DeviousMe

((Echo...?))

((Just FYI, superpowers are supposed to be suppressed in the Zig through drugs, anti-superpower-tech, containment magic, etc. Also, you're way ahead of the rest of us, we just finished breakfast. ))

Ryuu Hotaka put up no resistance as the guards escorted him back to his cell. They passed a sadistic-grin-wearing, Dr. Raiken on the way who rubbed his hands in a plotting fashion as he surveyed the prisoners he wanted to 'examine' tonight - Brutish Ghoul of course the first among them.

As Ryuu passed him, the Doctor paused for a moment and turned to look after the tall, robed man with a puzzled expression.

Then he shook his head and rubbed his eyes. Must've been the imagination. With a shrug, he turned to walk on his way...

...and fell flat on his face as he tripped over his own shoelaces. The bells on his collar jingled aloud as the maniacal medicinist tumbled over like a sack of potatoes. Down the corridor, someone yelled, "Timber!", followed by bouts of loud laughter.

"You're on my list." Raiken hissed quietly after Hotaka, absolutely sure the man had something to do with this. He'd need to do some research first, though. Well, plenty of time to dig up the guy's files, right?

Hotaka himself just smiled as always as they led him back through the cell block gates with, "Five coming in!", and then back to his cell, Phaith already there.

"An enlightening morning." Ryuu commented as he sat down on the floor in a meditative position...

[ QUOTE ]
In other words, did we really need another fight thread? --> points at Grand Finale

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It's more of a revived 'Blightlord's Revenge' thread, just Burning wanted to eliminate the 'must have met character X' thing.

And I think I'm going to regret this...

*points crosshairs at self*

Bring it on!

*hides behind randomly-floating-by giant mushroom*

<.< I will not excuse my do-not-open door...

"Heh, I got a hug." Allen smiled broadly, then looked to Kip as well, "And no, we're just really good friends. The whole romantic involvement thing didn't really work out."

An eyebrow cocked quizzlically as he noticed Kip seemed to mean something else entirely, "Lose something...?"

The Tsoo technically have two origins:

The Pha, or enforcers, are the low-level guys you see in various colored martial arts outfits. They are strictly natural.

The Sorcerers and Ink Men use magical ink to obtain a lrge part of their powers. They are magic.

The bosses are a mixed breed, as some are highly trained while others use the magic tattoos.

I'd say magic here.

((Actually, he just listened in on the general emissions. You'd be surprised how many millions of signals per second just a human mind scatters into the air - and that's when sleeping.

Think of it like standing in a very large room full of people constantly talking. You don't need to 'probe' anyone to listen in on the conversations.

Oh, and one more thing - people usually think about themselves in the first person. Since Vyachslav didn't think his name at any time, there's pretty much no chance Wolfgang got a hold of it. ))

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

Normally, Thysthe probably would've ceased right about now, seeing how the woman seemed to be incapacitated.

Now wasn't normally.

Without him even realizing it, Blightlord's spell kept feeding his anger, his hostility.

He had to take her down - it was absolute!

Against all common sense, he clicked the safety off the beam rifle and deactivated the cooldown delay timer.

Across the lake, Amora had a quick chance to see a few blades of grass move as Armand shifted the beam rifle's barrel ever so slightly.

It was her only chance.

His finger squeezed the trigger again, sending another finely bundled energy beam rushing towards her.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

And another...

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

Over the hill that had been blocking the view of those on the ground now came Vyachslav, once again on all fours. He wasn't used to covering anything but a short distance by any other means than flight, and though he was a biped, his nature instinctively had an aversion to the idea of walking on two legs for an extended period of time.

Being up in a tree, of course, Wolfgang had a clear view of him the entire time - unlike everyone else, who most likely just now laid eyes on the relatively large Vyachslav.

Then he sensed an esper on the mental plane.

Vyachslav instinctively drew back immediately, erecting a quick mental block over his surface thoughts.

