Tar_Heel

“Ugggggggghh. My head is killing me!” Teen Tar Heel groaned as he rose groggily to his feet in the EveryNighter base. “That stupid pirate. I can stand in the middle of a dozen Hellions shooting bullets and dodge every one, and that half-drunk Peter Pan reject one-shots me with an empty liquor bottle. Lucky. And now Uncle Tar is gonna be ticked because I’m late for Statesman’s briefing”

Teen Tar peered down the hallway. “Either Yarrrr hit me harder than I thought, or we have a giant plant marauding down our hallway.” Teen Tar saw a huge Venus Fly-Trap slowly shuffling toward him. Behind the monster, he saw some paramilitary types in some kind of spider armor, and a beautiful woman wearing wrapped green ivy and not much else. Teen Tar also thought he could see a dazed J Five behind the woman.

“Sever their heads and post them on spikes in the main hall as a message to all of the other EveryNighters that their fates will be the same. Save this one for me." The villainess was saying.

“Sweetheart!” yelled Teen Tar Heel, “I am touched, truly, but don’t you think roses would have been a more traditional present?”

“Impudent child!” screamed the woman. “I am Avenging Ivy, and your head will be the first to decorate this base!”

“You’d have to talk to Yarrrr about that,” said Teen Tar as he dropped one minion with a Storm Kick to the head and a Thunder Kick to the crotch. “He’s the interior decorator. Although severed heads might fit in with the whole pirate theme he likes. I’d prefer some movie posters or track lighting myself.”

“Whoa,” said Teen Tar as he left out of the mouth of the giant flytrap and landed on another minion, wiping him out with an Eagle Kick. “Audrey 2 here needs a better gig than henchmanhood. Maybe you could take ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ on the road Ivy?

“GAAAAAA!” screamed Ivy as Teen Tar leapt straight up out of a patch of green tendrils that had suddenly appeared at his feet.

“You really need to work on you monologueing, babe.” said Teen Tar as he dropped the last of the spider soldiers. “You should look up Nosferatu, he could give you a couple of pointers. Tell Nossy I sent you, he might give you a break on the price.”

“Enough of this!” yelled Ivy. A burst of thorns exploded from her body. Teen Tar dodged most but some of the poison tipped projectiles got though. Teen Tar’s super human reflexes slowed, and the giant Fly-trap grabbed his leg.

Crap, thought Teen Tar. Where the heck is everybody anyway? Has Statesman bored them all to death or something? “Yo,” he weakly yelled out. “A little help?”

Tar Heel sat in the half-completed conference room in the new EveryNighters base. He was glad to see the turn out of the level 50 heroes in the room. Mr. Slowburn was the only one missing that he really expected. Murg and Kooper were out on assignment. Teen Tar Heel was absent as well. Probably sulking after Yarrrr popped him with that whiskey bottle, he thought.

Just then, Statesman flew into the room. “Grandpa always said it was bad manners, flying indoors,” Tar muttered under his breath.

“Greetings EveryNighters,” said the man who put paragon in Paragon City. “I’d like to thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, but we have a situation that is a danger to Paragon City and to you. In short, there is a surge of activity in the Rogue Isles. Seers with M.A.G.I. predict full scale invasions sometime in the next few months from Ararchnos troops as well as hundreds of new Elite Bosses and Arch-Villians. The EveryNighters have…a vital role in this upcoming conflict.”

“Excuse me sir,” interjected MSgt Black from the back of the room. Statesman waved his hand and the old soldier continued. “I will not shirk from my duty sir, but why us? My powers have changed and gotten weaker somehow. It has affected everybody in this room to a greater or lesser degree. If this threat is this vital, our weakened condition may become a liability. Why not bring in other SuperGroups to help or handle this threat?”

“I am aware of this condition Master Sergeant. Positron has been testing in secret since March on the phenomenon. It is affecting all higher powered heroes, not just the EveryNighters. All we can say for certain is it is not related to the city wide “power-outage” of a few months ago, although it may be related to the…solution to that problem.”

