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Opinionated nerd for hire.

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In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 2 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"Oh, I see you've got some jokes of your own!" the Yellow Jester shouted over his comms, apparently oblivious to the stone bridge beneath him beginning to buckle from the combined fire of the Green Knights. "Stop me if you've heard this one!"

The Crusader turned its attention to the Green Knights' Ostroc, letting loose into the already wounded Mech with a salvo of Short-Range Missiles, Medium Lasers, and Machine Gun fire. Both lasers struck home, carving rivulets of molten armor from the Ostroc's left leg and scoring a direct hit in the center of its torso. While the Machine Gun fire sparked and panged harmlessly across the Mech's armor, six of the Crusader's twelve SRMs impacted. Armed with Inferno warheads, these missiles coated the Ostroc in white-hot incendiary gel, spiking the laser-boat's heat to dangerous levels.

"Hey, Jester?" Captain Waffles called out in his effectively pristine Catapult. "I don't think this ground is safe. What say we back off and--"

"NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BACK AWAY!!!!" the lunatic shouted, the bridge crumbling with every step. "NOW IS THE TIME TO HARTY-WARTY-PARRRTYYYY!!!!"

"Oh, to hell with this," the Catapult pilot said, triggering his jump jets and rising up into the air. "You can get killed all you want, Stroheim, I'm gonna--"

A volley of SRMs from the Green Knights' Raven cut off Captain Waffles' sentence, with most of the warheads blasting away chunks of armor but doing little else. One missile, however, struck the Catapult directly in the cockpit, throwing the Crimson Fists' Mechwarrior hard against the restraints of his command couch and smacking his head hard against a console. Reflexively, his grip tightened on the firing studs of his control sticks, returning fire against the Raven with a salvo of medium lasers just as he lost consciousness.

Two of the lasers went wide, but the other two connected. One caught the smaller Mech square in the center torso, while the other penetrated the remaining armor on its right side, and appropriately enough, disabled the SRM launcher that had killed him.

Rather than retreat back to safety as intended, the unconscious Captain Waffles brought his Catapult straight up, then straight back down onto the bridge, just as the combined fire of the Green Knights caused the bridge to give way.

"Ohhhhh," Yellow Jester said, seemingly finally aware of what his enemies had done. "...now that's funny!"

The mountain pass resounded with the thunderous noise of crumbling rock as the bridge gave way, the last two Crimson Fist Battlemechs plummeting down into the ravine. Amid the deafening racket, the Yellow Jester's laughter played out over the comms as his Crusader, the Catapult, and the remains of the Hunchback were swallowed up in the darkness and dust below.

"Sensors are showing the other Mechbuster is bugging out," Colonel Wayne called out on the Green Knights' channel. "The Espian Guard still has a wing of Meteor fighters on patrol, estimated time they'll be converging on the area within thirty minutes. Plenty of time for us to give them the slip. Return to base for debriefing and repairs."

Closing the channel, the Colonel let out a deep sigh.

"Whoo, that's how it's done!" Cadet Higgins shouted, pumping his fists into the air. "Scratch one whole lance of Crimson Shits!"

"I thought you were calling them 'Fisters,'" Cadet Windham said.

"Well, the latter eventually leads to the former," Higgins sneered.

"That's disgusting," Lieutenant Lyons scolded her cadets.

"Hey, what's disgusting is how one-sided our win was," Higgins laughed. "The Crimson Fists kept talking a big game about how they were gonna wipe the Green Knights out, and then when it came to an actual stand-up fight, they went down faster than a Canopian Cat-Girl on--"

"That's enough," the Colonel cut them off.

"Apologies, Colonel," Lieutenant Lyons said, rebuking Higgins and Windham with a dirty look. "We're just excited to have gotten a big win on the board. After what those guys did to that village, taking them down has to have felt pretty good, right?"

The Colonel looked at the monitors, showing BattleROM footage transmitted from Ziska's Raven.

"We've bloodied their noses, and collected data that will help clear our name of the massacre," he stated. "As for it feeling good, after what happened to Keahi, seeing what they did while wearing our colors....no, it really doesn't."

The rest of their trip was spent in silence as the Mobile HQ made its way down the mountain pass, slinking away into the night.

