Mr_Grey

With what Kid said, you should be about golden for the mission. The guy knows how to WRECK him some AVs.

I can live forever if I just keep stomping on a turtle against a flight of stairs...

I'm on FrozenDeath's side on this one, folks. If you didn't care about PvP, why make a hassle about it here? It's just an advertisement.

Grey's Army is updated, with a final closure for Roland's situation.

I had other ways this could have gone... Some angry, others not so much. I figured it would be best to just jump into the situation and see what felt natural as i wrote, though.

I'm not proud of that arc. It got away from me in ways I wasn't liking, but it was difficult to rein it back in. It made too much sense as it went along, but it was also simply the wrong kind of fan fiction. I just can't abide a player character massively influencing a canon character like that, not unless I got some sort of e-mail going "Hey, run with it!" from a developer. Since I didn't get such a message, I figured it would be best to let it drop.

This puts my characters back where they're comfortable. They're all once again on the fringe of things, no longer entangled in the unreasonable war between the Rogue Isles and Paragon City. While they're still there for the people, they have no connection to the vendettas of the heroes around them.

She found Roland sitting on the roof of his apartment building. He was staring glumly into the street below. This was going to be a difficult conversation for both of them.

"Roland?" Jessica asked as she stepped out of the shadows.

"Hi," he replied without turning, "You come to get your stuff?"

"I... I came to apologize..."

"That can't be easy for you."

He turned and gazed at her through narrowed eyes. She didn't come in costume, instead opting for a civilian ensemble of which he could see sneakers, jeans and a leather jacket. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Even under the yellow streetlights, he could see she'd been crying.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes... Yes..." she sighed, "Roland... I... I'm sorry I accused you of plotting something against me... I know I should have trusted you, but... But I'm so used to things... Going wrong..."

He nodded and sighed.

"...Just when they're going right. I know what you mean."

"Roland... I..." Jessica began, "I don't know how to tell you this... I... I wasn't affected by the enchantment."

Grey nodded. Jessica read the expression on his face. He'd assumed as much.

"So, you knew?"

"Something like that," he said somberly, "When I drank the cure, I wasn't nearly as smitten with you as I had been. I'd been wondering what it would be like to suddenly have no feelings for you... It turned out that wasn't the case."

Jessica's voice caught in her throat. He still had feelings for her. There was a chance that...

Her hopes were dashed the moment she read his expression again. Despite the revelation that he still had feelings for her, it wasn't enough to repair their situation.

"Jessica, I'm sorry," he sighed, "I love you, but it's too dangerous for both of us. I'm too vulnerable... You're too important. It made me unimaginably happy... To be cared for by somebody like you... But..."

Suddenly feeling very tired, Roland sat down next to a vent and put his back against it. Jessica walked over and sat next to him. She thought she'd feel worse about this, but there was something comforting in knowing he was hurt as well.

"It's smarter for the two of us if we just let this go," he whispered.

"I know... I know..." she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder, "And... And we can't speak to each other again... It'll lead right back to... You know."

"Yes. Yes I do. It leads right back to this... Or... What the Menders warned me about..."

"It's not right."

She felt like crying, but her head hurt too much. Roland reached over and hugged her.

"Maybe you'll find somebody who can stand up to the monstrous horde, somebody who you can see as a peer and not as... Well, however you see me..."

"I see you as an extraordinary normal guy," she replied, "Even if you are a little pudgy..."

"Heh... Well... I'm glad to have been there for you the times you needed somebody. I'm sorry we couldn't make it work out."

"We could... We could try."

"We have tried. They come after me... They came after me without even knowing anything about me... Just that I had something to do with you."

Jessica sighed and gave Roland a hug.

"I wish I could give you something," she murmured into his belly, "Something to remember me by."

"I have a good memory," he replied and started to get up, picking her up with him, "You've given me plenty of those... And now I can remember them more clearly, instead of through a rose-colored lens."

She kissed him. It was supposed to be a quick peck on the lips, but she couldn't stop there. She wrapped her arms about his shoulders and pulled him into an embrace they held for several minutes until they were left gasping. Still, they held each other, knowing this would be the last time they would be so close.

Finally, she felt the tears streaming down her face. She pulled away and cleared her eyes. Looking back to her friend, she could see him doing the same.

