Ravanayana [Exalted/Aberrant]

You are not a Riot

Jutayu stands, a slow, ponderous thing. His joints pop and creak, and you can smell the fragility, arthritis, and sheer, indomitable commitment to fight you that rolls from his body. His gloves expand, jade sheeting sliding down his arms, armored plating unfolding as the gloves turn into enormous, armored gauntlets. He slides effortlessly, casually, into an essence-augmented guard, and the perfect stone around him begins to share from the winds enveloping his body.

Some part of you wants to mock him before you start. Rub in the things he must remember you for, Indrajit's kindness, Indrajit's rightness, compared to the fate he's brought upon himself.



But you don't, and you let him speak his piece.

"You are responsible for what has happened to Sri Janaka, are you not?" says Jutayu Aruna.



And the anger, the fury, that rising urge to murder is replaced by simple fucking outrage. What he's done to your brother, what he's done to the poor, what he's done to people with the poor luck not to be born as human as you. The riots you've seen him crush! The atrocities played as propaganda!

And he remembers you for guilt-tripping a shitkid with a nuke into running away from home.

You take a deep breath. Then another. And only then do you speak.

"Out of respect for this sacred place," you spit, "We can go down the stairs before I murder you."

Jutayu nods and then, from near twelve feet away, throws a punch.

He winks out of existence, then reappears almost on top of you, fist screaming towards your face. You manage to throw up your arms in a rough block, but the sheer impact sends you flying out the door from which you came.

You hook a leg around a pillar, great tusks biting into it, swinging you around, towards Jutayu as he leaps towards you. Holographic panels start to appear around his face, bark and steel begins to cover exposed skin. You can smell the sorcery streaming off of him, the diviners and Brahmin, oh so close, augmenting him as you fight. You're faster than him, stronger, but he sees each blow before you throw it.

He parries you, once, twice, and returns a hammerblow to your chest. You feel the femtotech in his gauntlets react, magnifying the blow a hundred fold, knocking you sprawling towards the mural of Ravana and Rama. You punch an arm through a pillar, stone facade and alloy rebar splintering under your grip. One foot touches gently against the mural, avoiding both divinities as you stare down Jutayu. Impossible gales buffet you, whipping your hair about, slicing away at your flight suit, but they're nothing to you, and Jutayu knows it.

"Why did you make this mistake, boy?" asks Jutayu, "What madness made this treason desirable?"

"If you paid attention, you would know," you snarl.

He leaps towards you, the distance between you disappearing in an instant. He's in your face, but you're ready this time. Your hair yawns open, he barely pulls back enough to keep his hand, and you see his expression turn grim as he realizes what's coming.

"Cute trick," you say, and then you kick him through the other mural.

He goes flying out sight and you take a step to follow him when Surpanakha speaks up.


You nod silently, and bring your hands together in prayer. You feel the air clear as it enters your nostrils, your mind focusing, eyes beginning to blossom into the truth of violence.

And you taste the sorcery an instant before it hits, manage to duck before a bird made of light and ice can take off your head. Another follows it, and then a storm of duplicates, spinning themselves into existence in mid-air. Water vapor condensing around light as they soar your way. It's trivial to dodge, to simply punch and bite and bull your way through the storm. But it takes time, and it stops you from subsuming yourself into the monster, and the fact that that is all it needs to do is murderously aggravating.

Jutayu announces himself with a thunderclap. Shards of ice and razor-winds swirl around his body as he marches towards you, slicing open your chest, cutting a strand of hair away from your face. He pulls back his arms to finish this, winds intensifying, pushing you against the wall, anima flaring, a prayer whispered under his breath. You can see the machinery under his clothes and armor, essence pumps and exo-muscle, helping him push past the limits of an aging body.

"You are skilled, but you've signed your death-warrant," says Jutayu, silently waiting for you to make your move, baiting you into letting him unleash whatever it is he has prepared. "I taught the Monitors, boy. I have governed this system for almost a century, I have made it what it is. To think you could undo that is the height of pride."

"And look at the job you've done!" you throw back, recalling words your brother had finally put to the indignities that made up your life, "People eating garbage! Raksha preying on the citizens! Districts of billions with no hope and no prospects and no rights!"

