It's storytime...

I'm getting excited about this project. And I also find myself wishing Starless Knight was on Protector. Digg, that vid in your signature is awesome.

Just as a reference for you guys. I have about another five weeks of classes left, so finals are coming up.

I put up this thread now So i could get everything worked out and refined before i start diving into it, all the while preparing for my finals.

So it'll be a little while before I get the first couple issues actually finished.

Once i finish up sketches of your characters I'll send them via PM's to ensure they are accurately represented

Interesting side note ... Ms Terry appears in the latest Samuraiko Trailer for Issue 22 in the Drowning in Blood section (from 1:20 to 1:31). She's really easy to spot too, since she's:

• The only Kheldian
• The only Warshade
• The only one running Orbiting Death
• The only one who looks stunningly awesome in PURPLE!
• The only one who looks directly at the camera while casting Mire to crush the life out of entire spawn groups

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Okay, I finished putting the tail on it, so here's the story of Loki Chaos-rider.

***
In a desperate battle, the Nictus was dying, swaths of its body torn away. Frantically, it sought a haven, escape, a place to hide. There, it saw a small, bright soul-fire, a compatible host in a protected place. With no other options, it Jumped, stretching, almost beyond possible range, anchored, entered, and collapsed into darkness.

Sarah Peterson, five months pregnant, felt a momentary brush of cold and then nothing, so she shook off the strange feeling and continued. Four months later, her son was born and she named him Luke. Sarah and her husband John loved the boy and raised him to be a strong, self-assured man, confident of his place in their hearts, loving them and his little sister and brother.

But young Luke was always a bit different, avoiding injury as if he had eyes in the back of his head, rarely sick or hurt, and recovering swiftly. Moreover, he always seemed to know more about things that he rightly should, Luke had an uncanny knack for perception, like he heard, saw, smelled, and felt more than other people did, in ways that other people couldn’t. And he was bright – fiercely, incredibly, intensely brilliant, racing through school as if each new fact, idea, and equation opened up a new volume of knowledge by sheer intuition.

His parents didn’t try to hold him back – that was almost impossible, but they heaped experiences, hobbies, travel, and more, broader educational opportunities on him. They tried to keep his family and social life as normal as possible, keeping him in contact with his age mates and friends, involved in their lives, even while his intellectual and educational development rocketed past them. Luke had essentially completed high-school by the age of fourteen and had a bachelor’s and master’s degree by eighteen – by age twenty, he was doing post-doctoral work in high-energy physics at Paragon University.

But one day there was a terrible accident – or it could have been terrible… should have been, but somehow wasn’t.

Test-firing a new particle-cannon, the emitter was accidentally bumped, aiming the blast of energy directly at Luke. It should have disintegrated him, or at least a large chunk of him. However, alerted by his expanded senses, Luke somehow, seized the incoming energy, channeled it though his body, and redirected it into the proper target… much to his own surprise. Thankfully, nobody else saw it happen – or so he thought.

Ranging through the city, chasing an elusive Warshade, a team of Void Hunters noticed the peculiar signature of the flare of energy and turned to investigate. The Warshade sensed the energy spike as well, and also went in search, despite the risk of encountering the Voids. Thus, both groups crashed into Dr. Luke Peterson’s high-energy lab, while the young scientist was trying to figure out what had just happened.

In the ensuing battle Luke got his first taste of what Quantum Array weapons do to a Kheldian – it felt like his soul was being torn apart. In reaction, the usually mild-mannered man went entirely berserk, unleashing a storm of alien energy, tearing and flailing at the attacking Void Hunters with black fire. The trained, armed, and armored mercenaries would still have overwhelmed the frantic scientist, if the other Warshade had not arrived, to catch the Voids in a crossfire and overwhelm them.

The battle was not won easily, though, and Luke did not recognize the Warshade as an ally, at first – he struck at all of those who entered his lab indiscriminately. The Voids Hunters were defeated, but the Warshade was also critically wounded. Luke wasn’t sure how he’d survived, when he calmed down… he wasn’t sure If he’d survived, with the bodies of strangers scattered about his lab, his body battered, and his… soul flayed.

The injured Warshade spoke, “I see you, Nictus. You’ve won, I cannot prevent you from consuming me, but you should know – I am not alone. The others will find you and destroy you. Peacebringer and Warshade alike, or even more Void Hunters… they will find you.”

