Duke Bushido

So yesterday was awesome and exhausting. What with it being both Christmas Eve and Sunday, every player I have was off and, unfortunately, wanted to play. I say unfortunately because those players are across three different groups. The regularly-irregular Champions group wanted to do something-- so we did! I had _nothing_ ready, so I recycled the Christmas Treant I used with the youth group last year. A few on the fly mods to remove some of the humor and add some more overtly sinister, and done. (yeah; this group is fifty/ fifty: half want to be noble heroes; the other half wants to be Batman) The youth group wanted to do something so they could invite a couple of friends. As before, I had _nothing_. Honestly, no one has _ever_ wanted to play within three weeks of Christmas on either side! It never _occurred_ to me to prep something, even just mentally. I did have something rattling around in my head for a couple of months in case they ever did want to play again (they are _all_ in high school now, so I expect this fun thing they do with the old guy from church will fall by the wayside any second), so I launched into it for a couple of hours-- they are hot on the trail of the Good Guy. After being totally unable to locate the Gotham-esque neighborhood known as "the Sty," they are growing more and more perplexed. Finally, one of them suggests that all neighborhoods are hooked to utilities. Perhaps they can split up and follow power lines and storm sewers to get where they need to go? Two of them even call the garbage collection companies to see who runs to the Sty and when. After a run-in with the homeless army in the sewers, they find themselves in the Sty, and explore for a couple of hours, looking for leads, and wondering where the police are. We find a good spot to wrap up, and do so. I had to. Christmas Eve is also my amazingly-still-alive father's birthday. (It gets better: my mother's birthday is New Year's Eve.) I go see my folks (both of whom are the longest-lived people in their respective families. I should be so lucky) where I thoroughly enjoy my mother and I honor my father. (I hope you people can forgive me; if you cannot, I hope you can at least understand. The more I improve myself-- no; obviously not financially. The more I improve myself _as a human being_, the less I enjoy my father's company. He has gone from a vibrant, intelligent man to the terrified, paranoid coward that a certain "news" channel creates in order to ensure votes for a unified party of paranoid cowards, and I find it..... it's unpleasant. Leave it there.) After two bitter hours there, I start to head toward Brunswick, where my Traveller-on-Champions-wheels group wants to play, and then we get to the "quote of the week." At this point, I have been running games for about twelve hours, and for three different groups, and almost all of this is off-the-cuff material that I am having to note just as hard as the players are so that I can work it into the stories properly when I have time (and before the next sessions). I am frazzled. I can _feel_ the overload sparks in my brain. NPC: ...and that's when we found the ore. Not dust and flakes like on the worlds in the green zone, but a pure vein of it. Word got out-- I can't believe it was one of our guys; I just can't. We've got our entire lives riding on this, all of us. It had to be someone on the science team, researching it. There's an Imperial science ship in the next orbit starward, trying to mask itself amongst the background radiation of the star. It's here to study this stuff. It may prove to be the next best material for creating Jump Grids. PC1: Wait-- this is an unknown ore? PC2: Are we safe this close to it?! NPC: We are perfectly safe. It's as inert as lead prior to refinement. PC1: So this ore; what is it? NPC: Joseph Rafiiki. PC3: Oh, Man! I can't _wait_ to hear what _that_ stands for!

Eh. Had to go into a week of exile for medical and legal reasons (without meds, I tend to be more violent than I actually want to be), so I touched it up here and there. Oicked,up meds late yesterday, and already I have moved from "that guy needs stabbing" down to "that guy needs a blow to the neck!" Small steps, Sir, Small steps.

Well that's a neat bit of new knowledge that will,be making it's way into a campaign soon. Thanks, Vlad! Also, re: the TARDIS: No. If I didn't know what it was, then no; I'm a claustrophope, and you are not getting me into a phone booth. If I knew what it was, then _Hell_ no; time-travel does not appeal to me even as an intellectual exercise.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Doc, but I have been away from the boards a few days- victim of the American medical 'system." I ran out of blood pressure meds two weeks ago, heart meds shortly after that, and what my wife calls my "don't stab that guy" meds Saturday past. Finally got enough funds to fill them all up yesterday, but it's not like flippong a switch. It will probably take two weeks to get the fluids back out of my lungs, for example. At any rate, I jave been avoiding pretty much _all_ human interaction as much as possible, so as not to strain either my heart or my self-restraint. Give me a few days (I havent even read this thread yet), and if this thread is still active, I'll take a stab at it.

