Well, C8 made it to level 30 last night. And I went to go get his aura and cape missions done. It had completely slipped my mind until now to do his cape mission because I initially couldn't think of any costume variant that would use a cape.
But I figured I'd better go ahead and do the mission anyway. Glad I did! Came up with something pretty darn cool.
This outfit is both a bulkier, more armored look for him, and at the same time another homage to a slightly more recent vintage of hero. That of the sentai hero that came about in the 70s with Kamen Rider. I added a wrap and scarf to him, plus gave him "Lightning Eyes". The electricity effect point sources are hidden by the visor, but the electricity arcs themselves are visible, which makes for a cool effect. Even cooler is when I discovered that at superspeed, the electricity effect streams back from his head as far back as the tips of the scarf in the wind!
Here - see for yourself. ^_^


These next two show him with one of the alternative prestige sprint powers turned on as well as superspeed. It's a really cool effect, but it's not practical to run all the time. Because the effect tends to stream back into the camera POV when running so far that I have to really pull the camera WAY back to see where I'm going! Plus it tends to play havoc with my framerate in high traffic areas.



Now does that just totally look like a scene out of Kamen Rider or what? ^_^


Wow!

-Logan
-----------------
The only good Marvel is CAPTAIN MARVEL!
SHAZAM!!
-----------------

This is a set of screenshots taken during the recent Synapse Taskforce.
From the Legendary -
Brightsky
Lora'Lai
Starshot Dove
And leading, from Liberty F.O.R.C.E. -
Stateslad
All of these were taken at 1080x768. Full size pics on request.

Here's Stateslad sporting his Captain America homage -


Starshot Dove and Lora'Lai, in SG uniform.


Here, we're taking down Babbage with the help of a LOT of people called in throughout the zone.


And he's down!


Next was the fight with the Clockwork King. It was tough finding a screenshot that actually shows us all in the shot. Brightsky tended to be obscured from my POV by the King himself most of the time. This is as close as I ever got.


Here's one that has a better view of Stateslad in it.


Lora'Lai wants BIG BADA BOOM!!


And finally he's defeated -


Here's a few victory shots. The one in the air, we were hoping to all fly in formation towards the "camera", but everyone had their flight powers slotted for differnet speeds. Oops. The hovering shot was the best we could do.
The other's we're posing with Synapse himself. First in Team uniform, then in our individual outfits.



-Logan
-----------------
The only good Marvel is CAPTAIN MARVEL!
SHAZAM!!
-----------------

Hi folks!
Sorry for the delay - managed to get a bit more written. Enjoy!
(Oh yeah, and comment too! ;D )
-------------------------------------------
Just Kitten around.

