Haha, I hope the little foray into late night martial arts action isn't too egregious and self-absorbed. In fact I hope it might be a little entertaining.
The girl's qi spiked and with it she was suddenly so much faster. Danny barely had time to perceive the sudden change in her charge before a roughly executed tiger-claw palm crashed into his ribs. For a moment he thought he was suddenly back in K'un-L'un with the morning gongs calling him to training before he realized it was the sound of his own body as it collided with the same lamppost he'd intended to throw the tiger-themed assailant into. A blow like that would have shattered his rib cage like fine china if he hadn't instinctively boosted his endurance at the moment of impact. Even so, it would probably leave a bruise all down his back.
So, obviously she was better than he'd thought. Much better. This was no pit-fight with triad street toughs. This was a real martial artist, enhanced by an artifact of potent mystical power he barely understood.
On the other hand Daniel had trained for ten years in the halls of K'un-L'un, bested the challenge of the Serpent King by the age of ten, defeated all challengers in the Eternal Tournament, passed through the gauntlet of The Many and The One. He had skills of his own that few mortals could equal, powers of his own that even fewer could understand. With this in mind he stood up from the dented lamppost and stretched himself out, worked out a few kinks, winced slightly at some audible cracking where he'd tensed up too much.
"Alright. Time to get serious."
Time slowed down as he amped up his speed and reflexes further and further, then he rushed the tiger amulet's holder with a speed and ferocity that matched her own. But he kept every movement cool, precise, controlled. He lashed out with a low sweeping kick to try and keep her footing off-balance even if it didn't connect, an Elephant Kick variation. As his foot came down into stability he'd follow it up with the driving close-fisted punch of a Ram's Head Strike to her solar plexus, a combination that was a K'un-Lun staple. His third move was a sudden spinning pivot meant both to avoid a retaliatory blow and sneakily set up his final strike. As he spun he'd drive his elbow backward into her floating ribs, a trickier variant of the Monkey Blow.
She was strong, fast and more than a little skilled. But Danny knew the source of her power now: she was one with the Tiger. He was one with the Heart of the Dragon and try as she might in contests of skill the Dragon always trumped the Tiger.
As Danny figured the girl immediately went on the attack, all fury and motion and power in one. As an angry tiger-themed human missile launched itself at him with enough force to take a grown man off of his feet and likely claw his eyes out in the same instant, Danny shifted his weight ever so slightly, looked at her dead on and smiled.
As he allowed her to collide with him he moved to intercept her force and turn it against her. Provided she wasn't much, much better and more clear-headed than he thought, he would lash around like a whipcord and redirect her own momentum into a lamp post just behind them, an adaptation of a basic aikido principle. As he moved to execute the two-handed throw he noticed the amulet hanging from her neck, its' jade tiger head like a blinding beacon to his third-eye. It's aura was unmistakable, and with recognition came a surging sense of alarm. Regardless of how his reversal played out he knew what he had to ask next.
"What are you doing with that amulet!? How did you come to meddle with the sacred Jade Tiger of K'un-L'un!?"
Admittedly he sounded like a character out of a bad Wuxia tale now, but the sudden reminder of home brought it out in him. Did this girl even know what she possessed? That the trinket she wore was a treasure beyond value, an artifact of power so dangerous that it could threaten the very existence of his home?
He had to know, even if the only way to communicate with her was with his fists.
It had taken some quick course-corrections once Danny had figured out that the aura had started moving rapidly towards Chinatown instead given he was halfway to the Bronx by then, but after a long fifteen minutes of qi-boosted parkour it looked like he had finally tracked the violent emanations of K'un-L'un energy to their source...
and she was way more violent up close.
To Danny's senses anger rolled off of her in waves, shimmering and burning like the air over a bonfire in pulsations so strong that he was sure if it had been actual heat the pavement at their feet would've been melted back into bubbling tar. The energy surrounding her roared and crashed against his third eye like a tsunami or the assault of some raging beast and he had to stumble back for a second before readjusting himself to it all.
