Hound55

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

What I did do was on the sly at about 4:30 in the morning...

...I wish I was joking about that.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Character You're Applying For: Marc Spector - Moon Knight

Powers And Abilities: Ambiguous. Exceptional fighter, both hand to hand and with virtually any weapon. Some affinity for the moon, whether it’s present state has a psychological or supernatural effect on him remains unclear.

Origin And Backstory (In A Maximum Of Four Paragraphs):Marc Spector ran away from home to join the armed forces at the earliest possible age. The oldest of two children in a devout Jewish household in Chicago, he sought a new hierarchical structure that praised and rewarded his own talents; talents for violence that would otherwise be frowned upon in general society and certainly at home.

He qualified for the United States Marine Corps and quickly rose to Corporal as he was trusted implicitly by his fellow soldiers. After two tours he was given a token promotion to Sergeant as he was transferred from the DoD to work on special missions and duties under the CIA banner.

[CLASSIFIED]

--At which point in time this group was disbanded. All involved were given Other Than Honourable Discharges and summarily removed from National Service to their countries of origin. Spector remained in contact with Jean Paul DuChamp (FFL, Caporal Chef) and the specialist contact from his last mission Raoul Bushman however. Due to a lack of military opportunities as a result of the OTHD, the three moved into the private sector.

The three have been seen active in the Egyptian-Kahndaq region, around the Sinai Peninsula.

What Makes This Character 'Ultimate'?: Tying together damn near everything (except for one run that is incompatible) ...eventually.

This is going to put the microscope over Moon Knight’s past, deal with who or what he is presently, and delve into what kind of future that means he can have.

Supporting Characters:
Jean Paul DuChamp, French Foreign Legion, Caporal Chef - JP DuChamp started his military career as a sniper, before later becoming one of the world’s foremost military pilots, able to pull off tough maneuvers in helicopters, light aircraft and virtually anything airborne. “Frenchie”, as Marc inarticulately would come to know him, became close friends with Spector when the pair worked on a clandestine team working dark missions. Possibly because Marc Spector seemed to have held the most of his humanity out of any in the group.

Raoul Bushman - Raoul Bushman was a ranking “Specialist” in Marc’s final mission with the CIA. He also leads his own band of mercenaries presently around Northern Africa/Sinai Peninsula.

More to come as I walk through the origin.

Character Picture:

Sample Post:

The desert sands rose and swirled as the bird lowered. What once looked like a single spinning object slowed until 4 rotor blades were visible, and the men jumped out.

Marc Spector. Ex-marine. Fighter. Violence given form,

“Miles from anywhere.” He grumbled, “What have you dragged me into now, Bushman?”

The mysterious man flashed a dark grin full of steel in response.

“That depends, Spector. If your friend dropped us off in the right place. Froggy, did you--”

Jean Paul DuChamp. Pilot. Sniper. Boundless patience.

“I asked you to stop calling me that… and yes. I set us down exactly where you said. The Alraune dig is just over 2 kilometres away, ov-air that dune.” The French pilot chomped down on a cigarette holder.

The heavyset man in command stormed forward leaving Spector and DuChamp to their own idle chatter.

“Really? A cigarette holder? Don’t you get tired of giving him stuff to rip on you about?”

“Marc, what you may consider, ehh… ‘rip-worth-ie’ my people would describe as a certain… je ne sais quoi.” The Frenchman held the cigarette holder betwen his teeth with a grin whilst straightening his pilot jacket, and presenting himself with a flourish gesture.

“Je ne sais quoi… Is that French for stereotypical?”

The pair approached the heavyset man who was standing at the top of the sand dune his gaze caught on the target in question.

Raoul Bushman. Mercenary. Sadist. Thoroughly Nasty Piece of Work.

“There it is, Spector. The vans will rendezvous here from the main pass back there in 3-4 hours. Meanwhile, we stake out the road between the dig and the city. Look for tendencies…”

Spector pulled a pair of binoculars. He could see a small archeological crew sifting through a cordoned off area of desert. A large number of locals doing gruntwork, and two notable westerners - an old man and a young blonde woman.

“You asked what we were doing here, Spector...” The mercenary leader growled. “We’re revenue raising...”

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

Character you have created: Jeremiah Crane

Alias: The Hunter

Speech Color: Dark Salmon

Character Alignment: Hero (Neutral Good)

Identity: Known(ish)

Character Personality: Jeremiah is an amiable, kind man raised by good, Christian parents in New England. While he spends his life tracking and hunting demons, you'd never know it by the way he acts. Quick with a smile or a joke, he does not let his quest burden him.

