Umbrascarred

“Wake up, my love.” The words pulsed through his mind like fire upon gasoline. He hated the sound of her voice, the sweet sensuality of it; and she knew it. One day she would be his undoing, but that day was not today. With his mind coming back to the world around him, Umbra Scarred looked blankly at the wall ahead. All about him sat a super group base devoid of life, only a few sparse furnishings and lonely work tables sat center piece to the barren place he called home. Once the thriving base of S.E.R.A.P.H. Team One, it now sat isolated from its former glory, but Karl didn’t mind. Fond memories of old friends blazed through his mind; he must put them aside.

Through the base’s intercom system a siren sang out, crying for help from the ghosts who once walked these cold steel floors. Standing from his meditations he replied to the voice in his mind, “I am not yours.” A cold shiver ran down his spine, whether from him or her, he could not tell. “A discussion for later then,” was her reply. “They are back.”

He didn’t need to see the images that flashed across his mind to know what she was talking about. “Rikti,” he spoke aloud and his haunting voice echoed through the empty base to eerie effect. Very few things brought out her hatred the way Rikti did, only hatred and malice a Nictus can feel. It turned his stomach cold. Forcing himself to endure her constant pull at his psyche, he pushed the feelings away.

When the Peacebringers sought him out they told him that a Nictus can only be mutually bonded to a host. They never said that a Nictus might actually agree to the bonding simply out of self-preservation. Before Karl was bonded, he was a hero of Paragon; maybe not so much of a hero as a protector. It wasn’t until his apex in power did he unlock the prison that surrounded this particularly nasty Nictus. Found within a shard of metal known as Umbracite, the young Karl von Snape used his knowledge of geology and robotics to create a new breed of nanites. It forever changed him when the nanites bonded to him unexpectedly; they possessed the knowledge and power of an ancient Nictus who slowly remade him from the inside out. It was unimaginable pain, scarring him in ways that none could fathom. Umbra Scarred was born that day.

Now he had outlasted his friends and colleagues as the exhausting streets of Paragon City slowly drove them away. They were gone, but they remained his inspiration; memories to be called upon in his greatest need. Grabbing his long cape from the bed he rested on, he threw it over his shoulders and disappeared in a void of space.

Outside was chaos. Citizens ran in all directions, some of which were caught in the blinding green lights of the cruiser’s main cannon. Bombs dropped from above, showering the streets in shrapnel and debris. They had returned. She had been right. He hated them almost as much as he hated her. They had always been a thorn in his side.

A glowing portal formed next to him, expelling several drones and infantry in quick succession. Only meters from him, they raised their weapons while shields of midnight purple surrounded Umbra Scarred. “You don’t belong here. This isn’t your home.” His eyes flared to life as the energy of the Nictus roared to life with her anger. Though the drones remained unaffected by his intimidation, the three infantry stole glances at one another as he began to move forward. Clearly reading his intentions they let loose the energy blasts from their rifles. Clashes of energy flashed brilliantly over its surface as the pulses hit his shields. A wicked smile crept to his lips as he lifted his hands. “Your fears shall be your undoing. I will not abide trespassers here!” Dark energy coalesced around his arms as pools of liquid night formed in his hands. Releasing the energy from his open palms the huge energy pulse flew to the infantry and drones colliding with explosive force. As they staggered back from the impact, Umbra Scarred closed the distance with incredible speed and charged his hands full of energy while on the move. Reaching the middle one first, his hands slammed into his enemy completely knocking it from its feet. The nimbus of energy around him began to grow, filling the area around him quickly as tendrils of energy swirled about the feet of the aliens.