"Goodbye, my dear friend," he finally groaned.

"Goodbye," she replied and walked back to the roof stairwell access.

Roland watched her go. She was the closest he'd ever come to a relationship. Many people fantasized about being able to be with somebody so fantastic, so amazing, so important. Few understood the cost associated. Few accepted the danger involved.

"Damn it," he grumbled as he realized what he'd lost, "What the Hell do I do now?"

Good fortune to you, and the one you love. I can only hope that medical science is capable enough to see you through this darkness.

Honestly, I haven't been enjoying my gaming as much lately. It's been feeling like a chore.

Falling Down

*after finding out the golf cart he just shotgun-blasted, causing it to roll down the hill, has an old man's heart pills...*

D-FENS: "Well, that's too bad, 'cause it looks like your little cart's gonna drown! Now don't you wish you let me walk through your little golf course?"

Dying Old Man: "My... Golf... Course..."

D-FENS: "Yeah... Now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat."

I've got a Plant/Rad I wouldn't mind throwing into this. If you're not full up and I'm about, count me in.

Reminds me of a Simpsons song...

Paraphrased (heavily) from "I want to go to Mt. Splashmore..."

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme-it NOW!

NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!

Gimme my Going Rogue right now!

NOW!

With her Teamster faeries, gives me a reason to keep coming back and hop on my 50s.

Already missing you, Zekiran. You were a calm port in a stormy world.

Thanks, Bayani. I noticed it earlier from the fan art section and joined.

As for me, continuing my prose... I decided to add another chapter to My Beautiful Misery.

"Woah..." Neuron almost burps, "Hey, baby!"

I was wrong. He's not just waking up. He's part drunk, maybe even a little high on a combination of narcotics. I don't know if it's recreational or if he's self-medicating. I know Synapse is decadent and a bit aloof, but at least he isn't this reckless. Still, in a world this insane, I suppose it wouldn't be outside the realms of reality for somebody to just consume narcotics wholesale to numb the madness.

"Hey, sexy," I make the illusion of Dominatrix say, "Marky-mark wants to know how you're... coming along... with the investigation..."

Heh heh. Marky-mark. I need to remember that.

"Oh... Right... Jeez, girl, that outfit doesn't leave much to imagine... I mean! Right! Antimatter's gizmos... Eh, they're working fine! I hate to say it, but Ray did a damn fine job with those doohickeys! Just... Jus-ss-ss-shh! Don't let your Emperor Cole know that! I'm trying to find out how he still went wrong!"

"You jackass! Of course Ray's devices work! He's a genius! Unlike you..."

I tried to put the right inflection in the voice, make it sound caustic and playful at the same time... Like she's playing a game with him.

"Hey!" Neuron sounds a little more lucid, "I'm good at... other things..."

He gyrates and loses his balance a little. He grasps the shelf he's next to and steadies himself. I'm both disgusted and amused at the same time. I need to chalk this up to yet another strange feeling.

"Do any of these work, baby?"

"Oh, Hell no! Anti got it into his nonexistent head that some of these techies might try to use the devices to go intergalactic or some other nonsensh. Excuse me... Nonshensh. *cough* Nonsense. Thersh. Nonshensh. Godammit..."

"So none of these work?" the faux Dominatrix pouts and I realize I can see in color again.

I've got her all gray. I guess I'm lucky it's dark and he's drunk. I try to get the colors right, inflecting deep crimson red and black into her outfit where Ms. Liberty's would be red and blue... And leather where her's is not leather.

"Sorry, baby-girl," Neuron sighs, "Just enough for diagnostic tests. But, hey! If you want, I can show you the monitoring station! You put those-sh bugs all over that other world, and Andimadder and I sometimes watch what's-sh goin' on in there... You want to see what your shister's up to?"

"Yeah, baby, that sounds like fun!"

This is a dead end. I need to find another way. However, on the same token, there is something else I can do here...

"Calvin..." I whisper while Neuron tries to describe where we're going to go next, "We need to destroy these things... Make it look like an accident..."

"I don't know if we have anything that would work," he replied, "Wait... Where'd you get that blaster?"