Chapter 1:
==========
I leaned back against the park bench with a contented
sigh, letting the early afternoon sun soak into me. It
wasn't often I caught a break during the day, but sometimes
I got lucky. Today was one of those days - all my contacts
were busy, and I'd already wrapped up all the cases I'd been
working on. Until somebody came up with something, I was
free as a bird.
Crumpling up the wrapper from the hamburger I'd nabbed
from a street vendor on the way over, I pitched it at a
nearby garbage can, and was gratified to see that it went
in. Being able to have a relaxed lunch was a treat
too.usually I was grabbing energy bars and a bottle of water
in-between missions instead of having a proper sit-down
meal.
That sunlight felt *good*..I had to stifle a yawn as a
pleasant drowsiness crept over me. Yawning again, I
stretched indolently, hearing the leather of my costume
creak from the strain. A male pedestrian walking by looked
over at me, and promptly walked into a lamppost when he
couldn't seem to get his eyeballs back to where they
belonged.
I smirked to myself as he staggered away, clutching his
head in pain. I'd gotten used to how most people reacted to
my looks over the years, but every now and again I'd get a
good laugh from some of them. And there were days when a
good laugh was welcome.
Paragon City was no stranger to cute girls in skimpy
(usually spandex) costumes - they were literally all over
the place. Even with that saturation level, though, a fairly
tall, curvaceous woman wearing a tight and revealing leather
costume with high-heeled boots usually got a second glance.
Especially when she also had very prominent cat ears, and a
tail swishing lazily through the air behind her.
Okay, okay, maybe I had been a little exhibitionist in
my stretching. But basking in that sunlight just felt SO
damn good that I was giving semi-serious thought to napping
all afternoon on the bench. I reached over to where my drink
was sitting, condensation beading and trickling down the
sides of the cup, and picked it up and took a long pull on
the straw.
Cold, liquid sweetness flooded my mouth, and I sighed
blissfully, savouring the gulp of vanilla milkshake I'd
taken for a moment. I swallowed finally, and felt the
pleasantly numbing cold work its way down to my stomach. My
second indulgence for the afternoon.I was going to have to
think about taking an afternoon break more often if this was
what it could be like.
As I sat there quietly enjoying my drink and the
relative peace and quiet, my ears picked up the sound of
purposeful footsteps approaching my bench, coming from
behind me. The drowsiness that had been hanging over me
vanished in an instant as a surge of adrenaline shot through
my veins.
After a tense moment, I forced myself to relax - it was
only one set of footsteps, and there was no attempt at
stealth or subterfuge, so it was highly unlikely one of my
enemies had decided to track me down to settle a score.
Besides, his scent was of somebody highly nervous - and
I couldn't think of anybody other than Crey goons or Council
stooges who had reason to be nervous around me.
So I waited, taking another leisurely sip of my
milkshake. The footsteps slowed down as he came around the
end of the park bench and stopped, looking at me. Mentally,
I gave him bonus points for not having his eyes fixed on the
neckline of my costume.
"Um, hi," he looked at me hesitantly. I cocked an
eyebrow inquisitively at him and took another pull at my
milkshake as I waited for the rest of whatever he was going
to say. "Are you Saberkitten?"
"That's me," I nodded, looking him over. Typical
average guy - about five-foot-seven, hundred and sixty-five
pounds, wearing a windbreaker over a t-shirt, jeans, and
running shoes that were long past their best days. He was a
clean-cut kid, with black hair, and green eyes. Age-wise, my
guess pegged him at around nineteen or twenty. "Something I
can help you with?"
"Well, Professor Smythe sent me actually," he sounded
apologetic. "He said you might be able to help me out with,
um, a problem I'm having."
"Great," I tried to keep my voice neutral, but it
probably didn't work too well. Professor Jonathan St. John
Smythe worked for the branch of the Paragon City
administration that dealt with 'paranormal humans' - people
like me. Smythe was a good scientist, and he'd helped me
figure out some of what had happened to me when I'd first
ended up here, but good grief.the man was the almost
textbook example of a science nerd crossed with the absent-
minded professor.
And he just didn't seem to be able to clue in to why I
might be a little testy after hours of being poked and
prodded in various sensitive places with instruments that
all seemed to be glacially cold. I was convinced he
refrigerated all his equipment before I got there, but I
never did manage to prove it.
I sighed to myself - I may not have been fond of the
old goat, but if he was sending people to me for help, I at
least owed it to him to listen to their story.
My visitor seemed to be fascinated by my 'exotic'
appearance, and I sighed inwardly, mentally bracing myself.
Looked like it was going to be one of *those* kinds of
discussions again.
"How do you get the ears to stay on when you're
fighting?" he ventured, confirming my guess.
"Well, we're kind of attached to each other," I
shrugged, taking another slurp of my milkshake. One of my
ears twitched, unconsciously mirroring my irritation at the
question. I saw the light dawn in his face as his startled
gaze flicked from my ears to my slowly thrashing tail behind
me.
"Yes, it's real too, and no, you can't touch it," I cut
him off as he opened his mouth to ask another question, one
I was sure I'd already heard before. Two years of looking
