csyphrett

Re: In the Company of Strangers (story) 11 Herb Bucket looked at the man in a janitor's uniform like he was crazy. He started to shut the door in the man's face. No way would he allow Tim to go with this stranger. "I need to speak with this Tim Bucket." The janitor looked pained that he had to say so much at one time. "This is important." "I already told you no." Herb tried to press the door closed against the man's body. "Get out of here before I call the cops." "Cops are busy." The janitor pulled a key and pressed it into the door and suddenly he was inside the door, pushing Herb back from the wood. "I need to talk to Tim Bucket." "I'm Tim Bucket." A boy stepped out of the hallway, holding a baseball bat. "What do you want?" "Tim Bucket?" The janitor blinked in surprise. "Are you sure?" "Tim." Herb put himself between the two of them. "Get back. He's crazy." "What kind of power do you have?" The janitor frowned. Maybe he had been told the wrong address. "Tim doesn't have a superpower." Herb looked confused. "That would ruin his future. Powers aren't allowed in the major leagues." "Wrong, Mr. Bucket." The janitor shook his head. "The guy who sent me knows Tim has something. That's why they sent me." "I got a super power?" Tim laughed. "Cool. I wonder what it is." "You can't have a power, Tim." Herb looked frantic. "You won't be accepted by any team. It'll ruin your life." "Won't have a life if he doesn't help me." The janitor looked from father to son. "We don't have a lot of time. The town is counting on us." "You can't be serious." Herb shook his fist at the stranger. "You're talking about giving up everything we worked for. I can't allow it." "It's not your call, Dad." Tim put the bat down. "Let me get my jacket." "You can't do this, Tim." Herb went to go after his son. A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up at the sad face of the visitor. "This is all your fault. You caused this." "Can't hold him forever." The janitor looked even sadder. "I'll look after him. He'll be as safe as I can keep him." "I hate you." Herb Bucket glared at the man in green. "You're causing my son to throw his life away." "His decision." The janitor lifted his key ring, picking one out. "He'll still be your son tomorrow." "What does that mean?" Herb's anger dimmed in the face of implacability. "Of course he'll be my son tomorrow if he lives." "Remember that." The janitor held his key at his side. "Remember what?" Tim came back in the room with his team jacket, and baseball cap, on. "What did I miss?" "Nothing." The man in green went to the door. "Let's go." "I want to go too." Herb's face had a collection of things on it that didn't look pleasant. "Great, Dad." Tim smiled. "Come on." The key went into the door. One hand pushed. A junkyard sat in the dark beyond the threshold instead of the Buckets' front yard. Herb almost choked at the sight. "Let's go." The janitor ushered them across the frame into the darkened car graveyard. He walked through last, letting the door shut behind him. "What's your power, Tim?" "I don't know unless it has something to do with the way my arm feels." Tim held up his right arm like he was flexing the muscle. "It's been feeling funny for a while." "Why didn't you say anything about this before?" Herb had his hands on his hips. "Cause I didn't want to spend all night at the hospital." Tim didn't look at his father. "You're all baseball this and baseball that. I don't even like baseball." "What?" Herb's mouth fell open. "No time." The janitor flipped open his phone, hitting the dial button. "Hash that out later." "The kid doesn't know what his power is." The janitor spoke into the phone when it was picked up at the other end. "What is it?" He listened for a moment, then hung up. "He said try to throw something." The janitor shrugged. "That's your power. Throwing things." Tim went to one of the cars. He wanted to show his dad he did have a super power, but on the other hand he didn't quite believe it himself, so he picked the biggest thing he could throw from everything around him. He braced himself and started to pull his arm back after securing a grip on the undercarriage. The junker sprang off the ground as he wound back to throw it. He paused and the weight started coming down on his small frame. He released his arm and the heap flew through the air at the monster in the distance. "Did you see that?" Tim jumped up and down. "I threw a car." "Don't stop." The janitor stepped back, reaching for a key on his ring. "We want to keep the monster where it is." Tim looked around, grinning at the amount of ammunition available. "The Trebuchet strikes!" He began lofting cars as fast as he could grab and pull his arm back. Some of them fell short as he sought the range, but then he started beaning the monster in the head one throw after the next. "He'll have to quit the team." Herb Bucket watched the cars vanish into the night sky. "They'll think he's been cheating all this time. I'll have to think of some other way to get him through college." "Get him through tonight first." The janitor looked at the flying cars. "Maybe the guy who called me can make a deal, or something." "College is a lot of money." Herb Bucket stared at the stranger who had thrown his life in chaos as surely as the beast towering above them a few blocks over. "Would this ‘guy' do that for Timmy?" "I don't know." The man in green shrugged. "We can ask him when this is over." Herb nodded. He looked at Timmy. His son grinned as he flung another car over the fence. Maybe he had been wrong about everything. That was a bitter pill to swallow. But he would do what was right.

