Christmas was quite fun, even if it held no religious significance to you. Getting all the stars on the trees was a blast, and you enjoyed making your gifts to your friends by hand. Creating things was relaxing, enjoyable really. As much as you engaged in destruction, you also sought to partake in creation.
Your deft hands helped work the slender tools betwixt your fingers, making sure the alignment of the plates was just right. Handmaking a robotic pet was something that you wanted to make sure was done as expertly as possible. And when some scans confirmed that the mechanical dog's components were all fitted in exactly right, you smiled to yourself and looked at the sleek canid like machine as its optics flashed to life and its red and gold colour scheme seemed to shine while it wagged an articulated tail and barked.
"Think he'll like it?" Arne asked, the snow haired youth's red eyes flicking over to you while a hand of his rested upon your shoulder, an enthused nod coming from you as the wolf sized machine pawed at the ground before sitting onto its hindquarters, rapt at attention and gelatinous pseudo-tongue lolling out with excitement, the C shaped visor that served as its optics blinking a brilliant blue.
"Chris loves robots! I don't think we'll have to worry." You said, a smirk on your face while Arne glanced over to the mechanical serpent he had made himself; the cobra like robot coiling around the tree with an unblinking cyclopean stare, gunmetal plating shimmering briefly while it looped around the branches of the tree.
"Is it alright for someone like Alyrsero to even celebrate a day like this?" He asked, scratching his chin briefly; eyes flicking over to the Black Haired Eldar trying to call the mechanical reptile to come towards him, his own lack of need for very much sleep allowing him to join you for some time out and about.
His ears twitched briefly, and his head turned towards you. "While I must admit to being unfamiliar with the finer details of the Christian faith, there's hardly any shame in partaking in a time of gift giving and merrymaking." He said, shrugging gently before letting the robotic cobra wrap around his arms and then his neck, perching itself towards his right ear while he stroked it gently.
"But...thank you Arne, while this might not be my familiar...it is thoughtful." He said, smiling at the human youth who shrugged and smirked.
"Your possessions have a large amount of serpentine iconography and you frequently make usage of ophidian imagery in your runecraft so I thought it was likely you had an interest in snake like creatures." He replied, your expression flattening in response while Alyrsero blinked a few times.
"Perhaps a touch over-observant." Ardanesh said after a cough to clear out some awkwardness.
"How is your father?" You asked. The words "father" were foreign to your lips, something for other people. Heavy in your throat, unnatural on your tongue.
"Vrailius was unable to make it to see us...but he did understand that today was supposed to be a time of family, in this dimension anyway. And sent me a keepsake." He said, showing a runic necklace in his hand, styled after the Ardanesh family rune, but modified; whereas the general house of Ardanesh iconography was of a winged serpent, this was clearly of a hooded one; the Cobra of Alyrsero.
"He said that it would light the safest paths of the future for myself to walk, even in the darkest hour." He mused, you producing the stylised Z like medallion Papa Old Bird gave you years and years ago; Arne producing his own family pendant of a Raven with a shield on its belly with its wings spread and lightning in its wings.
"Are we...comparing family heirlooms?" Arne asked.
"Tch, hardly. This was made recently, just for me. One of the Harlequins gave it to me." He said, a frown on his face while he looked at the pendants the two of you had, his eyes briefly intensifying their blue glow before the frown on his lips intensified.
"My apologies, I forgot that you are cast adrift from your families of blood." He said, putting his Runic necklace away and petting the mechanical snake while he slid his hands into his pockets and looked away.
"It's no problem...really, I'm not upset." Arne said.
"Mhrm, I suppose for you the future is as much a burden as the past." He replied, Arne stopping, lowering the hand he was about to reach out towards the Elfin lad and then making a rather sour expression.
"Well...Papa spoke to me in a dream. He told us to enjoy the time we have. Because the sunlight will soon be eclipsed in a long night." You said, trying to deliver the bad news in as gentle a manner as possible while Alyrsero sighed, turning towards the window where the snow falls could be seen pouring down heavily upon the dark streets.
"Portents of doom are one of the least pleasant side-effects of the gift of far sight. Pain will accompany your vision as much as blessings. And there are as many roads to catastrophe as there are paths to triumph." He mused, seemingly sad, his melancholic expression reflected faintly in the window while he looked on the snows with a certain loneliness in his eyes.
"Is something wrong?" Arne asked.
"It's quiet..." He responded.
"It's less than ten percent of the way through the standard day, most people are slee-" He responded before Alyrsero shook his head.
"No not that sort of quiet! Ca-" He snapped before squeezing his eyes, realising he had lost his temper and then slumping further down against the window as the two of you flinched backwards.
"I don't hear the spellsongs of my people here. I am used to a chorus, I hear but a few solos and duets. It's...cold. Like an empty room without furnishings." He sighed, looking down while Arne patted him on the shoulder, studying him briefly to see if permission was granted and proceeding when he caught the nod.
"I'm sure we'll see Ulthwe some day." Arne said, smiling and getting a smile in return.
"I would like to show you four around. And perhaps the other inheritors...maybe even the humans." He said, pausing as he harrumphed. "My apologies, I sometimes forget that..." He murmured as you hardened your glare at him.
"I hope most people on your Flagship Craftworld are more like you and less like your sister." You replied while he chewed his bottom lip.
"Please...she's trying her best." He sighed, shaking his head.
"I understand but, she does need to try better!" You replied.
"Well...we have time, right?" Arne proposed, looking between the two of you as a few nods were passed around; the mood simmering down briefly.
"Time I think, is something we should have plenty of." He replied, a smile on his face before Alice flounced into the room, almost stumbling as she opened the door and then burying her face into the nearest pillow; holding her phone and then smacking her hand repeatedly against the table.
"Uhhh...is something wrong Alice?" You asked the young Demonomancer.
"Ffffffucking gacha luck. I just want Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." She whined.
"Oh...fortune is your woe? I think I can rectify that." Alyrsero said, confidence on his expression as he held out a hand for Eudaimonica to pass her phone to him.
"Is it...okay for him to mess with the system like that?" Arne asked.
"Come on, they're rigged, what's wrong with rigging back?" You replied with a michevous smirk.
"Oookay I guess since they're not as familiar with your magic they might not catch the tampering...but if I get into trouble..." She said, pouting while she pulled her head up and passed the Phone to him.
"Please, I've seen more winters than the programmers of this software have seen seasons. This should be no trouble at all." The Warlock boasted while he produced a rune of fate from his pouch and let it glow with the inchoate energies of the warp and the rainbow incadescance of qhayshic high magic; murmuring a chant in Tar-Eltharin as he weaved the paths of fate.
You could taste sweetness in the air and sense an ionised tingle on the ends of your hairs as probabilities were bent and paths hardened towards certain outcomes before all at once reality snapped into place. His will manifested against the cosmos, and the phone seemed to have shown no side effects from the process; Alice's eyes wide with curiosity as he handed the phone back to her.
She tapped the inputs again, and her eyes lit up with glee before she jumped up and glomped him, a whirl of red hair and pink pyjamas tackling into the slender Eldar and almost taking him off his feet as Arne and yourself couldn't help but giggle.
"Auuggghhh...p-personal...space....my ribs...plead for mercy." He wheezed.
"I'm making you my Punishing Grey Raven good luck charm!" She beamed at him as she backed off and he sucked in a gulp of air.
"Is th-this the..."
"Fifth gacha game actually." She cackled.
"I am...concerned about your finances..." He wheezed.
"Princess of a Hell remember! Money's no issue!" She huffed.
"Well...even if the Eclipse is coming, I think we'll make our own light, right?" Arne whispered to you, a nod coming from you in reply.
"Mhm! And I think that we're going to have a great Christmas. Oooh I can't wait for everyone else to wake up!" You rubbed your hands with undiluted excitement, positively vibrating with energy now.
Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour: Act 2: Introduction: I hate New Hampshire Nazis, Part 1
It was a rather lovely spring day in Brockton Bay. There was something about some gang hitting a Casino that you weren't overly concerned with; not when the day was rather pleasant and the weather quite agreeable for this latitude. A few people gave you some looks for your snow coloured hair or made comments about your scarlet coloured eyes, but you never allowed it to bother you that much. Especially when this sandwich was pretty nice, sharing it with some of your friends while you rode around within bumblebee.
"=Nothing like lazy days huh?=" Bumblebee played from a radio clip you weren't sure of the origin of.
"So...if he has a working radio, why doesn't he use that to speak?" Taylor asked from the right side of you, your eyes quickly flicking over to her as you gave a heavy shrug.
"=When you got a gimmick=" Bumblebee started "=you gotta sell it!=" He clipped from another piece of media.
"...Right. So you just think it's cute?"
"=Why the nerve...=" Bumblebee responded.
"Okay, okay enough with teasing the transforming robot, I need to pretend I'm driving here." Penelope Yin said, the Psion idly miming the hand motions needed to convincingly steer the wheel lest anyone get suspicious.
"This duty seems to be hardly worth the time of a Squire of the Lumineth, are you sure there aren't more...pressing duties I could be assigned to?" Idaliryn said, tapping his fingers on the sides of the door while looking outside with a decidedly unimpressed expression, the gold-haired Eldar making the most neutral expression he could manage.
"Well, you heard what Kaeliyae said, you need to learn to get along on this planet, and not be so...high and mighty all the time." Samus rolled her eyes while Bumblebee rounded a corner, her body shifting a bit in her seat next to you while you tried your best to seem comfortable sandwiched between the two girls.
"=Quite frankly I don't like it either.=" Bumblebee retorted while Idaliryn quirked his brows and glared at the dashboard of the car and the autobot symbol at the corner of the GPS screen.
"I will never understand why a machine older than this entire civilisation lacks the confidence to stand in the open amidst them, nevermind backtalk me in such a way." He huffed, placing his cheek on his windowside hand.
"Really contributing to the atmosphere here huh?" Taylor muttered in a voice quiet enough for her to assume Idaliryn couldn't hear, only to tense when she saw that one of his ears twitched slightly.
"Hey...we're supposed to be friends aren't we?" You said, raising your hands while Penelope Yin pressed her foot on the brake; briefly cursing herself when she remembered that the car was self driving and could brake himself just fine; lurching everyone forward.
"Whoa, whoa what's the rush Bee?" Taylor said while you tried to look straight ahead and saw the road was blocked by a rally of people giving a certain salute before a man on a podium shouting into a microphone. You could feel a sinking feeling that turned into a freefall in your stomach as soon as you saw the tilted Swastika on the banners behind the man. Even now, so many thousands of years later, that symbol still held an evil power, a declaration of destructive intent that made your skin crawl.
"=I hate=" Bumblebee started, "=New Hamsphire=" he continued, grabbing it from a Real Estate Ad "=Nazis=" he finished, concluding the Blues Brothers quip.
You could see the man with imposing-looking, actually ridiculously so in fact, guards.
"5th Column ubermensch." Penelope hissed, looking at the man standing before the insignia of the Empire-88, the 5th Column, and the Third Reich.
"Empire..." Taylor sneered.
"...What is the significance of any of this?" Idaliryn asked, looking around with a somewhat hopelessly confused expression. You briefly pitied him and envied him. None of this meant anything to him, there was only a broad sense of malice he could sense, but nothing that truly stuck with him.
"Nobody said anything about a rally today..." Yin murmured, the Psion trying to scan the nearby thoughts and flinching.
"Blockers, of course..." She huffed. "I could break them but..." She looked around and shook her head. The people here seemed rather well to do in general, many of them clearly having driven in from the suburbs or taken time off from whatever little shops or self-employed businesses they ran. They generally gave the impression of having eaten well, some perhaps a bit too well, but others looked like they lived in gyms. Some were shaved, others had professionally cut hair to look sharp. All had a nasty energy around them that made your muscles coil like a snake ready to bite.
Samus was squeezing her hands into a ball, breathing a bit more emphatically than before, in and out, in and out. She glared ahead, her eyes looking around with frustration that she could do nothing for the time being.
Another look around was had; you read the banners.
"Xenos out!"
"America first!"
"Traitors to the Human Race!" With an arrow pointing downwards. Down with traitors to the human race?
"White Pride, worldwide!"
"Reds are alien spies!"
"No aliens, overseas or outer space!"
"Blood Rite=Blood God!" With a star of David aflame.
"We built humanity!" And some with language you'd really rather not think about. Some of the slogans were shitty, hastily scrawled on by angry people, others were clearly made by people with experience in marketing, and others were just repeating whatever was popular. All of them gave you a deeply hostile sensation.
There were counter-protesters too, but far too many of the police were turned towards them rather than to those listening to the man in his little suit giving his little speech. There was something like the buzz from metal that had collected a lot of static electricity and was just waiting for something to poke near it to discharge in the air. A field of emotional energy waiting to be grounded into something.
Bumblebee made a series of very angry warbles and whistles, a burst of data in his own speech impeded language that you understood was no expression of gentleness or solidarity and was indeed, something you probably shouldn't say in front of polite company.
"...Bumblebee we can't open fire here with all the civilians." You hissed, trying to get him to calm down.
He beeped and booped and clicked and lacked. Your heart felt heavy, you felt ashamed for expression your disagreement with him in such a way, and a sad sigh came from you.
"...I understand that you've seen the camps made by these sorts of people in other timelines...and how useless authorities can be at opposing them, but we can't just...start shooting." You said, not really sure what to say. What could anyone say to someone who had seen things like the human abattoirs in occupied Poland or the empty villages of Belarus? That you feel sorry for them?
Samus paused and looked out the window to see who else was in the crowd and immediately began fumbling for her seatbelt, her expression clearly not at all pleased with what she was seeing.
"H-hey Samus what are you d-" You started before looking and seeing that Chris, in full combat gear, was standing with the Police trying to keep the tempers down.
"...Oh...yeah that's..." You grimaced.
"Samus he's probably just doing what he was asked to." Yin tried to caution her before she did something hasty, the blonde's eyes snapping towards the Psion with fiery venom in the glare that made even her recoil just a bit.
"He should know better! Especially after all the time we've...." She grunted with frustration as she reached for the handle and tried to pull it open only for Bumblebee to refuse to budge.
"=Now let's hold our horses here...="
"If the Fifth Column feels bold enough to openly pal around with the Empire-88 then..." Taylor said as she felt through her swarm, hearing what the insects could hear; using her shard-spawn to relay her radius of control and sight to the entire rally zone. Every word, every detail, every movement.
"Whether the cuckolds for the forces of degeneracy and complacency want to hear it or not, only through the values of tradition, work, and blood can we make the soil we stand on our own. Only through the virtues of the race that built America and western civilisation can we be saved from the coming storm. The globalists and the internationalists would have you believe that we need to cooperate with the enemies of mankind, inside and outside. Some would even say that we shouldn't ignore the cries of losers and wastrels who want your hard work to feed their mouths even as we stare extinction in the eye." She could hear, relaying the information through a device Wheeljack built for her usage. The speaker was a firebrand, probably from Idaho based on his accent; not a real Brockton Bay native.
"But we are here to tell you that you don't need to listen to these backstabbers, incompetents, cowards, weaklings, and sell-outs. We are here to tell you that there is another way, a way that upholds our values, maintains order, will revitalise the flagging spirit of the west and purge ourselves of this spread of racial and social chaos. A way of iron and blood that will make us; the most deserving people who have built the foundations of the greatest civilisations on or off Earth; pure and prosperous. Without the Jewish driven enemy within, or the Xenos enemy without." He declared, spreading his arms as Fifth Column Robots descended from the sky with retrothrusters to soften their falls.
"Bumblebee let me out!" Samus said, inches from tearing her way out if she had to.
"...This man is spouting nonsense." Idaliryn scoffed, shaking his head. "Why are so many listening to him?"
"=Easy answers for hard questions.="
Your eyes followed a tingling sensation as you looked at one of the 5th Column robots' optic-visor shifting its focal lights to an alley to the left. Bumblebee's screens providing a readout of an intercepted data packet.
"+Identifying signatures associated with "Undersiders" near unit location. Designation, minor criminals including multiple Untermenschen. Suggesting demonstration of order enforcement capabilities.+"
"+Granted, contacts will be advised.+"
"+Heil Ziegler.+"
"+Heil Ziegler.+"
As the man ranted, one of the large robots, seemingly retrograde in its aesthetics, turned its body towards the alleyway.
Taylor froze, but reached out with the power of Shadow of Retribution; letting the Nictus' abilities depress space around them and envelop them to move them out of the way; shifting them farther back while Bumblebee began to back off to find another route to keep going. The robot returned to its neutral stance, powering down its weapons and resuming its vigil over the rally.
Samus calmed down enough to not injure bumblebee in an attempt to get out, but still seethed internally, while Taylor raised a hand.
"Stop at the location I'm pinging...please..." She said, Bumblebee beeping out an affirmative before rounding a corner in reverse and driving up next to some rather confused looking teenagers.
Bumblebee unlocked the doors and allowed himself to open, releasing everyone's seatbelts as Taylor just about flew out of her seat; mask already over her head while everyone else costumed/armoured up. Her boots hit the ground and she stomped towards a rather tall young man with a hardened expression.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"...Wh...what the?" He managed before realising he was in a completely different place than he was before, looking at you, Samus, Idaliryn, and Yin all in full gear and then at Bumblebee as he stood himself out of his car form and straightened to his full height.
"...Mmmh, told you that car was more than meets the eye." A blonde girl said to a rather more muscular girl in a dog mask.
"You were seconds from being blasted by a nazi killbot you fucking dumbass, why were you anywhere near that rally?!" She shouted, clearly personally concerned.
"...Okay, okay back up for five seconds and let me gather my thoughts. One, we had a plan and two...please tell me I have all my parts still on after that teleport." He said.
"One, your plan wasn't going to work because you can't survive proton blasts to the face. Two, yes you're fine..." She said, first angry and then calming down.
"Undersiders?" You said.
"I am...dreadfully lost." Idaliryn reiterated.
"You are in Brockton bay." The dogmask girl said, a blink coming from beneath the Eldar's helm.
"He's an alien. He doesn't know his way around." The blonde cut in.
"Ah you share their ability to be privy to things you have no business knowing, delightful." Idaliryn retorted, gesturing to yourself and Samus.
Actions: Order in priority.
[]: Go through some introductions with the undersiders
[]: See what if anything they were planning to do being that close to the Nazi rally
[]: See if there's anything else that can be gathered about the people at the rally
[]: Poke into the 5th Column robot datanet
[]: Check with off-field friends if there's any further information to be gained
[]: Bug Chris about his choice of deployment
Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour: Act 2: Introduction: I hate New Hampshire Nazis, Part 2
"Give me a click...their datanets might tell us something." You said, excusing yourself briefly and peering into the flow of information. The 5th column's network of data was vast, heavily compartmentalised, but filled with tells that could be used to track the signals bouncing through timestreams and dimensions; guised by intelligent programs working to alert the network to intrusion and build custom firewalls in response to invasion. Your visor however, went around all of that with ease.