Maybe it was his imagination, but Tar thought he saw Statesman wince at that statement.

“What we do know,” Statesman continued, “is that while some of your powers appear weaker, it is really the enhancements that you use to boost your powers are beginning to lose some effectiveness. As long as you boost your powers in a more diversified fashion, you should be able to perform as well or as better as you did before.”

Murmurs of disagreement rose from the room, but Statesman appeared oblivious. Tar was glad that Teen Tar wasn’t here; he would have seen this as the perfect opportunity to hurl his hare-brained conspiracy theories at Statesman. Where was he anyway? And what is that racket in the hallway?

Before Tar could investigate the increasing commotion outside the conference room, Pharma Hawk spoke. “Putting the power issue aside Statesman, Sarge has another point. Why us? What do the EveryNighters have to do that Angels of Wrath or Paragon SWAT or the Twilight Avengers or any other SuperGroup can’t do just as well?”

Statesman stared at her in silence for a moment, appearing to size up PH and debating internally his next few words.

“You recall that I indicated that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of new Elite Bosses and Arch-Villains predicted to join in the upcoming invasion. The question we raised was where would they come from? Thanks to some surveillance taken at great risk to some heroes who will remain nameless, we have a partial answer. They are being and will be trained at an accelerated rate, by former top heroes of Paragon City. Take a look at these slides.”

Statesman showed a series of pictures of a group of low-level thugs clustered around something labeled an “Arbiter.” They were obviously receiving training and assignments from this individual. The last photo stopped on a close-up of the Arbiter, a short, slim, elf-like human female, wearing a twisting metal, revealing costume.”

Tar caught PH’s eye. “Its Trip,” he breathed.

“Indeed,” said Statesman, “most, if not all, of the current and future Arbiters appear to be former members of your SuperGroup, the EveryNighters.”

(OOC--This is the beginning of a joint story that started in an email chain for the EveryNighters SG (Guardian and Pinnacle servers). If you are an EN member feel free to post. Everyone else enjoy).

As Urarisa steps into TI, something was different. It was quiet. Very quiet. Ura pulls open her SG communicator only to notice one member on. Herself. Cold chills ran up Ura's back as she put her communicator away. Her entire SG, gone...where could they be...they are the EveryNighters...they should be on every night...or at least someone should. Urarisa runs frantic to find another hero to see if another major attack has happened. Only to find there were no other heroes. She was the only one on
the entire TI island. "NNNOOOOOOO!!!" cried Urarisa. "They have all turned to the dark side." Sadly Urarisa flew to the tallest tower. She took off her cape and hung it over the edge. Contemplating becoming a villain to join her fellow SG. What will become of Urarisa? Will the Evilnighters
overrun the EveryNighters?
__________________________________________________ _

Tar Heel stared at the pulsing communicator beacon. He hadn't answered the call in weeks and didn't know why he still carried it around. Somebody was looking for a team to fight the Evildoer of the Week. The hero's name was U-something, must be one of the new guys. Kind of a dramatic one too. Time was, Tar was one of the toughest SOBs in Paragon, but lately he felt he was getting weaker every month or so. The hordes of bad guys that he used to laugh at began to hurt
more and more. He could still take a punch as well as he ever could, but Council Flamethrowers and DE toxic spit and a dozen other exotic damage dealers, seem to hurt him a lot more than they used to. The eggheads at Biotechnix had said his mutant abilities had maxed out, and all the trainers
he saw couldn't improve his powers or train him for any new ones. He thought that it might have been too many times wading though diseased sewers, or standing next to an active Nuclear Reactor Core, or just munching on Kora Fruit, but he had talked to some of the other old-timers and they felt it too. Pharma Hawk and Mr. Slowburn were making noise about retiring and puttering around the new base they were planning. Last he heard, HHH3 had moved to Vegas and Mr. Icy Pants had a standup act in L.A. Tar had tried to get to the bottom of the problem but all his leads were dry. Teen
Tar Heel thought it was all engineered by Statesman so he'd stay the Big Man in Paragon City. Tar just thought that Teen Tar had been watching too many X-Files reruns when he came up with that conspiracy theory, but he had to
admit, he hadn't come up with any better explanation.

