Mr_Grey

--Paragon City--

"So you just left him there!?"

James Baker was livid. The Brutal Warriors had just helped Ezekiel Durj run an operation in the Rogue Isles. While the operation itself was a success, Zeke was holding the crystal imprisoning the kheldian at the moment, the group had to leave behind the older Baker brother when Silver Mantis and the Freakshow stormed the cavern.

"I didn't want to leave him," Zeke replied, "But for some reason, once we were at the entrance, I couldn't pull him to my location. Look, James, if it hadn't been for Levi, we wouldn't have made it out of there ourselves."

"But you still-"

"He's gone, Rage," Draven cut him off, "Now we gotta work on a plan to get him back."

"I-"

"I don't think we should try what Randy did last year," Solo sighed, "Especially since this time we don't have a flying death machine to help. Don't worry, Zeke, we'll handle this."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," James muttered, "We've got this."

----------

--St. Martial: The Iron Hammer, a Freakshow clubhouse--

"Okay..." the silk-over-steel voice sighed in the dark, "I have a few questions I have to ask before we go any further..."

Levi Baker opened his right eye, the left was swollen shut, but in five minutes he'd be able to see out of it again. He was hanging from a chain by his wrists, were were shackled on a separate chain that had been looped through a ring at the bottom of the main one. His body was covered with lacerations, bruises, and an assortment of implements were still stuck into his body, some surgical, some not.

Silver Mantis was reading from a device not unlike a hero communicator. It just had a few alterations that made it more in sync with Arachnos appearances. She was tapping her lower lip as lights flashed over her face.

"Okay, here's one I don't know," she finally said, "What were you guys doing in the Nerva Archipelago?"

"Taking in the sights," Psycho13 choked out in reply, "Exploring the culture. We got yanked into that cave by the wizards and had to fight our way out. Not everybody wants to mess with your bosses, you know?"

A false statement, leading to a true one, is a true statement. It is one of the ways to lie and be honest at the same time.

Baker knew he couldn't let Arachnos know why Zeke was there. His own involvement in the situation wasn't necessarily important. A hired sword was a hired sword, and there were plenty of those in the Isles.

Silver Mantis tapped her cheek as she considered what the young hero dangling in front of her had said. She wasn't inclined to believe he was telling the truth, but his friends had left him to die and he was aware of the fact. He didn't have much reason to protect them.

"Then what was that glowing crystal?"

"Hell if I know, I thought the gray-haired guy who hired me was keeping it as a souvenir."

"Hired you... You're with one of those groups that transports heroes to the Isles, and rogues to the states, right?"

"Uh..."

"I already know, Psycho13," Mantis smiled a thin, tight-lipped grin that would make normal people's blood run cold, "Before, your group was just a tiny lump in a sea of [crap], so my superiors figured you could be left alone. Even when you stole a Flyer, Lord Recluse left you alone. If you're lucky, he may just think that your fight with one of our subs was just tragic accident."

"How nice of him," the scrapper replied as his left eye opened up much more quickly than he'd expected, "Oh... Yay. Now I get to see you in your full, unabridged ugly."

A spike was driven deep into his stomach.

"Oh... Well, I'm not hungry anymore. Ope, there it goes, hungry again."

The torturess looked askance at her subject and blinked. Regenerators were a surprisingly fun lot. You could do untold damage to them, and in a couple days they'd be perfectly fine. She had never seen one that reveled in it so much. It was like...

"Didn't that hurt? Any of it?"

"Honestly, no," Baker grunted, "The process that made me what I am hurt worse than anything I've ever suffered in my life, before that or since. Nothing really hurts anymore."

Silver Mantis set the communicator down on a nearby table and approached her subject. When her hand grasped his face and she turned it so she could get a good look at him in what scant light there was in the basement below the Freakshow hideout, he could see her eyes were glittering with what looked like glee.

"Let muwee gesh... Yoo lock uh challenge?"

She nodded.

----------

--Paragon City--

"Here's the monitor he left in his room," Dale explained as they gathered in the office of the BWO's Paragon City Staging Area, "It's a Committee rig... Remember that MP3 system he had rigged up? He loaded it into this. He's been listening to music since that incident in Boomtown."

"Crazy son of a-" Project Whirlwind sighed, "How can anybody do that to themselves?"

"Well, we did it to him," Draven shrugged, "The little speaker in his ear that he's using is what we stuck in there. I wonder..."

He pushed his cousin aside and started working at the keyboard of the monitoring system. Dale rigged a mouse up to it and the group waited tensely as their leader cycled through the lists of music in the machine. Finally, Draven found a folder that had been oddly colored red and labeled "In Extreme Emergency Only."

"I don't get it," Justin arched an eyebrow at the contents, "This is all just music made by female pop singers."

"I know," Jared replied as he copied and pasted the contents into the playlist, "Somebody get me a microphone."

----------

--The Iron Hammer--

"You really did a number on him," H4nnib@l chuckled at the hanging scrapper, "And he's still alive!"

"Hook him up to an I.V. and I'll be back to finish this. I gotta report to my bosses that what they did doesn't impact Arachnos, blah-blah-blah. I was just starting to have fun, too."

"Can we go a few rounds on the punching bag?" T1r0ne asked.

"No, Ty. I want him fit and healthy for tomorrow. If any of you losers touches him, I'm going to see who can last longer under my... Ministrations..."

The Freakshow may have been a pack of nihilists, but they knew a good threat when they heard one. H4nnib@l and T1r0ne raised their clawed arms in surrender and backed away as the villainess left the room.

"You got lucky," H4nnib@l finally growled at the scrapper, "I've seen Silver break a man in two over her knee! She's just playing with you now!"

"Yeah," Psycho13 gasped back as the wound in his belly closed, "Playing..."

A Meat Doctor came into the basement then. She had an I.V. on a stroller and was ready to hook it to the poor victim's arm as ordered. She jammed it into his arm exceptionally non-gently and left. The scrapper turned to the bag and was surprised to find it filled with clear fluid. Judging from how his body was reacting, it wasn't just salt water, but a nutrient solution.

"How silly," the victim sighed as the lights went out, "I'm being tormented by my own vices. I always wondered if I'd get hit by such an irony in my life."

---

Two hours later, the Heavy metal song in his head faded. Psycho13 woke briefly as the song switched over. There was a strange click, and he realized it wasn't going to be another song.

"Levi, it's Jared," the recording explained, "We're working on a way to get you home, but we can't go getting ourselves marked by the spiders. Now... I hope you understand when I do this to you, but you need to be stronger than you think you can be..."

"No!" Levi shouted, realizing what was to come next "No! No! NO!"

The first song played, a briefly famous Russian pop duet. Psycho13 couldn't feel much pain, but he could swear he felt his brain getting scarred. He spasmed wildly, shook violently, and tried desperately to wrench himself free of the chains holding him up. Nothing worked, but it wouldn't have helped him anyway. The music continued, unabated, and even if he did get free, he wouldn't be able to dig the speaker out of his ear.

For the umpteenth time since he'd helped Draven implant the damn thing, he cursed himself for his foolish short-sightedness. With nothing left to do, he started to scream and thrash. The I.V. fell out of his arm, but he'd already drained the bag. He tried to get the attention of the Freaks, to try to get them to make some kind of disruption for his poor, compartmentalized mind, but they steadfastly refused to go down into the basement.

"Damn," H4v0k growled over his cards, "She must really like him."

"I didn't hear her come in," his brother, H4nnib@l, intoned, then pointed with one of his claws at one of the cards being held in front of him by a lesser Freak, "That one, Tim. Funny... She usually makes more of a show of it."

They played their game long into the night, the screams of the hero below serving as a soundtrack to their squalid decadence.

I posted up another section to Grey's Army.

In this one, I cover my take on the Wedding Event.

Special guest appearance from Badge! Thanks Badge! I added him because we ran into each other at the Event. Conversations are somewhat altered, but they fit the general vibe I get from a Bungeeball post.

"Urgh..." the portly archer growled as he lurched into his apartment, "Never hooking up with a pick-up group again... I told them, don't go after all those zombies, they look tough... Wait for the team to gather around, stick together... No! Scrapper's racing in, gettin' his head damn near-cut off, the healer thinks he's a tank... Maybe it was the fact they were all male..."

"Sounds reasonable," Ms. Liberty replied as he walked into the kitchen.

"AUGH!"

"What?"

Roland clutched at his heart and blinked a couple times.

"Godammit, don't do that to me. I may not have high blood pressure, but scaring someone like that isn't good for their heart... It can't be..."

He narrowed his eyes at her. Not only was her visit unexpected (she usually called him to let him know if she'd be around), she was dressed in a rather formal dress. He rolled back through his memory to see if there was an event and remembered.

"Oh!" Round exclaimed as he set his quiver next to the refrigerator, "The wedding."

"Yeah, it's in a couple hours," Ms. Liberty replied, "You forgot?"

"Well, I'm not going, so..." he turned to see her looking angrily at him, "What? I-... No! NO!"

"Come on, Roland. The girls have been giving me a lot of crap about you lately, and I want to show them that you're just a nice guy I hang out with every so often to burn off stress."

"You can do that any other time," the hunter crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at the girl, "Being your wedding date goes way above-and-beyond anything a friend would do."

"No it doesn't!"

"It does in my book."

Ms. Liberty sighed and shook her head, exasperated.

"Look," she said in a calmer voice, "If I take anybody else, they, the hero and the media, are just going to blow the whole thing out of proportion..."

"And if I go, it'll just be the media and your friends. Sounds like more of a lateral move than an improvement."

Roland started removing his armor pads and utility harness. He was hoping this argument would end soon. He really needed to take a shower and cook dinner...

"You could just go dateless," he offered, "It's not like your peers aren't... ex-pect-ing... that... Oh, now what!?"

As he'd spoken, her posture had turned more glum. Ms. Liberty was now holding herself and looking around nervously. Only a scant few people had ever seen her like that. Roland didn't like the fact he could now count himself as one of them. Something seemed far too personal about that.

"Roland," she finally whispered, "I... I don't want to look like I'm cold and impersonal. A lot of heroes already think that, and going to a wedding, dateless... That's... That's not good for my image at all, you know?"

"Saying this is a PR move doesn't improve things."

"Please?"

The portly defender-class hero gritted his teeth at that one. With a light groan, he nodded. It wasn't so much that she'd said the magic word, it was more that he was starting to be worn down by the distress in her voice. She wasn't just asking him to help her out, she was inviting him to something she figured would be fun. She was also asking him to be a friend.

