12 psychic individuals are sent into a laboratory taken over by terrorists to rescue the scientists and equipment held hostage. But secrets lie in wait, and the question of who to trust may not be as black and white as originally imagined...
The Zodiac Squadron (A Psychic quest inspired by Lost Dimension and Scarlet Nexus)
- Thread starter ScorpioSting
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A Rude Awakening
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Humanity has begun to awaken to a new ability. Psychic talent is being unleashed across the globe, and not all of humanity is adapting to this new order yet. After all, humanity is known to fear what it does not understand. Most psychics hide their talents, only using them sparingly.
The Janus Group seeks to amend that, by taking psychics under its wing for protection and research. On paper, to the rest of the world, they're a philanthropic charity group with research arms and only enough security to protect their assets as necessary, but underneath, the psychic abilities of their agents more than makeup for lesser numbers.
They help smooth over rough or messy awakenings of psionic talents, prevent needle-happy governments from trying to weaponize psychics' abilities for wars, and do their investigations into the why and how of psychic abilities. Research is opt-in and only as medical as strictly necessary, and while not a ton of progress has been made, some solid strides have happened.
Brian Grafburn, an American scientist working in the deserts of an Arizona research lab, was involved in research to find common factors in psychics-hormonal makeup, psychological conditions, genetics, anything. When he was last seen, he made a semi-delirious video log about having found 'something', and had chartered a private plane to his closest acquaintance and colleague, Dr. Masato Kirishima of Janus's Japanese branch.
What happened next is unknown to all, aside from the basic facts. The plane landed in Dr. Kirishima's lab, an aquatic base off of Hokkaido's coast, but Brian Grafburn wasn't the only occupant of it. A mercenary group known as Aesir has taken over the lab, taking the scientists hostage, with no demands of ransom, ideology, or anything like that occurring. The lab is home to cutting-edge technology that was meant to interface and enhance psionic abilities, and Aesir is confirmed to have psionics themselves inside of it.
The Janus Group has formed a crack team of psionic specialists, who are ready to infiltrate the lab, defeat Aesir, and rescue Grafburn, Kirishima, and the equipment.
You are one of them, a member of the 12-person group called Zodiac. Your codename is Rat.
And you have no idea where you are inside this research lab, or any memories of meeting your teammates or how you got inside.
--------------------------------------------
Your head pounds. Instinctively, you bring a hand to your face, giving it a slight rub.
Did you drink too much last night? Maybe. This feels like a hangover, but it also is not.
Where are you? You open your eyes and see a small dorm.
But that's sure as hell, not your room. You're on the wrong side- when you're lying in your bed, you turn your head right to see the door out to the hallway. But to your right is the wall, and the door's on the left side.
Shit. What the hell is happening to your-
The mission. SHIT. How could you forget?
You feel yourself all over. Yep, that's the combat suit they had you wearing. Utility knife. Gun. You stand up. ID card was in the front pocket of the chest. Remember, Rat, remember!
You see your face on the little card, the recognition flashing as you peruse it. The details are below. Right. Of course! You remember now.
Gender Decision
[] Male
[] Female
[] Nonbinary
There can only be one explanation. Aesir must have one hell of a telepath. They scrambled your short-term memories and knocked you out. Somehow must have disrupted the teleportation process, as well. You were supposed to end up all together, but you're alone. They didn't necessarily need to have a teleporter of their own do that, the brain scramble could have just interfered with the process, but still. Someone might have ended up in the drink outside the lab.
If you are in the lab in the first place. Your brain hurts like fucking hell. You rub your head, trying to soothe it. Your long-term memories are fine, but still, you need to ground yourself. You look at the card again. Your powers.
You glance down at the bottom first, that recent discovery that hasn't really helped you all that much.
Tertiary: Clairvoyance
Every psychic, at least so far, has three talents, in decreasing order of power. A Primary, a Secondary, a Tertiary. A first awakening of a Primary usually happens sometime in puberty, for those who are psychic. Secondaries are usually not too far behind, but it can take a few years for a Tertiary to develop.
In your case, you developed within the last month. So far, it hasn't really amounted to much. Oh, sure, you've certainly gotten flashes of the future, but they've been out of context, short, and not immediately relevant. Which, to be fair, is pretty par for the course for a Tertiary. They often are on the weak side. Even still, it's a power that certainly got Janus interested in you, given it's rare. So rare, in fact, that no person with it as a Primary or Secondary has ever shown up yet.
Still, it did let you get into Zodiac. Everyone in the group had to have manifested a Tertiary, as well as have some power with at least potential offensive applications.
For you, that isn't your Primary. Honestly, you feel like you got the codename "Rat" owing to your Primary being more sneaky and deceptive than outright offensive. Which mildly annoys you, but it's not like there's anyone you could complain to at the moment.