Blasts from the rifles rang out again as the Rikti infantry attempted to bring down Umbra Scarred once more. With help from their drones, several blasts penetrated his shields. Knocked slightly off balance he spun on his feet and leapt onto one of the drones, pinning it to the ground. Using his empowered fists he punched through the hard shell of its body and ripped out its circuits. Instantly to his hands the dark energy sprang to life again, this time multiple blasts shot out against the two remaining infantry. Overcome by the force of his blasts and the swirling energy encompassing them all, they fell to the ground next to their unconscious comrade. Energy blasts ripped through his shields, this time forcing him to a knee. The drones were always a nuisance with their hard armor plating and accurate plasma cannons, he hated fighting them. With the grin now wiped from his face, he flung out his arms and began pulling in the life force and energy of the fallen aliens around him. “Their fears,” he panted as he pointed to the drones. “Your undoing…” With renewed energy he blinked from his position only to appear behind the drones. Roiling waves of energy flew from his hands and enveloped the drones in pulsing dark tendrils, constricting them until they crumpled under the pressure.

“You’re not done yet, pet.” The voice was so sickly sweet and caressing. When he was in this state, he could not fight her off like he could under calmer circumstances. He smiled to himself, “We never are.” Looking all around he could see hundreds of new portals opening. The ground began to shake with the energy pouring from his body.

Yeah, I figured as much. I thought I'd at least ask. Thanks for the response.

Is there a website or anything of that nature that keeps a relatively accurate watch on the prices currently on the market? At least what they were last sold for (or anything similar)?

SG Name:
The Fallen Order

Leaders:
Straggart, Jenny Tech

Recruiting Officers:
TBD (Looking for one)

Preferred Method of contact:
Send a comm link (/t) to any of the officers or members if you happen to see one. They will direct you to the appropriate person.

Guild Description:
There was a time in the world when we were accepted, or liked, or tried to do things their way. No more are we subject to their concepts of justice or virtue, nor are we held back by their closed minded rules and regulations. Some say we've strayed from the path or have lost our way, but we refute that. We are only lost when we lose focus of our ideals and goals through red tape and governments that would hold us down. To be lost is to be free. Let none step in our path, for we will visit violence upon those who do. We fear not of the world. We are the Fallen.

OOG Info:
The Fallen Order is primarily a Roleplaying Villain Group, in which each member is encouraged to find a place in the group's fiction. We are a Mercenary styled group with no specific emphasis on theme as we have both Arcane and Tech characters. However, Straggart is considered the commanding officer and treats it as such. We are a tight knit group of friends and looking to add more to the group to help broaden our RP. We are not against having some goofy characters, but if its way overboard we will likely not mesh.

We are currently looking for a PR Agent, Recruiters, and an Events Manager. Also we try to reward those who are members with both in and out of game rewards.

Take a look at our website for more details. And feel free to contact either Straggart or Jenny Tech during any time we are online.

Chapter 1
Life flashes before your eyes..

Looking to the sky Christien sighed slightly, seeing that a storm was approaching rapidly and his walk home was a while yet. He really didn't want to be caught in the rain. Thinking back to his football game just an hour past kept his mind busy enough to ignore the dark ominous clouds that loomed overhead. Pulling him suddenly from his thoughts, a bright flash of blue and purple lightning arced across the sky into another cloud. The thunder crash came only a fraction of a moment later, signifying that it had been really close.

Realizing he had stopped he shook his head and looked down the road before he began walking again. He was used to wandering the streets of London at night, but it never got rid of the feeling that someone was always following him. As he walked and the rain began to fall in heavy drops and quickly opened up to a downpour. Pulling up his hooded sweat shirt, Christien tried to cover himself as best as he could, but really was just delaying the inevitable of being soaked.

He shivered in the cold rain while he walked, feeling the goose bumps rise on his skin. The hackles on the back of his neck rose as he saw movement out of his peripheral vision down the alley he had just passed. Looking down the shrouded back street he could see a man heading directly for him. A wave of dread swept over Christien; he couldn't be sure but he was inclined to believe this man was about try to mug him. In the rain filled alley, he couldn't make out the man's face, which only compounded his fears. Not wanting to find out if his night was going to get worse he turned to run, but found that three others had stepped out of unknown locations. His exits had been effectively cut off. “Bloody hell,” was all he could think to himself.

