The Crossing ((open RP))

((Welcome one and all to an interdimensional extravangza, bought to you by one Dr_Mechano and Deviousme!

What this topic is about is, as suggested by the titles, a crossover event between not just the Unionverse and the Virtueverse but many other universes as well.

Got a character from another MMO you want to bring into the CoH universe? This be the place for you! Not just MMOs either, how about a character from something different, say a side scrolling beat-em up (the name and character of which you make up yourself, lets not get too copyright infringing here people) or the myriad of other things.

So yes, this is a crossover of truly epic proportions, those of both the Unionverse and the Virtueverse are welcome to post here.

Now...on with the multiversal show!))
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In a secret Lab on Sharkshead Isle: Unionverse

One Doctor Edward Johnson aka the infamous Doctor Mechano had been busy, very busy. Sure the 'Dream partner' and 'New you' sidelines has all been chugging along but he had grown bored, he wanted to something, something with SCIENCE!

Deep in the subterranian complex beneath his factory he had been busy working, perfecting his means of interdimensional travel. He had used it once before but each time it was used, it was a one way trip, requiring a device of equal ingenuinity and science to be built in the dimension of destination in order for him to return.

Now he wanted to slip as quickly and easily to other dimensions as those scientifically miscalculating fools at Portal Corp.

There were many dimensions where a man of science could come to be a king, rule over the uneducated peasantry that would bow to him as though he were a god or ones which had normally rare minerals fully in abundance or even more advanced technology he could plunder.

Edward stroked his thick, white beard as he looked over his portal device, it wasn't smooth, sleek or sophisticated by any means, formed mostly of salvaged parts but it looked like it would do the job.

The elderly scientist lowered his goggles and proceed to power his machine on...

...something was amiss, the power readings had gone off the charts, the red alert siren begun to wail. Some fool had activated a portal into this reality the very same time he had activated one into theirs!

The effects could be catastrophic, a rift swallowing the plant level of catastrophic.

Working his mechanical hand over the control panel as quickly as he could, if he couldn't shut this down it would rip a truly astronomical hole in the fabric of space and time itself...the Jedi would certainly feel that one.

Bringing the portal back under control and eventually shutting it off, he breathed a ragged sigh of relief. The world ending event had thankfully been averted...and without the involvement of heroic intervention, which was always nice.

However the reading he was getting were not good, while a gigantic rip that could swallow the world had been stopped, it seemed that much small, people sized rips had begun to open up, rippling across both this planet and any other mirror Earth dimension, a veritable storm of portals.

"Oh dear...hmm...well by my calculations this interdimensional storm of activity probably should die down...sometime soon, exactly when is a mystery but the power needed to sustain these portals would be too large for them to be stable."

He sighed, "probably should just keep quiet about this for a while, 'mad scientist nearly destroys world' would not make a good headline for business...not to mention give a very legitimate reason for heroes to come over into the isles and shut me down."

Reaching for the cup of coffee that had sat on the control panel he took a sip and let out a sigh, "Hmm lets see about contacting the scientifically deficient fool that thought it such a good idea to try the same experiment at the same time, perhaps we can work to getting this rips closed faster...though I will probably be pulling dead weight, another pair of hands and a second head is always useful..."

He pulled away from the console and looked up at the Cybernetically enhanced Shivan who had hurried into the room, if Steve had been worried, it was hard to tell, he was a Shivan after all, "fetch me my whiteboard, I have some calculations to do...and a sternly worded message to write."

((Deviousme will be along shortly to provide the Virtueverse side of the story to this endevor))

((Well, more Genericverse since I've got about as much clue about the Virtueverse as I do what happens on Union, but I'll see what I can do. ))

Fiji

He raised an eyebrow. The comics gradually wandered downward as he slid the newspaper off his face. Deep-green lids half-closed over ice-gray, slitted pupils, the eyes to which they belonged only slowly coming to rest upon the 'face' of the battle drone that seemed to tower over him into the clear, deep-blue sky by virtue of standing right next to his shoulder in the sand.

"What?" queried the sharp-toothed, saurian jaws of the long, lanky Khelari, the bipedal reptilian that had about as much in common with reptiles as humans with giraffes still lying half-buried in the beach with the heavy paper on his chest, "They did what?!"

Despite the practical roar directed toward it, the robot didn't flinch of course. This may have been unwise, as roughly a second later, the slim greed body that had been lying before it was up and out of the sand and clutched both sides of its sensor head with ten clenched, clawed fingers.

Still it repeated.

Off went its head.

"Sorry." the Khelari grumbled and let out a sigh, placing the machine's head into its waiting hand, "I know. Don't shoot the messenger."

The drone didn't reply.

"C'mon." said the reptilian thereafter, snatching up the crumpled paper and setting himself into step toward a grove of palm trees, "I'm guessing this is gonna mean we've got work to do..."

((Joins in because it sounds cool))


Gotham City, yes that one.

An impish figure wearing a moth eaten top hat, runs down an alleyway the almost permanent puddles of water splashing as the tomboy’s boots, two sizes too big, slap against the floor.

