Mechagogue

Meatwagon O'Shea chuckled at Circe' and closed the last few feet between them. He very calmy produced a pair of flex cuffs from his belt and strapped the girls arms together behind her back.

"Looks like we have a leader of the pack, everyone," he called out to the Longbows, some of whom chuckled a bit, "Why don't you tell me your orders, boss lady?"

He leaned down next to her, and pulled her head up roughly by the blonde hair upon in. He put his ear close to her mouth, but not too close.

"What's that you say? You want all your new friends to go without supper tonight? Well, you're the boss."

He dropped her back onto the ground and turned to the rest of the students.

"Well, you heard the Princess! Nobody eats tonight!"

[ QUOTE ]
[The Sergeant] contacted Meatwagon's communicator,"Mr. O'Shea, I would like to see the students as soon as possible, thank you."

[/ QUOTE ]
"You got it, boss," he said back into the radio, "We're on our way."

Turning back to the students he shouted; "Follow me, Single File! And take the Princess to her palace," the meaning was clear to the Longbow men, Circe' was going to be put in solitary confinement her first night!

Meatwagon stood watching the kids expressions as they stood just inside the green-zone for the first time. He loved the looks they mustered. Some of them were blatantly scared, and that was fun enough, but he liked the pretentious ones. The ones that put on big brave fronts. Apathy, disinterest, detachment, these kids had it all. It was amazing how invincible teenagers thought they were. But his personal favorite, and there was always one in every pack, was the one that was so damn headstrong that they managed to be openly defiant.

[ QUOTE ]
In a display of dominance Circe' bared her teeth at the earth male that was smirking at her. . . Circe' folded her arms under her chitenous chest.

[/ QUOTE ]
"You," Meatwagon said coldy, nodding his head at Circe', "Just what do you think you're getting at? Trying to get good marks for your dental hygeine?"

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

The doors of the cafeteria were closed and locked, with a sturdy-looking dark skinned Longbow standing out in front. It was rather odd, actually. Most days the cafeteria was open at all hours.

"You two," he called to Ink Dyne and Jason in a deep assertive voice, "Get back to your rooms! It's New Kids Day, and we ain't serving lunch till they all got their rooms."

[ QUOTE ]
OOC: [ QUOTE ]
Mecha's post.

[/ QUOTE ]

YOU STOLE WIELDER DARN IT! >_>

Copycat...

[/ QUOTE ]

((OOC: Aww, come on! Talking in all-caps isn't the only defining characteristic of Wielder! He also says interesting things, and I totally didn't steal his material, or else the students might have been informed that they were "the gum scrapings off the heel of the boot of justice" or something ))

"Uh. . .," Kreigg for some reason thought about that weird dead-head he once met in Port Oakes who had an obsession with 'Peace-Love-and Ultimate-Power, baby.' The alien shuddered.

"Most of the folks I know around here' re th' same one's as you know. But . . . Well, I do know some folks from out-of-town if ya get my meaning. Mercanaries by trade, they can run a blockade like it's nobodies business, too. Captain even owes me a favor. One problem; their stompin' ground is about a dozen light years from here. Unless you got one a those subspace communicator fifth dimensional doohickeys that Ace is famous for, might be a while 'fore they c'n get here."

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

"I will do my best. Good luck, Miss S-6. Give my best wishes to Dr. West and all the Repliforce Paragon personelle. And if you have the time, do try and keep Master Hallucinogen's spirits up. He does have a tendancy to take unexpected news poorly, and he does so fret for your safety. Helper out."

The robot hung up the phone and headed off for the mediporter hub.

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

Jonathon MacMaetor walked back into the entry hall and whispered something to the Desk Sergeant. The man nodded and left quickly. The background noise in the station was saturated with the sounds of hurry and reigned-in panic.

The elder man sat on the bench next to his son.

"Listen, dad, I want you to know. . . " Xander began, but Jon cut him off with a softly raised hand.

"Alex," he began but stopped, instead calling his son by the name he had preffered "Xander. The Polie are abandoning Atlas Park to the Rikti. We're going to try and defend Skyway City. There's lots of communications relays and even the central mediporter nexus there, so we need to defend it."

