feel of its power.

“Fix her. Fix me. Fix time ….”

And just like that, history changes.

Penny!

It’s the thought of her peril that brings him back to himself. It’s his fear for her that makes him claw his way out of the abyss of oblivion, clawing, crawling … one inch at a time back from the sweet nothingness that beckoned him like a lover’s promise.

No more pain. An end to an empty existence as a brain in a brass prison. The peace of the grave. It tempts him, this idea of destruction. Before Penelope Yin, he might have just let go and let the pain drown him.

But Penny is in the hands of the Lost, and she needs him.

So he fights.

He fights and he wins. Not because he’s the Clockwork King. Not because he’s one of the greatest psychic minds the world has ever known. Not because he’s a powerful Archvillain.

He fights because of Penelope Yin.

Penny! Can you hear me, Penny?

He’s back in his metal prison. Back to being a brain floating in a bell jar. God help him, he’s back.

CK?

It’s little more than a whisper. He can feel her pain, and he aches in sympathy. I hear you, Penny! I’ll find you! I’ll save you!

CK-- you’re the Clockwork King.

Yes. It hurts to admit this. He flinches, steeling himself to hear the inevitable rejection, to feel the disgust in her thoughts.

Why didn’t you tell me? You could have told me …

I-- couldn’t.

How does he tell her what their conversations have meant to him? How does he explain what he’s risked to just see her? How do you explain to someone that they are everything to you?

How can a monster lo-- no! He won’t think it. He’s mad, but he’s not that mad. Monsters don’t have happy endings. If he forgets that, he’s lost.

I couldn’t, Penny. I couldn’t.

CK-- I hurt. I’m so cold. The fire-- the fire helps.

He’s heard that phrase before. He knows he has, whispered by someone near his many Clockwork. But who? And why does it send a chill down his mechanical spine?

Penny! I’ll find you! I’ll save you! No matter what it takes, I’ll save you!

CK-- hurry, CK. The Change … the Change comes quickly …

He’s flying.

His life is strength and power, the solidity of steel, the certainty of metal. But he lives his life at a pace of slow thunder. He has precision, but no grace. Force, but no speed. He is the Clockwork King, as inevitable as time itself.

But today, he’s also an oscillator.

Flight. Agility. And speed.

It’s like riding a roller coaster. He’s acutely aware of how fragile this body is compared to the one that even now sits on a throne of rusted metal and gears in a warehouse far from Faultline. He can feel joints strain and rotors flex with each and every twist and turn. He’s poured so much of himself into this fragile Clockwork that he may be risking death or worse. If it should be destroyed the feedback might--

No. He won’t think about that.

The risk is worth it. The chance to see Penny-- to see her in the only way he’ll ever be able to see her-- is worth the risk.

He knows he can find her. He can feel her in the back of his mind. The trick will be making sure that she doesn’t recognize his mental signature. She is powerful-- he knows that she is, in her way, more powerful than he is-- but he believes that he can fool her.

He hopes he can fool her.

Along with Boomtown, Faultline has long provided his Kingdom with the materials necessary for the expansion of his Clockwork army. He can’t recall if he ever had been there when he wore flesh-- sometimes it seems like he has always been a thing of metal-- but he has a good idea of the layout of the community. Penny has told him much, and he has the memories of his scavenging Clockwork to rely on.

He knows where her father’s store is, and he knows that sooner or later she will come there. There’s still enough wreckage near the store that a Clockwork will not be out of place.

All he has to do is wait.

It’s not a long wait before a girl rides up on a scooter. She’s pretty-- and young. And full of life.

And power.

The power from her almost blinds him.

What could he accomplish with power like that on his side? Statesman himself would fall at his feet …

And then Penny turns her head and looks straight at him.

There’s surprise in her eyes. Maybe even fear. His Clockwork do not normally attack humans, but in their quest for metal they sometimes inadvertently hurt those who get in their way …

Fear … and something else.

“CK?”

Instinct makes him want to run-- to fly away … but something else urges him to stay.

Penny holds her hand out to him. “CK?”

He descends down towards her, stretching out his tiny metal arm …

And then the Lost burst out of her father’s store, grabbing Penny with mutated, misshapen hands.

“Penny!” Angrily, he fires furious bursts of electrical from his surrogate fingertips. He calls to his Clockwork, urging them to come to his aid …

And a huge thing that only looks vaguely human draws forth a giant blade and slices him in half.

