TeChameleon

... except for in-game (i.e. canonical) mention of Apex here. And if they weren't around, uhm, how'd War Witch get dead? Nope, the Blue King stuff is at least quasi-canon.

Many great suggestions- I'd love to be able to go back to Brass Monday even just as a 'tourist' (and stomp me some band geeks... sheesh, Nemesis troops look dorky), but, well, for me?

... I just want to know what happened to Horus and Apex >.<

((... figure of speech, Devious. Would you have preferred it if I'd explained that we happened to hit during a changing of the guard or something, and these were simply the next guard shift turning up, or that they were a scheduled patrol or something? We're in an RP, they're moving hostile NPCs; by definition, they're a "Wandering Monster".))

((well, you can at least post Acid and Henteko's response to all this, then we can pester Sov about taking control of our wandering band of Malta... but really, it seems to me to be a very un-Malta-ish mistake to leave a vital 'control point' unguarded if they're performing a secret mission aboard))

If you could give a general idea of plots you used in the past, it would help, and avoid duplication, but... lesse.

Some preliminary thoughts...

The classic 'time traveller come to the past to right a terrible wrong'... unfortunately, said terrible wrong is the prevention of the destruction of the heroes' home city (which, if you want to be sneaky, you can RP for the first session- just let your players know that the 'the city is going to go boom!' bit is the setup for a larger plot).

All kinds of time-jumping fun, loops, paradoxes, and becoming your own Grandpaw would be readily available, although you'd have to keep careful track of what happened when. Also, hint at... other... things happening during the big fight in the first session- flashes in the shadows, mysterious (loud) noises, that kind of thing, although there's never anything there when the players go to investigate... the first time *evilgrin*

Oh, and I'd suggest mapping out the initial combat area fairly extensively, since you'll be coming back to it a lot

OR...

Dopplegangwar (honestly, that one's worth it for the name alone ). Some of the local super-criminals have discovered how to duplicate people... any people... down to the subatomic level, identical in every way to their original 'selves' (including powers!)... except hostile and under the control of the supervillains (whether it's the supervillains turning themselves into their targets, or simply creating duplicates, is up to you, although I feel that the duplicates would cause more drama... and provide the controllers with an airtight alibi ).

Your heroic players would find themselves in a city in chaos, as no-one would know who to trust... and the heroes least of all, as 'they' rampaged across the city, causing untold destruction, leading to them being hunted by both sides of the law. You could even open the game with the doors of the Hall of Justice being beaten down by SWAT teams with a warrant for their arrest.

It's important that your players never see their dopplegangers directly, and preferably not on a live broadcast, if you can avoid it; if you're careful, you can set up red herrings about mind-control or sleepwalking... done properly, you could have them mistrusting themselves as they try and sort out the mystery. If you want to be really nasty, add in mention of a breakthrough in dimensional travel, and (misleading) hints of an evil Mirror Universe.

Danny's patience, never very long at the best of times, was thinning fairly quickly. "If'n 'soon I'll be dead' i' a warnin', then thank ye f'r that." he grumbled. "If 'tis a threat, good luck, ye'll be needin' it, Ninja or no. An' if 'tis some stupid pop-culture thing, get stuffed." he finished, his voice changing twice over the course of his little mini-rant, which didn't improve his mood any. 'Fact of life' or not, it was still embarassing.

All this might have contributed to the mistake he made next. A slight movement at the end of the hall- all-but-imperceptible to most, and clear to Target Lad only because his precognition told him that there'd be a squad of Malta coming down that hall in a few seconds- was responded to with a heavy explosive arrow. A blast wave nearly thick enough to bash Danny back into the doorway he had already banged into roared down the hallway, tumbling the little archer end over end, a wall of noise nearly tangible rang through the ship. Smoke wisped up from charred carpet, and stunned Malta slowly regained their feet.

There were five of them- a four-man cell and their leader. Two wielded the horribly blue-glowing sapper rifles, one appeared to be an engineer of some sort, one was mostly non-descript, and the boss had a ludicrously incongruous cowboy hat perched on his head... although the heavy-barrelled revolvers riding in his holsters were anything but laughable.

((sorry for the delay, was waiting on Devious for some stupid reason, despite it being my go >.&lt)

*grin*

I think I've RPed in-game all of three times. And half the time I forgot to use that silly double-parentheses thing anyways >.>

... mind you, it's usually pretty obvious, since my characters tend to have an entirely different mode of speech from myself :/

((by the way, Devious, Danny never commented one way or another about what he thought of Henteko's skills- 'ninja-wannabe' is simply a convenient mental designator for someone who has yet to introduce themselves... and, well... in Danny's experience, being a ninja-wannabe does not exempt you from being ferociously dangerous... remember Sergeant Allerdyced from my "Seriously, Why Doesn't this Ever Happen?" story? Danny thinks he's a Ninja-wannabe, too.))

