E P I S O D E V:K I D S T H E S E D A Y S
D E L A W A R E :20 juillet 2017 - 15:46:00 Tour du métro - Metropolis

De retour dans la salle de moniteur dim illuminé Supergirl semblait obtenir la poussée exacte qu'elle avait demandé. À peu près chaque écran a commencé à clignoter les mêmes informations et la même carte. Certains même avec l'aide visuelle, beaucoup à son appréciation.
Supergirl a germé en relief. En ce qui concerne les autres dans la pièce, elle a fait de son mieux pour hériter des vertus et de la voix d'un héros de la vie réelle.
D'accord, vous, eh... de bonnes personnes âgées, quelqu'un viendra vous escorter dehors, quand tout cela sera fini, j'en suis sûr. Calmez-vous, calmez-vous et ne touchez à rien s'il vous plaît. La vraie question ne voudrait pas ça. Il doit probablement le relier à des alligators dans les égouts ou quelque chose. Superman dit qu'il est obsédé. Au revoir, au revoir.
Avec ces mots, elle s'est relevée de l'éblouissement du sol froid, a plané pendant une seconde, puis a tiré comme une balle.
"Superjupe!" Rose a crié après le héros à moitié krptonien. "Tu utilises jamais une putain de porte, on essaie de sauver la base chérie, pas de la détruire plus loin!"
Attends, aurais-je dû utiliser le même trou que j'ai traversé à la place?... Pousse-toi! Bref, concentrez-vous. Le hall est... ici!
Tout comme elle a touché par l'entrée, deux personnes familières se sont approchées avec une grande vitesse. Leur mouvement était comme quelque chose d'une peinture des dieux grecs. L'intensité dans leurs yeux, la force de leur expression. Plus grande que la vie.
Un sentiment d'être ridiculement sous-vêtue pour l'occasion s'est glissée dans l'esprit de Supergirl. Portant à peu près la même chose que votre fille moyenne qui voulait une séance d'entraînement, moins les vraies chaussures.
Dieu merci. Rookie et Polarbear-man! Un vrai honneur et tout ça. Bref, très vite : qu'est-ce qui se passe?
"Polarbear Man..." Duncan répéta avec un sourcil surélevé alors qu'il grimpait de l'épaule du lieutenant, le regardant rapidement avec un sourire silencieux et à peine visible qui annonçait très clairement qu'il n'allait pas laisser tomber celui-ci dès que ses pieds percutaient le sol.
"Hmm. Ce que je donnerais pour les pouvoirs d'un ours polaire." Lawrence dirait avec une légère poignée de tête."Supergirl, je suppose. Nos alliés dans la salle de surveillance ont envoyé un signal de détresse pour vous que j'avais intercepté, et je vois que vous avez aussi reçu mon signal de suivi. Quoi qu'il en soit, un corrupteur dimensionnel connu sous le nom d'Extant errode la Ligue de l'intérieur et nous devons l'arrêter." Polarity Man a dit avant de poser sa mech. "Très bien. Votre présence rend mon plan réalisable. J'ai besoin de vous deux pour distraire ce magicien et le garder en place alors que je fais une... grève chirurgicale. Ça a l'air bien?" Avant que l'un d'entre eux ne puisse dire un mot, le lieutenant lui-même s'éloignait progressivement de la mech et sous le sol. Ce qu'il avait à l'esprit n'avait apparemment pas besoin d'une puissance de feu lourde.
"Hé, hai-!" Et avant que Duncan ne puisse parler, le lieutenant a franchi le sol damné comme un monstre qui tue en série. "...Bon, merde."
Exhalant audiblement, le Rookie s'est redressé et s'est fatigué un peu roulé l'épaule, attirant quelques pops de l'appendage douloureux avant de se tourner occasionnellement vers Supergirl et d'offrir sa main pour un shake...
"Bonne rencontre. Et "Rookie est juste un surnom, vous pouvez m'appeler Dun-"
... Avant qu'il ne se fige brusquement en place alors qu'il regardait vers le bas et se rendait compte que, après tout le chaos de la dernière demi-heure ou si avait systématiquement détruit ses vêtements, la seule chose qu'il avait laissé couvrir son corps était une paire de boxer drapeau canadien. La tête du Canuck s'est redressée pour retrouver ses yeux... puis elle est revenue à ses fesses, puis elle est revenue à la demi-kryptonienne avec une expression vide, mais les yeux très clairement articulés juste à quel point il criait à l'intérieur.