UThanks, Tribble; it's back up. Alas, I am very pressed for time, but to get things rolling: Sandy Mitchel had the worst luck ever. "Let's go skiing!" He said. "It'll be fun!" He said. "You're from the northern US, right? You know how to ski, right?" "Yes, and _heck yes!" She lied. Shw and Tony had only been dating for six weeks, but she wasnt going to turn down an opportunity to spend a weeked at one of those swanky ski resorts, no, Sir! She had really believed Tony just wanted to get away, with her, for the weekend. She figured she wouldn't have too much trouble talking him into meals, enjoying that lounge with that massive fireplace, watching the snow, and heading back to their room for... "A while." Who'd'a thought the big lug actually wanted to _ski_?! So here she was, he'll and fone from the main trail, ankle-deep in a crevice. That sounded better than it actually was, what with her being upside down and all. "Crevice" wasn't accurate at all. She wasn't sure where she was in relation to the trail: as soon as ahe went over the side and saw the forest racing toward her, she instinctively wrapped her arms around her head. She remembered screaming "pizza! Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" Over amd over again, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why. She looked up- err, _down_. Down, just a little bit above her. Hey; that's probably why she couldn't remember what yelling 'pizza!' was supposed to do. That... That was a lot of blood. There was a small puddle of it; like being ankle-deep in snow, it didn't sound bad on the outset, not until one got around to wondering how much more had soaked into the snow below. She was keenly aware of the wet warm,sensation at the her left arm, her lower right leg, and most worrisomely, the back of her head. There were lumps in the snow, ahe noticed. She had no idea what that meant, but it did cause her to wonder several worrisome things about her head wound. She was becoming dizzy and nauseous- more, she hoped, from being upside down for who knows how long than from blood loss. She spent a considerable amount of time tryng to decide if she was okay with dying like this or if she felt she should add some sort of struggle to her last few minutes of life. Finally, human nature decided for her. She was cold. Too cold. She wasn't going to die that way; it was too miserable. Besides, there was light in this small... Crevice? Cave? Ravine? This place. Lot's of rocks; lots of snow, but pretty decent light. There was probably a way- maybe even several ways- out of here. Just her luck to be stuck in the only tight spot. She began to try to pull herself free of the snow and earth that wedged her in place, just a few feet from the snow below her. She felt the agony of her broken bones and stopped struggling. "Screw it" she thought. "I'll die cold." But her luck held. No sooner had she stopped wiggling and twisting than a bit of the soil that held her broke free and dropped defiantly to the ground beneath her. "Well screw you, too!" she yelled to the fist-sized lump of loam. Then a second bit broke free and dropped. She stared at them in anger. After a few droos of her precious blood had begun to paint them, her anger exploded. "Well? What are you waiting for? You'e free!" She waited for a response. When it became clear that none was coming, she yelled again. "Run, you cowards! Go on; get out of here! I don't need you! We don't need you! Go!!" Then there was a hard blow to the back of her head, so sharp as send her senses into a nauseating spin, then a soft 'plompf' hit the snow below her. A fist-sized stone stared at her. She glared hatefuly at it. "Couldn't just _leave_, could you? Couldn't just roll on out of here without tacking a crack at me, could you?! Well we I don't need you, either! Take your friends and go, you _traitor_!" Then a pebble fell. Then another. Then anither and another and another and in sexonds there was a small avalanche of gravel and loose soil ans she felt,her body shift slightly_ "No! Not all of you! You can't _all_ love him more! You can't just _leave_ me-" Then the cascade became deafening as stone and soil and even snow showered around her and suddenly she was _pushed_ forcefully down to the blood-soaked cavern floor by the weight of the mass around her collapsing. Ahe caught sight of what looked like an entire tree falling toward her. "Hunh." she thought with bemusement. "It really does happen in slow motion." She watched as the massive, half-rotten old tree chased her downward, slowly rotating- Then there was a microscopic instant of pain beyond all imagination. Then there was nothing at all. _Activated_. _Prepare for possible intrusion; source unknown._ _Affirmative. Security measures_? _Biological_. _Xenoid_? _Unclear_. _Anticipated_? _Kahree seeding party approximately six-thousand cunahr overdue._ _Request verification_ _Nine Kahree seeders attempted to introduce lab-designed biologicals into the environment for the purpose of improving local stock. This party disembarked approximately six thousand cuhnar ago. This part has not returned_. _Verify time statement_. _Cannot comply_. _Reason_? _Geological upheaval five-point-one-six cuhnar ago partially buried this one. Minor damage to this one's structure, but many memory crystals were taken offline. Status unknown. Drone repairs inneffective in recovering lost function. Second geological upheaval four-point-nine cuhnar ago. Additional functions lost, including many control centers for maintenance drones. Primary function intact: await and assist Kahree. Defend self from invasion by local biologicals. Maintenance drones prevent loss of self due to corrosive and other hazardous local conditions. Little other function remains: primary maintenance is focused on those devices for maintaining Kahree crew_. _Confirm location and identification beacons of Kahree crew_. _Cannot comply_. _Reason_? _identification beacons ceased broadcasting five-point-nine-nine-seven-four cuhnar ago. Note that said beacons had not moved for several desci prior to cessation of beacons. _Confirm Kahree life span_. _Medical subroutines report average Kahree life span of one-hundred-did try-two desci, or point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero four cuhnar_. _Anticipated invasion is Kahree seeding party_? _Unknown. Be advised that boarding party may be Kahree seeding party_. _Affirmative. Known hostile xenobiologicals_? _Exterminate and sterilize_. _Nature of potential invaders_? _Uncertain. Initial testing of biological samples excreted by subject prior to entry demonstrate Kahree DNA_. _Seeding party has returned_? _Potentially_. Computers and robots lack a certain something that allows them to remain optimistic in spite of some cut and dried facts. _Location of intruder_? _Airlock Seven. This one granted access on the basis of Kahree DNA. Damage to that portion of self prevent further examination. Security drone 171 activated to assess and dispatch appropriate action_. _Affirmative. Online. Proceeding to airlock seven_. A four-foot tall cylinder of gleaming metal rose on four spider legs and clicked its way down an unlit corridor. _Security deployed_. _Medical drones as available await orders_. _Deploy medical drones for assessment_. _Drones deployed. Additional security drones being brought online_. _Size of intruder's party_? _One. Potentially disabled_. _Deploy reinforcement security drones_. _Deployed_. "There is a waiting room" Sandy thought with wry amusement. Even death had a schedule. She thought Back to the agony of dragging herself through the crevice for who knows how far or how long. She'd have just given up if it hadn't been for that weird dog. She had begun to realize that she had been crawling steadily downward; the edges of the crevice now seemed miles above her- though that could be delirium, too. Either was, she wasn't getting up those walls. Even in good health, she wasn't particularly athletic. Why should she be?! She was attractive, financially-secure, and reasonably intelligent. She never had any problems finding someone to lift a box or fetch her car in the rain. She had absolutely no reason to lift cows or climb rocks in her spare time! "Well," she thought, "at least I outran those damned rocks! Serves them right!" As a bonus, she realized the bleeding had stopped. Tentative probing with the fingers on her good hand suggested the blood had frozen into a sort of bandage. That was fine; at least it didn't hurt anymore. Then there was light in the distance- a square of reddish-orange light had slid into existence ahead of her, and something had crept out. Purposefully, it began to trot towards her. As it neared, she managed to work out that it was roughly dog-sized. Eh. Maybe she just decided it was dog-sized. It was- okay, maybe she just decided it was dog-shaped, and it probably didn't matter how many legs it had, since nobody _really_ knew how many legs a dog had anyway. So it was just a wierd plastic-and-metal dog. It had used it dog's and-like pincer mandible to sieze her by the scruff of her coat and a couple of it's doggy tentacles to wrap around and support her head and injured limbs. She was grateful for her constant cycle of blacking out; she was certain it was saving her some pain. She was becoming frustrated by the repeated cycling into consciousness, though. Pain, delirium, waves of nausea. The wierd dog sat her down here, in this antiseptic waiting room. The walls were... Warm. Hard, metallic, but warm. The red-orange light glowed from the ceiling as a whole, giving the illusion of having no source at all. For just a moment, she was under a warm red-orange sun, sunning herself in her metalic back yard. Then she remembered the walls and she was back in this clerkless waiting room. The warmth was bringing back more pain, and scratching an itchy scalp proved that her head- oh my god! What was that in her hand?! A door slid open in a featureless wall. She blinked at the wingless angel that clicked and skittered into the room and stopped just out or reach. She stared at it. It remained motionless. It made no sound. Then there was the faintest mechanical whirr and it shrieked. It made a blood-curdling, horrific screeching noise that tore through her peceptions and threatened to jelly her eyes. She attempted to cover her head, to curl into a ball, but there were too many things broken and battered in her body. All she could do was gasp and sob for the eternity the not-an-angel shrieked at her. 'Hell.' She thought. 'One stupid skiing trip and I did and go to Hell. Why couldn't this happen at work? During one of those stupid department meetings? Or budget analysis? And where's my dog? Does he have to go, too? He was a good dog! He tried to save me. 'Course, he _did_ drag me to the waiting room for Hell..' "Hey!" She yelled to what she now understood the be a demon. "Take that damned dog! This was hus idea!" _Dispatch medical immediately_. _Contact has been made_? _Affirmative. Records in transit for review_. _Security programming sufficient for declaring medical emergency_? _Intruder is non-symmetrical. Known asymmetrical Kahree_? _This one has no awareness of such. No symmetry_? _No bilateral symmetry. No trilateral symmetry. No quadrilateral symmetry. No pentilateral symmetry--_ _Sufficient. No known beings exhibit symmetry beyond pentilateral_. _Kahree symmetry_? _Bilateral. Subject confirmed Kahree_? _Unable to assess. Medical assessment required_. _Dispatch medical_? _Dispatch medical_. _Urgency_? _Immediate. Unable to achieve contact. Subject appears to have lost capacity for speech; no repsonse to request for identification. Considering asymmetry, physical damage to biological is possible_. _Deformity_? _Unknown. Secretions have increased. Estimation of volume of biological suggests this rate of secretion is unsustainable_. _Explanation_? _Biological was questioned extensively_. _Ascertained_? _Reference initial inability to achieve communication_. _Done. Medical has been dispatched_. Two smaller openings appeared in another wall. Two disk-shaped machines floated into the airlock. 'More demons?' Sandy thought as she observed the floating objects. The circled her before pausing briefly. One of them split slightly, then seemed to her thicker- some sort of instant growth spurt that doubled its thickness. Coils unwound from around it and begun to float and probe the air. The second one twisted at the midsection, then shrieked and screamed at her as the first monster had done. She screamed to, but in blind terror; she had no idea what else to do. The first disk was reaching for her thirty tentacles, maybe more. Lights played from some, sounds from others. A few more begun to lightly touch and probe here and there, eliciting fresh screams where some parts were more tender, and others were in absolute agony- some parts were in so much pain that she didnt even notice the handful of with tenticles that were peircing her flesh here and there, probing deeper into her. _Analysis_? _Specify_? _Is the intruder Kahree_? _Kahree DNA has been detected_. _Intruder is Kahree_? _Many components of DNA differ from known Kahree parameters_. _Subject contains Kahree DNA_. _Subject is biological experiment from seeding party_? _Cannot determine. Insufficient information on file regarding seed project biological specimens_. _Subject has Kahree DNA_. _Confirmed. Continue with examination_? _Confirmed. Treat as Kahree. Ascertain nature of biological. Determine threat_. _Cannot comply_. _Reason_? _Subject appears to be unable to hear. Subject makes no attempt to communicate_. _Reason_? _Extensive damage to cranium; brain exposed. Additional extensive damage to body. Brain damage expected. Fluid loss appears critical. Probability is subject will cease_. _Subject known to contain Kahree DNA. Do not allow cessation. Treat as Kahree_. _Priority_? _Total_. _Affirmative_. Another demon entered- squat and round like the first one, but on wheels- well, balls of a sort. Several limbs extended outward from it and stabbed into Sandy's body. The pain was biblical, but stopped almost instantaneously-- the two tenticles stabbing into her brain may have had a lot to do with that. As the machine trundled closer, she could see some sort of twisted gremlin on its surface- a grotesquely straight from a horror movie. It wasn't until she saw one of the floating disk demons move in behind it that she realized she was seeing her reflection. A remote part of her subconsciousness objectively noted that most of her face seemed to be missing. She had a bried moment to try to remember where she had left it before the large demon- the first one- moved closer, reaching for her with limbs that sprang from its cylindrical body. Then even her abysmal luck felt guilty for what it had done, and she died. _Status_? _Biological subject continues_. _Status of current host body_? _Transplant contraindicated. Subject is or is descended from Kahree hybridization experiment. Outcomes known for Kahree irrelevant. No known outcomes for hybridized species_. _Extent of intervention_? _Fluid loss of primary concern. New integumentary system synthesized and bonded to fascia. Fascia deemed insufficient for both bonding and servicing integument and for protecting vital systems of subject. New fascia tissues synthesized and bonded to subject. Non-Kahree DNA subroutines rewritten to support and maintain both fascia and integument. Both synthetic tissues will be nurtured and replicated by subject biological without undue stress on existing systems. Number of limbs uncertain; skeletal and circulatory analysis suggests bilateral symmetry to be the norm for this subject; that norm has been restored. Subject presented with numerous elements of skeletal and ligaments support structure shattered or otherwise damaged, suggesting insufficient adaptation for local conditions. Damaged skeletal, ligamental, and muscular elements repaired. Improved musculature DNA has been encoded; ligaments will regrow stronger and more securely attached to skeletal components. Synthetic skeletal compounds and lattice work have been infused with existing structure; DNA encoding to allow continued repair and production of these elements is ongoing; expected to be completed before maintenance cycle. Production of circulatory fluid and immune-responsive circulatory components briefly impaired. As original biological cells complete their functioning cycles and are replaced with new synthetics, this impairment will diminish. Strongly positive outcome expected. Circulatory system repaired; improved fascia and integument negates need for improvement in this system. Of high concern is the loss of flesh, bone, and neurological tissue due to extensive damage to the cranium. One of a pair of light-sensing organs was lost and replaced with an improved vat-grown biological designed by modifying DNA found in the surviving mated organ. This study required destruction of the surviving organ; it, too, was replaced. Design alterarions included adjustments for light conditions presymed prevalent in native environment, as ascertained by studying the area in which the subject was found. The sensory cluster of olfactory receptors deemed too exposed for temperature and atmospheric conditions found in native environment. No data for this hybrid is available. Self-healing was deemed logical, though DNA shiws that subject requires a nasal lattice work that will not reconstruct before all telemeres are split, causing subject to cease. DNA altered to effect accelerated healing process and telemere replication. Telemere replication only partially successful, but facial lattice work and superstructure should heal well within the duration of subject's existence. Of greater concern was loss of neurological tissue from within the shattered cranium. Likely owing to Kahree DNA, subject is incapable of regrowing or repairing neurological tissue. Cloning and synthesizing results poor. Multiple problems were solved with cybernetic treatment. Mental capacity is greater than estimates for the original; communication is now possi la. Subject's hearing was far too mis-tuned to interpret speech on proper frequencies; subject's vocalization apparatus far too weak to create proper speech. Both have been modified through the chips implanted into the neural network to replace lost brain function. Subjects current hearing and speaking ranges determined to be potential survival traits in native environment, and left intact. Safest solution was extending range cybernetically. Rapid healing for Brain tissue not possible, even with DNA encoding. The nature of the cranium's natural development not conducive to safe rapid healing beyond small increments. A cranial protection device has been developed which will interface with neural chips when worn and allow for both interpretation and broadcasting of speech as well as replacing most native sonic abilities known to be Kahree, at least until subject is able to heal its natural abilities. Helmet will also in stages accelerate healing of and effectively protect the cranium until it has healed. All reflexes test normal; subject responds to all stimuli within tolerable ranges while wearing protective communication helmet_. _Considerable resources and effort expended for local,biological_? _"Treat as Kahree"_. _"Treat as Kahree." Subject retains Kahree DNA_? _Less than upon discovery. Considerable DNA rewritten to slow continuance of subject_. _Subject is not Kahree_? _Subject is less than one-hundred percent Kahree_. _Subject will continue without assistance_? _Subject is not Kahree_. _Eject subject_. _Subject will be ejected_. The hikers found her, wandering the woods naked, clutching a ball of shredded and bloody clothing and wearing some sort of owl-faced helmet. They attempted to hail her, to see if she was okay, and were knocked unconscious by a piercing scream that tore at their nervous system and a hard physical blow that launched them back several feet. The naked woman ran toward them, screeching over and over, and upon reaching their unconscious bodies, fled into the woods. She was sighted twice more that summer, but it wasn't until the middle of winter- peak tourist season- that sightings began to pour in, and a concentrated effort to find 'the screech owl witch' was taken in earnest. Eventually she was found, naked and somehow impervious to the cold, sleeping on the same bloody and shredded clothes she was seen carrying. Probably for the best. She couldn't sleep in the helmet; it kinked her neck, but she knew she was supposed to wear it. She was identified by the ID in her wallet (though none of it mentioned those crazy big eyes!) and eventually dental records and blood samples as Sandy Mitchell, the woman who had disappeared a year ago and for whom a three week manhunt had been undertaken. This woman, though-- she had some.... Problems... She had massive gaps in her memory, and it was some time before her motor skills were one hundred percent (though they just kept getting better and better even after that). She had cognitive deficits that were two years getting over- it is worth noting that while her therapists were working on ways for her to cope with them, they actually just _went away_, without explanation. Except for the nightmares and the wild bits of stories she would share with her therapists, of course. Even they werent really clear, but she was never going to forget them. In just a couple of years, she was better than normal, amd the doctors and therapists stopped scheduling appointments. Then the bills started coming. She had no job skills- she had absolutely no recollection of her job at all, and no permanent home. As she was deemed,'cured,' even the charity that was putting her up began to hint that it was time for her to move on and let someone with more need take her place. Well, it was pretty obvious that her life was going to go nowhere if she couldnt get some money, and she had no idea how to do that. 'That's okay,' she thought to herself while reaching for her helmet. 'Sandy Mitchell doesn't know how to survive here, but Screech does....'

