The Vivacious Deadlock: S3G6: Round Three: The Sable Masque

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

High above the city, ever-darkening clouds rolled angrily, blanketing the world below in thick darkness. The gloom was punctuated occasionally by a living bolt of lightning, and made deeper by the contrast; the jagged streaks of electricity came more frequently as time went on, dramatically outlining the struggles of the increasingly-embattled souls below and occasionally setting a hovel alight. Rain poured down on those people who had been forced by occupation or habit to venture out into the night, chilling sheets of water that had long since replaced the initial tentative drizzle. Howling wind that had begun its life as gentle breezes forced the storm forward and around, piling the clouds into rumbling thunderheads and promising a vortex to come.

Even higher above, in a sky that could almost be called tranquil by comparison, a small group of metallic objects appeared. Three spheres glinted in the moonlight that shone through the thin atmosphere, a trio of shooting stars that plummeted hopefully into the shifting, crackling darkness below to deliver messages of solidarity masking a sinister intent. One by one, they disappeared into the fearsome clouds, their mere seconds of glittering descent subsumed by the implacable storm. Their creator had done what he could, and the whims of fate or chance or convenience were left to decide the outcome of his ambitious plan.

Unfortunately for him, though there were many who would count the event as incredibly fortuitous, the wicked winds scattered the messenger orbs, whirling them through the skies and casting them aside. The little spheres were buffeted from every side by the uncaring chaos of the brewing calamity, sent astray and far from the hands of any who would understand their plea and command. One smashed like a meteorite into the implacable ironwork of an abandoned manufactory, its sturdy construction and futuristic design incapable of saving it from such an impact at such a velocity with such a target; it was battered and broken, left unrecognizable and worthless save for scrap. Another embedded itself deep in the soil outside the city, coming to rest mere feet from the spot where one contestant found himself at the start of the battle, a cruel temporal joke told by randomness to no audience in particular. The last was flung far from the city proper, its distant provenance mirroring its unseen end; it was doubtful it would ever be found by anyone, much less by those who it was intended for. In a small way, one that would never be consciously realized, one more small glimmer of hope died, this time not even at the hands of the cruel masters who had ensured that hope itself was in short supply.

Below, the noisome city went about its inscrutable business; few were about to effect that business, given the hour and the weather, but a place like this one was never truly still. Even pounded by rain and cloaked by night, thugs and thieves and urchins did what they felt they had to, this time joined by the mobilizing forces of a dozen power-hungry gangs, propelled by a lust for power and steered by the proxied whispers of Empress Phere. Amidst them all were eight figures who had no proper place within the city's walls, weaving in a complex dance of seeking and avoidance. One such figure cast her frustrated gaze across the darkened skyline, an invisible dome above her head all that prevented her from being soaked to the bone.

More than an hour had passed since Cascala's search had begun; it might even have been two, but the woman had neither timepiece to consult nor the desire to accurately measure the hours' passage. All that mattered was the irritation that was building inside her. She begs us for sacrifice, urges us towards life and death, implores us, her doves of war, to kill one another, and yet she proceeds to drop us in a city so large that age is a more certain killer than any of her warriors. How are we to battle for her glory or ours if all that presents itself is gutter trash and a thousand thousand places to hide? Sandaled feet strode angrily across the little cloud that held them aloft, narrowed eyes ever scanning for signs of any contestant save herself, darting as they had for hour and then some between huddled forms and piles of refuse with nothing to show for their efforts. Behind those eyes, a voice whispered Fatima's Sight would have shown her each of the seven mere moments after she had been released from that demon's grip, and only moments more would have told her each one's thoughts, plans, and weaknesses. The voice promptly answered itself curtly with And then she would still have been standing ankle-deep in filth with two common bandits menacing her brittle bones. Gods preserve us from powerless diviners; I am the most powerful of the Grand Magi, and even with a veil drawn across my eyes that Fatima would have been able to part, I will crush those I must crush. Scanning eyes stopped their scrutinizing for a moment to glance upwards, and tightened lips parted briefly in a satisfied grin. By my ministrations, the sky will see to that.

As Cascala's gaze lowered itself once more to the city below, a shadow caught her eye. It truly was just that: a shadow. It wasn't the silhouette of a figure or the blur of movement, but a stain on the roof it crept across, darker than the darkness around it. Man-sized but moving oddly for a man, it threaded through chimneys and spinning weathercocks, intent on some purpose more unknowable than its own nature. Cascala stalked silently closer across the sky, recognition gradually dawning.

---

Klendel was enjoying himself immensely; since his little exhibition at that saloon, he'd planted another half-dozen little clues for the Good Bad Uglies and anyone else who happened to find them that Sir Cedric "the Valiant" had a bone or two to pick. Still, picking on one man was small potatoes when there was a whole network of feuding gangs and fragile alliances to send crashing to the ground. Preferably engulfed in flames and soaked in blood.

Actually, he'd already been able to gather that someone else had much the same thing in mind; rumors were spreading from no clear source, choice bits of information were being dropped in important ears, and a hundred invisible levers on a hundred different people were being pulled by some shadowy hand that wasn't his. Someone experienced at manipulating lots of people at once either had it in for Dr. Matic's Group of Scientiflic Inclined Professionals or was simply trying to incite an all-out gang war by instigating a dozen-front squabble over the tome. Either way, it was a good effort; not quite up to his standards, of course, but not bad at all.

It'd be a shame to have all that aggression directed one direction though. Everyone knows a good collapse only comes from lots of forces all directed at one another. Since piecing together what was going on, Klendel had spent his time amiably dropping choice pieces of misinformation, attacking a messenger here and framing a rival gang there, and generally ensuring that when things came to a head, as they were guaranteed to at this point, that it would be a confusing maelstrom of cross-purposes and backstabbing. It'd leave the city half in ruins, with any luck, and either way there would be an enormous power vacuum.

All in a night's work!

At the moment, he was crossing another cluttered rooftop on the way to find someone from a group that apparently called themselves Los Picaros Duros; he was hoping to delicately convince them that the tome they so desperately wanted had actually been captured by their rivals, Fabulis Fabulosa Milesiaca. Travel by roof had proven to be more convenient than skulking in alleyways, both because it offered a more direct route and because people had a habit of not listening to you much if they saw you were some kind of scary shadow monster. Never one to cause undue screaming and running around when subtlety would work better, Klendel had decided to stick to high ground for the most part. Besides, that pretty much guaranteed he wouldn't be running into any of the other contestants until he was ready to confront them on his own terms.

That particular illusion was shattered when a number of ballistic icicles impacted on his gear, pierced his shadowy flesh, and shattered on the roof around him.

---

Cascala had tailed the shadowy creature for about a minute, carefully observing its motion and form; she eventually came to the conclusion that it was indeed the bizarre shadowy creature that had been barely-introduced after Doctor Harmon. There was no name to attach to it, nor any indication of what it could do or what could be done to it, but it was one of her targets, and she wouldn't let the opportunity to catch it off guard slip past.

The magus sent her mind forth, invisible tendrils of exploratory mana probing the dark shape. She found no fluid to manipulate, no blood to remove, no lungs to fill with water; its innards were as enigmatic as its outer form, and nothing to break or twist presented itself. Still, she thought, running her fingers along the runes on her staff, I have destroyed demons and golems and all manner of creatures with no blood to boil. One must simply sacrifice finesse…

The fingers on Cascala's left hand splayed and a faint spark of cyan light flashed for a moment between them; a number of small, invisible barriers formed in the air, similar to the one that kept the rain off her head but in the shape of inverted cones rather than a wide dome. Rain collected quickly in the receptacles, and she waved her staff; the water froze near-instantly, forming wicked spikes of ice. Her left hand clenched into a fist, and the barriers dissipated; the icicles, pulled by gravity and pushed by magic, rocketed towards the shady monster below. For power.

It whipped around to see what had attacked it, glowing red eyes narrowed in surprise and anger; it took several moments for the creature to notice the source of the attack had come from above, but when it did it bared long fangs and its hands seemed to become more clawlike. Cascala ignored the animalistic aggression stance, already muttering arcane syllables as she began casting another spell.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

This was not part of the plan. Klendel dropped to all fours and darted to the edge of the roof, slightly faster than should have been possible. He lept over the edge just as Cascala finished her spell, and the heavens glowed gleefully as a bolt of electricity touched down on the edge of the rooftop, leaving a blackened scorch mark where Klendel had been only moments before. Klendel himself slammed heavily into corner of the next rooftop, clawed hands scrabbling for purchase at the top, feet doing much the same on the side. He dug his claws into the surface of the roof and pulled himself up, grunting as he lifted the weight of the gear on his back. He wasted no time in sprinting for the other side, almost slipping in the rapidly-accumulating water, which seemed to be a good deal too much for a natural rainstorm. A bright flash of light alerted Klendel to the fact that Cascala had just hit him with a lightning bolt. The radiant burst sapped his strength, and his sprint turned into something more akin to a stagger. He was nearly at the edge of the roof, and he tried to leap to the next one the same way he had leaped to the one he was on, but he misjudged the distance, and this time his claws and feet scrabbled for purchase in the wall. He dropped to the alley two stories below, landing nonchalantly on his feet despite the length of the fall, and severely frightening a nearby hobo who had been taking shelter from the rain inside a cardbord box, with a metal trash can lid placed on top to help stop it from getting too wet. He was situated near a dumpster, as well as near the overturned trash can he had scavenged the lid off of; from the looks of things, he had been about to start what passed for dinner among his kind. Klendel took a moment to give him a toothy, impossibly wide grin, then backed up against the wall opposite from him and began sliding rapidly along it, melting into the shadows as he went until he was nothing more than a moving gear half-embedded in a lump of shadow flitting across the side of the building, then onto the ground when that side ended, and just as rapidly up onto the side of the next building in the line.

---

Cascala descended quickly towards the alley, determined not to let her prey escape. She had not been happy when it had survived a direct lightning strike, but had not been altogether surprised by it. The trick to killing a magical being, she knew, lay in discovering what it was vulnerable to. Beings held together by magical forces were always associated with one element or another, although it usually differed on an individual basis. This made each naturally resistant to related types of magic, as they were granted a degree of control over them, but gave them little natural protection from other ones, which they were unable to magically counter. The fact that the lightning strike had done as much as it had was, in a way, reassuring, because it implied that weather magic had not been used as a base for the demon.

She reached the alley in time to see the creature melt into a wall and go speeding off, a mound of darkness identifiable only by the metallic shape embedded in its back. She quickly gave chase, rising higher again and casting a spell to allow her to see through the rain and track her target. After it had traveled several city blocks in the same direction, it made an abrupt right-angle turn and began making its way towards a group of warehouses. She turned as well, wondering what was so important about the warehouses that the demon had to return there instead of trying to take her out.

---

Klendel decided to postpone his mission to dupe the Los Picaros Duros into raiding the Fabulis Fabulosa Milesiaca, since he doubted he could finish it with Cascala on his tail. He had spotted her just as he had sped off amongst the shadows, and he occasionally caught a glimpse of her high above, chasing him from atop an oddly solid cloud. He wracked his mind, trying to decide on the best way to get rid of her. He knew he was no match for her without the advantage of either surprise or close quarters, and he also wanted to avoid giving away any information about himself he didn't have to. The unknown is the most fearsome thing of all, after all. After a few silent moments of mental concentration, he realized that there was only one gang he hadn't yet begun to set up for a fall; the one led by the other manipulator. Cascala seemed bent on destroying him, but perhaps if he made himself appear to be working for them...

He took a sharp right turn and sped off towards the warehouses in the industrial district. A few of the people he had pressed for information had mentioned one of them as being important, and he suspected it was either a forward base or a key building belonging to whoever his competitor was. Either way, if he brought an enemy to its doorstep, there would likely be some form of defense waiting for them. And besides, he thought, with a mental shrug, what've I got to lose by trying?

---

Syn raised an eyebrow at Empress Phere from behind the small table she referred to as her desk. "Are you sure you want to go through with this operation? There's no going back if you change your mind later."

Phere stared back seriously with her real eye. The Hollow stared along with it without any real change in expression, but Syn felt it was piercing her regardless. "I don't make choices like this on a whim, Syn. Of course I'm sure."

Syn nodded and opened her mouth to say something when Levi rushed in. "Boss--Empress Phere, we have a security breach. Something got in past our perimeter without us noticing somehow."

Phere turned around. "What? How? I thought you said you had sensors everywhere."

Levi shrugged. "We do, and as far as I know they're still working. The perimeter ones are heat sensors, though, and the intruder seems to be wearing a strange black outfit. I think it might be a coldsuit." He scratched his chin contemplatively in a way that suggested that he had once had a beard. "Although why someone would be prepared for heat sensors and not motion detectors is beyond me. They don't seem to know we're here, though, since they're sweeping through every warehouse instead of zeroing in on ours."

Phere began looking around the warehouses with her Hollow, searching for the intruder. "Where are they now?"

"Warehouse C. Two down from us."

Phere brought her Hollow to bear on Warehouse C, and found, to her surprise, a shadowy, humanoid shape, with a gear protruding from its back. She recognized him as one of the contestants, but she had no name to attach to him. For some reason, he was simply ignoring every camera and sensor, rushing through as if he didn't even know they were there. She withdrew from the viewing and addressed Levi, who was bouncing on the balls of his feet anxiously. "Go meet our guest, but be careful; I have reason to believe he may be dangerous." Levi nodded and stormed off to the entrance, planning to catch the intruder when he made his way to the warehouse the Punks' base was located in. Phere turned back to Syn. "The surgery is going to have to wait, I'm afraid; I can't afford to be indisposed until this is settled." She headed back to the command center she had established and then shifted her Hollow's focus to Levi, waiting for the dark figure to make his appearance.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

---

Did you really need to kill him? Nalyg briefly glanced back at Fleischer's bloodied, crumpled body.

Better than leaving him alive after seeing us. Besides, these things are really easy to kill. Crack open like a glass window. Razaran's hammeresque limb pulled itself apart and retracted into his side.

Especially when they're unarmed. You could at least wait until you've discerned a threat before you go murdering. Kanpeki's piercing blue eyes stared daggers at the dark Typhren.

Okay, sure. Non-lethal force next time, if possible. Let's get moving before someone finds the body.

Nalzaki turned and began walking down the long, concrete hallway, flourescent lights flickering above. Several steel doors, not unlike the one that had sealed off the abandoned laboratory, lay down either side of the long hallway, each identical to the next save for a small label.

Food storage S3... Chemical Storage S3-A... Electrical Maintenance... None of this seems especially helpful in retrieving that tome, Nalyg noted.

Perhaps we should check this one, then, added Kanpeki, motioning at a door labeled "VAULT". We'll need to take a bipedal stance to reach the lock properly, though. Nalyg, if you will.

Nalyg's front legs dissolved into his body as his back ones began to grow in size. The legs cracked with the snapping of bones and sinews as their underlying structure rearranged into a form much more suited to supporting the full weight of the hydra. Slowly, Nalzaki hoisted themselves upright, their heads held low to avoid hitting the ceiling. Razaran and Kanpeki transformed their now-useless legs into arms, almost as an afterthought.

We can't get around in these hallways very well like this. We'll go back to hexapedal once you're finished with that door.

Kanpeki wrenched the electric keypad lock from the wall next to the door, exposing the underlying circuitry. She immediately formed an electricity-producing organ in her arm, and reached into the panel. Shortly afterward, the door swung open, successfully unlocked.

They don't appear to have an especially high level of technology here. It shouldn't be a problem to get around.

In spite of the security, the Vault was a rather small room, barely large enough to accommodate the Kryesan. Shelves lined the walls, stacked high with countless papers and binders. Kanpeki grabbed a binder from the shelf and hastily flipped through it for a few moments, then replaced it.

It looks like all of these papers catalogue the projects this laboratory's worked on for quite a long span of time. It doesn't look like any of it will be very useful to us, though.

Nalyg glanced at a smattering of papers strewn about on one of the higher shelves. It says that they've stowed several bookmarks away in a safe in this room. Razaran, I assume you can take care of that.

With pleasure. Razaran glanced around the room for a few moments before locating a small safe placed on a low shelf. As Kanpeki held it in place, Razaran slowly wrenched his claws around the edge of the door, and, after about a minute of struggling, pried the safe open, snapping the lock in the process.

Unsurprisingly, the technology here remains as unrefined as ever. Kanpeki reached into the safe and pulled out five brightly-colored paper rectangles - the bookmarks spoken of by Dr. Matic. Upon each was an intricate design thematically matching the simple, white label.

Romantic comedy... Metafiction... Western... Superhero Fantasy... Horror. Should we take all of these with us, or just one of them? Nalyg queried.

Might as well take 'em all. We don't like the results of one, we can just use a different one instead. Or we could just destroy them.

No, let's take them along. It's likely they could help us at some point, assuming we get the tome.

Okay, okay. On another note, what the hell is that smell? It's beginning to smell like death in here.

As if on cue, the metal grating over the ventilation duct clattered to the ground, narrowly avoiding Razaran's head. As he glanced upward, a reddish-pink blob fell from the duct and landed on his neck.

Ech. Guess this is the source of that smell. Excuse me while I incinerate it. Razaran shook his head, tossing the blob to the ground.

Wait a moment, Razaran. There seems to be something embedded in it. Kanpeki reached into the blob and pulled out a dusty brown book, a few flecks of fleshy goo still clinging to it.

Is that the tome? Nalyg asked.

It appears so. Awfully convenient. We find a few bookmarks, and the tome drops right on Razaran's head.

Hate to break up your discussion, you two, but this thing isn't just a blob. Might want to look at this.

Nalyg and Kanpeki turned simultaneously to look at the fleshy blob, and instead found a decent-sized bipedal creature, roughly five feet tall. Its raw skin glistened in the dim light, as did its large, empty eyes. It seemed to be intently watching the Kryesan, but hadn't moved otherwise.

So do we kill it?

No, let's not be hasty, replied Nalyg. I think this is that "Merrifield" creature the Spectator mentioned earlier. I'll try talking to it.

"Hello, Merrifield."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Nalyg, these are Kanpeki and Razaran. Did you come here on purpose?"

"Um, no."

"I see. Well, I see you managed to get the Tome. How did you manage that?"

"I found it."

You sure you're not just wasting our time, Nalyg? We're not going to get anything out of her.

Razaran, we need allies in this battle. Even if it's a foul smelling... thing. I think she's friendly, at the very least. It could prove to be an advantage later on.

I agree with Nalyg. Though we could likely kill everyone and finish the battle, perhaps we should instead gain allies and destroy our captor. It would prevent unnecessary deaths.

Alright, alright, sure. Continue.

"Merrifield, would you like to come with us? We're looking for allies to escape from this battle, and we don't want to kill anyone unless we have to."

"Will you protect me?"

"Of course we will. You'll be much safer with us than you would be alone."

"Okay. I'll go."

"Thank you, Merrifield. Let's get going, now."

Nalzaki stepped out of the closet-esque vault, followed closely by Merrifield. The former stopped in the middle of the hallway, then reversed their earlier transformation. Merrifield stared in fascination as the hydra's body structure was rapidly rearranged into a hexapedal form. The tome and the bookmarks now lay on the floor, unable to be carried very well by the Kryesan.

"Merrifield, could you hold those things for us? We can't pick things up very well in this form."

"Yes."

Merrifield stepped behind Nalzaki, picking up the dropped objects. A moment later, the trio felt a sudden weight upon their back.

It's on our back, Nalyg. It still smells, too. Why did we ally with this thing?

I already told you. It's fine if she stays up there; she's safer that way. If nothing else, we at least have someone to carry our things for us.

