Cowman

"Back and forth like bickering kids," Lyle thought to himself as he watched the heroes. He had come to notice that supers often conveyed their feelings through physical action as opposed to talking about it.

"Comes with the job I suppose," he thought, "when you spend all day fighting it sort of becomes a second language." He stood up slowly, watching some of the others run after Deth down a corridor. Lyle walked slowly toward it, but didn't follow.

Deth may know what she was doing, but it was obvious she was a stranger here. The woman, Ivory, (as much as she grated on his nerves) seemed to have a connection to the place. He kept a position near the entry to the corridor, waiting to see if anyone else spoke up, but ready to run for it if that thing managed to break down the door.

Lyle sat by watching the heroes congratulate each other and make nervous jokes. He glared at his surroundings. The time for congratulations was when you were sitting in the local bar ordering a brewski.

His eye twitched back and forth from the group to the door. His hand moved slightly, switching the control on his rifle to the flamethrower setting. Bullets often had trouble hurting magics, but he had noticed that a bath of napalm still seemed to have some effect.

Lyle tasted something ashen and realized he had bitten through the end of his cigar. Spitting the damp pieces onto the floor, he turned to answer Lobe's question.

"Wrong? Kid, that was the first constructive act I've seen since I got here. 'Bout dam time someone hit something."

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(Hey, I was wondering, is it still possible for anyone to join in on this rp? From what I have seen, it looks like you're in one of those situations that it would be hard/impossible to join in )

[/ QUOTE ]
Go for it. I just completely switched characters in the middle of the story. Just come up with some way that your hero ends up there. He went through the portal with them, but had stayed hidden till now for some reason, his last mission trapped him in the dimension behind the door and he escapes when the heroes open it. Something like that.

Lyle sat lazily on the crank that turned the giant gear.
"You never think of the consequences," he said, as Deth walked by him on her way to the door.
"What?" she asked, turning to look at him.
"What you said to ol' white eyes over there," Lyle continued, "you should never stop to think of the consequences. If you stop to think you'll wind up a smear on someone else's boot."

Deth pointed out that the number of deaths this would cause was a pretty big consequence to over-look. Lyle leaned forward, taking another drag on his cigar.
"Then don't discuss it," he said, his eye narrowing at her, "FIX it."
Deth glared at the old man, her expression saying that, if she wanted, she could strip the flesh from his bones in seconds. Turning away sharply, she continued towards the door.

Lyle watched her go. He probably shouldn't have said anything, but she had annoyed him. From what he'd seen this Ivory had been doing her best to help and he felt that Deth had been overly harsh.

From what he could tell, Deth seemed to be another one of these newer "dark" heroes. Drawing their powers from some nefarious realm, with deep dark secrets, and other s#!t like that. Lyle had little patience for these heroes. To him, someone who was "mysterious" meant someone who could get him killed. He liked to know all about those he worked with so he'd know how they might react to certain situations.

Mysterious heroes could surprise him by doing something totally different from what they should because of some "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo. Deth was probably hating him right now, but that was okay. He'd rather have people dislike him than to try and coddle him because of his age. If people disliked him they'd have no qaulms about asking him to do something dangerous. And doing the stuff that others wouldn't was the story of Thomas Lyle's life.

The woman calling herself Ivory suddenly pushed in front of Lyle before he entered the door, insisting that the heroes remained here. Only this 'Deth' person was supposed to go through. This suited Lyle just fine. From the crazy look of the place he was pretty sure this was some sort of 'magical' problem.

"Let the hocus pocus stuff to the magicians," he muttered, lighting a cigar. He and the others stood, waiting for awhile until Deth burst back through the door, followed shortly by Ivory, looking a little worse for the wear.

A loud boom made him jump. The door shook as though a tremendous weight was pounding against the other side. Lyle didn't like this. There wasn't much room in this part of the palace and he wasn't much good at close quarters combat. Especially not with stinkin' magics.

Reaching into a pouch on the back of his belt he nodded to the slick looking man. "Hey, Fox was it?" The man nodded. "You're a 'porter right?" He recognized some of the signs. Again the man nodded, "Alas," he said smoothly, despite the pounding on the door, "I can't reach the outside from in here."

