This Ain't Good

I know who is bombing and burning New Vineyard.

It's Nuke.

This is so not good as so many not good levels. Because, you see, there's a pretty good chance that the reason he's burning down slums is because he's looking for me.

I need to do some thinking about this situation. More later.

While I'm Up

Armor--silver base. All of the armor plating is Duranium
Greaves, shoulders, breastplate, helmet-- gold
Mask -- Silver, red lenses
Backpack/jetpack, bracers -- black


On the breastplate is a jagged C I plasma-etched into it. My backpack unit is loaded with gizmos and gadgets. There's other stuff in the armor too.

On another note, some of the projects in Southeast are on fire. I have a bad feeling this is connected to the bombing. And I have an even worse feeling, judging by the way Southeast is burning, of who's responsible for this.

Holy $#?% !

A bomb just went off in downtown.

Not sure who did it, since Judy and I are, or rather, were, watching And Justice for All and giving it a running commentary.

The Arkady Building, according to the news, got the worst of it. No telling if it'll still be standing by morning.

Fuck, I'm glad I'm not a hero. It's too late to scour for clues. Sucks to be Quizzer.

Still, gotta wonder--does this mean there's a villain trying to get in on my turf, or is it just some nutjob looking to make an explosive point?

Oh well, back to the movie.

Still Alive

It's wierd sitting to a fancy dinner at "Le Bien Viva" (Side note--I'm positive that's not real French, or Italian or Spanish or whatever it pretends to be) with a guy who has killed nearly a million people in his career. He looks just as creepy as I'd heard, too. Death's Head was all in this black suit, with a rust-red tie and vest. And while he was there, the restaurant was full of moths. Fluttering around the lights, landing on his shoulders and tie. And the air...it just kind of felt menacing, electric, and malicious. And anyone who says I have creepy eyes has not looked into the black depths of Death's Head's eyes. I don't even remember what the rest of his face looked like, though pictures are on CapeWiki. There's just something about him in person that's unsettling and confusing.

"Welcome, Mr. Ferrian, Miss Baracs." His voice was both smooth and somehow dissonant. And yes, Silas Ferrian. If you didn't know who my dad was before you do now. "I am glad you could make it. Please, enjoy dinner. It is Operation Mayhem's treat."

"I think before I accept a meal from the world's premier psychic assassin, I'd like to know why you asked us here? Or, more importantly, why did you frame me for trying to kill Rake?" I asked, full of false bravado. The presence of my lady friend helped to bolster my bluster.

"As you suspect, those two things are intricately related, Mr. Ferrian. And, as you have also suspected, we are responsible for neither this nor the previous attempt on Rake's life. Until recently, we have barely registered him as a threat." He drank a sip of wine that cost about as much as it cost my mom to put me through nursery school. "That is, ironically..." He trailed off. I imagine he knew I would finish the statement.

"..until he started framing you. So why hasn't Op Mayhem tried to assassinate him now?"

"You have, haven't you?" Judy chimed in. "You tried to teach him a lesson for this and it didn't take."

Death's Head smiled. That smile will give me nightmares. "You are quite astute, the both of you. We have never recovered the assassins we have sent after Jonathan Rake. No bodies, no taunt, nothing. As if something has gobbled them up whole."

A waiter arrived and took our orders. Predictably, Death's Head ordered nothing.

"Why are you telling us this?" Judy asked. It was me who answered.

"He's making amends."

The assassin stood and put on a hat that I still can't remember and nodded. "Yes. You are two very talented young "villains". The Operation always has an eye to the future, and we would hate for two with such promise to be poisoned against us. If you will excuse me, I must take my leave."

I'm pretty sure he was gone right after he said that, but I didn't notice him leaving. Just the moths petering out.

Operation Mayhem did indeed pay for our very expensive meal. Judy was very excited by the whole thing, especially learning Op. Mayhem has its eye on us.

I'm less enthusiastic, to tell the truth. I'm not a very big fan of killing--I avoid it when I can. In Operation Mayhem, killing is a necessity, it's part of the atmosphere, part of the job, and an all-engrossing hobby. Any organization of nihilistic sociopaths with members as prolific as them would see my lack of bloody violence not as a personal preference, but as a dangerous aberration.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. But I have my reasons for not trusting Op. Mayhem, even though I think Death's Head was truthful to us.

Oh well, I'm gonna mod my armor and take it out for a test run. More later.

