Hellbound

I'd like apply Innate to Hellbound's burning blood. His origin is swathed in mystery and it's not yet been determined exactly where or even when he comes from. To add an alienesque quality to his backstory, I'd like to establish that his 'people', for lack of a better word, developed the burning blood early in their evolution as a defense mechanism. How are Power Feats applied to Arrays? His blood is an array of three seperate entries. Does he have to buy Innate for each Alternate Power for a total cost of 3PP, or does the total cost of the Array itself only have to be brought up by 1PP to cover the increased cost on the Alternate Powers... or does Innate only have to be applied to the Array cost itself? Also -- I don't make mine Marvel. Is that Captain America and Iron Man up there???

"Geeeeeez!" Hellbound exclaimed, his shoulders bunching and his hands balling into fists of their own accord. He might be fearless, but he could still be taken by surprise. They were in a tense situation at the moment and he had no idea when they'd be attacked or when they'd come across their next corpse. It was not a good time for dropping surprises. Hellbound turned to face their new companion, once again ready for a fight. This was the second time this moning that it'd happened to him and, at some point, he was going to get to release some of the building tension by popping someone. Apparently, though, this was not that time. The newcomer was clearly a Cape. Not only was he wearing one around his neck, but he also had a mask (of sorts), and was talking like Hellbound would expect for a superhero. The style was something more darkly dangerous than the spandex-clad crowd enjoyed, however, and was clearly designed to throw a scare into superstitious and cowardly lots. It appeared to be something of a blend between slasher flicks and professional wrestling. Hellbound liked it. "Hey," Hellbound asked Avenger, once he managed to catch his breath. "You don't know a duded named Jack, do you? He likes to sneak up on people too." The Cape didn't look much like Jack. That didn't mean they weren't somehow related, though. After all, didn't the guy who took Roman out say he was calling in reinforcements? Apparently they now knew who he was talking about.

Is Tom Kenny available? :mrgreen:

"We'll go over grappling again later." Hellbound applied a small, sweet kiss to her ear. "For now, focus Daniel-San." He regretfully stepped away from his attractive pupil and tried to bring his mind back around to the instructions. There was a lot that he wanted to get across to her, but they'd never get through the lesson at this rate. "So now you know how to stand, or at least the gist of it. An even weight distribution is important ortherwise you'll be slow to react and always off balance. A good opponent will be able to spot that in a heartbeat and take advantage of you... and not in a good way." Hellbound moved to stand in front of her once more and took up a similar position. His shoulders dropped, his chest seemed to relax and his breathing started to come from his midsection. "Keep your hips relaxed. That's where all of your power is going to come from. You can already hit a ton, but you're still not taking avantage of your full strength. There's a lot of energy you can bring up from your legs yet, but you can't do that if your hips are locked. Stay relaxed and loose." The fighter drew his arms akimbo as he spoke and started rotating his upper body back and forth. The swiveling motion came from his pelvis like he was just taking a morning stretch, but his legs shifted to match the motion. Each time one of his arms moved forward, the opposite leg would turn to provide support. "This is why you want to keep your heel planted when you punch. Just reach forward with your right hand and push off with your left heel. Try to imagine drawing a line through your body that goes from your wrist all the way down your leg. Every muscle group in that line can add power to your punch if you manage your form right." As Hellbound reached forward, his hand lightly brushed over Moira's shoulder. They were standing face-to-face and close enough that he could lightly stroke a stray lock of hair as he withdrew.

"Well I've always thought you were Divine." Hellbound agreed before realizing how serious she was. It took a few moments for Moira's tone and words to sink in. She was telling the truth, or at least as she understood it. Honest-to-goodness divinity played out in mortal flesh. She might be right or she might just be misinformed, but either way she believed what she just said. He wasn't sure whether or not to believe her, himself. Hellbound had read enough comics as a kid to know that the world was a weird and wonderful place, but was he ready to accept that he was walking side by side with an actual Goddess? Looking her figure up and down, the concept seemed easier to swallow then one might think. "No kidding?" Was all he could ask. "Real Halls of Valhalla stuff? Maybe that's my deal, too. I still have no clue where my powers come from. They just seemed to develop over time, but I sure don't remember getting bitten by any radioactive badasses when I was a kid. So how'd you find all this out, anyway?"