"Can you 'port stuff in here," Lyle asked, motioning to their surroundings.
"I believe so," Fox said.
"In that case," Lyle smiled around his cigar, "I got a special delivery for ya." He popped the pins on the two grenades he had retrieved from the pouch and tossed them to Fox.

Not missing a beat, the teleporter spuinted slightly and the grenades vanished in a flash. A few seconds later a much louder boom was heard from the other side of the door. Lyle laughed quietly to himself.

He was dealing with magic here and it was more than likely that the grenades had done nothing, but he had felt rather annoyed at being plopped into the middle of this without warning and the idea of those two grenades suddenly popping into existence right in front of whatever was behind the door just made him smile.

The slick looking man fired off a hasty reply, calling him 'Nevur'. "Hmph," Lyle thought to himself, "shoulda known that tin man and his little girl were mixed up in this." The others seemed to be rushing towards the opened door. Lyle walked forward, glancing up at the angelic woman standing nearby.

She regarded him with a blank stare and Lyle got the feeling she was questioning whether or not he belonged here. Stopping at the doorway he turned, looking directly at the woman. Then he nonchalantly spit once on the shiny floor and walked through the doorway.

OOC - Sorry bout switching guys so suddenly, but I wasn't able to do much with Nevur, so I thought I'd try one of my other guys. Don't worry, I won't switch again so suddenly, just wanted to get someone who could react better to the situation.

P.S. Lyle is a mean old man. Forgive any insults or profanity he might spew. I came up with his appearance first and this is just how I imagined him talking.

Nevur waited for this 'magic door' to arrive. The giant gear ground it's way around, clicking each time a door went by. It seemed forever until they found the right one. For most of this trip, Nevur had been not much more than a bystander. Hoping he could help out a little more he stepped closer to the door with the others.

He heard the new Ivory say something about a slight tremor in reality when the door was opened, but didn't really understand what he meant. Sly Fox stepped up first to open the door, obviously worried about Deth's condition. As the door creaked open, however, Nevur was suddenly hit in the face by some invisible force.

He could feel the very air warping around him, but as he looked at the other heroes they appeared unaffected. "Imaginary people have no luck at all," he thought as he felt himself being sucked out of reality.

As he vanished, something Carly said repeated over and over in his mind. "...wish Lyle was here, wish Lyle was here..." There was a brief moment of darkness and he thought he felt someone pass him, going the opposite direction. Then in a flash he was sitting on a city street.

"I'm back in Paragon," he said, confused. "What happened?" Carly wasn't sure, but she said it was like the reality beyond the door didn't believe in him enough, so it kicked him out and replaced him with someone else.

"But who?" Nevur started to ask, but stopped. He remembered the last thoughts going through his and Carly's head at the last moment and laughed slightly. "Lyle's going to hate this," he smiled.

Back in Ivory's prison, the space where Nevur used to be suddenly exploded outward, dropping someone else onto the floor. He muttered a string of curses as he picked himself up. He wore a dirty green uniform with baggy brown pants. His belt was lined with pouches as were the two straps that looped each shoulder.

The rifle he held was the standard M-20 multi-purpose assault rifle. A weapon modified with Rikti technology for the military. His hair was long as was his beard, they were both the same muddy gray. He was clearly a much older man, his face was wrinkled and creased, seeming to have the same color and texture as old leather. Deep scars could be seen outlining the eyepatch that covered his right eye.

Standing, he slung the rifle over his shoulder, glaring at the group in front of him.
"Who the hell just did that."

So the angelic person in front of them was not only Ivory, but also a demon. "Yep," Nevur thought to himself, "you can NEVER trust people who look like angels." Sighing wearily he began walking after the others.

Nevur listened to the booming voice as it echoed through the halls. But he barely suppressed a laugh when, after the voice spoke of its guilded cage for eternity, Carly made a comment about it sounding like her group therapy.

Nevur bit back the laugh, good-naturely reminding Carly that it wasn't heroic to make fun of serious situations.

Possession, spirits, demons, alternate dimensions. Nevur hated this kind of stuff. "Just give me something to hit," he thought to himself. Earthly villians were so much easier to deal with.

He paused a moment, listening to Carly. He almost laughed when she mentioned wishing that Lyle was here. The old man DID have a way of belittling any situation. Of course Lyle's solution to this problem would most likely be a small piece of metal applied to the back of Deth's head via his gun.