“Frick frack ******* ****!” she swears as she finds the alleyway blocked by an inconveniently tall wooden fence.

Bullets, whizzed through the air, causing the impish criminal to roll to the side, hiding in the shadow of an overflowing dumpster, for a few moments before she stands up, unloading an answering couple of shots towards the alleyway entrance.

“We’ve got her corned get the little brat!” a gruff voice called out, figures entered the alleyway, weapons kept ready and trained on the dumpster.

“Hey maybe we can cut a deal? I could run a few packages for Bane, get back in his good books?” the impish tomboy calls over the top of the dumpster, as she pats down her pockets for spare ammo.

“After what you and Killer Croc did kid, only book you’ll be getting in is the obituaries!” the gruff voice shouted with an evil laugh before he opened fire, followed a second later by the rest of his gang.

The tomboy criminal, made her already slight frame even smaller as she hid away from the sparks and chips raised up by the impacts of bullets.

“Where’s fricking Batman when you need him?” she half sobbed in manic, hysteria, sooner or later one of the gangers would realise that she was out of ammo, and would move around to finish her off.

Luckily, almost fantastically so, a rift formed, a howling, roaring tear in space and time, illuminating the alleyway with an intense purple glow. Scrambling to her feet, the tomboy spins sending a brief flurry of psychic blades towards the gang members, forcing them to scatter and jarring their aim enough that the bullets slam into the wall instead of flesh. With a desperate leap the tomboy dives into the rift, which closes a second later.

Edward looked up at the monitor in his lab.

"Rift has been opened, tracking..."

Edward sighed, this was not going to be fun, he still hadn't figured a way of closing the dimensional barriers and calming the portal storm, it was just too unpredictable, too chaotic for him to work around.

"Dimension of rift origination designation...unknown..."

Edward sighed and rubbed his forehead, "I'm getting the feeling I'm going to be hearing that a lot, most of these dimensions are either going to have been closed off by portal corp or simply not found yet."

He took a long swig of his stone cold coffee.

"Alright, lets just see where this takes us..."

((Not done this before, looks like fun!))

House Deneith, Stormreach

A halfling sat on the roof of Dragontooth Arms chuckling to herself as she examined the bow and quiver she had 'acquired' from the shop below. She would have to move soon, but it should take a while before her theft would be noticed, and this was the perfect opportunity to take a good look at her new property.

Moving carefully, she slung the quiver across her back and moved into the light to study the intricate markings carved into the bow's limbs. While she had no knowledge of magic, she understood that the markings meant that the bow would always remain near it's quiver and that there world always be enough arrows no matter the situation – qualities that had lead to her decision to break into the shop's vault. The potential use for such a weapon also meant that she would keep it for herself, rather than sell it on as she would with most of the items she came across in the course of her uninvited visits to various locations.

It was only a lucky step that saved her from being skewered by an arrow. She ducked back, glancing around for her escape route while cursing herself for dropping her guard. From the shouts that she could now hear, the merchant had obviously discovered the theft much sooner than she had anticipated, and a sharp eyed watchman must have spotted her when she was examining the bow's markings. Another arrow clattering onto the roof tiles barely a foot from her decided her route. She took off, sprinting in what she hoped would be the right direction as more arrows joined the previous ones. As she leapt from the roof toward the next building, a strange shimmering appeared in the air in front of her, a rift of some kind that seemed to be a hole in the fabric of the world.

Unable to change her direction, Ineloo plunged straight through the rift into the unknown.

(( Just popping in to say I'm probably going to put someone in here. Just need to figure out who, and how to introduce them. ))

Within the cramped confines of the arched tunnel, the ragged figure stood impassively staring at the blank wall, nothing happend for what seemed an age, and then a faint sound could be heard beyond the wall. The man shifted, flexed in an effort to free up his bones and stood tall. Selecting a device of bronze and silver he directed it at the wall.

The beam of yellow and green played over the surface and the bricks and mortar, slowly at first, but then with gathering speed they started to crumble and turn to dust, the center portion of the wall fell away under the beams power, dust filled the already stale air .The man raised a mask over his face and shut off the beam.

Not waiting for the dust to clear he stifly move forward and bent to pass through the breached wall. Beyond lay a small space not ten feet square, enclosed by walls of the same bricks. On the natural bedrock floor was a crude X made of twisted metal lenghts, in mid air above the X a howling storm of dark hues and gases rage, The storm the size of a dogs head, gave out a hissing and scratching sounds of growing volume.

The man pulled a book from one of his packs and turned to the marked page. The directions and sketches that had lead him here had proven to be correct, his timing was perfect. The storm expanded as it raged, driving the dust from the bricks in to a whirling bizzard, and yet the glow of the storm shone through the dust.

Returning the book to its pack the man looked to the heart of the storm and waited. Soon he gauged it to have grow to a size suitable for his purpose, taking half a step backward the launched himself at the storm.At the point of impact the storm let forth a screaching howl and swallowed the man whole, with this the storm seemed to loose its structure and flailed about as if coming apart. Where the storm touched the walls the
bricks cracked and split, in a moment the arches lost thier form and in a roar of falling rock the small room and tunnel collapsed in upon itself.