Uniform/costume: Jeremiah wears the tattered, dirty, and faded blue trench coat he wore as a Union army member during the war over a simple set of cowboy duds. He wears a leather cowboy hat made of the hide of some unknown beast that is tougher than any armor. He keeps a bandana tied around his neck, and his guns hang from holsters on his hip. He carries in his pack all manner of weapons to fight the supernatural.

Origin Info/Details:

Jeremiah's story began not with him, or his parents, but with his grandfather. Ichabod Crane is a name most knew from stories and legends passed down through the generations of America. Most believed Washington Irving made the man up, and that Sleepy Hollow was nothing more than a bedtime story. They would have been wrong. Ichabod was real, as was the story of Sleepy Hollow. While Ichabod, the frightful, over-imaginative man that he was, was chased out of Sleepy Hollow by a man dressed as the Headless Horseman.

That's not where his story ended.

Ichabod, ashamed, returned to the town after realizing he had been duped. What he found was not the derisive laughter he expected, but the butchered bodies of the townsfolk. When his rival in love had used the story of the Headless Horseman to drive Crane off, the man angered the true spirits that haunted Sleepy Hollow, who sought to teach the people a lesson.

Ichabod was shaken to the core by what he saw. This led him to throwing himself head first into study of the occult and the supernatural. He discovered America was full of supernatural threats that most were complete oblivious to. From that day on, he made it his goal to purify the country of the supernatural threats it contained.

Jeremiah was the third hunter in the Crane line. His father, Washington, and grandfather raised him to be the best of them, and he loved both men dearly. The three men and Jeremiah's mother Anne lived in Maine, near the city now known as Lost Haven. New England was a hotbed of supernatural activity. It was here where Jeremiah learned his family trade, protecting the normal civilians of America from threats they could not comprehend.

When the American Civil War broke out, Jeremiah signed up for the Union Army. Not only because he believed in what the army stood for and the freedom of all men, but because he knew that the blood of the battlefield would awaken and draw out insidious threats.

It was during the war that Jeremiah realized his crusade was more than just his family's. He found that many hunters existed, and had existed for centuries. It was also during the war that he found that he was marked. After mortally wounding a demon feeding off the dying and the wounded on the Antietam battlefield, Crane was told that his bloodline would bring about the fall of man and the time of demons. He would be the instrument of the fall of man.

Crane didn't know whether he could trust the demon, but he now has doubt in the back of his mind. After the war, he now travelled the country, cleansing it of the monsters that feed off it.

Hero Type: Normal with shades of Mystic

Power Level: Street level

Powers: Jeremiah has a basic understanding of the mystic arts, and can perform simple spells. Most of his strategy, however, revolved around his combat skills. He was a crack shot with any firearm, but he preferred his Colt revolvers. He was also a cable and trained hand-to-hand combatant.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 6'1"
Weight: 200lbs
Strength Level: Normal human
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal human
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal human
Agility: Normal human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Trained (hand-to-hand)/Mastered (firearms)
Resources: Average

Weaknesses: He's a normal human, so plentiful

Supporting Characters:

Isaac Freeman: A former slave and Jeremiah's best friend. The two fought together in the war, and after seeing Crane kill a demon on the battlefield, Isaac asked to join his crusade. He is now a fellow hunter. The strong, silent type, Isaac is one of the most intelligent people Jeremiah has ever met.

Major John Andre: A former Redcoat spymaster during the Revolutionary War, Andre was captured and hung by the Continental Army. His spirit did not pass into the next life, however. He wandered New England, finally setting in the woods around Sleepy Hollow. He and Jeremiah met when the young hunter came to the town that made his family famous. Andre now can spy on the spirit world and assist Crane.

Toad: Jeremiah's horse

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?:



Sample Post:

WIP

@HenryJonesJr

Approved!

Now go free and fill the ponds and streams with many merry post-fish!

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

With the Hounds disarmed; Lyger leapt into action taking on several Hounds at a time. After hitting the first with a stiff shot to the face, another of the Hounds grabbed him from behind and held him for the others to get their licks in. However, Lyger twisted and spun to the left, getting free from the Hound’s grip, then planted him with a reverse kick to the chin that snapped the man’s neck back and sent him reeling. Before the Hound could recover, an open hand chop to the throat left him writhing in pain as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Suddenly another black clad man jumped into the fray right out of nowhere. The man was dressed differently than the rest of the Hounds, he didn’t appear to be wearing the body armor that the others had been wearing, and his face was covered by a balaclava. As the new arrival turned to face Lyger, the young hero it him with an open palm thrust to the chest, and as the man was knocked backward, a hard right hand that sent the man crashing to the pavement.

