Nib

Phosphoros

Hakim listened as the others gathered chatted on about this wizard and the gems they were to gather. All the while, though, he kept his eye on the cloaked man near the back. This was his nature, to spot threats and keep an eye on them; supposed threats anyway. The cloaked man had simply put his hand up his sleeve, but Hakim knew of the Mennon and their practice of hiding chakram up their loose hanging sleeves. His eyes darted from the man at the sound of the disturbance between the barely clothed woman and one of the Baccumese men. They were bickering over the gem it seemed. It ended with the Baccumese man backing after jabbing at the woman’s side and putting his back to the wall of the tavern. As he reached his hand behind his back, Hakim repositioned himself so as to be able to keep both the cloaked man and the Baccumese on the wall in his view.

What a strange situation he had wandered into. The tension in this group was almost palpable. It only got worse when the sounds of battle reached them on the inner streets of the town. It would seem the Kotharan forces had broken through. The one-armed man led them through the town toward the stables. Hakim followed near the back, his hand still firmly gripping his sword and his eyes darting from side to side. The streets around them were clear for the most part, but the sounds of chaos erupted from behind the group. They reached the stables safely, but just as they arrived a group of Kotharan hoplites rounded the corner of the building. The old veteran at the lead shouted back to them about having no choice but to fight. Taking in the opposition and the area they stood, Hakim dashed to the side toward the stables. A moment later, there was a sound like thunder, and a building across the way burst apart as an elephant rushed through the street. Wood splinters flew, a hoplite was crushed beneath its massive foot, and their formation was destroyed.

Clouds of dust kicked up from the charge hung over the field, and Hakim used them to move about. From the dust came the head of a spear, but Hakim was just able to spin away from the attack. Following the spearhead, a hoplite in bronze armor emerged from the dust cloud. He fell into a defensive stance with his shield forward and his spear leveled. The two stared each other down for a moment, and then in an instant the hoplite struck with his spear. Hakim ducked out of the way and rushed forward. He got in close and swung his sword down at the hoplite’s weapon hand. As his sword sank into the exposed flesh near the wrist, the Kotharan dropped his spear to the dirt. Hakim kicked it away and surged forward again, and just as he would have collided with the shield he spun and brought his shorter sword from his its sheath. The smaller blade slashed across back of the hoplite’s leg. With a shout of pain he fell to the ground at Hakim’s feet. In the next instant, Hakim’s longer blade flashed across the area of exposed neck just under the warrior’s helmet, and his life was no more.

With his foe dealt with Hakim spun around and watched as the others he found himself with engaged the hoplites. They seemed to hold their own well for the most part, but the cloaked man from before was staring down two on his own. Hakim moved to help him in the midst of the fray, but as he did he watched the Roshad woman launch a full-sized spear at one of the hoplites. It struck him and sent him sprawling across the dirt, but he didn’t stay down. Slowly, he clambered back to his feet and began looking for his dropped weapon and shield. Before he could find either, Hakim was upon him with a slash from his sword. The long, thin curved blade sunk into the warrior’s throat and left a gaping wound there. Blood splashed across the dirt as Hakim kicked the body over and swung his sword to clear the excess blood from its blade.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Got a post up. Not that happy with it, but I got it up in time.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

The winds held her in their grasp high above the ocean. All around the winds swirled and churned, pulling the ocean with them. Lightning struck and illuminated the massive funnel as it swirled onward toward the coast of Florida. All the while, the young woman floated in the center of it all, curled up in a ball as if sleeping peacefully, her pure white hair whipping about her. But, how did she get here? She was sleeping in her safehouse, hidden and safe, or at least she had thought she was. It was fuzzy, but she thought she remembered a woman with blue skin… The tempest surged through her very core, and she lost herself to the storm as it raged. She was the storm, the girl no longer mattered. The very winds were hers to command, the weather was at her beck and call.

On the coast, police officers and the National Guard directed the people as quickly and best as they could. The evacuation wasn’t happening quickly enough, but how could it when this storm just appeared? The traffik moved slowly, backed up clear down several streets. There was barely enough room for the squad cars to make it by. Rain pelted windows, and the winds pulled up loose debris and blew it about. In the midst of the chaos, a group of costumed individuals appeared out of nowhere. A brick fell to the ground between them all.

”Hey! Watch it! Yeesh! Teleport you all here, and this is the thanks I get, a piece a’ me just dropped on the ground like some normal brick from some normal street."

”Sorry, buddy. I got ya.”

Beast Boy bent and picked up the fallen, dusting it off carefully. He tucked it into a handy pouch on the belt of his black and white costume. The silver-haired, broad-shouldered form of Max Eisenhardt stepped forward, dressed in his own costume of red and purple with armored patches and a matching helmet. The wind caught hold of his cape and pulled it along behind him.

