Sir Lurksalot

DC Unlimited

A Shit-Magnet of the Highest Order

Player Name:
Sir Lurksalot

Primary Character:
Champion... eventually.

Secret Identity:
Duncan MacAodhan

Status:
Solo, though that'll probably change with time

Age:
22

City:
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Day Job:
Diesel Mechanic at a local shipyard

Powers:
Immense Physical Prowess- Duncan is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really goddamn strong... and fast... and pretty tough to boot; able to match the physical feats of even Kryptonians under a yellow sun, though he lacks all the more fancy bits such as flight, crazy eye-lasers and the tactile telekinesis necessary to lift massive objects and not have them shatter under their own weight.

On paper, this makes him an absolute nightmare of an opponent to square off against. In practice, well...

As a guy who spends almost every hour of every day trying his damnedest to hide his abilities, he's never really tested what he can actually do with them. As such, he has no real idea what he's capable of, what his limits are or if he even has any, only the knowledge that if he does throw hands at the average person for whatever reason, they are most definitely going to die in the most gruesomely spectacular explosion of gore imaginable... and that knowledge alone is enough to make him stuff his hands in his pockets and seclude himself in a corner for most social gatherings.

Weaknesses:
While Duncan possesses Kryptonian levels of physical ability, he is still very much human; He can't fly, he still needs to breathe, possesses no form of crazy eye-lasers or freezing breath and can't survive solely off sunlight. As such, though his physiology makes him all but invulnerable to physical attacks, he is still vulnerable to poison, high voltage, or a good old fashioned drowning (or being strangled or thrown into space, depending on the opponent).

There's also the matter of just how much restraint Duncan has to exercise in his daily life. It takes an awful lot of control and effort to throw a punch effectively when you know that if you put just a teensy bit too much 'oomph!' into it, you will undoubtedly turn the other guy into scattered bits of hamburger meat. Add to that, his increasingly worrying dependence on alcohol, a pack-a-day habit, no small amount of unstated, harshly surpressed self-loathing and the fact that he hasn't had to really exercise or physically exert himself in any way since he was a teenager and we find ourselves with the unusual paradox of a man who could arm-wrestle with god-like aliens being literally as out of shape and weak as he is capable of being.

...And that's not even getting into the fact that, as previously stated, he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

Skills:
Savvy Mechanic- As a guy who grew up tinkering with cars, machines and the occasional boat in his Grandpa's shop, Duncan got... well, actually pretty damned good at it. If it's big, heavy and full of a bunch of moving bits, Duncan can probably figure out how it works and how to keep it doing so.

Handyman- Though Duncan can't really claim to be anything like a certified carpenter or plumber, he is pretty adept at fixing random things around the house.

Surprisingly Good Cook- May very well be his actual superpower.

Pure Stubbornness- He is his granddaddy's boy, after all...

Appearance:
To read what Duncan is physically capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles and a jawline chiseled from granite... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to what immediately comes to mind when you think 'Superhuman', he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'6" on a good day and lacking the bulging, musclebound body of proper superheroes in favour of a lean, though dense and chiseled physique closer to that of a Olympic runner, if anything, though his broad shoulders and some stubborn stains of grease on his hands make a fairly decent indicator of his blue-collar background, to which he also owes the habit of shaving his brown hair into a buzzcut, to cut deal with the heat in his workplace.

Lacking much in the way of an actual superhero costume (again, actively trying not to be a Superhero), when he does feel the need to nut up and do something somewhat heroic, Duncan simply throws on his workboots, gloves, jeans and a denim jacket over either some plain wifebeater or t-shirt, topping it all off by tying a simple black rag over his face, leaving only his hazel eyes and a bit of skin exposed and putting on an old ballcap he got from some local minor-league sports team or another.

BRIEF Bio:
Despite what one might might assume when encountering literally anyone even remotely associated with superpowers and tights, Duncan's tale is... rather mundane. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Fisherman for a father and a mother who ran a local diner, the boy in question up grew extraordinarily normally; playing videogames, staying at his grandparents' when his mom was busy at the shop and his dad was out at sea and helping his granddad out in the garage fixing cars and the occasional boat.

And then one day when he was fifteen, he got hit by a truck.

After about a good ten seconds of screaming and another thirty spent wondering why he wasn't dead, he extricated himself from the big-rig's engine-block that had wrapped around both him and the streetlight he'd been leaning against only to find that not only was he not dead, he was perfectly intact. All things considered, that's some pretty heavy shit to lay on a fifteen year old. So it's not all that surprising that when the (very) drunk trucker half staggered, half fell out of his truck at the sight of him, and sirens began echoing in the distance, the kid ran the hell out of there. A few days of trial, error and a lot of Wikipedia later, and the boy had a pretty good idea what all that was about: He was a Metahuman, a one-in-a-million carrier of a superhuman gene that may or may not activate under extreme stress (Like, for instance, getting hit by a truck while waiting for the bus). Frankly, it sounded a lot like a bunch of pseudo-science crap you'd find in an old comic book, but lacking any other explanation for his sudden... talents... it was one he'd have to accept.

Along with the many quietly uncomfortable, life-changing implications that went with it.

Now, usually, when someone finds out they've got crazy superpowers, things usually go in one of two predictable ways; one, they become a spandex-clad boy-scout that dedicates every moment of every day to having the brightest smile, rescuing cats from trees and giving lectures about the dangers of "The Reefer" and sex before marriage or two; going full ham, burning orphanages, kicking puppies and generally being real goddamn edgy just for the sake of it. But to his credit, when the young lad began to realize that he could easily snap a human being like a twig if he didn't exercise absolute restraint at all times, he quickly chose the rarely considered, oft-forgotten third option.

"Yeah... No. Fuck this."

And so, despite the call to adventure literally screaming directly into his ears, Duncan tried his best to carry on as normally as he could- getting average grades, shoveling his grandparents' driveway in the wintertime, wearily trying and failing several times to find a way to have a meaningful relationship despite his 'gifts' and working through his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic at the local shipyard after highschool. Even while the distance and rigid self-control his situation necessitated made him a pariah and the subject of scorn and open mockery from a rapidly shrinking circle of friends, something he would never admit would lead him quite heavily to the drink when he was alone with his thoughts.

To his credit though, his dogged determination not to be a Caped Crusader seems to be working; he has a pretty decent job, making Journeyman wages, his uncle set him up with a pretty decent place in a decommissioned lighthouse just outside of town and he still gets to hang out with his (very Gaelic) grandpa after work most days, tinkering in his garage, watching the game or just sitting around trading the kind of wit that makes his (very Acadian, very Catholic) grandma stifle a laugh and pretend to be offended. Often strategically, so as to drown out his dad's groaning something along the lines of "Oh God, there's two of them..." and his mum's (un)subtle attempts to pry about when exactly he's gonna meet a damned girl, already.

It's not perfect, and there are some days when Duncan finds himself down, jaded and perilously alone with the drink... but it is a good life, all in all. He has a roof over his head, he has satisfying work and most importantly, he has a family that loves him. What more could a guy like him really ask for?

As it turns out, destiny has a few answers to that question.

And he is not gonna like most of them.

Story Arcs:

Act I: "The Crucible" (Semi-open)

"A Day of Infamy"

It's a completely mundane and average night in Halifax, and Duncan is just about wrapping up his shift at the Yard, putting life back into the engine of an old tug that probably should've been pulled apart for scrap when his dad was his age. Little does he realize as he sits, quietly scrubbing at an old fuel line with a length of pipe-cleaner, that something particularly nasty is headed his way in a shipping container on a freighter coming into his yard to unload.

...And that his 'normal' life is about to go right to shit.

"The Deluge" (Open)

Understandably disturbed by the idea that something like... whatever the hell that was in Halifax has been sitting under his nose for God knows how long, Luthor quickly surmises that he cannot afford to ignore this new potential threat from the north. Thus, he sends every villainous Tom, Dick and Harry he can spare up the coast and across the border to raise hell, gather intel and hopefully put this so-called 'Hero of Halifax' down before it can become a problem... leaving Duncan scrambling to deal with this new onslaught of supercrime bubbling up in his hometown and having to (begrudgingly) learn the hard way how to do this 'Hero' thing, even as he frantically claws to keep a hold of the steadily fading remnants of his 'normal' life with desperate, bleeding fingertips.

The fact that he's all over the media, and they're starting to call him things like the 'Lion of Nova Scotia' and 'Champion' is not goddamn helping.

"Every Dog has it's Day" (Open)

A new and confounding development seems to have followed our hapless Totally-Not-a-Hero home after the events of what local news is now referring to as "The Deluge"... in the most hilariously literal way imaginable-

A dog. And it refuses to leave.

Having developed something of an involuntary aversion to pets, knowing that he would most definitely accidentally turn them into paste if he pet (or, God forbid, cuddled) one with the same amount of love and meaning others do but being unwilling to kick the poor thing out into the cold, Duncan quickly finds himself in the ludicrous position of living with an extraordinarily affectionate pooch he is absolutely terrified of touching in any way.

A pooch that is apparently fast enough to show up at his work the instant he goes on break. And smart enough to figure out exactly when that is. And how to open doors. And possesses the uncanny ability to sneak into Duncan's bed when he's passed out and not fucking die due to his unconscious sleep-cuddling...

...And also might have something to do with the Tameranean space pirate hovering in low orbit over the Earth in her warship loaded with murderous aliens with all guns pointed down threatening to glass the entire east coast of North America if she doesn't get her prized, one-of-a-kind attack dog back.

Just maybe.

Supporting Characters:
Malcolm MacAodhan- Duncan's grandfather, purveyor of off-side, dry witticisms and the source of everything his grandson knows. Not exactly tall, but still built like a brick shithouse, even in his old age and absolutely covered in scars from his time in the war, old Man MacAodhan is an often crude, sarcastic old codger who balances being clever in the worst possible way with an increasingly old-fashioned style of manhood made up of equal parts honesty, stubbornness and very thinly concealed compassion.

Mari MacAodhan- Duncan's grandma, an Acadian woman of Breton stock possessing an almost impossible reserve of patience, the ability to find humour in just about anything and one hell of a singing voice, even in her advanced age; having an adorably uncanny habit of quietly humming or singing to herself as she goes about doing... well, just about anything, really. Now of course, when asked why such an adorably sweet old lady has such prolific scars around her knuckles and more noticeably, a rather large one stemming from her lips half-way up her left check, she'll just laugh it off and say call them mementos from her much more "Rowdy" youth... though that really only provides more questions than answers.

Secondary Character:
N/A

Additional Notes:

DC Unlimited iCheck

A work in progress for now, I really gotta hit the sack.

A Shit-Magnet of the Highest Order

Player Name:
Sir Lurksalot

Primary Character:
Champion... eventually.

Secret Identity:
Duncan MacAodhan

Status:
Solo, though that'll probably change with time

Age:
22

City:
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Day Job:
Diesel Mechanic at a local shipyard

Powers:
Immense Physical Prowess- Duncan is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really goddamn strong... and fast... and pretty tough to boot; able to match the physical feats of even Kryptonians under a yellow sun, though he lacks all the more fancy bits such as flight, crazy eye-lasers and the tactile telekinesis necessary to lift massive objects and not have them shatter under their own weight.

On paper, this makes him an absolute nightmare of an opponent to square off against. In practice, well...

As a guy who spends almost every hour of every day trying his damnedest to hide his abilities, he's never really tested what he can actually do with them. As such, he has no real idea what he's capable of, what his limits are or if he even has any, only the knowledge that if he does throw hands at the average person for whatever reason, they are most definitely going to die in the most gruesomely spectacular explosion of gore imaginable... and that knowledge alone is enough to make him stuff his hands in his pockets and seclude himself in a corner for most social gatherings.

Weaknesses:
While Duncan possesses Kryptonian levels of physical ability, he is still very much human; He can't fly, he still needs to breathe, possesses no form of crazy eye-lasers or freezing breath and can't survive solely off sunlight. As such, though his physiology makes him all but invulnerable to physical attacks, he is still vulnerable to poison, high voltage, or a good old fashioned drowning (or being strangled or thrown into space, depending on the opponent).

There's also the matter of just how much restraint Duncan has to exercise in his daily life. It takes an awful lot of control and effort to throw a punch effectively when you know that if you put just a teensy bit too much 'oomph!' into it, you will undoubtedly turn the other guy into scattered bits of hamburger meat. Add to that, his increasingly worrying dependence on alcohol, a pack-a-day habit, no small amount of unstated, harshly surpressed self-loathing and the fact that he hasn't had to really exercise or physically exert himself in any way since he was a teenager and we find ourselves with the unusual paradox of a man who could arm-wrestle with god-like aliens being literally as out of shape and weak as he is capable of being.

...And that's not even getting into the fact that, as previously stated, he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

Skills:


Appearance:
To read what Duncan is physically capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles and a jawline chiseled from granite... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to what immediately comes to mind when you think 'Superhuman', he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'6" on a good day and lacking the bulging, musclebound body of proper superheroes in favour of a lean, though dense and chiseled physique closer to that of a Olympic runner, if anything, though his broad shoulders and some stubborn stains of grease on his hands make a fairly decent indicator of his blue-collar background, to which he also owes the habit of shaving his brown hair into a buzzcut, to cut deal with the heat in his workplace.

