DJAtomika

New Challengers... Approach!

<Snipped quote by DJAtomika>

Sure. I'm still salty about being stabbed in the chest. Hahah

@Rilla

Dude that was ages ago lol

Although if the New King wants a rematch with the Korean Reaper, he's welcome to.

New Challengers... Approach!

@Rilla D'you think, with my experience, I could be a mentor?

Arena Chat Thread

Hey y'all, anyone else here in the guild Discord server?

Why I'm asking is cause if we get enough of our regulars and newbies there, we can get a channel all to our own.

Baybridge: Halcyon Days [Superpowers/Semi-Sandbox]

---

Regal Square, Prince-Edfield_

---

---

"They don't pay us, yeah..." Meifeng said, as she briefly looked at her fingertips, she appeared to be uninterested. "... But, remember, we gotta look good. And you can't put a price on that."

She laughed for a moment, before she took a quick look around... God, these events felt so empty without Cindy around. Well, a lot of things felt empty without Cindy, but after the death of Lihua, she couldn't stop for a moment to even appreciate these moments. She was so distant to her fellow RAVENS, she clenched her fist for a moment as the sheer frustration of it all got to her. But, then she realized what she was doing, then caught herself. She turned to face Reed, and kept smiling.

"Y'know, I'm going to get the weirdest-ass carnival food I can find, then we can split it!" Meifeng said, as she took steps towards the door. She heard of things like donut burgers, and fried butter balls (Yuck!), and wanted to try them. If that was the pinnacle of All-American cuisine, then she was going to try it. "And by the time I go see Lijuan, I've already vomited it all out. 'Kay? Bye!"

She was already out the door, and left a confused Reed questioning what Meifeng was even talking about.

Meifeng just decided to get some fresh air, as she marched through the stalls. Honestly, she also didn't want to deal with Maximilian Cornell, especially when it came to mind. She sighed as she walked. The situation with him was... complicated. Probably something that she needed to sit down, and have a talk over (And someone like Quentin or Reed needed to be the moderator).

Actually, Meifeng was going to go see Lijuan first. It wouldn't hurt, since the Lius are doing such a good job taking care of the youngest Zhao.

Audrey spotted the Chinese lady called Meifeng exiting the big building and strode towards her. Her hands were in her pockets, the cap on her head low as she walked in step with Meifeng. She raised her head and acknowledged her with a nod

"Agent Meifeng. It has been a while, babushka. Not since Verthaven have we seen each other. I hope you are well."

To say that the mix of emotions within her was confusing would be an understatement. On one hand, she was grateful to the government forces for the evacuation effort and for keeping the monsters of the Disaster at bay. Indirectly she owed her life to them. On the other, the loss of her friends weighed heavily on her heart. She wanted to give agent Meifeng a hug, then sock her in the face for abandoning those she considered near family.

At first, Meifeng was annoyed that somebody was interrupting her.

Normally, she would had ducked into a the crowd, and never mention any of it again. But, the mere mention of Verthaven... it made her stop on one foot, and turn around. She faced the stranger with a weary look in her eyes, and looked her up and down. She was big, but Meifeng wasn't intimidated. It wasn't about size, but how you used it. The woman was fairly old... Meifeng couldn't, for the life of her, recognize this weird woman.

"Sorry, ma'am," Meifeng tipped her ballcap, "Verthaven was ten years ago... you're gonna have to jog my memory."

With a raised hand, Audrey gathered the smoke from her cigarette into her palm and swirled it into a ball, no subtle use of her powers but small enough to not attract attention. The stream of smoke from the burning cigarette tip wove its way round her fingers and balled into her palm, before she released it into the air in a puff.

"Ten years ago, a NEST agent arrested two young men. Marcus Rowland and John Cole Sykes. They helped the agency fight the Hands of Science. I considered them my family in Verthaven. But now, they're dead. I'm all that's left of that little home I had there. In part, I have you to thank for, at least, helping the survivors out of the city."

