Bounce

Star Wars - Jedi Exile.

Quit giving away my secrets!

Also, a quick post. Sector rangers. Nicely played. I had to look that one up on Wookieepedia because I didn't get the reference at first. Color Zak impressed. Which, hopefully impressed is a green color, because I can't imagine Zak as anything else.

Star Wars - Jedi Exile.

The young Nautolan braced himself against the side of the LAAT as the shuttle lifted off from the deck, an involuntary sense of dread coursing through him as the craft went airborne. The amphibian youngling did well for himself in space, which was rather like orienting oneself in deep water – that being that there was little need for concepts such as up or down, left or right – and he did very well for himself in terrestrial environments where such cardinal points were more pertinent. But he didn’t like atmospheric flight. Something about it just seemed unnatural. He liked the feel of either solid ground or water beneath his feet. The feeling of dread escalated as the ride became a wild jaunt in between the layers of the city that defined the planet. Because Coruscant was a single city, built neighborhood upon neighborhood until it not only stretched across the whole of the planet, but no one knew what the surface of Coruscant looked like anymore. Or even where the surface of the planet even was.

Through the sniper points in the side of the doors, the boy glimpsed buildings and walkways, each a blur as the LAAT weaved through traffic and buildings in the plunge through the cityscape. Zak had spent his life on Coruscant, and this was still likely the most he had seen of the planet. The only sight he recognized was the Jedi Temple.

Now a pillar of flame and smoke on the horizon.

A shadow passed through the shuttle, darkness encompassing the LAAT as it was swallowed up inside of something. The boy held fast to the side of the shuttle as he felt their craft and whatever it was now inside of suddenly take off, as though aiming to breach orbit. Part of him was glad for that, eager to get out into the null gravity of space and out of the uncomfortable chaos of atmospheric flight. And part of him was nervous. Their shuttle had been swallowed up by something.

And he could sense someone now approaching. Someones now approaching.

The doors to the LAAT swung open, two men reflected in the large, dark eyes of the Nautolan as he gazed out anxiously at the sight of armed strangers approaching the Jedi.

"Don't worry, Corporal Orson, Sector Rangers,” the man offered in explanation, which wasn’t much of an explanation at all. To remedy that, the man added, “Well, ex-ranger. We're here to help."

“Sector rangers?” the youngling echoed, sliding to the door of the craft to now peer out at both the strangers and the strange craft that had swallowed their LAAT whole. He knew of the sector rangers, of course. Republic law enforcement, with a mandate that stretched to and beyond the borders of a sector, but he had never met one. ”Cool,” Zak affirmed, breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of someone coming to help.

Ultimate One Universe: Marvel/DC RPG

Thanks! I'm having fun with him. :)

Ultimate One Universe: Marvel/DC RPG

| A S G A R D |

Asgardians loved to toot their own horns. They blew them when they were hunting. They blew them when they were feasting. They blew them when they were fighting. If there was one sound which the young king would have gladly lived every day since without, it was the sound of those horns. And they had been blowing now for over an hour, as the first of Hel's black banners became visible upon the rainbow bridge. The legions of Hel were marching on Asgard. The sound of drums brought archers to the walls, engineers to the catapults, and soldiers to the armory. The Warriors Three had returned with Beta Ray Bill, whose hammer Stormbreaker would now lead the army of Asgard in place of his oath brother.

Brother. Loki would have very much liked to have known where his were. Balder had taken up the quest to secure Thor's return to Asgard, a task which Loki had set for Sif. But the queen of Asgard had disagreed. How convenient for her that, as Hel marched on Asgard, both of her actual children were no where to be found. Balder the Brave. Thor, the god of Thunder. And what was he? The trickster. The god of fools.

Staring down a massed army of the dead.

He knew from the sound of the footfall behind him that it was Sif, even before she spoke. "My lord, why do we waste time with preparations for a feast, when it is war that is upon us?"

From the balcony over which he now surveyed two opposing armies, the young king turned back to look up the warrior-woman of Asgard. She wanted to be out on the battlefield, but instead she was charged with watching over the king. He rather had the impression she much preferred combat to his presence. Perhaps the whole hair incident wasn't quite healed as of yet. "If war be upon us, then I suspect that our guests should soon be hungry," the young god opined simply, turning back toward the war.