"Alright," he grumbled, "I'll go. But it better be catered! I'm starving. I missed lunch."

----------

When he came back from his shower and changing into the tuxedo Ms. Liberty provided for him he stared at her with a bemused expression on his face. She looked up from her wristwatch and smiled, then noticed his expression.

"What?"

"How is it this thing fits me so well?"

She sniffed out a light laugh and replied, "Your measurements are in the Freedom Corps database, Round. What did you expect me to give you? A tux that doesn't fit?"

"A little, actually," Roland shrugged, "Yeah. It's the sort of thing my friends would have done. Or my brother..."

"Well, come on, we gotta hurry!"

As he closed the door behind them, he patted the area over his heart where he'd placed the folded up quiver. He hoped that folding it wouldn't affect the quantum singularity stored inside... Sheldon assured him the apparatus would remain stable and that the "weapon space" technology was almost a decade old. With any luck, that would mean the device was rugged enough to survive this minor change.

"Roland! Come on!" he heard from the stairs at the end of the hall.

"Coming!" he shouted back, readjusted his tuxedo and started following after his friend.

Even though they could have just "hopped" over to the Usher waiting next to the giant statue of Atlas, Ms. Liberty insisted that they use the provided limousine. She explained that she didn't want anything happening to her dress and Roland gave his sleeve a gentle tug. He'd forgotten to check the tag, but he was quite certain that the outfits had come from Icon...

There was a line for the event. Lots of heroes heroines had simply been invited by the happy couple, even Roland's parents. However, Randy and Charlene already had their own plans. He stopped thinking about those plans at that moment, though, and visibly shuddered.

Walking past the lined up heroes and heroines in line invoked a few grunts and grumbles, but it was Ms. Liberty and her date, so nobody was going to argue the point. Upon reaching the Usher, Roland could swear he felt more than a hundred eyes burning holes into the back of his neck. Perhaps almost a thousand. If it weren't for the dampening field erected by the wedding staff, some of that sensation might have been literal.

As the Usher looked over the list for the next group being let in and Ms. Liberty waited to get his attention, the defender noticed a familiar face standing nearby. Kip saw him and rolled his head in disgust.

"Why aren't you in line?" Round asked.

"I'm not going to that," Kip replied, "Weddings are fine and all, but they shouldn't be public spectacles. You know they're letting rogues in on that thing? No, I don't mean types like Power Breaker, either."

"I'm sure it'll be fine."

"So long as you're packing heat."

"Roland!" Ms. Liberty suddenly hissed, "Come on! We gotta go!"

"You better make sure nothing bad happens to him, Lemonhead. Randy may not act like it, but he cares deeply for each of his kids, and he takes it personal when any of them come to harm."

"It's a wedding, Kip."

"Someone don't know their history," the other scrapper replied, "Weddings should be private, personal affairs. Close friends and family only. A public spectacle like this, with some of the people I'm hearing are invited, is not going to go well, no matter how you slice it."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Ms. Liberty sighed.

"Okay, Ma'am," the Usher said over them, "The spell is ready."

"Spell?" Roland growled.

"Haven't you noticed the people fading into thin air?" his friend asked.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm added security-"Kip began as the Usher muttered something and snapped his fingers.

Roland and Ms. Liberty promptly disappeared.

"-at the gate..." he finished, "Nice. Real nice, Bob."

"My name isn't Robert, sir," the Usher replied.

"Shut up."

----------

"What the Hell is this place?"

Roland's eyes cleared after the effects of the teleportation wore off. He found himself in a peculiar place, all gold and ivory, molded into an unusual architecture. He looked to the young lady who was the reason for his being there and she shrugged.

"The Ouroboros, home of the Menders,. Think Time Police, only more complicated," Ms. Liberty replied, "They're letting Manticore and Sister Psyche hold their wedding here for numerous reasons, chief of which is their neutral standing in terms of global situations and the fact that the view is spectacular."

"It is pretty," the portly hunter replied, "Seems a bit cramped with all the people."

"Well, everybody who was invited is going to be fitting in here."

Roland looked askance at the available room.

"Unless any of them feel like swimming, that just isn't going to happen."

Shaking her head, Ms. Liberty took Roland's arm into her own and started dragging him away.

"Come on, it's time we settled things with Mynx and the others."

"She's the one that's been giving you a hard time, huh?"

They crossed the expanse of the flying facility and found the gathered female heroines of the Vindicators, save Valkyrie and Aurora Borealis. Malaise was also standing with the ladies, sipping on a glass of what looked like water.

"Ladies, Mal," Ms. liberty announced, "This is Roland Grey."

"Hi boy-toy," Mynx replied after a quick inhale through her nose, "Wow, you're either really burly, or really fat..."

"A little of both, actually," he replied, "And don't call me that ever again, or I'll find myself a hose around here and turn it on ya'."

"Oh," the red-haired scrapper folded her arms over her chest and glared at the bearded young man by narrowing one eye, "Cat jokes."

"Hey, they're better than fat jokes," he replied, "Yo, Malaise, right? Know where I could find something to drink?"

"Well, this is water, but I suppose they have something more to your liking at the punch bowl."

"Water's fine," Round replied and walked to where the controller indicated.

"Well?" Ms. liberty asked, "Do you guys believe me now, that we're not dating?"

"I don't know," Swan replied, "He's... Unsettling. Normally, when people are talking, I hear an echo of what they're really thinking. With him, it was just what he was saying."

"Same here," Malaise concurred, "But I wouldn't think that rules anything out."

"He's neat!" Luminary replied, "Some of the other heroes coming in here are all in awe of being among the greats like us, but he's got this calm composure... It's kind of cute."

"I don't like him," Mynx growled.

"That's because he was so quick to talk back to you," Swan countered.

"Exactly. We don't need two people like me in this group."

"He's not joining the Vindicators!" Ms. Liberty almost shouted, "What the Hell gave you that idea?"

"I'm still not convinced you and him don't have something going on behind everybody's backs!" the cat girl hissed, "There are plenty of ways to feel normal without resorting to... Slumming it with the norms..."

"It's not slumming," Malaise chimed in, "and it wouldn't hurt you to get more involved with the community, Kat."

"I'm plenty involved!"

"I wouldn't say attracting half the world's born-pregnant cat girl population to this city is community involvement."

"[frig] you!"

Roland finished pouring himself a glass of water from the cooling apparatus and heard the expletive shouted. When he glanced back, Citadel was hovering next to the assembled heroines and hero to see if the situation needed calming. Apparently, Luminary was able to convince him they had everything under control, but Roland could have sworn he heard Citadel say something about a hose. Mynx apparently soured at that.

"Hey there," a hero said at the defender's shoulder, "Roland Grey? Grey's Army?"

"Yeah," he growled back as he turned, "Who're you?"

The man was dressed in a simple black outfit. It wasn't even a tuxedo, but at least it wasn't ridiculously flashy. He was putting a communicator back on his belt, where it promptly disappeared, when Roland faced him.

"I'm Badge," the man replied, "I almost forgot about this and was just finishing tearing up a Malta Group cell when I remembered it. Needless to say, I didn't have time to change."

"Badge..." Roland narrowed his eyes and glanced about at nothing as he tried to search his memory, "Oh! You're that guy that sets up those crazy events!"

"Yeah... Something like that. I'm considered somewhat like a 'Machiavelli' among the bad guys and some of the heroes... I just like a little curve ball to the normal daily doldrums, you know? So, that usually means the Malta Group winds up sending about four or five Kronos Class Titans to the same spot where I've got nearly two hundred heroes and about twenty giant Clockwork monstrosities standing by. So long as everybody's having fun, I don't see the problem."

"My dad's had to help out with some of the repair efforts after those... He says it's a good thing you usually pick places where nobody can get hurt."

"I've met your dad, he's a good tank. Also, I always pick places like that," Badge replied with a grin, "It's not fun if anybody not wearing spandex gets hurt. And the damage to the city, well, that's just money flowing. Don't look at me all weird, I help out with the reconstruction, too. I'm not mean."

"I guess," Roland nodded, then gestured with his glass, "Well, I better get back to my... date..."

"Oh..." the other hero quirked an eyebrow, "One or all of them? I wouldn't put it past that Malaise guy..."

"Just one, and it's just a friendly thing, there's nothing involved with it."

"So, Roland," Luminary chimed when he arrived, "Do you dance?"

"Yes, actually," he replied, "I can salsa, mambo, waltz, even tango."

"That has to be a lie," Ms. Liberty snorted.

"Nope. My sister needed somebody to practice with, and I was the closest free person our mom could find. I would've objected, but when I told our brother about it, he told me to take the opportunity."

Grey paused to chuckle.

"He said that it would really impress the ladies."

"Har har," his date muttered.

"So, you can dance, you can cook, and you're physically attractive," Luminary turned to Ms. Liberty, "Libby, I'd hold onto this guy..."

Both the portly defender and the city's favorite young heroine slapped their foreheads in consternation. Swan and Malaise both rolled their eyes at the waves of denial that radiated from them.

"Look, listen up real good," Grey finally said after composing himself, "I am not now dating your friend, Ms. Liberty, nor do I intend to."

"Guys... Look, it just wouldn't work out between us," the heroine agreed, "We come from wholly different worlds... Plus... We just can't seem to see each other that way..."

"Then why do you hang out together?" Mynx almost shouted, "What's so special about him that you need to be with him all the time."

"It's hardly all the time..." Roland growled.

"Frankly, she could use more time out of the base," Malaise murmured into his glass.

"I don't have many friends," Ms. Liberty answered the cat girl glumly, "I've got you guys, and you're great... But... It's always the same thing with all of us... It's always work."

They stood silently as Citadel and Synapse arranged the gathered meta humans into a neat little group. The final preparations were beginning, and it was about time they all got to their places. Before they got situated, Roland added one last thing.

"I don't have many friends, either."

"Fine," Mynx muttered, pursing her lips glumly and nodding, "I get it, I get it... I'm still going to give you a hard time about it, Libby."

The blonde scrapper shook her head exasperatedly and shrugged.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Mynx."

----------

Roland was standing at the edge of the gathered heroes when everything went wrong. He'd been to a few weddings in his life, and he hated to admit it, but they bored the Hell out of him. Asa result, he usually zoned out of whatever was said.

