Is there...is there still room for peeps in this? Because this sounds like fun.
Indy Cooper
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STATUS: Free Ukraine, Free Tigray, Free Hong Kong, Free Myanmar, Free Everyone 2 yrs ago
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Yar of the Pig! Happy New Year everyone!
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Year of the Pupper, wooo!
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World Warriors: The Nomadic Fist (Quirky Fighting Game Influenced Roleplay)
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7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
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Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
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7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Los Angeles, Lower Westside
22:15 Local Time
Night of the Hounds of Humanity announcement
Zoë slammed down the rolling garage door behind her as she entered her home, consumed with thoughts of preemptive strikes against these “Chiens d'humanité”. Their sheer arrogance in deciding that they were responsible for 'cleansing' metahumans from the world got under her skin in a way she could not describe, until she remembered a story her grandfather had told her once. Only once, and she had stopped him shortly after he began, as the memories obviously pained him. But she could see the parallels between these dogs and the monsters in the grey uniforms. And while they didn't seem to be state-sanctioned, she certainly was not of a mind to give them a chance to become so. No, they had to die before it got that far.
Walking across the open space of her living quarters, she pulled out her 'work' phone and fired off a quick email to the select group of brokers and service providers, explaining that she was only accepting jobs having to do with taking out the HoH, all other potential employers would have to either wait or find another person. Having seen the confirmation that it had gone through, she tossed it onto her bed as she approached it, sat down and pulled a notebook out from the small box that served as her desk. She flipped it open and began scribbling furiously, jotting down a list of everything she might need for a long campaign of guerrilla campaign. She didn't typically need guns, so that was out, but several other pieces of gear came to mind, including ballistic armour and explosives. Food, clothing, and other necessities might also come in handy.
Her phone buzzed twice, and she glanced at it to read several confirmation emails. That reminded her to send out a text from the Wraith phone ordering everyone to lay low and handle business but not make any new moves until they heard otherwise. She didn't expect responses from those three numbers, really, they knew she wouldn't respond to questions. A stray glance brought her special phone to her attention. She'd have to keep it on, even during this, but it's possible leak of her location, even with all of the additional security, gave her slight pause. If someone were to look up her running away from home, and trace her to her gang, and find one of the survivors who had seen her first activate her powers, and then traced this phone and somehow cracked her security, it could end badly for everyone.
Zoë ran a slim-fingered hand through her tousle of brown curls and leaned back into the wall, staring out across the empty area between her and the back of her television. Thoughts of her estranged family ran across her mind in a rare display. Her father had long been a figure of antagonism to her now, and her mother's disapproving attitude to every choice she had made was not a pleasant memory at all. But Grandfather and Émile were innocent in all of that, and they would not deserve the hell that might come down if her association with them became known to the wrong people.
She suddenly stood. Non, they would not be in any danger, she thought, if I act fast enough. She knew what her first stop would be after groceries and a real breakfast. She grimaced, not caring that her clenched fist was wreathed in flame. It was going to be a long night.
-----------
Edwards AFB, outside of Los Angeles
01:13 local time
Well fed now, with a bottle of good wine to help her nerves, Zoë drove the "borrowed" Jeep towards the gate, trusting the vehicle looked close enough to a soldier's vehicle that it wouldn't arouse any additional problems. Her false ID would be depending on her powers of suggestion, since it was only a driver's license. The headlights washed over the on duty guard as he stepped out in front of her car, forcing her to come to a stop. Utterly professional, he stepped up to the window as she rolled it down.
"What are you doing out so late, ma'am?" His voice was a little thick. He must've been here for a while already. Her power let her know that he thought she had officer's insignia, though not necessarily what rank.
"Coming back late from my sister's house. Bit of an emergency with the nephew, and it's a long drive back." She smiled charmingly at him, handing over the license to his waiting hand. He glanced at it swiftly, flashlight illuminating the laminated card. One glance to her face, and back to the ID, and then he handed it back.
"Hope it's not too bad?"
"Oh, no, just her first child, and he's a bit hard to get to sleep. Colic, I think. But he's fine now."
"Good to hear, ma'am." The young man waved at his compatriot in the booth, and the gate opened to allow her to pass. She waved as she was pulling forward and made her way into the base, letting out a small exhalation in relief. She hadn't been sure how well her powers would work when the card was out of her hand, but apparently it had gone smoothly enough. Getting out would be much trickier, considering what she planned on removing.
Driving through the residential area of the base, Zoë kept an eye out for the sort of busybody that always showed up during these sorts of jobs. Snooping around, keeping an eye out for trouble, and generally being an emmerde. None seemed up at this hour, for which she was thankful. She didn't know when shift change might be, but it should be soon, and she wanted to be leaving about the time that happened.
A second gate and subsequent questioning got her through to the munitions depot. It was occasions like this that lead her to wonder at her more subtle powers. She didn't need to do anything except want to get into a place, and it seemed to take care of the rest. She only had vague ideas about what the other person might see, which made it a sort of guessing game and a chess match between her and her own power. Twice now, it had gotten her into far more trouble than she would have liked, when she had guessed incorrectly and broken whatever effect it was. But it was an exhilarating challenge to her, and she wouldn't give it up for the world.
The 'papers' she presented allowed her to snag a couple of on duty grunts for loading pretty much whatever she demanded from the warehouse, apparently, which was useful, as she didn't know exactly what the protocols might otherwise be. Having remembered that she might have to make some hires, she decided to load up some conventional weapons, so going into the truck she appropriated were two M2 .50 calibre machine guns, four GAU-17 miniguns, several dozen M4 carbines, crates of ammunition for all of them, and several light bombs for aircraft. Just as they were strapping everything down and she was climbing into the cab, she caught a glimpse in the side view mirror of one of the men talking agitatedly into his radio. One glance at the truck from him let her know the jig was up, and she cranked the ignition on and slammed the truck into gear, squealing out of the hangar building and out onto the tarmac, headed south for the gates.
Within seconds several cars had emerged at various points across the base, with only one of them close enough for her to see anything but the lights. She narrowed her focus on that one's driver as they pulled alongside her. They had clearly been warned that there were explosives in the vehicle, as they were not firing at her yet. A sudden jolt let her know he had rammed her truck, so she upped the temperature of the steering wheel well past bearable temperatures, and while she couldn't hear the yelp, she was rewarded by his car suddenly swerving off of the pursuit and into the sand surrounding the road. She grinned. So far this was easy.
------------
California Desert
01:40 Local time
Merde. Ce désert est ennuyeux, she thought as she took the pass up across the mountains and back towards the city. She knew that from the drive up, but the anticipation of the job at hand had kept it from being too dull. But now, with adrenaline long gone from her system and the lateness keeping her mind a bit fuzzy, she was finding it hard to stay focused. She had managed to drive of the rest of the pursuit cars through heat, and the two attack helicopters had fared no better. She was fairly certain she had wrecked one.
Zoë was brought suddenly alert by the sound of something landing on the roof of the cab, and a moment later the truck was incapable of moving forward. It took her a moment to realise the wheels were no longer on the ground. “Fuck! Fucking heroes!?” She opened the truck door and dove for the ground, an additional two feet below where it should have been. Rolling with the impact, she ducked to one side and took a quick second to measure her opponents.
There were three of them, two men and a woman. One guy was obviously a civilian, wearing some ridiculous one-piece in bright colours, and of all things a cape. The other two were wearing digital camouflage BDUs, which she was not expecting. If the military had metahumans, she might be in more trouble than she thought. The woman seemed to be using some sort of telekinesis to keep the truck from the ground, although she was lowering it and turning her attention to Zoë now. The caped guy was hovering just off the ground in the most irritating of poses, fists on his hips and trying to stare authoritatively. His muscles under the spandex were rather large, and she suspected he might have enhanced strength along with flight. The uniformed man, she noted, looked like he had frost over his fists. She grinned again. This would be fun.
“Criminal,” the cape said, trying to make his voice boom but failing in the acoustically challenged desert. “We know you have fire powers. Give up now and come with us. We do not wish to injure you.”
She heard the woman mutter, “Speak for yourself, dork.” Zoë sniggered appreciatively.
Assuming her Russian accent, she looked up at him and laughed. “Da, sure. I will go with you, and leave all of my nice new toys with your friends, eh?” Mentally getting ready, she continued. “Better idea: I kill all three of you, get away free, and you lay here dead in road.” And then she phased out, becoming invisible.
Moving towards the woman, who was going into some sort of combat pose and talking rapidly with her partner while the cape rose into the air, Zoë considered how best to do this. It would be easy enough to rematerialise with her hand in the woman's chest, but she wasn't sure what that would do. She settled for coming up behind the girl, waiting until the other two weren't looking, and then appearing again and immediately flash-heating the poor girl's clothes. She went up like a torch and began screaming wildly. Zoë was caught unawares by a blast of telekinetic energy as the woman desperately tried to put herself out, and had to phase again to avoid being put into the truck, which rocked heavily as she passed through it, caught in the same blast. She hoped nothing got dislodged. The boys at the warehouse had done such a good job loading it.
The caped guy seemed to know what she had done, at least, and came around the truck flying at her full force. She had just come out of phase to catch her balance, and had no time to do anything except re-phase. She caught a glimpse of his face going very angry as he passed by, fist held out uselessly. She strolled back through the truck to see how the girl was doing. Apparently she was down and out, covered in a thin layer of frost from her partner putting out the fire, but she definitely had not gotten away without severe burns. One down.
She re-phased again, this time in full view of the Air Force hero, and smiled at him as she was blasted by frost. His face fell as he realised it had had no effect. “<Weakling>,” she said, and then raised her hands and cut loose with her own jet of flames. He dived out of the way, but apparently was not expecting her to move only one hand, nor as quickly as she did, and he was caught between to gushes of burning air. She was tempted to hold it for a moment as he screamed, but decided it was best not to with the other closing in. As he came at her, she twisted, ducking to the side and slamming her foot up with her own enhanced body. She was slower than she anticipated, catching him in the lower abdomen, but still he went sprawling into the burning man.
She knew this type of fighter, having had to deal with several of them already. An idealist of justice, he firmly believed he could beat her without killing her, and bring her in to custody. They needed breaking more than killing. So as he was getting up, she sent bolts of incredibly hot flames from her hands at the head of either of his friends. He moved swiftly to cover the man he was next to, bravely taking the flames for the injured man. They splashed across his chest and he fell backwards, rolling to try and smother them as the other man writhed and continued to bellow in pain. The girl had woken up and was beginning to make the odd sounds she could as her head was engulfed. From past experience Zoë knew she'd never survive. A pity, but she couldn't afford the military kids getting back to their superiours with any descriptions of her. The civilian wasn't trained enough, and she wanted at least one of them to survive and carry the word that a Russian had attacked them.
The man was raising himself up and staring in abject horror at the two burning bodies. He ripped his cape off and began trying to put out the worst of the flames on the man, whose struggles were beginning to weaken, strength sapped by the terrible damage she had wrought on his flesh. The caped man was certainly a genuinely good person. He was ignoring the angry red burn on his chest, and she knew the melted spandex clinging to his skin couldn't be any less painful.
“You win,” he said, defeat in his voice as he struggled to put out some of the fire. “Just go. But know I will get you for this.”
Zoë smiled at him. “You can try all you like, <boy>.” She snapped her fingers, and the sand around both the people on the ground glassed, the cape leaping back and screaming as his hands instantly blistered. The man and woman's screams didn't last long, and the flesh itself began to burn. She watched the tears drip down the man's face as he yelled at her.
“Why!? You had us beaten!”
“Kinder, this way. Is quicker. Cleaner.” She shrugged, glancing up and along the road where she could see more pursuit vehicles starting out from the little town the base was attached to. “Must be going. Do not come after me. You won't survive.” Climbing into the truck, she started it up and drove off into the night, leaving an angry, broken man with charred fingers screaming into the sky by the light of the bonfires who used to be his friends.
22:15 Local Time
Night of the Hounds of Humanity announcement
Zoë slammed down the rolling garage door behind her as she entered her home, consumed with thoughts of preemptive strikes against these “Chiens d'humanité”. Their sheer arrogance in deciding that they were responsible for 'cleansing' metahumans from the world got under her skin in a way she could not describe, until she remembered a story her grandfather had told her once. Only once, and she had stopped him shortly after he began, as the memories obviously pained him. But she could see the parallels between these dogs and the monsters in the grey uniforms. And while they didn't seem to be state-sanctioned, she certainly was not of a mind to give them a chance to become so. No, they had to die before it got that far.
Walking across the open space of her living quarters, she pulled out her 'work' phone and fired off a quick email to the select group of brokers and service providers, explaining that she was only accepting jobs having to do with taking out the HoH, all other potential employers would have to either wait or find another person. Having seen the confirmation that it had gone through, she tossed it onto her bed as she approached it, sat down and pulled a notebook out from the small box that served as her desk. She flipped it open and began scribbling furiously, jotting down a list of everything she might need for a long campaign of guerrilla campaign. She didn't typically need guns, so that was out, but several other pieces of gear came to mind, including ballistic armour and explosives. Food, clothing, and other necessities might also come in handy.