He yanks the energy pistol out of my hand and looks it over. Nodding, he starts fiddling with it until he has the energy cell popped out. He holds the battery-like item to my face and smiles.

"This!" he announced, "Got a lighter?"

"No..."

"Then let me try..."

He fiddles with one of the devices and pops out its energy cell. He looks the two over and nods. I guess he has a plan.

"When we're ready to go, I'm ready to make these things explode."

Which is good, because Neuron is ready to go. Everything is coming to a head at the moment, too, because I can hear the robots outside the room, clomping up to the door.

Neuron doesn't notice and star walking out of the lab. He beckons for "Dominatrix" to follow and that is when the doors burst open. The Baryon-class Clockwork robot that storms in, flanked by two Mesons, announces that it is seeking out the intruders. The supervillain starts laughing.

"You must be malfunctioning!" he chuckles, "There are no intruders here!"

"We must acquire the intruders!" the Baryon shouts again, this time raising its glowing palm to Neuron.

"God damn Clockwork," the man curses and lightning bursts from his body, lancing through the machines, causing them to short out and crash to the ground, "Stupid, generic pieces of crap..."

Steven turns to "Dominatrix."

"M'lady?" he made to bow and stumbled a little, "Woah..."

We follow him into the other labs and I can distinctly smell ozone. The current had torn through all of the robots, so that issue was settled. We pick our way through the wreckage while our "guide" apologizes for using too much power.

"Just follow me, and everything will be alright!" he chuckles as Calvin catches up.

We're reaching the lab door when the room holding the interdimensional devices explodes. Neuron, in his drug-induced state, doesn't notice. Nor does he notice the alarm klaxons and the panicked technicians storming into the lab to try to salvage the fruits of their labors.

Calvin holds Cheryl close. I keep them between me and the illusion of Dominatrix. The illusion flickers a little bit. I'm trying to keep it less "solid" so I can conserve energy. I think I'm going to need it.

Grey's Army

Well, I finally got around to this part. I don't know how people will react to it (I probably still won't know how people react to it when they're done), but the mystical influence on Roland's life is finally cleansed after his attempt to explain the situation to Jessica Duncan goes disastrously.

Cory explained the enchantment to the stunned Roland. It was a minor charm, one of the first aspiring magicians learn. For a brief moment, the object of your affection was smitten with you. Usually, the effect didn't last long enough for any social or emotional damage to occur.

It was considered a largely harmless spell. Repeated castings normally didn't have a cumulative effect (unless there was already some form of attraction between the two) and it wasn't strong enough an effect to cause a person to act outside their normal behavior. Because of this whimsical nature, it was given what was considered a humorous name at the time. Cupid's Arrow, a name for a spell that was a far cry from the capabilities of its namesake.

What was never tried before, however, was "cursing" an object with it. Repeated applications throughout a day over the course of a few years... Without the subject ever knowing it... Cory was astounded at Roland's stable mental state.

"You would have fallen in love with her all over again each time you sat down on this sofa," he explained, "And the longer you sat on it, the tighter the hold on you... Thank goodness whoever enchanted it didn't know what they were doing... It would have been like wrapping you in hair-thick thread... And it unraveled every time you left the source... But repeated sittings, extended sittings... It's like a cocoon in places..."

"That's what you see on me?" the portly man asked, his emotions starting show as a form of deep irritation, "Great. Fantastic. I'm mystically intoxicated."

"It's not so simple Roland but..." the sorcerer paused to consider the analogy, "Actually... That is rather astute..."

"Can you pull the enchantment out of the sofa? Maybe I can get off of this gradually before telling Jessica... Maybe... Maybe if I do it that way, I'll be able to tell if the emotions I have for her are real."

"I'll see what I can do, my friend. Cupid's Arrow is rather finely intertwined within the rest of the enchantment. I don't know if I can remove it without... Well... If this doesn't work, you'll see what happens for yourself."

Simmons set to work and Grey got himself a glass of milk. When he returned to the living room, he sat down heavily in a recliner and sighed.

How badly had this curse affected him? Was it because of the couch that he was made vulnerable to the affections of that half-succubus, Rose? Wait...

"She said she didn't need to sit on my magic couch to get her to like me," he growled, "Damn... She knew..."

"Who did?" Cory asked, "Ms. Liberty?"

