Paradigm_Shift

How the power sink hadn't also interrupted the strike Ildela had performed was a mystery, but nonetheless it was incredibly effective. Combined with Tafari not knowing where to reinforce his aura and Ildela's precision, her blades managed to disrupt Tafari's corporeal form considerably, reducing it's consistency by almost half its total value. As expected, her follow-up move drained little to nothing from Tafari. And while she was doing that, she got to watch as he energized himself with a massive amount of power, the damage she had dealt vanishing. He was giving her a 'did you really think that would work?' expression that she herself had been wearing a moment before.

"...While this is all incredibly adorable..." He began. And then Paxtera made planetfall and started to beat on him. He grunted, and staggered ever so slightly as she impacted him with her assaults. Their energy portions were more or less entirely negated, the physical portions causing some discernable damage - But not a huge amount, considering how durable the brute was.

'...Meh, she can have her hittsies.' He thought vaguely. 'Restrain murderous rage. Deal with the actual threat first...' Tafari locked onto Ildela with his focused gaze determinedly. Unless she could placate him, her ability to hide in plain site was not going to work anymore. He then suddenly lunged forward in an attempt to bear-hug Ildela, his hands roaring with an immense output of energy as he built up a surplus from his conduit. It looked as if the brute sought to just pour a massive amount energy into Ildela's frame until it eventually overwhelmed her shields, counting on her being too surprised to dodge the sudden move and his own durability to survive her inevitable attempt to block him via stabbing. If he actually caught her, he would hold on until either he or Ildela was entirely burnt out from energy exaustion. He would put everything he had into the attack, and considering he had just energized himself, he had a considerable surplus of energy to spare.

If Ildela physically dodged the sudden move rather than counting on her shields to deflect it, it would leave Tafari wide open for another lethal strike. One he probably wouldn't be able to heal as easily as the first. And if Tafari got the drop on her but didn't manage to beat her in the energy race, his protective aura would most likely fade entirely away and leave him unable to utilize most of his powers for a while.

SO.

Tonight, Recumen, Flarebeast and Mu Outcast all got together in Pocket D and established the first semblance of a group thing. Everything went really well. (at least I hope it did? >.>)

So with no further ado, I propose we set a date for our first official gathering, if there are no objections?

Recumen will be online again in Freedom Court for quite a while if anybody cares to drop in today.

Recumen is a Illusion/Force field controller. Due to Garjzla's character being a force fields/psi defender, Recumen will be skipping the team shields, fair warning.

Tafari stared with disbelief up at Paxtera as her energy bolts fizzled into nothingness before even coming into proper contact with his aura. 'Does she really think she's safe up there? Ha! Nothing a little bit of death from above can't f-wait what the...?'

Unfortunately for Ildela, as previously described, her energy shielding combined with the bonus of fortitude supplied by Laardarus was very effective in dissuading the lightning field that surrounded Tafari - And it bent. And that sent off alarm bells, considering he personally controlled the motion of each individual "strand." If he couldn't see her, even wih his focused accuracy and senses, there was the consolation that her own means of protection ironically gave her away, just as they also hid her. Tafari knew she was there, but not exactly. He lacked the fine details of her positioning, so much so that he could not even begin to come up with a plan to assault her, given that she could have been above him for all he knew. Except one.

Use an attack that hits everything.

Ildela suddenly felt a faint tug as Tafari utilized a power sink. If she didn't get out of range quickly, regardless of whether or not the sink affected her greatly or not, it would disrupt her stealth and Tafari would pounce on her with a vicious combo of charged and havoc wrecking punches. If she was quick enough though, she could probably swoop in and deliver a fatal strike before he had time to even think about using a second sink or any other method to try and get the drop on her.

I'm not exactly familiar with the mechanics of it, but I was under the impression up to eight people could level-pact with each other?

Speaking of which - I've made my character and I am now frolicking around in Galaxy city. I'm pausing at level four to wait for you all to catch up, and now I'm waiting idly by Back Alley Brawler. If any of you care to join me, I'll be online most of today.

Character name is Recumen.

Ah! Stupid question, but eh...Until GR comes out, we're still side-restricted. Is this red or blue oriented?

And likewise, I'm willing to cede lightning, since before I provided the reminder only one person was going for it anyway. >.>

I also expressed interest in lightning, but eh, I can drop it.

Well first we need to actually settle on who is doing what element, put forth character ideas and so forth.

Crazy, ain't it?

Admitedly, powers go a long way toward making a person, and when anybody thinks of a certain element, a certain set of behaviors tend to spring to mind...

Newton's First Law of Motion: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

Moving object: Tafari.
Force: Paxtera.

Tafari laughed to himself as he whizzed right past Paxtera at super speed, not even bothering to slow down as she appeared. And as he shot by, he casually attempted to clock her right in the face with a thunderous strike of both physical and energetic might. It could wreck massive physical trauma in addition to the considerable energy output it boasted, and if Paxtera had shifted out of her Dwarf form, she may have even wound up temporarily stunned by the blow. And, of course, the attack had several Gs packed behind it due to the sheer speed Tafari was exhibiting at the time. If it connected, the results would not be pretty. Ildela herself may have even been caught in the shockwave if she was too close.

