Byrd Man

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

See I have rural Tinder. Rural Tinder is where 98% of the women are spambots, 1% are women who swipe right and never talk to you, and the last 1% is someone that you talk to, like, go on a date and continue to date to this day. Not as exciting.

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

"My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery."
-- Dashiell Hammett

Cedar Rapids, Iowa
1:14 AM

Johnny Frost drove the Cadillac while Dean Swarbrick rode shotgun. One car a quarter mile ahead of them on the interstate was the only vehicle on the road. The radio played classic rock, the only type of music that was one midwestern radio stations that the two of them could stand. Swarbrick cracked the passenger window and started to light up a cigarette.

"Not in my car," Frost snapped. "When we drive your shitbox, you can stub your smokes out on the seat. But in my car, you don't fucking smoke."

"Jesus Christ, alright."

Swarbrick tucked the pack back into his jacket, right beside his holstered, still warm Sig Sauer. The car in front of them turned off the interstate, leaving them alone on the road. Cedar Rapids was a shithole, to put it mildly. He'd be glad to put it in his rearview mirror and get back to Central City. The job was done, save for this last little task, and they should be back home before the sun was up. Thirty miles outside of Cedar Rapids, Frost pulled off the interstate and found a back road with a wide open field.

"This looks good enough," Swarbrick said as Johnny pulled off the road and slowly drove across the field.

"Heads or tails," Johnny asked.

"Heads."

Frost flipped a quarter in the air. He snagged it out of the air and smacked it on the back of his hand. When he pulled it away, it was heads up.

"Shit. Best out of three?"

"Fuck you," Swarbrick laughed. "Get to digging."

They got out and let the car run. While Swarbrick got a shovel out of the backseat, Frost popped the trunk and lifted it up. The dead body of Robert Hess looked up at him. A neat little hole in his forehead leaked blood and brain matter. A plastic tarp in the trunk kept the blood from staining Johnny's upholstery. Hess, formerly the owner of Hess Trucking and Transport, had been skimming his monthly tribute to the Top and pocketing ten grand a month. When the Top's people found out about it, they sent Frost and Swarbrick to send a message. Whoever took over for Hess would know not to fuck with the Top's money.

Swarbrick smoked and watched Frost digging into the ground. They traded off when Frost needed a break. They threw off their coats and jackets, digging in rolled up shirt sleeves with their shoulder holsters still strapped on. After an hour, they had a hole deep enough to put Hess in. Swarbrick was nearly done filling the hole with Hess in it when Frost's cellphone rang.

"Yeah?... Yeah... we're almost done here... Yeah, no later than eight in the morning... yeah... Okay."

"What was that?" Swarbrick asked as he wiped sweat from his forehead.

"Something's going down back at home. They need some muscle."

"Of course."

Swarbrick packed the earth down with the shovel and smoothed it out as much as possible.

"We got time to stop at IHOP on the way home?"

"Sure."

-----

Shake Shack
Central City, Missouri
2:52 AM

"Is that comic sans?" Electro asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lenny Snart rolled his eyes. He should have never let Digger do the presentation. He and Digger and the rest of their gang, The Rogues, were gathered in the back of the greasy fast food place where Mirror Master worked during the day. Right now, McCullough was still dressed in his work uniform instead of his outfit. Digger tapped a few buttons on the laptop resting on the counter and clicked to another slide.

"'Our lucrative plan involves stealing a shitton of money and keeping it,'," Digger said as he read the large, bolded comic sans words on the screen.

"'Are you up for an exciting and different business plan? Are you ready to seize the initiative?'"

"What's the plan," Heatwave grumbled. "We don't have all night for this shit."

"Mirror Master, can we get some burgers?" Rhino asked.

"No," McCullough said. "My register was short two dollars this evening and Mr. Ericson already gave me a verbal warning. He's on my ass."

"Isn't your boss like twenty years old?" asked Electro.

"Yeah... little asshole makes me call him mister."

"Focus," Snart snapped. "I agree with Michelle. Cut the bullshit and get down to it. The bare bones of the plan is this: The Top has a cash stash somewhere, and odds are it's within a few hours drive from Central City. There is no way in hell he wouldn't have too far away. I know where the money train starts, but we need to run it down to the hub and proceed from there."

"Stealing from the Top would put a huge target on our backs," Heatwave said with a shrug. "I'm cool with it."

"That's why I love you." Snart winked. "What about the rest of you? This is a plan that could get us a lot of money, but dead men can't spend a dime."

"A million dollars buys a lot of burgers," Rhino said mostly to himself. "I'm in."

"That's one. Show of hands?"

Without fail, the rest of the Rogues all raised their hands.

"Democracy," said Digger. "Ain't it wonderful?"