like this, and it was still the same stupid questions over
and over and over again. Luckily (for him), today was a good
day - my earlier tangles with the Council had pretty much
worked out any 'aggression issues' I might have had.
"I wasn't going to ask," he sounded wounded, but I
didn't really care. I'd had my tail literally yanked by
grabby kids in shopping malls, slammed in doors by ignorant
AND impatient bastards, and even stepped on during one of
the rare occasions where my opponents had managed to put me
down. When you've got a body part that seems to be directly
connected to your pain receptors, you make damn sure that
other people keep their hands OFF.
By the way, I don't make exceptions on that one,
especially for kids. Leaving pain aside for a moment, it
took me over two hours to get the damn bubblegum out of the
fur the last time some little brat grabbed it.
My expression must've been pretty sour at that point
because the kid was looking even more nervous that he'd been
when he first arrived and looked half-ready to bolt. I
shoved the irritation aside and tried to give him what I
hoped was a reassuring smile. "So, what did you need a hand
with?"
"Well," he looked hesitant. "It's about my brother. I
think he's in, um, trouble." He shifted his feet and looked
down at the ground. "I was kind of hoping I could find
somebody to look for him."
"Look for him?" I echoed, cocking an eyebrow. "If he's
missing can't you just tell the cops?"
"I did," he fidgeted harder. "They said they'd put out
a bulletin on him, but that he was likely still out with his
'buddies'." I cocked my head, giving him an appraising
glance. His body language spoke volumes about something he
wasn't telling me.
"You're going to have to level with me, kid," I noisily
slurped down the last of my milkshake and tossed the cup at
the trash bin nearby. "How long has he been missing, and why
are you acting like the cops don't care?" The look he gave
me was guilty and worried in equal measure.
"Well, he's..he's had some run-ins with the cops
before," he flushed and looked away. "I've tried to get him
to smarten up, but he just wouldn't listen." He sighed.
"He's been hanging around with a group of guys who want to
get into one of the other gangs here, and they've been
trying to do stuff to impress the local big-shots. You know,
small stuff like graffiti on walls, things like that."
"Go on," I nodded. Small wonder the cops hadn't seemed
interested - they were so swamped trying to deal with either
the Hellions, Skulls, or Outcasts they weren't likely to
spare much concern for somebody who was "known to police".
Not unless he was known for having mutant powers or
something.
"Well, four days ago they decided they needed to do
something bigger," he flushed and looked away. "I tried to
talk him out of it. But they went anyway."
"Talk him out of what?" I prodded, wishing the kid
would just get to the point.
"They wanted to break into this warehouse they'd been
watching," he jammed his hands into his pockets and started
pacing agitatedly. "He said they'd seen lots of trucks going
in and out delivering stuff, and they figured there must be
something worth stealing in there that they could nab. He
said they didn't have any security and that the warehouse
looked deserted most of the time."
"Oh hell," I muttered, rubbing at the bridge of my nose
with my fingers. "Deserted warehouses" didn't exist in
Paragon City - if you had a building that looked abandoned,
then it was a sure bet that somebody had set up shop there
that didn't *want* to be noticed. If it wasn't the Hellions,
then it was the Skulls or the Outcasts. And if it wasn't the
gangs trying to lay low, then it was probably somebody with
enough firepower to make sure that they didn't get noticed.
Unless they were total knuckle-dragging Neanderthals,
anybody with an IQ above that of a retarded amoeba should
have known that. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," he looked glum. Fishing in his jacket pocket,
he pulled out an oily, stained piece of yellow paper that
looked like a packing slip and handed it to me. "I found
this in his things - I think they picked it up when they
were scouting out the place."
I unfolded the crumpled piece of paper and squinted at
the faded lines on the paper. I immediately saw two things
that made my blood run cold - the first thing was that it
was a packing slip all right, and it was for guns. Lots of
high-powered, very illegal guns.
The second thing that was making me feel like I'd been
kicked in the stomach was the barely legible logo in the
corner of the paper. It looked like a flaming comet with a
large 'C' embedded in the center, surrounded by an elongated
diamond-shaped outline. I recognized it immediately.
The Council.
I swore under my breath as I crumpled the paper. The
stupid, STUPID bastards had tried to rip off a Council
storehouse. If they were lucky, they were dead. If they
weren't lucky...my jaw clenched as I tried to avoid thinking
about what they could do with a batch of fresh 'volunteers'
for their insane super-soldier experiments.
For one brief, disorienting second, it seemed like I
could smell antiseptic fumes, and I again felt something
akin to slivers of white-hot fire racing up my arms.
Gritting my teeth, I shook my head, forcing away the
memories.
As the remembered pain faded from my arms, I became
aware that the hand that had been holding the packing slip
had clenched into a tight fist, and the afternoon sunlight
was glittering off the trio of razor-edged ten-inch blades
that had sprouted from between my knuckles.
My claws.
The kid had turned bone-white and started backing away
from me, and I speared him with a steely glance, stopping
him in his tracks. "What's your brother's name, and where
was this warehouse?"