When the bride and groom were speaking, he paid a little closer attention. Something about people communicating their emotions more clearly, being honest here, if only here, and being public about it always tugged a little at his heart. The words were touching, and Roland nodded to himself as he wondered if his parents had similar feelings.

He wondered if he'd ever really feel that way.

He almost didn't realize everything was going wrong due to his lack of attention. Before he realized what was going on, some guy with spider legs coming out of his back was standing behind the gathered heroes, balanced precariously at the edge of the Ouroboros construct. He shouted something about villains and the minions of Arachnos following him to victory, and the battle was joined.

Roland watched as half the crowd suddenly bristled and brimmed with weaponry and energy. Manticore shouted a rallying cry related to his honeymoon, but the battle was already joined. The pudgy defender found himself at the edge of a debilitating gas cloud that was about half as bad as one of his father's farts.

"Oh... *cough* that's unpleasant," he choked out as he edged out of the cloud, "What the Hell... Where's Kip? I thought he was with security..."

An energy bolt tore through the air by his head. Roland didn't know if it was friendly fire or not, but the fact that it was red was a possible indication of the source's allegiance.

Roland popped open his tuxedo's top button and fished into the quiver he'd folded over his heart. He was outclassed, unsupported, and knew that his contribution, whatever it was, would be minimal... So he had to make it count.

"Flash," he muttered out of habit, "Dammit!"

The feathered end of the arrow slipped into the space between his extended fingertips and he drew the arrow out. Without a bow, he had a limited range, so he threw the flash arrow into the nearest cluster of villains.

As he fished for the next one ("Glue"), he looked up to see a few brilliant trails headed his way. He'd heard stories about it, but couldn't believe it was about to happen to him. Apparently, he'd ticked off the top lady in Arachnos.

Hovering in the air, Roland settled the arrow back into his quiver and waited. He'd either get shot down by an enemy, or pumped up with enough hold breaking agents to break free of his cage of souls. The latter wasn't terribly likely, but the former...

"Who are you?" the white-haired villainess asked as Roland stopped spinning and faced her.

"Uh..." he replied, "Why?"

"I asked you a question, cur!" Ghost Widow slapped him across the face.

"Ah, dammit! I'm nobody, Witch."

"Nobody?"

"They call me Exaybachay, 'He Who Talks Much, Saying Nothing,' but I prefer Nobody," he finished with a smirk.

"Then why were you with them?" Ghost Widow turned him to the Vindicators, now joined by the members Roland had missed meeting, who were holding their own against the treacherous rogues.

"I dunno. Lots of heroes and heroines hang out with people well above their capabilities."

"Who are you!?" she brought him back to her angered face and shouted, "Do not toy with me! This is your last chance!"

"Pft, you're gonna kill me anyway. What does it matter to you if my name is Roland Grey?"

"Grey?"

Ghost Widow pondered a moment, then turned back to the defender.

"Not the Lady's family... No... You're of the one that led the bizarre minor raid against my Lord's nation last year! Hm... When you see your father again, runt, you let him know my Lord has him in mind."

"[Witch], we didn't do a God [darn] thing to your lord."

She placed two fingers into the hollow of Roland's throat, forcing a choke reflex. That wasn't the extent of Ghost Widow's assault, however, for she then raked her fingers down, shredding through the tuxedo and exposing Roland's quiver to the rented "arrow space" pocket dimension. Dark energy tore through his skin and rent into his soul. It didn't kill him, but it was close. Ghost Widow then slammed him to the ground and focused her attention elsewhere.

He lay there for a few minutes, wondering what to do. He heard the med-porter beacon beeping in his pocket, but was worried about where exactly it would send him. Heroes were dropping all around, and he considered using his Lazareen injection in a desperate gamble to help.

Seeing other heroes trying the same thing get cut down by their ruthless opposition, he decided against it. Suddenly, a dark-dressed heroine ran into the midst of the bodies he was among and waved her arms at one of the rogues.

Almost instantly, the tide of battle shifted as the Howling Twilight brought all the defeated heroes back from the brink, including Roland Grey. Assault rifles blazed, fire scored through the air, and heavy-as-lead fists cracked bones. Roland fished into his quiver again and muttered.

"Flash. [Frig]!"

He casually tossed the flash arrow into the deep midst of the rogues and shouted for the glue arrow. There was a stalker in front of him named after her preferred weapons, a pair of knives that matched her outfit. It was as good a place as any, so he threw the glue arrow at her.

The defender she was trying to kill backed away out of range and the stalker turned to Roland. He was already fishing an explosive out of his quiver, but he didn't have to pay too much attention to the girl anyway. A blaster swooped in and blew her over the side of the construct, sending her screaming into the ocean below.

"Woah..." Roland grunted as he threw the explosive arrow at a retreating Blood Widow, "I wonder what-"

Everything disappeared and he was floating in white. It was an unusual thing to see. If he had to be in it for much longer than an instant, it would likely have been maddening. Fortunately, he was jarred awake by normal light and air as he fell to the concrete steps in front of the Freedom Corps building in Galaxy City.

All of the heroes at the wedding event were strewn about in various conditions. Back Alley brawler appeared among them and started ushering defender classes with healing powers to resuscitate the fallen. There was a poor, unfortunate Hellion that was dragged in to bring back those who could only be revived by the dark magic known as Howling Twilight before he was unceremoniously zapped up by the Police Drones.

Badge was chortling over on the steps. Roland sat down gingerly to join him.

"That was amazing!" the dark-dressed hero laughed, "Oh... If I had even suspected, I'd have brought a better suit!"

Roland could only assume that he meant more powers.

"Did you enjoy yourself, Grey?"

"Sort of, yeah... I ticked off G.W. something fierce..."

"Ha!" Badge clapped him on the shoulder, "That's an honor normally reserved for people of a higher threat level! Congratulations!"

"You have a really weird sense of what is something to be proud of."

"Hey, I'm alive, you're alive, everybody here's alive... We're all going to look back on this day and laugh. It was a heckuva curveball."

Roland pondered it and nodded.

"Well," the dark-dressed hero barked, "I'm gonna go home and go to bed. It's been a busy day for me, and I've got many busy days ahead of me. Enjoy your cake. But be careful! The cake is a lie!"

"I think I watched it get blown to pieces by a sonic blast," Grey grunted, "It almost brought a tear to my eye... Until I was brought around to face Ghost Widow... Then that made the tear shrivel up... Along with other things."

"See? you're laughing already!" Badge chortled, "I'll see you around."

"Bye."

Just as exhausted, Roland turned toward the Yellow Line with home in mind. He'd have to return the tuxedo later, but considering what it had been through, he couldn't imagine Icon taking it back. It wasn't like a lot of other hero outfits, the ones that could resist cuts and burns, and sometimes outright repair them. It was just an expensive piece of cloth that looked good to the eyes, or it did before Ghost Widow tore it apart.

"Ugh..." Round grumbled as he reached the street, "What am I gonna tell Libby when she asks about this thing?"

((Badge on loan from Bungeeball. Thanks, man! Some events in this story are based on things that happened in the Valentine's Day Event. The stuff between Roland and the Vindicators did not, however, and is a final clarification on what the relationship between Roland Grey and Ms. Liberty is in this work of fan fiction. It just seems odd that in-game our hundreds of thousands of characters all wind up meeting the major players of the game in some way.))

Well guys, here's my final thing: In the beginning, none of the stories are supposed to have anything to do with each other. Dogma's and my story is supposed to be parallel to whatever anybody else contributes.

They can still be your stories, and there's no guarantee that anything we put down will ever coincide.

That said, I don't intend to push this on you guys. If you're not comfortable doing it, that's fine. Problem is, Dogma and I will have to seek assistance elsewhere, because if it's just us writing this, well, it's going to be one arc and very, VERY boring. Well, not very boring, but it suffers a bit of a disservice from being called the "Cooperative Story project."

We're not asking you to sacrifice your characters or their schemes and stories. We just want you to communicate more and get all of our characters more involved with each other in a format that isn't as rabid as an RP thread. Look at how most of our best written RPs have gone... That's not supposed to happen here because this is supposed to be a more relaxed environment for presenting the adventures of our characters that's still in a stable interactive format (in that we're interacting with each other without worry for interruptions).

I hope someday you can join us...

Thank you for checking it out, though. Questions, comments, criticisms, what-have-you, please send them here.

It's not much, and I've forgotten what it was from my original reading. Checking again, you kind of misused "insure" toward the beginning, it's supposed to be "ensure." "Insure" is normally applying insurance, while "ensure" is usually used when you check for capability.

It's not like my first stories, I'll tell ya. I usually post straight from the browser, and even with Mozilla's new nifty spell-checker, I keep making mistakes (usually typos).

I posted up the final chapter of Zeke's ordeal with recovering an imprisoned Peacebringer. There's a price to victory at times.

Warning: This has Silver Mantis in it, and she's not the type of character to downplay her behavior.

You've got a couple mistakes in there, but you don't fall into the same common pitfalls most first-timers fall into.

Normally there's plenty of repetitiveness (Bob tied his shoes, then Bob walked out the door to Bob's car), spelling errors, or mismatched words (where, wear, were; there, their, they're), but I think you have only one instance of anything like that throughout the whole story.

Granted, there's nothing necessarily groundbreaking in this, but it's also not a bad read. All you need to do now is keep at it and further your character's life and experiences.

Solid Shot charged the left flank, blazing his assault rifle in a spread that wounded and injured many of the Cor Leonis soldiers. The one he was running toward, however, had an entirely bad thing about to happen to him. Just as the young super terrorist popped a new magazine into his assault rifle, Solid Shot tossed his own assault rifle into his left manipulator and delivered a savage electrified punch into the trooper's jaw. Sprawled on the ground, the young man gasped and looked up in time to see Solid coming down with a flying double hammerfist.

Psycho13 zipped right and hacked and slashed though their enemies. He didn't have time to waste with the battle, so he simply carved through the joints of his targets, lacerating tendons and ligaments and disabling the soldiers. This didn't render them unconscious, however.

A snow storm appeared behind the scrapper. As the soldiers slipped, fell, and shivered, a sphere of lightning hovered into their midst and exploded, finishing the soldiers off. Project Whirlwind grinned and started working on his next enchantment.

The scrapper closed with Arakhn and had his blade hovering over her impassive face. He hadn't been stopped by anything, but now that he was close enough to get a good look at her, he was slightly stunned. He looked her up and down and turned to Zeke.

