A short distance away outside the warehouse....
Heh! Soon be time to lend my assistance the girl laughed, the light from her cigarette dancing in the gloom.
The sound of a roaring engine filled the night as the girls form was lit up by massive head lights, she crouched sending a skittering shadow dancing along the road. Unzipping a large duffel bag she pulled out a greeny-grey metal tube.
Give it five minutes then jam a brick in it and run off, I'll call you all later she grins all sugar and spice, and wickedness, smoke trailing from her mouth as she hefted the bazooka.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
having seen that all the heroes had entered the warehouse ,Justice moved out of cover and hurled himself across the gap to the warehouse's roof , his great wing snapping open and gliding him across to the opening made by Holly's attemped landing , hovering above the hole he peered down to see what he might see ...
all the time he kept up him mumbling , pitched at the lowest level of human hearing .....
Mr Maniacal smiled again, holding Holly's throat tight with one hand as he pointed the knife at the young girl taping up Ef.
"And grab those weapons...whatever you can see. Throw them over there" he waved towards the opposite side of the room.
After finishing her task, sobbing uncontrollably, she turned to the door and began to sprint.
Within a split second, Mr Maniacal had dropped Holly Steel's lifeless body and outstretched an arm, gripping the terrified girl by the arm. She screamed in terror as he stepped in close, holding the knife to her throat and looking towards the hostages.
"You -weren't- just going to run and leave your boyfriend, were you? We can't have that...at least leave him something to remember you by..."
He gently took hold of her hand, gripping tight as he lowered the knife.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The girl ran screaming and sobbing, clutching her bloody hand as Mr Maniacal gleefully bounded over to her boyfriend, still bound and crying.
Crouching down, he placed the 'memento' on the boy's lap, smiling to himself as he stood up and made his way back over to Holly, his right leg leaving a bloody trail of his travels.
He grabbed Holly's arm and pulled her up once more, tutting playfully as he dusted off her shirt.
"So dirty...shouldn't be laying on the floor!"
@Crius
Bassai, Canadian Kid, Alruna, Kahi
Mistress Rad, Culpeo, Ms. Demeanor, Celsius
If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Let's go to work.
Jake hated it when people popped messages into his head. It was creepy. Still, he had to consider this one. Did a telepathic message from some hero he'd never heard of count as 'proper authorisation for action' under the terms of his parole? Did he really care? These guys were causing chaos in his neighbourhood, and now he had his excuse to do something about it.
Strolling towards the building he began unbuttoning his jacket, slipping off his tie and shirt leaving just his vest, and handing the whole bundle, along with his fedora, to one of the Swat officers stationed around the building.
"Hold on to these for me will ya buddy. If I have to replace any more suits, I'm gonna have to go back to robbing banks."
Jake strolled on in through the main entrance, not worried too much about what might be waiting inside. From what he'd seen of the first guys entrance, the loony was using Hellions for cannon-fodder, he wouldn't even need to break a sweat to get through those. As for booby traps; anything that could do him any real harm would take out the whole building. For some reason, crazy as this guy was, Jake didn't think he planned going out with a bang himself.
Now, all he had to do was find his way to the action...
However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
Incendiary Arrow simply pushed off her wall in the Row, standing above the door and watching the girl flee she drops down and walks in unslinging her bow and pulling a rather painful looking arrow from her custom quiver. She fires it and it soars over the heads of the heroes before exploading as it approached the madman. "For god sake. Learn to keep yourself hidden or just give me a GPS with your location!" she says as she notchs yet another arrow, this one is completly different, black feathers, charred shaft. "Time to dance." twang the arrow flies and it bursts into a Phoenix as it flies and the song that comes from it is alluring.
[Union Roleplayers]Kiken: Tick the off in your Observer Book of Lesbians
[Union Roleplayers]Nitro v. IV: we need a perma-man feature
[Union Roleplayers]Nitro v. IV: I'd trust you more if you did it in front of me
Gotta love dem dere RolePlayers
"Well someone jumped in with out thinking." Mumbled Calm, she ran into the room. Dark wisps of smoke wrapped around her hands and she threw them at Mr Maniacal.