Time passed and the noise of the storm and the collapse stopped, slowly the dust started to settle.......

With a thwump, the tomboy lands face down in an alleyway, lucky for her the landing was soft, unlucky for her was why it was soft. The rift had snapped open above a crowd of mask wearing gang members, while the ones she’d escaped from had been far more muscular and wearing lucha libre masks, these were wearing little skull shaped masks, not all of them were wearing masks, the leather jacketed member she’d plummeted down on, was wearing an actual skull. He was also swearing copiously.
The tomboy got to her feet just in time to catch a baseball bat swing to her upper body, sending her sprawling again. Despite the ringing in her ears and the fact that her eyes couldn’t seem to decide on how to focus, she managed to catch site of the fallen skull mask standing up.

“You picked the wrong group to pick on cape” he growled, strange shadows flowing over his skin, darkening around his hands until they erupted outwards in a series of writhing tendrils.

As her vision cleared the tomboy waved her hand, her eyes blazing with purple light as she unleashed her most powerful form of attack on the Skull gang members, forcing their minds into a deep, horrifying psychic illusion, cutting off their higher function for a few minutes. Getting back up, she wiped the blood that had started to drip from her nose, took a few hesitant steps and promptly threw up. Once she’d attended to that viral task, she quickly rifled through the pockets of the mentally incapacitated gang members, before heading out of the alleyway.

Squinting, from the change in light, her mouth drops open as she sees the huge walls and flickering energy shields that make up the skyline. A sign next to her declares “Welcome To Kings Row.”

Edward looked at his robotic drones.

"Alright, I know I shouldn't be doing this, letting them just struggle to survive but someone has got to offer an orientation for this dimensional visitors."

He tapped away on the monitor, "ok we've got the first confirmed entry at Kings Row, normally I'd just let the heroes get involved and reorientate them but I want to get these people back where they came from and with as few people knowing as possible."

The drones saluted as Edward turned to them, "alright, you, Gigatron, go greet this new arrival, take this with you."

Edward held out the 'welcome to Primal Earth' informational pamphlet which he'd liberated from Portal Corp a long time ago, "that should give them a rough idea of what to do and where to go."

With that the Drone took the pamphlet and clanked off outside, a few seconds later the sound of firing rockets was heard as it took off towards Paragon City.

((From now on the characters will be greeted by the Drones just shortly after they arrive IF they're still near the place the portal dumped them out, if not then, obviously, they won't see the robot and get to discover all the joys of Paragonian/Rogue Island life on their own. The pamphlet contains basic information about Primal Earth, where dimensional refugees should be directed to etc.))

Miss Imari stood in front of the class, awaiting an answer. She was quite enjoying it here. This school, with its classes of boys going through their gradual awakening to being men was a prime place for her to absorb certain energies that they were giving off. As a succubus, she was adept at playing the tease and so her skirt was just a little too short, her blouse just a little too open.

The school was old fashioned but modern and as a demon, she had been overly qualified to take up the post as a teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts. The last teacher had apparently annoyed a Hippogriff in the forest and hadn't been heard from again. Apparently it happened quite often, most previous holders of the post having the average life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer.

"So," she repeated, "can anyone tell me how to calm a gryphon without using magic?"

A small hand raised towards the back of the class. "Yes Henry," she smiled.

"Stroking its ears with your wand?" he ventured in a timid voice.

Imari smiled. "Very good Henry," she purred, toying with her black wand as she spoke, "sometimes it's all about where you put your wand..." Her wicked grin was clearly playing hell with the boys' hormones and she was loving every minute of it. "Now then..."

There was a sudden ripping sound, like someone undoing an enormous zip and a line of purple energy formed in the classroom. Through it stepped a lanky, dishevelled guy with untidy brown hair and dark glasses on. He was wearing a shabby, brown coat and had a classic 'Flying V' style guitar slung around his shoulder. He stopped to call back through the diminishing portal. "Awesome to jam with you guys! Be excellent to each other and good luck with the history assignment!"

The portal closed with a pop. The scruffy man turned to Imari, whipping off his shades.

"Dante?" asked Imari, slightly surprised. The clearly excited and dishevelled mage grinned in response.

"Sorry, was busy with a couple of guys from San Dimas," he replied, "had to cut it short though, we've got trouble. Someone's tampering with the dimensional walls. Again." It was only then he noticed the classroom staring at him. He smiled and waved.

"That makes it Tuesday right?" She frowned a little then turned to the children. "Class dismissed," she declared before returning to the mage. "Back home then?"

"For now," replied Dante, placing the shades back on. "Could be all kinds of hell coming through our way if we're unlucky." He took a pick from the neck of the guitar and made a circular motion in the air with it. The rim shimmered purple and then the centre seemed to ripple. "We'll come back, don't worry. Minerva still owes me a tenner from our last poker night."

