Hellbound

Something within Hellbound's chest screamed at him that this was wrong, that people weren't meant to have liquid in their lungs like this. It was intensely uncomfortable and the fearless hero came about as close to losing it as he'd ever before in his life. He was going to drown, of that he was fairly certain. Here he was, walking along like a moron, and trying to breath river water. It couldn't be done, at least not by people like him. Granted, there were plenty of heroes out there who could breath water, but tended to stick with more aquatic based adventures. Hellbound decided this had all been a mistake and started kicking his way towards the surface. He'd managed to walk a fair distance from the shore and so what he could see of the waterline above he would have to do some swimming. First, however, he needed to expel the water which had already filled his lungs. There was a convulsing of his abdomen, pushing against his chest like a thick cough, and what fluid he'd taken in was spewed back out. But then he felt the same change come over him as he'd experienced back in Archeville's lab. It was like something in his body shifting, something subtle and hard to describe. It was like an itch inside of his body. Before, it'd been isolated to his head, but this time the shifting sensation occurred in his chest. More water was drawn in reflexively, just as if he'd meant to draw a normal breath of air, and suddenly the discomfort had vanished. Hellbound was halfway to the river surface by the time he realized that he wasn't drowning. In fact, he was perfectly comfortable and breathing just fine.

Hellbound didn't want to open up his mouth at first, a part of his mind screaming at him that he'd drown if he did. This was water, not air. People didn't breath water and Hellbound, most certainly, qualified as people. Granted he could do things that most people couldn't, but so far he'd regarded himself as just tougher and stronger than the normal human. That didn't mean he could breath water, however. That just meant he could let himself be hit by trains and falling buildings without too much worry. This, however, was a little more subtle test of his abilities. As Hellbound continued to walk forward, the water level continued to rise higher and higher above his head. He could already look upwards and see the glittering sun through the surface of the churning river, but he wasn't exactly the poetical type to comment on such things. All he knew is that he really needed to take a breath. Hellbound closed his eyes, gathered up his nerve and opened his mouth. Cold water immediately rushed in and he could feel the chill upon his teeth. Fluid hit the back of his throat, which had reflexively closed in rejection to the intrusion, but he took a moment to force it open and breath...

Dun-dun-dunnnnnn.... :P

The water was still a little chilly for the time of year, but nothing that'd throw him into hypothermia. Certainly cold-weather swimmers had survived much worse over the years, but it still wasn't his ideal sort of recreation. Of course, he wasn't here to have fun. He was here to test a theory. Archeville had informed him about how his body tended to adjstust to adverse conditions, and that should include changes to keep him from drowning. Hellbound himself knew that there'd been a few times in the past where such a phenomena might have happened, or it may just have been him getting lucky and surviving. There was only one way to know for sure, though. His feet hit the water with some splashing and an uncomfrotable soaking of his clothes. That wasn't the important part, however. What he ws interested in was how his body would react once the water got up over his head. Hellbound kept his pace steady and even, not slowing or flinching when the river level came up higher and higher, passing his waist followed by his chest and then his neck. The next bit was his chin and then both his mouth and nose were cast beneath the surface of the cold, river water. For one moment of uncertain panic, Hellbound clamped his mouth closed so as to not draw in any of the water now rushing over his head.

April 7th -- Mid Morning, Hellbound tests out his emerging Adaptation power in Testing the Waters

Just a thread to allow Hellbound to test out the discoveries that Archeville made regarding his Adaptation abilities. He's been informed that his body will adjust to detrimental environments, but this will be the first deliberate use of the ability. As usual, anyone who wants to play along is welcome to join.

"Okay..." Hellbound muttered to himself, trying to convince his own mind that the following act wasn't actually impossible. "You can do this... you can do this." He clapped his hands together twice, producing a rather solid sound similar to a hammer landing on anvil, and pumped his shoulders. The fighter honestly believed that what he was going to try could happen, and indeed would happen, but a lifetime of thinking otherwise was not easy to overcome. "The Doc said you could do this. His machines took the readings, he saw it happen... he said you could do this. "Of course..." Hellbound had his doubts, "The Doc's a bit of a lunatic, but still. He's a brilliant lunatic. It can happen and it's going to happen." He stood out on the promenade, staring at the churning waters of the Wading River and made ready to run the experiment. One last mental assurance, the hero fixed his eyes with a hard stare and started marching forward.

