Steelclaw

A herd of Mu's...

A chorus of Wailers...

A muggle of Mods...

A distraction of Devs...

A mum of Marketing...

A videography of Samuraikos...

A bouffant of Beastyles...

A crew (cut) of TheNets...

A chapeau of Zwillingers...

A buffoon of Steelclaws...

* Why hasn't the Minotaur statue in Talos Island used his Paragon Points to buy the bull head costume piece yet?

* Why does it seem every time I pop a yellow... ANY size yellow... I always miss the first attack directly afterwards?

* Why only half a helmet?

* Why do only Hellions and Skulls get girlfriends when Malta and Crey make such better money?

* Excluding creatures with no sense of smell (clockwork) and those who smell worse than the environment (Vahzilok); why would any gang want to hang out in the sewers when every warehouse in the city is apparently abandoned and unguarded?

* Seriously, why only HALF a helmet?

* Why do women in Paragon City bother carrying purses at all?

* Why hasn't some Stone-Shaping Arch-Villain just taught the Atlas Statue how to Sit?

* I mean, a FULL helmet I could understand... but half a helmet? And he's more interested in protecting his face (where he can see them coming) than he is the back of his skull... It just doesn't make sense...

* Why are the war walls still up when apparently the Rikti have a device the technological equivalent of a garage door opener?

* Why do the police wait OUTSIDE the bank during Mayhem missions and leave the actual bank protection up to a private security firm?

* Why haven't the rest of Freedom Phalanx told Statesman how stupid he looks?

And finally....

* Why do I keep making these lists when hardly anyone reads them anymore?

Not pointing any fingers at any new hires... Just thought the Devs-that-be could use a few guidelines on thinning out the herd should any of the cubicle jockeys be showing the following hints of future epic failure...

* he's a powers guy and you have to explain to him why attaching a Sleep mezz to a DoT attack isn't a good idea.

* when he hears Zwillinger does his Ustream weekly his first thought is "wow.. that can't be good for his bladder health..."

* his first suggestion is to re-write all the code in the game... in Pascal.

* the only geek-cred he can provide is that he once watched Batman... the one with Adam West... well... it was on the set as he walked through the room...

* they have never seen Ghost Busters... ... ... just kidding.

* they sit around all day making joke lists about what's wrong/strange about the game instead of actually doing constructive things to improve it... wait... wut?

* they're supposed to be a QA specialist... but all they do is hang around in AE all day begging for a free farm.

* the in-game NPCs are threatening a sexual harrassment suit against them.

* is an emote animator and has used the "just perfecting the sleeping in chair emote" excuse one time too many..

* "Johnson... for the last time... this game is NEVER going to have jiggle-physics so STOP taking 'research videos'!!"

* quits immediately after learning that the office does not contain in-costume "booth babes" during normal working hours

* Human Resources employee whose first order of business is to try to get hats removed from acceptable business attire.

* can't quite understand how going back in time to Roman days is possible since they "didn't have computer games back then to play the game on..."

* hired for QA... first thing he does is create a claws/regen scrapper named "Wolferine999"...

* "So... now that I'm on the 'inside' of the loop... fess up... what's the code to allow us to make nude characters?"

* "Why hello <researching data base> Zwillinger! How are you today? Isn't it.. <insert inane weather reference> <current time stamp>?"

It wasn't so much a "forget to show" what happens situation.

My short stories tend to follow one of two methods of madness. The first is the "twist" ending; like a Twilight Zone-esque story where everything seems pretty normal right up until the end where we take a sudden left turn off a cliff. These kinds of stories are complete, but are meant to leave the reader shaking their heads with a stunned expression on their face.

The other type I write is more like a Creative Writing 101 homework assignment than a true short story. If I have a character (or, in this case, characters) in mind and just want to write a short blurb to get their personalities and what drives them more firmly entrenched in my mind. I guess you could say this one was more like an artist's character study. They fill a page (or 10) with rough sketches of the same face with different expressions or the body in various poses. They're getting their hands used to drawing that character. In my case I'm getting my words used to describing them.

The Surgeon and his Canvas are characters I've played off and on in the game for a while now. The above story was a way of getting straight in my mind the relationship parameters they have... and their individual personalities as well.

As far as "What happens next, you fool?!"... Who knows? The story I had in mind was more about Canvas's willingness to do anything for her master... even if it meant losing him... and herself... in the process. Perhaps, if I feel inspired, I may continue this story at some point.

Congratulations on the addition to your team!

Too bad level pacting is no longer functional.

And... fine... I'll be the first one to say it...

THE LOPSIDED FAUXHAWK HAS GOT TO BE IN THE NEXT COSTUME BUNDLE TO COME OUT!!

She once had a name, though it had long since faded from her mind. The one whom she adored referred to her as “His Canvas” and that was good enough for her. Others who worked for her Master called her Canvas, but she simply thought of herself as “His.”

