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In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part IX” [ Next ]
B L Ü D H A V E N
Kane Sports Complex

Cissy Chambers couldn’t remember the last time that she’d gotten off work this early.

For that matter, she couldn’t remember ever leaving the office before Commissioner Grayson. At least, until recently. Dick seemed serious about the foster parent thing, punching the clock and taking liberal leave so that he was working an actual reasonable schedule.

This had the unfortunate effect of causing her and the other lieutenants to actually do their jobs for a change, as Dick wasn’t always there to answer questions when they popped up.

She pulled up in a marked police cruiser, but was in plain clothes. The little league had taken the field, a practice game where the team was divided up against themselves. It was like a free-for-all of chaos involving a slew of boys, aged nine to eleven, acting like wild animals while dressed in baseball uniforms. Most of the entertainment was to be found in the adults who were trying to focus all that excessive energy into swinging the bat at the object that the adults wanted the bat swung at.

She found Dick on the Blüdhaven side, lounging in the stands watching lazily from the sidelines. “So which one’s Jason,” the woman asked, taking a seat beside the commissioner.

“Perfect timing,” the man offered quietly. One finger singled out a gangly child that had popped out of the dug out and was approaching the plate. Cissy could see the back of his jersey was marked with the number 28. “He’s up at bat now.”

The two were quiet as the boy stepped up to the plate. On the first pitch, it was a swing and a miss.

Calculated, of course. Dick had talked to Toyboy about how Jason needed to appear flawed. Build mistakes into the machine logic. Taking Dick’s words to heart, the doll had designed a random number generator as a sort of internal d20 system for determining success or failure, and then adjusted the physical output to correlate.

It was not perfect. Sometimes Jason meant to merely hit it toward first base and instead landed it in the outfield, but it had helped to build in missteps and errors that furthered the illusion of humanity.

The second pitch went wide.

The third was angling for the hit box and Jason’s internal calculations had arrived at a natural 20. There was a loud crack as the bat connected with the ball, sending it far and wide for the first home run of the game.

“I’ll admit, he’s not what I was expecting.”

The comment, or observation, from the Cissy Chambers peanut gallery caused an eyebrow to raise up along Dick’s already furrowed brow. Turning his head just slightly, the man echoed back the words as he uttered, “You were expecting..?”

Cissy flashed the man a look that very clearly said she wasn’t buying it. Dick knew exactly what she meant. “He stole the tires off a police vehicle in Trenton.”

She didn’t ask if he knew. She knew who she was dealing with, she’d worked for Dick Grayson since she’d joined the Blüdhaven Police straight out of the police academy. He knew. Probably more about the kid’s past arrests, juvenile convictions, and time spent in state custody than she did.

That boy-next-door smile that Dick wore vanished. Instead, the man seemed oddly stoic as he commented, “I know that juvenile record access is for official business only.”

Cissy pursed her lips, but decided against saying anything. The two sat in brooding silence as the gangly boy in the number 28 jersey completed his jog around the bases and was returning to the dug out.

“I grew up in the circus.”

At the statement, Cissy turned to look back over at the man. “Everyone sees the lights. The clowns. The bright veneer of the greatest show on Earth. The truth is, circus folk aren’t always the most honest people,” Dick remarked candidly. While candor had rarely been a problem, Cissy had to admit she wasn’t expecting him to just drop the other shoe. “My parents are dead because of the organized crime that followed Haley’s Circus.”

Out on the field, the coaches had called the game and were getting the boys to huddle up.

In the stands, the awkward silence that followed Dick’s proclamation finally ended when he said, “The point is, that boy’s not any different from me when Old Man Wayne pulled me up into that ivory tower of his outside of Gotham.”

It was a nice speech. But Cissy had done her homework on Dick as much as she had the young Master Todd. “You don’t have a juvenile record,” the woman stated flatly.

“That you know of,” Dick tossed back at the woman. Then the boy-next-door smile suddenly returned. A flash of movement was Cissy’s only warning, as a ten year old suddenly launched from out of the shadows to barrel at the commissioner.

It was the gangly kid in the number 28 jersey.

“I hit a home run!” Jason proclaimed proudly, seemingly ready to bounce into orbit with the plethora of excitement that exuded from him.

“I saw!” Dick cheered, before hooking and arm around the boy. Physically turning the child toward the woman, Dick introduced the two of them, saying, “Jason, this is Lieutenant Chambers. She’s a police officer with me.”

The boy’s face changed visibly at the revelation that she was police. Just like with Dick, it was all smiles one second and the next: “Are you here to arrest me?”

Dick’s hand clapped down on the boy’s shoulder. “No, she’s not here to arrest you,” he said. He was trying to force some mirth in his voice, but the already awkward tension in the air from the earlier conversation was only made more manifest by the fact that, not only was the boy serious, but they all knew why he was serious.

“Oh,” the boy uttered finally. Now, he just looked confused. “Is this about the thing in Middletown?”

“Middletown,” Dick echoed, doing a double take as the statement caught him off-guard. “Middletown? What thing in Middletown?”

“Nothing,” the boy chirped, even as his eyes darted off to the left. Then the floor. When he’d finally looked up again, he glanced at Cissy and said, “Uh, hi!”