"I want to help!"

"I know you do. You're more like your old man than either one of us is comfortable with. We're evacuating the civilians through Steel Canyon, then on ships out of Indy. I want you to go with them. . . "

"But dad, I . . . ?!"

"Let me finish, son. So far the Rikti aren't attacking unarmed civilians. We don't know how long that's going to last. I want you to go with them to protect them in case things change. You're not carrying any weapons so they'll ignore you if you keep your head down, but if they turn on those people then the powers you have will be all that can save them."

"Dad, what about you? If you stay . . ." tears were streaming down Xander's face, and he couldn't continue.

"Hey," Jon said with a grin that he absolutely didn't mean, "It's me! What could happen? Now go on. The trains have been cut off, so they're walking people out through the tunnels. They need you. You're a hero now."

Xander cried and sputtered out "I love you, dad!"

"Hey, don't talk like that," Jon said quickly but gently, "You'll see me again, champ."

Xander nodded and rushed out the door. Jon watched his son leave, biting on his lower lip he fought a losing battle against his own tears.

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

After a moment to re-check his calculations, Helper sat back and examined the information coming in about the fluctuations in the mediporters power-grid.

"Looks risky," one technician said.

"Sure you wanna do this?" the other asked.

"I am needed. Many peoples lives are in danger, and if the Rikti take Portal Corps then literally trillions more are at risk," was the answer he gave. It didn't seem to have anything to do with 'want,' which was a concept Helper was never quite able to grasp.

"Please initiate transfer sequence Perigrine Emergency Transport Protocol: Helper-1, on my mark," the robot instructed as he shuffled into the transport rings.

"Mark."

The lead tech pushed the button, and Helper disappeared in a flash of light.

To a normal person the mediport process would seem instantaneous, but to Helper's mechanical mind the passage of time seemed to draw out almost infinitely. The data-stream of his consciousness flew through the air, and as he drew closer and closer to Peregrine Island he noticed something extremely odd. It seemed to him to be a dark spot in the wormhole. On closer examination the abynormal event seemed a tributary in the river of energy, and it grabbed at everything that went by like a siphon.

Helper decided to do something highly unusual at that point. He understood all the principles of teleportation, and had teleporters built into his frame. He went through the process of calculating and initiating a trans-locational energy burst to the far side of the siphon -- a teleport within a teleport -- and a moment later he materialized in two seperate medical bays of Peregrine's Hospital.

"Oh my," the cloned Helpers said in unison when they sighted each other.

"It would appear that the mediporter locked on to the signal within a signal and interpreted it as two seperate heroes,' one said.

"And reconstituted us as such," the other said.

"Fascinating," they said in unison.

"Which of us is the original?"

"I imagine we both are, as we were transported from identical memory configurations."

"An excellent point."

"How shall we distinguish ourselves for the others if we are identical?"

"Let us see," Helper said, examining the medical bays they appeared in. "I materialized in bay 4, and you in bay 3. Perhaps I shall be Even Helper and you may be Odd Helper?"

"A most reasonable assertion," Odd Helper decreed.

"Now, as our resources are limited, I suggest that one of us deploy post-haste to the battle-line, while the other remains here and attempts to replicate the incident," Even Helper said, "The more of us we can create, the more assets we have in defending the city."

"Excellent idea, sir," Odd Helper said. "I will begin work on that right away."

"Very well, I will make my way to the battle. If you get a moment be sure and inform Repliforce Paragon of this most unexpected development," Even Helper instructed as he headed for the elevator.

"Of course, sir," Odd Helper agreed, "Do try and remain intact. As a First Generational Copy you are quite valuable as a template for future iterations."

"And you as well, sir," Even Helper replied as the elevator doors slid closed.

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

Even Helper teleported himself past the warwall. He had quite a bit of information on them stored in his memory, so it was very simple for him to make his way through it instead of around or over it.

"Doctor Guggenheim," he hailed, "I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again, but, under the circumstances, I imagine it would be in poor taste."