The last thing his pain-wracked mind sees is Penny being dragged screaming into the sewers…

If he could, he would smile.

Joy is a rare thing to him, as distant a memory as the taste of food. He’d thought himself incapable of it now, but he could not deny that he was happy now.

Penny was safe!

Positron’s little heroes had managed to stop the mad plans of Dr. Vahzilok and the Circle of Thorns, and never once guessed that he had been working to STOP them, not engage in some kind of mad scheme of his own. He had managed to help save Faultline without once revealing that was his intention.

As for Cortex … he would no longer be a threat to Penny’s safety. He had seen to that personally. He had not killed him-- blood on his hands, blood on his Clockwork-- but he had made sure that Cortex would not be telling anyone anything for a long time to come.

Penny was safe.

For now.

He knows that he is not exactly sane, but he is not a fool either. The world is a dangerous place, Paragon City even more so. He has many enemies, and if any of them should find out that he cares for a single living person …

He knows that he should break off contact for her, but he also knows that he won’t. He aches when he talks to her because he knows that what his non-existent heart wants can never be. He aches when he doesn’t speak to her because the silence inside threatens to destroy what’s left of his sanity.

“I don’t even know what she looks like.”

He flinches as he says the words. That way lies nothing but danger and heart ache. He knows what he is, and he knows what she is. She can never see him. She can never know who he is, what he is.

And yet … and yet the thought won’t go away.

“I don’t have to go there. I don’t have to bring her to me. I can just send one of my Clockwork. If I can just see her once … even secondhand. That will be enough for me.”

He knows it won’t. He knows he will always want more than he can have. He knows he shouldn’t do this. But he will.

He will because he has no other choice.

He’s a monster, but Penny makes him feel all too human.

The Warriors can be nasty for a squishy, but I have NEVER seen them actually winning a street fight. They're always the ones cowering on the ground before the big bad Freaks or the Tsoo.

Heck, I actually felt bad for them so my Illusion/Kin would actually use deceive to help them win some of those fights and be the last man standing for once.

He’s not renowned for his hospitality, but even the Clockwork King sometimes gets visitors.

The man-- if you can call him that-- is named Cortex. He’s a disciple of the infamous Dr. Vahzilok. Clad all in black, he’s inhumanly tall. “Your Majesty, I am honored to speak to you.”

He hates his voice, but the thought of linking his mind to Cortex is too repellant to even contemplate. “How did you find me?”

“I have certain … gifts, Your Majesty. They enabled me to find you.” And Cortex taps his skull for emphasis.

“What do you want?”

“My master proposes an alliance, Your Majesty.”

The sewers of Paragon are an efficient transportation route throughout the city, and his Clockwork often use it as such. More than once, there have been clashes between his minions and those of Dr. Vahzilok. Although he has little use for humanity-- except for Penelope-- even he is disgusted by the foul work of the mad doctor.

“What makes the patchwork doctor think I would be interested in allying myself with him and his filthy creations?”

Even though Cortex is little more than a blur to him, he can sense the Eidolon swell up with indignation over his words. If he could, the Clockwork King would smile.

“My master can give you something that you want.”

“And what’s that?” He was suddenly alert to danger. He could crush this fool with one hand, but the Eidolon was very powerful in human terms. Instinctively, he feared for Penny.

“My master can make you human again.”

“Human?” The word hurts. It’s like a dagger between the eyes.

Human. To be able to see clearly. To hear. To touch. To feel hot or cold again. To be able to smell a flower … or Penny’s hair …

“Work with Dr. Vahzilok, and he will return your brain to a human body. You will be a man again. There are advantages to flesh, are there not, Your Majesty?”

He knows! Somehow he knows about Penny!

“I … see.” Dreams of humanity turn to ash in his mind. What would Penny think of him if he made such a bargain? His hands now were metal and ugly, but at least they belonged to him. To steal the flesh of another--- to use one of Vahzilok’s monstrosities to touch her--- it would be foul, corrupt.

Penny would never forgive him.

“And why does the good doctor want an alliance at this time?”

“Dr. Vahzilok has plans that involve Faultline right now, and he has reason to suspect the Circle of Thorns have interests of their own that could present a problem with the doctor’s wishes. Your aid could make dealing with them substantially easier.”

“I will consider your master’s offer. You may go now.”

