In Case of Emergency, Add SCIENCE

So last week I was browsing a forum and I used their search function and I noticed it had an identical layout to the Zoofights forums. Now, what gave me cause for minor concern was that this forum had a sticky topic where one of the admins asked people for donations because they had to pay to keep the forum up. So I got to thinking: If this forum requires payment from the admins, wouldn't that apply to the identically-formatted Zoofights Forums? What happens if Zoofights shut down? What of our hundreds of thousands of posts? Our lively match banter and ridiculous RP shenanigans?

For the last 47 hours, there has been a guest viewing the Zoofights Forums. This guest is my new friend and yours, HTTrack, a free program that allegedly mirrors websites and copies them to your computer. HTTrack's first mission is to copy the entirety of the Zoofights Forums. So far it's saved over 1.1 GB of data and written 8555 files. That extremely large filesize is a problem for sharing but perhaps I can lower it by deleting non-essential pages like the login page and whatnot, or maybe I could break up the results into separate topics.

If the worst does happen - there is no Zoofights this year and Major Failure forgets or neglects to pay his hosting fee - or the second worst happens and the Bar is wiped for whatever reason - we'll have a backup. I don't want to lose that summer of madness.

Hope this works!

The Changing of the Gang - Part Three

Skeiron locked onto the bikers and prepared to fill them with lead and lasers. He'd gotten into plenty of scrapes like this on his regular city patrols, and didn't expect Blade and his gang to be any different.

Blade saw Skeiron's slightly dented eyes light up, and he quickly leaped backward towards his bike, still clutching his trusty lead pipe. In one swift movement, Blade got onto his bike and hit reverse, swerving around a nearby building and out of sight. Skeiron ignored the other bikers and chased after the one who'd attacked him. Gale waved over his fellow yellow-wearing biker Gust, while the red-clothed bikers Tornado and Hurricane exchanged a few words, glancing at the WarMech as it stomped towards Blade's hiding place.

All four biker henchmen saw the lead pipe strike Skeiron again as soon as he reached the corner of the building. Then the robot let loose with his weapons at last, but Blade roared forward on his bike and dodged the attacks, speeding just out of range. Skeiron swung his body around, trying to lock on to the pesky biker.

Gust and Gale urged their bikes forward. Gust's bike slammed into Skeiron hard from his left side, sending him staggering. Gale was next, lunging out with his own lead pipe (rustier than Blade's) and managing a dent. Skeiron spun on one leg from the force of the impact, before activating his jetpack and rising into the air.

"Shit!" Hurricane yelled. "We can't reach the damn thing!"

"YOU can't," Tornado shot back as he pulled out a pistol. "I got it covered."

Tornado began firing at Skeiron as the WarMech tried to aim at the bikers, which were all zipping around on their bikes. Tornado was a good marksman - he was still driving around, but every so often he'd casually point his gun at his enemy and squeeze off a shot. A few bullets dinged Skeiron's armor, and one actually embedded in his armor. However, the bullets couldn't get past the Ultralisk plating installed over Skeiron's body, unlike the pipe shots.

At last, Skeiron connected with his laser on Gust, who yelled as his arm was burned and he lost control of his bike. The motorcycle tilted and skid, crashing into Hurricane's bike and leaving both gang members in a heap on the ground with their rides.

Blade, meanwhile, was forming a plan. Even though Manhattan wasn't his usual turf, he knew the layout pretty well from reconnaissance missions, and knew that the Excite Bikers had set up a series of ramps and platforms to do mad tricks on when they weren't making a ruckus. Hopping off his bike, he walked over to the collection of ramps, half-pipes, and metal boxes and began to haul them around.

Skeiron swung his body and embedded the street with bullets. One dinged off Gale's helmet, and the frightened biker quickly sped off to seek shelter. Tornado grit his teeth and aimed carefully as Skeiron turned to face him, still hovering in the air.

One instant, Skeiron's eye was glowing, a laser about to shoot into the red biker's chest.

The next instant, Skeiron was stumbling back, kicking his legs and blaring a warning siren. Tornado had managed to shoot out his laser eye, and the bullet was stuck, preventing regeneration.

Things only got worse for Skeiron as Blade returned to the fray, using wheelies to jump from rooftop to rooftop. The leader of the bikers urged his machine forward, and drove clear off the roof of the nearest building. Blade reared back with his lead pipe and swung, knocking Skeiron out of the air and sending him to the road with a teeth-grinding shearing of metal. Blade touched down, his motorbike's powerful shocks absorbing most of the impact. Blade and Tornado climbed off their bikes and approached the downed mech.

His gears were grinding together roughly, his weapons were all offline (at least for now), and he could barely lift himself to face his opponents, but Skeiron remained resolute. He took one slow step towards the two bikers. Another. Another.