Her phone buzzed twice, and she glanced at it to read several confirmation emails. That reminded her to send out a text from the Wraith phone ordering everyone to lay low and handle business but not make any new moves until they heard otherwise. She didn't expect responses from those three numbers, really, they knew she wouldn't respond to questions. A stray glance brought her special phone to her attention. She'd have to keep it on, even during this, but it's possible leak of her location, even with all of the additional security, gave her slight pause. If someone were to look up her running away from home, and trace her to her gang, and find one of the survivors who had seen her first activate her powers, and then traced this phone and somehow cracked her security, it could end badly for everyone.
Zoë ran a slim-fingered hand through her tousle of brown curls and leaned back into the wall, staring out across the empty area between her and the back of her television. Thoughts of her estranged family ran across her mind in a rare display. Her father had long been a figure of antagonism to her now, and her mother's disapproving attitude to every choice she had made was not a pleasant memory at all. But Grandfather and Émile were innocent in all of that, and they would not deserve the hell that might come down if her association with them became known to the wrong people.
She suddenly stood. Non, they would not be in any danger, she thought, if I act fast enough. She knew what her first stop would be after groceries and a real breakfast. She grimaced, not caring that her clenched fist was wreathed in flame. It was going to be a long night.
-----------
Edwards AFB, outside of Los Angeles
01:13 local time
Well fed now, with a bottle of good wine to help her nerves, Zoë drove the "borrowed" Jeep towards the gate, trusting the vehicle looked close enough to a soldier's vehicle that it wouldn't arouse any additional problems. Her false ID would be depending on her powers of suggestion, since it was only a driver's license. The headlights washed over the on duty guard as he stepped out in front of her car, forcing her to come to a stop. Utterly professional, he stepped up to the window as she rolled it down.
"What are you doing out so late, ma'am?" His voice was a little thick. He must've been here for a while already. Her power let her know that he thought she had officer's insignia, though not necessarily what rank.
"Coming back late from my sister's house. Bit of an emergency with the nephew, and it's a long drive back." She smiled charmingly at him, handing over the license to his waiting hand. He glanced at it swiftly, flashlight illuminating the laminated card. One glance to her face, and back to the ID, and then he handed it back.
"Hope it's not too bad?"
"Oh, no, just her first child, and he's a bit hard to get to sleep. Colic, I think. But he's fine now."
"Good to hear, ma'am." The young man waved at his compatriot in the booth, and the gate opened to allow her to pass. She waved as she was pulling forward and made her way into the base, letting out a small exhalation in relief. She hadn't been sure how well her powers would work when the card was out of her hand, but apparently it had gone smoothly enough. Getting out would be much trickier, considering what she planned on removing.
Driving through the residential area of the base, Zoë kept an eye out for the sort of busybody that always showed up during these sorts of jobs. Snooping around, keeping an eye out for trouble, and generally being an emmerde. None seemed up at this hour, for which she was thankful. She didn't know when shift change might be, but it should be soon, and she wanted to be leaving about the time that happened.
A second gate and subsequent questioning got her through to the munitions depot. It was occasions like this that lead her to wonder at her more subtle powers. She didn't need to do anything except want to get into a place, and it seemed to take care of the rest. She only had vague ideas about what the other person might see, which made it a sort of guessing game and a chess match between her and her own power. Twice now, it had gotten her into far more trouble than she would have liked, when she had guessed incorrectly and broken whatever effect it was. But it was an exhilarating challenge to her, and she wouldn't give it up for the world.
The 'papers' she presented allowed her to snag a couple of on duty grunts for loading pretty much whatever she demanded from the warehouse, apparently, which was useful, as she didn't know exactly what the protocols might otherwise be. Having remembered that she might have to make some hires, she decided to load up some conventional weapons, so going into the truck she appropriated were two M2 .50 calibre machine guns, four GAU-17 miniguns, several dozen M4 carbines, crates of ammunition for all of them, and several light bombs for aircraft. Just as they were strapping everything down and she was climbing into the cab, she caught a glimpse in the side view mirror of one of the men talking agitatedly into his radio. One glance at the truck from him let her know the jig was up, and she cranked the ignition on and slammed the truck into gear, squealing out of the hangar building and out onto the tarmac, headed south for the gates.
Within seconds several cars had emerged at various points across the base, with only one of them close enough for her to see anything but the lights. She narrowed her focus on that one's driver as they pulled alongside her. They had clearly been warned that there were explosives in the vehicle, as they were not firing at her yet. A sudden jolt let her know he had rammed her truck, so she upped the temperature of the steering wheel well past bearable temperatures, and while she couldn't hear the yelp, she was rewarded by his car suddenly swerving off of the pursuit and into the sand surrounding the road. She grinned. So far this was easy.
------------
California Desert
01:40 Local time
Merde. Ce désert est ennuyeux, she thought as she took the pass up across the mountains and back towards the city. She knew that from the drive up, but the anticipation of the job at hand had kept it from being too dull. But now, with adrenaline long gone from her system and the lateness keeping her mind a bit fuzzy, she was finding it hard to stay focused. She had managed to drive of the rest of the pursuit cars through heat, and the two attack helicopters had fared no better. She was fairly certain she had wrecked one.
Zoë was brought suddenly alert by the sound of something landing on the roof of the cab, and a moment later the truck was incapable of moving forward. It took her a moment to realise the wheels were no longer on the ground. “Fuck! Fucking heroes!?” She opened the truck door and dove for the ground, an additional two feet below where it should have been. Rolling with the impact, she ducked to one side and took a quick second to measure her opponents.
There were three of them, two men and a woman. One guy was obviously a civilian, wearing some ridiculous one-piece in bright colours, and of all things a cape. The other two were wearing digital camouflage BDUs, which she was not expecting. If the military had metahumans, she might be in more trouble than she thought. The woman seemed to be using some sort of telekinesis to keep the truck from the ground, although she was lowering it and turning her attention to Zoë now. The caped guy was hovering just off the ground in the most irritating of poses, fists on his hips and trying to stare authoritatively. His muscles under the spandex were rather large, and she suspected he might have enhanced strength along with flight. The uniformed man, she noted, looked like he had frost over his fists. She grinned again. This would be fun.
“Criminal,” the cape said, trying to make his voice boom but failing in the acoustically challenged desert. “We know you have fire powers. Give up now and come with us. We do not wish to injure you.”
She heard the woman mutter, “Speak for yourself, dork.” Zoë sniggered appreciatively.
Assuming her Russian accent, she looked up at him and laughed. “Da, sure. I will go with you, and leave all of my nice new toys with your friends, eh?” Mentally getting ready, she continued. “Better idea: I kill all three of you, get away free, and you lay here dead in road.” And then she phased out, becoming invisible.
Moving towards the woman, who was going into some sort of combat pose and talking rapidly with her partner while the cape rose into the air, Zoë considered how best to do this. It would be easy enough to rematerialise with her hand in the woman's chest, but she wasn't sure what that would do. She settled for coming up behind the girl, waiting until the other two weren't looking, and then appearing again and immediately flash-heating the poor girl's clothes. She went up like a torch and began screaming wildly. Zoë was caught unawares by a blast of telekinetic energy as the woman desperately tried to put herself out, and had to phase again to avoid being put into the truck, which rocked heavily as she passed through it, caught in the same blast. She hoped nothing got dislodged. The boys at the warehouse had done such a good job loading it.
The caped guy seemed to know what she had done, at least, and came around the truck flying at her full force. She had just come out of phase to catch her balance, and had no time to do anything except re-phase. She caught a glimpse of his face going very angry as he passed by, fist held out uselessly. She strolled back through the truck to see how the girl was doing. Apparently she was down and out, covered in a thin layer of frost from her partner putting out the fire, but she definitely had not gotten away without severe burns. One down.
She re-phased again, this time in full view of the Air Force hero, and smiled at him as she was blasted by frost. His face fell as he realised it had had no effect. “<Weakling>,” she said, and then raised her hands and cut loose with her own jet of flames. He dived out of the way, but apparently was not expecting her to move only one hand, nor as quickly as she did, and he was caught between to gushes of burning air. She was tempted to hold it for a moment as he screamed, but decided it was best not to with the other closing in. As he came at her, she twisted, ducking to the side and slamming her foot up with her own enhanced body. She was slower than she anticipated, catching him in the lower abdomen, but still he went sprawling into the burning man.
She knew this type of fighter, having had to deal with several of them already. An idealist of justice, he firmly believed he could beat her without killing her, and bring her in to custody. They needed breaking more than killing. So as he was getting up, she sent bolts of incredibly hot flames from her hands at the head of either of his friends. He moved swiftly to cover the man he was next to, bravely taking the flames for the injured man. They splashed across his chest and he fell backwards, rolling to try and smother them as the other man writhed and continued to bellow in pain. The girl had woken up and was beginning to make the odd sounds she could as her head was engulfed. From past experience Zoë knew she'd never survive. A pity, but she couldn't afford the military kids getting back to their superiours with any descriptions of her. The civilian wasn't trained enough, and she wanted at least one of them to survive and carry the word that a Russian had attacked them.
The man was raising himself up and staring in abject horror at the two burning bodies. He ripped his cape off and began trying to put out the worst of the flames on the man, whose struggles were beginning to weaken, strength sapped by the terrible damage she had wrought on his flesh. The caped man was certainly a genuinely good person. He was ignoring the angry red burn on his chest, and she knew the melted spandex clinging to his skin couldn't be any less painful.
“You win,” he said, defeat in his voice as he struggled to put out some of the fire. “Just go. But know I will get you for this.”
Zoë smiled at him. “You can try all you like, <boy>.” She snapped her fingers, and the sand around both the people on the ground glassed, the cape leaping back and screaming as his hands instantly blistered. The man and woman's screams didn't last long, and the flesh itself began to burn. She watched the tears drip down the man's face as he yelled at her.
“Why!? You had us beaten!”
“Kinder, this way. Is quicker. Cleaner.” She shrugged, glancing up and along the road where she could see more pursuit vehicles starting out from the little town the base was attached to. “Must be going. Do not come after me. You won't survive.” Climbing into the truck, she started it up and drove off into the night, leaving an angry, broken man with charred fingers screaming into the sky by the light of the bonfires who used to be his friends.
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Little Tokyo, 19:42
Nicole watched as the fist raised up again, for what felt like the eightieth time. This time, though, the big guy held it weird, and she noticed that one of the knuckles was sunk back into his hand. He was screaming something in Chinese. Again. Honestly, she was kind of bored.
The little one she had hit a couple of times was holding her in some sort of crazy lock against the ground, bending one of her arms behind her and pressing his knees into her lower back. He was gripping her other arm at the elbow, and it felt like he was trying to bend it backwards by pressing it awkwardly into the asphalt, though it wasn't doing what he wanted it to. She supposed he was trying to break it. The larger guy had bent down, grabbed her hair in one hand, and was doing his damnedest to beat her face into a pulp, though it looked like his hand had given up before her nose had. Considering she suspected the guy was a meta, she was kind of impressed with herself. Every time he had hit her, she had slid across the ground a couple of feet, and the little guy had had to grip her fairly tight to maintain his balance.
She knew she hadn't had to eat, or sleep, and when she had fallen down a hill the first time into a rocky ravine she had been sure it was all over. But like when her apartment had collapsed, she was completely unhurt. No pain, no broken bones, no cuts, scrapes, or even bruising. Afterwards, she had poked at her skin. It gave the same as always, but when she had tried to bend her finger back and break it, it had done nothing. And now she was beginning to realise that nothing seemed capable of breaking her. She felt the point of the knife pressing into her face as the larger of her attackers tried a different tactic, but he quickly gave up.
“What the fuck are you, little girl?” he hissed, holding one hand and staring into her eyes. Her only response was to spit at him, though from this angle she couldn't even land it on his shoe. The little guy on her back laughed. “She's got some fire in her belly, eh? Maybe we should take her back, break her in a different way.”
The big guy shook his head. “I ain't going to do anything to her. She's too fuckin' creepy. I can't even cut her.”
Nicole took this opportunity to try and wrench her arm free, bucking and twisting as she did. The bastard on her back simply shifted his grip and pressed her face into the asphalt and half-heartedly punched her in the kidney, emitting a short gasp of pain when he made contact. “It's like punching a sand bag! Fuck it, we need to leave before the police show up.”
<Why'd the bomb go off early, anyway? I thought you were good at this stuff.>
<I don't know. Johnny and Chen are dead, too. I set everything the way I usually do.>
The little one leaned into her, so he could talk directly into her ear. The closeness and the heat of his breath made her shudder. “Listen, bitch. We're gonna get going. You try and follow us and I promise you our boss will find a way to hurt you.”
<Hey,> the big guy muttered. <Got an idea. Get off of her.>
The one on her back let go and fairly launched himself off of her, but she had no time to scramble to her feet. The bigger one had gripped her by her hair and lifted her up. I guess that's an added benefit, she thought as she tried to spot anyway out of this. I wonder if I can still get hair cuts? He was holding her up high enough to keep her feet off the ground, and the little one had grabbed her ankles so she couldn't kick. She could hear sirens, but she doubted they'd get here in time to save her from whatever was about to happen.
