Roughtrade

After entering the precinct, Zot carefully closed the window behind her. Maintaining her ECM field, she proceeded through the floor. It was mostly empty, and mostly trashed. Smashed desks, signs of fires, broken equipment abounded and several rooms were decorated with graffiti and feces. Blood stains on the floors, bullet holes in the walls and smoke stains on the ceilings; someone had been in residence that had little respect for the building’s structure. Syringes and greenish bloodstains gave evidence that a good many of them had been trolls.

[[Alright, Beta.]] The computer chided her. [[Are you still not satisfied? The Hero Intervention program is on record, the Twenty Sixth Precinct has been ceded to them. Everything is in order, except for your breaking into their building unannounced.]]

[“I want to know why they have a former skull working for them instead of tossing him into the Ziggurat.”]

[[Everyone deserves a second chance.]] The computer replied. [[Is that not right?]]

Zot paused, her heart catching in her throat.

[“Yes Papa.”] She said, speaking as much to the computer as to a ghost lost on a parallel world.

Elisabeta exited the room, heading down the hallway towards the staircase. Still under full ECM, but moving to the entrance to present herself. On the floor behind her, tiny brass men, barely larger than cockroaches, scampered across the floor, gathering particles of metal… bits of glass… The scavenged for tiny parts, and built more of themselves to help carry the larger pieces. They scurried along the edges of rooms, traveled through ducting, and clambered inside the walls. Like ants feeding on a dead cricket, they collected parts and crawled down below. Mindlessly returning to the locker where other pieces were gathering.

Rebuilding.

In Talos, Halo’s body glowed to nova brightness for a moment before she streaked off towards the north. Circling around Scylla Island and then south towards the Serpent’s Teeth. She skimmed close enough to the waves for surf to dampen her hair and tunic. Dodging the pilings under the pier that supported the warehouse on Helen Point, she came up to street level only just at the point needed to enter into the tunnel to Skyway.

Halo shot up into the air over Hyde Park, taking the high road. She streaked like a minature comet in a direct path, almost a straight line except for a momentary pause to loop three times around a radio antenna on the roof of a sky scraper in the south east corner of the Astral District. She whooped loudly in excitement as she dropped like a rock towards the highway and she caused cars to swerve wildly as she ignited her plasma flight less than three yards above the pavement. Her blue white blasts illuminated the tunnel as she barreled down it at greater than seventy miles per hour and into King’s Row.

Entering the Industrial Avenue region, the wind from Halo’s passage buffeted three young men who were lounging against a fence. Knocked over by the force, they shouted obscenities at her.

“There’s a reason they give those people free train passes.” One grumbled, climbing back to his feet.

Halo didn’t hear them, and she didn’t care. They were not the first to observe that, while flying, Halo was a menace in her own right. They would not be the last.

“Soon! Soon the time of reckoning will be at hand!”

The crazed voice caught her attention, arrested her headlong flight towards the Gish as surely as a brick wall. Halo “skidded” in mid-air, twisting into a wing over and diving down towards the voice. A bushy haired, bedraggled man stood on a box, shouting at the people walking on the street. For the most part he was ignored. Halo’s eyes blazed, she struggled with the urge to swoop down. But it was just a man. He wore a trashcan lid for armor over his chest, and most certainly had been contaminated by the twisted thinking of the Lost Sewer Men, but he was not one of the ones who drove daggers into her brain every time she slept. Her fists glowed brightly, catching his eye.

“We cannot be stopped.” The man looked away from Halo, almost taunting her with his words, but doing nothing which could give her cause to arrest him. “Though the avenging angel of the Lord descend from the blue heavens to strike us, we will over come, over whelm. We will adapt and survive. We will rule you all, and death will come to those who have not given all glory and honor to the masters!”

Halo tried to jet away, but could not fight the urges in her blood. She spun about again and then dived towards the man in the dirty green coat. Pedestrians scattered, sensing that violence was imminent. Halo grabbed him by the jacket and spun about in midair, hurling the pathetic wretch into a brick wall.

As she bounded forward, landing and kneeling to grab him again, he laughed. His teeth, what few were left, were bloody and his lip split where he had bitten down on impact. His breath was foul and his hair literally crawled with lice. But it was his eyes which filled Halo with revulsion. Grey and filmy, they looked not at Halo, but through her. She could smell the infection of the Lost in his blood. It raised a violence in her own blood, as if she were a white blood cell and he were an infection in need of destruction.

