We need to meet the rest of them and.... deal with the Hess Situation soon enough, I get the feeling she will think herself superior to our two protagonists, well maybe only Samus given her more freindly nature, so I really want to see Samus tear down Sophia's weird ideals.
Oh and meeting the other Wards in a more appropriate setting will be good, nice kids
We need to meet the rest of them and.... deal with the Hess Situation soon enough, I get the feeling she will think herself superior to our two protagonists, well maybe only Samus given her more freindly nature, so I really want to see Samus tear down Sophia's weird ideals.
Listen and understand. The Hessinator can't be appealed to with emotions, she can't be reasoned with, she doesn't feel empathy, or remorse, or self-reflection, and she absolutely will not stop, ever, until she has burned all her bridges with you. However weird her ideals may be, they are rock solid to the point you could use her faith in them as a support pillar. There will be no tearing down, there will at most be a yelling match that accomplishes little either way.
As for feeling superior, eh, it's plausible she'd think Samus is childish and unrealistic, but she is smart enough not to show that sort of thing when faced with someone obviously superior in power. It's how she survives Endbringer fights, and she's been in at least one already.
[X]: Sleepover at the Autobot Base (Already have bunks for you two. Hang out mostly with masterforce recruits. Chris might ask his parents if he can spend the night.)
Get to know your future comrades and see what the future might hold.
Oh my gosh he last name is Mavrick that's amazing.
[X]: Sleepover with Eudaimonica (She literally sleeps in her parent's castle in the Frostflame hell so you'll get to meet all the demon buddies she has.)
I want to go to earth, but apparently I am in the minority, I don't know why.
Like if we are on Earth we can respond to threats in the Bay faster, help out if some big name villain decides on messing with something they don't understand, like some alien tech or magic or something worse for everyone
[X]: Sleepover at PRT base with Vista (Meets other wards, Wards will likely try to ask Arne and Samus to sleep separately due to the general rules against letting people of differing genders share a bed; especially when known to be involved. So Arne would mostly get to hang around other boys and Samus around other girls. If you pick this Chris will sleep over at the ward base.)
[X]: Sleepover at the Autobot Base (Already have bunks for you two. Hang out mostly with masterforce recruits. Chris might ask his parents if he can spend the night.)
[X]: Sleepover at the Autobot Base (Already have bunks for you two. Hang out mostly with masterforce recruits. Chris might ask his parents if he can spend the night.)
"Primal Earth" as its denizens insist on it being called is not part of the conventional cluster of interlinked alternate variations of Earth but is instead part of an entirely different Metaversal Cluster altogether. This metaverse appears to be defined by its connection to an unfathomably vast multiversal power source referred to as the "Well of Furies" and a number of other similar "Wells" that are said to be gateways to the potential power and creativity of each species in addition to a force that the locals insist on calling "Magic". History seems to be broadly similar until the 20th century where powers emerged in the late 1920s instead of the 1980s with the emergence of the so called "Statesman" who has been identified as an "Incarnate", who gains his power directly from the Source of the Well; embodying an "aspect of Zeus". Despite the addition of superpowered beings, the outcome of the second world war remained largely the same, with a cold war settling in afterwards following a deterioration in Soviet-American relations. History would face another major shift due to an invasion from the "Weltreich", a cluster of timelines centered around one where the Statesman instead joined Nazi Germany and helped them conquer the world and many others; resulting in a major conflict in the 90s that alerted Primal Earth to potential danger from other timelines.
While the Weltreich invasion was repelled at substantial cost, it would be a prelude to a later even larger invasion from the Rikti timeline; another branching universe where humanity was contacted and uplifted by a species known as the True Rikti and remoulded in their image before the True Rikti died out some time in the stone age; leaving the Human-Rikti to inherit their technology and empire. Due to the actions of a mysterious Supervillain known as Lord Nemesis, war would break out between the Rikti Communality and Primal Earth after Nemesis used his automatons to convince the normally peaceful Rikti that Primal Earth was a planet full of genocidal savages via massive scale civilian massacres against Rikti civilians on their homeworld. Attacking the Earth in 2002, the first phase of the war would last a half year and become the world's deadliest conflict in terms of losses to military and parahuman personnel* since the second world war though the Rikti studiously avoided attacks or atrocities against civilians.
Following the sacrifice of "Alpha Team", comprised of many of the greatest capes on Primal Earth in an assault on the Rikti headquarters in an effort to distract them from the sacrifice of Omega team; a team comprised of elite capes of "magical" natures; the Rikti army's primary link to their home dimension was severed, forcing it to resort to guerilla warfare and conversion of local humans into Rikti via the Lost Mutagen. Though the conflict was devastating, it seemed to encourage the formation of a massive new generation of heroes; and reverse engineering Rikti technology allowed for a massive technological renaissance followed by a large reconstruction economic boom. In the aftermath of the conflict, any lingering traces of the old Cold War began to fade with a Soviet-American reconciliation; made more pertinent by the threat of the State of the Etoille Islands and its ruling Arachnos organisation under Lord Recluse; the almost universally acknowledged highest profile and most potentially dangerous supervillain in the world; especially as ever larger numbers of supervillains made their home on the Rogue Islands in pursuit of Recluse's offer of safe harbour. Despite this, Arachnos is a universally internationally recognised government and as the Etoille islands are a nuclear power and a military superpower; overt regime change is unlikely.
The third and most recent major extradimensional invasion would come from "Praetorian Earth", a timeline where the Cold war escalated into nuclear conflict and thus triggered the awakening of an S-Tier threat known as "Hamidon"*, a self-proclaimed embodiment of the rage and violence of nature at humanity's abuses capable of infecting and converting biomass and even inorganic material that is not protected against the Tellurian plague into combat forms for the Devouring Earth. With nuclear bombardment proving futile against the Devouring Earth and much of the world being rapidly overrun by the infestation, the world turned to the Statesman to provide them unity; crowning him as Emperor of the Earth and giving him full leave to do anything necessary to stop the invasion; where he confronted and then apparently defeated the largest avatar of the Hamidon. Intelligence revealed that this was a lie, and that Cole simply begged Hamidon to give humanity a chance to show that under his rule; it could live in harmony with nature. Hamidon agreed, and Cole used his control over most of the world's parahumans; especially thinkers and tinkers, to rapidly advance technology in many directions, creating a society where controlled robots would take care of most menial labour and allow people to have the free time to pursue the service to the Empire that they desired, or even simply nothing at all.
However the "bonapartist" regime would feel obliged to invade Primal earth after contact was established as Emperor Cole desired to move to a reality where his position was not dependent on the good graces of his incarnation of Hamidon. Despite a significantly numerically inferior population, Praetorian Earth felt that the advantage of surprise, better military technology, more concentrated and organised parahuman divisions, and the division of Primal Earth would allow for a swift takeover. In the two year long war to follow, Primal Earth would coordinate with the Praetorian Resistance and tear out the foundations of Cole's Empire and liquidate or capture most of his lieutenants and inner circle until the final battle at the Magisterum of his Capital where Cole would detonate a massive tinkertech augmented nuclear missile to kill tens of millions of his own citizens and rearrange much of the local geography in a mass-extinction event-level blast; feeding himself with the "souls" of his citizenry and making use of his close relation to the Well of Furies to assume a giant superpowered form that did battle with twenty-four incarnates; eventually ending in his defeat and the Well rescinding its favour from him.
