Rise of Legends

Morning of the first day.

in the typical wake-up call of a small town, a car alarm goes off, the roads slowly fill with traffic, and small children fill the quiet sunday morning with giggles as they run through their back yards. Little is happening, and little needs to happen.

A number of abnormals awake throughout the town, both hidden and known, and begin to go about their day.



This RP will be shaped by your actions. If you want the police or criminals or some other, third party group to do something PM me to get it done. At the start of each day I'll post something like this summing up the conditions in the city.

This city is the country in microcosm- piss off the cops and we have a serious criminal population. Save a bus and we have unconventional heroes. Lets get this rolling, shall we?

preserved for future generations

Another day in the forest.

Kelsey opened her reddish eyes after yet another restless night. She never enjoyed sleeping on her stomach, but had she tried laying on her back, she surely would have been in excruciating pain from her "wings". The branch covered ground wasn't too comfortable either. Not that it really mattered whether she got sleep, she'd act like her insane self anyways.

Food. Food was good, but not terribly plentiful. She never kept much, but it was always enough. Some was good food, unopened and simply wasted, but most of it was simply garbage taken out of restaurant dumpsters. She ate ravenously, often wasting it herself. Crumbs and stains would often litter her already dirty torn crimson robe and her unwashed, frizzed near-white hair. But that was normal.

What was there to do after that though? Living in the forest seems rather uninteresting to the "normal" folk, or at least the ones who are fortunate enough to have homes. But when it is necessary for one to live there, means of keeping busy as well as hidden must be in place. Luckily for Kelsey she was also not "normal", what with her homemade religion. She often spent her days meditating on whatever spirits she believed in, and today was one of those days, of course.

Means of practicing were odd, to say the least. A makeshift shrine, made of various forest materials, trash, and the occasional remains of some forest animal unlucky enough to be successfully targeted by her arrows, was placed underneath a thick tree. A circle was drawn in the dirt, although the lines were nearly shaky enough to dispute that claim. Kelsey would sit in the middle, cross-legged in front of the shrine, and closed her eyes as the "spirits", really just the voices in her head, would fuel her bloodlust.

There she would sit for hours upon hours, lest she heard someone possibly coming. Then she would attempt to hide. She did not kill anyone that she came across in this time, despite her insanity, not because she knew that it would be incredibly easy to sight her in the light, which she did, but rather because the sun was awfully harsh on her ghastly white skin.

Samson



Deep in the forest came a bright white light. Not like any other light, it was immensely bright and strangely attracting. It's light spread far away from the source. The source of the light? Samson. In his phoenix form has been traveling for a small period of time now above the tall trees of the forest since night. His phoenix looked exactly as one would imagine a phoenix to appear as. Appearing as if it's made out of fire, and shaped much like a cross between several types of birds. To save himself the trouble of walking and the animals that roam the night. Now, since it was morning and he was flying for half an hour he decided to take a break.


In a small clearing that was devoid of animals as they were all scared off by the fearsome Phoenix, that was Samson. He was just beginning his descent down into the woods. He landed on a fallen tree branch which let out a loud crunch as his talons tightened around it. The flaming bird gracefully stepped much like a pelican, and slowly it's upper body "faded" until Samson was in his normal form with his bag still slung over his shoulder.


He thought that he was close to a city. So, he was going to do the usual: stick around for awhile then move on to the next town. It was easy because he kept a low profile and with the use of his powers he can get out of almost every sticky situation. Still it made him feel tired--- not in the physical sense. More of the mental sense, as he was tired of running pointlessly across the country. At least he was going to try to head off to Canada where he can start again.



He walked over to the nearest tree and leaned his entire upper body against it. The use of his phoenix powers tired him.

Kelsey's meditations commenced without interruption. That is, until her ears picked up the sound of a branch snapping loudly. Her eyes shot open as they dashed around, looking for whatever it's source was. She saw a man, dark skinned and definitely older than she was, leaning against a tree resting, though she also thought she had seen a sort of phoenix fly off as well. She scuttled behind the tree where her shrine sat, watching him from a distance. He seemed tired. A good target? He sure seemed one. She watched more, eyeing what could possibly be her next victim.

She nearly went for her arrows. "Don't do that," the spirits, in actuality her own mutated conscience, told her. "It would be unwise, and he looks like he may know what he's doing." Had she been a bit less animalistic, she may have wondered how he had appeared there in the first place without her hearing him before the crack, but as she was not she did not. Instead, she just waited in anticipation like a vicious dog on a chain.

