genius4hire

Elumien detested subterfuge, so he had a sour expression on his face as he explained, "I have, shall we say, a few connections in MAGI. I do not believe there will be much trouble. Also, my stealth magic has thus far been able to confound their attempts at positive identification. They can, of course, record my presence, but without a fingerprint or photographic record, they cannot check me against the hero database. The number of registered heroes here in Paragon with magic similar to mine is a convenient smokescreen to deter them.

"And, as regards Medicom, if need be, I am able to phase shift and teleport myself. So I should be as safe as any of us are," he added.

((in-game nick's L26 and elumien's L33, but i've been roleplaying them as 41. i just don't have the time to level this many heroes, specially since i'm trying to get my main to 50 so i can make a warshade. if you'd rather, i can run them at their in-game levels, or whatever would be suitable for this thread.

fbsa would have nick's file flagged since he's on probation. ex-outcast, and all. elumien, however, isn't technically registered as a hero, so they wouldn't have anything on him. he also therefore doesn't have a medicom patch, but rather certain magical artifacts he can use to escape mortal danger.))

Nick snorted. "I was born in King's Row. Been living here my whole life. If I didn't know Crey was crooked, I'd deserve what I got."

Elumien grinned at Nick's sarcasm, and added, "I have not been in this city for very long, but I have had encounters with these Crey. I understand the risks we will be facing.

((sorry bout the delay - forgot to favorite the thread.))

Nick didn't miss the intonation, and despite Tech's describing her as a hero, the thought of Crey getting their grubby meathooks into a woman rubbed Nick the wrong way.

Outwardly, Nick's eyes appear to glaze over. Inwardly, he reaches out mentally to Elumien. Yo, man. You busy?

Halfway across town, in a dank, murky cave, a short dark-skinned man in baggy, light blue pants and soft leather boots perks up from the Clockwork he'd been examining. Not at present. Do you need me? Elumien asked.

Got a guy here, says he needs backup, Nick replied. Crey. I know how you like screwin' with gadgets and stuff. Maybe you could swipe some of their goodies.

Nick's eyes refocus on his surroundings, and a few seconds later there's a bright flash outside as the mage steps through empty space to appear in front of the Whitmoore. Elumien steps into the lobby, nodding in greeting to the building supervisor, Stanley Green, and to Nick. He then bows to Techsupport and says, "I'd be glad to assist. Lead the way."

((shortened for convenience, but if you ask i'll try and dig up a linkie to the full post in the whitmoore thread.))

[ QUOTE ]
"I need help, quick..." he stated "Umm.. Hero down.. err.. heroine... It doesn't matter... I need people."

[/ QUOTE ]

Nick had just come out of the stairwell in a pair of ragged baggy cargoes, a plain white tee, and his leather bomber jacket. He had been hoping for some nice tranquil senseless violence in solitude, and part of him wanted to just brush past the armored figure, ignoring the plea for assistance, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him he couldn't get away with that anymore. He sighed inwardly and tapped heavily on the powersuit's shoulder. "What's up, dude? Can I help?"

somewhere here there's a board rp guide for noobs... i could probably dig it up on search but i'm supposed to be writing a paper now, so...

(using noob in a non-perjorative sense, i should add. ^.^ )

the god mode is something i occasionally find myself doing, so the best advice i can give in that respect is to always read over your post in the preview twice before you submit - once for spelling and grammar, cause while not vital, it does count, and once for content. just imagine; if someone else's character did something analogous, would you be miffed?

length is tricky too. there's usually next to no point posting if you're gonna just put in one or two lines, but i must confess i don't usually read all the way through anything that's much longer than one screen, unless i have to react to it. in that case, no matter how much of a hassle it'd be to you, i'd recommend you bother with it. best not to make mistakes and introduce continuity errors. it's not fatal if you do, but best to avoid.

try to react to all the characters present, if you can think of a way to do so that's not too much of a stretch. everyone likes to be included.

if your character has any really unremarkable features, it's best to mention those, not every post, but every other page or so. (page, in this case, being every 10 posts.) i've RPed with people for ten or more pages, only to have them say, 'omigod, your character is black? and when did he get that third eye?' so it's good to go over just the basic details occasionally. if you really wanna, you can just describe in detail in one post and linkie to that post in your sig. just make sure that information is readily available.

it's not necessary or anything, but i strongly encourage you to right-click the reply link, and open it in a new tab (or window, if you're evil and use internet explorer (boo hiss) instead of firefox (cheer)). that way you can easily access the whole page for if you need to react to multiple different posts, as it only displays the one you're replying directly to at the bottom.

oh, and it's okay to enter a scene uninvited as long as it's in a reasonably public area and you don't start off by interfering with the event in progress. in other words, don't be a pansy like me.

forgive my ignorance - mercury is the name the romans used for the god known as hermes to the greeks, right? i know them by their greek names, but not the roman ones. lame, yes, i know.

