Peridot
Forum Replies Created
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The chaos and pandemonium caused by the “Iceberg Lounge” incident had taken Kraken by complete surprise, and that was not even counting the invisible jet. He hadn’t seen it, hadn’t even heard it or felt any electric field from it and when it appeared all hell had broken loose. The grenades and explosions were bad enough and he was lucky to have been covered by rubble before the helicopters began to open fire. Debris from the explosions had blown him backwards and caused a number of injuries despite shielding himself with his mechanical tentacles. The wounds ranged from just scrapes to a leg severely bent out of shape, and a large gash in his side leaking a lot of blood.
Once his life was no longer in imminent danger, Kraken had taken a moment to focus his wers in order to speed up the healing process of his body. Normally, some of those wounds would have taken days to close up. Instead, Kraken had spent a good amount of electrical power to hasten the process. Platelets quickly aggregated at the wound, preventing any more blood loss as the injuries scabbed over. The areas of skin became red and inflamed as his immune system worked to purge bacteria and dead tissues cells from the site. Unfortunately, while this was going on, his nerve activity was increased too. Even small wounds when healed through such a rush job cause an agonizing amount of pain as his neurons repeatedly fired signals of pain throughout his body. Eventually, all of the cuts were healed enough to no longer be worrisome. Instead of taking weeks, the wounds would begin to fade away after two days.
More worrisome was his twisted leg, which refused to leave the inflammation stage. It was still tender to walk on, and would probably take a week or so to fully recover. While waiting for all of his wounds to heal, Kraken had been lying low and spending more time as a civilian. Too much was happening, and it was good to get a read on the events in Gotham. More Batman sightings confirmed that Batman had indeed returned for all intents and purposes, if slightly different. For the most part, Kraken had managed to avoid getting entangled with any of the metahuman or alien-involved fights until he decided to take a trip to the heart of Gotham and found the roads completely frozen.
Now, he was beginning to feel well again and decided to take the time to familiarize himself with the back -alleys and streets again. Still in civilian garb, Kraken had started heading over to a nearby drug store which would likely be poorly guarded when he heard a strange noise. Intrigued, the electricity manipulator paused for a moment and listened to the strange chanting noise. It resounded on several different frequencies, much unlike anything he had heard before. Then, the noise got quieter and quieter and then even with his super-hearing abilities, he was unable to pick out the sound. Had it been coming from above?
Frowning, Kraken quickly changed into his super-villain outfit and then began using his tentacles to gingerly climb up the wall of a building, carefully testing the limits of his recovering foot.
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Skvaada flinched in disgust from Stutle’s messy eating habits as the highblood devoured the disgusting spoor pie with nothing but his bare hands! “Highblood, must you really be eating that?” The question came out as a slightly sad grumble.
The indigo-blood hesitated for a moment before deciding that the wrath of an inebriated purple-blood was worth preventing any future brain damage. A devious expression flashed on her face once before she shielded her eyes with the broken shades.
Humming the theme music to one of her favorite movies: “In Which The Main Character Must Undertake A Presumably Impossible Mission When He Is Framed As A Traitor to the Alternian Empire And Slated For Culling In Order To Expose the True Traitor And Clear His Name, etc.” under her breath in a not very subtle but morale boosting way, she tensed each muscle in her body up and prepared to spring into action, ignoring the nervous sweat beginning to bead on her brow. Operation Grand Theft Pastry was a go.
At this point two new trolls entered the room. Her pointed ears picked up on the words “flying”. Apparently the new troll had also flown over here and resulted in a crash-landing. How nice to finally meet another troll who enjoyed flying possibly as much as she. Although, that landing sounded pretty bad. “H-Hello, and welcome to the party,” Skvaada greeted with a slight smile on her face, attempting to feign composure.
While Stutle waved a sopor covered hand at the newcomers, Skvaada reaches out quickly and gave the tin a tug to pull it out of reach before he could go back to eating it.
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I happily agree to these rules!
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With each passing day, Cody invested more funds, time and energy into his super-villain persona, “Kraken” and less and less into his civilian alter-ego. The boy began to become overshadowed by the monster as each petty crime and penny ‘earned’ went to improving his gear and the dank corner of the metro tunnels which Kraken called ‘home’. His clothing was still black and electric-blue, but instead of being made of spandex it was woven with several layers of carbon nanotubes. This made the outfit light, very conductive bullet resistant, and incredibly strong and durable. Even his metallic tentacles contained strands of the ultra-hard nanotubes within them. The magnetic appendages also sported a layer of sharp barb-like needles comprised of inky black ferrofluid along the underside of each tentacle.