Though in Deth's case, Nevur felt that Lyle might be dissapointed with the results. He found it kind of amusing that Carly had taken such a liking to the crochety old man.

His attention snapped back to the present when he heard someone else speaking.

Nevur stepped into what Ivory had refered to as his "prison". Nevur didn't know what he meant and he frankly didn't care anymore. He hadn't really wanted to go with the others, but Carly had insisted. She was determined to always to the "heroic" thing.

So, Nevur followed and for a few minutes after they entered the new realm, he seemed to fade away completely. "Great," he thought to himself, "what 'side' of me is being reflected now?" After they entered the palace, however, the atmosphere of the outside seemed to give slightly. Nevur returned to his robotic appearance.

His relief didn't last though, as he looked up to the woman in front of him. The angelic figure put him suddenly on his guard. Carly didn't like angel-like people. She had never believed that REAL angels would look like people with wings.

As she said, they were supposed to be perfect and people weren't perfect. This made her extra suspicious of anyone who looked angelic. She always felt they were trying to hard to get people to trust them. No, Carly and Nevur didn't like this 'angel' at all.

The humans fell through the hole, disappearing into the darkness. The entity seeped into the hole, trying to follow the others. As it entered the hole completely, the small, green girl appeared at the edge of the hole, releasing the hold she had used to keep it from closing too quickly.

The hole popped closed and the little creature looked around, savoring the silence. Sitting down on the floor she held out her hand. The small rubber ball rolled out of the darkness to her hand. Small jacks emerged from the floor in front of her.

She began bouncing the ball, grabbing as many jacks as she could between each bounce. She finally had the place to herself. Gideon may cause problems, but there was no guarantee he would make it through the portal, and she was sure 'kit' and the others could handle him.

On the next bounce she managed to grab four jacks. A new record. She smiled contentedly.

The other heroes stood by, contented for the moment to let Sly's plan run its course. The floor continued to crack under the giant's weight. Nevur suddenly felt something in the air, and by the faces of the others, they felt it too. A building up of some kind, like someone taking a deep breath.

The cracks were suddenly seized, rejoining and mending themselves. It seemed their brief glimpse at freedom had vanished. The green girl stopped jumping looking at the floor where the cracks had been. "Look in the mirror," she laughed, pointing at the floor.

Nevur looked down, but suddenly got the feeling that he was actually standing on a vertical surface, a giant mirror with all of them standing like spiders on its front. The green creature looked over at Sly, smiling.

"Down the rabbit hole, kit," it giggled cheerfully. It lept into the air, spinning around at great speed. It hovered over them for a minute before shooting down into the mirror. The surface cracked, spider-webbing out beneath their feet. The sound of breaking glass was deafening as the mirrored floor fell away in shards beneath them.

Nevur looked at what he thought was down and saw a faint circle of light growing bigger below them. He only hoped that this would be the real world, he had had enough of the psycho dimension. Above them he almost imagined he heard something roaring after them, bellowing with rage. He looked down once more at the ever-brightening circle.

"Down the rabbit hole," he said to himself as he fell.

The little green creature watched the heroes talking, a frustrated look on its small face.
"You 'heroes' don't listen," it finally shouted, "escaping is for you, not me. I don't WANT to go. Gideon doesn't talk for me anymore, I talk for myself. Gideon wants out, I do NOT." The green creature stamped its foot on the top of the door.

"All you talk of is killing. Killing me, killing Gideon. Don't you know yet? No death in this place, no dying here. There IS fading, fade away like Gideon, but still around some. Always there, never here." The little thing seemed to be growing more and more agitated and its speech was becoming harder to understand.

"All Ivory do is kill, all in his mind is death. Kill is always Ivory solution. Helsing always deathing other people. Never play, never patient. Always biting, always scratching. Had enough of biting, enough of deathing. Want you gone, gone back to killing world. No place for you here."

Nevur was getting more nervous by the second. Ivory and Helsing seemed to be ready to try and kill the creature, Contact and Lobe seemed determined to prevent this, and the little girl itself was becoming incomprehensible in its agitation.

"If this thing goes south we're ALL likely to end up toast," he thought to himself.