Coincidentally, this also revealed another influence that had been trying to get at him this entire time. It wasn't strong, and being an avid telepath, Vyachslav had automatically placed a barrier without even noticing the signal. Now, however, things started to make a little more sense around here.

However, a close analysis revealed that even someone with no mental experience at all could overcome the suggestor's influence with enough willpower, unlike even the weakest sources of hypnosuggestion Vyachslav had encountered before.

Vyachslav immediately realized the implications of this: the suggestion was weak enough to influence people without them even noticing it, yet still send its commands with great distinction.

Did this mean the esper was a follow-up to it?

No...it had come from an entirely different 'direction' on the mental plane. The possibility that the source was the same existed, but Vyachslav calculated the chances of that at less than 0.72209%.

He carefully reached out to Wolfgang, making sure to keep the rest of his surface barrier up at all times. If he was wrong about this, he couldn't allow the source any information.

You speak the language of the mind. Who are you?

Throughout this period of thought, Vyachlsav had never stopped walking...

A loud curse cut through the tree line near a certain forest lake. Someone wasn't happy.

The man swore again as he checked the area around where he'd awoken, extremely displeased that the aim of his pursuit was nowhere in sight.

Bounty hunter by trade, he wasn't a generally cheerful individual anyway, but this just took the cake - jumping into the same portal right after, yet still winding up in a different place than the aim of your pursuit was extremely annoying.

Right now, he couldn't see anything but trees. The canopy was thick and unbroken at his present location, leaving no clue whatsoever to his position.

After a few seconds, he finally calmed down somewhat. With a tap to the neck of his armorsuit, the helmet opened and retracted. The man's head was human enough, the only real difference being the copper-colored skin and gray-green hair, which grew long over the scalp. A pair of blue blast goggles presently rested on his forehead, though it was obvious they could be slipped over the eyes in but a moment's notice.

One of said eyes looked terminally damaged, three large scars running across the ocular organ as well as most of that half of the face. Whether these scars crossed anything else remained to be seen, as a gray assassin's mask covered the lower half of the man's face, including throat and sides.

He sighed. What a day this had been - and it looked to be far from over.

His opponent seemed nowhere near at the moment, so he decided to focus on a quick self-check. Closing his eyes, he listened inward to the second voice in his head, that of the cybernetic systems that crisscrossed his body as well as linking him to the thin suit of armor.

Things seemed well enough. His ship had taken most of the beating, if he remembered correctly.

Dang...that one cost a good one too. I can't believe I'm already in the market for a new ship again.

Opening his eyes, he turned his head lazily to the nearby lake. He could just barely see a small part of water through the dense tree trunks, though the holes did allow a clear view of the opposite shoreline.

And there someone walked!

With a forceful jerk of his head, the man's blast goggles slid down and over his eyes, instantly focusing per his brain's instructions.

A woman. Long hair. Metallic black armor, scored with burnt runes and sigils. A user of knowledge, or so it appeared.

Alert. Unknown energy source attempting core processor penetration.

Hm? What? Figures there's a mentalist around just when ya don't need 'em. Effect?

Unable to determine. No direct effect observed. Calculating...to induce anger, hatred, and frustration at any intelligent being in sight, probability 96.02%. To induce...

Spare me, that one's high enough. Anger, hatred and frustration? Oh, I'm jam-packed with plenty o' that after a day like today!

Yeah, that made enough sense. Something was trying to tick him off. Too bad he was already way beyond there. Indeed, Blightlord's spell couldn't take effect here, as its purpose was already more than accomplished.

He focused on the woman again. From the looks of her, she was more likely to be in league with his adversaries than anything else. Even if not, the dark aura the man scanned about her promised anything but an innocent bystander.

Time to shoot first and ask questions later.

Approaching the gap in the trees, the bounty hunter drew an alien-looking, long-barreled beam rifle, and brought it to bear. The weapon discharged short-standing pulse beams with a narrow focus, which made it an excellent sniping tool. It could even rapid-fire, though this made it prone to overheating.

Still, in the world of the sniper, this wasn't much of an issue. One shot, one kill, that was the rule.