Primary Ability Decision
[] Illusion: You're a wiz at creating things that look real but are false. You can make yourself look like anybody you've seen or even someone who might not exist at all. You can also turn yourself invisible. You can affect other people, making others look like you, or giving your allies the appearances-or lack thereof, in the invisibility case. You can create fake copies of yourself as a distraction, as well.
[] Intangibility: You can make yourself able to pass through solid matter, letting you walk through walls or dive through floors. This lets you dodge attacks by phasing through bullets, blades, or flames as necessary. You can take allies or objects with you, though they have to be touching you, which practically limits the amount you can take with you to two at most.
Your offensive capabilities come from your Secondary, though you'd hardly call it a supremely offensive ability. It has potential, certainly, but you're absolutely not the powerhouse of this team.
Secondary Ability Decision
[] Gravikinesis: You can manipulate gravity in a few ways. For one, you can crush an enemy under increased force, dragging them to the ground, and hindering mobility. You can alter the angle of gravity of yourself, letting you walk on a wall like it's the floor. And you can decrease gravity to let yourself jump higher or farther. You're not a master of this, you can't straight-up fly like some Primaries you've heard of, but it's got its uses.
[] Photokinesis: You can create light. You can make dark areas easier to navigate, distract an enemy with a bright flash, and with a bit of focus, you can create a laser that can hurt someone. That takes a bit out of you, however, unlike some Primaries you've heard of with this ability, who are able to create sustained beams.
First order of business: Scope out the situation. You move to the door, looking it over for some way to look out. Thankfully there's a peephole, which lets you look into the hallway and see that you're alone for now. Your headache is subsiding, thankfully, now that you've got a better handle on yourself. You're still a bit hazy about the other Zodiac members, but that should clear up eventually, right?
As you exit the dorm, which, thinking back on what you can remember of the map of this laboratory, must be on one of the upper levels, you look to the left and to the right. The signs are all in Japanese, which you can't read. That would have been... ugh, who was the Overcognitive one? And at least one of the others was from the Japanese branch, too...
You flip a mental coin, then decide to head left. You check the doors on the way, but you ended up here alone.
You find a set of stairs. Up or down? Up, you think. Securing the roof of this place would be a good idea, then you could be methodical and move down the line.
Suddenly, a familiar voice reaches your ears. Or rather, your mind.
"Can anyone hear me?" A woman's voice says. "Is anyone there?"
You put a hand to your temple, focusing on responding back.
"This is Rat. Can you hear me?"
You're not a telepath yourself, but you've been around a few, and you can talk to one even without the gift yourself if you allow it. And that voice, you know.
"Rat! This is Sheep. Where are you? Everyone's all scrambled... and my head still feels off."
"Dorms. High-ish up. And I'm also kind of out of it. Brief amnesia and my short-term memory is still... kinda fuzzy."
"I'm pretty close, then! I'll try and meet up with you."
"Head to the roof. I was going to surveil things up there before moving down."
"Roger."
Sheep is a comforting presence to have. Now that you remember her, at least.
You reach the roof pretty quickly, heading up. Thankfully, you don't encounter any members of Aesir.
Eventually, Sheep arrives, her braided blonde hair waving in the breeze under an early morning sky, the sun almost but not quite having cleared the horizon. It was a little bit in the afternoon when you teleported in from America.
Her outfit's a lot like yours-slim, militarized, but sleek.
"Rat. Good to see you."
"Good to see you as well."
Sheep frowns, looking down at the metal ground. "I tried feeling for everyone, but... the wooziness made my telepathy a bit weak. I found you because you were close, but I'd need a minute to look for anyone else.
"Alright. Most of them can handle themselves, but we should try and regroup before a big Aesir operative can pick us off."
"Okay. Give me a second, I'll see who I can find." Sheep places a hand on the side of her head, focusing. You stand back and give her a moment.
After a bit, her eyes open. "I found four of them!"
"Good job! That's half the team. Where are they?"
"They're in two groups of two. Tiger with Rooster, and Snake with Dragon."
"Who's closer?"
"They're both about equally close, but we should get one before we get the other."
You don't really want to admit that you're blanking on the faces of them, and their powersets. It'd be embarrassing. Thankfully, from what you remember, Sheep's not big into prying into the memories of her allies without permission. Still, you're in the dark about who to go for.
"Can you tell where they are? Like, rooms or labs. And can you sense any Aesir operatives?"
"Not a ton in the upper levels... there are a few others with Tiger and Rooster, but not many, and I don't have any minds I can sense around Snake and Dragon."
That doesn't rule out the possibility that they could be fighting, however. There's automated security systems that could be hijacked, and some of Kirishima's research was into electrokinetic control over machinery, meaning a few robots could be around.
"One last thing. Did you... get anything from... whoever screwed with our heads, and messed with the teleporting? Emotions, memories, thoughts?"
