Title: Words, Hands, Hearts
Description: A Marvel/DC Roleplay
Description: A Marvel/DC Roleplay
WHH Admin - September 30, 2007 06:17 AM (GMT)
There are certain words within the human vocabulary that have the ability to stir great emotion within the gut of any feeling individual. Words like tragedy and despair; like loss, and devastation. Words like Crisis.
The Infinite Crisis is, by now, well known; it was a catastrophe of proportions none seemed capable of envisioning. Humans were taken over by nanites called OMACs, at the bidding of the rogue Brother I program. Thousands of supervillains gathered to attack the Big Apricot, Metropolis. The Society of Super Villains added to the chaos by dropping Chemo on Blüdhaven; the city was laid to waste, suffering the equivalent effects of an atomic bomb. Only months before this mess, the Cure Crisis was just beginning to calm down; the mutant population settled into its state of powerlessness, or began realizing the returning mutation. They dealt with the death of Charles Xavier, perhaps the greatest visionary ever born, and the loss of Eric Lensherr, Xavier’s greatest foe and contemporary.
Losses were felt all around during this latest disaster; in total, over five million people were killed – five million villains, civilians and heroes alike. The greatest defeat, however, were most widely felt among the latter. The greatest iconic superheroes of all time – gone, just like that.
Superman was the first to leave this world; well, not the first, certainly, but the first of many great heroes that would be sorely missed. He saved his clone, Conner Kent, Superboy, by stealing his fate out from under him. Making his way back from Earth-2 in time, Superman stopped Conner from charging Superboy-Prime, dying in the younger hero’s place. He saved the world by destroying Alex Luthor’s vibrational tuner, the tool he was using to bring the multiverse back into existence. Clark died in Superboy’s arms as Wonder Woman, Kal-L (the Superman of Earth-2) and Batman looked on, horrified. He had been dead once before, but the horrified feeling was shared that this time, he would not return.
The mightiest of a people is always the first to fall.
From there, Conner and Kal-L hunted Superboy-Prime; the chase ended with all three driving straight through Rao, Krypton’s red sun. Though their strength was sapped, Prime killed Kal-L before Superboy could knock him out, stating that he would never be Superman.
Prime was placed under the guard of fifty members of the Green Lantern corps, inside a red Sun Eater. But he is not where this dreadful story ends.
Amidst the Battle for Metropolis, several other icons perished: the Hulk, strong and near invulnerable as he was, was struck down in the middle of the small war. After him died Captain America, fighting to avenge his fellow Avenger, in true fashion of their old team. Many more would die that day, but few are remembered as widely as they.
Later, Batman (Bruce Wayne), Nightwing (Dick Grayson), and Robin (Tim Drake) hunted down Alex Luthor, intent on making him pay for his crimes. The spooked and more than a little mad Alex shot an anti-matter beam at Batman; Nightwing dove in front of him, protecting his estranged father figure. The unstable area began to crumble, and Bruce and Luthor were pitched downward, while Robin looked on and tried to keep his near-brother from bleeding out. The two fought, until Batman found a discarded gun, and pinned Alex with it. He was set to kill the young man, while his protégés looked on, until Diana, Wonder Woman, arrived to tell him that Luthor was not worth it. After a moment’s hesitation, Bruce agreed, and the other man escaped.
Soon, the clean up began; for no matter how great the sacrifices and the losses, life must always return to normal, no matter how long it takes. And no matter how dearly some would wish their life to be normal once more, it rarely comes when requested. Diana, in mourning for one of her dearest friends, returned to Paradise Island after Clark’s funeral. As such, she was there when the Amazons and their ancestral home disappeared; she has not been seen since, another blow to humankind. So many iconic warriors, gone.
But there was still one more, one that would completely shatter any hope of living a normal life.
A month or two passed; Alex Luthor met his end at the hands of the Joker, while Lex Luthor looked on. During the efforts to clean up, Bruce proposed adoption for the second time to Tim, offering him a place to call home at Wayne Manor. The boy accepted, thankfully to have some place after seeing his best friend’s father-figure killed. The adoption was set into motion, sped up a great deal by the sway Bruce Wayne carried; and then, late on the night all the papers had been signed, and matters had been settled, when Tim and Bruce – and of course Alfred, the old and dear butler – were celebrating, that it happened.
Soon after the dust had cleared and the Crisis was averted, Selina Kyle approached Bruce Wayne once again, looking for the relationship that always seemed impossible for them. The most recent near death experience had given her the resolve to try once more; when he refused for the last time, Catwoman sought blind revenge, and in a fit of rage, she sold his secret to his greatest foe, the madman known only as the Joker.
