Tyrantula

The Great One had done something to the door to the basement. He was some kind of steel worker at his hateful job, and he had rigged some kind of closure on the door after I entered it. I would see later on that he had reinforced the whole inside of the basement so I couldn’t get out. Nice of him wasn’t it? He decided to beat me by beating down the only thing he couldn’t physically hurt. My spirit. It almost worked too. I spent the first three days down there trying to get out, yelling and screaming and breaking things against thick steel plates. He was kind enough, and I say that with the utmost humor, to have a small square hole cut into the door frame for the cellar so he could let me eat. I really think he might have cared. There was already a bathroom down there, he had put one on the year before. After a time I was beginning to think that the plan didn’t call for me in the beginning. I had what I needed to survive, but what he wouldn’t let me have was my freedom. I counted my days there one by one, and I would seriously be lying if I said that I didn’t have days when I thought I was going nuts. In four years I think would have driven anyone insane, but I had one person with me who would save me from the rigors of being alone. My mother.

My mother, before she became the zombie like creature that I recalled, had been some kind of school teacher. Down in the basement were boxes upon boxes of books of all types, from grade school to junior high to college courses. More than enough to satisfy even the most picky of scholars. There were books from the entire range of subjects, from Western Philosophy to Advanced Calculus to Choo Choo The Tiny Train. Among them were her notebooks, from what I gathered she had once taught at pretty much all levels of school systems.

So by the light of one single white dirty bulb, I read, and I learned.

Four years takes it’s toll on anyone, even someone who is classified as a mutant. I even learned about that in those books, I leaned about who and what I was. I learned the tricks and terminology of what I was. A mutant who in turn can control the very regenerative molecules of his body. For the layman, I was able to heal myself. My bones were another matter. There was nothing in those books that spoke of what I could do. In short, I was able to make my bones grow by a mental command, the grew from wherever I wanted them too. I freaked myself out more than once testing this theory. My favorites were the palm of my hands, I could eject my bones straight form my forearms, through the palms and out about a distance of about a foot and a half. Any more than that made my entire skeleton inside me hurt very badly. What was the most curious thing was that inside my bones, almost solid now and very strong, was a liquid that secreted from glands located somewhere I couldn’t identify. It was strange and had no effect on me. I had nothing to test it on but a loose conglomerate of spiders that shared my cellar home in the corners. So I did, and guess what? The died instantly on contact.

Funny how life throws you curveballs isn’t it? I was scared to death of the Great One. Scared he would come down after work with a chainsaw and make me tomorrow’s garbage. I was even scared of the giant arm of his that reached in to give me bags of food, and to occasionally take my bags of trash. I was afraid he had an axe or something else gruesome waiting for just such an emergency right at hand, since he had obviously done so well locking me down. So I read, and exercised. I practiced with my bones (as funny as that sounds) and I slept and washed myself and my clothes in the back of the toilet. I thought of a way to escape at least once per week, and actually tried a few times to disastrous results, hell I even caught myself on fire to try to get him to open the door. All he did was call me a freak and chucked the kitchen fire extinguisher down to me. I just could’ve stay burned, since I was regenerating so fast, but I didn’t want to risk the books. I couldn’t sacrifice the books. They were the only thing of hers I had, and her memory was tarnished enough.

I did escape from down there, I did get out. I did become someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley and I did become one of the bad guys. I went across the sea on the Great Ones dime too. Eventually I did become a hero in the same city I was born into, but not for years later. A hero. Imagine that. For a thirteen year old nothing to something was quite a feat. That’s why someone once pestered me to have my story written for me. Wouldn’t you agree that It would be best for me to write my own? To smell the fear and taste the sweat? Or maybe you would like to hear how I let the only woman I ever loved burn in a ball of fire. Well, I’ll be here waiting for you.

After all, I’m only human.

“Freak”

When she told me that I had to stop for a minute, just a minute to clear my head from the slight way things had went askew. I didn’t expect it, nor did I really want it. But I guess that from her point of view, I am a freak. Many of those who run around with super-powers or abilities ‘beyond the human condition’ are labeled as such, others use more callous words to describe or to mark. Ones that wouldn’t be proper to use in polite conversation. Though I cannot take the full weight of the meta human populace on my shoulders, it sits there anyway. I don’t want that burden of label, but I can’t help but to defend it when it is thrust into my face.

I was initially going to let someone else tell my tale, from a spectators eyes. But I came across something very valuable amid my musings on what I wanted to tell. There is one thing that most story tellers cannot replace, it’s the sense of ‘being there’. That they miss. Ever in their four-color descriptions of the weaving of stories they miss the most fundamental aspect. To be there. Simple as that. Can those who weren’t there see the sweat beading on a liars brow? Or the smell of fear in a cowards heart? Those are all pictures I will try in my limited way and small vocabulary to share with you, the reader. I hope you will stay to see what has happened to me in my life, it is really extraordinary and a few hair raising things have came and went throughout. I’ll try my best to be as candid as I can, come along for the ride. I swear when I am done, it will be worth it.