Dick withdrew his hand just so that he could bury his face in it. With a long sigh, the man again placed a hand on the boy’s back as he looked over at Cissy. “We were going to grab some dinner after this, care to join us?”

Mention of food made the kid all smiles again. Bouncing excitedly, the kid turned on Dick with a flurry of motion and energy. “Oh! Can... can we, like... can we go to In and Out Burger? Bailey and Jaime both said they’re... they’re going to In and Out Burger after the game.”

As Dick looked from him to her, Cissy just gave a nod. “That works for me.”

Patting the boy on the back, Dick turned the boy back the way he had come. “Okay, go change and we’ll head out,” the man said, pushing the boy off in the direction of the locker rooms.

As Jason bounded through the stands and then disappeared, Cissy heard Dick give another heavy sigh. “I may be too old for this.”

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Toyboy Jason was good at this.

With all the talking and running around, even Dick would have been fooled by how Jason played with the food without ever eating it. They’d gotten him a bottle of water rather than a soda, which had the benefit of being something that the doll could actually drink -- since it could be added to his normal water-fed cooling system.

By the time that everyone was done, Dick was confident that neither Cissy nor the other parents had any idea that Jason hadn’t had a single thing to eat the whole time that they were at the restaurant.

The Boy Wonder and the Toy Wonder were standing on the sidewalk, waving goodbye as Cissy Chambers got into her police car and drove off. Jason’s friends had already departed with their parents. After all, this was a school night for the real kids.

“How was that?” Jason asked, turning his head up to look at Dick.

Motioning the boy over toward the car, Dick offered, “I thought the game went well.” As he made his way around to the driver’s door, Jason dove into the back seat from the passenger side.

“So am I gonna get to play little league?” the doll asked. Dick heard a sound from the back and recognized it as that of a zipper being tugged open.

As Dick started to drive away, he adjusted the rear view mirror to peer into the back. “I figured it might help to fill your time with something other than video games,”the man noted.

Jason was changing in the backseat, donning the red and black costume. As he popped the domino mask into place, he started messing his head from how he usually styled it. “Cool.”

That was it. All the effort Dick put into finding a little league that had a spot open. All the money that had gone into the registration, the equipment... falsifying a few medical documents... Those would at least come in handy if they stayed the course and Jason wound up enrolling in school.

All that for a one word answer. Cool.
In ＦＩＮＡＬ ＦＡＮＴＡＳＹ Ｘ｜Ｖ： Ｔｈｅ Ｂｌｅｓｓｅｄ Ｔｗｅｌｖｅ → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ who we want to be ]

The young Padjal was too taken with the sense of awe and amazement to have paid much attention to the plight of Lyveva.

Like a child, the dark haired boy's eyes were large as he disembarked the carriage. Mouth agape, the horned youth took in the sight of the bazaar. The peculiar, distinct architecture of the structures -- so unlike that found in the Shroud. The picturesque view of the port with its ocean horizon. A boundless sea that stretched out from the parched desert, painted red with the setting of the sun.

It was magnificent. Eyes sparkling with all the wonder of youth, a bubbly squeak of excitement escaped his lips.

“Okay, okay. I know she said all those people but how about you stick with me and we can try something else?”

"Huh?" the boy asked, turning his head and instinctively looking up as he did so. It was the second time he'd done that now. Realizing that he was staring over the top of Kajin's head, the Padjal looked down. He'd been so taken with the view that he'd obviously missed something.

Who was she? And what people? Stealing a glance up to the left and the right, the boy realized that he'd completely spaced for a spell and had no idea just what they were supposed to be doing. "Oh," the boy uttered, an entirely guilty expression plain on his face even as he tried to recover when he just summarily agreed with what the Lalafell had said. "Right!"

Falling into step behind the Lalafell, the boy watched as the thaumaturge exchanged pleasantries with another of his kind. Kiki... pu?

Was that one word or two?

The boy gave a shake of his head. The Lalafell naming convention was an oddity indeed. Though, there was something simply endearing about it all the same.

Bowing toward the Lilliputian woman, the boy offered his silent respects in greetings. Obviously, Kajin and Kikipu were acquainted. As such, he'd allow Kajin to supply the introductions -- should he deem such necessary.

Planting the butt of his shepherd's creek down against the sandstone, the Padjal rested the staff against his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around the crook and simply observed.
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ Prev ] “PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part II” [ Next ]
G O R A N G K A A
Kymellian Agricultural Colony | The Milky Way Galaxy

The young boy descended from above the clouds.

Following close behind, the smartship Friday broke through the atmosphere. The surviving remnants of the Coalition defense was gathering on the planet’s surface. Gorangka was an agricolony -- a peaceful world with no defenses. It was basically the farmland of the Kymellian Technomancy. Pastoral fields and temperate climates, with a high concentration of nitrates in the surface that supported a variety of rich grains, legumes, and other cultivars.

It was also the largest exporter of food to the other member states of the Coalition, making it a rather strategic target in the ongoing war effort against the expansion of the so-called Big Three -- the Kree, Skrulls, and Shi’ar Empires.

