Mr_Grey

Speaking of Lost parts, can we get those broken TVs as helmets/hats and some garbage can lids as chest details and/or shoulder pads? Maybe some manhole covers, and broken bits of tires, too...

I also second the request for Sky Raider machetes. Those things look freaking awesome.

I would have some new "Rogue Isles," ones that aren't under the yoke of Arachnos and have their own stories to tell. You could find secret labs and ancient ruins, plundering them for their valuables. Enemy groups that sort of show up and fart (I'm looking at YOU Spetznaz and Goldbrickers) could expand and grow. Last, but not least, it wouldn't have to be a story that would revolve around making Arachnos better or making things easier for Arachnos (sorry, Hardcase, but some of my villains would like to watch the Howlers tear the Giza apart).

City of Villains still has amazing room to expand. We're getting arcs where we feel proactive now... Let's stomp around on territory that isn't claimed by somebody else!

Grey's Army: Back in Action updates today. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=240533

We see the predicament of my first "Villain," Power Breaker, and that my Soldiers of Arachnos have a plan cooking.

For anybody who's been following my work, this thread is essentially done.

You will be able to find the story continuing in one-shots that I will try to point you in the direction of from this thread.

First off is Grey's Army: Back in Action. Found here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=240530

To summarize, it's been a long time since I wrote anything for Grey's Army. That's not to say they weren't doing anything. I've still been playing, they've still been active. However, nothing they've been doing until recently has been all that noteworthy (at least, in the City of Heroes setting).

Back in Action will be providing summaries to place the characters in their positions as Going Rogue began. It will explain what they've been up to and what they'll be doing next.

Hopefully, I won't lose interest through this method as I did the Chronicle method. It's hard to indicate that things are happening simultaneously in a Chronicle, but with "standalone" stories, I hope this will be easier. I have many characters, each doing their own things. Now, I should be able to talk about them all.

My name was Raymond Harris.

My name was Raymond Harris!

MY NAME WAS RAYMOND HARRIS!

Power Breaker dangled from the riggings holding him suspended over the green goop half a mile below and struggled to hold on to the bits of his memory that kept him sane. The surges they coursed through his body kept blasting his mind, wreaking havoc with not just who he was, but who he wanted to be.

He knew the day was coming. The Etoile Isles were run by Arachnos. If you were to turn against them and their interests, they were likely to turn against you.
And there were more of them. Far more.

In the end, an Arbiter named Tavek had commissioned some criminal meta humans to capture him. Tavek was one of the Arbiters who prided himself on securing the Isles. One would think he would have a strong compulsion to bring down the criminality plaguing his homeland, but he preferred to drive out the "invasive elements" instead. His idea of invasive elements happened to be Longbow, Spetznaz, Malta Group, private security companies, international law enforcement agencies and anybody "who would dare to help them." Since Raymond fell into that last category, he was bound to wind up a victim of the insane system.

Usually, he provided a little intel for a group called Grey's Army. Raymond was one of the first people Randall Grey arrested when he'd arrived in Paragon just a few years ago. Because the old man had actually tried to help him, Ray had tried to better himself. The heroic influence upon him had been well-documented, even when Arachnos yanked him from the Zig. However, until Power Breaker started helping captured heroes escape, they left him alone.

It had started with Luminary. She'd been captured trying to save a teacher from the cruel Westin Phipps and Black Scorpion had decided to gather meta humans loyal to him and have a little hunt. Scirocco helped Breaker find the place in order to strike a political blow against the cybernetic thug and because of his patron's involvement, he had been spared from reprisal. But Scirocco wasn't involved with the rescue of other metas.

His nanites had been helping, too. The little machines had deformed him, bulking him up beyond human proportions, scarring his flesh with circuitry channels and stabbing "living" crystal spikes out of his shoulders and head, but they had saved his life countless times and given him so much more than they'd taken away.

If it hadn't been for the nanites, he'd have been captured long ago. They boosted his strength, produced energy fields to protect him, allowed him to fly, and all sorts of other nifty side bonuses. With their help, he was able to fend off most attacks, but their help had also aroused the interest of Arachnos's leader, Lord Recluse.
When Power Breaker first started helping Scirocco, he was one of many meta humans helping the warrior sorcerer recover the fabled Malleus Mundi, the Hammer of the World. The ancient tome was believed to be able to give its user the powers of Creation itself, to make a man into a god of ultimate power.