Whdya mean, "never mind?" I was looking forward to seeing a new image when I came home this evening.....

You are not wrong, but if you were of an age to attend lots and lots of action movies of the era, you'd find that _both_ were derivative of the genre as a whole at that time: the anti-HERO edgelord stuff ran _deep_ at the time. Yeuch.

Thanks, OM. Yep. Sad. On the plus side, I am now happily aware that the "other word" doesn't even come to mind. I am never terribly delighted with me, but today, I am very proud.

A little help?

Not really. The human thorax and cranium are both typically more than seven inches deep. Factor in the 1-7/8" thickness of a typical door (U.S), and the 7" is just enough to ger you killed in a particularly horrific way.

Yes; I meant White Dwarf: the one that became nothing more than glamour shots of the Warhammer 40k minis. Don't know how I screwed that up. I have never even heard of a White Wolf magazine....

Yep; pretty much nailed it. Though there were a lot of players who would make their move, then _carefully watch_ as their opponent(s) made their moves, _then have to study the board_ for fifteen minutes.... Ugh. You know what changed! You watched it change! You made half if the changes! Now play! I can date the story, actually: I had ordered the game from an add in the back of White Wolf (remember when that qas an actual gaming magazine and not a catalogue? Ha!) And had recieved it about three months earlier. This campaign was our inaugural run with Daredevils. I borrowed the term "roofie" for the telling. I honestly don't know if rohypnol was a thing then, but there were plenty of street drugs and home-brewed concoctions floating around for that specific purpose, even back then. As to getting him off the streets, etc... I wish I could say it was true. Date rape wasn't taken seriously as a "real crime" back then. He served a few months foe possession, but not much else.

You remind me of a wonderful session back about '88 or so that ended wonderfully and awfully at that same time, but it was ultimately a good thing: When I took over as GM for my original Champiins group, one of the many things I inhereted was one of those little cheesy sand timers found packed in with various ouzzle games since time immemorial. It was allegedly a sixty-second timer, but repeated testing (across a couple of _decades_) had proven it to be a sixty-two sexond timer.... Yeah, not important, unless you were the guy who was waiting for your turn, in which case it was the thing you complained about most. Anyway, Jim (my predecessor) had a policy: if you weren't ready when your turn came (everyone got a few seconds, of course, but if you werent ready after a quick "uuhhhhh....," then the timer hit the table, and you had until it ran out to complete and execute your actions. (Newbies had exemption, of,course, for the first couple of hours of game time.) The fact is (and it could have been simply the threat of it) no one ever actually needed all sixty-two seconds unless we were playing Starfleet Battles (not sure why we were all of so tediously cagey for that game). But when the timer was put into play, whoever's turn was up suddenly became the poster child for efficiency: whatever wasn't done when the last of the sand flowed out of the top didn't get done. And that policy had an inconsiderate corollary that bit us in the butt in the most amusing way.... One night, we had one player- I don't know what her deal was: she was falling in and out of attention, constantly distracting herself with some internal thing-- I had asked after about an hour if she felt okay; if ahe wanted a break; if she would prefer her character moving onto a side-plot to be resolved later so ahe could bow out and go home-- It was confusing to me, because she was actually a few minutes earlier that usual, claiming she had blown off a party to come to the game. Well, she wenr to the party, had some fun, ended up stuck talking to some creepy dude for fifteen minutes, got 'that vibe,' and left in an attempt to bail on him. Instead, he walked her all the way to my place, said his good-byes, then beat feet back the way he came. She kept insisting ahe was fine, and I figueed she was probably just shaking the creepy vibe off, so we kept playing. We had never had to use the timer more than three or four times in any game, and frankly, it was a pretty rare game that saw it in use at all. That night, it was used more than a dozen times, almost all of them on that same player (who was now distracted in-game; it was the only way to resolve all of this!). And after waffling for a bit, the timer came out for the final time that session. Her character had been hiding behind a column in a darkened maintenance room ( for what it's worth, we were playing Daredevils), pistol drawn (she was supposed to be covering another character as he advanced towars the villain, but had gotten distracted, etc. Two other players were making the attempt, and were nearly,out of ammo. Distraction Player was the only one who the villain had not yet been made aware of. The timer came out, she hesitated, waffled, studied the map, asked questions that demonstrated she had lost focus about four rounds prior to now.... I put the timer on the table _again_..... And it didn't help much. I think it was half empty before she really registered its presence (in spite of the traditional "oh no! It's the timer!" drama from the usual suspects). As it got more and more empty, she just choked. Then the timer did, too. There was a tint bit of sand that had somehow managed to get lodged in the neck, and it just hung there. Hoots and howls from around the table, but my Player remained... Off.... She turned to another player and started with "oh my God; I don't know what to do! Do I shoot this guy? Do I run away? No matter what, he is going to see me, and my character isn't going to survive getting shot with his tommy gun--" Helpfully, he suggested considering her motives, which degenerated into a group recap of the last four sessions- the villain did this; the villain did that.... He framed your fiance and got him arrested, then stole his research; On and on. "Guys...." I started. "She's out of time...." "Oh, no!" This from my rules lawyer brother. "She's out of time when the timer runs out!" Everyone suddenly remembered the timer and burst out laughing again. "I know it's stuck, but-" "Nope!" Quipped my brother John. "It's in Flashback mode!" More laughter, considering the recap underway. "Yeah!" Agreed the Rules Lawyer. "You know how it works- every movie there's a pivotal moment where someone has like a twenty minute flashback and then we snap back to the moment and like, two seconds have gone by! The Timer rule says (and it didn't, really; it was just an accepted interpretation, and this is how I learnes to be careful about letting that happen again) 'when the sand runs out,' which it hasn't--" Distracted Player said "Okay, you're right- villain did this and this and this and this and this and it affected you this way and you that way and you this way, and it did this, this, and this to me, and he has always been this and that and the other to my fiance and his father- this is it! "Okay, Duke: I step out from behind the column and say "you will leave me and the French family (her fiance was Dr. Conrad French, scientist extrordinaire) alone!' Then I shoot a couple of times to scare him back so the others can take him down." Then she rolled a pretty sweet critical and he dropped, dead at her feet. Howls from around the table. Then she (the player) got incredibly sick on my floor, and we all freaked for a moment, and John and I loaded her into his car and we took her to the ER. Turns out her vibe was right, and leaving was the best thing for her. Someone had roofied her. The only thing that saved her was her health (she was on swim team scholarship), and creepy guy not using enough to black her out, and the fact that she left. We couldn't talk her in to preasing charges, but her coach did. Creepy dude was caught with enough on him to knock out choir. Sorry- that last bit was to be left out, but in anticipation of the discussion about her 'shouldnt have shown up' or 'bad player' or whatever, and I wanted to defend hee showing up: I suspect she felt safer in the company of her wierd friends than she would have in an empty dorm room. We would learn later that another girl at the party had not been so fortunate.

