Scion AMA: Gangs of New York, Mark II

Hey, everyone! It's that time again... time to hear about the inner thoughts of a bunch of disgruntled demigods from the Big Apple. Who don't like each other very much. Whee!

Today's installment includes the famous celebrities of Containment Prime, as well as a few other miscreants who would really like the government to stop lobbing nukes and angry robots in their direction as they go about their business.


ADIRA BAZZI:

You recently got pulled into the horrible "Michael Chambers" gang. What did you think of your fellow bandmates?

My fellow bandmates were pretty much all useless. I mean really. That one guy, he was all right, he could fight things, but the rest of them... no. I really hope I never have to work with them again.

COREY HOLBROOK

What are your feelings getting to work alongside the AMAZING Containment Prime and the superb Assault? (This is not Russel. Promise.)

Well, it'd be nice if the other half would show up and do the job they're being paid to do. But Skylar is a good kid. He's got lots of information in his head, though it just feels like a pay-to-play super-difficult word puzzle that is scrambled up sudoku-style and changes its topic every few minutes and where the currency is pancakes.

Russel? He's the direct opposite of that. Things fly out of his mouth every two seconds whether you want them to or not. And by things, I just mean yelling. Lots of it. He's like your own personal sportscaster for everything you are actually doing right this second. On the upside, he just kicked the crap out of a giant boar made of darkness. So he's got that got that going for him.

MABEL GREY:

What was meeting your mother like?

Finally, someone understood what I was trying to do with my life, and was able to give me direction and let me know what was right to do. Too many people have been confused about why I wanted to be a witch in the first place.

What is your biggest regret when it comes to how everything went down with Michael's group?

No one would ever listen or communicate in any effective way. They were constantly making stupid mistakes that didn't need to be made. Because they're idiots.

SEIF AL-AZAWI:

What do you hope to achieve as a Scion? How do you plan on balancing both your responsibility to humanity/the world, and your daughter?

For parent out there, you know that child is most important in life. Farrah lost mother when she was still baby, and I have done best to raise her. New world, magic power, gods, this does not change anything for me. I have more power now to keep her safe, it is simple. You Americans talk about world like it is your job to be responsible. I do not owe world anything. With bad law, with monsters, with hunger and fear, families can not be safe. I fight to keep Farrah safe, and make world safe for all families.

WINONA NELSON:

What would your perfect day include?

You fucking with me? You need to fuck with a lady minding her own business on the goddamn street, like you don't got anything better to do? Get away from me. You don't know shit. No such thing as a perfect day. You stupid? Fuck. Go away. Leave me alone.

ANTON VOLCONI: How's it going, Mr. The Hammer?

Why is the computer talking at me?... Uh oh... ZOE WE'VE GOT FIRE DEMONS AGAIN!! *unplugs the computer from the wall*

ISAAC GREEN:

Mac or PC?

I was trying to solve some anomalies in differential calculus and the Thompson Conjecture when I was 6, and current technology wasn't enough to simulate my calculations, so I programmed my own OS. Of course the bastards at my mother's lab took credit for my work. Check out the OS here: link. Totally not a virus, promise ;) Btw, your Facebook is way unsecure... and totally lacking in fun pictures – so I fixed it.

SKYLAR COPPERWITHE:

What's your deal with pancakes?

Pancakes are what I eat for breakfast. They provide an optimal combination of taste and nutrition. When you wake up it is important to eat in order replenish your body’s calorie stores in order to maintain high level cognitive functions. When I wake up, normally at 6:30am, I expect to eat by 6:45. Depending on the circumstances, I can wait until 8:00 in the morning, but I don’t like doing that. Skipping breakfast is not an option I like to consider. If I miss the 6:45 - 8:00 window, I have to wait an entire day before I have breakfast again.

Isaac used to make pancakes. They were acceptable, although he used more oil than my mother. It is important to note that I only call her mother and that she is not actually my mother. She adopted me when I was approximately one year old.