"Which guests do you speak of?"

For a moment, Loki smiled in spite of himself. Or, perhaps, because of himself. After all, who knew Loki better than Loki? Turning away, the boy motioned for the woman to follow as he started back through the castle. "Who ever comes to dinner in Asgard, my lady," the young king asked sullenly, adding, "The dead and those who wish us so."

"And the fighting?"

Pausing, the boy turned to look up at her. The look in his eyes left no room for doubt that this was not one of his games. Or, if it were, it were unlike any before it. "The fighting shall be brief," Loki stated firmly, before marching on.

He stepped out of the barricades without armor. Without weapon. The soldiers stepped aside for him, the Warriors Three taking up position behind him even as Beta Ray Bill and Sif flanked him, as the young king casually strolled out of the security of Asgard's walls and onto the battlefield as though it meant nothing more to him than a Thor's Day walk. Dwarfed by the Aesir behind him and the dead before, the boy continued his gait unabated until he stood before a tall, green-armored woman in a wickedly shaped helm. The color held his eye for a moment. If she were his daughter, she had a rather discerning taste in color.

"Lady Hela, we are honored by your presence," the young king of Asgard intoned with all the polite pomp that was to be expected. Holding out his cloak, he gave the woman the customary, if brief, bow of respect before straightening himself back upright. Craning his head back to look up at the woman, the boy stated, "We prepared a feast, but had not expected your entourage to be so..." he allowed himself to trail off then, making a show of looking to the left and the right of the woman, at the army behind her. "...robust," the boy concluded finally, fixing his eyes back up on the goddess of Hel.

"You may dispense with the pleasantries," Hela barked, her voice an otherworldly, rasping bark that resonated across the field. The dramatic effect sent one eyebrow up on the boy's brow. A parlor trick, but an effective one. He would remember that. "You will escort me to Valhalla or I shall escort myself upon the bodies of the Aesir," the goddess declared flatly.

The eyebrow that had been raised resumed its normal place on his otherwise bemused face. Raising one hand, the child-god motioned from the mistress of Hel to bend her ear closer to him.

Instead, she grabbed the boy by the front of his cloak, raising him up to her own eye level. Which, was not how he'd hoped to get her undivided attention, but it would do. Lowering his voice to a whisper, the boy said only, "I am the Odinson. I sit upon the throne of Asgard. Valhalla is mine." As he felt her grip tighten, the young king asked quietly, "Tell me, dear Hela, have you bothered to look behind your ranks."

She was his daughter. Or, she was a Loki's daughter. He knew that as truth the moment that their eyes connected and the boy found himself staring at a mirror. When she broke away from his gaze, the goddess dropped the boy back to the ground as she suddenly grew several meters in height, turning her head to look back behind her army. There were banners on the horizon, depicting a white sky dominated by a gold lightning bolt.

"There is an army of Greeks marching upon the Bifrost," Hela snapped from on high.

"Your powers of observation are laudable," the young Loki commented, raising his voice as he spoke up to the now giant-sized mistress of Hel. "Should Heimdall ever disappoint me, I should have a commission for you waiting in his observatory."

Hissing loudly, the goddess of the dead turned to look back at the small boy with the same baleful green eyes. "What trickery is this?"

"They are Greeks," the boy offered with a shrug. "They come for a wedding. Or a battle. I should say naught which I prefer."

"Whose wedding?" Hela demanded.

"Did your invitation not yet arrive?" Loki inquired smoothly, innocently. "We are uniting the pantheons. Asgard and Olympus stand as one."

Hela just held his gaze.

Inclining his head slightly, Loki feigned an innocuous expression as he remarked, "I do hope this isn't too inconvenient for your plans."

"Forbidden!"

The bemused smile returned. "Perhaps the screams of the dishonored dead have dulled your hearing, so I shall give the courtesy of repeating myself," Loki offered, gesturing at the army behind him. "I am the Odinson. I sit upon the throne of Asgard. I decide what is forbidden," the boy declared firmly, locking eyes on the woman as he added, "Now, you will lay down your weapons or... frankly, my lady, we shall send you all back to the Hel from whence you came."

