Geez3r

"Uh huh." Malice said to the fading figure. Not very much else needed to be said, or would be said apparently. But there was no shortage of things that needed to be thought about. This Legen character, whoever they were, believed Malice to be a Villain. Few would contradict him, but Malice believed that there should be many more. Then there was the matter that Legend had avoided the question of why Malice was selected for this test. He wasn't expecting much else, but he still didn't like being ignored. For whatever reason, Legend saw fit to test Malice this day. Maybe he's some sort of being bound to his purpose? Like it would be impossible for him not to test someone. Must suck to be him." Then there was the whole issue of the tests themselves. He was able to do some pretty wild things back there, but he also fell short in quite a few of the other categories. "I need to get better." was a thought that Malice believed inescapable. Malice set to work designing more upgrades for the base, to test him in more ways so he could improve his skill.

I really hate being the middleman. Like, really. After rubbing his temples for a moment, Malice continued, speaking to Je'La. "Knievel here has had some bad experience with meeting members of different tribes. He's just being cautious. Please don't hold it against him."

Malice just looked at the Captain for a moment. The Captain was good in a fight, he had charisma, and he even had a decent heart. Not a good heart and definately not a great heart. But he was passable. But his mental faculties were less than stellar. "You really are an idiot. I know what I'm doing. We help her."

I really do hate that guy some times, ok, most times. Because the Captain was the only one to have Malice's "home phone" as it were, Malice knew that any time it rang, there was trouble. Which is why this call came as such a surprise. The Captain wasn't shouting, there weren't any explosions, and he was trying to be diplomatic? This was either an elaborate rouse or... well it was an elaborate rouse. But the ever so slim chance that the Captain was actually coming around was quite enticing. This pot was further sweetened by the fact that Malice had been wondering from day 1 where the heck this idiot had gotten his hands on the "Adrenaline Cannon". And I thought my guns had stupid names. Malice ignored the call for more than 15 minutes, but the entire time it kept gnawing at him. "Alright. Where the hell's this warehouse?" called over the comm link when he finally caved.

Why does everyone I know either speech in riddles or nonsense? Eric was quite a bit dissapointed with the answers he had gotten, but on the otherhand, he didn't really see himself as threatening this figure to elaborate; that would just be plain stupid. But things weren't quite adding up. Why would Legend test me? Especially because if what he's said is true and has been trying to get me to go to the Arena, he must have been watching me for months on end. And if that was true, he probably knew pretty closely what my abilities were. Unless he was going for the "seeing is believing route". "I'm going to go ahead an assume that you made the droids move faster, shoot better and look better, to see if I would pick up on it? A test within a test essentially?" Eric paused a moment here, thinking for a moment. "A few more questions then. Did you want to test me specifically, or was I simply next on the list? Why do you look and sound like that? And, where do we go from here?"

Malice relates what Je'La tells him to Captain Knievel, mostly as an excuse for him to mull things over for a few more minutes. It is worth noting that both Je'La and the Captain can both simultaneously understand Malice. Something wasn't adding up. She's got odd speech patterns, an odder language, odd taste in clothing (not that I can really judge), minimal understanding of our culture, and even less of an understanding of our society. Then you factor in her super human abilities. Either she took a solid shot to her head, and now has amnesia, or she's not exactly from this neighborhood. "It is a pleasure to make your acquantance Je'La, but I unfortunately have to be the bearer of bad news. I have no idea where your home is. But I can tell you two things. I will help you find it, and I can tell you where you are now. You are in Freedom City, which is located on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America. If my suspicions are correct, you don't know any of those names."

Lemme see if I can lighten the ref's load a tiny bit here, mostly because I feel responsible for bringing a 3rd one in. Points: 14 STR 18/34 (+4/+12) DEX 12 (+1) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 8 (-1) CHA 8 (-1) Next, some general build advice. You put 4 points into your Fort save, and 9 points into Protection. Take 4 points out of Fort Save, and 4 points out of Protection, and put 8 points in Con. Same overall effect and cost, plus you now have a better recovery check to take advantage of your regeneration. I don't care if it's normal Con or Enhanced, pick your poison. Next, Grapple check should be +23 (+8 Attack, +12 Str, +3 Super-Strength). Also you should note how much weight you can carry at each of your loads next to your Super-Strength, and what your effective Strength score for lifting is. Much prettier, yes?