((for whatever reason, I'd always had the impression that Talsorian whatnots were lightsabre-esque energy blades, but guess not ))

Danny gave Henteko a level look, filing away the information for further use. After all, catching an arrow meant that you had to touch it, however briefly... the little Archer had met arrow-catchers before; they didn't tend to do too well when the arrow they snagged blew up in their face, or taser-fried them.

Wordlessly, he watched the ninja-wannabe fiddle with the door, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Great. So we've got a roomful o'gas. An' how, exactly, does tha' help us get through th'door?" he questioned. His bow was in his hand, still, and he was scanning up and down the hallway, all six senses as alert as they could be under the continued assault of the resonator.

Danny yelped and whirled at the sound of Kaze's voice, and the only thing that saved the interloper from an arrow through the eyeball was the fact that the little archer barked his elbow on the doorframe, numbing that arm and throwing his aim off for the split second needed for him to pull the shot up short.

The kid swooped up to the locked door in a blurred rush, not bothering to moderate his movement. "F'r future reference, ye may na' want t'sneak up on folks who are jittery an' heavily armed. T'isna a good idea." he growled at Kaze. Then he glanced at the door. "An' just how're ye plannin' t'get tha' open after I melted the lock partial-like?" he asked, waving a hand at the thin line of molten metal still oozing out of where he'd jammed the Talsorian arrowhead-become-blade into the door.

Danny made a face at Acid. "'tis nae a bad idea... 'cept tha' any crewmen we might find here 're more'n likely t'be Malta-types, if'n they work anythin' like th'other conspiracies runnin' about. They dinna tend t'like leavin' important places wi'out some o' their own people around." He shrugged. "Time t'break it, I suppose. An' blame the Malta." he finished with a small smirk.

Leaning forwards, he slid the thrumming energy-bladed arrowhead between the door and the doorjamb, from a good foot above the lock, to the same distance below it. Then he pushed on the door, with minimal results.

The little archer blinked, giving another experimental shove, then zipped down the hallway to the closest door, studying the side with the latches.

Danny opened his mouth to remind Alyssa exactly why they'd been arguing about bugs, then closed it again as he belatedly recognized a verbal flag of truce. He shrugged with as much grace as he could muster and continued to fly, only twitching a little at Acid's 'no absolutes' comment. He'd just finished one flaming row, and didn't really feel like another.

The little Archer pulled up short at the clearly-labelled, but locked, door. He glanced at it for a moment, before pulling out another of his Talsorian arrows (or maybe the same one, there was no real way to tell). As he twisted it slightly to activate the blade, he asked "D'either o' you two ha' anythin' t'pop thi' open easier'n me? I dinna want t'break it, but there doesna seem to be a lot o' other options." Then he waited, scanning the hallway up and down a bit nervously. Having two things go right in a row was a kind of unnerving for him.

((... and she's doing just such a wonderful job of getting along with him as well >.&lt)

Danny made an irritated face at the plant-manipulator. "Dinna be daft, woman. Ye know wha' I mean. Ye stepped on some ants... an' I saw y'do it, for a fact... an' yet y'didnae eat 'em." He shook his head. "Or i' killin' summat in carelessness better'n killin' it deliberate-like?" He threw up his hands in disgust. "If'n ye wish t'avoid harm t'all livin' things where possible- dinna kill wha' ye dinna eat- aye, I c'n go along wi' that, an' be proud. But I draw th'line at bugs. Spare me th' high'n'mighty lecturin', please, an' we'll be gettin' along a wee better."

He turned his back on her and lunged forwards, going from his usual floating hover to almost full speed, screaming down the hallway Acid had indicated, and kind of hoping he'd find some Malta guarding it. They'd fairly quickly regret it if he did. There isn't much training can do to prepare you for an angry 70-pound projectile putting 50,000 volts through you on impact.

((Uhm... you never said how Alyssa left the room... or, for that matter that she actually did, just that she 'came to a hallway'. Since Danny was there, it doesn't seem likely that he'd somehow fail to notice she never actually touched the ground >.<

If you'd just said that Alyssa actually flew out, OOC, then I could've edited my post, but instead, you just kind of rewrote a vague spot in 'history' and left Danny looking like a moron -_-))

((er... Danny put that arrow away a while ago, Rebel))

Danny ignored the laughing reptiloid, as much the picture of affronted dignity as you can be when you're thirteen and short. "I'm na' goin' t'apologize f'r killin' a fly." he said flatly. "R'spect f'r all livin' beings is a' well an' good, but, at least f'r me, it doesna extend t' disease-carrying vermin. Flies spread sickness, an' I'm na' about to eat one." he finished, his spine stiff.

