Mr_Grey

Hm...

I'll look into getting Notorious Nack into something appropriate for this. He already has a bunch of loud illusions-err-outfits that would fit the bill, but I think you're looking for a near appearance to the classic look.

I also recommend a lot of "HOO!" and "Who's bad?" macros.

Ooh! We should also post screenshots of our characters!

...

What the Hell is wrong with me? Why am I getting excited about this? I wasn't a fan of Michael Jackson... Not because of any scandal mind you, I just didn't connect with the music.

Still... This looks like FUN!

Happy birthday, Vorac.

So many deaths? But isn't she already dead?

Gratz, Stale.

Who knew such talent was lurking in that mind?

Hm. I was originally of the opinion of leaving the Fifth Column alone because of the constant fan-worship (or is that "preferred hatred?") of the Fifth Column and the dislike that the Council basically apes them.

But it actually seems, with their absence for so long and their current use in-game, that it would be the easier to change the Fifth Column... They no longer really have the legacy that they used to and they DO have access to all sorts of nifty new resources. Add to that the fact that they're probably seriously PO'd about Requiem abandoning them (of course, that depends on what the Heck is going on in the ITF; is that before or after the Council takeover?), and they'd probably be all about a change in tactics. Maybe they would hold onto their massive AOE damage (seriously, OW!), but invest in some of the super tech that's floating around, like the Malta Group's Sapper Rifles and Nemesis's Force Field Generators.

Maybe they could have Schadenfreude and some roboticist (without Vandal and Burkholder, the group needs some technical expertise) develop some kind of "Mechanized Infantry (walking tanks, power armor)" to supplement their dwindling super soldier serum supplies.

Well, I prefer not to latch on to such cynicism.

I would rather not have two factions that are basically exactly the same. Arachnos shares history with both of them, but they were able to become their own entity. Aside from a couple units, the vast majority of the Fifth and the Council forces are duplicates of each other. I think at least one of them deserves a real shakeup to differentiate itself from the other.

Plus, there is a conflict staring the players and the developers right in the face. There is so much potential for story there that it's painful. Everybody has an idea of how it's going to turn out.

I think the only time I've ever seen the Council win one of those fights was when the mob had a Vampyri Archon in it.

This is a point I've been harping on ever since the reintroduction of the Fifth Column.

The ONLY reason why those Fifth Column vs. Council battles are so one-sided is because the Fifth Column is fighting at a +1 level advantage. Always. That's how it's programmed.

Why is that important? At a level higher, they have better ToHit, Damage, Resistance, Hitpoints, Defense... All of their core abilities are boosted (rather significantly, too, if it's working like PC numbers; consider how easily your character can finish a mission in which it leveled halfway through).

There are no instances where the two fight at even odds or where the Council is fighting at a +1 level advantage. If it's supposed to be an epic struggle between the two groups, then let's start seeing some real fight in the Council as opposed to them having next to no chance of succeeding.

Of course, if the Developers are just going to quietly take the Council out of the game and have the Fifth Column Find/Replace all of their missions, then I guess it doesn't matter. In fact, it makes sense. The Fifth Column is wiping out the Council with precise guerrilla assaults. The Council got a curbstomp victory, so now the Fifth Column gets a curbstomp victory. It would be monstrously unsatisfying for the playerbase, but, whatever. That's the easy thing to do, and veteran players have been demanding for years that the Council simply be eliminated.

Supposedly, that's a side effect of the Super Serum they use... But if that's the case, then that means the six-foot tall soldiers were originally, what? Four feet tall? Three feet? How many "ably-bodied" adults stand that tall?

It doesn't make sense that I'm able to make a towering beast at eight feet, but they can grow up to eleven or twelve feet. The same could be said about the Rikti, but then they also have Hro'Dtohz and U'Kon Gr'ai, so maybe their height issue isn't really something to be too concerned about.

Oh... I see...

Vampyri

Yeesh... You can see the result of the N-Fragment bonding at the bottom. Apparently, even with the alterations, the Vampyri aren't immune to the shift to War Wolf...

But then, they aren't immune to it in normal mode, either. I could have sworn I've seen Vampyri Archons who've turned into War Wolves when defeated. Or is that just a "PROC" that's running throughout all of the "flesh" ranks of the Council (because I have yet to see the Council robot that has turned into a War Wolf)?

If it is... Does that denote that there's still N-Fragment involvement at all ends of the spectrum, or is it just an item that needs to get handwaved?

Hm. I guess that depends on what is actually making the War Wolves in the first place... And the Super Soldier Serum... And the Vampyri, for that matter.

Supposedly, it all stems from the same source, as Nosferatu was using N Fragments to generate all of it.

Now, frankly, I think that needs to be changed. "They're all just Nictus..." is, frankly, lazy. It makes it seem like the Nictus are some sort of "super matter" that can make anyone be anything, for no reason at all.

At least when characters are Kheldians, the energy beings make only a select batch of changes occur, and all of them are energy-based. Plus, the Council has the Galaxy troops and Void Hunters, which I believe demonstrate a much more likely shift into what Nictus Fragment Bonding would do to a person. Heck, there's even a subplot in the Kheldian arcs where they farm out the N Fragment Bonding, even plunking N Fragments into Freakshow. Freakshow shooting Nictus beams from their eyes is the result, not cyborg werewolves.

So... I guess unraveling the plot spaghetti begins there. If we're going to extricate the Nictus from the Fifth Column, we should simply deal with the situation stating that Nictus energy is the root cause of all their abilities. Give Schadenfreude more face time to differentiate him from Nosferatu as a character (because, right now, he's just a copy-paste of the Council AV), have him proudly declare he's developed a new super soldier serum, one that has all the wonderful capabilities of Nosferatu's, without the insult of having come from another planet (plot bait: he could be lying! Opens up the idea for an arc in which the Fifth Column starts kidnapping Galaxy troops... For raw materials...).

If they're going to have a war between the two groups, some shaking up of the mythos is going to have to occur. The change is bound to be ugly. It's bound to be distressing. It's bound to disappoint and entertain at the same time (it can do nothing BUT disappoint; the whole Council/5th Column issue has been disappointing players from the beginning, but the damage can be mitigated if the final shift is written well enough).

And I don't know about getting rid of the Center. I like him, actually. I like his quiet "truly behind the scenes" approach to running the Council. You never really know for sure if he's getting personally involved (sometimes, I like to pretend that's really him inside one of those Ascendant Archon suits), or if he's just nudging you towards keeping Requiem and Arakhn in check. He seems to have his finger on the pulse of Vandal and Nosferatu (Nosferatu especially at this point; I would imagine he'd be very PO'd about Schadenfreude). Burkholder, however, is a greedy <redacted>, and it's hard to keep your finger on the pulse of such a moron for long. Heck, it's a surprise Nemesis hasn't snaked Burkholder.

Requiem just strikes me as a failed leader. He let his ego get the better of him and was caught with his pants down. After that, his planning has been rage-fueled and paranoid. In the end, he tries to shroud the world in darkness, causing a brief civil war within the Council in the process (and betraying two of his only friends, as well). He doesn't have the clout to lead the group anymore, in my eyes. If he took control, I can imagine Vandal and Nosferatu would immediately set to trying to wrest that control from him. Vandal might even just hop over to the Fifth Column.

The Center, however, coordinates all of their madness. He is the careful guiding hand. He just needs more facetime than a few lines in a hidden arc on Villainside (Here's a hint, newbies: Viridian).

