Geez3r

I'm going to be posting these in parts because I have to run a lot of errands today, so I'm posting whenever I have a chance, that and each of a posts is fairly long.

PART 1 After sitting in the dark for a moment, not because the lights were off this time, but rather because Malice had messed with the HUD display, Malice had finished his handiwork. A quick little rework and the broad array of tools in the HUD had been dedicated to scrutinizing the surroundings. With the modifications made, Eric sat down to work, feeling a little odd doing this in the suit, but he didn't want to take off the helmet until he knew who or what was watching, not that it really mattered at this point. The first meta was a no-name fire manipulator. Spotting the weakness was easy enough, no flames equals no powers. Figuring out a way to counter-act the meta was also easily achieved. The first and more lethal method was installing a fire retardant paste (the same used in the fire prevention systems here) into the tips of bullets. The revised thin shell of the bullets would burst easily at higher temperatures, spraying the meta with the paste (and the shrapnel from the bullets) making it harder for him to use his powers. The second invention also used the paste, but in a different way. It essentially shot the paste out of a water gun, but the paste now was much more like a fast drying concrete. It was more effective than the previous design, but it had a much shorter range. The fabrication process while a little sloppy, did the trick. Eric did the due diligence and mounted the devices on the suit, and did a test run or two. They worked admirably.

DAKKA... check. MOAR DAKKA... check. I'm good. :D

Heh. For some reason, I believe that the dark times are indeed upon us. Congrats.

What the good Doc said. :bunny: :clap: :bunny: :clap: :bunny:

Not a direct test of my skills so much as see how much shenanigans I can pull out of my backside when necessary No essentially making an AP on the weapons array that had a bunch of skills and feats and what not, like a "recon" setting if you will. But as I mentioned, that's stretching it a bit. Malice formerly had something like that, but I got rid of it when the Velveeta taste got too strong. Furthermore, you're making me dread test #5.

Case anyone's wondering, that means a certain red, white and blue clad defender of justice. I'm just lurking on the thread until I get the call.

Eric made a mental note for the system to show the results of the test in graph form, he could look at the nitty gritty later. But right now, Eric had more pressing matters to attend to. The droids could see me, I know they could. That settles it, someone has messed with my droids somehow. Although they maintain the outward appearance of my handiwork, they are certainly not mine. Either someone is controlling them remotely (while enhancing their abilities) or these are not the droids I'm looking for. And then the tables appear. Okay, seriously. They're not even trying at this point. They're making me build gadgets in a COMBAT SIMULATOR. Hrmmm... Alright, if this is the game they're going to play, might as well milk it. If they're going through all the trouble of setting up these tests for me, might as well use it to my advantage. Though I loathe to admit it, I couldn't have come up with a test this in depth. Besides, if they truly have control over my systems, they would have just set everything to "kill" once I walked through the door. Malice took his seat down at one of the tables. Eric didn't recognize the first meta he was shown, which spelled trouble. Whipping up a device when you know its weakness is one thing, flying blind is another. Malice thought of the HUD in his helmet with an idea brewing...

I'll use Extra Effort to get an AP off of the Super Senses, spending my HP to ignore the fatigue. I'll use it to get the following: Enhanced Skills 6 (Notice 12 ranks, Knowledge: Tech 4 ranks, Craft mechanical 4 ranks, Craft electrical 4 ranks) Essentially turning Malice's HUD into a drafting tool/ 3-D modeler for the device. Increased analytical awareness to pick out flaws, and to get in real close for the precision stuff. I need the Notice ranks more than anything or else I can't pass test #3 on the Notice checks, when I could almost take a 10 on the other checks still This will bump up Malice's total modifiers as such: Notice +16 Crafts +18 Knowledge +18 Sound alright? I was going to EE an AP off the Weapons Array, but A - doesn't make too much sense and B - it's kind of a cheap tactic. I wanted to make sure this was Kosher before continuing on with the thread.

Addendum: Fate has a twisted sense of humor. Against my better judgment I met up with the Captain again. Apparently, the dear Captain isn't quite as stupid as I thought he was; I might even have to edit my files and label him as "sentient" but as of right now, I'm hoping it was more of a fluke. But there was at least a good turn of events. The Captain recognizes that I am far smarter than he is (thank God) and is deferring to my expertise on how to deal with the meta overpopulation problem. Right now, I consider him a knight in a game of chess. Useful, but erratic and ultimately expendable. I will have to wait and see how this will play out. I have the Captain's radio frequency and he shall contact me. I expect a call very soon. He doesn't seem the type to just sit back and study the bees, no of course not, that would make sense; he'll have to dive into the hive face first. I've begun stocking up on ammunition for this purpose.

I like "Three Can Keep A Secret If Two Are Dead" personally.