Chapter 2:
==========

Independence Port. I can't think of a more wretched
hive of scum and villainy anywhere, Ben Kenobi's opinion
about Mos Eisley spaceport notwithstanding.
What? So I watch old movies from time to time. Did you
think I spend absolutely all my time fighting for my life
against crackpots with 'master plans' to conquer Paragon
City and use Stateman's cape for their beach towel? Even us
hyperactive scrappers need to unwind now and again, and I
like watching old movies at home. I can relax and enjoy
myself, munch some snacks, and not have to pretend I can't
hear the whispering and muttering going on behind my back.
I shifted my position a little, trying to ease the
cramps that were
starting to bite into my leg muscles. I'd been perched in my
little lookout spot for about an hour and a half now, neatly
tucked out of sight behind some steel girders and pipes
running from a nearby refinery. It was the type of spot that
most people wouldn't think of looking - primarily because
under normal circumstances, most people wouldn't have been
able to get to it.
But when you've got cat-like agility and instincts,
you learn really quickly that doing the unexpected can keep
you alive. It's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get
you - and I'd managed to piss of enough of Paragon City's
assorted criminal element that I wasn't going to take
anything for granted.
So I waited semi-patiently, trying to ignore the
pungent cocktail of dead fish, harbour debris, industrial
fumes, and petroleum vapour that saturated the air around
me.
As I crouched there in the shadows, factory and dock
workers and other pedestrians went about their business on
the streets below. I had to fight not to leap from my
concealed niche a couple of times as a couple of them were
grabbed by Tsoo gangsters and shaken down for 'protection'
money. Part of being on a stakeout is keeping a low profile,
and to suddenly have an enraged scrapper landing on them and
carving dire retribution out of their tattooed hide would
have given away my position.
So I stayed hidden and silent, grinding my teeth as I
witnessed a couple more shakedowns, mentally promising
myself that I'd track them down later and get the victims
their money back - with interest. As I tore my gaze from the
street, I realized that I'd clenched my hands into fists
again, and my claws were gleaming brightly in the darkness.
Six steely blades, slightly curved with chisel-pointed ends,
much like the tip of a katana blade.
Damn it, I'd done it again. I forced myself to relax,
taking deep breaths and
unclenching my hands. My claws slowly slid back into my
hands, vanishing into my gloves as they retracted into their
housings with a metallic grating noise. I stared at the
backs of my hands, my jaw clenching for a moment, then
resumed my vigil.
Most people thought my claws were built into my gloves
in some kind of fancy
high-tech spring-loaded gadget. Only a select few people
knew the truth: my claws were cybernetic devices that had
been surgically implanted in my arms when I'd been strapped
down to a table and drugged into a stupor so that I couldn't
resist. I wore the gloves partly to deflect curiosity by
giving people an easy explanation for where the claws came
from.
The other reason I wore them was to hide the scars.
I stared morosely past the tangle of piping at the
warehouse in the distance. Even in my mind's eye, I could
see them: three thin lines of whitish scar tissue running
from the knuckles on my hands up past my wrists to a point
halfway up my forearm. The marks of surgical butchery by
some freakish group of mad scientists. Bastards.

My body could heal from damn near anything thrown at
me. I've regrown skin after having it burned off by the
toxic slime spewed from walking corpses, regenerated broken
bones after being slammed into the ground by shambling rock
creatures, and I've even had the pleasure of getting to hold
my innards in while my hyped-up metabolism repaired the
lucky slash that some jackass with a broadsword had half-
eviscerated me with. No matter what I got blasted or maimed
with, my body always healed from it as good as new, with no
blemishes or signs of the violence I'd just endured. But the
scars on my arms were permanent.

The human body is actually quite remarkable in its
ability to heal itself. Over the years, there's been all
kinds of indications that, given a chance and the right
conditions, people can heal from very serious injuries.
There's just two problems with 'normal' healing: it's slow,
and over time your body loses the ability to repair itself.
The repair mechanisms basically lose their 'memory' of how
your body's cells are supposed to be. So if you can find a
way to ensure that the cells never lose that memory template
of how things are supposed to be AND drastically speed up
the healing process, well hey, you've got somebody who can
heal perfectly from anything, right?

I was the result of somebody taking that theory and running with it to an extreme. Kidnapped off the street for no good reason that Id ever been able to discern, Id been dragged off to some clandestine lab somewhere and kept drugged-up as they went about experimenting on me.
First, they genetically rearranged my DNA by fusing it with cat DNA I dont know what kind of cat, but Im willing to bet it was a wild one of some kind. I developed keener senses and reflexes as a result, but I also got a tail and genuine cat ears out of the bargain. I also started getting predatory thoughts about my captors.but Im pretty sure that probably wouldve happened anyway, given the circumstances.
For the second step to the process, theyd strapped me down and implanted the claws in my arms. I regained consciousness a couple of times during that process, and it was not pleasant at all. Theyd quickly anaesthetized me again, but not before Id gotten to feel surgical implements cutting into my arms, and something running ribbons of fire up the nerve endings in my arms.
The final, irrevocable step to the whole twisted process had been a large injection of something that glowed a virulent green colour. Ever swallowed a mouthful of something so hot you can feel it burning its way down your gullet to your stomach? Now imagine what it feels like to have that sensation running through every vein and artery of your body all at once for several minutes. I know I screamed myself hoarse as it was happening before blacking out from the pain.
The injection did its work beautifully though my bodys metabolism was jacked-up and accelerated to the point that any injury healed almost immediately, and my bodys cellular repair mechanisms became able to restore any damaged tissue to its original state.
And that was exactly why I could never heal the scars on my arms, or lose the feline characteristics. As far as my body was concerned, when the regeneration factor was induced in my physiology, I had always been this way. Anything that changed my physiology was vigourously rejected as my body healed itself back to its perfect state. Quite ingenious, really.
I closed my eyes and took another set of deep breaths, forcing the rage back into its corner in my mind. This was one reason why I tried to keep busy all the time sitting around waiting for something to happen gave me time to think. On days where I was feeling particularly down, my thoughts always seem to veer into dark, seething anger, and I really didnt need that. Especially not now.

