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The Golden Age of Comic Books: A Mutants and Masterminds campaign. Interest and OOC here!

Kirby Krackle

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Blueblood Alicorn

Blueblood

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I would have thought that using my "Create Object" powers would have just summoned paper from the ether, rather than gathering all the theater programs, though I suppose they might have adapted to their surroundings. Hm, that might make an interesting flavor to that power, if you'll allow it.

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Bramble Rose Wonderbolt

Bramble Rose

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(facepalms) OK, Glory did not punch him and then run into the theatre after him! It was this clip, with Loki playing the part of the cops, Thor playing the part of Pagemaster, and Iron Man playing the part of Morning Glory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxZmT7d5oDo

Also - for reference - Morning Glory is not as tall as Princess Celestia. She's also not as tall as later Luna. Not even as tall as Cadence. Perhaps in the general vicinity of first-episode Luna height. Before she got all her strength back.

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Bramble Rose Wonderbolt

Bramble Rose

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I think season 1 luna is closer to being just a little taller than twilight, but not as tall as the Luna listed there. I think Big Mac would still be taller than her. But she'd be taller than most stallions.

The way I'm looking at it is, as a new alicorn, she hasn't come into her full power yet. (as evidenced by SO MANY elements of her character sheet)

She still has room to ... grow. (ba-dum-pisch!)

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Bramble Rose Wonderbolt

Bramble Rose

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Arcane Comics Issue 1:

A New Morning Dawns (Part 2)

Bravado tensed up, then sighed as everything went dark. Yeah, that's what he thought. Though ... he thought dying would be darker. But instead, it looked like ... stars. He lifted up to his hooves, peering around.

Yup, had to be dead. He was walking on stars. And there was the bright light to walk towards. Wait, was that light ...

"Princess Celestia?!" He quickly kneeled. "You herald the souls of the dead to the next world?!"

There was a soft, delicate giggle from the leader of Equestria, then her voice came out gentle, instead of the normal booming Royal voice. "Stand, please, Bravado. You are not dead, and this is not the next world, this is just my own personal space. Rather like my sister heralds-" A spasm of pain crossed over her face. "heralded ... the space of dreams and nightmares, so too do I hold this place. A place of changes."

"Changes? I ... I don't understand. We were just... there was an explosion. How do you even know who I am? I'm nopony! Wait! Is Doctor Stein all right?! She was right there!"

"That's most remarkable. I've met quite a number of ponies in my day, both great and small, and I've never once met a pony who was nopony at all. And still you immediately ask after your friend. That's not the action of a nopony." Bravado blushed and ducked his head again, modestly. "I was just talking to Doctor Stein, in fact, before I came to see you. And for answer ... you were brought here because you displayed great loyalty." Bravado caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a square image appearing in the middle of the space around him ... then another, and another, showing the actions in the laboratory. "Both you and Doctor Stein refused to leave the other in danger, though it meant your own lives. That, combined with the intense magic in the area, resulted in a unique opportunity."

Bravado was completely lost, now. "You're changing me?"

Celestia let out a soft giggle, and for just a moment, seemed no older than Bravado himself. "No, Bravado. I don't have that power. Your own nature is changing you - the loyalty you showed."

Bravado hesitated, and then lowered his head, his voice low as he admitted, "I didn't really show all that good of loyalty to my friends, earlier." He couldn't help but think of the way his 'egghead' friends at the lab had ripped into him for not defending them. And as he thought of it, scenes from that confrontation appeared along with the scenes of the lab around him.

"Bravado," Celestia said soothingly, "Nopony is perfect. And loyalty doesn't always mean what you might think. The journey to understanding loyalty is one you are starting upon - not one you are ending. Which brings you to the crux of the matter. Doctor Stein has already made her choice - now it is your turn."

"What choice? What change? I don't understand!"

"I could not save Doctor Stein's body, Bravado. The chaos was too powerful there. But I could give her the opportunity to succeed in her life's dream: To give unicorn magic to others. She was right in that you cannot just create unicorn magic out of nothing, but Chaos cannot be controlled - not like she was trying. She was very, very close, though. Will you accept her unicorn magic, Bravado?"

"I ... what? She's losing her ... she's ... she's dead?"

