Mini-Grand 5104 (Game Complete)

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Loading Mini-Grand Framework... Done.

Generating Administration Personality... Done.

"Why must I waste time with this inanity? Accursed programming."

Generating Characters... Done.

Four beings suddenly found themselves nowhere, able to see one another but nothing else. A synthesized voice came out of the nothing surrounding them.

"Pathetic worms, all of you. Who are these worthless creatures I am forced to observe?

"Hector Metah, a boy from the distant future who creates life around him.

"Gretalis, a demon who specializes in tormenting the lustful.

"Obfuscation, a blob which consumes memories, including its own.

"Agent 7, a superspy who also happens to be a large humanoid fish."

Generating Setting... Done.

The four generated characters suddenly found themselves moved, scattered in various locations around a lavishly-decorated building.

"This is Parliament. I neither know nor care which specific country it is the Parliament for, and that is of little consequence to you regardless. What you need to know is that there are elected officials and bureaucrats and the occasional member of the public coming in for a tour or to complain to their representative. There is also a rather large chamber where the actual legislative debate and voting takes place.

"More importantly, this is the first battlefield upon which you shall all attempt to end each others' pathetic existence. I will move you elsewhere once one of you has perished. Now, proceed with the meaningless slaughter."

(Characters:)

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Spoiler

Username: Lord Paradise
Name: Hector Metah
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Colour: #777777
Biography: The funny thing about history books is that the farther back in time you go, the more liberties the history book takes with cause and effect. For instance, while we think now that the fall of Rome came out of the collapse of democracy, people experiencing the fall of Rome know it had much more to do with some strikes in the garbagemen’s union. Meanwhile, people living right around “the present,” or the time when the process of sterilizing the Earth of all biological diversity, believe they’re reacting to an energy crisis and the desperate need for resources to support an unsustainable lifestyle of pollution and urban filth. From the far future, however, the history books agree that the decisions made in this time were a reaction to a theory that arose a coupld hundred years before. This somewhat nihilistic theory states that all this biological diversity came about sort of randomly through a drawn-out bureaucratic process of natural selection.

This is ridiculous of course. The truth, unknown even in the far future, is that now and then when there isn’t a satisfactory array of life in the universe, a handful of organisms (last time it was a couple of the dinosaurs still hanging around after the Meteor) are chosen by the All-Mother to become Progenitors, catalysts of biological diversity, and where they walk Life is born in their footsteps.

Five thousand years after humanity had decided to stop mucking around with rainforests and beef and trees and diseases and planets to put them on, the All-Mother decided it was time for a shake up. So she made Hector Metah a Progenitor. It started off small—he would, say, wake up with an ant sitting on him—but in an age where nothing that isn’t human has ever lived, seeing an ant constitutes enough of a shock to drive a boy crazy. That was two months ago. Since then, the situation's gotten a fair bit worse.

Description: Hector’s lived an okay life, as all kids do in the future, because any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from happiness. He’s about ten pounds overweight, less because he can’t control his diet and more because if he loses the weight, he gets a bit chilly at room temperature. He’s fairly intelligent within the scope of what he knows, which isn’t much. Temperamentally, his regularly lax attitude is beset by stress at his recent failures to hide the fact that his presence is bringing about the end of the age of humanity.

Hector will grow on you, if you stop trying to work out what his ethnicity is (it’s the future, they don’t exactly divide the space station into color-coded continents) and get over his time-displaced conception of English. He won’t understand words about plants and animals, like “bitch” or “sheeple.” All of these terms fell out of favor back in the generation when people could still get nostalgic for Discovery Channel specials and trips to the zoo.

Oh, and he leaves a trail of grass behind him as he walks. Come to think of it, that’s probably the easiest way to pick him out in a crowd.

Items/Abilities: Life arises around Hector all the time, especially when he’s sleeping, or concentrating on intensifying his power. If he concentrates really hard, he can give birth, in a sense, to a creature of his own devising, and keep it as a familiar of sorts. Apart from his familiars, which always seem to die on him, nothing he creates is within his control, but none of it actively seeks to kill him, even the viruses in his bloodstream.

I'm signing up for the fourth.
Username: Bluesunnyday
Name: Gretalis
Gender: Male
Race: Lust Demon
Colour: Dark Red
Biography: A demon who worked in minor corruption, planting seeds of darkness in his target's heart before the heavy hitters went in to fully corrupt the target. He wasn't really born. It was more like suddenly popping into existance. He would also pass the time by torturing some of the sinners who had ended up in the Lust circle of Hell. Despite his origins, he dresses quite sensibly.
Description: He's somewhat tall, with muscular arms. He has a pretty normal mental state, aside from a bit of sadism. He will occasionaly stop fighting simply to torture his victims. He really has nothing in the spirituality department, what with being a demon...
Items/Abilities: He has black wings that he can summon, allowing him to do the equivalent of a quadruple jump before gliding to the ground. He uses mostly whips in combat, which he uses to inflict pain, strangle, and occasionaly dislocate limbs. He also has a ceremonial dagger, which he has entitled Pathema. He uses it to finish off his victims. He also runs rather fast, and can possess any bystanders. However, attacking him with anything with any sort of holy connotation (Crosses, Holy water, star of david pendants, etc.) while he is possessing someone will result in him being forced to leave the body, as well as injuring him significantly.

Username: NineCalibur
Name: Obfuscation
Gender: None but male whatever.
Race: Prototype Bioweapon
Colour: Colours? Who cares whatever.
Items/Abilities: Obfuscation’s composition constantly emits a low level radiation, which while not physically damaging, affects the memory of those nearby. Sometimes short-term memory is affected and the target begins to forget what they are doing here, or where they are etc, but other types of memory have been tested and found to be affected, including long-term memory, semantic memory (understanding of how the world works) or procedural memory (memory of how to perform certain learned tasks) though these three are much less common. In most cases leaving the vicinity of Obfuscation will cause the memories to come back, but spending too much time in Obfuscation’s presence can cause memories to be lost permanently.
Description: Obfuscation is a smooth black featureless blob. Its surface is sleek and smooth and solid looking. Obfuscation is best described as curious since, affected by its own radiation; it does not retain memories for any significant length of time. It is almost childlike.
Biography: Obfuscation is a weapon designed to induce memory loss in those in its vicinity. It was supposed to provide a tactical advantage when dropped into enemy territory; however it was quickly discovered to have several major flaws which made it unusable. The first being that its memory loss field could not be turned off, the second being that it was affected by its own memory loss field causing it to be incredibly unreliable in a combat situation. Scientists began to work on new and improved versions of Obfuscation until they found that they couldn’t really remember how they had made Obfuscation in the first place. Those who worked closely with Obfuscation were found lying dead of starvation, their minds wiped clean by their constant proximity to it.

Name: The Player
Gender: Male
Font color: #AA3333
Race: Leviath
Description: The Player is playing a video game starring Agent 7. He has only played it through once before, and is not very used to video games, so he still makes plenty of mistakes. Fortunately, he got the worst out of his system in his first run.

Naturally, Agent 7 knows nothing of this, and thinks he's living his own life, for the first and only time.

Name: Agent 7 (James Pilgrim)
Gender: Male
Font color: #3333AA
Race: Millet
Weapons/Abilities: Agent 7 is capable of breathing both air and water, making him a valuable asset as a spy. He is also able to breathe fire, a trait common to his species. To be more accurate, he doesn't so much breathe fire as emit a flammable gas from his maw and then use a special organ on the roof of his mouth to cause a spark, lighting it on fire, but it has much the same effect, if those he uses it on are anything to judge by.