However, the distraction was all that the Hounds had needed. When Lyger turned to face his enemies, he found that several had been able to reclaim their assault rifles and were leveling them directly at the hero’s head.

@nitemare shape

...Suddenly the fallen man in black took Lyger down with a leg sweep and jumped on top of him.

The rifles remained silent. “Yeah! Kick his ass!” a sole Hound called out.

A grapple line shot out from between the pair, and before the pack of Hounds could realize what exactly was happening they had begun to swing away.

“Thanks for the cheap shot.” Grumbled the Vigilante’s voice synthesizer.

“How was I supposed to know it was you?”

“I’m sorry I don’t wear easily identifiable cat ears…”

The staccato of rifle fire began and Isaac felt the heat and pressure of a single shot embedding itself in the back of his shoulder. The Vigilante emitted a low growl as he suddenly found himself having to support his own weight as well as the feline hero’s with only one good arm, and dropped the black cat down an alleyway mid-swing.

“For the sake of his reputation I hope he lands on his feet…”

Isaac tucked his shoulder into the strap on his grapple gun and hit the button to Fast-retract and shot upwards rapidly towards a highrise building comprised of offices. Spotting the glass, the Vigilante tucked his body behind his good shoulder to brace for impact with the glass and clattered against the outside of the window.

Tempered impact resistant high rise glass.

Isaac swung back and jumped on the glass. Still nothing. He took a giant leap, and a volley of automatic rifle fire from below did the job for him and shattered the window, as he swung through the broken glass, hit the grapple release and landed flat on his back in the office on a floor covered with broken glass.

He rolled onto his front with a grunt and then the light hit him, brighter than the midday sun.

Searchlights from a helicopter as it hung just outside the window. Squinting around the helicopter he could make out armed personnel with automatic rifles.

He sighed and got to his feet, using a hand to avert the light.

How did it even come to this..?

---

2 Weeks Before the Present Day

Isaac steps back and looks at his pinboard, instant coffee in hand, in a sparsely decorated house. Paperwork containing locations of 4 different known S.T.R.I.K.E facilities - including schematics for two - newspaper articles on numerous attacks by this new group called the Hounds of Humanity all adorn the board.

“It’s ballsy. Even for me, it’s ballsy.” He mused whilst stirring. “I should tell someone what I’m doing. Maybe Big Blue?” He stirred whilst musing. And then talked the conversation through in his own head.

“You’re going to what..? I’m going to break into a classified government facility, devoted to this country’s defence and snoop around… What? Why..? Because I don’t trust that they’re really gone. I know they still exist later in the universe where I’m from and it doesn’t jive with me that they’re gone… Your universe..? Yes, don’t get sidetracked. I think they’ve either been taken over by an extremist splinter group within their own ranks or… Or..? Or they’ve faked their own destruction and are running a false flag operation against metahumans and the supernatural… Do you have any evidence..?”

And that’s what it always came back to.

“No. But it fits and it's exactly what I would have done. Fake my own death and attack when they think I’m gone.”

He took a big gulp of his rapidly cooling coffee.

“Shit.” He scowled. “I either implicate him in my own Federal crimes, or I risk getting myself killed and having nobody know why.”

He finished the mug.

“Guess I’d better not get dead then…”

---

One and a Half Weeks Before the Present Day

The man in black kept to the walls, silently traversing the subterranean S.T.R.I.K.E facility looking for answers. Once again, navigating the darkness to find the light. It was abandoned, but that didn’t mean such a thing was safe. He’d have to be careful, but with any luck he might be able to turn up some kind of data point and…

...he felt a tug on his leg as he stumbled forward further into the darkness and into a wide room filled with office cubicles.

Little red lights winked alive, like the eyes of a beast. A beast that was protecting it’s home. First a half dozen, then ten, then a full score.

”Shit.”

Isaac quickly took three steps and darted into a cubicle. Grabbing a heavy table he turned it on it’s side just as everything seemed to burst into flame. Isaac was fired backwards into a wall along with the table, only the legs of which prevented him from getting crushed against the wall. He felt the air pressure change palpably and flicked a switch by his mouth, before the darkness engulfed him.

