Twoflower

It took some days to find it, but I've finally found a good organic grocer in Port Oakes! I didn't like the looks of the Mercy Mart, I distinctly saw cockroaches in the aisles... it's a shame that the poor have to buy their food there. The Oakes grocer is a bit more expensive, but I've been running good jobs lately (even if I split the money with Mikey the Ear) and can afford it. I did buy a bit of a surplus, so I could hand some out to the homeless on Mercy Island.

To celebrate my nutritional find, I decided I'd take a hike up the grassy hillside in Port Oakes near the arena instead of just walking along the dirty sidewalks. I always feel better when I'm walking on grass than asphalt... it's probably got something to do with my mutation. Kind of like how I need more sunlight than I did before to feel whole and well...

As I was crossing the parking lot behind the grocery store, I spotted a bunch of people dancing around a radio someone had left on the hood of a car. Odd. I turned to listen, and it didn't sound particularly compelling, just some generic pop station...

Then the DJ broke in.

"Radio, RADIOOOOOO -- Radio Free Opportunity! We interrupt our non-stop Clear-Channel-Authorized mainstream music marathon to bring a verrrry special message of good tidings to an up and coming supervillain... she's cute as a button and about as small, it's FLORA FAIRCHILD!"

--which caused me to freeze in my tracks. I nearly dropped my cantalopes.

"We know you're out there, Flora! And we're here to help you on your path towards the future Kalinda's hinted at. You're lucky number 13 and this is your siren song of destiny! There's a special offer, a deal, a job, a thing for you to do and we here at Radio Free Opportunity are gonna help you do it--"

I didn't hear the rest, because I ran for it after that.

But running didn't help. The next day, I was shopping for clothes, and the muzak in the elevator started talking to me. Same thing... cheerfully goading me into doing evil, saying he had big plans for me. Nobody else heard it; I was the only one. I left the building and I started hearing it playing on car stereos, fading in and out as cars drove by me on the street... then it was playing from someone's TV that was left on too loudly in the apartment one floor up...

When it finally invaded my clock radio, I gave up.

It seemed like a simple enough job. I had to get some cannister from the Lost, and then deliver it somewhere. The Radio promised to leave me alone afterwards if I just did this one thing for it.

I was getting better at fighting. It was a matter of keeping up a fast pace, running around, throwing out some vines here, touching them with my mind there. I was still good at disabling a group of people without killing them; at worst they'd wake up with some cuts and scrapes and a headache. So, getting the cannister wasn't hard.

Next step was delivery. I had to hike across the greens of Port Oakes -- which I didn't mind, I always felt safer, stronger when walking on grass. But on the other side of that grassy knoll..? A submarine. What the..?

"Almost there, Flora! The hits just keep coming!" the speaker system on the apparently unmanned submarine spoke, as the craft lurched to life, hatch sealing. "Don't worry, Radio -- RADIOOOOOO! -- Radio Free Opportunity is at the helm, and the captain WILL go down with the ship, 'cause it's a submarine! So sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite music which we know you enjoy..."

I tried to push the weirdness back. I had been accosted by a voice only I could hear for days, I just wanted this over with. I wasn't going crazy. It was just a matter of getting this done and moving on with my life. ...and somehow it knew I loved Tori Amos and played a nice best-of selection while we were en route to.. wherever we were going.

Finally, the ship docked at an underground tunnel. I was given a crude map with four locations marked off; drop off one cannister in each place. It would be a new part of the Rogue Isles, no doubt -- you can only get around by ferry or helicopter, but I figured a submarine made sense, too. Right?

...it was odd, how clean this section of the isles was. And how many Longbow were walking around. I tried not to pay attention to it, sneaking around, avoiding trouble... I've been getting good at being stealthy. I managed to drop off all four, and then get back on the submarine.

I should have paid more attention.

I've said that before. Pay more attention to what people want you to do. Maybe it was just the voice pounding at me for days. Maybe it was influencing me. I just wanted it over, was that so wrong? Get some normality back into my life. Try to get a handle on things by pushing away the strangeness...

My clock radio chirped to life the next morning. Radio Free Opportunity was singing my praises after known bioterrorist Flora Fairchild successfully planted a Rikti mutagenic plague in Paragon City, cementing her status as a nefarious super criminal.

She continued her reign of terror by screaming and hurling her clock radio out of a five story window, shattering on the street below.

I haven't heard the radio speak to me since then. I haven't heard much. I've been hiding in my apartment, wishing the world would stop doing things like this to me. Especially since now, there was little chance I could ever go home again.

Erm... I can't quite understand what you're saying, Overstrike. I'm sorry. You want to hire me, or something..? I don't work for money. ...unless I'm broke and have no other choice. I'd rather avoid people who refer to law as 'blinders', too. Er, good luck in your efforts, though, and good day...

(Reposting the Foxtrot Company fiction from the beta boards. FC is a COV Supergroup on the Virtue server.)


...it's hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. All we know is that it was called the Children's Crusade.

Way it goes is that supposedly, hundreds of years ago, a boy who claimed to be touched by God tried to led twenty thousand children across the sea -- by walking across it, you understand, assuming it'd part and make way -- towards the holy lands of Jersualem. The idea was that being pure and righteous they could find their way without any adults and eventually reach a promised paradise.

Naturally, the sea didn't part, and they were forced to go by conventional transport; boats. Merchant boats. Run by merchants who basically sold them into slavery, starved them, or ditched them on foreign shores. Whatever was most profitable. The whole thing was a colossal failure of idealism and naivete.

