Lady_Cobra

Hmmm...I think Superspeed is the only one that would fit (reasonably) with Angel's natural origin concept - I was actually half thinking about sacrificing it for swift as that could more reasonably pass as a "natural" ability, but I could imagine this would lead to frustration among teammates (who already have to wait quite a lot each time Angel gets lost )

I'll be there too, if I can manage to sneak out of the house

Shadow Whisper will be there,

Aisla, do you have a brute name yet, so we know who to look for?

Looking forward to it, and hoping that the outbreak will succeed

Today, Masked Angel made a combined crank/sympathy call to Mr. Tatters, who had apparently been briefly hospitalised after a run-in with some nasty trolls.

Then, she teamed up with Blitz for revenge over said trolls, and then for two very creepy missions in a very nasty part of the Hollows, the effort taking her to level 7,4.

Since I take it that it technically would not be breaching the level cap for Angel to be at say level 7,9 for Thursday, she will try making the meeting Tuesday as well for a brief hello and team-up - doing these missions IC is just too fun to resist.

I would hope you keep around Astra for guest appearances too - I also really liked the background story and the concept/powers

Here goes the Backstory for Shadow Whisper. Apologies in advance for the length of it :

Shadow Whisper

Up the stairs above her, the heavy door was locked and bolted, blocking out the last traces of light.

As if untouched by the all-engulfing darkness, the white-clad figure moved forward to the metal bench she knew would be waiting at the far wall and sat herself down, by habit assuming the lotus position she always used to find mental rest.

So, it was back to solitary confinement! Compared to the claustrophobically small cell she shared with three other inmates, solitary wasn't actually too bad - at least she could allow herself the luxury of going to sleep without the risk of having her throat cut or worse.

As solitary confinement went, the Hole, where she was locked down now, was of course probably the worst you could get, but still it wasn't too bad, if you could block out the darkness, the cold, the humidity and the rats - and blocking out things like that was something of which she had very considerable experience.

A brief shiver raked her white-clad frame. The guards had hosed her down with icy water as punishment, but that was nothing more than a mild inconvenience, as was the salty taste of blood in her mouth, dripping from her bruised upper lip.

She took some pride in the fact that a guard had inflicted the wound only after she had passively surrendered herself. The four assailants - gang members trying to claim her mask as a trophy - had not come close to even scratching her, and - if conscious yet - they were probably lying in their infirmary beds seriously regretting their choice of victim.

As she concentrated on letting her mind escape the ailments of her body, her thoughts found peace in the contemplation of the strange dream that had kept coming to her recently - the nice dream as she had named it to herself - a dream of a big, light room, a soft, warm bed, and a tender, loving voice speaking to her affectionately.

As much as she enjoyed the dream, she really had no idea where it was all coming from. As far back as she could recall, she had never experienced warm beds and loving voices; her earliest memories were of the cold and humid caves where she had been kept and trained to fight under the watchful eyes of Mr. Wang.

She remembered how the mere thought of Mr. Wang had once been enough to make her blood freeze in terror. She had refused to fight the other kids at first, and Mr. Wang had been merciless in his fury. She had always hid herself silently in the corner of the cave, rarely uttering a word, and never raising her voice, even when she was being beaten, and that was how she had earned the name Shadow Whisper.

Even when they fought for food, she had refused to partake, and soon she had been half-crazed from starvation. Then, one day, a lump of bread had been thrown into the far corner of the cave, practically landing in her lap. Frantically, she had started nibbling away, unaware that big Jimmy, one of the older boys and one of her worst bullies had seen her and wanted to take the bread from her.

As Jimmy grabbed her, desperation had made her finally lash out, and to the amazement of Mr. Wang and the other kids, she had disposed of Jimmy in seconds, flawlessly executing the moves she had seen the others perform over and over again, but always herself refused to take part in. It was then that Mr. Wang had realised that he had a true martial arts prodigy on his hands.

