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"Hey." "Heeeey." "Li! Liii! Wake up!" A tug. Warmth fell away and cool air rushed to fill the empty space. Reluctantly, Kat shuddered, slowly remembering she was a person. Groggily, she pushed herself to her knees on her bed, yawned and fixed the chipper young women standing over her with a blanket in her hands a heavy-lidded glare. Who was this person and why she holding her blanket? For a minute, she was a stranger. A tall young woman with a bright smile and bright green hair style in an undercut. It felt like Kat was staring at the sun from her sheer cheerfulness. Or maybe because the woman had thrown open the blinds and let the sun shine into the room from behind her. Kat decided she didn't care either way. "What you staring for?" "Maybe if I stare hard enough, you'll catch fire . . ." Ah, that's right! ". . . Tally." Her roommate in Emerald City. "Why am I not sleeping?" Tally shook her head sadly. Gosh, she was even dressed! "You slept in! It's noon!" "NOON?! I . . ." Kat's eyes startled opened wide, but then quickly irised back into their tired sag. "It's Saturday." "I figured we could hang out together a little today." She said, her face falling a little. "It's been a little bit. Wanted to check up on you." "Why would you think that?" Tally gave a small, knowing grin. "Pizza, downtown. My treat." Kat blinked, sat up a little straighter. Rubbed her eyes. "I hate you." "You love me." "I love pizza." She sighed. "Gimme an hour."

Moscow, Russia Approximately 10000 miles above the center of the city Monday, February 2nd, 2015 1:14 AM Foreshadow's last trip to Russia ended with him uncovering a >secret soviet conspiracy to win the Olympics with yet to be resolved complications. Dressed to the in full costume, Foreshadow was currently leaning outside of the open side hatch of the plane. Thousands of miles above the city of Moscow. "I still think this is a bad idea." An all too familiar reservation from the pilot called out. His pilot was an alcoholic that couldn't even find stable employ with a PMC groups. Mohammed Azzam was a veteran of the Soviet War in Afghanistan. A man whose sacrifices for his country did not end in the war when he stepped on a landmine left behind by the Soviets. Both his leg and arm were metallic replacements crafted by the local ASTRO Labs equivalent. And he was the last person who felt comfortable "borrowing" a stealth plane to sneak into Moscow air space. "Your reservations are noted. Your payment has already been wired." Foreshadow's words were followed by the act of him leaping out of the moving plane. Diving down towards the Russian capital. Armed only with a parachute that hadn't been maintained since the late 1980s. It was the sort of night Foreshadow lived for. When Erick Sloane popped up on Interpol's most wanted, he was inconvenienced. When Erick Sloane was flagged at the London airport as a domestic terrorist, he was a little irked. But, when an assassin showed up at his adopted father's home Erick Sloane was beyond outraged. Of course, David could more than take care of himself which gave Erick a starting point. It took a lot of effort to track down the source of his troubles. A long winding road that made one thing especially clear. Someone in Russia had it out for him. Someone knew he was Foreshadow... His recently established ties with Vanguard meant Erick had someone he could call if he needed assistance. A thought that had crossed his mind many times. There are just some things you need to do alone. Things like sneaking into a country with some of the harshest prison conditions on the planet. * * * Even at 1 AM, the hero's descent into the city was a public affair. But, none of the witnesses who claimed to have seen the lone man parachuting into the center of the city ha managed to snap even a picture. Even fewer could place the direction he had run off towards. The acrobat had wasted no time in donning his disguise. Dirtying himself up he looked like a poor brown haired (hair dye was a wonderful thing especially water soluble die) tourist with a large lack of money. Just the sort of person a local hostel would gladly take in. Erick was counting on the fact that whomever was after him would be alerted to his public entrance to the country. While at the same time he needed to blend as quickly as possible. Though a single assassin had been sent to David's place. There had yet to be a large out and out declaration that Foreshadow and he were one in the same. His foe was either sitting on the information or the fallout was instead a revenge motion due to his costumeless taking down of the Doctor and the Sleeper's olympic plans with Dee. Either way Erick was set to get to the bottom of this whole thing. The rest of the day was spent socializing with the other patrons of the Hostel. Kristoff, as Erick had taken to calling himself, was a mouthy lad that mostly kept to himself when not preaching about the environment or new age mumbo jumbo. Essentially he was a walking stereotype of the typical 'skipped college to save the world' youth that one could always be sure to find at a hostel. Notable only in his ability to annoy the other patrons.