Finally, if there's going to be continued animosity between the Column and the Council, can we PLEASE start seeing more variety in their fights? It doesn't make any sense to me that the Fifth Column handily defeats the Council four fights out of five, mostly just because they're a level higher.

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I would also like to take a moment here and reiterate a problem I have with the Barracuda Strike Force...

The dialogue in the cutscene featuring Tyrant and Mueller needs fixing. Heck, even Reichsman's appearance in that scene needs fixing.

To begin, I am sick and tired of the explanation "Well, maybe the Fifth Column is an elite group in Axis Amerika..." No, it's not. Their elite group is Amerika Korps, not the Fifth Column (which is a term for enemy spies, not an elite military force).

When Reichsman first arrives, he should be wearing the tatters of his old Amerika Korps uniform...

In fact, the animations of his arrival can stay pretty much the same. What annoys me most is his wearing a Fifth Column uniform out of the box and his declaration of "Serving the Fifth Column."

When he was put in the box in the first place, he had NO CLUE who the Fifth Column were. He'd never heard of them. His total time in Primal Earth involved him stepping through the portal, declaring the world was forfeit, then getting the tar kicked out of him by the Phalanx.

I doubt the Phalanx would have let somebody deliver him a finely tailored M. Bison outfit with the Fifth Column logo emblazoned on it. No, they hastily shoved him in the super box and stuck it in their basement. There is no reasonable amount of time in which Reichsman could have undergone the costume change.

Now, the dialogue... Mueller intends to ask a favor of Reichsman? Really!? He intends to demand a favor of a man who reportedly tortured a curious old man to death so he could learn the whereabouts of Primal Earth?

Right...

Frankly, I think it would make more sense that Mueller is a representative of the Fifth Column. He should be offering the troops and resources of the Column to this modern god so they can make a definitive, triumphant return. No more skulking in the shadows to satisfy Requiem's shame (because he couldn't do anything worthwhile with his own personal army and got ousted by the Center; I would imagine that after all this time and nothing happening, plus Requiem abandoning them further during the Council civil war, his old army would be suffering abandonment issues), the Fifth Column is going to take control of the world, with Reichsman leading them to smash aside any and all opposition!

I would imagine Mueller would offer the Fifth Column to Reichsman. When the interdimensional villain points out the PCs and asks who they are, Mueller simply says "Oh, they're just some dupes I hired to help me get here to free you, sir. They've outlived their usefulness now."

Reichsman: "I agree." *Fist of Tyranny!*

Some players keep telling me they don't like how Reichsman Curbstomp KOs the team. Well, I'm actually not bothered by it. The PCs have finished fighting. During the course of the conversation, their adrenaline has wound down. Heck, even when fighting Reichsman in the final fight, he can CLOBBER the team with one punch. He's powerful, it makes sense to me.

The rest of the arc is full of Applied Phlebotinum, which is so common in the CoH Universe, I'm not bothered with it anymore. Heck, it's common in all of Comic Book World, so let 'em eat cake.

So, the mission structure can stay the same. I can forgive the rest of the setting, even the "More Hitpoints than Hamidon" build of Reichsman (though, seriously Devs... Come ON! You can do better than that!). There can even be all sorts of explanations for the Fifth Column flags all over Axis Amerika (Amerika Korps Krieger: "Welcome! WELCOME! Join us, and your world could look like THIS!" Fifth Column Krieger: "Uh... The flags are nice, but, I don't know... You've had control of this place for how long? And it's STILL rubble?").

That's all I have for now. One should only dwell on this subject for so long. you're right, Bill, the plot is so thickly tangled, there's no easy way to fix this in a manner in which everybody will be 100% satisfied.

Fatherhood

When his wife brought the young child home from her adventure in the Isles, he didn’t know what to say. As a police officer, he should have been incensed that she had so brazenly made an unlawful incursion into a foreign land, regardless of her status as a hero.

He had no idea that the situation had been handled so smoothly that Arachnos didn’t even know what had happened. He had no idea that it was a mission the organization probably wouldn’t even care about.

When he saw the big brown eyes that looked fearfully up to this stern-looking man while hugging tightly the woman he loved, his concern melted away. Whatever they did, it had to have been right to get such an innocent out of such a Hellish place.

“Joe,” Sarah Grey-Durnan said to her husband, her white hair bobbing as she turned first from him to the startled face of the little boy in her arms, “Meet Kennedy.”

“Um…” Joe’s face melted into a gentle smile and he knelt down to put the frightened child at ease, “Hi there, Kennedy. I’m Joe.”

“He’s going to be your daddy,” his wife squeaked as she gave the young boy a loving squeeze.

“Just like you will be my mommy?” Kennedy asked, looking up to her, curiosity and confusion masking his face.

Sarah could simply nod. She didn’t trust herself to keep her voice from cracking as tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn’t have asked for a more adorable son. She hugged him closer and didn’t let go for what felt like hours as they found the couch and just cuddled. They were broken from their reverie by Joe, who gently roused them to inform them he’d cooked dinner.

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Adopting the Etoile Isles native was a challenge, not the least of which was the fact that Kennedy’s dark skin was a surprising contrast with Sarah and Joe’s Caucasian pigment. While the two hopeful parents weren’t bothered with the idea, they were (repeatedly) informed by Social Services that it would be an issue. It wasn’t until Joe got fed up and pointed out that they were making it an issue that they dropped it.

In the end, the fact that Durnan was a cop, and a well-decorated one at that, helped the most. It proved that Kennedy was going into a reasonably stable household with a strong moral fiber, so Social Services approved the adoption and helped file the necessary paperwork to officially transfer the boy out of the Etoiles.

The day they could officially call Kennedy their own was just as happy as the day Sarah had brought him home. She joked that now they would have to find a house in the suburbs to live in. Joe talked nervously about it, worried about how they would pay for such an endeavor, but he really was in agreement with her. He’d always wanted to give the classic suburban setting a shot.

He just wished her father would get off his back. Randall Grey was never happy that Joe had “taken his little girl from him.” The big, gruff man took every opportunity to take jabs at Joe’s ego, his character, and his marriage. Sarah and her mother, Charlene, would often cut him off or nag him to be nice or behave, but Randall would always find some way to interject how he really felt about the young man.

“I don’t know what to do, Snuffy,” he said as he embraced his wife while she washed the evening’s dishes and Kennedy curled up with a stuffed bear in the living room, “Your dad, he… He just hates me…”

“Joe… He’s giving you a hard time. It’s what he does.”

“He never relents… If we’re in a room together, alone, he either gives me another jab or he just sits there, drinking his beer and not saying a word…”

“Well, he was really surprised when you dealt with that Talos Island situation and rescued those people while under fire.”

“He never says this stuff to me, Sarah!”

The lithe, white-haired woman turned and gazed into her husband’s blue eyes with her pretty hazels. Joe met her gaze and they looked quietly to each other like that for a moment.

“I know he accepts you, Joe,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “I had to break my rule and read his mind to be sure… But he does.”

“You read his mind without permission?”

“Yeah, and that’s not easy. His head’s got some weird mineral lattice around the skull… But… Joe… He would be there for you, no matter what. Just like you’ll be there for Kennedy.”

“Missus Durnan?” they heard from the kitchen door.

They turned and saw the little boy they’d just adopted. He was rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he dragged the large, plush bear behind him. Sarah couldn’t help but giggle, seeing him standing there in Statesman pajamas like a classic image of childhood.

“Aw, Kennedy, honey! I told you! Call me Mommy!” she cooed sweetly as she gently broke from her husband to walk over and scoop him and his teddy bear up.

