Mr_Grey

“It’s crazy what Crey did to me,” Mynx gasps in shock, “but that man was supposed to be your father!”

We’re on the train, almost arrived in Skyway, by the time I finish my teenage years and start getting into my obsession with art. I say “obsession” because I never really appreciated art the way I should have. Instead, it was a puzzle that confounded me.

By the time I started showing an interest in painting, my colorblindness had taken full hold. It had started simple…

One day, my father, drunk and fired again, started taking his frustration out on me. I took a swing at him and he caught my wrist before slinging me into the kitchen. I’d spun around somehow as I fell and I felt something hard smack pointedly against the back of my head before I blacked out. It was the corner of the table.

When I woke up, I was still on the linoleum kitchen floor, dad was in the living room, staring blankly at a static-covered television. He’d fallen into a sort of coma, himself, though not one induced through the violence I’d just suffered. Hurt, both physically and emotionally, I simply turned the machine off and went to my room to cry myself to sleep.

I didn’t really notice my colorblindness at first. It started with reds and greens. I thought it was peculiar how some of the flowers on my walk were the same color as the grass and their stems. Then, abruptly, they were back to normal. The greens were more lush, the reds more vibrant. I was learning about how my body would be going through changes in school, so I assumed this was part of it.

After a year or so, I was seeing half the day in color, the other half in grays. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know who to turn to. Dad was still this violent, self-absorbed monster, the other kids picked on me because my mother had gone crazy. When she killed herself, they only picked on me harder.

Well, not all of them, but the ones who didn’t already didn’t say much to me anyway.

Ironically, it was in art class that my condition was discovered. I was struck by a “fit” (as I was starting to call the periods of discoloration) just as we entered the classroom. The teacher, a lovely young woman whom I’m sad to say I’ve forgotten the name of, instructed us to paint an image of our house as we remember it. I wish I could show the one I made of my house to one of my psychologists, but it’s locked up in an evidence locker somewhere (that is, if it hasn’t fallen to some ravage of time).

She saw what I’d done and pointed out I’d made the grass blue, the sky pink and the house was a pale shade of yellow. She didn’t mention how it was gaunt and disturbing in a way that none of the houses in Pithviers were, or how I put myself in the window of my room, biting my lip as my monster came home. No, she saved that for when she spoke to the school’s headmaster.

After that, my condition was discovered, the source of it as well… My father was arrested and I was taken as a ward of the state. That’s a nice way of saying they yelled at my father to never do that again, forced him to pay a fine, and threw me in an orphanage.

If they’d thrown him in prison, like they did me, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so bad about it.

...

Okay, so it wasn't prison, but...

More bad things happened in my life, but I prefer not to get into them in any great detail. Suffice it to say, when you have a system centered around the welfare of neglected children, you simply must have the most strict of screening procedures for those you place in any form of authority. I was not so lucky…

“And the supervisor of the orphanage was supposed to be my guardian, my protector…” I reply to Katherine, “Instead, he was just as much a beast as my father… In fact, worse. I remember everything he did to me… Hell… He’s one of the first people I drove mad when my powers manifested in an intensely emotional moment. I used to wish I could do the same to my father.”

The train stops and Mynx and Valkyrie nod. They understand what I’m talking about. It’s not a new story, I’m not the first kid to be abused. Still, they’re sympathetic in a way I never expected anybody to be. In the orphanage, the other kids were going through the same things, or had been through them. They looked at me as the “new meat,” and it was just my turn to shoulder the burden.

We leave the station and head north. The groups of Lost have been either more subdued lately or even more fervent. Some are depressed that their “Great Revelation” was just the second Rikti War, others are still holding out for an even bigger event. Personally, I’m rather frightened of what that could be.

Regardless, they leave us alone. They usually give the newer heroes a rough time as they pass through, but most of everyone who gets past their twentieth security level has broken enough of their friends or had enough stories told about them to be merit being ignored. It doesn’t always happen, sometimes a little kid rises through the ranks as a tanker, so he always looks like someone the “Big Bad Wolves” can push around, but we're not that kid, so we pass unharmed.

Sometimes I wish I was like that kid. I wish I could go through life surrounded by enemies who think they can rip you apart, but supremely confident that you can put them through the nearest wall. Instead, I make their nightmares come alive. If they ever were to realize that it was all an illusion, all a lie, I’d be toast… Just like when Silver Mantis trampled me underfoot.

“Oh yeah!” Mynx chuckles as we enter a Japanese-style restaurant, “I remember that! You were all like ‘You’re not afraid of anything!’ and she just tackled you into the sidewalk! I wish I had a camera…”

“Yeah,” I rub my head again at the memory, “For a second, I was seeing things in color again, too. Didn’t last too long, but still…”

“This place has the best sushi,” the catgirl is already drooling as she has us take seats, “Hey Tom!”

I’m stricken by the fact that the guy behind the counter isn’t Japanese, in fact, he isn’t even Asian. He’s African American. Considering the fact that I’m always bothered when people think I’m from Paris, I should be a little ashamed of myself.

“Heya, Kitty!” the man replies enthusiastically, “Wow! Did you bring any other Vindicators?”

“No, these are the only two on patrol with me. Val, Mal, this is Tom.”

I bristle a little, but I know what Katherine’s doing when she uses our code names. She’s keeping our identities safe. Anybody can go to the F.B.S.A. database and request our information, but still… There’s a principle, and it’s kind of cool that she followed it.

We order our lunches keep talking. I tell them about how I left the orphanage pretty much the day I manifested my powers and got some measure of vengeance against the supervisor who abused me. I traveled the countryside for a while, conning people for the food I needed (I would make the scraps of paper I handed them seem like the money they wanted) until I found myself in Paris.

I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I wanted to see the works by painters and sculptors that teacher had said I could be worthy of (with practice, she meant, but I was a child, so I didn’t think about that part). I saw the work…

But it was all gray.

I couldn’t see them in their vibrancy. I couldn’t see them as they were made by their creators. Sculpture was one thing, but painting… My passion… I couldn’t understand its depth without the color. They were all black and white pictures to me, every single one… I envied the people their ability to see the art in a way I couldn’t. Worse, it made me angry.

So, being of unsound mind and unclear head, as well as being a hormone-churning adolescent (I was in my twenties, I know, but I still felt like a child, which didn’t help my temperament), I decided I was well within the right to use my powers to steal the artwork and burn it all at my leisure. What right did the rest of the world have to appreciate it if I couldn’t? I know it was selfish, short-sighted and completely immature, but I was a dumb kid.

Which makes the fact that I even got away with it all the more surprising. Of course, I went into the Louvre looking like the average tourist, not a costumed freak… Okay not the AVERAGE tourist, because they usually have some ridiculously expensive camera, a backpack and other knick-knacks that say clearly “I’m not from around here!” I just didn’t look like a super-powered interloper.

I looked like an everyday Parisian who took a fancy to seeing the Louvre. I was lucky and there wasn’t a long line of tourists to hinder me. Once inside, I used my ability to make images to try to replace each work I stole. The idea was that the alarms would blare, but the security guards would be confused because the art was still right there…

Everything was fine and dandy as I went in. I’m sure you can guess how it started to go wrong, right? As I super-imposed the image on its original, then I just pulled the original down. I would make the people around me think they saw an average Parisian just standing there, admiring the work.

Like a fool, I first went for the classic that every “super art thief” goes for, the Mona Lisa. Like I said earlier, it’s not THAT spectacular up close, but then… It is. I guess it’s the critic in me conflicting with the artist in me. It’s weird.

I had everything perfect, I had the painting in my hand… Then the world turned gray. The image of the painting on the wall did, too…

“Wait!” Mynx stops me, scoops another sushi roll into her mouth, then continues, “You make illusions in color!”

“Yeah… It takes practice…” I reply, “Here…”

I focus for a moment and a sphere of light appears hovering above my hand. Our chef, Tom, backs away from the counter for a moment. When he realizes it’s not some kind of attack, though, he starts applauding.

“It’s supposed to be red,” I explain and Mynx nods.

“It’s a very bright red,” Valkyrie comments and jabs one of my eggrolls with a chopstick, “Are you eating this?”

“Not anymore…” she didn’t have the hang of the things and had jabbed all of her food like that, then ate off the stick like it was a fork, “Anyway… Let’s see… Yellow…”

It feels like my mind flexes and the orb of light changes a little. To me, it just gets lighter. To them, however…

“Yep,” Mynx stuffs another sushi roll into her mouth and nods, “It looks like a little sun.”

“Now… Now something more difficult… Green…”

I feel that flex again and I can barely see the orb change. I think it’s right…

“Well?”

“It’s kind of green,” Valkyrie purses her lips and quirks her mouth to the side a little, “But it’s still pretty yellow…”

I flex my mind a little more. Needs more “blue…”

“Now it’s just blue,” Mynx announces.

“Damn,” I mutter…

Then the world turns to color. I wasn’t ready for the change and I nearly jump out of my seat. This causes Katherine to chuckle and cough up her lunch a little, but she is otherwise okay.

“Here we go,” I announce and turned the orb into a beautiful emerald.

