Cowman

Lyle jumped back against the wall as the chaingun fire tore up the floor in front of him. They were getting nowhere fast, and the Column just seemed to keep coming. Leaning toward the hole, he let a burst of rounds into it, hoping to drive the machines back a little.
"Don't suppose you've got any ingenious plan to get us out of here in one piece." he said, dryly to Ivory.

"D@mned if I know," Lyle growled in answer to Ivory's question about the others. "That nutjob of a girl got dosed with Rage and I had to get before she decided to tear my head off." Two or three explosions rocked the building, not seeming to surprise Ivory at all.

Lyle thought back to the black and white void they had walked through to enter the office building, everything seeming frozen around them. 'Pretty dam useful,' he thought to himself.

"Last I saw the others, they were headed for where the main lobby used to be." The building was in such a state of decay that navigating was next to impossible. Fishing his rifle out of the debris he checked his ammo counters, making a mental note that there were only two grenades left in the back-up chambers.

"Have to remember to reload those," he thought. Listening carefully, he thought he could here something on the floor above them. Of course, whether it was the other heroes or more 5th Column, he had no idea.

Lyle ran down the hallway, rifle fire tearing up the floor behind him. A grenade impacted a little too close, sending him flying through the air. Skidding across the floor, he quickly pulled himself behind a corner, wincing as something in his side moved in a way it wasn't meant to.

Sticking out his rifle, he fired blindly down the hall, hoping to keep the soldiers at bay. A jet of flame caused him to draw back from the corner.

"Give it up, old man," he heard one of the soldiers shout, "we've got you totally outnumbered. Come out now and we may let you live."

"Yeah right," Lyle thought to himself, but slowly stood, walking carefully from behind the corner, holding his rifle by it's strap. The soldier in the lead smiled, then gave an order. Guns immediatly raised, pointing at Lyle.

The old man stood still, watching the 5th column in front of him. Suddenly, he dove to the side, his free hand suddenly drawing the Desert Eagle that had been stuck in the back of his belt before he walked out.

The soldiers opened fire, bullets whizzing by Lyle as he fell to the side. He felt a couple rounds tear through his left arm and shoulder as he brought the handgun up, firing one shot as he fell. The bullet flew towards the group, hitting the fuel tank of the flamethrower.

The explosion took out the walls and the ceiling of the hall, dropping most of the hallway into the floor below. Lyle was thrown back, crashing through the wall behind him. For a while he lay admist the broken wood and debris.

"Well," he said finally, picking himself up painfully from the ruined wall, "that worked out pretty well."

As Lyle turned to follow Deth down the hall, something made him stop. Turning he walked cautiously back to the hole leading down to the tracks. Listening carefully, he suddenly made out the sound of a train. Crouching at the edge he waited as the noise got louder and louder.

Then the squeal of brakes was heard as the train stopped at what sounded like right beneath the building. Trying to keep out of sight as much as possible, Lyle peered over the edge, watching as 5th Column soldiers began pouring into view.

Lyle's brow furrowed, his remaining eye narrowing. He saw at least a couple robots lumber by and who knew how many soldiers. This wasn't some supply shipment either, these soldiers were armed for a fight. Lyle sat back from the edge, leaning against the wall.

An ambush was the only explanation for the sheer number and preparedness of the 5th Column, but how had they known the heroes would be there. He could only come up with one explanation. Perhaps the 5th Column had found out about their investigation into the Tsoo drug and magic racket and had taken over this building just to ambush the heroes when they came to check it out.

The appearance of Lobe and the trolls had complicated their plan, but from the looks of things down there, plan B was more than enough to make up for it. However, this raised another question in Lyle's mind. Who had the 5th Column hoped to eliminate? Had this operation been put together merely for a random group of heroes?

Given the Column's usual efficiency, this seemed unlikely. But then who of the heroes had ticked off the soldiers enough for this kind of retaliation. Lyle had certainly gotten in their way before and DID have a little history with the group, but nothing on this scale.

Shouts from below indicated that the soldiers had noticed the hole above them. Lyle stood, arming a grenade and tossing it down the hole. Then he fired a grenade from his rifle into the ceiling above, sending debris down, blocking up the hole in the floor.