He gave Acid a sidelong look, obviously struggling to find words. "An'... if 'tis th'truth, then ye dinnae need t'apologize for it. But if 'tis just y'r opinion, then 'tis nae 'truth'." He frowned, not sure he'd made himself clear, then shrugged and gave up. "Na', c'n we be gettin' on wi' things, or do I get to harp at ye in return, f'r th'ants y'stepped on and didna eat on our way out o' th' tree room?" he said, pointedly not looking at Alyssa. The combination of offended pride, hammering headache, and sanctimony was making it difficult for him to view her in any kind of charitable light.

((... Alyssa's really not very good with kids, is she?))

Tempus Fugitive's cheek muscles over his mask worked in a way that suggested he was smiling, or at least smirking. "Peace on Earth?" he echoed Paxtera's name, in English this time, giving her a sidelong glance. "Anyways, 'we' is just... time-travellers in general, I suppose." he said with an airy wave of his cyborg hand.

"It's really quite amazing how much time and energy we dedicate to running around thwarting one another." He shot the Lad an aggrieved look. "Incidentally, I remember your little take-over-the-universe schtick. Had a headache for months after, the way you screwed up the timestream that time." He snorted. "Lucky for you that I didn't catch up with you before a new crisis popped up and you were a 'good guy' again... I would've likely done several exceedingly inventive and unpleasant things to you in thanks for the perma-migraine you inflicted on me."

His voice took on a speculative tone. "Still might, in fact... at least when things settle down again." A sour grunt. "Of course, they never do. Settle down, that is." The warshade waved a hand again, and shrugged. "Anyways, most time travellers spend the majority of their time and effort preventing other time travellers from getting anything done. We're an amazingly ineffectual lot, all told." A raised eyebrow, and another (probable) smirk. "In fact, I'd be willing to bet that's what we're doing this go-round... preventing any untoward 'editing' of the timestream."

Tempus Fugitive turned towards his fellow time-traveller (the one he'd dubbed 'Hodgepodge'), signifying that he'd said as much as he cared to on the subject. "The death of my..?" he echoed questioningly. "One of my alternates get himself killed again?" he asked, his tone an odd mingling of apathy and curiousity.

"Right." the boy muttered. "An' so, wi' th'vegans an' now you lot, humanity starves t'death less'n we poor unenlightened slobs learn t'photosynthesize." he grumbled. Danny shook his head, then blinked as Alyssa's finishing comment and the flytrap's odd head-bobbing.

"Which way d'we go? I dinnae even know where we are now!" he griped, feeling a bit put upon. He tilted his head and gave Acid a sidelong glance. "Seems we'll be needin' y'r presence sooner rather th'n late... errrgh..." he trailed off with a moan, clutching his head. Another pulse had almost taken him off his feet; apparently, the cross-hallway was channeling the pulses, maybe even being a direct, virtually unobstructed route to the psi-widget.

The little archer took an unsteady step back, and sighed as this gave almost immediate relief. "Well, if'n there's any doubt as t'where th'head-melter's at, there isna any more." he growled, hsi voice raspy with residual pain. He gestured at the cross hallway. "If either o' ye two ha' a better direction sense th'n me, this hallway might be a fine place t'remember. T'is straight down it."

Then he gave Acid a jaundiced look. "An' now, o'course, th'next words out o' your mouth are goin' t'be tha' our big-red-help-me-now-please-button i' in a direct line wi' th'head melter." Danny paused. "O'course, tha'makes a certain amount o'sense, bein' as th'radio room w'd ha' th'most signal boostin' equipment an' whatnot..." He shrugged resignedly. "Story o'me life, really."

[ QUOTE ]
"Yeah but you could have done your showing off without hurting something", Alyssa replied irritably, gesturing towards the tree.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Hurtin' summat?" Danny echoed, a little incredulously. "Right. An' next ye'll be tellin' me tha' th'tree be havin' nerves, an' could feel th'hole I put int'it." The little archer shook his head irritably. "T'isnae lasting damage." he frowned.

