*pokes thread*
So... is this because I'm not a proven quantity that nobody's interested, or did I somehow slip on the writing, or has this been done before, or what?
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
OOC:
Done and done, I'm afraid. 
Grey just recently laid a Praetorian invasion in WAR! to rest, and I've got the whole doppelganger cast haunting the Necronomicon (the real thread is spelled wrong, go figure). Either way...done and done. 
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Shoulda guessed...
Ah, well. And here I had a long, elaborate plotline laid out, too. *sigh*
Meh. Guess I'll wander off to the Malleus Mundi bit.
RIP, long, elaborate plot
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((OOC- First off, greetings all; while I've been lurking in the Comics & Hero/Villain Culture forums for a while, this is my first venture into the RP boards. I decided that it's been too long since I last did a Forum RP, so here I am... apologies for my rustiness.
Anyways, I'm too lazy to dig through the established RPs to find a jumping-in point, so I'm taking the easy route (that takes about twenty times as much work, long-term...) of starting my own. Usual rules (no god-moding, no controlling other people's characters, no one-shot kills, etc.) are in force.
It's a simple enough premise... while most everybody's having a conniption fit over the return of the Rikti, or Lord Recluse' latest plot... somebody's gotta keep an eye on our favourite doppelgangers in the Praetorian dimension.
At least, that's how it begins. Maybe... just maybe... there are some broader lessons to be learned on the Other Side of the Looking Glass.))
Energon X scrubbed glowing eyes with the back of a blue-gloved hand, feeling the usual tingle of the warring energy fields in his body, and sighed irritably. The breathing mask/voder that replaced the ruined lower half of his face gave the sigh a tinny reverbration, but if anything, that made the irritation even more clear.
He propped his head on his forearm, staring out one of the 'windows' of OTHERSIDE Base into the desolate hellhole that had been dubbed "Praetorian Earth". The purple-and-blue clad Blaster wasn't sure what building the window he was staring out belonged on, but the view currently included a Greater Devoured being ripped apart by a quintet of what appeared to be 'roid-raged werewolves in a forest that made the Hive look positively benign.
OTHERSIDE Base was in a pocket dimension either created or found by the Portal Corps techs (he'd never bothered to find out which, since questioning inevitably led to a flood of technobabble that made his eyes glaze over), floating on some weird dimensional boundary between Home-Earth and the dump Energon X had agreed to patrol, only the main doorway manifesting on the target world wherever it was needed.
A slight shift in position, bringing his arm over his eyes, and the hero noticed fresh markings on the hard-worn armour that covered him all-but-completely, the bright colours almost, but not quite, masking the battle scars. He stared blankly at the new damage for a moment, then grunted. Right. Those things that look like badly repainted Clockwork and their rad beams. Bloody nuisances.
Energon X moved to turn away from the window, then made an irritated noise, yanking on his black cape and flicking the diminutive ALICE maintenance droid that had parked on the trailing garment onto its back. It scrabbled pathetically for a few moments before righting itself and scurrying off. For whatever reason, both the tiny maintenance droids and the giant Heavies were dubbed ALICE-es... and the main portal... Energon X shrugged, and made a face... or at least half of one.
That, in a nutshell, was why he was pacing alone in the hallway outside the 'launch' room. Go time was after a meal... and he had learned early on that it tended to make people uneasy (at best) when faced with someone sticking forkfuls of food into a ravening maw of energy where their lower face should be.
This particular mission promised to be... interesting. After the abortive 'rescue' of Dominatrix (and her subsequent escape), Freedom Corps had decided that more information on the Praetorians was a necessity- and, astonishingly, given their diverse purviews, MAGI, GIFT, SERAPH, DATA and ELITE had all agreed. In a ridiculously short time, OTHERSIDE base had been set up, along with the oddball 'stealth portal' most of the techs called The Looking Glass.
E-X was actually here at SERAPH's request, continuing the semi-informal relationship they had had since the inception of his 'hero' career; one of their ivory tower eggheads had theorized that one of Bobcat's Alley Cats could be turned. The Alley Cats got everywhere, and saw everything; only Anti-Matter's labs were truly closed to them.
Energon X had his doubts... using cats (or catmen/catgirls, whatever) as spies sounded iffy at best. However, he'd never been much of a theorist- if nothing else, it sounded like it was worth a shot, and the contingency plan for if the treachery was discovered pointed the blame at Marauder looking for an excuse for a fight. And in whatever case, this was a single facet of the larger intel-gathering attempt the extradimensional base had been founded for.
Throwing off the flashback with a shrug, he drifted into the launch room, giving the portal an irritable glare before checking the room for any of his teammates. Rather than the giant scifi hubcap rim that characterized most of Portal Corps portals, this one was... a mirror. A three-story, baroque-framed glowing mirror set on a slightly raised dais that looked, if glared at in the right frame of mind, suspiciously like a fireplace mantel, complete with 'ornaments'- several of the giant ALICE heavies flanking the mirror-portal, combat droids that looked like a Victorian child had played dress-up with them.
The launch room was empty save for the disquieting portal and weird droids, so Energon X floated up off the floor, crossing his legs in midair and leaning on one knee with his chin in his hand, assuming the aspect of some bizarre, bored, latter-day yogic guru, and resumed his impatient waiting.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"