DocTachyon

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

For me, there's really been a lot I intended to accomplish that I haven't gotten around to. Part of that it me joining late relative to a lot of you, but a lot of it is getting ready to go away to school soon and going on a "last hurrah" sorta thing with some friends that sucked away my time.

I originally intended Vig's arc this season to focus a lot more on his relationship with the Seven Soldiers, but I ultimately decided that going more intimate with what's happening with Vig would be the better way to to. Season Two will ideally see the reunion of the team and be a lot more about interpersonal relationships between them.

In terms of plot goals this season, I'm pretty short of the mark. Originally I wanted Vig to run through a gauntlet of ten villains, culminating in a showdown with The Hand himself. But what was supposed to be ten fleshed out villains turned into one and a half rushed ones close to seasons end, so the goal is now five with the showdown next season. To be fair to me, ten was a little high of a bar to set; I could probably do to manage my expectations better.

In terms of character goals, I definitely shot myself in the foot and didn't really think about Vig's character all too much. I had just kind of thought, "What plot elements would be cool?" and started thinking about The Council of Riders and the Ultimized Hand, Ultimized Dummy, etc., and who Vig was a person kind of got lost in all of that. A big goal for me in season two is to sit down and really think deeper about Vig as a character, explore what makes him tick, etc.

Anywho, I'll be back to my PC on Thursday and should have a post up then, starting to wrap up the thing I've got going on with Punisher.

EDIT: Shoutout to my phone for periodically correcting "Vig" to "Big".

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

<Snipped quote by Eddie Brock>

And then some Russian hackers come in and just rig the thing, anyway.
_{Разве это не так, Владимир?}

@Master Bruce

@Hexaflexagon Translate, please.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I'm not sure I'd be able to swing MME for the end of this season. I've got two more villains to go through after my current arc with SImple, and then a season ender with Simple again. I could maybe make it work? It could be interesting to just have the MME at the start of S2.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part Three

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous

---

Warpath, Texas; Two Days Later

---

Vigilante could see them coming in the distance. Seemed like this was a recurring theme, danger heralded by a big ol’ dust cloud rising the distance. He could almost laugh about it. But all he could do was set his jaw and tighten up his grip on the lever-action of his rifle, setting it to his shoulder.

He’d spent the last few days shoring up the defenses with Frank Castle’s kit,and thanks to him they were really cookin’ with gas. Across the town they’d lain out wooden boxes filled with molotovs and a little nitroglycerin for that extra kick when he or Frank shot one. Then there were the traps; a few tree springs from rotted out second floor balconies, and three or four punji stick holes with thin covers of sand. Using Frank’s arsenal they’d lined up a few grenade bouquets and tripwires, not to mention a handful of makeshift landmines. But the thing they were prouder of than a pup with his first flea was The Saloon; they’d rigged it to blow. If they could lure whatever was coming up on the horizon into the ol’ Crossroads, the sons of bitches’d be scattered from Hell to breakfast.

But that relied on the pair of them not gettin’ killed first. The cloud in the distance was just about bigger than any Vig had ever seen, and he couldn’t even resolve whatever was making it. Whatever it was, the closer it got the more the Spirit set to squirming in his mind like a worm in hot ashes. It wasn’t united anymore, it was like he could feel the mass of lost souls rioting in his mind. Blaze had warned him for a reason. Maybe The Rider didn’t like coming out against these punks. Whatever the case, Vig just had to hope that a dose of frontier justice would be enough to put them down.

As the cloud advanced on the northmost wall, Vig set his sights on the first of the traps they’d set. They’d rigged up as much explosive as they could hide in spots around each of the four walls. Whichever way the enemy tried to come in from, Vig could take a shot at the explosives and blow a nice chunk of their raidin’ party apart. While Vig sat up on the wall, Frank lie in wait in the town. Hopefully they wouldn’t realize they had two opponents before it was too late.

He was starting to make them, now.There were six… No, a dozen… Two dozen… Three… God, there were more and more spilling out of the dust cloud. Black riders with ethereal wisps of darkness whipping off of them and into the howling wind. They rode on Shrine Horses and Clydesdales that had the same inky black smoke trailing off of them. They had all kinds of armament slung off their horses -- repeater rifles, revolvers, sticks of dynamite. It was like they leapt out of Hell and into a perversion of a Clint Eastwood movie.