Lacking much in the way of an actual superhero costume (again, actively trying not to be a Superhero), when he does feel the need to nut up and do something somewhat heroic, Duncan simply throws on his workboots, gloves, jeans and a denim jacket over either some plain wifebeater or t-shirt, topping it all off by tying a simple black rag over his face, leaving only his hazel eyes and a bit of skin exposed and putting on an old ballcap he got from some local minor-league sports team or another.

BRIEF Bio:
Despite what one might might assume when encountering literally anyone even remotely associated with superpowers and tights, Duncan's tale is... rather mundane. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Fisherman for a father and a mother who ran a local diner, the boy in question up grew extraordinarily normally; playing videogames, staying at his grandparents' when his mom was busy at the shop and his dad was out at sea and helping his granddad out in the garage fixing cars and the occasional boat.

And then one day when he was fifteen, he got hit by a truck.

After about a good ten seconds of screaming and another thirty spent wondering why he wasn't dead, he extricated himself from the big-rig's engine-block that had wrapped around both him and the streetlight he'd been leaning against only to find that not only was he not dead, he was perfectly intact. All things considered, that's some pretty heavy shit to lay on a fifteen year old. So it's not all that surprising that when the (very) drunk trucker half staggered, half fell out of his truck at the sight of him, and sirens began echoing in the distance, the kid ran the hell out of there. A few days of trial, error and a lot of Wikipedia later, and the boy had a pretty good idea what all that was about: He was a Metahuman, a one-in-a-million carrier of a superhuman gene that may or may not activate under extreme stress (Like, for instance, getting hit by a truck while waiting for the bus). Frankly, it sounded a lot like a bunch of pseudo-science crap you'd find in an old comic book, but lacking any other explanation for his sudden... talents... it was one he'd have to accept.

Along with the many quietly uncomfortable, life-changing implications that went with it.

Now, usually, when someone finds out they've got crazy superpowers, things usually go in one of two predictable ways; one, they become a spandex-clad boy-scout that dedicates every moment of every day to having the brightest smile, rescuing cats from trees and giving lectures about the dangers of "The Reefer" and sex before marriage or two; going full ham, burning orphanages, kicking puppies and generally being real goddamn edgy just for the sake of it. But to his credit, when the young lad began to realize that he could easily snap a human being like a twig if he didn't exercise absolute restraint at all times, he quickly chose the rarely considered, oft-forgotten third option.

"Yeah... No. Fuck this."

And so, despite the call to adventure literally screaming directly into his ears, Duncan tried his best to carry on as normally as he could- getting average grades, shoveling his grandparents' driveway in the wintertime, wearily trying and failing several times to find a way to have a meaningful relationship despite his 'gifts' and working through his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic at the local shipyard after highschool. Even while the distance and rigid self-control his situation necessitated made him a pariah and the subject of scorn and open mockery from a rapidly shrinking circle of friends, something he would never admit would lead him quite heavily to the drink when he was alone with his thoughts.

To his credit though, his dogged determination not to be a Caped Crusader seems to be working; he has a pretty decent job, making Journeyman wages, his uncle set him up with a pretty decent place in a decommissioned lighthouse just outside of town and he still gets to hang out with his (very Gaelic) grandpa after work most days, tinkering in his garage, watching the game or just sitting around trading the kind of wit that makes his (very Acadian, very Catholic) grandma stifle a laugh and pretend to be offended. Often strategically, so as to drown out his dad's groaning something along the lines of "Oh God, there's two of them..." and his mum's (un)subtle attempts to pry about when exactly he's gonna meet a damned girl, already.

It's not perfect, and there are some days when Duncan finds himself down, jaded and perilously alone with the drink... but it is a good life, all in all. He has a roof over his head, he has satisfying work and most importantly, he has a family that loves him. What more could a guy like him really ask for?

As it turns out, destiny has a few answers to that question.

And he is not gonna like many of them.

Story Arcs:
What sort of stories do you see putting your heroes into? For example, here’s what it might look like for Superman...

Supporting Characters:
This is where you’d list anybody of note from your Story Arcs. I’ll continue to use Superman and what’s above as the example…

Secondary Character:
This is simply where you put down who you want as your secondary character be it original, cannon inspired, or reimagined cannon.

Additional Notes:
Anything else you think we should know?

Justice League Unlimited vol. 2

Metropolis:

---

^{January 20th, 2019 – 12:10 pm | Justice League Headquarters - Metro Tower}

She beat the crap out of his coworkers. Tried to kill his friend's daughter. Made a mess of his beloved kitchen and rec room and most damning of all...

Ruined Lunch.

Yeah, Duncan was feeling pretty damned good after having punched the ancient Kryptonian straight in her genetically perfect freakin' face; standing there, fist still smouldering slightly from the force of atmospheric friction from all the Newtonian Laws he'd both broken and vindicated in that one instant.

"Two hours..." The Champion growled ruefully under his breath, shaking the smoke off his hand and looking more than a little irate "...Two hours I spent making that goddamn pie."

This was immediately followed by a slow deliberate breath in and an exhale of much the same fashion; A coping mechanism that had developed in him in the years since he was just a boy who had a fateful meeting with a big goddamn truck- Realizing early on that losing his temper would be a very bad thing with what he had become.

'Let it go, MacAodhan.' The short hero internalized, as he marched back inside to grab his coat, laying amongst what was left of his beloved mahogany table, before throwing it on and charging out the gaping hole he'd left in the wall 'Let it go.'

---

On her knees and crying like a child who lost everything, Solara sat. And in front of her lied Kitsune, unconscious, but clearly alive. The heroic girl had done more than her part, occupying the Kryptonian long enough for others to get outside.
Solara’s shouts of emotional pain quiet all of a sudden. Her tears of ache did not exactly stop, yet lessened. She lowered her hands, wiped her bloody nose and looked down on the girl, who had bested her on a whole new level. Grudge replaced some of the sorrow on the smooth face.

Then a white blur flew past and suddenly Supergirl was holding the sleeping League member. Gently she put her down on the road. Concrete tickled the back of Supergirl’s hands and she almost lowered her guard and became Lara again. It felt good being out in the sun and let it warm her skin once again. It’s generous energy giving her the strength to protect the people she loved so dearly. If only she could share such moments with Solara, and not use its power to defend against her.

Then shouts of fear drew both Kryptonians to look at the Hello Kitty building. Not exactly loud sounds, but neither of them needed such to hear.
“… some kind of sick enhanced individual! A scary mess of a madwoman!” a man said into a phone. Fear cluttered his breathing as Solara eyeballed him.

“You… You don’t even know who I am? You’ve forgotten m-me? After everything I…”
A devilish fury fought with the still present grief and sobbing, and she launched forward. Was then stopped with enough force to crack open the street, had Supergirl not been careful. She swung Solara around and separated the woman's contact with the ground, as she spun her backwards in a controlled throw. A short one, and not exactly meant to hurt, as much as merely put more distance between the civilians and the one threatening them. “Don’t want to fight you,” Supergirl muttered.
Wherever she looked this was the place with most people in it and the spot to stay and defend.
“Get out, everybody!” Supergirl yelled loud enough for even the top floors to notice her. She planted her feet in the pavement, with the sound of steps fleeing the building behind her.
Jimmy approached from the Tower and Supergirl almost allowed herself to smile.

Sometimes being a hero isn’t about punching or moving heavy stuff, sometimes it’s about not moving … not for anything.

---

Traversing big cities was always a pain in the ass for the Champion- Yeah, sure, hypothetically he could just jump to wherever he needed to be, but realistically, well...

He wasn't Supergirl or Shazam. He had momentum to worry about. So, in lieu of crashing through buildings, cars and people like a deranged pinball, the only real option he had was what he was up to right now- Jumping from building to building and cursing vehemently every time he landed just a bit too heavily and broke some brickwork with his foot.

"Aw, fer..." Said vertically-unimpressive Canuck grumbled as his toe ate through the concrete lip at the edge of one of many unfortunate rooftops that would be ruined by the superhuman and his awkward locomotion that day.

Being the strongest man alive kinda sucked sometimes, when every waking moment was a constant, frustrating exercise in restraint.

Pushing that thought from his mind and finally arriving at the place where the Kryptonian had apparently landed (judging by the hot pink dome of light he'd seen earlier), Duncan came to a landing, making a small crater in the paved road and a small line of sheared cement as he came skidding to a stop.

What he found was... not what he expected, to say the least;

Kitsune loudly snoring on the ground.

Solara sobbing uncontrollably.

His teammates gathered around not entirely sure what to do here- not that he'd blame them- It'd been one of those days.

Of course, all of that inaction came to an abrupt halt, as was the norm, when Solara found the strength in all of her grief to stand up and keep swinging. For which she was abruptly thrown on her ass by Supergirl.

'Stupid, stubborn piece of... The Lion ground out internally, as he let out a clearly annoyed breath and his fists clenched... but then unclenched as he took another look.

The aged Kryptonian was not just some insane alien bent on the world's destruction.

She was just... grieving. And lashing out.

A person.

Between the tears running down the weathered Kryptonian's face, the screaming and all the Kryptonian crests before him, on both of the physics-defying women in his vision and painted on the garrish Hello Kitty statues above, something began to click in the back of his head; Something he'd heard a while back-

"...To reach out to those in need and inspire others to do the same. That is life's greatest necessity and its most precious gift."

A long sigh escaped the Champion as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"...Goddammit, Clark."

Calmly walking behind the still-prone, shaking Kryptonian and casting a quick glance Supergirl's way, he finally spoke out loud.

"That's enough, Solara. It's over."

"It's... never over... Mutant..." Said woman rasped as she slowly got to her feet, battered, bloodied but still not giving up as she immediately jumped at him with a clumsy, punch-drunk haymaker "NOT FOR ME!"

There was a loud, sonic crash as the blow connected, and had the Canuck not planted his foot firmly in the ground, he would've clearly gone for a good flight eastward through the city.

As it was, he just... stood there, completely unmoving, hands still in his pockets and face unchanged as his eyes bore holes into the Kryptonian's own, even with her fist still planted upon his brow.

For a moment, Solara just stood there in wide-eyed pause, clearly unsettled by that... before a thunderous shriek of raging defiance escaped her again and she began swinging wildly at his mug once more. To which the Champion responded by... still not moving, or really reacting in any percievable way as consecustive blows of thunderous intensity continued to slam into his face.

Maybe it was the cloud cover from being on the East Coast in the middle of January. Maybe it was something else. But the raging Kryptonian's strikes grew steadily weaker and weaker the more she swung until finally she could swing no more, clutching the front of Champion's open jacket in a death-grip as she stood on shaking legs and sucked in as much oxygen as she could.

"So, Kara Zor-El..." Duncan asked, pausing to wipe a trickle of blood now flowing freely from his nose, even in her weakened state, Solara was still a Kryptonian, after all "Did all this bring your planet back yet?"

His response was an inarticulate shriek as Solara reeled back and slammed her fist directly into his gut, with all the rage and intent she could muster but almost none of the strength she had before.

"Shut. Up. Mutant." The Ancient Kryptonian strained to hiss, still holding onto the shorter man's jacket "You know nothing. of my World!"

An indignant growl escaped him at that.

"I know that whether you like it or not, you are fuly half of all that remains of your people. And as you were so goddamn fond of pointing out the only one who remembers them at their greatest." The Lion of Nova Scotia continued without missing a beat, a sliver of curiously calm anger making it's way into his voice "Why don't you take a look around? Use those superior eyes of yours and see how that great, glorious people of yours are going to be remembered."

That gave the alien pause, as her eyes took on a familiar glow and darted around her, X-ray vision revealing what normal eyes would not; people running for their lives, huddled up in rooms together taking shelter, hearts beating swiftly... afraid. So very afraid.

The anger on her face twisted and melted slightly as some unreadable expression wrenched it's way onto it.

The shaking returned.

"That's right... look at it." Duncan continued, unrelenting in his psychological offensive "All the history, all the progress and greatness of the Golden Age of Krypton, and all that will be remembered of it on this world and any other they encounter in the years to come... will be one raging, rampaging monster."

An icy chill ran up the Kryptonian's spine at those words and she tried to jump away from the man as if bitten, only for his hand to snap out of pocket and hold her right where she was, yanking her forward, even, so he could stare directly into her trembling, panicked face.

"Is that what you want?"

His response was a wheeze... then a sniffle... followed by a high-pitched, nasal sound as Solara did everything in her power to ignore the grief that had bubbled just under the surface after Kitsune's efforts.

"N-No... I... I..."

At that, Duncan's other hand made it's way unto her shoulder, and his tone softened.

"Then let us help you."

That did it, as the dam on Solara's grief finally broke and her legs gave out beneath her, only spared from smacking into the cold cement below her as Champion held her upright in something resembling a hug as she openly wailed into his uniform. Breathing a small sigh of relief and shooting Supergirl a grin and a "We good" thumbs-up, even with his nose bloodied and a small shiner forming around his left eye, where half his domino-mask had been sheared off under Solara's punching, The Lion of Nova Scotia then quickly fished his ear-piece out of his pocket and flicked it on.