Raymond couldn't help but look at the pages he'd recovered for Scirocco. He'd recovered a great many pages, too. In fact, he'd recovered more pages than what was in the book eventually brought to his patron. They were looking for the most complete copy of the ancient tome, and thanks to the copying Power Breaker's nanites had done to every page he gazed at, he was now the most complete tome himself.

He didn't have the great power as advertised. He didn't want it. But the nanites were constantly poring through the pages to find new and interesting ways to improve their host. They decoded many of the bizarre, ancient writings and worked out new programs to channel power through Ray's body in interesting ways.

It wasn't until he had to help Statesman and Lord Recluse battle an avatar of a twisted, alien god named "Dagoeth" that his secret was revealed. He activated his incomplete "CNCDQD" program, his godmode program, and was able to reach into the monster's core to rip out its heart and crush it before Dagoeth's eyes.

The nanites healed him after the explosion. But they couldn't shield him from Recluse's gaze. The mercenaries and bounty hunters came for him, and despite Randall Grey trying to save him, he was captured by Arachnos and placed in this rig.
His arms and legs were locked in place and his whole body was suspended over the green goop of a fortress power plant. The rig was designed to shock him whenever its controllers decided to do so. His body could absorb a lot of energy, but not the entire force from a nuclear reactor (or whatever it was these fortresses ran on).
Recluse had visited him once, with Scirocco in tow. Ice Mistral followed behind her master, smirking giddily as she watched the big man suffer. Ray was certain she was also enjoying watching her mentor squirm under the instruction of the Lord of Arachnos, too.

The decree was simple: Give up the information of the Malleus Mundi and die swiftly. If he continued to refuse, then his torment would not end until his mind broke. Recluse would lose the Malleus (in an interpretable form, anyway), but he would gain a weapon to unleash against his enemies. Scirocco apologized when the others had left, but he wasn't about to risk his position or his life for a friend "who refuses to share such an important secret."

That was seven months ago. Raymond could normally contact somebody by using his nanite-enabled wi-fi connection to hack into communications networks, but it was blasted out of him every five minutes. He was certain he'd gotten messages to his friends in Grey's Army, but all they'd received were recordings of him screaming before the contact was cut off.

He was alone. He was dying alone. He was being turned into something he didn't want to be, and there was nobody that could help him.
"My name is Raymond Harris," he whispered before the shocks started again.
The cords of plasma arced out of the ring holding his shackles and scored into his body. The incandescent tendrils were as thick as cables for a suspension bridge or the rigging for an ancient galleon. The programming his nanites used to communicate with him flickered, scrambled and garbled as he screamed out hoarsely in pain again and again and again...

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

Arachnos soldiers are limited in the color of their armor. If they wear something shaded differently, it marks them as apostate to the doctrines of Lord Recluse's will. The fact that Daniel Taylor's armor was colored a dark green like military camouflage was no different. It was why the Bane Spider Scouts who now lied dead at his feet had attacked him.

Daniel powered down his mace and clipped it to his belt. This wasn't the first time he'd had to slay his former compatriots. It wouldn't be the last. He wasn't the first to come to a realization like this. He wondered idly if everybody who had the thought suffered the same sense of depression he had at the moment.

He didn't have much longer to dwell on it. Candace Lawrence, his lover, landed lightly next to him. She was shorter, thinner, but amazingly lithe. Her large breasts were restrained by the spider-patterned armor plate that many Night Widows like herself wore, only this breastplate only seemed to accentuate her surprising endowment. Her claws were stained with blood. Apparently, she'd run across similar to him in her travels. Without a word, she reached up, grasped the back of his helmet with her dark purple-gloved hand, and pulled him close for a kiss. She pressed a flimsy datapad into his hands and stepped back to let him peruse it.

"This is what it will take?" the man asked coldly.

"That is what he said. He wasn't happy when I told him who I was working for, but he said he would give you the chance to prove yourself."

Daniel gazed to Candace and nodded. He knew it wasn't going to be easy. Randall Grey was the sort who could hold a grudge if he really wanted to.