”We need to find who’s causing this storm and subdue them.”

”Shouldn’t we focus on helping the people… father,” Quicksilver glowered at his father as he spoke.

”We would never get this many people evacuated quickly enough. The best way to help them is to stop whoever’s controlling this storm.”

”Yes, but if this escalates we need to be certain those people are at least somewhere safer than on the street!”

The others present looked on at the bickering father and son awkwardly. Beast Boy shifted uncomfortably, scratching the back of his head. Magneto opened his mouth to protest but seemed to think better of it and closed it again for a moment.

”You’re… right. We’ll split up. Quicksilver, take Beast Boy and Miss Marvel. Cyclops, Jubilee, and Terra, you go together. Scout the area and start ushering people to the nearest safe locations.”

He was still ordering the team and Pietro around! He was supposed to be the leader of the Field Team, yet here his father was. He recognized the need for caution, but he also saw the impossibility for him to grow so long as he remained under his father’s shadow.

”And, what will you be doing?”

”I’ll be above and try to figure out who summoned this storm.”

”I can help with that!”

Beast Boy shifted form into a green-feathered royal albatross and flapped his wings.

”No, Gar - uh, Beast Boy. The winds are too strong for you to remain stable in the air. My powers will allow me to anchor myself with nearby metal and remain stable.”

The bird shifted back into Beast Boy, who nodded. With a nod of his own, Magneto floated above them into the storm winds. He reached out with the fine tuned sense he spent years training and felt the metal all around him. He pushed on the source beneath while simultaneously reaching out all around him and stabilizing himself against the harsh wind. Repeating this pattern was second nature to him at this point as he flew through the air toward the hurricane. As his form shrank into the distance and was swallowed by the heavy rain, Quicksilver scoffed as he secured his goggles and turned to the rest of the team.

”Well, you heard him… Let’s go.”

In a blur, he sped off up the alley and down the street, followed by Beast Boy in the form of a dog, and Miss Marvel levitating herself just barely off the ground. Cyclops, Jubilee, and Terra sped off in the opposite direction.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Put me down as being opposed to the second character idea – and I mean, no ifs, no buts, fully opposed.

I don't think as a community that we've shown we can support games while splitting our attention across multiple characters. In fact, all of the evidence up to this point has shown the exact opposite. I don't think it's worth endangering what we have here – a formula that is working – to indulge secondary ideas people have that they aren't committed to enough to drop their primary characters to pursue.

@Morden Man

I'm also opposed to it. I know I took on a whole team, but even before in these games when I took on two singular characters my attention was too split to focus on a story and actually post.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Working on a post now. I'm going to do my best to get it posted tonight.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Master Bruce I will try to get something up soon. No promises though, as I had to take my girlfriend's brother to his appointment today and will have to drive him home (about an hour from me) later on. I'll try to start on something today and work on and hopefully post it Friday when I'm off work next.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Lord Wraith thank you for the nomination. Means a lot.

I am also guilty of being way behind on the IC (and OOC), but I'm making my way through it.

Phosphoros

The river trickled off to his left, flowing its way onward as it always had and always would until an outside force acted upon it. He had to be like the river and continue moving forward despite what he had done. Why had he done it though? Why had he killed the other Hands? How did that old man break through the careful yet sturdy walls the Leader had erected in his mind? It was though he had hypnotized and entranced Hakim during that fateful meeting. The chain dangled from his fingers, decorated with a symbol of each god worshipped across the Cradle. With a growl, he threw the chain from him suddenly. It arced into the air and caught a ray of sunlight before tumbling into the dirt on the embankment. The soft earth beneath slid away, and it tumbled down the bank toward the flowing river. Hakim shot his bandage-wrapped hand out and caught the chain before it touched the water, and with a sigh placed it back around his neck. How ridiculous, snatching the necklace back after tossing it away. How did such a silly trinket have such a sway on him?

Shaking his head, Hakim moved onward. He was still in the heart of Silesia but had managed to cover a fair amount of ground away from his tribe. In that time, his crimes may still not have been discovered. It may be some time yet before the Leader knew he had lost five Hands from his service. For the time being, he followed the rivers away from his home. No, not from his home. He had no home. The place he fled was a prison; a prison he never really knew he was in. These strange thoughts persisted through his journey, but the swords at his waist were a comforting weight. As he traveled, he saw the beauty his country had to offer. Great vegetation growing along the plentiful rivers and the people cultivating such greatness. At times, he would have to either cross the river or divert his path to wrap around it. These obstacles slowed his speed but didn’t impede him too much.