I was about to simply post a writeup to the Character Thread, but then I thought that the character's biomod might cross the line that we've drawn
regarding superpowers...

(Edit: Since I've already mentioned a "Leda" in the Grover's Corners launch
thread, I'd really like to know whether she's a legal character.)

Here's the complete writeup. What do folks think?

Listening to the lyrics.. yeah I think its a possible gatesong. if nothing else highly recommended for your enjoyment
Neil Hannon - Love Don't Roam
Well, I've roamed about this Earth
With just a suitcase in my hand,
And I've met some bog-eyed Joe's,
I've met the blessed, I've met the damned.
But of all the strange, strange creatures
In the air, at sea, on land,
Oh, my girl, my girl, my precious girl,
I love you, you understand.
So, reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
'Cause my body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam. No, no.
I have wandered, I have rambled
I have crossed this crowded sphere,
And I've seen a mass of problems
That I long to disappear.
Now, all I have's this anguished heart,
For you have vanished too.
Oh, my girl, my girl, my precious girl,
Just what is this man to do?
So, reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
'Cause my body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam.
Yeah, reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
'Cause my body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam. No, no.
Well, you took me in, you stole my heart,
I cannot roam no more.
Because love, it stays within you,
It does not wash up on a shore.
But a fighting man forgets each cut
Each knock, each bruise, each fall,
But a fighting man cannot forget
Why his love don't roam no more.
Oh, reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
'Cause my body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam.
Yeah, reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
'Cause my body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam.
Yeah, walk with me, my love, my love,
Walk tall, walk proud, walk far,
For you are my love, you are, you are,
You are my shining star.
Walk with me, oh my love,
Walk tall, walk proud, walk far.
For you are my love, you are, you are,
You are my shining star, you are, you are.
Yeah!
Reel me in, my precious girl,
Come on, take me home.
My body's tired of travelling
And my heart don't wish to roam.
_______________________________
We're definitely playing this game wrong. I thought Vampire was supposed to be a game of personal horror, not about ninja airstrikes
at night.
- A friend after playing a session of Dark Ages Vampire.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. THERE IS ONLY WAR!
-Same friend.
_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

I have just barely begun to start reading the various Fenspace pieces, but after talking to Bob earlier tis evening, I had a fun idea that I figured I'd share.
It's a simple concept - slip Handwavium into the sprinkler system at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA, and then trigger it. There's _lots_ of interesting aircraft there, including an M-12/D-21 combo, and you'd get some interesting results...
Offsides
Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large

Quick cut-n-paste from the Fortress of Solitude:
*Mal-3 pokes @ fenspace, idly ponders... would it be going too far if the boskonians were really /b/oskonians?
KillJoy_: ...
Mal-3: It would explain a lot, especially the random casual cruelty we tend to write into them.
Mal-3: And outside of Nazis, I can't think of any more shootable mooks than /b/tards.
KillJoy_: BRILLIANT!
...so yeah. Thoughts?---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

Just something that popped into my head one day, on the general thought of "see, despite fondness of people for weapons, war is hell and that should be remembered".
Probably unpolished in places, but oh well.