Re: Who is the best Super in comics? I have always liked Hellboy. CES

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel Kind of like the antiberserker berserker? CES

Re: What was Marvel's WORST decade? Here you Fenrisulf. One more day: http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62022 CES

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Death's Head by David Gunn. Sven, a legionnaire and almost primitive, is taken by the Elite Death's Head and sent out to war. CES

Re: In the Company of Strangers (story) 10 "I can't believe I'm standing on a roof with a skinny *&^*& janitor trying to save the city." Thia Halmedes glared at the much taller Billy Keys. He smiled down at her. She noticed he had a scar on the edge of his forehead. It looked kind of like a rabbit's head. "What you grinning about, #$*%?" "Have to get the kid." Billy pulled out his key ring, using the roof door to slip across town. "Oh yeah." Thia glared at the monster hovering above her city. "Go get the *&^&*^ kid. Do that janitor man." Thia had discovered her talent when she was six. A pack of wild dogs had attacked her, thinking she was easy prey. She had needed something to defend herself. She had needed it bad. As the first dog swept in to rip at her leg, she swung a baseball bat that had formed out of her sweat and terror. One hit made them all think maybe they should go after someone else. After that, Thia had always been able to call up something. She had researched every known weapon that had ever been built, or imagined. It had taught her the limits of what she could do. And here came Billy Keys with a proposal she couldn't turn down. She just didn't know if she could carry through with the job. She glared at the monster. She said she could handle it. She was going to handle it. All right, she needed the right tool for the job. Thia started with a club. It was a simple cylinder. She held it up to her shoulder, willing the material to change around. It became a rifle much like a sniper rifle. A scope popped out of the top. She smiled when it came on line, to give her range and wind speed. She frowned at what she saw. A bird woman flew around the monster's head, trying to claw it with her hands. The fingers looked like talons. She was raking at the big thing, but making little headway. Thia swung the scope around. An army of squirrels with one big human looking one were exercising their teeth on the tough scales of the giant crocodile that walked like a man. Go squirrels. Thia dropped her scope down the barrel of its body to the short stumpy legs holding all that weight above Marlowe. The guy on the phone wanted the thing held until they could turn it somehow. It definitely wasn't going anywhere if it was missing a leg. Thia thought, shaping her rifle into something bigger. She modeled it after something she had seen on a cartoon. The problem was she could build a model, but she could never match the sheer power in reality. The devil takes the butt end, her grandma used to say, but he isn't taking mine. Thia pressed the trigger on the oversized weapon. The end opened up. Thousands of miniature missiles blasted out of the weapon, reducing it to vapor as its life crossed the space between her and the monster. The missiles exploded on impact. Clouds of fire surrounded the leg. The turtle croc jumped up and down on its other foot. It glared right at Thia. Then it roared its hate as it looked across town at the girl. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Thia reached into herself for another of the missile guns. Good idea or not, she was committed to fighting it out as best she could. A man in gray appeared, floating in the air. Thia had a scope again checking the range. The man in gray pointed one of his hands at the thing's head. He seemed to pause as if thinking about what he was doing. A ball of light struck out at the monster's head. Thia watched as the man drifted down as if finding it hard to stay in the air, like a balloon losing helium. A huge paw grabbed the gray man and threw him in its mouth. Thia blinked. No way would he survive something like that as hard as he had it just floating there. "*(&(*." Thia took aim at the other leg. However things went from that point on, she knew she was going to do the best she could. She took a breath and held it. She squeezed the trigger until the end popped open, squeezed some more until the missiles fired away. A cloud of fire erupted around the other leg. That made the turtle croc sit down on its rump, tail lashing behind it. Thia reached for a rifle to shape, making sure she had another aiming scope to look through. The bird woman and the squirrels were going to town. They seemed intent on trying to get it to open its mouth. She didn't know how they were going to do that. Thia checked the wounds she had already inflicted. She didn't like what she saw through the scope. The burns already had blisters that were flaking off. Anything she could do would heal up in a matter of minutes. That's when the cars started dropping out of the sky in a slow metal rain. "*(&(*." Thia shook her head as she thought of her next shot.