"Q, it's Champ. Ya still in the Monitor Room?"

The faceless hero gave a curt reply between hisses of pain, "Yeah Champ, still in the Monitor Room... Sorry I couldn't help out with some bots to keep Solara busy, but I guess it all turned out for the best that I didn't."

"Eh, don't sweat it. It's just been one of those days." Champ mused, grunting slightly as Solara clung to him just a bit harder and began sobbing even louder "But while you're there, would you mind firing a wide-band transmission into space? Towards Saturn, if ya can swing it."

Shifting slightly again, he elaborated.

"The Tameranean Defence Force has a comms buoy orbiting around Titan. Just let Commander Koriand'r of the Third Fleet know that her 'Brother-Duncan' needs a favour."

"... Tameranean Defense Force?" Shaking his head with a laugh, Question sighed. "Damn Duncan, you have friends in the weirdest places." The faceless hero sent the message out following Champion's instructions.

With a small snort and chuckle of his own, Duncan agreed;

"Man, you have no idea..."

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

December 25th, 0232 Hours
Mount Olympus

Ted’s brow furrowed slightly at his cousin’s rather… theatrically blatant threat, glancing back toward Karen with no small amount of concern in his eyes, even as he maintained a stiff upper-lip through it all.

This seemed like a terrible idea, and he was clearly thinking that as his eyes flicked back towards their foe, sitting so smug and chewing the absolute hell out of the scenery on her stolen throne, before finally they knit shut and a weary sigh escaped him.

’Aw, fuck me- Sam’s gonna ream me out for this one...’

”Ya heard the crazy, genocidal lady, Kiddo.” He finally managed to say as he lifted his hands out of his pockets, his skin beginning to peel back once again- though not only on his hands as before, but his face as well. ”...Off ya go.”

Karen looked up at Ted, looking rather shocked that he thought she would be capable of doing such a thing by herself.

But then, the woman on the throne had apparently left them with little alternative in that regard. If either of them attempted to help her, she would surely attack all three of them right then and there.

And given that she felt confident about taking the two of them on, Karen didn’t feel like her contribution would make much of a difference.

Sensing her discomfort, Ted took a moment to give her a small, reassuring grin. Even while the skin on his face was starting to peel off, revealing increasingly hot, ember-like flesh.

”Kid, you just fought your way to the top of Olympus. Even with our help, that’s a first in history.” He snorted away her worries dismissively. ”Don’t worry, you’ll think of something clever- You always do.”

”...Okay,” she frowned up at Ted. ”I’ll um…try and be quick.”

A small chuckle escaped the diminutive Titan at that.

”Take yer time...” He called after her with something resembling confidence. ”...I made it through President King and ‘Nam. This should be a cakewalk.”

Karen had already started heading for the golden doors to her left, only to freeze in place at Ted’s words. She glanced back over her shoulder at the Titan in confusion.

There had been a sense of familiarity about him since he had first arrived, but she hadn’t been able to place her finger on it. Now...it seemed so obvious. That old man back in the alley, when she had first been given the mantle of Wizard...it was him!

...He really wasn’t in any danger back then. Shazam, you rotten liar. Heh.

Sprinting towards the doors again at full speed, Karen slammed her hands against them, forcing them apart. Soon, the teen was through them and out of sight as she dashed down the long hallway behind them.

“Well, then,” Eris finally spoke again, rising to her feet. “Who would like to be the first to obtain their shiny golden ticket straight to Tartarus?”

Still smiling slightly after Karen, Ted’s eyes flicked back to his brother as Eris spoke, finding him looking right back with his arms crossed and a quietly smug look on his face, despite the situation they were in.

”You sure that’s not your kid, Ted?” The older Titan asked one last time, as his massive musculature began to slowly harden and glow, smiling ruefully the whole while.

”Like ya said, Laz...” The younger brother responded with a small chuckle, as his eyes began to pulse a violent, fiery red and the ground began to shake malevolently ”...They’re all my kids.”

And then, to the unimaginable screaming of the very air around them burning and the thunderous, earth-shaking force of two Titanic hearts beating like the drums of war the pair vanished in a massive inferno, obscuring them from view and causing the marble columns of the throneroom to buckle and crack under the combined thermal and percussive force of what was happening.

When it subsided, there was a glowing crater. And in it, stood the Sons of Iapetus, in their true flesh-

Enduring Atlas, Bearer of the Heavens and the personification of overwhelming strength and Prometheus, the Bringer of Fire and former Champion of Mankind.

“Gasp!” Eris clasped her cheeks in mock amazement, before smirking. “I see you two still haven’t lost your penchant for theatrics.”

”Said the girl with the black lipstick and the movie one-liners.” Prometheus retorted mockingly, indicating towards his cousin with his burning hammer. ”Now are we gonna do this or what?”

Eris stepped forward down the golden stairs that preceded her throne. Once she had reached their base, she folded her arms and lifted gently into the air above them. Staring down at the Titans, her black lips parted into a grin.

“Come then, let’s find out if your pathetic existence as a human has dulled that flame of yours!”

Without warning, her dark wings swept forward to encapsulate her slender form. This lasted for only a brief moment, however, for they soon parted with stone-shattering kinetic force. Black feathers rained down at the two deities, and those that struck the golden floor erupted in brief-yet-blinding flashes of light.

While the size of the blasts were not terribly impressive, the concentration of power in each of them was more than enough to harm even the likes of them.

”Kids these days…” Atlas grunted as he dug his foot into the golden floor and ripped a massive chunk of it, large enough to shield both he and his brother, upward and then forward towards his cousin and the massive volley of death headed their way with a thunderous kick from his other foot ”...And what’s the deal with the golden freakin’ everything, anyhow? Isn’t that a bit too much, even for people like us?”

”Zeus’ idea.” Prometheus replied dryly, with a slight click of his tongue as he raised his free hand toward the still-moving ribbon of solid gold and firing what appeared to be the teensiest little spark of a fireball into it, which violently burst outward in an immense explosion of tactically compressed fire-magic, (hopefully) engulfing the rest of the doom-feathers in it’s wake as well giving the wave of moving metal a superheated second kick of momentum ”I wanted to go with marble, seemed a bit less… opulent. But ya know who’s always right...”

Eris calmly raised her arm at the approach of molten metal, backhanding it away as if swatting an annoying fly.

Stretching out her hands towards them following this, her grin grew darker as she spoke; “Rot.”

Pouring from her palms was what could only be described as raw, untempered pestilence and decay, a black miasma that swept over the throne room and threatened to engulf the two deities in a deadly fog.

“You’re both boring me,” Eris said, lulling her head to the side. “At least make our first reunion in millennia interesting!”

”Oh, ya hear that? We’re boring her.” The Firebringer noted with a hint of amusement as he casually hefted his hammer to his shoulder and raised his free hand once again.

”Oh, we can’t have that, can we?” The Heaven-Bearer added with mock thoughtfulness as he rubbed his hands together in a deliberately mocking fashion.

”So… Akkad Maneuver?”

”Akkad Maneuver.”

With that decided, Prometheus clenched his fist shut for a brief second, before snapping it open again as it glowed white hot and unleashed a yet another, even more dense ball of compressed fire straight into the encroaching cloud of agonizing death and the face of the Goddess standing in the middle of it as Atlas reeled his massive arms back and brought them together in a thunderous sonic clap that dwarfed all others he’d done that day by a wide margin and, more importantly, forced a colossal amount of oxygen into the already hyper-dense, explosive ball of fire.

The effect was immediate, as a miniature sun abruptly came into being where Eris stood with an impossibly loud-

BANG!

Which, hopefully, caught her attention at least long enough for her to lose her grip on her magic murder-fog... if it didn’t already dissipate in the leviathan explosion.

The gas Eris had spawned had been instantly burned away by the miniature sun, and no more appeared afterwards. For a time, it was difficult to see what exactly had become of the Goddess of discord, the light of the newly born star obscuring her comparatively miniscule form. Then, the sun began to flash and oscillate violently…

Like water being sucks into a drain, the star began to dim. Soon, it was shrinking, and shrinking fast at that. It was at that point that they were finally able to see the form of Eris again, her mouth pressed against the dying star. After another few moments, what was once a golden orb of stellar power was reduced to a mere white spark, which was quickly consumed as well.

Wiping her mouth with her arm, Eris smiled down at them. “Well, guess I’ll be laying off the Vitamin D supplements until next month. Anything else?”

For a moment after Eris had just swallowed what was essentially a small thermonuclear explosion aimed directly at her face, there was a pregnant pause. Broken only by the slumping of the Firebringer’s shoulders and a small sigh.

”...Yeah, that just figures, dunnit?” He finally said with a weary shake of his head and a slightly annoyed glint to his smoldering eyes.

”Well, c’mon, we both knew it wasn’t gonna be that easy.” Atlas added with a shrug as he popped his knuckles ”So... ’Deep End’ it is, then?”

”Eeeyup.”

With that agreed, Prometheus abruptly snapped his fingers and disappeared in a burst of flame, just as Atlas dug his heel into the golden floor and rocketed forward, his immense strength propelling him with such speed that he seemed to simply vanish in a loud blast as he made the sound-barrier his bitch. Fist cocked low to deliver the mother of all gut-punches as his brother came back into being behind and a little to the side of the Goddess of Discord, already swinging his burning hammer directly at the back of her neck with all of his Titanic might, one thing became perfectly clear-

The Sons of Iapetus weren’t fucking around anymore.

“Uh oh!” Eris gasped when Prometheus vanished, her eyes settling instead on Atlas as he rocketed towards her with likely enough force to shatter the Earth into dust. His brother, too, had now descending on her from the opposite side. It seemed like they were getting serious.

She supposed it was time to return the favor.

Twisting in midair so that they were now closing in on either side of her, she raised a single hand for each of them, closing her eyes as Prometheus’ hammer and Atlas’ fist were respectively stopped dead by her outstretched palms. “Uh oh.”

Gripping both Atlas’ fist and Prometheus’ hammer, she sharply jerked the latter forward and issued him a kick to the stomach with a force that would even make Zeus pale in horror. She then released her hold on the hammer and brought her now free hand up beneath Atlas’ chin in an equally devastating uppercut. “Uh oh…”

A wet sound, as well as a small spatter of blood that resembled molten steel escaped the Firebringer’s mouth as he hurtled backward under the ludicrous force of Eris’s kick, only able to stop his rearward momentum by digging his hammer into the shining floor of the throne room.

’Well... that kinda sucked…’ He groaned internally as he finally slid to a stop, struggling to rise back up and take a knee, even as the combination of his divine nature and the old Curse of Zeus began knitting his thoroughly damaged insides back together. ’Probably should try to avoid any more of those…’

Casting an appraising glance back towards his… deceptively dainty cousin, he somehow found the strength to produce a sound that was honestly trying to be a chuckle, but came out more of a gargle as he spat more glowing onto the floor.

”Well, you’ve clearly been eating your wheaties.” He finally managed with his usual, dry humour as he steadied himself on his hammer ”Ya been hitting the gym recently or what?”

Eris stared down at him with a slight smile.

“If by ‘the gym’, you mean Tartarus, then yes,” she replied. “In fact, I managed to hit it so hard that I dislodged a spark of the Godwave from it.”

Lowering her hand, she rubbed her stomach. “Now it’s in here, granting me power beyond anything you could ever imagine.”

A moment of silence followed that statement, as Prometheus just stared at his cousin in incredulous silence, clearly trying to wrap his head around that one.

”You… ate a piece of the Godwave?” he finally asked, with a tone that strongly suggested that that was perhaps one of the most ludicrous things he’d ever heard in his immortal life. ”...Are you stupid?”

Eris tilted her head in confusion at his remark.

“And whatever is the problem with that? I’ve effectively become a primordial!” She spread her arms, grinning broadly. “The equal of the oldest beings in the universe. I fail to see any error in obtaining such a magnificent power.”

Leaning slightly more on his hammer and cocking his brow, Prometheus didn’t relent.

”You’ve spent millennia living in a massive massive golden palace atop of a massive magic mountain surrounded by the most egotistical and prideful beings that ever existed. And not one of them ever tried it.” The Firebringer explained, almost as though he found himself in the awkward position of having to explain that water is wet. ”Furthermore, in order to actually get it, you had to go to a place where both Cronus, ego personified, and my other brother, the literal God of Arrogance have been left stewing in their ravenous hatred for the rest of the universe since before you were born... and not one of them tried it either.”

Tilting his head slightly, he concluded;

”...You didn’t think there might be a reason for that?”

Eris paused at this, cupping her chin in thought.

A few moments passed between them, the goddess ultimately smiling and offering Prometheus a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. “I imagine they had their reasons… but then, their goals were completely different from my own.”

“I’m not interested in ruling Gaia,” she said, drifting towards the ground. “I’m not even truly interested in ruling Olympus -- it’s just the most effective means to meet my ends. After I defeat you, I’ll allow Cronus to purge Gaia of humanity, so that he can build his new ‘Golden Age’...”

