Mr_Grey

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*Creates bunker*

*gets popcorn*

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*Sets up lawn chair and cooler of beer and soda next to Zek*

Now here are some fireworks I want to SEE!

The best way to do what you're talking about here, Rylas, is to make a new character here on Protector and sell a Training Enhancement. Sell it for five Inf at Wentworths and have your Freedom character buy that TO for the amount you want to transfer.

There are dangers to this, but they should have tapered down since Server Transfers and the Market was introduced (this sort of thing was RAMPANT back then, and rampant with what I'm describing next).

Try to make sure that nobody else is selling that particular type of training enhancement. That's the biggest thing. You risk giving EVERYTHING to some random Joe or (and this is much, much worse) an RMTer!

Then it's just a matter of finding someone trustworthy here to help you dole it out to the other characters you're transferring/creating.

Also... Keep in mind, when you transfer servers, your characters take their stuff with them. If all the Inf is on one character, that's only ten dollars for several months of work transferred.

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I would think that if Nemesis' soldiers realized they all essentially had Fat Mans strapped to their backs, they wouldn't be quite so loyal.

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I would think it's more likely that Nemesis figured out how to build tiny fusion power plants. Not only would he only need water to run those (if he split the hydrogen off in the plant, that is), but let's face it: if humans built a functional fusion reactor this very day, what would be used to extract energy from it? Answer: a steam turbine.

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You and your extraterrestrial logic

And, after reading this, I'm reminded of the Foundation series, and how in the first novel a main character sports a nuclear reactor in a device the size of a walnut while a guard he's bribing is protecting something more like the plant on the Simpsons. Sure, the walnut-sized one only lasts two weeks after a full charge, but it can be recharged (essentially, Fusion batteries), but the main character acts as if the entire process is ludicrously simple and safe.

I wasn't thinking about Fusion... But I thought Fusion made MORE heat, not less. Doesn't this imply a more energetic reaction (Energetic meaning "Explosive")?

Also, I thought Cold Fusion is a misnomer, in that it doesn't make things cold, it just starts from room temperature.

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I wonder why if it's superheated, pressurised steam, it deals energy damage.

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Heat is energy. Fire is combustion. Steam doesn't combust. I often take "Energy" in this game to mean any form of power that isn't a form of combustion, physical force, chemical reaction, or "negative"-type energy.

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Dude, it shoots a giant bubble. How do we get force fields out of steam?

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The Staff itself is what is making the force beam through some unknown process (frankly, I'd have expected electricity and lots of it), the steam just provides the energy it requires.

The way I view Steampunk is this: "It's atomic power in a backpack."

I first considered the possibility while watching the anime movie [u]Steamboy[u], where everybody was talking about this "Steam Ball," but when they talked about the process of how it worked they were close to describing a nuclear reaction.

Some of the Nemesis arcs come right out and SAY that Nemesis' hordes are atomic-powered. Steam is just the method of moving turbines (in this case, lots and lots and lots of tiny turbines, all riddled throughout the machine's or power armor's powerplant), which then provide the energy to charge the Nemesis Staffs, the Fake Nemeses, Warhulks, the armor that protects these otherwise normal humans from punches that hit like dump trucks and so forth. However, at the core of it all beats an atomic heart. Nuclear power is used to superheat the water at a rapid pace, producing the required steam and empowering the mechanized forces.

I would think that if Nemesis' soldiers realized they all essentially had Fat Mans strapped to their backs, they wouldn't be quite so loyal.

Another explanation is that they're tunneling one way and you "head them off at the pass."

Grey's Army got an update. I finally finished the arc that deals with taylor's fight against the Sanguimancer, a large spike-armored brute that essentially bathes in the blood of its enemies.

There's a certain element in the end, it describes what the Sanguimancer did with victims it didn't kill. If you're bothered by the idea of vivisection or "flesh crafting," I would recommend stepping through the last portion with trepidation.

I guess the question is whether or not this is going to continue. So far, it looks like it's from the point of view of a Vahzilok zombie that might be more of a success on the experiment than Vahzilok ever expected.

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It turns out he's descended from people who funded or otherwise supported the Third Reich. However, they had little to no idea what the government was actually doing at the time, feeling their support would keep them blissfully safe, so they maintained a state of ignorance until the Allied forces revealed the atrocities of the Holocaust. Upon realizing the scope of what their monetary support had helped bring about, Grigham's great grandfather fled the family in shame to America where he restarted his life as a laborer.

When Gordon came of age, his grandfather told him the truth about the family's history. Now, it's somewhat strange for me to have a character who feels he needs to help right the wrongs of his family's past, as I don't believe in "inherited sin," but this made a surprising amount of sense to me, that Gordon would try to do something to absolve himself of this horrid taint he suddenly felt.


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This fellow needs to meet Sofia. He really, really does. Though I am not at all certain whether she will help his sense of guilt or, on the contrary, augment it a thousandfold.

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That's just the thing. I don't know either.

Like I said, I'm not a believer in "inherited sin" (as such, baptism makes even less sense to me, as it was explained as a means of "washing away Original Sin"), so I have trouble with the idea that a person needs to make up for the transgressions of the past generations. I can understand those who take up the cause on their own, but I don't understand why it must be thrust upon any group of people.

But Eisen does, and that's a strange feeling to have lodged somewhere in the back of your mind. It makes my personal reactions playing as him feel strange to me, but they're genuine.

See, my problem with the concept of inherited sin is that the successive generations simply cannot do enough to cleanse themselves. It just won't happen.

The reason, as I see it, is that they weren't the ones to commit the crimes, so there's nothing that they really can atone for. They weren't there to make the decisions, and there is absolutely nothing they can do to fix the damage done by it.

Most of my characters live in the moment. They are doing the best they can, right now, and will deal with the repercussions of any flaws in their strategy later. When a villain tells them that it's their fault he kidnapped a bus of schoolchildren because they stopped him from ransoming the mayor, they don't accept the blame, either, because stopping someone from committing a crime doesn't mean that they're responsible for follow-up attempts. We all make our own decisions in life, and we have to live with them. There's no sense blaming others for our own travesty.

Which I guess is why I can understand Eisenherz. It's convoluted, I know, but until his early twenties, he just thought he was anybody else in the U.S. He acted like any normal guy would. When his grandfather told him the truth of his heritage, though, it was like a shot in the gut.

It didn't matter to him that his great grandfather and grandfather rebuilt the family from next-to-nothing (in this case, barely enough money to eat, not a couple grand stashed away) as their form of penance. It didn't matter to him that he personally had nothing to do with the Holocaust. He decided that he owed something for his family's role in history, and he's still acting on that decision. I may not agree with the feeling, but I can respect the decision.

A red, back-curved crescent blade that smelled of death and decay arced through the air and crashed against the tempered steel of Taylor’s Nullifier Mace. The second blade, a similarly colored, slightly less-curved weapon that was also bent forward instead of back, swung up from below, narrowly missing the operative as he pulled his head back in the nick of time.

Daniel drew his assault rifle with his left hand and, bracing it against his hip, he fired a volley into the belly of the armored brute. Bullets spanged off the enchanted steel, and the Sanguimancer merely laughed, but he didn’t notice the spiked mace swinging through the air to smack against his head.

Unfortunately, Taylor’s balance was off, so he only landed a solid blow against the monster’s shoulder. The Sanguimancer sidestepped after the blow and was able to avoid a follow-up strike, but was unable to reach the now-fleeing operative.

Roaring, he chased after the smaller man. All he knew was rage, and he had to feed his blades and armor with blood. Ghost Widow had tried to use his need for violence, as the brute was a surprisingly effective weapon, but his inability to distinguish friend or ally from foe had grown worse and worse as the months wore on. It was barely a year since she’d acquired him, and now he was a complete and utter detriment to Arachnos.

