AndyC

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"No way it's that easy, no way," Cadet Zack Windham muttered as he monitored the Mobile HQ's directional microphone.

"I don't see why not," Lieutenant Lyons responded, her tone carrying just a tone of self-satisfaction. "We had a good plan, and the Green Knights executed it well."

"Yeah, but you'd think they'd put up more of a fight, y'know?" Windham insisted. "Some kind of big boom, maybe the crash and bang of a suicide attack, I dunno. Just something."

While the Mobile HQ boasted an impressive sensor suite and comms equipment, the nature of the mission meant they were currently on 'silent running.' Using any of their active sensors could potentially give away their position to the enemy, leaving them defenseless. And while the robust TharHes HQ CommSet could send a transmission powerful enough to penetrate the Green Knights' ECM field if they needed to contact them, doing so would give away the Knights' position, potentially giving away the entire mission. For the moment, they had to rely on their passive sensors, such as the external directional microphones and seismic sensors, to vaguely piece together what was going on.

And right now, it appeared that the battle had reached a rather anti-climactic conclusion. For most, a quick and easy victory would be an enormous relief. The excitable Zack Windham, however, was hoping for something a bit more dramatic.

"Oh sure, Windy," Cadet Marcus Higgins rolled his eyes, "'cuz everyone knows combat happens exactly like it does in the holos. Any minute now, the Bounty Hunter is going to roll up in his Marauder and start blasting everyone."

"The Bounty Hunter wouldn't be working on a defensive contract," the young, slightly pudgy crewman scoffed. "Everyone knows he only does assassinations of high-ranking Mechwarriors."

Higgins started to chuckle, while Lyons gave Windham a scornful look.

"The Bounty Hunter isn't real, Windham," she said with a lecturing tone. "Any more than the Vandenberg White Wings or the Minnesota Tribe."

"He is so real!" Windham exclaimed. "How else do you explain the Black Widow Company nearly getting wiped out on LeBlanc?"

"Oh, I dunno, maybe because the Black Widow Company isn't nearly as good as everyone says they are, and everyone just puts Natasha Kerensky on a pedestal because they think she's hot?"

"Pfffft, I'd like to see you rack up her kill count," Windham said, glancing at the rather salacious pin-up poster of the infamous Mechwarrior taped to the wall over his station.

"She's never going to do you, bro," Higgins mocked him.

"Screw off," Windham scowled.

"Seismics are reading s--"

"You're seriously trying to white-knight for an overrated stripper that Jaime Wolf parades around as a recruitment piece?" Higgins talked over Lyons. "You know all those 'tales of the Black Widow Company' holos aren't anything like what they actually do, right?"

"Guys, there's some--"

"I'm not talking about the holos," Windham said indignantly. "Unlike you, I've actually read the reports from the Marik Civil War, and from the Battle of Misery. Yeah, I've got the holos, but I also do my homework on the real deal!"

"Because you're a fanboy."

"Guys--"

"I'm an enthusiast of the profession, and I like to follow whoever happens to be the best at it."

"Guys--"

"Sorry, I stand corrected. You're a stalker."

"Oh gods of space, will you SHUT THE HELL UP!" Lyons finally burst out at her cadets. "I've been trying to say, seismic sensors are picking up enemy movement in Sector G-10!"

Colonel Wayne, having tuned out the constant bickering from the crewmates the other Knights affectionately referred to as 'the GDK'-- or "those God-Damned Kids," as the Colonel had once been caught muttering-- sat up in his command couch.

"What kind of movement, Lieutenant?"

"It's hard to pick out exact signatures from this range," Lyons admitted, "But it's definitely Battlemech footsteps. There's a lot of fuzz in the readings, but given the size of the tremors, I'm estimating the total tonnage to be, ah.....in the ballpark of 200 tons, total."

"...shit," Windham said breathlessly. That was likely an entire lance of Crimson Fists. The Green Knights did have them out-massed, but with ammunition supplies running low and critical mission objectives to protect, this wasn't a fight they could afford right now.

"Hey, you wanted a big dramatic twist," Higgins chided him.

"Can you determine their movement?" Colonel Wayne asked. "Are they on an intercept route?"

"Determining that now, sir," Lyons answered, frantically writing down calculations based on the strength of the seismic signals over time. "Ahhh, looks like.....negative, sir. The Fists are heading north-by-northeast, likely just on patrol on their way back to Balya Gora. It's possible they'll just pass right by us."

"Assuming they don't get alerted that the comms from Outpost F-10 have gone down,"

"How long until the Fists are too far away to intercept?"

"At their current speed and heading? Looks like....approximately ten minutes, sir."

"And how long is our estimated window before the Espian Guard are tipped off to the outpost going down?"

"....about the same, sir."

Colonel Wayne carefully weighed his options. If they broke silence to warn the Green Knights, they'd give away their own position, and they'd almost certainly be killed. If they remained quiet, there was a chance the Crimson Fists would miss them completely, or that they'd turn to attack and the Knights would have no way of knowing.