I am willing to accept Ninja-Bear's claims for several reasons, most significantly being that historically, he's not given to flights of fantasy, and because he includes the very valid disclaimer "in my own experience." It certainly doesn't hurt that his experiences with min-maxers mirrors my own. now I have no misunderstandings that these are the guys who prefer the tactical side of the game; it's just not my favorite part of them game. and I also admit that to some degree, we have all bumped up "efficiency effectiveness" here and there even if it was only because we to shave points to buy "just one other thing."

As did I, but I would, where he suggests adding Bruising damage to END loss, would also use it as a reduction to maximum END until it has healed- I have run _no_ numbers because I have been out and about as Santa (the Beard was ready, and tired or not, I cannot disappoint! I love the looks on kids faces when they think they have 'caught' Santa on his day off. ), but off the cuff, let's go with his Bruise/5 deduction to END as it is earned, and apply some portion (or all of it) as a cap to Total END available. For what it's worth, when I do grim and gritty, I tend to do something sort of similar- again, _sort of_, and only for from and gritty, where every points of BODY done by a KA vs PD reduces Recovery by one, and every ten points reduces it by another one (yes; they stack). I haven't ever really tried Sean' suggestion because, as someone else noted, sean and I have both added "yet another damage stat to track," but just like Sanity for a C'Thulhu game, sometimes it gives the flavor you want. I just haven't yet had the desire for a flavor that needs four damage stats.

Oh, crap! I left off the last sentence (this was composed in e-mail (because the computer has an actual keyboard) then copy / pasted. Forgive me; that has left the impression that I support the immolation of morons. While I am not _opposed_ to it, in theory, I can't advocate for it because their might be some jackass like me in charge of deciding who burns. Safer, I think, to just not advocate for it. Anyway, the whole thing was meant to be an extended metaphor: Some people were born to be the firewood on a beautiful, glorious pyre..... Set every day, specifically to keep my sanity afloat, and far, far out of my reach, forever. Sorry for any other suggestions there....

Did one last year with the Youth group- it was part of an on-going campaign that had gotten a bit derailed by a Hunted roll, leading to a Foxbat arc that proved popular enough that we just kept rolling with it. Short version: FB (one of only 2- Technically 3) published characters I have ever used, ever (I think I mentioned that enemies books aren't really useful to me)) and Leroy (in my universe, Leroy is the only thing that makes FB competent. Without Leroy, FB is a run-of-the-mill whacko with irritating personal traits) have succesfully stolen the oldest gemstone in the universe, a boring dun-coloured not-quite-transuscent thing with a couple of elements found nowhere else on earth and rumored to be magical (maybe it is; maybe it isn't). He needed it as a cap for his walking stick so he could complete his Evangelist costume for The Church of Everyone Else is Going to Die. At the climax, the stone was lost. It resurfaced a couple of months later when, while decorating the record-holdingly-massive pine tree in front of Campaign City Hall, it was found lodged in the higher branches right about the time they workers were done decorating the tree for Christmas. Having struck most of their equipment, they just left it, planning to "discover" it when undecorating. And once the lights were flipped on to show off the tree-- Well, the adventure was called "Versus the Christmas Treant," if that helps. Best part (for me) was when Kinetica (whose player decided she was native to the city because none of the other characters were, allowing her periodic grabs of inventing things as a "tour guide" of sorts) felt the ground rumbling and intoned in terror "oh God! Not _again_!" Which made for some hilarious role playing when the treant ripped free of it's earthly fetters....

It started yesterday, As do most of my problems, it started with the finish line. As do about a third of those problems, it started with the electricians. The electricians caught me while I was running a quick inventory on material that I apparently stock far-too-near the electrical work area, and as a result, they can see me. This is never a good thing. "Hey, Duke!" I felt that crick in my spine when I hear anyone from the finish line call my name; it's always a problem, and it's always something remarkably stupid, and it's almost always something they brought on themselves. "We're outta these!" Number 1 called, holding up a 4x4" crushed-corner combo cover (GFC! and Toggle, for anyone who actually cares). "How? I ordered enough of those to run us through to January. Look again; they should have come in last Tuesday." "Yeah. They did. They came in wrong, though. They packed okay, but they's something else in the boxes. Reckon they's labeled wrong." "Well, crap. When did you find this out?" "Oh! Last Tuesday, when they come in." "And I am only hearing about this now?" "Well only run out just now!" he proclaimed indignantly, as if this somehow justified not saying something... I don't know... ten days ago, maybe? "You knew you were going to run out eventually, right?" I said, in my teaching moment voice, though despair welled up in my soul; I can't lie to myself. I have long given up on thinking there is any real chance of teaching these guys anything. "Fine. How many of these things have you got?" "Two cases." he replied, pointing at two boxes that had been pulled from the racks and set on the floor near the end of the racking. "Two cases; okay, here's what you do: take those two cases, and put them on that pallet outside the door over there. I've got a guy headed to a supply house; I will have him pick up those and run by the electrical house as well. Just get them out there _now_ before he leaves; I've got to make a couple of calls." Obviously, I called 'the guy' first and told him to pick up the two boxes and run them to the electrical supply house for exchange, then I called the electrical supply house to work things out. Hooray! Everything worked perfectly, and he was back in less than an hour. Problem solved. You'd think. I mean, you'd _really_ think so, wouldn't you? I know _I_ did! Skip to today: "Hey, Duke!" Crap. Apparently I was forklifting too close to the electricians. :Yeah" I replied, eyes busy on what I was moving. "We're outta these" he yells, holding up a _different_ 4" crushed corner combo cover (this one was toggle and duplex, again, for those keeping score). "That is not possible! I put two cases of those on the shelf _myself_ while you guys were at lunch three days ago. That's two hundred pieces; you guys use an average of twenty-one per day. It's not possible that you're out." "Well.... well, we are. We got 'bout four left." "How the-- No; never mind. Hang on." I shut the lift down and went directly to the spot where they were stocked. And sitting there were _not_ two cases of the cover that belonged there, but the two mis-labeled cases of a cover that we do not use, ever-- you know: the ones that they had put on the floor and flagged me down to tell me they were wrong and that they were out of what they were _supposed_ to be--- you guessed it! When I said "put the two cases of mislabeled items on that pallet to be exchanged," they instead walked right by the boxes of incorrect material-- the boxes that _they themselves had pulled from the shelf and placed on the floor because they were wrong_-- and grabbed the last two cases of toggle-and-duplex (which they use every day) and sent them back to exchange for toggle-and-GFCI and then put the 'bad' material on the shelf in its place. But even then-- why point it out to them? Why explain it to them? They would _never_ understand, never learn, never get one whit smarter. Instead, I just hung my head so they couldn't see the rage I was choking on. Finally, I gave in-- just a little, but I _had_ to say something, or I would burst. "Do you two have any idea why you are the only guys in this plant that I am not allowed to fire?" "I think it's a-cause Bossman got tired a' you doin' it." "Yep. It's because Boss got tired of my firing you two. I don't suppose you're ever going to understand the deeper problem here, are you?" Blank stares. Some people, I think, are a complete waste of the skin it took to wrap them. When I see them, all I can see are the burn victims who could put their epidermis to far better use. Then there are people like these: people who were _born_ to be firewood on a beautiful, glorious pyre....

That's more of a phablet, I think. oh, and in the words of the world's greatest robot: "I'm back, Baby!" Record time, too! At any rate, my phone should have excellent vision now. I took it to the i-doctor for i-surgery, so it should have 20/20 vision now. Weird, since I took it in for a charging issue.

Dont know if it helps, but generally I start with "thinking about putting something together for Traveller next month. Interested?" And see where the snowball rolls and how big it gets.

