Saving Lives a Mile High [open to all]

[applesaucemod]

Welcome to another ordinary day in Manhattan. This barely even qualifies as a dream at all, it's so like waking life. The dreamers will find that they're their own perfectly normal selves going about their perfectly normal business and thwarting perfectly normal crimes in their perfectly normal spandex outfits.




What's that? No, of course it's normal to wear spandex (or leather, for the more chic among you) and go around beating up muggers and thwarting your villainous counterparts, don't be silly. What else would you do with your afternoon, not use your superpowers to better the world? That's grossly irresponsible of you; don't you know that with great power comes great responsibility?

So get out there and make the world a better place -- and be sure not to let that disguise slip if you do make it in to work today. Wouldn't want anyone to learn your secret identity, after all.


[OOC: Characters will find themselves thrust into the role of superhero...or at least, super-powered human. Whether they'd use those powers for good or evil (or use them at all), they'll think they've always been this way (or maybe just since that time they fell in toxic waste and developed cancer telekinesis). Usual dream party rules apply: all players and characters welcome regardless of membership status. Characters will remember or forget the events of the dream at players' discretion.]

Comments

i don't have any icons for this

[postictal]

Tim Wright has been rendered utterly unrecognizable. At least to anyone who knew him.

For one, he's actually smiling.

For another, no one would be able to pay him enough money to be wearing what he's wearing, but wearing it he is. While grinning broadly. And rollerblading down the street. In bright pink rollerblades. And sunglasses.

Timman, obviously, is out and about and ready to prevent any minor distress or slight inconvenience he comes across, broad daylight or otherwise.

YES YES YES YES YES YES

[apidae]

Well, and how appropriate that he should run into Beegirl! She weighs almost nothing and flits about wildly, just like her namesake, and as soon as she sees him, she buzzes on down to this new (old?) friend.

"I like your helmet!" she says happily, lighting gently on a branch.

THIS IS THE WORST YOU'RE THE WORST

[postictal]

"Why, thank you!" Timman booms, having apparently no concept of an indoor voice. What an unusual specimen! Clearly not in need of any assistance, but he grinds to a halt regardless with what is certainly an ill-advised maneuver that sends him wobbling precariously. Being completely unaware of how perilously close he got to completely faceplanting into the concrete, Timman's enthusiasm remains cheerfully undampened.

"You are quite - small," he observes, his tone one of someone making a loud, decisive pronouncement, as all his statements invariably sound.

[fucking_ebay]

Daylight? No. When the city sleeps, that is when Stygian Shadow awakes and takes up his mantle as guardian of the night. Peter The Stygian Shadow (and you'd think reporters wouldn't need that spelled for them, but that's public education for you) is one with the shadows, one with the night, as he slips through the inky darkness of the night in search of the evil he is sworn to defeat.

WRONG!!! THIS IS GREAT WE ARE BOTH GREAT

[apidae]

"I am!" she affirms. "Mind if I ride with you?" She flits over to hover near his shoulder. "I'm pretty fast, but fast doesn't mean much when you're this small. Where are you going?"

[postictal]

His chest swells as he puffs an impressively peacock-esque puff, hands planted on his hips.

"Wherever the call of the distressed may lead me!" he announces fearlessly. This is, to his credit, absolutely true. Any cries of distress will surely herald the arrival of a bold, rollerblade-clad means for assistance, along with any appropriately bouncy music that might mysteriously tail him wherever he roams. "Certainly, you may join me!"

[omnomnom_feels]

There will be peace!

A winged man alights on the sidewalk at a busy intersection, deigning only to glare at the people who shriek and run from his sudden appearance. Here, as everywhere, there is chaos. They mistake him for the danger, but he knows that these people are the ones who hurt each other and themselves, constantly squabbling over irrational disagreements, twisting what should be the intricate tapestry of their lives into painful knots of turmoil that tug ceaselessly at his consciousness.

