Jantrix

I'm a demons/time MM at L46. This is where I seriously start work on my buuild and time is a very active set. I generally don't use my whip attacks because I'm too busy buffing/debuffing/slowing and healing. I don't do a lot of soloing.

How many of demon MM's aren't doing the whip attack powers and howz it working out for you?

Thanks. Maybe Freedom will have some for us.

I'm really enjoying the dual pistol power set.

I have a found threads talking about possible new pistols, but have we gotten anything from the devs that say when we might expect to see some?

I'd like to see a new version of this.

Okay I've recently returned to COH after a long absence. I bought Going Rogue, made a new character, headed to Praetoria. On the Virtue server. And there is no one there on a Saturday afternoon. What gives? A whole new reality to explore and no ones interested?

Excellent work. Well done.

Thanks for fixing the link. I'd always wanted to try an EM/SA tank but could never come up with an origin to combine them. This is very tongue-in-cheek, but I'll take it.

Sorry it's a bit long. This was written as a origin story for friend who left the game stortly after completion, so I changed the names to protect the innocent so-to-speak and here it is for your perusal and enjoyment.

Chapter 4
Courage was pretty sure the man in red would be returning soon, so he decided to make good use of the time. Gliding required less energy than walking, in his condition he would need every ounce he had. Nearly starved for weeks, nourishment was first on the priority list. He did a cursory sweep of the area. He appeared to be in a bunker of some sort. Underground most likely considering the arched ceiling and doorways of ancient red brick.. His “treatment” cell had been at the end of a long room. A recent addition of plywood and lumber. The rest of the room seemed a hodgepodge of laboratory, barracks and an extensive library.
A lucky discovery was a stocked refrigerator, hidden in an alcove. A carton of orange juice and a few bananas were all he had time for. He also noted a collection of drugs and medicines in the antiquated refrigerator. It was the library he needed to see. It was there answers would be found. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. He walked to the ancient desk that dominated the area. Rows and rows of books lined the walls. There was quite variety of subjects. Philosophy, art, poetry, science, mathematics. There were a LOT of medical books, but they seemed to have years worth of dust on them, where the rest seemed relatively well handled.
Upon the desk was a large stack of modern paperbacks, viciously worn and dog-eared, and beneath, a large leather-bound journal. Embossed upon the cover was a name- Johan David Stark. For some reason the name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. “No surprise,” Captain Courage thought, “I’m not even quite sure of my own name at this point.” His memories were all a tangled mess.
He opened the journal and began to read. What he read filled him with dread.



Project Titan
The superhumans will soon rule our world. It is the natural order of things. The mighty overthrow the weak. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This can not be allowed, it will not be allowed. I will see to it. The gods of ancient Greece ruled from Mount Olympus. Only the titans opposed them. I will create an army of titans to oppose these new gods. These demons that seek to enslave all mankind! I have seen the future, and it will be grim unless something is done.
I am the Creator! My will be done!


The experiments that followed Stark’s preface read like a “how to make a monster” manual. Dr. Frankenstein would have approved. He read on. Experiment after experiment. The book ended at experiment 43. It began, “Homeless woman: pregnant 2 mos.” And went on to describe the procedures applied to her over nearly 7 months.. Tears welled in Courage’s eyes. The last line for the experiment caught his attention. “Twins. Two boys. Subjects 44 and 45. Subject 43, deceased.” Below the last experiment was a brief message, hastily written.

April 18, 1981
Soldiers have taken the laboratory. I was able to save my notes and Subject 45. Proceeding to secondary hideaway. I will persevere yet!
JDS


A sudden sound brought Captain Courage to his feet, and he whirled to see a side door open and a woman in a filthy nurses uniform emerge with a silver tray. She was quite startled by Courage’s presence. “You’re free?!” she whispered. A secret hope she had held in her heart, come true. In an eye blink she dropped to the floor, at his feet, sobs of relief wracking her body. “I’m a prisoner here too. They keep me to care for the old man.” She motioned through the doorway with her right hand the other covering her face. Courage looked through the doorway, into the chamber beyond.
“Stay here.”

Courage hovered through the doorway. Inside was a small bedroom barely bigger than a closet. On the filthy bed, was a small wrinkled old man. He was terribly emaciated and he was connected to an oxygen system. Brown blotches and open sores covered much of his wracked body. He looked at Courage without any fear.
“The prodigal son has returned, I see.”

Courage ignored the jibe. “You are Stark?”

The man laughed. “Yes. I am Stark, the great Creator. Rarely has any life become such folly as mine.”

“I am one of the two boys born in experiment 43?”

