Heckfire_an_Rila

"WHAT..?!"

OK, now, I ain't the most heroic person in the world. Far from it, really...the words "abject coward" tend to spring to mind, actually. Still, firing a bazooka point-blank in someone's face to prove that they're a bad guy? Now that just don't wash...

So, here I am, dive-tacking the blue guy to get him outta the way of a bazooka shell...of course, for our differences in mass, I may as welll be dive tackling a stone column. The effects are similar: a rather spectacular riccochet OFF the blue guy and INTO Bozo the Psychopath's bazooka-arm. The good news? I knock his aim off enough so that he onl;y blasts a hole in the ceiling.

The bad news? Well, bazookas are pretty dang loud, especially if yer knocking your skull against one...and me without my earplugs.

"Mafia!" shouted the jacket.

"WHAT?!" shouted me.

"How should I know? Three words that'll make yer life easier, mac: change of clothes."

I fix the blue guy with a level stare. "Please, Brainy Smurf...if you're a hero, then I'm-"

"Mafia!" Yelled his coat.

...now, I've heard of loud clothes, but this was ridiculous.

Before I could finish my witty banter, I noticed the feline fantasy starting to smolder. I don't mean she was ticked...I mean, she obviously WAS, what with the hackles and growling and so on...no, I mean she actually had smoke starting to billow from her. Black, nasty looking stuff, too...somehow, I got the feeling that this smoke was the "worse than fire" kind, so I took a step back.

Of course, that put my right on the toes of some lawyer-looking mook holding his griefcase like I usually hold my sword...Samurai Lawyer?

Before this trip could turn any more into a bad Saturday Night Live skit, I held my hands up placatingly to Meow Mix and said, "Easy, Sarabi, me an' Captain Overkill here were just having a discussion about the intricacies of proper firearm management. It's not like we're-"

"Mafia!" shouted the blue guy's jacket again.

I glanced at him. "Doesn't that thing have a volume knob?"

Paragon City: the flawed jewel of the east Coast, the pivot point of the metahuman world, the most technologically advanced metropolis this side of a Fritz Lang movie and home to more demigods in human form than Olympus and Valhalla combined...

...and every one of us still has to take the damn train to get anywhere.

My name's Sam Black, better known these days as "Samurai P-I"...don't laugh, it was better than "The Transgender Defender"...and I was on my way to a case. Okay, maybe not a CASE, actually, but the law WAS involved...apparently even licenced superheroes aren't allowed to slash the tires of cars that nearly run them down while chasing Hellions. My bad. So here I am, dragging my cute Japanese butt (it's only a loaner) to the courthouse at 0'dark early in the morning.

So, there I am reading a week old Paragon Times ("HEROES HALT HAVOC!"...why do I have a sense of deja'vu all of a sudden?) and waiting for the Yellow Line to show up when this cross between a Vargas girl and an inhabitant of the Island of Dr. Moreau bounds past me, knocking me flat on my as...pirations.

Now, I'm not the kinda guy...er, lady...to raise a stink about that kinda thing. Fact o' life with public transportation, no big...I just chuck my paper at the trashcan, straighten my suit-jacket, and head onto the train.

...of course, that's when some nutjob fires a freakin' BAZOOKA at me and yells, "Now, now you should know better than that!"

Now, Mama Black didn't raise the kinda boy...er, girl (damn, this gets tricky some days...)...to fly off the handle at a moment's notice, but I think, in the case of heavy ordinance being applied to my person, I have more than earned the right to a little hero-licence abuse.

Wouldn't you know it, though, the jerk is chatting it up with the "Cat Fancy After Dark" centerfold on the very train I need to take! I tell you, sometimes it doesn't pay to get outta bed...anyway, I march myself over to him, pull myself up to my full 5'3" (GOD, I miss being tall...) and, in my time-share body's sternest voice (which still sounds like a pithed hamster to me), say, "Hey, Mac...you mind tellin' me what's with the 'Woodsy the Owl meets Rambo' routine back there?"

The clouds hung in the sky like so many lumps of undissolved non-dairy creamer floating in a night blacker than the cup of microwaved swill they called coffee on this airline. Remind me to find a decent place to get a cuppa Joe when we land...I set my steaming swampwater aside and picked up the tour pamphlets I'd picked up on Paragon City. I didn't figger on sleeping this flight...Hell, last time I was able to book a flight, there wasn't such a thing as "airlines."

My name's Sam Black, P-I, and I've been dead for about 70 years...of course, I'm feeling much healthier now. I'm about a foot shorter, Japanese, and bleed every 28 days now, but, hey, nobody said reincarnation was a perfect process.

See, this whole thing started during my last case...'course, if I'd known it was gonna BE my last case, I might of gone ahead with my scheduled lunch-date with Jack Daniels. Hindsight and all that, y'know.