They marched her over to a bike rack across the street, where the laid her down in front of it. Swiftly, the larger gangster twisted the metal of the rack so that it held her to the ground, taking extra care to make sure that she couldn't slide out by wriggling forwards or backwards. Within the span of a minute she had bars holding her neck, ribs, arms, stomach, knees, and ankles to the pavement. Glowering at them from under her prison, she hissed, “I'm going to find you assholes and I'm going to kill you for this.”
“Oh yeah,” sniggered the thin one, adjusting his beaten suit carefully. “Because we're so very scared of a little girl.” He leaned down near her face and sneered. She took careful note of his pock-marked face, every detail she could remember. “It don't matter how invincible you may be, bitch. We'll still kick your ass every time.” Turning back to his partner,he laughed and said something in their language again, and they both took off into the darkness.
From her new vantage point, she could see the damage to the building. The front wall of the place had blown into the street, along with the front area of the roof where she had been hiding. The rest of what was probably a dining area had collapsed after the supporting walls were blown away, but the back half of the building seemed moderately untouched from where she was. The street was also okay, aside from the rubble and glass, although there was one spot where her head had been slammed into the asphalt hard enough to crack it. A streetlight was also torn off near the ground where she'd been thrown through it. She hadn't been paying attention to how hard she was being hit, really. 's'not like it mattered. All powerful invincibility and I get taken out by a couple of thugs. Waaay to go, Nicole.
She wasn't even certain why she had attacked the guy. Not like it was her building or anything. He had just seemed like he needed to get punished for being...what? Chinese Triad, wasn't that what they were called? Criminals, anyway. But unlike at her apartment building back home, no one innocent seemed to have been hurt in the blast. She just wanted to hurt them for being assholes.
She briefly struggled against her restraints as the sirens approached, but it was fairly obvious she wasn't about to et out of this one on her own. Spend three months avoiding the cops, dump my Ids, get the hell across the damn country without once being taken in as a runaway. And now here I am, trussed up like some sort of fuckin' hunting trophy. She groaned as the first fire engine came around the corner, lights playing across the buildings in front of her. Should be fine as long as I can avoid telling them anything. Just like back home, really.
Nicole watched as the fist raised up again, for what felt like the eightieth time. This time, though, the big guy held it weird, and she noticed that one of the knuckles was sunk back into his hand. He was screaming something in Chinese. Again. Honestly, she was kind of bored.
The little one she had hit a couple of times was holding her in some sort of crazy lock against the ground, bending one of her arms behind her and pressing his knees into her lower back. He was gripping her other arm at the elbow, and it felt like he was trying to bend it backwards by pressing it awkwardly into the asphalt, though it wasn't doing what he wanted it to. She supposed he was trying to break it. The larger guy had bent down, grabbed her hair in one hand, and was doing his damnedest to beat her face into a pulp, though it looked like his hand had given up before her nose had. Considering she suspected the guy was a meta, she was kind of impressed with herself. Every time he had hit her, she had slid across the ground a couple of feet, and the little guy had had to grip her fairly tight to maintain his balance.
She knew she hadn't had to eat, or sleep, and when she had fallen down a hill the first time into a rocky ravine she had been sure it was all over. But like when her apartment had collapsed, she was completely unhurt. No pain, no broken bones, no cuts, scrapes, or even bruising. Afterwards, she had poked at her skin. It gave the same as always, but when she had tried to bend her finger back and break it, it had done nothing. And now she was beginning to realise that nothing seemed capable of breaking her. She felt the point of the knife pressing into her face as the larger of her attackers tried a different tactic, but he quickly gave up.
“What the fuck are you, little girl?” he hissed, holding one hand and staring into her eyes. Her only response was to spit at him, though from this angle she couldn't even land it on his shoe. The little guy on her back laughed. “She's got some fire in her belly, eh? Maybe we should take her back, break her in a different way.”
The big guy shook his head. “I ain't going to do anything to her. She's too fuckin' creepy. I can't even cut her.”
Nicole took this opportunity to try and wrench her arm free, bucking and twisting as she did. The bastard on her back simply shifted his grip and pressed her face into the asphalt and half-heartedly punched her in the kidney, emitting a short gasp of pain when he made contact. “It's like punching a sand bag! Fuck it, we need to leave before the police show up.”
<Why'd the bomb go off early, anyway? I thought you were good at this stuff.>
<I don't know. Johnny and Chen are dead, too. I set everything the way I usually do.>
The little one leaned into her, so he could talk directly into her ear. The closeness and the heat of his breath made her shudder. “Listen, bitch. We're gonna get going. You try and follow us and I promise you our boss will find a way to hurt you.”
<Hey,> the big guy muttered. <Got an idea. Get off of her.>
The one on her back let go and fairly launched himself off of her, but she had no time to scramble to her feet. The bigger one had gripped her by her hair and lifted her up. I guess that's an added benefit, she thought as she tried to spot anyway out of this. I wonder if I can still get hair cuts? He was holding her up high enough to keep her feet off the ground, and the little one had grabbed her ankles so she couldn't kick. She could hear sirens, but she doubted they'd get here in time to save her from whatever was about to happen.
They marched her over to a bike rack across the street, where the laid her down in front of it. Swiftly, the larger gangster twisted the metal of the rack so that it held her to the ground, taking extra care to make sure that she couldn't slide out by wriggling forwards or backwards. Within the span of a minute she had bars holding her neck, ribs, arms, stomach, knees, and ankles to the pavement. Glowering at them from under her prison, she hissed, “I'm going to find you assholes and I'm going to kill you for this.”
“Oh yeah,” sniggered the thin one, adjusting his beaten suit carefully. “Because we're so very scared of a little girl.” He leaned down near her face and sneered. She took careful note of his pock-marked face, every detail she could remember. “It don't matter how invincible you may be, bitch. We'll still kick your ass every time.” Turning back to his partner,he laughed and said something in their language again, and they both took off into the darkness.
From her new vantage point, she could see the damage to the building. The front wall of the place had blown into the street, along with the front area of the roof where she had been hiding. The rest of what was probably a dining area had collapsed after the supporting walls were blown away, but the back half of the building seemed moderately untouched from where she was. The street was also okay, aside from the rubble and glass, although there was one spot where her head had been slammed into the asphalt hard enough to crack it. A streetlight was also torn off near the ground where she'd been thrown through it. She hadn't been paying attention to how hard she was being hit, really. 's'not like it mattered. All powerful invincibility and I get taken out by a couple of thugs. Waaay to go, Nicole.
She wasn't even certain why she had attacked the guy. Not like it was her building or anything. He had just seemed like he needed to get punished for being...what? Chinese Triad, wasn't that what they were called? Criminals, anyway. But unlike at her apartment building back home, no one innocent seemed to have been hurt in the blast. She just wanted to hurt them for being assholes.
She briefly struggled against her restraints as the sirens approached, but it was fairly obvious she wasn't about to et out of this one on her own. Spend three months avoiding the cops, dump my Ids, get the hell across the damn country without once being taken in as a runaway. And now here I am, trussed up like some sort of fuckin' hunting trophy. She groaned as the first fire engine came around the corner, lights playing across the buildings in front of her. Should be fine as long as I can avoid telling them anything. Just like back home, really.
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
And
Location: Local Walmart
Time:13:26
David walked around from aisle to aisle looking at the signs hanging from the ceiling, until he finally saw what he was looking for, “Storage & Organization”. David led the way into the aisle, multiple plastic bins of various shapes and sizes for different uses adored the shelves. There were a couple other shoppers looking at some of the plastic containers for their own purposes, but as soon as they saw Berenice they decided to move out of the aisle quickly with some worried mumbling on their part. David did his best to keep his face down; he really didn’t want to be identified with Berenice right now, it might lead to trouble in the future after all. Taking a quick glance David picked up a decently sized, clear, plastic box, he wondered for a moment why his current partner would need a bin in the first place. I remember she said something about homes needing bins, but why? Forget it, this should be fine. It can be a thank you gift for not hurting those kids. David picked up the plastic box and turned around to leave, only to find Berenice nodding her head.
“No. Wrong bin.”
“Wrong bin? Are you sure you knew what a bin looked like before today?”
Nodding again Berenice replied. “Ah-mee show me. Need big bin for home. Like bin under tree.”
“Under tree? Do you mean like back at the park? A garbage bin?” Berenice nodded yes again and David gave her a look of disbelief. “What do you need with a garbage bin?”
“For trash, Ah-mee said for trash.”
“For trash? But you’re a, a-“
He was about to say bird woman, but before now he’d never met anyone like her, and therefore had no real standard to compare her too. Accepting the situation David gave a sigh of defeat. “Alright, alright, they say bigger is better anyways.” After picking out the correct “bin” they both turned to leave but as they got closer to the front David ushered Berenice behind him and back into another aisle. The police had arrived and they had already begun questioning the greeter near the entrance, he could see him pointing down to where they had been earlier. Shoot, I can’t be caught near this bird lady when the cops come by.
“Uh, Barry was it?”
“Berenice, I am Berenice.”
“Alright sure, listen, wait here, don’t move, and hold this. I ,uh, have to use the bathroom.” David placed the plastic container down before bolting into a sprint towards the back of the store. Berenice watched him go for just a moment, idly wondering what a bathroom was.
David dove into the restroom, after giving it a quick once over he saw the feet of a man currently using a stall, deciding that he wouldn’t be a problem David decided to leave him alone. The smell alone indicated that he was busy regardless. David didn’t want to be caught doing this in front of an audience like the police, so the dirty, but relatively empty, public bathroom would have to do. Focusing himself David mentally he called to the Earth to bring his powered form into being. In a split second a burst of brilliant white light emerged from the floor, completely engulfing him, red and orange waves of energy began to pulsate from his chest until they covered him like fire. The energy settled and continued to flow off him in small embers that disappeared after a second, after giving himself a quick once over David quickly dove back outside to help Berenice. As he left he could hear a curse of confusion coming from the stall back in the restroom. Now in his powered body he decided to take advantage of it and flew high into the ceiling, over the lights and rafters, dodging each ceiling obstacle with ease.
---
Berenice was inclined to wait for David, though her easily distracted nature was getting the best of her. She didn’t yet understand everything, and so far he had been willing to help, at least to a point. She had waited for almost a minute, fighting the instinct to go and investigate all the brightly coloured objects that were everywhere, until she heard a sound that caught her attention; somewhere nearby a child was playing. Following the sound, she found a boy like Owen, but younger, who was marching up and down an aisle with a small object in his hand.
“Hello nestling, what is that you have?” Berenice asked as she craned her head around in curiosity.
The boy was holding a red robotic bird toy, he was currently tapping a button on the back to activate the lights and sounds feature. “It’s the Brobot Falcon from Big Team 5.” The young boy responded, he was young enough that he didn’t quite notice that Berenice wasn’t completely human; apparently the human-like head was enough for him. Suddenly another voice called out from behind an aisle.
“Thomas! Thomas where are you!”
“Here uncle Frank!”
“Oh there you are, thank go-“The man behind the voice emerged from the aisle right behind Thomas and froze, his eyes fixed on Berenice.
Berenice’s features switched to wariness and she took a stance. “Away egg-thief!”
“Thomas we’re going!” The man shouted as he lifted Thomas from under his arms and started running, the boy dropped his toy but didn’t seem to notice yet if at all.
“Bye.” Thomas waved to Berenice as he was quickly lifted up off his feet, he didn’t understand what was happening but he trusted his uncle.
But Berenice picked up the toy and began to imitate it by spreading her own wings out above the aisles, completely unaware and uncaring of the stares she was getting. Unfortunately, those same stares were leading the investigating officers towards her, herding civilians away as they moved in. Two took position at the entrance of the aisle she was playing in and peeked around the corner. They stared, wide-eyed, as Berenice dropped the first toy and began wrestling with another figurine, trying to get it out of the box by way of her teeth.
Each officer glanced at the other for a moment, before the older and more seasoned man grabbed his radio and whispered, “Visual on target, aisle thirteen. Does not appear armed.” Two more officers immediately veered off to close the other end of the aisle, and once in position, the older officer whispered again.
“Dispatch, this is badge 435, we have a visual on the special suspect. Awaiting order to engage.”
Berenice had abandoned the struggle with the boxed toy and hopped along the aisle a bit, and now she had found a music box. Opening it, and hearing the little chiming tune, she grinned ear to ear. This was a good find. After a single repetition of the song recorded on the thing, she had began singing along to it, although wordlessly, and the effect on the officers was immediate. Their eyes glazed over, and they stood up out of cover and began relaxing. Nervous patrons in the aisles not already cleared also relaxed, and several of them began moving to get nearer to her. Badge 345’s radio crackled, dispatch trying to get more information, but he just turned it down and sat on the floor near the siren.
---
David soared high above the floor, the customers who hadn’t become aware of Berenice had failed to notice him as well as he dodged various ceiling fixtures. Spotting where he left the bin he swooped down to pick it up, noticing the lack of Berenice in the aisle he continued to fly around, trying to track her down. “Just couldn’t sit still.” David muttered as he continued, he almost missed it due to how soft it was but he thought he heard singing. David pondered as he flew closer and into the aisle, spotting both police and hapless customers standing and sitting around in a daze. The people scattered around Berenice where in a hapless daze, a simple smile painted all their faces as they gazed in Berenice’s direction, drool began to slip down the corner of some of their mouths. David waved his hand in front of one of the officers, his face stayed in the same listless, drooling, state it was in previously. David took a moment to check his pulse. He seems alright, I hope this isn’t permanent, doesn’t seem like it.