The Force was strong in this one alright. Strong and pissed. Worse yet she was standing over Professor Lee Wing, a good man and one of the few to know enough about the supernatural lore of the East in New York to be worth consulting if rumor was to be believed. The only reason Danny himself hadn't sought him out before was out of a desire to avoid bringing trouble to his doorstep.
But it looked like trouble had found him anyways.
“You are going to tell me everything you know before or after I start breaking limbs, it's up to you which one.”
"Is that a fact?"
Danny figured that was pretty good as far as heroic interruptions went, though now that he thought about it his entrance was kind of ruined by the fact that he was still holding two bags full of takeout from the fight-club with 'Thank Yuo for Shopping, Hav a Nice Day! =)' on them. Still, he ran with it.
"Because personally I was thinking we could all relax, split some pork dumplings, really make a nice evening of things. Professor Wing is known to have a lovely Jasmine tea that's to die for!"
The girl in the strange tiger costume only glared at him and balled her fists so tight he could hear the knuckles crack, and if he weren't concerned for the man's dignity Danny could swear the good Professor might have wet himself just a bit.
Danny dropped the bags of pork-based deliciousness with a sigh and fell into an easy stance, legs forming a crescent moon shape between them, knees slightly bent, palms out and open to the sky.
"No? Kung Fu fight on the street instead? I respect your choice, but you're really missing out on good tea."
Well, I dunno about Superman but I think I can make some sort of contribution to the Maxi U.
|| Identity | Wade Winston Wilson A.K.A. Deadpool, The Merc with a Mouth, The Chiyonozake, Codename: Wildcard, Whatever Other Title He Makes Up For Himself At The Moment
| Origin & Backstory |
Wade Wilson, younger brother of the much more well-liked Slade Wilson.
Even when he was born in 1976 this phrase was already dominating the life of the man who would later be known as Deadpool. Though he loathes elaborating on his early childhood for the most part, he'll gladly go on and on about how as he saw things Slade was always the golden child, how he could do no wrong and was destined for great things. Wade on the other hand became a 'hate-sink' of sorts, a focus for all of his parents' hatred and abuse, at least when they weren't neglecting him outright. Slade never really seemed to notice the discrepancy, likely because he was too busy being brilliant physically and academically. It was during this dark early period that Wade began to develop his now 'famous' sense of humor, lashing out at his parents with jibes and pranks and keeping up the face of a cheery jokester, although this only seemed to irritate his parents further. Things only got worse by the time he was twelve and Slade was eighteen in 1988, when Slade left their childhood home to join the military. His last words to his younger brother being 'There are no heroes in the world anymore, but somebody has to do something.' which only served to confuse Wade. Without their favorite around to heap praise on and brighten their day, the abuses of the Wilson household only got worse for poor Wade, and in turn his pranks, mockeries and petty revenges only got more elaborate which served to only make them angrier in what became a vicious cycle.
Finally after a prank involving a doorknob tripwire, a frozen turkey and a T-shirt gun that permanently crippled Wade's father, the Wilsons' had had just about all they could stand of their twelve-year-old youngest son. He was shipped off to Samuel Lane's Military Academy where it was hoped that he would 'straighten out, receive some much needed discipline and stop being such a goddamn disappointment'. There he became part of an odd, tightly-knit clique of misfits consisting of himself, Lois Lane, Steve Trevor, Jonathan Banks and noted Gotham 'rich boy' Bruce Wayne. Military school was a surprisingly good influence on Wade and he quickly became a highly successful student with a star-studded academic record despite his clownish tendencies. By the time he successfully graduated in 1994, Wade was on track to finally turning his life into something positive, and Sam Lane himself promised that they would 'make a fine soldier out of him'.
However once Wade actually did join the military he found himself once again being unfavorably compared to his older sibling, who in the intervening years since he vanished had somehow become a legendary Cold Warrior famous for achieving the impossible across numerous covert operations towards the end of the Cold War despite his young age, thought by some within military and intelligence communities to be the next best thing to a legitimate Captain America and already transitioning seamlessly into a newly emerging era of intelligence operations and specialized warfare.