Hopping over the broken bodies of his erstwhile companions, Taylor once again had to consider just how messed up the overall plan of Arachnos had to be. Hiring freelance criminals was one thing, but to employ strange and unstable things like this was a threat to the goals of the organization, regardless of what the final outcome would originally be.

“Have I told you I’m considering retirement, Null?” he gasped as he tore down the hall.

“After all you’ve accomplished?” the Exterminator replied, “When you’re done with that thing, you might want to check upstairs… I can see you fighting him clearly, but I still can’t see up on that top floor.”

Taylor wasn’t paying much attention anymore, though, as he’d reached a balcony and did the first thing that came to mind. Bracing the head of his mace against the floor at the base of the rail, he threw himself over the top and landed his feet just on the other side. Leveling his assault rifle on the Sanguimancer, he lobbed a pair of grenades at him and pulled up his mace, causing him to drop to one of the decorative trees below. The big armored man chasing him roared as the rounds connected and detonated, the first unleashing the corrosive venom that degraded the integrity of a target’s armor, the second a classic fiery blast that singed the man inside the armor.

When Taylor looked up from the branches he’d landed in, he saw his target glaring down at him, red eyes glowing fiercely as smoke wafted from the creases and articulations of his armor. It was a surprisingly mobile suit, allowing for an incredible amount of agility, but Taylor knew that the more complex the armor, the more weak points it had to have and the easier it was to get at the man inside.

Still, that wasn’t accounting for magic supplementing those weak points, but from what he’d seen so far, that didn’t seem to be the case. He should be able to fight this logically.

With that in mind, he leveled his Nullifier Mace at the roaring brute and fired off an energy grenade that blasted the monster back. The Sanguimancer stumbled back to the rail and pulled itself over the side. When he hit the ground, the pain he suffered only further fueled the rage burning through his head. He would have his revenge on this puny man who thought he could stop him from drowning these islands in an ocean of blood.

He stood and chopped his back-curved blade through the tree. The operative had to be in there somewhere, but the smaller man was gone. Slightly confused, but no less enraged, the Sanguimancer started randomly hacking and slashing into the walls. However, when he went to take a breather, he felt a heavy weight smash against the back of his head.

“Cloaking device,” Taylor hissed as he materialized.

The Sanguimancer swung with a backhanded left that brought the back-curved crescent blade arcing for Taylor’s head. The operative backed away, barely getting clipped on the front of his helmet and he stumbled back into the wall. As the Sanguimancer advanced, he leveled the mace on the big man and fired a volley of energy that slammed into the brute and toppled him over.

Before the Sanguimancer could push himself back up, he felt something press against the side of his helmet. Turning, he saw the red gem of the Nullifier Mace and a bright dark-hued, multicolored flash slammed into his eyes. As the big man lied on the floor, Taylor walked away, muttering.

“Thanks for giving me a clear shot to your face…”

There was a roar, and he looked back to see the armored brute vaulting back to his feet and charging after him. Daniel ducked and rolled out of the way, barely avoiding getting trampled by the spike-armored boots, and the Sanguimancer slammed through the wall. Confused as to how the big man could still be able to fight, the operative tried to activate his cloaking field. As his form wavered in-and-out of focus, the big man slammed through another wall and crashed into him, throwing him through the previous hole.

Stumbling and confused, Taylor looked up to see the crescent blade coming down for his head. He twirled away and leaned heavily against the corridor wall. He could see his mace a little further down the hall, but the Sanguimancer didn’t seem too likely to let him retrieve it. The forward-curved blade came racing at him and Taylor dropped to the floor. Kicking the brute’s knee with his shin guard, the big man dropped as well and Taylor followed up with another kick to his face.

This was his chance! He had to get to the fallen weapon. He could have just stumbled back into the other room and retrieved his assault rifle, but it lacked the power to take down truly super-powered threats, it simply helped him weather the minions of the various organizations he found himself pitted against and provide small advantages against his stronger foes, but to really stand a chance, he needed the mace.

Pushing himself to his feet, he staggered down the hall. The Sanguimancer pushed himself up shortly afterward and threw one of his blades at the fleeing operative. Taylor cried out as the crescent blade carved his thigh and he dropped to the floor. The blade returned to the chuckling monster as he stood back up and started plodding toward the fallen man.

“I almost think I enjoy this more,” the big man’s voice sounded deep and gravelly, “Cutting down you whelps who think they can stand up to me. I can’t wait to see how well I fare against even the likes of Lord Recluse and Statesman… Once I’ve buried their cities under mountains of dead…”

“It’s always the same,” Taylor gasped as he crawled away, “Everybody always thinks they can take on the big dogs… Some [motorscooter]’s always thinking he can ice skate uphill…”

“I don’t know why you’re still trying,” the Sanguimancer jabbed his forward-curved blade into Taylor’s leg, poking through the calf muscle and pinning him to the floor, “You’re doomed. Your whole planet is doomed, and I’m going to slaughter everybody, one-by-one. I started with your friends in that pathetic squad the ghost woman assigned to watch me. Now I’m going to continue with you and that strange thing I heard you talking to.”

Fighting through the dazzling pain lancing through his leg, Taylor popped open the panel on his wrist guard and hit a button. A red light started blinking and he grunted as another blade found its way through his armor and into his shoulder blade.

“And just what was that supposed to do, Operative?”

Turning his head as far as he could, Daniel pulled back his right arm and balled his hand into a fist. To answer the Sanguimancer, he extended his middle finger and slumped to the floor in exhaustion.

A heavy weight slammed into him afterward and was rapidly removed. He felt the blades slide free of him and he writhed painfully for a few seconds before looking up to see that the Disruptors he’d called in were busy hammering the brute down with electrical blasts. Surprised, exhausted and injured, the Sanguimancer dropped to one knee before Taylor reached his Nullifier Mace, leveled it, and blasted a glowing scorch mark into the bigger man’s back.

The Sanquimancer slumped to the floor again, gurgling, and one of the Disruptors jabbed into the visor with one of its legs to be sure he was dead. Taylor started applying doses of Regenerator to his wounds and radioed Exterminator Null.

“I think he’s down… He got back up a while back, knocked me around… I had to call in Disruptors…”

“I saw,” came the reply, along with a strange thudding sound; strangely, it didn’t sound like he was outside anymore, either, “Hang on, I’m almost there.”

A moment later, there was a small gust of air as Null appeared in the hallway next to Taylor. He looked about cautiously, but the scene was clear. Without a word, he approached the prone form of the Sanguimancer, removed the helmet, and crushed the head with the elaborately decorated Nullifier Mace many Arachnos agents had come to call the “Executioner’s Mace.”

There was no red energy burst to signify that the Sanguimancer was teleporting to a nearby Arachnos medical facility. His insurance was revoked. He was dead.

“Ghost Widow and Scirocco are definitely going to want that armor,” Taylor muttered, “I hope we can convince Sands to find a way to avoid making the delivery.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that will be difficult,” the Exterminator replied, a small hint of disgust tingeing his voice as he approached Taylor and looked him over, “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah…” Operative Taylor muttered, “I think I’ll be alright…”

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“No problem, man.”

Sands was almost laughing as his troops wrapped the armor up in some strange polymer sheet and tossed it into reinforced crates. Apparently, he really didn’t have any intention of turning the suit and weapons over to Ghost Widow. However, the promised rewards were somewhat lacking.

“Now’s the part where you tell me that I can’t get into the Corps yet,” Taylor growled as Sands opened his mouth, then as he shut it, “Damn it, man… Why am I even helping you?”

“Because you like torturing yourself?”

