Singular Universe: Brave New World -- Sign Up/OOC Thread
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Byrd Man
El Hombre Pájaro
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Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: Gotham City Mayor James Worthington Gordon aka Schoolboy Jim aka Whiskey Jim
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Trebuchet MS and black
Powers and Abilities:
No powers. Jim has a brilliant detective mind and is a skilled investigator. He is also an astute politician and a charismatic figure.
Character Origin:
James Worthington Gordon was born in Chicago, the latest in a long line of family of cops. When he was sixteen his father was killed in the line of duty. The death of his father was further motivation for him to become a police officer. He joined Chicago PD soon as possible and made patrolman a year later. He married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Kean, and soon had a young daughter also named Barbara. When the girl was just an infant trouble came to the Gordon family. Ambitious and smart, Jim also had a reputation as an honest ocp. Jim's patrol sergeant, a corrupt policeman with mob ties, targeted Jim for his refusal to take part in a protection racket in their sector. Jim went to Internal Affairs and reported the sergeant. Unfortunately, the case did not stand and Jim was labeled a rat. He was forced to leave Chicago for a job in Gotham City with the PD.
In Gotham Jim learned to keep his head down and his mouth shut. While the fire and ambition burned inside of him, Gotham was no place for an honest cop to advance. His desire to make rank did not trump his moral turpitude. He moved from the beat to the office as a detective and later Detective Sergeant. In the detective bureau, Gordon developed a reputation as a stellar case man. He was the go-to guy with any hard case. He was smart, an excellent interrogator, and an efficient politician. Despite that, he could not advance past sergeant. To cope with the job's stresses and his own grudges, he began to pick up the bottle and drink. The drinking, his general discontent, and a passionate affair with a fellow police officer, Sarah Essen, destroyed his marriage with Barbara. One day she left both him and little Barbara. Jim slowed the pace of his drinking in order to raise Barbara, but he continued to languish in a deep depression as he saw the horrors of the job and the corruption that plagued the GCPD.
Enter the Batman.
The masked vigilante tapped Gordon, one of the few straight cops in the GCPD, as an unlikely ally. Reluctant at first, Jim began to slowly see the things Batman could accomplish and soon found himself working with him. The new partner fired his old ambition and desires. Soon, he and the masked vigilante were partnered Deputy District Attorney Harvey Dent to clean up the streets and government of Gotham. Results began to improve, as the three engineered a state investigation into the GCPD that led to the arrests and dismissal of many of the PD's top brass. The vacuum led to promotion for Jim, first to lieutenant then captain and soon inspector. Harvey Dent swept into office as district attorney and the future looked good for the city and the small band of reformers.
Salvatore Maroni had other plans.
During a trial, the mob boss horrible disfigured Dent with a bottle of acid. The attack caused Dent's already fragile psyche to shatter. What emerged from the accident was Two-Face. With their once ally now an enemy, Jim and Batman found themselves at odds as they coped in different ways: Batman tore up the streets looking for revenge while Jim retreated back into a bottle. With Batman's help he was able to get out of that funk and back into the job. After Dent's arrest, Gordon found himself on the fast track to police commissioner. After a brief time as a deputy, he was appointed commissioner of police.
His tenure as police commissioner.became a smashing success. With his old flame, Sarah Essen, and Captain Harvey Bullock, they began a full-scale cleanup of the PD. As felony arrests rose, the complaints of police brutality and corruption began to decline. The herculean task of reforming the GCPD had been accomplished. Juiced by the job, Jim's eyes wandered elsewhere. After three years as police commissioner, Gordon announced his candidacy for mayor of Gotham. With Bruce Wayne's financial support, the Gordon camp waged a hard-fought campaign against incumbent Hamilton Hill. The campaign ended on election day, when Jim barely managed to eek out a win over Hill. His meteoric rise -- from police sergeant to mayor -- in just four years was dizzying. He was now the most powerful man in the city.
How far he could truly go had yet to be seen.
Dramatis Personae
Jim Gordon - Gotham Mayor
David Kane - Deputy Mayor
Sarah Essen - GCPD Commissioner
Harvey Bullock - GCPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations
Insp. Maggie Sawyer - Commander, Major Crimes Unit
Det. Crispus Allen - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Det. Renee Montoya - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Det. Marcus Driver - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Sgt. Charlie Fields - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Sgt. Michael Tork - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Det. Daz Pierce - Detective, Major Crimes Unit
Insp. Arnold Flass - Commander, Surveillance Unit
Sgt. Thomas Burke - Detective, Surveillance Unit
Det. Vincent Gonzales - Detective, Surveillance Unit
Det. James Corrigan - Detective, Survelliance Unit
Why this character?
I love me some Jim Gordon. I love me some crime fiction, and I love me some politics. Three great tastes that taste great together.
What can you bring to the RPG?
POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSTS!
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
The Bowery
Gotham City
1:10 AM
Jim's car rode the wake of three GCFD trucks. The trucks' sirens wailed. Their brights lights lit up the night. Jim kept both hands on the wheel and kept close to the fire trucks. The call: a four-alarm fire in the Bowery. He heard the squeal on the radio at home. Middle of the night and he couldn't sleep. Driving helped, working cases helped more. Way out of line. Not his place, but the it was either insomnia and prowling or the Thirst.
Civilians and prosties gawked on the adjacent sidewalks at the convoy. Jim caught the eye of a wino on the sidewalk. The wino flipped him off. The wino tossed a bottle. It smashed near his rolling car. Jim swore he could smell the cut-rate booze. It made his mouth water. A year without a drink and even the cut-rate smelled good.
The Thirst beckoned. The Thirst was his siren and bright lights. It tried to lure him away from sanity and towards the rocks of binge drinking. One year and not a drop. One year spent fighting something he was afraid to discover was true. White knuckle sobriety was his way. He didn't truck with AA. Nothing there but sob stories and thinly-disguised Christian tracts. The second of the twelve steps: You must admit there is a power greater than ourselves, and this power could restore us to sanity. He rejected that notion outright. Over twenty years as a cop proved that if a greater power actually did exist, there was no way in hell it could ever restore anybody's sanity. He would not utter falsehoods even for the sake of his own sobriety. He would not be beholden to a sponsor or a higher power.
The trucks pulled up to a four-story flop house. Three other fire trucks were on the scene watching as an inferno consumed the building. It roared and blew heat outward. Ten minutes since the call and it was already fully involved. The firefighters kept adjacent buildings wet in case the fire tried to spread. Containment was their mandate now. Anyone in the burning building could not be saved. Jim shook his head and watched from the car. The sixth building to go up in the past month. Every single fire burned hot and fast, taking out the building in less than a half hour. The previous five were ruled arson. This one would be too.
A knock on his window. A fat, gray-haired man in a firefighter suit stared at him. Jim rolled down the window and caught the smells of smoke and burning. Heat pulsated from the fire and radiated against his face. The fire burned too hot to be natural.
"Mr. Mayor," he said with a nod. "Didn't expect to see you here."
"Commander. Someone is burning my city to the ground, one rowhouse at a time."
"So it would seem, sir. This one was stronger than the last one. It's those chemicals I found at the last fire, it has to be."
Intuition melded with experience. Thoughts and ideas clicked and unclicked. A hunch coalesced into a theory. Hypothesis formed from hysteria. Experimentation. Theory in practice.
"It's a stronger dose," said Jim. "Whoever is doing this, Commander, is experimenting. These rowhouses are where they're testing these chemicals."
"For what purpose?"
A scream went out from the burning building. A few seconds later he could smell the unmistakable scent of a human body burning alive. Burning hair and fat had its own personal fragrance. He put his hands on the wheel to steady them. The Thirst screamed at him, it begged for him, it needed him... and right now he needed it.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "But we're going to find out."
The Handlebar
1:34 AM
Marcus Driver pounded the shot glass against the bar. Booze coursed through his body. It tingled. Mark it: his third shot since getting off duty. The shots supplemented two beers. He was halfway to getting good and ****faced. He caught the eye of a woman down the bar. Redhead, late 40's and dumpy. Might have been a looker twenty years, sixty pounds, and thousands of beers ago. What caught his eye was the shiner. Purple and yellow around her left eye. On the verge of healing. Ther shiner beckoned his interest. The shiner got his dander up. He made eyes at the man beside the redhead. Big and burly and with a long beard.
Driver's hard-on for wife beaters was GCPD lore. As a patrolman he would give parole violators with domestic violence beefs a choice: Be run in for their crime and go to jail no muss or fuss, or fight him one and one and walk away if they won. They always took the chance to fight, they always came away spitting blood and teeth. He topped out at 6'3 and 230 pounds. An all-state linebacker that got a football helmet in the knee his first year in college and had to drop out. GCPD after that. His size and strength made him a terror. He rose quickly, from patrol to plainclothes to detective. CID Robbery was where he made his name. He killed two men in the line of duty. Armed heist gone bad, the both of them. One bank robber he put a bullet right under his left eye from twenty yards out. The second, a ****bird that robbed a grocery store and took hostages, he blew his brains out from up close. Now he was in the MCU, working for Bullock and Whiskey Jim and given the chance to be something more than an enforcer. Flass wanted him for the mob squad. He said "Join me, I'll make the Underworld fear you like they should." Bullock offered something else. He said "Join me, I'll make you an honest to god detective." Slowly but surely he was learning how to use more than his fist to put people behind bars.
The anger and violence stemmed from the Old Man. The Old Man beat his momma like a dog day in and day out. Too small, he could never properly fight back. Driver was twelve when he decided he was going to kill the Old Man once and for all. Right after that he went splitsville, headed to parts unknown. Twenty years since then and now every woman beater he encountered was an ersatz Old Man. He took all his **** out on them, one beating at a time.
"You got a problem, pal?"
The bearded man sized Driver up from across the bar. Driver stood and ambled over. The beer and booze warmed him, keyed him up and fueled his anger. He promised Bullock no more provocation of woman beaters. He kept his word for over three months. This was a tipping point. He felt close. He back down right now and keep his promise. The spirit was willing... but the flesh was weak.
"He beat on you, ma'am?"
"What business is it of yours what me and my old lady do?"
He made eye contact with he redhead and saw something in her eyes. Rather, a lack of something. It was a vacuum. An empty spot where something should be. The eyes told a story no amount of lying could. It revealed a lifetime of poor decisions that had been paid for in triplicate.
Driver smiled. "How about we step outside?"
The man shrugged and stood. He was older than Driver, but they were almost the same height and weight. Driver had him beat barely.
The man flexed and said, "We can go that way if you want to, pal."
Outside in the parking lot, Driver put on a clinic. He one-two-three'd the man with left and right hooks. He drove the man's head against a car door. He kicked him in the side and left him on the ground as a whimpering heap. He bent down and got in close to the beaten man's ear.
"Touch her again and I will come back and kill you."
The man rolled onto his side and looked up at Driver, blood leaking from his mouth.
"You know who I run with, you piece of ****?! Jesters MC, the baddest biker gang in this goddamn city!"
"I run with a gang, too." He flashed his badge at the biker. "And we're badder."
He stood and walked towards his car. The redhead made eyes at him and thanked him. He ignored it. Women threw themselves at him after he beat the **** out of their abusive significant others, but he always turned them down. He didn't do it to get laid. He didn't do it because it was right or even because it was wrong. He did it because it was the only way he could get back what the Old Man took from him all those years ago: closure. A voice in the back of his head asked that if this was closure, then why did he keep doing it?
The phone in his pocket went off. A text from Charlie. Multiple 187's, MCU had the case and they were meeting in a few hours. Driver climbed behind the wheel of his car and shook his head to sober up and get ready to get back to work.
The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club
The strip club's window shattered. Vinny Ligotti crashed through it and on to the street. Lagotti spit glass and teeth and blood. Commotions from inside the bar. Cops and mobsters trading blows. Fights and yelling and sounds of chaos mingled with stripper screams and techno music. Someone inside screamed in pain. High-pitch. Either a woman's scream or a man getting his balls kicked. Vinnie groaned. He grabbed his stomach, felt pain. Puked blood. He heard footsteps on broken glass. Rolled over and saw Arnold Flass upside down, looking down at him with a sap in his hands.
"What did I say about that smart mouth of yours, Vinnie?"
Flass yanked the old man on to his feet. Hit him in the belly with the sap and dropped him to his knees. Left-right-left-right blows to the head. He collapsed. Teeth rolled on the asphalt.
"A key informant has supplied my squad with intelligence. Per the informant, a pair of men have been rolling through the eastside claiming to be cops and shaking down drug dealers. We think this is tangentially connected to a triple homicide from last night. The people murdered were under my protection. These shakedown artists are operating in my territory without my knowing of it. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent."