Up until this moment, the struggle against the Shi’ar Imperium had been a cold war. For whatever reason, it seemed as though the Majestor of Throneworld was content to let the sparks ignite into open war.

Not an unintelligent offering, given that it put the Coalition on the back foot in a conflict that now opened on two fronts. Potentially three, if the Kree decided to similarly take advantage of the situation.

Against the Skrulls, the Kymellians and the Majesdanians were evenly matched. Galladorian technology lagged behind somewhat, though it had been improved significantly since the Coalition had been formed out of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Still, against the technological superpowers of the Kree and the Shi’ar, the Coalition was the underdog.

Particularly if the Shi’ar brought the Imperial Guard to bear. From everything that Coalition intelligence had gathered about the members of the Guard, Billy might find himself in a battle that would make his struggle against Terrax seem like just a warm up.

Under different circumstances, then, the young Batson would opt to try and find any solution that didn’t involve prolonging the war. Anymore than it had already been, any way. As it was, the Coalition had come together through forty years of conflict. More than anything, the galaxy cried out for a respite from all this war. Billy wasn’t sure just how long he was going to live, but it’d be nice to have peace in his lifetime.

Sooner rather than later.

But the fact that the Shi’ar would attack an agricolony -- a planet with no defenses of its own -- populated with farmers, not soldiers, was enough to convince Billy that the Shi’ar weren’t the kind of enemy that you reasoned with. Not with words. The Shi’ar war machine didn’t seem to appreciate diplomacy. They overpowered planets and simply took what they wanted. The only reason that they seemed to respect was a force strong enough to repel them.

And looking at the damage to the farms and the Coalition fleet, Billy wondered how much longer the Coalition would be able to repel them.

Kofi and G’Kar were outside of Friday, surveying the damage to the smartship, as Billy finally touched down against the scorched earth and started walking toward them. “How bad is it?” the boy asked.

“The ship, the planet, or the fleet?” G’Kar tossed back the boy’s way.

“Bad, worse, and worse-er,” Kofi quipped.

The dark haired youth had glanced over at the large Okaaran, then cut a sharp glare over at the Kymellian bot. “I thought you said worse-er wasn’t a real word?” Billy remarked flatly.

“It’s not,” Kofi affirmed, as Billy fired yet-another-look his way. “...but its probably the best word to describe how bad this looks for us.”

The frown settled on Billy’s face. Craning his head back, his eyes took in the damage to Friday for himself. Black scorch marks cut scars across the white hull, carving out sections of the ship. Those same scars were apparent on the planet as well. “What was the point of this?” the boy asked, as he turned and slowly took in the burning homesteads that cast the horizon into a cloud of smolder and smoke.

It was meant to be rhetorical.

“Deny the enemy access to resources,” G’Kar intoned in his gravelly voice. “Take them. Make them your own,” the Warlord of Okaara offered sagely, before adding, “The Shi’ar are not benevolent, Billy Batson of Earth. But they are conquerors. And they are quite adept at what they do.”

“We got here as soon as we could, but I think the Shi’ar already made off with some of the population.”

Billy turned his head to look back at the Kymellian boy for a moment. The look on the human’s face was one of resolve. “Right,” he intoned solemnly, before turning around to face the Okaaran. “G’Kar, where would the Shi’ar have taken the people they stole from here?”

Even before he’d asked the question, Kofi had a sinking feeling you already knew the answer. “Billy, you can’t be planning to attack the Shi...”

“Someone gives you a black eye, sometimes you gotta hit ‘em back,” Billy tossed back, interrupting the Kymellian. His eyes never wavered, holding the Okaaran’s gaze, waiting for an answer.

“Lord Aelfyre’s command is to avoid furthering the conflict with the Shi’ar,” Kofi stated patiently, pleading, “We can’t fight a war on two fronts and hope to succeed.”

“Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” Billy stated, as he continued to stare down the large Warlord. “One thing I learned, the enemy gets a say.”

“But we can choose how we respond to the enemy,” Kofi fired back.

A low rumble seemed to resonate from out of the massive Okaaran frame. Finally, G’Kar gave a nod toward the human. “Slaves are a commodity. The Shi’ar would take them to a world where they could be put on display as trophies to be dolled out to the highest bidder,” the Warlord reasoned aloud.

The large veteran of many wars seemed to pause there as he mulled the question over in his mind. Finally, after another minute of silence, he offered a name. “Spartax.”

Billy simply gave a nod. “Thank you,” he offered quietly. Taking a step back, the boy brought his left forearm up. Glancing down at the gauntlet on his wrist, the boy commanded, “Location: Spartax.”

A holographic star map exploded into view above Billy’s arm, highlighting a star system. Standing there, Billy started trying to make sense out of the galactic coordinates so that he could plot an astrogation course.

Kofi’s voice interjected. “Dude, they’ll see you coming from lightyears away!”

“Then I hope they have something bigger in their torpedo tubes that what they brought to this fight here,” Billy quipped vapidly, as the map and astrogation plot began to solidify.

A three-fingered hand landed on his shoulder. As he looked back, a pair of Kymellian pink eyes stared back at him. “I know you have a hard time remembering this, but you’re not the most powerful being in the galaxy.”