Tenticles of dark energy bust out of the floor grabbing for the maniac. Hoping she had given herself enough of a gap, Calm aimed a healing burst of energy at Holly.
@Wild Red
"In the Rogue Isles, loyalty goes to the highest bidder." Wild Red
Momo rushed up behind Calm, grumbling to herself about how people really need to stay the hell out of her head. Raising her bow to aim past her ally and directly at Maniacal, she was now pulling the string back to near breaking point. Not a good sign. Mo was ready to take the sicko down with all the force she could pull off, regardless of whether it meant he was likely to leave in a body bag.
Momo kept herself silent now, breathing heavily in her efforts to keep herself under control in spite of how much she wanted to make Maniacal suffer at this point.
Sam: "My mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas."
Max: "Me too."
Stuff
Ef sat there, looking angrily at Mr Maniacal. He knew he could get free if he wanted, but his previous attempt didn't go as planned. He had to get it right, so he just sat there.
Then the dark energy entered the room, he felt his own abilities strengthen, his eyes going black and the shadowy aura surrounding him, he got ready to pounce when needed.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc
From above Justice watched the unfolding battle , the mental message had failed to find Justices mind as he lacked one .....
the mumbling halted as real words tumbled from his lips ...
"Time to stir the pot and see what surfaces "
a downward thrusted right arm spat a small ball of fire ..with exquisite aim he exploded the fire ball so that its base was seven feet above the warehouse floor .....
light fittings exploded , the deep dust layers covering the warehouses pillars and roof beams ignite like photo flashes , years of spiders webs flare away ..and the collapsing ball sucks the air upward ...
under cover of this Justice swings through the Holly sized hole and flys to hide amidst the roof beams , off to the right of the action below ..
.. the mumblinbg restarts ....
The energy seemed to speed up Holly's tissue regeneration but so minor it was barely noticeable, the cut Mr Maniacal had made in her cheek slowly healed, yet her bound up body remained limp and unconscious grasped by the madman.
Fireflash followed the others in, he smirked to himself no traps after all, he was tempted to go right at the Nutjob, he was getting rather sick of this. Ah the old standoff, a knife to someones throat, He said quietly, "Ok, so now what? If you kill that girl theres no way you will get out alive, you want to make a deal sure I might listen".
He was talking to keep the psycho distracted and he picked up a rubber ball from his belt as he waved his other hand around with flames coming off it, "You see this? this is what will kill you, sure stabbing the girl will hurt her for a while, if you do though I will set you on fire and I'm sure no one here will put you out".
He was bluffing of course, he was not the sort of person who could kill someone, not even someone like this, though he decided to try something, no one else would have much luck and he was a veery good shot, He quickly fired a fireball at the knife in the nutters hand knocking the handle of the knife in and away so that the blde stuck out away from the victims neck, He grabbed the victim and pulled her away quickly before setting fire to the rubber ball and bouncing it off a far wall so that it rebounded and hit the psycho in the back flaming as it did, "Play ball", he said quietly and made sure the hostage got away. Now the psycho was outnumbered and surrounded, all Fireflash could do was wait and stand between the psycho and the rest of the histages and hoped his moment of heroism had done enough to change things. He said down the intercom though, "We have a hero down here, and it looks like our friend with the grenades been taken hostage too".
The end is just a new beginning, Goodbye all my coh friends and even the enemies, its been a blast I will miss you all. Thank you Paragon team, you gave me a home from home I will always appriciate it.
Edward sighed, a force bubble building out of his gauntlets and hurling it towards Pious as he begun to attack the family, "LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE!"
Edward pressed another couple of buttons, his force field appeared, hopefully powerful enough to keep this person aside. He dropped his personal force field and gave the mental order for the two unintelligent drones to deal with Pious and to delay him for as long as they could.
Edward still continued his advance...finally coming to the room that Mr Maniacal. He was still flanked by one of his smaller bots, the two medium sized one and the imposing sight of Elise, the 8 foot tall, 4 foot wide, armed to the teeth Assault unit.
Edward reached behind him, taking out his laser blaster and raised it to his shoulder, pointing directly at Mr Maniacal.
