Crusader Lord

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@Estylwen@ERode

So, ah, about the app I'm writing....I have as short of a history as I could give on him, but also have the lengthy rest of his backstory that would be too long to put in the proper app. Most of it is how the guy became 'immortal' and the struggles along the way afterward, all the way to the bit in the app of how he ended up in a homunculus body in Arrowfell and became the Count of Aethera.

I wanted to ask if when I submit my app (will have a chance to irl in about four to six days due to irl work, just need to find a pic within the specified size limits that fits him and such) could I also send you two the longer backstory part over PM? Just to make sure nothing is, er, not fitting for the RP or the setting, fix or change what I'd need to, or even rewrite things for the app if it came to that. Etc. (@_@)

((I also had a little trouble deciding on spells when writing the app, but once I submit the app I'll fix anything I need to on it in general that you both need me to! That is not any sort of problem.))

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere....

@Estylwen

Warning: Old Meme Format Inside Of This Hider

Dangit, the watermark for the site I made this one got over Nyx's face. Blargh. That's what I get for making a rushed meme at like near 6pm where I live.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

Ok! Two weeks later, admittedly, but finally I got the time to respond here after a fair bit of work and such going on irl. Whew. But yes! I'd like to formally join the RP if possible. :O

While I do want to run with the same core concept, someone who became immortal a super long time ago and the core/vessel being placed in a homunculus body eventually and is a magic researcher and so forth, I also want to rework some of the aspects of it and a couple of things as brought up by @ERode too (the core/vessel gets broughht to Aethera for selling by merchants coming from the East, perhaps, as just one example). To try to smooth it out better and such, be more cohesive, etc. Also taking stuff mentioned into account like having the elf lady adopt him instead of having her own kids or such, etc, to help make sense how he got to become a noble and so forth. Maybe have him have adopted a set of elf twins or something, have some freaky wendigo-looking knight in his service, etc, as other flavor to add to him and such too potentially.

If you're still interested in my concept, @Estylwen, I'd also still be happy to talk more about it and the ideas you had for it tying the character into things over DMs if you'd like!

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

@Estylwen Have a few character concept ideas and such so far, and thought I'd present one off them to you to see if its any bit viable (of if i overthought this thing to death already). Life's been busy irl otherwise, and I've gotta head to bed after posting this due to the oncoming work week I have. (@_@)

Just want to see if it's viable for now though, juggling joining properly or not otherwise for the time being for a few personal irl reasons.....but, in the meantime, I at least want to see if some potential character idea or two might work or not juuuust in case.

Character Concept #1 - The Homunculus

Long, long ago, an ancient artifact was wrought in a quest for immortality....only for that success to end up being a horible curse. Bound to a peculiar and seemingly indestructible sphere, the individual inside lived for some time before eventually wishing to end it all. In this quest, and after many tries to find the death he eventually sought for, he tore out the magical core containing him from his latest body and flung it deep into the ocean. Here in the depths he would slumber unawkaened for an untold amount of time, before being found covered in softly glowing microorganisms on the shores of Athius by a young elven girl whose wealthy family hailed from Aethera. This girl would gain an interest in learning magic from the artifact, itselff covered in arcane runes and so forth, but for all anyone knew it was simply a cool-looking sphere that did nothing.

Centuries later, given elven lifespans, the girl has become an alchemist whose life's work was to study the 'mysteries of life and its creation' and had long moved on from the artifact save for keeping it around her family's estate. Yet when a dog that wandered onto the premises slipped in an open door and eventually swallowed the artifact from where the elf had kept it, she noticed it take pause....and its eyes faintly flash with a light glow. It was as if something else was there instead of the dog, or someone else, and after killing the dog to get the artifact back she felt a burst of inspiration as she came to realize or at least theorize something about the artifact. She would work to craft a homnuculus body to place it in, then, a vessel that would bear it and hopefully allow her to discern its secrets at last.

Yet after doing this, the individual inside of the artifact awoke in a new body for the first time in ages....and he was angry. Angry for being awoken again somehow, and yet his awakener was the opposite and was thrilled beyond belief at his existence and awakening. He did not give her all her answers, but he would end up becoming her lab assistant of sorts and advisor as he witnessed her growing obsession with studying life. Even as the elf's parents died of old age, her own husband died of illness, and she at times used her kids or servants for experiments while placing them otherwise in the care of this valued homunculus himself she continued on. And as she continued on and worsened, the homunculus himself increasingly became distant to her and stopped helping. In her he saw his mistakes, his follies, and in the end the elf would herself eventually die of strange and sudden yet seemingly normal mundane circumstances.