back by popular - well, back:

name: Elumien Erudian

current location: arriving shortly to the lobby

storyteller: yours truly (Genius4Hire)

appearance: 5'8"ish, 120lbs of lean, wiry, old black man. eye color obscured by yellowish glow emanating from his two regular eyes. has a 3rd, unblinking and unmoving eye (blue) in the middle of his forehead, but is otherwise bald. torso and arms are covered with ice-blue arcane tattoos, which radiate faintly when he casts spells. typical outfit includes light blue, loose-fitting pants belted at the waist with a thick leather belt and tucked into blue soft leather boots. both boots and pants are decorated with arcane symbols.

info: ice/kinetics controller with teleportation and (now) concealment. his manner of speech is so proper that he even avoids contractions (can't or would've or suchlike). at his undisclosed but unnaturally advanced age, very little shocks or startles him. though not immensely strong, he is fit enough for a man 1/10th his age, a legacy of his once having served as a paladin in the armies of his home nation. he's from an alternate reality, to which he finds himself unable to return.

name: Nicholas Dent, aka Point.Blank

last known location: Terra Volta, on special assignment

storyteller: Genius4Hire

appearance: 6', thin caucasian male. 18 years old. dirty blond hair, blue eyes. street clothes typically include jeans & t-shirt with a leather jacket. hero costume is golden-yellow and dark red fire striped, loose-fitting material tucked into combat boots and stopping at the elbow, with a long cape (same color/pattern). always wears fingerless leather gloves and shades.

info: ex-Hellion, ex-Outcast. mutant fire/fire blaster. was in a prime leadership position with the Outcasts till his arrest. however, no evidence could be found to convict him of serious criminal charges, only a startlingly large number of misdemeanors, so he was sentenced to serve several thousand hours of community service. rather than picking up trash on a highway median, he opted to register as a hero and serve his sentence that way. no proven contact with previous criminal associates. he has missed a number of scheduled check-ins with his parole officer, but with legitimate excuses ('out heroing'). current whereabouts unknown; he was expected back from his current assignment a week ago.

possibly also in use soon, if i see an opening:

name: unknown, uses hero moniker 'Arthropoda'

location: sewer network

storyteller: Genius4Hire

appearance: 8-foot-tall thickly built humaniform insect ('male' body type, not gargantuan). has only the two legs and two arms, but covered with brown and green chitinous plates. has two very large downward-curving antennae and faceted eyes (ie like a fly). does not wear any clothing beyond a belt to clip his weapon to.

info: very little. science invuln/mace tanker. awoke with amnesia - but otherwise fully human - in an alley near the Brickstown hospital. was admitted for observation, and within a week, transformed from normal, 5'11" 180lb human male into 8', 400+lb insectoid. bloodwork revealed an inconceivably advanced retroviral agent to be the culprit, but before any more work could be conducted, he escaped and disappeared into the sewers. possibly linked to a recent outbreak of extreme violence against the Vahz.

and, making a cameo appearance, the lady Countenance:

name: withheld for security reasons; uses moniker 'Lady Countenance'

location: entering with Elumien

storyteller: Countenance (i have permission; it's my brother's char)

appearance: tall, elegant caucasian female, slightly slender build. thick, fiery (natural) orange hair. street clothes are typically a longish green plaited skirt and a canary yellow jacket, with high heels. hero garb includes metallic armor in bright red and yellow patterns, with sleeves stopping just past the elbow, and long capes.

info: a lady of sophistication and refinement. British, from a noble family (place of birth and age withheld for security reasons). gave up her title and inheritance to pursue her true destiny as a reknowned arcanist. though her temper matches her hair, she's possessed of an indefatigable stubbornness.

For my dark/regen Stryk, maybe Pink Floyd's "Dogs of War." Something by the Deftones maybe, but I can't make out enough of their lyrics to say for sure.

For Elumien, my ice 'troller, what else? "Straight-Cold Player" by Lenny Kravitz. Seriously though, for some reason every time I hear "Climbatize" by the Prodigy I think of him.

And I have the perfect one for my semi-reformed-Outcast fire/fire blaster, Point.Blank: Coldplay's "God Put a Smile On Your Face."

Where do we go, nobody knows
I've got a say, I'm on my way down
God give me style and give me grace
God put a smile upon my face

Where do we go to draw the line?
I've got a say, I wasted all your time, honey honey
Where do I go to fall from grace?
God put a smile upon your face, yeah

And ah, when you work it out I'm worse than you
Yeah, when you work it out I wanted to
And ah, when you work out where to draw the line
Your guess is as good as mine

Point.Blank is a fire/fire blaster. Fire sword circle and combustion are two of the powers I use most, so he's sort of named after his fighting style.

Same, more or less, with Stryk. He's the sort of guy who doesn't give a damn about all the showmanship and reputation nonsense of regular heroing, so he goes just by this short little tag. No badges, no titles. Just Stryk.

