City of Gold OOC

City of Gold


April 10, 2025

The sound of three gunshots pierced the evening air, shattering windows and sending glass shards flying. The clerk of the Seven-Eleven dove for cover as four people in all black stepped into the building through the doors, their faces covered with ski masks. The clerk peeked over the counter at them, his eyes wide with fright.

"J-just take the money, yo!" the clerk screamed out "Don't hurt me!" One of the four, the one without a gun, locked the doors and leaned up against them, incase their target decided to bolt. The other three began to walk to the end of the long convenience store. A hung-over ruffian at the coffee counter looked up and got a fist to the face, courtesy of a large, muscular man in black who towered over the other three. A loud metallic "CLANG" emanated through the air as the man fell to the ground, his facial bones shattered. The fourth person in black turned their head towards the clerk, who now had a gun loosely in his hand. They laughed with a low-pitched, raspy voice as their eyes glowed a light purple.

"Do you really think your little pop gun will harm me, human?" he spat. The air crackled with electricity as a bolt of violet lightning struck the clerk in the throat. He screamed as the lightning arced through his body, making his hair stand on end. The clerk fell to the ground steaming, motionless, but not dead. Archer wouldn’t kill an innocent like that. The other three converged at a point in the corner of the store where two men stood in front of a freezer of Ben and Jerry's. One of the men was handsome and intelligent, with tawny hair swept back off of his wide forehead and parted in the middle. He wore a pair of brown trousers and a tan military jacket over a button-up white collared shirt. Under his right arm was a black ivory cane. The second man was a rough-looking individual with a dark brown, almost black buzz cut and a perpetual scowl on his face. He wore a green fleece hoodie with the hood up and a pair of ripped black jeans. Neither of the two reacted at all to the apparent robbery. Soon four of the robbers converged on the corner, prepared for a fight.
"What do you think, Raphael?" Shaun (the man on the left with the tan jacket) asked his partner "Should we get Katrina Americone Dream or Late Night Snack? She said she likes crunchy, right?"
"I'd get her the Late Night Snack." Raphael replied in a gruff voice "She likes potato chips. There a Cherry Garcia in there?" One of the robbers, the largest of them all who knocked out the man near the coffee counter, growled menacingly and punched the glass in a case on the wall, shattering both the glass and several six packs of beer.

“Yup. Right here. Catch.” Shaun tossed the pint of ice cream at Raphael, who caught it with a smirk on his face “I cannot decide. What do you think, giant?” Shaun turned around with three pints of ice cream in his hand and a smile on his face. He looked up at the tall monster in front of him, and then across the store at the others who had converged on them. He counted four attackers and one by the door.

“You’re coming with us, Shaun.” the voice of a short, skinny woman said “Don’t fight.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you definitely don’t want to get blood on that new outfit of yours, Amira.” Shaun replied, leaning against the door with his arms crossed and the cane in his left hand “Since when did the Skulls fall to the low of robbing convenience stores and kidnapping people?” Amira scowled and took a few steps forward towards Shaun.

“Look, is all this fighting really necessary?” the third person in black, an average-sized young man who spoke with a very slight South American accent said.

“Is Genocide really necessary?” Raphael responded, taking two steps towards the man. The man in black hissed like a snake at him, and bared his gritted teeth. Two very large fangs were visible.

“Do I have to break your legs again, punk?” the large metal man growled at Raphael.

“Was I talking to you, metal cock?” Raphael spat back.

“Bigger than-”

“Gentlemen!” Shaun yelled at them “Are we really going to have this conversation here? I’m not coming with you, Amira.”

“We just want-” he cut her off.

“I know what you want, and you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead lips.”

“That can be arranged.” Giant said, cracking his knuckles loudly. Shaun sighed, and sat the pints of ice cream down on a shelf. Raphael reached into his hoodie and produced a pair of black octagonal nunchucks.

“Look, we don’t want any trouble.” Shaun said “Let’s just go our separate ways now. We don’t want to get the ACPD involved in this.”