“Okay…” he said quietly, “Mommy… I’m thirsty…”

“Oh, okay, sweetie, let’s get you some juice…”

Joe smiled at the idyllic scene as he turned to the dishes. He was actually a bit surprised that his life had turned out this way. It was enough to curb his normally cynical attitude that something was going to come along and take it all away. Perhaps he could finally be happy, he just had to stop being bothered by whatever his father-in-law was saying.

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Later that evening, Sarah got a call from Pocket D. One of the bartenders couldn’t make it in for the night shift, and they were wondering if she’d be willing to take the shift. Since she’d be getting overtime pay for it, she agreed and set to getting dressed for work. Since it wasn’t a celebratory night, she stuck to a simple party dress and the strange golden halo she levitated over her head with her power.

“Okay, Joe, honey,” she kissed him on his forehead, “Bye-bye!”

She did the same for Kennedy and left the two of them cuddled on the couch, watching television. Kennedy was out like a light after a few minutes, snuggled comfortably against Joe’s ribs, his teddy bear between them as he quietly sucked his thumb.

“I hope I make a good father,” Joe quietly said aloud.

After a couple hours of television and changing channels, he decided it was time to call it a night. He lifted the small child carefully so as not to rouse him and carried him to his room. Wrapped in blankets and surrounded by a small army of stuffed animals (most were gifts from Charlene, Roland and Cedric; Joe often wondered why the Greys were so obsessed with the toys), he slept soundly and peacefully.

Durnan had just put the dishes away and was about to head for the bathroom when he heard a knock at the door. Confused that he was getting a visitor so late, he turned warily to the door. He walked to the wall safe and unlocked it. It could just be Roland or Charlene dropping by unexpectedly, but it could also be a domestic situation. He and Sarah lived in Steel Canyon, so they didn’t have to deal with the same depravations as found in Kings Row on a regular basis, but enough people in their building knew he was a cop and had called on his assistance for a number of situations.

There was another knock. This one was more insistent. If it were Roland or Charlene, they would have announced themselves.

“Be right there!” Joe called out as he put his badge on his belt and strapped the holster with his pistol on his thigh.

When he opened the door, he didn’t know what to say. It looked like a man, covered in flames.

“I was told I could find my meal here,” the creature said in a strange, echoing and booming voice that sounded like three or four voices talking out of sync with each other but just close enough to be understandable.

Without warning, the door was kicked inward and Joe was thrown across the kitchen and into the living room. He crashed into the coffee table and tumbled into the radiator.

Joe forced his eyes open as he saw the fiery demon thing simply stride into his apartment and chuckle at him. It was like something out of a movie, but right here in front of him.

“The Circle’s wizards contracted me for a task,” it explained, “But a part of my price is the life of an innocent… They didn’t have one available, so they directed me to where I could find one. Tell me, Officer Joseph Leslie Durnan… Where is the boy?”

Joe narrowed his eyes and glowered at the creature. So, the Circle of Thorns had made another deal with the devils. He didn’t know what the creature was hired for, but he understood why it was here in his apartment.

“How do I know your name?” the demon asked, its multiple, uncoordinated voices sounding amused (except the one that sounded sad), “Simple, I can read it in your soul… I could find the location of the boy in the same manner, but this… Making you betray one who has placed his trust in you… This is so much more satisfying…”

“I’ll die first,” Joe barked as he drew his pistol, loaded a clip and fired three quick shots into the demon’s chest, the large caliber rounds throwing the creature back in surprise and over the kitchen counter, “But that’s not Plan A…”

The creature was on its feet with a reality straining roar and it barreled back into the living room, flames erupting about it like a torch. The furniture caught fire and the television exploded. The walls scorched and the alarm let out a shrill warble before shorting out and melting.

Joe blasted more rounds into the creature’s chest. One round went too high and struck it in the head. Still, it came on, the grievous wounds closing rapidly. It extended one of its wicked claws, grasped the officer by the shoulder, lifted him up and pinned him to the wall with one hand.

“Your torment will be exquisite,” it rasped with one voice while the others let out low chuckles.

The gun was batted out of Joe’s hand and he was slapped across the face. The creature was displaying remarkable control over its fiery powers as it burned the officer just enough to injure and cause pain, but not enough to make him pass out or die immediately.

Durnan tried to fight back, but it was like trying to pummel a hot pipe. The demon had too much of an advantage over him. Joe’s mind buzzed as he desperately tried to think of how he could save Kennedy.

There was a light knock at the door. It must have closed when the demon walked into the apartment.

“Your wife?” the demon asked as it read the worried thoughts flowing from Joe’s emotion-wracked soul, then chuckled as it saw an image of her in his memory, “Oh yes… This will be a tasty morsel indeed…”

“No!” Joe shouted as he was dropped unceremoniously to the floor and the creature strode confidently away.

“Coming!” the creature announced with its victim’s voice as it reached the door, “What took you so long?”

An impossibly large fist smashed through the door and grabbed the demon by the chest. The thick skin looked like it was chiseled from stone and its grip was exceptionally strong and painful for the fiery creature.

“AUGH!” it shouted with all of its voices as it was yanked through the door and into the hall.

When the demon was able to see its assailant, it gulped in fear, a sensation it had fed on for centuries. Towering over it, at eight feet tall and almost half as wide, was the immense, bulky form of Randall Grey.

The grizzled old man glowered down at the creature, his glittering eyes sunken deep under a low brow. His gray beard was at one time trimmed, but had allowed to go shaggy through a lack of grooming.

Without a word, he raised his fist and smashed the demon down the hall. Smoke detectors trilled loudly as it passed and Randall continued to close with the creature, beating the life out of it with the raw determination of a man protecting his family.

A moment later, the demon was slammed through the wall of the apartment building and it fell to the street below, landing on a dumpster and looking up in shock. It had never faced something so powerful or furious before.

It let out a hideous scream that rattled windows as it saw that Grey wasn’t done with it, though. Randall plodded through the hole and plummeted straight down onto the demon, smashing his fist into its face and reveling in the satisfying sensation of his target’s form buckling and giving under the impact.

“You like to eat children, eh?” he growled as he picked the demon’s crushed form up out of the garbage, “Well… I’ve been known as something of an ogre, myself…”

The demon lashed out at him, but the big man batted the strike aside and delivered three savage punches to what approximated a ribcage on the demon, shattering what could be called bones and driving them into its innards.

“Sucks when it’s happening to you,” the giant man continued, “Doesn’t it?”

The demon whimpered as it tried to puzzle out its situation. It had never dreamed that creatures like this existed in the world. What brand of commoner could hold such power?

“Somebody sent you here...” Randy said quietly as he grasped the demon’s head with one massive hand and started to squeeze, “I want you to tell me who…”

When the inhuman screams finally stopped, Joe had just finished spraying the apartment and hallway with an extinguisher. Oddly enough, Kennedy was still sleeping soundly, his teddy bear hugged even closer and the stuffed animals oddly close to him and facing outward.

“They’re adorable when they’re like that,” Randall’s gravelly voice intoned suddenly, causing Joe to jump in surprise.

“Randy…” he said when he composed himself, “What… What happened?”

“Sarah felt your fear and sent a message to me,” he replied, “I couldn’t let anything happen to him…”

Joe nodded. They stood there quietly for a few minutes, Kennedy’s quiet murmurs the only sounds.

“I’ll see you at dinner this Sunday,” Randy finally announced before turning to leave, “Let me know if you have any trouble getting a new place.”