“You cannot stop us, Blue Marauder.” He spit blood at her face.

“One by one!” Halo promised. “You be starting!”

Halo’s hands shook and she pulled back one in a fist, preparing to strike the man. And then she screamed and stumbled away, dropping him as his eyes began to melt in their sockets. In horror she watched as he stood, his hair beginning to smolder.

“You are a tool. Your purpose is not your own.” He laughed again. “You might turn on the hand that wields you, but in the end you will be mastered and you will serve our purpose.” He laughed again, his skull split and something grey and bilious began to foam and bubble out of the bone shards. “You have been and always will be ours.”

Halo took three more steps back and then fell to her knees, vomiting into the street. In a dark alleyway behind her, a skull like face watched and grinned, showing teeth that were more like metal needles. The Pariah Prelate gloated silently as Halo picked herself up and threw herself back into the sky. Chitinous projections protected his skeletal body frame, and a huge, cleaver like, sword was hidden beneath the folds of his trench coat, but it was his mind which was the real danger. The death of a minor minion was nothing to his plans. Recapturing the tool that was lost to The Lost so many months ago would not happen without casualties.

[“Not exactly impressive, Papa.”] Elisabeta observed.

[[They are in the beginning stages of reconstruction, according to the latest report.]] Her computer replied. [[The Two Six has only been reactivated under the Hero Intervention program for less than a month.]]

Zot was hovering over the roof of the Two Six, unimpressed by it’s damaged structure. A force field showed at the door, but the roof was completely open and she could see several damaged windows. Not only that, but there was a hole completely through one wall, with what looked like acidic burns along the lower portion.

[“If it turns out they are legit, I might offer to set them up some security.”] She observed. [“Or at least patch up the wall.”]

She hovered closer, moving around to the south side of the building and out of sight of the front door. Her sensors swept the area for both human and electronic surveillance. Satisfied she was alone and unobserved, the armored female moved towards the building in a smooth glide.

[[Careful Beta.]] The computer warned her. [[At this range I can detect traces of dynamic tetravale particles in decay. Practically off the Voight-Mennan scale. This entire building has recently been phase shifted.]]

[“Bad news?”] She asked.

[[Good actually. They do posses a rudimentary security system, but the shift appears to have caused several circuit breakers to trip and other damage, some power supplies are non functional, though it’s likely just fuses.]]

[“And the good news?”]

[[Most of the system on this side of the building is completely deactivated. You can enter at will.]]

[“So could anyone else.”] Zot observed. [“Keep all scans running until I say otherwise.”]

Sean then nodded and headed to the side area to talk.

“Hie!” She said, when the other picked up. “You speak? Halo is recalling you.”

"Hello Halo, yes its me Sean. Sean McCallister.”

“Who?” She snorted. “You know me?”

“Yeah you know" sigh "Rough Justice”

“Skull Boy!” Halo said happy to have identified her caller.

“Yeah me.” He stifled the urge to sigh again. “So I have a problem I was hoping you could help with. Well not me, but this new place I have been assigned to." Sean closed the door to his room, saw the poster of Kara and quickly opened it back up. "Um well two of our team got zapped by a Clock prince an disappeared. I was hoping with your experience or maybe friends that might have an idea"

“Clocks?” Halo’s frown is almost audible. “Feh. Toys!”

“Normally I might agree with you.” He replied. “But they are dangerous toys and now they have a trick that can make people vanish. If they’ve tapped into the city rescue grid…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Bad thing.” Halo nodded, though he couldn’t see her. “Very bad thing. I come to fix the portation clock?”

“Uhh… Yes?” Sean offered. “If by that you mean you’ll come look at it.”

“Hie!” She bobbed her head in agreement. “Is can look close. See if can see how toys make vanishing peoples.” She paused. “Where is can find Arr Jay?”

“King’s Row.” He replied. “I’m assigned to Precinct Two Six.” Sean tapped a few keys on the control pad of his phone. “There’s the coordinates. Just come right in to the front door, I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

“King’s Row.” Halo repeated, her voice getting hard. “Lost.”

“I’m not lost, I’m at the Two Six.” Sean repeated for her.

“NO!” Halo shouted back. “Lost. Lost in King’s Row. Feh!” She shivered in frustration. “Bad Mens, Lost in King’s Row. Big Badda Mans! I come.”

“Yah, but…” Sean heard the click and dull tone as Halo ended the conversation.

