Remember those advertisments on the arcade machines?  The ones that said ‘Winners Don’t Use Drugs!’?

  Well it seems that today, Joe is a winner.

  “Yes, be concerned for the person who is maiming enemies with their bare hands as opposed to relying on a weapon or lighting people on fire.  They might cut their hands on skull fragments.”  Joe might also be partaking of the casual wear look, but he still did the majority of his ouching with a sharp object.

   Speaking of which, Joe was also opting for the direct approach on the in charge type jerkface.  “Seriously, stop shooting me while I’m trying to maim your boss. I’ll get you in a bit...  When did I start considering being shot a mild annoyance?”

With so many foes, why choose?  Mittens leaps into the fray and spins her sword in a 360 arc, slashing every foe around her!  ^.^

"Whee!" she shouts, "Now this is my kinda team!  Just charge right in!"  :D

"Shouldn't you be monologuing by now?" she asks the boss villain.

The boss, in response, says, "Oh! Right! Almost forgot!" *Ahem* "Welcome to your doom, Mittens Christian!" as he blocks one of Joe's attacks.

The minions, of course, are offended by Joe's taunts and yet don't focus on him any more than they would have without said taunts. Gotta love it... because Joe didn't use a taunt "power", he can say anything he wants. Just as long as it isn't the infamous "ha HA!"

Maverick blushes lightly, but tries to act like he wasn't... oh heck with it. He smiles as he tears into the enemies even more, inspired by Joe's confidence. And when he hears Joe mock the enemy, he stifles a laugh.

Timothius gulps as he watches Maverick kick butt and then charges in with Mittens. "Careful!" he pleas with his allies in a concerned tone. "Don't get too in over your heads!"

  "Don't worry, I'm quite capable of fleeing like a sissy if the alternative is a lot more painful."  Yes, that will really inspire confidence won't it?

  The solution of 'stab until finished' was taking too long.  It had been a whole minute, after all.  The answer to this?  Stab with more haste.

"HA!" Mittens answers Timothius, "We're too short for anything to not be over our heads!"  XD

She lays the flat side of her sword on top of her head then thrusts it into the chest of the boss.

"See?  He's at least a foot taller!" :P

The boss falls to his knees with an "uuuhhh..." and then plops to his face. The others in the room don't seem effected by this as they continue fighting.

Maverick is about dead when Joe's antics catch up with him and grab most of the attention Maverick had. He takes a healing inspiration and soon, the masses are taken care of. Mission accomplished.

Timothius skews his face but then smiles and says, "Yay!" ^_^ before exiting the place with Mittens and the two new friends. He glances at Mittens a few times. "So... should we invite them to the SG?" he whispers to Mittens.

  "I have always wondered how the average height seems to be seven feet tall in this city."  That’s right Joe, focus on the normally visible oddities of the city.

  As opposed to the floating speech bubbles that make whispering a Non-Option...  Oh man, the implications of how much airspace must be taken with Joe's self narratives is staggering.

"Good work, heroes!" Mittens commends the team, "Those villains will not plague the citizens of this city again any time soon!  Our resolve and teamwork was too much for them!  Speaking of teamwork, my brother and I have been entrusted with leading the Paragon City chapter of the Hero Voice Guild, an organization for promoting heroism in everyone everywhere!  If you're interested in joining such a group, let us know!"  ^.^

Maverick gives Mittens a sideways glance. "What is it that sets the Hero Voice Guild apart from other super groups?"

To Joe's comment, Maverick is unsure what brought such a thought about. So in revenge, he decides to make another comment that doesn't make much sense to say, "Personally, I always wondered how powerful blasts of fire can go right through a wall without the wall being damaged." Or for that matter, if Hellions have X-ray vision since they tend to shoot through those same walls and hit the target they can't see. But Maverick decides not to mention that part.

Timothius looks over at Joe, "...it is? Wasn't sure. I keep seeing so many different sizes..." he then looks at Maverick and says, "Err.. well... not much. Though we try to make sure the members are good role models so that when fighting crime we don't become immoral in the process." he looks at Mittens. "Maybe you could put it better?"

  Joe answers Maverick's important question first "They had to improved the building code standard to hold up to that sort of thing."  Maybe.  It made more sense than 'magic is why exercise makes you run faster, and why power armor hits things hard' anyways.

  Second question, Tim's.  "Yeah, but a lot of the buildings and furniture seem scaled to that size."  Off in the Rouge isles, a wandering Wolf Spider wonders why all the rest hanging out in Fort Cerebus are seven feet tall.  And a wandering Cop in the Hollows wonders why his co-workers by the entrance are all so tall.