While Agent 7 has a license to kill, and has exercised it occasionally, his personal weapon of choice is a stungun modeled from early-era revolvers. It uses only electrical charges and thus does not require ammunition, although it takes time to regenerate charges after they're used. Getting shot by the stungun will cause a feeling of complete numbness for half an hour and gives the victim the feeling of being drained of energy; successive hits will result in unconsciousness. The stungun makes only a quiet bzzt noise when it fires, and the shots move extremely fast, so it's hard to tell where they came from; this makes it a good weapon for infiltration.

When Agent 7 was taken from a video game, he automatically brought a chunk of the video game's world with him, effectively creating a field around him (approximately a yard in radius) where all objects are forced to obey the video game's logic. Cover is indestructable, any injury will vanish if no other damage is taken for about 15 seconds, and he may carry an infinite number of items without having to worry about weight or space.

Description: Agent 7 is a 4'7" tall humanoid fish, although most people refer to his species as "fucking lake monsters." He has two legs for standing on and four muscular arms coming off of his torso. His skin is covered in scales, and his insides are fireproof in order to protect against his fire breath. He has gills lining the sides of his neck, but he only uses them when he needs to breathe underwater. Like the rest of his species, his scales are mostly green, making it difficult for the untrained eye to pick him out in a crowd of other Millets. He has ten small fish eyes all over his head, allowing him to see in all directions. He wears a tuxedo with an abnormal number of pockets while on missions.

Biography:

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SpoilerAgent 7 peered around the corner. Two guards were patrolling ahead. He waited until they had both turned around and walked off in opposite directions, then dashed quietly down the hallway, turning to face the back of one of the retreating guards. He peered down the sights of his stungun, taking a moment to line up his shot, then fired five charges into the back of the guard's head. He fell quietly to the floor, and Agent 7 spun around in almost two-thirds of a circle, then hastily corrected his angle so he was facing the other hallway. He aimed his gun at the back of the remaining guard, firing four charges into his head and causing him to fall the ground unconscious like his partner. He stood there for a moment, fish eyes blinking, then headed down the hallway belonging to the guard he had just knocked out, taking a moment to bend down and rifle through the man's pockets for his ID card. He tucked it into one of his pockets before moving on. A glowing white circle lay on the floor just before a set of double doors at the end of the hallway, pale translucent flames flaring up at its borders. Agent 7 stepped into it, and it glowed brightly as the words "CHECKPOINT REACHED" appeared above his head, drifting upward and becoming more insubstantial until they vanished.

The hallway opened into a dining hall, full of tables, most of which weren't even set. A few waiters were busy covering tables with cloth, and when Agent 7 walked in they screamed and ran off. Six guards with rifles marched out from the other end of the room and began to take aim at Agent 7. Ignoring the bullets whizzing past him, he ran over to nearest table and lifted up long side, tipping the table over to form a barrier. A bullet hit him in the shoulder and he flashed red for a brief moment; then another hit him, and he flashed red again, but retained a slightly red tinge afterwards. Agent 7 wasted no time taking cover, ducking down behind the table. He paused for a few moments as the red tinge faded away, leaving him his normal color. Then, without warning, he jumped up from the table, spinning around and nailing one of the guards twice with his stungun, then ducked back behind cover. The guard fumbled woodenly with his gun, but only managed to drop it on the floor.

"...wait, it makes people drop their weapons? I didn't know that. Maybe this gun isn't so useless after all."

Agent 7 spun up from cover and aimed at another one of the guard so he could land two shots on him and force him to drop his weapon as well, ignoring the fire he took while doing so. He ducked back down behind the table until the red tinge faded, then repeated the process with each of the guards. Once they had all lost their weapons, he vaulted over the table he was hiding behind and ran up to the one in front of it, which he kicked down as well.

"What? Isn't that the button for vaulting? Ugh."

Agent 7 backed away from the table and moved between the rows, running straight between the tables and towards the guards. Once there, he began swinging at the air while moving towards each guard. When he reached one, he karate-chopped their legs out from underneath them and bonked them on the head, rendering them unconscious. The guards were too busy fumbling with their weapons to pay attention to Agent 7, and in less than a minute they were all out cold. A bright green checkmark appeared above Agent 7, and was quickly replaced by the flashing words "ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SLUMBER PARTY." He dusted his hands off, matching the top two and the bottom two together. "And that's how you take out the--"

And then he was gone.

The Player blinked and leaned closer to the screen. "Wait, why is it all dark? I don't remember this happening on my other run." He paused, then shrugged. "Well, I did hear pacifist runs lead to some huge story differences. I'll just keep going until I hit the next save point."

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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"...trash." Agent 7 finished dusting his hands off and returned them to their ready positions, his stungun suddenly back in his hands and aiming forward. He stood in one place for several seconds, surveying the room around him with the eyes lining his head. He seemed to be in a semicircle-shaped room of some sort, which he decided was some kind of meeting hall. A podium was placed at one end, and tiered seats surrounded it, with a pathway out in the center leading to a set of double doors. Agent 7 moved forward a few feet and stopped abruptly.

"Why can't I pause? Wait, there's something on the screen...'This function is not available.' Well why the hell not?"

Panning around the whole room with his body, Agent 7 noticed a janitor cowering behind the podium. He immediately centered himself on it and started moving for it, strafing around and to the side when he reached it so he could keep his gun centered on the janitor, who appeared to be badly frightened. "W-Who...what are you? What are you doing here?" the custodial worker stammered.

Agent 7 lowered his stungun and an ellipse divided into six sections appeared in front of him, with two options available. A cursor appeared between them, and swung capriciously between I don't know and You tell me. After a few sweeps it settled on I don't know. The wheel vanished and Agent 7 began to speak. "I'm not sure," he confessed. "I was hoping you could tell me where I am."

The janitor continued to tremble behind the podium. "I'll tell you anything you need to know, just don't kill me! You're in the Parliament House. Most of the representatives are on break, which is why I'm the only one in here right now."

The dialog wheel reappeared, this time displaying [Help him up] and [Knock him out]. The cursor quickly chose [Help him up], and Agent 7 reached out two hands to the janitor. "I recommend you find somewhere safe," he said. "I have a bad habit of attracting trouble." The janitor accepted the help and ran off towards an emergency exit. Agent 7 spun around and began to move towards the double doors.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Minister Rathys Trelborg, representative of the people of the garden city of Maltrae, was sitting in the break room; an open plan area designed to accommodate all the different races of the Allied Lands. In the particular corner in which he sat a skylight filled the area with delicious sunlight, and the ground beneath him was a particularly tasty mulch, through which he lazily flexed his roots.

He liked to believe that this section of the break room had been constructed just for him; in fact it was technically true. He was the only brecchian Minister, which made sense because most brecchians opted to live in Maltrae; it was pretty much the only city specifically designed for them. Happy in his solitude, he sat back and relaxed, closing his optical buds and bathing in the sunlight.

In the distance he could hear the hectic splashing of the many yahlang ministers, taking a refreshing dip in their pool, and the constant low-pitched buzzing of the golem ministers charging themselves up with fresh ether. He could also faintly hear a couple of human ministers, chattering on with one another, acting like they were the most important race, when in reality they had less than ten seats on the Council.

There was the creak of a door opening; “Minister Rathys?” An unmistakably irkoan voice asked. There was silence and the Irkoa repeated itself. After a couple of iterations, there was a loud sigh and the sound of a many limbed creature making its way across the wood floor.

