The All-XX Battle: Narcissism Extravaganza

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Spoilerneeded a place to practice writing and then I was like
what if I did a battle
but took out all those other things I don't like
like people

“Lethe, my dear. You’re looking so trim.”

The speaker is a sparrow, perched on a golden bough. It is of normal size and proportion, no unusual markings, no disfigurations or scars. Its eyes are bright with malice though it speaks with a gentle voice.

An identical creature is perched to its right. Its name is Lethe. Lethe bobs its head.

The first sparrow, whose name is Kyokotos, settles its wings. Its feathers are dull and in need of preening. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Have you forgotten me?”

Lethe tilts its head at Kyokotos. It cheeps.

“Lethe,” the first says tenderly. “You break my heart.”

“Your heart, Kyokotos?” says Lethe. “You have no heart. Your heart is mine.”

The sparrow hisses like a snake and flutters madly in a sudden fit. The wind buffets the other bird and stirs the silver leaves on the golden branch with a dry tinkling. “I try to be kind to you,” says the sparrow, “I follow you to the end of the earth, and you repay me with venom. Treachery from my own nest. We were brothers, Lethe.”

The other bird gives it a blank look. It spies something on its perch and pecks it absently.

Kyokotos sidles closer. “What about this?” it says. “What about a game?”

Lethe chatters to no one in particular. It hops to a higher branch and examines its toes.

“I could find a few chesspieces. A couple of die. We’d make up the rules.”

Old grey down falls from Lethe’s beak as it rummages through its feathers.

“It’d keep our mind off things.”

Lethe hurns at this, gives Kyokotos a long look that doesn’t say anything. It whistles the last few bars of an old drinking song and bobs it head.

“I’ve found some old cards already. They’re battered but they’ll do.”

Faint shadows appear at the base of the sparrows’ tree, an old cherry with gnarled branches and withered fruits like wrinkled old men. Its bark is cracked and weathered gold and gleams softly in the morning sun. Hard clay-like blossoms are stuck to the underside of its boughs and fill the air with a choking sweetness that hints at musk and rot. The silver leaves are shriveled with drought.

Lethe spreads its wings as if to dry them from some nonexistent rain and hops down again. Its tail flips back and forth with the landing. Kyokotos follows, calling after its twin.

“There are eight. Four for me and four for you. We can move them however we want. The board is empty.”

The shadows coalesce into dim shapes. Blurry things like faces turn towards the chatter.

“We’ll move them elsewhere. The orchard is no place for them.”

The shadows are gone and the ground has buckled with their footprints.

Lethe’s eyes are bright and cold as it stares calmly at its twin, and then down towards the base of the ancient tree. For miles and miles in all directions there spreads hundreds of bent and broken shapes, each a mirror of the same cherry, every insignificant twig the same. Where the orchard meets the sky there is only the faintest suggestion of a pomegranate sunrise.

“I hate this game,” says Lethe. “I always end up winning.”


CAST

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Spoiler
Name: Mokaiyat
Gender: Maleish
Race: Giant iron centipede brazier
Description: A twelve-foot iron sculpture of a centipede-like monster, filled with ever-burning holy coals and brilliant orange flames. Animated by lesser fire spirits and dedicated to Shadaiak, god of vengeance, fire, destruction. Mokaiyat- not a real name but a title- lives to serve the will of the fire god and absolutely nothing else else. Because Shadaiak’s cardinal commandment is to burn things, mostly things that he doesn’t like but also just things in general, Mokaiyat’s mouth, eyes, and the gaps between his iron plates all periodically spray sparks and his footsteps char the ground. He likes fire and things that are on fire but has a corresponding deathly fear of water. Angry, all the time. Fire for the fire god!
Abilities: Spits sparks from joints in armor, mouth, eyes that can ignite most things if in contact for long enough. Weighs about two tons, can crush things with his torso or stampede them, though not preferred. Iron armor is pretty thick, magic resistant, mildly swag. No fashion sense. Can’t dance. Old-fashioned. Likes starting fires, maintaining fires, expanding fires, being fires. He will never melt.
Bio: Was a temple servant, went on a pilgrimage, didn’t get very far.
Theme: Broken Bells- Your Head Is On Fire