She was his, body and soul. At one time she might have been fully human, but his art had been painted upon her, his chisel reshaping her, his brush improving and refining her into a living masterpiece. She could barely remember not being his Canvas. She was sure that once she’d had skin that covered her entire body instead of just patches. Her eyes had not always been this obsidian chip color; she had a hazy memory of the blue of the sky. Her blood now was yellow and thick; not the rich and fast crimson that splashed from her victims’ veins.

Indeed, there were times when she wondered if she truly even qualified as a “she” any longer. Surely she had evolved well past any definable gender by this point. But she had been born a female; it was one of those memories of her prior life to which she had adamantly held fast. And, even if one could not fully remember the past, one should at least pay homage to it in some way. So, though it was so very small a victory, Canvas steadfastly maintained her “she”-hood.

She loved him. She loved him with every changing, twisted fiber of her being. Every surgery. Every agony. Every new birth before the mirror, looking into the newest face that was her own. She endured it all; thrived upon it all… all for him.

She didn’t know his name; none of them did, neither his servants nor his pieces d’art. To them and the police he was simply known as The Surgeon.

He walked down the antiseptic white tile hallway precisely ten feet in front of her. The harsh fluorescent lighting was painful in her newly altered eyes. She craved darkness and silence. The laboratory was too bright and busy for her heightened senses. Any time spent there at all frayed and worried at her nerves until she felt ready to scream.

Not that she COULD scream right now; another recent improvement.

“Now, my dear,” The Surgeon said, his voice cultured and urbane, always held under the strictest control. No matter how dire the situation, he never allowed it to affect diction or enunciation. “I’d like to show you my latest little project.”

He held the door open for her. Her nose, which spanned the entire middle of her face like a thin chasm, caught his scent as she passed, drinking it deeply. The reality of him swept through her in pleasurable little ripples. Had she still possessed some form of the tail it occasionally took his fancy to provide her, she would have wagged it furiously.

The room beyond the door was, like most of the rooms in the facility, a combination of enameled white and steel. Computers cowered against the outer wall, beeping nervously and spitting out numbers and data upon their screens in spasms of computational terror. From each of the terminals thin wires sprouted, linking them to the object which dominated the center of the room. Huge and made entirely of steel, Canvas could not determine whether it was a huge tub or a post-modern version of a sarcophagus. There was no decoration upon the surface of the monstrosity; The Surgeon felt the decoration of his artist’s tools to be sacrilegious. The wires climbed the steep steel sides of the basin and over its lip, disappearing into the open maw.

At her master’s gesture of permission, Canvas walked to the side of the container. The wires disappeared into the still surface of some kind of liquid. Much thicker than water, some kind of viscous oil that had the appearance of mother of pearl with the lightest of blue sheen to it. No ripple disturbed the placid menace of its surface. No bubbles gave hint to what living, or nearly living, thing might lay beneath it; connected to those wires that had sent the computers to their numeric regurgitation.

“Your last errand was the key, my cherished one,” he said as he approached behind her. She willed him to touch her; a simple caress, even an absent minded patting of her shoulder. He did not. The Surgeon was averse to casual touching and always took pains to wear gloves in social situations that might require it. “The information you retrieved from Crey Industries has proven invaluable. Their research into genetic manipulation was even further along than I had anticipated and has allowed me to accelerate my own plans accordingly.”

She preened under his praise. As her heart rate accelerated she noticed the pain caused by the harsh glare of the overhead lighting increased sharply. She made a mental note to include the occurrence in her daily journal entry. The Surgeon insisted on such documentation following each of the changes he made within her. He had said he’d tied her senses more intimately into her adrenal and cardiopulmonary systems; perhaps this was a side effect?

“It is nearly complete,” he murmured, running a hand lightly over the edge of the containment unit, agile fingers nimbly skipping and hopping over the wires that bowed here and there. “My newest, and perhaps most ambitious, effort. Will you be a masterpiece like my lovely most cherished? Or shall you end in failure?” He extended his hand until it hovered a breath above the still, shimmering pale blue surface, careful not to touch the fluid. He held it there for a long moment, then withdrew it.

“You haven’t been aware of it, my cherished one,” he said after a period of self-rumination, “but without you this work would never have existed in the first place. You retrieved all the items and ingredients I needed to get this far.”

As he spoke of what she had contributed, Canvas let her mind drift back over each mission, each acquisition. She had kidnapped one of the meat doctors from the barely sane cyber-punk gang called the Freakshow. A trip into dark, silent caves had resulted in a single vial of blood, drained from a less-than-willing donor of the Circle of Thorns. Another kidnapping; this time a high ranking member of the splinter group known as the Knives of Artemis. Rikti technology, ancient items of arcane power, information and research, she had stolen them all at the behest of her paramour, of her creator. She never questioned why.