"Nothing on my end. They probably are a Primary Telepathy, if they could do all that, I wouldn't be able to match them... They were extremely guarded with their thoughts. But I know the process, at least, and I think I could guard against it better now that I can anticipate it."
That's a relief, at least. Still, Sheep's waiting on you to make a decision on who to come to the rescue of first.
Who to touch base with?
[] Tiger and Rooster
[] Snake and Dragon
---------------------------------------------
Hello! First time doing a Quest. I hope you all enjoy.
The Janus Group seeks to amend that, by taking psychics under its wing for protection and research. On paper, to the rest of the world, they're a philanthropic charity group with research arms and only enough security to protect their assets as necessary, but underneath, the psychic abilities of their agents more than makeup for lesser numbers.
They help smooth over rough or messy awakenings of psionic talents, prevent needle-happy governments from trying to weaponize psychics' abilities for wars, and do their investigations into the why and how of psychic abilities. Research is opt-in and only as medical as strictly necessary, and while not a ton of progress has been made, some solid strides have happened.
Brian Grafburn, an American scientist working in the deserts of an Arizona research lab, was involved in research to find common factors in psychics-hormonal makeup, psychological conditions, genetics, anything. When he was last seen, he made a semi-delirious video log about having found 'something', and had chartered a private plane to his closest acquaintance and colleague, Dr. Masato Kirishima of Janus's Japanese branch.
What happened next is unknown to all, aside from the basic facts. The plane landed in Dr. Kirishima's lab, an aquatic base off of Hokkaido's coast, but Brian Grafburn wasn't the only occupant of it. A mercenary group known as Aesir has taken over the lab, taking the scientists hostage, with no demands of ransom, ideology, or anything like that occurring. The lab is home to cutting-edge technology that was meant to interface and enhance psionic abilities, and Aesir is confirmed to have psionics themselves inside of it.
The Janus Group has formed a crack team of psionic specialists, who are ready to infiltrate the lab, defeat Aesir, and rescue Grafburn, Kirishima, and the equipment.
You are one of them, a member of the 12-person group called Zodiac. Your codename is Rat.
And you have no idea where you are inside this research lab, or any memories of meeting your teammates or how you got inside.
--------------------------------------------
Your head pounds. Instinctively, you bring a hand to your face, giving it a slight rub.
Did you drink too much last night? Maybe. This feels like a hangover, but it also is not.
Where are you? You open your eyes and see a small dorm.
But that's sure as hell, not your room. You're on the wrong side- when you're lying in your bed, you turn your head right to see the door out to the hallway. But to your right is the wall, and the door's on the left side.
Shit. What the hell is happening to your-
The mission. SHIT. How could you forget?
You feel yourself all over. Yep, that's the combat suit they had you wearing. Utility knife. Gun. You stand up. ID card was in the front pocket of the chest. Remember, Rat, remember!
You see your face on the little card, the recognition flashing as you peruse it. The details are below. Right. Of course! You remember now.
Gender Decision
[] Male
[] Female
[] Nonbinary
There can only be one explanation. Aesir must have one hell of a telepath. They scrambled your short-term memories and knocked you out. Somehow must have disrupted the teleportation process, as well. You were supposed to end up all together, but you're alone. They didn't necessarily need to have a teleporter of their own do that, the brain scramble could have just interfered with the process, but still. Someone might have ended up in the drink outside the lab.
If you are in the lab in the first place. Your brain hurts like fucking hell. You rub your head, trying to soothe it. Your long-term memories are fine, but still, you need to ground yourself. You look at the card again. Your powers.
You glance down at the bottom first, that recent discovery that hasn't really helped you all that much.
Tertiary: Clairvoyance
Every psychic, at least so far, has three talents, in decreasing order of power. A Primary, a Secondary, a Tertiary. A first awakening of a Primary usually happens sometime in puberty, for those who are psychic. Secondaries are usually not too far behind, but it can take a few years for a Tertiary to develop.
In your case, you developed within the last month. So far, it hasn't really amounted to much. Oh, sure, you've certainly gotten flashes of the future, but they've been out of context, short, and not immediately relevant. Which, to be fair, is pretty par for the course for a Tertiary. They often are on the weak side. Even still, it's a power that certainly got Janus interested in you, given it's rare. So rare, in fact, that no person with it as a Primary or Secondary has ever shown up yet.
Still, it did let you get into Zodiac. Everyone in the group had to have manifested a Tertiary, as well as have some power with at least potential offensive applications.
For you, that isn't your Primary. Honestly, you feel like you got the codename "Rat" owing to your Primary being more sneaky and deceptive than outright offensive. Which mildly annoys you, but it's not like there's anyone you could complain to at the moment.
Primary Ability Decision
[] Illusion: You're a wiz at creating things that look real but are false. You can make yourself look like anybody you've seen or even someone who might not exist at all. You can also turn yourself invisible. You can affect other people, making others look like you, or giving your allies the appearances-or lack thereof, in the invisibility case. You can create fake copies of yourself as a distraction, as well.