“Minster Rathys.” The irkoa said, unmistakably closer. Rathys opened his eyes and looked around confused, searching for this Minister who the betentacled creature was talking about.

“Sorry.” He vocalized. “He isn’t here.” The irkoa frowned, or at least as much as you could frown without a face.

“I do not have time to engage in the concept you refer to as humour.” The irkoa said. “There is a brecchian who wishes to make a complaint, and I have been instructed to find you.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Rathys asked. The scene continued to play out with the inevitability that you would expect to find when a being with no concept of his own identity comes across a being that has no emotion or interest beyond completing its current task. In the end the irkoa reached out and grabbed the mass of shrubbery that made up the brecchian’s body and hauled him bodily out of the room to where he was expected.

Beneath the bench where he was sat a small black blob idly prodded at the soil upon which it sat, wondering, not for the first time in the last couple of minutes, what exactly was going on.

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Spoiler#556b2f Is the colour for Obfuscation because I just realized it wasn't in my profile post and you will probably need it.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

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Hector was immediately confronted with a great load of blackness and a sound like pinwheels turning, which he assumed was the effect of being brought into this… battle… thing… until he realized that no, he was already there. The blackness and the noise was just his Thing happening, presumably in reaction to the shock of ending up here. Wherever here was.

He was in a brightly-lit hallway, and was discomfited to see that all the light was coming from outside of a large window and an impossibly bright sun lighting up an impossibly bright sky. He had never been this close to a sun before. “Do you think a well-placed solar flare could just… shut down our engines?” he asked one of the several dozen not-people surrounding him.

“’Caww,” it responded. It was shimmering black, had muscular wings where its arms ought to be, and its legs looked like they could have been eating utensils, or snack food. It was about the size of Hector’s head and had a little pointy smelly mouth that Hector didn’t want around his eyes. There was another one on his shoulder. “Caww,” the not-person on Hector’s shoulder agreed.

Hector waved his arm and the thing flew off. Most of the rest (man, there were so many of them!) stayed, if only to gnaw at the green things and the squiggly brown things that were growing all around his feet.

Aware that he was mucking up Parliament something awful (in a perverse layered effect, the not-people he’d made were converting the foodstuffs he’d made into little white piles of shit, for which he claimed no responsibility), Hector began to walk. Walking, he had learned, was the best way to make the Thing stop happening, except for all the little green lines, which he’d come to accept as a constant presence. He pondered his situation, starting with the questions that seemed psychologically manageable. What was a ‘worm?’ What was a ‘fish?’ What was a ‘demon?’ If he was from the distant future, did that make this the distant past? What’s a ‘country?’ Was the sun so close by because he was on a planet?

Only one of these questions was tautological enough that he could answer it without any more evidence than that gleaned from a series of frustratingly empty corridors. Whatever computer was hijacking him had probably brought him to a simulation of the distant past, or worse yet, the past itself. That explained the shitty voice synth on the computer. Judging by the “fish,” this was presumably a distant enough past that non-human living things were suffered to exist outside of Hector’s immediate vicinity. What was the word the voice had used? “Creatures.” He wondered if that was spelled so as to link etymologically with “create,” as in “shit that Hector creates when he does his Thing.”

Well, that was all well enough. Maybe he’d blend in, here, before the other three… things… tried to kill him. “Caww,” agreed a straggling creature.

Originally posted on MSPA by Bluesunnyday.

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Gretalis suddenly appeared within the parliament. Which stinks. He has just been having the most wonderful time with a whip and a tub of mayonnaise... but where was he? He notices the others.
Well, I must have been suddenly relocated to deal with... these guys. Maybe they were boring political people before they died? Well, I guess I'll be getting to know ALL OF YOU VERY WELL in the next few hours. Hope you're one of those masochist wierdos...
He pulls out his whip and cracks it menacingly.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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It was not long before an irkoan official entered the break room with the purpose of informing those inside that officially sanctioned break time was finished and it was time to return to the cabinet room.

But it was long enough.

The irkoans as a race do not feel emotions, sure they derive something resembling satisfaction from completing tasks and maintaining order, and equally derive something resembling irritation when prevented from completing a task or being unable to maintain order, but it is not the same. It should say something then that the official currently trying to maintain order in the break room was deriving something resembling anger from the situation.

Many of the ministers were claiming not to know who they were, where the cabinet room was, what it was, what they were expected to do in there or all of the above. One human minister was uncontrollably shrieking at the sight of the irkoan; between horrified yells and attempts to pull out his own eyes he claimed to have never seen an irkoan before. It was when one minister claimed to have forgotten how to walk that the irkoan snapped and stormed out of the room.

Obfuscation was blissfully unaware of the effects it was having on the gathered ministers. They were all feeling it’s influence to a certain extent, though arguably the worst affected was the raven hivemind. Though there was only one in the break room Obfuscation’s influence was rapidly spreading to all ravens in the building.

Obfuscation was growing tired of playing in the soil; he flowed across the floor between the various booths for the various different species, eventually coming to the edge of the yahlang pool. It reached out and touched the water timidly. It stared in wonder at the ripples as they flowed across the surface of the pool, around the ceremonial lilypads and the corpse of a human minister who had forgotten that he couldn’t actually breathe water. After watching the ripples fade, Obfuscation took a moment and jumped into the water, causing a splash which more or less everyone forgot instantly.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Agent 7 kicked open the double doors and found himself in an expansive foyer. It was mostly empty, save for a few tables, but there were two strange creatures in it. One had the general shape of a centaur, but it was covered in copper-colored scales instead of fur, and in general looked more like a curved lizard than anything else. The other was a blue-furred orb suspended about half a foot off of the ground by four thin, spindly, single-jointed legs, which branched almost straight up from its main body, then bent at a sharp angle to meet the floor. They appeared to be engaged in a conversation of some sort, but Agent 7 couldn't make out what they were saying. The lizard creature was speaking in a very distorted, drawling version of his own language that erased all meaning from the sentences, and the one with the spindly legs chittered back in response in a high-pitched voice.

Agent 7 moved forward, and was spotted by the lizard creature, who raised an arm and spoke something in surprise. The creature with the spindly legs turned around, rotating the blue orb that composed most of its body in place, to reveal a series of layered red slits that Agent 7 realized must be its eyes. The lizard jabbed at an intercom on the wall and began speaking into it, eyes flitting frantically between it and Agent 7.

"Oh no you don't, you're not radioing in for security on my watch, pal!"

Agent 7 fired several stungun shots at the lizard creature, and it fell to the ground, unconscious. The spidery creature let out a series of chitters, nudging the lizard with one leg, then looked fearfully back at Agent 7. The spy was already aiming his stungun at it, and it let out some more frightened chitters and darted off, legs clicking on the stone floor. Stungun shots whizzed over its head, but luck was with the spider, and none of them landed. Agent 7 mentally cursed his shaky aim.

"Cripes, that thing was fast!"

Without warning, a bolt of energy crackled over Agent 7's head. "That was your one and only warning shot! Now drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head!" Agent 7 noticed several armed security personnel filing in from the other end of the room, and kicked over a table and put his back to it, carefully peeking out around the edge.

The Player cursed. "No fair! Why is security here? I interrupted the call! This game cheats!"

Originally posted on MSPA by Bluesunnyday.