Still, who am I to resist a pair of crying eyes...especially when they happen to be upstairs neighbors to two of the biggest, roundest, fullest...ahem, anyway, when she said she was desperate for help in finding her family's precious heirloom, I thought it was an old-fashioned cake walk. I mean, it's not like I was spying on Joe Blow an' his secretary doing the motel mamba or anything, just helping Little Miss Sweaterpuppies locate an old sword.

Heh..."an old sword." That same "old sword" was now stashed as carry-on luggage in my overhead compartment, and the hoops I had to jump through to get it there woulda qualified me for the Ringling Brothers Circus. Somehow, though, when they learned I was heading back to Paragon, they seemed to be a lot more reasonable, so long as I registered myself with some candy-cane colored commission called "Freedom Corps"...talking of circuses, I hadn't seen that many men and women in tights since I got suckered into going to the ballet. Somehow, I had a feeling the old neighborhood wasn't gonna be the SAME old neighborhood anymore...not its fault, though. I mean, for most mooks, a 7-decade dirt-nap's more than long enough to consider the change-of-address forms are permanent. Nobody counted on me drawing the "Go Back To Start" card, least of all me, ESPECIALLY not the way I bought it. I mean, being shot, stabbed, strangled, these are all normal, everyday ways a guy can get hisself whacked, no strings attatched.

Me, I had to go and get my [censored] sacrificed to a demon.

See, it turned out that "old sword" I was hired to find way back when was the, what'd Big Daddy Psychopath call it, the "corporeal manifestation" of some ancient soul-sucking boogeyman, and Miss "Bouncybouncy" was sent to find the specific person "destined" to be this thing's next lunch. Two guesses who drew the lucky number, too, and the first don't count...

What nobody knew was that the big bozo who supposedly lived in the sword didn't. Live in the sword, I mean. Turns out the sword was just a means of collecting souls for him to eat...so, basically, for the past few centuries, these idiot cultists have been doing nothing but sticking me and every other "destined" munchie on ice for something that wasn't even there. Like worshipping a damn icebox.

Of course, one of the PREVIOUS victims turned out to be the head of ANOTHER cult...only his, the Spider House, was full of ninjas. SMART ninjas, too, since they not only figgered out the truth behind the sword, they figgered out how to get the souls OUT of the sword. Only problem, they needed someone of direct blood lineage for it to work properly...which is where the cutie who stares back at me whenever I look in a mirror these days comes in.

Ariko here was the daughter of the current "Silken Master" of the Spider House, and her family had carried on the dead guy's bloodline since he got sucked into the sword. Of course, the Silk Master could've sacrificed HIMSELF to bring back their dead boss, then the plumbing would match at least, but blind, mindless zealotry apparently only goes so far. I tell you, they don't make braindead cultists like they used to...

So, anyway, Mr. Father-of-the-Year Candidate strings up his only kid, intending for her have her own existance obliterated so their great, great, greatgreatgreatgreat...eh, you get the idea...gramps can be resurrected to lead the Cult of the Spider House to greatness. That WAS the plan at least...seems they needed to do a LITTLE more research on the spell or the sword or SOMETHING. They blew it BIG TIME: they tried to bring back the original Silk Master...

They got me instead.

Fortunately for both me and Ariko, since I have about as much genetically in common with her as my drink does with real coffee, the spell didn't work properly. Instead of being obliterated, she was sorta...shoved into the background. She's still in here, hanging around in the subconscious area of her brain, sipping tea with her imanginary friends...luckily, that also means she has access to her reflexes, which means that, even though I'm now in the driver's seat, I can still use her lifetime of being trained as a ninja assassin to keep us both in the land of the living. This definitely came in handy when Daddy Dearest realized it was ME in his kid and not Great Grand-Papa-san...which, now that I think about it, brings all SORTS of icky images to mind...and sent the Pajama Squad to take us down so he could try again. We got outta there by the skin of her uvula, I tell you...that's that little dangly thing at the back of your throat. Getcha mind outta the gutter, folks, we'er in the home stretch here.

Anyway, after a bit of a mental pow-wow, Ariko tells me that there's another who knows of the spell her loving father tried: HIS dad, her grandad, the former Silken Master who was forced to flee to America when he realized what a psycho plan his kid was concocting and wanted out of the Cult. The Silken Master hadn't been able to find him, but, then again, he didn't have one of the finest investigative minds in the continental U.S. of A. working on the case...well, I was in the top 50, at least. Anyway, we look up his number and, wouldn't you know it, it turns out he moved back to MY old stomping grounds, Paragon City. Like it WAS destiny or something, I guess...

So, there you are, all up to date and on the same page as the rest of the class: me and Ariko are off to the old neighborhood to visit dear, old Grampy Master in the hopes that he can get her back into her own pantyhose and me off to whatever reward I've got waiting for me...I figger this whole situation oughtta clean the slate a bit with the Man Upstairs, at least enough to make up for that whole thing with Mrs. Witherspoon back in middle school, especially if I gotta do this "hero" thing in the meantime.