"No. The succubus who tried to kill me. She mentioned my couch. I thought it was odd at the time, but I forgot about it. Cory... Do you think this affected Jessica, too?"

"It's hard to say," the wizard replied as he traced his fingers over the fibers of the sofa, "Somebody like her... She's touched by fate. She's not supposed to succumb to simple magic like this."

"But if she was?"

"Then she would have been as affected as you. What's worse, if you don't know it's happening and it's happening so often... There's a chance you would have thought it was real emotional development... You would have-uh-oh!"

There was a spark at the tips of Cory's fingers and he backed away. The couch started to disintegrate immediately, starting with the point where light had sparked. Cory bit off a curse as the fibers of the sofa seemed to unravel and crumble. In moments, the furniture looked rotten and torn, with bits of wood and cotton fluff poking through it.

"Damn," Roland muttered, "That was... Unfortunate. It was a really comfy couch, you know?"

"I can enchant your next one," Simmons sighed, "I slipped while I was tracing the enchantment, and the thread of energy snapped, tearing the rest of the magic apart violently. The result, as you can see, is a rapidly decaying piece of furniture as the magic that was protecting it from entropy withers and fades."

"Nester told me about that fight between Aaron and the Carnies. Told me how that place basically became a massive morgue..."

"Not a morgue... I don't think there's an adequate term for what that building became when those protection enchantments were shattered and destroyed."

The door opened then and Jessica walked in. The smile on her face gave way to stunned shock as she noticed the state of what was once the best feature of Roland's apartment.

"What happened to your couch?" she asked, half-bewildered and half-amused.

"There was an enchantment that had to be removed," Cory explained, "And... I made an error..."

"I guess so," she laughed, "I don't believe we've met..."

"Not directly, ma'am, no. I'm Cortland Simmons, wizard, magician, enchanter... I'm loathe to use my more proper term, warlock, as it's simply applied to me because of my demonic heritage."

"Well, you're not the first good person I've met who's associated with demons," she said sweetly, "And I remember Roland mentioning you once or twice. Uh... What... What enchantment had to be removed from the couch? We already knew it was made more comfortable..."

"There was..." Roland frowned a little, "Jessica... There was a spell on it we didn't know about..."

"What?" she asked, sensing the dread in his voice but not placing its proper context, "Is something wrong?"

"Jessica... God, I don't know how to say this... Jess... The enchantment Cory needed to remove was... A charm spell..."

"A charm spell?"

"It... It makes people fall in love..."

"I know what they do."

Ms. Liberty's voice had taken on a cold edge. Normally, people didn't pick up on it. Roland and Cory, however, were very attentive individuals. Cory started backing away to get out of her line of sight. Roland just frowned as he braced for what he was afraid would come next.

His fears turned out to be well-founded.

"You... You were using magic on me!?"

It was amazing how quickly Jessica went from amused to enraged.

"I wasn't..." Grey replied calmly, "Not intentionally..."

"I can't believe this! Who put you up to it? Nemesis? The Circle? DeVore!?"

"I don't talk to any of those people..."

"Oh, shut up!"

Ms. Liberty was livid. As soon as Roland had informed her in the slightest way that their love was somehow false, she had it in her head that this was another scheme to get at her. It didn't help that Round had already warned her of plots against her. Now she was thinking he was trying to pull something similar on her.

"I should have known! I should have known, as soon as I felt comfortable, something like this was going to happen!"

"Jessica, I'm-."

"I don't want to hear it, Roland!"

"Now, hang on," Cory had heard enough and raised his hand in a calming motion, "I've known this young man a long time, and I know he has a good soul. Ma'am, if you're concerned about some form of foul play at work, I can assure you, Roland would never be a perpetrator..."

"How can I believe that? How can I believe you? I don't know you! You're his friend! For all I know, you're in on it!"

"Yeah," Roland almost shouted as he jumped from his chair, incensed, "Because this plan has been going so well! I knew I hit the jackpot the moment Dominatrix stomped on my throat! Squads of Arachnos soldiers attacking me in the streets, assassins coming to kill me in my own apartment... Yeah, I've been enjoying our time together, Jessica!"

