Drunkard's Walk Forums

Foxboy said:

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Easy fix, have a connection hiccup and get to the select screen before the Bio break.

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I'm sure you remember my once-frequent mapserver DCs. I was going to have one hit during my bio break, followed by Peggy clicking through to the select screen out of idle curiosity to see if Stiletto were still there. Then ZAP.
ECS Norway asked:

Quote:

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Oh, and do we have pictures of Stiletto

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Yes. I'm making the presumption that because of the absolute minimal amount of play that Stiletto got, she's still "templated" on Peggy's original form (if that makes any sense). So while she's a bit more athletic than Peggy, she's got Peg's face, more or less; I don't see someone completely unfamiliar when I look at her.
Picture:

-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

Quote:

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I was in Grover's Corners, New Jersey,

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Actually, we're in Franklin Township. "Grover's Corners" is a name from the play Our Town. Though we're not that far away from Grover's Mills, where the Martians landed. (At least according to Orson Welles.)
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[setting Guru]The ID through biometrics is going to be a case-by case thing. Misao is fine to have the same fingerprints, as is Stiletto, but Nogi-Me has appropriate fingerprints for a replica of Kyoko Yamashira/QB Kitsune/Lady Nogitsune. Our Khelds may have shifting abstract "fingerprints."
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

I was actually thinking about this issue with Mirami. (Yeah, even though I've decided not to be her... Alexis has more possiblities I think, and I also can't come up with a justification to have a Mirami-me *not* be an inherent dimension spanner. >.> )
Given that she's sort of a hologram, even though she has functional physicality I expect she wouldn't leave fingerprints on most things, due to not having sweat or skin oils or things like that. On the things that she would leave one anyway... I'm thinking she'd leave a different fingerprint every time. Because it's not something associated enough with her internal identity to become fixed.
A person who had RPed a ghost in the machine would be really hard for this world's forensics to deal with...
-Morgan, and that's part of why I'm not doing it. >.>"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

I don't remember the moment itself, the transition. I should remember something, was there a flash of light, a sound, pain, pleasure? I should remember something but it's gone, like so much else. Like the rest will be, before long.
I do remember siting in front of the laptop, looking around, bewildered by an overwhelming sense of deja vu. I stand up slowly, and a cat hisses at me and flees. A little kid is staring at me and crying, and I didn't recognize her at first. I can only hope that won't be the last thing I remember, because it's killing me.
"Daddy, daddy, daddy," over and over again.
I shush her impatiently, and look around the house. It's small, it doesn't take long. Three cats, two bedrooms, one child, some family photos I don't really want to look at. Where the hell am I? I reluctantly look at the photo again, and the disquiet goes ballistic, airbursts into full-on panic and recognition.
Why did it have to be her? Granted, it could have been worse. The villains might have burned down the house, accidently or on purpose. I try not to think about that. But if I'd been able to choose from any of the characters I had at that moment, my biggest problem would've been explaining to my wife why I was a bullet-proof anime bimbo. And as bad as that would've been...
Somehow, though, I don't freak out.
I was playing Badb. So I am Badb, from black hair down to my big, stompy boots, and a hankering for bubble gum. Well, not really. The reckless airhead thing? That's an act. Well, the airhead part.
So. A little tactical problem here. I scoop up my daughter, and give her a popsicle, telling her mom will be home soon, and call the neighbors, and say I'm the baby sitter, and my dad's been in a car accident, and can they please keep an eye on her until her mom gets home from the gym? They can, tell me they hope my dad's ok, come on come on come ON.
Finally, she's inside. I barely remember to write the note to my wife. Just like I left the house in my costume and had to pull the cowl back at the last moment when they opened the door. Patent leather costume? No wonder they were looking at me oddly. Good thing it was dark.
There's no disorientation, no sense of wrongness or being out of balance, nor any of the disassociative issues others have reported about suddenly being someone else, meta-human &/or the opposite gender. Badb's personality overwhelmed all that.
It feels like I've always been that way, and my memories of before, of being me are odd and disconcerting. It does occur to me to wonder how long I might be stuck this way, and whether I'm ever going to get to sleep with my wife again, but I push the thought aside. Before anything else, I need to know if it's just me. So much depends on that. It never even occurs to me to use the computer to find out.
I ignore the car I used to be so proud of and I run. I lose slices of the trip. That's normal. It's not that I can sprint sixty or seventy miles an hour. I'm discarding time and space I'm not using. The moments that bore me. I have to take the freeway to keep from getting lost, which means people see me, but I've got the cowl on. Down the 91 from the beaches to Orange County, south on the 5... which street is it?
I find the apartment. Gaming buddies. Can't remember their names. But if anyone I know was playing City of Heroes when this happened, it would be one of them. And sure enough, a topheavy cat-girl in black spandex answers the door.
"Oh, thank god, it's not just me," I say, before she backhands me off the balcony into the courtyard.
I lay there for a moment. There's more pain than I care to describe. Why did she do that? I wonder, then... she's a Brute.
The rush... it's like three parts adreneline plus one part heroin. I push the pain away, and get up. The pain stays away. There's blood on the concrete, but I feel fine, better than fine, perfect. Without checking, I know my costume is untouched. And because I knew how Badb's powers work, even if she didn't, I can feel a little something slip away with the pain. A memory. Maybe trivial, maybe important, but I every time I force reality to forget I got hurt, I lose a bit of who I was, and remember a bit more of who I am. Or will be.
And that's Badb, celtic goddess of crows, panic and mayhem, the Morrigan's nasty little sister, and I'm not too particular about who I'm fighting, or why. I just like the fighting.
Catgirl is on the balcony, looking down at me. Debating whether to pounce, maybe. How un-Brutelike. Maybe she's wondering who I was before the change. Me? I don't really care which of them it is. I never liked them that much anyway.
I grin up at her.
"You just fucked with the wrong black bird, kittycat."
Then I kick her off the balcony.