M I S S I O N S U C C E S S F U L
In Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG → 2 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
I was planning on putting in an application a week ago, but life happened. Now that life has settled down a bit:

Name: Heart of Dixie Wrestling
Territory: Alabama, east Mississippi. Shows (mostly) run out of the Gadsden Coliseum, an all-purpose sports complex, gym, and rec center in Gadsden, Alabama.
Style: old-school Southern rasslin'
Television: NWA-HDW Saturday Night Special, airing at 11pm Saturday nights on CBS-affiliate stations in the surrounding counties
Promotion Champions:
Heart of Dixie Champion: "Action" Jack Macklin- a muscle bound hunk now well into his forties, Action Jack was at one time the hottest up-and-coming contender in the NWA...until he got injured and Mighty Morgan took his spot. Macklin is a shell of what he used to be, and while he puts on a happy face for the fans, inside he's a deeply bitter, resentful man.
HDW Tag Team Champions: The Hollywood Express. A pair of cagey heels who know every dirty trick in the game, "Nasty" Nick Rogers and "Handome" Dan Henshaw used to terrorize the larger Georgia territory along with their arch-rivals the Rockin' Rebels. Once the Rebels broke up, however, the Express have been floundering, and are trying to revitalize their career.
Queen of Dixie Champion: Princess Pauline McLarty. A 20-year-old beauty pageant contender who is only there because her father, car dealership tycoon "Big Bill" McLarty, is a lifelong mark who pays HDW's bills.

Promotion Top Stars:
"The Outlaw" Bart McCall: an aging cowboy wrestler and former NWA Champion, everyone respects and reveres McCall as a legend, just as much as everyone knows the Outlaw's best days are far behind him.
"Disaster" Don Murdock: a 400-lb biker with a questionable past, Disaster Don has been HDW's top heel for years. Don is fiercely loyal to HDW, and doesn't like that the title and the spot of head Booker have both gone to "tourists" from up north.
Ricky Romeo: a good-looking rookie talent, Ricky Romeo is something of a local heartthrob, but hasn't really found his character yet. Most people agree he's only here until he's ready to move on to a bigger promotion.
"Rocketman" Shawn Dillon: a high-flyer and former NBA hopeful, Dillon is a reliable fan-favorite who struggles with cracking the main event. Shawn suspects he's being intentionally held back because of his race.
Mad Maxie: another rookie with a "crazy mental patient" gimmick, Mad Maxie is actually Maxine Macklin, Action Jack's daughter. While she was initially happy to follow in her dad's footsteps, she's beginning to resent only getting opportunities because of her dad, and is struggling to find her own identity out from under his shadow.

Booker: Dennis "Sonny" DeAngelo
Sonny DeAngelo started his career in the movie industry in the 1970s, working on low-budget action flicks, corny daytime soap operas, and trashy pornos. While he's always done low-brow work, he nevertheless takes the creative side of his job seriously, as he sees it as the only "honest" art there is, giving people the cheap violence and sex appeal that everyone wants on a primal level. In the 80s, Sonny found himself working for the NWA in the New York territory, and found it a natural fit. His proclivities for drugs, cheap sex, and gambling made him popular with the boys in the locker room, but also got him in trouble with some very shady people. When the NWA began to clean up its corporate image, DeAngelo was one of the first people on the chopping block.

Looking for work and wanting to put as much distance between himself and the shady types he owed back North, Sonny traveled South and found a rinky-dink rasslin' promotion in Alabama, somewhere he could ply his trade as a creative genius of the low-brow arts without drawing too much attention to himself. He befriended the promotion's money-man, the boisterous and dumb-as-a-brick Big Bill McLarty, and before Big Bill knew it Sonny was the head Booker of Heart of Dixie Wrestling.

Over the last year, however, Sonny has started to realize he may have bitten off more than he could chew. Heart of Dixie was always smaller than the larger Georgia territory, but now the Atlanta shows are starting to move in on their turf. The crowds simply aren't as interested in the old-school Southern heroes as they used to be, especially since most of them are getting old and fat and dysfunctional, and any up-and-coming talent is quick to get poached by Atlanta. HDW can barely afford to keep the lights on, even after squeezing more money from Bil Bill- and worse, Sonny's "friends" from up North have caught up with him. Both HDW and Sonny himself are on borrowed time, and if things don't change quickly, neither one might live to see 1991.
In Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG → 2 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Edit: wrong thread
In Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Interest Checks
I'm definitely interested.
In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


As Honk-Honk's Panther and Bing-Bong's Hunchback both exploded in short order, the Yellow Jester reflected for a moment on how quickly things had gotten out of hand. If there were any gods out there in the blackness of space looking over him and his deeds, he'd have supposed this was some higher justice being meted out. The massacre in that little speck of a town was just the latest in a long line of 'pranks' and 'japes' he'd pulled over the years, going back well before he'd gotten into the mercenary trade. It's possible that this was just all of his sins catching up to him.