"+Brockton Bay presence has expanded to satisfactory levels. Local National Socialist elements have already reduced the presence of Jewish entities to acceptably low margins. Non-European presence remains unacceptably high with substantial Oriental populations.+"
"+Hochoberst Werner Koch advises caution due to confirmed presence of Dawnchild, Duskguard, Sunburst, and Moonshade as regular visitors to the city. Nacht division intelligence gathering efforts are still compiling profiles.+"
"+Assassination unlikely due to off-world presence and extreme combat capability. Alternative methods are in effect.+"
"+Rally is likely to stoke Dawnchild's temper, providing an opening that can be used to isolate them from local support.+"
"+Advise that class Omega Xenos technology is able to pierce quantum cryptography.+"
"+Advice unnecessary.+"
So this was in fact, meant to be casting a line of bait to get you to do something rash and stupid so you'd make yourself look bad. An obvious ploy, but it was in fact; too obvious. They almost certainly had another angle in the works, they were investing too much into this to not be plotting out their contingencies to make sure that they got what they wanted no matter what.
"Have any of you seen anything alien?" You asked, turning to the Undersiders who more or less were unanimous in staring at you. You didn't quite get why, even as one of them cleared their throat after being elbow bumped to interrupt them midsentence before they could speak.
"Besides the people here." Penelope added.
"Lately there's been some weird stuff underground. Weirder than normal. Deep catacombs aren't as safe as they used to be." One of the taller of the males in their group said, Grue according to your scanner. Brian Laborn.
Grue, real name Brian Laborn is an African-American male of the age of seventeen and a shardhost for the "shadowcast" shard. The shadows generated by this shard not only absorb light and sound but also hinder movement and interfere with a wide variety of forms of extrasensory perception, though your own visors and sensors would be able to counteract this. Laborn is physically fit but not to a degree that would take him outside of the limitations of unmodified humans and is not recommended for frontline combat and has recently benfitted from biological enhancements provided by an unknown source, significantly enhancing his physiology and the effects his powers are able to have and the area of effect he can cast them over. Analysis of markers suggests the source is tied to Arachnos or is Arachnos itself, in addittion to gradual attunement with Sourcewell energies subtly augmenting his abilities.
Analysis of records indicates that Laborn is primarily home schooled via the internet and while not wealthy, is above the poverty line. However he has regular contacts in the criminal underworld who possess leverage over him, keeping him committed to a life of criminal activity. His younger sister AIsha is also part of his team, though their parents are unaware of their activities due to separation brought about by Child Protection Services. He is the de facto leader of the Undersiders, a local small time crime gang primarily focused on relatively small scale acts of larceny and burglary with a membership almost entirely consisting of adolescents and young adults.
While experienced in nonlethal brawling and dealing with the Wards who do not seek to terminate them and the Police who are jurisdictionally ill-equipped to deal with Parahumans, they are ill-prepared for military grade combat and most have relatively little experience in conflict with beings with an intent to kill. It is strongly recommended that he avoids head to head conflict with the 5th Column's higher grade assets for his health until he has accumulated greater experience.
Samus' Notes: Whatever he's doing, he's out of his league here...but I can respect his spirit, even if I'm worried about him.
Arne's Notes: Overconfident, not really experienced in serious conflicts, I hope I don't have to bury him.
Sevrin's Notes: I am not exactly thrilled about the company he keeps, but if Taylor says to trust him...
Agafya's Notes: Why should I care? As long as he avoids becoming another casualty figure...he is cute though.
"Rat people...huge rat people, like...how do rats even get that big?" Taylor explained to you, Idaliryn's head snapping towards her almost immediately.
"I thought I sensed it..." He murmured before looking at the Undersiders, almost reaching towards them before Bumblebee pulled him back just a bit and shook his head.
"Sensed what?"
"Skaven, you...do any of you feel ill? Have you had any recent symptoms of disease you cannot explain?" He said, but you couldn't just remain quiet.
"Idaliryn, I've already scanned them, they aren't infected with anything." You said, noticing Idaliryn's hand getting close to the hilt of his starblade. You've seen what that sword can do. Augmentations or not, you weren't going to be letting it slash any of them.
The Blonde seemed to stare at Idaliryn's sword before blinking, almost stumbling as she rubbed at her eyes and blinked a few times, almost as if looking at the barest hint of the unsheathed metal caused her discomfort.
"...Tattletale what's wrong?"
"Looking at that sword gives me crazy eye-aches. It's like my power blanks out trying to analyse it. I'll get used to it over time but that...warpy stuff doesn't play nice with my abilities." She grunted, looking at you and shaking her head once more as she then swivelled her head back to Taylor and made a brief face. You weren't sure of the significance of it, but some sort of information was transmitted through the brief exchange of facial expressions and hand gestures, whether a genuine sign language or just the two knowing each other well enough to get the point across without speaking; you didn't know.
"Shadow doesn't know much about her either." Taylor finally verbalised, getting a sigh out of Tattletale as she shook her head.
"And here I thought I had all the answers. Hmph. Guess I'll have to use my noggin' more. Or put in more practice, I'm sure I'll figure it out, I always do~" She said, hands on her hips in a confident pose self-assured that this setback was at most a minor inconvenience.
"Time being wasted, why are we not moving?" The Girl in the dog mask asked, her sentences terse, vocalisations rough and unhappy with the lack of progress being made. You could feel it in her voice and her posture, or the massive, menacing looking living tanks that were apparently like biosuits for dogs within them.
"Relax, we're trying to establish a rapport." The tall, pretty one said. Black Hair, renaissance faire get up paired with a venetian mask that you thought was foolish for not providing him with any protection for his lungs given the abundance of toxic elements in use by possible foes. Maybe he thought his lips were too nice to cover? They were quite nice...but...hrm, wouldn't look as nice being punched.
"She is...kind of right, we are letting the hours tick down while...they're up to something." Arne said, turning around again and looking back at the rally. He tapped his foot, a favourite nervous habit of his; legs not wanting to stand still.
"Well, what's there to worry about when you two are here?" Brian asked, prompting Arne's head to quickly shift back towards him, finger outstretched accusingly.
"You." He said bluntly.
"You are fragile. You aren't meant for war. People like you can and will die." He said, lowering his hand, his voice breaking slightly towards the end of his brief speech, his gaze lowering beneath his helm and a heavy sigh entering his lungs.
"You're what? A small gang? Robbers and burglars?"
"We're the Undersiders shellhead. I sugg-" The Pretty One, Regent, or Alec, said before Arne shook his head.
"You brawl but you haven't seen warfare. You don't want that here. War isn't just a bigger fight, it's competitive, organised destruction. Whatever they're planning here is going to..." He stopped briefly, something was in the air.
A deep, heavy pulse. Something below the normal human audible frequencies. Something you felt in your bones as much as heard. A mixture of many sounds and frequencies...including...there was something human there, but what sort of infrasound was of human origin? It was loud though, the ground rumbling with each passage of the sound waves and the air almost seeming to breathe in tune with its vibrations.
You saw that the humans who couldn't hear it were on edge, pins and needles standing up, tensing and ready for a fight, alarm sinking into their guts. Humans were made paranoid by infrasonic frequencies, particularly loud ones. The sensation of something heavy pulsing through them sparked an old fear of the noises of things bigger than they were. Hungrier than they were. Stronger than they were.
What was it? A communication? What was it saying? A challenge you think? Yes...that was it...loud, easy to follow.
"Here I am, fight me now."
But to who would that go? Humans by and large can't hear it, whales can't exactly come on Land, and the Endbringers were rather strict about their cycles.
"+Chris, you're closer to the situation...what's going on there?+" You asked, hissing through your comms with Kid Win.
"+Huh? Oh well, I can see they're drawing in some power for some audio device but I can't see it.+"
"+Why are you on that side of the barricades anyway?!+" You growled.
"+Because I was asked to and it's my job...I can't afford to do things to get my pay docked, life's expensive enough as is but...god I feel something crawling down my spine and the worst rattle in my teeth.+" He replied, apologetic but seemingly defeated, he probably didn't want to do this at least, so there was that to forgive him with.
"+Infrasound, calling something big.+" You replied.
"+Yeah I figured it was an Infrasound but it's a call? For what?+" He replied.
"+Uh, oceanography sensors going haywire, we're getting some major biosigns here. Everything alright down there?+" Wheeljack cut in.
"+Alert, extremely large submarine biological entity detected moving towards Brockton Bay. +"
Your armour pinpointed and highlighted something big, something huge, much bigger than had ever lived on Earth at this time...or ever really. Far larger than the Endbringers, though from your analysis of them, that didn't necessarily mean stronger...but based on the displacement of the water pushed in a bow wave before the movement of this creature, you could immediately surmise that this would be...
Bumblebee was the first to say it. "=Hey the Ocean's running away.="
And indeed, the waterline was receding and fast. Water pulled back to reveal sand and shore like the flesh of a potato after a once over with a peeler. Based on the displacement of the water, whatever was causing this had to have a mass of one point four point two million tons, especially if your estimations for its velocity were correct; and they almost always were. You'd faced huge beings before, the Goradon on Zorant among others, but this felt like more than an animal.
"+Unknown radiation signature detected, analysing...energy signature is extradimensional and extraversla.+"
"Wait, hold on, that means..." Taylor said as she looked at the sea pulling back before Clockblocker could be heard over the comment.
"+Tsunami!+"
Ah yes, that was why the horizon was a sudden wall of Grey and why people were starting to scream.
Hydrokines from Paragon were brought up to try and stop the onrushing mountain of water, a curtain of hydrogen and oxygen rolling forwards with the intent to squash everything it brought beneath it. It wouldn't be quite enough, you had to step in; ice beam ready, combined with enough other beams for the job.
You teleported in, vaulting over obstacles, cannon firing anti-energy to engulf the water in the purest cold to freeze it where it was, hoping that not too many marine life forms would have to die as a result of the horizon wall of ice you created. A barrier that stretched across your line of sight after your barrage while the hydrokines and mages tried to roll back the waves. But the creature behind it was already on the move.
It was a big turtle. Like, a really big turtle. Its features seemed to be more snapping turtle than anything you'd expect to find in the sea, but there was no mistaking that it was indeed, a creature of a decidedly Terrapin bent. In its longest dimension it was six hundred and forty-six meters from the tip of its beak to the ends of its tail, and standing in its somewhat hunched over posture it was at least three hundred and eighty-four meters tall. Its body was charged with that strange energy making for unusual glow pulses that sometimes shone through its veins beneath its armoured skin or the patterns traced along its shell as the horned beast approached the ice wall.
An ice wall it shattered as if it wasn't there even though the entire American navy slamming into it would have probably struggled to manage. Water held back trying to rush ahead while you froze what you could, water walls curled back upon themselves by those heroes who could control it as you raced from one frozen point to the next, ice forming all around you while the creature let out an earth shattering snapping sound followed by a deep hiss, webbed claws swinging while its eyes looked around for something that was assailing its ears.
"=We're gonna need a bigger boat...=" Bumblebee cut in, racing around in a hovering variation of his car mode and firing off his missiles and solar accelerator cannon to try and get the animal's attention, ramping up onto your ice and driving over the water while the beast slowly turned around and then slapped its tail into the waves, cascading curtains of H2O fountaining into the sky while the autobot reversed hard; your cannon busy stopping the Tsunami from reaching the city.
Kamoebas is a type of entity designated as a "Hollow Earth Titan" classified as belonging to the taxon Titanus Terrapinus Horribrus. Distantly related to turtles, Kamoebas are a frequently seen form of titan, with this particular entity being particularly charged by Hollow Earth power to allow for greater feats of power and some degree of size shifting, though Titans are always as the name entails; far larger than humans. Hollow Earth power is named for the dimension that Titans typically reside in when not visiting the surface of Earths linked to them, accessed primarily through subterranean or marine portals, linking them to a realm that represents the potential for all forms of Earth of its native metaversal cluster for life.
Kamoebas is extremely durable and has no particular weaknesses, though impacts to nonshelled areas will do more damage should a breach in its hollow earth fields be achieved. Kamoebas' offensive techniques include hollow earth energy optically generated beams, musculature generated electricity, high-intensity concussive and kinetic force orbs or lances from its mouth, and shell generated beams of concentrated light. Spines can also be launched from the shell and parts of Kamoebas' body as additional ranged offence, but Kamoebas' claws, brute strength, tail slaps, and especially bite are all especially formidable weapons.
Kamoebas is responding to a Titan alpha call, and is currently looking for the source to challenge the maker of the call to see if they are worthy of sounding the signal. If the signal maker is deemed not deserving of leadership by the Titan, it will seek to trial their worth in combat until one submits to the other. As such, Kamoebas will submit or retreat if presented with enough force to make it accept the victor as its superior. However, while searching for the source of the challenge, this Kamoebas will likely act on its state of agitation and attack possible threats, though it will not go out of its way to harm civilians or human property like most animals.
Based on the circumstantial evidence, it is likely that the 5th Column has deliberately called the creature to make it publicly submit to demonstrate Nazi military might. Whether or not this is the case, the creature's mass means its very movements are dangerous to the surrounding population even with the usage of hollow earth energy to improve its weight distribution. Forcing it to move to less populated areas is a necessity, especially as one Titan will typically attract others to investigate their sounds and movements and the calls they create.
Due to the size difference between the user and the Titan, extremely close proximity engagement is recommended, to prevent the Titan from potentially causing collateral damage by engaging in long distance combat and to make use of your superior mobility. Long-distance combat plays into the Titan's advantages and is therefore non-recommended. Military interference is regrettably unavoidable and will likely result in significant deaths among US military forces.
Samus' Notes: I don't want to hurt it too much...it didn't mean to hurt anyone...but if I can't make it back off...I'll do what I can as humanely as I can.
Arne's Notes: Hollow Earth? That nonsensical...I have a lot of questions and not many answers...ugh...
Sevrin's Notes: That is...that is an Earth native life form? For real? Radiance preserve me.
Agafya's Notes: Why does Samus get to be the first one to fight it?!
"+Sevrin, Agafya, are you there?+" Arne asked.
"+Yes...you are seeing the oversized turtle right?+" Sevrin replied, some disbelief in his tone.
"+...Why are you drawing the line at a turtle?+" He responded.
"+It's...I wouldn't expect that from Earth...but what is it Skjoldr?+" He brushed aside.
"+Check the rally immediately, look for infrasonic equipment...Samus and I are...Samus what are we going to do?+"
"+Keep the Titan and the people safe.+" You replied.
"+Ooooh, hard job then?+" Agafya snickered.
"+Wait...keep the giant fucking Kaiju safe?!+" Clockblocker stammered.
"+It's just confused and alarmed...we can resolve this without killing it.+" You responded.
"+She is correct, no need to slay the magnificent thing.+" Idaliryn added.
"+Okay...what do the nazis have to do with this?+" Taylor asked.
"+Good question...I don't know, they probably called it.+" You replied before the roar of aircraft engines confirmed their heightened presence, rotary wing craft and fixed wings speeding overhead after peeling out of portals and opening fire, smaller airborne infantry and drones buzzing around the animal and artillery opening fire shortly afterwards, Nazi supermen emerging in formation to harry the beast. Seemingly standard team compositions built around those who could take damage, those who could dish it out up close or from afar, those who could do battlefield control, those who could do enhancement based support and weakening based support, and those who could provide general utility; often through summons. Eight man teams, all clearly ready for this fight as the Kaiju recoiled from eruptions of dark energy, black curtains of null-flame dancing on its hide and trying to sap at its life force.
They were either going to kill it or let it wreck the city trying...all for...what? What was their angle here?
Actions: Sort priorities from greatest to least.
Kamoebas Team
[]: Stop the Nazis attacking Kamoebas
[]: Drive off Kamoebas
[]: Stop the military and Protectorate from throwing themselves at Kamoebas
[]: Prevent collateral damage
[]: Keep the ice wall stopping the tsunami in place until a more permanent solution can be found
[]: Coordinate with the Autobots for a more comprehensive response
Brockton Bay Team
[]: Investigate the rally and what the 5th Column is really up to
[]: Locate the source of the Titan Call
[]: Get people to safety
[]: Work with the Undersiders to find what might be useful in the city for this situation
[]: Keep the Protectorate from getting in over its head
[]: Push the Nazis in the city out.
Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour: Act 2: Introduction: I hate New Hampshire Nazis, Part 3
"So what do we do?" You asked Samus. She seemed like she would be better at this sort of crisis. This had too many people, too many human elements. You weren't good at those things. Too complicated, too difficult. Machines were so much simpler, the collisions of subatomic particles at superluminal speeds were simpler. This was hard, what were people going to do? What were they going to try?
"We need to keep this from escalating. Get a hold on the situation, keep things from getting worse. The soldiers need to be kept away, they can't handle this." She responded to you, her helmeted head flicking over to you and her blue eyes staring at you through her visor, getting a nod out of you in response.
Your gunships flew into the scene in formation before splitting up at your command, your attention briefly turning towards the sky as the craft sought out their tasks and targets with all the efficiency you'd expect of well oiled, well designed machines. Ready to engage the third Reich's war machine while the signal was sent to steer clear of the situation.
"+Hold on, Duskguard, what's with the avoid signal? This is an S-Class threat situation, we can't just stand back while this overgrown reptile threatens to tear apart the city.+" That was Armsmaster if you weren't mistaken. Spoiling for a fight almost certainly. Such a brute.
"+Protectorate and Guild regulations expect all able bodied parahumans to respond to threats on this sort of scale, you've seen how the ocean is roiling at the movements of this thing, we can't possibly be expected to not do our part.+" Dragon, the A.I's words matronly, concerned about letting children get into the fight all on their own. But you looked at the situation around the Kaiju as it was surrounded by 5th Column and Weltreich attack forces and couldn't help but feel that the confusion was all part of some greater plan.
These forces couldn't possibly hope to cause Kamoebas any substantial damage. Even if ionising radiation weren't the nectar of the gods for the turtle, nuclear or anti-matter warheads wouldn't be able to cause it enough damage. Not with those hollow earth fields. The sort of stuff that would let a monster walk off a hit from a black hole weapon...they'd need something...
Wait....
"Samus I think it's more than just a demonstration. This city is full of a lot of the top parahumans of this version of America right?" You said, looking towards her as the two of you were trying to keep the ice wall solid in the face of mountains of water pushed forth by the supersonic movements of the enormous turtle as it swatted and spat at the Nazis peppering its hide.
"Right...and a weapon that could deal with this creature would..."
"Destroy Brockton Bay in the process. Killing them, and I'm thinking they're also hoping it'd get us now that all four of us are here...and some of the major autobots too." You said, looking back up and looking for something to confirm your theory; letting your Echo visor try to peruse the water behind the icewall for anything else that might be moving through the water.
Nothing yet, but there was a great deal of water displacement consistent with the movement of something very large beyond the Kamoebas' struggles with its tormentors.