Her lips twisted into a malicious grin as her feet touched the golden floor. “Naturally, he’ll then seek to betray me… he cannot accept any ruler but himself, after all. Even if he somehow doesn’t, I’ll force him to. I’ll unleash devastation on his pathetic little paradise in a war that will last an Age.”

“An Age of Discord.”

Resting her face against her hand, she released a delighted sigh. “It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of, you know? And once I’ve extracted every ounce of suffering that I possibly can from Gaia, I’ll move on to some other world, and start the whole thing over again!”

Prometheus maintained an oddly stoic silence throughout the God of Discord’s monologue, letting her talk unimpeded as the Curse of Zeus finished repairing the damage done by her colossal kick to his gut, the grip on his weapon tightening steadily with every insane, genocidal word that came out of her perfect little mouth.

”...You are a real piece of work, y’know that, Squirt?” He finally stated, voice even, calm and for the first time, lacking any trace of his customary wit. ”I’m gonna go have a talk with your parents, why don’t you take a seat.”

And it was with those words that Atlas, invulnerable, unimpeded by the crack to his chin earlier and quietly waiting for his chance to do so while the Goddess of Discord prattled on, abruptly ripped Zeus’ throne out of the floor and whipped it at Eris’ head in one motion.

The throne slammed into her skull, the metallic chair bending against her form. Reaching up, she pried the now U-shaped seat of the God-King from her body, a brow arched. “Now, I find it hard to believe that you expected that to work. What are you up to?”

”Wait for it…” Prometheus simply stated as the force of gravity slid open a pair of hidden compartments on the arms of the throne, where Zeus, being a creature of absolute dogmatic habit, kept his goodies.

Like his emergency stash of hardened lightning, the likes of which he had used prolifically throughout the Titanomachy, which came tumbling down toward the floor made of highly conductive metal.

Time seemed to slow at that moment.

Atlas leapt off the floor.

Prometheus vanished in another burst of flame.

And each and every one of those crystalised warheads of pure electricity shattered as they hit the floor, engulfing the room in a blinding flash of light and coating every golden inch of it with enough energy to power the Eastern half of North America for a good century or two.

Gold had been replaced with white hot electrical energy, enough to begin melting the ancient throne room that had stood for so many thousands of years and had overseen the entirety of human civilization. Far from mere gold, it had been enchanted by Zeus himself to be nearly indestructible. It did, however, still have limits.

After what seemed like a solid minute of divine electrical discharge, the blinding light dimmed enough for them to once again see Eris. Her feet had sank into the now liquid gold, which came up to her ankles. Her conductive golden armor had likewise melted, and her hair was now smouldering slightly.

”So...” The Firebringer inquired as he burst back into existence above the smoked Goddess, unable to hide his shit-eating grin. "...Still bored?"

Her eyebrow twighted ever so slightly as she ripped the ruined armor of Zeus from her body and threw it aside. “That...hurt, just a little.”

Her eyes shot up to where Prometheus had reappeared. Her eyes had become abyssal pits of hate, her lips twisting into a sneer. She began to slowly raise her hand towards him.

“But this is going to hurt a lot.”

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

December 25th, 0122 Hours
Mount Olympus

The waves of Myrmidons hadn’t ceased once they had cleared the stairs. More had soon arrived, floods of the mindless creatures all raining arcane-fueled firepower down at them. Even after clearing those, they had barely been given a moment’s rest. Cyclopes had soon arrived, carrying with them the same magitech as the ant-men.

These were no mindless brutes, however, and used their superior strength to wield a much larger, much more powerful arsenal of weaponry.

“Man is a blight!” one roared, unleashed a small storm of arcane missiles that detonated on impact in an orchid ball of fire, the force behind the explosion dwarfing any conventional human weaponry by a great deal.

“Gaia must be purged!” Another declared, firing what Karen could only describe as a magitech autocannon from above his hip.

She was on the defensive, once again unsure how to fight these clearly sapient creatures with her unfamiliar powers. She had been clipped a couple of times, and it had hurt...she wasn’t nearly as invulnerable as was normal for her.

’Well, that’s not good.’ Ted deadpanned internally at the sight of the new and improved welcoming committee and their new toys. ’Couldn’t just come at us, screaming, with clubs and axes like the good ol’ days, could ya?’

Yes, even in his own mind, Ted somehow found a way to make light of their current predicament... but that didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble.

...Well, not him and Laz, mind you. They were Titans, not exactly the easiest things in the universe to kill, never mind make stay dead... Karen, however, was a still very much a squishy little mortal underneath all that magic armour and was slightly more prone to becoming hamburger meat under concentrated fire.

Which was kind of a bad thing, considering that pretty well all of them had just decided to level their shiny toys at her.

The sight brought him pause for a moment, before a low growl escaped his throat and the flesh on his arms returned to their glowing ember state he’d shown on the stairs earlier.

”Charon’s Jokes, this was a lot easier back when I just fried the bad guys and went home...” He grumbled under his breath before launching himself between the girl wearing his gear and the One-eyed Monsters and their big guns. Calling out to her in his usual casually grumpy tone ”Okay, Kid. Listen up.”

Rushing forward and ducking under a barrage of missiles, the scarred old man bore right down on his first victim, getting right into melee range and reeling his fist back… before just anti-climatically tapping the magic weapon with his knuckles and skidding between the giant’s legs before he could swing at him.

”They’re holding big metal guns and you control fire and heat.”

It took a few long, comical seconds of confused silence for the Cyclops to register what just happened and why. Before it began screaming in pain and juggling it’s red-hot weapon around like some sort of cartoon character, before throwing it off in a panic and in the process smacking his brother in the face with the damned thing, who also began to scream.

”They’re also awkward, clumsy and prone to doing dumb shit when they panic. Think you can work with that?”

Karen honestly felt rather dumb for not thinking of it at first. She was used to being a lot more quick-witted than this while fighting...was it because she didn’t have the Intellect of Mnemosyne right now?

”R-right! Thanks,” she called back, now having a moment breath thanks to the Cyclopes being distracted by his attack.

Taking a page from the one who had given her this power, she leveled her palms at the sizable weaponry carried by their opponents. Blue flames burst from her hands to engulf them, and sure enough the Cyclopes carrying them began howling in pain and throwing them aside. Not that they would’ve been of any use: her mystical flames had partially melted them almost on contact.

The three of them had by this point ascended through multiple levels of the great golden city, powering their way through endless scores of every sort of mythological creature: cyclops, centaurs, harpies, minotaurs, even a kraken that guarded the lake that sat just below the palace of Zeus.

Karen was, in all honesty, beginning to feel exhausted, beads of sweat trailing down to her brows. Her stamina had certainly been enhanced by the armor Ted had given her, but it wasn’t limitless. While she wouldn’t be giving up, there was little doubt in her mind that her usefulness as a fighter would soon reach its end.

The battle to breach the palace and then the throne room was a whole new level of brutal. Tight corridors, close quarters combat, and the most elite warriors they had yet to face. Most terrifyingly, Gorgons now joined the ranks of the creatures they now faced, a fact that had nearly resulted in her death via petrification.

”Nngh…” Karen averted her gaze from the snake women before, an action that was immediately exploited by a towering minotaur. Slamming its oversized axe into his torso, it bit into her armor and knocked the breath from her lungs. Flying back into the golden wall of the staircase they were fighting on, her impact left a heavy indention as she fell back to the ground.

”Shit.” Ted hissed, wincing slightly as Karen slammed into the wall behind him- That didn’t look fun ”...Laz?”

”I got this.” The older Titan snarled, eying the reflections of the Gorgons on the polished gold of the wall and bringing has hands back and then forward in another of his signature sonic claps, made all the more effective by the tight spaces of the stairwell. ”Go check on yer kid.”

If the apron-clad Titan was expecting the same brand of grumpy retort for that statement he’d been receiving from his brother since they arrived here, he never got it; as Ted wordless closed the distance to Karen’s still stunned frame, gripping her shoulder and easing her into a sitting position.

”How ya holding up, Kiddo?” The scarred deity asked, a note of concern in his voice… before he looked away for a moment to deliver a thundering jab straight to the dangly bits of a Minotaur who’d been sneaking it’s way up the stairs behind them, axe at the ready with all of his Titanic strength, sending it half wheezing, half screaming and fully airborne back the way it came ”Still with us?”

Karen was dazed, her head ringing after the impact with the wall. Still, she was just able to make out the sound of Ted’s voice, giving him an ambiguous groan. Forcing her eyes open, she slowly staggered to her feet - though not without using the old man for support. They couldn’t be far from the throne room now. The big guy’s thunderclap had also cleared the stairs before them for the most part, too.

Placing a hand to the wall as they ascended the remaining steps, it took only a few minutes of climbing before they finally stood before a pair of large double doors. Before any of them could even think of knocking them down, they began to smoothly slide open.

Before them now was the resplendent throne room of the King of Olympus, every bit as opulent and brilliant as the city it ruled over. But it was no King that sat upon its throne.

“My, my,” the dark haired woman on the throne exclaimed, her black wings fluttering. She wore a golden diadem and a suit of flawlessly crafted armor of the same color. “If it isn’t the Firebringer and the Skybearer, and the little Wizard as well. I must confess, I never considered that not one, but two of the Titans would decide to stand against their brethren for the sake of the Gods who so abused them. Just what, exactly, are you thinking?”

That gave Ted pause, a sharp sound escaping the scarred man’s lips with the force and disdain of the ugliest curse imaginable;

”Eris.”

Of all the deities and divine lunatics who could’ve been sitting on that throne causing all this madness, it just had to be her.

Giving the room a quick once-over for any sign of her husband and clenching and unclenching his fist once in thought, the now-identified ‘Firebringer’ stepped forward, sparing his brother a quick glance as he did so.

”What I’m thinking? Frankly, I’m not entirely sure whether I should be surprised or disappointed.” He began, his voice calm, even as he studied the Goddess of Discord on her stolen throne. ”You honestly thought I’d just sit on my hands while you wipe out the entire human race? C’mon Eri, you know who I am. And you know better than that…”

Sticking his hands in the pockets of his flannel jacket, the Titan spared one more glance around the room.

”So… where’s the pretty boy?”

“Doing something even he should be incapable of failing at,” Eris replied, resting her face on her knuckles. “He’s guarding the very much incapacitated forms of the old Pantheon. They’re just over there, through the doors.”

She lazily gestured to her left, at the large chamber in the distance, the golden doors shut tightly.

“Your little friend there,” she glanced to Karen, “is welcome to try and free them...not that she would stand a chance against my husband as she is, pathetic though he may be.”

Her black lips then curled slightly into a smile. “As for you two, however...you’re both going to stay right here with me. We have a lot of catching up to do...”

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

December 25th, 0049 Hours
Mount Olympus

”IT’S A STRAAAAANGE TIME INDEED WHEN MY ESTRANGED LEEEETLE BROTHER CALLS ME, THE CREAM OF THE TITANIC CROP, TO OLYMPUS!”

A strained, almost pained sound escaped Ted’s throat as he withered slightly his rhinestone-clad brother’s flamboyant… hamming.

”Laz…”

”...AND THEN HE SHOWS UP WITH A LITTLE GIRL WEARING HIS COLOURS, LIKE THEY’RE ON SOME KINDA BASEBALL TEAM.” The giant a of a man continued unabated, much to the dismay of any eardrum present ”IT RAISES SOME… QUESTIONS...”

”Laz.” The shorter man began again, a hint irritation starting to snake his way into his voice, but stopped when he was cut off again by more of his brother’s… loud… flexing...

”MAKES THE CREAM OF THE CROP ASK WHAT YOU’VE BEEN UP TO THESE PAST FE-”

”Laz, wrestling’s fake. Macho Man’s dead and you do a terrible impression of him.” The more modestly-dressed Titan finally snapped, slapping the back of his hand against the palm of his other as he did so ”Now can you cut the shit? We kinda got a world to save here.”

For a moment, the apparently older Titan just stood there in silence and pouted. Before finally snapping his fingers and disappearing in a flash of light (and no small amount of grumbling) and being replaced by a… slightly overweight version of the same man in slacks, a white dress-shirt and a Walmart apron.

”Grampa’s balls; Thousands of years later and you’re still a hardass.”

”Don’t bring Grampa’s Balls into it. That’s a can o’ worms I’d rather not open in front of the kid.”

Karen had watched all of this in complete silence, her face doing its level best to remain neutral throughout the entire altercation between the two brothers. This…wasn’t exactly how she had expected a pair of ancient Gods to behave. If she wasn’t currently wearing physical proof of one’s power, she would even question if they were the real deal.

Pretending she had heard nothing of testicles, she turned her attention to the world they had just entered. They were standing on a vast, circular platform that was at the base of a equally monumental set of stairs leading to what could only be described as a city of pure, radiant gold.

She had never felt so tiny and insignificant before...and perhaps that was the entire point.

”So...whoever is behind this is in that city? I guess we have a lot stairs to climb,” she noted, remembering that she couldn’t fly like this.