Taking stewardship of her children and wealth, as she'd left everything to him in her will without so much as thinking about the matter, the homunculus sells the estate and most of its contents before taking the two kids and the wealth and leaving Aethera. He moves farther west, seeking distance from the elven ancestral home, and ends up moving as far as Hathforth and eventually becoming a professor at the College of Hathforth and broadening his knowledge between what he took of his maker's life's work with him but also taking the time to spend time with his basically adoptive elven kids at this point. Delves into known and secretly the forbidden in terms of magic, but it mostly ranges around alchemy, necromancy, and stuff like animating trees or statues. Or his magical leanings could be a bit more varied. Concept is flexible in this respect.

Eventually the titular Ludwig II comes to power and moves to unite Arrowfell, and this leads the homunculus to decide that he could do with a second home for retiring at some point or another. So, after having cultivated wealth from investments over time and banking up his income from teaching at the College, he manages to get ahold of a noble title of sorts and retires from the College to another location or town/city to relax for some time. Still keeps up his personal studying of magic, building his personal treasury/income, and maybe even pays for his own high-clase teleportation stuff, but ultimately in the end he moves far from the capital of Hathforth and its court dramas for the most part for some peace and quiet.

Maybe he moves to an already known place, or maybe into someplace like another trading town/city that arose along the Fey River near the fork in the river to the north. Etc. Whatever the case, he becomes known as a human-looking individual who has a growing pool of wealth and some local connections in Arrofell due to business dealings outside of his teaching job over the years. The elven kids of his former maker have grown up enough to not be little kids for sure by this point, and yet live on the same estate as him like family. Could be he got up to somthing or another otherwise in this time period too, depending on if people wanted to have backstory connections or otherwise, but overall the general gist is things are peaceful enough for him in this era.

....That is, they are until the Wizard Queen comes to power and the Glasic Fields erupt into existence. It shocks him as a mage/scholar for such a thing as the Glasic Fields to emerge, and while he wasn't some friend of Ludwig and just made bank and got a title from doing things underneath his rule in the past it is a shock to hear the guy who brought about a 20 year peace is dead so suddenly and so soon at least.

From here, this character's potential involvement in things can vary a bit depending on what you'd want. Perhaps he is called back to work at the College out of a desperation for teachers, and has been working these last two years while 'commuting' from home via teleportation. Perhaps the Wizard Queen wants his expertise in her court in some capacity and to test his potential loyalties after getting word of him via the College. Perhaps some wily Duke or Duchess wanted his servies, or sees him as a potential asset to support or work against the Queen. Etc, etc.

ArrowFell: The Wizard Queen's Court

>.>

<.<

This RP has me curious. Is there still room here for joining? :O

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Freakshow

The Terrazards were rushing in to bring the literal 'house' down, even as the bulky monstrosity of Freakshow barreled out of the building with a serious haste. Ardent had taken the heat, perhaps both literally and metaphorically speaking, from the amped-up Torch inside of the building....and she wasn't going to let it go to waste for the time being either. Evacuating the twins, and ultimately Lab Rat it seemed, in the nick of time was certainly a thing many might call 'heroic'. To her? To her it was just the practical thing to do to get the others out of there and rush them to safety, while also doing something or anything to try to bring down the flaming building before things got worse and maybe taking out Torch along the way. Or, well, hopefully not taking out Ardent in the process. Actually, that was a good point there-

"Ok kids, fun time's over! Time to get off the big ol' fleshy horror ride! Please just hold tight, or maybe not try to kill each other, or somethin'."

As she moved out into the open, and got properly clear of the building in her flight, Luna would gingerly deposit both of the twins as well as Lab Rat on the ground together. Though as she finished speaking, her tone went from an almost whimsical theme-park-ride tone to something more akin to an exasperated mother trying to juggle three kids in her arms while the other two were almost burning down the house. Almost. Maybe. Hopefully just an 'almost', though just in case the fleshy monstrosity kept the Terrazard command device concealed fully inside of her flesh alongside that other head that had been talking into it. Better to keep a handy tool on-hand and hidden from sight in case she-...oh. Ok. Yeah, that was better than she'd thought it was going to be.