Kids these days don't have the luxury of that kind of hope. I'm not talking the rich kids, living off Nickelodeon and Pepsi, having little to worry about except making sure they have the same cool clothes the other kids have. I'm talking about the REST of the world, where kids are seen as an inexhausible supply of labor. A reusable, renewable resource.

You really have to laugh when you see the Amnesty International statistics that show exactly how many minors are conscripted into the genocidal armies of third world dictator tribal warlord types. Kids given a gun and a little training and an order to fight for a cause they usually don't understand one bit. And the ones that do survive, well, what's left for them? All they know is how to fight and kill, and then they're tossed aside like any used up old soldier. It's a bleak joke with a flat punchline, just like the Children's Crusade.

--------------------

...it's hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. All we know is that it's called the Foxtrot Company.

The rules are simple.

There are always twenty five members of the Foxtrot Company, ranging in age from infanthood up to adulthood, which is pegged at roughly thirty years of age. The lost, the homeless, the child soldiers, the genocidally disposessed, they're all eligible for membership -- we recruit from the youth dead pool, from the ones that society has used up and discarded. Ones that have killed for the causes of others, and have nothing else in their lives, no purpose for their violence.

We bring them in and we show them how to fight for themselves, and for their friends. Not for some warlord, not for a drug kingpin half a world away, not for any god or priest or charismatic dictator. We stand together against the rest of the harsh, uncaring world... we're not victims anymore. Not scared little kids, so easily manipulated, so easily used up. We're soldiers and warriors and we are unstoppable.

But it can't last forever. Foxtrot is a phase of your life, a transition between being lost and finding yourself. It's said a Foxtrot simply KNOWS when it's time to leave, to go join the real world. Some stay until they're thirty. It's kinda case depending. Of course, there's the obvious exit, known as "a bullet in the head," so the ones that get out alive AND as adults are revered. The ones that crack and bug out young out of fear rather than wisdom are forgotten.

We take whatever jobs will keep us fed, keep us clothed, keep us happy; we have a semblance of a normal life due to our mutual support. To that end, we work as one well trained and well oiled unit. We're all used to violence, and we work to make each other better at it.

But we don't kill people like us, we don't kill kids, teenagers, we don't kill the young. Our clients know that. If we have to deal with people like us, they get the option to just walk away. And if our clients don't like that, we can take our money from dead hands just as easily as live ones, and they'll have to go through all twenty six of us if they want to have it any other way. The record to date, according to fact or fiction, is eleven. Some guy from Malta who wanted to hire us more permenantly and control us completely holds that record... but we had our revenge, took our pay, and found eleven more lost ones to fill the boots that were emptied. We won't be slaves anymore. Malta doesn't bother us now. Not worth the effort.

Together we're stronger than we are individually. We're an army. We're a family. Locked arm in arm, nothing can stop us. Nothing can phase us. We laugh at death because we aren't scared little naive kids anymore. We're Foxtrot.

--------------------

...it's not hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. After all, now we're talking about my own life.

I'm one of the few Foxtrots from America. I wasn't raised in the middle of a tribal war, but I was taught how to clean and field strip a gun at an early age, because I was an army brat. Military father, discontent mother. I loved one and hated the other, and she hated us both, particularly because I loved him.

He was strong, but caring. Fierce, but compassionate. He's what Kurtz from Apocalypse Now considered 'moral, but amoral,' capable of being both at once and being incredibly effective in life as a result. He defended his country with pride and without hesitation, because he loved me.

Mom didn't care. She drank a lot. She'd throw bottles and scream. He'd try to placate her, to make things work for all of us, and it just didn't work. I don't know why they didn't divorce. Other kids my age were sent into depression by divorce, but it would've been sweet relief for me.

(I was a very odd child, more grown-up than others. I didn't care about silly things. I think dad's the reason why. He was so strong, so together, so collected. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be more mature. Not like some little stupid kid...)

One day dad was on an overseas assignment he couldn't talk about and he was killed in action. We weren't told how, or where, or why. That's just the nature of the missions he ran. At his funeral, I didn't cry, and I saluted him during the twenty one guns. Afterwards, I cried. I was still young, after all. Still a little stupid kid, in a lot of ways.

If Mom was bad before, she got worse after. Child services took me away from her after the incident with the cigarette burns and me threatening to kill her with the gun I took from Dad's cabinet. I went to live with my uncle after that, which goes to show how much adults really care; child services didn't look at this guy real closely. I'm not going to say what happened, except that I wouldn't let him do the things he wanted to do, and I took a stand just like dad taught me to.

I killed him. It beat the alternative. I ran after that and hid, not sure where else I could go.

At this point I was done with the adult world. I had no family left that I loved, and my country had turned on me, the media labelling me a 'thrill kill' teenager (since they didn't know the truth). I became the poster girl for an overly violent society because they found my video game collection. I hated them because they didn't understand, they didn't care, they didn't CARE that they didn't understand. I had perfectly valid reasons for what I did, I wasn't some stupid kid, but they lumped me in with those idiots from Columbine anyway.

That night, while I was hiding out in this crappy industrial sector where I had to avoid the gangs and derranged homeless guys, I stumbled across Foxtrot. Or rather, they stumbled across me.

--------------------

I'd been hiding out in some oil refinery storage shed when the CEO happened to be doing some inspections. Or maybe he was secretly dumping toxic waste during the dead of night. I really don't know what he was doing there -- just that after he found me and had his boys rough me up a little for tresspassing and daring to be small and supposedly defenseless. I was probably dead meat, but fortunately for me, some guys in black dropped out of nowhere and took them out in a hail of gunfire. I figured I was dead too... until I noticed they were MY age...