And then all the energy Tafari had absorbed from Jade suddenly up and vanished for some arbitrary reason, ignoring Tafari's massive resistance to such effects. Tafari snapped. He prompted screeched to a halt a good thirty feet away from Paxtera and Ildela, turned about, and started to advance on them.

"My patience has been stretched MILES beyond its threshold, you self-assured arrogant *****. I am going to MURDER you, and no amount of elven ******** is going to stop me!" He roared, his face contorted in rage. A patch of quicksand formed under his feet, and he strode right through it without even breaking stride, his lightning reflexes giving him the means to largely negate effects that could slow him down. The trees reached for him, and were immediately burnt and sapped by the lightning field surrounding him, potentially starting up another blaze in the process. As for any golems that decided to erupt from the Earth to attack him, it was fairly obvious he was now determined to ignore them to the best of his abilities in favor of the object of his rage.

Lazardarus reached the tree and found nothing was amiss, for now, although he was correct in the assumption that Tafari may have been interested in it had he known it was there.

I'm interested primarily in Void, Lightning and Light, in that order for what it's worth.

I'd be willing to try it out, lord knows I have too much time on my hands. I'm available at any time around noon central time, save thursdays, and I have universal access on the weekends.

Anybody who knows me well enough will know that I prefer villains, but with i17 looming, the distinction is becoming...blurry, no?

Tafari was pissed.

He had been in the middle of a no-holds barred beatdown on some pissy elven ***** while shruging off most of the assaults directed at him, and then an infuriating elven asswipe came along, promptly undid everything he had accomplished in half a second, and made the chances of winning in a straight fight against the entire group drop to somewhere around zero.

Not that his chance against all of them had been particularly high in the first place - He had only been planning on sticking around long enough to drain away all of the residual energy from Trysis' spell. As it stood, he had utilized four power sinks, and aproximately half of the mountain of energy was gone. Unfortunately, he had not expected the sudden curveball Lazardarus had pitched.

'Alright. Curbstomp the limey ******* and then go for round two with that *****.' Tafari thought, moving with super-speed away from Aineruda, leaving a certain rock golem to charge into empty space...and possibly her as well. He didn't expect anything from her in the near future. After all, it wasn't like they could heal the energy Tafari had drained away from her. Tafari rushed at Lazardarus, hands erupting with a sudden surge of golden-orange energy as Tafari prepared to lay down a beating...

And then the candycane crustacean ***** got in his way, smacked him in the face and tethered an offshoot of his conduit to herself. This was where Tafari began to worry. He had fought plenty of Peacebringers in his time from his many encounters with the PPD and Sunstorm in particular, as well as the occasional hero, and he didn't view Paxtera as a threat. But with the passive field of energy she radiated, preventing him from targetting whomever he pleased with his powers...That was something he couldn't deal with.

'Alright...' Tafari thought slowly as he recovered from being smacked in the face. 'Time for plan C.' As much as he hated to run away, he had not started this fight with the delusion that he would win. 'And I'm not REALLY leaving. Just going off a ways while living them a few presents to deal with.' Tafari thought to himself. He then utilized another power sink, specifically targetting Paxtera. He knew all about their energy resistance, but they still had a big gap in their defenses that he could exploit. They could be sapped as well as any other sucker, and not even the accelerated recovery of Paxtera's dwarf form would help her here. The power sink, if she didn't get away quickly enough, would both rob her of power AND negate her ability to recover it temporarily.

And then Tafari vanished. Unlike the first time when he had performed this little trick, he did not reappear in the immediate vicinity, although they did hear the effect. The massive echoing explosion tipped them off somewhat, as well as the smoke...Wait. Smoke.

Tafari had gone and started a forest fire. The brute himself had dashed away at super-speeds shortly after, presumably somewhere less occupied where he could continue his work without interruption.

Unfortunately for Lazardarus, Tafari did have protection against such an effect. The mental static he employed to resist Aineruda's own psionic assault served him well by also granting him considerable resistance to being controlled. The stinging cold and biting chill of the freezing rain didn't have as great an effect on Tafari as would have been prefered - His lightning reflexes gave him considerable tolerance for various conditions that might slow him down, and he quickly hastened himself to negate what the chill did manage to steal. The freezing rain was bone-chilling, and managed to induce a marginal level of entropy within Tafari's being.

Tafari apparently didn't catch sight of Idlela at that moment, which was odd because his focused senses and accuracy applied to all of his senses, not just vision - So he should have been able to detect her, regardless of whether she was in front of, above, or behind him. Not that he considered this a problem. She would have to come out of hiding eventually.

The lightning bolt fired by one of the sky sprites literally fizzled into nothingness the moment it reached the edge of Tafari's aura, having been almost entirely negated - It was apparent the brute had resistance to energy-based assaults borderlining immunity.