Wade himself was only spurred to work harder because of his perceived inferiority to his brother and records show that he was an exemplary trainee who quickly attracted the attention of SHIELD who reportedly 'were eager to find yet another Slade Wilson if possible'. A recommendation from Slade himself cemented the decision, with the elder Wilson reportedly saying his younger brother could make an even better operative than himself with the right influences. Therefore as soon as Wade's basic training was complete he was picked up by SHIELD and put through even more rigorous training to make him suitable for field operations. Wilson himself insists he remembers little of the details, saying 'Someone asked me if I wanted to be a spy, next thing I knew I was in Tunisia, killing a man with a spork.' The Tunisia incident referenced happened a little over a year later during Wilson's first deployment. The goal was the extraction of a captured former British intelligence officer nicknamed 'Blind Al'. Despite the alarming fact that an unknown issue meant he was given no equipment except a standard SHIELD field ration kit, Wilson neutralized every enemy on site using nothing but improvisation. However Blind Al ended up escaping on her own rather than going back to SHIELD with Wilson saying that she wanted nothing to do with the organization.
In the remaining three years Wilson spent with SHIELD he performed admirably, though Slade always seemed to be one step ahead regardless of what organization he was working for. Worse yet, before Wade Wilson could reach his true height as an Agent of SHIELD, tragedy struck. Wade contracted cancer that spread incredibly aggressively throughout his body. He was unable to continue as a field agent and before he knew it his case was deemed terminal. Refusing to give up, Wade begged his superiors to help him find something, anything that would save his life
As fate would have it his superiors at SHIELD did have a solution for Wade: He was to be subjected to an experimental process meant to artificially create a superhuman healing process based in part off of the modified and coincidentally successful super soldier project that his own brother Slade had undergone as well as gene therapies using samples and data collected from the mutant adventurer Wolverine in a joint venture between SHIELD's Cadmus the Canadian government's Department K. It was theorized that due to his close genetic connection to Slade, Wade would perhaps make for a more successful outcome than previous subjects.
But something went horribly wrong with the program and rather than curing Wade of his cancer the experiments only served to aggravate it until it started spreading throughout his body completely out of control. Labeling Wilson yet another failed subject they sent him to a separate facility to receive enough care and medical treatment to make him comfortable for the rest of his rather short life. But the facility known as 'The Hospice' was far more sinister than it appeared. Unbeknownst to the rest of the program the mad doctor in charge was using the failed regenerative subjects for experiments of his own, torturing them beyond the limits of human endurance in what he said was an attempt to test the extent of their failures but was in reality just an exercise in his own sick sadism. The conditions at the facility were so brutal and death of its' 'patients' so commonplace that in order to amuse themselves the staff ran what they called 'The Deadpool', a running series of bets to see which patients died off when.
Wade Wilson wound up outlasting all of the rest, no matter how horrific the experiments they subjected him to became. The healing factor Cadmus and Project K had worked to give him worked better than anyone had imagined, least of all Wilson himself. Because it seemed that although his body was still riddled with cancer and the torments he was subjected to were still leaving him covered in scars, Wade Wilson simply would not die.
This wasn't exactly great for Wade.
In time, the "Deadpool" became solely focused on when he would eventually drop and what method would finally be able to kill him. With each passing day the attempts became more agonizing, more complicated, more depraved...and Wade Wilson lost more and more of his mind. Finally Wade snapped completely and overpowered the facility guards who quickly found that the real answer to when he would drop was a resounding "never". Now completely insane, he rampaged through the facility, releasing the remaining patients and slaughtering everyone else inside before burning it the ground. Now freed of his tormentors but with his body scarred and twisted beyond recognition by a combination of torture and cancerous tumors and his mind wrecked beyond compare, Wade rechristened himself 'Deadpool'.
The next six or so years fade into a haze of confusion and conflicting reports, and due to his unstable nature and copious amounts of brain damage even Deadpool himself is unaware of the full extent of his adventures or even where fact blends into his often vivid imagination. What can be said for sure is that Deadpool traveled the world as a mercenary, assassin and general gun-for-hire, taking numerous jobs both big and small in a nature generally too chaotic to reveal any patterns, although many if not all of them involved killing.