The two just stared at each other. Another lifetime, another story, it was frankly frightening to consider what the two of them might have accomplished together rather than in opposition to one another. Sadly, few things - if anything - ever worked out that way in favor of Loki.

"Lady's choice, of course," the boy added smoothly.

Ultimate One Universe: Marvel/DC RPG

Looks like the Xavier school will have a couple of folks running around. With that in mind, a short Katie post and I'll have a Kid Loki post up in a few (hopefully).

Ultimate One Universe: Marvel/DC RPG

| 1 4 0 7 • G R A Y M A L K I N • L A N E |

As the car turned onto the street, the young girl was oblivious to the change of scenery outside the car as the conversation kept her engaged from the start of the trip in New York City to the suburbs of North Salem. The exact topic of discussion varied somewhat, having initially been a suggestion from Carter that they ought to go see the Lego Movie. Through completely random sidebars, the subject of conversation had since shifted to Sponge Bob, My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and - currently up for debate - Steven Universe. It was exactly the kind of conversation that a pair of eight year olds ought to be having, except that neither of the two children riding in the back of the car were what they seemed to be.

Carter Ghazikhanian was a mutant, the son of Nurse Annie, who was driving. His mother wasn't a mutant, but she worked at the school that Carter went to, which was a school exclusively for mutants. Carter looked like an ordinary boy, so much so that most wouldn't have looked twice. As a telepath and telekinetic however, it was what one didn't about Carter that really mattered. He was going to the school to learn how to better control his power, so that he could learn to tune out the thoughts and "noise" he heard from people around him.

Katie wasn't exactly a mutant, but she wasn't quite human either. Not anymore anyway. She'd had a close encounter and wound up abducted, only to be transformed into a living energy weapon capable of leveling buildings or disintegrating people. She'd done the former and horribly scarred others when the accidental use of her powers triggered the latter. More than anything, Katie wanted to learn to be better at controlling her powers. In that sense, this School for Gifted Youngsters sounded like a dream.

"We're here."

That was the first time that Katie laid eyes on her dreams. From the other side of the car window, the pig-tailed girl marveled at the brick and mortar mansion - a home far larger and more grandiose than any she'd seen before. It was the kind of home that celebrities lived in, only there seemed a certain age to the building that gave it the solemnity expected of a school. Carter had already hopped out of his side of the car, starting to pull Katie's bag from the back as the young girl opened her door and took her first step into her new reality.

Was it really okay to be herself here?

"Come on inside," Miss Annie urged, prodding the girl from her wide eyed, mouth agape stupor toward the front door. Across that threshold, the interior was even more amazing than the girl could imagine from the outside looking in. It was like something from an old black and white movie. Regal and polished. A sitting room. A library. "The girl's rooms are upstairs and to the right," Miss Annie commented, gently nudging the girl ahead. "There's a room waiting for you. Carter can show you around after you've set your things down."

Nodding numbly, the young girl took her satchel bag back from her friend and made her way up the grand staircase - the kind that belonged in a Shirley Temple movie - with each step bringing with it new anxieties; the hope that it would be everything she dreamed it would be and the fear that either she wouldn't be mutant enough.

The room in the wing of women's dorms was unmistakable. A poster of Minnie Mouse was hung on one wall, opposite another depicting characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in the room. Tossing the satchel bag on the bed, Katie took a moment to take stock of the small, cramped, dorm-like space and found the idea of it starkly alien. She was the youngest of four. She'd grown up sharing space with her brothers and sister her whole life. When she'd been transformed by the Kymellians, it had been with her brothers and sister. They had formed Power Pack together. They'd even saved the world.

And then, at a certain point, they'd stopped. Each for their own reasons. To not have to lie to their parents any more, or to not have to sneak around all the time, or to not worry about how their powers might hurt someone. They'd tried to forget that they were Zero-G, Lightspeed, Mass Master, and Energizer... and just be Alex, Julie, Jack, and Katie.

But ignoring what they could do wasn't going to solve the problem of having powers. If anything, it was liable to make an already uncomfortable situation even worse.