Flass sapped Lagotti in the stomach one more time. He retched blood. Flass jerked him up by the hair.
"I'm hoping you can supply me with that knowledge, Vinnie."
Batman
Dramatic Example
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Andy C.
Repent, Harlequin!
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HIT! THE! MUSIC!
https://youtu.be/tWyyfWfNy1w
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: GOJIRA, AKA GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): n/a
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Gojira can't talk, so again, n/a.
Powers and Abilities:
The mutated creature known as Gojira is one of the most massively powerful creatures to have ever walked the Earth. Its sheer size alone is by all rights impossible, standing at one hundred meters tall (212 meters from head to tail), and weighing over sixty thousand metric tons, it can level city blocks simply by moving about on land. Its physical strength is astounding as well, able to lift over three times its own body weight with little effort. The creature's hide is incredibly thick and tough, and can resist several minutes of sustained bombardment from state-of-the-art artillery and armor-piercing missiles.
Beyond its bulk and hide, Gojira's mutations have manifested in several ways. The creature is highly radioactive, poisoning the land and water around-- simply being in close proximity to Gojira for roughly one minute can be fatal to an unprotected person. It has the ability to regenerate its cells almost instantaneously, and as long as a single cell of the creature remains living, it cannot completely be destroyed.
Most destructive of all are the blasts of nuclear radiation Gojira can vent from its body, either in the form of a pulse that emits from its skin in all directions, or its primary and most devastating means of attack: a concentrated ray emitted from the creature's mouth. At low intensities, the ray is little more than a stream of superheated gas, but given a full charge, it can deliver the full power of a 15 megaton hydrogen warhead focused on a single target. This gives Gojira the power to destroy virtually anything that opposes it, often in a single exchange.
Character Origin/Major Events:
In 1944, the Pacific burned. The Empire of Japan had spread throughout the Eastern World, and vicious, bloody battles raged as Japanese and American soldiers vied for dominance in the region. Thousands died in foreign jungles, shot or burned or blasted apart over dots on the map.
One such dot, a seemingly insignificant scrap of land in the Ring of Fire, was known as Lagos by neighboring islanders. Superstitious natives with little contact to the modern world, those who lived near Lagos Island stayed away, believing it to be a home of monsters. Admirals Koga and MacArthur were not interested in local legends, though, and both sent forces to claim the island for its strategic position.
During a short skirmish between the Axis and Allied forces, the thundering of artillery shells woke something that had been dormant in the jungles. To the horror of the soldiers on the ground, the legends surrounding Lagos Island proved true, as a massive bipedal dinosaur emerged from the brush, charging the American line and forcing the Marines off of the island. In retaliation, the island was bombarded by the American fleet, and the creature was believed killed.
A year later, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be consumed by blinding light, heralding the dawn of the Atomic Age.
As Japan tended to the scars that the war had left on its people, the American military expanded its reach through the Pacific, building base after base in anticipation of the next war. The United States and the Soviet Union began testing more powerful nuclear weapons, experimenting with genetics and 'super soldiers,' tampering with the makeup of life itself. The world was changing, and Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear were so very sure they would be in command of the future that was to come.
The new age, however, was not to be so easily mastered. In 1954, the unease and paranoia brought about by the rise of the nuclear superpowers gave way to terror and tragedy on an unthinkable scale. The Pacific no longer merely burned; for years to come, it would scream.
Some believe the creature that began sinking fishing boats off the coast of Japan was a prehistoric beast that had lain dormant for millions of years, awakened by the detonation of hydrogen bombs. Others have hypothesized it was a mutation, the creature from Lagos island bombarded with radiation from nuclear testing, and transformed into something new. Still others believe it was created by the angry spirits of the millions who died during the Pacific War, formed in a body to punish the brutality of the Imperial and Allied forces who rained destruction upon entire nations.
Regardless of its origins, the creature emerged on Odo Island, and following the annihilation of the inhabitants' village, the world named the creature after a monster from the local legends: 'Gojira.' (Due to an unfortunate mistranslation by an American reporter named S. Martin, the English-speaking world would forever refer to it as 'Godzilla').
Shortly after, Gojira made landfall in Tokyo Bay, leaving a swath of destruction and death in its path. The Japanese navy would retaliate the following day with a series of depth-charge attacks that they believed destroyed the creature. However, this aggression by the military would provoke Gojira's wrath, and when it emerged again, it did not relent until all of Tokyo was a sea of flames. In a single night, nearly half a million men, women, and children died. Countless more would die in the following days from their injuries, most commonly fatal radiation poisoning.
In the wake of such devastation, the world looked for answers. Heavy artillery and ultra-high-voltage barriers did nothing to slow the monster down, and with the Justice Society of America disbanded some years earlier, the 'super heroes' of the West were nowhere to be found. With the threat of another attack from Gojira looming, Japan seemed to be on its own when it came to defending itself.
The answer came in the form of Daisuke Serizawa, a brilliant scientist who had lost an eye in the War, and much more than that psychologically. He claimed he was working on fantastic new technology-- technology that, sadly, could only be used as a weapon, yet one that may be powerful enough to destroy Gojira. Fearing pressure not just from the Japanese military, but also from agents of the CIA and KGB, Serizawa destroyed all of the plans for his weapon once built, and allowed himself to be killed by the weapon as it vaporized Gojira itself, leaving nothing of the monster but its bones.
While Gojira appeared to have died, it was not the only gigantic creature to emerge from the Pacific Islands. A four-legged armored monster, dubbed 'Anguirus,' laid siege to Osaka before being driven off into the ocean. A flying reptile dubbed 'Rodan' terrorized the skies, blowing over buildings in its hypersonic wake. A burrowing horned beasted dubbed 'Baragon' fought an oversized humanoid 'Gargantua' (reported by conspiracy theorists to have been created by replicating the experiments of Doctor Victor Frankenstein). Countless reports flooded in of enormous spiders ('Komunga'), praying mantises ('Kamacuras'), crustaceans ('Ebirah'), and more across the Pacific. With conventional weapons failing to turn the tide, it seemed the Eastern hemisphere belonged to the monsters-- or as they were collectively known, the kaiju.
In response to this, a coalition of nations with interest in the Pacific region, funded by the United States and led primarily by Japan, began the development of exotic new weapons to combat the monsters that terrorized the East. Named 'G-Force,' after Gojira, the first known kaiju, this task force advanced military hardware by decades, paving the way for brilliant scientists to come. The first of G-Force's successes was the massive flying battleship Gotengo, which engaged and killed the serpent kaiju Manda on its initial outing, and played a pivotal role in rounding up the other kaiju into a central location. Though SHIELD denies it, many believe the plans for the Gotengo were stolen by Western intelligence agencies, and its technology was reverse-engineered into the Heli-Carriers they use today.
While it remains a legend among G-Force veterans, the Gotengo itself was eventually decommissioned, made obsolete by the later Super-X program, and most of G-Force's ground troops were retired, replaced by a top-secret project known only as 'Ultra Seven.'
There are also many who speculate that agents of G-Force brokered a deal with an intelligent kaiju, a supposedly mystical creature named 'Mothra,' and that the creature used its supernatural influence on other, less powerful kaiju to herd them all into one place-- Lagos Island, now nicknamed 'Monster Island,' the very same place where the creature that would become Gojira emerged in 1944. Though there have been several reported accounts of a 'giant butterfly' spotted in the skies above and around Lagos Island, the existence of 'Mothra' has never been officially confirmed, and G-Force denies knowledge of any such creature.
With the vast majority of the kaiju penned away on Monster Island, activity over the last few decades has been scant, the exception being a short-lived attack on New York in 1998 by a creature similar to, but much smaller than, the original Gojira. Named 'Zilla' in honor of the Americans' mistranslation of the first kaiju's name, it was quickly brought down by SHIELD forces and transferred to the custody of G-Force, who located it to Lagos with the others.
Several years before, in 1984, a Soviet nuclear submarine went missing in the Sea of Japan, not far from where the original Gojira was believed to be killed. While the leading theory now is that this was actually an attack carried out by Zilla in its infancy, there are some within G-Force who remain unconvinced, and fear for the worst.
These fears may prove valid, as recently, a shipping tanker was found wrecked off the coast of Madripoor. Damage along the vessel's hull included enormous tears that indicate the claws of a kaiju in the hundred-meter range. The crew were all missing or dead, either drowned, crushed, or succumbed to what appeared to be massive radiation poisoning.
The captain of the ship, an elderly man who had been a child in 1954, lived just long enough to speak to the rescue team. In his last moments, he simply said, over and over again, "......it's him........it's him........"
Why this character?
Because I want a challenge, and I'd never even considered this an option until now. And, I mean, come on. Who doesn't want to have superheroes and kaiju slug it out?
What can you bring to the RPG?
Something we've never attempted before.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
"Mayday, mayday, this is Captain Ken Avery, of the Helicarrier Pericles V, to anyone who can hear me! We have sustained heavy damage and are going down, repeat, we are going down!"
Avery had no idea how it had gone to hell so quickly. This was meant to be a simple mission, responding to distress calls about an earthquake in American Samoa. He had done this sort of thing a dozen times by now: put out fires, extract the wounded from rubble, get as many civvies on board as the ship would take and get them to a safe point.
Now half of the ship was gone, most of his crew was dead, and he didn't even know what the hell hit them.
"I don't know how long we can maintain altitude," he said into his headset, "but I'm going to try and ditch in the ocean, away from civilians. We have been struck by an unknown weapon from an unverified attacker, and-- wait.....I think I see something...."
The ground below was an impenetrable maelstrom of smoke and dust, so thick it was nearly impossible to see anything inside. And yet, he could swear there was something moving inside....something enormous.
Did the people at G-Force not do their jobs? Did one of the creatures from Lagos get off the island? How in the hell could any of them bring down a Pericles-class Carrier?!
The massive shadow inside the cloud began to move again, and Avery could see a glowing, pale blue light. Running along what appeared to be a set of massive spines, the light gave way to features, and in his final moments, Avery saw it.
"....oh God........oh God, no--"
The blue light burst out of the cloud, and for an instant, the light was everywhere.........and then there was nothing.
https://youtu.be/tWyyfWfNy1w
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: GOJIRA, AKA GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): n/a
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Gojira can't talk, so again, n/a.
Powers and Abilities:
The mutated creature known as Gojira is one of the most massively powerful creatures to have ever walked the Earth. Its sheer size alone is by all rights impossible, standing at one hundred meters tall (212 meters from head to tail), and weighing over sixty thousand metric tons, it can level city blocks simply by moving about on land. Its physical strength is astounding as well, able to lift over three times its own body weight with little effort. The creature's hide is incredibly thick and tough, and can resist several minutes of sustained bombardment from state-of-the-art artillery and armor-piercing missiles.
Beyond its bulk and hide, Gojira's mutations have manifested in several ways. The creature is highly radioactive, poisoning the land and water around-- simply being in close proximity to Gojira for roughly one minute can be fatal to an unprotected person. It has the ability to regenerate its cells almost instantaneously, and as long as a single cell of the creature remains living, it cannot completely be destroyed.
Most destructive of all are the blasts of nuclear radiation Gojira can vent from its body, either in the form of a pulse that emits from its skin in all directions, or its primary and most devastating means of attack: a concentrated ray emitted from the creature's mouth. At low intensities, the ray is little more than a stream of superheated gas, but given a full charge, it can deliver the full power of a 15 megaton hydrogen warhead focused on a single target. This gives Gojira the power to destroy virtually anything that opposes it, often in a single exchange.
Character Origin/Major Events:
In 1944, the Pacific burned. The Empire of Japan had spread throughout the Eastern World, and vicious, bloody battles raged as Japanese and American soldiers vied for dominance in the region. Thousands died in foreign jungles, shot or burned or blasted apart over dots on the map.
One such dot, a seemingly insignificant scrap of land in the Ring of Fire, was known as Lagos by neighboring islanders. Superstitious natives with little contact to the modern world, those who lived near Lagos Island stayed away, believing it to be a home of monsters. Admirals Koga and MacArthur were not interested in local legends, though, and both sent forces to claim the island for its strategic position.
During a short skirmish between the Axis and Allied forces, the thundering of artillery shells woke something that had been dormant in the jungles. To the horror of the soldiers on the ground, the legends surrounding Lagos Island proved true, as a massive bipedal dinosaur emerged from the brush, charging the American line and forcing the Marines off of the island. In retaliation, the island was bombarded by the American fleet, and the creature was believed killed.