---

Present Day

The light was blinding, but he couldn’t just stand here waiting to be shot. He ran forward in a serpentine fashion, expecting gunfire and leapt over the edge. He soared through the open helicopter and brought his boots up, kicking a robot out the other side and sending it plummeting to the street below. He found himself flat on his back in the helicopter - an increasingly common trend when he’d jump places - with a woman’s rather... robotic foot on his throat and looking down the business end of a large battle rifle.

"That wasn't exactly very nice of you to kick one of our passengers off our ride." The dark-skinned woman, complete with a robotic eye and a West African accent, glared angrily at him. "That robot cost more than your pitiful life’s worth, Houndshit.”

“Hound?” the Vigilante gurgled. “Oh thank fuck I landed in the one good guys chopper… I’m with the guy in the catsuit and the one with the pale blue cape flying around out there. They’ll vouch.”

They conferred for a moment before letting him up.

“I’ve got a supposed friendly with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, could use a hand patching him up.” The woman spoke to seemingly no one in particular, calling for morphine, which the black-clad hero waved off. "You know what to do. Quickly, now."

A robot soon rushed to the aid of the Vigilante, and worked on getting the bullet out from him. Metallic tines quickly found and extracted the bullet. The robot then applied the gauze than poured it on and taped it down.

“And I’ll grab one of those syrettes of adrenaline…” he said, as his eyelids had clearly started to fall heavy. He stuck himself and wheezed from the influence, his eyes widening immediately.

“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Sweetbabyjesusonajetski!”

“Cheers. And I’m off…” he grabbed a rope and swung out from the helicopter, neglecting to show any technique in fast-roping.

The woman looked out over the side, he was already gone. Back inside rested a roll of $5,000 in one hundred dollar bills, presumably for the robot.

"Well, nice knowing you.” The woman sighed, rolling her eyes before taking the cash wad and closing the doors of the Black Hawk.

---

One and a Half Weeks Before the Present Day

Isaac stirred from the darkness seconds later to the scent of his own flesh cooking. He leant on the table to push it back and give him space only to be met with the sound of his flesh searing on the metal of the chair legs. He stopped in reaction to the sound and chose to push it forward with his shoes instead. Stepping out from behind the desks he could see that fire lit the underground office space. All of the tables were clear. Even if he hadn’t stumbled into the booby-trap rigging that had been left behind there was nothing here for him. What little air remained that could be funnelled into his lungs from his mask was hot. His skin was scorched and burned, for the most part it wouldn’t scar… eventually. This was due to his condition. But for now he was much the worse for wear. He hobbled away from the facility to consider his situation.

As he sucked fresh air when he reached the surface he was surprised to discover that there was no sign of the disturbance that had just occurred less than 3 minutes before.

---

One Week Before the Present Day

Isaac stands in front of a pinboard again, a fresh mug of instant joe in his hands and his face full of more bitter disappointment than the tall mug contains.

What had he learned?

Since that day, another S.T.R.I.K.E facility had been looted by the Hounds who were growing in reputation and ranks. Who knows what they could have their hands on now. He’d gone on a “fact-finding mission” to the previous base and found it empty and booby-trapped.

Isaac furrowed his brow.

It wasn’t the first time Isaac had snooped around a S.T.R.I.K.E facility – abandoned or otherwise – and it occurred to him that there was a hell of a lot more explosive and security measures than he was used to seeing when he’d done this kind of thing before. Tripwires, numerous motion detectors, and quite frankly a ridiculous amount of explosive used to booby trap their abandoned facility.

Especially since it was empty. More than empty… completely cleaned out.

He scrawled on a fresh sheet of paper in an almost illegible, infantile script “Overkill in empty building” and began to think what it could mean. To him there was one of two conclusions, which he laid out with the next sheet.

“One: S.T.R.I.K.E used extreme defensive measure, Hounds disarmed, looted facility, then re-activated booby trap.”

He stepped back. It still felt incomplete. He added “And then added more explosive after looting”.

Then on a fresh sheet of paper he gave his alternate theory.

“Two: Inside job. Everything already looted. Extreme measures taken to ensure anybody snooping would tell no tales.”

He stepped back. He knew which theory he felt held more water.

