SailorMeff

Today was slowly turning into a poor one for Jack. A random beating from the sky and the object he had been working to retrieve the whole time being destroyed, both had pushed him in the direction of a poor mood.

With a small trail of blood dripping from the edge of his mouth, Jack picked himself up. He brushed his shoulders off and gave his tail's golden hair a quick look before he gave a forced smile to Frost and the others.

"Well with that I suppose I have my work cut out for me. Thing was the only one like it we found in that mess." Jack knelt down and poked at the shattered remains of the cylinder as he pulled his cell phone from his pockets. "Karen, I'm afraid I dropped the package on the way back... no not on purpose... I think it's pretty broken now... no, more like several pieces...I'll take care of it... no this one is on me... no I get by just fine... pirate's treasure... yes that's what I said, pirate's treasure... Karen, I'll take care of it... ok, go ahead and ask... I'm serious, pirate's treasure... alright Karen, keep your panties on, I'll have another by morning." Jack hung up with the loud clack of his mobile phone closing.

Jack took a better look at his company before shaking his head. "Why are you here anyways Sly? I doubt you just happened on the scene and decided to stick around." He questioned, "Up to no good are you?" Jack's gaze fell upon Icegun at whos presence Jack's head quirked to the side in confusion. "Have we met?"

With that Jack became, yet again, a bright yellow blur of motion as he disappeared in search of more clockwork.

"I should have learned by now that the only partners you can trust are the ones you conjure yourself." he muttered, finally showing his irritation now that he was drifting away from the others.

As the reporters dismissed themselves one by one and the crowd slowl disapated, the three heroes spoke and ate thier mexican food. When the last reporter had hopped into his van to send in his story, Jack snuck up behind Frost and drapped both arms loosely around her neck, dangling them carelessly before her chest and neck. The others saw the large grin on his face despite lips that looked like he had spent far too much time in the cold.

"I loved it babe, they ate it all up!" his voice still a bit dry. "Listen, I hope you don't mind I told them we would do a few 'couples' photoshoots next week, pay for your time and wardrobe of course."

Galactic Jack frowned for a moment and looked around the heroes before slidding down closer to Frost, letting his lips drift closer to her ear.

"Darling, I don't want to nag you but, that little cylinder I tossed you earlier: I don't suppose you held on to it like daddy asked?" he let his voice drift twords the tone of a father. "If you lose Jack's things," he whispered before his voice grew to a level of seriousness Jack rarely used, "Jack will have to punish you."

With that, Jack smiled to the others and placed a light peck on Frost's cheek. Jack knew she was unhappy with him but it was a game he had played many times before.

When you've played the game to death, being sloppy is more of an effort to keep thing lively. Jack always seemed very lively.

In a futile attempt to communicate Jack was flashing sign language at a rate that would send a mute speed reader into a frenzy (he had after all spent two years working with the deaf and mute children of underprivilidged European nations). As for a more souther region Jack had learned in his ventures on earth to always wear a sturdy cup. While in this case it did happen to keep anything from becoming dangerously solid, the strong alloy was a powerful conductor, keeping him cooler then a penguin in sunglasses but no where near as comfy.

"Four years" he thought to himself. "Jokes on her he mused."

As exquisit as alcohol is on Earth, Jack learned a startlingly impressive amount of self restraint over the last thousand years, of which he showed none on a day to day basis. No drink was of little concern as long as there was still orange juice and cranberry cocktail (rumored two of Jack's favorite non alcoholoic drinks). No, what worried him most was that his enormous charity budget was going to suffer greatly to keep him out of Africa, diverting funds away from Work Options for Women in Stride and the A.L.I.E. Foundation to A.S.A.P. was going to be his first order of business the moment he could effectively communicate verbally to his accountants.

Oh yes, his sign language. How could we forget?

"The children in Africa will be so happy to finally learn in the Galactic Jack Junior Acadmy of General Education thanks to the loving support and encouragement of miss Rose." he flailed in an attempt to communicate. He slowly thought of whether or not he was in for more then he could chew this time. He had never gone after another hero and had her respond quit like that.