Joe watched the big man lumber into the night. He didn’t know what had changed, but he got the distinct impression that he’d somehow proven his character to the old man.

It seems pretty clear to me that the developers intend to have the Fifth Column return and be the premier evil mad science military force in the game. I'm sure there's an issue coming down the pipe where the Council is going to get curb-stomped and quietly wiped out of existence.

While a lot of long-time players would probably laud such a decision, I'm not so keen on it. I'm not a fan of retconning, especially when the story is less than a decade old. If you want to tell a different story, make a different character...

And that's essentially what the Council is. They may have overtaken the old Fifth Column content through an ill-advised Find/Replace while the Fifth Column was quietly "defeated" without any fanfare (which led to a lot of Veteran Rage), but I don't think another curbstomp victory is an adequate solution to the problem.

Over the years, the Council has developed its own identity (much to the chagrin of fans of the Fifth Column). Instead of a faction of Nazi spies led with the iron-fisted rule of Requiem, they are a conflicted and factionalized organization, delicately organized by the mysterious Center.

In the Ouroboros Task Force in which you help the Center take control of the Fifth Column forces and resources, it's established that the Fifth Column wasn't as unified as Requiem had imagined. Exploiting the disloyalty of certain members was apparently how the Center succeeded in defeating the Fifth Column...

...Which is story I think should be taken into consideration when the final iteration of these two warring factions is defined. As they stand, they're pretty much the same thing, just with a few tiny differences. In the end, the only thing really separating them is the Fifth Column's rocket launchers and the Council's Galaxy faction.

I think it would be fine if the Fifth Column kept the vampires, the werewolves and the weird-shaped robots. They fit the Fifth Column motif.

I would like to see the Council get a new motif. I don't mean the "Redneck Gun Nut" motif they seem to be adopting in some of the tip missions. I mean I want to see them develop their own, credible identity.

One suggestion I have personally is a focus on the super science that the Council use. I would like to see the array of sonic weaponry they deploy to be expanded some. Maybe they could yank some equipment from the Goldbrickers (or even bring some Goldbrickers into their ranks...).

A suggestion I've heard is that the Galaxy soldiers should be given Martial Arts attacks. Frankly, I would like to see that, too.

So long as they both have such similar builds, there will always be a question of whether or not one or the other should be eliminated. The redundancy of the two groups would make for a few interesting arcs in a comic book series, but in a video game it's proven to just simply be annoying.

Maybe the Council just needs to get drastic and change dramatically. I can see them keeping at least the Galaxy and Ascendant factions, but anybody have any funky ideas out there they imagined the Council could adopt?

Having difficulty with another project, otherwise, I would be submitting something.

We're still afraid of Shadow Cyst Crystals?

Was he looking at the right window?

Good God, that is adorable!

New chapter added to Grey's Army: Back in Action

Nearing the end, now. Daniel and Candace aid in Brother Mauthe's defense as he coordinates an escape with Janus. There's more to the battle, of course... Which will probably be the next chapter since I wrapped up Kip's fight with the Nemedyne forces.

"Why do you play a demon/devil?"

I don't play as any of the other archetypes asked, except one millionaire who is a Vegas card shark, making his confidence fun to play with.

I DO have one character that fits this role, however, that of a "devil." And, no, I don't mean a "minion of Hell" or some other religious trapping. I take this question to mean "Supreme Evil Being."

Most of my characters are neither heroes nor villains, just people trying to get by in this bizarre, ludicrous world. This is because I have a belief that nobody really believes themselves to be the bad guy. A few, however, fit into the tropes.

And in this case, my demon is the Fear Engine.

Originally, it followed a character pattern like my other secondary characters and I'd intended it to just be a thug. Over time, however, I altered it to be a reflection of a concept that recurred in some of my worst nightmares.

Now, as to WHY I play the character, it's so I can really and truly determine what the term "Evil" means to me. What the Fear Engine proves to me is that I feel Evil is unrelenting malevolence, for no truly understandable reason, as well as an all-consuming destruction of everything around it. The Fear Engine feeds on the lives it destroys and the torment it spreads. It is a monster, and is completely unconcerned with that fact.

So, then how does one justify a character like this? We're past the days where Saturday Morning cartoons define our concepts of morality. A character doesn't make sense anymore when they're trying to destroy the world, not unless they've completely gone bonkers. The Fear Engine isn't some madcap lunatic, though. It has purpose. Destroying the world is its purpose, so why does it feel this act, that should destroy it, too, is a proper course of action?

I won't delve further into its backstory, but I've figured these concepts out for myself through this character. It allows me to play the character and understand him, despite my belief that nobody truly believes they are the bad guy. Everybody has their reason and their logic; their way the things they do, no matter who they hurt, make sense to them and feel like the right thing to do.

Trying to understand that mentality is why I play this monster.

This attack group was efficient. Mako, or “Captain Mako,” as he preferred to be called, had trained the Bane Spider corps to be ruthless killers, and their tactics showed the results of that training.

Looking like gigantic, evil, armored wasps, the Arachnos Fliers bombarded the island with missiles and laser blasts. Many of Mauthe’s hidden defenders retreated from their posts, rushing to the fortified positions in a vain hope that they would be able to withstand more.

By the time troops were finally landed, the automated turrets and landmines on the beach had been obliterated. Bane Spider soldiers, backed with a small horde of Wolf Spiders for kicks, were teleported into the area and they proceeded to march almost unimpeded up to the main settlement.

Unarmed women and children were ushered to the harbor through hidden egress pathways, protected by what few bodyguards could be spared as a new strategy was employed. The sounds of explosions revealed that not all of the defenses had been eliminated, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep a bloody firefight from happening.

The brunt of the defenses were localized in the harbor. Mauthe’s soldiers were armed with the heaviest weapons they could field, from assault rifles to rocket launchers and a few even had machine guns. While Janus’s submersibles were loaded up, these men would hold the line with their last breath if need be. Mauthe stood shoulder-to-shoulder with these men, he could think of no nobler endeavor.

A secondary emplacement was established in the main encampment to act as a diversionary tactic. Daniel and Candace joined the forces there, led by Brother War. The big man wordlessly pointed the two former Arachnos agents where he wanted them to go before taking his place in the middle of the main street. A missile barrage came hurtling toward him, but when the smoke cleared, he still stood stoically, brandishing his massive war blade in defiance of the Flier that had taken the shot at him, beckoning for the next challenge.

The Attack Master on the ground saw this and called the Flier away to serve as backup for his next stratagem. Captain Mako had never placed much stock in bombardment to take down a hero, and neither would he. He rallied his troops and sent them roaring down the street to eliminate the threat. The Bane Spiders rushed in, gripping their bladed Nullifier Maces with both hands each as they intended to end this insolent whelp’s life as quickly as possible, the Wolf Spiders sprinting as fast as they could to unload volleys into him and prove they had what it took to become Banes themselves.

As they neared, the windows of the blasted, smoking buildings erupted in gunfire. Shotguns, assault rifles and pistols sent hot metal sailing into the armored forms of the Arachnos troops. This barely slowed the Banes, but the Wolf Spiders were perforated and cut down. A mob of desperate young men came hurtling out of the ruins surrounding the big man to meet the Bane Spiders head-on, battling them with spiked baseball bats and sledgehammers.

They were woefully outmatched.

Bane Spiders deflected the improvised weapons easily and proceeded to chop the Brotherhood forces to pieces. Many fled in the face of these powerful forces, and the Banes gleefully pursued them.

They had forgotten about War, though.