“Yes. You were subject 44, the firstborn. A great failure you turned out to be.”

“And the man in the red mask?”

“Your brother, Cronus. Named such for the leader of the ancient titans. He is my spearhead. He will see my dream come to fruition. He will see the new gods torn from Olympus, and shattered on the ground.” A fit of thick fluid coughing followed this.

“What was my mothers name?” Courage asked, his voice becoming a low growl.
Stark sharply quipped, “Don’t know, never cared. She was just some vagrant. In retrospect though, I should have taken a better class of folk for my work. If I had, I would not now be dying of the AID’s virus. It’s funny somehow, how a simple poke from a needle can doom you or save you. Are you going to arrest me now?”
When Stark spoke the last, there was small smile on his face. It was hope. He wished to be rescued from this squalor, now after all he had done.
“No.” Captain Courage turned and left the room.

Outside the room, he spoke to the young nurse. “How do I leave this place?”
She replied quickly “Through that way sir.” Indicating an adjacent doorway. “But watch out, there are still three more of Cronus’ men guarding the exit.”
A grim smile played over Courage’s face. “That works.” When Courage and the girl stepped though the door, Stark began to scream.

Captain Courage sat quietly amid the rubble that once was a marvelous city. He’d heard they planned to rebuild Faultline. He hoped it was true. Courage looked down at his tattered uniform, and smiled. His mind was slowly beginning to piece together his life from the jumble within. He knew who he was, and what he had to do.
A broken piece of wall shifted nearby and Cronus stepped from a buried sewer grate. He’d apparently found the note that Courage had left on the unconscious form of Wildthorn. He now wore a costume but for the colors, was identical to Captain Courage’s own.
“It looks good in red on black, Cronus.”
Cronus stopped. He glanced around, uncertainly. To find his quarry so close to the sewer entrance, made him pause. “He’s out of his element,” Courage thought.
With a toss of his head, Cronus banished his trepidation and advanced on Captain Courage who sat unmoving thirty feet away. “I’m going to kill you slowly.”
“Why?” Courage replied briefly.
This also stopped Cronus short. “You know why,” he said with a growl.
No Cronus, I don’t. I don’t know you at all. You never tried to contact me, though you obviously knew I existed.”
“YOU KNEW!” Cronus fairly jumped in his rage. “THE SOLDIER BURKE! HE ADOPTED YOU! HE TOLD YOU! JOHAN TOLD ME SO!
With effort, Cronus brought himself under control. Pointing to the hole he’d stepped from he spoke, “I’ve spent my entire life, in those sewers. Amid the filth, and the forgotten. The vile and the corrupt. You never came for me. The great hero.” A vicious sneer creased Cronus’ face like a black scar. “Stark told me about your wonderful life and great success, your friends, your family. He told me that he had contacted you himself and that you ignored him. And me.” The last two words were a whisper.
Captain Courage shook his head sadly. “He lied to you brother. He took advantage of your ignorance and your fear, for his own ends.”
Cronus snarled. “I fear NOTHING!”
“I spoke briefly to the nurse, Cronus. You never went outside , you always sent others. For supplies, information, always your cronies. Never you.”
“I LIVED IN HELL! AND YOU! I SAW YOU IN THE NEWSPAPERS! I SAW YOUR FACE!”
Cronus reached up and tore off his mask and glared at Captain Courage. His face was identical to Courage’s, but his horrific life and his rage had etched it, twisted it. He looked haggard, worn.
“You cannot know the pain, the misery of my life. But I will see you feel a pain for every day of it.”
Again, Courage was unaffected by Cronus’ hatred. “Yet, you could have left the sewers at any time. You could have come out and found me yourself”
Cronus stared, his mouth open, “I couldn’t…………..the old man…………the mission……….new gods.”
“Your agoraphobic, brother. I saw the library. I know you’re an educated man. The old madman, at least saw to that. You know what agoraphobia is. The fear of open spaces. The fear of outside.”
Courage saw his brothers face twist, and he knew what was coming. He saw his own rage. It was clear that the madman’s experiments, had indeed a few bugs. Both he and his brother suffered from a phobia, and both of them had to quell the rage within on a constant basis.
Cronus rushed at Captain Courage, his eyes glowing red, his mouth agape. “I FEAR NOTHING! YOU LEAST OF ALL!
Captain Courage didn’t move, he just sat there, a look of pity on his face. When Cronus was nearly upon Courage, a movement beyond caught Cronus’ eye. About forty feet behind Captain Courage was a man amid the rubble. A man with red hair, in a green and white uniform. His body was leaned back, his right arm out, supported by his left and a grin upon his face.
“You brought……”Cronus babbled in amazement.
“Friends. Yes.”
Exodus’ sniper blast took Cronus full in the face, and it staggered him. Energy and cold blasts rocked him from all sides. A psychic lance tore through his mind, bringing Cronus screaming to his knees.
Captain Courage rose unsteadily and approached his brother. “I’m sorry brother, but I couldn’t find any rocket launchers to return the favor. I had to improvise.”
Captain Courage found the last bits of energy in his body and focused them now. As Cronus staggered to his feet, he was met by a barrage of punches, thrown by a man who knew how to do it. How to take a man down, to cripple his defenses. To win……….no matter what.
Cronus fought back, but for all his bluster he was unskilled, untrained. He fought like a brawler, relying purely on his great strength. Captain Courage had learned long ago, that you either learned to fight well or you died. Blow after tremendous blow Cronus dealt only to be turned, blocked, deflected. Captain Courage was weak, it was all he could do to defend himself. The blows he dealt were calculated, precise. Nerve strikes, pressure points, joints strikes. All required minimal power to be effective. And they did their work well.