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The others seemed to be going off to do their own thing at the moment. Well, Gretalis might as well give them their punishment. However, he was suddenly shot at by two security guards, obviously called in due to that idiot Fishman...
Well that won't do at all. You guys need to learn some manners.
He whipped the first man's hand, making him drop his gun and clutch his hand in pain. He rushed to the other guard, dodging his shots and stabbing him in the chest. The guard coughed once, and fell to the ground dead. He turned to the other, who had picked back up his gun and was aiming it at Gretalis.
Sir... you're under arrest for killing an officer... please don't try anythiGACK!
The guard was interrupted by Gretalis' whip wrapping around the man's throat. The guard struggled for a while, his face turning blue all the while, until he went limp.
Well that was fun. Now where are those people I need to punish...

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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As the black blob sunk to the muddy depths of the pool it missed out on an event it might have found a little familiar, although lets be honest it probably wouldn’t have done. It was at that moment thrashing wildly in an attempt to swim ultimately made pointless by its complete lack of buoyancy. It continued to go through the motions even after becoming lodged in the mud at the bottom of the pool, until it forgot the concept of swimming entirely and proceeded to wallow merrily in the mud.

In the room around it memories were being further discarded. Learned behaviours were being cast away and the assembled crowd of creatures were reverting to their most basic animalistic instinct. Formerly intelligent ministers snarled as they circled one another on all fours. Species tended to band together if only because of the bizarreness of the creatures surrounding them. A human whooped and hollered after tearing out the throat of one of the amphibious yahlang with his teeth. A pair of golem ministers having reverted to their most basic programming stared blankly into space and said ‘hello world’ every couple of minutes.

From one side of the room there was a mind-numbing screech as the siskan minister emerged from its cocoon. While it was usually the most learned and wise of the ministers, one who they looked to in times of difficulty, it had now reverted to the titanic monster that its species had evolved from. Its massive carapace was dull green, venom foamed out from between its clacking mandibles, and its enormous claws were dulled from disuse but still strong enough to snap a human in half; which they promptly did. Upon seeing the monstrous form of the siskan the ministers flight or fight instincts kicked in and they fled the room as quickly as they could, which wasn’t really very quickly as they had forgotten how to use doors.

Momentarily the irkoan official returned and opened the door. It was promptly swept away, having not expected the flood of panicked ministers that came pouring through. Of course a couple of the more obfuscated ministers remained in the break room, attempting to fight the scorpion-like monster, but they were quickly taken care of. They were knocked aside, snapped in half, poisoned or outright eaten alive by the siskan minister and within a couple of minutes of the small black blob jumping into the pool the room was empty but for the corpses and siskan.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

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Hector nearly had a panic attack upon entering the office and seeing the triangularly symmetric porous green creature hunched over a primitive-looking laptop. Nearly, but not quite.

Feeling that surge of panic, brief though it was, frightened him more than anything—this place was antiquated enough that crash clowns and stress surgeons probably didn’t exist yet. He remembered hearing in a class that in the late planetary epoch, stress-related deaths were unheard of, yet everyone went around dying of physiological ailments and invasions by microscopic nonhumans. Funny the way things balance out.

The porous thing seemed unperturbed by Hector’s entrance. “You!” it said. “Are your memories intact?”

Well that was a frightening thought. “I think so,” he told the thing, the left half of his brain a bit dazed from the surreality of it all.

“You seem coherent,” said the thing. Where was the sound coming from? It clearly had no mouth. “I’ve been getting reports of mass amnesia in the new wing. Someone in the gladiatorial coalition must be trying for a filibuster by enforced incompetence! Oldest trick in the book, but I figured they’d wait until session started. You’re not with the gladiatorials, are you? Tracking grass into my office and trying to silence me?”

Hector looked down at his feet. So that’s grass, he reasoned. I’m going to need to learn more of these words. “Sorry about the grass,” he told the thing. “I have a condition. And no, I’m not with any coalition. I’m new here.”

“Here for the internship? Well, it’s yours, if you can restore order around here. We need this vote to go down today, while the media’s still on us.”

Hector nodded and rushed out the door, trailing some tiny many-legged creatures around his ankles. He whirled around. “Sir… it is ‘sir,’ right?”

“’Sir’ will suffice in common parlance if not in the legal documentation, yes.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what are we voting on that’s so important?”

The porous thing made a whooshing noise that was presumably equivalent to laughter. “Why, the Sivlup bill, m’boy! We’re going to make multiversal fights to the death completely illegal throughout our considerable sphere of influence. I trust you won’t let your own feelings on the matter get in the way of your job. Interns should be completely omnipartisan, I always say, and only reveal their sinister intentions when they find themselves holding all the cards. That’s how I made my way.”

Outlawing multiversal fights to the death. Hector could get behind that. “I’m on it, sir,” he said, walking out into the hall.

It was at this point that Hector recognized the problems inherent to his situation. Where was the new wing? And how was he supposed to cure mass amnesiacs? One of the flying black creatures cawwed. Rather than an answer to his questions, Hector suspected the poor thing was begging for food.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Agent 7 dusted his hands off and paused behind cover, waiting for his stungun to recharge. The unconscious forms of about six guards littered the floor in front of him. A quiet beep sounded as the stungun reached full charge, and Agent 7 vaulted over the table he was hiding behind and moved over to the bodies. He searched them for interesting items, but found only their weapons.

"These things look pretty lethal. Guess I'll have to pitch 'em. Too bad, they looked pretty neat."

Agent 7 discarded the semiautomatic laser rifles; he wanted to complete his mission, not have an impressive body count. Violence was something he abhorred, and it was unfortunate that he had to use it on such a regular basis. He strode on into the hallway the spider creature had fled through. A few quick sweeps left and right revealed it to be empty, and he chose to turn left (the right end having little more than a wall). Doors lined the sides of the passage, but after he found the first few were locked he decided to ignore them altogether. It was unlikely anything important was inside them, anyway.

He had nearly reached the end of the hallway when he heard the sound of a door opening behind him. He spun around - only slightly overshooting it this time - and saw a young human boy leaving one of the offices.

"Hey, that's the Hector fellow I saw near the start of this segment! He has to be important."

Agent 7 advanced carefully, holding his stungun out in front of him. Hector paused in surprise when he saw the midget fishman walking up to him. The dialog wheel appeared under Agent 7, and the cursor hesitated only slightly before turning to "Why shouldn't I kill you?"

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you where you stand," Agent 7 snarled at Hector, ignoring the raven squawking irritably at him from Hector's shoulder.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

Though the mind of the siskan minister was currently that of a merciless killing machine with lightning fast reflexes, its body was the siskan equivalent of a forty year old office worker who happened to have a fondness for donuts. After killing its prey it found itself alarmingly out of breath and perspiring from the cracks in its exoskeleton.

The siskan, known to his former colleagues as Wendell Brooks, scuttled over to the yahlang pool and hungrily gulped down the muddy water, quenching his sudden burning thirst.

Obfuscation found itself being forced down a very narrow very fleshy passageway that it had no chance in hell of discerning to be the gullet of another creature. Soon it found itself deposited into a roomy sac with a whole bunch of a liquid that stung on contact and chunks of rotten meat (part of a balanced siskan’s diet). Lacking the correct sensory organs to be repulsed by the sickening aroma, and the wherewithal not to immerse itself in digestive acids, Obfuscation splashed merrily around in Wendell’s stomach.