On the other hand, though, pissing off the gallant and noble Green Knights to the point where they themselves would carry out a merciless massacre of their own was a pretty great gag.

Jester's Crusader leaned to one side from a sudden shift in mass, as the large laser of the Green Knight's Phoenix Hawk gouged out molten chunks of armor. As the lighter mech arced through the air, determined to plant its foot directly into his cockpit, Jester licked his lips.

"Ah, so you want to play tag?" He called out, suddenly hurling the Crusader's mass to one side and dodging the Phoenix Hawk's foot as it came crashing down into the snow. "All right, then, you're it!"

The Crusader swung its bulky oversized gauntlets towards the Green Knight 'Mech, but the Mechwarrior in the Phoenix Hawk was no slouch at melee combat. The Green Knight ducked under the first punch, and when the second one came arcing towards its head, the lighter 'Mech got its left arm up in time to take the brunt of the blow. As the Phoenix Hawk staggered from the impact, Yellow Jester took the opportunity to break away and advance on the other Green Knights.

"I believe it would be only fair to let your friends play too, ha-ha!" he jeered, surging the Crusader onto the ice bridge to close the gap between himself and the wounded Ostroc, then letting loose with his short-range weapons. The Inferno-tipped SRMs went wild, and Jester's manic smile turned into a frustrated scowl for a moment. His lasers and machine guns, however, found their mark, raking across the Ostroc's torso, a burst of 12.5mm lead stitching its way up the 'Mech to connect with its head.

"Ha! Going to need an aspirin after that, I'll bet ya!" he taunted.

"The situation's looking pretty dire, Jester," came the voice of Captain Waffles, the Mechwarrior in the Catapult on loan from the Fire Witch, as his 'Mech strode up beside his. "Seven on two is long odds."

As it advanced, the Catapult let fly with its LRMs towards the Knights' Shadow Hawk. While the first flight of missiles scattered harmlessly around the 55-tonner, the second flight found its mark, all fifteen missiles arcing directly toward the Shadow Hawk's head. While the Green Knight pilot shielded its head with its left arm like the Phoenix Hawk, a third of them did make contact, no doubt rattling the pilot inside.

"Ohhh come now, Captain Waffles!" Jester chided him. "You're a Mechwarrior, aren't you? Since when has a trifling little thing like certain death ever scared us away? What say we bring one or two of them along for the ride?"

"Well, the Witch did demand I burn one of these Knights in her name," the Catapult pilot said, turning his attention toward the Ostroc. "What say we take you down to hell with us?"

The 65-tonner's heat spiked as it fired all four of its Medium Lasers into the Ostroc. Two of them missed, but the other two carved more into the Ostroc's torso. One of the beams managed to pierce the enemy 'Mech's armor, and for a moment, 'Captain Waffles' hoped to see the telltale green smoke of a crippled gyro or the leaking plasma of an engine hit....

...but to his disappointment, he merely hit the internal 'ribcage,' and the glow of superheated metal quickly faded, as did their chances of killing the Knights' lance leader.

"Well, since we're not getting out of here," the Catapult pilot sighed as the enemy Mechs and heavy tank closed in on them from all sides, "I wanted you to know that, even though we never had many chances to work together.....I always hated your fucking guts, Stroheim."

"No names, Waffles!" Jester hissed.

"....whatever....come and get it, Green Knights."
In Rise of Rasalhague → 3 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"Ohhh-ho-ho, it's my lucky day," Remy said as the sky filled with small plumes of enemy jump infantry. "You folks take care of the big guy; I'll take crowd control."

He turned his attention away from the hulking figure of the Hunchback and towards the incoming soft targets. As much as his instincts screamed at him to charge headlong at the larger brawler and duke it out, that all came from his years piloting heavier 'Mechs. He knew damn well a Firestarter didn't have the armor or the firepower to trade blows with anything but other light 'Mechs, and his only real hope of doing damage against the Hunchback would have been to get a lucky shot through an opening in the armor. Maybe if it was one of the 'Swayback' variants loaded up with lasers he could play hell with its heat, but against the standard model, he'd most likely just get on its nerves.

That jump infantry, on the other hand, was in for the shortest-longest day of their lives.

"Come to Papa, you stupid sonsabitches!" He shouted over his 'Mech's internal speakers as he charged headlong towards his unfortunate targets. He was still running hot after unloading his weapons into the now scrapped Jenner, so as much as it pained him to have to hold something back, he took aim at one of the incoming Rippers and fired his Medium Lasers.