In two minutes time, Cronus lay on the ground, beaten. Every nerve and muscle screamed in protest. Parts of his body wouldn’t move at all.
“What…….now……………John?” Cronus sputtered, his lips torn and bleeding.
As his fellow Defenders slowly walked up, Captain Courage settled slowly to the ground near his brother. “Boy, I’m gonna feel this in the morning,” he thought.

“Now…..you will stand accountable for the kidnapping of the nurse and the maiming of the people at the site of the rocket attack. That much is certain. What else happens during that time is up to you.”
“What….do you…mean?” Cronus whispered.
“Truth and forgiveness, brother. It’s all we have, and it’s past time for both.

Chapter 1
Captain Courage wearily glided in to land before the open sewer grate. His costume was torn in several locations, a tuft of hair jutted from a rend above his left ear. All in all the task force had gone well. He and the other Defenders had stopped a near catastrophe from occurring tonight. He leaned a moment against the cool concrete wall and grinned when he recalled how he and the others, Bayne, Exodus, Pretty Kitty, Rael, Crazy Ace, Korpershutz, Liquidus and Red Switchblade, had cleaved through the Malta defenses and destroyed the weapons cache that was about to hit the streets. He shuddered to think about the ramifications of the Sapper weaponry getting into the hands of criminals all over the city.
Courage shook his head, to clear the cobwebs. “That’s funny I can still hear the whistle of those missiles from the Zeus mechs. I must have gotten hit a little harder than I thought.”
When the sound got louder, it only took a second for him to realize that what he was hearing wasn’t a lingering effect, but the real thing. Also the sound wasn’t from a particular direction but rather, from many directions. “A coordinated attack. Just wonderful.”
In a blink he took to the air and pressed to get some altitude, to get above the buildings. He saw the incoming missiles arc to match his assent, and knew that it wasn’t going to happen. Sixty feet off the ground, the sextet of surface to air missiles struck him within milliseconds of each other. The windows of the surrounding buildings blew in, a hailstorm of razor shards, shredding into people unlucky enough to be nearby. Their screams echoed in Captain Courage’s ears as he hit the ground. Barely conscious, he rolled to his knees. Through the ringing in his ears, he made out the sound of footsteps.
“Hmm. Your secret hideaway is in the sewers?” A cold chilling laugh cut the air between them like a blade. “How utterly ironic.”
Spitting a wad of blood onto the pavement, Courage looked up at his tormentor to find a masked man, clothed in red, a black trench coat flapping in the breeze. ‘Who…….are you?”
The man before him spoke. “All good things come to those who wait. And I have waited so very long for my good things. So now shall you.” With that, he delivered a terrible blow to Captain Courage’s aching head, and he faded into darkness.

Chapter 2
“Tell me about your past. Who did you love? Who loves you? What has broken your heart? Who named someone as pitiful as you, hero?”
The questions swirled through Courage’s brain like debris circling a drain after a storm. And they pressed him. Though he fought, the questions brought forth memories. That, he could not prevent. The jewelry store. Katie. The blood. The rage. Oh God, Katie.

In his mind’s eye he saw his adoptive parents, Jim Burke and his wife Isabelle. They had given him the name John and raised him until he was 12. It was a loveless place. John knew that he was an adopted child, but from where and why he’d never learned. Jim was a soldier and the things he had seen and done had hollowed him, like rot in an old tree. For Isabelle the heartbreak of her miscarriages made her cold toward John. He was not hers, therefore not a child for her. John learned early to do for himself.