This woman was feeding her a sob story while talking about something that Meifeng had no part of (the NEST part). She was a dumbass teenager back then, she had no part of NEST or anything that happened. In addition, this broad talked to her like she knew her! She probably only saw her on TV and thought that she was some omniscient God that had a part in all things RAVEN. She only rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, lady," Meifeng said, as she stared at the woman with a look of contempt. "But, you're barking up the wrong tree. I was just eighteen when Verthaven went down. I had nothing to do with NEST, or it's internal affairs."

That wasn't true.... when the shield went up, she was considered a defacto member of NEST during their attempts to get the hell out of there. She had no idea about Marcus, or John Sykes... while many of NEST activities were declassified, Meifeng just had better things to do (Like figure out just what the high hell just happened).

"And I guess..." Meifeng shrugged "... You're welcome?

"Not you? Hmm...must've been a young lady that looked just like you...the resemblance is uncanny, miss. Did you have any older siblings who were in NEST?"

A part of Meifeng got defensive the moment when she finally realized just who she was talking about (and another part of her wanted her to get her eyes checked).

"I know just who you're talking about;" Meifeng started off. "... My mother."

"Your mother...well she was an exceptional agent, miss."

Audrey sighed. Her saviour was this young lady's mother. A sore point for her. The whole situation became rather awkward, but she could sympathise with Meifeng; after all, she too was a mother. At the back of her mind, she wondered how her daughter was doing. Probably better than she was, drifting between jobs and friends and homes. But...she couldn't imagine a world where she was missing from her daughter's life. She couldn't imagine the phone call that would ensue if she'd died in Verthaven. The tears that'd inevitably follow. She could only imagine what it was like for her.

A hand dove into her back pocket and produced a worn brown leather wallet. From within one of its folds, she pulled a dog-eared business card for her cafe. With a hand, she gave it to Meifeng.

"I'm sorry, agent Meifeng. I didn't know, but I owe your mother my life. Come by my cafe if you're looking for a less...expensive place to eat. For you, on the house. It's the least I can do to honour your mother."

Meifeng shrugged.

The way she speaks implies that she knows Lihua's dead... maybe I should keep an eye on her. Meifeng thought to herself as she stared the woman down. She briefly looked at the card she received, and raised an eyebrow. She was going to head there later, after work was over.

"Yeah, I'll swing by, Miss..." Meifeng tried to get her name.

"Audrey Novalik. But everyone calls me Aura."

I'll be sure to look up that name, later.

Meifeng nodded her head.

"I just have much work to do here," Meifeng said as she started to walk away. Reed was probably wondering what in the hell she was doing if she took this long... maybe she'd get Reed that nasty food she wanted to, then go find Lijuan.

That girl needed whatever love and support she could get after Lihua's death...

"I shall leave you be then, agent. Come visit me in my café if you have the time."

With a tip of her cap, Audrey vanished into the crowd, the only thing visible being the glow of her cigarette, before that too melded into the lights of street lamps and phones. Her work here, apart from nabbing one more greasy chili dog, was done.

Mass Effect: Borealis

Hazan Volintis
The Borealis
Bridge

As Dex and Iosif settled in their seats, Hazan placed himself in his. In front of his nav console. His talons danced over the holographic windows and inputs as he went through his own pre-flight checklist, and once done, he began plotting a route to LaFayette Station. When the route had been plotted, he threw it over to Dex's console to let her sort out the minutiae. That was her job, and his was done now. The pilots had it in their hands to take them to the station without a bump in the flight. He pulled out his datapad, threw his feet up onto his powered down console and began reading. After all, the cockpit was his second bunk.

It wasn't long before the rather relaxing atmosphere broke though, as Drono's voice rang out from the speakers all over the ship calling for the crew to convene on the bridge. Hazan stowed his datapad and ambled over to the area just behind the cockpit consoles, where the rest of the crew were clustered around their lone drell and their meeting table. Drono was giving a briefing, and the subject was his long-standing back problem and their current trip to Lafayette where he could get patched up and combat ready. Hazan couldn't help but smirk; just before they'd left, he'd had it in him to bring the sickly drell to a clinic on Elysium for a checkup. His idea, of course. The pain meds he'd gotten there were helping, but not by much, as it was apparent from Drono's sickly expression and demeanor. As the crew got to immediate planning, he let his smug smirk fall away to his normal, more serious expression.