edit to my post on the second page, adding to it.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Because it can't die yet.
----
I was a little later arriving at the Schroeck's
than I'd thought. Mostly because I'd had to
double back to the train station to pay for the
gum I'd stolen from the store there. I hadn't
meant to, I'd just noticed the gum, felt like
some and then I was a good twenty minutes from
the station when I realized I hadn't paid for it.
Hex' isn't a sepearate personality, or a voice at
the back of my head. It's just that some of my
reflexes are different now. I've got a harder
time caring about how other people feel about my
actions, and slightly sticky fingers. Not that
being able to pick pockets hasn't come in handy
since then, but... I'm getting off topic though.
I teleported into the Schroeck's back yard,
hiding myself from the neighbors as best I could
with the house itself and the trees. I pulled a
small smoke bomb out of my pocket and dropped it
at my feet. In game, when you change costume
there are no special effects, you just suddenly
have different clothes on. As the game
translated into the real world, you've got
whatever effects you described your character as
having. With Hex' that means I can do what I'd
jokingly reffered to as 'Oiroke No Jutsu' to
change clothes quickly. Technically the smoke
isn't necissary, but there is a question of
style.
I switched from my travelling clothes into Hex's
last costume. It's the only one that doesn't
either expose more skin than I'm comfortable
with, or isn't really form fitting. Granted the
grey and black armoured tights under the trench
coat don't really leave too much to the
imagination, but the coat covers most of that
up. I adjusted the sunglasses, and blinked a few
times. Firey auras eminating from your eyes take
a bit of getting used to.
There was no putting it off any longer so I
walked up to the door and knocked.
----
The following is something set a little later, towards the end of the meeting at Bob's. I was reading Acyl's "Four Season Shuffle" and thinking about how the various powers would work in the real world. Oh, and the GIFTer thing is explained here.
----
We were still milling around Bob's place trying
to figure out what to do when Ebony bellowed and
silenced us. he'd been watching the local
television channel when a breaking news story had
interrupted.
We didn't really hear what was being said, but we
didn't need to. A group of costumed arseholes
were in the middle of a street ripping down
buildings and attacking the people who hadn't
been able to run.
We were out the door as fast as we could when
Peggy said she knew where the street was. Those
of us who'd been playing capes no faster than the
villains. It's fun on the computer at least
partially because it isn't real. This was, and
people were getting hurt.
****
When we'd arrived at the fight, I'd summoned my
minions, I have no idea where they were before
then except possibly for Isopropanol, and sent
them in to support Lora'Lai. Peacebringers need
team mates, and hey, ninja are people too.
Those of us with the Dark power set had thrown
our variations of Tar Patch under the feet of the
arseholes, and then the group had charged.
I think that the large mass of blue and gold
uniforms might have tipped the GIFTers off about
what was going to happen, because their apparent
leader choked off his speach when he got a good
look. Of course that might have also been the
fireball Yukiyo tossed in his face.
I dropped down next to one of the ambulances that
was stuck behind the police cordon. Some of the
cops turned on me, leveling weapons. I ignored
them and focused on a group of civilians I could
see hudled behind a smashed car.
When I'd been writting fan fiction about Hex I'd
always described her teleportation powers as
reaching into the darkness, and between. An
attempt to tie her teleports into her dark power
set and ripping off... er borrowing from
RevDark's description of Gil's teleportation.
As the trip to Bob's had shown me, I'd suceeded.
Teleporting felt like throwing myself into the
black waters of an iced over river. Teleporting
others, I was reaching in to that river and
yanking them through.
The family that materialized next to the EMTs
looked rather shocked, for which I don't blame
them. The paramedics overcame their own surprise
quite quickly and set to work, but the cops
didn't stop threatening me until the third group
of terrified civilians appeared out of thin air.
"What are you people?" One of the cops asked
after he'd lowered his gun.
"The calvary," I grunted out as I pulled another
bystander out of harms way. The teleportation
was taking a lot out of me, my limbs felt slow
and heavy. I wasn't certain how long I could
keep this up.
I also wasn't certain what I'd do once I'd run
out of people to rescue. Hex' has never had the
best of times in Siren's Call, and I wasn't sure
how effective she'd be here. As it turned out I
didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
The cop who'd been talking at me, I'd been
distracted alright, looked up and gasped in
surprise. Hex' has good reflexes, I'll say that
for her. My old self would have still been
kneeling there, puzzled, when the broadsword
arrived. As it was I immediately rolled forward
and narrowly avoided being skewered as one of the
GIFTers drove his sword into the pavement where
I'd been.
He wrenched the blade tip out of the ground and
smacked the cop aside. Thankfully he didn't seem
to have much idea of how to use the sword, as the
cop took mostly the flat of the blade to the
chest and wasn't cleaved in two. 'A broadsword
scrapper, how lovely' I thought.
Thankfuly Hex' had been trained in kempo as a
kid, and even with out using her bow, I figured
I ought to be able to keep myself from being
badly hurt until help arrived. I was mostly
right too. Who ever'd been playing this scrapper
had no clue how to fight. Unfortunately he was
a broadsword, super reflexes scrapper which made
up for a lot. Too much in my humble opinion.
Things weren't going all that well. I'd managed
to stay alive, but I did have a number of shallow
cuts and I hadn't managed to land more than a
glancing blow on my friend. He was laughing at
me as we circled each other.
"What's the matter, did you make a fun PvE build,
little girl. Can't you deal with a real man?"
He taunted.
I ground my teeth and remembered something Foxboy
had said while we were on our way here.
'Remember, it's not a game any more. This is
real life.' It was true, Hex' in the game had
had 'Recall Friend' and 'Teleport', but you
couldn't teleport most of the NPCs, which is
what the civilians were. And I'd been doing
that already. All 'Recall Friend' meant in the
real world was that I could teleport things that