Re: My Danger Sense Goes . . . The ability from Next to see the future and react accordingly. CES

Re: The most unbelievable trope in the superhero genre... The thing that really bothers me about this discussion is the fact a city can for all intents and purposes be nuked off the map, and no one seems to pick up the pieces. "Champ CIty was nuked today. In other news, the price of doughnuts has gone up ten cents." CES

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Finished When the Tide Rises. Commander Leary is sent to help allies who don't want to wage war for his nation. They like it even less when he decides to start cutting off the trade with the enemy. Halfway through Small Favor by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden has been told that he has to find Gentlemen Johnnie Marconne by Queen Mab. Billy Goats gruff and Denarians coming out of the woodwork leads to things spiraling out of control. CES

Re: Hero Goes to the Movies (or TV Shows)!

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I'm looking for the powers books I dont have. I might have to just order it online when the books I am waiting on get here. Got my 50 today, tomorrow getting my Doc Savage books. CES

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... I'm sorry. Its When the Tide Rises. My apologies. I'm waiting for it to ship to me from B&N. And it is a Lt. Leary book. CES

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Still digging through the Jack Reacher books I have. Waiting on Small Favor by Jim Butcher and On stranger Tides by David Drake. Saw a bunch of Doc Savage books I'm getting when I get money to pay for them. CES

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Picked up the complete space ghost and dino boy from B&N today. Have to look out for bird man. Saw the complete prisoner set but thought 100 dollars too much for it. Might change my mind later. CES

Re: Who would be the Super Heroes of your region? I forgot that was the name of Will Stronghold's mom. Maybe Gulfstream would be better. THat way you can tie in water conditions on the coast somehow. CES

Re: In the Company of Strangers (story) 9 Oz Mike wondered if his friend was crazy. Then he wondered if he was the crazy one for listening, instead of running. Then he wondered if they really could save the city. It could be cool to try. It wasn't like he had anything better to do anyway. "What's the game plan, Quin?" Oz Mike looked at the monster in the distance. "How do we beat this thing?" Quin Martin started writing things down on a pad with a pad. His eyes glowed eerily as his hand flowed smoothly across the page. Then he snapped out of it, trying to transcribe what he had just written in his trance. "All right, we need to hold it right there so it can't come further into town." Quin grabbed his cell. "We need to start by getting reinforcements." "What can we do?" Oz Mike looked at Odd Dorfman. The book seller seemed just as confused as he felt. "Mike, I need you to get down to the lake and wait for the call." Quin looked around. "Take my jeep. Here are the keys. Odd, call this number, talk to Billy Keys. Tell him to get over to 2343 Ursa and pick up Thia Halmedes. We need her on a roof facing the monster's left." Mike took the keys as Odd started calling. The lake was on the other side of the monster. He would have to do some fancy driving to get down by the water. What did Quin have in mind? "Chad Reilly?" Quin watched his friend drive off. He hoped that wasn't a mistake. No solution worked perfectly. "You don't know me but I need someone called the Enforcer. Your number was given. There's a giant monster trying to clobber the town if you haven't noticed. I need him to try and hold it back until we can stop it." Quin listened to Odd talking on his phone to Billy Keys, while listening to the question being directed down the line to him. He automatically answered he was trying to get some people together to help out. Then he cut the line before more questions triggered more displays of this new power. Only he knew it wasn't a new power. It was something that had built up in strength until now it was blooming full force. It was better to use it as fast as he could because he didn't know how long it would last. "We need someone named Tim Bucket to the right of the monster." Quin checked his notes again, marking out part of his notes as already taken care of. "Get Billy Keys to do it. We have to get close enough to be effective planners." "Billy and this Thia woman are arguing." Odd handed the phone over while he fished out his keys for his own car. "He got there fast from what I heard." "We don't have time for this." Quin listened to the conversation while they got in Odd's tie dyed beetle. "I need her on that roof in two minutes." An angry voice shouted in Quin's ear. He held the phone away until he was sure the expletives had died down. "Listen to me, lady." Quin concentrated on his notes. "I need you and whatever you can do on a roof in a minute and a half so we can save the town. Everything else does not matter. Do it or you won't have a pot to pee in. Got me? All right, put Billy on the phone. I need him to pick up someone else and I don't want the phone cutting out before we get down to the battle zone." Quin waited for a moment, hoping that he hadn't gone too far. "Keys here." Quin didn't recognize the voice. "Talk." "Get Thia to the roof at the corner of Wall and Broad. Make sure she can see the monster to do whatever she can do. Then I need you to get over to 245 Walnut and pick up Tim Bucket and take him to the junkyard at the other end of Wall. I don't know what he can do to help but he's essential to the plan. Can you do it?" "Can do." Billy hung the phone up. "How's the master plan going, Question Man?" Odd glanced over, purple and gold hat gleaming under the street lights they passed. "Better than I expected." Quin looked at the burning horizon. "Ask me again if we come out of this alive." "What's next?" Odd steered around something in the road. He wasn't sure what it was. "We look at how things are going and decide if we have to switch to plan b." Quin looked down at his notes.