One soldier was snatched by the arm as he closed with one wounded young man and hurled around to bowl a small squad over. Another lost half his head as the big man’s heavy war blade was swung around in a mighty arc, felling two more who weren’t able to get their maces up in time to guard against the attack, while many others were knocked aside from the impact they barely blocked.

His fury raised, Brother War waded into the midst of the distracted Bane Spider soldiers and went to work. Those he didn’t cut down with his War Blade, he kicked or punched aside. Even for a big man, he was stronger than he looked. His cold blue eyes glowered angrily at those who would make victims of his surrogate brothers and sisters. Arachnos had no right to commit this atrocity, yet they proceeded with impunity.

Well, he would punish them. He would show Arachnos what it would cost them to harm the only family he had ever known.

A humming sound alerted him and War looked up in barely enough time to bring his torch-cut truck hood blade to deflect the blast of the “cruise missile” the Flier hovering above had sent in to finish him off. The precision weapon wasn’t really a missile, more like a bomb that was piloted like a drone, and when it struck the weapon, death was blasted in all directions, sending fire and shrapnel into the Bane Spiders and Brother War in the same instant.

The big man pulled his arm away from his face. Grumbling, he reached up to pull one of the pieces of shrapnel out of his arm. It was a hooked piece of black metal, too smooth to have been simple wreckage. It was one of the spikes from the bomb. Arachnos definitely made weapons to hurt meta humans and supers.

As the smoke cleared, the Attack Master stood in the street, standing between War and the beach. He was lightly tossing his Nullifier Mace with its blades arrayed like the legs of a spider from hand to hand. The rest of the fight was going to be just the two of them.

Too bad War was in no condition to fight. Shakily, he pushed himself off the ground. He could feel fire coursing through his veins. There must have been some poison or toxin or venom on that piece of metal that had punctured his flesh. His vision was a little blurry.

He could hear one of the buildings nearby explode and felt the wake of the blast make him stumble. It wasn’t a missile or rocket that had done it, however, it was the propane tanks and land mines the Brothers had rigged in their escape route that the Bane Spiders pursuing them had triggered.

“This was a pleasant distraction,” the Attack Master rumbled darkly, “Though ultimately futile. We will eliminate your pathetic forces and subjugate some of those who surrender. Many of them, however… Well… Examples will have to be made…”

The Attack Master raised his mace and twirled it so the blades would be coming down on War’s head. When he swung, however, there was a distinct metallic clang and the blow never landed. Looking up, War could see that something translucent stood between him and his foe.

“Candace Lawrence,” he growled, “Traitor… Execution… Commencing…”

“Oh yeah?” Shadeheart asked as her cloaking device reacted to the contact between her blades and his mace and slowly revealed her, “Then why aren’t I dead?”

The big man pressed harder, but with the way Shadeheart had his weapon caught with her Widow Spikes, she had him in her control. With a twist of her frame, the heavier weapon was driven into the ground and she whirled around to slash one of her blades across his helmet, leaving a deep gash in the plate.

He wasn’t defeated yet, however, and he wasn’t going to let it be easy. Wrenching his mace out of the ground, he spun about, sweeping the weapon at Candace’s legs. She backflipped out of the way, but found she was landing in the path of the volley he postured to fire. Rolling backwards, she narrowly avoided the spray of toxic energy, cursing in dismay as some struck Brother War. As she vaulted to her feet, the Attack Master followed up the spray with an explosive blast. She couldn’t dodge the eruption and was thrown into the remains of the railing of one of the blasted buildings.

“You’re going to die now, *****,” the big man growled as he pushed himself to his feet and started lumbering toward her, “This is why I never like having Night Widows assigned to my squads… Once their tricks are done, they can’t really stand up in a fight…”

A heavy grip closed on his ankle and the Attack Master looked down to see that Brother War had him. He moved to aim his mace at the big man’s head and was surprised when he was suddenly vaulted into the air. Apparently, the toxins that had struck him hadn’t weakened the big man nearly enough.

The Attack Master landed hard on his shoulder and head. If it weren’t for the reinforced construction of the armor, he probably would have snapped his neck. However, disoriented as he was, he couldn’t fend off the sudden stab into his belly. Shadeheart had recovered quickly from the explosion and delivered what would have been a fatal blow to his liver if his emergency teleportation matrix hadn’t kicked in and zapped him away.

“Well fought…” War grumbled to the much smaller woman.

“I would have had him, regardless,” she replied snidely.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Seriously! In order to strike me with any kind of force, he would have had to lift that heavy thing over his head, leaving me an opening to-!”

She stopped when a red cone of light singled the two of them out. The Flier overhead was sighting in on them for a laser barrage.

Or at least, it would have. Instead, a venom grenade scored its surface, corroding the joint between the laser turret and the cockpit. Before the weapon could fire, a grenade struck the seam and separated the weapon from its mooring in a spectacular fiery display.

The entire vessel swung around and the pilot saw his assailant was the green armor-clad Daniel Taylor. Standing on the burning roof of the building opposite from Shadeheart, the athletic young man fired a volley of armor piercing rounds into the vehicle’s canopy. A few rounds made it in, startling the pilot, who then triggered for another cruise missile to fire.

As the port opened, Daniel knew what was coming. He drew his own Nullifier Mace from his hip and ran for the edge of the roof, leaped off and landed on the canopy. As the blades of the drone emerged from the port, he brought the weapon’s head crashing down on it like some sort of evil Whack-a-Mole, eliciting a sad, broken warble from the drone as it jammed in the port and armed itself.

The explosion filled the vessel’s interior with fire, threw Daniel from it as it whipped around, and batted the machine whirling out of the sky. The Flier’s crash cut off the encampment proper from the beach by means of the main path, but that meant it cut them off as well.

“It’s okay,” War grumbled, “We’ve ways around…”

“Daniel!” Candace shouted and she went running for where her lover had crashed into the burning underbrush.

A burst of heavy gunfire answered her and a few armored bodies fell motionlessly into her field of vision. Daniel stumbled out of the brush, holding his right arm against his torso awkwardly.

“I think I’ve got a stress fracture,” he grunted, “Burned like Hell spraying those bastards…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay… We’re safe…” she replied as she embraced him, “You’re gonna be okay…”

Daniel embraced her with his good arm, letting his weapon hang from his shoulder by the sling. While he wanted to enjoy the moment longer, the sounds of gunfire and human screaming reminded him that the situation still wasn’t over.

“Did you seriously just say we’re safe?” he asked half-jokingly.

“I… I just…” she flustered, “I’m not used to feeling like this, Daniel! You could have been killed!”

“So could you,” he replied quietly.

His helmet was cracked and she could see his eye through it. She didn’t need to read his mind to know how worried he was.

“We should get to the harbor,” Brother War interrupted them, “With the buildings here burning and one squad eliminated, they’re likely to redouble their efforts on eliminating our population.”

“How do we stop the other Fliers?” Candace asked.

“We have our ways…” the big man replied as he led them between two of the ruins.

Behind them, the ancient temple that led to the submerged ruins between the islands exploded and collapsed. Mauthe always knew Recluse would send his cronies to claim the island one day. Now, they would have to figure out how to take the power of Dagoeth without many of the inscriptions on the walls.

This attack group was efficient. Mako, or “Captain Mako,” as he preferred to be called, had trained the Bane Spider corps to be ruthless killers, and their tactics showed the results of that training.

Looking like gigantic, evil, armored wasps, the Arachnos Fliers bombarded the island with missiles and laser blasts. Many of Mauthe’s hidden defenders retreated from their posts, rushing to the fortified positions in a vain hope that they would be able to withstand more.