“Oh… So… You can see color right now?”

“Yeah… For about five minutes. I got away from the Louvre by doing the opposite to everybody there. Made me amazingly tired, but I made them all think the color of the world had spilled out onto the floor… Then I made the colors rise up and chase them.”

“Ew…” Valerie mutters as she imagines, correctly, a bunch of formless masses of color assaulting people.

“What can I say? I passed a Dahli painting on my way…”

So, I wound up with just the Mona Lisa, but it was still a Hell of a steal. The authorities were after me, but nobody knew who I was. My fingerprints weren’t on file and the super-powered world didn’t know what to think of an art thief who makes the world turn black and white and wears civvies. It didn’t take much for me to evade the normal police, either, because I could make them see me as whatever I wanted to be, or make them see their worst fears come to life. It became my favorite trick.

Oh yeah…

What kept me from destroying the painting? Simple. I got my colors back. I had erected some sort of pyre to adorn the work so I could enjoy watching it smolder away. I used old newspapers, discarded cardboard boxes, broken furniture a couple phone books and other garbage to adorn the doomed piece. The entire construct was almost a work of art in itself, it would have been interesting if I could have taken a photograph… All that detritus framing the Mona Lisa, it would have been considered some kind of profound statement by a critic at the time, but I didn’t really have a statement to make. I just wanted to be able to watch it burn, surrounded in flames.

I was all set to press a torch to it when my colors came back and I saw it in a whole new light (yes, the torch light, but I meant figuratively). I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but seeing it like that, the way it sat in that pyre, framed by old milk crates and a broken seat, still waiting impassively for the end… I appreciated it in a whole new way. It struck me, is all; it got to what good remained of my soul and wouldn’t let go.

I couldn’t do it, so I carefully dismantled the wreckage around it and started making new plans. I robbed a couple banks to get myself a plane ticket, forged my identity with more illusions (humans trust their eyesight far too much) and fled the country.

“…And I already told you the rest, and you already know what I haven’t told you, because you were there,” I finish, “Now I sit in the Vindicators offices, filing the paperwork you guys send me about criminals you arrest, how many times you have to go to the medical centers, or which heroes you helped train. It’s amazing I haven’t gone mad from cabin fever, but the tedium does offer me the opportunity to indulge in my hobby.”

“So you’re the one who put that painting of the Freedom Corps logo next to the window!” Mynx’s eyes twinkle and she points.

I look and I see Valkyrie is spearing another of my eggrolls. She shrugs and smiles.

“You know, I’m hungry, too…”

“Well, I missed breakfast,” she replies sheepishly, then takes a bite from the roll while giving what would normally be a sexy smile.

Since I know who she really spends her time with at night, the effect is rather muted. She is, to quote a character in a movie I recently saw that actually didn’t offend me as much as I expect it should have, “persona non-nookie to me."

“No dice,” I shuffled my plate away and started popping California rolls into my mouth, “This is my lunch, get your own…”

I was kidding, I would have shared (I’m actually not that much a fan of eggrolls and I’d ordered a sampler plate), but I was also very hungry. Thankfully, I hit the right notes in my vocalization and they shared a laugh with me. We ordered another round (it’s not very filling food, even if it is nutritious) and Mynx asked me one last question.

“What were you doing in the Rogue Isles when they captured you?”

I could have asked her the same thing. I could ask any of them the same thing. Of course, their answers were nothing with which to be ashamed. Their answers didn’t involve the Malleus Mundi and tricking the Carnival of Shadows to cover me while I tried to change the world.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” I reply before scarfing down a salmon roll, “I’ve already shared a lot… But I would like you to leave this to me. Please.”

They prod me a little, but I refuse to tell them. I refuse to let them know who I’d worked with or what I’d told them to get them to help me. I didn’t want them to know what I’d said to the villain who captured me and I didn’t want them to know what I’d said to the interrogators who questioned me.

I didn’t want them to know how close I came to losing it again. Don’t get me wrong, I went in with the best of intentions…

But with the power of the gods at your fingertips… Indeed, the very forces of creation itself within your grasp…

Well, you know what they say about absolute power…

“Oh, shoot,” Katherine suddenly announces and reaches for the communicator on her hip, “Sidechick’s ticked. We gotta get back to the base before afternoon patrols.”

“Let me guess…” I mutter…

An image of Ms. Liberty, only wearing a goofy clown outfit, appears behind us, hands on her hips and finger pointed square at me. I'd been working on it for about a year and a half. I never thought I'd get a chance to use it, but hey, opportunity knocked...

She shouts “What is Malaise doing outside of the base!?”

Mynx and Valkyrie don’t start laughing until I reach up and poke the rubber nose, eliciting a honking sound.

Yes…

My illusions have come far over the years.

They disappear! People read them, leave comments, then, after a couple weeks of inactivity, they're gone.

In the Roleplaying forum, though, they remain.

That's what I kind of wound up doing, Arashi. It suffers from the fact that some players might not play your first arc, but it's a good way to see how much "mass" your custom group is taking up.

Well, the latest patch went and borked my arcs. As I went to fix them, however, I keep getting "Fatal Errors" and now cannot repair them.

Activating Rage...

I have a bad feeling I know how to fix this, but I would rather not do something so drastic yet...

No, I'm not an artist (I'd try conveying this as a comic if I were ), I've just met aspirants in my life and I've asked them how they do their work. They often tell me their methods, how the whole thing "feels" to them or the approach that's worked best... Despite the fact that I've got very little actual talent, I can usually understand perfectly what they're trying to get across.

Besides, it's not too hard figuring out that a colorblind artist would have trouble painting a spectrum

Oh... I'll take this moment to explain why I figure Malaise is colorblind, too...

In the comics, when the Phalanx goes to Praetorian Earth, Sister Psyche incapacitates the Praetorian Malaise by striking him colorblind. This winds up tearing him up inside so badly as he starts shouting "MY BEAUTIFUL COLORS! THEY'RE GONE!"

And I wondered... Where would she get the inspiration for that? Why would she think that simply plunging him in a world of grays would render a lunatic like him incapable of anything past this sudden stark change in his perception?

Then it hit me: the Primal Earth Malaise. I figured he must be colorblind... A lot of other things about the character made some more sense to me after considering that, his obsession with art, his peculiar outfit (which I figure Serge did as best as he could), and... His abuse.

With the right kind of brain damage, one can lose their ability to interpret colors. What's worse, it can be sporadic at first, so it could be left undiagnosed until it's too late (not that Jean had much chance to get his head fixed, anyway...).

So... This is how I see his story as it's presented to the players. I'm not going to try to focus too much on his history, he's got somewhere he's going here, but I like delving into his past to determine his motivations.

I don't know why, but Malaise's mentality here is really sticking with me in My Beautiful Misery.

This story will probably be a long one, but I do have an ending in mind (unlike my other projects).

Nobody plays my arcs. I understand there are THOUSANDS, but I would think there would be at least be more than two people who've completed them (and that's two that have completed one of them, the other one has been seen ONCE in its entirety as far as I know. I have a sneaking suspicion it was Devious, too, because he's the only person who saw what I'd done initially and whoever played the arcs didn't leave any feedback; he already tells me when we meet in-game what he thinks.

This is how I feel my stories are being received, too

((Give me a moment, Soul Train...

Disclaimer: I make mention at the end of this of a town Malaise may have come from. This is more my flair thrown into his story than any real knowledge I may have. Let me give some background...

I'm from New York (you can see it there next to my forum icon), but I'm not from NYC. Everywhere I've been in life that was outside New York City, though, from Georgia (U.S.A.) to Iwakuni, Japan, it has been assumed that I was from the City.

So, when I chose a town to be Malaise's place of origin, I chose one I figured had a comparable population to some of the communities around me. This is essentially to combat the whole "French people are from Paris" stereotype.

So... Without further ado... My Beautiful Misery, Part 3...))

As much as I like Valkyrie for being like Infernal in the “not looking at me like a rabid dog” department, she suffers me a good deal of heartburn. Before I explain that, let me give a rundown of our experience in Siren’s Call…

Mynx comes back here periodically, pretty much ever since Manticore bombed her face with one of his arrows. This royally ticked her off, and she’s tried to explain it as “I missed out on my chance to beat up real bad guys,” but we all know she’s [ticked] at Justin for… Well… Shooting her in the face with a bomb! I don’t even need to read her mind to know that. I think she’s the only one who hasn’t had a chance to yell at him, too (I’m fairly certain Synapse is afraid she’ll neatly slice his face off; I think he wants to have a camera with a quick enough shutter speed to catch the action before he lets her have the opportunity). It’s been a couple years, some would think she’d be over it by now, but I know how when you feel betrayed, it sticks with you.

They should have let her cut his face off and be done with it. It’s not like MedCom can’t fix it.

Heh. He’ll get better. Heh-heh.

Well, we arrived in the Call (did I just call it “the Call?”) and Agent Brinson handed us a dossier on a villain named Hollow Point. How someone with an gun and some toys thinks he can compare to people like me (with real power!) is beyond me, but somehow he does it. Hell, even Blue Steel is a monster of a tank and all he’s got is a big golden shield and a nightstick (and a Hell of a lot of determination of which I just can’t fathom the source).