Good News, Bad News, Wierd News

1-- The new power source is awesome. I get to rebuild all my devices and add EVEN MORE weapons. How awesome is that? Even more, more powerful weapons, that is. And what's even better is, unlike a fusion cell, it won't detonate into a tiny supernova if destabilized. Of course, Brannigan's design is somewhat lacking, but with Judy and I working together, I'm confident in my ability to spread at least 90% more carnage than before. Mwahahaha. This is the good news.

2-- The bad news. When we got home from our heist, I found a note on our kitchen table. It's from Death's Head. Yeah, the head of intelligence for Operation Mayhem and big league superhero Knight Watch's arch nemesis. He's invited Judy and I out to dinner. This would be good news, except DH is just as likely to invite us to Op. Mayhem as he is to poison us for interferring in Op. Mayhem's plot to frame me a couple weeks ago. Well, if I don't post late tonight, you'll know why.

3-- And now, the wierd news. Mechanor sent me a cake. It's pretty good. Not too exciting, but pretty good. God, what is with him giving me food? He probably wants a team-up or something. But, why is he giving me food? Who can tell what's going on in that mechanical brain of his?

That's it for now. Except for the realization that Dina Might's family's probably going to be at the wedding. And for those of you who weren't aware, her mother's a frost giant.

I hate Captain Visigoth.

Mwahaha

Mad with power, post later.

It's All So Clear

When I first looked at those plans I stole, they weren't much. But I was missing the big picture. Sure, they themselves are unremarkable, but then I took a closer look at the implication behind them.

I'm pretty sure, judging by these plans, that Brannigan has found a way to produce the same amount of energy as a Deviant Reactor, only several thousand times smaller and safer.

...and when I told Judy this, she was all, "Oh, you didn't know?"

Sigh.

Oh well, now that I know about it, I might as well see if I can find out how they're doing it. Because with a generator like that, there's no end to the amount of carnage I could unleash.

Out on a Brannigan run. And, hey, Judy's coming too.

I almost feel sorry for Brannigan. Almost.

Partial Success

Mixed success on my attempt at villainy. My plan being go down in my sub and threaten the city with my seismic bracers until I got more precious metals. See, my bracers, in addition to shockwaves, can make earthquakes. Underwater earthquakes lead to tidal waves. Also, as he has asked before for my sub rather than chase the Siluriformes himself, I had reason to believe underwater travel was difficult for Quizzer.

Difficult, but not impossible. The resulting battle left Quizzer half drowned and with a dislocated shoulder and a few broken ribs. But I was left with a thrashed sub and no metals to show for it. But at least the Blue Q is in poor condition. Maybe I should do some other scheme while he's injured. Y'know, press my advantage.

Gonna go watch "The Dark Knight", more on potential villainy afterward if I get inspired.

Siluriforme Attack

So the catfish men attacked the city again. Quizzer was able to push him back by himself this time, though.

Life would be so much easier if he'd just let me nuke them when we had the chance. I mean, the people they killed today would still be alive and..

Mwahahaha

Oooo, I have a great idea for villainy. And the best part is, I don't even have to build anything new for it. More tomorrow, after my caper's pulled off.

Villain's Block

I have no idea what to do for my villainy.

Seriously, I even tried going over those plans a stole a while back again. They're worthless. Gah, this is so frustrating. Maybe I'll go through my stash of gadgets and see if I have anything useful.

Oh, and by the way, Captain Visigoth and Dina Might are registered at Wal-Mart and a few various Army Surplus stores, including one right here in New Vineyard. Y'know, on the off chance any of the five people reading this wanted to buy two thugs a wedding gift.

Judy's Parents

Judy's Mom and Dad are wierd.

As far as I can tell, the parents to who is probably the greatest scientific mind of our time are a pair of artists from Madison who specialize in abstract sculpture. They are neither particularly intellectual nor are they very scientific. They just like making cool shapes out of stone and then have students try to guess the "hidden meaning". They are, however, very nice and very open-minded. I don't think Judy's told them about June Bug yet, but if they recognized me they didn't seem to mind my vocation.

Judy let slip something about meeting my parents. That's kind of impossible, though, but I didn't feel like explaining that just yet. Maybe someday. Probably soon.

After an exciting couple of weeks, things are moving pretty slowly around here. I managed to get some quiet time and watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on AMC with a big bowl of popcorn.

Hmm, I think I need to impliment some villainy soon. After all, I much prefer being blamed for something I've actually done.

Judy

I'm not sure what I'd do without her. No, seriously. These past few weeks have been trying, to say the least, and Judy, well, she's been my rock. She's believed me when no one would. She helped me find a solution.