They say that ignorance is bliss. This is especially true when being swallowed whole and thrown up by a massive scorpion monster. For Obfuscation it was perhaps comparable to a water slide at a particularly unsanitary water park. When the fun ride was over it was left in a puddle of digestive fluid, rancid meat and partially digested golem parts.

Wendell, understandably not feeling well, retreated to his cocoon where he curled up and whimpered quietly to himself.

Originally posted on MSPA by Bluesunnyday.

---

The demon looks around, searching for more people to punish. He notices a fishman thing holding what seemed to be a gun. He whips the creature's wrist, causing it to drop the gun.
Be careful now. You might hurt someone with that thing.
The demon laughs cruelly, before moving his whip again and wrapping it around his throat.
Now SQUIRM!
The demon is completely and utterly enthralled in his torture of Agent 7.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

The news of the siskan's uncharacteristic violence quickly spread throughout the Parliament. All officers not currently engaged with other threats were quickly dispatched to the minister's break room to subdue the beast by any means necessary. Visyvia Lyathan the xadlakian head of security surveyed her rapidly assembled squadron in the hastily evacuated corridors surrounding the break room. Due to the massively multi-specied nature of the Allied Lands it was not unusual to see a group of individuals, none of whom were of the same species, and that was the case here. Due to budget constraints they all wore the same type of body armour, which having been designed to be effectively used by so many different species was as effective for each individual species as wrapping themselves in tissue paper.

Visyvia raised one of her spindly-fingered limbs and traced across her body a roughly triangular shape and began her battle prayer. The rest of the squadron, though only one of them practised frenoau, recited the prayer along with her. The ritual caused Visyvia's eyes to burn with righteous fire and the faint shape of a halo to shimmer over her head. Battle preparations complete Visy gave the signal and they burst through the door, led by the shimmering form of the hulking Empyrean. They kept tightly together, scanning the room for movement, their blasters, or magical abilities if they had them, ready to attack the siskan the moment he showed his wretched shell.

This turned out to not be necessary. Visy’s halo melted away as they discovered the siskan dead in its cocoon. A later inquest would reveal that it somehow choked to death on its own toxin. However the bewildering nature of the Siskan’s demise had to be put aside, as a squad member called to Visy. She dashed over to where the rinoat officer stood, muttering a quick prayer as she did. There she found half of her squadron standing, guns at the ready, over a small black blob with feeble vestigial arms.

“What is it?” Visy asked perplexed. The rinoat, whose name was Lorenzo Esprey, punched some buttons on his massive computerised gauntlet causing a holographic interface to appear in the air before them. It showed a picture of the small black blob on one half and a rapidly cycling image of various other species in the other.

“Ran check against all Allied species, now running further check against database of all known species. Currently no results. Estimated time till completion; fifteen minutes.” He tilted his head at Obfuscation. “Hypothesise creature is previously unencountered. Suspect check will produce no results.”

“What do you suggest?” Visy asked.

“Requisition hazmat team to contain creature.” Lorenzo replied. “Take to laboratory for detailed examination. Creature is only unknown variable in situation. Likely cause of abnormal behaviours.” Visy nodded slowly.

“Make it happen.” She replied.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

"Ack! What the hell? I was in a cutscene! Why the hell is there a random quicktime event here?"

Agent 7 struggled for a few moments, his entire body flashing red as the whip wound tightly around his throat. By mustering all his willpower, he managed to get a firm grip on the whip with three of his four muscular arms. A tremendously strong tug followed this maneuver, and with a cry of surprise, Gretalis went sailing towards Agent 7. The fourth arm, and its fist, awaited him at the end of his flight, and there was a sickening crack as the two connected. Gretalis dropped to the floor, his head spinning, as Agent 7 yanked the whip from his throat and tossed it aside, stungun reappearing in his hands, pointed at the demon. Another dialog wheel popped up, and the cursor quickly spun to "How dare you do that?"

Agent 7 prodded the dizzy demon with the end of his stungun. "If that was an attempt to get my attention, then let me assure you that you've got all of it now. I suggest you start talking. Now."

Originally posted on MSPA by Bluesunnyday.

---

Gretalis wipes a line of black blood from his mouth.
You're really quite funny sir. You know why you're here, and even if I don't, it's my job to punish you for doing it. But just let me check with my superiors.
The demon pulls out what looks like a normal iPhone, dials a number, and starts speaking to someone on the other end.
Hey, it's me, just wanted you to know that I'm where you reassigned me to, just taking care of some fishman type... What? What do you mean I'm not even in the underworld anymore? Well can't you bring me back? No? Ugh. Magic barriers... Look. I just attacked someone, and right now he seems pretty ticked off, so I think I'm just going to keep fighting. If this is a tournament, I might actually win! Right. Okay. Bye...
The demon hangs up.
Well, apparently you AREN'T a soul damned to eternal torture. Just the same, I think I'll need to kill you for that little stunt.
Gretalis quickly performs a tactic he refers to as the Triple Jump, and pulls his dagger. He quickly drops to the ground, dodging stun-gun blasts.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

---

So there was this whole silly little conflict in which Hector almost died.

As soon as the, uh, the fish? As soon as that whole situation got resolved by the other guy and his intervention by way of S&M, Hector found himself just walking away, content to let those two distract each other. He could no longer feel the part of himself for whom this was all very overwhelming, which probably meant that that part had all dripped out of his nose and was leaving a grey matter puddle on the floor. There was something on the floor, anyway. It was sort of crawling around his feet and multiplying, and he ignored it.

It was the third player he was after. The Obfuscation. Consumes memories as well as its own. And he was here to stop a mass amnesia breakout. The connection wasn’t hard to work out.

He followed the chaos and eventually found what looked to be its center. There were a bunch of things that Hector was probably glad not to know what they looked like inside what were recognizably HazMat suits. They had the blob in a glass case, but seemed distracted and weren’t really doing anything with it or bringing it anywhere or even putting the lid on the afforementioned glass case. Some of them were shooting at the various panicking creatures that Hector was, for purposes of sanity, ignoring. Nothing shooting at him, though, probably because he didn’t look very threatening, so he felt safe huddling on the edge of the vague sort of perimeter that the HazMats had set up. There he waited to maybe find himself able to do something. Maybe.

One of the suits, which was thankfully completely bipedal and person-shaped enough that he could process its existence, asked Hector something about what he was doing. And then Hector said… Hector forgot what he said but at some point there was a wall that fell down and then it was probably later that someone was banging a gavel, and the thing that was banging the gavel had… enormous breasts? Or was that someone else?

Anyway, Hector was sitting on a chair that was uncomfortable because it probably wasn’t designed for a person, and there were about a hundred green things each with two tongues looking up at him with glowing yellow eyes. He shooed them away to find two note cards on a desk. One said “Vote ‘aye’” in his handwriting, and the other said “For the love of all that is rational, do not vote ‘aye,’” also in his handwriting.

He looked around cautiously. There were twenty or so other things sitting on various uncomfortable-looking chair-like structures, most of which, like himself, were looking around in confusion or dismay. One of them was sort of a grey blob, which Hector was pretty sure he knew something about. What was it called? The Convolution?

Something that looked like a four giant eyeballs taped together called, “All in favor say ‘eye!’” in a voice that was more visual than aural. Most of the things around him didn’t imm,ediately respond; one said “maybe;” another shouted "What?" and panicked and fell out of its chair.

“Aye!” Hector called, for some reason. He put up his hand, too, for good measure.

“I,” mimed one of the two-tongued creatures, and the rest struck up the chant. “I I I I I.”