Thanks for the update Doc. But there are two errors I noticed. 1) You gave Malice 2 ranks in Stealth instead of Search. 2) In the DC block, the entry for the Liberation Cannon, calls it a Selective Area, and Distracting. It's a Shapeable Area and is not Distracting.

Malice didn't stop before they were several miles away from the scene of the battle, nor did he even look back to see if Je'La was following. When he finally set down ontop of a roof, he was glad to see Je'La right behind them, and not to hear sirens in the distance. Dumping the Captain down on the roof unceremoniously, Malice said to him "That's another one you owe me." He the walked over to an air conditioning unit and gratefully took a load off. He clasped his hands together, and waited for Je'La to join them and get comfortable. "Well, you're bound to have questions, so feel free to ask. But first, introductions. My name is Malice, and that is Captain Knievel. What is your name?"

Saying that Eric was dumbfounded would suffice to say, be a rather large understatement. Eric stared up in wonder at the figure before responding "Ummm... charmed?" Eric grunted as he stood up, he would find it incredibly awkward if he continued the rest of this conversation laying on his back. Eric took off the helmet and put it on a table next to him, the helmet felt off balance when the face plate was open and closing it at this point would just look stupid. He kept the rest of the suit on though, it was pretty much all that was keeping Eric standing at this point. "My guess is that you were the one behind those shenanigans in the simulator just now, right?" Eric looked away from the figure for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. But he found that they were too erratic, and wild to be so easily corraled. Breathing deeply to center himself, Eric said "For now, let's keep things simple. Who? What? Why? How?"

OOC Note: This post takes precendence over both my most recent posts, and Quote's last 2 posts (which quote has agreed to). This is done just because going back and editing all of them is a pain, especially because all we want to say is "We GTFO". Malice listened to the police over his radio. They were getting uncomfortably close. Shouting to Captain Knieval who had gotten Arrowhawk's body about halfway into a dumpster behind Malice's back "Captain! We need to go NOW! Save your fun for later." Malice rockets over to the Captain, and scoops him off the ground. Malice then turns to Je'La and speaks words she can understand perfectly "Come with us if you want to live." before he turns his jet engines to full and screams across the sky, trying to put as much distance between the police and him as possible, as quickly as possible.

Didn't want this getting lost.

Using 3 EE's I failed the Fort, Tough and Will saves. Didn't bother with additional rolls for Tough and Will because they are unbeatable without EE, and I wanted to attempt all of them at least once. Reflex was unbeatable even using EE and ignoring fatigue penalties, so I didn't even attempt it.

PART 4 If there was a God, he either had no sympathy for Malice or was taking a 5-er. As Malice was groggily brought back from what he was sure was the complete and utter destruction of his mind, body and soul - again - he thought about how earlier today he had just intended to do a trial run of the system. Maybe an hour long session, just enough to work up a decent sweat. But as it seems, Fate can deal you cards when you don't even know you're playing. But as it stood right now, Malice was scarred, desperate and horribly alone. He didn't want to die here, not again, not ever. In a final desperate bid for survival, Malice emptied literally every last one of his ammo reserves into the room. Missles, rockets, bullets, grenades, fuel cells, saw blades, everything. But when the smoke finally cleared, Malice saw that there were still some standing. To be precise, the Freedom League was still between him and his way out. Exhausted both physically and mentally, Malice dropped to his knees, defeated No... I've failed... Oh god. I've failed. But the League wouldn't let Malice wallow in his self pity. Daedalus dropped down in front of Malice and blasted him with a ray of sorts that created agony beyond imagining. It felt as if his innards were expanding fit to burst, and his very skin was constricting over his body. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't overcome the effect. Even as his most basic of animal urges to survive kicked in it was hopeless. As Malice lay there, writing in agony, Captain Thunder saw fit to end this himself, with a viscious haymaker that could slay even gods, Malice didn't stand a chance even giving it his all. Before Malice could black out, his mind was assaulted by a powerful force. Malice strained with all his might to stop the invasion, and almost did but almost didn't count. And utterly spent, Malice collapsed into a defeated heap.