weren't me.
Reaching into the darkness I latched onto his
sword and teleported it as far away as I could.
I smirked at the shocked and angry expression on
his face and launched myself at him again.
Things went much better that time, and I'd
managed to land some really satisfying hits when
we both remembered that he'd been flying when he
first attacked. There's a good reason to take
flight, especially if you want power pool
attacks.
The 'Air Superiority' connected with my chin,
wrenching my neck horribly and sending me flying
into the side of the ambulance. It rocked up on
two wheels, but decided not to tip over. I slid
down the side of it to lie in a heap on the
ground.
Fortunately for me, my friend was more interested
in finding his sword than finishing me off. He
turned around looking for it, and came face to
face, as it were, with an awful lot of cleavage.
He stopped for a moment and gawped at Lady
Nogitsune. You'd have thought he'd never seen a
kitsune with lots of buttons missing from her
shirt before.
I forced myself up, and tried another of my
powers for the first time. I could feel him
through the darkness, the strength and vitality,
and I wanted it. So I took it. My neck and back
stopped protesting almost immediately and the
sword cuts I'd recieved vanished. That had felt
good.
Scrapper boy was still confused by Nogi and
the 'Twilight Grasp' I'd hit him with, so I threw
myself at his back and wrapped my arms around his
neck in a choke hold. That's when Nogi kicked
him solidly in the crotch. He went to his knees,
fighting for air and then the cops dogpiled us.
I helped them wrestle the arsehole to the ground,
and held him while they got several pairs of
handcuffs on his arms and legs.
"He can fly, keep him inside or tied down to
something really big," I said to the cop who
helped me to my feet. "And keep him away from
that sword."
Looking around I saw that the fight was over.
We'd out numbered the arseholes significantly,
and they'd probably been about as good RPers as
my own personal idiot. Just the basic powers
then, as limited and constrained as they had been
on the PC.
--
"Has anyone got a reference cynic? I think I need to
recalibrate myself."
-- James Riden, in the S.D.M.

Five days had passed, and the gangs of Los Angeles still hadn't realized I was hunting them. Of course, it didn't hurt that I went to Echo Park one night and Watts another, then over the hill to the Valley the next. But still, considering the amount of general confusion and hysteria in the news about the transformed, you'd think people would think twice before messing with someone wearing a costume. People were flying through LAX airspace in spandex. The occasional leaper landed on someone's car. I'd raced a speedster through a downtown traffic jam without getting his name. He was faster, much faster, but kept stopping to let me catch up.
That was interesting. No speed cap. Concept mattered. We were, to various degrees, freed from the limitations of the game engine. I could handle any weapon I picked up like an expert, though I still preferred the traditional boot to the head. That 'goddess of battle' thing.
Switching neighborhoods each night was as much an effort to make things interesting as a strategy. I was getting bored fighting guys with guns. It was fun watching them freak out when bullets couldn't stop me, but there was no real challenge to it. It was annoying not having a police radio and a network of contacts brimming with Things To Do. Where were the Outcasts and the Trolls, the Clockwork, the Sky Raiders and Council... and especially the whole Croatoa Halloween refugee crowd? I missed them.
I did seem to have a knack for finding violence, and impending violence. Could I learn to distinguish between supers and everyone else? That was a thought.
The other thing I missed was having a secret base to sleep in. But it didn't exist, as far as I could tell. Surely some of the others had changed, if I could find them.
Meh. Right now, I wanted sleep, a shower and something to eat, not necessarily in that order. I was still that human. I popped into a 7-11 and grabbed munchies, tossed on the counter a few bills some drug dealer had dropped when I kicked him in the head. I stopped at the next motel I passed and asked for a room.
The guy behind the counter stared at my chest. I snapped my fingers a couple of times. "Hey! Up here."
"I was looking at your, um, insignia thing." He kept swallowing as he talked, causing gulping pauses. "You're--one of them, aren't--you?"
I glared and gave him my best evil grin. "The mask wasn't enough of a clue? I am, in fact, one of them. So I don't have ID, or a credit card, but you're going to give me a room key anyway."
"S-sure thing!"
"What's your problem?"
"Your eyes...glowed just now," he stammered.
"Really? What color?"
"G-green."
"Cool." Strange. I'd been looking forward to particle FX when I hit level 30, but I hadn't gotten there yet. I cleared my throat. "The key..?"
While he dithered over the keys I unwrapped some gum and chewed. Maybe there was a little of Badb's human side in me, after all. Gum hadn't existed in Celtic times, and I wasn't a fan. But I'd been craving bubble gum all night.
I blew a big, pink bubble. I'd never been able to do that before, either.
Motel Guy gave up a key. He was staring at my ass as I walked away, so I turned around and gave him the old skull-eye, and he jumped back, bumping into the wall behind him. He looked like he'd nearly peed his pants, and it made me laugh. Who says the Presence Pool is useless?
I'd forgotten I'd finally gotten around to taking those powers.
I found my room, showered until I felt human again. That was disconcerting. I felt less comfortable in my skin, started remembering things hadn't been like this a week ago. Badb's human aspect wasn't nearly as overwhelming as the pissy beserker goddess.
I looked at the phone, and realized I couldn't remember any phone numbers. Not one. I closed my eyes and started hitting buttons. Why did muscle memory work when they weren't, technically, muscles that had ever dialed that sequence?
The phone rang several times, then I heard my wife's voice, panicked and hung up before I realized it was just the answering machine. Right. I'd forgotten about those. I wondered where she was. I couldn't expect her to just sit at home, hoping I'd call, wondering what had happened to me. Maybe she was at her parents. I couldn't remember their number. Could I run to San Diego? Maybe later. I ate some peanut butter cookies and drank a can of Guiness and crawled into bed.
When I woke up the sun was setting. I thought about calling home again, but I didn't know what to say. I should at least try to explain that my memory was falling apart while I still could. What if I was stuck like this? Could I stop using my powers and keep things from getting worse?
I got back into my costume. The patent leather smell was losing the battle against stale sweat. I needed to find some real clothes and get this thing dry-cleaned or something. At least Motel Guy hadn't called the cops on me.
As I walked outside, I realized he'd called someone else. The guy was huge. Eight feet tall, what looked like half a ton of muscle and armor. Tattoos, wife beater shirt and camo pants. No neck. When he saw me he flashed what I took to be some gang sign and a big stone mallet formed in his hand, out of thin air.
Sweet, another brute! I popped some gum in my mouth, rolled my shoulders and stepped out into the parking lot. OK, hit him hard and fast. If he starts getting stronger, back off, let the fury fade, then try again. I didn't want to cause as much property damage as my brawl with the Catgirl had created. Although it'd been the most fun I'd had since this started.
A burning sensation staggered me while my mind was still registering the laser beams from his eyes, too fast to dodge. What the hell? He leaped across the parking lot.
I pushed the pain away, started wailing away at him. It didn't seem to make much impression on him. He was yelling something, but all I heard was my pulse in my ears. I knew I should back off, instead of going toe to toe, but I was holding my own, so far.
And then a bone spike erupted from my chest, and as much as I tried to force the pain away, it kept growing and growing, blood erupting as the impaling spike was ripped back out, and I dropped to the pavement. I couldn't feel my pulse any more. I tried to breathe. Nothing happened.
Too bad there weren't any magic hospital transporters in the real world. Shouldn't my life be flashing before my eyes? All I could see was my blood spreading across the pavement as my vision dimmed around the edges. I could hear them laughing, high-fiving each other, but the sound seemed to get farther away every moment.
Big guy was a Tanker. Had to be, with the eye beams. Working with a Stalker? They ganked me! Fucking PVP griefers ganked me! Stupid way to die. I shouldn't still be conscious. Lost so much blood, no oxygen to the brain for... how long now? A minute? More?
Fuck, I'm really dead. I want to go home. I'm really dead. No, no, no... this is a stupid way to die. They're just walking away. Still laughing.
NO.
I feel my heart beat again. I inhale, a breath thick with the scent of my blood. I take my time standing up. Blood and sweat vanish from my costume, along with the hole, by magic. There is no 'as if by' here.
As much as I'd like to scream a challenge and charge, I'm not stupid. Fool me once, but we're not going to do the 'placate and taunt' song and dance. So I watch them walk away, the big guy with his mallet and some spikey, ninja-lizard guy in black samurai armor. Yeah, whatever. Keep cracking jokes.
I let my anger build to fever pitch, but I don't make my move until I see the distinctive auras of their defenses fade. By then, I have space to accelerate to full speed on the way in.
My boot catches the stalker in the back of the head at what feels like a mile per minute. The kick sends him flying into a parked car, and I stay on him, pounding him before he can get up, until the only movements he's making are caused by the impact of my fists.
The tanker is just staring at me, blank terror on his face. His eyes finally move, tracking a drop of blood as it falls from my glove. I strike just as he registers it's not my blood.
It takes me most of five minutes to systematically take him apart. He's tough as hell, but I caught him with his toggles down and the outcome is never in doubt. I feel like Batman. By the time he drops, I can hear sirens approaching again.
This time I decide to wait for them.