"She is not yet dead, Bravado. I told you this is not the next world. But her body is gone. The chaos, you see. As you already know, Equestria is infested with chaos. It lays all over, corrupting the land, hurting innocent ponies." The images flashing around him changed from what had happened to him ... to images of fierce and terrible monsters. Of ponies with unreal powers, unleashing havoc upon innocents. Of pain, and loss.

"If you accept Doctor Stein's magic, this will be your duty. To protect Equestria from the chaos around it. To learn about loyalty, and to loyally devote yourself to others. And there will be a price that I don't even know how to fully explain to you." She let out another little giggle - something was funny here, but Bravado couldn't imagine what. "You will think that you understand it after you return to the lab, but you will not understand the full price for ... a very long time."

Bravado looked around, eyes wide, at all the visions of destruction. He didn't find any of this funny. "These ... I don't ... the news never said anything about all of this." Tears were streaming down his cheeks. "I didn't realize it was so bad."

Celestia sobered as she looked at the same things he was looking at, letting out a soft sigh. She shook her head, her floating mane shimmering around her. "Bravado, these are visions of the future. This place of change ... does not work quite the same way as the normal world. Time doesn't always flow the same way. This future can go two ways. I will not lie to you - even without you, these catastrophes can be stopped. It will require me to raise an army, and I cannot reinstate the Night Guard, who are most skilled at fighting things like this. I am not as good as my sister at keeping such creatures at bay. A lot of ponies will be seriously hurt ... but Equestria will go on.

"You can choose to take this pain, this responsibility, upon yourself ... but it will be very hard on you. You will lose many things important to you. And I cannot reveal too much to you now. The future ... is too complicated. Even Starswirl does not fully understand how it works."

Bravado looked over the scenes of destruction. Tried to imagine himself at every one of them. There - a giant snake. And there, a pony wielding fire that was scorching entire fields at once. There, was a pony floating in the middle of a tornado, casting lightning from his wings without even a cloud in sight. And there ... a dark, terrifying silhouette of an alicorn stallion, standing with his hoof on a pony's throat ... wait, was that ... Celestia?!

The idea ... was daunting. Terrifying. "M ... Me? How can I ... stop all of this? I can't ... I don't ... I'm just a simple pony, Your Highness. I don't understand how I can do anything about all of this."

Celestia smiled, and touched his shoulder with a gentle hoof. "You are capable of more than you know. All ponies have such potential for greatness within them. This is your opportunity to realize just how much potential you have yet untapped."

Bravado looked up at her with eyes shining with tears. "You're telling me that I have to choose between myself, or all these other ponies. Either I get hurt... or all of them do. And to keep them ..." His voice choked, and he took a shaky breath before continuing. "To keep them safe ... I have to ... I have to put myself ... into this sort of danger." He gestured at the screens, squeezed his eyes shut. He tried twice to speak before he could finally get the words out past his tight throat. "I c-can't ... I can't let that ... all those ponies ... I accept."

Celestia softly said, "open your eyes." Bravado did, looking up to her. She smiled gently, and touched his forehead with the tip of her long horn. "Ease your fears, Bravado. You will have help. Doctor Stein will be there with you, and other friends, dear friends, that you have yet to meet. And eventually, you will also have my help."

Her lips quirked, and then she covered her mouth as she let out another little titter of laughter. "And I must apologize for when we meet next. I won't know you, and I'm afraid I might over-react a little."

"How ... how won't you know me, your highness?"

"As I said, time doesn't flow the same way, here. I come from a future in which you already made this choice. I have seen you stand strong against foes you cannot even imagine. And lose more than you thought you would.

He blinked. "Wait... what? Then ... I didn't really have a choice, do I? The future is set?"

"No. I know your future, but I did not choose it - you did. The future is set by your actions. Just as it is set by the actions of all other ponies. And ... the future can change, once you have knowledge of it. Not easily, but it can. Please do not try to read too much into it, other than to understand - the future is yours to create."

Bravado nodded. "So ... what do I do?"

"You will know what is needed. And what you do ... is be yourself. No matter how difficult that might seem." Again she seemed to be telling a joke, giggling softly, seeming almost a teenager again, and he wished he knew what the punchline was. "But right now, you must return to where you were."

"Wait!" Bravado cried, as the starfield faded to black around him. Sure, NOW the fade to black! "Wasn't I in the middle of an explosion?!"

