You will shape the world.
With that final cryptic line in your mind, you stopped convulsing. The pain disappearing as suddenly as it came, fading away like it never existed. You do not know how, or why – pain like that doesn't just go away. But as you struggle to your feet, you could feel that something was different. At the back of your mind, you knew that some part of yourself had changed. Unknown to you, sparks of copper coloured energy darted between your fingers before disappearing. That memory, that
thing you saw. It had to be the cause.
You grasped for the memory, and with a spike of panic realised it was already fading away. You tried to find it but it was like smoke, the more you grabbed at it the faster it dispersed until it was all but gone. All that was left was an impression, an instinct of something, deep in your gut, totally new, yet incredibly familiar all at once.
So, what else could you do? You pulled.
And deep within you, something answered.
Your skin tingled. Warmth flooded you. You didn't realise you were already standing until you found yourself staring down at your hands, your breath catching in your throat as copper coloured sparks jolted between your fingers.
What was happening to you?
There was no flash for what followed, no visible sign of power heralding what was to come. In one moment, you were alone, and then an involuntary wave of formless power erupted from your form.
And in the next, there were thousands of somethings with you. You fell to your knees; a gasp escaping your throat as your felt them on your skin. Thousands of presences, little pinpricks of energy, each one slightly different from the last, so similar, yet unique all the same. You were connected to them all. Too much… it was too much! And just like the pain, as quickly as it started, it ended. The connection only open for a moment, but as you struggled to your feet a second time, you couldn't help the involuntary shiver that escaped you when you realised that you knew where every single one of those sparks were, the location of each one etched into your mind.
The closest one in your pocket.
You swallowed, and then reached, pulling out your phone. It was broken. The screen cracked into a thousand pieces and the ports sparking. Damaged beyond repair, most would say. Rendered to nothing more than an expensive paperweight.
Those people were wrong. Following an instinct you didn't know you had, you reached out again. Slowly, carefully this time, only on the phone, not on the room at large.
The phone came apart. No. That was wrong. It did not come apart, it disassembled. The phone peeled back, layer by layer until each of the individual components that made up the phone floated around you, held aloft by a flickering copper coloured aura enveloping each piece.
Your hand extended. and then you flinched as your fingers brushed against a part, its presence in your mind flaring brighter from the contact as a sudden stream of information entered your mind.
The laughter that escaped your throat reverberated throughout the basement of Stark Tower. And if there was the slightest hint of hysteria in its echoing, well you thought it seemed rather reasonable given the circumstances.
When your laughter finally subdued you looked at the parts in a new light. Your hand grasped the part a second time. Not flinching at the contact, you closed your eyes and let the information envelop you, washing over your mind. What you held in your hand was a single piece of the whole. A part of a greater design. A design you could now understand.
It wasn't knowledge. You didn't gain a sudden insight on the parts creation process, or how to build them or even how they worked in technical terms. It was more basic than that, an instinctual understanding. You knew their functions, how each piece had its own role in the final blueprint that collated together to create the final product that was your beaten-up smartphone.
You were already smiling as your gaze inspected each piece, this time in wonder. Not only had the aliens failed to kill you, instead, they had given you a gift that you could use to make sure they would never get another chance. Your phone reassembled in your hand; the broken parts fixed by the impossibility that was your newest ability. You made a mental note to try and learn the ins and outs of your power later. But right now you needed to think, how can you best use this to your advantage?
The sound of screaming – loud enough to pierce the metal walls around you knocked you out of your thoughts.
Whatever. You can figure it out on the move, right now, you needed to get out of here.
Putting your phone back in your pocket, you walked towards the entrance you originally came in, gingerly stepping over the alien husks spread all over the floor. As you moved past the last alien – the one that tried to lob a grenade at you matter of fact – you let out curse as you stubbed your toe over a familiar red and gold helmet.
"Huh," you muttered after you reached down and picked the helmet, inspecting it for any sign of damage. "Not even a scratch." That was rather impressive all things considered. Now that it was in your hands the helmet lit up like a beacon to your senses. Made up of only hardened plastic, it was useless for your needs, so you moved to drop it and continue. But then your gaze locked on the indents where the eyes would be, and you couldn't look away.
He was probably out there right now, Iron Man, beating up bad guys and saving people's lives. Just like those Captain America cartoons you used to watch every morning. The room around you rumbled and you look up to see motes of dust falling from the massive steel constructs in the ceiling. Except now the stakes were real. Your expression shifted to a rueful grin as you looked back down at the helmet, your hands shaking. The amount of times you had spent your afternoons playing superhero – wishing that you had a cool superpower like your favourite comic book heroes had. Nothing more than a childish fantasy.