Cortex opened his mouth to speak again, but thought better of it when half a dozen of his mightiest Princes came up to lead the Eidolon away. “My master hopes to hear from you soon, Your Majesty!”

Faultline? A threat to Faultline was a threat to Penny. He couldn’t allow that. He wouldn’t. But even if he crushed Cortex like the bug he was, that wouldn’t guarantee Penny’s safety. No, he would have to be cautious. There had to be another way …

And he would find it. Nothing would threaten Penny while he lived.

Nothing!

Something I've been curious about.

Do any of the Devs roleplay when they play COX?

Or how about in relation to the Big Eight?

Do Matt or Jack or any of the rest read the dialogue written for the NPC/Enemy Appearances of their signature characters and say, "No, Posi would NEVER say that." or "Statesman would NEVER have 3 lumps of sugar in his tea ... change the emote!"

Just idle curiousity I suppose.

(Though I have to admit that I'm REALLY curious about how Matt liked the Posi/Synapse relationship in the book Freedom Phalanx. I really wanted to know if they were that close once why they wind up bickering as at least one of the plaques in the game suggests they do.)

[ QUOTE ]
One thing that confuses me. In I10 Lady Grey TF, We see that Penny obviously know who her psychic friend really is. Question being, Sister Psych would have already told Penny all about the Clockwork King's bad behavior. So why does Penny continue to contact him...?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the start of their relationship.

By the time we meet Penny in the Faultline Story, she not only knows who CK is, she's being guarded by his Clockwork ... and they helped her escape an attack by the Lost.

My plan is to show how they got to that point.

Time used to have little meaning to him.

He does not eat. (Cannot eat.).He does not sleep. (Except when exhaustion overcomes him and a gloved fist comes roaring out of his nightmares to make him remember that which he strives so mightily to forget.) His Clockwork work all hours of the day and night. He lives his life like a man in a fever delirium. If his faithful automatons were not capable of keeping track of time down to the smallest decimal point, he would exist only in an eternal, timeless NOW.

At least that was his life before Penny.

Now, he measures time by the aching of his non-existent heart that ebbs and flows in direct correlation to how long it’s been since he last “spoke” to her. He even has a vague idea as to what day of the week it is now due to Penny’s chatting about her schoolwork and her favorite television shows and when she will be getting together again with her friends.

Friends.

The mere thought of the word is painful to him.

Even when he was a man, he doesn’t think he ever had a friend.

Until Penny.

He’s jealous of her friends. The ones that can see her every day. The ones who can talk to her and hear her voice, see her with human eyes. The ones who could touch her.

He dreads the thought of Penny ever seeing him. He knows that he is a grotesque sight. And he would never ever touch her with the cold, unfeeling metal that makes up his hands …

But he doesn’t think of hurting her friends. That would hurt Penny, and he would NEVER hurt her.

“What time is it?” Inwardly, he winces every time he hears his voice, but though he could have gotten the same information with a curt mental command, thoughts of Penny always cause him to want to do things as a man would.

The Sprocket that he spoke to doesn’t pause in its work, but it nevertheless tells him, “The time is 1:43 a.m.”

“Thank you.”

If the Sprocket is surprised-- and sometimes his creations surprise him with the sophistication of their awareness-- it doesn’t show it.

Penny is asleep. He hopes that her dreams are good ones. Sometimes he even hopes that she dreams of him.

As for himself, he cannot sleep, but he has another way to dream.

He sends out tendrils of his consciousness to the Clockwork that roam Paragon City. His Clockwork are as individual as snowflakes. Some of them do nothing but perform their assigned duties over and over again. Others appear to have “quirks” and left to their own devices will do things that surprise even their maker.

A sprocket sits on an open window in a bar in King’s Row. His vision is poor, but his audio receptors are among the best of the King’s creations, and unless he’s ordered otherwise, he comes to this bar every night and listens to the patrons as they use a karaoke machine. The owner of the bar has learned if he leaves the window open he doesn’t suffer from losses to the scavenging Clocks.

In another part of King’s Row, the Paladin has once more come to the small park that always seems to be his final destination. No one knows that one of the few happy childhood memories the King has is playing in that park …

And in Boomtown, the mighty Babbage angrily patrols the wreckage, fruitlessly searching for the man who maimed his creator … again and again he returns to the ruined bungalow, but Blue Steel is never there …

In Steel Canyon a Perfected Oscillator soars through the night sky seemingly exuberant with the power of flight.