"You kidnapped his wife and tried to experiment on her," Candace said calmly, "A man's not going to be too happy to be contacted by somebody who did that to his family."

"Were you reading my thoughts?" he asked.

"No," she replied with a sly grin, "Your frown. Plus, I know your history with him."

"Well, let's get what we need and get this done," Daniel sighed, "Shadeheart, it looks like we have one last mission in these Isles. We're going to rescue Power Breaker."

My name was Raymond Harris.

My name was Raymond Harris!

MY NAME WAS RAYMOND HARRIS!

Power Breaker dangled from the riggings holding him suspended over the green goop half a mile below and struggled to hold on to the bits of his memory that kept him sane. The surges they coursed through his body kept blasting his mind, wreaking havoc with not just who he was, but who he wanted to be.

He knew the day was coming. The Etoile Isles were run by Arachnos. If you were to turn against them and their interests, they were likely to turn against you.
And there were more of them. Far more.

In the end, an Arbiter named Tavek had commissioned some criminal meta humans to capture him. Tavek was one of the Arbiters who prided himself on securing the Isles. One would think he would have a strong compulsion to bring down the criminality plaguing his homeland, but he preferred to drive out the "invasive elements" instead. His idea of invasive elements happened to be Longbow, Spetznaz, Malta Group, private security companies, international law enforcement agencies and anybody "who would dare to help them." Since Raymond fell into that last category, he was bound to wind up a victim of the insane system.

Usually, he provided a little intel for a group called Grey's Army. Raymond was one of the first people Randall Grey arrested when he'd arrived in Paragon just a few years ago. Because the old man had actually tried to help him, Ray had tried to better himself. The heroic influence upon him had been well-documented, even when Arachnos yanked him from the Zig. However, until Power Breaker started helping captured heroes escape, they left him alone.

It had started with Luminary. She'd been captured trying to save a teacher from the cruel Westin Phipps and Black Scorpion had decided to gather meta humans loyal to him and have a little hunt. Scirocco helped Breaker find the place in order to strike a political blow against the cybernetic thug and because of his patron's involvement, he had been spared from reprisal. But Scirocco wasn't involved with the rescue of other metas.

His nanites had been helping, too. The little machines had deformed him, bulking him up beyond human proportions, scarring his flesh with circuitry channels and stabbing "living" crystal spikes out of his shoulders and head, but they had saved his life countless times and given him so much more than they'd taken away.

If it hadn't been for the nanites, he'd have been captured long ago. They boosted his strength, produced energy fields to protect him, allowed him to fly, and all sorts of other nifty side bonuses. With their help, he was able to fend off most attacks, but their help had also aroused the interest of Arachnos's leader, Lord Recluse.
When Power Breaker first started helping Scirocco, he was one of many meta humans helping the warrior sorcerer recover the fabled Malleus Mundi, the Hammer of the World. The ancient tome was believed to be able to give its user the powers of Creation itself, to make a man into a god of ultimate power.

Raymond couldn't help but look at the pages he'd recovered for Scirocco. He'd recovered a great many pages, too. In fact, he'd recovered more pages than what was in the book eventually brought to his patron. They were looking for the most complete copy of the ancient tome, and thanks to the copying Power Breaker's nanites had done to every page he gazed at, he was now the most complete tome himself.

He didn't have the great power as advertised. He didn't want it. But the nanites were constantly poring through the pages to find new and interesting ways to improve their host. They decoded many of the bizarre, ancient writings and worked out new programs to channel power through Ray's body in interesting ways.

It wasn't until he had to help Statesman and Lord Recluse battle an avatar of a twisted, alien god named "Dagoeth" that his secret was revealed. He activated his incomplete "CNCDQD" program, his godmode program, and was able to reach into the monster's core to rip out its heart and crush it before Dagoeth's eyes.

The nanites healed him after the explosion. But they couldn't shield him from Recluse's gaze. The mercenaries and bounty hunters came for him, and despite Randall Grey trying to save him, he was captured by Arachnos and placed in this rig.
His arms and legs were locked in place and his whole body was suspended over the green goop of a fortress power plant. The rig was designed to shock him whenever its controllers decided to do so. His body could absorb a lot of energy, but not the entire force from a nuclear reactor (or whatever it was these fortresses ran on).
Recluse had visited him once, with Scirocco in tow. Ice Mistral followed behind her master, smirking giddily as she watched the big man suffer. Ray was certain she was also enjoying watching her mentor squirm under the instruction of the Lord of Arachnos, too.