Agreed! I have always loved this thread and one other as the best part of these boards but they are both extremely streaky: when they come back, they are full-bore and full of energy and fun, than they go away for months at a time.... It's great that it'a back. Ans thank you for doing that! I'll get to it; it takes me longer than ever having to do it via phone. But I'll get there! Too easy! That's Wallace Shawn! I'd recognize him anywhere. I can almost _feel_ his voice chewing it's way through my auditory and optic nerves as we speak! Looks like this one was taken on his forty-fifth birthday, if I am not mistaken. Super powers are easy, though: Sonic Powers. His voice can melt steel, shatter any crystaline structure, and soften or even melt plastics. A full-power scream can blind you briefly. The only known defense is playing a re2corsing of Gilbert Gottfried, which sets up a counter-resonance in an algebra-defying "negative times a negative equals zero" kind of thing. Now on the whole "quality of images" thing-- Dudes, this image is one of my favorites, and I am pretty sure that it was meant to be a joke! It isn't- And this is for everybody- It isnt about how conventional or unconventional the image is (it was a strange swimsuit cheesecake image that got me started playing instead of spectating, if anyone remembers. It is about the challenge of doing something _with_ the image! Just like that photo of Wallace Shawn up above: I gave him superpowers! Anyone who has never heard him speak might think I was just making it all up, but still: I did something with the image. Fact is, no image in this thread is perfect: the ones that don't look like superheroes or supervillains... Well, they dont look like supers, and it's a ramp up in difficulty. The ones that _do_ look like supers are so damnably generic (most of the time; not always) that it is hard to get a start: nothing leaps out to pick at (at what point did superhero looks become more about style than saying something about the character? They might as well be wearing ski-suits with over-sized boots and gauntlets) and gives that initial inspiration. So _none_ of these images, historically (except for that skeleton in jeans Tribble put up and some vaguely bug-looking dude someone else put up a while back) have been great images, but to me, that's kind of the _point_. Who is he? What can you do with her? Who are these guys? At the end of the day, unlike fantasy character art or aliens or spaceships, Googling for superhero images is going to return several hundred pages of well-know, well-loved copyrighted characters who are useless for this game. Finding images isn't easy. Somewhere there is a balance of "I finally found one" and "I think I can work with that" that makes this game work, that makes it fun! If we are going to bash on the images or rage quit over a lack of responses, the game,disappears again, and no one gets to enjoy it. The fact is, though, that not every image is going to inspire every player. I think I have only ever done what? Four? Let's see.... The flagsuit barbie in dinoland, the mini Rich posted, one I put up myself (the guy with the sweatervest and belly and towel cape) and it seems one other, but I can't at the moment recall what it was- It's the nature of inspiration. Sometimes even what spoke to you yesterday will never speak to you again. Sometimes it's the other way around. Always, though, images are hard to find. For what it's worth, I appreciate all of them- both for the time it took, and for the fact that someone thought it might work for someone else. And finally: I take _all_ my "entries" (quoted not to minimise them, but because I only play for fun) seriously: even a tongue-in-cheek suggestion is meant as a very real suggestion: some characters are just more light-hearted than others; that does not devalue the character or the effort that went into creating it. I'm not going to rage quit, though. I am going to assume that I missed out on a very strange blood sugar crisis with multiple participants and that everyone will get their gripes and grunts sorted and go back to having some fun _because that's why we come here_. Right?

That'a about where I was headed when I got to the Flash examples. Same, though I go a bit further by asking for an explanation as to the nature of the Desolid. I can then chuck that into a very broad category like "is a ghost" or "gaseous form" or "phase resonance" or whatever, and then work with the player for a reasonable set of common things /SFX _would_ effect him. When I do allow "affects Desolid," I generally ask the details on that, which puts us into one or more categories of Desilid that can be affected, making it a bit less blanket-y. Dude! All these years, and that never actually occurred to me! I have even stated before that out of all the superhero stereotypes, I have a soft spot for Speedsters, and _still_, I have never thoight of that. Thanks, Vlad! Agreed. Honestly, I think most any _experienced_ GM _would_. I also remember those early days, though, when we were so desperate to have players- maybe we can make this a regular thing! Maybe this Will coalesce into a refular gaming group! Maybe maybe maybe!- That we really did put up with too much, for too long, just because we were worried the game might not happen or might fall apart if we said "no." And as for the original question: Yes. But the game isnt killing itself. It is being killed by the same thing that is killing (has killed, according to many) comic books: Fans who started young, matured, and wanted the games rules / superhero stories to reflect an increased complexity, an evolving maturity- that sort of shuts out anyone else jumping in, able to start from anywhere. Superhero stories turned into soap operas; high-flying RPGs turned into sub-par physics simulators. We got what we asked for, and despite all of our protestations, it (they) will die with us.

Shop called. Parts are in. Phone headed back to the shop at lunch today. See you folks eventually!