The first Laser tagged the incoming VTOL in the rotor, turning to superheated slag the mechanism that kept the transport airborne. Immediately, the Ripper began to roll hard to one side, causing the second Laser to miss, but by then the VTOL's fate was sealed. As the Ripper careened headlong towards its doom, Remy switched to his next Target-Interlock Circuit, triggering his Machine Guns into the group of jump infantry that had just disembarked.

If those mud-marchers were able to get to the ground and start firing from cover-- or worse, get on his 'Mech or one of his lance-mates-- then they'd be a bastard and a half to deal with. In the air, though, they were such easy pickings that it hardly seemed fair.

Hot lead filled the sky, and Remy sneered as he saw some of those jump plumes snuff out with puffs of red. The Firestarter's .50 caliber machine guns were piddling against 'Mechs, but there wasn't any armor in all the Inner Sphere that could protect an infantry trooper from a hit. Bullets punched gory tunnels through the bodies of unlucky troopers, blasting off limbs and popping the head of one soldier like an overripe melon.

He'd heard of Battlemechs referred to from time to time as "walking war crimes," and Remy usually thought that was little more than tough-talk from overzealous Mechwarrior enthusiasts. You could put that label on just about anything capable of moving and shooting. His Firestarter, on the other hand, seemed like it was purpose-built for terrorizing anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. And as if to drive that point home, he triggered his primary Target-Interlock-Circuit, activating the weapons that gave the 'Mech its name.

Not wanting to cook himself completely, Remy only let loose with two of his four Flamers, but even that was plenty. One of the jets of plasma cut a swath straight through a tight grouping of troops, the poor souls frying before they even had a chance to fight back. The other Flamer caught only about half as many, but he'd effectively wiped out a whole platoon of jump troopers before they'd hit the ground.

"Hoooo-eee!" he let out a triumphant whoop as the air around him filled with the screams of dying men, right around the time the Ripper he had tagged finally slammed into one of the ferrocrete walls of the enemy compound, erupting into a dirty-orange fireball with the impact. "How do you fellas like your infantry: regular, or extra-crispy?!"
In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 4 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"Shit, that's my arm gone!" called out Honk-Honk, the mercenary in the Panther, as a flight of SRMs from the Green Knights' Raven pockmarked its armor, before snapping the composite alloy bone, myomer muscle bundles, and power couplings that held the light Mech's right arm in place. With the limb fully severed, the Panther staggered, but the mercenary inside managed to keep its footing. "Hell with this, I'm punching out!"

Inside the cockpit of the Panther, the Mechwarrior reached up behind his head to a small black-and-yellow-striped handle hanging above his command couch. Yanking the handle down hard, he braced himself for the explosive bolts that would blow the 'Mech's cockpit open to let his ejection pod rocket away to safety.

Instead, the Mech's external speakers activated, letting out a loud, wet-sounding BRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAP.

"Phhheeeeewwwww-weee, was that you, Honk-Honk?!" called out the Yellow Jester.

"Are you kidding me with this shit?!" Honk-Honk all but screamed at his commanding officer.

"Oh, please, I'm always kidding," the psychotic Crimson Fists lance leader said as he advanced in the Crusader. "But let's be honest, I doubt the goodie-woodie-doodie-two-shoes Knights are going to let bad bad men like us get away anyway. Might as well see this show to the end, ha-haaa!"

"Us or them, Honk-Honk," said Bing-Bong, who pushed his Hunchback forward and drove his Mech's foot into the leg of the damaged Ostroc. Rather than give the Green Knight a full salvo, he turned the stout Mech's torso and instead opened fire into the back of the Knights' Phoenix Hawk. While the massive slug from its autocannon went wide, one of the Medium Lasers found its target square in the enemy Mech's back, boiling away what little armor the Phoenix Hawk had in that location.

"Right, right, us or them," muttered Honk-Honk, who limped his wounded Panther to also flank the Phoenix Hawk, letting fly with his four-pack of Short-Range Missiles, the only weapon he had left at his disposal. Two of the missiles streaked into the mountainside, but the other two hit the mark, one of them digging into the internal structure exposed by the Hunchback's laser. "Okay, now we're talking!"

While the Phoenix Hawk still had plenty of armor in the front, another solid hit from behind now risked coring the Mech out.

"Oh yoo-hoo, Captain Waffles!" The Yellow Jester called out to his lancemate in the Catapult. "I spy with my little eye, a missile boat on the other side of the ravine!"

"I see him, Jester," the Catapult pilot said as he moved his Mech to a vantage point and opened the bay doors of the boxy missile launchers on his shoulders.

