Indy Cooper

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

_{Banner credit NMS. Thanks, Cap'n!}

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Sherman Square, Lost Haven, Maine

”And this is not a courtroom, your charge is foolish. We have done far more here today than is within the right of any of your mortal laws. Do not lecture me, child.”

”Instead, be useful. Let us remove these fools from our presence.”
The words the man had used had an odd sound quality through the howling storm. She could almost hear two voices, but there was clearly only the man in front of her. The meaning behind them, of course, was clear.

”While I can't charge you with any thing now,” she said with a scowl, ”Know that I will be keeping an eye on you, Pantheon. You will be held accountable for any actions beyond the defense of this city and the people in it.” He eyes shifted from him to the scene behind him, and behind her domino mask they narrowed.

As the enemy drew beads on them both, her hands swept out, palms forward, and she fired beams on either side of his head, just past his ears, not close enough to do any damage. They were, however, full powered. Both hit armoured trucks, and the armour proved insufficient to stop her attack. The vehicles exploded into shrapnelling debris, blasting back down the street a block and a half before disintegrating. The direction of the hits meant even men standing directly to either side of the vehicles were spared everything but scratches as they dived for cover. Having divided them into three groups, she quickly generated four walls, en feet high, then brought them together until the enemy combatants had been forced into a single group. She bent all four walls in to form another dome, then glared at the man in front of her.

”So, if you have the wherewithal to actually control yourself instead of acting like a spoiled child, you might try non-lethal methods and containment, instead of wanton murder sprees.”

”Whatever you two have to say about morality, save it for after the fight!” Leanna turned her head to look at the archer from earlier. ”In case you haven’t noticed, they’re still coming! As long as the threat is dealt with and no more civilians are hurt, then do with them as you’d like!”

Glancing up the two streets she had a view of, she saw the woman was correct. Somehow they were facing what seemed to be an army she had known villain groups with far fewer number than were currently being thrown at them, and had been used far more effectively, to boot. She roared out as loud as she could, "Does anyone know where these idiots are coming from? This needs to end ASAP!”

One wall of energy to block up each road, and each pushed forward until it met the nose of vehicles, where it curled up and over them, sealing them against the outer walls of the buildings. They might get out that way, but with the size of the constructs she was making, she was beginning to feel some strain. She hadn't done this much work in years, and could feel sweat beginning to bead on her forehead. Much more and she'd have to start combining them somehow, or risk them falling apart. To save some energy, she landed, seemingly ignoring Pantheon for now, other than to acknowledge him as an ally by putting her back to him in the middle of a fight. The wings disappeared, and she fired another beam at low power, knocking one man further out of the square into his comrades and bowling the lot of them over.

She smiled, despite the stress of the situation. A big battle, with two companions- or at least as close as can be found right now, she thought sarcastically -at her back, she was beginning to feel a sense of prupose she hadn't felt in a while. Perhaps retirement wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Of course, her shoulders were already aching, her hip was complaining about her landing slightly too hard, and her breath felt a little short, but it also felt good to be back in action.

She hazarded a glance back, and saw the archer was hurt, a shot to the leg. ”We're not in any danger here, miss. I suggest you try finding some cover, or perhaps head for the Center itself. There might be good vantage points, and standing next to us might be worse than by yourself.”

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

_{Banner credit NMS. Thanks, Cap'n!}

Take down choppers, he says. She had nodded and taken off at once, but she knew the problems with “taking down” helicopters in the middle of a city. This wasn't a warzone, as much as it looked like one at the moment. People had to get back to their lives as quickly as possible. She was struck with the sudden thought that perhaps this was their tactic, a big, scary battle to prove how dangerous the heroes really were. Of course, that plan would be foolish, but if that had been their thoughts, she would do her best to prove them so utterly wrong as to be laughable.

To that end, she navigated the storm. A battle of some sorts of fog and mist was happening near where Chris had engaged with what looked to be some sort of leader. She knew he could handle himself as well as she and Icon could, even if he was more fragile inside his suit. The two girls...Jeeze, they look too young to be here, don't they? Was I ever that young and in a fight?. They looked slightly panicked, but doing well enough, and she hadn't the first idea how to work with their powers. However, that didn't mean she couldn't help while she dealt with other matters.

She flew low over their heads, leaving her trademark energy crackling in the air above them, blocking even the light of thunder from reaching under it as it drank the light around it. As she passed over their heads, she threw them a salute, and then fired off several small beams into the crowd of combatants near them. The whole area looked like chaos from above, men stumbling around and shaking their weapons in a thick fog that seemed to ignore the worst of the rain that was starting to pour from the sky. She pulled up suddenly as a chopper veered her direction. Below it were several of the enemy, clashing with unidentified allies at range. Noting the helicopters gun spin up, and knowing the line of fire left the two girls vulnerable, she flared her 'wings' as wide as possible, and threw up a simple wall of energy directly in front of the choppers, leaving enough so the pilot could see, but blocking any sort of projectile from making it further than a few metres.

The pilot reacted quicker than she would've originally credited, throwing his vehicle into a steep climb to halt forward momentum and get him over the wall. Unfortunately for him, that presented her with the belly of the thing. She put her fingers into the classic kids' “gun” shape, index finger out and thumb up, and took careful aim. One beam, just the size of her finger and only slightly above her lowest power setting, lanced out and blew the front of the machine-gun on the nose apart. Any more attempts to fire it would at best be useless, and at worst rend the front of the chopper into pieces as it backfired. Two more beams shot out, snapping off the side mounts for the missile pods, sending them down onto the men below. Without them being armed, she was only worried about their weight, but she had the rest of the helicopter to worry about.

As the pilot fought desperately to bring the machine back under control after the three impacts, he found his controls flashing even more alarms. Looking up, he finally noticed Leanna gripping the nose of the vehicle. The glass front was surprisingly well armoured and only cracked slightly as she dug her fingers, energy crackling around them to help her cut through the metal, into the plating. She could see him screaming something at his gunner, but it looked like neither of them could do anything. She heard the rotor mechanism twist and turn as he fought with the control stick, trying to move the thing and shake her off, but her titanic strength let her hold the nose in place in the air, her wing flapping to counterbalance any force the engine could muster.

With a sarcastic smile, she began guiding the whole machine through the air. The metal she had gripped creaked and groaned, and the engine screamed at the abuse as the pilot sought a solution, but inexorably it moved where she wanted it to. Finally the gunner slapped his pilot on the shoulder, and she frowned as he nodded back. There was a loud “clunk” from the belly of the thing, which prompted her to move below it by way of a lifting motion with her hands, refusing to let go of her grip.

She saw the shiny cone of the nose of a missile or bomb. It was huge, and looked like it might be a multi-stage explosive. It had come out of some sort of hidden weapons bay, and she noted that, sticking out like this, it was probably now armed. The rocket guides on it began firing, and Leanna let go, finally, muttering, ”You utter bastards,” before she had to catch the thing as it launched off of it's rails. In a desperate attempt to throw it further off course and make her job easier, she pushed the nose of the chopper away from her, sending it into a serious course error as the weapon caught her in the belly and took her away from her target.

She had pulled this maneuver before, but this close to buildings, there was little room for error. And with an unknown explosive, there was really only one choice she had. Recovering quick as she could, using her wings to slow the thing down with air resistance it wasn't built for, she swung underneath it, shoving as hard as she could. Her considerable strength sent it up, over the buildings in a huge arc. She went with it, steering against the guidance systems, and now that the warhead on the thing had travelled far enough to be armed, she nudged it further. It didn't have too much in the way of engines, though, so it was definitely a bomb, not a missile. One final shove up sent it careening out over the waters of the Atlantic. She counted the seconds, as the rain sizzled against her wings idly flapping to keep her aloft. She didn't have any sort of advanced vision, but a good knowledge of physics told her it should be going off just...about...

There was an explosion, not as big as she had dreaded. And then a second, third, and fourth explosion, each one deeper and bigger than the last. A fifth one, much much larger than the previous ones, sent a huge bubbling shockwave up to the surface.

Where the hell do they get this stuff from? Well, not the time. She spun back around and headed towards the edges of the fight. A group of soldiers were clustered around a truck, trying to unjam their weapons from whatever the fog had done to them, and looking a little nervous. No one seemed to be paying them any mind, even though the battle continued to rage. Glancing around and seeing no one approaching, and broken mechs laying around nearby that could explode soon, depending on what they were being powered by, she decided she needed to take care of both.