So here she was. But at least she was going to get a tour of just where 'here' was.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

It's a recurring theme if you look back at the original Kai-ro post as well.

In the greater cosmos, the people are protected by two sides in the interstellar justice system; the Lanterns who investigate crimes and the local authorities who prosecute the offenders. The call came in at seventeen forty-seven, Oa Standard Time. A domestic disturbance on an asteroid base out on the edge of space in Sector 2814. That makes it my problem. My name is Kai-ro. I carry a ring.

In the interstellar justice system, the people are represented by two sides: The Green Lanterns who have the will to serve and the Blue Lanterns who hope to protect society from those who would do it harm. But fear is the criminal's weapon. The point of terrorism is to invoke terror. And when Green and Blue Lantern arrived at the home in Sector 2815, terror and fear were waiting for them the moment that they walked through that door.

I'm hoping to invoke elements from pretty much all the police procedural dramas, from Dragnet to Law & Order to Blue Bloods.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

In the interstellar justice system, the people are represented by two sides: The Green Lanterns who have the will to serve and the Blue Lanterns who hope to protect society from those who would do it harm. But fear is the criminal's weapon. The point of terrorism is to invoke terror. And when Green and Blue Lantern arrived at the home in Sector 2815, terror and fear were waiting for them the moment that they walked through that door.

| P L A N E T • G R A X O S • I V |

The young monk sank to his knees as the stench overwhelmed him. He felt the color drain away from his face as his eyes grew larger and larger and the sight in front of him. His mind struggled with what must have been madness as he fought to comprehend what he saw. He wanted to look away, but he found that he couldn't. His breath choked in his lungs, as his throat seized up on him, so that each attempt to take a breath only sent him that much closer to hyperventilating.

"Breathe, poozer! Breathe!"

"Heart rate is elevated. Blood pressure beginning to fall. I believe that Green Lantern is about to..."

"Just breathe through it, kid!"

Kai-ro lurched forward, a blue container forming in front of his face as the boy pitched forward and violently expelled the contents of his stomach. Coughing, sputtering, heaving, the young Green Lantern doubled over onto the floor until there was nothing left for him to throw up. That was when he saw it. A humanoid eye, staring up at him from where it lay partially crushed down into the carpet fibers.

"Fracking frell," Ch'p muttered, absently elevating the container away to dispose of it as the H'lven surveyed the massacre in front of them. They had been a family of four. Mom, dad, two kids - an older daughter and a younger son. They had two pets. And they had all died together.

Well, not together. At least, not all at once. And not at the same time. "Fracking frell," the Blue Lantern muttered again.

"I do not understand why it was necessary to kill the pets," Aya commented dryly. "They were incapable of functioning at witnesses to this event."

"They probably died first," Ch'p uttered gruffly. "Consortium business rules. A show of intent. Or of their sincerity. Just some sick frack who thinks that'll get them talking," the H'lven looked at the bodies - or pieces of bodies - in the room, taking in the arrangement of the gore and the splatter patterns. Someone had painted on the walls with the kid's severed fingers like they were crayons, spelling out a message that said: We want the money.

"It wasn't a robbery," the Blue Lantern remarked aloud.

"To what do you attribute this hypothesis?" Aya inquired curiously.

"Look around," the Blue Lantern commented, pointing at family heirlooms and glass cases that were still relatively intact. "They want money, but I get the impression nothing was stolen." Holding up his ring, the H'lven said, "Ring, DNA and forensic sweep."

Swallowing against the continued efforts at heaving up, Kai-ro rose on shaking legs as he took a cue from the H'lven. "Ring, DNA and forensic sweep, please," the boy commented, his hand trembling as he put his ring hand out.

And nothing happened.

Ch'p merely grunted, the sound making the young Green Lantern jump despite himself. Poozer was all kind of freaked out. And who could blame him? "Take a break," the Blue Lantern commented dryly, moving on with his investigation. "Aya, start calculating time of death and then get me what you can on all four of our victims."

Elongating one finger into a slender, cylindrical probe, the robot AI carefully examined an open laceration on the chest of the man, the central figure in the house of horrors. "Time of death, one point four solar rotations ago," Aya reported stoically. "I believe that the man was the last to die, and did so while the attackers were still attempting interrogation."