The Operative and the Exterminator leveled cool gazes at the Arbiter and Sands nodded.

“Look, man, I tried talking to Daos, but the guy is definitely blackballing you on this. If you want back into the Arbiters, you’re going to have to do something for yourself.”

“I have settled all sorts of issues! I risked my life on a God damn suicide mission! This was trivial compared to that, and this… THIS was what you told me would get me back in, and you lied to me!”

“I never explicitly said-…”

“You implied it, and you know it! You’re playing me, Sands, and I’m sick of it!”

Daniel removed his helmet so his old friend could see his face clearly. While the Operative certainly seemed angry, he didn’t look like he’d lost his faculties. He seemed calm and collected, as if he knew exactly what he was saying.

“I’m not doing anything for you anym-!”

“Sir!” another operative shouted, from above, “You’ve got to come see this!”

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The top floor of the building was a charnel house. Entrails and gore were splattered on the walls, floors and ceilings. There were bodies from all the various factions that operated throughout the Isles, from the Coralax and small gangs like the Skulls, to the military organizations like the Council, Malta Group and even Longbow. It seemed like the Sanguimancer had amassed quite the collection of grisly trophies, turning his abode into a literal nightmare.

“What’s that sound?” Sands asked as he wandered the chambers.

“It’s what you need to see, sir,” the operative seemed exceptionally disturbed, “It’s just at the end of the hallway here…”

They continued on while the two companions stopped to look about in bewilderment. The Exterminator’s head was flitting about in rapid agitation. He seemed to be taking the whole spectacle in as quickly as he could, and his friend thought he might be enjoying it at first.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Null murmured as he looked closer at the wall, “Daniel… It’s all still red…”

“I can see that,” Taylor replied, somewhat relieved that his friend wasn’t entirely a bloodthirsty assassin, as he nudged a Longbow soldier’s leg with his boot, “Still soft. Kind of hard to amass a collection like this in a couple days.”

“This wasn’t a couple days’ worth of bodies. Not even for something as deranged as that guy.”

“Weeks? Then, shouldn’t this place smell a whole lot worse?”

“Oh my God!” they heard from ahead and rushed to join Arbiter Sands. They found him standing, horror-struck, in the middle of a large chamber. All along the walls, ceiling and floors were a series of what looked to be vines, but they were too fine and delicate at times. Some brown and tan patches provided a method to cross the blood vessels without damaging them, but the surface was peculiarly soft and spongy. In the center of the chamber was a bizarre sack that pulsed and throbbed…

“Oh my God,” Taylor gasped, “It’s… It’s their HEARTS!”

The entire chamber, the entire top floor of the building, was alive. Every corpse, every critter the Sanguimancer had collected, he’d intertwined. He made them live off each other, constantly in pain, constantly feeding the monster who’d done this to them a never-ending supply of blood. It was hideous, it was aberrant.

“I don’t even think Mako would do something like this,” Arbiter Sands whispered, his eyes locked on the sack of hearts, “Just… How!?”

“Perhaps he could manipulate flesh like that,” Taylor suggested, “I mean, all the research we have on the Sanguimancer just has him as a powerful warrior, little more than a berserker… But you really think that’s all that would frighten the Oranbegans or the Mu?”

“But this is beyond the scope of Vahzilok! This is completely insane!”

Taylor smirked.

“This is what Recluse wanted. Now the monsters are in our back yard, turning our playgrounds into warzones, our homes into dungeons.”

“That’s exactly why you can’t come back, Danny,” Sands replied, “You’re not a believer anymore.”

“And you are?”

Sands didn’t reply. Instead, he waved for the exit.

“Everybody out. Get out, now!”

“Sir,” the operative who’d brought them to the top floor protested, “We have to catalogue this! This needs to be reported!”

To answer that, Sands spun around and unloaded his assault rifle into the sack of hearts. Here was a horrible keening sound as the people interconnected throughout the chambers died, but when it was over, the operatives knew that they’d done some good.

“We didn’t find anything here,” Sands muttered, “Just to be sure… Burn it.”

“Yes sir,” the operative gave a quick salute and rushed downstairs to get other operatives to help.

The other three stood silently in the Heart Chamber, staring at the gory mess that surrounded them, but the Operative and the Exterminator were looking more at the Arbiter. This had been a good example of a situation growing out of control, but what was worse was that this was merely one among thousands.

“How many actually apply to Operation Destiny?” Taylor asked, “How many just turn their backs on us and go about turning the world into this? We’ve opened up the loony bin, and the scum of the Earth are tearing apart our doorstep!”

“And I take care of it!” Sands shouted, rounding on Taylor angrily and punching him in the face, “You want to know where my loyalties lie!? I’m with Arachnos! Why? Because they’ll win! How do I know that!? Look around you! This is the sort of thing Arachnos uses! There is no such thing as ‘too far’ for us! We will pay any price, make any sacrifice! And when things get out of control, I will take care of it!”

“But you didn’t take care of it!” Daniel came rushing back, shoving his old friend against the sack, “You see this!? This is all you did! One magazine of bullets! I killed the guard! I killed the maker! You, and the rest of the Corps, you don’t get it anymore! When we have to call someone else to do the job, we’ve already failed! Everything Lord Recluse wanted, we should have been the ones to do it! It should have been us! We should have been the Destined Ones! But you don’t do anything for yourselves anymore!”

“You don’t know what’s going on!”

Sands shoved his friend back and stepped away from the hearts. Some were still beating, but they couldn’t support the mass. They’d be consumed in fire soon enough, anyway.

“I know what the future of the Destined One is,” Taylor said coldly, “He dies, or she dies, the operative word is ‘dies.’ We all die. Recluse picks up the pieces, if there are any, and rules an empty, broken world. That’s why I don’t have faith in Arachnos anymore. It’s why I wanted back into the Arbiters. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to change the situation.”

“You can’t do that,” his old friend sighed, “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”

“And I’m not going to.”

Daniel turned and started walking away.

“I’m done with this.”

“They’ll come after you,” Sands called after him, “And they’ll send your friends to do it!”

Null didn’t say anything as he watched his friend leave. Sands continued as if he hadn’t made an implication as he followed Taylor to the elevator chamber. As the doors to one of the cars opened, he shouted.

“That Night Widow with the cute butt? She’ll be the one to stab you in the heart!”

“I’ll die, then,” was all Taylor said before stepping into the elevator and pressing a button, “Goodbye, Jeffrey.”

Sands’ eyes went wide as the doors closed. He pounded against them angrily, but there was nothing more to do.

Most of my characters are explained in my works of fan fiction. They lay their motivations and discontent right out for the reader (whether or not the reader believes it, such as the case of my poor, unfortunate Roland Grey), so I don't have much to say here for the most part.


Still, I do have one character I haven't gotten the chance to explain in detail, despite my recent enjoyment of him.

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The one character I've got that I haven't had a chance to explain much of is Eisenherz. I introduced him in a side story where he and his team pick up Nester and Ezekiel Durj in the middle of a short city-wide Praetorian invasion, and always liked him in the sense of a "no-nonsense" Tanker.

I made him a couple times, first as an Invuln/Mace Tanker, later as a Willpower/Mace Tanker, but these things never set well with me. Then Shields came out, and I decided I simply HAD to rock him with the shield.

I haven't been disappointed.

As I play my characters, I... I don't know. I start to develop their story subconsciously, I guess, and what I wound up with for Gordon "Eisenherz" Grigham (the names that make up his civilian identity were two separate names my brother used for Paladin/Knight characters whenever he roleplayed; I figured it was fitting) was chilling.

