Enarr

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

-133

Post a random fact about yourself.

When I see people with the Jawbreaker logo on a bumper sticker or a tattoo, I feel less alone in the universe

Post a random fact about yourself.

I invoke song lyrics in the exact same manner that I was taught to invoke scripture when I was growing up.

Ban the Person above you

Banned because that's what this thread is for. Nothing personal, Rubes

Word association Game!

Bleach

The Blighted Kingdom

A L D E N T H E B L A C K

---

^{A L D E N K O L E ◼ 3 0 ◼ M A L E ◼ K A F A A R A}

^{"Everyone deserves a second chance. The fact that I'm here means that you must have already blown yours."}

▼ A P P E A R A N C E:

---

Alden is of short, burly stock. He'd once been covered in a bushlike robe of rock-hard, jet-black fur but the fire has left him as hairless as a looking glass. His sagging, roasted exterior betrays the otherwise enviable colony of muscle that lurks beneath his surface. His once proud demeanor has largely given way to a reverent silence, as he stands idle with his arms at rest, folded neatly across his barrel chest. He conceals his once-handsome face behind a stainless steel helmet, and every inch of his flesh beneath an all-consuming shroud of black fabric, having been humbled by his injury. When at work, however, the degree to which he is armored is situationally negotiable.

▼ B I O G R A P H Y:

---

Alden was born outside the city limits of Kafaara, to the Kole family. Their surname was owed to the fact that Alden's father, Arlen, owned and operated The Blackstar Mining Company, the primary supplier of coal to the majority of the Kafaaran peninsula with a healthy exporting business to boot. While they were, by all means, thoroughly financially secure, they had not yet gained the social acceptance of the nobility proper when their troubles began.

Around the time that Alden was twenty-three years old, having lost his elder brother to illness, he was being groomed to assume leadership of the company in the coming years, as his father turned his attention toward more social endeavors, shoehorning himself into whatever political intrigue he could. His mother, on the other hand, had been staying in Kafaara, just as she often had ever since Arlen's business had taken off, giving most all of her time and attention toward her devout study of the doctrine of The Barbed Church.

While The Blackstars were mining one fateful day, both Arlen and Alden, father and son, and many of their men were trapped in an underground coal fire that resulted in a cave-in, as a consequence of a burnt support beam giving way. Trapped within the toxic subterranean oven, most of the men died agonizing deaths. But it would seem that the world had other ends in mind for Alden. As dire as things were, he clung to life, even as the mine's infernal vapors seeped into his lungs before he was ultimately dug out by the company's response crew. Things were never the same again.

Alden's youngest brother, Adler, assumed control over The Blackstar's operations. If rumors were to be believed, he had orchestrated the cave-in in a fratricidal coup. No one ever seemed to have bothered investigating. In the fire's aftermath, Alden's molten skin took on a permanent ghoulish quality, like a wax sculpture that had been left under the summer sun. Beneath the surface, his lungs had also been marred, giving him a persistent cough, courtesy of the severe case of pneumonia he'd developed. Due to the ashen coat that he had been fished out of the mine wearing, he was gifted with the moniker "Alden the Black".

He'd never considered himself particularly religious, but nearly losing his life gave him a new perspective on things. The shame that came from his appearance led to him shrouding himself in an impenetrable wall of fabric, shielding every last inch of his skin from sight, and hiding his face behind a steel helmet. He began taking long journeys by foot into the wilderness, just to grow closer to the source of the world. In his solitude, out of necessity, he became a skilled hunter, a tracker. After realizing that he could be of greater service to the source of the world, he found his present occupation as a bounty hunter, taking contracts in service of The Church.

▼ C H A R A C T E R G O A L S:

---

Having thoroughly aligned himself with The Barbed Church following his near-death experience, he imagines that helping the kingdom find salvation from its penance is the reason for which he continues living. Anything less than answering the High Lord's call would be a demonstration of ingratitude for the mercy he was shown when he was rescued from the fire.