If Doc doesn't mind, neither do I.

"I'm not sure I'd like the taste of brain bleach," Hellbound admitted. "But the rest sounds just perfect. Especially the warm bath. 'Better make that at your place, though. The only time I get warm water is when the boiler room catches on fire." He kept his eyes and ears open, watching and waiting for things of darker demeanours to jump out at them. So far the trail was staying cold and quiet, however. No new bodies, no new threats. Whatever they were chasing, it seemed to move quickly and not nest for long. "So what's your story? How'd you end up with so much going on? Power wise, that is. Most chicks I know don't have a punch like a wrecking ball and can't create vacation homes just by wishing really, really hard. You're a bit different, aren't you?"

"Good girl." Hellbound commented. Obviously, Moira was intimidated by their situation but holding up just fine. In a way, that blew his mind. She was the first person on the planet he'd ever met who could take a punch as well as himself, maybe even better. She could also bench press most late-model sedans. Just what, exactly, did she have to be afraid of down here? Maybe the girl hadn't been born with her powers? Hellbound had the luxury of his entire life to get used to be being nigh-invulnerable. His abilities had first started to manifest at an early age and grew steadily with each year of his life. His strength grew into the superhuman range even as a child and he honestly couldn't ever remember suffering serious injury in spite of his rough outlook on life. Puberty, in particular, had blessed him with a tremendous leap in strength, agility and endurance. Things have slowed down a little since then, but he knew that he still wasn't at his peak. There was more to come from his mysterious body and he was looking forward to discovering each new development. Others, he knew, weren't so lucky. Some capes didn't know their powers until later in life and it had to represent a massive adjustment in their mentalities. Who knew how everyone would react to something like that? He began trudging through the tunnel once more, leaving the unmistakeable smell of death and decay behind them. Somewhere up ahead there was still a dead production crew, but so far they'd only encountered Roman as the lone representative and survivor of that mess. They'd find them eventually, though, and haev to deal with more of the dirtier side of the business. Speaking of which, he looked down at the filthy water washing over his ragged boots and mentally compared himself to both Moira and Jack. Compared to them, his style was so worn out and tired that he wondered if he actually COULD be a hero looking like this. It wasn't something that had ever bothered him before, but then again he'd never tried to cultivate a public image. Now that he was seeking more of a spotlight than what he was getting in the ring, was it time to upgrade his wardrobe? "Huh. Ya' think I might need some new threads?" He asked Moira as they walked in the semi-darkness. "You looked pretty sweet through that lens, you know? I can't imagine I come across as anything more than you'd expect to find in a hellish pit like this."

Man, what a fragging day... and I mean that in the worst way possible. Sure, it started out fun with one hell of a good fight. 'Dude I was facing moved like an action star in his best scene and could stich a polar bear to death with that big spear of his, but the whole thing turned into a nightmare once we crashed the ice rink. Who lets kids out when crap like this keeps happening in the city, anyway? I know it's our jobs to keep that drek from killing people, but it's gonna happen eventually. The worst part about it? I'm the one that did the killing. Not the fragger I was fighting, but me. Well, okay, so it was my BLOOD that did it, but still... anit that a part of me? I'm pretty sure I should have been able to do something to keep the fear-fumes from throwing everyone into a panic. I dunno. Maybe I'm feeling worse than I should since it was all caught on camera? I don't think I even made it home before that drek was all over the news. I wonder when I'll get to hear the last of it? Man, hope nobody sues me for that cluster-frag...

Moira and Hellbound have started a thread called Just a Few Pointers to take place at the SuperSlams location in the Rivers, Lakes and Oceans location. Time has been determined to be 1 to 2 weeks after the Friday Night Fights thread. Say, is there any way we could get this topic pinned? It might make it easier to find in the future.