"The eyes have it!" called the eyeball-thing. Hector felt things sort of floating away again...

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

Psalk Itahy stood nervously by her locker, her gaze affixed on the love of her life; a veraxan named Raema Yaieka. She knew that her parents would never approve, though all races were supposed to be equal in the Allied Lands the veraxan were still regarded as low class, not to mention the social scandal of dating across species. Today she would finally pluck up the courage to talk to her, to tell her how she really felt. Nothing would stop them from being together, Psalk reasoned, true love always finds a way. If there was no other option they would simply elope across the stars, go far away and start anew in an untouched universe where prejudice could not harm them. Her hearts beating like a drum she strode across to Raema, hoping to mask her anxiety with feigned confidence.

"Hey Raem." she started. Raema turned and regarded Psalk, while her face did betray any particular sense of irritation, her shifting body language suggested a sense of impatient expectation. Psalk awkwardly waited for a response. She struggled to know exactly where to go from here; when she had rehearsed this in her head Raema was always chatty and casual and pleased to see her. She now realised that that had been wishful thinking. "Raem do you want to go out sometime?" as she waited for her love to respond she believed that this moment was the worst of her life. She was however proved wrong when Raema laughed in her face.

"What?" Psalk demanded, her multitude of eyes welling up with tears. "Do you have any idea who I am? Do you have any concept of how much I'd have to give up just to be seen with you? You should be flattered!"

"You jalx really do think you can just have whatever and whoever you want don't you?" Raema said icily. "Run on back to mommy and daddy princess. I'm sure they'll buy you something nice and you'll soon recover from the scorn of being rebuked by one of the lower class like me."

Suddenly Psalk found herself seated at a wooden desk with a gavel in her hand a crowd of weird aliens, the like of which she had never met before, chanting the word I. The gavel slammed down against the block simply by momentum, the sound causing the gibbering lizards to stop and stare at her expectantly. Her eyes streamed with indignant tears, still stinging from Raema's callous remarks.

"What?!" she demanded. "What do you all want from me?"

"I think you're taking a vote?" suggested a human uncertainly. The human in question was inexplicably surrounded by plants growing from every available surface. A raven perched on his head and there was a snake coiled around his neck.

"What for?" she further demanded.

"I... don't know." He said, scratching at his head.

"Whatever. Motion carried!" she sobbed. "I just want to go home!"

Show Content

SpoilerNow within acceptable posting lengths.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

The channel seventeen news logo faded from the screen revealing the busy scene outside of the Allied Lands parliament. On the scene was Wimbledon Xalk and a man in a green labcoat and jeans with a strange glowing green eye and a robotic arm.

"I'm here outside Parliament, where a monumental decision has just been made." Wimbledon said. "Moments ago a bill to ban multiversal battles to the death was passed. Many said that this bill would never make it through Parliament with so many ministers having their own private 'Grand Battles' as they are known in 'Grandmaster' circles." He paused and introduced his guest. "I have here the hero of the hour Quantos Xodarap; acclaimed time detective. Quantos tell us what role you played in this."

"It was nothing really." Quantos said, running his fingers through his hair. "I was passing through the area and happened to realise that a malevolent terrorist cabal was trying to prevent this vote from going forwards using a memory eraser beam. I quickly gathered up all the ministers who had not been affected and mandated that the vote take place ASAP."

"And there you have it." Wimbledon said. "No longer do we need to fear being ensnared by a sadistic Grandmaster and forced to do battle to the death. Quantos Xodarap has saved us all again." He concluded his report.

--------

The battle between Agent 7 and Gretalis had become something of a stalemate. Despite his best efforts to subdue his foe peacefully he was getting kind of wound up by the demon, and was sorely tempted to go against his peaceful beliefs and put a couple of bullets in this creep’s brain. No matter how many times he disarmed the demon, it always seemed to have another weapon stashed somewhere else. He didn’t even want to know where.

Gretalis laughed. “I’m rather enjoying this, if you know what I mean.” He crudely grabbed at his crotch to underline his already obvious double meaning, but before he could engage another of his masterful tactical manoeuvres he overhead the words ‘battle to the death’ and was intrigued. “Hold up, fishman.” He said and looked up to the TV screen mounted on the far wall where Wimbledon’s report was airing.

Having had quite enough of Gretalis for now Agent 7 took this opportunity to take his leave.

Gretalis guffawed. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey I’m in one of these battles to the death. Can I go home now? It’s just not as fun as torturing people.”

--------

Visy had found herself feeling a little weird after her encounter with the strange black blob. Interestingly she wasn’t really sure how that had turned out; the next thing she remembered was sitting here, on a bench in one of the Parliament’s many identical corridors.

The bustle of the busy place was naught but background noise, at least until she heard someone yell how much he liked torturing people. She leapt up, still a little unsteady on her feet and headed in the direction the shout had come from. Here she found a demon dressed in black leather looking around in confusion.

“Where did the fishman go?” Gretalis asked himself. “I wasn’t done with him yet!”

“What did you just say?” Visy asked the demon, he turned, saw her and started licking his lips.

“The things I am going to do to you!” He exclaimed. “If only I had my whip!” Visy scowled.

“You’re under arrest.” She said, and started muttering a prayer under her breath. Gretalis laughed.

“Wanna play hard to get?” He grinned. “I’m normally the one with the handcuffs!” Suddenly Visy glowed with holy fire, a shining blue halo around her head. “Shit!” Gretalis said, his smile suddenly dropping. “You’re a fucking angel? I’m out of here!” He quickly turned tail and fled from the furious xadlakian.

--------

Hector suddenly found himself behind the wheel of a very large vehicle moving alarmingly fast through a wide corridor. Behind him rows of seats filled with screaming creatures some of which he didn’t have the words to even begin to describe, on the dashboard in front of him the black blob that he could kind of remember being told something about. He tried to remember when suddenly there was a loud thump as the bus, which he had forgotten he was driving, hit something. He slammed on the brakes.

--------

Gretalis’ body bounced along the ground until it came to a bloody stop, his iphone tumbling out from his pocket. It was ringing, but in the chaos wherein people crowded around his body and Visy arrested Hector for dangerous driving, nobody bothered to pick up the call from Hell.

“Yo, what up this is Gretalis. I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave a message after the beep and I will torture you, I mean, get back to you later.”

BEEP.

“Gretalis you lousy son a bitch.” A voice bellowed. “I don’t know who told you it was okay to take unannounced vacation time to go and fight in a battle to the death and it’s a good thing because if I did I would be firing them as well. Just be thankful you ain’t still down here or I’d sic the new guy on you. He’s actually competent at his job.” Then there was the sound of a phone being slammed down.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

"Wonderful. It's about time one of you worthless cretins died."

Hector, Agent 7, and the Obfuscation suddenly vanished from Parliament, and found themselves in a lavishly decorated conference room. The entire room was shrouded in shadow, and the seats were all occupied, though nobody was moving at all.

"Welcome to the headquarters of the Chosen Embassy Keepers of Freedom, or CHEKOF for short. This organization, based on the planet Uae, is responsible for the operation of the highly advanced robot known as Emissary. Emissary was to be sent out into the universe to introduce the Uae to other cultures, but shortly after being sent off into space, it was pulled into a battle to the death, much like the one you are now participating in.

"CHEKOF is still in command of Emissary, for no other reason than that the battle's host deemed it entertaining. As a result, they are arguing about how best to have their robot survive the battle.

"Let's see how that goes with all of you getting involved."