Armand Thyshe was no professional sniper - but he was damn good at it nevertheless.

Lying down in the shore brush, the bounty hunter took careful aim.

And squeezed the trigger.

The rifle discharged with a high-pitched report, sending a coherent beam of energy no more than a centimeter in diameter across the lake. Being pure energy, it traveled close to luminal velocities and carried enough penetration to shred through just about any target's armor with the greatest of ease.

This time, Haunting Amora was that target...

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

The monster stirred.

Slowly but surely, an orange glow returned to dark, blank eyes. Wings crackled with energy as the black, almost skeletal constructs projected the familiar orange surfaces of solid energy once more.

Its massive head lifted from the ground, the body following soon after as the monster got to its feet again. The long tail slithered over a patch of grass, and the lipless mouth of rigid black teeth seemed to silently snarl at everything in sight as the large, four-fingered hands tested their flexibility.

No longer in a devastated city of smoke and fire, the creature's outer layer now reflected incoming light in a black, metallic luster. Resembling armor, it was broken only by the bright-orange eyes and wings.

The armor didn't look too well, though. Several large scratches and gashes were painfully obvious, from smooth cuts to boiled edges. It seemed to have been struck by all sorts of weaponry. From a few of these scars emerged fluid trails, though the nature of the partially dried liquids couldn't be determined without closer inspection.

Still, one thing was sure - the creature had been wounded.

To a random large rock lying about, however, this seemed irrelevant, as four large clawed fingers wedged it loose from the soil and carried it away. The sharp, rigid teeth of the creature's head made short work of the boulder as it was consumed in mere seconds.

Then the monster spied about once more, the head moving in a slow arc until it spotted movement.

Not just movement - battle. At the edge of a forest very near, a cadre of customized mechanoids and a man in T-shirt, jeans, jacket, and sunglasses (wielding a mace, no less) fought against what looked to be reanimated human corpses.

The monster started to move. Before long, it would step into their visual range...

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

Vyachslav's mood could be summed up in one thought.

Fan-ta-stic.

Okay, so that obviously hadn't gone as planned. Waking up with a mouthful of dirt was never a very uplifting experience.

Dang...okay, so where am I this time? Hm, trees, grass, annoyingly low gravity, high nitrogen and oxygen content...is this Terra?

No, it couldn't be...unless someone or something had intercepted the gateway...and if...

Vyachslav chased those thought away. First thing was first. If one was transferred to an unknown location by an unknown actor, the first rule was to perform a diagnostic.

The results weren't pleasing. Exterior plating had suffered heavy damage, and structural integrity was compromised. Long-range artillery was offline and the plasma fuel cell low. Thankfully, the basic systems still operated within tolerance.

Alright, so raw material was the first thing needed here. A nearby rock was kind enough to provide plenty of mass, and Vyachslav's converter stomach could redistribute this mass in just about any needed way. Regeneration started almost immediately.

Next thing was to find any local sources of information. This Vyachslav had no trouble with. It just so happened there were several individuals nearby whose minds practically shouted out to the world to be noticed.

Then again, they weren't the calmest minds ever encountered.

The reason seemed obvious as soon as they were spotted. Fighting undead humans.

Vyachslav didn't like this development one bit. The zombies didn't explain everything, especially not the conflict raging inside the human with the mace. Something else was going on here.

Still, this was the only lead for now, however slim of a one it might have been.

Vyachslav spread his wings...and was shocked to find he got no lift!

A broadband scan tuned up the answer in mere moments - there was no cosmic background radiation here! The sun itself wasn't even real, just an illusion!

This was bad. Vyachslav was adapted to a galactic environment. His wings relied not on air or any atmospheric medium, but the hyperwaves of the stars. Since every star was a natural hyperfrequency emitter, this was quite practical - except when there were no real stars around.

An attempt was made to acquire another source directly from hyperspace.

Malfunction.

No dice. The damage to his body was too extensive for now. At present, the cloaking mechanisms were offline as well. Though Vyachslav could regenerate on his own now that he had material to draw on, it would take time - a good amount of time.