It didn't seem to affect the new guys as much. Guys like Re-Fridgerator still got excited about new their new powers and going Zig on some poor, dumb, bad guy. They still seemed weaker than what Tar remembered about that security level. He couldn't see Fridge taking on that huge room with all
the Devouring Earth deep in the heart of Eden. He'd get a transporter headache with all the times he'd be sent back to the Hospital.

Speaking of which, that case of Budweiser he had consumed that afternoon was giving him a pounding up in the grey matter. One pop of those special green pills would make that hangover go away quick though. Using those "inspirations" to treat a hangover probably wasn't in Statesman's "Vision"
but he figured he deserved them. Besides, he had millions of influence to burn and with nothing new to get for his powers. The only other thing his months of fighting evil would buy him was a new suit from Serge.

Maybe it was time for him to hang up the tights as well. Maybe some of that millions of influence could get him on the football coaching staff at Paragon U.

The communicator beeped again, but it was different than he had ever heard before. He silently read the strange new text message from his "pal," Statesman. He had identified a strange, new threat, and only heroes with a security clearance of 50 could help. Teen Tar Heel would probably just tell him that States would think it would be "fun" to gank a lot of level 50 heroes so he could show he was still the Big Cheese, but for the first time in weeks, Tar Heel felt an itch to do some tanking. He picked up an old communicator, not the one he carried now, but the old, obsolete, beat up, original EveryNighters communicator. He had some calls to make.
__________________________________________________ _

It was late when the call came in. The sound startled Ph out of a dead sleep. Se sprang to her feet ready to fight, a reflex from all the years on the EN payroll. "What was I dreaming?" she thought. Never mind that, where is that communicator. The sound kept chiming through her room,
"where is that thing?" She thought. "it's the old one, where did I put it". There it was, in that box of stuff from the old steel canyon apt. "Hello, this is Pharma, what's up?"

"PH, its Tar. We have to Talk." It was good to hear his voice, it had been quite a while, months in fact. Ever since the First group of EveryNighters hit 50, and were assigned more administrative jobs they had been out of touch. Even more so since Doc and Neut came aboard, a team as good as ours didn't need 3 Emapths, so she concentrated on behind the scenes work coordinating Defender strategies with Headache Healer, some assignment from the bureau of super powered affairs.

"Ok" she replied, "Go on." She figured it must be serious, because Tar always liked to chat a bit before getting to business. Not tonight, he was right to the point.

"it's a message from States, Clearance Level 50 Only, I need you to find Kooper, Murg, and whoever you can find, but 50's only. States orders."

"Ok, I'll get right on it. Where Should I tell them to meet?"

"I'll be in touch with the details, States was very secretive, I just needed to start the ball rolling"

"Tar?" She said, "Yea PH?" he replied. "It's Good to hear your voice again." Then she ended the signal, He didn't answer, but she knew he could
hear him Smiling. Not that creepy Smile Teen Tar Heel Always gives her. That kid is one big super powered hormone. She thought, then laughing to
herself as she dialed Mr. Slowburn, maybe one day Teen Tar will be as classy as his uncle, hehe but probably not.

Busy Signal? In the 21st century? Who could slow be talking to on the old EN channel? And why doesn't my priority code override it? Probably discussing the new base details with Capt Yarrrr, that pirate has flair for nostalgia, he probably still carries the old comm. link.

"Why us? Why Now?" "After all the odd things that have diminished our individual abilities, what could possibly require the old team?" The new heroes are all spectacular. Neut, Doc, and Peep have trained them flawlessly. In many aspects they are all better then the original team.

"this is going to be harder than I thought" she muttered to herself, Kooper and Murgatroid are on assignment watching Warburg in the Rogue isles. HHH3 has all but disappeared. I think Uarisa knows where Swamp is. I am sure I can find Sarge In Peregrine Island training his own team of bad [censored]
heroes. I know he's off world on some portal mission, I'll text message him on the private channel.

Let me try Slow again. "Ring"....