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

The only thing I like more than politics is politics... in... space!

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
-- W.B. Yeats

Midtown Manhattan
10:14 AM

Yorkie Mitchell kept a long leash on his tails. Right now he was nearly a half block away from Sam Symington and his protective detail. Somewhere on the other side of the block Castle watched as well. Yorkie was back tail while Castle was the front tail. They were always the day shift since they didn't have jobs. Tonight, Alves and Chase would take over and watch Symington until he called it a night. Currently, Symington was in a jewelry store while his bodyguards sat in their car and shadowed the store's front door. He had three goons with him currently. Even from this far away Yorkie knew they were carrying weapons under those baggy suits.

"Y. Let's switch off, I work back and you work front. While we trade off, get close to the car and tell me what you can about it."

Yorkie stuck a finger in his ear and mimed like he was picking earwax as Castle spoke to him through the tiny earpiece. When he was done, Yorkie rogered and started walking down the block. He saw Castle from across the street, walking in the opposite direction with a cap covering most of his face. Smart move. Unlike the other three members, he was wanted.

The guards sized Yorkie up as he approached the car but let him pass without hassle. He did his best to observe them while trying to look nonchalant. A few minutes later he took over the front tail and radioed Castle.

"The guards look like ex-military types. There's a logo on the sides and fronts of that SUV. An arrow wrapped in thorns. Said Thornguard underneath it."

"Shit."

"You know them?"

"You remember Hephaestus Security when you were in Afghanistan? That's them, they just rebranded themselves after all that shit."

"Shit."

A PMC company, Hephaestus was believed responsible for the Wadi Massacre. Twenty men, women, and children were found shot dead in a Wadi in Northeastern Afghanistan in 2010. Despite all the fingers pointing towards Hephaestus and its mercenaries, Congress never found any concrete evidence to indict the company. The stink lingered, however, and the name was now synonymous with corporate greed, corruption, and American Imperialism. They once tried to recruit Yorkie after his messy exit from SIS. They promised a hundred thousand dollars a year but couldn't give him Finn Cooley... but Castle could. And that's where his allegiance lay right at the moment.

"What does this mean?"

"We just have to be more careful about how we plan this. Thornguard may be ruthless, but so were the Scargetti Family. Here he comes..."

Yorkie turned and saw Symington exiting the store with two large bags. The bodyguards hurried into place and helped him into the SUV before it took off down the street, blowing past Yorkie on the sidewalk. The windows were tinted, but Yorkie caught the clear image of Symington grinning widely while he held up a Rolex encrusted in diamonds.

-----

One Police Plaza
Manhattan
2:39 PM

Detective Oscar Clemmons looked up when he heard the sound of an elevator opening. He was surprised to have a visitor. Sometimes, whole days would go by down here in the basement and he wouldn't see another human being. If he did, more than likely it was a janitor just passing through towards the utility room down the hall. Clemmons stared over his reading glasses at the open door, expecting to see Ramon coming by with a mop bucket. Instead, he smiled widely when Adrian Chase breezed through the door. Like always, he looked like a million bucks in his expensive three-piece suit and slicked back hair with not one fiber out of place.

"And how is my favorite NYPD one-man investigation squad this afternoon?" Chase asked as he held his hands up and revealed a paper sack in his hand. "I got you a bagel from the place down the street."

A few minutes later Clemmons was eating his bagel while Chase examined the big board on the far wall. It was laid out with a map of Manhattan and the rest of the boroughs. Marked across the map were red pins, a lot more than were there the last time Chase was here. Chase tapped on the pieces of purple thread that were connecting pins together.

"The thread is new, Oscar. What's it represent?"

"Timeline," Clemmons said between bites. "If you accept that each one of those red pins are murders Frank Castle committed, then the purple thread between the two pins represent a murder that he either could not possibly accomplish or would have been hard to accomplish."

"Example?"

"The one near the bottom," Clemmons nodded toward the map. "If Castle strangled a Triad pimp to death that night, then there would be no way for him to have been up in Queens at the same time, shanking a drug dealer. Over the past four months, I've noticed an overlap in a few of the murders and ran it back to at least six months of overlapping vigilante violence."

"So one of the murders isn't a Castle hit, that or Castle has superpowers?"

Clemmons laughed and wiped bagel crumbs from his hands. "Castle with superpowers is a very scary thought. My working theory is this: He's got help. The media is calling him the Punisher, but what if there are Punishers, plural?"

Chase turned away from the board and smirked at Clemmons. "That's a very interesting theory, have you told anyone else about it?"

"I wrote a couple of reports on it and kicked it up to my boss in Intelligence. Haven't heard anything back. Hell, Adrian, I'm here in this basement for a reason. Nobody cares about Castle along as he waste scumbags."