Hehehe… good call on putting Kara on RJ’s poster. She would do that, and give the proceeds to a charity. Hmmm… the real question is how much cheesecake she could be talked into. She’s naïve, but not stupid. Dunno about bringing her into this instead of Zot though, she’s another tanker. The only real difference between her and RJ is that she flies, and looks better in a bikini.

We’ll deal with Zot first and then see if I drift over to something else.

On a different subject, have ya’ll thought about making a Two Six SG on a server somplace and doing something with it? There’s a thread on RP-SGs on the Liberty section of the forums and it got me thinking about it. And, of course, you would all come to Liberty so I am not inconvenienced. <grin>

Finally, and mostly for our new psychic, please go check my Crey files on the heroes involved here. Up to you to decide how their mental problems impact your abilities, but I’d appreciate your keeping my idiosyncrasies and such in mind. For the purposes of this shared writing thing I have added a “For the purpose of RP” section on them all. I was gonna take longer to work it through, but your addition prompted me to speed it up.

Halo
http://www.creyindustries.com/viewhero.php?id=11379

Zot
http://www.creyindustries.com/viewhero.php?id=11406

Been having wicked bad T-Storms all afternoon and evening. Tried doing all this in two big posts, it keeps messing up. I hope nothing double posts. Gonna chop it up and hope it can get through the data-pipe better.

[“Rough Justice?”] Elisabeta frowned, though with her helmet on no one could see her face and no one could hear her voice. At least, not anyone living. Not that it mattered, the armored female form was hovering over the roofs of the area now known as Faultline. A shattered ruin of buildings and scarred earth where no citizen lived. It was infested with the demented freaks who served Doctor Vahzilok and the diabolical mystics of the Circle of Thorns. And, it had the personal thorn in her side, the Clockwork. And should any of those dangers look up, they still would see nothing. Elisabeta’s armor had advanced electromagnetic counter measures which were sufficient to render her invisible to the naked eye, as well as nearly any form of electronic detection.

[[Rough Justice.]] The hovering object that circled her armored head did not directly speak to Elisabeta. In fact, it was little more than a sensor unit for the computer processor in her armor, but she always felt as if it contained the source of the voice.

Her father’s voice.

The computer was programmed with the memory patterns of her father, dead and gone along with the world where she had been born. It spoke with his voice and Elisabeta felt that even if it didn’t have part of his soul, it at least contained something like it. Dwelling on the subject was not something she did for long.

[[Sean McCalister. Formerly a Skull, low level flunkie. Worked for Marrowsnap’s leg of that organization. Subjected to genetic transformation after an altercation in a Superdyne laboratory went badly. Apparently your friend Halo knocked him through a wall and into one of the ‘dyne vats. He was subsequently subjected to the darkforce degenerative effect from her partner, Disease Eater, which in turn activated a meta-human change in his genetic structure.]]

[[Data file suggests he had already undergone the initial stages of transformation to Skull Bone Daddy, and the variables introduced through the Syperdyne genetic mutagen combined with Halo Jone’s supra-dense plasma force, compounded by the degenerative effects from Disease Eater. Cellular deterioration from the darkforce allowed a recombinant synergy which resulted in gifting the criminal with superior strength and near invulnerability.]]

[“Great. Super powered punk.”] Elisabeta’s frown deepend. [“How strong?”]

[[He is not in Statesman’s class.]] Came the reply. [[But his observed abilities more than indicate he is capable of damaging your systems. And he would be highly resistant to your highest output.]]

[“Resistant, but not immune.”]

[[Correct.]]

[“Of course, the real question is, why is he calling me?”] She shrugged. [“How did he even get the code to my comm?”]

[[After recovering, Sean McCalister cut a deal. He turned evidence on some of his former companions, mostly out of spite as they left him for dead and abandoned the lab. He was incarcerated for a very short period, little more than negotiation phase of his trial. A condition of his current release was to be drafted into the Paragon Metahuman Resource Division, under the newly formed Hero Intervention program. He is currently assigned to Precinct Twenty Six, King’s Row.]]

[“He’s a cop?”] She scoffed. [“What next? We ask someone to dig Frostfire out of the Hollows and ask him if he wants a job providing AC and heat to City Hall?” She snorted in disgust. “And that still doesn’t explain how he got my code or why he’s calling me.”]

[[Beta.]] Only her father had ever called her that, it was his pet name for Elisabeta. [[Do you recall answering a general request for assistance with some clockworks in a lab reanimating themselves?]]