"And if remember my math-o-magics," he said, "I do believe two missile boats are greater than one!"

"Sounds about right to me."

"Then what to you say we multiply our firepower together," the Jester continued, "and subtract that Archer from the equation?!"

"I'd say those numbers add up," Captain Waffles concurred, and the two missile-support Mechs let fly with a combined sixty long-range missiles. The warheads rained down on the seventy-tonner, kicking up clouds of smoke and dust all around it. In total, only a bit more than half of the missiles connected, but they shredded substantial chunks of armor away from the Archer's legs and torso.

For good measure, the Catapult opened fire with two of its Medium Lasers into the Phoenix Hawk, one beam catching the lighter Mech in the right leg, while the other caught it flush in the chest. "The Fire Witch wants all of your souls, but you and the Raven she wants most. I'll reduce the both of you to cinders in her name!"

"That's the spirit, Waffles!" The Yellow Jester egged him on as a low rumble began to fill the air. "Ooooh, and don't look now, but we might have a couple of special party guests!"

The Raven's ECM had kept the Crimson Fists from calling for reinforcements, but the Yellow Jester abandoning his Firestarter had caused its IFF transponder to go offline. Ironically, it was the sudden lack of a signal that had tripped the Espian Guards that something had gone wrong with the Crimson Fists, and they had scrambled fighters to investigate.



"Jester Actual, this is Sledgehammer One," came the unmistakably aloof, cocky voice of an aero-jock as the Espian Guards' two Mechbusters roared into the mountain pass. "Preparing to engage, danger-close."

The pair of Mechbusters were flying dangerously low, having to rely on eyeball recognition as the Raven's electronic warfare equipment was interfering with their ability to track targets on instruments. The sabotage that the Green Knights had pulled in the spaceport wasn't helping things either, as someone had been monkeying around with both planes' electricals, effectively shorting out their secondary weapons' fire control without extensive downtime. Once they had managed to get the Mechbusters' main cannons online, General Kwan had ordered them on near-constant patrol.

Without their guided missiles due to sabotage and without proper IFF thanks to the Raven's ECM bubble, the two Mechbusters swooped in and fired their cannons at the one target they could be sure wasn't one of the Crimson Fists: the Von Luckner. Sledgehammer One's salvo hit just short, ripping a deep trench in front of the heavy tank. Sledgehammer Two, however, was right on the money, with a torrent of depleted-uranium shells chewing off nearly half of the Von Luckner's substantial front armor.

Pulling up as they reached the edge of the valley, the two Mechbusters peeled off in either direction, wheeling around to make another pass. Between the lethal power of their autocannons, the monstrous cannon on the Hunchback, and the missile salvos from the Catapult and Crusader, a combined salvo from the Crimson Fists and Espian Air Guard could theoretically destroy any of the Green Knights' Mechs outright. It just came down to where the Yellow Jester directed his fire.

"Now, let's see who wants to make their acquaintance with the dirt first!" he taunted, raising the Crusader's humanoid hand and extending a finger to point at each of the Knights in succession. "Eenie....meenie.....miney...."

WARNING: ENEMY MECH DETECTED

"What the what?" the Crimson Fist commander asked, caught off-guard by the arrival.

Another Battlemech was approaching, coming up from the southeast corner of the mountain pass....from behind the Crimson Fists...
In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 5 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED

RIGHT ARM DESTROYED

LEFT ARM DESTROYED

REACTOR SHIELDING BREACHED

EJECT

EJECT

EJ--

"Enough out of you!" the Yellow Jester barked at the automated voice of "Bitchin' Betty" as the cockpit of his Firestarter was filled with flashing warning lights and the blaring of klaxons. "I heard you the first time, and it wasn't funny then!"

The combined fire from the Green Knights' last salvo had left his Battlemech ravaged, the Mech's internal structure holding together almost entirely through spite. Firing his Jump Jets, the Yellow Jester tried to put as much distance between himself and the enemy Mechs as possible, and winced when he felt the Firestarter begin to crumple in on itself upon landing. Opening up a channel to the other members of his lance, he shouted orders and began unfastening the restraints that held him inside his command couch.

"Bing Bong, Honk-Honk, Captain Waffles! Form a firing line and start giving these spoil-sports something to laugh about!" One of his command consoles went dead as he began to work on the cable that connected his neurohelmet to the 'Mech. "Mister Dimples, come give me a kiss!"

"You sure about that, boss?" the pilot of the Crusader asked as a pair of lasers raked across the heavy Mech's armor, followed by a peppering of Short-Range Missiles. "They've already got me narced and tagged, and this maneuver is--"

"I said kiss me, you fool!" He shouted, the sheer ridiculousness of his idea making him more than a bit giddy. "The rest of you! These Knights like to hear themselves talk; keep them yammering for a bit!"