His force field spread across the room, possibly forcing the combatants and the hostages to be pinned against the walls, depending on their size and their abilities.
"You, there, Rookie villain...I'm telling you this now, you got one minute to get out of Kings Row and not come back, this here is Doctor Mechano's neighbourhood and no upstart punk is going to ruin my plans..."
"Take these shennanigans to any other area of Paragon City but Kings Row is MINE!"
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
"That's pretty good advice buddy. Him," and Jake jerked his thumb towards Dr Mechano "I don't mind. He makes things interesting. But I don't need the rest of you crazies messing up my neighbourhood."
Jake had arrived at the entrance to the room just in time to hear Mechano's speech. Now, his eyes rapidly scanned the room, taking in the hostages, the heroes, the robots and the loon who had started it all. And he was worried.
It looked like it was all over for Mr Maniacal. The odds were heavily against him, he seemed to have lost his control over the hostages, there seemed little for him to do but surrender or attempt to flee. But Jake had worked for enough villains over the last fifty years to know that this was exactly the time when they pulled some real nasty trick out of the bag...
However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
Mechano's force blast threw the psychic hero off his feet and across the room where he landed hard on his backside. The jolt of pain hit home and Pious launched himself quickly back to his feet, only to be met by a barrage of energy blasts from Mechano's machines. He was knocked back onto his backside again and again until finally, a concentrated laser beam struck Pious square in the forehead, burning a hole through the top of his skull. With a loud thud, the brave hero fell to his knees, bleeding uncontrollably.
(Sorry if my last post took it a bit too far too fast, I'm still getting the hang of all this, feel free to alter the situation so my bits dont go as I have wrote if needed)
Captain Fireflash found himself flung across the room by a force field and he was pinned up against a wall, oh great, he had forgotten about this guy. He decided to keep out of this, if anything he was happy to let the two villains fight it out as long as the hostages didn't get hurt.
The end is just a new beginning, Goodbye all my coh friends and even the enemies, its been a blast I will miss you all. Thank you Paragon team, you gave me a home from home I will always appriciate it.
All of Hollys wounds seemingly healed thanks to Calms burst of energy. Her blue eyes shot open only to realise the situation she was in, still gripped by Mr Maniacal with a seemingly overcrowded room of Heroes and hostages.
The red-haired Hero struggled with all her power to try and break free from Maniacals grip, but with her arms and legs bound all she done was scream into the duct-tape gag, squirming wildly in the hold.
((Events about to happen have been talked about between me and Elky_))
Mr Maniacal grimaced and grinned as the tentacles slowly faded away from around him, his grip on Holly tightening once more.
Mechano's intrusion seemed to have given him enough time to regain his thoughts, and his goggled eyes slowly scanned the room.
In front of him stood Momo, arrow notched and bow taught. He smiled a little, wondering if she had the nerve to release her grip.
Next to her, Calm waited. The healing energy she had thrown at Holly removed Mr Maniacal's mark on her face. Something he wasn't best pleased about.
To their side was the interesting lot. Captain Fireflash, now pinned against a wall. Dr Mechano and his family, shouting out threats. And a, what seemed to be, mortally wounded Pious.
Head craning, Maniacal scanned above and behind. The figure on the roof was now somewhere in the rafters, but he couldn't see him.
And behind, Ef still sat, taped and bound in the middle of the other hostages.
Cracking his neck, he grinned and took one step backwards, taking Holly with him: eyes scanning for every movement the heroes made, gauging how far he could push.
The lights flickered and spluttered, all shattered from the fire ball explosion moments before. The shadows they cast were frightening, flashes of light causing unearthly patterns to be formed on the walls.
The cold steel of the dagger again pressed against Holly's throat, slowly, as his grip around her tightened. He grinned as she squirmed, trying to escape. Leaning around, he gave her a kiss on the cheek, grinning as he pulled away.
Suddenly, in one swift movement, Holly had been spun around to face him. The grin on his face made her squirm, but it was all for nothing.
The dagger found its target within seconds, buried deep into Holly's stomach, her white shirt turning crimson around the wound. Grinning again, he held Holly steady for a few moments, watching her pain, before letting her fall to the floor.