__________________________________________________ _

Meanwhile, in the Mole Point, Mr. Slowburn anxiously checked his watch. "Look maam, I'm sure this delivery you have for me is urgent but the walls of this cave are blocking my cell phone."

"Please be patient. Azuria's package is almost ready. We're just finishing the safeguards for the suitcase and preparing some runes for her vault. Seems like she is always forgetting to close the thing."

With that brush-off, Slow waited for what seemed like an eternity. The only upside was it gave him time to polish the boots on his new costume. Roaming charges are bad enough in the Shadow Shard but not having any signal always
gave Slow an extra reason to worry. Sure that new fangled containment he seemed to have discovered sure helped him in combat, especially when facing Arch-Villains, but he just didn't seem to have the strength to summon 15
fire imps like he used to and his area hold power was taking more and more out of him each time he used it.

"Here you are Mr. Slowburn, one necklace I need you to deliver straight to Azuria."

"Thanks maam, I'll be sure it gets there. Atlas Park is a quick trip once I get back through the portal."

*Hopefully Yarrrrr has the teleporter working, it would save me a lot of running.* Thought Slow as he zoomed off from the Mole Point. *Uh oh....Ambush. No problem.... Phase Shift should get me through, FBZ is only a minute away.* And with that he activated phase shift and took off
through the Circle of Thorns ambush. *Huff... Puff... I can't seem to stay phased.... Oh crap!* Phase Shift dropped when he was still a ways away from Firebase Zulu. Suddenly his feet were stuck to the ground with dark tendrils coming up from the ground. Slow had seen this many times before.
He had dispatched many Ruin Mages before, sometimes 2 at a time, but this felt different somehow. His life was fading away faster this time. It seemed like every attack was finding its mark. Slow quickly popped a break free and resumed his path to the portal. He would not be stopped and Azuria would have her artifact. He jumped for the entrance, popped a respite, and made a beeline straight for the portal. *Not today boys... Not today.* And he jumped through the portal.

Safely back in Peregrine Island, Slow stopped for a quick rest. Sadly, there is no rest for the hard working controllers in Paragon City. The giant monster call was being broadcast over all the radios in the Portal Corp office. *No time for that today, Azuria needs this necklace.*

"Ring"...

*Hey... I have a signal again.*

"Hello, Slowburn here"

"Slow, Tar is saying States has need of some level 50s."

"Where does he want us to meet up? Please say Atlas Park. Azuria lost that blasted necklace again and this time I had to go all the way to the Shadow Shard. My new boots almost got scuffed on the way back to FBZ."

"Just come back to the base. He's still working out the details and should get back to us shortly. In the meantime we need to get all the level 50 EN together. It sounds big."

"OK, I'll be there shortly. I'll take a quick detour to AP to see Azuria and then I need a quick stop at Icon for some polish. I assume Peep, Doc, and Tritus are close by. Neut should be getting back soon too, I can hear some pedestrians chatting about her last press conference."

__________________________________________________ _

Yarrrrr awoke with a start. He heard a familiar noise in the distance. Wandering over to his desk, he found his old EverNighters' Communicator warbling in the bottom of the drawer.

"Two in the afternoon? Who calls this early? Whatever, it can't be important."

Yarrrrr walked out to the half constructed main room in the new EveryNighters' base. The teleporter was destroyed. The Captain's broadsword was jutting out of the base of the unit. Yarrrrr tried to remember how that happened. He vaguely remembered a huge fight with Captain Arrrrrgh, but he also saw a few empty bottles of rum, and figured he let his imagination get the better of him. Good thing the
city pays for everything on credit.

Then Teen Tar Heel walked in. "Let me guess, the teleporter threatened to steal Cabin Girl away from you again?"

The Captain winged a rum bottle across the room right into Teen Tar's forehead. Knocked Out Cold. "Serves him right, little punk." Just then, Tar Heel walked in. Tar looked down at his nephew on the ground. He gave Yarrrrr a dirty look.

"What? I'm a pirate. Did you expect me to talk out my problems with him? It's not like it hasn't happened before, he should know better."