”And no one disrespects Mr. Eastwood in my town, no sir.” Vig mumbled to himself. He put his cheek to the gunsight and sighted up on the bulge in the sands. They hadn’t opened up on him yet; maybe they couldn’t see the form of a prone cowboy against the twisted metal of the wall. Just a little closer now…

The man body of their force moved over the hidden explosive. Vig’s rifle cracked in his hands and rolled off the wall as an explosion rippled through the countryside. Vig shot a glance skyward and his hat was near blown away by the shockwave, he could feel his eardrums rattling in his head. A plume of fire towered way up into the heavens, and he could hear the baying of wounded horses. Through the sublest of cracks in the wall he could see the injured were fading away into dust. Whatever stuff of spirit had composed them, it was all boiling away. But the rest?

Aside from the chunk he’d blown out of the column, the others seemed fit to be tied. Bullets started plinking off the armor of the wall, and Vig could barely hear the report of their guns over the ringing in his ears.

”Frank! We got incomin’! Seventy-five or a hunnred’ mean sonsofbitches! Git to cover!” Vig sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him, sliding around the mines they’d placed and ultimately diving behind a collection of water-filled barrels. He grabbed his shotgun off his back and pumped the forend. The ‘Bounty Hunters’ were about to get deader than a doornail.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Bruce will bring the camera.

And just... brood in the corner.

@Master Bruce

Batman:

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I too do this, which is why I get all like-centric and worried. When some people just like things when they read them and others try not to hand them out all the time to maintain ratios like Wraith. The strange thing is, I never see likes passed out in ic threads at the rate they are in these comic book games.

@Sep

I like super inconsistently. I came to RPGuild from board RPs where likes weren't really a thing, and I've never gotten used to it. At the moment I think I've only liked posts from Simple because I physically cannot get enough Punisher from him(and I had to suck up to ensure a team-up), and Superboy, because Blue Beetle is great and SB is my homie. I would like more, but then I'd like everything, because it's all great, and that'd be crimping Superboy's style.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>

We prefer the term ‘death cult,’ thank you very much. All hail the Great Filter.

@Superboy

I thought we were the ForgetMeNot Club. Throwback to ~100 pages ago.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Nightrunner is simply the natural advancement of humanity. Homo Superior Nightrunnus, if you will.

Here's the part where I get accused of being NR's alt.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

Byrd's also an incredibly powerful wizard with not one, but two familiars, lycanthropy, a long reading list and likes the creative direction of Grant Morrison's upcoming The Green Lantern.

Edit: His badassery is also the compacted composite of thirty three distinct faulty asses.

@Nightrunner

It's rude to project your Mary Sue self insert onto other people, NR.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part Two

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous

---

Warpath, Texas

---

The day since the warning had been slow and excruciatingly long. Vigilante spent long hours making his way along the same path of the town; around the square, up the Saloon ladder, across rooftops. Two minute break in wall-mounted gun nest, climb down, repeat. Every subtle noise and shift in the sand was cause for full alarm, cycling the shotgun and spending fifteen minutes ruthlessly investigating the noise. Always nothing. Sometimes there’d be the shambling form of a Fatboy in the distance, wandered off from wherever the main pack was. He left them alone, best to not draw undue attention to himself.

In some way, Vig relished the spare time. The defenses could always use more shoring up. Hiding repeater rifles in blown out storefronts, cramming crude explosives into marked crates for use during a firefight. But at a certain point it had become busywork. Without Hex to help with the heavier stuff, that’s all there way. Retighten the barbed wire around the friesian horses, double check the ammo stores, on and on and on for all the hours in the day. His trigger fingers burned for the challenge, a chance to right what had been done to these people in what small way he could manage.

His sleep that night, if it could even be called sleep, was restless. A hand shooting out for his revolver at the slightest creak in the house. Trying to lull himself to sleep listening for subtle changes in the wind. If there was one thing Hell hadn’t prepared him for it was the waiting. There it was nonstop combat. You were up to your eyeballs in demons and gore or you were on the run from the biggest gang of assholes around. No rest to the wicked. This felt like he was being left to stew. Drive himself mad on the waiting. Maybe The Bounty Hunters hoped he’d eventually think his own reflection was the enemy and he’d exhaust the ammo stores before they rolled in and mopped up.