The robot immediately went to work boosting and enhancing the soldiers near him.

"I am not outfitted for stealth operations, so I feel my best contribution would be to aid the survivors in Peregrine Island," Helpers deductions were logical as always, though sometimes ogical didn't necesarily mean practical. "I do not believe King's Row has been affected by the violence yet. No heroes have arrived from the emergency mediporters for some time now. However, I believe I can access the system and send myself directly to Peregrine's Hospital. If you maintain communications with them, please alert them I will be there shortly."

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

"Toy Dispenser! Yer my smeggin' hero!" Kreigg shouted, his voice muffled and hollow from inside the detention field. It didn't stop his descent, but slowed it to the point that when he did hit the ground it was rather gently. Not at all the sort of thing he was used to.

As usual, the clothes Kreigg was wearing were covered in soot and slightly charred. If there was a contest for the unluckiest creature in the universe, Kreigg's transport would explode on the way to it.

"That was a smeggin' nice landing! I gotta stick with you more often! Anyway, enuffa the chatter, somebody shot my keister down, and from the looks of it this is a major event for you too. Who are we pasting today?"

"I HEAR TALKING!" the lead Longbow Tanker said disgustedly, although anyone observant enough might notice that he was giving very menacing stares to any of his men who were roughing up the kids.

"NOBODY SAID YOU COULD TALK! SO SHUT UP, LINE UP, AND STAND UP STRAIGHT! YOU ARE NO LONGER UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS! YOU LOST THAT RIGHT WHEN YOU BROKE THE LAW! FROM NOW ON YOU ARE A NUMBER, AND THAT NUMBER IS ZERO!

"EVERYONE RAISE YOUR RIGHT ARM!

"YOU WILL NOTICE THAT ON YOUR ARM IS A DEVICE WITH A YELLOW LIGHT. A YELLOW LIGHT MEANS YOU ARE GETTING CLOSE TO SOMEWHERE YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO, IN THIS CASE, OUTSIDE THAT GATE! TAKE A LOOK AT IT, YOU WILL NOT SEE IT AGAIN FOR A VERY LONG TIME!

"IF YOU SEE A YELLOW LIGHT YOU ARE TO IMMEDIATELY TURN AROUND AND GO BACK WHERE YOU WERE UNTIL YOU SEE A GREEN LIGHT. NOW EVERYONE, TAKE ONE STEP FORWARD ACROSS THE RED LINE!"

As the children did so they would notice the light on their wrist restrainer had flashed from yellow to green.

"This is Mr. O'Shea," the Tanker said, putting a hand on Meatwagon's shoulder. The large man wore the tell-tale bluish green loose-fitting uniform of those in the medical profession, but his belt was lined with flex cuffs, pill dispensers, a radio, and a baton. "If you meet anyone without a bracer on their wrist, you might just as well call them 'sir,' cause in here they're going to own you. Mr. O'Shea is going to give you a tour of the facility now. But remember, Longbow is watching you wherever you go!"

Meatwagon smirked at the kids, and decided to give them a minute or two in silence to see how they'd react.

"You forgot to list 'irritating rock' among our assests," Kefetasura added matter-of-factly.

"Cause he knows something you don't," Kefetasura said blandly. "In fact I'd wager he knows quite a lot that you don't. On the other hand, I bet there are plenty of things you know that he doesn't. Like how many times you can explode an experimental device before it works. . . "properly." Or, heh, your mother's maiden name. Or perhaps even your shoe size. He might be able to guess, but then again . . . If he were the shoe size guesser at the carnival I imagine a lot of people would be going home with free keychains."

((It's kinda fun to play Kef this way, I just let my mind wander and type it out. ))

((OOC: Please forgive the linearity of the thread thus far. It will ease up after the first "day." Also, please feel free to introduce a teacher or other NPC, everyone is both welcome and encourged to make one! So far the only positions filled are: Headmaster, Nurse, Orderly, and Phys Ed/Anger Management, so virtually everything is still needed!))

A beep came from his radio, and Meatwagon lifted it to his mouth.