...just as long as I don't have to wear tights.

[ QUOTE ]
And Heckfire... i'm not flush, so wouldn't be able to pay you..., but if you want to do a drawing or two of the 'honeymoon' you go right ahead and have fun.

[/ QUOTE ]
If I do, I'll be sure to send a link to you and the blushing bride, LOL...er, if I can find a pic of Persephone's toon, that is...

Big...and romantic. LOTS of mush, if only to counteract the pomp and circumstance the in-laws are foisting on it. Plenty of comedy opportunities with modern heroes and ancient gods clashing their cultures (spontaneous Tankers vs. Heracles arm-wrestling tournaments? Ambrosia beer-bongs?) and, while the chaos is at its peak, the happy couple sneak off so as to not be followed by immortals on their honeymoon.
A catgirl and a goddess...I would kill to draw the honeymoon...LOL

Week 1: 149375 prestiege
Just played with the basics today. Bought a chair, a potted plant and a table, just to play with the placement of items. They do let you have a good amount of control over the enviroment. Also played with the textures and lighting options. Getting a feel for the mechanics. Chokes on the prices a bit, but I tried not to look at those right now. I'll make a list of items we want this week, make a few preliminary plans on a base lay out. Eventually we will want to participate in Raid Evets, but right now just getting built is a priority over that, but I do want to keep it in mind seeing as that we have to have a safe place for our IoP. SG is going to stay in SG mode all week, we will see how our prestiege is by then. We are now 7 active members strong. We'll see how it goes!

Rilayna Rodello - Inv/SS Tanker - Justice Server
Leader - Wrath of Pheonix

Thanks! oh and this is a shared account.. yer talking to the wife, Rila

Hi there. I have spent my shift here at work reading this entire thread. Exhausting as that was! All right. My friends and I Just formed a new SG last night. There are five of us to start. I would call us a good mix of hardcore and casual players. I am going to, if'n yall don't mind, post here as to how we are doing, maybe weekly, on base building. Any problems we encounter, hardships we encounter, etc. I will throw up my numbers and everyone can compare that to their own expirences as opposed to tossing around arguements. As far as I can see yall have argued the point of base construction costs till the cows come home. I was getting a headache from all the math! SO, I'll post my SG's real in game base building exploits and everyone can yatter about it to your hearts content!


Thanks in advance and any advice once we get started will be greatly appriciated!

Rilayna Rodello - Level 32 Inv/SS Tanker
Leader - Wrath of Pheonix, Justice Server

HaHAA! I'm CUCKOO for COCOA PUFFS! MUAHAHAHAAA!!

Thanks...I normally don't "do" dark for superhero stuff (even though horror is what I write best), but it works for Huntress Bast. Just gotta come up with the next parts...

I've had nothing but good luck finding other RP-ers, even if it's just casual stuff in passing, on Pinnacle server.

Broken.

There was no other word to describe the body in the alleyway. It lay on the concrete as if it'd been dropped there, like a marionette with cut strings. Discarded and crumpled, one would be hard-pressed to recognize it as human, to recognize it as anything other than another pile of refuse like those it lay near. Closer inspection would reveal recognizeable bits: a hand here, a foot there, and a face somewhere within the matted nest of blood-caked hair that mostly covered the frozen, horrified rictus locked upon it.

Mostly.

Silently, a pair of golden eyes peered at the misshapen mass from the garbage. They'd been watching this body for some time, since before it became this way, back when it was still a woman, alive and whole. They'd watched her on the street, watched the rough hands grab her and drag her back here, watched as she was destroyed, one atrocity at a time, and discarded amongst the refuse. They didn't register pity or rage now, just as they didn't register concern or fear at the woman's unheeded ending.

Another looked through them, though, and it was this being who raged, her fury at the monster-masked assailants matched only by her rage at herself. Protector of the innocent, of women and children, she mocked wordlessly. I'm a failure, too bound by the Unwritten Laws and blinded by my petty vendettas to see one of my most dilligent, loyal servants until her light was snuffed out. Osiris, what world is this that has arisen in our absence?"

She stalked her abstract chamber, heedless of the three or four dimensions it spanned, her tail swishing angrilly behind her, her talons flexing and retracting as she paced through the woman's life, watching her existance unspool like a scroll.

Justine Grey, a social worker in Atlas Park...smart, strong, a former police officer who was discharged for severely beating a suspect in a domestic abuse case. He'd sued, of course, and she'd lost...lost her job, her money, her home, her lover, but somehow she'd continued. Landed on her feet, she'd joke with her new co-workers, just like a cat. She worked with the abused...women, men, children...physical, emotional, sexual...no matter the victim, no matter the crime, she would stand by them, bend rules and regulations to see as many of them landing on their feet as possible...and, when woeking within the system wasn't enough, she'd leave it behind. This woman's "claws" were well-stained with the blood of her "clients'" tormentors, her ears filled with the pleading and curses of those she'd break just as she was ultimately broken.