That night, a Mr. Po had arrived and spoken with Mr. Wang. Amazingly, Mr. Wang had seemed fearful of Mr. Po, and she remembered wondering why Mr. Po was gesturing at her, and what was in the small cloth bag that Mr. Po had handed to Mr. Wang.

A few nights later, she had awoken to shouts, scuffling and turmoil. Mr. Wang had grabbed her, quickly whisking her away down one of the hallways. From a distance, she had heard the anxious callings of an unknown female voice. "Jessica, are you here? Jessie? Please…" She had thought how lucky this Jessica was to have someone with such a gentle and caring voice searching for her.

She had found herself moved to another cave, but apart from that her life had continued much as before. Mr. Wang had learnt that he could persuade the young prodigy to fight not by threatening or punishing the girl herself, but rather by using the other kids as scapegoats for punishment whenever she made any mistakes or showed any signs of disobedience. By these means, he had pushed her to the limits and beyond, and her fighting talents were unfolding beyond Mr. Wang's wildest expectations.

Mr. Wang had always said she that had the fast and deadly strike of a cobra and she had been given a mask, a veil, and a white costume with a cobra insignia to wear as Shadow Whisper during the gladiator battles she and the other kids were forced to fight in the ring. Often Mr. Po would be there watching and nodding in slight recognition as she beat the champions of his rivals again and again.

One night, Mr. Wang had pushed her too far, and she had made a mistake, twisting her ankle as she landed after launching a flying attack. Infuriated, Mr. Wang had started beating her only friend Cindy as punishment. Something had snapped inside her, and she had jumped Mr. Wang, ignoring the throbbing pain in her ankle and beating her tormentor to a pulp.

Quickly grabbing the cloth bag Mr. Po had given to Mr. Wang, she had limpingly fled the caves, followed by all the other young gladiators that had been held captive. Taking occupancy in the basement of a derelict house, she had searched the cloth bag, finding only a small golden medallion engraved with the name Jessica Chang, and wondering what that could possibly have to do with her.

Mr. Po had sent his men after her, enforcers of all sorts, ink men of all colours, and even a sorcerer, but she had effortlessly disposed of them all, one by one.

Then, one day, Cindy had called her, desperately pleading for help. She had rushed to the designated meeting spot, only to find the motel room full of Superadine and Cindy nowhere in sight. Before she could get out, the place had been swarmed by cops, and since then her place of residence had been the Zig.

A rat nibbling away at her boot brought the white-clad figure out of her reverie. Absentmindedly, she brushed it away, thinking that she really needed to get herself out of this place as soon as possible if she wanted to follow up on her strange dream and find out more about who this Jessica Chang was.

To do so, and to survive in the harsh world outside until she could find her bearings, she would need a plan, and some allies though. Suppressing another faint shiver, she slipped back into meditation, this time focusing her mind on the problem of how to possibly find allies in a cutthroat place like this.

A new natural origin stalker (MA/Regen - Cognito is going to hate me for this ) Shadow Whisper has been created and is currently harbouring in solitary confinement at the Zig contemplating how she is going to break out.

A bio/backstory will be posted on the separate thread once Leif has created it.

I would love to try out a stalker.

I hope a concept of someone who isn't truly evil will not be too much of a problem.

If there's room for my stalker, then I'll just have to find out which of my current Union Characters to delete and recreate on Defiant to free up a slot.

"So how was it Sis?"

"Not bad; I got a B+! Could have been much worse - I must remember to thank Mr. Know-it-all for helping me out!"

"I don't mean your chemistry test stupid - how was the Militia?"

"Ah…that was cool, real cool D"

"Well go on - tell me about it"

"Well…I was a bit shy at first…all these new people, nearly all grown-ups and some of them quite strange. I kept wondering why the Ministry could possibly have chosen me to join them. Then, we were divided into two teams and were sent off on assignments. I was with the Bravo team and was sent to speak with a contact all by myself - that was cool and a bit scary!"

"What were the others like?"

"Well, the leader of my team, Mr. Devlin Saint was really nice. He did all he could to make me feel comfortable, and kept checking that I was okay, and saying I was doing all right - that was really cool. At one point, I almost freaked out inside a burning building, and he was there to help me at once. Most of the time, when he wasn't giving orders or looking out for me, he was arguing with Booster?"