The frame up, unlike my other problems, was worse than it sounds. But, of course, anyone with access to cable news knows what's happened the past couple of weeks. On July Fourth, a bomb nearly detonate under Jonathan Rake as he was giving his address. It was found by his security personnel just in time. This bomb, was you guys know, was Vaporizer Mk. II, one of the old doc's inventions. Suddenly, I was being accused of trying to kill the most beloved presidential candidate in the history of America.

I had stayed home that whole day. Hell, I slept through the address. So, suffice it to say I was taken a bit by surprise.

I mean, first my arm turns to stone and my lair gets flooded, and then suddenly a witch-hunt for something I didn't even do. Judgement and Stheno came to town to try to find me and bring me to justice. You know you have it bad when there's a Fury out for your head.

And the worst part, the worst part was the follow-up speech. "Doctor Cataclysm is just a product of his environment, he deserves pity more than scorn. He's the one who needs help." Blah blah blah blah. He forgave me. For something I didn't even do. Look pal, I'm me, and nothing can change that. And you can't even blame my environment. Look at who my dad was. Look at the example I grew up with. I'm nothing like him. Nowhere near as tethered by society as he was. I follow in my predecessor's footsteps not because I was from a bad family. It's because I'm free.

Anyway, my first instinct was to try to find out what really happened by watching the footage a few hundred times from different angles. That didn't help. Someone knocked out all security cameras in the freaking city during bomb set-up. No indication where the guy came from, who did it, nothing. And it's also a trick the old Doc did a couple times before. And no, it couldn't be him. He's dead. I buried him myself. And his grave was still in perfect condition when I paid my respects during the road trip.

Judy was the one who actually thought of how to prove my innocence. It took a lot of boring paper-work. But, the news says I'm innocent again.

See, I don't use those bombs anymore. Hell, the Doc stopped using the Mk II a long time ago. We were on Mk. IV during the Cataclysm Engine Incident. At any rate, through a big pile of beaurocracy I was able to prove that all of them had been sold off and I haven't made any of that model. I had to have Stheno listen as I talked, just so her wierd "guilt-sensor" could prove I was innocent. God I'm glad those two are gone. And you, of course, know where that paper trail led.

I swear, Operation Mayhem just has no respect anymore. Framing another villain. I mean, you have to be pretty depraved for Rakshasa to leave your organization. I thought that Op. Mayhem was supposed to be bringing us together.

But, then again, it doesn't make sense. Operation Mayhem doesn't mask its motives. It says, out front, that it has done something and why. It's full of some serious, old school villains.

Something here isn't adding up. It's almost like Op. Mayhem's being framed. By Rake? Maybe he's trying to make himself seem like he's more feared by villains than he is. But framing Op. Mayhem, that's, like, asking to be assassinated. So why haven't they gone after him again, if they ever did in the first place.

I'm getting the feeling I'm on the brink of some kind of understanding about all this. I wonder what it is. More importantly, I hope it doesn't drag me into it again.

Anyway, gotta go get ready to visit Judy's parents. Wish me luck.

Petrification

This also isn't as bad as it sounds.

My body is laced with ceramic. It makes me super-strong, super-tough, a bit smarter than normal, energy-absorbant, and aging slightly slower than the normal person. It is, in fact, the same stuff they put on steel during the process of creating duranium.

But there are side effects. My eyes, my increased density, and occasionally greying. And I'm not talking about hair.

Sometimes my skin turns grey and my muscles get stiff, usually when I've been exposed to a bit more radiation than normal, but it just randomly shows up from time to time. It's a bit painful. And a bit alarming. But it fades in time. It's like having arthritis. Only not. Because that would be lame for any villain under 50. I wonder if Devias has arthritis, if he's still alive today.

Of course, now that I've insinuated Devias has arthritis I'm probably getting deathrayed. Oh well.

Then again, if Devias is alive today he's probably found the fountain of youth or some sort of age-reversing-ray or something like that, knowing him. I swear, golden age heroes and villains have their degrees in "plot-device science". Of course, these days, we go for degrees in gimiicky science. Like destroying things.

Does anybody else think it's wierd, by the way, that we refer to it as the golden age? As far as I can tell, we're doing it because of how comics are described. That's, like, the opposite of how it works. Plus, unlike comics, all those old heroes and villains--well, almost all--are dead or retired by now. The only pair I can think of that are still active are the Scarlet Sorceress and her insidious rival, super-supervillain Rakshasa. And that's just because they're immortal. Well, Rakshasa is anyway. Scarlet Sorceress is just aging really slowly. I like the whole sexy librarian thing she has going for her....who am I kidding? Everyone likes the sexy librarian thing she has going for her. Sure, she's not exactly "sexiest hero of the year" anymore, but that's only because she's not all "dressed" up in skin-tight black spandex like the floozies these days are. It's like they're asking for a wardrobe malfunction.