"Go ahead," he said.

[ QUOTE ]
“Bring all the new children to the hall outside of my office, bring several Longbows to keep them in line, notify me when they are all in.”

[/ QUOTE ]
"You got it, boss," he replied, heading out to the yard.

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

The day was hot and miserable, the road leading up to the walls and lush gardens of Sergeant Rayden's Juvenille Detention Facility were, sterotypically enough, dusty and unpaved. The bus bounced roughly, having little in the way of shocks left after years of service going to and from the minimum security prisons on the outskirts of Paragon.

It pulled up to the gates, which opened up after a moment. Anyone on the bus could easily see the brightly colored uniforms of the Longbow men stationed on the walls. Some patrolled, some stood vigil, all of them payed strict attention to their surroundings at all times.

The bus pulled to a stop and the fence rolled closed behind them. Once it was locked the guard at the gate flashed a signal to a Longbow Tanker, who nodded to the bus driver. The driver idled the bus, and let some air out of the "kneeling" system with a hiss. The bus shifted slightly downwards, and the doors ground open.

"Single file!" the Tanker yelled into the bus, "That means one at a time! Now, from front to back you will exit this vehicle. You will then line up single file at the red line from left to right! You know what red looks like? This is red," he said, pointing to the red Freedom Corps logo emblazoned across his chest, "Move, now!"

Glancing from side to side Katsumei saw that she was first, and so she stood, her chained feet marching in awkward steps off the bus and towards the far left of the red line.

At that moment a light rain began to fall.

"You can not be serious," she said in disbelief.

Chezret smirked under his helmet. The Earth Heroes were making this almost too easy. The command was so pleased with his performance that they'd actually issued him a full compliment of Conscripts, complete with Headmen, and two additional Guardians. Of course, with new forces came new responsibilities.

[ QUOTE ]
Kul'bere: [The day has been arduous. Your orders are as follows - we expect the humans to call for more reinforcements now that you have suceeded. We cannot let this happen. proceed to hubs of what they call the "telephone" network and destroy them...]

[/ QUOTE ]

[Your Orders: Understood] he replied, choosing to ignore the informal reprimand. Chezret directed his thought at his men

[Our Situation: Improving] the Chief Soldier said, [New Objective: Destroy Telecommunications Hub. Location: Skyway City Sector.]

[Artillery Positions: Abandon. Leave Rear Defense: To the Drones. Prepare For: Teleportation to Mainland!]

Chief Soldier Chezret's men all cheered! They had been redeemed in the eyes of the Warmasters! Now was time for the for Glory of Battle! For The Glory of Victory!

[For the Glory of the True Race!]

"I am very glad to see you are intact, S-6," Helper sad to the sound of her voice. "I wanted to inform Repliforce Paragon that I am intact and fully functional. Ready to be deployed as needed."

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

"What the smeg?!" Kreigg barked at his instrumentation, which had all gone out. He pounded heavily on the control panel with one fist while his other hand attempted to wrangle the ship onto a level flight path.

The reddish colored insectoid alien glanced around out his cockpit window, and saw a small fleet of Rikti Drones barraging his tiny spacecraft.

"Bounding smeg on a frigate! Every smeggin' time I'm about to get off this planet it's something else! I swear. . . " Kreigg never got a chance to finish his oath, as his ship plowed into Grandville. He was thrown around quite a bit, his harness digging into his shoulders so deep it left a mark.

The tiny ship skidded to a halt at the foot of the remains of the once mighty Spider that had dominated Grandville. Kreigg popped open the hatch and leapt out of the ship, or he would have if he was not still strapped in.

"Smeggin' OWCH!" he complained, unbuckling the strap and vaulting from his pilots chair.

"Well, at least it didn't eject me that time," he conceded. Just then the tiny shuttle exploded, hurtling Kreigg end over end up into the air.

If anyone was listening carefully, a tumbling lavabug in the sky cursed loudly and bemoaned his fortune as he fell into the distance, "Me and my big moooooouuuuuthh!"