No more. His gaze is steely, imperious as he spreads his golden wings against the sky and holds out a hand. They cannot feel turmoil, make turmoil if they cannot feel at all. It will be better this way; they can be as he was, and then he himself can return to the correct way of being. The people nearest him stumble and stop running, looking surprised for a moment before emotion is gone from their faces altogether. He lowers his hand, satisfied with the first effort, and turns to walk calmly after the others fleeing the scene.

[johnny_truant]

Well that didn't go especially well.

True to his name Truant is absent, though not necessarily by choice - running from the crime scene, again, mistaken for the criminal, again - just his luck, isn't it, whenever he tries to help it blows up in his face, sometimes literally. He's not very good at this, is he? But he has to do it. He has to atone.

Skinny leather pants are not exactly suited for running, so he banks a sharp right at the end of the block and starts scaling the wall, straight up, up to the roof. Safer up there, generally. Of course, leather pants and studded jacket aren't really suited for this, either, but he does what he has to. Sure, he could use his powers, but that's what he's atoning for. Powers are the problem. No, he'll use those only in times of true emergency, thank you. The rest of the time it's all vaguely developed parkour and macgyver tactics. He's like Batman, if Batman were more of a sewer rat than a billionaire philanthropist.

Finally ascended to relative safety, he curls up against the little wall running around the roof and lets out a slow breath, tugging his jacket tighter around himself in meager defense against the wind. He stares dully across the empty expanse, thinking over the scene he'd had to vacate, what he might do better next time (yeah right) - then, with a weary jerk of the wrist, takes out a cigarette and lights up. He really needs a break. But he doesn't deserve one. He has to keep fighting back against everything he's done, everything he is, right down to the name he gave himself.

Johnny is Truant.

[leave it to Johnny to make this prompt a bummer. he looks approximately like this]

[apidae]

Beegirl - she's a regular girl, but she's awfully small - smaller than usual, in fact. She's about four inches high, larger than your average bee, but we all make compromises for convenience.

Fighting crime isn't so much her forte, but what she can do is bring a smile to your face - and she's quite good at spying danger! You might say she has a sixth sense for it. And if things get really rough, she does have her crossbow, though it's only got one bolt, so it's a bit of a last ditch deal.

Currently she's flitting around the park, light as air, looking for someone to help or just to talk to. Feel free to say hi, if you can spot her!

[apidae]

"Oh good, that's where I'm going!" she says brightly, and floats down to stand on his shoulder. Like a captain steering a boisterous, well soundtracked ship, she thrusts an arm forward and exclaims, "Let's go!"

She clings onto his shirt as he rolls onward, not moving too fast, which is just as well for her. It's not a moment before her bee sense is tingling, and she gasps and tugs on his shirt. "Over there! Someone's in distress!"

-

Jay does not want to be here. He doesn't belong here. Everyone's having a nice, normal - well, okay, incredibly weird group dream, and he's just crashed fully normal into it. This is terrible and he doesn't like it.

And now someone is coming toward him. No. No. No, no - wait hold the fucking phone is that-

NO.

[deadeyedchild]

[I'm granting Jay immunity from the dream's effects since he's still pretty dead and just floating haplessly around in riftspace, sort of accidentally stumbling into dreams (appropriate icon keywords are appropriate). So if your villain needs a victim or your hero needs a damsel, he's your guy.]

He feels himself getting pulled into a dream again, but this one pulls a lot harder than most. This one is big. For a moment it tries to push him into some ill-fitting slot, it feels like a rippling of static over his skin - clothes and body chemistry shift and blur before there's a metaphysical sort of throwing up hands and saying fuck it, and he lands, Jaylike and normal, on the ground.

He shivers, feeling like he needs a good dirt bath or something after that bizarre sensation, and takes a moment to look around, trying to assess whose dream this is. But it doesn't belong to anyone, that becomes quickly apparent. It's one of the big ones. The group ones.

Shit. Fuck. He has to get out of here. He shuffles along the sidewalk quickly, trying not to look around or make eye contact.

[postictal]

How expeditious that their goals are aligned! Timman takes off again with a fervor, speed and energy fueled by the righteous need to fix everything he comes across. His miniaturized navigator helpfully directs him to the nearest sign of trouble.