Everything was happening so fast too. The second S.T.R.I.K.E raid, wide spread public acts of violence against magical and metahuman people and known places of interest, just this morning there’d been an attack on Lost Haven University – his own school. If not for the Hounds already being a problem he may well have been on campus, since he’d involved in a lot of classes with heavy online weighting which meant he seldom had to attend lectures and classes in person. So much was happening so fast. A bomb wouldn’t keep people out of S.T.R.I.K.E facilities forever… these were still crime scenes, even if the pandemonium left few people high ranking enough to investigate since the crimes involved the Government organization S.T.R.I.K.E.

He stepped back to his alternate theory sheet of paper and added on the end: “Until it’s too late to stop them.”

“I need intel. Not S.T.R.I.K.E, this group themselves. The Hounds. I need an ‘in’. And fast.”

He looked to the rest of his pinboard. He had articles and photos of raids from the past week. Targeted incidents. He noticed a recurring trend.

“Supporting vehicles.” He pulled a photo off the pinboard. “With serious antennaes.”

He returned the photo to the board and downed the coffee and sighed deeply.

He knew exactly what he had to do, but wished he had more time to plan it. This was the second time in only a few days that he’d have to act on very limited information. Too limited. The last time he went out this blind it left him with skin as crispy as a roast chicken and apparently somewhat scorched lungs. But he knew there was little choice. Time would be at a premium.

---

Four Days Before the Present Day

The Vigilante stood atop a roof and looked out on the mayhem below with a sullen expression. He hated this – prioritising the van over the poor bastard the Hounds were tormenting below, but that van could have answers which mean they’re the last people to suffer. After all, they’re doing this everywhere, even if he stopped them from this atrocity, countless more were happening in the city which he could do nothing about. He couldn’t be everywhere.

The justification sounded right in his head, but it still tasted like ash in his throat.

…or maybe his lungs still just hadn’t finished healing from last week yet.

He heard a scream, then a burst of rifle fire. He closed his eyes briefly in self-disgust and then it happened. The Hounds watching the van went to support the others in the building.

If nothing else he was in the right mood to deal with any resistance he found in the van…

He grapple-lined down and hugged the stayed close to the side of the van. The getaway driver was looking out the passenger side window in interest. It was the final opening Isaac needed.

The Vigilante went to open the door and found it locked, he swiftly shattered the window and grabbed the driver by the head and neck, dragging him out of the driver’s seat. The driver managed to fire off two aimless rounds, which got the attention of the others in the building, but he had time now. He disarmed the driver, flipped the lock and forced compliance from the two Hounds in the back of the van under threat of the pistol. He quickly turned the key in the ignition and got to work putting space between the other Hounds and the van. He took a right turn at the first intersection he came to and opened up the engine.

Starting to feel desperation, the Hounds tried to jump him at the next set of lights. Isaac kept the pedal down, and swerved violently to keep them off balance. The first attacker wound up in the passenger seat, where Isaac shot him in the shin, elbowed him in the face, before opening the passenger door and pushing him out. He glared at the remaining Hound in the back and levelled the gun sight on him. The Hound flinched and raised his arms instinctively to protect his face. Isaac quickly pulled over to the side of the road and jumped in the back, pistol-whipping the final Hound into unconsciousness and dumping him out onto the street.

“Must be a tech specialist,” he thought. “Soft.”

He quickly looked at the equipment and paperwork in the back of the van.

Undamaged and all present. He had the keys. Now he could see everything these lunatics had planned.

A smile finally crossed his face, for the first time in days. Things had gotten even worse in the last few days. It was spiralling, and building momentum. But finally he saw a patch of blue sky over the horizon.

He drove the van to the parking garage where he had a waiting car. He loaded paperwork and computer equipment into the car, taking care to copy down the URL of the dark web site that was jumbled across the top of the browser in case it didn’t survive the transit.

Less than an hour later the car was in the driveway of one of several safehouses he had scattered across Lost Haven. All rental properties paid by direct deposit accounts under numerous pseudonyms, the money filtered into those accounts by numerous tributaries set in countries with no extradition treaties to either the United States or his other home.

Isaac moved quickly, pulling reams of documentation and electronic equipment from the car and rushing it inside.

This was the vulnerable point… but it wouldn’t last long at that.

He grabbed the last of it and rushed it into a closet, with all of its walls painted orange.

He rushed out of the closet and into the kitchen pantry. He heaved a number of 20 kilogram sacks of sugar into a small walk floor-to-ceiling cupboard, sweat starting to bead on his brow.

This was the final precaution. Any tracking devices were about to be rendered moot by what would follow.