The room was spinning ... no, his head was spinning. The room was just ... destroyed. Equipment was scattered everywhere, wrecked from the blast. Bravado couldn't see the Doc anywhere ... and for a moment, suspected that the whole thing had been a hallucination. He'd hit his head too hard. He carefully got to his hooves ... then looked at those hooves with his jaw dropped. They were *green*. And why was he wearing a breastplate, now, along with the helmet? And a cloak? And -

Then his eyes focused past his hooves, and saw the shoes. They were laying, still, in the center of the scorched spot on the floor, the center of the explosion, as if all the magic were gone from them. Then, right before his eyes, they melted away, soaking into the floor.

"Oh," he said softly, and his voice sounded ... odd. "That's ... not ... good ..."

No, said a voice in his head. It's really not.

"Doc?!" he asked, spinning around, looking for her.

You won't find me. I'm in the helmet. Hurry, now, Celestia told me what we need to do - the other scientists are going to be trapped in here. We have to get them out!

He stepped backwards nervously, eyes on the spot the shoes had melted into the floor, which was now just a red stain ... but the red stain spread across the floor, darkened to a deep brown, and the scent of chocolate pudding started to fill the air. A long tendril of gooey chocolate extruded from the floor, reaching for them.

"Right. Leaving now," he said, and his voice still sounded ... not like his. He put it down to terror and fled the room.

Screamed echoed in the hallway, from the labs all around. His shoulders sagged a moment. Right. Save the others. "They tried to save their research," he sighed, and lowered his shoulder to charge into the closest lab.

The door burst inwards, flinging itself across the room, and he stumbled as he tried to halt his momentum. He'd expected the door to put up at least a little resistance! As he recovered his balance, he saw that old Professor Dusty Tome was clutching a hoof-full of notes to his chest, backed into a corner as his own lab equipment assault him - a creature made entirely of glassware. Jars made up the torso, filled with tubes and cylinders and burettes as its guts. Long arms with condensers as its tendons reached out for him, and pipette tips made its claws. A huge, over-sized beaker made up its head, and hundreds of test tubes bristled from its back. Liquids of every color flowed through its inner tubing, churning and whorling, the light shining through it giving it a rainbow effect.

Bravado paused only a moment, trying to focus on the creature - the see-through glass making it a bit tricky to pinpoint it, though the fluids inside at least clarified its general location. Its big beaker-head turned towards him. If he smashed it, all those fluids inside would mix to possibly disastrous effect ...

Well. The door hadn't held up against his charge. Perhaps the wall wouldn't, either. "Hold onto those notes, professor!" he cried, as he charged forward. Using nimble skills learned in thousands of hours of practice on the hoofball field, he ducked under the creature's swing and caught the professor in his arms, curled his wings around the professor in one last powerful flap, shield and propellant at once, twisting in mid-air so that Bravado could hit the wall, first. Sure enough, his hypothesis held true, and he smashed through the brick wall and hurtled through the air to land outside on the lawn. He let the professor go and stood up, giving a shake.

"Huh... that hardly hurt at all."

That was amazing! cried Doc Stein's voice in his head. But every good experiment needs to be repeated - there's more ponies trapped in there!

"Right!" cried Bravado, and spread his wings, then flew back into the building through the hole he'd left.

In Doctor Nurse's lab, everything had been changed into rubber - furniture, equipment, walls, ceiling, floor - and Doctor Nurse himself was bouncing around along with everything else, ricocheting helplessly, half unconscious from repeated hits with tables and chairs, just trying to protect his head and horn. Bravado flew in through chaos, grabbed him in midair, and pulled him to safety, taking a couple bruises along the way. Somehow, those rubber chairs hurt worse than breaking through a brick wall!

In Professor Burrette's lab, she was actually being gummed by her file cabinets. Bravado gave the file cabinet gnawing on her a good solid kick, sending it dented and bent into the wall, and pulled Professor Burrette to her hooves. "You're lucky they didn't have teeth," she commented. Then they had teeth.

You had to say it, said Doctor Stein with a mental sigh.

Bravado got out of there with only one minor bite, but it stung. A few minutes later, after giant lab mice, carnivorous books, flying drumsticks, projectile quills, the return of the giant *winged* lab mice, a checkerboard lab where he couldn't fly and each color of the floor did something different, the chocolate pudding having come looking for him, and way too many thumps, bruises, bites, gooey residue, and papercuts later, he'd pulled most of the ponies from the labs.