"Keep monitoring their position," Gaius ordered. "I want to know exactly where the Fists are heading at all times. Windham, if they start heading towards F-10, I want you to send a microwave burst signal to warn the Knights of incoming contacts. The plan remains the same; we head for the box canyons in sector E-8 and try to lose them. Higgins, how's the weather?"

"The weather, sir?"

"You heard me, Cadet," the Colonel stated flatly.

"Err, still overcast, sir," Higgins answered, flipping tabs on his monitor until he found the weather radar. "There's a major storm cell heading through G-9 right now, looks like it'll be moving through F-9 within the next thirty minutes."

"Good," Colonel Wayne nodded. "The cloud cover will keep air assets from being able to spot us, unless they start flying low enough to be within range of the Knights' weapons. If we get spotted, we can head into the storm cell."

"Visibility will be near zero in that storm, sir," Windham pointed out.

"For us, and for the Fists," Wayne countered. "If we get lucky, we can slip away in the rain. If not, we can hammer them up close while the convoy makes for the canyons."

"Sir, that fuzz on the readings has cleared up," Lyons interrupted. "I'm getting more accurate readings now."

The Colonel turned towards her. "What are we looking at?"

Lyons' skin began to pale as she looked at her readings. "Four Battlemechs, three of them thirty-five-tonners.....and one eighty-five-tonner."

Silence hung in the cabin of the Mobile HQ for a moment. The light 'Mechs were bad news, but an Assault 'Mech on the field could be catastrophic. Gaius knew the Crimson Fists had at least one 'Mech in the 85-ton range: a Battlemaster like the one he used to pilot himself. That 'Mech was an absolute terror in close range, but if they could keep their distance, it wouldn't be able to bring the brunt of its weapons to bear. If it wasn't the Battlemaster, though, then he had some very serious questions about where the Crimson Fists were getting the kind of money to field that kind of firepower...

As he considered the next course of action, something else Lyons had mentioned stuck out in his mind.

"That 'fuzz' on the earlier seismic readings," he said, "What could have caused it?"

Lyons shrugged. "Any number of things, sir. It could have been a quirk of the terrain, maybe an aberrant fault line, or something else causing vibrations on the ground like...." her eyes widened, "...like the beating of helicopter blades."

---

"Outpost F-10, this is Miaodao One, checking in," the pilot of a Warrior H-7 Attack Helicopter droned into his radio to the nearby supply outpost, "Repeat, Outpost F-10, this is Miaodao One, checking in. We're not seeing your transponder on our network, is everything all right over there? Over."

After a few seconds without reply, the helicopter pilot repeated his message. Again, the outpost did not respond.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot frowned, then switched his comms to a different channel.

"Fire Witch One, this is Miaodao One," he stated, a bit of trepidation in his voice. "The supply outpost at F-10 has gone dark. Requesting a flyover to check on the situation? Over."

After a few moments of tense silence, a deep, low voice, clearly masked through an electronic voice modulator, responded.

"Miaodao One, this is Fire Witch One," the synthesized voice boomed in his headset. "You have permission to perform a flyover, but be quick about it. Our quarry is likely in the area, and I do not wish to waste more time hunting them than necessary. Make your pass, then return to me, and report anything out of the ordinary."

"Roger that, Fire Witch One," Miaodao One acknowledged, before switching to his squadron's channel. "Miaodao Two, Miaodao Three, we're breaking off for Sector F-10. Follow my mark. Anything looks suspicious, we radio it in to Fire Witch Lance, then we open fire, copy?"

"Copy that, Miaodao One," "Copy that, Miaodao One," came the answers from his wingmates.

"Transmitting new coordinates now," the squadron leader said. "Estimated time to Outpost F-10, five minutes...."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Blake's Blood," Captain Yorgei Park swore under his breath at the chaos that surrounded him. At the first sound of enemy fire, the outpost had erupted into bedlam, with most of the laborers scrambling in every direction looking for some kind of cover. A few of his troops had manned the wall-mounted turrets after they saw that their automated sensors had been scrambled, and he had to shield his eyes from the blinding light of laser fire as two of the emplacements had been blasted away. "What a disaster."

"Captain! Captain Park!" Lieutenant Admir wailed at the top of his lungs as he ran towards him through the chaos, a terrified laborer nearly knocking the skinny man off his feet as he collided with him while fleeing in no particular direction. Captain Park scowled with contempt at his underling, disgusted by his loss of composure. "There are too many of them! They've cut off our retreat! We--"

"Quit your womanly shrieking, you sniveling coward!" he bellowed, cracking his whip for emphasis. Lieutenant Admir visibly flinched, only fueling Captain Park's disdain for the man. "Today you face your greatest destiny as a warrior, and you meet it by pissing your pants and crying?"

"B-but we can't fight them, sir!" The lieutenant continued.