Re: Who would be the Super Heroes of your region? Great White: The aquatic hero who wants to take a bite out of crime. Wes Key: Force field projector. Everglade: The Druid of Florida. Jetstream: Flying speedster. CES

Re: Non-superheroic 'Superhero' stories The various incarnations of the ghost busters over the years should also fit the bill. "We're ready to believe you." CES

Re: Non-superheroic 'Superhero' stories Harry Dresden and The heroes of Calderone by Jim Butcher. CES

Re: Ben 10: Alien Force The 18th is only a couple of weeks away. I wonder if Ben gave up the Omnitrix at the end of the Negative Ten movie. Some of the ads suggest he is getting it back for the first time in a few years to deal with a problem with Max. CES

Re: Any Supervillians at all There are tons of campaign threads posted that you can just rip off for characters and just rename BC. Oddhat's New Circle/Defilers, Question Man's Champions of Vancouver, Enforcer's character threads, Log-Man's call for a Challenger team that didn't take off, Susano's Pictures that could be heroes, and song NPCs. I'm sure there are tons more that I haven't forgotten. CES

Re: Duplication Powers and Tactics I suggest the Billy Numerous episode of the teen titans, and parts of Naruto when he is battling with his shadow dopplegangers in effect. It looks like you have a fair grasp on what your character can do. CES

Re: xialin showdown Page 21- "And I mean what I said as well, I can give you what I have, and the rest later when I get it. Or if you like YOU can get the rest from my Father." Jade walked up the stairs to head back out. "Makes no difference to me." Jonny Woo followed at a short distance. He had obviously seen her claws in action just as she had seen his quick draw with the hand guns he carried. "I'll be glad to talk to your father." Jade heard slamming doors as she reached the top of the stairs. Jade rushed over to see who or what slammed the door. Her father's staff were coming out of their cars. They didn't look happy. They must be there looking for her. Her father's staff were coming out of their cars. They didn't look happy. They must be there looking for her. "Oh hell! Here comes my father's men." Jade turned and looked at Mr. Woo and said, "Well, here is you chance you can stay and get to talk to my father or you can go. It's up to you." "I don't have a problem talking to him." Jonny Woo shrugged. "Will he cover my fee?" "That's good then because you will have your chance real soon. And as for him paying you your asking price I don't know you will just have to find out yourself." Jade walked over to a chair and picked it back up on it legs to sit down to wait. The men walked into the restaurant, then up to the dining room where Jonny and Jade waited patiently. They fanned out respectfully around the two. "Please come with us, Miss Lee." The head guard gestured. "You were not supposed to leave the house." "Sure, no problem. You know it sure did take you a long time to find me and get here," said Jade as she gracefully stood up and walked over to the head guard and stopped in front of him and softly rubbed his face and said, "Oh by the way, I finished my duty. The Tea House is now safe." Once that was said and she started to walk out of the room. "Your father is sending you home to China, Miss Lee." The head guard gestured for some of the men to fall in behind Jade to separate her from Jonny Woo. "We're here to take you to the airport." "Hold on." Jonny held up a hand. "She owes me money." "Not our problem." The head guard waved for the men to start taking Jade downstairs. "What? No, I will not go until I speak with my father first. I want him to tell me he no longer wants me here by his side. And if you know what is good for you, you will take me to him." Jade had a cold hard look on her face and in her voice. "My orders are clear." The guards seized Jade. "Your bags, passport, tickets are in the car. You're flight leaves in an hour." They started hustling her to the car.

