Ratchet_Fizwink

Nothing on any of my villains, though The Cubicle of Loneliness, in Atlas Park, for the Paragon Tram Maintenance crew (myself since my assistant has gone AWOL, and my elite Digital Delta Duck Detachment has yet to report in) is full of epic Awesomeness™.

Though, we don't have the funding for anything beyond office furniture and random storage space (which is amusing because we are IN storage space). There's also no need for power or benches or anything, simply because I like having the excuse that I didn't get the memos because of power outages.

You know, you'd be surprised how much energy we use on the public's tab...

The following (for the most part) is taken straight outta the in-game bio I wrote up, and sadly there isn't much more because I only recently started him up, and haven't struck RP gold yet (either in finding a quality server or people).
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Name: Jason McAllen
A.K.A.: The Bay Bruiser
D.O.B.: April 13, 1984
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 228 lbs (104 kg)
Build: Athletic
Eyecolor: Brown with no pupils, though invisible the vast majority of the time due to goggles.
Hair Color: Dark brown
Ethnicity: Irish-American (including accent)

Education: Masters degree in Bio-chemical engineering, MIT

Relatives: Mother - Theresa McAllen (Deceased 1996), Father - Sean McAllen (Deceased 2002), Sister - Jessica McAllen, 19 (whereabouts unknown as of 1991)

Server: Anywhere I can find quality RP... >.> (Guardian, Justice, and Virtue with a version on each)

The Bay Bruiser grew up Jason McAllen in Boston, MA, the bouncing baby boy of Sean and Theresa. His father was the fifth police officer on his side of the family while Theresa was a nurse at Boston Medical Center, both being first-generation Americans.

Two months after his fifth birthday, his mother gave birth to his sister, Jessica. Jason was excited about the prospect of a little sister, so much so that he nearly monopolized the attention of the baby who already seemed attached to the boy. When Theresa was to be released from the hospital with the baby, Jason and Sean arrived to pick them up, only for all three to find that the baby girl was nowhere to be found.

For the next several years, the family spent the vast majority of their time, money, and connections trying to track down the lost daughter, only to come up completely empty-handed. Jason spent these years secretly blaming himself because he felt he should've done what big brothers are supposed to do: protect the younger siblings.

Sadly, 5 years after the disappearance of Jessica, Theresa simply didn't wake up one morning. The autopsy showed a minor blood disease that ordinarily would be completely harmless, but when coupled with the stress and emotional distress that she'd suffered for several years, caused her entire system to shut down. The fact that they had no way of knowing this disorder even existed until the previous year enraged the young boy. "

Why couldn't they have known about it before, when it could've saved Mom," Jason demanded of his father who, though heart-broken, couldn't answer the his son with anything but a hug and that one religious phrase one always hears people rely on in situations such as these. Hearing it in an instance directly related to him didn't have the effect his father thought, as it only seemed to solidify in Jason the desire to take Fate or Destiny out of someone else's hands.

Jason became devoted to his schoolwork, to the exclusion of almost everything else. His focus on science and math was so intense that his father began to worry about obsession, though Jason always managed to calmly reassure him that everything was going to be okay. When he entered high school, he was beyond college-level knowledge and skills, having self-taught himself outside school and researched anything that intrigued him. He tested high enough to warrant a class-load of advanced senior-level classes as a freshman, and built his course load around Biology.

His tempo never slacked, and seemed to only pick up with access to new and advanced information previously unavailable to him. New libraries, medical journals, web-based directories and so much more continued to fill the young man's head. In his Sophomore year, he found an article on advances in bio-engineering, and finally realized what it was he could, what he needed to do.

4 months before graduation, Sean McAllen was shot and killed during a traffic stop, pulling over a heavily inebriated man. Jason, while saddened deeply inside, did his best to not let it interfere with how much progress he was making. A part of him told him that his father, no matter how much he never let it show, was disappointed in the fact that his son wasn't going to carry on his family's tradition of protecting the public with their lives.

The day after graduation, he received the letter he was hoping for: Acceptance and a full scholarship to MIT. Over the next several years, he continued his work with biology, branching into molecular biology and bio-technology. His focus and devotion to his work elicited breakthroughs in the realm of genetic manipulation, not very much unlike cloning. He devised ways in which one could manipulate cell structure and certain genetic codes in order to strengthen certain aspects, or weaken if not completely eliminate others.

Unfortunately, the testing of his theories went unrealized, thanks to the skepticism of his colleagues and the skittishness of potential sponsors. For the first time in nearly a decade, Jason became extremely angry, for he was absolutely sure his techniques would work, and felt he had all the necessary proof to that effect.

After a week of brooding, he decided once again to take the decision out of someone else's hands and do what he knew needed to be done. Late one night, he snuck into the Bio-Tech lab and proceeded to use his theories on himself. The energy expended by the change to his physiology began to drain him as soon as the last of the dialysis was completed, and he fell into the deepest sleep he'd ever experienced.