On one notable occasion she had nearly died. She had been sent to bring back a flesh sample from the mentally unstable man known as Malaise. Though her body was altered and improved, her mind had proven susceptible to Malaise’s powers. She had seen visions of her beloved being murdered before her again and again. She had collapsed under the weight of the horrors Malaise’s illusions had revealed to her. The only thing that had saved her life was her target’s curiosity. He simply HAD to know who she was and why she had targeted him. The moment he dropped the illusions that held her captive… she struck.

The Surgeon had found it delightfully ironic that of all the body parts she could have retrieved; she had brought him the artist Malaise’s ear. Canvas had not gotten the joke and her master had not bothered to explain it to her.

“This bath now contains an element of each of your victories, my cherished one,” The Surgeon said, now looking at her from his thin, sharp featured face. Eyes the color of flawed emeralds looked out at her from under fiercely black eyebrows. “The blood of Mu, the genetic x-factor of a powerful mutant, as well as certain chemical compounds and a fascinating stem-cell-stew provided by Crey Industries are the main ingredients for the liquid you see before you. Inside the tub itself are two fabricated arms. One of those arms is an interesting hybrid of Rikti and Nemesis technology. The other was created from texts stolen from the Midnighters, Circle of Thorns and the Legacy Chain. I had it crafted by a poor, disillusioned child of a Midnighter. She was willing to do anything for me for just the promise that I could sculpt her features into a semblance that her unrequited paramour would find appealing…”

Strong emotion was never allowed to disturb the calm features of his face, but for a moment The Surgeon paused and some shadow seemed to rise just below the surface of his eyes, to send only the slightest of ripples across his expression, before falling back into the cold depths of his mind. He waved a hand in absent minded dismissal.

“Pity she found the results of her surgery less than satisfactory,” he said. “The meat doctor provided her knowledge of how to graft artificial limbs to body and mind. The mercenary of Artemis was a positive well-spring of tactical and combat training, though I’m afraid stripping that knowledge from her mind left her… shall we say… a shadow of her former, formidable self.”

He paused then and braced his surgeon’s hands upon the steel lip of the containment unit. For the first time in her memory, her beloved master seemed hesitant, at odds with himself somehow. He stared into the unmoving pale blue liquid as though hoping to see the future reflected in its surface. As though answers to maddening questions might somehow linger in their uncaring depths.

The silence spun out; lengthening and drawing tauter and tauter with each passing second. Canvas felt it on her nerves like sandpaper, until she wished she had voice to give some release to tension building inside her. She took a step towards her master, reaching out a hand towards his shoulder. The hand paused as she remembered his aversion to such contact. Still, she ached to touch him, to make that connection with him and glory in the sharing, if only for the briefest of moments.

Her hand fell away, claws digging into her own thigh to relieve the frustration that gnawed away inside her.

“Only one ingredient remains,” he said at last. He did not turn to look at her. He remained where he stood, staring into the abyss. “I’ve spoken to you before of the great masters for whom I’ve always held the highest admiration, yes?”

Though he didn’t look around to see her response, she nodded.

“Leonardo da Vinci, for example, was a genius beyond our understanding of the term,” he continued. “But many of his earlier works were lost to us. He was poor, you see. Many of the great masters did not have the funds to buy a new canvas every time they were inspired. They would simply paint over an existing piece of work. How many masterworks have been lost to history for such reasons? Could the greatest of their efforts, the purest examples of their genius, be buried under brush strokes of some newer, less deserving, work?”

He shook his head in gentle regret. “And yet,” he whispered, as though to himself. “And yet I find myself faced with the same decision. The same quandary.”

He straightened, took a steadying breath and turned to face her. Though his features were schooled with steely discipline to bland immobility, his eyes were swirling maelstroms of powerful emotion and ambition.

“You are my greatest work of art to date, my cherished one,” he said.

To Canvas’s ultimate surprise, The Surgeon’s skilled hands rose to clasp, flesh to flesh, around her upper arms. Shock and exultation surged through her in equal measure as she fought to listen, to comprehend what was happening in this small, sterile room.

“But I find myself on the edge of wiping clean my cherished Canvas,” he went on, “to prepare it for what might be an even greater work of art.”

He kept her gaze captured with his own. An intimacy in that touch, in that shared look, that was so soul-wrenching in its power that she wept. Her weeping was not one of tears, for she was physically incapable of such a thing, but instead showed itself in the shaking of her shoulders, the hitching of her breath and the strong, galloping thunder of her heart.

“I have created and recreated you so many times in these past years for this very day, for this very purpose.” He spoke softly, and she could feel the breath of his words on her face, like the individual kisses of rain drops. “No other is possible, or I would not risk you. You are my masterwork. You are the most cherished, the most wondrous, of my creations… but…”

He did not remove his hands from her flesh, but cut the lock of their stare to look upon the pool beside them. She felt that severing like a blade of ice to her heart.