No; no; no; Good Glorious Gods, _NO_! Okay, look, the every other part you came up with was _great_, but I _implore_ you to pick another name! Call him The Inverted Triangle if you want, but not.... That other thing, please. I know you're somewhere over in the British Isles, so that probably doesn't hit you the same way it might hit a guy from North America who is active with BACA, but Dude... Too close., way, way, _way_ too close.... Here's a short alternate history: The character's name is Taino, the flag is that of Paid to Rico, and the additional bits to the flag are surrounding Island Nations that have allied with PR after this guy and a military coup restored the native Taino people to rule over the small nation and protect anyone who joined with them. There. Quite possibly my shortest entry ever. Thanks for keeping the tradition alive, Sir. Now sit right over there and let me show you how that works... I appreciate the thought, but seriously guys: I only play for fun. See you guys know the superhero stuff; it's second nature to most of you. I _don't_ really know it, so- while this and "dumb criminal stories" are tied as my favorite threads, I use this game as more a writing prompt than a superhuman generator. You guys are keeping your hand in at whipping up characters off the cuff, and I am,just keeping my hand in at writing on the whole. Accordingly, my stuff runs long becauase I am fleshing out a moment, or a story, or a world, morw than just a character. I know doe whatever reason, detail trips a lot of triggers, so I announce straight up that I play for fun, period, and as I play a bit outside the intent of the game, I disqualify myself immediately so as not to take anything away from shorter, punchier entries that focus on the point of the game. Dont be hard on yourself! That was an _awesome_ image, and now that a winner has been selected, I want to take a minute to post the story it inspired in me: The Finals. Again. Carrey Porter was used to getting this far. He started doing the fighting tournaments when he was eleven; he first got to the finals at age fourteen, and he had made it every year since. Most folks figured Carrey had a knack for World Fighters Showdown- and there was no denying that he did! Even though the game was almost two decades old now, he had been playing it since he was five, when his grandparents- thinking all videogames were for kids- had given him Frog Crossing and World Fighters Smackdown as gifts for his fifth birthday. Of course, the old Game Box II had been passe for some years, but Showdown had really caught on, and it seemed that every console had a port of it; he even had the World Fighters Showdown VI on his VR setup. Pretty sweet, if a bit dizzying. Ports, though, weren't enough. He worked all summer when he was 12 and saved every dollar to buy an old refurbished cabinet from that place behind the bowling alley. It wasn't the deluxe version; it bore the black side panels and white-on-white face that ran from the simple header to the floor, framing the screen-- bit it _was_ World Fighters Showdown III: The Next Generation. It was the first game with an expanded character roster, and he couldn't play it enough if his dreams of finally proving he was the best in the world were to be realized. Expanded roster or not, he stuck with his favorites: the Beast, hailing from the jungle of Africa, and Padre, the monk with the secret from rural Spain. Sure, he kept his skills up on the new characters, and was actually noted for his skill with Bedrohung, the cyborg from Germany. But the original cast-- those were the characters in every edition of the game- well, except for 'Showdown IV, when the programmer who designed the Beast demanded a share of the profits, which the publishers avoided by dropping the Beast from the line up. Apparently they worked something out, though, because the Beast appeared in the next two sequels and eventually was downloadable for the console versions of IV ( "but not the VR version," Carrey often complained). Still, Showdown IV introduced the Tag Team Tournament, which apparently just wasn't going to go away, and which required him to find someone else just as good- _almost_- as he was. Not _quite_ as good, because there could be only _one_ world champion. The winning team would face off against each other, and the world champion would be decided in a three-out-of-five three times endurance battle. Ziggy had been Carrey's partner for the last six years. Ziggy was good- _extremely_ good!- but not quite as good as Carrey. Or maybe he was. Maybe Carrey could beat Ziggy not because Carrey had a knack for the game, but because he had a knack for the players. That was the thing people didn't really appreciate: the same way that a player with years of practice 'just knew' what a computer-controlled opponent was going to do next and could begin preparing even before the computer did it, the same seemed to apply for people, at least, it seemed that way to Carrey. He could bait an opponent without even thinking about it; once he played against someone a few times, he just got a feel for them. At least, it had always seemed so, in every bar, every arcade, every bowling alley, every place that had a World Fighters Showdown machine and people to challenge him... right up until the same place every year: right up until the finals; right up until he got run over by the Park brothers, Chun and Seung or, as they were known in the circuit, the Korean Express. World Champions in Tag Team every year they entered (which, Carrey noted resentfully, was the same sixteen years in which he had been making it to the finals), and not just _good_, but good enough to be smug about it: they would take turns being World Fighters Showdown champion. One year, Seung would simply bow out at the start of the final elimination; the next year Chun would do the same. It was maddening! It was as if beating everyone else was more important than being _the_ world champion. Sure, Ziggy was Carrey's best friend since second grade, but if they ever won the final Tag elimination, Ziggy was going to get the battle of his life! And here the Park Brothers were, their giggling and insulting eyes laughing uproariously at him over perfectly polite smiles. Carrey and Ziggy extended their hands, as did their opponents, and everyone shook all the way around. The brothers each snorted their derision to both of their competitors. An official reset the game machine, and the match began. Carrey had won the coin toss for him and Ziggy, and opted to let Ziggy go first, squaring off with Chun. An official-- dressed in this year's costume to make them stand out-- most years they picked a character from the game and dressed that way, but the fans had started doing the same thing, so they took different tack the last couple of years and dressed in open-faced morph-suits with black sides and flanks and a swath of white down from the head to the inside of the legs, with stylized representations of the Swift / Solid / Fierce strike strength buttons-- they looked like stylized cabinets from the re-issues ordered by low-budget places like bars and bowling alleys. Chun and Zig took their stools, the official confirmed they were ready, then reached into the slightly-modified for the event cabinet and restarted the system. He backed quickly away while the warm-ups and diagnostics ran across the screen. Soon the familiar "game over" screen came on, and the official reached forward and pressed both the Player Select buttons, then stepped out of the area, back behind the few dozen people who paid for spots right in the pit. The match started. Carrey looked at the screen and just _knew_ what Ziggy was going to do: Chun began a feint and even as he started, Carrey knew that Ziggy was going to fall for it- it was almost as if he could _hear_ Ziggy in his own head: "he's jumping in! I can't believe a player _that_ skilled is going to open with a jump! He must be underestimating me! I can do a snatch and flip as he comes overhead, turn it into a suplex for fifteen percent damage and an almost guaranteed stun, and while he's stunned I can unleash my Flame Fandango move at maximum for another twenty percent damage and still leap away before he can recover-!" "Don't! Don't do it, you idiot! It's a-" It didn't matter that tournament rules prevented them from speaking; that each player succeeds or fails on his own merits. Carrey didn't even get to finish _thinking_ it before it all played out on the screen: Chun had indeed fainted; what looked like a leap instead arced forward and low into a tumble. Ziggy had been guarding high to charge his air grab maneuver, and didn't see it coming until it was too late. "At least keep up the button charge on the Fandango!" Carrey screamed in his head. He glanced at Ziggy's hands, and wonder of wonders, he _was_ keeping the mid-high punch button held down, even as Chun's fighter- Chun had chosen the Beast- crashed into him at low height, grabbed him and threw him in the air, moved straight into the thousand claw slash which Ziggy's character fell directly into, then moved to grab- "Now!" Carrey screamed in his head. "Now! Now! Now! If I have taught you _anything-" Ziggy released the punch button just as the final frame of the thousand claw slash flickered out, and as Chun's Beast reached for a second grab, the corner of the screen filled with flames and Chun's Beast, totally open, took full damage. Even before the Fandango finished, Ziggy went into an elbow dive-- "perfect!" Carrey was excited now; "but don't forget that he won't be stunned and his sweep is the longest in the-" and, as if he was hearing that lesson for the thousandth time, Ziggy initiated a swinging drop kick, an attack that would either force Chun to guard high or it would strike the Beast even as his sweep failed-- The next bit was unnerving. Chun turned _away from the screen_ and looked Carrey dead in the eyes. Even as he did so, he set up for an aerial uppercut, knocking Ziggy's fighter out of the air. All told, Ziggy's avatar had lost sixty-six percent of his damage meter, and his Rage Gauge was only half full. Chun went directly into the Flying claw maneuver, certain to take Ziggy' s dazed character out with a claw-kick-sweep combo but then Ziggy released the two buttons he had been holding: high kick and low punch. If charged for a full ten seconds, with the swordsman Ziggy was using, the Special unleashed was devastating. Instantly, the swordsman began to disappear and reappear all over the screen, thirty times, with a rapier thrust at every momentary appearance. If Ziggy had been playing anyone but the Park brothers, he would have won, no question. But Chun was no ordinary player- no one here was an ordinary player. Chun was one half of the Korean Express, the undefeatable team that travelled here to New Jersey every year, and every year left twenty-thousand dollars richer and with a handful of advertising sponsorships to boot. Chun rolled his joystick in a low half-circle forward, setting up for one of the Beast's signature moves. Instantly the character on the screen leapt forward, prone on the ground, driving himself forward with powerful thrusts of his suddenly-bent-backwards legs. In an instant, he had slid across the screen, under Ziggy's attack, and at the precise moment the Teleporting Sword Slasher ended, the Beast's arms reached out and grabbed the swordsman by the ankles and yanked and twisted, pulling him flat onto his abdomen and face-- another twelve percent damage, but Chun quickly followed up with a prone grab and curled forward-- as the beast somersaulted forward in a roll, still holding the ankles of the fallen swordsman, he rolled all the way across the prone character, curling his opponent backwards in a modified "throw" maneuver called the Spine Breaker. Chun completed the roll, and instantly fed in the commands for a modified throw maneuver called "the Throat Ripper." The Beast grabbed for the swordsman at the moment the frame glitch would cause the swordsman to appear prone and dazed, Ziggy did the impossible: he pulled off the inputs for an Ultimate during the single frame gap between recovering and the prone glitch caused by the Spine Breaker. Rather than prone, the character appeared standing in a deep forward lean, sword slicing forward in left-right arc: The Abdominal Slash, and after the pummeling he just endured, his Rage Gauge was full. Slash, slash, slash, slash, slash-- animated as a combo, it was technically a single attack- unblockable if your guard was down and you were within throw range. Ziggy's character should be prone, with "Beast Wins!" growing across the screen, but somehow he still had two percent of his damage gauge. Carrey knew it was useless: a slap would do two percent, but the damage Ziggy was dealing to Chun's avatar was unprecedented. Carrey was so shocked he couldn't even be impressed-- what was supposed to be an unvoiced congratulations was just gibberish in his head. Chun's eyes were wide in surprise-- if nothing else, this would be the first moment in history that either member of the Korean Express looked like he was contemplating losing. Carrey's internal monologue spouted more gibberish, for some reason, angry-sounding gibberish in spite of how he felt about the turn of events. Chun turned and looked dead into Carrey's eyes even as his hands delivered the final blow to Ziggy's swordsman: three Venom Spit attacks: Medium, Low, High. Thanks to the swordsman's character graphics, he was guaranteed to hit one of the final two; his animation would not allow him to slip between the low and high the way most of the other characters could. Even if Ziggy tried to block-- well, any blocked Special Attack did two percent damage to the meter. It was more a matter of how Ziggy wanted to die at this point. "Nobly," most fans thought. "Stupidly" was Carrey's opinion: never give up; go down fighting. The pinky on Ziggy's joystick hand reached out and pressed and held the Player 2 button. The swordsman on the screen went into his Taunt routine: he extended an arm, sheathed his weapon, threw his head back and began an animated laugh. He got a full second and a half before the medium-high blob of venom