"I thought you said she was ugly!" he shouted and her hand stopped halfway to his ribs, "She's actually kind of cu-"

Gritting her teeth angrily, Arakhn slammed her palm against the skinny scrapper's chest and a dark explosion sent him arcing through the air.

"-YOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOO-!"

There was a sickening crunch as he hit the rocks. The young man hanged there, spread out like an "X" and gritting his teeth in pain.

"-oot... Ow... There's a point in the rock that's between my shoulder blades... You know that part that you can't scratch? It's right there."

The altered gravity holding the scrapper in place alleviated when the villainess turned her attention back to Zeke and Project Whirlwind. Psycho13 hit the ground with a splat and a groan. Whirlwind threw an oxygenating spell his friend's way with his left hand and kept working magic through his right.

"Hey! Redhead!" Solid Shot shouted as he racked a round into his rifle's central chamber, "Eat Tungsten!"

The bullets flew and impacted on the shield that rose almost instantaneously around the fire-haired dark matron of the Galaxy forces. She smirked without looking at the blaster and casually flicked her hand aside, tripping the android to the ground with a dark wave.

"Androm'Geizzer, I expected you to bring stronger forces. All I see are pathetic scraps... Broken lunatics and the dregs of the hero community... You would have..."

Ezekiel disappeared from view, leaving Project Whirlwind without a shield. The Defender blinked a couple times, turned to face her properly, then extended his right fist to her.

"Heh..." she chuckled, "Your boss has gone and disappeared on you, now all you have is a mere token to try to keep me from taking your lives? What have you got?"

"You asked," Whirlwind replied and opened his fingers, one at a time.

When the last finger opened, a small cloud rose from his hand. It grew exponentially as it hovered and settled over the magician's head. Arakhn shook her own head angrily, mouthing the word "No" as the cloud darkened.

"Sorry," Whirlwind replied as a lightning bolt blasted into her.

Arakhn flew backwards from the impact and was caught from behind before she could hit the ground. A black-purple haze held her in the air and turned her slowly.

"You have something that belongs to me," Androm said, his eyes blazing at her, then Zeke intoned "I suggest you return it now, before this gets worse."

Arakhn sneered, then hurled the crystal aside. Project Whirlwind flew to catch it and wound up receiving a face-full of dark energy from teh villainess's still outstretched hand that knocked him aside and caused him to crash into the wall. Psycho13 caught the fumble, though, and tumbled into the opposite wall. Victoriously, he held up the gem like a running back holding up a touchdown catch.

"Big mistake!" Androm shouted as he lifted the villainess into the air and threw her across the chamber.

Arakhn recovered in mid-air, spun and flipped, then landed smoothly with her feet spread apart and her left hand bracing her on the floor like a tripod. Her right hand was held above her head, swirling with dark energy, and she hurled it at the heroes in an arc.

Solid Shot flew up out of the way of the energy blast headed toward him and leveled his assault rifle on her. Psycho13 curled up around the crystal and took the hit with a scream. Project Whirlwind wasn't hit, but he was buried under a pile of small rocks that fell out of the wall where the blast hit. The final dark beam just spattered off Ezekiel's shields and he growled.

"That should have knocked you on your [butt]!" Arakhn shouted, "How did-"

"I focus my energies properly," Zeke replied, "It took time figuring it out. There isn't much that can scare me out of your little arsenal anymore."

"I'll teach you how to fear me again!"

"No," Zeke reached behind his back and gripped his fist in and out, "Not tonight."

Arakhn hurled another blast of energy at the Warshade and gritted his teeth. He was able to resist a lot of the dark cloud that washed over him, but it was still painful, still cold, and still powerful. He was dragged back a few inches, the soles of his shoes scraped the rock beneath him as he resisted the push. When the torrent was gone, however, he was ready with his own return volley.

The quantum rifle he'd recovered, still loaded with its peculiar ammunition and ready to go, appeared in his hand as the swirling vortex dissipated with the rest of the energy that had just washed over him. Zeke whipped the weapon around, brought the butt stock to his shoulder, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion that had taken down half as many Rikti as it had deer.

Arakhn's eyes widened and she was thrown back by a blast that nearly crippled her. As she struggled to stand, Zeke approached her and put his hand around her neck. Dark energy started to swirl around them both, permeating the stone beneath them. He hefted her into the air and dragged large chunks of the floor up with Arakhn's body. The boulders floated around them.

"I told you, never give me a reason to want you dead," Androm growled, "I was a loyal soldier of yours, I warned you of countless attempts on your life, I even saved your pathetic existence from destruction! You dare cross me!? You don't believe I can swallow you whole!? Let me show you what I can do! NO!"

Zeke promptly dropped her and staggered back, gripping his head and growling to himself. Geizzer was screaming red rage into his head and Durj was shouting back, just as loud. It felt like the blood vessels in his skull were about to pop. As the boulders dropped back to the floor, Arakhn stood, her arm practically consumed with dark energy as she prepared for the death blow.

There was a roar from above as Solid Shot's assault rifle barked fire and metal at the villainess, piercing her shield and perforating her body. She yelped once before suddenly disappearing in a dark flash.

Zeke remained on the floor, shuddering and gasping for breath. The android descended to the Warshade and leveled the weapon on the man's head.

"Zeke?" he asked cautiously, "Everything alright in there?"

"No," the man replied, "But I'm back in control. Androm... He's quiet again. I think it's the silent treatment."

"You sure?"

The shields lowered and Zeke stood back up. A trickle of blood rolled out of his nose.

"Dump shock," the android muttered at the blood, "Whirly!"

He and Zeke ran over to pull the rubble off their defender. As the magician rolled the last few stones off, he saw Zeke and reacted almost instantly with his weak healing spell.

"Are you alright?" he asked worriedly before mumbling the proper words to activate the artifact again.

"I'll be fine," Zeke replied.

"No..." a smooth, cold voice said from the chamber's entrance, "You won't."

Exasperated, the three heroes turned to find Silver Mantis standing at the entrance of the cavern, flanked by a small cadre of Freak Tanks. She smiled wickedly at them as she considered all of the horrible things she was going to do to them.

"Lateral!" Psycho13 shouted and charged into her, bowling the whole group over.

Zeke turned and caught the crystal in his left hand with a simple influx of gravity and turned to the others. Solid was already dragging Project Whirlwind through the air, over the recovering Tanks and the premiere Arachnos lieutenant. Zeke appeared jsut behind them, sparing one look back to Psycho.

"Go!" the scrapper shouted before a large number of metal spikes erupted from Silver Mantis and stabbed through him.

Psycho13's eyes widened and he looked to Zeke before his head slumped, connecting his forehead to hers. The villainess rolled the scrapper off and pushed herself to a standing position. Blood dripping from her spikes, she pointed at the Warshade and the Tanks started their assault.

Zeke unleashed an explosive blast that toppled them aside and disappeared. As Solid Shot and Whirlwind reached the exit of the cave, Zeke reappeared and turned back, reaching for his fallen ally through the dimensions. He found nothing.

"What?" he breathed, "Solid... We have to go back..."

"We can't!" the android replied, "We're half broken as it is, you and me, we could stand up to the tanks, but I've heard bad things about that girl! We gotta get the Hell out of here now! Recruit an army like last time, and I'll think about goin' toe-to-toe with her again!"

Zeke nodded. He didn't relish having to tell Levi's father how the young hero had died, or that it was for a cause he had nothing to do with. Worse, he wouldn't even be able to deliver a body, but if he could, they wouldn't have to deliver it. They could have just had him med-port. If Zeke couldn't teleport Psycho13, the med-porter wouldn't work either.

With a heavy heart, Ezekiel led Solid Shot out of the cavern.

----------

Silver Mantis held the inhibitor in her hand, admiring the bright red glow of the single light on the small black box. It hadn't stopped the Warshade from escaping, but it certainly kept him from recovering the morsel at her feet.

"Wake up, Regenerator," she growled, "We're going to have so much fun."

"Sounds good," the scrapper gurgled, "Are you sure you want to share with me?"

"Oh yes," she replied as she stepped on his neck and turned his face to her with her toe, "I've never been able to work on a regenerator before..."

"Oh... You're one of those kinds of girls..." Psycho13 rolled back over, feeling his cheek cut open, "I gotta warn ya... I'm a screamer."

"Goody."

((Not bad. Not bad at all.))

I have another post in Grey's Army. Zeke and company carve a path through the Circle of Thorns to retrieve the crystal prison of the hostless Peacebringer Kheldian. However, the journey's only two-thirds complete...

Clickey Clacks! I gotta remember that!

The caves were alive with the sound of wind and the staccato of gunfire. It was a general mix of Circle wizards, a rarity among the sects, even moreso in Cap Au Diable. However, it was a rare deal, new bodies, athletic bodies from the Council, and every sect wanted its share. Too bad the heroes arrived and spoiled the whole darn thing.

A red-robed Fire Thorn Caster was split apart by a spray of bullets from Solid Shot's assault rifle, and a horrid green mist wafted out of the decimated corpse. Project Whirlwind had a group of Defenders and Guards pinned against a corner with a powerful, swirling current of air. In the midst of the raging mini-hurricane, Psycho13 hacked and slashed at the soldiers of the wizards. Zeke marched through the ranks of wizards, and snuck up to a Madness Mage that was trying to pin the assault android down with visions of him rusting away, but Solid kept taking pot-shots at the wizards surrounding the group.

When Durj got close enough, he pressed his hand against the Mage's back and Androm compressed the gravity around his foe. The Mage almost screamed, but was suddenly drowned out by the sound of his body getting torn apart by a grenade.

Five minutes later, Zeke pushed the body pinning him off and gazed about dazedly. The sounds of explosions and gunfire had been replaced with the soothing ambience of Project Whirlwind's fog and wind enchantments, and the combat android was busy replenishing his ammunition.

"Ow," the old man grunted as he pushed himself off the floor, "Next time, you might want to keep track of your allies, Solid."

"What? When did I hit you?"

"I guess it wasn't your fault, but it was when you blew up that Madness Mage. I was right behind him, then I was under the parts that made him up... Strange things... They're little more than dust."

"Yeah, but you were bigger than him, why couldn't I see you? Whirly and Psych were over there..."

"Seriously, Levi, you gotta stop letting them hit you like that," Project Whirlwind was using his oxygenation enchantments to heal his friend's wounds faster as the scrapper pulled thorn blades out of his torso and limbs, "Those swords slow everything down, man, even that super healing of yours."