He still used a backpack, now also reinforced carbon nanotubes, to hold his supplies but also frequently used a small utility belt around his middle containing more vials of home-made black ferrofluid, some packets of salty peanuts, a small can of WD-40 and a multi-purpose pocket knife. His backpack had more conventional super-villain supplies and plenty of electrolyte containing snacks.
Currently, the villain was inspecting the mysterious invitation for what must have been the thousandth time. It seemed to be but one of many invitations sent out to all of the big and small-time criminals in the city, gathering them all in notoriously dodgy Iceburg Lounge. It was near the designated meeting time, and lowlifes of all kinds began to crawl out of the woodwork.
“Yo, Kraken. You comin’ or what?” A hoodlum asked as he noticed the super-villain lurking in a nearby alleyway and turning Nemaz’ note over in his hands. Although Kraken never worked for any particular gang, he was excellent at carjacking and often sold his gang newly stolen vehicles. The squid-themed villain blinked and then pocketed the note, turning to the source of the voice. “Hahah, nope! I don’t think I will…”
The thug frowned. Word on the street was that Kraken had more than a few screws loose, most likely having to do with his electric powers. The person who had explained it to him used some big words to describe the problem, but the explanation had gone in one ear and out the other. But this was the opportunity of a lifetime! “What…are you scared or something??”
Kraken flashed a toothy smile pulling his hands out of his pockets and quickly draped an arm around the thug’s back whispering conspiratorially. “That’s exactly it! You do know they serve calamari in the Iceberg Lounge right? I never trust any place that serves fried squid! Have fun though, okay?”
Just like that he released the thug who gave him a strange look before meeting up with fellow gang members to head to the designated meeting point. Kraken promptly used his barbed tentacles to climb up the side of the alleyway onto the rooftops. From there, he found a nice roof with a bit of a vantage point and settled down. He casually snaked his tentacles around the building’s satellite and television cables and began draining electricity while he pulled a pair of binoculars and a small ear-piece out of his bag.
Truth be told, he WAS afraid to enter the Iceberg Lounge. Invitations had been sent throughout the town gathering all criminals to that one place. An up and coming crime lord would try to recruit members discretely. This 1 AM meeting in a location known to be a criminal hang-out had the distinct odor of a trap. One tip off or observant cop and the entire building could be surrounded by the police aided by the military, superheroes and who know who else. So many people all crowded into one place: escape would be tricky even if the fuzz didn’t try to flood the building with chemical weapons or what-not.
No, Kraken was much more content to remain a safe distance away and listen to the bug he planted on the thug. It only took a few minutes to fiddle with the earpiece until he began picking up the sounds of footsteps and friendly bravado among the gang. Kraken chuckled at some of the bawdy jokes and had just begun to settle in for the night when he heard the sounds of a fight through his ear-piece.
“Well that’s an interesting development!” He pulled out the binoculars and began trying to get a look at what was going on when he spotted Batman’s crest in a bold color of red on the GCPD building. Batman was back. It didn’t take long to tune into a news station reporting on the capture of several thugs around the outside of Iceberg Lounge and the reappearance of Batman.
Clapping his hands excitedly, Kraken pulled out a small carton of sea salt and began munching on the kernels like popcorn. “This is gonna be fun! But crap, I guess I lost my bug.” He retuned into the frequency of his planted surveillance device. There was a faint, gritty noise filled with static and … piano music? Hopefully, the now unconscious thug was hung up somewhere close enough to listen in on the meeting. He eagerly refocused the binoculars on the Iceberg Lounge to see if and when there would be any response to Batman.
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The movie theater Kraken chose to enter featured a re-done version of some incredibly cheesy romantic comedy. The villain took a seat in the back corner where he would be well-hidden by dim shadows and remain undisturbed by any other movie-goers. Once the feature film started and people stopped entering the theater, he cautiously pulled out the money and began to count it carefully. The total amount was quite a lot, but it would have to be allocated carefully.
First thing on his list was to get better protection from cops, any so-called heroes and possibly fire. Kraken flipped out his phone and began typing notes for his future spending. A bullet and stab-resistant vest, gas mask and some sort of fire-retardant clothing would rank high on his list for supplies. As after-thought, the villain made sure to remind himself to obtain some blue-prints of the city’s inner workings and sewer tunnels for easier transportation. Now all that was left to do was fence some of his stolen jewelry and then find some supplies in the black market.