Timman's face immediately lights up further, which must not have been assumed to be possible but almost certainly is. He skids to an utterly graceless halt in front of the smaller man, whipping off his sunglasses and grinning his dazzling grin.

"TROY MY DEAR BOY," he exclaims heartily.

[deadeyedchild]

Tim's - smiling, grinning actually, with complete, earnest, genuine abandon, wearing - what the fuck is he wearing - why is he like this. What is wrong with him.

"Who's Troy?" he blurts. "It's Jay, Tim, what are you - what is even-"

Should he be pursuing this? Maybe he should just walk away. Scratch that, maybe he should run.

A tiny woman he hadn't even noticed before flutters up off Tim's shoulder and over to him. Jay recoils in surprise.

"It's okay, Jay!" she says in a little voice. "We're here to help!" She turns back to Tim. "He's very sad because he's lost," she informs him.

Jay stares at her, then back at Tim, this nightmarishly happy person who looks like Tim. He should probably do something but his brain is drawing several blanks.

[lottawork]

Categorically, Nicholas is not what he would refer to as a 'visionary'. Concepts of destiny, fate, inextricably entangled in and around him notwithstanding.

Didn't he say it would always end this way.

We'll never be done.

Surveying the vast metropolitan sprawl of whatever nebulous city in which he's stationed himself is far from immediately rewarding, regardless of technological ameliorations. Cameras only reveal so much, even those bolstered by subtle modernizations of the generally imperceptible variety, unobstructed by the shadowed silhouettes of skyscrapers printed against the starlit, liquid dark. A high vantage point becomes axiom.

Wind whips over the dark fringe of his hair, clear and intemerate and vaguely fatidic, as if the herald of some dark subset of events beyond his control. How uninspired. How typical.

Nicholas straightens and retreats from the building's unprotected edge and prepares to commence the long process of descending to ground-level.

[lottawork]

Not one for arcane, vaguely-defined heroics, Nicholas watches with a faint, flinted disgust.

"That's rather ill-advised," he drawls from his relatively safe point, secluded in the lip of an alleyway, arms crossed over his chest. "I'm certain none of them requested that spectacle."

[etherthief]

Nicholas Rush, so called for always rushing into things. Iman smirks down at him from her perch on the fire escape above him. She's been tracking the creature for several blocks now, was just readying herself for an airstrike, when who should jump in. Well, it's no trouble to see her comrade in arms.

She levers herself onto the ladder, rattling loudly as she slides down.

"Why not just turn them into stone at this rate?" she says to the winged menace. "Subtle cruelty doesn't suit you, what with your flash wings and all."

She tosses a little two finger salute to Rush. "Nick," he says pleasantly.

[postictal]

Lost? Well, that simply won't do at all!

Timman throws an arm around the smaller man's shoulders. The insistence that his name is Jay is completely lost on him, his joviality utterly unchanged.

"Come, my boy!" he announces, jostling the other man happily. "What direction do you require?"

[etherthief]

[Iman is basically a slightly cleaner, hijab-wearing Imperator Furiosa, minus the rifle but including the prosthetic, now a visibly robotic arm. Superpowers are limited to what her arm used to be able to do, and also punching. She prefers punching.]


It's a fine day for street cleaning.

Iman grins, vicious and predatory, as she drops down from a balcony onto a would-be mugger, drop-kicking him right in the face. He's a big boy, sturdy, too - bounces right back, turning all his aggression on her, where it belongs. Her boots scrape the sidewalk as she lands, smirking at him, flexing her metal fingers.

"I'll bet you whatever's in my wallet you can't land a hit," she says, right before she cold-cocks him, bare-knuckled, like the good old days. She's not above punching with the pros', but that wouldn't be fair.


[feel free to be the mugged party (who may or may not have TOTALLY HAD THIS SITUATION, THANK YOU), a helpful bystander, or even the mugger if you want - I can edit the tag as needed if you wanna do that!]