They left immediately, since sirens were approaching, and I bailed too. But a few days later, one of them contacted me. They offered me a role in Foxtrot, a way out of being a fugitive and a victim. They explained the rules. They promised nothing but loyalty and a chance to find myself. I accepted.

My callsign's Foxtrot Charly. It's supposed to be Charlie, but I really like this song by The Prodigy, and I really liked that movie about the retarded guy. The other Foxtrots were cool with me changing it, so I did.

My days in the company were great. Half the time I'd be training for team tactical ops, something I'd never done before. The other half of the time we'd be trying to be normal kids -- playing video games, telling jokes, watching movies. Even when we had to go mobile for an op we'd bring along some game consoles to help pass the time.

Not everybody could laugh. Some were more hurt than others -- victims of sexual abuse, kids modified by corps like the Crey to have super powers, and so on. Real problems, even harsher than my own. Ones they had trouble really coming to grips with.

Part of being in Foxtrot was being aware that a kid is not designed to deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis, so the stronger ones had to help the weaker ones get stronger. Knowing yourself was important. I had it easier; other than some anger control issues, I was okay. But during my tenure, I had to watch two of us break down completely. They became Anonymous Foxtrot, aka left at a mental health facility anonymously. We hate having to do that, but we can only do so much.

--------------------

I was with them a few years before the incident in Paragon. Normally we avoid Paragon because of the high spandex factor. It's hard to predict what the capes will do, what they're capable of...

I was nabbed in Paragon because I forgot that some of the capes can phase-shift and not have to worry about gunfire at all. After that, he used some energy technique to paralyze me, and I woke up in the Zig. Terrific.

If he knew who my target was, he wouldn't have stopped me. The guy was a corporate CEO, just a rival my client wanted taken out... but he was also a toucher. Foxtrot is always business, never personal, but sometimes it's business AND personal. Those contracts are ESPECIALLY fun because you get to work out some repressed anger...

But getting back to being nabbed. I was tried as an adult, because they said I was a psychopath with no morals and no remorse. Which is kind of what you have to be when you're an assassin, or else you'll go insane... but the real reason they were so hard on me was to try and get me to hand over my brothers and sisters. The agent (I think her name was Indigo) who was REALLY in charge of the case told me it wasn't her idea to lean on me heavily, but that she knew of Foxtrot just as well as she knew of Malta, and she wanted to help us. Help us by destroying us, probably.

So here I was, a fifteen year old paramilitary brat in the Zig, which is a pretty bad thing since there are freaky old guys in here who do really sick things. I wasn't expecting to stay long, though. Foxtrot Company won't stand for one of our own being held against our will. You are either safe or dead with Foxtrot, there are no inbetweens; we don't tolerate people who want to capture and use us.

Oddly, though, the Company didn't rescue me -- Arachnos did. These guys were really creepy, but very professional, very slick. I had to respect that. Plus, they were getting me out of the country, to a place with no extradition laws -- the Rogue Isles.

I got in touch with Foxtrot soon after the helicopter landed. We collectively decided it might be a good idea to station some troops here; just me and Tango at first, until we scout the island out a bit more. If we could establish a real home, somewhere safe that welcomes us, it'd be helpful. It'd be better than constantly moving our operations. Here, there are contacts willing to hire us. Here, there are fewer restrictive laws. Here, the ones that want to hurt us can't reach us.

We don't really trust Arachnos, but for the time being, this looks like a good place to call home. We'll take root and grow stronger. We'll support each other and strike back at the world. We'll live up to the promise of the Foxtrot Company, and one day, we'll be found.

Until then, we fight.

---------------------

For official CNN transcripts, please visit CNN.com. Transcript for 10/4/2005 5:47PM EST follows.

WOLF: This is Wolf Blitzer, and we are in the Situation Room -- Reporting live on a scenario unfolding in Germany, where police have surrounded the compound of suspected neo-nazi cult leader Hanz Wulfgang. The situation is a tense standoff between Germany's version of SWAT teams and the heavily armed cultists.

A dozen hostages, taken from a school bus en route to morning kindergarten, are reportedly being held in the basement of the compound. Demands have been issued, including live television broadcasting of Wulfgang's facist views, and safe passage from the compound via helicopter to an airport, where his followers will be sent by plane to a country with no extradition laws.

Also included in the demands list is the promise that one child would be executed every hour that these demands are not met. The list was, I'm told, sent along with the body of the first hostage. We--

--we are now seeing fire errupting from the second floor of the compound, I am told, I am told that the police have not engaged and have not opened fire. As you can see from the news chopper there is definitely fire coming out of the window-- three windows now.

Gunshots are being fired, but they're internal, repeat, internal, no rounds have been fired at the police camped around the building...

There, zoom in there, we have a figure running out of the building--

That appears to have been a landmine, perhaps part of the cult's defensive perimeter, although we at CNN don't have any reports of such ordinance being deployed by anyone in this conflict. How it got there is anyone's guess--

More followers are escaping, those are definitely not the hostages, and...

Zoom in there. ...are we seeing that right? What kind of lens is being used?

This is the Situation Room, and you are in fact seeing... what seems to be masked men of four to five feet in height gunning down the escaping cultists in broad daylight. I'm told the police are moving in immediately to contain the chaos and determine what's going on, there's the possibility that this is some seperate cell of the terrorists...

...those look a lot like kids to me. That can't be right. Are we sure it's not a distortion on the lens? Some image scaling problem--?

--smoke rising from what seems to have been a smoke bomb. Our cameras are obscured, we'll try to get a ground view from one of the German reporters currently on the scene, perhaps... no, we're still obscured there...