“Why me?” cried Luke, “I’m not a Kheldian!” He shook his head, “I don’t know what this ‘Nictus’ that you hate so much is, but I’m not your enemy… I think?” Trying to pull himself together, Luke said, “I’m certainly not going to eat you! I hope… Hell, I’m allergic to shellfish, you’d just make me sick,” it was a pitiful jest, but he was in a pitiful state. “My name is Luke Peterson, I’m a human, I’m a scientist, and this is my lab…” he looked around at the shattered equipment and muttered, “Well, it was.” Looking at the injured Warshade, he asked, “Is it safe to call an ambulance?”

Bemused, the lady in black responded, “They call me Shadowstar. Call your medics, we have much to discuss.”

Over the ensuing weeks, Luke slowly pieced together the cosmic trick that the gods had bestowed upon him. With the humorous twist that was such a part of his nature, he decided to turn it around and play the joke right back. Thus, the trickster hero known as Loki Chaos-rider was born.

To this day, he refuses any ‘binary’ designation – he is a single, fused, synthesis of being. He is not a Nictus, or a Peacebringer, or a Warshade – though his powers appear that way. He will accept the ‘Kheldian’ description, it’s as accurate as ‘Human’ would be, after all. He considers himself to be a unique individual, for whom any label is only half-right, if that. And he HATES Quantum guns, because they destroy that singularity, without which, neither half of him exists.
***

Be Well!
Fireheart

I realized that apparently ImageShack greatly sizes down the pictures I post due to the resolution I run in, so I made some close up shots of Starless Knight's three main costumes. These should be easier to see (I hope):

Original Costume

Second, More Armored Look

Newest Outfit

I leave it at your discretion which one you would like to use (though I admit I like the last two better than the original).

If you're still looking for characters, here's a bio on mine. I can provide pictures, but I trust the imagination of the writer to portray him accurately.

Name: Obsidian Atonement

In the beginning, a dark, immortal mother saw fit to leave her only child among the shadowy depths of Paragon City. As a parting gift, as well as a catalyst for his inevitable power, she stabbed an enchanted blade into his stomach and broke off its hilt. Throughout the child’s growth, the pain within turned him into a fierce killer fueled by an immense rage, though his noble nature kept him from being consumed and turning to a life of evil. In his teens, the superheroes of Paragon discovered his talents and recruited him, vowing that they’d see the cursed blade removed from the child’s body if he wished it.

Unknown to them all, the youth’s rage had developed an intelligence of its own after spending years mingling with the immortal blood that surrounded it. After a minor surgery, the young man was free from his affliction and fully capable of expelling the rage from his body. Unfortunately, the Rage would not surrender its newfound life so easily. The excreted entity happened to find its way to a Shadow Cyst and wrapped itself around a weakened Nictus. In that moment, an egregious bond was forged.

While the Nictus had no desire to bond with the Rage, it did not have the strength to completely fight its way free. Still, for the price of eternal captivity and servitude, the Nictus managed to keep its new host from using the powerful energy forms of its species. Over the years, the newborn creature pulled together the matter around itself to form a replica of a human form capable of passing unnoticed through the streets of Paragon. With a physical body intact, the dark being has become a twisted abomination of Human and Warshade, and it lives only for making its previous host pay for expelling it into the wretched realms of humankind.

Obsidian Atonement is not a hero, nor a villain. Its fighting is nothing more than practice. Its arrests are nothing more than coincidences. Any good deeds traced to this being are a lucky result of training against the ‘correct’ enemy. This being is capable of speaking and exhibiting emotion, though it rarely sees any point in either. Every cell it inhabits exists to one day crush his true enemy’s body into oblivion.

Awhile back, I wrote a little piece of fiction for Seminova following the Roy Cooling affair, delving on the question of whether every bonded Peacebringer should be afforded the priviledges of a hero (namely Medi-Portals), regardless of their actual performance on the field. I don't know if it interests you, but here's the link if it does.

http://boards.coh.com/showthread.php?t=251130&langid=5

I'm a bit late to this particular party, but it's always a pleasure to see everyone's investment in their Kheldians. I don't know if mine would be of interest or not, but I'm happy to contribute just the same. In the meantime I'll enjoy reading about everyone else's characters.



Heroic Identity: Iscariot (Warshade)
Host: Charles Raiden
Kheldian: Unknown

Charles Raiden spent his childhood at the sides of heroes, the comrades-in-arms of his late father. Although his father did not possess any sort of superhuman powers himself, Charles was frustrated constantly throughout his youth by what he saw as his own weakness. His mother tried time and again to help him see reason - but as she herself was a formidable mutant with her own long list of accomplishments to her name, Charles was convinced she was simply humoring him and would hear none of it.

