I just really hope that Christoph gets to have a big dumb monster swordfight on top of a skyscraper against the horrible gribbly lady at some point in the future.
@TenfoldShields if this is a deliberate death flag, I want you to know that I'm finding you.
[ ] A compliment. Tell him how nice he looks tonight, act like you're any other couple at any other place in Pyongyang.
[ ] A confession. Tell him how happy you are doing this, even as afraid as you are, because you get to do it with him.
[ ] A question. Ask him his real name. It's not like he's hidden it from you exactly you've just never really had the spine to ask.
aaaaa hard to choose
oh screw it
[X] A confession. Tell him how happy you are doing this, even as afraid as you are, because you get to do it with him.
MAXIMUM HOMO RIDE* OR DIE LET'S DO THIS
* yes that way. If you're about to write 'l-lewd', don't even bother, I know what I wrote.
[X] A question. Ask him his real name. It's not like he's hidden it from you exactly you've just never really had the spine to ask.
He better stay alive dammit, do you know how hard it is to find lgbt romance on this site that isn't 'surprise' lesbians? (Don't get me wrong, some of it's pretty damn good, but there is such a thing as over-saturation)
And hell disregarding that he's one of the few people in this stinking cesspit of a city that treated Lizard boy here with anything resembling affection and friendship.
If he dies this is going tobreak the poor bastard.
Standing there on that cold balcony with your hand outstretched, wrist bent, fingers carelessly crooked. You look at Jiaolong, so beautiful in his blue coat, and there's...there's a glitch in your good mood. A kind of stutter-step as you realize something, And for a second you glance away. And for a second press your other palm to your sternum and you dig your nails into your bare, brawny chest like you can claw it out before it takes hold, before it starts to grow, but it's too late. It's too late you can already feel it spreading, worm-white roots burrowing through muscle tissue. The tendrils of some nightmare tree slithering across the underside of your ribs, blind and mindlessly hungry. Plunging pointed tips into the rich, steaming red so it can drain you dry. Sapping away your adrenaline, your energy, your qi. Eating up the one brief moment of happiness for the sake of its fucked up fruit.
"H-hah..."
Epiphanies, insight, people think that sudden self-understanding is all catharsis, a relaxation of the tension. That it's all enlightenment and one more step on the road to mastery of the You. But you know better. You know how ugly and empty it is down there. You know how much pain there is along with that release. It's like bone grinding against bone as a broken arm is snapped back in place, the lump vanishing beneath stretched skin. Like a dangling limb pushed back in the socket with the wet pop of fluid and the dull throb of torn cartilage. Every time a little different. Every time another breed of awful.
Close your eyes beneath your mask. Take a shuddering breath. Try not to cry, not here, not now, not when so much is riding on this. Try to tamp it down, grind it down, kill the urge to let it in, to accept it, but the fruit is so inviting. Flesh like ruptured blood vessels, all scarlets and reds. It's so easy to press it against your teeth, touch your tongue to it; to bite down despite yourself and let the sickly sugary flavor spill down your throat. Some things are too sweet not to eat. Some thoughts are too satisfying not to think. And it whispers, the ugly, stunted thing inside you, clinging to you like a parasite whispers as you chew:
This is the first time someone's really wanted you, isn't it?
Hah. That's- what a messed up thing to say to yourself. What do you have some kind of martyr complex? Do you like imagining that you're just garbage, that you're not even a person; that you're just some hollow space in the world, more a silhouette than something real? But it's true, it's true and you know it's true and you're so twisted in the head that you find something satisfying in it, that you can relish this sin against yourself. That you can choke yourself with the rotten, rancid idea and cram more down your throat because you deserve it. Because what you have with Jiaolong? Let's be real even if you both make it through tonight, you're going to ruin it.
You don't really know how to make this work and you don't know a thing about him. He's like some kind of god to you, above you, beyond you and all you can do is grovel at his feet, claw at his shins and beg for attention, for affection. Plead for him to grace you with a little kindness, with just a smile. You're too much of a wreck to make anything work. The only thing holding you together is this mission and some glittering golden scales.