"We have weapons in the armory, do we not? Assault Rifles? Shoulder-mounted SRMs? By my last count, no fewer than three Inferno launchers?"

Inferno rocket launchers were a nasty piece of weaponry, one of the only conceivable ways a lowly infantryman could stand the slightest chance against a Battlemech. A single-shot, shoulder-mounted launcher fired a projectile which, on contact, released a flammable jelly that burned horrifically hot and was near impossible to get off. Already the stuff of nightmares against infantry, against 'Mechs Inferno rockets caused their heat to spike to dangerous levels. A hit in the right spot could cause a 'Mech's actuators to seize up, or cause its ammunition stores to light off, or if it struck the cockpit, cook the pilot alive.

"Y-yes, sir, we have three Infernos, sir," Admir stammered. "But we count five Battlemechs and a Heavy tank! Even if we score a hit, the others will kill us all!"

"Then we'll take a few of them to hell with us!" the captain roared, once again bringing his whip around to slash across the air, the sharp crack an exclamation point to his sentence. A few soldiers cheered at Captain Park's words, his image the very picture of the proud Espian Guardsman the propaganda posters had envisioned.

Inside, Yorgei's blood was ice. While he was no master of military tactics, he knew how badly the odds were stacked against them.

On paper, a crack team of infantry with Inferno launchers might be able to bring down a Battlemech, or at least soften it up for friendly forces to finish it off. With proper emplacements and months of rigorous training, a dedicated anti-'Mech squad could potentially bring down two Light 'Mechs, maybe a medium one.

But his men were not a crack team of rigorously-trained anti-'Mech infantry. These men were mostly conscripts, mostly barely competent at best, and mostly scared out of their minds. They were facing five Battlemechs, most of which were in the medium to heavy weight classes. And friendly forces had no way of knowing they were even in distress.

If they continued to fight, they would be slaughtered to the last man.

If the Captain surrendered, he would be labeled a coward by his superiors, and spend the rest of his life in the bowels of Fort Tie Shan.

There was only one thing for it.

"Comrades, brothers in arms of the Glorious Espian Revolution!" Park shouted over the din. "The mercenary scum will show you no mercy, so we must be just as ruthless in kind! Fight to the last! Laborers, double pay-- no, triple pay-- if you pick up a rifle and shoot! Guaranteed promotions to anyone who manages to kill an enemy Mechwarrior! Fight on, brave comrades! I will be with you every step of the way!"

Most of the laborers stayed in hiding, but a few began to timidly make their way to the armory. Some of the soldiers began to rally, taking up defensive positions and digging in.

"Captain! Surely you can't suggest we keep fighting!"

"We cannot allow ourselves to be seen as cowards," he said, straightening his coat and turning away from the Lieutenant. "Congratulations on your promotion, Captain."

"...sir?"

Lieutenant Admir--no, Captain Admir?-- looked on in confusion as Captain Park strode away from him, towards his office. Oddly, he dropped his bullwhip and left it behind, and Admir found himself staring at it idly as he heard the hatch to the Captain's office shut.

A few seconds later, from inside the office, Admir heard the muffled sound of a single gunshot.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

M I S S I O N S T A R T

Western Continent, Espia
NPDRE Outpost F-10
18 April, 3030
0500 Hours

"Come on, you lazy pieces of trash!" Captain Yorgei Park shouted through his megaphone, his electronically-amplified voice barely audible over the rumble of huge diesel engines, the rhythmic stomping of IndustrialMechs, and the bustle of dozens of soldiers and laborers hurrying through their duties. "Move your asses! We've got sixty minutes to get this shipment on the road, or each one of you will be getting ten lashes!"

A few of the unranked laborers cringed, particularly the ones who had been 'volunteered' in the wake of the coup. Park scowled as he watched them scuttle about, only the higher-ranking soldiers daring to meet his gaze as he surveyed the loading of the supply convoy.

On the southern end of the continent, the siege of Yuzhny Portveyn had stalled, much to the annoyance of Premier Federov. Governor Xiu and a bare handful of his old cabinet had fled the capital and rallied a small number of loyal soldiers to protect them. While the loyalists had no chance of ever expanding outside of the south, they were fighting fiercely, and the Espian Guard was already stretched precariously thing keeping Balya Gora, Geum Haebyon, and Nui Awa at bay. The Guard needed to crack Xiu's forces soon, before they could become too dug in to remove without a bloodbath.

This supply convoy, Park's superiors had told him, was crucial to the push that would break Yuzhny Portveyn. With it, the Guard forces in the south would have everything they needed to wipe Xiu's resistance out once and for all. Without it, they would have to abandon the city, at least until they could devote enough of the Guard from the other cities to attack again in force.

The new regime wanted results, and they were willing to pay handsomely to those who brought them. Park didn't know where Premier Federov and his cronies had gotten this new influx of C-Bills, and he didn't particularly care. If there was a fortune to be made by showing he could get the job done, he'd get the job done without thinking twice.

