AndyC

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

Half of this RP is in NYC. I love it.

@webboysurf

Meanwhile I'm over here trying to figure out how the hell I'm gonna get anyone to come out to the desert so Jonah can shoot at them team up with them.

AZUL Islands - Drama, Romance, Mystery, Slice of Life

Name: Bob Townsend, Jr.
Nickname: Bobby T.
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Occupation: Real Estate Broker at Townsend-Chigusa Holdings International

Appearance:
Bobby is in excellent shape for a middle-aged man, thanks in no small part to his obsessive diet and workout routine. He has sandy blonde hair that's combed back just enough to look a bit unkempt, and a beard that's carefully groomed to give him a certain air of rugged independence. He frequently wears garish or tacky ties with his impeccable suits, and is almost never seen without his favorite pair of mirrored shades. Bobby puts a tremendous amount of time, effort, and care into looking casual and messy.

Character Concept:

"Bobby T" is a charming, laid-back, personable kind of guy, the kind who will buy everyone a round at the bar, and has a bottomless well of off-color jokes that are dirty enough to raise an eyebrow but not enough to offend. He likes to hear people's stories, find out their wants and their needs and their goals, get to know everyone he meets, and do whatever he can to help them...and have plenty of fun along the way.

Of course, 'Bobby T' is the front. Behind the mirrored shades and the ridiculous tie, Bob Townsend Jr. is a deeply insecure narcissist who uses any means necessary to further his own career. The black-sheep heir to one of America's largest real estate firms, Bob Jr. has spent his life living in the shadow of his overbearing father...which is why he likes to spend his days somewhere sunny. What was once a rebellious streak in his younger years has grown into ruthless ambition: if he can't escape following his father's footsteps, he'll instead outdo him so far that everyone will forget the old man and love him instead.

Bobby has come to Azul looking for his next big opportunity, with the long-term goal of turning this little archipelago into the next big tourist hot-spot.

Character History:

Bob Townsend Jr, "Bobby T" to his friends (which might include you, if you're lucky) was the middle child of Bob Townsend, Sr., one of the most successful real estate moguls in America. With his older brother Richard starting his own law firm and his sister Meredith becoming a doctor, Bobby Jr. always felt like he was struggling to meet his father's expectations. He spent his younger years as a rich kid playing rebel, burning through his trust-fund money on wild parties and lavish trips as he bounced from one career to another. Eventually, though, all of his failed attempts to forge his own identity led him back underneath his old man's shadow, and he took at job in the family business.

To nobody's surprise but his own, Bobby T was a natural at closing deals, and by 35 he had rebuilt the fortune he had pissed away in his twenties. His disarming, laid-back attitude, combined with his keen eye for seeing an opportunity and ruthlessness in seizing it, has landed him several lucrative contracts, especially in the hotel and tourism industries. While still a far cry from the top of the heap, most people at Townsend Holdings (having recently merged with a competitor to become Townsend-Chigusa Holdings International) believe it is only a matter of time before he makes a play for his father's throne. He just needs a big project, one crowning achievement, to get him onto the board.

Which, incidentally, is what has brought him to Azul. For the past six months, Bobby T. has been talking with members of the Cardenas family about plans to expand their winery. This, however, is just a front for his long-term plans. Townsend-Chigusa has been looking for a "development-ready market," a little spit of land somewhere in the Caribbean that they can turn into the next big tourist destination. Bobby has come to Azul to scout out the local flavor, participate in some of the local customs, buy a hotel or two, and look for a big enough tract of land to bulldoze so his father's company can set up a billion-dollar resort.

Likes:
-Making people laugh
-Long conversations where people really open up to him
-Adrenaline/any kind of 'thrilling' activity (racing, cliff diving, sex with a stranger, etc)
-Spicy food
-Cigars
-Rum
-90s alt-rock music

Dislikes:
-Anything with coconut
-Being told no
-Women over 40
-People who won't shut up about their politics or idealism
-Other corporate 'suits' like himself
-Himself

Special Talent:

Bobby is a skilled helicopter pilot, preferring to fly himself wherever he needs to be rather than have someone do it for him. This is partly to feed his hunger for thrills, and partly so he can feel like he's more 'self-sufficient' than other corporate big-shots.

Supporting Information:

Machiko Chigusa: Bobby's "babysitter" from the Chigusa side of the merger, Machiko is the no-nonsense counterpart to Bobby's all-nonsense persona. She is businesslike when he's playful, blunt when he's being smooth, and seems to only be aware of the concept of 'fun' as something that happens to other people.