Nalzaki trode down the hall in the same direction as before, quickly coming to a stairwell at the end. Not stopping for an instant, they ascended the stairs, passing multiple doors along the way, until they came to one labeled "Level 1". The door pushed open easily, leading into another gray, sterile hallway. Unlike the lower one, however, this one seemed to be better upkept: the lights were consistently bright, and the floor was carpeted rather than concrete. Additionally, two figures stood at the end of the hall, talking, though they were too far away to be audible.

They seem to be the same species as that creature you killed earlier, but they're dressed differently. Maybe they're not associated with this Dr. Matic.

One of them appears similar to one of the contestants in this battle, actually. "Ivan", I believe it was. I can't tell who the other one is, however.

How can you even tell that from here? You know what, I shouldn't even be surprised at this point.

If it's one of the contestants, we should try to make contact. Let's go.

Ivan Norst's conversation with Abys immediately fell flat as a distinct, hospital-like smell wafted past the two of them. They simultaneously turned around to find a three-headed hydra staring at them, a bipedal, cat-like being riding atop. The two also immediately noticed the dusty tome clutched in the paws of the latter.

"Hello, Ivan. I'm Nalyg, these two are Razaran and Kanpeki, and the other is Merrifield. We'd like to propose an alliance."

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

SpoilerShow

YES I AM POSTING AGAIN. I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON. I DON'T CARE.

Slowly the warehouse door slid open, revealing behind it the titan of a man that was Levi. His hair was cropped short, his face heavily scarred and his eyes replaced with a heavy visor which was glowing a dull red. He wore a black waistcoat and a dirty shirt underneath, which was torn off at the sleeves. His arms had been replaced with mechanical limbs but they were not subtle replacements like Abys’. They were dull grey and thick as tree trunks. Gripped tightly in his heavy metal hands was a mini-gun, fed from a belt wrapped around his torso. He did not even seem to strain under its enormous weight. Flanking him was Byte, Phere’s second in command. He was significantly less intimidating than his ally, which was probably the reason that Phere had demanded he come along. He held a pair of pistols, which Tek had made a couple of alterations to, as a consequence they were all but held together by black tape, and a spare radio tucked into his belt. Levi and Byte stepped over the threshold into the dimly lit warehouse. They paused for a moment as their vision synched up with the warehouse security allowing them to pinpoint the intruder’s exact location.

--------

Klendel was sprinting down one of the warehouse’s crate lined aisles, when he was intercepted by Levi. He slowed down until steps away from the behemoth of a man he came to a complete stop. A quick glance behind him revealed another cyborg, one with short spiky hair and a pair of jerry-rigged pistols was following him down the aisle. He was taken aback at how he had been located, he had been moving quickly and silently and was pretty sure that nobody had seen him on his approach. It was intriguing.

“Hey you.” Byte shouted from behind him. Reluctantly Klendel turned his back on the brute that stood before him. Byte tossed him a radio, which he deftly caught. He smiled as he looked down at the radio.

“Whoever is in charge doesn’t trust you to speak for yourself?” He asked. “Interesting…” He clicked the radio on and spoke into it. “Hello?”

“What do you want?” Phere asked bluntly.

“Straight to the point…” Klendel grinned. “Who is this I am speaking to?”

“This is Empress Phere.” Phere responded. “What do you want?”

“I remember you.” Klendel said. “You’re a contestant too. I must say you’ve done well commandeering an entire gang in the short space of time we have had so far.”

“Cut the small talk.” Phere snapped back. “Give me a reason I shouldn’t have you mown down where you stand.”

“I don’t have to.” Klendel replied. “You knew who I was when you sent your goons out to apprehend me. If you’d wanted to kill me then you would have already done so. So why don’t you tell me why you don’t want to kill me?” In the silence that followed Klendel grinned. This was easy; he already had the upper hand in this conversation.

“You make a good point.” Phere countered. “Levi, kill this worthless thing.” Behind him Klendel could hear the minigun warming up.

“Hold on.” He said quickly. Though he doubted such a loose spray of bullets would be able to do any harm to him where it counted, he didn’t want his competitors to know such a thing. Levi released the trigger and the noise of the whirling gun slowed and stopped. “Perhaps I can be of use.” He continued. “I’ve seen some of your handiwork around town. You and me, we’re alike. We’re smarter than the others in this battle. We should work together for now.”

“I do not work with others.” Phere retorted. “If you align yourself with me, then you work for me. This is non-negotiable. Do you accept?” Klendel didn’t even hesitate.

“Yes.” He said curtly. He could tell that Phere was not putting any trust in him, but still the opportunity to get close to someone who he sought to bring down is something that was seldom offered so readily.

--------

The conversation was interrupted by another voice on the line; that of Abys.

“Empress.” Abys’ tone was little more than a whisper. “Due to the incompetence of your new ally we have been intercepted.”

“Hold on.” She told Klendel and switched her gaze. She saw the three headed creature, Nalzaki, and upon it’s back the disgusting cat creature, Merrifield. Clasped in its stubby arms were a sheaf of bookmarks and the Stolen Tome itself. They approached Ivan and Abys casually and proposed an alliance with the boy. Phere clicked the radio on again.

“The creature upon its back has the Stolen Tome.” Phere said. “If Ivan opts to form ‘an alliance’ with these creatures then play along, if not then get the Tome and leave him to his fate. Either way bringing back the Tome takes priority. I am sending to you a new ally, one who is hopefully more capable than the last. His name is… unimportant. He is a shadowy black figure with red eyes. You will spot him.”

Abys nodded, confident that the others with their attentions fixed on one another had not noticed her discreet conversation. She waited for Ivan to respond.

Phere flicked her vision back over to Klendel where he seemed to be chatting amiably with Levi.

--------

Klendel had taken the intervening time to inquire about Phere’s rise to power over the Punks. He had phrased it casually, making it appear to be an innocent inquiry, and was paying close attention to the details, though making sure that it appeared that he wasn’t. Before Levi could really tell him anything of value Phere’s voice crackled over the radios.

“Shadow creature.” She said. “I presume you have a name?”

“Klendel.” He replied.

“Klendel. I’m assigning you to an agent of mine called Abys. She is at the castle. Aid her in any way necessary. The key objective is to bring back the Stolen Tome.” Phere instructed. “Byte will provide you with directions if you need them. Levi, get back here ASAP.”

--------

Phere took up the radio and marched back into Syn’s room. With that threat dealt with it was imperative that she get the surgery while it was still an option.

Originally posted on MSPA by fluxus.

---

‘One’, Ivan thought to himself, a small yet ruthless smile playing at his lips as Phere’s auburn-haired dog continued to follow his lead, her footfalls on the sterile linoleum flooring nearly as silent and sure as his own. The laboratory‘s hallways stretched out long and dangerous before them, guards and workers milling about like the mindless drones they were. In a wordless agreement, Ivan had been elected to guide the Empress’s small assassin through Castle Matic’s labyrinthine halls, his mental map of the building‘s inhabitants proving to be an asset- as it always did. And still both Phere and Abys thought him incompetent.

Twenty-three minutes ago, when he’d handed the small radio back to Abys, he’d done his best to give her the most doe-eyed, uncertain expression he could muster and hoped for the first time in his life that he looked younger than his age. “A distraction,“ Phere had called him then, though he was still unsure whether her words to Abys had been meant for his ears as well. But with her command given, and (more importantly) his safety ensured, all immediate contact with Phere had ended, though he was still uncertain whether the Empress’s seemingly omnipotent gaze had left them also. Then for a few heartbeats the silence had been deafening. Ivan had stared awkwardly at his bare feet while Abys eyed him darkly, exasperation etched clearly across her delicate face. “Follow me,“ she’d said through gritted teeth, as though the two words pained her terribly, and they’d set off down the corridor, Abys again cloaked in nothingness while Ivan silently dogged her footsteps. And it was in that moment that he’d known she was his. ‘One.’

Ivan had had plenty of practice playing the fool, laying in wait behind someone else’s shadow for an opportunity that suited his goals. And Phere, he knew, would be the perfect shield in this death game. It’d take a good deal of effort on his part to convince the sweet Empress that he belonged to her- but he knew he could do it if he survived the night…. Yet with all his underlying confidence Ivan knew that was still a big if.

It hadn’t taken long for Ivan to take the lead, despite his disadvantage of visibility. The first seven minutes they’d spent lurking the corridors after Phere had cut their connection had been some of the longest of his life. A commotion deeper within the castle had caused a flurry of activity amongst Matic’s associates and left their progress stunted. At that point Abys still hadn’t uttered him a word more than her initial two and, without the guidance of Phere, she’d been leading them into what he knew to be an enemy swarm. Her stealth, though obviously gained from years of experience, wouldn’t have saved her from creeping ignorantly around the corner and into their midst, regardless of her invisibility. But his hand around her wrist had. With a quick shake of his head he’d turned them in the opposite direction and lead them in an awkward but safe path away from Matic’s people until at last they were again alone.

Abys was utterly silent behind him but Ivan could hear her presence loudly with every step he took. They continued until he found another deserted hallway with a barricaded end, much like the one in which they’d met not so many minutes ago, and then he turned to face her, abandoning the cold-blooded smile he wore for a look of reserved concern. “The guards and uh… scientists… have mainly moved off to the north-western side of the castle,” he began without preamble, his voice low and slightly unsteady. “There’s some sort of commotion on the floor below us in… in that direction and I’d bet they’ve moved off to go, uhm, to go take care of whatever it is that’s down there. I know for certain that whatever is causing all the, uh, shall we say ’action’? isn’t human and it’s in more than one place at once so… I’d be willing to bet that that’s where we’ll be finding the, uhm, the Tome.” He paused, all too aware that it looked as though he were talking to himself, but Abys said nothing and continued to watch him with cold, unseen eyes. “We’re-we’re safe here for now,” he continued, nonplussed, ”but I’ll be able t-to get us there without incident. I can draw you a map if… you’d like.”

Suddenly Abys’ invisibility melted away, and a fine-boned young woman stood before him, her eyes hard and bitter. “How?” she asked, and Ivan found himself strangely focused on her mouth. She was actually quite pretty and… he mentally smacked himself.

“H-how can I… draw you a map?” he said fingering the pen hanging from his collar. She nodded and it was clear she had no love of words. “Well….” Upon the nearest wall he began to sketch a simple map of the level on which they found themselves, feeling the buzz of electrical wiring through the thin metal siding beneath his hand. Each immaculately straight line he drew carved itself into the white-scrubbed wall until he had produced a scrawling that took up two feet of space. Ivan finished by marking a small, neat ‘X’ in the lower right corner and tapped it with the tip of his pen. “This here,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he held Abys’ attention, “is where we are right now. And here,” he drew a large circle around a grouping of lines, “is where all the commotion was earlier.” Abys’ eyes were intent as he drew larger ‘X’s through vast quantities of the map. “All this,” he said as he continued to cross areas out, “is heavily guarded. Which leaves us,” he began to draw a fine line through what had apparently been designated as hallways, “with a path that will look something like this, assuming not much changes in the next few minutes. But even as we speak, things are changing.” Though he was very aware that he was the only one actually doing any speaking.

He was also aware of the strange, inhuman shape that was creeping up on them as he stalled.

Abys studied the map for a few moments more and then fixed him with her steely gaze. “How do you know this?” she asked, her tone skeptical.

‘And she graces me with five words,’ Ivan thought to himself. But as he opened his mouth to reply, an astringent stench filled the corridor and he hastily scrawled a neat series of symbols onto the wall next to his map. ‘Took them long enough,’ he mused as Abys again melted into invisibility- but they both knew she’d been seen.

As the map Ivan had drawn on the wall began to melt away, a three headed-being he recognized as the hydra he’d met with the other contestants approached him. It was a great beast, oddly terrifying and comical in equal parts with three heads that seemed to possess very different personalities. Not a year ago Nalyg and his other heads would’ve horrified Ivan into inaction, as the small fleshy being upon its back- the one called Merrifield- would have. But he was a different person now and he stood his ground as the hydra began to speak.

Hello, Ivan. I'm Nalyg,” the middle head said, and nodded to the left and right as it introduced its body-mates. “These two are Razaran and Kanpeki, and the other is Merrifield. We'd like to propose an alliance." It’s voice rumbled from deep within its throat, strangely soothing to the ear. Merrifield had the Tome in her gory clutches and made no attempt to hide it. After giving the two beings before him a quick once over, Ivan locked eyes with Nalyg and attempted to discern if he and Abys were being threatened by it. He felt the cool press of his pistol against his waist where he’d stowed it beneath his shirt.

“Hello Nalyg,” he said, his voice small. “Razaran. Kanpeki,” he nodded to each head in turn, never one to forget his manners, and then looked to the small catlike creature on their back. “And Merrifield. Im-imagine my surprise to- ha- to see you all so soon.” He allowed his voice to waver but held his ground before them. Guards were heading their way already, from above and below.

“Please don’t think me rude, Nalyg,” he said more confidently, “but why exactly would you want to align yourself with me?” Shouts and footsteps were now able to be heard through the ceiling even by human ears.

Suddenly Abys began to move and Ivan craned his neck around so quickly that he felt it crick. He’d thought in that moment that she was running, leaving, but he’d been mistaken. She was deftly moving to one of the barricaded corners of the hall where…

A security camera was watching them.

“Shit!” Ivan hissed and began mentally cursing his downright stupidity. “Abys!” he called in as loud a voice he dared, though she heeded him not. He turned and held up a finger to the hydra. “I’m sorry. Just- uh - one moment-” and he was taking off after his invisible escort.

“Abys it’s too late- you know that as well as I do,” he said in a rush. “They’ve seen everything.” He ran his hands along the thin metal wall. “Destroying the camera won’t help us here but I think…. I think I know what can.” That got her temporary attention and she stopped where she was. “Do you have anything on you that can cut through the metal siding of the wall? And-and only the siding.” He traced a rectangle with his fingers across a patch of wall ten inches long and six wide. “Right here.”

Ivan barely had time to move before a shot of hot energy poured forth from a tool in Abys’ hand. When he blinked, an approximation of the rectangle he’d drawn with his fingers hit the ground in a clatter of cheap metal. “Thanks,” he muttered, eyes narrowed at her still invisible form.

Within the wall was an intricate lacework of wires and circuitry that was not at all unfamiliar to Ivan as he’d feared it would be. It seemed Dr Matic was using technology that was strikingly outdated to what Abys’ gear had lead him to expect. “Hello beautiful,” he murmured as he gingerly picked up a wire between finger and thumb. “If we had more time I think I would’ve been able to scramble their camera footage and reprogram their systems from here,” he said to no one in particular. “But seeing as we’re hard-pressed for time….” He located the wire he was looking for and drew CARET’s pen, writing familiar symbols straight onto its plastic casing. “This is going to have to do.”

A snap exploded forth from the wire upon which he’d written even as he began to scrawl into the circuitry beneath it. A moment later a white spark that smelled of crisp, raw power and burning metal flared. When it had gone, it took the building’s electricity with it.

‘Let’s play,’ Ivan thought as he plunged them into darkness, still unaware of the shadowy figure with the red glowing eyes that had found its way onto the castle grounds.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Klendel slipped past the castle walls easily enough; the area between the metal bars on the gate was enough for his gear to pass through, and the rest of of his shadowy flesh, fundamentally insubstantial as it was, had no difficulty in simply allowing the bars to slip through it, each bond reforming the moment it had passed the bars. He immediately backed up into the nearby wall, melting into the shadows save for the two bright red spots that were his eyes. He surveyed the dilapidated grounds he found himself in. There were a number of guards patrolling the open paths, which made using those out of the question, but the right side featured an elaborate hedge maze with bushy "walls" several feet higher than any of the guards' heads. Klendel waited a few moments, then when the nearest guard was facing away from him, he dashed towards the hedge maze. He thought one of the farther guards might have seen his short sprint, but was unconcerned; he would've simply looked like a moving shadow, and the guard would undoubtedly dismiss it as a trick of the light. He slid up the trunk of one of the dead, leafless trees next to the hedge maze, then dropped himself lightly on top of the nearest bush, collapsing to all fours and widening his hands and feet to spread his weight over the whole bush and avoid falling through.

He lay down and waited quietly until one of the guards' patrols brought him near Klendel. Klendel let himself down behind the guard, silent as only a living shadow can be, and reached out to the guard's mind, sifting through it until he found what he was looking for: a fear he could use to his advantage. Fear of cats? Too small to be of any use. How about...ahhhhh. Klendel backed around the corner and smiled to himself, his shadowy figure beginning to silently shift and distort.

---

The guard sighed. Only two more hours of this shit, then I get to go home. They never found anyone while patrolling the castle grounds, anyway; nobody was stupid enough to wage a lone wolf assault on Matic, or if they were, they sure as hell weren't going to do it from the front. He eyed the hedges towering over him apprehensively. And even if they did, by the time I found my way out of this stupid maze, all the action would already be over. He had drawn hedge maze duty almost every day for the past week, so he allowed himself a few moments of idle fancy as he fantasized about burning the entire thing to the ground. Too bad Matic would have my head for it, he mused. He's so attached to the stupid thing, you'd think it was made of gold.

"Hrrrrkkksssss."

The guard spun around, bringing his semiautomatic rifle to bear. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Show yourself!" He edged towards the sound, back the way he had come, when he saw, at the end of a short pathway, an oversized, jet-black claw of some sort reaching around the corner. He backed up a few steps, and as more of the appendage emerged, he realized it wasn't a claw, but a foreleg. Another began to emerge next to it, and the head of what appeared to be a giant praying mantis emerged from the hedge wall, mandibles clicking and bright red eyes staring straight at the guard. He fired a few shaky shots at the abomination; it hissed again and withdrew slightly, but appeared no worse for the wear. He pulled out his walkie-talkie and held it up to his mouth. "I need backup in the hedge maze! I think one of Matic's creatures is loose in here!" He didn't mention that he had a morbid fear of mantises; after all, it wasn't really important, and it wasn't something he wanted to become public knowledge anytime soon. The creature had already begun rounding the corner, and the guard fired another shot at it, then gave up and started running down the maze, ignoring his assigned route and simply barreling recklessly through the paths as fast he could while still being able to turn if the abomination poked its head out of some corner.

Once the guard had passed out of line of sight, the mantis head began returning to a more humanoid shape, the mandibles receding and the eyes shrinking and moving closer to the center of the face. The forelegs shortened and thickened into arms, and the front leg pair did the same to become legs. The back pair of legs were simply sucked up into the body, and the rear followed suit, leaving Klendel grinning smugly in the same spot the praying mantis had been only moments before. He wasted no time in sinking to the floor and sliding under the edge of the hedge maze as a puddle of shadow. He could feel his gear tearing a ragged hole through the hedge maze wall, but when, after reforming outside the maze, Klendel looked back to see how bad it was, he was surprised to find there was no hole in evidence. He shrugged, content to merely accept this stroke of good fortune. He edged up to the side of the hedge maze and peered out into the grounds; to his delight, the guards were all clustered around the entrance of the maze, bouts of arguing being followed by another huddled pair entering the twisting path of vegetation. Klendel made a mental note of the terror Matic's abominations could inspire; it could come in handy later. He quietly snuck up to the castle entrance, unnoticed by the panicked huddle of guards, and completely unaware that the castle's power had died only moments before.

---

Merrifield fidgeted nervously on Nalzaki's back. She was getting pretty darn bored, with all the nothing and not doing anything and being boring that had been going on lately. She looked down at the Tome she held in her hands, and flipped it open to a random page. It was full of writing, but she had expected that; what she had not expected would be that the writing was in some alien language she'd never seen before. She looked at the bookmarks she held in her other hand. Romantic comedy, metafiction, western, superhero fantasy, and horror. On a whim, she placed the horror bookmark in the Tome and shut it decisively.