A year later, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be consumed by blinding light, heralding the dawn of the Atomic Age.
As Japan tended to the scars that the war had left on its people, the American military expanded its reach through the Pacific, building base after base in anticipation of the next war. The United States and the Soviet Union began testing more powerful nuclear weapons, experimenting with genetics and 'super soldiers,' tampering with the makeup of life itself. The world was changing, and Uncle Sam and the Russian Bear were so very sure they would be in command of the future that was to come.
The new age, however, was not to be so easily mastered. In 1954, the unease and paranoia brought about by the rise of the nuclear superpowers gave way to terror and tragedy on an unthinkable scale. The Pacific no longer merely burned; for years to come, it would scream.
Some believe the creature that began sinking fishing boats off the coast of Japan was a prehistoric beast that had lain dormant for millions of years, awakened by the detonation of hydrogen bombs. Others have hypothesized it was a mutation, the creature from Lagos island bombarded with radiation from nuclear testing, and transformed into something new. Still others believe it was created by the angry spirits of the millions who died during the Pacific War, formed in a body to punish the brutality of the Imperial and Allied forces who rained destruction upon entire nations.
Regardless of its origins, the creature emerged on Odo Island, and following the annihilation of the inhabitants' village, the world named the creature after a monster from the local legends: 'Gojira.' (Due to an unfortunate mistranslation by an American reporter named S. Martin, the English-speaking world would forever refer to it as 'Godzilla').
Shortly after, Gojira made landfall in Tokyo Bay, leaving a swath of destruction and death in its path. The Japanese navy would retaliate the following day with a series of depth-charge attacks that they believed destroyed the creature. However, this aggression by the military would provoke Gojira's wrath, and when it emerged again, it did not relent until all of Tokyo was a sea of flames. In a single night, nearly half a million men, women, and children died. Countless more would die in the following days from their injuries, most commonly fatal radiation poisoning.
In the wake of such devastation, the world looked for answers. Heavy artillery and ultra-high-voltage barriers did nothing to slow the monster down, and with the Justice Society of America disbanded some years earlier, the 'super heroes' of the West were nowhere to be found. With the threat of another attack from Gojira looming, Japan seemed to be on its own when it came to defending itself.
The answer came in the form of Daisuke Serizawa, a brilliant scientist who had lost an eye in the War, and much more than that psychologically. He claimed he was working on fantastic new technology-- technology that, sadly, could only be used as a weapon, yet one that may be powerful enough to destroy Gojira. Fearing pressure not just from the Japanese military, but also from agents of the CIA and KGB, Serizawa destroyed all of the plans for his weapon once built, and allowed himself to be killed by the weapon as it vaporized Gojira itself, leaving nothing of the monster but its bones.
While Gojira appeared to have died, it was not the only gigantic creature to emerge from the Pacific Islands. A four-legged armored monster, dubbed 'Anguirus,' laid siege to Osaka before being driven off into the ocean. A flying reptile dubbed 'Rodan' terrorized the skies, blowing over buildings in its hypersonic wake. A burrowing horned beasted dubbed 'Baragon' fought an oversized humanoid 'Gargantua' (reported by conspiracy theorists to have been created by replicating the experiments of Doctor Victor Frankenstein). Countless reports flooded in of enormous spiders ('Komunga'), praying mantises ('Kamacuras'), crustaceans ('Ebirah'), and more across the Pacific. With conventional weapons failing to turn the tide, it seemed the Eastern hemisphere belonged to the monsters-- or as they were collectively known, the kaiju.
In response to this, a coalition of nations with interest in the Pacific region, funded by the United States and led primarily by Japan, began the development of exotic new weapons to combat the monsters that terrorized the East. Named 'G-Force,' after Gojira, the first known kaiju, this task force advanced military hardware by decades, paving the way for brilliant scientists to come. The first of G-Force's successes was the massive flying battleship Gotengo, which engaged and killed the serpent kaiju Manda on its initial outing, and played a pivotal role in rounding up the other kaiju into a central location. Though SHIELD denies it, many believe the plans for the Gotengo were stolen by Western intelligence agencies, and its technology was reverse-engineered into the Heli-Carriers they use today.
While it remains a legend among G-Force veterans, the Gotengo itself was eventually decommissioned, made obsolete by the later Super-X program, and most of G-Force's ground troops were retired, replaced by a top-secret project known only as 'Ultra Seven.'
There are also many who speculate that agents of G-Force brokered a deal with an intelligent kaiju, a supposedly mystical creature named 'Mothra,' and that the creature used its supernatural influence on other, less powerful kaiju to herd them all into one place-- Lagos Island, now nicknamed 'Monster Island,' the very same place where the creature that would become Gojira emerged in 1944. Though there have been several reported accounts of a 'giant butterfly' spotted in the skies above and around Lagos Island, the existence of 'Mothra' has never been officially confirmed, and G-Force denies knowledge of any such creature.
With the vast majority of the kaiju penned away on Monster Island, activity over the last few decades has been scant, the exception being a short-lived attack on New York in 1998 by a creature similar to, but much smaller than, the original Gojira. Named 'Zilla' in honor of the Americans' mistranslation of the first kaiju's name, it was quickly brought down by SHIELD forces and transferred to the custody of G-Force, who located it to Lagos with the others.
Several years before, in 1984, a Soviet nuclear submarine went missing in the Sea of Japan, not far from where the original Gojira was believed to be killed. While the leading theory now is that this was actually an attack carried out by Zilla in its infancy, there are some within G-Force who remain unconvinced, and fear for the worst.
These fears may prove valid, as recently, a shipping tanker was found wrecked off the coast of Madripoor. Damage along the vessel's hull included enormous tears that indicate the claws of a kaiju in the hundred-meter range. The crew were all missing or dead, either drowned, crushed, or succumbed to what appeared to be massive radiation poisoning.
The captain of the ship, an elderly man who had been a child in 1954, lived just long enough to speak to the rescue team. In his last moments, he simply said, over and over again, "......it's him........it's him........"
Why this character?
Because I want a challenge, and I'd never even considered this an option until now. And, I mean, come on. Who doesn't want to have superheroes and kaiju slug it out?
What can you bring to the RPG?
Something we've never attempted before.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
"Mayday, mayday, this is Captain Ken Avery, of the Helicarrier Pericles V, to anyone who can hear me! We have sustained heavy damage and are going down, repeat, we are going down!"
Avery had no idea how it had gone to hell so quickly. This was meant to be a simple mission, responding to distress calls about an earthquake in American Samoa. He had done this sort of thing a dozen times by now: put out fires, extract the wounded from rubble, get as many civvies on board as the ship would take and get them to a safe point.
Now half of the ship was gone, most of his crew was dead, and he didn't even know what the hell hit them.
"I don't know how long we can maintain altitude," he said into his headset, "but I'm going to try and ditch in the ocean, away from civilians. We have been struck by an unknown weapon from an unverified attacker, and-- wait.....I think I see something...."
The ground below was an impenetrable maelstrom of smoke and dust, so thick it was nearly impossible to see anything inside. And yet, he could swear there was something moving inside....something enormous.
Did the people at G-Force not do their jobs? Did one of the creatures from Lagos get off the island? How in the hell could any of them bring down a Pericles-class Carrier?!
The massive shadow inside the cloud began to move again, and Avery could see a glowing, pale blue light. Running along what appeared to be a set of massive spines, the light gave way to features, and in his final moments, Avery saw it.
"....oh God........oh God, no--"
The blue light burst out of the cloud, and for an instant, the light was everywhere.........and then there was nothing.
Batman
Dramatic Example
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2003
- Messages
- 19,335
- Reaction score
- 7
- Points
- 58
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application
Character Name: The Batman (Bruce Wayne)
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Arial Black for Batman, Verdana Bold for Bruce.
Powers and Abilities: Lacking superhuman powers, Batman is an expert martial artist, a billionaire with seemingly unlimited resources, an unparalleled detective, a highly skilled gymnast and escape artist, and master of disguise, possessing these skills among many other talents. And whatever he lacks in technical prowess is made up for by his primary ally, Alfred Pennyworth, who provides him with highly advanced gadgetry and direct radio reconnaissance in the field.
Character Origin/Major Events:
Journey Into Knight
At the age of 8, Bruce Wayne watched as a mugger murdered his parents. The city suffered a substantial loss from losing what was considered it's first family, with Thomas Wayne having acted as Gotham's primary financier through his multi-national conglomerate Wayne Enterprises, and his wife Martha having been a highly respected doctor at the renowned Arkham Institute, her family's namesake. But none seemed destined to suffer as much as the son they left behind. The week following the tragedy, a still shellshocked Bruce found himself wandering the gardens of Stately Wayne Manor in a daze, eventually tumbling into a cavern full of bats. Though he was eventually found and rescued, the visceral image of the animals attacking him nestled deeply into his subconscious. From that terrible day onward, there were many opportunities that presented themselves for Bruce to succumb to darkness.
Astonishingly, he never did. Burying the pain of losing his parents, any grief that escaped the recesses of his mind only awoke something new inside of him. Something all-consuming and unrelenting, pushing him to become better. He sought the experience of a one time family bodyguard, a grizzled veteran of MI6 named Alfred Pennyworth - who was, himself, once a candidate for the Agency's 00 status. Pennyworth promptly took Bruce under his wing, mentoring and guiding him on a journey to attain the skills he needed to make sure Gotham's criminal element would never thrive again. Through a network of Pennyworth's military contacts, Bruce was shopped around from one grandmaster to the next, acquiring skills from elite soldiers who'd once been apart of everything from SHIELD, The G.I. Joes, Task Force X, The Hand, and even an ex-member of the secretive Black Widow Program.
By the time he'd turned 21, he'd honed his skills as a detective and established himself as a ruthless martial artist. But it was his time with The League of Shadows that taught him the most, as he studied methods of theatricality and the importance of superstition under the great Ra's Al Ghul. Intended to become his successor, Bruce was forced to abandon their practices when it became clear that the current Demon's Head wanted nothing less than a genocidal cleansing of all criminality, going as far as to rechristen the group The League of Assassins. Bruce decided that wasn't his path, and that if his mission were to be successful, he could never take a life. Idealistic to a fault, he was determined to fix Gotham's justice system rather than tear it down.
So after nearly 10 years abroad, Wayne returned to Gotham as a man bent on saving it. His first few attempts were less than fruitful, suffering beatings almost only a nightly basis, given the city's vast corruption. He quickly realized he couldn't go about this alone. Choosing to anonymously align himself with District Attorney Harvey Dent, Bruce became convinced that he needed an edge against Gotham's criminals if he were to present himself as a myth, as Ra's taught him. Only through retracing the steps from his past did he make any progress.
While exploring the vast underground caverns running underneath Wayne Manor - which, incidentally, turned out to lead into an abandoned tunnel system running between the Manor and Gotham's East End - did he find the answer he needed, awakening another group of bats. But unlike the last time he'd encountered them, they seemed to call to him. To want him to join them as one of their own. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Teaming up with Alfred, who'd relocated to Gotham and began to act as Bruce's technician, the two repurposed M16 prototypes and reworked them into an arsenal, simultaneously building a fortress atop the cave's walls and outfitting it with technological wonders only a billionaire could afford.
"The criminal mind is nothing more than a haven for delusions created by superstition and cowardice.", he remembered his mother theorize in the midst of taking notes on a patient. "They're more susceptible towards fearing what they don't understand. Towards believing the supernatural exists. That the monsters hiding in the shadows were always out to get them." On some level, Bruce knew this was always where his life was going to take him. He would become the monster hiding in the shadows. He'd devote his life towards becoming what they didn't understand.
He'd become a Dark Knight.
Character Name: The Batman (Bruce Wayne)
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Arial Black for Batman, Verdana Bold for Bruce.
Powers and Abilities: Lacking superhuman powers, Batman is an expert martial artist, a billionaire with seemingly unlimited resources, an unparalleled detective, a highly skilled gymnast and escape artist, and master of disguise, possessing these skills among many other talents. And whatever he lacks in technical prowess is made up for by his primary ally, Alfred Pennyworth, who provides him with highly advanced gadgetry and direct radio reconnaissance in the field.
Character Origin/Major Events:
Journey Into Knight
At the age of 8, Bruce Wayne watched as a mugger murdered his parents. The city suffered a substantial loss from losing what was considered it's first family, with Thomas Wayne having acted as Gotham's primary financier through his multi-national conglomerate Wayne Enterprises, and his wife Martha having been a highly respected doctor at the renowned Arkham Institute, her family's namesake. But none seemed destined to suffer as much as the son they left behind. The week following the tragedy, a still shellshocked Bruce found himself wandering the gardens of Stately Wayne Manor in a daze, eventually tumbling into a cavern full of bats. Though he was eventually found and rescued, the visceral image of the animals attacking him nestled deeply into his subconscious. From that terrible day onward, there were many opportunities that presented themselves for Bruce to succumb to darkness.