“Yeah, because I’m real afraid of a few humans with pop guns!” Archer called from the front of the store. He had a crowbar in his hand, and was prying open the cash register.

“Ugh fine.” Shaun said, rolling his eyes and uncrossing his arms “Suit yourself.” He nodded to Raphael, and he began to whip his nunchucks around with almost supernatural speed. The lights flickered as Archer formed a bolt of violet lightning between his hands with a deafening crackle. His eyes glowed purple still, and electricity arced between the teeth of his open jaw. Both Amiras (Shaun now noticed that there were two of them) made two extra copies of themselves, and Giant cracked his neck, ready to fight. Shaun twirled the cane in his hand a few times, and turned to the other group of Amiras. Now it was just a matter of time to see who would strike first.

The first to move was Giant. He swung a baseball mit-sized fist at Shaun’s head, who ducked before the punch was halfway to his head. Shaun rolled under Giant’s legs and swung his cane at Amira before ducking a lightning blast from archer. He moved with incredible reflexes, his telepathy giving him the power to predict attacks before they happen. The Amira that Shaun struck cried out and clutched her eye. She cursed at him and lunged. The South American man jumped at Raphael at the same time as the other three Amiras. Raphael moved in a blur, knocking one Amira out with a nunchuck and kicking the South American in the stomach, doubling him over. He hissed at lunched at Raphael’s leg with fangs extended, but Raphael was too quick for him. He jumped over the snake man and bowled into Giant’s leg just as an electricity blast came within an inch of his head. Giant launched a close-range kick at Raphael, sending him flying across the store. he crashed into an Icee machine and rolled to his feet, a rib cracked and a cut on the left side of his neck. Before Giant’s eyes, the wounds healed and Raphael took off. An Amira got in his way, but he kicked her in the left knee, shattering her patella, and punched her in the face. He has lost the nunchucks while airborne. She fell to the ground clutching her knee. The snake threw a punch at Raphael, who rolled under the punch and delivered a spinning kick to his back. The snake stumbled forward and spun around. He spat venom at Raphael, who fell into a back walkover to dodge. The spit hit Giant in the chest and burned a hole in his black clothing. Giant grabbed a glass door from one of the freezers and tore it off of the hinges. He flung it at Raphael, who jumped out of the way. The door hit the snake man and knocked him backwards. He fell on one of the Amiras and hit his head on the corner of a shelf.

Shaun, meanwhile, found himself fighting three Amiras and Archer. All three attacked him from different angles while Archer shot blasts of lightning over his head. An Amira punched Shaun in the face, and in exchange he struck her in the right breast with his cane as he rolled. Another swung at the back of his head, and he spun out of the way. He landed on the ground and rolled to the left, dodging another blast from Archer. Police lights could be heard from a distance. Raphael jumped up onto a shelf and ran at Giant, who was ready to throw another door. Giant launched the door and Raphael tucked his face into his crossed arms. he smashed through the glass and somersaulted in midair, ending with a spinning kick to the back of Giant’s head. The massive metal man fell forward with the force of the kick and took out a shelf of Slim Jims before crashing into the coffee counter and shattering the marble counter top. Raphael crashed into the wall and fell to the ground bleeding. The snake man now stood above him, fangs extended.

“You win this round, Mamba.” Raphael said as a puddle of blood formed around him from the dozen cuts he’d received from the glass. The wounds quickly healed as Mamba prepared to spit acid at Raphael’s face. A whipping sound, like a baseball bat moving at full speed, broke the silence as Shaun struck Black Mamba in the side of the head with his cane at full force. The man cried out and stumbled backwards. His mask was wet with blood, but he didn’t seem concerned. The blood turned into a concrete-like material and dried instantly. The police lights were loud now. Shaun helped Raphael up and charged straight at Mamba, who was in front of the back door. He put his cane under his arm and snatched up the pints of ice cream. He’d come back another day and pay for them, but right now he’d rather not deal with the police. Mamba ran towards them just as Archer fired a bolt of lightning with a deafening “BOOM!” Shaun lowered his shoulder, causing the lightning to arc over his head and hit Mamba in the left ear. The serpent man screamed as the electrical shock coursed through his body, and then fell to the ground, unconscious. Luckily Archer hadn’t put a fatal dose behind it.