[ QUOTE ]
"Huh, I didn't know they made arrows with that, thought they stuck to blades. Anyway are we going or not, thought you were the one that was hurrying?" She turned and floated over to the door, looking back at him and Acid as she landed to make sure they were following before setting off down the corridor in the direction Danny had indicated earlier.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Well, they dinnae give these out like party favours, neh..?" he said, then trailed off as she started to walk out. "Aye, an' t'is t'be like tha', is't?" he grumbled as she headed down the hall. He rose into the air to follow her. "If I do nae answer y'r questions, then I'd be a brat, an' unworthy o' speakin' to. An' if I do answer y'r questions, alla sudden now I'm th'one wastin' time."

He shook his head, and growled "Women!", unconsciously echoing Acid's disparaging tone almost exactly as he flew smoothly down the hallway.

Tempus Fugitive gave the Dapper Lad a flat look, but found (somewhat to his irritation) that he was secretly a bit pleased that the elder time-traveller considered the rough, choking rasp (over-, underlaid, and intermingled with the space-cold, dry voice of the Warshade he now not-quite-was) that passed for his voice now 'intimidating'. It was a step up from 'hard to understand', anyways.

He started to answer the Peacebringer's question, then a hesitant voice interjected

[ QUOTE ]
"Errr...Ouroboros?" The youth wearing the fleece jacket asked. "Ah...what would that.....be? Please?"

[/ QUOTE ]
The blue-skinned Thief of Time turned slightly to give the boy a look. His brow furrowed briefly; he had some experience with duality of nature, and the kid was giving off some of the warning signals. He shrugged, deciding not to worry about it for the moment.

"Don't worry about 'em, kid." he commented offhandedly. "Bunch of time travellers in even sillier outfits than usual... speaking of which, how're you doing, Hodgepodge?" he commented as an aside, with a little wave to the armoured man who had arrived immediately after him. "Anyways... with sillier outfits than usual, a bunch of floating islands in a chrono-neutral zone, and a tendency to recruit temporal locals based on some imagined silliness they called the "Carbon Law". Oh, and their boss is a guy who calls himself "Mender Silos". If you have a few minutes and want a laugh, run that through an anagram generator sometime."

Another shrug, this one immensely dismissive. "They haven't managed to screw up anything major yet, and thus far the details they've given out about "The Coming Storm" haven't been too wildly misleading, so we're mostly leaving them alone." The Warshade, too, didn't bother to clarify what was meant by 'we'.

He fell silent for a moment, then gave an ironic bow. "As an aside, I'm generally known as the Tempus Fugitive... even says so on the little bit of plastic that claims I'm a hero of some sort. I'll also answer to "TF", or just "Tim", if I happen to like you. First to make the "Some know me as... TIM!" joke gets their soul ripped out their ears." he introduced himself.

[ QUOTE ]
Acid's eyes gave a roll in response, the reptilian shaking his head slightly with a sigh of, "Humans."

[/ QUOTE ]
Danny raised an eyebrow at the big reptilian, who he was rapidly coming to see as rather timid. "Aye, an' if'n I was t'say... 'big reptile men', 'r whatever, i' th'same tone, ye'd doubtless be offended." he muttered.

[ QUOTE ]
Alyssa twitched slightly as Danny shot the tree. "Was that really necessary?", she asked him, obviously not approving.

[/ QUOTE ]
"Eh?" he questioned, blushing a little. "T'wa' just a wee bit o' showin' off..." he mumbled, not even really registering that she was talking about the tree.

[ QUOTE ]
"Incidentally what are those arrows made of? Don't think I've ever seen one go straight through something before." Despite her disapproval of the act itself, she seemed genuinely curious about how he'd done it.

[/ QUOTE ]
"M'arrows? Th'heads're made o' Impervium- same stuff tha' th'Vanguard-types mak' their armour outta. 'Tis amazin' hard-like, makes for some dandy armour-piercing capability." He smirked faintly and produced another arrow... or at least what looked like most of one; the head was oddly-shaped and blunt. "An' if I need summat more punch?" he said, giving the arrowhead a slight twist.

There was a *CRACK* and then an ongoing slight hiss as the Talsorian arrowhead flared to life, casting an odd, greenish light over the surroundings. "Well, now... 'tis nae much tha' can stop one o' these." he commented offhandedly.

((why yes, Danny is rather proud of being allowed access to Talsorian Arrowheads, why do you ask? ))

"Well, you haven't changed much, at least. Still far too fond of cheap theatrics." a dry voice commented from the shadows. There was a... shift... and a short, (probably) young-ish man stepped out. His actual features were unremarkable, but, well... he was blue. There were other oddities about him, but the predominant impression was of blue-ness. Purple-black Nictus energy swirled around him, through him, oddly uneasy, as though it wasn't quite of him, the way it was for other Warshades.