Streaking down for a landing with her arms over two of their shoulders, energy wings fading to avoid unintended injury, she spread her fingers out as wide as possible and scattered beams into the rest of them, slamming them back into the side of their vehicle. The two she had in headlocks drew knives and attempted to gut her and stab her, to no avail. Even if she hadn't been supernaturally tough, the suit she was wearing had been designed with this sort of action in mind, and it caught at the points of their knives and snarled their attacks without tearing. She placed a hand on the back of each's heads, and, before they had a chance to move, knelt and pivoted, thrusting them forward to fall onto their fallen friends, some of whom were just starting to get up. Smiling down at them, she placed both hands on the side of the truck and fired a weak beam from each palm. The vehicle was sent flipping side over side, coming to rest on its top, two large dents evident from even this opposite side. She then backed up a bit and brought up a dome over the whole pile of men, close enough to the ground that they wouldn't be able to stand, though not so close as to cause them injury from compression. And should they try to break it, long experience told her they would earn themselves only mild second degree burns before ceasing that activity. After a thought, she opened up small holes along the top, where they might get air, but not big enough to shove weapons through.

Leaving the crackling and hissing dome of black and rainbow sparks in the middle of the street, she turned to the broken down mechs. Glancing around, she spotted the man in black and yellow she had noted earlier. She paused to make sure none of the broken machines power supplies would overload, she hopped in the air. She had to look hard before she noted the chopper she had been wrestling with early, just now landing on a roof. Her wings flashed, leaving the telltale trail as she flew fast enough to just barely avoid breaking the sound barrier. Air pressure alone blew over the two men as the were climbing out of the now open cockpit. Grabbing one in each hand by the shirtfronts, she head butted each, then used a set of handcuffs from the small pouch on her suit to attach them to the wheel assembly. She pulled their handguns and knives, tossed them out of reach, then flew back to where she had seen the bruiser.

Stopping in front of him, wings flared to hold herself aloft, she said with a slight frown and knitting of her brows, ”Name's Blacklight. Who're you? And why did you kill that man earlier? You're no judge.”

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

Somewhere in Hebei Province, China

Dawn

Nicole sprawled along the top of the eastern temple wall, bare legs dangling, fingers intertwined over her stomach, and stared into the depths of the lightening sky. Birdsong rang clear through the air, the sound almost alien to her ears. She had always been in the city, trapped behind barriers of concrete and society both. Her parents had never quite been well off enough to take them camping, or hiking, or anything else that took more than a few hours. The closest she'd ever been to nature was Central Park when she was five, and that was two lifetimes ago now, it seemed. And while the growing sunlight didn't warm her bones like it should have, and she didn't even feel the prickles of energy that she remembered from dawn practises with the soccer team, dawn was still one of her favourite times of the day.

The mutters of some of the monks coming outside for early morning practise roused her from her perch. She sat up and watched them for a few moments, talking about who knew what. She knew by skin colour alone she'd always be at least slightly an outsider here, no matter how Alex framed it to her. Sure, they were open and inviting, but there was always a distance between her and them. White. Girl. Powered. All three put her on a completely different social strata, and whether they knew it or not, they would always treat her differently. Not that that changed if she went anywhere else, but here it was more pronounced.

She shifted her gaze and stared out over the forested mountainsides surrounding the temple's weathered stone walls. Birds took off from one tree a few hundred meters away, startled by something still hidden in the foliage, their colours flashing vivid blues and reds against the green backdrop. She could see why there were so many poets from ancient times that felt inspired by this area. If she was an artist, maybe she could put that feeling into a form others could perceive, but she had no talents with pen and paper. Something her teachers had constantly chided her for not trying to develop, but she had been focused on sports. Less because she enjoyed them, though she did, but more to try and earn a scholarship and get out of the rut her parents had fallen into.

Ruts. She was young, but she knew already that they were dangerous. Too much stagnation and things went sour, rotting on the vine. And her curse definitely made her more susceptible to falling into pattern and not getting out of them. She glanced back over her shoulder at the monks, and suddenly her jaw set. With one quick motion she flung herself off the wall and out of the temple, flopping and rolling as she crashed into the ground a hundred feet below and then further down the steep hillside. Several instances bounced her off trees, but except for useless air getting knocked out of her lungs, as usual nothing hurt her. The worst of it was the disorientation as her view changed randomly when she ricocheted off of three boulders and a tree, spinning madly.

After her head stopped spinning, she stood up slowly. Her choice of clothing for normal days proved good, as neither her gym shorts nor tanktop were more than slightly tattered. She looked up the ravine she found herself in, seeing nothing but greenery and grey stone. Well, shit. Guess I'm not finding my way back any time soon. Not that that was the idea, anyway. She found, to her surprise, it didn't seem to bug her too much any more that the fall she had just took would've guaranteed death to any normal person. Instead, she just had to pick sticks out of her tangled hair as she resolutely turned on her heel and marched off into the forests, aiming generally downhill.

---

She knew it hadn't been days, but only because her memory didn't match night to forest. It could've been several hours, several seconds, or several weeks for all she really knew since she had flung herself off the wall. She trudged on, tireless, dispassionately watching the foliage as it smacked into her face. If she had pockets in her shorts, she would've stuck her hands in them. As it was, she had snapped off some sort of thorny branch and was periodically taking vicious swipes at imagined foes. There were no tracks in this areas, no paths, so she was left to forge through undergrowth that may not have seen humans pass in a hundred years. She thought that it might've been nice to know what she was walking through, but she hadn't taken a biology course before and her family had never really been the outdoors-y type. Still, she filed the thought away for when she maybe went to school again.

The sudden appearance of the road came as somewhat of a shock. One minute she was wrestling with some especially thick vine plants, and then she had torn through them, only to be sent careening down another hill. Only when she came to a stop this time, it was on a dirt road, in a jumble of broken branches and small boulders. She sat up after coming to a stop on her back, arms splayed, looking to her right into the astonished eyes of a farmer who had been leading his mule, laden with bags, along the path. He stood perhaps thirty feet away, mouth working like a fish out of air. The mule looked completely unconcerned with the sudden appearance of a white girl out of the woods.

She was just about to ask him to stop staring, when he screamed out, ”Shénshèng de gǒu shǐ, yīgè jiàndié! Měiguó zhèngzài rùqīn!" He then took off at a dead run past her, leaving the mule to stare uncaring after him for a few moments before following at a sedate pace. Nicole stared after him, then shook her head, stood up, and looked around.

Down the road where the man had run, dense forest and rocky hills gave way to distantly visible open fields, she guessed probably all farmland. In the other direction, the road bent around the hill she had come down. Figuring whatever the man had shouted, it wasn't polite, she turned towards the bend and took off at a sprint. Not really out of alarm, just the feeling of speed after however long she had been thrashing through vegetation.

The sun went down soon after, but she kept running. After all, it was the fastest mode of transportation she had at the moment, and, except for the occasional tumbles over unseen stones, she was in zero danger of getting tired or lost. The road just kept going, weaving through the hills. When she finally burst around a corner and saw the first signs of civilisation, a bus station sitting on the intersection of her little dirt road and a paved one, dawn was beginning to colour the sky again. Feeling a bit weird for having run so long when she should've gotten tired, she sat down at the little bench and looked around. This new road ran along a river, and judging from where the sun was, north to south.

It felt like an instant before the rickety little bus pulled up, but the sun was high in the sky. It was a beaten thing, looking like it had probably been in service since before her dad had been born, and probably repaired so many times there were no original parts left. The door was made of wood, she noticed as it swung open with a creak. A kindly fat old woman smiled at her wide and chattered at her.

"Nǐ yào qù nánfāng ma? Wǒmen réngrán yǒu hěnduō xíwèi."

Nicky shook her head and said, "Sorry, I only speak English right now."

There was a thump and a rustle, and what sounded suspiciously like a chicken in distress. The driver looked back and said something so fast Nicky didn't even know what she heard, and another, younger voice responded. A head poked around the corner in a sweeping curtain of deep black hair, and a girl maybe two years older than her, with wide eyes and deeply tanned skin, grinned at her.

"I speak English! My name is Wang Shu. This is my Aunt Jiayang, it is her bus."

"I'm Nicole." She instantly regretted how impatient she sounded. "Sorry, it's been a long week."