"Please find me a hot pack." he signed.

Jack knew his job well, better then most people. One of the things that set him aside is he knew when things were about finished. Sure he waved his hands around and produced brilliant flashes of light, powerful illusions to tear at the clockworks and Frost did her part too. The one action that made Jack different is when the last of the giant robots was about to fall, he called his publicist.

"1212 Potter Way by the King Garment Works, get the post, the times and the herald here and feed them 'Jack Recycles, Clockwork Just Tin Cans.'" he said over his phone while he and Frost cleaned up the number of sprockets and cogs running about after they had taken the royalty. Each of Jack's brilliant flashes of light masked another shot from the operative's rifle.

As the duo finished with the last few clockwork the news vans began to arrive, the sun had already sunk behind the walls and the sky was quickly turning a deeper blue. Jack wasn't ready just yet, though: Frost was about to learn why Jack carried such an impressive record of rescued damsels and an almost equally impressive record of restraining orders.

Jack called out to Frost, "Rose! Look out!" as he made a wave of his hand in her direction and blinded her with a flash of white light.

Disoriented and stunned, Frost could make little struggle as Jack sped under her and swept her feet out from under her, carrying her in his arms he stepped twords the multitudes of reporters just now stepping from their vehicles.

"GJ, who's the lady?" barked a reporter, pointing a microphone twords Jack.

"How did you know the clockwork were here?" came the question of another.

Jack stood completely upright, still carrying Frost who was slowly comming to, his figure imposing and strong. "Actually Rose here happened to be investigating the area. We were both doing some work for Chintiny Research and it just happened that she stumbled upon the very group of Clockwork I had marked for disassembly." Jack slowly let Frost back to her feet as she regained her eyesight, a well placed hand he would later claim occupied the space it did only to keep her from falling. "But it was only when I heard the desperate cries of miss Rose that I realized the clockwork inside this warehouse," Jack waved a hand "had taken ,my fiance hostage in a foolish attempt to demoralize and capture me."

Jack flashed his pearly whites and held Frost close at the hip while the reporters took a few photos. It was good publicity, but it was mising something Jack thought. Then he had it, a perfect ending to another front page story.

"And we are both very proud to announce that we'll be donating all of our pay for this job to one of my many sponsored charities." Jack smiled again and gave a thumbs up identicle to the one on his posters and comic books before he prepared to dodge whatever wrath Frost was about to send his way.

Microphones and cameras were thrust in Frost's face as her eyes opened fulling seeing.

"Congratulations maam, how's it feel to be engaged to the famous Galactic Jack?" they proded. "Does it bother you to be dating such an older man?"

All he did was smile as the others arrived and another FSS operative left his perch unseen, shaking his head in disapproval. Someone was about to ask for a bonus.

((ooc just spent 3 days at the RMBGA's BenCon here in Denver))

Things were cleaning up nicely just as Ivory had expected. He barely moved when Deth popped in to try to include the two of them. Besides, things were getting awful crowded.

"The Tsoo are fighting a dangerous gang war, bad drugs to Trolls and bad magic to the Outcasts. Make sure they get the message."

Ivory gripped his rifle by the barrel and drug it lazily behind him as he walked down the street attempting to hail a cab.

Ivory and Lyle began their slow walk through the frozen lifeless world of Limbo. Cars sat mortionless, birds frozen in midair and people preserved in mid stride. Ivory hated walking. On their way back to Morningstar's humble antique shop the two happened upon an unexpected fight.

Sure Ivory had asked some of the heroes to go talk to a few outcasts but this was hardly what he had in mind. Outcasts seemed to travel in three sizes these days: pairs, trios and packs. It must have ben two for one when buying bulk on the streets of Steel Canyon.

Frozen above Deth and the unfamiliar girl were three shapes. In order of their hight above the battle they were a boulder at the lowest, a shocker at the mid and what looked like a rapidly descending woman in charmingly old fashioned armor.