Ronaldo Cortez: A local who grew up on Isla Zafrio, Ronaldo is Bobby's personal security while he's on Azul. More often that not, he spends most of his days showing Bobby the local restaurants and clubs, all the places the locals go because the tourists wouldn't know about them. He is, however, well-trained and armed if anyone happens to see an American flashing money around and starts getting ideas.

La Casa Del Sol Nasciento: The hotel whose penthouse Bobby has been staying in since arriving on the islands. It's the oldest hotel on Isla Zafrio, and by most accounts, the second best, with a killer view of the beach, a rooftop pool, and most of the amenities a reasonably well-to-do jet-setter could expect. Bobby is considering buying the property, if only so he can pull off an 'underdog' story by turning it around to beat the much larger and more successful Casa de la Contessa down the street.

Jealousy: Bobby's private chopper, Jealousy is what he calls his Airbus H155 helicopter. Only one of 70 in the world, it's one of the fastest copters on the planet, can comfortably seat up to 12, and acts as the big 'showstopper' of any performance Bobby puts on when he really wants to impress someone. The name isn't a reference to its luxurious features or its outrageous price tag, but actually a reference to his favorite song from the 90s, The Gin Blossoms' "Hey Jealousy."

AZUL Islands - Drama, Romance, Mystery, Slice of Life

Still kicking around character concepts, but I'll have something up soon

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

At the top of a hill in the middle of a clearing, the small back-country shelter has a light on. Fourteen men just died because of it.

I stare at that lit window, a soft electric glow in the pitch black of the forest, and I feel my hands shaking. I'm partly shaking because my blood is still up, adrenaline shooting through my veins from the fight, and I'm partly shaking because I'm finally starting to feel how goddamn cold it is out here. Going to that cabin will get me somewhere warm...but it also means I'll have to face off with whoever's in there, whoever those soldiers risked coming into my territory to capture.

I take a look at the light at the hill, then back into the freezing chill of the woods.

"Hell with it," I mutter to myself before I start trudging towards the light, "Someone wants to use up all my heat, they're gonna have to fight me for it."

Back-country shelters like this one are made so lost hikers and wayward tourists can have a place to stay if the weather gets too bad. Most of 'em are just a little shed or hut, maybe a cot and a pantry full of canned food. I roam back and forth between a few of them in my territory, and go into town Every once in a while to keep them stocked up- my good deed I do for the privilege of being left alone.

I'd be tempted to say whoever's in the cabin was just some camper who got caught out in the snow...at least, if it weren't for the two squads of American soldiers who were staging an assault on it.

Slowly approaching the cabin, Claws out, I steel myself. Maybe this doesn't need to get ugly- a quick knock-knock, state your name, they tell me what the hell they're doing in my cabin and why the American military is after them, I send them on their way.

Shame it never goes that easy.

Carefully, I make my way to the door, and once I'm able to reach the know, I quickly open it and step inside, closing it shut behind me.

"I know someone's here," I say as I move through the front room, the single light coming from a battery-powered lantern hanging from the ceiling. There's a loud, low buzzing as a propane gas heater in the corner blows hot air (or as hot as it can manage) into the room, its coils glowing an angry red. Scattered across the floor there's a pile of blankets. And the air is heavy with the salty smell of sweat, mixed with something else. Chemicals that give off what's supposed to be the smell of...

*Sniff*

...coconuts?

"Just come on out," I say as I approach the smaller back room, little more than a closet with enough room for a person to lay down. "No need for things to get ugly."

Whoever's in the cabin with me, there really is nowhere for them to hide...

...except when I step through the door into the back room, it's empty.

"What the hell...?" I say, then I hear a creak as one of the floorboards shifts in the front room behind me.

Turning, I step back into the main room...and again, it's empty.

Before I can start searching, I hear something knock against the wall of the back room again. How the hell can someone be so damn bad at sneaking, and still get past me?

Slowly, I take a step back towards the doorway. "I'm not gonna hurt ya," I say, watching the thin wall between the two rooms. "I just wanna know what's...going..."

I step into the doorway, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a small, skinny figure moving through the damn wall.

"...on!"

On instinct, I lunge towards the figure, grabbing it by the throat with one hand, my other hand raised back to plunge my claws into it.

"Lemme go!" she yelps, kicking at me as she tries to break free. It's only once I've got her that I realize the person I'm throttling isn't some spec-ops spook...it's a teenage girl, scared out of her mind.