Arthropoda awoke as a normal guy but with no memory of himself and no identity. Then over the course of a week he underwent an agonizing mutation transforming him into something more insect than human. Hence, named after the phylum.

With Swordstroke I was going for something a little more classic comic-book style and thier names are all pretty self-referential (e.g. Batman, Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, et cetera). Since he hacks [censored] with a broadsword, he's the Swordstroke.

((i find it amusing how you refer to someone else's rp as 'this little subplot you've got going'. and no, I will not play along with this ridiculous farce. you can't write for other people's characters. let me say that again, with appropriate emphasis: You CANNOT write for other people's characters. It is also indecent to randomly introduce someone who can read everyone's mind or tell exactly what they're doing from hundreds of yards via a heartbeat monitor and who's invulnerable to attack as well as capable of paralyzing everyone else's character. so on the assumption that this was an honest mistake, I'm going to try a reasonable roleplaying solution. if that doesn't seem bearable, I'd be more than glad to leave the thread.))

Vance shook his head and clicked his tongue. As soon as the crazed man launched at Vance, unprovoked, he allowed the man to think Vance was still there, but actually stepped aside and watched as he pummeled open air. It had taken much more effort than he'd expected, so the attacker must have had some kind of mental protection, but Vance hadn't been improving his mental domination for thirty-seven years to be thwarted that easily.

Apparently the broadcast had blasted the inarticulate stranger as well, because he seemed to also think Vance was on the ground. Chuckling, Vance strolled fifteen feet down the hall to an alarm box and tripped the alarm.

This sudden change in the environment broke the illusion, but by the time the breakdancing guy pieced together what had happened, Vance had booked it to a nearby room and bolted the door behind him.

((uhm. have you given much consideration to balance issues here, or is it supposed to be a rollicking good time to have everyone slaughtered by some invincible tankmage? *sigh*))

Vance hadn't got any response from Jack, so he had decided to nose around a bit. More than once he'd run into Medb's barriers, and had to turn around, but he was beginning to get a feel for the place. Or he thought he was, until he turned a corner and came upon Ghost Sentry and the Breakdance Kid in a hallway.

He blinked a few moments in confusion. I'm pretty sure these guys aren't here for the party, he thought. Out loud, he said, "Um, hey, I think you're lost. The exit's that way."

[ QUOTE ]
"Anything I disire that I could gain from slaying you I can get through far less messy means and you would still possess at it's current capacity, Lord Vance. Furthermore, the thing I desire most sits atop the head of the weapon that we will be releasing from it's 'prison.'"

[/ QUOTE ]

Vance was getting a migraine, which he knew from personal experience only happened when he was making things harder than they had to be. He massaged his temple. "Ugh. Look, I... Bah. I guess I was expecting everyone to be all supervillain-y so I was getting a little crazy. Normally I'm not this screwed up, really." He sighed. This migraine is killing me, he thought. "D'you have any work you need me to do? Any briefings, or information, maybe a prisoner you need coerced? I'm going out of my damn skull from boredom here."

((i was kinda waiting for master wonderful, hoping to run into jack since i don't know where he is atm.))

Vance snorted derisively. So much for Disco getting out alive. "Yah-huh. I'm tryin' to turn you against them, because I need the help oh-so-badly," he replied acidly as he took out another cigarette and lit up. "What do you think I want here? Power? Respect? An army of willing minions to do my evil bidding? Sharks with laser beams on their heads? Nah. I'm in this for the money. I wouldn't have minded splitting it with you since that'd make less work for me, so I was trying to be friendly, but if that ain't your speed, fine. Just don't get between me and my paycheck, or we're gonna have issues, you and I."

With that Vance left in search of Jack-in-Diamonds.

((lol tell me about it i'm on the rp threads here so much my poor characters are planning a class-action suit for neglect!))

[ QUOTE ]
"As for you, I don't know that much about you, but you're good at ping-pong, to say the least. It's almost like you can read my mind. So, any thoughts about the others you'd care to share?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Vance grinned at the mind-reading comment. He never got tired of giving that impression, even though he couldn't do anything of the sort. His powers stopped cold at mind control and psychic blasts, but people always assumed he could read minds too, and he let them. Doing so had got him almost as far as actually using his powers.

"Well, now you mention it, I *do* have certain... powers of persuasion."

He snorted derisively. "Those tacky comic-book archvillains? Ha. They're about as helpful as antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. Screw you the first chance they get. Trevor and Will are real zealots, all right, but I wouldn't worry. If need be, we could set 'em on each other in a heartbeat. Kirke's cheap hired muscle and that Book guy can't be after much. Kathy's a psychopath, but dangerous because unhinged, so maybe we should keep an eye on her. Hegemon's a bit of a wild card. I don't trust anyone that, what'sa word, whimsical. Gotta be covering for something. Jack, on the other hand, is nice and straightforward. He's gonna use us to his end, and then get rid of us. Or at any rate, try to. I dunno what I can do to a cyborg, but I'll come up with something."

