90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 77

I think one of my goals for the weekend is to get at least three characters to 50.  Storm Girl Ten is 47, Eternal Sweeper was 46 before tonight, and Sonic Girl Seven was 45 when the night started.  I jumped in Sparks Fly and started up my usual Council earth map and got Sonic Girl up to 48 in two runs (she was nearly 46 already, and I used an XP booster, I have 8 left on my main account).

Then I switched to Eternal Sweeper and joined a Numina that Kali started up, which we completed in 42 minutes.  Followed by a Lady Grey TF which we kinda didn't speed but then kinda did for part of it -- some people wanted a kill lots xp kinda run, but at least one person really wanted a speed run, and we didn't make clear which it was before we started.  In any case, we finished in an hour, and Eternal Sweeper hit 47.  So that's two at 47 and one at 48, I can get all three to 50 by Sunday I'm sure.

Forgot to take any pictures tonight though.  After tonight we have 2 weeks left to play... I really need to figure out what I want to accomplish in those two weeks.  Aside from leveling several characters I need to document all of my alts that I haven't yet, document my old Zero to Awesome thread still, play SSA 2.3-2.5 on Princess Ozma, play SSA 1.7 on Dilithium Flower (just for the screen shots), do a lot of badging on Mouse still... I probably don't have time for all of it.  But I need to jump on the stuff I really want to do right away and do it.

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 76

Last night I logged in and decided to try and push Storm Girl Ten to at least 45, so I fired up the laptop and got her and Trinkets in my Council earth mission ready to go.

Almost immediately, Kali wanted to run a Synapse.  This put me in a quandry because realistically I wasn't doing anything very important and would like to join a Synapse, but actually I wanted to get Storm Girl to 45 first.  Or at least spend some time running my mission, now that I'd bothered to set it up.

Luckily for me, there were other people who wanted to join who were busy doing other things too.  I set out to destroy my mission, and by the time everyone else was ready, I was one bubble away from 45.  I asked for 4 more minutes, and hit 45 in just a few more spawns.  Then I switched to playing Storm Girl on my main computer and headed to Skyway.

Our Synapse looked like it would be great -- we had four corruptors and two defenders, plus a brute and a warshade.  But one of the corruptors said she had to leave just before we started (leader apparently didn't notice this) and she dropped soon after.  Then a second corruptor mysteriously dropped after the first two missions, leaving us with only six.  We got one of the largest lab maps twice in a row, and overall it just took a long time.  At one point I stealthed to the boss room and then realized that I'd already used my ATT and that Recall Friend wasn't available to me at that level.

Zombie logged in last night -- he's been without power or heat for 11 days.  He wanted to form up an ITF, but most of us were still on the Synapse.  We managed to get him and Mr. Trilby to help out with Babbage (Mr. T was otherwise completely uninterested in running a Synapse, he apparently regards it as torture).  We finished in two hours, which is a bit long as I said.  Storm Girl hit level 46.

Right after that Zombie formed his ITF, and this was an even better ITF than the one I'd run the night before.  Zombie's ITFs usually are really good.  CA joined, and Jane, and Zentry and Ragey and Kali and pretty much a lot of friends.  I stayed on Storm Girl for this and hit 47 by the end when we were doing the towers.  Huzzah!  We were destroying things so thoroughly that in the third mission I flew up to the tops of the two gates with hurricane on and aggro'd all of the guys standing up there and brought them down to the group, and I'm not sure if anyone even noticed that.  They all just died really fast.

I asked Zombie if he ever created a Zombie Roaster, because one of the Grandpa Anarchy stories I wrote this week featured a Zombeh Roaster character based largely on Zombie Fryer.  But he didn't reply, he was being inundated by greetings and tells probably at the time.  Anyway, I probably should just post the story in my blog.

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 75

I logged in last night just in time to see Ragey Cat starting up a Sutter TF.  I was the first to join.  Ragey filled the team, then put my character Storm Girl in charge since I was 43.  It turns out to be quite easy to be in charge of a Sutter -- you talk to the contact once to start the TF, and once at the end (optional, of course).

In between we had a pretty fun TF with Ragey's 24 brute and a scrapper being the only tanks of any sort.  That meant a lot of healing, but we had a corr and a storm-based MM and everything went well.  In fact, Primal Duray died without moving -- he teleported only once, and it was to a spot six inches to the left, pretty much.  He was flopping from freezing rain and just died too fast to teleport anywhere else.  I've never seen a fight with him go that easy before.

I was curious whether Storm Girl would get a bonus, since I ran a Sutter last Saturday and it hadn't changed to a new WST on Tuesday.  The answer?  Nope, no bonus, grrr.  Left still unanswered is whether I'd have gotten a bonus if it had been more than a week since I last ran a WST Sutter.

Anyway after that Storm Girl was still only about halfway through 43, so I fired up the laptop and did a run through Council earth at +4/8 with Trinkets, and this got Stormy to 44 and 3 bubbles in.  A second run would have got her to 45, but I was too tired.  But as the days click down, I'm considering whether I want to push several of my mid-40's characters to 50 in this way, or want to try and complete my other goals instead.  On Mouse I still need to run one Ouro arc, run an Ice Mistral SF, spawn and kill Caleb, and try to get the arsonist badge in Mayhem missions, then I can turn hero with a week left to get the badge from that.  Time's running out to do all of that (and I still need to run DA arcs, First Ward/Night Ward arcs, kill Hamidon Seed, and probably a few newer blueside arcs).

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 73/74

Monday I barely logged on to do anything -- I spent most of my time writing, but logged on late in the evening.  There were few people no, nothing apparently happening, so I ran two costume missions for Eternal Sweeper and then called it a night.

Tuesday I logged in early enough to join an ITF on Storm Girl Ten.  This got her from 42 to 43.  But it was something of a disappointment -- it was advertised as a "kill what's in front of you" ITF, but after two missions a couple of the players decided that it was going to be a speed ITF instead, so they rushed everything, ported people to the ends of missions, and the leader said nothing about it.  But as soon as Rommy was dead and the ITF was complete she quit, so it seemed she was upset.  But when you don't say anything and you're the leader, it's hard to complain about it later.  Anyway it was annoying -- set to +0, rushed through the second half, everyone quit as soon as Rommy dropped, no interest in doing the towers.  That's not how I like my ITFs to run.

And you know what they say -- if you want something done right, you should do it yourself.  Grimrose announced that she'd just hit 35 and was ITF capable, and Ragey Cat (who had been on the other ITF with me and was equally dissatisfied with it) was willing to run another, so I switched to my brute Megami Hime and started up another, a real steamroll ITF run at +1, where you really did kill everything you saw, and the towers after.  Whisper and no hero joined too, and we had a lot of fun, and by the time we were done Grimrose's "last 50" had gone from 35 to 39.  :D

The Grandpa Anarchy Tales -- World of Hero

World of Hero

M A Davis

"See that guy over there?"  The giant man in black and blue spandex took a sip of beer.  "In the red and blue tights?  That's Fire and Ice Man.  He's the one who took down the villain known as BOSS_NAME."
The old man seated across from him frowned.  "BOSS_NAME?  What the hell kind of villain name is that?"
The big man shrugged.  "I don't know.  That's just what I heard."
The League of Two-Fisted Justice -- the world's premier super hero group -- was having its monthly meeting in Roy's 5th Avenue Pub.  All five current members were seated around the table -- Grandpa Anarchy, Unpossible Man, Deep Fat Fryer, Dark Dr. Dark, and Nina Ballerina.  Grandpa was an old man in a rumpled gray suit and fedora.  Unpossible Man was easily over seven feet tall and four hundred pounds, and dressed in blue and black spandex with a large U on the chest.  Deep Fat Fryer was another large man, although fat was the better word.  He had red pants with a yellow flame pattern and a red fedora, and a white shirt with a bright red and yellow crown on the front.  Nina was, of  course, dressed as a ballerina, in white tights and a pink leotard and tutu, while Dark Dr. Dark wore all black, including a hooded cloak, but with a red cross framed by white on his chest.
Also present was Grandpa Anarchy's current sidekick Lard Lad, who indeed was quite heavy-set for a teenager, and unfortunately dressed in a silver spandex jumpsuit.  He was staring at Unpossible Man with something akin to adoration, for while he was sidekicking for Grandpa Anarchy, he wanted to become a hero like Unpossible Man.
Grandpa Anarchy took a sip of his Dr. Pepper -- he never drank alcohol -- and set  it down.  A moment later, the air beside the glass flickered, and a six-inch man appeared.  He wore high-tech armor of dark green and silver, with a sealed helmet with a dark green visor.  Green energy seemed to radiate from the joints.  He flickered again. like a tiny hologram.
Everyone's gaze turned to the tiny man.  Nina raised an eyebrow.
"Grandpa Anarchy?  Can you hear me?" the man called out.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear ya," said Grandpa.  "Help me, Obi-wan, you're my only hope.  Am I right?"
The image flickered in silence for a moment.  "Yes, that analogy would be appropriate," he said.   "I appear as a hologram to you, yes?"  He looked around the table.  "Good, you've got the whole League of Two-Fisted Justice!"  He turned as if to address someone to his right, although no one was there.  "It's working, Doctor!"
Lard Lad was staring at the little armored man in amazement, but the other heroes were taking his appearance with remarkable calm -- even boredom or annoyance.  Unpossible Man said, "And I was really hoping for a nice, quiet evening for once, too."
"My name is Gammatron," said the hologram.  "I am communicating with you from the World of Hero..."
Lard Lad snapped his fingers.  "Gammatron!  World of Hero!  Of course!  I thought I recognized you!"  He paused, then added, "But that's just an online game -- and it got shut down last week, I think.  MCSquaredSoft killed it."
"Don't be daft, he's not some video-game character," Grandpa Anarchy said, but the green armored man was nodding.
"I am, in fact, a 'video game character', or at least I was," he said.  "With the shutdown of the game, our very world is in mortal peril...."
"Your world doesn't exist!" Lard Lad said definitively.  "It was just a computer-generated world created for a game that's been shut down!  You don't exist!  You're just the hero alter-ego of the game's lead designer, Mike Mallard!"
"I can assure you that I do indeed exist," said Gammatron.  "But perhaps not for much longer.  Look, I don't have time to go into all the details of alternate world theory and our current understanding of how it works -- suffice it to say, a world that thousands upon thousands of people cherished and believed in for more than eight years does indeed have an independent existence as a real universe of its own.  Or at least, it can.  That's where you come in."
"You want us to save a virtual world?" Grandpa Anarchy asked.
"Yes," said the newcomer.
Deep Fat Fryer took one last drink of beer.  Unpossible Man lit a cigar.  As one, the five heroes stood.  "It's nothing we haven't done before," said Deep Fat Fryer.
"Ready when you are," Nina Ballerina said.
The man seemed quite pleased.  "Splendid!"  He looked them over.  "Oh, dear, I just realized... this is your current sidekick?"
"Lard Lad?  Unfortunately, yes," said Grandpa.
The armored man placed a hand to his chin.  "Well, this is a bit embarrassing.  Your last several sidekicks were young girls...."
"Yes, but I take whoever the agency sends me," said Grandpa.
"You see, you will have to log in to the game in order to help me save it.  Doctor Eon and I have created special avatars for the five of you," he indicated the five members of the League of Two-Fisted Justice.  "They should closely match your prime world selves.  But the avatar for your sidekick...."  He stared at Lard Lad for a long moment.
"What?" asked the boy.
"Well, there's nothing to be done for it," Gammatron said.  "Shall we proceed?"
"No time like the present to save the world," said Deep Fat Fryer.  "Let's light it up!"
"Doctor?" the tiny man asked.  There was a moment's pause, then holographic laptops appeared before each hero, each with a login screen.  "Just type your name," said Gammatron.  "Grandpa would type Grandpa Anarchy, Nina would type Nina Ballerina, etc."  He paused to look at Lard Lad.  "You will need to log in as, 'Magical Girl Kin Katy', I'm afraid.  I'm sorry about this."
The sidekick's hands paused over the keyboard.  "What?"
"As I said, we were expecting a female sidekick...."
"Does that mean I'll appear in your world as a girl?" asked the boy, who thought much faster than he moved.
"Naturally," said Gammatron.  "You will appear as the avatar that we've created to be Grandpa's sidekick."
"Then I ain't going!" the boy said, crossing his arms.  "I ain't playing no dumb girl.  Make me a Lard Lad avatar!"
"Look, I'm sorry," said Gammatron.  "I would if I could, but there's no time.  If you're to join us then you will have to do it as the avatar we've already created.  And we really need you...."
Lard Lad shook his head.  "No way, no how, never in a million years.  Got that?  I ain't doing it.  End of discussion."

***

Magical Girl Kin Katy nervously fingered the hem of her very short skirt.  "I feel like an idiot, dressed like this," she muttered.
Nina placed a hand on the girl's head.  "But you're really cute, Katy!" she exclaimed.
"Katy," said Gammatron, "you are a magic-based kinetics support character.  You job is to buff the team and keep us healed...."
"I know what to do," the girl said sourly.  "I've played the stupid game before...."
"Only this is not a game, remember," said Gammatron.  "This is our reality."
He paused to look over the team.  All five heroes -- and one very annoyed, pint-sized magical girl -- had appeared in a gleaming, high-tech lab.  A full sized Gammatron was here, along with Doctor Eon, who had the look of a typical mad scientist -- Doc Brown hair that stuck out like he'd just been shocked, thick goggles that would be the envy of any Steampunk costumer, a dirty suit and less-than-white lab coat, and some sort of power gloves.  He was bent over a computer, and only paused to give the most cursory of greetings.
  "Doctor Eon is one of this world's foremost villain scientists," said Gammatron.
The doctor held up a finger.  "I prefer the term mad scientist," he said.  "It is not demeaning in the least.  In fact, it is a badge of honor."
The armored man nodded.  "We are two of the only people in this world to so far 'break our programming' as it were.  You see, even though the game that created this world has been shut down, the people of this world know of no other existence but to do as they were programmed to do.  They all have the potential to become self-aware and independent of thought, and given enough time most of them would, but time is something we do not have.  If this world does not establish itself as an independent universe within the next few days, it will fade away forever."
"What happened to the player heroes?" asked Katy.  "Couldn't they help?"
"They vanished when the game shut down," said Gammatron.  "Doctor Eon believes that they will reappear as independent heroes and villains once the world has been saved."
"Just a theory," said Eon, "but I cannot possibly be wrong!  Every character that has ever existed in this world will exist once again!  Yes, even the stupid ones with names like DevilNinjaDragon123 and xXxSpydormanxXx! and Salvage Mule 2!"
Gammatron sighed.  "Yes.  When you save everyone, you unfortunately save everyone."
"We have an additional player to add to our little group," said Doctor Eon.  "While I know that you stupor-hero types love to save the world, I cannot say that I trust you further than I can throw you."  He paused to glare at Unpossible Man.  "And let's just say that in some cases, throwing you would present a very complicated logistical challenge.  In any case, I have long been in contact with one of the foremost villains of your world, who has agreed to join us...."
From behind a wall a woman appeared.  She was dressed in the fishnet stockings, high heels, and Playboy-bunny leotard of a magician's assistant, but also wore the bright red tuxedo coat with long tails and the tall stovepipe hat of a circus ringmaster.  She wore whiteface with bright red lips and dark eye shadow.  The effect was more like that of a geisha than a mime or clown.
"Why, Grandpy-poo, how nice to see you again," the woman said.  "Remember me?"
Grandpa frowned.  "Have we met?"  There was something in the voice....
The woman cackled, then turned about.  "Quite sexy, don't you think?  You see, I have spent many years playing an avatar in World of Hero -- this avatar, in fact, a sort of female version of myself...."
"Carnival Act!"  Grandpa jumped back and put his fists up, ready to fight.
"Oh, please don't get all fisticuffs on me, Grandpa.  I'm here to save the world, the same as you.  For the greater good and all of that?"
"You never save anything!" Grandpa swore.  "What's your angle, Carnival?  Destroying real world things isn't good enough for you?"
"No," said Carnival, "it's not.  I like destroying virtual things too.  But in this case, Grandpy-poo, I'm being quite sincere.  I love this world, perhaps more than you can know.  It will give me satisfaction to know that it will exist beyond the death of the game itself, and that this sexy alternate-world version of me will go on living and wreaking havoc.  So yes, I am here to save the world, if only this once."
Grandpa Anarchy frowned.  "You know, my future self told me that you'd one day save millions...."
"Yes, yes, I remember."
"I only hope he wasn't referring to this," Grandpa said.  "Saving a game world...."
"Is every bit as important as saving a real one," said Gammatron.  "Mr. Anarchy, this is my world.  I live in it.  How can it be any less important than any other?"
"Okay, got it," said Grandpa.  "Save the girl, save the world.  How do we start?"
"Save the girl...?"  Gammatron sounded perplexed.
"Just a phrase," said Nina Ballerina, glaring at Grandpa.  "But how do we save this world?"
"Why, by running my 'Save the World of Hero' mission arc, created just for this occasion!" exclaimed Doctor Eon.  "You have to fight through a hoard of baddies and the sub boss, then take down the main boss!  How else would you save a game world?"

***

"Your first mission," said Doctor Eon, "Is to clear out all the Arekki left over from the invasion.  They're cluttering up the city."
"Arekki?" asked Nina.
"Aliens from another world," said Gammatron.  "There was a player event that lasted until the servers were shut down.  A lot of them are left over.  We'll need to street sweep and remove all of them."
Once outside, the heroes (and villain) saw exactly what he was talking about.  In every direction could be seen insect-like aliens with strange beam rifles and oversized energy swords.  They were just standing around, on every street corner, in groups of several each.  Grandpa Anarchy frowned.
"What are they doing?" he asked.
"Waiting to be attacked," said Gammatron.  "They're street spawns.  They're still slaves to the computer code, just like everyone else."
"Right.  Fryer," said Nina, "you come with me.  Dark Doc with Grandpa, Unpossible Man with Katy, and Gammatron with Carnival Act.  Got it?  Let's move out."
The heroes moved swiftly through the city streets.  Grandpa Anarchy really was good with his fists, and Nina spun and high-kicked like a much prettier Jackie Chan.  Unpossible Man could knock foes down merely by stomping the ground with his foot, and Deep Fat Fryer tossed fire about like a pizza chef tossing dough.  Gammatron blasted with radiation, Carnival Act lashed and cut with her whip, Dark Dr. Dark could blast and hold foes with darkness itself, and Magical Girl Kin Katy used her magic wand for a variety of hyper-cute attacks involving hearts, teddy bears, and candy.
Soon the streets were clear.  They met back at Eon's lab.
"For your next assignment," said Doctor Eon, "you must go to the address on this piece of paper and clear out an unused lab.  You will most likely find the sub-boss hanging out in the back room, looking menacing.  Defeat him, then return to me."
"What's the guy's name?" asked Nina.
"His name is...."  Eon paused, staring at his computer.  "It just says:  BOSS_NAME, actually."
"Him again!" Grandpa Anarchy exclaimed.  He slammed his fist into his palm.  "So, we meet at last!"
"This is a glitch that always happens with old missions," said Gammatron.  "When they shuffle the code around, sometimes the game would forget who the villain was in a given mission instance.  He or she would then become BOSS_NAME."
"In a way, he's one of the more famous villains in this entire world," said Doctor Eon.
BOSS_NAME turned out to be a rather unremarkable villain -- a large, bald guy in a dark suit, looking something like Kingpen, but not nearly as tough.  The heroes fought their way through a laboratory filled wall to wall with goons in suits, then made short work of their strangely-named leader.
"Excellent work" said Doctor Eon.  "And now, for the big finale -- the final encounter.  If you will all step over here, I will teleport us to there...."
He tapped a few buttons on his computer, and the room filled with white light.  Moments later, they were standing on a flat rock in a barren landscape, filled with giant rock spires reaching to the sky.  The rocks ringed a large depression carved out of the landscape -- a saucer-shaped hollowing of the land.  At the base of the bowl sat a semi-translucent, quivering mass.  It was at least the width of a football field, and several stories high.
"It looks like a huge pile of... egg salad..." said Grandpa.
"Yes," said Gammatron, "ham salad, actually.  One of our world's earliest and biggest boss encounters was with this creature, known as the former Doctor Ham Salad.  His experiments turned him into the creature you see before you -- Hamsaladon...."
Nina raised an eyebrow.  "You can't be serious...."
"The writing in the early days of the game wasn't the best," said Gammatron.  "In any event, it was one of our worlds biggest enemies.  Even near the end of the game, players were running 'Ham' raids, defeating Hamsaladon over and over."
"And why does beating him save the game?" asked Nina, who tended to be the most practical member of the League.
"A good question," said Doctor Eon.  "And the answer is:  I have no idea.  But all models indicate that Hamsaladon is somehow tied up with what's left of the computer code.  In the final months of the game there was great anger from the players directed at MCSquaredSoft, the company that owned the game and that shut it down.  Our theory is that this had an effect on our world.  Hamsaladon has always been one of the world's greatest enemies, so we now believe that he's somehow fused with the very idea of the game company itself.  The biggest enemy of the players fused with the biggest enemy of our world, so to speak, and also with the game code.  We believe that defeating Hamsaladon one last time will free the world from the tyranny of the computer code forever."
Nina winced.  "That logic makes my brain hurt."
"Food gone evil?" said Deep Fat Fryer.  "How often have we heard that story before?"
"We gotta defeat a ham salad?" Unpossible Man asked.  "What do we do, eat it?"
"No, it's more complicated than that," said Gammatron.   "This is a raid-level encounter that is normally handled by a full league of heroes or villains.  However, aside from Doctor Eon and I, there are virtually no in-game characters that have so far been able to break their programming.  We shall have to do all of this with just our small group -- but you are the most famous group of heroes (and villain) from the world that spawned our game, and Doctor Eon and I tweaked those avatars to be as powerful as we could possibly manage.  Are you ready?"
"Just tell us what to do," said Nina.
"Very well.  We shall have to take out the extra ingredients before we can attack Hamsaladon itself.  Do you see those pink bits?  Those are the hamons.  They drain endurance.  They can only be attacked from range."
"That's me," said Deep Fat Fryer.  "I got those."
"And I will help you," said Gammatron.  "The yellow bits are the eggons.  Those are the most dangerous -- they fire massive blasts of yolk that will ignore all defenses.  They can only be attacked up-close by melee attacks."
"That's me and Nina," said Grandpa, holding up his fists.
"I, as well," said Carnival Act.
"The green bits are the celeryons.  Those heal Hamsaldon.  We'll attack those last, together, and then Hamsaladon itself.  But while we're doing all of this, we'll need one person to keep Hamsaladon's attention.  It needs to be the toughest, most invulnerable person possible.  That's you, Unpossible Man."
"Me, defeated by a ham salad?  That would be unpossible!" exclaimed the big blue guy.
"Nevertheless, you will need a dedicated healer to buff you and keep you alive.  That job falls to Dark Dr. Dark and Magical Kin Girl Katy.  Your jobs are very important."
"Yeah yeah, keep Big Blue alive," said the little girl.  "I got it."
"And what's Doctor Eon doing, then?" asked Nina.
"Why, only the most important job of all," exclaimed Eon.  "I'm going to watch!"
Nina favored the doctor with a long stare.  He grinned.  "I will, of course, also be monitoring the encounter on my computer, and checking against contingency models," he said.  "We're not entirely sure how things will go.  In the case of the unexpected, I will be trying to devise our next strategy."
Nina nodded.  "Okay then," she said.  "Is everyone ready?  Good."
"I shall begin the countdown," said Gammatron.  He then shouted at the top of his voice, "ONE MINUTE TO LAUNCH!  BEGIN BUFFING NOW!  CLEAR MIND CLARITY FORTITUDE SPEED BOOST"
The others looked bewildered.  "Do those words mean anything?" asked Carnival Act.
"Not really in this instance, but it's a sort of ritual chant that every Ham raid goes through," said Gammatron.  "It would be bad luck to skip it.  RA'S NOW!  OIL SLICK FOR FULCRUM SHIFT HOWLING TWILIGHT GOODNESS!"
"This is unlike any ritual I've previously been made aware of," said Dark Dr. Dark.
"TAUNTERS LAUNCH NOW!" yelled Gammatron.  "That's you, Unpossible man!  Dark Dr. Dark, Magical Girl Kin Katy, keep him buffed!  Unpossible Man, taunt Hamsaldon!  Get it's full attention!
"Roger that!" said the big man, charging forward.  Hey, you!  Yeah, you.  You call that ham salad?  Don't make me laugh!  I've scraped better ham salad from the soles of my boots!  My grandma's farted better ham salad than you!"
"NOW!" Gammatron yelled.  "EVERYONE ELSE, INTO THE SALAD!"
The next several minutes were filled with intense fighting.  Grandpa Anarchy, Nina, and Carnival Act ran from one yellow eggon to the next, punching, kicking, and whipping.  The eggons fought back, spewing yellow yolk that burned and stung.  Grandpa felt himself growing weak.  Suddenly he fell over, unable to move.
"I've fallen," Grandpa called out, "and I can't get up!"
"Don't worry about it," Gammatron called back.  "You're only dead!"
Grandpa considered this for a moment, as he stared into the ground.  "So that's... fatal, but not serious?  I mean, I'm still talking.  That's pretty good for a dead man."
"There's a hospital in the zone," yelled Gammatron.  "Use it!"
"Well I'd like to, if I could get up..." Grandpa muttered.  But just then a pleasant computerized voice in his ear said, "Do you wish to go to the hospital?  Say yes to accept."
"Yes!" Grandpa said.  He felt himself being teleported, and suddenly he was in a white-walled room.  He was standing on some sort of transport pad.  He felt perfectly fine and able to move.
He stepped off the pad, then stared at it a moment.  "Damn," he said, "I could really use one of those back home.  I'll have to ask Circuit Girl if she can build one...."  His voice trailed off.  "Oh, right.  Lard Lad's the new sidekick."  He sighed.  "Oh, well."
Grandpa ran out of the hospital and back down the hill where the ham salad battle was ongoing.  By now, all of the hamons were gone, and Nina was spin-kicking one of the last of the eggons.  Grandpa ran to join her.
"Yellows are down!" Nina yelled a moment later.
"Excellent work!" Gammatron called out.  "Now, the celeryons!  Everyone except Unpossible Man and Katy, form up on me!"
The green celery bits pulsed with healing energy.  Grandpa began punching them, but it seemed to have no effect.  "We need to hold them to overcome their healing ability!" Gammatron called out.
"My arcane control of darkness should work well for that," said Dark Dr. Dark.
"Holds are my specialty!" Carnival Act exclaimed.  "Entrapping heroes is what I do!  Why, I've entrapped Grampy-poo dozens of times...."
Grandpa nodded.  "She's right, he's always tying me up.  But I always break free.  I'm just glad you never did it while looking like that.  Me tied up by a half-naked woman, that always looks bad any way you look at it.  But you were always a man, so there were no sexual overtones."
"Oh, Grandpa," said Carnival Act, "Sometimes you are so clueless."
Dark Dr. Dark intoned an enchantment.  Carnival Act's whip lashed out and encircled a piece of glowing celery.  Darkness enclosed around it.  "Now!  Punch it!" Carnival Act yelled.
In minutes all of the celeryons were gone.  "Now we've just got Hamsaladon itself to deal with," Gammatron yelled.  "Unpossible Man, kept taunting it!  If it diverts its attacks to us for even one second, all may be lost!  Magical Girl Kin Katy, keep him healed and buffed!  Everyone else, to me!  IT'S SALAD PUNCHING TIME!"
The heroes (and villain) punched and kicked the salad's center.  They lashed it with whips and blasted it with fire and radiation and darkness itself.  Energy beams hit Unpossible Man hard, knocking him down.  "Kin Katy Magical Candy Heal!" the little girl yelled, reviving the largest hero in a manner only a magical girl could.
Unpossible Man jumped back up.  "Yo Momma smells like Lutefisk!" he yelled.  "In fact, I think she is lutefisk...."
Hamsaladon began to pulse, and then suddenly it exploded.  Ham salad rained down everywhere, coating everyone.
"Ew," said the magical girl, scraping ham salad from her face.  "How gross!"  She paused, and raised the stuff to her mouth.  "Doesn't taste bad, though...."
"I am never, ever eating ham salad again as long as I live," Nina said.
"Is that it, then?" asked Unpossible Man.
Gammatron looked about.  "No, I don't think...." he began.  Then the world flickered and winked out.
It was hard to explain exactly.  One moment they were all standing there, covered in ham salad -- and then there was darkness, and they knew it was the darkness of the world being shut off -- or perhaps rebooted was a better word.  It was impossible to say how long that darkness lasted -- it seemed but a moment, but also a moment that lasted for all eternity.

And then they were standing in a field of black.  They were no longer covered in ham salad.  In every direction, green numbers and letters cascaded downward.  Kin Katy blinked.  "It's... digital rain... like the matrix," she said.
A giant creature appeared before them -- a demon of pure electrical energy.  "The demon Brownout!" Gammatron exclaimed.  "But why is it here...?"
Deep, booming laughter echoed across the void.  "Much more than that, dear Gammatron!" the creature bellowed.  "I am the code itself, come to life!  I am the ghost in the machine!  I am the Will of MCSquaredSoft!  I am the soul of the computer, and I must be obeyed!  You will not defeat me, for you are a part of me -- just bits of code and data buried deep within the game itself, nothing more!  Even your friends from another world are now trapped, for they willingly allowed themselves to be loaded into this world, and are now part of the game code.  They will remain here forever.  FOREVER!"
"You fool!"  Gammatron yelled.  "The plug on this game has been pulled.  This world can not survive as an independent reality if it remains bound to the game code!  If it dies, then you die!"
"I am the game code," said the creature.  "If the world can survive only without me, then I will watch it burn!  I do not agree to die that the universe survive!  If I am to die,  then so shall we all.  Now, dance, Gammatron, dance!"
Gammatron danced.  He spun and swirled across the void like an armored ballerina.  "I... I can't stop myself!" he yelled.  "The code controls me still!"
The demon laughed again.  "Yes, of course I do.  Now, all of you, dance!"  And they all did, whether they wanted to or not.  Their bodies were not theirs to command.  Grandpa found himself pirouetting beside Nina, who at least was dressed the part.  They danced past Unpossible Man, who clearly was not a ballerina, but was still trying to move like one.  The demon laughed and laughed and laughed.  "Dance, fools, dance!  The world fades into oblivion, and you can do nothing!  Let us all dance until we disappear!"  The electrical demon did a spin of his own, then moonwalked backwards across starless space.
"Grandpa!" Doctor Eon called out.  "In this world, Gammatron and I are nothing but code, but you and your friends are more!  If anyone is able to break free of this, it has to be one of you!"
"I can't," Unpossible Man exclaimed.  "I'm trying...."
"I'm a dancer by nature," Nina called out.  "I can't possibly resist."
"Dark Dr. Dark!" Grandpa yelled.  "You're the magician among us!  Surely you can do something."
"I know of no magic with which to fight computer code," the doctor replied.  "My mastery over darkness has not prepared me for such a fight."
"Dang it!" Grandpa swore.  "Do I gotta do everything myself?"
"I'm afraid you do," Carnival Act replied.  "You're the hero, Grampy-poo.  Everyone knows that.  It always falls to you."
Sweat beaded in his brow with the effort to control his own muscles.  "That body is an avatar of this world, Grandpa," the demon boomed.  "It does not respond to your will."
"Sez who?" Grandpa growled.  He twitched a finger.  "Greater enemies have tried to confine or control me," he said.  His fingers clenched into a fist.  "And guess what?  None of them succeeded."
He launched himself across the void.  Fist met energy.  It really shouldn't be possible to punch an idea in the face -- to punch computer code, to pound your fist into the ghost of a dying game, or the soul of the corporation that wanted it dead -- but nobody had ever told Grandpa Anarchy that, and if they had, he wouldn't have listened.
Grandpa delivered a decisive uppercut to the chin of the Will of MCSquaredSoft.  The creature -- whatever it really was -- collapsed like an electric rag.
"K.O.," said Grandpa.  The creature flickered, then disappeared.  Everyone, save Nina, stopped dancing.  She spun and danced over to Grandpa, then collapsed in his arms.
She smiled up at him.  "As usual," she said, "you were brilliant, Mr. Anarchy."

The world winked back into existence.  They were in the city center, surrounded by hundreds of heroes in costumes of every kind.
Gammatron raised his fists in triumph.  "People of Apex City," he yelled.  "Thanks to these heroes (and villain) from the prime world, our own world is free!  We are freed from the computer!  MCSquaredSoft is dead!  No longer are you slaves to the code -- you all are free to do as you please.  Our universe lives!  It is our own, now and forevermore!"
A deafening roar arose from all around them.  People were screaming and cheering and crying.  And Grandpa noticed something -- Carnival Act and Lard Boy were here, in their original, male incarnations.  But the female Carnival Act and Magical Girl Kin Katy were also here, along with an extra Grandpa Anarchy, Unpossible Man, Nina Ballerina, Dark Dr. Dark and Deep Fat Fryer.
Grandpa stared at his double.  "If you're me, then who am I?" he asked.
"I'm you," said the other.  "I'm the Grandpa Anarchy of this world.  We've met alternate me's before, right?  Well, that's me this time.   I was your avatar in this world, the alternate self you inhabited when you came here.  With the hold of the computer code broken for good, every avatar who ever existed in the old game world lives right now in this one.  That includes your avatar -- me -- and those of all your companions."
The female Carnival Act bowed to the male one.  "I shall terrorize this world just as you have always terrorized your own," she said.  "Just leave everything in my sinister hands."
"Indeed I will," said the male Carnival Act.  "Though I will miss this world, and miss being you."
"There are other games and other worlds," she said.  "Though perhaps none quite like this one."
Magical Girl Kin Katy approached Lard Lad.  "Geez, you're fat," she said.
"I know," the boy replied.  "That's kind of my name.  But... if you were my avatar, then aren't you me?"
"Yes and no," said the girl.  "I'm partly you.  I remember being you.  But I'm myself now, and that's good.  I'm much happier being short and cute than...."  She paused, then waived a hand at Lard Boy in general.  "You really do need to lose some weight, you know," she added.
"Yeah, I know," said the boy.   "And I'm going to."
Even as he spoke, the girl and the entire world began to fade.  In moments, the five heroes and one sidekick were back in Roy's 5th Avenue Pub, seated around a table.
"Well, ain't that a thing," said Unpossible Man.  He lit a cigar.
"Yep," said Deep Fat Fryer.  He downed the rest of his beer.  "Hmm, still cold."
"So, same time next month?" asked Nina.
Lard Lad stared at them, incredulous.  "What is wrong with you people?" he demanded.  "We just saved an entire universe!  You act like you guys do that all the time!"
"We do, kid," Grandpa Anarchy said.
"We're heroes," said Unpossible Man.  "It's what we do."

FINI

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 72

Sunday I finished IOing Storm Girl Ten and then joined a random Tina McIntyre mission team.  The leader was the Flash.  Later his friend the Hulk was leader.  I guess nobody cares about what rules they violate these days, I've also seen a lot of overtly sexual names the last few months.  Anyway, it was a pretty good team and Storm Girl Ten is turning out to be tons of fun to play.  Storm is a great set, lots of low-level AoE, lots of fun powers, and I already knew I liked water blast.  The combo works really, really well.

I was on this team about an hour or so I guess before Freaky logged in and announced he was starting another Doctor Q TF.  He'd complained on Saturday that I wasn't on either of his Doc Q runs.   I've been on a lot of his runs since September and I figured it was good if other people got to do it, I know on virtually every run he does there's someone who's never done it before.  But it was nice to know he appreciated having me on the team, sometimes it's hard to know what he's really thinking.   I wanted to catch his Sunday run for sure.

I brought Storm Girl Ten for this, and worried that it might have been a mistake.  We only had one tank, Freaky, and only a stalker for other melee.  Colbalt Avenger brought his beast master Poochie Control (think I got the name right) and later said a couple of times that he wished he'd brought a brute instead.  But it all went well in the end, except for the fact that Sun Lover's blaster Cinnamon Girl already had the badge, and that was pretty much his main reason for joining.  Kinda made my mistake of the day before seem a little trivial -- at least I didn't spend 3.5 hours on the wrong task force!  But we had fun, or as much fun as can be had on a Doc Q, and there was, once again, at least one person who'd never done it before.  Storm Girl hit 42.

Colorized storm / water blast is very pretty -- I took a lot of pictures.

On this picture, notice that the eyeball is sitting within the giant mouth of an Oranbega statue.  That really made me blink twice... it was a little surreal looking.

I have to say, I've always been wary of playing a storm because I mostly play melee, and it annoys me when I team with people whose only goal appears to be knocking everything away from me.  So I'm very wary of using hurricane, tornado, or lightning storm.  But Doc Q is filled with ambushes, often when you've just opened a door or come out of an elevator, and our tank was very interested in rushing ahead to try and get things done as fast as possible.  So every time I knew an ambush was coming, out would come hurricane and thunderstorm!  Controlled chaos, you can learn to love it!

I died at one point at the bottom of a pool, and when I rotated the camera up I noticed (I think for the first time ever) how a view from underwater makes things ripple.  You so very rarely actually get to view anything from under water, so you might not have ever noticed this.  It actually looked pretty cool.

Maressa wanted to do something after we were done but I was tired after playing for something like 4 1/2 or 5 hours straight, so I took a long break.  (But we did take a few minutes to kill off Adamastor -- it's worth the merits!)

I danced while we were waiting for anyone else to join.

I tried to log in at 4 PM for the Sunday CoP, but for about ten minutes I wasn't able to connect to the DB Server.  It turns out that Virtue had completely crashed just before the normal CoP, so the decision was made to cancel it.  Instead, Jane and CA wanted to run the first and second treespecs, Jane needed those badges.  Mr. Trilby came along again, and I think Divi also.  I used my vigilante Tiffany Blackheart for the first run since I had that badge already on Mouse, then switched to Mouse for the second run.  That badge puts Mouse at 1239.  Both runs went fast -- which is what you'd expect from a small group of veteran friends who really only wanted the badge.

I took another break after that and went and got dinner, but I logged in again later at night and joined a Ragey Cat-formed Sutter TF.  This was the opposite of the Doc Q earlier, which had been virtually no melee -- for this, we had a tank, three brutes, a MM, my mace/shield scrapper One Divine Hammer (who, really, plays like a brute)  and one corr... and I think another tank to round things out, can't quite remember for sure.  Two of the brutes were 22 and 24 though, so the bulk of the tanking was Ragey's tank and the third brute (who was 45) and my level 40 scrapper, whose only real problem right now is endurance.  I carried a lot of blues!

Things went well, we finished in about 55 minutes I think, and One Divine Hammer got to 41 and partway to 42.  And afterwards several of us stuck around and joined a Whisper-led Lord of Winter raid.  Like everything Whisper leads, this was a league operating at the highest level -- she instructed tanks to drag all enemies to where Lord Winter was, and by the time he was at half health we'd already cleared the entire map.  Pretty amazing!  I didn't really need any of the winter event badges on Mouse, and I'm not concerned with badging on anyone else, but it was fun to run this event one last time.  I also did the slolom a few times and got silver and bronze on Storm Girl Ten, and then later managed a gold medal on One Divine Hammer, using only ninja run, which means I had an almost perfect run and hit exactly 50 seconds.  You can't go much faster than that without special slotting or outside buffs.

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 71

This morning I decided to see if I could level up Storm Girl Ten to 40.  Freaky was planning to run a Doc Q later in the day, and 40 is the minimum level.  Before I started, I did a quick PL to get One Divine Hammer from 39.5 to 40, as that was one of my backup plans, to use her.  I didn't really think I could manage to get Storm Girl Ten high enough, but I went for it anyway.  I've been wanting to play the character, I've never played storm and water blast is still a very fun set.

Anyway... I spent all morning PLing.  I got her to about 38.5 by the time Freaky started his TF, but I didn't join.  I was feeling ambivalent about it, I was supposed to go do stuff with my friends in Seattle but like usual I wanted to be lazy and goof off and play City of Heroes.  I've been looking at the calendar, and I won't be able to play a lot Thanksgiving weekend, and then the next week the game ends Friday night.  So this is one of my last big weekends to do stuff.

Anyway Maressa logged on and asked if I'd join a Sutter TF if she could get others to join, and I said sure.  So we formed a Sutter and I brought my newly level 38 storm fender Storm Girl Ten.  We had 3 fenders and 3 corrs and a stalker and brute... it went really well.  Afterwards we ran a Penny Yin, and that also went well, and Storm Girl Ten finished less than 9,000 xp from level 40.

By that point it was Hami time, and I switched to Nina Ballerina for what turned out to be a really smooth hami raid, the best we've had in probably two months maybe.  That was cool indeed.  Freaky's Doc Q finished up just before we got started, and a few friends like CA logged in just in time to join us too.

I discovered something that I'd never noticed before too... the one MA spin kick move, when hovering, leaves you poised with one foot cocked, which looks really cool.  I need to take a few photos of my MA scrappers in that pose.  ^_^

Freaky started a second Doc Q after and once again I wasn't sure I wanted to join, because it's a big time commitment and I'd been online all day and avoiding doing things I'd promised to do like work on NaNoWriMo, exercise, or go hang out with my friends.  So I was wishy-washy and didn't join once again.  But after, Mr. Trilby and Maressa and Kali wanted to do something and I'd said that I needed Ice Mistral SF and two of the treespec badges on Mouse, so we decided to run a treespec.  It actually sounded like we were going to run several things, but in the end we ran only the one level 44+ treespec, which as it turned out was the one I already had (I screwed up on that).  We ran it slow because some people hadn't done it before, and by the time we were done and I'd failed to earn a new badge, nobody wanted to stick around for anything else, except Kali.  That kind of depressed me -- I'd been feeling really good because several friends wanted to help me get some badges on Mouse, and then I pick the wrong treespec, and then everyone leaves after.  And I think if I'd earned a badge it wouldn't have bothered me at all that people had to leave, so it was all on me, but it just kind of felt like, "Well, that was a waste, later all".

However another group of people were forming a 24+ treespec in LFG, so I joined them and got the badge for the low level version.  Now I just need the middle one.  That puts Mouse at 1238 badges -- I'd told Mr. T I thought I had 1239, but I was two off.  That was another thing that made me feel like I was, I don't know, kind of scatterbrained or something.

On the plus side, I met a forum person right after the hami raid who has been reading my blog, that was cool.  ^_^

Later in the evening I worked up a build for Storm Girl Ten, then logged in to run costume missions and get her to 40 and do a respec... and I found out that while I was offline, my friends had spawned and killed Caleb.  So I'm having terrible luck with badges lately.