"-Can..." il a réussi à finir, bien évidemment en évitant ses yeux maintenant "Welp, je euh... Je vais juste... aller battre le Big Bad Evil Guy maintenant... "Bonjour, au revoir."
Et avant qu'elle ne puisse parler, le Rookie n'a fait que cela; il s'est claqué le pied dans le sol et s'est lancé vers le combat. Atterrissant dur sur le plancher de la salle d'entraînement, le Lad n'a pas perdu de temps avec des discours ou d'autres baises héroïques, au lieu de prendre un deuxième pas qui l'a viré vers le plafond, qu'il a ensuite lancé encore plus difficile de se lancer directement sur le sac à dos de garde-temps avec une hache tournante à explosion de plongée qui transformerait les gens normaux en pâte.
Il s'est moqué de la tentative de lui tirer dessus par Clutch. Les frappes de Rookie ont cependant atterri assez solide, prenant le rouge et le noir plaqué cosmique étant par surprise. Il a utilisé son pouvoir pour jeter des débris sur les héros non affectés. Cependant, son pouvoir était encore faible. Ambush Bug et Amazing Man ont commencé à vieillir de nouveau à la normale. La glace a vite suivi...
"Non!" Le monstre en argile a aussi été ramené à son état d'origine : « Je n'en ai pas encore fini avec Superman! Son petit-fils doit être essuyé de l'existence! Sa fille ne doit JAMAIS rejoindre la Ligue..." il a continué à crier comme un autre héros a atterri un tir de nulle part.
Lizard a profité de l'occasion pour jeter le directeur loin de la salle d'observation. Le bousculer à l'intérieur du frigo de la cuisine et fermer la porte avec un coup fort.
Avant qu'elle ne s'accélère, elle a fait une course d'alligator à Extant. "Oh! Zap magique! Age ça!" Elle m'a dit de faire du boulet de canon sur le dessus de l'Extant. Comme elle l'a aussi rapidement frappé dans le genou.
Jim était à la fois choqué et ennuyé que ses tirs n'aient pas eu d'effet. Il s'est maudit alors qu'il arrêtait de tirer et s'est mis à monter le réglage de puissance sur son pistolet à rayons. Il a ensuite tiré plusieurs autres coups de feu et espérait que cela ferait tomber le méchant.
"Descends!" Il a crié en colère alors qu'il tirait plus de coups de feu. Il n'allait pas reculer de son combat, pas quand la ligue avait le plus besoin de lui.
Name: Duncan MacAodhan
Alias: (He hasn't quite gotten that far ahead yet. Simply referred to as "New Guy" or "Rookie" when on assignment, for now.)
Age: 23
Personality: Clever, Genre-savvy, Frank, Stubborn, Cynical, Big-hearted (even if he's hilariously ignorant of it)
Archetype: Metahuman
Powers:
Immense Physical Prowess- Duncan is, for lack of a better way of putting it, really goddamn strong... and fast... and pretty tough to boot, if the fact that he went toe-to-toe with freaking Metallo (who, in case we've all forgotten, is a super-powered murder-bot powered by magic space rocks strong enough to make Superman bleed) and was able to hold his own for a short while actually somehow doing some damage while being absolutely rag-dolled across the ground and through several buildings.
All that being said, it should be noted that though his metahuman genes put him roughly in the range of Kryptonian physical ability (while falling dramatically short of Superman, who is an absolute beast, even among his own kind), Duncan... is a chainsmoking, borderline alcoholic who has never worked out or trained a single day in his entire goddamn life and as a result, is about as out of shape and weak as he can possibly be. It's anyone's guess what he'd be capable of if he got his shit together and actually trained.
Weaknesses: While Duncan possesses roughly the same physical abilities of a Kryptonian, he is still very much human; He can't fly, he still needs to breathe, possesses no form of crazy eye-lasers or freezing breath and can't survive solely off sunlight. In fact, for simplicity's sake, here's a comprehensive list of examples of things that can hurt and/or kill him just like any other guy.
-Drowning.
-Poison Gas.
-Regular poison.
-Electrocution.
-Starvation.
-Asphyxiation.
-Dehydration.
-Bleeding out.
-Bleeding internally.
-Food poisoning.
-Heart-failure.
-Liver-failure.
-Kidney-failure.
-Cancer.
-Hypothermia.
-Being thrown into the sun.
-Being thrown into space in general.