"I'll be fine, I've got you and the veterans over there to keep me alive."

"I suppose I should explain," Androm intoned, "In order to improve our effectiveness in combat, I bend the light around us and effectively hide from the enemy... It has proven exceptionally useful, especially in this instance..."

A Void Hunter, on loan from the Council, was stalking down the hall toward the recovering heroes. He had been alerted that there would likely be a Kheldian interest in this operation, and judging from what he'd heard from fleeing Spectral Demons, it was likely there was a Warshade traitor among the invading force. If he acted quickly enough, he could execute the Warshade, then double back to the Demons while the heroes tried to cut him down. Then, he could inform the Council that the Circle forces were weakened, and prime for an assault.

Such musings, however, were abruptly cut short when he heard a burst of air behind him. As he turned to see what it was, a fist slammed into his chest and the breath was squeezed out of his lungs. A series of blows to the face finished the Void Hunter off, and Zeke snatched the unfired Quantum Rifle out of his enemy's hands as the unconscious body slumped to the floor.

"Well done, Zeke!" Solid cheered, "What are you doing to that gun?"

"Just, there.." Zeke pulled a panel off and fished around inside the housing of the gun, "And there's something that doesn't belong."

He yanked out the teleportation device and tossed it onto the unconscious form at his feet. A second later, the body of the Void Hunter disappeared and Zeke walked back to his companions with the Quantum Rifle.

"How... What?" Project Whirlwind was a little slack-jawed at the team-leader's accomplishment, "How'd you know what to remove?"

"I'm an electrician," Zeke shrugged, "And I've been trying that trick for a few months, now, but I could never pull it off before the goon got zapped back to wherever the Council keeps them, and the gun went with 'em."

"Crazy," Solid clapped the Warshade on the shoulder, "So... Are you going to let me give that nifty contraption a test run?"

"No," Zeke replied as he reached the wall and started fitting the gun inside a crack in it, "I'm bringing this thing back to Paragon so the Kheldians can get to work on finding a way to resist its effects. I can't risk having it damaged, so..."

As he marked the weapon with a touch of dark energy, Androm chuckled.

"I like where you're going with this."

"You have no idea what I'm doing," Zeke whispered with a grin.

When they got to the final chamber and the aggravated Death Mage that was directing the gathered wizards, the small team was running on the impetus of their prior victories. Psycho13 dove straight into the middle of the fray, smashing a rainbow of gems into his chest, radiating defensive, impact dampening, sensory enhancing and damage boosting energies around him. As the gathered wizards tried to scramble against this superspeeding threat, the other three heroes launched their volleys and in short work, the cluster of mages were torn asunder.

The Death Mage, flanked by a pair of Behemoth demons, blinked twice at his decimated forces.

"Two minutes," he growled, "It took them two minutes to tear all of you apart. Fantastic. Zoria's going to be really happy about this."

"Shall we kill them, Mori'ae?" one of the demons growled.

"Yes, please."

A bolt of lightning scored into the left-most demon and was deftly followed by Pscyho13's screaming form smashing into the monster's chest and knocking it over. The other turned to help its brother(?) and was promptly perforated by Solid Shot's assault rifle. Mori'ae rubbed his temple as the two monsters were dispatched just as quickly as his underlings.

"Fantastic," the demon-wizard growled, "Stop!"

He held up a hand and dark tentacles wrapped around the overzealous scrapper. Psycho13 started to scream about the horrible things he would do to the wizard if the squirming metaphysical appendages did to him what he heard other heroes vocally feared they would do. Mori'ae turned to the other three and started fishing through his robes.

"Alright... I know why you've come, and I'll make this simple. I've grown attached to this body, it has... perks... and I'd like to keep it. Here's the crystal."

He produced it from the folds of his robes and twirled it in the firelight. The crystal was flawless, the body of which was hexagonal with matching points at each end. It would have been a clear quartz if not for the bright glowing energy within it. Mori'ae gestured with the object, and Zeke felt a strange pang in his heart.

"I..." he whispered, "I know her?"

"No... I do..." Androm replied, "It can't be..."

"Catch," the wizard barked and tossed the crystal in the air.

Normally, such a trick wouldn't be so easy. Zeke could have simply pulled the gem to himself using his gravity control, except he was jarred. Androm was jarred as well, and this emotional distress had caused them, host and symbiotic energy being both, to be out of sync. Solid Shot, noticing too late that his partner wasn't moving, dove to catch the prize before it could shatter on the floor.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" the android shouted as he hugged the crystal to his chest, "Your indecision may have just cost us the boss!"

"I... can't... can't... move..."

Mori'ae disappeared into the shadows, chuckling lightly to himself as he left. Psycho13 emerged from the tentacles bracing him to the floor and sped to the retreating shadow, only to rake one of his knives against the wall.

"Damn, no matter how many times I see that happen, it still freaks me out," he growled, "Okay, he's gone, we should probably get the Hell out of here, too."

"My thoughts exactly," Solid's voice emitters distorted a little, "Dammit! I just had these tuned!"

"Give me that," Androm suddenly shouted, and Zeke reached out, saying more softly, "Please, Solid. It... It feels like an old friend."

The android was hesitant, but relented after a moment. Zeke grasped the object and closed his eyes. He could feel Geizzer's energy wrapping about the crystal, feeling the energy within. It was strange that it was so familiar, so...

"It is her," Androm finally admitted, "Nova Shine..."

The crystal suddenly disappeared and Zeke felt a shock as the connection with the energy within the gem was lost. He was an instant from accusing Androm'Geizzer of consuming her when he heard a stream of loud, angry, and violent curses erupt from his Nictus's mind. It would have been deafening if it had actually been in Zeke's ears.

"Nice," a flat, high-toned voice said from the entrance to the cavern, "Exquisite shape, nice feel..."

While his allies gathered themselves about him, Ezekiel turned to the new threat. Androm's voice ceased, and the human could feel control returning to his body. Everything was coming back, from his hands and feet, to the dark energies his hero class was known for.

When he saw Arakhn, the red-haired, pale skinned, neoprene-wearing assassin of the Nictus, and the supposed right-hand of Requiem, his skin went cold. She cradled the crystal in the crook of her elbow and chuckled as a group of Council soldiers clustered into the room from behind her.

"As much as I would like to take this and run, I just can't pass up an opportunity to capture another one of you... traitors..."

Arakhn took a closer look at Zeke.

"Oh my... Kill them! Kill them all! NOW!"

If she'd been smarter, she'd have simply returned the crystal before Zeke's vision started going red. Solid Shot was already leveling his rifle on the head of one of the troops. Psycho13 drew his blades and stepped before the group while Project Whirlwind started fashioning a spell.

"I suppose you creeps think you have an advantage because you have guns," he chuckled, "No... What you have are bullets, and the vain hope that when your guns are dry, we'll be unmoving on the ground..."

Zeke's shields raised up, bidden by a subconscious command from Zeke. Solid Shot creeped behind the darkly glowing Warshade, never taking his sights off his target and hissed at Project Whirlwind.

"What is he doing?"

"I've stopped trying to keep track a long time ago. I think he's bastardizing a quote from a movie..."

"...Though I can assure you," the scrapper continued, a maniacal glint entering his eyes, "That once you're done firing and we're still standing..."

The Archon standing by Arakhn's side raised his arm. His soldiers were unfazed by the lunatic's speech.

"...We'll cut you down before you have a chance to reload."

The Archon dropped his hand and the soldiers opened fire. Their assault rifles blazed rounds into the scrapper's body, and the scrapper shook violently as each bullet tore through his flesh and bones. A few bullets bounced and panged off Zeke's shields, but it seemed that the young man had unsettled the enemy quite a bit. When the last shot sounded, Arakhn leaned toward the gathered heroes as the scrapper slumped to the floor on his knees.

"Aw... I think he's broken," she chortled, "Is that all you've got, Androm?"

Before Zeke could reply, a breath gurgled out of the young man slumped on the floor in front of him. Psycho13 tested a few more breaths while the Council soldiers muttered in disbelief. When the dark-dressed young man got back to a standing position, his ragged breaths had turned to a demented chuckle, and later to outright maniacal laughter.

With a pair of finishing barks of laughter, he straightened out the rags on his chest, settled his blasted apart top back on his head, drew the remaining pair of knives from the tattered remains of his suit, and saluted the soldiers with the right one.

"Our turn!"

((Solid Shot on loan from Khellendrosiic. Mori'ae based off a half remembered Simpsons quote. Nova Shine is so-named because in-game Kheldians are named based on stellar bodies and concepts. Apologies to players who utilize these names.))

I thought Panzer itself means armored.

Panzerfaust, for instance, means "Armored Fist."

Man, we really need a sticky to explain this.

Virtue is the unofficial RP server. Go there, and you can't throw a rock without hitting a Roleplayer.

[ QUOTE ]
What he said. Sort of.

I am soooo rooting for this thread to suceed, but I don't believe I will be among its contributors for a couple of reasons.

1. If you couldn't tell by the number of posts under my avatar, I really haven't gotten to know most of you weirdoes yet, so I wouldn't even know with whom to collaborate.

2. I've always steered clear of the Open threads because of the stifling restrictions of only controlling your own characters. When I come over to play, I expect to play with all the toys, both yours and mine.

I will be reading, and who know? Maybe a few more chapters and I might change my tune.

[/ QUOTE ]

Talk it over with the characters' owner, Corsage. This is a world where we're all one Red Cross Express ticket away from survival, so almost anything goes. If you can come up with a clever reason why your character(s) would be messing with another writer's character, talk it over with them and see if they'd like to work with you.

The idea behind this thread, guys, is that our characters are all living in this world together. This is actually a thread dedicated to telling numerous simultaneous stories.

Yes, it will need smoothing out. Yes, this will take considerable effort. Hopefully, though, we can get a collaboration of stories not just from our own RP boards, but from across the forums.

Heck, I know I'm advertising.

Another post in Grey's Army. Zeke and company are in the Rogue Isles, but their arrival is not entirely unnoticed.

The Captured Dream pulled into Port Oakes without incident. There were plenty of fishing craft, mercenary boats, and various other seafaring vessels in various states of repair and armament throughout the harbor. The clientèle on the boats were just as colorful as the ones on the Captured Dream as well.