And with that he stepped into the rippling portal and vanished. Imari took a moment to give a cheeky wink to Henry, still awestruck by the spectacle before she took stepped into the swirling mists. The portal closed with a snap behind them.

In an orbital lab, somewhere high above Praetoria...

"Oh, this is so very not good..."

And it wasn't. Oh, it very definitely wasn't. One of her summoned gremlins lay dead at her feet, the other and then her soon to follow if she didn't do something. But what could she do, against this many Clockwork? And WHY in the name of all that was good had she not thought to check that computer for an alarm before she went hunting around for information on the invasion they were planning? Dammit!

Raising both hands she conjured in the doorway a patch of highly erratic charge, enough to temporarily short out the circuits of the robots advancing on her through said doorway. But it was a delaying tactic, at best. She needed a way out, but the only way out was through that door and there was no way she could fly over that many robots without getting fried. So... way out. Blasting holes in the wall wasn't an option. All that was out there was vacuum and while she could do a lot of things, breathing hard vacuum wasn't one of them.

Then she saw something, out of the corner of her eye. Turning to look fully at it, she couldn't help but comment to herself, "What in the hell?" Floating down one of the side corridors was a dimensional rip, a hole in space. She looked back at the clockwork, still incapacitated by her static field but not for much longer. And she could see more behind them, jumping about trying to get past the motionless ones in front. She looked back at the portal. She hated portals. Her first experience with them was enough to put her off them for life, as such. Still.... she looked back at the clockwork. "Ahh, screw it", she said to herself, lifting silently into the air and flying down the corridor at the portal. "Anywhere's better than here." Certain doom at the hands of half an army of Praetorian Clockwork, or possible doom at the hands of an unstable portal. The choice was, in the end, obvious.

----------------------

At about the same time, outside a highschool in another dimension entirely...

So... now what? She'd made sure her sister was fine, which she was. But now, Ildela found herself in a point she all too frequently visited these days. That is, that she had nothing in particular to do. "Home, I guess...", she sighed quietly to herself. Maybe she'd round up some friends and see how much trouble she could stir up in the D... nah, did that yesterday. She could always go see... nah, he dumped her. Again. She wasn't going near him if her life depended on it. She could go spend some time with her kids... nah, they'd be in school about now. Curses. Nothing to do at all.

Old standby then, she supposed. Fly around aimlessly until something came up. With another quiet sigh, she lifted into the air, picked a random direction and flew off. Coincidentally, straight toward a certain point in space where, right as she approached it, a normally harmless distortion was expanding into a fully fledged hole in the fabric of reality. One which she didn't notice at all, too preoccupied with her own boredom, until she flew straight into it.

((So after reading this thread yesterday after work I had, for me at any rate, a clever moment where a plot snapped together in my mind. It involves one of my villains that I introduced way back in the Chateau Rouge thread. On the face of it, it's rather simple: a game of keep away involving something a lot like the Ultimate Nullifier.

If it's cool, I'd like to stir this into the mix here. But I don't want to mess up everything that's cooking here. Where should I hash this out with everyone to make sure my plot doesn't mess up anyone else's?))

((I have no idea what an Ultimate Nullifier is, but considering the CoXverse is full of Ultimate Somethingorothers, all of which tend to have some sort of Ultimate Unsomethingorother, I don't think it'll 'mess up' anything. If you'd still like to discuss it beforehand, I'd like to think that my Like a Ton of Bricks OOC thread is still viable, but of course I can't be 100% sure.

Now then, I think I'd like to try a slightly different form of storytelling for this thing, so let's just see how this works out...))


Highland Falls - Rulus


She fell into the tall grass by the lakeshore with a deep sigh of relief. The bright rays of the morning sun tingled warmly upon her face, and the gentle cool of plants and soil wrapped snugly about her back. She watched the wispy-white clouds dance slowly through the deep-blue sky with their endless patience, their gradual drifts driven by the same wind which played in the grass about her ears.

She was exhausted. From the river still rang the joyful shouts of the fishermen, and with a deep breath she took pride in their accomplishment. It had been long, hard, back-breaking work, and now her muscles ached in places she'd plain forgotten they could. But it had all been worth it. With a muffled grunt of pain, she peeled her spine from the soft earth and pulled her legs close to sit, bringing her hands into her lap as she looked to the others up at the river, blissfully tossing the catch from the nets upon the bank.





She smiled. She'd have gone on longer if they'd let her. She loved every minute of it. The rush of the water about her legs, the give of the riverbed beneath her soles, the twitch of every fish's tail in that cool, clear stream so full of life. Of course, they were probably right. She'd been out here since the sun had risen. Still, she couldn't help herself. It was simply in her nature.

And yet...

She had to admit it did feel good to take the time to sit and take in the fruits of her labor. It was rewarding to see, to feel, and as she surveyed, her eyes gradually meandered along the upriver bridge and across the water to the other bank, where the great fire already burned brightly and the cries of the upcoming celebration grew.