---

His dreams that night seemed empty, devoid of meaning. The voices had quieted. Johnny Blaze and company did not see fit to visit. Niggling doubt wormed in Vigilante’s mind; maybe ‘Blaze’ was a figment of the Spirit, trying to drive him up a wall about an opponent that would never come. A mark of Mephisto to taint his mind with insanity.

Yet, somehow the Spirit seemed wholly different from Mephisto. The people were… Well, undamaged. Few of them had any blemishes on their wooden pallor, despite how badly The Spirit had manhandled them. Only one man was dead, and it was one Jonah Hex’d have killed anyhow. What he knew of Mephisto, “The Prince of Lies”, painted a different picture. He’d have probably had the Spirit slaughter the townsfolk and put The Dummy’s head on a pike for good measure. Instead it was… Quiet. But if Vigilante knew Mephisto for any one thing, it was that he liked to play the long game… Something to ponder on today’s patrol.

6 AM Breakfast was spent atop the Crossroads, watching the sun crawl its way into the sky. Vig munched on his reheated sandwich and though on the last words he’d heard out of Hex before… Well, before. Something to protect. Sounds about right.

The next three hours were spent on the usual patrol cycle. But for all he had pictured of what the attackers to come would look like, a panel van on its last legs wasn’t it. Vig lay low, cowboy repeater pressed to his shoulder, watching the van make clumsy turns through the mire of the wall. Only one in the front; an asian guy not exactly dressed for combat. Vig set the rifle to the side and pulled a pair of revolvers from his chest holster. A closer look -- and a cleaner shot -- couldn’t hurt.

In a moment he had shimmied down from the Saloon and the panel van had shuddered to a stop. The man stepped out, taking contemplative steps towards the square, looking the surroundings up and down. No reinforcements piled out the back on the van. Vig tightened his grip on his guns as he pulled closer to the van, taking cover behind the back and glancing around at the man.

Vig licked his lips and took steps closer. He seemed oblivious. Not expecting a fight; but maybe that was a trick.

Suddenly, there was a knife in his mind. The Spirit had reared its head.

”Ally.” It croaked. ”Vengeful spirit, waiting to pass. Living dead.” Ally…? Vig paused for a moment. The man’s head was in his revolver’s sights. What kind of unholy creature would that thing call an ally? Vigilante stood and took aim. At the very least, The Spirit hadn’t cautioned him to kill, again. Maybe this guy really was different. Or it was trying to fuck Vig the best it could.

But now… What use was it to second guess the thing? The hallmark of VIg’s time in Hell was second guessing himself into circles. What if the Demons changed position? What if the ammo stores run out? What if the Soldiers turn out to be illusions after all? The lesson was that it all boiled down the same at the end; however you treat someone or something, you just better hope you can draw faster.

Vig pulled back the hammer on his revolver.

"What brings you 'round here, pardner? We don't have a great record with strangers." The man raised his hands.

"I saw the ad on vigilante dot net saying the town was under siege and needed help. I'm here to help. The name's Frank Castle. You can call me the Punisher."

@Simple Unicycle

"Well hoe-lee-shit." The words escaped Vig’s mouth before he could stop them. The Punisher. News came slow to Warpath, but a man couldn’t blow through most of the Italian Mob without the news passing through the place faster than green grass through a goose. The Punisher wasn’t divise in Warpath like he was in most places. But then, most places hadn’t been dealing with constant demon incursion for the better part of three years. The people here tended to like themselves a little frontier justice. If you asked Jonah Hex the old man’d say Castle was doing the Lord’s work.

Vigilante wasn’t so convinced. Castle killed callously, without remorse. Two bit goons and Drug Lords were all the same to him, but… There was something to admire about him. He took justice into his own two hands when the law wouldn’t cut it anymore. It reminded Vig a little of himself. Vig took in a deep breath through his nostrils.

"Color me innarested, Mister Castle." Vig holstered his guns and walked clockwise around Castle, coming to face him in front. He extended a hand and hoped the fellow vigilante wasn’t too practiced in the art of the quickdraw if things went south. "But, tell you the honest truth? I ain’t exactly certain you’ll be ready for what you see here."