Noticing the ongoing drenching of the now-just-smoldering building that was still being torn to shreds by her Terrazard Demolition Team, it also stood to reason that she'd at least notice the nearby kaiju fight going on as well. Or, well, two kaijus and an angry bunch of mushrooms trying to figure out how this was going to end until one hell of a haymaker took the giant monkey out finally. Things were going down fast though, weren't they? In part it made her glad, though otherwise it made her want to simply sigh at the hectic nature of it all. But that was a fight for ya, it could be fast and it could be slightly less fast depending on what was going on. Not unlike a bunch of suicidal morons on a bridge trying to hold it like they're the Greeks at Thermopylae.

"Terrazards, keep tearing down the building to the ground, and once done with that return to the open field here and line up in two neat blocks and wait at attention."

The head hidden inside of her body spoke into the command device again, even as her external heads kept an eye on things around her to make sure it all went down well enough at least while she stood next to the trio of bodies she'd gently put on the safe ground outside what was now right next to her. That giant hole inside of the building was certainly something to take note of as well, thinking back, but the Zards' had been pouring out of it like water from a busted dam earlier. Like someone had a breeding project going on down there, or had been cloning them or something. Went deeper than this stupid moron Torch and his attempt to make a goon squad for sure....how much deeper she didn't know, but to recruit a moron and draw them in with a proxy to take the fall that used a name like the 'Azure Skulls' it had to be something perhaps. Not to mention they'd lost sight of a convenient little super-smart tinkerer in more recent memory to boot, at least before ICOSA had arrived.

Hmm.

Following her gut instincts, Luna would inside of her own body begin fashioning a neat little thing in secret. Do her best to match the density, weight, exact dimensions, and size of the Leftovers Control Device using good old bone and such hard materials she could generate. She did have the real thing, after all, and she could engineer a nice, smooth replica 'just in case' after all. Just in case something or someone tried to pry it from her by force and held her peers hostage or something stupid like that. Or, well, if Magician tried to get it. She really didn't like that guy, or trsut him as much, though speaking about the matter of ICOSA....as for Ms. "Chimera" Perez? Heh. Well she could see the smaller woman wasn't on her perch, and that building just got a nice new water bath to help the situation. Didn't take too much to at least assume the woman had done something as things had gone to hell in a heartbeat, and the monster of a heroine felt more respect for that personally over someone just willing to sit back and risk innocent lives over this sort of thing.

"Hey Crane and Grumpy Shrooms, you two doin' ok?"

One of the extra heads would shout rather loud to the other two heroes, wanting to know if they were doing ok despite the victory. However, Mire was getting a new nickname for a breif moment even if they hated it. Also it wasn't tehcnically wrong, Luna felt, since Mire was a grumpy bunch of fungal matter with sapience and a personality of their own. But hey what was a bad situation for if not badly-timed teasing at teammates as thanks for a job pretty well-done in beating up a giant monkey? Eh? Eh? Well, overall perhaps it was a job maybe not nessecarily done yet anyways. It depended on how they proceeded from here really, and she wasn't going to make assumptions until the fat lady sang her heart out. But in the meantime-

"Hey Rat, er, Lab Rat. Could you keep an eye on these two knuckleheads for a sec? Specially' the one ready for some maple syrup here after gettin' pancaked, he'll need some doctorin' to get him back on his feet for sure. Don't have to worry bout' the nearby Zards', though, I've got em' handled for now.

Meanwhile I'm going to check in on Ardent and stuff inside real fast, and see if Ms. Perez decided to make her debut on the Brookside scene....also if that stupid hole is still open for now too. Somethin' about all of this smells a bit too fishy about this whole scenario and its timing from here, and I don't think its the trash in the burnin' building either."

With that, the monstrosity would make her way quickly back toward the burning building to catch up with her hopefully-alive teammate, maybe even to get him and Torch out of there if she had to help take down the murderous dolt. Secreting more of the fire-resistant mucus substance over herself, then, Freakshow would plunge into the smoldering building again in an attempt to locate the others. Yet while she braced herself for a potential battle, at the same time she hoped there wouldn't have to be one. Ardent was a tough guy, but he also wasn't immortal...none of them were for that matter.