Nice, Render. Very well done.
Now, was that some variety of Awaken in use there near the end, or a power I know not of?
Likewise, Firvulag, nice job. Want some actual geographic info to flesh out the fight scene? We have lots of candidates -- a couple shopping centers near by, the Rutgers campus a little farther away (likely source for a lot of players, I bet), and several "main drag" type streets in several locations.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

There is a top-end power in the Regen set that allows you a self-rez. Looks like Badb tapped into it, even if the character in-game didn't have it yet.
Concept matters. Definitely. -Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
-----------------

Logan is correct, that was Revive, the penultimate Regen power.
Also, thanks for the kind words. I'm having fun reading everyone's stories, both on this thread and the others. Good stuff.

As promised, here is a look into the new (improved?) Clank Patrol.
------
The thought kept running through my head. I could find Her!
I squashed it just as viciously as I had before, but I wondered how long I had before I stopped bothering. The thoughts weren't a voice in my head, they were my own, and not knowing how far you can trust your own thoughts is scary thing. I refrained from following that wonderfully divergent though, I had already wasted several precious hours designing a program that could resolve some of the logical dissonance that part of me keeps worrying about. Only the thought that 'I' am comprised of said discrepancies kept me from running it. Suddenly finding yourself a AI does have it's drawbacks.
Keeping distinct names in my head helps me manage the before-time. Terry was a 9-5 code monkey with a knack for logical systems. Clank Patrol was a dimensionally displaced construct and trusted general of Agatha Heterodyne. I'm not sure who I am yet. The parts of my thought process that I can still recognize as Clank are alternately frustrated and overjoyed: frustrated at the sudden loss of resources, influence, and powerbase; overjoyed at the discovery of dimensional travel beyond the pitiful mirror-verses of portal corps or project destiny. I had given up hope of finding a way back to Agatha for quite some time, but getting thrown into a massively different dimension for a second time spurred part of me to start the serious research again.
And here is where the frustration kicks in again. Whatever had thrown part of me across the dimensions had neglected to send my bots, and I my own teleportation module could not breach the rift that now separated us. No bots, no construction bays, no easy ways to build them, a meager monetary base that was quickly decreasing without a job to fund it. I didn't have much to kickstart my own powerbase. I had thought of traveling to New Jersey for the meetup, but there was too much of a chance of things going fubar. The only Infamous in a room full Legendary was a problem waiting to happen, add to that being a bot-less mastermind. While my risk metrics gave a 60/40 split on the odds of being accepted, having no bots to summon if things went bad meant that I wasn't going to risk a 40% chance of death.
-----
Which is why I was currently doing a passible imitation of a stalker. The robotics mastermind I was following didn't do a very good job of limiting his RF emissions even if he did a very good of looking human. I had originally thought of teaming up with him to pool resources and knowledge, but that plan was quickly discarded when I saw him loitering around the jewelry store. He payed far too much attention to the layout and placement of exits for my liking. I guess it was too much to hope for resources and intelligence in one place, but I'll take first if he doesn't have the second. I stood about six meters behind him, safely stealthed. The shadowed alley between the jewelry store and the furniture store it was next too made up for the imperfect optics of my cloaking field.
This would boil down to very delicate timing, but I was intimately familiar with my own weaknesses, and betting on the fact that we had enough in common that I could exploit his. He gave one last glance over his shoulder, confirming that yes, there wasn't anyone else here. At least as far as he could tell. I really didn't blame him for that assumption, 2am did tend to leave most shopping centers deserted. Once he started to type on his wrist gauntlet I broke from cover. Dark portals had already formed on the ground by the time I was half way to him.
He must have heard my footsteps cause he turned around just in time to catch the strongest stasis field I could muster in the face, effectively cutting off any method of communication he had with his bots. This is where things got dicy. There were five rather sinister robots rising out dark portals on the ground. I had a matter of seconds to tag them disabling nanites. I had cannibalized a good portion of my autonomic healing system to create them, and if things went according to plan it wouldn't be an issue.
I didn't bother wasting nanites on the first two I reached. I could see the power leads running from the support framework to the darkly glowing power centers. Downing them was as easy as reaching in and crushing the glowy bits. Numbers three and four got a liberal dose of nanites and never finished powering up. Number five had finished booting up by the time I reached it. It got a dose of nanites as well, and they did have an immediate effect, just not what I had hoped. It's eyes strobed red and it raised an arm cannon in my direction. Curses of various flavors ran through my head as I spent the next few seconds desperately using force bolts to knock it's arms out of firing arcs. The nanites were doing their job though, the bots reactions were slowing and it's movements became more erratic until it finally shut down as well.
I had a few seconds to rest and prep for the now furious mastermind. He was busily tapping at his wrist computer with one hand and making various arcane gestures with the other. Whatever he was doing did have some effect, the stasis field collapsed with a pop far sooner than it should have. He landed on his feet and gave me a vicious grin.
"You wi-" was as far as he got before my scorpion mace connected with his face. Granted, it was meant to fire disabling webbing. But it's big, heavy, and pointy. All fine qualities to look for in a bludgeoning device. I hit him about the head and neck until he stopped moving. Each blow didn't do all that much damage, but the repetition interrupted any spell he was trying to pull off, and the cumulative effect was satisfactory. Hitting your enemies before they can counterattack is a time honored tactic that had been used against me in the past, and I always learn from my failures. I hit him once more in the head for good measure before tagging him and his (shortly to be mine) bots with teleport markers.
Less than five minutes after it started the street in front of the jewelry store was deserted. I sat in the storage shed looking at the five disabled robots and one prone figure, letting the synthetic rush of battle wind down. I can make this work.
I now had a decent supply of raw materials to start constructing my own bots. And perhaps I could get a head start on portal tech (I Will Find Her!) when I disassembled my unwilling parts donor.
-Terry
------
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