He looked towards the battling figures in the distance again, then surveyed the area around himself once more, hoping he might discover his friend - nothing.

Vyachslav was alone.

Vyachslav didn't like being alone...

NECROPOST!

Thought this might help with the recent influx. If at all possible, follow the rules I originally spammed page 1 with.

((Okay, seeing how this is BL's Revenge revived, I suppose I'm pretty much obligated to join. Not that I'm not doing this of my own free will, of course, and...SLUDGE, gimme back that script...!))

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

Fire burned.

All across the city, fire burned.

The urban center lay devastated, kilometer-high towers standing as nothing but black, lightless monoliths amid a backdrop of rising orange cinders, super-heated air distorting their forms in slowly ascending waves. Some still stood level, but others leaned precariously over the desolate land.

Thick black smoke choked the air and scarred the sky, the fire belching more and more of it into the atmosphere by the second, consuming all in its wake.

Few and far between, from bridges spanning the chasms between the dark towers, some collapsed, others still intact, echoed the tell-tale reports of energy weaponry.

Craters littered what resembled streets below. A scene of merciless warfare presented itself.

Near a large gorge that ended in the wreckage of the front half of a starfighter, there lay something that resembled a child's doll.

An eye torn from the smiling face, it wasn't of a human, but had clearly been cherished with the love of a child before.

Hot wind washed across the fabric, the patch of cinders the draft carried setting the toy alight. Fire slowly took its toll, and the smile burned away.

But it wasn't over yet...

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

At the top of a tower stood eye to eye what appeared to be a man and a monster.

The man stood tall and slim, covered from head to toe in close-fit powered armor. The gray material carried a deep-blue assassin pattern, though it had been charred in several places. A large-barreled weapon rested in his hands, its target obvious.

The monster crouched low, its massive head just above the roof. Roughly the size of an F-14, it distantly resembled a dragon of legend. Its frame was thin, and arms, legs, neck and tail all following the scheme of long and slender. Two pupil-less orange eyes in the Pterodactyl-like skull fixed intently upon the man, a pair of great wings of orange energy rising above the pitch-black body.

"No further." stated the man coldly, eyes narrowing behind his helmet's visor, "I'm taking you down."

A soundless voice echoed back in his head.

Not now, not ever. You may have me cornered, but I'll always have something you'll never have.

"And what would be?" sneered the man.

A crack echoed through the air as a massive vortex of light flared into being at the edge of the roof - a portal.

"An escape gate?" the man's weapon clicked as he raised it to eye level, "I'm not giving you the chance."

Wrong! A friend!

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

A heavy black boot stepped from the light gate.

A long, dark, rifle-like weapon took aim.

The man's eyes grew wide under the visor, his voice a whisper.

"Acid..."

The man turned too late. A sound of thunder tore through the air, and a bright-yellow detonation blew him over like a leaf in the wind.

Wielding the long weapon was a clawed hand covered in leathery, green hide, five fingers firmly grasping the hilt in side-turned pistol fashion at the end of an outstretched arm.

The arm belonged to a vaguely humanoid creature with two of the same, two legs and a long, flexible tail. The head resembled that of a velociraptor.

Clad in a night-black jacket and pants of the same hue, a white T-shirt visible under the open coat, the creature fired once more without a word as the man attempted to get up again.

"No buts." Acid declared, not taking his eyes off the man, "Get in that gate now. Yes. If necessary, that's an order."

I'm not leaving you here with him!

"I'll be right behind you." Acid fired again, "I promise."

Finally, the monster moved, lumbering towards the gateway.

"No!" roared the man.

A plasma grenade tore the roof apart, flinging the monster into the portal and Acid off the tower.

He took of running, rushing after his monster.

Ahead, the air suddenly exploded as a body came out of teleportation, violently pushing the air out of the way. Acid was in the man's way once more.

A sword of fire rammed into Acid's weapon with unbridled ferocity. The reptilian's eyes grew wide as the man rammed him out of the way and o the ground.