Hellbound, not being the most observant individual in Freedom City, managed to miss the relatively stealthy approach of the Captain. Instead he continued his 'investigation', for lack of a better word, to try to figure out what he could do about that creeps responsible for burning down the building. Of course, his investigative skills amounted to little more than simply kicking over a few burning embers and poking his way through curtains of flame and smoke. To his unpracticed eye, however, there wasn't anything he could find that would be of any use. Gripping one burning, wooden support in frustation, Hellbound ignored the heat coming off of the flaming wall stud and gave a hard squeeze. The damaged wood made a small explosion of charcoal and embers, but the figure didn't seem to care. Nor did he notice when part of the back of his jacket managed to catch on fire. It was about then that he noticed something on the ground. Bending to pick it up, Hellbound realized that it was a nearly empty can of gasoline. The metal container had survived the fire intact, and what small amounts of fluid left inside had long ago reached its flashpoint and was spewing a dying jet of flame from the thing's spout. "Aha!" Hellbound announced... though he wasn't sure at all what to do with it next.

And suspicious looking, he found. A scruffy looking time, dressed in worn, bargain-bin clothing and a tattered leather jacket had started poking around the ruins of the building. That wasn't truly odd, after all there would probably be a number of people interested in why the place burned down. For that matter, as an underground fighting club, scruffy looking ne'er-do-wells were most likely a regular feature of the place. This one, however, was acting a little more curious than most. Rather than standing towards the edge of the dying blaze, he walked around the ruined building without fear of injury from collapse, burns or even smoke inhalation. It was as if the nosey schlub either didn't care about getting hurt, or was tough enough to not even notice the hazards which surrounded him.

By the time Hellbound's cab had dropped him off at Superslams, the fire had mostly burned itself out. A few damp embers from the late-arriving firemen smoldered in the darkness, and it was clear that the bout he'd been scheduled for later on was canceled. Well... unless they wanted to start a new class of contest, but that wasn't very likely. There was a good chance that the club would be out of business for a few days. Unlike Morely's, the didn't have to make much in the way of repairs. This was an underground, quasi-legal fight club, after all. They could pretty much hold their bouts wherever they wanted as long as they didn't make too much noise about it. Eventually someone would be in touch as to where the new setup would be located and everything could start all over again. But the message had been delivered and made clear. This Mutant Mafia didn't play games. That old, hackneyed line of "they put one of your boys in the hospital, you put one of theirs into the morgue" came to his mind. The gangsters weren't going to forget the defeat he and Avenger had handed them last night. This was likely to be only the first of a series of strikes. As he stood with the gathered crowd, watching the last of the wharehouse burn, he wondered what his next step should be. There was always the possibility of getting his fellow Knights of Freedom involved, but somehow this seemed too personal for that.

Hellbound should be up next in the initiative order. Let me know if his post was premature, however, and I'll strike it.

"Sweet." Hellbound spoke after being informed of the remaining gunman. As he ran towards the stairs, however, he felt the need to reply to Ignis' introduction. "Welcome to the party, man! I got dibs on the dude upstairs!" He was unaware that Scarab had already filled Dark Star in on the man's location. Even if he had been in on the silent communication, however, he'd still race the gravity-wielder for the right to bring down the last bad guy.

"Well that was a little rude." G.D. Badman chuckled as the line went dead. He threw his own phone out the window of his car and drove on only the rural highway. It was a pain trying to steer with one hand in a cast while the other worked a cell phone, but somehow the bright orange glow behind him made it worth while. The pain wasn't quite so bad when he overlayed the image of a blazing Superslams lighting up the night sky. This Hellbound guy might think he was ready to take on the Mutant Mafia, but they were going to show him what messing with the Big League meant. "Bring it on, tough guy!" G.D. called out to no one in particular. "We're just gettin' warmed up!"