It didn’t take us long to find the guy. He was shooting things up on one of the oil derricks and trying to set it ablaze. It amazes me that this place, which is normally lacking in super-powered support of one form or another, hasn’t torn itself apart already.

…

Again.

Well, we reached the Derrick and Hollow Point had a small cadre helping him. I recognized Savage Siren immediately (reading her file made me think the gods were writing in clichés again and that I might have to be the one who rehabilitates her; fat chance of that), but the other one, Silent Blade, was a complete unknown to me. Well, almost complete unknown, I remembered her name and description from the reports I had to file, but everything else I’d plain forgotten.

We dueled and battled with the “terrifying” trio for what felt like hours, but was probably only about ten minutes. It’s amazing how epic these fights sound when people tell them in stories, but to watch them… If you blink, you miss it!

The most I remember is Savage Siren trying to scare me with a scream. Or maybe she was just screaming that she had to fight me (I remember some sense of derision, that I was somehow beneath her “skills”). I returned fire with a rather well-crafted image of my last memory of Silver Mantis attacking me, only turned on her. When I tried the same thing to Silent Blade, though, I swear she tried making out with it…

After that the fight kind of fizzled out. Hollow Point seemed to lose his interest in fighting anymore and we were able to round him and the gibbering psychic up easily. Silent Blade disappeared, however, when she realized she was entranced by an illusion. I remember a sensation of profound embarrassment that faded as it went southeast to the small base Arachnos set up out there.

I wonder how the government can think of Arachnos as any form of humanitarian organization. We are fighting them in the streets in this city (this one in particular)! How can that seem at all humanitarian? Still, that’s the lie Arachnos feeds the world to explain their presence here.

We delivered the two villains to Agent Brinson and started heading back to Skyway City for lunch. Before leaving Steel Canyon, we stopped by Positron’s post at the feet of the giant M-1 statue and Valkyrie talked to some of the newer heroes who’d recently increased their security levels. I don’t really know the methods of my peers, but I never really “trained” the heroes who came to me. I offered advice to the best of my abilities as to how they should develop their powers or let them know which ones might need improvement, but I couldn’t actually show an electricity hurling blaster-type how to electrocute a purse-snatcher. I like to think I did alright, but seeing Val go through some of the motions she did to demonstrate to that sword-wielding punk made me feel slightly ashamed of myself.

When the training was complete, we headed for the Green Line and that’s when she embarrassed me. See, psychics usually aren’t surprised by people. The problem, however, is that some people don’t think before they speak. Valkyrie is one of those people…

“You have a thing for redheads, don’t you?”

At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d been staring at Mynx’s butt and was kind of lost in the moment. The question caused her to perk up for some odd reason and a sense of alarm bristled around me.

“Are you talking about Sister Psyche?” I ask, unsure of her meaning, “Val, that was years ago. I’m over that.”

“No, I’m speaking of our feline friend, here...” Valkyrie gestures and I turn to see Katherine giving her an open-mouthed stare.

“Mynx has red hair?” I ask, this time in a desperate gamble, but I try to sound more confused than desperate.

“Yeah…” Mynx holds some of it away from her head, as if pulling one clump aside would make the color anymore apparent, “I’m a fiery redhead!”

“I always thought you were a brunette.”

They stare at me a moment, and I can sense the disbelief.

“I mean, I always knew you were blonde, Val, you and Libby… And I know Swan has such pale hair it’s white, but red’s difficult for me. I usually assume brunette until someone says otherwise.”

“You’re colorblind?” Mynx sounds kind of sympathetic, “Oh… Mal… I didn’t know…”

“It’s ‘Jean,’ please don’t call me ‘Mal’ or ‘Malaise’ unless we’re fighting someone or something, but yeah, I’m color blind.”

“But you’re an artist!” Valerie is radiating disbelief, “How can an artist be colorblind!?”

“Actually,” Kat starts stroking her chin as she appraises my costume, “It makes a lot of sense all of a sudden…”

“Hey!” I shout indignantly, “I paid Serge good money to get this outfit the way I want it!”

“You… Wanted this… Grape gelatin puke?”

Valkyrie starts laughing boisterously and slaps me on the back as she doubles over. I stumble forward a couple steps, the girl has to realize she’s a lot stronger than most of the people around her, and look at her in mock irritation. The artist in me demands I show dignity in this moment of embarrassment, but I can’t help but feel amused as well.

“No,” I answer calmly as I feel the sensation of amusement creeping over even into the artist portion of my psyche, “I like purple… It’s a smooth, soothing sort of color… The color of royalty. I asked Serge to mish-mash various shades and types of it, from plum to magenta, in a design I created. It’s supposed to be like one of those pictures that if you look at it long enough, it turns three-dimensional.”

“Really?” Mynx asks between chuckles, “That’s kind of cool.”

“Yeah, except there’s no image. It just makes my body seem to bend and warp in ways a body shouldn’t. It’s pretty useful against people who tend to see those images automatically, it plays havoc with their depth perception, and you never know if a villain is going to have that sort of condition…”

“Or a hero,” the cat reminds me and I’m confused again as to whether or not she’s warming up to me or keeping me at the same distance she always kept me.

For a second, I worry I may have just given her ammunition with which to poke fun at me. I know it seems silly to worry about, but her personality is one that takes jabs at people to test them (even if there aren’t any expected results to the “test”), and she’s likely to taunt me about my inability to see color at some future date.

For now, however, I have to deal with the fact that she just insinuated I might go rogue again.

“Yeah, or a hero,” I mutter, “Though I don’t see that being the issue for some time.”

“You’re an artist, though,” Valerie interjects, and I have a slight feeling of discomfort from her, so I’m left to assume she’s trying to change the subject, “Doesn’t the inability to see color make that difficult? You paint!”

“Yes, I paint. I have to rely on company labels on what I buy, then I write on my palette which color is what. I normally start with stark contrasts to make things easier, but for gradual transitions, say from red to orange to yellow, as if I were painting a sunset, I have to operate by memory a lot.”

“That sounds very difficult,” some genuine respect radiates from Mynx and her tail sways back and forth.

I’m not entirely sure how to read the mannerism. Supposedly, she’s in a playful mood, or maybe she just finds my ability to paint despite the handicap fascinating. With human thoughts involved, the mannerisms are muddled. Cats have much simpler tastes.

“It was,” I reply, “But I found actually painting much more cathartic than stealing paintings.”

“What was that like, anyway?” Valerie asks as we start walking up the ladderwell to get to the Green Line station above us, “I mean, what was your motivation for stealing all of those paintings?”

“I don’t know… I think I wanted to burn them, first.”

They stare at me for a moment. I can understand the terror. I once held Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in my hands, with nobody to tell me what to do with it. It’s not as great as movies and television shows make it out to be, but even that helps it. It’s hard to explain… It’s beautiful in its simplicity. That, and da Vinci was a master at painting the human form. He and Michelangelo were exceptional at that in a time when people were essentially passing off cartoons as art, and each for very different reasons.

“I couldn’t do it, in the end,” I explain, “So I turned to selling them… Which led me here to Paragon, because I’d heard of someone who was interested in purchasing stolen art from the Louvre.”

“The Center,” Katherine replies, “I hear he’s a bit of an art critic himself.”

“He’s a bit of an artist, too, from what Psyche tells me. He was never that great, but I’ve seen his work. It’s not bad, just not amazing or incredible. It's just average stuff. Well… She caught my presence in the city because I just threw scary images at people on reflex and had no idea how to mask my psychic activities. Shortly afterward, well… You know the story. She caught me, we fought, and she soundly trounced me. Then, for some odd reason, she decided to help, and here we are.”

We didn’t say much more until we were in the station. I could sense some kind of weird tension building, but I couldn’t figure out the source. While we were waiting for the train, Mynx finally broke the tension and asked me a question I normally don’t feel like getting into.

“So, why did you try to lead an army of criminals against the Phalanx?”

Looking to her face, I saw she was being serious, not playful. This was something that must have bothered her since I joined the Vindicators. I couldn't fathom why she'd restrained herself from straight up demanding this from me before.

Maybe Jessica told her to lay off.

I considered the question for a moment. It was a deeply personal reason as to why I did what I did, even if I was in a fugue. Still, if I were to come to grips with it…

“What I’m about to tell you two, only Psyche, I, and my ever-growing line of psychologists know about. I’m going to tell you because, well, I think I’m ready to tell someone.”

“Oh…” Katherine’s cat ears turn toward me a little and I’m slightly disconcerted (I thought they were fake!).

“Well… Tell us what you feel you can,” Valerie pats my knee and claps my shoulder, signs and reminders of reassurance and friendship, “If you feel uncomfortable, you can stop and we’ll understand.”