  Back to the Supergroup situation "So, you try to stab people with swords in the most moral and humane way possible, offer pointers on the 'correct' way to light people on fire, and put the clockworks and zombies you scatter across the pavement back together?  I'm impressed, and lacking anything better to do at the moment.  So sure."

  So, is it better or worse that Joe wasn't sarcastic there?
This message was last edited by the player at 06:10, Sun 25 Jan 2009.

"We discourage profanity," Mittens answers Maverick and Timothius, "That's usually all anyone has to hear about us to form an opinion.  'Oh wow!  If they won't even allow cussing, then it goes without saying all the other dirty things they don't allow!  Not even the most famous supergroups in the city are that strict!'

"We believe that the more powerful you are, the greater your responsibility to be upright and virtuous; above and beyond just being merely 'lawful.'  We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than just what the law forbids.  This principle holds true for both super-powered people and those who are powerful in other ways like elected officials."

She turns to face Joe.

"A criminal may use a gun to take what doesn't belong to him by force.  A victim may use a gun to protect himself against the villain.  A hero is one who uses a gun to protect others.  Thanks to the city's medical reclamation system, the worst that happens to the criminal is that he feels some brief pain before waking up in a prison hospital.  Apparently, the system works even for robots and zombies...  So yeah.  What you said is pretty accurate."  ^.^

She sends and official invitation to both Joe and Maverick.

Maverick gives Mittens a look of suspicion. "What kind of dirt do you allow in your super group?" he accepts the invitation even as he asks this. "People can have the filthiest mouths you ever heard without the need of cuss words." he points out.

Timothius looks over at Mittens again before looking back to Maverick and saying, "We don't have a very large set of rules. And as you just heard from Mittens' testimony, most people at least have the common sense to know what's wrong the moment profanity is listed as 'not allowed'. This shows that no matter how much people tell themselves they are basically good, they know the reality. Just like places labeled 'adult' are labeled such to protect children, but who will protect the adults from this stuff they are so embarrassed of? And why be embarrassed to share it with children unless you have something darker to hide? These are things most people don't consciously think about, but the fact is that people usually know right from wrong and choose to do wrong quite often."

Timothius glances back to Mittens as if asking her with his eyes if he answered well.

  "Well," Joe commented as he accepted the invitation.  "At least that means you don't leave innocent people in a cave or warehouse after they've been surrounded by violent crazies all day."

  Joe had lost track how often those Skulls had reset back into existence before he went literally Axe crazy on all involved.  It was probbaly for the best Atlas Park wasn't PvP enabled.

Mittens smiles and nods while thumbing at Timothius.

"Yeah if I found a member bringing that smut into our base, they'd be kicked from the SG faster than you can say 'combat boots!' even if it's technically legal, it's far from heroic."

Before Maverick has the chance to answer what Mittens said, Timothius quickly points out, "Kicked out of the super group doesn't mean rejected as a person, though. While being unheroic means you won't be a part of the Hero Voice Guild, it doesn't mean that we of the Hero Voice Guild are too aloof to help someone become heroic. Rather, we encourage members of our group to help guide otherwise unheroic people to become heroic. So even if you were kicked out, there is always a chance to become a member. Redemption is one of the core beliefs of the Hero Voice Guild."

Again, glancing at his older sister for confirmation, hoping he didn't just overstep, but he'd be surprised if he had.

Maverick takes a mental note of what Joe said and pays attention to the explanations given. He glances at Joe. "What the heck? Why would any hero do that?" he mutters quietly before he hears Mittens and Timothius talk more. He pauses a moment before saying, "Count me in then."

  Joe says "Something about Exp farming." In regards to Maverick's first question, through the wonders of reading speech bubbles.  He could have believed them possibly missing him a couple times, but when they started deliberately teleporting away from him on his way to the exit, it got old, and time for AXE.

  He comments in regards to Mittens response, even though Tim has added some details, "Well, I'll be sure to leave my nonexistent adult magazines at home then."  That would probably be more impressive if there wasn't so much of it free on the interwebs.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:02, Fri 08 May 2009.

Mittens rubs behind her head.

"Heh.  Yeah.  We all in need of redemption from something.  Some just need a lot more 'tough love' than others.  Speaking of whom, let's go defeat some more bad-guys!  Oh... and please enter SG mode."

She explains how that's done then checks her police scanner.

"Let's see...  I've got a bank mish.  Timo?"

*fast forwards a bit*

A long day of crime fighting comes to an end and a tired but satisfied Maverick shows up in the super group base for the first time.

Maverick looks around, confused at first and somewhat bewildered. He had never been in a super group base before. Even as stealthy as he is, game mechanics just won't let him enter a base until he's a member of the group or at least the team that has said base.