When he was roused from his slumber the next afternoon by the staff and their shoutings of concern as well as anger, he opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the same blackness of darkest night. The rantings of his professors stopped immediately with the sharp intake of breath. When he swung his legs over the side of the table, lightly bumping into one of the people standing beside him, three people were pushed aside roughly by the movement. Jason's professor of molecular biology placed his hand on a shoulder and urged him to stay calm and still, though Jason found such a suggestion ridiculous in light of the fact that he couldn't see. When he whirled on the voice speaking to him, his hands gripped and crushed the edge of the table, his feet slamming into the floor and spreading spider-web fractures.

After he finally regained his senses, the logical part of his mind began working through what had happened, was going, and was going to happen from here. Examinations from medical experts showed that he was 100% blind, the lenses of his eyes having completed reverted to nothing more than a practically non-existant film, a microscopic dot where they used to be. The flip-side of this, however, was the already-noted superhuman strength, and recently-observed drastically increased resilience.

After several weeks of examinations, both of himself and his theories, he realized where his error had been, and was dismayed to find that the procedure he had come up with was irreversible. He would forever be unable to continue the work he'd started, unable to live life as a normal person due to the nature of his dramatic "improvements" and inability to practice properly controlling them.

His melancholy was interrupted by the news that an extremely eccentric technological genius had begun making himself known in a place called Paragon City. Jason then recalled reading of the "City of Heroes", the bastion for freedom, justice and righteousness. It was the city where people of enormous strength, both physical and mental, were welcomed and not unusual.

It didn't take long for the young man to find and contact this mechanical mastermind, Ratchet Fizwink, who seemed more than happy, if not entirely too eager to help out. Several months went by and Jason had gone back to doing what he was best at: research. He'd dug up as much information about Paragon, Hero License requirements, etc, when he received word that Ratchet was finished with what he ceaselessly claimed was the greatest invention ever.

He presented to Jason a pair of goggles.

From the outside, they looked no different from a pair of snowboarding or skiing goggles, but on the inside, they were crammed with microchips, microsensors, and enough technology to set back even the most hardcore technophile a few decades-worth of income. He explained that the goggles were imprinted to Jason's particular brainwave patterns, something more individual than even DNA, and would feed visual stimuli directly into his brain, effectively enabling him to see again, and improving it beyond normal vision.

With these, Jason's final obstacle was eliminated, and his resolve hardened. He'd make up for not protecting his little sister. He may very well be able to continue his work toward ensuring no one would ever have to suffer as his mother did. He'd be the pride of his father by going above and beyond and protecting not only the people of Boston, but the whole world.

He received his Hero License, and an additional letter from someone offering him their help, not only in getting adjusted to life in Paragon, but also in fighting the crime of the City of Heroes.

The sun shone down brightly on Atlas Park, barely a handful of wispy clouds adding a touch of texture to the otherwise crystal-clear blue sky. Such was the weather that so exemplified the heart of Paragon City, home of the largest concentration of superpowered beings on Earth. It was here that the newest of Paragon's protectors came to pay respects and homage to the greatest that came before them, basking in the shade of the prominent statue of Atlas. It was here that veteran defenders enjoyed a brief respite from the rigors of responsibility that comes with the mantle "superhero".

Jason McAllen stepped off the tram arriving from Steel Canyon, having just picked up his new costume and completing the transition into the Bay Bruiser, and into the warmth radiating from bove and all around him. The blue of his outfit was nearly as brilliant a blue as that of the sky itself, and the sun caused the maroon of his mask, gloves, and boots to flare up with the intended look of vim and vigor. His head tilted back as he stared up at the disk of the sun, a feeling of nostalgia beginning to wash over him as though it too were raining down on him like the light itself. It had been a year since he'd seen through natural eyes, unencumbered and unaided by the goggles he was now forced to wear if he wanted to see at all. Granted, he could see accurately about four times farther than normal eyesight allowed, and in wider array of spectrum, but there was something missing and the only way he could describe it was that it was something inherently, naturally, human.

A gentle disturbance of air brought him out of his reverie, his brown hair waving slightly in response, and his mouth and it's bordering goatee curved up into a smile with which to greet the one who'd be his guide around Paragon, initially, and partner in crime-fighting, hopefully on a more permanent basis.
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The last bit is taken from a story/intro I've written in it's own thread here on the RP boards.

And I apologize for the book...I only intended a few paragraphs, but the writing just goes, y'know?

Hey folks, the following is an excerpt/opening for a story I'm looking to write/play through with my newest actually-playing character (hero-side). As the last bit will hint at, I'm looking for a character to partner up with the Bay Bruiser (details available on request or via bio in-game). I'd prefer a female for the dynamic, but the right type of guy could work as well (and no, IRL sex doesn't matter as long as the character is played accurately).

If you're intrigued, have questions, or anything else for that matter, give me a shout via PM here on the boards, or send me a message in-game (global is @Ratchet).

And so, without further ado...
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The sun shone down brightly on Atlas Park, barely a handful of wispy clouds adding a touch of texture to the otherwise crystal-clear blue sky. Such was the weather that so exemplified the heart of Paragon City, home of the largest concentration of superpowered beings on Earth. It was here that the newest of Paragon's protectors came to pay respects and homage to the greatest that came before them, basking in the shade of the prominent statue of Atlas. It was here that veteran defenders enjoyed a brief respite from the rigors of responsibility that comes with the mantle "superhero".