So, as the celebratory dinner commenced at Wayne Manor, they thought very little of a knock on the door. Alfred when to answer, as usual; it was his shout that alerted the present members of the Bat Family. Standing in the doorway, bleach-white skin framed by the dark night, was Joker, dragging a limp and very obviously dead Catwoman by the scruff of the neck. Explaining as only the Joker can, he claimed that no one likes a tattletale; he had killed Selina after retrieving the information of Batman’s secret identity. He had come to end the years of fun. The Joker and the unmasked Batman fought; Robin and Alfred did their best to help Bruce against the Joker’s crazed frenzy; the former was knocked out for a time. The latter died, trying to wrestle the lunatic’s gun from him.
Eventually making their way to the trophy room in the Bat Cave, Joker picked up the gun that had killed Martha and Thomas Wayne, and shot Bruce pointblank in the chest; just as Robin reached them, just in time for the youngest protégé to see.
For whatever reason, Joker left Tim alive that night; perhaps the idea of living with his version of survivor’s guilt was amusing, or perhaps he was too gleeful over the idea of having won that he didn’t both with the witness. Or perhaps it was because with no more Batman, there was no need to continue killing Robins.
Very few know this story, and fewer would say that that night the world began to change. The majority of the world blames it on the Crisis. However, to wax poetic, that was indeed the beginning of the end.
Tim continued as a hero, but he became obsessed; he had inherited the estate that was supposed to be his home with his family, but all he cared about was finding the Joker and having his retribution. One night, the young man succeeded. Bruce had always instructed him to never fight angry; it was advice Robin could not follow, this time. He was furious, and eventually, he was sloppy; Joker gained the upper hand and left Tim Drake badly beaten and broken.
After that, the boy disappeared for a year. He abandoned his friends, the few loved ones he had left, and traveled the world, following his mentor and adoptive father’s footsteps. He used his considerable wealth to train with every sensei and teacher Bruce had seen, and then some: Tim worked hard for years to be as good as Batman; he worked harder in this year to be better. He wouldn’t be killed. He would do what was necessary.
When Tim Drake returned to Gotham, it was not as Robin, the Boy Wonder. Gotham City had its protector once more; Tim, who had always claimed he’d never be Batman, had taken over as the Dark Knight.
That was not enough, however; during his year away, he realized that drastic changes had to be made in order to ascertain that a crisis of infinite proportions would never occur again. And he could not do it alone. Returning, he went to his friends, first and foremost.
To Conner Kent who, after having imprisoned Superboy-Prime and attending Clark’s funeral, had secluded himself in the Fortress of Solitude/his room at Ma and Pa Kent’s farm. The anger of being abandoned by his best friend was not light, but eventually, Batman made him understand; he offered Conner Superman’s uniform, and told him that it was time to step into bigger shoes.
Next, he went to Bart Allen; Bart had aged four years in the confusing events of the Crisis – not wholly unbelievable when his speedster status is taken into account. After returning to the present time dressed in his grandfather, Bary Allen’s Flash suit, he gave up superheroing, content in the fact that Conner was safe from Prime; he was tired of it all – not for the first time, the impulsive young man was afraid. When Tim arrived as Batman, there was hesitation before the excitement. After all, he hadn’t heard from one of his best friends in a year, and now he was dressed as his mentor. To Bart, Tim made the same offer: he would remake the Titans, and offered Bart the Flash outfit he’d returned in. The young speedster agreed to join, but he would not wear that red and gold suit; instead, he donned his Kid Flash costume once more.
Cassandra Sandsmark was not hard to convince. The feeling of abandonment first from Diana, then the withdrawal of her friends, had led her to eagerly fulfill her promise to be Ares’ Champion. He was her mentor; and he thought it a good idea to reform this group of young adults, though Cassie was furious with her friends for deserting her. In time, things were made right between the teammates, and she took up the mantle of Wonder Woman.
That was how it began; the four of them returned to Titans Tower in San Francisco, offering protection to the city once more. But they were hardly willing to stop there. It was a starting point, and nothing more; as time passed, Tim realized more and more that by continuing in the old way, nothing would get done. They needed new tactics, and for them, they needed Raven.