Astonishingly, he never did. Burying the pain of losing his parents, any grief that escaped the recesses of his mind only awoke something new inside of him. Something all-consuming and unrelenting, pushing him to become better. He sought the experience of a one time family bodyguard, a grizzled veteran of MI6 named Alfred Pennyworth - who was, himself, once a candidate for the Agency's 00 status. Pennyworth promptly took Bruce under his wing, mentoring and guiding him on a journey to attain the skills he needed to make sure Gotham's criminal element would never thrive again. Through a network of Pennyworth's military contacts, Bruce was shopped around from one grandmaster to the next, acquiring skills from elite soldiers who'd once been apart of everything from SHIELD, The G.I. Joes, Task Force X, The Hand, and even an ex-member of the secretive Black Widow Program.
By the time he'd turned 21, he'd honed his skills as a detective and established himself as a ruthless martial artist. But it was his time with The League of Shadows that taught him the most, as he studied methods of theatricality and the importance of superstition under the great Ra's Al Ghul. Intended to become his successor, Bruce was forced to abandon their practices when it became clear that the current Demon's Head wanted nothing less than a genocidal cleansing of all criminality, going as far as to rechristen the group The League of Assassins. Bruce decided that wasn't his path, and that if his mission were to be successful, he could never take a life. Idealistic to a fault, he was determined to fix Gotham's justice system rather than tear it down.
So after nearly 10 years abroad, Wayne returned to Gotham as a man bent on saving it. His first few attempts were less than fruitful, suffering beatings almost only a nightly basis, given the city's vast corruption. He quickly realized he couldn't go about this alone. Choosing to anonymously align himself with District Attorney Harvey Dent, Bruce became convinced that he needed an edge against Gotham's criminals if he were to present himself as a myth, as Ra's taught him. Only through retracing the steps from his past did he make any progress.
While exploring the vast underground caverns running underneath Wayne Manor - which, incidentally, turned out to lead into an abandoned tunnel system running between the Manor and Gotham's East End - did he find the answer he needed, awakening another group of bats. But unlike the last time he'd encountered them, they seemed to call to him. To want him to join them as one of their own. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Teaming up with Alfred, who'd relocated to Gotham and began to act as Bruce's technician, the two repurposed M16 prototypes and reworked them into an arsenal, simultaneously building a fortress atop the cave's walls and outfitting it with technological wonders only a billionaire could afford.
"The criminal mind is nothing more than a haven for delusions created by superstition and cowardice.", he remembered his mother theorize in the midst of taking notes on a patient. "They're more susceptible towards fearing what they don't understand. Towards believing the supernatural exists. That the monsters hiding in the shadows were always out to get them." On some level, Bruce knew this was always where his life was going to take him. He would become the monster hiding in the shadows. He'd devote his life towards becoming what they didn't understand.
He'd become a Dark Knight.
Batman
Dramatic Example
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2003
- Messages
- 19,335
- Reaction score
- 7
- Points
- 58
Major Events
Year One- Street criminals - muggers, burglars, rapists, and the like - begin to be frequently discovered by GCPD, tied up in the streets and beaten within an inch of their life. During questioning, each one claims they were attacked by a giant Bat.
. - Alexander Knox of the Gotham Globe is the first to coin a name for their monster: The Batman. He and his photographer, Vicki Vale, attempt a search for evidence of The Batman's existence. Four years later, and they're still searching.
. - Bruce Wayne publically re-establishes himself as a media darling, becoming the fixation of tabloids and online gossip, much to the chagrin of the Wayne Enterprises board of directors. When he attempts to make a play for the company, he's outvoted in favor of Janus International's Roman Sionis.
. - A lowly neurotic named Edward Nashton, working as an IT for Wayne Enterprises' R&D division, accidentally uncovers documents tracing Roman Sionis directly to the Falcone Crime Family. When the breach is discovered, Sionis' thugs forcibly convince Edward to hand over the data so it can be destroyed. He complies under threat of death... but several days later, the data mysteriously leaks to every online news outlet. Nashton disappears without a trace, though not on Sionis' order. All record of his existence is subsequently wiped from every electronic record.
. - Batman turns his attention towards a new investigation, discovering the prescence of a street drug that's been circulating for years - a powerful hallucinagon dubbed "Scarecrow". Interrogating each of the drug's suppliers, the trail leads him on a path directly to Arkham Asylum, where he discovers a production lab in the basement of the facility. But a forcible shutdown of the lab produces no clues to the identity of the drug's lead chemist. With caution, Batman monitors activity in Arkham for the next few months.
. - Roman Sionis, arrested in conjunction with the leak of his connection to Falcone, stands trial under the prosecution of District Attorney Janice Porter and her ADA, Harvey Dent. Despite overwhelming evidence that appears to strengthen the allegations against Sionis, including new evidence provided by an anonymous contact of Dent's linking him to Falcone's Ace Chemicals factory, Sionis is acquitted. Soon thereafter, Sionis orders Ace Chemicals to be burned to the ground as a preventative measure.
. - Suspiciously, Gordon is ordered by Commissioner Loeb to set up a task force to capture The Batman after the vigilante threatens Sionis directly. This results in a near arrest that has The Caped Crusader cornered, only barely escaping with his life. The excessive force on Loeb's part begins to steer Gordon towards Batman's side, recognizing his efforts as legitimate compared to the system he's remained loyal to.
- In the midst of Batman's hunt for the dwindling remnants of Gotham City's mob element, reports of an eleven foot tall jade behemoth's rampage on Miagani Island begin to circulate through GCN News. Utilizing a state-of-the-art manned drone, which he and Alfred had slowly assembled out of acquired MI6 prototypes, Batman attempts to take on The Hulk directly. Though the "Batmobile" takes a hard thrashing, The Dark Knight is saved by the intervention of a stranger to Gotham - Metropolis' Superman. Together, the two manage to incapacitate The Hulk long enough to drive him away from the populated city. Though weary of one another, they exchange a silent handshake before parting ways, signaling the start of an alliance.
. - Sionis' plan of burying the Ace Chemicals lead reaches a significant roadblock whenever Falcone himself denies him access to the property, citing his irresponsibility for the scandal. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Sionis takes a cue from Gotham's newest champion and hires a group of anarchists called The Red Hood Gang through extortion. Sionis orders them to commit robberies, murder prominent members of Gotham's elite, and cause general mayhem and destruction. Eventually, when they've amassed enough media attention to throw Falcone off his trail, Sionis sets their sights towards Ace Chemicals.
. - Reports of cat burglaries begin to circulate around Gotham's Jezebel Plaza. When Batman investigates, he discovers a female culprit fleeing the scene, covered head-to-toe in black leather. After failing to capture her, Batman is surprised to see that he seems to have made a direct impression, as his subsequent encounters with the self-proclaimed Catwoman have her wearing an outfit more directly inspired by his.
. - After uncovering Sionis' plan through wiretapping his phones, Batman intervenes in The Red Hood Gang's attack on Ace Chemicals and a fight ensues. Making quick work of them, The Dark Knight is unable to subdue one of the runaways, who flees onto a higher balcony. Attempting to corner him, Batman accidentally spooks the anonymous hood into falling over the guard rail, plummeting directly into a vat of chemicals. A body is never recovered.
. - The same night, Nashton - now calling himself 'Nygma' - reappears in Sionis' office in Wayne Tower, binding him with a bizarre death trap disguised as a Rubik's cube. Explaining that he's decided to lay waste to the brutes like Roman who have polluted Gotham's intellectual superiors for far too long, Nygma makes his exit by igniting the trap's gasoline soaked fuse, prompting an explosion. Miraculously, EMTs later manage to save Sionis' life, but not without severe disfigurement. An ominous question mark is the only clue left at the scene.
. - On Halloween night, Carmine Falcone is murdered by a mysterious killer who leaves calling cards in the form of festive memoribilia. That following Thanksgiving, other prominent members of the mob are found mutilated over a grisly scene of turkey dinner. Batman, Sergeant Gordon, and Harvey Dent combine their efforts to uncover the identity of Holiday. After false leads and numerous victims, including District Attorney Porter, Batman eventually finds the culprit to be a man named Julian Day, who the media re-dubs The Calendar Man. But as Day is locked away in Arkham Asylum, all three men express doubt that Day is the actual killer. With half the mob seemingly wiped out by a single assailant, Gotham celebrates that year's Christmas on a bittersweet, but nevertheless somber note.
- After Day's indictment, Salvatore Maroni turns himself in to the GCPD, fully believing Holiday to still be at large and gunning for the mob after a close call with an unseen assailant. Harvey Dent heads the prosecution as District Attorney and speeds the trial up to the following month, citing Maroni's concern for self-preservation. What he doesn't realize is that a GCPD informant of Maroni's comes to him with reason to believe that Dent himself is Holiday, given his unaccounted for whereabouts on the night of the attack. Enraged, he vengefully accepts a bottle of acid on the eve of his trial. In the midst of the trial, Maroni attacks Dent.
. - Dent escapes from the Elliot Memorial Hospital the following morning, despite suffering severe burns that doctors intended to treat with reconstructive surgery. Grief-stricken by Harvey's predicament, Batman and Gordon both scour the city for their friend, only to be horrified when their investigation comes to a grisly end atop the roof of GCPD Headquarters. When two figures are spotted on the roof, a SWAT helicopter unveils the newly reborn Harvey - now calling himself Two-Face - holding Salvatore Maroni at gunpoint.
. - After a lengthy standoff between Dent and the GCPD, Batman and Gordon directly attempt to prevent their friend from committing murder. In response, Dent produces a silver dollar coin and flips it for Maroni's life. The coin lands tails, leading to Harvey throwing the mobster off the roof to his death, using the gun to instead shoot Batman in the chest before he can save Maroni. Dent's betrayal costs Batman and Gordon dearly, as Two-Face's arrest causes a rift between the former allies.
. - The loss of Falcone and Maroni becomes the underworld's gain, as every criminal in Gotham looks to fill the void. Perhaps the most successful is a shrewd businessman named Maxwell Schreck, who uses his influence in the Mayor's office to secure a seat of power for a Russian confidant - a former leader of Moscow's Red Triangle criminal circuit, Oswalt Covelkov. Establishing himself as a popular figure amongst Gotham's elite with the founding of the city's high-end Iceburg Casinos, Covelkov brings with him a slew of violence, enacted with a sense of predatory ruthlessness that earns him the nickname of The Penguin.
. - The Penguin's grip over Gotham's criminal element leads to a fallout between Haly's Circus manager John Grayson and local mobster Anthony Zucco, who aligns himself with The Penguin as a power play. Though Grayson had owed Zucco a considerable sum in property tax, he considers their deal null and void when Zucco makes his intentions clear of using the Circus grounds as a front for illegal activities. Soon after, Grayson's wife - the star attraction of the trapeze act - mysteriously dies after her wire is severed. Grayson and his son mourn the loss, with condolences from Bruce Wayne, who's unfortunately in attendance.
. - Notably making his debut around this time is the self-christened killer The Joker, a homicidal maniac with a clown-like appearance who murders select members of Gotham's criminal class in elaborate - and what he considers "excessively comedic" - methods, inspiring mass chaos. He eventually thins the mob's ranks until they're virtually non-existent. Despite the overwhelming super-criminal population now free on Gotham's streets, Batman's hunt for The Joker leads to far more memorable encounters, where it becomes clear that the madman is of an entirely different breed of criminal. By year's end, he remains at large, despite The Dark Knight's efforts.
. - When 15-year-old Richard Grayson suddenly finds himself a captive of The Penguin's men after an extensive search for his missing father, Batman intervenes before they can silence the boy. Through interrogation, The Dark Knight discovers that John Grayson was murdered weeks prior. A distraught Grayson is offered sanctuary at Wayne Manor the following morning, with the intent on Bruce Wayne's part to allow him to stay until he's of age to become legally independent.
. - Grayson's persistence in exacting revenge against The Penguin leads to a series of secondary encounters with The Batman, who unsuccessfully tries to dissuade him from a life of vigilante activities. Realizing that the boy won't stop, and that his anger needs to be cultivated into something productive before he becomes another merciless criminal, Batman reveals his identity to Dick and offers to train him as an apprentice. Within months, Grayson finds himself working in the field alongside Batman as Robin, The Boy Wonder.