This evening would be quite the occasion, of this she was sure. The village in torchlight, the great fire blazing brightly with the pleasure of the people and the spirits alike...and that lazy Cerosian would be sleeping it all away. On second thought, no. No he wouldn't. She'd do something about that. The shaman could probably help her with that. He'd probably like the idea too. After all, he had that mischievous streak about him that she couldn't say she didn't find attractive. A more than appealing partner-in-crime.

But not now.

No, not now. Later. Right now, her body complained too much. So she settled for another sigh and letting her sight follow along with the flow of the river, fixing the fish within and the gravel below, picking at their details through the crystal-clear waters while her eyes traveled to the lake at its mouth and the falls to the other side.





Suddenly there was a ring in her ear. Three-toned, high-pitched. That meant urgent. She closed her eyes a moment and commanded her AR interface back online. Her implant snapped the grid display of the augmented reality module across her vision like greased lightning. By the time she'd completed the blink, everything had linked back into the grid.

The circular image of an oscilloscope graph popped into being in the air before her face - at least figuratively speaking. The picture, the text which slowly circled about the rimming perimeter outline, even the blurb below and to the side proclaiming AUDIO ONLY, they all existed only in her head. And within the network. A communicative mass delusion, designed and re-designed over many generations of cyberware and biotechnology, and still evolving to this day.

"Cap-tain." the curt, choppy, and monotonous voice of a machine she knew quite well demanded her attention with its usual, stockily brief manner, "Orders to all ships: recall crews. The fleet is moving out."

Her eyes narrowed. The carefree fisherman made room for the hardened soldier. She rose to stand, the aches of her body forgotten. They were minor now. The fisherman may have groaned in pain, but the soldier had endured so much worse. They didn't matter anymore. What mattered was her duty. Her oath. She'd sworn to protect this land, these people, and all else what and whom was to be found within the empire. Across the river and past the ridge, up the falls of crystal streams that rained from the titanic pipes, and over the walls of stone and metal her eyes roamed, fixing that which glinted and gleamed in the rays of the morning sun.





Highland Falls. Spaceport, depot, nexus of the planetary defense system, and source of over half the water in the region. Looking at it from down here, it was almost inconceivable that it was but a waste product of the isocardial plants that powered the city. The designers had truly created a masterpiece.

And they would make sure it remained safe.

She sent confirmation to the ship's AI. Then she started giving orders. Reactors up. Engines hot. Crew aboard ASAP. The AI acknowledged. Transmission terminated.

Her eyes snapped over and across the lake, mustering where the falls had dug deep troughs into the rocky ground. There was no time to do this gently. The detpack was in her fingers as if it had been waiting. It hummed online gleefully upon the first click, and beeped happily upon the second. Upon the third, it sailed across the waters with the mad, mechanical cackle only a bomb could make. The splash wasn't large. It didn't have to be. All that mattered was what came thereafter.

A thump of thunder accompanied the sudden appearance of a white mass of churning, roiling water below the surface, and a tremendous cacophony the plume that burst from the formerly so gentle waves and launched its spray nearly all the way back up to the pipes from whence it came. It didn't take long after that. Even before the fountain had collapsed again, a sharp head of sapphire scales and ivory teeth burst from the water, dragging with it neck, body, wings and tail of the easily house-sized dragon to which it belonged as quickly as its legs plodded the mighty mass of muscle ashore.

"Already?" the beast grumbled in a stern male tone when its claws touched land, water slicking off and draining from between its scintillating scales, dripping long swaths into the long grass, "It's barely been three days. I hadn't even really gone to sleep yet."

"I know, I know." he rumbled out a sigh before she could say anything, "The responsibilities of a fleet officer are not bound by the declared blah blah blah. I remember. Go on ahead. I'll get Kri."

She smirked. Truth be told, she would've loved to banter. But he was right. Time was of the essence. Besides, there'd be time for that later. Kri and he would be at the ship by the time she arrived - and if he dangled the shaman from his teeth by the tail...

Somewhere, sometime, on an apparently 'haunted' island.

'Though truly, it is nothing but INFURIATING.' Amatus thought darkly as he peered out toward the sea, and the ship sailing away - leaving him behind.

And what had he done to deserve such a thing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. After having left the Majestic Interior Realm, and having come to this place where the stars were silent, nothing had gone right. He could count on one hand the number of times anything good had happened to him, and of all things his supposed 'companions' had done nothing but hate, loathe and (he thought wistfully) fear him. And after he had offered to raise some slain monsters for the juvenile half-construct, they had the audacity to up and try and kill him. They had succeeded, in fact - but thankfully Amatus had kept his very best magic in reserve, an ace to never be used unless he absolutely needed it. His loyal servant had served him well in this regard, giving its own life to create a new body for his spirit to inhabit. Then it had just been a matter of finding the corpse of his other body and taking everything he needed. As an added bonus, he was now completely free from the wretched code that had impeded his efforts for so long - apparently it had not been bound to his spirit itself, but his body.

