Oh, come on, man, hurry up!
Shut it! Damn lock is jammed
Groaning, Phil adjusted the cloth covering the lower half of his face and checking his pistol for probably the nineteenth time. The lights from City Hall, which had seemed to be so distant, so unthreatening before, seemed to loom closer the longer his comrade spent with the car doors lock.
Hurry the hell up, Rick
!
Dont call me that, its Whipstriker! the Hellion growled in reply, hunching more as he continued his frenzied work on the lock.
I dont care if youre called the Second Coming of Christ, get that goddamned door open! Phil- er, Rockcrusher- replied angrily.
A throat cleared.
Simultaneously, both men whirled around, Rockcrusher with the pistol raised, Whipstriker snatching up his baseball bat.
The person behind them didnt looked that intimidated. Or impressed. Actually, he just looked amused.
Wow, really, he drawled, adjusting the sunglasses with one hand (Who wears sunglasses at night? Phil- um, Rockcrusher- thought,) as he glanced from one thug to the other. Youre breaking into a car? In Atlas Park? In the parking lot of City Hall?
Um
yeah. Phil answered nervously, immediately getting nudged hard in the ribs by Rick.
Right. And
its just the two of you?
Uh, yeah. Rick said this, and Phil nudged him in the ribs.
Oh. Scratching his dark beard, the figure finally stuck his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat; No fire hurling bosses? Can either of you hurl fire?
Well, I got a Molotov cocktail! Rick snapped with what he hoped was an intimidating glower.
Of course you do. Resting his head in his palm, he muttered under his breath; Seven years and this is still going on
youd think theyd have caught on by now
It was then that Phil, no doubt believing that the element of surprise would win the day, decided to pull the trigger.
That turned out to be a mistake. Neither of them was quite sure what happened, but when it was over, Rick was unconscious and stuck in a garbage bin, and Phil was painfully conscious, sprawled on the roof of a car fifteen feet away. Their assailant, in the meantime, was gone.
***************
Comet Fist damn near laughed himself into a seizure when he had gotten clear of the fight, not wanting to ruin his mysterious exterior by going hysterical right in the thugs faces. When he had finally gotten control of himself, (it took awhile,) he cleared his throat, climbed to his feet, and dusted himself off.
A quick teleport took him from the roof of City Hall to its front door, and with a friendly smile at the clerk who nearly dropped his briefcase at the heros sudden appearance, he shoved open the front door and stepped inside. Black boots tapping on the tiled floor with each step, he wandered over to a row of computer terminals, calling up the Want Ads.
That was what he called them, anyway. Generally heroes looking for some help in a sticky situation, or trying to form a permanent group, left messages on the forum that was accessible only through these terminals (to protect identities,) and only used by officially registered heroes. Though he wasnt much of a team player, he occasionally poked around to see if anything caught his eye.
((Well, after deciding that I'm nowhere near skilled enough to try and insert myself in an existing roleplay that is, minimum, several hundred posts developed as is, I've decided to make my own little thread! Huzzah.
Anyway, what I'm hoping for is a character-driven roleplay... which essentially means that while smashing bad guys will be a big part of it, I'd like to develop whatever character become involved more than just 'They went on one mission and saved everyone. And then they went on ANOTHER mission and saved everyone. So on, so forth.'
What I had in mind for this was either the formation of a formal supergroup, or just a loose affiliation of heroes. If its the former, whatd be helpful is some character whos rich enough to finance the supergroup-ish things
Anyway, the first post is just a bit of a story style monologue, both to introduce my character, and so I can flesh out what he is myself. Ive based him off my very first CoH character, who was a Dark Armor Martial Artist, and the elements of his past are based off little flights of fancy I had when making his various costumes more than any particular Missions that, no doubt, all of you guys played as well. Im going to try and make it entertaining, but if you start to nod off, just skip to the next post, which will be the one to reply to.
The storyline, if any of you are wondering, would take place after the Rikti conflict introduced in CoHs newer game updates.))
Comet Fist... stupidest name ever.
Why had he taken it? For the Love of Lucifer, he <i>kicked</i> far more than he punched, something that everyone from the villains he fought to the people he saved inevitably pointed out to him, so if anything, 'Comet Foot' might have been a more appropriate name. Of course, Comet Fist never struck fear into the hearts of villains, Comet Foot would have just caused them to have coronary-inducing hysterical fits, and a superhero's job wasn't to entertain... well, unless you counted the Comedian. Or the dancing robots. ...or that entire Quasi-Dimensional Nightclub...
This led to a new train of thought; My life is weird...
Zanten had been about to put his costume back in the hidden slot in his small apartment (installing the damned thing without his landlord noticing had been an epic struggle in and of itself,) when a small album had caught his eye. The album held enough information to effectively torpedo his Secret Identity but since it was stored in the same spot as no less than three spare costumes, he was fairly certain the albums presence couldnt make things any worse.
It was for purely selfish reasons he had it, of course; hed been a hero since he was nineteen- God, it was nearly eight years now since then -and had quite literally been through Hell and back. He was no Statesman, of course. Hell, he wasnt even a Synapse. But he hadnt done too shabby during his career, and had helped to put some pretty nasty people in the Zig, usually alone, but sometimes with allies.