- As Batman and Robin investigate Zucco's connection to Penguin, they manage to fight back a brewing gang war between lesser crime families who want Covelkov's head. But they're unfortunately unable to stem a growing epidemic of increasingly psychotic and powerful superhuman criminals.
. - The cryogenic nightmare known as Mr. Freeze emerges, threatening to coat Gotham in ice for the death of his beloved Nora. Botanist Pamela Isley, having volunteered at a young age to become an experiment of the Weapon X program, returns to her native Gotham reborn as the plant-controlling Poison Ivy. Penguin, knowing that his operation is under intense scrunity, appeals to Freeze and Ivy to cause a distraction for Gotham to focus on while he picks up the pieces of his empire.
. - Freeze and Ivy's combined attack on Arkham Island leads to a massive breakout of the Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary, resulting in the escape of patients and inmates such as Two-Face, the serial killer Victor Zsasz, the highly skilled Anthony Masters, the schizophrenic Mary Walker, the delusional Jervis Tetch, the hopelessly insane Wade Wilson, the pyromaniac Garfield Lynns, and the shapeshifting Basil Karlo. Though Batman, Robin, and the GCPD manage to capture a portion of the rest, an unnamed holdover from Santa Prisca Penitentiary silently escapes anyone's notice. By the night's end, a quarter of the facilities' combined inmates roam Gotham's streets.
. - In response to the Arkham breakout, several of Gotham's citizens take inspiration from Batman and Robin by acting as vigilantes themselves. The re-purposed Red Hood Gang is now led by a 14-year-old Jason Todd, who gathers similarly disillusioned teenagers to take back their neighborhoods, such as Lonnie Machin and Kate Kane, among many others. A schoolteacher named Helena Bertinelli begins taking on local crime as the merciless Huntress. The mysterious Azrael, operating off of the code of conduct established by the Church of St. Dumas, begins enacting a holy war.
. - Further complications arise. In what they claim to be an effort towards reducing the risk of what was deemed a mutant attack on Arkham, Professors Hugo Strange and Karl Hellfern experiment on individuals undergoing mutant transformations such as Waylon Jones and Kirk Langstrom, leading them to become the savage Killer Croc and Man-Bat, respectively. Hellfern is arrested, while Strange curiously avoids indictment by having all charges dropped by a mysterious benefactor. Croc and Man-Bat are eventually captured, but the damage is done. Anti-Mutant Rioting takes Gotham by storm.
. - Taking on the role of CEO in Wayne Enterprises, with the vacancy left by Roman Sionis, Bruce Wayne immediately takes preventive measures towards ensuring the mutant population in Gotham have a safe place to be sheltered - partly in an attempt towards making sure they don't grow up to become monstrosities like Killer Croc, Clayface, or The Man-Bat. Beginning The Wayne Foundation, Wayne receives a mix of acclaim and criticism for his Pro-Mutants stance. One particular critic of Wayne's generosity is Erik Lehnsherr, known by his status as a terrorist leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants.
. - Some, however, are more understanding of Wayne's plight. The Mayor's daughter Barbara Gordon begins working as a volunteer at The Wayne Foundation in between juggling High School and a job as a librarian. When one of the out of control mutants, a moth-humanoid hybrid named Drury Walker, attempts to hold his fellow mutants hostage and incite another riot, Barbara dons a mask and defuses the situation - garnering approval from Batman, who arrives just as she dispatches Walker. Taking that to mean a vote of confidence, Barbara begins working on her own costumed identity.
. - In the wake of the events at Arkham, the city names Thomas Elliot the new warden of the combined Arkham and Blackgate facilities, rebranded and walled-off as the quarantined Arkham City. Controversially, Professor Hugo Strange is one of Elliot's first employees to be drafted into overseeing the new facility's opening, aswell as Dr. Harleen Quinzell and one of Arkham's most prestigious therapists, Jonathan Crane. Together, the four promise a more secure future for Gotham City.
World Of Legends' Batman is going to be losing a bit of his humanity.
Singular Universe Batman is where he'll regain his humanity.
What can you bring to the RPG? Paragraphs upon paragraphs that are easily skimmable, and a winning personality. Also, dizzying sleeplessness, which is what I'm feeling right now.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
To be filled in...
Last edited:
Carnage27
No one's puppet
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2007
- Messages
- 4,405
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
I know I said I was going to hold off, but hot damn Andy's Godzilla app has me salivating at the possibilities. While he's playing the worst thing brought about by America during WWII, I'll pick up the opposing side of the coin. I'm still working on what's happened since he's been unfrozen, but this is done otherwise.
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: Steve Rogers/Captain America
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Arial Narrow Blue Bold
Powers and Abilities: As the one success of Project Rebirth, Steve Rogers was transformed from a frail, sickly young man into America's first and only "super soldier". Doctor Erskine's formula, enhanced by Rogers's inherent goodness, gave Steve incredible powers. His strength, endurance, agility, speed, reflexes, durability, and healing are all at the peak of the human potential, above even the greatest athletes in history.
Through training, Rogers has become a master hand-to-hand combatant, marksman, gymnast, and stealth warrior. He is among the best pure fighters in the world, matched by only a handful of people.
Thanks to his years of service on the battlefield, Captain America is a master of battle strategy, preparation, and field command. Thor, a teammate and legendary warrior, has said Cap is one of the few people he would gladly take an order from. Cap's expertise on the battlefield is invaluable for the Avengers, and a source of inspiration for others.
Captain America's greatest weapon beside his mind, however, is his vibranium shield. Nigh-indestructible, Cap has learned how to use his shield as both a potent offensive and defensive weapon.
Character Origin/Major Events:
Stephen Rogers was born as a frail, sickly child in Brooklyn, NY to an army man and his wife, a nurse. The Rogers family was poor, but happy. They scraped by as they could, and Steve got along okay at school, protected from bullies by his best friend James Buchannan "Bucky" Barnes. The two were inseparable, and their friendship deepened after Steve lost both his father and mother in quick succession.
After Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into WWII, Rogers tried desperately to join the Army in order to honor his father and defend the country he loved. Due to his frailness, he was rejected time and time again. He watched as Bucky went off to fight, while he was left alone in the homeland.
That all changed when he was approached by Doctor Abraham Erskine. Erskine had caught word of Rogers's desire to defend America. After seeing the boy's natural proclivity for defending the weak, the scientist offered Steve a chance. He was selected as the first recipient of the "Project Rebirth" serum, which would transform Steve into America's first super soldier. The experiment was a complete success, but Erskine was killed by a Nazi spy afterwards, leaving Steve as the project's only success.
Rogers was shipped to the European front, where he was assigned leadership of a diverse group of soldiers known as the Howling Commandos, which included his old friend Bucky. Cap and the Commandos' main target was HYDRA, a Nazi deep science and occult fighting force, and their leader Red Skull. While they gained key victories, they could not apprehend the Skull, who was said to have obtained the fabled Spear of Destiny. The power of the Spear gave Red Skull the power to turn HYDRA into a rogue force, fighting for their own domination rather than Hitler's.
The tide of the secret war against HYDRA turned with the formation of The Invaders. Superhumans from America and the world appeared after Cap, and came to join the battle against evil. Cap and the Commandos were joined by The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Human Torch. With the influx of super powered soldiers, the Allies managed to track Red Skull to his main base, and launched an offensive.
The Invaders managed to stop HYDRA, but Captain America, Bucky, and the Red Skull were all believed to be killed when Skull's prototype plane crashed in the arctic, and the Spear of Destiny was lost along with them.
In reality, Captain America became frozen in the artic ice, preserved and kept alive by the serum in his blood. In the ice he waited for decades, until he was found by SHIELD at the beginning of the age of heroes.
Why this character? Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America turned the character from a nice ideal to, in my opinion, one of the best characters comics has ever seen. The modern Cap is the ultimate storytelling character, and is easily among my favorite fictional characters. I've never really gotten to play Cap much opposite characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but I'd love the chance.
What can you bring to the RPG? America. **** yea.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
The Quinjet flew low and fast towards their target destination. Steve Rogers stood in the cockpit and surveyed the roads below, which were choked with cars fleeing the city. Both sides of the road were crowded with escaping civilians doing anything they could to escape the doom that lay behind them. Some didn't bother with the roads, driving over the grass that lined the high way, many of which were getting stuck in the process. One thing was clear to Captain America; they didn't have enough time.
They never had enough time.
"JARVIS, keep us on course," he sighed to the craft's AI pilot. "I want to get there as fast as we can."
"Understood, sir," the computer replied.
Cap walked over the briefing table in the middle of the plane, where a holographic representation of San Francisco greeted him. Three red dots blinked across the city, marking where the three separate teams would get to work. Above the skyscrapers, two helicarriers stood at the ready. One was the SHIELD flasgship Olympus, and the other was the Behemoth, a craft created specifically for an event like this. It was an unprecedented show of force from SHIELD for an unprecedented event.
"Five minutes out, sir," Jarvis announced.
Cap took a deep breath before opening the comm channels to his team, "Avengers...this is a day we hoped would never happen. We always knew it was a possibility. That's why we've trained for this. No drill or simulation will ever compare to the hell we're walking into today, but that's our job. We go through fire so those people below us don't have to. We're the only thing standing between them an oblivion, so let's make this count. Alpha and Beta teams, we make sure everyone, and I mean everyone, gets out of that city. If they don't work for SHIELD or wear an Avengers symbol on their shoulder, they get out. Whether it's on a boat, an evacuation dropship, or whatever. I don't care. No one gets left behind."
He knew it was an impossible goal, but Captain America wasn't there to expect an acceptable amount of casualties. To Rogers, there was no such thing as the concept. Maybe Fury thought that way, but he didn't.
"Charlie," he continued giving out the orders, "you're in charge of containment. We can't stop it, but we need all the time we can get. Remember, we're the Avengers. You get hurt? Keep fighting. You get killed? Walk it off. We have a job to do."
"They shall sing about this day in the Halls of Valhalla for all time, my friends!" Thor's voice boomed over the comms. It was a normal reply for the Asgardian to such a day, and Cap had to admit it was comforting knowing he was by their side. He may be one of their only hopes.
"It's probably easy to be excited for something like this when you're a god," Hawkeye said from a seat beside Steve as he fiddled with a bowstring. "Me on the other hand, well, I just get squished."
"If it makes you feel any better," Cap chuckled, "I'll probably be squished with you."
"Dibs on the shield," Black Widow deadpanned.
"Approaching landing zone."
The Quinjet made its way towards the ground, and the landing ramp lowered. Steve stepped out into a scene of chaos. Those that were still in the city, including emergency services, seemed lost. Cap motioned for Widow and Hawkeye to start helping, while overhead Charlie Team soared over the city. Thor, Iron Man, and Falcon were a sight to behold, and behind them, crashing over rooftops, the Hulk looked ready for a throw-down.
Steve started towards the evacuating citizens to start getting things under control, but that's when a bellowing roar cut through the air, drowning out screams, sirens, and crying children. Cap felt a small wave of water wash over his boots as he said over the comms, "Avengers, our deadline just got pushed up."
Godzilla had come to the United States.
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: Steve Rogers/Captain America
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Arial Narrow Blue Bold
Powers and Abilities: As the one success of Project Rebirth, Steve Rogers was transformed from a frail, sickly young man into America's first and only "super soldier". Doctor Erskine's formula, enhanced by Rogers's inherent goodness, gave Steve incredible powers. His strength, endurance, agility, speed, reflexes, durability, and healing are all at the peak of the human potential, above even the greatest athletes in history.
Through training, Rogers has become a master hand-to-hand combatant, marksman, gymnast, and stealth warrior. He is among the best pure fighters in the world, matched by only a handful of people.
Thanks to his years of service on the battlefield, Captain America is a master of battle strategy, preparation, and field command. Thor, a teammate and legendary warrior, has said Cap is one of the few people he would gladly take an order from. Cap's expertise on the battlefield is invaluable for the Avengers, and a source of inspiration for others.
Captain America's greatest weapon beside his mind, however, is his vibranium shield. Nigh-indestructible, Cap has learned how to use his shield as both a potent offensive and defensive weapon.
Character Origin/Major Events:
Stephen Rogers was born as a frail, sickly child in Brooklyn, NY to an army man and his wife, a nurse. The Rogers family was poor, but happy. They scraped by as they could, and Steve got along okay at school, protected from bullies by his best friend James Buchannan "Bucky" Barnes. The two were inseparable, and their friendship deepened after Steve lost both his father and mother in quick succession.
After Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into WWII, Rogers tried desperately to join the Army in order to honor his father and defend the country he loved. Due to his frailness, he was rejected time and time again. He watched as Bucky went off to fight, while he was left alone in the homeland.
That all changed when he was approached by Doctor Abraham Erskine. Erskine had caught word of Rogers's desire to defend America. After seeing the boy's natural proclivity for defending the weak, the scientist offered Steve a chance. He was selected as the first recipient of the "Project Rebirth" serum, which would transform Steve into America's first super soldier. The experiment was a complete success, but Erskine was killed by a Nazi spy afterwards, leaving Steve as the project's only success.
Rogers was shipped to the European front, where he was assigned leadership of a diverse group of soldiers known as the Howling Commandos, which included his old friend Bucky. Cap and the Commandos' main target was HYDRA, a Nazi deep science and occult fighting force, and their leader Red Skull. While they gained key victories, they could not apprehend the Skull, who was said to have obtained the fabled Spear of Destiny. The power of the Spear gave Red Skull the power to turn HYDRA into a rogue force, fighting for their own domination rather than Hitler's.
The tide of the secret war against HYDRA turned with the formation of The Invaders. Superhumans from America and the world appeared after Cap, and came to join the battle against evil. Cap and the Commandos were joined by The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Human Torch. With the influx of super powered soldiers, the Allies managed to track Red Skull to his main base, and launched an offensive.
The Invaders managed to stop HYDRA, but Captain America, Bucky, and the Red Skull were all believed to be killed when Skull's prototype plane crashed in the arctic, and the Spear of Destiny was lost along with them.
In reality, Captain America became frozen in the artic ice, preserved and kept alive by the serum in his blood. In the ice he waited for decades, until he was found by SHIELD at the beginning of the age of heroes.
Why this character? Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America turned the character from a nice ideal to, in my opinion, one of the best characters comics has ever seen. The modern Cap is the ultimate storytelling character, and is easily among my favorite fictional characters. I've never really gotten to play Cap much opposite characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but I'd love the chance.
What can you bring to the RPG? America. **** yea.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
The Quinjet flew low and fast towards their target destination. Steve Rogers stood in the cockpit and surveyed the roads below, which were choked with cars fleeing the city. Both sides of the road were crowded with escaping civilians doing anything they could to escape the doom that lay behind them. Some didn't bother with the roads, driving over the grass that lined the high way, many of which were getting stuck in the process. One thing was clear to Captain America; they didn't have enough time.
They never had enough time.
"JARVIS, keep us on course," he sighed to the craft's AI pilot. "I want to get there as fast as we can."
"Understood, sir," the computer replied.
Cap walked over the briefing table in the middle of the plane, where a holographic representation of San Francisco greeted him. Three red dots blinked across the city, marking where the three separate teams would get to work. Above the skyscrapers, two helicarriers stood at the ready. One was the SHIELD flasgship Olympus, and the other was the Behemoth, a craft created specifically for an event like this. It was an unprecedented show of force from SHIELD for an unprecedented event.
"Five minutes out, sir," Jarvis announced.
Cap took a deep breath before opening the comm channels to his team, "Avengers...this is a day we hoped would never happen. We always knew it was a possibility. That's why we've trained for this. No drill or simulation will ever compare to the hell we're walking into today, but that's our job. We go through fire so those people below us don't have to. We're the only thing standing between them an oblivion, so let's make this count. Alpha and Beta teams, we make sure everyone, and I mean everyone, gets out of that city. If they don't work for SHIELD or wear an Avengers symbol on their shoulder, they get out. Whether it's on a boat, an evacuation dropship, or whatever. I don't care. No one gets left behind."
He knew it was an impossible goal, but Captain America wasn't there to expect an acceptable amount of casualties. To Rogers, there was no such thing as the concept. Maybe Fury thought that way, but he didn't.
"Charlie," he continued giving out the orders, "you're in charge of containment. We can't stop it, but we need all the time we can get. Remember, we're the Avengers. You get hurt? Keep fighting. You get killed? Walk it off. We have a job to do."
"They shall sing about this day in the Halls of Valhalla for all time, my friends!" Thor's voice boomed over the comms. It was a normal reply for the Asgardian to such a day, and Cap had to admit it was comforting knowing he was by their side. He may be one of their only hopes.
"It's probably easy to be excited for something like this when you're a god," Hawkeye said from a seat beside Steve as he fiddled with a bowstring. "Me on the other hand, well, I just get squished."
"If it makes you feel any better," Cap chuckled, "I'll probably be squished with you."
"Dibs on the shield," Black Widow deadpanned.
"Approaching landing zone."
The Quinjet made its way towards the ground, and the landing ramp lowered. Steve stepped out into a scene of chaos. Those that were still in the city, including emergency services, seemed lost. Cap motioned for Widow and Hawkeye to start helping, while overhead Charlie Team soared over the city. Thor, Iron Man, and Falcon were a sight to behold, and behind them, crashing over rooftops, the Hulk looked ready for a throw-down.
Steve started towards the evacuating citizens to start getting things under control, but that's when a bellowing roar cut through the air, drowning out screams, sirens, and crying children. Cap felt a small wave of water wash over his boots as he said over the comms, "Avengers, our deadline just got pushed up."
Godzilla had come to the United States.
Byrd Man
El Hombre Pájaro
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Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name: MI6 007 James Bond
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Bold and Black
Powers and Abilities:
Character Origin/Major Events:
Major Events
- July, 1940. The world is at war and British PM Winston Churchill creates the Special Operations Executive. Designed to commit espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines, the SOE are known as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
- The SOE serve alongside the Invaders and Howling Commandos during the war. Unlike the other groups, SOE operatives often act alone in their missions. Among their number are aristocrat Lord James Montgomery Falsworth, metahuman Brian Braddock, adventurer Allan Quartermain, and future actor/heavy metal vocalist Christopher Lee.
- After a fiery Götterdämmerung destroys Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan is consumed in atomic fire, World War II ends. The SOE is officially disbanded. What the SOE was is soon reformed into a new, covert operations unit inside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) designed to act in the same spirit as the old agency. Single operatives, the best the British Empire has to offer, are dispatched across the world to take part in the secret battles of the Cold War. On paper, it is known by the tame Overseas Development Group. To those in the know, it's the 00 section.
- The 50's and 60's see the height of the 00 section's covert notoriety. After dismantling the Soviet spy ring SMERSH, operatives cross paths several times with terrorist group SPECTRE, foiling countless world domination plots by leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Blofeld would finally die in 1969, killed by a 00 operative.
- The 70's and 80's saw a lull in operations. Soviet detente and controversies by American intelligence services caused a reduction in the 00 section's budget. This continued into the 90's after the Soviet Union's collapse.
- 9/11 and 7/7 brought a new enemy to the forefront of the world. Terrorism. Alongside radical religious terrorism, the old terrorist groups HYDRA and SPECTRE began to reemerge. This war with a shadowy enemy would be fought in the shadows. After years on the sidelines, the 00's were back in the game.
- Commander James Bond, a Royal Navy Intelligence Officer is recruited to join the 00 section in 2013. After a gruelling year-long training regiment, he passes with flying colors and is given the codename 007.
Dramatis Persona
Commander James Bond - 007, a ruthless intelligence operative.
"M" Sir Miles Mallory - Head of the 00 section. Bond's boss.
Lieutenant Eve Moneypenny - M's personal assistant.
Q - 00 section's armorer and technical genius.
Major Tara Chace - 006, a skilled army sniper and operative
Captain John Steed - 004, a longtime 00 operative, partnered with 005
Dr. Emma Peel - 005, a longtime 00 operative, partnered with 004
Peter Wisdom - 008, a mutant and the newest 00 operative
Mycroft Holmes - MI6 Intelligence analyst
Professor James Moriarty - Mathematics professor and head of SPECTRE
Sergi Kravenoff - Manhunter, SPECTRE's #4
Why this character?
I love some James Bond. I loved playing him the last few times I've done him in an RP. And I still have stories I'd like to tell.
What can you bring to the RPG?
Posts. Shaken, not stirred.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
Dubai
2215 Local Time
The lone scuba diver swam through the dark waters of the Persian Gulf towards the destination: A container ship anchored off the coast of the city. From a hundred feet under the surface, the hull of the tanker above looked like some alien object hovering in the sky. The diver swam upwards slowly, stopping periodically to stave off any decompression from the sudden change in pressure. Shrouded in the dark of the waters, the diver held their hands against the hard metal of the bottom of the tanker.
There was a satchel attached to the diver's side. The diver reached their gloved hands into the satchel and produced a round metallic object. It was a small charge capable of breaching the hull's thick metal walls. The diver placed the rest of the charges in the satchel, a dozen in all, around strategic spots on the ship's underbelly. The bombs would only be used as a last resort, if nothing else could be salvaged. The diver's head popped from the water and groped through the dark towards the starboard side of the boat.
The diver held their hands against the tanker's metallic side and pressed their palms to the sheet metal. The gloves made a low electronic whine and attached themselves to the metal on the side. With the glove's powerful electromagnets activated, the diver began to slowly scale the side of the tanker. They came to the railing nearly a hundred feet above the water and climbed over it and on to the deck of the tanker.
The diver stripped away the aqualung, gloves, and flippers. Pulling away the mask, James Bond breathed his first breath of fresh air in nearly an hour. He checked the coast to make sure that there were no sentries or prying eyes before hosting his scuba equipment over the side of the railing and dropping it into the water below. There was a quiet splash as the gear floated to the bottom of the ocean. Better it be wasted than to have some guard discover it and raise an alarm. Bond reached into the satchel at his side and removed his Walther PPS, wrapped in plastic to keep the water out. After making sure it had stayed dry, Bond checked that the magazine was full and then chambered a round into the gun. From the bag he pulled out
"007 to Mother," he said into the microscopic microphone implanted in his back molar.
"Mother here," said a crisp voice in Bond's ear. It was M's chief of staff, Bill Tanner. "You have the green light to go play with the neighborhood boys."
With MI6's approval, Bond wordlessly began his journey across the deck of the tanker. The ship in question's paperwork identified it as coming from Yemen, but Bond and Six knew that wasn't the case. In reality, the ship had come from Jakarta a week earlier. Bond knew because he was in Jakarta just after it set sail. He was investigating a lead that HYDRA were preparing to launch another terrorist attack. Bond had gotten the intelligence from HYDRA's weapon master after breaking about twenty of the two hundred or so bones in the man's body. Now, Bond was infiltrating the ship to confirm that the weapon was on board. As soon as he gave a signal, British Special Forces along with the UAE Coast Guard and police would raid the ship and arrest all those involved.
Bond's wetsuit shoes were silent as he crept across the deck of the ship. Shipping containers were stacked all across the top of the ship, creating a twisting and elaborate maze. Bond turned a corner, but quickly backed up when he saw the dull light of a cigarette tip in the dark. He glanced a peek and saw a guard. The heavyset Indonesian man had a gun, just a pistol from the way it looked. He didn't seem to carry himself like a man would if he had anything bigger than a handgun. Bond crouched and stepped back from the edge of the container. He willed himself to get as low as he could as the man approached. The guard came into view, his eyes not seeing Bond in the dark. Once he was past, Bond stood and swiftly struck him in the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. He splayed to the ground, dazed. Bond kicked him in the head and bound his wrists with nylon zipties to make sure he stayed down. With the guard unconscious, he continued his journey.
He covered the deck in quiet and peace, coming to an entrance that led down. He leaned against the side of the door and looked down into the doorway. Dim lights went down a level before disappearing into a stairwell. This, Bond knew, was where it would get hard. He activated a button on his watch. Q Branch's latest toy, it was designed to send out a short EMP burst every ten seconds. In theory, it would make Bond electronically invisible to any cameras or detection devices he met. With the watch activated, Bond ventured down into the carrier.
He hurried past an opening when he heard the sounds of snoring and soft Arabic music being played on a radio. He only looked back to make sure his suspicions had been confirmed. Nearly a dozen men were sleeping in bunk beds. Bond figured a skeleton crew working the boat. That appeared as a bit of a double-edged sword in his eyes. If there was a smaller crew, that meant fewer men for Bond to avoid. But that also could mean they weren't carrying anything illegal.
Bond put that out of his mind and continued down. He came to the ship's cargo hold. Shipping containers filled the hold to its brim, each one stacked upon another one all the way up seventy-five feet or so. Bond holstered his gun and scanned the area. He found what he was looking for just beside the entrance to the hold: An old desktop computer with a nicotine-stained keyboard.