"Oh, don't you start trying to pull that crap on me now! I know how this goes, Roland! You suffer a little for me to see so you can just... Can just..."

"Roland..." Cory's voice was barely a whisper, "Ma'am..."

"Get out," the portly man said quietly, "You're really this quick to think that of me... Get out."

"Oh, I'm leaving. I'm going to M.A.G.I., I'm seeing Azuria, and I'm getting this [fricking] hex taken off!"

She stormed out of the apartment and Cory was left slack-jawed. He'd expected some form of negative reaction, but he didn't expect it to be this extreme.

"Come on, Cory," Roland grunted as he grabbed his jacket, "Let's get over to M.A.G.I. and get this [stuff] taken off of me, too."

----------

It took Ms. Liberty a while to get to the M.A.G.I. office. It was surprising, considering the fact that she was in Atlas Park when she found out she needed to go there. However, when she was just about to walk into the city hall, she got a call from Mynx. It turned out there was a warehouse full of Arachnos soldiers and she and Infernal were pinned down.

It had taken her three hours to get there, help kick the crap out of the soldiers, and get back to city hall. Mynx had wondered why she looked so angry and determined during the fight, and the most Jessica was able to say was that she had some personal issues she was trying to work out.

Unfortunately, all the leaping across town and fighting had eaten into her time. She had to hope nobody noticed her as she arrived. Fortunately, it had been a slow time for new heroes and a lot of the older ones had better things to do elsewhere. She made her way to the M.A.G.I. offices without incident, casually saluting to the Freedom Corps trainers as she passed.

"I don't know, Az..." she muttered after a few minutes of sitting in a chair while the witch prepared some hocus-pocus she was working on before the heroine had arrived, "I mean... I thought I was supposed to be immune to this sort of thing! Grandpa told me so!"

"You do know how you sounded just now, right?" Azuria asked as she finished mixing a tea and walked over to hand a cup to the distraught heroine.

"I know, I know..." Jessica sighed and took a sip, "This is nice."

"Good... So, what are you going to do now? This Roland fellow was pretty distressed himself when he and Mister Simmons arrived earlier for the same cure."

"What?" Ms. Liberty almost shouted.

Did they have the cure all to themselves now? What were they going to-?

"Yeah, he was affected, too," Azuria replied, unaware of the heroine's concerns, "So he wanted to get rid of the mystically altered emotions."

"He was... He was affected, too? Oh... So... How was he when he got here?"

----

"He was pretty broken up..."

Roland and Cory had walked into the M.A.G.I. office, Roland more marching as he tried to force his resolve. He could hear Cory pleading with him to consider the ramifications of this course of action, that he should still try the gradual approach. He didn't want to hear it, though. His rational senses had taken control again, and he knew that if he were to get rid of these "inebriated feelings," he would need to burn them out.

"Please, Roland... Consider the ramifications..."

"Which are?"

"Everything you've felt thus far, for this girl, will be stripped away..."

"Sounds good to me."

Cory shook his head.

"It's not. Believe me. I've seen the research on it..."

"Cory... She..." the portly man's eyes misted slightly and he looked away, "She jumped at the chance that something was wrong. That I did this to her on purpose... She doesn't trust me, after all I've suffered because of her... After the things I've done to help her... I'm just another plot to her."

"She was upset, Roland! You implied that the emotions she was feeling weren't real!"

"They're not!"

"Gentlemen," Azuria interrupted them, "Mister Grey... Cortland has been in communication with me since... Well, since the discovery... I have the cure prepared..."

"Good. Let's get this over with."

"Roland, please..."

----

"...He took the cure and the two left," the witch finished her story, "I figured you would be over shortly afterward, so I set to making another."

"Oh... I didn't know you would have more than one..."

"Ms. Liberty... This is actually a fairly common enchantment. Regardless of its strength or influence, it can still be remedied easily."

The heroine finished the tea and sighed.

"Well... That's good to know. I just wish... I don't know how I feel about this, Azuria. I mean... I like him, you know? I think I really do love him. He's the kind of guy every girl wishes they could fall in love with... He's attentive, reliable... Friendly, in his own way..."

Azuria was staring at her. The witch's face was a mask of concern.

"I just... I think I want to hold off on taking this cure until after I've had another chance to talk to Roland... Find out how we really feel..."