While Dex went for the tech and stealthy approach, Hazan took a moment to think. Then he spoke.

"Dex, d'you think you could pull a map or floor plan of the station itself and send it to me? We need to cover routes, alternate routes, points of entry and egress, cover zones, crowd areas, checkpoints, stuff like that."

The turian paced slowly round the table, taking mind not to bump into anyone.

"Plan A... Plan A, hmm... Well if I were the Eclipse, and Yestin is helping them, I'd be monitoring station traffic in and out. I'd be looking for a transport or shuttle that's carrying a casualty or an injured crew member, specifically a drell. Since this is your former accomplice we're talking about, let's assume they know all about you. So we're talking expecting us at the shuttle bay, at the clinic, and en route. Probably have a transport just off station with more troops if they're expecting company, which they should since they're Eclipse."

Hazan activated his omnitool, quietly cursing the holographic display clipping through his arm, and opened a note file where he began tapping out a list.

"So here's what I propose for Plan A: we draft up a cover story for our approach and do the whole "cloak and dagger" thing the whole way. To draw attention away from Drono, we need a decoy. Someone else who's suitably due for a medical examination. Probably Vellios. That's step one. Step two is the escort. We'll need eyes and ears on the ground before Drono steps out so he's covered the moment he's on site, plus an escort to go with him that's suitably discreet. I'll immediately volunteer for recon duty because being a front scout is what I do. I foresee us needing to spread out and blend in, so maybe one or two more scouts should go with me to pad out the route. And step three is a distraction for our Eclipse buddies on site. Probably best if we do something here that doesn't get us blacklisted and booted off the station."

He wrote all this down onto his omnitool and powered it down.

"Oh, one more thing: Drono, send me all the intel you have on Yestin too. It's one thing for Dex to track his galactic whereabouts, I'm not worried about that bit, but I want to be damn sure that he won't be on site with us. So I'll be keeping an eye out for him on station during the escort. If he's there, I'll ring a big alarm bell for the team."

Baybridge: Halcyon Days [Superpowers/Semi-Sandbox]

Six months ago, Verthaven Memorial Cemetery

---

The woman stood above a pair of graves. The breeze brushed through her hair, messy in its current state, untied and dancing in the wind. She gazed down at the two grave markers, simple stone plinths with names and dates chiseled into their smooth faces. A bottle of vodka was clasped firm in one hand. The other held a small bouquet of flowers. She set the bouquet down between the graves, splitting the flowers between the two. With her hand free, she uncapped the vodka bottle and took a swig. A hearty sigh escaped her lips as she stared down wistfully at the graves, taking in each crack in the stone facade, every chisel mark in the names inscribed on them.

"I hate you both, stupid little idioty."

She spat the last word with all the contempt she had for the dead men. Strength left her legs as she sat on the dirt, the cigarette clamped in her mouth flaring as she puffed in anger, smoke plumes spraying from her nostrils.

"Just had to be heroes, both of you. Fucking glupyye idioty. Mixed up in all that shit. And then you had to be heroes when the disaster hit. Went and got yourselves killed... Left this poor ztarushka all alone."

Tears began to fall from her eyes as she stubbed out the cigarette in the dirt. She stood and stamped the crumpled butt into the ground with her heel, grinding it with barely repressed frustration. The woman brushed hair from her face as she shook her head and took another hit of vodka.

"I'll never did understand you two, and now I never will. But... You two were the best parts of my life, and I loved you for that. You never knew it, but I cared for you as I did my own deti. My own children. My little angels."

With the bottle uncapped, she poured a splash of vodka on one grave, and then the other.

"To you, Marcus and John. I will never forget you both. Proshchay. Ya lyublyu tebya."

Audrey capped her bottle of vodka and strode off towards the exit. The graves of her friends, worn by wind and rain and weather, still stood proudly amongst the countless other unnamed graves.