I think I'm leaning towards a military power so foreign as to not even be aware of the United States of America. That's going to lead to them being extra-terrestrial extra-dimensional or from the future. Possibly even a combination of all three. Hm, I'm going to have to go back and re-read Moira's origin.

Hellbound's in a bit of political limbo on this one. Yes, he has American citizenship from his adoptive parents, but he was born as little more than materiel to some unknown military power. They may have been U.S., they may have not. It hasn't yet been revealed or even decided. It's possible they were some private research lab, an international organization, a group of non-aligned criminal scientists or even time traveling, extra-dimensional nogoodnicks who've never even heard of the Western Hemisphere as we know it. Regardless, as materiel he would have been lucky even to have slave status in their culture and no true citizenship or even rights. So he's American on paper, but his true origins remain unknown. Oooh... Materiel? I like the sound of that. Now I have TWO NPC rivals to write up for Hellbound :)

Roman protested the idea of handing the camera over, insisting that he needed to be the one to shoot the footage, but in the end gave up and handed it to Hellbound. That might not be a bad idea, he figured. Give it to someone already determined to step into harm's way and let him capture all the action. Maybe someone trained for camera work stood a better chance of getting broadcast-worthy stuff, but this way the genial host might actually live to see it in the editing room. "Mortuary... groundbreaking?" Roman chuckled as he was being led away. "Heh, I like that. Do you mind if I use it in the show?" Hellbound was examining the hand-held electronic doodad and trying to comprehend its functions. The camera was a pretty basic consumer-goods model, Roman did say they were just scouting locations so there had been no need to lug expensive stuff down, but it was already set up with its night-vision mode blazing. "Ah, cool, I can see in the dark with this thing." Hellbound exclaimed, looking through the LCD panel while pointing directing the lens around. It eventually settled on Moira and zoomed in slightly. "Smile, beautiful, America's going to eat you up." There had been the question of how long they'd have to wait until Jack returned with his reinforcements. To answer, Hellbound pointed the camera further down the tunnel and got a better look at where they were heading. "Wait, shmait, he can catch up with us later. We still have a monster to track down before it manages to eat another production crew. How many people has this thing killed so far? We figured, what, five or six from the party? Maybe that same number with Roman's people and it's not even lunch yet? I don't think we can afford to give it any more of a head start than it already has. "Do you want to carry the camera, or can you see well enough with the workman's-comp-waiting-to-happen level of lighting that we have in here now?" He reached up to tap one of the caged, industrial quality bulbs that glowed weakly against the ceiling.

Hellbound had trouble keeping his train of thought while Moira went through her hopping routine. Even though he'd just told her not to bounce too much, he just couldn't bring himself to make her stop. In fact, that might be a nice tactic for her to use on a real opponent. While he was stopping to pick his jaw off the floor, she could wallop him. "Okay, yeah. Where was I?" He managed to clear his head enough to continue. "Right. Stance. You're a little stiff... er, I mean, you need to loosen it up a bit. Just let your weight settle into your hips. Keep your balance over your feet, don't lean forward, and don't bend your knees quite so much. You just want to keep them from being locked, not really flexed that much. He stepped forward to help guide her into better form as his gloved hands when to her hips and her shoulders. The sparring padding wasn't what a person might think of a boxing glove, it was really just a fingerless glove with a bit of thickened material around the knuckles. Just enough to keep from allowing a sharp edged impact from the bone, so he was easily able to communicate with her through his fingers. "That's better. This way you can move any direction you want just by shifting your weight. It doesn't advertise your movements in advanced because you don't have to recover from a crouch first." Hellbound knew that a lot of martial arts made use of extremely deep stances, but he'd never really seen the utility of such things. Sure they made for great artistic expression, but he just wasn't that comfortable using them in a real fight. "You feel what I mean?" He asked, his head fairly close to her ear as he guided her.