Days laters, Hakim found himself snaking along a winding river on the edge of Silesia and branching off from it to make his way around another that ran a ways to the east. He followed toward the east for days. It was during this leg of his travel that he ran into another obstacle. Along a lonely road, he glanced a figure in the distance. As he neared, he noticed other figures flanking it. They shuffled and moved to meet him in the road, spanning across the dirt path so as to block his way. They carried curved swords and kept their faces obscured behind head wraps much like Hakim. From behind the three blocking the way, he heard brush rustling and turned to see another holding a shortbow with an arrow nocked and aimed toward him. He stopped in his tracks a few feet from them and could now see the two women. One looked to be in her middle years, and the other looked as though she were barely old enough to birth children. Near them, on the side of the path, lay the body of a man with his throat cut open and spilling red all across the dirt. His face still showed his last moments of horror.

Without a word, the three surged forward, no doubt eager for another kill and to eliminate any witness to their crime. As they moved, their archer let loose, and an arrow flew over their heads straight at Hakim. He dropped his satchel and bedroll to the ground as he moved to the side and out of the way of the arrow. In the same movement, his swords were free, and he was rushing forward. One sword was shorter than the other, but both blades were curved and thin. The thinner was held in his offhand in a reverse grip. This was used to block the first blow from the highwaymen and push it from him and he spun around the blow of another. They continued to swing their blades, but their attacks only struck open air as Hakim spun amongst them and eventually positioned himself between them and the women. The wraps up his right arm fell away as he came to a stop; apparently one of the blades had just barely caught the wraps. As it fell away, his attackers saw the intricate tattoos covering his right hand, and their eyes grew wide with shock. They knew what the markings meant and just who, or rather what, they were dealing with. The bandits looked hesitant now, on the verge of dropping their blades, but it was too late now. The archer had waited for a clear shot and let loose with another arrow, having not seen the tattoo.

In a surge, Hakim launched himself at the bandits, out stripping the arrow with his speed. The arrow struck the dirt behind his foot as he moved. In a flurry, he spun amongst the bandits again, but this time he was on the attack. His blades bit into flesh and cut deep, staining the dirt beneath the bandits as well as their clothing red. Each of the three fell with multiple slash across their chest and neck, leaving only the archer. Blood pooled at his feet and dripped from the tips of both his blades as he turned to face the remaining bandit. His hands shook as he pulled the bow up again and nocked an arrow with difficulty before letting it fly. Hakim knocked it from the air with his shorter sword easily before moving into the brush in a burst of speed. Another arrow flew at him, but he avoided it and closed the gap before another could be fired. In a flash, Hakim brought the longer sword down across the archer’s chest and left a deep gash in its wake.

The women watched as one by one the bandits all fell to this stranger’s blade and as he bent over the archer’s body for a moment before turning and walking toward them.

”Take what you can and move on from this place.”

That was all he said before moving onward down the path and away from them.

___________

He had lost track of time along the way, but he had finally rounded the river some days ago. Until now, he had done what he could to avoid major settlements, but he was outside of Silesia. Between that and his noticeably dwindling supplies, Hakim decided to make his way into a settlement. This town, however, was an unfortunate choice, as it was only a short distance from a mounting skirmish between Mennon and Kothar soldiers. Men fought and died, each one fighting for their homeland and each believing they fought for what was right and were killing enemies of that right. The town itself was mostly deserted. Each building he passed appeared empty, but as he ventured deeper he came across a small gathering of people. An elderly man sat before them with his remaining arm. He spoke of a sorcerer seeking out keys to unlock the power of the ancients.

Hakim stopped and listened, leaning into a nearby wall and found himself agreeing the Baccumese man’s idea. If this sorcerer needed all of the keys, why could they not simply destroy one of them? Though, when the old man handed the gem over and challenged the man to destroy it, he could see it would not be so simple. If it couldn’t be destroyed then couldn’t they at least hide one of these gems away and protect it from the sorcerer? How quickly Hakim had found himself wrapped up in this plot after having just wandered into their midst. He caught himself toying with the chain around his neck. What strange circumstances and strange company he had already found himself in after leaving Silesia behind. He glanced around the gathering, taking in the three barely clad Baccumese, the Roshad female toting her own weapon, the scarred Kothar man, and the older Mennon sitting at the back of the group. He drew Hakim’s attention currently as he watched his hand disappear up his sleeve. His own hand found the hilt of his longer sword out of instinct.

Phosphoros

Character Sheet

Hakim

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Sex: Male

Place of Origin: Silesia

Appearance: Hakim is an olive-skinned man standing at five feet and nine inches. He is a wiry man with toned muscles hidden beneath his layers of simple garb designed for travel. As such, he is easily dismissed and underestimated. Bandages wrapped up to his forearms cover an intricate tattoo across his right hand. He has a collection of scars across his arms, torso, and some even on his face from his years of training. Hakim’s face has sharp, hawkish features with a nose to match. He can usually be seen with a layer of dark stubble across his cheeks and jawline. Thick dark eyebrows rest over a pair of bright golden eyes with an unnerving feeling they are looking right through you. To stave off the sun, Hakim is known to obscure his features with a set of wraps. Beneath these wraps, his dark hair falls just short of his shoulders in a mess of curls.