By the time troops were finally landed, the automated turrets and landmines on the beach had been obliterated. Bane Spider soldiers, backed with a small horde of Wolf Spiders for kicks, were teleported into the area and they proceeded to march almost unimpeded up to the main settlement.

Unarmed women and children were ushered to the harbor through hidden egress pathways, protected by what few bodyguards could be spared as a new strategy was employed. The sounds of explosions revealed that not all of the defenses had been eliminated, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep a bloody firefight from happening.

The brunt of the defenses were localized in the harbor. Mauthe’s soldiers were armed with the heaviest weapons they could field, from assault rifles to rocket launchers and a few even had machine guns. While Janus’s submersibles were loaded up, these men would hold the line with their last breath if need be. Mauthe stood shoulder-to-shoulder with these men, he could think of no nobler endeavor.

A secondary emplacement was established in the main encampment to act as a diversionary tactic. Daniel and Candace joined the forces there, led by Brother War. The big man wordlessly pointed the two former Arachnos agents where he wanted them to go before taking his place in the middle of the main street. A missile barrage came hurtling toward him, but when the smoke cleared, he still stood stoically, brandishing his massive war blade in defiance of the Flier that had taken the shot at him, beckoning for the next challenge.

The Attack Master on the ground saw this and called the Flier away to serve as backup for his next stratagem. Captain Mako had never placed much stock in bombardment to take down a hero, and neither would he. He rallied his troops and sent them roaring down the street to eliminate the threat. The Bane Spiders rushed in, gripping their bladed Nullifier Maces with both hands each as they intended to end this insolent whelp’s life as quickly as possible, the Wolf Spiders sprinting as fast as they could to unload volleys into him and prove they had what it took to become Banes themselves.

As they neared, the windows of the blasted, smoking buildings erupted in gunfire. Shotguns, assault rifles and pistols sent hot metal sailing into the armored forms of the Arachnos troops. This barely slowed the Banes, but the Wolf Spiders were perforated and cut down. A mob of desperate young men came hurtling out of the ruins surrounding the big man to meet the Bane Spiders head-on, battling them with spiked baseball bats and sledgehammers.

They were woefully outmatched.

Bane Spiders deflected the improvised weapons easily and proceeded to chop the Brotherhood forces to pieces. Many fled in the face of these powerful forces, and the Banes gleefully pursued them.

They had forgotten about War, though.

One soldier was snatched by the arm as he closed with one wounded young man and hurled around to bowl a small squad over. Another lost half his head as the big man’s heavy war blade was swung around in a mighty arc, felling two more who weren’t able to get their maces up in time to guard against the attack, while many others were knocked aside from the impact they barely blocked.

His fury raised, Brother War waded into the midst of the distracted Bane Spider soldiers and went to work. Those he didn’t cut down with his War Blade, he kicked or punched aside. Even for a big man, he was stronger than he looked. His cold blue eyes glowered angrily at those who would make victims of his surrogate brothers and sisters. Arachnos had no right to commit this atrocity, yet they proceeded with impunity.

Well, he would punish them. He would show Arachnos what it would cost them to harm the only family he had ever known.

A humming sound alerted him and War looked up in barely enough time to bring his torch-cut truck hood blade to deflect the blast of the “cruise missile” the Flier hovering above had sent in to finish him off. The precision weapon wasn’t really a missile, more like a bomb that was piloted like a drone, and when it struck the weapon, death was blasted in all directions, sending fire and shrapnel into the Bane Spiders and Brother War in the same instant.

The big man pulled his arm away from his face. Grumbling, he reached up to pull one of the pieces of shrapnel out of his arm. It was a hooked piece of black metal, too smooth to have been simple wreckage. It was one of the spikes from the bomb. Arachnos definitely made weapons to hurt meta humans and supers.

As the smoke cleared, the Attack Master stood in the street, standing between War and the beach. He was lightly tossing his Nullifier Mace with its blades arrayed like the legs of a spider from hand to hand. The rest of the fight was going to be just the two of them.

Too bad War was in no condition to fight. Shakily, he pushed himself off the ground. He could feel fire coursing through his veins. There must have been some poison or toxin or venom on that piece of metal that had punctured his flesh. His vision was a little blurry.

He could hear one of the buildings nearby explode and felt the wake of the blast make him stumble. It wasn’t a missile or rocket that had done it, however, it was the propane tanks and land mines the Brothers had rigged in their escape route that the Bane Spiders pursuing them had triggered.

“This was a pleasant distraction,” the Attack Master rumbled darkly, “Though ultimately futile. We will eliminate your pathetic forces and subjugate some of those who surrender. Many of them, however… Well… Examples will have to be made…”

The Attack Master raised his mace and twirled it so the blades would be coming down on War’s head. When he swung, however, there was a distinct metallic clang and the blow never landed. Looking up, War could see that something translucent stood between him and his foe.

“Candace Lawrence,” he growled, “Traitor… Execution… Commencing…”

“Oh yeah?” Shadeheart asked as her cloaking device reacted to the contact between her blades and his mace and slowly revealed her, “Then why aren’t I dead?”

The big man pressed harder, but with the way Shadeheart had his weapon caught with her Widow Spikes, she had him in her control. With a twist of her frame, the heavier weapon was driven into the ground and she whirled around to slash one of her blades across his helmet, leaving a deep gash in the plate.

He wasn’t defeated yet, however, and he wasn’t going to let it be easy. Wrenching his mace out of the ground, he spun about, sweeping the weapon at Candace’s legs. She backflipped out of the way, but found she was landing in the path of the volley he postured to fire. Rolling backwards, she narrowly avoided the spray of toxic energy, cursing in dismay as some struck Brother War. As she vaulted to her feet, the Attack Master followed up the spray with an explosive blast. She couldn’t dodge the eruption and was thrown into the remains of the railing of one of the blasted buildings.

“You’re going to die now, *****,” the big man growled as he pushed himself to his feet and started lumbering toward her, “This is why I never like having Night Widows assigned to my squads… Once their tricks are done, they can’t really stand up in a fight…”

A heavy grip closed on his ankle and the Attack Master looked down to see that Brother War had him. He moved to aim his mace at the big man’s head and was surprised when he was suddenly vaulted into the air. Apparently, the toxins that had struck him hadn’t weakened the big man nearly enough.

The Attack Master landed hard on his shoulder and head. If it weren’t for the reinforced construction of the armor, he probably would have snapped his neck. However, disoriented as he was, he couldn’t fend off the sudden stab into his belly. Shadeheart had recovered quickly from the explosion and delivered what would have been a fatal blow to his liver if his emergency teleportation matrix hadn’t kicked in and zapped him away.

“Well fought…” War grumbled to the much smaller woman.

“I would have had him, regardless,” she replied snidely.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Seriously! In order to strike me with any kind of force, he would have had to lift that heavy thing over his head, leaving me an opening to-!”

She stopped when a red cone of light singled the two of them out. The Flier overhead was sighting in on them for a laser barrage.

Or at least, it would have. Instead, a venom grenade scored its surface, corroding the joint between the laser turret and the cockpit. Before the weapon could fire, a grenade struck the seam and separated the weapon from its mooring in a spectacular fiery display.

The entire vessel swung around and the pilot saw his assailant was the green armor-clad Daniel Taylor. Standing on the burning roof of the building opposite from Shadeheart, the athletic young man fired a volley of armor piercing rounds into the vehicle’s canopy. A few rounds made it in, startling the pilot, who then triggered for another cruise missile to fire.