@Blizz@ManyThings@Silver Carrot@shylarah@Hitman@DClassified@Zoey Boey

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Freakshow

Fireballs would cause some of the secreted mucus on Luna's horrific form to bubble, melt, and fall off in strange, sizzling chunks upon the abaonded factory floor as she charged him down and took the impact of his blasts. Even as Luna could feel the searing pain signals from her fleshy form, her pain tolerance having been well honed and then been further augmented by her capabilities, she would still keep up the charge regardless of the damage to herself as the forward-most head on her shambling visage kept the focus of its faintly glowing red eyes and horrifically split-open monstrous maw focused straight ahead on her target. There was no dissuading her from this course of action, nor stopping her monstrous roaring of untold warped and distorted voices coming out from her many mouths.

Torch, for what it was worth, wasn't one of the heaviest hitters of the old gang from what she'd ever known....man hadn't even been among those kept at the HQ for later while the rest of them had been sent out to die for the sake of what amounted to blasted publicity stunt of all things. A useless, hollow publicity stunt meant to propel those left behind into infamy, enough to work to make that accursed dream of being 'big time villains' a reality. The thing that had cost most anyone left with even two cents of brain power in their heads back in the old Blue Skulls their lives and otherwise.

As her monstrous form crashed into the body of Torch, tendrils and myriad arms reaching out as well, Luna would grab and thusly rip the black control device from Torch's hands as her mass sent the other metahuman flying. The tendrils that grabbed the device would then retract it quickly into her own body, moving it to where one of her many heads had retracted into a hollowed-out space inside of her huge fleshy body while her HERO watch had come to be stored elsewhere inside of her. This, even as she stood back up from where she'd fallen and continued her pursuit of the man to try to get him while he was down.

"Why did you decide to accept their deal in the end?"

Why indeed. The therapist had asked her that after she took up HERO's deal. Poor therapist had listened to her about a lot of things, helped her work on many others, and yet she could still recall her response after they'd talked a little more about it. Motivations. Reasoning. Etc. Things that'd motivate her to accept that deal, all trying to make sure she wasn't feeling forced into it among other things. Therapist crap, basically, though in hindsight she was glad for it to enough of an extent. Helped her get her head on her shoulders, perhaps for the first time in her life, and she'd resolved to do something with that.

And she still felt that resolve even now.

"[Because] for the last few years I thought I'd rot in my cell for the rest of my life, yeah, and hell I'd determined myself to do just that after all I've done. I deserve it I think, still think I do at least, but now at least I have a chance to make a difference rather than just sit around now. Make a good difference, in a great way, for as many people as I can help one way or another. This is something I never thought I'd get the chance to do in my life at this point, and I-....I....I-I want to do this, and do this with my own two hands and work my hardest at it.

You told me ta' find a better 'reason to live' than guilt and everythin', and I think this is it. I want to live for a good reason, not just feelin' guilty all day and night and wishin' I was dead with the rest of em'. Won't bring back the dead, make anyone else feel better or do better, won't make me better, or the like. I wanna' put myself to good use in something I've come to believe in now, and work toward that as best as I can and live my life as best as I can from now on.

As for the freedom eventually? That's just a tiny little bonus beyond all of this, nothin' more."

She would work to make the world better, even if it cost her the rest of her life to do so. For the kids and people who lived in Brookside, for the average person who got caught in the middle of all of this sort of crap, and for the people who had yet to be born. She'd fight to make sure as few bodies as possible got sent back in bags or pieces even among her enemies, and would make sure as many of people as she could would get back home alive. Couldn't save everyone, though, but like hell if she'd give up regardless. And right now wasn't any different, as if this fire got into more of Brookside, if the Zards' got spread out into the area, and the like then it would only make things worse for everyone. Even if she had to come out each day to spend all day and night hunting the things down alone and by hand she'd do it, but maybe with the device Torch had used now in her hands she could at least do one thing for the people of Castleburg and Brookside in this situation.

Yet the heroine and resident 'Freakshow' wouldn't get to her target much in time despite her efforts, though, as Torch injected himself with the same stuff Menace had been hit with and dropped the syringe on the ground. A lashing tendril would shoot out and grab the empty thing at least, though, before just as rapidly retracting into her mass to protect and store it. Likewise a hand would emerge from the lining of the internal space inside of her body she had created prior to store one of her new many heads, this hand holding the captured Leftovers Control Device and attempting to use it as the mouth of the one head in there also spoke loudly into it. She'd try it with her own normal voice, then by mimicking Torch's voice if that didn't do anything. Etc. But she had to at least try something.