Jason McAllen stepped off the tram arriving from Steel Canyon, having just picked up his new costume and completing the transition into the Bay Bruiser, and into the warmth radiating from bove and all around him. The blue of his outfit was nearly as brilliant a blue as that of the sky itself, and the sun caused the maroon of his mask, gloves, and boots to flare up with the intended look of vim and vigor. His head tilted back as he stared up at the disk of the sun, a feeling of nostalgia beginning to wash over him as though it too were raining down on him like the light itself. It had been a year since he'd seen through natural eyes, unencumbered and unaided by the goggles he was now forced to wear if he wanted to see at all. Granted, he could see accurately about four times farther than normal eyesight allowed, and in wider array of spectrum, but there was something missing and the only way he could describe it was that it was something inherently, naturally, human.

A gentle disturbance of air brought him out of his reverie, his brown hair waving slightly in response, and his mouth and it's bordering goatee curved up into a smile with which to greet the one who'd be his guide around Paragon, initially, and partner in crime-fighting, hopefully on a more permanent basis.

In the midst of the battle, bright flashes of white light followed by a small green blur and then another flash of the same light as it disappears to repeat in various location of the battlefield. These flashes are followed immediately by various ninjas, robots, and mercenaries collapsing.

Suddenly, a flash appears behind Cabin Girl and after it subsided, there stood the miniature frame of Ratchet Fizwink, his body glowing with a bright green aura.

"Heyas babe! Looks like I'm in time for the fun, huh," he said as he plowed a ninja, approaching her from behind, with a vicious uppercut of his sword. "So, where are the main baddies? I'm tired of killing these bozos, been doing it all day."

As he fights, the green glow emanating from him seems to get brighter and brighter, as his hits get stronger and stronger.

"Ninja," as he slashes through a ninja, after being hit with throwing stars, only to have the wounds heal near-instantly. "Merc," as he shoulder-charges and uppercuts a soldier shooting into the battle.

"Ninja, ninja, zombie, merc, ninja, robot, robot...Where are these things coming from, and how fast is delivery? Oh look! A weed problem," he exclaims as the bright flash envelopes him, and he disappears to reappear behind Fungal who's completely occupied with Slowburm. He winds up, focusing much of his power, and slams his sword down, a blast of energy arcing out close-range and launching Fungal into the air.

Laughing as he teleports back behind Cabin Girl, who was about to be jumped from behind by ninjas...again..."Ratch-X...kills weeds dead!"

Looks up and sees Neut-trino hovering above the battle, he shouts up to her. "Hey!! Neut!! Whatcha need me to chop-choppy?!"

It's "Unicorn" not "Uniform", if you're thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky.

Tigratchet suddenly bolted from the shadows with a screwdriver in hand, slashed the leather binding on Ratchet's left wrist, and turned to Frostwink, stretched out her hand, and Ratchet could almost see the energy being pulled from the robot/cyborg whatever it was.

Suddenly filled with drastically more strength, he used his no-free left hand to remove the binding from his right, and broke himself free. Dr. Wizfink stood up startled, dropping the frog on the floor, which then exploded in a blinding white flash. Tigratchet then stretched out her right hand, and Wizfink's movements slowed drastically, while Ratchet felt his perception speed up. He immediately grabbed the disoriented robot and head-butted it, putting a crack in the green metallic visor, and denting the helmet itself. He removed the bindings from his leg, and quickly pushed over the robot, and made his way to the workbench.

As Wizfink slowly pulled up his sleeve, reaching for the keypad on his forearm, Ratchet had retrieved all of his items, put on his shoulder pads, and grabbed sword.

Ratchet ran to the computer array, and punched in a series of commands at a blistering rate...unfortunately, the computer couldn't keep up, and he had to make several backspace trips before he could pull up the information about Neut's particular monitor. He also pulled up various blueprints, schematics, and other potentially-helpful information, and saved them onto a mini-disc, which he handed to Tigratchet.

"Get these to PH, or any of the other team leaders ASAP! Also, get the word out that they knew we were coming. I'm gonna go rescue Neut, and figure out what the hell that chemical is!"

They both bolted out of the room and went opposite directions in the hallway.

Ratchet sliced his way through soldiers, robots, robot-soldiers, soldier-robots, and finally out onto the street.

"Hell, this likes a slightly slummy Steel Canyon, hehe," he chuckled to himself. Then, as he heard commotion from the building behind him, looked for a suitable short-range port location. Spotting one about 100 feet up the side of a building around 300 feet to his right, he tapped the button on his goggles, and was there in an instant. As the temporary hover effect subsided, he grabbed the window sill, pulled himself up, and sat down.

"Alrighty, let's see if we can't get some bearing...and people say men don't ask for directions!"