-Tameranean Cooking.
In addition to that, the exact minute he woke up in the Metro Tower, Batman informed that he'd be quitting smoking and drinking cold turkey and going on a new diet. In addition to running The Dark Knight's daily balls-to-the-wall exercise routine at increased gravity (In Bruce's own words; "...And you'll go until I'm tired of watching.") and sparring with Ajax, an old robot companion Superman built in the 60's and general ass-whoopin' enthusiast.
Long story short, at game start, a week after getting his ass handed to him by Metallo and three days into Batman's insane work out routine and getting punched in the face a few times a day by Ajax, Duncan is battered, bloodied, bruised, sore, outright exhausted and severely craving smokes, booze and greasy food. He's not going to be at his best.
Appearance: To read what Duncan is physically capable of, you might picture some sort of hulking mountain of a man with bulging muscles and a jawline chiseled from granite... to actually meet the man however, you'd be disappointed and maybe a little confused- MacAodhan is not a large man. In fact, compared to most in the League he is downright tiny, standing at only 5'6" on a good day and lacking the bulging, musclebound physique of proper superheroes in favour of a lean, though dense physique closer to that of an Olympic swimmer if anything, though his broad shoulders and calloused hands make a fairly decent indicator of his blue-collar background, to which he also owes the habit of shaving his brown hair into a buzzcut, to cut deal with the heat in his workplace.
Lacking much in the way of an actual superhero costume, when in the field, Duncan simply throws on his workboots, gloves, jeans and a denim jacket over either some plain wifebeater or t-shirt, topping it all off by tying a simple black rag over his face, leaving only his hazel eyes and a bit of skin exposed and putting on an old ballcap he got from some Halifax pub or another. When at JLU Headquarters, however, he is almost only ever seen in old JLA-issued gym-wear as he goes about his daily routine of attempting to survive whatever new insanity Batman has concocted for him that day.
Character Evolution: I'd like to see Duncan come into his own as a member of the JLU, growing in power and renown with time but still keeping true to his modest origins, perhaps even taking on a real alias and costume at some point and becoming an honest-to-God Superhero... though only after a long series of painful and hilarious misadventures. And If he forms some buddy-cop relationship with another player or npc and maybe finds a bit of romance along the way, all the better.
Basically, a good old-fashioned coming of age story... Only with a lot more explosions and occasionally saving the whole damned planet.
BRIEF Bio: Despite what one might might assume when encountering literally anyone even remotely associated with superpowers and tights, Duncan's tale is... rather mundane. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Fisherman for a father and a mother who ran a local diner, the boy in question up grew extraordinarily normally; playing videogames, staying at his grandparents' when his mom was busy at the shop and his dad was out at sea and helping his granddad out in the garage fixing cars and the occasional boat.
And then one day when he was fifteen, he got hit by a truck.
After about a good ten seconds of screaming and another thirty spent wondering why he wasn't dead, he extricated himself from the big-rig's engine-block that had wrapped around both him and the streetlight he'd been leaning against only to find that not only was he not dead, he was perfectly intact. All things considered, that's some pretty heavy shit to lay on a fifteen year old. So it's not all that surprising that when the (very) drunk trucker half staggered, half fell out of his truck at the sight of him, and sirens began echoing in the distance, the kid ran the hell out of there. A few days of trial, error and a lot of Wikipedia later, and the boy had a pretty good idea what all that was about: He was a Metahuman, a one-in-a-million carrier of a superhuman gene that may or may not activate under extreme stress (Like, for instance, getting hit by a truck while waiting for the bus). Frankly, it sounded a lot like a bunch of pseudo-science crap you'd find in an old comic book, but lacking any other explanation for his sudden... talents... it was one he'd have to accept.
Now, usually, when someone finds out they've got crazy superpowers, things usually go in one of two predictable ways; one, they become a spandex-clad boy-scout that dedicates every moment of every day to having the brightest smile, rescuing cats from trees and giving lectures about the dangers of "The Reefer" and sex before marriage or two; going full ham, burning orphanages, kicking puppies and generally being real goddamn edgy just for the sake of it. Duncan to his credit, chose the rarely considered, often forgotten third option-
"Yeah... No. Fuck that."
And so, despite the call to adventure literally screaming directly into his ears, Duncan carried on his life as normal; Growing up as normally as he possibly could- getting average grades, shoveling his grandparents' driveway in the wintertime, trying and failing several times at that whole romance thing and working through his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic at the local shipyard after highschool.