"They just want an excuse, don't they?" She snarled, looking at the turtle as it snapped at a jaw drawn towards its jet by transluscent coils of hollow earth energy, shear beaks cutting through the robotic craft like soggy paper while the titan slammed its webbed hands together in an enormous clap. Your suit's vibration detectors and your own supranatural senses translated the vibration into sound before the shockwave could reach you, something rather like an entire thunderstorm go off at once except a thousand times louder.
The ice wall disintegrated almost instantly before the concussive force, water pulverised into a fine mist and bodies crunched into bloody spray while vehicles shredded into a fine aerosol of shards. The ground shook with a violence to surpass most earthquakes and the air recoiled as if it were folding upon itself, a white hot flash emerging at the centre of the turtle's round of applause from the heat of its hands colliding at such speeds; hollow earth energy resonating through the violence of a blow mightier than thermonukes, bumblebee firing off his own phase shift to avoid harm.
You gritted your teeth, the impact missing Samus and yourself as you activated the incorporeal phase systems of your armour, letting it go right through you, the earth peeling like a litchi skin as the shockwave slammed into it. The city behind you though; that shockwave would instantly annihilate it. No building would survive, no person save the toughest superhumans would survive. That was the kind of blast that would cut New Hampshire's population down to something a few pairs of hands could count on their fingers.
Your heart sank, they were going to die...they were going to perish...you couldn't...no....yo-wait...yes, there it is. The flickering geen aura of Necron Quantum fields erupted to life and absorbed the cataclysm into itself, converting the energy into more power for the forces of Trazyn's personal retinue that had made itself at home on Earth Bet. Black generators shimmered and hummed, their systems maintaining steady power while the odd structures of the soulless ones integrated into Brockton Bay's most important architecture extended their prongs.
"+You humans need not worry about the city for now. I have a great many things I would like to preserve yet from this place, I shan't let it be destroyed by this overgrown reptile. Though I must admit, it is terribly inconvenient fo me to have to divide my attentions between grand strategy and the rude interruptions of unnecessarily large fauna.+" Trazyn cut in over the comms, slicing into the Protectorate networks you were all using as easily as you sliced into government comm traffic to determine whether the US government was trustworthy or not, in your spare time anyway.
"+Okay, what gratuitous alien nonsense am I going to have to suffer through now?+" Armsmaster said while preventing himself from making the crankiest groan this side of the omniverse.
"+A thank you would suffice my good man. Now, I suggest that you not tarry, for these jackboot fetishists are not likely to have played their last cards just yet.+" Trazyn said with virtually no respect or regard for Armsmaster's station or personage. You supposed that to Trazyn, humans of this time were all kind of motes, simple moments in time that would come and go. Come to think of it, you and the other inheritors were some of the only humans he ever seemed to consistently bother to refer to by name.
"+Oh and Arne, I know that you are quite young for this sort of work, but if it would not trouble you I would ask that you ensure I can capture some of these ruffians. They would be great in my collection.+" Trazyn added.
"+Why me?+"
"+Because you're a good boy with a good heart and these are rather terrible people of a brief-lived regime. Consider it a mercy for them, while I get to ensure the memory of this mistake in mankind's history never fades.+" He replied, making...something of a sensible point you guessed.
"+Aren't these men supposed to go to the proper authorities?+" Dragon interjected.
"+Perhaps you are unaware but this is war. There are no proper authorities in this fundamental expression of barbarism. If you wish to preserve the lives of your comrades, I suggest you treat it as such. They won't be fighting to arrest you I'm quite sure.+" He said, mirth evident in his voice and positively dripping with faux-disdain for superhero culture as a whole.
"+But please, one request from an old soulless shell such as myself. By all means, fight to win, but never let winning become the sole objective. It never leads anywhere good. And your culture is much too charming to burn on the pyre of victory at all costs.+" He added, ceasing his communique shortly afterwards while you noticed more nazi craft coming in fast, many taken down by the gunships which darted around them with sylph like grace in the face of vastly inferior flight and maneuvering technology; but many were emerging from tears in space time close enough to Kamoebas to keep on pressing the attack; even while Samus and yourself were frantically trying to recreate the barrier.
This was no good, this was keeping up your entire focus, you couldn't contribute more, Ice simply isn't durable enough to stop the flood from coming in. No matter how fast you could make it. You were even trying to use what you knew of the warp and the magic of the sourcewell to reinforce it, but the hollow earth power kept on breaking it.
But Yin was there, ready to roll up the ocean with her telekinesis at last; her mind exerting itself against millions of tons of water and carving dee enough fissures and channels elsewhere to abate the threat of the Tsunami for now, forcing the water to go elsewhere, away from those who could get hurt and making the sea heed her demand for it to sit down, shut up, and stop. She exhaled, trying to move Kamoebas, but the hollow earth energies of the titan seemed to stop her grip, it would move nowhere.
And when it punched at her barrier she felt way more than she should have based on the raw energy of the blow. Hollow Earth power is annoying and physics defying, ugh. Qualitative power fields always do require a bit of additional lateral thinking in your mental math, but nothing insurmountable.
"Hey, I've got this. You take care of the teenage mutant ninja turtle alright?" Yin said, grunting as she felt Nazi psions intrude on the battlefield, crushing mental probes worming around as fresh ubermensch slid out of portals to engage anyone deemed to be a problem for the Reich's plans.
You looked at Kamoebas once again, and then back to Yin. "I don't think that Kamoebas is adolescent, a shinobi, or even mutated. And its resemblance to a turtle is rather superf-" You said before Yin wagged her finger at you.
"Duskguard, it's a joke." She laughed, making you feel embarrassed as you sighed and looked at the melee unfolding.
You were the vanguard, the storm unleashed, it was only fitting you go in first; sending out the notification over the telepathic network. You'd do what you could to engage Kamoebas directly and keep it from being directly mobbed by the Weltreich's warriors, strength to strength. Your form had made the journey at incredible speed, velocities that would have been catastrophic if it weren't for your aura negating the shockwaves it would have produced.
You were now face to face with the beast, feeling smaller than ever next to a Titan of such scale. You had fought bigger, but the beast had this aura, this presence that made all the world seem like toys. A primeval essence of life itself radiating from within it like heat from a furnace, hot on your skin beneath your armour. Your muscles coiled, your armour shifted, you made your first mark.
A Reichsman wannabe, cape, outfit meant to emphasise musculature, no mask to obscure a chiseled face meant to express manly aryan perfection with a lantern jaw and a stern, stoic expression from his light blue eyes, sleek blonde hair seemingly static in place. The superman was busy trying to assail Kamoebas with barrages of punches, thousands per second, each wreathed in the fires of an atmosphere burning in protest.
The turtle's Hollow Earth aura was gathering energy, sensing a threat. Bio-electricity was in the air, accumulating in response to the scourge of the superman's heat vision, the swastika on his chest and the sturmkorps emblem on his shoulders making you feel a sort of primordial unease. But you were already in the fray, slipping through the shockwaves of a punch that made waters part and chased the morning fog away. Skin that had proven inviolable to nuclear weapons was now tested by the coils of anti-ions and positrons and the directed neutrinos produced by their reaction produced by your arm cannon.
Blue particles augmented by stacked on beams pierced into the superhuman and ate away at him, his piercing cry of pain fading into the report of a teleport out while you activated a timestop to avoid the electrical backlash of the Daikaiju behind him. The Titan's hollow earth field was straining at the effort to stop it, but it was enough to clear out many of the flying robots the Metahuman had been accompanied by, time resuming at your command with pleasing explosions.
"+Arne the locals are sending in first responders.+" Samus said, her screw attack lashing through some of the lesser Reich Earth metahumans and jetpack equipped 5th column troops before she used her grapple beam to rope vault around one of their fighter craft.
"+No no no no. They're not ready for a fight like this. Get them out of here!+" You hissed, using your connections to the warp to throw up a barrier to block Kamoebas' fist from crushing into Bumblebee, tensing and feeling something sharp sink into you as the feedback of Kamoebas' hollow earth energy dug into you. A sharp pain that stabbed into your back and radiated into your limbs. Not the worst you've ever had, but a surprising jolt of hurt.
"=Cavalry's on the way!=" Bumblebee chimed in, using his speed to grab onto the turtle and race along its arm in robot mode, peppering it with fire and trying to pull its attention away from him; the Titan's warbling, screeching roar making the water rumble and reducing the first US military aircraft to approach to shrapnel in red-black plumes of detonations.
You felt another pain in your chest, this one more ephemeral, less physical.
"+Bumblebee, can the Autobots stop more people from joining in?+" You asked, activating flight systems and moving to catch one of Kamoebas' punches to stop it from hitting Nova form Taylor; firing up your Hoplon shield and bracing before a seismic impact rocked your world. The energy levels of the impact were irrelevant though titanic, the Hollow Earth field's narrative of nature squashing the works of man were everything. It wanted to crush you like a bug and it was your own conceptual resilience, the idea that you will survive, that you are an embodiment of something more for humanity and the legacy of the alimbics, that you will either be the Blue Knight or Sylux one day; as much as your superhuman physiology or incredible armour that let you survive.
It still felt like someone set your skeleton to vibrate though.
You had been thrown back, your flight systems competing against Kamoebas' imparted energy to keep you in combat range as you blinked the stars out of your vision and pumped missile fire into the beaked Titan, coordinating with Samus as her gunship strafed it from behind and the girl herself tackled it in the midsection with her shinespark, pushing it backwards.
Though the creature didn't even flinch at waves of anti-ship missiles from the US Navy and Air Force raining all around it, it did feel your super missiles and rather didn't like them, bringing a hand in the way to stop your warheads from impacting its face before Taylor shifted into Black Dwarf form and just dropped herself onto Kamoebas' shoulder with all the incredible weight of her degenerate matter form. Energy shifted downwards to prevent itself from washing over Brockton, Seismometers gasped and Kamoebas let out a cry of genuine hurt that made your heart clench.
You weren't as sentimental towards animal life as Samus, but the turtle was in genuine pain from that one, and given that it was simply confused...
"Sorry." You murmured, red eyes opening to see Eidolon fly in and bombard Kamoebas with a rapidly shifting array of abilities to find some manner of weakness before teleporting away to avoid its electrical retaliation and the resulting thunderclap.
"+This is Jetfire to all US Military and Protectorate forces in the area, you can't handle this sort of beastie so if you could round about on helping the civvies get out of this mess that'd be the bees knees.+" The local Autobot commander cut in over the comms.
"+There are others more suited to evacuation and you are not my commander.+" Eidolon responded, his shard shifting to grant him greater strength as he tried to stop Kamoebas from bringing its hand down onto the water.
Samus' beam fire lanced over your head and your warning senses prompted you to teleport yourself, closer to the Turtle and away from some manner of man with blazing green and orange light pouring out of the lenses of a facemask that seemed to be somewhere between a gas mask and a hazmat suit, an armoured suit studded with pipes pumping fluids meant to regulate the processes within, coloured the dark grey and ominous midnight blue of the Sturmkorps while its lightning emblem was proudly displayed on his chest and shoulders along with his Swastika. The plating was heavy, almost seeming to be cumbersome and archaic, more like industrial equipment than battle gear, but your armour warned you that this man's armour was containing some absurd levels of radioactivity even as he laughed and fired off blazing barriers of ionising energy to intercept Samus' shots.
Kurt Braun is a human native to a timeline in the Sourcewell Metaverse conquered by the Weltreich, although he is descended from settlers. Kurt is the product of special genetic engineering and careful mutagenic exposure to allow him to induce nuclear reactions in his own body and amplify them with metahuman processes to generate far more energy for far less mass than nuclear reactions should be able to. Even to the point of exceeding E=MC^2 limitations. The slight drawback of his flesh becoming transluscent when he enters heightened states of "burn" to use more of his potential until it takes on an appearance not unlike that of gelatin around his skeleton lead to his nickname of "Atomic Bones", and at sufficient rates of burn, even his armour becomes transparent to mitigate the heat he puts out.
Kurt displays heightened physicality across the board due to his ability to use enhanced nuclear processes in place of more energy limited chemical ones to provide energy for all of his body's functions and also thinks and reacts much faster than normal humans with this scaling up in proportion to his burn rate plus his desired speed of thought. He further augments his durability with layered defensive energy fields and shielding as well as his suit of powered armour which uses "waste" energy from his process to catalyse its own power systems so that it is able to scale with his ramp up; even using this waste to regenerate itself should it be damaged much like his own body. It possesses a large suite of weapons as well as amplifiers, but Kurt lacks the education to make his own modifications to it or make use of it to its full potential.
Kurt is weakest to cold based attacks which will dampen his internal nuclear processes and negatively affect the functioning of his armour and counteract the high-energy states his shielding functions off of. While he is able to use his radioactive processes to interfere with attacks aimed at his soul, attacks directed at his mind bypass many of his defences as well making telepathic attack highly effective. Kurt's long-term thinking abilities are also regarded as poor and he will typically prioritise the last person to attack him followed by his primary objective, and is generally reliant on others to point out when he is falling into a trap. Despite his advanced knowledge of Nuclear Physics, he is also a poor tactician and overly reliant on brute force, and is both an unskilled close combat fighter as well as a generally poor marksman.
"These people are insane...Kamoebas feeds on radiation!" Samus snarled as she fired off more frigid ice beam shots, sensing that this was the radioactive man's primary weakness due to his need to maintain high temperatures for his organic nuclear processes. The psions felt earlier formed their telekine barriers around him, the ice beam bolts crystallising the energy as it neutralised it into matter, shards of cold dropping into the ocean.
Why would they go to that sort of length to protect someone useless in this sort of fight...unless...
"Bumblebee what happens to a Titan that overdoses on radiation?" You asked.
"=You ever hear of Hiroshima?="
"=Big guy will live at least.=" He clipped in. "=Average joes=" He continued with a different source "=Leave only shadows=" This time from a documentary about the atomic bombings.
And it seemed they were quite content to send him back up. One of Idonia's spawn it seemed like, you could see the similarities to Ermendrude, but this boy struck you as cut from a much harsher cut of cloth. He had a mean look to his gas-fire blue eyes and a rougher edge to his tip of burning napalm yellow hair. A grin on his face that was way too happy about being put into combat next to a living nuclear arsenal. And if anything, the vibe you were getting from this teenager's thoughts were more dangerously unhinged, as he floated there with his scarlet cape, his thule society wizard's uniform his armbands, his peaked hat and his ball room mask all contributing to a certain image.
An image that gave the impression of someone who watched too much of that Sailor Moon show you watched with Vista, Samus, Chris, Aronim, and Alice and identified a bit too hard with that one guy in the ball room get up who follows fourteen year old girls in short skirts.
What was the term for people like him? Chuunibyou? Well, he was that except with enough Magical Prowess to hold his own against whole teams from Primal or Bet Earth. He did fit his outfit well, and twirled his ruby tipped staff and crimson steel sword with a sort of dashing flair that you figured might be aesthetically pleasing to the right person, but mostly made you think of him as an unstable teenager pushed by his mother into getting worse.
You just love fighting the crazy ones.
Erhard von Horstmann is one of Idonia's many children sired by her projects to create a retinue of loyal and reliable followers to shore up her position within the Thule Society and the Nazi Hierarchy. Fackelfeuer is regarded as an excellent Pyromancer and a very skilled transmuter and conjurer, though he disregards Necromancy and Mind Control magic that does not tie into Fire's thematics. Praised for his versatility and his destructive capabilities as well as his high scores in tactical aptitude tests, Erhard is one of Idonia's more favoured sons of his age group and as such has received more personal tutelage from her than many of his siblings. This gives him a rather inflated sense of himself, and leads to him being considered of excellent reliability to the Thule Society's machinations, though he has little personal ambition to be anything more than his mother's favourite and to wed a good, powerful aryan woman to give his mother strong grandchildren.
Erhard will typically seek to overwhelm defences with an onslaught of high temperature attacks and magic that ties into the thematic qualities of the element of FIre such as forging, renewal, passion, anger, hatred, courage, destruction, and so on so forth. In the mean time, he also makes usage of transmutation and conjuration while his foes are distracted with his more obvious magics to alter the field and if possible, directly affect foes by transforming their equipment or changing their bodies, though against foes immune to such things as yourself he will focus primarily on the environment. His conjurations include both animate and inanimate objects and entities that he will fill the field with, seeking to barrage the foe, surround them with summoned help, and place obstacles onto the battlefield. Assisting him with this is his large arsenal of magical equipment, not the least of which is his Pyre-Staff and Sun-Sword.
Erhard however, true to expectations has difficulty controlling his temper. While able to handle attacks on his own pride or the honour of siblings he deems inferior, attacks on the pride of the Reich or his parents and mother in particular will quickly affect his concentration. His defences are weakest against anti-energy that can negate the heat he relies on and also against water or effects tying into the thematic of water which can snuff out his pyronic effects in short order. And while not helpless in close quarters combat, he prefers to hide behind others to prevent opponents of your caliber from reaching him. He is also vain and will flee the field if he takes any injury that leaves any sort of mark on his body that he cannot have healed straight away, and will obsessively heal any injury he does take even if superficial; wasting valuable time. And as an adolescent encouraged to be impulsive, his decision making is easily sidetracked by stimuli that earn his ire.
Great.
Agafya
"Alright everyone step into the ground bridge in good order so you don't trample each other. Nice and easy." The Big Green Autobot, Bulkhead said to the procession of people trying to pile into the swirling green tunnel offered to them as a way out.
Not exactly glamorous work this was, especially when people tended to side-eye you and your more overtly predator looking armour. You'd have words with Aran and Skjoldr about this, you mumbled to yourself.
"+Agafya.+" Samus asked over the comms.
"+Yes, what is it golden child?+" You said with a sing song voice.
"+The Weltreich might be trying to overfeed Kamoebas radiation. The result will bathe the New Hampshire coast and the coastlines of the three closest states in hollow earth altered radiation. People will either die or be empowered by this, millions at least.+" Samus said, your expression going from disdain to cold fury in seconds beneath your helmet.
"+...All this to create more empowered humans?+" You spat. Messing around with radiation in the hopes of inducing mutations...insanity.
"+And if they can defeat Kamoebas without people knowing they were the ones who made him explode, make themselves look good.+" She added.
"+What do you want me to do about it?+" You asked.
"+As long as the device making the Titan Call is emitting Sound, Kamoebas will want to fight.+" Arne added.
"+Okay so...+" You said as you strutted towards the Undersiders currently formulating a plan as the city was caught in a state of not inconsiderable bedlam. You emerged from the shadows, fusing the two clawed toes of your suit into a single point to make your armour look a bit less alien and took a moment to examine the group. Not up to terribly much in your analysis, but could be useful for the time being at least, particularly that slender one with the silly mask you thought, pointing to the blonde girl.
"You, the scan visor says you are good at figuring things out with your eyes, come with me." You said, the young lady in a domino mask pointing at herself with a "who me?" sort of look to her face before realising you indeed meant her.