Blade grinned under his helmet, and beckoned the WarMech closer. He reached behind him into a storage compartment on his bike, and if the scene of a heavily damaged WarMech struggling to keep fighting against two opponents in the city streets wasn't deja-vu inducing enough...

"Come on then, ya fuckin' toy. I've got a present for ya..."

Tornado, realizing Blade's intentions, quickly backed away. The leader of the bikers pulled out a small black object, yanked it to remove a piece, and tossed the rest at Skeiron's feet before quickly backing up.

The grenade exploded, kicking up dust and smoke and obscuring Skeiron from view. Blade shielded his eyes and waited patiently, his lead pipe twitching in one hand.






(2)

When the smoke cleared, all that remained of Skeiron was a pile of twisted, maimed wreckage and what was probably one of his feet.

KO

Blade dusted himself off. "Well! Guess that settles that. Come on, Tornado, let's round up the others and get a move on.

Tornado laughed as he got on his bike. "You still got it, boss!"

"Damn straight!"

The two bikers high-fived and puttered off to assist Gust and Hurricane.

-CELESTIA'S LAB-

"UNIT SKEIRON IS ONLINE."

"Oh, Skeiron, Skeiron, Skeiron. You really do take after Zephyrus, don't you?"

Celestia sighed and patted the chassis of her creation. Skeiron looked down at her.

"SKEIRON TO CELESTIA. SKEIRON TO CELESTIA. YOU ARE SHRINKING."

"No, Skeiron, I just had to put your consciousness in the ED-209 body until I can get around to building a new WarMech body. What happened, anyway?"

"THIS UNIT GOT ITS ASS KICKED."

"So I gathered."

"REQUESTING ASSISTANCE."

"How about you tell me about the ones who took you out?"

Skeiron proceeded to relate (in ridiculously detailed and obsessive fashion) the appearance and mannerisms of the bikers while Celestia took occasional notes, nodding.

"Hmm. They could be anywhere in the city. They could be doing anything to anyone, too. In my experience, the gangs of this city are quite unpredictable. At least I'm confident they won't find the lab. It's not like this is Sarah's house or anyth-"

Celestia froze and slowly put her hand to her mouth.

"Oh god. Skeiron, I think we'd better start this hunt sooner rather than later. My daughters aren't safe."

Celestia went to her toolbox and produced her staff. Skeiron stomped a foot in anticipation.

"Let's move."

The Changing of the Gang - Part Two

Excite Red had been lucky. He'd managed to reach the old garage he and his lackeys liked to hang out in, and had been able to escape with his life. There was safety in numbers.

Now, as he and what few of his compatriots remained roared off into the distance, Blade and his red-wearing top two associates Tornado and Hurricane stood over the crumpled bodies of several of Excite Red's men. Blade took out a dirty rag and wiped his trusty lead pipe clean of blood.

"Well, boys? Looks like the city's ours."

Tornado looked confused. "What about that 'guardian', boss?"

"Oh yeah. Heard a few things about that guy. Got any details?"

A biker in yellow walked over. "I do, boss."

"Spill it, Gale."

"They say the Guardian used to be a kobber-"

"I know that already! What about his powers, his abilities?"

"I hear talk some people say he's got a fine machine gun. And if you hurt him, he heals himself right before your eyes!"

Blade crossed his arms. "Normally I'd say you're exaggeratin'. But I know how fucked up those kobbers are. Listen, those freaks are tough, but get one alone and sheer numbers will take 'em out, believe-"

Blade was interrupted by a whoosh of jet engines.

"HE'S HERE!" Gale yelled as he scrambled for his bike.

Blade smacked his free palm with his lead pipe. "C'mon out then, 'Guardian'."

Whirring mechanical footsteps betrayed the guardian's appearance. Skeiron the WarMech turned a corner and stared at Blade and his gang.

"THIS UNIT DETECTED A DISTURBANCE."

Skeiron stomped forward, moving not towards Blade but to one of the downed Excite bikers. the WarMech leaned over the corpse, studying it carefully in Scan Mode. Gale edged over to Blade and leaned in.

"Whatta we do, boss?"

Blade's eyes smiled as he readied his lead pipe. "I thought you'd never ask."

Tornado leaned in on Blade's other side. "You sure about that? This thing looks like trouble."

"Do I ever turn tail from trouble? Bring the sucker on. Time to put it in its place. This is no city for heroes. Not anymore."

As Skeiron obliviously scanned the bodies, Blade crept up behind him and raised his pipe...






(1)

...And with the sound of a small-time blog villain once again proving to be more than meets the eye, Blade FLOORED Skeiron with a single swing from the pipe. The WarMech landed in a crumpled heap atop the body of a green Excite biker, leaking mechanical fluid.