Off to Park's left, a laborer driving a forklift slammed on its brakes, lurching to a halt just before it would have careened into a Powerman IndustrialMech carrying a palette full of ammunition cases. As the IndustrialMech pilot and forklift driver began shouting at each other, Park strode toward them, unlooping the long black leather bullwhip from his left hip.

"Stupid oaf!" he shouted, lashing out at the forklift driver, the whip cutting a long, deep gash across the laborer's face with a crack like a rifle. With a scream and a spurt of blood, the driver toppled from the seat of the forklift, his hands trying to hold his ruined face together. "You nearly caused him to drop that ammunition and killed us all!"

As the bleeding man ran towards the first aid tent, Park shouted after him in disgust, "First aid is coming out of your weekly pay! Now, someone who can drive a forklift, get on and do this pig's job for him!"

Sheepishly, another laborer climbed onto the forklift, and Park cursed under his breath. How was he going to prove himself worthy to the new regime, when he was in command of such incompetent human garbage?

---

Outpost F-10 was one of a dozen or so temporary facilities quickly put together by the Espian Guard in the wake of the coup, meant to help coordinate the movement of forces between the four major cities. A row of pre-fabricated warehouses, a handful of quonset huts, and row upon row of blocky storage containers to be distributed between convoys.

At the heart of the base was a pre-fab headquarters, a combination of administrative offices, briefing rooms, armory, operations room, communications array, and sensor hub. At the top of the building was a large radar dish, which rotated in place searching for signals.

Surrounding the bulk of the base was a ten-meter wall, thick slabs of ferrocrete meant to withstand all but the heaviest of enemy fire. At the four corners of the wall, and on either side of the large front gate, were automated turrets, each sporting a pair of lasers to damage incoming vehicles, and a .50 caliber machine gun to rip apart human targets. These turrets were programmed to fire at anything and anyone that came within 300 meters of the outpost without the correct IFF codes, and were all powered by a single portable fusion generator, which hummed and thrummed at the southern end of the complex.

Around this wall were lines of razor wire, and a hundred meters of torn-up earth, all of which was riddled with mines. Most were small anti-personnel mines, but among them were a handful of anti-materiel mines that could rip through a vehicle or cripple the leg of a Battlemech.

Around this perimeter, a quartet of tanks rumbled two-by-two in a wide patrol circuit. Each pair consisted of a Scorpion and a Striker, both light tanks that individually had relatively anemic firepower, but acting together had a mix of ballistic and missile weaponry to ward off a light or medium Battlemech.

The outpost was a hornet's nest, and should those defenses fail, reinforcements were only a radio call away.

A few kilometers away, huge shapes lumbered through the morning mist towards the outpost, their intent to storm into that hornet's nest and break it wide open.

"We're approaching the edge of the enemy's sensor range," Colonel Gaius Wayne called to the Green Knights over his comms from the Mobile HQ. "Activate the ECM and begin your approach. Good hunting and godspeed, Green Knights. The operation is a go."

Titans

I can whip up an excuse for Robin to be in NY.

Titans

R O B I N

Name: Richard "Dick" Grayson
Age: 16
Base of Operations: Gotham City
Years of Active Experience: 5

Attributes & Abilities:

Abilities

Before his training with Batman, Dick Grayson was already exceptionally athletic, having spent his entire childhood training as a circus acrobat, as well as picking up a knack for sleight of hand, escape artistry, acting, and sneaking. Over the past five years, Dick has sharpened his mind and body to a degree he never thought possible. His strength, speed, stamina, and agility have been pushed to rival and surpass Olympic athletes. And he has extensively trained to master hand-to-hand combat, learning an extraordinarily dangerous mix of martial arts originally developed by the League of Shadows (though a decidedly less lethal version taught to him by Batman). While he is far from unbeatable or infallible, Robin's intense training and experience have made him a formidable force.

In addition to his skill and conditioning, Robin's capabilities are greatly enhanced with his gear. His suit, patterned after the Bat-suit, is a weave of Kevlar and Nomex, with a cape made of WayneTech proprietary 'Memory Cloth' that can deploy into a rigid glider or harden into an extra layer of protective armor, and hardened armor plating in the gauntlets and boots that provide added protection and allow for harder impacts in hand-to-hand combat. His boots contain advanced shock absorbers (backed by an internal exoskeleton underneath his main suit) that allow him to jump far higher than humanly possible and survive falls from several stories, so long as he lands on his feet. His mask contains infra-red sensors, telescopic capabilities up to 100x magnification, and an augmented-reality HUD that connects directly to the Bat-Computer, providing him with near-instant access to information and a powerful suite of hacking and cybersecurity tools.

While he has access to Batman's vast arsenal of crime-fighting equipment, his usual loadout consists of a pair of collapsible batons which also carry tasers for extra stopping power, a variety of Batarangs, a grapnel gun, and a copy of the famed Utility Belt. Robin's Belt typically carries smoke and flash bombs, small GPS trackers, flares, flexicuffs, lockpicks, a rebreather, a field first aid kit, and a secure flash drive.