“Science, technology, magic and mutation,” he whispered. “All in the same body. All in the same moment of creation. Combining to form the ultimate being… the pinnacle of potential. Your body has been engineered… no… has been sculpted… to absorb the fluid and alter you at a genetic level. The arms of technology and magic will replace your own, grinding away the ones you have now and grafting themselves to your body. A probe is ready… to pierce the fault line of your cranial suture… to the center of your brain. Your memory shall be wiped clean and reprogrammed with all the training and tactics of the world’s best para-military organizations. If this surgery is successful… if the procedure is successful…

“…you will be glorious… you will be the realization of every artistic aspiration of which I have ever conceived… you will be my opus and the reason I was born…”

He stopped, the words choked off by some emotion stronger than his will to resist. He looked back to her then and, to her continuing shock, his eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

“But all you have come to be… all you are… the Canvas I have known these past many years… will be gone… buried beneath the oils and paints of the newer work… lost to history…”

She looked at him, this incredible and complex man she had come to love and further, to worship, as far back as her memory permitted. She reached up her own hand and laid it over her heart. She pressed it there a moment, then let it flow upwards, fingertips daring to touch, daring to linger, upon his lips.

She took a step back. He released his grip on her shoulders with a small, animal sound of anguish.

For the first time in so very long a time, she felt at peace. The lights no longer seemed to pain her eyes, but glowed in lovely tones of white luminescence. She walked with slow grace to the side of the tub. She had no clothing to remove, since her form had long since lost any need for false modesty, so she didn’t hesitate in the slightest as she climbed lithely over its side.

She held his face in her gaze as she positioned herself. Her eyes focusing on the single crystal tear that tracked down one well-loved cheek. It was the last thing she saw, the only thing she took with her down into the darkness, as the opaque blue liquid closed over her head.

For him anything. For him everything.

The words repeated again and again as the pain infused her. His face in that last moment of pure emotion held fast in her memory, to sustain her through this last, final transformation. Until that, too, was taken from her when the process reached its terminus.

In the last moment… the final second before her mind was wiped by the probe deep within it… she had a moment of sharp clarity…

Maggie… my name was… IS… Maggie…

Nothingness.

The show appeals to me on so many levels it's amazing.

Living in fantasy about 90% of the time anyway, this show has already hooked me in, clubbed me violently over the head and taken my pelt. Er... you get what I mean.

Is Rumplestilkskin a good guy or a bad guy? Why does it seem as though he's the only one who wasn't completely affected by the Evil Queen's curse?

When will Charming come out of his coma and will he have any memories of before when he does?

The flipping of pages through the Once Upon a Time book showed scenes from Alice in Wonderland and several others... just how many fairy tales are we going to be seeing in this town?!

Fast forward button! Where the heck is the Universal Fast Forward button?!

Considering how long... and how many tries... it takes to get the It's Alive badge... I figured those of you trying it could use a little song to help pass the time...

99 Zombies must fall for the badge
99 Zombies must fall
Another wave
One's back in the grave..
98 Zombies must fall for the badge...




and so on...

Actually, I didn't have to change the spreadsheets toooooo much with Freedom coming through.

Since I was not able to level pact anymore I decided the whole "teaming" concept with my tournament characters was a waste of time. This meant I consolidated all my heroes on one server (Freedom) and all my villains on another (Virtue).

This actually made things MORE fair to all characters involved since I wouldn't have teaming issues any longer so my team-centric characters on less populated servers wouldn't suffer so much. Level playing ground all around.

Another thing that radically changed my current tournament from past ones is the ability to buy more storage space through the Paragon Points. Since I could (and have) beefed up my salvage storage so even my first level characters can hold nearly 100 salvage items, there wasn't any real need to have super group bases for storage purposes. That also decimated the whole "create and store enhancements for future heroes/villains thing" which resulted in severely streamlining my purchasing/enhancement slotting process.

Basically each of my characters now only care about their own slotting needs so everything they can't use immediately and personally gets sold. Which makes things a lot more fair "money"-wise among the characters since the old system had the older characters footing the bill for a lot of the newer character's enhancement needs.

Spreadsheet wise, the only thing that really changed was the complete eradication of the Team Work score. So I didn't so much change everything as just delete certain specific areas of the spreadsheet.

It basically took longer to explain it here than it did to actually make the changes.

Actually.... THIS is more like what I had in mind...




The Shattering of the Mirror

Shalice lay face down on the floor, feeling her heart, which had performed its function faithfully for so many years, now pump her life from her body in slow, steady beats.

They had come to the warehouse as they always came to such places; following leads down a path that never quite seemed to be straight. There had been no choice, of course. While she had saved the world several times with the help of her many allies, this particular mission, though much smaller in scope, had seemed no less immediate and vital.

Her nose tickled and itched. She found herself without the physical strength to lift her arm to scratch it. The eye on the same side as the itch seemed to view the world through a thin red lens and she realized belatedly that the tickling was likely caused by the uneven trickling of her own blood.

She heard fighting in the distance and hoped the rest of her team was doing better than she at the moment. Justin was not with them. He had taken an alternate team to follow up on another branch of their investigation. She had ended up with Back Alley Brawler, Mynx and Mirror Spirit. They weren’t used to working together and that lack of experience had contributed greatly to the chaos that erupted soon after their entry into the warehouse.