We're scheduled to take a break, but I'm told we'll present the situation commercial free from here on in. This is the Situation Room, after all.

...yes, the smoke appears to be clearing, and...

...and if you have small children watching you would be advised to ask them to leave the room before we show the next shot. It appears Wulfgang's followers are dead, and the children have been led out the back of the building and are now safe in police custody. The carnage in front of the building, however, is not a sight that... well. Viewer discretion is advised.

Is that..? I'm seeing some sort of graffiti on the side of the building, can we get confirmation if that was there prior to this incident or not..? Some sort of insignia... looks like F-O-X--

--and our feed seems to have been cut off for some reason.

We'll have more on this situation as it develops. Although it seems, for now, the worst of it is over.

We do not believe Fox News is involved.

(Reposting an edited compendium of all the Flora Fairchild posts that were made to the Beta Boards. Whee! I'll add to these as her wacky adventures continue. If anybody wants to 'email' her in this thread, feel free.)


How could this be happening..?!

Just two weeks ago I was perfectly happy with my boring little life. I had a boring little apartment in Steel Canyon, and a boring little job at a local flower shop which let me ride my boring little bike to work and take care of boring little plants all day long. I was perfectly happy living a life of unimportance, just being another citizen heroes see walking to and fro. This is all I really wanted out of life...

But I'd been ignoring the weird sickness for a few weeks now. It was easy to miss, since it always went away when I went outside in the sunshine -- or when I had a refreshing glass of water. I had a little green pallor to my skin but I assumed it wasn't anything big...

Then, Wednesday.

I noticed it happening. A flower arrangement I was working on started to bloom, and I thought, oh, that's very pretty. ...wait, why is that happening when they've already had their stems cut and are technically dead..?

I don't remember a whole lot after that, except I hear the newspapers had some great photos of the vines and plants that swamped Blyde Square. Positron himself was fighting them off to keep them from hurting people... and it could've been so much worse without him doing that!

But the problem was that the mayor's son was riding his SUV around Steel Canyon at the time... and the sudden flood of vines destroyed it. He got mad. Really mad. And I found myself arrested under some anti-bioterrorism law... just because my latent mutant control over plants had finally manifested and gone wild.

A few mutant heroes were ready to testify in my behalf, saying it was just an accident -- but my own boss, who saw mutants as abominations before God, claimed I had been obviously planning to overthrow the city! I was a nobody, he was a local businessman with a perfect reputation who went to church every Sunday. Between that and the political strings pulled... I was suddenly facing ten to fifteen years in the Zig...

I was okay with that. Honestly, okay. I'd just keep my head down and wait for my lawyer to file the appeal. It was just a big mistake. Surely they'd understand in the long run, right? Everything was going to be alright...

Next Wednesday was worse than the previous one.

I woke up in my cell to hear sirens and rioting. I immediately hid under my bed and prayed that it'd all go away... and I found myself being hauled out by guys in strange helmets. They said they were from Arachnos and I had some sort of destiny. I tried to pull away, to get back to my cell, but they were too strong -- and I still couldn't summon my plants at will yet. I was too weak...

A young hero who frequented my flower shop, Haley Somerset, tried to save me. But they just clubbed her with those weird energy weapons, tossed me in their jet, and flew off...

...and now here I am. The Rogue Isles. Rumored to be full of evil and horror and human atrocity... and the rumors are right. What's worse, they want me to be just like them. The crazy lady from Arachnos laughed at me when I asked when I could go home -- now I'm not only a convicted bioterrorist, I'm a fugitive from justice with ties to an international criminal organization! I can't return to Paragon City ever again, she said. But I could work for them, and they'd house me, and feed me, and...

...and I ran.

Everybody here wants to kill me. There are gangsters and snake monsters and even the homeless people, sick from the water, attack me on sight. Even if I can somehow draw energy from the sun and from water, I'm still so hungry I can't stand it. I don't know how much longer I can hold out. Nobody gets by on this island without Arachnos's favor. One way or another... I know I'm going to have to go back to them and do what they want. It's either that or I'll die...

There's been a mistake. I'm not supposed to be here. I want to go home.

My name's Flora Fairchild. If you see my mother, please tell her I'm doing okay. I don't want her to worry.

--------------

Even when I try to make things better, they just get worse...

I decided there was no way around it... I'd have to deal with Arachnos eventually. I've made a few friends living in the shantytowns, but it's clear most of these people are not going to live long. It's a miracle they got this far. I just want to feel safe and comfortable... like I did back in my boring life. Is that such a bad thing? I don't have the strength to live like this anymore...

But first... I'd need to get a handle on how my powers work. Hopefully, without turning a whole city block into a jungle. I'd heard that sometimes, mutants have extreme episodes when they first manifest, then you slowly work your way back up there... I can do it. I'm a hard worker when I have to be.

The question was, who would I start with? I don't WANT to fight anyone. I don't want to hurt anyone. But... I DO see Hellions and Skulls around. They're criminals, right? I've been accosted by Hellions on my ride to work in Steel Canyon, now and then. So... I could start with them. It'd be like I was a hero.

At first they just laughed at me; I mean, my clothes were pretty ragged, I was so thin, I didn't look like much of a hero. When they started suggesting the various things they could do this 'stupid chick', well... that's when it happened. Vines errupting from the ground, entangling one of the two, making him helpless. Yeah! I did it! Except... well, there were TWO of them and I could only trap one...

I panicked. I shouted, GET AWAY! as loud as I could... and oddly, this.. it's hard to describe. This bolt of pink energy flew from my head and struck him, and he fell! It felt so strange, like I turned that thought into a weapon, or something...