"Week? You've..." There was another rapid-fire conversation, during which both women looked Nicky up and down several times. She was suddenly conscious of the dirt covering her, the mud spattered over her bare feet, and the tangled mess that was her hair.

"Quick, come come! We get you out of here." Wang Shu beckoned her onto the bus. She hesitated, then stepped up the creaking stair and into the dim interior of the bus. There was a couple sitting next to a stack of cages with chickens and ducks in them, and an old man at the bus that must've been over a hundred sitting next to a tiny young boy. Everyone was in country clothes, completely unwesternised. Wang Shu ushered her to a seat just behind the driver's, sitting next to her and slapping her aunt's shoulder twice. The bus took off with a shuddering jerk and a cough in the engine, then rumbled off down the road at what felt to Nicky as extremely unsafe speed in a vehicle that should've broken down a decade ago.

"We see several girls before, strangers, come out of the woods," her new guide explained. "There is a bad place further up in the mountains, somewhere, where kids get taken. Some say drugs, some say worse. Grandmother always say it witches."

"Huh? No, nothing like that with me. I just got lost. Kind of on purpose."

Wang looked at her a little oddly, giving her another up-and-down appraisal, eyes lingering on her bare feet and legs. "You don't even have scratches. You are good in woods?"

"Uhhhh...something like that." Nicky felt like she was probably blushing at this point.

"Oh. Well, this is not good place to get lost. Xié'è de nǚwū, criminal, animals, all up in these mountains. Monks too, but that is a hundred mile north."

Nicky forced herself to not let her jaw drop. A hundred fucking miles? How long was I running for? Outwardly, she asked, "So where are we headed?"

"Oh, this is monthly trip. We take people up and down road. First stop is Zhengzhou, then south to Hefei and Wuhan, Cross the Yangtze to Changsha, to Guangzhou, then west to Nanning, and final stop in Hong Kong. Then we come back a different way, further west. Next trip is along coast and then reverse this trip."

That is a lot of driving. Do you get a lot of business?"

"Enough so we get another bus next month! We can double our trips! We get advantage on big government lines. We care more, people see friendly face and want to ride. No faceless man driving, only Auntie."

"Well, I have some money. I dunno the exchange rate, though." She dub into her waistband, coming up with several folded bills. Flipping through them in front of Wang Shu without knowing how much she was flashing, she counted out several hundreds, a bunch of twenties, and a handful of all the smaller bills. "How much to get to Hong Kong?"

"In US money?" There was another rapid exchange. "Auntie says five dollars and we take you anywhere you want to go. It easy since we go there anyway. You save the rest of your money, get yourself clothes. How long you in China for?"

"That is a good question. As long as I want, I guess."

"You need papers, too. We get you those in Zhengzhou, my uncle's friend has a place to do it. Make you nice and official. In the mean time, we have long drive, I teach you some words."

Since the girl wasn't seeming willing to give her a chance to say no, she settled in for a lesson.

Several dozen miles behind her, on an isolated farm road, a farmer was excitedly pointing at a barefoot print the size of a small girl's pressed into the road a good six centimeters. The two policemen stared at the hole, trying to figure out what they were supposed to tell their superiors.

And in Beijing, and older man received an email from an old associate in America that made him grin like a child with a new puppy. His office was all steel and dark stone and glass. Behind his nearly empty glass desk, and flanked by two very serious men in shades and business suits, the corporate logo for his company, Gōngyè Zhěnghé was emblazoned in huge golden symbols. Cleverly hidden in the logo by subtle stroke differences was the arguably more important symbols for the Golden Dogs Triad.

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

You could always join us in the Discord server to get tips and hints in real time. But as for now, ummm...Lost Haven is nutso at te moment. And there's really not "sides" for most of the characters. I *just* opened up Detroit as a setting. NYC and Pacific Point are both good spots. And with the HoH arc going on everything's kind of a mess atm, so you could slip in pretty much anywhere and go unobserved.

If you're looking for team-ups and fights, I would suggest fine-combing over the CSs, read some posts, and see where or with whom she'd fit best.

Also hahaha it has been forever since I've posted in OOC

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

---

Lost Haven, Maine

22:17

Blacklight stopped over the edge of Lost Haven, peering through the growing storm, trying to find her target location in the dimness. The echoing thump and flares of battle against the damp darkness of evening told her exactly what she needed to know. Hovering in place almost a thousand feet above the suburbs, her “wings” flapping to keep her aloft, she squinted, trying to gauge distance and numbers, but even as she squinted she remembered that that sort of reconnaissance was pointless with metahumans in the mix. Her wings flapped once, echoing thunder back at the rumbling storm, and took off towards the fight, her energy wake barely visible against the growing blackness of the stormy sky above.

She watched, horrorstruck, as the fight clarified in relation to the closing distance. Several fires picked out whre the wreckage of some machines had fallen into the city. She guessed helicopters until she spotted another fireball descending from above the clouds. She streaked over the fight as fast as possible, not caring at the moment about the sonic boom the followed her. At the extreme of her beam ranges, she targeted the falling wreckage and fire with everything the had. The sound of breaking light was like thunder and breaking glass, and the wide beam of black energy would be obvious, but thankfully the battle was already well past the point where stealth was required. The leading edge of the beam caught the falling wreck and obliterated it before it could do any harm. She peered at the area where it had been falling and growled to herself. That's residential. What the hell do these people think they're doing!?

Spinning in place a few hundred feet in the air, Leanna searched for any more of the jets, but failed to spot any. Another bloom of fire and roar of noise announced another helicopter going down near the square, and she rushed over, careful this time to avoid the glass-shattering speed she had moved with previously now that she was closer to the ground. Seeing an attack helicopter going down, spinning rapidly towards a building bordering the square, she generated a field of energy in a simple flat plane, big enough to bounce the thing back towards the street. As it bounced, she rushed forward, killing the field, and grabbed the thing by the wreckage of the tail. Hauling backwards, she halted it's fall, though the tail threatened to rip off at any moment. She guided its descent down to the street, blocking as much of the road as possible with the wreckage. She didn't see anyone getting out, so she landed and ran over to the cockpit. Only dead men sat in the seats.

Cursing, she launched back up into the sky, to hover near a rooftop and watch the battle, seeking a place where she would be most useful. On the roof near her a girl with a bow of all things was firing into hounds, providing cover for a greaser-looking kid who was wielding lightning. Nearby, a man in full body armour was standing over several unconscious combatants, multiple guns being raised at him from a few more of the enemy. She sent a beam to cut through their ranks, at minimum power, sending them into the pavement and skidding into a wall with what was sure to be multiple bone fractures. Scanning further, she glanced Icon and Iron Knight, together with a core group of people. Two of them looked like costumed civilians, and a third, some sort of blue woman. Well, if they were with Arthur and Chris they were fine. A streaking blur gave evidence to a speedster in the mix.

Some sort of mechanised suits were battling, as well. One looked as though it had police insignia on it. The other was nearly double the size of any other, using some sort of chainsaw weapon to cut into the opposing side. How the hell anyone had mechs at this point, Leanna didn't know, and without knowing what the power sources were, she couldn't reliably blast into them willy-nilly. And another flying brick type seemed to be giving them support, albeit in that way that melee types always seemed to. She knew the look on the big man's face all too well from personal experience. As that group tore into the enemy, however, she noted they weren't exactly being careful.

She turned to the girl with the bow, said, ”Keep up the good work! Try not to kill anyone!', and leapt off of the roof. Flying at a good clip, she swung out towards the mechs, batting a flying arm down into the pavement and blasting another chunk of machinery out of the air hard enough to vapourise it. Swooping past the brick as he dropped what she assumed to be a dead combatant, she fixed him with a scowl, but didn't take the time to admonish. Instead, she flew straight to the center of this mess, hovering a few feet from Icon just as the man finished up with a mech. Bullets pinged off of her skin as the enemy infantry decided she was enough of a threat, and she idly threw a low-power beam sweeping behind her near ground level, taking out their legs.

”Long time no see, old friend,” she said with a grin over the visible part of her lower face. She nodded at the rest nearby. ”I see you've gathered quite the party together. Where do you need me?”