It turns out he's descended from people who funded or otherwise supported the Third Reich. However, they had little to no idea what the government was actually doing at the time, feeling their support would keep them blissfully safe, so they maintained a state of ignorance until the Allied forces revealed the atrocities of the Holocaust. Upon realizing the scope of what their monetary support had helped bring about, Grigham's great grandfather fled the family in shame to America where he restarted his life as a laborer.

When Gordon came of age, his grandfather told him the truth about the family's history. Now, it's somewhat strange for me to have a character who feels he needs to help right the wrongs of his family's past, as I don't believe in "inherited sin," but this made a surprising amount of sense to me, that Gordon would try to do something to absolve himself of this horrid taint he suddenly felt.

So, he of course turned to the stories his grandfather told him about the family's ancestral magic armor, a suit that was capable of "shrugging off arrows and bolts like they were pebbles and deflecting swords and spears as if they were kindling," and made a trip back to Germany. Reconciling with what remained of his family in the Old Country wasn't easy, but they were surprisingly receptive to his idea of doing something to cleanse the family name, so they helped him reacquire the pieces of the family's armor and reform the local legend, "Ironheart."

Feeling there was no better place to prove himself, he came to Paragon City. He works as a private security guard and often provides supplemental security for armored car runs when he's not investigating Council plots or helping defend the city from larger, more immediate threats.

My Beautiful Misery has a new chapter.

Malaise has a talk with Calvin in an effort to learn what he can about how he can best help him get out of Praetorian Earth.

Mind you, this supposes that contacts in the game remain "good," even in Praetorian Earth, for whatever reason.

I had Malaise say it best early on: "You can't be a monster without victims."

He actually believes me when I calmly explain to him that I’m from an alternate Earth. He doesn’t quite understand it, but he says that while they were torturing him, he memorized Malaise’s mannerisms, and apparently I don’t twitch as much. I didn’t even realize I twitched at all.

Apparently, that was the point. I guess I’ll have to attribute the lack of a nervous tick to the “mental block” if it gets called out.

Calvin doesn’t understand why I can’t just let him go. Frankly, I’m having trouble understanding it myself. I could let him go and let Mayhem assume he’d escaped, but then she’d probably start pushing to “fix” my nonexistent mental block so I can put him back in that state when (not if) they recapture him. Then there’s the possibility, this is actually more probable, that she’d realize that I’m not her Malaise.

When I explain that he runs a good chance of getting captured again, and that they’d probably follow him to his daughter first, he agrees. That’s the big issue at the moment, Calvin and Aurora’s daughter. If it weren’t for her, I could gather Calvin up, wreck Antimatter’s laboratory, and hop back home.

I blink as I realize how over-simplified that plan is. I’ll be waltzing into a world of pain if I don’t hash out something better. Time for that later, though…

“Maybe you can find Cheryl and make sure she’s safe,” Calvin suddenly says.

“You trust me that much?” For a moment, I’m flabbergasted. It’s the first time anybody’s just simply trusted me without trepidation. Indeed, I feel bright, gleaming hope radiating from him.

It feels weird. It’s pleasant, but weird.

“Well, you come from a world where you’re a hero, right?” he looks up at me, “You can’t be as bad as that other guy…”

I could be. I was. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. If I’d had more time, more experience, I’d have done worse, far worse than what I just rescued Scott from.

But…

I like to think he’s right. I’m not that guy. Not anymore. It’s been a couple years, now, and I’ve been doing pretty well. I’ve been away from my meds for a couple days now (in truth, I’d already been taking them sparingly), and I feel fine.

I should start talking to Shalice again when I get back. I think I should get into a more structured therapy and not a never-ending battery of psychiatrists… But I’ll deal with that later…

Now. I have to focus on now, and that means I have to…

“Okay…” I finally say, “I came here to find out what the Praetorians are planning. They ported the Malaise you know to my world, probably in an attempt to get him to overpower me and take my place among the Vindicators.”

“Who?” Calvin asks, clearly boggled. The Praetorians he’s used to have their groups as small armies with one central leader: Battle Maiden’s warrior hordes, Infernal’s demons, Malaise and Mother Mayhem’s lunatics or, the most numerous, Marauder’s thugs. Apparently, the idea of powerful meta humans working together for a common purpose never occurred to him.

“The group I work with… Good people. They… They’ve helped me be a hero. They’re pretty high up in the circles, too, so if Evil Me got in there, he’d have been in a position to cause a lot of damage.”

“I see…”

“Well, I need to find out what these guys are doing, sabotage it if I can, and try to find a way out of here at the same time…”

Calvin looks at me and I sigh. I know what he’s thinking. What about me? is written plainly on his face.

“Now there’s you…” I level my gaze on him, “Calvin, back in my world, wound up causing me to be broken from my link with Sister Psyche, the good version of Mother Mayhem. This caused a massive psychic backlash that thrust me back into the darkest depths of my mind and I… I was poised to do some terrible things. Your opposite on my world took a lot from me… The respect and trust of my peers, my freedom…”

He looks at me, worry creasing his face.

“Which is why I’m going to help you.”

Confusion radiates from him. I sense something else, too, and it’s not here. It’s a presence approaching, but it’s still miles off. Mayhem’s coming back, so I need to wrap this up.

“Look… We all have trials in our lives. Call them what you will, ‘tests of character’ for instance, and I think this is a big one for me. I’m going to try to help you and your daughter get out of this Hell. I have to. But for now… I need to put you back in the dark place I found you.”

Fear radiates from him this time. He doesn’t want to go back. I don’t want to send him there again, but I can’t let him act as if her were locked in a trance of pain.

“Look… It’ll have to be the same as what you were going through before, but… I can add something… Call it a flavor or a fragrance… It’ll be a slight sense of hope in that place of darkness…”

“I’d rather the old vision,” Scott muttered, “At least then, if you didn’t come back, I wouldn’t wind up tormented with the thought that the nightmare would soon be over for all eternity…”

“Good point,” I murmur, “Well… If that’s what you desire… I promise you, Calvin, it’ll be over soon. I don’t place my word on a lot of things, but this is one of them. I won’t forsake you.”

“Alright.”

“Before I do this, though… As trite and horrid it is to ask this, even when you don’t have any reason to trust me… But I need to know where your daughter was before you were captured.”

He glares at me.

“Calvin… I’m a little better at pulling information from people than my counterpart, but it’ll hurt you. Badly. I don’t want to do that. Just… Look, I don’t want to threaten you, I don’t want to argue with you, but if there’s anything you can tell me about where to look…”

“There’s nothing you can give me to guarantee I can trust you,” he says darkly, “Why should I?”

“I just gave you my word, Cal. That’s… That’s my last bit of honor… The last thing I’ve got to give. If I don’t fulfill this promise for you… I’ve got no reason to call myself a hero.”

It’s scary how true that is…

Calvin looks at me a moment. Finally, he nods and leans back in his chair and clasps his hands to his knees, just the way I found him.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says and I approach him, forming the nightmare loop in my mind as I do so. I wait with my hand just next to his forehead and he takes a couple deep breaths. When he looks up at me, he mutters a name before I press my fingers to his skin and shunt him back into his scary prison.

----------

“My dear Malaise,” Mother Mayhem almost sings as she enters my chambers, “I sensed-Oh! What is this?”

“It’s the monstrosity I ran into in that other world,” I reply with a slightly feverish inflection, “It’s been plaguing my dreams… I was thinking… Maybe if I painted it… I could quell the visions and maybe break through this mental block.”

“Interesting…”

She almost yawned. I’m a little bothered by that. I might be putting too much effort into… Ah, screw this…

“My dear,” I turn away from the painting, rise and reach out to her face, “My love… You don’t understand… Being walled off from your mind is more than I can bear… I miss being able to concert my visions with you as we form and shape the minds of our patients. I miss being able to rest within the dark mire of your mind to ease the sorrow of my own…”

I can’t go though explaining myself to her. She doesn’t care. She’s evil, self-absorbed and increasingly impatient. I have to make my explanation about her or else this isn’t going to work.