"Booster?"

"Strange fellow. A bit grumpy and sarcastic, and he certainly doesn't think much of girls' football, but I think he's actually nice enough when you get to know him, and I think I half persuaded him to take his band for a gig at our school - except he wants to be paid for it - that's something we'll just have to find a way around!"

"Sounds like a strange bunch to me…"

"You tell me, and I haven't even told you about Tatters yet. He was a bit weird, and I was a little scared of him at first. He's from Kings Row too! Actually, come to think of it, I think I might have seen him before - hanging out under one of the station bridges. Anyway, it's nice to have some one else from the Row on the team, and he seemed to be keeping an eye out for me too. I'm going to invite him to come and see KR United's next match - I think he would love to see us beat Founders Falls."

"Dream on Meriam - Founders are champions three years in a row - those girls rock!"

"Whatever - then there was Astraphobia - talk about amazing powers! With him on the team it was as if nothing could go wrong, and all my nerves just disappeared. Then, he had to go, and that was when I freaked out. It was really weird!"

"Still sounds like an odd bunch to me - was that it then?"

"Well, there was one more guy - called Extrisity. He was quite cool - could fix all sorts of gadgets. He goes to the University too, and offered to help me study!"

"Yeah right! And I suppose this Asterixity has a stamp collection too he would like to show you, the cheeky bugger. I hope for his own good that he keeps his hands to himself."

"Chill out D, it's not like that at all. He really did help me study, and as far as romantic interest is concerned, trust me; Mr. Clever-pants doesn't even know I exist!"

"So it's you who likes him then?"

"Of course not! I suppose he is just a little bit cute - in a very geekish and superior-complex way that is - but he's much too old for me, and it's not as if Dad would approve of it either, would he…"

"No…and neither would I!"

"D, cut down on the testosterone level ok, or else I won't tell you about the other team!"

"Well, judging from what I've heard so far, I'm not sure I even want to know."

"You might if I told you there were girls on that team"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes, a cute, young girl called The Amber Banshee - way out of your league of course. I would like to get to know her better - unfortunately we didn't get to talk, just like with that Detective guy, Hawkshaw. Maybe next time I'll get to know them better!"

"And then you can introduce me to this Banshee girl."

"Perhaps when you've matured about 5-10 years D, I honestly don't think she has any spare time to do babysitting, and you can forget about Sabrina too."

"Who's Sabrina?"

"She's way cool - codenamed Dragonfly - I tell you, she can handle a blade unlike anything I've ever seen before! The amazing thing was - she had actually heard about Mum. I didn't know Mum's fame had spread all the way to China! Anyway, she is really, really nice and I think she may have the hots for one of the other team members Blitz Arrow. He is quite attractive actually, and I think he likes S too the way he was flirting with her! He's a real smooth operator him!"

"Any more girls then?"

"Nope, just more guys. There was Diamondskin, who took over the lead when Mr. Saint left. He gave me a lot of advice and wasn't too cross with me when I got lost and had the whole team wait for me. Then there was this strange guy called Brother Tchall. Some of the others seemed pretty wary of him, but to me he seemed very kind and he kept using his force to heal my bruises. I heard that more people might be joining in next time, including a man called Manolith who's supposed to be partly made out of rock - I can't wait to see that!"

"So you're going back then?"

"I sure am…it was so much better than just fighting the odd mugger alone. These people are so fantastic - you should see their powers - it's amazing! I still don't understand what good they think I can do, but as long as they want me around, I'm going to be there, to learn!"

As far as the Masked Angel is concerned - your healing rocked!

I don't know if you were giving special attention to the baby of the team (a lot of team members certainly seemed to be watching my back), but definitely nothing to worry, let alone complain, about!

Masked Angel, AKA Meriam Keser

15 year old schoolgirl of mixed Iranian/Turkish heritage, taking over the heroic mantle from her mother, and trying to hide her crime-fighting activities from a strict father, who most certainly wouldn't approve of it.

