TeChameleon

((I agree with that... mostly... Rebel- but I don't think having it be perfectly safe would work- this RP seems to have a very strong 'survival-horror' vibe going on. My vote would lie for going to get people- with a barely-functioning base, an abruptly-abandoned midnight city, monster bugs swarming out of the walls, the 'safety net' gone... just being able to yoink people out of danger whenever we felt like it would kind of ruin the mood ))

((Haven't forgotten you, Golden, but I can't get my character over to you at this point very easily- the teleporters are down and he doesn't have any way to get back to the base yet... that and he has no idea you're there yet, although the group I'm with will probably have the same idea and want to check the Statue once the surveillance equipment stops exploding, so hopefully we'll find you soon ))

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"What the hell did you do?!", Richard yelled as he came running back into the room. "I leave you alone for five seconds..."

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"I didna do anythin'!" Danny yelped. "Well, 'cept touch one o' th'buttons, but tha' shouldna make thin's explode, less'n y'r base wa' wired by some explosion-happy nutcase!" At Akemi's comment, he gave her a look, then Richard.

Then he shook his head. "T'isnae likely tha' we'll be findin' much o' anyone- less'n th'bugs ha' eaten e'eryone... an' i' doesnae seem likely tha' they'd be quite this thorough, we'd a'least be findin' bones an suchlike... either we've been moved or th'rest o' th'folks ha' been moved." That was the boy's best guess, at least- he'd only been super-ing for about a year, after all, if even that. Granted, a lot can happen to a hero in a year, but still... "Wish m'uncle E was here... he knows thi' kind o' stuff better'n I do." Danny muttered, referring both to the console and to the situation in general.

"Uh..." Danny looked at the console, then stared helplessly after Richard. He hovered closer, looked at the screens, looked at the controls, shrugged, and poked a button. Then he flinched back violently as the console gave off a shower of sparks and three of the screens went dead.

"Right. Well, tha' puts paid t'that..." he mumbled. The little archer retreated from the bank of displays, looking a bit helpless. "I dinna ha' a clue how t'use thi' junk." he muttered to no-one in particular.

Danny had floated through the portal close behind Fixit, and shrugged from where he hung in midair- even in these close quarters he didn't come down. "Well, there isnae a lot goin' on oot there- I ha' a request in t'th' D.A.T.A. mainframes, bu' there doesna seem t'be a lot o' responsiveness there- th'scream tha' fair broke th'windows where we were standin', I'm thinkin' t'was another supertype, one o' th'yellin' ones."

He watched Akemi light the place up. "T'would prolly be wise t'be gettin' this place workin' again, else find our way t'a bigger one tha' is still active an' has surveillance drones or summat tha' we c'n use t'scan th'city, find out if'n we're in some sort o' alternate reality, or if'n the rest o' th'city is in an alternate reality, or i' this be yet another plot o' tha' daft sod in th'brass pyjamas."

Target Lad nodded, once, as the oil splashed over the swarm. "T'isnae quite wha' I had in mind, but t'will do." he commented. He let fly the blazing arrow, and a minor fireball erupted from the termites with a satisfying *FWOOMP!*.

"I'm guessin' tha' neither o' ye c'n fly?" he called down to Matrix and Richard. "I cannae carry either o' ye, so i' may prove problematic gettin' away fro' this area. 'm thinkin' tha' gettin' to a base might be th' safest, seein' as how th'only ones we're needin' to save a' th'moment is us." Having rested a little while he talked, the air around him blazed with electricity once more, and he repeated his bug-zapper-arrow trick from earlier, picking away at the edges of the swarm, then firing a storm of arrows into the air, to come down as a crackling blue rain of pointed death.

Target Lad glanced at the swarm of red oozing out of the walls. "Well. T'isnae informative, but 'tis a'least definite." He glanced down at Matrix. "Oy! D'ye ha' any o' those nifty oil-slicky type arrows? If'n y'do..." he produced an arrow from his cross-D quiver... the serrated head of which sizzled into eye-searing flame after a split second... "Th'n 'm thinkin' tha' a nice, warm moat might be an idea, neh? Leastaways 'til we c'n be findin' someplace a mite more defensible."

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This is for invading Earth! *FLA-ZAPP*

And this is for ganking the newbies! *ZZZRAK*

And THIS is for ruining my DATE! *FREEM*

Looking forward to the next installment.

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*grin*

For whatever reason, I heard that in the Transformers Animated Starscream's voice. "You interrupted my SPEEEEECH!!!"

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*laughing*

Great, now I'll have to find that sound clip and do a quick video shot of Tava in Steel Canyon, shaking her fist at the sky while the Rikti are invading...