The goddess who watched this life of violence and redemption unspool of course approved.

When the Grey woman broke her own rules, though, is when the tightly-wound web of her life began to fray...first rule? Don't fall in love with the victims...but the frail young woman reminded her so much of her own first love. She crossed lines she was not meant to cross, took the chipped china-doll of a girl into her home, her arms, her heart, trusting in her love and her fury to protect them both from the outside, from the hurt...but how to protect from the traitor inside? How to predict the horror her new lover felt when she learned of the deadly measures she'd gone to on her behalf? How to keep the phone from falling into her broken chinadoll hands, to keep her wavering voice from pleading with what she felt was the lesser evil, to keep the web of the Grey woman's victims from tightening around her as she walked home that night, secure in her love's loyalty and her own strength, tightening until all light was extinguished from her eyes like a candle in a hurricane wind.

The goddess knew what she had to do...she had to risk the Unwritten Laws. This broken woman had once been her most stalwart servant without even realizing it, and the goddess had failed her. Still, she was not without resources...such as the one who watched the Grey woman's last moments.

An unspoken word of approval from this silent watcher was all that was needed, an oath of loyalty to one her ancestors had worshipped alongside the humans, and the watcher propelled herself from the shadows. Padded feet carried her silently to the broken woman, small teeth tore at cold, dead flesh, tracing the symbol of Life Eternal upon what, in life, had housed the heart of a warrior.

The goddess observed through the watcher's eyes; once the mark had been made, she took a piece of herself and snapped it off. Painful, yes, but nothing compared to what she'd seen. She bade the watcher to lay upon the seeping ankh of dead flesh, to touch skin to fur, and, with another unspoken thanks to her loyal follower, the goddess drove the piece of her own divinity through both bodies, living and dead, human and cat, sewing them together like a needle sewing fabric.

The Huntress' birth cry keened though the darkness. Lungs newly restored gasped at the cold, fetid air in the alleyway, fingers once given over to rigor mortis flexed convulsively as blood surged through restored veins. She lurched over, screaming as her entire body seemed to catch fire from within, life-restoring fluids pushing sluggishly through veins clogged with cold, clotted blood.

The pain of her death paled in comparison to the pain of her rebirth, but even this proved fleeting as, gasping, her throat raw and her voice hoarse, she began to regain her senses, her sanity...Sanity? Nothing sane could come from what she'd experienced, so coldly, clinically, she severed that part of her mind and memories, discarding it as easily as she did the torn and stained garments that hung on her lean, muscular frame.

She stood, seeing herself at last in the dirty glass of a darkened alleyway window; she was no longer human, she noted silently, the long, sinuous tail curling about her haunches was proof enough of that. She ran her hands, now padded on the palms and tipped with retracting claws, over her new body, feeling the short, golden, suede-like fur that covered every inch except the pale ankh-shaped scar on her chest. She allowed herself an almost girlish giggle at the sight of her face...she now bore catlike markings, even a black nose and round, tufted ears like a lioness. She ruffled the short, straight brown fuzz that covered her head, knocking loose the last blood-caked strands of her formerly long, black, curly hair; nothing remained of her former body except the general shape and musculature, like someone had used it as a framework to craft this new form onto, much like her new mind was now formed from pieces of her old lives.

"Osiris, I feel so...strange," she spoke out loud, then covered her mouth with a laugh at her voice, still husky from screaming. How long had it been since she'd worn mortal flesh? She knew that this modern world would not approve of her current nakedness, but an errant memory from her human life provided the answer...an old Halloween costume, back at the house. Cleopatra, or some such nonsense...as well as her hunting bow, an expensive compound model she'd used several times on her "side job."

It was kitten's play to make her way to her former home; from the ruckus her new eyes and ears picked up, it seemed like her assailants had retired here after finishing with her to continue their celebrations with her traitorous lover. Indeed, as she made her way inside through the bedroom window, it seemed like they were taking care to keep her china doll from breaking as she had, but not by very much.

There weren't enough arrows for all of them, but she still made sure she saved one to put though her betraying and betrayed lover's heart. The Huntress owed the girl death, but at least she made it a quick one.

By the time she had showered and dressed in her new "uniform," her former assailants were begging her for the same courtesy. "No," was all she said as she slipped into the darkness. Moments later, the arcane flame she summoned ignited the natural gas she'd left filling the house from the now-broken oven. The news reported the following morning that the fireball could be seen from Galaxy City...the Huntress was dissappointed.

She was hoping it'd be bigger.

[ QUOTE ]

(Points to Alt-itis control patch on left shoulder.)



