Union Roleplayers - Recaps, Plots and Banter.

Father's day (7.9.2007)

"I guess this is growing up."
- Blink 182

Change is inevitable. People who refuse to see that will be remembered by those who did not get squished by the wheels of history. Priorities change along the situations. Embrace it.

The Friday for Andre was of little actual action but packed nonetheless. Diana had gone ahead already to visit Xan in the hospital when the leader of Silent Tempest left his home building. Outside he caught up with Chi who was embarking on his private journeys and the two shared a few words and one bear hug for Andre proposing a marriage and Diana accepting. Chi was curiously lacking of cautioning words which was quite possible because they would not have had any great impact. Andre was living his life and it would have been foolish to try and prevent that. Instead Chi was just happy for his pal.

While hiking towards Atlas Park Andre kept his smile and whispered into the passing breeze that he was a father now, responsible for a small boy. And that he was engaged for a lifelong union with the lade he had courted. The words were carefully chosen to accommodate his audience because somewhere, anywhere, Aria would hear those words. He could talk to his elegant faery friend like this ever since Dustine had taught him to use whispers and winds. Now silently he hoped that his friend who had been gone now for some time existed somewhere with the goddess that she had served.

Andrea was already waiting by the Chiron medical center so that she could visit her nephew. While the terms used were not all that solid there seemed to have been a bond forming between Andre and Andrea throughout the weeks that Andrea had been in the city. Maybe she had ony confusing fragments of memories from the girl she was supposedly a copy of and probably all of those memories would never come back in a clear form, but she was the closest thing for a sister to Andre and he was the closest thing she had for a family. Together they went in.

By the door to Andreas's room they met Angelique, who else? She was seemingly standing guard for thirty six hours straight without a rest. Her only response to Andre's cheery tidings of a good morning was a grunt that may have carried some deeply hidden friendly undertones. Andrea seemed to be more in the same wavelength with this young, temporally considered curious addition the the Kraft family.

Andreas was doing well. Exceptionally well. The only reason, besides it being a custom, that he was kept in the hospital was that the nanites that had kept him nourished while Xan had carried the boy inside himself were now shutting down and it was important to see that everything kept working the way it was intended to. What was remarkable was that Andreas had been already gaining weight a little since normally babies lost some of their birth weight during the first few days before they started to gain it again. Being bottle fed was one reason, the other contributing factor was the still residing nanites at work.

Xan on the other hand was quiet and only responded to direct questions. Having his chest cavity pried open like a huge melon had taken its toll on his non-human physiology and Andre suspected that there was an underlying reason for his solemness which he did not speak of. Xan's people did not have life mates the way humans did. Being a parent was a task that was given to those who had proven their worth and the important thing in their lives were the children. There was no romance in the society where he came from, just the deep love for their progeny. Xan had been chosen by Andre and Melanie to be the child's godfather. Now he was in a way also a mother, after carrying him for two months. Since there was no gender with his race the chosen form of a blue-skinned male was not a representation of Xan's role in his society, more of a suitable disguise that would work on Earth. Thus trying to think of him as a father was more incredulous than saying he had performed a motherly duty.

Jane, Diana's mother and a department head in Chiron medical took her time to teach Diana and Andre the basics of child care. How to warm the milk, how to check it had not gone bad, how to change the diaper, how to take care of the hygiene. She had her own experiences to go by and she very much intended to coach her daughter and her man in the arts of baby care before the kid would be let out. By the Friday evening the rudimentary grasp of important things had been achieved.

It was the time to attend the young parents' group that Diana and Andre had been going to for a week now. The rest of the group had serious troubles of accepting that they now suddenly had a child despite Diana never displaying signs of pregnancy but finally all the harder questions were evaded and the roundabout explanation of a pre-arranged adoption sufficed.

Diana went off to spend the night with her friends while Andre went to his work place over at HeroCorp. His father's leave would commence after the weekend and there were several things to settle and put in order before a months long sabbatical. He said his farewells to Kerry who had become his work partner for most field assignments, and as an afterthought he took a company call to Brazil spending half an hour talking with Carlos who promised to relay the good news and best regards to his sister Carla.

The insecure, selfish boy who had come to Paragon City to look after his sister had gone quite a way. The man who finally put the phone down had grown up to be a father and a leader of his own ragtag team of heroes-after-a-fashion. He was dedicated to care for his little son come what may. Just because he was a lucky sod he also had a girl to do it all with, engaged to be married and committed to the grand task of seeing a small life to take shape and eventually take his place in the big scheme of things.

Forever war (8.9.2007)

"So many strings tightly attached
He seems like he is lost
He makes a fine new decision
Whatever be the cost"
- Warmen

Towards the evening Andrea gave her 'brother' a call and dutiful as ever Andre made his way to the warzone. There he met also Subaiku who was planning on going with Andrea to deal with an urgent Rikti situation. There was an unending supply of them. While the call and the subject had been social by nature it turned out as Andre going with his two teammates.

The reward for work well done is more work. Vanguard noticed that one of their stooges was in da house and Coile got a call to tackle a situation or two. As usual, lives were at stake. Grudgingly the Tempest leader accepted and called for some help. Sword of Truth arrived presently, Mesoc a little later. As luck was they also encountered Powerstone and Shadowplay who in turn introduced a new guy called Dead Reckoner who had similar outward traits to Shadowplay.