I knew I was just starting out. I was going to run away after I could prove that I could do SOMETHING, not wanting to try a long battle just yet. Fortunately, some of the Rogue Isles police officers jogged onto the scene. I thanked them, and said what those two had been threatening to do to me, and... and the cops shot at me! They were laughing as they started firing at all of us, me and the Hellions!

What else could I do? I ran for it. They followed, of course, shouting "You have the right to get your butt kicked!" and other mockeries of the law...

...saved! Longbow agents! I'd heard of them, they were bringing the light of Paragon city to the Rogue Isles. Perfect! They'd save me, bring me home, let me see my mother again, let me settle back into my boring job...

I waved for their attention, begging for help.

"Halt, villain!" they shouted. And then THEY opened fire.

I barely got out alive. I got shot several times -- thankfully the cops, the Longbow agents, even the Hellions all got into one massive fray and I was able to sneak away, to hide under a shack, and wait for them to leave. I felt for sure I was going to die, bleeding from wounds, but... once I got back into the sunlight, and could take a few deep breaths... slowly, they healed. It still hurt a lot, but I was going to live.

...I wasn't going to live unless I worked for Arachnos. Nobody else on the island would help me, could help me. They just wanted me dead.

------------------

At least at Point Darwin, nobody's actively trying to kill me. No, instead, they're just helpfully trying to make me into a supervillain.

It's creepy, the way they act. At times the 'fortunata', as they call her, sees great things for me and wants to help me -- then she'll turn around and say if I die like a weakling she won't care one bit. She's been asking me to perform tasks lately, things to get into the good graces of Arachnos. I was afraid at first that they'd want me to murder innocent people or something, but... no, they just wanted help with the snakes.

The snakes are horrible. I don't know how they got the way they are but they're vicious monsters, attacking hero, villain, and helpless citizen alike. The homeless people I've been living with (temporarily) talk about them in hushed tones. So... I guess I don't mind fighting them. It's almost heroic, really, because the less snakes, the less people have to be afraid.

Not that it helps MY fear when I go into one of their 'holes' and fight them directly. Bones lying everywhere, probably from other villains who-- no, I'm not a villain. Probably from other PEOPLE who tried to fight them. But somehow, I manage. It's not easy. I've learned how to spread vines to other enemies, but only if they're close together, and it just holds them in place -- they can still throw knives. But it's a start.

I even helped out some Arachnos folks cleaning out snakes from a public square! I hate to think what would've happened if those monsters got loose like that. I know Arachnos are evil, I know they want to rule the world... but people also want to live in safety and peace. They wouldn't be fighting the snakes if they didn't care about that. Right..?

...but then, one day, Kalinda gave me a mission that didn't involve snakes. She wanted me to kill the blighted who had settled into a power station.

I know the blighted. Some of their sickest and weakest members stayed with the homeless people, clearly only a few days from death... others wandered around attacking anyone they saw. It's because of the water, people explained to me... it's so polluted that it infects people with a sickness that drives them mad. I wasn't affected, probably because of my mutation, but I had sympathy for them. Those poor people...

I wouldn't kill them. I wouldn't even beat them down to unconsciousness, like I usually do. I had a plan. All Arachnos wanted was for them to leave the power station, right..?

So... I walked into the building... and the first group I saw, I entangled in my strongest vines. But I didn't attack after that; I moved to the next group, and the next, locking them down... I ran as fast as I could, trying to get the attention of the whole building, trying to dodge thrown rocks and gunfire and worse. I had to have all of them angry at me...

...before I ran out the door, ducked around the corner, and hid under a pile of scrap I'd prepared just for this purpose.

The infected streamed out of the building, screaming mind-sick revenge, running around randomly trying to find me. Within a minute... the building was empty. Mission complete.

It's not going to be easy, trying to stick to my morals while living here. I won't always be able to find the best way out of a situation like I did here. I have a bad feeling that eventually, I'm really going to be the villain they want me to be, for lack of a better choice. But whenever I can, whenever I see a way, I'm going to do things right.

--------------------

...creepy. Absolutely creepy, that's what this fortunata from Arachnos is.

I managed to track down Syrus, leader of the snakes. Or at least, the snakes I was fighting -- they're not organized enough to have one leader, I bet. I actually felt a little excitement when fighting him, not just in a "oh no oh no I'm gonna die" way, but a rush since I was really working hard to use my new powers to take care of a big problem on this island. That evening when I returned to my makeshift shack on Mercy I got some thank yous from the local homeless, who had seen a few less snake attacks since.

But Arachnos, their joy at my victory was.. unsettling. She acknowledged how reluctant I was, but felt confident that in time I could be the destined one, that I'd come around to their way of thinking eventually. And then... she kissed the back of my hand. I felt an immediate need to take a shower, after that. Several. Unfortunately running water isn't something they have around here.

She did say, though, that if I work with this guy named Mongoose that they could find me somewhere to stay in Mercy itself, the city above the garbage dump where the homeless live. ...I don't know. I feel the need to stay and defend these poor souls, but... I just want a roof over my head. A REAL one. Maybe I grow in sunlight and rain like a plant now but I want a real bed, too, and real food...

I found Mongoose in the plaza I had previously cleaned out of Snakes with the Arachnos troops. He was really knee-slappingly amused to see me, having heard about my reputation as a 'reluctant villain'. So of course, he gave me a job that he knew I'd hate... robbing a bank. Robbing. A. BANK. The most standard nasty evil thing a bad guy can do. It felt... cliche. And it didn't feel like ME at all.

I told him I'd think about it -- he smirked, knowing I'd be back.