God, I'm showing my age. Judy says I talk like an old man some times. Well, I am nearly forty, after all, even though you wouldn't think me past my mid-late 20's to look at me. At least I'm not turning into my father.

Gah, I'm rambling. Next time, I'll talk about that whole frame-up thing.

Oh, and by the way, this, http://drhorrible.com/ , is several shades of awesome.

The Flood

I'm making it sound worse than it was.

Essentially, one of the walls sprung a leak. The problem is that this leak, if you'll remember, had the full force of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world behind it.

Long story short, I had to devise a very large pump and then Judy and I had to leave for a while so it could do its thing. Because a pump that large means no peace and quiet.

We took a trip down to old Vineyard and sifted through the wreckage of the old Doc's lair. A security guard tried to stop us but we convinced him not to politely. I. e., he's still alive, but scared half to death of duranium-encased doom.

I was surprised to see that the Cataclysm Engine, despite the rather large explosion caused by killing American Steel, was largely intact. The main problem was the fact that tremendous heat had caused all internal working parts to fuse. We did manage to rip a few large chunks of duranium off the mechanism, though. It's not much, but they'll come in handy somehow.

Okay, sleep now, petrification later.

Loose Ends

Before I go into detail about the calamities of the past couple weeks, I kinda wanna talk about how the whole June Bug thing turned out.

A couple days after JB held the head of Brannigan above the city, one of the whackjobs on the radio came out with his typical inflammatory bullshit about the event. He started talking about how it must have been June Bug's "time of the month" and how "as a [woman], [June Bug] is incapable of any of the thing's she's threatened to do." And other completely stupid things. Look at Dina Might. Hands down the most destructive, callous, juvenile, and cruel villain of modern supervillainy. ...oh god, she's going to be in my city in a month. Why the hell did I agree to that?

Oh, right, alcohol.

In response, June Bug leveled his recording studio by hitting it with the force of a Judy-sized, but several hundred times denser, meteorite.

Of course, Quizzer showed up and saved the people trapped in the rubble. They never found the body of that shithead. Any time I bring it up Judy laughs maniacally and changes the subject.

She makes me so proud.

However, at this point, the police, army, and an angered Brannigan had put two and two together and realized only one person had the motive and ability to do these things.

Unfortunately for them, Judy Baracs, as I have mentioned before, is a genius, and figured that, sooner or later, they'd catch her. So, when Brannigan security, the National Guard's Anti-Villain Task Force, and a full SWAT team closed in on her, they didn't find a meek college student. They found June Bug with a tidal bomb.

The video of these three law enforcement organizations falling over and puking from the bomb's effects is on YouTube if you wanna check it out, by the way.

Once again, Quizzer showed up and, this time, there was a scuffle. And I am both embarrassed and proud to say that the Blue Q got his keister kicked in a way I was never quite able to. I was also able to get my first clear look at her armor--some sort of black mesh under a bronze-colored composite on her chest, hips, legs, and arms. On her back is a big ovoid dome, which has most of her gravitational compressor array in it. Her helmet is also bronze-ish, and has a pair of "mandibles" and "antennae", along with a pair of green lenses over the eyes.

After she pounded Quizzer enough to make her escape, June Bug came here. I have no idea how she knew about my underwater lair, but she knocked on the airlock and I let her in and, surprise surprise, it was Judy under that armor.

So, to summarize, she and I are living together now--which is fine. I mean, my base used to house a couple dozen workers in relative comfort. Half of the rooms I don't even use anyway. I'm, at her request, giving her some tips on supervillainy, though I doubt there's anything I can teach her, since she's already doing a better job than I have in the past.

So far so good with living with her. It's been a few weeks and I don't want to kill her yet. Of course, it helps we have plenty of room to wander off if we get sick of each other.

Gotta go get pizza with Judy, I'll write about the flood of Aught Eight next time.

Update

Can't talk long. A few words to explain my absence.

1--Base Flooded.

2--Turned to stone.

3--Framed for assassination attempt against Rake--yes, framed. You didn't think I'd do something tacky like try to kill a presidential candidate, did you? I'm not one of those supervillains with a "cause" or "beliefs".

More later.