The introductions threatened to run longer so Coile cut the chatter short, announced the mission and dashed through the portal. The rest followed and the day was saved from pointless chitchat. One of the missions took them even over to Rogue Isles but the nature of events of fighting the Rikti was that after a while the encounters started to blend together.

Mesoc was more level but offered no reasons for his earlier brutal behavior. Other than that the social aspect of teamwork seemed to drown into the endless hordes of the Rikti and the final feeling after missions was mildly victorious. The grandest achievement of the day was probably Andre, Andrea and Subaiku agreeing that the dreamwalk would happen the next night. So far the success ratio of that technique was 2 to 1 which was not bad, unless one considered the fact that the one failure had led to Melanie's eventual death.

Ghosts of the past (9.9.2007)

"My wounds are open wide
The freezing wind blows right inside and feels like ice"
- Sentenced

The locale was known to Andre from the previous occasions. The warehouse was where all three other dreamwalks had taken place. Luckily the similarities did not run deeper. As this was more an observation journey into Andrea's memories through her dreams there was no need for an elaborate paintwork and most importantly no need to strip down. Even so it was a little strange to set down on the same bed as the other sibling.

Subaiku painted with a prickling stylus marks on their foreheads, breaching the skin. Not entirely pleasant experience. The side effect was that the marks would linger for maybe two weeks before they were completely faded. Then came the time to chew the roots that put people to sleep. The taste was no better than any of the other times.

They all plunged into Andrea's dream. There was the lab with the two scientists, something that was known to be false. Subaiku quickly located an anchor and rendered the implanted illusion to nothing. What was exposed was startling. The memories were not altogether coherent but the impressions were enough to offer clues.

Strange beings which defined a later description were building Andrea, the adult-sized gynoid. Present was a young woman who looked remarkably like ND-5 but felt somehow more lifelike. And with her there was a man in his fifties, black hair and strong mustache. Zirgei, father to Andre and his now dead sister.

The journey took them through years of memories, warm summer days on the farm where ND-1 was still looking after them. And then, suddenly, an unexpected scene. There was Zirgei but as a young man and with him was the exact same woman who had been there in the far more recent memories. She looked sickly and her belly was big. She was pregnant. They were watching a young infant girl being built and Andre realized that this was all two decades ago, the same beings were building his sister Coila and the woman had to be his mother, the real mother he had never even seen a picture of.

On request Subaiku took them back to the time where Andrea was constructed. The shell that was ready felt empty, devoid of anything else than just fragments of memories from the occasions she had been online. Then a helmet was brought to her head and there was a nauseating, broken feeling as memories were installed with far greater speed than the brain could digest them. The memories from Coila.

Eventually the dream came to an end. Andrea was disappointed that she had, in her own opinion, learned nothing more of herself and Andre was frantic about learning when the memory installation had taken place. If the images were true then his father had a hand at Andrea's creation, and he was supposed to be dead. If the memories succeeded the decimation of the robot farm it meant that he had somehow survived. Another curious point was the lifelike replica of the woman that had to be his mom. That was a subject Andre did not think of too closely. Not yet.

As the party broke each going to their own destinations Subaiku promised to visit Andrea's dream again and count the day.

Newsflashes (10.9.2007)

"I am what I am...
A family man
Mother... father... brother..."
- Fleetwood Mac

For once more the Tempest meeting was a relatively and peaceful one. The agenda could have sparked more controversy but people seemed to be pretty laid back perhaps trusting that things would sort out on their own pace.

Things with Hand of Andros were more or less on a wait and see basis. Nothing would be happening until Portal Corp could point out the installation of Siege and Nightstar where the missing scanners had been taken. No one had questions.

Andre explained the dreamwalk with Andrea but the only point that was raised was the reliability of dreams as a source of information. That was despite Subaiku providing with an exact number of one hundred and two days being between now and the moment Andrea was embedded with the memory set of Coila. That meant that Zirgei was probably alive. No one seemed to want even think of it, and what it could mean with the big picture. It became obvious to Coile that this would be handled within the family, without the reluctant ballast of the rest of the Tempest. Him, Andrea, Diana and Angelique.

The final item was Dee Dee going after the Hellion gang she used to run with. Since she could not give an exact date no one could give exact promises of being there. For Andre it was up to whether or not Andreas had come home by then. If Diana went out, he would stay in.

Right at the end of the meeting and old acquaintance called in. Evelyn, or Dragoness as her other name went, had returned from somewhere and she wanted to talk to Andre. As it was not an immediate danger the talk would happen in the next few days. After the call Andre relayed the news to others and remembered to finally mention to Sword that he had managed to get a hold of Rakila not too long ago and she was doing fine, traveling around with some friends she had made.

While Andre was making his way home he wondered why was Dee so miffed about Chi, and how it was possible that Mesoc was now eyeing Savannah instead of Sword. He felt some gratitude that for once he was not in the eye of the storm.

Nope. His life would turn upside down only tomorrow.