As the port opened, Daniel knew what was coming. He drew his own Nullifier Mace from his hip and ran for the edge of the roof, leaped off and landed on the canopy. As the blades of the drone emerged from the port, he brought the weapon’s head crashing down on it like some sort of evil Whack-a-Mole, eliciting a sad, broken warble from the drone as it jammed in the port and armed itself.

The explosion filled the vessel’s interior with fire, threw Daniel from it as it whipped around, and batted the machine whirling out of the sky. The Flier’s crash cut off the encampment proper from the beach by means of the main path, but that meant it cut them off as well.

“It’s okay,” War grumbled, “We’ve ways around…”

“Daniel!” Candace shouted and she went running for where her lover had crashed into the burning underbrush.

A burst of heavy gunfire answered her and a few armored bodies fell motionlessly into her field of vision. Daniel stumbled out of the brush, holding his right arm against his torso awkwardly.

“I think I’ve got a stress fracture,” he grunted, “Burned like Hell spraying those bastards…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay… We’re safe…” she replied as she embraced him, “You’re gonna be okay…”

Daniel embraced her with his good arm, letting his weapon hang from his shoulder by the sling. While he wanted to enjoy the moment longer, the sounds of gunfire and human screaming reminded him that the situation still wasn’t over.

“Did you seriously just say we’re safe?” he asked half-jokingly.

“I… I just…” she flustered, “I’m not used to feeling like this, Daniel! You could have been killed!”

“So could you,” he replied quietly.

His helmet was cracked and she could see his eye through it. She didn’t need to read his mind to know how worried he was.

“We should get to the harbor,” Brother War interrupted them, “With the buildings here burning and one squad eliminated, they’re likely to redouble their efforts on eliminating our population.”

“How do we stop the other Fliers?” Candace asked.

“We have our ways…” the big man replied as he led them between two of the ruins.

Behind them, the ancient temple that led to the submerged ruins between the islands exploded and collapsed. Mauthe always knew Recluse would send his cronies to claim the island one day. Now, they would have to figure out how to take the power of Dagoeth without many of the inscriptions on the walls.

Well... I've got issues with the entire Reichsman situation, from the backstory to the machanics (as well as the backstory explanation of the mechanics). However, this past week was a nice demonstration on how even the most tedious content can be turned into a quick routine.

As I understood it, the Reichsman encounter IS the longest portion of the Task...

You should come up with an announcement for it...

And if you get enough teams, turn it into a race.

Just no Kidengineer racing... He cranks these things out like they're Pez...

For whatever good it'll do, Grey's Army: Back in Action has another chapter.

Kipland didn’t waste any time. In two steps, he was inside Florio’s clumsy sweep and stepping on his left thigh. Vaulting himself up, he drove his elbow into the bigger man’s cybernetic chin, the momentum sending him crashing spectacularly to the ground.

The brassen turrets mounted on his back started firing wildly, twin rotary cannons spewing metal haphazardly across the walls, floor and ceiling. Ice coated the screaming Luke Hoss moments before the arc of ballistic fire reached him, barely saving his life. Shivering, he was surprised that he was able to move with the strange stuff coating him.

“It’s magic!” Johnny shouted as he gathered Luke and his coworker up and shoved them down the hall, “Get out of here! Go! Go!”

“You’re not letting them get away, are you!?” Matt grunted as he found himself battling a number of soldiers who had made it through the door, “Hello!? Aiding and abetting!?”

“They’re still not combatants,” Roland grumbled as he let fly two arrows, sending one of the blonde brute’s assailants screaming to the ground as he clutched at his injured bicep, “The cops can pick them up later.”

The bottleneck didn’t last. In short order, explosive rounds blasted the wall blocking the way between Kipland’s group and the Nemesis troops. They had apparently converted half of the building into a large warehouse. They were using it to field this cell of what was apparently a Nemedyne operation, and they had stockpiled it with all sorts of armaments.

The riflemen with the bizarre long-barreled blunderbuss cannons worked to reload, but the concrete beneath them suddenly rose up, forming into the shape of a man. The stone crumbled away, leaving behind the encrusted form of Dustin Simms, and the large young man proceeded to stoically pummel the soldiers.

A pair of Warhulks lumbered over to the battle from what looked to have once been a garage. Their clunky, brass, bulbous bodies hissed as they plodded into the staging area. Bright bolts of lightning struck their glass canopies, flashing from a small cloud that grew over the heads of the soldiers, cracking the glass and puncturing the seams, causing treated fluids to spew out in a fine spray. Another bolt of lightning from Michael’s fingertips and one of the Walkers caught flame.

Kip wasn’t wasting any time with Florio. Wanting to halt the spew of metal death, he leaped into the air and came crashing back down on the left gatling gun. The young man’s force was enough to crush the loading mechanism, halting its spinning and, more importantly, its firing.

The cyborg grabbed the smaller man by the wrist and yanked him aside. With a twist, Kipland was free and, after a quick roll, back on his feet and ready for more fighting. Behind the large, metal-infused man, he could see a trio of featureless, yet bright humanoid figures advancing on the Warhulks.

Matt Jones spit at some of the soldiers fighting him and walked away. The soldiers went to follow, but were stopped by a large blaze left in the portly man’s wake. Grinning to himself and flexing his fingers, he stepped up behind Florio as a massive stone mallet formed in his hands and he brought it around to smash into the big man’s back.

“Ow!” Friendly Fire shouted as he stumbled forward, “Thought that was clever, huh?”

The surviving gatling cannon swiveled around, sighted on Jones, and fired a stream of hot metal into his chest. The supernatural flames and chunks of mystical ice coating the young man kept him from being perforated, but he still turned away from the impact, shouting in pain.

“You focus on the troops!” Kipland shouted as he caught a heavy smash on his forearm, “I’ve got this!”

Dustin “King Slater” Simms was having trouble in the staging area. While he was a strong guy and his protective stone layer kept him from most of the harm, he just wasn’t able to dish out enough punishment to make the Nemesis troops stop fighting him.

That all stopped the moment one delivered a butt-stroke to his back. Feigning stumbling to the ground, Dustin reached into the concrete. Some of the soldiers who could see marveled at how his hand seemed to just sink into the stone like it was water. Their awe quickly turned to despair as the ground beneath them became a soft, thick liquid. It wasn’t enough to drown them, but walking suddenly felt like they were mired in a swamp. What was worse was that as Dustin pulled his hand free of the muck, a large hammer was withdrawn with it.

“I left this outside behind some bushes before we came in,” he grumbled as he hoisted it to full view, “I didn’t know if I’d need it…”

“Uh-oh…” one of the soldiers grunted as a bit of liquid concrete slid off the hammer’s forged edge.

With a grunt, Dustin swung the heavy hammer about, striking several soldiers in their faces and knocking them to the ground. They were held fast in the sticky mire that the concrete floor had become in the young man’s presence, freeing his attention for the others who attempted to surround him.

One of the War Hulks exploded, batting Michael out of the sky and knocking Johnny Nack to the ground. As the purple-clad young man pushed himself back to his feet, he saw that his robed high-school chum was unconscious. His illusions had also faltered, leaving him with one severely damaged (and thoroughly aggravated) War Hulk to contend with and no backup.