A good block away, Ivory cut the frozen glass of Limbo and opened a jagged exit for himself and Lyle. Once back into the living, moving world, Lyle instinctively took aim at the Shocker but was inturrupted as Ivory lightly pressed his hand over the top of Lyle's firearm.

Ivory tossed his own rifle to land uncermoniously at the edge of a park bench. The setting sun had covered Ivory in a redish glow makin it hard to see the white suit he wore as he strolled casually twords the place to sit and rest.

"I know what you're thinking old man." Ivory spoke calm and cooly as he removed his glasses to clean them with a handkerhief; the action revealing his white eyes of light and smoke, a small mist seeping into the air at the corners before ending in a sharp trail. "Let's see how the ladies handle themselves."

Ivory took a seat on the steel bench, jostling his rifle just enough to send it crashing to the ground where it let out a solid metalic sound and the mechanical jostling of loose parts when it hit.

"Besides," Ivory mused. "It's getting late.

7. Know what your character does and does not know. Just because you read another person’s origin or perhaps another of their open RP threads does not mean your character knows it too. Someone who has posted their origin is telling a story for everyone’s enjoyment. In most cases, though, the fact is that your character has no idea what another person’s character’s origin is. Just because you the person read it does not mean that you the fire slinging robot read it. Those of us in table top role-playing refer to this as “objective role-playing”. The idea is that you are a different person from your character so act that way.

DO: “Old Spyce noticed the heroes below her completely unaware of her presence. One she recognized from years back; The Chalk caused quite a commotion when he revealed his claimed source of power to be a radioactive set of coloring chalks, Crayola nearly went out of business. The other two were mysterious, though vaguely familiar. Perhaps their paths had crossed once before?”

DONT: “Olde Spyce saw the heroes before her unaware of her presence. Each she well recognized. There was The Chalk who had derived his power from a magical set of radioactive coloring chalks, Crayola brand. The Bebop who was really a secret Rikti spy sent to scout Paragon City for weakness, his disguise the elaborate guise of a hero. Jason Schmidt, the dark wielder of time: none knew his true name was Jason Schmidt, but Olde Spyce saw it fit to call him that anyways. As She descended upon the group, she killed Bebop and unmasked him as a Rikti and proclaimed to the world ‘GG I r0x0r’.”

Some high profile heroes may have certain aspects of their personal story revealed to the public. Some of us on the boards play very high profile heroes whose general origin is no mystery. Others play mysterious characters that, while they may have posted origins for the world to see, are complete mysteries to the city and all those within it. Just sit and think about it… would your character really know that the people he just met took down three hundred Outcasts in bunny outfits last week?

8. Respect other characters for the fact that they do not belong to you. I went over this previously but perhaps this warrants more attention. This doesn’t mean to play nice. If your character has no respect for others, who cares; I know I don’t. What this is respect as a player for another player’s character. I already went over how poor form it is to control another player’s character, but what is perhaps even worse is messing with that character: changing it, manipulating it, shaping it. Do not redefine another character’s origin, do not play with their history, and do not claim to have been there because the fact is that you weren’t. I promise you, you weren’t there. There’s no example for this, just don’t do it and NEVER KILL ANOTHER PLAYER’S CHARACTER.

I'll add another bullet to the guide for both "in character objectivity" and "character respect"

I'm at "work" right now so I can't type out my long rambling examples.

"Agreed," came Ivory's response, "but I think the elevator is out of order."

Ivory pushed on the door to the stairs and Lyle followed suit. As they descended the stairs calmly the sound of clashing metal, gunfire, grunts and splintering wood grew distant. When the two reached the lobby where they had earlier faught the Astral Gaurd Ivory began to seemingly speak to himself.

"The Steel Canyon secondary trade complex is crawling with Tsoo and Trolls, send SWAT and Detention." Ivory turned to Lyle who seemed to carry his rifle with infinitely more care then Ivory. "Let's find the others, the Tsoo are waging a dangerous kind of gang war."

ffxi is a great game but it has one of the worst 1-30 treadmills ever... content doesn't pick up untill you are about 35 either and untill then the content is actually pretty tame.