▼ S K I L L S:

---

//SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

◼ Brute Strength | From years of working in a coal mine
◼ Chivalry | Literally the discipline of riding a horse, he has become quite attuned to his steed, though he can get by with most any horse that has been through even the most basic of training
◼ Eyesight | From years of working in a coal mine
◼ Hearing | From year of working in a coal mine
◼ Poisoning | In order to avoid direct confrontations with any given target he tracks down, he generally prefers to poison them and let their own body incapacitate them
◼ Snaring | When he has the luxury of anticipating a target's movements, he's rather adept at arranging inconspicuous simple snares from whatever materials lay around

//FEARS AND WEAKNESSES:

◼ Gullible | If an official of The Barbed Church says something, he'll probably believe it.
◼ Insensitivity | The fire killed many of the nerves in his body. Sometimes he is entirely numb for hours. Sometimes he feels random pain. Sometimes, he mistakes the extent of his injuries.
◼ Miner's Lung | While he would otherwise be quite good at sneaking, his ability to remain silent is impeded by uncontrollable bouts of sudden, violent coughing
◼ Pyrophobia | It twists his gut up into a know just to think about being close to another flame

▼ N O T E S:

---

//PARAPHERNALIA

◼ Armor | Several modular pieces of armor that can be equipped as needed, none of which are worn by default.
◼ Dagger | A ceremonial blade common amongst the Barbed Church's followers
◼ Grappling Line | A hundred feet of nonadhesive spider-silk bound to a three pointed collapsible hook
◼ Handcuffs | Four pairs of steel cuffs
◼ Nightstick | A relatively lightweight, though dense, blunt instrument particularly well attuned for inflicting concussions
◼ Rope (Spider-Silk) | Just enough to hang himself with. Or someone else if it came to that.

Absolute Comics - Justice Rising

Legion

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

T H E L E G I O N O F S U P E R - H E R O E S

---

^{_{C O S M I C B O Y ♦ S A T U R N G I R L ♦ L I G H T N I N G L A D ♦ B R A I N I A C 5}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{"For We Are Many"}

The Legion of Super-Heroes formed in 2999 while saving the life of the wealthy philanthropist RJ Brande from an assassination attempt. Sponsored by Brande, they went on to do battle with both “mundane” ne’er-do-wells and out-n-out supervillains, the difference between the two became increasingly indistinct the more foreign they were. Roughly six months have passed since their formation and their roster has expanded to include Querl Dox, the genius descendant of the infamous supervillain Brainiac The First, and Chuck Taine, better known as Bouncing Boy who is the least loved of the Legionnaires.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

They don’t all have superpowers. They’re not all American. They don’t always tell the truth and they don’t always win. Across all of space-time if you drop a pin, zoom in and stare into the panel long enough, you’re bound to find man’s greatest creation, the wild superhero, a blue-collared godling. One cannot help but marvel at their might and hubris in equal measure.

All I’m here to do is tell stories about superheroes across space and time, showing how regardless of their biological makeup or social class, they stand as one. When you think about it, many of the Legionnaires are essentially swashbucklers who rely on their finesse since several of their “superpowers” are actually racial traits and therefore are not particularly uncommon, as opposed to the legendary Kryptonian pedigree.

Cosmic Boy really wants to be the ubermensch but doesn’t entirely understand what that actually entails and is therefore afraid he will be a bad ubermensch. Lightning Lad wants to fight the battles that no one else will, not so much to be inspirational, but for the justice-dealing equivalent of “getting it over with”. Saturn Girl believes that true victory is achieved without compromising her own dedication to justice and anti-egalitarianism, while also believing that criminals should live out their lives as secondary citizens. Brainiac enjoys being engaged intellectually and also enjoys the challenges associated with maintaining rewarding friendships. Sometimes he has to decide which one he enjoys more.