Turning to Karen and following her eyes up the vast staircase towards the familiar, golden city there was a moment of pause in Ted’s mind as he actually caught sight of Olympus for the first time in… well, a long time. As familiar as it seemed, something was clearly off; The gentle, comforting and warm winds he remembered about this place were curiously absent and what used to be a vast blanket of the cosmos covering the night’s sky had seemingly been… removed.

There also used to be a vast, shining lake here. Floating in the ether and surrounding this platform, a work of Poseidon’s whimsy. He remembered taking a young Athena down here to fish sometimes…

And carrying her back up those stairs on his back when she inevitably fell asleep after prying him endlessly for old war stories her dad never told her instead of actually trying to catch a fish.

The ancient abruptly crushed that train of thought before it could pick up momentum. He didn’t have time to reminisce.

”It’s probably for the best we don’t rush anyway.” Ted stated coldly, stepping towards the stairs with a bit more drive than he’d shown previously ”Whoever’s up there, you can bet they know we’re here now and’ve got a few surprises in store for us.”

Casting a glance over his shoulder towards the armoured blond, he did manage a small grin, despite his current state of mind.

”Ya ready, Kiddo?”

Karen nodded once in response, and drew a deep breath. She had done a great many things this past year, but assaulting the realm of the Gods surely topped any of them by a large margin. As she gazed up at the almost endless set of stairs before them, she could already see the golden steps in the distance becoming darker, a legion of...something approaching them.

Placing one foot forward, she started on her journey to ascend to the throne of Olympus and topple whomever was sitting upon it. Step after step they drew closer to the onslaught approaching them, her hands flexing gently at her side.

These were unfamiliar to her, flames instead of lightning. She wasn’t as strong, wasn’t as durable, wasn’t as fast… and she couldn’t fly. Still, she felt confident that she could probably handle the oncoming tide of--were those ants? Right then, ants. She could deal with them, since she had her two newest allies fighting beside her now. In any case, she didn’t really have a choice: if she failed here, then it would spell the end of the world.

This was her life now.

”Uh-oh,” Karen gasped, noting the flash or orchid up ahead. Instinctively leaping into the air, she narrowly avoided countless streams of raw arcane energy that scorched the otherwise sweet-smelling air around her.

Whatever these creatures were, they weren’t swinging around swords and axes.

”Your kid’s got good instincts” The older Titan mused, absolutely casual even in the face of the vast horde of Myrmidons before them and the immense volley of arcane firepower screaming through the air towards where they stood.

”Not my kid, Laz.” Ted replied calmly as he removed a cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it off a small flame that spouted from his thumb. Eliciting an indignant snort from his brother.

”Riiiiiight…” He replied with all the sarcasm his massive frame could muster as he raised his hands before him ”Let’s be honest here, Brother, they’re all your kids.”

And without another word, the elder Titan slammed his hands together with colossal force, creating a thunderous shockwave that shot forward toward the rain of arcane death and ignited the whole volley in a massive explosion before it could reach it’s intended target. The younger taking this opportunity to take a long drag of his cigar before responding the Ant-Men’s little welcoming gift by exhaling a massive column of flame that raced forward, seemingly screaming with the sound it made as it set the very air around it alight and quickly bore down upon Myrmidons without even an iota of mercy or pity.

In retrospect, the Myrmidons probably weren’t expecting to be fighting anything other than people in tights and capes today. And they’d be paying for that oversight with interest.

Karen winced, watching him burn the Myrmidons to ash without a second thought. It made her quite hesitant to use her new powers, for one thing. While she had managed to gain a fairly solid grasp on how much power to put behind her magic, she had never thought to employ fire against any of her foes.

How did one hold back with fire, exactly?

Still, they seemed to be handling things pretty well as it was, and so she merely busied herself with avoiding the return fire from any surviving ant-men. Hopefully, they would make it to the throne room in relatively short order, so they could stop all of this bloodshed.

”KAREN!” Ted snapped, his eyes locked onto the girl and reading the wealth of expressions that played across her face, even as he backhanded a trio of Antmen off the staircase and hurtling into the abyss below (on fire, of course) ”They’re automatons! Meat-robots! You don’t have to hold back!”

Karen landed on the stairs after dodging the latest round of fire from the creatures, her eyes darting to the titan in surprise. ”Oh, r-really?”

She...supposed that made some sense, given that they were ants and all, but she hadn’t wanted to assume anything based on appearances alone. Still, that made things much easier. She could probably stand to experiment with her new powers before things really became difficult.

Extending her hands outwards to the seemingly endless waves, she drew upon the impossibly rich laylines flowing through Olympus, before expelling that power through her hands in the form of searing, blue flames. While not as overwhelmingly powerful as Ted’s had been, they nevertheless managed to consume their fair share of ant-men.

”Holy sauceballs,” Karen muttered in amazement, glancing down at her hands.

Even though she was used to having even more power than this, it still felt really...well, different. She wasn’t Lady Arcana right now. She was just Karen Hernandez, and this was far more power than her very human body had ever felt coursing through it.

”’Atta girl!” Ted shouted as Karen scythed away a good number of their foes with her own blue flames, something akin to pride making it’s way across his features in the form of a grin, before he turned and erased another advancing column of their insectoid attackers with a quick wave of his arm and another gout of flame.

”Right, definitely not your kid.” Laz managed to muse just loud enough for his brother to hear as he shot past him to take advantage of the window he’d opened the Myrmidon lines to charge into the thick of them, sliding on his knees (lubricated along the way with goopy bits of Ant-men) and making another colossal clap upward, sending another platoon skyward.

”Shut up, Laz.” Came the fire-god’s expected reply just before he shot his hand upward and ignited the now airborne Bug-Gunners in another massive fireball. To which he was met with more snickering from his bearded brother.

”When was the last time we got together like this, anyhow?” Laz finally inquired, deciding to give his brother a rest from all the teasing as he grabbed two of his attackers by the throat and spinning like a top, sending their fellows flying off the staircase, some of them in a semi-liquid state.

”I wanna say… Egypt? With those ‘Sea Peoples’ or whatever they were called?” Ted replied unsuredly, hopping over the gap his brother had made in a single bound and firing another column of flame forward as he landed.

”Oh, yeah! the Atlantean death-cult with the doomsday weapon!” Laz laughed a little as he charged passed his brother, arms outstretched at his sides and knocking scores of them down like messy bowling pins ”Grampa’s Balls, that was a while ago.”

”What’d I tell ya about Grampa’s balls?”

”Ha!”

Shaking his head a bit at that, and almost, in some people’s eyes, looking like he might be enjoying having his brother around in spite of all his grumbling, Ted took a minute to stop and assess the situation. There was… a lot of these things. And if their Terrific Trio kept the leisurely pace they were going through this horde, Karen’d be dead of starvation and her bones turned to dust by the time they got to the top.

Honestly, he’d been holding quite a bit through this whole picnic, if only because he didn’t want to give any more clues about his identity to whoever was sitting up in Olympus right now… buuuuut, the time for subtlety had passed them somewhere around the time this encounter took long enough for the topics of Atlantean Death-Cults and Grampa’s Balls to come up again.

Letting out a sharp exhale, the scarred Titan stepped forward, in front of Karen and his brother as he rolled up his sleeves.

”Hey, Kid. Wanna see something cool?” He asked with a glance back towards the Usually-Wizard, the olive skin on his arms breaking and flaking away, revealing blackened flesh broken by cracks and veins of glowing orange.

Karen blinked at him in surprise for a moment, but quickly offered him a beaming grin. ”Always!”

Clicking his tongue in approval at her enthusiasm, Ted brought his now ember-like arms together… before suddenly snapping them apart as they suddenly burst into white, wreathing flame.

If the heat of his fire had made the air around it scream as it burned before, now it was absolutely shrieking.

Without any further preamble, snappy one-liners or cutting remarks, the paradoxically short Titan shot his arms forward, unleashing a column of flame that dwarfed all others before it… and didn’t stop, snaking it’s way up the vast golden staircase before them and revealing just how many more Ant-men had been waiting for them, hidden by the lack of light from the empty night sky, even as it quickly consumed them as it made it’s way all the way to the top where it abruptly slammed into some distant structure in the Home of the Gods.

To put it very simply, the way was now clear.

But if there’d been any doubt by those inside about who was knocking at the door, well, it had been thoroughly evaporated now.

Calmly blowing the residual steam off his ember-like arms, before his “normal” tanned flesh grew back over them, Ted cast a glance back towards his teammates.

”So… shall we?”

If he was hoping for an astonished reaction on Karen’s part, then he would get it. For what seemed like an entire minute, she simply stared at the now sterilized pathway ahead of them in blank amazement. Finally, she was able to find her voice.

”...That was brilliant!” She exclaimed, staring up at Ted with an open grin. ”I’ll bet you can handle whoever is behind this all on your own at this rate!”

”C’mon Kid, don’t make an old man blush.” Ted snorted as he started forward again ”’Sides, whatever’s up there, it dethroned an entire Pantheon. This is not going to be fun. ”

Justice League Unlimited vol. 2

When people took a gander at the outside of the Metro Tower, home of the Justice League, in all of it's strikingly monolithic, shiningly futuristic architecture typical of Metropolis, most assumed it was... kinda boring inside. And to their credit, they were mostly right; designed to be practical, with fortified white and grey walls interrupted only by the occasional window, heavy steel door, a glowing monitor screen or in some cases, a potted plant placed by some absolute madman who clearly didn't get the memo about the mandatory monotony, the place, though absolutely bristling with the most advanced technology and some of the mightiest beings on the face of the planet could be mind-numbingly dull at times.

One of the few exceptions to this rule, was the Rec. Room. Where one could actually get a glimpse at what a bunch of heroes living under the same roof actually looked like, away from the media and left to their own devices.

For one thing, the hard, reinforced tiles of the tower floors were covered up by a plush black carpet and the walls actually had some paint on them- a healthy deep blue parted by a sci-fi-ish, thick horizontal black stripe running through the middle and decorated by hung pictures and posters of leaguers and memories both recent and distant, from the Founding Five and the JSA to a candid picture of that time Question and Scarab got hammered playing pool down in Mexico. A long shelf beneath the arranged pictures of the League's founders held a few momentos, more personal or amusing than actual victory trophies, including but not limited to Superman's old signed Babe Ruth baseball card, Jay Garrick's winged helmet and a small, hand-made stuffed Batman Bruce was handed two decades ago by a cheeky little girl in Bucharest.

From the door, a huge, semi-circular and otherworldly comfortable couch and a massive flat-screen took up most of the right half of the room, with the walk there occupied by billiard, foosball, table-hockey and air hockey tables and a jukebox, pinball machine, Donkey Kong arcade machine and a dartboard with a picture Booster's most recent ex taped to the centre (that he'd apparently missed with every dart) snugged up against the walls. To the left, there sat a large, round mahogany table and chairs, all littered with small carvings and grafitti from Leaguers past and present, and the kitchen, semi-seperated by wall broken by a doorless entryway and a bar-counter and currently containing The Champion, humming along to the tunes spilling forth from the jukebox while cooking up some grub for the League's usual weekend lunch.

In...

Justice League Unlimited Vol.II

Episode I: The Return of Solara

"C'mon Champy. It isn't nice to keep a girl waiting. When will the food be ready?" Duncan chuckled a bit at his girlfriend's hungry whining, though he still didn't turn away from the deep-fryers. "Can't I sneak away a few now? You know what happens when you don't feed an alligator. It comes biting at the first thing it sees."

Hearing her hop the counter and feeling her chin hovering just over his shoulder, The Lion of Nova Scotia took the opportunity to reach back and gently run his hand through her hair and pull her in for a quick for a quick little peck on the forehead before he set himself back to his task.

"Settle down, Jess, We're almost done." He explained as he reached forward and turned the fryers off, before raising and shaking out the racks and scooping a healthy helping of home-cut fries into a line of baskets lined with newspaper, repeating the process with the beer-battered fish immediately afterward and wedging a slice of lemon and a wee cup of tartar sauce securely into the corner of each basket where they could be used if needed "Good things come to those who wait, after all."

Truth be told, fish and chips wasn't exactly the fanciest meal on the planet. Certainly not something you'd think about serving to the Goddamn Justice League. But hell, it was easy- Especially when your dad is a Fisherman who routinely unloads a ridiculous amount of fresh fish on you every time his boat comes back to port and you have a cousin who farms potatoes.

It also gave him time to cook up some of his mother's recipe Oreo Cream Pie, which now sat cooling on the stove top, despite how often he'd had to smack J'onn with a ladle to keep it there.

"Alright ladies and gents, grubs up!" Duncan finally announced, placing the baskets down on the counter for the others to take, keeping one for himself and taking the pie with him to the table where he could keep an eye on it and ensure it was safe from the greedy green mitts of the Martian Manhunter "Just give it a bit ta cool down, it's still hot."

Reaching to the center of the table and opening up the hidden hatch concealing the mini-fridge built into it's centre column, the Champion fished himself out a bottle of coke and finally sat down in his usual spot, identified by where he'd left his coat hanging before he'd started cooking, calmly popping off the cap of his glass bottle of sugar, bad things and good feelings with his thumb as he did so.

"Let's eat."