Finally, Robin's vehicle of choice is the Red Bird, a smaller and faster variation of the Bat-Cycle. Built for extreme maneuverability at high speeds, the Red Bird has separate engines built into each of its omni-directional wheels, and a gyroscopic swiveling chassis that together allow for split-second changes of direction and make it nearly impossible to lose balance.

Character Synopsis:

Synopsis

Dick Grayson never had what most would call a "normal" childhood. His early life was spent traveling from city to city as part of Haly's Circus, the darling son of acrobats John and Mary Grayson. The Circus had fallen on hard times, as crowds dwindled in favor of more modern entertainment. To stay afloat, owner and ringmaster C.C. Haly had taken out exorbitant loans from the small-time gangster Tony Zucco, who pressured Haly and threatened his talent relentlessly to get back what he was owed.

The Grayson family, having to put their bodies through hellish physical training to perform for audiences that grew more and more apathetic every year, did the only thing they knew how to save the circus and give their son a chance at a better life: they would make him a star.

For a normal child, the regimen they put him through would have been considered cruel, even abusive, but Dick was a prodigy. He took to his exercises and his education like a duck to water, and excelled to a point that bordered on superhuman. He learned to tumble, to walk the tightrope, to swing on the flying trapeze, as well as how to perform classic Vaudevillian memory acts, solving fiendish puzzles and reciting Shakespeare while other children his age were still learning their shapes and colors. Before long the Flying Graysons had a new main attraction: the world’s youngest performing acrobat, the ‘Boy Wonder’ wowing audiences with incredible acrobatic displays by age six.

Within a few years, the novelty of Dick’s young age had worn off, but the Flying Graysons were still a major draw for the circus. So successful were the Graysons, in fact, that Haly’s Circus no longer needed to take out loans from Zucco, and C.C. Haly told the gangster as much when the tour returned to Gotham City. He planned to get out from under Zucco’s thumb and go completely legit, and the Flying Graysons were his ticket to real success. Zucco, then, decided to clip the Flying Graysons’ wings.

The worst night of Dick Grayson’s life was just after his tenth birthday, when Haly’s Circus was performing at a special fundraising event hosted by the eccentric and reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne. At the climax of their performance, the Flying Graysons took to the trapeze to perform a series of death-defying aerial stunts without a net. Little did they know, however, that Tony Zucco had paid off and threatened some of the circus’s stagehands to sabotage the Graysons’ equipment. As young Dick looked on in horror, one of the cables holding his parents’ trapeze snapped, and they fell to their deaths in front of him and several thousand horrified onlookers.

That night, Dick’s childhood ended. He had no idea, however, that a whole new life was about to begin.

The very same day Dick was placed in the care of the Sofia Falcone Home for Orphans, he was adopted by the man who had hosted the event that took his parents from him: Bruce Wayne. This was immediately the center of salacious tabloid rumors—a rich powerful man, taking in a vulnerable young boy after his parents just happened to die in a terrible accident, immediately suggested unsavory things—but in truth Bruce felt responsible for what happened, and was determined to make things as right as he could for the boy. Dick was given the absolute height of luxury, allowed to run rampant through the absolute palace that was Wayne Manor, gifted with the latest toys and games and electronics, while private tutors gave him the best formal education money could buy. While Dick thought Mr. Wayne was nice enough, he was no replacement for his parents, and all the comfort and entertainment in the world couldn’t replace the hurt in his heart, or his need to make Tony Zucco pay.

At age eleven, Dick snuck out of Wayne Manor, riding into town on a dirt bike he had gotten for his birthday, and hiding a gun under his shirt. He had spent the past year doing extra homework of his own: reading everything he could find about Zucco and the Gotham City criminal underworld. He’d learned what club Zucco spent most of his nights, and planned to sneak in from the rooftop and shoot the crime boss dead. He fully expected he wouldn’t make it out of the building alive, and he was okay with that. Before he could even enter the building, however, he felt a gloved hand grab him, and everything went black.

When he came to, Dick thought for a moment that the figure looming over him was the devil himself. He quickly realized, however, that he was in even more trouble than that: the figure wasn’t the devil…it was the Batman. The feared vigilante that had brutalized Gotham’s criminals for years had caught him, and Dick was sure he was about to break every bone in his body. When the Batman spoke, however, his tone wasn’t one of a sadistic monster, but one of a concerned parent. He was outraged by the boy’s recklessness, fearful for the boy’s life, and regretful that he had neglected him. To Dick’s amazement, the Batman removed his mask, revealing himself to be none other than Bruce Wayne. While he couldn’t let Dick get himself killed in the name of revenge, he swore to offer Dick Grayson a better path: the path of justice.