So I always wanted to play one of the games as a Legionnaire from the future, where they could rub shoulders with the rest of the superpeople, but then you have the mess of “the timeline”. So here’s how I get my cake and eat it too. There is a portal to the 21st Century from the 31st century located on Earth’s moon. From the perspective of those in the 21st, it leads to the 31st, with time progressing at an equal speed on both sides. So basically, they can literally just step over into the 21st Century.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

Any additional notes you want to put either for yourself, the GM's or other players to help clarify your vision or continuity.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

E P I S O D E Z E R O

Earth
2994

Everything hurts. God damnit--that means I must be alive. I’m in terrible agony, but not so much that I can’t string together a coherent sentence. I can’t necessarily repair the damage myself, at least not immediately, not in these conditions, but I can brush it under the rug and treat the symptoms. Yes, that’s better. All these humans I’ve been hanging around must be rubbing off on me. Just as they willfully disregarded the damage to their home world’s fragile ecosystem, using my innate shapeshifting powers, I can unplug a couple neurotransmitters here and there… and..

Voila! Self-induced congenital analgesia. I could get lectured by the UN for six-hours straight without wincing. To be truly pain free. Of course I wouldn’t notice if I was impaled on the spot either. Eh, you win some, you still kinda win some others.

My eye stalks rise above the lazy knot of biomass I’ve become. I’m repulsive and I don’t even have the luxury of blaming it on the stasis. I started letting myself go months before I went under.

“Is that what I think it is?” There’s a giant steel door that distinctly says “KEEP CLOSED” in big boxed letters. I can feel the hot air whispering through the vents from across the room. I look at it, lazily, wanting it to open and for the room to come over to me, but I am not so lucky as to be seated in Metron’s chair. Heck, even an earthstyle wheelchair would be preferable to making legs. I still haven’t worked out the biomechanics of how to propel myself with wheels or, you can believe me, I definitely would have by now.

With the bones and muscles in place, I walk over there, or hobble really. I am both literally and figuratively sorely out of practice. Planting my feet firmly, I wrap my upper body like a snake around the door handle, save myself the hassle of remembering how to make hands, tugging it open and feeling the frigid air stiffen my form. I’m not the only thing that had been kept on ice for the last couple millennia.

“Greetings Master Daggle. You’ve successfully arrived in the year 2994. You’ve been in stasis for roughly ten thousand years, give or take a hundred when adjusted for gravitational time dilation. Earth’s reputation as a breeding ground for superpeople has since been largely dismissed as unfounded legend. The Green Lantern and Nova Corps have long since dissolved. You look well.”

“Stop lying to me, Computo.”

“It wasn’t a lie, sir. When you’ve abstracted yourself like that, there is literally no other point of comparison and according to the laws of beauty that means that you are definitively the most well-crafted example of an anatomy like that.”

“I’d be flattered by that if I weren’t so bored. Let’s get down to business. Now that we’re here, how can I assemble a Legion of Super-Heroes that can protect the entire universe?”

“Interesting question. What do you mean protect the entire universe? Protect who? And from what?”

“You sound like your father. There’s a lotta what’s we’re gonna be staving off. What all options do we have for who?”

Earth
2999

His bangs are absolutely saturated with sweat as he steps through the chilly halls outside the magno ball arena. His lungs have heartly ever been stretched thinner. He takes air in and kicks it back out, but just can’t seem to get enough of it. It might just be that Earth doesn’t have enough oxygen at this altitude, or maybe the oxygenerators can’t keep up with a crowd this large. Both possibilities are concerning. Someone could get hurt.

“Hey man, great game,” a familiar voice calls to him before expositing: “You seriously hurt my chances of nabbing the scholarship I’ve spent the last two years pursuing and I might not be able to get into DC U, become a doctor, or meet any of my other life goals because of it, but hey.. you’re a damn good magno-ball player and I thought you should know.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Rokk says, struggling to breathe. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, when the match starts back up, I need you to do me a favor, man to man, pretty please. Look there is no way I can beat you. Honest. Your ferrokinesis is fucking uncanny and you’re obviously going to be a very rich man one day. Unless I can get over on you today, sometime in the next half hour, and impress the college scouts, my family is pretty much damned to spending an eternity in the underclass, living under the drug pushers and pimp daddies. I’m the only one in my family with anything resembling a work ethic.

Hate to sound like a dick, but I’m their only hope. I have a plan, I’m not entirely depending on the kindness of strangers, but I need your help. Whattaya say?”

Looking kinda lost, Rokk says, “But that’s entirely dishonest. Is that really how you want to rise to the top?”