“Alright… Well…” I sigh and try to mentally compose myself, “Most people think I grew up in Paris or something… I actually lived outside a town called Pithviers…”

Mynx. After realizing Libby would never want me (took me about a day; I'm not as much the lovesick fool I make myself out to be), I turned to Katherine. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s because she always gave our fearless leader a hard time. It was always in fun, but still…

I just realized I didn’t think of Libby as our “fearless” leader, but as a genuine article… Interesting…

Anyway, I never told Katherine how I felt. I can’t be sure, at the time I didn’t have my mind as open as it is now, but at the time I think she might have been revolted with me. I'd just been hauled out of the sewers, another battered, broken monster, and Jessica (probably at Psyche's request) snatched my butt up.

Unbidden, the question forms in my head again: "Why am I still doing this?"

No answers form. I have no connection to any of these people. I want to, but...

We arrive at the Freedom Phalanx building in Galaxy City and the Brawler waves at us. I feel a bit of concern brush over me and I try to smile back to reassure the big man. It’s hard to deal with the older heroes… They look at all of us like we’re children, no matter what we’ve been through. It’s enough to make me feel-

“Jean-Pierre!”

There was a time when Shalice’s voice would make my heart melt and I felt like I was wrapped in warm clouds. I still feel a slight twinge of similar sensations, but it's all muted, now. She was a mother when I needed one and more. She drove the monsters away, she showed me how to be a better person…

Some thought, after she was restored to her body, that she abandoned me. I know the truth. She knows the truth. She felt that after I had the sense knocked back into me I should be able to handle myself from here on out. Obviously others disagree. Sometimes, I wonder if I do, too.

“Hello, Psyche,” I think back, “Oh, I’m sorry…”

I usually think of her as Shalice. If I call her Psyche, she knows I'm bothered by something.

“Heh,” she laughs back, “Well, at least you’re not calling me ‘Sister Psycho.’”

My vocal sin in Talos Island remembered...

“So, you heard about that, huh? Sorry... Libby was giving me a hard time, and I was losing my cool, it was my first patrol in a long time…”

“I understand you were stressed and that you’re afraid if you don’t vent you’ll wind up losing your head again. You need to understand, however, that there are proper ways to deal with your stress, and lashing out at the people trying to help you is an improper way to go about it. Besides, if you just lash out at people and don’t tell them what’s going on with you, they can’t help and think you’re… Well…”

I thought on that for a moment. She was right, I knew it, but it was always hard to remember in the moment of intense emotion like a battle or argument.

“Are you still taking your medication?”

“The stuff only gave me headaches,” I almost hissed as I projected back my answer, “I figured it would be better if I stopped using it. I haven’t had any episodes, at least.”

“Oh… Have you been speaking with your doctor?”

“Yes.”

Actually, it’s been a battery of doctors. There have been multiple psychologists reviewing my casefile because Freedom Corps doesn’t want me influencing any of them or manipulating them. At first I was irritated about it, that so many people got to know what was wrong with me. After a while, though, I got sad. I only knew them for an hour or so a day and never spoke to them again. I never even got to know who any of them were. I couldn't remember their names.

I knew nothing was wrong with them, that I wasn’t in some sort of fugue, tormenting their minds, because I saw them every so often going about their normal business. Some of them looked at me sadly, and I could sense their desire to help, but they were barred by orders from doing so. Maybe it was sensing that desire that helped me warm up to the new ones. They wouldn’t be able to continue working with me, but they were doing the best they could with the brief time we had.

“I’ve been making progress,” is all I can finally get back to her before we open the doors to Statesman’s briefing room.

The whole Phalanx isn’t always here. Statesman sends incursions to the Etoile Isles every couple of days, Manticore stages impromptu investigations of Crey (when he’s not orchestrating crazy gambits, anyway), and so on. Today, Citadel, Positron, Manticore and Psyche are presiding. It’s kind of funny to me that so many of them do so little actual “hero work” anymore. I think it started as a means of testing the newcomers to the city, for many of the problems they sent their "task forces" against have been well-within the Phalanx’s capability to handle, but they sent the lightweights to see how they did. Over time, it seems like they kind of fell into a routine of being the people handling the “paperwork” of the investigations while the newcomers took the “glory of the battlefield.”

Perhaps this was why we were having trouble when we dealt with the new criminals coming out of the Isles. I don’t know… My thoughts are rambling again.

Mynx delivered the report to Citadel and the android casually flipped through the folder and its papers in seconds. Then he handed it over to Positron who started scanning each page to his armor’s data core before handing it to Manticore and Shalice.

“Hey! Ms. Liberty says training in Atlas Park is up three percent!” the armored man announces happily, “Mynx, training’s down by ten in Skyway… Is everything alright?”

“You room with Synapse, you know what the deal is,” she replied bitterly, her tail twitching in irritation, “There’s nothing out there that the capes hold any form of stock in! Trolls run rampant out there and the Lost have a firm grip on the south! Nobody comes out there, though! I’m getting kind of scared… Synapse can’t deal with those hulking monsters by himself forever!”

“Hm…” Positron nodded, but he didn’t seem to have much of an answer, “Well… Perhaps when Architect Entertainment sets up shop out there they’ll show up more often.”

“I sure hope so,” the catgirl agreed, her tone dropping just like her fur, “I’m sorry for snapping like that… I’m just so worried…”

She’s serious, too. Psyche nods slightly and the other Phalanxers calm down. A lot of people don’t know how to deal with Katherine, it’s hard for them to read her behavior. I chuckle a little inside my head as I think that all they need to do is own a cat.

“Steve and Ray can’t, their apartment building has a ban on pets,” Psyche informs me when I send her my thought, “ I’d like a kitty, myself, but Justin’s been trying to get me to agree on a dog. If we get one, I’m going for something like a German Shepherd, though, not the little Shih-Tzus or Chihuahuas he’s been trying to convince me with…”

I chuckle back. Picturing a beastly German Shepherd or a Bull Mastiff tearing through that mansion and around all those priceless antiques… Me, I was always a cat man. After dealing with a big heavy man who routinely beat me up, having something small, light and had a tendency to relax over all other things would be nice.

“Perhaps that would be a good way to open up to other heroes!” a different voice enters my mind, Swan’s voice, “You could ask them how they deal with their cats. I know some psychic heroines who converse regularly with the ones they take on patrol with them!”

I don’t know how to respond. First, I’m a little worried that she’d been reading my mind this whole time without me knowing, even from wherever she was in the city (probably patrolling Brickstown and breaking the minds of the Council soldiers that like to recruit out there). Second, I didn’t know how to take what she was saying to me.

“Are you suggesting I go on a date?” I send back to her.

A small duet of laughter answers me. I can feel my cheeks warm as I realize Psyche had heard the conversation. I realize there was some kind of cooperation between the two. Psyche was probably conversing with any number of psychics at once throughout the city (Hell, even the world!), and she probably shared what she was getting from me with Swan… Maybe Aurora, too.

At least I was reassured that Swan didn’t get through my mental walls. Psyche did. She always does. She knows me as well as she would a child of her own (though she hadn’t had time for children in her life; maybe she would now…).

”Nope, not right now,” was her playful reply.

For a brief moment, I think I have my answer. I think I know why I do this. I think I know why I try to be a hero. An instant later, though, it’s gone, but I still feel better.

It's strange that I feel better, but-

“Hey!” Mynx shouts in my face, “You coming?”

“What?”

I missed the rest of the meeting in my musing. Positron and the rest were leaving through a side entrance. Shalice waved goodbye to me as they left the three of us alone in the chamber.

Valkyrie was looking at a message on her cellphone and smiling. It wasn't a message from Infernal (the guy crushed just about every phone we ever gave him; usually they just get one of us psychics to call him), but it was apparently funny. I figured it was one of those "viral" cartoons and I turned my attention back to the catgirl.

“Val and I are gonna check out Siren’s Call before we head to lunch. You want to come with?”

Her mind was buzzing with enthusiasm, but there’s nothing personal in the emotions I’m getting. I try to ignore anything she thinks about me. I don’t know what her fascination with the war zone is, anyway, but I also know that this is my last chance to move around with any freedom (at least, for the foreseeable future). If I don't do this, I'll be spending the rest of the day holed up in the Vindicators base, just like every other day, filing the paperwork they send me.

“Sure,” I say and we start heading out.

I don’t say the rest of what I want, though.

Mynx reminds me of everything I wish I was. She did some terrible things before Synapse got through to her (however the Hell a man like that can get through to a girl like her), but now she acts by the same gut instinct as she did before and is still a definitive hero in almost every sense (and those in which she doesn't are issues of personality, anyway; at her heart, at her core, she's a heroine anybody can trust). I wish I could act with such assurance. I wish I could tell her I would do anything for her.

If I told her how she makes me feel…

She’s the only person I try my damnedest not to read. I’m so afraid of how she sees me.

Something's been itching at the back of my head for a while...

My Beautiful Misery

The narrator's revealed at the end of the post, so I won't go into detail, but readers should be able to figure out who it is after a while. He's a little-known character, but much maligned. Despite almost never seeing the guy, I kind of gravitated to him and felt he needed to have a story told that showed how human he really is rather than the joke others like to make him out to be.

Personally, I think you were a little harsh on yourself earlier. This was very well done, the darker elements were treated with a lot of class.