The next year was a blur, as Dick was subjected to a punishing regimen that made his childhood training look like little league. He learned to fight, to move without making a sound, to run across rooftops with trivial ease. He learned how to use high-tech gadgets to overcome electronic security, to investigate crime scenes without leaving evidence behind, to tell if a person is lying before they even said a word. Bruce had never intended to let Dick get involved in active crime-fighting until the boy was at least eighteen, but when the Batman found himself captured by Tony Zucco, it was the twelve-year-old Dick Grayson who came to the vigilante’s rescue and finally brought his parents’ killer to justice.

Despite the butler Alfred’s protests, Bruce saw Dick had incredible potential not just as a protégé, but as a partner. Within a month of defeating Zucco, Dick Grayson was equipped with his own suit and arsenal of weapons, and given a new identity. Inspired by the myth of Robin Hood, Dick took the name Robin.

For the next five years, Robin would act as a force multiplier in Batman’s war on crime. Typically either working directly at Batman’s side or going solo to handle ‘light work’ where the chance for real danger was low (relatively speaking, as he still often found himself fighting armed thugs with no qualms about harming a child), Dick continued to hone his skills on the job, often working behind the scenes while Batman drew the attention of their more lethal foes. From the takedown of the Maroni crime family to the hunting and eventual capture of the savage Killer Croc, Robin’s work became instrumental in Batman’s crusade to make Gotham City safe.

When Dick was fifteen, he discovered a weakness that was as potent to him as Kryptonite was to Superman. Rumors had begun to circulate of a third masked vigilante in Gotham, this one a “Bat-Girl” operating out of the Burnside district. He tracked down this elusive and surprisingly capable new player, initially planning to talk her out of this dangerous life, but that plan shattered the instant he saw the eyes under her mask, the long red hair, the freckles on the bridge of her nose. He had met Barbara Gordon two years before at a fundraiser for her father the GCPD Commissioner, and had been smitten for her then. Now that he was a hot-blooded teenager and she was not just a fellow vigilante but a damned good one, Dick was no longer just smitten; he was hopelessly in love. The two began operating together as a duo with or without Bruce’s permission, and the ‘Bat-Family’ soon welcomed its official third member.

Now at age sixteen, Dick’s life is growing increasingly complicated. His private life is becoming less and less private, as being the teenage heir to a billionaire’s fortune has made him a local celebrity against his will. His love life is beginning to strain, as Barbara Gordon, a year older than him, is preparing to move away for college. And more and more of Gotham City’s crime bosses and costumed super-criminals have begun to see Robin as nearly as much of a threat as the Batman himself. Some, like the enigmatic assassin Deathstroke or the Joker’s psychotic right-hand woman Harley Quinn, have begun targeting him specifically. He’s begun to feel like he’s walking a tightrope again, having to balance so many things, and every one of them threatening a hard fall if he slips.

Titans

All right, here we go

R O B I N

Name: Richard "Dick" Grayson
Age: 16
Base of Operations: Gotham City
Years of Active Experience: 5

Attributes & Abilities:

Abilities

Before his training with Batman, Dick Grayson was already exceptionally athletic, having spent his entire childhood training as a circus acrobat, as well as picking up a knack for sleight of hand, escape artistry, acting, and sneaking. Over the past five years, Dick has sharpened his mind and body to a degree he never thought possible. His strength, speed, stamina, and agility have been pushed to rival and surpass Olympic athletes. And he has extensively trained to master hand-to-hand combat, learning an extraordinarily dangerous mix of martial arts originally developed by the League of Shadows (though a decidedly less lethal version taught to him by Batman). While he is far from unbeatable or infallible, Robin's intense training and experience have made him a formidable force.

In addition to his skill and conditioning, Robin's capabilities are greatly enhanced with his gear. His suit, patterned after the Bat-suit, is a weave of Kevlar and Nomex, with a cape made of WayneTech proprietary 'Memory Cloth' that can deploy into a rigid glider or harden into an extra layer of protective armor, and hardened armor plating in the gauntlets and boots that provide added protection and allow for harder impacts in hand-to-hand combat. His boots contain advanced shock absorbers (backed by an internal exoskeleton underneath his main suit) that allow him to jump far higher than humanly possible and survive falls from several stories, so long as he lands on his feet. His mask contains infra-red sensors, telescopic capabilities up to 100x magnification, and an augmented-reality HUD that connects directly to the Bat-Computer, providing him with near-instant access to information and a powerful suite of hacking and cybersecurity tools.

While he has access to Batman's vast arsenal of crime-fighting equipment, his usual loadout consists of a pair of collapsible batons which also carry tasers for extra stopping power, a variety of Batarangs, a grapnel gun, and a copy of the famed Utility Belt. Robin's Belt typically carries smoke and flash bombs, small GPS trackers, flares, flexicuffs, lockpicks, a rebreather, a field first aid kit, and a secure flash drive.

Finally, Robin's vehicle of choice is the Red Bird, a smaller and faster variation of the Bat-Cycle. Built for extreme maneuverability at high speeds, the Red Bird has separate engines built into each of its omni-directional wheels, and a gyroscopic swiveling chassis that together allow for split-second changes of direction and make it nearly impossible to lose balance.