((Ok, so Im a little bit late coming into this >< Forgive my poor writing skills! I'll have a screenshot for her soonish -CF))
I had just arrived home after working a night at my local gaming store. It was a quiet night and the Magic tournament ended faster than I thought it would, and I got to close up and go home at a decent time. Gently dropping my laptop back on the floor, I turned on my monitor and saw Corrupted Flame still twitching as a Malta Sapper kept poking her. Admittedly, it was kind of a cheesy way to get the held badges, but then she was a brute. How the heck was I going to get ten plus hours of being held? Sappers were my friend at that point. Looking over at the clock, I saw it was 9:55. I sat down in the chair and decided to finish the mission off. Not really because she needed the experince, but it was just fun to smash the Malta punks.
I see the boss level Zeus titan and I charged into the fray. I had always liked taking down titans. They remind me of Warhammer 40k dreadnoughts and I *hate* those things with a passion. As I'm laying the final blow on the titan, the screen flickers and I vaguely remember falling face down and smacking my forehead against the desk. I don't remember anything else that happened that night.
I wake up later and looked up at the screen. Its at the login screen with "LOST CONNECTION TO MAPSERVER" displayed in the popup window. "Fair enough," I think. "My cable modem probably needs to be reset." I put my hands on the desk to stand up and stop. Metal hands. Red metal hands. Red huge metal hands. I flail backwards, falling out of my chair and against my bed. I close my eyes and start to hypervenilate.
"Ok, ok, calm down. You're still asleep on the desk. You don't have red metal hands. Nothing has happened, and you just need to WAKE UP."
I open my eyes and look down at my hands.

....crap.
As I look, I can see small characters scrolling across my field of vision. I'm going through a level 3 diagnosis? The heck? I look down and see the female shaped robotic body I had designed on the City of Villains character creator during the pre-order special. I see the huge red gauntleted hands, the high tech body armor.. the fuzzy boots?
The realization of what happens hits me. I've become Corrupted Flame.
I see briefly on my field of vision. "METAPHYSICAL COMPENSATION SYSTEM OVERLOAD!" and I shut down.
I woke up later and stared at the ceiling. You have no idea how loud the human body is unless you no longer hear it. It was... disconcerting to say the least. I had no idea how this happened or if it was permanent or what. I couldn't stay laying down all day. I needed to do something. I stood up and went over to the computer. The City of Heroes site was unreachable, which didnt suprise me. I have a strong feeling they don't know what happened either. The news had stories of odd changes in certain players of the two Cities games, with reports of their bodies changing to match one of their online personas. It also reported some of them able to manifest supernatural abilities.
"Supernatural, huh? Nah, this all reminds me of a baaaad flashback to Logan's RPGs. I bet if this happened, he must be having a ball." I decided it was best to try calling him and finding out. As I moved to pick up the phone, I could see more commands scroll across my field of vision. They appeared to not be directly important for what I was going, but it would be weird getting used to seeing the text there. I picked up the phone and called Logan's house. His mother picked up the phone.
"Hi, is Logan there?"
"No, he's... " I could hear some hushed talking in the background. "He's at work. May I take a message?"
"No, thats alright. Thank you." I hung up the phone, remembering that it wasnt MY voice, but Flame's, whatever that was. My mind, or was it computerized brain now, flashed back to the story about supernatural powers. Did I now have access to Flame's abilities? I wanted to test this. Fire would be a bad thing to try in my cramped room. Control over negative energy wouldnt be too good either, as I wasnt quite sure how this world would handle it. However, Flame could fly, and more importantly, she could hover. That seemed like a good enough place to start.
Standing in the center of the room, I tried to logically thing how I would turn on her gravity negator. I honestly had no clue. I hadn't ever thought of how Flame flew, I just knew she did. I closed her... MY eyes and thought "Alright, hover".
Nothing.
Of course it wouldnt be that easy. I could always try the Star Trek method and ask the computer.
"Computer - activate flight systems!"
I saw text across my field of vision, and not what I was expecting.
"No. And who the hell are you to be controlling MY systems?"
Uh oh. I don't think I was alone in this head.
((Good enough start I think. I didnt really know of this page or people in the chat channel, so I wouldnt think of checking the message board and meeting at the boss's house. Hopefully Foxboy will try to contact me >< I picture all my testing happens... 2-3pm the day after))
There is no coincidence, only necessity....
- Clow Reed