He pulled out his laptop, connected a cord from it to his goggles, and inserted the mini-disc. He input a command, and all the information was uploaded to the laptop, and all the map information was fed to his goggles' map function. Turns out he was on the island of Port Oakes. He then combined his tracker system with the updated map, and attempted to locate the other members of the EN. Nothing showed up on this island, he'd have to get to one of the others and search there.

"Ah, first things first though, gotta see if I can't report in to the Cap'n," as he keyed in his code to his comm. Nothing for Yarrrr. Next up, he tried Cabin Girl. Picked up a faint signal, but there was too much static. He'd need to get either higher or closer to her...and the latter was kinda tough, as he had no idea. "Up we go then," he said as he eyed the roof's ledge, another 75 feet or so up the side.

"Gah, can't get the angle...gotta do it the hard way," as he packs away the laptop and straps everything to his back. Standing on the window sill (a lot easier when you're about as big as the window itself, as your shoe-size is only slightly larger than the portrusion itself), glanced up, and took a deep breath. On his exhale, he jumped away from the building, turning in the air to find the spot, and hitting the TP button. Missing the opportunity to become a stain on the street by about 15 feet, he grabbed the ledge, pulled himself over and sat on it, overlooking the city below, and hit the comm device.

"Yo! CG! Pick up!" he barked through the channel, which was much clearer now, but he thought he heard crying on the other end..."CG! It's Fizzy!! Hit the button on the tip of your scabard! I put an auxilliary comm unit in your bandana!! Umm...surprise!"

Ratchet woke up in what looked to be a mech-lab. Various robotic components strewn about, wires hanging from quasi-built arms, power cells lying on tables, and various gears and gyros everywhere. To his left he saw a huge computing setup...11 monitors arrayed around a small metallic table with 2 keyboards and a leather-covered rolling chair. The monitors displaying different things, some looked liked video streams, others scrolling codes of data, but one in particular caught his attention...

Neuttrino was strapped to a metallic table, and a man in a labcoat had just injected her with something.

"What in the Gnomercy is go--", he was interrupted as an insane laughter filled the room.

"Hahaha, I was wondering how long you'd be out cold...HAHAHA!! Out cold!!" He strained his head to his right as the same short, white-coated, top-hat-wearing figure from the apartment walked to stand in front of him, hands behind his back. "You know, I was expecting a much better showing back there...especially as people call you "The Talented Ratchet Fizwink"...who'd have though you'd only be able to take out 5 of my robots...tsk, tsk, tsk."

There's something...familiar...about this guy. Hmm, could be the green skin...but I've seen so much of that type of thing since I got here, it's not even funny.

"Hehe, you can't place me can you? Mmm, wouldn't imagine so...you haven't seen me in well over a year now. Not that I resemble much of my former self anymore, though," this familiar stranger mused. "Allow me to introduce myself then! I, am your uncle, Dr. Torkus Wizfink, "he said with a low bow, removing his hat, "Well, I WAS until I got here. Now I make all sorts of wonderful toys using Lord Recluse's technology! And speaking of technology, I see you've picked up quite the knack for it yourself," as he made his way over to a workbench, on which all of Ratchet's gear was sitting...including his broadsword and shoulder-pads.

"Hehe, you know, Mom always told me you were one of the crazy-uncle-types...guess she wasn't kidding! So uh, where'd you get all those crappy bots? I one-shotted those things worse than Hellion!"

Wizfink whipped around, and his eerie, ear-to-ear grin had turned downward, and he stomped towards the vertical exam table Ratchet was strapped in.

"You had better keep that mouth of yours shut," he spat. "I didn't bother bringing out the important robots, as our intelligence had determined you'd go down with just the 5 and Wrenchus!" He then stormed over to a solid-looking door with what looked like time-locks, punched in a code, and the door slid open. As the door opened, a light-green mist flowed from it, and out walked the other assailant from the hallway. "Wrenchus, say hello to my nephew," he said as the grin returned to his face.

Wrenchus walked towards Ratchet, sporting the same grin as Wizfink, and with mist falling from his arms and torso said, "Yo inferior meat-bag. I am Wrenchus Frostwink."

Wizfink walked back to the workbench and began looking at Ratchet's gear.

"Mechanical chickens? Mechanical squirrels? Where do you get your inspiration? The Autobon Society? HAHAHAHA!"

"You know, if you worked more on your robots more than you do at coming up with your terrible puns, I'm sure I wouldn't have sliced those ones as easy. May have even taken two shots per, if you got REALLY good." He glanced back at Neut's monitor, but there wasn't anything new...just that same guy standing over Neut. What the hell'd he shoot her up with, he thought to himself.

"So, uh...what do they have you do around here," he directed at Wrenchus.

"I was specifically designed to apprehend you and keep you under control for reprogramming and integration into the Robotics department--"

"Headed up by me," Wizfink shouted over his shoulder.

"Uh-huh...and what makes you think that's going to happen?" Ratchet replied, just trying to keep them talking while he regained his strength...Gotta get out of here and find out what the hell's going on, he thought.

"Well, you see, that's the beautiful part! We're going to get your friends to...convince you...of the practicality of this choice! Like your friend Neuttrino over there," as he waved at the monitors, "she's going through the first step of our...convincing, hehe."