He heard the sound of the other grenade exploding and hoped he had managed to take out at least one of the robots. He ran back down the hall, turning back as a door behind him exploded inward, 5th Column pouring through. Lyle threw the automatic rounds switch on his rifle and opened fire.

Lyle suddenly found himself yanked from the hole and teleported back to the floor above. The cause was quickly apparent when Deth appeared, applying one of the heal patches to his damaged side.

Lyle hated the high-tech patches. The feeling of the drugs and chemicals stitching his tissues back together made his teeth grind. He didn't complain though. The patches had saved his @ss more times than he cared to remember. He pulled himself up, pausing for a moment when he thought he heard something overhead.

"Probably just rats," he thought, and started down the hallway in search of the rest of the group.

The girl had slipped away from the fire woman in the thick smoke. Climbing up the wall, she had pushed her way into the space between the ceiling and the floor above. Crouching in the small space she watched as the other heroes moved about beneath her.

The drug was still in her system, and while not as strong as it was (the smoke had lessened the effects), she still wanted something to hurt. She couldn't try and hurt the other heroes, that only got her in trouble and the other heroes would send her back to the Room. The Room was boring and she would have to get out all over again.

No, she had to find more of the green men. She could hurt them without anyone objecting. Crawling through the insulating space with the rats and cockroaches, she made her way through the building, peering out the cracks under her whenever she heard someone there.

As the sounds of fighting died away below him, Lyle decided to make himself scarce and hook back up with the others. One of them would be able to contain the psycho girl better than he would. Turning he headed down the corridor.

Suddenly, a wall in front of him exploded outwards. A 5th Column robot lurched through the hole, sparks and smoke pouring from the damaged machine.

"That human wrecking ball musta only damaged this one," Lyle swore to himself. Strong enough to level a mountain, but too dumb to make sure enemies stayed down. Lyle hated combinations like that.

The robot lumbered toward him as he brought up his rifle, putting two slugs in the machine. The heavy rounds tore through it's armor, sending it stumbling back, a small explosion ripping away it's right arm. For a moment it stood teetering on it's feet, but then lunged forward, it's arm raised over it's head, ready to strike.

Lyle put another round in it, but the robot's momentum carried it on. Jumping backward, he narrowly missed the machine as it crashed through the rotting floorboards. Lyle tried to move back, but the floor cracked and broke beneath him, and he plunged down along with the robot.

The machine's weight was enough to send it through the last two brittle floors of the building, until it finally hit concrete in a shower of sparks and stopped moving. Lyle fell after it, bouncing off the metal carapace when it landed and rolling painfully onto the concrete.

Blood fell from a small gash in his forehead and he hoped the pain in his side wasn't broken ribs. He pulled himself painfully to his feet, leaning against the remains of the robot, and surveyed his surroundings. The dank walls and pillars made it obvious that he was underground, but what surprised him most were the railroad tracks.

The room was large and long with a concrete platform on either side. Down the middle ran train tracks that disappeared into tunnels at either end of the room.

"Must be their equipment transportation system," he thought, holding his side, "but is it the 5th column's or the Tsoo's." According to Haunt, this building was a storage hideout for the Tsoo, but it looked like the 5th coulmn had moved in.

"I gotta get back up there," he thought, looking up through the hole above him. He moved, but stopped suddenly, wincing at the pain.
"But first," Lyle thought, sliding down to sit against the 'dead' robot, "I think I'm gonna sit down a spell."

The girl watched the other woman incapacitating the trolls. At first she was angry, these green men were hers to hurt. But then the tingling at the back of her neck began to subside a little and the red haze that had seeped into the edges of her vision faded a bit.

She was still angry, but didn't mind as much now. After all, people usually ended up getting into her fun, but she had come to learn that they didn't really mean it. They all thought they were helping her. Like she was crazy or something.

As the others made their way into the building, Lyle split off, covering a different hallway from the others to make sure no trolls or 5th column slipped out. As he moved along the hallway carefully, a sound came to his ears. Following it he soon came to a hole where the floor of the building had fallen in.