(("Terrazards, return to this building and destroy it completely! Bring this piece of trash burning building crumbling down to the very ground and your use your bodies to put out any scraps of the fire that remain afterward!")

Bring down the building, right down on the head of the asshat who was setting it on fire right now. Bring it down, and kill Terrazards. Then what would remain in the aftermath, if any of the Terrazards? She had a plan for that once they got to that point, but one thing at a time for now. She had to see if this particular stupid plan of hers, certainly not the first nor the last, would function how she hoped. Otherwise, she had to come up with a Plan B really, really fast and on the fly. She could at least do that. But for now, Torch had gone even more insane and was doing a good job of making the place into a literal dumpster fire at this rate. But....perhaps it was the funeral pyre he had wanted....and the one he deserved as well.

They had to get out of there before things got worse, though, and as Torch went mad Luna would try to emit more protective anti-fire mucus and would fire about five bone spikes from her body at the man like a shotgun blast. This all as she scrambled off back toward the others, where if she got the chance she'd try to grab up Lab Rat and both of the Twins and to pull them safely close to herself as her own huge form sought to barrel out of the burning building and back into the safety (ironically) of the open and not-currently-on-fire space outside. If her attempt to command the Terrazards was working, however, she'd not attack any Terrazards on the way out. If it wasn't working and the the things were still attacking them all anyways or such, she'd use the extra arms and bone spikes and her many feet and such to keep killing as many Terrazards as she could on the way out one way or another.

"Time to go, party people! Keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times, and be careful because the local Lizards bite!"

Yet as her main external heads spoke this aloud and in a hurry as she sought to do all of this, she would take care to contain the injured member of the Twins as well as use a side head to speak to the other one if she had managed to get ahold of them as she intended to do.

"Hey, kid. Time to get out of here, see if I can keep you two alive too at that. This ain't picking pockets near the corner store on fifth. Hate me or not, I don't care, because you two don't deserve to die because of Torch being the insane asshat he is....or other reasons for that matter."

@Blizz@ManyThings@Silver Carrot@shylarah@Hitman@DClassified@Zoey Boey

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

@Blizz@ManyThings@Silver Carrot@shylarah@Hitman@DClassified@Zoey Boey

Posted for Luna! Forgot to tag in my post like I usually do, though, so letting you all know here instead.

o7

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Freakshow

"You're right, but--" He thrust the signpost into another lizard's chest as he spoke, repelling enemies from Freakshow's left flank while she spearheaded the charge, "--We can't just leave the lizards out here, either. Rushing to the heart of the plant all together is the strongest play, but it's not the right play."

Ardent

"....You're right."

One of her heads looked to him and spoke in Luna's normal voice, though her tone was a little more audibly subdued than it had been prior. But as much as she wanted to just charge in and get this over with-....she....ah hell. It was hard enough to admit, but she'd admit it rather than deny anything and fumble about trying to justify something stupid 'again' in her life. At least if she could help it. But how couldn't she be a bit worried about all of this, hmm? They had total newbies who likely didn't know squat about the danger of Zards and how it could still be rather bad even if you were some 'super badass' or something, and damn it all she'd held a man's severed head before just trying to get someone out of a stupid ass situation they'd all gone into without getting the blasted clue beforehand. Did she want that again? Did she want to see any of those other things happen again to people, teammates or otherwise?

Hell. F******. No.

It ate away at her just to know the possibility, but in the end she couldn't just make it all simply go as she wished no matter how hard she wishes she could. In. Out. Done. Everyone comes home in one piece or something. All just to keep her own mind at ease about the state of her own little personal world here at the very least. Just to feel like she could say something and bring anything useful to this blasted team. She'd shed enough blood. She'd seen enough blood shed too. Why couldn't she just make it all work out so everyone went home and no one ever had to deal with crap this like this ever again, hmm?!

...Ah. Breathe. In and out. Just breathe.

If they let these things get out into Brookside proper and set up actual nests once they weren't being controlled or something (she felt that was the case here)? It'd be just as bad as if they'd run away and not solved the problem at all before letting it balloon even more out of control. So yes, they'd need to have people screening these things and keeping them out of Brookside as much as possible. Even if that's what the morons inside of the building wanted, as she personally suspected, for them to do. They were heroes, so they had to try to actually save people for pity's sake! What was the point otherwise?