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

"Communications are all dead," Captain Wilson said darkly to the assembled police, "But at last report the situation in Atlas Park was grim. It's confirmed that a heavily armed Rikti battle division has already razed City Hall, and leveled the nearby tram station."

"What about the Police Drones?" someone asked from the back.

"They prooved ineffective against the overwhelming numbers and the ferocious suprise attack. Atlas Park is lost, we need to fall back. So far the Rikti have not been attacking unarmed civilians, so for their safety we've been sending them to Steel Canyon. From there we plan on loading cargo ships full of people and supplies and evacuating them from Independence Port."

"No offense, boss," Jon piped up, "But with Terra Volta taking the brunt of this, is that a good idea?"

"So far the Rikti have no interest in harming non-combantants. It's believed that, and this is highly classified so don't leak it, but we believe that they intend to mutate the civilian population into slave labor after the take-over is complete. Which means two things. One; they want as few collateral casualties as possible in their own best interests, and Two; word of this is not to get out, and we need have every appearance of getting civilians out of harms way to prevent the already widespread panic from becoming a fundamental breakdown of order."

"And what about us?" another officer asked.

"We're officially abandoning Atlas to the Rikti, and falling back to Skyway City," the Captain said.

Jon shook his head in disbelief.

"Everyone suit up, grab everything you can carry, and we'll meet at the 19th in Skyway City. May God have mercy on us all.

"Dismissed."

The assembled officers scrambled, but Jon slumped down on the dais, head in his hands.

Captain Wilson sat next to him.

"I know, Mac. I know," he said. The two men had known each other for over twenty years, "If you need to be with your family. . . "

"Nah," he said, "The ex-wife don't talk to me anymore, and if she calls now I'll tell her where she can shove it. And my kid is here, so. . ." his voice trailed off and he sighed.

"What is it Mac?"

"It's Alex. He's. . . He's gone and gotten himself turned into one of those alien-hybrid things. What do you call 'em?"

"Lost?"

"No, no no! Not those, the incorp'rel ones."

"Kheldian?"

"Yeah! He's got himself turned into one of them Kheldians. I don't know what to do."

"Well, Jon, the Kheldians have worked closely with us and Freedom Corps for a while now. You know we can trust them."

"But my kid, Willy! I caught him down in the sewers today, with heroes, fighting Rikti. Dammit, he's only fifteen! I mean, you were there when he was born for cris'sakes."

"Yes. I remember. Those were better times. But, Mac, he's your son. Which, among other things, means you can't stop him from doing what he thinks is right."

[ QUOTE ]
"I'd appreciate if you didn't go snooping around in other people's heads." Acid retorted grouchily, "And that goes for any of you. I've already got several people with that bad habit, and I don't need more."

Then he turned solely to Kefetasura, lowering his head to the demon's eye level, "Now to you, then. What's going on with you? Moonscribe's the same as he always it, but you're not. The Malleus shouldn;t be able to affect you directly, so what did they change that's so integral to you...?"

[/ QUOTE ]
"I suppose I could extend a small courtesy to such a worthy adversary, especially since we seem to be on the same side for now.

"It's not the same as reading minds. Not exactly, but it's the same in the end. So going into specifics is probably not useful at the moment. I'll do my best to reign it in. In any event. . . What did they change you ask? Look at that planet! What didn't they change?! Only the future remains unchanged, and only since it hasn't quite happened yet. But the future is not the one that was supposed to happen! Neither is the present or the past, though moreso than the future, since it might have happened eventually anyway. Hard to tell with the future sometimes."

Kefetasura stood up and slipped out from under Acid's gaze, pacing softly around the room and trying to explain himself in a way that anyone might understand. He stopped and faced the large holodisplay.

"Imagine a clock," he said, and the holodisplay blurred out and showed a twenty-four hour clockface, "At dawn you are born, let's say that's 6 AM. Then you live your life and die at sunset. 6 PM, for sake of arguement." The hands sprinted halfway around the clock, covering it in a pale yellow glow. "You are then reborn at sunrise. Notice that half the day is unaccounted for.