Snared & rooted (11.9.2007)

"And after 2000 steps of climbing...
- I know it was the whole trip worth!"
- D:A

This Tuesday ended up being one of the important days in the life of Andre Kraft when important things happened. The day started pretty early on with a meeting with Shadowplay in Atlas Park. Jon wanted to explain his reasons for quitting the trial and also asked insightful questions about the vision document that Andre had written for Silent Tempest. The men parted as on good terms with promises of co-operation should situation call for it.

As Andre was about to go to Chiron medical center to see his son his phone rang. At first he thought that someone was playing a prank but somehow the voice at the other end convinced him that it really was Statesman calling. The call was because Andre had been made a Freedom Phalanx reserve member a few weeks before, like so many other heroes before him. It was nothing special and the Freedom Phalanx members were not in the slightest more his friends now than before. The status only meant that he'd be called to assist in things that the main team was too busy to do themselves.

Not knowing how severe the situation was Andre called Mesoc and got Xan out of the hospital where he was recovering for this task. Others present were his old acquaintances Sil and Rachel, his one time ally the mysterious stranger known only as The Priest and a hero going by the name Wolfram. Accompanying them was a Freedom Corps observer called Marge.

It was not clearly stated whether or not this task force was just one of the many working on the same problem or not so each could think what they wanted. Maybe Statesman was asking just a select few to assist him in secrecy, and maybe they were a cog in a big machine along with a hundred other heroes.

The job was simple enough. For one reason or the other Statesman wanted a certain construction yard attacked and the equipment destroyed. Simple, yes, but not without hazards. In situ they encountered heavy resistance and while they were able to carry out the task it was not without a cost. The Freedom Corp worker died in the firefight. Joining the team for the remainder of the task, mainly getting out and apprehending an arbiter in the process was one more old time associate, Bettie Bimbeau.

Afterwards Coile was pretty agitated and even yelled at Statesman for sending a woman without powers into such a combat situation, disregarding that he himself had no powers beyond his technosuit, the FC worker being a trained professional who knew the risks and Statesman knowing what he was doing.

The following tasks were various and seemed to center around Freedom Phalanx trying to find out what Arachnos was planning. It all escalated to the point where the team was sent covertly to Grandville in order to deliver a strike against the higher echelons of Arachnos if it was deemed necessary. Luckily for all it was not and one skirmish against Black Scorpion ended with a victory. It was during the clash with Ghost Widow that the recall order came and everyone was just happy to cut away and return home. Whatever had been the threat Statesman was preparing for was not revealed but it will perhaps someday turn up again.

Then, finally, came the major event for Andre. It was time to take Andreas home with him and Diana. He had become a true father when his son had been born six days ago. Now he donned the responsibilities related to it. Never before had anyone depended on him on this level. From now on there was no heroing whenever there was a need for it. Not for both of the parents anyway.

The evening was spent on marveling at the very small life and how enormous it felt. The coming days would bring about hard proof that the only meal that parents of a small child get to eat warm is ice cream.

Pinned down (12.9.2007)

"Oh, if you see him comin'
Get away if you can
Just keep on runnin'
Run as fast as you can"
- Alice Cooper

Part of the life of a leader, any leader, is the responsibilities that come with the status and it's always a trick to juggle them with the other, more private parts of one's life. Andre had people to meet, a son to look after and a girlfriend who could probably use some personal time despite her insistence to the contrary. That's why he took the baby out for a walk and set to meet both Dragoness and Andrea near the Arena on Talos Island.

There he ran for the first thing into Nadia (Light of Truth) who was probably there to visit the place where she and Andre had lived together for all too brief a time before she was captured, cloned and hidden away. She seemed surprisingly curious about Andreas and a little later even asked if she could hold him for a moment, which was allowed. Her budding romance with Andre had come to an abrupt end with her captivity and her unsuspecting clone Sword of Truth had lived the sad love tale to its end. Now Andre was with Diana and they were caring for Andre's son together which meant that whatever dreams Nadia may have had once upon a time were now obsolete.

Dragoness showed up and did not look exactly as she used to. She had clawy feet, wings on her back and other things usually associated with dragons. She had found a way to her home dimension and something had happened to her, mutating her to resemble her foster parents. This development was not welcomed by her and Andre promised that once Xan was out of the hospital he might be able to offer help or advice.

Andrea who had arrived at some point was sporting a brand new mechanical arm that Angelique had built. She was anxious to show the modification off which propelled Andre to take one look at her and ask if she'd dyed her hair. There's no telling how far down his throat he could have pushed his leg through his open mouth if there had not come a distraction.

The sky turned sickly green. Some distant sirens wailed. And Rikti dropships commenced their bombing runs. Instantly Nadia had her sword drawn and Andrea was creating layers of force bubbles around her brother and his son. That showed what constant exposure to danger and combat situations could do. There was no hesitation, just reaction to the situation, securing, guarding and protecting. Andre ran inside the Arena for a shelter and Andrea came there refusing to go outside in case the Rikti invaded the interior. Dragoness made them company while Light of Truth took care of the business outside.

While waiting for the attack run to be repelled Andre managed to prove that he had acquired some meager management skills. Dragoness was entirely without a home since the beginning of the Rikti invasion and Andrea was staying in a hotel in Atlas Park so he fixed them with a shared two bed family apartment from Crimson Archer. In the same building that he and his new family lived.