When I have pancakes, I have three pancakes of equal size (approximately six inches in diameter) stacked with one tablespoon of butter spread in between each, and one tablespoon on the top. I don’t put butter underneath the stack as that would not make sense, even though it would follow the alternating pattern,so instead I start with butter on the top of the bottom pancake. Once the butter has melted I pour maple syrup, preferably from Vermont (approximately two tablespoons), over each pancake. The pancakes absorb the maple syrup so it is necessary to reapply halfway through eating. On the reapplication I only use one tablespoon per pancake. Putting anything else in or on a pancake is an abomination.

Issac used to make me pancakes. He used a new recipe, but I found them acceptable, but oily. He lives in the Internet now. He was taken by robot spiders. I’m not supposed to talk about him going to the Internet. Russell drinks more when I talk about Isaac going to the Internet. Russell made me pancakes once, but they were leftovers from ones Isaac made. They were cold.

What would you build if you had unlimited time and resources?

There is no such thing as unlimited anything. The amount of matter in the universe is finite, though the amount is so astronomically large as to often be equated to being unlimited. Anton’s arm was turned into metal, which has interesting applications. I want to make a metal arm, but every time I want to work on it something bad happens and we have to run. Now I have to work on a cure for the zombies and a delivery mechanism for it, but I have a really interesting lab to work in. I also want to build a better body for Shockwave.

What's the worst time you've been knocked unconscious?

When I’m conscious, I want to be unconscious because I like to be able to observe thing and talk about them. The rest of Containment Prime is really bad at noticing things. They don’t see words written everywhere and they miss it when portals to Hades open up. I don’t mind going to sleep because from my perspective I don’t notice time passing and then there will be breakfast when I wake up.

When I’m unconscious it doesn't bother me, because by definition I’m not conscious.

The worst time I've woken up was when is after Bart the Bear hit me with his claw. I didn't like having all of my organs ripped out. There was also no breakfast waiting. Which made it worse.

You’re about to die, Russel is far to your left and Valentina to your right… which way do you run and why?

That’s a hypothetical, which is a fiction, and I don’t like fiction. Fiction is a lie because it’s not true and I don’t like telling lies to people.

I don’t think that Valentina likes me and I think she wants to kill Russell. I don’t know if she wants to kill me. I don’t think she wants to kill me, but I don’t have enough evidence to make that conclusion. Russell protects me a lot, but he also takes me to places where I am in danger, and I get hurt a lot when I am around him because he likes to fight things and doesn't remember that I don’t like fighting.

FOR REAL, WHAT DOES THE CUBE DO?! (It’s not even on his character sheet, so mysterious!

Why are you yelling? I don’t like to be yelled at. It’s a gift from my father. My real father, not the man I call father who is human. Most of the time it’s in Shockwave. He’s a Transformer action figure and when it’s in him he is able to move. He also makes lots of noise. He does both a lot.

Unlike some people have depicted, I can’t actually touch it without it burning me. Well, I did once, but I used it fighting a Star Demon, and I wasn't in my physical body when I touched it. When I’m in my physical body I can’t touch it. Well, I can but, it will burn me really badly. Anton had to touch it once with his metal hand. He had to do that to get it out of a computer I had attached it to. It was going to explode and I think it was going to kill everyone.

It powers things. I don’t know how it works. I want to be able to experiment with it more. I know it has a lot of energy. If I attach it to something too small it will explode. From some of my calculations, if it exploded it would be like a nuclear explosion and would probably vaporize a large area. I shouldn't really talk about that though because the military would probably take Shockwave away from me then. Bart the Bear took Shockwave from me, but Anton and Zoe got him back for me. I’m very careful with him now. When I hold it, well, when I hold Shockwave, I am able to see supernatural creatures, they glow. I still haven’t seen a Minotaur though.