[/ QUOTE ]
...where can I get one of those? I'm up to 20 alts a month now...

PART 2:
One of the more obscure dark artifacts in existence is the Knife of Kharag-Fal; this is not because of its origin, though. Like a good number of such items, it was forged millenia ago from the metal of a "fallen star," most likely a meterorite of some sort, by a sect of black priests to be used as a key element in their ceremonies against the forces of nature and against white magic in particular.
Its obscurity is most certainly not due to its history. In its existance, the Knife has been responsible for as much death, despair, and corruption as a small land war; in the proper hands, it has carved empires from the flesh of the just and true and has been responsible for the deaths of at least two of my predecessor Swords of St. George.
In a very real way, the fact that so few know of the Knife has to do with its power. If you'll allow me to misuse quantum theory for a second, the otherworldly metal of the blade resonates on a frequency that disrupts or, more accurately, "poisons" the arcane matrix of white magic. In fact, is is drawn to high concentrations of the stuff like a ravenous parasite, and any white mage or entity struck with it has little more than a painful withering of their power to look forward to. As such, many such mages and entities have seen to it that all mentions of the Knife be destroyed in order to keep the knife from being recognized for the instrument of corruption it is, since we are certainly not able to contain it safely.
As the saying goes, however, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, which is why I didn't recognize this profane instrument in the hands of the so-called "Priest" of the Cult of Bhuul until the damned thing was sticking out of my leg and my spilt blood had been used to summon the object of this ridiculous group's idolation back to our plane of reality.
Truly, contrary to popular belief, ignorance is most definately NOT bliss...