Chase shrugged. "It's a win-win for some people, Oscar. Gets bad guys off the streets for no cost."

"It's more than that, Chase, and you know it."

Clemmons stood up and walked towards the map. He stared at it as he spoke.

"He's a man acting like his own legal system, playing judge, jury, and executioner. No oversight and nothing stopping him. So far he's taken out the worst humanity has to offer, but what happens when he makes a mistake? He will make a mistake and some innocent person will be killed because of it."

"I feel like I had a hand in this. That case, Oscar. It was... I should have won it. If I win that case, Castle gets justice and the Punisher isn't created."

"Hell, we all created him. It wasn't you or me, but all of us. We all silently consented to graft and corruption and apathy in everyday life. What worked for us ruined Castle's life. And now, he's ruining other people's lives by inspiring more vigilantes just like him."

Clemmons pulled at the threads connecting the murders together and sighed.

"Before long this entire map will be nothing but red and purple. How many of those red dots will have actually deserved it?"

"All of them, if we're lucky."

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

"You don't die all at once. Not anymore. These days you die a little at a time."
-- Lawrence Block

St. Paul's Catholic Church

"Thank you for sharing tonight, Digger."

Digger Harkness looked up from his cup of coffee at the woman. The basement of the church was where they held their weekly meetings. Everyone had cleared out for the night and gone home, but Digger always hung around until the very end. He and the woman, Sheri is what she called herself, were the only ones left tonight.

"You've been coming a month now and you've made some real progress on your addiction. Most people want to laugh and make jokes when they think of sex addiction, but you've stuck to the program and made real progress."

To Digger, it was easy to see why Sherry, with her short frame and curvy figure, was a sex addict. She was made for sex, and if Digger had his way he would but her through the ringer to prove it. He had to suppress a wicked grin at that thought.

"It's hard," he said sheepishly. "The temptation is all around us, in the media and in everyday life, to give in and seek that pleasure. It feels so good that... all you want to do is chase it."

"Right," Sheri nodded and took his hand. "But you have to resist those urges."

"I know," he said with a sigh. "No matter how much you want to just bend some woman over and just rail her brains out over and over and over and over again... I mean, to give it to her so good that she screams your name and quivers like jelly."

He began to pull Sheri in closer as he spoke more about what he would like to do. They were close, their lips close together, when someone behind them cleared their throat.

"Digger," Lenny Snart said with a smirk. "Time to go home."

"Good idea," Sheri said, snapping out of her trance. "Good night!"

She hurried off, leaving Digger alone with Snart.

"Cockblocker!"

"Scumbag," Snart replied. "Going to a sex addict support group and trying to get laid, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Digger shrugged and smiled. "Low hanging fruit, mate. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. You should try it the next time Heatwave doesn't want to put out. Now, why are you here? And don't say it's to protect my honor or virtue--"

"We both you have neither, Harkness. We've taking a drive."

---

Digger and Snart watched the action from inside Snart's beaten up Impala across the street. The house they were watching sat on the edge of town in Keystone City. Digger stifled a yawn and checked the clock on the dashboard. It was coming up on six hours since they started the stakeout. The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts from Snart. The guy smoked like a chimney, something Digger could never understand. He had his own vices for sure, but smoking was never one of them.

"There's number six," Digger said as another car pulled up to the house and a passenger rushed towards the door. After a few moments, something passed between the courier and whoever was behind the door before the courier headed back to the car and got in. "One an hour at this point."

"This is it, Harkness," Snart said with a grin, the first time he'd showed something past contempt all night. "All these stops. Sometime in the early morning, someone is going to come out that house with a package and they'll be driven to a bank where a safe deposit box or something is waiting for him."

Digger whistled. "If this is cash they're running a courier route for, think about how much we can get by going into that house just before the final cash run and making off with it."

"Fuck that," Snart said. "This is chickenshit. The Top controls crime through this part of the Midwest, probably as far up as Fargo. Think about how many courier routes there are across the state and several states. I don't want one route, I want the mother lode. I want the bank that holds it and stores it."

"Stealing from the Top," Digger said mostly to himself. "That's dangerous for your health, mate."

"So are these," Snart said, stubbing out a cigarette butt. "But I keep smoking. And besides, if we steal from the Top what's he going to do? Call the cops on us?"

"Naah. Just cut off all our genitals and let us bleed out."

"Good thing you don't have any genitals, right?"

"Right," Digger said with a chuckle. "So we taking this idea to the table?"

"We are. Time for a family meeting."

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

"I’m living everyday like a hustle. Another drug to juggle, another day another struggle"
-- Notorious B.I.G.