The kid is a freckle-faced brunette, wearing about five or six layers of fashionable 'winter' clothing that might keep out a chilly breeze. Her cheeks and nose are bright red, eyes bloodshot, a half-frozen drip of snot trailing between one nostril and her upper lip.

"I said lemme GO!" she shouts, and she slips out of my hand like she's not even there. The girl falls to the floor and scurries away from me.

"Easy, kid, easy!" I say, stepping back. "I'm not gonna hurt ya."

"D-don't get any closer," she says, putting on a brave face. Frantically patting down the pockets of her heavy coat, she eventually reaches in and pulls out a pocket knife. "I d-don't wanna hurt you, but if you come closer I'll...I'll cut you, I s-swear to God!"

"Okay, okay, I surrender," I say, putting my hands up to show I'm not a threat. Then I realize my claws are still out, and my arms are caked in gore up to the elbow. I retract my claws back into my hands, and I sit down at the opposite wall. "So. I don't wanna hurt you, and you don't wanna hurt me. How about we just talk it out, then?"

The girl doesn't answer. She just keeps the knife pointed at me, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

"We'll start off easy," I say. "What's your name?"

No answer. Don't give the enemy any information, right?

"Those guys out there," I say, gesturing out the window. "They were coming here after you?"

She hesitates, then nods. "...yeah."

"Any idea why?"

The knife in her hand trembles, and she shakes her head. "No," is all she says, then a few seconds later, she starts again and can't stop. "A few friends and I, we were j-just coming up h-here to go skiing. We'd rented a c-cabin a few miles from here, over near L-Lake Louise. We were j-just having a party, and th-then we see these..these helicopters f-flying towards us. These s-soldier guys, they started yelling at us, and then th-they started shoving us...and then th-they...they started shooting...and I just...I just ran, and I kept running and I-"

"Your friends," I stop her before she has a breakdown. "are they like you? Can they, y'know, do things?"

She sniffles, finally wipes away the snot drip, and shakes her head. "No. I don't know anyone else who's a..."

"A mutant?" I finish her sentence, then slowly draw and retract the claws in my right hand. "Well, you know one now."

Her eyes grow wide, and I can't tell if she's relieved she's found someone else like her, or afraid that she found out she's like me.

"The s-soldiers," she says, looking past me out the window. "Are...are they-"

"Yeah," I answer, looking away. "I got 'em all. Good chance they've got friends, though, and they'll be on their way before too long."

"...oh," she lowers her eyes. "What happens when they come back?"

God damn it. There it is. God damn it.

This isn't your problem, Logan. Those guys weren't after you.

You've been down this road before. You know what always happens when you try to play hero.

You can just walk on out of here. Disappear into the woods. Let this dumb snot-nosed kid figure her own shit out.

You don't have to get involved.

There doesn't have to be any more blood.

This isn't your fight.

....

....God damn it.

"I know a place," I say, hating every word coming out of my mouth. "It's a long way from here- way back East in New York- but it's a place for people like you...like us. Those assholes from the choppers won't go anywhere near it. I can get you there in a few days."

"New York?!" she starts. "But my friends are-"

"-probably either dead or being questioned in some black site," I cut her off. "Either way, there's nothing we can do for them."

She nods, and doesn't speak for a few minutes. She just puts on that brave face again, and chokes down the tears.

For a long while, the only sounds in the cabin are the buzzing of the heater, and the howling of the killer wind outside.

"Kitty," she says at long last. "That's my name. Kitty Pryde."

"Logan," I answer with a nod. "Just Logan."

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

<Snipped quote by mattmanganon>

A full on justice league team up is probably endgame material

@Sep

We were close: I had considered applying for Wonder Woman, but I couldn't find a concept that caught my imagination. But then Hex Rider came to me, so I'm happy.

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

G H O S T R I D E R

---

^{"Time fer you to bite the ground."}

^{_{Jonah Hex ♦ Bounty Hunter from Hell ♦ Chihuahuan Desert, USA / Mexico}}

O R I G I N S:

---

There's a popular ghost story that makes the rounds in the stretches of desert between Fort Worth and Phoenix, as far north as Santa Fe and as far south as Durango. The story's about an old gunfighter by the name of Jonah, a man so ugly that the half of his face that was burned off by the Apaches was considered his 'pretty' side. A man so ornery that even cultists and child-killers called him a monster. A man that some folks say sold his soul to the Devil himself so his guns would never miss. The truth is, Jonah Hex's soul belonged to the Devil from the day he came into this world.