At that moment, the remaining windows exploded with machinegun fire. Archer ducked and Amira (the original was the only one left) dove for the back door. Shaun shoved it open and the four ran out. Giant was too slow, and so took several bullets to his back. He cried out in pain as steam began to rise from his metal skin. He ducked low, grabbed Mamba around the waist, and sprinted through the wall, his metal build making this an easy feat. The police had not yet gotten around to the back yet, meaning they might be able to get away. Raphael sprinted across the back lot and vaulted across his Mustang Boss 302 to the driver’s side. Shaun threw the passenger-side door open and looked back to hear a loud blast a bullet through the air from the shotgun of a police officer. He wore all black tactical gear and a helmet similar to that of a motorcyclist’s. Amire fell to the ground with a shout, a bullet in her right calf. Archer wheeled around and blasted the officer in the chest with an arc of electricity. He took several steps back, but was not harmed. The Aurum City Police had learned from fighting the skulls to outfit their men in insulating armor. Another blast to the face mask sent the cop falling backwards into another. Two cruisers swerved around the back as Raphael started his car. The racecar engine in it let out a deafening “VROOM!” The cops got out and began firing just as Titanium Giant’s enormous F-450 zoomed from the lot, smashing a car as it went and causing a cop to dive out of the way. Shaun grabbed a pistol, a Glock-17, from under the passenger seat and fired a few stray rounds at the cops. The door was still open and he wasn’t yet seated.

“Shaun!” Archer yelled as a bullet whizzed over his head “Little help?” he fired a blast of electricity and hit one of the cops between the legs. That was a spot that couldn’t possibly be well-armored. Shaun rolled his eyes and pulled back the seat. He helped Archer and Amira into the back and closed the door.

“STEP ON IT, RALPH!” Shaun yelled. Raphael floored it and a purple nitris flame blasted from the muffler. The car went from zero to sixty in around .5 seconds as it took off down the street, soon reaching the blinding speed of 250 miles per hour. Bullets bounced off of the windows, Raphael had the car well-fortified with bulletproof glass and siding, as they drove off down the road. He swerved through alleys and red lights like a madman in an attempt to lose the police. At one point a chopper started following them, but he was able to lose it in a wirelike network of alleys. Shaun had began to tend to Amira’s leg with a first aid kit.

“I can’t do much.” he said “The bullet’s embedded in her calf. I might be able to get dottore back at the mansion to fix it.

“Th-thank you…” Amira sniffled. She was bawling, and her tanned face (she had taken her mask off) was soaked with tears. She shook uncontrollably as she laid in Archer’s arms. He held her tightly and whispered in her ear as they drove,

“It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. I’m here. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

“...It’ll all be okay…”




-------------

The year is 2025. Ten years ago, Doctor James Grey, a theoretical physicist, conducted an experiment in the Aurum City particle collider in an attempt to create and study Strange Matter. But something went wrong. The experiment failed, and there was a massive explosion. The particle collider went up in flames and obliterated several neighborhoods, killing thousands of people. The resulting radiation filled the city. It was radiation, however, that no human had ever studied or seen before. It was formed, scientists hypothesize, by a breach in the space-time continuum. This ultra-low-frequency radiation was dubbed Cosmic Radiation. It swept through the city, killing some and badly burning others, not unlike the damage from the fallout of an Atomic Bomb. The radiation did more damage than anyone could see or expect. The odd structure of the cosmic waves altered the genetic structure of hundreds of citizens of the massive city, causing them to mutate. Some simply died from the mutations or grew tumors and were killed by cancer, but others became meta-humans, men and women with supernatural powers that defied the laws of nature.
The Aurum Event didn’t end there, though, because the cosmic radiation did something else. It destroyed the spacetime continuum around Aurum City, causing an enormous dome of shimmering energy to form around it. This dome, made entirely of cosmic energy, killed humans on contact, though did not harm machines, allowing supplies to enter the city solely by drone. For the past ten years, no human has entered or left Aurum City. In addition to this, the Event caused five tears to form in the spacetime continuum throughout Aurum. These areas are known as “Wishing Wells” or simply “Wells”, and they leak cosmic energy. Physics professor Shaun Smithton discovered soon after the Wells’ creation that metahumans standing in them have their powers greatly boosted. It has been hypothesized by him that using the combined energy of all five Wells could grant one the ability to build up enough energy to successfully punch a hole in the dome surrounding Aurum, opening it up to the outside world once more.
Inside, the world began to drastically transform. Three obvious factions soon formed:


