They say everything has a time and a place. The time is the present. The place is a city called Paragon.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Strange events plague the land. Strangers have come. People are missing. Fear haunts the streets.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But where there is darkness, there will always be light. Where there is fear, there will always be courage. When the stalking shadows tread this ground, they are not unwatched. When the children cry out, they are not unheard. For Paragon City...
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
...is a city of heroes.
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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"I am not a hero."
Unfortunately, Brian Mackenzie's reflection disagreed with him. Standing over nine feet tall and almost the same again wide, his huge, muscular frame filled the dark green spandex outfit to create an imposing figure. The polished metal shoulder pads framed his form, matching the dark brown that was woven into his outfit. He didn't need them of course, since his recovery from the Devoured Earth had left him with skin as resilient as granite but they finished the outfit perfectly.
Despite his appearance though, inside he still felt like the timid, nervous genetics professor he had been back when he was 5' 9" and unable to open a beetroot jar without help. He glanced over at the television where the news report was talking about Frostfire's defeat of a large gang of the Lost and raised his eyebrows. He'd spent ages looking over the finest points of the Will of the Earth virus, he'd not spent much time reading on the Lost 'disease', it could prove to be a handy distraction.
Pulling his image-intensifying goggles down, he stopped briefly to bow towards the small altar he had grudgingly put up in his front room before stepping out of the door. And he did his best to recite the mantra in his head that he had taught himself.
"I am not just Brian Mackenzie, I am not just a scientist. I am Karnac, I am the strength of the Earth... I am a hero."
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Courageous, thats what theyd taken to calling her all those years ago, and the woman without fear, though that was a more recent addition. She took two steps back, then rushed forward, servos in her costume powering up as she leapt, she hits the roof and drops into a roll sending gravel spraying as she comes to her feet and again sprints to the edge of the rooftop, a leap of faith that carries her across a busy street, a flash of colour and brief shadow the only hint to the motorists below that shed passed them by.
A man had tried to make right, previous wrong doings, and had been left comatose in that attempt, he deserved better, and so did the world. Stepping off a building, she slows her fall by grabbing a window ledge, kicking back from it to grab the descending ladder of a fire escape, ridding it down to ground level.
Shed approach the crime scene like a normal person for now, albeit one in a colourful costume and mask.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
Land of the Lost
The steady rumble of traffic above echoed through the pillars of the overpass, giving the concrete jungle that was Skyway City its ever-present curtain of resonating background noise. Dirt, grime, and loose, aged newspapers blew about the gray-on-gray cityscape as always, and if it hadn't been that the crews who'd carted away the unconscious the day before had moved several boxes and bins to clear the way a little, few people would've guessed that anything at all had happened here. After all, this was Paragon City, and scenes like this weren't too uncommon.
Or were they?
The investigators hadn't found much. Then again, they hadn't exactly looked for much either. To the PPD, the situation was fairly cut-and-dry: a lone hero took on a little more than he could handle. It happened. They'd get the details from him when he came to. Sure, they'd gone about and done the usual, sniffed for Shift and other drugs, confiscated weapons, wondered once again where the heck a street gang got their hands on Rikti hardware, cursed the black market suppliers and swore they'd get them one day, but all in all it was just the usual routine.
Their findings had been fairly quick and conclusive, and matched the scene well. The ice they'd described in the reports had by now melted, but the scorch marks from what they'd declared fire powers and plasmatic energy remained, blackening walls and ground in apparently random intervals. Some of the blood was still there too.
But not all of it.
Or rather, too little of it, for the crews hadn't removed any. The stuff was dry by now of course, but to a canny observer, it wasn't impossible to discern the subtle patterns that still existed: blood dotted the concrete where the unconscious had lain, but there were barely any splatter patterns, such as those that came from baseball bats and bullet wounds. If this brawl had both started and finished here, there should've been more.
And that was just with senses mundane.
If Karnac's connection to the Earth carried within not only its strength, but also its sight, things would look very different than they appeared indeed. For even in this unnatural canyon of concrete and steel, the Earth had seen. It had seen men that weren't men, wearing suits that weren't suits, driving trucks that weren't trucks. It had seen this happen elsewhere. It had seen this brought here...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
Karnac arrived on the scene only a few minutes after leaving his apartment in Founders Falls. The combination of his teleport device and his superhuman leaping meant he could cross the city far faster than public transport.
He idly strolled up to the scene of the crime, smiling and anyone he passed as if to reassure them that he wasn't a threat. What remained of the evidence didn't seem to suggest much to him. The scorch marks seemed logical enough given Frostfire's powers and he was familiar with the latent radiation coming from the marks left by the Lost's plasma weapons but something seemed to be amiss.
Brian was no crime scene specialist, but within the two years since his recovery, he'd seen enough of them to get some sense of what to expect. And for a fight involving multiple assailants it seemed too... clean. He took out his PDA and re-read the PPD report he'd requested. Something was bugging him. The same sense that bugged him whenever he walked into Perez Park for his daily meditation, especially the place where... he pushed the thought out of his head. He was a scientist and should approach it with a scientific mind.