Samson



After taking a moment to collect himself Samson continued his walk. Completely blind to the fact that he was being watched. There was absolutely no time to be wasted out here, since there was an absence of people he would be nearly powerless. So he kept his eyes open for any angry animals or aggressive homeless people and was ready to run fast as he could.

Kelsey was getting anxious. She could easily take this guy right there at that moment, and she truly desired to. No one was around, and no one would have to see...

Finally her instinct go the best of her. "No!" the voices told her. But she couldn't help herself. She knew she would suffer greatly for this, but she whipped up her bow and from behind the tree launched an arrow at the man's leg.

A strident car alarm shocked Skyler out of the daze she’d been in while meandering around the town. It had become a pastime of hers recently. Just put in the ear buds, turn up the music, and lose herself in the twisting realms of music. It was therapeutic. The demonic little parasite had no quarrels with music, although it also didn’t have a specific sympathy for that very human activity, so it usually fell into silence while she listened; only briefly shocking her if it saw a possible danger nearby. The jolts were unwelcome to say the least, but in its own messed up way the parasite was protecting her.

Now if only it could do the same by finding some other being to inhabit… like a dog. How’d you like that, monster, being stuck inside the food-centric mind of a common dog? Ha, yeah right, like that’d happen.

Chuckling mirthlessly, she pulled up her gray hood farther and took the rightmost turn in the path, heading just alongside the border of the woods outside of town. There were a few bucks in her pocket, but nothing substantial. She had to be frugal with her expenses. Rarely working could do that to a person. She didn’t even own a car.

Well, not after that time the parasite shocked me as a warning when another car strayed into my lane and I went off into a ditch.

For being concerned only in survival, the hitchhiker sure made some poor decisions. Oh well, nothing she could do about it, right?

Shaking her head, she continued on her way.

Samson


Once again Samson was completely unaware of the girl that was stalking him. As he wasn't especially concerned with every small sound that was made in an active forest. Which made it even more unexpected for the arrow that pierced his leg. It went through the side of his leg under his knee and luckily didn't pierce anything important other than skin and muscles. Unfortunately this was enough to make Samson immediately drop to the ground face first in pain, and of course yell in agony. He immediately reached a panicked state.


This was a seemingly random and unprovoked attack. There was no telling who shot the arrow and what was their intention. Could have been some random hick in the woods that thought it'd be funny to shoot the black guy with an arrow--- anyone really. He wasn't the type to sit around and wonder who would did that to him. He was more of the, jump into cover if they want to finish the job. He quickly crawled behind a large tree. He carefully broke the arrow so that the arrowhead was removed but not the entire arrow. There was blood dripping down his leg and despite his healing powers he can't do nothing about it.


Since there wasn't too many people in the forest other than them his powers would be weakened to the point of near uselessness. Samson would have better luck trying to crawl to a hospital than waiting eons for his flames to heal his wound. He just needed to get around some people, then his powers will be stronger. If he doesn't bleed out on the way.


He was a car mechanic for god's sake. He had no idea what to do in a situation like this other than run. Steadily he gets back up to both of his feet and limps using the tree as cover. His right hand was enshrouded by his white flames--- while he did know it would do nothing, he figured that seeing a man shoot fire would scare anyone off.

A great shot. The man had taken a hit and was on the ground, seemingly writhing in pain from the injury, or at least Kelsey thought. Bow still in hand, she leapt from behind the tree, still on all fours, and from that position dashed toward the injured man while raising to her two feet. As she approached him, the spirits attempted to control her, telling her to stop what she was doing, but she ignored them as her animalistic side took over.

By the time she had reached the fallen Samson, she managed to get on her two feet and stood in a posture not of man, but of beast. Reaching back on the bow string, arrow sitting shakily between her pointer and middle fingers, she could have finished off the man for good, had the voices not finally gotten a hold of her. She stood, struggling between instinct and conscience, the struggle in her mind visible in her face.

((Consider this my sample paragraph/s))
Riser shouldn't have been upset. He should have known better. He had no friends. None other than his delicate machines. But as his latest "friend" walked away, down the street, he couldn't help but feel a tinge of regret for what he had said. The words had left a bitter aftertaste on his tongue just as they had stung as he had said them. It might have been completely absurd that the young man, who was in fact older than he, was trying to get an easy grade in a shop class at the local college. Riser had ignore the guys absolute incompetence because, well, everyone one was incompetent. The man could have possibly been brilliant to everyone else's standards, but to his, the man was still sub par. He sighed and turned around, he needed some caffeine, he didn't care what the source was.