Dropping carefully to the floor below, he cautiously moved forward, switching on the light on his gun. A glass-like sound made him turn to the left, and his beam fell across the masked girl.

"The nutjob," he sighed, somewhat relieved. His relief, however was short lived. Her back was to him, and she was hunched over something. Noticing the beam of light that surrounded her, she slowly turned towards Lyle. Her hands were thrust into a satchel in front of her, and from the damage to the bag, it looked like she slammed them in pretty hard.

Lyle began to move forward, but stopped as she drew her hands out of the satchel. He caught sight of the remains of glass vials, red liquid seeping out. The same kind of vial that Ivory had shown them, containing the Rage drug. The girls hands and forearms were slashed and bloody, shards of glass sticking out. The orange eyes he had seen earlier began to cloud over red as the drug moved through her blood stream.

"S#!t," Lyle hissed backing up slightly. He didn't know much about the kid's powers, but from what she had done to the Lost monster, he knew they were enough to bash HIS head in. The girl turned towards him slightly, still crouched, her head tilted to the side, watching him.

Suddenly the door to the right burst open and a group of trolls poured into the room. As the girl glanced over at the group, Lyle took advantage of her distraction, dropping a grenade into the chamber and firing it to the left of the girl. The explosion blew her to the right, sending her crashing into the group of trolls.

Lyle turned and ran. He didn't expect the grenade to stop her, but with the Rage in her system, he hoped she'd blindly attack the trolls, giving him time to get some breathing room. He wasn't sure of the exact effects of the drug, but with a name like Rage, he could make an educated guess.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he jumped up, grabbing a board and pulling himself back up through the hole. The sound of screaming trolls and wet tearings and snappings let him know that his plan was working pretty well.

Lyle listened to the crashes inside and heard the voice of the one called Lobe.
"Terrific," he growled, "if there's one thing worse than someone with super powers, it's someone with super powers who has no idea what they're doing."

Grabbing the man she had crashed into, the girl rolled backward, using her feet to send him flying towards the giant as he rounded the corner.

As the others looked at the vial, the girl quietly slipped into the building. She made her way through the scattered bodies that littered the floor, dipping her hand briefly into a small pool of blood and absent-mindedly tracing a line along the wall as she walked, pausing now and then to take the belts from the fallen soldiers. (She liked belts)

Soon she heard talking ahead, followed by a flash of red energy. Creeping to the doorway she peered around the corner. A huge man was standing in the middle of the ruined room, the remains of something red in his hand. A group of trolls walked up to the smoking monster.

"Oops, sorry Mr. Brown, I broke one of your heirlooms." The giant sounded heartbroken.

"Don't worry Lobe," the head troll replied, "it was only one little one." He suddenly cut off, looking wide-eyed at a corner. "At least THAT didn't get destroyed." He hurried over to an old satchel. Opening it he looked in awe at the mounds of vials that sat packed inside. He closed the satchel and picked it up, turning to his friends. "We're gonna OWN Boomtown with this stuff," he laughed.

The girl suddenly shot from her hiding place, latching onto the troll's back. He turned, trying to dislodge her, but couldn't get a hand on her. Pulling up the bottom of her mask until it rested on her nose, she suddenly pushed forward, sinking her teeth into the troll's ear. Screaming he finally managed to throw her off and she slid across the floor as he held the bloody remains of his ear.

The girl rolled to her feet, her head nodding slightly as she swallowed, blood dripping down her chin. The trolls glared at her.

"Lobe, she's with the soldiers and she's trying to steal our heirlooms. Stop her." The girl didn't wait to see the man-mountain's reaction. Leaping forward on all fours she snatched the satchel from the troll and scurried down the hallway.

I always TRY to help out when it looks like a hero's in trouble. I can't count the number of times someone's sent a heal my way while I was fighting. I'm always grateful.

I jumped into a fight one time, but the other guy got killed anyway, so I gave him a revive inspiration. Didn't take anything in return, just wanted to help. My character doesn't really have any assisting powers, so the only way I can really help is to jump the villians and take some aggro. This HAS led to angry accusations of kill-stealing, but I try not to let that dissuade me from helping too much.