The Society for the Advancement of Meta-Humans (SAM): Started by physics professor and meta-human Shaun Smithton, this organization is a (relatively) peaceful group designed to protect metahumans from harm via prejudiced metaphobes. The SAM is science first, combat second, although they find themselves in combat much more than they find themselves doing science. They wish to find all five of the Wells and use their energy to lower the dome and free the people of the city.  The SAM accepts all metahumans into their group. Their headquarters is the Smithton House, a mansion on the grounds of the University of Aurum. In its backyard is a large metal silo, which contains Well 001, one of the five Wishing Wells. Members of this group are generally referred to as “Sammies”. The SAM functions with a code of honor. They do not attack civilians, do not engage police officers deliberately, and do not commit heinous war acts (like rape, genocide, terrorist attacks, etc). Members who break these codes are ousted from the group.


The Skulls: The Skulls are an old gang that started out initially when the Aurum Event happened. This radical metahuman gang is violently racist towards normal humans and uses belligerent methods to end prejudice against metas. The group has been compared to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda often. They are run by the Big Five, a group of metas who all grew up together on the streets of Aurum. They are Nex (Ignatius Cruor), Skeleton (Alex Freer), Scar (Damien Sparks. Was replaced by Sal after his death), Grease (Kylie Evans), and Archer (Robin Daniels). The goal of the Skulls is officially to take over the five Wells and use them to unleash a radiation wave on normal humans, turning them into a metahuman army. Once this happens, the Skulls will lift the barrier and march out with an army to protect them from racist humans. The Skulls have no real code of conduct or ethics when it comes to their job so long as the members of the group do what the big five say. Rape, murder, genocide, and terrorist attacks are not above the Skulls. The Skulls’ headquarters is a renovated row house on 18th street in Southwest Aurum, right across from Skulley’s, the Skulls’ main hangout (and where they got their name). The row house is actually several row houses combined, and takes up the length of a city block. Both buildings are defended 24/7 by security and are heavily fortified against the ACPD. There are miniguns in the second-floor windows and rumor has it that there’s a grenade launcher turret on the roof. The last row house on the block is plated in metal and contains a Well.


The Aurum City Police Department (ACPD): The Humans. So after the Aurum Event, the government of Aurum City essentially seized control and turned the place into a police state. They turned the police into a private army to protect citizens from metahumans and shipped in new high-tech gear to protect their troops. The humans exploit the metahuman weakness towards cosmic radiation (I’ll talk about that below) in special radiation bullets that do extra damage to metas. Humans are immune to the ill effects of cosmic radiation. The ACPD wears special protective armor designed to defend them from most metahuman attacks. They carry military-grade weapons and ride in fortified vehicles to defend themselves. The ACPD is known to be extremely brutal, often beating known metahumans up on sight, arresting them, or shooting them with rock salt and/or firehoses. If metahumans are caught committing crimes, the police use deadly force to suppress them in order to not cost the lives of officers (in the olden days, polices officers were killed by metas constantly). The leader of this tyrannical autocracy is Mayor Aron Byron, the one who established the Aurum police state nine or so years ago (for the first year it was still part of the US government).