David placed his hand around the officer’s wrist and wiped his mouth for him and spoke to him in a hushed tone. “We’re real sorry about this.” David turned around to Berenice, the box still in his hands. “Barry, cut the siren act we’re leaving.” David said out loud as he turned to face her.
Berenice had been concentrating on the music, almost to the exclusion of all other things, but the odd voice using her name caused her to look up. Seeing a giant man made of flame, however, caused her to panic. Her wings flared wide, arms out and talons flexed along the tiles of the store, and she puffed out her chest ever so slightly underneath the tank-top she was wearing for just a moment. Her mouth opened wide and she squinted her eyes shut and cut loose with a scream to drive the offending fire man away.
As the sound waves pushed out, magic coursed through the air at the same time, wind rushing along with it as the simple force of power threw everything around in front of the oncoming attack. Small toys filled the air in slow motion as it hit the shelves, much like a tidal wave does with buildings, and the shelves themselves shifted into the next aisle, screws in the base shearing under the pressure.
Passing the flame man, the waves continued, and the two officers just a step behind him did not have the advantage of powers to protect them. They were flung back as the sound hit them with physical ‘oomph’, into the trio of civilians behind them, and all five collapsed to the ground, making pitiful noises they couldn’t even hear from pain. The simple presence of the police and the fire man in front of them saved the civilians’ lives, the brute force of the wave somewhat diminished from having passed through those bodies first. The officers, however, would not be getting back up, having been less than twenty feet from Berenice as she screamed.
---
As Berenice turned around David felt himself tense up after sensing her panicked state, he was struck by indecision as pondered on his next act, by the time he decided it was far too late to stop her from acting. “Uh oh.” David muttered as the sound waves pounded him, reverberating throughout his body, a pain in his head erupted just seconds before he was forced to stagger backwards. David struggled to keep standing as the force of the sound waves slid him back slightly even as his feet planted themselves.“Berenice cut it off!” David shouted as he covered his “ears”, but his shouting went unheard, drowned out by the intensity and volume of the screaming.
---
She held it for almost thirty seconds, before abruptly cutting it off. She hop-skipped forward towards the stunned man, snatched the box from near him in a quick, darting grab, and took off into the air. Lifting with some difficulty due to the added weight, she made for the nearby doors, standing shattered from her attack. Sensing the difficulty she would have maneuvering, she abandoned her prize and darted through as quickly as she could, shooting up and into the afternoon sky amidst customers looking around for the source of the noise they had just heard. Somehow, none seemed to notice her leave, those near the door still trying to extricate themselves from broken shards of glass.
---
By the time David had recovered Berenice was already gone, and the aisle around him lay in ruins. Various products either lay scattered or shattered around him, the floor tiles had also been torn up from both the sound waves and his own efforts to stay in place, the bystanders that had been in the aisle with him were now left unconscious on the floor. After checking the bodies he was relieved the civilians were alive, but he was disheartened after discovering the officers were not so lucky. “Stupid move, of course she wasn’t going to recognize you like this.” David chastised himself outloud. But his head flew upwards when a voice suddenly called out to him.
“Yeah this was a stupid move, who the hell trashes a Wally Mart?”
“Uh oh.” David muttered for the second time today as a figure stood floating in front of him. The man floating before him wore a welding mask, an open grey hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, a red t-shirt, worn down jeans, and brown work shoes; the kind construction workers would wear.
“‘Uh oh’ is right.” The figure replied mockingly.
---
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Early evening, Los Angeles, CA
The "apartment" Zoé occupied was mostly empty space, really. A huge open area two stories tall, in a converted warehouse. Partition walls divided the whole building into quarters, each several hundred square feet, but as far as she was aware, she was the only person living there, and she owned two of the four spaces. One, the one she wasn't usually in, held most of her equipment, including her carbon fibre suits, welding area, scrap metal, isolated crime computer, and others. That quarter of the building was heavily reinforced, guarded by expertly built security systems that she had paid almost excruciatingly well for. Cameras, laser tripwires, alarms, explosive charges, blast doors, and more made sure that no one was about to 'accidentally' stumble across her villain identity and live to tell the tale. It also contains what she affectionately called her gym, another open area with fireproofed walls and simulated security systems, most of it covered in scorch marks and bits of formerly molten metal.
In contrast, her actual living space consisted of well worn couches, armchairs, and a coffee table, surrounding a 56" plasma television and a bunch of games and consoles. Spaced around that in various areas were her writing desk, three easels with paintings in various stages of completion, a rack of painting and other art supplies, her cello resting on a stand, and in the corner, a small area with plumbing where her kitchen and bathroom were. Next to those was another little spot, divided off by old surgical curtains, that held her bed and a few other personal effects. Hanging from most of the wallspace were completed paintings awaiting buyers. While she liked the finer things in life, she was well aware that she had to maintain an image of almost-but-not-quite poverty in order to keep suspicion off of her.
The building was situated just south of the Lower Westside, in the shadier docks areas where less questions tended to be asked, which suited the Frenchwoman's attitude just fine. 'Evgeniya Dunayevsky' liked her privacy, and less nosy neighbours, the better. And with several drug rings operating inside her 'safety' perimeter now under her thumb for a sort of Robin Hood protection racket, she had enough to pay her bills without working, which allowed her to do only the jobs that amused her or paid extremely well. The outside was just a tad rusty, with peeling paint in patches, and looked almost too stereo-typically run down. All in all, she thought it would be obvious to the right people it was a supervillain lair, almost a challenge to whatever geniuses might be working with the authorities. So far no one had taken her up on it.
Waking up from her afternoon alcohol-induced nap, Zoé sat up out of her bed to the ringing of a cell phone, lifting her brown waves of too-long hair out of her face and squinting at her 'night stand', which was a milk crate. Four phones sat on the crate, set up in a specific order. The first was for Evgeniya, and had contacts for restaurants, galleries, concert venues, her agent, and all the other myriad phone numbers one built up living a normal life. The second was her mercenary number. Not a whole lot of people had a direct knowledge of the number itself, but several brokers knew it, and it also had an attached email address. This was for getting her real work. It had been disappointingly quiet the past few weeks. The third phone was very specifically not listed, and had a vast array of extra security measures programmed into and attached to it, and was the only way to contact Wraith. Two people in the world knew that number, and they only called it in emergencies. The fourth was listed under her real name, and was linked by false GPS traces and telephone providers to Genoa. It only existed in case her sister needed something, as she was the only family member Zoé gave a shit about and was still alive.
It was the second phone which was ringing. She grumbled under her breath, swung her bare legs out of the bed, and picked it up, asuming a near flawless Russian accent as she did so. "Da? Who is calling?"
"Forge, it's Sophia. Need your help right now!" Zoé knew that name. It belonged to a vampire, which was a concept that no longer surprised her like it had earlier in her life. After all, she threw fire. Listening closely, she could hear gunfire and screams in the background.
"Emergencies and hazard pay are expensive, Sophie. Can you afford?"
"Damn it, you can name your price later, but the club is under attack, and-"
"And?"
"Just get over here!" The call ended. Zoé stared at the screen as it flashed for a minute before displaying the clock, which read at 19:02. Merde, she thought, things must be terrible if the club is being shot up. However, she was not inclined to rush on anyone's account but her own, so she took the time to stretch before she actually got out of bed. Wearing nothing but a loose T-shirt and some underwear, she crossed through the surgical curtains and over to her kitchen, grumbling the whole way in French.
"Shit-tastic way to start the day. They can be under emergency all they want, I am not going anywhere until after I have had breakfas-" She stared at her cupboard. Nothing but a few stale crackers and an empty box of cereal. In the corner she spotted a pair of dusty tea packets. The fridge yielded a single apple suitable for eating. "Damn, Zoé," she muttered, "You have got to go shopping later." Sighing wistfully at the thought of waffles, she tossed the apple on the counter and stepp back three paces. Eyeing the distance between herself and her belongings carefully, she stripped out of her clothes and tossed them as far as she could. Satisfied nothing would be damaging except the concrete floor, she flipped her mental 'switch' and let her power start flowing. A second later and the air around her skin shimmered from heat. Three more and it glowed, searing and vaporizing any dirt that might have built up on her skin and hair. She held it for a full minute before letting everything cool off again, then walked over to the counter, bit into the apple enough to hold it in her mouth, and wandered off to get dressed in her 'work clothes'.
7:36 pm local, Club Morte
Zoé stared around as she slipped through the wall at the back of the club, having avoided the emergency crew working the scene. Even with the weird vision being invisible gave her, she could see the marks of ash piles where Sophia and the other undead might have been. Bullet holes riddled everything, and there were almost literal piles of bodies being sorted though. Blood splashed the walls, floors, and every conceivable surface. Obviously, it had been a busy night.
For her part, the villainess wasn't particularly sad or angry about the killing. Even to her warped morals, vampires were not exactly people one could rely on. The club patrons were probably a bunch of drugged up sycophants and hedonists, and while she was herself all for enjoying herself, mindless dancing and drinking weren't exactly her forte. No, it was the loss of revenue, or at least potential jobs, that frustrated her. Sophia had sent several lucrative opportunities to her in the past, and she had been very generous in bonuses for well-done work. She hadn't been a friend, but as a business contact, she had been valuable. The loss was going to effect Zoé's lifestyle, and that was unforgivable.
Turning away from the crime scene and walking back through the wall and alleyways that had gotten her there, she moved several blocks and found a hidden nook to shift back into the physical world, then sat back with her head against the rough brick and pulled out her phone. Once the signal came back, it immediately buzzed, notifying her that she had a new message. It was from her contact with the Syndicate, someone she had never met and didn't even know their name. But again, jobs had been given from this number, and they hadn't fucked her over yet. She entered her passcode and looked through the message, containing a link to a video on a private server, along with the message: You need to see this. Call after. Zoé snorted in derision. Call after, indeed. Still, curiosity had its way, and she pressed her thumb to the screen to follow the link.
Several minutes later, she still sat against the wall, staring at the now idle device. What the fuck, she thought. Who the blazes thinks this was a good idea? But then she thought of the club. Surely that had been one of these so-called Hounds' 'known threats'. How many other job sources had been hit? Did they know to look through the computers of these targets? She was mildly offended she hadn't been targeted, but consoled herself with the thought that even if they knew about Wraith or Forge, her security was too tight to allow them to find her or her operations.
She got herself up, ghosted into invisibility, and made her way back to her car, still several blocks away. Driving back to her home, however, a thought struck her. Not only had these bâtards hit her sources of income, but they were a direct threat to her, as a metahuman. And even worse, they posed a threat to Émile, and that, above all else, meant that they must die. Grimacing, she gunned the accelerator, racing down the highway back to the docks so she could plan for a way to find and hurt the fuckers.
The "apartment" Zoé occupied was mostly empty space, really. A huge open area two stories tall, in a converted warehouse. Partition walls divided the whole building into quarters, each several hundred square feet, but as far as she was aware, she was the only person living there, and she owned two of the four spaces. One, the one she wasn't usually in, held most of her equipment, including her carbon fibre suits, welding area, scrap metal, isolated crime computer, and others. That quarter of the building was heavily reinforced, guarded by expertly built security systems that she had paid almost excruciatingly well for. Cameras, laser tripwires, alarms, explosive charges, blast doors, and more made sure that no one was about to 'accidentally' stumble across her villain identity and live to tell the tale. It also contains what she affectionately called her gym, another open area with fireproofed walls and simulated security systems, most of it covered in scorch marks and bits of formerly molten metal.
In contrast, her actual living space consisted of well worn couches, armchairs, and a coffee table, surrounding a 56" plasma television and a bunch of games and consoles. Spaced around that in various areas were her writing desk, three easels with paintings in various stages of completion, a rack of painting and other art supplies, her cello resting on a stand, and in the corner, a small area with plumbing where her kitchen and bathroom were. Next to those was another little spot, divided off by old surgical curtains, that held her bed and a few other personal effects. Hanging from most of the wallspace were completed paintings awaiting buyers. While she liked the finer things in life, she was well aware that she had to maintain an image of almost-but-not-quite poverty in order to keep suspicion off of her.
The building was situated just south of the Lower Westside, in the shadier docks areas where less questions tended to be asked, which suited the Frenchwoman's attitude just fine. 'Evgeniya Dunayevsky' liked her privacy, and less nosy neighbours, the better. And with several drug rings operating inside her 'safety' perimeter now under her thumb for a sort of Robin Hood protection racket, she had enough to pay her bills without working, which allowed her to do only the jobs that amused her or paid extremely well. The outside was just a tad rusty, with peeling paint in patches, and looked almost too stereo-typically run down. All in all, she thought it would be obvious to the right people it was a supervillain lair, almost a challenge to whatever geniuses might be working with the authorities. So far no one had taken her up on it.