He may have traveled to Japan where at least according to himself he 'learned the ancient and deadly art of the Sumo' though his apparent skills at ninjutsu and penchant for japanese swordsmanship paint a decidedly different picture, as does the Foot's own name for him, spoken with a mix of trepidation and agonized, desperate annoyance: Chiyonozake, The Wolf of Rice Wine. Regardless, Deadpools skills and linguistic abilities support at least some connection with the area.
Another more readily confirmed series of jobs after his time in Japan places Deadpool in South America and the Carribean for an extended period of time. Specifically, Deadpool can be linked to numerous hits performed on the island of Santa Prisca during one of many periods of factional strife wherein he worked for multiple sides, including an infamously brutal if confusing stint in the employ of the Zesti Corporation during which he allegedly killed thirty people and burned down a hospital in exchange for a lifetime supply of Zesti Soda. When the lifetime supply was initially denied him after the Zesti Corporation realized he was likely immortal, he instead began hunting Zesti's Santa Prisca personnel and corporate mercenaries until it was given him in what one Zesti official described in a hidden dossier as 'The most violent soda-related incident in all of corporate history'.
Deadpool's later actions in Colombia are equally perplexing and violent, as he is said to have been hired by the government to take down a drug-lord founded cult that worshiped cocaine as its' god before being subsequently arrested after 'spending about a week doing all of their cocaine' with the cult's founder instead. In both cases he escaped prison, in Santa Prisca by breaking through a wall and squeezing himself out through a sewer pipe, and in Colombia by being 'beaten to death' by the guards and discarded outside.
Deadpool also spent some amount of time in what is now the general area of the Latverian Union, often fighting in minor wars, rebellions and disputes in the region and is known to have had at least a few run-ins with Victor Von Doom, though the exact nature of these interactions is extremely unclear. An unconfirmed rumor likely started by Deadpool himself and then forgotten about is that he was 'a Cosmonaut in the Latverian Space Program, or at least launched into space by a P.O'd Doctor Doom' and as a result joined up with a series of other space-going contractors and mercenaries for a time before being 'unfairly labelled a notorious criminal throughout galactic space' and forcibly 'exiled' back to Earth.
in addition to missions done solo Deadpool has previously tried to join several different organizations of note during his adventuring period.
For example he had at least a few times attempted to join the X-Men during that span as an 'honorary mutant', though they have always turned him down despite his protests that he shares genes with former actual X-Men member Wolverine thanks to the experiments performed on him. Further claims of 'bromantically charged time travel adventures with an alternate-future son' of former X-Man Scott Summers should also not be taken at face value, nor should his claims of being on 'A secret, super dark and gritty X-Men team you don't know about'.
He has also worked for Fu Manchu's Si-Fan on at least one occasion, although for some reason the experience was so traumatic that the Asiatic crime-lord now considers hiring him a sort of 'nuclear option', never to be repeated outside of the direst circumstances. Similarly, Deadpool allegedly both joined and was kicked out of the Guild of Assassins during this timespan, although according to Wade himself he voluntarily stopped working for the Guild for his own personal reasons instead.
With the return of superheroes, Deadpool's mercenary career soared to new heights and fell to new lows. For instance he reportedly had numerous conflicts over the years with the government sponsored superhero team known as The Great Ten in China that eventually resulted in him being officially banned from the country, although due to the information-controlling nature of the People's Republic of China and Deadpool's own faulty memory the official nature of his transgressions against both the country and the team are unknown. Deadpool's own insistence that he was originally 'hired to steal a giant alien robot hidden under the Great Wall of China' remain unsubstantiated.
Deadpool also claims he had previously been approached to try and find a way to assassinate Superman, but insists that he decided not to go through with it and spent the rest of his time in Metropolis alternately hitting on and leaving prank calls on Lois Lane's voicemail in an unsuccessful attempt to annoy her into giving him an interview and helping him publish his memoirs. When questioned by ARGUS interrogators as to why he didn't go through with the original job, Deadpool replied that he was 'kind of a huge fan' of Superman and didn't want to make a bad first impression on him.