I wake up and my brain’s playing tricks on me again. Everything looks as it should be. My red alarm clock shines green numbers at me from atop the brown nightstand. I’m two minutes before the alarm. Maybe that’s why I’m seeing the world like this. I count…

One…

There’s a flash like someone taking a picture, otherwise the image doesn’t change.

Two…

The clock changes numbers. I was actually only a minute and a couple seconds from the alarm. I breathe a sigh and wonder idly how the rest of the day is going to turn out.

Six…

There’s another flicker in my vision and I can’t tell the difference between the colors of the clock and the numbers. They look exactly the same now, a light gray. This is how it always begins. This is what always happens when my vision starts to go. I keep counting anyway, but I already know how the rest of it goes.

After twelve seconds, the nightstand is the same color as my bed, which is the same color as the wall which is the same color as the clock and its numbers. It’s all gray and I remember that people liken it to viewing the world through a security camera. I sigh again. The periods of color are getting briefer and briefer. I’ll be happy when they’re gone. I’m sick of the lie.

People have a strange misconception of the French. They think we’re all a bunch of pompous twits who are obsessed with art, smoking, looking down our noses at others… The stereotypes go on, and many don’t paint a good portrait of my countrymen.

Good thing life doesn’t use stereotypes as a brush. Of course, maybe if it had, I wouldn’t have had the trouble with my father as I did. I wouldn’t have this problem with my head.

I rub the back of my head and feel the bump where the scar is. I wasn’t very wealthy growing up. My father was a carpenter and a drunk. Sometimes he was both at the same time. It’s why he kept losing his jobs, but don’t try telling him that. I did and he threw me across the room. He was a tough man when he was beating up his kid.

Sometimes I wish mom were there, but then I’d have been dealing with a whole new set of problems on top of the beatings. Something hurt her and she never got a chance to deal with it properly. When I was seven, dad had her committed. To this day, I have no idea what it was that drove her mad, but I don’t believe dad when he said it started when she gave birth to me. The one photograph I have of her in better times tells me the truth of that at least.

I gaze at her soft smile behind the glass on the frame resting on my dresser. I rarely think about her, but when I do I always cry. She looks like she’s ready to take on the world as she holds an infant me in her arms. I cry because I never got to know the woman in the picture. I met a hollow shell that I suspect had the life drained out of it by the monster I was forced to call “father.”

I throw my clothes on and sigh. It’s another day of stares, whispers, glowers and veiled insults. I wonder why I even bother anymore. What was I thinking when she asked this of me? Why did I say “Yes?”

I think I expected to be able to get her in bed. It’s crude, I know, but I’m a crude man. I may be an art aficionado, but I’m still a man. I don’t know when I realized it was an impossibility and turned my attention to the equally impossible prospects in the rest of the group, in turn losing interest in those pursuits because they gave me just as cold a shoulder.

Why did she even invite me?

After eating a quick bagel for my breakfast, I walked out my door and looked to my neighbor to my left as a warm presence brushed against my mind. I don’t know why K’s mind is warm to me… Maybe he’s just one of the few uncomplicated, genuinely good people in my life. The guy spends his time subduing physical embodiments of the worst things in human nature… After dealing with things like that, I suppose he would look at people like me as perfectly fine. He’s the only one I never catch flashes of contempt from. He’s a good friend and I don't think he even knows what that means to me.

“You know Jess is gonna give you Hell for not being in uniform, right?” he grunts and I catch a wave of humor radiating from his mind.

“It’s not like she lets me go on patrol,” I reply calmly, “Hell, I don’t even get to leave the building. At least you could leave if you want to.”

“Yeah,” the big man chuckled and started walking down the hall, “But there’s hardly anything out there!”

Walking past his room, I understand what he means. Valerie’s mind races as she struggles to get her armor on and comb her hair out at the same time. If Jessica knew where she’d been spending the past few nights, she’d probably sprout some gray hairs. For what has to be the thousandth time in just the past week, I thank whatever gods are watching over my life that Freedom Corps lined my room with lead. Still, it didn’t stop me from hearing her and K’s enthusiastic “merrymaking” as they slammed the bed against the wall. I’d still rather not know what was going on in their heads, even if I could imagine it.

We make our way to the meeting room and are, of course, the first three people there. As a joke, I ask Val how early she woke up to show up a half hour early. She blushes and I have a brief image in my head of what she and K were doing last night. It’s strange getting a memory of the feeling of lovemaking from the point of view of a woman. They don’t feel it the same way guys do, and it’s hard for my brain to interpret. The whole flash of memory revolts me a little and the two of us blush at the same time. She knows I can sense the images in her mind… I think she likes to be as vivid in her memory as she can so it will mess with me even more.

Perhaps I should make some kind of lead-lined hat.

The rest of the group starts to filter in and we take our positions. Like K said, Jessica starts by reprimanding me for my clothing. I ask her if she’s going to let me go and patrol, and she reminds me that the last time they did that, I had to be rescued from the Rogue Isles. She knows the reports of what everybody thinks I was doing out there, but they don’t know. I can’t let anybody know.

They might try to stop me.

I feel a presence brush against my mind. It had to be Lena. Scott feels too much like… Like her, even when she tries to mask what she’s doing. They’re always monitoring me, waiting for me to slip up, checking for signs of the madness.

I won’t slip up, though. They’ll never know why, even though it’s the simplest thing in the world. I could tell them, shout it at them, hammer it into their thick skulls, but they won’t believe me. For people who are psychic and are supposed to believe that anyone can change, they’re remarkably closed-minded.

The meeting went on as normal. Jessica played the role of her predecessor well. She often worried she wasn’t being professional enough, or that she wasn’t getting the point across properly… With me, she often wondered if she’d made a mistake.

We used to be friends.

Of course, then, she was vouching for me. I used to think I was doing the right thing. I used to think I was okay.

Then Scott’s husband got a group of heroes to bring her back and I lost her for a moment. If only people knew what that moment felt like. She warned me… She tried to prepare me for what was going to happen… I told her I would be okay.

How wrong I was. When the link broke, I was lost somewhere dark inside my head. My father was before me again. I ran away, I knew to run away, but I also knew I wouldn’t (couldn’t) get away. In the next room, he was there. He was faceless, but it was him. A maw with sharp teeth split the fleshy orb that was his bald head into a wicked grin and he started chasing me.

I tore up the stairs to my childhood bedroom and tried the windows. I wrenched at the frame as hard as I could, but they budged little. Dark tendrils started reaching in to get me and I fled in terror. My faceless father tried to get in my way, but I barreled him aside and raced down into the basement.

He found me there and we fought. I was the adult I had grown to be but he was still beating the crap out of me. He threw me throughout the basement, smashed me against the shelves, broke my ribs with a baseball bat. He was all set to bring the bat crashing down on my skull when everything faded away and I was looking up through one clear eye at the group of heroes and heroines who had stopped me from hurting my fellow heroes.

“Malaise!” Jessica shouts, dragging me out of my reverie, “I want you to go with Mynx and Valkyrie to deliver the reports from today’s meeting.”

“Is this just to get me in uniform?” I ask, already knowing the answer without reading her mind.

“Yes,” she snorts back, “Get suited up!”

I wonder how she would react if I told her I’ve seen the fantasies she has about that “friend” of hers. I wonder how he’d react if he ever found out.

Arc Name: "Working for the Air Guard."
Arc ID: 7958
Faction: Hero
Creator Global/Forum Name: @Grey's Army (Test) or @Mr_Grey (Live)
Difficulty Level: 30-35, Moderate to Hard
Synopsis:I set this one in a location we hear about in-game, but never do much with. West Libertalia.
-It's preceded by another arc, "Meet the Air Guard," but I believe this is the stronger work.
Estimated Time to Play: With a scrapper... Probably about 20 minutes if you do the bare minimums.

---Atlas Park---

Henry Wong shared with the green-dressed hero as much information as he could. Most of it was unsubstantiated hearsay from various teams, and other tidbits focused on some unusual traffic in Independence Port's southern harbor. Otherwise, he had very little to go on.

"I was kind of hoping Freedom Corps would offer more help than just people like... Well... You. Anyway, last I heard from the team I sent to Bronze Shield, they were headed for Skyway City..."

Wong looked at his datapad and looked back at Malachite.

"...There are reports of a commotion in the southern portion of the city. Seems to be spilling out into the streets. You mind filling me in on what you saw before you go so I can warn anybody else who may come by?"

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

---Skyway City---

Pax located a cellular phone that was remarkably undamaged as well as a singed wallet with a molten identification card. The card described the man as being one "Mr. Walter" and that he worked for Ayre/Webber Strategic Security (there was a sylized logo of a blue, slanted, bold "AWSS" next to the picture). His driver's license listed him as "Humphrey Miller," though.

The weapons he had were damaged beyond repair. The assault rifle he'd been firing erratically was a standard M-16 variant, but the barrel had been bent in the explosion. There was also pistol that simply looked weird. It didn't have a magazine or an ejection port. It was probably similar to the energy pistols the agents in the warehouse had been using. Finally, a combat knife rounded out the ensemble.