[“Yes. Smoothbore, wasn’t that the one? Not that it matters, the King will just reassign that designation to another of his Princes.”]

[[Correct.]] The computer agreed with both her question and the statement. [[Rough Justice was the young man with the black skull face mask who also answered that call. You offered your signal decrypt code to everyone there, and asked them to contact you further should they run across more clockwork that performed spontaneous reconstruction.]]

[“Well… that still leaves the question of what the frell he wants from me.”] She snapped, but slowly turned in place to orient herself towards the security gate at the north end.

[[I cannot extrapolate an answer with any efficiency without further data, Beta.]] The computer replied.

[“I know, Papa.”] She sighed, activating her link to the city’s extensive teleportational grid. [“So let’s go see what the punk wants.”]

With a stuttering crackle of electricity, she reappeared twenty meters above the barbed wire checkpoint. Manticore, respected and famous member of Paragon’s heroic community had been granted access to the city’s teleportals to transport himself. Elisabeta was neither as famous nor respected, but in the parallel earth, where she had come from, she had helped to install and performed maintenance on a similar emergency teleportational grid. Tweaking her medical transponder and hacking into the grid of her new home had not been difficult. She could, if desired, transport herself directly to the nearest hospital, and bypass the War Wall perimeter, but chose not to. Arriving without damage would get some people asking questions she surely did not want to answer.

She deactivated her ECM field, becoming visible to the posted guards in the towers. They snapped about, bringing their guns to bear in surprise, and then relaxed as they recognized her.

“Any luck hunting, Zot?” One asked her.

“Neh.” Her voice buzzed somewhat, the voder element purposefully altering the sound. “I tagged a couple of Dukezz and a Prinzz over beyond zzSubduction, but then zzome of them damn zzzombies came zztumbling by with one of thozz Eidolon gimpzz. I had to pull back.”

“Well, good luck to you.” He waved, signaling the guards manning the gate to allow her access back through to Skyway. “Next time bring friends.”

As the blue armored form sped into the darkness of the giant airlock structure that protected the rest of Paragon City from the monsters in Faultline, his companion elbowed the man in the ribs.

“What was that all about?” He asked. "You mostly igore the Heroes."

“Oh, that was just Zot.” Came the answer. “Dunno who she is really, I’m thinking she must be ugly because no one sees her outside of that armor. But she’s got a powerful mad on for the Clocks. She comes in at least three times a week, sometimes more. Always goes out and smashes some Gears.”

“Why? They just rebuild. Damn things are worse than cockroaches.”

“Well if it weren’t for her, and others dedicated to reclaiming this place, then they’d be swarming the walls now, wouldn’t they?” Came the angry reply. “I know you’re new, so I’ll cut you some slack. But don’t ever talk trash, not even a little bit of doubt. Not about the ones who come here. Most heroes have given up on this corner. Be glad someone knows how important every corner of Paragon is.”

Elsiabeta, also known as Zot, sometimes called the Ultimate Zot, heard none of this. She had already passed through the airlock and reactivated her ECM field. Keeping her jaunts low power required more jumps to cross Skyway, but also prevented her signal from spiking and maybe raising notice from those who monitored the grid. Her armor was capable of a fairly swift hover, so she was never in danger of falling while reorientating herself. She ported through the tunnel that connected Skyway to the King’s Row zone. Two jaunts from there brought her to the Freedom Plaza.

Her HUD, Heads Up Display, illuminated a holographic version of the city map, seeming to project it in three dimensions before her. A quick moment to query the data banks and she had a highlighted star to indicate the location of the Two Six. Continuing to travel under full ECM, she moved out towards the Gish. Before answering any call, Elisabeta was going to ensure she was not moving into a trap.






[ QUOTE ]
Okay, so here’s Zot. This is taking longer than I thought. And since I still don’t know for sure that Abe was calling Rosa anyways, I won’t do anything for the Living Dead Girl tonight. Besides, it’s almost 0200. So, if you wanna see the Crey file on Zot, it’s here : http://www.creyindustries.com/viewhero.php?id=11406. Oh… and just where in King’s Row is the good ol’ two six located?

[/ QUOTE ]

<<Hey… I think it’s alive>>

The voices came to her as if from a distance, muffled by soft, fluffy, darkness.

<<Schnikies! What.. what did they do to her??>>

There were more, voices, people, lights, sounds. Motion, not gentle, rocking, swaying, sudden transitions in where her head was in relation to the ground. She was being carried. Carted along over someone’s shoulder as if she were a sack of potatoes.