I talked it over with Old Joe, one of the homeless. He mentioned that the banks are run by the same consortium that funds the corrupt cops... basically nothing around here is pure, not the air, the water, the banks, the government, nothing. He was actually ENCOURAGING me to rob this bank... but I think I know why.

Old Joe's heard me talking of Paragon, and of how I wish I had a normal life again. He knows I don't really want to be homeless. Bless his soul, he's encouraging me to do evil, and to leave him and his people... because he wants what's best for me. He'd rather I be happy than suffering out of some noble cause on his behalf.

That's why I decided to do it. But I'd do it my way.

First, I picked a late hour when I was sure there'd be nobody there but the guards. Second, I tried to sneak in as much as I could... that flopped. But I was able to disable the guards in a tense showdown, with waves of reinforcements dropping in constantly while my weak vines pulled at the bank vault door. It was difficult... I almost got clobbered. But I managed.

Mongoose told me how much he wanted. So I stole about 20% more than that, pocketing it quickly. My first stop was to Old Joe, on the way to Mongoose... where I quietly slipped the extra money into his shopping bags, while he was asleep. I delivered the rest to Mongoose.

I think he knew I had kept some of it; he winked at me when he accepted his cut. But he doesn't know WHERE it went. I'd never keep that money. No matter how badly off I am, I don't need it as much as the homeless do.

I'm going to be moved to a shelter in Mercy tomorrow. I'll sleep in a real bed. And with any luck, some day soon, Old Joe will find his way up here as well. Even if I have to do evil, I'm going to find some way to sneak in the good. It's the only way I can live with myself.

--------------------

I finally have a little apartment of my own. And I do mean little. It's barely a closet, the walls are rotting away, and there are roaches... but. I used my powers to add a little creeper kudzu outside, and I have a windowsill flowerbox. As for how I got some color, some true blooming floral color in this grey and miserable place... well, that's a story onto itself.

I saw a citizen being harassed by some Skulls. Since I was out and about that day trying to practice my powers, to get used to them... I jumped to the rescue. Afterwards the lady they were hassling assumed I was going to shake her down for money instead, or that I wanted praise for my power, and so on... I actually had to work for a few minutes to convince her I honestly didn't want anything from her, I just felt I had to do something. I don't think people here are used to heroes, aside from the red and white wearing machine gun toting shoot anything that moves kind. ...how could Longbow call themselves heroes when they're just here to hunt anything that looks at them funny?!

Anyway, it turns out the woman I saved? She had a tip on a shipment of horticulture supplies that were coming into Port Oakes. ...maybe this is kind of villany of me, but... well... I stole some. Not much! Just some seedlings, and a spade, and a watering can and... things like that. I didn't take any of the food crops that were going to be planted. I'd never steal food. I just.. I really wanted some COLOR around. Is that so wrong..?

Anyway, I now had a genuine flowerbox, with all sorts of color, and it was one happy little spot in my otherwise dreary life. It was enough to keep me going. I even plucked a flower to bring to Mikey the Ear, a contact that Mongoose had recommended I visit while he lined up more work for me.

I explained to Mikey the Ear what sorts of jobs I wanted -- I wanted to practice being a hero. He looked at me like I was out of my mind, of course... I think maybe bringing him a flower as a gesture of goodwill just creeped him out even more. But eventually he laughed it off and explained the code system he would use in the newspaper to tell me about work being offered. The more jobs I pulled, he explained, the more respect I'd get and the more I'd move up in this world. ...not that I really needed to climb some social ladder. I just wanted to be safe. Secure. That's not bad, right? It's okay to want to be safe. Right. ...even if it meant beating up a lot of people to do it.

But it's okay! Because they were ALL bad. I tracked down gangsters, and thugs, and villains and snakes and more. I tried to focus on the missions against some of the more wicked groups in the area -- I ignored the hero groups like the Legacy Chain. ...I doubt they would have wanted to see me, anyway. I'm just a villain to them, like the Longbow agents. But I figured, if I steer clear, they won't mess with me and I won't have to stand in the way of their good works.

...and then yesterday, I saw a mission that just made me see red. I mean. Not literally. I don't like getting angry. But... well...

It was a hero. A hero I remembered reading about in the news back in Paragon. He'd come to the islands to be a bad guy! He gave up his cape, enlisted with the Mooks, and was ready to contribute to the problem instead of contributing to the solution. I couldn't understand it, how could someone who once spread so much relief and joy turn on us all..? Turn on society. Turn on those who believed in him...

I left my apartment and went straight for the hideout Drea the Hook had pointed me to. And then it was... no. I won't say it was a slaughter, I don't kill anyone. My vines knock them out with toxins, that's all. But when I got to the 'hero' at last, I really... I kind of wanted to. I had to resist, especially when he laughed at me, accusing me of wanting to knock him off so I could take his spot in the island's chain of respect. Earning respect by hurting people. Moving up the ladder.

I dropped him and ran away.

I'm not trying to do that. I don't want people to be afraid of me, I don't want people gunning for me because I'm supposedly tough and strong. I just... all I want is to be safe. I was told the best way to do that was to show them you weren't weak, that's what all the Arachnos people said... what ARACHNOS said. I believed a supervillain. I'm doing what they wanted me to do all along...

This can't be happening to me. I don't know what I should do. If I don't fight, they'll hurt me. If I fight, they'll hurt me. How can anyone live like this? What did I ever do to deserve this..?

I sat down on my bed, near my stolen flowers, and cried until I fell asleep.

---------------------

Friday. Sunny. I had a good day today.