That means sacrificing my sensibilities in regards to how “personal” I get with her. She and Malaise have a close, perverse relationship. While my affections were known (and shot down) by Shalice, Mayhem seems to have either twisted her Malaise into being enamored with her, or she returned his affection (or reciprocated his lust, whichever makes more sense; it makes my head hurt to think about it). So long as I don’t wind up in bed with her, I think I can…

Mayhem swooned as I finished conveying how much I miss massaging my ego with her mind. Damn it… There’s innuendo in that somewhere… I know it…

I wish brain bleach did exist. Then I could forget this next part.

Before I could react, she closed the distance between us and kissed me. It was passionate, aggressive, and more than a little thrilling. As much as I’d ever wanted to do this with Shalice, though, I did not enjoy this. It had the ugly stain of “You’re mine, and you know it!” smeared all over it. She ground herself against me, and I had to will myself to keep from vomiting. This is so wrong it hurts, and I’m losing my concentration on my mental block. I push her back and gasp for breath, and she presses her fingernail to her lower lip.

“Want to go to my room and have some fun in front of my husband again?”

She wraps her arms around my neck and gazes into my eyes. I suddenly have a vision of Tyrant glaring down at her and the rest of the Praetorian entourage, demanding answers for why progress into invading Prime Earth is at a standstill. There’s an image of Antimatter blaming the latest setback on me…

Which is right… In both a technical and practical sense.

Heh.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” I whisper as I untangle her arms from around me, “But I’m just inspired right now… I simply must finish this painting as soon as possible… Then… Then we can be together…”

“Oh…” she sighs disappointedly, “You tease me so much…”

“It will all be over soon, Mother-dear,” I intone with all the romantic inflection I can muster.

Hey! I’m French. We’re known for this sort of thing!

Amazingly, it works… I think… She pouts a little and nods. It’s odd to think that even an evil monster like her could feel… Affection? It’s lust, I know that much, however… There are the building blocks of a stronger desire in there… They’re smashed to bits under the force of an atomic blast of pure evil, but it’s there, deep down, she genuinely wants Malaise to love her.

When she’s gone I race to the bathroom and empty my stomach again. I can’t take too much more of this. I have to plot my course and get the Hell out of here.

I’ve got a lot of Steel Canyon worked into the painting now. Now I need to plot the major points of my egress and determine the best course to get from here to Antimatter’s laboratory. From there, I should either be able to utilize the devices he made to escape. I get the feeling he’s one to feel confident in his abilities… Plus, the damn thing technically did work, so he would certainly make more.

So I guess my plan looks something like this: Find Eve Dorn, she’s the one whom Calvin last left his daughter with. Rescue the girl, Cheryl, rescue her father, get to Antimatter’s lab, set some bombs (surprisingly, finding those should be the easiest part of the plan), port back home and let the latest scheme to assault my home and the people I care the most about get blown sky high.

Clutching the toilet bowl, I chuckle a little. I’ve made a good plan for myself. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes wrong.

Merry Christmas!

Wait...

That's not right...

*shakes top hat, magic dust sprinkles out*

What the-!?

Happy birthday, T!

More Beautiful Misery. It's starting to get into the story and Malaise has found somebody to save...

Calvin Scott.

It was a few days before I could get a chance to see for myself the damage done to “Praetorian Calvin.” Goatee Psyche had… Damn Valkyrie and that old sci-fi show marathon… Well, Mother Mayhem had been called to a meeting in Tyrant’s chambers. It was probably to discuss Antimatter’s new dimension-hopping device and my role in its test. I hoped my story worked to cover me when they told him, but I had a bad feeling that a squad would be sent shortly to bring me before him and his entourage.

I don’t like being in Statesman’s presence, I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like to be in his. Statesman always feels cold and calculating… And sad… It’s a strange sensation. It’s like he never really feels like he’s himself. If Tyrant is the opposite mindset and he’s done all this… It makes my mind boggle as to how disturbing such a mind could be.

Well, to be fair, he and his forces didn’t do all this. The Rikti attacked the Praetorians when they attacked us, too. I’m unclear as to the why; the United Nations reports indicated that the Rikti were looking for super-powered individuals, and the Praetorians fit the bill as well as we did, but they must have made an initial strike and pulled their forces to deal with the more concerted efforts on Prime Earth (my Prime Earth). A little reading over here indicates that only a few heroes (actual heroes, though the history books here decry them as lunatics, maniacs and fools; indeed, it goes on like this even before the Rikti War; perhaps this is part of why the meta humans here try to control things with an iron fist, they feel they’ve earned it after generations of scorn and ridicule) tried to fight back, and Tyrant pulled the other forces back with a “stand down or I’ll kill you myself” order. It worked… The Rikti turned their full attention to my homeworld and left this place in dire straits. They probably intended to come back later and finish the job if not for the intervention of Omega Team…

I should take a note to come back to these thoughts and dwell on them further. We isolated the Rikti from our dimension, but did we also contain ourselves with the Praetorians, Axis Amerika and a host of dimensions that all seek to do us harm? The Shadow Shard is right next to us, too, Rularuu is practically battering our gates (as best as a god who seems torn asunder across his own dimension can anyway), and with the recent peace negotiations with the Traditionalist Rikti, and some talks actually opening up with some factions within the Restructurists, have we cut off the one ally we could turn to if everything goes swirling down the toilet?

I don’t have time to dwell on that now. I have to deal with the matter at hand. Well, I don’t have to, but I’m excruciatingly curious as to the condition of Calvin Scott over here.

When I enter Mayhem’s chambers, I shudder involuntarily. There’s a psychic residue here that simply feels grimy. A lot of it is focused on the (surprisingly well-made) bed, a four-post affair with a sheer curtain. By the shades of the gray, I assume it’s red and pink, but I can’t be certain. The rest of the room has wallpaper covering the Asylum’s gray walls, and the paper has a peculiar floral pattern on it. Normally, I’d have expected skulls or something, but I suppose that even these lunatics still see themselves as the “good guy.”

A whimper at my side causes me to almost jump out of my skin. It’s Calvin, sitting in a simple, armless wooden chair next to the door. A dresser sits next to him, adorned with disturbing, lurid items, and for a moment I feel bile rising to my throat again. Choking it down, I turn my attention to the man who’s restrai-huh. Apparently he’s not restrained.

He doesn’t need to be.

I’m standing right in front of Calvin, but he can’t see me. His eyes, wide open with tears streaming down his cheeks because he doesn’t blink, are darting this way and that, up and down. He’s shaking lightly in his chair as he goes through some horrible torment the likes of which I don’t want to imagine, but I have to see…

I reach out tentatively to his head and brush his mind.

----------

I’m standing outside of a house in one of the suburbs of Atlas Park. I’m not sure which one, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. All of these neighborhoods look the same to me.

The sky is a greenish haze, and I realize that I’m seeing in color again. This isn’t new to me. I’ve often been able to see color in other people’s minds or by using their minds to interpret what was needed. The problem was that there needed to be some kind of connection, like when I pulled that image of Black Scorpion out of that jerk’s mind to find out why Arachnos forces were attacking Talos Island. If there isn’t one, the interpretation is even more garbled than my own brain’s, and I wind up with horribly stretched out or otherwise disfigured images or illusions.