"Don't be so sure." Hellbound chuckled as he reached down to help her up. "People make mistakes, especially when they're thinkin' about one thing and tryin to do another. Happens all the time." For instance, he'd been so impressed by her approach to the ring that he'd completely spaced off helping her into it. Just watching her walk in the spandex training gear was a bit more than the gears in his head could keep spinning through properly and he was surprised that they didn't need to wipe drool off the canvas already. "Pretty sure you didn't hurt anything, looks fine to me anyway." His eyes drifting to the shapely part of her figure that'd made contact with the floor of the ring, Hellbound decided that it looked more than fine. Mentioning that right now wouldn't help them with the lesson, however. "So, ya' ready?" He asked, leaning casually back against one rope and taking in her stance. The man already had a good idea of what he was going to teach her, but he was hoping it was what she had in mind. So many people thought that fighting was about wild moves with cool sounding names. They underestimated how much of it was just basic conditioning and reflexes. "Now I know that you already have the strength, stamina and agility to be a human wrecking ball, but you got no basics. You might be able to put your fist through a brick wall, but not of the wall sees it coming. Today I'd like to teach you how to punch without telegraphing it first and also how to block an attack with something other than your head. "Don't take this the wrong way, but your defense sucks. That's not really a big surprise, though. Someone drops a safe you in then it just means they'll have to buy a new safe. When you can shrug off direct hit from a diesel train then there's not much point in even trying to block, but it still makes for a sloppy technique. You following me?" He bounced off the ropes at the point and took up a soft stance on the mat. His feet were flat against its surface, but his knees were bent and it looked like he could spring up onto the balls of his feet in a hearbeat. His shoulders were relaxed as all of the weight from his upper body settled comfortably around his hips. "See if you can stand like this. Don't bounce around on your toes all the time like they do in the movies, it'll just waste energy and keep ya' from planting your heel when you punch. When you're standing still, keep yourself rooted, but when you move then you get on the balls of your feet and spring off... like this." Hellbounded demonstrated what he meant by jinking back and forth a couple of time. He moved left and right in front of Moira, coming down carefully so that his heels made solid contact with the floor but also begining each movement by pushing off with his toes. "Knees bent, hips relaxed and shoulders down. If you tighten up through the stomach and the chest then you won't be able to breath. Nobody can fight without breathing." Well, nobody except those who were descended from divinity, but that wasn't something he yet fully understood about Moira's abilities.

Nice. So that hottie I've been seeing at the matches finally caught up with me, and I have to say she's full of surprises. No, not the kind where you hear 'The Crying Game' music in the background, but but something even better. The kind of surprise that makes you think damn near everyone in this city is hiding superpowers underneath a nice rack and long legs. 'Gotta admit, she packs a mean wallop in those delicate hands of hers. Not so delicate that she couldn't throttle the life out of an I-Beam, though. One hell of a good grip on that girl, and she knows all the right places to grab a guy. Not that way, you internet horndogs. Well, okay, she CAN grab a guy that way too, but that's not what I'm talking about. Red's got good balance, good reflexes and she's strong enough to flip a city bus over, so she's just a naturally impressive grappler. It's like wrestling with some atomic python, I swear. She managed to pin me more than twice, and most of those I didn't even have to fake. All of them were pretty fun, though. 'Gonna have to get her to pin me some more in the future if the babe sticks around. There's a good chance of that, too. She wants some fighting lessons from the main-machismo, here. I suppose it's to back up a career as a cape since she really doesn't seem the type to want into SuperSlams. 'Have to admit, Red's just too classy for you freaks out there. I don't really see her sinking that level, but I've been wrong before. Maybe that's what she wants? Don't matter. A girl like that? Man, whatever she wants, she gets. And if I get lucky, then maybe I'll get to give it to her again. The lessons, I mean. Jerks. I've started giving her a few pointers in the ring. Just some stuff to help with her techniques, maybe get her to the next level of kicking ass. We'll see how it goes. We'll also see what else she might want out of your old pal Hellbound over here. I'll let you know, but don't expect me to take pictures for ya'.

The OOC thread for Divine and Hellbound's sparring session.