A vague period followed. There was warmth, light, then cold light and harsh smells. Awareness skipped like a vinyl record. Needles. Scientists. The thought of “this is what it feels like on the other side” embedded itself in her frontal lobe. And then memories tangled, needles, experiments, harsh chemicals, genetic splicing. Playing God.

Halo Jones woke up screaming.

Blue white energy pulsed at her command, lighting the darkened bedroom in sputtering strobes of blue-white into ultraviolet. She flailed about for a moment, kicking at her tangled sheets while trying to collect her scattered thoughts. With a force of will, she called the energies back within and the room dimmed. It did not become dark, Halo’s cells were imbued with such energy that it bled off always, a dim haze of sparkles and a shining glow from her open eyes.

Wrapping her naked form in the expensive silk sheet, Halo crossed to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, chasing away the dreams. Dreams and sleep could be so easily cleared away, not so the memories.

Angelica Jones, smart, sexy, ambitious, ruthless; scientist. A woman on her way to the top, ready to feed the alter of ambition any sacrifice it required to reach the fabled ‘inner circle” of Crey Industries. All that changed the day the Rikti came.

Bombs fell from the skies and even the mighty heroes of Paragon could not stop them all. Chaos and fear ruled the day as the city nearly became a ruin. Enlightened self interest, ever the most trustworthy of motives, ruled the day. Crey Industries offered it’s services free of charge, opened it’s doors to many in those weeks. Even the Countess herself was in danger if the alien invaders won the day. Enlightened self interest was not only good PR, it was the only way anyone was going to survive. In those times, Angelica forgot the main rule for the ambitious in Crey Industries; always watch your back.

Betrayal. A meeting, a negotiation done out of sight of interfering governmental eyes. Except Angelica and her team were part of the deal, their bodies given over to the aliens to be used as test subjects. The screaming began almost immediately, and even the muffling tubes of vicious fluid she was suspended in did not completely muffle the sound as her fellow captives died. Or maybe it was her own screams that never seemed to stop.

Fortunately, the mind can only withstand so much, and the hours became a numbing eternity of “now” with no past and no future; and now nothing but a blank period which only can be found in the echoes of her dreams. Blessedly, she only needs to sleep once every eight or nine days. Not the only change she’s undergone.

Angelica was rescued. Years after the defeat of the Rikti, an investigation into the “Lost Men” in the sewers beneath Paragon discovered a secret lab. She was taken out and returned to life, but not the one she left. Angelica Jones had been declared dead, one of the many missing in action from the invasion. The changes to her body made DNA matching impossible. And, as one of Crey’s many lawyers put it; if the aliens who had held her captive could manage to turn her blue, give her the ability to spew plasma from her hands and make her fly then certainly they could perform a little cosmetic surgery and alter a dental palate.

The ordeal had robbed Halo of the ability to speak. She could think, she just found herself unable to articulate properly. For weeks after her recovering consciousness, she could barely control her motor functions. She was still considered a ward of the state when the laywers on both sides settled out of court. Crey magnanimously granted her a life time stipend, and even offered to give her a lifetime lease on a penthouse suite in the Gaspee District of Founder’s Falls. She had managed to exhibit her dissatisfaction with that thought, and instead the monetary settlement was boosted a bit more and she moved into New Thebes on Talos Island. But she no longer had a name of her own.

These thoughts roiling through her mind, Halo looked up into the mirror. Blue skin, powder blue like a summer sky. Her hair a darker shade, more like the clear Caribbean waters. Her eyes glowing brightly, even when she let her bangs fall forward to cover the right side of her face, the glow penetrated. And while she could now speak clearly, it still took much effort to translate her thoughts into a pattern which could be expressed. In times of excitement, emotion or in haste, her speech patterns degenerated rapidly.

Halo was her name now, Halo Jones. Slightly reminiscent of her previous life, a life she no longer wanted, a life she intended to make up for. Sighing, she dressed in what her closest friend called “The Go Go Dancer Halo Costume”. A belt of dark blue metal links, clasped with a silvery blue oval. Shorts, tight and very brief, on her hips; the blue material ran up from them on her sides, flaring out to cover her torso with enough modesty to keep within legal sensibilities if not everyone’s moral sensibilities. The top continued in this fashion to the arms, where it became angel sleeves. The boots were the heaviest part of her outfit, dark blue at the top, becoming lighter toward the soles. They were of heavy leather, buckles and straps upon them and strange markings on the side. Halo had bought them on a whim, mostly for the fact that the thick part at her calf contained pockets where she could carry such mundane things as her keys, credit cards and other personal items.