Approaching this friend was hard; her empathic abilities had always been a discomfort to Tim, and it was difficult to lie to her, even by omission. He talked her into returning to the tower; from there, all four confronted her, appealing to her sense of guilt and the agony she had always carried over being a demon’s daughter. Eventually, she was convinced; Raven would join the Titans, and she would use her powers in a much broader range.
With her ability to wreak havoc with emotion, to suck out a criminal’s hope and will, to halt their words, still their hands, and slow their hearts, it was all too easy to take control.
Tim Drake was no fool, though; here, the old adage proved true: ‘if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he’ll leap out. But if you put him in cool water, and slowly raise the temperature, he’ll die.’ Things had to be moved forward, yes, but slowly.
Since the death of the superhero community’s greatest heroes, many teams and groups were in disarray. They were still protecting, but it was often without a leader, without group efforts, without organization. So when the Titans stepped up, when three of them returned as Batman, as Superman, and as Wonder Woman, it was hard not to rejoice. They had big shoes to fill, certainly, but most felt that they had been bred for this; and they’d always been good kids.
Even the best kids can change; and they did.
A lot can happen in a decade, and soon enough, things grew ugly between the Titans and, well – everyone else. The group – which had expanded to include older members such as Victor Stone (Cyborg) and Garfield Logan (Beast Boy), along with several new members – was split in two when Batman began executing the large rogue gallery Bruce had accumulated before him. When word reached the Titans, they demanded explanations, and he gave them: not killing their enemies had led to the Crisis that had claimed their mentors, the heroes they looked up to. Some agreed with Tim; others did not.
Cyborg was the first to step forward; this was not his way, the murder murderers. He had a long history with the Titans, and refused to remain a part if this was the way the team was headed. He left, moving back to New York, where the Teen Titans first began. There, he began forming the Titans East as the others continued to rule the West.
Years past, and soon the rift between East and West became great enough to split politics: the United States itself split. The Titans ruled the west, and Cyborg’s group protected the east. Times change, and so do people; Raven used her powers to subjugate most of the west coast, taking away their hope. And if anyone were to say it was a dark and dreary place to live, at least it was completely crime free.
Batman became a wanted criminal in Gotham for executing he criminals he caught; the Wayne Estate was renamed Drake Manor, and the Titans East and Titans West continue to butt heads. On one coast there is darkness and despair, and no crime; and on the other, light and hope, and the age-old problems of villains killing, going to prison, and escaping. Who is to say whose Words are good enough, whose Hands are big enough, and whose Hearts are strong enough to fix what has happened over the past ten years?
Words, Hands, Hearts
The Infinite Crisis is, by now, well known; it was a catastrophe of proportions none seemed capable of envisioning. Humans were taken over by nanites called OMACs, at the bidding of the rogue Brother I program. Thousands of supervillains gathered to attack the Big Apricot, Metropolis. The Society of Super Villains added to the chaos by dropping Chemo on Blüdhaven; the city was laid to waste, suffering the equivalent effects of an atomic bomb. Only months before this mess, the Cure Crisis was just beginning to calm down; the mutant population settled into its state of powerlessness, or began realizing the returning mutation. They dealt with the death of Charles Xavier, perhaps the greatest visionary ever born, and the loss of Eric Lensherr, Xavier’s greatest foe and contemporary.
Losses were felt all around during this latest disaster; in total, over five million people were killed – five million villains, civilians and heroes alike. The greatest defeat, however, were most widely felt among the latter. The greatest iconic superheroes of all time – gone, just like that.
Superman was the first to leave this world; well, not the first, certainly, but the first of many great heroes that would be sorely missed. He saved his clone, Conner Kent, Superboy, by stealing his fate out from under him. Making his way back from Earth-2 in time, Superman stopped Conner from charging Superboy-Prime, dying in the younger hero’s place. He saved the world by destroying Alex Luthor’s vibrational tuner, the tool he was using to bring the multiverse back into existence. Clark died in Superboy’s arms as Wonder Woman, Kal-L (the Superman of Earth-2) and Batman looked on, horrified. He had been dead once before, but the horrified feeling was shared that this time, he would not return.
The mightiest of a people is always the first to fall.
From there, Conner and Kal-L hunted Superboy-Prime; the chase ended with all three driving straight through Rao, Krypton’s red sun. Though their strength was sapped, Prime killed Kal-L before Superboy could knock him out, stating that he would never be Superman.
Prime was placed under the guard of fifty members of the Green Lantern corps, inside a red Sun Eater. But he is not where this dreadful story ends.