"Ah-hah...so that syringe she got stuck with is for brainwashing? Nice...must be SOME chemical if it can brainwash her...where could one find something like that?"

Half-paying attention now, focusing more on the strange frog-looking device he had found, "Oh, uh...fourth sub-level of the detention center."

Wrenchus turned to the Dr., "We shouldn't tell him anything. It would prove problematic."

"Yeah, remember what happens in all the Bond movies? Evil scientist gets all blabby, 007 gets loose, and thwarts evil-bonehead plan of world domination...better be careful!"

"Oh, we don't have to worry about you getting loose...Wrenchus here is utilizing your infamous Gnomercy as a power-source. It's quite amazing really. It can get things much colder than your standard frozen gases can."

"So I guess that means you can't use it yourself then...shame...must be really embarassing to be a gnome and not able to use Gnomercy itself," Ratchet says and whistles from high to low."

Absently waves at Ratchet behind him, still playing with the frog, "Pssh, that's why I've got all the robots. And believe me, they're more than enough to handle your precious 'Gnomercy'."

Ratchet's goggles were picking up some movement above them, and he slowly looked up, pretending to stretch his neck, to see Tigratchet sitting on one of the pipes. She nodded her head at him, then raised a finger to her lips, as she crawled across the pipe, and down some cables to the left of the workbench. Hmm, he thinks to himself, gotta work on her stealth field...if anyone was looking at her, she'd be easy to spot...I give myself a cookie for developing the first Peripheral Stealth Field though, and began to chuckle.

That's exactly the right thing to say in this game. Fortunately, they give it right to you here, whereas in almost every other game, you're stuck trying to come up with a reasonable description of power...

The thing that always got me, is the fact that in all of these games, the RP'ers never just checked the person's level using the game system...even if you have to invite them, you can RP, "Sorry, you look a littl weak for the enemies we'll be fighting" and still not be an [censored].

Anywho, RP the way you want to RP, don't change your play-style to fit in with any particular group, or you won't have as much fun. Eventually, you'll find your niche and meet players/make friends with a similar RP philosophy.

Play for fun, or don't bother. Boredom means it's time for a break. And if you're taking it too seriously, remember, it's just a game, and you're paying to enjoy it, not raise you blood pressure and chances for a coronary

Light RP is usually casual RP, fairly lax rules, and you're given a lot of leeway.

Heavy is pretty much the opposite...Hard-core RP, speech-patterns, mannerisms, emoting, and other aspects are usually heavily watched and enforced. Much more into a story-telling aspect.

Medium is just a 1/2-way point between those. Not quite as hard-core, but speech-patterns and mannerisms are watched.

Of course, the whle subject is open to interpretation, and these are my ideas on RP, whereas some may disagree or have slightly different ideas.

Ratchet was getting a little worried as his goggle's readout displayed various energy surges, similar to those of hospital teleportations, from the various EN members he'd been monitoring.

Hmm, I thought the hospital teleporters here weren't configured for hero signals...

He made a mental note to do a little digging after he finished investigating the apartment building he'd traced the earlier hack to. Place was one of the most run-down buildings he'd ever set foot in. Chunks of wall missing, flourescent lights hanging from the ceiling by power cables, and so much rubble and debris, it'd be hard to imagine anyone living here now, much less paying for it.

As he walked down the various hallways, he couldn't shake the idea that he was being watched...but there wasn't anyway there'd be a working surveillance system in this place. As he rounds a corner, he hears a footstep behind him, and takes off around the next corner, stops, whips around with his sword drawn, waiting for whatever it was that was following him.

...nothing...

He begins cycling through his goggle's vision modes, and sees a heat signature when he gets to infra-red.

Hehe, I SEE yooooouuu..., he thinks to himself, as a small smile crosses his lips. The figure continues moving slowly towards him, and he decides to "relax a bit" and stands up and turns to his left, looking back down the first hallway. The figure gets within sword-reach, but he decides to wait for his stalker to make the first move. Sure enough, once the hidden assailant is within arms-reach, he crouches down, and looks to be focusing his power.

Ratchet quickly jumps over the assassin, whips around and lands a powerful uppercut, sending the cloaked enemy into the ceiling, which rains down broken tiles. The cloaking effect fades, and Ratchet is startled by the similarities between himself and the stalker...same build, hairstyle, hell, they're identical down to the pants...the only difference being the pitch-black skin-color of his assailant.

In this moment of surprise, the stalker leaps to his feet, launches a roundhouse that sends Fizwink spinning to the floor, and with a wave of his hand, the assassin disappears from his sight...and judging by the sound, down the hall.

"What the hell's going on here? Why did that bozo look like m--" his question was cut short by a volley of laser blasts tearing through the wall beside him, followed by a chunk of ice freezing a huge section of said wall.

Quickly jumping up, he looks in the direction of the attacks in time to see 5 robots shooting at him, a white lab-coat-clad midget with a funky top-hat standing behind them with a very disturbing grin, and beside him, another midget...this one looking more on the cyborg end of things. Green visor over top half of his face, but sporting that same weird grin.