“If they have forewarning, they will be prepared,” G’Kar offered solemnly. “They’ve seen what you can do. You can be assured that our next confrontation with the Shi’ar, they will have counter-measures ready for you. It is imperative that the Shi’ar not be allowed to choose the time or place for that confrontation.”

“I know a guy.”

All three heads turned at the sound of the voice. The Majesdanian teen was seated on the loading ramp, her rainbow hair disheveled and her face soot-marked from working on the interior parts of the ship. “He used to be one of the Ravagers,” Adora explained, before saying, “Now he’s with this group who call themselves Starjammers...”

“Starjammers!?”

Kofi was incredulous. Billy was just speechless. “Those guys are terrorists. You can’t be serious.”

The rainbow-haired teen just gave a shrug. “If anyone knows how to smuggle in or out of Shi’ar space, it’s them.”

Billy shared a look with Kofi, then glanced at G’Kar. For his part, the Okaaran gave a nod of his head in the direction of the Majesdanian to indicate his support for the idea.

Taking a deep breath, Billy finally asked, “All right, where do I find this guy?”
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
The real Blue Beetle will be finished within the next three or so hours.


Dan Garret?
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part VIII” [ Next ]
B L Ü D H A V E N
Blüdhaven Police Headquarters

Cissy Chambers was looking rough when Dick came inside the precinct.

It was around five in the morning. Once upon a time, Dick had gotten up at four o’clock to go to the gym. Then, over time, stopped going to the gym and just made his way into the office. Toyboy Jason hadn’t returned yet, so Dick hadn’t been able to get a debrief on just what he’d missed while he’d been asleep.

Looking at Cissy’s face now, though, he had a feeling that he was about to hear all about the Toy Wonder’s adventures of the last twelve hours. “Don’t tell me we’ve got another kidnapping on our hands,” Dick deadpanned dryly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trenchcoat as he stood there, looking over at the visibly distressed lieutenant.

“What?” Cissy uttered, breaking out of her brooding to cast a look over his way. When she realized what he was asking, she just shook her head. “No.”

“Murder?”

“A mugging,” the woman stated finally.

“Sounds like the crime of the century,” Dick joked grimly, taking a step closer so that he could see the files spread out across the woman’s desk.

“It didn’t happen.”

Glancing up, now it was Dick’s turn to ask, “What?”

“The mugging. It didn’t happen,” Chambers remarked in answer, however cryptic. “Someone intervened.”

“That sounds like the sort of thing we need more of,” Dick ventured, settling back against a wall as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

“Four grown men versus one seventy-something coming out of church late at night,” Chambers began, before she started sliding the mug shots across the desk.

The first thing that Dick noticed was that most weren’t the usual line up. Instead, the photographs were taken inside a hospital.

“One has an arm that’s broken in three places. Nevermind the dislocated shoulder,” Chambers said. “Another has a skull fracture and a concussion, but the third is the real piece of work. Cracked sternum. Three broken ribs. Then had his face impaled by some sort of climbing hook...”

Chambers had his attention now. Dick felt his stomach twist into a knot as his head popped up. Toyboy had used his grapple line to stab somebody in the face?

“...he’s in surgery now. Docs said the eye can’t be saved.”

Correction, Toyboy stabbed somebody in the face with his grapple line and put their eye out? Swallowing, Dick cleared his throat as he asked, “And our seventy-something victim?”

“Swears an angel from heaven swooped down and saved her ass,” Chambers answered flatly, obviously less than satisfied with that answer.

“But you don’t believe in angels,” Dick ventured aloud.

“It’s the description. She said that he was wearing a cape that was black on one side and gold on the other,” Cissy stated, crossing her arms as she shook her head and added, “Remember when we pulled those kids out of that storage unit? They all said that there had been another kid with them, but none of their stories made any sense. But they all described the same thing. A cape that was black on one side, gold on the other.”

“You’re suggesting that there’s a connection between Anton Schott and a mugging?” Dick asked, feigned skepticism coloring his tone.

“I’m suggesting that we may have another vigilante problem,” Cissy offered, turning her head back toward Dick. “GCPD are already hearing about someone dressed up as Batman. Maybe this is another copy-cat.”

“What? Like another what’s his name? Darkwing?”

“Nightwing,” Cissy said, correcting him. “And I’m worried that its a possibility. The Street Demonz were causing problems near the mall earlier, but someone busted them up before we got there.”

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“And then she was just gone!”

The same account of the previous evening had a slightly different re-telling from the doll’s perspective. Having Jason gave Dick a reason to leave work earlier than his usual round-the-clock routine. Otherwise, it was possible that the two would never see each other.

Dick had found the doll lying on the floor, playing Fortnite on his Nintendo Switch. Had he been doing that all day?

Dick was definitely going to need to do something to occupy Jason’s non-heroing hours. Maybe sign him up for sports? “Probably scared out of her wits,” Dick commented, as Jason finished telling his account of the rumble with the Street Demonz gang. “And that’s before some goofy kid in a mask and cape came swooping in.”