Dynamic Array is at full Flight. Red Star arrives on scene via Moving All Out. EDIT: Ninja'd me on the OOC thread. Notice check failed. I really need to put skills on the to-do list.

Red Star always loved the night air. It was just something about it that was so calm and peaceful, which made the sound of gunfire particularly irksome. "Who in their right mind would go and ruin a great night like this? Guess I got to go teach them a lesson." Feeling the now familiar feeling of energy surging through his body, Red Star turned on his heels and rocketed off towards the Youth Center. Arriving on scene, he scanned the area looking for signs of the perpetrators, but sadly observation was not one of his powers.

1. Father - Victor 2. Mother - Heather 3. Dr. Archeville (The character not the ref ) Might not get the IC post up till late tommorrow, got a bit of a headache, I was just popping in real quick.

Happy Birthday!!!

Maze, I wanted to run this by you before doing it. I was thinking of power stunting off of Malice's Communication power to get the following: Which will essentially allow him to analyze your speech patterns, understand your language, and then communicate back with you. Now as you made Je'La a hero, and Malice being a villain, I wanted to make sure you were alright with this because it could mess you up for potential later encounters if the first person you meet and understand is a villain. I'm not here to force you into anything, just letting you know of the options on the table. Go whichever way you prefer. If you say no, then Malice will simply not have thought of the idea and/or the technology didn't work.

Stashing the arrows in a spare compartment, Malice walked slowly over to where Je'La was, keeping a decent distance. He sized her up for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "Umm, hi. My name is Malice, and that is Captain Knieval. Do you understand?" When she gives to inclination that she understands (I assume), Malice is left standing there, wondering...

I passed the Fort save part only and again with a natural 20. I blame bad luck with this past test, but hopefully, I'm getting all my bad rolls out now, so I can do some over the top stuff later :D

PART 3 Apparently, Eric Micheals' mind was made of explodium based on how many times his mind was blown today alone. Whoever was behind this apparently hadn't had enough of watching Malice getting beaten like a red headed stepchild. I'm going to have nightmares about this day, I swear to god. This must be what having high speed regeneration is like, when you're on fire.He desperately wanted to know who exactly was behind of all this, but the 20 something superheroes in the room left little room for thoughts beyond "KILL" "DUCK" and "OW". To that end, it was time to fulfill the first one for a bit of revenge. Malice used a downed I-beam as if it was a bow staff to break about 14 bones between 3 supers before he had to chuck the beam at a long distance flyer because the beam had essentially become a boomerang. After throwing the boomerang, he unleashed a powerful sonic pulse nearly omni directionally, which was made a little more devastating because of all the shrapnel and debris around. Taking to the air, Malice used the elevation to his advantage and carved a line through their ranks with his brand spanking new chest laser. And then, well, things weren't so fun anymore. Emissary barreled his way through the air, and delivered a devestating sledgehammer of a punch that knocked Malice all the way down to the ground, and his body bounced back up rather than leave a crater. Emissary then took the opprotunity to smash Malice into the opposing wall. One giant shoulder slam into the wall and Malice couldn't stand again. Barely aware of his own steadily slowing heartbeat, Malice slumped down the wall, collapsing in a heap. But he wasn't done yet. Once Malice showed the bearest sign of life, a vile gas began pouring over him corroding his lungs. If he wasn't coughing up blood before, he sure was now. There was simply too much gas that was pouring through all the holes in Malice's armor. At least that's what he thought until a large piece of rubble fell on him, and landed with enough force to expel all the gas from Malice's lungs. As Malice lay there, contemplating where the heck his legs were, he became aware of a round metal ball next to his head. He had enough time to mutter a defeated "Sonuva-" before being blown clear off his... well stomach at this point. Malice didn't even have time for his ears to stop ringing before a wall of fire washed over him. Althought his body was on the verge of death, his mind wanted him to know that he really shouldn't be here and that there wasn't anything he could do about it. The now charred Malice then began to hallucinate; the surrounding landscape turned into a bunch of ravenous mouths "This won't end well." It in fact, did not end well. Hundreds of thousands of hungry mouths began nawing a Malice's body. And not only did it not end well it just didn't end until there was nothing left of Malice.