Cole was arrested and put on trial for crimes against humanity and was sentenced to life in prison, where he has remained ever since; seeming to believe that he fundamentally belongs there despite the prison being highly unlikely to be able to genuinely contain him. Due to the usage of the nuclear weapon violating the terms of the agreement made with Hamidon, the Devouring Earth concluded its conflict with Praetorian Humanity; forcing it to evacuate to Primal Earth or die against the impossibly large and continually infecting swarm. The population of Primal Earth and its technology were integrated into the victorious member states of Primal Earth; spreading across the world in a large diaspora that has continued to remain a hot button political issue due to lingering resentment over the war and tensions over the Praetorians' place in society.
Primal Earth has in the eight years since; primarily focused its large scale efforts on fighting the forces of the reality consuming being known as Rularuu, the "Great King of All Demons", the Nictus, the "Nether Gods", as well as the Praetorian Hamidon and the incursions of a planet devouring entity known as Shiva among many others; along with continuing conflict with the Rikti lineage of war and efforts to hunt down the last of the Banished Pantheon for their part in the "death-god" Mot's attempts to consume humanity across the multiverse. A number of other threats and dangers also have continued to manifest or escalate, such as paramilitary conflicts against fascist groups such as the Imperial Wind, 5th Column, and Council, efforts to stomp out the Malta group conspiracy, the growing influence and power of Arachnos, the rise of the so called "Illuminati" made out of many once more disparate villain organisations into a new power to be reckoned with,
Much effort is also being spent in preparing the Earth for a predicted Alien invasion by a force known as the Battalion in what they call the "coming storm"; which is believed to be the primary threat to the human species in their cluster of realities and potentially to all others. If the Battalion succeeds at its task of absorbing the Well of Furies, it will absorb the potential, creativity, will, and essence of the human species across all variants of humanity that have a connection to the Well. However, the Battalion was expected to begin its invasion in 2013, and after several years, no sign of the Battalion has yet manifested besides its advance guard. The reason for the delay remains unknown, but is currently theorised by Primal Earth authorities to be related to the omniversal nexus event.
Primal Earth is not only many years ahead of our Earth; with its present being set in 2021; but has advanced considerably ahead of our own Earth thanks to a greater ease of replicating tinker technology, numerous samples of extradimensional and terrestrial technology to directly reverse engineer, the acceptance of artificially intelligent robots as fully fledged members of society able to contribute as they wish to it, and more robust education systems producing a proportionately higher number of researchers than our own world. Living standards are on average, higher and life expectancy is also greater even with the high density of parahuman violence and abnormal incidents. As markets expand with ever growing trade networks with alternate earths, the economy continues to grow and opportunities for offworld expansion have seen a further flourishing of progress. However, the parahuman population of Primal Earth is far less controlled than our own, and much of the cape community strongly values its independence from the state or formal police organisations.
Our counterpart organisation on this Earth is known as the "Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs", established under the Roosevelt administration. It notably takes a far more hands-off approach to managing parahuman affairs than our own, operating no formal team under its wing; rather simply having a number of parahuman agents mixed in with its overall pool of manpower. The most famous parahuman team to operate in America; the Freedom Phalanx explicitly rejects any direct ties to the governments of any state in the world and operates on a strictly non-profit basis. While once lead by Statesman, following his death at the hands of Darrin Wade; a low-level villain who had found a ritual that allowed him to exploit a weakness in the nature of Statesman's powers to kill him and absorb his abilities; as well as Sister Psyche; whom Wade killed with another ritual with the same purpose in the hopes of using their powers to take over the mind and body of Rularuu followed by the departure of Manticore from the Freedom Phalanx; leadership of the Phalanx has passed down to Positron, who together with Ms.Liberty, Penelope Yin (aka Psychward), and Dream Dcotor forms the "big four" of American superheroes.
The Freedom Phalanx's explicit detachment from governmental bodies has lead to them having independent capacity to act, wholly separate from the Primal American government; and the Freedom Phalanx is already observing our own Earth for opportunities to recruit and establish facilities and has offered numerous good-will operations to build trust and solidarity between the Phalanx's parent adjoined organisation; Freedom Corps and our own Earth. Concerningly, the Freedom Corps maintains its own paramilitary outfit known as Longbow, a fully independent supply, research, and development chain, more than one parahuman team, a large number of headquarters and bases spread across the Earth; even including a number of major space stations known as the Acropolis; and has a history of openly defying the American government when it believes that the government is in the wrong. The Freedom Corps must be regarded as an aterritorial loose cannon to no lesser degree than Arachnos itself and the duo of Positron and Ms.Liberty to be as much of a potential danger as the also incarnate powered Lord Recluse and Red Widow.
Primal Earth seems to be broadly optimistic about the potential outcomes of contact with our own world, but remains cautious due to numerous poor experiences with alternate timelines. The prognosis for open conflict between our two incarnations of Earth does not seem to be particularly encouraging as Primal Earth is more populous, advanced, and has a much higher number of A or S tier parahumans as well as a likely larger number of parahumans period. While our Earth enjoys greater centralisation and organisation of its parahuman assets; the defeat of the Praetorian Empire urges caution before thinking that this would be enough to offset the advantages of numbers and industrial output. Until this can be reconciled, perhaps through pact with Earth Aleph, Kaph and Ciheit, antagonising Primal Earth is not recommended. And even with such a pact, victory would be far from certain given Primal Earth's far greater experience in waging interdimensional war and its own allied alternate earths. Should the Pro-Peace Rikti-Traditionalists honour their alliance with Primal Earth for example; Thinkers calculate that our chances of victory even in an optimal series of alliances decline tremendously from low to abysmal. Should the "Choirs" and the "Fae" also intervene; chances of victory decline to almost nil.
However, conflict is unlikely to be necessary; as Primal Earth is searching primarily for trade partners and allies against the "Coming Storm" and is willing to offer its assistance in exchange for agreements, pacts, and cooperation. Trade will have to be closely monitored and regulated to ensure that geopolitics are not fatally disrupted by the contact with a higher technology society or by Primal Earth's differing culture. However, as a gesture of good will, the Primal Earth United Nations has proposed dispatching many of its Max security level capes towards fighting the next endbringer attack in exchange for a number of our own capes participating in a "Hamidon raid" against Primal Earth's incarnation of the creature as part of containment efforts to ensure that it does not develop into a more evolved form. Without any strings attached to the offer, it would seem to be ideal to accept the suggestion for the time being; particularly combined with the Autobot offer of lending out many of their soldiers to assisting with these two events themselves.
Though if Laserbolt's performance against Behemoth when empowered by this "incarnate force" is of any indication; where the once midling cape was able to single-handedly drive Behemoth back from her carved out fiefdom in South America seemingly non the worse for wear while Behemoth seemed to be dealt numerous deep injuries it visibly struggled to regenerate due to some force interfering in the process until it withdrew in seeming fear, having suffered severe injuries without causing any damage to Laserbolt herself; the loan of Primal Earth's S-Tier capes might allow for the outright death of one of the Endbringers, which presents an exciting possibility.
Their assistance in arresting Laserbolt herself would also be appreciated, as all attempts to capture or kill her from either the Brazilian government or international community have been soundly repulsed so far.