Living with her parents and kid-brother (who just discovered his sister's secret) in Kings Row. Skilled striker for the Kings Row United girls' football team.

MA/Regen scrapper of natural origin, currently struggling with a nasty chemistry test, and still not sure about how the Ministry/Militia knew she was the Masked Angel, and what they could possibly want with her, given all the skilled people with flashy powers already in the Militia's service.

Dear fellow Militia members,

Thanks for a great evening - If anybody else had just half the fun Masked Angel did, I would say it was a great success.

I am already looking forward to next Thursday - or any letter from the Militia that might drop in before then.

I'm afraid Meriam is much too young and inexperienced to serve as a leader - although she is the responsible type, it would most probably end in disaster

I am certainly flexible with the timing.

Only thing is that I am on CET and that would make the 8-10 UK time end exactly at my bedtime, so I would only have problems if the session were to continue for much longer than the two hours.

After all the fantastic backgrounds and stories posted, I am somewhat daunted at the prospect of posting this (creative writing is certainly not one of my strong points), but here goes (and please be gentle):

"Meriam, we need to talk."

I looked up from my Geography book and smiled at my kid brother, slightly puzzled as to why he found it necessary to close the door behind him. Davod wasn't usually the secretive type.

"What is it D? You're not in some kind of trouble now, are you?"

"No Sis, this is not about me."

"Well what is it then? You look as though somebody just pinched all your lunch-money"

"It's about you Meriam..."

"Me? What about me?"

I think I did a pretty good job of hiding my sudden unease. Davod just sat there on my bed, silently staring into the floor. This behaviour was so unlike him, and it was starting to get on my nerves.

"Well?"

"I...I know who you are Meriam..."

"Say what? Of course you know who I am D - I'm your big sister and have been so for 14 years - what else is new?"

This time, my effort to remain casual seemed less convincing, even to me, and by the look on D's face, he wasn't too impressed either.

"I mean, I know who you really are!"

My heart started beating faster.

"D, honestly, this is probably a really good joke and all, but I happen to have loads of homework and then skating practice..."

"Sis...cut the act, okay...you know what I'm talking about...I know that you're the Masked Angel..."

The rapid beating of my heart was accompanied by a sudden knot in my stomach.

"The...Masked Angel? Right...and who are you then - the Back Alley Brawler?"

"Give it up Meriam...it's no use, you can't fool me...I...I saw you?"

The knot in my stomach tightened.

"You...saw me?"

"I didn't mean to spy...honest..."

"What exactly do you mean...you saw me?"

"The other night...I had snuck out...you know...just to hang out with the mates...I was coming home...scared ******** that Dad would see me...imagine my surprise at seeing the Masked Angel climbing through your bedroom window! So...you know how cool I think she is...I climbed up the tree to see what was going on...and then...well, just as I looked through the window, you took the mask off..."

"Oh Great..."

There was nothing I could do but sit there, silently shaking my head in despair. I suppose I should have been infuriated about my kid brother spying on me like that, but all I could think of was the disaster of Davod having learnt of my secret.

"Sis...please don't be too mad at me..."

"I'm not...mad at you D...it's just...Jeez, how could I have been so stupid..."

For a long while, we just sat there, silently staring at each other. We share a strong bond D and me, and it looked as if he was as upset about the whole thing as I was.

"Listen D...you didn't tell anyone did you?"

"Not a soul...promise..."

Another silent intermission passed before D cleared his throat.

"Does nobody else know? not even Mum and Dad?"

"Well...I suppose I have to tell you now...Mum knows...she was the one who trained me to take over from her."

"Give me a break Meriam...you're telling me that both my sister and my Mum are superheroes?"

"Well we're not really super, are we?"

"Does Dad know?"

I could literally feel my eyes widening in horror.

"No...and he mustn't ever, understand? He most certainly wouldn't approve."

"He probably wouldn't! But Sis...are you sure nobody else knows?"