Resigned to stepping into the street he dropped his knapsack hoping he could find a chance to flee. Another brilliant flash of lightning raced through the clouds and he felt the hair all over his body go rigid. It was an odd feeling, like having been too close to a massive discharge of static electricity. His assailants must have felt it too as they paused for a moment and looking skyward. In the light created by the bolt he could make out their features and it did nothing for his already pounding heart. Each one wore white makeup or some kind of skull shaped mask. They were even more creepy and dangerous then he had originally anticipated.

The wind picked up around them and blew his pale blond hair around, giving him a wild look as he backed up some more. For a moment his hunters gave each other a side long glance before laughing aloud. “'E looks like a wild rabbit caught in a trap,” said the one from the alley in a heavy English accent. “He knows e's about to get skinned.” The other three laughed in unison.

Christien looked around frantically, hoping for one last chance to escape, but found nothing but four thugs looking to visit violence upon him. The only real opportunity was to charge one and hope that he gets enough room to run. Without waiting any longer he ran at the lead thug preparing to shoulder him out of the way, hoping that the others would be too stupid to follow. He never got that far; as if being struck by a hammer, the larger white faced gang member struck him across the face with a bat and sent him crashing to the ground. His face hurt like nothing before- he had been punched before, but nothing had compared to being laid out with a weapon.

Spitting blood to the rain soaked street, he tried to return to his feet, but for his effort he was kicked in the ribs. He felt something crack and winced in agony. Falling to his side he was kicked again and felt several more ribs break. With a crash of sound he heard the thunder echo off the buildings, but couldn't tell if the flashes of light was the lightning or his face being kicked in. His whole body hurt now and all he could do was ball himself up and try to protect as much as possible while these thugs relentlessly beat him. He could feel his consciousness falter as they laughed with mirth about their victim.

Christien had always enjoyed the rain, though not particularly in it. It was the thunder storms that captured his attention and begged him to stare on. His fascination was even noticed by his parents, before they split up. During a storm, they could put him in front of a window and he'd be silent for hours. The divorce was a pretty sore subject for him, as it was his oddities that really split them. Though his mother was less apt to judge him, his father couldn't handle a child who wasn't ordinary. As time passed on, they noticed that he was unable to stand too close to any sort of electrical device as he'd usually cause some kind of interference or even cause it to short out.

As he grew older, his unique abilities caused him and his mother to move many times as it attracted attention that they tried to avoid. Unfortunately for Christien the strength of his power grew with his age and it was very unpredictable, so he did his best to suppress it. It worked most of the time, but when he got upset or something violent would happen he tended to lose control over it.

His face exploded in a wave of pain as he felt a boot smash his nose into small pieces. This jolt brought his reality crashing down around him, with all the pain and suffering rushing back to his senses. Despite himself, he shivered in the cold rain as he wondered when the beating would end. The memory of many of the storms he watched as a child came to his mind as he looked to the sky and saw the dark clouds arc lightning between them. As if calling his name, he felt their whispers reach out in tendrils and branches of electric current. He blinked one last time, past the blood and pain, and spoke. “Stop.”

Thunder shook the heavens as a violent explosion hit the street. Lightning touched down close by and showered the assailants with hot asphalt. From down the road a voice echoed out, a police officer came running into view, “Hey you there! Halt!”. He didn't seem daunted by the lightning as he raised his baton. Again, the thunder rolled, but this time the accompanying lightning came down directly upon Christien. His scream could be heard for hundreds of meters as the street cracked and buckled under the strength of the hit. “STOP!” With a roar the clap exploded and sent everyone flying from a massive shock wave. The thugs, closest to the center, hurtled through the air and made a sickening crunch against the walls of buildings while the officer was just sent sprawling backwards several yards.