I try to check the health and level of the hero and villians before interfering, but I DO sometimes forget and just jump in swinging. Though I can say that I have never yelled at anyone for jumping into my fight. I've been rescued too many times by other heroes to get angry about it.

The girl wriggled from Deth's grasp as they re-appeared at Boomtown. She didn't like being held for too long. She didn't like the idea of something she couldn't control touching her for any amount of time. Also, this "Deth" made her feel uneasy.

The girl could sense an air of death around the woman, but not the kind of death she was familiar with. This Deth seemed otherwordly, seperated from the physical world. This was not the Death she knew.

She prefered the Death that she always saw and talked to. The one that was very much a part of the earth. The kind of Death you found in the mud of battlefields or in the dirty alleyways of cities. The Death that smelled of blood, sweat, and urine. She liked that Death, he was fun to talk to.

This 'Deth' was too etheral.

(OOC - I'm not saying that she actually sees Death, she just BELIEVES she does. Whether or not she does see him or not I leave up to the reader)

"Yeah," Lyle growled, looking at the ring, "I've seen stuff like it. On about every "goth" kid in the city." Though, as he looked at it closer, he started to here something whispering to him. It was like some small person was hissing into his ear, telling him to take the ring. Telling him it would give him power.

Lyle shook his head, taking a step back from the ring.
"Magic," he spat. If they hadn't needed the thing for evidence, he would have ground it into dust then and there. The whispers had promised him things he would never have admitted to wanting, and the memory made his mind feel soiled.

Indeed.
I have 6 going right now. I often lose interest in one and will switch to another for awhile. None are as high as yours yet, so I don't know if I'll be able to keep it up.

"Great," Lyle muttered as Deth disappeared with the girl, "first demons, and now a nutcase." He almost said something to Deth when she picked up the girl. Something about her body language told him she wasn't as helpless and innocent as she looked. Maybe it was the way she attacked the Lost, maybe it was the dried blood caked under her finger and toe nails, or maybe it was just the general smell of decay that seemed to hang around her.

He held his tongue though (a rare occurance). Supers didn't like being told what to do, especially when it came to morality. Even though, for heroes, morality was pretty much a joke anyway. A truly moral person would find some gentle, peaceful way to do things, as opposed to beating someone's head in. Lyle had no delusions about his current job. He was a thug, plain and simple. Most heroes were. Thugs working for the law to stop thugs working against the law. Any talk of morality was just sugar coating it.

"Well," he sighed, snapping out of his thoughts, "can anyone get us over there quick, or do I need to take the f@ *%ing train."

The girl wasn't surprised when Deth picked her up and started tending to her. Many people had this reaction. In the beginning it had annoyed her. Getting ahold of wet blood without getting in trouble was tough, and it only lasted for awhile, then it dried up and changed color. After that it wasn't fun anymore.

Even though she was annoyed at the woman for taking it all away from her, she did her best not to show it. She would just be patient. One thing she had come to know was that if she hung around people with super powers long enough, blood would inevitably become available.

The girl sat on the ground, her finger tracing lines through the blood stained ground. The other heroes discussed the next step in finding the Tsoo nearby. One happened to glance over at her, only curiously at first, but then their interest grew as they looked at the design on the ground.

Lines intersected each other and wound around, forming what looked like a rough map of streets and intersections. Then as she finished the map, she took the red gem she had been using before and placed it at the corner of one of the streets.

Her hand then moved to the top of the drawing to write something, saying each letter as she wrote it.
"B-O-O-M-T-O-W-N"

As the last of the gang members began to fall, a couple of the others called over to Lyle, wondering where Ivory had gone. Lyle shrugged.

"Jumped ship, or something," he called back, "Said that the Tsoo are selling drugs and magics to the gangs, and generally screwing them over in the process." Lyle could almost applaud the ninja-like order for messing with the other criminals. But if a gang-war started now, Paragon City would turn into a war-zone.

"I suppose the preferable plan would be to hit their storage building, but I haven't had much experience with these yahoos, so I don't really know where to start looking. And the one who seemed to know what he was talking about, has bugged out."