Hopefully the next chapter will go up later today!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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If memory serves, that line is from near the end of Part 1 of the Season One finale of Transformers Animated- you'll have to post a link to the clip once you've made it

Anyways, looking forwards to the next chapter.

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Guardian does indeed rock.

Yet I hardly ever see any of the posters that play on Guardian actually in-game. Like, ever.

I'm starting to think they don't really exist >.>

Also, congratulations on another awesome story, Battler!

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Heh... I'm @Wall of Knight in-game, D. Might be why you haven't seen 'me'.

((it's as best as I can imitate in print form of the absolutely bizarre accent I ended up with for a while after spending some time in the British Isles. Had one friend back home in Canada nearly injure himself laughing at me when he heard it >.O

Seriously, for a while there my accent would be this insane mix of... well, pretty much every major accent on the Isles (English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh), along with my own native Canadian one, with various accents gaining strength or losing it, pretty much at random. It was quite odd, which is why Danny's accent is so strange

Also, what's up with the scream? The four of us are kind of at loose ends here.))

((giant? Might I gently suggest that you stick to running to one RP at a time? It's... well, more complex than you think, if you want it to survive))

Danny grabbed sky the instant the scream had hit, circling upwards at a startling rate of speed, trying to triangulate the source of the scream. The tiny targetting computer in his monocle kicked into high gear- the human populace of the City of Heroes may have seemed to vanish, but at least some of the automated systems were still working; the microcomp was working overtime, feeding the data to the D.A.T.A. mainframes for comparison to known sonic-empowered heroes and sonic-based weapons- the sound was so loud that it couldn't have been anything else.

"T'was a scream, y'gits!" he yelled down to Matrix and Areu. "Who, what, why, I dinnae have a clue- th' computerized widgets 're workin' on that, tho'." He stuck the pinky of his free hand into his ear and wiggled it a little. "Summat tha' loud, tho', s'gotta be one o' th'sonic types." Names started to scroll across his HUD. "Shriek... Scream... Screamer... Shout... Decibel258... Sonic Boom... dinnae these yellin' types ha' any creativity a' all?" he complained, then blinked, focussing on the little screen by his eyeball. "Th'Yodelin' Veterinarian o' th'Alps? Okay, tha's new..."

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This is for invading Earth! *FLA-ZAPP*

And this is for ganking the newbies! *ZZZRAK*

And THIS is for ruining my DATE! *FREEM*

Looking forward to the next installment.

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*grin*

For whatever reason, I heard that in the Transformers Animated Starscream's voice. "You interrupted my SPEEEEECH!!!"

Target Lad jumped violently when the axe spoke. He stared for a moment, then asked in a slightly strained voice "... ye do know tha' y're axe is talking, neh?" Then he sighed and slumped, a slightly odd-looking motion, given that he was still hanging in midair. "Aye, an' I called it. 'Tis a daft enough world. Gabbin' hardware, wha's next."

Then he froze, and stared around huntedly, looking like he expected more bugs, or an incoming meteor, or a Rikti invasion, or the Hamidon slowly oozing over the War Walls, or any combination of them. "Ye'd think I'd ha' learned by now... 'tis temptin' fate e'ery time I say summat like tha'..."

((aaaand, giant, that'd be your cue to drop something horrible on them. That's Danny's luck all over ))

Target Lad's eyebrows shot up. "An' why would I be callin' m'self Gust? I shoot arrows an' zap things. T'isna likely tha' I'd be namin' m'self after windy-type things. An' I heard tha' report as well- Gust is a boy. So 'lessn he's run off t'Sweden an' back i' th' time he's been missin', s'nae likely tha' Akemi here i' th'lad ye... and meself, f'r tha' matter... are lookin' for." He shook his head. "Nae, 'm Target Lad- Danny t'm'friends."

He glanced at Matrix' bow. "Huh... ye wouldnae think tha' slingin' pointy sticks a' folks w'd qualify y' as a superhero, but t'is a daft enough world tha' we live in. Always nice t'meet a fellow-archer."

((giant, where's Grav? Is he supposed to be somewhere near the PC group?))

Target Lad shook his head. "T'isnae likely tha' th' transporters are affected- there are'na many things tha' c'n mess wi' 'em, an' e'en then, they just redirect, nae cancel." He made a face. "Tha' may nae be a good thing, though. Y'said th'things came outta th'walls? What d'ye think would happen if'n we got stuck in an enclosed space wi' walls fulla these buggers?"