Hey, Crimson! Welcome to the forums! And don't worry about your writing skills -- in my humble opinion you've done quite well so far. Please, continue!
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Since I don't know who the actual GMs for Virtue are, or what sort of set-up they get to play with, this is made up of whole cloth.]
Emily enjoyed her job. Not many people got to play games for a living. Yet, as a "Game Master" for City of Heroes and City of Villains, she was able to do exactly that. On a bleeding edge set-up on NCSoft's dime, no less. She sipped her coffee and put it back on the side table away from her keyboard.
As usual for Friday night, she was in charge of moderating the player-run events in Pocket D. The community always came up with interesting things to do, and while some got a little high-spirited, she seldom had to seriously "modsmack" players. She sent a tell to a couple of players "cybering" in broadcast to either take it to team or tells.
She smiled as she saw the "forum celebrities" hanging out in the usual place. She moved her viewpoint to observe what Moggie and Dragonberry were up to. Apparently they had set up a "Pocket D Open Mic Night." The swarm of catgirls included Moggie, Wilds Child and Pouncetta Purrfect, while Dragonberry was in her main costume of a green-skinned reptilian humanoid in a scarf and baggy socks.
[Tell]--Moggie:Hello! Would you like for Ghost Widow to award a temporary title to your winner?
[Tell]Moggie:Sure, Emily! You know we appreciate her taking the time to show up for these little things.
[Tell]--Moggie: She'll be just a moment.
Emily took a moment to check for petitions, but it seemed that "GM_Chris" had things under control. She reached past the drawing of a lovely Paragon Police officer surrounded by police drones and checked the schedule at Cryptic. Smiling, she dialled the number to see who she could get to run Ghost Widow for Open Mic Night.
While she waited, she looked again at the drawing and smiled. She looked nothing like the woman in the drawing (oh how she wished she did), but one of the players on Virtue had sent it to her care of NCSoft after a particularly trying occurence and some improv RP she'd done while waiting for the tech guys to tell her how to fix what was specifically wrong with the player's mission. She'd essentially played as though her drone avatar was a VR telepresence for Police Lieutenant Emily Morris of the Guardian Mecha division of the PPD, thus "GM_Emily." She had, of course, made up the last name to avoid real-life stalker tendencies.
She finally reached someone at Cryptic and they readily agreed to put someone on Ghost Widow for the event.
It was a decision which would haunt her for a long time.
[Tell]Ghost Widow: ((okay I'm here, where's the event?))
[Tell]--Ghost Widow: Pocket D, on the dance floor by the floating truck
[Broadcast]Moggie: Ladies and gentlemen! Put your hands together for Arachnos' own GHOST! WIDOW!
Emily smiled and was about to "go public" with her drone, when the building shook and the lights flickered. Since California was earthquake country, she began to rise from her chair when her screen glowed brighter. She heard a few startled shouts from her co-workers and passed out as the light engulfed her.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

(As a side note, according to a Lighthouse post on the official forums some time ago, control of the signature characters for public appearances is apparently very tightly guarded - he said if you see a sig character, it's a dev from Cryptic, not someone from NCSoft.
This seems to hold true with stuff other community reps have said in the past. When CuppaJo was recounting a Ghost Widow appearance on an interview, she phrased it as the Cryptic guys asking her boss at NCSoft if they could send Ghost Widow in.
That said, just because the sig characters are 'exclusive domain' of Cryptic...doesn't mean it's always one of the major developers behind the wheel. If I recall correctly, there was a Lord Recluse appearance on Test, and in response to something or another, it was noted the player was "just an art guy".)
-- Acyl

Duly noted. to be changed later.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

I'm in the first wave as we go in, and the target I pick is the skinny guy in red and orange dragging the lady towards the broken door that leads into what looks like it used to be some kind of knicknack parlor. A part of my mind can't believe that he's planning what he looks to be, and another is ready to quite literally have his throat out for it, but mostly I figure that with that color scheme he's likely to have some kind of fire powers - big trouble if he's a Brute or Tank, worse if he can throw them around, since, unlike in the game, fires don't just 'go out' once they've been started.
I push my speed up as hard as I can - a traffic light flashes by on my right, a delivery van goes by below, both close enough to reach out and touch, and then I dive slightly and start a forward somersault about twenty feet away from him. It's perfectly timed; my legs and spine come into straight alignment just as my feet catch his shoulder, transferring most of the forces and spreading them out through my body. Even with the boots bracing them the impact makes it feel like my feet and shins exploded, and conclusively demonstrates that even the miraculous bras of the superhero of tomorrow have limits. Ow ow ow ow ow.
On the other hand, even with the hairline fractures and the friction burns, I think I come off much the better for it. My target goes tumbling, and shrieks at the top of his lungs. His pain tolerance isn't half-bad, seeing as he's still concious when his shoulder felt and sounded like stepping on a pillowcase full of packing peanuts.
I ignore him for a moment and pull the lady to her feet and point her towards the police cordon, then turn towards her attacker and see a stone mallet coming at my face.
Ow.
I roll with it, of course. Some of my - Brightsky's - trainers had beet truly brutal about making sure that their friends' kid had been ready to cope with the dirtiest tricks a viallin could throw out. So even that split second of warning was enough to throw myself back and start to instinctively try and push the thing away.
But my zone of control is very thin, and something that size has plenty of mass and inertia, so it still sounds like the bells of Saint James and looks like the Fourth of July.
By the time my vision clears he's almost ready to swing again. Must've been a speedster, or unreasonably strong - that hammer had to be nearly as big as I was, though granted that's not saying so much, now - or he wouldn't've been able to swing the thing so quickly. Quick enough to make my life difficult, especially since he actually seemed to have half a clue how to fight with a weapon like that, bringing it back and over and around to get into position, rather than stopping and reversing and then having to stop again - just as fast or faster, and much less work.
I tuck my legs up and let the hammer go by under my feet, then uncurl and lay a heel straight into his nose. It just pisses him off, of course, but it also puts him off balance and gives me the impetus to slide back a little and start a real kick. Without traction on the ground you'd think that that couldn't work, but you'd be surprised how quickly a few Gs of acceleration can get you moving even in that small a space.
Mostly it makes my foot hurt, though I'll admit I missed my target point by a little.
He reels back and shakes it off. "Bitch," he says. "Not so easy against me, is it?"
Against him? "You make it sound like I'm the bully in this piece, hypocrite."
He blinks, then sneers and tries to hit me again. And I dodge again, then hit him again - twice, this time, but not to any more effect than my first couple tries. "'Just like a baby's kick,'" he snipped, then threw the hammer at me - it stung a bit, but not really enough to slow anyone, since it was already going to pieces even before it hit - and followed it with a pair of rocky knuckledusters swelling over his hands.
Guess he'd forgotten that Ryouga lost that fight.
Of course, not being a character in a shounen manga I was bound by the laws of physics, but...
I slip outside the reach of a couple clumsy punches - he's not nearly as good with his fists as he was with the weapon - then touch down like a sprinter about to launch and focus as best I can, squeezing...
Presented with an immoble and tempting target, the sucker takes the bait and brings the hammer out again and drops it straight at my skull.
It comes down and I bring my arm up and to the left, and my being ready for it this time makes all the difference in the world. His eyes get real wide when he sees the chips go flying off of his weapon's shattered head, and then I push it out of the way and slam my other palm into his chest.
I'd needed that pause to focus and start squeezing the air clutched in my right hand. Because of the way my powers work, there'd been this whistling vortex as more and more of the air around it was grabbed by the fringes of my hand's fields and sucked in, like a miniature model of a black hole. None of it actually ended up as degenerate matter - my powers are nowhere near that strong - but except for the lack of shrapnel ahead of the blast it was almost like I'd put the business end of a claymore mine against his breastbone and set it off.
Not even the toughest tank or brute can shrug something like that off. His breath whoofed out and he went tumbling, then started to haul himself back up. "Fucking cunt," he snarled.
Several seconds of freedom while he concentrated on pulling himself back to his feet were not to be wasted. Of course I kicked him again, a flying side kick that certainly can't've done his attempts to regain his breath any good at all.
It didn't do his ribs any good, either, from the way he yelled as I bounced off. Then... well, he pulled what looked like a quarter-ton of brown rock out of thin air and wrapped it around himself.
I guessed that that was what Granite Armor looked like in person - I was wrong - and... well... got sloppy. Got too close, let myself get out of position... after all, it'd slow him down, give me time to react...
Wrong.