“At least you had a home, you ungrateful pig.”

The Rikti war. The Burke’s died in the first weeks of the onslaught, the victim of some alien biological weapon. John had not been affected.

“I wonder why that might have been, eh?”

John lived for a year in a shelter, like many of those left homeless and after the war, was placed in a state home along with many orphaned children. He did not miss the Burke’s he’d realized. They held no place in his heart. No one did. Until Katie. Katie McClain.

“Ah, now we are getting to the good parts. The juicy bits. Heh.”

He and Katie had met in the state home. They were drawn to each other for reasons that John couldn’t know, but thanked God for. Katie had lost a loving home, and John had long been denied such. They were that for each other. For five years they grew as close as any brother and sister. Closer. Though it was unspoken, they both knew. It was the greatest time John had even known.

“I am vindicated! My actions are justified! Vengeance ever be swift!”

Katie and he had to hide their feelings at home, so they frequently took long walks through town, sometimes even holding hands when they thought no one they knew would see them. As they passed a jewelry store, Katie said, “Lets go in.”
As if by magic that all women seem to possess, Katie seemed to glide in to end up unerringly at the counter that had the engagement rings. “What do you want to look at these for,” John asked. Katie turned to him with a smile that made his heart thump like a base drum and his stomach fall into his feet. “Oh, no reason really. Just dreaming.”
A mirror on the counter made sure John could see just how red his face had turned.
“Just dreaming.”

“I will flay the skin from your bones for this!”

He would always remember her face at this moment. Beauty untouched by time forever. It was all she would leave him. The sacred silence of the moment was shattered by the muffled sounds of gunfire, the mist of powdered brick, and the whisper of speeding bullets. John threw himself in front of Katie as quick as thought. But the bullets were faster. Before they hit the ground Katie was dead. Even as he fell he knew it. As the bullets struck his back, he was relieved. They would not be parted. But they were.

“Victims. Aren’t we all?”

It quickly became clear to John that he wasn’t shot. He found the bullet holes in his shirt, but no wound. His grief washed over him like a wave. Within the grief was a spark of anger. The sound of gunshots stoked the spark and the spark became a flame. A bonfire of rage took John away, carrying him like a leaf on a breeze. It took him through the wall. It took him to find the gunmen. And when it subsided, as a wave or a flame must, it left him only with his grief. The media called him a hero, truly courageous.

Chapter 3

The man in red spoke to his men. “Tear his mind apart. He has twenty-five years of hell to make up for.”
The small one was called Fugue. Skilled in the use of mind altering drugs, he also had the ability to project thoughts and memories into the human mind, as natural as if you’d thought of them yourself. And then he could read your minds response to the idea. He was a master of interrogation.
The other man was tall and thin, and he wore a grinning skull mask that seemed oddly appropriate. He called himself Limbo. He would add darkness to the equation, to bring terror to the manipulations of Fugue. He was insanity incarnate, and though he worked for the man in red, he had no master but Death itself. This job was perfect, because he still got to do what he loved, and it kept him off the streets. Bad things happened when he roamed. Many superheroes were after him for what he had done in the library. It really hadn’t been his fault. Death wanted them. It was as easy as that.

Fugue and Limbo set to their task. The man in red turned before leaving the room.
“I’ll have coffee sent in. Feel free to get creative. I appreciate true artistic expression.”

Inside his world of grief, Captain Courage heard his echoing laughter as he left the room.
For weeks the two villains invaded Captain Courage’s mind. Twisting and turning the knives in his brain. Living and reliving the death of Katie, the death of his friends, the death of people he never had never known but nevertheless loved. They created new versions of John/ Captain Courage, gave him new memories, new loved ones, and then they brought the whisper of bullets all over again. Time and again they shredded him, tore him down. He lived in a sea of anguish and grief. But inside the grief, there was a spark.

“Damn it Skullface, I’m tired and I have a serious Excedrin headache. I’m gonna take a break. The drugs will keep him down. Too bad we need a titanium needle to puncture his damn hide though. They’re damn hard to come by.”
“Don’t call me Skullface, you little dipdo-do! I’ve told you that a thousand times! Do it again and see what happens. You won’t find the tendrils so funny. Friggin' twerp.”
Captain Courage heard Fugue’s laughter. It was time. The flame had indeed burned hot. It had burned though the drugs in his body and now he was going to let it loose.

Mankind, in its basic essence, is that which he has learned. Thousands of years of morality, technology, religion and civility have suppressed instinct, cunning, the capacity to kill and other lower brain functions. But when the man is destroyed, all that he has learned to be is lost. All that remains is what man is underneath it all- an animal.