:shock: Freaky. On multiple levels. Scary part is that I was planning on outfitting Malice with the Detect Weakness super-sense with Enhanced Skills (Notice) at some point down the line. Maybe this is where he got the idea :twisted:

Malice simply shakes his head in exasperated fashion. "Believe me, this plan will not work over night. This is us slowly getting the public on our side over the course of months, and us under going training in preparation for the 2nd phase. Furthermore, should we even succeed in capturing the golem, it is unlikely, even after our training, that we will be able to take on the entire League. A lot of things will have to go right for this to work, but with high risk comes high reward. I'll let you know if I can come up with a way to contain Dr. Metropolis. See you then."

Malice might back the Captain up, but I think Malice would scare Je'La more than any PC on the boards right now. Naturally occurring alien powers is a gray area. It's like faulting for someone for being wet in water, its just how it works. Furthermore, from my understanding, these are powers Je'La has naturally, not through any sort of yellow sun radiation or any of that garbage. Eye lasers are as common to her people as toes are to us. And of course, you always bend the rules for hot alien chicks.

I think that's a good close, and now we can start the wheels turning for the continuation of the story arc. Any ideas as to what the heck we should call it?

Eric turned away from the shrinking figure of Dr. Archeville and walked up to Samantha's desk. "How'd it go?" "That... is a question of some debate. Call a priority 1 general meeting to assemble in the General Hall in half an hour. Attendance is mandatory for all personnel. I'll explain everything there." "Um, alright. See you then...?" About 35 minutes where everyone had crammed into the room, and members of the board were on a conference call, Eric told them all about what had transpired that day. He was blunt and direct, but never skipped on the details. There was a collective cheer from the crowd as Eric told them about Dr. Archeville's desire to become a consultant. The news about Ares Macrotech was greeted with a great deal of muttering, and whispers to neighbors. Eric gave them a week to decide, and say simply that he would throw the weight of his shares behind the choice the majority decided. A week later, Benjiro Fujisama and Dr. Archeville received work that Darts had accepted Ares Macrotech's deal.

Eric stood to accompany the Doctor out, and shook his hand when it was offered. "Thank you Dr. Archeville, and I look forward to working with you. I'll have the legal team draft the contract post haste. But in the interim if you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to call or stop on by." Eric presents Dr. Archeville with a business card that he notices also contains his personal cell number, home phone number and home address. "I'll let you know about the Marcotech situation as soon as I know anything. Oh, and I know I probably don't have to tell you this, but to cover my own bases, do me a favor and don't make any trades involving Darts or Macrotech for a couple of weeks. The SEC might frown upon that. And now I bid you good day."

Malice folds him arms over his chest and taps his foot for a moment before simply saying "Well shit... Malice was a bit surprised at this turn of events (not that anyone had noticed that already). Here was a great opprotunity to try some of Malice's more outlandish schemes. "Well in our vendetta, the best place to start is at home, meaning we get the public on our side. If we do that, then the government is soon to follow. Once that happens, some supers will start leaving the "scene" of their own accord. So we have simultaneously gotten more allies while decreasing our enemy's numbers." "Now there are two things that can get the public on your side, showing them a pretty face, and showing them the impact on their wallet. You obviously can fill the first role, and have already been doing so with your useful, albeit annoying, billboards. Use them to start spreading anti-meta propaganda. Don't go on a direct attack yet though, ease into it, there is less likely of a public back lash this way." Next we need to focus on the wallets. The easiest way to get attention is through a tax hike, and we are namely concerned with property taxes. The average meta brawl costs the city about $20k, but can easily escalate into the hundreds of thousands depending on who is involved. For example, when I fought Captain Wonder a while back, I cost the city $1500 in property damage, and $320.26 in medical expenses. Captain Wonder on the other hand caused $68,296.73 in property damage when he threw me through a building, and then threw a flat bed truck on top of me. How can the supers get away with this wanton destruction, and still be considered heroes? The answer is one man, Dr. Metropolis. It is through his abilities that most of the damage to the city gets repaired. If he were to be removed from the picture then the property taxes around Freedom would increase by a factor of 4 by my estimates. As I am unfamiliar with his abilities simply killing him might not do anything, it would not surprise me if he could come back from the grave, because I am fairly certain that it was never human. So what we have to do is try and find a way of containing him for a few months, while property taxes soar. The enraged general populace will try to find something or someone to blame, and you will be there to direct their hatred to where it should have always gone. The main problem with this plan is of course the Freedom League itself. They won't take kindly to one of their own members going AWOL. But dealing with the League is, quite the challenge to say the least. This is just about my hardest plan to pull off, but practically guaranteed to work."

I'm going to ignore anything from any sort of concealment because I'm not sure how it will play out in this scenario. And I don't care if this works or not, its a good plan IMO. Malice is going Total Defense boosting his DEF to 22.