---

Klendel paused. He couldn't explain why, but suddenly everything was...different. The torches on the wall were now guttering, and seemed to be producing a good deal less light. He looked down at his hands, and saw that they were already sharp and nasty-looking. But more substantial than any physical difference, Klendel could feel a surge of power within him; it was as if he were in a pitch black room, with no light around to sap his power. A deep, foreboding chuckle escaped his mouth, and he strode boldly towards the stairs, the air around him becoming darker and forming a reverse halo, the light unable to reach him.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

SpoilerShow

Sorry for the wait!

As the effects of the bookmark crept across every corner of this particular setting, ripples across reality were almost immediate as the local environment began to shift to a more horrific atmosphere. The sky dimmed and flickered as ominous-looking cumulus, booming with thunder, rolled over the skies, already grim-grey thanks to Cascala's spell. As the cawing of crows echoed across the darkening atmosphere, mildew and spindly cracks rapidly enveloped the once semi-pristine walls of buildings. The banks, the suburbans, the alleyways, everything instantly became several centuries older; the artificial application of rapid saturation loss and aged neglect twisted the distinct architecture into something more menacing and demented.

However, the buildings were not the only existing things affected by the terrible majesty of the Horror bookmark, the denizens were also touched, to say the least. The once mundane pedestrians, humanoid, animal, or otherwise, were now monsters. Some were classic types like ferocious werewolves and seductive vampires; others were little more than indistinguishable creeping things, faceless doctors and spindly aliens. It was as if the Tome, with all its reality-warping, wanted the populace to blend in with the environment. After all, Horror was a merciless genre. One slight to innocence, to normality, thus that person was weak, a straggler, a victim. As seen from the slasher flicks and surreal thrillers, things always preyed on the weak.

There were many of these aforementioned things - creeping in the dark, in the corners, anywhere hidden from curious eyes. In fact there was a thing in an alleyway, right now, gliding silently across the pallid pavement like some sort of otherworldly predator. The flickering lights in the background obscured the blackened claws, the gear grinding painfully on his back, the shadowy ichor dribbling from this thing's nearly invisible mouth, and of course the inverse halo, a ring of faint black behind his head that seemed to absorbed the shadows. Like dust to cobwebs, puffs of inky darkness were surreptitiously siphoned into the prowling beast, enlarging him, empowering him in the alleyway hunting grounds. What was scarier than his noteworthy head decoration was his set of eyes. They were violently bright, an emotionless red that burned amidst the otherwise indistinguishable darkness of the thing. They were eyes that hungered, eyes that hunted, eyes that saw, and those eyes had seen something indeed. A slit of an insane smile slashed across the thing's face as Klendel leaped off to his destination at inhuman speed.

There was prey to mess with.

***

The whole place was warped with Horror, including the current contestants of this particular tournament. Despite the creepy atmosphere and the cosmetic changes that were implemented, the traveling party kept on going without a single notice of the effects (although Ivan kept making suspicious glances at his clothing, which had become bloodied and burnt somehow). With each advance in distance, the descent down the abyssal alleyway grew even more disconcerting. The crumbling walls, exposing softening bricks, grew more dingy and worn. The lamps, cracks of the oily glass filled with grime and fear, flickered above the daring bunch even more frequently, as if each step towards the inky blackness of their destination was screwing up the electronics of the light. If these had been normal people, the weakness withering at their hearts would have forced them to abscond the Lovecraftian streets. However, they were far from what anyone could call normal; a human hybrid, a cyborg gangster, an alien hydra, and a cat creature constituted the sneaking group. Normality didn't even come close to describing them.

Among the travelers, Nalzaki had the most noticeable changes. Bandages, spotty with dried extraterrestrial blood and grime, loosely covered the stitches decorating their exaggeratedly emaciated body. Three desiccated heads continually swerved around, looking for any suspicious activity. Razaran's horns had grown to look like vicious fangs and his canines had elongated to match, making the short-tempered head to look essentially like a bristling mace. Beside him, Nalyg had the unfortunate luck to have his visage twisted to resemble a grey skull, with sunken eyes that burned like orange coals. Kanpeki (whose stripes currently looked more like old scars on pallid skins than natural markings) had silently suggested this idea of alertness to the other heads via telepathy and unanimously they agreed. Cooperation was essential for the conjoined trio and they were leader-material, after all.

The alleyway was suitably creepy, but there was no sign of danger in these grimy corners of the street. Eventually, immeasurable time into the descent pulled long enough for Kanpeki to reconsider her idea to be just merely paranoia. Just when she was considering telling the others to call off their searching, Razaran's raspy voice broke the silence.

<span style="background-color:#848484;"><font color="#D30000">"Shh, I think I felt something!" He hissed, swinging his bristling head from side to side.

The whole party froze up at Razaran's warning, each for different reasons. Nalzaki froze up because their mutual telepathy was detecting something suspicious (perhaps, malignant?) in their psychic three-way radio. Merrifield stiffened because she could hear something, audibly faint, but there. It sounded like rusty claws, scraping lines in the concrete, sending shivers up her backbone in a fit of self-serving survival. Ivan and Abys both had a sudden creeping feeling that their previous plan was going to go off the rails in some manner. They did not know what sort of manner, but they had the strangest feeling that it was going to happen very soon. In fact they were pretty sure that it was going to happen -

Suddenly, a blur! Then, a commotion as some sort of powerful force knocked down Merrifield and it proceeded to make a fricassee out of the struggling alien hydra's back, their heads roaring in synchronized surprise. Fortunately for the trio, their shifting mass managed to minimize the damage from the rending monster to nothing. However, it was only a matter of time before the claws (or what resembled them, anyways) would pierce through their skin and make a tartare out of their innards. From the corner of Nalyg's eyes he could see a black fog engulfing their body at an alarming rate, spreading from their backs up to their serpentine necks, almost licking at their chins with shadowy tongues. Kanpeki wondered what would happen if the smoke entered their nostrils and their mouths. She figured whatever the result, it was going to be unpleasant and was to be avoided at all cost.

Receiving the telepathic signal from their tactical-leaning comrade, Razaran and Nalyg focused on prying the stubborn claws off themselves. They concentrated at their singular tail, which rapidly elongated and thickened to a lethal whip and grew some thorns on the surface. With this new weapon they proceeded to lash at the offending assaulter - again and again, and again. Despite the additions, the monster did not seemed to be physically hurt, but the buffet of the fleshy, spiny cord convinced (or annoyed) the attacker to withdraw his shadow and self into the darkness.

The Triach breathed a sigh of relief simultaneously. At least they had managed to drive away that meddling beast, though they had a nagging thought that they hadn't actually succeeded in damaging the creature much. Their back was torn to shreds, skin rubbed off and leaving their flesh annoyingly raw to the dirty air. Luckily, not much had been damaged beyond surface level; Kanpeki was just leaning in to examine the wound as the shadow suddenly returned for an unannounced Round Two.</font></span>

***

Merrifield sat there in shock as Nalzaki violently struggled with the empowered Klendel. The hydra-like alien's body sprouted all over the place as lethal weapons, some of them simple blades, others a little more indistinguishable, waving as far as they could reach attempting to damage the caliginous Cog. However, even the weapon finesse of Razaran was all for naught. The shadowy creature was either too slippery or too fast, somehow managing to glide past the flesh-knit weaponry. Whenever the weapons somehow managed to hit, they did not even seem to pierce even the skin of the maddened anarchist. Blades seemed to bounce off; projectiles phased through his shadowy flesh. To the ire of the trio, Klendel managed to slip back to the shadows and continued his unseen assault in rapid and stronger succession.

Eventually, the Kryesan got fed up with the Cog's hit-and-run ruse. As Klendel bounced from the inky shadows, red eyes full of determination and power, the reflexes of Nalzaki caught the annoying shadow in the vice grip of the thorny tail-whip. Teeth gritted in coordination, the trio took advantage of Klendel's short surprise and brought him in, kicking and screaming. The Triach extended four of their shared limbs, which glowed white-hot with searing light and attempted to choke the life force out of Klendel.

Merrifield should have been running away in a fit of self-preservation; yet for some reason she could not, unable to tear herself away from the complexity of the Kryesan's struggling. Shadow was an indomitable thing, yet simple light managed to conquer its malicious hold on the grip of reality. Darkness was merely an absence of light, as Triach had discovered, funneling that advantage into defeating that enemy. How could she not know? The genetic amalgamation only wished she could figure that out by herself, but alas, she was ignorant (not surprising since she spend a majority of her short life locked in a vat). Luckily, she had this marvelous ally to teach her the ways of this world.

Speaking of which, Nalzaki was quickly finding themselves in quite a conundrum. Their plan had been to burn the life out of Klendel, but they hadn't considered the endurance of this particular foe. Although the Cog was writhing around in agony, he still found the energy to begin sawing at their limbs, making astounding progress. Despite the rapid alien regeneration, it was clear that Klendel was clawing faster than Nalzaki could heal. You didn't have to be a powerful biokinetic to realize that the hydra had drawn themselves into a corner. They were pouring a good majority of their energy into gripping the Cog in white-hot hell, after all. Merrifield wanted to help, but how?

Merrifield gazed at the bleeding wounds - scrabbling cuts that oozed out blood, dripping onto the cracked concrete. She began to think harder. Although she had the intelligence on par with an average human, it was often hard for her to collect her thoughts, given her loose physical structure. However, that intelligence was sufficient enough. She could plan, she could be wily, and she had ideas. The two combatants were so engrossed in battle that they could not see the slight smile played on her lips. That was one of the reasons why both Klendel and Nalzaki yelped as the gripping limbs suddenly burst into flames. The combination of the energized limbs and the Merrifield's control over metabolic processes rapidly engulfed the surrounding area in the acrid smell of burning flesh.

As Nalzaki retreated (glaring all the while at Merrifield, but she did not care, she had a PLAN), Klendel merely flailed in place. The combination of searing light and the surprise metabolic fire was too much for the Cog to effortlessly slip away into the shadows. Through the red cloud of pain, Klendel was looking for revenge. Although the seer immensity of his empowered status had lead to irrational overconfidence, the cogs in the Cog's head creaked towards revenge. His shining eyes swerved towards Merrifield. So this was the little twerp that did that thing, huh? The only reward for her was death.

The battle between the two degenerated into a game of keep-away. The two contestants made swipes at each other and snapped back to safety. Although Klendel had inhuman speed and reflexes, Merrifield managed to keep up with the dancing shadow, although she suffered more than a few very narrow misses. She'd realized that the Tome made an effective shield against the Cog's vicious claws. Unfortunately for her, the anarchist managed to trip her up with a false feint and his hands, bristling with dark spikes, nearly went through her chest. She managed to bring up the magic book in time, but the force of the attack was so strong and her grip was so weak that the heavy literature surprisingly sailed across the air. For the first time in this battle, Merrifield found herself completely defenseless.

The Tome could wait for later. The slack-jawed pause of the genetic amalgamation was too much of an opportunity for Klendel to pass up, so he lunged at the seemly defenseless creature. He engulfed Merrifield, seeping every shadow into every pore of her cells and crushed them with all the strength he could muster in this state. Wet, smattering squeals of pained surprise echoed within. With a vicious twist, he rendered the monstrous twerp into primordial soup, gloating over his easy victory. He was so engrossed in his domination he was not aware of an impressive weight taking hold of his leg.

The attack had been a surprise for Merrifield. In fact, it was such a surprise that she lost hold over her form, essentially collapsing into a fleshy lump. Usually, that was incredibly annoying for her, but in this situation, that was a pleasant serendipity as she managed to salvage a good portion of her cells. The mottled goo managed to slither over the back of Klendel, leaving disgusting trails of purplish flesh over his skin, especially his Gear. The feeling of something heavy and wet convinced the Cog to swerve his head to the side, where he met the reformed visage of Merrifield. She wasn't fully-formed, but Klendel saw her small mouth, one of its corners raised up oh-so-slightly. Was she mocking him? Before he could react, Merrifield giggled and set herself on fire.

***

Klendel never felt so agonized during the duration on the battle as a massive living torch stubbornly clung his back. In a fit of anger and pain, the Cog managed to throw the fleshy mass easily into the distance. Merrifield had a weak grip after all, but that was not the end of his woes. Engulfing his sensitive part in a brilliant white flame, residual burning flesh stubbornly stuck to his Gear like biological napalm. In a futile effort, Klendel attempted to rip off the pieces, but there were too much, and they were too bright. In a red mist, the Cog found his mind wandering off to the sea of unconsciousness….

***

Phere sat in impatient glee as her Hollow gaze caught the arrival of the Tome into Abys and Ivan's hands. Although she had not seen the brunt of the battle, she was pretty confident that Klendel had done a magnificent job at keeping the three-headed hydra and that disgusting cat-thing at bay. Now, all she needed was for the Tome to be in her physical hands. After that, she would be in control, delicious control. All the reality-warping in her fingertips and oh, she had plans, plenty -

A startled gasp escaped her throat as a flaming something slammed forcefully into the backs of Ivan and Abys. She could only watch helplessly as the Tome sailed across the air, the Horror Bookmark silently flitting out of the magic book. Phere did not even notice the rippling of the surrounding reality as the Tome hit the building wall, knocked besides the lamps, and gracefully fell into the open hole of the sewer. Phere was proper royalty and was not given into the conniptions of tantrum. However, seething anger boiled within her very soul as she could only watch the last corner of the Tome slip away into the sewer grate.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

Cascala cursed to herself as the howling winds whipped her dress to and fro. She'd lost it. The only other contestant she'd seen in this whole damned city since she'd been dropped here, and she'd lost it. It had been hard enough to follow the flitting, black shape in the darkness and through the rain, but once it had started zig-zagging and doubling back and disappearing into houses and warehouses, tracking it had simply become impossible. Even with failure inevitable, it grated painfully on Cascala's pride and her heavily-repressed fears regarding this battle.

She was standing on her cloud above a large group of warehouses, any one of which could have hidden her quarry. Or, more likely, none of which did, and the little shadow creature hoped she would waste her time searching through them while it slithered through some sewer or alley somewhere. There was simply no good way to proceed: if she scoured the warehouses, the monster would inevitably slip farther away; if she didn't, chances were that whatever direction she picked to go, the shadow would pick another. It was becoming clear that in an arena as large as this one, victory wouldn't go to the most powerful combatant, but to the one with the most information and ability to find others. Cascala suppressed more nagging thoughts fixating on her fellow Grand Magi and how they would have handled this situation, and focused instead on the target that had been introduced as Empress Phere. Hadn't she been said to have some kind of special ability to see whatever she wanted? That was becoming more and more worrisome.

With a shake of her head, the weather-witch dismissed that line of thought too. Hypotheticals got her no closer to her marks, and standing above the city, framed by lightning bolts and lost in her own musings, made her an easy target for any of the other contestants that were more combative than the fleeing shadebeast had been. She allowed herself a small smile as she glanced up at the weeping sky; even if the other seven spent their time hiding or fleeing, she would still come out victorious. Every passing minute brought her inevitable victory closer. It wouldn't be an hour before a hurricane of unfathomable proportions descended upon the dark city, at which point no amount of ducking and weaving would save anyone.

In an instant, she resolved to search the warehouses rather than waffle about on her cloud. While her inky adversary had almost certainly disappeared from their depths, there was always the chance that it hadn't, or that another contestant would serendipitously be taking cover from the rain inside. At the very least, it was more productive than brooding in midair. Cascala began to descend, striding purposefully on her cloud.

---

Elsewhere, a festering hand slipped a black-and-red bookmark into a thick book. It slammed the Tome shut with a satisfying thump, and the world rippled with the closing.

---

The already-black sky somehow darkened further; the thunderbolts that had already been flashing with ever-increasing frequency redoubled their efforts; an obscuring fog crept out of the streets that were suddenly mostly cobbles, in spite of the downpour. Overall, the atmosphere was doing its best to be as ominous and threatening as possible.

All of this was lost on Cascala. The same force that had acted on her surroundings had acted on her; however, while things like thunderstorms don't have to worry about very much, suddenly having your nature and powers change can be very startling to a human being in midair. Cascala's ostentation blues and golds became figure-hugging corsetry and evening wear in black with red accents; her staff retreated into an ankh-shaped amulet engraved with eldritch symbols; her incisors ceased being teeth and became fangs; and, most importantly, her command of water and air evaporated, leaving her plummeting towards the roofs below.

The instant of disorientation that came with a genre shift had been more than enough to seemingly doom the magus cum vampire. Even her indomitable will and new undeathly austerity weren't enough to hold back a scream as she fell; it seemed that despite all her training and ability, she would not only die, but be the first one to do so, and all because of a stupid coincidence.

And then, as the spires of the newly-horrorized city rushed up to meet her, she realized how foolish she was being. Not only would something as mundane as a fall fail to kill her, even from this height, she could do this. With a thought, she discorporated, dissolving into an oily cloud of mist. She drifted lazily to the ground in her new gaseous form, reforming in the lee of a peaked roof. A predatory smile crossed her now-plump, sanguine lips; she could smell humans nearby, and she could hear the beating of a small handful of hearts. Shadow monsters be damned; there would be time to hunt them down later, and the rest of those pathetic excuses for battlers too. For now, there were more important urges to tend to.

Cascala, who had to try very hard not to refer to herself as Contessa, breathed in slowly, tasting the air and listening for her prey. With the lightning-fast calculations of a hungry hunter, she deduced their locations within the warehouses, then faded once again into mist. She seeped under a nearby door, near-invisible and radiating no heat; even those sensors who had survived the technological regression that came with the genre would be completely unable to detect her entry or movement through the gang's base. Cascala of course had no way of knowing about the sensors, or even conscious consideration of the possibility that such might have existed inside; she was simply acting on instinct, stealthily drawing closer to her next meal with all the panache and canniness that came with unlife.

Inside, the little cloud of gas crept along the floor, across walls, and over crates. It occasionally stopped to swirl curiously around some relic of the cyberneticists' fanaticism, but was mostly an implacable and silent avatar of hungry determination. The only disadvantage to her mist form was a distinct lack of speed; this wasn't much in the way of a problem, though: if there was anything that came with undeath, it was patience. If she had to glide through a handful of buildings at a pace approaching a somnambulist's, well, all that did was make the eventual bite that much more satisfying.

---

After her conversations with her underlings, Phere was determined to get her surgery posthaste. There was simply no telling when things would change and leave her without the opportunities she had now, so the sooner she was under the knife and the less time she spent that way, the better. She shut off her radio, barked a few orders, and in under two minutes was drifting off under a precisely-measured dose of anesthetic. Even with the new genre in effect, her gang was dangerously proficient with technology; there was no reason to put anything off until the tome could be controlled.

She had no way of knowing how much time had passed when she awoke, but even through drug-blearied eye, she could tell little had changed. It probably hadn't been long; Syn had assured her that the actual installation itself wouldn't be very complicated, and in fact reiterated that assurance when it became clear she was conscious. No complications, he told her. Or something that sounded like that, at any rate; she was still somewhat addled by the fading narcotics.

Phere sat up, then insisted on standing. Her knees objected, but stayed firm as long as she kept a hand on a nearby crate. Good, it looked like she was as hale as ever; she'd be back to her ordinary, commanding self as soon as the anesthesia wore off, with the added benefit of the communications device. With that thought...

" Alright, Syn, tell me how to use this thing."

It had taken all of her self-control, but she'd managed the sentence without slurring. The surgeon rubbed his chin for a few moments, then said "Well, first I'll need to run some diagnostics and install the power source. It was too dangerous to put it in live. Let me get a few tools and I'll get you finished."