She called me a freak that day. I really don’t mind it so much now, but in thinking back I was a little I suppose I was wounded some. Wounded in spirit I suppose? She called me a freak, after I had saved her from some low rent men who sought to take her goods for a quick nights junkie fix, or a pleasure of the flesh. They were easy to stop, mostly done so with a little more than average intimidation. Some physicality was used, but I didn’t kill anyone. Well, not this time at least. This story I am about to unfold for you is not of the woman I saved last night or what she said to me. Neither is it about the men who’s faces I smashed in and left hanging for the local police to take. It’s a story about me. About being human.

I would like to say that I had a normal childhood up until such-and-such happened. But I really didn’t. It wasn’t really normal in any sense of the word. I think it’s funny because the children of the world today use harsh tags and monikers to describe people like me. They call me names because of a simple premise of living in a harsh world and choosing to be open with it. It’s been far too long since I was first asked to tell my story, I will do it now because I simply feel as though I need to. I hope you stay with me for a little while, just a little and I will show you.

I lived in a broken home mostly, when I was old enough to understand the way things were and how they were supposed to be. My mother, who’s real name really isn’t important was a sad lady. Oh, she cared for me in the beginning I guess, as all mothers I think do. After awhile either t was the drugs or alcohol, or maybe a combination of both that drove her from motherhood and our home. We lived in a run down neighborhood, pretty close to here where you are now. It’s your atypical slum where families on the edge go to try to live. “Amid the garbage and the garbage” I head once. My mom wound up leaving around the time I was ten, maybe eleven? I’m not to sure, that’s pretty good coming from someone that’s supposed to have a memory as sharp as a razor blade. I suppose it was traumatic for me then, and why I cannot remember to much about that particular instance. I always imagined she left for better things, trying to rationalize it I think. After I knew deep down she wasn’t coming back I thought that maybe she went to a better place and a better family. When she was here all she ever did was sleep and look withdrawn when she was awake, her cheeks always sunken and her eyes always looked ringed with black. Even as an adult now, I wish her to that better place, maybe she would smile there. Before, when she hadn’t left yet, her and the great one used to argue all of the time when they were together. The ‘great one’ is a reference to my biological father. They would smash up and have fun shattering glass together, telling each other at the highest pitch of their voices how much they cared. The Great One almost never came out the loser, but he did lose the war in the end of it all with her after she left.

Things got no better after she left, as the Great One’s attention was solely focused on his only son, who would soon come into his own as a man in the throes of puberty and beginning manhood. That son was me. When I was thirteen, I began to be able to do things that a lot of the other slum children couldn’t do. I ran much faster, saw further, and I could outrun the police when a few of us would steal from the corner convenience store. No big deal right? Wrong. I knew something was not normal with me. I didn’t have to eat or drink much either, it was just that I wasn’t hungry or thirsty much.I remember once I went an entire whole week of not eating to see how long I could go, Same for being tired, I just didn’t want to sleep. Oh, I tried to, I guess I just didn’t need it anymore. It wasn’t like a little boy that fights to stay awake either. This is and was a full blown wide awake all of the time. My mind was always two steps ahead of everything. I was fumbling for doorknobs while solving complex calculus problems. Figure that out. It was when things became obvious that they turned for the worse. The Great One was always someone on the edge of eruption. I think he hated every thing and everyone, literally. He had some really crappy job at some run down factory that he used to drag himself off to every morning, and for kicks and giggles he would use me as his frustration bag after my mom left. After awhile I didn’t mind it so much, the beatings. They stopped hurting almost instantly, and any bruises or cuts healed moments after.

I wasn’t the only one who saw it too. Nothing escaped the Great One. He saw I didn’t whimper anymore when he would strike me, or cry from being hurt. I never said a word to him about it at all, but he saw it too. The day he saw me pop my bones from my palms of my hands and back in again in the kitchen by accident is a day I will always remember. He called me a freak. That’s all he said to me. In a world that was being overrun by things that fly, and have abilities like that, to see a small thirteen year old doing a miraculous thing was finally the icing on the Great Ones cake. He just quit doing everything for days. I left and spent the night at my friends house down the street, his name was William Madison. Willie was not like me at all, and he took everything that happened to me with a grain of salt, maybe it was just he didn’t want to lose the only friend he had? I don’t know, Willie was weird, but he was my friend.

I came home after a few days while the Great One was at work. He had left me a note on our dirty stained kitchen table to clean up the basement before he got home or there would be “hell to pay”. I grabbed the half eaten broom and dustpan and headed to the cellar door, just off the living room. Little did I know that would be the last time I would see the outside for four years.