I am a part of the city, the Clockwork King thinks, smilingly mentally at the Oscillator’s joy. I have a place here.

And then a blast of blue energy shatters the Oscillator’s rotors and send it plummeting towards the ground. The last thing its optic sensors detect is the laughing face of a hero, his fist still crackling with power …

And the peace of the Clockwork King breaks along with his creation …

There wasn’t supposed to be blood.

He’s kneeling by the burnt, broken body of a police officer like a child trying to awaken a sleeping mother. He knows the man is dead, but he can’t stop himself. It’s wrong. The man shouldn’t be dead. There shouldn’t be blood.

He can’t breathe. Can’t concentrate. The warehouse is filled with smoke-- so much smoke. His Clockwork are buzzing like an angry beehive, but he can still hear men and women screaming and cursing as they fight for their lives. Bits and pieces of his faithful little friends lie scattered on the old warehouse floor like discarded toys …

It’s wrong. It’s all gone horribly wrong.

There’s blood on his hands. Blood on his Clockwork. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. He’s not a killer. He’s a scientist, like Positron. He was supposed to be a hero, like Blue Steel.

There wasn’t supposed to blood.

The smoke is choking him, and he knows that he can’t stay. Maybe he should. Maybe he should let the fire take him, but he can’t. He’s not built that way. He wants to live. He wants to find a way to make this right.

But it’s so hard to breathe …

He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He needs air. He needs time. He needs to fix this.

And the next thing he knows, he’s being carried out of the warehouse on the backs of his tiny metal men. They move so fast that in no time at all he finds himself in the wreckage of Boomtown, in the small house that had once belonged to his grandparents.

It’s as much a mess as he is.

He can’t stop coughing. He knows that he should see a doctor. He knows that he needs help.

He’s afraid he’s going to die. He’s going to die and there’s blood on his hands and he knows where he’ll go if he dies now …

The door to the bungalow shatters and a man-- no, something more than a man-- steps through it.

Blue Steel.

He wants to talk. He wants to tell Blue Steel how sorry he is. Blue Steel is a hero. He’ll know what to do. He’ll save him …

But Blue Steel is shouting at him so hoarsely that he can’t understand the words, and he can’t stop looking at Blue Steel’s clenched fist …

He only sees the first blow.


And the Clockwork King awakens with the memory of choking on his own blood. “Penny!”

I’m here, CK. What’s wrong? You sound awful …

“I had the dream again.” He’s surprised at how easily it is for him to tell her this. He hasn’t told her who he really is yet, but he’s still surprised by how easily it is admit to human weakness to this little girl with the powerful mind …

It’s okay, CK. I’m here. I’ll always be here.

He clings to that assurance like a drowning man. He wants to believe her. He knows he can’t.

Monsters don’t happily ever afters.

[ QUOTE ]
Is this inspired from that thread in COH General?

[/ QUOTE ]

Seeing as how I started that thread, I think the answer is.. yeah.

Sometimes, he can almost forget he was human.

The omnipresent chatter of his Clockwork soothes him as they go about their myriad tasks. His Royal Court constantly praises his genius, his power, his leadership. The ground seems to shudder beneath his metallic feet and his steel hands possess unfathomable strength. He is the Clockwork King, and someday the world will bow down before him!

And yet there are times when that isn’t enough.

There are times when he wanders his palace like a lost soul. He looks on as his faithful minions make more of their kind and remembers when he had hands that had dexterity rather than inhuman might. Even his vision is a pale shadow of what it was-- he sees better through the eyes of his subjects-- well, some of them anyway-- than he does with his own unblinking orbs. His hearing is sometimes preternaturally acute and other times it is all but useless depending on how well his machinery is functioning.

And when he can hear the sound of his life support equipment threatens to drive him mad.

The small mountains of metal and junk that his Sprockets gather taunt him with reminders of the life that was stolen from him. There are books and magazines that he can’t read. Radios and IPods that he can’t listen to. Lunchboxes filled with food he can’t eat.

It’s food and drink he misses the most. Sometimes the memory of something as mundane as a tuna sandwich or a cup of coffee make him want to cry …

But he can’t. There’s not enough left of him to cry.

And because he can’t cry, he screams.

He screams in the depths of his soul, in the abyss of his mind where no one will ever hear him …

Until one day, someone does.