Strolling to the balcony, Halo collected her radio and set the earpiece and throat mike comfortably into place. She stepped out and let the plexi-glass slide closed behind her, locking into place with a satisfying click. Surely Crey could get in if they wanted, just as they were surely watching her at the time. Because of the constant surveillance she ignored the blinking red light indicating that someone had left her a message on one of the semi-official channels. Halo never responded to phone calls at her home. She stepped off the balcony and began to plummet towards the ground, thirty four floors beneath her.

She curled into a ball, rolled over slightly and five floors before fatal deceleration trauma, Halo’s hands became enveloped in the brilliant glow of plasma and she jetted out at nearly a ninety degree change in trajectory. Flying was almost her favorite part of being “a hero” and escaping the omnipresent spies of Crey Industries one of her true joys. Halo twisted to the side, skimming the surface of a fountain and dodging the branches of a tree as she flew nap of earth, out away from her apartment. It was futile, the War Walls and the need for controlled access to the different sections of Paragon City only meant that Crey’s observers could pick her up again at the highway entrance to Skyway, or pick up her trail off the monitors at the train stations. But it was important to Halo to not make any of it easy to the people she had come to consider more an enemy than the alien invaders who had altered her body.

Out over the blue waters of the bay, past Spanky’s Boardwalk and halfway to Ithaca Island, Halo finally slowed to a slow hover and pulled back her left sleeve to reveal the data-pad and controller for her comm set. Her brow furrowed… What could he want? Tapping the key to “return last call”, Halo cleared her throat and waited for a moment.

“Hie!” She said, when the other picked up. “You speak? Halo is recalling you.”

[ QUOTE ]
OOC: Longish, I know. My intros tend to be like that. I promise not to make every reply a novel. For a less prosaic form of the information about Halo, check out http://www.creyindustries.com/viewhero.php?id=11379 and it should cover everything, except I haven’t updated her in ten levels.

[/ QUOTE ]

(edit part)

Fergot to add... *Tag Abrahms* and it's up to him if RJ or Abe was the last one to call Halo.

[ QUOTE ]
Taking his cell out again, still no messages. He leaned back on one of the wrecks wondering which one would answer.

There were those two blue skinned beauties, Halo Jones <sigh> the lady who ultimately made him the man he is now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm… There something you wanna tell me about RJ and Halo that I don’t know yet? Or are you saying she’s responsible for the research that became the tests that gave RJ his powers? Very possible, considering Halo’s previous Crey connections.
{Edit} D'oh. Was not remembering your revamp properly. Got'cha. {/edit}
[ QUOTE ]
{ Then the spooky but gawhd what a looker, fact she was dead seemed to be a problem, but she was a porter.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't put in the next name, but I assume you mean Scorpio Rose, since she's my only living dead girl. You do remember that she's still in high school, right? Actually was about the last one I considered for this, but now that you’ve brought the thought up, she’s got the least worked out backstory of nearly all my characters. Might be a good idea.

[ QUOTE ]
Then there is Zot whom he only briefly met, shed be the best bet knowing gadgets the way she seemed to.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, Zot’s anal-retentive enough to go ahead and return a call, but since she’s also the one I’m nearest to getting submitted for possible publishing in the CoH back up writing stuff, she’s gonna have the least permenant presence here in Two Six. But, she does return her calls, especially if someone mentions Clocks, so it’s a good call.

Halo and Zot would both answer Abe much faster.

And apologies all around for taking twelve hours to respond after mentioning I was going to participate. I found a new webcomic while surfing and literally spent all day catching up. If anyone wants to check out my latest obsession, it’s www.countyoursheep.com and currently in my sig. But my sig changes once or twice a month, so it won’t stay there.

Okay, will be hammering out some “intro” posts in the next hour or two. I’d like to at least get them up before the Daily Show starts tonight so Abe can respond to them.

[ QUOTE ]
((Well here it is. We’ve suffered a slight setback, on the order of 30 out of 50 some pages being deleted due to a number of posts that contained strings of letters without spaces that the mods took issue with. I’ve been asked to summarize where we are and why we’re here. This is from memory, and I’m not certain I’ll remember the spelling of the names of the new members. So… here it goes.))