"So... plenty of walkways and vantage points," he muttered, staring around at the overpasses, "so someone must have seen something. Something that explains how a gang of Lost took on one man and put him in a coma with barely a shot fired..."
Karnac's brow furrowed, barely perceiving the slow, ever presesnt transfer of energy to him through his feet from the earth below.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Someone who'd seen something indeed. He saw Karnac too. He wasn't happy about that. The PPD were supposed to have cleared out. Hero beats gangers. Case closed. So what was this guy doing here?
An unassuming man in nondescript clothes, he stood on the skyway above in conversation with his partner - a nondescript man in unassuming clothes. It was farce, of course. They spoke of the weather, but neither said anything even remotely connected with that subject. Their discussion was of the broad bulk of costumed muscle sniffing about down by the alley. Of Karnac. Who was this man? Was he connected? Not? How...?
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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Karnac spoke to a few people, hoping to find out something about what had happened. Unsurprisingly, not that many were happy to see him. This area of Skyway was a stronghold for the Lost and there were many sympathetic to their ways of life, if not their obscure cause.
Beginning to lose patience, he began to make his way up the overpasses, leaping up to each one with a huge bound. If the observers could see him coming, he was on his way, speaking to anyone he could find.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
((Thanks Dante, but I'm afraid 2 involved people an adventure does not make. 
With everybody else gone silent even in the OOC thread, it doesn't look like this is going to go anywhere.))
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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Quote:
(("Here I come to save the daaaaay!" Or at least do what I promised.))|
Originally Posted by DeviousMe
((Thanks Dante, but I'm afraid 2 involved people an adventure does not make. With everybody else gone silent even in the OOC thread, it doesn't look like this is going to go anywhere.))
|
Over in Hide Park, in one of the back yards of a block of co-op townhouses, Kyle Tyler startled awake. What woke him was the rattle of a screen door being opened and allowed to bang shut repeatedly. Apparently the owner of the townhouse, a man, was waking up and was now calling to his pet cats.
It was still early in the morning. Dawn had yet to release her cold, chapped hands from the night. Kyle was hiding in the hedge. Exhaustion drove him to sleep there last night.
The owner knelt and lured his two cats indoors with the promise of fresh food. Kyle wasn't sure at first, but he thought the owner spotted him. The man was in a bathrobe and came out again with a newspaper and cup of something hot, that wasn't coffee. Kyle was pretty sure he could have smelled coffee from that distance.
The man spoke calmly, in a friendly tone, "Listen friend, you probably know you're breaking a couple of laws here. Why don't you step out of that bush so I can offer you a cup of tea and then you can be on your way?"
Busted! Kyle stepped out from the hedge, his suit of armor clattered a bit as it scraped against the brick of the back wall. The armor was a full suit forged from bluish metal that didn't quite appear to be steel or iron. The armor had two enormous folded wings of shining metal that sprouted from Kyle's back. Kyle had slept in it that night. Any knight would have told him how uncomfortable that would have been but strangely enough Kyle's sleep was peaceful. Not that it mattered, Kyle had already tried to remove the armor days ago and was unsuccessful.
At Kyle's appearance, the man stifled something between a chuckle, a groan and a sigh. The eye roll was plain though.
"Well now, you're one of those. I'm sure you have a very interesting story but I don't have the time. Tea? Or would you like chai instead?" The man sized him up for a few seconds and then went inside muttering, "Probably a chai man."
Kyle was a young man of 19, a slacker who used to work as a clerk at big box store before his world turned upside down. Now, as far as he could tell, he seemed to be the most wanted man on the planet. He stood there in the backyard as the sun staggered sleepily into the sky. If he could be found so easily in a bush, what chance had he against those weird guys in the robes?
The man interrupted Kyle's gloomy thought with a spiced mug, "Yeah, here you go. Eli Little."
Kyle stared at the offered mug for a second before realizing the man was making an introduction.
"Oh, well, um--I am Hood Ornament."
Mr. Little tilted his head at that, "Riiiight. Secret identity. I can tell right off you've haven't been in this for very long. Listen kid, I'd love to chat but you're on private property and I gotta go to work."
Kyle drank. That seemed to satisfy Eli Little who then went indoors to shower. Kyle knew he couldn't hide here anymore but was unsure what to do next. If only he hadn't been so nosy! If he'd never opened that crate during Monday inventory and put the stupid suit on, none of this would have happened!
"Seems like a nice fellow, he could have called constables or drawn steel on you," the armor whispered.
"Shut up," Kyle grumbled darkly and gulped down the last of the chai. He put the mug down by the stoop of the back door. He stared at the pink sky and, willing them to do so, he flexed and stretched the armor's wings. That was the first thing the armor taught him. It helped him escape the killers on Monday night.