"All right, sure thing," said Bing Bong as his Hunchback lumbered forward, taking an errant swipe at the nearby Phoenix Hawk before taking aim at the biggest gun the Green Knights had: the monstrous AC/20 on their Von Luckner tank. Switching on an open channel, he shouted. "Hey Greenies! What has two thumbs and is about blow your fuckin' heads off!"

With a deafening thunderclap, the Hunchback's cannon fired a high-explosive shell across the ravine, catching the Von Luckner's turret flush. His follow-up attacks with his arm-mounted Lasers went wide, but the primary damage was done.

Answering his own joke, he flexed his Mech's hand actuators to point his thumbs to his Mech's cockpit. "THIS GUY!!!!" For good measure, he swung the Hunchback's leg in a wide swinging kick at the Green Knights' Phoenix Hawk, which the more nimble Mech easily dodged.

"Hah!" laughed Honk-Honk as his Panther painfully lurched forward. "Okay, okay, I got one....what's a Green Knight's favorite novel by the ancient poet Hemingway?"

As the Phoenix Hawk's Large Laser boiled away armor off of the Panther's right arm, Honk-Honk raised the Particle Projector Cannon on the damaged limb at took aim- not at the closer Phoenix Hawk, but at the fleeing Raven. Unleashing a cerulean blast of charged ions, the PPC smashed into the recon mech's right shoulder, severing the limb and robbing the Raven of its lasers.

"A Farewell to Arms!!!" Honk-Honk shouted, proud of himself. The other Crimson Fists just groaned at him.

For good measure, the Panther fired off its four-pack of short-range missiles at the Phoenix Hawk. Two of the missiles went wide, but the other two scratched the paint on the Medium Mech's torso and right leg.

"Okay, good stuff, guys," Mister Dimples called out on open comms as his Crusader closed in on his commander's ruined Firestarter, unbuckling his own seat restraints at the same time. Absent-mindedly, he tried his hand at a joke of his own. "Hey, what do you tell a Green Knight with two black eyes?"

"Nothing," Captain Waffles, the Catapult pilot from Fire Witch Lance cut in to answer him. "Because you've already told them twice."

Lobbing a volley across the ravine, the Catapult's LRM launchers pocked away chunks of armor from the Shadow Hawk's torso and limbs, though didn't breach. Still, that marked damage on every member of the Green Knights. While the damage was mounting up on both sides, it was only a matter of time before things began to give way.

"Are you ready for a smooch?" Yellow Jester called out as the Crusader reached him, opening the hatch to his Mech's cockpit and scrambling onto the top of the Firestarter's head as it began to fall apart around him.

"Boss, you're goddamn insane!" Mister Dimples said, his comms still on the open channel as he popped his own hatch. The Crusader leaned in as closely as it could, the open cockpits to both mechs at least two meters apart and still over ten meters off the ground.

"Has it really taken you this long to notice?!" the Yellow Jester shouted, and with a triumphant cackling howl, took a two-step run-up and hurled himself from the frame of his Battlemech, splaying wide like a bug on a windshield against the Crusader's canopy.

A normal person, even your average Mech jock, would have bounced off from the impact and fallen to their deaths. But the Yellow Jester hadn't always been a mercenary, and his career before that was hardly average. With a grip and adeptness with climbing that suggested a far different line of military service before his time in a Mech cockpit, the Yellow Jester pulled himself up to the top of the Crusader's head, where an open hand from Mister Dimples pulled him up.

"Holy shit, boss, I've never seen anything like that," he said, forgetting to turn off his open channel. "Now come on, get in the Mech, the Duchess isn't paying us to--"

Without a second thought, the Yellow Jester wrenched Mister Dimples' arm, yanking him out of the Crusader's cockpit and sending him tumbling down to the rocky mountainside below. With a dull thud, his body hit the ground and lay still. "No one likes a tattle-tale, Mister Dimples," said the Jester, looking down at his lancemate's corpse.

Quickly scrambling into the Crusader, the Yellow Jester reached back to plug the control cables into his neurohelmet, his whole body convulsing for a moment as the Mech's security measures attempted to fry his nervous system.

"Command Override!" he shouted as his body spasmed. "Clearance Xanthe-01-04-21!"

The consoles inside the Crusader then changed from danger red to a calm green, then a sickly yellow as he settled into the command couch.