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Name: TOS (Terms of Service, but no one knows that)
Gender: tech. none, male for now
Race: Elemental of undoing
Description: An empty, strange and outdated suit apparently containing the invisible body of a slender and agile humanoid. A silvery mask floats above its collar and papery white gloves extend from its sleeves. The suit is old and very worn in places, though immaculately clean. The mask has been painted with a Noh-like, almost femininely graceful minimization of a face. TOS is almost totally silent and seems gentle, harmless, somewhat naïve. Tends to trust people beyond a reasonable level. Animals dislike him.
Abilities: As expected. His presence affects the environment in subtle ways: doors unlock, books fall open, people say what’s on their mind. “Undoing” does not seem to indicate destruction. Its effects are rarely direct.
Bio: ??
Theme song: Radiohead- Lotus Flower

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Name: Dahlia Silk
Gender: Female
Race: Human?
Description: What may or may not be a very buff woman swathed entirely in layers of expensive and painstakingly detailed textiles. Sixish feet in height and wears an ivory mask made up like a demon’s face. Not an inch of skin or hair is visible, only gold netting and silk and cashmere and wool. Presumably some kind of air conditioning involved there. Reserved, mysterious, maybe a robot. Wears a very, very thin pair of emerald silk gloves.
Abilities: Poison touch; all organic materials she touches become incredibly toxic, except presumably herself.
Bio: ??
Theme: Ladytron- Predict the Day

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Name: His Majesty the Six Hundredth and Fifty-First Glass King, Kio Marsepolis
Gender: Dude
Race: Human/Glass Amalgamation
Description: A youngish man whose body is divided neatly along a diagonal line between healthy flesh and solid green glass. Everything down from his right shoulder to his left calf is a slick, translucent emerald, unbreakable and perfectly alive. The parts of him that are still recognizably human are a darkish olive and reasonably fit, though clothed in robes that were obviously not made for anyone who has to walk more than ten feet in any given direction. Excessive amounts of gold or goldish jewelry, ceremonial amulets, and other petty things that make it difficult to move unencumbered. Kio’s face is honest-looking with a sort of weird almost-beard going on, like too far to be stubble but not enough to be any definable shape. He’s probably about 18. What a loser!
Abilities: Glass is indestructible or kinda close at least. Might do some other things. Angst???
Bio: Signed up to be a sacrificial Year King but that didn’t work out so well. Covered in bitches 24/7 except then he didn’t die so they kicked him out of office. Probably doesn’t know that yet.
Theme song: Electric Guest- This Head I Hold

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Name: Six? Uhh. Four.
Gender: Dudes but singular
Race: Coma human!
Description: A roughly cylindrical column of strange blue fluid, animated by unknown means. Vaguely visible is the slack body of a man suspended in the column in what appears to be tasteful nudity. His features are largely obscured by the blue floatiness, but he appears to be on the tall side and modestly buff. His head is shaved and there is a number on his neck that you can’t read.
Abilities: Total control over the plasma party. Four is in a kind of medically induced meditative trance and can only communicate in a dreamy sort of telepathy. The plasma can crystalize instantly upon contact to form a shield and with enough concentration can be manipulated to a fine enough degree to pick locks, turn pages, spin tops, and other feats of dexterity. It is hermetically sealed: nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. If Four breathes, he does so when no one is looking. He may be technically dead. If he ever wakes up fully, his control over the plasma will dissipate entirely until he re-trances.
Bio: blah blah exida
Theme song: Grand National- Talk Amongst Yourselves

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Name: Shwvir
Gender: Female
Race: Banshee dragon, or shivak
Description: Bit like a big ol dog-headed dragon-looking thing, with broad batlike wings, two hind legs, and a short thick tail. About the size of a pony and weighing in at a petite 200 pounds. Her skin is soft and leathery, like fine suede, except for rougher patches on her back and shoulders. Her eyes are bright and stupid-looking, goldish green in color, and are extremely sharp. In the air she is a skilled flier, if not a graceful one, and on land she has a weird sort of hop-walk she does with the front claws on her wings. Her general doofishness belies the fact that her teeth and talons are both very long and sharp and ready to kill you. Maybe. She’s about as smart as a very bright parrot or a rather slow child and speaks Humanese passably, though not always correctly. She instinctively hoards shiny things for the nest she doesn’t have and likes in particular to steal beer bottles and nickels.
Abilities: Eats death in a very literal and non-poetic sense. Her species feeds off the energy released when a soul is torn from its body, and they have a corresponding attraction to the scent of danger and the possibility of such. No one else knows what danger smells like, but apparently shivaki can find it from hundreds of miles off because they flock like crows at battles and shipwrecks and other unsafe places. In more modern times they tend to roost on nursing home roofs, but since they are usually harmless and make funny barking sounds all day long no one seems to care. In very sparse- or, for most other organisms, not sparse- times a starving shivak may decide to hurry along an individual soul’s parting, which is why they have substantial natural weapons despite normally being ultra-vegans. This is a last resort, though, and a healthy specimen will choose a natural death-meal over a forced one. It’s a pride thing.
Bio: skree skree skree
Theme song: White Lies- Death