It was a little curious why Andrea chose to have a hotel room in Atlas Park as she was struggling to make the ends meet as it was. Shabbier but far cheaper shovels were up for grabs for example in Kings Row. However Andre did not ask about thinking that his so called sister was relying on things that she was familiar with and they had all lived in Atlas Park hotel when they came to Paragon City all those months ago. With the shoddy, partial memory transfer she was bound to seek security wherever she could find it, even if it was in a hotel she'd stayed in over a year ago.

Finally the calamity ended, Nadia got to hold Andreas for a while, Dragoness went to university to do something and Andrea went home with Andre and Andreas until Jay could deliver the key to her and Evelyn's new place.

Who let the cat out? (13.9.2007)

"Ears that hear when no-one's around
Miles away they process the sound
Electronic eyes scan the scene
What's the purpose, what does it mean?"
- Classix Nouveaux

Some days are rougher than others. Home life for Coile was still a breeze and the moment when splintered nights would start to affect was still in the future. He took turns with Diana to feed Andreas and spent a lot of effort to gain a sure touch with various aspects of child care like changing the diaper. Never been one to learn things all that quickly he compensated by concentrating greatly.

A disturbance what would become the daily routine came when Portal Corp made it known that they had finally located the installation where the missing scanners had been taken. Since it was not certain what kind of opposition awaited Coile put together a team of experienced combatants. From Tempest he would be accompanied by Sword of Truth, Mesoc, Chi and Dee Dee. Other people invited were Samuel Blayne who had been of some great assiatance again Hand of Andros in the past as well as Angelique and Andrea who were both family. It was strange to not have Diana there with them all providing support but for now one or the other of the parents had to stay with with the baby.

Just as the techs got the portal configured Dee Dee received a word from one of her underworld contacts about the case she was working on, namely her ex-boyfriend Flashfire. There was no telling if the information, or the informant, would be available in three hours time so it was quickly decided that Dee Dee should go take care of that end. When the team gathered on the other side of the portal they were joined by Miss Teen whom the Portal Corp had sent in as a reinforcement.

The first thing that they met was Nightstar. Not a really good beginning considering the plan that called for avoiding fighting with any big guns. As they were on a roll pretty soon they bumped into Siege and both fights took quite lot out of the heroes, even if they were victorious. The prize was half of the missing scanners found. The subsequent missions entailed a clash with first Neuron and then Bobcat. Also the rest of the scanners were found, each with a fancy new modification. Andre kept one to turn over to Xan because Portal Corp seemed to take their own sweet time with things mostly.

Bobcat was not very indulgent with information even after defeat and capture so she was dragged through a portal and locked up for now. One thing was learned though. The Praetorians had no intention of letting Michel out of their hands. Not without a fight, would Silent Tempest say.

Time of Aquababy (14.9.2007)

"Tuck you in, warm within
Keep you free from sin
Till the sandman he comes"
- Metallica

For the past several months life had already been something else than just donning the cape and going out to deal justice around, both for Coile and Love Angel. Now it was at times hard to find the time to do the heroic thing because being a parent superseded tasks that any of the hundreds of heroes in Paragon City could do.

A day can go past so that in the evening you wonder what you did the whole day, realize no big things got done but still you were constantly busy. It was only when Andrea called that she would drop by that Andre realized it was already evening, and quite late at that. She had a gift for Andreas. It was a colorful ball with flapping wings that moved when a string was pulled and it played a lullaby tone. Andre was quite delighted and Diana had to put in some effort to [censored] the toy back. Andrea observed the playful banter with distant coolness.

The visit was a brief one otherwise. They went to look at the sleeping baby but as he was sleeping looking was the only thing that there was to do. Quietly the trio returned to living room and had a brief talk about the drafted document for Tempest's code of conduct. It would be just a prelude to the lengthy debate in the next meeting.

Then the day was at an end and it was time to go to sleep. With a bag of water.

Diana had suggested that Andreas could sleep with his parents in the same bed which Andre was not too wild about as an idea. With dedicated questioning Diana managed to find out that he was afraid of sleeping too tightly and causing harm to his son. As she had no real answer to that it was time to call for professional help. Her mother. Jane said that fear about suffocating the baby by accident was not uncommon but mostly without basis nonetheless. She suggested a test. Fill a suitable, baby-sized plastic bag with water and take it with you to bed. If the bed is dry in the morning the plastic bag would be unsquished and so would be the baby. If they could stay mindful about the bag of water, they would certainly manage a baby as well.

So, that night it was Andre, Diana and a bundle of water in the same bed.

Gift of Gaia (15.9.2007)

"We can have some more
Nature is a [censored]
Bruises on the fruit
Tender age in bloom"
- Nirvana

It was a long known fact that Hand of Andros had been employing Malta operatives to do some of their dirty deeds. Thus it paid to investigate any possible lead that the Silent Tempest came across. In the recent past they had confiscated both physical files as well as a main frame chock full of possibly useful information and now one such lead had been datamined from those files. Knives of Artemis had taken over a section of the tunnel network beneath Perez Park and it was possible they were connected to the Hand of Andros investigations. Coile and Andrea formed a team of would-be-siblings and invaded the caves wading through the lethal mercenaries. In the end the results were pretty scarce and the only clue pointed to a group of Carnival of Shadows. However Freedom Corps confirmed that the location the Carnies were supposed to be in was empty at the moment. Another time then.