Except it wasn't anymore.
A second scream came through the door, loud enough that you started. The mask in your hands remained silent, yet the eyes now held so much weight to it that you couldn't help but grimace.
"…Dammit."
Against your better judgement (seriously, how was a plastic mask that
persuasive?), in that tower's basement, surrounded by marvels and monsters, you made your decision. A decision you were sure you were going to regret for what remained of your most likely very short life. But one that you had to make nonetheless. Whatever cosmic fluke that had given you these powers had to have meant something. They had to have had a purpose. And what waited beyond that door seemed like a rather valid purpose to you.
Well then, you might as well get started before the world starts making sense again. The decision made, you spread your hands to encompass the room. Closing your eyes, you reached deep, and called on your power. Formed in your mind, and shaped by your will, you called for it to give you something you can use to fight. The mask fell from your hands, yet the image of the Iron Man armour remained clear in your mind. Maybe that was why your power shaped itself the way it did.
The smaller machines came apart first – computer towers, security equipment stashed in footlockers and other fragile but very important technology – some with names you couldn't even pronounce – released from their containers and floated free in the air. The bigger machines soon followed, until every piece of hardware in the room apart from the Arc Reactor floated around you.
An involuntary grunt escaped your throat a moment later as several pieces of metal slammed into your chest, arms and legs and reforged around your body. The internal components followed, forming the mechanical servos and artificial joints that would make up a crude exoskeleton. Finally came the outer plating, coating your form in the most durable armoured shell you could muster.
The final result was crude, and inefficient. Through the blank faceplate that you could somehow see perfectly out of, you could see parts of the grey and yellow wiring showing through exposed armour panels that your power couldn't cover with the metal you had. The armour itself was lopsided, with most of the heavier plating on your right side, leaving parts of your hoodie exposed on the other. Hints of your wildish brown hair poked through your hoodie and clung to your forehead - the faceplate not forming a complete helmet. And as you rolled your shoulders, most annoyingly, you could feel the cold metal rubbing against parts of your bare skin. Oh great, this was going to chafe like hell in the morning. That is, assuming you lived long enough to see it.
But at the same time, enveloped in this metal death-trap, you'd never felt better. And while you knew this armour was crude, your mind was already spinning with improvements. All you needed was more parts. Better parts.
Your looked down at the fallen aliens and their obviously advanced technology. They were blank slates to you, as far as your power was concerned. Whatever rules that governed it didn't seem to include alien hardware under the technology you could manipulate. Except that wasn't quite true, you don't know why, but those same instincts that let you reach out and create this armour in the first place told you that there was a way for you to do it.
You just didn't know how. Not yet anyway.
You twitched your leg to take a step and let out a yelp as you jumped almost two meters forward. Catching yourself as you land, your expression twitches into an amused grin. Guess this suit makes you a little stronger than normal. The second time you decided to up the ante and take a full step forward. A moment later you roll to your feet from the unintentional ten-meter rolling dash you just made. That grin stretched a little wider. Make that a lot stronger.
You continued to walk, carefully this time. The first few steps clumsy, but you quickly find your stride, the suit becoming more receptive to your movements with every step. Until you find yourself out of the basement entirely and heading towards the lobby to go out to the streets beyond.
A part of you – a very large part actually – screamed for you to run and never turn back. This wasn't your fight. You were no hero. You were no soldier, or millionaire (though you did have a cool suit), or a shapeshifting scientist. This wasn't even your own country for god's sake! You were just here to take a fucking tour. But you couldn't run, no matter how much you wanted to. Not after what you had seen, not after the bodies you had watched fall in the floors above. You could not forget the smell of cooked flesh that hung in the air, or the way your boots squelched against the floor as your rifled through a dead man's pockets to save yourself. Now that you had the power to do something, you owed it to them to try.
But you knew that this armour alone would not be enough to face what waited for you out there.
So, beyond the armour, what else were you able to arm yourself with? (choose 2)
[] Hover boots and Wing Stabilisers
Flight +
Speed +
Durability –
[] Energy Shield Gauntlet
Durability ++
[] Magnetic Shrapnel Gun
Close Range Combat ++
Long Range Combat –
[] Palm Energy Blaster
All Range Combat +
Versatility +
[] Back/Shoulder Mounted Energy Cannon
Long Range Combat ++
Close Range Combat –
Durability –
**
Okay, so to promote discussion there will be a
2-hour MORATORIUM on Votes. DO NOT VOTE FOR 2 HOURS!
I'll be periodically checking the thread over the timeframe to answer any questions that get asked.