If you want PvP, a well developed world, veriety, lots of quests in a fantasy world... try Asheron's Call... not AC2... the sequal is horid... but the first game is still my favorite to date...

If you want something a bit more cutesy, I reccomend internation Ragnorak Online... it's so damn cute you'll just want to hug it all day long.

Jack was able to move just fast enough to attain a frozen patch on his rear sure to upset his drycleaner. As he gulped a sigh of relief his sharp alien eyes spotted a brief flicker of reflected light. Jack smiled to himself and thought, "always on the job".

Jack turned and gave a wink to Frost and then once again became a blur of motion. He lept from the top of the building to land in front of the doors sure to soon burst, rotating himself in mid air, his own momentum caused him to keep skidding accross the pavement once he landed. Jack waved his arm though the air just as the three Princes broke through the steel door. With a tremendous flash of light the middle Prince clutched his eyes as he was thrown back several feet, a huge gaping hole in its mechanical head gave preface to its winding gears coming to a halt.

If this were anything but real life, now was when the soft rock and roll guitar rifts would ring in to accent the Heroe's amazing moves. Instead, Jack was sent flying as a double dose of electrical bolts arced through the air to his position. They had slammed into a nearly invisible wall of force in front of him, but they had still slammed rather hard.

oh I think you're wrong... you can teach someone to roleplay, in fact you should... it will cut down on the people who have no freaking clue how to rp... and the butchering they do to open topics... learn things like... ogjectivity and... courtesy... @!%&

I think this topic needs to be pushed back up to the top. Not that I ever had faith that people had any common sense in them, but I was hoping I'd never have to direct someone to this thread again... oh well.

Time to learn to read Nubcicle!

((ooc in my previously posted rules for open role-play you may have noticed a rule that said "read the whole thread" or something close to it. I don't expect people to read a 34 page thread to join in, but perhaps the last 5 pages? Lyle and Ivory are nowhere near the current battle with the trolls that Sly, Haunt and previously Deth are currently in. Lyle and Ivory are currently in an office building in Steel Canyon.

Some might call me a jerk for being so blunt, but please please please READ THE FREAKIN THREAD BEFORE YOU CONTRIBUTE TO IT! JEEBUS FREAKIN ANTICHRISTMAS is open RP really THIS hard?))

Nexxes proclaims that he is, indeed, a frog and that cat over rice is his favorite meal, Kyle Helsing then shoots both Nexxus and himself, fatally wounding the two of them. A wormhole induced by borg time travelling technology then swallows both of them and eliminates their entire past, removing them from time entirely. gg

The sound was the sound hiss of Ivory's grenade throwing a thick coat of liquid all over the second troll and the ground underneath it, quickly solidiifying into a strong web of glue. Lyle knew the Troll was far too strong to be held down for long by the gadget, but it baught Ivory time.

With a flash of light, Ivory stepped into Limbo. As soon as he disappeared, Lyle witnessed Ivory reappear behind the troll, already freeing itself from the web. No longer anchored to the ground, the Troll was still covered in the glue as it lunged for Ivory who casually propped his rifle not against his shoulder, but at the side of his hip.

"I lost my favorite hat today. You picked a poor time to start trouble." Ivory spoke calmly to the rushing Troll.

Ivory looked away from the mass of muscle as a thick stream of flame shot like a fountain from the tip of his rifle, bathing the Troll in flames; the webbing glue began to heat intensely as it burned the Troll's flesh. A disgusting heap of charred flesh, still aflame, dropped inches from Ivory's feet. He turned to walk away but something took a firm hold of his ankle.

"Me break you good." said the troll, tugging at Ivory's leg.

Annoyed, Ivory toggled his weapon to a quick burst, more then enough to finish off the troll he thought. As his trigger finger tightened, the Troll threw Ivory's leg out from under him and a quick hail of bullets tore through the ceiling above him sending plaster and woodchips rainign down on top of the two.