*Primal Earth terminology prefers to refer to superpowered humans as "metahumans". Directive from PRT Chiefs is to continue to refer to Primal earth superhumans as "parahumans" regardless for convenience.
**Primal Earth has its own version of the Hamidon that arose much later and remains far less developed, being contained in the Hive district where teams of maximum security level metahumans assault it on a daily basis to prevent it from evolving further, though no means to ensure its death have been discovered.
[X]: Sleepover at the Autobot Base (Already have bunks for you two. Hang out mostly with masterforce recruits. Chris might ask his parents if he can spend the night.)
[X]: Sleepover with Eudaimonica (She literally sleeps in her parent's castle in the Frostflame hell so you'll get to meet all the demon buddies she has.)
[X]: Sleepover at PRT base with Vista (Meets other wards, Wards will likely try to ask Arne and Samus to sleep separately due to the general rules against letting people of differing genders share a bed; especially when known to be involved. So Arne would mostly get to hang around other boys and Samus around other girls. If you pick this Chris will sleep over at the ward base.)
"Hey, if you want, you two could spend the night with the wards. It'd be fun." Vista offered as you cast your gaze from Samus to her and then back to Samus. A smile started to creep on her face that widened into that characteristic grin, one that made you feel just a little bit better about yourself as you couldn't help but receive a bit of her own optimism.
"Of course we can!" Samus said before you could formulate your own reply, and as you often did you simply nodded and remained quiet rather than interrupt her while she spoke.
"Oh man, seriously? God hold on, let me send a call back home..." Kid Win said focusing for a moment with his new suit before he established a superluminal connection to the American cellphone network, ringing in a call to his parents.
Stormchild, who had mostly elected to just have a look around finally returned to the group with an exaggerated stretch and yawn.
"Where have you been, Lola? You can't just grab the pizza box and run off like that for six hours." Cerebro asked.
"Hey it's a big place you know. Big enough to have its own weather system. Figured I'd check around, show the 'bots how lucky they are to have me on their side." Lola said, flipping her long black hair back a bit and smirking,
"So...these two the ones who dropped out the sky huh?" Lola said, narrowing her eyes on the two of you.
"Mhrm! I'm Samus, and this is Arne. Or will...Dawnchild and Duskguard!" She said, pulling you in and grinning at Lola who gave you two a satisfied once over and a nod before her hands returned to her hips and a nod came from her.
"Looking good you two. Parents must have been champion divers at the gene pool." She said with a "mmhmmm" at the end as you took a second to try and process the compliment. Admission of finding you attractive plus mention of genetics and biological parents meant it was probably a sex thing. Champion plus "looking good" entails positive compliment. Therefore...
"I am unaware of my parents' record of sexual performance, doubly so for Samus'." You said to the sudden dead silence of the room before Raelamiel started to crack and then laugh, Alice and Joseph following suit before Kid Win's fortress of stoicism shattered in seconds and he doubled over giggling. Samus seemed equally confused as well, tightening her lips and then raising an eyebrow as high as it could go. You stopped for a moment as you tried to think about where you misstepped...where you....
"Oh that's...you just meant I inherited my appearance from my...I'm going to...shut up now." You said, looking down and letting your cheeks go red with embarrassment before Raelamiel patted you on the shoulder reassuringly.
"Hey, it's no big space viking dude." She said with a more matronly, reassuring look much closer to what you'd expect from an angel than her usual over the top coolkid antics. "You can make people laugh, that's great Arne my man." She said with a hum as you nodded.
"Don't worry, I was also lost by that. Some of these idioms are a bit obtuse I'm afraid." Samus said, giving you a gentle expression that you returned until she returned her attention to Vista.
"So, what can we expect from the base?" Samus asked, looking down at the much shorter girl as she played around with the skirt of the suit just a little before looking dead on at you, her eyes making contact with yours in a way that would have told you she wanted to hear from you even if you couldn't sense her actual emotions just from her proximity.
"Individual rooms for one. The base has had to be expanded a lot with the wave of new parahumans that keep on popping up constantly. We've had a few security upgrades too, but there's just a lot of stuff there to help kids feel like they belong." She said, tilting her head and trying to study your face for any possible response.
"Individual rooms?" You said. Not ideal but manageable you supposed.
"Mmhrm. We'll just show you to some spare rooms. I'll recommend they keep yours close together." She said with a smile.
"Well...we just have to clear it with the autob-" You said before Samus shook her head.
"Already done." She said, a thumbs up being produced by wheeljack and a beaming smile coming from the young blonde in return as you nodded and exhaled. So be it then.
"Well, I'd prefer to take my ship with me, if that's alright." You said, having Sleipnir on hand always felt comforting. She was an old friend built by your own hands and tools, styled to fit the way you thought a companion throughout the stars ought to be. You thought of her in a way you imagined people thought about horses in the ancient past when they were the primary form of speedy transport. Her S.C was also a pretty good conversationalist when you got lonely, which was admittedly often. You need to work on more friends, especially since you're so far away from the Magnus academy for the ultrasophontic.
"Uh hrm, I think we have an aircraft hangar you can use? It's a recent addition after some tinkers built these whitewasps inspired by the Dragoncraft." She said, shrugging.
"Hey, the Whitewasps took me and the tinkers all summer break to make." Kid Win protested.
"We're still not sure who donated the money and the materials to use but I'm sure if there was any sabotage in the works it'd have appeared now." Cerebro said with a shrug.
"At least, that's what I've been told. Not sure if I buy it." He continued, adjusting his glasses and sipping another can of soda, trying to work his tongue around in his own mouth as if he was trying to find a specific taste sensation before nodding in approval.
"Come on Zach, don't be mister downer all the time." Chris said as Samus gestured to you all to follow her.
"Well; since we're here on diplomatic purposes I think Raela and I should come along." Tyrius offered, getting an eager grin out of Vista and a quirked eyebrow from Cerebro.
"You two aren't exactly inconspicuous. I would venture as far as to say that you are in fact, superconspicuous. Your very presence grabs attention like nothing else." Zach said, before Tyrius offered a small shrug and let his wings and pointed ears seem to melt away, his guise taking on a far more human form as he offered a double finger pistol and wink, Raelamiel following suit and pushing her sunglasses up so that they'd glint in the light.
"...Well, we already have autobots there so...why not let them?" Chris said.
"Correction, we have autobots at the PRT HQ. Not the Ward base." Zach responded.
The trip to your ship wasn't very long, and you sat yourself in the pilot's seat like it was an old friend. The interior of your ship was cooly lit and you kept more of your personal effects aboard than Samus did. An Uskarlic good luck charm was fitted ontop of your dashboard, carved magnetostone with glowing runes speaking of honour, togetherness, equality, safety, and liberty with the last rune simply saying "Skjoldr". You weren't the last Skjoldr, no, but you met very few of your cousins and other distant relatives. But this? This let you feel like you were still part of that family, even after eleven years of separation.