Mikey the Ear dropped me a line about Jake Emmet was in town, the designer of that great PC game, 'Freedom Phalanx'. I played that game a lot back in Steel Canyon! It was great fun, and I made a lot of friends online. I got a little tired of all the whining on the forums about 'nerfing', but really, the game is more important than some silly bulletin boards, right? Right.

Problem was, the Mooks were targeting him because he made them look bad in the game. Mikey noted that a couple other villains in the city knew about this... and planned to get to Jake first, and kidnap him. If I wanted to save him, I'd have to act fast.

I ran as quickly as I could to Port Oakes, to the software company where Jake was working. I couldn't afford to just tangle everybody up in vines, grab Jake, and run -- if I tried that I'd have to fight them on the way OUT as well! So it was a slow haul through the building, sneaking around corners, ambushing Mooks with vines and browbeating them into submission with my mental powers.

When I finally got to Jake I had about half a second to explain that I was a really big fan and no, I wasn't about to sell him to Arachnos or anything. Then it was a fight back to the door, with Jake staying out of sight while I tiptoed through unconscious Mooks I fought on the way in -- as well as dealing with the reinforcements.

Finally, we got to the door, and snuck out of there. Jake asked me why I helped, now that we had time to talk... I explained who I was, who I wanted to be. I even asked him if he could try to put in a good word for me when he got back to Paragon... but then Jake told me that the news had been playing me up as the 'escaped bioterrorist with ties to Arachnos'. There was no way even a famous game designer could put a dent in THAT bad press.

I don't know how I'm going to overcome that label. I've had Mikey putting his ear on the street, seeing if there's anything I can do, some task, some trial that will redeem me in the eyes of Paragon city... but he said it could be awhile before an opportunity arose. There were 'issues' involved.

Hopefully, one day, I can leave this place where I have to struggle every day to do the right thing... until then... at least I have a few shining moments where I can feel like this skinny little boring girl actually made a difference.

-----------------------

I have to learn to pay more attention. I HAVE to learn to pay more attention.

I was working with a man whose family had been wronged by the Council in the past. That sentence alone is very tragic, but I didn't notice at first he was talking about his CRIME family -- as in mafia, organized crime. Once again, I was helping a bad guy fight other bad guys...

But that was okay, right? The Council are definitely, absolutely bad guys, and taking them down a peg is a heroic thing. Heroes do it in Paragon all the time; I would read about how hidden Council bases underneath my hometown would be flushed out by teams of heroes routinely. They were foreign combatants, and under the Patriot Act, legitimately taken down. ...of course, that was back when they were Nazis. You know where you stand with Nazis. I mean, they were at least German, right? Although I'd also heard most of their recruits nowadays were americans... and after they became the Council, well, it just got more confusing, but... anyway! Evil. Yeah. They're evil. So using my powers against them is good.

Right?

I fought a number of missions, even taking out one of their 'vampyrs' which is really just another name for a scary genetic freak thing that has sharp teeth. I don't think they really drink blood. At least, not mine, but that's because I was holding him still in tangle vines so he wouldn't touch me. ...I'm sidetracking.

Finally he said he'd found the traitor who wronged his family, so, go here, beat up everybody in the Council base. It's a really standard mission, I barely paid attention when he gave it to me. All these bases look alike and they're all full of Council folks, so it's almost like sleepwalking, you just... give in and let the vines do their work.

Last room in the base, I saw my target; some Archon, a high ranking Councilfolk. ...but he wasn't wearing a uniform. He was just in plain clothes. Strange.

I started to fight, and he shouted some things, and I did my usual thing. He had a shotgun, but I'd been getting better at tangling up people before they can shoot at me. He'd struggle against the vines and yell at me, but it was, I hate to say it, a foregone conclusion...

...and right before he fell unconscious, he apologized. Not to me, but to some other person. A woman's name.

My contact was thrilled. Apparently, I'd just taken out his archrival -- and while I was doing that, he'd kidnapped the man's daughter, with intent to remake her into an instrument of vengance and then dispose of her. I'd just put him back on top of his game and turned over an innocent girl to his clutches while I was out playing hero.

I had no idea what to say. I was just... staring at him, speechless, while he gloated and laughed and complimented me on my great work. I guess I eventually walked away. Next thing I remembered was crying into my pillow in my little apartment on Mercy Island.

This isn't how it was supposed to be. If I have to have these powers, if I have to be in this place, can't I use them for good? Why is it whenever I try to do something right, to make the world a better place, things actually end up getting worse? I started getting excited about having powers, that maybe even though I never asked for them, I could do something with them that would... I don't know. I just... it doesn't make any sense...

I should have paid more attention. I should've realized I wasn't doing the right thing, I was helping someone who didn't deserve that help. In the end, all I really helped was myself... improving my powers. So next time, I can go out and beat up evil to help evil more effectively, I guess.

I want to go home. I don't like what this place is doing to me. And I don't like who I'm becoming in order to let this place do things to me.

-----------------------

Pay attention to your work. Be more choosy when accepting assignments. Be mindful...

I've never been a very disciplined person, but I don't think that's because I'm innately lazy. I just think I never had a reason to be disciplined before. I mean, think about it -- before my life was turned upside down, the biggest concern in my day would be if I wore those cute sandals I bought the other day or if I stuck to trainers before heading off to work. There just wasn't much to worry about. Life could be taken care of with minimal effort... go grocery shopping. Pay the bills. Make dinner. Get enough sleep. Easy, easy.

In the Rogue Isles, it's not that easy. Every day you have to deal with some new challenge, even if it's not a mission. You have to watch out for your own interests even more than in Paragon -- it's not just a matter of people not watching out for you, it's a matter of people actively working against you, even total strangers, if they think they could benefit from hurting you...