“Listen man, it is kinda dishonest, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Hear me out: My mother has been working three jobs to get my brothers and sisters and I where we are and she is, unfortunately, pregnant and not legally allowed to call it off. She has worked hard her entire life because she wants me to be happy and I can’t be knowing that that is how I got here and why I still am.

I’m not rich, Rokk. I’m not super smart or well educated or anything like that, but I work hard enough to outpace every talented casual who didn’t have an empty plate or who could afford to see a doctor when he was sick. Yes it’s kinda dishonest, but it’s not evil. I just need your help to pay back everyone who got me here.”

Rokk wasn’t sure if it’s because it felt like his lungs were on fire or if it was because of the young man’s candor, but he had started crying halfway through. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got your back. And, hey man, I’m sorry, but what was your name again?”

“Pol.”

“Ah, I’m Rokk. What’s your last name.”

“It’s Krinn, exactly like yours actually.”

“Funny how many of us are out there.”

“Yeah, kinda. I just chalk it up to our ancestors losing touch with their homes and their own ancestry under various iron-fisted administrations, but sure, I guess it’s kinda funny.

“Is it me or is the air kinda thin in here to you?” Rokk says, finally deciding that it couldn’t reasonably just be that he had gotten winded.

“Super.”

“Let’s go talk to maintainence. They really should get on that.”

So, the two young Braalians made their way out of the field, through the locker room and into the general backstage areas, but most of the usual staff seemed to be suspiciously absent. Including security, which was hella alarming.

“What’s going on?” Rokk asked.

“Probably something dangerous,” Pol responded. “If you’re scared, don’t worry, I’ll look into it.”
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll get hurt?”

“No, not at all. I’m not afraid, I’m confident that I will get hurt, but that’s okay because someone has to be brave.”

“That’s remarkably selfless for a cheater.”

“You’re an asshole, Rokk. I need you to know that.” At that, Pol started walking down the hall prowling for hostiles. He turned a corner and faded out of Rokk’s sight and, shortly afterward, out of Rokk’s earshot. Rokk sat there, allowing his brand new friend to be brave for him. He was going to sit there as a bystander and Pol was going to die saving everyone from whatever was going on around the corner.

“No. Not happening. Don’t worry, Pol,” he said to himself before he started jogging behind him. “You’re not alone.”

When Rokk rounded the corner, he slipped and fell, smacking the ground after his hip caught on a water fountain and his heel had hydroplaned on fresh blood. Rokk cringed as he took in the sight of a dozen security guards, tasting the bitter iron taste in the air as red mist seemed to hang perpetually. There was blood on the walls and floor and it was somehow dripping from the light fixtures.

BWAAANGYEW

Rokk came around the corner and saw that Pol was battling against a pair of gunmen, one of whom had seemed to have shot the other, almost certainly due to Pol’s ferrokinetic powers bending the bullets trajectory. The men were side by side and chasing Pol back towards Rokk’s point.

Still feeling the fresh ache in his hip, he used his ferrokinesis to uninstall the sink from the wall, feeling it’s heft increased by the chunks of concrete sealed on the back of it. All the better to smash you with, Rokk thought as the metal ball cascaded against the gunmen, mashing them into a mess of flesh that happened to be holding two guns.

“Aaaugh!” Pol screamed, not understanding what had just transpired until his wide-eyes crashed into Rokk’s concerned gaze. “Heh, I’m probably not gonna unsee that any time soon.”

“Nah. No more than I can unsplash those men.” Rokk huffed, “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

“Yes,” Pol said under his breath, “You’re a very special little snowflake of death. Let’s go turn the air back on.”

And so the two boys made their way further into the maintenence tunnels, encountering no one who was alive until they found the security room, which they identified based on the fact that it’s door was thicker than all the others. When Rokk ripped it off its hinges, they found several monitors with live video feed. One of the screens featured a ginger boy, about their age, barbecuing a contingent of hostiles resembling the fellows they’d just encountered by the boiler room, while another featured a video of a blonde girl standing perfectly still while a purple plasma boiled out of her eyes, a pile of unconscious hostiles bordering her every direction, getting thicker as they continued to stab one another in the back. At that point, Pol found a map that confirmed the oxygenerators were in fact in The Boiler Room.