He stopped suddenly. Everything in the speech had been intentional. Over the years he'd gotten good at manipulating words. Every time he reflexively used an inclusive pronoun, 'we' and 'us', had all been intended to give the impression of his trusting Disco. When he said, specifically, 'they'll try to screw *you*,' he had wanted to make Disco feel threatened by the others, wanted him to wonder if they were plotting his demise every time he saw them. Vance figured Disco for the odd sort of villain who'd respond - and really, splitting all the money two ways didn't seem that bad, so getting out of this with two people wasn't unbearable.

Except, he hadn't intended to tell Disco Inferno, a robot, that he didn't know what he could do to robots. He didn't really have anything against him, but people were strange strange things. It occcurred to Vance that Disco might not actually be a person, but that thought just complicated things so he set it aside.

Vance shook his head. No use crying over spilled milk. "Anyway this Medb character's the one that worries me the most. I don't know a damn thing about him, her, it, and that worries me."

It was Disco's serve, and Vance was slightly curious, so when Vance returned the serve, he pushed ever so lightly to slow down Disco's arm, just to see if it would work...

((tag, man of many characters. up to you if it works or not.))

Vance sat on his crate listening, since Trevor seemed to be in a talking mood. He didn't know who any of these people were (excepting, of course, the Countess, but she hardly counted) and didn't much care, but Trevor seemed unusually upset when he caught himself. Will cracking his knuckles explained Trevor's apparent unease quite well, though.

Vance leaned back, relaxed against the table, and said, "Cap'n 'Fro isn't listening, and I ain't interested in screwing you over. So don't get pissy if he's said too much."

Then Vance reached into his suitcoat. He took out his wallet, counted out five twenties, and laid them on the crate. "Robot's my man," he said, watching the fight.

Of course, he lost. Got to stop betting with your hopes, he thought at himself. When D.I. asked about ping pong, Vance shrugged and said, "Eh, sounds entertaining." Then he walked off following the cyborg, leaving his bills laying on the crate.

Nicholas Dent, aka Point.Blank, used to peddle dope and do some larceny. These days he mostly fences stuff from Clockwork lairs. It's not stealing if a bunch of murderous robots have it, right?

Elumien is an ancient magus, and as such has various arcane means for fulfilling his vital needs. If he's in the mood he can always make enchanted gewgaws and sell the to tourists... lol

Arthropoda is basically an eight foot tall bug. He eats shrubbery. Lots, and Lots of shrubbery. Sleeps out in the open, whatnot. Few gangsters dumb enough to mess with a half ton of sleeping mutated freak.

[ QUOTE ]
"Hope my rant wasn't too boring, so Lance what brings you to the Tower?"

[/ QUOTE ]

"So you're not a villain at all, then," Vance said, ignoring the question for a moment. "Guess that's a good point. I mean, who says FC gets to decide what's right and Crey doesn't?"

Vance took a last drag at his cig and flicked it toward and through the fight raging inches away. "As to what brings me here? Nothing so noble or grand, for sure. Money. That's really about it."

Vance was startled when both Haywire and the Inferno phased out, causing his poker face to slip momentarily, but he had it back up instantly. Shrugging, he pulled up what appeared to be a crate and sat on it.

The fight was... entertaining, but it had no sound and the picture was blurry, so Vance's attention wandered. "Why, oh why does anyone go for this tacky ultramodern smooth plastic design? It's so kitschy," he grumbled of the decor while, mere feet away, Disco Inferno and Haywire tore at each other in a desperate, fuzzy bid for survival.

Vance watched the fight. He drummed his fingers on the crate. He slouched back against the wall, doing horrible things to his already-careworn suit. Rather than sighing boredly, he asked, "So, Trevor. What's your business in our quaint little burg of Paragon?"

((i should mention, vance is kind of a jackass (you've maybe noticed), but it's all in character. really, i'm laughing my [censored] off at a bona fide disco MACHINE out for world domination. so i just wanted to say, it's not personal.))

Vance sighed. Just when you thought disco was dead... well, maybe we'll get lucky. "You got a point there... Trevor, was it? I can never remember names. He is kinda asking for it. And hey, I've never tried to toy with someone that had two minds before. It'll be a learning experience." Vance stood up, stretched, shook himself out a bit, and made to follow Disco Inferno.

Vance sighed. Just when you thought disco was dead... well, maybe we'll get lucky. "You got a point there... Trevor, was it? I can never remember names. He is kinda asking for it. And hey, I've never tried to toy with someone that had two minds before. It'll be a learning experience."