Waking up from her afternoon alcohol-induced nap, Zoé sat up out of her bed to the ringing of a cell phone, lifting her brown waves of too-long hair out of her face and squinting at her 'night stand', which was a milk crate. Four phones sat on the crate, set up in a specific order. The first was for Evgeniya, and had contacts for restaurants, galleries, concert venues, her agent, and all the other myriad phone numbers one built up living a normal life. The second was her mercenary number. Not a whole lot of people had a direct knowledge of the number itself, but several brokers knew it, and it also had an attached email address. This was for getting her real work. It had been disappointingly quiet the past few weeks. The third phone was very specifically not listed, and had a vast array of extra security measures programmed into and attached to it, and was the only way to contact Wraith. Two people in the world knew that number, and they only called it in emergencies. The fourth was listed under her real name, and was linked by false GPS traces and telephone providers to Genoa. It only existed in case her sister needed something, as she was the only family member Zoé gave a shit about and was still alive.
It was the second phone which was ringing. She grumbled under her breath, swung her bare legs out of the bed, and picked it up, asuming a near flawless Russian accent as she did so. "Da? Who is calling?"
"Forge, it's Sophia. Need your help right now!" Zoé knew that name. It belonged to a vampire, which was a concept that no longer surprised her like it had earlier in her life. After all, she threw fire. Listening closely, she could hear gunfire and screams in the background.
"Emergencies and hazard pay are expensive, Sophie. Can you afford?"
"Damn it, you can name your price later, but the club is under attack, and-"
"And?"
"Just get over here!" The call ended. Zoé stared at the screen as it flashed for a minute before displaying the clock, which read at 19:02. Merde, she thought, things must be terrible if the club is being shot up. However, she was not inclined to rush on anyone's account but her own, so she took the time to stretch before she actually got out of bed. Wearing nothing but a loose T-shirt and some underwear, she crossed through the surgical curtains and over to her kitchen, grumbling the whole way in French.
"Shit-tastic way to start the day. They can be under emergency all they want, I am not going anywhere until after I have had breakfas-" She stared at her cupboard. Nothing but a few stale crackers and an empty box of cereal. In the corner she spotted a pair of dusty tea packets. The fridge yielded a single apple suitable for eating. "Damn, Zoé," she muttered, "You have got to go shopping later." Sighing wistfully at the thought of waffles, she tossed the apple on the counter and stepp back three paces. Eyeing the distance between herself and her belongings carefully, she stripped out of her clothes and tossed them as far as she could. Satisfied nothing would be damaging except the concrete floor, she flipped her mental 'switch' and let her power start flowing. A second later and the air around her skin shimmered from heat. Three more and it glowed, searing and vaporizing any dirt that might have built up on her skin and hair. She held it for a full minute before letting everything cool off again, then walked over to the counter, bit into the apple enough to hold it in her mouth, and wandered off to get dressed in her 'work clothes'.
7:36 pm local, Club Morte
Zoé stared around as she slipped through the wall at the back of the club, having avoided the emergency crew working the scene. Even with the weird vision being invisible gave her, she could see the marks of ash piles where Sophia and the other undead might have been. Bullet holes riddled everything, and there were almost literal piles of bodies being sorted though. Blood splashed the walls, floors, and every conceivable surface. Obviously, it had been a busy night.
For her part, the villainess wasn't particularly sad or angry about the killing. Even to her warped morals, vampires were not exactly people one could rely on. The club patrons were probably a bunch of drugged up sycophants and hedonists, and while she was herself all for enjoying herself, mindless dancing and drinking weren't exactly her forte. No, it was the loss of revenue, or at least potential jobs, that frustrated her. Sophia had sent several lucrative opportunities to her in the past, and she had been very generous in bonuses for well-done work. She hadn't been a friend, but as a business contact, she had been valuable. The loss was going to effect Zoé's lifestyle, and that was unforgivable.
Turning away from the crime scene and walking back through the wall and alleyways that had gotten her there, she moved several blocks and found a hidden nook to shift back into the physical world, then sat back with her head against the rough brick and pulled out her phone. Once the signal came back, it immediately buzzed, notifying her that she had a new message. It was from her contact with the Syndicate, someone she had never met and didn't even know their name. But again, jobs had been given from this number, and they hadn't fucked her over yet. She entered her passcode and looked through the message, containing a link to a video on a private server, along with the message: You need to see this. Call after. Zoé snorted in derision. Call after, indeed. Still, curiosity had its way, and she pressed her thumb to the screen to follow the link.
Several minutes later, she still sat against the wall, staring at the now idle device. What the fuck, she thought. Who the blazes thinks this was a good idea? But then she thought of the club. Surely that had been one of these so-called Hounds' 'known threats'. How many other job sources had been hit? Did they know to look through the computers of these targets? She was mildly offended she hadn't been targeted, but consoled herself with the thought that even if they knew about Wraith or Forge, her security was too tight to allow them to find her or her operations.
She got herself up, ghosted into invisibility, and made her way back to her car, still several blocks away. Driving back to her home, however, a thought struck her. Not only had these bâtards hit her sources of income, but they were a direct threat to her, as a metahuman. And even worse, they posed a threat to Émile, and that, above all else, meant that they must die. Grimacing, she gunned the accelerator, racing down the highway back to the docks so she could plan for a way to find and hurt the fuckers.
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
So I made a villain.
Character you have created: Zoé Lambert
Alias: Кузница (Kuznitsa), Wraith, Forge
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): n/a for now.
Character Alignment: Villain
Identity: Secret
Character Personality: Zoé does not give one iota of care about anyone other than herself. Having no close relations, no one she trusts enough to call friend, and no real job or other form of even marginal social contact has left her somewhat askew on what still counts as good or bad company. She's also a loner, preferring to stay in her lair and play video games, doodle, read, or other activities that require other people to participate. Part of this is the isolation her powers force on her, as even with practise she has not gotten full control of them, and tied as they are to her emotional state, her volatile temper makes her more dangerous than it would in a normal person.
She has no regard for property law, and steals whatever she desires, or the cash to get it. She maintains her cover identity only as a front for where she gets the money, and will happily buy illicit goods from whomever has them. While she doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs due to the loss of control of her powers, she is more than happy to do some of the lighter things. Whiskey, however much she might like drinking it, usually results in her having to buy new stuff or move.
Internally, Zoé is lonely, blaming her powers and not her behaviour for driving away everyone she once cared about. She misses her family, but the way they split left her very much blaming them incorrectly. She drives herself further into villainy every day, trying to drown her problems in wealth and booze, and is extremely self-destructive. If she's not stop, she may begin eroding her own rules, which include no killing women or children, no unnecessary harm (though her definition of necessary is different than the norm), and not robbing the poor. She likes to see herself as a "noble" thief, though she's as greedy as any of them. She also enjoys rubbing her getaways in the faces of heroes and the authorities, sometimes putting herself in more danger than she would normally get into even doing the job she's bragging about.
She is intelligent, far brighter than most, and enjoys logic puzzles and challenges to her mind. She's also bright enough to realise the path she's on is not one destined for a long life, but she depressive enough and far enough along to think she's stuck, and the buzz from getting away with things tends to chase away her doubts, at least temporarily. She is also smart enough to realise the advantages her stelath powers give her, and has attempted to keep them as secret as her identity, and has been so far successful at it.
While working and in combat, she tries to maintain the advantage of surprise as long as she can, manipulating civilians or staying invisible until she makes a decisive move, then fading back into obscurity when she can. If she can't, she will go for a blitz strike, creating heat, fire, smoke, and launching intense, focused attacks to stagger her opponent until they either cannot fight back or lose track of her long enough for her to slip away. She doesn't typically want to fight any longer than she absolutely has to, and will only go toe-to-toe if given no other way out. She refuses to purposefully kill, but she is well aware of how dangerous her fire powers are. She is much more comfortable using the threat of them than actually causing damage, but if she's forced to, she will not hesitate to burn those in her way.
Uniform/costume: Zoé wears normal, everyday colours and clothes when she's not working. When she is, her costume involves greys, browns, and muted other colours, varying clothes between jobs so she never has the same look twice in a row. Her body suit is black and grey with ember red seams. While the bodysuit is skintight(because that's what supers wear, right?), there are strategically placed pieces of armour, that both protect vital areas like her kidneys and joints, as well as disturb her body line enough that anyone who can see through her power can't identify her later on. She also wears a mask that covers her cheekbones, chin, eyebrows, forehead and hairline, bride of her nose, and ears, somewhat like a luchador mask. The nature of her powers make it so that she must leave the rest exposed. The body suit itself and all armour bits and made by an inventor she commisioned to be completely fireproof.
In combat, she will slag metal into plates, cool them off, and use them as armour, either keeping them on her or floating just away from her.
Origin Info/Details:
Zoé grew up very well, in a nice country/suburban home outside Orléans, and spent summers at her grandfather's vineyard along with her brother, though a fight about schooling stopped those visits when she was twelve. While she loved both her parents and her grandfather very much, the rift between them was enough to drive her to sullenness, and she began acting out more than most teenagers would, typically with petty crimes and defiance of her parent's authority. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she joined Les Chiens Sanglants, a local gang, and within a year had fought with her brother, had a huge row with her parents, and ran away to be with her gang full time.
Her turning sixteen, after a month with the gang, brought with it unexpected changes, her powers awakening full bloom during a fight with another girl who had insinuated she was sleeping her way up the ranks, an accusation both untrue and offensive. Not knowing what was happening, but having some instinctive grasp on her newfound abilities, not everyone was killed in the resulting blaze, but she found herself homeless. However, power called her subconciously, and after a month of practise, she had mastered all but the more subtle aspects of her powers, and swiftly turned it to making herself more comfortable.
With cunning manipulations and several low profile robberies, she amassed a small fortune, and set herself up as a "mercenary villain", handing out her number to select trustworthy individuals and remaining on call for jobs. She has worked several of these, and her front as a legitimate painter with an unknowing agent, along with private investing, covers her profits quite well. Aside from smash-and-grabs and bank robberies, she has done jobs ranging from blackmail and spy-work to smuggling small, high value items and arson. She is building a reputation as a volatile but trustworthy "co-worker", and is careful to avoid any connection to her civilian identity.
Zoé's hobbies include painting, glasswork, and pottery, cello and oboe (her parent's insistence), and video gaming. Despite her easily frustrated nature, she seems to have enough patience for these tasks. She is also fluent in her native French, Russian, and English, knows her way around a computer, is good enough with numbers to invest privately and successfully, and smart enough to cover both of her identities so their "off times" don't coincide enough to arouse suspicion. She is well versed in physics, as her powers required her to have some knowledge of thermodynamics, and she is also knowledgeable in calculus, biology, chemistry, and geology, though she has no formal secondary schooling in these subjects.
She is power hungry, and is actively attempting to learn how to be a successful criminal mastermind, though it has been slow going because of her cautionary attitude. She is willing to take the long road, however, and has set herself up with a third identity, Wraith, in order to manipulate gangs, villains, and the like and try to gain her own territory in her adopted home of Los Angeles. She is careful to only speak Russian or English on jobs, so as to avoid anyone looking for a French girl.
Hero Type: Energy (fire), Psychic, Other(maybe shapeshifter)
Power Level : World
Powers (Be Specific):
Attributes:
Resources: Large: Aside from a very comfortable savings account in a Swiss Bank, she has several tens of thousands of dollars in cash stashed away, stolen goods worth a few grand in and of themselves, and invested assets that bring her close to a total of one million.
Weaknesses:
-While she is capable of melting knives, and is terrifying if she gets riled up, Zoé has no super power directly related to toughness, and if caught unawares, a single bullet does as much damage to her as to anyone else.
-As stated above, any psychic character can see through her telepathic projections
-While she may be immune to heat and cold, and can burn gases and some poisons out of her system, non-temperature poisons or heat-activated ones are still just as effective. Electricity, as well, maintains its effects, though it won't burn her so much as scramble her nerves, or, if powerful enough, give her seizures or possibly kill her outright.
-She is emotionally unstable, and can be driven over certain edges. Anyone with access to her background and sensitive details could easily push her and manipulate her.
-It is technically possible, if one could find a way to stop her powers from working, to completely disable all of them, excepting that her immunity to temperatures would carry through as a protection against her own powers. Done right, this could trap her in a block of steel.
-She still needs to breathe, eat, sleep, etc, just like normal people.
-While she is immune to smoke inhalation damage itself, anything toxic from burning materials can still harm her.
-Heat from radioactive materials may not burn her, but she is still vulnerable to all the other horrifying side effects from them.
Supporting Characters:
There are plenty of FBI and Interpol agents trying to find her, though not with much luck.
Her estranged family, living in Orléans:
-Mother: Amélie Lambert (43), works at La Scène du Meroubre as a manager
-Father: Hugo Lambert (44), works as a delivery driver.
-Older Brother: Théo (24), an accountant at a law firm in Paris.
-Younger Sister: Émile (15), still in high school, but secretly also has ice powers in almost the reverse of her sister's fire powers
-Maternal Grandfather: Gaspar Moreau (67), owns a small vineyard outside Marseilles
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yarr
Character you have created: Zoé Lambert
Alias: Кузница (Kuznitsa), Wraith, Forge
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): n/a for now.