After this hazy period of poorly dated and morally questionable potential adventures Wilson was finally arrested more permanently, this time by ARGUS. After spending some time contained in an ARGUS cell bored out of his mind he was approached by ARGUS' current director Amanda Waller who gave him an offer: He could cooperate with her in a new initiative she was putting together, or he could refuse and spend an even longer time bored in an ARGUS cell before being handed over to whatever government or entity asked nicely enough first. Naturally being the agreeable gentleman that he is, Wade chose to comply with Waller's 'request'.
Thus, he was relocated to an even more secretive ARGUS holding facility, fitted with an implant capable of paralyzing him at will, and set to wait as a reservist member of Amada Waller's Task Force X. Since then he's waited nearly a year for a chance to do something, anything other than sitting bored in his cell. Now, with the threat of Hydra and the apparently 'resurrected' Red Skull on the Horizon, Wade finally sees his chance to do some real good and be the hero he was always meant to be! Or at least have some fun killing Nazis.
| Attributes | Powers Functional Immortality: Deadpool has the ability to regenerate to even greater extremes than either his brother Slade or Wolverine himself. Though throughout his life Deadpool has experienced nearly every kind of conceivable damage, he keeps on going and eventually repairs himself. If sliced apart, his limbs can be reattached in moments, or else he can just regrow them at an extremely rapid pace. Organs can be near-instantly regrown and even beheading barely slows him down, although his body often needs to reattach his head. Even having at one point had his entire body liquidated from the waste up, he survived. As an extension to this Deadpool seems to be incredibly resistant to toxins and immune to diseases, although apparently he can still derive some form of enjoyment from recreational drugs and toxins like alcohol.
It has been theorized that Deadpool may never actually age and could in fact live forever though whether the extremes of his healing factor are caused due to the unique mix of Slade Wilson's super soldier formula and Wolverine's healing factor X-Gene or any combination of the latter two with Wade's 'super-cancer' is anyone's guess. Few scientists have studied Deadpool and those who try are generally driven insane by his chatter or equally baffled by his bizarre biology. What is known and occasionally functions as a weakness is that his healing factor is tied into his emotions and psychology. So things like depression or just plain giving up can sometimes make him literally fall to pieces, although never actually die.
Limited Superhuman physiology: Due mainly to his immense regenerative abilities Deadpool is able to exert a certain amount of superhuman strength, for instance lifting and throwing a car, leaping far higher and further than would be thought humanly possibly, punching through reinforced concrete or the like. He has also demonstrated seemingly super-human reflexes to dodge bullets and other attacks and can temporarily run down cars or go on for far longer than a human should be able to. While these abilities may seem impressive and completely superhuman, they mainly occur due to Deadpool's healing factor allowing him to bypass the built in limiters of the human body as often as he pleases without dealing with the long-term damaging effects. Technically his super-strong punches shred his muscles and shatter his bones with their own force and impact and running that fast should destroy every tendon in his legs over time, but he can just as quickly regenerate. Even the mental strain of his reflexes being boosted by an Adrenalin rush so often is accounted for by the healing factor repairing brain cells and replenishing body chemicals in record time.
Psychic Immunity: Whether due to his sheer insanity or the constantly regenerating and shifting nature of his brain, Deadpool is largely immune to psychic abilities and interference.
Skills
Master Martial Artist: Deadpool has trained in numerous martial arts and learned even more about armed and unarmed combat through practical lived experience and generally getting the crap kicked out of him enough times that he's picked up how to do the same to others. Although he says he learned sumo wrestling techniques in Japan, various other Japanese martial arts seem more likely, especially ninjutsu and kenjutsu. While not as refined a fighter as some of Marvel's most skilled martial artists, Deadpool's unpredictable nature and healing factor make him a dangerous hand-to-hand fighter to even masters of the martial arts.