Justice League Unlimited vol. 2

The Lion of Nova Scotia Returns

Name: Duncan Reid MacAodhan
Alias: The Champion (AKA: The Hero of Halifax, The Lion of Nova Scotia and, due to an incident involving a certain psychopathic time-traveler and a lack of pants, The Canuck Cutie)
Age: 24
Personality: Clever, Frank, Hard-nosed, Genre-Savvy, Big-hearted (even if he's hilariously ignorant of it)
Archetype: Metahuman
Powers:
Immense Physical Prowess- Duncan is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really goddamn strong... and fast... and pretty tough to boot, if the fact that he went toe-to-toe with freaking Metallo (who, in case we've all forgotten, is a super-powered murder-bot powered by magic space rocks strong enough to make Superman bleed) and was actually able to come out on top despite being absolutely rag-dolled across the ground and through several buildings by an opponent who actually knew what he was doing is any indication.

All that being said, it should be noted that though his metahuman genes put him well into the range of Kryptonian physical ability, Duncan... was a chainsmoking, borderline alcoholic who has never worked out or trained a single day in his entire goddamn life before he started doing the hero thing and as a result, was about as out of shape and weak as he could possibly be. After his time playing hero in Halifax and working with the league, however, he has become far more powerful. Raising questions as to what the limit to his abilities may be.

Weaknesses:
While Duncan possesses Kryptonian levels of physical ability, he is still very much human; He can't fly, he still needs to breathe, possesses no form of crazy eye-lasers or freezing breath and can't survive solely off sunlight. In fact, for simplicity's sake, here's a list of the kinds of things that can hurt and/or kill him just like any other guy.
-Drowning.
-Poison Gas.
-Regular poison.
-Electrocution.
-Starvation.
-Asphyxiation.
-Dehydration.
-Bleeding out.
-Bleeding internally.
-Food poisoning.
-Heart-failure.
-Liver-failure.
-Kidney-failure.
-Cancer.
-Hypothermia.
-Being thrown into the sun.
-Being thrown into space in general.
-Tamaranean Cooking.

Appearance:


To read what Duncan is physically capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles and a jawline chiseled from granite... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to most in the League he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'6" on a good day and lacking the bulging, musclebound physique of proper superheroes in favour of a lean, though dense physique closer to that of an Olympic swimmer if anything, though his broad shoulders and calloused hands make a fairly decent indicator of his blue-collar background, to which he also owes the habit of shaving his brown hair into a buzzcut, to deal with the heat in his workplace.

Though in the beginning of his sordid, surreal superhero career he had nothing more than a denim jacket, a ballcap and a rag tied over his face to hide his identity, he has since acquired an actual costume of his own; a sort of coming-of-age gift from the League, who knew the young man wasn't entirely keen on the whole concept of tights, capes and outer-underpants. With this in mind, they found a healthy balance; boots and a short-sleeved suit made of a heavy-duty version of the material Superman used for his own attire to stand up to the fact that, lacking flight, Duncan does a lot more skidding and smashing into things than the Big Blue Boyscout did, colored black and gold and bearing the Lion-Rampant of Scotland and Nova Scotia on his chest in red. Topping this off, in lieu of a cape, the Champion instead wears a brown jacket made of the same material (just, y'know... less spandexy) for much the same reason, with a patch of the arms of his home province sewn onto the back. He also wears a pair of black gloves, an eye-mask and, occasionally, a ballcap of some pub or sports team.

The end result? Though The Lion no longer looks like just some random guy in a Canadian Tuxedo who punches murderous aliens, robots and alien robots in the face on the daily, he is still instantly recognizable as the Hero of Halifax, all grown up but still tethered to his more modest origins.

Character Evolution: A buddy-cop routine with another hero would be nice. But aside from that, I'd be happy to just go with the flow.

Hilarious misadventures, however, are still mandatory.

Altered History: In this timeline, Superman never showed up in Halifax to help Duncan with Metallo... or, indeed, any of the deluge of villains that followed soon after until he finally managed to get himself caught up in World-Threatening levels of shit. He's also known Wildcat since he was a boy as "Uncle Ted", one of his Grampa's old wartime buddies from the States, though he had no idea about his alter-ego until he started teaching him how not to suck at this whole hero thing and help him out in Halifax. The end result? he's far less the hapless Rookie he was in volume one.

Recommended Background Leaguer: Cyborg

A Not-So-Brief Bio

Despite what one might might assume when encountering literally anyone even remotely associated with superpowers and tights, Duncan's tale is... rather mundane. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Fisherman for a father and a mother who ran a local diner, the boy in question up grew extraordinarily normally; playing videogames, staying at his grandparents' when his mom was busy at the shop and his dad was out at sea and helping his granddad out in the garage fixing cars and the occasional boat.

And then one day when he was fifteen, he got hit by a truck.

After about a good ten seconds of screaming and another thirty spent wondering why he wasn't dead, he extricated himself from the big-rig's engine-block that had wrapped around both him and the streetlight he'd been leaning against only to find that not only was he not dead, he was perfectly intact. All things considered, that's some pretty heavy shit to lay on a fifteen year old. So it's not all that surprising that when the (very) drunk trucker half staggered, half fell out of his truck at the sight of him, and sirens began echoing in the distance, the kid ran the hell out of there. A few days of trial, error and a lot of Wikipedia later, and the boy had a pretty good idea what all that was about: He was a Metahuman, a one-in-a-million carrier of a superhuman gene that may or may not activate under extreme stress (Like, for instance, getting hit by a truck while waiting for the bus). Frankly, it sounded a lot like a bunch of pseudo-science crap you'd find in an old comic book, but lacking any other explanation for his sudden... talents... it was one he'd have to accept.

Now, usually, when someone finds out they've got crazy superpowers, things usually go in one of two predictable ways; one, they become a spandex-clad boy-scout that dedicates every moment of every day to having the brightest smile, rescuing cats from trees and giving lectures about the dangers of "The Reefer" and sex before marriage or two; going full ham, burning orphanages, kicking puppies and generally being real goddamn edgy just for the sake of it. Duncan to his credit, chose the rarely considered, often forgotten third option-

"Yeah... No. Fuck that."

And so, despite the call to adventure literally screaming directly into his ears, Duncan carried on his life as normal; Growing up as normally as he possibly could- getting average grades, shoveling his grandparents' driveway in the wintertime, trying and failing several times at that whole romance thing and working through his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic at the local shipyard after highschool.

Unfortunately for him, as the old trope goes, 'The Call Knows Where you Live'.

And one day while Duncan was just wrapping up his night-shift shortly after his twenty-first birthday, Metallo came bursting out of one of the shipping containers in the yard, raiding a docked cargo ship for... something and then going on a rampage with speed and ferocity never shown on the news before. Despite having reservations about the whole 'Hero' thing, the one guy in town with the ability to intervene couldn't exactly sit idly by while a super-powered terminator powered by glowing space-rocks butchered his coworkers and leveled his town. So, throwing on a respirator to hide his face, the young man nutted up and went after the deranged cyborg... or, more accurately, spent the next hour on the receiving of a brutal beatdown at the hands of someone that was at least as strong, as fast and much, much more experienced than he was at the time that was also incapable of feeling pain or fatigue, all to buy time for people to get away and call for someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing.

But that help never came.

And although being beaten within an inch of his life in the most literal sense imaginable... the Rookie Hero endured. Rising to his feet over and over again in the face of blows that could sunder mountains until, finally he managed to somehow knock Metallo down hard enough that he didn't get back up.

He'd actually managed to save the day.

Unfortunately... he actually managed to save the day. And as anyone from Fawcett, Gotham or Metropolis could tell you, the minute a local hero does that, things rapidly go sideways in the worst possible way as every lowlife with a superpower takes it as a queue to come out of the woodwork; Within two weeks, a major drug cartel decided to use the disarray caused by the Metallo incident to try and force it's way into the largest Canadian port on the Atlantic, bringing with them the drug-fueled villain Snowflame and his new partner in crime Crackrock (equally named for her guitar-powered sonic attacks as well as... well... all the crack) to keep Halifax's mysterious new hero busy through their operations.

A month after the denim-clad hero without a name and the Halifax Regional Police discreetly (and awkwardly at first) worked together to shut that whole enterprise down, Duncan, still sore from his narrow victory at the hands of Metallo and the gongshow of dealing with the Cartel and their enforcers was more than a little unhappy when he found out his girlfriend at the time (the existence of which was an extreme rarity in itself; the boy'd never really learned how to do romance, what with knowing that a meaningful hug from him would kill most women) was actually Blackfire, a notorious space pirate from the planet Tamaran hiding out under the radar on a pre-spacetravel world... Particularly when her sister showed up to haul her back to their homeplanet to face trial and she quickly decided her only way out was to burn her and the entire goddamn city to the ground, starting with Duncan's apartment.

That was a rough time, even with the extraterrestrial help, but somehow the two managed to bring down the living, interstellar monument to Duncan's romantic failures before she could quite get around to blowing up the rest of the city. The two aliens vanishing in a burst of light soon after as the younger sister slapped something like handcuffs on her elder, hit a few buttons on her gauntlet activating a teleporter of some kind and enthusiastically waved to him with an uncannily bright grin before she went.

By this point, having dealt with a murderous robot, two cocaine-fueled superfreaks employed by a massive drug cartel his casually genocidal, apparently alien ex-girlfriend and having lost his place of work, his apartment and even his FREAKING CAR in the span of just over a month, Duncan was particularly unimpressed with all the unusual turns his life had taken and looked absolutely ragged staring numbly at what remained of his home on the still-abandoned street.

As he turned to leave, however, he came face to face with his "Uncle" Ted. An old wartime buddy of his Grandfather's from the States he'd known since he was a boy, who took one good look at him and calmly stated-

“Kid, you are not going to your Grandma's house looking like that; you'll give the poor woman a heartattack.”

Wincing at how easily he was recognized, Duncan barely started to ask how the man he hadn't seen since he wrote his driver's exam knew who he was while he was still wearing a mask but was abruptly told to shut up and follow.

Being led to a condo downtown, the boy was sat down in the kitchen, handed a beer and told just about everything.

Ted knew about Duncan's talents because Duncan's Granddad knew. How did his Granddad know? Because he was his Granddad, of course he did and after watching his lil' hooligan get his face kicked in by Metallo on the CBC, the first thing he did was call up his old buddy Ted and ask him to look out for him. And why would he do that?

Because Ted was Wildcat.

To his credit, Duncan was just too damn tired at this point to even be surprised about this revelation, which at this point was pretty much par for the course with how his month had been going. Though he did idly start to wonder if the normal life he thought he'd lost when Metallo showed up had ever even existed in the first place, as he finished his beer and went to sleep on Ted's couch.

Under the guidance of Freaking Wildcat from that point on, the increasingly less rookie hero's life was... well, still pretty damned crazy, but at least it had some semblance of order to it and was a lot less of him just hammering his head against a metaphorical brick wall. Throughout the rest of the year Duncan and Ted went on to, amongst other things, fight off Adonis and his bouncing mechanical pecs, defend a small group of Atlantean refugees looking to escape one of Black Manta's lieutenants and their merry band of murderous fish-men and even teamed up with Robotman to deal with Atomic Skull, who broke out of confinement on a Russian sub en route to Cuba and rammed the damned thing onto the shore. Through all of this he earned an almost folk-hero-like reputation in his country as stubborn and unyielding in a fight, but clearly not in it for the fame with how he acted and dodged the media like the plague and how frank, yet approachable he was with both the people he helped and the Police he often found himself working with.

Still not taking on an actual heroic alias or costume, he came to be seen by his city as... just some guy trying to help out... one of them. Not some paragon placed on a golden, unreachable pedestal above others but a man firmly grounded in his roots; approachable, reliable and most all human. And through all the names they began to call him, from "Hero of Halifax" to "Lion of Nova Scotia", one in particular began to gain traction-

"Champion."

A name he more than earned when, to put the cherry on his whole crazy year, Jack-Tar arrived advertising to anyone who'd listen about his delusions of reuniting the British Empire by force under his enlightened rule. He also brought with him his own immense psychic power, the "Red Coats", his band of murderous metahumans he recruited from across Britain's former territories in Oceania, India, Africa and the Caribbean as well as, and this is important, the ship he stole from Duncan's ex hovering in orbit with all of it's guns pointed down.

Suffice to say, this was not a man who was used to hearing the word "No". So when Duncan refused to join him (with a now famous "No thanks, I'm good."), things got pretty hectic pretty quickly and he, Wildcat and the whole damned city probably would've been wiped off the face of the Earth had not the unusual friendships in strange places "The Champion" had made over the past year not come to fruition. With the Atlantean soldier-turned-refugee "Ultramariner" jumping into the fray, a Tamaranean frigate commanded by his ex's sister jumping into orbit and, eventually, even Robotman arriving with freaking Superman at his back and a cheeky "Kept 'cha waitin', didn't I?" on his robotic voice. Together, the six managed to stop the lunatic Brit before he could quite get around to completely leveling the city and half the province with it, after that well...

The Tamaraneans headed home, but not before their Captain teleported down to the surface to give everyone involved what Superman would later tell him was the traditional greeting on her homeworld; an uncomfortably affectionate bone-shattering hug (which Cliff found absolutely hilarious).