"They call m'Target Lad, an' all this i' prolly my fault somehow... I seem t'be a lightnin' rod f'r stupid." the boy archer said, working a shrug into his flight. "If'n ye dinna like th'stupid codename, call me Danny."

Arcing downwards, he drew his bow, the transparent arms of the Vanguard-issue Talsorian bow almost imperceptible in the darkness. A brief roar of lightning around him, and he loosed a fistful of arrows.

Below, Matrix and Richard found a brief respite in the form of a shower of arrows... each one electrified to the point of being the world's fastest, pointiest bug zapper. Target Lad hovered down, still staying a good twenty feet off the ground- as far as the kid was concerned, 'gravity' was something that happened to other people. "So... I dinna suppose tha' you lot ha' any better idea o' what's happenin' than we do?" he questioned.

Danny whirled at the shout, startlingly loud in the stillness of the empty city. He relaxed slightly when he recognized the interloper as a Peacebringer- most of them were okay. "Neh, nae clue." he answered, his not-quite-British accent thickening a bit with his nervousness.

"I dinna ha' any idea as t'what's goin' on. Woke up wi' no noise an' th'city was gone... or a'least th'people were. 'tis makin' me nervous, if 'm bein' honest." he admitted. A faint noise to the South made him glance around. "'tis amazin' how far noise carries i' this city when there isna any interference." he added, turning towards the noise and accelerating, blue-white flames leaving a comet's trail through the night sky as he arrowed towards Richard and Matrix' position. "Y'comin' or wha'?" he called back over his shoulder.

((Eh, I'm just going to jump in, if I've got the wrong end of the stick, I'm sure somebody will tell me))

Danny "Target Lad" Troy was soaring above King's Row, flying hard, moving fast enough that his short dark hair was whipping in the wind. His presence there was largely coincedental- the Row was the closest zone to his family's home in the South end of Steel Canyon, and when he'd been awoken by the sudden silence, the fourteen-year-old archer had decided to check and see if any other sections of the city had been affected.

There was a chill in the air this late at night, so rather than his usual t-shirt and jeans, the boy was wearing a long dark trench, green khakis, his usual bullseye-emblazoned t-shirt, his usual targetting monocle, and rocket boots. He'd be the first to admit that the open flames of the rocket exhaust combined with the long 'tail' of the trench was impractical, but he liked the effect, and the speed boost the boots gave his flight was nice to have, especially when he was expecting trouble.

He banked sharply, curvetting above the old Garment Works, a blue-white comet in the still night air as he scanned the ground, studying it. The Police band had managed to squawk something about a missing hero, a little older than himself, but the transmission had been garbled, and the radio quickly went as silent as the rest of the city.

((Plague, if you want to bump Akemi into TL, feel free- he hasn't noticed her yet, but with the rocket boot exhaust, he'd be visible for a good distance))

((I'm thinking this looks interesting, but I'm not entirely clear on what's going on... the whole city is empty, except for a handful of heroes and these red termite things..? Sounds like somebody was inspired by the out-of-sync bug, heh...))

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If you drop your CoX characters into WoW, I'm going to hurt you.

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... you wouldn't get the chance, I'd commit seppuku first >.O

No, original characters and original setting. Or as original as anything can be nowadays (and still make sense >.&gt

And I'll see about linking it to the forums here, if people are actually interested.

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Not only am I doing NaNoWriMo for the third year, but this year's novel is based on my CITY OF HEROES Justice-based SG.

I am SUCH a geek.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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I might be able to out-geek you, Samuraiko... I'm doing a fish-out-of-water plotline for my first NaNoWriMo... dumping superheroes into a high-fantasy setting >.>

Hah... post completed stuff?

... *points to Ascendant*

Nah, nobody much posts completed stuff that I've ever noticed, unless it's very short. So, to answer your question as succinctly as possible: no.

Try the 'masks with hair' option, Cuddles. That way you can colour the face just about anything, as long as you don't mind it being... well, a mask

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Ya know, this kinda reminds me of Saperhagen's BOLO series. That was typified by self-aware robots of extreme size dedicated to protecting humanity.

That clock-worked ritki mother ship may walk, but it still reminds me of a BOLO.

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Minor point of order, Cuddles- I'm pretty sure that the Bolo series was created by Keith Laumer, and apparently Wikipedia agrees... Laumer also created the wonderfully snarky Retief series (about an interstellar diplomat who is apparently the only competent man in the entire Terran Diplomatic Corps).

Anyways, enjoying the story, BB... and if this Horde is the Coming Storm, then they're not CoT demons- the Coming Storm members are feared by the Kheldians because they use the squids as batteries for their starships, something the Hordeling Lashers and such are unlikely to be doing >.>