Unfortunately for him, as the old trope goes, 'The Call Knows Where you Live'.
And one day while Duncan was just wrapping up his night-shift, Metallo came bursting out of one of the shipping containers at the yard and immediately began wrecking shit left and right. Despite having reservations about the whole 'Hero' thing, the one guy in town with the ability to intervene couldn't exactly sit idly by while a super-powered terminator powered by glowing space-rocks butchered his coworkers and leveled his town. So, throwing on a respirator to hide his face, the young man nutted up and went after the deranged cyborg... or, more accurately, spent the next hour on the receiving of a brutal beatdown at the hands of someone that was at least as strong, as fast and much, much more experienced than he was that was also incapable of feeling pain or fatigue, all to buy time for people to get away and call for someone who actually knew what the hell they were doing.
Luckily, they did, and the Big Blue Boy-Scout himself arrived to lay the smackdown on the now damaged Metallo.
Unluckily for Duncan, he woke up a week later on a bed in Metropolis, feeling like all hell and staring at the grimacing face of Batman, who quite candidly informed him that he very nearly got himself killed and that his car, his home and his job had all been annihilated in his little dust-up with the super-powered murderbot. Also, even if no one knew who he was, they sure as hell knew he existed, which as a rule, generally meant that there were now people looking for him; Some good, most bad. So he could either join the Justice League and maybe not die the next time this happens... or he could just go home and try his luck on his own. Suffice to say, there was really only one smart choice to be had there, and he took it.
And then, to top off this long, hilariously uncanny series of events, Superman showed up less than an hour later and dragged him out to a baseball game.
And so it was that, sitting in the stands of a stadium in a foreign city, next to the closest thing the world knew to a god and eating an overpriced and undercooked hotdog, Duncan joined the Justice League.
He honestly didn't think his life could get any weirder than this.
And he was very mistaken.
Notes:
Sample Post:
To say the least, it had been... an interesting week and a half; It had started off pretty plain, he woke up at seven at night on Monday, grabbed a donair at his mom's diner by eight and was at work by nine, swapping out the fuel lines on an old tug that probably should've been decommissioned when his dad was still a boy. And then suddenly a robot showed up, kicked his ass across town and halfway to Dartmouth, blew up his apartment, blew up his car and blew up his place of employment before being beat down by the most weirdly friendly guy he'd ever goddamn met.
So now here he was, holding a duffel bag of what little could be salvaged of his apartment and standing at the entrance to his room at the headquarters of the freaking Justice League.
It was all just a little... surreal.
"Well, shit, here goes nothing." Duncan growled under his breath, touching the key-pad and entering as the door hissed open in a way that reminded him distinctly of every episode of Star Trek he'd ever seen, half-expecting there to be yet another one of Superman's robots waiting inside to cave-in his face in the name of training, but kinda hoping it wasn't, because sleeping on the couch in the common room was starting to get a little old and he'd already had his daily recommended dose of robot boots to his ass.
To his surprise, it didn't actually look that bad- a simple looking double bed, a computer desk, chair and a laptop, a big damn window with a view of the Metropolis waterfront flanked on both sides by empty bookshelves, a little kitchenette off to the side and a bathroom past that. To be honest, after spending the past three days under Batman's balls-to-the-wall training regime, he'd anticipated something more... spartan. Something did catch his eye, however, what looked to be a big, rolled-up poster just sitting on his bed with a post-it note on it, so, dropping his bag and closing the door behind him, the young Canuck went over to give it a look.
"Just a little something to welcome you aboard...
-GL"
His brow furrowed briefly, but suddenly did a lot less of that when he unfurled the damned thing and found a pin-up of a tanned, red-headed woman with solid green eyes, a supermodel's body garbed up in a string bikini and a very... friendly look on her face as she blew a kiss toward the camera.
And another post-it note.
"They're called Tameraneans. Stick around and you might meet a few.
You're welcome.
-GL"
Whatever thoughts he had at that moment (or several, as he just stared at what he'd found) were interrupted as Batman's voice came over the intercom.
"MacAodhan, we have a situation. Kit up and meet me downstairs in five."
The words echoed in his head for a few seconds before they fully registered, and he reluctantly averted his eyes from his new-found favourite sight and gently placed it back down on the bed.
"Right... Right. I'll be down in a minute."
Duncan sighed.
It looked like his life was going to continue being interesting for the rest of the forseeable future.