I do have a female character or two, but I tend to avoid them. My reasons being,

<ul type="square">[*]I'm way too much of a guy to be able to convincingly RP a girl, and [*]Breasts do wonky things to some of my favorite torso skins. [/list]
But in DAoC my main was a chick... I didn't seem to get any of the sort of handouts I keep hearing about but, again, too much of a guy to be very convincing. No dis, Steele. There aren't a whole lot of ladies as foulmouthed and bloody-minded as me.

Did get hit on by a guy once, though. He pretty clearly wanted to cyber. I would have told him off but I was too busy laughing my [censored] off.

Back in the day, when people still played EQ, I knew this kid who played a chick. Most obnoxious and irritating little 11-y.o. boy you would ever hope to meet. His in game avatar, however, was female. His stated reason was, quote, "to flirt with guys and get them to give me all kinds of stuff." Again, would have [censored] about it, but the idea of some lonesome middle-aged guy having an online relationship with this kid, who was nothing more than a troublesome gold-digger, was hilarious.

Again though, it does come back to the distinction between the player and the character. I mean, one of my characters is black, but a bigger cracker than me I dare - nay, I defy you to find on god's green earth.

As the Hegemon began passing out the scarves, the door opened and in walked a youngish man in a light grey suit. He looked to be in his mid thirties, was about five foot ten, weighed maybe one sixty-five. Thin, and the shade of pale you only see on people chronically incapable of tanning. His dark brown hair was short and a little messy, and his suit seemed rumpled and didn't fit very well. The top button of his white shirt was undone and his red silk tie was loosened a few inches.

"Thanks, but I don't think that'd look too good with the current ensemble," he replied to the offer of a garish scarf with little snowman heads on the tassels. "Sides, a little too 'Silence of the Lambs' for me."

He nodded respectfully to the Jack, took a seat, crossed his legs. He was wearing a pair of brown skate shoes, rather than anything dressy or of a color matching his suit.

"By the way, name's Vance. Pleasure's all yours," he said, gesturing to the other villains. Then he reached into his suitcoat and took out a Zippo and a sterling silver cigarette case. He put one between his lips and lit it, took a slow puff, then asked, "Mind if I smoke, Jack?"

Into the Dark

It was black.

And silent.

Well, it wasn’t entirely pitch-dark. A hundred yards down the sewer line a seventy-watt bulb burned, feebly trying to stave off the encroaching darkness. A lone bar of light penetrated to where an enormous creature lay motionless.

And it wasn’t silent either. The white noise of thick water sloshing through its channels, streams merging and diverging, was only faintly to be heard and fading into the background, echoing down the pipe from a great distance.

Nearby, the quiet was broken by the sharp plop of a drip hitting standing water. Ripples spread across the surface of the still water in the channel, bending the light as it filtered through the stagnant filth.

A six-hundred-pound, eight-foot-tall insectoid hulk lay as if comatose along the narrow walkway in the pipe. Slowly his chest rose and fell as he heaved a sigh.

“Huurrrr... I’m a monster,” he said despairingly.

He had been sitting there for a little over a day and a half. Of course, he had no way of knowing that. He’d left the sunlight and the surface world far behind the day before. He was in a pit so deep he couldn’t imagine the rim, couldn’t dream of climbing out. He couldn’t even remember a time when he hadn’t been in it. The last two days were all he could recall of his life or himself.

“I don’t even have any memory of what I looked like before... this,” he moaned, his voice heavy with loathing.

Valiantly the single bulb flickered in the subterranean darkness. Occasionally a drop of water punctuated the long silences. Something that was once human lay, languishing in misery.

*****

“Anything yet, officer?” Dr. Mancini asked into the phone.

“Look, it’s a huge sewer,” the tired voice on the line hedged. “We got teams on it, but there’s a lot of different ways we gotta check. The earthquake in Overbrook messed a lot of it up. The whole thing’s a tangled mass of wreckage-”

“So you don’t,” Mike concluded. “Look, he’s a friggin’ gorilla. He leaves footprints in cement. He has all the subtlety of a tyrannosaurus rex. He-" Mike sighed and went on, "Thanks anyway. Keep looking.” He dropped the receiver back into the cradle without waiting for the exasperated officer’s anrgy response. He massaged his temples and said, “This is a nightmare.”

Nurse Ortiz squeezed his shoulder and said, “You got to relax and stop getting so wound up. We don’t even know he’s contagious. Just calm down, doctor. We called all the hospitals, so if anything turns up we’ll know right off, okay?”

Mike sighed. “I guess you’re right. This whole thing... Too many unknowns.” He turned to his desk and picked up his pen, intending to get back to work. Josefina took that for a dismissal and turned to go, but as she came to the door to his office, Mike said, without turning or looking up, “Wonder who he was. He didn’t have a wallet or anything. Poor *******.”

Pulling a document from his inbox, he began scribbling away busily. Josefina shook her head and went off to do her rounds.

*****

The amnesiac had worked into a good meditative trance when his brooding was disturbed by sounds of a scuffle from up the drainpipe. Growling at the intrusion, he heaved himself to his feet and stalked angrily toward the disturbance.