Still, hard enough to believe when he looked at his first costume; there was a picture of him, standing in an even smaller apartment (his first,) striking a pose for a camera that had been set on a timer. Jeez, what had he been thinking when he picked that? Blue and gold breastplate? Blue and gold trousers, boots, half-mask hell, a blond wig? Why had he thought he needed to be blond to fight crime?
Oh, right. Color coordination. Like gold and blue worked peachy together.
Of course, his costume now wasnt that original. Black boots, black pants, shirt, trenchcoat, sunglasses, belt with a skull for the buckle he looked like a Matrix reject. At least he wasnt blond
One of the perks of his less-than-human nature was that his facial features were unrecognizable. Not that they couldnt be seen, no; they just faded from memory to the point where his own mother wouldnt be able to recognize him. The only thing that didnt seem to share this ability, and the only thing that kept him from eternally being forgotten by the world, was his eyes; they were normal-looking, a pretty enough shade of green, but hardly magical or breathtaking, but anyone who saw his eyes seemed to recognize him just fine.
It had taken him about a month to realize this, which had resulted in about a dozen people figuring out his identity in the early days, even though he had worn a mask. Then hed tried covering his eyes entirely, but fighting blind was not fun at all, and that just caused people to stop recognizing him at all, even as a hero. Finally, the sunglasses seemed to be a good compromise; they filtered his eyes enough so people could recognize him with them on, and recognize him as a separate individual when they were off.
At least, he was pretty sure that was how it worked. Every time he tried to think about it, he got a headache.
Stuffing the trenchcoat, sunglasses, boots and belt into the compartment and sliding it shut, he tugged the heavy dresser back in place with one hand. After kicking off his socks and slipping off his shirt, he stepped out of the cramped bedroom, plunking down in the single La-Z-Boy that essentially dominated the apartments living room. The foot rest went up and, toes flexing, Zanten settled back into nostalgia, flipping through the album slowly.
Inside were newspaper clippings, all of which had generally been towards the back of each issue; in the City of Heroes, saving citizens or stopping villains wasnt generally going to get you anywhere close to the front page. It generally took stopping some sort of Apocalyptic Doom, and the only time he had come close to doing that was when he was making his small contributions to the newer Rikti war.
[u]Comet Fist Halts Freakshows PwNMaster[u]
PwNMaster suddenly Comet Fist doesnt sound so stupid.
Grinning at the headline and the picture alongside it, (the costume he wore in it red and black now, although the photo didnt show the color,) he remembered exactly how he had felt after that particular battle; sore (he had been hurled through at least two walls, and six or seven windows during the fight,) twitchy (hed been electrocuted twice,) and with a long slash down one thigh that had only just scabbed over (a lucky shot.)
That had been three years into his career as a hero, and only a month before hed lost one of his arms in another fight with the Freakshow. The smile faded as he recalled that little stretch of time the pain when a long blade had cleaved the arm at the shoulder during a surprise ambush, the pain, disbelief, and then inevitably the self-pity and depression. Attempts to fight with a prosthetic arm (albeit a very advanced one,) had only made him feel worse, and that two-month period had seemed to him to be the end of his life.
Then, to everyones surprise, Zantens included, the arm had grown back. Literally overnight.
It had been only then that Zanten had really tried to look into exactly what he was, and what gave him the abilities he had always taken for granted as a metahuman quirk.
As it turned out, what made him stronger and faster and tougher than human beings, generate waves of smothering darkness, allowed him to eventually heal from wounds without scars and apparently regenerate severed limbs, wasnt scientific mutation, or secret experimentation, but rather supernatural causes.
Zanten was a demon. Er, sort of.
Apparently his soul was possessed by an entity, similar in a way to the Kheldians bonded with human hosts to create Peacebringers and Warshades. The difference was that while the Kheldians were themselves conscious, thinking creatures, what had bonded to Zantens lifeforce was more of a symbiotic animal. It didnt try to control him, or even possess any self-awareness, but it still lived because of its bond with a human. And, in the process, apparently gave him some demonic bonuses.
The three years since he had discovered the nature of his abilities had brought about considerable growth in them; he had gone to plenty of mystics and magicians, spiritual guides and other supernatural beings, and with their help had learned to pull off some more magical stunts; literally striking fear into the hearts of his enemies was one of them, but he had also learned to hide in plain sight (he could only assume that meant invisibility, although it only worked if he wasnt moving,) use the darkness he could emit to confuse and weaken foes, and teleport great distances with a single thought.
Still, despite these additional powers, he was at heart a Scrapper, and liked nothing more than to handle a problem by beating the living Hell out of it.
Unfortunately, hed also begun to have teensy, tiny run-ins with the Circle of Thorns, more run-ins than normal anyway. They had figured out that what made Zanten tick was a supernatural force, and they really, really wanted to get their hands on it, probably to fulfill some diabolical prophesy, or call into the world some giant demon, or something equally Villainish.
The point was their method of extraction involved a lot of knives and chanting, which made Zanten very glad he had stayed one step ahead of them so far.
Shaking his head, he finally closed the album, muttering Crazy cultists as he flicked the small television set on. It was late, and he didnt have many channels, but he still watched most of Supernatural and half of the late night news before falling asleep in the chair.
((Second post should be coming soon, feel free to write your own separate character introduction bits. ^_^ ))