Born to a mother who died giving birth, raised by a drunken bastard with a black heart, sold to the Apaches for whiskey and used as a slave, then riding as a butchering marauder for the Confederates, Jonah's life was one that only knew suffering and sin, taking his share of hurt and learning how to deal some in return. It wasn't until his officers ordered him to burn a church filled with unarmed townsfolk that he'd felt any kind of shame or remorse for what he'd done, and Hex deserted in the wake of the massacre. He prayed for any kind of redemption, anything to clean the stains from his soul, and while Jonah never got his answer from on high, he got one from down below....

The stories say Jonah Hex made a deal with the Devil (or someone on the Devil's dime), to find souls in the world more wretched than his own and drag them down to Hell in order to pay off his debts and earn his salvation. They say he became the Ghost Rider, a spirit of vengeance, a bounty hunter of the damned, doomed forever to ride the length and breadth of the desert to burn away the wicked. And some folks say that for near on 160 years, a string of killings along the Rio Grande have all had a few interesting features in common: a smell of sulfur in the air, bullet holes without bullets, and tracks that look like horseshoes burned into the ground. Some say the wayward soul of Jonah Hex still rides across the West, carrying out his fool's errand, trying to kill his way to Heaven....

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

Stiletta's Bar
Outskirts of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

"Get the fuck outta here, ugly," the bartender scowled at the stranger in a long black coat and wide hat who stepped through the front door, drawing the eyes of some twenty or so men. "This here establishment's private property."

The air stank of cigarette smoke and cheap liquor, and buzzy, blown-out speakers blared noise that some people called rock music. On a stage toward the back wall, a young lady wearing next to nothing listlessly gyrated, going through the opening acts of a degrading routine she had done a hundred times before.

Stiletta's was a dive bar of the worst kind, once a so-called gentleman's club where lonely and frustrated men could spend a few dollars to have some pretty young thing show some skin and make them forget about their problems for a while. When business began drying up, a crowd of even more unsavory souls had moved into town and claimed Stiletta's as their own.

They called themselves the Road Reapers, a gang of bikers who controlled the stretch of interstate between Albuquerque and El Paso. They were a small outfit compared to most clubs, but the Reapers were known for being especially vicious, using their connections with the southern cartels to run drugs, guns, and people across the border. They had a number of hangouts along their route, and Stiletta's had become a favorite.

"Just here fer a drink," the man said, looking up from under the brim of his wide-brimmed hat, giving the bartender a view of how truly hideous his face was, "An' fer a fella by the name a' Falcon Fleischer."

The two dozen bikers inside stared cold death at the stranger. A few even drew their guns on him. He looked back and forth, one good eye in a half-squint, the other lidless one staring wildly.

"Best not do anythin' stupid, boys," he warned them as he approached the bar, several of the bikers moving in behind him like predators circling their prey. "Ah ain't here fer any a' you...not yet, leastaways. Ah'm only here to see this Falcon fella."

"Right here, ugly," called out a man from the pool table in the far corner. The old man was powerfully built, his skin nut-brown and weathered from exposure to the sun and the open road, and covered in tattoos depicting salacious acts and blasphemous symbols. His long white beard was the only hair on his otherwise clean-shaven head, his eyes covered by a paid of mirrored sunglasses. Over his bare chest and back he wore a leather vest, on the shoulders of which he'd sewn in patches that looked like the talons of a bird of prey-- a falcon, the stranger reckoned. "Whatever it is you've got to say, you've got about ten seconds to say it 'fore my boys blow your fuckin' head off."

"Jess had one question fer ya 'fore you do that," he said, glancing to the dancer on the stage. As he turned, his long black duster shifted, showing the pistol on his hip. "That little thing up there...she even old enough to be dancin' like that?"

*BLAM!*

One of the Reapers had approached the stranger from behind, gun drawn, and fired point-blank. The bikers expected a spray of blood, bone, and brain matter, then they'd cut the man up and feed his remains to the dogs. Wouldn't have been the first person to walk into Stiletta's and not come out.

Instead, when the man's head cracked open, flames spewed out. The bar began to smell heavy with the stench of brimstone, as from the center of the blaze, the stranger's skull spoke.

"That's what I thought," the stranger said as his pistols came up.

The music swelled, and Stiletta's bar filled with screams.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

---

Coming soon.

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

There's no moon out tonight.