"Fair enough. States called, there's something big going on, Security Level 50 only."

"What, is the Jell-O mold loose again? I'm telling you, that thing is a liability, we know where he lives, why don't we just set up a police drone?"

"No. Something different."

The Captain wedged his sword out of what was left of the teleporter. "Sorry, I guess we're gonna have to hoof it."

Yarrrrr grabbed a half full bottle of Captain Morgan's Special Stash, took a swig, stashed it in his belt, and followed Tar Heel out the door.
__________________________________________________ _

Things were going well. The Press Conference went off with out a hitch. The new recruits were showing well and were developing nicely. The EveryNighters SG and Legacy was in good hands. "I am so tired and these heels are killin me.'" Neuttrino thought to herself. She was lookin forward to portin home to the new base and soakin out the aches and pains in newly installed hot tub. She pulled out her communicator and activated the porter. Nothing. "What the hell?" she muttered and punched the button again. Nothing. Neut sighed. She grabbed her briefcase and lifted off into evening sky. Paragon city was so gorgeous at sunset she thought. " I could fly forever as long as the sunset remained.
So peaceful"

At that moment she heard screams coming from the streets of Kings Row. Looking down she saw a new hero trying his best to rescue a group of ladies from some Skull beatnik purse snatchers He was overwhelmed and goin down
fast. Neut swooped in and healed the hero then gave him an extra power boost to help him along. She stuck around while he arrested them then took off for the tram. A faint thanks reached her ears as she soared higher. She smiled
to herself and remembered the old days of zooming in and out of buildings doing run-by healings. "Always glad to be of service" she thought to herself, grinning.

As she landed at the KR tram her communicator went off. "Wow!" she exclaimed out loud looking at the communicator. " I can't remember the last time....
hmm" "Hello Neut here." she answered. It was Dr Slowburn.

"Slow!!! Good to hear
from you hun! What's up?"

"I am just here at Icon getting my boots buffed. PH called telling me that Tar is assembling all Lvl 50s at the base. I am about to head there myself" he said.

"What, are Yarrrrr and Peep at it again? You remember what kind of damage they did last time they sparred? What is busted now and who am I patchin up this time? Did Yarrrr actually manage to hurt Peeps?"

"No" Slow replied. " PH didn't say, but something is up. Something serious. Just get a move on"
Hearing the serious undertone in Slow's voice was disconcerting. "Ok, I am on my way. Need a lift or are you almost done?" "Just heading out now. Meet you there"
"Gotcha.. see you in a bit.. Thanks"

She hung up and boarded the tram. Neut mulled over what Slow has told her. "Tar assembling the veteran team. What in the world." She thought about the many adventures and missions she had been on with the team and wondered if a
new mission had come up. As the city sped by, Neut gazed out the tram windows. It came over her slowly. The old excitement, the rush of heading
out on a dangerous mission, the adrenaline rush that came from keeping her team alive and powered up. "One more mission, just one more before....." She hung her head. Could she do it? Did she have the strength? Neut looked up
at sun setting in Steel.

The gleam was back in her eyes. She smiled.

__________________________________________________

Kooper moved through the brush like an animal stalking its prey. "I have to keep him in sight" he thought to himself. As he moved into the clearing, the moon light illuminated his view, confirming what his heart knew to be true, that villain had Murg's helmet.

It had been two days since he heard from Murgatroid. He made the Sunday checkpoint rendezvous, and reported that the activity in port Oakes seemed suspicious. Longbow had asked for volunteers to assist in surveillance of some suspected Arachnos' activity, and the two of us headed out. Murg was supposed to watch the longbow base in port oaks, and his Sunday report was not completely conclusive. There had seemed to be a build up of petty thugs from the recent Zig escape, but no real info as to why they all had
conglomerated here. When he left Sunday he never made the next checkpoint on Monday morning.

The feelings of guilt began to express themselves in Kooper's sense of urgency. He had to get closer. "I should have gone with him" he thought. "Damn Blasters always think they are indestructible." "If anything has happened to him, someone is Gonna Pay Big!"

