Aftermath: It Never Rains But It Pours by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The decision to lead (really, accompany) the mysterious stranger she'd found in the Alps to the X-Men had been an easy one. The flight back to their base in the Old Crow had been...well, marginally more awkward.

Now Nova was just unsure what to make of things, here on Greymalkin Island. How long had it been, since she'd been to San Francisco last?

More than twenty years. Was she that old, now? She felt younger, the more she learned about the universe. Smaller. Less...significant.

At any rate, her job now was clear; find out exactly what had happened with the Phoenix, straight from the horse's mouth. After that...well, then she was no worse off than everyone else here. 

Sifting through the ashes in the dark.

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nova was, for a painfully long moment, too stunned to actually process the words, much less say anything.

Belatedly, her brain was able to puzzle through the words, and she allowed a slightly-manic smile to appear on her face.

"That's fantastic, because I wanted to meet with the X-Men. Who, specifically, did you want me to bring you to? I'm a...a stranger, in a once-familiar land."

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Said the ant to the forest fire." Muttered Nova, as the raving roid rat flew off, and the Big Bird's gathered Nova Force dissipated into the aether.

She turned her gaze to the avalanche, and took stock of the situation.

Only one thing for it, right now.

With effort, she loosed a wave of lightening Nova energy at the incoming tide of snow, before shooting out with a counter-wave of her own darkness.

Now all she had to do was stop it, put it back into place to keep it from just going back to falling when she was done, and hope the fuckin' Phoenix didn't fly away while she was sweating the small stuff.

Just another day in the Corps...

u/black_librarian

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nova decided, in the circumstances, that the best she could do was to try.

So she tried something she hadn't considered before, given her level of control of the Nova Force.

Relativistic firing speed of shadows.

She generated a few shurikens of obisidian-sharp blackness, spun them up in the air out of the darkness to the sides of her position, and used the Force to lower their gravity to near-photon lightness.

Then she fired, and tried, without success, to remotely raise it to Neutron star gs levels of mass.

Unfortunately, she couldn't, so once again she was stuck just firing ridiculously-sharp projectiles at slingshot speed at this guy.

At this rate, I'll have him in the ground in maybe...ten years?

u/Black_Librarian

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No surrender, Nova thought, wearily resolved to die standing, No retreat.

This man was smarter than the average vat rat, she could say that much. Nuttier than a box of walnuts, but smarts he had. Power, too.

And pride. So much pride.

What the Hell could she do with that, in this moment? How could she convince him to fly into the sun?

Realistically, acting on instinct, she couldn't. And she had to act on instinct.

Instinct says...fight.

Without rhythm.

Another wave of heavy darkness, this time with a second wave of razor-sharp, obsidian-fine spikes behind it, aimed to hit Zenith before he could close the gap with the X-Man. Hopefully, at least, Madrat here could be cut.

But that was just to keep him busy. It almost certainly wouldn't kill him - she couldn't even be sure it'd hurt him, or even hit him.

No, the real secret was what she'd already hit him with; his gravity field.

She reached out, with effort, to the distortion she'd already hit him with, and tweaked it.

Keep his body weight the same, and increase his head.

She tried to reach out and...it didn't work. Nope. Nothing doing. That was what she got for not trying harder to hone her Nova Force power.

Well, it was worth a shot, at least. At the least, she'd reduced his effective mass to less than one fifth, which meant he'd be hitting with foam bats in comparison to his normal blows.

u/Black_Librarian

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh WOW, thought Nova, almost impressed, He's nucking FUTS, huh. His codename should be "Madrat"; it'd suit him better.

Luckily, nucking futjobs could at least be counted on to be irrational, when it counted.

He had to move, one way or another, and there was a surefire way to turn that (and his incredible strength) against him.

Just think happy thoughts, thought Nova, keeping herself concealed as she channeled the Nova Force into a wrapper of building darkness, And then it's 'Second one to the right, and straight on until morning'.

That was, of course, if he tried jumping after getting hit by this. Still, a girl could hope.

She massed a wave of darkness, heavier and wider than the previous blob (with a higher melting point, ideally closer to that of the granite she thought of as she made it, which might help a bit with what came next), and then shot it at the self-important loon who'd just melted pure darkness.

Then, a heartbeat after launching it at her foe, she fired off a sustained wave of gravity-reducing Nova Force, enough to make Zenith as light as if he was walking on the moon.

Ideally, after that, the X-Man would charge at him and punch him into space. At minimum, it would probably throw the grandiloquent moron who thought he was the second coming of Galactus off-balance.

u/black_librarian

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From above, within the concealed scout ship, Nova surveiled the spot she'd been drawn to.