A small device that looked half-melted stood out from the rest of the equipment. Since it didn't look like anything else, Pax was left to assume it must have been the "beacon" Mr. Walter was complaining about.

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

--Unknown Super Group Base--

The gathered meta humans gradually filtered back out of the room, leaving Mark Shadow to tend to the patient. With a sigh, he checked the power levels on the Triage Beacon and cursed under his breath.

"This thing's about to shut down. Once it does... I don't know what's gonna happen to ya. That weird blue-black skin... I don't know if it's a disease or what..."

The unresponsive nature of his patient only furthered his worry.

"God... What happened? I can picture Levi doing something dumb like this, but James? The guy usually has a more level head than this. How could he get involved with an Arachnos soldier, and how could he just let that soldier get shot?"

The generator shut down and Mark started watching the soldier's condition with interest. Just in case, he held on to a couple cartridges of Regenerator and Lazareen in case there was a flatline, but Drago's continued even breathing reassured him.

"How's the patient," a smooth, even voice asked from the medical room's entrance.

"He's alright, Sheldon. How's Nester?"

"I turned the glove off. Why'd he turn it toward his face?"

"Some weird gunk got on it and it stopped working. When he shook the stuff off, it worked again. Not immediately, but it did."

Sheldon walked into the room and looked at the floor. Sure enough, the Venom Nester had thrown off the Gravity Glove was splattered across the floor. Some had oozed out of the bullet, but the flow had ended and the round was empty.

"Curious," the inventor muttered as he pulled on a plastic glove and gathered equipment to gather some of the Venom, "I could hear James complaining. You, too. Seems whatever this stuff touches it shuts down... Provided it's metaphysical in some way..."

"What're you thinking?" the corrupter asked as he took another glance into Drago's wound.

"I'm thinking this is bad in ways we don't want to imagine," the inventor replied as he stood up with a sample of the Venom encased within a pair of glass slides, "Let me run some analysis and I'll get back to you. Clean the rest of this up, will you? I recommend zapping it with some kind of electricity first."

"Why?"

"Rage said he got covered with the stuff after a bullet got too close to his electric field and exploded. Then it started evaporating, enabling his brother and him to fly this poor soul here," Sheldon's dark glasses focused on the soldier for a few seconds before he continued, "This stuff isn't evaporating, though. It's congealing on the floor, possibly moving. Kill it and sweep it up."

Mark blinked but turned to the defibrillator as the other man left. He placed the pads on the metal floor and braced for the electric buzz as he activated the system. There was a bright flash in the corner of his eye, but when he realized felt nothing, he looked up to see the machine wasn't even on.

"Ah, geez... When am I going to act more professional?"

"Maybe when you stop trying to electrocute yourself," a voice whispered as a dark-skinned man dropped to his knees under the set of floating, red-marked stone rings that were the mystical "reclaimator."

"Cory!" the corrupter shouted and ran over to help his friend up, "What did this to you!?"

"A Circle wizard," the red-haired sorcerer whispered as he clutched his chest and wrapped his arm across Shadow's shoulders, "Gertrude and I... We were investigating, and... They took her charm and she was whisked back to Salamanca. I fended them off as best I could... Set the cavern ablaze... But that last Dark Wizard... We hit each other at the same time. My last vision before everything went dark was of him crumbling to ash under my flames."

"Well, you're still here, so I guess that means you win."

"Your reassurance would work better if I didn't know he'll just be back tomorrow as well, riding the body of a new victim..."

Mark helped his friend ease onto the meditation pad he preferred and made sure he was going to be okay. When he was about to turn back to the Venom, the wizard spared him the trouble and snapped his fingers. At first nothing happened. Cory snapped his fingers a couple more times, narrowed his eyes, then snapped his fingers again.

The air around the Venom flared brightly and exploded. When the pyrotechnic display was over, there was little more than a pile of ash on the floor. Nodding appreciatively, Mark turned to get a handheld vaccuum cleaner.

"So, how'd you finally get it to burn?"

"I didn't. I got the air around it to combust. Think of it as a very concentrated rain of fire... What is that stuff?"

Mark shrugged.

"It's ash now, but before it seemed to stop anything 'special.' Tech, science... Apparently magic, too."

"Curious..." the dark-skinned man muttered as he assumed a restful meditative position, "What affects science shouldn't affect magic..."

"Should've seen Shel, man. The guy treated it like he was handling the Plague."

I'd like to see a copy of this work as well.

Replaced lost missions. Fixed arc.

Don't want to publish it until I've given it a run-through, though.

I reworked the story of the original "Meet the Air Guard," and made it into

"Working for the Air Guard."

This time it has a lead-up to the much better AV fight.

Alright... I think I got the kinks out of it.

"Meet the Air Guard" I feel does a good enough job of explaining who the guys are.

"Working for the Air Guard," however, is the more involved story I'd intended the original to be. It's recommended for levels 30-35.

Post deleted by Mr_Grey

After Acid and I playtested it together (going in solo gave me positive feedback as far as placement, EBs, etc.), I had to yank down "Meet the Air Guard."

*sigh*

Ah well, I wasn't too happy about the "side missions" anyway. I might still be able to use them (in fact, I'll still use the initial "Defeat All"), but for now, I'll have to look to an alternate story.

I still recommend Hunter Zachariah, though. I feel it's a good enemy to fight if you really want to hurt something.

Republished MTAG as a single-mission arc (because using the Air Guard sent the whole system into a conniption).

I'll get to work on a sequel arc to deal with actually working for them.

New update in Grey's Army. I wasn't too happy about this one, but it deals with the relationship between Kip, his father, and Androm'Geizzer. Plus, it has Kip asking a question that would bother anybody who knew what the Warshade's history was and realized how that poor woman had been killed...

Virtue is the server you're searching for.

“Dad… Roland said the nurse who kidnapped Angel had been pulled inside out…”

They were crossing the expanse of Boomtown when Zeke’s communicator warbled his son’s comment. In the back of his mind, he could hear Androm curse. Despite the fact that some of their thoughts and memories had merged when they’d initially bonded, the intervening time since had placed some powerful mental blocks between the two of them. Durj didn’t know if his symbiotic energy being was hiding something from him, and the tone sounded very aggravated.

“What are you trying to say, Kipland?” he asked back.

“Was it you?”

“As far as I know…” Zeke sent one last thought back to Androm and left control to the Nictus, “No.”

“You’re not lying to us, are you, Androm?”

Kip had a lot of love and respect for his father, but he showed it in a very subdued way. If it turned out the dark thing inside the old man was really just hiding in plain sight, Kip was fully prepared to do what he could to rip the monster out. Fortunately, he had no need of such savagery, but he didn’t know that. The sound of Geizzer’s exasperated sigh issued over the communication broadcast and it tried to explain.

“Kipland, I could no more control your father’s actions than I could roam free without dissipating into nothingness. Because of the time I spent comatose after saving Ezekiel’s life, I lost my connection to a large number of motor functions throughout your father’s body, while he developed an unusual connection to my power. We still function phenomenally when acting concert, but my dissension does not cause him to act against his will. While I agree it was a fitting end for a fool who would dare come between a maternal parent and her child, I was not the one to do it. I suppose it could further set your mind at ease if I were to say that I feel no displeasure at the fact. Indeed… I feel it’s a mark of my own retribution that I do feel a twinge of regret at the poor woman’s fate, regardless of my feeling the punishment was justified.”

“But Mrs. Grey couldn’t have done it…”

“I’m not saying she did. I’m saying I understand the punishment, but I doubt that’s what this was. I’m fairly certain someone was trying to send us a message…”

“Which is?” Zeke asked.

“Who was that Nictus that we fought a couple years back? You know… When we broke that big crystal…”

“Shadowstorm,” Androm replied, “Shifted back into his Galaxy soldier host and we forgot about him after dealing with the Seed… Of course…”

Zeke missed out on the rest of the musings because Androm went back into his own mind. It was just as well, though. He had arrived at the base that last Archon had told them might have answers. Reaching toward his son, he flexed his fingers and felt the energy around his hand twitch. He never thought of how his world had changed since becoming a Warshade, at least, not much. He’d always looked at life as doing what you could with what you had, so the transition was a lot smoother for him than it was for others. Still, he figured he should have had a harder time getting used to opening the very fabric of space and time to pull comrades out of hotspots or to shorten the travel time to an objective.

“Thanks, Dad,” Kip murmured as he lurched to the door while fighting off dizziness, “I guess teleportation just isn’t for me… I don’t know why the base machine or the arcane rings treat me differently, maybe it’s because I’m always ‘standing’ when I use those, but with your or Sheldon’s wormholes and Cory’s ‘Recorder Recall’ spell, I feel sick to my stomach and like I just got thrown through a hurricane…”

“Maybe you should try waiting for the other individual to reach the objective, go from standing to standing, instead of your ‘air-to-ground’ method.”

“Tried it once… Same difference. I think it’s the travel itself… It’s like space folds around me.”

“It’s all well and good to discuss this sort of thing, but the longer we stand out here, the more time the Council soldiers squatting in this building have to mount a credible defense.”

“Good point, Androm,” Kip nodded and his eyes flashed white, “Let’s do this!”