The decree was simple: Give up the information of the Malleus Mundi and die swiftly. If he continued to refuse, then his torment would not end until his mind broke. Recluse would lose the Malleus (in an interpretable form, anyway), but he would gain a weapon to unleash against his enemies. Scirocco apologized when the others had left, but he wasn't about to risk his position or his life for a friend "who refuses to share such an important secret."

That was seven months ago. Raymond could normally contact somebody by using his nanite-enabled wi-fi connection to hack into communications networks, but it was blasted out of him every five minutes. He was certain he'd gotten messages to his friends in Grey's Army, but all they'd received were recordings of him screaming before the contact was cut off.

He was alone. He was dying alone. He was being turned into something he didn't want to be, and there was nobody that could help him.

"My name is Raymond Harris," he whispered before the shocks started again.

The cords of plasma arced out of the ring holding his shackles and scored into his body. The incandescent tendrils were as thick as cables for a suspension bridge or the rigging for an ancient galleon. The programming his nanites used to communicate with him flickered, scrambled and garbled as he screamed out hoarsely in pain again and again and again...

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

Arachnos soldiers are limited in the color of their armor. If they wear something shaded differently, it marks them as apostate to the doctrines of Lord Recluse's will. The fact that Daniel Taylor's armor was colored a dark green like military camouflage was no different. It was why the Bane Spider Scouts who now lied dead at his feet had attacked him.

Daniel powered down his mace and clipped it to his belt. This wasn't the first time he'd had to slay his former compatriots. It wouldn't be the last. He wasn't the first to come to a realization like this. He wondered idly if everybody who had the thought suffered the same sense of depression he had at the moment.

He didn't have much longer to dwell on it. Candace Lawrence, his lover, landed lightly next to him. She was shorter, thinner, but amazingly lithe. Her large breasts were restrained by the spider-patterned armor plate that many Night Widows like herself wore, only this breastplate only seemed to accentuate her surprising endowment. Her claws were stained with blood. Apparently, she'd run across similar to him in her travels. Without a word, she reached up, grasped the back of his helmet with her dark purple-gloved hand, and pulled him close for a kiss. She pressed a flimsy datapad into his hands and stepped back to let him peruse it.

"This is what it will take?" the man asked coldly.

"That is what he said. He wasn't happy when I told him who I was working for, but he said he would give you the chance to prove yourself."

Daniel gazed to Candace and nodded. He knew it wasn't going to be easy. Randall Grey was the sort who could hold a grudge if he really wanted to.

"You kidnapped his wife and tried to experiment on her," Candace said calmly, "A man's not going to be too happy to be contacted by somebody who did that to his family."

"Were you reading my thoughts?" he asked.

"No," she replied with a sly grin, "Your frown. Plus, I know your history with him."

"Well, let's get what we need and get this done," Daniel sighed, "Shadeheart, it looks like we have one last mission in these Isles. We're going to rescue Power Breaker."

I hate to think she's setting herself up for disappointment, but there it is...

Hiya, Rebirth. Good to have you back!

"I don't know," Roxxy replied to the Hyun-ki, "Uh... Hi. I'm Pop Roxxy. I'm Powers Division, Special Investigations."

She gestured to the scorch mark on the ground.

"That was a notorious criminal called Ryat Dreadnaught. It was claiming that it was acting on behalf of Powers Division, too, but that just can't be right!"

She saw some of the Resistance troops charging their way and breathed out a curse.

"We don't have time for more, unfortunately!" she said as she focused more of her energy into her hands, "We're under attack!"

She ran toward the rifle-wielding maniacs, meeting the nearest head-on with a punch to the jaw. He stumbled around on his feet while she focused on the other, swatting his rifle down to fire into the ground while she delivered a flurry to his chest.

More Crusaders were on the way, though.

Regardless of Ryat Dreadnaught's apprehension, he still knew he was bigger and stronger than the girl battling him. Pop Roxxy tried to match him, blow-for-blow, but sometimes he would simply grab her and toss her about the panicked civilians.