This suited Andre just fabulously as it freed the evening up for family time. Since he was already on the move he let Diana know that she and Andreas could hook up with him and Andrea by the Talos Arena. It was a safe spot as Arena would provide shelter in case of a sudden Rikti attack. On arrival the small child was wide awake and pressed against Diana in his securely strapped chestpack which freed Diana's hands from the carrying while the baby tagged along nicely without a fuss.

The idea was to go visit the blue flower, a somewhat central object in the major turns of life with Andre. He wanted his son to encounter the flower and to introduce him to his sky goddess Nut. Diana had invited Dee Dee along as well and flew them all, except Andrea who could fly on her own, to the remote island where the flower resided.

There a surprise was awaiting. Instead of a flower they found well over a hundred blue flowers, each looking the same. The situation baffled the people until Andre recalled a detail from months ago. When Gaia had taken Kitia away she had promised that come the next harvest season the blue flower would bear seed and multiply. No one had visited the flower since Diana and Andre shared their first kiss there over a month ago and meanwhile the flower had reproduced.

The situation was serene and Andre told to Nut about his son, who as it happened had displayed a lack of fear towards flying and had fallen asleep in transit. This communication took place in silence as no one made a sound. Then after a while Andrea asked Dee Dee if she had been a Hellion like it said in a paper. Dee herself was not familiar with any article so it was quite a shock to hear about the relaunch of the Inquirer who had interviewed Dee's mother. That sort of altered the mood and the flower or its subtle effects were of no consequence since then.

At one point Andreas woke up and made it known that he was hungry. Babies of that age are lucky in that with their simple needs they usually get what they want.

There are three new entries in Nightsparrow's scrapbook! What dashing heroics and resentful dark truths are revealed this time?

Crey Industries commends Silent Tempest for closing down rogue labs that were giving Crey a bad name. As far as false praise and misleading the public goes Crey still ranks as number one! Savannah Parker gets shot despite the very good intents of Tempest to start considering investigating the assumed rumours about the immediate threat to her life. Those scoundrels, attacking before the heroes have gotten their lazy [censored] off the chairs! We'll get them next time. Or some other time at least. Oh, Parker's in the hospital again? Uh, some other time it is then. Also featuring the sexy Capes cover with Number Nine and Chronopulse from Guardians of Ecstasy... er, Guardians of Destiny, and cover of HERO! magazine starring Mitch Pulsar who may or may not have a cionnection to the secretive and destructive cabal called Hand of Andros. Where's your money on that?

For those who have been living in a sealed barrel at the bottom of the sea, on some other planet in an alien dimension, Militia has been disbanded. In fact they were chopped up, sold, discarded, scrapped, blasted and thrown to four winds but we like to think that "disbanded" does not expose the utter betrayal that befell on them from Wayne Industries with such poignant sharpness and pain. The saviours of humanity that struck at the Rikti with dedication are featured in all major papers with no word of the murderous truth that lies beneath the Vanguard propaganda. But hey, it's in the news so you can trust it! Honest! And Tempest's not-so-secret strife with Praetorians gets spilled onto public when they clash with Mother Mayhem in Paragon City's suburb Marvelsdale.

Paragon Inquirer is down on its knees with a severe gut wound and head chopped off. Too bad someone fed it Hydra pills and no sooner is old evil dead than a new one already rises. Ladies and gentlebeings, let us introduce the new bad boy on the block, New Inquirer! To show that the teeth are as still as sharp as ever the infamous Dee Dee Diablo is torn to shreds with the kind help of her own mother. With family members like these, who needs enemies?

Don't miss out on the Creative Genius winner quality fun, read the frequent scrapbook additions with the comments from Diana and Andre either from Silent Tempest forum or from Scrapbook's wiki entry. (forum version is updated with better punctuality)

Coile's cadre of cunning companions cascades constantly! Now there are three of them - is there an end in sight? Joining Darksparrow and Coila is now Chaos Augury. The army of back-and-red armored combatants keeps growing!

Team Dee takes on a new brand of Hellions which spells bad hoodoo for our heroes in the long run. If someone offers you Rapture, just say no.

Savannah Parker Loses her office and Mitch Pulsar turns positively crispy over the matter. Moral of the tale: do not hug the phosphor bomb. Well, do not hug any bomb, period. It's bound to end badly.

And then there is a lengthy discussion about pros and cons of a power armor, ending with with a bribe.

Do not miss out! Read the Nightsparrow's scrapbook!

Proverbial (16.9.2007)

"Have you run your fingers down the wall
And have you felt your neck skin crawl
When you're searching for the light ?
Sometimes when you're scared to take a look
At the corner of the room
You've sensed that something's watching you."
- Iron Maiden

Chinese are reputed to having a saying, or actually a curse. "May you live in interesting times." While there is no proof that the saying was coined by the Chinese the proverb is still a potent one. The lesson is to cherish those peaceful moments as long as they last.

For Andre this lasted for a day. Almost. This is, of course, if we include Jane in the peaceful category. However as a norm her visits brought no major turmoil or anxiety these days. It was like someone had let out most of the air from the giant leprechaun balloon on St. Patrick's day. She seemed rather calm and dispensed the practical childcare advice with professionalism and while her exterior remained the hardened shell it always had been it did not take a Force user to notice that she went a little giddy around Andreas.