---

===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

((Okay, for future reference, all talking inside my head will be in these funny brackets {}. I know there's a technical name for them, but heck if I can remember. Also, I can't edit my previous story piece? ))
{No. And who the hell are you to be controlling MY systems?}
Ooooh boy. Not only am I stuck in Flame's robotic body, I now have to deal with her personality algortithms inside my head.
"Look, Flame, we're going to need to cooperate. I'm stuck in your body, and you're apparently along for the ride. I'm trying to see what we're capable of doing, but I can't do it without your help. Are you willing?"
{No. I'm leaving this... wherever the hell I am and I'm headed back to St. Martial. I don't know how in the hell you managed to capture me, but you made one of the biggest mistakes of your life.}
I was pulled away from the front. Best way I can describe it is having your computer chair pulled away and you're dragged along with it. Flame walked over to the window, smashed the glass, and ripped out the screen before she took off into the air. I could feel her face contort into a grin as she broke the window.
She flew up to a height of roughly five hundred feet (I could see altitude displayed overlaid onto the field of vision) before deciding on a direction and taking off. She gained more altitude up to about five thousand feet and then apparently set it on the robotic version of cruise control.
Flame may have not had anything to say, but I was amazed. I had only flown a couple times before, and those were always in an airplane. I watched the ground fly by as she flew off, not sure of the direction, but I knew I was sure I didn't want this feeling to stop.
As we flew, it hit me. She must be going towards Rhode Island and the location she knows of Paragon City being, intending to catch a ride back to the islands. I toyed with the idea of not telling her and seeing what her reaction would be, but I thought better of it. If this was really the Flame I knew, she'd be totally pissed and would more than likely go on a smashing rampage. Not a good idea.
{If you're headed to Paragon... you won't find it. It doesn't exist in this world. I know you're familiar with dimensional travel. It's not there.}
"Die in a fire," she said, gritting her teeth. ((why does a robot have teeth? >