[] Intangibility: You can make yourself able to pass through solid matter, letting you walk through walls or dive through floors. This lets you dodge attacks by phasing through bullets, blades, or flames as necessary. You can take allies or objects with you, though they have to be touching you, which practically limits the amount you can take with you to two at most.
Your offensive capabilities come from your Secondary, though you'd hardly call it a supremely offensive ability. It has potential, certainly, but you're absolutely not the powerhouse of this team.
Secondary Ability Decision
[] Gravikinesis: You can manipulate gravity in a few ways. For one, you can crush an enemy under increased force, dragging them to the ground, and hindering mobility. You can alter the angle of gravity of yourself, letting you walk on a wall like it's the floor. And you can decrease gravity to let yourself jump higher or farther. You're not a master of this, you can't straight-up fly like some Primaries you've heard of, but it's got its uses.
[] Photokinesis: You can create light. You can make dark areas easier to navigate, distract an enemy with a bright flash, and with a bit of focus, you can create a laser that can hurt someone. That takes a bit out of you, however, unlike some Primaries you've heard of with this ability, who are able to create sustained beams.
First order of business: Scope out the situation. You move to the door, looking it over for some way to look out. Thankfully there's a peephole, which lets you look into the hallway and see that you're alone for now. Your headache is subsiding, thankfully, now that you've got a better handle on yourself. You're still a bit hazy about the other Zodiac members, but that should clear up eventually, right?
As you exit the dorm, which, thinking back on what you can remember of the map of this laboratory, must be on one of the upper levels, you look to the left and to the right. The signs are all in Japanese, which you can't read. That would have been... ugh, who was the Overcognitive one? And at least one of the others was from the Japanese branch, too...
You flip a mental coin, then decide to head left. You check the doors on the way, but you ended up here alone.
You find a set of stairs. Up or down? Up, you think. Securing the roof of this place would be a good idea, then you could be methodical and move down the line.
Suddenly, a familiar voice reaches your ears. Or rather, your mind.
"Can anyone hear me?" A woman's voice says. "Is anyone there?"
You put a hand to your temple, focusing on responding back.
"This is Rat. Can you hear me?"
You're not a telepath yourself, but you've been around a few, and you can talk to one even without the gift yourself if you allow it. And that voice, you know.
"Rat! This is Sheep. Where are you? Everyone's all scrambled... and my head still feels off."
"Dorms. High-ish up. And I'm also kind of out of it. Brief amnesia and my short-term memory is still... kinda fuzzy."
"I'm pretty close, then! I'll try and meet up with you."
"Head to the roof. I was going to surveil things up there before moving down."
"Roger."
Sheep is a comforting presence to have. Now that you remember her, at least.
You reach the roof pretty quickly, heading up. Thankfully, you don't encounter any members of Aesir.
Eventually, Sheep arrives, her braided blonde hair waving in the breeze under an early morning sky, the sun almost but not quite having cleared the horizon. It was a little bit in the afternoon when you teleported in from America.
Her outfit's a lot like yours-slim, militarized, but sleek.
"Rat. Good to see you."
"Good to see you as well."
Sheep frowns, looking down at the metal ground. "I tried feeling for everyone, but... the wooziness made my telepathy a bit weak. I found you because you were close, but I'd need a minute to look for anyone else.
"Alright. Most of them can handle themselves, but we should try and regroup before a big Aesir operative can pick us off."
"Okay. Give me a second, I'll see who I can find." Sheep places a hand on the side of her head, focusing. You stand back and give her a moment.
After a bit, her eyes open. "I found four of them!"
"Good job! That's half the team. Where are they?"
"They're in two groups of two. Tiger with Rooster, and Snake with Dragon."
"Who's closer?"
"They're both about equally close, but we should get one before we get the other."
You don't really want to admit that you're blanking on the faces of them, and their powersets. It'd be embarrassing. Thankfully, from what you remember, Sheep's not big into prying into the memories of her allies without permission. Still, you're in the dark about who to go for.
"Can you tell where they are? Like, rooms or labs. And can you sense any Aesir operatives?"
"Not a ton in the upper levels... there are a few others with Tiger and Rooster, but not many, and I don't have any minds I can sense around Snake and Dragon."
That doesn't rule out the possibility that they could be fighting, however. There's automated security systems that could be hijacked, and some of Kirishima's research was into electrokinetic control over machinery, meaning a few robots could be around.
"One last thing. Did you... get anything from... whoever screwed with our heads, and messed with the teleporting? Emotions, memories, thoughts?"
"Nothing on my end. They probably are a Primary Telepathy, if they could do all that, I wouldn't be able to match them... They were extremely guarded with their thoughts. But I know the process, at least, and I think I could guard against it better now that I can anticipate it."