I don't particularly like solo threads, but...doing a short one to get a grip on Red Rats personality and writing, and also add more background to her, namely finding the Soviet "Safe House" and making it her own. A few crazed Soviet robots may be lurking inside... Thread in question

March 3rd, 2014, late evening The air of Freedom City had the crisp snap taken out of by this time of year, but was still cool, especially at night. Around Greenback, with its crumbling disused warehouses and rusted disused traintracks, it had a certain dusty quality to it. And every so often, Noemi came across the odours of the homeless, a sharp pang of an impromptu latrine. Greenback was home to a number of Freedom Cities homeless. The old bricks, mortar, steel, and wood providing shelter at the risk of a collapsed roof. Every now and again she could a fire in the distance, as the vagrants huddled around to keep warm and tell stories. Safehouse detected. Proceed to building "Grin and Bear It". She didn't hear the words. She saw them. A print out only she could see, the white letters appearing before her. Inside her head there resided a computer. "Slave" it was called, but she wondered exactly to whom it was enslaved. Her eyes were not her own. Bright green and pretty they may have been, but completely artificial. Through them, the text of Slave was printed. She just thanked the fates that the Soviet scientists who designed Slave and put it in her chose text rather than a voice. "Grin and Bear it" must have been an old Russian trading shop, or warehouse. It was half derelict now, with a patchwork roof and big holes where bricks had caved in. She approached cautiously. It was dark, but her eyes could see well enough by starlight. Inside, Grin and Bear it was rotted and green. She saw a number of old Russian tourist tat, such as Polka Dolls and a number of tattered doll Bears with a fierce grin. The vodka bottles had been pillaged and consumed decades ago, no doubt but alcoholic scavengers. A bottle of vodka would keep the cold out for a day, maybe two. She saw embers, still warm, glowing in one corner. Who was it? As she walked closer, she heard the rustling of blankets and trash...

June 4th 2014, Freedom City Sewers Sewers are generally considered unpleasant, unnapealing places. It's just a fact. They smell, they are dirty and they are dark. However, to some these dark unnapealing places can constitute a refuge form the outside world. In this case, they are the refuge against the rays of the sun for time-travelling vampire, Bloodline. Having cut himself off the outside world. A world he simply didn't and couldn't understand. No matter how better this world seemed, no matter how much it seemed like everything he had fought for, he couldn't bring himself to become part of it. Now that his timeline was less and less a reality, he was the only part of it that still existed. Finding a place to sit down, Bloodline rummaged through a pouch on his belt, taking out a syringe. Briefly, he paused, examining it even if it was completely familliar to him. He needed the serum contained within that syringe, or else his vampiric nature would re-assert itself and he would hunger for blood. "Last shot." he said out loud, to himself and perhaps the rats scurrying around him. "Damn it..." then said the man, tossing his blaster in frustration. The large weapon made a racket, which scared the rats, as it impacted the wall. Reluctantly, he then injected the serum into his body. As always, it was an unpleasant experience and he had to hold back a few screams of pain. Alone in a dark sewer, his mind wandered back to a future that perhaps no longer existed...

