Tiff stretched her arms behind her head. She had been one of the pop, hip kids in school. Ya know. Before the whole savior of the world Hunter spirit incarnated thing. After that, her cooless had dropped precipitously - it was, like, kinda hard to go to parties when Miss Christian was like 'Tiff, Tiff, there's a new portal to a nether dimension opening up under the graveyard' and 'Tiff, Tiff, a rogue Tzmarkias vampire fleshcrafting the faculty into monsters' or 'Tiff, Tiff, i think that the murders are because of a haunted video tape' or...
Tiff stopped herself. That hole just...kept going.
It kept going to bad places.
To cyber places.
To zombie places.
To cyberzombie places.
Still, Tiff had a good brain sense for the whole what what on the whose happening thing. Her eyes skimmed along the people coming to the Survey Academy. The Panhuman Federation was supposed to be the smallest of the big mojo major space places - there was the Buffers, the Omni-Imperium, the Narine, the Centurions...uh...she forwned, slightly. "Do the We count? Do they count as a major space place?"
"Huh?"
Tiff glanced over. The short, frilled dinosaur looking lady with the big pink bowtie on her head - which was Tiff's main sense for why she was a lady, since she was otherwise more dino to the saur than girl to the ter - and blushed. "Sorry, uh, no, just, talking to myself."
"R-Right. I'm new to Earth too..." The dinosaur - a Brawler, if Tiff remembered from her crash course on Panhuman Federation members right.
"Well, uh, good luck!" Tiff said, nodding and backing away, squaring her shoulders a bit. She had been cool once. She was gonna be cool again - and so, as she swept her gaze back over the crowd, she saw some fellow teens who were tapping away at data pads - nerds, definitely. She saw a few big buff fit looking guys - jocks, definitely. Then she saw a gaggle of girls and boys who were standing taller, trimmer, and looking more eager than anyone else to be here. In their center was a star elf with blue skin, dark green-blue hair, and bright red eyes. She had a tiny bit of flair on her jacket. Tiff liked flair. She sighed and looked down at her spandex - she'd have killed for just some skirts and a backpack. She could find some cool pins for the backpack...
Okay.
She had once needed to fight her way into and outta Archambeau Towers with nothing but a katana, she could handle talking to some space cheerleaders from space. Also, unlike some of the vampire or werewolf students, aliens didn't twig the Hunter spirit's murder instincts. Win win!
Tiff walked over, ears perked, as she heard the blue space elf saying: "So, yeah, I managed to insert into geostationary orbit."
"With only 4.3 mps of delta-V left? With that much wobble from the gas giant?" one of the other girls asked, stars in her eyes.
"It's all about apogees and perigees," the self (space elf) said, smirking slightly.
"Oh, you're a pilot?" Tiff asked, grinning as she slid her arms over her chest. Everyone in the group turned to her, blinking slightly. The space elf gave her a dazzling smile.
"My family were pilot-indentures in the Centurion Empire before mom and dad stole a jumpliner and flew to Federation space," she said, making the others oooh and aww even more. Tiff blinked slightly.
"Oh sick!" she said, excitement bubbling. "I visited Centurion space once. Well, kinda."
"Oh?" The bself asked.
(Blue space elf.)
Tiff held out her hand. "Tiff! By the way. And yeah, it was this free planet thingy between the Centurions and the Capellan Trade Union."
Every Earthly type in the group - one vampire girl, one boy who might have been a shifter of some kind, and two humans - perked up. "...you're not...Tiffany Winters, right?" The vampire girl asked.
Tiff gulped, then stood up a bit straighter too. Straight as a ruler. Straightzoned in the backbutt. "Yeah," she said, trying to sound cool and casual. Everyone surrounded her in excitement, looking like they were all bubbling over in excitement, save for the bselfio, who looked a bit annoyed that everyone was now looking at Tiff with excitement. And a little fear.
"I'm afraid I don't understand the significance, is this a famous Earther?" she asked.
"She's Tiffany Winters! She's the last Hunter," the vampire said, excitedly. "Oh my God, my sire is an Libertine, he's such a huge fan!"
"Uh, thanks?" Tiff asked, nervously. Vampire politics, vampire politics. Not for the first time, she wished her mentor wasn't three and change centuries dead, Miss Christian always kept abreast of vampire politics. To Tiff, it all kinda got blurry once you got past 'any vampire who calls himself a prince is probably some kind of a dickhead.'