"Damn it all..." the Arcaine hissed as he clutched the still flowing wound in his leg. It was almost embarassing that such a usually trivial wound would cause him such pain; however, he could feel the corruption spreading from the hole through his veins, and any attempt at healing it simply fed the taint, rushing it faster through his body. He'd have to use his more mundane training to mentally will the pain away, though, because, right now, he had more important matters to deal with.
Bhuul towered over all present, his thorny, antlered head raised in a ground-shaking bellow of triumph as his leering voice continued to assault the minds of both follower and foe alike.
*FREE! AT LAST, I AM ONCE MORE FREED FROM MY TARTARUS, FREE TO FEED, TO DESTROY, TO [censored] AND RAVAGE THIS WORLD AS HAD BEEN DENIED ME IN THE PAST!* The inhuman head lowered, Bhuul's balefully glowing gaze falling upon the Arcaine. *YOU KNEEL BEFORE ME, MY FOE? HOW APPROPRIATE...SUCH PROSTRATIONS ARE NOT NECESSARY. INDEED, THE WHOLE LAND WILL KNOW OF HOW IT WAS YOU WHO ULTIMATELY ALLOWED ME TO RETURN TO CLAIM THIS WORLD AS MY OWN BROTHEL.*
As his bellows began to turn to bone-rattling roars of unholy laughter, the Arcaine forced himself to stand, putting as much weight on his uninjured leg as possible. "YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS TEMPLE, BEAST...YOU WERE BESTED BACK WHEN I WAS STILL NEW TO THIS TASK, AND NOW I POSESS THE FULL MEASURE OF MY POWER AND DECADES OF PRACTICE IN WIELDING IT. RETURN TO WHENCE YOU CAME BEFORE I PEEL THE FLESH FROM YOUR UNHOLY BONES!"
Bhuul regarded his enemy with a raised eyebrow, then his gaze fell to the wounded leg. *YOU ARE BLUFFING, IMPOTENT ONE...IF YOU POSESSED THE POWER YOU CLAIM, THEN WHY TO YOU ALLOW YOUR BLOOD TO FLOW FREELY? NO, YOU ARE NO THREAT TO ME...* He turned, then, and his eyes took in the still-bound form of Avalon, the Arcaine's daughter. *OH-HO! A GIFT FOR ME? HOW THOUGHTFUL...*
"Hey, what's that supposed to-WHOA!" Avalon's anger rapidly switched to horror and fear as the reason for Bhuul's "Ever-Potent" title became apparent. "Um, that's not...oh, nuts, it has SPIKES even..?" She struggled against the cords that held her, trying vainly to loosen them, when the Cult leader quickly placed himself between her and Bhuul.
"YES, oh Dark and Dire Master, it is I who provided you this virgin for your pleas-"
His words were cut off abruptly as Bhuul stomped a huge split-hooved foot down onto him, twisting it as he did like he was squishing a bug. *OUT OF MY WAY, SYCOPHANT...BESIDES, IF SHE'S A VIRGIN, I'M A CHERUBIM. STILL, I DO LOVE BLONDES...TELL ME, DOES THE CARPET MATCH THE CURTAINS, MORTAL..?*
"Say what..?!" Avalon sputtered, her shock momentarily dispelling her fear.
Before either girl or demon could react, a low thump sound could be heard, followed by Bhuul's ear-splintering howl of pain as a grenade detonated against his...intent.
"Now THAT'S what I call a nut-shot!" cheered Chuck as the satyr cocked the underhanging grenade-launcher in his machine-gun, quickly launching another explosive into the demon's groin. "Hand's off the boss's daughter, butt-ugly, or we'll see if I can circumsize you with this baby's full-autofire!"
Roaring with pain in a slightly higher register, Bhuul swung one of his gnarled, taloned fists at the diminuitive gunman; only Chuck's supernatural reflexes spared him the direct blow, although the shockwave of impact hurled him up and out of the funhouse/temple, over the splintered walls.
Pausing only long enough to gingerly rub his injured...parts...Bhuul stated to turn back to his intended prey when a flaring bolt of mystic force struck his face.
"Leave...the girl...alone..!" The Arcaine had successfully withstood the earlier shockwave, standing as steadily as he could, his gloved hands seething with power. As Bhuul turned towards him again, bellowing with frustration, the Arcaine launched another bolt of power at the demon's face, impacting with a nearly drowned-out crack of thunder.
Bhuul, more startled than injured, lunged forward, his speed fueled by rage and hatred as he grabbed the Arcaine and liffted him towards his mouth. *WEAKENED, IMPOTENT FOOL! NOW IT IS YOU WHOSE SKIN WILL BE PEELED FROM YOU BONES...WITH MY OWN TEETH!*
"Just...what I wanted...to hear...idiot...goodbye, Avalon..." The mage smiled grimly beneath his mask as he felt Bhuul's blast-furnace breath. As the jagged teeth of the demon began to close around him, the Arcaine mentally released all his reserves of power, what remained after the Knife's corruption, erupting with a blinding flash of white magic that enveloped the demon's head and hand.
"DADDY, NO!" Avalon's eyes were forced closed by the rushing wind of the explosion, but she managed to squint them open as the eruption of power died down...
Bhuul stood, his face and hand singed and smoldering, many of his ragged teeth blown free by the blast...but the demon lived. He reeled from the blast, lowering his hand; Avalon could see her father lying limp within the taloned, smoking grip.
The Sword is needed once again...do you accept its power?
Avalon blinked at the voice, looking around for its source.
The Sword is needed once more...do you accept its power?
This time, she was certain she was the only one who heard the voice...although the implications of the words hit first. "What...what do you mean...Daddy's the Sword..?"
He is of no more use to us...his time as the Sword is passed. Do you accept the power?
Tears began to flow freely from Avalon's eyes as she stared at the limp, unmoving form of her father. "He can't, can't be..."
Bhuul shook his head suddenly, blinking, then lifted the Arcaine up again, laughing a bit unsteadily. *THAT WAS YOUR GRAND GESTURE? YOUR FINAL, SUICIDAL BLOW? AND I HAD FEARED YOU FOR SO LONG...A PITY YOU WILL NOT FEEL IT AS I DEVOUR YOU, BUT WHY WASTE A HOT MEAL..?* He lifted the hero's body upwrd, dangling it from his fingers as he opened his maw wide...
"DADDY!"
...do you accept the power?
"YES!"
Avalon screamed as she felt a sudden searing rush of energy rip through her body. It roared down slender limbs, snapping the ropes that bound her to the altar; it flooded her senses, turning night into day as she saw the demon Bhuul for waht he was, a weakened thing barely able to stand after her father's last, desperate assault.
The Sword is drawn anew...now, in the name of St. George, strike down the corrupt being before you...
Without even realizing she had, she lashed out, her will propelling a surge of crackling energy that caught Bhuul across his chin, snapping his jaws shut as the limp and now faintly glowing form of her father bounced harmlessly off them to drop to the ground.
Avalon stood, her body glowing with power as she repeatedly pummelled the weakened demon with arcane bolts of energy. To her "awakened" eyes, she could still see the vestigal rift he'd emerged from; she mentally pried it open, the unholy flames seething behind Bhuul as he turned towards it.
*NO! DON'T SEND ME BACK...YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN HELL! I WILL SERVE YOU, BOW TO YOUR WILL! I'LL GRANT YOUR EVERY DESIRE, BUT WISH IT AND IT WILL BE YOURS!*
"Any wish?" Avalon held her blasts in check, regarding the cowering demon, her hands seething with energy that seemed eager to singe and strike demon flesh.
*YOUR VERY HEART'S DESIRE!*
Her eyes narrowed, glowing as a snarl curled her lips.
"I want my father back, you son of a [censored]."
All other sounds were lost as she unleashed her new power at the demon, striking his howling form with enough force to lift him from the ground and hurl him bodily through the portal. With an almost disdainful twitch of her hand, she flung the Head Priest's mangled body after him, the sealed the portal as if mentally zippering it shut.
Groaning, Chuck pulled himself onto the pier near where the remains of the Cult of Bhuul's funhouse-turned-temple stood. With a grunt, he slung his water-logged artillery onto the rotted planks, then hefted his own soggy frame after it.
"[censored]...knocking me into the damn BAY...I HATE being cold and wet, dammit...gonna castrate him with my damn hooves, the mother-fu-"
His words died in his throat as he finally saw the tableau before him; the surviving Cultists had already fled, so all that remained was Avalon, her young body still seething with white magic as she kneeled next to her father's limp, unmoving body.
"Oh, man...Anthony..."
TO BE CONTINUED