Koop silently slipped up to the boathouse, carefully peering into the window, he noticed two men talking. "I recognize that guy! But from where?" Kooper's mind raced as he tried to place the man's face. "Could I be wrong?" "I have lived 300 years and not forgotten a face, but this one..No...I
couldn't be."

"If I am right, we are in trouble" he thought. "I have to get this info to the EN base ASAP.

As Kooper turned to run back to a secure location, his steps progress was cut short. BLAM! Is all he heard, and the pain on the back of his neck was immense. The Blast sent him crashing through the adjoining boathouse and into the bay of Port Oakes.

By the time Koop hit the water, his innate healing abilities had already repaired the damage he received from the assault, and he quickly jumped into the air to see if he could identify what had happened. It was too late, he
had only caught a glimpse of someone, or something going stealth and running off into the city. He knew his perception was to low, he would not be able to follow. What was worse is that the two men were long gone as well, and
so was Murg's helmet. "What hit me?" he thought, "It's a good thing they hit and ran, because I'm pissed!" "I better call HQ and get back on Murg's Trail; I hope Murg didn't take a hit like that"...

__________________________________________________ _

Teek was rolling down the road in his new Escalade. 22's on the ground, bass thumpin. Life is good in retirement. Heck, it only took him three months to rack up 60 million. What started out as a career for the good of the people is now about the 3 G's. Girls, Gold, and Glory.

With all the money and fame, why not retire? The villains are
getting more dangerous, and he can't seem to improve his abilities anymore. He bought a nice place in Founders Falls, and now travels to Peregrine Island to watch the Arena matches from his luxury box.

I haven't forgotten how I got here. A great bunch of heroes who took me in when I was young. The EveryNighters. Their passion for the hero game is like a narcotic. You gotta have it. I got into the hero business a little late, so I never got to fight with the legends. Pharmahawk,
Eightball, Neutrino, Tar Heel... WOW! I sure feel lucky. Fighting along side my twin tank, Trojan King, fueled my ascension to level 50. But, with great power comes.................A LOT OF FREAKIN MONEY!

Just then, I heard a strange sound. I looked around and realized it was an old "hand me down" communicator. It was given to me by HHH when he retired. He said a call might come in someday. "Keep it close".

"Hello" I said. "Who is this?" Where is Trips?" came the bark from the other end. "This is Teek I said. " Is this.....Tar Heel?!" "Yeah, hey listen, there's a big deal goin down. Statesman is rallying all the level 50 heroes. You up for a challenge"? "For the opportunity to fight along
side you? HELL YES!"

"Hey, I heard some drunken Pirate thought your niece, Teen Tar Heel, was a guy! That Captain Yarrrr needs to lay off the rum!" I said. "Ha Ha"
said Tar. "He's just a crazy pirate anyhow......................."

__________________________________________________ _

The day had started out like any other normal day in the life of J Five, but it was no normal day. One year ago on this day his mentor Capt. Overload had mysteriously disappeared while fighting crime on the streets of Paragon. Not a day had gone by that he hadn't thought about his teacher and friend but the anniversary had come as a bit of a shock. He knew who he had to talk to.

J was using the new base as temporary sleeping quarters while some plumbing was being fixed at his apartment. At least that's what he allowed himself to believe, he knew that he could have showered here and gone home to sleep, but the added security of being in the base with the rest of the EveryNighters around was comforting in these trying times.

He walked out of the dorm area towards the kitchen to get a better signal on his cell. It looked like someone had gone on a bit of a bender as there were a few empty rum bottles on the counter accompanied by only one dirty glass..... then he noticed something he had not noticed in quite some time. There were voices coming from the Main Hall, familiar voices. Being relatively new to the ENs he wasn't sure he had a place at the meeting but one thing was clear, all of the level 50 EveryNighters were there, even a few he had never met before, and from the sound of it they had been summoned by the call of The Statesman himself.