Although at the time Courage was in no mood for grins when he sat up and tore his arms from the metal restraints, in the years that followed, the animal part of him would smile when he remembered the looks on Fugue and Limbo’s faces. Eyes wide and mouths turned in ovals of awe, they didn’t even have time to utter the requisite “Oh do-do.”
In a blur of movement, Captain Courage’s hand shot out and grasped the expensive, hard to find, titanium syringe.
People are always in awe of the damage someone with supernatural strength can inflict with a punch or a kick. What many don’t imagine is what a superhuman person can do with some light mundane item with just a flick of the wrist.
As if pondering the mysteries of life, both Fugue and Limbo stared with amazement at the quarter sized hole straight through Limbo’s chest. Limbo looked up and gasped, “Damn Fugue, I’ve never………”
Captain Courage’s hand shot out and snatched Fugue by the throat, as the latter watched his companion slide to the floor. Eyes blazing, Courage spoke. “Unlock my feet.”
Fugue’s speed was rendered superhuman by his fear. Captain Courage stood. “Don’t you want to know where he is?” Fugues voice cracking as he spoke.
“No.”
As Captain Courage stepped from the small white room, he dropped Fugue’s body by the doorjamb.

GAH! Ever been at work when inspiration strikes and you have no way to see if the name is available? Anyway, I have finally come up with an idea for a tank toon, that I might actually like. Here's the start of his bio.........

Mild mannered, billionaire science geek, Harold Zagnut, having narrowly escaped being bitten by a radioactive spider, and irradiated by a gamma bomb, after witnessing the brutal tazing of his parents at the hands of Los Angeles police officers, steps into a candy store for a treat. While inside the store, Harold accidentaly mixes his confectionary snack with his diet soda. The resulting chemical explosion radically alters his DNA, creating the hero known as

POP ROXX!

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g7...0stuff/Pop.jpg

I discovered this site recently. http://www.fanfiction.net/game/City_of_Heroes/
It has a lot of good (and bad) fan fiction, but the CoH section is slow. I thought I'd post it here to try to get more interest.

Ow. Touche'. Very true, and I have spent quite a lot of time at this, but I have only my wife to say whether it is any good. I have other stories to post and I'm hoping for some critique. However that seems to be hard for most people to take the time to do.

Thanks Slick, I appreciate the comments. Folks, if you're gonna take the time to read this far, would you mind a few more moments? Please shoot a quick reply, and let me know what you think. I'm considering trying to write professionally, and I'd like to know if I'm any good before I start spending 1000's of hours at it. Thanks in advance.

I’d hated him for years. I couldn’t help but be jealous. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Six years later my own powers developed, much to my relief and wonder. Why so long between us? I don’t know. He and I are fraternal twins. That is, non-identical. My name is Rafe. I feel bad for hating him now, it was selfish, but we’d competed all our lives. When he was able to blast holes in walls from fifty feet away, he had eclipsed me completely. We were twelve years old when Rael’s powers manifested for the first time. I remember the day very well. That day, my brother became a hero for the first time, by saving me.
Remember when your parents told you not to speak with strangers? Well they were right. Completely.

I loved planes as a child. I had models and posters all over my room. We came from an obscenely wealthy family so I could collect as much as I wanted. Books, video’s, documentaries, whatever I could get my hands on. When other kids were sweating long division, I’d already mastered the physics of lift, thrust, drag and speed over ground. Military planes were a particular favorite. I’d told my father that I wanted to be an Air Force pilot. He told me that the military was for people who couldn’t afford a decent college. He’d already had plans for me at Yale, his alma mater.

One day, as I had done many times past, I had rode my bike to a nearby private airfield, and sat watching my fathers friends take off in their Cessna’s, Leer's, and Beechcraft's. I spent a lot of time there. Rael was failing several subjects and spent a good deal of time with tutors. Where there was a certain satisfaction to knowing I was smarter than he was, it left me alone a lot. One day, a mechanic from a nearby hangar saw me, and came over. He was a plane nut, like me. We talked for a bit that day, and then many times after. His name was Manny and we became friends.

For a long while I’d been searching for a particular model of the B-52 that was out of circulation for many years. One day Manny showed up with the very model I’d been searching for. He gave it to me as a gift. Excited, I hugged him and ran off home, to start it.

Rael was mad when he heard where I’d gotten the model. He warned me incessantly about Manny. “Remember what Dad said. Because we are Van Peals, people might try to steal us for ransom.”

I wouldn’t listen. Manny was a plane nut like me. That’s all. Besides I’d never told him my last name. He’d never asked.