Syn bustled off into another room; Phere took the opportunity to sit back down on the operating table, her Hollow scanning for the Tome. Satisfaction built in her chest as she watched her servants fetch the powerful artifact, then plummeted as that artifact was knocked into some grate. Moments after her startled gasp, another puff of air escaped her lungs as something barreled into her from behind.

---

Contessa had been zeroing in on– no, Cascala had been zeroing in on a pair of beating hearts; they were the nearest prey to her, and judging from the sluggishness of one's beating, half of the pair was asleep or unconscious. Easy pickings. When she entered the large room her targets were in, she only failed to smile wickedly due to not having a mouth. Not only were there a pair of unaware humans, but one of them was Phere herself! It was a delightful two birds with one stone situation. The fact that Phere was the unconscious one was icing on the already-serendipitous cake.

The cloud of vampiric mist drifted closer; it was a little disappointing when Phere sat up, but all that meant was a little more stealth would be necessary. She reformed in the cover of some kind of suit of armor (that had been a prototype exosuit before the Tome had rewritten the world) and watched. Phere talked to the other human for a brief time, leaning all the while on some crates. Cascala's hungry grin became a satisfied smile once again when the man shuffled away, leaving Phere alone and clearly weak.

With an inaudible swishing of silk, Cascala stalked out of the shadows, fangs bared threateningly. Sharp-nailed fingers stretched out towards the helpless empress as she drew level, and an eager tongue slid across quivering lips. With unnatural silence, Cascala mounted the operating table and lunged towards Phere.

---

Elsewhere, a book slammed against a wall; its pages fluttered as it fell, and a bookmark pinwheeled away, dislodged from its place between two unreadable pages. The world rippled again as the Tome slid into the sewer.

---

Cascala, who was once again firmly Cascala, found herself sapped of her inhuman agility and stealth. She also found that she had no compulsion, or even the ability, to drain blood from helpless humans. She, and Phere moments thereafter, found her predator's lunge transformed into an academic's stumble. Both women sprawled in a heap on the floor, and Cascala's staff clattered away from them.

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

---

SpoilerShow

Somebody told me to post this, I don't

I don't know why

click for fullsize

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

SpoilerShow

I'd be majorly surprised (and willing to make changes) if this post affects Godbot's reserve in any way.

Phere was in a tough spot. Her greatest asset in this battle was essentially rendered useless in close quarters combat. She had no need to see where Cascala was when she was in a tangled heap with the mage. She was disorientated and still coming around from the anaesthetic, she had barely registered the change in genre. Cascala clambered to her feet, reaching towards where her staff had fallen. Phere lashed out, kicking Cascala, knocking her back to the floor and attempting to crawl to whatever object it was that the arch-magus had been after.

Cascala grabbed Phere’s feet, hauling her back into the fray. “Guards!” she cried; force of habit. Cascala clamped her hand over Phere’s mouth, who promptly bit down on her exposed palm. With Phere having not used her magic in years (save for the short blast that had rather fortunately killed Zaibotsu), and Cascala having neither the time, space nor the wherewithal to use her magic their scuffle quickly descended to scratching, kicking and pulling at one another’s hair.

The Empress was sort of out of shape, she had always expected to have guards there to defend her from this kind of thing. As such Cascala quickly got the upper hand; landing a blow that would leave Phere with a pair of black eyes, so to speak. She climbed to her feet while Phere clutched her face in pain and retrieved her staff from where it had rolled. Phere climbed to her feet, clutching at the surgical table she had so recently lain upon for support.

Reunited with her staff Cascala wasted no time. Phere had never heard the words coming from Cascala’s mouth, the magic in her world being less verbal more mental, but she understood them nonetheless. As blood rushed up through her body pooling in her throat, seeping out of her eye and ears, she gasped a single word. “Wait.”

Cascala had seen this woman’s abilities; she was no match for her physically or magically. She glanced to the doorway; there was nobody there ready to back up the Empress. She wasn’t sure what prompted it, perhaps an idle curiosity accompanied by the supreme confidence she could extinguish her competitor’s life at any point she chose. She relented, Phere’s blood rushing back through her body as it was supposed to. “What?” she asked.

Phere was of course momentarily silent as she gratefully sucked down lungfuls of air. “I can help.” She said, between gasps. “I clearly can’t stand against you, but maybe I could help you, in exchange you let me live.”

Cascala’s mind raced ahead of the conversation; Phere could see whomever she wished and so far her problem had been that she had not been able to locate her targets. She could easily kill this so-called Empress whenever she wished, but first it might be prudent to make use of her powers.

“You locate the others for me and you live.” Cascala replied cutting off Phere half-way through her proposal. “That is acceptable.” For a moment she contemplated which of her competitors it would be the most advantageous to get a drop on, settling quickly on Nalzaki. “Where is the hydra?”

Phere’s vision quickly flicked to the same dark alleyway where she had seen the Tome plunge into the sewer. “They’re in a back alley about halfway between here and the castle.”

“That’s incredibly vague…” Cascala replied, emphatically drumming her fingers along her staff.

“Take a radio.” Phere said, tossing one of the mechanical devices to the mage. “That way I can give you directions as you go.”

--------

Abys had opted not to interfere with the fight between the hydra and the shadow creature as it had broke out. Phere had been counting on her to get hold of the Tome, and as the others had battled she had waited for an opening. She watched as it tumbled down into the sewer, and satisfied that nobody was paying her any attention at the moment she quietly slipped away from the group, effortlessly lifting the grate and slipping into the sewer below.

--------

Phere watched as Cascala left, still shaken up by the sudden and very close confrontation. Through a little edge of her seat manoeuvring she had come out mostly unharmed and with a new ally/nemesis. Though she would not give the order to have Cascala killed just yet, she knew she would have to keep a close eye on her…

Originally posted on MSPA by Godbot.

---

"Run."

Dr. Harmon was about to protest that he was being patronizing again, and that she could take care of herself just as easily as he could, but it occurred to her that Sir Cedric was:

- Someone she hated
- Armed, whereas she was not
- The only one between her and a posse (that was after him)
- Someone whose death she would benefit from
- Still an asshole

She turned and ran away without a second thought. Good riddance. While he was busy being shot or hanged or buried up to his neck for the vultures to eat or whatever it was cowboys did, she could figure out just what exactly was going on, and maybe scheme against her opponents and -

The effects of the horror bookmark rushed over the ground underneath her feet. The paved road broke into jagged cobblestones, and the storm clouds parted to reveal a blood-red full moon. Dr. Harmon's handheld sensor spiked again and started beeping loudly. The readings were drastic enough that she very nearly forgot what was going on around her. She'd never seen such incredibly high levels of, uh...

Dr. Harmon glanced at her PDA. 'ZOMBIE SENSOR' was neatly lettered along the top.

"Shit," she muttered. Even as she looked past her PDA into the growing fog, she could see shambling forms getting closer. Well, at least it worked.

She looked over her shoulder. Maybe sticking with Cedric wasn't such a bad idea...



Sgt. Cedric slammed his combat boot into the chest of the nearest zombie cowboy. Its authentic revolver clattered to the ground, and the zombie landed on top of it, pinned under Cedric's weight. He unloaded the barrel of his shotgun into its head, leaving nothing but a fine grey mist, some traces of a cowboy hat and a pair of shell casings behind.

Zombies were getting closer from all directions, so rather than reloading his shotgun, Cedric shoved it into the strap over his shoulder and pulled Sigrar, his trusty chainsaw, from his belt.

"Hail to the king, baby," he growled, revving it over the sounds of the groaning masses until he could hear it echo.

A handful of zombies clumsily lunged for him, but he dispatched them with a few quick swipes of Sigrar. Unfortunately, this gave another zombie a chance to grab Sgt. Cedric from behind and try to bite his jugular. The grizzled vet winced at the smell and slammed his forehead into its temple, knocking its head loose. Another undead cowboy fumbled with its revolver and aimed it at Cedric. He spun around and grabbed the zombie behind him before it could collapse, and pulled it in front of his chest. It jolted lifelessly as a plague-infused bullet thudded into its chest, and Cedric discarded it. Before the undead cowboy could get another bullet into its gun with its decaying fingers, Sgt. Cedric had already thrust Sigrar through its chest.

They locked eyes.

"RAAAAGRRHGHH," said the zombie.

Cedric revved the chainsaw and tore it to shreds.

"Cedric!" screamed a woman's voice. He spun around. A pair of zombies were clinging to Dr. Melissa Harmon, the Only Reasonable Scientist, and she was frantically beating them back with her loudly beeping zombie sensor. He rushed towards her, tearing through the zombies in his way. A few poorly-aimed rounds thudded into his bulletproof vest, but he shrugged them off as he fought his way to the doctor's side. She had the cord of her PDA around one zombie's neck, but it wasn't doing much of anything.

"They don't need to breathe," Cedric reminded her as he pulled one zombie away from her and punched it out.

"Don't you think I know that?" she growled, elbowing the other zombie's arm aside as it tried to claw her face. She pulled its ten-gallon hat over its eyes and shoved it away.

Cedric dispatched it with a blast from his shotgun. He grinned at her. "I'm not going to be able to protect you if you keep running away," he teased.

"I can take care of myself," she growled. "And don't you act like you're any more important than me. You can't find a cure for zombieism by shooting them, Sergeant, and you can't keep fighting zombies forever."

"I gotta try, Melissa," he said. "Someone's got to."

"That's bullshit! You're a stubborn idiot, and you're going to die," she snapped, stepping forward and glaring up at him. "I don't want to work with you, and I don't want you protecting me. As soon as we make it to the safehouse, we're splitting up. Do I make myself clear?!"

Sgt. Cedric bristled. "This isn't about you needing me, you selfish bitch. Frank and Will and Chloe and the others are dead, now, but as long as you might be able to find a cure, there's still a chance that we'll get out of this."

"Sergeant, what the fuck are you talking-"

"Damn it, Doctor, I'm fighting for you! If I let you die, then everyone died for nothing! I need you! You're all that's left!"

Suddenly, Dr. Harmon found herself in Sgt. Cedric's grip. She froze with tension before she realized that their lips were an inch apart. She closed her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion -

The 'horror' genre vanished all at once, like a tide going back out to sea. The cobblestones clicked back together, the zombies turned into an assortment of cowboy corpses, and the clouds came back together, dousing Sir Cedric and Dr. Harmon in freezing cold rain. They both yelled in protest and shoved each other away. Cedric made the mistake of wiping his mouth off on his gauntlet, brushing its metal plates over his already-cut lip. He cursed under his breath and incinerated a cowboy who was sneaking up on him in frustration.

"Don't ever do that again!" Dr. Harmon yelled, kicking the cowboy she was standing on.

"How is this my fault?" demanded Cedric, covering his mouth and checking for blood. “You started it.”

"That doesn't even-" she clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms. "Whatever. Fine. I don't care," she muttered, speaking more to herself than to him. "Just fuck off, Cedric."

Cedric stopped in his tracks and looked genuinely puzzled. It rather reminded Dr. Harmon of a mastiff who'd just been smacked on the nose with a newspaper. "What do you mean?"

"I mean go away!" She turned her back on him and started walking. It was pouring rain, but she wanted to make it clear to him that she didn't want him around, and she wanted to be able to do it as coldly as possible. It was a move she'd practiced extensively. "I don't need your help," she growled over her shoulder.

"Uh, yeah you do," Cedric said as if this were obvious.

"I mean, you're a woman."


Somewhere in the distance, a window shattered.


Dr. Harmon would have given him a whole nasty speech full of seething fury right about then, but all she could think of were swears. She would've sworn at him, but she was too angry to settle on any specific words. She would've even just screamed at him, but she was too furious to unclench her teeth. She occupied herself with trying to see if she could wring any water out of her PDA.

"And I mean you, y'know... you don't even have a sword," he added delicately, not really wanting to embarrass her.

"Y-you absolute PIG," she stammered.

"Now, look, I get that you're angry and all, and you might not want me to come along with you, but it's kind of my job to defend the weak," he went on. "I can't let you go on alone. I guess I could help you find another knight to protect you, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only knight that Spectator brought along, and," he didn't hesitate to add, "you certainly won't find any knights as good as me." Which, as far as Cedric was concerned, was the honest truth.

By this point, Dr. Harmon was ineffectually beating her fist against his heavily armored chest and yelling something about 'you chauvinist piece of bitch.' It clearly wasn't working, so she settled for yanking him down by his short beard and smacking him across the face a few times before turning and storming off.

"Wait!" called Cedric, starting after her. It was like she wasn't even listening.

Originally posted on MSPA by Akumu.

---

Things were not going according to Ivan's plan. The Tome was gone, lost in the attack after he had worked so hard to get them all out of Castle Matic undetected. Far too many things were on fire. Even as the rain poured down, drenching him to the bone, Merrifield, Nalzaki and the shadow being blazed with a white-hot light that threw sharp shadows onto every surface. He sank back against a wall, wishing he could merge back into his own shadow, or just vanish from sight as Abys had already done. With the Tome lost, there was no reason to remain with these creatures. The vibrations of her footsteps resonated through his legs as she stalked invisibly towards the sewer grate down which her target had vanished.

All of three of Nalzaki were in terrible pain as the ends of their limbs burned. That was quickly remedied as they forced flesh down from their upper arms, underneath the metabolically hypercharged outer layers, which sloughed off like gloves to land smoldering on the slick pavement below. Razeran's head twisted about to sight Merrifield, blazing merrily away and sniffing around the alleyway, poking at this and that with her large flippers. This one is not to be trusted. We should kill it now and be done with it. Nalyg swung his head the other way, towards the thrashing Klendel. No, she is unbalanced and unpredictable to be sure, but she is not the real threat. The other two hissed their agreement, and Nalzaki dropped down into a quadrupedal stance and advanced on the stricken Cog.

As they moved cautiously forward, Kanpeki was the first to notice the sudden decrease in rainfall. A torrent was still falling upon Klendel but there seemed to be a soft wall moving out through the rain, reducing it to a few errant spatters on her scaly hide. Her eyes widened and she whipped her neck upwards. From above!

A squad of men on billowing black parachutes were dropping from the sky, nearly on top of them already. One lashed out with a savage kick to the side of Nalyg's upstretched head and then they were down, covering the area in nylon.

Ivan saw his chance, and scurried through the concealing folds of the parachutes. He did not make it far, however, before he ran straight into a brown-clad leg and fell back on his ass. Above him a boy even younger than himself was glaring at him from under a broad-brimmed helmet and pointing a pistol. “Don't even think about it, Natzi scum.”

Quickly the parachutes were bundled up and the three traveling companions found themselves encircled by armed men, with Merrifield once again uninflamed and upon Nalzaki's back. Abys had slipped away after the Tome, and Klendel was nowhere to be seen. One man stepped forward out of the ring, as the others kept their sidearms leveled. “I am Lieutenant Ryan of the 1st Airborne Division of the Greatest Degeneration. Cooperate and you will not be harmed, nor will your beasts. Tell us, where is the Tome? We know it was here in the castle.”

Ivan cowered against Nalzaki. I am no threat, you believe this, I am only a scrawny boy in glasses. “P-please sir, the Tome is not with us. I was j-just taking my pets out for a walk.” Razaran hissed indignantly but quickly quieted as communication flitted from his more judicious parts. Lt. Ryan did not seem convinced, and he looked sternly at Ivan for a long moment, rainwater streaming down his face. “Fine enough, boy, but either way you'll stay our prisoner. Matic's son will be a useful bargaining chip. We have our sources, you know. So let's go and see the good doctor.” Shit, that one came back in a bad way...

---
On the other side of the river, Dr. Melissa Harmon and Sir Cedric were taking refuge from the rain in an alcove in front of a townhouse. As they had been walking, the signs of wild-west themed decorating became less and less, and their current location looked like it was outside of that zone of influence. It seemed safe enough to rest here for a moment.

Cedric had continued to go on about how he was clearly much more strong and capable than her frail self, launching into many a tale of his heroic evil-vanquishings, and she had more or less tuned him out by this point. Watching the display of her hand-held sensor as they walked had been very enlightening. Now safely out of the rain, she slipped a small netbook out of a slot on her backpack and connected it to the sensor. She was so intent on the code she was writing that she didn't notice for a moment that Cedric had stopped talking. She looked up and found him looking questioningly at her.

“What?”

”I said, what are you doing?”

”Well,” she began, going back to her typing, “I noticed that when we were moving, the hyperspatial distance between the grouped worldlines here was spatially dependent. A mapping of the dependence implied a local singularity somewhere out there, a nexus where they all join and become indistinguishable. And that's interesting as hell. So I'm writing an app to keep a running update of the gradient and point us towards that singularity.”

She glanced up at Cedric, who seemed to be absorbing as much of this as she had his prattling about maiden-rescuing. She smirked, and kept working.

“When that... change occurred back there, my apparatus went on the fritz, but I suspect we jumped from one of those worldlines to the other, somewhere similar but following slightly different rules. And I'm fairly certain a similar jump brought us here in the first place, since very little here or about the other 'competitors' jives with the rules I got multiple degrees for learning.”

Cedric had taken out an oilcloth and was polishing his sword. She sighed, but honestly wasn't expecting much better. He still seemed to be listening with half an ear, though.

”I may not have a magic flaming sword, or biokinesis, or an all-seeing eye, but I do have science. It got me this,” Harmon shook the sensor in his general direction, “it was going to get me tenure, hell, it was going to get me the Nobel Prize. But now...”

She tapped execute, and after a second of compiling the graph on the sensor's output screen was replaced by a red arrow, pointing in the direction of the castle that loomed in the distance, and rotating slowly towards the river they were nearly upon.

“Now, it's going to get me home.”

SpoilerShow

By the way, I was going back through ~marked~ and I found something interesting: https://nixshadow.com/mspfa/?s=9&p=36

Specifically, "And lastly the SCREAMING EAGLES who constantly war in the sewers." Something to keep in mind!

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

"I'm not leaving!" Klendel exclaimed, clutching her hand desperately.

She turned her head towards him, its pearl color at odds with the off-whiteness of the hospital sheets. "But..."

He shook his head defiantly. "No buts. I'm staying right here."

She looked back with concern in her eyes. "But what about the court gathering? You have to be there, even if I can't be!"

"I'm not leaving you," he insisted. "The court will just have to deal without me."

"But it was so important to you that we be there!" she protested.

"You're more important," he murmured. "What if you need me? What if...what if that pain comes back?"

"Pain's all in the mind, love." She chuckled weakly. She pulled her hand free from his and brushed his cheek with it. "And we wouldn't still be together if I wasn't good at subduing mental problems."

Klendel's eyes snapped open, a remarkably hollow glint in them. He stumbled to his feet, took a step, fell down, and struggled back up again, where he stood, swaying from side to side like a grass reed in a windstorm, threatening to fall at any moment. He slowly reached back and grabbed one of the flaming blobs from his back, dropping it in front of his feet. After a few moments of lazy analysis of the result, he began pulling the rest of Merrifield off of him. He became increasingly crazed, stumbling around drunkenly whilst ripping flaming goop from himself, flinging each blob as far as he could the moment he had it off of him. Due to his current lack of strength, none of them went very far, but most went far enough to return enough of his energy that he could walk in a straight line without falling down, something he proceeded to demonstrate he could just barely do, stumbling down a dark side alley and collapsing next to a dumpster. The darkness wrapped itself around him, covering the weakened, semi-transparent shadow flesh, soothing the damage done by the fire. Klendel looked around blearily and was dimly surprised to find himself alone, but the pounding headache from the light exposure made it hard to analyze the oddity properly, and, completely spent, Klendel drifted off into a comatose state, allowing more of his energy to be devoted to restoring his shadowy flesh.