Some PPD officers were actually ushering the citizens away, others seemed torn between trying to arrest them or trying to fight Resistance troops while most of the rest had given over to the "glorious battle." Roxxy landed next to some of the troops assisting civilians.

"Officers!" she gasped as she pushed herself up, "I need you to fire on that machine!"

"But then he'll come after us!" one said while the other charged up his gauntlets.

"Hey, Mac," the other replied as he aimed, "Nothing ventured... Nothing GAINED!"

A blast of concussive energy shot out and impacted the Dreadnaught's armor. The big machine chortled.

"Hey," it grunted, "I'm on your side."

"No you're not!" Roxxy shouted, "You... You monster! You're slaughtering people for fun!"

"Maybe if they were loyal citizens, they wouldn't be so much fun to stomp," Dreadnaught continued chuckling, "They should know better than to question the will of the Praetors..."

Then, it leveled its gaze on the blue-skinned girl and started stepping toward her. The two officers at her flanks fired repeatedly, their energy beams glancing off his armor or getting absorbed into the plating. Roxxy stretched, swung her arms around, and focused another concussive blast into the machine, finally knocking him over.

"Success!" she shouted, "Now! While it's down! Fire your Immobilizer beams!"

"No need to tell me twice!" Officer Mac shouted as he dialed his gauntlet and fired conical beam at the fallen machine, hopefully pinning it to the ground.

The other officer followed suit and Roxxy stepped around them, waving for citizens to run her way to escape. Unfortunately, as the first of the citizens neared the immobile machine, Ryat Dreadnaught started to laugh. Its visor flashed repeatedly and sparks started erupting from its casing.

"I-I-I ho-o-o-o-ope this does-does-doesn't inter-r-r-r-r-r-rupt your-your regular-r-r-r-r-rly scheduled business d-day!" he shouted triumphantly.

Roxxy waved her arms again and fired a concussive blast at the civilians, knocking them back from the exploding android. The eruption sent her and the two officers sprawling as well.

As they painfully pushed themselves up, they saw a scorched hole where the machine had once been. However, the civilians were still alive, if a little injured.

"What the Hell was that?" Mac asked.

"Self destruct?" Roxxy offered, "I don't know... But we still need to get these people to safety..."

She didn't notice the pieces rolling back to the center of the scorch mark...

There was a howling whine as the big machine's repulsor jets that gave it flight came within earshot. Rather than try to wade through the hordes of Resistance troops and PPD officers, it decided to cut to the chase.

"If they want this to look right, they need to do it right," Ryat Dreadnaught muttered to himself as he landed in the middle of the protesting citizenry.

The people with their flimsy signs turned their fearful gazes to the large, cold gray android. It was so similar to the builder and lifter types of Clockwork servants throughout the city, but it still seemed horribly, horribly wrong.

It was the head, for one thing. It wasn't the expression-revealing mask that was so similar to a human face. Instead, a visor with a voice-emitter mask glowered down on the nearest people, with two scoops on the side of its spherical head to function as ears. The red visor flashed briefly as the Dreadnaught took in the situation.

"People of Praetoria," he finally said as they tried to decide whether they would cluster closer to him or shy away and take their chances with the battle surrounding them, "You are in violation of Praetorian Law. Your right to assemble has been revoked..."

"What are you saying?" a woman in a red dress asked.

"I'm saying..." Ryat Dreadnaught flexed his fingers and electricity started to crackle between them, "The Powers Division has laid its judgment. Death to all civilians disloyal to the Empire..."

It may not hav ben how things were actually run in Praetoria, but the Dreadnaught didn't care. This wasn't his government, they weren't his people. So, when he swung his fist around and gave the nearest bystander a concussion and some electrical burns, he didn't feel any remorse. Plus, the horrified look on the face of the woman in the red dress was simply intoxicating. Dreadnaught decided to save her for later.

"You can start screaming now..." he muttered as he swung haphazardly into the crowd, sending electric sparks about.

----------

"Roxxy!" she heard the dispatch operator's voice frantically trying to get her attention, "Something just swooped into the center of the crowd! It's... By Cole! It's killing civilians!"

"I''m almost there!" Roxxy shouted into her communicator as she crested the PPD building's roof.