Nothing stirred in the now paled street except the policeman, who groggily stood up and looked around. In the center of the lightning strike lay Christien, his body motionless. Getting his bearings and scanning for the four thugs that were thrown, he could see their now limp bodies scattered about the street. The officer dismissed them and staggered to the young boy on the ground, hoping he could at least do something. He was a terrible mess, with his face broken and bloody, likely the rest of him was in as bad of shape. Gently touching Christien's shoulder he tried to see if he was responsive at all. For a moment it looked as if all were lost until a shudder of a breath escaped the lips of the wrecked youth. Grabbing his walkie quickly he began calling the attack in, when from above a man in a great cape in the markings of the “Union Jack” swooped out of the sky and landed at his feet.

The markings of Hero 1 were unmistakable as the officer looked up to him, the radio forgotten in his hands. “I'll take him. He's going to need more help then normal medicine can provide.” The cop nodded dumbly, being awestruck by one of Britain's greatest heroes having come to rescue the boy. With careful hands, he picked up the lad and lifted him into the dark clouds. “Make sure those Skulls are taken care of,” were his last words.

((This is a beginning bio story on a new character I've been playing, Arc-rift. I'd love to hear some comments on this, if people are interested in more.

Thanks for reading,

Arc-Rift))

I think this is also one of the best ideas for a new cool system to be suggested to the game in a long while. I'd give my support to having it put into the game.

Thanks for the well thought idea!

Umbra

As a follow up to TA posting his picture done by Grimbro I thought I should post mine as well. Grimbro is a good friend of mine and had done Umbra as a favor to me (I did pay him for it though), of which was completely awesome. I had intended on posting it a while ago, but got lazy and forgot to. Now that I see TA has done so, I'll put mine up as well so all can see.

If you are interested in getting a piece done by him, please feel free to contact me or Grimbro directly (www.grimbro.com). He's a great guy and works hard on giving you what you want.

Umbrascarred

Thanks for tuning in!

Umbra

(Edited- noting that I did pay him. =-) )

Okay, I can understand your desire to want to play the game your own way. No one is stopping you from doing that. The rules of the game changed to make it more balanced. Deal with the rules set before you. If a GM in a tabletop makes a rules call are you going to argue all night with them because you don't like the rule? Or are you going to continue playing and let it be.

Cryptic makes the rules. We play their game. We spend our money to play the game they created. If you call Statesman a Tyrant because he does something you don't like, you might was well call everyone a tyrant that has ever told you "no".

You are calling for them to change back their decision on making travel powers suppresed when fighting something. How does that accomplish anything? If you were to keep your super speed and be able to just run through groups hitting things without any way for them to retaliate, then how does that make the game challenging? If you want risk free attacking whats the point in playing? You might as well just ask them to make you level 50 so you can just run around at super speeds and take anything down you like.

Its pretty simple in my eyes. They saw something that made the game, both PvE and PvP, less challenging or too overpowered in the case of PvP. I think you are forgetting one thing here, online game. This is not a table top, there is no GM sitting behind a GM screen saying yes or no to an action. You have a clearly defined set of rules that requires artificial intelligence to react to your actions, when you run in, use a strike, and then scoot out of there the AI isn't smart enough to understand that you are using hit and run tactics. If you were doing that to a player, who says that the player is not playing on a slow connection and cannot keep up with you because everytime he tries to hit your already out of range. In both cases you are either forcing the AI to play to your gamestyle, which is cannot or forcing the player to have to upgrade his computer just to be able to compete in PvP. That's why they call it balance. If the rules are too skewed in one way or the other, they try to give it a middle ground so that ALL can play, not just you.

Edit: By the way, there is no archetype called Super Speedster that I'm aware of. You can sure roleplay that you are a super fast super speedster, but you are still only a Scrapper, Tanker, Blaster, Defender, Controller, Warshade, or Peacebringer. I respect the fact that you are trying to play something different, but it doesn't exist in the rules.

Umbrascarred
Virtue