Barely deflecting a couple laser blasts with his sword, a couple more bounce off his shoulder armor, sending him reeling back into the wall. Standing up, he focuses his power, steadying himself, then charges right into the robots, slicing through 2 of them in one slash, while slamming his sword into the ground, sending a shockwave that sends two more to either side of the hallway. The last bashes him in the chest before he can spin around to get an angle on it, stunning him just long enough for a wave of ice to coat him from the ground up.

Helpless and immobile, he watches the robot stand down, and the two grinners walk toward him.

"Well, looks like you're a stubborn little guy," said the one in the lab-coat, "but do you have any idea how expensive those 'bots are?"

"Pssh, cheap craftsmanship. Come on, any decent robot should be able to take more than one or two swings from a sword. Then there's the whole laser thing...couldn't think of anything more original?"

Lab-coat chuckles a bit, "Hehe, there's that Fizwink sense of humor. We were told you were a sarcastic one."

"Can I kill him yet? I really want to kill the original myself," says the cyborg, as his hands begin to frost over, and a large chunk of ice-spikes form.

"Not yet...Recluse said to bring him in alive. The mechanical expertise of this guy is remarkable. And Recluse would LOVE to know how to control this "Gnomercy" power. Now, he didn't say conscious or not, so," as the grin got a little wider on both of them.

Last thing Ratchet sees is a small ball of ice heading right for the dead middle of his goggles... Great, snowball from he--

Anyone else notice that almost the entire first 1/2 of this thread is posts by people who aren't here anymore?

Talk about old-school!

Ratchet had just finished re-securing his laptop when his normally quasi-psychotic grin got a little broader. He had just gotten the message from ENHQ saying that the pirates would need to come up with a diversion to draw the attention away from the teams going on the rescue missions.

"Hehe, we get to, 'make some noise' to create a diversion..." he relayed the message to Popo. "Looks I'm REALLY breaking out all my toys!!"

With that, he once again bolted for the ship's cargo hold where he had stored all of his heavy-assault equipment.

Tigratchet, his "pet" genetically engineered (quite accidental though, we assure you) cat...erm, hybrid...whatever...peeked her head around the corner of a box in the corner.

"Whatcha doin'? Lookin' for my food? It's in the box marked 'Meow-Mix'...and I'm starving."

"Nope," Fizwink replied, "I'm getting all the hard-hitting stuff...where's the crate of my Kamikaze Nuclear Squirrels? Also, I'm gonna need the Battle Chickens, Techno-Turtles," and he just continued listing off his strange inventions as the cat-girl's eyes just grew wider and wider...and her one eyebrow got higher and higher.

As he pulled his toys out, he found his oldest robo-pet, Torchy, a once-fire-breathing metallic dragon, and more recently smoke-blowing rusted chunk of metal.

"Wow...THAT'S where you've been," he exclaimed as he picked it up, switching it on and listening to the servos hum noisily with life. "Hmm...looks like we need to get you all fixed up...how'd you like some anti-freeze, huh?"

At the mention of anti-freeze, Torchy started chirping and squirming anxiously, as, like all of his other creations, it used "alternate sources of energy" as he preffered to call it.

After getting Torchy all fueled up, Tigratchet some Meow-mix, and all of his toys on their designated short-range telepads, he strapped on his belt, scabard, sheathed his sword, and threw on his backpack.

"Hehe...they have no idea the amount of 'noise' I'm going to create, hahaha," he began to laugh maniacally and started moving towards the hold door.

"Yeah, those baddies are in for a show, which means you're DEFINTELY taking me!" exclaimed the cat-girl jumping down off a box.

"Oh no, it's our friends who are in for the show, the bad-bozos will be gone before they get to see anything...and I knew I should've locked you back in the janitor's closet in AP...as it stands I guess you get to come cause some carnage yourself."

Tigratchet pulled down and secured her goggles (designed by Ratchet of course) as she ran past Ratchet, out the door and up the stairs.

Ratchet then made a mental note that the first place he was going to head for would be the real location of his mystery hacker. He needed to know if it was his uncle or not...If it was, this whole mission just got a lot tougher.

Oh yeah...note to self...lock Tigratchet back in the janitor's closet in PGTM's office...stupid cat's got more experiments scheduled. Hell, damned thing missed it's Kinetics lesson, He thought to himself as he locked the hold door.

Ratchet smiled the smile of a proud inventor, as he watched the video feed from the Gnomish Pirate-Camtronic he had fashioned out of the skull-and-crossbones on Yarrrrr's hat. After all, the cap'n wouldn't be caught dead without it. A little gnomish ingenuity and a small camera was embedded into the non-patched eye on the skull, and the bones were used as a wireless transmitter on a specific frequency which only Fizwink knew how to tune in. So, he hooked a dvr up to the main transceiver on the boat, and patched one of the viewscreens in his goggles to said frequency as well, so he could keep an eye on their status. After all, Yarrrrr wasn't the type to report in...ever...and Harrrrr would need to know what was going on. Ratchet was glad he had remembered to give Cabin Girl the communicator verion of one of her earrings, so that audio wouldn't be a problem, and he'd pick up on any distress calls she/they made.