Insecurity soon became obsession, and as Charles entered his young adulthood he was easy prey for the agents of the Council, who promised him a power unimaginable. Rationalizing that he would make up for his misdeeds once he had real power, Charles quickly became overwhelmed and was slated to be consumed by one of Arakhn's Nicti. The Nictus chosen to consume him, however, observed his childhood memories and saw in Charles a host that might offer it a chance at being more than a shock trooper in Arakhn's war, a war it had long since tired of fighting. It chose that moment to break from its past life, seeing in Charles a strength which might give them both a chance at something better.

Reborn as a Warshade, a fusion of human flesh and alien energy, Charles saw the true price of the great power he wasted so many years of his life seeking. His perfect memory recalled every sin he rationalized away on his path to power, every crestfallen look and snuffed hope he left in his wake. Although Charles now wields great power indeed, there is little he would not give to atone for the innocent blood and wasted time that were his power’s price. Despite having earned the respect of many in recent months, the warshade hero Iscariot is often bitterly critical of himself.





Heroic Identity: Fourscore (Peacebringer)
Host: Nathaniel L. Adams
Kheldian: Eumenides

Born into one of the wealthiest of Paragon City’s old families, with roots going back all the way to the old colonial days, Adams coasted through primary school and university without any real interests to motivate him, spending more time at the fraternity house than the classroom. While his father encouraged him to take an interest in politics and world affairs, Nathaniel could rarely be bothered to so much as open a book.

It is therefore not surprising that Nathaniel was completely unaware of the dangerous game his father had been playing in funding heroic initiatives and grassroots organizations aimed at undermining the power of The Council and its mysterious leader, The Center. The Adams clan operated as a source of support and funds for such groups for almost twenty years, until the day when the family mansion exploded in a fiery conflagration that claimed the lives of every living Adams. Except one.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Nathaniel came to realize the legacy his family had left to him as well as the likely cause of the bombing which had claimed his family’s lives. Despite his conviction that the Center was responsible, neither the investigating police nor the city’s heroes were able to conclusively link the tragic explosion to The Center. To Nathaniel’s eyes, it seemed as if those his family had sacrificed their lives to support had simply given up on them.

Angry and frustrated, Nathaniel began to train himself in criminology, detective skills, languages, physical conditioning, anything that seemed to be useful in the pursuit of the mysterious mastermind at the heart of The Council. This fervor drew many offers of sympathy or condolence, all of which Nathaniel rejected. There was one, however, who offered something more than just empty words.

Nathaniel was training late into the night in his converted loft, a playboy’s penthouse transformed almost overnight into a Spartan training flat. A stranger approached him, the intrusion unwelcome, and as Nathaniel turn to tell off the interloper, he stopped short and stared at the glowing alien eyes of the cloaked figure before at him.

The newcomer pulled back his hood to reveal the wizened features of a man perhaps more than a hundred years old. His voice sounded like the cracking of old parchment when he spoke. "I had begun to wonder if there were yet any men in whom the spark of vengeance still burned… you are the one I have been seeking. And, I think, I may be what you have been searching for as well..."

The stranger spoke long into the night. He explained that he was called Sharpsword, host to an alien being of pure energy who called himself Eumenides. Sharpsword had been bonded to Eumenides as a Peacebringer for nearly eighty years, long before most of the other Kheldians arrived on Earth, and hinted that he was far from the first Earthling to do so.

With the aid of Eumenides, Nathaniel would be gifted the power to put his training and his knowledge into action. Rather than engineer the downfall of those who destroyed his family, he could bring them to their knees personally. The joining process could not be reversed and was necessary for the alien to survive, yet it was willing to die rather than settle for an unworthy or unwilling host. If he refused, both the old man and his alien companion would perish before the dawn.

It was no choice at all.

Joining the fierce, uncompromising passion of the Kheldian Eumenides with his own zeal for justice and newfound appreciation for his family’s proud history, Nathaniel Adams took his place among Paragon City’s heroes as the hero Fourscore. To honor of the long and glorious career of Eumenides’ previous host, Sharpsword (whose grave Nathaniel visits weekly), he makes it a point of honor to serve the city with distinction as he goes about his private mission.

Over the ensuing months since his rebirth, Nathaniel has discovered that Eumenides’ perspective on justice is decidedly more draconian than that embraced by the most of Paragon’s heroes, but oftentimes it can difficult to tell just who is holding whom back - the human element seems to fuel Eumenides’ rage as often as it tempers it, and Nathaniel is not without his own demons. He is honestly unsure what he will do if Fourscore ever does manage to track down The Center. Perhaps put him in jail and tear down his organization brick by brick, undone by a boy he likely forgot about long, long ago. Perhaps something more... visceral.

Only time will tell.