There weren't any Arachnos Port Authorities. Brother Ringo explained that the fishermen and other seafarers maintained their own status quo. The only times they had trouble were when the Marcones or the Verandes, or any other aspect of the Mafioso "Family" tried to muscle in on their profits. What few attempts there were to organize were mysteriously crashed by major villains, and Ringo was certain those moments were orchestrated by Arachnos.

The heroes left the Captured Dream and Solid took a couple shots at the nearby Lost. The mutant homeless knew better than to mess around with him and scattered. If a Rector had been nearby, perhaps a Headman, they probably would have tried to make a stand. Solid would have grinned at the thought if he could. It had been a long time since a gang of the Lost could stand up to him.

Psycho13 slid a sixth knife into a thin pocket on the inside of his vest and started buttoning it up with his left hand. With a flourish, he produced a top-hat that seemed to just pop out of nowhere into his right hand. Grinning, he fitted the hat on his head and looked to the android mischievously.

"That's an odd outfit," Solid Shot commented on Psycho13's latest get-up, "Where'd you get it, the turn of the century?"

"Technically, yes... It was the name of the store," Baker replied as he fastened up the last button on his vest, "It's also in the style of the late Nineteenth Century. I saw this movie and I just felt inspired!"

"Demon Barber?" James asked as he started pulling the rope off the mooring and the boat started leaving.

"You're not coming with us?" Zeke asked.

"Sorry, no... you guys should be well enough off with Psych and Whirly."

The gray-haired man turned back to his compatriots. Psycho13 was busy trying to pull a knife out of his forearm while Project Whirlwind stood by with a healing spell ready.

"I keep telling you, man," the defender started helping pull the blade out, "You can't juggle the things!"

"But I can try!"

"Are you sure?" Zeke asked the passenger of the retreating ship.

"You'll be fine. Levi acts goofy, but he's keen enough in a proper fight."

Zeke had his doubts, but he couldn't worry about them at that moment. He had to make sure the group would be ready for the upcoming struggle. Bringing his index finger and his thumb to his lips, he trilled a sharp whistle that got his team's attention.

"I don't think we have to have any introductions," he motioned to Solid Shot, "We've all worked together before, with much success I might add. We should be able to do the same again. Mind you, this is the second operation I'm pulling in the Isles, and, frankly, I'll admit I'm inexperienced. So, I'm going to rely on your guys' expertise on this."

"A corrupter class named Bioserj is going to be meeting us at the entrance to the D," Project Whirlwind offered, "He'll probably have some information from the streets... Maybe be able to point us in the right direction to look."

"Sounds good," Zeke nodded, "You guys think we'll fit in around here?"

"You look simple enough," Solid shrugged, "Besides, if we get in a pinch, we could have Whirly here pull that fog trick again and 'zip' we disappear. Psych looks the part, and you look downright sinister in that get-up, Whirly."

"Thanks," the defender pressed his lips into a thin line, but nobody could see it through his mask, "I figured the black trench coat would work best for me here."

"What about you, Solid?"

"Pft... I look like a machine built for war. Anybody messes with us, they'll learn that it's not just for show."

----------

"Huntsman Erlich," Arbiter Daos glowered down at the embarrassed soldier before him, "You mean to tell me that your entire operation was a failure because you decided to take a look at a fishing vessel? You concerned yourself with a matter that was out of your mission's parameters, and that has cost us a submersible, a squad loadout of weapons, and all of that surveillance equipment?"

"Sir, I-"

"Take him away."

Two Bane Spider Commandos appeared at each side of the Huntsman and started pulling him toward the exit. Erlich wouldn't be executed, but his future was not going to be pleasant within the ranks of Arachnos. Daos, however, ahd other concerns.

Heroes were in his islands. Heroes were in his lord's islands. Regardless of the reasons, this was unacceptable.

"I must report to Lord Recluse," he said to his Night Widow assistant, "He's not going to like this."

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

"Mantis!" Black Scorpion shouted at his resilient lackey, "Front and center, girl!"

"What do you want?"

"There're heroes in the Isles, babe, and the Big Man himself told me to look into the situation. And, as you know, crap flows downhill. I want you to look into it so I can have more... personal time..."

"I was about to go to the D..." the villainess hissed, "This isn't my freaking problem!"

"It is now, and God help you if you don't fix it."

The steel covered cyborg stared angrily at her boss's back as he trundled back the way he'd come. She couldn't believe the audacity of the man. Sometimes, he made her so ticked...

"Nevermind," Silver Mantis hissed.

"Hey! Come on, girl, let's go!" Ice Mistral shouted as she bounded into her ally's chamber a few minutes later, "I hear the cheerleaders are down at the D! You gonna let them just pose and hog the spotlight?"

"I'm not going."

"What!?"

"I'm not going, and I'm going to make the idiots responsible pay for it!"

"Ooh! Sounds fun!" the blue-haired girl bit her lower lip in expectation, "Can I come?"

"No... no, you need to go to the D with Barracuda..." Mantis grinned, despite herself, "Poor girl has so many self-image issues..."

"So?"

"So I'm being selfish! These self-appointed heroes are mine!"

----------

"Here you go," Bioserj explained in hi thick slavic accent as they crested the hill overlooking the cavern the Circle of Thorns intended to hold their trade with the Council, "Though I would hurry. The word on street is that the Council is fed up with Circle scheming... Either they will attack, or deal is off."

"You're getting much better at your english, man," Psycho13 congratulated, "It makes me wish I knew more of Russian than nyet."

"You just don't apply yourself," the corrupter replied with a shrug, "Give it a try if you ever have free time."

"I usually spend my free time thinking about naked ladies... or listening to thrash metal... Or thinking about naked ladies while listening to thrash metal."

"Fantastic," Ezekiel grinned and shot the skinny young man a confused look, "Unless you guys are in need of rest, we'll just break on in, kill some green-eyes and snag the glowie."

"Kill?" Solid asked, "Really? And just when I'm starting to like you guys, you go and make me fall in love."

"Well, Randy explained it to me," the gray-haired warshade sighed, "The Circle... They're pretty much just husks with demons inside. They use human souls to barter and trade with demons, and that's if they don't need them to power their artifacts... I know for a fact they sometimes do that with kheldians, too."

"There's not terribly that much difference between one of us and a creature's soul," Androm concurred, "Perhaps an articulation and tangibility, but that's about it."

"Don't call them husks," the android almost seemed to shudder, "It makes me think of them in a different way..."

He racked a round into the main chamber of his assault rifle.

"Actually, keep calling them husks. It'll make blasting them apart that much easier."

((Again, Solid Shot on loan from Khellendrosiic.))

Interesting. You definitely have a knack for this.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I don't include links to Air Guard and Grey's Army because they're already in my sig. I'd include the BWO, too, but there's no room in the signature, even when I remove "My Major Fanfiction:" and Air Guard wins out because it's a far more serious group than the Brutal Warriors.



[/ QUOTE ]


Head over to Tinyurl , enter in the full addy of your link and you get a much smaller one to link through. That's how I got those 4 links and a quote in my sig

[/ QUOTE ]

Spec-freaking-tacular!

I posted another section to the Brutal Warriors Order and the Air Guard, each.

I don't include links to Air Guard and Grey's Army because they're already in my sig. I'd include the BWO, too, but there's no room in the signature, even when I remove "My Major Fanfiction:" and Air Guard wins out because it's a far more serious group than the Brutal Warriors.

These aren't major sections to the stories, but they serve to push the stories along.

"Who the Hell are these guys?"

The Guardsmen had taken their positions all throughout the island. They were told the location was an excavated section of the lost subterranean city of Oranbega, but the individuals they found were not the wizards they were expecting.

"Well?" Sergeant Kuhne hissed into his radio again, "What's the situation? Who are these guys?"

"You're currently looking at a cell of a very secretive organization," Carter explained across the channel, "Listen up, boys, these are about the toughest in the world, and they know it. If we're going to be the force Rachek wants us to be, you better be able to take this group down. I'm rootin' for ya. Kuhne, you've got the command."

"Aye, sir..." the sergeant growled before switching to another channel, "Alright boys, on my mark, we unleash Hell..."

----------

--Air Guard Base: AG-03--

AG-03 wasn't like most of the other bases in the Air Guard. AG-04 was the only other one that was as odd as this one, and that was only so it could have the apparatuses to facilitate the docking and servicing of the Thunder Nimbus. Where AG-04 looked like a construction site in the middle of the sea, AG-03 was a block.

Here was where the Guardsmen's Engineers tried desperately to convert acquired technology, both from their old lives and from various missions they undertook (though they were sorely lacking in equipment from the latter source). In the time it had taken Captain Carter to train up his first platoon, the engineers had converted roughly a third of the technology they had, though they still had to test a lot of what they'd come up with.

"So, what is it you wanted to show us?" Captain Rachek asked the Engineering Captain, a man simply named Jones.

"Sir, we've been working on diagrams and charts... According to our projections, it won't be much longer before the Raiders have the other two ships at least into working order, and if they focused on one, they could be combat ready within the week."

"I'm working on that," Rachek replied, "I've got some individuals in mind to put the convalescence of the Andrew and the Megaburst on a near permanent status. Still, it's going to take convincing them... I hope the contract I sent to the U.N. yesterday gets accepted."

"Sir?"

"We need capitol, plain and simple. If we can turn our mercenary outfit into an official group, like Vanguard, well.."

"That would make the plans we're making here more viable!" Jones suddenly exclaimed, "Sir, look, we have designs for all sorts of air ships... Disassembling the skiffs and converting some of those Raptor Packs was really helpful in solving some of our power issues... We might even be able to retrofit the Nimbus and improve its efficiency!"

"That doesn't explain what you wanted me to see," Rachek folded his arms over his chest and looked disinterestedly at the diagrams, "Ship designs we can't use? What are these? Flying destroyers?"

"Yes sir, but that wasn't what I wanted to show you," Jones typed into his communicator, "If you'll come with me..."

They marched sharply to the window overlooking one of many testing bays. Each bay was separated from the others by a thick wall of concrete and steel. Man-shape-similar targets (not exactly humanoid, in that they lacked a head and arms) lined the side opposite the doors. There were several pockmarks and craters dotted all along the floor and wall. Some of the targets were simply deteriorated.

AG-03 had been a testing base for some time, even during its Sky Raider days.

As the officers looked down into the testing bay, there was a rhythmic, heavy, metallic clunking sound. A shuttered cargo door opened and Rachek quirked and eyebrow at the armored monstrosity that emerged. It looked like a man in some form of blocky exosuit with a minigun.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" the former Wing Commander growled.