That's a relief, at least. Still, Sheep's waiting on you to make a decision on who to come to the rescue of first.
Who to touch base with?
[] Tiger and Rooster
[] Snake and Dragon
---------------------------------------------
Hello! First time doing a Quest. I hope you all enjoy.
Kermie
Roses Are Red, I'm Single And Blue
- Location
- Hell (An Unfinished Google Doc)
- Pronouns
- Any
[X] Plan Light and Shadow
-[X] Nonbinary
-[X] Intangibility
-[X] Photokinesis
Alright, this Quest is finally up! Allow me to explain my plan, one by one.
Nonbinary:
There's not that many enby protagonists on SV, mostly female ones. Besides, there's a lot of cool names for nonbinary people that we can use in character creation.
Intangibility:
While illusions are interesting, that doesn't really seem to fit the rat. The rat is more famous for running away and being sneaky. Being LITERALLY UNTOUCHABLE seems like a better use of our powers than spending time on a trick that might not work.
Photokinesis:
Being able to use blinding flashes before sinking through the floor kinda sounds like peak anime, let's be real. Aside from that, this synergizes a lot better with the Intangibility than gravity control, and we want to have a powerset that works well together.
As for the lack of offensive power? We're secret agents! We can just rely on our crew.
As for the touching base vote:
[X] Snake and Dragon
My mother is actually a dragon on the Chinese zodiac, so this vote goes out to her. Aside from that, Dragon is most likely an offensive powerhouse, so he'll be able to cover our weaknesses quickly.
If I had to give one piece of advice though, I'd like to see next update have spaces between the vote boxes, to make it easier to click in between to insert the Xs. Otherwise, this seems like a great quest! I'll be sure to give it a shoutout on mine.
-[X] Nonbinary
-[X] Intangibility
-[X] Photokinesis
Alright, this Quest is finally up! Allow me to explain my plan, one by one.
Nonbinary:
There's not that many enby protagonists on SV, mostly female ones. Besides, there's a lot of cool names for nonbinary people that we can use in character creation.
Intangibility:
While illusions are interesting, that doesn't really seem to fit the rat. The rat is more famous for running away and being sneaky. Being LITERALLY UNTOUCHABLE seems like a better use of our powers than spending time on a trick that might not work.
Photokinesis:
Being able to use blinding flashes before sinking through the floor kinda sounds like peak anime, let's be real. Aside from that, this synergizes a lot better with the Intangibility than gravity control, and we want to have a powerset that works well together.
As for the lack of offensive power? We're secret agents! We can just rely on our crew.
As for the touching base vote:
[X] Snake and Dragon
My mother is actually a dragon on the Chinese zodiac, so this vote goes out to her. Aside from that, Dragon is most likely an offensive powerhouse, so he'll be able to cover our weaknesses quickly.
If I had to give one piece of advice though, I'd like to see next update have spaces between the vote boxes, to make it easier to click in between to insert the Xs. Otherwise, this seems like a great quest! I'll be sure to give it a shoutout on mine.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Noted, thanks for the heads up.
And I'm a Scorpio (if the username wasn't obvious), with my Eastern being Snake.
[X] Plan Nucleic Cheshire
While @MrKermie makes a good case for Photokinesis, Gravikinesis allows for some very creative approaches to situations, assuming we can have both Intangibility and Gravikinesis active at the same time. Directions of gravity aren't just up, down, and side-to-side, but 360 degrees. Combine that with being able to go through walls, and you could effectively no-clip into any room from any direction. Mobility options here are off the charts, we can effectively never get pinned down unless our intangibility is blocked.
While @MrKermie makes a good case for Photokinesis, Gravikinesis allows for some very creative approaches to situations, assuming we can have both Intangibility and Gravikinesis active at the same time. Directions of gravity aren't just up, down, and side-to-side, but 360 degrees. Combine that with being able to go through walls, and you could effectively no-clip into any room from any direction. Mobility options here are off the charts, we can effectively never get pinned down unless our intangibility is blocked.
Kermie
Roses Are Red, I'm Single And Blue
- Location
- Hell (An Unfinished Google Doc)
- Pronouns
- Any
Counter argument: if our intang is blocked, we're cooked, seared, and fried. While gravity can help out a lot, it still doesn't distract people with telepathy or telekinesis, which I have a decent feeling we'll be seeing.
On the contrary, the power of LASER is a lot harder for them to block.
Counter counter argument: the laser is said to take a lot out of us. So it's probably a once-an-encounter type of deal, and if that gets blocked/no-sold then we are now suffering a degree of exhaustion.
I do see the merits of Photokinesis, but from my perspective the Secondary Power vote comes down to "movement utility"(Gravikinesis) vs "encounter utility"(Photokinesis), and my personal preference there is movement.