Um, hello? Is anyone there?

“Who are you?” he snarls … though if there were anyone to hear other than his Clockwork it would be an emotionless electronic monotone. “Where are you?”

I’m Penny. Penelope. I can kind of hear people think sometimes. I heard you cry out. Can I help you?

“Help me?” How long has it been since he heard those words?

Yeah. You sound like you can use a friend …

“A friend …”

And for the first time in a very long while, he feels … human.

Almost.

[ QUOTE ]
Sadly, even now, CK is still waiting for Penelope in Pocket D 2. After all the trouble we went to, trying to help him get ready, giving him dance lessons (he never did get the hang of it, though I swear his brain was bobbing along with the beat for a while), and even chipping in for some turtle wax, she never showed.



[/ QUOTE ]


I hope he doesn't feel discouraged.

He's not the first guy who's ever been stood up on a first date.




Maybe Penelope's father wouldn't let her go out ...


Poor CK. Life's hard for a brain in a bottle ...

Did the Statesman TF yesterday, and after a long fought battle we finally had to bail at the end because Recluse kept pounding our behinds everytime we tried to attack a tower.

It was the longest TF I ever did after the first time I did Positron, but I really had fun on it. Kudoes to the Devs for that.

But what I want to know is can any tank but stone/? survive and distract Recluse long enough for the towers to go down?

Or maybe we just needed more dmage to take the towers down fast enough...

This may not be something that'd be possible, but is there
any chance at all that one of these events could be a TF? It'd be really cool if there could be two or three TFs some night where Red Names are participating ...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anything that is defeated by the confused foe will not give you experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

No no no! Don't spread such vile lies! This is a horrible, much earlier Issue (I don't know, like 3) myth that has been proven wrong time and time again. As long as you are consistently fighting alongside your deceived enemy, you will not lose XP, but actually gain XP quicker.

Please don't post antiquated nonsense in a guide; it's people reading stuff like this in guides that propagates the lies, with an end result being, "DON'T USE DECEIVE! EVER!!!" It's awful and wrong and I won't take it lying down!

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=4447670

That right there is good hard proof of Confusion's benefits. It's not an XP stealer unless you go around mindlessly deceiving enemies with no intent of fighting them your ownself at all.

I'm sorry, but lies about Confusion are my hot button.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but the original quote, "Anything that is defeated by the confused foe will not give you experience. " is partially correct. Try it out. You get zero XP for anyone a deceived foe fights and defeats all by itself.
The post you referanced says that you will gain more XP OVER TIME if you use deceive and don't pause too long between mobs. Not that you get more XP using deceive. If a deceived foe kills a minion or 2 by itself you'd lose a little XP per mob, but get overall XP faster by going through mishs and mobs faster.


Overall, I've found deceive to be a so-so power until you get to enemies that buff thier friends or debuff your team. Like the original poster said, that's when deceive really shines. It's great aginst Sky Raider FF generators, Rikti Guardians, and Tsoo Sorcerers that will bubble/ heal your team rather than the enemy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Deceive is a great power for the solo troller, especially at the lower levels. I found it to be particularly helpful when I was fighting the Lost and the Vahz. I was able to solo very easily even pre-Phantom Army and I almost never died.

That toon also advanced faster than any toon I've ever played except for my katana/regen scrapper.

A teaming Illusion Controller will prolly be fine without it so long as he's got a good team, but the soloist is setting himself up for a world of hurt without it.

Besides, who doesn't like to stage his own "Who'd Win"(tm) contests?

“How do you feel?”

“Tired.” It took him several seconds to recognize his own voice. Several more to realize that he had his eyes closed. “Where am I?”

“Rivera Hospital. Do you remember what happened?”

“The zombie men-- the Vahzilok? The girl-- the hero. Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s already headed back out. She said to thank you.”

“I never even learned her name.”

“Starburstt. Astrostar was her fiancé, so I imagine that she’s going to be spending a lot of time trying to figure out how the Vahz were able to shortcircuit their hero badges. This should never have happened.”

“You’re telling me.” Simon opened his eyes and found himself staring at a polite looking young woman dressed in a conservative gray business suit. Attached to her lapel was a brightly colored name tag that said “Freedom Corps Representative Young.” He didn’t know how to meet that professionally cool gaze, so he looked down at his hands. “My hands. What happened to them? They look different …”

“The gold skin? I think it’s very becoming.” A distant smile. “You seem to be a rather unusual case, Mr. McCoy. Medical tests indicate that you’re a mutant-- a latent mutant. Your powers would probably never have manifested if you hadn’t been placed in a life threatening situation.”