[deadeyedchild]

Oh dear god why, why, why. If he was going to see Tim again he didn't want, could never have expected it to be like this. He shrinks a little under his arm, shocked by it, the friendliness of it - he can count the times they've made physical contact on one hand, probably - a punch in the face, a tap on the shoulder, bodily dragging one or the other - another punch, and another - and yeah, he held Tim's hand recently. He doubts Tim remembers that right now. Tim doesn't even seem to know who he is, or to even be himself at all, it's more than memory, it's intrinsic. Tim has anhedonia, this person definitely does not.

"I," he stammers, completely thrown off course by all of this. "I don't - I don't know."

"He's more lost than that," says Beegirl helpfully. "Poor thing, he doesn't belong here at all."

Jay shoots her a look, re-assessing. Who is this girl? How does she know that?

[postictal]

Timman fixes the other man with a very careful look of controlled, eye-to-eye sincerity, stepping away laterally to take him by the shoulders.

"Troy, my dear, sweet, innocent child," he says with a tone of grave importance, "Timman only helps those who help themselves."

[singthesong]

Sorry, were you looking for a superhero?

That's very silly, because there's no superheroes here. Just a completely normal, good-natured guitarist, practically a fixture of the park and the local music scene. He's never even met any superheroes before, despite the abundance of them in town - he's just simply never around when crimes happen. He's never even been so much as mugged, and he plays in dangerous neighborhoods pretty frequently. Good luck, he tells his friends with a laugh, and maybe just good people skills.

Wherever he goes, heroes in the area tend to receive anonymous tips a few days later regarding crimes recently or about to be committed. These come in a number of ways: notes slid under doors or into mailboxes, texts from unknown numbers, very rarely a garbled message left on an answering machine. But the phones, if tracked, are always burners long-since disposed of, the notes can never quite be traced, and don't even think about setting up cameras if you want a return visit. They're also fairly likely to be left at a hero's civilian home or workplace; alarming, if you have a secret identity. But B - the tips are always signed B - has never once provided bad info, and to all appearances hasn't revealed any hero's personal information to anyone. Whoever they are, maybe it's better to just let them operate in peace.

Meanwhile, here's this random civilian, possibly busking where he ought not to be. You might want to clear him out before shit goes down. Or, if you're really curious, rumor has it that return notes or a quick text back to the mysterious B can actually garner a response from time to time.



(( Sorry I tl;dr'd a whole AU ))

[omnomnom_feels]

These two are not screaming and running. Nhodd turns to look at the pair addressing him, evaluating the pair. He might appreciate the way they have refrained from panicking if only they were not so inclined to criticize.

"They live," he says, putting a hand on the shoulder of one of his dull-eyed victims beneficiaries. "It is...an improvement. There will be peace in this city, and no more suffering."

[lottawork]

"Ah," says Nicholas delicately, pushing away from the alley wall with an indolent press of muscle against concrete. His hands drop to his sides, fingertips grazing the unmistakeable dark curve of a sidearm at his hip. "Iman," he acknowledges his occasional colleague with a polite, oblique slant of his head, attention largely fixed on the most present spectacle.

He advances, a swelling menace set into the slow forward creep and the tensing of musculature. "I don't believe that 'peace' means what you think it might mean."

[deadeyedchild]

"Stop calling me that," says Jay, barely keeping a lid on his increasing distress. "What the hell, Tim?!"

Did he just call himself Timman. What is this. Why is this happening. Seeing him like this is a fucking affront to everything, everything Tim really is. Daniel's remark about the Rift experimenting on them comes back to him and he curls his hands into fists.

"It's okay, Jay," says Beegirl, darting in to pat his arm, somewhat absurdly. "Timman and I will go our own way. When you're ready, you'll see him again." She smiles, all knowing and wise, and Jay regards her with suspicion but he has no reason to disagree.

"Come on, Timman," says Beegirl, flitting back over to him. "There's plenty more minor distress out there!"

[postictal]

Truly, the tiny woman's advice is wise and reasonable. He offers the poor young man a reassuring pat on the cheek and a firm nod in farewell. And with the thoroughly uncoordinated rasp of rollerblades over cement, he scoots off with Beegirl in tow.

"Until our paths cross again, dear Troy!" he proclaims in earnest, ringing baritone, waving goodbye with an outflung hand.