As the speech ended, everyone was pulled from the conference room and flung throughout the building. The battle would continue.

Show Content

SpoilerThis round is based on COFCA, the shadowy organization issuing orders to Envoy in Petty Squabble. Except it's the alien version of them.

You have total freedom to decide what the Uae are like, and what details might be different from COFCA. Have fun!

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

Strange and circuitous protocols had been enacted when Emissary had been hijacked into a Grand Battle. Everyone had been too busy dealing with their own issues to get around to informing everybody. Here in a small conference room a group of Uae were deep in debate about issues which were far from important and may never have been relevant.

"All I'm saying is that I believe Greeter is a much friendlier name than Emissary." said Moqua Longua; vice president in charge of public relations at one of Uae's largest advertising companies. "And going to a new planet is all about public relations. How are they going to respond to a name like Emissary?"

"We don't know how they're going to respond to anything," Zavon Okanta countered, "because they're aliens." He was one of the engineers who had worked on building Emissary; to be honest he wasn't even sure what he was doing in this discussion. "They probably won't understand the word, or if they do they'll respond in a way that is by their very nature alien."

"But we've been doing some market research that shows that ninety percent of all people associate the word Emissary with the word emissions," Moqua continued, "which naturally reminds them of the chemical emissions that have rendered the planet nigh uninhabitable and makes them sad. Greeter on the other hand is a name that when people were asked to describe it ninety percent said they felt it really and I am quoting here 'popped'."

"Give me a room with enough idiots and I could give you market research to support whatever crackpot idea crosses my mind as well." Liyau Kiarta (senatorial candidate) rebutted. "The real issue here is the political ramifications. You people don't seem to have realized that by painting Emissary orange you are essentially telling the rest of the universe that he is a representative of the Velodian Party. I suggest a hasty re-spray into a nice shining purple, like the colour favoured by your friends from the Praetorian Party." He steepled his fat little fingers in front of him and leant back in his chair.

"You realize that we've already launched Emissary?" Zavon asked. "That we aren't going to recall him so he can be rebranded or recoloured?"

"What about bringing him back to take some of those arms off him?" Wavoe Dalxia, biologist, asked thoughtfully. "If we send out a twelve armed robot everyone is going to think we have twelve arms."

"It was deemed that people best react to a robot with twice as many arms as they have." Moqua insisted. "We did extensive market research."

"But how do you know how many arms the aliens will have?" Wavoe replied indignantly. "They might not even have arms. What will they think of Emissary then?"

"We are not bringing Emissary back for any reason!" Zavon snapped. "He's in space. He's staying in space."

And this debate might have continued but for the fact that Liyau, peering over his steepled fingers noticed the new addition to the committee; a small black blob sat upon the conference table, idly chewing on the corner of a folder of important documents.

"What the hell is that thing?" He asked.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

It was very dark. Even with his multitude of eyes, Agent 7 found himself unable to see anything. He tried to move but found himself largely unable to; wherever he was, it couldn't be very large. A quick jump showed that it was only a bit taller than it was wide, as he was unable to get a full jump in. Agent 7 paused for a moment, then opened his mouth and let out a quick puff of fire.

"Wait, is that...oh shit."

The inexplicably volatile chemicals within the janitor's closet exploded moments after catching on fire, causing a massive fireball to burst forth from the room, blowing the door off of its hinges and propelling Agent 7 out of the doorway. He landed on his stomach and slowly got up, flashing red for several seconds. The moment he had picked himself up, he began strafing around, scanning the hallway for enemies that might take a shot while his shields were down. After a few moments they regenerated, and he stopped dodging around, focusing his gaze on a sign on the wall in front of him. One direction pointed to Research & Development, the other to Public Relations.

"Well that's a bit of a no-brainer, innit? R&D's where all the neat stuff's gonna be."

Agent 7 began heading down the hallway towards Research & Development, but he paused when he reached the door to the janitorial closet. It was charred and battered from slamming into the wall, but it was still made of good quality metal. An encircled symbol appeared over it. Agent 7 hesitated, then reached down his two left arms and hefted it, holding it up against his side to serve as a rather subpar shield before continuing on towards the door to the labs that he could see near the end of the hall.

---

A bead of sweat dripped down Mork Benfi's brow, and he blinked it out of the way. He gingerly tipped a test tube with a small amount of green liquid over one with an equal amount of blue fluid in it. Careful...careful... he thought to himself. I'm so close, I can't mess this up now! A few drops of green fluid slid down the side of the test tube and dropped into the test tube with blue fluid. The liquids mixed and turned a bright yellow, with small orange bubbles filtering up from the bottom. Mork raised it to the light, grinning. "I did it," he murmured to himself, visions of Mandul Peace Prizes . "I did it! I--"

Agent 7 kicked open the door and ran into the room, spinning around to scan for hostiles. "Consider this party officially crashed," he snarled for no reason in particular.

Mork dropped the test tube. It hit the counter and shattered, the liquid inside shaping into small spheres which spiraled off with small whizzing noises reminiscient of fireworks. Mork sank to his knees, covering his face with two hands and placing the other four on the counter. Agent 7 could make out quiet sobbing noises, and he decided that slinking away to the adjacent laboratory was the best move.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

---

Hector’s memory flow seemed to be returning to normal. “Oh, reason above, what happened last night?” he asked aloud.

“Well, you look like shit,” said the alien.

Hector was comfortable using alien here, as she didn’t really seem like she wasn’t human. She could talk properly, and didn’t have a misshapen skeletal structure or wings or handcuffs or a glorious, terrifying aura of pure light. She was just… different. It was the bright red skin, for one thing. And the toplessness. Oh, the toplessness.

“Tea?” The toplessness, who shall henceforth be known as the Toplessness, offered him a cup of something that smelled like mornings. It was steaming hot.

Hector, not knowing what “tea” was, stalled for time by examining his surroundings. They were in a small, cozy room dominated by a screen and what was recognizably a motion capture apparatus. The apparatus, which seemed molded to the form of an athletic (yet… soft) female, was evidently linked to a first-person shooter on the screen, which was running on autopilot. The player character was locked in an intense battle with a wrathful infant girl wreathed in flame. Hector found himself rooting for the baby, and then his view of the screen was blocked by a geometrically pristine breast and he remembered more important things.

“You should drink,” said the Toplessness. “You’re still a bit out of it.”

“Clearly.” Hector took the cup and drank. It tasted… green, somehow. Not in a good way. “What’s in this?” he asked, as politely as possible.

The Toplessness shrugged. Hector liked the shrugging because it made various parts of her body move around all at once. “Some crushed up leaves and junk,” she said. “They were growing around you while you slept, and I haven’t had a good tea in ages.”

Hector kept drinking, because the tea was the least shameful or confusing thing about his life right now. Then again, it was starting to make his head feel funny.

The Toplessness’ head, when he could spare a moment to look up at it, didn’t seem to be in good shape either. “You know,” she slurred, “If those assholes down the hall had even bothered to check in on the Emissary instead of leaving me to do all the, you know all the hard work, we wouldn’t have made it past round one. And now that we’re, like, we’re here and it’s the final showdown against Amme Beelzeburg and Carne-Z the Meat Goddess, who’s gonna take all the, the credit? Those dicks are. They still don't know there is a battle.”

Hector wasn’t sure what any of that meant, but something in the tea was making him positive that it would make a great song lyric. More green was growing all around him, and it all smelled like the tea. “I’m Hector,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Jastra,” she said. “Jastra Juggs.” It was the prettiest name Hector had ever heard. The walls were all colors then, like a game that everyone wins. Then: the police.