Cerebro let out a yelp as the ship scanned him, modified him, and then called up a Grendalk Landvorthur pattern combatsuit from its energy stores; fashioning matter from nothing more than spare energy. He had said he was going to offer his consent to the process, but it still came as a surprise as his genome was quickly "fixed" by the ship to Uskarlyc standards of fitness; born of their demand that all citizens of its culture be ready to fight should the time come and their settlements be faced with attack. For humans, that meant anyone over the age of ten was prepared for the last bastion protocol. Should the remaining adults and synthetics not already committed to the forward defense be unable to hold back the foe; the youth would make the last stand for the very youngest to escape. When defence of clanhomes was on the line; there could be no surrender without fighting to exhaustion.
His suit was coloured primarily purple, grey, and white like his costume was. His t-shaped visor had a kite shield like mouthguard fitted over the lower half of his face, while its turtle shell like top helm swept a bit farther back than his head went, giving his more vital bits greater protection from falling projectiles. Sidescoops like vaguely reminiscent of old hussars went down his face just behind his cheeks, A unipiece chestplate locked into segmented abdominal armour with illuminated white highlights where major plates fitted into each other. A gunmetal arm cannon starting with a Tesla arc gun and largely the same loadout as the federation suit, albeit trading out mini-missiles for a smart grenade generator, the wrist-mounted flamethrower for a corroder gas sprayer, and the cryo-pistol for a sonic beam cutter pistol. Combined with the modules from Samus' ship; it gave him and the newly upgraded Vista and Kid Win at least eight weapon options at range. Stormchild's armour was similar, but styled blue white and yellow instead.
Something which only made Vista once again remark about their "increasing similarity to the power rangers. Just need a Megazord at this rate." You didn't get it, but it seemed funny so you offered her a laugh.
"...Ugh...the warning did not...help at all with that." Zach said as he flopped onto one of your chairs, taking a look at the shelf of carvings you had made over the years; usually working with stone or metal. All working to give you a rustic, almost barbarian like aesthetic and feel.
"Very pagan." He said as he looked around and focused his attentions on a circle of figures you had made yourself to honour your pantheon. Arranged according to the tracings of the Mobius Knot on the floor below it. You had a proper shrine deeper in your ship, but having one here for you to pray at before exiting your vessel saved the time spent walking towards it. Thirty Six figures, Six Masculine, Six Feminine, Six Androgyne, Six Neutral, Six Genderless, and six transcendent. The thirty six major deities; the Valmjorsir. As real to you as the air you breathed or the Spirits and Lords of Creation that Samus prayed to.
"...Very, very Pagan." He said as he examined it in more detail while Raelamiel urged him to stand a bit back.
"Hey, don't touch the guy's religious stuff, mkay?" She said.
"Yes, it's really quite sacred to his culture and I'd be quite upset if you disrupted its matrices." Samus said, a nod coming from Cerebro as the ship shot across the distance between the Earth and the moon so quickly that Zach and Lola barely had any time to gawk out at space before you had re-entered the atmosphere over Brockton Bay.
A quick scan showed you that the portal had been moved to an emptier part of the city where they had already established an embassy thanks to superhumanly fast robot and mage assisted work crews; furthermore establishing security checkpoints to make sure that travel between Primal Earth and Earth Bet went through the proper channels. And another look at the news showed that similar portals had been opened up elsewhere; such as between Primal Earth's city of Tsikhiygrad at the Soviet pacific coast and the Earth Bet city of Frunzegrad at the western arctic coast or Saxshire in Primal Earth Britain and Angleshire on Earth bet.
UN peacekeeper, PRT, BPD, and military Personnel mingled with their primal earth counterparts from Vanguard, the FBSA, the PPD, and the Primal Earth American military. Weird how quickly this country's politics could move when they deemed it necessary despite how slowly it moved nearly any other time.
The Sleipnir and Dormach slid into the open hangar door next to a number of white painted VTOL craft marked with the symbol of the PRT. Having familiarity with the Blackbird, you immediately guessed that the craft's name came from being virtually the opposite of the Blackbird. Squat rather than long, white rather than black, built for agility and lifting power rather than speed and stealth, and with a somewhat wasp shaped fuselage with tilt-jets that would be operated by nonpowered adult crew in most circumstances. A quick look told you the weapon set was mostly less than lethal, though you personally had doubts about whether the microwave pain-ray on the nose wasn't capable of killing someone under the craft's own power. And the missile pods and door mounted auto-grenade launchers could easily have their containment foam warheads swapped out with conventional munitions.
Your craft fitted themselves neatly into available spaces after having pinged and received landing permission; landing struts extracting themselves and the lot of you filing out in full gear. You took another look at your ship and stroked its side before walking away, rejoining the group quickly and keeping to Samus' side.
"Honestly, it's a lot fancier than what we used to have." Vista remarked as she showed you to a few PRT officers at the checkpoint who froze briefly at your countenance. You sensed two things, one was that the insectoid glare of your monocular visor intimidated them, the other was that they recognised you from the fight with the Rikti despite how much your armour had changed since then.
They looked back at Samus with similar recognition behind their visors and then back at you and made a hard gulp.
Vista pulled off her new helmet and then gave a nod to them. "Don't worry, they're friendly." She said, Tyrius offering a friendly wave of reassurance before the PRT Officers parted to let you through.
"You two made a bit of an...impact when footage of the forests and Munich came out to the rest of us." Zach said, Samus looking towards you and smiling beneath her helmet as you kept walking through the relatively spartan hallways. You could just smell the stale air conditioning even with your helmet on, and you didn't even wait to scan the first computer you saw as Vista checked in at a desk.
Most of the files were irrelevant but you quickly grabbed something that caught your eye.
Review of Arne Skjoldr and Samus Aran's combat footage has revealed the fact that attempting to give them a threat categorization is fruitless due to their ability to be argued as fitting into virtually every category and thanks to their powers' ability to change and improve drastically. As such, we kindly ask employees to stop using the PRT intranet to argue about which category and numerical ranking they fit into. Especially utilising such vulgar language. You're better than that.
That made you smirk under your helmet, passing the file to Samus and sharing a quick giggle beneath your helmets while the clearance to the underground ward dedicated portion of the facility was granted.
"Uh...you have fun...kids..." The desk worker said, the woman frowning a bit as she looked at you and Samus, then at Raelamiel and Tyrius. She shrugged and returned to her night shift work while the eight of you piled into the elevator and descended down towards the underground dome where the Wards resided.
"We never can escape elevators...can we?" You said to Samus who shook her head and made a little laugh.
"Just a part of life it seems!" She said as you continued to go down at a pace that was clearly...slower than you'd like an elevator to go.
Out of boredom, Samus tapped her foot to the beat of a song she had stuck in her head for the last few days, your fingers following the beat by rapping against the metal of the elevator's walls. The four earth Bet natives exchanged a few glances in confusion before Kid Win; using his new suit's databases; found the sound, decided it was catchy, and joined in by the whine of his arm cannon shifting modes. Finally, Lola added her own beat in the second she was passed the file into her memory; beat boxing it while Zach's straight-lined face formed an even straighter line.
Raelamiel made up some lyrics on the spot, guessing the vibe of the song with her angelic intuition while Tyrius fluttered his wings to add the backdrop hum. Figuring that it seemed to be fun, Vista started to clap along, and eventually even Zach decided he may as well not be left out as he clanged his soda can along the wall for a heavier drop.
You were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the biggest bunch of god damn nerds in the history of the Omniverse.