I find myself asking the question "What if...?" a lot now and days. Maybe its because my life turned out nothing like I thought it would, or maybe its because I've started down a path that I'll freely admit has no return ticket. But just about the most common question I ask myself, even before continuing this far down this path is what if I chose a different branch of science to study? Like, what if I was a biologist or something? How exactly would I be doing what I do if it wasn't for my technological background? I might have been forced to do experiments on myself, or god forbid, workout. I don't know what it is with us nerdy types, the gym is just evil incarnate to us. I've been flying around in the suit for what... Christ, nearly a year now. I don't think I've gained an ounce of muscle. Guess its just the way the suit's made. Moving an arm in the suit with a thousand something pounds on it is just as easy as moving your arm when you've got a pencil in your hand. I don't know, maybe I should do some crunches or something so I don't have to depend on the suit so much.

Damn. I was hoping you'd both fail :twisted: As you're both in the same bracket, this'll make things easy to explain. I'll leave the exact descriptions up to you, as you both see/ experience slightly different things, but here's the gist. :arrow: Way back in the late 1600's a man known as Reverend Elijah Prophet, lived in what would become Freedom City. He was famous for his witch hunts and exposing "monsters" that lived amongst the people. :arrow: At this time there lived a happily married couple, Morgan LeRiche and Dr. Krantz Hauser. :arrow: Dr. Hauser was on the very cutting edge of science, and at his best wildly eccentric, but as he saved most of the townspeople's lives at one point or another, they looked past his oddities. :arrow: But one bitterly cold winter, Morgan fell ill, and stayed such throughout all winter, and into spring, despite all of Dr. Hauser's best efforts. :arrow: In a bold effort to save his wife's life, Dr. Hauser began digging into the occult and began mixing medicine and magic. This also made the good oddities balloon into full on madness, and he went from the good Doctor to the town quack. :arrow: His first experiments didn't go so well, and his wife's condition worsened until she was on the very verge of death. But one day he had an epiphany and new of a way to cure his wife's condition, and went out in search of the crucial ingredient he needed. :arrow: Elijah Prophet had been preparing for this day. He had long suspected that Morgan had become possessed by a demon and Dr. Hauser was seeking to awaken the evil within. The town had to be rid of Morgan should they ever have a restful night's sleep again. :arrow: When Hauser was out of town, the townspeople dragged Morgan out of her death bed and burnt her at the stake. Hauser saw this happen, but was too far away to prevent anything. Seeing his beloved die at the stake was too much for his heart to bear, and he had a heart attack. :arrow: With life fading from his body and overcome with grief, he attempted to summon a demon to wreak venegence on the town that had had unjustly killed his beloved. But life left his body before the ritual could be completed, and instead of biding the demon to the material world, it was bound to Hauser's very soul. :arrow: For the past 400 years, the Demon/Hauser soul has wandered everywhere using all manner of tricks, deciet, powers and possession to try and find a way to wreak vengence on the land. They recently found a way when the possessed a record, and dominated the will of a certain DJ. :arrow: But now on the very verge of his conquest, Hauser is beginning to have doubts. He doesn't believe that he beloved would have wanted this. But his soul cannot enter the afterlife while bound to a demon, so he has no choice in the matter. The weird trip you just went on was Hauser's soul crying out for help.

Malice really wasn't paying much attention to the Captains antics. He was more focused on both watching the Spartan's body arc through the air at an impressive speed and listening in on the police radio, trying to figure out exactly where they were. When Captain addressed him finally, Malice distractedly said "umm, yeah. Yeah. Give a few of those arrows, I'd really like to study them. Yeah, I'll fly you out of here in just a sec, but first, what should we do with her?" he said jerking his thumb at Je'La. "Why were you helping her out? She's obviously got powers."