Where am I going with this? I get sidetracked so easily. I have to focus. I have to have some discipline. I know I have it, it's just a muscle I haven't had to exercise lately... watching out for your interests. Right.

Case example.

I stopped talking to Mr. Bocon when I realized he was setting me up to do things... things like the incident with the Council recently, where I started hating myself for unwittingly making the world a worse place. Mikey the Ear, though, he understands me and knows what missions I want. I've been working for him ever since... focusing on stealing powerful items away from people who would abuse them. Superadyne formulas, magical artifacts, blueprints for weapons... I'd like to think I'm making a difference by keeping these things off the streets.

The problem was, I had to put all this junk I was getting somewhere. I tried to leave a cache of it where I knew a Longbow squad would run over it... hoping the heroes would confiscate it without spotting me and attacking me on sight. Unfortunately, they got jumped by some Arachnos troops, and I had to sneak around the edge of the battle to retrieve my plastic bag of contraband before it got spotted. After that, well... what else can I do? I've been taking to burying it in a grassy patch behind my apartment building.

...which hasn't gone unnoticed. I have this neighbor by the name of the Sinister Icy Black Hand of Death. Seriously. Although he's not all that bad, despite the bad complexion and outfit made of leather straps "Call me Floyd," he suggested to me the day we met, before offering a cup of tea and conversation. We've been, well, not friends exactly but... chummy. And that's why, chummy-like, he asked me today about my gardening.

I tried to pretend I was planting a tree back there, but he wasn't buying it. As much as I value honesty, I knew telling him about the cache was a bad idea -- the guy was a villain, even if he wasn't really mean or cruel about it, and hearing him cheerfully brag about his latest schemes was an uncomfortable thing to smile and nod my head through. What could Floyd do with my personal stash of powerful items..? I shuddered to think.

So, that night, after I thought Floyd had gone to sleep... I snuck downstairs with my garden spade and started to dig it up. I'd just have to find a new hiding place...

...except the cache was gone. And so was Floyd; I noticed his door was ajar when I got back upstairs. He'd cleaned out and left.

In the newspaper the next day, when I was flipping through to find the coded jobs from Mikey the Ear, I read about how an up and coming supervillain named the Sinister Icy Black Hand of Death had just taken out a Longbow squadron... using a never before seen weapon, a magical amulet, and while hopped up on a new variant of Superadyne. All the loot I had stowed away.

You can't trust anybody but yourself. That's the lesson these islands are trying to teaching me, that's Lord Recluses motto. I don't want to learn that lesson, I'd like to think that there's SOMEONE I can trust on this island... Mikey, for example. But Mikey deals with villains every day. What if, one day, he got sick of the little girl who wants to play hero, and sells me out..?

All I want is one friend. Someone I can trust. But if things like this keep happening, I'm worried I'll lose the ability to trust. It'll be replaced by discipline, instead. The discipline to look out for yourself and yourself alone.

Morning Misa

Player: Twoflower
Server: Virtue

Oddly enough, her backstory had her as an Icon model from day one of playing her months ago...

[ QUOTE ]
This is easy. There are only 4 AT's planned for COV last I heard so I'm betting money that the last one isn't true.

[/ QUOTE ]

What, and they can't change their mind and add one more AT? If anything it'd make more sense, 5 evil ATs that roughly map against the 5 good ATs. Brute=tanker, stalker=scrapper, enforcer=defender, mastermind=controller, so what's a blaster..?

There's no confirmation that's how it works, but I don't think much weight can be put in the number 4 as being rock solid, either. It's certainly more credible than mimes.

[ QUOTE ]
You could always vote for the third party, Manticore/Weirdbeard.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you vote Manticore/Weirdbeard, though, you're just throwing your vote away and practically supporting Recluse/Cuppajoe. Especially in the important swing servers, like Virtue and Justice. And don't even get me started on the voter fraud when 8,000 ballots delivered to King's Row went "missing."

We won't know who won the election until the Paragon City Council does a recount in three weeks, anyway. And then Geko will nerf voting.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't mean to get partisan, but I am going with Lord Recluse & CuppaJo today. Their vision of the future just fits better with my ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I think Lord Recluse's choice of CuppaJo as a running mate (brainwashed by his scary PVP powers into being a tool of darkness) was the wrong move for the Evil Party platform. It's better to have someone innately evil, who believes in the evil cause, than a turned hero that'll just get rescued in issue four.

I'd rather support a Recluse/Geko ticket. After all, Geko nerfed accuracy, right? EVIL!

Holy cow, they're in Atlas and Galaxy? Level 5 is nothing to sneeze at when you're slogging through there early on...

Man, now I wish my characters weren't so RP-focused on King's Row. They're all too high level to justify defending their homefront...

Kudos to the devs for making this an event ANY level range can enjoy! The rikti invasion was only for higher-ups... this way we'll have less hospital spammage.

[ QUOTE ]
I am checking the energy readings... I've got interdimensional energy spikes all across the board, and although it looks like it is levelling off, I don't see them falling anytime soon. If anything they are growing in magnitude.

[/ QUOTE ]

...levelling off but growing in magnitude? How is that physically possible? *cough* Then again, Pos is the genius scientist in the techie armor, I shouldn't argue with a PHD...

Excellent! Once the wage slaves get off work, we'll be there to protect Paragon. DFB will hit Talos, since most of our folks are ranked for security clearances in the twenties, maybe sidekick a few to our thirties for Brickstown work... good to know everybody can be useful, not just the uppers.