"Consequences?" the thing yelled, flitting to the top of the door and perching there like a gargoyle. "You know nothing of consequences. All you smart little heroes, always showing up here. You, Gideon, Statesman. They always come in, messing up my world with their twisted thoughts!"

The little green girl almost shook with anger as it glared down at the heroes. "You humans are all so mixed up. You never seem to know what you're thinking or what you want to think. You seem to forget that, with the exception of Ivory, I didn't bring you here, SHE did." It pointed at Morningstar.

"Smart, smug heroes coming to my world. You manipulate it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and you don't even know you're doing it. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Yes, I want you OUT!! I want EVERYONE OUT!! Even the ghostly ones who disappeared long ago. They won't stop screaming at me." It covered its ears for emphasis.

"This was my place," it continued, "I made my own games, made my own friends. You come here and you won't even play. You're all so intent on figuring everything out, all you do is think boring thoughts. Well, I HATE YOUR BORING THOUGHTS!!!!" Then she fell silent, glaring down at them from the top of the door.

For a minute the little green creature didn't move. It looked at Sly, its mouth hanging open as if dumbstruck. Then, as if coming out of some trance, she began to laugh. She fell backward, floating on her back as she giggled.

"I like you, kit," it said, flitting over to him and sitting cross-legged on his head, "you make stupid comments seem clever." She rapped Sly once on the head and all the doors but one vanished.

"Finally," Nevur thought to himself. He and a couple of the other heroes moved toward the door, but were stopped when the creature spoke again.

"You should consider, however," it said, keeping its perch on Sly's head, "whether or not you trust me to keep my word. After all, I'm sure you've all realized by now that I'm not a graceful loser."

All eyes turned again towards the remaining door, now with a hint of suspicion. "Never easy," Nevur thought wearily.

"We're all adults, we can all cope with what we are seeing..." Nevur listened to Ivory's partial explanation of their situation. He watched as the other heroes took his advice, concentrating on steadying their minds. Some had already succeeded.

"We're all adults..."
Unfortunatly, Carly wasn't an adult and she did all the concentrating for Nevur. Doing his best to at least calm his emotions, he tried to get Carly to settle down.

"Don't worry Carly," he said, "I know that guy LOOKS scary, but he seems to know what's going on here. We'll get out soon." Carly settled down a little, paying more attention to what was going on.

Suddenly there was a whooshing sound and the group was surrounded by doors. They weren't connected to anything, but just seemed to sit there, a large 'EXIT' sign over each one. The little creature suddenly appeared over them again.

"Very well," it said, "you all want out so bad, let me help you. Here are some exits for you. You just have to choose one." It vanished again in a fit of giggles. Nevur looked at the doors around them. It was never THIS simple.

Nevur watched as the heroes defyed the little green woman. The man Helsing even attacked it, though it didn't seem to be actually hurt by the blows. It suddenly popped out of existance and reappeared above their heads.

"You guys are no fun," it said, an almost pouting look on its face, "you're all so stubborn and boring." With that is disappeared again. Something small fell from where it had been, bouncing once on the floor before being caught by the one called Ivory.

He opened his hand revealing a small rubber ball. "Okay," Nevur finally sighed, looking toward Morningstar, "would someone PLEASE tell me what is going on?"

"Bravo, Fox," a sing-song voice floated out of the surrounding darkness. "A rather uncharacteristic show of intelligence." Nevur couldn't tell where the voice was coming from until something seemed to emerge from the shadows.

It was a small female shape that seemed to glow with an eerie green light. Its ears were pointed and its eyes were a solid black. It hovered in the air, flitting around the group of heroes.

Some of the others were attempting to follow Sly Fox's advice, and some seemed to be succeeding. The greenish creature didn't seem to care for this. It laughed at their attempts, a malicious grin on its face.

"Awww, are the heroes afraid of their own minds. Don't you want to see what you REALLY are." Its laughter was like bells which were played with the bones of the dead. Nevur watched as the thing floated back and forth among them, ridiculing each in turn until it crossed in front of him.

"And what of poor little Nevur," it said with mock pity, "The others MAY escape to other parts of their mind, but that's kind of hard to do when you don't even have one." Nevur didn't like this. His hands clenched in anger, and he felt the overwhelming desire to tear the thing in half.