Amatus was roughly in his early thirties, though it would be hard to guess much about him physically, since only his eyes were visible through the heavy white winter clothing -heavy pants and coat, along with a coat and hood- he wore (though it was not winter, and he was in a tropical climate). He had a heavy pack strapped to his back, bulging with equipment and supplies, and Amatus was thankful that his supposed allies had not stolen everything from him.

'I did not truly need them anyway. This adventure has been nothing but a waste of time.' Amatus thought. 'I need to focus. I can find my way to the nearest town and persuade somebody to tell me what I need to know. Of course, there is the small issue of getting off this island...'

A portal opened beneath his feet and dropped him into a different world.

BADGE EARNED!

Wish Maker

Ask, and you shall receive...

***

King's Row, an abandoned lot...

"Ok lady. This can go one of two ways..." The Skull thug said while brandishing his knife. "The hard way, or the VERY hard way."

She took a quick glance about - No obvious escape routes, the entire place was enclosed by a wooden fence, save the gap she had used to come in, and that was blocked by the other two thugs who had snuck up on her. The door to her apartment complex was only ten feet away, but it was unlikely she could get in before her assailants stopped her, and even more unlikely that anybody would come out to save her. She sighed in resignation. She liked to try and get out of trouble by herself rather than waiting for a hero to show up and save the day, but you couldn't always win.

Suddenly, a portal opened in the air and dumped a man wearing archaic white clothes on the thug with the knife. There was a short scuffle, filled with the Skull swearing and the other man shouting in a guttural language - 'German, maybe?' The woman thought, not in the least bit surprised by the sudden turn of events. This was Paragon City, after all.

'Odd powers though. Not very flashy...' She thought. The man in white had simply grappled with the thug who had, after a few moments, simply dropped to the ground despite his apparent lack of injuries. The two remaining thugs charged him, one with a baseball bat, but fell over to join his friend before he even took five steps. The other, armed with a knife, closed the distance and thrust his weapon directly into the mystery man's chest with a look of triumph flashing in the eyes behind his mask.

The man in white gave him an odd look, as if he had not even noticed, before tapping the Skull on the shoulder. The thug fell over, suddenly bleeding from every orifice.

"Thank you so much! Punks like them are alwa-" Before she could even get through her routine Saturday afternoon 'thank you' spiel, the man had whipped around and gripped her throat, slamming her against the brick wall of her apartment building.

"What have you done to me, witch?" He hissed in a dangerous tone, his eyes glowing with a crazed gleam. "What have you done?"

Kings Row

She stepped from the rift and into the alley, a mere shimmer in the air, all but invisible to the naked eye. The thermo-optic camouflage rendered her rifle just as unseen as the rest of her armor, the full-body suit treading ground with carefully guided and thus near-silent steps. It wasn't perfect, but being invisible to more than just the naked eye wasn't something to be taken lightly either.

The others came through a few seconds later, after she'd sent confirmation. So the rifts were passable. And they could be stabilized. That was good. Very good. Now she knew why the Admiral had asked for her team specifically. Kri was a genius in this field, and the Cerosians were still its leading authority. Sure, these rifts might not have been Oblivion Gates, but from what she understood, they came close. The rest could be bridged by the Rulusian shaman.

Now it was time to link up. As her team fanned out and secured the area, the local contacts established communication with the overhead satellite. In short order, she had a complete picture of the area. What she did next now...well, that depended on what happened next...

The ragged clothing took a handfull more rips and scuffs as Ethan departed the rift into a heap of rusting metal and accumilated junk. It was night, and in the dark the echos of his arrival sounded fifty times as load. Ethan struggled to gather himself and take in his surroundings.

Tall stone pillars , a stone roof , a lack of walls , junk metal , and a damp stone floor, a strong smell of sewers . He risked a slow movement and pulled a set of goggles from a belt pouch. The revealing power of the goggles redrew his new enviromet , the pillars and roof became a huge bridge, the floor a strom drain, the junk, a automoblie and household rubish, he was in a place of technology. To his rear the bridge joined the drain wall, a metal gratting bore the label ...Skyway Access Point 43-SW-B22

With no responce to his noisey landing Ethan relaxed and started sorting through his many packs and pouches, in part to check for damage , but mainly to find the last of his dried meat to deal with his hunger.

Part of the Device started to beep a warning, Ethan flicked the goggles back on and scanned the sector, something was comming....

Somewhere in the unknown multiverse...

Finding oneself dangling upside-down above a vast chasm that lead nowhere but into an empty void was something one wanted to wake up to.

Unfortunately for one man this was exactly where he found himself once he came to, and to make matters worse he was only hanging by one leg, on a rope that, upon as close inspection as possible when one's blood is rushing to one's head, didn't look like it was going to do much of a good job of holding his own weight, never mind the additional encumbrance that was the clockwork styled-armour that he still wore, sans helm.

"Glad to see you're awake!" a voice cheerfully declared behind the unfortunate man, who soon felt himself being manually swivelled around to face the source. A young-looking man, possibly in his late-twenties, beamed back at him, his crossed arms supporting his right hand as it stroked his stubble, giving the man a thoughtful appearance that betrayed the barbaric (by the dangling man's standards) leathers and cloth of his wanderer's garb.