"Oooo-hoo-hoo-hoooo," he giggled for a moment, "I smelled my own brain starting to drizzle-frizzle-sizzle for a moment there!"

Fastening his restraints, the Yellow Jester opened up the channel to his enemies.

"Now then, my pretty-witty-ditties," he called out to the Green Knights as the Crusader stepped forward, with a skipping, playful gait, "Where were we?"

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 5 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


In a matter of mere seconds, the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass had erupted into a cacophony of destruction. Hateful beams of laser light carved across the armor of the faux-Knights' Battlemechs, warheads from missiles arced through the frigid air to make explosive impact with the massive machines. Mounds of dirt, gravel, and snow were kicked up, filling the kill-box with a near-impenetrable cloud of dust and instantly-vaporized steam. Even using sensors, it became hard to discern one target from another in the maelstrom of gunfire and debris.

As the Green Knights' weapons cooled down, charged, or loaded their next rounds, an open comm line came online, and over it, the Knights heard the sound of laughter.

"Ohhh-ho-ho-hoooo, lookie-lookie who it is, my Knights!" While there was no indication which Mech was the source of the voice, there was little doubt that the sing-song tone matched playful skipping gait of the Firestarter. "Some of our adoring fans have come out to congratulate us on our happy little prank! Welcome, welcome, the Yellow Jester is here for the delight of all!"

"Ohhh, boy, here he goes again," came another voice as the Panther, clearly struggling to remain standing after an unexpected hit to the Gyro threw his Mech permanently off-balance, emerged from the dust cloud.

"And it sounds like they've got themselves a talker, too," came a third voice with a sneering chuckle, as the Hunchback advanced. "Hey pal, feel like giving us another monologue to record? I'm sure we can get some real knee-slappers playing it when we flatten the next civvie town."

To the side of the Hunchback, the wide-armed form of the Crusader lumbered into view. "Nah, a joke's never as funny the second time around. But I'm sure once we waste these guys, we'll have plenty of new material. Hey, maybe we use their own mechs to stomp on the folks we've got locked up in the fort?"

"Ha! Excellent idea, Mister Dimples! The looks on their faces will be priceless, heee-heee-heee!" The Yellow Jester laughed. "But first, let us deal with our soon-to-be dearly departed doppelgangers! So then, my lovelies, what say we bring a bit of the heat!"

The Firestarter, notorious for its quadruple Flamers that could wreak havoc on energy-dependent Battlemechs, started to move towards the laser-heavy Ostroc, which itself was already running hot from the opening salvo. Just as it looked like it was going to break forward into a run, the Yellow Jester suddenly slammed on his Jump Jets, sending the light Mech rocketing backwards.

"April Foo-oo-ools, hahahahaha!" he mocked, firing off the Firestarter's Medium Lasers in a parting shot that went wide. As the light Mech hurled itself up and away, in its place were the hulking frames of the Hunchback and Crusader, each bringing their weapons to bear on the Green Knights' lance leader.

With a thunderous BOOM, the Hunchback's enormous class-20 Autocannon erupted, a single high-powered shell bursting forward just as a similar shell from the Von Luckner skipped across the top of its barrel. The ricochet caused the brawler Mech to veer ever-so-slightly to one side, causing a shot which would have hit the Ostroc square-on to instead make impact on the Green Knight's left arm. The Ostroc's notoriously thin armor on its arms was no match for the high-powered shell, which detonated just below the shoulder, obliterating myomer bundles and alloy bones and wrenching the entire limb away. "How's that for bringing the heat?" the Hunchback taunted as the bigger Mech's arm tumbled into the snow in a mangled wreck.

"Good shooting, Bing-Bong," said the Crusader pilot, the one the Yellow Jester referred to as 'Mister Dimples.' "I was thinkin' of bringing the heat a little more literally."

From each of the missile-boat Mech's hips erupted a salvo of short-range missiles, about half of which made contact with the Ostroc, the other six careening off into the ravine below. Instead of an explosive detonation, these warheads burst open with splatters of gel that erupted into white-hot flames. Inferno warheads, which traded dealing direct damage for playing absolute hell on a Battlemech's heat management, and could immolate the crew of a tank with ease. As the Ostroc's heat began to spike to dangerous levels, its myomer muscles began to seize up, slowing the mech down and making targeting more difficult.

"Aaaa-hahahaha-haaa, as if the Yellow Jester would only have one way to keep things spicy!" The Firestarter pilot cackled. "Speaking of which, variety is the spice of life! Let's give the rest of our adoring crowd some attention!"