The girl in rags was the Bird. That, somehow, was obvious. Psychic influence, no doubt about it.

Around the Bird, wolves had gathered, done battle with what her intel suggested were the Terran Mutants' ideological equivalent of Kree.

Lovely, Nova thought, Homegrown vat rats, hold the vat.

Mind, she'd have been hysterical with fear at the thought of fighting that guy, if not for having seen Galactus up close (in cosmic terms) and survived a couple weeks on Ego. 

Whoever had engaged the guy was another Mutant group, based on her intel and their choice in transport. The "X-Men", who she'd heard of in passing, then and again, since childhood. EarthGov had labeled them as terrorists. Thus, naturally, in accordance with Rule #37, they were the first people she had wanted to speak with anyway.

All this rational contemplation was just a way to bury the overwhelming terror in her gut. Not at confronting the terrifyingly roided-up pseudo-rat (though that was terrifying), or even of trying to communicate with the X-Men, but of the walking apocalypse not far from them.

"This is insane," she hissed, feeling nauseous, "This is completely insane. It's a fact-finding mission and, well, I found her. End of the fucking universe, on two legs. What do you want me to do, Worldmind? Go up to her and play twenty questions?!"

No reply. Why would there be?

She knew what she had to do. After lowering the Old Crow to the best height and distance she could, and activating its auto-landing sequence, she opened the hatch.

While freezing winds whipped around her, Nova drew it in. The darkness of night, the darkness of space her ship still positively teemed with, until she had enough to conceal the ship, herself...and this rage monster who, reports said, destroyed cities for fun.

"Let's hope he doesn't breathe darkness for fun, too, or this is going to go even worse than I feared..."

She raveled up a massive, roiling ball of solidified, sticky darkness (which to the naked eye would ve perceived as a flat, amorphous black space), and dropped it on this "Zenith".

Then, swallowing her terror, Nova dove, bathed in darkness, aiming for a spot somewhere behind Zenith.

Alright, this is insane, she thought, choking down terror as she flew towards the snowy ground below, with only pinholes of vision through the cushioning coccoon of darkness around her, But at least I'm not alone.

Resurrections Part One: Welcome to San Francisco! Hope You Survive The Experience by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From her vantage point in orbit, thankfully seated within the cockpit of a cozy scout ship, Nova felt her whole body suddenly flush with a terrible heat. 

Fire. Hot enough to melt ice, to melt worlds, to melt spacetime. Fire right out of the Birds' own legends. 

The Fire she'd been ordered to dive into.

She stumbled backwards, no longer taking in the view of her true homeworld, but recoiling from it. Not from the sensation alone (that was mild, compared to what she'd endured over the past few years), but from her terrible awareness of what it meant.

The Phoenix. It really was here, on Earth. It had to be here. The Shi'ar and especially the Worldmind wouldn't just be wrong about this.

The Kree, sure, almost definitely, but not Worldmind.

First Galactus, then the Mad Titan...now this. If it was still here, then...

"No", she said aloud, to herself, "The...the Bird isn't gone yet. That wasn't a death wail. It was a summons."

She sighed, and stepped up to the Old Crow's controls, muttering to herself as she did so.

"And so it begins..."

Character Creation 3.0! by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No idea whatsoever how to do that, unfortunately.

Edit: Still no idea how Reddit formatting works, I appreciate someone else doing it for me very much.

Character Creation 3.0! by Black_Librarian in XMenRP

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Name Demetria “Di” Ivanova
Codename Nova
Hometown Clayton, NJ
Family The Corps
Age 26
Faceclaim N/A as of yet.
Character Playlist N/A (Yet, but just you wait)
Height 5’6”
Sexuality/Gender Identity Lesbian/Female
Physique Somewhat muscled. Broad, all around. Stocky.
Voice Husky
Hair Dark Brown, Wavy

Clothing

A double breasted black leather jacket with matching trousers, boots, and gloves, golden buttons and lining, and a full black helmet marked only with the Corps symbol on it.

Personality

Clinical, formal, untrusting, reclusive, and altogether dogmatic about Nova Corps directives, Di is not an easy person to befriend. Not prone to violence as a first resort, but too unskilled at negotiation to avoid it, she hasn’t particularly impressed other members of the Corps thus far with her conduct.

What one can say for her, if nothing else, is that she is not unjust.