“Looks like Electrikid over there has that taken care of,” Pol said.

“I dunno, man. He just keeps fighting, I’m not sure he’s figured out what they’re after or trying to protect. I’d imagine he would. We probably would’ve figured it out by now.” Rokk shrugs his shoulders. “Better go back him up and turn the air back on.”

And so they made their way on over entirely without a hitch. It’d seem that the hostiles realized that they weren’t going to win that way. Either that, or there just wasn’t an infinite amount of hostiles. When they got there, they saw lightning forks froth off of the redheads hand and start to reach over toward the two athletes before he restrained himself, realizing they lacked any weaponry or tactical gear.

“Easy, we’re just here to turn the air back on,” Pol said.

Rokk noted, “That’s some arm you got there.”

The redhead, kinda grinned, or maybe he kinda coughed. “It’s a long story. Not so long that I can’t tell it, but long enough that I get pissed off halfway through no matter how I try to rush it. But yeah, the air is off, you say? I hadn’t noticed. Guess I figured I was just getting a workout.”

“Nope,” Pol said, “That would be the feeling of your brain cells dying off.”

The redhead gave a look that probably almost stung as much as one of those lightning bolts would’ve, unable to tell if that was meant passive aggressively, he decided to play it safe and take offense. “Asshole.”

“Name’s Pol Krinn, what’s yours?”

“Garth Ranzz.”

“That, in the boiler room, is my friend Rokk.”

“Yeah, I recognize him. He’s your friend? Your last names match, I would’ve assumed you were brothers.”

”Well, that’s fair enough of an assessment after the last twenty minutes. But still, you know what they say about assuming.”

“I did it,” Rokk barked victoriously. “Evidently the oxygen hadn’t been turned off at all, it was being pressurized in the upper levels of the arena by the skybox, mostly around box number nine: The one that RJ Brande was seated in.”

“I don’t think Brande would do all this just to freshen up the air in his room,” Garth commented. “I mean, rich people aren’t like the rest of us, but still.”

“Nah,” Pol said, “This smells like an assassination attempt to me. If it weren’t for all the corpses, I’m not sure I would’ve even been sure that anything was up. Thank god for those,” he says as he drags his hand over his forehead skin and over his sweat slickened face. “If anybody would’ve lit a match, then they all would’ve been nice and toasty.”

“Shit,” Garth barks, “we gotta go open a window ASAP,” before barreling down the hallways towards a staircase.

<Already on top of it. Imra Ardeen speaking, by the way. I caught wind of the goings on and you’re location a couple minutes ago. Let’s rendezvous by the front gate in ten minutes to sort this out and see what all we know.>

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

---

A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

Absolute Comics - Justice Rising

Legion

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

T H E L E G I O N O F S U P E R - H E R O E S

---

^{_{C O S M I C B O Y ♦ S A T U R N G I R L ♦ L I G H T N I N G L A D ♦ B R A I N I A C 5}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

---

^{"For We Are Many"}

The Legion of Super-Heroes formed in 2999 while saving the life of the wealthy philanthropist RJ Brande from an assassination attempt. Sponsored by Brande, they went on to do battle with both “mundane” ne’er-do-wells and out-n-out supervillains, the difference between the two became increasingly indistinct the more foreign they were. Roughly six months have passed since their formation and their roster has expanded to include Querl Dox, the genius descendant of the infamous supervillain Brainiac The First, and Chuck Taine, better known as Bouncing Boy who is the least loved of the Legionnaires.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

---

They don’t all have superpowers. They’re not all American. They don’t always tell the truth and they don’t always win. Across all of space-time if you drop a pin, zoom in and stare into the panel long enough, you’re bound to find man’s greatest creation, the wild superhero, a blue-collared godling. One cannot help but marvel at their might and hubris in equal measure.

All I’m here to do is tell stories about superheroes across space and time, showing how regardless of their biological makeup or social class, they stand as one. When you think about it, many of the Legionnaires are essentially swashbucklers who rely on their finesse since several of their “superpowers” are actually racial traits and therefore are not particularly uncommon, as opposed to the legendary Kryptonian pedigree.