----------

The two of them smashed through the ranks of Council soldiers, Kip taking the lead while Zeke snuck in and debilitated the more annoying enemies. At one point, the younger Durj attempted to eliminate a Quantum Array wielding Galaxy soldier, only to be beaten to the chase by his father who teleported behind the man and caught him with a Gravity Well that held him fast.

“I’ve had to go my time alone, too, Kip,” the gray-haired man explained through the haze that masked his presence, “I’ve learned a few nasty tricks in how to deal with these guys…”

A solid punch to the soldier’s jaw knocked him out cold and he drew some of the energy out of the unconscious man to replenish his energy. Kip took point again, and Androm pointed out something.

“You know, Kipland, I think I see what Shadowstar was talking about. You have energy radiating from you in a manner similar to what comes off from Void Hunters as they fight my brethren. However… It’s more intense. You’re like the opposite of a Void Hunter…”

“Cool,” the young man said curtly as he edged around a corner, “Whatever. Dad, you’ll want to see this…”

A triad of Shadow Cyst Crystals sat in the center of the next chamber. In the middle of them, a Kheldian Bright Nova floated calmly. A low growl issued from Zeke’s throat that surprised Kip and Androm’Geizzer.

“I hate traitors,” Zeke explained in a low tone, “Especially those kinds. It’s bad enough they turned against their own people, but they help capture Peacebringers and Warshades in an effort to be the last ones eaten…”

“They see me as the traitor, too, Zeke,” Androm reminded him, “In order to maintain such a pure stance, I would recommend you bond with a Kheldian like your friend, Charlene. They never switched sides, they have been fighting the good fight since the beginning.”

“You and other Warshades are working to cleanse your sins. They’re intentionally helping the Nictus to cannibalize your species.”

“I never had much of a problem with that, actually. I mean, for certain Kheldians, yes, I would prefer not to devour them, but others, I had no qualms about using their life force to sustain mine. They often had opposing views to mine and I felt they argued their points poorly. They also didn’t fight hard enough to survive…”

“Tell him to shut up, Dad,” Kip hissed, “What he’s saying is reminding me of Amy’s plight with her father, and I’m having trouble remembering that it’s you that thing is hiding inside.”

“Oh, come on, Kipland. You of all people should know that when a person wants to avoid a dire fate, they simply have to fight hard enough. Were it not the case, you certainly wouldn’t be here anymore…”

“That’s not a lesson most people can swallow, Nictus! People aren’t brutal anymore, life doesn’t have to be brutal! I’m brutal because I prefer it, but I’m not going to pity someone who doesn’t, nor am I going to victimize them! You would do well to take that lesson to heart, or your redemption will never be certain.”

There was silence then and they could hear the Kheldian speaking to the crystals. The language was impossible to interpret, however, except Zeke was startled to learn he understood it.

“The Kheldian’s name is Havoc Ellipses, and those crystals aren’t normal Cysts. They’ve been damaged somehow, so they can only be used for communication purposes. This is a hub of contact between various Galaxy or Nictus cells!”

“Have they said anything about Angel?”

“No… Not yet…”

The Kheldian suddenly stopped and looked around. Zeke and Kip ducked behind the corner before it saw them and waited a few minutes. The peculiar sing-song chatter of the Kheldian started up again and Zeke shook his head.

“It knows we’re here. They’re shutting the base down.”

“Damn…” Kip growled before bolting around the corner.

It wasn’t a long fight. Kip rushed close as beams slammed into his chest and delivered a savage kick into the center of the floating alien’s form. Havoc Ellipses fell against the wall and writhed about as he tried to right himself. Kip was stomping on its head as Zeke launched a volley of dark energy into its form that started tearing it apart. In short order, it exploded, Havoc screaming Kheldian curses as it was wiped from existence.

“Great,” Kip panted, “Now it’s dead and we don’t have any information on where Angel could be.”

“Oh…” came a voice from one of the Broken Cysts, “That’s what you’re after? I believe I can help you with that, young hero. There are some conditions I request, however…”

----------

“It’s unfortunate they explode like that if they lack a host,” Androm intoned as they left, “It would be easier to interrogate them if they maintained a link to the body that originally sustained them. Instead, they teeter on the edge of oblivion, waiting for someone to smash them out of the continuum. Perhaps their consciences are getting the best of them…”

“It was decent of that one crystal to tell us where we could find Angel, though,” Kip muttered.

“You could have honored your deal to not break them, too,” Zeke grumbled, “I mean, it’s not like they were doing anything in their cracked states…”

“Actually, Ezekiel, I have to agree with Kip on that call. The Shadow Seeds should all be destroyed, no matter the condition of them.”

"That wasn't the deal and you know it, Dad," Kip muttered, "I said I'd think about leaving the crystals alone. Sending the two of us to another base full of Council troops to beat up is hardly worth my preserving their resources. Besides, the more damage we do to the Council's communications, the better it is for everybody."

"I suppose," the old man sighed.

Kip took to the sky and started heading south for Steel Canyon and his next objective afterward. Zeke took a moment to reflect on his son's glib take on the situation. Either he'd been doing this too long or the stresses of the hero life were starting to take their toll on the young man's psyche.

"I just hope that Dobson girl helps turn him around..." he sighed.

Yes, Blue.

I accidentally wound up slapping one of my main characters in a platonic relationship with Ms. Liberty because I'd initially wanted to point out how silly a concept even that was when it came from a fan fiction. This was before I realized that the game's progressive lore is largely in the hands of we players (just look at people's reactions to your work or the massive fan support of Dark Respite's work, for instance), and that such concepts would actually be more welcome in an environment like this if handled properly. As such, though, I have little hope for my intrepid protagonist, for even as a friend of the city's favored heroine, he is beset on all sides by evil.

My muse also caused one of my rogues to have a one-night stand with Barracuda. This apparently was found to be very disturbing to some of my regular readers.

In any case, your muse will speak to you and try to help you make a story that makes sense to you. My own muse, for instance, has me thinking that Tyrant may not be his Earth's Marcus Cole. He could be Stefan Richter or Nemesis, but it's not likely he's Marcus. Marcus probably still sired Miss Liberty, who was apparently still a hero in Praetorian Earth. However, whatever switch that went off in Ms. Liberty's head and made her decide to protect people with her powers didn't click the same way with Dominatrix, and she gravitated to her world's ultimate bad[[censored]], Tyrant.

It would be like Ms. Liberty going for Lord Recluse in my eyes. It's still not wholesome (oh no... Not by a long shot), but that's how it looks to me. Tyrant's likely not her grandfather.

Still, it can't be ruled out. Perhaps Tyrant sired a vengeful Miss Liberty who wanted to put an end to her despotic father's reign. Dominatrix came along and dashed those dreams aside because she's evil and insane.

It's hard to tell because the Praetorian arcs are actually rather poorly writtern. We continue to this day to debate the causes and natures of the characters in that world. We still don't know if there's a version of Arachnos over there!

It's very vague territory to be treading. Be careful out there.

Personally, I've been wondering about Prime Earth's Malaise. Apparently, the comic book story (the one where Statesman and the Phalanx go to Praetorian Earth and Ms. Liberty's Vindicators have to "Safeguard" Talos Island) takes place AFTER the Calvin Scott Task Force.

According to Paragonwiki:
[ QUOTE ]
After the events of the Calvin Scott Task Force, Ms. Liberty found Malaise and offered him a spot on the Vindicators. Malaise has done questionable things, but the Vindicators believe he can be one of the good guys. Many are keeping their eye on him however in the event that he does revert back into a rogue.

[/ QUOTE ]

...So, I've been thinking of a narrative for the character. Of course, I think about it under a strange assumption. I think he's colorblind, a condition probably inflicted upon him by an abusive father. I got the idea when they had Sister Psyche inflict the condition on his Praetorian counterpart and he freaked right the Hell out (makes me think he either suffers the same affliction and uses the minds of others to see the world in color, or never considered that all the color could be drained from the world, rendering most art useless to him once it happened).

Dang, what was I doing these past three weeks...

The Redeemers thread has been updated.

Statesman and Grendel exchanged more blows. The city’s champion didn’t precisely know how the wizard talking with him expected a horn to be ripped from the monster’s head, but it was a goal to work with. Other heroes were joining the fray again, and the Cataphracts were whining as they fired up. He didn’t have much time to accomplish what he had to do.

Grendel made things a little easier for him, though. Ducking low, the gray beast charged at the patriot-colored hero in an attempt to gore him and trample him underneath. While this was notoriously difficult to accomplish with longhorns, he still made the attempt similar to how bulls with the same predicament attacked. Turning his head to one side and snapping it back as he reached his target, he felt a connection, but there was no shout of pain nor the sensation of a body crumpling under him.

Before he knew what was going on, Statesman was on Grendel’s back. The big creature stopped running and looked left, then right, then started trying to grab at the smaller man. The hero rolled away from each grasp, and finally reached up to grab the left horn and started pulling.

As most anyone would, the monster started trying to pull away. Statesman’s grip was too strong, however, and Grendel wound up only helping him in his quest. In actuality, Marcus was surprised at how easily the horn broke out of the monster’s head.