"You don't know what it was like. We saved the sector from Ashoka!"

"You're no fucking different!" you exclaim, and as you do, light pours from your skull, your wounds, your body. The winds bend away, even the razor-ice of his anima blown backwards, away from the overwhelming, joyous force radiating from you. It ends in a moment, but the opening is all you needed. Your next volley drives him back, rips a pillar in half and sends the roof tumbling down. While chunks of masonry fall around you, sliced to ribbons by razor-air as they come, you turn and jump for the roof, for the Sorceror.

Jutayu doesn't stop you. It would put him in danger, after all, and he's far more valuable than any mortal, even enlightened.

You crash through a window, landing in a well-lit room with reinforced walls and the instruments of prayer and burnt sacrifice scattered across it. A dozen mortals are praying for the Gods to deliver Jutayu quick victory in battle, while a Sorceress at their head burns incense as she intones some great spell. You stalk forwards, forked tongues flicking from a dozen mouths, the congregation runs, while the Sorceress continues her work.

Then you grab her, headbut her, and lower her gently to the ground. A taste disappears, sorcery disappearing as its anchor fades away.

Only for another to replace it. And another. And more. Dozens of them, scattered throughout the temple complex.

You blink, and Jutayu is there, gauntlets pulling him to the ledge, winds propelling him in and over, scattering incense and soma as he lands. He stares at the woman at your feet,

"Did you think this would be easy?" asks Jutayu, "That you'd walk up to an old, decrepit man and kill him, and that would be it?"

"More or less," you say, faux-smile plastered across your space. He snarls, and you know you've struck a nerve when he comes at you. You fight your way forwards through a storm of ice and fists and cutting winds. Leveraging youth, strength and power to batter past the lethal aura of a Dragon fighting for his life.

Then he's in front of you. Surpanakha is yelling a warning, but you only half hear it as you throw a punch, arm opening into crocodile's jaws, digging into his torso. Mechanical joints and essence-pumps burst beneath you, and enchanted teeth score the sorcerous metal that covers his skin.


Oops.

The uppercut hits you underneath the chin. You feel your teeth shatter as the sheer, monstrous force of the blow sends you up and through the ceiling. Cables and masonry snap against your back and you punch through the roof in a cloud of debris. Blasts of wind and vacuum-blades follow you, flinging you up, away, into the roof as you deflect them. You punch an arm into a light fixture, barbed teeth jutting out in all directions to hold you in place.

For a moment, you can see the entire complex laid out below you, how the shrine of Rama looms over the others, how the worshippers have stopped to watch what's happening, the bold flow of sorcery from thaumaturges and Brahmin across the rooftops.

Then Jutayu's there again, using his gauntlets to blink through the air towards you.

"I have been killing before your grandparents grandparents were born, boy!" he roars, "I've given everything to make Vant what it is. I've given everything to the Monitors. You thought I'd just let you end that? That I wasn't ready for this?"

Distant sorceries finish, and you're forced to fling yourself across the roof, ripping great gouges in the ceiling to keep yourself from falling as the birds shatter against the station's hull. Then Jutayu is in your face again, you dodge his swing, but he was never aiming for you. Not, instead he hits the roof above you, murderous winds of his martial arts and his anima shredding the roof, and suddenly you're falling..

"My daughter died for this! My son died for this! My grandchildren died for this!" he yells. He's flashing into combat with you constantly, striking once, twice, then blinking away on his gauntlets before you can retaliate. "But creatures like you think you know better than me! Better than them! Better than the Monitors! "

You begin to tumble past the rough, mountainous exterior of Rama shrine and kick against it, slowing yourself enough to send Jutayu skidding against the side of the wall with a brutal kick. It's a short reprieve, enough to lick away the blood beginning to fill your eyes, to register the screaming pain in your ribs. The Jutayu kicks off after you, launches you both off the side of the shrine with a flying tackle, and you're back into the thick of it.