That rang a bell with Hellbound. It was the desolidifier... whatever they called that class of power. The guy who kept phazing in and out of the crowd, and the one who's hand Hellbound had crushed for pulling a gun on him. "What." Hellbound was keeping this short, but not so sweet. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach that he wasn't going to like the way this went, and there was no way he felt like playing things out as if it were a game. "Whaddya mean, what?" G.D. replied, acting as if this were just a social call. "Can't buddies call each other up from time to time? Especially when maybe, just maybe, one of them has something reeaaallly important to tell the other one?" Hellbound let his eyes close slowly, dreading whatever news was about to come next. "What did you do...?" He asked. "Do?" G.D. was all innocence and pleasantness. There was nothing wrong in his world, certainly. Hellbound's, on the other hand, could use some help. "Hey, I didn't do nothin'. What's wrong with you? 'Acting like someone's out to get you, maybe? Like they had a beef with you and wanted to make sure you knew it?" Hellbound had been tired of the game even before it started. Apparently the Mob liked to toy with their prey before delivering the bad news. Something had been done, he was pretty sure of that, but finding out just exactly what that was might have to wait for G.D.'s sick sense of humor first. "Fine. What happened then?" Hellbound asked, unable to keep an aggravated tone out of his voice. "Ah, well, you must'a heard, then. You know that place you go once a week to pick up a li'l extra cash? What do they call it? Superslams? Yeah, well, turns out they had some bad fire code violations. 'Guess you can't really blame them, what with it just being some old abandoned wharehouse and all. But, man, you should'a seen how fast the place went up when..." That was enough for the hero. Snapping the phone close he barely even registered it vanishing just like the dapper stranger earlier.

"I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. Walkin' with a dead man over my shoulder", the ringtone sang. "Waiting for an invitation to arrive. Goin' to a party where no one's still alive." That was certainly ominous enough. Hellbound threw a couple of curious looks at Blackavar who could only shrug in return. Not knowing what else to do, Hellbound moved towards the bar so that he could answer. The phone was into the chorus by the time he managed to pick it up. "I was struck by lighting, walkin' down the street. I was hit by something last night in my sleep. It's a dead man's party, Who could ask for more? Everybody's comin', leave your body at the door. "Leave your body and soul at the door . . ." "Yeah?" Hellbound snapped open the clamshell and practically barked into the device. "Hey, old buddy." There was a sarcastically chipper voice on the other end which Hellbound didn't recognize. "Maybe you don't remember me, but we met last night. Shook hands, even. One hell of a grip you got there, pal."

By the time that Hellbound managed to extricate himself from the new hole in the antique bar, there was still no sign of the mysterious stranger and Blackavar was deep in animated conversation. Apparently there was some debate raging concerning everyone's level of safety. Everyone knew that this would be coming eventually, but nobody had expected it to happen the second that Hellbound signed his name. Superheroes tended to get into super-trouble, and that meant a lot of danger for the mortals who gathered around them. It was just natural for them to acquire enemies who were larger than life and largely insane. That was something they could accept. What had caused a little concern, however, was the speed in which it'd happened. The first night Hellbound sang, he'd gotten into a fight. That fight, it seemed, now had led to greater threats. Even though nobody knew just exactly who had threatened them, there was no doubt that he was a pretty scary dude. In the end, however, it was agreed that this was a fact of life they'd accepted even before making Hellbound their offer. Whether it happened tonight or years from now, they knew that eventually they'd fall into the line of fire. Fortunately, they were okay with that. At least for now. "Besides..." Tweak had expanded the debate to now include Hellbound. That hero had moved closely enough to the musicians that he could overhear every word, anyway. "He was bluffing. 'Trying to scare you into backing down, maybe running the other way. If they really wanted to destroy your life then they'd just do it, not send some goon over to tell you it was about to happen." The theory made sense to Hellbound, but as luck and dramatic tension would have it, that's just about the time that a cell phone on Morley's bar (curiously close to where Hellbound had just made a new impression), started to ring.

As Hellbound crossed his arms defiantly, waiting for the guy to either back down or start throwing punches, the stranger half-turned from the hero and raised one hand in a casual gesture. His fingers flexed into an odd set of gestures and, for just one moment, the image of a pentagram could be seen glowing as if an aura around the appendage. Suddenly a dark surge of energy seemed to flow from the handsomely dressed man and rocketed across the room. There was a bolt of deep violet ripping through the air and smashing into Hellbound's chest, knocking him backwards and bowling the heavy hero through his band like they were bowling pins. "You have no idea, do you?" The stranger was still half turned from his targets. He hadn't even bothered to fully face them, but his hand was still gestured in their direction even though the mystic aura had vanished. "You... Hellbound... are f'cked." It sounded strange to hear such sudden vulgarity to come from a mouth that, as of yet, had spoken nothing but well mannered and cultured tones. "You should be dead now. Dead, cold and forgotten, but I'm not that nice of a man. We're going to be watching you from now on, do you understand? We're going to be watching and learning what you value. We're going to be finding out what you love, what you cherish and what you can't live without. "Then we're going to burn it all to the ground. Those you love will die. That which you think you can't live without will be destroyed. Your life... or at least that part of your life that exists outside of your own body... will be crushed. And once you see it crumble before your eyes, then we will kill you." Hellbound was picking himself up from the stage along with the help of his bandmates. He had to admit, they looked a little scared. He didn't feel so good himself. "We do this because you choose to get involved with something you shouldn't have. You think you're a badass, Hellbound? Well, you don't know what Hell actually is. But you're about to learn." The hero choose that moment to strike back. Snapping out of the half-crouch that Blackavar had helped him into, the Hellbound charged at the well dressed stranger only to find himself cruising through empty air as the man had simply vanished. Once again, the antique bar suffered more abuse as he rammed into it at full speed, putting one more deep indentation next to the one he'd made last night.