Well, aside from the obligatory Malta character...Generally no. It's a bit of an unexploited plot coupon within the CoH/V universe, really. The only threats present that seem to be based around their hatred of superhumans as a group specifically would be Malta and the Sky Raiders. Everybody else is fine to faff around and lob fireballs at everything.

Which makes a certain amount of sense, when you think about it. The sky raiders are a group which, canonically in the Silver Mantis strike force, get beaten on so much by super-powered individuals that they are barely hanging on to their status as a villain group. Malta, naturally, is world-wide shadow-power along with the likes of Nemesis and the Council. Malta is backed by a vast conspiracy, has thousands of front companies, endless financial backing, access to unique technological assets, etcetera. I hypothesize that Malta would NOT exist without the staggering amount of support it has, because otherwise it would be wiped out by PO'd supers.

Super-powered individuals are prone to trash people who hate super-powered individuals. That's human nature right there, sadly. The point I'm trying to make being: Any groups established on the principle of hating/hunting/enslaving/etcetera super-humans is very quickly going to be curbstomped. The Sky Raiders have backing from NEMESIS, and even so they are still on the verge of collapsing - Hating super-humans is probably the only thing more dangerous than living side-by-side with them.

And then you have to get around to the big question: Why WOULD you hate people gifted with super-human abilities? In the Rogue Isles, villains abuse their powers to commit crime, but again, that is sadly an inevitable result of human nature. You can't blame them because they have powers, you can only blame them for being morally broke. And if you hate them simply because they're "superior" or "better" than you, then that automatically implies that the hatred stems from a massive ego or personality disorder. And if you hate them because they have more natural "rights," than you do? Feel free to learn martial arts and get the very same rights.

In the end, hating super-humans for being super-humans is a rather nonsensical, suicidal, and quite frankly STUPID disposition. From a logical perspective, there is no reason to hate them. There's plenty of reasons to be jealous of them, to envy them, to want to control or contain them, but hate them? Hating them is like hating the sun because some day it will inevitably explode and reduce Earth to its base atomic components - That is, pointless and silly.

Tafari shook his head in response to everybody. "HELLO? This is FOREIGN and ALIEN energy I'm draining, completely SEPARATE from that of this place! Are you all id - whoa sword." Ildela's sword impacted Tafari's aura of golden-orange energy, made a fine sound akin to a tuning fork, and then bounced off. Tafari had three different channels of energy operating: The energy that composed his corporeal form, a portion of which had just entered an entrophic state to chaotic to be maintained thanks to Ildela's trick with the sword. Presumably hitting him enough would make him fade away. The second was an energy reserve that Tafari tapped in order to fuel everything else: His aura and various powers. And finally, there was a conduit - The more he used his powers, and the more his powers were interacted with, the stronger they became. For a limited time, that was.

'Who throws a SWORD?' Tafari thought incredulously. 'That's just...Swords aren't made...Waste of...WHY?'

"Ok. Lemme try this ONE last time. This energy does not BELONG here. I laid claim to it first since YOU did nothing about it. Draining it away will not impact this fantasy realm in ANY discernable way." Tafari said flatly. He then cracked his knuckles, a savage grin spreading across his face. "But if y'all wanna scrap over it..."

Toy Dispenser's volley of stunning bolts all impacted Tafari, or rather the energy field that was protecting him. The three "non-lethal as annoying as stun taser" bolts were vastly negated by the aura of power surrounding Tafari. But maintaining a power sink, something that was usually only utilized for a split second, was delicate work. Though the bolts only did a small amount of overall damage, the simple fact that their energy signatures conflicted with Tafari's own was enough to disrupt his concentration. The power sink faded. The lightning-like field of energy remained, still absorbing ambient energy, but at a vastly reduced rate then when the power sink had been working.

"Very cute." Tafari turned toward Toy Dispenser with an annoyed look on his face. "Unless you jokers plan to throw anything ASIDE from energy at me, piss off. It's not like this place NEEDS all of that power anyway. It would all be wasted on grass growing a few more centimeters. I, on the other hand..." He raised his hands to the sky again, splaying them. They started to glow with brilliant golden-orange energy once more as Tafari began to conjure another power sink. "Can think of a few uses for it..."

Tafari shrugged as everybody started talking again. The odd-looking robot didn't look like he was in any danger of being lynched by overzealous elves, so he wandered off a ways.

After all, he had originally come here for a single reason: The MASSIVE amount of magic that Trisys had used, which was still amassed in the air like a mountain. And Tafari wanted it.

The air around the brute darkened, and a brilliant golden-orange aura of power began to radiate from his figure. Eyes aglow, he raised his splayed hands to the sky. A field of lightning-like energy began to course the air immediately around him, the lines of power sucking away the surpluss of magical energy. Tafari's hands burst with light, and a massive power sink formed. The air immediately around Tafari was immediately drained of all it's ambient energy, and the rest of Trysys' magic naturally flowed from areas of high concentration to low concentration, right into the energy-siphoning field Tafari had just conjured. Unless interupted, he would remain like that for up to a minute while he siphoned it all away.