There... It looked like Resistance and PPD forces were battling, with plenty of the chaotic Powers Division mixed in. Roxanne may have had her loyalties with the Resistance as of late, but now people's lives were at stake. Whatever that...

She recognized it. She'd heard rumors of the machine's existence. The Dreadnaught. The one Resistance member she'd heard of that just said "Okay" when it came to activating Neutron Bombs under the city or feeding police officers to ghouls. It had no heart, no concern, no regard for the monstrous things it did, and now it was slaughtering people who couldn't fight back.

Screaming angrily and trying to keep tears out of her eyes, Pop Roxxy dove into the crowd and collided with Dreadnaught's fists as they tried to crash down on a terrified woman in a red dress. At a glance, six people lied dead at the machine's feet, with many more wounded surrouning it. It's cold, emotionless visor glared down at her and it huffed an amused laugh.

"You think you can stop me, little blue skinned girl?"

"I will try!" she shouted back, swung her arms about, and unleashed a wave of concussive force to send he machine back on it's rump.

Her desired effect fell short, however. The Dreadnaught remained standing. In fact, it was now laughing at her, a strange, deep sound, like a man in armor.

"You..." it shook its head at her, "Will not survive..."

Roxxy tensed and her multi-colored electric armor flared up. Screaming, she dove at the machine and focused some of the raw energy into a concussive smash at the machine's armor. There was a small dent, but the plating seemed to push itself back out. The Dreadnaught responded with a hard jab to Roxxy's jaw, but she was able to deflect the strike. Electricity lanced out at her, but her armor absorbed most of it.

"Oh..." Ryat Dreadnaught chuckled, "One of those metas..."

It didn't mention how it might be in trouble...

Sadly, I won't be able to attend. When I'd offered, I was thinking I could have my computer available, but such is not the case. My apologies, T. Good luck to you and everybody involved, though.

Frankly, the idea of eradicating humanity to make way for Mother Nature smacks of the book "Oryx and Crake."

"It's killing season! Time to celebrate! What better way to rid the world of all the Walking Waste!"
-Nothingface

...Just good luck using it as fertilizer for the Nu Green Utopia...

Another thing you should note is that Earth would require a great amount of time to revert to a "natural state," if that's even possible.

In my area, we have an invasive species called "Pale Swallow Wort," a member of the milkweed family that is known for choking the life out of everything in the areas it grows. I have seen some of the worst infestations, and they are certainly not pretty.

Kudzu is another example of an invasive species that just chokes the life out of other vegetation. You may acquire a green world, but it won't be the perfect jewel you're envisioning.

I've got nothing to say about the rest because it's a preference of philosophy that I now realize I only disagree with. It's unsettling, but it's your right to believe that humanity should be destroyed so Mother Earth can take back over.

The world won't be saved with extremism, ecological or otherwise.

Eradicating the human species may help the ecology of the planet in the short term, but another species will rise up and take over eventually. Conservation is not the primary focus of any creature. Humans are, thus far, the first creatures to realize that if we destroy what we're sitting on, we'll die too.

The sad thing is that we don't see saving our future generations as incentive enough.

"I'm on my way," she said as she pulled her armor on and her gold and purple hair out of her eyes.

Pop Roxxy had trained just for moments like this. She needed to do what she could to stop people from getting hurt. It was bound to happen to someone, but she could keep it from happening to too many.

She made sure her boots and armor were clipped on firmly before charging out the door. It looked like today she would be serving the PPD and the Powers Division...

----------

In the depths of the sewer, it waited. The people were getting in place. It was almost time to move.

"What the Hell am I waiting for?" the machine's masculine voice emitted from the speakers on the sides of its head, "I'm heading up there now..."

Ryat Dreadnaught pushed the heavy doors open and started stomping up the spiral staircase. It was time to be a terrible wolf for the agitated sheep...

Don't know how my next week is going to be, but if there's room and if I'm available, I'd like to help.

Damn it, where's Badge when we need him?

We need a thousand tough guys and a thousand soft guys to make the tough guys look even tougher. I want them arranged Tough-Tough-Soft-Tough-Soft-Soft-Tough-Tough...

Have I gone mad with power? No. I've gone mad without power. And it's true. It's awful. Nobody listens to you.

Still, seriously, gather Kronos Titans. We'll treat Justice to one Hell of a fight!