The uncertain ("Uncertain" here meaning "The fuck do you do with a race of sea-dwellers whose King tried to wipe out humanity that one time?") status of the small Atlantean refugee community settled across the bay in neighbouring Dartmouth was greatly improved by Ultramariner's actions that day, and he settled down there in earnest and eventually became that city's local hero.

And Duncan? For his part, after a year of balls-to-the-wall crime, alien and robot fighting insanity, he finally came to terms with the idea that, yeah, he was probably a goddamn superhero now. Moving off of Ted's couch when he went back to Gotham, finding a cozy new place to live in a decommissioned lighthouse just outside of town and taking up the name everyone was calling him anyway to fight crime in a snazzy new outfit the League gave him after the whole Jack-Tar Affair.

A year after that and a few months, The Champion was brought into the League- Apparently at the posthumous request of Cliff himself.

And the rest is history.

...Weird, surreal and oftentimes downright crazy history.

Notes:

Sample Post:

"And if that little Leafer doesn't like it, he can go right back to Quebec or whereever the hell he came from!"

This proclamation was met by a chorus of cheers and clapping... as well as a long sigh.

This was the last thing Duncan wanted to hear five minutes out of the teleporter.

"Godfrey again?" the Champion groaned, walking into the monitor room with two big paper bags of food from his mum's diner in each hand before setting them down on the desk between his two coworkers. "Ya guys don't get tired of listening to this crap?"

"Call it a guilty pleasure." Atom replied dryly, his elbow propped up on the desk, cheek resting in his hand and his face locked somewhere between bored, bemused and bewildered "Should've been here when he was ripping into me. He get's a lot of mileage out of my ability to shrink."

"Indeed. His thoughts on 'Little Green Men' are as... amusing... as they are woefully inaccurate." J'onn added with a dismissive wave of his hand, all the while just barely hiding just how hungrily he was staring down at the goodies the bluenoser had brought with him back from home.

With a click of his tongue to show his disapproval, but no further comment, Duncan fished through the bags and began handing out the fruits of his mother's business; Two jumbo donairs, one with feta and no onions for Atom, one with extra sauce and diced jalapenos for himself and an order of fish and chips for the Martian Manhunter as well as a slice of his mother's Oreo-cream pie with those rainbow sprinkles she knew the off-worlder liked. Lastly he placed down a six-pack of glass-bottled coke to share between them, before sitting down himself and unwrapping his food, glancing up at he screen as he did so.

Monitor Duty was... well, it wasn't exciting, but it had it's merits; For one, it was nice to just kick back and not get punched in the face by a robot, alien or weird lion-person while at work for a change and there was something weirdly pleasant about having the tower pretty much to yourself while everyone else was either away on missions or at home and off-duty. Technically, it was supposed to be only two people per rotation, but J'onn had the day off and apparently didn't have anything better to do anyway so decided to join in on the fun. Like he did every time Duncan was on Monitor Duty and he had the day off.

For reasons that had nothing to do with free pie.

No siree.

Duncan mulled that last one over while chewing on a mouthful of donair; If he didn't know any better, he'd almost swear Kord scheduled his rotation so his mom's diner was always open when he was on duty...

"So, anything happen while I was out?" The Lion of Nova Scotia managed to get out through a mouthful of food.

"Well, remember your old buddy Adonis? Well, he- You mind?-" Atom started, but stopped as he held out his bottle of coke towards Duncan, who politely reached over and popped the cap off with his thumb "-Showed up in New York and tried to cop a feel on Barda."

Champion immediately choked on his food, his body unable to contain the primordial need to laugh that mental-image elicited even through the coughing, wheezing and J'onn slapping him on the back until he popped open another coke and washed it down.

"...Please... tell me you got that on video." He finally managed over one last cough.

To this, Ray just grinned and punched a few keys on his console, bringing up a new window over Godfrey's spray-tanned and screaming face on the third monitor.

"If I zoom in and slow it down, you can actually see the exact moment he realized he made a terrible mistake."

True to his word, the three were treated to the silent, almost sublimely slow footage of the mecha-clad creep's lecherous grin steadily melting into wide-eyed and open-mouthed horror as a clenched fist beautifully made it's way into the viewscreen and crumpled his big metal pseudo-chin like paper before hitting his real jaw and eliciting an explosion of teeth.

Immediately, the monitor room exploded in a fit of raucous laughter, with Champion doubled-over in his chair actively trying not to slap his knee and break anything with the concussive force that'd bring, Atom holding his cold coke against his head as he strained under the pressure of trying not to spew the mouthful of the stuff he had out his nose... even as he rewound the footage and played it again, even more slowly this time so Champ could see where Adonis had actually started to cry a little when he realized what was going to happen to him. Hell, even J'onn managed to snort a little through a mouthful of beer-battered fish.

"Who loves you, Baby?" Atom asked, slapping a hand down on Champ's shoulder as he replayed the footage again, this time zoomed out to catch the expressions of Barda and the rest of team.

Yeah... Monitor Duty wasn't exciting.

But it had it's merits.

Justice League Unlimited vol. 2

The Lion of Nova Scotia Returns

Name: Duncan Reid MacAodhan
Alias: The Champion (AKA: The Hero of Halifax, The Lion of Nova Scotia and, due to an incident involving a certain psychopathic time-traveler and a lack of pants, The Canuck Cutie)
Age: 24
Personality: Clever, Frank, Hard-nosed, Genre-Savvy, Big-hearted (even if he's hilariously ignorant of it)
Archetype: Metahuman
Powers:
Immense Physical Prowess- Duncan is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really goddamn strong... and fast... and pretty tough to boot, if the fact that he went toe-to-toe with freaking Metallo (who, in case we've all forgotten, is a super-powered murder-bot powered by magic space rocks strong enough to make Superman bleed) and was actually able to come out on top despite being absolutely rag-dolled across the ground and through several buildings by an opponent who actually knew what he was doing is any indication.

All that being said, it should be noted that though his metahuman genes put him well into the range of Kryptonian physical ability, Duncan... was a chainsmoking, borderline alcoholic who has never worked out or trained a single day in his entire goddamn life before he started doing the hero thing and as a result, was about as out of shape and weak as he could possibly be. After his time playing hero in Halifax and working with the league, however, he has become far more powerful. Raising questions as to what the limit to his abilities may be.

Weaknesses:
While Duncan possesses Kryptonian levels of physical ability, he is still very much human; He can't fly, he still needs to breathe, possesses no form of crazy eye-lasers or freezing breath and can't survive solely off sunlight. In fact, for simplicity's sake, here's a list of the kinds of things that can hurt and/or kill him just like any other guy.
-Drowning.
-Poison Gas.
-Regular poison.
-Electrocution.
-Starvation.
-Asphyxiation.
-Dehydration.
-Bleeding out.
-Bleeding internally.
-Food poisoning.
-Heart-failure.
-Liver-failure.
-Kidney-failure.
-Cancer.
-Hypothermia.
-Being thrown into the sun.
-Being thrown into space in general.
-Tamaranean Cooking.

Appearance:


To read what Duncan is physically capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles and a jawline chiseled from granite... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to most in the League he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'6" on a good day and lacking the bulging, musclebound physique of proper superheroes in favour of a lean, though dense physique closer to that of an Olympic swimmer if anything, though his broad shoulders and calloused hands make a fairly decent indicator of his blue-collar background, to which he also owes the habit of shaving his brown hair into a buzzcut, to deal with the heat in his workplace.

Though in the beginning of his sordid, surreal superhero career he had nothing more than a denim jacket, a ballcap and a rag tied over his face to hide his identity, he has since acquired an actual costume of his own; a sort of coming-of-age gift from the League, who knew the young man wasn't entirely keen on the whole concept of tights, capes and outer-underpants. With this in mind, they found a healthy balance; boots and a short-sleeved suit made of a heavy-duty version of the material Superman used for his own attire to stand up to the fact that, lacking flight, Duncan does a lot more skidding and smashing into things than the Big Blue Boyscout did, colored black and gold and bearing the Lion-Rampant of Scotland and Nova Scotia on his chest in red. Topping this off, in lieu of a cape, the Champion instead wears a brown jacket made of the same material (just, y'know... less spandexy) for much the same reason, with a patch of the arms of his home province sewn onto the back. He also wears a pair of black gloves, an eye-mask and, occasionally, a ballcap of some pub or sports team.

The end result? Though The Lion no longer looks like just some random guy in a Canadian Tuxedo who punches murderous aliens, robots and alien robots in the face on the daily, he is still instantly recognizable as the Hero of Halifax, all grown up but still tethered to his more modest origins.

Character Evolution: A buddy-cop routine with another hero would be nice. But aside from that, I'd be happy to just go with the flow.

Hilarious misadventures, however, are still mandatory.

Altered History: In this timeline, Superman never showed up in Halifax to help Duncan with Metallo... or, indeed, any of the deluge of villains that followed soon after until he finally managed to get himself caught up in World-Threatening levels of shit. He's also known Wildcat since he was a boy as "Uncle Ted", one of his Grampa's old wartime buddies from the States, though he had no idea about his alter-ego until he started teaching him how not to suck at this whole hero thing and help him out in Halifax. The end result? he's far less the hapless Rookie he was in volume one.

Recommended Background Leaguer: Cyborg

A Not-So-Brief Bio

Despite what one might might assume when encountering literally anyone even remotely associated with superpowers and tights, Duncan's tale is... rather mundane. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Fisherman for a father and a mother who ran a local diner, the boy in question up grew extraordinarily normally; playing videogames, staying at his grandparents' when his mom was busy at the shop and his dad was out at sea and helping his granddad out in the garage fixing cars and the occasional boat.

And then one day when he was fifteen, he got hit by a truck.

After about a good ten seconds of screaming and another thirty spent wondering why he wasn't dead, he extricated himself from the big-rig's engine-block that had wrapped around both him and the streetlight he'd been leaning against only to find that not only was he not dead, he was perfectly intact. All things considered, that's some pretty heavy shit to lay on a fifteen year old. So it's not all that surprising that when the (very) drunk trucker half staggered, half fell out of his truck at the sight of him, and sirens began echoing in the distance, the kid ran the hell out of there. A few days of trial, error and a lot of Wikipedia later, and the boy had a pretty good idea what all that was about: He was a Metahuman, a one-in-a-million carrier of a superhuman gene that may or may not activate under extreme stress (Like, for instance, getting hit by a truck while waiting for the bus). Frankly, it sounded a lot like a bunch of pseudo-science crap you'd find in an old comic book, but lacking any other explanation for his sudden... talents... it was one he'd have to accept.

Now, usually, when someone finds out they've got crazy superpowers, things usually go in one of two predictable ways; one, they become a spandex-clad boy-scout that dedicates every moment of every day to having the brightest smile, rescuing cats from trees and giving lectures about the dangers of "The Reefer" and sex before marriage or two; going full ham, burning orphanages, kicking puppies and generally being real goddamn edgy just for the sake of it. Duncan to his credit, chose the rarely considered, often forgotten third option-

"Yeah... No. Fuck that."

And so, despite the call to adventure literally screaming directly into his ears, Duncan carried on his life as normal; Growing up as normally as he possibly could- getting average grades, shoveling his grandparents' driveway in the wintertime, trying and failing several times at that whole romance thing and working through his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic at the local shipyard after highschool.

Unfortunately for him, as the old trope goes, 'The Call Knows Where you Live'.

And one day while Duncan was just wrapping up his night-shift shortly after his twenty-first birthday, Metallo came bursting out of one of the shipping containers in the yard, raiding a docked cargo ship for... something and then going on a rampage with speed and ferocity never shown on the news before. Despite having reservations about the whole 'Hero' thing, the one guy in town with the ability to intervene couldn't exactly sit idly by while a super-powered terminator powered by glowing space-rocks butchered his coworkers and leveled his town. So, throwing on a respirator to hide his face, the young man nutted up and went after the deranged cyborg... or, more accurately, spent the next hour on the receiving of a brutal beatdown at the hands of someone that was at least as strong, as fast and much, much more experienced than he was at the time that was also incapable of feeling pain or fatigue, all to buy time for people to get away and call for someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing.

But that help never came.

And although being beaten within an inch of his life in the most literal sense imaginable... the Rookie Hero endured. Rising to his feet over and over again in the face of blows that could sunder mountains until, finally he managed to somehow knock Metallo down hard enough that he didn't get back up.

He'd actually managed to save the day.

Unfortunately... he actually managed to save the day. And as anyone from Fawcett, Gotham or Metropolis could tell you, the minute a local hero does that, things rapidly go sideways in the worst possible way as every lowlife with a superpower takes it as a queue to come out of the woodwork; Within two weeks, a major drug cartel decided to use the disarray caused by the Metallo incident to try and force it's way into the largest Canadian port on the Atlantic, bringing with them the drug-fueled villain Snowflame and his new partner in crime Crackrock (equally named for her guitar-powered sonic attacks as well as... well... all the crack) to keep Halifax's mysterious new hero busy through their operations.