Re: Magistracy:Origins 9 Dr. Mortimer Rodentia drove his battered Ford off his lab's lot, turned and headed away from the monolith. He still had several autopsies to do, and thought it was good that Cheevers and Karlo were taking their time assembling the next batch of subjects. He needed that extra time to finish checking the results from the dead ones. Then he would have to check with Danvers how the subjects that had survived had done overnight. If they were still alive, he might finally have the key he wanted. He could expand his search into their batches of Formula 451, and their DNA. He was so close to expanding humanity into gods, he couldn't give up the search now. He had to keep going, no matter how many had to be sacrificed. It was the only way he could leave a legacy behind after everything that had happened. He drove his Ford into the lot of a self storage place, drove it around to the back of the building. Security cameras watched him but none looked into his operating room where he worked. He parked just across from his locker and pulled the key to the MASTER lock out of his pants pockets. "Time to wrap things up." He thought about the two survivors, the only ones so far. There must be something special about them that could be used to unlock the secrets he wanted. Rodentia had a freezer plugged into the building's power. That kept the bodies cold until he had a chance to look at them. It took him several hours to look through each corpse and ready it for disposal. The remains went into a bag, and then were dropped into the ocean. Sharks and other fish took care of the rest. The doctor opened the freezer, pulled the body on top out. He had a rolling table next to the appliance. The body flopped on that, bag crinkling as it moved. The scientist froze. He thought he had heard a sound outside by his car. He listened but the sound didn't repeat itself. It must have been the wind blowing something around. Rodentia turned the body over to get at the bag's zipper. He still had an autopsy to perform. No one knew about his operation except for his employees and they didn't know who he was. No one knew about this place. He was in the clear. Rodentia heard a sound. He was sure that time, so sure that he started to turn around. Something clipped him in the side of the face. The concrete floor became a bed when he hit. "Pretty good." Phaeton checked his breathing without touching the doctor. "It looks he's down long enough for us to fix him without leaving a trail." "I should kill him and get this over." Luna glared at the fallen man and not at his makeshift lab. "I'd be doing the world a favor." "I think we can do things better than that." Phaeton pulled Cheevers's phone from the hand bag Luna still carried. He dialed 911, and waited for the operator to ask him to state his emergency. "I'm down here across from Benson Self Storage. I think I saw a man robbing the storage compartments. He had a bolt cutters in his hands. There's a car parked outside the compartment. Hold on." Phaeton pretended to be walking closer, then gave the doctor's car model and plate to the dispatcher. "Better hurry. I don't know how long he'll take before he leaves." "I don't know if that will bring them running." Phaeton looked up at the sprinkler system. "Maybe a fire alarm will do it." He melted the pipes closed above the locker room before heating up the smoke detector. A few minutes later, sirens told them help was on the way. Now all they had to do was sit back and watch. "Let's what happens." Phaeton grabbed Luna by her waist and the two of them landed on the roof as a police car rolled through the lot. A searchlight made them keep away from the edge. The cop stepped out of his car, checking in with his dispatcher with a shoulder radio as the fire department rolled up. They entered the building to search for the fire causing intruders. A clamor went up at what they did find. "He better not get off." Luna whispered even though the excitement on the ground covered any normal noise she might have made. "He won't." Phaeton smiled. "We just made him the next famous mass murderer. No one will touch him with a pole. Even if he beats the charges, who would hire him, who would let him live near them? He's a marked man." "That doesn't make me feel better." Luna glared down at the doctor crying, bruise forming on his face. "But it's the best we can do right now."

Re: Too real? I don't know if it breaks a fair play design but Repairman Jack hurt an organization clearly based on Scientology in Criss Cross by F Paul Wilson. CES