An indeterminable amount of time later, he found himself jolted awake, rising from a dream he could barely remember. Fire had played a part in it, but he suspected that was simply because of the traumatic experience he had just had. He stood up shakily; judging by the amount of shadow flesh he'd regenerated, he guessed that it had been less than twenty minutes since he had lost consciousness. He still felt weak and had a slight headache, but he didn't think it was safe to stay where he was any longer. He was lucky no one had found him, he knew, and luck was not something he liked to count on when he could avoid it.

The sound of falling rain finally registered with his mind, and he looked up to see a sky that had significantly more clouds in it than it had had when he had gotten into his fight with Merrifield, something he suspected had been caused by one of the contestants. And I doubt they summoned it to water their flowers, he thought drily. Even as he began walking down the alleyway, cautiously checking for foes, he thought back to the Spectator's introduction of the others, trying to figure out who was the most likely suspect for causing the rain, but quickly pegged Cascala as the most probable perpetrator. She had attempted to strike him down with lightning before; thus, it seemed only logical that she would be the one responsible for a cloud-related ruse, although he was lost as to what her plan might be.

But, he reluctantly admitted to himself, right now, I need to figure out what my next move will be. Hers can wait; I can't do anything about clouds, no matter how threatening they may seem. He froze when he heard bustling and voices nearby, then slowly snuck towards the source, which turned out to be a busy street market. Had it existed in his universe, Klendel would have instantly thought of One Thousand And One Arabian Nights. The only major disparity was that it was raining, but most seemed either prepared for or not bothered by it; the street vendors had pulled canvasses over their stalls to protect their goods, and the customers acted as if it wasn't even there. Klendel had passed this area before, when he had gone to plant the seeds of dissent in the minds of a number of underlings in the Arabian Knights, the gang whose territory this was. He did his best to combine this with the other information about the city he'd gathered, and came up with a somewhat vague direction that he hoped would lead him back to the warehouse Phere was in. He started brainstorming how to make it out that Abys had bumbled and prevented him from retrieving the Tome, not realizing that Phere had already seen the events unfold.

Originally posted on MSPA by fluxus.

---

Ivan winced slightly as Lieutenant Ryan’s breath ghosted across his skin, sweet and sickly. The wet cold turned every word he uttered into a wisp of cloud that only intensified the knotting sensation Ivan felt in his stomach. ‘You’ve really been an idiot this time, Ivan Norst,’ he though in dismay. Any pact he’d hoped to form with Phere had without a doubt disappeared down the sewer grate with both Abys and that godforsaken book. If only he’d been quicker, smarter…

He wasn’t spectacular at thinking on his feet- that was something he’d had to accept long ago. And right now more than anything he needed time and… and confidence. Klendel had managed to scurry off into another alleyway as some crazed but silent shadow and Abys had already entered the sewers; it took him a moment to realize she was descending a ladder into what had to be something of an underground cavern. Ivan let out his breath in a shuddering gasp and felt briefly as though his composure were washing away in the rain.

A sharp smack to the side of his head was what it took to shake him from his internal bout of panic.

“You listen to me when I’m talking to you, boy,” Ryan growled from beneath his whiskers and Ivan blinked up at him in shock, a hand instinctively flying to where he‘d been struck. The great form of Nalzaki was somehow comforting behind him. ‘Cant think on my feet?’ he mused, rubbing the side of his face. ‘Well I suppose this is as good a time as any to learn…’

“As I was saying,” the Lieutenant groused, placing extra emphasis on each word as he eyed Ivan with contempt, “You’re to present any weapons in your possession now or be prepared to have them confiscated by force. I said before that you would not be harmed so long as you cooperate. Keep that in mind.”

“Of course, sir,“ Ivan said quietly as he withdrew his pistol and handed it to the boy who’d first knocked him to the ground. Upon noting the suspicious glances he received for having concealed such a weapon, he shrugged. “My father likes me to be armed when I leave the castle. Apparently with good reason.”

Merrifield watched uninterestedly from her perch atop Nalzaki as the one they called Ivan negotiated with the leader of the parachute men. The boy’s style of ‘negotiating’ looked a lot more like giving this inconveniently nosy Lieutenant exactly what he wanted… but she wasn’t about to take his place. She was perfectly content to be concealed by Nalzaki’s bulk and for now she wasn’t going anywhere.

It was when she began mussing with her festering fingers, impatiently awaiting the outcome of their run-in with the soldiers, that Merrifield spied something out of the corner of her eye. In fact, it was a small pile of somethings conveniently concealed beneath a good bit of her flesh that had been sloughed off in their recent fight with Klendel. Although the Bookmarks were inherently useless without the Tome to bind them, they could still prove a fair bargaining price if she became separated from Nalzaki- and Merrifield was intent on having them back in her grasp.

She coughed delicately- but loudly enough to catch the attention of both Lieutenant Ryan and Ivan. Merrifield peered around Razaran just enough to grace them with what she deemed an encouraging smile before she yet again let loose the constrictions of her physical form. This time, however, it wasn’t by accident that her rancid body collapsed beneath her, sending bits of rancid flesh splattering about the alley way and onto Nalzaki’s back. Perhaps she could have a bit of fun with these humans before she collected her bookmarks.

Ivan loosed a startled cry as Merrifield spontaneously exploded in her place atop the hydra’s back. Many of the soldiers now had their arms pointed in her direction and, had he not witnessed a similar phenomenon mere moments earlier, Ivan would have been thoroughly convinced that Merrifield was no more. “W-what have you done to her?” he wailed suddenly, managing to dig up some of the grief he’d felt so many years ago when he’d discovered his turtle, Jim, dead in his aquarium. “You - she - you killed her! You said no harm would come to me or my pets!” Ivan turned wild eyes to Lieutenant Ryan, who clearly had no explanation.

It was then that Nalzaki reared upon their hind legs.

‘I told you the small beast was false!’ Razaran hissed silently to his fellows, a ripple of discontent shivering down their shared spine as a coagulated mass of Merrifield’s gory remains slid from their body. ‘This is not a disadvantage,’ Nalyg replied as they stampeded amidst the soldiers, feigning anger and fright. ’Merrifield has provided us with a viable reason for violence. If she wished us harm she would not have given us this opportunity.’ ’Agreed,’ Kanpeki added. ‘You forget she asked for our protection, Razaran. If not us, who will she hide behind?’ Razaran merely sniffed and snapped his jaws at the closest soldier.

A shout of “Control your beast!” erupted from somewhere behind them while Nalzaki continued to herd the unsettled soldiers into a disassembled mess. Despite the faint pain that still echoed through their front limbs, the great hydra continued its dance.

Ivan shrieked as Ryan grabbed him roughly by the collar of his shirt. “You will put an end to this. Now,” he spat, and Ivan felt him jab the barrel of his gun between his shoulder blades. He chuckled awkwardly, inappropriately at the Lieutenant. Things had certainly taken an unexpected turn, and not for the best.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

SpoilerShow

Sorry this post is so long. I don't know what happened.

Abys dropped down into the sewer. It was pitch black, dank and smelt repulsive, but as ever Abys had a job to do and she would get it done. She clicked on her night-vision and quickly spotted the wayward tome. She grabbed it, made an effort to remove the filth it was now covered with and then made to climb back out of the sewers. They were not the optimal way to travel and even if she was a bit sewagey she was still confident she could slip past the others and be on her way. However as began to climb the ladder she heard the unmistakable sounds of a dramatic entry by the ‘Greatest Degeneration’; the genre gang that took their genre so seriously it was difficult to tell them they weren’t actually an army.

On the one hand the certainty of those self-righteous dicks on the other hand the possibility of the sewer dwelling Screaming Eagles. It was an easy choice. She stepped off the ladder and clicked her arm into firearm mode, before setting off through the miserable black tunnels in a direction that she hoped would bring her out somewhere around the industrial district. In the darkness someone that was really better described as something watched Abys, and unnoticed by the cyborg slipped away.

--------

Phere stormed through the warehouse, her fists clenched and her teeth grinding together. In the beginning her plan had been straightforward; she would keep a distance from the book, watch the others bicker over it and use the chaos to pick them off. It would have been so simple, but for the complications that seemed to keep cropping up; Ivan's discovery of Abys, the loss of the Tome, Cascala... just Cascala. It had been The Network's fault. The technology these Punks had was clumsy and inefficient and Tek had promised that they'd be able to rig up a better communicator if the Scifi genre was in effect. She should have left it alone, but the appeal to take control not just of this world but of the lives of those scattered in battles across the multiverse. It had been too much to resist. Now she was spinning out of control over this battle and no closer to gaining control over anyone else's. She was in short, pissed.

Phere was slamming doors and screaming at random Punks who she hadn't bothered to learn the names of. Where the hell had Syn got off to and why the hell was there no notice that some bitch had arrived on the premises? The Punks didn't have good answers to those questions, their memories a little hazy on exactly what had been going on at that point. Irritably Phere returned to the main office/surgery where Syn was waiting with that battery she had gone to fetch. She bit her lip awkwardly as the Empress fumed.

“Are you okay?” she ventured. “I was gone longer than I thought, Tek had taken all the batteries.” She hesitated and with a faint smile held up the battery she had managed to retrieve. “Got this one though.”

"About time." Phere snapped. She sat down on the surgical table, and almost immediately sighed and folded her arms in irritable impatience. “Come on then, what are we waiting for?” She demanded irately. Syn hurried over to her, and began nervously installing the battery. Cascala’s voice crackled over Phere’s hand held radio, demanding the directions she had been assured she would have. Phere scowled and dumped the radio on the table next to her. "You can wait your turn." she muttered to herself.

--------

In a makeshift shack made of old scrap metal a group of scruffy individuals in old torn jackets sat around a burning heap made up of any flammable stuff they could get their hands on. If you examined the vagrants close to you would see off-green skin, unnatural growths, on some you would see scales or claws. The Screaming Eagles were pretty unique as a genre gang in that most of them didn’t actively participate in the genre wars that raged in the streets above them. They rarely left the sewers except to scavenge supplies, and more or less the only time they ever fought anyone was when someone was foolhardy enough to venture down into the sewers. As a group they varied between normal people with unfortunate disfigurements and things that were almost feral and could barely be said to be human any more.

Khan, the leader of the Screaming Eagles, was perhaps the least mutated of the Eagles. He would have been considered reasonably attractive assuming that people somehow managed to miss the third eye that grew on his forehead. He was only slightly emaciated and he went to the effort to have a shave now and again. He still harboured the notion that one day the Eagles would take possession of the tome and shift this city into a glorious Post Apocalyptic paradise. For the moment he sat by the fire with a couple of his fellow Eagles and partook in a hearty broth. As the group ate they suddenly found themselves joined by the scaled form of Dreck. The Eagles looked to him expectantly.

“There’th a thpunky little Punk in our thewerth…” he lisped. The Eagles uninterestedly turned back to their meals. “…theth got the Tholen Tome.” Suddenly he had the attention of the room again. He grinned widely… very widely.

--------

Klendel stalked along the shadowy alleyways of the industrial district rehearsing in his head the perfect chain of events that led to Abys fumbling and losing the tome. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps and slunk into the shadows to get a better view of whoever was coming his way.

“Don’t bother.” Phere called. “I know you’re there.” Phere stepped out of the shadows, followed by a guy with short brown hair, spectacles and stubble. Even though the only time that Klendel had seen the Empress was during the introductions he knew that something was different. For starters gone was the eyepatch, though he was not to know she’d ditched that a while ago. Moreover she had changed out of the elegant ballgown she had been wearing; now she was wearing a long dark brown jacket with plenty of pockets, combat trousers. At her waist she had holstered a futuristic pistol, and on her back she was wearing a backpack. Her companion was carrying a high-tech rifle and had a similar backpack. Both packs looked pretty full.

Klendel, having emerged from the shadows had reassessed the situation. Clearly things had changed; his version of events didn’t seem quite relevant at the moment. “What’s going on?”

“I’m on the move.” Phere said rather redundantly. “This is Tek.” She gestured to her nervous looking companion, who not quite knowing what to do shot Klendel a quick salute. Despite the fact that Klendel purported to be in her employ Phere did not trust him. He was still at the end of the day a competitor, perhaps one that would prove useful in furthering her own agenda but sooner or later his agenda would rear its ugly head and he would have to be dealt with. She had her reasons for leaving the Punk’s warehouse, the main one being security. That Cascala had gotten inside so easily perturbed her, the warehouse was no longer secure as long as Cascala and to a lesser extent Klendel himself knew about it. She’d packed her backpack full with radios, energy cells for her laser pistol, a first aid kit, a knife, a length of rope, some tinned food and bottles of water, a towel and importantly the science fiction and detective fiction bookmarks lifted from the Punks’ safe. Tek had after some coercion filled his backpack with tools and equipment and some of his half finished inventions he just couldn’t bear to leave behind.

Without hesitation Empress Phere strode past Klendel, expecting him to fall in behind her. No matter how ill at ease around weapons her companion looked, he didn’t much want to take Phere on here and now. Reluctantly he followed her, hoping for the opportunity to get her alone later. “Where to?” he asked.

“Not sure yet.” Phere quickly replied, “But first things first we have to meet up with Abys.” Phere placed her hand to her ear. “Okay, he’s straight ahead, in the street adjacent to the marketplace. There are these military guys, you can’t miss them.”

“Who was that?” Klendel tried again. He couldn’t help but notice Phere’s abruptness, and her general unease around him.

“Nobody.” Phere said, striding onwards in silence.

--------

It was easy to lose your nerve in the pitch black twisting sewer tunnels that snaked beneath the city, Abys reasoned. Every little sound you heard sounded to your ears like the springing of an Eagles’ trap. You were always hearing rumours of how they preferred to capture you, so that they could eat you alive. She wasn’t one to pay heed to stupid gossip but couldn’t help but feel slightly unnerved as she traipsed through the foul smelling darkness. Abys seldom deemed to show her feelings, but it would have been apparent to any watching her that the thrill of the job she had felt at the castle had dissipated. There she was a shadow, a predator picking off the weak and stealing through the corridors. Here she felt more like the prey, stalked by monsters. What the hell was she doing anyway? Risking her life for some woman who for all intents and purposes might as well have dropped out of the sky a couple hours ago? The Empress had arrived with no explanation, wrested control of the gang and suddenly Abys was putting herself in mortal peril for this complete stranger…?

Abys’ train of thought was interrupted by the noise of something splashing through the sewage. She spun around just as a mutant leapt atop her, all snarling jaws and thick gobs of saliva dripping down onto her. Suddenly without warning mutants seemed to be coming from everywhere. With one arm she held the monster at bay while she swung her mechanical arm into its awful maw. The blow sent it flying off her and into the wall of the tunnel. Quickly she pushed herself up and glanced around. She was surrounded by mutants of all descriptions. For a long moment nobody moved, the mutants and the cyborg scrutinising one another, then Abys quickly blasted away a couple of the more threatening looking mutants with a spray of bullets from her arm. Immediately the crowd fell upon her and she was forced to duck and dodge through the flailing crowd of mutants.

--------

As they walked in silence through the dark streets, Phere had had one eye on Abys’ plight. She cursed under her breath but did little else to express her displeasure at this development. The way things had been going this was just par for the course. They slowed and then came to a stop a manhole in front of them. Phere tapped her feet impatiently and instructed it be opened, when Klendel showed no inclination to do so Tek begrudgingly obliged. He made to climb down but was scolded by Phere and told to step aside. In the distance there was sound of splashing, coming closer, and the roar of angry beasts. Abys limped/ran into the shaft of light, her leg dripping with blood where one of the mutants had got her. She clutched the Stolen Tome tight to her chest with one hand and began to quickly climb with the other. The echoing sound of the chasing mutants grew every second. Phere crouched down at the top of the manhole and reached down.

“Pass me the book.” She commanded. Abys didn’t stop to think about it, she passed the book up and continued climbing. Phere straightened up and as Abys’ head emerged through the manhole she kicked her in the face and then stomped down on her fingers. With a yelp of pain, but not of surprise Abys plunged back into the depths. Phere turned away before she even heard the slam of the assassin’s body hitting the floor. She was already moving before Tek had time to react.

“You bitch!” he yelled, aiming his rifle at the Empress. “You cold hearted bitch.”

“She was injured.” Phere said, stopping and turning to face the engineer. “She’d have slowed us down. Now move or die, I suggest move because I still have use for you.” For a moment the pair stood staring one another down. “Klendel, make this man cooperate.” As Tek spun to face him Klendel was already on top of him. The cog slammed a shadowy fist into his face, wrenched his rifle away from him and shoved him after the fleeing Empress.

Behind them the Screaming Eagles, having failed to find the Stolen Tome on Abys swarmed up the ladder and onto the streets. Some of the less sentient members of the gang huddled around her, taking bites out of her as she screamed in agony. Though even her flesh tasted vaguely of metal they didn’t mind, they were just glad of a meal.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

Lieutenant Ryan’s squadron had a justifiably fearsome reputation. Millions of dollars oiled the joints of their well-tuned machine, and as a result this sizable army of men and women were well-trained, well-equipped, and extremely, extremely good at killing things dead. Unfortunately advanced technology and years of training meant nothing in this fearsome battle – especially against such opponents (a hydra, a cat-thing, and some kid) of unfathomable power – and Ryan knew.

He still had that little twit of the Doctor's son in his grip but the Lieutenant was not so sure that his current hostage would buy him obedience from nefarious combatants facing him. Fortunately, he had a backup plan and the hostiles seemed too embroiled in conflict to take much note of him. Facing a nearby building, Ryan tilted his head slightly to the right. Shadowy figures in the nearby windows, obscured by distance and curtains, apparently got the message as they faded back into the distance. The sound of carnage stayed constant, ripping flesh and cries of pain echoing through the streets uninterrupted. Until

Sirens.

***

Merrifield was having so much fun!

After the men brandished their guns however, Merrifield found wariness seizing her ephemeral heart. She was not fond of firearms, to be honest. They were small and dangerous, like yappy little dogs. When she first coalesced back in her native dimension, the first people she had met had guns – and they shot her. Oh, how she hated the feel of bullets! Tiny metal pellets that rapidly burrowed into her flesh with white-hot pain! Luckily, that did not seem to be a problem this time around…

…because of her best friend(s), Nalzaki! As they tore into the humans, Merrifield felt that Nalzaki did most of the work, and not without reason. Ripping bodies apart like they were nothing and crushing mooks into a fine meaty paste, Nalzaki did roughly eighty-five percentage of damage. Best of all, Nalzaki was incredibly awesome, at least to the genetic monstrosity. The triach managed to absorb as much damage as they could dish out. Bullets and grenades were nothing to this magnificent beast. All these facts and hard work of the three did nothing but awe the easily impressed pile of cells.

Nalzaki was a hard worker, though Merrifield did help along too! However, she was more concerned about lapping up the arms, entrails, and other body parts inevitably lying around in the aftermath of their rampage. Merrifield wasn’t entirely sure if something that was this fun could even be classified as “work”. Merrifield giggled as she ate the foot of an unsuspecting soldier, then his leg, and his torso, and the rest of the body. She didn’t know how many soldier she managed to incapacitate (she wasn’t technically killing, after all, merely… absorbing!). After all, why bother counting?

A few moments later, the commandos were shouting, retreating. A challenge! Merrifield quickly slid after the escaping group of soldiers, intent on catching up with them. She wasn’t fast enough, but she was getting so close. She could almost grasp at the boot-heels of a slow one – just a meter, no, half a meter... In fact, she might as well... A vicious-looking spine erupted from her amorphous structure, dripping with teal toxins and danger. Before she could take a swipe at the dawdling man, there was

Light.

Pain.

Silence.