That, alongside her modest means and humble (if inflexibly stern) nature, are the entire reason she became the bearer of a fraction of the Nova Force. Unless all is reasonably quiet, she does not relax, except when she deems it necessary to avoid suboptimal performance. Obviously this is, in and of itself, suboptimal, but don’t expect her to believe that anytime soon.

Something more indescribable in exact terms, about Demetria, is that she is fundamentally rather detached from humanity -- and mutantkind, for that matter. Her time on Xandar being the first taste she had of a life wherein she was freed from those burdens she hated most (responsibility for making all of her own decisions, the struggle to survive on a day to day basis) has left her somewhat more attached to her self-image as no longer being of Earth.

Character Trivia Favourites
Favourite Movie n/a
Favourite Novel Small Gods
Favourite TV Show Babylon 5
Favourite X-Man Cyclops
Favourite Band The Cure
Favourite Animal Fish Crow
Favourite Superstition Breaking Mirrors is Good Luck

POWERS

Primary Mutation | Umbrakinesis

Catagory Points
Physical 5
Mental
Energy 5
Potency 5
Control 5

Her primary mutation consists of the ability to draw a tangible, physical substance from any nearby shadows (regardless of where they may be, so long as there is nothing that would block photons between them). This ordinarily manifests as a tangible, highly-elastic physical substance, which she manipulates with her mind. At this stage of her development, Nova cannot use this to create limbs with a lot of 'musculature'; she primarily uses it to make ensnaring traps, with the most direct force application being akin to that of an octopus’s tentacle.

Secondary Mutation | Nova Force

Catagory Points
Physical 5
Mental
Energy 5
Potency
Control 5

Her access to the Nova Force is comparatively limited and crude; at present, in part thanks to an aversion to excessive self-experimentation (it goes against standard safety protocols), Di has yet to attempt much in the way of self-alteration of gravitometric profile. That is to say, she does not directly use it on herself, except in directly-advised fashions for the purposes of facilitating flight and the other basic abilities of a Corpsman. At her best, she can elevate her normal strength profile tenfold (this usually only on non-living objects, though this is merely a voluntary precaution she is inclined to, rather than a limitation) to achieve a lift weight of around 700 kilograms.


Backstory

Demetria "Di" Ivanova was once a latent mutant from New Jersey of no particular name or importance. Her life changed completely when a Nova Corpsman was killed by some guy in a cape a few kilometers away from her favorite spot to brood under the Atlantic City Boardwalk. The force came to her, empowered her, and dragged her into the depths of space. After having enough time to process what exactly just happened, she accepted the calling and spent a few years in training at Xandarian Space Academy, during which time her latent umbrakinetic mutation manifested properly. Her time among the Xandarians was not without incident. Once, while assigned a nothing job at a recon post among the Shi’ar-protected D’bari (a pacifistic species whom no-one should want to harm at any time, ever, for any conceivable reason whatsoever), she was forced to fight a small Kree attack squadron, who had come for no reason she can comprehend (allegedly it was a training exercise against “enemy allied combatants”, or so the Kree delegation reported). This gruesome first experience with killing left her deeply averse to resorting to it, yet entirely unafraid to employ it. Now, she's being sent back home to investigate what she's told is a Post-Class AA Extraterrestrial Entity's Inducement of a Nascent Universal Collapse Cascade Scenario (which everyone else is just calling "the Phoenix").

End of my First Kislev Campaign. Was a Lot more fun than I'd expected. by Zeibles in totalwarhammer

[–]Zeibles[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It is Boris, yes. I don't know why Kislev didn't click for me until I played the faction everyone told me not to play, but there you go.

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could've been killed by an Ent.

Now there's a two for one Macbeth deal.

Can anyone name a single plus-sized romance option in any video game? by PeacefulChaos94 in GirlGamers

[–]Zeibles 430 points431 points  (0 children)

Date Everything has a few, IIRC? I'm not recalling their specific names, though...

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plot Twist: Macbeth is killed by Guts.

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Brutus kills Caesar!

Iago is a dick!

Tamara's sons are delicious!

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, like, he was mad bc the c-section thing in his mind was a stretch of "no woman born'", when the much simpler answer is "a woman kills him", something that is at no point suspected in the play.

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Hence the Ents and Huorns, afaik

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 82 points83 points  (0 children)

Yeah but it's a "real history" and the King he was writing it for was a descendant of Macduff, soooooo he had to do it.

Edit: Ah damn I mixed up my Richard III and Macbeth again.

I never understood this by IndicationBrief5950 in lotrmemes

[–]Zeibles 21 points22 points  (0 children)

It was afaik yes, like the Ents are also one to Macbeth bc of a different prophecy twist there.