In Vain I Hide My Heart's Fierce Pain - Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov

In vain I hide my heart’s fierce pain,
In vain pretend to inner calm.
I can’t be calm a single hour,
I can’t no matter how I try.
My heart by sighs, my eyes by tears,
reveal the secret misery.
You make all my efforts vain,
you, who stole my liberty!

Bringing a savage fate to me,
you troubled my spirit’s peace,
you changed my freedom to a jail,
you turned my delight to sorrow.
And secretly, to my bitterest hurt,
perhaps you sigh for some other woman,
perhaps devoured by a useless passion,
as I for you, you suffer too for her.

I long to see you: when I do I’m mad,
anxious, lest my eyes give me away:
I’m troubled in your presence, in your absence
I’m sad that you can’t know how I love.
Shame tries to drive desire from my heart
while love in turn tries to drive out shame.
And in this fierce conflict thought is clouded,
the heart is torn, it suffers, and it burns.

So I fling myself from torment to torment.
I want to show my heart, ashamed to do it,
I don’t know what I want, oh, that’s true,
what I do know is I’m filled with sorrow.
I know my mind’s held prisoner by you,
wherever I am it conjures your dear image:
I know, consumed by the cruellest passion,
there’s no way to forget you on this earth.

---

Present day, Regal Square, Prince Ed-Field

With her hands stuffed into the pockets of her windbreaker, Audrey wove her way through the crowd that was slowly dispersing after the Director's speech. The rally was, for the most part, over. The nearbyfood was something she could sink her teeth into, literally and metaphorically of course. She had a hot dog in her hand, idly munching away while she people watched. The rally itself was boring as far as DOVE rallies went. The usual support garnering for the whole human-metahuman relations thing, trying to lift people's spirits in spite of the terror events in the recent year. She was here mostly to scope out the whole thing, since all her employees were either on their break or schooling at the moment. Her cafe was closed, and Audrey was here, spending time alone.

She briefly wondered if there were any other metas here, when a familiar face caught her attention. Just out of the corner of her eye, she saw a vaguely familiar Chinese lady disappear into the main DOVE building, flanked by other men, presumably her retinue. Audrey paused, plate in hand while she racked her brain trying to remember where she'd last seen that woman. The memories came back slowly. The incident with the Fiends more than ten years ago. Verthaven.

Marcus and John.

The NEST agent that arrested them. Took them away from her like a predator stole away the helpless young of its prey animal. Not directly responsible for their deaths, but part of that troubled period of her life. She was determined to catch her on her way out. Just to see if these...DOVE types were the type to remember past losses and to feel them. Audrey kept her distance from the entrance, but if and when Meifeng chose to leave, the old Russian would be close enough to intercept her for a few words.

Baybridge: Halcyon Days [Superpowers/Semi-Sandbox]

Aurora Novalik

Basic Information

Name:

Audrey Novalik

Nickname/Alias/Etc:

Aurora, Aura

Gender:

Female

Age:

46

Height:

6' 3"

Weight:

170 lbs

Home District:

Greencrest Heights, White Coast

Appearance

Hair Color:

Auburn

Eye Color:

Light brown

Ethnicity:

Russian

Physical Appearance:

Standing proud and tall, Audrey is the image of a woman past her prime. Her build is that of a strong, well built woman athlete but after a few years of neglect. Her muscles are still toned and strong but she hasn't used them actively for a while, resulting in a physique that although appears to be strong, she's weaker than she appears. Her teeth are yellowed slightly from all the cigarettes she smokes, as are her fingernails. Her face is composed, though more often than not he default expression is a scowl with a cigarette clasped between her lips. She has a small forehead, sharp chin and a crooked nose from how much it's been broken and reset. Her knuckles are calloused and scarred, and she walks with a very slight limp. Crows feet adorn the corners of her blue eyes, and they're often at a slight squint, as if silently judging whoever she looks at. Her hair is longer now, streaked with white, tied into a short ponytail with not a single stray hair falling over her face.