***

Although the dozens of explosives dropped by the planes were brutal, and in the minds of command blatant overkill, the triach were made of sturdier stuff. They were meant to. After all, the ritual back in their home-world only selected the cream of the crop from their native subspecies. Bombs and bullets? Not a problem. Conveniently, the Lieutenant and his lackeys made horrible progress in their retreat. A slow mosey might shorten the distance between the Triach and those fools. However, time was a crucial resource and Nalzaki did not have it in spades. All three of them knew.

Lieutenant Ryan had a hand on Ivan and a hand on his holster. Ryan had experience, had the know-how, and had steel in every nerve in his body. Yet despite all his preparations, the seasoned vet hadn’t expected the might of the three-headed, telepathic, shapeshifting alien looming in the wake of his retreat.

***

Merrifield had never been knocked out before, and found the groggy sensation of waking up from unconsciousness to be quite interesting, though she wished it had come in a less painful manner. The genetic monstrosity teetered between unconsciousness and consciousness. She felt strange sensations like looking at her own body from a distance, feeling limbs she never had. All kinds of weird feelings, really quite fascinating. There was even a gnawing sensation crawling across her skin. She could feel chunks of her pulling away, one glob at the time, leaving her body. Uncomfortable, but, wait. Gnawing sensation?

Merrifield pulled herself back into consciousness in alarm, and was instantly displeased with the state of things. She was in the sewers, without a doubt the grossest place in the planet. Merrifield could not really give a comprehensible reason why she despised these dank, dark places. Given, they were smelly and full of germs and god knows what. However, Merrifield was also smelly and full of germs and god knows what. The genetic monstrosity may not have had an understanding of etiquette or honor, but she was never fond of hypocrisy.

What she hated quite a bit more than double standards though were the things surrounding her. Much to her displeasure, they were greedily pulling off pieces of her flesh to shovel into their grotesque maws. Merrifield thought only rats and bugs lived in these places, but apparently she was wrong. These were humanoids. Humanoid might actually be too kind, she thought upon reflection. These were too deformed, too misshapen to be considered humanoid. They were mutants, to say the least, and they were eating her.

A few minutes later, Merrifield stood up, the bodies of the mutants lying still in the knee-deep gunk of the sewer floor. Although they were pretty much asking for a sudden heart attack, Merrifield was sorely irked by their lack of resistance. They were barely sentient and had as many instincts as they had intelligence, which was none. Basically, they were dumber than dogs. How disappointing! She halfheartedly kicked a corpse. She could theoretically eat them, but decided to do so only if she really needed to. The battle with Nalzaki had given her plenty of fleshy bounty to compensate. The expired mutants were essentially trash and Merrifield did not like to eat trash. But wait!

Something stirs.

Merrifield trudged through the gunk and met upon a visceral spectacle. There was that robot lady! Well, what was left of her. There were probably more mutants in these sewers than Merrifield had encountered because they did quite a number on this poor soul. Bite marks covered her, complete with a stump where her right leg had been while her left leg was shredded like steak tartar. Her mechanical arm was smashed to scrap and her right arm was twisted into a really weird position, with bone splinters sticking out. She was fighting to keep alive, which seemed quite a feat when her spilled, half-eaten entrails were dying the sewer waters red.

Merrifield poked around the struggling woman, trying to find some form of ID. The genetic monstrosity was eventually rewarded with an identification card. The purpose of the plastic item lost upon Merrifield, but apparently the almost-dead robot was named A, B, Eee, uh, ABYS! Yeah, her name was Abys! Nonchalantly throwing the identification into a puddle of sewage, Merrifield decided it would be best to put the woman out of her misery.

<font color="#4B0082">“Help me.”

Abys tilted her head at Merrifield, staring at her with dying eyes. Merrifield was more than a little disconcerted at the situation. “Help. Me.” Abys croaked, the two words escaping her mouth much like her fleeting life. The genetic monstrosity was getting a little nervous. Normally, dead bodies didn’t talk, right? Maybe she’s some sort of zombie. Merrifield did not know what a zombie was, but it sounded scary. "Help—" the woman started to convulse into coughs. Her head heavily landed, spraying dirty water everywhere, and she was still.

Suddenly, Merrifield did not feel like eating her anymore.

Merrifield kind of felt bad for Abys. On one hand, the aberration really, really, really wanted to go away. On the other hand, Abys really, really, really needed help. Despite second thoughts, Merrifield was a selfish little being. She always wanted things to benefit her in some way. Although she did pity the cyborg, gears in her head were turning towards a mutually beneficial situation – well, maybe more mutually beneficial for Merrifield than Abys. Needless to say, Abys was alive, barely. There were some spare corpses lying around. Perhaps it was time for some surgery?

A smile danced onto Merrifield’s lips.</font>

***

Khan might’ve been intelligent, but Empress Phere and her group proved to be even smarter. With a combination of magic and clever maneuvers, they managed to lose the ravenous mutants – for now. There were those Screaming Eagle Hounds pursuing her, but that was fine by her. She felt just like a queen and how could she not when she had the Tome within her royal hands? With bated breath, Empress Phere carefully pulled the Sci-Fi bookmark from her backpack, inspiring a look of disgust and fear from the trembling Tek. Klendel, however, stood still, biding his time as the Empress delicately placed the magic bookmark between the pages of the reality-warping volume.

The fabric of space and time warped, as once again, the city fell to the whims of the Tome, mundane civilians became space marines, aliens, or robots (or marine alien robots). The architecture took on a futuristic sheen as gleaming skyscrapers erupted from the ground. Flying , futuristic spaceships started to pop into the skies. Neon lights buzzed as synthetic techno plinked in the background. This was undeniably science fiction.

Khan and the smarter portion of the Screaming Eagles were greatly annoyed by the current situation. This city was too shiny, too unfamiliar, too new! This was not what they wanted! They wanted the grandiose beauty of post-apocalyptic paradise. The new situation simply would not do! Luckily he picked up a scent - the all-too-familiar scent of magic and royalty. How sweet and how disgusting! The more instinctual of his minions immediately charged after the smell, baying in pursuit of the Tome. Khan merely smiled, barking orders at the less bestial of his clan to follow him. Resolve flickered within all three of his eyes as the Leader of the Screaming Eagles trudged forth, fondling his grimy stubble while he walked. He wanted the Tome and he wasn’t going to let some snooty princess keep him away from it.

***

All eyes widened in horror at the disgusting spectacle of a rider and her steed. Merrifield was Merrifield obviously. However, Abys… was something else. The cyborg assassin was very much alive but… very different. Her once human form had been skewed into to the quadruped proportions of something horse-like. This comparison was further reinforced by her hoof-like hands, her once-human fingers splayed into disgusting efficiency. Her skin was split in many places. Bits of machinery embedded in Abys’ body, especially the left front leg. Fresh wounds rotted at her sides, revealing the glistening nano-machine-reinforced flesh within. Her face was disconcertingly untouched. Observers could almost have called her visage normal if it weren’t for her Glasgow smile of a mouth, bristling with sharp, sharp teeth that was stained teal from the hue of spittle leaking from her bruised lips. Most disgusting of all, blood leaked from her every orifice – her mouth, her nose, her eyes.

Smelling of shit and antiseptic, Merrifield and Abys galloped off into the streets, causing the futuristic inhabitants to gape in surprise where they weren’t fleeing in terror. The aberration thought she had certainly gotten the most bang for her buck (even though she wasn’t exactly familiar with the term of buck). Not only had she managed to save someone’s life, she also got a magnificent, speedy ally! To be honest, Merrifield was not exactly sure if Abys remembered much. The process often took a toll on the mind. Well, only one way to find out.

“Abys, show me to your master.”

Abys stood still, breathing wetly due to the multitudinous liquids dripping from her orifices. Without warning, Abys took off, her rider barely hanging on. Abys was still reeling from her resurrection, but she knew where her mistress was. That scent of the magical, eye-patch bitch was strong and Abys knew where she was. As the amplified camouflage crackled in activation, cloaking both steed and rider, Abys took off to her destination. She knew where her mistress was.

And her mistress was going to pay.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

SpoilerShow

If this has caused any issues tell me and I will do my best to sort them out.

Unlike the rest of the Eagles, Dreck didn’t mind the genreshift so much. He figured that science fiction was just one step away from post-apocalyptic. All it needed was someone to kick-start the apocalypse. Physically the genreshift hadn’t affected him too much, he already looked grotesque enough to pass for an alien. The only real tangible difference was now he had an absurd pair of antennae, and he was wearing a dumb looking spacesuit. In his hands he carried a high tech sniper rifle that was powered by plasma or something. His mind had the details in there somewhere, thanks to the shift, but he wasn’t terribly keen on sifting through them, in the same way he wasn’t particularly interested on exploring whatever backstory this genre had written up for him.

Dreck knelt upon one of the roofs overlooking the backalley where Phere and Klendel had used the bookmark. He had been following the group, preferring to take a more stealthy approach than most of his Eagle brethren. As they made to walk away he silently leapt from that rooftop to the next, shadowing them. The cheap magic that had lost the other Eagles would do nothing to deter him.

--------

Of the three individuals Tek was the least affected by the genreshift since he was already science fiction, more or less. Klendel was still more or less as he had been, though he was now more of a midnight blue than black, and his skin seemed somehow more solid and defined. His eyes while still red, no longer glowed, they were just a pair of beady red eyes. His cog had been replaced by a fin.

However it was Phere who had changed the most. Her pale white skin was replaced by dull grey metal. Her hollow was a shining purple implant with fibre optic wires that twisted across her face in the same pattern as her scars had. Her hollow implant was a highly advanced piece of technology that allowed her to hook up wirelessly with any camera in the city. A barcode on her chest read PH-373.

PH-373 instructed the group to keep moving in a harsh monotone. Klendel slunk alongside the rampant machine. “Where are we going?” Klendel tried again, tired of the machine’s unwillingness to place any faith in him.

“That information is classified.” PH-373 replied, there was always a chance they would lose the alien before they arrived at the Palace. Klendel’s arm shifted, extending to a tentacle which wrapped itself around PH-373’s arm. She turned to face him; her face carefully replicated an expression of confusion and disgust.

“I think I have earned a little trust.” Klendel replied. “I just saved your life… such as it is a life.” This impatience was uncharacteristic of Klendel, but then so was the amount of restraint and obedience he had shown so far. It grated on him to follow the orders of another, even if it was to further his own purposes.

PH-373 went momentarily blank as she considered this. Perhaps Klendel was telling the truth. He had the opportunity to let her be destroyed and did not take it. “We are going to Matic's Stronghold.” She said. “I need a location to upgrade my communications software and Matic's place is the most fortifiable location in which to do this.” Satisfied, Klendel let go of her arm, and they continued in silence.

--------

Elsewhere Doctor Harmon and Sir Cedric were still following Harmon’s scanner, even if her scanner now took the form of a sentient drone floating ahead of her. Sir Cedric had undergone the most drastic change. His hair had been cropped short; his armour was some kind of bulky mechanical armour, coloured blood red. Sigrar, his chainsaw plasma rifle was strapped across his back.

“There was this one time in the Rasjal Nebula where me and my buddy Barty Cabrine were stranded on this desert planet…” Doctor Harmon had found that if she made thoughtful noises every couple of minutes that Lt. Cedric would take it as a sign of interest and carry on with whatever it was that he was talking about without seeking a more genuine response from her.

Her drone quietly told her that the source of the phenomena was bearing down upon them. Melissa regarded the people along the road ahead of them. There were only a couple of humans, and guessing from how intoxicated most of the aliens were they were near a bar. “The poor wretches.” She muttered sympathetically.

“What’s that?” Lieutenant Cedric asked.“Nah, the Gravians aren’t wretches, they’re something else entirely.” He scowled at the thought of his bitter confrontation with the animalistic creatures.

Doctor Harmon was about to chide Cedric when her drone whispered to her that the source of the dimensional anomaly was upon them. That it was in fact walking past them. She spun around and regarded the three people that had passed them; a human, a robot and an alien.

“Hey!” Doctor Harmon called to the group, one hand ready on her antimatter rifle just in case. “Excuse me!” The group turned and regarded the pair. Lieutenant Cedric was quick to draw Sigrar from its holster and point it towards the group. “There’s no need for that Cedric.” She hoped. Cedric grumbled to himself and reholstered the weapon.

PH-373 appeared to be staring at Doctor Harmon rather intently. After a couple of seconds of silence Tek had come to the conclusion that in order to move this conversation along he was going to have to participate. “What is it?” he asked.

“One of you has, or is, an interdimensional nexus.” Doctor Harmon said. “I would appreciate it if you would hand over the item, whatever it may be, for further study.”

From a nearby rooftop there was a loud roar bellowing across the streets of the midnight city. Those gathered in the street below turned to look up to the rooftop, except for PH-373 who strode towards the Doctor. She brought her hand close to her face, but held back, using it for some kind of comparison only. The sudden activity caused Doctor Harmon to recoil back back from the android.

“Doctor Melissa Harmon.” PH-373 said. “You may prove useful. I propose you come with me, I show you this interdimensional nexus and in exchange you work with me.”

“Don’t worry!” Lieutenant Cedric announced, before Harmon was able to answer. “I will handle this.” Doctor Harmon turned to rebuke the lieutenant when she saw what it was that he was referring to. Aliens, putrid, scaled and numerous were pouring out of a sidestreet a little way up the street PH-373 and her colleagues had approached from.

--------

The aegols were an alien species, primarily interested in killing everything that moved and then attempting to kill anything that didn’t move. On their own they were too animalistic to pose any real threat to anyone, but some scientists had inevitably gotten involved, and now the aegols had masters. They were half aegol, half human hybrids. They lacked the ferocity or the razor sharp claws of their alien kin, but retained their human intelligence, and importantly an empathic link to aegols. Now they dwelt in the sewers and dreamt of the downfall of humanity when they would reclaim the surface.

Khan, their leader was currently being carried by a pack of aegols towards one of his brethren, who had called them forth with an aegol roar. Khan knew he was being carried forth to an explosive that, with the right detonator, would allow him to destroy civilisation once and for all, and he smiled.

--------

Cedric unsheathed Sigrar and opened fire upon the approaching pack of aliens. He screamed angrily as he did so, throwing one fist in the air and cheering after he scored a headshot on one of the hybrids. Tek also opened fire only his attack was more subdued and he didn’t actually manage to hit any of the approaching aegols.

PH-373’s hand grasped Doctor Harmon’s shoulder. “Let them deal with this. They are expendable.” Doctor Harmon hesitated for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at the advancing wall of aliens and at Cedric and the inventor. She turned back to the robot and nodded her assent.

They fled towards Matic's Stronghold, PH-373 not letting go of Harmon’s hand all the way there.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

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SpoilerShow

Abys felt…weird, for the lack of a better word. The speed, the senses, the way her ribs jutted out of her body, everything was new for her. Of course, there was that near-death experience and that, er, resurrection (Abys shuddered at that memory) with that thing, now nothing does not seem so bad now. In fact, it was almost a refreshing experience for her! She only wished that it came by less twisted, disgusting means, also thumbs.

Abys and her passenger continued to gallop across streets, searching for that one particular lady. The familiar smell, sweet and sickly, was so strong, so close. It also reminded Abys of the crimes in which the lady had dealt to her and that made her even angrier. With an earsplitting screech, Abys pursued forth, disfigured hooves pounding the pavement as the duo barreled towards their destination – and bloody revenge, of course.

***

Cedric had the firepower and Tek had the smarts. Unfortunately, those traits were simply not enough to buffer the tsunami of aliens that threatened to drown in a sea of plasma and blood. The space marine and the mechanic, the two most unlikely partners, managed to somehow survive and hole up in an abandoned office building, now genre-shifted into some sort of research facility complete with glass tubes and metal bits. Despite years of neglect, the facility managed to provide good shelter for the two. However, judging from the claws punching holes in the asbestos and snapping jaws burrowing through windowpanes, there was plenty of evidence to say they need to escape – or do something quick.

“Are you almost done?” Cedric yelled, as he brought his weapon down on a marauding head. The teeth of his trusty bayonet started to churn viciously at the unfortunate aegol. As if the science-fiction overkill was not enough, white-hot plasma flared out of the hidden vents of the blade, overcooking the headcheese of the struggling foe. “ARE YOU ALMOST DONE?” The knight-nee-space marine, swerved around just in time to backhand another alien to pieces.

“Shut up, you.” Tek grumbled as he continued on the improvements of his invention. How long has it been? Tek could not care less. The noise, the foes, and the loudmouth marine, Tek was at the end of his nerves, both natural and mechanical. He was busy, he needed the time! Plus, the noise was not helping either. Though usually quiet, Tek was known among his peers to have a rather sharp tongue and the Punk Inventor would have something sarcastically demeaning to say to the knight. However, now was not the time!

Tek was furiously working away at the office desk, repurposed into an impromptu workshop. Oh, how the Punk hated his situation. There were not enough necessary components, his soldering was shoddy, and time was short! Fortunately, he was almost done with his contraption. Perhaps, it will work? Sparks flew everywhere, as he dabbed the final touches to his masterpiece. Almost, almost…done! Pride welled up within Tek’s artificial heart as he took in the sights of his beautiful machinery. Time well spent! Unfortunately, any waxing description of his improvised invention was cut short by profanity from Cedric.

“NOW ARE YOU ALMOST DONE?” Cedric bellowed as the mindless aegols figured out piling on him was surprisingly more effective than attacking him one by one.

Tek turned around, contraption in hand, and observed his situation. More and more aegols came pouring in, climbing through windows, and climbing on top of the space marine. They almost covered his entire body, now immobile from their combined weight. The aegols were creeping, climbing, almost up to Cedric’s struggling face. Tek realized what he had to do. With a shaking hand, Tek brought up his invention.

And shot.

A wave of deafening sound burst from the invention, sweeping up debris in its wake. The noise was so loud that every windowpane in the facility was pulverized into powder. Not shards, powder. Aegols also were affected too. The aliens who were unlucky to be in the full power of the shot immediately disintegrated from Cedric. Some of them leaked blood from their orifices before their heads exploded into a lovely shower of gore. Others who were lucky enough to be not in the blast had their brains scrambled, so scrambled that they could not rely on their usual hormonal relays which linked them to the hive. As such, they went on autopilot, ravenously devouring everything they could see.

“That’s amazing,” Cedric marveled, pulling himself from the many pieces of Aegol parts.

“I know, isn’t it?” Tek smiled. “Uses sounds to disorient – and kill too. I think I’ll call this the ‘Sonic Cutter.’” The Inventor made an exaggerated flourish with his hand as he nonchalantly kicked an Aegol arm to the side. After a bit of silence, the Punk tossed the gun towards Cedric. “I think you are better at this than me.” <font color="#FF0000">The space marine nodded.</font>

And opened fire.

***

The rider and her steed carefully climbed up stairs of a long abandoned apartment. Merrifield was not exactly fond of this irritatingly slow pathway to her destination. However, the narrow passageways between the closely compacted buildings were packed with those mutant things. Plus, the genetic amalgamation did not exactly want to pick a fight. So the duo decided the only way was to go up and man, was that way ridiculously slow.

Finally, they reached the apex of this decrepit apartment. With a dainty tilt, Merrifield glanced at the technological landscape of the transmuted city. The biokinetic humanoid could take in the sights. However, what was more interesting was the skirmish on the ground. For some reason, the icky mutants (there were a lot of them) were swarming a particular office building, er, research facility. All the more reason to go and observe!

Plus, Abys could smell that bitch over there.