"So, basically," the werewolf boy said to the blue elf. "You've read up on the Triumverate, right?"
The bself was looking annoyed now. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You mean the Panhuman Federation's artificial intelligences?"
"No, those are different," a human said, nodding. "Oh, I'm Mark. This is Helen." He gestured to the vampire. "And this is Chewie." He gestured to the shifter, who grinned cheerfully.
"I'm Lupis," he said.
"Oh, so, you're a werewolf that started as a wolf, then shifted into a human on a full moon?" Tiff asked, excitedly.
"Yeah!" He said, and if a human could wag a tail, he sure would have been.
The bself blinked. Like she had just been flicked right in the middle of her blue brows. Like, zuahwaaa? Tiff was feeling more confident now, glowing as everyone started to excitedly drop some basic Earthian hot topic history on the alien girl. Mark took off the bat by going: "So, there are three quasiparacausal suprasentient non-corporeal entities created by the interface between sentient life and the ecosystem of our planet, we have the Weaver, the Wyrm and the Wyld, which form the gestalt entity called Gaia. Right?"
The bself was looking like she was starting to reconsider things. "...I thought...that was...a religion," she said, slowly.
"It is, they're also real," Mark said.
"In the Centurion Empire, they say that all the Federation claims are just lies," the bself said, slowly. "That vampires are genetic augments, like, our Enforcer class."
"Ehh..." Helen waggled her palm, grinning and flashing her fangs.
Grab her hand. Break her arm. Make it less dangerous. There's a branch there, snap it off, shove her into it, back first, turn her to dust, do it-
Tiff, humming quietly, bounced on her toes until the Hunter spirit shut up. She was enjoying how excited Mark was at explaining things.
"So, basically, early human/vampire/shifter relationships weren't the best," Mark said.
"You could say that again," the other human muttered - he still hadn't gotten a name thrown into the name ring.
"Some premodern specialists in paracausal technology, uh, what we used to call magic, basically took a chunk of the Wyrm, the inherent destructive force of nature, and crammed it into a human spirit, then tied it to reincarnation effects - so, every time a Hunter dies, a new Hunter is created as the spirit jumps from body to body," Mark said. "It was a feat of paracasual engineering on par with...with the early Apollo program. Like, yeah, it's easy now, but they did it without slide rules!"
Tiff blinked, suddenly frowning. "Hey, it's not...that easy."
"Well, I mean, 21st century humans did make more," Mark said, shrugging.
"No they did not!" Tiff snapped. "Augments are totally different! They don't have any Wyld spirits and I kicked their asses, so, there."
Everyone was looking at her again.
"Wait...that hasn't hit the nets yet..." Mark said, while Helen leaned in and Chewie gasped.
"The Augments are back from exile?" He whispered. "Where were they hiding?"
"Did they have a diakliave?" Helen asked.
"What the fuck is a daiklaive?!" the bself asked. "And...wait, I read the basic sum up on the way to Earth - your minor atomic war, you also called it the Hunter's War because it was fought by those augments, and those augments were to replace the Hunter. So, if there was no Hunter, how is...she...here?" She looked at Tiff, frowning. "Are you four hundred years old?"
"Uh..." Tiff said, coughing. "No. I was kinda sorta jammed into a cryopod and launched into space."
"Why?!" The bself sounded very frustrated by all this human absurdity.
---
Due to Tiff's origin, she has her +4's already set in Violence and Finesse - she's extremely good at physical activities, both good and bad. but her +5 (average) and +6 (bad) are up in the air!
[ ] Come up with a cooooooooool reason (+5 Manipulation, +5 Secrets, +6 Empathy, +6 Academics)
[ ] Take pity and tell her the real reason (+5 Empathy, +5 Academics, +6 Manipulation, +6 Secrets)
[ ] Tell her the real reason...but also mention that you DID kill Khan, the worst of the Augments. Like, you did that. Cause you're cool. (+5 Empathy, +5 Manipulation, +6 Academics, +6 Secrets)
[ ] Write in (Arrange your +5s and +6s as you see fit, the skills are Empathy, Manipulation, Academics and Secrets.)