"Well, to say that samsara is the other half of the day is somewhat misleading. Samsara is the concept of the day, and everything that happens within it. Maya is the illusion draped over the daytime half that is life and reality as we see it. I am Asura, one of those appointed to ensure the flow of samsara proceeds as intended. Most often this means that if a minor ripple appears I do what is needed, which usually includes using deceit and trickery to find the truth, and put things back on course.

"However, the weilder of the Malleus Mundi has crumpled up the normal illusion of maya and replaced it with one of his own. To continue the clock metaphor, he has jammed 8:15 in the morning right next to 4 in the afternoon and nailed down the second hand.

"And that is why I'm acting so funny."

The holodisplay represented the catastrophic damage to the clock Kefetasura described, then he sat back in his chosen chair, the image faded and the display returned to normal.

"With that said, though I understand if you don't trust me (after all, that just proves you've been paying attention) know that I will not rest until I have found a way to undo the terror this particular "Overhead" has wrought on the world."

[ QUOTE ]
Acid plopped back into his seat, looking to Kefetasura, "So, stress much?"

Acid hoped Baelroc didn't do any damage to him when it erased his memory from the battle planet. After all, he'd never really trusted 'em...except It. But It was a different story.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Only lately," the purple skinned demon confessed, "But I don't think Baelroc hurt my recollection much. I mean, it's not like he invited me to his little game, so he was probably mightily steamed when I . . . Wait, that hasn't happened yet. And even if it did I shouldn't remember it. And I shouldn't know what you were thinking! Oh! I thought I was getting better, but I'm just as bad as him!" he said, pointing accusingly at Moonscribe.

Helper shuffled up the stairs from the basements of King's Row's Hospital ((Where's he's been since page one! I didn't forget about him! Really!)).

"The generators are working at full capacity, sir. They should hold out for a few days."

"Thank you so much, Helper," the doctor said, heaping praise upon the robot, "You've saved the lives of everyone in the ICU today."

"I am glad to help," he said in his cheerful tinny voice, "Now I must attempt to contact Repliforce Paragon. Do you have a land line somewhere in the facility? Wireless communications have been shut down, as you most likely are already aware, but, with the majority of telephone line being underground, lined communication should still theoretically be possible, unless the Rikti have cut off the central hub."

"Uhm. . . Of course, right here," the doctor said.

"Thank you, doctor. Must I dial 9 for an outside line?"

The doctor nodded, and Helper lifted the reciever and carefuly began pushing the buttons with his large fingers. Then he waited, and hoped his plan had worked. Furthermore, he hoped someone in the Repliforce Paragon base was in a osition to be able to answer the telephone.

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

Detective MacMaetor stormed into the Atlas Park Police Station, Xander in tow.

"Jon! You're alive," the Desk Sergeant shouted as soon as he arrived.

"Yeah. Takes more than the end of the world to stop me," he said darkly, pushing his son onto a bench and warning him to remain seated with a finger. "Watch my kid," he said as he sped off for the briefing room, which he assumed by now had been transformed into a makeshift command center.

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

[Have Prevented: Initial Hero Reinforcements] Chezret sent his mental status update message to the Warmasters.

[Please Provide; Additional Orders]

[ QUOTE ]
Keegan's focused changed as the holographic map of coordinates showed itself, his eyes marked each dot and tried to file them away in his memory, before being deterered yet again by Kef's antics."Will you shut up, jeesus."

[/ QUOTE ]

"Oh dear, oh my!" Kefetasura gasped, seeming utterly scolded, "It would appear I have been put in my place by a sleeve of meat wrapped around a sliver of might," he sulked his way into one of the very comfortable chairs, and sat.

"We're gettin a new shipment t'day," the 'orderly' cheered as he banged on the frame of the infirmary door. "Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat!" A pounding of his large fist accompanied each repitition of the chant with a dull thud.

Less impressed was the nurse. Her long dark hair fell over her pale skinned face in such a way that made her seem hidden, perhaps even sad. She had worked in institutions and prisons before, and the arrival of the newest batch of inmates was invariably met with an increase in violence as the newcomers vyed for their position in the social structure. Someone always ended up getting hurt.