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Name: Roxanna DeGesse
Gender: Girly
Race: Human
Description: A prettyish girl with dark hair, wide-set eyes and an Olympic-level pout. Perfectly managed hair. Wearing a mechanic’s coverall whose legs have been rolled up too far for anyone’s good, stained around the edges with oil and grease and other appealing filth. Chews gum near-constantly. Dark eyeshadow. Curves til next Tuesday. Looks like a real piece of work.
Abilities: Technopathy, a hereditary ability to do to machines what psions do to minds. Best not to think about it too much. Working in teams, technopaths can assemble, destroy, and modify massive constructions. On her own, Roxanna can work with machines up to about the size and complexity of a European car. Computers are a little trickier and will take her longer to manage. Concentration is necessary, as is stamina, and Roxanna is the sort of person who has trouble with both.
Bio: Her family’s got money and she had a job with a high-flying weapons firm until she disappeared. May have had a giant faulty robot imprint on her. Despite rumors to the contrary, still has a heart.
Theme song: Metric- Lost Kitten

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Name: Svalinn
Gender: …female?
Race: Probably a human once. Now a sort of fancy magic robot golem.
Description: Tall, like damn. Real tall. Blueish, papery skin, simple leather armor. A long curved sword is sheathed at her side. Her face is a cracked porcelain hummingbird mask. Yes we have two masked chicks.
Abilities: Uhh, tallness? Fancy sword-killing-with abilities. Doesn’t eat. Doesn’t sleep. Whines a lot.
Bio: Killed somebody she wasn’t supposed to. Got upset. Vanished.
Theme song: Kip Winger- Free


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THE DUDE/TTE/S IN CHARGE
Name/s: Lethe and Kyokotos, the Counterpart.
Gender: None
Race: Sparrows? Magpies?
Description: Two fat bitchy tiny brown birds. One’s eyes are slightly paler than the other’s, but let’s be honest, you don’t care.
Abilities: Normal interdimensional reality-warping ones. They seem to specialize in illusory locations. Their normal bachelor/ette/s pad is an old, expensive-looking vineyard. They hate each other, but Kyokotos has a weird dude-crush on Lethe. Girl-crush. Whatever.
Theme song: TAKÉNOBU- Thursday

PREMISE
I will make things up and that is about it?
mostly this is just here because I don't feel like backing it up anywhere else.

I pick which character to write for based on a random number generated from 1-8. I don't know how eliminations will work yet. I don't know anything else really.

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Round One: The Trans-Awareness Museum of Modern and Relevant Art

A sprawling collection of recent sculpture, paintings, prints, performances, etc, from somewhere very far away. The Museum itself is a Minimalist behemoth of glass and concrete with a suspiciously complex level design. There do not seem to be many patrons present. Some of the exhibits are dangerous, and some are merely dangerously expensive. The gift shop is reasonably priced. It is impossible to leave.

---

“A Murder In Red”
(Artist Unknown) (Date Unknown)
Mixed Media

The plaque was affixed to a small brass door half-obscured behind two towering behemoths, sculpted angels with the heads of snakes. Their wings stretched the lengths of the corridor, brushing the mosaicked ceiling with their pinions. Small, tasteful sconces had been situated behind them and bathed their backs in a milky radiance that glowed through to the pale floor. TOS suspected they were made of a type of china. In a few moments he realized he was correct.

The corridor was very still. The walls and floor were marble tiles of some variety he had never seen, a blue so pale it was nearly grey with silvery veins ribboning through its surface. Gently the empty suit folded under nothing and knelt at a statue’s feet, a papery glove extending briskly from the wrist and over the glistening stone. The words Arbadea and Gnichhio came to him and meant nothing, and TOS smiled and dismissed them. It was a beautiful world, this place. Such sprawling legacy.

The serpent-faced angel wore a robe in the Roman style, shielding the androgynous angles of its elongated form. The suit’s collar barely reached the angel’s knee, shrouding the mask tilting up to behold its face. Scaly lips were drawn in a gentle sneer at some distant foe and the angel’s eyes were gilded slits, twin points of light among the starry incandescence of the mosaic. TOS thought that it was beautiful, and for just an instant he could see a flicker of melting clay and receding fire unmaking the angel and peeling away its robes. It was a shame to lose such a thing of beauty, he thought.

TOS stepped through a puddle of imaginary slurry and opened the brass door with a single touch.