“Hey!” Jason protested, demanding,“Who’s goofy?”

Kneeling down so that he was eye-level with the doll, Dick paused as he tried to get his thoughts together. He wasn’t sure just how much good that it would do to be frustrated with a machine. “Jason, let me ask you about the muggers,” he began.

“Okay,” the boy answered with a shrug.

“Three of them were hospitalized with some pretty serious injuries,” Dick began.

“Three?” the boy echoed, as though surprised. Then added, “I anticipated two requiring medical assistance.”

“Anticipated.” Now it was Dick’s turn to play word games. “So you meant for it to happen?”

“There were four opponents in close proximity, three of whom were armed with knives and a fourth armed with a pistol,” Jason began. “I selected the course of action that produced the lowest risk for both them and the woman that they were threatening.”

“One of them lost an eye,” Dick said, trying to keep the emphasis on the damage that he’d caused. “Another inch and the grapple hook might have killed him.”

The doll just blinked. It was clearly taking a moment in which to process what Dick had said. Which, Dick could appreciate that at least he could count on the fact that Jason genuinely did listen. Even if he was as pig-headed as a real boy.

“He had a knife pressed to the woman’s throat, which he used as a hostage to try and bargain with me. I calculated a seventy percent chance that he would not intentionally cut her throat, but a twenty-seven percent chance that it might happen accidentally,” the doll explaining, laying out the rather cold and calculating way in which it negotiated interaction. “Extrapolating from that calculus, there was a ninety-three percent chance of death should the carotid artery be damaged. In contrast, my solution posed only a sixteen percent chance of mortality for him, while eliminating the danger in the most expedient way possible.”

Dick gave a heavy sigh. In other words, Toyboy had chosen the lesser of two evils. Not an answer that Dick wanted to hear, but he’d been there a few times himself. And he definitely couldn’t negate the fact that the seventy-year old had walked away without a scratch.

“I do not see how it is possible to function if our duty of care is to the criminals,” the doll noted. Not pointedly, but it still seemed remarkably blunt all the same.

“It’s not,” Dick answered. Even still, there had been a few unwritten rules with Bruce that Dick felt like were lost in translation here. Except, being that they were unwritten rules, Dick wasn’t even sure of how to go about explaining them. “Our duty is to the people that we protect. I just wanted to make certain that I understood what your thought process was.”

Shooting someone in the face with the grapple gun. Why had he never thought of that?

And what would Bruce have done if he had?
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Marvelous Tuesday to you.

Blessings and high favor.
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ Prev ] “PASSING THROUGH GETHSEMANE, Part I” [ Next ]
P L A N E T G O R A N G K A A
Kymellian Agricultural Colony | The Milky Way Galaxy

If Billy were here, he would likely comment that they’d had worse days.

A power transfer conduit exploded overhead, prompting the young Kymellian to duck his head as blinding sparks and hot shrapnel rained down. At the same time, space had become a roller coaster. This close to a gravity well, the force exerted on the smartship as it weaved through evasive maneuvers created g-forces that shoved the horse-faced youth from side to side -- and several times nearly catapulted him from the chair.

“Our shields are down.”

Off to Kofi’s right, the large Okaraan warlord was crammed into the tactical station. Of late, he had not been the bearer of good news. Glancing over at the large alien, the boy gave a nod before he looked back out through the forward window. He was looking over the top of Alora’s head, the Majesdanian teen occupying the forward astrogation terminal.

Raising a three-fingered hand, a flickering hologram of the surrounding space suddenly appeared at Kofi’s large, blunt fingertips. Rotating his wrist, the horse-like being examined what seemed to be a rather deteriorating situation. “The Galadorians are in retreat and the Light Brigade appears to have been destroyed,” the boy noted flatly.

Whatever good that they had tried to do here had failed spectacularly.

And at the cost of lives. Many, irreplaceable lives.

It was a situation that was not going to be improved by struggling against the inevitability of their defeat. “Alora, can you get us out of here?” the boy asked, wistfully.

The rainbow-haired waif was soot marked, with half her terminal scorched from the damage that they’d been taking. Ordinarily, manual flight of the smartship was not necessary -- except Friday’s artificial intelligence had been knocked off-line when the computer core had taken damage. “Jump drive’s off-line,” the Majesdanian quipped tersely. “We’re barely maintaining sub-light.”

The flight of the smartship Friday came to a sudden halt. Lurching forward, Kofi clung to the side of the captain’s chair as it seemed as though their ship had been snapped backward.

“Tractor beam.”

As Kofi turned his head, he watched as the Okaraan rose from his station. Reaching over to the wall, the warlord pulled a Galadorian short sword from the wall. Then, taking two steps forward, planting himself like a living wall in front of the aft airlock. “Prepare for boarding,” the man uttered gravely.

Overhead, the speakers crackled as a transmission cut in. “People of Gorangkaa, you are all now slaves of the immaculate Shi’ar Imperium. Rejoice in your elevation.”

Arcane circles formed at the fingers of the young Kymellian sorcerer as he rose from out of the command chair. Down forward, Alora was priming the charging bolt on a Kree pistol, when something flashed over the top of her console. “There’s a jump point forming behind us,” the teen announced.