"Oh shut up! I'll test those weapons when I'm good and ready!" ... And when I was sure I wasn't being watched. That was the only explanation Eric could come up with. Someone had messed with, or is messing with his technology. They had either put in some new hologram emitter to make the droids look more realistic (and make them look more agile than they really were) or someone had blanketed the area in some sort of mass illusion. Whoever it was was very good. Or were they...? If whoever was doing this was using technology, they would had to have the technical insight to know what my droids were capable of, so either they got careless or wanted me to know. But that doesn't help me. Alright, let's assume they're using something other than technology, like magic or mysticism. For that stuff they'll usually need line of sight, they can't control what they can't see... "Alright round 3, let's make it a little more interesting." Eric pressed a button on his arm console and turned off the lights in the combat simulator, making it pitch black. The night vision optics on the suit sprang to life, allowing Eric to see undeterred. How's that for killing two birds with one stone? Any illusions made by a mystic should go away now (unless they can see in the dark too), anyone spying on me in a mundane way probably can't see anything because they probably wouldn't have though about me fighting in the dark, and to top it all off, I never got around to putting night vision on the droids. ================ Feeling incredibly confident in himself, Malice settled into a defensive posture, and got ready for the shots fired by the droids. The first droid, looking like a generic mook with a gun is unable to hit Malice through a combination of bad aiming, darkness and Malice keeping on his toes. Malice was feeling pretty cocky until one of the droids got right in Malice's face and pretty much stayed there getting another shot in. Note to self, learn to duck. Then the droid that had resembled Captain Thunder opened up with a salvo of lighting. Forunately for Malice, in the dark room, the bright lightning gave him warning enough to avoid most of the shots. The last one against the Bowman droid was quite pitiful for Malice, getting beaned several times.

Happy birthday.

"I- ju-- you --- an - shee--ah-- GAAAAHHH!" Malice loses all ability to properly formulate a sentence as his brain desperately tries to not give itself an aneurysm. He holds up his hands in front of him like he can't decide whether he wants to throttle you, or to see how many layers of flesh he can claw off his own face. Malice then does an abrupt about face, as it seems that the presence of the Captain is causing him far too much anguish. He puts his hands on his hips and draws a few deep long, breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. In the likely event that the Captain says or does anything in the span of time to draw attention to himself, Malice cuts him off with a raised hand that can't seem to make up its mind on what form to make so it alternates between an open palm, a pointing finger, the "one minute" finger, among others. "AH-jjjhh! No. Just no. Stop. No talking. NO!" After a moment of more calming breath, a little bit of talking to himself and a few hand motions meant to suppress the rage, Malice has calmed down. Malice then very calmly walks back to the Captain. He then very calmly holds out his hands as if he is about to say something. He then thinks better of it, and very calmly places his hands on the Captain chest. Malice then proceeds to grab a fist full of the Captain's costume, lift the Captain up into the air and shake him while shouting "WHAT THE **** MAN!!!??? He then lets go of the Captain with no real harm done. "Seriously."

And just like that, Malice's opinion of the Captain once again sank. "Let me get this straight, your brilliant plan is to simply beat people up until you get your way? Really, that's the best you got?" Hanging his head with a sigh, Malice paused a moment. "Okay let me explain something about how this world works. You see all those villains with their doomsday weapon, trying to defeat all their foes in a single master stroke? They're actually doing it right. You see if I went around beating seemingly random people up every day, people would really grow to hate me. But even worse, they would no longer sympathize with me. To them I would just be an unthinking, unfeeling force of destruction. If I were ever to be caught or stopped, then any authority figure wouldn't bat an eyelash at throwing the book at me. Furthermore, the general populace would distrust and despise me. I could exist without the adoration of the masses, but could you?" Malice pauses a moment making sure that the full implications of the Captain's plan became apparent. "But let's say for a moment that this plan of yours is largely successful. Let's assume that you go around day after day beating the living snot out of all the big names. For argument's sake, we'll also ignore the enourmous strain this would put on your body, and how your overall heath would decline in this period. Now if you continue on this path, with no other apparent motive other than the destruction of all metas, what you have done is make yourself a clear and present danger, while backing your opposition into a corner. Now the saying "never back an animal into a corner" exists because it is sound advice. Any animal will rather fight than surrender its life willingly. Furthermore, when you make yourself an inescapable danger like this, stopping you becomes progressively a higher and higher priority. As such, people will begin to band together to oppose you in increasingly larger and larger numbers, including people who would have never thought of standing up to you or stopping you, and this could include the general masses that you have also alienated at this point. But you can avoid all of this with a carefully crafted modus operandi. These villains create these "needlessly" elaborate death traps for a reason. It allows them to plot the destruction of their enemies without cornering them, it allows them to connect on at least some base level to the general populace, and because the danger is not noticable until the final switch is thrown, the likelyhood of facing off against insurmountable odds is significantly diminished." You may know how to fight, but if that was all that mattered, the war would have been over long ago."

OK, for this one, I have to avoid being hit three times, or just the once? So do I roll 3 attacks for each part and describe them as necessary, or does each droid attack me and that part is over if I dodge the attack?

You love toying with me Doc don't you? First you mess with my head in Power Check, and now here? I thought we were friends Doc! But this sounds like a pretty cool idea, this could cause a whole chain of events which would grow into a pretty deep rivalry, and throw in Doc's manipulations, we've got ourselves a story arc.