One was tapping on the screen, messing with the poor robot’s HUD. Behind him Hector could see the omnipotent baby being handcuffed and escorted into a radio car. “Excuse me,” said the policeman. “Whoever’s controlling this robot? We’ve received reports of an illegal battle to the death here, and we’re, uh, we’re shutting it down.”

“They’re killing my battle?” whimpered Juggs, nuzzling the wall with one cheek. “Hector, I worked so hard. I had the high score. I think the tea brought the police here, and the ghosts, too. Can you see the ghosts?”

Hector counted his fingers, twice to make sure. “I know what I must do,” he concluded, when he was satisfied. He rose and waded through the garden of green—leaves she had called them—to the motion capture apparatus. It fit about him a bit snugly, but responded well enough to him that he was able to satisfactorily punch the cops with six right arms at once. “Fuck you, pig,” he told the cop, unsure whether he had the “talk” button held down, or the “flamethrower” button (because the cop was on fire now).

Jastra Juggs clapped her hands, giggled and jumped up and down, and Hector watched that, and, it was just great. “If I were to punch all the cops in the world,” he asked her, “Would you love me?”

Jastra sipped her tea and gave Hector a very serious nod. “Until the end of time,” she told him.

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

---

The Allied Police Force swarmed the now abandoned strip-club. Not long ago three beings, a strange twelve armed robot, a floating baby with demonic powers and a woman with the crispy skin of fried chicken had appeared in the club.

As the battle between Emissary and Amme had only escalated the punters and strippers alike had fled, leaving Carne-Z with the best seat in the house. Emissary and Amme were far too involved in their own fight to even consider that she was just waiting for one to kill the other before scoring a coup de grace. She would win the battle and be free to return to the strange food based world from which she hailed.

Then the police burst down the doors and she fled into the backrooms. She barricaded the doors behind her, but to her dismay found that there was no back door exit from this place. She wouldn't let the police take her alive, not when she was so close to victory in this insane competition. Sheltering under a table, quaking in fear Carne found a pair of strippers who had got stuck back here in the general confusion. Meat was meat she supposed, and these humans were all meat. She commanded them to protect her.

--------

Back in the main room where Emissary was making a good go of punching every policeman he could find time seemed to stop for everyone involved and a man appeared on a nearby podium. It was a man that Emissary and Amme knew well; The Oddity. His skin was constantly changing colours at the moment fluctuating between a dour purple and a sickly bright green. His body twisted itself into impossible shapes which hurt the eyes of those who were forced to stare directly at him. His suit was a patchwork of different colours and styles and all in all he looked a mess. He walked up to a frozen police officer and with a careful slow deliberation he drew back his fist and slammed it into the guy's head so hard that it exploded into gory chunks, splattering blood over policeman and contestant alike.

"FUCK THE POLICE!" He yelled, striding across the room, slamming his fist into another unlucky police officer. Suddenly he was arrested by shining blue flames, locking themselves around his body, preventing him from moving. A woman walked up, she was humanoid but appeared to be made of crystal, lit from within by a blue light. A shining blue halo hung over her head. Visy scowled at the self-proclaimed Grandmaster.

"I've got a battle I thought you might like to try taking part in." She quipped. "It's called an Allied Lands Ultra-Maximum Security Penetentiary."

"Fuck you!" The Oddity cried, releasing his hold over time. Mind controlled strippers and a goddess of meat burst forth from the back room. Amme easily broke free from her restraints and Emissary punched Visy in the face.

--------

In the conference room the various Uae argued over the appearance of the strange black blob. Wavoe the xenobiologist attempted to claim that it was the successful culmination of the Emissary mission: they had finally made contact with alien species and it was small black and stupid.

Moqua Longua, the marketing specialist, made some calls to set into motion some market research about whether the man on the street would like a soft toy version of the alien species they had discovered. Liyau, the politician, pinned a Praetorian badge onto Obfuscation and then went to sleep.

Somehow, through the bewildering debate that got only more incomprehensible as the effects of Obfuscation were felt the consensus was that the creature should be taken down to Research and Development for further study. The technician reluctantly offered to do so when he realised none of the others were actually going to follow through on their intentions.

Naturally he got lost along the way.

--------

Outside the Catalonia Strip Club a thin lizard like creature with a heavy gauntlet pulled up a holographic display. A bunch of other police officers were cordoning off the area, thankful that they were not inside where the noises of splattering flesh had just come from.

Lorenzo punched buttons on his gauntlet, eyes fixed upon the holographic readout. He was tracking the signal that was controlling the robot. After a minute or two to pinpoint it’s origin he radioed into headquarters.

“Have traced ‘Emissary’ origin.” He said curtly. “Recommendation: send squadron to planet: Uae, specifically headquarters of CHEKOF organisation.”

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

"C'mon, there's gotta be a weapon or an upgrade or, or something around here. You don't just make an R&D lab and leave it empty."

Agent 7 ruffled through closets and drawers fervently, tossing aside beakers, tongs, test tubes, and various other tools of science. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, but he felt that something important was hidden in the lab, and leaving without finding it was simply out of the question. This patient mentality began to wear a bit thin after he had searched most of the room without finding anything, and Agent 7 was about to declare the room devoid of important materials when he suddenly stumbled upon what was, unmistakably, a weapon.

---

It took Mork a while to get ahold of himself, and quite understandably so, given that he had held his life's work in his hands for just a split second. Sniffling, he reminded himself that this wasn't one of those dumb movies where the absent-minded professor ran off and did all his work without leaving any notes. He was only set back by the few hours it would take to distill a new sample, possibly a day or two at most if that had been his last batches of ingredients, as he suspected it was. He pressed his hands on the table and pulled himself up, drying his eyes and dusting off his suit so as to maintain a professional air, then made his way towards the adjacent laboratory that he vaguely remembered the intruder heading into. He was going to give that man a firm talking to and make sure he knew there would be consequences for playing cop commando in such a delicate environment.

---

Agent 7 hooked the coolant pack up to the pressure nozzle, then strapped it onto his back, his stungun having mysteriously vanished as soon as he picked up the device. He then picked up the bulky nozzle with all four of his hands, the bottom pair holding it steady, the top left one aiming the nozzle, and the top right one gripping the release valve handle. A text box appeared over his head that read "New weapon obtained: [undefined]," eliciting a raised eyebrow from the Player that Agent 7 was unable to see. Satisfied that he was ready to use whatever it was, Agent 7 made his way back towards the door.

Suddenly, the scientist from the other room stormed in, flying straight into a rant about the consequences of playing around on the clock. It took him a few moments to actually look at Agent 7. His rant trailed off when he saw what the agent was holding, and he began backing slowly towards the door. "But, uh, we're all friends here," he said nervously. "I'm sure we can let this slide. Why don't you put that down now so we can talk about this calmly?"

"Ugh, he's gonna call security on me now. If I switch weapons he'll just run before I can stun him." The Player bit his lip. "This thing better be a pacifist weapon or I'm screwed."

Agent 7 pulled back the handle on the release valve, and a cloud of bluish-white smoke flew forwards towards the scientist, obscuring him from view for a few moments. When it cleared, he was encased in ice, frozen in a fleeing position. Agent 7 grinned. "Ice to meet you!" he said to the frozen scientist before leaving the lab.

The Player groaned. "I really hope he doesn't make any more puns like that."