When the elevator finally arrived, someone in a hooded and cloaked robe, a relatively skin tight outfit fitted with some armour padding, and a black painted metal mask. Having overviewed the footage of the fight at Brockton Bay, you recognised her as one of the wards who were the first to get into a fight with the starsetters...except she was the one who...
Shadow Stalker, aka Sophia Hess, is an African-American parahuman with the ability to phase herself and objects in her possession through most forms of matter as long as they do not either specifically block out intangible objects nor have electromagnetic fields in them or between her and the object. Attempting to phase through such objects will cause her significant injury or forcibly solidify projectiles under the effect. Due to Parahuman culture being largely unfond of conventional fire arms, her primary ranged weapon are customised hand drawn crossbows with a wholly conventional and thus extremely low rate of fire and slow projectile speed. While extremely fit and somewhat above standard human limits for strength, endurance, and resilience like most parahumans; she would still be considered extremely weak and frail for a human by the user's reality's standards. As her ability would not be able to function against the user even unarmoured, and she is far weaker, less skilled, and has much lesser senses; she is a non-threat.
Sophia Hess is also regarded as extremely standoffish with a deeply dominating personality and scorn for both people she perceives as dead weight as well as loathing for those she sees as insurmountable stronger than she is. As she is thought of as a rather weak parahuman who could be dealt with by a single fireteam of trained PRT officers were she to go rogue; the latter group forms a quite extensive list. One that drives her to try and push her training as hard as possible in an effort to elevate her body, mind, and powers out of a desperate desire to avoid being seen as weak or lacking in utility herself. Remaining on her good side is largely impossible, even for people she finds attractive. After having nearly killed a man as a vigilante, she was given a choice of either juvenile incarceration or probationary service in the wards, where she tries to guise her attitude with surface level charm to avoid being recommended for ejection by overly antagonising her teammates.
Recommendation: Ignore when possible, assertively force to stop should she persist in attempts to make user uncomfortable.
"Yo, I know you. Angry girl, got tased by Boltdance and sat out the entire fight. Sweet crossbow though." Raelamiel said flippantly as you sensed a sudden boil of anger beneath the girl's surface. She clenched her fist and seethed, breathing out sharply in a way you believed she didn't expect anyone else to hear except she was in front of eight people with superhearing now.
"Angel girl...why are you here?" She asked as Raelamiel dismissed her helmet and armour entirely; changing into a fancy looking blue tux, blue jeans, and trendy shoes out of thin air, her twin-tailed white hair flowing to its normal length while her hands wint in her pockets and an easy smile formed on her elfin face; now unarmoured wings fluttering gently.
"Gotta ya know, establish the Starsetter-Ward alliance. Gonna be friends now after all. Ya dig? We cool? I'm cool. I'm cool like pluto." She said making two finger pistols and a clicking sound with her mouth after grinning as Sophia almost started to shake with rage that you could feel as surely as water boiling in a kettle about to explode.
"Fucking...." Sophia hissed.
Tyrius, sensing a fight brewing, followed suit in changing; his armour melting away in a solar light to leave him in a comfortable looking pair of slacks, sweat pants, and a shirt that looked like a short-sleeved shirt worn over a longer one but was really just one shirt in a fashion statement you didn't really understand the point of; his radiant aura issuing out a calming effect on nearly everyone in the room.
Even someone as mean-tempered as she was couldn't fully stay that way this close to Tyrius' Celestial and Fae Aura of resplendance and her anger seemed to melt. She even removed the mask to get a once over with her own eyes and a quick bite of her lower lip as she let go of her current bad mood.
"...Damn, up close pretty boy you really are something else." She said, lowering her hood and giving an approving smirk. "The tin suit doesn't really do you justice." She said, Tyrius shrugging his shoulders gently before looking to Raelamiel as she lowered her sunglasses.
"Great face, shit attitude on you though." She said to the Angel getting a scoff out of Raela as the Angel looked a bit down at her and then shook her head and looked past her.
Your own armour and Samus' also faded; followed by everyone else's; leaving you two in your civvies and the other four in their conventional costumes.
"Damn when did we become the power ra-" Sophia started.
"I have...heard that joke already." Zach said, raising a finger and giving a stern look.
"Mmhrm." She said with an eyeroll while she looked towards you and Samus next, Samus folding her arms in front of her and yourself just keeping your hands at your side, studying her as she moved around.
"Tch, figures that people as good looking as you two would hide in armour as concealing as that." She said.
"It's not meant to be sexually suggestive. That's a silly requirement for power armour." Samus said, hrmphing slightly while Sophia shook her head and then focused squarely on yourself.
"So, which anime did you crawl out of?" She said.
"...None?" You responded, raising a finger and urging her to step back by extending your arm. She'd seen enough of the footage from Munich and the snowfields to know what you could do with your arm, and figured that if you could move like that; even without your suit getting hit by you wouldn't be a fun time. She didn't know the half of it of course, but she exhaled sharply and acceded to your request.
"So...it is pretty late so it's probably time to just...show you to where people sleep in. It's your first time here and you're just visiting so I...guess it wouldn't be too much of a problem if you slumber partied with some of us." Vista said, looking up at Cerebro who gave a nod before binning one of his soda cans.
"I'll go get the sleeping bags." He said, taking a look at his glasses folding them away as he realised he had no need for them. He'd need to ask one of the tinkers around for some computer-goggles to maintain his guise.
Aegis stepped up afterwards; passing through a door and looking at Sophia before looking at the eight of you and then hardening his glare at Tyrius.
"Hey...no hard feelings right?" Tyrius said as Carlos only stretched his face further into a frown.
"I want a rematch at some point." He said coldly.
"Aw shucks, should I hold back for you?" Tyrius said in an attempt at a genuine offer but even you could see how it'd easily be interpreted as an insult.
"Can it fairy boy, maybe you won't be so tough out of sir lancelot's metal plate." He said as the Nymph-Faerie simply gave a frown.
"It's not going to improve your chances but if it makes you feel better sure. I'll try not to break anything." He said as Aegis seemed about ready to get going then and there before you stepped in the way and interposed yourself between the other two boys.
"Let's...not do that right now." You said, flicking your gaze between the two of them.
"Arne's right; it's not really appropriate to get into a fight when we're just trying to get along and be friends. We're all friends here, right?" She said while Lola called to Carlos in Spanish, asking him to calm down and just welcome the guests for the night over. She got a reply in the same language, that Tyrius just had that kind of insufferably noble attitude that rubbed him as insincere. To which she replied that well, he seemed nice so far and he was cute so she wanted to at least give him a chance. Which got Aegis to rub his brow in irritation.
"Hey, I actually understood that!" Chris said, being the only one to stay in his armour since it had melded with his "costume" altogether, simply retracting his helmet and arm cannon and folding his arms.
Lola looked at him with surprise and shock and then an expression of dismay as Carlos wryly remarked that the days of getting to speak together in Spanish to confuse the monolingual members of the team were sadly over. To which you said, in flawless Mexican Spanish yourself that it was kind of awkward to be just standing around here; to which Samus added that she was pretty eager to see the rooms now, taking your hand in her own while Sophia scowled briefly.