Master Assassin: Deadpool has studied numerous assassination techniques across the world and is proficient in both unarmed assassination techniques and armed assassination techniques using everything from bladed and improvised weapons to guns and explosives. He is a skilled marksman and sniper but oftentimes prefers to do his work up close, with the katana being a favored weapon of his. His abilities as an assassin also include covert operations techniques, espionage techniques, infiltration methods and escape artistry.
Stealth: Although he's often accused of not knowing the meaning of the word, when he chooses to be Deadpool is actually a master of stealth capable of putting highly trained ninjas to shame and capable of breaking into and out of even the most secure facilities.
Multi-Lingual: because of his love of traveling the world, meeting exotic people and then killing them, Deadpool is fluent multiple languages. These include in English, Spanish, German, Russian and Japanese. Deadpool may know additional languages including several he's made up but the reality is far more questionable.
Unpredictable: The very nature of Deadpool's insanity means that at times even he has no idea what he's going to do next, and his bizarre, cancerous body is notoriously hard to get a read on. Therefore it's very hard for many to predict Deadpool's next move and he can show a surprising amount of ingenuity and adaptability in and out of combat.
| Character Notes | People
Slade Wilson:Wade's allegedly perpetually more well-liked and perfect 37-year-old older brother, Slade Wilson is currently one of the top and most trusted field agents of SHIELD and reports directly to Nick Fury himself. Despite quickly approaching 40, age hasn't slowed Slade down one bit. This is because Slade received an experimental Super Soldier serum based off of Captain America's own and although it put him in a coma for over three months it also gave him increased physical abilities, a healing factor upon which Wade's own is partially based, and increased his mental capabilities to nine times that of the average man. Slade Wilson is a legend in his own time in the military and intelligence communities and his trusted image serves as a potent contrast to Wade's own.
Yellowtext-A voice that exists only in Wade's head, Yellowtext serves as a counterbalance to Wade's own insanity and claims to be the last vestiges of the version of Wade that existed before he went insane at the Hospice. Yellowtext can be just as sarcastic, joking and goofy as Deadpool, but tends to have a more serious and upright moral character and conscience.
Amanda "The Wall" Waller- The current head of ARGUS and also the designer and head of operations of Task Force X, Amanda Waller is one of the most formidable figures in the world of intelligence and espionage.
Blind Al-An elderly blind former British Intelligence operative Deadpool rescued back before he went crazy who will hopefully become influential in Wade's life once again in the future, if he ever gets out of Waller's cage that is.
More to come as Deadpool's story progresses.
| Character Goals | I want to bring Deadpool to life in Maximum Comics. Not just as a zany walking punchline although I do want to try and make him entertaining, funny and at times silly. Instead I want him to also be an actual, fleshed out character with emotions and depth and characterizations other than his comedic side even if his goals and dreams are incomprehensible or strange. This Wade Wilson is still the same sort of crazy, darkly humorous psycho, but somewhere deep, deep deep in there is still a person who never asked to be a monster or a lunatic and is just trying to live life the best way he knows how.
| References | This is to make sure you can write at a level that the game needs. Link 1-3 posts of your writing level in other RPs.
Yeah, I get that you aren't advocating something that would be lore-breaking. I'm with you on that, but I'm one small voice on a council of three with vast senators opposing such a bill.
Nevertheless part of the POINT of the political institutions you're referencing, when done CORRECTLY at least, is that opposing viewpoints are able to have advocates, even if they rarely if ever succeed XD. As I've said and you've mentioned, we've already conceded the point to the usual tyranny of the majority XD
My argument was never "Let's change the existing setting to accommodate manga characters' in fact my whole point was the opposite, in that I feel some characters from manga and the like could be added WITHOUT requiring changes to the pre-established setting.
That said everyone on the pro-manga side has already graciously conceded that if people are diametrically opposed to the idea we're fine with dropping it.
If we can't come to a resolution over it, I'm obviously also fine with it although naturally I'd feel disappointed in people's inability to compromise. I'm just trying to lay out a potential argument for the merit of it and challenging some preconceptions people may have, not trying to cause a gigantic revolutionary upheaval.
@RinYeah, regardless have some confidence in yourself!