splattered into his midsection, then he dropped to the ground and the familiar "The Beast Wins!" floated up from the center of the screen. Chun's eyes directed pure hatred at Carrey. Unblinking, daring him to react. "Coaching is forbidden!" thought Carrey. Wait--! No; no; he did _not_ coach. On top of that, he didn't _think_ it either! The gibberish-- "am I thinking in Chinese now? Has the stress gotten to me? Did I have a stroke at twenty-eight?!" poured through his head. The gibberish melted away, and he thought-- very loudly, he thought-- "How the Hell am I thinking on top of myself?!" Then his mind burned. "You will be punished!" Then it was all done. Everything was quiet in his head. It actually took a few minutes for the noise of the crowd-- the thousand or so people who had been watching the gigantic overhead monitors and were going berserk at the turn of events-- to come back to his consciousness. Shaken, he patted Ziggy on the shoulder, and squeezed it for a moment in an expression of appreciation for the incredible near-upset Ziggy had managed to pull off. There was a four-minute break between rounds. An official stepped forward, opened the cabinet, and paused the game. "That was incredible, Zig! How did you manage to pull this off?! I can't tell you how proud I am of you right now!" "I reckon it was all the drilling the past few months, Carrey" Ziggy drawled. I swear, I was half panicked after I blew the opening, but then-- well, it all kind of came back; it was like I was just sitting back and watching my hands do whatever I was told-- everything came back. Kinda like a classroom test, you know when you get to that one thing and you can hear the teacher going over it in your head? It was like that, 'cept of course, it was you and not some kinda Showdown teacher." He looked thoughtful for a minute. "Naw, I reckon it was 'zactly the same, since you was kinda my Showdown teacher, so yeah-- it was like that. I wouldn't 'a thought of none of it, 'cept you'd already drilled into me, and I could hear it playing out in my head each time like we was playin' against each other." "I don't care how it worked, Zig! That was _amazing_! We might actually have a chance! Look at the screen! Chun's at _twenty percent_! Twenty! Maybe 18! We have never had them below fifty percent left on the first man when we lost our starter! Dude, we've got a chance!" Even as he said it, he could feel.... _something_.... He turned to see the Korean Express staring at him, all four eyes (and one set of glasses) filled with hatred and an absolute hunger for revenge. An air horn sounded. Sixty seconds. Ziggy moved back and Carrey sat at the stool his teammate had blessed with incredible luck. Things were looking good. "Not for _you_!" he thought to himself with a heavy asian accent. Ziggy assumed the position behind the stool Carrey had occupied so he could watch the rest of the match. Seung likewise stood behind Chun. An official stood between the players and confirmed their readiness to resume. Once assured, he unpaused the machine and familiar letters floated across the screen. "Round Two...... The Beast...... Versus..... Bedrohung!..... 3....2.....1......BEGIN!" Chun was cagey-- extremely cautious, launching ranged special attacks one after the other, at different heights and different speeds. It was straight up unskilled cheese, but with at best one-third of his damage meter remaining, he was content to resort to the unskilled practice of spamming damage from a distance: even a blocked Special Attack did two percent, after all. Carrey soaked up roughly ten percent of his damage bar before he had a plan of attack. He snarled at himself for his brief indecision. He couldn't believe he just floundered after Ziggy had won them the best lead into the Korean Express in the history of the tournament. What was _wrong_ with him?! His head cleared and he became painfully aware of the disappointment he was certain he would see in Ziggy's face if he glanced behind him. He initiated a rocket leap with the cyborg, which carried him easily over the spammed venom spit attacks. Chun responded by having the Beast stand and Carrey was certain his opponent was charging a Thousand Slash attack to go off as soon as the airborne Bedrohung was in range, and - "of course! This is not just the best anti-aerialist attack Jimseung has, a forward-leaping character cannot block! All eleven hits will score twenty-eight percent damage!" Who the Hell was Jimseung? What is wrong in my head?! He risked a furtive dart of the eyes to the left and saw Chun with his head turned directly towards him, toothy grin and a spider-to-the-fly look in his eyes. "I am!" He thought, but with that crazy Chinese accent. Holy crap! Th- Am I thinking with a Korean accent? Jimseung is Beast! Why do I -" Chun was still staring that creepy stare directly into his eyes. That meant he didn't notice when Bedrohung abruptly stopped his rocket thrust and launched an aerial Long Arm-- he turned to the screen just as he unleashed the Thousand Slash attack and his face fell. From precisely this point- just premature of the apex of his leap, the Long Arm hit low-- ankles low. The cybernetic arm extended behind the rocket-propelled hand and the steel fist struck the Beast in the shins, well under the slash attack animation that Chun's avatar would be trapped in for another two full seconds. His gloating turn away from the screen cost him not just another twelve percent of his damage meter, but an automatic drop in throw priority-- the penalty for being knocked out of the Thousand Slash attack. Rather than let the arm retract as Bedrohung began to drop to the ground, Carrey did a quick quarter-circle down and back then pushed forward with the Low Punch button and the Fierce power button, causing the cyborg to grab Beast and pull himself almost instantly toward his opponent. A quick quarter circle down and then backward with a long press and hold on the high kick button and the cyborg rolled his body feet-first, crashing into the Beast with his rocket boots in full blaze... And doing twenty-eight percent damage. It was a risky move, as it telegraphed itself badly, and if (as it usually did) failed, it left Bedrohung open, off-balance, and in this case, directly next to his opponent: in range of anything he might care to offer up as a counter-attack. But in this case, with the Beast's throw priority temporarily lowered and the timing putting Carrey in just the right spot during the precious two frames when the Beast was ending his attack animation but unable to begin a defense or attack animation.... It had been _more_ than enough to KO Chun's Beast, and he himself had suffered only ten percent. He was going up against Seung's character with ninety percent of his damage bar intact and the flurry of uninterrupted Fierce-Level attacks had almost completely filled his Rage Gauge. He would have Ultimate Attacks available long before Seung possibly could. If only he could get as lucky as he did this round; if only he could get as solid a read on Seung's plan as he had on Chun' s... "No. Your luck is over here." He thought to himself- why the Hell am I thinking in Chinese?!" Only derisive laughter echoed through his mind. "I have never stressed this hard... I have never had this good a shot! My cheating will be punished! What the Hell? I know I'm not cheating! God; I can't stand the tension...." Seung replaced his brother on the stool, but instead of psyching himself up, he spent the entire four-minute break staring daggers into Carrey's eyes. "Enjoy your last few minutes as a champion!" Carrey retorted, unable to think of anything better. "That was weak." He thought to himself. "Yes; it was" he agreed, with an accent. Ziggy patted Carrey's shoulders hard. You got this!" He boosted. "Me and you, all the way, Carrey! The hometown boys!" "Your companion is a fool" he thought to himself. "Ziggy? Dude, I love that guy! What's wrong with me?" At that instant, Seung laughed and turned to the screen. The official confirmed that they were ready to play and unpaused the machine. Carrey barely noticed the words floating across the screen. He was getting a bit rattled at himself; his mind had been going to some strange places since this match had started. At some point he was aware that Seung was using Ray, a street thug / hometown hero character from "East Coast, USA!" Odd choice; he wasn't a particularly popular character. Every sequel was precluded with rumors that Ray was being replaced by a 'better" character, yet he had been in every version of the game since the original. His specials weren't particularly... "Special," except for that wierd Delta Kick thing that chained perfectly with itself. The Shuffle Punch could be absolutely devastating-- if it ever actually hit someone. That thing didn't just telegraph, it called you before knocking on your door to deliver the telegraph. Carrey couldn't recall the last time even a nine-year-old had fallen for it. Ray's big advantage was speed. His high-powered moves weren't any better than anyone else's, but catch an opponent in just the right frame before they touched the ground, and a skilled Ray player could walk him all the way back to the corner with a seemingly endless rapid-fire assault of light and medium-strength attacks that chained flawlessly up to the game's maximum thirty-two hit combo limit. The problem was that few people were fast enough and skilled enough to enter the repetitive sequences flawlessly. Even Carrey shied away from Ray when he had the choice. Sadly, he realized that Ray, more than any other character, suited the Korean Express's relentless, mechanical approach to the game. There was a good chance that he was going to lose thirty seconds in. Even a blocked flurry, comboed long enough, would easily charge the Rage Gauge. The trade off for Ray's weak and limited specials was God-level Ultimates. "I suddenly don't like my odds." He thought. "They will get much worse, cheater!" He finished. Okay, that crap had to _stop_. He was starting to think there was a whole extra person in his head. More laughter. Fifteen seconds in and he hadn't found an opening. As expected, he was steadily blocking an onslaught of attempted long-chain combos, barely finding the cues for when to block low and back to mid- he admitted that it might just be pure luck; he wasn't convinced he actually _had_ seen all the cues. Maybe he was, after sixteen years, finally getting a read on Seung. Or maybe this was exactly how he himself would play Ray. Who knew? The important details here were that he was at ninety percent with a full Rage Gauge and Seung's Ray was completely untouched and-- aw, _crap_! Seung's Rage Gauge burst into flame..... Aw, _crap_. Carrey was pressed hard against the right wall, miraculously shifting his block from mid to low and back at just the right times. That was going to fail eventually, though, and the instant Seung got an opening, an Ultimate was coming. Carrey was even sure he knew just one. The Omega Kick- basically the Delta Kick chained three times- wouldn't work this close in. Sure, the last kick would get him, but at this close range, the first two would strike too high to actually touch him. It would be the Flaming Shuffle Punch. Every bit as humiliating to get tagged with, but with seriously-ramped-up damage and Ray bathed in fire the whole time for that extra gaudiness. It couldn't possibly miss: it was a modified uppercut that started at the ankles so it would connect with anyone who was close enough, and brother, the animations were on top of each other; you just couldn't get closer than that. The upper cut finished with Ray's fist extended well over his head before it looked back into the next cycle, and the sliding movement element that gave it the name and Carrey's avatar being already pinned to the wall at the edge of the screen meant that Seung's Ray would just juggle him for all four uppercuts in the Ultimate cycle. Easily sixty-five percent damage with there; possibly seventy. At best, he would come out of this with twenty-percent of his damage bar, dazed, and his Rage Gauge snuffed. "Screw it!" Thought Carrey, face twisting with the mania of frustration. "I'm doing _something_!" He refused to go down without struggling through every painful inch of the fall. He had been charging both mid-height attacks and the Fierce button. Why not? They didn't take him out of the blocking stances after they were pressed, and they might be useful. The first two-thirds of the controller input left him in Block anyway. Go for it. Die swinging. Carrey dropped the joystick to the straight down position, rolled a quarter-circle back and up to the hard back position, then dropped without rolling it back to down and repeated the quarter roll- entering the inputs so fast an observer couldn't actually tell what they where, but the slamming of the joystick could be heard twenty feet away. He continued on, dropping the controller for a third time to the straight down position, hoping, just _hoping_- Seun screwed up. Was it a botched input? A failed button? Carrey would never know; he was busy. All he knew was the miracle he needed was playing out right before his eyes. Just as he dropped the joystick to the down position for the third time- the commit point at which a miracle happened. Instead of Seung taking him out with an Ultimate- he got the miracle. Seung... stopped. Not for long- maybe two frames. He stopped pressing buttons and held the joystick at neutral for just the briefest instant, a horrified look on his face even as he did it. Carrey rolled the joystick down and forward in a quarter circle, releasing both mid-height attack buttons as he did so. Bedrohung- Menace; the German Super-Soldier cyborg, raised a forearm in a defensive position and the back of his jacket ripped open and four jet nozzles extended out beyond the tattered edges and ignited. Ultimate! Ultimate Knee Kick, specifically. The cyborg flew forward, one knee forward, into Ray, grabbed him by the shoulders as his knee sank deeply into his animated opponent's abdomen, then flew nigh-instantly to the wall at the end of the arena three screens away, smashing Ray into it and crushing him with his knee. The