The change, the interesting times, came in the late evening when Diana returned from a normal drug bust she had been on with Team Dee. She was scared. Truly scared. Not freaked out like sometimes after a clash with the Carnies but chilled to the bone marrow and fearing almost the entire universe. It took some effort for Andre to sooth her down enough and tuck her in. It was quite remarkable that she did not wake up from nightmares, but perhaps the presence of her boyfriend and little baby accounted for a major calmness buff.

Yesterday, the world was infested by extreme amounts of stupid. I therefore have nothing to report.

C'est la vie (17.9.2007)

"It is happening again and I have no strength in me
When there is no hope
the memories won't fade
But will you lose your faith again today?"
- Rapture

In the tumultuous business that is the hero work one gets all sort of leads that may or may not prove to be relevant, or even crucial. Thus when Freedom Corps called Andre that the confiscated Malta files indicated something peculiar happening at a Knives of Artemis hideout he called up the woman who was more and more becoming in his mind a sister. Andrea responded to the call. After making sure that Diana was okays enough to be left home the could-be-siblings went out for a fact finding mission.

Sometimes those leads do not live up to their name, unless you count leading to nothing as a result. C'est la vie.

In the evening there was yet another meeting and the first public appearance of Andreas. On the agenda was a brief mention of Hand of Andros case waiting for more information, Dee Dee's report about his former boyfriend, a new drug called Rapture and recount of the scary things they had seen last night which in Andre's mind boiled down to finding some weird halfbreed demons and angels who were tortured in order to produce Rapture. It was agreed that this operation would be stopped and weeded out. Luckily Diana had explained most of this earlier on because in the meeting Andre had to cut away for twenty minutes to feed his son in peace.

The discussion about the ethics of taking lives as a part of the hero work spiraled around coming to no conclusion even about whether or not animals were sentient. To be continued.

After the meeting Light of Truth again displayed some signs of interest towards Andreas. This only goes to show that you can produce a clone with an identical set of memories and even just one year can make all the differences.

Sleeping my day away (18.9.2007)

"Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees"
- Midnight Oil

Being a parent is easy when things go right. It can get rougher even if there are only slight changes like a baby deciding that this night they want to hear songs and look around instead of sleeping. A human infant does not necessarily have a fixed daily rhythm or understanding that they are not nocturnal creatures. This time it was Andre's turn to keep Andreas the company while Diana slept. Besides after all the scare from the day before she deserved a good rest.

Even if the nights awake were an exception from the norm there had not been a single night of a decent, uninterrupted sleep ever since Andreas came home. After a while that starts to take its toll. Nothing big, nothing major and nothing a good nap during the day would not go a long way fixing. Andre had heard some horror stories over HeroCorp about a co-worker and his family where the man was a HeroCorp employee and had to retain his edge on the job as an alternative would be to die a messy death when the focus drifted. For that he needed seven or eight hours of sleep a day. That meant that it was his wife who took care of the kid, more or less, and afterwards she said that she remembered barely anything from the first two years.

Andre was determined for this not to happen to his family and was bridging the rest gap together with his son while Sapientia visited and brought a Beatrix Potter baby book as well as a statue made out of her own bones. Talk about a personal gift.

But where did the tiger toy that looked like Tygerboy come from?

Nomen est omen (19.9.2007)

"Some tricks of the light you never know.
Make a flickering midnight light into a glow."
- Mike Oldfield

Being famous can be unsettling. It of course depends on the reasons but if the most notable media to write about you has been the Paragon Inquirer for many months the reputation is bound to be on the tarnished side. Hence when Coile met a woman who recognized him as "Mr. Kraft" while he was in his armor it was time to sweat and dread.

The woman was called, now, Afterlight and she had met Andre some time ago in Pocket D before embarking on her own hero career. The name had a few nifty thoughts behind it to which Andre only noted that it was smarter than his name. Maybe getting the name from a robot part had not been that good an idea, after all. As for being recognized, luckily the woman was not a firm believer of everything that was printed in papers and in the end both remarked that Hero Corps had their contact information should the other perhaps needs assistance on some job sometime.

Afterwards there were some strikes against Malta among the Tempest with one salvage scavenging relative taking part, as well as taking parts. Some kind of control chips were located. For what use they were intended was not apparent but considering the way of the world, probably not for anything good or peaceful.

It's always the red one (20.9.2007)

"No need to regret
No need to pray
The Bomb will love you anyway

Goal is destruction
Goal is extinction,
bloodshed in the name of god"
- Widescreen Mode

Things seldom are so badly off that they cannot go worse. Michel had vanished into Praetorian Earth which was bad but what made it worse was that she was helping the local madmen incorporate all sort of Hand of Andros based technological innovations into their own deranged schemes.

One such scheme was Battle Maiden's reign of terror through death and destruction and the easier it was to inflict such a bane to a large population, the better. Michel had helped to build smaller scale solar bombs which were to be tested on a world that defied Battle Maiden's rule. There were fifteen bombs all in all and thugs keeping the local insurgents in their homes right until the testing. What good is it to test out means to kill if you will not know how the targets die?