"Hah!" Blade swung his pipe around in his hand like a parade baton. "Some guardian."

Gale raised one finger. "Uh, boss?"

"What?"

"Remember that thing I said about him healing right before yer eyes?"

"Yeah, it was bullshit after all. Look at him, he's-"

Standing up.

"Uh..."

Skeiron ran a scan on his internals. All seemed basically functional, but that blow would take a while to fully recover from - his stance was unsteady, and his walk limping, but all weapons were online, as well as his flight boosters and - most importantly - the humor module. Skeiron straightened up as best as he could and belted out the awesome 90s action hero line he'd been practicing in private for weeks.

"THIS UNIT BELIEVES IT IS TIME TO TOAST SOME BREAD."

"I told ya, boss."

"SHUT UP AND KILL IT!"

The Changing of the Gang - Part One

For years they had had an agreement. You stay in your district of the city, we stay in ours.

Maybe it was because of the new, grittier atmosphere that seemed to fall over the city on New Years Day. Maybe Blade had grown some ambition.

Maybe it was Maybelline.

But whatever the reason, the Excite biker gang, long the only bikers in Manhattan, were now on the backpedal from an invasion by the Storm Bikers of Brooklyn.

Excite Red chanced a quick look over his shoulder. They were still there. Five of them. These five were the highest-ranked members of Blade's gang. Two wore yellow, two red. Leading them was Blade himself, clad in green. And they all rode matching-color bikes.

Red thanked his lucky stars that his bike was faster. Blade's men were more physically powerful, and their bikes were almost an extension of their body, even in combat. Red had a chance if he could get to where his lackeys were - they'd have a numbers advantage. Alone, however, all he could do was run.

---

Blade's shining eyes glared out from under his helmet. The Excites were always cowards. They only picked a fight when they knew they could win. Blade hated people like that. For a long time now he'd considered the Excite gang beneath him. Not worthy of his time.

But with the new decade came new challenges. Anyone could see that crime had gone up in the city - not to the point of a living hell, for sure, but you used to be relatively safe walking home at night. Generally your biggest worry was running into that idiot who girly-ran while shrieking about how he was a vampire. Nowadays, however, you were less likely to be accosted by 80's references and more likely to just get mugged. Probably they'd learn a hard lesson in reality when the pack of crazy supermen who watched Zoofights came rolling back into the city, but until then it was open season. Blade had heard rumors that a few of the "kobbers" as they were called stayed behind, with one even specifically going after the punks and gangs. Crime may have risen elsewhere in the city, but in Manhattan it was surprisingly low.

Blade loved a challenge.

But if he wanted to face this defender, he's have to sweep out the rabble and set up shop here. That was why he was driving full throttle towards the terrified Excite Red.

Blade reached down at his side with one hand and felt the large lead pipe he kept hooked onto his bike. He couldn't wait to use it.

---

(MINOR CHARACTERS WOOO. Blade didn't even make an appearance last year, but he was referred to by one of his lackeys when Excite Red went too far out of bounds in his attempts to escape Sarah the first time they met. The Excite Bikers, meanwhile, were one of the very, VERY few villains of ZF6 to escape death (they died during the Tiamat fight, but that was only their shadow clones). Here, the two groups are serving as a deep and complicated metaphor. >_>

I'm not certain if this is a one-shot or not. In case it's not obvious, I fucking love Streets of Rage. For me, Streets of Rage 2 in particular is very nostalgic and very 90s, and its urban, violent, and over-the-top settings and characters lend themselves well to Zoofights.

In other news, I FINALLY finished Final Fantasy Tactics after not playing it much in the last several weeks. A very entertaining game, although I had to apply some headcanon to make sense of the ending.)

Doomrider's Pet Spider

Self-explanatory.

Thought I should pass these along

Good Old Games is offering the original Fallout for free download. It's a fairly popular old game so I figured I'd spread the word in case anyone here wanted to play it but never got the chance.

Also the US government is, in all their brilliance, trying to pass another Internet censorship bill that uses broad language to do whatever it wants. Unlike SOPA, which was about copyrights, CISPA is focused more on stopping cyberterrorism, but the language is so broad that it's just another one of those "spy on you" bills. Avaaz is on the case.

Look at that, I managed to blog about stuff that isn't Zoofights. Go me, I guess.

The GB Ensemble (Updated July 31)

This post is a database of all of my characters, items they've collected, locations I've added to the Zoofights RP-verse, and food and drink I've contributed to the bar. As the stylish gif above says, this page is Under Construction, and will be edited to stay up to date with new information from blog posts or RP. See the title of the post for the date it was last updated.