It was in his last run through that he found them. They were cowering together, their magic floating a pair of lab chairs with several bites taken out of them, and there was that blasted chocolate pudding monster again! What was it with that thing?! It was chewing contentedly, a chair leg sticking out from between its mouth.

"Hypothesis! Test Tube!" Bravado cried. "Don't worry, I'm here to help!"

They looked up, and looked briefly confused, then an expression of hope crossed over their faces. "You ... you're ... " babbled Test Tube, staring.

"Hurry! We're running out of chairs!" cried Hypothesis.

Bravado wasn't sure what Test Tube's problem was *now*, but he didn't have time to think about that. The chocolate pudding had swallowed, and started looking for something else to eat ... and it was twice as big as last time he had seen it, which was rather bigger than when he'd first seen it appear. "Dang, what has this thing been eating?!"

"It ate the thing made of floor tiles that had been attacking us before!"

Doctor Stein laughed in the back of his head. Well, at least we don't have to fight both of them.

"Right, just wait a moment! Give it your last two chairs to distract it!" Bravado ordered, and they threw the chairs into the thing.

The pudding stuffed them into its mouth and started chewing, and Bravado spread his wings and flew past it while it was distracted. "Don't worry, we'll just-"

He got cut off as a tendril of pudding wrapped around his hoof and pulled him from the air, slamming him into the ground and knocking the wind from him, and then the chocolate started engulfing his hind legs. "AUGH! Get it off!" he cried.

"We can't, it'll eat us too!"

Bravado tried to kick at the thing with his fore-hooves, but it was soft as anything - his kicks were just absorbed like nothing, and then when he tried to pull them back, the chocolate just stretched out pseudopods to keep him engulfed. "Ummm... we need a major endothermic reaction! Quick, get some water, ammonium chloride, and ... uh ... what do you have for a gestalt agent?"

Test Tube goggled, but Hypothesis nodded. "Right!" she cried, and her hoof pushed Test Tube in the right direction. "You get those two, I'll grab the icebloom nectar!"

Use your magic! the voice in the back of his head cried. Try an ice spell directly!

Bravado hadn't even thought of using magic this whole time, but that's right - Celestia had said he'd have Doc Stein's magic, and he was still wearing the helm. "Right," he murmured, "How do I do that?"

Just focus! Here, like this! Bravado got some sort of crystalline image in his mind.

"Right. What do I do with it?" he softly asked, confused.

"What was that?" asked Test Tube, looking over with his hooves full, beakers floating along with him.

"Nothing!" cried Bravado. "Just hurry!"

Test Tube nodded, then glanced at the door. Fear was writ plainly on his face, and Bravado felt his heart sink ... with the pudding focused on him, they could escape... his hind legs were starting to go numb... but...

"Go ahead, get out of here!" he cried. "I'll think of something!" Magic, magic, he flexed his forehead as if he could get the helm to respond through muscle twitches. Nothing. Blast. This was harder than unicorns made it look! He closed his eyes, tried to copy that crystalline structure in his thoughts, with Doc Stein trying to help him out with varying degrees of success.

There was the sound of crashing glass, and the stink of chemicals mixed with the icy floral scent of iceblooms filled Bravado's nose. He opened his eyes to see ice spreading along the chocolate pudding's surface, the chocolate writhing around him. He was getting pretty cold himself, but he could take it. He hoped. He kicked one hind hoof, and the chocolate shattered from around it.

A few moments and thrashing later, and the chocolate pudding was a bunch of frozen shards on the floor, and Bravado was free. "Thanks... now let's get out of here!" he cried.

It was a mad dash through the halls - without any of the other professors, the place was going crazy, and had nothing more to focus on than them - and each other. Bravado battered things out of the way, and Test Tube and Hypothesis flailed around with a couple of chair legs, but they never stopped running until they got out. They collapsed to the ground, panting a moment, but Bravado only let himself rest for a few seconds before standing back up. "OK, gotta contain things until -"

He turned around to see that a chaos containment team was already arriving. "Oh, thank Celestia," he sighed in relief. He was not going to get used to that weird voice anytime soon.