Ten years after Verthaven, Audrey sports more than a few scars, notably one that crosses her face and connects both her ears together across her nose. Her knuckles are forever scarred, marred with the stripes and rugged, badly healed tissue that came with her pounding on her apartment walls, tearful and guilty over the death of her friend.

Attire:

More often than not Audrey can be found dressed in a simple t-shirt of any design and/or colour, along with a pair of blue jeans and either shoes or sneakers. Her work clothes are that getup paired with a cream coloured apron with her cafe's logo emblazoned on the front and a baseball cap, usually either cream coloured or dark green. She has a faded blue digital watch on her right wrist and has a plain silver wedding band on her left ring finger. A pair of old dogtags hangs from a short silver chain round her neck.

Personality

Innate & Outward Personality:

On the outside, Audrey is tough. A rough, tough, "never take shit from no one" cafe owner who runs her business with an iron fist and a stalwart plan; albeit one that works and rarely, if ever, fails. She takes pride in her work and puts her time and money in her cafe, her food and her drinks. She enjoys the smiles on her customers' faces, and goes to great ends to please. Her loyalty to her employees and friends knows no bounds, and so does her language. Though she doesn't show it, she does care for her friends rather dearly, even if she's rough around the edges with them.

On the inside, Audrey is rather broken. Ten years from Verthaven and the scars that were made after her friend Marcus' death have healed, barely. The Verthaven Disaster wrecked her livelihood, her original cafe called the Haven, and killed her friends and employees Marcus Rowland and John Cole Sykes. Caught right in the middle of disaster, she didn't have the time to recover from the shock of her cafe being razed to witness Marcus and John being torn to shreds by the demons. The scars still cry inside her, and even though it's been more than a decade, the pain still lingers. She's healed, though, and determined not to let the same thing happen to them ever again.

On the job, she doesn't smoke, but she takes regular breaks to light up one to calm herself down if things are getting rough. Other than that, her mannerisms both on and off the job are that of a friendly, if rough-and-tumble, woman who is looking for some relaxation at the end of every stressful day.

Hobbies/Interests:

• Appreciating nature
• Soft orchestral music
• Cooking
• Exercising

Skills/Talents:

• Coffee making
• Cooking
• Multi-tasking
• Kickboxing (former welterweight)

Prized Possession:

A silver necklace, on which hangs a pair of dogtags, a locket and a very small USB drive. One tag has the name "M. Rowland" engraved on it, with "B+, NKDA, Christian" on the other side. The other tag has "US Army, 24th Infantry Battalion" on one side, and the single word "Marrow" on the other. The USB drive is a tiny one, unused, with the initials "JCS" on it.

History/Bio:

Audrey was born not in America, but in Russia, in the stark, cold of Moscow City. Growing up, she had a healthy dislike of learning, instead putting her time and focus into sports and fitness, stuff that she, young and naive, believed was more visibly important than studying. Her grades barely got her through school as it was, but her strong presence in her school's wrestling team more than helped her along the way. After she graduated, she was approached by a teacher from a kickboxing school, offering to teach her in the ways of fighting to eventually become an instructor at the same school, an offer she eagerly accepted. The school, of course, gave her many a bruise and lots of aches and pains, but it gave her a sense of fulfillment to go along with the suffering. Audrey eventually took part in her first ever kickboxing tourney and won third place; an achievement frowned upon by her teacher but who nevertheless praised her for her accomplishment.

As the years went by, she took part in more and more tournaments, until the Russian Kickboxing Federation recognised her as a rookie in the national standings and decided to place Audrey in her first ever major national championship. She quickly learned, however, that going to the nationals was way above her skill level, and it was with a heavy heart that she accepted her defeat and elimination during the qualifying rounds. The loss only fueled the eager fire within her and she trained ever harder, determined to win.

Around this time was when she met her to-be-husband, Brian Novovich. The man was an American-born Russian who'd flown to Moscow to participate in an annual friendly for expats and foreigners to fight against locals. During the friendly they fought against each other, and after the match was over they fell for each other quite readily. She'd lost, but the pain she felt was way less than the love she'd found for Brian. He suggested that they move to the States, where the competitions were more lively, and she agreed.