"Right now, we call it an Extreme Environment Exosuit," Captain Jones picked up a microphone and talked into it, "Target One, Mister Greene."

The suited man immediately revved up his minigun and started firing on the first target. Unlike the weapons the Council and Longbow used, this was a heavy piece of artillery, firing large caliber rounds instead of the smaller-sized ammunition of the other groups. The revolving three-barreled result was the equivalent of a Sky Skiff chaingun with legs.

"Well, that was nice, but I don't see how it gives us an edge," Rachek muttered.

"Well, there's one more test to perform... Mind you... We're uncertain about this one... Greene! Launch a grenade!"

"Are you sure?" a voice replied through the communications system, "I mean, I know the lab boys say they worked the kinks out, but I just don't know..."

"Do it!"

the armored man seemed to shrug, but set himself. There was a loud "phoont" sound and a small object launched out of the tube mounted on the left shoulder of the armored battlesuit. Rachek watched the object bounce repeatedly on the ground, but Jones seemed distraught about the distance the object had traveled.

"Ten feet," he grumbled, "We need more distance if that's going to be effective."

"I'm telling you, man, we need to work on a shoulder-mounted gun, first!" Greene replied, "Last thing our boys need is someone getting too close..."

"That's what the blade is for!"

"You mean this?" Greene held up his left hand and what looked like a thick blade with a serrated back shot out and locked into place, extending his melee range about a foot in length.

"Unless he's got some extra power behind that swing, he's not going to be doing anything," Rachek commented.

"Of course he has extra power," Jones chuckled, "If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to lift that minigun."

Rachek nodded. What he saw wasn't necessarily anything new, but it did show promise. He hoped the deal he'd proposed to the United Nations would be accepted. With any luck, the Air Guard would be providing security for peacekeeping missions and gaining some much-needed publicity for it.

Perhaps then he'd have proven to General Aarons that Vigilance hadn't entirely failed him.

----------

--Malta Group Excavation Site 3-3-5--

"So..." Desert Rat 4-1-9 growled at Carter, "You're the traitor who's pushin' 'em."

"Aye," Carter replied darkly, "And proud of it. You haven't ported out of here. Either your system's malfunctioning, or you've got something to say."

"You know I've got nothing to say..."

"Whoa re these guys?" Kuhne asked as he pressed the field dressing to the wound on his shoulder, "[Jebus]! What the Hell were those things?"

"Titans," Carter explained, "I'll start giving briefings next week. you did well, Sergeant. Exceptionally low losses compared to the projected results."

"We lost thirty good men out there because we didn't know what we were up against!"

"And I needed to know you could handle such a situation!" Carter shouted back, "In this world, we do not face the known and simple! We face the odd, the unusual, and the downright bizarre! We will face brutality beyond comprehension, depravity above approach, and it will be our job to take it down!"

"I thought that was our job," Desert Rat chuckled.

"Your job backs Big Oil, Big Auto, and Big Industry," the former Gunslinger retorted, "Anything that threatens them, you're there to cut it down, whether it's a meta human or a protest. Sometimes you're in the employ of the highest bidder, other times, you're in the direct service of one of the Directors, scared men afraid of losing what scraps of power they've got. If you were a smarter man, you'd make the same choice I made and break off from them now."

"And get my [butt] shot for it?" Desert Rat smiled, "I ain't that stupid."

"Shot by them, shot by us, hammer-fisted by a meta..." Kuhne smiled, "Not much of a bright future in this business, huh?"

"Kind of makes you wonder why we even get into it," Carter started walking away.

"Pandora's box is open," the sergeant replied, "No sense cryin' over it, now we gotta deal with the situation. So... Are we takin' him back?"

"He popped a false tooth and swallowed a cyanide pill," Carter sighed as the Commander slumped to the ground, "I heard him crack it as you told him his options. The easy way out..."

"[Jebus]..."

"Sir! Sir!" Private Johnston, who was miraculously unharmed (and had even single-handedly taken down one of the Hercules Titans before it could merge with its partner) ran up with a laptop in his hands, "We found some files on their operations!"

"Excellent," Carter replied, "Remit it over to your sergeant and prepare to acquire whatever technology we can carry..."

He hefted up a sapper rifle and smiled.

"You boys are gonna love what we can do with these."

"The base is in shambles," Dale grunted when he got off the ladder and collapsed exhausted on the deck, "Looks like the giant octopus has been letting off, though."

"Huh, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks," Draven muttered, "So, the last storm made a mess of things..."

"Well, the deck's covered in seaweed, and the whole place looks like Hell, but it pretty much looks like it just needs a good cleaning and it'll be all fixed up."

"What about the equipment we left behind?" James asked.

"Some of it's wrapped in weeds... Some of it got rusty..." Dale sighed, "If we intend on saving any of it, we're gonna have to work on it all today."

"Alright. Levi and I can get started on that. What about you guys?"

"We've still got that work order with Mauthe we gotta deliver," Solo replied, "We'll be back tomorrow if this rig works out the way Dale said it would. Think you guys will be done by then?"

"Sure," the metallic skull wearing brute replied, "Just leave us some food and we'll be good to go."

----------

--Brother Mauthe's Island--

"Thank you, thank you," the mastermind class rogue said with relief as he inspected the tools, food, and clothing the BWO delivered, "This is perfect... Ah, the books..."

"Apparently, some rogues don't do what Westin Phipps tells them to do, but the books have got to go somewhere."

"Yes... Phipps..." Mauthe's voice lowered, "Miss Francine Primm's execution is coming soon... Someone will have to do something about that."

"No," Solo was near hyperventilating, "That's not what we do, we do not get involved in world politics, and those black and red boys are definitely using her for a political end..."

"Relax, I wasn't referring to you and your own, Solo. You're but boys, yet. No... I was just musing aloud..."

"You're a strange man, Mauthe..."

"A socialist has to be," the mastermind chuckled, "if he hopes to survive, especially in a capitalist society."

"You're a communist?"

"Sort of," Mauthe replied, "I believe in the idea, but have yet to have found a practice of it that can be adequately applied to a nation or civilization. For now, it barely works on this small community, but it will falter at some point... Humanity has been unable to evolve past its greed, and eventually, almost everyone succumbs to the green-eyed monster."

"Those that don't?" the stalker asked, concern coloring his voice an ugly shade that didn't suit him, "What happens to them?"

"Well, they either get killed by the overwhelming tide of the unevolved, or they rise above the adversity, and become the heroes you and I look up to. Statesman wasn't always a good man, but he is now, understand?"

"Hm."

The camp was coming along nicely. Brother Mauthe was certain that he and his troops had been sold out a number of times, either to the Circle of Thorns or to Arachnos, but whatever strange taboo was on the island was keeping both groups from coming after him and his people. King Slater remarked it was probably whatever was in the temple.

"Indeed," Mauthe sighed, "Someday soon, very soon, I'm going to have to organize a search party to look inside there... And I'm worried what we'll find."

"Perhaps you'd like to gather a group of heroes about ya," the stalker suggested, "Perhaps make sure you've got the strength and forces to make sure whatever you find down there won't make it back out."

"If you can find them," Mauthe replied, "If you can find them."

----------

--Brutal Warriors Order Main Base--

"Cripes," Psycho13 shouted as he kicked another seaweed off his foot, "Maybe we should have tried to bring a fire tanker up here to clear this place off..."

"Ashen Roast has better things to do," his brother replied as he hauled another disconnected turret into storage, "Besides, we can handle this."

"I know," Psycho13 busied himself with loosening the couplings, nuts and bolts of the next turret, "But I meant any fire tanker, or somebody with fire... Anybody with fire..."

They had dismounted half of the remaining turrets when the Thunder Nimbus passed by. Staring in awe at the massive ship, they wondered briefly whether or not it was about to fire on them. When a patrol of Air Guard troops teleported onto the deck with them, the brothers were slightly relieved.

"Greetings," the troop leader said to James, "I'm Sergeant Smith. One of several hundred, yes, I know."

"I'm James, this is my brother... Psycho13."

"We haven't seen any activity in this place in a while, we were wondering if it was abandoned."

"No, not quite. We still have the deed, and nobody's asked us if we intend to sell..."

The sergeant looked around the base and clucked his tongue. He looked a little silly, still in his Sky Raider outfit and that ridiculous, flimsy teleportation harness, but his posture that of a man proud of his work. It seemed better on him than a Sky Raider, one had to worry about the criminals with that kind of posture, even the criminals that worked with them.

"Maybe you guys should sell it to the Guard."

"No, no sale," James replied, "You guys are thin as it is."

"Yeah, but we keep getting new volunteers every day. Military, mercenaries, even Arachnos and Freedom Corps troops who want a different life... Though we're pretty sure those last two are just spies the Blue and the Red are trying to seed into us."

"Right," Rage shrugged, "Sorry, though. Decision's not ours to make."

"Right. Right. Thing is, this is probably one of the best vantage points for miles to cut back the travel going on between the Rogue Isles and Paragon City... We could put it to a lot of good use."

"Hey! You guys got flamethrowers?" Psycho13 suddenly shouted, "You could help us clean off this deck!"

"Sorry, Psycho," the sergeant sighed, "We have to conserve whatever fuel or ammunition we've got right now."

"Dang," the scrapper grumbled before going back to his work glumly.

"Well, it looks like you boys are closing up shop," Smith quirked an eyebrow at their labor, "You sure you're not in a position to sell?"

"Yeah," Rage lifted a turret and balanced it on his shoulder.

He turned to the soldiers and their wide eyes made it evident that they seemed either impressed or intimidated. He grinned a little at that. Sometimes the super power thing was easy to forget.

"I'm sure."

I've posted another portion of the current arc I'm running about Ezekiel Durj/Androm'Geizzer in Grey's Army.

Also, almost nothing in the RP section gets purged.

The next day, they were off. They made progress quickly across the water, and Zeke marveled when Brother Ringo said they'd be to the Rogue Isles within the day.

"It takes two days to travel down the coast, a day and a half if you don't sleep," he explained, "I know. I've made the trip myself throughout my life. What makes this quicker?"

"Well, for one thing, we won't be making typical traffic stops, nor will we have to stop for a toilet or food," Ringo explained, "We've got plenty of food onboard, and the toilet's right over there. Plus, we move a little more quickly than normal trawlers thanks to a Teflon coating all over the underside and the fusion engine, not to mention we're not dragging fishing nets."