I'm not sure if it would pass muster as proper fan-art, but here's a pic I drew of two of my alts, Cyborilla and Ghecko from Triumph server: Get your own damn gum

(originally posted at mutantsandmasterminds.com, this is in reference to several chars of mine on Virtue server)
PART ONE:

...The Cult of Bhuul has long been a thorn in my side. Founded during the Aquarian Age by a young man who, most likely, had taken one too many hits of LSD, they took the altogether ridiculous concept of "demonic messages hidden backwards on records" and embraced it as their unholy scripture. The fact that, in this single instance, they happened somehow to be correct in the matter was beside the point; having successfully summoned ONE demon, the backwater flunky of some minor infernal lord, they had spent the next three and a half decades trying to repeat the process to no avail, thanks in no small part to the efforts of myself and my dilligent assistant.
In fact, having clashed with them on several occasions seems to have earned me a permanent place in their [censored]-backwards pantheon as the "eternal enemy of the Darkest Lord of All, the Ever-Potent Bhuul" (and don't get Chuck started on where HE placed...), especially since I was the one to actually banish their inbred pseudo-diety back to the infernal waste pit that spawned him in the first place. Since then, they've been little more than a dangerous joke, a Satanic "Jackass" that pops up every so often only to be smacked on the nose and sent scurrying back to their blacklight posters and paperback copies of Crowley.
This time, however, they seem to have come up with a new way of returning their Lord to this plane, one that has officially elevated them to the top of my "hit list," and it is now time for them to learn that, while it may be amusing to occasionally tangle with the Sword of St. George...
...you do not EVER touch his daughter.