Fast forward ten years, during which they had a daughter, named Catherine, they almost filed for divorce due to fallings out between them, and Audrey lived in a small apartment above her cafe, the Haven, in Union Hills, just near the beach. Her former glories, kickboxing and athletics all behind her, she lived alone and tended to her cafe. Her husband and daughter lived elsewhere, out of State entirely, though they kept in semi-regular contact. She'd refused to leave Verthaven even after Brian had found out she was a metahuman, even after the horrendous events that had occured within the city involving people like her. He took her daughter and left out of concern for the family's safety, and she'd never seen them since. This was around the time her cafe attracted two metas who became her employees and subsequent friends; Marcus Rowland, a rowdy athlete and adrenaline junkie, and John Sykes, a quiet, soft-spoken computer nerd. Their friendship was just what she'd needed to keep the cafe aloft, and to keep her internal struggles intact. However, all that changed when Verthaven became a battleground between the government and the terrorist metas. She and her friends were caught in the middle, and when the dust settled, Marcus and John were dead. Her cafe was in ruins and her life was at an end. She prevailed where many others did not, however, and survived the initial disaster and the subsequent botched evacuation effort. When the Shield went down, she upped stakes and ran to Baybridge.

Once in Baybridge, she did the same thing she did in Verthaven: set up a cafe, albeit now in a more built up part of town instead of a beachside property. She now lives in an old apartment just a block away from her cafe, keeping watch yet again as the situation in her new home city changes from day to day. Her cafe, and by extension her tendency as a meta, attracted four new meta employees and people whom she considers good friends.

Relationships

Family:

• Markus Novalik, father; deceased.
• Arty Novalik, mother; deceased.
• Brian Novovich, husband; alive, estranged.
• Catherine Novalik, daughter; alive, separated.

Friends:

• Marcus Rowland, former employee and good friend; deceased.
• John Cole Sykes, former employee and good friend; deceased.

Dynamics:

WIP

Abilities

Power Class:

Elemental

Power:

• Smoke control; Aurora is able to control smoke in all its forms: dust storms, exhaust smoke, cigarettes, from fires, etc etc. She is able to disperse whatever particles are within the cloud into her surroundings or condense the cloud into a thick, murky mass that blinds and affects the respiratory system of anything caught inside it. She is also able to "grab" smoke to wield it as a weapon akin to a whip, using its semi-solid nature to harden her smoke whip or chain whenever it impacts something for maximum damage.
  
  She is also able to turn her body into a semi solid smoke form, wherein physical attacks cannot hit her, instead they pass through the smoke that makes up her body. She is able to travel through air ducts or vents with this side of her power, along with being able to mask herself in a cloud of smoke if a source of it is present.

Limits:

The power is limited to only herself. Sustaining her smoke form takes stamina, and she cannot maintain it for more than a few minutes straight without having to stop before she passes out.

Weaknesses/Drawbacks:

• Because her abilities are very reliant on smoke, she requires a source of smoke somewhere about her person or in her immediate vicinity in order to function at 100%. As such, she usually is seen smoking a cigarette or cigar, but catch her out near the ocean without a stick or a place where smoking is forbidden, and she's very much powerless. The constant smoking has also affected her respiratory system (gee who would've thunk it) and stamina as a result. She has a persistent cough, and cannot sustain any strenuous activities for more than a few minutes at a time without having to catch her breath.
• If she gets wet, she will be unable to transform into smoke, though that doesn't stop her from manipulating it.
• Wind affects her smoke form more than she cares to admit it; though she is able to maintain consistency of her smoke form in a gust of wind, she will experience difficulties in fighting the wind flow. In ventilation systems, her movements are virtually limited to where the wind blows.

Other:

None

[♛] 𝓡equiem. // the rise of soldier.

@FantasyChic Back to you.

[♛] 𝓡equiem. // the rise of soldier.

@FantasyChic Your go.

Baybridge: Halcyon Days [Superpower Roleplay/Interest Check & Advertisement]

@Mr Allen J Well if I don't get post swamped in this one, I shall be present again.