Why You Should Trust Me:

Things You Need to Know About Meta-Humans:

Technology:

The City:

Rules:

Sheet:

Character Sheets

The SAM:

Maxx:

Shaun Smithton

Raphael Johnson

Katrina Johnson

Allen:

Amanda Blackmore

Nikki Biyung

Samson Jeross

Hector Jeross


God-Mod

Nilez Vespa

The Skulls:

Maxx:

Nex

Skeleton


Allen:

Faust

Desert Scorpion


Dragonbud

Grease


The Real Shade

Miss Khan

Hellbender/Sal


TheⓍperator

Matthew Detmer

The ACPD:

Maxx:

Charles Branson

The Real Shade

Cordelia Lynn



God-Mod

Jane MacKey (top entry)

Reserved

ACPD armor/weapons:

An accurate depiction of ACPD riot armor:  (but not the helmet)



ACPD helmets:



An ACPD police vehicle (with different insignias on the side):



The Standard Issue assault weapon of the ACPD is the p90 submachinegun. Their's comes complete with an elongated clip holding 70 rounds and a tactical rail on the top and bottom. They can be equipped with a holographic sight or a red dot sight.

The Standard Issue shotgun of the ACPD is the Mossberg 500 Persuader. It comes equipped with a tactical rail on the bottom and a stock. It normally is set to fire salt rock and/or teargas rounds.

The Standard Issue pistol of the ACPD is the Sig Sauer P226 Elite. It is a semi-auto handgun with an extended 20-shot magazine.

When in heavy assault (standoffs and such like that), the police use XM-25 grenade launchers. These launchers can fire explosives, teargas, and smoke.

I'll try and join :3

That was fast. I'm gonna whip up a character vault real quick.

Ah, damn. I was going to bring back Riley and Chloe (with Riley as "Sparky") but it would seem Shaun has already taken to combat telepathy. For there to be two telepaths, I feel they'd need a significant difference in their abilities.

Ah. Actually, let me PM you something, Maxx.

I've never had gay characters so I'm thinking maybe a lesbian couple, but that may just be Christine/Veronica influencing me from New Vegas. Hm.

Alright. I await your PM.

Just sent it, working on my sheets now.

Accepted DB (Tbh it was kinda auto-accepted since Grease is one of the Big Five).

Shade's sheet is also accepted as soon as he adds it to the sheet file.

Al, all of your sheets are also accepted. I will update the OP with all of the currently accepted sheets too. I hope to crank at least two sheets out tonight.

Woop woop. I added Cordelia's and Leila's.

She'll go by Lynn mostly, because Cordelia doesn't really fit her character that well, but neither did any of the other names on that "Top One Hundred Names for Girls" list, so that's what we're going with.

Also, when are we thinking the IC will be turnt up put up?

I'll be working on a sheet for this.

My hope is to get the IC up by friday, but that would mean that I'd have to finish all of my sheets by then.

Go fight win

Ah. As exam/end of the year stuff loom closer, my posting will be erratic, but I'll try and post in this and Academy more regularly.

I'm working on a sheet for this. Now, a fair warning, I'm still quite new to meta human RPs. I was in CZ but I sucked in it. My characters were all ridiculously unrealistic. I plan on improving. So when I slip up please understand and please, please be patient with me.

We shall. I don't want people attacked in here for messing up.

Just don't eat a playground filled with children this time, okay?


Also, I need to mention this now; Skeleton's clothes are fireproof.

For for it Dark, I'm sure you'll do fine :3

God dammit, Maxx.

I was about to snark about that.

Ok, I have two more sheets to make before I can start the IC. After that, we can begin. I'm going to wait for a few people though, namely Zar and Darkel (and maybe gm).

Yeah darkel, pm the sheet to me first so I can tell you what I think.

Ok so both teams of metas are just kinda chatting and interacting right now. Let me know when you guys are tired of interacting so I can unleash the next phase, okay?