He looked to Luna, his face lightly splattered with scales and reptile blood. He grinned.

"You're worried about what these things can do. Fine. But it's time to show some trust. These things are dangerous, but so are we!"

The head looking back at Ardent as the trio of heroes moved along toward the building would crack, even if for a moment, a grin of some sort. A grin, in the middle of all of this situation as the rest of herself was mulching Zards and the ilk. It all just felt so, so stupid to her in some part....but to hell with that. Trust was a hard thing to come by, but you had to give a little to get a little, right? Had to prove you were trustworthy and give others the chance to trust you too.

Ok. It was decided then.

"Heh. Alright, alright, trusting you guys it is then. It's just I don't want to be brigin' people home in bags or pieces....never ever again if I can damn well help it."

A rare moment of vulnerability to admit that crap, but they had little time before they'd be inside the building proper. And then? Well, she had no idea what 'surprises' awaited them in there. What idiots were doing all of this. What crap was going on with all of these gangers, and who was fueling the fire they were trying to start by imitating the Blue Skulls of all things. And that brought up once last point as 'Freakshow' took note of who had joined them to go into the building and what they had coming into this new situation. Not a bad setup, certainly still not the best scenario. It's whaat they had to work with in the end regardless, though, so it'd have to make do.

"Alright, Ardent, Lab Rat, I ran years ago with the original gang the morons inside are tryin' to imitate the very worst of. I know how the Skulls were goin' with things as well before they....died off. Won't sugar coat it, that probably means someone in there knows me, that this will be personal, and that all means things will get a loot worse for us inside here."

It was all she'd communicate to the two otherwise before they got inside. Had she done some really bad crap before? Yeah, because how would someone ever get the moniker 'Cadaver' otherwise? They took a kid with a strong power and threw her into crap usually only the older ones did because she was 'good firepower' and crap like that or something. Etc. But might as well get that tidbit of information out to the two allies she was 'charging into the breach' with before some lug tried to ramble it out for her like it was some big dramatic theater-kid-esque reveal.

"Welcome, heroes," he said, his voice oozing the type of overconfidence that was endemic amongst villains. He turned to face Freakshow, staring at her behind the mask. "Welcome home, Cadaver. I'm glad you were able to make it inside our humble abode."

The Asshat Supreme

But once they got inside, some idiot in a mask began to talk to them as his 'friends' seemed to be standing or hanging around as they wished.

"No sh**, really? And here I forgot to bring a present for you."

Her tone was half-assed and intentionally a bit mocking, but still.

What was most notable about thhe scene, though, was the giant blasted hole in the ground that seemed to be 'leaking' Zards, which likely meant more than what it looked like at face value, and yet as the masked man began to speak it took the ninteen year old a few seconds before the manner of speaking made it finally 'click' in her head who he was. Sure he was spilling as many beans on things as he could too, it seemed, and Luna woujld quietly going to turn on her HERO watch and had one of her many new grotesquely-warped heads whisper to ALISA to record what the mook was saying to boot for potential information and get a picture or so of the scene at large as things went down. Then the arm with the watch on it would withdraw with one of the additional heads inside of her grotesque form to try something else.

Outside of that, though, part of her didn't honestly fully know how to respond as she let the man go on with his rambling spiel and used her many heads to eye the situation as one of them looked right back at the masked man in turn.

Of course, it also didn't help when the Menace got injected with something strange and hulked the hell out like he was on drugs-...actually, yeah, that'd make sense too. Didn't look the same as she'd read or seen about him in the past though. Inject him with some enhancement stuff, make him go giant monster, and then-? Eh, seemed he decided to leave the building at least. Wait....oh hell Crane was out there still too. But that was not something they had the luxury to think about for the moment.

Torch chuckled madly. "Now, where were we? Oh, right. Killing you all." The fireball that was flickering in his hand now grew even larger and hotter. "Go forth, Terrazards! Go forth, Menace! Kill these heroes! Just leave Cadaver to me."