He walked back into the orange closet, checked one last time that he had everything, and feeling confident that he was indeed prepared he flicked the switch…

5 seconds later Isaac was taking the paper and computer gear out of a walk in robe – all its walls painted sky blue – halfway around the world at his large home in Cooktown, Terraria.

He sighed at the discovery that the laptop computer he brought was wiped, having not survived the transit, but felt reassured that it meant any little tricks or devices the Hounds may have hidden also wouldn’t have made the distance either.

Still… that’s why he brought the paper. And that’s why he wrote down the URL. Given enough time, he had some tech on-hand that could hack and crack fairly sophisticated encryption, and worst case scenario he even had some connections who could dig even deeper and further than that.

He had no idea if he had the time for that though…

Looking to waste no more than necessary he booted up his own computer and turned on his VPN scrambler.

Whilst he wasn’t the most tech savvy person himself, he had… confiscated… some high end gear from a rather pasty looking individual who called himself The White Rabbit. The White Rabbit laundered money electronically for many individuals of ill repute, not only in Terraria but in a surprisingly large number of nations right across the world.

The White Rabbit also didn’t like being punched in the face very much.

The two came to a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The White Rabbit “disappeared”, the Vigilante kept his name quiet – the man was a loose end for a LOT of dangerous people – the White Rabbit didn’t go to prison. And the Vigilante received a lot of wonderful new toys that could help keep an identity concealed over multiple countries.

Isaac was surprised to realise just how simple and user friendly a lot of these devices were to use, which just happened to use algorithms, electronic data transfers and concepts that he could barely wrap his head around. He had figured that in some ways the man must have his own kind of mental “superpower” which would allow him to operate such brilliant cutting edge technology…

…truth was the genius was in creating the technology in the first place and just simply letting it do the job it was designed to do.

Sometimes these things were just a whole lot simpler than you would think.

Having now finished booting up, Isaac opened the browser and clicked in the URL bar; pulling out the now wrinkled piece of paper with the website. Staring down at the paper and copying the URL digit-for-digit at a slow, methodical pace and hoped his VPN scrambler would be up for the task.

Even though he suspected the Hounds were indeed an off-shoot of S.T.R.I.K.E, they certainly weren’t operating as a Government based organization. As a result they may work off book and not care about numerous global treaties and information trading agreements he often relied upon to conceal himself. Would this organization care about encroaching on sovereign nation’s spaces in the virtual sphere?

He finished typing the URL and looked up. And a communication message board on the dark web for the hounds loaded before his eyes. He was now logged in.

He stood up and his chair flipped and crashed to the floor.

He was logged in. And not to the account that was in the van. The tech guy was logged in under some kind of registration number; H#18377. His computer had logged straight into the dark web site, and his name was apparently Vaccinator. His custom title claimed that he innoculated the people from the scourge of the unhuman and godless. His signature had a bible verse, and as he dug deeper into his own recent posts he became increasingly horrified.

This universe’s version of himself was something like a drill sergeant for these fundamentalist nutbags. Training them in combat. And maybe something even higher ranking than just a drill sergeant.

He stumbled onto schematics, layouts and concept-designs for the spires which were being planted in the attack at Lost Haven University. Suddenly he thought back a few months to when he first decided to enroll as an alibi for his “extracurricular activities”.

His friend and business advisor Tony Morris had told him he was already enrolled…

He dug deeper through the recent posts and stumbled upon a diagram for the blast radius on the attack on Philadelphia, a city he’d been to in just the last month! He remembered what the aliens had told him… about how he was pulled to this universe because despite his own lack of a destiny, he might find a pressure from this universe trying to force its own path. He remembered standing in the Dean’s office not understanding why he agreed to coach a new rugby program for the school.

A rugby program that would send him to the city that would be attacked for an annual tournament. A city where he would be given a device that would allow him to teleport between locations, which would give him the safe place to investigate these Hounds after he’d stolen their intel.

A Dean that wouldn’t survive the LHU attack…

Isaac felt he could almost see the invisible strings that bound this universe, pulling him this way and that to bring him to this exact point.

He looked around the house, the house so similar to his real home back in his own world and started to notice the small differences he’d skimmed over in his desire for a place to live his own life. He picked up a picture of this world’s version of him and his father. Smiling, happy. He looked closer and saw he was wearing a crucifix.