Hellbound stood in the empty SuperSlams ring and worked a few kinks out of his joints. He rotated his shoulders a couple of times, bobbed his neck back and forth and flexed his fingers. The fighter was feeling good and didn't need much of a warm-up as this wasn't supposed to be one of his more strenuous forays onto the mat. Or at least that wasn't the plan. Not at the moment, anyway. Moira might prove to be a more challenging opponent than he anticipated. He'd seen how she moved, how strong she was and what her reflexes were like. The girl was inhumanly powerful and tough enough to survive just about anything he could throw at her, that was for sure. He was quicker, though. There was more experience and training backing Hellbound up, which counted for a lot, but the deceptively frail girl just might have been able to hit harder than him. Just a little harder, granted, but sometimes that's all it took. He'd taken some pretty hard shots in this ring during his fights but he wasn't certain that any of them were as powerful as the person he was about to spar with. One thing was for sure, this was going to be one hell of an interesting afternoon. He flexed his back again, craning his neck to the accompaniment of various popping and cracking noises which reverberated thinly in the abandoned warehouse. Nobody was home, today. The crowds which normally gathered around the ring were all sleeping their days away or off doing whatever it was they did when they were here screaming for blood and thunder. Hellbound's special status as club favorite had gotten him and Moira a little free time to play around today. The place was supposed to be closed, not due to open up until Friday night rolled around again, but there weren't many places in Freedom City where two people of their caliber could knock each other around and not draw attention. Hellbound slapped his palms together a couple of times, the thin padding of his sparring gloves dulling the sound while not quite removing all of the nastiness from it. When a person could put his fist through a car door then it really didn't matter if it was padded before slammed into someone's head. It was going to hurt. But the little bit of extra protection might add a level of civility that Moira would find more reassuring than simply a bare knuckle brawl like he was used to experiencing. And even though the gloves didn't look like they were anything special, he understood that they were supposed to be some high-tech material that could withstand the shenanigans of a couple of bruisers like Moira and himself. A few more movements had his legs feeling pretty flexible beneath the black warm-up pants. He wasn't dressed too fancy for the lesson, just some lose fitting sweats and a tank top, but then again he didn't have any crowds to please today. "Hey, you ready yet?" He called towards the locker room, wondering what was keeping Moira.

Getting the softie out of here?, thought Hellbound. That might not be such a bad idea. On the one hand, they'll be losing and extra fighter in Jack, but at the same time they'd be ridding themselves of a liability. Having Roman around would be a drag, someone that would take time and energy to keep alive; not a good anchor around their neck in pressure situations. "Yeah, that might be best. Get the guy out of here while we go forward. I don't like splitting our forces, though." He also didn't like Jack being an unknown quality. He still knew so little about that man's abilities and strengths, but Moira was a physical element he was much more familiar with. He'd had a chance to experience her performance on a most intimate level, so he knew exactly where she stood in a fight. With the mystery man out of the way then he felt a little more sure about how they'd approach any threats they might come across. Plus there was the comment of reinforcements? Jack had friends that he could bring down to help them out? That might not be a bad idea. While Hellbound didn't like the idea of anyone taking his 'kill' out from under him, there were real lives at stake at the moment. This wasn't exactly the time to be a strutting jackass, but rather someone able to actually do some good for once. "How long before you can make it back?" As the conversation went on, Roman flipped back and forth inside of his own head. On the one hand, his life was in danger. He'd already lost some good friends tonight in a most bloody way, but on the other... he did have his pocket camera. Pulling this out now, he powered the small device up and checked the battery status. "You know guys..." Roman spoke in his deep, confident voice. "It might actually be good to get some evidence on what these things are. For... you know... later analysis?"

Hellbound would be up for it, certainly. He's already in one thread running underneath FC at the moment, but nothing other than that (though a training thread might be starting up with Moira before long). He aint afraid of no snakes...