The next day I went back to the airfield. I watched the planes take off, and enjoyed the day in the cool grass. Manny came after about an hour. For the first time he pulled up in a car. An old beat up mini-van.

“C’mere Rafe. I got a new book on that B-52! It just came in at Waldenbooks today!” I could see him smiling from the car; he held the book so I could see it. What can I say, I was stupid. I went to the car. The book was huge, with a B-52 Stratofortress on the cover. Excited, I opened the door and climbed in. He handed me the book and we flipped through the pages, checking out the big glossy prints. It was great. I was already making plans to get to the bookstore to get my own copy.

“Close the door, would you Rafe?”

“Huh, why?” I replied looking up.

“Because I told you to,” he said in his same calm voice. It took me a moment to see the knife in his left hand. For just a moment I froze. Then I tried my damnest to get outa that car. He was fast. He had a hold of my left arm before I could get far enough away. I yelled. Like I had never yelled before.

“Shut up or I’ll cut your fkin’ throat, you little rat”

I fought him, as best as I could. He seemed hesitant about using the knife on me, though. And then Rael was there. He came in through the open drivers window, howling like a banshee. He grabbed Manny around the neck, and was punching him in the face. I’m sure it didn’t hurt as bad as being hit by a adult, but I’m sure it didn’t tickle either. Manny turned in his seat, without letting my arm go, and brought up his left arm towards Rael.

“Rael, he’s got a knife!”

I can still remember the look on Rael’s face when he saw the knife. His eyes got real wide, and then a look of fear and awe came over him. Then the world turned upside down. My next memory is being loaded into an ambulance, with Rael in tears at my side. All he was saying over and over, was “I’m sorry.” Sorry for what, I wondered.

According to a witness who had heard the commotion and was running towards us, the inside of the car exploded outward in a flash of blue-white light. I was apparently shot out of the open car door, as if by a gun. I flew 120 feet and sustained a broken arm and a concussion, from which I recovered from nicely. Manny was not so lucky. His neck was broken. Everything from his neck down would never again answer the calls from his brain.

Manny was a criminal wanted in six states for questioning on charges of child abduction and molestation. They found enough evidence in the ruined mini-van to convict him of three counts of child abduction. He refused to say where the children were now, or admit his crimes. Because of that, the judge and jury put him away for a real long time. He is eligible for parole just a few years before the sun goes super-nova I believe.

But, it was Rael that made the news that day. From that day on he could at will, channel his own bio-electricity into an energy that he could propel from his body with staggering force. My father had all the medical tests done to find that Rael had an extra chromosome that marked a [censored]-superior, a human mutation. My father was very proud, and my mother nervous as hell. From that day forward he began prepping Rael for a life as a super-hero. Father had the grand ballroom, unused since my grandfathers time, refitted as a gymnasium. Also a sizable portion of the property was devoted to developing Rael’s more destructive powers. Martial arts masters, acrobats, detectives and even actual super-heroes (no one of any notoriety) were brought in to tutor him. He took to it like a fish to water. I’d never seen him so happy, so fulfilled. And how I hated him for it.
I didn’t come out of it with nothing mind you. All money that had been spent on assuring Rael’s college education, was shifted to my trust fund. As his brother, I was a natural sparring partner for him so I learned martial arts with him. But we drifted apart and he never seemed to notice. God, how that hurt.

Our childhoods waned, and only our studies mattered. He with his masters of kung-fu, and me with AP level studies in all subjects. I graduated number two in my class, and Rael got his GED. Our parents threw a graduation party of us. All of their high society friends were in attendance. After supper, Father toasted us, and told everyone what our futures held. It went something like this.

“This summer Rael starts his career with the recently assembled League of Valor in Paragon City! He will learn under the tutelage of none other than Ascendant himself! I have every confidence that in time he will become the kind of hero that we remember in legends forever. Oh, and Rafe starts at Yale this fall. Thank you all for coming, blah, blah, blah.”

Needless to say I left for Yale the very next day. I told my family that I needed to get an apartment and furnish it before school starts, and also there were extra-curricular activities that began in the summer. The tennis team for instance. Yeah, right.

School started, and I took a full schedule. I majored in business and minored in sorority girls. No sweat. Mostly out of boredom I also took up a little gambling on the side. My kind of extra-curricular activity. I started small. Worked my way up to the big games. I didn’t gamble with family money. That way, there was never a danger of my father finding out. He wouldn’t approve, to say the least. Anyway, not to brag, but I was good. Very good. Soon all but the biggest games were closed to me. Anyway, there was this big game, and I needed twenty-five grand to sit in. I didn’t have but fifteen, so I borrowed the rest from a local bookie. Like I said, I’m very good, but the night of the game someone else was better. Much better.