Silent Tempest was sent to investigate and foil the plan since they had the most experience on Hand of Andros and there was never telling when details could prove crucial. Coile had put together a formidable team. From his makeshift family Andrea and Angelique were present, both in their armors which proved to be an essential tidbit. Sword of Truth and Mesoc had just returned from their vacation in warm south which is also a notable details as they kept discussing their trip while a brief briefing was held. Dee Dee had made time to take part even with her own investigations about Rapture, and the final member of the posse was Bettie Bimbeau whom some people rather impolitely referred to as Bim-bo.

Plan was solid and instructions simple. Take out all the guards so that people not entangled with the situation could leave, and only after that start figuring out how to disarm the bombs which is of course easier when no hostiles still roam the scene. Nice plan. At the second located bomb Mesoc for who knows what reason decided to tampered with the bomb despite direct orders on the spot. Confident that he knew what he was doing he just cut a wire whether trusting luck or some innate knowledge, it did not matter.

The bomb went off. It produced a bright light and an incredible amount of heat in addition to the usual destructive blast associated with the bombs ever since the Chinese invented the gunpowder. As the bomb let out one beep Mesoc had the opportunity to use his fast reflexes and jump behind a cover. No one else was that lucky.

Andrea brought her shield up at maximum power but it was not quite enough. The energy came from within herself and she had her limits. As the biggest brunt was absorbed Andrea collapsed, on top of Dee Dee. Angie had dropped down and curled up. Andre just managed to lift an arm to shield his eyes and helmet. Then the shield dropped and the last ripples of the devastation shook the group.

Andrea was flung several meters into a pile of rubble. Andre was thrown into down a slope. Nadia crashed against an iron railing cracking several bones and Bettie was thrown against a car that had melted due to the explosion, melding those two objects together. Damages were shocking and extensive. When the dust had settled Mesoc took Nadia to a vanguard hospital and Coile managed to get Bettie off the car and rushed her back to the other side of the portal into S.E.R.A.P.H. care. No one seemed to believe that she would survive her extensive wounds.

Despite the losses there was no time grieve or issue blame. There were still bombs left and lives at stake. More reinforcements were called. Responding were Xan and Light of Truth keeping the team's Nadia quota filled, slightly to the dismay of Angie who noted that the unfun Nadia had appeared. Since the situation was grave Portal Corps assigned Sil and the famous Zortel to the case.

Seven other bombs had been linked to the one that Mesoc decided to touch without authorization and had gone off at the same time. The pools of still cooling rock and large dents in the already damaged structures littered the urban nightmare scenery. There was no telling how many deaths had occurred.

Seven remaining bombs were located as the rest of the guards were taken out of the fight and finally it became a necessity to try and defuse them. All of them were standalone versions so mucking up with one would risk setting only that one off. With co-operation Sil and Zortel found out that the bomb was voice and noise controlled and a certain note would disarm it. With one harmless specimen, as harmless as any bomb can be, at their disposal the heroes took that one away for analysis and the rest were left for Freedom Corps bomb squad personnel to deal with.

Mission accomplished. But with a high price.

Serpent's society (21.9.2007)

"Spring little Cobra
Getting ready to strike
Spring little Cobra
With all of your might
Hey, little Cobra
Don't you know
You're gonna shut 'em down"
- The Rip Chords

Past is a misleading term as most things that we go past and leave behind seldom stay there. More often than we would like the past sneaks up on us and bites the tender bottom. If we are really out of luck it happens with the ferocity of a miffed off Freakshow Slammer. Case in point would be Lady Cobra and her husband Mr. Chang who decided that a divorce is not an option and that personal freedoms are luxuries that happen to other families.

For some time this vile villain had kept both Cobra and their common daughter Jessica imprisoned in his well secured jungle hideout on Nerva. Even if this was known a poorly planned rescue operation would have only led to death of all the wrong people so it was with time and cunning that the effective means of busting both captives out were discovered. Details aside it required acquiring floorplans of the underground compound, intrinsic knowledge of the security systems and bribing certain people to drive a supply truck full of heroes inside the nefarious den.

On that truck from Silent Tempest were Coile, Chi and Xan accompanying a lot of Lady Cobra's friends and associates. The moral of the story could be that if you have a mental spouse who does not understand that no means no you are better off with a likable nature and a broad cadre of personal friends willing to stick their neck out for you. Coile did not know most of the rest of the party all that well but the common goal was enough. Following the lead of Kunoichi X the operation was carried out efficiently and in the end the operation was a success.

Upon returning home the almost frantic Diana welcomed Andre back with fierce kissing. She had been quite beside herself because of Andre leaving for another mission so soon after the disastrous bomb run the other night. Now all was well again, the family was together and there was nothing excessively tumultuous upon their heads.

With certain kind of people constant strife is the second nature and a way of life. The peace for Andre and Diana lasted until the next night.

Fear is the key (22.9.2007)

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping"
- Simon & Garfunkel

For babies young enough the age is told in weeks plus days. Andreas was 2+3 and already certain characteristics were surfacing. While one should not belittle the importance of upbringing and surroundings even the smallest of persons have their own ways right at birth. Some babies can be peaceful and calm as a deep lake until something important goes wrong while others take their time pointing out every single little thing that is even partially off in their little world. This, of course, rings true for adults as well.

