Veiled Malice

I guess here's as good as any. I'll take a look at my Freedom City book a little later on to give Maggot a better excuse to pop in here.

Robert looked over the railing of the catwalk. He still appeared to be somewhat nervous, until his eyes fell on the inert form of Johnny Rotten. "Holy crap! You actually beat him?" He blushed slightly, then shook his head. "Wait, I didn't mean for it to come out that way. I mean, that's great. I just didn't expect it." The sound of metal on metal drew both of their attention to the hatch into the factory section. It swung open, and a slightly battered and bruised Raven stepped through, weapons at the ready. She took in the scene instantly, and although she remained wary of Robert, the dark crusader walked confidently out onto the catwalk. "I see you disabled him," she said evenly. Velocity couldn't tell if she was relieved or annoyed. "Good work." The woman stopped in front of Robert and sized him up. "And who are you?" "Me?" Robert said unsteadily. "I'm nobody! Yep, nobody. Nothing to see here..." The Raven quirked an eyebrow at Robert's odd behavior, then turned her attention back to Velocity. "All right, what's going on here? What are all these pods?"

"Got it," Ren replied to Foreshadow. Rant's cut off warning about this dimention's version of Grim had caught his attention, however. If Grim, or at least a version of her, was in town, was it also possible there was an alternate Nanowire kicking about somewhere? Did he really want to know, especially given the fractured nature of this world? His curiousity won out in the end. "I don't suppose you know of someone that looks like me here, do you? Or perhaps someone around seven feet tall, covered with metal? Named Nanowire, maybe?"

"This... is my BOOMSTICK!" Love that man.

I've loved Bruce Campbell (the actor that plays Sam) since Army of Darkness. UD_82kvQLkA And with that, I have finally found an avatar.

Go me! The one time I'm on the internets when people from the rest of the US are! :clap:

Done Also, you didn't have Diplomacy before, so I just put one skill point there.

I won't comment. :nono:

"Brick, where'd you get a hand grenade?" "I don't know." _T-jpOb_9ZM

Have you seen the man in Snatch? Hitting him with a shovel would only annoy him.

Surprisingly, everything looks good. Approved

I'm heading home later on tonight to make some home-cooked vittles for mine. :)

The flames continued to roar, the blast furnace intensity of the heat slammed down on the pair like a champion sumo wrestler pushing an opponent out of the ring. Even the sweat that coated the two had dried up now; a nasty suntan would be their reward from this deathtrap, if they could escape. Grimalkin's hearing had taken a beating while they'd been here, and she wasn't completely sure that she'd be able to pick up on anything more than what she already knew. It was too much - the heat, the pain from her burns, the strain on her arms. She could barely concentrate on keeping a hold of her protector, much less listen for something she wasn't even sure was there... And then she knew. It wasn't something that was there, it was something that wasn't. The flames above her roared like some hungry beast. The flames below crackled like a small bonfire even though it should have been deafening. Something was wrong with this picture.

Yeah, I couldn't even spend a villain point to make that one go away. :shock: Good job, by the way. :)

Rotten saw the punch coming, but it was as if Velocity herself held him in place as it landed, square on the false Johnny's jaw. For the briefest of moments, the two speedsters looked into each other's eyes, seeing all there was no know about the other. And in Rotten's, all that remained was surprise; shock that this girl whom he'd dismissed as a pretender had gotten him so badly. And then the moment was broken as the man flew backwards, propelled across the room by Velocity's supersonic uppercut. His legs struck a low lying pipe, causing his limp, ragdoll-esque body to cartwheel crazily through the air before slamming into a stasis pod that was being transported via overhead rails to another part of the factory. He slumped bonelessly to the ground. The noise of the factory cut out suddenly; the dim of servos and assembly lines ground to a halt. The building itself seemed to be holding it's breath, waiting to see if Rotten would get back up again. But after a few moments, when nothing changed, an unsure voice called out from up on the catwalk. "Um... I think I pressed the right button..."

Ren quirked an eyebrow as Lynn demonstrated her unique physiology. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen stranger things, but the fact that the girl had somehow changed over the past few months was pretty interesting. "Wow, I bet that comes in handy. And not just in leveraging cats off of your houseguests." "A giant... wait, why would I like him?" Ren lifted himself up off the floor and started to follow her out to the other room when she dragged in the box of food. He'd never had any of what she was offering, of course. That... tortellini stuff looked good, though. Somewhat like the soba noodles he was used to. Plus, the packaging was nothing new to Ren. Cup noodles were just as much a staple of the over-worked high school student in Japan as they were here. He scooped up the tortellini package and pulled the string to start it heating. "Smells good." Ren turned the package a few times to keep the heat constant while he poked through the other snacks she had provided. Food might not be a necessary, or even a priority to him anymore, but she'd obviously gone out of her way to pull all this together. "So, you have some interesting people living in your building too, eh? Kavor, the guy that lives down the hall from me, he fixes electronics for a living. I'm pretty sure he's not human. Something about his eyes... Not my business, though. But he really did a good job on my PS3. I swear, the thing runs faster than ever now." The pleasant smell emanating from the box told him his food was ready, so he opened it up to let the steam out. "Plays Xbox games now, too."

Oh, right! Hey, how you doing, man? I almost didn't recognize you!

So... who are you again? :?

Alright, Heritage. Grim is up and about again, but the situation seems to be just like her name. You're trapped between two raging infernos, and the one above you is slowly cooking the both of you. Worse, the platform has almost completely retracted into the wall now. The same is true of the ladder. But don't worry. I wouldn't put you in an inescapable deathtrap this early in the game. ;)

Nightrival's last ditch effort pays off; Lynn is hanging over nothing but air and fire when he hauls her into his chest with one arm while still holding onto his line. The slight girl was safe. For now. But Nightrival and his slowly-recovering burden were still caught between a rock and a hard place. The fire above licked down, driven seemingly by the desire to consume that which escaped it before. Only the laws of flammable materials kept it from surging down his swingline after him. The heat, however, was intense. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep hanging there for much longer.

Wow, that's pretty cool, man. Have good running, yes? :)

Got it. Just let us know when you want to spend the other one.

Holy crap, Rotten is on his game tonight. That's a 19 and a 20. :shock: Anyway, that's a DC 25 toughness check from the hit.

Velocity's punch whizzed past the alerted supervillain, and Rotten took off after her. Though he lost track of the impossibly quick girl for a moment, his speed up search pattern allowed him to find her in short order. His first punch narrowly clipped Velocity's shoulder, and soon both speedsters were caught up in a deadly game of superspeed roundabout tag. At this range, she could all but see the manic look in Johnny's eyes as he zoomed around the area, fists stabbing out at her. "You're out of your depth, girl!" he yelled at Velocity. "This is where the big boys play! You're nothing but a pretender to the speedster throne! Even that fairy, Rocket, is better than you!" The taunt must have worked, because the next thing Velocity knew, pain blossomed in her jaw from a viscious hit she had barely seen coming.

Well, technically, you're not "knocked out", you're just "reeling from the pain/shock incurred", but you have it mostly right.