"Wait hold on, who said you could give orders?" The tall dark skinned one said, approaching you as you walked into the fray with Sevrin at your side and Idaliryn pivoting on his feet to turn towards you.
"I do, have a problem with that?" You replied bluntly and frankly.
"Uh-huh, Moonshade I don't know what they tell you in space but you're not one of us, you can't just draft us when you feel like it." He said, puffing out his chest a bit to make himself look more intimidating in the face of well, you. Probably a natural reflex, not anything he'd do if he thought it through.
The one in the mask's large dogs started snarling at you, low growls that could be felt as much as heard getting your attention for a moment before you decided to ignore them. This wasn't the time or place to seek a fight when there were more serious issues to be dealt with at the moment.
Of course it was also best to keep Eudaimonica's demons from spoiling for a fight themselves, as much as you'd like to see how a literal hellhound fights a more metaphorical one, seeing a creature with a body of magma and obsidian with a horned, flaming canid's skull for a head and venomous serpents for its mane and tail baying at the other woman's parahuman power altered dogs. You did enjoy the somewhat alarmed expressions on everyone's face as the sweet little Demonologist emerged from a gate of hellfire, her cloak snug around her body and her Fire Elemental Myrmidions flanking her with glaives in one hand and great tower shields ina another; armour of metallic flame smouldering with the heat of the elemental forge and horned helms allowing for orange-white furnace light to glare out of the eyeslits.
"Moonshade, maybe you should let me negotiate?" Alice said, a glare coming from you for a moment while Sevrin harrumphed to let you know that this was what he would consider to be a better idea than continuing to handle talking yourself.
"Fine." You exhaled, letting the Hellish Princess of Flame give a curtsie to the Undersiders while her extraplanar legions started to emerge from other portals. You'd only known her for a few months but her mastery of summoning demons, devils, fire elementals, djinn and other creatures of underworlds or magic flame had grown quite frightfully expansive over that time. Maybe that was the power of the well of furies allowing her to walk the incarnate path? Or maybe that was Winterpyre teaching her magic personally?
"So what, are you going to give us the fire and brimstone speech?" Regent said, seeing but not really believing in that he was staring at the forces of an elemental plane or a hell. Not even raising an eyebrow as an imp landed on Alice's shoulder and whispered things into her ear, the red skinned winged thing looking back and forth before continuing to tell her secrets.
"Oh no no no no! I'm here because I want to help your city. And I think you can too!" She said, giving two thumbs up and a grin beneath her facemask.
"What's this got to do with Paragonians anyway?" The Blonde One asked, genuinely curious, no hostility.
"Do you want Nazis on your streets? Your country? If they get their hands here they'll get them everywhere." Alice said without any seeming malice behind her words, still jaunty and stern.
"What is the matter with one variety of human criminal predominating over another? What problem can these Nazis pose that would warrant us taking our eyes off of more serious matters to deal with them?" Idaliryn countered, finally speaking up while a brief silence fell over the discussion, even Bulkhead turning from the evacuation effort to glare at the Eldar.
He had perhaps a bit of a point. These pawns of the Weltreich weren't the biggest fish to fry as the people of this time and place often say. There were greater dangers, greater menaces. Ones that threatened humanity's existence altogether or would imperil the lives of far more people far more quickly. But...what would that say about you if you just let it happen? If you let that be part of what defined humanity?
"Is there a point in fighting for humanity if we let its soul rot?" Sevrin said curtly.
"I guess the Elf has a bit of a point too...it's not like we haven't been able to live with the Empire in here for years." Tattletale said. You looked her over again, she was blonde, green eyed, but overall for her age, would have fit in well with their standards. Would have passed the ancestry tests the Nazis did for Jewishness too.
"Hey, they might talk to you with kid gloves but ever since the Empire started expanding I've been feeling more and more uncomfortable with this city. Especially after they started getting nasty." Brian interposed, you felt like they've been having this argument more than a few times over the past few months.
One of them, pretty for her age, related to the leader based on genetic scans, and having some manner of memory altering ability based on your otherworldly perception, approached Alice, slipping past some of the Demons and Fire Elementals who forgot about her as soon as she left their line of sight, though Alice herself was able to ascertain her location with her constant area-scrying.
"Hey, excuse me." She said, Imp according to your scanners, actually named Aisha.
"Hrm?" She asked, prompting you to lean in to this bit of girl talk.
"What exactly happens if we don't stop whatever the skinheads are up to?" She asked politely, her voice gentle but with more than a hint of worry behind it.
"They're going to overload the Titan with radiation so that it makes a massive area hollow earth energy blast. Going to frag everything out to Connecticut. Most of you are going to get offline instantly, survivors will mutate due to the hollow earth radiation, lots of those will trigger too." Bulkhead said fairly nonchalantly as he watched the discussion.
"...Conneticut?" Aisha gulped.
"Yeah, I'd bet ten energon cubes that they'll probably use some sort of psionic device to erase their involvement in this too, so that when their back up teams "swoop in" to save the day they look like heroes. Honestly it'd be pretty clever if I wasn't a transdimensional travel engineer. But I am so it's kind of hard not to notice they've got rapid deployment faultlines set up." He said with a shrug as if he were explaining the most basic of basics to the group.
"Bulkhead, would that not have been pertinent to share as soon as you pieced it together?" Sevrin said politely, but restraining himself from saying something angrier as best as he could.
"...Oh...I thought you figured it out as soon as S-I mean Dawnchild sent in the data. My bad." The big green autobot apologised, scratching at the top o his somewhat crushed bucket like head with one of his big, thick, flap like fingers atop his even thicker arms.
"So how much time have we got?" Lisa asked.
"Oh it depends entirely on how good the away team is at stopping the Nazis from feeding Kamoebas radiation. We should have enough time to get the turtle out of here before then. Assuming they don't pull any fast ones on us." He replied while you gave it some thought and snapped your head down the street.
Okay with that in mind any moment spent here was a waste of time that imperilled lives and thus not something worthy of your further attention. With or without them you would put a stop to this. You are not going to back away from the gauntlet when it's been cast at you like this. More than simple pride was at stake, but if you wanted to step out of Samus and Arne's shadow; this would be a good time to do it.
You signalled to Sevrin to follow you, with follow up messages being dispatched to Bulkhead, Alice, and Idaliryn; and you let your suit trace the source of the Titan Call signal.
"+How many people are evacuated?+" You asked
"+Two thirds of the city, ground bridges are a wonderful thing.+" Bulkhead responded.
"+Can the autobots handle themselves there?+" You asked.
"+Sure can.+" He replied.
You shifted through alt-modes, vehicular and your own night-orb form, going through the terrain somewhat conspicuously to draw attention your way. Consequences be damned, if they wanted a fight, here you came. And it seemed that it found you quite early.
You could feel that stench of magic in the air, something frigid and cold. You ducked to the left and unfurled from your alt mode; catching a glimpse of the attacker.
Thule society uniform, purple with the armband of the Weltreich's primary magic division. He wore a circlet beneath his peaked wizard's hat, bedecked with magic Jewels, and you could tell that his cloak, bracers, pendant, two rings, belt, and essentially everything he wore was also magic. His staff was made of mystically charged oak and bound with magically reactive metal, capped with a sinister blue-white crystal that summoned forth the winter and frost while the blue crystal at the other end filled the air with a sense of humidity before water came pouring in from all sides.
He seemed to be a teenager, with a certain resemblance to Hexenhammer in Munich, albeit blonde and blue eyed; one eye pale blue and the other deep blue, with his hair seeming to fade into white at its tips. Definitely Idonia's child then, and the way his eyes seemed to almost twitch with irritation gave you the impression that he wasn't exactly the most patient or calm person. His face distorted into a bare toothed snarl as if he was disappointed that you were all that's coming.
With a casting motion from his gauntleted hand, he threw back his cloak to reveal his armoured tunic; certainly giving him the impression of having a flair for the dramatic. A blade ready at his belt that he unsheathed without a second thought, pointing it forwards towards you to give you a good look at the rapier in his hand that shimmered with cold prowess.
Artikscher Sohn, real name Clovis von Horstmann, is one of the children of Idonia von Horstmann, Reichsfuhrer of the Thule Society. At an early age, to enhance his magical capability, Clovis had the essences of Water and Ice Archomentals grafted into his soul following pressure from his mother to grow stronger and be more impressive compared to his siblings. Though he survived the process, it left him with heterochromia and "gold-platinum" hair that was deemed to be a deviation from the standards of perfection even if he could guise them with magic. Resentful towards his siblings who seemed able to collect their power without such a cost, Clovis has developed a surly and belligerent attitude ready to prove himself to his mother and stop his siblings from regarding him as weak. While relatively close to Ermendrude, Idonia has tried to discourage their friendship out of a belief that her children should compete to be the best rather than cooperate.
Clovis is somewhat erratic in battle due to the remnants of the personalities of the two elemental lords he consumed with a not fully perfected spell. He freely mixes in cold based temperature manipulation with hydrokinesis and hydrogenesis to inundate and freeze opponents solid as one of his more basic tricks to eliminate foes unable to counter it; screening out enemies not worth his time. His hydromancy and cryomancy has far deeper reaching applications than this however, and while his augmentive magic is mostly self-focused due to Nazi disdain for those who rely on the strength of others, he is capable of enhancing himself or his summons and allies quite capably. His ability to control the battlefield and form multi-layered defences along with his brutal determination make him highly feared, and his ironic difficulty with controlling his temper means that those who strike him will have to prepare for violent retaliation.
Clovis is, unlike most Cryomancers, not particularly vulnerable to heat based attacks due to his Hydromancy covering this weakness. However, his defences are most vulnerable to electrical impulses and light-based attack. He is also mercurial and easily distracted, having difficulty focusing down any foe in particular unless they consistently attack him. Distracting him with constant kiting is ideal to prevent him from locking down the battlefield.
Next to him was clearly one of his sisters, based on her face and your armour's read of her genetics. Full sister oddly enough, which was a bit unusual to be surprised about, but then from what you heard of Idonia von Horstmann's parenting skills and methods of siring children you kind of expected each person she threw at you to have a different father. Oh well.
She struck you as...ostentatious, wearing dashing looking gothic style plate coloured gunmetal with glorious platinum and ostentatious gold trimming and embroidery to make her status clear, mixed in with imperial purple witch's robes trimmed with forest green. Her witch's hat straight and the buckle bearing the symbol of the world chained in metal. Hardly the most auspicious choice of symbology, but given the fact that she was producing a rather nasty looking scepter-mace and a shield covered in runic script, you figured she wasn't much for subtlety.
Goldmaedchen's real name is Odilia von Horstmann, one of Idonia's daughters. A metallo and geomancer, Odilia is held in decent regard by her mother and her father, Ralph Ghorst. Primarily focused on transmutation and conjuration, Odilia has relatively little interest in evocation of energy or illusions and is quite physical for a She-Arcanist of the Thule Society. Taking to heart her mother's philosophy about strength, power, and the ultimate duty to produce good children, Odilia is more concerned with pleasing her mother than advancing in rank, viewing her role in life as being to ensure her mother's station. Personally tutored by her Father and eager to please her mother, Odilia has pushed herself to dangerous extremes of accelerated magical training in an attempt to distinguish herself from her sisters.
Odilia von Horstmann utilises a combination of battlefield control, summoning, and direct offensive tactics with a preference for getting in close. While having experience with more supportive magic, she tends to focus on augmenting herself for her preferred tactics over helping larger groups of people outside of her control capabilities. However she is capable of several debilitative support capabilities, especially against foes reliant on materials that she's adept at transforming or transmuting. As your own armoursuits are immune to her direct transmutations, you will need to help your more vulnerable allies survive her metallomancy. Keeping her occupied so that she cannot focus down enemies she is able to kill or otherwise remove from the battle instantly is paramount, as is mastery of counterspelling.
Odilia is calculating and aggressive and will typically seek out foes she is able to eliminate in short order unless prevented from doing so or if a present opponent is of substantially higher tactical priority to contain or eliminate. This makes her especially dangerous to more fragile allies or to more support focused team mates who will be her priority target to attempt to dismantle a team's cohesion. The ability to redirect her aggression through some means is highly crucial. Of your known allies, Tyrius Veldegard excels at this as a Tanker Archetype metahuman. Many of Alice's Demons and Fire Elementals are also experienced in this sort of damage redirection. Odilia is most vulnerable to having her focus overly set on a single target if it reads to her as important enough for her personal attentions; preventing her from fully influencing the wider engagement. While lacking in particular weaknesses, enemies she cannot directly affect with her transmutations also have an advantage over her.
"What is this? I was hoping for the Red and Blue helmed ones. Who even are you two?" Clovis said with some evident disdain in his voice, barely even giving note to the others.
"Someone not interested in hearing your banter. Get out of my way or I'll move you myself." You said, gesturing to the side to indicate where you'd like him to fuck off to.
"You have a lot of boldness for second stringers." He said, cold and frost collecting around his sword.
"You are certainly much less agreeable than your sister. Your mother must be terribly inconsistent with her parental teachings." Sevrin said, and you felt that tension on the skeins of fate as Clovis contorted his expression into one of white hot rage before water seemed to come from nowhere and rushed towards him with shockwave making speed; rushing in from all sides.
The warp pulsed, the narrative of the empyrean rewritten, hysh glowed bright and made steam of the incoming water before being hurtled forwards alongside Idaliryn's own righteous smiting energy, immediately countered by energy drain traps set up by Clovis to turn that power to frost, flakes of frozen atmosphere subliming away before they ever touched him.
"Are you done, brother?" Odilia sneered as she twisted her hand and wrenched the metal out of the reinforced concrete of nearby buildings and cast them as a storm of shrapnel, your missiles bursting out and impacting them to obliterate the shards before they could shred the undersiders who had just caught up; Bulkhead's sonic cannon releasing a concussive blast to flatten rows of vehicles and reverberate with the power of an Earthquake.
Alice's Myrmidions stepped into the sparks generated by igniting gas tanks in the car, teleporting into the flames and emerging in front of the sorceress whose form shimmered with energy before she slammed her scepter into one of the Fire Elemental guards, crumpling it into dying wisps; the looming form of water elementals behind you getting you to sidestep around, conjure up your spear and impale it through the centre with the weapon. Dark energy pulsed through the vaguely humanoid mass of truck sized water, withering it into collapse in an eyeblink while you let ice mortar rounds explode near other water Elementals pushing out of the sewer at Clovis' command, buying the others some time.
Fortunate, as Clovis had teleported above and had traced a glyph in the sky and incanted in his strange language. Walls of enchanted water flowed from nowhere to intercept Sevrin's solar bursts, dispersing into plasma despite the enchantments to resist heat but holding firm for now to allow him to finish his casting. A chill went outwards, sapping energy and momentum, Imp's attempt at hitting him with gunfire simply lead to bullets freezing in midair and waves of icicles to stab upwards in an attempt to impale her; only your own quick movements stopping the spell from skewering her with retaliatory ice spears longer than she was tall.
She blinked, she was elsewhere now, on a roof top as you teleported out and skated on some of the icy paths Clovis had created at Odilia's behest to allow Fifth Column Ubermensch to surf on them to get into range; the chatter of weapons fire ringing in your ears.
As Tattletale ducked under a car thrown like a softball by one of the Nazi supersoldiers, Brian's shadow engulfed him to slow his movements enough for Bulkhead to ram through the oversized musclemen in the shadows, sending them scattering through walls and various directions while his flail crushed others into messes that required immediate mediport. Your own weapons and abilities feeding off the darkness to lance through the Vampyr supersoldiers that had teleported in to take advantage of their preferred environs, dust billowing in its wake while you landed near one of the Undersiders.
"Anyone who tries anything with him is going to get clapped back almost instantly." Tattletale said, yanking Regent out of the way of an incoming water whip that cut through multiple buildings like playing cards met with a sharp sword, the thunderclap throwing the two of them back immediately after she said her piece.
You caught them yourself, setting them down and quickly ascertaining they would be fine.
"You'll be fine, get back into it." You said brusquely.
"He has some kind of retaliation effect set up, attempt to hurt him and his power automatically fires something back." She said, gesturing to the WIzard boy before you spun on your foot and brought up a shield, skidding backwards at the sudden impact of a magic sceptre but shoulder checking your suddenly appearing opponent with twice the force, your cannon releasing a super missile into her that hurtled her with force that would have sent her out of the combat zone if she hadn't transmuted herself to resist the knockback.
"Predictable, I thought you were supposed to be the smarter one." You said to Odilia as she picked herself up and dusted off her cape, her shield deflecting a laser fired from a shoulder mounted weapon with a swing and the ground erupting into projectiles aimed at Tattletale.
"You're the violent one of the four aren't you? Can't resist a good fight. A hedonist with bloodlust she can't keep under wraps." She taunted, a "tch" sound coming from you in response as you shunted the pair out of the way.
"What are you playing at?"
"You would make a good nazi, Fraulein. And I want to see it." She grinned while you felt something in your chest akin to vomit wanting to come up crossed with that sinking feeling you got when scolded by your caretakers.
"Shut up." You snarled.
"Make me future girl. Show me what you're really capable of." She tittered, wagging her finger at you as her valkyrie winged helm manifested over her face.
"+Agafya, we're having trouble keeping Clovis down with how often I have to pull people out of his retaliation zone.+" Sevrin said, the report of his teleportation ringing in the comms as he moved bulkhead out of the way of a cryometeor to allow Sevrin to vaporise it before it made impact.
"+I'll come, don't worry Edgar.+" You reassured him before she tilted her head and laughed.
"Come on, did you think we'd just send two Super-Agents per team of yours? Mommy dearest knows all about how strong you are. But you can't be everywhere at once can you? That makes having back-up quite handy as the Americans like to say." She teased as you realised that she was tipping her hand.
"You're separated, which means half my job is done, Fraulein." You could just about imagine the smirk beneath her helm, so full of herself. So eager to try and take you on to see what you were made of. Okay, good, that makes two of you.
Actions:
Present Party Members
Team Samus;
Samus Aran (Chozo Huntress, All-Rounder)
Arne Skjoldr (Alimbic Armiger, Brute)
Taylor Hebert (Warshade, All-rounder)
Bumblebee (Autobot Scout, Speedster)
Penelope Yin (Psion, all-rounder)
Eidolon (Parahuman, All-rounder)
Team Agafya;
Agafya Sokolova (Umbhar Ranger, Duelist)
Sevrin Agard (Ylla Paladin, Mixed Range-Support)
Alice Dahl (Human Demonologist, Summoner)
Idaliryn Thirmoak (Light-Eldar Knight, Melee-Support)
Brian Laborn (Parahuman, Support)
Lisa Wilbourn (Parahuman, Reconnaisance)
Rachel Lindt (Parahuman, Enhanced Dog Mistress)
Aisha Laborn (Parahuman, Stealth)
Alec Vasil (Parahuman, Mind alteration)
Bulkhead (Autobot heavy, Tanker)
Situation: The Horstmanns seem to be behind this, seeking to make Kamoebas go critical to cover the area with Hollow Earth radiation that will kill incompatible life forms and empower and mutate compatible ones, creating a major rash of heavily traumatised empowered people and likely multiple new Kaiju.