He decided that before going in, he would make his call #1 because it was important and #2, because this seemed serious and he had some things to say. Electric Lady was already awake when the phone rang, and she knew without looking at the caller ID who it was.
"Hi J Five", she answered. J let out a sigh and said "Ahhh You knew it was me, you always were very perceptive, just like your father." "Thank you, I'm so glad you called.... sniff... so very few truly understand." J Five knew that even he could barely understand but also understood that the depth of his understanding was immaterial, he had lost a mentor, but she had lost a father.

"Listen El," said J "there's a chance that he's still out there somewhere, and as long as that chance exists, and as long as I'm a level 50 hero of Paragon City, I will do whatever is necessary to find him." "I know that J, and I thank you but it’s still so very hard to take the truth. Maybe you can come over tonight.... I really need to talk to someone and Mom still refuses to talk to me about it, she refuses to believe he's gone and insists he'll be back any day now. Honestly I love her, but I can't deal with that right now. I need you,"

"El, I'll be there when I can, but something is going on here at the base, and I don't know what it is, but it's big. All the 50s are here and it seems that the call was sent out by Statesman himself." He listened to the silence coming from the other end of the phone. Then she erupted. "You don't have to go, I know you're a 50, but you don't have to go. Someone has to stay and guard the base, you can do that, then I won't lose you like I lost him. DAMMIT J FIVE YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME!!! NOT TODAY, NOT TOMORROW, NOT EVER!! I CAN'T LOSE YOU TOO. I CAN'T Lose you too. I can't lose you too........ why today?? Why today of all days?" and she sobbed quietly pulling the phone away to muffle the sound. J Five walked back toward the kitchen for more privacy.
"El listen, life is hard and we've chosen a harder path than normal. We're heroes. Without us who will save the city? Who would stand and fight and risk death to protect the innocent? Do you think I would shy away from all your father's teachings now when they are needed most? I promise you I will be there tonight, but whatever tomorrow brings, I cannot promise I will stay. To turn my back on what I believe would be to spit on your father's name, and that I will never do not even for the love of his only daughter. I will be there tonight I promise." Stubbornly agreeing El quietly said goodbye and hung up the phone.

He set the phone down and stared at the floor, rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers, and he heard a scraping noise coming from the dorm area. As he went down the hall to investigate he knew something was wrong and though he wanted to, he felt drawn by a powerful force, beckoning him toward the place where he had just awoken from. His body took over as he walked into the room and he felt his hands reaching for his trusty Katana.

"You look just as Capt. Overload said you would" said a raspy woman's voice. His vision was becoming a little cloudy but all he could make out was a villainess dressed in green "you can stop right there" J Five felt a thorny vine slowly sliding around his legs and holding him from the waist down. "I'm Avenging Ivy and your former mentor has hired me to come bring you to Mercy Island to our base where you will be trained to become a villain mastermind like he has become. I hope you like robots." He detected the smell of poison gas and as he tumbled toward darkness, Ivy turned to her minions and said "Destroy the base, there should be very few heroes here this time of day, but leave none alive. Sever their heads and post them on spikes in the main hall as a message to all of the other EveryNighters that their fates will be the same. Save this one for me."

His last thought before he reached blackness was "They have no idea what they're in for....."

That is nice and addresses the Stamina nerf, but that seems to me to be one of least problems with the Enhancement Diversification. Without much else to slot for my Tankers attacks and resists, I was probably going to put in mulitple end reducers anyway.

[ QUOTE ]
It's enough to make me pull out the old flintlock and start heading north!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm with you brother! And Michael Jordan and Andy Griffith are right behind me!

I'm assuming you are reading other threads on this issue, so I'll try not to repost what I've already said. Mez protection is available to all Tanks and fairly early. The only reason not to take it was the root in Unyielding Stance. Now that is gone, the "casual gamer" (defined as one who doesn't read the boards?) won't have any reason not to take it. By the time they get to 28, they probably will know enough to think that it will help protect against the Rage stuns.