“Hold him down while I administer the sedative,” an evil voice instructed.

The man being held down struggled and grunted, trying to free himself. “Let me go you bastards! You’ll get it if you screw with us,” a frightened man shouted.

The evil voice cackled, sounding plainly unhinged. “I really doubt it, but I hope they do. I need some more parts and you police boys are in such good shape... What was that?”

Two reapers and a squad of cadavers had ambushed one of the police teams combing the sewers for the amnesiac. It had been a short fight; the cops hadn’t been expecting to find anything down there and were caught completely off guard. The walking corpses were preparing the unconscious ones as the two reapers tried to subdue the one remaining man. However, strange sounds came from up the pipe. The mad doctors were staring in growing alarm, as the sounds most nearly approximated an armor-plated rhinoceros charging through a passageway too narrow for it.

The Vahzilok surgeons shared an increasingly alarmed glance and reached for their bone saws, but before they could pull them up, an enormous heavily-muscled figure crashed into them with a loud thud. They tried to roll clear, but only one managed; the other got locked in the monstrous bug-man’s arms. The reaper struggled to get free until he was squeezed into unconsciousness. The other reaper threw his whole body into a hard chop with the bone saw, but just before the saw struck, fire leapt off the colossus, soaking the force. The blade hit and bounced off a chitin plate.

The amnesiac laughed eerily. “Hurr hurr hurr... Stupid little meat-creature.”

Shaking, the reaper held his saw out before him and backed away slowly, but he couldn’t hold it still. Contemptuously the amnesiac swatted it away with his left and threw a hard right hook to the mad doctor’s jaw. With a crunch he was flung against the wall, instantly unconscious.

The cadavers turned as one to face the new threat. With a cough, they vomited gouts of burning acid at the monster. It struck his chest and stuck with a horrible wet sizzling noise. He roared in pain and charged the constructs, fists swinging. Sickening crunching noises and wet thuds came in quick succession as the zombies dropped one after another. Still they spit up more clinging acid, and as the amnesiac’s rage grew, the fire wreathing him began to burst off him in waves, engulfing the near ones and scorching them fiercely.

In a few moments the zombies were laying motionless, save for some minor death throes. Gingerly the eight-foot-tall bug-man scraped the gooey acid off himself and tossed it into the stagnant water of the sewer. He walked over to the one conscious policeman and gently helped him up. “Will you be okay?” he asked, referring to the entire squad of cops.

“Uh, yeah. We should be fine... Thanks,” the officer said, a little sheepishly. “Um, listen, we were down here to find you...”

“Hrrrraauuur. You want to thank me? Forget you saw me,” the amnesiac said as he disappeared down the drain.

“At least tell me what to call you!” the officer yelled after the retreating form.

The hulk stopped, looked over his shoulder for a moment, seeming to consider. He called back, “I am the Stalking Horror,” and strode off.

Feel free to post comments. I always run out of room on the ID for my character's origins (and I mean, ALWAYS), but this is the first time I've got round to doing a proper origin. Hope you like it.

And, without further ado,

Rebirth and Chaos

Mike Mancini was falling asleep. He was sitting behind the front desk at Brickstown Medical at 2 p.m., when all the criminals and heroes were in bed. His cases were all handled and he was just settling in for a nap when an inconsiderate, ragged-looking man walked in through the doors and disrupted his plans.

Doesn’t even look sick, Mike grumbled as the man approached the desk. Despite his irritation, Mike’s clinical instincts set in and he dispassionately examined the man. Moving very stiffly, rumpled and dirty clothes, must have slept outside last night. Visibly unharmed and no signs of any pain, but he keeps rubbing his head like he hit it... Appears confused and disoriented, keeps looking around the lobby with no sign of recognition. Out loud, as the man drew up to the desk, he said, “Welcome to Brickstown General Medical Facility. Can I help you?”

“I... I dunno...” the man said slowly, still looking around confusedly. “I... I woke up in the alley behind the hospital about... I guess half an hour ago, but I can’t remember how I got there, or even here...”

Sighing inwardly, Mike picked up a clipboard with a check-in form and offered it to the man. “Have a seat and fill this out. Bring it back and we’ll have a look at you.”

The man took it, picked up the pen, and stared at it mutely. Slowly a look of horror spread across his face like ink through water. “I... I don’t... I don’t know any of this!”

“That’s okay, sir. You don’t have to fill out home address if you don’t have one, or insurance information if you’re uninsured-”

“No, you don’t understand!” the man exclaimed. “ANY of it! Name, age, place or date of birth...!” He began to back away from the desk. His breath sped up and he began to panic.

Mike groaned silently as he leapt up and hurried around the desk to put an arm around the man’s shoulders. “Relax, calm down. Amnesia isn’t always permanent. You might get your memory back in a couple of hours. It’s possible you just suffered some physical trauma.” The man came down off his panic high, but remained tense and nervous. “Come on upstairs. We’ll get you checked into a room and I’ll run some bloodwork and exams to see what’s going on inside you.”