[/ QUOTE ]

Tell ya what, this was a very nice thing for me to find.

[ QUOTE ]
"I have left messages with the two ladies I was talking about. Hope to hear from them soon."

[/ QUOTE ]

Schnikies!

This is a lotta stuff to catch up with. And have ya'll considered a seperate thread for "OOC" comments like this? Could cut down some of the info-glut.

Gimmie some time to read up. And then cut the grass. I do my best plotting away from the computer.

Bleh.

I can't believe they'd have something that big and not have any clue about it.

Double bleh.

Just messing around with some fan fiction and came across a problem. Who is that big statue? The saluting guy standing in Blyde Square. Who is he?

Is there a guide anyplace that might have stuff like that listed? I can't just call him GoggleGuy.

On one of the side topics this thread is discussing, I had a "stuck in the wall" enemy on a mission the other day and bug-reported it. In the past I've had Tsoo Ancestor Spirits with their head stuck in a ceiling and done this, almost always getting a GM within ten minutes to pull them out. This time we waited ten minutes, went thru the rest of the mission and still never got a response. Vexed, we all bug-reported/complained about it.

That night I recieved this in an e-mail from CoH:

[ QUOTE ]
If you have failed a timed mission because of stuck enemies and that mission is still in your mission list please reply to this email with the name of the contact who gave you the mission and we will gladly assist your character in game as soon as possible. If you talk to the contact that gave you the mission it will be removed from your mission list and we will be unable to complete it for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously ya'll can't reply to "this e-mail" but you can send a bug report and include the info. I thought the important thing was the "don't talk to that contact again" bit, because they can't fix it after that.

[ QUOTE ]
Not much of a code crack to set /cam_dist to 100 ft, look down at yourself, and accurately select that perfect sniping point. Most of the time you wouldn't even have to use /cam_dist directly at all, just mousewheel back to 80 ft and do the same.

[/ QUOTE ] If you want to teleport to anything near a corner or on one of those multi-level storage shelves in the warehouse then backing off on the camera is almost always hampered. The “wall” prevents you from looking at the spots you want to look at directly. Meanwhile, with superjump I can just hop there; no camera tricks or changing view. (Though sometimes I do hit my head on the overhang and fall into the mob. Owchie!)

What I would like to do is teleport behind a mob and pop him, then my teammates pop from the other side. The crossfire effect can cause it’s own confusion, drawing Lt’s away from slower moving mobs, especially the Vhaz. But it rarely works without some waiting around while I fiddle with camera angles. Or I can superjump over the heads of things in rooms where the ceiling is high enough to let me not draw attention on the way. [ QUOTE ]
To the guy who can't turn around mid-air with teleport. You can do it without hover. You need to be pretty quick though. Also, if you have an older/slower computer or if you are experiencing high lag it is frustrating.

[/ QUOTE ] Teleport. Superjump. Yeh, I need another movement power pool. Thanks for the advice but this is so not a viable solution to making teleport useful. [ QUOTE ]
Per the endurance cost thingy. I only have a EndRedux SO in Teleport. I do have 6 SO slotted Stamina. If I port slowly enough, I can gain Endurance as I port and not touch the ground.

[/ QUOTE ] If you port slowly enough? Do you know of any other travel power that requires the person to travel slower to be effective? I’m not sure how you “port slowly” and not touch the ground, unless you’re using hover too. If you don’t port again at the end of a pop then you fall to the ground.

Six Slotting Stamina just to make a marginal gain of end while teleporting so proves my point I don’t know what to say. With every other power pool I can recover endurance while traveling at full speed, and sprint on. With my powersuit character I can fly, while invisible and keep my targeting drone active and still recover end. I think I’ve only got two or three slots in stamina with her. [ QUOTE ]
I actually have a way of getting on railings without the use of a ceiling. I do this with buildings sometimes too. You put the cursor right on the upper edge of what you want on then click. Immediatly start to press forward after that. When you come out of your motionless hover you will transfer onto the ledge.

[/ QUOTE ] Yeh, if you don’t shoot over the railing because you went too far forward. It is much nicer to land on the spot I was aiming for than three feet above and to the left of it and hope I can grab the ledge before I fall.

The “hover pause” with teleport is slightly vexing. I know it’s there to allow time to reorient and pick a target before falling, but when I am at my target and stuck hovering while things attack me I’m just reminded again of how not-useful teleport is. [ QUOTE ]
With stamina 6-slotted and teleport and personal force field 1-slotted (remember those slots they come with? yeah, those), I can go full-speed for at least 1.5mi, and if I wait a tiny bit between teleports, I can get a lot farther. Without PFF, the distance just increases.