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

---

A farm outside of Jamesville, NY

18:45

The dying light of the late afternoon cast gold shadows through the light green of summer leaves, leaving an imprint of tranquility over the field where Leanna toiled. Birdsong filled the air as she stood up and winced at the pops in her back and hip, but the relief came flooding in after them. She had no idea how long she had been crouched over at this point, hauling weeds out of a patch of soil soon to be planted with autumn vegetables. Long enough, at least, that her muscles, powerful enough to break a vehicle in half in her hey day with little effort, were rebelling at the abuse. Yanking off soil crusted gloves and tossing them over the bag laying a few feet away, she put one hand over her eyebrows to shield against the sun and surveyed her land.

To the north, less than a few hundred yards away, was a thick copse of oak and ash, which thinned into a line going east to west and dividing her farm from her neighbour's. The trees met a stand of cottonwoods and willows to the east that ran south along the jagged edge of riverbank her land backed on to. She knew at least one family of ducks was there now, though the foxes may have chased them out by this late in the summer. To the west lay open fields for several acres, most of which were grass for her animals, before hitting the county road that ran north up to Jamesville and south to Tully. And south of her position now was the remainder of her three hundred and sixty acre farm, generously paid for by the government in return for her services to the country and the world. Situated roughly in the middle was a modest little farmhouse, grey slate roof over a single story of ivy covered walls and massive bay windows. Stretching out from almost every edge of that building was a complex, spiralling maze of vegetable gardens, flower beds, and play areas for the three dogs she was currently fostering. Slightly away from that was the barn for her two horses Applejack and Bourbon, the milk cow Fatty McGee, and the small herd of goats that kept her fallow areas mostly clear of overgrowth. Built into the side of that was the chicken coop, well armoured against the attentions of predators and with an opening that let the birds into their own enclosure inside the main structure.

The southern end of her property was a mass of orchard trees and grape vines, one her neighbours were constantly telling her she should organise into rows. But she always deflected, and noted privately that her fruit trees tended to do better than any others in the area. The drive up to the house from the road was simple dirt, bordered by thick masses of roses and jasmine that fought viciously for dominion over each other. Parked on that dusty path was her motorbike and a beaten down, barely functioning and well loved old Chevy Suburban of indeterminate age and colour. She never cleaned the thing, and did all the repairs herself, which left her with a mostly jury-rigged machine that nevertheless hauled what she wanted it to. Just outside the barn was the old flat bed trailer for supply runs and a horse caravan for vet visits.

All in all, she thought to herself, This ain't such a bad life. No more getting blown up, no more death and destruction to tear through trying to find what's left of little kids. And the world has left me alone to it. Her toes flexed inside the weather worn and muddy boots she wore and she stretched her arms out wide. Fingers splayed out as she breathed deep, inhaling the scents of the land: Soil and grass soaked by yesterday's rain, the cold, clear notes of the river, the blooms from the orchard and driveway drifting up on the sweet, gentle breeze that caressed her bared arms. The warmth of the sun, despite being dampened by the lateness of the hour, provided a nice counter-note to the slight chill of the breeze. She held that pose for several moments before the cell phone in her jeans pocket went off, breaking the spell.

She pulled out the offending device and examined the screen with a frown before hitting the green button and putting it up to her ear, wincing slightly in anticipation of the conversation.

”Tim, what can I do for you?” Her voice was carefully measured. It didn't do to infuriate the already on-edge neighbour across the road.

“Leanna! Thank God I got hold of you, girl!” The voice of Tim's wife, Faye, came as a surprise. They were only in their twenties, but already argued like an old, bitter couple, sometimes loud enough she could hear them from across almost a mile. Well, that could have been her imagination. But the slight panic in Faye's voice caught buried instincts in the retired heroine. ”What's wrong, Faye?”

“Well, Tim got into his drinkin' phase again, sugar, only this time he decided to take up his grievance with the city council about that expansion to the road on the other side of us from you. I don't think he'll make it past the bar, but if you could go stop him from doin' anythin' foolish, I'd sure be appreciative. I don't need him getting' arrested just now, ya know?”

Leanna certainly did. Faye was six months pregnant, and the couple were definitely in the “wife stays home” camp. ”Don't worry, Faye, I'll go get him back for you. How long ago did he leave?”

“Oh, just now, sugar. Not even ten minutes.”

”Alright, sit tight, we'll be back soon.” Leanna left her bag where it was, glancing up to see the sky was clear, and ran for the truck. She might be faster on the bike, but she didn't feel like riding in buggy weather with only a filthy tank-top on. Her boots splashed through a puddle as she ran, reminding her of the driving conditions until she got into Jamesville proper. One quick stop to reach inside the door and grab her keys, and then she was heading for the truck. For not the first time, she wished she could just fly, but none of her neighbours knew about her past and revealing it for a stupid reason like one of them being drunk was not a thing she relished.

---

An hour later, in Jamesville, NY

Leanna sat in the waiting room of the local cop shop and stared at the ceiling. Thankfully Tim had been pulled over before he had managed to hurt anyone, himself included, but his usual aggressive manner meant that the officer, one Anne Bradbury, had hauled him in instead of escorting him home like they usually did with the farmers around here. After all, the farmers were a long shot better than the students coming down from Syracuse. Leanna knew that personally, having been one of those students once. But to get him out with only a warning meant using some of her credentials as an upstanding citizen and retired government official,. Even if her exact former occupation was obfuscated, it was not a comfortable conversation. She almost wished they had used her time helping the Army to give her veteran status, but that was almost certainly wrong somehow.

Sitting in the hard plastic bench, Leanna let her gaze drop down and scanned the room. Jamesville was a quiet town for the most part, but there were trouble makers everywhere, she knew. At least one other guy looked destined for the drunk tank, and a pair of teenagers sullenly staring at the floor looked like shoplifters. The background hum of a television tuned to local news and the conversation of the desk sergeant and another officer bled into one another somewhat, but everything stopped when the radios in the police area all went off with the same “alert” tone at the same time. The heroine perked up suddenly, glancing towards the door once before standing and walking over to the counter. The sergeant glanced at her, and then over her shoulder at the television. His eyes narrowed slightly, business-like, and she turned to see what it was that had caught his attention.

At the same time she saw the alarm system colors flash onto the screen, and the horrible tone go off from the tinny speakers, a red glow flared once in the window. Several shouts from the back alerted her to the police not knowing anything, and she raced to the window in time to see the fading line to the south. It was too far away to tell where or what, but she knew as her heart fell and stomach churned, trouble the likes of which she hadn't seen for ages was coming.

The reporter's voice came up, choked with emotion, and without images, she was left only describing what little they knew. A laser of some sort had struck in three places. Texas, Pennsylvania, and Massachusets. No word from anyone in the area. The Air Force scrambling. Leanna heard on the police comms behind her that everyone was to remain on high alert, and all off-duty officers were being called in.

It took half an hour, everyone in the station staring at the television, before they found out what the damage truly was. An island and a town wiped off the map, utterly gone. A smoking crater occupying much of Philadelphia, only a few hundred miles south of them. And these so called Hounds of Humanity claiming sole responsibility. Echoes of conversations with government officials rang in her ears as Leanna rushed out of the door, heedless of her surroundings.

She was allowed a generous pension, in secret, due to her service in several matters. They were sad to see her go. Would she like to be on call in case something truly bad happened? Of course she would, she had answered. She was a hero after all. She fumbled her cell phone out of her pocket, dialing Faye and only getting a voicemail. She briefly went over the instructions that Tim would have to be picked up, apologised, and climbed into her truck as she hung up. A decade of protecting her identity came back in a flash. Drive quickly, and with purpose. Can't leave the car here, it would cause questions. Back to the farm, get my gear, call in. Don't act to calm, be sure to be a little panicked, everyone else is.

The drive back was unbearably long, even though it only took half an hour. As soon as her engine was off, she slammed the truck door open, racing for her front door as fast as she would allow herself, which even as much as she was restraining might have looked a little blurred to a normal person. The closet in her room was tossed, clothes flying everywhere, until she uncovered the old military footlocker at the bottom. She didn't bother trying to find the key for the padlock, just ripped it off and flung the lid open. Inside, sitting there just like she left it, was her old costume. She stripped down as quickly as she could, tossing muddy clothes on top of clean, and dressed as fast as her joints would allow. They creaked in complaint, but she ignored them as she tugged her arms through the sleeves. The familiar feeling of the specialised armoured spandex felt oddly comforting. She tried a few punches and kicks to make sure no tears were likely to occur, then strapped the domino mask across her face and arranged her hair so the strap was hidden. An experimental thought and her strange black energy came crackling around her fist just as fast as it used to.