Which of the three Horstmann children is in charge is unclear, though they have reserves in waiting.
Erhard von Horstmann will focus on stopping interference from affecting his highly radioactive partner and trying to defeat enemies near him.
Odilia von Horstmann seems focused on playing mind games with the Inheritors.
Clovis von Horstmann is taking on the Undersiders, Bulkhead, Alice, and Idaliryn with his combination of raw power, magical skill, and large numbers of summons.
The Autobots and Protectorate are both on the scene, and the Wards will also be quick to respond to the destruction Clovis is inflicting.
The three Horstmann children are each considered Archvillain tier threats and are categorised as of a threat level significantly above Alice's Security level; while Alice herself is still only of Hero tier. This makes it a very bad idea for anyone besides the Inheritors, Penelope, Taylor, or Eidolon to fight them one on one.
Random allies and enemies will join the battle in later rounds.
Team Strategy: Pick five priorities and set from greatest to least.
[]: Civilian Defence (Defend civilians at the line of battle)
[]: Search and Rescue (Find civilians trapped in enemy territory and save them)
[]: Reconnaissance (find out where the foe is and what they're doing)
[]: Force annihilation (destroy as much of the foe as possible)
[]: Ally assistance (try to shore up the efforts of friendly military forces and pick up more team members to get eight people)
[]: Objective capping (Use your foresight to determine points of strategic interest and deal with them)
[]: HQ elimination (look for and kill important enemy characters, units, and structures to weaken their overall efforts)
[]: Fire Break (Contain any enemy advances and eliminate these pockets of advance to keep frontlines stable
[]: Lockdown (Stop the enemy from enjoying freedom of movement by eliminating their infrastructure to support it and choking the avenues they're using to move)
[]: DISTRACTION CARNIFEX!!! (Make the most noise possible to pull as much attention to yourselves as you can, drawing forces away from allies and civilians at obvious risk to yourself.)
Write in Team Tactics and Character Actions:
Write in specific tactics for the team to try such as ordering gunship bombing runs, attempting tandem warp attacks, certain patterns of attack the team should try out like the duodecimarchs clearing out organics to let Vista wreck mechanical foes or vista stretching space to let Alyrsero's casting reach farther than it should.
Then write in one specific action for each of the six characters such as say: Arne should comfort Samus' anxieties, Vista should keep close to Arne so he can meatshield for her, Sevrin should try to rein in Agafya's combat high, Alyrsero should try to scry enemy intentions or show Samus some tricks in the warp to learn how to divine foes better, Samus should try to slice into Rikti comm channels, or Agafya should go kill some big units. You could also try to use their smarts to set up some sort of device or cunning trick.
Write in target priority for teams in order of least to greatest.
(Team 1 has Kamoebas, Kurt, Erhard, Nazi minions, Possible reinforcements. Team 2 has Clovis, Odilia, Nazi Minions, Possible Reinforcements.)
"Well, I must admit, for the B-team you do have some skill." Clovis sneered as you vaporised masses of frost that he sent hurtling down the street in waves that could engulf divisions, each rippling Tsunami of cold seeming to be possessed of its own malevolent intelligence. He liked to talk, which was good, if he talked then he would be slightly less able to exploit his greater skill in the arcane arts than you.
Counterspelling wasn't your forte, or any sort of spell really, but you were able to get some in, stopping his Polar Vortex from draining energy from a wide area and leaving it to fizzle into little more than wisps of energy.
Your missiles rocketed towards him like the rounds of a gatling gun, each spreading out into multiple missiles which dispersed into multiple warheads, but you were mindful of their words. There would be more than just the two of them here. They were an army after all, you were a bunch of kids.
"Amateurish magicks won't avail you or your insane schemes human." Idaliryn said as he let forth the chains of light from the warp, cracks into the empyrean slipping through and trying to grab onto Clovis to hold him down while he was focused on his defences against you. But true to his word, he did in fact have help; his shadow leaping to life, spreading wings and opening up fissures to another realm to absorb the radiant energies of hysh in a howl of sound and a flash of darkness.
Nachtwache is a hybrid of an Unseelie Fey and a Netherworld entity of pure darkness bound to the service of Idonia von Horstmann due to her unusually intimate knowledge of the workings of the fair folk. Nachtwache's existence has been a pained one from the very beginning, with their form carefully rigged to be incapable of defying the orders of Idonia or their higher-ups in the Thule Society, and having to consign themselves to hiding in the shadows of superiors while never being able to attain advancement due to their non-human and non-aryan nature. A state of affairs that Nachtwache resents deeply but due to the branding placed upon him by Idonia is one that he has no power to alter or defy, forcing him to channel his rage instead against the enemies of the Weltreich that he is enslaved to.
Nachtwache is a guileful foe that makes heavy usage of illusions, shadow magic, umbramancy as well as hexes in order to control engagements and make up for his relative lack of direct firepower; while also draining life force to bolster his own essence. Able to conjure servants from his dark realm or create bridges of shadow for Nazi soldiers to make use of, Nachtwache is also able to possess a target and bond with them to increase both of their powers and take control of them. However due to the bindings placed on him, he cannot attempt to do this to an unwilling Aryan or Nazi and a willing Aryan or Nazi will always be in control of the symbiosis. This merging augments the physical capabilities of both the host and the Shadow creature, but introduces his weakness to Cold forged Iron and Light energy to them. When without a host, Nachtwache can make weapons from his amorphous body should his magic be insufficient for a battle, and is able to use his shadow bridges to absorb attacks that might otherwise be devastating to him.
Nachtwache is weak to light based attacks and damage, Cold forged Iron, probability alteration, and is relatively unimpressive physically. While agile and able to form a large variety of armaments to deal with potential foes, if forced into a contest of raw brute strength, you should be easily able to overcome him as long as you can prevent him from slipping away. He also relies heavily on a large supply of minions to provide spare bodies and cover his weaknesses, as such dimensional locks and area of effect weapons indirectly counter many of his tactical strengths. Make usage of alternative visor modes such as the Incarnate Visor to track him if he attempts to hide through invisibility or dimensional shifting or via illusion, and while skilled with magic, he has little experience with the power of the Warp which can be used to damage his essence.
The Darkness soon shifted and took a more humanoid shape, a moonlight white glowing grin emerging from the approximation of a head in a jack-o-lantern like smile while he laughed, Clovis smirking while he floated near the beast which clung to his shadow like a shield, hiding within and around it while the Wizard's staff was pointed towards you.
"I told you that I wasn't going to be alone." He said with venomous confidence as the Wizard boy smirked and let his spell book manifest in a hand while its pages flipped with flashes of mystical energy. He was about to cast something big then, especially if the Bat he conjured to rest upon his shoulders was supposed to be his familiar rather than just a random animal, which was a pretty reasonable guess given that the cat-sized flying rodent had the same pale-blue soul aura he did, and the golden furred creature's pale blue eyes just struck you as being of the same breed of creepy.
"But I will admit, I do have to take you somewhat seriously now. Ho-hum." He said as he made his gestures, glyphs appearing in front of him while his incantations started.
"Winter and frost, ice and cold, chill and snow! COCYTUS' EMBRACE!" He said, his gylph exploding into energy that shot into the sky before the sky began to rain cryo-meteorites, orbs of frost larger than busses that exploded in contained spheres of chill that engulfed city blocks in layers of ice that willed themselves to life in the form of devilish looking beasts of snow and frost, shaking off excess debris from their forms as they tore themselves free.
You never expected a child to be so wantonly willing to engage in such destruction, at least...not a human child. Trace may be, but Clovis was just a boy...hardly older than you. You wanted to say something, to make him snap out of it, but words were failing you as your body went into autopilot. Just dodge, shoot down projectiles, keep him busy with seeker missiles to overload his spell-focus; test his shell of water and ice for weakness while he let tendrils of water lash at you in kilometre-long whips that sliced through rock and stone like air.
But the rain of frost was so much worse than the buildings he carved in half or the minor earthquakes generated by the ground slipping and sliding with the furrows he carved out of it with his whips. Each meteor that fell made the ground shake with power contained to a limited area of effect to be more likely to cause you damage, though he clearly lacked the aim with it to actually hit you. But that wasn't the problem, the issue was the destruction he was unleashing. More than a dozen blocks pulverised into the ice and twisted into magical life by the wizard's incantation in an eyeblink, and had the spell run its course it was likely he'd have left the Bay in need of complete rebuilding.
But that was not to be so.
Fire and flame rose forth to intercept the cold and snow that fell however, Alice's spells pouring out of Hellmouths that she willed open with her own incantations in Demontongue that she cast forth into the sky to stop more of Clovis' meteors from tearing apart Brockton Bay.
"What do you think you're doing?! You're just a kid! What's the point of smashing up this much of this city!?" Alice shouted over the din of battle while the Undersiders, content with being ignored, sought to get closer to Clovis while Bulkhead smashed his way through the Ice monsters battling with Alice's Demons and Fire Elementals in the streets.
"Look at this filth and squalor and tell me that it's architecture worth preserving." He spat as he let out a barrage of bitterly cold rays of frost magic from his staff and pointed towards you to let out a directed tsunami, the torrent of water moving outwards in a cone with all the mass and power of a real tidal wave. Let yourself take that hit, let him think he had you where he wanted you, push through it while he thought he had you beat.
"+Tattletale, do you have a read on his defences?+" You asked, calmly as your shielding ticked down while the water rushed forwards at immense speeds.
"+ How did you get this frequ-...yes, his spells need to use gestures and key phrases or else he needs to use up more of his reservoir of power. Regent should be able to interfere with it if he can get close.+"
You blinked, using your teleport system to grab regent as he was trying to roll through the weapons fire of nazi soldiers attempting to lock down other capes who had refused to leave the area. He stiffened a bit, not expecting to feel your armoured hand on him. "Sorry, but you can interrupt his casting right?" You asked briefly, waiting only for the sensation of his acceptance before you then teleported once more.
Time, space and the universe itself stretched to your destination and you fired off a grapple beam to tug Clovis closer until Regent was close enough to induce his muscles and nerves to pinch and spasm. A force that his spellcraft hadn't designed defences around, and one that made him seize up and drop many of his spells while Idaliryn brought forth the light to repel Nachtwache.
But as Agafya vaulted behind you, you got the sense of immediate death very nearby, something about ready to step out of a hidden place at the behest of Odillia as she tore the metal out of the reinforced concrete of nearby structures to create storms of projectiles to carve their way through Alice's demons.
You vaulted over a scythe that stabbed through the veil of reality and sliced clean through a building behind you, splitting it at the very spiritual level before a cold feeling of misfortune washed around you, your landing not being as clean as it normally was while the visage of death itself slid out of the shadows; a six meter tall hooded apparition of a skeleton with a great, wicked scythe in its hands.
Gevatter Tod is an entity animated by unknown form of negative, anti-living energy that grants them a tremendous deal of resilience but a vulnerability to the energies of life; while being healed by energies associated with the unloving. While it is unlikely Gevatter Tod was any sort of living being beforehand, he can be safely classified as an Undead entity. Gevatter Tod is feared among the hero community for his ability to interfere with mediportation systems by dimensionally locking his victims with his spellcraft, and those slain by him are extremely difficult to resurrect by any means short of God-grade Incarnate intervention. Analysis of Weltreich records suggest that he is not a native to the Sourcewell Metaversal Cluster, confirmed by his reality signatures. Where he is from remains sealed in intranet servers kept inaccessible from the scan visor at this current distance, but his service seems to have been secured by the Nazi regime all the same.
Particularly devastating hits by Tod can threaten instant death to those lacking your immunities should they lack the resilience or fortune to resist the effect, and even if this is survived these hits can still cause lengthy disorientation, nausea, and weakness. Gevatter Tod also drains vital energy from those he touches or hits with either his incorporeal form or his scythe, weakening them and replenishing his own vitality, and manipulates probability in an aura around him to the disadvantage of his enemies. The souls harvested by Tod are used to augment his defences as a sort of shielding, and his gaze pierces most forms of invisibility, stealth, shapeshifting, and illusion and can determine the strengths, weaknesses, history, and status of any being he sees much like your scan visor. Sufficiently weakened beings can be instantly killed with a single word in a primordial language that Gevatter tod knows. Gevatter Tod is able to create minor "Kleintods" that while lacking the ability to threaten instantaneous death on enemies who lack sufficient resilience to overcome the effects of particularly telling blows by Tod's scythe; drain vitality and power from those they impact until there is nothing left to feed on and have the ability to produce another Kleintod whenever attacked by something besides the target Gevatter Tod designates for them.
Gevatter Tod is weak to light-based damage as well as to healing energies, but is able to summon other undead entities to his side, and can struggle to keep up with foes who can stay out of his reach due to his almost exclusive focus on melee. Note that Gevatter Tod is an incorporeal entity, only attacks capable of interacting with nonphysical entities or are specifically antithetical to the undead can cause him harm. Gevatter Tod also possesses a weakness to attacks done by the especially morally righteous so long as they are able to channel that righteousness in some manner. He has an aversion to religious symbolism wielded with conviction by those who abhor the Undead, and his spellcraft, while formidable is very focused on bringing death and getting himself within attack range, with relatively limited utility or battlefield control capabilities. While his time alteration field allows him to act far more quickly than normal, it can be temporarily disrupted with counter-magic or magic suppressing effects to slow him down.
"A little birdie told me that you have a way to cheat death. Gevatter Tod should help with that inconvenience, at least with your friends. You though...you're interesting. So we'll make him heel for a bit. Only with you though, with this trash? Hrm...Gevatter...kill them." Odilia said as the Reaper let out a hiss in a language you didn't yet understand.
"Tell me I'm dreaming..." Brian murmured at the sight of the Undead monstrosity as they let a plasma burst from a freshly arriving Armsmaster simply pass through them, slowly turning to an electricity emitting demonic tiger summoned by Alice, a beast the size of a house whose mane of lightning and horns of darkness would have made them stand out in virtually any crowd.
The Tiger pounced towards the reaper, and was promptly split in two with a single movement, the Tiger's essence drained into its scythe as a harsh shriek of soul stuff flowing around the blade went across the battlefield. You felt something sickening in your gut, and Armsmaster briefly stopped his motorcycle at the spectre of death's unhurried progress towards Alice; some of the demons who sought to interpose themselves between the reaper and their mistress stumbling on their faces or being sliced through with a single sweep of its harvest tool.
"Brother, are you alright?" Odilia asked before Agafya appeared next to her in a tackling movement, getting a loud "OOF!"out of her as she was smashed into the street before being cold-clocked in the face with her left hand.
"You talk too much." Agafya said, your weapons fire suppressing a squad of Nazi troops trying to move into sniper positions while she prepared to finish Odilia off with a final headslam before the mage teleported away from her; gritting her teeth and calling forth a steely mustelid from her sleeve; her familiar. A creature that leapt at Agafya with magically enhanced determination and frenzy, some slices gouging into her shield and letting Odilia hammer her with a barrage of disintegrating rays that brought her to a single knee.
"Shut your B-list mouth already. Tod, darling please hurry up and kill one of them!" Odilia snarled while her staff commanded tendrils of metal to try and grab at the already incorporeal Agafya; a blast of warp-light exploding in front of her face courtesy of you to make Odilia snarl with sudden, brief dazzling. Tod, seeming to resent the young girl's presumption to command him, hissed briefly before turning towards Alice and brandishing his scythe, moving towards her with deadly intent.
"Brother get off your ass and do something!" She howled.
Clovis was already in motion, pushing himself back up and stiffening his pain reflexes with his ice magic, jittering from Regent's inducement of pain and cramps in his body.
"You...slavic...FILTH!" Clovis snarled as he looked at his robes, stained with sweat from his body's convulsions at his command.
"Nachtwache, tear him to pieces!" He shouted, pushing himself onto his feet with his staff, clearly still feeling the aftershocks of pain from a near all-body nerve pinch that seemed to make every movement of his hurt. But that didn't bother the shadow beast that leapt from his side, eager to engulf Regent who attempted to hijack the creature's physiology only to find he had no idea how a magical entity like it even worked, freezing a bit before one of Rachel's dogs tackled it while it was in the midst of transforming into a horrid thing of bladed limbs and thrashing clubs.
Brian had gotten close enough to go for the caster's neck as he created a series of glyphs that erupted in bitterly cold rays of anti-energy to swat at PRT officials trying to use containment foam on him, reducing armoured cars, people, and tinker-tech robots to icy dust while others had their water pulled out of their bodies and spun into monowire water-whips to carve through more foes.
With Grue bursting from the darkness as Clovis focused his spells on trying to repel Idaliryn's bursts of Warp-energy and Winterpyre's overwhelming Demonic magics; Grue finally managed to grab him thanks to Idaliryn dispelling his contingent defences, wrapping his hands around the neck of the younger wizard.
"G-GET OFF!" He snarled.
"You need to say the magic words to cast that don't you?" Grue said before Clovis threw a nee into...ooof. Grue crumpling onto his knees before Clovis, eyes full of rage turned to the boy.
"You god damn ape, how dare you?!" He shouted as he let his hand charge up with electricity, this wasn't a spell meant to kill, it was meant to torture. Not if you had anything to say about it, you thought as you looked briefly at Aisha and then fired off the grapple beam at Clovis' legs to pull him off his feet and drag him straight towards imp.
"+You have watched the wrestling shows of this time yes?+" You said.
"+...The Pay per view stuff? Uh, not like, legally bu-+"
"+Close enough. Go for the throat.+" You said as she nodded and dove off the bit of rubble she was using as a perch and then slammed elbow first into Clovis' neck. He'd survive, but that'd be enough to leave him gasping for air.
"...CLOVIS YOU IMBECILE!" Odilia shouted as she tried to rip up the wiring in the streets to grab at the people trying to keep her brother down, but that gave Bulkhead enough of an opening to, with your direction, modulate his fields to block out her metallomancy and then catch her in a sweep of his flail, throwing through through several walls.
"Herr Horstmann is down! Supporting fire!" One of the nazi troopers shouted, and your danger sense came to life as you immediately rushed to Imp and tackled her, forcing yourself and her to go intangible as they bombarded the area with enhanced contained neutron-warheads. The furor of a neutron bomb magnified to even greater levels forcibly contained within energy fields to ensure no power was wasted as the strange, haunting blue Cherenkov radiation left sinister glows in the wake of the deafening blasts.
Battery however, was more than helpful; the woman diving in and immediately knocking down the Ubermensch who had fired off the first of the Neutron Barrage, an incarnate slam to the back tossing the trooper over the rooftop while she gave you a thumbs up and roundhouse yet another one of the Germans.