Kraken carefully tucked the last fat wad of dollar bills into his backpack and then leaned against the back of his cheaply cushioned chair to watch out the rest of the movie. Eventually, some ridiculous orchestrated music sprung up and predictably the main character finally managed to have a happy romantic ending with a hot “Prince Charming” type after learning some vaguely moral Aesop about selfishness and ambition vs. the merits of self-sacrifices and generosity. “Someone please gag me,” Kraken muttered to himself as he left the movie theater along with the other occupants. Were people really so satisfied by such a revolting ending? Was it too much to simply want it all? He wanted money, respect and happiness and he’d snatch it away with force if he had to.
On the sidewalk outside of Monarch Theater, Kraken decided to head over to some of the notably more dodgy parts of the city in hopes of finding a fence and a way into Gotham’s underground black market. Hands in his pant pockets, the villain in disguise trudged several blocks and down a few suspiciously twisted and unkempt alleyways, eyes peeled for trouble.
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Skvaada yelped as a loud slam and a thud sounded from above against the roof of the hive. Hopefully it was another troll and not her talonbeast lusus causing trouble for some inane reason or another. It would be such a major faux pas if her lusus started a kurfufle with her host’s lusus.
Tobias had actually managed to catch a small seal-like creature and was minding her own business on a rocky crag next to the shoreline.
At least, the raucous din woke up Kolarabi. Skvaada positively glared at the lowblood when she was about to start swearing but the curse got cut off. Good. There was no need for such filthy language in the hive of a royalblood such as Zembra. The royalblood in question promptly let out a “hell,” causing Skvaada to cringe and look for a distraction.
“Highblood, your hair is looking magnificent!” She helpfully reached around the couch and handed Stutle the hand-mirror carefully so he could look at the back as well as the front.
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[[ Sorry for being way late to the game! ]]
Name: Dr. Alejo Estrada (aka: “Finch” )
Age: 27 years
Appearance: Alejo is 5’10” in height and sports dark, wavy brown hair, a slightly dark complexion and bright green eyes. He occasionally wears round-framed glasses instead of contacts, depending on the situation. The most notable aspect of Dr. Estrada’s appearance is his trans-femoral prosthetic left leg. He generally has an easy smile on his face and eyes marked with the signs of fatigue and sleep deprivation.Personality : Dr. Estrada has a mild disposition and easy-going without being laid-back. He can be firm in his view-points and quick to make decisions. It is rare to see him visually distressed, and even when upset he tends to wear a pleasant, more insincere than usual, smile on his face. Although Alejo is friendly, polite and generous while at the same time secretive and resistant to direct questioning.
Skills: Finch displays a deep scientific knowledge and expertise in the field of genetics, synthetic biology and medicinal nanotechnology. While his current specialty is on developing
(and deploying??) bioweapons, he is capable of reverse-engineering enemy technology and providing technical assistance. Additionally, he is trained as a field medic and a trauma surgeon.His physical capabilities are somewhat hampered by his prosthetic limb. His climbing and balancing skill are impaired, but he can move quickly across normal terrain. His body is infused with his own brand of nanomachines for fast regenerative properties and enhanced agility and reflexes, but Dr. Estrada has little to no training with weapons. He is not accustomed to combat situations.
In his spare time, Finch may play flight simulators to relax. He has shown aptitude as an pilot for helicopters and conventional military aircraft.
History (optional):Dr. Estrada passively resists inquiries into his history, but weaves anecdotes abut his former life into conversations. His files are relatively bare of details.
It is known that he had been working under the U.S government since an early age on a variety of classified projects in an undisclosed location. For reasons unknown, he refused to work on a new project and fled across the border into Mexico, taking his research notes with him. Dr. Estrada lost his leg during his escape and has joined Militaire Sans Frontiers for both protection and the opportunity to utilize his knowledge and continue work on his pet projects.
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“Alright then. Catch you later,” Kraken responded, flinging himself out of the window as Banna left the room and began to walk down the hallway. The woman was nice, even if she did send him out on a seemingly pointless errand. The ground was rapidly approaching, so he flailed out each tentacle to catch himself before falling. The radios were filled with police and ambulance chatter about the various crimes, arrests and emergencies going on throughout the city. Everything was so noisy, and by now power had been fully restored to the city.
The alerts for the few muggings and thefts Kraken had performed were put on hold as police officers dealt with the warehouse incident and looked for survivors as well as any sign of the responsible arsonist. It seemed that for the moment, he would be allowed to get away with his crime. The young man quickly recovered the stash of credit cards and jewelry he obtained from behind the hospital, and was just about to leave when that blasted shark man reappeared. Kraken promptly flattened himself against one side of the hospital to avoid being seen.