On her way back to the front door, thoughts raced furiously as her black leather knee high boots clacked ominously along the dark hardwood floors. Twice before now, Springheel had come to her, asking for her help against these Hounds of Humanity, but twice she had refused. It had seemed like just another hate group, one that who die off or be arrested in time without her intervention. Her doctor had also vetoed any activity, though he was sympathetic. And now? Now the guilt came welling up. What if she could have stopped these people before they had gotten this far? Or at least helped?

No, those thoughts were unhelpful now. Now was the time to formulate a plan. She thought of old companions, those who might know what the metahuman response was going to be. Springheel was too flighty, and operated outside of normal channels half the time. Denier, her only other frequent visitor, was in Asia and unlikely to be able to answer right now. That left Iron Knight and Icon of the old crew she could call on. Everyone else either wouldn't answer the phone or was dead. She hauled her phone out of her belt and dialled a number she hadn't had occasion too in almost two years, and hoped her old compatriot answered quickly.

“Hello! You have reached the voicemail of Christopher Arthur. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” For a moment, there was a silent pause and an anticipation of the recording tone. However, one did not sound and instead Chris got back on the line. “Just kidding! Young time no see, Long. What got you to crawl out of whatever hiding place you’ve been lying low in for these past years?”

“H’lo, Chris. You’re just as bad as ever, I see. But now’s not really time for banter. I just saw the news, figured we’d be gearing up for a response. Do you have any idea when or where? This is one of those…” her breath caught for a second as she thought. ”Come out of retirement moments, you know?”

“Doing a Jordan, I see,” Chris gave as his first response, despite Blacklight specifically telling him that the situation was dire. “I’m heading towards Sherman Square, where I’m hoping several other heroes will gather, assuming my message got through. Hopefully a united group of heroes can uproot these damn Hounds.”

”Sherman Square? In Lost Haven still, then? Alright, it’ll be a while before I can get there, but I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. These bastards are not getting away with this.”

“Since they could not even properly sideline me out with an orbital laser, I have no doubt they have no chance against the heroes of this country.”

She shook her head. ”You’ll have to tell me about that one later. See you in a few hours, Chris.”

Stepping out into the cooling night air, she let her powers build up. Rainbow streaks scattered the light around her, casting strange shadows around her in scintillating colours. From her back grew the two wing shapes of energy, each almost ten feet long. She stretched them experimentally, flapped them once and felt sure she could still fly, and then took off in a crackling roar, leaving a black trail behind her as she streaked east, towards Maine.

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

_{Banner credit to Nitemare Shape. Thanks Boss!}

---

A house in northern Carver

02:15

Sarah Reeves had been through the shit more than once. A retired warrant officer, certified with several US attack helicopters, and five years with the FBI field office in Albuquerque afterwards had shown her plenty of the awful side of life. Those who had served with her in either capacity usually found her to be all business, but that was a facade, something she used to keep the bad stuff out of her mind. None of them had seen the long nights, when the memories became too much to handle, where her only comfort was a big bottle of anything that burned going down and as many happy, banal videos she could find on her laptop. If she survived tonight, she thought, she might need to start drinking Everclear.

It had started fine. Her and Broadway had been called to go meet a local metahuman who, uncomfortable with driving in the city due to the Hounds presence, was interested in helping out. So they had driven the hour out to Carver, Broadway bemoaning Tiamat's condition in the hospital, to meet this "Marionette". It had seemed a nice house, in a quiet suburb, quite close to the edge of the city. Reeves' internal danger sense alerted her to the unusual set up of the place, a single house at the end of a cul-de-sac, backed by a park that looked to run all the way to the woods. Plain looking exterior siding on a two-story home, but no lights on that they could see.

Broadway had knocked on the door, and a voice from inside told them it was unlocked and to see themselves to the kitchen. And as the entered the place, that was when her internal alarms started screaming, along with someone in the house. Her and Broadway glanced at each other and then split up, the metahuman taking the lower floor and beginning to glow while the special agent moved for the stairs. The smell reminded her of the lairs of serial killers, blood and cleaning fluids hanging thick in the air.

Two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs were all charnel houses once she turned her flashlight beam on them. Blood covered almost every available surface, including som arterial spray on the ceilings. Bones that had teeth marks, and not immediately identifiable ones, were scattered around. No skulls, though. Just as she was reaching for her radio, a short, cut-off cry came from down stairs, and she rushed to find the source, belatedly drawing out the Browning from her hip.

She reached the top of the stairs to see the glow fading from a hand that clutched weakly at the banister, before dropping in death. And around the corner came the worst thing Reeves' had ever seen. It stood on two legs, but was clearly not human. The legs and feet looked canines, covered in mangy fur and sores. The abdomen and waist looked more hominid, though also covered in thick belly hair. The chest and arms more resembled a horrifying cross between man and bear, though too-long by half and thin. The head, with glaring yellow cat's eyes focused on her, was some cross between alligator, dog, and human. It was grinning at her, and as it winked, the eye that opened again was obviously human, a clear blue, though crusted with mucus. It held up a chunk of meat and gurgled out the word "cheers", and it took Reeves' a moment to realise that it was a heart.

The Browning went off seven times in rapid succession, and she saw all the rounds on target plunge into flesh, but the .45 ACP rounds didn't even nudge the beast. The wounds closed almost as fast as they opened, and it ignored them as it placed the heart gingerly into it's overlong jaws. And as it bit down oh so slowly, blood spurting out from the ruptured organ, it never broke eye contact.

---

She had run several blocks before she realised it hadn't followed her. She leapt over a garden wall in front of someone's house, she didn't car, slamming her back into it and ass into the ground. She had dropped the flashlight on her way out of the second story window, probably somewhere in bushes she had landed in. One shoulder was definitely bruised, she noted as she finally reloaded her pistol. Reaching for her radio, she found it gone too, cursed vehemently, and closed her eyes. Apparently God was with her tonight, since she still had her cellphone, she found as she dug her hand into her coat pocket. She dialled the first number she could think of, and was surprised to find the voice on the other line wasn't dispatch.

"Agent Reeves? Hello, this is Tiamat. What can I do for you?"

The girl sounded slightly out of breath, but at this point, Reeves did too. "Tiamat, get everyone together and get out to Carver, right now."

"Agent Reeves? What's wrong?"

Reeves gasped, then sucked in a deep breath and let her mind focus. "There's some sort of fucking monster out here. It got Broadway, it probably ate the whole family of the person we were out here to meet. I have no fucking clue what it is. Dispatch and Faulkner know where I am, get out here with the whole team. We need to burn this thing out."

"I am sorry, Reeves. Faulkner is dead as well. But you say it killed Broadway?" Her voice had cracked. Of course, they're friends. Reeves squinted her eyes shut in regret. And Faulkner too. Could this night get any worse?

"Agent Reeves, we will be there as soon as we can, I have a SWAT unit with me right now anyway. Do you know what it is?"

"Fuck no. It didn't even notice me firing forty-fives into it, I have no clue what the fuck can ignore those that isn't made of metal." What the hell is that smell?

A voice growled from above her head, easily loud enough to be heard over the phone, at the same time a huge, sore-covered paw closed over her face. Her eyes went wide as she heard the word "Skinwalker". And then everything went dark.

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

_{Banner credit to Nitemare Shape. Thanks Boss!}

---

Lost Haven General Hospital
21:36

Almost as soon as she was done bandaging herself, she made the mistake of looking over the damage she had wrought in the bathroom. The coppery scent of blood hung in the air, as well as the more unpleasant smells of the human body after it shut down. And she saw the leg of the man with his head through the sink twitching. Apparently a piece of the sink had penetrated one of the major blood vessels of the neck. She immediately bent over and vomited. She had never killed before, and panic, adrenaline, and horror hit her hard enough to cause her to lose what little she had in her stomach. She stayed on her hands and knees for a long while, tears flowing openly as she sucked in huge gasps of air, trying desperately to get a grip on her mind. I can't break down now. There are innocent people in this building who need help. Come on, Darya, get moving!

She climbed to her feet and took another moment to steady herself, snatching a paper towel from the broken dispenser on the wall and wiping away the various fluids from her face, more roughly than she normally might have. Even in the midst of such carnage, she made sure the towel went into the proper receptacle as she leaned out of the door, checking for signs of enemies. No one seemed to be moving outside. She pulled out the radio and pressed the button.