Rumors had persisted through the Paragon City underworld that Crey Industries had developed technology that would render the hospital teleportation system inaccessible over a blanket area. This rumor had been confirmed when the entire team of eight heroes had ransacked a Crey Lab and found the schematics for the equipment. Positron had studied them and even his armor had been unable to completely mask his reaction.

The technology was real. And it was out in the open.

They had thought it a lucky break when they realized only one functioning unit of the tech was in existence. However, their elation was short lived when they discovered two bills of sale; one to Arachnos and one to the Malta group. Neither were dated, though both held addresses for delivery. They assumed one was a current order and the other was for future production and delivery, but which was which?

The heroine known as Sister Psyche closed her eyes. She could feel his arms around her once more. She could smell her husband’s distinctive scent and the solid muscles of his back as her own hands slid up to return his embrace. So secure. So confident and reassuring. There was nothing in that brief clasp to indicate it might be their last. There was no goodbye in their parting.

“Be safe,” he had murmured in his clipped and always tightly-controlled voice.

There was solace in the sure knowledge that Manticore WAS safe. She knew he was safe because her team had been the one to draw the short straw. She hadn’t seen it yet, but she was sure the Teleportation Suppression Device was somewhere in the Malta warehouse.

She knew this because she was dying and yet still here.

She opened her eyes again, vaguely alarmed when her vision did not instantly clear. Everything seemed to swim in and out of focus for a time, making the hallway seem to grow and contract around her with each killing beat of her heart. Long years of mental discipline allowed her to bring herself back into focus. She was alone except for the bodies of the Malta operatives around her. Even the sounds of fighting had faded even further away until she could barely discern the light pops of gunfire.

She knew what she had to do, and in that moment she was eternally grateful that it had been her who’d been shot so horribly in the first moments of the ambush. Of all her team members she was the one best suited to survive such injuries without teleportation back to her and Justin’s mansion. She just needed someone, anyone, to be close enough to cast her psychic essence into. Once she was “piggybacked” onto someone she could survive indefinitely. Such an act also had a side benefit of preserving her original body, so it was even possible that it would keep until surgery could restore it.

The problem with this power was proximity. Her target had to be close, not quite touching perhaps, but at least close enough for her to see. At the moment the only people she could see were all dead.

She sensed more than heard light footsteps behind her. Her eyes widened in surprise and stung from the salt of the blood that dripped into them. Someone was there? But how was that possible? She should have sensed the mind-presence of anyone approaching. Had blood loss really rendered her THAT weak in such a short time? She grit her teeth, drawing her inhuman resolve around her like armor. She didn’t care who it was nor how they’d snuck up on her unawares, they were her key to survival whoever they were.

She reacted the moment even the slightest part of the mysterious other appeared in her line of sight. She had only an instant impression of a delicate slipper adorning a small foot before she released her power.

Mirror Spirit.

She had attempted to read Amhee’s mind before. The results had been odd and a little disorienting. Her telepathy had bounced harmlessly off the stoic young woman’s defenses and returned to its source. For the briefest and most confusing of moments, Sister Psyche had actually found herself reading her OWN mind.

This time was different, however. This time she wasn’t just using simple telepathy, she was using the most powerful and invasive of her abilities. Additionally she was using the entirety of her being behind the transfer, fueled by desperation and the impossibly powerful memory of that final hug with her husband.

“Be safe.”

Shalice opened her eyes to darkness. The blackness that surrounded her was complete and all encompassing. She was standing but had no sense that there was anything under her feet to support her. She assumed she was standing simply because she felt like she were upright, that’s all. Utter emptiness stretched out and away from her in all directions but for one other object.

The mirror was directly in front of her, some four feet distant. What should have been her reflection, however, was wrong. It was her in the mirror, looking back at her with a considering and speculative gleam in her eyes. However, the mirror Psyche was not dressed in her heroic working gear, but rather a cheerfully yellow sundress with blue flower stitch work along the hem. She recognized the dress immediately because she had worn it not three nights ago on a nicely romantic evening with Justin.

The mirror image of herself twirled in place, hands wrapped in the skirt’s sides and holding it out. Shalice blinked as she realized it was herself modeling the sun dress in front of a mirror. She frowned slightly and leaned in closer, a bit disconcerted when her so-called “reflection” didn’t move to match her motion. In the very center of the mirror’s surface was a hair line crack, barely discernable.

All at once she felt a pressure and she began to understand. She had somehow, despite the nature of Mirror Spirit’s powers, managed to penetrate the mystic barrier that surrounded the other hero. She was inside some part of Amhee’s mind, but the powers of the magical mirror which was the center of that woman’s being were still striving irresistibly to eject her.

“No,” she whispered as she threw her own insurmountable psychic strength into anchoring her presence there. “It’s too late to go back now. I can’t let you win this.”