In a beautiful, fluid motion he leapt into the sky. Flight with the armor was graceful and majestic in all the ways he wasn't. The first time he flew it was terrifying. But by now, two days later, he was stunned with how quickly he'd gotten used to it.
It was kind of like the freedom he felt riding his ten speed. He missed his bike, but he couldn't go back to his apartment. He didn't want to risk his friend's lives.
He circled over Eli Little's townhouse for about 40 minutes only to see Eli walk out in a cop's uniform and drive off to work.
Kyle gave a bewildered giggle at that, "No wonder he didn't call the cops or pull a gun on me. He is a cop. Fate just has it in for me!"
A few hours later, Kyle was still circling around the skies of the neighborhood wondering what to do next. Only until now he was to panic stricken to really think about it. But this morning seemed to be a lull. But only gave him an growing sense of impending doom and powerlessness. He didn't know what to do!
As it was Kyle never saw anything of Frostfire's fight. The first he became aware of anything was over the gathering sirens in the Land of the Lost. He watched in a detached manner as the squad cars and news vans gathered. He had no idea what was going on there but felt no urge to get further involved.
Kyle Tyler was no hero. He was a young man trapped and on the run and he had no idea what to do about it. After Karnac arrived later to make his investigations, Hood Ornament was still aimlessly flying back and forth over the Land of the Lost and other precincts of Skyway.
((Devious, do you want me to somehow weave Quark Zombie into all this?))
"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them."
Liberty Quay
Night
Running. Running for his life. Tobias Knight was running for his life, weaving through the maze of shipping containers as quickly as his feet would do, and his thoughts ran with him. How had it come to this? Heh.That one he knew. They'd found out. Too bad, too. He'd really enjoyed working for Crey...until he'd discovered what his division really did. No, a much better question to think about was why the hell the cops weren't here to take down the thrice-damned goon squad at this heels.
He'd given them data. He'd given them papers. Signatures, dates, locations! And they weren't here! No, instead of meeting with the police, he now ran from a pair of black suits intending to snuff him out - or worse.
He wasn't afraid to die. He'd known the risk when he chose to blow the whistle, and he'd accepted it. What he was afraid of was disappearing, of his and him vanishing without a trace, and that all he'd uncovered would simply be swept under the rug.
He knew it happened. He'd seen it in the records. He thought he'd accounted for it. Apparently though, Crey's reach was just a bit longer than the arm of the law.
That was when it happened.
Turning another corner, he came upon a dead end. Another container sat between the two that formed the path, squarely blocking off his escape. Great. Just perfect. Now what? The damned thing was too tall to jump onto, and there wasn't any way he was climbing up smooth metal walls. Turn back? Find another way?
He chose to turn.
And there they were.
The pair of suits raised the guns in their gloved hands.
A sound of thunder shattered the night.
After about a second, Tobias dared to crack open his eyes. An instant later, they went wide. The goons lay dead, heads torn asunder, their blood spattered all over the concrete. One shot. Two kills.
"Mister Knight." he heard a voice from above and behind, a robust male tone with Slavic accent, "We have a proposition for you..."
__________________
Land of the Lost
Noon
Miranda Stevenson, ace investigative reporter, straightened her hair and cleared her throat as she turned to face the camera. A moment later, the little red light atop the device came to life. Recording.
"Thank you, Charlie. This is Miranda Stevenson reporting live from the scene here in Skyway City, where early this morning the valiant hero Frostfire subdued a vicious pack of the street gang commonly known as the Lost. Having no so long ago been a member of the very same criminal underworld, the redeemed former gang leader risked life and limb to ensure the safety of Paragon's citizens, in the process sustaining severe injuries that regrettably leave him unable to comment at the moment..."
The cameraman began to pan across the scene at this, showing the 'viewers at home' a collection of PPD squad cars and ambulances, officers and paramedics out and about, loading the unconscious gangers onto stretches and into the waiting vehicles. Eventually, the view reached Frostfire, bruised and beaten, and slumbering the sleep of the numb just as the Lost.
"...have announced his injuries as not life-threatening and his current condition as stable. However, he seems to have slipped into a coma from which it could take weeks to recover. Just what these Lost were doing here and how they will be prosecuted without an eyewitness on hand remains to be seen at this point, though Detectives are rumored to already have gathered more than enough evidence to..."
__________________
Talos Memorial Home for Children
Morning
Linda Meyer smiled gleefully as she picked up the receiver and began to dial the first number on the computer screen sitting beside her on her desk. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone, the birds chirped, and in less than an hour, she'd be able to file the bulk of the recent departees as 'adopted'. It was a good feeling. Nothing could make today a bad day.
Five minutes later, all that had been expunged.
"We are sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try again. This is a recording."
"We are sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service."
"...sorry. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up..."
"...number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try..."
"...you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try again. This..."
"...not in service. Please hang..."
"...not in service. Please..."
"...not in service..."
"...in service..."
"...in service..."
"...in service..."
"...is a recording."
For several long minutes, Linda sat in silence, perfectly still, pale as a ghost.
Then she called the police...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
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