Now...that just left the Grim Reaper over there who seemed to not stop for anything, relentlessly pursuing Alice as she tried to run, fight or hide without loosening the chains on Winterpyre as the Demon Prince tried to dissuade the undead with bursts of hellflame to little avail.
"I need something that can bypass its intangibility." Armsmaster asked, having abandoned his motorcycle when important components within it broke down after getting too close to the reaper. His aura had the tiniest bit of frustration within it, seeing his halberd fail to connect with the ghostly figure, while you cut your way through Ice Elementals rising up to try and buy Clovis space while he whimpered from previous pain.
"Something light based, or raw kinetic power." You said, letting your power beam hit the reaper to buy time for Alice as the undead carved through armoured myrmidons like tissue paper.
"I can't teleport away from it!" Alice shouted, the hellmouths she opened already starting to seal shut in the Reaper's presence.
Agafya's shots were intercepted by lesser versions of Gevatter who pulled themselves free of his shadow, scythes moving to intercept her weapons fire to prevent her from interfering in the harvest while she threw spells at the creature who simply shrugged off her magics; a whistle from her bringing in Bulkhead's incorporeal phasic mace to sweep around the area and strike down some of the shadowy spectres of death.
"Light-based then?" Legend offered as he appeared, darting around the reaper's swing of its scythe as its weapon made deadly arcs, carving through demons and fire elementals alike with the effort of moving through the air.
Your own cannon switched to its radiance beam for its primary mode while you nodded; Agafya jumping in to grab at the reaper's scythe to block the movement of the weapon before it could make impact on Alice after it had cut through her whip.
Something unusual, unknown was swirling around the Scythe and the Reaper; a power divine and mythic, but not yet known to you. It wanted to kill, to bite into the very stuff of the soul and send it screaming into oblivion. It made you worry terribly to see Agafya try to stop it from reaching impact, grabbing at its haft and grunting loudly. Straining less with its raw power and more with its conceptual need to end life. If not alice's, then Agafya's, if it could.
But you wouldn't let it. Light pooled in your cannon, in your soul, in the air, and it reached forth, and the fist of the sun struck into the dead thing from both sides while its defences were clashing with the secondary weapons of Agafya and the attacks of Bulkhead's large arsenal. The Reaper shuddered, hissed, boiling from its sides as it regarded you with a gaze of hate before it muttered its hate in a strange language and a baritone felt as much as it was heard before disappearing with time and space folding around it before the belated arrival of Winterpyre could further turn the tide.
Where was the Demon King? Why was he so late? You squinted a bit, then looked at Agafya offering a hand to Alice as she breathed hard.
"Are you alright?" She asked.
"Yeah...brought the brown undies..." She groaned as she breathed hard, looking towards her Demonic patron who regarded her with his odd, empty flaming eye sockets and made a strange sound akin to a pot of pasta boiling.
"Winterpyre...stop Kamoebas...please..." She begged of the Demon before she spoke in Enochian; Demontongue.
"Where have you been?" Bulkhead hazarded to ask.
"I have affairs that demand my personal touch. But Eudaimonica is safe with me, now and forever." He said, snarling as fire slipped his maw and he turned towards the Kaiju, his bulk expanding as Alice weaved with his chains, letting a little more of his power flow into him at a time until his form dominated your field of view.
Was this safe?
Samus
The radioactive man was the highest priority, but Erhard was certainly not making things easy as he wreathed the battlefield in fire and flame; swirling vortices trying to cut up and divide your battle lines while his spellcraft whirled into shapes of living flame.
"What do you know of honour?!" He snarled, clearly not taking Taylor's last remark very well as the wizard let runes and glyphs decorate the sky with careful gestures of his hands and a short ditty in old germanic.
"Where's the honour in destroying a city?!" She shot back while Eidolon moved to absorb the radiation that his comrade was outputting; letting his powers shift to stop the onslaught of gamma rays that were intended to be fed to Kamoebas while the enormous Turtle swatted at Nazi supersoldiers and aircraft buzzing around it.
"LOYALTY TO MY MOTHER AND FAMILY!" He said, briefly getting your attention as you teleported through a maze of fiery glyphs that erupted into screaming meteorites that exploded outwards like the shrapnel of bombs, erupting into further cluster shards in all directions and spitting out ever more intricate webs of searing rays of heat and light.
"So you just do what mama tells you?"
"A child is supposed to bey their parents. That is why I was put on this earth, to obey, to heed, to honour my family name, what could you ever understand about that you peasant?!" He shouted as the blazing heat he was conjuring all over started to wrap around Taylor, probing the cloud of shard enhanced insects she had flying around her to provide her with a shield. Seeking to allow his magic to open inside, to scorch her flesh and burn her frame.
"You who were born from mud, so much gutter trash and genetic sloppy seconds!" He spat with hotheaded fury while Penelope's psychic force started crashing into him; his magical defences flashing as he felt the crushing weight of her mind on them, a grunt coming from him as he made his headband glow a little more fiercely to try and shore up his defences.
"Not even ashes will remain of you mongrels, you and all your stupid friends and your awful, sewer city." He shouted, letting a whip of hellflame form in his hand as he lashed it around, psychic supersoldiers trying to reinforce his defences while you danced through the weave of ubermensch thrown at you, screw attacking straight through a flying brick and then releasing a burst of missiles into the face of some power suit wielder until heir armour shattered.
Arne had teleported in close, finding a hole that he could fit through in his web of dimensional anchors, his hammer unfurling from the left hand of his suit and then crackling with lightning before he quietly made his move and brought in a heavy swing.
Erhard grunted as the impact crashed into him at incredible force, the air seeming to shatter briefly before the shock coil threaded its arcs of power into his defences, draining from him and getting a cry of pain from the boy as his eyes shot open with hurt and shock; right before Taylor gave him a satisfying clock to the face with her right hand, darkness enveloping him as he made a wet spitting sound.
You were closing in now, bouncing from one target to the next before firing off your ice beam into Kurt, keeping an eye on Erhard and releasing a few bursts of seeker missiles in his direction while cold and frost exploded all around the radioactive man who only seemed to laugh at the sensation of pain.
It wasn't a pleasant laugh, the sort that made you grit your teeth and scowl. Why would someone enjoy getting hurt like that?
"God I've forgotten what it's like to be hurt." He said with a laugh before you grimaced and then unfurled your blade; configuring it into the dual-sword staff configuration that was emblematic of Mawkin Chozo Warriors, letting cold envelop it before you swung into him, giving Eidolon a signal with a flash of your visor.
Come on, you said, hoping he at least got it since neither of you had settled on any sort of code; but it was what he needed to teleport in and then fire off a blast of raw cold into the power armoured nazi who let out a hoarse grunt and flailed as the frost engulfed him, his shielding dimming and weakening just as Bumblebee was thinning the numbers of his helpers, slamming the heads of two flying robots into each other and backflipping off to shoot down a gunship nearby.
"More, MORE!" Kurt laughed before he let out a pulse of atomic energy, emerald and hot, a green sun and an atomic blast all in one; contained in a small area that expanded out to engulf you. No sense in phasing through it, you just took it on the chin as he went under the fissile equivalent of a supernova, all contained to a hundred meter radius around him while you pushed closer.
He was arrogant, loud, a masochist who loved a challenging fight but probably never faced a serious losing battle before. You just had to get closer, teleporting up to him and swinging the blade across his chest, cannon and back up weapons firing away while you were roiling in the radioactive heat of a dying star, ticking down your energy tanks, but then you let the warp surge into you; pushing incarnate energy into that power and then shoving forward until you felt something give, as the blade hungered for the weak point in his armour, slipping through a joint and stabbing into flesh under the process of detonating.
"You think that's enough?! You think I can be stopped with a little pinprick like that? You thi-" Kurt started before cold flowed through the Chozo blade and into the nuclear reactions of Kurt's body and like a carbon rod, arrested the processes that gave him life. He didn't scream, he didn't shout, he didn't curse you, to your relief; you inflicted death, but you never revelled in it. It was hard to watch people scream in pain, even when you knew they probably deserved it, so the rapid dying down of his voice as his furnace glow cooled was welcome.
"I know it's enough." You said, letting Kurt fall off the blade as his viridian glow dimmed from a new sun to floodlights to torches to candles and then to a glow in the dark stick before nothing at all as he slumped to the ground, his body dissipating as emergency systems shunted him back to whence he came.
"Why do you want to please your mom so much?" Arne asked as he bounced off of one of Erhard's explosive glyphs while the fires within his body started to intensify. Aqshy and other incendiary powers drawing towards him as he pulled out limiters on his spirit with screams of frustration, his eyes starting to erupt in fire.
"You're killing yourself...for what?!" He asked.
"I won't disappoint her! I can't fail her. I can't..." He stammered as he seemed to spasm from the fiery energy he was imbibing, grabbing at the sides of his head before snorting tongues of fire and screaming out a gout of fire that was absorbed by Arne's circular shield; pushing him somewhat back while Taylor approached through the whirling serpentine shapes of flame trying to reach her through her teleportation.
"It's over...your trump card is gone." He said, trying to be reasonable, trying to be rational.
"IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER! I'LL FIX IT! I HAVE TO! I HAVE TO WIN I HAVE TO I HAVE TO I HAVE TO! MOMMY PLEASE...I'M DOING MY BEST!" He screamed, breathing raggedly as the wizard was beset by Yin's increasingly harsh psionic presence; Idaliryn reaching out with his own longer ranged warp energy to try and weave through his defences.
"What are you trying to pu-" Taylor said before you felt your danger senses burn to life, immediate, imminent threat. Pins and needles, every hair standing up, eyes wide and breath shallow as he tore forth a nuclear bomb into being, Kamoebas turning his head towards the source of radiation already crackling with strange energies from the meal offered by Kurt.
"Heheheh...you know what this is right future man?" He forced himself to make an unnatural, shaky laugh.
"A neutron bomb won't win you this fight." Arne said coldly.
"No no...but it will finish my mission. I set this off, or the turtle eats it and he goes critical. You'll live sure, but there will be a new sunrise over New England. A canned morning." He laughed, wheezing through his lungs as his eyes twitched, his body shaking.
"You don't want to do this." You said, ending your silence; letting the battle around you all fade while he looked at you with sad eyes.
"Mother is counting on me, it doesn't matter what I want." He sighed.
"You can stop this, all of this. Stand down."
"What would you do for your parents?" He asked, the question making something in you heave and lurch as anger tried to leap out your throat and strangle the impertinent little bastard to death.
"I can feel it from you...Orphan huh?" He said with almost surprising calmness.
"Adoptive family?" He asks as Taylor approached him through his walls of fiery defences; his supplies of minions starting to run low while the bomb's timer ticked down with a glyph and the Turtle broke through the cordon, eager for a fresh meal of radiation.
"They'll be in a better place, mom promised." He said while you shook your head.
"That doesn't make it right to kill them. They didn't ask to die." You said.
"Who does?" He said, wavering a bit as he looked at the bomb, you're almost through to him...you could end this without pummeling the face off of a child.
"Please stop, it's over." You said, letting him see that he was outnumbered now.
"I...I..." He stammered.
Winterpyre's form emerged from the spark of his flame with wings of ash and the face of death, magma crackling and ice flowing as the Demon King's lash struck across Erhard and sent him into spasms of pain amplified by the agony he had inflicted reflected back onto him by the Demon's stare; liquid pain shooting through him while your mouth dropped down beneath your helmet.
"WINTERPYRE NO!" You shouted as the Demon turned to the bomb and unhinged his bovine skull like jaws and simply swallowed the explosive.
"TRICKSTER! DECEIVER! LIAR! YOU JUST WANTED MY GUARD DOWN HUH?! THE FIRE IS MINE! MINE! And you...all of you..." He snarled and spat before gritting his teeth.
"You will all pay! Mom was right about you kinds of people, lying greedy apes!" He howled as he carved open his own glyph gate and flew back into it; shaking from the pain.
"And you...Dawnchild...I'm going to remember your lying whore mouth!" He sneered as he closed the gate behind him; leaving only the matter of a giant turtle who could crush most of brockton bay by simply slamming its hands onto the ground hard enough.
"+Hey I uh...found some nazi thing and Chris helped turned it off.+" Dennis cut in over the radio, the relief you should have felt marred by the anger you felt towards the Demon, your stare venomous; fixated on the Lord of the Frostflame rather than the Daikaiju whose movements had the whole of New England's breath held.
Arne set his cannon to missile mode and fired off a radiation warhead, letting the turtle swallow it as a good will gesture that got Kamoebas to nod in seeming appreciation as their irritation seemed to diminish. But you, you would have words with the Demon; even as Kamoebas started to turn towards the see and rumbled as they entered a swimming position.
Your stare never wavered, even when you returned to land, and the King of the Demons Alice commanded reported to him first; not Eudaimonica. Only after a lengthy conversation in Enochian did he turn to his charge, speaking his soft whispers to her and words of encouragement, congratulating her on feeling comfortable with letting loose more of his might and power.
Was this really a case of a monster who wanted to show their redemption with the love of an adopted child? Or was it just a long con by Mephistopheles and his underaged Faust?
"You." You said to the Demon who turned his head towards you and snorted fire from his open nostrils that froze to shards of ice at their ends.
"And what would the first of the Duodecimarchs ask of me?" He questioned in his rumbling baritone that seemed so very insincere now, everything he did was suspect now. Did that make you like Agata? Her endless suspicions of everyone not proven beyond any room for doubt? Gods you hoped not.
"What did you tell your troops?" You asked accusingly.
"These are mistress Eudaimonica's soldiers I am merely a ge-" He said, calm and sibilant in his tone before you shot him down.
"You are their King. You just let her borrow them. You tell me what you said, now." You hissed with discontentment, the Demon seeming to flinch at your words.
"Only that I congratulate them for their exemplary service in keeping the damage contained. Please, what is with this hostility?" He asked, seeming hurt and confused, though you had read his records. He was a notorious liar, a devourer of souls and a bringer of apocalypses with countless deaths on his blood drenched claws. A being of sin and malice who danced on endless graves now claiming to turn a new leaf. Was it a lie? It could be. You didn't want it to be...but he was once like something else winged and fiery, something that still haunts your dreams. Can anything change from that?
Sevrin pulled you aside before you could make your response as you shook your head, leaving the Demon to his confusion while the Cavalier of the Ylla looked to you through his helmet.
"It would be best to keep his awareness of our suspicions to a minimum for now." Sevrin said quietly, a nod coming from you.
"You really do pick up too much from Aggie, don't you?" You said quietly back with a smirk, a snort coming from the lad.
"Probably." He admitted as the two of you went out of ear and eyeshot.
...
A few hours passed, the damage to the city was being mended at record rates with the aid of the forces gathered, and loss of life was thankfully low for the carnage that occurred. Yet people still seemed lost in their own city, confused, many stumbling around as if they had just woken up. PRT Officers were swarming everywhere that the city deemed they should.
The air of unapproachability offered by your armour was nice sometimes, not many people bothered you with questions, far too many thought you were some sort of machine or cyborg to bother you with personal information requests or questions you weren't sure on the answer to. But it also meant few people sought you out to comfort you besides your tight-knit circle of friends.
Bumblebee was surprisingly good at offering a sounding board to talk to though, the Autobot seated next to you while you looked out into the horizon.
"What does Jetfire think?" You asked.
"=Life finds a way.=" He responded, the Jurassic Park clip finally being something you recognised.
Taylor seemed to be more worried though, she had been teleporting around, looking for something, her distress getting more and more sour in your empathic senses. Her temper shorter, her patience for questions diminishing every time she returned. She was about ready to cry the last time you saw her; but then she came with a man that your armour noted had a genetic similarity ratio that suggested that he was...
"Danny Hebert." She said, clearly rehearsed, voice shifted, the man looking around in confusion.
"Have you seen my daughter? I've been looking for her all over and I can't find her anywhere." He said, his voice shaken, eyes puffy and red. He'd been crying, and you felt your heart sink that you couldn't just tell him that he was looking at what he was searching for.
"Please...I lost her mother...I can't...I'm not strong enough to..." He panted, exhaling and slumping somewhat forward, the after effects of adrenaline leaving the body.
"She's fine. I saw her nearby, I'll tell her to come look for you." She said, letting the Nictus inside of her force the words out of her throat so that she wouldn't choke on them.
"I...thank you...all of you." He breathed out a sigh of relief.
"=No problem pops.=" Bumblebee quipped as he offered a friendly wave that you and Arne mimed.
Taylor stepped next to you through the shadows, her black moth outfit's wings folding behind her as she sighed. "If I didn't have someone else to say that for me..." She murmured.
"I wouldn't have been able to lie like that." You said, smiling beneath your helmet, albeit weakly while Arne seemed more content to just watch people go about their lives.
"Hey, you holding up alright? That was a pretty rough set of events and..." She said before you gave her a thumbs up.
"I'll live." You replied.
"Best to be with your father. Cherish the moments while you have them." Sevrin said.
"Hey I don't tell you how to live your family life goldilocks." She rolled her eyes beneath her mask while looking back at her dad and then back to them.
"Be back later then." She said, teleporting out so she could change shapes without being noticed; so that she could run and give him the proper hug of relief she'd been holding in.
You felt happy, yet also saddened by it. You hadn't seen your own family in so long...you frowned and tried to keep quiet, you didn't want anyone else to know how you felt. It was wrong to be sad during a moment of relief.
Arne laid his helmeted head on your pauldron and exhaled, and you felt just a bit less alone as you pulled him in a bit tighter.
You didn't have to face it all on your own.
Interlude Choices:
Pick three
[]: Mother May I: Idonia speaks to some of her children in the aftermath of the failure at Brockton Bay
[]: Musings of the Learned: The caretakers of the main four discuss some matters of perhaps cosmic significance
[]: Four of Twelve: Four more Duodecimarchs are examined briefly, giving a window of how things are going back home.
[]: One man's trash: Trazyn has some oddball collection habits.
[]: Terra Firma: The Earth Defence Force in the Titanverse is growing desperate in the endless age of monsters and looks for ways to do more than just survive.
[]: Into the Abyss: Reveals one more universe involved.
[]: Toil and Trouble: Cauldron's efforts to get things back on rails bring them to study things that were once dismissed as fantasy.
[]: Hearts of Iron, Souls of Data: Citadel and Dragon have a talk one A.I to another.
[]: My Father's Daughter: Taylor has a heart to heart with her father and realises how fragile he is in the grand scheme of things
[]: Shadow Kings: The Nictus who ultimately pull the strings of most of the great fascist empires in the Sourcewell Metaverse advance their agendas.
[]: Mein Fuhrer: Armin Ziegler prepares his Reich for its newest war of conquest.
[]: An Empire of the Darkened Sun: Another fascist society, this one to Imperial Japan as the Weltreich is to Nazi Germany, seeks dangerous knowledge as it prepares to rekindle an old partnership.