“Powers?” He could feel them in the back of his mind-- the Phantoms, the spirit of light. But they were distant now … he couldn’t reach them.”

“You appear to be what we in the business call a controller, Mr. McCoy. Initial diagnosis appears to be illusion/kinetics.” She leaned forward and looked at him intently, but he couldn’t see her eyes behind the opaque lenses she wore. “You can do a lot of good with your abilities. Freedom Corps could use a man like you.”

“I don’t feel like I did then. I feel … weaker.”

“You manifested powers you shouldn’t possess yet, Mr. McCoy. It should take you weeks-- possibly months-- to do what you did to the Vahz. It was a one in a million thing. It could have been the stress. It could have even have been the Eidolon’s radiation. We’ll never know. Whatever the reason, you can’t do what you did then-- yet. But if you dedicate yourself, you’ll be able to do it again.”

“I don’t know. I’m not a hero. I just want to get back to my normal life and forget all about this.” He looked at his hands. “As much as I can.”

“I have a feeling that will be easier said than done, Mr. McCoy.” Ms. Young got to her feet. “I’ll leave my card with you if you should change your mind.”

“Thank you.” Idly, Simon wondered if Ms. Young possessed any powers of her own. He didn’t wonder long-- he was so tired that he fell asleep almost instantly.

A few hours later, a nurse woke him up and took his vital signs. She handed him some paperwork-- some pamphlets about living as a mutant, some billing information-- and brought him his clothing which had fortunately been given a thorough cleaning. He had a feeling that he’d ditch it as soon as he got home, but at least it wouldn’t get him thrown off the tram.

Simon dressed and walked out of the hospital-- and paused as he saw a number of policemen-- uniform and SWAT, it looked like-- run by. Much to his surprise, he even saw some of the Police Drones that guarded the trams float by. “What’s happening?” he asked the doctor standing outside the hospital, furiously scribbling notes on a clipboard.

“Outbreak,” the doctor replied tersely. “Someone released some kind of toxin nearby. The police have shut down access into and out of the area and are working on containing it. Officer Parker down the street is working some new heroes to try to find out what’s going on.”

“I see.” Simon paused. He wasn’t a hero, he told himself. It was none of his business-- but he wasn’t getting home until this was over. It wouldn’t hurt to lend a hand just this once. “See you, doctor.”

Simon turned his collar up against the wind, and ran down the street to Officer Parker.

“One thing’s for sure,” he told himself, “You’ll never catch ME in spandex!”


The Beginning.

He couldn’t have been unconscious long. His heart was pounding. His head ached. He felt like he was going to throw up everything inside him … up to and including internal organs.

Am I dying? Am I dead? Can’t be dead. Wouldn’t hurt so bad…

Astrostar was dead … again. His still-twitching form was glowing with a sickly green light. The Reapers were bent over him, examining his corpse.

The other zombies swayed on their feet and moaned as though they almost knew what they were and remembered what they had been.

“I don’t understand,” one of them said. “How could he turn against us?”

The Eidolon was leaning against a wall with one hand. “She hurt me!” he snarled, glaring at the heroine who had fallen before him. “How dare she hurt me! I’ll kill her for that!”

“That would be a waste of good material!” an aghast Reaper cried.

“Shut up!” The Eidolon snarled. He bent and picked up one of the cleavers that a Reaper had dropped. He grabbed the heroine by her long golden hair and bared her throat to the bloody weapon in his hands. “Now you’ll get what’s coming to you --”

“Leave her alone!” Simon’s eyes felt burning hot. He heard a popping sound that rather reminded him of a flashbulb from an old-fashioned camera going off.

The Eidolon roared out a mindless scream as a fierce white light seemed to surround his eyes. He dropped the heroine and cleaver and clutched his head with both hands.

“He did it! Get him!” The Reapers aimed their crossbows at Simon.

“Stay away from me! Stay away!” White hot rage, icy fear, a grim determination to live-- he felt them in the back of his mind. Without quite knowing how he did it, he shaped them, gave them form and purpose. And all in a split second, he unleashed them. “Stop them!”