Amidst the Battle for Metropolis, several other icons perished: the Hulk, strong and near invulnerable as he was, was struck down in the middle of the small war. After him died Captain America, fighting to avenge his fellow Avenger, in true fashion of their old team. Many more would die that day, but few are remembered as widely as they.
Later, Batman (Bruce Wayne), Nightwing (Dick Grayson), and Robin (Tim Drake) hunted down Alex Luthor, intent on making him pay for his crimes. The spooked and more than a little mad Alex shot an anti-matter beam at Batman; Nightwing dove in front of him, protecting his estranged father figure. The unstable area began to crumble, and Bruce and Luthor were pitched downward, while Robin looked on and tried to keep his near-brother from bleeding out. The two fought, until Batman found a discarded gun, and pinned Alex with it. He was set to kill the young man, while his protégés looked on, until Diana, Wonder Woman, arrived to tell him that Luthor was not worth it. After a moment’s hesitation, Bruce agreed, and the other man escaped.
Soon, the clean up began; for no matter how great the sacrifices and the losses, life must always return to normal, no matter how long it takes. And no matter how dearly some would wish their life to be normal once more, it rarely comes when requested. Diana, in mourning for one of her dearest friends, returned to Paradise Island after Clark’s funeral. As such, she was there when the Amazons and their ancestral home disappeared; she has not been seen since, another blow to humankind. So many iconic warriors, gone.
But there was still one more, one that would completely shatter any hope of living a normal life.
A month or two passed; Alex Luthor met his end at the hands of the Joker, while Lex Luthor looked on. During the efforts to clean up, Bruce proposed adoption for the second time to Tim, offering him a place to call home at Wayne Manor. The boy accepted, thankfully to have some place after seeing his best friend’s father-figure killed. The adoption was set into motion, sped up a great deal by the sway Bruce Wayne carried; and then, late on the night all the papers had been signed, and matters had been settled, when Tim and Bruce – and of course Alfred, the old and dear butler – were celebrating, that it happened.
Soon after the dust had cleared and the Crisis was averted, Selina Kyle approached Bruce Wayne once again, looking for the relationship that always seemed impossible for them. The most recent near death experience had given her the resolve to try once more; when he refused for the last time, Catwoman sought blind revenge, and in a fit of rage, she sold his secret to his greatest foe, the madman known only as the Joker.
So, as the celebratory dinner commenced at Wayne Manor, they thought very little of a knock on the door. Alfred when to answer, as usual; it was his shout that alerted the present members of the Bat Family. Standing in the doorway, bleach-white skin framed by the dark night, was Joker, dragging a limp and very obviously dead Catwoman by the scruff of the neck. Explaining as only the Joker can, he claimed that no one likes a tattletale; he had killed Selina after retrieving the information of Batman’s secret identity. He had come to end the years of fun. The Joker and the unmasked Batman fought; Robin and Alfred did their best to help Bruce against the Joker’s crazed frenzy; the former was knocked out for a time. The latter died, trying to wrestle the lunatic’s gun from him.
Eventually making their way to the trophy room in the Bat Cave, Joker picked up the gun that had killed Martha and Thomas Wayne, and shot Bruce pointblank in the chest; just as Robin reached them, just in time for the youngest protégé to see.
For whatever reason, Joker left Tim alive that night; perhaps the idea of living with his version of survivor’s guilt was amusing, or perhaps he was too gleeful over the idea of having won that he didn’t both with the witness. Or perhaps it was because with no more Batman, there was no need to continue killing Robins.
Very few know this story, and fewer would say that that night the world began to change. The majority of the world blames it on the Crisis. However, to wax poetic, that was indeed the beginning of the end.
Tim continued as a hero, but he became obsessed; he had inherited the estate that was supposed to be his home with his family, but all he cared about was finding the Joker and having his retribution. One night, the young man succeeded. Bruce had always instructed him to never fight angry; it was advice Robin could not follow, this time. He was furious, and eventually, he was sloppy; Joker gained the upper hand and left Tim Drake badly beaten and broken.
After that, the boy disappeared for a year. He abandoned his friends, the few loved ones he had left, and traveled the world, following his mentor and adoptive father’s footsteps. He used his considerable wealth to train with every sensei and teacher Bruce had seen, and then some: Tim worked hard for years to be as good as Batman; he worked harder in this year to be better. He wouldn’t be killed. He would do what was necessary.
When Tim Drake returned to Gotham, it was not as Robin, the Boy Wonder. Gotham City had its protector once more; Tim, who had always claimed he’d never be Batman, had taken over as the Dark Knight.