Characters and their Powers
- Pronouns
- He/Him
ZODIAC
PIG
AESIR OPERATIVES
PIG
-------------------------------------------
AESIR OPERATIVES
Last edited:
Kermie
Roses Are Red, I'm Single And Blue
- Location
- Hell (An Unfinished Google Doc)
- Pronouns
- Any
This feels like you should turn this post into the character bio compendium later.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Good idea. Later, though.
*you hear faintly a song about the Chinese new year play in your head*
ThatGuyWithIdeas
Treize died for our sins
- Location
- Romania
[X] Plan Shining Deceiver
-[X] Male
-[X] Illusion: You're a wiz at creating things that look real but are false. You can make yourself look like anybody you've seen or even someone who might not exist at all. You can also turn yourself invisible. You can affect other people, making others look like you, or giving your allies the appearances-or lack thereof, in the invisibility case. You can create fake copies of yourself as a distraction, as well.
-[X] Photokinesis: You can create light. You can make dark areas easier to navigate, distract an enemy with a bright flash, and with a bit of focus, you can create a laser that can hurt someone. That takes a bit out of you, however, unlike some Primaries you've heard of with this ability, who are able to create sustained beams.
-[X] Snake and Dragon
Really feel like Illusion is a lot better than Intangibility as a primary power, since it is more versatile and better suited for non-combat endeavours.
-[X] Male
-[X] Illusion: You're a wiz at creating things that look real but are false. You can make yourself look like anybody you've seen or even someone who might not exist at all. You can also turn yourself invisible. You can affect other people, making others look like you, or giving your allies the appearances-or lack thereof, in the invisibility case. You can create fake copies of yourself as a distraction, as well.
-[X] Photokinesis: You can create light. You can make dark areas easier to navigate, distract an enemy with a bright flash, and with a bit of focus, you can create a laser that can hurt someone. That takes a bit out of you, however, unlike some Primaries you've heard of with this ability, who are able to create sustained beams.
-[X] Snake and Dragon
Really feel like Illusion is a lot better than Intangibility as a primary power, since it is more versatile and better suited for non-combat endeavours.
- Location
- Indonesia
Eh, I like this plan the most.
My vote:
[X] Plan Shining Deceiver
My vote:
[X] Plan Shining Deceiver
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Calling the vote:
[X] Male wins with 5 votes.
[X] Intangibility wins with 5 votes.
[X] Photokinesis wins with 4 votes.
[X] Tiger and Rooster wins with 4 votes.
[X] Male wins with 5 votes.
[X] Intangibility wins with 5 votes.
[X] Photokinesis wins with 4 votes.
[X] Tiger and Rooster wins with 4 votes.
Kermie
Roses Are Red, I'm Single And Blue
- Location
- Hell (An Unfinished Google Doc)
- Pronouns
- Any
… you know what, the power selection was the most important thing here, so I'm happy!
Tiger Tiger, Burning Bright...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Male
[X] Intangibility
[X] Photokinesis
[X] Tiger and Rooster
[X] Intangibility
[X] Photokinesis
[X] Tiger and Rooster
-----------------------------
"I think we should go and rescue Tiger and Rooster." You say, reasonably confident in your decision.
"Right. Good idea. Tiger is the leader, after all. He should have some idea of what's happening, or at least be able to help us regroup."
You file that away mentally, though hopefully, you'll recall him when you see him.
"Can you find out where we'd need to stand to be above him? I'll take your hand and we can phase down floor by floor until we reach him."
"Oh, good idea. Just let me…" Sheep puts her left hand to her temple, and then holds out her right hand, slowly feeling around. She walks slowly over the rooftop, and you follow her until she stops. "About here will do."
"How many stories down?"
"Ten."
You've been training on your ability to use intangibility ever since you awoke and were discovered by the Janus Group. You know how quickly gravity can affect you. You do some quick mental calculations to get a rough estimate of how long you'll need to maintain intangibility until you reach that point. When you have a good estimate-which you can play by ear, after all, you'll see the stopping point with your own eyes when you reach it- you nod.
"Alright, I've got how long I'll maintain it."
Sheep nods, then slowly places her hand in yours. You focus your power inward, to that feeling of non-existence, the void that dwells within you. You need to cover yourself, and Sheep as well. You draw it out, and then, you fall.
Sheep lets out a gasp as you sink into the floor as if it were nothing. One floor. Two. Three. Four. Five.
You speed up as you approach that gravitational constant. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine!
"BRACE!" You yell as you pass between the floor between Nine and Ten, releasing the intangible field as you land. You let go of Sheep and tuck into a roll to avoid going splat, and Sheep does the same.
You quickly get up and survey the area, looking for a face you recognize, when you feel a bullet move through the air right by your face. You see a bunch of Aesir grunts in face-covering helmets with assault rifles right in front of you.