Kofi and G’Kar shared a brief look, before the Kymellian stated, “I thought Lord Aelfyre's final word was that no reinforcements would be forthcoming.”

Setting her pistol aside, the Majesdanian teen was trying to get the damaged console to work with her. “I’m getting a transmission. It’s...” the girl began, before trailing off. “It’s...” she uttered, now clearly confused. After another minute, she turned her head and stated, “It’s David Bowie?”

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Whoever had invented air pods was seriously the best genius of all time.

Forty years, he’d been flying in space. One thing that he’d been missing was a way to listen to music or the radio, or anything. Now, the lyrical stylings of Let’s Dance filled the airways, as Billy had figured a way to pair music from his iPod to the Kymellian communicator that was clipped to his ear.

The small human exited the jump point in a fiery explosion. A stream of photons sailed forward, cutting a swath through the large, insectile alien ship that was descending upon Friday. The Shi’ar assault ship was already reeling in a series of explosions, even before Billy punched straight through it on a path toward the middle of the battlefield.

He cut through the Shi’ar line like a stick into water. Plumes of light accompanying the explosions that ripped through the Shi’ar ships as they were literally torn apart by the sixty-pound human bullet that zig-zagged through the widowing field amid pulsating bursts of radiation and energy.

Rising up above the line of broken and retreating warships, Billy shone like a miniature star. Plasma rolled from off his body, his eyes aflame as he peered out and declared, “Shi’ar fleet, this is Captain Batson. I hope the first round didn’t wear you out, because round two just started.”
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[ Prev ] “FEAT OF CLAY, Part VII” [ Next ]
B L Ü D H A V E N
St. Anthony’s Cathedral

The evening mass had gone long in commemoration of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.

Now, the streets were dark as the faithful emptied from out of the cathedral. Several ladies of the church gossiped as they helped one another down the steps. Mary Agatha, a widow twice over, was the oldest of the trio. Helen’s husband was still with them, but in an assisted living home that specialized in care for Alzheimer’s patients. Jean was the youngest, yet had been widowed the longest.

Mary Agatha didn’t drive much anymore. Two hip replacements had limited her mobility. Jean had given her a ride, and been able to park in front of the cathedral with the handicap tag that Mary Agatha carried. So, for them, the trip to the car was short. They got Mary Agatha seated quickly, standing there talking for a few minutes more. All the while, the people thinned out. The crowd dispersed. It was just Helen standing on the sidewalk, as Jean got into the car and the women said their goodbyes.

Parking in downtown Blüdhaven was always a problem. Helen hadn’t been able to find a spot in the small parking lot beside the cathedral, so she’d had to get a spot in the back. Making her way down the dimly lit alleyway, the woman was -- at first -- oblivious to the scattering of people that milled about. That was before two men stepped out to block her path forward.

Frightened, the woman went to turn back, but found another two men behind her.

“Lost, granny?” one of the men in front of her demanded, as the four men each stepped forward, pressing against the speechless woman. “Let’s see what’s in that purse, yeah?”

The alley was plunged in darkness. The sound of breaking glass echoing as one of the lights facing into the alley was suddenly extinguished. All five of them jumped, Helen as well as the four men. The knives came out. Along with a small .22.

The sound of footsteps overhead caused several of the men to look up to their left. Then a shadow, moving, sent their heads spinning as if on a swivel. Except, when they looked, there was no shadow there.

One of the men swore. “Shit, it’s Batman!”

That was when a giggling echo, like childish laughter, could be heard -- echoing down the alley.

A loud bang accompanied the arrival of a small form, descending from the rooftop to land atop the roof of a car abandoned in the alley. Turning his head up, the masked youth had a Cheshire grin plastered across his face as he asked, “Who’s Batman?”

The four men just stood there for a moment. Finally one blurted out, “The fuck..?”

Cartwheeling from off the car, the childish vigilante flipped through the air. Planting two feet straight into the chest of one of the thugs, the boy sent the man flying with surprising force into the side of the cathedral, sliding down to the ground in a stupor.

As the costumed boy made the landing, a leg sweep took a second thug to the ground. The man with the .22 brought the pistol around to aim at the kid, but coming out of the sweep the boy seemed to flip his body around like a break dancer. Both legs came up to seize hold of the man’s arm in a scissor lock, leveraging his body weight to then launch the man off his feet. The sound of bone snapping and the scream that followed gave evidence to the fact that the man’s shoulder may not have survived the encounter.

For himself, the doll used his hands to propel himself up, twisting in the air and then performing a handstand before popping back upright. It was two against one now, knives flashing in the darkness as the pair converged on the boy. Cherubic laughter echoed it a haunting melody of childish giggling.

The furl of his cape blinded the one to his left, while a wrist strike became a joint lock that he leveraged in order to spin the one to his right around, so that the two slammed into each other. A palm-heel strike to center mass supplied surprising momentum, as the thug was taken off his feet. A windmill kick ended with the sound of snapping bone, after which the other thug slammed down into a puddle on the alley floor.