"What show?" Hellbound asked. "You mean like on TV? You gotta be kidding me." He didn't watch much television, and really couldn't afford cable even if he did, so he had no idea who the guy was. Having never watched the show 'Back-Breaking Labor', Hellbound didn't recognize the beloved reality show host Roman Michaels. He also didn't know about his popular series about "...exploring America looking for people who weren't afraid to break their backs  hard-working men and women who earned an honest living doing the kinds of labor that make civilized life possible for the rest of us." Because of that, he also had no idea why some television star would be wandering around down here looking to get himself killed. "The hell are you doing down here, man?" Hellbound asked the floor-bound host. He was letting the other two help out Roman while watching for threats to come out of the darkness as Jack had asked. That was a comfortable role for him, waiting for the sharp teeth to glint out of shadows and claws to scrabble against concrete. Hellbound was ready and waiting to step into harm's way, almost twitching in anticipation of some decent action. Michaels, on the other hand, was almost out of his mind with fear and only now coming to realize that the three new people weren't here to kill him. Though they didn't look like they were dressed in the colorful costumes of the superheroic world, it was starting to dawn on him that this might be his best chance for survival. "Hey, look..." He'd managed to get back on his feet, a bruised lump starting to form on his head from where he'd hit the pipe and his dislodged helmet laying on the wet floor nearby. "I don't know you guys, but you seem to know me. Not the first time that's happened... but we were down here scouting locations to shoot a segment on the Freedom City Rat Catchers and my whole production crew's dead. If I hadn't been off taking a leak, I'd probably be dead too. So if you don't mind me asking, what the hell's going on here and who are you people?" He was babbling a bit, but that wasn't much of a surprise. The man was in shock from what had been an incredibly traumatic experience. That he was even capable of rational thought at the moment was fairly impressive. As far as getting him out of here? Hellbound didn't think that sounded like a good idea and he said so. Taking the time to escort Roman back to the tunnel entrance would give them the chance to lose the monster's trail and let it (or them), kill again. Granted, there was only one way for it to go right now, but eventually the tunnel they were in would lead into more service-ways and the real infrastructure of the city would be encountered. If they let them (or it), get into that labyrinthine network then they'd never find the damn thing (or things). Sending him back alone wasn't a great idea, either. They didn't know for sure that the killer/s hadn't doubled back or were laying in wait for another juicy morsel to wander past. Leaving the guy to his own devices sound like a sure way to serve him up as the next appetizer -- the very mention of which made the frightened host's face go pale with fear. "We gotta bring him with us." Hellbound suggested. "That way we can keep an eye on him without losing the trail. It's the only way, man."

"Screw you!" Roman called back over his shoulder. "I don't wanna die!" The television show host ran, as best he could, from what he thought was the threat. Several people who'd mysteriously appeared around a slaughtered body so soon after his own people had been killed? They had to be with the monsters, or whatever had ripped through the film crew. In his fevered and panicked mind there just wasn't any explanation. So upset was he at the appearance of the heroes that he didn't even see the low-hanging pipe jutting from the wall, about head height, stretching over part of the tunnel. Granted, Roman was wearing a hard hat as he was required by insurance, but that didn't stop him from making solid contact with the heavy iron. A resounding 'clang' could be heard as the tall man almost knocked himself senseless and fell to the wet floor of the tunnel. "Ow..." He complained from his prone and no-longer-running-madly position.

I'd rather avoid that option if possible. This is Hellbound's only working thread, after all, and since Creeping Killers has been going for well over a year (I believe), I'm not sure when it'll finally come to a close. We could be waiting for some time yet. As long as we don't initiate combat or contact with anything the GM would need to control, I think we'll be fine. I figured that Jack had perfect nightvision at the moment, and am ready with a description of the runner if he wants to check it out. Or I could try to scrounge up another thread for Hellbound to be in, but so far that seems to have not worked out so well.

I don't see why not -- seems like that sort of thing happens all the time, though I can't come up with precise examples. He might not have Mjolnir, but then again it could be kind of cool to see what the Nazis might have come up with as an equivalent using WWII era super-science?

An arm reached out to Moira as she stepped up to Hellbound, offering her a seemingly-safe place to stand. "Crap if I know." Hellbound answered, honestly. He was peering towards the noise, as if trying to pierce the gloom by sheer willpower alone, but so far wasn't having much luck. The sound of running footsteps could be heard and a figure dashed through one of the dim circles of light being cast by the overheads farther down the tunnel. "Hey... who was that?" He asked rhetorically, starting to run after the intruder. "C'mon, let's go find out. You with us Jack?"