"You didn't think you actually had a mind of your own did you?" It laughed again, floating in a circle around him. "Poor Nevur doesn't exist, so what else would appear in your place but your creator?"

"He does SO exist!" Nevur heard Carly's protest in his head. The green woman floated down, whispering in Nevur's ear.

"Imaginary friends only last so long," she hissed, "She'll grow up and then she won't need you anymore. You'll just fade away into nothingness." She floated away from Nevur, the same infuriating smirk on her face as she started to torment the next hero in her path.

Nevur sighed. He knew this would happen. Whenever you got mixed up in magic, things started unraveling rather quickly.

Lobe was still holding the statue, looking from it to where the wall used to be with a confused look on his face. Rebecca Morningstar looked up, seeing the black swarm for the first time. She suddenly ran over to Lobe, grabbing the idol before he could react. Running into the middle of the heroes she raised the idol over her head.

The swarm suddenly shot down from the sky, flying towards the statue at a tremendous speed. As the darkness hit the idol a shockwave spread out from it. The gathered heroes were suddenly engulfed in blackness. Nevur couldn't tell which way was up.

Then, suddenly, the darkness was gone. Looking around he found they were standing on a mirrored floor that seemed to stretch as far as he could see in every direction. But as he looked he noticed something else. The heroes around him were different.

They were the same ones he had tried to help out, but they all looked different. Some only slightly and some looked radically different. The woman named Kate who had been standing beside him now had some dark evil thing standing behind her that seemed to be chained to her wrist.

Nevur brought his hands up to rub his eyes, but stopped when he saw them. His hands were not the large metal gauntlets he was used to, but small bare hands. Now that he thought of it, all the heroes seemed taller as well.

"Oh crap," he thought. Falling to his knees he looked at his reflection in the mirrored floor. Looking back at him was not the robotic looking hero 'Nevur', but a skinny 5 year-old girl, her black hair growing in random tufts about her head.

"Carly," he said to the familiar face. His voice was still his own, deep and metallic, but he looked like Carly.
"No, I don't no why I look like you," he answered to Carly's question. Then he heard the one who called herself Deth.

"It's a 'mindscape'," she said, "we are seeing physical representations of our very minds."

Nevur looked down at himself in the floor again.
"Crap."

Something small flew past Nevur's head, imbedding itself in a wall beyond him. He noticed Kate looking pensively at the thing as if she were almost afraid of it. He took a moment to glance around and get his bearings.

The giant, Lobe, was quickly headed to retreive the idol while the well-dressed teleporter was currently being tended by the lady with the "dead eyes", as Carly put it earlier. Another man with a rifle, he thought he heard the name Helsing or something, was talking to her about mysterious voices.

"Ah, more dark spiritual stuff," he thought. He hated magical problems. Too hard to get his head around, which was kind of ironic given his origins. He and Carly preferred the more straight forward problems. Easier to handle.

His attention was attracted to his right when the wall the small object had stuck in suddenly disappeared. He started to move toward Lobe, who now held the thing, but was brought up short at a sound. He looked over towards it and noticed a dense cloud of blackness swirling toward them, looking almost like a giant swarm of flies. It was still several blocks away, but moving towards their location steadily.

"Yep," he sighed, "I REALLY hate magic."

Nevur took the offered hand,getting slowly to his feet.
"I'm okay, Car.... I mean, I'm fine." Carly was already concentrating hard, repairing the damage that he had taken. He'd be back up to speed in a minute.

"Looks like they didn't need our help anyway," he joked, gesturing to the defeated monk.

As the monk behind him died, Nevur's stream of health he was directing at Kate trickled away. He could swear he saw her left arm grow stronger and her face seemed to take on a look of determination rather than pain. The right arm, however, still had momentum behind it and seemed to be gearing up for one last attack on Nevur.

Quickly, Nevur turned his powers on himself, bringing stone up around and through him. The rock eclipsed his vision as the killing arm rose towards him. For half a second all was quiet in his stone tomb, then the rock cracked and burned, chipping away like wax. Nevur was thrown backward, skidding down the street.

When he finally stopped he groggily sat up. He could hardly stand to move, but he had to see if his tranfusion had helped Kate, or if she was going to continue her attack.