"Two more Janus operatives! Fire!" Shouts the leader of the group, but the muffling of the helmets obscures the direction somewhat.
Shit. You yell out "Flash!" in your mind as a signal for Sheep so she knows to close her eyes to avoid getting hurt as you conjure a bright blinding light that distracts the group of soldiers long enough for a quick glance at your surroundings.
It's a canteen, with a kitchen nearby, when you see a head that's a bit familiar duck up, reacting to that bright flash. You grab Sheep by the hand and run through the half-wall that you pick food up from, making a quick jump to compensate for not having solid ground to walk on while passing through the wall. You hear the bullets flying and hitting the wall as you go through it. When you're through, you go solid and look at the two men who are hiding in there.
The head you saw smirks at you, a mixture of reassurance and incredulity. "So there you are. Figures you'd arrive before Rabbit. Lazy ass."
The other head just nods, looking confident and assured that comrades are back in the fold. "Sheep. Rat. Good to have you."
The info comes flooding back with their faces now in sight.
"Sheep found you, I was just the way down."
Sheep doesn't try to peek over the top of the gap, but she looks puzzled as she focuses. "I... I can't get into their heads."
Tiger just nods. "I think it's the helmets. They block anything telepathic."
"Not... fully. I can tell where they are... roughly. That they have minds. I just can't get inside to read their thoughts or distract them."
"Well, one of them's a Suppressor. The leader."
"Didn't get a good look." You say. "Was too busy getting to cover. You used Sensing on him?"
"Nah. Not his Primary. He's a pyro. He's blocking Tiger's shields, cuz he knows it's our best defensive option. My air walls can stop things with a lot of surface area, but not bullets. Like how a balloon can handle getting smacked by a hand, but needles pop 'em. Tiger can't shield himself to go in, or shield me so I can blow them away with a big gust."
"If he's a pyrokinetic, why isn't he using his fire?" Sheep asks.
"I haven't figured out everything about Aesir's goals yet, but from what we can tell, these guys don't want to blow up the whole facility. I think he's afraid of the natural gas being stored in this kitchen. If he sets it off, it could explode, maybe start a chain reaction. He doesn't want to play recklessly." Tiger says, coolly and confidently.
"So you were stuck here under threat of suppressing fire, but them not making any moves?"
"Basically... until you arrived," Rooster says. "But now we can turn the odds."
"Well, they already know I can go intangible. I could distract them, but they might not take that bait if they knew the bullets would just go right through me. And the flash might not be as effective as the second time."
"I can't distract them with telepathy, either..." Sheep says, looking unconfident.
"All of their eyes are locked on us, right?"
Rooster puts a hand on the side of his head and closes his eyes, clearly hopping from view to view of each of their visions.
"Yep, all locked in on this kitchen."
You look around the kitchen. It's all in disarray, as a result of Aesir's chaos.
You look up and around the various open drawers and cabinets. There's some knives that look pretty sharp... that gives you a bit of an idea.
"Sheep, can you take two of those knives and just throw them at the enemies?"
Sheep nods. "I don't think it'd do much damage... and I don't think I can get an accurate shot."
"It doesn't need to actually hurt anyone, it just needs to come close enough that it disrupts the formation by forcing them to dodge. If you can get them a second or two where they're a bit unfocused, I can give a second flash that catches them off-guard, and then Rooster can get a few seconds to blow them apart, maybe disrupt the leader."
Rooster bites his lip. "I don't think it's an amazing idea... but I don't think I see anything better for now."
Tiger nods. "Alright, we'll go with that."
You fetch a pair of sharp-looking knives and hand them to Sheep, who moves off the floor, staying crouched and behind the half-wall counter. She levitates them slightly, and then, as quickly as she can, tosses them up and over the edge, in two directions.
You hear gunshots, and then scrambling sounds of footsteps on the floor outside. That's the sign you needed! You stand up and let loose another bright flash, which sends the Aesir members blocking their eyes for a moment. Rooster bursts through the actual door to the kitchen, letting loose a wide arm sweep that sends a large gust across the room. The chairs are pushed around, and several mercenaries are sent flying back into various walls or the floor.
It's enough of a breakthrough for Tiger to make his advance, drawing his sword from his back and making a dash into the room. A few of the less-affected men try to shoot him, but he moves just fast enough to avoid the bullets, as Rooster moves into smaller but more focused wind blasts against individual targets.
You and Sheep move into the rear of this impromptu formation, both drawing your pistols. You turn to the one member with the custom uniform who stayed at the very back. Their armor is red, and their helmet has flame decals.
"Not exactly subtle about your Primary ability, are you?" Rooster says, slightly cockily.
"Why would I need to be?" The voice is male, but oddly high. "We don't have anything to hide here. I'm proud of my capabilities."
"Dragon'd wipe the floor with you."