November 3, 2013 “…we’ve been at this for an hour. I don’t th-“ “No, you ARE thinking. That’s the problem.†An exasperated sigh escaped the judoka’s mouth. Marcus frowned, biting back a grumble of frustration. “I get it. You’re still worried that what happened to Richard will happen to you. But mastering the Beast Rune is going to take more than just the raw strength of your bear form. You've tapped into that potential once before... you can do it again.†It had been the Master Mage himself who had turned Arcturus towards training, certainly more than he’d done at his four years at Claremont. It was rigorous to the point of being a job in and of itself, and his teacher seemed to know far more about the Beast Rune than he did. In the end, it was just a lot of philosophy, as well as an unusual fighting style that was unique to Arc’s inherited magical ability. “Juuhoukenjitsuâ€â€”the Way of the Beast King’s Fist. At first, it was nothing but forms and katas. Admittedly, Marcus thought it was utterly useless at first… until the first time he’d used it in a fight. When the mind is reeling, the body remembers its training; this was universal, and suddenly Arcturus felt he could relate to the Beast Rune in a way that he’d never done before then. Nevertheless… he was holding back. He could sense the wall he had put up ever since that fateful night on his birthday five years ago… Marcus really wasn’t sure if he was ready to bring it down. The Cult of the Beast Rune, however, was giving him very little choice. “Okay. Let’s start again.†Marcus shut his eyes. He wasn't sure how much time had passed after that. The moment he stopped concerning himself with time is when everything felt timeless. He felt a sudden rush, as if his entire body was suddenly weightless, and when he opened his eyes, the dojo was gone. In its place was a wide expanse of grassy hills, and a circle of stones that reminded him vaguely of Stonehenge. ...not exactly what I expected. "No, I suppose it wouldn't be, would it?" Marcus spun around at the sound of a voice other than his own. He paused at the sight of something oddly familiar: a figure nearly a foot taller than him, wearing a dark green robe, his face entirely covered by a ceramic bear mask. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get here."

Earth-I-War-4 March 1, 1983 (Local Time) 0y 0d 0h 0m 0s Post-Arrival It should have been a quiet Thursday, or at least relatively so. Certainly on Earth-Prime, it was. This is not Earth-Prime. So when a >rip in space-time manifests a few hundred feet above the ground over a corner of the field here in western France. No one even takes note of the over-sized young man who emerges and is, somehow, flying directly at the ground at barely sub-sonic speeds. He only just stops himself before striking the ground, ending up in a crouch as he looked around, nervously adjusting the backpack and shoulder bag he bore. Looking behind him, he just saw trees. "Man, where did I end up? I'll have to...call...the..." His words trail off as he turns back in front of himself and he takes in the sight before him. A plain stretched out before him for miles. Large hills sat beyond the trees at his back. But while it was nominally beautiful, the unfamiliar vista wasn't what caught his attention. It was the battle. Specifically, the one being waged in the air and on the ground. Tanks rolled across the ground, nearly as advanced as anything one saw in the news of the day. Fire flew from their barrels, and vehicles on both sides erupted in flames. Solders dashed to and fro, firing from cover. None of that compared to the really weird stuff. On one side, clad in black uniforms that amounted to robust skin-suits, men and women suddenly and violently shifted into lupine man-beasts, howling in unison before charging in a line of fur, claws, and fury. Overhead, more remarkable people flew in crisp formation, moving through the air as easily as...as Quo-Dis, he realized. They even had that same faint glow to their bodies. Opposing them was a group a bit less uniform. Several were dressed as superheroes. Some he didn't recognize. The man dressed like an Ancient Egyptian and wielding a glowing hammer was probably Horus the Avenger, though. And boy, did they hold the line! Blasts of energy drew the...well, for lack of a better term, the super-men and -women down to the ground just as the lycanthropes struck the line of heroes. There was just enough confusion to leave them disoriented, which clearly helped the group with Horus. Considering the Iron Crosses on the black or grey vehicles he could see...they were probably Nazis. Which made the others...the Allies, he supposed. It wasn't Erde, but- "Nazis. Why did it have to be Nazis?" He couldn't help but smile at his own private joke for a moment...before the smile faded. Those heroes seemed like they were barely holding on, and any normal Allied soldiers who got too close were...not long for the world. "​I...I have to help. Damn. Not what I planned, but I'm sure if Horus is kicking around, so is Daedalus. I bet I'll be home in a week or less." With that cheery thought, Corbin took his bags, conjured a blue box of energy around them, and buried it next to a tree. Giving one last glance around, he blinked, and was suddenly Cobalt Templar. When asked later what had happened, most Allied soldiers would say they still weren't entirely sure, except that a streak of blue light cut across the air for a moment, and a half-dozen Nazi tanks were missing gun barrels. Meanwhile, the biggest werewolf on the field had knocked Horus back, and was raising both clawed hands in a gesture that would likely leave the deific champion wounded, if not worse. But instead of a flare of pain, the dazed paragon was treated to a flash of blue light and the smell of burned dog hair as the Alpha was sent flying by a burst of the blue flame that was the signature of Cobalt Templar. The young hero stood in the place of the werewolf, facing the rest of the pack as he held a great burning sword of fire in his hands. "Who wants some?"