"Dispatch, are you there?"

"Yep, still here Tiamat. How are you doing in there?"

"Well...There are fewer attackers, now? Five in the bathroom, I think at least two of them are dead. Six in the recovery area. I don't know if any of them are still alive."

"Damn! Okay, are you wounded?"

"I'm okay. Took a graze, but I'll live. Can you tell me where the civilians might be?" She glanced at the wall plate nearby. "I'm on floor five."

"Reports on the ground from the perimeter say there's a group holding hostages in the lobby. SWAT's still inbound, so for right now we're just watching. One of the staff members who got out says it was pretty skeleton staff right now, maybe a hundred inside, and more than half got out. Judging by the headcount we've gotten, plus the deaths of the staff you told me about, I'm guessing everyone is there in the lobby."

"Then that's where I am going."

"Whoa, Tiamat, hold on! We can't have you go charging in, not without support. That's how hostages die. You said they had other people in the building, right?"

"Yes. I think they took over the security system, too."

"Okay. What you could do is go to the security room, it'll be somewhere on the first floor, and deal with them. Then sit tight until I call you, okay?"

"Okay, I can do that."

"Are you sure you're okay? You sound a little shaky there."

Her voice failed her, and she couldn't voice what she felt. It took her a moment before she managed to weakly say, "I'm fine for now."

"Alright." The dispatcher seemed not ready to press her. "Whatever you do, stay safe. We'll get you and the civilians out as soon as we can."

The young heroine leaned against the wall, thoughts racing. She had killed people today. Yes, they had been trying to kill her, but she knew she could pacify normal people without killing them. But she hadn't. She had shot men dead. She had broken in a man's skull. And worse, it had been so easy, she hadn't even realised she was doing it. Her mind flickered back to the fight in the plaza that had landed her here. The man in the suit that had supported them, he had killed easily and efficiently, barely even an expression on his face. Then, too, had been a kill or be killed situation.

Was this really what hero-ing was? Killing those who tried to kill you while you tried desperately to remember what the right thing even was? Could she do that? It felt more like being a soldier than a hero, and she had never wanted to be a soldier. Her whole goal had been to...What had been her goal? Her powers had come on her suddenly, Allah gifting her with extraordinary powers, but had she ever really thought what she should do with them, consciously? The Hounds were obviously needing to be dealt with, but was violence really the only way it could be done? Could there be another option? After all, she knew that some of her father's friends had been radicalised, and the same had happened here. Was there a hope of redeeming these men and women, those on the fringes, who were scared of change but not necessarily evil?

Well, she thought to herself, kicking off the wall and standing, her fist clenching. Water sluiced to her from the bathroom and ran up her leg, coalescing into a thin film that covered most of her bodysuit. Whatever happens, I cannot stand here while people are in danger. That much I know is part of being a hero.

---

Darya slid along the corridor wall, barely daring to breathe. Past the door hanging halfway open not five feet to her right, she could hear three people talking in low voices. One of them sounded like they were on the phone. Probably calling in support to pull them out. As silently as she could, the girl slipped up to the door and peeked around the corner.

In front of a bank of monitors ten feet inside the room sat two black armoured people with short hair. A third was facing away from her and the monitors both, hand up to her ear. That one resembled the one who had tried to assassinate Darya at the very beginning of this night, covered in knives and with long hair tied in a bun. Another leaned against the wall, arms crossed, just inside the door, watching the monitors and picking his teeth with a finger. All four had submachineguns on them, what looked like MP5s, though the light was dim and made it hard to tell. Three pairs of shoes were visible in one corner, and she could guess the security guards were not going to be alive, judging by the stains in the carpeting.

She guided the water soaking her clothing out of the fibres and slithering up, along the ceiling through the door. She didn't have much with her, maybe a gallon and a half, but she thought it sufficient for her plan. She divided it evenly across the four people, then dropped it suddenly, steering it into their eyes, noses, and mouths. The woman with the cell phone alos got some along her hands. Then all of it heated quickly up to near boiling temperatures. Not enough to do much damage, she hoped, but enough to make them stop fighting and go down easier.

The panic was easy to see as they thrashed and clawed. As soon as she knew they didn't immediately go for guns, the water flashed down until it froze. She went into the room, then. Her foot lashed out and shattered the man just inside the door's fingers against his gun, and she swung high and hard with a fist, slamming it into the edge of his temple just behind his eye. He went down with a muffled grunt. The other three went down as quickly, and she thawed the ice and drew the water back out of their faces. All four had red marks wherever the water had been, and it looked like she might have gone a bit too hot, because she could see blisters forming already. Still, their fault for being murdering terrorists. They were luckier than the ones upstairs, at any rate. That rationale probably wouldn't hold up to her own scrutiny for long, but at least long enough to get through this night.

She triggered the radio again and let the dispatcher know she had taken care of the security room, and less than fifteen minutes later she watched on the monitors as a well planned SWAT infiltration took down the rest without a single civilian casualty. After that, it would just be answering some questions and heading home.

Right?

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

Blacklight

Character you have created: Leanna Young
Alias: Blacklight
Speech Color: Medium Violet Red c71585
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret except for a few comrades

Character Personality:
Leanna is a warm, caring person, though she likes to be left to her own devices. She enjoys being out in nature, helping the community, and is generally the sort of neighbour you'd love to have around.

Blacklight is all business. She draws a hard line on crime, though she doesn't seek to punish criminals and villains, as that is the courts job. She will apprehend anyone she can, even modulating her beams as much as she can to avoid doing lethal damage. However, should innocents be in danger, she has no problems putting someone down. When dealing with other heroes, she has anecdotes for almost every occasion about past battles, but stays quiet when a fight is on.

Uniform/costume: She wear a full black bodysuit, crisscrossed with many lines of the same rainbow of colours her energy beams create as they break light, in a pattern reminiscent of a broken mirror. A full size black domino mask covers her cheekbones, bridge of nose, eyebrows, and everything between them, leaving her eyes exposed.

Origin Info/Details: Back in college, Leanna Young was a promising physics student, the kind with a bright future. Going to Syracuse University in New York, she had excellent grades and was in line to be part of the top percentile of her graduating class of 2005. A good home life and middle class upbringing left her well balanced mentally and physically. All of that changed in August 2004.

A villain going by Overlord broke into the physics lab during a late night experiment with a theoretical beam projector, intent on stealing the device. Young, two grad students, and two professors were in the lab at the time. During the raid, Young and one of Overlord's minions toppled into the path of the beam at the same moment one of the professors set it to overload in order to prevent it falling into the villain's hands. The resulting explosion took out half of the building, killing everyone inside except Young, who was found unconscious in the wreckage. There was no sign of Overlord, though many of his minions were also slain.

After two months in a coma, Leanna woke up feeling better than she ever had. Within another week, she had found her powers working at full tilt. Several accidents ensued, but after some wise words from her parents and a helpful trip to the government, “Blacklight” was working with STRIKE by February of 2005.

Over the course of a decade with the organization, Blacklight has dealt with a number of villains, fighting toe-to-toe with several monstrous ones as well as the more normal types, and fended off threats from the street-level on up. However, in 2016, during a pitched battle with a terrorist group, an explosion slammed her against the wall nearby and broke her spine. During her recovery, she decided she had had enough of the fighting, and at thirty four, retired to a farm outside of Syracuse, NY. She finished her degree, finally, and has been living off the land and enjoying the peaceful life since then.

However, those who have worked with her before have her phone number, should anything come up where they might need her assistance. And, of course, she can't really help but fly around when she can. After all, when you can, why wouldn't you? So the residents of Syracuse know that Blacklight is still around. In addition, Leanna's farm doubles as a sort of training ground for new heroes, a place for them to be taught all about how to be a hero once they get their powers under control, or are released from whatever other holding, as the case may be. Blacklight has gotten offers to teach at a theorised university, but no one's actually convinced her that's a good idea as of yet.