"Alrighty then, looks they're already getting into the swing of things, and making waves..." he began chuckling at his own pun, as Harrrrr and Lil Popo rolled their eyes at the gnome's inate ability to crack really bad jokes. "I guess that just leaves our move next huh? According my research," he began as he accessed his laptop, "if we head to the Cap Au Diable, we should get a drop on a couple different Arbiters, one of which didn't show up until about 2 weeks after another one of our members left. This one should be..." he trailed off.

"Who the hell is it man!?" Harrrrr demanded of the vertically-challenged techno-nut looking dumbfounded at his computer.

Ratchet's eyes grew wide (behind his goggles of course, so he's really the only one that knew it...good cover, rarely surprised, but anyway) and his jaw dropped as he watched his information being deleted real-time in front of his eyes.

"I...I'm...being...HACKED?!?! How the hell do I get hacked?!" With this, his surprise turned to rage, and the others could almost swear his green skin got a little greener...but the whole green thing was normal for him, not scurvy or anything, so don't worry TOO much...how he became green, is a tight-lipped secret on the other hand. His fingers began flying across the keys at an unbelievable rate as he tried to both safeguard the remaining files and get a tracker into the airwaves, and find the sneaky, yet incredibly skilled, [censored] hacking his system.

Whoever it is, they're good...looks like...hmm, this is being used also...wow, and that too huh? This guy's gotta be almost as crazy as crazy as me to be able to come up with that...

______________________________________________

The Dark Fizwink's smirk grew wider and wider as he manipulated Ratchet Fizwink's computer, downloading all the relevant files, deleting almost all others, and sending Fizwink on a cyber-goose chase...

"Hehe, get the cushy job over me will ya? I'm gonna mess up all your little toys so bad and screw with your head on such a level, that you'll be reduced to finding Playskool toys intriguing! MWA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAH!! 'Gnomercy' this, you little [censored]!" With that last statement he activated a worm/tracking program that would upload any and all new information directly to Dark Fizwink whenever Ratchet shouts his battle call, 'I COME FOR YOUR PANTS!! GNOMERCY!!'...which turns out was about every other 5 minutes. "God, that drives me CRAZY," he yelled as his right eye began to twitch at the thought of hearing that phrase so many times.

_______________________________________________

Ratchet struggled furiously as he waged the cyber-battle, trying to save his computer. He had managed to trace the culprit to a hotel in Cap Au Diable, though how they were hacking from there was beyond him...

"Unless...DAMNIT!! He's been toying with me," he shouted as he slammed the keyboard with his fists...which somehow pierced through much of the hacker's programs..."What the? Heh-heh...HAHAHAHAHAAAA!" he began laughingly maniacally.

He then looked up to see Harrrrr and Lil Popo looking at him strange.

"Ahem," as he cleared his throat, trying to look calm and collected,"Um...through my sheer technical prowess I have succeded in making the hacker think he had me fooled. And, uh...I broke through his encryptions, and...now, err, have access to his computer...totally on purpose...NOT on accident or anything...yeah."

"You need some help there, mate," Harrrrr commented with a raised eyebrow.

"Pssh...I go through Psychiatrists like Drano goes through a Mechanical Battle Chicken's coolant system." They just looked at him with a dumbfounded look. "What?"

Ratchet returned his attention back to his latptop in time to see a small program get implanted into his system, but the encryption on it was unlike anything he'd ever seen...it would take some work to crack it.

Recluse: Mwahaha, soon, all the heroes will be lying before me, powerless! And with my newfound power, and SUPREME rule, I shall exact the most dastardly, evil, unspeakably VILE plan of action against the populace of Paragon!!

Ghost Widow: And that would be?

Recluse: I shall take over all the radio stations of Paragon, and blast Richard Simmons workout tapes over the airwaves, so that all will work out along with me, so we tighten our tummies, and tone our tushies!!

Ghost Widow: ...

Recluse: Now, where's my blanky, I need my nap before I can begin working!!

Ghost Widow: ... ...

Ratchet Fizwink had only been a member of the EveryNighters for a relatively short time, and a member of Yarrrrr's crew for even less time, but he'd proven himself quite...useful. Several of his ingenius gadgets and inventions had been patented and put into use throughout Paragon, and even EN's base. Most notable of which are the Inter-Spacial Gyro-mechaincal Dimensional Stabilizers, which are used in the latest model of devices used for teleportation around Paragon.

Because of this (and his twisted and failry psychotic sense of humor), he quickly made friends of the EN group, and quickly rose through the ranks as a member of Yarrrrr's crew.

"LAND HO!!" shouted First Mate Fizwink up in the crow's nest of the Scally Wag.

After pointing out the Isles in front of the boat, though he never understood the need to point...after all, it's a gigantic spot of NOT water...but now wasn't the time for that argument, he hopped out of the nest, grabbed one of the ropes and slid down to the deck.