Black clouds, depositing another blanket of snow across the valley, have blotted out the night sky. The woods are pitch dark, a darkness that feels thick and heavy, and even without a heavy wind, the air is the kind of cold that kills in seconds. Most nights like this, every animal in the valley has either fled to warmer weather, or taken shelter in a burrow or cave. Anything living is staying as still as possible, trying to conserve as much heat as they can; not a single soul wants to be caught out in this cold.

For a hundred miles in all directions, the valley is still.

Most of it, anyway.

The sniper half-buried in snow has a high-powered rifle, the kind that reach out a mile or more on a clear day, and put a hole through anything short of tank armor. He and his spotter have IR scopes that cut through the snow, fog, and blackness like it's high noon. They could pick out a target on the other side of the valley and take its head clean off without them ever knowing something was wrong.

And they're facing exactly the wrong direction.

Creeping up on them is all a matter of patience. Move slowly but deliberately, no errant twitches or shivering--something that's easier said than done, given how goddamn cold it is. Keep low, keep your breath even, don't wear anything that can give off a glint of light...which means I don't bring out my claws until I'm already on top of them.

I take the spotter first, grabbing him from behind and putting my knuckles against his jugular. With a quick SNIKT, any cry for help he might give is drowned in a red gargle. As his body falls to the snow, the sniper turns, but I'm already on top of him. Pin him down with the left hand, and a thrust to the chest with the right, straight through the heart, follow with another through the forehead. Messy, but quick; he's dead in seconds.

I retract my claws and take a moment to go over their gear. No markings or badges, like I expected, but a lot of their gear gives them away.

"Shit," I mutter under my breath as what I find confirms my suspicions.

They're wearing state-of-the-art insulation suits, stuff that not only keeps the cold out, but keeps body heat in to reduce signatures on IR. They've got SDR and sat-com radios, which means they're linked to a wider satellite network. And if the M107 rifle wasn't a dead giveaway, the fact that they flew into the valley on a pair of small, agile helicopters-- Little Birds, I'd bet-- spells it out plain as day.

These guys are American spec ops. Or at least, mercs or other operators patterned off of them. If my last experience with Uncle Sam is any indication, these guys are all the best in their field. They've been given the newest and best equipment that the US's bottomless pockets can buy them, trained in extreme conditions and ordered to meet inhuman standards, then exceeded every one of them.

This was going to get really ugly, and really painful.

I take the sniper's rifle and start scanning the valley. To be honest, I never could shoot worth a damn, but the scope helps me see what I'm looking at.

Two squads of soldiers, six men apiece, advancing on a small cabin I'd put together as a safehouse for nights like these. The back line has five men with assault rifles-- the new SIG Sauer XM7s, by the looks of them-- and a sixth carrying a SAW light machine gun. They've set up a firing line along a high ridge with plenty of coverage of the cabin, covering the other squad as they move in.

The other six men, the ones advancing two-by-two on the cabin, are actually carrying what look like air rifles. One of them takes a moment to put a round in its chamber, and I see the fluffy fletching of a tranquilizer dart.

"They wanna take me alive," I say as I put the rifle down. "Cute."

These guys are professionals, but their brass pretty clearly didn't give them the full picture of what they're up against. Normally I'd prefer slipping away over getting into a fight with US troops, but I've already dropped two of them, and they don't tend to let that go easily.

Besides, whatever Uncle Sam wants with me, it's clear he wasn't planning on asking nicely.

I descend from the sniper's perch and down into the valley. If these boys came down here on a hunting trip, they're about to find out they're not at the top of the food chain in these woods.

---

"Alpha team, advance," Captain Joseph Bricklemoore ordered, watching the aerial drone feed miles away. "Confirm the asset is in the cabin, then secure. Bravo, eyes open, but do not engage unless fired upon."

Bricklemoore knew he didn't have to state the obvious to his men, but he couldn't help it; he needed this mission to go off without a hitch. He'd had to burn most of the favors he had in high places to even make this mission happen, up to and including slowing down the lines of communication just enough so that the request for authorization would only reach the Director's desk just after they had secured the asset and brought it in.

As far as the higher-ups knew, his men were conducting training maneuvers in Minnesota, not hundreds of miles into Canada. This was, by all rights, a renegade operation, one that would see him court-martialed or worse if it went wrong. But only if it went wrong. And what the Director and the top brass-- and his own men, for that matter-- didn't know, wouldn't hurt them.

Bricklemoore and his contacts had been able to track down a high-value asset, one that had been giving other teams the slip for ages. And he knew that the way things worked in this organization, he was going to have to make some big plays, deliver big results, regardless of whether the paperwork had been signed off on.