Hero Type: Flying artillery
Power Level: World
Powers:

Energy Manipulation: Blacklight creates and controls a unique type of energy not seen anywhere else. While it registers to human eyes, it's not actually light, but a tearing of the visible spectrum in its path that people see. This manifests as a core of utter blackness, edged by a scintillating rainbow effect that scatters beams of visible light in all directions. She can fire this in beams, flat planes, abstract shapes, and more, though the shapes do not take on any properties except the energy itself.
It has fairly strong kinetic properties, though it seems unaffected by gravity or air friction. It also displays slight magnetism and electrical conductivity along it's edges when hit with lightning. Beams fired travel at faster than more than 100,000 meters per second and hit with the force of a jet engine, and also burns with the energy of a 5 exa-watt laser, yet those standing near the beam when it passes report the air feeling “ice cold”. It has shown no radioactive properties that are dangerous to humans, and physicists have yet to come up with a satisfying explanation as to where it comes from, though the prevailing hypothesis is another dimension. The beam power can be modulated, but only so far. Her minimum force of impact is around the equivalent of getting hit with a car moving at fifteen miles an hour, and burns like a ten gigawatt laser beam.

She can fire these beams from her hands or eyes, but she can also cover herself head to toe in the stuff, forming a sort of armor. One of her favourite tricks is to arrest people with “manacles” made of the stuff, since it's impossible to break and burns when you try.

Flight: Blacklight can fly at Mach 2, using "feathered" wings of her energy. These leave a trail in the sky that lasts for several moments after she passes overhead.

Physicality: Blacklight has superhuman strength, endurance, agility, and speed on the ground. She can take hits from some of the strongest and still get up.

Mental Toughness: Extreme iron will, intelligence, and training from psychic types in the past have left Blacklight with extremely tough mental barriers against both mind reading and control.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5'11"
Weight: 142
Strength Level: 100+ tons
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 200 mph/equivalent reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours fighting, 48 hours flight only
Agility: 10x normal
Intelligence: Well above average, but not a genius
Fighting Skill: Mastered; Veteran of many metahuman battles
Resources:

Fairly small, given her length of service and breadth of experience, but she has a good amount in savings, and ready assistance from a number of old compatriots should she need it.

Weaknesses: Exposure to more than 1mSv/h radiation (the equivalent of a high radiation area in a nuclear plant) shuts down all of Leanna's powers, including her enhanced strength and toughness, until she has been outside of it for at least an hour, at which point they come back gradually over the course of three hours.

While she is supernaturally tough, anyone with a comparable strength to hers can knock her around pretty well. Gunshots still hurt her, though not as much as they might a normal human. Inside her skull, her brain is as vulnerable as anyone else's, so concussions are a real danger. Her bones are definitely capable of breaking, burns can happen from anything higher than a few hundred degrees C, and she is still as vulnerable as a normal person to cold, electricity, asphyxiation, pressure, starvation, and poisons.

Some of her previous injuries have left her with weak spots, including her spine, her left hip, both shoulders, her neck, and a worrisome chronic migraine problem. These act up even worse in combat.

Supporting Characters:
Ambrose Smith, MD: A doctor in Syracuse who knows about Blacklight's past, in order to better understand how to treat any issues.

Rebecca and Henry Young: Leanna's parents, both knowing of her powers and very relieved to see her retired. Also extremely proud of her.

She did have contacts at STRIKE, but they have all been killed.

Springheel: A speedster Blacklight has worked with on several occasions, and who stops by to visit regularly.

Denier: A man with incredible gravity and forcefield powers who specialises in area control during fights. Also stops by regularly to visit.

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

Abigail Cho

Character you have created: Abigail Cho
Alias: None
Speech Color:
Character Alignment: Walking-the-line
Identity: Public

Character Personality: Abigail is a loner by necessity. Being around too many people can easily drive her mind to the brink, so she must frequently take breaks from social activity. Most people think of this as her being either depressed or introverted, and they're not entirely wrong. The lack of solid social contact has caused her some depression, but she tries to be as open as possible. After all, it's only fair. If she gets to know a little too much about other people,they should know as much about her. Then again, the people she sticks around with long enough to do so are few and far between.

Given her occupation, she has to deal with a lot of very strange people, and her encounters with otherworldly things have further opened her mind. She is broadly accepting of just about anyone, though she tends to stay away from people who feel too strongly about anything. As for herself, she tries to feel as little as possible when on the job, which has deadened her emotions a little even when she's living normally. This does let her open up more to receiving from others, which is the point, but it means her mood tends to be whatever everyone else is feeling.

She tries to do good, but in the city, good doesn't pay the bills, so she's had to stoop to less-than-legal acts occasionally to make ends meet. She also never works for lower than her normal rate, no matter the situation, though she does accept payment plans. Charity doesn't put food in her mouth. She is very honest, with no softening of blows. “If you can't handle the truth, then why did you call me?”

Uniform/costume: Although she tends to wear a lot of black, Abigail doesn't actually have a “costume”, just normal clothes. She doesn't fly and has no secret identity, and her job doesn't generally get her involved with anything she'd need armour or tools for. That said, she does always have a taser, pepper spray, a Swiss army knife, and a set of lockpicks.

Origin Info/Details:Abigail was born in New York City to a pair of Korean immigrants. The Chos now had a third child, the other two being boys, but they loved all of them equally. Unfortunately, life wasn't going to be easy for any of them. Jung-Hee Cho, the patriarch of the family, died during the 9/11 attacks, Abigail only being five at the time. Without their father, both of her brothers began acting out, though their mother Min-So could reign them in at home. Min-So, however, was not home very often, having to work several jobs to keep the family afloat. When they became of age, her eldest brother Shane got a job to help out, but David did not. He had already joined up with a gang, and ran off, not to be heard of for quite some time.

Abigail first began to notice something wrong when she was just a child. Like many horror movie children, she could see ghosts, but they didn't really bother her. None of them seemed to be malevolent, thankfully, so her parents had chalked it up to imaginary friends. When she was ten, she began to feel the moods of others around her, in a way that she knew they were not her emotions. She also developed the ability to handle an object and see into its past. As she grew older both of these grew stronger. By fifteen, she could idly sift through the surface thoughts of other people, and, if she concentrated, could even send her own thoughts to them, though this has always given her a migraine.

She worked for a year after high school at a 7-11, hated every moment of it, and finally quit to pursue an actual career. Her best friend from high school suggested, having learned about her powers, that she could easily make money by using them as a ghost hunter. She looked into it, and hit upon being a complete Paranormal Investigator. Lots of people make fun of her when she tells them what she does for a living, but it's enabled her to bounce around New England and make a fairly decent living. Recently, a job took her to Lost Haven, Maine, and while she didn't really want to stick around, the place was definitely full of weird things.

Abigail is currently based out of Boston, but makes frequent trips to everywhere on the Atlantic coast. Her website tends to be one of the more popular traffic stops for the business, and James Randi has issued her a challenge, though she's disregarded him up to this point because she doesn't feel she needs to prove anything. She's markedly more successful than most in her field, and only at the age of twenty-two.

Hero Type: Psychic
Power Level: Street

Powers:

Sensitivity: By handling an object with her bare hands, she can get a sense of who has touched it in the last few weeks. Anything that might be worn every day, or has sentimental value to someone, she can get much more information out of, essentially “seeing” the past from the objects point of view, and can go back to when the person in question first got it. Family heirlooms are a bit much for her. She can read them, but they hurt if she goes too far back.

Through the Veil: Abigail can see, hear, speak to, and physically interact with any ghosts, or anything on the Astral Plane. Only by extreme concentration can she suppress this ability, which means that most of the time, she is seeing and hearing quite a few things others can't. This tends to make her look slightly dazed or tired, and occasionally it's necessary to poke her to bring her back into the physical world.

Telepathy: Abigail is constantly receiving the surface thoughts of everyone within a few hundred feet of her. She cannot shut this off at all, but has learned how to ignore it or sift through the noise for a specific type of thought. This is what gives her a faster reaction time then most people, at least in a fight, as she's already picked up on the intent to hurt her. If she pushes hard enough at one person, she can actually send her own thoughts to them, making her capable of communication silently. Doing this, however, gives her a migraine after even a brief exchange.

Empathy: Abigail is constantly receiving the emotions of of people as well as their surface thoughts. Unlike the telepathy, though, this doesn't create “noise”. Instead, she feels the “average” of the area. In a crowded nightclub, this can get really intense, and not only from the emotion. She can also feel a small portion of any drugs in someone's system this way, as though she had taken them herself, though physically there's nothing in her blood and it goes away as soon as they get out of her range. It's great in a bar, but she flatly refuses to enter hospitals.