Cosmic Boy really wants to be the ubermensch but doesn’t entirely understand what that actually entails and is therefore afraid he will be a bad ubermensch. Lightning Lad wants to fight the battles that no one else will, not so much to be inspirational, but for the justice-dealing equivalent of “getting it over with”. Saturn Girl believes that true victory is achieved without compromising her own dedication to justice and anti-egalitarianism, while also believing that criminals should live out their lives as secondary citizens. Brainiac enjoys being engaged intellectually and also enjoys the challenges associated with maintaining rewarding friendships. Sometimes he has to decide which one he enjoys more.

So I always wanted to play one of the games as a Legionnaire from the future, where they could rub shoulders with the rest of the superpeople, but then you have the mess of “the timeline”. So here’s how I get my cake and eat it too. There is a portal to the 21st Century from the 31st century located on Earth’s moon. From the perspective of those in the 21st, it leads to the 31st, with time progressing at an equal speed on both sides. So basically, they can literally just step over into the 21st Century.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

---

Any additional notes you want to put either for yourself, the GM's or other players to help clarify your vision or continuity.

S A M P L E P O S T:

---

E P I S O D E Z E R O

Earth
2994

Everything hurts. God damnit--that means I must be alive. I’m in terrible agony, but not so much that I can’t string together a coherent sentence. I can’t necessarily repair the damage myself, at least not immediately, not in these conditions, but I can brush it under the rug and treat the symptoms. Yes, that’s better. All these humans I’ve been hanging around must be rubbing off on me. Just as they willfully disregarded the damage to their home world’s fragile ecosystem, using my innate shapeshifting powers, I can unplug a couple neurotransmitters here and there… and..

Voila! Self-induced congenital analgesia. I could get lectured by the UN for six-hours straight without wincing. To be truly pain free. Of course I wouldn’t notice if I was impaled on the spot either. Eh, you win some, you still kinda win some others.

My eye stalks rise above the lazy knot of biomass I’ve become. I’m repulsive and I don’t even have the luxury of blaming it on the stasis. I started letting myself go months before I went under.

“Is that what I think it is?” There’s a giant steel door that distinctly says “KEEP CLOSED” in big boxed letters. I can feel the hot air whispering through the vents from across the room. I look at it, lazily, wanting it to open and for the room to come over to me, but I am not so lucky as to be seated in Metron’s chair. Heck, even an earthstyle wheelchair would be preferable to making legs. I still haven’t worked out the biomechanics of how to propel myself with wheels or, you can believe me, I definitely would have by now.

With the bones and muscles in place, I walk over there, or hobble really. I am both literally and figuratively sorely out of practice. Planting my feet firmly, I wrap my upper body like a snake around the door handle, save myself the hassle of remembering how to make hands, tugging it open and feeling the frigid air stiffen my form. I’m not the only thing that had been kept on ice for the last couple millennia.

“Greetings Master Daggle. You’ve successfully arrived in the year 2994. You’ve been in stasis for roughly ten thousand years, give or take a hundred when adjusted for gravitational time dilation. Earth’s reputation as a breeding ground for superpeople has since been largely dismissed as unfounded legend. The Green Lantern and Nova Corps have long since dissolved. You look well.”

“Stop lying to me, Computo.”

“It wasn’t a lie, sir. When you’ve abstracted yourself like that, there is literally no other point of comparison and according to the laws of beauty that means that you are definitively the most well-crafted example of an anatomy like that.”

“I’d be flattered by that if I weren’t so bored. Let’s get down to business. Now that we’re here, how can I assemble a Legion of Super-Heroes that can protect the entire universe?”

“Interesting question. What do you mean protect the entire universe? Protect who? And from what?”

“You sound like your father. There’s a lotta what’s we’re gonna be staving off. What all options do we have for who?”

Earth
2999

His bangs are absolutely saturated with sweat as he steps through the chilly halls outside the magno ball arena. His lungs have heartly ever been stretched thinner. He takes air in and kicks it back out, but just can’t seem to get enough of it. It might just be that Earth doesn’t have enough oxygen at this altitude, or maybe the oxygenerators can’t keep up with a crowd this large. Both possibilities are concerning. Someone could get hurt.