"Y-you!" the man stammered, panic dominating his voice. "L-let me down this instant and I'll t-talk the emperor into showing leniency!"

"Okay!" the wanderer grinned as he immediately drew one of the swords hanging from his waist and motioned it to the very rope that kept the gear knight from falling into the infinite vacuum below.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT!!" the knight squealed. "Keep me up! KEEP ME UP! DON'T DROP ME!!"

"Glad we got that cleared up, then." the wanderer smiled as he slipped the sword back into his scabbard. "Now, then! Since we're done with the false promises, perhaps you'd like to answer us a few questions? Who knows, maybe we'll let you run along home if I like what I hear."

"We will, Derek." another voice intervened from behind the smiling man. "Just tell us what we want to know and you're free to go."

Derek stepped aside and looked behind him, revealing to the knight a woman, crouched on the spot and her back turned to the two men as she appeared to be working on something. By the looks of it, she wasn't having too much luck.

"Okay, okay!" Derek answered, rolling his eyes at the raven-haired young lady before him before turning back to the dangling man. "You hear that, gear? You get to live if you answer us right. Happy now, Outsider?"

"Well, I would be." the woman referred to as the Outsider answered, turning to the two men. The knight noted that her skin was unusual in its colour compared to the two men. Its tone wasn't as dark as that of the tribes dotted around the realm of Tricaldera, but it wasn't as light as many of the more developed Outer Sphere Kindgoms.

If there were more of her kind in this fragmented world of islands floating in space, they had yet to be discovered. All the Empire knew as to where she came from were a few possible names: "England", "India" and "Earth" being just a selection of them. Other than that, she was a complete unknown, an alien to the known realms, and it showed in more than just her complexion... her clothing was equally as alien.

Her jacket was leather, much like the wanderer's, but it was as black as her own hair, was sleeved and was surely carefully crafted by a wizard or at least with the help of one. There was no way such extraordinary stitching could be achieved by even the most expert of seamstresses. Her trousers were equally strange, made from a blue material that nobody could seem to identify.

The knight also noted, amid his increasing dizziness, that the Outsider was incredibly beautiful. More so than he had expected from the intel he was given.

But now really wasn't the time for admiring the beauty of a criminal wanted so much by the Netrid Empire that the bounty on her head exceeded that of even the most vicious of murderers.

"I would be happy if I knew what that bloody wizard did to my smartphone!" the woman ranted as she struggled with a small object in her hand. "I told him I couldn't read anything of your weird language, but did he listen? Nooooo!"

"We'll have a word with him about it when we get back, okay?" Derek reassured. "But for now, can we get on with the matter at hand?"

"Yeah," the Outsider sighed as she slipped the strange device back into a pocket inside her jacket, "Okay. Since you know what to ask, I'll just... sort us out a campfire."

Derek merely nodded before returning to the dangling knight before him and the Outsider turned back into the forest ahead to find the camp the two had set up just before they had found themselves under ambush from the sole gear knight that was soon dangling over certain death had Derek's quick reflexes not easily countered the knight's clunky armour and poor choice of sword over rifle.

The woman returned to the camp only to find there was no longer a campfire there, ready for her to light with her dwindling supply of matches, but instead some kind of shimmering entity in its place.

"Erm, Derek?" the Outsider yelled back at her ally, preferring the opinion of someone more familiar with the world she had come to call the 'Bubble Bath'. "Derek, there's something you might want to see right now! The gearhead can wait for a bit!"

((Oh, to hell with it ))


Meanwhile...

Speed. That was rather important right now. If he could just- *BAM!* -keep dodging the missiles then maybe, just maybe, he'd have a slim chance.

The bridge ahead disintegrated, atomised by heavy calibre artillery fire.

Ok...make that a rockeroids chance in a piston-grinder.
"Frag."
Oh well... At least he wasn't going to be headed to the Pits solo, that was for sure.

Wheels left cere-steel plating, spinning freely over nothingness. There was a whirr and a click, and then the sound of rapidly shifting metal, gears and servos. As he spun, pinwheeling in mid-air, he set his sights firmly on the form that was above and just behind him, even as it angled down to bring him into its own sights.

"Chew on this, creep!"

The reassuring weight of his gun smacked into his palm, the sighting lock blinking red almost instantly on his HuD. He left it in single-hand mode, locking his arm and jamming the trigger back. The muzzle kicked about a nano-centimeter, if that, high yield laser blasts tearing towards the target.

The fighter-craft tried to jink away, but he was quicker. The bolts tore through hull and fuesalage, an entire wing being shorn off with one particularly well aimed shot. Beauty.

"Gyaaahhh! You....damn you...I-!"

The scream was lost as the fighter exploded, the damage too much for the chasis to take.
With a sigh, he flipped himself over, looking down at the rapidly approaching surface below.
"Oh well...It was a good run..."

And then everything went portaloid.