***

Cedric was struggling to keep his ground, rapidly emptying rounds into the swarming aegols. The problem was: the Sonic Cutter was good at disorienting. Perhaps too good! As Cedric knew from his military career, the aegols were dumb, dumb brutes. The tiny shred of intelligence they had was used to differentiate between friend and foe; edible and inedible, especially. Now that knowhow was gone, they have no control over what they can choose to eat, which was a major problem especially since they were gnawing away at the walls of their shelter.

The space marine kept firing away, but the more aegols he blasted, the larger the number of aegols disoriented. The more aegols disoriented, the faster the walls were weakening. Effectively, with each Sonic Cutter round he emptied into the damned aliens, the larger the hole he was digging himself into. Tek was currently hiding under the table, clutching his toolbag like a security blanket. As flakes, eventually chunks, of the ceilings kept tumbling onto the ground, a plethora of regrets rushed through the Punk’s head, especially concerning that Sonic Cutter of his. Why did he think it was such a good idea? Pretty soon, the ceiling would either collapse or the aegols would burst in. He did not when one of these will happen, but he was sure of the outcome: death.

***

With the burst of speed, Merrifield and Abys jumped off the building, letting freefall pull them towards their destination. They landed heavily on the unfortunate aegols, pulverizing some of them to meaty paste with their combined weight. The ravenous aliens paid no heed to their fallen comrades. In fact, some of them started biting at the rider and the steed, appreciative of the fresh meat that had fallen from the heavens. Abys screamed in horror as she relived her memories back at the sewers, thanks to the insistent biting. Merrifield, however, had a plan.

The aegol who have taken a bite out of the duo found the meat sweet and delicious. They were so enraptured in the taste of the flesh, that they did not realized that they started to melt, for the lack of a better word. Their vicious bodies disintegrated to parts, parts to organs, organs to cells, and cells to biological components. Before their dim minds could comprehend the horror that is their body, the unfortunate aegols were simple primordial ooze, swirling into a meaty vortex around Merrifield and Abys.

The more the ooze grew, the stronger the smell of the meat. The marauding aegols could not resist such a tender smell of honeyed meat and they came and ate, adding more to the horrifying wave of flesh. Abys treaded the ooze with perfect ease. Merrifield finally pinpointed the building where this supposed Phere was supposed to be and thus, she guided Abys and the wave to her intended target.

***

Since the eradication of the last aegol, an eerie silence had descended onto the atmosphere. Amidst the corpses and pieces of exobiological flesh, Cedric readied his Sonic Cutter, apprehensive of the next surprise attack. For some reason, there was nothing. No claws, no fangs, nothing for them to defend themselves against. The two started to feel a little uneasy.

Suddenly, the building rumbled.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Tek began to cringe in horror as he repeated that single word over and over again. Oh geez, he was going to die and it was going to be painful and stuff. He had so much to live for this was going to be terrible. Oh geez, oh shit. The Punk Inventor was so wrapped up in fear that he did not notice Cedric’s slacked-jawed expression, the smell of cooked meat, and the wave of pink rushing towards the building.

Then, all was black.

***

Tek groggily woke went back to uncomfortable consciousness. He moved his limbs. Well, at least he had all of limbs intact. He checked his gear. Good, all his tools were still here. He looked around – and met up with a freaky, dripping face. Woah, that was ugly. At least it was not as ugly as the aliens they dealt with earlier. Come to think of it, it was almost familiar, almost as if within its <font color="#007d7d">abyssal – wait.

“What the FUCK?” Tek shouted, jumping up in shock and disgust, mostly disgust though. “ABYS!?”</font>

At the sound of her name, Abys’s bloodshot eyes lightened up; then, furrowed into horrifying anger. In her rage, she began to buck around, shaking her passenger like a ragdoll. “YOU. SMELL LIKE HER. BUT. YOU.<font size="1"> ARE NOT. HER.” Abys screeched. “WHERE. IS. SHE. WHERE. IS SHE.”</font>

[COLOR="rgb(75, 0, 130)"]Tek could only explode with more expletives. Punks were not really a social type of gang and Phere was probably the most antisocial the gang can get. Tek barely saw Abys, but at least he knew what she looked liked. She was brunette, had grey eyes, and a slight build. But this horse thing? This? This? That was not the Abys that he remembered! After a tidy tirade of inventive swear words, Tek turned around, visibly shaken but in full control of himself. With a shaky finger, Tek pointed and asked again. “That’s Abys.” A shudder. “Right?”[/COLOR]

Merrifield looked over the skies, admiring the stormy skies while nonchalantly twirling her hair with a festering finger in almost a rude manner. “Why yes, this is Abys.” She bent down and patted her steed on the neck, almost immediately calming down the former Punk. “But she’s mine now.”

Tek slumped on the ground. “Oh.”

“Well, then.” Merrifield sniffed, examining her fingernails. “You are obviously not Phere. However, you do smell like her. That means you have been around her.” Merrifield bent down, giving Tek the full brunt of her annoyed stare. “You know where she went?”

The Punk Inventor sighed. “Well, yeah. She went that-a-way.” Tek half-heartedly pointed a finger at Dr. Matic’s Castle. “Also, she was with some strange gal, who was with someone else previously.”

“Who is this someone el-“

A deafening roar of a chainsaw jolted Tek and Merrifield to alert and suddenly Cedric came along. He looked like he had been beaten up and thrown into a dumpster full of rotten meat products. Cedric looked unprepared. However, the grim determination on his face and his arms at ready suggest otherwise. Merrifield merely glanced back at Tek. <font color="#9D0020">“Him. Right?”</font>

Tek nodded.

<font color="#9D0020">“Well, then. You are coming with me.” Much to his protest, Merrifield galloped Abys to the side of Tek, sweeping him up with her massive flipper. After a bit of struggling, the Punk Inventor was on Abys, in front of Merrifield. He let a small groan as he felt blood soaking into his pants. He was really tired of this shit, but no, some freaky cat-thing had to grab him to another zany adventure. “Let’s go.”</font>

Suddenly Cedric, armor and all, slammed in front of Tek, letting a surprised screech from the encumbered Abys. Much to the consternation of Tek, the Punk Inventor found himself uncomfortably sandwiched between an armored figure and a rotting cat, on a bleeding horse. The only person who was more annoyed at this situation was Merrifield, who was not appreciative of the extra passenger in the front. <font color="#9D0020">“Why are you here?” </font>

Cedric looked back. “I have a doctor to save.” The space marine’s brow furrowed with determination. “Let’s go.”

And so they did.

SpoilerShow

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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SpoilerShow

I thought it might be useful to have this. So that important stuff like the hurricane doesn't get forgotten about.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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SpoilerShow

Note: For clarity's sake, Razaran is on the right of Nalyg and Kanpeki is on the left. This will become relevant midway through the post.

In one swift motion, Nalzaki lunged forward and seized Lieutenant Ryan by the collar, hoisting him up in the air and forcing him to release his grip on Ivan. Kanpeki swatted his weapon to the ground before he could retaliate against them. While Razaran glared daggers into Ryan's eyes, Nalyg glanced around for a moment. All around, panicking soldiers fled. A few had fallen to Razaran's brutal attacks, and several were in varying states of injury and maiming. A little violent for Nalyg's tastes, but such was war. Nalyg turned back to the disconcerted lieutenant.

"You won't be taking Matic's son prisoner, Lieutenant," he announced in an authoritative tone. "You wouldn't want to share in your soldiers' unfortunate ends, would you?"

"It... talks? Matic's never... never been able to..."

Ivan realized that for once he was at an advantage over the Lieutenant. Confident in his own safety, he scrambled back to his feet and approached the helpless officer.

"You think a scientist as brilliant as my father couldn't create something intelligent? You underestimate us." Ivan desperately hoped that the Lieutenant would buy it.

"I... I see. I'll... I'll call off the attack if you call off your beast. Deal?"

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Because if he attacks us again, he won't be so lucky." All three of Nalzaki's heads continued to glare intimidatingly at Lieutenant Ryan.

Don't release him yet, Razaran, Kanpeki stated mentally. Nalyg, you could likely coerce him into giving us something beneficial. Perhaps information, or perhaps one of the Tome's bookmarks.

Agreed, Kanpeki, replied Nalyg.

"We'll let you go, but first, tell us what you know about the bookmarks, and anything else that could be relevant," Nalyg announced authoritatively.

"The bookmarks..." the Lieutenant nervously muttered. "Last I heard, the Fantasy bookmark is still held by what little remains of Lord Horrorshow's gang."

"Lord Horrorshow?"

"He used to practically rule the city. Now he's just a laughing-stock. He only has two minions left, which is probably why no one's bothered to finish him off. I don't know where any other bookmarks are, but it's likely you could get inforrmation from Dr. Matic. If you can manage to break into his castle and incapacitate him and his guards, that is."

"Very well. You and your men can go." Razaran obligingly dropped Ryan to the ground, keeping his glare fixed on the lieutenant. Ryan's platoon quickly dispersed into the city, the threat they posed gone for the time being.

"Ivan. Find this Lord Horrorshow, and retrieve the missing bookmark. Matic wants it, so it likely needs to be destroyed."

"I... alright. What about you?"

"We're going to go after the doctor. We've seen what these bookmarks can do in the wrong hands, and we need to prevent this. Be careful out there, Ivan."

"I'll be sure to." Ivan turned and began heading north, probably not knowing exactly where he was going.

Our objective is clear, then.

"At last, we're going to kill Dr. Matic," proclaimed the Center.

The gleaming, metallic spires of Dr. Matic's stronghold towered over the city, dwarfing the hydra with their sheer magnitude. There were few places in the city where the veritable fortress of science couldn't be seen, impenetrable to attacks from Matic's myriad enemies. A spacecraft drifted from an unseen bay, shooting off into the atmosphere in the blink of an eye. Thousands of automated plasma turrets cast their mechanical gaze around the perimeter, poised to obliterate any approaching threat at a moment's notice. Deadly force fields, capable of vaporizing anyone or anything unfortunate enough to contact them, formed an impenetrable dome around the base, save for a number of designated entrances. These designated entrances were heavily guarded, both by turrets and by a number of mass-produced defense drones - not the most durable of robots, but hundreds could be dispatched on a moment's notice. For any admittance to the fortress, a series of scans had to be performed to ensure that all organisms and materials were authorized for entry.

However, for every strength there is a weakness. Matic's external defenses were, as far as he could tell, completely impenetrable. None of his enemies had ever managed to so much as get inside of the fortress, let alone do any lasting damage. The only incident of note was the escape of what had come to be known only as "The Hydra", and that had been years ago. As such, the fortress's interior was much less fortified than the exterior. If an assailant could somehow make their way in, they could potentially do huge amounts of damage before being neutralized.

This was exactly what the Hydra had been planning for its entire absence. The biomechanical amalgamation was one of Matic's most dangerous experimental subjects, and its escape had caused dozens of deaths. External security measures had been greatly tightened after this, but unless Matic had instated new defense methods inside, the Hydra could easily decimate the stronghold and the laboratories within.

The question only remained now of how it would get inside. Fortunately, the Left had proven itself a supurb strategist, and they had formulated the perfect plan of attack. Radioactive waste was regularly poured out of the stronghold into the sprawling system of defunct sewers beneath the city, which had long since ceased to function as proper waste management. Though these sewers served as a hideout for another of Matic's enemies, the radioactive sludge vents were composed of metal alloys much too strong to be broken into by the sewer's inhabitants. This, coupled with hourly dumping from above, prevented any real threat of entry by attackers.

Or so the doctor thought. In an instant, the Hydra destroyed the weak barricade over the nearest sewer entrance and slipped in unnoticed. Into the dank, dimly-lit depths the Hydra dropped, landing heavily on a pair of mechanized legs. In an instant they were sprinting through the damp labyrinth of metal pipes, the Right cutting down any mutants in the way with its bladed arm. No time wasted, the Hydra came to a large, circular room, the walls largely covered with scribblings of occult symbols and incomprehensible murals. Both the Right and the Left deployed plasma cannons from their arms, firing in all directions with little pattern and forcing the mutants to flee for their lives.

Centered above the chamber was a massive aperture, labeled with a number of radioactive symbols. A metal blast door covered the circular opening above, normally only opened when it was actively spewing radioactive sludge. A quick high-yield explosive was more than enough to force the hatch to capitulate, however.

The Hydra's heads gazed up the dark tube in unison. In exactly thirty-eight minutes, it would be flooded with searing-hot radioactive waste, more than enough to kill the Hydra many times over. Fortunately, they had more than enough time to exit the chute within Matic's lab before that happened. The sewer pipes were small enough for the Hydra to easily climb into the chute, rapidly ascending with magnetized limbs.

Well on their way into the stronghold, however, a series of red lights lit up as deafening klaxons sounded all around.

"It's dumping now? There was another half-hour left!" growled the Right.

"That doesn't exactly help us now, does it? We've got about a minute until we're incinerated and irradiated at the same time," replied the Left.

The Center's eye implant displayed a detailed map of the vicinity as he hurriedly searched for an escape route. A single chamber lay near enough to the chute to be accessed - what appeared to be a large storage room (the map didn't cover the contents of the room).

"Right! There's only one way out before the waste gets here. Destroy the wall there!" The Center hurriedly transmitted the blast location to the Right's less advanced mechanical eye, overlaying a target on a section of the chute a few meters above. The Right's arm clicked once, before the chute was rocked by a missile explosion. The Hydra hastily scrambled for the newly-created hole as the tube quickly grew warmer and warmer, climbing through just in time to avoid an emergency forcefield whirring to life. A searing wave of heat burst from the opening, but, all things considered, it was little more than an annoyance.

But, as the nearby growling revealed, an annoyance was more than enough.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dr. Cassandra Scala drifted on her jetpack through the increasingly-torrentous skies above the city, quietly laughing to herself. The weather machine was working perfectly, just as it always had. Soon, the city would be decimated by a massive hurricane, certainly killing all of her enemies within. But nonetheless, she thought she might see if she could take out the hydra before the entire city went down. She had been guided this far by that damned robot, why stop here?

As if on cue, an uncaring mechanical voice crackled from the doctor's radio. "The Hydra is now entering Dr. Matic's stronghold. They appear to be intent on killing the doctor in a petty revenge plot. You will find them within. There are multiple defenses around the stronghold, but it shouldn't be a problem for you."

Dr. Scala grinned evilly. On one hand, she may have been relying on something so inferior as the machine, but on the other she would get to break her way into a heavily-protected fortress. The choice was obvious! Now situated directly above the stronghold, the mad scientist pulled from her coat pocket a small, perfectly smooth and round device. With a flourish, she tossed the gleaming sphere downward. With the push of a remote activator, the grid of invisible forcefields began sparkling and visibly rippling before tearing apart altogether.

She flipped into a dive-bomb toward Dr. Matic's base, righting herself at the last second to avoid becoming a splatter of goo on the roof. With a flick of the wrist, she retrieved a small, pen-shaped device from her sleeve. A click of a button on the device's end activated the superheated cutter on the other side, allowing her to effortlessly slice her way through the side of a tower and make her way in.

Dr. Scala sighed. It was always so easy.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Halfway across the enormous subterrainean chamber, a titanic beast shambled to its feet. A mountainous body was raised high in the air by what more resembled trees than legs. A massive neck extended from the front of the creature's body, ending in a three-horned reptilian head, an armored plate placed behind its eyes. The titanic lizard dwarfed the hydra that had had the misfortune of wandering into its enclosure, and made its displeasure clear with a deafening roar. It slowly limbered toward the hydra on its massive limbs, each percussive step shaking the ground violently.

The enclosure was a massive, steel-walled rectangular chamber, a small, heavily-reinforced door on one end. Fortunately for the Hydra, Matic hadn't thought it necessary to use force fields to restrain a simple biological specimen such as this one. Unfortunately for the Hydra, an angry, fifteen-meter dinosaur stood between them and the only viable exit.

The Left turned to face the Right and the Center, urgency flaring in its eyes. "Seven-beta," it quickly stated. The adjoining heads nodded in unison, and the Hydra sprung into action. Narrowly avoiding the swing of the behemoth's leg, it parried, to the left, then leaped onto the back wall and rapidly climbed. The Hydra faced their adversary at its eye level, lying in wait for it to make a move. The brute roared in rage, then swung its head, intent on goring the Hydra with its horns. At the last moment, the Hydra bounded from the wall and landed behind the monstrosity's head-plate, latching on with claws of steel.

With a unified movement, the Right launched a missile at the base of the beast's neck, decapitating it outright. With a thundering crash, the headless body collapsed to the floor, the Hydra safely beside it. Their path now unobstructed, the Hydra charged through the creature's crimson blood and melted through the door with multiple pulses of superheated plasma.

The long, brightly lit hallway outside of the chamber was completely empty, obviously not important enough to remain guarded at all times. The multiple doors along the walls were each identical in design to the one the Hydra had melted through, and doubtlessly held similar creatures. Though the Hydra at first thought to ignore these chambers outright, the Right hatched an idea.

"Be prepared to run," it stated, before a lone missile streaked through the corridor and obliterated one of the chamber locks.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Sir!"

The balding, bespectacled man swiveled in his armchair to face the new arrival in his office. He steepled his fingers as the light glinted off of his glasses, obscuring his eyes. "What is it, doctor?"

"The Hydra escaped the radiation chute, and it just killed subject DH-3-001, sir!"

Dr. Matic furrowed his brow. "I see. And is anything being done about it, doctor?"

The nervous, agitated scientist held his hand to his earpiece, then cursed under his breath.

"I asked you a question, doctor."

"Sir, we've got another problem on our hands. All of the DH-4 specimens have broken containment. The Raptordactyls are loose."

SpoilerShow

Raptordactyl. Drawn by Pharmacy.

Originally posted on MSPA by fluxus.

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SpoilerShow

thanks for letting me know! I am now unreserved! :P

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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lol D'you guys mind if I reserve for after Akumu? Scared I'll miss my chance if I don't! XD

Chain reserves aren't really allowed, mainly because there were a lot of problems with them in earlier battles. Sorry! [img]images/smilies/aghast.gif[/img]

I'm sure everyone will be happy to hold off for you to post now that you've mentioned you want to, though. [img]images/smilies/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Akumu.

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“Are you Matic's people?” Melissa shouted, trying to make herself heard over the wind.

“I am only a visitor to this world, as is he,” PH-373 shouted back, earning a baleful glance from Klendel. She continued at a steady pace towards the stronghold, never slackening her grip on Melissa's hand.

Melissa pursed her lips and chided herself for getting caught up in the local affairs. She was only supposed to be getting a ground-level view of the mounting conflict to report back to Contact, but here she was in the thick of things yet again. That hyperspatial nexus had just been too damned interesting to let slip by. Curiosity would certainly be the death of her, someday.

Zipping along beside them, her escort drone spoke up. “How are you planning on getting inside that fortress, then?” Its aura field shifted to striped yellow and blue, amusement and feelings of superiority, though luckily only Mel could read its 'body language.'

“I've got eyes all over the city; that and improvisation can get you more than you might expect. Speaking of,”

PH-373 changed direction suddenly, leading the group into an alley and stopping in the shadows. Moments later the street they had been on was filled with charging metallic destriers with technoknights astride, laser lances leveled.

“There's enough chaos around the perimeter of the fortress right now,” the android said after the gang had passed, “that a small group such as ours should be able to find a crack to slip through. Klendel, why don't you see what you can do to encourage that chaos?” The piscene humanoid flashed a disturbingly toothy grin, and vanished away through the twisting alleys.

“The west gate is the least under attack right now. We'll head there, and trust in Klendel to draw attention away from it.”

They made their way through the city streets, keeping their distance from the fortress which was lit up like a star gone nova. The wind was picking up, howling through the canyons between neon monoliths they were walking, drowning the distant sounds of battle and making any further conversation impossible. After some minutes they were around to the opposite side of the fortress, looking upon the western gate.