"Aww, but Dragon isn't here. Too bad." The red-garbed man opens a palm, and a fireball congeals inside of it, which he lobs into the air like a grenade, where it grows in size.
"CO2!" You quickly shout, and Rooster gets the idea, focusing his powers on pulling out the pure oxygen from the air and smothering the flame with ambient carbon dioxide, which works at making the flame ball die down. Tiger rushes in, but the figure puts his hands together and flame flickers between his gloved hands, forming into a blade. He moves in, going for a wide horizontal slash that Tiger ducks underneath.
You go for a pair of shots, aiming for the shoulder of the pyrokinetic, but he dodges out of the way. He traces a line on the ground with his sword of flame and a wall of fire flares up, forcing Tiger to step back.
"Surtr. That's my name. You're all pretty good. Let's see if you can keep up with me or my pals." He places a hand on the side of his helmet, and then, suddenly, he teleports out.
"Pyrokinesis, teleportation, and suppression? Hell of a set." Rooster says as he turns his attention to dousing the flames with his CO2 trick.
"No, I... I think he was calling for help, and someone else teleported him." Sheep counters.
"Still, this confirms that they have a teleporter on their side. So they might have interfered with Rabbit's teleport in of all of us on that front, as well as the mind scramble." Tiger says.
"Gotta be a Teleporter Primary, too. All the Secondary's I've met were only able to teleport someone else within their line of sight, not remotely like this."
"I still think he did it himself." Roosters puffs, then sighs. "All of the others are non-psychic. I knocked 'em out... mostly."
"Are you hurt at all, Tiger?" Sheep quickly asks.
"No flames touched me. I'm fine. But it's appreciated."
You holster your gun and survey the situation. All of the other mercenaries are on the ground, as Rooster said. Most are still breathing, and the few that aren't... Well, can't make an omelette and all that. You turn back to the conversation.
"We're further down. You still have a lock on Snake and Dragon, right?"
"Yeah. They're about a floor up."
Tiger nods. "I want to see what Snake thinks of this situation. And Dragon would be good, as well."
Rooster looks down. "Nah, those two can handle themselves for a bit. Snake would do that whole 'I've predicted your every action' thingy and Dragon's got three varieties of blast. They're a good team, we should look for some of the others. I'm worried about Monkey."
"I know you're friends with them and all, but Monkey's functionally a second version of whoever they're with. As long as they're with Ox or Horse, they'll be able to handle themselves. Pig too, in a pinch. No, my worry with Snake and Dragon is their personalities. They're oil and water- Dragon hates being bossed around, and Snake... isn't exactly a tactful woman."
"You say that as if Dragon likes you."
"She's... temperamental, yes, but she respects me, at least."
"Any luck with the others?" You ask Sheep. "Dog, Rabbit, Horse...?"
"Nothing yet. Sorry. There's still a bit of lingering static from the scramble. And it's a big lab..."
"Well, if all we can find right now are Snake and Dragon, we'll go to them. They're up a floor, which would place them in one of the rec areas." Tiger decides, his confidence evident.
"I'm still not getting any other mental signals in their area... but given how I thought that there were only a few soldiers down here, those telepathy-dampening helmets are fiddling my mind radar, too, so I can't be 100% certain of anything aside from us."
"Rooster, can you check on them?"
Rooster closes his eyes once again, sending his eyes up into one of the two. When he opens his eyes, he's got a dark look.
"Robots. They're attacking them!"
Rooster practically bolts out of the cafeteria, heading to the stairs.
"Shit. He's always going off on his own... I want to do some psychometric investigation to figure out what happened around here. One of you go with him, the other stay with me."
[ ] Go with Rooster to save Snake and Dragon from the robots, leaving Sheep with Tiger
[ ] Stay with Tiger to investigate the situation, leaving Sheep to help Rooster, Snake, and Dragon
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- Location
- Indonesia
Thinks?
Edit: Changed my vote here.
My vote:
[X] Go with Rooster to save Snake and Dragon from the robots, leaving Sheep with Tiger
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fixed, sorry, thanks for pointing it out.
Kermie
Roses Are Red, I'm Single And Blue
- Location
- Hell (An Unfinished Google Doc)
- Pronouns
- Any
[X] Stay with Tiger to investigate the situation, leaving Sheep to help Rooster, Snake, and Dragon
We've done some action, now do some detective work.
(Also, Tiger's very cool. Nice powerset as well.)
We've done some action, now do some detective work.
(Also, Tiger's very cool. Nice powerset as well.)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The list post has been converted into a character bio sheet, which also has (what little info there was) on Surtr.
[X] Go with Rooster to save Snake and Dragon from the robots, leaving Sheep with Tiger
I feel like our powerset is better made to help in combat here, especially against robots who probably have a targeting system that doesn't like bright lights.
I feel like our powerset is better made to help in combat here, especially against robots who probably have a targeting system that doesn't like bright lights.