Hazmatter

((...bump?))

Linking his personal teleporter system to the Paragon City grid wasn't terribly difficult for Brainframe. Doing so under the watchful eyes of Arachnos and Lord Recluse was another matter. Once he'd made the decision there was little he could really do about the ramifications, though. There were too many opportunities at hand to simply ignore, no matter the possible consequences. The advanced Nemesis salvage to be found could prove invaluable for research into his own projects, as well as on the Rogue Isles' black market. He could only trust the masking signal built into his bodysuit's microcircuitry was properly screening himself and his robots from all the Arachnos coded frequencies he's discovered; there were undoubtedly other systems in place, however, so the job needed to be done quickly.

Brainframe had selected one of the few automatons unwisely acting without any backup from its "brothers" and ordered his own mechanized minions to strike. He'd always been rather impressed with the self-styled Prussian Prince's designs, no matter how seemingly outdated the steam-powered tech which drove them appeared. The mechanical madman's historic use of machines to commit headline-grabbing crimes had been a key inspiration for Brainframe's own rise from overachieving hacker and data thief to full-fledged Villain, although growing up in a hero-filled Paragon City had taught him the value of anonymity and secrecy when entering into a life of crime. He had always considered it a shame that his employers at Crey Industries had discovered his extralegal activities and sent in the Protectors to shut him down before an opportunity to deal with Nemesis came up.

The Nemesis automaton had proven a bit more resilient than Brainframe had initially suspected. The drones had been pecking away at its armor for over a minute with only a few dents to show for it, but at least it hadn't advanced any further down the street or signalled for backup. He was almost ready to consider the job a wash and teleport to safety when a focused burst of antimatter slammed it into the pavement. After taking a second to recover from his initial shock at the unexpected event, his eyes narrowed to slits and he quietly swore to himself. He slowly turned his head to take in the dreaded sight of an extremely recogizable armored Hero rocketing toward his immediate location. The slits narrowed further to a pained cringe when he noticed that Positron's containment armor had been seriously damaged, probably from one of the numerous conflicts raging elsewhere. Great, he thought, I knew this stunt would probably get me killed, but I'd rather not get microwaved to a crisp because Positrash couldn't keep his super-entrails--

"I need to use your network to make a call!"

"...What?"

He glanced back at the Nemesis mech, his own robo-minions still pelting it with scattered laser fire even as it hauled itself back to a standing position. Back to Positron's wound and the unstable energies already leaking from between tightly clenched fingers. Half a second to calculate the probable outcomes of a dozen actions he could take during the next few minutes.

*sigh* "Hell, Recluse is probably gonna kill me anyway." A quickly tapped sequence into the keypad on his glove's wrist began charging the portable force-field generator, and a protective containment field was quickly thrown about the dangerously leaking hero. Another series of taps brought the comm systems online and he began speaking into the headset at his right temple. "Haxx, gearslide a repair/retrofit platform to these coordinates, and open a secure line to commport-2. And you," he pointed at the henchbots, "keep up that covering fire!"

A series of beeps confirmed the order and a small module detatched from Brainframe's right gauntlet, which he quickly plugged into the headpiece he'd removed. In the meantime, a mechanized platform was teleported immediately beneath the shielded Positron, robotic arms ending in clamps, welding torches, and various soldering tools unfolding to recieve their waiting patient. As the shield dropped and the platform went to work, Brainframe tossed the modified communicator to his newfound temporary ally.

"Just try not to talk too long, Positrash," he sarcastically remarked as a sleek black pulse rifle teleported into his waiting arms, and took aim at the Nemesis robot's head. "I'm way outside my local coverage."

"I am Nemesis, fear me."

Brainframe stared in rapt fascination at the images flashing before his eyes. His face had an oddly dispassionate expression, especially when most people faced with such scenes of violence and chaos would be expected to at least display some sort of emotion. Anxiety, desperation, or as with some of his contemporaries here in the Rogue Isles, anticipation or even glee. No such betrayal existed, however, and those few who knew him best would not express surprise at mannerisms which many newcomers, upon first meeting, incorrectly deemed, "robotic."

This was simply the way he looked when he was thinking. Really thinking. Not worrying. Not enjoying. And most certainly not, as the man/machine before his eyes continued to insist he be, fearing.

Because thinking was what he did best, and if he was going to do something he firmly believed in doing it right.

At the moment, part of him was thinking of what their esteemed "benefactor," Lord Recluse would have to say about his former rival's little anniversary celebration, for he would surely have viewed these same scenes himself by now. Another part was considering how this news would affect his compatriots among the Isles. Yet another part was frantically scanning and categorizing the various Nemesis mechs for a more careful analysis at a later time. Ten percent of his considerably enhanced gray matter was devoted to calculating how many ways he himself could turn a profit from these proceedings.

Even if anyone had the nerve or stupidity to risk returning to Paragon City in this chaos, travel to and from the Rogue Isles had been strictly regulated by Arachnos since the recent Longbow strike. Every newsfeed flickering across his screens was either dominated by the face of Nemesis repeating his monotonous spiel, or a haphazard collage of rapid fire updates on the situation; a gas line ruptured and caught fire near what was left of Baumton, police forces rerouted from Kings Row through Independance Port, reports of Heroic activity across the city ranging from Blue Steel and Back-Alley Brawler heading a squad of Freedom Corps and cops to unconfirmed rumors of Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx returning from a classified mission to deal with the crisis.

"Haxx," he finally said to nobody in particular, "I need a Class-1 gearslide, prep three mechs for transport, and patch all available data on this to the Arena. Half the island'll want to see this, and the other half will probably start taking bets on the outcome."

The corner of his mouth began to tug in a barely noticeable smirk as the computerized voice intoned, "Immediately, sir."





[Brainframe is the Bot/FF Mastermind I play on Guardian. Just thought we should get a handle on the villains' perspective in all of this. Interesting concept for an RP, can't wait to see where it all ends!]

[ QUOTE ]

d) Wait for the bomb to go off, and make s’mores in the resulting firestorm

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...and they actually let this guy be a hero?!?

Well, points for a sense of humor, I guess.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Name: Stacked Deck
Server: Guardian
Archetype: MA/SR Scrapper
Origin: Natural

Okay, I'm a little embarassed to admit this, but...I actually created this guy's costume before the character himself. Although that probably explains why he's the character of mine who is most often complimented on his costume in-game. Most of the toons I'd created (and, more often than not, deleted) by that point were not terribly striking visually, nor did they feel particularly super-heroish. I'm really pleased with how he's worked out so far. My inspirations while creating him are so eccentric and varied that I'm concerned about posting the entire creative process involved, but suffice it to say that I think the cape really solidified the feel of the character for me, although it was still an awesome-looking costume beforehand!

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Kick [censored] guide!

[/ QUOTE ]I'll second that!

I thought the Lost didn't start appearing until after the Rikti invasion? Oh, well, minor quibble...continue.

They HAVE seemed awfully chummy with some of the Freakshow...

An example from my own roster: my elec/elec Blaster, Major Surge, was concieved in my mind as a sort of combination of Captain Atom and the Silver Age Flash, so a Science origin was the natural choice.