"I think you're past the point of reconsidering," Azuria's voice croaked.

"No, I don't think so," Ms. Liberty set the cup and saucer aside and straightened out her uniform, "I'm going to find Roland and straighten this out... Then I'll come back and tell you if I need to take your cure. So, you keep the incense and scrolls handy, I'll be back short-."

"You don't understand, Jessica!" Azuria almost shouted, "You just drank the cure!"

----

"...And on Roland... It had a more decisive effect..."

"Well, it's done," Cory sighed as his friend finished the drink, "How do you feel?"

Roland looked at his hands first. He looked at the palms and the backs of his hands. His expression was stony.

"I feel like the color's been drained out of life," he replied calmly, "But... I feel better."

"Of course you would," his dark-skinned friend said sadly, "You're back to as you should be... Much quicker than you should be..."

"What do you mean?"

"Roland," Azuria stepped in to explain, "Had you taken the gradual route, you would have suffered for a few months from a broken heart, certainly a heart that didn't need to be broken if not for this mystical influence, but you would have gotten better and you would have been more in touch with your emotions... This cure, though... It cleansed your soul much more rapidly. Your grasp of your emotions... It's back to a point before this enchantment started influencing you."

"That's good, then," the younger Grey brother said curtly, "I've been wanting to get back to seeing things clearly."

"There's no point in telling you why this was the wrong way," Cory sighed and clapped his friend on the shoulder, "You'll be alright, in the end... I hope... If anybody could be, it would be you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Core."

----

"...They left after that."

"So..." Ms. Liberty stared, horrified, at Azuria, "So... His love for me..."

"Whatever the enchantment made him feel is no longer there, and he's looking through his history as if it never were. He probably thinks a lot of his decisions have been foolish."

"And my... M-... My love for him?"

"I think... I think you were right earlier. The spell didn't affect you..."

"Azuria!"

"Yes... It's real."

He's still dancing around her questions at the end there...

I roleplay some, myself. Usually, it involves channeling and thinking like the character I'm playing as. Sometimes I can push this into full-blown character behavior, however.

I usually try to make it as in-tune to the situation as I can. This usually makes for impersonal RP, but as things tend to go, professional behavior is probably the best course for brief relationships.

I shnuggly in all the right ways.

1.) Kipland Durj is my favorite Hero. He's brutal, indomitable, and... Surprising. He's not necessarily uncompromising, but when things start to cross his lines, he tends to get vocal about his agitation.

2.) I don't relate well to Kip at all. He's pessimistic almost to a fault. He's half expecting fecal matter to fall from the skies at any moment (sometimes literally). I can't identify with somebody easily who's such a staunch curmudgeon. However, his propensity to make sure everything is right on his side of things is something I relate to.

3.) No. I don't roleplay much with any of my characters, though I sometimes "channel" them, which causes me to think and talk like them. Kip makes me itching to fight, Cory Simmons makes me extremely polite, Ryat99 makes me feel like everything I'm doing is somewhat new yet familiar at the same time. Some of the strangest sensations I've had came from Eisenherz ("I'm doing this to make up for the mistakes of my ancestors...") and Mark Shadow ("Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! I'm going to die!").

4.) My characters tend to focus on the task at hand and leave their personal stuff to their personal lives (Grey's Army, Brutal Warriors Order, etc.). When in a thread, they usually try to stick to completing the situation as rapidly as possible.

5.) A bit of a mix of both. Sometimes I'm making a character who played a "Beta Role" in one of my stories (Ashen Roast, Blizzard Front, Agent Wild, Martin Sanders), so their concept and backstory are already known to me. Sometimes, I'm tickled with an idea and I start making the character based on the powers I gave them. I have two characters, however, who are completely unusual to me. They were created by my nephew, and I've been developing their story ever since.

6.) Some enemies wind up dead. Usually mooks. Signature characters, however, do not wind up killed. They are either arrested or make dramatic escapes. There are a few missions and arcs that specifically state that you kill your opponent, and I follow those unless my character has a predilection against killing (which isn't often).

I thought about pruning my Protector roster, but I decided I'm much happier leaving them all right here. I already freed up slots previously, so when Going Rogue comes out, I'll even have Independents over here.