“Hey man, great game,” a familiar voice calls to him before expositing: “You seriously hurt my chances of nabbing the scholarship I’ve spent the last two years pursuing and I might not be able to get into DC U, become a doctor, or meet any of my other life goals because of it, but hey.. you’re a damn good magno-ball player and I thought you should know.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Rokk says, struggling to breathe. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, when the match starts back up, I need you to do me a favor, man to man, pretty please. Look there is no way I can beat you. Honest. Your ferrokinesis is fucking uncanny and you’re obviously going to be a very rich man one day. Unless I can get over on you today, sometime in the next half hour, and impress the college scouts, my family is pretty much damned to spending an eternity in the underclass, living under the drug pushers and pimp daddies. I’m the only one in my family with anything resembling a work ethic.

Hate to sound like a dick, but I’m their only hope. I have a plan, I’m not entirely depending on the kindness of strangers, but I need your help. Whattaya say?”

Looking kinda lost, Rokk says, “But that’s entirely dishonest. Is that really how you want to rise to the top?”

“Listen man, it is kinda dishonest, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Hear me out: My mother has been working three jobs to get my brothers and sisters and I where we are and she is, unfortunately, pregnant and not legally allowed to call it off. She has worked hard her entire life because she wants me to be happy and I can’t be knowing that that is how I got here and why I still am.

I’m not rich, Rokk. I’m not super smart or well educated or anything like that, but I work hard enough to outpace every talented casual who didn’t have an empty plate or who could afford to see a doctor when he was sick. Yes it’s kinda dishonest, but it’s not evil. I just need your help to pay back everyone who got me here.”

Rokk wasn’t sure if it’s because it felt like his lungs were on fire or if it was because of the young man’s candor, but he had started crying halfway through. “Yeah, sure. I’ve got your back. And, hey man, I’m sorry, but what was your name again?”

“Pol.”

“Ah, I’m Rokk. What’s your last name.”

“It’s Krinn, exactly like yours actually.”

“Funny how many of us are out there.”

“Yeah, kinda. I just chalk it up to our ancestors losing touch with their homes and their own ancestry under various iron-fisted administrations, but sure, I guess it’s kinda funny.

“Is it me or is the air kinda thin in here to you?” Rokk says, finally deciding that it couldn’t reasonably just be that he had gotten winded.

“Super.”

“Let’s go talk to maintainence. They really should get on that.”

So, the two young Braalians made their way out of the field, through the locker room and into the general backstage areas, but most of the usual staff seemed to be suspiciously absent. Including security, which was hella alarming.

“What’s going on?” Rokk asked.

“Probably something dangerous,” Pol responded. “If you’re scared, don’t worry, I’ll look into it.”
“Aren’t you afraid we’ll get hurt?”

“No, not at all. I’m not afraid, I’m confident that I will get hurt, but that’s okay because someone has to be brave.”

“That’s remarkably selfless for a cheater.”

“You’re an asshole, Rokk. I need you to know that.” At that, Pol started walking down the hall prowling for hostiles. He turned a corner and faded out of Rokk’s sight and, shortly afterward, out of Rokk’s earshot. Rokk sat there, allowing his brand new friend to be brave for him. He was going to sit there as a bystander and Pol was going to die saving everyone from whatever was going on around the corner.

“No. Not happening. Don’t worry, Pol,” he said to himself before he started jogging behind him. “You’re not alone.”

When Rokk rounded the corner, he slipped and fell, smacking the ground after his hip caught on a water fountain and his heel had hydroplaned on fresh blood. Rokk cringed as he took in the sight of a dozen security guards, tasting the bitter iron taste in the air as red mist seemed to hang perpetually. There was blood on the walls and floor and it was somehow dripping from the light fixtures.

BWAAANGYEW

Rokk came around the corner and saw that Pol was battling against a pair of gunmen, one of whom had seemed to have shot the other, almost certainly due to Pol’s ferrokinetic powers bending the bullets trajectory. The men were side by side and chasing Pol back towards Rokk’s point.