Samus
You walked down with Arne, handholding the whole way down, he was a warm soft piece of boy and having someone whose experiences were similar to yours made this all so much easier. Even if it was unlikely you'd get to celebrate a mission well done in...quite the way the two of you were hoping for, having them at your side always gave you someone to talk to at least. Even though you sensed that there was something persistently bothering him that he was afraid to talk about, he was still an anchor of something you recognised as normalcy.
"So anyway, I'm the leader of the outfit here. It's gotten to be a tougher job with all the parahumans triggering these days, but hey, it pays decently and someone needs to do it. Got to say a lot of us were disappointed when you decided to go with the robots and didn't really give us a second look. But hey, I guess Earth might not be all that interesting to someone from...how far into the future was it?" Carlos asked, Chris looking up and replying quickly.
"Forty eight thousand years into the future."
"...Damn." He said after blinking, running a hand through his long hair.
"So just...going in that ship got you a free power suit and a genetic refit?" Aegis asked, getting a nod out of the four.
"How many spare suits you got?" He asked.
"Erm...the ships can just forge them out of energy from their reactors. It's not a complicated process with such simple designs. But please try not to overdo it. I'm not sure how your society would handle that sort of a jump in technology and you'd be very reliant on me for the infrastructure to do major repairs to the suits, and infantry alone won't be enough to avert the crisis ahead." You said, pausing and shaking your head just a bit.
"But...what we could do is offer our help with catching up?" You said, placing your hands on your hips and nodding.
"Think of it like the metaphor with fish." Arne said, getting a nod from Carlos.
"But the genetic thing?"
"Oh it's basically just a better rikti biopod. We could probably start producing them once Positron or someone else has a look." Tyrius said.
"Hrm...going to have to give that a visit ASAP then. I'd like to not have to patch up bullet holes." He said with a wry smirk while Goldberg made a small "tut-tut" as she stepped into the dining room, the young Jewish girl looking rather different without her suit of plate. Rather buff, with wiry golden hair and stark green eyes as well as circle rimmed glasses. She looked like someone wasn't sure whether to present as a nerd or a fighter and decided to go with both; her shirt showing off much of her arms and her stretchy trousers clearly being made for comfort over all other concerns.
She looked at the group and flushed a bit at Raelamiel and yourself but also stole some glances at Arne and Tyrius; focusing on the nymph knight in particular, perhaps out of trying to understand where his strength and power came from.
"You four hardly look as strong as you actually are." She said in a vaguely quebecois accent, clearly having had some coaching to not stand out with her voice but the embers of it remaining.
"Looks are deceiving." Tyrius said as you removed your jacket and tied its arms around your waist to cool off a bit yourself, your sleeveless white top making the strength in your arms quite apparent; lean, powerful, agile, able to move faster than railgun spikes and hit harder too. And perhaps to the surprise of many, completely unmarred by scarring. You healed too quickly and too perfectly to need scar tissue anyway, and breaking your skin was quite the challenge to begin with.
You let your hair down from its low, space-compressed ponytail into its more natural length, spilling far past your shoulders, shoulder blade, the midsection of your spine, and flowing a bit past your hips even. Ah, the sensation of your hair being pulled back gone all at once. You flipped your hair a bit and leaned on a table, giving a cutesy smile and laying a hand on the surface you were propping yourself up on, folding one leg.
Arne had also followed suit, wanting to feel a bit of extra air on his skin. His black shirt also not covering any of his arms save for a small bit of his shoulders. His musculature was a bit more prominent than yours, but he was clearly built for speed rather than brute power. His neck was just the right degree of thickness for his head, and his white hair fell down to a bit past the base of his skull, roughly to the midpoint of his neck in fact.
Your blue eyes met his red eyes and the two of you scooched a bit closer together, moving your vast amount of golden hair a bit out of the way to avoid sitting on it while he sat himself down next to you and only then did you realise that everyone had fallen almost completely silent.
Something only broken up by Raelamiel letting out a prolonged "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn" while Vista seemed to be in the process of answering the question of what was the reddest possible hue for human skin and Chris almost choked on his drink.
"...You two parahumans or supermodels?" Carlos finally said, trying his best to not seem impressed.
"...Neither?" Arne said.
"So how much Iron do you pump to stay in that sort of shape?" Lola asked.
"You can't pump solid iron, it's not a fluid." Arne said as if she had just spouted absolute nonsense.
You gave it a thought though. Ah the context was body shape so...yes that meant it had to be referring to exercise. Yes, you looked to Skjoldr and tapped him on the shoulder and whispered the news to him as he looked embarrassed and muttered a sheepish "sorry".
"We're not very familiar with all of the...idioms of your era so please forgive us if we make a number of mistakes when trying to decipher your intent. We really do mean no harm, honest!" You said as you clasped your hands together, closed your eyes and made a reassuring smile before opening them again and looking around and flipping open a lid on the cookie jar to grab one and have a sniff.
Hrm...acceptable. Could be much better, but acceptable. You placed it in your mouth and chewed. Chocolate was one of your gravest weaknesses, its rich taste always helped put you in a better mood; and your shared a fondness for it with Arne. Now whether lime or lemon flavour was the superior sort of citrus was something that had started some oft heated debate between the two of you; especially when it came time to cook or prepare juice...like that one time when you were craving something sugary, cold, and sweet and were brought into this fierce debate over...ah more digressions.
"Well, thank goodness you don't mean harm when you can outwrestle something born on a pulsar." Zach said flatly as he helped himself to a pringle.
"Best thing about this place...never run out of pringles." He said after chewing and swallowing with a satisfied expression.
"Zach if you keep on going through pringles cans we're gonna have to rename you Bellyflop." Sophia said with a snide voice that just made Cerebro roll his eyes and continue to eat his chips with a smug expression on his face.
"Thanks to these augments I can control my metabolism so I can burn it all off while sitting down if I want." He said proudly before eating yet another pringle, the smell of salt and vinegar almost cloying in your nose.
"See Tyrius, you might have Lares pizza...but I've got pri-"
"Yo we also have pringles man. It's not unique to your Earth." Raelamiel said as Zach seemed briefly deflated and sulked.
"Can't let me have this one thing huh?" Zach said as Aegis reached for his can only for him to yank it back and stare him down.
"Come on man, there's tons of other cans. You don't need to borrow mine." He said, Vista snorting at the sight while Lola helped herself to some soft-serve ice cream. You couldn't help but wonder...you stepped up and got a bowl for yourself and had yourself a taste with the nearest spoon you could fish out. Hrmmmmmmmmmmmm....this is actually acceptable, especially with the chocolate sauce. You sat back down with Arne and shared some with him, enjoying how his expression seemed to light up as he enjoyed a bit of sweets for once.
"Well, what do you all want to do at this sleepover?" You asked, swinging your legs a bit as you helped yourself to another spoonful of softserve and hummed a little tune as you let the ice cream melt inside of your moth.
"Well, we're a room full of people who are either nocturnal or don't need to sleep so..." Aegis said with a scratch to the back of his neck.
"What was it like, being raised by aliens?" Vista asked, folding her arms together and helping herself to a pringles can, carefully popping it into her mouth after finishing her sentence and not a moment before.
"They well...they really let me be who I wanted to be. Learn what I wanted to learn, and when they told me of the prophecy of the Hatchling...I wanted to be the person in that prophecy." You said, wistfully and twirling some of your golden hair around an index finger as you reminisced on some of the best moments of your life.