He’d never paid that much attention to the photos because the smiling faces reminded him of what he’d never have. Not only because his father was dead, but because he’d never had a good relationship with his old man even when he was alive.

When he first saw these pictures he’d felt pleasantly warmed by the thought that at least in this world his old man was a decent enough person that he wanted to be close to his son. Perhaps they’d bonded over religion. It was conceivable, Isaac himself had walked away from his father’s efforts to get the son to buy into religion. Because it seemed like it rested on a bed of guilt he should feel for his mother’s passing. Or perhaps father and son had bonded over shared beliefs of another kind. Perhaps they saw eye to eye in many of the ways that made Isaac feel his father was really a very cold man. Still photographic smiles could often mask that.

Then he noticed something else. The pair of them were in every photo in the house.

Isaac’s father had died when he was 18. That means he’d been living in a state of arrested development, where there was no image of the man since then. About a decade ago. Almost like he’d been trying to live in a memory. A boy who never grew up.

Isaac returned to the recent posts and saw lesson plans for training Hound soldiers. He saw his own styles and techniques being bastardized and taught to a fundamentalist army. He kept reading on and found it fortunate that this world’s version of himself did not seem to be as advanced as a fighter. Perhaps because he was a teacher? Maybe as a communicator he spent too long trying to figure out how to explain how to do what he learned that it hurt his own development as a natural fighter. It still bothered him to see his own methods being taught - he even saw blatant mimicry in the equipment they and gear they took and used, with similar clothing and flashbang ordnance, which he had always favoured.

He thought back to what gave him his initial hunch that S.T.R.I.K.E and the Hounds were related in the first place.

“It’s what I would have done.”

He hadn’t wanted to hit someone this badly for a long while. His hatred boiled over with the fervour that can only come when your anger is directed at the man looking back at you in the mirror.

“At least I’ll know what I’m walking into…”

Isaac spent the next two days scouring the dark web board for whatever Intel he had access to. He loaded up his pack, stuffed more sugar in the wardrobe and swapped his Cooktown home’s sky blue closet for a lime green one. He was in his French Quarter safehouse on Lafayette.

He now knew what he was fighting. He knew his enemy, and he was finally ready.

---

The Present Day

Isaac swung down from the helicopter with his one good arm. The light from the helicopter helping him find Lyger again.

“I trust you landed OK… Whaddid I miss?’

---

---

Lyger c-o- @nitemare shape
Cypher and Eagle Eye c-o- @AbandonedIntel

Avengers: Heroes United!

Muse!

Avengers: Heroes United!

Just as I finished reading that Howard the Duck post I heard a long squeak as my dog accidentally set himself down on a rubber chicken toy and it was the greatest auditory accompaniment to a post I've ever heard.

Avengers: Heroes United!

I'm there.

It's a Saturday afternoon at Subiaco Oval, standing room only and Nic Naitanui is lining up for goal from outside the 50 metre arc against Collingwood. The final horn has gone and there's a Four'n'Twenty pie in my hand. I can hardly watch in excitement...

It skews off Nic-Nat's boot. I sigh. The pie falls.

I'm there.

Before meat and pastry even sully the concrete in Perth's stadium I'm standing amongst gum trees on the eastern seaboard.

A private Wolfmother concert is taking place on Russell Crowe's estate. It's night time and I'm rocking out to Andrew Stockdale's guitar and vocals as "Mind's Eye" hangs on the night's air.

"Excuse me, sir? Do you have an invitation?"

I turn and see a man in a suit, wearing an earpiece and sunglasses at night.

"Aww yeah, mate. Sorry. I'm one of Rusty's rugby players. He gave us each an invite on the off chance we couldn't play down in Melbourne tomorrow..." I fumble behind me for the "invitation", he becomes less distracted by the words and more interested in the strange light that's being produced behind me.

"...see I wrecked my finger in training. Ah! There it is!"

I step back towards the light source.

"It was this one! Sit and spin, dickhead!" I show him the middle digit, grab my crotch and fall away from the scene, letting my final words "YOU GUYS ROCK!" hang in the air, called by a man who isn't there.

I'm there.

I sit from a distance and watch the sunset across Uluru. I like to catch this every day. I never watch the sun go all the way down though. Kata Tjuta is about 25 clicks to the west and I like to race the sun and watch it finally fall from there. Music still hangs in my ears as I smile, I caught enough of the air that the sound waves were travelling through and second hand drums and guitar cross not just my own mindscape but the physical plane as well.

A perfectly captured moment.