Tell Your Children When

by Robert M. Schroeck

"Okay," Bob said. "Let's do it."
* * *

Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt
Time's cold wind wailing down the pass
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out
* * *

April 20, 2012
11:45 PM
Kearney, WV
Dan Hendra stepped out onto the front porch and lit himself a smoke, grumbling at the restrictions his wife had placed on him. "No smoking in the house! If you're going to smoke, do it outside!"
Least it's halfway warm out here tonight, he thought to himself. Man needs a smoke before turning in.
He had finished the cigarette and was grinding the butt into the painted concrete with his toe, when he heard it. It was a strange sound, like a powerful electric motor spinning at high speeds, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Dan frowned, then stepped off the porch and into the yard. He wandered a little toward the pasture where the horses spent their days, trying to follow the noise to where it was loudest.
As he turned the corner of the barn he stopped short. There, beyond the line of trees that marked the border between his property and the next, a wall of... something, glinting faintly in the harsh light of the floodlamps that lit the yard, seemed to be growing. It was glassy, with huge triangular dimples in it, and it was hurling itself into the sky with no indication that any kind of bottom was going to appear any time soon.
Stunned and disbelieving, Dan stood and watched as more and more wall grew out of the ground. Whatever it was made of, it seemed to him that it almost... fluttered at first, for lack of a better word, before growing rigid as it climbed into the night.
As it rumbled and shot up into the dark sky, his wife Jeanne joined him in the yard, as baffled as he and frightened by the strangeness of it all. She clung to him as the mysterious wall blotted out more and more of the stars. Holding tightly to her, Dan looked for the first time to left and right -- the wall stretched off into the darkness in either direction.
Finally, the wall stopped growing, and a deep and distant rumble like thunder on the horizon rolled off it. There was a moment of silence, and then with an electric crackle a rainbow shimmer rippled across the glassy, dimpled surface.
A burst of confidence seized Dan, and he took a step toward it. Jeanne tugged on his arm to pull him back. He patted her hand reassuringly and pried her deathgrip loose, then took another step to the pasture fence. As he swung one leg over the top rail, the mysterious wall lurched up into air with a clap of thunder. A powerful wind blew toward it, forcing Jeanne up against the fence and almost tearing him off and carrying him along. Dan clung to the rail with all his strength until the wind suddenly ceased; he wasn't sure how long it had been blowing, but he knew his arms would ache in the morning.
As he carefully climbed off the fence, Jeanne made a wordless sound that seemed to roll wonder, fear, shock and surprise all together into one sharp utterance. Dan turned back to the wall to see it was moving again, this time faster and speeding up as they watched. The nature of the wall had changed, too -- although still glassy and dimpled, it was dark, barely visible in the faint light, and it seemed to be moving away from them.
Within moments, stars were visible once again over the trees.
As one, Dan and Jeanne lifted their eyes to the sky, where a black disk obscured the stars, a disk that grew smaller and smaller and higher and higher.
When he could no longer bear to stand with his neck bent back, Dan turned his eyes on the treeline, and wondered just what he would find beyond it, come the day.
"Dear god in heaven," Jeanne murmured from beside him. "What was that?"
* * *

Cycles turn while the far stars burn
And people and planets age
Life's crown passes to younger lands
Time sweeps the dust of hope from her hands
And turns another page
* * *

April 21, 2012
12:04 AM EDT
Charlestown, WV
Sachin Mehta softly muttered Hindustani profanities to himself as he locked the door to the convenience store his family owned. He swore because the night had sucked, right from the outset, and he had complaints about just about every part of it.
The majority were reserved for his father, who had insisted Sachin look after the store on a Friday night -- a Friday night on which he'd had a date, a date now cancelled, with a girl who now no doubt hated him.
But he also had complaints about the shop itself -- on the northwestern edge of rural Charlestown, practically in the farmland that surrounded the small town, it was in the complete opposite direction from any place of interest. From any place any of his friends might care to visit on a Friday night.
He had complaints about the customers, as well -- his last of the night had been a couple of racist rednecks who'd thought the price of a pack of cigarettes and a can of chaw let them play "mock the foreigner". He'd had to smile and thank them even as he'd inwardly seethed and just hoped one of them would do something to justify pulling out his father's baseball bat from where it lay under the counter.
He even had complaints about the store's stock, for he'd been tasked by his father with inventorying and packing away all the non-perishable Easter goods which hadn't sold by the previous Sunday. He'd told his father that five cartons of "Paas" were too many, especially at the prices they had to charge, but did the old man ever listen to him? Ha. Not likely.
Sachin twisted the key savagely in the lock and growled when it almost snapped off in his hand. He yanked it out of the lock with a snarl, then spun on his heel to stalk off to his car in a suitable fit of outrage and anger.
And stopped as he watched what for a moment his baffled eyes told him was a rare sight -- the new moon in the old moon's arms, a hair-thin crescent of white along the edge of a disk of grey only a shade lighter than the black sky around it.
But it was moving too quickly to be the moon.
And it was rising in the northwest.
What the hell?
* * *