"Huh, usually in like...fantasy books the hero of a prophecy is already kind of predetermined." Chris said.
"Some are, but other prophetic roles are things that you have to decide to fulfil. I could have not been the hatchling, another Orphan might have taken the role but...I thought it was right. That if I was going to be given all these gifts, that the least I should do is help people, so nobody else goes through what I did." You said with pride in your heart, laying a hand over your chest and giving a keen smile to the group as you felt a speech coming. The "Sammy speech" as Ian had come to affectionately call it. "My parents were just miners on K-2L; sure they had their tour in the navy, but I wasn't really born to very special people. I'm not a princess or an heiress of a fortune. I'm just a union worker's girl." You said wistfully, though not being an heiress wasn't entirely true given what the chozo expected you to inherit soon.
"There is a lot of horror and terror in the cosmos, and after losing...everything to it on K-2L. After seeing my mama give her life for me on K-2L, after seeing my papa sacrifice himself to destroy the leading ship of the space pirate fleet...after all the death and destruction....After being given another chance at life...I felt that I just had to use it so that no prayer for help would go unanswered. To become the hero I needed on my homeworld. So I wouldn't just vanquish evil, but help other people be good; solve the problems of society and lift people from the darkness after banishing the monsters that lurk within. Until we can all live in peace and plenty as all things should. So that all may live free and happy." You said, looking towards the ceiling and just imagining the stars lying beyond them, recalling your promise to see everything the cosmos had to offer and helping nearly every soul in need that you could find.
"And I wanted to see it all...to be there to record all the sights of the stars, to adventure to far off cultures full of people in need of my help and to make all the most wonderful kinds of friends. Because that's what life is, isn't it? An adventure waiting for us to take the leap into and pull people in need out of the mire they're in so that they can walk with us. So nobody ever goes poor or exploited, so nobody needs to be afraid or anxious again. So that we can all enjoy the fruits of our work and spend the time that we want with the people we cherish." You said, borderline sappy now as Arne gave you an encouraging nod and Tyrius and Raelamiel gave you encouraging thumbs ups. Vista seemed approving, and Aegis appreciative, but it was clear that Sophia thought it was...corny.
"Some of my caretakers were harder on me for it, wanting to make sure I knew what I was getting into. But I proved to them I could handle it. And most of them stopped questioning me after the Zorant incident." Old Bird and August Wing had accepted your decision sure, but Grey Voice...Spirits and Gods did he always give you such a hard time. You understood now that it wasn't because he didn't want you to go through with it. He just wanted to be sure that it was something you really wanted and understood the responsibilities of. Not something you were just doing on a girlish whim.
"But even the sceptics like Grey Voice or Iron Heart were usually nice to me at the end of the day. The only exception is well...Mother Brain." You said, frowning at the mention of the irksome Synthetic Consciousness and her endless criticisms, her contempt for your sense of morality and her constant demands that you push yourself harder in directions she deemed to be more suited for the cause than what you or Old Bird believed was best. "She's an absolute pain to deal with, always insisting that she's just being logical when she's just as emotional as anyone else really. But I guess she's just doing what she's designed to do, even if it makes me really, really not enjoy talking to her." You said with a sigh.
"Mother Brain is...a computer program I'm guessing? Doesn't sound like well, a normal, naturally born person." Carlos said.
"Artificial cybernetic synthetic consciousness based on zebetite, artificial cerebral matter, and hyperspatial computational software. Has enough brain power to manage every single world and facility under the care of the Kah-Sahmat Chozo simultaneously with orders of magnitude left to spare." Arne said, rattling off the facts that he had memorised as he took in a few scoops of the softserve and nodded in satisfaction. "<Tasty! I'll go fetch some more.>" He said to you in Ka-Sahmat-Bal, the tonal language being your private means of communicating with each other in a tongue that was guaranteed to not be understood by anyone else save for other progenitors.
"Sounds like she has the right idea then. You don't exactly strike me as someone who's as hard as someone given the kind of power you have should be." Sophia said, your eyes snapping towards her as you let out a small growl of discontentment towards her. That boiling sensation of anger was making itself known in your gut, the flames of the phoenix of fury starting to build inside of you as you scrunched up your face.
She looked at you again, at your complete lack of scar tissue, even your decision to apply some cosmetics; bit of eyeliner, a touch of lip gloss. All to help bring out more of the beauty you were starting to take more and more pride in. You looked good, why shouldn't you embrace that? "For a space Amazon, you strut around like a model and talk like a Disney princess. I'm not sure how things work forty-eight thousand years from now, but I'm sure that your high-minded ideals are going to get you hurt. Probably not killed or packing any scars...but sooner or later someone is going to make you cry when you realise that most people are bastards who need to be scared straight." She said as Carlos rolled his eyes, Vista pinched her brow, Tyrius made a straight lined face, Raelamiel snorted, and Chris clearly zoned out.
"Sophia could you please can the peanut gallery for five seconds?" Zach said with clear disdain. "I can tell you I'm much more interested in hearing the future girl speak of her ideals and dreams than hear you being a cynical downer for the millionth time. You're a cool anti-hero who thinks the world sucks. We get it." He said with a roll of his blue eyes before looking back at you. "Well...I'm not sure how much of your ideals will bear out, but it's good to have them." He said with a gentle smirk.
"Not to be a Paladin stereotype, but I fully agree with the sentiment." Tyrius said, placing a hand over his chest. "We need more people like you Samus. If we get enough people to act on that, we could all hang up our capes. Well...not that most of the people here even wear capes." He said with a slightly awkward laugh at the end. "But as someone who swore his life to the ideals of his goddess; her grace, her mercy, and her redeeming light; someone who can look at the darkness and see not despair but a challenge to make right is always going to be righteous in my book." He said, placing his hands on his hips and looking quite proud of himself.
"I'm going to vomit..." Sophia muttered as Vista looked towards him with a bit of impressed awe, placing her elbows on the table, smooshing her cheeks with her hands and leaning in closer.
"Bucket's back there my gal." Raelamiel said, filing at some of her nails and having another look.
"What about you Arne? The whole time at the moonbase you didn't really talk about the...Alimbics right? Always just your biological parents or maybe the one lady; Elmorni? What about the rest of them?" Chris asked, prompting your mood to darken a bit as Arne tensed slightly before he waved you off before you could speak up for his sake. You shared a glance at him, blue eyes meeting red. You wanted to be absolutely sure that he was ready to go through with this. He was...fragile, and you didn't like to see him hurt. Not physically or emotionally, even if he insisted he could handle it. But he seemed ready to speak, so you gave him the space to do so.
"To be honest, I didn't enjoy a lot of it. The leader of the ones who raised me never really cared about my problems or needs. Even when I tried to please him constantly. At first I thought he was just being tough but, thinking about it later, I'm not sure he ever really liked me." He said, still studiously avoiding the mention of the name Zurvduat. Noble-General of the Tetrarch Order, De Facto Elder-Triumvirati of the Order with no higher ranking military official than himself being discovered among the Alimbic remnant populations. And most pertinently to you...
"He was raised by an abusive monster. Zurvduat that..." You tensed with anger, letting the fires coil through you as disgust built itself inside of your heart. Anger was your continual vice and struggle. Rage for the downtrodden, anger for the oppressed, fury for the tormented. Even for yourself; you weren't exactly the most thick-skinned individual. Annoyances dug into you like maggots and wriggled around until the phoenix inside of you spread her wings of fire and sounded her call.