Lying flat on his back with his rifle still heald by its hand grip in his right hand, Ivory stared at the cieling.

"Well god dammit."

Jack's face contorted, "Mother in-law? But I'm not..." Jack was inturrupted by a large mechanical claw bursting through the doors about a foot above his head. "Princes, three of them. Hold on love."

Jack became a blur of motion and swept behind Frost, sweeping her off her feet and into his arms before leaping to the roof ofthe building. Both took on a certain transparence as Jack let Frost to her own feet, in the process of which he gave her rear a firm grab.

"We just might have to call in some boys to handle this one." he said, preparring to duck an incomming strike from his 'partner'.

"It's time to go." Ivory whispered from behind Lyle, startling him just a bit. "Things are about to get messy and I think I know why."

The two men slowly back through the door to the balcony they were on just in tie to hear the roar of the Trolls and the Tso unsheathin their weapons. When the two turned to head back twords teh elevator shaft a duo of Trolls cracking their nuckles blocked their path, hungry grins creeping across their faces.

"The big ones don't like using guns."

With that, Ivory pulled a grenade encased in plastic with a clear liquid inside, pulled the pin and let the safety flip forward.

The Trolls began to charge.

"Aye, I can handle a few clockwork no problem." Jack told her while he went rumaging through the scraps and parts scattered in front of the warehouse, tossing small pieces of broken clockwork and scrap over his shoulder. "You see love, thought I might get lonely on this one, and besides." Jack lifted a small cylindrical object from the mangled torso of a long since deactivated Sprocket and eyed it over carefully. "I need someone to carry these." he said and tossed the cylinder to Frost.

Jack walked to the large steel doors of the warehouse before him and threw them open dramatically, both doors flying open, slamming against the walls and quickly slamming shut again. Jack turned around slowly to face Frost not far behind him.

"Miss Rose, I think we're going to need more then snowstorms and illusions." he said cheerily as someting huge slammed violently into the doors producing a clang loud enough to be heard for half a mile.

"Oh him?" Jack waved his hand as the clockwork let out a downward hum and fell to th floor, "He's already finished, he just didn't know it yet. Miss Rose was it?" Jack took a moment blatently eyeing Frost up and down before nodding and letting his tail flit back and forth a bit. "You'll do nicely. Here I found a hole full of the buggers over here. Think they might have gone into production." Jack pointed to the pile of scrap metal piled high next to a warehouse with a beaten path leading from its base into the warehouse.

*ON HELLSING'S PHONE*

A confused and somewhat eccentric female voice came over, "Yes hello? This is Karen... well, yes there are... but... well we have a duo in the King Garment Works. The contract is locked, though, so you'll have to negotiate with Mr. Jack."

*KING GARMENT WORKS or at least in the area*

Frost stood for a moment in silver screen silence, trash blew by her feet and the only sounds were those made by the many nearby factories and a slow methodical clicking.

"Watch it!" came a loud call from the top of the nearest warehouse as three Cogs lept from the roof, away from Galactic Jack's impressive stance oddly perched perfectly center to the setting sun's gold and red rays creeping over the warehouse. The Cogs made quick flight twords frost but continued right past her with purpose. Before she could react, Jack had become a blur of motion, appearing behind her, in front of the fleeing clockwork.

With a drammatic outward motion from both hands, a brilliant burst of white light flashed from his eyes, filling the area with an instant of blinding light. The Cogs all halted holding their 'eyes', unable to see they froze in confusion.

"Well hello there doll," Jack extended a hand as a picture perfect smile graced his face, eyes hidden behind his trademark pair of Combat Grade Eye Shieldings (a product of Bolle), "so, you must be my partner for this one. Welcome aboard!"

The three Cogs were beginning to come back from their temporary blinding.