Looking around the assembled people, all wanting a little piece of him, he shrugged and smiled.
Taking another step back, he craned his neck up to the sky, threw his arms out to the side, standing in a mock crucifix stance.
And he waited.
@Crius
Bassai, Canadian Kid, Alruna, Kahi
Mistress Rad, Culpeo, Ms. Demeanor, Celsius
If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Let's go to work.
Ef was winded and knocked back by the bubble's force, looking at Dr Mechano, then to Mr Maniacal as he stabbed Holly. He pushed each of his shoulders back, a click came from under his clothing as two shurikens folded down into his hands, letting him cut himself free of the binds. Within a heartbeat, he threw the blades with deadly accuracy at Maniacal's throat, he didn't want the villain to get away alive.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc
Momo felt herself pushed back slightly by the bubble, but the girl'd be damned if she let that cost her the the nice, straight shot she had of the the psycho ahead. The determined young woman steadied herself, digging her heels into the floor with as much pressure as her boots would allow, possible more than that. In spite of all this, Momo had kept her aim firmly on Maniacal, just in time for her to snap after witnessing his next atrocity.
"You piece of...!" Momo barked, finally releasing the arrow onto its direct path toward the madman as he adopted his dramatic pose, at a far greater velocity than she once thought capable of. Almost immediately, the young hero's right hand burst into flames that instantly took on the form of a scimitar as she charged past Calm.
"I'M GONNA BRING YOU HELL!!"
Sam: "My mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas."
Max: "Me too."
Stuff
Peering down the emotionless face of Justice seemed to drink deep of the unfolding drama ..still the mumbling sliped from his lips ...
slowly he stood , blanced on the roof beam ...his wings snapped open to keep him stable ..and around his hands a masses of flames started to form ....
Calm watched in horror as the mad man plunged the knife into Holly's stomach. She then glanced over to Pious's still body. Making the choice between Pious and Holly and the hostages was easy. Hostages came first.
Seeing Momo charge in to attack, Calm was hot on her heels. With every intention of pulling Holly from the middle of the fight and getting the hostages out of there.
@Wild Red
"In the Rogue Isles, loyalty goes to the highest bidder." Wild Red
Jake was so shocked that for an instant he just stood there. In all his years in the game, he'd never seen a villain in these circumstances just up and kill their hostage! It looked like he was completely wrong about the loon not having a death wish!
As others began to move, Jake snapped back into action himself. With the nagging feeling that things still could end up getting worse somehow, he pounded across the floor, preparing to launch a haymaker that would crumple the sides of an armoured car. Just in case the other attacks weren't enough...
However, it turned out that Smith was not a time-travelling Terminator
Holly was pulled out before chaos ensued dragged along the floor by Calm. She hadn't lost conscious but blood was something she was losing, her eyes squinted hard in pain, groaning in agony. Very luckily it seemed the crude single edged weapon never hit any vital organs, but as with all knife wounds bleeding could be internal, she was still in a world of trouble. If the young woman didn't get medical help or taken to a hospital her condition would likely worsen.
She was still moving, all be it slight, still bound up and squirming in pain, she didn't dare avert her eyes down to see the hilt sticking out of her.
"Elise my dear...let's make this interesting...light them up, all of them!"
Edward threw his protective force bubbles around the hostages and the fallen Holly to shield them from the fire, he was above killing innocents directly, if one shall fall during his schemes so be it but he wasn't going to get his hands dirty today.
"Sure thing Dad."
The pilot light of her flamethrower flared into life the petrol tank mounted on her gun arms begun pumping the highly flammable viscious liquid down through the metal-clad tube, as it touched the air and the pilot light a great gout of flames spread across the room, Elise turning to make sure everyone was covered with the flames, though Edward had his doubts about some of the heroes here, most would probably be resistant to some degree or another from the fire...
Badge Earned: Wing Clipper
A real showstopper!
Ef accepted being taped up, grinning a little under his mask, "Sure, no tricks." With his arms behind his back and his mouth now being taped up the mist around him started to fade, his expression suprisingly calm.
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc