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Reply Subj: What if it's on someone else? Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 at 07:33:14 pm EST (Viewed 443 times) | |||||||
Quote: Quote: If it's any help the Carnifex expects Vizh's kids to be joining him for dinner.Quote: Good thing Anna's not watching them, she would resist extremely violently (and she's capable of far more violence than Tandi is). Visionary's kids are the first human children she's become very attached to.The idea is to hurt the Legion as much as possible before they die. Where's the fun otherwise? Quote: Quote: Quote: Yes, they can *beat* any opponent. I'd expect, though, Lee, Chiaki, and Hallie to understand that, and also understand that they could theoretically disable or dismantle the LL by giving them no opponent to fight. For instance making them obsolete somehow, and forcing the individuals to move on to something else.Quote: Quote: Wouldn't that require getting rid of every supervillain, terrorist organisation, alien and supernatural enemy in the Parodyverse then eradicating crime and natural disaster?Quote: Ask Lara Night that question sometime. She "retired" from superhero work back home because there were so many costumed avengers out there she felt like it didn't mean anything anymore. And with the police developing ways to deal with them, that made her feel even more redundant.Surely if you have the ability to save lives you'd feel bad every time you saw the news about lives lost and knew you'd done nothing? For example, what superhero (if they existed in our world) wouldn't have flown out of retirement and gone to Haiti recently to help with rescue operations? Quote: In that case I only have 5 possible predictions:Quote: 1. Since Lara isn't going to herself or the others die, she may take a chance and blindly transport all of them to somewhere random and far away...where they'll become stranded for a few days while she waits to recharge (or until Liu Xi is strong enough to get them out). This possibility will most likely be motivated by one of them becoming badly hurt, i.e. the "We have to get out now!" scenario. (P.S. that kind of panic reaction would sort of be like "collapsing the bubble", the one protecting them from the hard atmosphere, so a handful of zombies and some ground dirt would probably go with them)I'm hoping to rule this one out as a possibility. The purpose of previous Carnifex provocations like the Moderator Saga and Saving the Future was for him to get the measure of his enemies characters, abilities, and powers. He wants the first of these so he can work out how to torment them, the second so he can set strategies against them, and the third so he can neutralise those which would otherwise interfere with his games. This latter factor is how he's worked out ways of preventing Liu Xi and Lara from departing out of his trap. Note however that he hasn't simply arranged for their immediate and inescabable demise. He wants them to struggle and suffer for as long as possible before falling; and therein lies his weakness. Quote: 2. Ms. Peel either stops to gloat, or the Psychic Samurai had a few seconds to focus and figure out she's behind it all. Chiaki pulls a last second switch and seems to abandon the others while she goes after Ms. Peel. At least until Ms. Peel defends herself by sending all the zombies after Chiaki - but by then, the distraction will free Liu Xi to work her void magic.I expect that eventually the heroes will work out that escape isn't possible. Thereafter the only acceptable solution is victory. Quote: 3. There will be outside rescue - either from the Hooded Hood (protecting his investment, of course - erasing Lara's memory and making plans for her was hard work!) or Vinnie, since they're the only two I can think of that are available. Unless someone is in range of Anna's broadcast telemetry, like that alien bounty-hunter, piloting a stolen Shee-Yar cruiser.That might work under other contexts, but I think it would feel like a cheat in this situation. Here's an "impossible challenge" for the characters, which is designed to make them helpless and desperate and ultimately to fail. Narratively it would only satisfy if they managed somehow through their own efforts to thwart that intent to make them victims. Quote: 4. The point isn't to kill them, but to disable and capture them for later. That's a classic villain mistake (locking up the heroes instead of killing them) but a highly possible one, since the original point may be to keep them from alerting and rescuing the Lair Legion.The point's to destroy them, with death being the final merciful end of it. More on this next chapter. Quote: 5. Liu Xi finally remembers spells that Vinnie told her about while she was up late at night with him, and she turns the zombies - or their ghostly souls - against Ms. Peel by telling them she was responsible for their genocide.It's one way through, but I think Liu Xi would need considerably more experience and power to accomplish such a thing on a planetary scale. Quote: Anything other than that would probably involve factors or characters I'm not at all familiar with.I think it would be a cheat to bring in some left-field x-factor to this one. The key to victory has to be our heroines toughing it out, dealing with all the crap and horror, and proving they're better than the opposition the hard way. We'll see how that pans out when I write UT#335. | |||||||