As he led the man into the hospital, Mike sighed to himself, So much for my nap.

*****

Ten hours later, Josefina Ortiz was running her regular rounds when she heard moaning coming from room 434, across the hall. She finished replacing her current patient’s IV drip and crossed to the charts by the door. “Amnesiac? No visible injury or illness, eh? Oh, fun,” she muttered a little crossly. “Never mind my shift was supposed to be over three hours ago...” Sighing, she stepped into the room to the man’s bedside. He was moaning and tossing in his sleep as though he couldn’t find a comfortable position. Reaching out gently, the nurse shook his shoulder.

His eyes screwed tight shut, then snapped open wide. He took a deep breath and started screaming in agony, thrashing and clawing at his paper gown.

“Madre Maria,” she swore under her breath. As she dived on top of the man and tried to restrain him from tearing at himself, she yelled, “Room 434, and bring sedation!”

Within moments two more nurses arrived. One held his left arm and legs while Nurse Ortiz wrenched his right arm out for the shot of sedative.

The nurse preparing the sedative tore off the mangled paper gown and gasped. Looking down, Nurse Ortiz gasped and shrieked, “¡Sangre de Cristo! ¿¡Que estas?!”

The skin on the man’s arm appeared tough and leathery, and in places was shiny, stiff and hard. A quick glance showed that the rest of his body was taking on a similar aspect.

The nurses glanced at each other, none understanding what was happening, but the man’s unceasing howls of pain quickly brought their attention back to the matter at hand. The nurse with the needle found a soft spot near his elbow, jammed the needle through, and injected. Within a minute his thrashing slowed and stopped, and he lapsed into unconsciousness.

*****

“So, one more time?” Mike asked, rubbing his temples and trying to resist the urge to check on the man again.

“I told you already, stupid – er, Doctor,” Josefina snapped. “Eleven forty-seven. I check on him, he’s just like you said in your report. I go across the hall to 435, while I’m fixing the IV for old Mr. Johns I hear the guy start moaning. When I come in to check on him he wakes up screaming, so I call in the nurses and we sedate him. He was tearing at himself like he was covered in hot coals so I take off the gown to examine and he looked like this,” she said, waving a hand at the man. Glancing down, added, “Not exactly like this. He’s worse now.”

It was true. He was. The tougher, shiny bits were rapidly becoming chitinous carapace. His eyes were, for lack of a better word, bugging out of his head and becoming black and faceted. A pair of antennae were growing out of his head so fast they almost seemed to get longer as you watched.

He was also becoming emaciated. The sudden transformation had taken its toll on his fat surplus. Whereas he had been a little rounded when he checked in, he was now gaunt and almost skeletal.

Dr. Mancini shook his head and said, “Well, we changed his IV from sedatives to painkillers. We’ll see what he can tell us when he wakes up.”

On cue, the man began to shift in his sleep. Slowly, groggily, he came to awareness. He blinked as he stared at the two standing concernedly over him and said, “Where’s the cafeteria?”

Mike replied, “First floor, I’ll send for some-”

The man cut him off by leaping out of the bed and, with a strength belied by his wiry frame, shoving Mike aside in a mad rush to the door. Josefina helped Mike up and the two ran after him, but the guy moved like a man possessed, tearing through the building. Though they soon lost sight of him, the two knew where they would find him.

Once they stepped into the cafeteria, the amnesiac was easy to spot, and not just because of his insectoid features. He was standing at the food counter and gorging himself. Anything he could lay his hands on got shoved into his mouth, whether it was off the counter or someone’s tray. He picked up and drank a whole tureen of soup in one draught. He shoved hamburgers and pizza down his gullet like he was making up for years of starvation.

Mike sent for some orderlies, but before they arrived, the man stopped suddenly, sank to the floor, and fell instantly asleep. When the orderlies finally arrived, he helped them heft the man onto the gurney and led them back to his room. Mike wasn’t the only one wearing a puzzled frown after the scene.

*****

A week passed. Every day, once a day, the amnesiac would wake up, trot to the cafeteria, gorge for about half an hour, and then collapse. As he slept, his body somehow converted the raw fuel into sheer bulk, because in the span of a week, the man gained two feet in height and about four hundred pounds of sheer muscle. He couldn’t sleep on the hospital bed any more, but the floor seemed to suit him just fine. They had managed to coax him into going back to his room before losing consciousness, since he couldn’t be moved by gurney anymore.

Through it all, everyone was extremely puzzled. The day after his admittance, the bloodwork had come back. All results were nominal except for a high saturation by some sort of unidentifiable micro-organism, so they had sent a sample over to the University research hospital for identification. They would have sent the amnesiac along with it, but he was too large to move easily and no one knew how delicate his health might be.