But don't be too hard on yourself, it's not your fault: you've never had anyone to teach you, never had anyone to show you how this kind of thing works, you in all your twenty-plus years of life…
You've never been loved have you?
Really loved. The kind like they show on stupid tri-d dramas you're half watching and sappy porn comics you shamefacedly slot in a few won for (you've calced it out, it's not much more than ten minutes of work given your salary and ten minutes of work is worth half an hour of fun right). The kind of love that makes you change. That shifts around your insides, stitching you and shaping you into something new. Nah, you don't know anything about that. Wouldn't know anything about that.
You know other kinds. You know the kind of love where you're small and shy. Where you're standing in the doorway to your mother's darkened room and hesitantly watching the shape beneath the blankets, not sure if she's blissed out on BTL's or just worn down from wherever she's working now. Hovering over the threshold, heart lodged in your throat, softly asking if she would like to come play a video game, if you could go to the pool together, if you could go see a movie like she'd promised.
"Maybe later, mommy's tired."
"Okay."
"Did you do all your homework?"
"Mhm."
"Go play in your room, I love you Christoph."
"...Love you too."
You know the kind of love where it's just the words, only the words, a skeleton scaffold left standing after everything else has been emptied out by rote and repetition. Where it all devolves into a greeting, a parting, a ritual "hello"/"goodbye" as thin and as fake as the cheaper chips The Bitch buys. Bookending the grades-college-job vomit that comes pouring out of her mouth as you sit in the seat beside her and hunch down. Looking at her side-eye, trying to see beneath the glasses, trying to tell if she's been crying (joke's on you, she's always crying and it's always your fault huh). "I love you" why are you being so lazy, don't you care about everything I'm doing for you?, "I love you" why do you keep talking back, aren't I a good mother?, "I love you" You're acting like such a brat, are you trying to punish me?.
You know Aunt Sarah's kind of love too. What you got when you were older and moved away, when you thought things would get better. That probing, picking, kind of love that always seems to ask "what's wrong with you?", innocently wondering why you don't fit, why you don't make sense. The kind of love that reaches for your stunted, malformed heart and then acts so surprised, so disgusted, when that's all you have to offer back. The kind of thing that tells you everything is fine, everything will be alright, before you catch the wrong-number messages on your PDA, from Aunt to Uncle, talking about another of your breakdowns, meltdowns and you know they're so tired of it, so tired of you, but you don't know how to be anything else. Shouting at you for charging a few hundred dollars worth of takeout to a credit card and not listening when you try to gag it up, try to spit it out that it's the only thing that makes you feel better anymore.
It's the kind of love that pushes you to a rooftop in December, the pavers slick with frozen sleet, a few flakes of snow drifting down out of the night sky. That leaves you sitting by the door, scrolling through twelve different toll-free and not-for profit lines, sick little hiccups shaking your shoulders as you try to figure out the fucking ratings system. Numbly, clumsily, scrubbing your soft face while you try to find someone, anyone, who'll tell you not to do it because that's all you want to hear. That's all you want to have, someone to tell you you don't have to. It's the kind of love that cuts you loose in the aftermath. Severs you like you're an...infection, a vestigial organ threatening to pop and flood the body with bile and toxin. Some extraneous, amorphous, tumor of a person, that needs to be excised to protect the family. Not your family. You weren't a part of it by that point.
Your hand's trembling. You can't even look at him anymore even as you hear him step closer.
Is there anyone else? Let's see: there's your dad, you can barely remember his name, his face just a blurred out splotch in your brain. There's Ji-ae, the two of you mashed together like a pair of plastic dolls, barely able to get hard for her and boy wasn't that feeling mutual. There's your cousins who never really called, never really cared. There's your friends from highschool who were only there because you all needed a space to sit at lunch. Your friends from college who were only there because you had to get up at the crack of dawn for the same class. There's Gahm who adopted you like you were a stray cat and that was the closest thing you had in...ever. And look how standoffish you were, the distance you kept between him and you no matter the effort he made to include you (and you were shy and suspicious and wasted most of it you see that now).