The best coffee shop in town was downtown... Not exactly where he was. So he settled with the nearest one. Besides, it was coffee. Even good it was bitter and generally distasteful, unless enough chocolate to kill a dog was involved. Once again the thought of what he had said tasted like copper on his tongue. He shook his head and started in a brisk walk to cover the three block distance to the local fast food restaurant that sold his desired beverage. He shuddered to think of what he might very well be consuming in the next fifteen minutes. It was no secret that the fast food chain was quite frankly one of the worst ideas in the past century. Sure it was good meaning, to help those poor uneducated redneck homemakers in the south. But as a consequence, convenience turned to overindulgence. It was cheap. It was effective. It was unhealthy. They say every cigarette takes seven minutes off your life, if that was true, then fast food had to have halved the life span of the human race.

His stomach grumbled. At first he was not sure if it was his stomach protesting, knowing very well it would have to consume some undesirable foodstuff, or if it was just showing its malcontent on running on empty. Of course, he had skipped breakfast. Or well he hadn't, he had been planning on getting breakfast with his "friend" but... that had just gone done the stinker. So now not only did he want coffee soaked chocolate, but he wanted grease soaked sausage patties between two hardened biscuits, and likely a patty of minced and fried potato. Truly appetizing. His stomach rumbled again... this time, he was sure it knew what it was about to digest.

As the twin arches came into view his words to his "friend" burned in his mouth and in his head. Why did he care so much? Was it possible that he had been paranoid? Could he have just thrown away the only actual friend he had ever had? No, not the only... but a list of three is hardly a list worth mentioning. He would go back home later and make sure that all of his files and data were still secure, and that there was in fact no espionage. Then he would apologize. Probably not the best way to go about it, but due to the doubt that had been gnawing at the back (more precisely, he remembered, in the front) of his brain.

He suddenly lost his appetite. So he just stood there. Staring into the blue sky. His eyes filled with tears, but none leaked from the eyelids. He crossed the street and headed off on a tangent. He needed to clear his head... No... he needed to think up a new design. Yes, that would take his mind of the matters at hand. Perhaps while he creates his best machine yet he will think of the most tactful way of apologizing.

And thus Riser walked. He was no longer on Earth with his body, he was on a plane of engineering dreams realized and unrealized, skimming through pages and pages of books memorized in their entirety. He could have been anywhere his body wanted to take him, sitting on a bus, climbing a tree, strolling beside a tree flanked highway. Anywhere, to him it mattered not.

Samson



He heard footsteps coming up behind him that were simply off. For a few moments it sounded like an animal was approaching him. Immediately he turned around and pointed his hand that was enshrouded in the white flames of his inner phoenix at the source. It... was a girl. Far younger than him at least half his age. Holding a bow and arrow. Obviously this is the person who struck him with the arrow and he was less than pleased. His eyes narrowed as he kept his flaming hand focused on her.


Completely aware that it wouldn't harm her.


While he could easily overpower her, he felt that there was no point in trying to fight. He must have done something to upset her (she may have seen him as a Phoenix during his descent) and she wants to kill him. "Ayo... I don't know what the hell made you want to shoot a damn arrow at me and I don't care. I just want to get out of here." He wasn't interested in reporting her to the police since he was on the wrong side of the law himself. "So put down your arrow, and I'll walk away" For some reason he felt like this wasn't going to make her back off, so he prepared to dodge the arrow and take her out.

Raul 'awoke' to the familiar sensation of hunger. Not from regular sleep, it was closer to a waking hibernation, and not to physical hunger, he never felt that. Instead, he felt a soul aching need to consume- to eat something, though that something wasn't food. He raised his sails, sensing out the location of his prey of the day before. It was a young couple who had stopped in a hotel near his hunting grounds the night before. They gave off so much love and were so preoccupied with themselves, it was easy enough to shadow them and gorge. Now, with dawn come, he only had a short while to get his fill before they left, and he had to find someone new.

As he ate, he noticed something new walking by. Well, not exactly new, but he'd never had the energy to pursue it before. This one tasted different, somehow, than others. Not that he was fundamentally different, but that he seemed... disconnected. Instead of the normal mix of joy and sorry, excitement and dread, anxiety and depression, he found only contentment. He never tasted a single emotion, untainted by any others, except for this one. A quick glance through his window- which he had broken the latch on some time ago to keep pesky managers from locking him out- revealed the source of the emotions to be a young man, his fingers running through minute motions as though playing an invisible instrument.

He decided to talk to him. After all, someone who could sublimate emotions was interesting enough, and this one was on his own. He grabbed his pack, hopped out the window and slid down a pipe into an alley when no one was looking, then took off after the strange one, carefully hiding his sails before walking into view of anyone. It wouldn't do to start a riot now.

"And you gotta look her in the eye
And you gotta love your way of life
'Cause you've got a guilty, filthy soul
Don't you know it's out of your control, whoa!"