I watch as the sun winks below the sandstone monolith. It's edge ever so slightly obscured to one side.

My hands dance and reality sings.

I'm there.

I see the old man hovering. I look upon the mighty rocks. We perch upon the Mount like old Wanambi whose breath could forge cyclone-force winds. New protectors of this sacred earth.

I look upon the sun and once again it is winking, as it falls below one of the colossal stones. It's not the only thing winking. He approaches. The spy.

"It's time."

I look back to my elder, Gateway.

"Not him. Just you. You're an Avenger now."

His name is Fury. His stern face doesn't show any right now but i could absolutely believe that plenty lies beneath the surface. Hidden. Like much in this man's life.

I turn to farewell my elder but find him gone. The sound of his laughter hanging on the open air. Carried by the winds Wanambi, the protector of the past can control. Fury feels uncomfortable, but he doesn't understand. He's sending me this message by Wanambi's means to tell me that I'm ready. A perfectly captured moment.

I hope I prove the old man right.

* * * * *

I’m there.

“Enough!”

Fury’s anger starts to bubble to the surface. He’s weary of the jumps and just wants to get to our destination.

“Settle down, mate. I’ve never been to Machu Picchu before. So far, I can’t say I see the appeal. I mean sure, it looks like its picture but what exactly does it do? What’s it for?”

“Whatever it does, its doing it now and its not going to do any more or less than we’ve already seen. We’ve got a schedule to keep and we should have been there 4 hours ago.”

“Well, we’re closer than we were, aren’t we?”

“That’s because you took us to the Pyramids first…”

“If the time has come for me to put my life on the line and save the world, universe or what-have-you, at least do me the pleasure of letting me see the Seven Wonders of the World. Look at that bloody furry little camel down there!”

“That’s a llama.”

“I thought that was a Buddhist thing…”

“Not THE Lama. A llama!”

Eden looked quizzically at Fury. “A LLAMA! A LLAMA! Not the Dalai Lama!”

Eden held the same look of confusion as long as he could, before his grin widened and he cracked up laughing.

“This—this has all been a joke for you?”

“I’m sorry… I started off taking the piss and you didn’t seem to pick up on it, so I just had to see how far I could take it. I wanted to see how far you’d indulge me.”

“We went—WE WENT TO PETRA!”

“Yeah… I was sure you’d pick up on what I was doing by then. But nope. We got through all 7.”

“Can. We. PLEASE. Go. To. New York. City. Now.” He spat between gritted teeth. There it is. That’s his namesake, right there.

“Sure, mate. If you’ll allow me one more indulgence…”

“WHAT?!?”

Eden gestured to his own crotch and said just one word…

* * * * *

Eden stepped out of the portal clad in his fresh new uniform and into the vast cityscape of Manhattan, New York. The city that never sleeps, and here he had himself four reasons why… a colourful costumed villain, Captain America, Spider-Man and… Duck…person? He’s a thing, right? Or would it be weird if I asked who he was?

“I’m Manifold, and this here is Nick Fury.”

“That’s not Nick Fury.” Said a woman who was standing with Captain America.

“I’m—I’m pretty sure that it is. He said he was before, and that he was going to one day meet me again and drag me back here for some kind of big mission that was…”

“That’s not Nick Fury.” She repeated.

“Well, he certainly looks like the same Nick Fury who met me before and…”

“It might be. I’ll tell you what. Give his forehead a tap.”

Eden looked at the woman and then at Fury, then back to the woman. “I don’t think he’d like that.”

“Just do it.”

Eden shrugged and poked Fury between the eyes. Then stepped back.

“Are you kid—“ He stepped back in and wrapped on his forehead with his knuckles, causing a distinct metallic sound.

“The big head honcho spy of the free world is a robot..?”

“No. But this Life Model Decoy of him is…” Explained Agent 13.

“How did—How did you know?”

“Well, I’ve met him before. I know him.”

“Well, it is a good likeness.” Said the other spy who was standing with them, who would later be introduced as Coulson. “You know… if it weren’t for the race thing.”

It was at this point that the Duck interjected, “Yeah, well he had me fooled too. But then I don’t see colour. You’re all the same hairless apes to me…”

Avengers: Heroes United! - a semi-casual 'Tabletop-Lite' superhero RPG

Interesting new concept for a popular genre...

Avengers: Heroes United!

Sounds good.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Likewise will stability points and earned interrupts be kept up to date IC or in periodic OOC posts?