This is the only kind of love you know. This is all you have to give.
You shouldn't blame yourself, it really isn't your fault. You're atrophied inside; it's like asking a blind guy to paint, a double amputee to go jog a few laps sans augs. Everything that was supposed to be there has withered away, decayed and degraded, starved to death in the dark. Even the idea of trying is terrifying now. Trying to reach out again, trying to have more, be more. It's just a dream isn't it? He's not yours, he'll never really be yours. You're so far below him that you'll never be anything to him, that he might as well be fucking a dog for the relative difference in your stations in What You Are, that-
"Hey Jiaolong?" You ask quietly as you let your arm fall, as the pain breaks and ebs and you stand there, feeling frail and feverish. Like you've been untethered from your own body. Like you're drifting out of your head, so overloaded that some circuit in your head broke and now there's just a kind of emptiness, a strange sort of clarity.
"Mnm?"
"What's...what's your name?"
"Jingsheng. Jingsheng Choi."
You turn it over in your brain, sound it out a few times. Jingsheng Choi. You have a boyfriend and his name is Jingsheng Choi. He holds you and he cares about you and he makes you feel so warm inside it's like nothing hurts anymore, like all the voices in your head are quiet and maybe that's not love, maybe it's too simple and too early to be love. But it's probably the closest thing you've ever known. Indexed along the same nerve bundle as "flying" and "fighting" and "shedding my skin". And you can settle for that for now, for these crude associations. You can call that affection, you can call that "want". Because you like Jingsheng Choi. He likes you too. Maybe one day you'll love each other like in the comics and tri-d shows and you'll find out what it's like to change on the inside too.
He's looking at you, curiously, cautiously, and you think he sees it. Sees something behind the polished visor and the death's head scarf. His forehead creased a little, there's concern on those black eyes. He steps in against you and you gently, gently, take his hand. You carefully tug him even closer. His body lithe and lanky and strong against yours and God you never want to let go. He lets you lead and you're so pathetically grateful for that.
"(Y'know)," you murmur in his ear, chin on his shoulder, visor against his cheek, "(s'fucked up as it is tonight's not all bad.)"
"Mnm?"
"(I get to show you flying)."
It's a pulse that ripples through your body, it's an audible, organic, slithering. Something stirring beneath a too-thin membrane, flexing and unfurling, straining against its cramped confines. The flesh across your back blisters, bulges out and you're forced half hunched over. Your skin stretching taut over the skeletal spars; long finger-bones pressed together, fanning apart. Curved hooks dragging along and small tears opening in their wake, baring glimpses the black keratin below. Muscle crawls out of the hidden spaces of your body and you flap your wings once. Your back ruptures, twin strips of skin burning away, carbonizing into inert ash as they bare gleaming scales, membranes the color of aged parchment. Your tail slides free with staccato crackles as you flex the new limbs once, twice. Little shivers and tics as you work the kinks out, steam curling from flanks. The sheer, blank, awe on his face is everything you could have wanted. And for a second you can forget again. Forget how empty you are.
"(Hold on)."
"I'm-"
The rotorcraft is gone, the window is open. You crouch down and clutch him close. And the muscles in your legs bulge, the cement beneath your feet cracking with a hairline fracture as you leap free. The ground falling away beneath you, gravity gone. The wind keening, calling, raindrops stippling your arms, your legs. You start to fall, fall into the nothing, the negative space between twisted skyscrapers and you feel his jaw tighten. Self control killing the scream even as it builds in his throat, wind whipping away the low moan. You laugh in his ear.
You asshole.