"...in the names of the Quadrarch, we beeseech thee, oh Bhuul..."
"...Nhoj...Luap...Egroeg...Ognir..." The assembled members of the Cult of Bhuul droned the names in unison, their hooded heads bowing at each name in turn. Avalon Sainte wasn't exactly sure how many there actually were, though, since, between the flashing strobe lights, smoldering incense, and cracked mirrors in the old fun-house that was being used as their church, there appeared to be more here than there probably actually was. But then, she mused to herself, Dad always DID say most modern religions were all smoke and mirrors.
Avalon sneezed again; this whole ordeal was SEVERELY aggravating her allergies to smoke, and having a perpetually runny nose ON TOP of being strapped spread-eagled to a sacrificial altar (and in her Powerpuff nightshirt, of all things!) was simply a matter of adding further insult to her already injured pride.
She'd heard of the Cult of Bhuul, of course, from her father's casefiles mainly, but she'd never suspected that the new father of her classmate would be a member. Gassing his daughter's slumber party? Now that was a new low, Avalon scowled, even for the ranks of "wicked stepparents."
She strained her neck to look around, but, unfortunately, her view hadn't changed: same mauve-draped altar, same tacky fourescent paintings of some hideous (or at least poorly-drawn) creature she assumed must be Bhuul, same smoldering ring of that horrible peppermint incense that kept setting off her sinuses, and the same velvet-and-gold-tinfoil wrapped cult leader waving his arms and groaning about "ever-potent" THIS and "smiting, throbbing power" THAT...she was starting to suspect the Cult's popularity had less to do with dark powers as much as with compensation for the members' "shortcomings." At least that would explain why she was still in her pajamas...
"...now, at last, the way has been shown to us by Bhuul..."
"...the almighty, engorged Bhuul..." droned the assemblage.
"...to forge the path back to this realm that the eternal enemy..."
"...miniscule, insignificant enemy..."
"Oh, PLEASE," Avalon rolled her eyes and thumped her head back on the altar in disgust.
The cult leader shot her a dirty look, but continued without faltering, "...sealed with his treachery so long ago, and to show this path to the ever-potent Bhuul so that he may return to annoint this world with the seeds of his vast, erupting powers..."
"Excuse me," Avalon strained to raise her hand from the altar. "If Bhuul showed YOU guys the path to his return, why do you need to show it back to him?"
To her credit, the cult leader actually seemed to consider this for a moment, blinking owlishly within the depths of his hood before whirling back to his followers and continuing, "...and so, we shall spill this virginal blood in his name, the blood of the enemy that struck him in such a cowardly way from our yearning presence that flows through her supple limbs just as it does through those of his equally effeminate foe..."
"Waitaminnit...'virginal blood?' Um..."
Before she could say anymore, the cult leader had lept astride her, straddling her waist and reaching for the robes bunched at his groin. "Oh, no, that'd BETTER be a sacrificial knife you're going for, pervo..."
"Don't worry, ****..." the cult leader sneered as he pulled a long, curved dagger from the folds of cloth, "...it IS."
"Oh..." Avalon's eyes widened as the flashing lights gleamed off the blade; with the years of supernatural training her father'd drummed into her skull, she could tell a dark artifact when she saw one, and this knife practically dripped with the blood it'd spilled before her. Her eyes followed the knife as it raised high above her...
The sound of shattering mortar and splintering wood silenced the droning cultists as the ceiling of the "temple" was suddenly sheared away and lifted high into the sky. Standing atop a fluttering rectangle of cloth stood a man, well-muscled and imposing, garbed in skintight black with the pattern of a white sword stretching from his knees to his head. A silver hexmark, the upright circled pentagram that was the universal symbol of white magic, shone with the light reflected from the man's hands, which blazed with mystic power.
"I AM THE ARCAINE, THE SWORD OF ST. GEORGE, AND I WOULD LIKE YOU TO PLEASE REMOVE YOURSELF FROM MY DAUGHTER IMMEDIATELY." What mirrors hadn't already been shattered by the removal of the roof were pulverized by the magically-enhanced booming of the Arcaine's voice.
"IT'S ABOUT FRIGGIN' TIME, DAD!" Avalon yelled angrilly from underneath the terrified cult leader.
Most of the cult members were prone on the floor, pinned by their own fear, but several managed to gather their wits enough to bolt for the still-intact emergency exit. Just as they reached it, however, the doors smashed inwards, striking the first few escaping cultists squarely and knocking them into their peers behind them. Those still conscious and standing were greeted by the sight of a short, burly man in a loud Hawaiian shirt and what looked like fuzzy black pants come striding into the short hallway; as he stepped into the light, it was apparent that he wasn't wearig any pants, but rather had black-furred legs ending in cloven hooves. He took a long draw on his cigar, smoothed his short, curly hair back from his short, nubby horns, and smiled at the cultists.
Chuck watched as a couple of the cultists, perhaps thinking to rush the short satyr, began to edge towards him. With a sigh, he slung the M-16 he had behind his back upwards, cocking it noisily before levelling it at them. "Have a seat, ladies, the show ain't over yet." He chuckled as they hastened to comply, then turned his own gaze to the confrontation at the altar.
The cult leader, seemingly paralyzed with fear, had not moved from where he squatted atop Avalon, his eyes fixed on the floating figure of her father. It seems I don't know my own strength, the Arcaine smirked beneath his mask as he slowly drfted towards the terrified man. "Quite a rush to see a figure from your ridiculous texts in the flesh, isn't it?" As he drifted closer to the man, he reached out his gloved hand and said, "Now, please...hand the knife over and I'll let you go to jail with just a severe beating."
Avalon could see something "snap" inside the cult leader, but before she could react, he had spun back to her and, screaming, plunged the dagger at her chest. She actually flinched as she felt the tip of the blade pierce the cotton of her nightshirt and graze her skin before it stopped; the cult leader's scream of rage and defiance quickly turned to one of agony as the bones in his hand were suddenly powdered within the skin and the sacrificial dagger was flung from his grasp.
He continued to writhe and scream as the Arcaine lifted him into the air by his injured hand, suspending him telekinetically inches away from his masked face. "That...was...EXTREMELY...stupid of you."
A glint of light caught Avalon's eye. "DADDY! LOOK-"
The Arcaine didn't even have time to look before the dagger, arcing in flight and rocketing back, blade-first, plunged into his thigh. He bellowed with pain, dropping the cult leader as blood surged suggestively from the bulbed end of the dagger's hilt. He ripped the dagger free and hurled it at the ground where it struck the concrete floor with a clatter.
The spilt blood hung, suspended in mid-air, before flowing like water through an unseen canal towards the ring of incense. It struck the velour carpet, darkening as it began to etch out blasphemous symbols into the maroon pile. As soon as they appeared, the symbols ignited into sickly greenish flame, eventually filling the smoldering ring as the air began to swirl and moan about all present.
The cult leader's triumphant yelling was drowned out, along with all other noise, by the screaming winds, and Avalon could only watch in horror as a massive hand, gnarled and tipped with broken black talons, reached from the rising pillar of green fire.
A dark shape began to emerge, a massive, twisted, and horrifically endowed humanoid shape; it raised its horned head to the night sky and roared, its obscene call minging with the shrieking whirlwind as, in the minds of all present, a profane voice thrummed, *WHO SUMMONS THE EVER-POTENT BHUUL?!*

TO BE CONTINUED...