Seven days later the bookie I mentioned came looking for yours truly. Next thing I know, these totally unreasonable fellows have me in the trunk of their car. They took me to a warehouse on the industrial side of town. They started to work me over real good. But, in a strange sort of way I felt as though I’d deserved it. So I took it like a man. That is until the gorilla doin’ the job, pulled out a knife.
“Gonna carve the words TWELVE GRAND on you boy, so you remember for next week. Ten grand plus twenty percent interest.”

That was it. I went into instant fight or flight mode. Fight first, flight immediately thereafter. That was the plan. I stepped into a guard stance, feinted left, and punched out at the gorilla with the knife with my right. I expected to hit him hard. After all I’d been my brothers sparring partner, and knew a bit. What I hadn’t expected was the orb of power that was surrounding my moving fist, and what it did to said gorilla. I never felt the impact, the energy field damped it down, but the jerk sure did. He just stood there with this crazy dazed expression on his face, and then fell like someone had cut the marionette strings. The other two goons began to advance warily, and then with surprise, began glancing around.

“Where’d he go?”

“Dunno, he musta jumped behind some crates.”

“Find him, or the boss is gonna take ten grand outa our [censored].”

Fight was done, so flight took over, and I crept outa there, taking note, that it took no effort at all to remain completely silent and I was nearly undetectable to the human eye. I smiled the whole way home. I had it too. This was just too cool for words. It was then I realized how wrong I’d been to hate Rael so much. It hadn’t been his fault. If he hadn’t had the power, we’d both likely be dead at the hands of Manny the deranged lunatic.

In the days that followed I found an abandoned granite quarry a few hours out of town. There I experimented with my powers. I could concentrate my bio-energy into my hands for devastating blows but I could in no way project it the way Rael did. But that was fine too. The stealth abilities I’d gotten completely made up for that. I also felt that with some practice I could generate protective fields around my body. All Rael could do was dodge around like a monkey, and hope no one got him, before he got them. One thing did bother me, still though. Rael could fly. With all my childhood dreaming of flying in experimental aircraft, the fact that I couldn’t bugged me big time. Later I developed the ability to force my bio-power towards the ground, and leap like a rocket-powered grasshopper, which was damn near as cool as flying anyway. While I was learning, I was thinking. To tell them (my family that is) or not, that was the question. Later I decided to keep it a secret for a bit, and surprise them later, after my exploits had made me famous. Funny how things would work out.

I returned to school, paid my gambling debts off and studied my [censored] off to graduate in just two and a half years, with my Bachelors Degree. I briefly returned home to my father’s proud smile, and my mother’s loving embrace. Then with my trust fund and BA in hand, I went off to Paragon City to seek my fortune and maybe, just maybe, a little fame.

Not to proud to accept advice, my father told me about the son of one of his golf pals that was having difficulty getting his business started in Independence Port. He had the money, and the space, but didn’t have the business savvy to really get things running.

I called him up, met him for lunch and by dessert I was a full partner. By day, I began the leg work, making contacts, doing the face time, selling the company. My partner Jason, worked the facility, managed the employees, and the bookkeeping.

By night, I became Shadowsbane. I prowled through Atlas Park, Perez Park, and Steel Canyon. I had a white and blue costume made for me at Icon, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. By this time of course, Rael was damn near a household name in Paragon City. When the League of Valor had disbanded, Rael set up with the Defenders of Paragon. These guys were the big league players, off saving the world in galaxies far, far away, and all that. I made contact with him, and we had lunch and talked about old times, and my college days. We were constantly hounded though by autograph seekers and photographers. My brother in his infinite wisdom had chosen to make his real name (first name only, like Madonna or Sting) his professional name, and never wore a mask. It was fun to see him, but I won’t make a habit out of it.

The business brought strange challenges to this budding hero. In order to do legitimate business in Independence Port it was necessary to do business with illegitimate persons. The Family of course owned the docks. So we had to talk to their people, do business with them to get to our actual customers. The Council wanted a piece of the action also, and I worked my [censored] off finding ways to appease them short of doing something illegal. The last thing I would need is for my brother or has pals to break down my door.

This caused me to re-think things a bit. Here I was doing business with the worst criminal elements in Paragon, only to be out trying to put them behind bars the next night.

It wasn’t too long, before our little business started to really take off. By playing to our strengths, my partner Jason and I started to really do well. After three months, we were in the black. After six, profits started to show up. At our first year, we toasted with the most expensive champagne we could find. Things were good, my parents were proud. Even my brother, Mr. D-minus checked up on us in the trade papers, and sent us congratulatory cards and an autographed photo of himself. What an utterly lovable cad.
Unfortunately success has but one drawback. There is nowhere to go but down. And that it did, but fast.