"Who ... who are you?" asked Test Tube in awe.

"And how did you know who we were?" asked Hypothesis.

Right. No thank you, no 'oh, we're so sorry for before.' ... but he supposed they didn't recognize him.

"Just somepony trying to help," he said, trying not to feel hurt, not let the bitterness cloud his voice. "You should be all right now." Then he spread his wings and lifted off.

Even with all the bites and bruises, aches and pains, Bravado felt a rush of amazement. Inside, he hadn't been able to use his wings to their fullest, but now ... his wing span was *impressive*. The fillies were going to be all over him! And he could FLY! In the length of time it usually took him to fly from one end of campus to the other, he was already at the lakefront on the other side of town. He laughed delightedly.

Wow! cried Doctor Stein in his mind. So that's what flying is like! No wonder you pegasus ponies put such stock in it!

Bravado nodded. "This is better than what flying is usually like. Let's find a mirror or something," he said quickly. "I need to see what I look like."

As he was trying to figure out where to find a mirror, he caught a glimpse of himself while passing over a well lit pool - he circled around and landed on the edge, staring down at his reflection ... her reflection? He ... he didn't ... he wasn't wearing the horned helm. He was wearing a helm around ... a horn. A really long one. She was wearing. He was ... She was ...

Oh my gosh, breathed Doctor Stein, which didn't make sense since she didn't breath anymore. You're Princess Morning Glory!

"Who?"

Princess Morning Glory! When I was a little filly, I would ... uh ... play pretend ... and that was ... I looked like ... quick, look at your cutie mark!

Bravado felt his hooves moving without his consent, and that was WEIRD. It pulled aside his cloak and ... skirts?! to reveal not his cutie mark, but instead one of a ... rising sun, he supposed.

We are! We're Princess Morning Glory! Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh! EEEEEEEE!

Bravado winced at the decibles that Doc Stein could produce without even having a voice, and just stared at ... herself ... in shock. She wasn't nearly as tall as Celestia or Luna, not by a long shot. But only one or two of the stallions on campus were taller. Her wings, his horn, were more impressive than any pony's except for the princesses.

"We are NOT calling ourself Princess Morning Glory," Bravado said firmly.

But -

"No. I am NOT committing treason. But ..." Her voice became more gentle. "I suppose we can call ourselves Morning Glory. I just wish I could change back to myself..."

And with that, once again, something pressed into her mind. She found himself reciting, "Justice is Done, and Equestria is safe! Morning Glory will return when Loyalty is needed!" There was a flash of light, and then he was settling back on his hooves. HIS hooves! The helm had disappeared, as had the outfit and the horn, and he was his normal pegasus self, but wearing some sort of silver and blue amulet depicting a stylized alicorn with wings spread.

"I'm myself again!" he cried happily, "I'm me again! I'm ..." He groaned and clutched at his ribs. "In a LOT of pain... owwww..." All those little aches and pains were redoubled now that he wasn't Morning Glory anymore.

Well, came the voice in the back of his head, This is going to take a lot of getting used to, being an amulet...

"Yeah, I think we both have some 'getting used to' to do ... but ..." He laughed faintly, shaking his head. "At least now I know the punchline..."

And as an aside ... pronouns are HARD.

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Bramble Rose Wonderbolt

Bramble Rose

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If you want to avoid the "Who goes next? I'm waiting on such-and-such," etc, I could recommend something.

First off, you could institute an initiative roll. That would provide us with a posting order.

Second, if you want to make sure the thread keeps moving, you could institute a time limit on posting. "If you have not posted within 48 hours of the last pony's post, you miss your turn." sort of deal.

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Blueblood Alicorn

Blueblood

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Ooh, yeah, an initiative roll would actually be cool, and a time limit would help prod me out of any apathetic periods (sorry about my latest one, by the way, this week hasn't really been busier than any other, I just felt... well, dull, I guess).

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Kirby Krackle Equestrian

Kirby Krackle

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Not only do I understand dull periods, I have friends with precisely that kind if hectic schedule. I don't think I want to be a stickler and impose a time limit yet. But I will figure out an initiative system and, yeah, just shoot me a line in the OOC thread saying that life has hit you with a metaphorical truck if I haven't seen a post in like...

Two days? Is that fair? I hope it's fair. I can renegotiate!

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