The fire sword vanished again as the portal took the monster. Gritting his teeth, the man leaped after it, come what may.

As Acid rose, the portal suddenly disappeared.

A detail broke through - it had no longer been white...

[ QUOTE ]
-Someone creates a new thread that is a carbon copy of another thread that is still going. Doesn't matter, ignore it or try and direct them to those threads via PMs.

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Good grief man, I was just trying to help, would you stop complaining about that? I know people often don't bother reading the beginning pages of some of the threads here that have become huge over time and thought a short reference to the old-school...um, 'school' threads might let people know their concept was already established, had participants, and that they had the option of joining those, which would likely get them more of a response than starting the same thing over again.

Okay, now that I'm already on the subject of RP forum etiquette/courtesy, I'd like to turn everyone's attention to:

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR

The English language is your friend. You don't butcher your friends. A lot of people have recently been posting stuff lately that, for me at least, is pure horror to read (no offense, but it really is):

'u' reads as 'ooo' to me, as well as many more, not 'you'. This is probably the most bothersome thing I've run across.

Other such things include 'plz'...nevermind, I think everyone here is familiar with what I mean. This isn't the middle of a fight in-game where one doesn't have the time to type a proper word, please.

Capitalization and punctuation also seem to be in short supply, and the endless lowercase run-on sentences where not even 'I' is capitalized are really a pain to read. If you really want a great big long sentence, commas are great for keeping thoughts distinct and separate.

Tense is another one of these. It seems people lately have no concept of present and past tense especially, switching freely between the two even in the very same sentence. When a character 'gets up' and 'went' somewhere, then 'stood' in a place and 'sees' something...you get the idea, I hope.

And finally, spelling and word use. No, I'm not talking about typos, those happen to everyone. I'm talking about stuff like:

- affect and eeffect - two totally different things. To affect something is not the same thing as the noun effect.

- difference and differance - again. To my knowledge, differance doesn't even exist.

- two, to, too - these have entirely different meanings from one another. Why are they so often used interchangeably when they carry completely seperate meanings?

To be honest, I could just go on and on with these considering what I've seen of late. Please people, if you don't want to read through your post before you hit the submit button, just copy it to a word processor right quick and let the silly spell checker do it for you. You'll make everyone's life much better, trust me.

As for me, my native language is not English. As such, I have a very hard time reading such things with any clarity. Having to literally sit there and decipher someone else's post instead of being able to read it easily and absorb myself in the story being told is not my idea of fun.

Okay, rant over. Carry on.

((I'm just waiting for EL_D to have Veikon answer. ))

OOC:

May I direct your attention to Superhero 101 andAnti-Hero 101?

Not meaning to rain on your parade here, Blue_Thunder, but this concept is already well-represented here on the boards. Supervillain 101, the evil counterpart to the young hero school, died a while ago, but these two are still around. You should check 'em out. Search-fu.

"Well, I got a confession to make." Allen grinned, "Technically, I'm not a hero...and I've run into those guys before. So they could've been after me. Kinda unlikely, though, as neither of them should remember me or have known that I was gonna be here today."

Allen had indeed recognized the Elite TacCom and Gunslinger by their voices and demeanor. There was no doubt - that had been Curtis and Reikoff.

And it was always possible that someone who had it out for him could've restored their memories, then told them where and when he'd be.

"Sorry, I'm being silly and paranoid again." Allen shook his head violently to chase the thoughtful daze away, "Anyway, so the Doc says here on Terra today ya celebrate love and friendship and what-not. He also told me ya give special people in your life presents. So..."

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small blue stone at the end of a silvery, yet rather plain-looking necklace. It seemed to refract any light that hit it a thousand times, glowing faintly like Luna in Terra's night sky.

The reference was quite close.

"It's a piece of our moon." Allen told Rosie as he wanted to hand it to her, "I know it's not much, but it's always given me the feeling of being connected to...well, everyone. I want you to have it..."