It would be way too soon for another encounter, especially after Dur-El had essentially told him to get lost. Kraken’s eyes widened as Dur-El left again at top speed with what looked like a mangled, bloody body in his arms. The body vaugely resembled the wrestler chick and wasn’t moving. She looked dead, and he wasn’t sure whether the woman had been killed by Dur-El or something/someone else. Either way, he had lost what might have been his first super-powered friend. The young man wasn’t prepared for this much death, especially on his first day as a super-villain and was beginning to feel a bit of a damper on his usual manic energy and enthusiasm.
Kraken decided to take this opportunity to disguise himself back into civilian garb, before he got into any more trouble for today. Sneaking back throug the back-alleys of Gotham, the metahuman eventually reached the dumpster where he had dumped his civilian clothes. The green woolen sweater and jeans fit easily over his villain clothes. His new backpack proved an excellent way to both carry the fistfuls of hundred dollar bills he stole from the ravaged ATM machine. Once all of the bills were safely stuffed into one of the outside pockets, he shouldered the backpack. Each tentacle stabbed a hole into the main compartment of the backpack and hid inside, concealing the metallic appendages from any prying eyes. Lastly, Kraken took off the blue mask and shoved it into a different backpack pocket. His transformation to average young adult was complete. Strolling along down the street, Kraken decided to head over to Monarch Theater and buy a movie ticket to kill some time until night-fall.
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Kraken let out a soft hiss of relief as the shark monstrosity released him after offering a threat. The delinquent waited until Dur-El was already dashing through the hall before muttering resentfully to himself, “Next time you see me, huh? Maybe I should just blind you then.” That shark guy was going to be bad news, and he was quite sure they would meet again, eventually. The high-pitched shattering of glass signaled Dur-El’s departure from the hospital. “Ha!” Kraken exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air, “I’m getting away with it, heck yeah!” It rankled just a little bit to be deemed as less important than some fire, but if that meant he didn’t have to get arrested or fry up some humanoid shark then who was he to complain?
Speaking of the warehouse fire, the ambulances of the hospital were really becoming active as they tore out of the parking lots towards all of the fires caused by Arishav, their sirens squealing and blaring much too loudly for Kraken’s sensitive ears. Patients and corpses were starting to arrive as well, hosting everything from burns to gunshots. “Hey,” the electricity manipulator turned to the concerned brawler woman in the room. It seemed she had finished grieving just before Dur-El left “So…you still want this Venom? Or should I just sell it on e-Bay or something?” The Venom junkie claimed to be going straight, but he wanted to make sure before he pocketed the drug canisters and left the hospital. The lights of the city were back on, and with all of the emergencies going on about the hospital, it was becoming an uncomfortably loud place to hang out with too many sirens and too many people. He’d come back for delicious power flow of the generator a little later, once things had quieted down.
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Kraken was too distracted by the weird-shark like creature distorting the walls to dodge out of the way when said creature reached out an arm and grabbed him by the collar of his clothes. The meta-human yelped in surprise and outrage as he got hoisted up by the creature and Dur-El’s words began to register in his head.”Arkham ASYLUM!? What the hell, I didn’t even do anything wrong!” The electricity user began to squirm and fidget in an attempt to loosen the beast’s grip while two tentacles bent over in a non-violent attempt to pry the sandpapery fingers away from his neck. The remaining two held on tightly to the Venom belt and the remains of a pretzel, and flicked about agitatedly. The wriggling about increased as Kraken’s protests became faster, more desperate and a noticeably higher volume.
“Are you actually taking me there just because I look like a squid? That’s pretty hypocritical, Sharky! And I swear I paid for the pretzels and the window was all the plant guy’s fault, ‘cuz he just came in like nobody’s business and oh hey, this Venom? It totally isn’t mine, I was just holding it for someone. Seriously, do I even look like I use Venom? Well I don’t it was that woman’s stuff, I don’t even know where to buy Venom from. Okay, fine I’ll PAY for the window, okay? Just let me go! I need a trial! I need a lawyer! I need a psychiatrist! You can’t force me to live with all of those weirdoes in the asylum!”
At this point, Kraken had crossed the threshold into complete hysteria and started thrashing about wildly and screeched repeatedly, “Let me go!” The chant of “let me go” grew louder, faster and more slurred as his tentacles sparked dangerously, signaling an attack if he remained restrained for any moment longer.