"Give me the play-by-play," Ch'p remarked gruffly, stooping down by the daughter as he swept over the body with the ring.

"The blood spatter on the mother's legs belongs to the son, however, she does not appear to have moved either voluntarily or involuntarily after the blood splashed her," the robot commented in a matter-of-fact tone. "In contrast, the daughter and father also have blood splatter from the son's head being crushed which indicates that they were still alive at the time. However, the daughter has blood from the father on her which indicates that she was still at the time."

The H'lven looked up at the corpse of the Graxion father. "He doesn't look like much to me," the Blue Lantern noted gruffly. "Banker. Accountant maybe..."

"Computer software programmer," Aya supplied in answer. "He was the president of a small software firm that supplied a translator matrix for several languages native to this sector."

"Huh," Ch'p uttered. Merely that, as though what the robot had said had not at all factored into whatever it was the Blue Lantern was considering about the situation. "Not the type to get mixed up with Consortium business. Let alone hold out like this. Why didn't he just give them what they wanted?" Or, maybe he had. And the Consortium did this to convey a message.

"One cannot supply information one does not possess."

The H'lven and the robot both turned their heads to look over at the young Green Lantern. Still pale, the young boy merely said, "Perhaps... he didn't know."

Ch'p nodded faintly. "Sounds about right," the Blue Lantern noted, standing and moving away from the teenage girl. "Whatever did this was large. The physical violations were enough to have killed the mother and daughter. Pulverized their internal organs. They were bleeding out inside even before the tards cut their throats."

"Likewise, the boy's head appears to have been crushed by hand," Aya noted.

"And no DNA on the bodies," Ch'p added dourly. "Whoever did this was clean."

"Actually, I think I have something," Kai-ro noted, holding up a dark strand of hair. As the robot and the H'lven looked over at him, the boy explained, "I didn't think much of it at first. I saw it while I was throwing up. But, neither of the girls have dark hair."

"Huh," Ch'p uttered simply, as a blue light encased the hair follicle and began running an analysis. "What makes you think it's a woman's hair?"

"I don't know," Kai-ro answered sheepishly, giving a slightly shrug as he added, "It's... longish and... just seems like a girls."

"Hardly a scientific basis," Aya supplied in disappointment.

"Well, I'll tell you what it is," Ch'p remarked, looking up at the two. "It's not Graxion. It's Tamaranean."

Aya and Kai-ro exchanged a brief look, before the young Green Lantern asked, "What's a Tamaranean doing out here?"

"That's just one of many questions, my young poozer," the Blue Lantern quipped dryly.

Ultimate Comics: DC - Shadows Among Us

For what I'm doing with Kai-ro, I don't think he has to be a Sector 2814 Green Lantern. I could move him and Ch'p to a different sector and their law enforcement investigation (I think) would still allow the occassional visit to Earth.

But I can also understand not wanting this to become Ultimate Green Lantern: The RPG. But, I am flexible. Or I can be flexible. Or something.

Star Wars - Jedi Exile.

"Let's get out of here now!"

The stubby tendrils of the Nautolan youngling swept through the air as the boy swung his head toward the voice that had cut through the noise in the cargo bay and the LAATs roaring engine. Reflected in the large, dark eyes of the amphibious youth was the Jedi Sentinel who had led them through the secret passages and, finally, to this ship. For whatever that might be worth. Confused, frightened, and struggling somewhere between adrenaline and panic, the youth found himself standing amid a sparse few Jedi.

For the whole of his life, he had been surrounded by the guardians of the Old Republic. They had been his caretakers, his teachers, and his friends. Growing up in the temple on Coruscant, Zak had the idea that there were more Jedi than there were stars in the sky.

Before today.

"Where... Are we going?"

A Dathomiran padawan spoke, her words giving form to doubts which the young Nautolan hadn't even been aware that he'd had until he'd heard them, and found the sum of all his fears suddenly thrust back into his face.

The Jedi Temple, their home, his childhood, was in flame. Looking around the interior of the LAAT, all that the youngling could think was... there would be far fewer stars from now on.