Even a sour, often angry anti-hero like Tyrantula coudn't resist the rubbery goodness of the BIG RED BALL!

Gimme!!

Awesome suggestion!

[ QUOTE ]
Here is the deal:

Statesman came into the Tanker forum after Issue 2 and APOLOGIZED for ignoring Tankers.

Issue 3 came and a few items were fixed like movement while in unstoppable and Tanks were OVER buffed in ways that we did not ask for.

Tanks gave VERY good ways to improve us without being overpowered and now we got ignored again.

Next came the Issues 4, 5, 6 and ED which in many ways not only unwound all the Buffs from Issue 3 they put us lower than Issue 2 in damage and defense.

So many of the older tanks have a history of what happens in the gameplay when the entire game is about damage and you do less than anyone else and if you have defenders and control - you don't need tanks.

What happens is a slow bleed to other ATs.

Tanks are common early on but by the time you get to the 20's they are much less so. Why? Boredom. Damage is low and they level slow once out of the teens.

Tanks haven't been ignored, they have had the entire concept and gameplay switch from under them. They took MANY of the Tank suggestions and put them in Brutes. This makes tanks angry.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to concur with a few of your statements here. I have honestly tried to enjoy playing tanks, but I can't. Now, on the flip side I love playing Brutes. After getting my first one up in his 20-30's, I thought that "this is how tanks SHOULD be"

(I have two Brutes at current cap: Em/Ea and Ss/Inv)

I think my highest tank I had ever made was in his low twenties. I just really seemed dissapointed in the set. I like being the shield for the team, but contributing to the teams damage wasn't really in the books. Deleted.

*Thanks for letting this game be a great way to pass the time.

*Thanks for the customization on the UI to allow disabled players like myself able to play.

*Thanks for establishing a great community from the players, to the developers and forum moderation and everthing involved. You guys set the bar for the rest of the online gaming community.

*Thanks for unleashing something fresh and original in a market that is and forever will be glutted with swords, elves and um..trolls. (Extra Kudos because I'm a long time comic fan)

*Free content and a virtually bug free envirionment. There are some, but having been in other MMOs. This is heaven.

*Unmatched customer service in game and on forums, helpful community and communication across the board.

*NO LOOT, lets keep it that way please.

Thanks States and crew, you guys are the best.

I've fought crime and upheld justice with a swift and deadly hand. I've been to the wall against the evil that surrounds us, I've saw things that make a normal person tremble and quake with fear. I've stood against insurmountable odds and come out victorious...

In all honesty, I may retire. I'm young..at the peak of my powers, my fellow teammates depend on me. Alas, I grow weary..

My duty is to protect and serve the citizens and law of Paragon City. That is my reward. Justice be done..Its the only thing I live for.

I've gotten tired. I need your support. Here are my thoughts...

I'm powerful, and strong. Why am I constantly getting pushed around by our citizens we are sworn to protect?? I cant have a simple conversation with a friend without RUDELY being shoved to the side? I was shoved by a young girl yesterday that I could SWEAR I saved from the Council just the day before! DONT get me started about the ones with cell phones! I asked a man yesterday if I could borrow his phone...I was in my street clothes and forgot my team communicator. I saw a giant robot being built RIGHT in front of him! He was in danger and He wouldnt budge! (He may have been a superhero in disguise..I dunno) But I tried!

Ok, Paragons great and all, but the choices for eating out are slim. I frequent the Natural Store for all my groceries at home..but every once and awhile I like to eat out. The food..is substandard. Most times, I get a call to rescue someone or save another citizen while I'm out. Having a troublesome digestive system I try to stop at the train stations to..well..you know. I cant open the DOORS to the BATHROOMS!

On top of that there are some pranksters in every SINGLE station constantly flushing the toilets. Anyone tell me whats going on? I've tried busting down the door and hopefully putting an end to this major problem. (The cities water bill HAS to be enormous)

I also would like to speak to the people or persons responsible for hiring Paragons Police force. I know, I know..The cities are overrun with criminals, superpowered ones even. BUT THESE COPS ARE CHICKENS! AND SKINNY! Its gotten to the point where they walk RIGHT past someone in need! Ive seen it! Then they run like their hair is on fire! Whos to blame!?!

Ok, Paragons DMV REALLY needs an overhaul. They are giving licenses to the most inept bunch of people I've ever seen behind the wheel. They even try to swerve and hit me...ME! Believe it!?!

Im done..waitaminute..I just looked out my apartment window at the new construction site across the street. Hmmm..those guys digging look like they could use a hand. I can probably move that earth alot faster..

**sigh**

Duty Calls..


((Im bored, thanks for listening))