Shortly after midnight, the police department in nearby Charlestown received a report of a UFO.
They ignored it.
* * *

April 21, 2012
12:09 AM EDT
Frederick, MD
Ten minutes after midnight, the police in somewhat more distant Frederick also received a report of a UFO.
They, too, ignored it.
* * *

But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the open skies
and a single flag unfurled
* * *

April 21, 2012
12:11 AM EDT
The sky over Maryland and West Virginia
In the nearly eleven years since 9/11, a vast array of radar installations -- some camouflaged, some obvious -- had been built in concentric rings around Washington, DC, with the outermost some fifty miles away from the heart of the city. These radars constantly scanned the skies and fed their results into a system that used a combination of computer and human evaluation to locate and identify any air traffic that seemed out of the ordinary -- traffic that might be another terrorist threat against the capitol. It tied into NORAD, the civilian air traffic control system, and several other groups/networks/operations that were considerably less public.
Shortly after midnight on April 21, 2012, this system declared a priority one alert.
Its human overseers weren't sure what they were seeing, but the procedures were clear -- anything large and unidentified constituted a potential danger until proven otherwise. And in the nearly ten-year history of the system, no bogey had ever been as large as this. That and the fact that it was a mere sixty miles from Washington made it a class-A threat, even though its vector showed no sign of coming anywhere near the city -- at least for the moment.
Squadrons of fighter jets were immediately scrambled from air force bases up and down the east coast of North America -- from as far north as Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts to as far south as Pope AFB in North Carolina. The First Response teams came from Dover, Andrews and Langley AFBs -- the rest would be the second and subsequent waves, if they were needed. And ahead of them all was an initial flight of three F-16s from Andrews sent to scout out the mysterious bogey.
It took them less than five minutes to reach the object. They had no trouble finding it.
"Holy Mother of Christ," Captain Ricardo "Hightop" Lorefice swore under his breath when they were still ten miles out. "Either my radar is waaay broken, or that is one huge mother."
"You're not kidding," flight leader Major Randall "Czar" Czarneki muttered. "Andrews, this is India Foxtrot One."
"Go ahead, India Foxtrot One," crackled over the radio.
"Andrews, confirm, please. Bogey is almost three-quarters of a mile across? Over." There was a long pause, during which Czar whispered "Jesus!" to himself.
The radio crackled again. "India Foxtrot One, this is Andrews. CRAW and NORAD both confirm. Bogey is over 3500 feet across. Repeat, over 3500 feet. It is at Angels 15 and ascending at 150 knots. Over."
"It's the wave, it's gotta be," Lieutenant Rory "Khaki" Dokker announced, a quaver in his voice. "Something that big, flyin' that fast? Hell, flyin' at all? Someone's pulled a fuckin' huge wavejob right outside of DC!"
"If it is, everyone from the brass up to the President are going to go nuts," Czar said. "Andrews, this is India Foxtrot One. We are closing with the target. Over."
"Understood, India Foxtrot One." There was a brief pause. "You have been authorized to fire upon the craft if it does not respond to hails. Over."
Czar grimaced. "Roger that, Andrew. India Foxtrot One out."
Khaki snorted. "Yeah, right, like a Sidewinder is going to do anything more than scratch the paint on that thing."
"You never know," Hightop interjected. "We blow their vacuum seal, they can't go into space, and we force them to land. Something that big's gotta take a lot of power to lift -- they can't possibly keep it up for long."
"Bull," Khaki spat. "It's the wave, that shit is magic."
Czar cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, we'll worry about that if and when we need to."
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
Jet engines roared as the three F-16s closed with the object, then banked sharply to the right before settling into a continuous counterclockwise "orbit" around the great mass looming before them, following sharply upward as it continued its rise into the dark sky.
Czar couldn't help but glance to the left every few seconds. The moonless night offered almost no light by which to see the impossibly huge craft, save for the faintest limning of starlight and the reflections of their own running lights.
The combination of its rise and their pursuit meant they had to keep banking to the left and climbing at the same time, tracing a spiral up into the sky. It was almost enough to make Czar dizzy. He checked his IFF -- no signal of any kind from the thing, not that he'd expected it. With an annoyed grunt he switched his radio to the most common frequency used by the Fen for ship-to-ship communication and hit the transmit key. "Attention unregistered aircraft! This is Major Randall Czarneki of the United States Air Force. Your flight is illegal! You are ordered to land immediately. If you do not comply you will be fired on. Do you copy?"
"'Aircraft'!" Khaki snorted. "This thing's going to space. It's the fuckin' Death Star, that's what it is."
"Can it, Khaki!" Czar snapped. The damned thing was rising too rapidly -- more than half a mile in just the time it took to issue the warning. At that rate it'd hit their operational ceiling in just a few minutes. He was going to have to make a decision fast. He keyed the transmit again. "Repeat: Attention unregistered aircraft! Ths is the Air Force. Your flight is illegal. You are to land immediately or you will be fired upon!"
He silently counted to 20 -- another mile up, he noted on his altimeter. No response. "Khaki, Hightop, follow me." He lightened his pull on the joystick and the jet shot out and away from the huge spherical craft. As he looped back to point the nose of his jet back at the bogey, he switched bands again. "Andrews, this is India Foxtrot One. The unidentified craft has ignored hails and is continuing to climb. I am arming missiles for launch."
"Acknowledged, India Foxtrot One," came crackling back as he flipped the mollyguards and toggled the switches that armed the missiles.
Czar checked his radar. The main force from Andrews was almost here. Launching an air-to-air missile would signal the start of hostilities. The missile guidance systems had complained at first -- the thing was simply too large to register as a valid target, but he overrode them into a point-and-shoot mode; precision wasn't needed here. A quick glimpse at the console clock told him he had less than 10 seconds before the sphere passed through their operational ceiling; he had to decide now.
"Lauching," he spat, and fired.
Czar's jet jinked as the missiles dropped and ignited, one after the other. They shot off into the dark, everything but their exhausts lost to the night.
Moments later, two blossoms of flame erupted in the distance. Hightop whooped, while Khaki muttered unintelligibly to himself. Czar just watched, and realized that a shimmer of rainbow light had flared into existence beyond them, a shimmer that remained for a few moments even as the explosions faded away. It shone brightly enough, for long enough, to reveal what he had feared -- an undamaged, unscarred surface glinting in the strange multicolored light.
"Shit," Hightop spat.
"Yeah," Czar agreed. He checked the altimeter. Angels 55. 55,000 feet. The F-16s' ceiling. He levelled off, and the others followed.
Khaki whistled. "Forcefield, gotta be some kind of forcefield."
Czar toggled the transmit. "Andrews, this is India Foxtrot One. Direct hit, but no damage. Craft appears to be protected by some kind of field effect. We are also at operational ceiling and are breaking off pursuit."
Andrews took a little longer than usual to respond, and when they did, Czar could hear muffled expletives in the background. "Acknowledged, India Foxtrot One. Return to base."