Character Alignment: Villain
Identity: Secret
Character Personality: Zoé does not give one iota of care about anyone other than herself. Having no close relations, no one she trusts enough to call friend, and no real job or other form of even marginal social contact has left her somewhat askew on what still counts as good or bad company. She's also a loner, preferring to stay in her lair and play video games, doodle, read, or other activities that require other people to participate. Part of this is the isolation her powers force on her, as even with practise she has not gotten full control of them, and tied as they are to her emotional state, her volatile temper makes her more dangerous than it would in a normal person.
She has no regard for property law, and steals whatever she desires, or the cash to get it. She maintains her cover identity only as a front for where she gets the money, and will happily buy illicit goods from whomever has them. While she doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs due to the loss of control of her powers, she is more than happy to do some of the lighter things. Whiskey, however much she might like drinking it, usually results in her having to buy new stuff or move.
Internally, Zoé is lonely, blaming her powers and not her behaviour for driving away everyone she once cared about. She misses her family, but the way they split left her very much blaming them incorrectly. She drives herself further into villainy every day, trying to drown her problems in wealth and booze, and is extremely self-destructive. If she's not stop, she may begin eroding her own rules, which include no killing women or children, no unnecessary harm (though her definition of necessary is different than the norm), and not robbing the poor. She likes to see herself as a "noble" thief, though she's as greedy as any of them. She also enjoys rubbing her getaways in the faces of heroes and the authorities, sometimes putting herself in more danger than she would normally get into even doing the job she's bragging about.
She is intelligent, far brighter than most, and enjoys logic puzzles and challenges to her mind. She's also bright enough to realise the path she's on is not one destined for a long life, but she depressive enough and far enough along to think she's stuck, and the buzz from getting away with things tends to chase away her doubts, at least temporarily. She is also smart enough to realise the advantages her stelath powers give her, and has attempted to keep them as secret as her identity, and has been so far successful at it.
While working and in combat, she tries to maintain the advantage of surprise as long as she can, manipulating civilians or staying invisible until she makes a decisive move, then fading back into obscurity when she can. If she can't, she will go for a blitz strike, creating heat, fire, smoke, and launching intense, focused attacks to stagger her opponent until they either cannot fight back or lose track of her long enough for her to slip away. She doesn't typically want to fight any longer than she absolutely has to, and will only go toe-to-toe if given no other way out. She refuses to purposefully kill, but she is well aware of how dangerous her fire powers are. She is much more comfortable using the threat of them than actually causing damage, but if she's forced to, she will not hesitate to burn those in her way.
Uniform/costume: Zoé wears normal, everyday colours and clothes when she's not working. When she is, her costume involves greys, browns, and muted other colours, varying clothes between jobs so she never has the same look twice in a row. Her body suit is black and grey with ember red seams. While the bodysuit is skintight(because that's what supers wear, right?), there are strategically placed pieces of armour, that both protect vital areas like her kidneys and joints, as well as disturb her body line enough that anyone who can see through her power can't identify her later on. She also wears a mask that covers her cheekbones, chin, eyebrows, forehead and hairline, bride of her nose, and ears, somewhat like a luchador mask. The nature of her powers make it so that she must leave the rest exposed. The body suit itself and all armour bits and made by an inventor she commisioned to be completely fireproof.
In combat, she will slag metal into plates, cool them off, and use them as armour, either keeping them on her or floating just away from her.
Origin Info/Details:
Zoé grew up very well, in a nice country/suburban home outside Orléans, and spent summers at her grandfather's vineyard along with her brother, though a fight about schooling stopped those visits when she was twelve. While she loved both her parents and her grandfather very much, the rift between them was enough to drive her to sullenness, and she began acting out more than most teenagers would, typically with petty crimes and defiance of her parent's authority. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she joined Les Chiens Sanglants, a local gang, and within a year had fought with her brother, had a huge row with her parents, and ran away to be with her gang full time.
Her turning sixteen, after a month with the gang, brought with it unexpected changes, her powers awakening full bloom during a fight with another girl who had insinuated she was sleeping her way up the ranks, an accusation both untrue and offensive. Not knowing what was happening, but having some instinctive grasp on her newfound abilities, not everyone was killed in the resulting blaze, but she found herself homeless. However, power called her subconciously, and after a month of practise, she had mastered all but the more subtle aspects of her powers, and swiftly turned it to making herself more comfortable.
With cunning manipulations and several low profile robberies, she amassed a small fortune, and set herself up as a "mercenary villain", handing out her number to select trustworthy individuals and remaining on call for jobs. She has worked several of these, and her front as a legitimate painter with an unknowing agent, along with private investing, covers her profits quite well. Aside from smash-and-grabs and bank robberies, she has done jobs ranging from blackmail and spy-work to smuggling small, high value items and arson. She is building a reputation as a volatile but trustworthy "co-worker", and is careful to avoid any connection to her civilian identity.
Zoé's hobbies include painting, glasswork, and pottery, cello and oboe (her parent's insistence), and video gaming. Despite her easily frustrated nature, she seems to have enough patience for these tasks. She is also fluent in her native French, Russian, and English, knows her way around a computer, is good enough with numbers to invest privately and successfully, and smart enough to cover both of her identities so their "off times" don't coincide enough to arouse suspicion. She is well versed in physics, as her powers required her to have some knowledge of thermodynamics, and she is also knowledgeable in calculus, biology, chemistry, and geology, though she has no formal secondary schooling in these subjects.
She is power hungry, and is actively attempting to learn how to be a successful criminal mastermind, though it has been slow going because of her cautionary attitude. She is willing to take the long road, however, and has set herself up with a third identity, Wraith, in order to manipulate gangs, villains, and the like and try to gain her own territory in her adopted home of Los Angeles. She is careful to only speak Russian or English on jobs, so as to avoid anyone looking for a French girl.
Hero Type: Energy (fire), Psychic, Other(maybe shapeshifter)
Power Level : World
Powers (Be Specific):
Temperature Manipulation: Zoé has extremely adept control over temperature, being able to shift the temperature in areas in the following definition:
-As small in volume as a child to as wide as she wishes;
-Within two hundred metres of her, in line of sight only:
-As fast as her maximum within a minute in a slightly exponential graph as she pours more or pulls out energy into an already energetic situation(putting more heat to heat up air that is already heating up the air around it), or as slowly as she wishes;
-The heating can begin to spread to areas out of her control;
-Temperatures between 50F(10C) to 4200F(2315.6C);
-If concentrating on an object only, she can flash the temperature up to her maximum in less than a second. She CANNOT do this to people, however, and relies on heating their clothing, weapons, armour, or the air around them.
Pyrokinesis: She can form, control, and move in apparent defiance of physics, any fires within her range, able to throw fireballs, put out or enlarge flames, start fires on flammable objects, render things fireproof(with concentration), shot jets of flames from her hands, and even go as high as doing the same with plasma. She has enough control to make shapes and little figures out of the flames, though they are not in any way independent and she has to mentally control all of their movements.
Temperature and Disease Immunity: Zoé is completely immune to all heat and cold based effects, from fire and ice, to ambient temperatures, to lasers, radiation, and the depths of space (though she'd still need proof against pressure and the ability to breathe). When infected with any sort of bacteria, virus, or other disease vector, she can heat her body to the point that the offending organism cannot survive. She also is, oddly, immune to any smoke created with her power.
Alternate Form: If pressed, Zoé can turn her body temperature up to the point where the air around her ignites, or even to the point her own flesh ignites, though this does not damage her. At this point, she is incapable of dropping the temperature around her body fast enough to counter the heat pouring off of her body. She has the capability of pushing this far higher, up to turning into a walking form of plasma, but she is too scared of it to try. With her minor telekinesis, this allows her to fly, though not at any spectacular speeds, 60mph at most
Minor Telekinesis: Anything Zoé is controlling the temperature of, she can also move about with her mind, either keeping it hovering around her, or give it enough thrust to launch somewhat like a short toss. She can do this with anything weighing up to 600lbs(272kg), and the lighter the object, the more force she can throw it with.
Minor Telepathic Imagery: Zoé has the ability to project, through broad range telepathy, the basis for any given type of person or profession she wants. So, she can project herself as a CEO who simply belong in the board meeting, the police officer who belongs at the crime scene, or the homeless person who no one pays attention to. She CANNOT take on any specific image or disguise, as this power relies more on the perceptions of others than her own. Everyone sees somewhat different things, depending on what they might believe, but on normal people it is fairly foolproof. Anyone with psychic powers is completely unaffected. People actively looking for her, who know what she looks like, have a chance of shaking this off. This obviously does not have any effect on cameras. She can project on a crowd seemingly without limit, as it subverts the viewer's perception, so there isn't much, if any, energy expenditure on her part, and while she has this going, she doesn't have to concentrate beyond maintaining what type of person she wishes to portray. This does include clothing.
Phasing and Invisibility: Zoé has the ability to shift herself in to a form that allows her to move through solid objects as easily as she would air, though in a slower way than usually. She is also invisible to the naked eye when doing this. People she moves through only feel slightly cold and hot at the same time, noticeably, though the source is indistinguishable. She cannot bring people into this form with her, but small objects (such as knives, bundles of cash, hand grenades, etc) can be in her pockets. No object she brings with her will function in this state (cameras will not take picture, guns will not fire, etc). Shifting back and forth can only be done with her whole body, not parts. When she shifts back, matter where she would be is shunted away until there is space for her. If she lets go of an object while "phased out", it returns to it's normal state after thirty seconds, not before, upon leaving her person. While phased, she can see everything in a blurred, colourless way, with very reduced depth perception, but other things trying to stay invisible cannot hide from her in this state.
Enhanced Physicality: Along with her major power suite, Zoé also enjoys enchanced agility, strength, reflexes, and speed, and although not enough to classify her as a powerhouse in those categories, she is powerful enough to stand her ground in a fist fight with some of the more physical heroes, and can easily trounce unprepared normal humans.
-As small in volume as a child to as wide as she wishes;
-Within two hundred metres of her, in line of sight only:
-As fast as her maximum within a minute in a slightly exponential graph as she pours more or pulls out energy into an already energetic situation(putting more heat to heat up air that is already heating up the air around it), or as slowly as she wishes;
-The heating can begin to spread to areas out of her control;
-Temperatures between 50F(10C) to 4200F(2315.6C);
-If concentrating on an object only, she can flash the temperature up to her maximum in less than a second. She CANNOT do this to people, however, and relies on heating their clothing, weapons, armour, or the air around them.
Pyrokinesis: She can form, control, and move in apparent defiance of physics, any fires within her range, able to throw fireballs, put out or enlarge flames, start fires on flammable objects, render things fireproof(with concentration), shot jets of flames from her hands, and even go as high as doing the same with plasma. She has enough control to make shapes and little figures out of the flames, though they are not in any way independent and she has to mentally control all of their movements.
Temperature and Disease Immunity: Zoé is completely immune to all heat and cold based effects, from fire and ice, to ambient temperatures, to lasers, radiation, and the depths of space (though she'd still need proof against pressure and the ability to breathe). When infected with any sort of bacteria, virus, or other disease vector, she can heat her body to the point that the offending organism cannot survive. She also is, oddly, immune to any smoke created with her power.
Alternate Form: If pressed, Zoé can turn her body temperature up to the point where the air around her ignites, or even to the point her own flesh ignites, though this does not damage her. At this point, she is incapable of dropping the temperature around her body fast enough to counter the heat pouring off of her body. She has the capability of pushing this far higher, up to turning into a walking form of plasma, but she is too scared of it to try. With her minor telekinesis, this allows her to fly, though not at any spectacular speeds, 60mph at most
Minor Telekinesis: Anything Zoé is controlling the temperature of, she can also move about with her mind, either keeping it hovering around her, or give it enough thrust to launch somewhat like a short toss. She can do this with anything weighing up to 600lbs(272kg), and the lighter the object, the more force she can throw it with.
Minor Telepathic Imagery: Zoé has the ability to project, through broad range telepathy, the basis for any given type of person or profession she wants. So, she can project herself as a CEO who simply belong in the board meeting, the police officer who belongs at the crime scene, or the homeless person who no one pays attention to. She CANNOT take on any specific image or disguise, as this power relies more on the perceptions of others than her own. Everyone sees somewhat different things, depending on what they might believe, but on normal people it is fairly foolproof. Anyone with psychic powers is completely unaffected. People actively looking for her, who know what she looks like, have a chance of shaking this off. This obviously does not have any effect on cameras. She can project on a crowd seemingly without limit, as it subverts the viewer's perception, so there isn't much, if any, energy expenditure on her part, and while she has this going, she doesn't have to concentrate beyond maintaining what type of person she wishes to portray. This does include clothing.
Phasing and Invisibility: Zoé has the ability to shift herself in to a form that allows her to move through solid objects as easily as she would air, though in a slower way than usually. She is also invisible to the naked eye when doing this. People she moves through only feel slightly cold and hot at the same time, noticeably, though the source is indistinguishable. She cannot bring people into this form with her, but small objects (such as knives, bundles of cash, hand grenades, etc) can be in her pockets. No object she brings with her will function in this state (cameras will not take picture, guns will not fire, etc). Shifting back and forth can only be done with her whole body, not parts. When she shifts back, matter where she would be is shunted away until there is space for her. If she lets go of an object while "phased out", it returns to it's normal state after thirty seconds, not before, upon leaving her person. While phased, she can see everything in a blurred, colourless way, with very reduced depth perception, but other things trying to stay invisible cannot hide from her in this state.