"What preparations'll we be needin', Captains? I'd be more than happy to break out the guns I modified! You know, the ones with the 'nade launchers, taser, laser-guided missile, and toaster ovens...I've even got the mini-fridge stocked with Hot-Pockets!" Fizwink asked excitedly...the little guy definitely enjoyed his tinkering. Though, no one has any idea why he decided to fix a toaster oven onto an assault rifle, bypassing the flamethrower to heat the coils in the oven...

Before Yarrrrr and the others could answer he was already bolting for his bunk to get his trusty goggles, and he really needed to find a better pair of pants...the ones he had tucked into his boots just would not work in combat situations.

"Ahh, been a while since I've had opportunity to wear THESE babies," he exclaimed happily as he pulled out his favorite pair of Lucky Brand, Japanese-styled pants with the orange checker design on the sides. "Oh yeah, now Ratchet's all set...just need my...damnit, where'd I put that stupid sword?"

As he overturned his bunk, in search of his trusty broad-sword, a small black box with a dimly-glowing red light on it.

"What the hell is this," he pondered as he picked up the device and began prodding and examining it's surface. "Hmm...looks like..." After another minute of fidgeting with it, he broke out his name-sake, and begin to pound on the box with a ratchet.

After about 6 whacks of increasing intensity, a small seam appeared along one of the sides. Carefully prying it apart, he split the cube in half, one half empty cover, where the clear "window" was, the other half filled with complex circuitry and the LED that was blinking red.

"Hmm...pretty advanced stuff, but what do you do..." as he closely followed and examined the circuit patterns, microchips, capacitors, etc. "Wow...haven't seen something like this in a while...but judging from the layout, and types of chips in here, it's probab--" he trailed off as he lifted up a piece of circuitboard to reveal a reddish spider-like symbol in a black circle embedded onto an important-looking chip. "Oh crap..."

Suddenly, he jumped up, box in hand, and sprinted out cabin door, tripping over his sword on the way, "DAMNIT!! I don't have time for this!!" he exclaimed as he picked up the scabard on the run to the deck.

"CAPTAINS!! We've got a problem!"

Yarrrrr and the others whipped around to look down at the little green guy.

"What's wrong, Ratchet?" Cabin Girl asked.

"I was down in my bunk looking for my sword, and found this," as he held out the box in front of CG, who looked at it slightly confused.

"Okay, so what is it? It's not going to blow us all up, is it? I remember that last 'little box' you brought me...ruined my birthday. My hair got blown straight back, my cake exploded all over the wall, and you singed my favorite cape..." she said as she looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Pssh, no...and that wasn't my fault anyway...the mechanical squirrel I made as a lab assistant demanded ramen in return for lab-work...and since we don't have ramen here, I had to say no...and he just went ballistic. Seriously, he started shooting at me with the guns I was modifying WHILE running around at SuperSpeed!! Anyway, that's not what this is!! It's a frickin' tracking device designed by my uncle, Prof. Wizfink...who started working for Lord Recluse about 2 years ago!!"

As he gave them that last little bit of info, they all realized what it meant. Their "element of surprise" was not only blown, but was predicted.

"I'd bet they not only know we're coming, but planned the whole situation to MAKE us come here! We've gotta be REAL careful of our next move, Cpt. Yarrrrr. What do you need me to do?"

Ratchet's pulse began pounding...would Yarrrrr continue on his original plan of action, and lay siege to the Rogue Isles? Or would he play it safe and delay the attack. Knowing the captain, Ratchet had a pretty good idea what was coming, and starting drawing a mental plan of what tech would be needed, how much ammo, etc.

"Band-aids, can't forget the band-aids, oh, and the hot-pockets...this could take a while, hmm, we'll all probably need a couple fresh pairs of pants, I hear this place is pretty grimy, and uh...OOH! This'll be a perfect opportunity to test out the Mecha-Robo-Fizzy in battle conditions," he began thinking...and subsequently getting entirely off-track, as techno-geek gnomes have a tendency to do.

Update!!

Paragon Tram Maintenance has merged with The EveryNighters, and will resume operations as soon as Guardian decides to resum operations!

Name: EveryNighters Branch of Paragon Tram Maintenance

Motto: Fixing Paragon, one track at a time...Every night.

Leader: Ratchet Fizwink (me!!)

Player Type: Insane, casually hardcore and hilarious.

Roleplay: Um...can I get back to you on that one?

Member Levels: Technically all, but I'm a puny lvl 27 (as of this post)

SG Colors: Black and orange

Normal Play time: Take a look at the name...come on...

Recruiting: Only if you're funny, enjoy being around funny people, enjoy having fun, enjoy having fun WITH funny people, being a funny person having fun...perhaps I should stop there...I think you get the point...

The techno remix of "Yoshi's Theme", from Super Mario World...

Name: Paragon Tram Maintenance

Motto: Fixing Paragon, one track at a time.

Leaders: 1...Me

Roleplay: Only if you really want to.

Membership lvls: 1-50...though noone's 50...

Colors: Black and orange.

Time of Play: Umm...yeah...whenever really...

Recruiting: Sort of...

Why I posted: I'm a gnome...but I feel like branching off into trolling.

EDIT: Typo...stupid gnomish spellcheckers...