Another reason Lyle hated people with secrets. Their actions were often very direct and clear, but explanations and understandings were few and far between.

Lyle shrugged, "Sure." he called to Ivory's retreating back.
"Like I have any idea what any of this s#!t is about." he thought to himself. Having come from the military, Lyle often had a hard time handling the Paragon heroes' looser ways of doing things.

The girl paused in her work, glancing up at the man in dark clothes. She was grateful he had taken care of the other two. They would have interupted her. She was about to resume her slicing, but suddenly looked up.

Some others were approaching the man from behind, weapons at the ready. The girl wasn't looking at them, however, but at the huge Lost monster behind them. The smaller thugs were almost broken in half with one swipe of the things hand, and it then approached the dazed Haunt.

The girl's brow furrowed in thought. The man had helped her. Kept the others from interupting her. The thing behind him would hurt him. This wasn't good. He helped her so...... she should help him. Satisfied that this was the correct conclusion, the girl suddenly lept from her place.

She landed on the front of the monster, planting her bare feet on it's chest, holding herself there by it's ragged shirt collar. Leaning back, she then drove her head into the Lost's. She pulled back, ramming the thing's head with her own over and over. Blood started running down the inside of her mask, dripping over her eyes and out the eyeholes. She continued slamming her head into the Lost, until finally, the monster stumbled, blood oozing from a crack in it's fore head. It swayed back and forth and finally toppled to the ground.

The girl sat on top of it, slamming her head against his a few more times. Satisfied that it wouldn't be getting back up, she slid off it's chest. The thing's blood was splattered across the front of her straight jacket as she sat down, leaning back against the still form of the Lost. The blood from the thugs that the monster had killed seeped across the concrete. The girl reached down, humming softly, and began drawing designs and doodles in the crimson liquid.

Lyle watched as the others mopped up the remaining enemies. "Not the most organized of fights," he thought to himself. But with super powers you could afford to be a little messy.

He rotated his arm, wincing slightly. He was still a little sore from the beating the troll gave him, but he had gotten worse. He'd probably end up a lot worse before this whole mess was over. Ivory wasn't kidding when he mentioned something big going on. Anything that would bring out all the different gangs like this had to be pretty important.

As the gang members fell one by one, and the battle began to wind down, a couple of the heroes suddenly became aware of a sound coming from behind the dumpster that the girl in blue and yellow had crashed into.

Upon investigating they discovered that it was actually a person. It sat, huddled next to the wall wearing what appeared to be a straight-jacket and dirty, baggy white pants; bare feet sticking out the ends. The only things that kept it from looking like a homeless bum, were the mask it wore, and it's eyes.

The mask was black and covered the entire head, with only openings for the pupil-less eyes, which were a deep orange at the edges, fading to almost yellow in the middle. They could tell that the mask had been ripped apart at one time and the stitches where it had been crudely sewn back together were very visible. They could also see the ends of a cape dangling out the bottom of the straight-jacket.

One sleeve of the jacket had been ripped open, freeing the hand inside. The other one was still intact, and the person held something through the fabric. Some of the heroes recognized it as another thin red gem, like the ones from the idol and Morningstar's shop.

The thing was currently pressing the edge of the gem into it's exposed, pale hand. It pulled the gem along, slicing into the skin, leaving red trails that blossomed blood. It did this in a very methodical way, mumbling and humming to itself as it worked.

It suddenly looked up, noticing the others for the first time. It only looked at them for a second or two before returning to its task.

Then it spoke. It's voice feminine, but also, obviously very young. The others would have guessed around 16.

"I did it before," she mumbled, absent-mindedly, "but it keeps going away. Had to do it all over again." Feeling that this was a sufficient explanation she resumed her humming, tracing a new line along her palm.

(OOC - Hope I'm not breaking any rules here. This character isn't actually in the game yet. I came up with her a couple years ago for a story I wrote for a web site. I really liked the character and used her in a couple other stories. This is mainly an experiment to see if I can make her work as well in the confines of role-playing. If this is against the rules, let me know.)