Character Synopsis:

Synopsis

Dick Grayson never had what most would call a "normal" childhood. His early life was spent traveling from city to city as part of Haly's Circus, the darling son of acrobats John and Mary Grayson. The Circus had fallen on hard times, as crowds dwindled in favor of more modern entertainment. To stay afloat, owner and ringmaster C.C. Haly had taken out exorbitant loans from the small-time gangster Tony Zucco, who pressured Haly and threatened his talent relentlessly to get back what he was owed.

The Grayson family, having to put their bodies through hellish physical training to perform for audiences that grew more and more apathetic every year, did the only thing they knew how to save the circus and give their son a chance at a better life: they would make him a star.

For a normal child, the regimen they put him through would have been considered cruel, even abusive, but Dick was a prodigy. He took to his exercises and his education like a duck to water, and excelled to a point that bordered on superhuman. He learned to tumble, to walk the tightrope, to swing on the flying trapeze, as well as how to perform classic Vaudevillian memory acts, solving fiendish puzzles and reciting Shakespeare while other children his age were still learning their shapes and colors. Before long the Flying Graysons had a new main attraction: the world’s youngest performing acrobat, the ‘Boy Wonder’ wowing audiences with incredible acrobatic displays by age six.

Within a few years, the novelty of Dick’s young age had worn off, but the Flying Graysons were still a major draw for the circus. So successful were the Graysons, in fact, that Haly’s Circus no longer needed to take out loans from Zucco, and C.C. Haly told the gangster as much when the tour returned to Gotham City. He planned to get out from under Zucco’s thumb and go completely legit, and the Flying Graysons were his ticket to real success. Zucco, then, decided to clip the Flying Graysons’ wings.

The worst night of Dick Grayson’s life was just after his tenth birthday, when Haly’s Circus was performing at a special fundraising event hosted by the eccentric and reclusive billionaire Bruce Wayne. At the climax of their performance, the Flying Graysons took to the trapeze to perform a series of death-defying aerial stunts without a net. Little did they know, however, that Tony Zucco had paid off and threatened some of the circus’s stagehands to sabotage the Graysons’ equipment. As young Dick looked on in horror, one of the cables holding his parents’ trapeze snapped, and they fell to their deaths in front of him and several thousand horrified onlookers.

That night, Dick’s childhood ended. He had no idea, however, that a whole new life was about to begin.

The very same day Dick was placed in the care of the Sofia Falcone Home for Orphans, he was adopted by the man who had hosted the event that took his parents from him: Bruce Wayne. This was immediately the center of salacious tabloid rumors—a rich powerful man, taking in a vulnerable young boy after his parents just happened to die in a terrible accident, immediately suggested unsavory things—but in truth Bruce felt responsible for what happened, and was determined to make things as right as he could for the boy. Dick was given the absolute height of luxury, allowed to run rampant through the absolute palace that was Wayne Manor, gifted with the latest toys and games and electronics, while private tutors gave him the best formal education money could buy. While Dick thought Mr. Wayne was nice enough, he was no replacement for his parents, and all the comfort and entertainment in the world couldn’t replace the hurt in his heart, or his need to make Tony Zucco pay.

At age eleven, Dick snuck out of Wayne Manor, riding into town on a dirt bike he had gotten for his birthday, and hiding a gun under his shirt. He had spent the past year doing extra homework of his own: reading everything he could find about Zucco and the Gotham City criminal underworld. He’d learned what club Zucco spent most of his nights, and planned to sneak in from the rooftop and shoot the crime boss dead. He fully expected he wouldn’t make it out of the building alive, and he was okay with that. Before he could even enter the building, however, he felt a gloved hand grab him, and everything went black.

When he came to, Dick thought for a moment that the figure looming over him was the devil himself. He quickly realized, however, that he was in even more trouble than that: the figure wasn’t the devil…it was the Batman. The feared vigilante that had brutalized Gotham’s criminals for years had caught him, and Dick was sure he was about to break every bone in his body. When the Batman spoke, however, his tone wasn’t one of a sadistic monster, but one of a concerned parent. He was outraged by the boy’s recklessness, fearful for the boy’s life, and regretful that he had neglected him. To Dick’s amazement, the Batman removed his mask, revealing himself to be none other than Bruce Wayne. While he couldn’t let Dick get himself killed in the name of revenge, he swore to offer Dick Grayson a better path: the path of justice.

The next year was a blur, as Dick was subjected to a punishing regimen that made his childhood training look like little league. He learned to fight, to move without making a sound, to run across rooftops with trivial ease. He learned how to use high-tech gadgets to overcome electronic security, to investigate crime scenes without leaving evidence behind, to tell if a person is lying before they even said a word. Bruce had never intended to let Dick get involved in active crime-fighting until the boy was at least eighteen, but when the Batman found himself captured by Tony Zucco, it was the twelve-year-old Dick Grayson who came to the vigilante’s rescue and finally brought his parents’ killer to justice.