In any case, in Calvin’s mind, the Rikti are attacking. They’ve bombed and blasted most of the towns and his wife, Aurora, has ignored Tyrant’s order. What’s more, she’s actually doing some good at confusing the minds of the assaulting forces. Rikti ships are actually firing at each other and some heroes look like they’re getting ready to help her. In the distance, there is a bright explosion and a shock rips through my mind. Mayhem’s down, I know it. For whatever reason, she was in the sky, either to convince the Rikti to turn away from this world or to placate them by killing Aurora.

Instead, she wound up blasted dead. Aurora seems distracted for a moment, but then she grabs the sides of her head. One of the Rikti ships, the one she had confused to fire on its allies, crashes to the East… Eastgate, the Hollows… A massive plume of dust and fire erupts from the other side of Atlas Park as Aurora crashes to the ground. Whatever shock went through her must have had a feedback effect on the Rikti she was linked with… They died, and the ship plummeted without control.

However, Aurora was beyond caring. She was standing again and looking about her surroundings. She turned to me, but since I was an “observer” and this wasn’t a re-enactment, but a memory, she simply walked through me on her way to her house. Apparently, the Rikti were forgotten now, as not only did she calmly and casually walk back into the building, the entire exterior world, ships, buildings and all, started to disappear.

Not wanting to be privy to a dark space in Calvin’s memory (that’s what happens when somebody doesn’t know something, the knowledge is “dark” because nothing’s there), I decided to follow her. What I found was a demented scene.

Calvin, clutching a bundle to his chest with one arm and clutching a knife with his free hand, pleaded with Aurora to stop whatever madness she was willing on him. Calvin didn’t seem to have a good self image, as the person I saw before me was exceptionally thin and frail while Aurora was… Well… She seemed to be a lot larger muscularly than she should have been. Heck, just moments ago, she looked the way I remembered Prime Earth Aurora.

The knife, I realized suddenly, was not being held in a menacing manner toward Scott’s attacker. Instead, shaking, Calvin was bringing it closer to the bundle he clutched in his arm. I blinked and realized it was a baby. Their baby.

Calvin and Aurora had a child here!

Suddenly, I understood the scene. Mayhem had dived into Aurora’s mind, possibly intentionally slaughtered the Rikti crew she was connected to, and turned to slaughtering the poor heroine’s family. What was worse, she was forcing Calvin to do it himself, and she did it in a way so that he couldn’t consciously resist, but he knew full well what was going on. The knife came to the whimpering child’s head and the world faded to white.

When the light cleared and images came back into focus, I was once again standing in the Scott family’s living room. Calvin was playing with their… By the clothes, I could only assume it was their daughter. Normally, parents didn’t put infant boys in bright pink, but then, some families didn’t care. I always took the Scotts to show at least some concern in such affairs, so I made my assumption.

Aurora walked in and gave Calvin a light kiss on the cheek and I realized that this had to be before the Rikti attacks. I understood the torture, suddenly. He was being forced to see how everything went wrong, over and over and over again… But something felt odd about all of this. There was an urgency to it… Some parts were done sloppily.

Normally, when engaging in this form of psychic torture, the psion implements a less static reality. The suburban scene is a classic, though images of “Heaven” or exotic locales, such as space ships or idyllic forests, are used as well. The idea is that the subject explores the environment and gets comfortable in it. Later, the suburb is raided by terrorists or burglars break into the home, Heaven turns into Hell, the Space Ship is sucked into a Black Hole and the forest burns. It’s the destruction of the comfort that makes the torture work. Once the subject is driven to the brink of despair, the whole process starts over again with the victim waking up and thinking they had just suffered a nightmare.

It reminds me of that movie where the guy has to relive the same day over and over again, but these things can stretch the length of time across days, weeks and the strongest psychics can make people relive whole lifetimes.

This, however, is just one moment of time, frozen in place. Calvin has to re-enact the scene the exact same way every time. It’s like a recording. Nothing changes. What’s worse, it’s like a dream. The clock has no hands, the calendar has no words or numbers. Only a few books on the shelf have their names on their spines, and that’s because they’d caught Calvin’s fancy that day.

This might not even be the day the Rikti attacked. It could be a mish-mash of different memories. Heck, I know I never saw Aurora with that “afro” hairstyle. Ope, it just turned straight. Yep. Definitely sloppy.

Which leads me to realize the purpose of this cycle: They meant for this to accomplish something. Mayhem and my opposite wanted Scott to break, but this was such a poor implementation, he’s just stuck. If he broke, he’d reveal what they want to know, but what would they want to know?

I thought about it a moment. What would Mayhem and Malaise want to know from Scott?

The illusion loop starts over just as Calvin gets the blade to their daughter’s head… Ah… I see, now.

When the loop comes back around, I brace myself and reach for the edges of the memory. Standing outside the memory, like they’re on a wall before me, I’m able to manipulate the little world. It’s like tearing at a painting, or more accurately, a poster. Normally, the analogy would imply that I’m about to cause irreparable damage, but what I’m doing will actually fix what’s already been done to Calvin’s mind.

Maybe…

It should, anyway…

If this were one of the more elaborate illusions I’d described earlier, Aurora would probably have suddenly turned to assault me, as she would be the “Guardian” of the dream. However, she’s locked into her motions as they were “remembered,” and she’s still menacing Calvin when I find the “seam” where the world fades to white and starts all over again. Dragging my finger across it, I start to tear at the memory. With a keening sound and a bright flash, the whole illusion unravels.

Aurora’s form returns to normal as Calvin brings the blade to their child’s head. It’s not quite touching her, and he’s fighting with every ounce of will when Aurora suddenly shrieks and Calvin throws the blade away when he regains control. Aurora’s shouting “No! I won’t let you!” and thrashing about wildly. Calvin is inching away from her and cuddling the child, but he looks terrified. I don’t blame him, he’s way out of his league here and it has to be the first time a problem like this has occurred.

However, his fears are ill-founded as Aurora suddenly throws herself through the window and flies off into the night. I watch her as Calvin does, and that’s when it hits me…

----------


…Calvin hits me and I fall to the floor. My brain is reeling, both from psychic feedback and the fact that he caught my cheek in just such a way that I think some of my blood vessels were popped on the point of my cheek bone.

Breaking him free of the loop has freed him from the chair, and when he looks at me, he only sees the man who put him there. He’s screaming obscenities at me as he straddles me, pinning my arms under his knees and starts to choke me. His face is twisted with rage and hate, and to be honest, I can’t blame him. He’s suffered horribly in these past five years, and mine is the face of one of his tormentors.

However, I’ve learned how to defend myself in ways outside just using my damaged brain to screw with other people’s. As much as I hate to admit it, Libby’s right, and I run the risk of causing serious harm if I just invade people’s heads and mess around. So…

Wriggling, I work to free my arms as quickly as possible. I'm able to get my right arm out from under his knee first and work with that. I snake it over Calvin’s left and under his right. Bracing my hand with my left hand as I barely get its attached limb free with how my body's twisting, I lever my right arm back in front of my face and it simply pops Calvin’s grip off my throat. He’s still got a hand on there, and it’s uncomfortable, but I can breathe again. Besides, I’m not done yet. Now that he’s confused, I hammer my fists against his face and he reels back. I punch him in the diaphragm and he rolls off of me, coughing and spluttering as he briefly loses his breath.

Picking myself off the floor, I glower at him. For a brief moment, I consider kicking him, but that would be too much. It wouldn’t be right, and, frankly, it’s a sign of the old me coming back. For a moment, I chastise myself for the thought, but it’s nice to know I could resist the urge.

“You…” he gasps weakly, “You took everything from me… Everything… But her…”

“I know what you mean,” I rasp, my throat still sore from his throttling, “But you’re talking to the wrong guy.”