Still feeling the fresh ache in his hip, he used his ferrokinesis to uninstall the sink from the wall, feeling it’s heft increased by the chunks of concrete sealed on the back of it. All the better to smash you with, Rokk thought as the metal ball cascaded against the gunmen, mashing them into a mess of flesh that happened to be holding two guns.

“Aaaugh!” Pol screamed, not understanding what had just transpired until his wide-eyes crashed into Rokk’s concerned gaze. “Heh, I’m probably not gonna unsee that any time soon.”

“Nah. No more than I can unsplash those men.” Rokk huffed, “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

“Yes,” Pol said under his breath, “You’re a very special little snowflake of death. Let’s go turn the air back on.”

And so the two boys made their way further into the maintenence tunnels, encountering no one who was alive until they found the security room, which they identified based on the fact that it’s door was thicker than all the others. When Rokk ripped it off its hinges, they found several monitors with live video feed. One of the screens featured a ginger boy, about their age, barbecuing a contingent of hostiles resembling the fellows they’d just encountered by the boiler room, while another featured a video of a blonde girl standing perfectly still while a purple plasma boiled out of her eyes, a pile of unconscious hostiles bordering her every direction, getting thicker as they continued to stab one another in the back. At that point, Pol found a map that confirmed the oxygenerators were in fact in The Boiler Room.

“Looks like Electrikid over there has that taken care of,” Pol said.

“I dunno, man. He just keeps fighting, I’m not sure he’s figured out what they’re after or trying to protect. I’d imagine he would. We probably would’ve figured it out by now.” Rokk shrugs his shoulders. “Better go back him up and turn the air back on.”

And so they made their way on over entirely without a hitch. It’d seem that the hostiles realized that they weren’t going to win that way. Either that, or there just wasn’t an infinite amount of hostiles. When they got there, they saw lightning forks froth off of the redheads hand and start to reach over toward the two athletes before he restrained himself, realizing they lacked any weaponry or tactical gear.

“Easy, we’re just here to turn the air back on,” Pol said.

Rokk noted, “That’s some arm you got there.”

The redhead, kinda grinned, or maybe he kinda coughed. “It’s a long story. Not so long that I can’t tell it, but long enough that I get pissed off halfway through no matter how I try to rush it. But yeah, the air is off, you say? I hadn’t noticed. Guess I figured I was just getting a workout.”

“Nope,” Pol said, “That would be the feeling of your brain cells dying off.”

The redhead gave a look that probably almost stung as much as one of those lightning bolts would’ve, unable to tell if that was meant passive aggressively, he decided to play it safe and take offense. “Asshole.”

“Name’s Pol Krinn, what’s yours?”

“Garth Ranzz.”

“That, in the boiler room, is my friend Rokk.”

“Yeah, I recognize him. He’s your friend? Your last names match, I would’ve assumed you were brothers.”

”Well, that’s fair enough of an assessment after the last twenty minutes. But still, you know what they say about assuming.”

“I did it,” Rokk barked victoriously. “Evidently the oxygen hadn’t been turned off at all, it was being pressurized in the upper levels of the arena by the skybox, mostly around box number nine: The one that RJ Brande was seated in.”

“I don’t think Brande would do all this just to freshen up the air in his room,” Garth commented. “I mean, rich people aren’t like the rest of us, but still.”

“Nah,” Pol said, “This smells like an assassination attempt to me. If it weren’t for all the corpses, I’m not sure I would’ve even been sure that anything was up. Thank god for those,” he says as he drags his hand over his forehead skin and over his sweat slickened face. “If anybody would’ve lit a match, then they all would’ve been nice and toasty.”

“Shit,” Garth barks, “we gotta go open a window ASAP,” before barreling down the hallways towards a staircase.

<Already on top of it. Imra Ardeen speaking, by the way. I caught wind of the goings on and you’re location a couple minutes ago. Let’s rendezvous by the front gate in ten minutes to sort this out and see what all we know.>

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

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I have an extremely average amount of fingers upon my hands

Men vs. Women Race to 1000: Version 2.0

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