Most people would be afraid in this situation. However, “Notorious Nack” had faced his own fair share of villains in his days as a Las Vegas card shark. That city was home to all kinds, from petty scammers to Frost Family heavy-hitters, and he often ran into the lowest of the low who thought they could simply muscle their way through where their skill couldn’t get them. The War Hulk before him was a physical embodiment of such a philosophy, armed with cannons, claws and flamethrowers, but obviously not a clever mind.

It took another step forward, but Johnny made a throwing motion with his hand and snapped his fingers. A bright flash halted the machine in its tracks, the imprisoned pilot within disoriented by the sudden light. A moment later, he heard the red-haired young man’s high toned voice making an audacious announcement.

“You, sir, are about to discover why they call me the P-I-M-P!”

Nack drew the dark wand from his hip and slid it until he was grasping the center of the haft of crooked wood. He held it out to the side and gestured to it, waiting until he was sure the Walker’s pilot was paying attention.

“Behold! The Pimp Cane!” he continued, “You’ve seen others like it, but there are few that are quite like this…”

The War Hulk leveled its cannon on the purple-clad young man and fired. Johnny spun around, narrowly avoiding the trajectory of the shell. Crouched to one knee, he held the wand across his body and aimed one end at the assaulting machine. A burst of dark particles erupted from it and slammed into the surface of the Hulk’s canopy, fragmenting the glass.

“…We’re all familiar with THAT enchantment,” he continued, “But then there’s THIS one!”

Twirling the wand as he spun around again, he returned to the position he vacated, still crouched, but brought the wand up to rest on his shoulder. Looking like some sort of garish soldier, he sighted down along the length of the mystical weapon. Its blue runs flared brightly suddenly and a burst of ice erupted from the weapon where just a moment prior negative energy had blasted. The chunks struck the glass with enough force to shatter it and the Warhulk exploded as the preservative fluids inside the tank struck the flame of the flamethrowing cannon.

The blast rolled harmlessly over Johnny, leaving him blinking and surprised. However, his shock didn’t keep him from leaping to his feet and dancing in triumph.

“Aw! YEAH! That’s right!” he cheered while weaving about like a corkscrew, using the cane for balance, “Who’s the man? I’m the man!”

He failed to notice several soldiers had gathered around him. Or at least, he seemed to. Dustin was too far away to help him, still battling with the remains of his group. Michael still lied on the ground a few yards away, out cold. Up in the offices, he could hear Kipland and the monstrous leader of the group exchanging blows and the bellowing battlecry of Matt Jones indicated he was dragging a few of his assailants to the concrete from the top of the steel-grated stairs.

“FREEZE!” one shouted, “Cease your fighting! We’ve got two of yours down here!”

Loud crashes could be heard, followed by dull thudding as Jones proceeded to pummel his opponents, smashing in their brass masks with stone-plated fists. He was completely lost to his battle rage. The sounds of Kipland and Florio battling continued.

Roland, however, had an arrow knocked on his compound bow and was aiming it at the group around his old schoolmate. Johnny seemed to notice the troops and stopped dancing, giving a smug grin and shaking his head disappointedly.

“Stop your friends!” the apparent Colonel shouted, “Stop them, or we’ll turn your friend here into red mist!”

“Well, that’s hardly flattering,” the purple-clad red-head quipped as he twiddled his fingers and a deck of cards appeared in his free hand.

“Drop the cards! DROP THE CARDS!” the soldiers shouted, bringing their rifles closer to him.

Smiling broadly, Notorious Nack complied, and as each card fell, a bright flash erupted from the face, resulting in a rapid-fire strobe effect. Blinded, the soldiers let out a shout and grabbed for their eyes with their trigger hands.

Blinking the light from their eyes, they tried to sight back in on Johnny, only to be greeted by a loud flapping sound. A moment later, the Colonel who had threatened to turn him into a red mist just seconds earlier felt something sharp strike his neck. Fearing he’d been struck by one of the playing cards, he reached up and felt warm fluid seeping from a wound there. In fact, each soldier was choking and gurgling from wounds scored on their throats by the flying playing cards that eventually erupted into small puffs of sparkles once their mission was done.

After a few minutes, the soldiers ceased struggling and lied still on the ground. They were sleeping as soundly as Michael on the other side of the room and Johnny gave a satisfied, self-assured nod at his accomplishment.

Roland, still trying to puzzle out what had just happened, felt a few rounds spray across his back, the inertial dampener Sheldon Wallace had given him absorbing the impact, and he tumbled off the side of the impromptu loft. Johnny helped him to his feet and they looked up to see Kipland was striking Florio in the face with a flying roundhouse kick.

“You’re out of friends!” Florio shouted.

“You’ve been hitting me with the power of a Mack Truck,” Kip replied as he drove his fist hard into the center of the cyborg’s chest, “And I’m still going strong!”

Friendly Fire lashed out for a final strike, but Kip ducked under it. He dove for Florio’s knee, feeling something pop as he collided, and the big man screamed in pain. Kip rolled to the side and came up with a hard sidekick, knocking the big man over the side of the wall and into the staging area below.

Landing hard on his arm with a metallic shriek, Friendly Fire scrambled to right himself. He reached down and popped his knee joint back into place. It wasn’t some piece of bone held in place by tendons, but a Nemesis prosthetic. The little man had merely inconvenienced him.

An arrow thunked into his hand, pinning it to his thigh. Howling in pain, Florio turned to Roland Grey, who was already sighting in another arrow.

“You think-!”

Another arrow struck his gatling gun as he was bringing it around to spray into the pudgy vigilante. It was caught between the rotating barrels, and as Florio aimed at his assailant, the feathered shaft and sharp head struck and lacerated the back of his neck and his ear, causing him to scream in pain and surprise.

“I’ll admit,” Roland said quietly as he drew another arrow and knocked it, “That surprised me. Hang on…”

The end of the arrow flared and he fired it into the turret, setting it ablaze. Florio shook his head suddenly and the pack disengaged from its moorings on his shoulders, hips and spine, and fell away from his back.

“That’s it…” he growled, “That’s it! I am going to tear you apart! I am going to rip you limb-from-limb with my bare hands!”

“Do cybernetic limbs count?” Johnny asked.

Florio took a step, but it was his last for the day. Kipland had jumped from the upper floor and hurtled into the big man, smashing his knee against the cyborg’s face and dislocating his jaw. Gurgling, Friendly Fire crumpled to the concrete floor in a heap as Kip landed spryly on his feet. After a few tense seconds, he was certain the fight was over. Even Dustin and Matt had stopped wailing on their foes.

“What did you do to these guys?” Roland asked Johnny before they could get sidetracked, gesturing to the men clutching at their necks.

“They thought their necks got slashed by those illusion cards,” Nack explained as his outfit reverted to his simple civilian attire.

“And… What? Their minds made it real?”

“Huh?” came the confused answer, “What? No! Jebus… Roland! We’re talking about the sorts of creatures that would elect George Bush twice… And even considered electing Hillary Clinton…”

“I wouldn’t call that an indication of intelligence,” the portly hunter grumbled.

“True, but it does show a severe lack of imagination,” Johnny grinned, “What they went through was a work of art on my part. I had them confused and frightened… And then a few light taps with my cane…”

He waved the crooked piece of dark wood for emphasis…

“…And they passed out from simple shock and despair. They’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“Alright… Sounds good,” Kip announced, “Roland, call your brother in law and get an A-P-B put out on Lucas Hoss and any other employees of Nova Core. Johnny… Whatever doubts I had about you… They’re kaput.”

“I told you, man,” the red-haired young man said as he walked over to Michael to give him some light smacks on the face to wake him up, “I cut my teeth in Vegas. I know what I’m doing.”