Three translucent figures seemed to erupt out of his soul: a woman armed with a blazing sword of fire, a man equipped with a howling sword of ice, and a heavyset shape of pure muscle that tore a chunk of rock from the ground beneath it.

The reapers fired their darts into the unreal figures to no effect. They ordered their remaining zombies to attack with terror-laden shrieks, but the undead horrors fared no better than their inhumane human masters. The Phantoms’ ethereal might easily overcame them all.

No sooner had the last zombie fallen, however, than the spirits faded away as well.

The Eidolon barked out a laugh. “Impressive. Very impressive, young hero.”

“Hero?” Simon panted as he forced himself to his feet. He felt drained. His head ached as though it were going to burst. He had never felt so weak in his life.

“You don’t even know what you are, do you?” The Eidolon taunted him. “All that power-- all the potential you have-- and you don’t know what you have accomplished or how you did it. It’s a pity you have to die ignorant, but it can’t be helped. You’ve proven yourself far too dangerous to remain alive.”

The heroine was still unconscious … or worse. Crumpled in a heap, she looked as dead as her partner. There was no help to be had from that quarter.

The Eidolon raised his hands again and began to generate another sickly green sphere.



If that hits me, I’m dead, Simon thought. And I don’t want to die. Not here. Not like this.

The Phantoms slept at the back of his mind. He knew it was too soon for him to call them again. But there was something else there-- something that was in its own way even more powerful than the spirits that had just rescued him.

“Save me!” Simon shouted. It was as much demand as plea. An articulated expression of his desire to go on living.

And something heard him.

“No!” The Eidolon roared. “It’s impossible! You can’t be doing this! You can’t!”

But he was. Simon didn’t know how he was doing it, but he knew that the strange and wondrous being before him had come to life because Simon had willed it.

It was like some modern day angel of light. Manlike in shape, it was almost totally transparent. A blue-white shimmering aura seemed to surround it. It was taller than any man that Simon had ever seen.

The Eidolon stared at the creature of light. Even through his mask, Simon could see the terror on his face. “No!” he howled.

The light-being made no reply … at least none that required words. It pointed its fists at the Eidolon-- and the darkness and sickly green light of the Eidolon was banished forever by a holocaust of blue light …

The mindless things that had once been living men did not have the wit to anticipate his actions. The mad doctors had their hands full with the heroine and had been so self assured that Simon would do nothing to hinder them that he was halfway to his goal before they even realized what he was going to do.

“Stop him!” one of them shouted, reaching for his crossbow.

But it was too late.

Simon grabbed the medicine kit and ran towards the heroine, pressing the purple button so hard his finger ached.

The ray hit the heroine and she made a mindless cry of triumph as blue energy erupted from her hands, knocking the two mad doctors away from her.

Simon rushed over to her and helped her to her feet. “We have to get out of here!”

“They killed Astrostar!”

“And they’ll kill us!”

The heroine fired another blast of energy at the blood covered butchers. “I’ll kill them!”

“No, I’m afraid that I can’t permit that.”

The figure that walked out of the shadows was close to eight foot tall and not even the heavy leather bodysuit he wore could disguise that he was as heavily muscled as any hero. A sickly green glow highlighted his form. “You poor little hero. Believe it or not, you would have been luckier to have fallen to the tender mercies of the Reapers.”

“Don’t damage her, Eidolon.” The reapers drew their crossbows. “Her power must be added to the Vahzilok.”

“What about him?” The Eidolon gestured with a glowing hand at Simon.

“Leave him alone!” The heroine cried, making an angry gesture with her hand that sent a wave of energy at the Reapers, knocking them off their feet. “Run!”

“Get them!” A Reaper barked at the shuffling dead men.

They moaned and took a step forward.

“Astrostar! No! Don’t make me do this! Don’t make me fight you!” The heroine sheathed her fists in pure energy. “Please!”

The dead thing that had been Astrostar advanced forward without hesitation.

“Listen to her!” Simon urged. “They killed you! Made you a monster! Don’t let them make you a killer!”

The Astrostar Zombie paused.

“Listen to us!” Simon cried. “Stop them! Stop them!”

The thing that had been Astrostar moaned, slapped his fellow zombies aside, and then began a slow charge towards the Reapers.

“And that’s enough of that, I think.” The Eidolon raised his hands over his head and formed a green sphere. “Goodbye.”

“No!” The heroine fired at the Eidolon.