A month after the denim-clad hero without a name and the Halifax Regional Police discreetly (and awkwardly at first) worked together to shut that whole enterprise down, Duncan, still sore from his narrow victory at the hands of Metallo and the gongshow of dealing with the Cartel and their enforcers was more than a little unhappy when he found out his girlfriend at the time (the existence of which was an extreme rarity in itself; the boy'd never really learned how to do romance, what with knowing that a meaningful hug from him would kill most women) was actually Blackfire, a notorious space pirate from the planet Tamaran hiding out under the radar on a pre-spacetravel world... Particularly when her sister showed up to haul her back to their homeplanet to face trial and she quickly decided her only way out was to burn her and the entire goddamn city to the ground, starting with Duncan's apartment.

That was a rough time, even with the extraterrestrial help, but somehow the two managed to bring down the living, interstellar monument to Duncan's romantic failures before she could quite get around to blowing up the rest of the city. The two aliens vanishing in a burst of light soon after as the younger sister slapped something like handcuffs on her elder, hit a few buttons on her gauntlet activating a teleporter of some kind and enthusiastically waved to him with an uncannily bright grin before she went.

By this point, having dealt with a murderous robot, two cocaine-fueled superfreaks employed by a massive drug cartel his casually genocidal, apparently alien ex-girlfriend and having lost his place of work, his apartment and even his FREAKING CAR in the span of just over a month, Duncan was particularly unimpressed with all the unusual turns his life had taken and looked absolutely ragged staring numbly at what remained of his home on the still-abandoned street.

As he turned to leave, however, he came face to face with his "Uncle" Ted. An old wartime buddy of his Grandfather's from the States he'd known since he was a boy, who took one good look at him and calmly stated-

“Kid, you are not going to your Grandma's house looking like that; you'll give the poor woman a heartattack.”

Wincing at how easily he was recognized, Duncan barely started to ask how the man he hadn't seen since he wrote his driver's exam knew who he was while he was still wearing a mask but was abruptly told to shut up and follow.

Being led to a condo downtown, the boy was sat down in the kitchen, handed a beer and told just about everything.

Ted knew about Duncan's talents because Duncan's Granddad knew. How did his Granddad know? Because he was his Granddad, of course he did and after watching his lil' hooligan get his face kicked in by Metallo on the CBC, the first thing he did was call up his old buddy Ted and ask him to look out for him. And why would he do that?

Because Ted was Wildcat.

To his credit, Duncan was just too damn tired at this point to even be surprised about this revelation, which at this point was pretty much par for the course with how his month had been going. Though he did idly start to wonder if the normal life he thought he'd lost when Metallo showed up had ever even existed in the first place, as he finished his beer and went to sleep on Ted's couch.

Under the guidance of Freaking Wildcat from that point on, the increasingly less rookie hero's life was... well, still pretty damned crazy, but at least it had some semblance of order to it and was a lot less of him just hammering his head against a metaphorical brick wall. Throughout the rest of the year Duncan and Ted went on to, amongst other things, fight off Adonis and his bouncing mechanical pecs, defend a small group of Atlantean refugees looking to escape one of Black Manta's lieutenants and their merry band of murderous fish-men and even teamed up with Robotman to deal with Atomic Skull, who broke out of confinement on a Russian sub en route to Cuba and rammed the damned thing onto the shore. Through all of this he earned an almost folk-hero-like reputation in his country as stubborn and unyielding in a fight, but clearly not in it for the fame with how he acted and dodged the media like the plague and how frank, yet approachable he was with both the people he helped and the Police he often found himself working with.

Still not taking on an actual heroic alias or costume, he came to be seen by his city as... just some guy trying to help out... one of them. Not some paragon placed on a golden, unreachable pedestal above others but a man firmly grounded in his roots; approachable, reliable and most all human. And through all the names they began to call him, from "Hero of Halifax" to "Lion of Nova Scotia", one in particular began to gain traction-

"Champion."

A name he more than earned when, to put the cherry on his whole crazy year, Jack-Tar arrived advertising to anyone who'd listen about his delusions of reuniting the British Empire by force under his enlightened rule. He also brought with him his own immense psychic power, the "Red Coats", his band of murderous metahumans he recruited from across Britain's former territories in Oceania, India, Africa and the Caribbean as well as, and this is important, the ship he stole from Duncan's ex hovering in orbit with all of it's guns pointed down.

Suffice to say, this was not a man who was used to hearing the word "No". So when Duncan refused to join him (with a now famous "No thanks, I'm good."), things got pretty hectic pretty quickly and he, Wildcat and the whole damned city probably would've been wiped off the face of the Earth had not the unusual friendships in strange places "The Champion" had made over the past year not come to fruition. With the Atlantean soldier-turned-refugee "Ultramariner" jumping into the fray, a Tamaranean frigate commanded by his ex's sister jumping into orbit and, eventually, even Robotman arriving with freaking Superman at his back and a cheeky "Kept 'cha waitin', didn't I?" on his robotic voice. Together, the six managed to stop the lunatic Brit before he could quite get around to completely leveling the city and half the province with it, after that well...

The Tamaraneans headed home, but not before their Captain teleported down to the surface to give everyone involved what Superman would later tell him was the traditional greeting on her homeworld; an uncomfortably affectionate bone-shattering hug (which Cliff found absolutely hilarious).

The uncertain ("Uncertain" here meaning "The fuck do you do with a race of sea-dwellers whose King tried to wipe out humanity that one time?") status of the small Atlantean refugee community settled across the bay in neighbouring Dartmouth was greatly improved by Ultramariner's actions that day, and he settled down there in earnest and eventually became that city's local hero.

And Duncan? For his part, after a year of balls-to-the-wall crime, alien and robot fighting insanity, he finally came to terms with the idea that, yeah, he was probably a goddamn superhero now. Moving off of Ted's couch when he went back to Gotham, finding a cozy new place to live in a decommissioned lighthouse just outside of town and taking up the name everyone was calling him anyway to fight crime in a snazzy new outfit the League gave him after the whole Jack-Tar Affair.

A year after that and a few months, The Champion was brought into the League- Apparently at the posthumous request of Cliff himself. And the rest is history.

...Weird, surreal and oftentimes downright crazy history.

Notes:

Sample Post:

"And if that little Leafer doesn't like it, he can go right back to Quebec or whereever the hell he came from!"

This proclamation was met by a chorus of cheers and clapping... as well as a long sigh.

This was the last thing Duncan wanted to hear five minutes out of the teleporter.

"Godfrey again?" the Champion groaned, walking into the monitor room with two big paper bags of food from his mum's diner in each hand before setting them down on the desk between his two coworkers. "Ya guys don't get tired of listening to this crap?"

"Call it a guilty pleasure." Atom replied dryly, his elbow propped up on the desk, cheek resting in his hand and his face locked somewhere between bored, bemused and bewildered "Should've been here when he was ripping into me. He get's a lot of mileage out of my ability to shrink."

"Indeed. His thoughts on 'Little Green Men' are as... amusing... as they are woefully inaccurate." J'onn added with a dismissive wave of his hand, all the while just barely hiding just how hungrily he was staring down at the goodies the bluenoser had brought with him back from home.

With a click of his tongue to show his disapproval, but no further comment, Duncan fished through the bags and began handing out the fruits of his mother's business; Two jumbo donairs, one with feta and no onions for Atom, one with extra sauce and diced jalapenos for himself and an order of fish and chips for the Martian Manhunter as well as a slice of his mother's Oreo-cream pie with those rainbow sprinkles she knew the off-worlder liked. Lastly he placed down a six-pack of glass-bottled coke to share between them, before sitting down himself and unwrapping his food, glancing up at he screen as he did so.

Monitor Duty was... well, it wasn't exciting, but it had it's merits; For one, it was nice to just kick back and not get punched in the face by a robot, alien or weird lion-person while at work for a change and there was something weirdly pleasant about having the tower pretty much to yourself while everyone else was either away on missions or at home and off-duty. Technically, it was supposed to be only two people per rotation, but J'onn had the day off and apparently didn't have anything better to do anyway so decided to join in on the fun. Like he did every time Duncan was on Monitor Duty and he had the day off.

For reasons that had nothing to do with free pie.

No siree.

Duncan mulled that last one over while chewing on a mouthful of donair; If he didn't know any better, he'd almost swear Kord scheduled his rotation so his mom's diner was always open when he was on duty...

"So, anything happen while I was out?" The Lion of Nova Scotia managed to get out through a mouthful of food.

"Well, remember your old buddy Adonis? Well, he- You mind?-" Atom started, but stopped as he held out his bottle of coke towards Duncan, who politely reached over and popped the cap off with his thumb "-Showed up in New York and tried to cop a feel on Barda."

Champion immediately choked on his food, his body unable to contain the primordial need to laugh that mental-image elicited even through the coughing, wheezing and J'onn slapping him on the back until he popped open another coke and washed it down.

"...Please... tell me you got that on video." He finally managed over one last cough.

To this, Ray just grinned and punched a few keys on his console, bringing up a new window over Godfrey's spray-tanned and screaming face on the third monitor.

"If I zoom in and slow it down, you can actually see the exact moment he realized he made a terrible mistake."

True to his word, the three were treated to the silent, almost sublimely slow footage of the mecha-clad creep's lecherous grin steadily melting into wide-eyed and open-mouthed horror as a clenched fist beautifully made it's way into the viewscreen and crumpled his big metal pseudo-chin like paper before hitting his real jaw and eliciting an explosion of teeth.

Immediately, the monitor room exploded in a fit of raucous laughter, with Champion doubled-over in his chair actively trying not to slap his knee and break anything with the concussive force that'd bring, Atom holding his cold coke against his head as he strained under the pressure of trying not to spew the mouthful of the stuff he had out his nose... even as he rewound the footage and played it again, even more slowly this time so Champ could see where Adonis had actually started to cry a little when he realized what was going to happen to him. Hell, even J'onn managed to snort a little through a mouthful of beer-battered fish.

"Who loves you, Baby?" Atom asked, slapping a hand down on Champ's shoulder as he replayed the footage again, this time zoomed out to catch the expressions of Barda and the rest of team.

Yeah... Monitor Duty wasn't exciting.

But it had it's merits.

Heroes Reborn - A DCAU Roleplay (Always open!)

Juuuust a little something to brighten yer day.

Happy New Year, guys.

Just some nonsense...

MEANWHILE, AT CASTLE KASIMIR...

“Alright,” Zoey rubbed her hands against her face, obviously agitated and on edge. It didn’t help that red was splashed across her cheeks, and spread out over the living room were various teaching aids - including diagrams. “I know you haven’t had… much classroom time. And you’re getting at that age, where…”

She gestured helplessly to Malcolm.

“... Where you start to get changes in your body. And feelings.”

There was a moment of silence at that, as the boy just stared up at Zoey with wide, glowing eyes.

”Oh God, are we actually doing this?” Malcolm stated wearily more than asked ”Zoey, I have a front-row seat to the insides of everyone I see, whether I want to or not. We really don’t need to do this...”

“Yes we do!” The older woman snapped immediately, almost bristling in indignation. “Look, I don’t like it either, but even seeing … all that, isn’t a substitute for everything you need to know. There’s safe sex, and the changes your body is going to go through, not to mention the hormones. Dear god, the hormones.” Zoey gave a full body shudder, but quickly busied herself with putting a diagram onto the wall, the silhouette of a man.

“Now, to start off, you’re either going to get incredibly hairy all over, or only be able to grow a pencil stache. Except, er … down … beneath the belt. It’s pretty much guaranteed… plus the armpits… maybe the chest… Don’t cut your nipples shaving, Malcolm.”

Mal, for his part, just continued to stare up at Zoey with a wide-eyed, but blank expression. Very clearly mildly disturbed by Zoey’s adamance about having this talk.

”Zoey. We don’t have to do this. I can literally figure this out by-”

“What’s the safest contraception, Malcolm?”

”Putting that weird rubber thing over your dong so ya don’t spray those weird tadpole things up the tube-y bit with the egg in it?” Malcolm answered quickly, just trying to get this over with as soon as possible. ”...Or maybe, y’know, pulling out?”

Zoey’s eyebrow twitched.

“...Pulling out is one of the least effective contraceptions! For one, there’s literally no protection against STDs! Hold on, I have diagrams for STDs too - it’s a slideshow, actually.”

As Zoey began pulling out yet another series of pictures to place on her wall, she continued talking. “Second of all, you can’t even name them! That’s important! Are you going to walk into a store asking for rubber bits for your bits? … They’re condoms, by the way. Very safe. Can sometimes break though. Best for your future partner to be on the birth control pill as well if they’re female. If they’re male the pill obviously isn’t needed - nothing wrong with having a male partner, Malcolm. Or both, if you’re into that, and they’re into that. Or two females, or two males… really as long as there’s consent anything is fine. Everything is fine. With consent.”

Malcolm just pinched the bridge of his nose at that, eyes tightly wound shut as he accepted that he wasn’t escaping this conversation.

”...So why do so many people wear gags then?” He finally started after a solid minute of silence ”And what’s the deal with all the leather, and the whips and I’m pretty sure I saw a midget on a tricycle at some point, and-”

“I am painting every single house in this city with lead-based paint by tomorrow.”