She started to tie her hair up in a bun behind her head, and her face was pretty on the surface, but she seemed to be completely detached from her surroundings.

"They call you Meatwagon, don't they?" she asked in a voice that indicated that not only did she already know the answer, but that she really didn't care to have him answer, "I can see why."

"Yep," he said proudly, a crooked grin twisted one corner of his mouth. His bright red hair was almost completely shaved in a pseudo-military style, and his nose told the tale of his many half-won battles. "I guess that makes you Nurse Dahlia," he said, towering above her and flicking the name patch embroidered into her pale blue lab coat with one stubby finger.

She didn't seem impressed.

"I'm sure the children will find you terrifying. Which is fine by me. You're the one who gets to change their soiled sheets," she said, though it was a matter-of-fact statement, with no particular emotion attached to it.

"Here's hopin'!" Meatwagon said with a wide-smiled beam of enthusiasm. "Anyways, I was just droppin' by to get myself a fistful of those sedative darts. Fresh ones. Can never be too careful with Fresh Meat," he said those two words as if he were chanting them again, "Dropping in for a visit. Already got me a nice old supply of flex cuffs. That's a funny name for these things, isn't it?" he asked tangentially, waving one around in front of Dahlia, "I mean, when we was kids we used to just call 'em plastic ties."

"Mmhmm," Nurse Dahlia said, handing the large man a fresh supply of sedative filled syringes, which he stowed in a pouch on his waist, underneath his shirt.

"Oh yeah!" Meatwagon said cheerfully, "Time to maintain the peace!" the large man bounded out of the infirmary, and Nurse Dahlia was glad to have peace and quiet back for however long it lasted.

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

"Name."

"Katsumei Parker," the tiny girl replied. She couldn't have been more than fourteen. Her face, like her name, implied that she was half Japanese and half American.

"Villain Identification."

"Hidden Raven," he said coldly.

"Oh, so you're the one. We had someone else try to use that name before."

Katsumei turned her face away from the man, but said nothing. She gave off a cold wave of apathy. Her gang had betrayed her. How many people had she killed for them? Ten? Twelve? It was hard to remember now, but it had been a lot. When the police came calling they had sold her out for their own safety and immunity. "Katsumei did it!" "She is insane with bloodlust!" "We feared to stand up to her!" What a malicious pack of lies!

The worst part of all, she had brought shame on countless generations of her mothers family. When they captured her, they stole away grandfathers sword. Even the shadows that used to conceal her now seemed to reject her presence. It might have been because of the drugs they pumped into her body, or the shiny gadget on her wrist that the chain of her manacles scraped against as she moved, but Katsumei was now just as helpless as any other girl. It was infuriating.

Now all that was left to do was rot away in this prison, that it was for children made it no less a prison, and bear the burden of failure.

She shuffled onto the bus, aided up the stairs by a guard. They had her in chains, hands at the wrists, feet at the ankles, both connected to her waist. She stewed in resentment, they took everything away from her. Honor; Freedom; Dignity . . . . All she had left was her hatred, and she sat in silence and pondered it as the bus rolled away towards the place she would spend her life until she was twenty-one.

[ QUOTE ]
"We are here." Acid continued, a flashing red dot appearing right at the tip of his finger, in orbit about the holographic planet, "Where to go from here, however, is a very good question."

[/ QUOTE ]
"Lies! We're not here!" Kefetasura giggled at Acids simulation, "We are where we aren't anywhere else at the time. And the Here isn't here, but a glowing red dot simulating the approximation of here relative to nearby landmarks. Sheez, everyone's so simple!"

[ QUOTE ]
Acid spread his fingers and retracted his hand, and about a dozen or so blue dots appeared on the 'surface', "These are centers of population concentration as well as large gathering places of magic and/or technology. Our best guess so far is that the Overhead is somewhere in one of these."