"Awful, smug, horrible, bigoted piece of rubbish...oughta give the awful fecker a..." You said, your Irish accented English starting to get a bit more intense as your mood swung deep towards anger.
"Paddy don't go bombing the British army on me there." Lola said, prompting everyone to break out into laughter for a solid minute.
You sulked and folded your arms with a scowl that got most everyone to stop real quickly as they felt rather...bad for mocking your accent and looked away awkwardly.
"Samus, it's okay...they aren't going to do it again...right?" Arne said, looking towards the group who gave nods, except for Sophia who just swallowed some air.
"Anyway, my parents were special forces in the Omdyni Revolutionary Guards Army who were sent to advise the Ensryn Volunteer Army in their fight for freedom for the Ensryn Supersector." He said, feeling more at ease to speak until Sophia interjected again.
"So your parents were communist terrorists." She said, getting a blank stare out of Arne followed by a pair of blinks.
"Sophia..." Carlos said with a clear stern warning ladened in his voice.
"They were part of the Uskarling Culture, Clan Grendakal. They believed in sharing burdens and rewards so that everyone could enjoy themselves as they wished in their spare time after all that needed doing was done. That included warfare; which they dedicated themselves to. Mom was...champion of the clan, amazing at it really. Even when the attackers came to Cylosis where they made their base; they fought with everything. Everyone older than ten among the human population of the Uskarling advisors was called to form the last line of defense." He said, picking back up where he left off.
"The last I saw of them; they delivered me to Spire. An Alien Freelancer, one of the best, hired to help them explore the Alimbic ship we found Zurvduat and Elmorni in. They said their goodbyes and left to hold the attackers off and even after giving the fight of their lives, they died in the end. Together atop a mound of corpses. Then the Alimbics picked me up and had me adopted as a Page, then a Squire. Like with Samus; they gave me their augmentations and had me build equipment to suit the sort of warrior I wanted to be." He said, looking forlornly at the floor and then back at Vista and then to you before staring ahead at nothing in particular.
"They pushed me incredibly hard in training, but Elmorni always acted like a mother to me. Kept me in touch with my biological heritage. I was planning on doing the trial of maturation once we were done with the mission that lead us here. But well, I guess those plans have to change." He said with a sigh as he went to grab a soda and pulled the tab open before taking a hesitant sip and then wrinkling his nose.
"...Okay two things. First, I'm done with that...second...this is awful." He said, looking at the diet sprite can and making a face.
"Oh, diet sprite is straight-up rhino piss." Raelamiel said.
"It's not made out of Rhinoceros urine it just tastes awful." He said before you mouthed the word "metaphor" to Arne who opened his eyes in realisation and frowned.
"So...two horribly traumatised orphans, one of whom is an abuse victim and the other was raised by space hippies. Do I have that right?" Carlos said as you hissed in displeasure at his expression. There were many ways to say that, that was never going to be one you weren't going to take offense to.
"...Sorry...it's just that you two have clearly been through a lot and I'm kind of concerned for your mental health. How much...normal schooling have you had?"
"One year's worth." You said, the Prodigal Program had been pretty nice to you so far as a whole, but you were going to spare him the long debate on whether Ultrasophontic cadet programs counted as "normal schooling."
"...Christ. Do you guys have any plans for what you're going to do on school days while you're here?" He asked, hands on hips and clearly not wanting to take an "I dunno" for an answer.
"Keep busy, always something to explore, something to make, or some mission to do. Just head to Paragon or to the autobot base or our ships if everyone else is occupied here." Arne said bluntly as he, deciding that he had already opened the can that he may as well finished it, forced himself to down the rest of it and muttered "horrific" beneath his breath when he finished.
"...Okay what about you two, angel and fairy." He asked.
"Emancipated minors." Raela said, grinning and lowering her shades with a wink.
"...Why did I expect anything else?" He said with a sigh of confusion.
"Well...if you people want; I think it'd be a pretty good time to crash in my room. I've got movies and games." Vista said with a cheerful expression, though the pointed glare at Sophia informed her that it was probably for the best that she consider herself uninvited.
"Sweet, I've got my switch dock and some spare controllers too." Raelamiel said as she unfurled her wings and let them flutter a bit as she reached into her feathers and pulled out exactly what she was speaking of. Curious, she must have some sort of pocket dimension accessible through them.
"Imma bamboozle you with gaming in the future." She grinned.
"Well...I strongly doubt it's going to completely amaze me." You stated. "We have far more sophisticated hologames and virtual reality and a vastly greater capacity to program and design as intended. Though I'm sure that we'll have fun all the same." You continued.
"Mmmh fair but like, Mario kart tho?" She replied.
"Are you going to blueshell me?" Chris asked, fear in his voice.
"Hah...nope." She said, relief briefly flashing on his face. "I'm gonna be too busy being in first place to get any blue shells." She said with a smug grin.
"Oh it's on like donkey kong." Chris said, standing out of his seat while Vista urged everyone to follow her into her room; which Zach had already prepared quite a few sleeping bags around. It was about what you'd expect from a young girl's room; heavily dedicated to her fascination with superhero culture and desire to be one of the best very soon. You weren't really aware of the significance of the various memorabilia relating to her taste in pop culture but you could tell that she was a rather avid watcher of a number of shows and a proud Homestuck fan based on her posters; also into a few bands you had no idea about and something of a bookworm, though most of the books were about cape culture.
Raelamiel hooked up her device to the TV in the room and offered some controllers, while Tyrius set up a laptop and a projector and a number of wireless earbuds. On the other hand, many of the books also looked interesting; or you could just be a bit boring and go to bed right away. Or...you looked to Arne as he was thinking about what to do...you could speak to him about why he had such troubled sleep lately. Not that you were a particularly sound dreamer yourself, but you were much more open about the content of all of your nightmares than he was about a rather specific series of nightmares he kept hush-hush about.
Slumberparty options:
Samus:
[]: Join in on the video games
[]: Partake in Tyrius' movie collection
[]: Read up on some of the books
[]: Find out what exactly is this "Homestuck"
[]: Go to bed
[]: Talk to Chris about his obvious infatuation
[]: Talk to Arne about the Sylux nightmare.
Arne
[]: Join in on the video games
[]: Partake in Tyrius' movie collection
[]: Read up on some of the books
[]: Find out what exactly is this "Homestuck"
[]: Go to bed
[]: Talk to Vista about her obvious infatuation.
[]: Do some work in private on possibly plot relevant leads.
By that do you mean that they can talk about the nightmare and both do other things? Or if Samus picks talk about the nightmare Arne can still do other things but Samus cant?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, I'm bad at understanding things
By that do you mean that they can talk about the nightmare and both do other things? Or if Samus picks talk about the nightmare Arne can still do other things but Samus cant?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, I'm bad at understanding things
Samus
[X]: Talk to Arne about the Sylux nightmare.
She noticed something going on, and she should talk about it
Arne
[X]: Read up on some of the books
I feel like this fits him, besides could get some interesting questions floating around, especially if any of the Books mention the Endbringers or the Slaughterhouse Nine, probably not that last one, but you never know.