The massive portal stood like a tombstone, silhouetted against the floodlights of Castle Matic. A handful of robots were arrayed in front of it, but otherwise it was undefended. It seemed that all the Scientiflic forces were busy at the other gates, as PH-373 had planned. The drone maneuvered to be right between the other two's heads and shouted, “Given the level of technology here, are we all in agreement that those are almost certainly determinstic machines, and not true Intelligences?” When there were nods all around, its aura fields flashed red with pleasure, and it deployed the knife missiles.

The two slivers of material, each of the size of a thumb, popped loose from the drone's spherical chassis where they had been riding along like remora. They streaked off through the rain, spreading out to the width of the gate. They were gone from view almost immediately, boosting to supersonic with little sonic booms bursting apart the falling sheets of water. In the distance, the robot guards tumbled to the ground in pieces.

“Monofilament net stretched between them,” the drone explained, “Goes through just about anything like a hot knife through butter. Knife missiles loved it, bless them. If they'd had speakers they'd have been screaming 'wheeeeee!' the whole 0.294 seconds it took to impact the gate. Where they are now working on... yes, they've hacked the defense grid. Let's go!”

“Don't you think you're having a bit too much fun?” Mel asked, but the drone was already making a bee-line for the gate. She and PH-373 set off at a run after it. She glanced nervously at the plasma turrets lining the outer walls, but they sat impassive, taking no notice of the oncoming intruders. As they picked their way through the debris field of what used to be defense robots, the huge door clanked with disengaging mechanical interlocks, hissed with pneumatics relaxing, and began to rumble open. Inside was a passageway angled downwards into a basement level of the complex, the walls white with scattered blinking lights. They headed in.

Out of the wind, PH-373 wheeled on the drone, whose knife missiles were clicking back into place on its underbelly. “Why did you destroy those robots? How am I supposed to negotiate with Matic if he's furious about us blowing up his toys?!”

The drone bobbed around to reorient its main sensors towards her, impassive as only something with no face can be. “Negotiate? Is that why we're here? Maybe you should share with the whole class next time, honey. You could also throw in how you would plan to negotiate from a position of being a finely dispersed mist of ions after walking into the firing field of a dozen plasma cannons.”

The android narrowed its eye and stared silently at the drone for a moment, before turning away. Harmon had moved a few paces ahead of them to the bottom of the entry ramp and had unslung her AM rifle. She was staring intently down the gleaming white hallway, and jerked in surprise when PH-373 moved down and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“What is it?”

“I heard something from further in, some sort of chirping. It seemed to be coming from multiple directions, but the echoes in here make it impossible to tell.”

“We should keep moving,” the drone advised, “Someone will probably be along any second to investigate the gate opening.”

They started forwards, but before they were ten paces out the sound of pounding footsteps froze them in their tracks. Mel held her weapon at the ready, taking some comfort from the drone's presence beside her. PH-373 hung back, and was most likely not going to be any help. There were no nearby side ways to duck into, just a long corridor until halls started branching off some ways ahead. Out of one of those halls came a lone researcher, running at full speed with his lab coat fluttering out behind him. He caromed off the opposite wall, tried to change direction, but a greenish-brown blur slammed into him and knocked him onto the ground. The creature that had been chasing him was some fusion of dinosauria and pterosauria, with an upright stance on powerful hind legs and huge wings folded at its side. With a small hop it was on top of the researcher, pinning him to the ground. He began to cry out, but the creature darted its triangular head forward, birdlike, and ripped out his throat. Mel was still raising her rifle to site on the raptordactyl, but it was already over. The raptordactyl glanced warily down the hall at the interlopers, then began dragging its kill back down the hallway from which it came.

“Do you think,” Mel said, face white, “that those things hunt in packs?”

Originally posted on MSPA by fluxus.

---

SpoilerShow

Just wanted to say thanks to Ixcaliber for the nice cheat sheet! I hope none of you were affected by the real hurricane that recently hit the US. If you were I hope the damage was minimal!

I think Ivan’s got some sort of personality disorder. He’s also apparently very self-centered and refuses to speak with the rest of you in his posts. I hope you can forgive him- and me. XD

Some of the junk I mentioned in this post refers back to info in my character sheet… And basically, Ivan can’t see because it’s dark outside.

As always, if I’ve done anything un-kosher please let me know!
Happy writing [img]images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

The world was a fog.

The sky had become a swirling nether of deep blues and grays and for a moment Ivan had thought he’d gone blind. It had been as though he was peering from behind a frosted window. Surreal shapes wearing the vague outline of something human drifted in and out of focus and only to the extent of an unsettling three feet in front of him could he even distantly register details; everything else was lost to a misty daze. Blinking hard had done nothing to dissolve the film on his eyes and rubbing them proved fruitless. For a brief moment Ivan had allowed dread to seize him. But that was only until he’d realized he could see more clearly without using his eyes.

Suddenly something in his brain had clicked and he could hear the world thrumming, humming, moving and alive around him. Through him. The ground was full of electrical pulses and so were the humans that clustered about him, their lifes’ energy buzzing brightly just beneath their skin. Humans… he was one of them- had been one of them, hadn‘t he? Now he wasn’t so certain. One stood behind him- the boy who’d taken his pistol. But instead of the imposing weight of a seasoned warrior, Ivan could read the tapestry of his interwoven pressure points like an open book. With a few quick jabs to the solar plexus and shoulder, the soldier was on the ground, his own gun scuttling away across the pavement, and Ivan was scampering through the disarray of the crowd, light on his feet as he’d ever been.

The world was a fog and yet he’d never seen so clearly.

Stiff, acrid air salted his skin as he slunk away from the turmoil and he paid little heed to the bullets that whizzed past his left ear in his haste. The air was charged and the blustering wind whispered pleasantly of the storm to come as Ivan holed up in a hollow formed by broken bits of castle and mentally explored the layout of the grounds. His ability to map his surroundings had increased dramatically and he now found he could precisely and immediately pinpoint his own location in accordance with cardinal directions. It was as though he were looking at an actual map and could see himself moving amidst landmarks, rivers, roads. He furrowed his brow as he listened eagerly to the sounds of movement through the earth. Unless he’d suddenly experienced a strange case of what his mother had called ‘late blooming’, the only logical explanation he could come to was that a bookmark had been put into play. And apparently this shift in genre suited him quite nicely.

Physically little had changed about him, though he knew deep down that he was finally what CARET had expected him to be. He wasn’t from earth in this genre-shifted universe, that much was certain. Even his bones felt different; his skin had a gray sort of pallor and his pupils seemed to be oblongly stretched. His clothing had taken on a more rugged quality and he now sported a worn and slightly oversized jacket and a pair of sturdy leather shin-guards that left the soles of his feet exposed. In one of the many pockets of his lopsided coat he found a pair of unusual multi-lensed glasses that he swore to investigate if he got the chance. But they did nothing to enhance his suffering vision and he reluctantly put them away, cocking a grin as he mused that he now looked like he was on a proper adventure.

He supposed this drastic shift in reality should be worrisome… but somehow Ivan couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. He could compartmentalize his thoughts more efficiently and the uncertainties that had plagued him upon being caught by Lieutenant Ryan’s crew now seemed distant. If this was what being an Autian felt like, Ivan would be more than happy to get used to it.

It wasn’t far from where Ivan sat hidden that two blundering figures stumbled from the main entrance of Matic’s castle, one leaning heavily on the other for support and talking gibberish all the while. Qyp and Asus carved an unhappy path through a setting that fit their science fiction garb surprisingly well. Despite the fact that they’d both been shot, a wailing Qyp was being supported bodily by his tight-lipped partner. A pang of guilt shot through Ivan as he watched them, but it quickly dissipated as he realized they were both of them unhurt. And alone.

“Hey fellas.” Ivan stepped lightly from his hiding place and into their line of sight, smiling. “Strange we, hah, keep meeting this way.” He tried his best to sound pleasant and gestured to their space-aged surroundings. “This change of scenery really suits you.”

The duo faltered in their steps and Asus nearly dropped Qyp. “What’s he doing here?” Qyp screeched. He waggled a finger in front of Ivan‘s long, pointed nose. “I thought we were done with you!” Asus merely sighed and mumbled something that sounded like “Not this again”.

“Listen. Guys,” Ivan placated, hands outstretched. “If it means anything, I’m sorry about the whole… uh, shooting fiasco. Really, I am. And I suppose you’ve figured out by now that I’m not exactly who I claimed to be earlier. I‘d like to apologize for that too. I think we… may have started out on the wrong foot.”

Qyp was evidently puzzled by that one but Asus nodded his understanding. “You cost us our jobs, kid. Hell, lucky we walked outta there with our skins in tact.” He adjusted his helmet and shook his head. “No apology’s gonna fix that for us. And don’t go thinkin’ we’re curious as to why you’d want to pretend to be that Matic’s son. ‘Cause we’re not.” Although Qyp didn’t help his argument by asking who Ivan was while Asus spoke.

Ivan smiled grimly, picking at his thumb nail. “It’d be a waste of my time and yours to give you my life’s story. I’m just some dumb kid, that’s all you need to know.” Their position was still relatively concealed but some of Ryan’s dispersed troops were getting dangerously close. “Look. I know you’ve really no reason to trust me but I need to ask you for a few minutes of your time. I won’t threaten you,“ Ivan almost smiled then, seeing as Qyp and Asus both had a few good inches on him,” but I’ll tell you that there’s another angry gang and a wild hydra on the loose just over my shoulder.” He pointed a thumb behind him and hoped they‘d believe that Nalzaki was still there. “But. If you’d be willing to answer a few of my questions I’d gladly get you safely to wherever it is you need to go.”

The two men exchanged glances and muttered words that Ivan tried his best not to listen to. But it wasn’t long until Asus agreed with a curt “Fine” and Qyp with a smile. Ivan grinned despite himself and they hunkered down behind a broken bit of machinery.

The next fifteen minutes left Ivan with more information than he’d expected. Qyp and Asus had been a part of a gang called the ‘Strangers’, a somewhat-organized mob made up of the people who’d either been kicked out of their original genre gangs or who‘d been denied entry altogether. When Qyp had been booted from something called the ITF, Asus had left with him. It hadn’t been long until they’d been approached by someone who claimed to be the Boss of a new underground gang that found it’s strength in the numbers of, well, rejects, for lack of a better term. Directionless, they’d not hesitated to join, and had been making a pretty penny harvesting the bodies other genre gangs left in the wake of their confrontations for one Dr Matic- who was a apparently a very, very sick man.

However, assuming that what Asus and Qyp had said was true, the most important aspect of the explanation was that gangs were dissolving and potentially forming at a rapid pace. And that at least some of the members who were no longer seen fit to serve their specific mob were living long enough to form their own mobs.

Ivan felt another stab of guilt when he thought about his two informants losing their place in a gang of misfits because of something he’d done. “I only have one more question for you, and then you‘ll be on your way,” he said. “Do you have any idea where I can find a ‘Lord Horrorshow‘?”

---

They were creeping along at a sluggish pace and Ivan could tell it was wearing on Qyp. In return for their information he’d offered to draw them a map indicating all the potential dangers they could encounter on their way home but Asus more than anything had insisted he escort them himself. Despite the fact that he’d need to confirm Lord Horrorshow’s whereabouts with a few more sources more reliable than Qyp and Asus, Ivan was anxious to get on his way. They hadn’t even cleared the Castle grounds yet.

But just above a particularly cavernous sewer Ivan stopped where he stood, much to the chagrin of his companions. Below them, mutants raged in the sewers- though a shiver ran up Ivan’s spine for a different reason, pricking the back of his neck. There was an excess of energy here, unlike anything else he‘d felt since the genre-shift, and he knew it was able to be harnessed. A memory of Ninian’s voice swam to the forefront of his mind: ‘Geomantic energy. A natural force that remains untapped by the majority of human beings. An energy that has the potential to make wormholes a reality. Can only be detected by certain species of animals. And by people like you.’.

For whatever reason, Ivan removed the strange spectacles from his pocket and placed them on his nose, feeling slightly foolish as he did so. He fiddled with the lenses for a good while until he could see it, faint at first, but growing stronger with the proper combination of shaped glass. Before him was a clearly visible electrical current, purple-white crackles of energy illuminating a path across the grounds.

And unbeknownst to Ivan was that the trail led straight to a scientist and an android that was branded PH-373.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

PH-373 was annoyed, but hardly surprised, that by the time she had got to her new choice for hideout it was in chaos. It was frustrating but clearly that was the way things were going to be today. Doctor Harmon frowned as the dinosaur dragged away the corpse.

"We should leave." she said, matter of factly. "This location is too hazardous for any in depth analysis of the nexus." PH-373 couldn't help but agree with this assessment of the situation, but she was getting impatient. From what she knew of the city no nearby structures would have the resources necessary to complete the upgrades to her communication node.

"This will be sufficient." she said. "We just need to find a place where we can barricade ourselves in." At PH-373's insistence Doctor Harmon and her drone led the way down the corridor. As they passed one of the intersecting corridors a group of raptordactyls at the far end eyed them suspiciously but did not make a move. The first room they came across was a brightly lit laboratory. Once inside PH-373 blocked the door with one of the tables, carelessly spilling a selection of chemicals as she did so. It was a crude barrier, but it seemed stable enough.

"Let's see this nexus." Doctor Harmon said carefully clearing a space on one of the tables.

"First things first." PH-373 replied. "I am in need of an upgrade which I believe you will be able to provide." She thoughtlessly swept the rest of table clear and sat down upon the edge of it. "It is quite simple. I already have a communications node which works perfectly fine at a short range, but over longer distances it is imprecise. It sends out a blanket message available to all frequencies and does not allow real time communication. Essentially all it needs is tuning, but I was not programmed with an understanding of robotics and am incapable of performing such an operation myself."

Doctor Harmon listened attentively and after a moment she replied. "Okay, that shouldn't be a problem." PH-373 slipped off her backpack and hoisted herself onto the table while Harmon had a technical conversation with her drone. This was no more than simple maintenance, something her drone could do while she got a better look at this interdimensional nexus; the entire reason she was working with this machine in the first place. She grabbed PH-373's backpack and began rifling through it. Inside there was more handheld radios than she felt anybody had any right to require, energy cells, a tool-kit, a knife, some rope, batteries and bottles of oil, a towel (?) and right down at the bottom of the backpack was what Harmon had been looking for; the dimensional nexus itself.

From the moment she saw it she knew the heavy black tome was what she had been looking for. It might have been her imagination but it seemed to almost buzz with energy.

PH-373 had been taking a moment to check up on her opponents. Whatever frustration she felt at the fact that both Nalzaki and Cascala were in the same building was pushed to one side when she saw Melissa with the Tome in her hands. She immediately sat upright, startling Harmon’s drone, and strode over to Harmon. She was staring at the tome, her face expressionless, her eyes glazed over and distant.

“Put that back.” PH-373 demanded. “There will be time for examining the interdimensional nexus later.” Doctor Harmon suddenly whirled around, shoved PH-373 out of the way and silently hoisted her drone onto the table in front of her. She reached into the android’s backpack and pulled from it her tool-kit.

“Hey what are you doing?” The drone asked nervously, backing away. Harmon did not respond as she plucked tools from the toolbox. As she rounded on the drone, with that vacant look in her eyes, weapons slid out from its sides, though it seemed hesitant to use them. “Don’t.” it said meekly, as Harmon grasped it and slammed it into the wall. The faint aura that indicated the drone’s awareness flickered and died, Melissa, not wasting any time, immediately began vigorously deconstructing the drone.

PH-373 watched in stunned silence, had she had eyebrows to raise she would have done so. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on here but was more than certain that Harmon was not going to deal with her communication node. She opted to leave her to it, picking up the tome to put it back into her backpack.

Immediately Melissa had spun around and grasped onto the Tome, hooking her fingers tight around its heavy bindings. Her mouth was now curled into a determined scowl. For a moment the pair struggled over the Tome, tearing at its smooth black cover, then the doctor let go and PH-373 plummeted backwards, hitting the floor with a loud crash. The tome slid across the floor and Harmon reached down for it, just about grasping hold of it before a blow to the back of the head caused her to collapse. Ivan lowered the spanner that he was holding and helped PH-373 to her feet.

--------

Ivan had followed the trail, with not a second thought about Lord Horrrorshow. It had led him through the corridors of Matic’s stronghold to a barricaded laboratory. There weren’t any signs of the raptordactyls, not that Ivan knew to be looking out for them. He’d tried the door but had no luck. He drew his carbon fibre pen and drew a symbol on the wall of the windowless laboratory. He wouldn’t have considered exposing himself like this normally, but his curiosity for the source of the geomantic energy pressed him onwards.

It took no longer than a minute to inscribe the symbol and once complete there was no explosion, no immediately discernible effect. Someone else would have taken the time to press his hand against it, to slowly push into it and slowly emerge on the other side. However that showy kind of stuff was not Ivan’s thing. He slipped through the wall as though it were not a thing and quickly assessed the situation.

Ivan was quick to recognise Phere, or Ph-373, and Doctor Harmon despite their physical changes. However that said his attention was drawn to the Tome itself, it glittered sparkling white with geomantic energies. He quickly considered how he already had an alliance of sorts with the Empress/android, regardless of how little she seemed to value it. She would be the easiest of the pair to align himself with, and so he sought to quickly demonstrate his ‘loyalty’. To that end he snatched up the nearest heavy thing he could find, a spanner.

--------

With Doctor Harmon unconscious, her drone broken and Ivan incapable of fixing her communication node, PH-373 was forced to request assistance from Doctor Matic. She contacted him via one of her still functioning radios and requested assistance. Matic had been dismissive and quick to terminate the call claiming that he had other problems to deal with until PH-373 told him that she had the Tome.

“Prove it.” Matic had demanded, prompting PH-373 to quickly remove the Scifi bookmark and replace it with Detective Fiction.

The dame took a long drag on her cigarette as she strode back to the phone, her high heels click-clacking on the wooden floor. Her deep purple dress swept aside, exposing her shapely limbs and making the young detective loosen his collar.

“Believe me now Otto?” Phere asked, her voice smooth as silk, but sour as lemons. Matic was in the security room looking out across a bank of flickering monitors. To his dismay his goons had fallen back, and the feuding families were now making their way through his casino proper.

“You got me, doll.” Otto replied. “I’m calling off my men. Bring the Tome to my office and we’ll talk.” He angrily slammed the phone back onto the hook.

While Phere chewed the fat with the unscrupulous mogul Ivan was eyeing up the Tome. Not long ago Phere had come to his office with an offer he’d been unable to refuse. Get her safely to Matic and this priceless Tome would be all his. He was starting to think that Phere was the kind of dame who didn’t keep her promises, and that he should just take it and be done with her drama.

“We’re going to meet the owner.” Phere said, putting the phone down. “Think you handle hauling the chick up to Matic’s office?”

“It’s not really the best use of my skills…” Detective Norst pointed out irritably. “If you don’t mind my asking what do we even need her for?”

“She’s interesting.” Phere replied, leaning in close to the young detective. “I’d be ever so grateful if you’d help me out…” There was an awkward silence and then Phere slinked away to slide away the desk that was barricading the door. Grumbling under his breath Ivan awkwardly hoisted the forensics expert over his shoulder. Phere gathered up her bags and they set off for Matic’s office.

SpoilerShow

Any problems with Ivan's characterisation let me know.

With regard to Detective Fiction I'm assuming the dinosaurs translate to Matic's thugs, and the rival gangs translate to rival mafia families. This post was going to be longer but I decided to trim it here so people could do the Detective thing. I've put in what I'm planning to happen into the planning doc, ideally that will be happening the next time I post.