"Teflon? Does that really work?"

"Not very noticeably," Psycho13 replied, "But it does reduce the drag. We don't bounce or rock as much. Cost us the last of our money to get it, I'm glad it worked at least that much. So, Zeke, you don't really plan on pulling anybody inside-out, do you?"

"No," the gray-haired man replied, "That was Androm... He has... issues... Don't worry. I'm not going to be letting him get that far."

"But you'll be amazed how far I can go," the impossibly deep voice suddenly erupted from Zeke's mouth.

"Doesn't that get annoying?" Solid Shot asked as he finished putting his rifle back together and started wrapping a plastic bag around it.

He was also wrapped up in trash bags. He wasn't entirely certain how easily corroded his body was, but he was fairly certain salt water (or mist) would do him no good. He grumbled at first, but Ragin' James and Psycho13 did a good job of cinching the plastic down enough so it looked reasonable.

"Not really," Zeke replied to the android's question, "I only let him speak when he has something relevant to say."

They paused for a few moments. When Geizzer seemed unable (or unwilling) to refute, Solid shrugged in acceptance. Setting his rifle next to the crate he was sitting on he walked over to the Warshade as he gazed out across the ocean.

"Sure is beautiful, isn't it?" Zeke asked.

"I guess," the security android replied, "Look, um... Zeke... I've been trying to figure out how to ask you, and..."

"You want to come with me on this?"

"Yeah! It sounds... Important."

"Not as important as you'd think," the older man replied, "It's just an item retrieval. Plus, there's only a chance I'll be running into Arakhn. With any luck, we'll raid the Circle base they're keeping the crystal in, blow away a couple green-eyed goons, and skip out with the MacGuffin before that red-haired freak even arrives."

"How can you be sure?" Solid mimicked a perfect scratching of the back of his head.

"The criminal organizations we're up against... They don't trust each other. They never did. It's going to take some time for the Circle to convince the Council operatives to meet them at their base, because the Circle sure as Hell isn't going to a Council base."

"Well it sounds more exciting than having to extradite some slob from his squalid, urine-soaked Hell-hole. If you'd have me, I'd love to help you out, Zeke."

"Alright," Durj shook the android's hand, "You've got it."

There was an eruption behind the Warshade as they shook and all hands available turned to the starboard, where a submersible seemed to have just emerged. Ragin' James popped his knuckles and electric sparks started to dance off of his body. Psycho13 drew a pair of knives and Project Whirlwind shrouded the deck with a steamy mist that clouded them from view of the Arachnos troops emerging from the boat's hatch.

"Smoke?" one of the Wolf Spiders asked, "No... Wait... It's steam!"

"But it's not Nemesis, that's for true," the Huntsman barked, "Lowa' tha' haze, so we might see the heroes who think they can just waltz inta' the Isles like they own da' place."

"You don't want that, Huntsman," Zeke replied from the mist, "Trust me. We've got no beef with you, you better let up right now and go back to your business."

"Sounds like you think you're a tank!" the Hunstman swung his shotgun in Zeke's direction, but wound up leveling on James, "And who're you to tell me what I ought ta' do?"

"Screw this," James muttered before hopping off the trawler and landing on the hull of the submersible, "You had your chance."

He uppercut the Huntsman into the water and he was immediately lost as the two still-moving vessels continued on. Then, all chaos broke loose. The Wolf Spiders drew their pistols and submachine guns. They were slightly confused (since Rage was classified as a brute), but didn't hesitate to open fire. The sounds of their shots were accompanied by the sound of Solid's own assault rifle, blasting away at their vessel's hull, the plastic wrapped around the weapon tearing away.

Psycho13 hopped onto the assaulting craft as well and helped pull some of the enemies off his brother with a few well placed knife-strokes. One Wolf Spider grabbed at the crook of his elbow and dropped his SMG, another's armor slipped off as the clips holding it in place popped off. The Scrapper then kicked the offending enemy into the drink, where he was promptly lost as well.

Ragin' James, moments before leaping into the air and making his way back to the trawler, side-chopped one of the troops into the hatch he'd come from. As he and his brother returned to the deck, Zeke made his play.

Gathering up dark energy, he launched an explosive blast that didn't necessarily tear the hull of the vessel apart, but it did damage a lot of its internal workings. Ballast tanks blew and the submersible sank a little. Also intriguing, the water surrounding the two competing vessels instantly froze, but it was a thin freezing, and it snapped almost immediately into lots of small pieces.

The submersible slowed, then stopped. There was the sound of panicked crewmen trying to repair the damage done. Finally, the panicked sounds stopped. Project Whirlwind theorized that the troops had simply med-ported back to the Rogue Isles a moment before the submersible's remains exploded.

"You're probably right," Solid chuckled, "Wimps... Don't know how to take their punishment like men."

"Are we clear?" Brother Ringo shouted to the crew and passengers, "That was [frig]ed up!"

"Yeah, we're clear," Solid replied, "No thanks to you."

"Hey!"

"Calm down, Solid," Zeke told the android, "He is the guy driving the boat, after all."

A red dot appeared on the android's chest. The two heroes looked over to the anti-personnel turret sighted in on Solid Shot.

"I can help," Ringo growled, "It just takes a second to deploy proper armaments when you're the only guy in the cabin."

"You clam down, too, Ringo," Zeke shouted at the arsonist, "You're doing a fine job, but I don't think this guy's gonna be so friendly if you keep putting red dots like that on him."

Grumbling that "the safety was still on," Brother Ringo turned back into the ship's cabin and the anti-personnel turret rolled back into its casing. Solid surreptitiously switched his assault rifle back to "Safe."

"He's lucky he's with you guys," the android muttered, "Otherwise, he'd be red paste by now."

"We know," Psycho13 replied as he started shuffling through a backpack, "Thanks for doing us a solid."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You said, 'Thanks for doing us a,' then you said my name."

"What?" the scrapper's face screwed up in confusion.

"Oh," Ezekiel started chuckling, "That old gag. So... Solid, Levi... Who's on first?"

((Solid Shot is here on loan from Khellendrosiic.))

Charlene Daring-Grey is Randy's wife. They've been married since their early twenties. Legend has it, when they first met, Randy was being his normal, boorish self, so Charlene punched him square in the jaw, knocking him flat on his back. Being the youngest sister in a family with three older brothers will teach a girl a few tricks like that, apparently. According to Cedric, Randy's been in love with the (comparatively) tiny woman ever since.

While Randy worked construction, Charlene continued to go to college. Balancing the bills, the kids, and her boorish husband was a trying task for the first few years, but she eventually acquired a knack for it.

Once things got settled and the children could, more-or-less, look after themselves (largely under Cedric's guidance, which Charlene was only happy trusting when the younger ones could actually stand up to him), she turned her attention to her passion of archaeology. She could never explain why, but the business of unearthing the past always intrigued her. No, it wasn't because of any movies, either.

Regardless, she found herself employed by the local counties whenever they needed to conduct a historic survey of an area they wished to develop. It wasn't glamorous, but it did help pay the bills.

Randy was still working construction and she was hip-deep in survey reports when the Rikti attacked. The Battle of Kingdale did not go well. Apparently, the Rikti thought the small community was a food supply for Earth's troops (according to acquired intelligence about the attack on Fort Drum). Charlene was captured during the fighting and was being carted back to the source of the invasion at the end of the battle.

While on-board the transport, she noticed the Rikti were trying to convert their captives to... something. She didn't want to give up at all easily, and that was when she heard the voice.

Sol'ra'T'Cha, a kheldian warrior whose name means "Star Scatter" (no, it's not clear what language it's from), recognized that while Charlene Daring-Grey may not have been a soldier, she had a fighting spirit. She offered to merge with the plighted mother of three and that would come with enough power to kill the Rikti, free herself and the others on-board.

After the resulting crash in Baumton ("Boomtown" to the newcomers), Charlene found herself in a subterranean warren. A young man by the name of Martin Sanders (who was also a prisoner on the ship, despite being a Paragon native) had organized the group of refugees as a small cell of resistance.

With Martin, a mutant with a connection to death, and Charlene, their "avenging angel," leading them, the group tried numerous times to return to civilization and get word out to the authorities about their plight. With the Fifth Column (later, the Council), the Lost, and the Outcasts in the way, the poor group (nicknamed the Dregs by the local criminal groups) was unable to break free en masse.

However, Charlene was able to make it out on her own. She sought help from the authorities, but the city zones were a mess as it was. Unable to call on the formidable power she wielded when she helped bring down the transport (indeed, Sol'ra'T'Cha seemed so exhausted, she couldn't communicate to the heroine; which was unfortunate, since Charlene was wondering why she didn't look a day over 23 anymore, when she should have looked 47), she sought employment anywhere she could.

Slowly, she and Martin worked survivors back into civilization from Baumton. Whatever money Charlene could get, she used on food and supplies for the group. It was a simple system until the restoration of Overbrook began.

Charlene answered the call for archaeologists in the city zone, and was finally able to get a hold of a phone to call home. She got a hold of Roland, her son, and that led to him coming to Paragon to lead the investigation to find her.

The Grey's Army super group followed the clues and was able to locate Charlene and the Dregs. Unfortunately, this was at the same time the Lost and the Rikti located the group. The resulting battle, between Freedom Corps forces and the Rikti (led by the battle commander that had led the attack on Kingdale, New York, no less) was spectacular. The Dregs had holed up in an old hero base, and the Rikti forces pressed in. if it weren't for the hero presence already in the base (Grey's Army had arrived just before the Rikti), the civilian casualties would have been atrocious.

Now, restored to civilization, Charlene has been inducted in the Peacebringers. She intends to retire back to her home in Kingdale, but for the moment, she prefers to stay in Paragon City so she can see the end of this sordid affair between the Peacebringers and the Nictus... Or at least, until she sees the end of her involvement with it.

Plus, she gets to stay young for a little while longer. Whether this gift will remain with her or not is yet to be determined, and Sol'Ra (recently awakened) doesn't have the answer. Apparently, this is a new occurrence.

Civvies

When conducting personal business or just going through her normal routine, Charlene throws on her leather jacket and a pair of jeans.

Blue Camo Pants

Charlene wears this outfit when she feels in a more "combative" mood.

Peacebringer Superheroine!

Finally, when she's in a particularly "ticklish" mood, Charlene wears a somewhat classic hero outfit.