The Director didn't like him much, and the Assistant Director especially didn't like him. But when he brought in the asset that even she hadn't been able to capture, he couldn't wait to tell that fat bi--

"Sir, we've lost contact with Charlie team," one of the comms operators interrupted his thoughts. "Charlie two went offline, followed by Charlie one. Their vitals...they've flatlined, sir."

Bricklemoore frowned. "That's not possible. The asset is--"

"Contact! Enemy contact!" came Bravo One's voice over the sat-com. "Bravo Five is down! Requesting weapons free!"

"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell," Bricklemoore muttered, watching the drone footage as a figure moved through the woods, apparently not wearing any thermal gear despite the deadly cold, moving towards the firing line. Its posture, its movements were more bestial than human, a wild animal with a taste for blood.

"Repeat, requesting weapons free!"

Bricklemoore watched the monster as it vaulted from the ground, scaled a tree, then readied to pounce.

"Sir!

"Weapons free," he said. "Light him up."

"Uhhh, sir?" the comms officer said. "There's a call for you."

"I'm in the middle of something here!" Bricklemoore snarled.

"I know, sir," he said, "but it's from the Assistant Director."

The wild man in the woods no longer scared him. Not half as much, at least, as who was on the other line. As the monitors from the drone feed flashed with gunfire, Bricklemoore could feel his ambitions going up in smoke.

Painfully, he took the radio from the comms officer, and spoke. "This is Bricklemoore."

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Bricklemoore winced, then tried his best to put on a brave face. He could still salvage this.

"I'm securing a valuable asset, one that the MTF has labeled as a highly dangerous security risk," he began, then decided if he was in for a penny, he might as well be in for a pound, "one that your teams have failed to locate, I might add."

"Do you really think we didn't know the asset was in the Canadian Rockies?" the Assistant Director responded. "We stopped pursuing the aaset as soon as it entered the area. That's a restricted area, Bricklemoore!"

"Yes, but--"

"Do you know what a restricted area is, Captain Bricklemoore?"

"...I--"

"Yes or no, Captain?"

"...y-yes..."

"Clearly you don't, because a restricted area is a place where our operators are forbidden to operate. And yet, I see fourteen of our operators-- excuse me, ten, no, nine and counting--operating in an area where they are expressly forbidden to operate. So, I reiterate, Captain, what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"If we can still--"

"No, Bricklemoore, you can't," the Assistant Director cut him off. "I'd tell you to order your men to pull out, but it's too late. You killed them the moment you ordered them to go into those woods. From now on, the job of securing the asset is going to Colonel Flag."

"C-Colonel Flag, ma'am?"

"That's right. You've just made a mess that's too big for an ambitious dumbass like yourself to clean up. Effective immediately, I'm placing this mission under the jurisdiction of Task Force X."

---

"Nnnngh....son of a bitch got me good," I say through gritted teeth as I look down at the ruined pulp that was my lower intestine a few seconds ago, lying on my back until enough muscles and tendons form to let me stand back up. Next to me, the soldier with the machine gun gasps a few last times, his body rattling violently, then goes still. With that many shots on target, at that range, his gun cut across me right down the bone, and would have cut me clean in half if it weren't for the gleaming silvery metal that coated my exposed spinal column.

I roll over onto my belly, and white-hot pain shoots through my body as I pull myself across the ground, open wounds dragging across gravel and bark, away from the dead gunner and towards the dying squad leader.

"Hgggk...Momma...I don't....I don't...." he's muttering to himself. He hasn't got long. I crawl towards him until I can look him in the eye.

"Who...who sent you?" I ask. He's fading, so I grab his head with one hand and turn him to face me. "Who sent you?"

"Can't...can't tell..." he says through ragged gasps. "Asset...too important..."

"Asset?" I ask. "Why come...after me...now?"

He looks at me, confused.

"You?" he says, wide-eyed. "Don't even...know...who th..._{the fuck...you are...}"

He tries to take in another breath, then he goes still.

"Then what the hell are you..." I say, as I look up at the cabin, "doing here...."

...the lights in the cabin are on.

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

[Edit: whoops, posted in OOC instead of IC]

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

Calling all Mutant PCs: @Pacifista, @AndyC, @Hillan, anyone have designs on Jubilee?

@Roman

Nope, have at it.

Ultimate One Universe: Emergence

Posts for Logan and Jonah will be inbound later this week, probably Friday-ish.