Grendel was not happy about the result, though. In the next instant he was roaring, spinning, and backhanding the champion away. The horn fell into the water and Statesman slammed into a support column for the overpass. A moment later, energy blasts from the Cataphracts slammed into the monster and the battle was joined as the first of the heroes closed in.

As they battled, however, Mortiganen was busy trying to coordinate the endgame. He sent his thoughts to Garm in an effort to maneuver him.

“You don’t need to do that,” the Troll muttered, “I’m standing right next to you.”

“Oh,” the wizard pulled his hands away from his temples and leveled his gaze on the green man, “Well… Why didn’t you join the battle?”

“Fighting something that’s giving hundreds of heroes trouble doesn’t strike me as a smart thing to do when my own powers are weakening as it is. The day’s been so stressful, Doug’s already regrowing her boobs.”

The ogre let out a little squeak of embarrassment and wrapped her arms over her chest. Other members of the group stared incredulously at her and looked to each other for an explanation. Her face seemed to darken as she blushed. It made her feral face look something like a lightly bruised fruit.

“Later,” the former Caliban interrupted before any questions could be asked, “Right now, we need you to tell us this plan of yours to finally take that thug down, Mort.”

“Stab him with his own horn,” the wizard replied, “I didn’t say it would be elegant. I suggest tearing open a high pressure artery. Even if he regenerates, the spray should prevent any closing of the wound and he’ll bleed out.”

“I don’t think Statesman will appreciate us killing him,” Ashen Roast said quietly.

“We don’t have a choice. We need to stop this monster now before innocent people get hurt.”

“Innocents been hurt,” a gravelly voice growled to the side, “Or maybe you no consider trolls innocent…”

“Considering they were doped up to their eyeballs on Superadine,” Garm leveled his gaze on the interrupter, “No. Atta.”

The other Caliban stood with a small army of fresh Trolls from all over Paragon City. They stood less of a chance than the heroes already fighting, but they were ready to avenge their fallen brothers.

“He kill-t kin. You owe me, G. You kill him. You fail, we drop bridge on him.”

Garm looked out the corner of his eye and saw other trolls moving to wire the overpass with dynamite. He could already picture the orders Mortiganen was giving the rest of the heroes to stop the demolition attempt. It was surprising that the trolls thought their plan would work, but they never were ones to think too far ahead.

“I’ll take that challenge,” the former Caliban replied before diving over the side of the overpass.

He landed in the river hard. He was getting better at leaping, but landings were still troublesome. At least, that’s what he hoped was the problem. The exhaustion he was feeling told otherwise, however. When he pulled his head back out of the waves, he shook the water free and started lurching for the battle.

When he got to the outskirts of the fight, he started searching for the horn. A hero was batted aside by Grendel and bowled him over. He heard some sort of curse about Trolls not being invited, but kept searching.

Statesman returned to the battle along with Ms. Liberty and Mynx. Their support was welcome, but largely fruitless. In the heat of the fight, Statesman smashed a lightning charged punch into the monster, lightly shocking everyone around them, too.

It also sent a charge to Garm and he saw something in the water glow. Grasping it, he yanked Grendel’s horn out of the water and stood triumphantly. He wasn’t sure about the next part, but he didn’t see how he had a choice.

Grendel wasn’t looking, his attention focused on attempting to use Statesman as a club again. When the hero delivered a right cross that rocked the monster’s head aside, the former Caliban struck by vaulting himself up the gray beast’s back and stabbing the point of the horn into his left shoulder. Garm flipped over the shoulder and crashed into the water at Statesman’s feet.

The monster reared back and prepared to smash both the city’s champion and the troublesome Troll into oblivion. Then red sprayed around the horn and he stopped. He tugged a little at the protrusion and looked confusedly at Statesman. A moment later, he fell to his knees, his eyes looking about worriedly.

Grendel’s aorta had been punctured, and the blood was spraying too quickly for him to heal. Loosening the horn from the wound had only made things worse. He wanted to lie down, so he rolled over into the water. His vision darkened and the last thing he saw before everything went black was Statesman looking down glumly at him.

“I’m sorry,” the hero murmured as heroes and heroines picked themselves up around him, “I wish there had been a better way…”

Grendel held the city’s greatest champion out at arm’s length. With the hero’s hands pinned within those massive paws, there was little he could do to fight against the monster. The monster, however, had a plan to basically pull Statesman apart.

This proved easier planned than accomplished, however. While he was much smaller, the hero still had tremendous reserves of strength and power that much of the world still hadn’t witnessed yet. No matter how hard Grendel tried to pull him apart like a wishbone, he simply couldn’t succeed.

This didn’t stop the beast, however. As other heroes, heroines and Trolls tried to free their de facto leader, he simply swung the man around like a club and batted them aside. Running out of options, Statesman thought hard and hoped Sister Psyche or other psychics were close enough to hear the plan. With no other recourse, he turned to the nearest meta humans and shouted “Get out of the water!”

Mortiganen had heard the call, though his connection hadn’t been psychic. Such methods of communication could cause ripples on the Aetherial planes, and he happened to catch one of the eddies (not that it was difficult to find, radiating with urgency as it was). He could tell numerous nearby psychics were trying to pull unwitting meta humans away from the fight, but he had a better plan.

“Genji,” his raspy voice sounded more forced than normal, “Bring them out of the water. All of them.”

“What?” the young Asian man shouted, “Mister Mortiganen… I… I can’t…”

The wizard rounded on the sorcerer and gripped him by the shoulders. Focusing his pitch black eyes on the younger man’s brown ones, he treated Genji to a glimpse of the knowledge contained within his mind.

“Boy, you have the capability, the power, and the youth to live through what you’re about to do! I would do it myself, but the stress would surely kill me… But if you need, I could lend you some of my power…”

A ribbon of blue light wafted from the older man’s hand into the sorcerer’s. As it coalesced in the young man’s hand, Lukas suddenly felt like he could do anything.

“I… I understand…”

The meta humans could feel it in the air. Their hair (for those that had it) started standing up or on end. Little sparks were arcing off any exposed rebar and everybody realized they had to move fast. Unfortunately, events were moving along much more quickly than anyone could run, jump or fly.

There was a bright flash, and some thought it was the end. Instead, floating as near the center of the gathered heroes and heroines as he could locate, Genji Atamoyo spread his hands wide, muttering a chant he never thought he would apply in such a way. When he finished, he swung his arms before him, drawing his forearms up with his fists clenched and palms pointed toward his body. There was a terrible rushing sound, like a hurricane, and every costumed body was yanked from where they treaded, perched or floated by a powerful wind only to find themselves deposited on one of the overpasses above the battle. They were fortunate, most of the traffic had stopped of its own volition when the battle started, and what little was left had been halted by police roadblocks seeking to prevent any loss of civilian life.

Genji collapsed in the center of the group of bewildered meta humans, his body glowing briefly with blue light. Mortiganen marched up to his prone form and knelt down. Patting him on the shoulder, he whispered something to the young man that seemed to make him stir.

Mider Caid also approached the young sorcerer and knelt beside him. However, he said nothing. Instead, he glared at his group’s leader, the message that he intended to have words with the old man later clearly evident. Mortiganen’s impassive return stare conveyed his lack of concern.

“Look!” a heroine shouted and pointed over the side of the overpass.

Below them, Statesman’s plan came to fruition, and bolts of lightning slammed into him and Grendel. The water flashed brilliantly repeatedly as the electric arcs lanced through the two again and again. Statesman could take the hits, Grendel, it seemed, couldn’t take quite that much. A few times, his bones seemed to be visible through his skin. A final explosion launched the hero out of the monster’s grasp and Grendel rolled backwards into the water.

Pushing himself out of the roiling waves caused by the big creature’s fall, Statesman surveyed the scene. It all seemed too easy to him. Looking to his left, he saw the Cataphracts had shut down during the lightning storm he generated. Shortly, however, they would fire up again and start firing volleys into the creature. Shortly, the battle would be over.

“Statesman,” he heard a raspy voice hiss in his head, “Listen to me! Brute force will not stop this thing!”

Grendel was already starting to stir.

“Who are you?” the hero asked.

“Something of an employee of yours, oddly enough,” the voice replied, ”Were I inclined to follow classic behavioral archetypes, I believe I would chafe at saying such a thing, but I don’t, so you can take my advice with the understanding that I am indeed trying to help.”

“I’m inclined to disagree, but I have little recourse. What is your idea?”

“Its body seems to be damaged by force, if not much of anything else. I know it will be a long time until you can strike it with another lightning storm and even if Synapse arrives after ensuring the citizens of this city are a safe distance away, we both know he lacks your energetic strength. We have to fight this thing with what we know can harm it. Its jaw was broken earlier; the skeleton can be affected and manipulated, but that can only take us so far…”

“He’s getting up… Do you have a plan or not?”

Grendel knelt before Statesman. His dull red eyes were leveled on the smaller human’s. While he’d shown intelligence before, all his gaze displayed at this point was malice.

“It’s simple,” Mortiganen finished hastily, ”Rip off a horn.”.”