Shalmdi

Coolant was moving much slower than usual with the twitching bundle of lizard over his shoulder. Just as a precaution, he grabbed some metal bars on his way in and bent them to secure the creatures jaws and legs. When he finally arrived at the precinct, he began looking for any place he could place the beast where its spit wouldn't ruin the floor. He finally settled on throwing in the bathroom on the second floor.

“Already, I recommend you guys use the downstairs bath for a while,” he said calmly. “I'm not sure if that thing is dead or not. Should we make sure it's not going to be a problem or do we want to study it alive?”

In the rush of events, Coolant had only had a moment to react. RJ seemed to have the barricade firmly in place, so he decided to play cleanup. One of the lizards had made direct contact with his face shield, but all it succeeded in doing was melting some of the ice around him. Instead of going back down the hole, the lizard headed for the splintered door. Coolant gave pursuit and slammed into the beast as it ran up the stairs. The goo burned his icy shell, and he felt the energy leaving him to regenerate the melted areas.

Once he had the lizard effectively pinned, he raised his fist and slammed the lizards head with a crunch. With the creature subdued or dead – he couldn’t tell which – he joined his teammates back in the basement only a little worse for the encounter.

“Hey, Mystic,” he said while stepping over a zombie. “Look what I found, can we keep it?”

Coolant was examining the outside of the automotive store oblivious to the battle raging beneath his feet, but when a panicking man runs past you screaming, it tends to get your attention.

He looked around found Sting’s unique heat signature under him with several others that didn’t match up with humans. Before he reached the stairs, his armor was on and he was moving without a trace of subtlety. Coolant broke open the door to the storage area and found himself face to face with the second army of zombies he had seen in two days.

The nearest Vahzilok creation approached him only to be slammed into the ground with little effort. A shower of acid covered Coolant’s icy shell and began a fruitless attempt to eat through to his skin. Spotting Sting and the new guy, Coolant began to slowly fight his way into the group before trying to draw attention to himself.

“Hello, my friends. I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop in,” he yelled as he fought back a doctor with a meat clever. “I hope you don’t mind if I join this little party.”

While everyone else seemed to have a mission, Coolant found himself at the precinct helping clean up zombie parts and trying to remember of he had done or said anything stupid while riding out his stimulants. He was almost scared to check his recording of the incident as he recalled the last time he had gone on a drug enhanced rampage.

After a while of doing grunt work, Coolant decided to go in search of something more interesting. After changing once more into his combat suit, he began to head off quickly in the direction of the automotive store that Sting had been headed for.

He arrived at the location to find the place in shambles and no sign of his teammates. Not wanting risk alerting any potential threats, Coolant prepared his armor to ice up and quietly entered the store.

((OOC: Things are calming down for me, I should be able to post more))

Coolant had become engrossed in his own thoughts for a moment, but Newton's talk about food and hair snapped him from his revere. One of the advantages of his smaller suit was that he could let at least small emotions out, and he took full advantage of it to smile at Newton's comments.

"You should go the route I did, my friends," He said while rubbing the transparent shield over his hairless head. "I have to spend enough time in the mornings just getting dressed; it’s nice not to have to worry about my hair. Of course, maybe I would grow it out if it had turned blue like the rest of me. Brown hair just looks strange on blue skin.”

Several hours after he sealed himself in, Coolant System emerged from his chamber once again wearing the smaller armor from before. In truth, he hadn't been sealed in as he had destroyed his own locking mechanism to get in earlier. When he saw Abrahms and Elisa leaving, he decided to spend some time cleaning up the area and working on his chamber.

Although the large hero worked with considerably less strength than usual, he seemed quicker and more agile and he had nearly repaired or replaced all the components of his door within an hour. With that done, he went in search of some of the other inhabitants of the Two-six to find out what there next move was.

((OOC: Been real busy lately, but should be able to start posting regularly very soon.))

“Please try to calm yourself, my friend,” Coolant said as he turned to Sting with a weak smile. “No point in escaping hell if we don't celebrate the...”

Coolant stopped in the middle of his thought as he felt his legs give out on him. His ice armor had already disappeared into the air, and the temperature around him normalized. Without a battle to divert his energy to, his body began to purge the foreign substance that was keeping him moving. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't aware enough to realize this until it was too late.