Andreas had quite a steady schedule for feeding. Once in every four hours, for a half an hour at a time, with an occasional exception just to underline the very human nature of living with an infant. He also kept his cool until a point was reached when things stopped be fine, such as hunger or a diaper that needed changing. After a week at home he also started to display nocturnal tendencies. While it was possible that the kid stayed awake for three hours in one go during daytime it was becoming an almost certainty that he would not want to sleep for two to four hours after the midnight.

Seeing how Andre and Diana neither had anything in particular that needed regular doing at given times adapting to the changing pace of wakefulness and sleep would not have been such a trial if not for the deeply embedded inner rhythm that made Andre wake up at seven or eight at least no matter how much shut-eye he had gotten that night. For Diana this went easier as did most things. It was as if one of her natural superpowers was going with the flow.

Having three evenings of flying around in his powerarmor it was time for Andre to sit tight home and spend some quality time with his son. However it was not to be a family gathering since Diana got a call from Dee Dee about a Rapture lead they had been waiting for. A little after Diana having left Andreas got tired in anticipation of the night's awake hours and gained a safe place to be on the sofa his father's hand resting gently over him. The television was not on too loud and did not bother the youngling the least.

Having heard plenty of pop culture references from several people over the course of year Andre was using this opportunity of homebound life to acquaintance himself with such phenomena as Star Trek and MacGyver. Episode by episode of audiovisual fiction the huge gaps in his knowledge base started to fill with fascinating details.

This was the second time Diana had gone with Dee Dee to work on the Rapture case, a new drug that Hellions had been shooting up giving them ferocity and power unequaled in their gang's history. Last time Diana had come home more scared than ever before in her life. This time was no different. When she returned she was just as scared as the last time, except this time there was blood. She had been drenched in it. Again the same voices that no one else except Diana could hear, more of those mutilated demons and angels, this time packed in crates like humansized sardines.

And the drug that kept calling for Diana, making her lose control.

No, Diana was not the only one being scared. Just as Andre had been settling down, immersed in his new-found family life, the inner terror returned. That fear had driven him from Nadia, and that fear had split him and Melanie up right before her death. He had never been good with fear. When Andre got scared he usually did something shortsighted and ultimately foolish. Something creatively self-destructive.

Hammer is up. The question is, when does it fall?

Once more I get curious about if my recaps serve much function.

This month I have wanted to recap every single day in its own entry which would equal to an OOC-form diary with outside observations. I am a week behind on them right now. As Coile is stuck more or less at home with his son a few entries are more or less made up or based only a few details settled on over MSN or PMs which means no real in-game advances on plots.

Who reads these recaps, why, and what do they want/get from them? I am tempted to try and keep up the daily schedule but as a writer I am an entertainer. It would be a bit foolish try to serve a crowd that does not exist.

Or do the recaps maybe feel confusing? Too long? I have tried to include enough background information for the entry to make sense but I have no idea if the current readers have read the older recaps which detailed many important occasions in Andre's life. What could maybe make the recaps better?

Any and all feedback is welcomed. I want to know what I am doing right, in your opinion, and what I am doing wrong, in your opinion. Replies to this thread is preferred but any other means of communication is appreciated just the same.

For me they're useful as my guys don't tend to interact with Coile as much as they used to and, as two of them live in the same building, it's useful to know at least a little to pass on to them. OOC I wouldn't have a clue but IC they'd have an inkling.

It's also quite interesting to see Coile getting more neurotic...

I myself admittingly skim the recaps, i'm not a massive fan of reading. (Ive never ever read a novel) Though one thing i keep an eye out for is my own characters and/or characters she might know or interacted with recently, i think you do a great job Coile and its obvious alot of effort goes into this, like i say i skim until i see something that might involve my char or others shes recently interacted with.


The main reason i dont do recaps is because not much is really happening at the moment, only been playing CoV lightly and RP for that, it seems a little quiet currently and with the PD event, as it is everytime, it becomes that little bit harder to find some decent roleplay without being swamped by 'LOL's' and all the rest, second reason is, i'm a bad writer, i aint too confident on that front and so it becomes a chore.


From my eyes your doing nothing wrong, as i stated i'm not a big reading fan, but if i see something that catches my eye (That might involve someone elses opinion of my chars) i'd read that bit properly. Thats hardly your fault for doing wrong, its just my personal reading style. You do a brilliant job Coile, the effort you put into getting stuck into the Roleplay community is really quite inspiring, i'd imagine there isnt many chars who havent actually heard of Coile in some way shape or form.

I read them. or i should say, i skim them for things i find interesting (names i know, or plot bits im following) then read properly if i find any.

RP wise, im busy fixing up Lunk's stuff (licence, pregnancy, the hunt) and with The Psychogenic's, so i'm usually outside of these plots, so the recaps are great, as it lets me see what other parts of the community are up to.

as for them being long winded? well, i'd rather read something verbose and creative than something that doesn't have enough information in it.

Keep churning them out, coile, we'll keep reading them.

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RP wise, im busy fixing up Lunk's stuff (licence, pregnancy, the hunt)

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Lunk's pregnant?

He could hide twins in that huge frame.

Name them Luke and Leia.