"The shipping number?" He asked Tanner in a low whisper.
"India Romeo Hotel Sierra Tango Niner Eight Two Oscar."
Bond typed out the serial number Tanner had relayed to him and pressed enter. Item IRHST982O was on the ship, and it was in a sector relatively close to his current location. Bond came to the shipping container and found the padlocked entrance. He reached into the satchel and pulled out a small case wrapped in plastic. Inside the case were a set of lockpicks, a miniature torch, a flashbang grenade, and the remote detonator to the charges underneath the ship. He picked the lock and quietly opened the door. He turned the torch on and shone the light into the container.
"Contact," he said.
Inside the container was a device no bigger than the engine of a diesel truck. It had tubes running from it that connected to two large vats of chemicals. Alone, the chemicals were relatively harmless. But the machine combined the two chemicals together and created NP0198AZ, a chemical agent that was three times as powerful as mustard gas. After mixing it, the machine would collect the gas into a canister and then shoot it out of a CO2 pressurized barrel into the air. Placed at the right spot at the right time in downtown Dubai, the machine could easily kill thousands.
"Kipling,"Bond said. The go word for the operation.
"We have eyes on the machine," said a new voice. Not Tanner's, but the deep voice of M. "All units move in. Disable it and pull back, 007. The SBS and UAE men are moving in as we speak."
Bond confirmed and started into the container to cut the wires to the chemical vats. He was just a few feet in when he heard footfalls from behind him. A loud click followed the footsteps. Someone pulling back the hammer of a gun.
"Not so fast," said a voice behind Bond.
He turned and saw a tall, Indonesian man with a 9MM Glock in his hand.
"Hands where I can see them."
Bond complied, palming the flashbang grenade with his left hand. The Indonesian man began to walk into the container towards Bond. The man had a look of smugness to him that only came when one was certain they had attained absolute victory.
"Won't do you any good," said Bond."Authorities are already on their way to the ship. Doesn't matter what you do now."
"I think it does," he said with a smirk. It was then that Bond noticed he had a switch in the hand not holding the gun. "You think this machine is the only one HYDRA has? It's one of many, my friend. We already have five inside the city, another twenty aboard this ship. Your friends step foot on this ship, I activate the ones inside Dubai and kill as many people as I can."
"We have the shipping manifest," M said into Bond's ear. "Says here six containers have been dropped off to the mainland sine their arrival in Dubai."
"What do you want?" Bond asked, stalling for time.
"Death," he said coldly. "Nothing but death. I'll bargain my way out of this mess and then detonate the machines we have in the city. Regardless of what your people try to do, HYDRA will succeed. You may cut off one head, but two will-"
"Oh, blow it out your arse," Bond said with a sigh. With the pinkie of his hand, he pulled the grenade pin and tossed it at the man. He turned away as the bright light exploded in the small, dark space. The man screamed, holding his eyes and stumbling around in pain. He dropped the detonator and Bond rushed forward to grab it. He ducked to avoid the man's flailing and nabbed the detonator from the ground. He tucked it into his satchel and pulled his pistol towards the blind man, but stopped when he saw him crash into Bond's small carrying case. Confused, he picked up the detonator to the bomb's under the ship.
"HAIL HYDRA!" he screamed.
"No, you goddamn git!"
That was all Bond could get out before the explosions rocked him backwards. He slammed into the side of the shipping container as the ship vibrated heavily. The sound of the charges going off had been replaced with that of rushing water.
"Get out of there, 007!" ordered M.
Bond looked back at the blind man. He was now crawling on the floor and groping for some way out. Bond slammed the container shut behind him and slipped the padlock back in before running through the hold. Water was already ankle-deep in the hold. By the time he got to the stairs, it was up to his shins and rising. Crewmen were running around frantically, not caring who Bond was or what his purpose was here. He was halfway up to the deck when the entire ship shifted sideways. He slammed hard against the wall and fought against the gravity as he climbed upwards.
There was the sound of groaning metal below, followed by a loud metallic snap. Bond came on to the deck, now seeing that the cause of the snap was the hull cracking in two. Cursing, Bond raced towards the front of the ship and felt the deck slide under his feet as the bow of the ship began to rise into the air. He knew he had to get free of the boat before it sank. The suction that accompanied the sinking would drag him to the bottom of the ocean. Running as fast as he could, Bond came out of the maze of containers and rushed towards the bow. There came another snap, this time the front half of the hull was nearly vertical. Fighting against the slippery deck, Bond leaped from the boat's front port side and straightened his body out as he dove the hundred feet to the water below.
He splashed into the salty ocean water and positioned his body parallel to the surface. Bond used the speed of his fall to distance himself from the sinking tanker. He began kicking after the momentum slowed, ignoring the sounds of swirling water in his ear. After a minute's swimming and not feeling the suction, Bond surfaced from the ocean and looked around. The tanker's tip was barely visible above the choppy waters of the ocean. It was rapidly descending down into the water. Bond treaded water and looked around for any other survivors.
"007 to Mother," he said between breaths. "I'm about a hundred yards due west of the shipwreck."
"Stay where you are," said Tanner. "Chopper's inbound to pick you up."
Bond's breath relaxed as he looked towards the bright lights of Dubai. HYDRA's weapons, save for the few that made it to the city, were out of commission. The rest would be a simple mopping up exercise that involved following the trail of the shipping containers to where they were delivered. He had the detonator, and he had stopped the devices from being distributed. For the most part, it was a mission accomplished.
Unbeknownst to Bond, there was someone watching him nearly a mile away. In a perch on a highrise beside the shore, a sniper sat and watched through his scope. He had just watched the events play out with a playful smirk on his lips. This Bond was a rare specimen. A man who was as dangerous as he was chaotic. The sniper had been shadowing and studying him for nearly a month. Now, like countless times over the past four weeks, he had Bond right in his sights. His night vision scope had been lined up perfectly with the man's head in the cross hairs. One squeeze of the trigger, and no more Bond. But that was not the sniper's orders. SPECTRE didn't want a dead James Bond, they wanted a stalked one. When the time came, the sniper would pull the trigger. But until then, he watched and waited.
The sniper was sure that, when the kill order came in, he wouldn't do it in this fashion. No, James Bond deserved more than just a bullet in the head from long-range. He had to be bested face to face, the sniper needed to watch Bond's eyes as all life left them. Bond was a prey of the finest caliber, and just the sort of prey that kept Kraven worthy of his title of Hunter.
Last edited:
Carnage27
No one's puppet
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*gets to work writing a Cap flashback*
Morden Man
Civilian
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I've been hurt too many times before for this.
Byrd Man
El Hombre Pájaro
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Carnage27
No one's puppet
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But it hurts so good.
Keyser Soze
AW YEEEAH!
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- 33
It was a stifling morning in Gotham City, the heat hanging thick and heavy in the air. It clung to Becky Travers as she walked through the city on her way back to the office, and so, on a momentary whim, she decided to buy a bottle of water. Looking around, she spotted an unassuming deli and headed inside to make her purchase. Becky didn't have much time left to live, but in that time, she did have the chance to think about all the "what ifs" and eventualities that brought her to that place at that time. What if she'd thought to put a bottle of water from her fridge in her handbag before leaving for work that morning? What if she'd gone to another deli? What if she'd just waited until she'd gotten to the damn office and got a drink from the water cooler free of charge? But instead, fate had brought her here, like the punchline to a cruel joke.
You wouldn't think there was anything untoward about this deli from the street. It was just another day, and Gotham's citizens milled around on the sidewalk outside, going about their daily business. But all it took was one step inside for Becky to know something was very wrong, and right away a little voice was nagging at her to turn and run. It wasn't heat that was in the air, in here it was in fact quite cool. Here, it was death that was in the air.
But Becky made the mistake of listening to her rational brain rather than her gut instinct, and so she made herself walk down the aisle to the fridge where they kept the water. She grabbed a bottle, then screamed as she let it topple to the floor. It was in the reflection in the glass of the fridge door she saw it. The body, on the floor. Slowly, she turned around, hoping that somehow the image would only be in the glass and not there in person, and there it was. A corpse of a man, lying on the ground with a basket of shopping scattered around him, his body contorted into an agonised, unnatural position. But his face was the worst of all. That grin, that awful grin...
Slowly, as if in a trance, Becky walked towards the body. She didn't want to, but it was like she was drawn to it. She never made it all the way, as she stopped dead in her tracks and let out a horrified moan as she looked past the body and saw that the deli was filled with them. Scattered around the aisles, at the counters, staff and customers alike. All of them dead. All of them grinning.
Becky thought that surely, this must be a nightmare. Sobbing, she staggered backwards towards the drinks cabinet. When a gloved hand passed over another bottle of water, she took it without even thinking at first. Then, she gasped and spun around.
"Go on, take it," the white-faced man said with a smile, "I'm sure there's no one in here who'll mind."
For a moment, Becky considered the possibility that this man before her was one of the corpses she had discovered, reanimated. He had their monstrous grin. But if anything, this figure was even more ghoulish: sickly white skin, yellowed eyes, lurid green hair.
"Truly, we live in an age of wonders. Don't you think?"
Reaching into the cabinet, the white-skinned man pulled out a large carton of orange juice. He popped it open, flipped his head back and began glugging it until the carton's contents were running freely down either side of his mouth. Finally letting out a gasp, he wiped his mouth with his purple sleeve.
"Aaaaah! Glorious, colorful heroes parade through our streets and soar through our skies. Mutants, gods and monsters walk amongst us. It's all very impressive. But I think it could be soooo much more fun!"
Finally, Becky choked out some words, small, almost a croak.
"Are... are you going to kill me?"
The Joker grinned knowingly, reaching out and tugging at her cheek.
"Aw, sweet little bird... no, I'm not gonna kill you."
Becky smiled then, a grin of pure joy and relief.
"Th-thank you. Tha-ha-hank... heh-heh. Thank..."
"No... I'm not going to kill you. I don't need to. The gas I used to put a smile on the faces of all these sadsacks is still lingering around in here. You were dead the minute you set foot in here. Fate's a funny old thing, huh?"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Becky laughed until it caught in her throat, then she collapsed onto the floor and began convulsing. And so her story ends.
The Joker, though... his story was just beginning.
Character Name: The Joker
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Villain
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): DarkOrchid
Powers and Abilities:
The Joker has no superhuman abilities, though he does have an immunity to most poisons, including the Joker Venom of his own design. His greatest asset, however, is his mind. He is a criminal mastermind, and his madness means he operates on a whole different wavelength from most people, making him a most unpredictable, formidable opponent.
Character Origin/Major Events:
The Joker has no origin. One day he wasn't, and the next, he was. He appeared on the side of the street, fully-formed, as if in a puff of smoke, and began the unfolding of a master-plan known only to him. Or maybe he's always been here, in the shadows, and it's only now that he has made himself visible to us. Whatever The Joker's story is, he's not telling.
Why this character?
The Joker is the greatest villain in comics, if not all fiction. Plus, I have a history with him!
What can you bring to the RPG?
A wealth of RPing experience, and SEXY TIME!
You wouldn't think there was anything untoward about this deli from the street. It was just another day, and Gotham's citizens milled around on the sidewalk outside, going about their daily business. But all it took was one step inside for Becky to know something was very wrong, and right away a little voice was nagging at her to turn and run. It wasn't heat that was in the air, in here it was in fact quite cool. Here, it was death that was in the air.
But Becky made the mistake of listening to her rational brain rather than her gut instinct, and so she made herself walk down the aisle to the fridge where they kept the water. She grabbed a bottle, then screamed as she let it topple to the floor. It was in the reflection in the glass of the fridge door she saw it. The body, on the floor. Slowly, she turned around, hoping that somehow the image would only be in the glass and not there in person, and there it was. A corpse of a man, lying on the ground with a basket of shopping scattered around him, his body contorted into an agonised, unnatural position. But his face was the worst of all. That grin, that awful grin...
Slowly, as if in a trance, Becky walked towards the body. She didn't want to, but it was like she was drawn to it. She never made it all the way, as she stopped dead in her tracks and let out a horrified moan as she looked past the body and saw that the deli was filled with them. Scattered around the aisles, at the counters, staff and customers alike. All of them dead. All of them grinning.
Becky thought that surely, this must be a nightmare. Sobbing, she staggered backwards towards the drinks cabinet. When a gloved hand passed over another bottle of water, she took it without even thinking at first. Then, she gasped and spun around.
"Go on, take it," the white-faced man said with a smile, "I'm sure there's no one in here who'll mind."