It sounded as if the person on the other end of the phone was rifling through some papers for a moment before she spoke up. "Okay, um, oh wow he has a chart... Miss... I need your name as well... oh nevermind do it later. Mr. Jack is in a warehouse near the King Garment Works so you can join him now if you want. He's tracking down some... er... clockwork power units." The mad shuffling of papers continued for a moment. "The pay is good, we're promissing top prices for good parts. Mr. Jack has it in his contract, though, that he recieve funds for distribution to his team, should one join him. It's not every day a small research outfit like us gets a chance to be represented by the famous Gaactic Jack you know..." the voice trailed off and then the phone was hung up.

Somewhere in a warehouse near King Garment Works Galactic Jack's beeper began to chirp.

Lady Frost's mobile phone went through its chirps while it rang the phonenumber in the photocopied ad. At the third ring a click and the sound of someone lifting the reciever was promptly followed by, "Hello, this is Karen. If this is abou the ad in the paper I'm afraid we have it covered, well, more or less." It sounded like the person on the other end was shuffling through papers and opening drawers and file cabinets. "Oh wait wait, don't hang up. Hello? He left an application so if you want the job you can join Mr. Jack but... let me see... yes, so if you're female I can fill out this application; I'll need your age, weight, measurements and... phone number and... marital status. Oh dear." The frantic voice stopped as if waiting for an answer.

A sudden burst of gold and red light followed by the crack of a moving object making hard impact on a standing one sent Kyle Helsing once again skidding across the street in tumbles. A burnt line and a trail of smoke starting at Kyle and ending with the famous golden figure of Galactic Jack left little to the imagination for what had conspired yet again.

"JeeeezzzzUUUUsssss! Who in gods name keep sputting these things in front of First Strike Security? Like you own the whole damn street!" Jack griped loudly, pulling himself off the ground. "Listen Contact, we're going to have to ammend my contract for this kind of stuff, you gotta keep your place clean ya know?"

Galactic Jack, the only Hero in the entire city who had contracted FSS not for a job but for their services. With the click of a button FSS operatives were on scene to back up Jack and any problems he might inflict on himself, when the cameras showed up, the operatives were nowhere to be seen. It might have hurt business to let Jack take all the credit for high profile assignments in which he got more then fair help from FSS, but he always paid, paid very well and paid in cash.

"If you'll excuse me, I've got some work to do." The word 'work' coming from Jack's lips often made heroes smile: Jack had more endorsements then a nascar. "New outfit in town needs to bust up some clocks."

With that Jack became a blur and sped away, a slow breeze followed in his wake rolling a single styrofoam cup down the street.

There was a sudden burst of gold and red light and a loud crash followed by a breeze that carried street litter and trash with it. Helsing was tossed from his chair several feet across the sidewalk, the chair a mangled mess.

"OOOOOOOOoow! Who the hell put that there?" came the famous voice of Galactic Jack, laying flat on the sidewalk face up, a long, burned skid mark starting at Kyle and ending at each of Jack's feet made it clear what had happened. "Sorry bout that eh chums? No harm done." The lawn chair didn't agree.

Jack lept to his feet in a fluid movement and gave a salute to Kyle and the gaurds before disappearing into the distance, a light trail of smoke close behind and a breeze in tow. Under Kyle's hand was a newspaper clipping:

"Hero's Wanted! Good pay, choose your own hours! Retrieval work in Kings Row: LOW RISK! Repeat contracts = BENEFITS!! Work with a team! 1 800 555 3862 ask for Karen! Limited Availability!"

Ivory clicked his watch a few turns while Lyle asked his question. Ivory slowly faded from view until he was little more than a mirage, heat rising from the ground. When still he was nearly invisible.

"Troll." Ivory said. "He's a troll, and that crate over in the corner is marked 'Rage'." Ivory pointed at the stack of crates neatly stacked in a corner of the room. From their vantage point nobody would see them, but they woudl have to get closer to hear what was going on. "Cover me."

Ivory, barely visible even to Lyle at such close quarters made a slow leap from the balcony, floating softly to the ground. The Tsoo continued as they had been.