Telekinesis: Abigail can only effect tiny objects like coins and pens, or very light things like a piece of paper or a Styrofoam block, but those objects she can move, lift, and otherwise interact with using only her mind. She doesn't do it often as a rule, but she actually does use it casually in her day. Occasionally one can spot her spinning a pen in the air while she's thinking about something, as if there was an invisible hand twirling it. Her coffee stirs itself, hair never gets in her face, etc

On the Astral Plane, however, this is much more powerful. She can easily throw several tons of “material” around, and can deal damage to anything within her range.

Mind over Matter: Almost more of a subset of telekinesis than its own power, Abigail can concentrate to rapidly heal damage to her body. While not instant, she heals at more than four times as fast as normal people without concentration, and over twenty-times as fast while concentrating. Doing this too much, however, can cause her powers to shut down until she has sufficient rest, usually a few days, during which she basically only eats and sleeps.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5' 1”/155 cm
Weight: 110 lbs/ 50 kg
Strength Level: Normal
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed, slightly faster reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal
Agility: Normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources:

Average. She has a decent apartment in Boston, and makes enough money that she might even be able to take a vacation in a few years.

Weaknesses: No special defenses against physical attacks. Guns, knives, blunt objects, and energy all effect her like they should.

Spending too much time in crowded places gives her a sort of “tinnitus of the brain”, and makes hearing individual thoughts much more difficult.

Her empathy in a hospital, drug den, or anywhere else can mean she suffers the effects of several drugs at once. Even though it's impossible to overdose this way, it can incapacitate her completely.

Literally anything on the Astral Plane can interact with her, as can the dead. While she can defend herself with telekinesis, she is always vulnerable to this.

Supporting Characters:

Min-So Cho, mother. Calls frequently.

Shane Cho. Still lives with their mother, supporting her. Also a good confidant for his sister.

David Cho. Lives in Boston. Abigail is trying to get him to go to rehab with limited success.

Constance Young, Abigail's business partner, who typically runs the business side and lets Abigail get on with the actual work.

Brett Parker, Sam Newman, Theresa Little, and Wendy Smith: The technical crew who tries to keep up with Abigail's exploits. While they all live in Boston and fly with her, they tend to try and stay out of her way. They each get ten percent of any job, which means they also have other jobs to do.

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

Character you have created: Leanna Young
Alias: Blacklight
Speech Color: Medium Violet Red c71585
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret except for a few comrades

Character Personality:
Leanna is a warm, caring person, though she likes to be left to her own devices. She enjoys being out in nature, helping the community, and is generally the sort of neighbour you'd love to have around.

Blacklight is all business. She draws a hard line on crime, though she doesn't seek to punish criminals and villains, as that is the courts job. She will apprehend anyone she can, even modulating her beams as much as she can to avoid doing lethal damage. However, should innocents be in danger, she has no problems putting someone down. When dealing with other heroes, she has anecdotes for almost every occasion about past battles, but stays quiet when a fight is on.

Uniform/costume: She wear a full black bodysuit, crisscrossed with many lines of the same rainbow of colours her energy beams create as they break light, in a pattern reminiscent of a broken mirror. A full size black domino mask covers her cheekbones, bridge of nose, eyebrows, and everything between them, leaving her eyes exposed.

Origin Info/Details: Back in college, Leanna Young was a promising physics student, the kind with a bright future. Going to Syracuse University in New York, she had excellent grades and was in line to be part of the top percentile of her graduating class of 2005. A good home life and middle class upbringing left her well balanced mentally and physically. All of that changed in August 2004.

A villain going by Overlord broke into the physics lab during a late night experiment with a theoretical beam projector, intent on stealing the device. Young, two grad students, and two professors were in the lab at the time. During the raid, Young and one of Overlord's minions toppled into the path of the beam at the same moment one of the professors set it to overload in order to prevent it falling into the villain's hands. The resulting explosion took out half of the building, killing everyone inside except Young, who was found unconscious in the wreckage. There was no sign of Overlord, though many of his minions were also slain.

After two months in a coma, Leanna woke up feeling better than she ever had. Within another week, she had found her powers working at full tilt. Several accidents ensued, but after some wise words from her parents and a helpful trip to the government, “Blacklight” was working with STRIKE by February of 2005.

Over the course of a decade with the organization, Blacklight has dealt with a number of villains, fighting toe-to-toe with several monstrous ones as well as the more normal types, and fended off threats from the street-level on up. However, in 2016, during a pitched battle with a terrorist group, an explosion slammed her against the wall nearby and broke her spine. During her recovery, she decided she had had enough of the fighting, and at thirty four, retired to a farm outside of Syracuse, NY. She finished her degree, finally, and has been living off the land and enjoying the peaceful life since then.

However, those who have worked with her before have her phone number, should anything come up where they might need her assistance. And, of course, she can't really help but fly around when she can. After all, when you can, why wouldn't you? So the residents of Syracuse know that Blacklight is still around.

Hero Type: Flying artillery
Power Level: World
Powers:

Energy Manipulation: Blacklight creates and controls a unique type of energy not seen anywhere else. While it registers to human eyes, it's not actually light, but a tearing of the visible spectrum in its path that people see. This manifests as a core of utter blackness, edged by a scintillating rainbow effect that scatters beams of visible light in all directions. She can fire this in beams, flat planes, abstract shapes, and more, though the shapes do not take on any properties except the energy itself.
It has fairly strong kinetic properties, though it seems unaffected by gravity or air friction. It also displays slight magnetism and electrical conductivity along it's edges when hit with lightning. Beams fired travel at faster than more than 100,000 meters per second and hit with the force of a jet engine, and also burns with the energy of a 5 exa-watt laser, yet those standing near the beam when it passes report the air feeling “ice cold”. It has shown no radioactive properties that are dangerous to humans, and physicists have yet to come up with a satisfying explanation as to where it comes from, though the prevailing hypothesis is another dimension. The beam power can be modulated, but only so far. Her minimum force of impact is around the equivalent of getting hit with a car moving at fifteen miles an hour, and burns like a ten gigawatt laser beam.

She can fire these beams from her hands or eyes, but she can also cover herself head to toe in the stuff, forming a sort of armor. One of her favourite tricks is to arrest people with “manacles” made of the stuff, since it's impossible to break and burns when you try.

Flight: Blacklight can fly at Mach 2, using "feathered" wings of her energy. These leave a trail in the sky that lasts for several moments after she passes overhead.

Physicality: Blacklight has superhuman strength, endurance, agility, and speed on the ground. She can take hits from some of the strongest and still get up.

Mental Toughness: Extreme iron will, intelligence, and training from psychic types in the past have left Blacklight with extremely tough mental barriers against both mind reading and control.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5'11"
Weight: 142
Strength Level: 100+ tons
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 200 mph/equivalent reaction time
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours fighting, 48 hours flight only
Agility: 10x normal
Intelligence: Well above average, but not a genius
Fighting Skill: Mastered; Veteran of many metahuman battles
Resources:

Fairly small, given her length of service and breadth of experience, but she has a good amount in savings, and ready assistance from a number of old compatriots should she need it.

Weaknesses: Exposure to more than 1mSv/h radiation (the equivalent of a high radiation area in a nuclear plant) shuts down all of Leanna's powers, including her enhanced strength and toughness, until she has been outside of it for at least an hour, at which point they come back gradually over the course of three hours.

While she is supernaturally tough, anyone with a comparable strength to hers can knock her around pretty well. Gunshots still hurt her, though not as much as they might a normal human. Inside her skull, her brain is as vulnerable as anyone else's, so concussions are a real danger. Her bones are definitely capable of breaking, burns can happen from anything higher than a few hundred degrees C, and she is still as vulnerable as a normal person to cold, electricity, asphyxiation, pressure, starvation, and poisons.

Some of her previous injuries have left her with weak spots, including her spine, her left hip, both shoulders, her neck, and a worrisome chronic migraine problem. These act up even worse in combat.

Supporting Characters:
Ambrose Smith, MD: A doctor in Syracuse who knows about Blacklight's past, in order to better understand how to treat any issues.

Rebecca and Henry Young: Leanna's parents, both knowing of her powers and very relieved to see her retired. Also extremely proud of her.

She did have contacts at STRIKE, but they have all been killed.

Springheel: A speedster Blacklight has worked with on several occasions, and who stops by to visit regularly.

Denier: A man with incredible gravity and forcefield powers who specialises in area control during fights. Also stops by regularly to visit.

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