I'm bringing this thread back from the dead because of the proposed changes to Rage. The initial thread is a consensus of SS Tanker opinion at the time on how to fix Super Strength. The goal was not to get SS closer to Scrapper damage, or even to Fire Tanker damage, but to get it in line with the rest of the Tanker secondaries. The proposed changes to Rage were as follows:

[ QUOTE ]
2) Rage changes. Drop the disorient component and put in a -DEF penalty while in use (-25% suggested) and a 75% endurance drop at the end. Raise the recharge time to 8 minutes with a 2 minute buff duration. Alternative suggestion is to make the disorient component a Mag 1 disorient instead of the current high Mag disorient.


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This was way before the changes in I3, so the def reduction is bigger now than it was at the time. The rage change was listed at #2 in order of priority, behind putting damage in KO Blow (which did happen).

The rest of the thread has some good discussion about alternatives to Rage, but I didn't see any post that claimed that the current version of Rage was "overpowered." The posts either agree that Rage had too big of a penalty or it was fine "as is."

You can only have two story arcs going at once. Check the clues window. If you have some old ones you are stuck on an old arc. I just figured this out and took out Dr. Vahz with my 41 Tank just to clear it off.

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Gang,
I'm holding off on touching Super Strength until we tackle a somewhat greater issue with Tankers - namely that they lack that "comic book feel." Specifically, you'd like to see Super Strength be something somewhat, well, "Hulk-ish." But currently, Super Strength is a poor cousin to Scrapper powers - which seems somewhat out of place. Don't worry - what we're looking at as a fix for ALL Tankers addresses this issue.

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That doesn't sound like an Issue 2 change. Well I probably won't be at level 50 by Issue 3.

Statesman, how about you give us a list like Krunch gave you? It doesn't have to be right away, but after ya'll round-table and get some ideas, but before you put a lot of coding work into it. That would give you a little more focused feedback than the last "Hey tell me what's wrong. I'll read every message" post, and believe me, if there is something you missed in your list, you'll hear about it.

The more I think about it, the more I like our proposed changes to Handclap and have it replace or supplement Provoke. The game mechanics require that Tanks have aggro control, but to get there you need Taunt and/or Provoke. Neither of those makes a lot of sense from a role-playing aspect. If you read a comic where the Human Torch dropped a nova and defeated a dozen Doombots, Dr. Doom and the surviving bots are not going to stop going after him because the Thing called them some names. For that matter, how do you insult Doombots (or Fungoids, or Swarms, or Mek-Men, or aliens etc.) Either the Thing does a lot of damage to Doom and his minions so they ignore the Torch to focus on the biggest threat, (AoE damage) or the Thing does a "Handclap" that blows out their eardrums (low damage, high "provoke"). They would then focus on the Thing because he was causing them the most pain (but not the most damage).

Provoke and Taunt really are closer to mind control powers. Maybe the Controllers should have a power that Provokes mobs to another teammate (the Tanker).

The Devs want everything to work as far as game mechanics, but they also want to make sure everything makes role-playing sense in the context of the game. That's why we have this huge backstory about why nobody has capes until Issue #2, even though I'm sure there are a lot of players who don't really care. These proposals would let them do that.

I've used the Gnarley Speed on Demand bind and it works pretty well, but I wasn't paying attention when I set it up and it wrote the binds to the C Drive which on my computer is the Zip drive. It worked just like it was supposed to, but it was a little annoying because sometimes I would have a slight lag as it read from the Zip drive. I had some time to kill today so I deleted it and reinstalled it in the hard drive "E" It would not work when ever I tried to start up the bind. I put a local tell bind in the reset txt so I know that it read the bind in the E drive, but whenever I tried to activate it it said unable to read in keybinds file. I moved it all to the Zip drive, loaded up the reset from that file and it worked fine again. I noticed that it created a subfolder E when I set it up in the E drive but not when I set it up on the C drive. Again, though I made sure I went to where the reset.txt file was and loaded it and made sure because I had a local bind set to test. Any ideas?

The little blue buttons on the interface windows let you undock the windows. Particularly useful to get the map off to the side so you can run it AND see where you are going. Before when I did this I didn't know you could undock it from the mission box and so I had to keep bringing the mission box back to center to read it.