As Czar led his men into a wide bank that brought them onto a heading back to Andrews, he only half-listened to Khaki and Hightop banter as the recall orders went out to all the other squadrons. For a moment he wondered what motivated the Fen to head into space. Then he remembered the moment when he first knew he wanted to fly, as a ten-year-old watching the first space shuttle to launch after the long post-Challenger hiatus.
It was a dream that in one form or another had carried him since then. He'd given up on being an astronaut before he'd gotten out of his teens, but fighter pilot wasn't a bad substitute. Still, it had been a quite a while since he'd thought about the roots of his long quest for wings. Maybe he did know what motivated the Fen, after all.
Czar shook his head and smiled to himself. "Good luck, guys," he whispered. "Have fun out there."
* * *

From all who tried out of history's tide
A salute for the team that won
And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun
* * *

April 21, 2012
12:30 AM EDT
Fenspace
In dozens of habitats and ships surrounding the Earth, variations on the same theme played out over and over:
"Commander, something just took off from North America. Something big."

"Who are these guys?"
"Christ on a pogostick. That's insane. Where's it coming from?"

And as the myriad inhabitants of the space around it watched, the great shining sphere burst from the shadow of the earth into the glorious light of the sun.
* * *

We know well what Life can tell
If you will not perish, then grow
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know
That the Eagle has landed, tell your children when
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
-- Julia Ecklar, "Hope Eyrie" (written by Leslie Fish), www.prometheus-music.com/...rtual.html

Posted here and on ff.net simultaneously, since the fact I can't actually post a challenge as a document on ff.net makes me afraid nobody will actually see it...
If you don't actually read Hybrid Theory... hey, it's only 1,127,545 words! You've got a week! ;p
Our URL for those who want to freshen up (say by checking the Character Guide) is C&A Productions
*
Hey, y'all! Some have probably been wondering where the next chapter of Hybrid Theory might be. Unfortunately, what happened here is that Aaron/Epsi's workplace had a strike, drastically changing his working hours. This made it very hard for us to get together and collaborate on scenes, an unfortunate state of affairs in a chapter that's mostly composed of joint scenes.