The Astrostar-zombie lunged at the Reapers.

And for Simon McCoy, the world exploded into green light.

And it was moving!

Simon heard a muffled sob beside him and gratefully tore his gaze from the awful scene in front of him.

There was another hero beside him … she was sprawled against the floor and looked like she couldn’t move. There was some kind of dart stuck in shoulder and another in her stomach. Her costume colors were the inverse of the fallen hero’s. Like most heroines he had seen or heard of, she was obviously beautiful … or at least she would have been if she didn’t have dirt and drool splattered across her face. Her eyes were filled with grief and fear, but also a desperate determination as well.

The two men at the table barked out harsh laughter that didn’t seem human at all as they half-shoved, half-helped the moaning thing off the table.

“Hero parts are the best,” one of them cackled.

“And just think, we’ve got another one to practice on!”

“What about the civilian?”

“Save him for last. I want to work on the other cape before someone comes along to rescue her. He won’t go anywhere. Civilians never try to fight or run.” The reaper turned to the shambling thing they had just created. “Put her on the table.”

The once-hero shuffled forward with two other creatures like itself. They roughly grabbed the heroine and threw her down onto the table.

Her eyes found Simon’s, held them, and then frantically glared at the fallen hero’s clothing.

The mad doctors’ laughed. Their gory blades seemed to shine in the flickering lights.

Simon stared at the tattered bits of clothing, desperately looking for what the heroine had been trying to tell him. For one heart-stopping moment, he saw nothing … and then he found it:

A medicine kit.

The heroine struggled as the doctors and zombies fought to bind her down. No one was paying attention to him at all.

He could run. No one could expect him to do anything now. He wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t a hero.

Civilians never try to fight.

This time … this time it was going to be different.

With a growl, Simon dove into the fight.

Chop! Chop! Thunk! Chop!

The sound wasn’t pleasant. It thundered in his head, and his mouth tasted almost as vile as the stench that assailed his nostrils. He wanted nothing more than to just fade away into darkness once more, but the same voice that had waked him refused to allow him to sleep.

“Don’t. If you pass out we’re dead.”

With a fierce effort, Simon McCoy forced his eyes open and shoved himself back into a sitting position. What he saw almost made him wish he hadn’t.

He was in one of Paragon City’s infamous sewers. The huge churning machinery, the sickly-looking water, the scum-covered ladders and platforms were unmistakable. Given what he had heard about the place, it didn’t reassure him to recognize his surroundings.

“Can you hear me-- just nod your head! We don’t want them to overhear us.”

Simon nodded his head, hissing sharply as he did so.

“Quiet! We don’t want them noticing you’re awake yet.”

Chop! Chop! Thunk!

He could see them now. He bit his lip to keep from crying out. He bit it until he drew blood.

Two of them were men … in form, if not outlook. They wore bloodstained leather aprons and wore human bones as some sort of macabre decoration. They had a worn out table they were hunched over, working with cleavers and bone saws on a shadowy something sprawled on the table.

It’s not a man! It’s a dog or something-- it can’t be a man!

Simon tore his eyes from the grisly scene to the bits of torn and colorful clothing that the madmen had tossed aside as they worked on their victim.

A hero.

The thing on the table had been a hero.

[ QUOTE ]
What I think is suspicious is that he supposedly froze the clerk and the robber when

1) We know for a *fact* that it is impossible to use superpowers on a civilian, much less stop them from walking down the sidewalk.

2) Frostfire's ability to freeze someone is based entirely on single-target attacks. He could not have frozen the clerk on accident, even if the clerk were targetable.

What clearly happened was that the clerk was an out-of-work ice tank who hibernated to protect himself. Because of this, it is impossible for him to have been killed by the fire. All we need to do is *find* this clerk to verify these facts, but he is no doubt in hiding.

[/ QUOTE ]

The clerk was a Malta plant ... or Antonio Nash in disguise!

Actually, do we even know what Nash's powers are?

[ QUOTE ]


Finally, he was already up against it for freezing the shopkeeper and robber, which probably killed them before the fire in any case.


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think so. I've seen ice blasters and ice controllers freeze people in blocks of ice hundreds of times and have yet to see any of them arrested for murder.

Given that Blue Battler is an AR/Fire Blaster who's taken down countless bad guys with Full Auto and Fire Sword only to run into them again later, I'm willing to think that Paragon City has the tech to handle Peoplecicles...