Torch

Well, at least this particular asshole was someone she'd known about before. Hell, met even before the Bridge at some point or another. Already she'd been pushing her durability and some attempts at a more fire-retardant mucus being emitted across her exterior 'skin' and parts too while the guy had taken his sweet time to speak once she'd recognized the voice and seen the fireball in his hand. How could she forget this guy, though, even if his cousin Carl had been a bit more memorable than him to most of the gang. Couldn't forget him, totally, not at all, never in a million years...but as he chucked the intense fireball at her-

"You got to be f***ing kidding me. 'Lutz the Klutz', here, in front of me, in real flesh and bone? Was fraid' you'd gone the way of good ol' Carl back there on the bridge, though I didn't have time to check."

Of course it'd be this dingus that someone would manage to manipulate. Backers? Financing? Logistics? Lutz wasn't some Napoleon, but he wasn't a nobody either. At the same time, he soundedd more unhinged than she could ever remember him being like for what it was worth. Not that the bridge hadn't had its own effects on her and the others too back then. Well, the incredibly few others who'd managed to scrape by alive at least. Guy knew how to fight well enough, though, so it was worth it to acknowledge that this fireball and any other fire was going to hurt like hell at least.

Luna the monstrosity charged in against Pyro as he was throwing the fireball at her, though, her shuddering mass moving inhumanly fast toward the guy as it could and attempting to minimize the impact of the thrown fireball to her right side. The others would have to deal with the twins here and the Zards inside the place. Those outside would have to deal with the other crap. Sheer mass sought to crash into the freak of nature in the end, though, and do nothing short of cripple his ability to fight thouroughly but without killing him or ending his life whenever she finally got her tendrils and so forth on him. Even if it took a few tries or whatever in this fight, as it wasn't her first rodeo metaphorically speaking.

Because even if it took some trying, oh boy she was going to get her hands on him one way or another.

Ah, but now she was roaring in her assault in another literal cacophony of inhuman sounds and disturbing voices again at least. Was glad the creepy Fallout kid wasn't there to hear it and see her again, though, even if he was supposed to be some kind of ally and all. Kid was....yeah.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

Freakshow

((Stuff in her color, with single quotes and italicized = Luna's thoughts. Normal quotation marks = Speaking.))

Oh course two of em' were gonna' rail back against it all. Not that she hadn't opened her trap wide enough as it was an' killed time. Eh. Look, better the newbies get some idea of what ta' do than not, right? Hell. She wasn't used to doing this sort of thing on her own. Not at all. Trying to get this group of people under the same banner and the same idea or something of the sort without prep time. What had HERO been thinking on this one, really? Two of them who knew the hood, but naturally having this whole ICOSA crap coming down on them and then this mess. What, were they supposed to be a fluid coordinated team at the drop of a hat? Took time and effort and bleeding and almost dying alongside each other for some people to connect the damned dots!

Luna didn't talk back or respond to the others. No, instead she swung her empowered fists and turned Terrazard skulls into paste. Could feel them gnawing at her, only to get thrown off or have their brin ripped out with her bare hands. As much as she wanted to do her best....do her best to stay clean and on a good path no matter what that is, she couldn't deny that this was almost cathartic in a sense that she hadn't felt for a long time coming. Then Mire's stunt almost splashed her, for that matter, though it was certianly a relief. But all of these Terrazards coming in like this and all at once? Doing so in a formation of some kind? No, this couldn't be coincidence at this point.

However-

"Don't follow them? Are you serious? If they stop coming to us, we're gonna have to go to them. The mission is to clear out the whole place, which means we're gonna have to go in there and get our feet wet a little. If you don't feel safe doing that, you can wait outside. I'm gonna-"

"Hah! At least we can forget about the bait!"

"That was a lot of yapping just to say 'let's watch each other's backs while we fight some lizards'! Better hope it works!"

Ardent

"Alright, I opened my yap too much and I'll own up to it. Thoough I didn't say for us all to never go in there together once-....oh shi-."

As she spoke her eyes would spot something far, far worse on the horizon. No, a lot of somethings running at them in numbers that were far from natural. It was far from normal. No, it was nothing short of a giant Hollywood zombie horde of Terrazards just flooding out like they were coming out of the walls....or had been set loose. Even the bad infestations in Brookside had never gotten THIS bad in all her life thus far even in the stories from the old timers.

And bounce back they did. Hordes and hordes of them flooded out of the big hole in the side of the wall of the recycling plant. So much so that, at a certain point, the concern was no longer the lizards. The lizards were dangerous to regular people, but there were a number of heroes, or perhaps even some non-heroes with good enough equipment, that could kill them with ease.