RUSSEL PRIDE:

What has been the most dramatic experience you've had after being made aware of your godly heritage? When I first met with the general, he gave me this big speech on how they were concerned about me. I was "too dangerous." I thought it was just your standard military bullshit. But the more I keep dealing with this shit, the more I agree with him. I can crush a man's skull with my bare hands like a sculpture with clay, lay waste to creatures the size of a bus. My body comes back from beyond anything a normal person could hope to deal with, the muscles re-knit themselves under my skin, the bones snap back into place, and I feel every single movement inside, and I can tell you, it's no superman shit, it fucking hurts.

I am not a human, that much is clear. I am some kind of monster. I ain't saying that makes me a bad guy, just... dangerous.

You're on the top of a skyscraper, right in the middle; off one edge a device dangles, which if it falls and is destroyed, then half of New York will be swarmed with titanspawn and fiery demons will replace half the population. Off the other edge Zoe is hanging, her grip slipping rapidly. She would not survive the fall. You have only the time to grab one of them before they fall. Which would you choose to save?

Honestly, if you had asked me this question a week ago I might have said the device - you know, done the heroic thing, what she would have wanted?

But now... The thought of never being able to see her again, talk to her... I can't. I would rather fight a million fire demons with her by my side, than risk being alone in the dark without the light again...

Would she'd be mad at me? Yeah. But alive.

Do you ever regret what happened to Chiron? Do you think you could have done something?

Of course I do. Chiron was strong, stronger than me, stronger than anything I've fought. He was an asshole too, like my Pops, like me. I respected him. Wanted to get better and beat him one day, now I never can.

Frankly, if something out there could kill Chiron, I probably wouldn't have stood a chance.

Could have done without the racist swords though.

What is worse, the zombies, or the fire demons?

Zombies. More of 'em. In the dark too. It's terrible.

ZOE VRONTOPOULOS:

Skylar messed up at the base and Issac ditched the crew. What are your hopes for Containment Prime now that you've gone to DC to fix everything?

If we're going to have any way to fight back against threats like flame demons and Michael Chambers, we have to be able to meet them on their level. That means that we need supernatural strength to oppose supernatural strength, and mistakes and growing pains or not, Containment Prime is the beginning of our ability to respond. It needs time to grow, find its feet, and get strong enough to be a force to be reckoned with.

My hopes for Containment Prime are simple: that we keep doing what we're doing, keeping people safe, trying to stop threats from endangering the city, and showing the world that people with supernatural gifts can be on the side of the angels. (Not literal angels. Please don't quote that part.) In DC, I'll be campaigning to get better recruiting and training for Containment Prime, calling for more law backup and cooperation between branches of the military and service branches of the city and country both, and contributing to PR in whatever way the government sees fit.

I know Assault and Rocket aren't quite up to running things on their own, but with the last of the fire demons wiped out for now, I think they can handle routine patrol until the Hammer and I get back.

Have you met your stepmother (you know the one I'm talking about)? How did that go? And if you haven't, how do you feel about potentially meeting her someday?

I haven't, no. In all honesty, I'm very new to all this, and I'm not really sure what the "gods" mean or how they interact with us or modern science. There's a very real power behind all this, but hopefully the military's science complex will know more about it soon.

What do you think of Russel Pride? Just, you know, in general.

I think he's strong, reliable and naturally inclined to try to do what's right. He needs a lot of direction, and he's never going to make a tactical genius, but he gives it his all and can be counted on to keep going when the chips are down. He's a solid soldier and I feel very confident in his abilities while I'm out of town.

What are you doing, now what you've left Containment Prime behind?

I haven't left Containment Prime and have no plans to do so. I'm currently working with the military in Washington D.C. to solidify CP's plans and abide by their decisions as to how best to utilize our strength in the defense of New York City and, eventually, hopefully the rest of the country as well.

That's it for the Gangs kids! Next time, older but probably not really wiser Scions!