"Well after today, I suppose I can't really be sure of anything, why?"

"It's just...you got this strange letter..."

"Letter? What letter?"

"A man came round with it - government type - he asked for Ms. Meriam Keser as if you were some old lady or something like that. I told him your were my sister and he asked me to give it too you - here it is..."

I took the letter and asked Davod for some much-needed privacy. I must admit that my hands were trembling slightly as I opened the envelope.

Weird...it was from something called the Militia. Never heard of it!

"Dear Ms. Keser. Please do not be disturbed by the fact that we know you are the Masked Angel..."

Jeez, did everyone and their grandmother know about my secret identity?

Slightly flustered, I read on.

Apparently, this Militia thing wanted to recruit me for one of their operating teams.

I really didn't know what to think about it, and soon found myself tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep as my mind went over the letter over and over again.

Should I go to that meeting or not? Did I have anything to loose by going? Probably not, but what did they want me for? Would it give me a chance to find out how they discovered my secret identity?

By the time I finally managed to fall asleep, I had half made up my mind to give the meeting a try.

Thanks - I will check out the links. The books I bought were available from Amazon and were three out of a series of 4 books (the last one wasn't available ) - I really hope they succeed in launching more.

Lady Europe is an EU-based concept, so no WWII - that's why I am also a bit uncertain exactly how she would fit in with the silver age/golden age terminology - she was actually the third toon I ever made, but I have had her mostly "parked" for the last 14 months or so, but now she could do with a dusting off

If she would fit the concept, my Lady Europe would certainly be interested in auditioning for the Squadron - she was my idea of a "traditional Golden/Silver age" heroine, if I understand the definition correctly, so I hope she would fit in.

Battle - funny you should mention Cyber Age Adventures - I just ordered three of those and have read the first - I think it was actually quite good superhero fiction.

Thanks Ashen

Hi all,

Forgive me a "noobish" question (and maybe it will be obvious how to do it once I log on, but I've never tried and better safe than sorry) - how does one skip the tutorial and go directly to Atlas/Galaxy untainted by XP?

Thanks, and will do - I won't be back with access to the game until late tonight though, but I'll create and post ASAP

I promise she'll be a very altruistic and team-orientated one of the sorts

Battle,

After seeing all the support to your idea and the fantastic bios posted, and seeing that there still seems to be room on one of the teams, I've decided that my desire to be part of this must prevail over the wish to save my last Union slot for another concept.

So, if there's still room for a Ma/Regen scrapper, I will make one up asap and relocate my designated WS to Defiant.

Thanks for the clarification.

I am glad that I had misunderstood and apologise again for doing so.

Wonka, I must say that I am a bit perplexed by the "hijacking" part of your post.

As the one who originally mentioned the idea of an IC- coalition back on page 4 of this thread, I feel that I would then be the one responsible for this "hijacking".

If my post is what is referred to, I would just like to point out that I voiced this idea as a genuine bona fide suggestion to what I thought was a thread aimed at discussing (and possibly generating more) RP/IC meet-ups in game, and it certainly was not the intention to hijack.

Frankly (and this is not aimed at you Wonka), I am amazed at all the negativity the idea has generated. Sure enough, it may have been a bad idea due to i.a. the technical limitations imposed by the game and the fact that non SG-characters can not join a coalition - fair enough; but I still think the basic idea of people meeting up for IC-missions is a good one, and if all ideas regarding expanding the RP/IC community are "shot down" in advance, then of course they will never succeed.

I apologise in advance if I misunderstood your reference to hijacking, but felt I had to comment from my understanding of it.

It was simply just an idea to enable as many IC-players as possible to identify and get in touch with each other and see whether their respective playstyles and concepts warranted for further teaming

The coalition idea was just a spur of the moment thought as a possible in-game supporting functionality, but I can see now why it may not work due to the limits it imposes.

BTW, to Aisla, I just saw your post on the other thread, and agree that meeting earlier at GG might be a good idea, as long as it isn't seen as "intrusive" given the relatively recent posts about GG perhaps becoming too crowded.