moment the pair hit the wall, Bedrohung, hovering in front of Ray, shoulders still clasped in steel hands, began to pump his legs back and forth- left, right, left, right- driving his steel knees over and over into Ray's middle. Carrey spammed the Fierce button like a crazed woodpecker, rapid-fire presses in an attempt to extend the duration of the attack while the combo counter climbed. Seung seemed to snap back to attention as the two characters flew across the screen and began waggling the stick furiously in an attempt to shorten the attack. Seung won the input battle and threw Carrey's Bedrohung, Carrey's zeal for a few more strikes had cost him the fifteen percent Finisher. Still, the first smash and eleven additional strikes- and as an Ultimate- had been ridiculously effective, and had left Ray's damage bar at forty_five or so percent. Carrey was overjoyed; it was rare to get the full twenty-second charge it took to bring the initial slam up to forty percent, plus two percent for each additional strike over four-- No time for gloating, though. Whatever had thrown Seung off his game had been shaken away, and even at these odds, either of the Park brothers was still an incredibly dangerous opponent. He thought for just a moment he saw the player to his left sweat. Was that glistening brow just his imagination? What he had _not_ seen was Chun slowly move from behind his brother, slide gently around behind Ziggy, and come to stand just behind and to the right of Carrey. Ziggy hadn't bothered to enforce the protocol simply because at his height of six-three or so and Chun's height of five-five, Ziggy could still see the screen fine. It was unfortunate that Zig was so easy-going and so intent on the big screen over the game cabinet. Actually, Carrey noticed in his periphery, _everyone_ was watching the big screen well-above the cabinets. This was the most exciting Finals match in years, and no one wanted to miss the action. That also meant that no one noticed what Carrey himself, and what Ziggy's ... generous proportions (Ziggy made no secret of his love of food- particularly confections- or his disdain for exercise) would likely have hidden from anyone who might just have happened to _not_ be watching the big screen. Chun had initiated a Flaming Shuffle Punch. Not because he had any real hope of hitting Bedrohung at this distance, but because each blocked uppercut pushed Bedrohung back one-fifth of the screen, and he would have to stay blocked until the entire move was finished. As soon as the Ultimate started, he took his right hand from the buttons and carefully extended his arm toward Carrey. Simultaneously, Chun extended his left hand toward Carrey. "Burn, Cheater! Burn!" Carrey yelled at himself, confusing himself,enough that he nearly lost his concentration. Then both of the Park brothers extended an index finger and touched him at points halfway from his temples to his ears And there was an audible snapping noise in Carrey's head. For the single, tiniest instant, he was locked inside his brain, out of communication or even input from the world outside of his mind, and for a split second, he was wracked with a spasm of pain not reflected by his unresponsive body. And an instant later, he was God. He understood _everything_. He understood that the Park brothers were both prions, that they could communicate telepathically, that they had been cheating for years by silently coaching one another during gameplay. He understood that they could also insert a small amount of confusion into an opponent if he was close enough- enough to throw off his game. They could read an opponent's mind and know his intentions even before he could put them into action, making it ridiculously easy to dodge, defend, counterattack. They could, by working together, inflict pain and even lock another Psion away from his abilities for a short period of time. He also understood that _he_ was a Psion, though he had never been aware of it, and it was that unawareness that kept it from manifesting until now, in the company of two other psions. He also understood that they thought he had been coaching Ziggy telepathically, as they had been picking up some of what his anxiety had pushed toward Ziggy, though this was merely a result of their own abilities. Carrey had, just those few minutes ago, absolutely no idea who to make his thoughts appear in another person's mind. The Park Brothers had been crawling through his mind trying to assess his abilities and to distract him with confusion. He understood that he had caused Seung to pause briefly, and that had made them decide to act. He understood that the stunt they just pulled was some kind of mind bar meant to lock him away from his abilities, and he understood how they had miscalculated. He knew they had miscalculated because they believed that he was both aware of and in control of his abilities. What they had intended as a lock against his abilities was actually the psionic shock that awakened his defenses and brought to him a keen awareness and understanding of his abilities. Mostly, though, he was aware of exactly how powerful he was, and how hilariously outclassed the Park Brothers were. They were cavemen with rollerskates amongst the more pedestrian cavemen. He was a diesel-driven locomotive, and their day was not going to go at all the way they expected it to. He pushed back at Chun-- hard. He felt Chun's defenses snap like a brittle shaft of sun-dried straw. Chun clutched briefly at his head, staggered, and fell. Instantly, the official was next to him, cradling his head and slapping his face. He took a radio from his belt and called for assistance. Weirdly, no one thought this was strange. It was unusual, but not unheard of for some of the fans to simply faint under the tension-- particularly those that hadn't eaten for a day or two, too absorbed in the action to notice the passage of time. "No; don't even think about it!" Carrey's mind sent back to Seung-- Carrey had sense a desire to leap to his brother's aid. This would have caused the officials to stop the game and declare a rematch. Carrey wasn't interested in anything but victory, here, in this moment. "He will live; I have done to him what you thought you could do to me. Try it again, and I promise you that he will not survive the trip out of here." Seung lashed out in anger, attempting to drill deep into Carrey's pain centers-- "Stop that!" Carrey chided, delivering a psionic "slap" across Seung's psyche that caused him to reel physically. Carrey politely paused his character and waited for Seung to recover. "No; I do not want to win _that_ way" Carrey pushed the words into Seung's mind. "I want to take you down. All these years-- all these years you have been cheating, coaching, assisting, clouding my judgement and my actions! No; you _will_ suffer for that; I promise. But tonight, you win or lose based on your _skill_ versus whatever the Hell I feel like doing to you. Do you understand? One tiny tendril probes my mind, and I will leave you paralyzed, locked entirely in your head. " For a brief instant, Carrey paused his play again and ran electric agony through Seung's pain centers. "Or possibly _worse_. Now play!" An official, confused by the faltering play on the big screen, stepped between them and paused the machine. "Are you okay to play?" he asked Seung. "Under the circumstances, we can call the game and set up a rematch if you wish to be with your brother." Seung glanced past the concerned official and across to Carrey. Carrey sat motionless on the stool, but he made certain that Seung saw the room twisting and distorting around him-- reality itself was now his to play with. Seung watched as electricity sparked and raced up and down Carrey's body. He glanced at Seung with raging coals in his eyes and an abyss surrounding the small pit in which they sat. "I play!" Seung said hastily. "I play!" The official started the unpause timer from ten seconds and stepped away. "Excellent choice," Carrey cooed inside Seung's mind. "But first, let's make sure there's no more cheating, okay?" Seung felt an iron door slam shut in his head as if it were a physical blow. Gone. He could not feel the crowd; he could not feel his brother. He could not read the surface thoughts of the man seated next to him. 3.... 2... 1.... Begin! Carrey became irritated. Then he became angry. Then he became _furious_. Seung-- wasn't very good. His play was average for one of the casuals at the bar in the middle of the week. It was just... average! How the Hell was this possible?! Carrey probed into Seung's mind. It wasn't a front; it wasn't fear. He just wasn't good. Apparently his brother wasn't any better. All this time-- All these years, they were world champions based entirely on _cheating_! On reading their opponent's minds-- not just knowing their opponent's next moves, but even knowing what particularly countermove their opponent might be most concerned about, and using that against them. Carrey, it turn out, really _was_ the best in the world! Robbed year after year by a pair of telepathic grifters! It was incredibly hard to keep himself from lashing out, from releasing all this rage into the crowd around him. This wouldn't do; this would not do! He couldn't defeat a Seun who was playing so absolutely mediocre in the finals! He would not get any recognition beyond being the jerk who took advantage of a guy too distracted with worry over his brother's condition to play well. There was no glory in that! There was only one thing to do. He had been robbed of the sensational feeling of finally defeating his rivals, but he would not be robbed of the glory of being champion, of having clawed his way to victory! He reached into Seung's mind and knocked Seung into the driver's seat. "Move over, you cheating turd! Let me show you how the game is played." For the next sixty seconds, Carrey played both characters, controlling Seung's character through the simple expedient of controlling Seung himself. He put on an incredible show of blocked combos and just-missed Specials and Ultimates and barely-dodged finishers, creating for the record what was probably the greatest, most skillful game ever to be captured. This would, for the record, go down as the greatest match ever played by Seung Park (which, Carrey had to admit to himself, did rankle a bit), but at the two-second mark on the countdown (one second was, after all, a bit cliche), Carrey's Bedrohung, down to a pixel's width of damage bar, would miraculously deliver a forty-five percent Ultimate to Seung's character-- a bit of overkill, being as how Seung's character had only fifteen percent of his own damage bar-- but it made for great theater. Besides, he thought to himself, in competition, there is no kill like overkill. The crowd went nuts; the PA announced Carrey and Ziggy as the new world Tag-Team champions, and announced that the final match between himself and his partner Ziggy would begin in two hours. "You can have it, Zig." Carrey thought, absolutely bitter with rage. All these years-- all these years, he had been the best-- and he didn't even have a chance to prove it properly thanks to those cheating little--- Then something went really, really sideways in his head. "No; there _is_ a way to at least get the vengeance I deserve!" He walked into the crowd, changing slowly as he moved through them until Carrey was gone and a large, powerfully-muscled man strode the path he began. He was completely naked. He walked up to an official hovering near the rear wall of the venue. "Yo-wah clothes," he commanded in a heavy Austrian accent. "Give them to me." Unable to stop himself, the official stripped and handed the morph suit to Carrey, who stripped and struggled into it. Then he turned and walked back into the crowd. Tired of the fight against the crush, he mentally nudged everyone he encountered to the left or right, out of his way. Tiring of that, he simply reached out with his mind and _threw_ them out of the way, parting them like Moses parted the Red Sea. The confused crowd watched in horror as what appeared to be an official strode through the gap, burst into a colorful flame, and began to reshape the room, causing it to sway crazily, the walls pulsing and undulating as if alive; gravity no longer made sense. Carrey strode to the slumped, crying form of Seung Park, still on the stool in front of the arcade cabinet. "Are these tears of a bitter loss, or of the humiliation of being ridden like puppet?!" he demanded. Seung remained silent. "I have changed my mind," Carrey spoke into Seung's head. "You and your brother have earned my wrath, and so much more! Your brother will _not_ live to see tomorrow! Not after everything you have taken from me! But don't be afraid--" Carrey consoled. Suddenly, Seung flew straight up into the air as if he had been jerked by the chin. He stood, spinning slightly in front of the entire audience. "You," Carrey started again, "will not have to watch him die." Then Seung spun in two directions at once as if he were a wet rag being wrung out. There was a series of sickening snaps and pops cracking through the silent auditorium, then Seung's lifeless body fell to the ground in a broken pile. The audience screamed and panicked and attempted to run anywhere-- everywhere-- all at once, but found they could not move a single muscle between them. "You will all be fine in a few minutes." Carrey barked into their heads. "You are merely in my way. Be glad that Head Games has no quarrel with you." Then he walked out into a brand new life. Gotta make a quick stop at the clinic first, though. There was one last Park Brother he needed to see... And Thanks, Rich, for taking up the torch for long posts.

Yep. Most or my characters were like Christopher's: not particularly "effective" except dor their particular Schtick. They all ended up with solid Endurance and often higher ED than PD, though, just because I thoight Constitution-- the over well robustness and wellness of a character- was a hallmark of the broad-shouldered, square-jawed, chiseled,cheeks HERO type. We disnt even use the Stunning rules for the first few years: the high CON was just part of a HERO concept for me. Heck, I _still_ do that.