Despite the butler Alfred’s protests, Bruce saw Dick had incredible potential not just as a protégé, but as a partner. Within a month of defeating Zucco, Dick Grayson was equipped with his own suit and arsenal of weapons, and given a new identity. Inspired by the myth of Robin Hood, Dick took the name Robin.

For the next five years, Robin would act as a force multiplier in Batman’s war on crime. Typically either working directly at Batman’s side or going solo to handle ‘light work’ where the chance for real danger was low (relatively speaking, as he still often found himself fighting armed thugs with no qualms about harming a child), Dick continued to hone his skills on the job, often working behind the scenes while Batman drew the attention of their more lethal foes. From the takedown of the Maroni crime family to the hunting and eventual capture of the savage Killer Croc, Robin’s work became instrumental in Batman’s crusade to make Gotham City safe.

When Dick was fifteen, he discovered a weakness that was as potent to him as Kryptonite was to Superman. Rumors had begun to circulate of a third masked vigilante in Gotham, this one a “Bat-Girl” operating out of the Burnside district. He tracked down this elusive and surprisingly capable new player, initially planning to talk her out of this dangerous life, but that plan shattered the instant he saw the eyes under her mask, the long red hair, the freckles on the bridge of her nose. He had met Barbara Gordon two years before at a fundraiser for her father the GCPD Commissioner, and had been smitten for her then. Now that he was a hot-blooded teenager and she was not just a fellow vigilante but a damned good one, Dick was no longer just smitten; he was hopelessly in love. The two began operating together as a duo with or without Bruce’s permission, and the ‘Bat-Family’ soon welcomed its official third member.

Now at age sixteen, Dick’s life is growing increasingly complicated. His private life is becoming less and less private, as being the teenage heir to a billionaire’s fortune has made him a local celebrity against his will. His love life is beginning to strain, as Barbara Gordon, a year older than him, is preparing to move away for college. And more and more of Gotham City’s crime bosses and costumed super-criminals have begun to see Robin as nearly as much of a threat as the Batman himself. Some, like the enigmatic assassin Deathstroke or the Joker’s psychotic right-hand woman Harley Quinn, have begun targeting him specifically. He’s begun to feel like he’s walking a tightrope again, having to balance so many things, and every one of them threatening a hard fall if he slips.

Titans

<Snipped quote by AndyC>
You still about this? Just checking in.

@TGM

I'm still down for it, just got swamped for a while with other stuff. If this game is still going, I'll try to finish my CS tonight.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Its been quiet in the OOC. How's everyone doing?

@Bounce

Pretty great, actually. Went on a weekend trip, got to hang out with some friends I don't get to see as much anymore, 'twas a great time.

More LoD and RaveStar stuff still coming up.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

(Delete, double post)

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Yes, Colonel?"

@Pilatus

"Two things," he said in a businesslike manner. "First, reminding me about the additional cover the weather will provide us. That was a good call. Out of turn, perhaps, but a good call."

While the Colonel had chided himself for letting his prejudice against the Combine get the better of him before, he still found himself uncomfortable around Wyatt. He had the same difficulty around Doctor Nakajima, and Yuri had been with the Green Knights since the Restoration War. He treated both of them with professional courtesy and respect-- or at least, he tried to-- but could never quite bring himself to open up to anyone born under House Kurita as a friend or a confidant.

Still, while Gaius had always had issues warming up to Reya and Yuri, Captain Roth certainly hadn't. In fact, the way that Reya had subtly brought up his oversight, reminding him of critical information without causing him to lose face in front of the Knights, was just the sort of thing Sally would do during a briefing. Her influence must have rubbed off on Wyatt a bit.

He found himself thinking about Sally for a moment, wondering how she was holding up and praying to the gods of space that she was all right....then turned his attention back to business.

"Second," he said, "the mission could use an expert's judgment when securing the ammunition. We need to make sure the ammo is compatible with our weapon systems: Armstrong 80mm for the Shadow Hawk and 200mm for the Von Luckner, Doombud LRMs for the Archer. The Raven needs Harpoon SRMs and the Ostroc takes Totschlagens, but in a pinch it can fit Holly SRMs like the Shad--....but, then, you already know all that."

He didn't make eye contact with Wyatt, staring instead off to the motor pool, where Sol was directing the last bit of work on the APCs to get them ready for tomorrow morning's excursion.

"I will not ask you to put yourself into active combat," he said. "I will not think less of you if you do not go along with the volunteers. I will ask, though, at the very least, that you make sure the volunteers who are going know what to look for. If they come back with nothing but Imperator Smoothie rounds or Harvester 2s or some other ammo we can't use, then they'll have put themselves in danger for nothing. Make sure they get us what we need to do our job. I trust your judgment on that."

Before Reya could respond, Colonel Wayne turned and headed towards the Mobile HQ to make his own last preparations.

"As you were, Wyatt."