Flare your wings and your fall's arrested, your whole body jerking, wrenched up on unseen wires as the howling currents curl around you. As you stretch out, hair fluttering in the wind. You row them once, only once, shaping ambient mana into twin plumes of power. Adjusting, modifying, with a dozen minute motions and your leap turns into an even glide. Careless, almost lazy, with its easy. Condensation trickles off your visor as you taper the flow, trim your span, sending the two of you in a wide arc. You land a second later, braking in midair, flapping, dropping him onto the walkway and then alighting with all the nonchalance of a commuter stepping off the train. You curl your wings around your shoulders like coat, like a cloak, your tail swishing back and forth behind you.
He's panting as he stumbles forward. Running his hands all over his chest, feeling where your claws left pinpricks, turning to look at you with wide eyes. You spread your hands in a small "well, what is it?" motion, somewhere between sardonic and self-conscious.
"That was fucking fantastic," he breathes. You pat his back. You pause, you shift your hand lower and pat his ass and he snorts, snickering, a flush in his cheeks. Sweat trickling down his temple, his breaths still coming in shudders as adrenaline shock works its way through.
"If you're done," Nyx's voice hisses through the comms. A few seconds later Tyrhand flutters overhead, shadowing you. A small flock of subverted security drones in tow, their armor china white and stamped with yellow logos, small turrets curled beneath like scorpion tails. Boxy jets pulsing a soft blue. They settle around Jingsheng in a loose halo while Tyrhand glides over your shoulder. Fenrir's voice echoes in your ear. He's all business, half-vocalized snarls backing his syllables, and you can kinda picture him somewhere hundreds of meters beneath your feet. Crouched comfortably in some utility side-tunnel, wolf-helm cocked to the side as he stares into the darkness.
"Foehn. Heliport's on the seventy fifth floor, North face of the section. Way's lit and we only have three minutes before the next rotor-patrol comes through. Get going."
You want to kiss Jingsheng, or even just hold him again. You settle for a little salute, touching curled fingers to your forehead and sweeping them out in a little mock bow. He tips his head back, beak-like muzzle hiding his smile. And then he's turning and the maintenance door is hissing open and then he's just...gone. Vanished up an access hallway painted in sterile whites and industrial grays. The door sliding shut behind him, the lock flickering from green to red.
Deep breath.
Place your palm to the cold, wet stone. Tilt your head up towards the sky, the heavens half-hidden by the sheer mass of the monster in front of you. You kick off, cut yourself free of the Earth and you're so light now. Guts shifting, changing beneath the surface of your stomach. Black clad arms hanging loose by your sides, your body drawn straight like an arrow, like a flung spear, as you stare up, unblinking. Glass windows shooting past like the surface of some sunset lake. Nobody sees you. No anti-air defenses shoot you down.
You're just a shadow in the storm.
The security station is less than two hundred meters from the helipads, Fenrir can get you in but once you land you will either be engaging or be engaged. Given that you are some kind of weird murder-monster Jingsheng gave you pretty free reign with this part of the plan. You will…
[ ] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[ ] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[ ] Strike from the front. Mount a one-man assault. Your Drake strength and inhuman reflexes move this solidly from the realm of "suicidal" to "eminently achievable". But you still lack the desire to, y'know, butcher corporate soldiers, complicating any pitched battle.
Adhoc vote count started by TenfoldShields on Jun 9, 2018 at 9:55 PM, finished with 2084 posts and 20 votes.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
Adhoc vote count started by TenfoldShields on Jun 14, 2018 at 12:24 PM, finished with 2084 posts and 20 votes.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
I'm disinclined towards striking from the front, for the same reason that Cristoph is. Especially after the recognition that before Jiaolong, Gahm was basically the closest he had to someone who cared about him in any meaningful way. Corporate goons are as often unlucky people as they are brutal thugs and tearing through them isn't something I'm keen on voting for.