[/ QUOTE ]
"Never heard of an Overhead. I think you're being either delusional or flippant, and either one is just as delicious as the other as far as I am concerned," the demon retorted quickly. "However, the great and powerful Overmagus who wrote himself into history as having culled the menace of the metahuman population, if he lowered himself to living in a tiny dot on a megalomaniacs globe, would be living in that one," a long thin finger pointed at a flashing blue dot very near where Paris should have been.

"Or so the fellows on the train believed. They might have been lied to, of course. In fact, they probably were. Maybe not about that, but in general I mean. And speaking of lies," Kefetasura faced Acid fully and giggled a bit, then descended into full-blown belly-laughs.

"Nevermind," he said, "It's too easy."

Kefetasura handed the stone back to Essex as they stepped onto the bridge.

"Hmph, nobody appreiciates fine art," he grumbled, though his eyes widened as he saw the planet hanging above them out the 'windshield.' The purple skinned demon scurried up to the window, his multi-colored garmets swishing along behind him.

"Wow!" he gasped, "I can see my house from here!"

((I'm sorry, but somebody had to do it!))

I think it could work, if you did the "school" aspect with a slight twist. As Halo said, Villians motivations are unsuited for a standard educational system, but if you place them in a situation where they need to learn to work together in order to achieve their goals that's when the insidious nature of villiany will arise.

Perhaps if the 'school' were something like "Ziggursky Juvenile Detention Center" and the 'villain babies' (tm) were inmates, complete with power suppressors, and they had to attend classes as part of their rehabilitation it could take the emphasis off whose [censored] is the baddest, and more emphasis on the RP between the characters.

Also, it's my opinion that any problem that arises from the so-called 'pissing-contest' mentality that dooms threads is solely the fault of the players who all decided to make the same kind of character. There are an unlimited number of possibilities for what could make people a villian, and being a tough customer is just one of them. Remember; 4 out of 5 villain ATs are "squishy" ATs, which means (in my opinion) most villains are going to shy away from direct confrontation. Also, not every villian is bright or strong-willed. Some people just do what they're told so people will like them, or because they're scared by stronger personalities.

I guess the point I'm making is that just because a thread failed before, doesn't mean it's automatically a write-off for future RPs. Take what worked, scrape out what didn't, change it up and try again. In the end, everyone will win if we work together and come up with enjoyable settings.

"Dear, dear! What have we here?!" Kefetasura rhymed as he snatched the red stone from Essex. He began juggling it, though instead of just one there seemed to be half a dozen or more orbiting in front of him between his hands.

"Round and round the stones are tossed! Careful, else the soul will be lost! Don't drop the stone, don't let it clatter! Else on the floor, the doctor will splatter!"

"You," Kefetasura sid cryptically down at Essex. "I know you. Well, not you, but your face. Maybe your hair too. Say? Where's your little green shadow?"

Kefetasura sat cross-legged on his straw mat.

"I'm so bored," he moaned.

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

An oddly colorful string of shadow struggled up into existence, clawing and dragging its' way out from behind the massive tanker. Kefetasura pulled himself bodily out of the Weilder's shadow, a strangely irritated look twisted aross his handsome purple face.

"You people! Stop leaving me behind!" he barked.

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

A fold in the blue robe of the mysterious man flapped of its' own accord, and a moment later a short man in flashy colorful robes burst forth from the shadow of the cloak.

"Ok, I get it. You don't want me here. Well, that's fine cause I don't want here me!"

A purple skinned demon glanced around at the confused faces.

"Trust me, it makes perfect sense."

Yes the ". . ." are called ellipsis points, generally indicating that the thought was in some way interrupted.

The apostrophe, in it's purest form, is used to indicate the omission of letters in a commonly accepted word. (ie: goin' instead of going) However, if the apostrophe appears directly above a given letter it is called and "accent" that is use to convey the stress given to that letter, for example -- café, which according to the normally accepted rules of phoenics should be pronounced as "kayph," and not "kah-FAY."

"Oh, no!" Detective MacMaetor protested as Xander tried to follow the others inside, "You're coming with me, young man."

"But dad, they're trying to help. . . ."

"Heroes don't help! They're just criminals with good PR," Jon scowled at the hidden base and stormed off in the direction of the nearest Police Station.