Enhanced Physicality: Along with her major power suite, Zoé also enjoys enchanced agility, strength, reflexes, and speed, and although not enough to classify her as a powerhouse in those categories, she is powerful enough to stand her ground in a fist fight with some of the more physical heroes, and can easily trounce unprepared normal humans.
Attributes:
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 116
Strength Level: Can lift around a thousand pounds.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 30 mph on the ground, 60mph flying/ 60mph level reactions.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2x normal
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Weight: 116
Strength Level: Can lift around a thousand pounds.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 30 mph on the ground, 60mph flying/ 60mph level reactions.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2x normal
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained
Resources: Large: Aside from a very comfortable savings account in a Swiss Bank, she has several tens of thousands of dollars in cash stashed away, stolen goods worth a few grand in and of themselves, and invested assets that bring her close to a total of one million.
Weaknesses:
-While she is capable of melting knives, and is terrifying if she gets riled up, Zoé has no super power directly related to toughness, and if caught unawares, a single bullet does as much damage to her as to anyone else.
-As stated above, any psychic character can see through her telepathic projections
-While she may be immune to heat and cold, and can burn gases and some poisons out of her system, non-temperature poisons or heat-activated ones are still just as effective. Electricity, as well, maintains its effects, though it won't burn her so much as scramble her nerves, or, if powerful enough, give her seizures or possibly kill her outright.
-She is emotionally unstable, and can be driven over certain edges. Anyone with access to her background and sensitive details could easily push her and manipulate her.
-It is technically possible, if one could find a way to stop her powers from working, to completely disable all of them, excepting that her immunity to temperatures would carry through as a protection against her own powers. Done right, this could trap her in a block of steel.
-She still needs to breathe, eat, sleep, etc, just like normal people.
-While she is immune to smoke inhalation damage itself, anything toxic from burning materials can still harm her.
-Heat from radioactive materials may not burn her, but she is still vulnerable to all the other horrifying side effects from them.
Supporting Characters:
There are plenty of FBI and Interpol agents trying to find her, though not with much luck.
Her estranged family, living in Orléans:
-Mother: Amélie Lambert (43), works at La Scène du Meroubre as a manager
-Father: Hugo Lambert (44), works as a delivery driver.
-Older Brother: Théo (24), an accountant at a law firm in Paris.
-Younger Sister: Émile (15), still in high school, but secretly also has ice powers in almost the reverse of her sister's fire powers
-Maternal Grandfather: Gaspar Moreau (67), owns a small vineyard outside Marseilles
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yarr
Also verra much interested in this. Especially if'n I could do up a French Resistance fighter.
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
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7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
--15:30 local time
--Lost Haven Outskirts
Three hundred damn miles, and Nicole had finally made it to Lost Haven, the city she planned to make her new home, and hopefully where her nightmares would cease. Any normal person would probably toss down their bag and pass out in the first comfortable spot they could find, but the fifteen year old didn't even remember the last time she slept, or even felt tired. "Or hungry," she thought idly as she walked past a diner in the suburban style area on the west side of what she vaguely recalled being named Carver. For a moment she considered trying to beg some food off of the people inside, just for something to taste, but she swiftly shrugged it off and continued making her way towards the centre of the city.
As she went, things became more and more like back home in the Kitchen, and her mind started recalling that day a month ago. She shook her head, trying to clear her brain. Time enough for recollection and introspection later, for now she had to find out where the hell in this city she could look up a superhero. Or a scientist. Hell, anyone who could tell her how to fix this would be good, though after the journey here she wasn't precisely sure any more whether that was still her goal. After watching Icon and the rest stop the Pax Metahumana on the news, on the radio, and from the street itself, she knew she had to get here, but an ingrained sense of distrust for authority figures had stopped her from going to the shelters and asking for help. After all, she wasn't going supernova or slinging lightning bolts accidentally or turned into some animal person. She was just..."Damn, after two months and I still don't know how to explain this." All she really knew was that she seemed to be like someone out of the comic books.
Thinking about her condition, coupled with the noise of the afternoon street traffic and the smells of the city wafting along with her meandering path finally tore down her internal defences and dropped her mind back into introspection mode. The car driving past back-fired noisily and she wavered on her feet and slumped against the warm brick wall of an alley entrance and slid down into a sitting position, no longer really controlling her body as her mind completely flashed back to that fateful day three months ago.
It was getting dark, street lights just now flickering to life, as she struggled with the flimsy plastic bags and made her way home. Mentally, she ticked off her grocery list in case she forgot anything, though she had spent nearly an hour double checking herself anyway. Dad was probably going to be a little miffed it had taken her this long. Being distracted by this checklist meant she missed the shouting until she rounded the corner of her block and came full into view of the fight.
Ten guys on one side, maybe twelve on the other, spread out in two opposing lines, showing colours she knew to stay away from. They occupied the whole damn street, and were between her and her building. Other bystanders wee already scattering as the first shots rang out, and she ducked behind the dumpster next to her, clutching at the food in her arms and hoping it would end quickly. The scent of fermenting garbage did nothing to make her more comfortable. Thankfully the gun shots did cease fairly quickly, but when she realised she was clenching her eyes shut and opened them, it was not to see a few bodies and an empty street. A sort of green, hazy light filled the street, and thins were happening that nearly broke her brain right then and there.
One of the fighters had begun sprouting awful looking set of bug arms, one was starting to crackle with electricity. Several others were doing even more weird stuff. Looking down at her hands, she realised her vision had gone blurry, and thought that maybe she had been drugged. And then her mind had gone, and she spent the next twelve centuries or eighteen seconds or three galactic ages or a single heartbeat seeing everything that had ever happened, was happening, or was going to happen. And as suddenly as it had started, her vast, expanded consciousness collapsed back into itself, coming a second time very close to completely destroying her mind. She felt queasy, and as her vision cleared, she looked up to see some guy flying at her from across the street, flaring like a firework. And everything exploded.
Nicole came back to the present shaking uncontrollably under her clothes, still slumped against the wall and pale in the face. Several people were staring from across the street, and she knew she must look like a junkie or something. She struggled to her feet, snatched up the duffel bag she carried her few meagre belongings in, and set off as fast as she could without looking like a freak back towards down town. "Stupid stupid stupid," she thought at herself angrily. "Way to keep a low profile, dumbass." Not that she could control it. Her mind had been torturing her all the way across the country, and it didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon. "Just gotta keep moving."
Not having a cell phone was costing her, though. With no GPS, and having left the interstate with its helpful signs pointing the way, she had no idea where she was going. A sense of purpose had driven her from the funeral all the way here, and paranoia grounded in being a rebellious and underage girl out by herself in the world had kept her away from any sort of police or anything else. Some helpful asshole was bound to peg her as a runaway and take her in if she wasn't careful, and though she had ditched her ID and everything else that could identify her except the family photo tucked into her vest, she knew that somehow her luck would run out soon enough. She had to reach someone that could help her before then.
--19:10
--Lost Haven Interior, between Little Sicily and Chinatown
With evening closing in rapidly, Nicole made her way across the bridge from Carver into Olympia warily. She flinched for cover every time she saw a police cruiser, trying to both stay out of sight and not look suspicious at the same time, though however weird she must look doing so, she must have pulled it off because none of them bothered stopping. Stepping off of the walkway and onto the normal streets again, she glanced up and down, noting a number of places that marked this as some sort of Italian district, though she had no idea where the borders of it might be. All she really knew for the moment was that she was going to have to find a place to bunker down before a more enterprising peace officer decided to investigate the lost looking teen wandering around as night wore on. In fact, noting a somewhat more marked police presence in the area than she was used to seeing on normal streets, she flipped a mental coin and pressed on towards what she figured was south, moving through alleyways and trying to avoid knots of people.
“When did it get dark,” she thought, looking around as she climbed a ladder behind what smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Getting to the top, she saw only vent ducts and a shoddy looking air conditioning unit, which would probably make for a decent back rest while she slept. She was just about to mount the top of the ladder and poke around on the roof when the sound of shattering glass caught her attention. As swiftly and quietly as she could, she moved to the front of the building behind a sign for the restaurant and looked down.
Several men in dark clothes stood around, arguing in harsh whispers in some foreign language
<Is this going to take for-fucking-ever, man?>
<I don't know, shit for brains, the last one took maybe five minutes.>
<Yeah, well, I don't like being this close to the police line.>
<Hey, shut the hell up for twenty seconds, morons.>
The last phrase had been said by a really beefy looking guy off to one side. Unlike the rest, he didn't have a gun. All of them looked Asian, and she could swear they were speaking Japanese or Chinese, but she didn't know any foreign languages at all. Not that it mattered. “Who robs a friggin' restaurant,” she asked herself under her breath. Another guy climbed out of the window, this one covered in tattoos underneath his cheap suit.
<All done in there. Let's get the fuck out of->
Nicole's world went loud and white for a brief moment, and she felt herself flying through the air without any sense of direction before hitting the ground. As her eyes adjusted to the new light conditions, she noticed that she was now lying in the street, covered in brick dust, and the roar of flames and falling debris filled her head. She tried fighting it for a second, but her mind flickered back to memories again.
She woke up buried under a layer of broken bricks, water pouring down to clog her nostrils from a broken pipe somewhere up above her, though she was upside down. Someone nearby was screaming, though she couldn't tell if it was from panic or pain and she was too disoriented to sort it out. She shifted and a brick fell away from her face, revealing a street covered in rubble and bodies. Even upside down, she recognised Miss Tuttle, broken and bloody, lying twenty feet away, her eighty-three year old eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. Which meant she was in the corner of her own building. Panic overtook her and she struggled out of her awkward position, chunks of apartment falling around her, and she slid down a cascade of ruined lives to rest on another body, covered in gang colours and blood.
Distant sounds of fighting and panicked mobs reached her ears, and distantly in her mind she recognized that the green haze had gone away, leaving everything much darker than it had been before she had lost consciousness. She had no idea how long it had been, and everything was blurry. Painstakingly slowly, she turned her head, dreading what she knew she was going to see.
Her apartment, where she had been born and raised for fifteen years, was a smoking crater in the side of the building. Apartment 212, just below hers, was a pile of rubble. The floor of Miss Tuttle's apartment had collapsed into hers, the oven from the old lady's kitchen dangling from what was probably an open and leaking gas line. And there, sticking out of the ruined wall of her room, was her older sister Abby's arm, recognisable only because of the bangle bracelet Nicole had given her just two months ago for her birthday. Nicole's vision went red with rage.
Coming back to the present, she heard the jabber of the foreigners again. She shook her head and pushed herself off of her face. Still nothing hurt, just like always. Looking beneath and behind her, there was a clear trail from where she had slid through broken building chunks that had, presumably, come with her as the restaurant exploded. There was broken glass everywhere from the sign she had been hiding behind. Just next to her was the tattooed guy, who was also getting up, though he looked considerably worse for wear and probably had a broken leg from the way he was moving. A word clicked into Nicole's brain, which she uttered out loud without thinking, venom dripping from every syllable as rage consumed her mind. “Yakuza.”
The guy looked up and sneered at her. “The fuck you talking about, little kwailo biaozi?” He spat blood on the ground in front of him and struggled to his knees, wincing from some internal injury. He held up his jacket, revealing a green silk shirt. “Yu zhizhu and very much better than those Japanese dogs.”
Nicole slammed her fist into the ground and nearly threw herself to her feet. Her head felt fuzzy. She knew she was baring her teeth. “Japanese or you jee joo or whatever you are. I'm gonna beat the piss out of you for that.” She jabbed her finger at the blown apart structure to her right, lit now only by flickering flames. The man laughed and then immediately coughed out a wad of bloody phlegm, bent over double by pain. “Haaaaa. What're you goin to do, huh?” He raised his head to grin at her again, only for his face to meet her fist coming the other direction at high speed, sending his badly balanced form back to the ground.
Nicole was not heavy. Nor was she a trained fighter. All she had going for her in any fight had been an Irish temper and moxy. But now, she didn't have to worry about breaking her fingers or bruising herself, and with her mind flooded with pure adrenaline and fury, she didn't even spare a thought for what might happen. As soon as her fist carried through with the first hit, she pulled it back and slammed it into the side of the guy's head. This repeated for several strikes before something slammed into her side and carried her away from the man. She vaguely recognised it as a really big arm in a torn suit before her vision jerked. Her brain found an answer as a fist slammed into her gut, though she only felt a slight pressure from the blow. “The big guy is hitting me. And he tackled me.” Furious both at the interruption and the presence of another bomber, she began flailing wildly with both arms, trying to land any sort of damage on the bastard. In return, he grabbed her by the neck with one meaty fist and slammed her down onto the pavement. Even as he did so, her left foot swung up and caught his knee. Her soccer training had given her a kick like a mule, and he buckled and backed up, grimacing. She got up, took up what she thought might look like a serious fighting pose, and grinned at him while he favoured one leg and spat at her. “Looks like a fun night out now,” she thought, and went in swinging.