It wasnt the first time I had been inside my lovely wife. It was the first time with two other people along for the ride.
When the water is swirling around you on your one way trip to visit the Tidy-bowl man, you should at least have a good one liner ready. I had several. My mind was racing. It didnt have a lot else to do. Had there been an Abba song on the stereo, it could have been drag racing. Dame Edna with a bunch of logos slapped on her body, running about an oval track while a crowd waits for a fiery crash.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; so I use mine. I would like to say that I dont use if for evil, but with lines like that, some pain is inevitable. I let my consciousness retreat. There were four of us in here; Cindy, me, Marcus Mac Hine and Misonon. It took some concentration to keep our thoughts from bleeding together. I concentrated. I love my wife dearly; and while I will gladly share my thoughts with her, my mind is my own. There was some gestalt. It was more on the part of Marcus and Misonon; they had been, at least up to this point, fictional characters. Now they were as real as anything could be, and they were discovering things about themselves that they knew. It wasnt major and earthshaking. It was small scale. Marcus had never known if he had preferred chocolate over vanilla. Now he knew.
There was another problem; but it was not internal. Lots of bodies descending on an unprepared host; most of whom were in a highly agitated state; a state exasperated by super powers, sex changes, and multiple personalities playing dueling banjos inside a single brainpan. Okay some of sex changes didnt have the same level of agitation, being distracted by the opportunity to play with a pair of well shaped breasts whenever they wanted to. Social lubrication and relaxation can be accomplished with alcohol; but given the newly super-powered nature of the group, this just didnt seem like a really good idea. That left food. Dog biscuits and Petzyme too; Bolo being somewhat distressed at the various changes in his little doggy world.
So the four of us already piled into one head and body proceeded to cram into a Pontiac wave, which was much roomier than the head. Instructions to the local mass market were provided by Bob, and relayed to Cindy, who in the head, had the best head for directions. I drove. Cindy was very good about not backseat driving. The implications of back head, back seat driving being too horrific to be considered. I relaxed, sinking back away from the other voices in the shared head and concentrated on the road. So much so, I almost missed the turn into the parking lot. Cindy was good enough to remind me gently. I pulled in and found a pull through parking spot, one that allowed easily access to the exit. Its a quirk I have. I never park for convenience to get in. I always park with convenience in getting out. I dont have religion; but I do have ritual. This is one of them.
This is where things went pear shaped. Not in a good way either. This wasnt a J-Lo big bottomed pear shape that allowed for a rather esthetic shaking in the music video format. This was the other sort of pear shaped, like an atomic bomb that exploded from the top to the bottom. The front doors of the mall exploded in a shower of safety glass. The missiles that smashed the doors were human shaped. Well Mall Security Guard shaped, which should be considered human in every sense of the word. Another shape emerged behind them. Human. Badly dressed human. Really big, badly dressed human. Minsonon rose to the surface and through Marcus, moved us to action. Bodily control was wrenched away as the Warshade instincts clicked into full on combat mode. I watched. I spend a lot of time fighting; I also spend a lot of time watching fights. This was a different perspective; but everything else was painfully familiar; including the large sword that the large, badly dressed man held in one hand.
I spend a lot of time around swords. I teach swordhandling three times a week. I practice. A lot. So I was very interested in what was occurring; especially as it was my mind that was being dragged along for the ride. While Marcus and Minsonon unleashed blasts of energy, I was taking stock in the situation. Our opponent was six and a half feet tall; muscled in the manner of a body builder and wore bright red spandex, a black trenchcoat, and a distressing number of skulls and skull decorations. A slight green glow surrounded him, sparkling intermittently. Scrapper. Broadsword. Regeneration. Young. The last one was obvious. The loot bag that hung from the left hand bore the logo of a popular toy store, and the name of a prominent game system was visible through the thin plastic. Incredible power. Phenomenal abilities. No experience. No control. The conch was smashed and the mall guard equivalents of Piggy were strewn wounded about.
Marcus unleashed a blast of dark energy. It slammed into the sword wielder without significant effect. A second blast, more powerful was shrugged off. This was bad news. Marcus and Minsonon leapt upward and the world changed. Multiple eyes are fun, but they take a little getting used to. The same with the tentacles. It is not every day you go from a land dwelling, ape-like, biped to a floating, energy based space squid. A third blast was treated as contemptuously as the first three. Not good. The cretin then leapt and that large sword passed whistling through a pair of tentacles, disrupting the energy that formed them. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Cindy voiced a scream that only we could hear. I expelled a short burst of mental breath, and a thin keening came from Minsonon. We crashed back to the ground, shifting again from squid to human. The sword came at us again, a whistling, overhead blow that would split us in twain. As Woody Allen said, I would not look good in twain, all my suits are made for a whole person.
I moved on pure reflex and the body followed. The key to defense against an overhead sword strike is more about footwork than bladework. Back leg steps, turned slightly to allow a more graceful pivot. Fore leg moves off the line of attack, pivoting the body with it. Balance stays centered and the feet never cross. Ive done it thousands of times. I did it this time, smoothly taking control.
The world shifted slightly again. The energy that makes up a warshades being is malleable, shaped by experience, will and self knowledge. You might think that you could have basketball sized nads and a pecker you could skip rope with, but that is very different from knowing it or being it. Wilt Chamberlain notwithstanding. Minsonon knew the nova and dwarf forms on his being. Marcus knew the human form. I knew my own form and the bastard sword in my right hand was so familiar that it was, for the purposes of my current existence, part of me. What my lovely wife calls my big fat sarcastic bastard sword. The shortened form being Excalibastard.
The kid with the superhuman body and wickedly sharp sword was strong, much stronger than I am. There is always someone stronger, faster, tougher, better and meaner. He was faster and tougher than I was too. What he wasnt, was a sword fighter. He was a kid playing at being at one. His sword met mine and slid harmlessly to the side. His chin was too high to strike effectively, so I slammed the pommel into his plexus. The muscles held for a microsecond then slackened. You dont jab to the plexus, you drive, ensuring effective transfer of energy. My sword turned 270 degrees around its center of gravity, the upper harmonic, the sweet spot if you will, slamming into my opponents wrist. The skin split and the bones cracked. My sword isnt sharp. Or rather it is no sharper than a sword of its period would have been. I dropped back into a guard.
Drop the sword. I cautioned him. He was an idiot. I knew that. He didnt, but I could not in good conscience club him down like a baby seal. He was still a kid. A stupid kid. A stupid kid who could heal damn near any injury. Which is what happened. The bones snapped back into place, the skin closed up and the blood vanished. Not even a scar to mark the injury.
You fuck! I do. He was right. It was the only thing he was right about at that moment. We circled for a moment. I struck at his neck. He blocked it and moved his sword to block the next strike. It wasnt where he expected it to be. Like Wesley and Inigo, I am not left handed. I am right handed. That being said, I can fight with either hand; and am very adept at neatly switching hands mid attack. The empty right hand drew his eye and sword, while the sword in my left hand struck hard, slamming into his right collar bone. Hard. The bone and the pair of ribs under it snapped. He would heal them. Stupid or not, kid or not, he had to rendered completely unable to fight. I broke his right wrist again and struck to his face. He tried to block with his left arm, which is what I had counted on. The ulna and radius snapped. My sword switched hands again and I grabbed his ruined shoulder, fingers digging into the muscles and broken bones, bearing down hard. I drove my knee into his lateral femoral nerve cluster. The knee to the groin was possible, but I didnt use it. Evolution is a bastard. There is a reason why men are so adept at covering their genitals in the face of an attack. We wince, the body pulling in defensively. Why? Because those who protect their nuts are more likely to keep them, and in turn pass on the evolutionary quirk that causes us to do so in the first place. Non-random survival of random mutations. The lateral femoral does not have the luxury of such defense and it will drop someone to the ground just as fast; faster in most cases. I didnt give him that option. A wrist lock accelerated his descent to the ground, the broken bones snapping through the skin. I dropped. One knee on his face, the other in the broken ribs. I broke another rib on the way down and drove the already broken ones into the lung. I took the sword from his unresisting fingers.
No more. Please. No more. Tears rolled down his strong features and long trails of snot was dripping from his nostrils. He was already healing the damage, but the pain would have been more that he had ever experienced; he wouldnt be fighting back any more, the reality of his situation had caught up with him. I had the conch and he knew it. Alarms and police sirens could be heard. I tossed his sword away and turned back to the mall. The body shifted again, my sword vanishing in a cloud of dark energy. I was in my wife again, but this time it was my wife; not Marcus. Witnesses had seen Marcus, me and Misonon; but not Cindy. I went through the door, she emerged in the mall. We headed towards the grocery store.

Wow... uh... Wow...
Uhm...
"Logan has gone bye bye, Stalnoy, whaddya got?"
"I'm sorry, Lora, I'm impressed beyond the capacity of rational thought."
-Logan
-----------------
"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
-----------------

"We replaced the forum's regular Reverend Dark with William S. Burroughs. Let's see if they notice...."Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Yow.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

Okay. Do not piss off the Rev...
-- Acyl

We've decided to do a bit of revising...we'll post a different story at a later date. Sorry!