As the pain hit him, Coolant fell to the ground and nearly screamed in agony. Slowly getting to his feet, he spoke once more. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

As he slowly and methodically walked back to his chamber, Coolant turned on his voice suppressor so that no one would hear his scream.

[ QUOTE ]
“We’re leaving this reality,” Newton called out into the radio. “If you’re not in the building, get your butts in here NOW!”

[/ QUOTE ]

Coolant tried to remember this was serious, and he tried to grasp the fact that anyone left behind would be as good as dead. He failed on both accounts “Hear that guys? Last train out of here all aboard!”

Laughing at his silly joke, Coolant grabbed all the zombies he could and began squeezing them together with a bear hug that would have crushed most bears. Once he felt satisfied with the size of his corpse collection, he began to hurl them one at a time through open windows and doors ignoring their blows against his body and even ignoring the spirit that he felt being absorbed through his leg.

Once he was done, he turned to Sting with a straight face and pointed his thumb towards the front door to indicate the zombies, “No tickets.”

He then spent the next few seconds trying to stop laughing.

While Brian seemed to be enjoying his new fire powers, Coolant picked up two of the zombies beating on his icy shell. Still feeling the effects of the stimulant coursing through his body, he smiled at the corpses in his grasp. After saying bye to his new friends, he turned the pair in his hands into undead projectiles.

Picking a particularly dense section of enemies, Coolant spun around to gain momentum and unleashed the zombies with a force that would crush their rotting flesh. He wanted to say something clever, but all that came out was a disturbing laugh.

“R-r-retreating sounds like a good idea,” he said with a snicker. “I'll help the turret hold off zombies if you want to find a shady spot.”

Coolant punched one zombie after another, feeling their rotting flesh give way to his metal fists. His usual tactics of incapacitation gave way to a full fledged punching spree that lead to one enemy after another being smashed to bits. The problem from his perspective wasn’t the zombies though, it was the ghosts.

As the first specter approached, Coolant braced himself for the inevitable attack. The pain was unbearable as he allowed the formless hand to push through his armor and touch his cursed flesh, but the spirits victory was short as the mutant body absorbed its energy and dispersed it.

“I can take these spirits,” Coolant said in a pathetic attempt to mask the pain. “Just send ‘em my way.”

As he intentionally made contact with two more spirits, he could feel his body screaming in protest. Coolant answered the pain by activating his emergency weapons: his stimulant injectors. The serum gave him the strength he needed to continue, but he could only imagine the suffering he would endure when his frozen skin purged the chemical.

“We can’t do this forever; someone has to find that bind!”

Coolant had to fight back a grin at the enthusiasm the others seemed to have during this obviously intimidating scene. Like himself, most heroes love to fight, and this promised to be an interesting battle. If we survive this, it should make for a great story.

“Alright flanking defense it is then,” Coolant said with a little enthusiasm of his own. “Flux, would you turn the shield off? Unless someone needs some time, I don’t see any reason to delay the inevitable.”

Doesn't really sound like god-moding based on what I think of in that term. I have always thought of god-mod's as overpowering your characters or taking liberties with other peoples characters. I'm relatively new to Rping on the CoH boards, but I think it is pretty much the same.

Your character creates a difficult situation, but there are plenty of ways to RP around that and still have fun. Sure there may be IC fighting, but I love a good conflict as long as both players are in to it. When Rping your battles, the other person may let you "win" by escaping and not necessarily taking them down, or instead of actually fighting, you could put your differences aside for an agreed upon greater good.

You have a lot of options, just talk with the other people OOC and see what they think would be fun.

Coolant found himself more interested than he should in whether or not Sting was going to deck IonFlux. So interested in fact that he almost missed the word "Upstairs" in Brian's comment.

"Wait, did you say upstairs? I would seriously recommend against teleporting, carrying, or pushing three tons up to the second floor."

Coolant pointed to the ceiling of the old building. "This building is probably older than our friend Mystic, no offense I hope, and I highly doubt it would take kindly to being that top heavy.”

Coolant looked at the crates and looked at his own chamber. Three ton living chamber? Necessary isolation? Power contained by a metal suit? He was going to have to read up on Praetorians, but for the moment, he would remain neutral as always.

“Umm, Sting if this gentleman’s power is contained by that suit as he says, opening him up may “microwave” some of our friends here.” Coolant looked about at the less shielded members of his group. “You may be insect enough to survive, and I know I’m good to go, but I would prefer not to cook Newton and Mystic.”

He took a moment to size up this overly confident newcomer, “Excuse me, Ion, but Sting may do something rash if given half the chance. I must agree that I do not particularly like seeing someone I just met giving orders either, but I’m more reserved than others.”

Coolant’s exit was halted by the appearance of the new armored hero. He wanted to make sure this newcomer wasn’t an immediate threat at least. Just when he was starting to trust some the current members, two more people had to come out of the wood work.

Ion’s story hit too close to home for Coolant. He would defiantly be mindful of their newest addition as he knew first hand what that kind of power and isolation could do to someone.

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose we should step up our renovations to the aesthetically appealing variety at this point, what with little Brian and Ion joining us.

[/ QUOTE ]

“I’m not so worried about aesthetics as I am security. We have been invaded once today already,” Coolant looked at the thugs still waiting for pickup. “I already have the windows on this floor sealed pretty well, but I think if I could get some help, I would like to secure this door so that we at least get some warning in case anyone else drops by.”

Coolant walked over to his welding torch, and secured it to his belt. “I saw some scrap metal around back, I’m going to bring it around here to work into a barricade.”

[ QUOTE ]
“Quite. My appreciation for your efficient answer is greater than you may realize. Anyone else?”

[/ QUOTE ]

"Alright then. I have my radio on if you need me. I'll be back as soon as I can find something to get the job done"

Coolant quickly headed out to scavenge, and left the others to their socializing.

Coolant had been meditating for most of the evening, but the newcomer’s appearance finally got him to move. He nodded to the young man and shook his hand to keep from looking rude. “Excuse me gentlemen, I will leave you two to get reacquainted. With your permission, I am going to find something metal to bar that door.”

Coolant began to walk outside without paying much attention to the others; something about the scene depressed him. Before he got to the door, he realized that Mystic had asked a question, and he was honor bound to answer it.

“My experience includes everything from gang bangers to Clockworks. I work a lot in King’s Row. My recent activities have focused heavily on Crey. They seem to have an interest in me. I fight well, but I have trouble maintaining contacts and allies. Most find me understandably cold. My biggest weakness is my energy expenditure.”

Coolant never stopped walking towards the door as he talked. Upon reaching the exit he added, “I can lift up to 825 pounds over my head if need be, and while fully armored I can withstand most direct attacks with the exception of incendiary weapons. I can emit a controlled aura of cold in close ranges, and I have very good audio and thermal scanners for scouting. For anything more specific, I can give you exact technical readouts. Will that do for your question, Inferno?”

He then did something very difficult for him; he actually waited for a response.

Coolant shut down his armor but maintained the cool aura around his hands. He carefully removed Newton's helmet and examined the bruised area under it. “Well, let’s just say Sting and I hit harder than bats” Coolant calmly said, “Looks like you can take a pretty good hit though, my friend. A weaker man would have been out for hours.”

The blow wasn’t actually that bad, but it's easy to lie when you're emotionless.

Coolant quickly pulled up his first aid information and spoke the words “Head Trauma.” A list of signs and symptoms scrolled across his visor. “Well, you know your name apparently, and you are responding. Those are good signs. Do you know what today is? Where you are?”

"No problem. No more on this floor, but one made it upsatirs," Coolant said while delivering an extra kick to one of the thugs that was still squirming slightly. "Mystic went that way I think, can you check on him while I look after Newton?"

Coolant never waited for an answer as he ran over to the injured Newton and emitted a cool aura around his head. "Are you alright, my friend?"

The flames on the ground floor dispersed almost immediately after Mystic flew off, and Coolant quickly spotted Sting’s heat signature on the floor with at least one opponent over him.

Coolant grabbed a nearby chair and hurried over to the bat wielder managing to step solidly on the prone thug on the way. Planting the chair firmly in the punk’s back seemed to distract his attention from Sting (and just about everything else), and allowed Coolant to grab the bat with his free hand and splinter it.

“I don’t think we called an exterminator, gentlemen. Please leave my friend alone, thanks.”

((Hello, this is my first attempt at a RP story. I have wanted to do a story from my main character’s point of view for some time now, but I had trouble both with what to write and why would he write it. My recent participation in “The two six” RP inspired me to finish it. I want to warn you, this gets a little preachy near the end, but it just seemed to fit the character. I originally wrote this to get a better feel for “Coolant System” and his motives; I never actually intended for it to have a moral of any kind. Please read and review. I encourage criticism. Thanks.))

Hello. My name is Nikolas; if you wish, you may call me Nick or even Coolant System. I’m afraid I am not allowed to give you my last name, and don’t try looking it up based on my story. The people I work for are very thorough when it comes to my protection, and the Rikti war covered up most of my past for me. The only living person that could tell you who I used to be is Eddie, but trust me, you won’t find Eddie.

Most things in life aren’t certain. You can never know what tomorrow will bring, but you do have certain expectations. Some people realize this early on, but I wasn’t the kind of person that thought about tomorrow. I always made the assumption that I would wake up the next day, and everything would be as it was supposed to be. Most people gradually learn that this isn’t the case. I learned that lesson in two days; the time in-between those days was the longest night of my life.

When something big happens in your life, you have a hard time forgetting it. I can tell you that the day my life changed was a Tuesday back in 1996; I was fourteen years old. I went to a small public school in one of the better areas of King’s Row, and my school was just about to let out for Thanksgiving break.

I was never a tall kid or a strong kid; I was just average back then. I had a group of friends I hung out with, and they were pretty much average. That day, there was a Thanksgiving party for my home-room, and we were all pretty much bored out of our mind. When some of the bigger guys decided to pick on my best friend Eddie, no one was really surprised. A boring party, us trapped in the auditorium with the jocks for a half hour; this had almost been an inevitable. That didn’t prevent me from trying to stop them though. This action usually ended with me getting picked on instead of Ed, but I could handle it a lot better than him.

That day was different from the start. The jocks wouldn’t pay me any attention; they just keep picking on Eddie. I kept trying to get their attention, but they were having too much fun. Finally, I lost my temper. I yelled at them, knowing it would guarantee a beating, “Leave him alone you stupid jerks!”

First they looked at me with anger, but the next thing I noticed was fear. I couldn’t understand why these physical behemoths were looking at me like I was a threat, but it wasn’t just them. Everyone was looking at me in terror; even my friends were scrambling away from me. I became scared too, but I still didn’t understand what was going on. That is, until I saw my arms: my blue, pulsing arms.

That is when it all started. I felt the energy leave through my arm. I saw a pulse of blue light and watched as it arched and swerved into the wall leaving a frozen mark where it struck. People started to run from me, and I would have joined them if there was anyone I could have run from myself. I was terrified as I watched blue light fly from my chest, legs, and arms. I could feel the energy as it seeped through my pores, and I wanted to cry when I saw my energy hit that first person. I hurt more than one person that day, but I shut my eyes to them to pretend it was all a bad dream.

I really didn’t know her that well. I knew her name was Sharon from role call, but we hung out in different circles. The blast hit her, and I felt her heat leaving her body. I watched as she went cold, and
I knew she was dead as I felt her warmth enter my skin. I fell to the ground, and curled up into a little ball. It was at this point that I realized another horrible truth. For the first time in my life, I had a good reason to cry, but the powers that had taken that girls life, had taken away the tears I wanted to shed for her.

Despite my prayers, my own death didn’t come, and I could feel the energy flowing from me. Eleven times I felt warmth enter my body, but none was as warm as the first. I found out later that Eddie lost his arm to frostbite that day; some protector I was. The only mercy that I would know that day was when I finally passed out. The sleep was fitful for a while, and all I could remember was the nightmarish image of Sharon’s face and the feel of her heat. Still, the nightmare I had in that sleep was short, and it was nothing compared to the nightmare I had just lived.

Many things happened while I slept. It only seemed like I had just closed my eyes, but sleep always seems to be shorter than it is. When I awoke, I knew it had not been a dream. I didn’t even need to look at my blue skin to know that something that horrible was not a dream. I wasn’t capable of such horrible nightmares before that day.

It didn’t even surprise me that the metal room I woke up in was not my home, but what did surprise me was a digital display that was left by my bed. The people that had put me in this room weren’t very subtle, and I can understand how this mater would be hard to explain to a fourteen year old boy. I expected the display to show November the twentieth, 1996. What I saw was July the eighth, and the year was 2002. Not ten minutes later, I had passed out again from all the energy released in my anger and sorrow; I still couldn’t cry.

Over the next few days, the scientists who had revived me introduced me to my first suppression-suit, and taught me the basics of how to move in it. They began to explain things to me. They told me of my condition and how my mutation worked. They informed me of the things that had happened that day, and they told me of the war. My family couldn’t be found and were presumed dead. Paragon City had changed during my “nap.” Needless to say, I passed out many times during the days after I first awoke.