"That Dalit, thought he had something to teach me. That the petty losses of ungrateful peoples concerned me, concerned Rama," says Jutayu. You move to block but he's seen it, grabs the arm, and begins to try and wrench it from its socket as shattered essence pumps spill oil and soma over the both of you, mingling with the blood that drenches your torso. You're locked together, falling towards the ground in a deadly embrace, your breath freezes as it leaves your lungs, and you can feel shards of ice trying to force themselves down your throat.

"But I have a lesson for you, and for him, and for every Dalit that idolizes you," he snarls, reaching one hand back for a grand hammer-blow, "You should have stayed in your place, and begged to be forgiven for the temerity of asking for more!"

You feel your eyes dilate, mind blanking in pure, unthinking, murderous rage. Your hearts thrums away like an engine. Your muscles swell. Ghostly arms burst from your shoulders.

Then you fling Jutayu into the ground. Dust and raging ice billow away from his impact site as you fall through the roof of a shrine to some minor sports god, landing heavily on a balcony in the full glory of the Infernal Monster.

The halo, brilliant white, settles around your forehead. Grey, oil-sheen light emanates from your body. Your eyes are a fractal lotus, blossoms expanding, shimmering in the golden glow of the temple's lights. You hear screaming as thaumaturges receive their divinations. As supercomputers return their sole output. As Brahmin who wired their minds into the skein of fate are faced with the truth of their foe.

The smoke clears, Jutayu stumbles to his feet, and he beholds you. To his credit, he does not flinch. But he does hold his next blow. He does look up, look you in the eye, and ask you a single, breathless question.

"What are you?"

[ ] "The closest thing to God you will ever meet"

Theion: Wrath-Building Trespass Precept

Fear, worship, even simple, unthinking awe, all are acceptable to Theion. But defying this expectation will truly earn his wrath. As is betrayal, perceived or otherwise.

Devotion to Theion has allowed Ravana to channel the power of the White Sun at range, killing with his Gaze as surely as with his fists. Additionally, it has given him a well of power that fills when he faces foes who are not yet servile. Or gives him a true, monstrous burst of power when he faces a servile foe who dares to fight him anyways.

More importantly, this power has catalyzed the crystallization of something the Systems Intelligences did not plan for. Something in your soul is metastasizing, who knows what it will become.

[ ] "Every Dalit you've ever killed."

Malfeas: Devil Tyrant Avatar Shintai

Malfeas is broken, brutalized, and bound. A cracked shell of his former glory. But inside, just waiting to burst free, is the truth. It is exactly as broken, but far more dangerous. Devotion to Malfeas has allowed Ravana to unleash ravenous mutations as battle progresses and ignore all but the most lethal wounds, in addition to unlocking the Shintai.

If you pick this Shintai, it will lock out other personal-scale shintai.

[ ] "Can't you hear it? I'm the Monster."

Metagaos: Contagion of Weeds


Metagaos hungers constantly, and is skilled at subverting others to feed his needs. Parasites force victims to produce sacrifices or be cannibalized in turn, while the mere fact of satiation uncovers ever-more-terrifying depths of power. Through devotion to Metagaos, Ravana has unleashed a well of power that increases the longer you keep your unnatural hunger at bay as well as the ability to infest people with parasites that both incline them towards you and that start to cannibalize them if they try to stop you. You also get hungry very, very quickly.

More importantly, this power has catalyzed the crystallization of something the Systems Intelligences did not plan for. Something in your soul is metastasizing, who knows what it will become.

[ ] "Jagganath."

Isidoros: Engorged Mara Shintai

The Vidyaraja of old taught discipline through fear. Isidoros has no use for such brutal tools, and prefers to embody everything the virtuous worshipper should not be. He eats his fill, slakes his lusts, and rampages, fat and happy, until it ceases to amuse him. Through his devotion to Isidoros, Ravana has unleashed several new powers, including the ability to manipulate his personal weight and gravity, as well as the Shintai itself.

While the Shintai is activated Ravana grows in height and girth, becoming a massive, blue-skinned monstrosity with grand tusks and an enormous paunch. Shadowy whims rampage through the scenery, indulging in gluttony and vice, while his mere bulk seems to render him resistant to blows, monstrously strong, and impossible to escape.

The increase in height is, of course, a coincidental bonus.

If you pick this Shintai, it will lock out other personal-scale shintai.