He’s not listening, though. He’s lost in his misery while simultaneously reveling in his freedom. I know the feeling. The heroes who beat me after I went mad had no idea why I was so happy when they’d finally knocked sense into me. Simultaneously lamenting the damage done, the time lost, but also loving the fact that it was over…

Well, it’s not over yet, but I’ll wait a few minutes before I tell him that.

Suggestions: Where the good ideas go to die...

It's just two labels down from the City Life forum.

Oh, and an Ice Stalker Hide just HAS to be called "Black Ice."

Oh yes... I remember the debate fondly.

I can't remember what I said then, but currently I feel that a vigilante, especially one who fancies him or herself a hero or heroine, should hold themselves in the highest of moral and honorable standards. Six-Four's assault against Rose's parents is not honorable.

It is, quite simply, a cheap shot. It's the sort of thing villains do when they want to hurt the hero. It would be like Metallo shooting Lois Lane in the leg just to watch Superman's griefstruck reaction.

[ QUOTE ]
The cherry on top of his efforts had been when he’d discovered that the man Daniel Rose was replacing had died. Despite the fact that he’d died innocently of a heart attack, Six-Four had been able to place enough doubt in the DA’s mind to convince him to file for murder as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not heroic.

It's one thing to reveal the truth about somebody's misdeeds so that they can face punishment for their crimes. It's quite another to fabricate evidence or intimidate charges against someone who is completely innocent of the situation. If Ebony Rose went criminal, and we know from previous stories it was somewhat public, her parents would have already been interviewed by the police. What Six-Four did here was criminal itself, and highlights a glaring error in the city's "Do what you want" attitude with its vigilante protectors.

I would expect this to be the sort of case that Chris Jenkins has been waiting for.

My Beautiful Misery

My story of Malaise continues...

And now I have to tread more carefully with my depiction of Praetorian Earth because "Going Rogue" seems poised to either confirm or deny our perceptions of the "Dark Mirror" Paragon City.

Malaise mulls over some of the things Doctor Vasilikos tells him while he makes further plans as to how he's going to escape his current predicament.

((With the recent announcement about "Going Rogue" and the implication that it seems to involve the Praetorians rather heavily, I'm kind of worried as to what will become of my story's "viability." Especially considering what Malaise has to say right now…))

Before I left, Vasilikos- excuse me… Doctor Vasilikos informed me of the resistance. So far, there were a few major groups posing a real threat to Tyrant’s rule. Unfortunately, they weren’t necessarily too keen on working together…

There was the Carnival of Light, the alternate version of the Carnival of Shadows that was apparently an army of average people who were massively improved by their connection to Vanessa DaVore, as opposed to having their minds and souls stripped away by the connection. I almost wanted to meet her an maybe get some insight on the sort of person Vanessa would normally have become if it weren’t for the corrupting power the Prime version had encountered, but there wasn’t much I could gain from such an encounter rather than a satisfaction of my curiosity.

There was the “Global Defense Consul,” or as I would know it, the Council. They were led by Paolo Tirelli, a man I would otherwise call “the Center.” He was assisted by, surprisingly, a consortium of Kheldians that were led by two agents known as Crescendo and Arakhn, as well as the inventors, Gauth (which seemed to be a word that blended Goth and Gaul, though I don’t see what that has to do with the term “vandal”) and Commander Burkholder. Finally, there was the scientist, “Doctor Orlok,” or Nosferatu back home.

The stories went on like this. Apparently, the only groups that seemed to be the same as I knew them were the Rikti, Nemesis Army and the Freakshow. The rest were almost saccharine-sweet or twisted about or turned on their heads. Heck, even Tub Ci led “the Gangs,” an amalgam of the Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, Warriors and Tsoo. He, along with Odysseus, Frostfire, and the Petrovic brothers, leads the street sweeping initiative, combating all the up-and-coming super-powered villains that had pledged loyalty to the Praetorians. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be too effective.

In the meantime, they still had Nemesis trying to manipulate all of them, and when I asked about the “Rogue Isles,” Vasilikos could only look at me with a blank stare. It was a lot to take in. Without input, I figured that the “anti-Arachnos,” and even the “anti Malta Group,” was probably laying really low to avoid getting smashed to bits by Tyrant’s forces. It was a smart plan, apparently, because the public ones weren’t faring too well. Vasilikos, as it turned out, had only a few zombies in his employ. They were powerful, to be sure, but they weren’t what was needed to turn back the tide. None of them were. They could only really slow Tyrant’s forces.

Toward the end of the explanation, I realized that half of what Vasilikos was saying was as much wishful thinking as anything else. He wasn’t really certain of anything, but he did know something about Prime Earth through his work with Malaise and Mother Mayhem. He’d seen the gangs of somewhat-super-powered street toughs battling Tyrant and Marauder’s forces. He’d seen a few soldiers flitting this way and that out of sight from the Praetorians and had heard rumors about whom they worked for.

In the end, I couldn’t be certain I had any support.

As I made my way back to the Asylum, I pondered what I was dealing with. On second glance, Steel Canyon actually wasn’t that bad off, though it was still extremely damaged. People still went about their daily business, but where people on Prime Earth were usually blissfully unaware, these people had a sensation of fear that wafted from their minds. Most ignored the super-powered oppression until it busted down the door and invaded their lives. They all knew, buried somewhere in the backs of their minds, that their illusion of “things will get better” wasn’t going to come true.

It was a depressing state. It reminded me of the times I was commissioned to help Longbow provide security for goodwill organizations. I got to see all kinds of starving people in dire straits. They would be diseased, emaciated, or simply exhausted from trying to work land that refused to grow crops. When they were lucky enough to provide for themselves, then the local warlords would come in and take whatever food they could (and probably murder, torture or worse the people); by the time they arrived, we would be long-gone.

It was sort of the same thing happening here. The people couldn’t count on anything we did to help their condition… And we weren’t really making any concerted effort, to be honest. A few random heroes made excursions into this place, but other than that, we let Tyrant do his own thing. We put Reichsman on ice, but for whatever reason, we didn’t do the same to this guy.

A pair of children saw me approaching and their eyes grew wide with terror. They knew my outfit. They knew who I “was.” They huddled into a corner as I walked past, I could feel their thoughts as they begged whatever gods were above that I wouldn’t take notice of them. I thought it was strange that there was still that form of faith in this world. I would have thought any notion of “benevolent deities” would have been ground out long ago.

I couldn’t do anything for the children except to walk on by, so that’s what I did. With any luck, they’d wind up gaining super powers and grow up to topple the Praetorians, but that was about as likely as a snowball lasting more than a second in Hell.

It gave me something to ponder as I reached “my chambers” in the Asylum. If I want to do what I’m about to do, I’m going to have to change outfits. I can’t simply go about thinking that my “authority” is going to protect me, especially not with resistance groups searching for any weakness in the Praetorian armor. Since most of the forces were either Anitmatter and Neuron’s robots or Marauder’s bandit-like warmongers, they would probably turn to groups that didn’t have such massive support and pick from there. That pretty much only left Battle Maiden in the free and clear, since she had a whole planet of (somewhat) loyal warriors to come to her aid.

People like me, though, we were perceived as “weak” and we’re probably watched like hawks. If my near-encounter with Doctor Vasilikos is any indicator, I’m likely to be shot if I go about alone like that again.

Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something else to wear. I mean, if the Rampagers can do it, so can I. I’ll probably wind up confusing a few people when I do, too.

I set myself to my easel and looked at the page I’d drawn so far. It was a depiction of the Babbage, or at least parts of it. I had a few reasons for this. One, I could explain to Mayhem that I was trying to work through the “mental block” by painting the thing plaguing my dreams. Considering her work with psychology, I would assume she’d understand that. The other thing, however, is that I’m working my plan and my escape route through this. I’m weaving streets and buildings into the gear design of Babbage…

The process helps me to plan and figure where I’ll wind up. There are still elements I’m missing, such as Antimatter’s laboratory. He’d brought that dimensional transporter here, so I need to find my way to his lab and figure out how I’m going to get a hold of another one. Then I need to figure out how to program it to get me home.