For a moment, Becky considered the possibility that this man before her was one of the corpses she had discovered, reanimated. He had their monstrous grin. But if anything, this figure was even more ghoulish: sickly white skin, yellowed eyes, lurid green hair.
"Truly, we live in an age of wonders. Don't you think?"
Reaching into the cabinet, the white-skinned man pulled out a large carton of orange juice. He popped it open, flipped his head back and began glugging it until the carton's contents were running freely down either side of his mouth. Finally letting out a gasp, he wiped his mouth with his purple sleeve.
"Aaaaah! Glorious, colorful heroes parade through our streets and soar through our skies. Mutants, gods and monsters walk amongst us. It's all very impressive. But I think it could be soooo much more fun!"
Finally, Becky choked out some words, small, almost a croak.
"Are... are you going to kill me?"
The Joker grinned knowingly, reaching out and tugging at her cheek.
"Aw, sweet little bird... no, I'm not gonna kill you."
Becky smiled then, a grin of pure joy and relief.
"Th-thank you. Tha-ha-hank... heh-heh. Thank..."
"No... I'm not going to kill you. I don't need to. The gas I used to put a smile on the faces of all these sadsacks is still lingering around in here. You were dead the minute you set foot in here. Fate's a funny old thing, huh?"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Becky laughed until it caught in her throat, then she collapsed onto the floor and began convulsing. And so her story ends.
The Joker, though... his story was just beginning.
Character Name: The Joker
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line): Villain
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): DarkOrchid
Powers and Abilities:
The Joker has no superhuman abilities, though he does have an immunity to most poisons, including the Joker Venom of his own design. His greatest asset, however, is his mind. He is a criminal mastermind, and his madness means he operates on a whole different wavelength from most people, making him a most unpredictable, formidable opponent.
Character Origin/Major Events:
The Joker has no origin. One day he wasn't, and the next, he was. He appeared on the side of the street, fully-formed, as if in a puff of smoke, and began the unfolding of a master-plan known only to him. Or maybe he's always been here, in the shadows, and it's only now that he has made himself visible to us. Whatever The Joker's story is, he's not telling.
Why this character?
The Joker is the greatest villain in comics, if not all fiction. Plus, I have a history with him!
What can you bring to the RPG?
A wealth of RPing experience, and SEXY TIME!
Spider-Man9X17
Ultron was sitting on him
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2004
- Messages
- 4,388
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
Singular Universe: Brave New World Character Application:
Character Name:Richard "Dick" Grayson; Robin, The Boy Wonder
Alignment (Hero, Villain, Walking the Line):Hero
Character Speech Color and Font (actually say what it is, like Blue Comic Sans): Red Bold Arial Narrow
Powers and Abilities: World Class Acrobat, peak physical fitness and agility
Character Origin/Major Events:
Year One: Thirteen year old Dick Grayson, long the darling performer in Haley's Circus for his uncanny ability to learn newer, deadlier trick and acts, begins becoming increasingly fascinated with the super powered human beings popping up around the globe. His fascination also begins to manifest as a slight jealousy as he feels his peers in the circus begin regarding him with less awe, and he pushes himself to train even harder, determined to be just as special, all without the aid of super human powers.
Year Two: Dick's begins noticing a change in his father. He has nearly stopped performing all together, and instead seems to be throwing himself full time into managing the circus. Despite drawing near record crowds at every show, Dick hears his father constantly complaining to his mother about a lack of adequete funds. A newer, less friendly batch of investors and promoters begin hanging around backstage at many shows.
Year Three: During a performance in Gotham City, Dick's mother falls to her death during one of their acts. Dick is near unconsolable, blaming himself for her death, angry that he did not double check the riggings before the show, or catch her in time. Following his mother's funeral, Dick takes several hours to himself to wander the streets of Gotham, alone in his thoughts. Returning to the circus, he finds his father gone, leaving nothing but a short note telling Dick to be strong in his absense and to take good care of the family name, as it is the only thing he ever had of value in life. Several weeks later, with attendance dropping and another lack luster performace due to his focus being on finding his father, Dick is kidnapped from his trailer by a group of street thugs and brought to the man known throughout Gotham City as The Penguin. At the last minute, The Batman intervenes and saves Dick's life, only for the two to discover that Dick's father has been murdered by the Penguin and his men over a mob deal gone sour. Distraught at losing both his parents in such a short period, and the knowledge that his father was in with the criminal underworld, a vengeful Grayson is offered a home at Wayne Manor until he becomes of age. Bruce Wayne ends up becoming an absentee father figure however, and Dick is left alone day and night with his hate, leading him to sneak out time and again in pursuit of the Penguin and his men. After several near death encounters and the timely, though unwanted intervention over and over of Batman, the Dark Knight finally reveals his identity to Dick and trains him as his partner. Dick will settle on the name Robin, The Boy Wonder.
Year Four: In the short year he has been fighting at Batman's side, Robin's skills have grown exponentially. While he still struggles with his father's underworld connections, he has let go of his hate and vengefulness, and channeled it into a desire to see justice serve, and protect those who cannot protect themselves in the hope that no one ever has to suffer as he did. He and Batman have come together as a pair, and Dick begins to look at Bruce as not so much a positive influence in his young life, but as a father. Dick has also begun developing feeling for a young red headed volunteer at Wayne Enterprises, Barbara Gordon, am affection the seems to be reciprocated. However, life is not always all its cracked up tp be as newer, deadlier villians are popping up everyday in Gotham.
Why this character?
That Bastard Batman already took Batman, but I've always been a little more partial to Grayson, and it will give me an awesome chance to do some great story telling with Batman
What can you bring to the RPG?
Great interaction, well thought out stories, and banana hammocks.
Provide a short sample post as your desired character, in three paragraphs or more and featuring at least one line of dialogue:
Sample post pending, but I think those that know me can vouch for my abilities in the mean time
Spider-Man9X17
Ultron was sitting on him
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2004
- Messages
- 4,388
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 31
OK, my sample
-
"Y--you d--don't scare me. Yer just a kid."
"I--I d--don't scare you? So is that your mean stutter there, twinkle toes?"
"You don't talk to me like that. Try fightin' me fair once, ya little twerp."
"Fair, huh?"
Robin pressed a gloved finger against the mugger's nose and gave a tiny little push. The leather clad thug swung out over the rooftop and looked down, or rather up from his inverted perspective, at the bustling street of Gotham City below.
"Mr Pot-Belly laying on top of a ninety pound girl in an alley is a fair fight?"
"Screw you, punk."
"Oh, pumpkin, that's such a sweet offer, but you're really not my type."
Robin checked a pouch on his belt.
"As a matter of fact, I have to meet my type in about ten minutes for me for some top choice grub at a way too classy joint. So unfortunately, I have to cut play time a little short, but I'm sure there are plenty of nice fellas who would love to take you up on that eloquent offer where your headed."
Robin tapped another pouch on his belt, sending out an anonymous signal to GCPD.
"Some very nice gentlemen are even going to personally chauffeur you. Now, you hang tight...haha, get it? 'Hang' tight? No? Because your hanging...ah, nevermind. Sometimes I just kill myself."
-
"Y--you d--don't scare me. Yer just a kid."
"I--I d--don't scare you? So is that your mean stutter there, twinkle toes?"
"You don't talk to me like that. Try fightin' me fair once, ya little twerp."
"Fair, huh?"
Robin pressed a gloved finger against the mugger's nose and gave a tiny little push. The leather clad thug swung out over the rooftop and looked down, or rather up from his inverted perspective, at the bustling street of Gotham City below.
"Mr Pot-Belly laying on top of a ninety pound girl in an alley is a fair fight?"
"Screw you, punk."
"Oh, pumpkin, that's such a sweet offer, but you're really not my type."
Robin checked a pouch on his belt.
"As a matter of fact, I have to meet my type in about ten minutes for me for some top choice grub at a way too classy joint. So unfortunately, I have to cut play time a little short, but I'm sure there are plenty of nice fellas who would love to take you up on that eloquent offer where your headed."
Robin tapped another pouch on his belt, sending out an anonymous signal to GCPD.
"Some very nice gentlemen are even going to personally chauffeur you. Now, you hang tight...haha, get it? 'Hang' tight? No? Because your hanging...ah, nevermind. Sometimes I just kill myself."
Batman
Dramatic Example
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2003
- Messages
- 19,335
- Reaction score
- 7
- Points
- 58
"I'm relaying the coordinates of Mr. Covelkov's safehouse to The Batmobile's onboard GPS now, sir. You should expect some considerable reinforcements."
I smirk, flipping the switch for the afterburner to kick in. I think on some level, what Alfred means by "expect considerable reinforcements" is "watch out for Hammerhead.", advice I could've taken to heart the last time. Ever since The Penguin relocated his weapon shipments to some as-of-yet discovered location in Gotham North, he's began stockpiling twice the muscle than usual. Each one is flown in from every part of the country, given his luck with throwing Gotham natives at me. Hammerhead was one of the first to actually give me and Robin a bit of trouble. Rammed his skull through solid concrete and kept running at us. Managed to break three of my ribs. If I see him again tonight - which I will - I intend to repay him for that.
"With Penguin, I always do. Thanks, Alfred."
Making a turn past Snyder Avenue and Capullo Street, the buildings begin to blur beside me as the car's speedometer kicks itself up to a steady 200 MPH. Used to take me forever to navigate through traffic at that speed, but now? I hardly remember a time when I didn't. Just need to remember to stay focused on the mission ahead. If I can bring in Hammerhead tonight, Penguin will have lost his top lieutenant. Then Dick and I can start digging into the core of his operation and, eventually, weed him out.
"A pleasure as always. I've doubled checked Master Dick's current position, and he seems to be making headway on locating that, er... 'Midnight Sons' motorcycle gang he was most persistent on capturing. He should require no further assistance. I assume you're going radio silent?"
About to reassure him as much, a message suddenly flashes across the dashboard computer. An incoming call from a private line. Without even having to check the number, I already know who it is, furrowing my brow in frustration. It's not that I don't enjoy reconnecting with a face from my past, but given recent events, I'm less than thrilled to keep a conversation going...
"Don't I wish. I'll see you back at the Manor in the morning."
Deactivating the voice modulator equipped in the cowl, I clear my throat and put on my best 'personable' tone.
"This is Wayne. You're up!"
"Bruce? It's Tommy. How'd I know you'd still out this late, you party animal?"
I nearly sideswipe a pedestrian taxi as The Batmobile veers onto the overpass.
"Tommy! I was just thinking of sticks in the mud. Perfect timing, as usual!"
He laughs. "Alright, alright. I'll leave you to whatever you playboy philantrophists do at two in the morning, and whoever you do it with. I was just calling to make sure we're still on for tomorrow morning. Tee-off starts at eleven."
It takes me a moment to respond, as I just realized that I could potentially incapacitate Hammerhead with a well placed strike to the forarm with an electrified batarang. His nerves would go numb and he'd be unable to move for hours. Just need to avoid that skull.
"Hmm? Oh, sorry! I was just entertaining a particularly tantalizing offer from my Venezuelan friend, here.", I reply, adding in a laugh to sell the false embarassment. "At least, I think that's what she said. You wouldn't happen to speak the language, would you?"
Despite the hour, Elliot seems to be in his usual good spirits. I wish I could say we were on the same wavelength, but right now, there's a killer in Gotham who demands my attention more than a morning golf game.
"I think you and I both know that you can speak any woman's language when you open that wallet of your's. Anyway, you're still good for the morning? I want to hit the course before nine and get in some practice. It's been awhile."
"Well, who I am to say to say no to the warden of 'Arkham City'?"
I recognize the awkward silence after bringing that up. Ever since the City Council authorized Arkham and Blackgate to be merged into one correctional prison island and placed him as the warden, Thomas Elliot has been the talk of the town. And particularly keen on avoiding the subject of Arkham when speaking to me. He knows how much of an insult it was for me to see my family's Asylum be turned into a wayward Guantanamo Bay. Especially when I don't feel it's going to solve the problem - or that it's not going to cause more.
"Sure, I'll be there. If the hangover wears off."
"Excellent. Well, you be a good little trust fund brat and try to stay out of trouble."
I chuckle. "Don't you have a labotomy to perform on someone, Doctor Elliot?"
"Yeah, I happen to speaking to him. Take care, Bruce."
"Mmm-hmm."
As soon as the call drops, the smile fades from my lips.
Sometimes, the distractions can be grating. But in the silence of the car, I find myself once again at peace. The calm before the storm, you might say, before the battle really begins. And I intend to bring a full-scale assault directly onto Covelkov's doorstep.
Time to show Penguin he's no longer welcome in my city.
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