Hellbound shot him a look of incredulous, and sarcastic, surprise. His arms went up as if making a theatrical attempt at placating the mob boss. "I wasn't aware that I needed your forgiveness for beating the crap out of one of your thugs. You say he's never been beaten like that? At least not that you know of? Well, maybe if someone had long ago, then he wouldn't have been such a jerk last night." The other members of Blackavar stood behind him, though they weren't sure as to how things were going. Granted, this was supposed to be part of their reputation now. They had a lead singer that tended to slap criminals around from time to time, but they weren't convinced they needed to be caught up in it every night. Further, there wasn't anyone else here to help out or serve as witnesses once the police showed back up, and given how bad this was likely to get then it was a fair bet the cops would be making an appearance. "Avenger told your boy last night. Stay the hell away from this part of town, okay? It's being watched, it's being protected and your kind of crap's not going to fly anymore. Keep it up and he won't be the only one stuck behind bars, wearing a neck brace." The dark stranger grinned as if he knew the reply was coming. Hellbound wasn't exactly hard to predict. He only had a few different responses in his repertoire, and being challenged like this was one of the more common variety.

Hellbound stood quickly, knocking his chair to the side as he spun to face the intruder. The rest of the band followed suit and stood in formation behind their new lead singer. Apparently the choice was proving to be a good one after all as the members naturally fell to him taking a position of leadership. "I don't think I've seen Tony B. take a beating like that for..." The sarcastic tone in his voice gave light to the fact that he was just playing with the band. "Well, to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen him take a beating like that. And he's done a lot of work for us in the past. Very hard, physical sort of work that ended up with a lot of medical insurance claims. The fact that you lasted as long as you did impresses me greatly." The intruder's face took on a darker cast. Though the lighting in the ruined bar hadn't changed, new shadows crept over his features as if displeasure were growing over his very soul. "The fact that you managed to have him arrested, on the other hand, upset me even more. I wasn't happy with the loss of his crew, but to allow a trusted lieutenant like that to sully his own record and lose valued time while incarcerated is just..." He shook his head. "Unforgiveable."

Well, now, whattya know. Looks like that new band I'm with actually has a name. Blackavar. Not sure what all's behind that, but they said something about some book that I probably won't ever read. Waterlogged Downs... something like that. Who gives a frag. We rock. Watch for us, we're going to be playing near you somewhere an' if you don't come pay to watch us play, I'll do very bad things to you an' all that you love.

"No..." Came a sudden voice from the darkened regions towards the back of the bar. "Why don't you let me worry about that?" Everyone turned in surprise to see who'd intruded on their private band meeting. Sid was about to tell the visitor to sod off, and that this was a private function, but something about the way that he held himself made the punk rocker back down. It was a tall, slim and well dressed figure that stepped out of the shadows then. Had any of them been looking in the proper direction in the proper ways, then they may have spotted him following last night's impressive brawl. He'd been the watching figure that stood unnoticed at the side of the street and vanished without anyone even knowing he'd been present. "Your new singer's managed to do some unfortunate things to one of my lieutenants last night. Impressive things, I'll give you that, but unfortunate nonetheless. Though he did have help towards the end..." He let the words trail off with the unspoken threat that Avenger hadn't escaped his notice, either. Both heroes now had become marked on the Mutant Mafia's radar.

"But that's the future." Wally reminded them all in his cool, cutting tone of voice. "We're a long, long way from getting there. First we need to make sure you're going to stay with us, Mr. Sampson." Hellbound snapped his head around at the guitarist, not really liking the use of his real name, particularly with the 'Mr.' honorific. "We can't keep changing singers every few weeks and expect to ever get established. But if you show us that you can stay focused, keep working and don't let your day job get in the way of things, I think we're going to do just fine." By the way he said 'day job', it was clear to Hellbound that he meant the whole superhero thing. Good publicity or not, it was something that could easily take his focus away from the band and prevent him from being the dedicated performer that they needed. "Why don't you let me worry about that?" Hellbound answered back, not intimidated by Wally's unexpectedly strong presence.