"They do." Allen motioned to Balsk and Rosie in his answer to Kip, "I'm in a different line of work, though it's got similarities."

((Well, you did say he hit the buzzer, implying there was no one there anymore for him to talk to. ))

"Sure, why not?" Allen nodded, taking Rosie under one arm and Balsk under the other, "Not safe out on the streets on this planet. I can't stay long, though. See, the Doc got us onto the idea of actually celebrating today in the first place...and well, here I am. So she's your 'boss', huh? How's that working out...?"

<----- *is soooooooo lost*

"Well, whatddaya know!" Allen smiled broadly as he retured the combi-rifle to the holster on his back, quite susprised at Rosie suddenly standing right in front of him.

Maybe the Doc had been right...today was a day of strange coincidences on Terra.

I guess I can stay a little longer.

"C'mere, you." he laughed as he gave the were-human a firm hug in greeting, "Been a while, hasn't it?"

"And where are you going?" he laughed as a hand reached for Balsk's shoulder just before he got out of reach, pulling the Draconian back, "You're not thinkin' of leaving me alone with her, are ya? You have any idea what she'll do to me...?"

"I suppse so." Hotaka shrugged, listlessly shoving his last bite into his mouth. He didn't even glance at Veikon, "As if that was such a bad thing. Not up to talking, hm? Oh, but speech is such a wonderful gift."

Then again..." he grinned at Brutish Ghoul, twirling his gray Fu Manchu, "perhaps you're one who perfers the language of the fist?"

Now he finally turned to Veikon, but his eyes were still hidden under the bamboo coolie. He smiled devilishly as he went on, "Why so nervous, my friend? On the run from something...?"

Allen had to admit he was quite susrpised when the police officers had taken things so lightly. The last time he'd been here, they'd wanted to arrest him for just not being human...well, probably more for resembling a Warwolf with a starship...

Heh...maybe things've changed a bit after all.

"Well, I don't want to be any more trouble." Allen retorted, siling sheepishly, "Can;t be sure that hit wasn't out for me, and..."

He stopped as he noticed Balsk looking over his shoulder at something behind him. Before the Draconian even greeted Rosie, Allen turned about...

Announcer: "And now with Issue 9 we introduce the Statesman Task Force, where heroes break through to the Rogue Isles to take on Lord Recluse himself. Yes, in addition to being beat on by every Destined One he sought to manipulate, Lord Recluse will now be available to take on many, many more foes whose teams are fueled by the forces of truth, justice, and specializing in their archetypal roles to make their teams so much mroe than the sum of their parts!"

LR: ". . ."

LR: "I need a vacation..."

((Here's what: ))

[ QUOTE ]
"Thanks, but I'm already gonna get an earful from the Doc for brining back a hole." Allen smirked, referring to where he'd been shot through the chest, "If I let anyone but him patch it, he's gonna throw an absolute fit. And no, it's not bad. You could say I'm somewhat heartless."

The blaring of the closing police sirens drove the smirk off his face again.

"Hm, looks like I gotta cut my visit short, it figures." Allen growled, turning to Balsk, "Guess I'll ask my pals over in the Eastside about you then. You're probably Alan's cousin or something...except he's blue..."

[/ QUOTE ]

((Nobody's gone. I'm still waiting for Khell to write Balsk's response. ))

((Wow...that IS a big wall of text! Excellently written text, but...more paragraphs please. ))

"I cannot say it is of quality." Hotaka replied to Phaith, commenting on his question about the food. Still, it was at least edible.

This is barely better than straw...I feel I do not even want to know how these humans can extract any hutrients from it.

"I cannot speak for him, though." Ryuu motioned at Brutish Ghoul, "Are you mute or simply not in a talkative mood...?"

"Now now." DJ Zero smirked as he floated past the two, "No more bein' harsh today. An' no, no more explosions either. But ya know...I got me a rhythm for you, Rosie - and it's saying there's someone at the office who came just to see you today. Sadly, his gig's about to be up. But if you hurry you might still be able to catch him."

With that, the multiworldly DJ floated higher again...