Name: Leonard Snart/Captain Cold

Alignment: Evil something.

Affiliation: The Rogues

History:

Lenny Snart was born into an abusive family. An alcoholic father who beat on him, his mother, and sister until he finally went to jail for vehicular manslaughter. Young Lenny was angry at the world and lashed out by becoming a criminal, first petty shoplifting and strong arm robbery. At the age of sixteen he graduated to armed robbery and B&E. He was in and out of prison over the years, eventually hooking up with a lover/partner named Michelle Rory. The young woman was obsessed with fire and had shady connections in Central City. One of her connections offered the couple money for taking part in an experiment.

Dr. Phineas Mason, working for Central City's shadowy crime boss known only as The Top, injected a metahuman gene stimulant into both Snart and Rory, activated their dormant metahuman genes. Snart's abilities manifested in ice while Rory's abilities were fire-based. The two lovers went on a robbery spree through Central and Keystone Cities, stopped only by the Flash. They were both sent to Iron Heights Maximum Penitentiary where they met like-minded criminals with special skills. Together, Snart and the other criminals broke out of the prison and developed their own crew know as the Rogues.

Supporting Cast:

Rogue group makeup is currently a placeholder and dependent on other players' plans.

The Rogues

Leonard Snart/Captain Cold
Michelle Rory/Heatwave
Evan McCullough/Mirror Master
Max Dillon/Electro
Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang
Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino

Enemies

Dr. Phineas Mason - Scientist responsible for Cold's powers.
The Top- Mob boss for Central City
The Flash - Do-gooder and all around pain in the ass.

How (if at all) does the New Frontier version of your character differ from the original?: Cold has powers and is more interested in potential revenge on Dillon for changing him and trying to topple Grodd as the top power in Central City.

Post References:

1. The Specialist
2. Criminal Darwinism.
3. Corridors of Power

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

This is an actual screenshot from Byrd's Tinder account.

Byrd Man, 27
Location: South Carolina.
Interests: politics, history, political history, and gangsta rap.

@Morden Man

You forgot the history of gangsta rap.

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

@Eddie Brock

Make sure this shit jives with what you want to do.

"I’m living everyday like a hustle. Another drug to juggle, another day another struggle"
-- Notorious B.I.G.

Name: Leonard Snart/Captain Cold

Alignment: Evil something.

Affiliation: The Rogues

History:

Lenny Snart was born into an abusive family. An alcoholic father who beat on him, his mother, and sister until he finally went to jail for vehicular manslaughter. Young Lenny was angry at the world and lashed out by becoming a criminal, first petty shoplifting and strong arm robbery. At the age of sixteen he graduated to armed robbery and B&E. He was in and out of prison over the years, eventually hooking up with a lover/partner named Michelle Rory. The young woman was obsessed with fire and had shady connections in Central City. One of her connections offered the couple money for taking part in an experiment.

Dr. Phineas Mason, working for Central City's shadowy crime boss known only as The Top, injected a metahuman gene stimulant into both Snart and Rory, activated their dormant metahuman genes. Snart's abilities manifested in ice while Rory's abilities were fire-based. The two lovers went on a robbery spree through Central and Keystone Cities, stopped only by the Flash. They were both sent to Iron Heights Maximum Penitentiary where they met like-minded criminals with special skills. Together, Snart and the other criminals broke out of the prison and developed their own crew know as the Rogues.

Supporting Cast:

Rogue group makeup is currently a placeholder and dependent on other players' plans.

The Rogues

Leonard Snart/Captain Cold
Michelle Rory/Heatwave
Evan McCullough/Mirror Master
Max Dillon/Electro
Digger Harkness/Captain Boomerang
Aleksei Sytsevich/Rhino

Enemies

Dr. Phineas Mason - Scientist responsible for Cold's powers.
The Top- Mob boss for Central City
The Flash - Do-gooder and all around pain in the ass.

How (if at all) does the New Frontier version of your character differ from the original?: Cold has powers and is more interested in potential revenge on Dillon for changing him and trying to topple Grodd as the top power in Central City.

Post References:

1. The Specialist
2. Criminal Darwinism.
3. Corridors of Power

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

@Byrd Man Once you've found some way to shoehorn a City Councilman, a Supreme Court verdict, or a missing girl into your first Captain Cold post your transformation into a satire of yourself will be complete.

@Morden Man

John Roberts' Daughter Ran Off With The City Councilman
A Captain Cold Mystery

The New Frontier: A Marvel/DC One Universe RP

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

Ah-ha-ha! I'm picking up what you're putting down.

_{It's Joe Chill, right?}

(Also, I was fairly certain that's where you were going with it.)

@Eddie Brock

Have I become that predictable?!