He nodded to the redheaded Peacebringer. "Cousin."

Then he returned his attention to the Dapper Lad. "I assume that pull I felt earlier was you attempting to summon those you deemed 'appropriate'?" he questioned, not bothering to hide a bitingly sarcastic tone. "Still... the aether is disturbed, turbulence in the fourth dimension. Another day of fun and games for a time traveller, one supposes. At this rate, this timeline won't even reach the Coming Storm, much less beyond."

He shrugged, the motion bringing his right arm into the light for the first time and revealing it to be... well, what looked like the skeleton of a robot- a simple, bare-bones cyborg arm. "Well, Dappy... you've got the resources, and you've been staring into the void trying to get this sorted longer than me. I'll follow your lead. For now." the Warshade informed the grandfatherly time manipulator.

((Meet Tempus Fugitive. He is, as has been intimated, a Warshade, although he's a bit of an oddity; the joining didn't quite 'set' properly, so he's stronger in some ways, and weaker in others. Unless he's concentrating, he's got a pretty much perma-nictus-glow. I'll try and post a pic later (EDIT: okay, not too much later- here he is... sorry it's kind of dark, but it's enough to give you an idea, anyways), but he's got darker blue spots on his face, and long, kind of shaggy dark blue hair, and he's... well, kind of cyberpunk armoured. Looks like he's generally had a rough time of it. Also, he's sneering a bit at the moment, if you hadn't guessed, although that's mostly intimated by tone, since the lower half of his face is covered by a breather-mask))

((I'm interested in this one as well... I've sent you a PM about the character I was wanting to bring in, Plague))

Danny chuckled at the reptiloid's monologue, murmuring "Target Lad, y'sly dog, you got me monologuing!" under his breath. Louder, he commented "Aye, an' I'm sure tha' their snipers are terrible an' all, but..." his bow was out and an arrow loosed in pretty much the same motion, the arrow slapping into the wall on the far side of the room, having punched straight through a tree. If Acid's eyes were sharp, he'd notice that there was a fly cut neatly in half (lengthwise) and tumbling slowly out of the air, about halfway across the room.

"... well, I'm na' exactly defenseless, neh?" he finished. "So... a' sneaky-like t'th'radio room, smack th'big red button, an' then we go make some noise. Th'Coast Guard is like as not t'be expectin' trouble, wi' a distress signal on a glass-smooth sea, bu' no sense in lettin' 'em walk int'an ambush."

The little archer paused. "An' maybe we c'n shut down this sodding head-melter, too!" he yelled as another pulse hammered through his brainstem.

Danny offered Acid a very faint smirk so totally devoid of humour that the reptilloid was probably left wondering briefly if the kid was going to try and rip his throat out with his teeth. "Aye, an' callin' in th'Navy w'd work spectacular-like. Me an'... nae offense, miss... some woman who reeks o' drink, yellin' 'Ah, help us, th'boojums 're attackin' th'ship!'." He gave a sour shrug. "A kid an' a drunk tryin' t'convince folk tha' somethin' they dinnae believe in i' attackin'? Ye dinnae watch many movies, do ye?"

Then he gave Acid a shrewd look. "A civilian, neh?" he said thoughtfully. "If th'goons 're a' paranoid as y'say, y'might be safer wi' us, rather th'n just hangin' about hopin' they dinnae find y', since, powers or nae, y'look like a super." Then he shrugged again. "But t'isnae m'place t'comment, I suppose... still, y'said ye were an engineer? Got any 'tools' t'use against these Malta types? Y'said they use tech t'stop supertypes... can y'stop th'stoppers?"

Danny waved Alyssa off. "Better th'n I'll be in a while, when th'bloody head-melter gets stronger still." He gave Acid a watery-eyed glare. "An' what d'ye have t'do tha's more important than keepin' your brain fro' bein' turned t'slurry by the Malta goons?" he asked irritably. It wasn't entirely clear whether or not he'd even heard Acid's offer of a second shield, or if he simply preferred to rely on his Vanguard Medallion as a known quantity... or possibly even that he wasn't sure what would happen if he were to deactivate the medallion and accept the new shield (or simply put the new shield on over 'top', so to speak), but really didn't want to find out.

Then he smirked faintly at Alyssa. "Wi' th'number o' supertypes we seem t'have runnin' about on this bloody outsized tub, y'could prolly just get a few t'whistle up a whacking great storm for ye. Not that it'd matter much, mind... fro' what I've heard, this beastie ha' so many stabilizers tha' th'ocean'd have t'be flippin' upside down afore they so much as broke a dish..."