Finally, the results came back, and Mike was sitting in room 434 staring blankly at the report when the man awoke.

“Oh, hrrr, holy hell,” he groaned. “Where am I?”

“Brickstown Hospital,” Mike said distractedly. “You’ve been here a week. No one knows what to make of your case. Do you feel like eating?”

“Uhhrrrk... Not really. Why?”

Mike looked up from the report and frowned. “Because every time you’ve woken up before, you made a beeline for the cafeteria and gorged for half an hour straight without pause.”

The man’s face was an inscrutable collection of chitin plates, but the way he cocked his head to the side clearly betokened confusion. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

Mike nodded. “I was afraid of that. It could be anterograde amnesia, or you might not really have been awake. Personally I think the latter is more likely. Anyway, that’d be more consistent with these results,” he said, indicating the report he was holding.

“What... whoa, I’m hallucinating,” the amnesiac said, looking around the room with his fly-like eyes. “I can see behind me a little, and everything’s overlapping... hurrrr...” He held his hand up in front of his eyes and started, looking at the chitinous texture. “What results?”

“We-ell,” Mike said slowly, “We ran some bloodwork when you first showed up, just as a standard thing, and found an unknown microbe in your body. It went to the university for further examination and they just now got back to us on it.”

Dr. Mancini pulled himself heavily to his feet and walked over to where the amnesiac sat against the wall, examining his buglike hand. Mike put a hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “What they found was a retroviral agent advanced beyond anything we’ve ever even theorized. It seems to contain DNA sequences from many different types of terrestrial insects.”

The man stared blankly at Mike for a moment before stuttering out, “A, a, a virus? You mean I have some sort of... Am I gonna...?”

Mike got up and walked to the medicine chest. He opened it and took out a hand mirror. “Good news is, it doesn’t seem lethal. In fact, by all indications you’re one of the best physical specimens to come through here in many years, and we get a lot of heroes here.”

Walking back over to the man, he went on, “The bad news is, I’m afraid you’re not hallucinating. You see, a retroviral agent is a biological device used to restructure an organism’s DNA. I’ve never heard of one that would work on such a large scale, but like I said, this goes beyond anything even the most eminent of scientists has even dreamed of. Essentially, it has hijacked your body and transformed you into... something else.”

The amnesiac took the mirror from Mike with shaking hands and stared into it. No horror registered on his static expression, but he started to shake and a faint, almost growling noise started in the back of his throat. “Hurrr... huurrrrrrr... Hrrrrgg....”

Slowly, without showing any sign of resistance, his hand closed around the mirror. Mike winced and took a step back at the sound of shattering glass. When the man opened his hand, the fragmented remains fell from his unscratched palm to the ground, the tinkling as they hit the ground faintly audible over the man’s low growl.

Suddenly it shifted pitch to a throbbing, bass roar and he launched himself at the wall behind him. Mike cried out and reached to stop him, but he could as easily have stopped a freight truck on the highway. With the sound of more shattering glass, crumbling plaster, and tearing wood, the wall and window gave way before the massive being and the man found himself in open air, four stories up.

He fell. Of course he fell. When a six-hundred-pound monstrosity suddenly appears unsupported forty feet in the air, it has to fall, and hard. He hit the pavement feet first, but instead of him crumpling into the sidewalk, the concrete gave way under him as under a meteor, cratering inward. The force of his landing threw the few people in front of the hospital to the ground, and no sooner had he hit than he was up and running. For about three blocks, he tore along with no goal other than to flee the horrible thing he had seen in the mirror, but before very long he realized that would not be possible.

In desperation, he leapt in front of a truck barreling down the street at thirty-five miles an hour. The driver was too shocked to try and swerve. He slammed on the horn and the brakes simultaneously, but there was no way the truck could stop in time.

A moment before the truck impacted, the amnesiac’s antennae quivered. He could feel the truck approaching, even aside from his sight or the wind of its advance swirling around him. Instinctively, without conscious effort, he reacted. A wall of living flame leapt off his flesh and knit itself around his body.

The truck, of course, still hit him at damn near thirty-five. With a loud crunch, and the roaring and crackling of fire, he absorbed the full impact of a six-ton truck and flew half a block before hitting pavement. He skidded another thirty feet before slamming into (and wrapping around) a lamp post. Shaking his head, he got to his feet, sore and disoriented. The crowd on the street stared in shock, and he stared blankly back for a moment before they started screaming in panic.

Quickly the amnesiac took stock of his situation. The hole in the side of the hospital, the mangled truck, and now the dangerously teetering lamp post all registered on his fly-like vision as droves of terrified pedestrians melted away like snow in a frying pan. Suddenly salvation appeared through a gap in the disappearing crowd.

A sewer drain.

In one tremendous leap he crossed the thirty yards to the culvert, ripped the brand-new steel grating clear out of it, and disappeared into the sewer.