[]: To Protect and Serve: The Protectorate and its counterparts in other countries make an effort to build a united front, and discuss what has been going on.
[]: My Brother's Keeper; Guilliman and Dorn talk about what Earth means to them in the wake of Ghazghkull's conquest of Terra so many years ago.
[]: Sons of Eldanesh: Alyrsero gets an annoying reminder that being of the illustrious house of the greatest of the Eldar families comes with responsibilities, as well as some troubling hints about something else in his lineage.
[]: Sound and Shock: Soundwave and Shockwave are working on something assuredly terrible.
Finding Beyond Metaverse, 2031 circa Anno Domini Calendar, 4831 circa Golarian Calendar.
In a distant reality, swirling with the quintessence of the souls of the dead was a realm suffused with the sins of the malicious and the lawless. A pit at the bottom of a multiverse comprised of endless realms of horror and cruelty, worming its way towards a seemingly endless bottom, a cancer far more malicious than the malestrom of pure whimsy above it, far less organised than the blasted wastelands of hate or the nine circles of tyranny that shared its stance on morality.
This was the Abyss. And it was beset by a new form of roiling storm, its sins and malice feeding into another realm of chaos, and its demons at war with a new sort of daemon. Not the beasts of self-loathing they knew, but things of emotion and storyflesh who hungered for the malice, the corruption, and the excess of the Abyss. One such realm was Demons and Daemons battled in skies of a realm of false hope, magic, and torment before the eyes of its reptilian lord.
Abraxas, one of the very eldest of Demonkind, without having had to be one of the firstborn of the Abyss beforehand. The great Demon King of Corrupt Magic and Poisoned knowledge. A monster whose legs were two winding snakes and whose hands held whip and shield that gazed upon the battles with eyes of contempt from his head, akin to that of the skull of a fanged bird decorated with a membranous crest. Green scales bristled with anger as cackling creatures of many colours vomited forth from a blue realm of shifting crystals, mazes, and madness, but the lord of this twisted false paradise could taste something else.
"Magic." Abraxas muttered, magic enough to get him his black heart's desire, the power he craved without the responsibility of the easy means of attaining it. Or perhaps something more. Something to surpass the jackal-headed beastmother who dared to seek to lord over her accomplishments over him or that of any other Demon Lord who simply grasped for Godhood blindly and allowed themselves to be bound by its rules. Not he, he would have even greater power without the demands, without the obligations.
"But not the magic we know, lord." One of his lieutenants said, a slithering beast of feathers and scales, a mockery of holy couatl and their insipid ties to the upper planes that dared to look down on the pits below them.
"Even better." He crooned.
"We are stretched thin, lord. These creatures pour into the Abyss from who knows where, and our efforts to learn have ended in failure." The creature said, Abraxas' eye turning towards the lieutenant with barely disguised murderous intent, fingers sharpening to claws with a thought.
"Sire, would it not be wiser to maintain our focus on Golarion? To not abandon our scheme when we are so very close to achieving what we want? Would it not be the act of a foo-GAK" The creature never finished before Abraxas grabbed him by the neck, wrapping one of the serpents that formed his legs around his comrade's throat and holding him high above to let him know who was in charge.
"Are you questioning my leadership?" Abraxas whispered, fangs bared and venom dripping from his maw. He pondered for a moment, what he should do to "reward" this impudence and stared into the hordes of creatures who battled with some of his minions over control of a rift; twisting magic and winding deceptions against abyssal rage and chaos tainted sin.
A great winged creature of fire and storm, one of Abraxas' balors, a horned thing four times the height of a man with a whip in one hand and a sword in another flicked his blade to separate the head from the neck of a squamous, squelching thing of endlessly shifting form, bellowing his patron's name to the sinister sun above before being engulfed in fire that scorched even the fireproof. A limb twisted into serpents that transformed to crystal and then coiled into the head of a biting eagle that spat fragrance before the Demon hacked off the offending arm and forced his magic into it to regrow it, roaring at the avian headed trickster that had cast the spell.
Hrm...perhaps.
Abraxas mused for a few moments before tossing the demon towards the lines of the strange flame and advancing crystal, a sacrifice for knowledge. He would have his answers, and those who would not prove useful in that search would prove useful as fuel for his quest. The Master of the Final Incantation snorted through the nostrils of his snout as a simple spell on his part wove around him to bring him skywards, to be closer to the magic, to understand it.
The energies danced on his fingertips, and he could feel the mythic might imbued unto him as the lord of this realm; tainted as it was by the malicious energies of the infinite Warp that spilled into the endless horror of the Abyss; but that corruption was a sweet milk to him. One that he could experiment with, one that he could taste on his tongue and find the motes of something that could one day grant him his hour.
"Send the scouts, delve into this Warp, and tell me everything you find should you survive." Abraxas said to the greater demons who awaited his arrival as he descended from winds of blasphemy with heavy flaps of his temporary, dragon like wings that seemed to wither into mist once he no longer needed them. A Balor, a ruined of nations and a feller of Kingdoms named Angrazaganik, snorted lightning from his nostrils; closer to the power of lightning than flame than most of his kin and rearing himself to a greater height to try and impose himself on the master of this realm.
"You go in first if you care so much. What's in it for me?" The Balor crackled with the fury of the storms of a million worlds, wings spreading far and lash roiling with the energy to reduce mountains to ash while his jaws snapped with fury and displeasure at the presumption of Pazuzu to own infinite loyalty from him. A vorpal sword that hungered for the heads of countless heroes roiled with power, while the Demon let loose a loud hiss as he stomped towards the Serpentine Archmage.
"What is in it for you?" Abraxas stopped, the two snakes that made up his legs turning their heads towards the Balor and letting out a sound like boiling pots while he loomed over his rebellious lieutenant.
A sword swung out, eager for Abraxas' head, forged of the cold iron that was toxic to Demonkind and wreathed in the energies of malice and disorder, curling with mythic storms that could harm even the normally lightning proofed Demons.
"Keeping your head in my reach? Now I see what's in it for me!" The Balor roared over the sounds of the battles raging around them, shrieking horrors and screaming terrors from two realms of evil vomiting into one another like a cyclone wrestling with a hurricane. The abyssal bloodrage imbuing the Balor Lord with greater power as he dreamed of the throne he would soon claim from Pazuzu, already seeing the Demon King of the Feckless Magicks corpse at his feet in his dreams.
But they were never more than dreams, for above the howling of the twisting currents of evil magicks was the sharp ping of his sword clanging against Abraxas' passive autofields, diseased rainbows of foul sorcery forming a barrier that the Balor Lord's blade could not pass through. The Balor's whip crackled again, trying to weave through the corruptions of fate that Abraxas weaved through his thoughts, attempting to force impact through the tuggings at the threads of destiny demanding that it missed. Implosion spells weaved from the Balor, trying to crush Abraxas into pulp, squash him into the tiniest shape he could imagine while his maw opened and let forth his arcs of diseased Storm; swinging again with wild fury.
He felt his sword clash into something, and could see victory through his quartet of eyes, mighty artifacts thrumming with power as he closed for the kill; stepping in and twisting in for a bite. But his head despite his movements seemed to be dropping away from Abraxas for reasons he did not understand until Angrazaganik saw his hooved feet.
Abraxas had decapitated him in a single lash of his whip and his jaws opened to let forth ugly glyphs of poisonous spellcraft that seeped into the Balor's body and dissolved it into energy. The strands of magic flung back into the great magician with a second thought, melting into it and giving him a fresh sensation of power while he drank deep of the crumbling Balor's strength; preventing it from unleashing its death explosion while he shuddered with the morsel of might added to him.
A taste, but the King of the False Paradise of Pleroma desired a feast.
"What is in it for the rest of you, is that you avoid his fate." Abraxas commanded to the others gathered here, cruel eyes unblinkingly looking down on now properly cowed subordinates.
"And should your service be satisfactory, and not a moment sooner, I might deign to share a piece of the prize with you." He menaced, dragging a tail whose head was that of yet another snake across the face with fangs bared of a Marilith's whose feminine upper body recoiled at the pain of the Demidivine toxin that not even a Demon's usual immunity to poison could protect against. Hissing ichor burning against her skin while she tried her best to not cry out.
"I however, have other tasks to attend to. This Warp and the other realms we have seen are but some of the doors in the great hallway. I want to see where they all lead." He snapped, a tongue forked tongue of many colours rolling in his mouth in his mouth as he could just about taste the possibilities.
"And how I can profit from each and every opened door that would invite me in." Abraxas chuckled darkly.
"And what of this invasion?" The Marilith asked.
"You have studied my works of science and magic yes?" Abraxas snarled with barely disguised contempt for what he viewed as a stupid question beneath one of his great generals.
"Aye, but we are working with unknown energies and powers he-" She didn't finish before his snake tail constricted around her neck and the Demon King snorted from his nose.
"The very foundation of science is exploration of the unknown. Experimentation, study, records, tests; all of this and more is our creed. We are the great Scholars of the Abyss; the quest to learn at all prices regardless of prior failures is our unholy purpose. Do not mock me with foolish requests. Show initiative! Show that you are worth more to me than a telephone to relay my commandments!" He snarled before he let her go, letting her grasp at her neck while he made a face of disgust.
"Deal with it in the manner you believe would be pleasing to me. But do not shut our gates wholly to our guests. Not when there is so much to learn." Abraxas said, first with menace before smoothly shifting into a pleased laugh.
The great hall of communion was once again a hub of discussion between the Progenitors, the Ancients who had invested so much into making ready the cosmos and had sown seeds for their "inheritors". Those of the modern species who had been given the honour of living amidst those who could work wonders beyond the gods of their old religions confined by the imaginations of living on a single world.
The communion hall shifted according to the desires of the occupants, what they wanted it to be in order to provide a place for neutral discussion, a place where the competing egos of cultures ancient beyond measure could be allowed to meet without catastrophe. But the arguments of the divine were not quite so far from the sort of arguments more technologically and spiritually primitive cultures would have.
For one, the hall had taken on a form to reflect the rancour of the room. Circular, arena like, discordant of aesthetic. There were people here who were generally never invited to these sorts of discussions due to the discord that surrounded their presences and the history they had with those who typically held these discussions. Some had been excised from the general circle only recently, others had not been welcome in this company for much longer.
And one of the most major examples of these individuals was Raven Beak; clad in his military splendour. A great Warchief of the militaristic Mawkin tribe, one who had been present at the anointing of Samus as one of them. One who had not shown his presence for quite some time. His chrome and gunmetal armour, fitted with an impressive headdress upon its helmet and a brilliant scarlet cape made him seem to be even more of a giant than he already was, and the red eye-pieces of his helm had the same cold lustre they always had.
If he had broken his general isolation from the Kah-Sahmat Chozo after briefly partaking in the anointing of Samus Aran as an heiress of the legacy of the Chojinzuko; then matters were either truly dire, or he felt the need to brag about something. The second he opened his beak, speaking in the Mawkin dialect, he removed any doubt about what he was here for.
The heavy head of a strange alien was dropped from his hand. A battlemaster of the Battalion; the insectoid creature's helm still bearing a visage of contempt and hatred even from the confines of the Impervium-Absorbium alloy helmet that had its neck-guard severed by abilities the Chozo Warchief had mastered. The impact heavy and resounding throughout the room as Mawkin Chozo Warriors under his command stamped the bottom ends of their sword staffs into the ground as if in praise; not flinching from staring ahead.
"I have conquered." He declared simply.
"Once more, invasion seeking to disrupt our project meets its end at my hands. And for those who have shown me and my colleagues support, you have shown me your wisdom. But the rest of you; those who still do not see the light, I bring you warning." He said with cold calmness that concealed icy contempt. "My might and intellect has so far been able to keep the peace, and the lower species are still able to contain things on a peacetime footing. But can this continue?" He boasted, gesturing to his own chest.
"The lower beings are too obsessed with their meagre contemporary politics. Too focused on jockeying for material forms of influence in their limited understanding of the cosmos. The ones that we see with greater favour will not be ready for true total war soon enough. Not unless we take matters into our hands." He added, his gestures like that of a lecturer explaining the basics to students.
"We have in our means the ability to ensure that our work can resume. And though you have not had the wisdom to give me access to the proper means to ensure a quick end to this intrusion, we can still salvage our efforts and set our work back onto its proper road." He said, looking coldly at Old Bird in particular, a look of blame, of disdain.
Re-Sekh did not enjoy the presence of Raven Beak, few of Kah-Sahmat enjoyed the presence of the great general of the Mawkin but ever since the start of the present crisis; Norakern to use his personal name in his own tongue rather than his formal title of Ashkar Behek, Raven Beak; had been carrying himself with ever greater swagger and confidence. His demands had grown more insistent, and he found himself supporters in Zurvduat and Mother Brain who were all too willing to accept the arguments of the chrome-clad commander.
"You are wasting time that could be used to re-establish the order that you have so carelessly allowed to decay into the present anarchy consuming the cosmos." Raven Beak refused the indignity of not using his Mawkin dialect by means of telepathy even though Old Bird knew fully well he was capable of it.
"The jackboot is not the way to ensure peace. How many times have I had to explain this to you?" Old Bird said, getting a dismissive wave in response from Raven Beak who even in the midst of what was intended to be a polite discussion, deigned to bring his arm cannon and the dual-sword staff that signified his status; purely to lord over his prowess over the others.
"You even use the analogies of beings you were witness to the entirety of the evolution of? What shame you bring upon our people, Re-Sekh." Referring to him by his personal name instead of "Itar-Kuhun" as his title translated to was clearly a jab meant to attack his pride. Something that may have worked when he was a younger and less wisened man, but to the ageless elder he was now, it was merely bluster.
"-He speaks truth, you need true warriors who can wage war at scales that the neokin of the present cycle are incapable of comprehending to allow the work of the progenitors to resume its tracks and impose sanity on the discordant realities.-" Zurvduat said, the silver armoured Knight-General's form looming high upon hovering tripod legs, arms folding with barely disguised arrogance.
"-It is enough of a miracle that we tolerate your decision to grace us with your presence, Knight-General.-" Elmorni thrummed, her telepathic voice raw with displeasure at having to look upon her military counterpart who seemed to regard the ancient Mystromagus like some manner of museum relic, barely giving her a second glance before turning his floating, neckless head away from here.
"-And you have the audacity to spew your nonsense without even acknowledging me?-" She said, hurt and anger apparent in her voice.
"If you had allowed me to continue moulding the Primoris Neophyte into a proper Tetrarch Knight to serve as a template for the Neophyte Squire project we would have had this situation resolved alread-" He responded without even facing her before her psychic voice boomed, air particles vibrating from her furoro as her telekinetics let loose a roar.
"-HIS NAME IS ARNE! STOP TALKING ABOUT HIM LIKE A TEST SUBJECT!-" She would not let him finish his words, not another damn utterance out of his mind.
"-Perhaps the openness of this meeting was in error. We are beset by many opposing viewpoints, many irreconcilable.-" Astrath the Father said, the radiant form of the Ylla contained in golden armour of somewhat angelic countenance and form. An eyeless crowned helm of gold and ivory ringed by a halo complimented a form that was somewhat humanoid, but whose majesty was incomparably added to by the presence of a pair of wing like structures of light and radiance. A blessed Scholar of the Ylla, adoptive father to Sevrin, and a speaker of many truths, Astrath was truly old, enough so that Old Bird considered him a peer, but he had few enemies at the very least.
"-I propose that perhaps we allow those who are outsiders to our internal politics mediate, so that our tangled webs of rivalries and dispute can be navigated neatly.-" Astrath intoned, the psychic voice generated by him melodic and gentle.
"And who would you allow to hold the presumption to stand with such an honour among us? The Toads who follow the plans of dead wreckers? The Empty-Souled golems deceived by Star eating fiends? The frail near-humans whose mistakes brought an age of chaos to their own reality? The old machines who can't even settle a political dispute after a galactic year?" Raven Beak's tone was not respectful, it was not meant to be words of kindness, contempt was rife in them, and everyone could just about smell it dripping from his every breath.
"Though I disagree with the conclusions of Raven Beak, I agree that the opinions of uninformed outsiders are hardly going to bring value to our discussions." The Night Matron said; her form a cloak of shadow in raptorian shape, like the suggestion of a mother of darkness rather than an actual being who could be given a name; shifting and curling in the shadows according to strange patterns.
"New perspectives are needed to stop stagnation of viewpoint! Astrath speaks with that same old wisdom, but that's one thing that hasn't changed! Someone fresh and less biased might be what we need!" Chyrael said, the Faeran patron's fluttering butterfly like wings stretched out behind him and refracting diffuse patterns onto his decorated white regalia. His hair a short scarlet mane and ears the shape of knives to compliment eyes that glowed like green suns.
"Ignorant viewpoints are worse than nothing at all." Vhekronya chimed in, the N'Kren Lady's form somewhere between a carapace, a sarcophagus, and a knight's suit of armour; darkly coloured and deathly of aspect. "We are not served by the commenteriat of the unaware and unknowledgeable. Our work is of far too much importance to allow for derailing by those who cannot meaningfully contribute." She said with not quite disdain, but more concern, motherly, if grave.
"If necessary, we will simply destroy this reality and start over with the guidance. The inheritance is too important to allow this incident to jeopardise it." She said, almost immediately getting a caw of protest from Re-Sekh.
"No! Absolutely out of the question!" Old Bird shouted louder than he had in a very long time.
"If the Old Foe is to be unsealed from the Omega Void, more than just one reality will be imperilled. We must consider the option at least." Benevolence of Forgotten Infernos; the current Lord-Commander of the Vuldran crackled from the inside of his armoursuit, a volcanic hiss and bubble rumbling from within his scarlet, orange and obsidian form; the horns on his helmet giving him a somewhat demonic countenance.
"We will not allow things to develop to that point. We need not work as either tyrants nor destroyers to ensure the continuation or the inheritance. There are better ways." Turagi; a great commander of the Hydrael bubbled from within her environmental suit, her piscene and cephalopodic form hidden by its plating even as her tendrils wriggled with her words.
A Slann made itself manifest in the room through an opening allowed to it by Old Bird while the bickering continued, floating upon its dais and allowing the essence of Mazdamundi Ascendant to flow into them, taking on the shape that the eldest of the second generation had in an already failed world, red and mottled of colour, seemingly obese even through the technosorcery he wore, though his thick neck bore the headdress upon his head with ease.
"You dare allow this outsider step in without invitation?" Raven Beak said with scorn.
"-It was invitation enough, for we must speak of matters of uniting efforts if we are to ensure a future. I know not of your grand designs to the degree that I have contemplated the Great Plan. But we have similar ends, it would be folly to not begin to speak of ways to join our works.-" The Slann rumbled with uncharacteristic humility.
"-And what is it that you propose?-" Astrath asked.
"-An exchange of knowledge, and an understanding of why is it that you place your hopes on your adoptives.-" Mazdamundi Incarnate rumbled.