Of course, this whole plan relies heavily on one issue: Calvin Scott.

I don’t know why, but when Vasilikos mentioned him, I felt a twitch in my mind. It was like an opportunity had been provided, though I don’t quite know what for. I also don’t know when I made the decision, but I was biding my time for when I was certain Mayhem wouldn’t be around, possibly during the meeting with Tyrant that Antimatter had mentioned. Then I would get a look at the work my evil twin had wrought and see what I could do.

It’s odd. I have a number of reasons as to why I should hate Calvin. Well, not really reasons, they’re more like excuses if I were to be honest with myself. Hell, I used to be a petty and vindictive man, sometimes I still am. So I’m a little surprised that, when I learned what the Praetorian Calvin is being tormented here, my first thought was that I had to help him.

I feel a chill go through my spine. Mayhem is coming down the hall to my chambers. I reinforced the mental blocks, just the way Shalice had taught me, and prepared for another nerve-wracking encounter.

It's both. More disappointment, though.

Still, I hope things go well for the drafted author. Military service can be wrought with peril, but it can also be a surprisingly mundane affair. With any luck, a routine will quickly be hammered out and life can assume a more normal pace for you two again.

[ QUOTE ]
But there's no cake!

[/ QUOTE ]

You wouldn't want to eat the cake, anyway...

Happy birthday, Hulkers. That's another level over and done with.

Sonova-!

Added another chapter to Grey's Army.

Operative Taylor is stalking through the "den" of the Sanguimancer, and the chapter takes a moment to explain the origins of the character. At the same time, there's some banter between him and DeviousMe/Acid Zero's character, Exterminator Null, about Arbiter Sands and his prior claim and capabilities as one of Arachnos' most notorious Arbiters.

“You don’t really think Arbiter Sh-Sands really has that video he described, do you?” Exterminator Null asked as he sighted in the building through a powerful scope.

“What was that?” Taylor asked back as he stalked through the building’s body-strewn corridors, “You know, I kind of wish you were here with me…”

“Not my mission,” the enigmatic Arachnos soldier chuckled through the transmission, “Besides, from what I’ve read about this freak, it’s well within your capabilities. And I was asking if he really had footage of Ms. Liberty in her shower.”

“While I wouldn’t put it past him to try, I doubt he’d actually be capable of that,” Daniel reached a corner and gave a quick peek around it, “He tries to keep himself as safe as possible, but he wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet if he really did have such an item. There are too many people who want to defame Ms. Liberty, and they’d come gunning for him if they ever thought he seriously had something like that… And that’s just the people who don’t have some form of… Amorous obsession… For her…”

Null simply chuckled.

“Then there are the heroes, those who feel it’s their duty to protect her good name would seek him out on just the rumor… Then there are the capes with the aforementioned amorous obsession…”

Taylor shook his head with worry. The bodies strewn about the office building halls and rooms were dismembered, disemboweled or otherwise mutliated. Sometimes, it looked like a set of massive pincers had done the job, but the reality was that it had been two swords, one curved back, almost in a “C,” the other curved forward, like a Kukri. However, the weapons were extremely old, and possibly interdimensional. They came from the time of the first war between Oranbega and the flying city of the Mu. They, along with the armor, made the rampaging monster known as the Sanguimancer.

The name was a misnomer. Usually, anything with the suffix “-mancer” was thought to be some form of frail, wizard-like practitioner of a very narrow (yet often quite powerful) branch of magic. The Sanguimancer, however, was a large, powerful brute that basically bathed and washed its weapons and armor in the blood of its victims. It didn’t matter from whom, but the armor and weapons demanded a near-constant supply of blood. The power they fed the wearer of the armor apparently was enough to corrupt his mind, and he became a nearly uncontrollable berserker.

Recently, a group of Sky Raiders found the lost tomb of the legendary warrior. The walls were scrawled with writing that depicted him first as an agent of Oranbega, then the Mu as their offer proved more desirable. Considering the armor and weapons’ thirsts, it could only be inferred that the reward was a massive body count. At first, the two opposing forces made increasing bids on the warrior, but the Oranbegans eventually realized they were a step away from damning themselves (as this apparently happened before their leadership went ahead and did it anyway), and decided to wage a small war against the man.

Many wizards died in the battle. Ice, fire, lightning, the elements were resisted by the monster... At first. In the end, a charred corpse was pulled from the pristine armor. The surviving wizards used their magic to build a temple in a region that would eventually become part of the nation now known as the Republic of the Congo. The Sky Raiders located it and one of their captains became the modern-day Sanguimancer, one who was ruled by the artifacts, rather than the ruler of them. There was some theory that maybe the original warrior's soul was inside the armor or weapons, but nobody could be certain as he wasn't much for conversation. He wasn’t as powerful as the prior bearer of the armor, but that would change in time.

Ghost Widow thought she could control him. For a while, she was right. Similar to the Wretch, he was a mindless thug she could aim and launch at the enemies of Arachnos. He was used to smash a number of Longbow patrols and bases, just as a message to the organization. However, as he failed to actually slay anybody (according to the file, he had expressed frustration about the whole “MedCom” problem numerous times), his attempts to empower himself were either inconsequential (barely sustaining the rampant bloodlust of the artifacts) or too slow. Apparently, the frustration had come to a head when he was assigned to provide an ambush against some bothersome rogue Arachnos was trying to get rid of. Though she doesn’t know how, Ghost Widow found that her connection to him was severed and witnesses reported hearing gunfire in one of the buildings near the Crey complex in the Nerva Archipelago at about the same time she reported sensing the break.

Now, Operative Daniel Taylor, former Arbiter and current semi-freelance Soldier of Arachnos, had the assignment to bring the monster down. Seeing the broken bodies of average Arachnos soldiers strewn about the halls of the largely unconverted apartment complex, he shook his head miserably.

“I was asking what you were saying before, though,” he muttered quietly through the communicator, “You almost called Sands something else.”

“Oh,” Null shrugged and swept the scope across the building, “I almost called him by his first name. Well, what we think his first name is.”

“Jeez, man. Not even Rein or Apolis know his first name, and they’re probably as good friends as he’ll ever get.”

“You sure? They could just be lying to you…”

“Well, Apolis never really says much, and Rein almost never stops talking… But even when they have spoken about Sands, very little of the guy’s life is known from before his time in the Arbiter Corps. One would think that something would slip out if either of them knew… ‘Tell your secrets to one, but beware of two…’ and all that.”

“What was that?”

“Ah, an old phrase I picked up when I was with the Arbiters. It goes, ‘Tell your secrets to one, but beware of two. All know what is known to three.’”

“Makes sense,” Null said in an amused tone.

He started adjusting his scope and glared through it again. Growling, he keyed the communicator again.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I think the Sanguimancer is on the next floor up. There’s some weird distortion on the magnetic resonance… Thermal’s all hot up there… Think maybe he started a fire?”

“Not really,” Taylor hit the elevator button and waited for the doors to open, “Frankly, I doubt he’d be smart enough to disable the alarms before-!”

Daniel stopped as a blade stabbed through the door seam and the point stopped a few inches from his face. A bell sounded and the doors parted. The Sanguimancer pushed them open the rest of the way and glared down at the black-and-white armored operative. They made quite a contrast, one of average height and build, the other a massive, medieval armored bulk that was adorned with brown-red designs and spikes.

“Nevermind, Null, he’s right here…”