Iggy finished the ending note (an abrupt stop at the final chord, sliding his fingers down the strings until he lost contact, in sync with the "whoa") and waved "thank you" to a passerby who tossed some quarters in his guitar case.

What are you doing? The dragon, serpentine and adorned with fins, snaked through a placid pond in Iggy's mind. As usual, the self-righteous derision was evident in her tone.

Same thing as always, what's your problem? Iggy sat near the bank, feeling the hot sun beat down on him. His guitar was still in his hands. Looking down, he found a rock and skipped it across the pond, sending it neatly over one of her coils.

Why do you have to sit here doing this all the time? You could own this place. You could be these people's god if you wanted to.

Well, I can hardly do my old job with you in there; you kinda killed any chance I might have had at a normal life. He started idly finger-picking a tune, both in the real world and in his head.

That is precisely what I am saying. You were going to be stuck in a menial job eking out a pathetic mortal existence, but here I came, offering you power, and you decide to be a troubador - and a poor one if I do say so myself; your taste in music is horrid.

Iggy shrugged. What to you want me to do? Go burninating the peasants in their thatch-roof cottages? Even if I could, that would be arson, and it would be wrong.

The dragon slowly slithered out of the pool, yards and yards of length exiting the water, only to seemingly stop existing behind the dragons' front legs as its torso condensed into a strong, barreled chest. Wrong? Who cares about wrong? "Wrong" is merely a label that the weak use to describe things they are helpless against.

Iggy stopped strumming and stood up, lowering his guitar. Back in the real world, he trailed off, looking at the sky. So you're saying that if I let you have my body, then I'll never be wrong again?

Yes. But you wouldn't even have to let me have it all the way; you'd just have to get out more.

Well, that would be nice... IF that was how the world worked at all, which it isn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to my horrid music.

The dragon huffed in irritation as the dreamworld faded, leaving Iggy back on the street. Someone was staring at him, so he simply smiled and started another song.

"I met an old man dyin' on a train..."

Kelsey seemed to snap out of her condition as the man asked her to lay down her arms. "Never!" she let out in a voice that, although she was not winded by her running, sounded like she had, overemphasizing all of her syllables. "Why should I let you human get away? The spirits hate your kind, and I am their loyal slave." She gave one of those insane minds of laughs. "So unless you're willing to join them with me, I will not let you get away!"

Sure she could have shot him right then and there, but she didn't. It wasn't often that she got to talk to her sacrifices. Perhaps if the man refused, the spirits would take him as an absolution for her sin of betrayal.

Samson



He paused. Silent. Samson had taken in the girl's words and determined one thing: This girl is fucking crazy. He had no clue what had gone on in her past that would drive her to such a tribal mindset. Neither did he really care. She said that she isn't going to let him leave and he values his life (as long as he has a say he isn't going to let some tooth-pick of a girl end him) of course. Violence wasn't Samson's intention, he just wants to leave. "Why? Because I just came through here and did nothing to you," Samson started off his reasoning, his tone was firm and he was trying hard not to show emotion--- look hard. "I don't know what the hell your 'spirits' are, and I don't want to. Just walk away. You don't want to know what I can do..." This time he was speaking in an imposing tone, trying to intimidate her. He can turn into a phoenix and easily overwhelm her--- not with flames but with strength.



Go Phoenix and fly somewhere else and pray she doesn't chase him.

Ha ha, success, Riser had finally finished the mental blueprint of his latest idea. If it worked the way the math did he would never need to use expensive drill bits again, or have to use pulsed lasers to cut into those pesky super hard metal carbides. No, if this worked, he would simply have to wear hearing protection and a high power source. He went through the calculations in his mind, damn... more power than he thought. But it was no big deal, he had nearly all the power he could want in his lab at the college. Well, not exactly his, but that was a long boring detail no body cared about.

He slowly returned to his relatively normal state of being, still euphoric, but now more or less aware of his surroundings. Wait... where was he? Holy Crap he was on the other side of the suburbs... Not exactly a bad place, but about as far opposite of where he wanted to be. Well, at least his knees weren't hurting. Yet. Another thing he needed to make, soles for his shoes that didn't put so much pressure on his knees. Or he could just go buy some Dr. Scholls. Yeah, Foot items aren't exactly an item worth of his time.

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stood there for a moment, a smile on his face. He turned around and headed in the direction he had came. Few people had been behind him, and though his photographic memory noted each of them, it did not give away the man that had been following him. He nodded to each of the people as he passed, a sort of distant look in his eyes. To be honest I doubt Riser himself was aware that he was smiling, or even happy.