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Kraken huffed as he dug around in the drain for the venom capsules. Eventually, his tentacles latched around a belt of glass vials containing some viscous looking green liquid. The meta-human dangled the canisters in front of him critically: the green goopy stuff certainly looked like venom. Apparently the drug was supposed to be transform the user into a ridiculously strong, nigh unstoppable beast. Surely the wrestler chick wouldn’t mind if he used just one of the many canisters she had…
Sticking out an impudent tongue, Kraken smirks, “Nah!” He promptly folds the belt of canisters around a lower tentacle and rises to his feet, attempting to brush off the dirt and damp leaves stuck to his outfit. No way was he going to start on a drug like Venom: not only was it addictive but it would ruin his figure. From the brief appearances broadcasted over television, Venom users all looked like complete freaks. It’d probably rip his suit too. Kraken headed back the way he came towards the hospital when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
With a wide grin, the electricity manipulator dashed over towards the food truck, “Weiner on Wheels” leering across the counter at the civilian running the snack vendor. The man, middle-aged and sporting a large beer gut took a step back in alarm at the way the four tentacles snatched two bottles of sports drink off of the store racks and slammed the plastic containers onto the counter. “Three pretzels, if you would, ” he demanded to the terrified man who shakily handed over his desired snacks. Kraken then paid using some of his stolen money, much to the vendor owner’s surprise. He stowed a pretzel and sports drink into the backpack along with the venom canister and then happily continued onwards to the hospital.
The first pretzel was gone in minutes, and Kraken busily guzzled down electrolytes and salt in his sugary, abnormally colored sports drink as well. Tuning into the police radio, it seemed like something big was going on down by the docks. On the one hand this would mean that the police might not bother the hospital for a while, but eventually people (both thugs and police) would be rushed to the hospital.
Eventually, Kraken reached the Gotham City Hospital and using the same method as before, clambered his way back into the room using two tentacles while the other fished out the venom canisters. “Hey! I got you the Venom and a pretzel, are you still fighting this dude and WOAH!” The empty-clawed tentacles instinctively arched into a ready stance akin to a scorpion’s tail, at the appearance of a grey-skinned, clearly malevolent creature. “Who the hell are you and can’t this room get any privacy?”
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The indigo-blooded troll delicately lifted a claw to cover her mouth as she let out a yawn. Working all day and most of this night on her precious little surgical experiments and then strifing with a cantankerous lusus was tiring! Truth be told, Skvaada had always been a bit of an insomniac, and work was just a convenient excuse to avoid sleeping. A strange, golden-clad room haunted her dreams as of late. It was strange to be conscious while asleep instead of enjoying the dreamless, spoor-induced slumber of her peers. Strange, but useful. Skvaada’s productivity always doubled when she slept. Perhaps it would be good to take a moment to erase the beginnings of dark lines under her eyes. The troll could feel her eyelids get a little bit heavier.
An excited clap from Zembra startled her enough to snap Skvaada’s eyes open and clear her mind of her sleepy haze. The highblood was getting his hair dyed in all the colors! A grin flitted across her face: how rebellious!
“…Kolarabi, which colors will you choose for your hair?”
A quick glance told her that the low-blood, Kolarabi, had her face shoved into a pillow and appeared to be asleep. Skvaada immediately reached out a hand to gently jostle Kolarabi awake, but restrained herself, sighing with exasperation. Attempting to shake the troll gently could result in some seriously unwanted bruising. The indigo-blood bit her lip and took a moment to uncertainly view the situation. Should she let the lowblood sleep or bother her highblood friends for help? Normally, her course of action would be clear: ignore the lower caste. Except, didn’t being a lowblood already give Kolarabi enough problems? No one deserved to experience horror-terrors on top of that as well.
“Umn.. excuse me, Zembra. Sorry to disturb you, but may I ask where your recuperacoon is?”
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The noise of cracking cement and concrete captured Kraken’s attention as enormous plants began to wind about the hospital, sealing it off and focusing on the window he had just come from. It seemed the new interloper must have plant manipulation powers. That or the wrestling chick had some tricks up her sleeve besides just super steroid induced strength. He laughed, clutching the stitch in his side as malicious giggling spewed forth uncontrollably. “Wow, I hope you know what you’re getting into, lady! Hahha, sucks for you!” The thought of rushing back to help his new ally occurred to Kraken but was swiftly dismissed. After all, he would be more help actually obtaining the Venom capsules, plus he would be in less danger as well. The supervillain continued on down the road towards the bank and arrived just outside the building. Taking a moment to concentrate, Kraken focused on making his two lower tentacles magnetic enough to attract any metallic objects and began to patrol around the outside. A few civilians screamed as he approached, while others seemed surprised that he was not attempting to rob the bank but instead looking for something along the side of the curb.
After collecting several lost pennies, a few pieces of aluminum gum wrapper and some dropped buttons and pins, Kraken let out an angered hiss of frustration. “Grr, do I actually have to look myself!? This blows.” He returned his tentacles to normal and squatted down in order to search more thoroughly.
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I have no opinion, one way or another. Go for it!