A short scream caused the boy to turn around. The first thug -- the one that he’d kicked in the chest -- was back on his feet. He had the old woman with a knife to her throat. “Look, man. All I want is the purse, man. Then I’m leaving here, man. You got that?” the man sputtered, tightening his grip on the woman as he shouted, “You got that!?”

Through his robotic vision, the doll was calculating a series of angles and statistics, extrapolating physical probabilities even as he began to put a still-formulating plan into motion. Holding up his arms, as if in surrender, the boy made a slow and deliberate reach to his utility belt. Withdrawing the grapple gun, he held it out at the side, slowly bending down as if to show that he was setting it down.

Then he reversed the grip and hit the trigger.

The grapple hook fired at the side of the building, the force and angle of impact causing it to ricochet off the brick. The hook caught the man in the side of the face, embedding itself there. A high-pitched squeal shattered the night, as the knife fell away, clattering to the floor. The man dropped a second later, clutching at his face as he writhed and screamed in pain.

Stooping low, the costumed doll snatched up the purse that had been dropped. Then, walking up to the shivering woman, offered it as he said, “I’ve contacted the police. They’re on their way.” Gently, the boy placed a hand on the woman’s arm and turned her back toward the way that she’d come. “Let me walk you back to the street. The police will be here soon.”

As the pair emerged into the light, the woman at last got a good luck at the strange figure. It was a boy. Little more than a child. His dark hair was tousled and wild, framing a face that was masked. A short black cape shrouded his slight form, though glimpses of gold and crimson were visible. As they arrived at the corner, the sound of police sirens could be heard. Flashes of blue and red began to appear down the street.

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman heard the childish voice say.

When she turned to look again, the boy was gone. As the first police car pulled up, with Helen caught in the headlights, the church lady clutched at her purse and then stared down the alleyway, wondering if some madness had caused her to imagine all of that just now.

...it couldn’t have really happened. Could it?

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Childish laughter echoed off into the moonlight.

It had been a fairly benign evening. Busting up the mugging outside the church had been about the most excitement he’d had all night. That didn’t mean that it had been a quiet night. He’d been keeping up with the police scanner. All manner of routine calls had been coming in. Mostly calls for medical assists, stolen cars, or robberies of the convenience and/or liquor store variety.

Now that the hour was rolling past midnight, it was likely to get to be quieter on the police scanner and more interesting from Robin’s perspective. The people moving about at this hour could be divided up into two rather neat categories: People going to work on odd-hour shifts or people who didn’t want their comings or goings to be seen.

...or, in the alternative, wanted everyone to know their comings and goings.

The Street Demonz were one such example. Rolling through on motorcycles with bored out exhaust or glass packs to make them sound like overly aggressive Harley-Davidsons. They roared through the streets at around one in the morning, filling the streets with noise before piling into the parking lot of a closed strip mall.

As the headlights panned around the shops, they caught the form a girl. Illuminated there for a moment, the dark-haired waif broke into a run.

And the motorcycles in pursuit.

As the motorcycles swooped in, the girl found herself surrounded. Like a flock of vultures, the bikers prowled in a circle around her. “Well, what do we have here?” one asked, while others cat-called or whistled.

Clutching at the hem of the cardigan that she wore, the girl looked about, as though seeking an escape. Finally, one of the bikers broke from the circle, zipping up beside her to ask, “Past your bedtime, isn’t it cutie?”

Breaking in the direction that he’d traveled, the girl made a run for it. Two bikes cut her off, causing her to skid to a halt as the first biker came up behind her. “What the matter? Don’t you want to play?”

“Maybe she doesn’t like slime.”

As the bikers and the girl looked up, a shadow seemed to detach itself from the darkness, until a red-and-black clad figure became visible along the rooftops of the strip mall. At the realization that the figure was that of a boy, the bikers relaxed. “Halloween’s over, kid,” one of them boasted, before dismissively adding, “Now beat it. Before you get hurt.”

Vaulting through the air, the boy suddenly planted himself just an inch away from the man of the bike. Despite the size difference between the two, the man on the bike actually baked away a step, as the costumed figure said, “The girl leaves with me or you’re the ones getting hurt.”

“What was that?” one of the bikers asked, before another noted, “Oh, tough guy.”

That was when the bikers started moving. Circling and shooting toward the costumed boy and the frightened girl. Until one got too close and a windmill kick had neatly knocked one of the Street Demonz from off their pedestals. The bike were sailing into the one of the buildings, while the rider went down hard onto the pavement.

It was cause for a lot of consternation among the true believers.

“You see that?”
“No way.”
“You’re going down, kid.”

As the whirling dervish turned upon the pair, the costumed figure came to life. A grapple line took out two of the mounted thugs, while a trash can lid was repurposed into a projectile that served to turn another of the bikers into a projectile.

When the dust had cleared, the bikers and their motorcycles were laid bare, while the costumed Toy Wonder emerged victorious. Turning toward where the girl had huddled for security, the young Toyboy Jason asked, “You all right?”

Except there was no one there. Instead, glancing off to the left, the boy saw where the girl was running for her life down an alleyway. “You’re welcome,” the boy offered with a shrug.