"We don't even know, for sure, if Watership Down's in the public domain yet." Animal admitted to Hellbound. Clearly this wasn't an argument he was willing to be dragged down into once more. It was a future element of the band that they just weren't ready to sieze. "It should be, but I'm not a lawyer. I just play one on stage. Could be that one day we end up getting our asses sued off just for our name, let alone any albums we may or may not come out with." That last had some additional stress oriented towards Sid, who was clearly still anxious to start pushing for the attempt. "Sound-wise, we're looking to hover around the symphonic metal genre. Either gothic or power... somewhere between Epica and Nightwish. It makes it a little easier when you can crib themes from decomposing composers. Plus I think it's still an emerging sound that'll give us a longer life-span than the typical pop-rock flavor of the month. "Maybe it won't make us all rich, but I think we can pull decent following out of it and at the very least get real comfy for a long, long time." Animal then directed a finger towards Tweak, giving that member a bit of importance that Hellbound hadn't noticed yet. So far, the jumpy technician really just seemed to be a background element of the band. "Tweak's our key to that. We'd need a ton of choir and symphonic backgrounds that, honestly, there's no way in hell we can afford right now. Barring the unexpected use of the Freedom City Philharmonic and Operatic society, that's the only way we'll be able to get that complex of a sound. "Even after we do start performing before live symponies, we'll still need him to draw everything together. 'Dude just has a knack for keeping varient themes together in ways that even I don't understand."

"We're wankers to be doing crappy covers in bars." Animal retorted. "How are we supposed to come up with our own album, let alone our own sound, when we don't even have anyone writing our own music?" "You know I have some lyrics written down." Sid started to lose his accent again. "We need to get some music behind it. That's why you have to find us a songwriter." Hellbound felt as if he were coming in on an old argument, something the band had gone around about for a while now. "And I said I would." Animal agreed. "After I found ourselves a new lead singer. We have that, so now I can start looking for a songwriter, okay? What, you think talent just craps itself out of the sewers?" Tweak and Wally were letting the pair hash things out, but the discussion didn't last long. Animal was right in that they needed someone who could actually come up with music before Sid's lyrics could be put to use. For that matter, Sid's lyrics had to be found before they could be put to use. Apparently the punk bassist had a habit of scribbling notes down on bar napkins and loose pieces of paper whenever the mood struck him. Keeping track of those later, however, hadn't been quite such an important task in his mind.

"You're kidding, right?" Tweak asked, not sure if he should be amused or amazed by the questions. "I mean, I knew we weren't famous or anything, but we had flyers all over the place last night. They announced the band's name before we went on stage... and then again for the street party. We told you the name twice. At least. First when Moira set it up for you to sing with us, and then again when we met you, remember? "Pretty sure we told you again when we paid you." Hellbound felt a little embaressed about the lapse in his memory. But, in all fainess, it'd been a rough night followed by a rough day. As if the fight with Tony B. wasn't bad enough, just a few hours ago he finished rouging up Millennium Mall. "Give him a break." Wally stepped to his defense. "Dude's lucky he doesn't have a concussion. Hell, maybe he does. Can't really blame him for being a little spotty today." Though, as he spoke, Hellbound noticed the guitarist paying particularly close attention to Hellbound's eyes. It was almost as if he were looking for signs of drug use. To be perfectly honest, he probably was. "Blackavar!" Sid proclaimed with pride, not catching the casual medical examination that Wally was throwing out. "We calls ourselves Blackavar. Came up with it me'self." In true round-robin style, Animal had the next few words to say. Hellbound was noticing that almost all of the bandmates liked to share the spotlight, with the single exception of Wally. That one only spoke up when he actually had something of importance to say. Hellbound could respect that. "He got it from a character in Watership Down. You ever read that?" Animal asked, with Hellbound returning a negative. He wasn't much of a reader. "It's a good book, and the character in question is a real survivor type. Sid wants us to call our first album The Black Rabbit of Inlé..." Sid grinned and was about to speak up on the subject, but Animal refused to be interrupted and spoke over the bassist. "... BUT WE HAVEN'T decided for sure yet." "Oh, c'mon, mate! It'd be bloody brilliant! So dark, so flipping powerful. We be wankers not to do it."