Wow, Megajoule!!! Very impressive!! I could actually envision the scenes as I read along!! An excellent read!! 
~*~VexXxa~*~
The City Scoop Art Correspondent/Writer "ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER"//"Don't hate because VexXxa is HOT and you're NOT." - JOHNNYKAT
Excellent! I've always enjoyed your Faces of the City stories.
Is... is it sad I want to hug The Row?
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
I always enjoyed the Faces of the City stories. Good to see a re-emergence, even if it is just a one-off. I'll have to reread the older ones sometime soon.
The Elysienne; Magical controller
Silent Sickle; Natural scrapper
And many more.
Aenigma Rebis: "Actually, Ely's more like Jean Grey. Only... smart."
Thank you all for your kind words. When I saw the first mission of the new Apex TF, I knew I had to do something with it, respond in some way. After so many years in the city, the sight of what the invaders had done to KR and Blyde Square really hurt.
I was tempted to play Barber's Adagio for Strings over it all, just to hammer in the Homeworld ref, but I figured I'd leave the choice of music to the reader.
Nalrok: No, not at all, though he'd probably just stand there all stiff and uncomfortable-like as you try to get your arms around his chest (or maybe waist). Go run the TF instead. 
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
I had never heard of Faces of the City before this. I just wasted some work time reading.
Outstanding stuff.
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
((Very nice, Megajoule! I really miss when story threads like this -- Megajoule's, Pill Bug's, Fearghas', Ascendant's, among many, many others -- were a big part of the Virtue forums.))
Very enticing and enjoyable 
Postscript:
Weeks/months later, as Kings Row begins to rebuild after the initial Praetorian assault, a new set of posters has begun appearing around the neighborhood. Some are in black and white, others plain color copies, not glossy. They feature a lineup of eight people (plus one) of all races, with angry, determined expressions:
A PPD sergeant in his department jacket. A paramedic, her hair pulled back tightly. A young man in a dark jacket and T-shirt. A stout man in a shirt and grocer's apron. A bum in dirty flannel. A middle-aged woman in a plain dress. A truck driver in denim and baseball cap. A fireman with his helmet and turn-out coat. And behind them all, just a vague silhouette with red-orange eyes, is the broad-shouldered and fedora-topped outline of the Spirit of the Row.
At the top of the poster: Hold The Line
(Slightly below this, at an angle in a different script: For Your Homes - For Your Families)
And at the bottom, in bold block capitals:
RESIST
The Row was hurt, real hurt, and still is. But the Row's also mad. Fighting mad.
You come into the Row and start that *(&#, you'd better be able to back it up. Or the Row will beat your punk @$# down.
(apologies for the massive thread-bump, but this is a mental image I've had kicking around for a while. I happened to think of it again on this solemn day. I imagine that there are a LOT of services being held today in the Row, wreaths being laid and speeches made, in memory of those lost when war came to their streets and backyards... as it did in '02, and many times before.)
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
The Row is burning.
The air is full of smoke and flying cinders. The streets are full of rubble and wrecked cars. Flames crackle, sirens wail, and distant screams go unanswered. The ground itself shakes under the heavy footfalls of giant war machines, their cyclopean heads taller than some of the old brownstones. Smaller automata with sculpted, impassive faces march before and behind them in perfect squares.
The Row is fighting.
The roughly man-shaped figure is in the thick of it as usual, laying about him with his big fists and the blocky hammer that grows from them. The hot coals that serve him for eyes blaze with fury under the brim of the battered fedora, but the ragged scarf wrapped around the bottom half of his face hides the rest of his expression. He is brick and stone and bits of glass and cloth and rusty rebar; his foes are plastic and ceramic and gleaming metal. Compared to him, they are fragile but seemingly numberless.
These "Clockwork" are nothing like the sparking scavengers he knows. They all speak with the same voice, repeating the same recorded, amplified platitudes. It is the voice of Marcus Cole, but not his Cole; the words are those of tyrants. He's heard them before, when the lights started going out across Europe and stayed that way for fifty years.
Do not resist. Stay in your homes. The Leader will protect you and make your lives better. His armies are here to keep you safe. It's not like you have a choice, anyway.
The Row is bleeding.
Thin red streams run from cracks in the stone form, dripping to the pavement. It is the blood of police lying on the plaza, of firemen buried under fallen buildings, of ordinary citizens who took a stand, of parents and of children. He feels all these wounds, and they fill him with pain and grief and a terrible rage. Later, he will mourn them. Today, he fights to avenge them and defend those who still live.
He does not see the laser-drawn crosshairs at his feet until it is too late. He does not have time to move before the orbital lance strikes, like fire from heaven. It shears off his left arm at the shoulder, burns deep into his side, and cripples his leg. He screams, and the air screams with him, blasted aside by the beam's passage - a sound of thunder.
The Row is falling.
One hand and two knees land hard on weathered asphalt, thick fingers digging deep as if it were only clay. The street starts to grow up toward the ruined shoulder, but slowly, too slowly. Once the Row might have withstood even this assault, but the Rikti invasion and years of follow-up attacks have left him with little strength to draw on. The sick squirmy feeling in his gut isn't helping. (They probably have something to do with that too.)
The War Walker is a mindless, soulless tool of its makers, existing only to do their will. It does not feel joy or triumph as the target falls, nor anger as it raises a foot to stamp out this stubborn point of resistance and grind it under its heel.
Blasts of flame and focused sound and pure energy strike the giant's chest, knocking it off balance; a sudden gale springs up to push it back. An agile wraith flits about it, cutting here and there with flashing blades. Over the next minute, while the Row pulls himself together, the War Walker gets taken apart. He looks up to see his saviors.
Heroes. A few are familiar to him, the rest anonymous in their colorful costumes. It doesn't really matter who they are, or if they have any idea who or what he truly is. The one in the lead asks if he's okay, extends a hand to a fallen comrade.
The Row is proud... but not too proud to accept help when he needs it.
He takes the offered hand with his good one, feels their strength surge through him, lifting him to his feet to continue the fight.
[ The Spirit of the Row and "Faces of the City" at Virtueverse ]
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City