The pressure built and built. It was physical and psychic all at the same time. Her body screamed as her muscles strained against that incredible insistence. Her mind drew in upon itself, her calm and resolve deepening as she harnessed more and more of her own power to match against Mirror Spirit’s.

There was a low creaking sound; as though something else were feeling the strain of that awful battle of wills and was buckling under it.

Crack!

Sister Psyche fell to her knees, gasping for breath. The pressure was gone now. All of it. All at once.

She looked up and gaped at what she saw. In front of her were now two mirrors, side by side and joined so closely that only by running her fingers over their surface could she detect the seam between them. In one mirror she still twirled and cast considering eyes at the sun dress she would soon buy. In the other a young, strawberry haired girl sat with the light of joyous anticipation in her eyes before a brightly decorated cake with seven candles in it. Atop the child’s head was a pointed paper party hat with the words “birthday girl” emblazoned on it.

The girl leaned in and blew out the candles.

“Wait… wait…” she muttered, holding a hand up and pressing shaking fingers against her forehead. “What’s going on here? What… what is happening?”

The pressure was building again. Slowly. Like a tide that was more than patient enough to wait the full course of its ascension to full swell. Trying to push her out. Trying to follow its true nature and repel and reflect back that which assailed it.

“But… I’m still here,” she whispered again even as she marshaled her strength to fight that horribly growing push. “I beat it, didn’t I?”

Then she couldn’t think anymore. Could do nothing but fight that horrible press, the current of an incoming tsunami of power focused entirely on unseating her. She screamed in violent denial as she flung all of her being into that titanic struggle.

Crack!

Another victory. Another mirror.

This time it wasn’t her image in the mirror, but someone else’s. Aurora Borealis was in the mirror’s center, using her powers to fight against the massive mechanical form of Babbage. Shalice realized that though the image might not be her current body, it was still HER image, just back when she had been riding shotgun in Aurora’s mind.

“But… that doesn’t make any sense…” she said, aware of the pressure building yet again. “I don’t remember ever fighting Babbage when I was with Aurora.”

Crack!

She’s in her late teens in the newest reflection. She is beaming, with a smile so wide and bright she can almost count all her teeth in it. Her image is wearing a flat topped cap and a gown in the colors of her old high school. She is standing behind a podium and delivering a speech that she can not hear. The sash of the valedictorian is about her shoulders.

“No,” barely a whisper… more breath than sound. “Oh, no…”

Her heart begins to race in her chest because she KNOWS that is her high school graduation. She knows she was valedictorian of her class and can even remember spending hours upon hours writing, scrapping and re-writing her speech. She can remember laughing with Justin as she told him of the experience and how frazzled she had been.

“I’ve been less nervous facing hordes of Arachnos soldiers than I was trying to get that speech exactly right,” she had told him.

But she couldn’t remember actually giving the speech. She couldn’t remember anything at all about her graduation.

And the tide captured her attention once more.

Crack!

Another mirror. Another memory that was no longer her own.

Her first kiss with a boy whose name lingered at the tip of her tongue but refused to proceed any further. He had asked her out the day before but the day their date was supposed to occur was gone from her mind entirely.

Gone from her mind entirely.

Her eyes flew open as she began to think she knew what was happening. The mirror images of herself were not mirrors but memories. HER memories. Mirror Spirit’s powers were so incredible, so unassailable, that she was not able to get all of herself through that guardianship. However, each time she won one of these conflicts she had been able to get a piece of herself through. Each mirror before her was actually an anchor of herself, a small shard of her psychic being that she had managed to sneak past the wall of Amhee’s defenses.

“I can do this,” she said, squaring her shoulders resolutely despite the weariness that tried to weigh them down. “I just need to get all of myself to the other side of her power… even if I have to do it one piece at a time. I’ll worry about reassembling myself once I’m through.”

Crack!

Learning how to drive.

Crack!

Fighting the Rikti and nearly losing herself in the battle.

Crack!

A day spent in the backyard of the Mansion with Justin and a picnic that had ended in love.

Crack!

“No!” She screamed suddenly, lurching forward to hammer her fists against the unyielding glass surface of the newest mirror. “No, please! Don’t take that from me! Don’t take that away!”

In the reflection she stood in her bridal gown. Her hands clasped within Justin’s. They were repeating the words that would join them forever together and were completely lost in one another’s eyes.

She crumpled to her knees, sliding down the uncaring surface of the mirror that separated her from that precious memory. She sobbed hysterically as she tried desperately to remember something from that day… anything from that day. But there was nothing.

Nothing at all.

She felt the rising tide of the Mirror’s power again. One day of memories for each victory. One day of memories over such a long, long life. She felt bone deep weariness and desolation sweep over her, but despite that her will dragged her upwards to her feet once more. Even knowing that every victory she won would diminish her, would leave less inside her to goad her to keep fighting…

What choice did she have? What choice?

She turned her eyes away from her wedding day and threw herself once more into battle.

~vVv~

Foreshadow stood beside Mirror Spirit’s bed, looking down at her placid seeming face and holding her hand. Across the room Manticore had assumed a similar vigil over the body of his wife.

Brawler and Mynx had found the two women side by side, so close they were almost touching. Sister Psyche’s body had been riddled with bullets but was, miraculously, still alive. Amhee hadn’t had a mark on her, but she was unresponsive to their calls.

The successful reclamation of the Teleportation Suppression Device had been overshadowed by the desperate race to save Psyche’s body from death. The surgery had lasted for hours but the doctors were confident she was no longer in any danger of death. The mystery of Mirror Spirit’s condition was much more puzzling.

Despite his moniker, Foreshadow had no clairvoyant abilities. His was an ancient soul but still tied solidly to past and present. All at once he wished desperately this were not the case. He would have given nearly anything to see how this chapter of his many lives would play out.

Across the room, Manticore was speaking to his wife in low, urgent tones cracked and warped with barely contained terror and tears.

“Shalice? Darling?” Foreshadow saw the knuckles of Manticore’s hands which clung to his wife’s were white with the strength of the holding. “Can you hear me? You have to come back to me, dearest… Come back to me… I’m right here waiting… You’ve always waited for me… Now I’ll wait for you to come back to me… I’ll wait until the end of days if I need to… just please… oh please… come back…”

Foreshadow looked away, embarrassed and feeling as though he were trespassing on that intensely personal scene. He redirected his gaze to the still waters of Mirror Spirit’s face.

A single tear had escaped one of her depthless eyes and blazed a silvery trail down her flawless cheek.

So if Sister Psyche attempted to "piggyback" on Mirror Spirit... would that be the equivalent of dividing by zero?

So, I had my first-ever entire-thread deletion yesterday. Which isn't too bad considering how long I've been posting and the sort of stuff I normally post.

Zwillinger wrote me an inflamatory note danging me to heck where I shall be poked by the pitch-spork of Phil of Insufficient Light. (Actually, he wrote a very nice message explaining why it had been deleted and encouraging me not to take it personally, but THAT version of reality doesn't lend itself to making a new list post at all...)

Below find a list of the horrendous, awful punishments with which Zwillinger has suggested I be afflicted...

* Hack into all my spreadsheets.... Find All "+", change to "*"... sit back and watch Steelclaw hemmorage as all his pretty little scoring values change and he finds he has to buy half Wentworth's stock just to build a recipe.

* Disable the "Delete Character" function on my account.

* Upon entering the Character Creator, must now answer a long series of questions such as "Did your Tournament give you permission to create this new character?", "Are you SURE you didn't cheat to make this?" and "You're lying to me, aren't you?"

* Fusionette now accompanies me on EVERY one of my missions... and she's power-suppressed.

* Every character now has the "Charity" aura... any time they stand near another player character they will "leak" influence from their total into the nearby player's. This fact will be advertised in local chat every three minutes.

* Every character will now (as in The Sims) have a Bladder Bar. When it fills... the character spills... ie- they wet themselves embarassingly and get the flies aura until they jump in water. Oh, despite the Bladder Bar, all Mens and Ladies bathroom doors still won't open for them.

* Until forgiven, every character has a completely new Alignment designation. Instead of the usual, Hero, Villain, Rogue and Vigilante... all characters shall have the Alignment "Naughty."

* Every OTHER character in a zone containing one my characters will automatically earn the Temp power "Mudball" similar to snowball. My character will be the only one targetable by this power. Mudball creates brown smears on the outermost costume layers and Slows in small, accumulating increments.

* My gold-plating has been down-graded to tinfoil.

Okay, so you like blasters and controllers best... allow me to work from that model to give you a suggestion or two...

Spines/Fire Scrapper - AoE masters of disaster. If you ever got a glean on for a Fire Blaster, then you might like this choice. The major difference being you are in the middle of the carnage. At higher levels the damage gets well-nigh ridiculous... Picture this... you leap into the center of a spawn with both Quills and Blazing Aura doing auto-damage to everyone within range at the same time... you let loose with Spine Burst to decimate the minions then throw Impale at the strongest enemy to Immobilize them near you... hit Burn which does surprisingly good damage over time to those still living... then, in case you're running a bit low in the tank... hit Consume which does yet more AoE damage while helping to replenish your endurance. The trade-off is Fire isn't the best defensive set protection-wise so you will likely face plant a bit more often than your average Scrapper... but you're used to playing blasters so you may be used to being squishier.

Energy Melee/Electric Armor Brute (or Tank) - As close to a control set as you can get from a Brute. Electric Armor has some of the best endurance drains in the game. Combine this with the natural stun capabilities of Energy Melee and you have a set that has some very strong synergy. I typically wade into battle and strike first with Whirling Hands, a PBAoE attack which has the potential to stun everyone it hits although mostly you'll only see minions staggering about. I follow this up with Power Sink which not only drains your enemies to practically nil endurance, it also replenishes your own. I have Lightning Field slotted mostly with Accuracy and Endurance Modification. The main advantage of LF is NOT to do damage to your opponents but to keep them from replenishing their endurance once you've drained it. I call the En/El Brute a control set because it is great fun to stand in the middle of a spawn of enemies who can only stand and stare at you while you pound them, unable to get together enough endurance to do more than scream in terror.

Just a couple ideas you could try.

The Theory of Divergent Realities goes something like this: Every time you are faced with a decision point no matter what decision you make, another you in another reality has made the other choice.

Or something like that...

The most recent Star Trek movie explained it better. The moment the future Spock & Romulans came back and started fiddling with the time line, their past (Kirk's future) became invalidated.

So, the moment the Mysterious Advisor stepped out of the time portal and told you what you were going to do... he completely changed the eventual outcome. You would now be armed with the knowledge you needed to alter the future.

The Moral of the Story: Maybe Shroedinger's cat knew what was going to happen and snuck an escape kit of plastic explosives and weapons into the box with him.

Step 1) Create a tournament

Step 2) Include Melee characters in the tournament.

Step 3) Set tournament rules so you have to play characters in order so you HAVE to play the yucky melee toon before you can get to your preferred ranged/control toon.

Step 4) ?

Step 5) Profit!

Step 6) Eventually realize what a ridiculous, overly regimented way of playing the tournament system is and quit it. Go back to playing the game the way you WANT to play it instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole just because you haven't done it before.

I love Street Justice as well but I can't say it's for the animations since I currently only have three of the attacks.

I love SJ for the concept! I have always had a problem with the Martial Arts/Super Strength gap. I have a character (my tournament allowed me to make another one!) named Absolute Acceleration who is ALL about the speed. I used to make his incarnation as a Martial Arts/Super Speed Scrapper but, honestly, he wasn't a martial artist... he was just a guy who could move really fast.

On the other hand, Super Strength has always struck me as a "I'm really strong and that's good enough... I'll just sort of flail around until I hit something and break it..." sort of melee set. There aren't any skill shots... at all. Even Knock Out Blow is just a really cheesy wind up to a so-easy-to-see-it's-coming-I'll-just-lean-six-inches-to-the-right uppercut. Don't get me wrong, I HAVE characters who are that unskilled in combat, but not Absolute Acceleration.

ALL HAIL OUR DEVELOPER OVERLORDS!

Now, not only can I have my middle-of-the-skill-road Street Justice as melee... I can have Super Reflexes as my PRIMARY!! My newest incarnation of Absolute Acceleration is a Super Reflexes/Street Justice Tank and I couldn't be happier with him.

I may not even delete this one... maybe...

I have the most boring dreams in all creation. I literally have dreams about going shopping or attending a class in college (fully clothed). That's about the height of excitement for my sleepy-self.

I occasionally get REALLY ambitious and dream about going to Disney World... but the dream consists entirely of me being in the parking lot and trying to reach the park.. never actually going inside. I seem to remember I DID actually make it inside during one dream but the park was closed and all the rides were turned off.

I sometimes suspect that my daydreams and awake-imaginings are so bizarre and vivid that my brain compensates by mundane-loading during the night.

Only two?

That's Easy!

Heroes and Villains...

Duh!

During the Ustream today, Zwillinger commanded me to make up a list about possible day-jobs held by the in-game signature characters. Now that I think about it... Zwill sounds a lot like the OTHER voices I hear in my head all the time.

Hmmmm...

Might be time to make another tinfoil hat...

* Synapse: Puts on large rabbit costume and spells the Energizer Bunny when he needs to take vacation time.

* Swan: Exclusive class level "companion"... Some of her best paying customers have included Frank Perdue and Colonel Sanders...

* Fusionette: Tour guide.

* Back Alley Brawler: Professional masseuse.

* Citadel: President and acting chairman of the SkyNet Fan Club.

* Captain Castillo: President and acting chairman of the Captain Castillo Fan Club.

* Mynx: Volunteer at Paragon SPCA... Chairwoman of Local Cat-Girl's Union 096... and driving force behind the "Have You Hugged A Kitty Today?" bumpersticker campaign.

* Positron: Apple product salesman... currently taking time off for Steve Jobs grieving period.

* Captain Mako: Greenpeace Warrior.

* Foreshadow: Psychic Friends Network operator. (In the CoH universe they WERE real psychics so they DID see it coming...)

* Arbiter Sands: Night club singer.

* Infernal: Children's television show host.

* Dominatrix: Stress relief counsellor.

* Statesman: Reporter/Photographer for the Weekly Planet Bugle.

* Lanaru the Mad: Steelclaw's editor.

* Lord Recluse: Orkin man.

* Silver Mantis: Crash Test Dummy.

* Scirocco: Grief counsellor.

* Lord Nemesis: Political forecast analyst.