Psyche: At his core, Hakim is a simple man. He was once content to sit idle and be someone’s blade, but he has recently broken away from that life and struggles to see himself as more than just a tool. He has been described as harsh and quiet. He is rarely known to speak, and when he does it is simplistic, blunt ideas that he shares. Philosophy and scholarship are completely foreign ideas to him, and one time he thought them to be things that only further complicated matters at hand. Recently, however, he has been shown how valuable they can be, and he struggles too with trying to learn new ideas.

Skills: Through years of training, Hakim has developed a range of abilities. He has become a near-master swordsman in the use of the two swords strapped to his waist. Though he is not a master by any means, Hakim is able to hold his own in hand-to-hand combat. Hakim is able to move about unseen and unheard when necessary. When fighting, he relies more upon his agility and chooses to forgo wearing heavier armor.

Equipment: Hakim’s main pieces of equipment are his swords with their long, curved blades fastened to his belt. Other than his weapons, Hakim carries simple travel rations, spare clothing, tools to care for his blades, and simple medicinal supplies all in a leather satchel slung over his shoulder with a bedroll made of horsehide strapped over it.

Bio: From an early age, Hakim’s life was rife with hardships; both parents died when he was barely seven years of age. After their deaths, he was left to fend for himself. To survive, he became like a feral animal, shrinking away from people and stealing scraps whenever he could, from whoever he could. Hakim became no stranger to beatings, and he went without food more than a few times. Many times while living on the streets Hakim was forced to fight others living like him. All the hardships of the street taught him to trust no one and do whatever he had to in order to survive. For years, he struggled and fought to survive until he and other children from the street were rounded up by the tribe leader’s men and were taken to a space of newly constructed barracks. The leader himself met them there and told them they would have a home and be fed, but they would have to earn it. For that first night they were all permitted to eat and sleep in the assemblage of tents erected for them. The beds and food provided were comfortable and feeling, but still the gathered children were on edge; they either broke off into groups of familiar faces or by themselves.

After that first night, the tribe leader returned with his man and showed the children how they would earn their food and bed. From then on, the leader’s men subjected the children to harsh training to mold them into blades for the leader’s use. Their training began with running them ragged with laboring tasks. The training slowly moved into training the children to fight with their hands against armed opponents. The division amongst the children grew as the training wore on, with several groups of the children attempting to gain power and influence over the others. This resulted in several fights, which the soldiers in charge of training did nothing to quell. They encouraged this behavior for a time, but eventually as the training grew more harsh and the soldiers began actually breaking the children down they began to punish any sort of disobedience severely. To further break the children, they began pitting them against one another and would force them even to go so far as to kill one another.

By the end of their training, the children had been broken down to the point of thinking of themselves as blades to be pointed. To show this, each was marked by an intricate tattoo, resembling a henna, across their right hand. For years, Hakim worked as one of these marked assassins for his tribe leader. He was as close to feeling content in this life as one could be after enduring what he did. He carried out his orders and silenced those who needed to be silenced, until he was sent to end the life of an elderly philosopher who spoke out against the tribe leader. Hakim paid him a visit under the cloak of night and found he was also a religious radical and adhered to ideals both of Ill’llii as well as other gods worshipped and spoken about throughout the Cradle. This alone was grounds to kill the man upon, especially on top of how outspoken he was against the tribe leader. Something stayed Hakim’s blade though, some strange sense of curiosity for the first time in a long time. Instead, he spoke with the man, and he told Hakim of other gods and philosophies and theories of how everything could traced back with a small singular strand of familiarity and of how much bigger a place the world was than their tribe’s home and even the Cradle.

Though the ideas largely flew over his head, he was fascinated and wanted to see more than what he had been told and led to believe. He returned to his leader and told him the radical had fled and was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, the leader was not a man to be tested ot to let grudges go easily. He sent Hakim and several other Hands to hunt this man on the road. Being trained as they were, they quickly caught up to him. When they moved in for the kill something in Hakim snapped, and before he fully realized what he was doing his blades were drawn and slashing through two of the four sent with him. The remaining did not fall as easily, and before he could dispose of them both they had managed to deliver a fatal wound to the radical. Injured himself, Hakim held the man as he died. His departing wisdom was to tell Hakim to travel, to learn, and hopefully to come to think of himself as more than a weapon to be used by another. As he breathed his last, he gifted Hakim a chain decorated with the symbols of gods worshipped all over the Cradle. Taking what he could from the dead around him, Hakim left his old life behind and struck out on the road.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Sep I'm also enjoying FemFlash. I had just finished reading a Superman post before hopping over here. I'm game for meet ups. Maybe someone can meet the X-Force after they handle that storm.