Stealth I'm mostly disinclined to because he's shit at stealth and fucking up astral fighting is less embarrassing than fucking up a dramatic horror scene.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
I agree with Deku on the point about not wanting to go through these corporate goons like a hot knife through butter, but I'm more inclined to give Stealth a try. While this lacks the flexibility that Astral assault gives us, though, we have less of a chance of tripping ourselves up on the unknown factors of that.
#JingshenChristoph4Ever
(Tenfold you better let my boy have some quality downtime after this. I demand more cute dates once this thrilling action sequence concludes. He's done nothing wrong and I will physically write myself into your story to protect him)
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
If we go loud then people will know shit is up and that'd put our team in danger, on the other hand playing a good old game of Alien Isolation will freak them the fuck out and really get the attention focused on us instead of anybody else.
A big ass dragon-like thing blowing down the door is bad, but that can be seen as a distraction, as someone trying to be intentionally loud. One trying to be stealthy and killing folks by grabbing them through the fucking air vents? That's something you pay goddamn attention too because if you just found out this fucker was here the first thing on your mind is why and how.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[ ] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
He has no stealth training, no natural skill at it, he turns into a giant hungry golden dragon, he loves being the center of attention... the only reason I'd pick this option is to see him fail miserably, as well as the humor in seeing a giant golden dragon try to be sneaky.
But after that heart-rending update I don't want him to fail anymore, so no.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
I like this because
-It shows him embracing his heritage as a drake and as a dual-plane being. This is something he ought to be able to do naturally, unlike stealth, a part of him.
-He's branching out and doing something new. I like new.
-It's focused. No casual destruction or murder, just him going efficiently and directly to the target.
Even if he fails, it'll be interesting and good practice.
[ ] Strike from the front. Mount a one-man assault. Your Drake strength and inhuman reflexes move this solidly from the realm of "suicidal" to "eminently achievable". But you still lack the desire to, y'know, butcher corporate soldiers, complicating any pitched battle.
I don't like butchering. Yes, it's true, we've gotten some amazing updates about butchering, and I kinda want to read more of that fucked-up goodness. But I don't want him to ever become comfortable with that side of himself, I don't want it to ever be his first choice of action.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
Be scaly golden Batman. And the good news is, fucking it up and getting shot a couple times is still scurry because they can watch their bullets do basically nothing.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
This one is just really cool.
God, this quest gets so stressful sometimes. Please make it out okay everyone ;3;
A question. How would we fare against spiritual defenses? Would we just barrel through them like tissue paper or trip an alarm? Can we bypass them by sticking to meat-space?
A question. How would we fare against spiritual defenses? Would we just barrel through them like tissue paper or trip an alarm? Can we bypass them by sticking to meat-space?
Breaking my rich and regal QMly silence to clarify:
Christoph IC isn't a 100% sure how it'd go, he got an eyeful of some of the spirits that'd been tasked to guard the party and they were pretty Impressive plus this is a major company megastructure. But on the flipside every time he's scaled up in front of a spirit they've kind of lost their shit, more minor ones cowarding out entirely, powerful independent ones like Ten Shining Parlors way back when trying to strike deals or beg his help, and he knows for a fact that he can hurt them badly, even to the point of dissolution (horrible yakuza grudge-ghost fr'ex). Ultimately he's not a shaman so he's working off of the basics and bits he's gleaned since college, but from a CorpSec perspective he'd be expecting some kind of alert mechanism and at least a company summoner or two keeping a semi-regular eye on things.
Some of the spiritual defenses are oriented purely towards intruders from Astral Space. Some aren't.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[X] Strike from stealth. Play it like a horror movie. Your Drake agility and raw athleticism give you access to many unexpected avenues of attack. Unfortunately you are still a glittering golden lizard with no appreciable stealth training and thus not particularly covert.
[X] Strike from the Astral. Bypass everything but the spiritual defenses. Your Drake physiology and dual-plane biology allows you to not only view the shadow world but access it as well. Unfortunately, while you can inuit the process, this is your first time trying it.