[/ QUOTE ] Okay, I will cop to maybe exaggerating some in my original post. Yes, teleport is faster for traveling across a city zone than flight. Depending on how far, it’s even faster than super jump, provided I don’t have to make a course change quickly. It’s still a debilitating endurance drain and if I do pop in to help a friend I’m just there to be a damage sponge if I don’t have two or three blue candies to pop for inspiration.

Yeh, teleport comes with one slot. One slotting the end down does not significantly alter the drain. Six slotting it means either (a) dropping slots in it for three levels and ignoring other powers or (b) waiting until the mid 30s I suppose.

Flight, superspeed and superjump are all easy to use, require no other power pools or special key binds or other mess to make turning corners easier and they don’t require me to six slot something just to keep from exhausting all my endurance.

When you chose superjump, you face where you want to go and you jump. When you fly, you face where you want to go and you fly. When you superspeed run, you face where you want to go and you run. All of this can be done within seconds of gaining the power. Only with teleport do you have to fiddle around and find tricks to how it is used in order to travel anywhere.

It’s a complicated power. Probably was tiresome to code so it works as well as it does. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind “no more porting to the ceiling above the rail” but they probably closed out an exploit I didn’t know of. Someone else pointed out, you cannot effectively hunt for mobs with teleport. Exploring a new zone is almost impossible with it.

I am not saying teleport does not have uses, I’m not even saying it’s the worst power out there. I am saying that it has been made difficult to use and the endurance drain is cost prohibitive. And if your answer to making the endurance drain less onerous is “six slot” then I really don’t find it a helpful answer. The debate point isn’t “how do I get end back while teleporting” it’s “how come teleport drains so much more endurance than the other travel powers when it is so less useful” and that is what I am concerned about.

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Hmm, that's odd. I can beat almost anybody to any location (within two miles if I have PFF up) with teleport. It's accurate, it's fast, and it only has one end reduction slotted in it. What power are you using?

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It's not accurate. You have to target a point and apparently unless you can code crack to move your camera to illegal places that means porting into the air and then moving your view and trying to port again to your landing spot before you fall out of sight and have to do it again. Sure, I can teleport 100yrds away, but not 30yrds up and 10yrds over to get at a good spot to snipe safely from.

I didn't know they took away the ability to port onto the "bottom of the cieling" but if that is true then they've just made things worse. Like the other guy, I used to target spots on the cieling just above the beam or box I wanted to land on.

I haven't put in any end reducers because I haven't wasted any enhancements slots on teleport. My first enhance went to distance and I was greatly dissapointed to find my 98yrd unenhanced port had become a 103yrd enhanced teleport. Yah, that's a big deal, I'm really racing the guy with superleap now. With the same character, and superleap with no range enhances I can jump 98yrds. And there's no pause while hovering in the air and trying to target in the direction I want to go.

Don't even get me started about trying to change directions when I find out one of my friends needs help due to an ambush on their way to the store.

Anyways, three or four teleports takes away more than half of my endurance. With my various characters I can fly, run at superspeed and superleap and recover endurance with each one at the same time. With fly, superleap and superspeed I have one slot end reduced and stamina. Now the same character has superleap and teleport and there is no way I could equal out their end cost without putting three or four end reducers into teleport.

Unless they've made some change on the end cost with "Issue Two" then teleport's endurance drain is so cost prohibitave that I'm surprised anyone uses it at all. I deleted my porter about a month ago to try and redo her and haven't gotten teleport again because I figure'd I'd save it for the mid 20s where there's no powers I really want from my powersets.

I had the one blaster who could teleport. What should be (and in my imagination still is) one of the coolest powers became basically a special effect using up one of my slots. When I was on a mission and "writing the story in my head" as I go, I explained the hop-down-the-elevator trick as she teleported out of sight and the thugs couldn't find her instead of it being that the bad guys obviously don't know how to make an elevator work.

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In all honesty.. the only reason I use teleport is for character concept. Otherwise the power makes me ill.

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Ditto. My character with teleport has superleaping to actually travel with. I only use teleport when I want to take two or three times as long to get someplace and arrive without any endurance at all. I dunno about this porting into the floors trick and I don't know that I'd ever use it, but I wish teleport was useful in some slight manner.