---
Paragon City

With a crash something large landed in a backalley, impact making the walls quake slightly.
"...Ow."

He pulled himself upright, shuffling on hands and knees to peek out from between the buildings.
"What the...Earth? How the frag'd I end up here?"

He tapped his commlink, cycling through the various bands. Oddly enough, every single one seemed to be dead.
"Hmn...What'd they call it now...Oh, Inter- Internet?"

He checked. He read. He double checked.
"Oh...frag."

Unnoticed, a car rolled smoothly out onto the road, before pulling into the next-door parking lot and slotting into a space, the driver getting out and walking nonchalantly away. As he turned down a backalley, he shimmered out of existence, the holo-matter form fading into nothing.
The car sat, idle and locked. Under the bonnet, however, highly advanced systems that had nothing to do with automotion hummed and whirred, trying to make sense of the current situation...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Kings Row

Ineloo emerged from the rift rather higher than she would have liked. Ten feet may not be much to a human, but to a halfling (even one who was considered rather tall) it was quite alarming. She managed to land without injury by twisting her body into a series of somersaults to control the fall, copious amounts of luck, and an abandoned sofa.

“Well, that was interesting.” She thought as she picked herself up and dusted off her leather tunic, checking to make sure that she still had the precious bow and quiver which had started all the nonsense. She glanced around, automatically checking to make sure the area was safe, and froze. The buildings were strange – too tall, angular, grey, and all lacked the usual supports and crenellations that was so common in Stormreach. Staring out of the alleyway she had landed in, the first thing that she noticed were the walls, so much higher than any city wall she had ever seen, with some sort of wavering blue fire above them.

Before she had time to study the puzzling sight, she was distracted by the passing of some sort of transport device which moved much faster than any cart could. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a small voice was trying to convince her that she should be scared of the strangeness that surrounding her, but her halfling's innate curiosity quickly silenced it, even when a small metal imp landed next to her speaking in a strange accent and holding out a pamphlet. Ineloo took it automatically and watched, bemused, as it whizzed off – probably returning to whatever mage had sent it.

Stepping out onto the open street, she smiled broadly as she took in the world that she now found herself. “Opportunity knocks.” She murmured as she set to attempting to decipher the writing in the handout she had been given.

Kings Row

The stolen money had bought a change of clothes, well at least a new hat and a jacket without bullet holes in it, the clothing purchased after a strange robot had run up to her with a pamphlet. It’d been free so she’d taken it, and now dining alfresco at a greasy spoon, money stretching just far enough to pay for a breakfast, as she read the pamphlet her coffee grew cold, so did the beans and sausages.

“So…” she mused half aloud as shovelled a forkful of cold fry up into her mouth “No justice league, that’s a good thing, no criminal record that’s a ******* marvellous thing, no money, that’s bad, and more than forty capes, that’s more than four tens… and that’s terrible.”

Leaning over she gestured at the newspaper, which a slightly overweight van driver was leaving behind, he gives her a thumbs up as he walks away. Flipping through the pages, she makes her way towards the ‘help wanted’ section pausing as she spots and ad page.

“Aquaette recommends Sam’s Seafood Shack, for the best fish supper this side of Atlantis?” she flips another page “Hmmm? Who is this Flash knockoff? Service so fast even I’m impressed. Hrrmmm”

Leaning back in her chair, she started to look thoughtful, looking through the pamphlet again, as she muttered to herself.

“Let’s see… City Hall”

First the drone came. That alone might not have been enough to unhinge Amatus - but catching a glimpse of an arrival falling out from the same portal - and therefore probably the same place - as he had added a little to the load. And then, after putting two and two together, Amatus watched the portal that had dumped them here snap shut.

He was so shocked that he simply stood there, stunned. The woman felt his grip loosen, and she took that as her cue to run into the relative safety of her apartment building. Amatus had turned to face the two, and while his face was mostly obscured by his gear, his eyes were filled with hurt confusion.

'Dimension? Hero intervention? Mediporters?' Amatus' mind wheeled with terms that it did not understand. Finally, he spoke - or rather, squeaked in a cracked and maddened sort of way.

"...What."

Kings Row

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rebel_Scum "Who in the hell put that there...", she murmured to herself, not moving from where she'd landed. Whether she meant the rift she came through or the building she'd hit was unclear.

She paused, rifle in hand, but not yet aimed at this new arrival, instead mustering her closely. What did she look like...?

The Drone was flattened and knocked off it's feet but far from injured, it awaited for the new arrival to untangle herself from it before launching into the same spiel it had given the large gentleman it had arrived to give the pamphlet to. In addition to the usual spiel it recieved an update on where the woman was from, this time an actually known universe.

"You ARR from Portal orgination deSIGnaYTion PEToria, welcome to Paragon City, We are curRENTlee at war With EMperor Coal, deSIGaYTion Tyrant!"

Having two in the same place was a handy two for one deal right there and also incredibly efficient, it liked effcinecy of this degree.

Turning to the hulking man it proffered the pamphlet again.

"ExPLAINs all querys!"