"This ain't natural! Everyone come together, toward and onto me, and keepin watchin' each other's backs while we start makin' way toward the plant right now! Morons inside have lost their minds, and splitting up for interceptin' these things won't do squat to help unless we stop the source of em' comin' out from the inside!"

The problem was whoever was putting them there in the first place. Terrazards were never present in these large quantities. Maybe small groups. Maybe LARGE groups. Whatever this was, was a veritable army. Who was making this army?

It was her nightmare scenario in all of this come to fruition. One of those asinine ideas she'd heard some morons saying as a joke years ago, but...hell. Whoever was inside was really trying to just kill them all at this point, wanted to just as badly as they were horribly stupid. Stupid enough to name themselves after the Blue Skulls in the most obvious possible way. Stupid enough to not send everything out at once, only a token stupid force, because now at this point she didn't doubt the Skulls inside were the source of this crap at all.

It was all so stupid, and it made he wonder if it was just some stupid coincidence or not.

'Wait a damn minute, if they made a damn Zard army like that then why send just the small fry bunch at us first? All you'd get is us gettin' ready, then the rest come for-....for....no...'

Luna began to ramp up her power, her body beginning to warp and change in shape as she ran foward to intercept the next innumerable wave. Grotesque juttings of bone stuck to super-strong arms. An elongating body that ran with far too many pairs of strong legs. Multiple heads and the ilk keeping watch and lash out to bite on super strong but stretchy necks, all while jutting meaty tendrils would begin stabbing with syringe-like super-strong spears of bone to inject her own extremely augmented digestive enzymes being mass-produced in many new stomachs into the Terrazards. Like a caterpillar from Wonderland that got dropped into Hell for a few millenia or so.

But it was her transformation, and her effort, to not hold back and attempt to help 'handle things' while the others hopefully formed up and came up with her. Hopefully. Because in this swarm, splitting up for any reason could get them killed and they needed to go to the source. Cut off the source, then hunt down what had come out of the building. Would save the most trouble by far, compared to the alternative that was splitting up and grabbing buckets to hold water when you had a 'burst pipe' type of situation like this.

'No, the name's obvious. Too obvious. Screams loud to people what they're tryin' to imitate. Ya know who knows what it means too? Who'd be drawn here just fer' that reason? **My stupid ass**. HERO's stupid ass too.

And the Zards'? No, they're producing em' somehow. Breeding em'? Somethin'. Have enough wander around to get us called to the scene, though, and then just give us a taste so no backup comes runnin' or we arrive with a bigger group than planned.

They spring this crap on us, and then we get desperate and charge in like morons to try to stop it. Bam.'

This wasn't right. None of it was. Skulls should have stayed dead, and the morons trying to emulate them had what they wanted here potentially as well. Her. HERO. A smaller group of fighters compared to what HERO would've sent to assist if they'd known the Terrazards had such unnatural numbers here or the like. Newbies who'd never fought Terrazards before, two veterans, and a dysfunctional mess that could potentially blow up if they didn't come together well enough. Heh. She'd almost laugh if it didn't make her want to cave in heads with her fists first.

For all her issues or not, for all her power was horrific or not, Luna wanted them all coming back alive and hoped to bring them all back in one piece. She even hoped even Mr Grumpy Mushrooms and Flyboy could at least see the advantage of coming together to push to the building instead of rushing in like a dumbass alone or otherwise. She hoped the Newbies would see. She felt Blur was going to have an eye on things, however....call it a hunch based on past experiences. Though to see 'that guy' here and under the title he was? She was just glad they were all on the same side this time.

But in the end she wasn't going to hold back the assumptions about this anymore. Some asshat in there knew what had happened at the old HQ. They knew she worked for HER. They were nuts, but it was the desperate, vengeful, and crazy ones that just wnted to see the world burn which you had to worry about most sometimes. They, after all, had the least to lose, and the most to gain.

....Or, well they were on copious amounts of drugs that only having a superpower would enable without dying. Just manage to locate and ask the corpse of the former Skulls member, the 100% post-mortem legend himself, that had once been "Crazy Crackhead Carl the Immortal".

@Blizz@ManyThings@Silver Carrot@shylarah@Hitman@DClassified@Zoey Boey