The girl in the mini skirt and the cardigan sweater made it halfway down the alley before a police car with lights cruised by. Instantly, she froze. Backing away, she collided with something. Or someone. Turning, she looked back to realize that the Toy Wonder was standing there, behind her. “Is that what you’re running from?” the boy asked. As she shied away, he reached out, saying, “I just want to help.”

The girl adamantly shook her head. “You can’t,” she uttered flatly, adding, “I have to keep moving.”

She was a runner. “Is there somewhere I can take you?” the boy asked, almost pleading. Softly, he asked, “Do you have a family?”

The girl hesitated, “I...”

Whatever answer that he might have gotten was lost the moment that a voice broke across the strip mall parking lot and said, “Police!”

A plethora of police cars came barreling in, sirens blaring. Vaulting back up to the rooftops, the Toy Wonder vanished into the shadows.

He’d lost sight of the girl. Vanished into the night, as he had.
In Rogue Continuum [CLOSED PENDING REBOOT] → 5 yrs ago Forum: Advanced Roleplay
The brass echoed through the big top.

Entry of the Gladiators, Op. 68 was the comical march that played through the circus, setting the mood for the proclaimed greatest show on Earth. Jugglers and clowns. Acrobats and freaks. And somewhere in the middle of all of them was a boy named…

“TORO, the Fire-Eating Kid!”

Balancing precariously atop the back of an elephant, the scruffy-haired boy from London juggled great balls of fire while, around him, his adoptive parents jumped through rings of fire and twirled batons that were ignited on either end.

It was an ordinary day in the extraordinary life of an orphan brought up in the midst of the circus, putting on a show in King’s Lynn or Peterborough or Sheffeld. The shimmery blue of his foster parent’s leotards reflected by the blue shorts that hugged the waist of the soot-marked boy. The air seemed to shimmer as heat radiated from off his body. His hands were moving too fast in the juggling routine for the audience to have noticed, but his actual hands were engulfed in flames, the fire rolling from the tips of his fingers back to his wrists. Yet, the flesh beneath was unmarked.

As the parade of the performers marched slowly on, through the cheers and gasps of the crowd, Toro settled into the rhythm of the routine. It was, after all, an act. Something that they practiced time and time again on the road. He hadn’t started out juggling atop an elephant. No one started out juggling atop the elephant.

A few had broken their necks juggling atop the elephant.

It was practice, practice, practice. Until it was nearly perfect. Until it was nearly perfect each and every time, because it had to be perfect. Because there couldn’t be any mistakes in front of the audience. No surprises.

Surprising an elephant was going to be a bad day for everyone, the elephant included.

Then the music seemed to go off-track. The world spun. Vertigo set in, everything turned upside down and inside out, until Toro found himself standing in a stadium like no other that he had ever seen before.

Under his feet, the ground gave way to a sea of magma. Fires leapt up, wrapping around his feet, traveling up his legs, until the fire had covered him from head to toe. A human-shaped flame. The cheers twisted into jeering. As he turned his head, to the left and the right, Toro found himself confronted by a multitude of tiny windows in mid-air. Screens featuring what looked like pieces of an audience watching him.

Watching him burn.

From out of the sea of lava, a large, serpentine monstrosity seemed to form from out of the liquid, molten earth. As the firey dragon bared its dripping, flaming fangs, the sound of the cheers increased while the supple fire-monster seemed poised to tear into the child-sized Human Torch…

...a splash of water snapped him awake.

Flailing, the young Toro gasped as he came to. In a fog, the boy was grasping at the last straws of his sanity. He didn’t know where he was. Freshly healed scars on his body gave witness to what they had done to him. It was a minute in which he questioned whether he was who he was. Was this real life?

Then the minute passed and Tomás felt his mind returning. This wasn’t a dream. This was a nightmare.

Curling into a fetal ball, the boy slowly pulled himself up from out of the puddle of water to stand in the stark, spartan cell where he’d been held inbetween the experiments and the gladiatorial show. He could feel the collar around his neck. Whatever it was, it seemed that when it was on that the fire wouldn’t come out.

Head down, he could only see the feet of the guard. Feel the rough hand that seized him and pulled him from out of the cell. Pushing forward, the disheveled and damp child stumbled out into the hallway. Then, he walked. For how long? He wasn’t sure. A hand reached out to stop him as they arrived in a room of some kind, before the same rough hand pushed him down into a chair. All the while, Toro just looked down at the floor. Staring somewhere past his own feet, as though willing for all the world to simply vanish in flame.

A sound, that of a door or passage opening, prompted the youth to dare to steal a glance. His eyes were low, catching only a glimpse of legs and feet. The usual escorts or guards, but there was another. Someone being pushed around. Another prisoner?

“Toro?”

The voice seemed female, though not one that he knew. Turning his head up, the boy was confronted by the sight of a creature whose angular features were distinctly inhuman. Alabaster skin. Red eyes. But the look on the creature’s face was humanized by the expression that was so relatable.

She knew him. Or, thought that she did. The boy’s mouth opened, as did hers, though the sudden flash of the collar around her neck made them both re-consider what it was that they were about to do.

For now, it seemed that they waited.
In Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within → 5 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
After finally watching Endgame and Captain Marvel...

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