I was in my office late that night. I was finishing up a proposal for a new company interested in giving us their account, when I heard raised voices from the conference room. I had learned the benefit of stealth in my nighttime activities, so I crept quietly along the hall and peered through the glass wall unseen. Jason was there with a dozen hoods from the Family. They looked angry and Jason was terrified. I was about to get my costume from my office, when a group of soldiers from the Council entered the room. Things went from bad to worse, quickly. Harsh words were spoken, then guns were drawn, and then they all just glared at each other. The standoff ended abruptly when the wall blew in. When the dust cleared a bit, a machine-man 10 feet tall and bristling with blades strode in. The Freakshow arrived in force but yet no one had been hurt. It was just a lot of angry criminals arguing for their piece of the pie.

It was when Longbow arrived that things went straight to hell. They came in like the ****** horde, guns blazing. The battle that ensued was catastrophic. All three criminal factions had additional troops nearby, and with Longbow came the super-heroes. The ones that I recognized from the paper were Crimzon, Dark Stryke, Cragg and Wraythe. There were at least four others that I didn’t recognize. There was nothing I could do. During the chaos I went after Jason but I was too late. He’d been near cut in half by machine gun fire. I waited outside, hidden and watched my world burn.

In the aftermath, the police discovered a second set of books. Jason had been in bed with the Family big time. In a day there was a warrant for my arrest. I turned myself in. My family got me the best lawyers and I was confident I would be free of blame soon.

I’d thought Jason had had no business savvy. I was wrong. The paper trail he had left, led straight to me. It was a work of pure genius. I’d been taking illegal money and never even known it. I was convicted for a half a dozen charges. When the verdict and sentence were passed down, I saw my fathers face. He believed them. He believed I was guilty. I could have stood anything but that.

“I know you didn’t do it.”

Said a voice from the window in cell 125, cell block E of the minimum security wing of the Zig. My window. My cell is on the third floor. I stood and went to my window, and got a shock. It was Rael, and he was wearing my Shadowsbane costume. He hovered there outside my window, in the darkness.

“You were always smart, Rafe. You never needed to cheat. I know that you’re innocent. The problem is that with Jason dead, we can never prove it,” he said, his head low.

“It looks good on you,” I said, changing the subject.

“Yeah, you never could hide things well. I found the secret door, in the study at your apartment. I was surprised to find this. When did it happen?”

“College. Freshman year. A guy had a knife.”

Rael smiled. “A knife huh? Yeah, that would get my attention too.”

He got serious suddenly. “Okay Rafe. What now? Are you serving a twenty-five year sentence for your crooked partner or are you letting yourself out?”

“As soon as I come up with a viable plan, I’m outa here. I’d rather live my life as a fugitive than waste my life here. The only downside is that Father will be convinced that I’m a criminal.”

Rael grinned. “I thought so. Here.” He passed me a small package. “I had it made at Icon. I don’t like it though. I never did like masks.”

Inside was a deep red costume with white graphics. It would do.

“I can’t stay here in Paragon, Rael. I can’t be super-hero by night and mild mannered fugitive by day. I can’t live half a life. My rep is ruined as a legitimate businessman.”

“I figured,” Rael said, looking thoughtful. He smiled sadly, “I’ve heard the Rogue Isles are nice this time of year.”

“That’s what I heard too. Thanks Rael. I mean it. You’re a hero to this town, it must be hard to be put in this position.”

“It doesn’t take a hero to know that to do the right thing, sometimes you must break the rules. Hell, just being a costumed hero is itself against the law. Vigilantism. But we are necessary, because the bad guys are more than the police can handle without anti-tank weapons. Anyway, stay in touch but don’t ever tell me what you’re up to. I don’t want to know. Take care bro, Mom sends her love.”
He began to drift backward and up, into the star-filled sky. “And don’t worry about Dad, when I tell him where I got this costume, he’ll know the man you really are.”

With that he flew away into the night. I’m not too macho to admit there were tears to wipe away. That night I punched my way through my cell wall. It felt great.
I’d tried to do it the right way. The right way failed me. Now I’m a criminal. I’d tried for success and a little fame. Now I won’t stop till I have success and a hell of a lot of infamy. Shadowsbane exists now only in my brothers heart. I am Externus now. The word is Latin. It means outsider or stranger. What your parents warned you not to talk to, remember? Funny how the world works, isn’t it?