The thing I hated more than anything during that time was how many times the scientists said it could have been worse. Yes, I know it could have been worse, but that really is no consolation to a fourteen year old. I had killed someone I barely even knew, I had hurt many others, everyone and everything I loved was either dead or destroyed, and my mutation had made me a prisoner from warmth and touch. I didn’t realize back then how right they were, but in my mind, I just didn’t see how things could be worse.

Over the next two years I went through a lot of changes. I had to do a lot of growing and learning in a short amount of time, and I had to focus on the goal of one day leaving the cursed suit that held me prisoner. I am not the person I once was, and I owe many people for their help during that time in my life, but I can’t name them here. They know who they are, and they know I would die for them.

Almost two years after I awoke, the Statesman put out the call for heroes to come and help their city. Shortly after that I left the complex that had become my home, and I became Coolant System for the first time. From that point on, I became a protector of Paragon City.

A lot has happened to me in this last year, and I could write many stories of my adventures with many great heroes. I choose to write down this story, because I knew it would be the hardest for me. I have learned to control my emotions well over the last few years, but nothing breaks my control like thinking of my past and the day my life changed. This story is therapy for me, but I hope you can take a lesson from it.

In many ways, I died that day in November, and I was reborn that day last year when I became Coolant System. I am a different entity now, and I will try hard to make the best of my curse until I learn to master it. I am thankful for the few things I can do. If you read my story and think, “My life is worse than that,” you missed the point.

Thank you for reading my tale, and please, make the best of the worst in your life.

Coolant System looks down at his blue armor and blue skin, "Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but actually I like blue."

Coolant watched as he was encircled in flames, but he also noticed they seemed to avoid him. In two motions that would pass for one movement of his arm, he switched on his icy armor and frozen aura.

Before his armor had completely solidified, he moved up to the distracted foes and landed a one-two punch meant to floor the bat wielding thug. As the first one was going down, the second opponent pulled a gun on Coolant, but he never got a shot off as the flames engulfed him.

Coolant quickly knocked the gun away from the fire, and slammed the burning punk to the ground with his elbow, sucking some of the heat off him in the process.

Lowering his voice slightly from his earlier shout he said, “My thermals are no good with all this fire around, but I can see one guy going upstairs.”

Coolant didn’t know whether to be happy or sad, so he chose to remain neutral.

Mystic hadn’t kicked him out and had given him a simple task as his punishment. On the other hand, he had spent the last half hour in meditation to prepare himself for any questions the mage had wanted to ask, and now, he discovered he had actually been looking forward to getting some things off his chest.

He had several precautions to take to improve his battle performance; this was not going to happen again. But first, he was going to fix that radiator.

A low thump from one of the outer offices got his attention. Stepping in to see if more of the old building had collapsed, he soon discovered Newton on the floor and two thugs standing in the room. One of them had just used a bat on the back of his teammates head.

Coolant shifted his voice controls to the loudest setting to both intimidate and attract attention, “I think you two gentlemen are lost. Allow me to escort you from the premises.”

He was prepared for battle again, but this time, he was in control.

“At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Newton could read minds. The little guy seems to be able to do everything else,” Coolant attempted humor before returning to his neutral state.

“Look, it seems that whether or not you like it you have become the leader of this sad bunch of misfits, myself included in that of course.”

Coolant took a seat on one of the more stable looking desks and paused a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I screwed up today. Pretty bad actually. It seems like we got off easy today, but we both know things could have gone a lot worse when I shut down. I'm supposed to protect others, but all I did was become a liability to be dragged away. I'm hoping you didn't have to carry me here.”

At this point, Coolant could feel depression creeping in, and he stopped to take a few, calming breaths, “My power comes from my emotions, and I lost control today. It wasn't any fault of my armor. I have been training to control my anger more than anything else, and I tried to use it to give me some extra strength today. I figure you noticed, that didn't turn out too well

As leader, you need to know your teams strengths and weaknesses. I never should have gone into battle without telling you mine. I can understand if I am to be punished in any way or if you would care for me to resign. Unlike the others, I am here of my own volition and may leave any time you choose.

Coolant stopped for Mystics response but then quickly added, “If you do wish me to stay, however, I will answer any further questions you have. Even if I would prefer not to.”