That was not enough, however; during his year away, he realized that drastic changes had to be made in order to ascertain that a crisis of infinite proportions would never occur again. And he could not do it alone. Returning, he went to his friends, first and foremost.
To Conner Kent who, after having imprisoned Superboy-Prime and attending Clark’s funeral, had secluded himself in the Fortress of Solitude/his room at Ma and Pa Kent’s farm. The anger of being abandoned by his best friend was not light, but eventually, Batman made him understand; he offered Conner Superman’s uniform, and told him that it was time to step into bigger shoes.
Next, he went to Bart Allen; Bart had aged four years in the confusing events of the Crisis – not wholly unbelievable when his speedster status is taken into account. After returning to the present time dressed in his grandfather, Bary Allen’s Flash suit, he gave up superheroing, content in the fact that Conner was safe from Prime; he was tired of it all – not for the first time, the impulsive young man was afraid. When Tim arrived as Batman, there was hesitation before the excitement. After all, he hadn’t heard from one of his best friends in a year, and now he was dressed as his mentor. To Bart, Tim made the same offer: he would remake the Titans, and offered Bart the Flash outfit he’d returned in. The young speedster agreed to join, but he would not wear that red and gold suit; instead, he donned his Kid Flash costume once more.
Cassandra Sandsmark was not hard to convince. The feeling of abandonment first from Diana, then the withdrawal of her friends, had led her to eagerly fulfill her promise to be Ares’ Champion. He was her mentor; and he thought it a good idea to reform this group of young adults, though Cassie was furious with her friends for deserting her. In time, things were made right between the teammates, and she took up the mantle of Wonder Woman.
That was how it began; the four of them returned to Titans Tower in San Francisco, offering protection to the city once more. But they were hardly willing to stop there. It was a starting point, and nothing more; as time passed, Tim realized more and more that by continuing in the old way, nothing would get done. They needed new tactics, and for them, they needed Raven.
Approaching this friend was hard; her empathic abilities had always been a discomfort to Tim, and it was difficult to lie to her, even by omission. He talked her into returning to the tower; from there, all four confronted her, appealing to her sense of guilt and the agony she had always carried over being a demon’s daughter. Eventually, she was convinced; Raven would join the Titans, and she would use her powers in a much broader range.
With her ability to wreak havoc with emotion, to suck out a criminal’s hope and will, to halt their words, still their hands, and slow their hearts, it was all too easy to take control.
Tim Drake was no fool, though; here, the old adage proved true: ‘if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he’ll leap out. But if you put him in cool water, and slowly raise the temperature, he’ll die.’ Things had to be moved forward, yes, but slowly.
Since the death of the superhero community’s greatest heroes, many teams and groups were in disarray. They were still protecting, but it was often without a leader, without group efforts, without organization. So when the Titans stepped up, when three of them returned as Batman, as Superman, and as Wonder Woman, it was hard not to rejoice. They had big shoes to fill, certainly, but most felt that they had been bred for this; and they’d always been good kids.
Even the best kids can change; and they did.
A lot can happen in a decade, and soon enough, things grew ugly between the Titans and, well – everyone else. The group – which had expanded to include older members such as Victor Stone (Cyborg) and Garfield Logan (Beast Boy), along with several new members – was split in two when Batman began executing the large rogue gallery Bruce had accumulated before him. When word reached the Titans, they demanded explanations, and he gave them: not killing their enemies had led to the Crisis that had claimed their mentors, the heroes they looked up to. Some agreed with Tim; others did not.
Cyborg was the first to step forward; this was not his way, the murder murderers. He had a long history with the Titans, and refused to remain a part if this was the way the team was headed. He left, moving back to New York, where the Teen Titans first began. There, he began forming the Titans East as the others continued to rule the West.
Years past, and soon the rift between East and West became great enough to split politics: the United States itself split. The Titans ruled the west, and Cyborg’s group protected the east. Times change, and so do people; Raven used her powers to subjugate most of the west coast, taking away their hope. And if anyone were to say it was a dark and dreary place to live, at least it was completely crime free.
Batman became a wanted criminal in Gotham for executing he criminals he caught; the Wayne Estate was renamed Drake Manor, and the Titans East and Titans West continue to butt heads. On one coast there is darkness and despair, and no crime; and on the other, light and hope, and the age-old problems of villains killing, going to prison, and escaping. Who is to say whose Words are good enough, whose Hands are big enough, and whose Hearts are strong enough to fix what has happened over the past ten years?
Words, Hands, Hearts