"On it, boss," Mister Dimples acknowledged, turning the torso of the Crusader to level its arms at the opposing Archer and let fly with a pair of 15-shot Long-Range Missile launchers. Between the two arm-mounted launchers, only slightly more than half made their mark, peppering the Knights' own missile-boat across the torso and right arm. "Find yourself a dance partner, Honk-Honk."

"Stop calling me Honk-Honk," the Mechwarrior in the Panther grumbled, before raising his Particle Projector Cannon and firing it at the Phoenix Hawk across the ravine. An arc of cerulean lightning connected along the left side of the Hawk's torso, obliterating over half of the armor in that location. The Phoenix Hawk had more armor than the lighter Panther, but in a straight gunfight, the Crimson Fists' sniper had it outgunned.

"Oh yes, there's plenty of laughs to go around!" the Jester continued. "And the hits Just! Keep! Coming!"

Over the tops of the Crimson Fist lance, two swarms of long-range missiles arced gracefully through the air, before thundering down and pelting the Green Knights' Raven. Twenty-seven of the fusillade of thirty ripped into the light scout mech, shredding armor mostly off of its arms and legs.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have a special guest!" The Jester announced as a fifth Battlemech entered the mountain pass.

The Mech was completely non-humanoid, with a rounded, egg-like fuselage, birdlike back-canted legs, and a pair of boxy missile launchers where its arms should be. While it was a comparatively rare sight on most battlefields, the silhouette of a Catapult was instantly recognizable.

"All the way from Fire Witch Lance, let's give a warm welcome to Captain Waffles!"

"That's not my callsign--"

"Roll with it, it's a thing he's doing."

"....right. Anyway, yes, Green Knights," the Catapult pilot continued, "The Fire Witch sends her regards, and I'll be all to happy to bring her back a handful of your ashes today."

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 5 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


Minutes passed as the Green Knights dug into their positions. With the Raven's ECM bubble operating, their prey wouldn't be able to detect them on sensors, and with the thick snow, even visuals would be difficult until the Mechs began moving. A cold wind began to howl through the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass, a wail that sounded almost mournful as it carried sheets of sleet across the treacherous cliffs. Below them, the heights gave way to a near 50-meter drop, with only a pair of narrow rock bridges connecting the rises between peaks. Above them, hundreds of tons of packed snow and ice sat precariously on the mountaintops, threatening to crush the unwary or the unfortunate.

Long after the intel had predicted the Crimson Fists would be entering the area, that sad wailing wind was the only sound that echoed through the pass. For a time, it seemed that the Green Knights' quarry wouldn't be coming this way after all, that they had taken a different route or turned around altogether.

Eventually, however, the rhythmic thudding of heavy footfalls began to echo through the mountains. Even with the snow muffling it somewhat, the tread of a lance of Battlemechs was unmistakable. One by one, they entered the valley, four Mechs falsely bearing the colors of Gawain's Green Knights.

Leading the column was their primary target, the Firestarter. While most Mechs tended to move with a lumbering, plodding gait, the 35-ton Mech was surprisingly light on its feet, its pilot maneuvering the machine with a spring in its step that made it almost appear as if it were skipping along playfully. It was said that some Mechwarriors were so in-tune with their Mechs that they could almost inject their own personality into the way the machine moved. If the Firestarter's swinging, almost carefree posture was any indication, then its pilot seemed to be quite pleased with himself- a disturbing notion, considering what the Fists had just done.

To the surprise of the Knights, the Firestarter was paired with a second thirty-five tonner, a Kurita-made Panther. Unlike most light Mechs which carried short-range weapons, the Panther was a light and mobile sniper, mounting a Particle Projector Cannon as its main weapon. While it didn't have much by way of armor, that PPC had the potential to do serious damage if left unchecked.

Just behind the two lights was the third Mech, the fifty-ton Hunchback. With its arms swinging wide from its broad chest and a bow-legged stride, the Mech seemed to strut its way into the mountain pass as if it owned the place. And with a massive Class-20 Autocannon that could cripple or destroy most Mechs in a single shot, the Hunchback's pilot had little reason to doubt that he did own the place indeed.

The fourth Mech was one of the two spotted Heavy mechs, the Crusader. While its LRM-15 racks didn't have quite the same output as Marit's Archer, it could still put a significant amount of damage down-field, and the footage from the massacre showed its leg-mounted SRM launchers were loaded with Inferno warheads.

Seismic sensors indicated a fifth contact, also a 65-tonner like the Crusader, was bringing up the rear.

Either unaware of the possibility of enemy presence or unconcerned, the Crimson Fists strode into the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass, walking right into the Green Knights' trap.

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