--Lost Haven Outskirts
Three hundred damn miles, and Nicole had finally made it to Lost Haven, the city she planned to make her new home, and hopefully where her nightmares would cease. Any normal person would probably toss down their bag and pass out in the first comfortable spot they could find, but the fifteen year old didn't even remember the last time she slept, or even felt tired. "Or hungry," she thought idly as she walked past a diner in the suburban style area on the west side of what she vaguely recalled being named Carver. For a moment she considered trying to beg some food off of the people inside, just for something to taste, but she swiftly shrugged it off and continued making her way towards the centre of the city.
As she went, things became more and more like back home in the Kitchen, and her mind started recalling that day a month ago. She shook her head, trying to clear her brain. Time enough for recollection and introspection later, for now she had to find out where the hell in this city she could look up a superhero. Or a scientist. Hell, anyone who could tell her how to fix this would be good, though after the journey here she wasn't precisely sure any more whether that was still her goal. After watching Icon and the rest stop the Pax Metahumana on the news, on the radio, and from the street itself, she knew she had to get here, but an ingrained sense of distrust for authority figures had stopped her from going to the shelters and asking for help. After all, she wasn't going supernova or slinging lightning bolts accidentally or turned into some animal person. She was just..."Damn, after two months and I still don't know how to explain this." All she really knew was that she seemed to be like someone out of the comic books.
Thinking about her condition, coupled with the noise of the afternoon street traffic and the smells of the city wafting along with her meandering path finally tore down her internal defences and dropped her mind back into introspection mode. The car driving past back-fired noisily and she wavered on her feet and slumped against the warm brick wall of an alley entrance and slid down into a sitting position, no longer really controlling her body as her mind completely flashed back to that fateful day three months ago.
It was getting dark, street lights just now flickering to life, as she struggled with the flimsy plastic bags and made her way home. Mentally, she ticked off her grocery list in case she forgot anything, though she had spent nearly an hour double checking herself anyway. Dad was probably going to be a little miffed it had taken her this long. Being distracted by this checklist meant she missed the shouting until she rounded the corner of her block and came full into view of the fight.
Ten guys on one side, maybe twelve on the other, spread out in two opposing lines, showing colours she knew to stay away from. They occupied the whole damn street, and were between her and her building. Other bystanders wee already scattering as the first shots rang out, and she ducked behind the dumpster next to her, clutching at the food in her arms and hoping it would end quickly. The scent of fermenting garbage did nothing to make her more comfortable. Thankfully the gun shots did cease fairly quickly, but when she realised she was clenching her eyes shut and opened them, it was not to see a few bodies and an empty street. A sort of green, hazy light filled the street, and thins were happening that nearly broke her brain right then and there.
One of the fighters had begun sprouting awful looking set of bug arms, one was starting to crackle with electricity. Several others were doing even more weird stuff. Looking down at her hands, she realised her vision had gone blurry, and thought that maybe she had been drugged. And then her mind had gone, and she spent the next twelve centuries or eighteen seconds or three galactic ages or a single heartbeat seeing everything that had ever happened, was happening, or was going to happen. And as suddenly as it had started, her vast, expanded consciousness collapsed back into itself, coming a second time very close to completely destroying her mind. She felt queasy, and as her vision cleared, she looked up to see some guy flying at her from across the street, flaring like a firework. And everything exploded.
Nicole came back to the present shaking uncontrollably under her clothes, still slumped against the wall and pale in the face. Several people were staring from across the street, and she knew she must look like a junkie or something. She struggled to her feet, snatched up the duffel bag she carried her few meagre belongings in, and set off as fast as she could without looking like a freak back towards down town. "Stupid stupid stupid," she thought at herself angrily. "Way to keep a low profile, dumbass." Not that she could control it. Her mind had been torturing her all the way across the country, and it didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon. "Just gotta keep moving."
Not having a cell phone was costing her, though. With no GPS, and having left the interstate with its helpful signs pointing the way, she had no idea where she was going. A sense of purpose had driven her from the funeral all the way here, and paranoia grounded in being a rebellious and underage girl out by herself in the world had kept her away from any sort of police or anything else. Some helpful asshole was bound to peg her as a runaway and take her in if she wasn't careful, and though she had ditched her ID and everything else that could identify her except the family photo tucked into her vest, she knew that somehow her luck would run out soon enough. She had to reach someone that could help her before then.
--19:10
--Lost Haven Interior, between Little Sicily and Chinatown
With evening closing in rapidly, Nicole made her way across the bridge from Carver into Olympia warily. She flinched for cover every time she saw a police cruiser, trying to both stay out of sight and not look suspicious at the same time, though however weird she must look doing so, she must have pulled it off because none of them bothered stopping. Stepping off of the walkway and onto the normal streets again, she glanced up and down, noting a number of places that marked this as some sort of Italian district, though she had no idea where the borders of it might be. All she really knew for the moment was that she was going to have to find a place to bunker down before a more enterprising peace officer decided to investigate the lost looking teen wandering around as night wore on. In fact, noting a somewhat more marked police presence in the area than she was used to seeing on normal streets, she flipped a mental coin and pressed on towards what she figured was south, moving through alleyways and trying to avoid knots of people.
“When did it get dark,” she thought, looking around as she climbed a ladder behind what smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Getting to the top, she saw only vent ducts and a shoddy looking air conditioning unit, which would probably make for a decent back rest while she slept. She was just about to mount the top of the ladder and poke around on the roof when the sound of shattering glass caught her attention. As swiftly and quietly as she could, she moved to the front of the building behind a sign for the restaurant and looked down.
Several men in dark clothes stood around, arguing in harsh whispers in some foreign language
<Is this going to take for-fucking-ever, man?>
<I don't know, shit for brains, the last one took maybe five minutes.>
<Yeah, well, I don't like being this close to the police line.>
<Hey, shut the hell up for twenty seconds, morons.>
The last phrase had been said by a really beefy looking guy off to one side. Unlike the rest, he didn't have a gun. All of them looked Asian, and she could swear they were speaking Japanese or Chinese, but she didn't know any foreign languages at all. Not that it mattered. “Who robs a friggin' restaurant,” she asked herself under her breath. Another guy climbed out of the window, this one covered in tattoos underneath his cheap suit.
<All done in there. Let's get the fuck out of->
Nicole's world went loud and white for a brief moment, and she felt herself flying through the air without any sense of direction before hitting the ground. As her eyes adjusted to the new light conditions, she noticed that she was now lying in the street, covered in brick dust, and the roar of flames and falling debris filled her head. She tried fighting it for a second, but her mind flickered back to memories again.
She woke up buried under a layer of broken bricks, water pouring down to clog her nostrils from a broken pipe somewhere up above her, though she was upside down. Someone nearby was screaming, though she couldn't tell if it was from panic or pain and she was too disoriented to sort it out. She shifted and a brick fell away from her face, revealing a street covered in rubble and bodies. Even upside down, she recognised Miss Tuttle, broken and bloody, lying twenty feet away, her eighty-three year old eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. Which meant she was in the corner of her own building. Panic overtook her and she struggled out of her awkward position, chunks of apartment falling around her, and she slid down a cascade of ruined lives to rest on another body, covered in gang colours and blood.
Distant sounds of fighting and panicked mobs reached her ears, and distantly in her mind she recognized that the green haze had gone away, leaving everything much darker than it had been before she had lost consciousness. She had no idea how long it had been, and everything was blurry. Painstakingly slowly, she turned her head, dreading what she knew she was going to see.
Her apartment, where she had been born and raised for fifteen years, was a smoking crater in the side of the building. Apartment 212, just below hers, was a pile of rubble. The floor of Miss Tuttle's apartment had collapsed into hers, the oven from the old lady's kitchen dangling from what was probably an open and leaking gas line. And there, sticking out of the ruined wall of her room, was her older sister Abby's arm, recognisable only because of the bangle bracelet Nicole had given her just two months ago for her birthday. Nicole's vision went red with rage.
Coming back to the present, she heard the jabber of the foreigners again. She shook her head and pushed herself off of her face. Still nothing hurt, just like always. Looking beneath and behind her, there was a clear trail from where she had slid through broken building chunks that had, presumably, come with her as the restaurant exploded. There was broken glass everywhere from the sign she had been hiding behind. Just next to her was the tattooed guy, who was also getting up, though he looked considerably worse for wear and probably had a broken leg from the way he was moving. A word clicked into Nicole's brain, which she uttered out loud without thinking, venom dripping from every syllable as rage consumed her mind. “Yakuza.”
The guy looked up and sneered at her. “The fuck you talking about, little kwailo biaozi?” He spat blood on the ground in front of him and struggled to his knees, wincing from some internal injury. He held up his jacket, revealing a green silk shirt. “Yu zhizhu and very much better than those Japanese dogs.”
Nicole slammed her fist into the ground and nearly threw herself to her feet. Her head felt fuzzy. She knew she was baring her teeth. “Japanese or you jee joo or whatever you are. I'm gonna beat the piss out of you for that.” She jabbed her finger at the blown apart structure to her right, lit now only by flickering flames. The man laughed and then immediately coughed out a wad of bloody phlegm, bent over double by pain. “Haaaaa. What're you goin to do, huh?” He raised his head to grin at her again, only for his face to meet her fist coming the other direction at high speed, sending his badly balanced form back to the ground.
Nicole was not heavy. Nor was she a trained fighter. All she had going for her in any fight had been an Irish temper and moxy. But now, she didn't have to worry about breaking her fingers or bruising herself, and with her mind flooded with pure adrenaline and fury, she didn't even spare a thought for what might happen. As soon as her fist carried through with the first hit, she pulled it back and slammed it into the side of the guy's head. This repeated for several strikes before something slammed into her side and carried her away from the man. She vaguely recognised it as a really big arm in a torn suit before her vision jerked. Her brain found an answer as a fist slammed into her gut, though she only felt a slight pressure from the blow. “The big guy is hitting me. And he tackled me.” Furious both at the interruption and the presence of another bomber, she began flailing wildly with both arms, trying to land any sort of damage on the bastard. In return, he grabbed her by the neck with one meaty fist and slammed her down onto the pavement. Even as he did so, her left foot swung up and caught his knee. Her soccer training had given her a kick like a mule, and he buckled and backed up, grimacing. She got up, took up what she thought might look like a serious fighting pose, and grinned at him while he favoured one leg and spat at her. “Looks like a fun night out now,” she thought, and went in swinging.
In
Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)
→
7 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
Berenice had not been happy to spot the adults approaching, which had been just ahead of Amy owing to her vantage point a bit higher up. Her talons had gripped tight enough to start prying splinters out of the fence when the woman screamed, and the approach of even more adults did her mental state no favours. Having only met one adult human in her entire three weeks of existence and come to the conclusion that he had been trying to steal her kill, she was not at all pleased to see more food-thieves. Her brain had also not yet made the connection that the children and the adults were the same species, and, realising that there might be a threat, she hopped around the kids, who were just starting to move forward with placating gestures and shouts, landing between them and the adults. While not necessarily being aggressive yet, she was hopping side to side, head snapping to look at both pairs of humans in rapid succession. Hey eyes were wide, and while they were sized for her head, they were slightly wider than a normal persons, and they were coloured just like an eagles Currently, those eyes had pupils that were very dilated.
With Owen's parents occupied with some strange box that the male was saying things into near his face, the female hanging from his arm and staring at her but not making a move towards the children, Berenice turned to the strangers, glaring at them and bobbing slightly. “You stay away, egg-thief,” she snarled at David, baring her predator's teeth in what she hoped was an intimidating way. “Not care your name Dah-vid. Stay away from the friends!”
Amy moved up behind her, dodging deftly around the half-beating wings and tried to calm down the harpy. “Look, Berry! Hes not trying to hurt anyone. Please listen!'' She gave a pleading look to the man, saying directly to him, “Look, Mister David, she's really not dangerous, she doesn't know any better. She's only been around a few weeks and we don't know where she came from, but she's been nothing but nice to us.” Glancing behind her, she saw Owen over by his parents, trying to calm them down with little success. They had obviously called the police. Amy turned back to the stranger with panic in her eyes.
“The police aren't going to understand! They'll just shoot her or carve her up or something! Please you have to get her out of here!” Turning back to Berenice, who was showing more confusion than anything else, she cupped the harpy's face in her hands and got her to look the girl in the eye. “Berry, you have to get out of here. If you go with the man he can keep us in contact, okay? But men are coming who won't want to talk, they'll just think you're bad and they'll take you away!”
The others were scattering, trying to create distractions so that they had enough time to get their friend out of the area, but Berenice was obviously not happy. She had never seen her friends worried like this, nor did she really have any sense of danger. “Norra danger, Ah-mee. Norra wanna go, wanna stay and play more.” She shot a venomous glare at David and the other man. “Without egg-thiefs.” Amy rolled her eyes exasperatedly and shook her head. “We'll play again another time, okay? But if you don't leave now we'll never get to play again.” That sank in enough to shake Berenice, and she hopped slightly closer to David, eyeing him warily. “Okay, Ah-mee. I will go with Dah-vid-thief, but if he try things funny, I will rip him!” She flexed a talon into the dirt she stood on, trying to give her words weight.
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