Interlude: Sound and Shock (Shockwave and Soundwave)
Shockwave often liked to ensure that his research benefitted from his personal supervision and efforts. It was only logical for the cyclopean Decepticon Commander to want to ensure that his most precious projects were worked on by his still peerless capability for analysis and deduction. He took no pride in the knowledge that out of the entirety of the vast Decepticon State; he had no equals in terms of scientific skill and experience. It forced him to have to do much of the work himself, it made delegation a calculated risk, it delayed progress.
And with the endless, grinding, unrelenting war, his personal attentions were required too often to fully educate assistants with the sort of care and attention he would have preferred. But it was irrational to muse on what he would have preferred, better to focus on how he could make the best out of what he had to work with. And what he had to work with was a custom designed laboratory made to his exact specifications. Creature comforts were kept to a carefully designated optimum for worker morale and resource efficiency.
Minor subroutines in his processors constantly weighed the necessity of adjusting worker schedules for maximum efficiency; counterbalancing desires for leisure, independence, and regularity against the short term gains by fine-tuning and micromanaging. It would be easier if more thought the way he did, without distraction or illogic. Without temper, excitement, confusion or delusion.
But that was again, fantasising; a useless activity. He purged that delusion with a simple desire and got back to his work, examining the metadimensional dissection of the tiny organic cadaver with his emotionless, faceless red optic stare; antennae fixed and unmoving on his strange inorganic head. He didn't regard it as disgusting, gross, or anything of that sort. Some of his colleagues hated working on organics and all their...wetness, but it was simply science to him. No more unpleasant than observing microbots.
"Subject was known as Mar, occupation "Objective Observer". Species: Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Native Reality: Shardworm Universe designation "Bet". Date of birth; local Calendar; 11th of October 1978. Date of most recent expiration; one hour prior to recording." He started with a voice that wasn't cold so much as hollow and empty.
"Subject's apprehension was mandated by increasing suspicions of Agent Shoulderbreaker assuming the guise of his 2009 Hyundai Genesis motor vehicle during the human's attempts to monitor Parahuman designated "Glory Girl", also known as Victoria Dalton; known associate of Dawnchild and Duskguard and Jetfire's local autobot command." He continued without skipping a beat as he didn't spare so much as a second glance to a body that could best be described as having attempted to go in every possible direction at the same time and took on the consistency of an omlette.
"Known abilities before commencement of experimentation: None. Suitability for augmentation: High. Mental State before most recent death: Broken to the point of requiring neuromechanical repair, expressing doubt about nominally held religion, no further hope for rescue maintained. It would be most effective to remove his memories of the most recent experimental sessions to retain personality." He continued to note to the recording, out loud for the benefit of those 'Cons who insisted on having natural audio data accompanying their logs.
"Why would we need the subject's personality to be intact? Especially when we can make him remember or think anything we want him to. It just seems to be a bit of a waste." Oil Slick gurgled through the fluids in the transparent dome around his head module, the spindly science oriented Decepticon questioning one of the inner circle of lieutenants who stood just below Megatron.
Had he been Deathsaurus, Gigatron, Starscream, Strika, Nightracer or any number of other Decepticon Arch-Commanders; he might have snapped at Oil Slick for talking out of turn. But Shockwave was liked for having an open mind out of a belief that immediately shooting down an opinion was a good way to deny him potential input. He had the multitasking capabilities to keep on doing his work even when spoken to anyway. And frustration was an irrational response in any case.
"Because such forcible means of mind control can be traced and detected. Soundwave's manipulations were uncovered by Dawnchild, Duskguard, Sunburst, and Moonshade and as of yet; their cyberwarfare defences are thwarting efforts at indirect observation and we are lacking in infiltration assets in Jetfire's forces. We are dealing with extranormal countermeasures, and will need to resort to extraordinary measures to gain an information advantage." Shockwave responded without even looking away from his work as he analysed the cadaver.
"And what have we learned from attempting to activate so many of these "shards" into this human at once?" Oil Slick gurgled, letting out a grotesque wet slurping sound at the end of his sentence.
"That sudden activation of so many of these trauma-induced abilities at the same time is inefficient." Shockwave said flatly in a way that he calculated would disarm Oil Slick and his questions by making him unable to be sure whether or not he was joking. Shockwave of course, never told a joke for mirth's sake; but sometimes he would make them because it would reduce tension or catch people off guard.
It worked, Oil Slick stumbled somewhat before the arm cannon bearing deception and tried to regain his footing before his weakness was made obvious before the taller, bulkier Decepticon Arch-Commander. But such was a futile effort, Shockwave already knew Oil Slick well enough to read every single one of his emotional tells as good as any Cyberspeaker.
"And that when we design our next generation organic infiltrators, we will need to prioritise robustness of tissue to allow them to withstand the energies that we are imbuing them with. Experiments with Sourcewell reality designation "Primal" metahuman augmentations have been extremely promising with maximising the effectiveness of forced shard bonding." He said, calmly as if he were simply recounting facts.
"Experimentation with Cybertronians of course, has also provided dividends, as has our experiments into creating artificial shards independent of their parent entities. A decisive advantage will soon be within our reach, one above and beyond even having new allies." He explained while he took a moment to examine some tools and made sure that they were to his specifications after having been crafted for him on order.
"Begin revivification process, we will resume our experiments on Mar and other test subjects in a single cycle." He said, getting a nod from the gathered scientific aides.
Shockwave's thoughts were divided briefly by a notification that, exactly as he anticipated, he had an incoming request for communication from Soundwave. Soundwave he understood, many confused their names based on the English renditions of their titles. Many thought their mindsets were more similar than they actually were based entirely on how Soundwave's voice modulator gave him a highly synthesised monotone means of speech and how his helmet gave him a rather faceless visage. They were wrong of course. Soundwave is cold like a glacier, Shockwave was focused like a laser.
With a thought, the communication projectors displayed Soundwave's image as a hologram, the Arch-Commander of Intelligence staring at the taller Science Commander through his red visor; an arm extended to allow the vulture like Laserbeak to perch on his arm. Blue and white, Soundwave could sometimes seem to be unimposing, especially next to the intense Purple of Shockwave or the almost manic Red, White, and Blue of Starscream. But Shockwave knew that Soundwave had held onto his position for more reasons beyond his unbending loyalty to Megatron.
"Lord Megatron wishes to know more about your progress regarding your research." Soundwave said, his vocoded voice sounding autotune, almost musical if it weren't also so devoid of inflection or emotion.
"Megatron receives real time updates about my work at all times, but we have made breakthroughs ready for deployment. With the focus of the Inheritance Metaversal Cluster intruders now refocused onto the Nictus, we expect a wealth of opportunities to make use of the initial production runs to gain advantages in the game of influence." Shockwave reported while his machines jolted to life and stitched Mar's body back together to the last cell; purging the memories of his recent trauma as his flesh was reknitted into something more durable.
"Megatron is unconcerned with the actions of the autobot auxiliaries for the time being. Please do not burden him with unnecessary details." Soundwave replied, receiving no response from Shockwave besides an electronic ping of acknowledgement of his message.
"I would advise Lord Megatron to reconsider his stance. But I will note his desire for a more concise report." Shockwave responded without annoyance or frustration, merely a mental note that he would need to work to convince the Slagmaker of Kaon to not overlook non-cybertronian combatants.
"Our efforts at re-establishing our communication network supremacy are proceeding faster than expected thanks to your work. Megatron is pleased by your expedience in counteracting interference in our intelligence operations from the technological end." Soundwave relayed, seemingly trying to distract Shockwave with something only tangentially relevant as if to catch him out in something. Soundwave of course, regarded everyone save for Megatron's favoured Consort Nightbird as perhaps harbouring disloyalty to the Decepticon ideology. Of course, nobody believed in the Decepticon way harder than Soundwave; not even Megatron.
But there was one misconception Shockwave could not tolerate.
"My division's work, I am not capable of managing the entirety of all research efforts on my own, and it is because of the talent that I have been able to shepherd that we are able to make the progress we have. With my guidance we continue to not merely reclaim the old glories, but move in directions the ancients did not fathom." If Megatron was allowed to believe that it was purely Shockwave's genius that allowed for Decepticon science to progress then he wouldn't send him more talent to mould into proper researchers and developers. Of course, he couldn't let Megatron believe he was replaceable, or else Megatron would try to replace him. An outcome that Shockwave wished to avoid for now.
"We estimate that an interversal war will soon begin in earnest. Our intelligence assets report major build-up of Nictus and Nictus sympathetic forces across many realities. They are making their move. Our forces will require quantum modulation weapons to deal with the puppets of the Dark-Energy Life Forms." Soundwave informed Shockwave, though he had already estimated that this was going to be the likely outcome. The war would be furious, its outcome not entirely certain; depending on who interfered and on whose behalf. The Nictus could be bargained with, their mindset was very similar to that of the Decepticons, and arrangements had been made already. Alliance could be a possibility.
But of course, only one could stand atop the Energon hill at the end of the day, and between Megatron and the Dirge of Entropy there was plenty of room for friction. Not in spite of their similarities, no; because of them.
"You will have them of course, I anticipate the Kheldians will soon move to wrap up their own ancient species civil war to determine whether light or darkness is the destiny of their kind. And such weapons will be useful against either side." He responded with brisk calmness while he idly managed the procedure of the next experiment, keeping part of his mind focused on mars' transformation and augmentations; the flux of his state of consciousness as they tried to determine what would work best.
"The matter of diplomacy is not in your division's ability to decide." Soundwave answered coldly.
"I am making no suggestion of alliances, merely that it is a possibility."
"Fantasising is not something you do unless you entertain the possibility of carrying through with it, Shockwave. I know you." Soundwave asserted, and to be fair he was in fact; absolutely right.
"Given our Lord's plans, it is a likely possibility to have to prepare for." Shockwave countered.
"Remember that my optics are turned inwards as well as outwards, Shockwave." Soundwave said without any overt menace; merely a cold statement of fact. Against Starscream it would have been met with boastful confidence, Shockwave simply nodded in acknowledgement.
"Whatever the outcome, we will have a wealth of information not possible to acquire under strictly controlled conditions. The actions of the Humans aligned towards the Nictus will be easy to predict; as most human racialists are." Shockwave continued while he made note of how Mar responded to the memories written into his altered brain and the conversations he was having with the solid-light holograms created in front of him. So far, so good.
"What I don't get is why these humans care so much about which breed of slime they are." Oil slick gurgled.
"Do we not look down on many forms of Cybertronian offshoots such as the Constructicons, Predacons, and Stunticons?" Shockwave asked. "Or our stance towards other species and mechanical intelligences; particularly the sparkless." He responded with the same tone he did when explaining energon physics to Oil Slick so many astrocycles ago.
"We are right! There are differences between the modbots and us, between the sparkless and us, between the organics and us. Humans are so heavily inbred that the difference between two populations of them can be lost to rounding errors." Oil Slick snarled.
"Then you have not internalised everything I have taught you. Humans like most social beings without a programmatic internal nature will do what they believe is in the interest of the group they empathise with as a result of their environmental conditions and past experiences. Whom they empathise with and what they believe to be in that group's interest is malleable, and creating divisions to direct that perception against an enemy is an effective method of maintaining control. Regardless of its actuality." He replied.
"But we are correct in our assessments of divergents and other forms of intelligence. That is the difference. That is the conclusion of our ideals. No other possibility exists." Soundwave stated, making it clear that he didn't want to hear any of Shockwave's smart aleck answers.
"Of course, the Path of Conquest is beyond question as always." He replied as he looked at Mar's response to interaction with pretenders designed to make him feel comfortable despite his environment.
Deeming it optimal, Shockwave allowed himself a sensation of satisfaction to encourage him to do more such things in the future.
You weren't really fond of just sitting around and waiting. You were proactive, not reactive. You wanted to be on the attack, not playing firefighter. Action and dynamism motivated you, sloth and inactivity drained you. You hated sleeping sometimes because it felt like you were wasting time that could be spent doing literally anything else. Lectures and briefings bored you because you could just read through the memos faster than they could speak it and get on with it. That was faster, more efficient, just better all around. That way you could help more people, and waste less time on doing...nothing of value. Papa often said you were too impatient, but why just sit around when you had so much power to help?
So listening to Positron ramble on and on and on about things you already read through was something akin to your personal...Hell would be a bit too strong of a word but sort of like your purgatory? A not really desirable experience you'd rather not have to do any time soon but not exactly...miserable?
Keyes was many things but fun to listen to was not one of them. He was the leader of Freedom Phalanx not because he was charismatic and a maker of soaring oratory, but because he was a skilled commander and a good friend to have. Also raw power was a good bonus to have on top of all that. Didn't make him reading off of power point slides any more stirring though.
"-We've had reports of increasing Nictus activity in recent days. Larger than we've ever seen before. The Kamoebas attack on Brockton Bay was just one of many recent incidents instigated by forces aligned to the Nictus or sympathisers. While we're still putting some pieces together, what we can tell is that they're trying to cause unease, worry, and anxiety." He explained, gesturing at the bulletpointed lines on the holoscreen. Spirits you were so bored...
Blah blah blah Nazis on the rise
Blah blah blah exploitations of existing political anxieties
Blah blah blah it's important to work with extraversals and extraterrestrials
Blah blah blah we need to to get all the information and boots on the ground we can get
Blah blah blah give a round of applause to Dawnchild and her friends for everything they've done for us all so far.
You tried to make yourself small because you didn't like to be the centre of attention, not in this way. It felt like being a fish inside of a tank. You'd know, given that you very nearly got Chris kicked out of Seaworld for life by jumping into the water trying to save the animals from confinement in a space too small for them. Though you still insisted that the real problem were people who couldn't understand Orca language ignoring its plainly vocalised cries of complaint about its living conditions.
Or when you tried to adopt literally every puppy, cat, bird, and fish in the pet store and found that being able to speak in the languages of dogs is in fact; weird and not at all common even on Primal Earth. But they were just so cute and so in need of your love and you just wished you had more hands to hug and pet all of them. It wasn't fair that they dragged you out of there with so many animals still in need of your affection.
Or...you were just trying to distract yourself with anectdotes. But it had done its job at least.
You let yourself run on autopilot to the end of this. You already knew, things were bad, things were building up towards something even worse, things would take the plunge once more into disarray and destruction. But you were there, you'd be able to handle the danger, to save the day and make sure nobody would be suffering, not the way you did. Nobody else would suffer the way you did. Not when you could help i-ByTheSpiritsAFoxYouMustPetIt.
Your arms reach out to grab the fox and cradle it, not at all really cognisant of the fact that you were still wearing your armour, holding the Fox with gentleness that would let you stroke the back of a butterfly without the slightest bit of stress to its carapace.
You felt something odd about this fox. You were aware that there were shapeshifters that took the guise of foxes in Paragon City. But the magic was closer to the Reaper that was seen in Brockton Bay a week ago. Something more...you reacted quickly and lowered your arms to let what was about to happen happen.
"Subject is taking on an alternate form, likely sort of entity: KItsune, reality signature identical to Gevatter Todt." Your visor informed you, your eyes opening with some extra interest before the transformation completed.
It shifted, expanded, and in its place was a boy. A Boy with a big, bushy orange foxtail and prominent ears and bright cyan eyes. He seemed to be of Japanese ethnicity, if one could overlook the whisker-like marks on his cheeks or the pronounced canines he had. Or the tail, or the ears. Okay fair there was quite a lot to have to overlook to not notice that he was inhuman.
"Hello, you're the Dawnchild right? I've been looking for you for a while!" He said with a wide grin.
"I'm Teramoto Ryunosuke. Oracle and well; a lot of other stuff of Tsukiyo. I think...maybe...but Hi! I've been looking for you!" He says, tapping his lips a bit while he thought before he shrugged his lamellar covered shoulders, his mid-neck length long hair shaking a bit as he scratched at his chin with a fingerless glove fitted hand.
"Oh...what are you looking for me for?" You asked, blinking, unsure whether or not to call the others to meet with you while he leaned a bit forwards and grinned widely, his messy hair ruffling a bit with the wind around.
"Well, you see, it's mostly to know if you can help us out." He said, somewhat bashfully as his tail waved behind him.
"But...who is "us"?" You asked with a more serious tone.
"Well it's just...we're a bit lost honestly. We're...kind of adventurers I guess, have you heard of Golarion?"
"...No?" You said, thoroughly confused now.
"Oh...well...all the information here says that you're a particularly great hero. And I tend to trust my visions and divinations. They did help with learning the weird language here." He scratched at the back of his head, leaning into scratching at the back of his ears in particular and letting out a little yip before shaking his head.
"Okay, what do you need help with?" He seemed trustworthy, your senses detected no particular danger from him, and his auras seemed sweet, noble, earnestly lost though. And finally, not helping people in need just wasn't who you were.
"Well, I'm not bringing you a dire warning or anything like that. But I do feel like something is building in the background, and that I think you could help explain this to me?" He said, fishing out something from a bag you identified as a portable pocket dimension that was being used as a means of storage. Practical, sensible really. You made use of that plenty of times yourself.
He presented something that you took a moment to analyse, the emblem of the Thule Society you'd come to have more than just a bit of an issue with over the past few months. Even in cufflink form, the symbols gave you a sensation of unease. But that wasn't the only thing that drew your eyes, the other was the scabbard contained sword he was holding. An old Norse design of blade, the runes on the scabbard warning of pain if the blade ever was unsheathed. Not just for the user but all who dared approach.
"Tyrfing." You said, recognising the blade from your recollections of Old Mythology. The cursed sword of Norse sagas, a blade that would bring power and might but also insanity and aggression. A blade that once unsheathed could not be resheathed until its wielder had caused the death of at least one other person. You reacted almost immediately and smacked it out of his hands, his fingers yanking back as he jumped back to let the blade clatter onto the ground.
"Do not touch that sword!" You said, seeing the runes shift from cool blue to blood red before ceasing their glowing altogether.
"How did you get this?" You asked pointedly, placing a boot on top of the sword to make sure it didn't go anywhere.
"Well we were trying to explore around and well...there were these casters we tried to speak to but the second our paladin took off her helmet it got very violent. Other champions came in and assisted, but one of us got our hands on this blade and well, my curse helps keep the sword's curse under control." He said, picking the sword back up with a sweep of his tail and curling his fingers around the scabbard.
"I had a vision that you were someone who was...helpful and kind and would assist us. We don't know how to get home and I'm pretty sure that we've got well...people after us. So please...can you help?"
Actions:
Order priority from greatest to least
[]: Bring in the other inheritors first
[]: Look for the rest of Ryunosuke's friends
[]: See if anyone in the Thule society is still after him
[]: Contact the Freedom Phalanx and Starsetters
[]: Contact the Wards and Protectorate
[]: Contact the Autobots, Imperials, and Eldar
[]: See if there's a safer place to store the sword away
[]: Bring Ryuonosuke to somewhere less public to talk more about him
