Re: Petty Squabble [It's another Grand Battle] [Signups open!]
04-03-2011, 07:48 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Name: Rhett Myrddin
Gender: Male
Age: 1081
Race: Demon (Humanoid)
Text colour: Midnight blue
Weapons: A prototype ‘Zemthus’ model military prosthetic arm, which is basically a lightly armoured synthetic arm that replaces his left. He lost his real arm when his sister died. The bionic arm is cased in a thin, flexible metal that can fold, yet survive heavy impacts. While he can control it like a regular arm, he can also use the features that have been added. The biggest feature is the Tesla Railgun, a weapon that takes large currents of electricity, magnetises it, and blasts it out at incredible force. Of course, it was never designed to be built into an arm, and was supposed to be connected to a supply of energy so that it can actually fire. Rhett’s arm however has no such power supply, so he can only fire the Railgun when his synthetic arm is hit by the same amount of electricity as a bolt of lightning. Built into the arm are two smoke bomb launchers in the bicep which can be reloaded. A wide shortsword is strapped to his waist. As for his abilities, Rhett studied a human martial arts with his elder sister for several hundred years, eventually learning how to control the flow of human ki energy and convert it into lightning. It had been deemed an “Anti-demon” art of fighting hundreds of years ago and is therefore taboo. It is a strongly kept secret between them. His strength is greater than a human, and he can control lightning to a degree. Not “electrical current” lightning. This stuff is formed from the “Ki” that he has generated by practicing the martial arts for so many years, and more so absorbed from the air around him. He simply ejects the ki during an attack and converts it to lightning. Which is why Rhett has a non-connected Tesla Railgun in his arm, he is the only demon who can fire it like that.
Description: Rhett resembles a twenty two year old human. He wears a white formal shirt with a black waistcoat, a tie and black trousers. His left sleeve is missing. His hair is slicked back completely. His body is a muscular-athletic type due to the years of training. His personality is pretty laid back, but he is still a demon. He never refuses a fight, and is pretty defensive of his pride. He does not enjoy killing those who cannot fight back, and would always seek out more dangerous opponents that the weaker ones. He does love to work though, and he enjoys helping people. While he is unsure of what to think of humans, he doesn’t really care about the propaganda that he was subjected to. Demons or humans, he doesn’t care who he is fighting/who his current employer is. Saying that, he hasn’t actually met one yet.
A basic kind of image I have of him is this:
Biography: Spoilered for size.
Name: Rhett Myrddin
Gender: Male
Age: 1081
Race: Demon (Humanoid)
Text colour: Midnight blue
Weapons: A prototype ‘Zemthus’ model military prosthetic arm, which is basically a lightly armoured synthetic arm that replaces his left. He lost his real arm when his sister died. The bionic arm is cased in a thin, flexible metal that can fold, yet survive heavy impacts. While he can control it like a regular arm, he can also use the features that have been added. The biggest feature is the Tesla Railgun, a weapon that takes large currents of electricity, magnetises it, and blasts it out at incredible force. Of course, it was never designed to be built into an arm, and was supposed to be connected to a supply of energy so that it can actually fire. Rhett’s arm however has no such power supply, so he can only fire the Railgun when his synthetic arm is hit by the same amount of electricity as a bolt of lightning. Built into the arm are two smoke bomb launchers in the bicep which can be reloaded. A wide shortsword is strapped to his waist. As for his abilities, Rhett studied a human martial arts with his elder sister for several hundred years, eventually learning how to control the flow of human ki energy and convert it into lightning. It had been deemed an “Anti-demon” art of fighting hundreds of years ago and is therefore taboo. It is a strongly kept secret between them. His strength is greater than a human, and he can control lightning to a degree. Not “electrical current” lightning. This stuff is formed from the “Ki” that he has generated by practicing the martial arts for so many years, and more so absorbed from the air around him. He simply ejects the ki during an attack and converts it to lightning. Which is why Rhett has a non-connected Tesla Railgun in his arm, he is the only demon who can fire it like that.
Description: Rhett resembles a twenty two year old human. He wears a white formal shirt with a black waistcoat, a tie and black trousers. His left sleeve is missing. His hair is slicked back completely. His body is a muscular-athletic type due to the years of training. His personality is pretty laid back, but he is still a demon. He never refuses a fight, and is pretty defensive of his pride. He does not enjoy killing those who cannot fight back, and would always seek out more dangerous opponents that the weaker ones. He does love to work though, and he enjoys helping people. While he is unsure of what to think of humans, he doesn’t really care about the propaganda that he was subjected to. Demons or humans, he doesn’t care who he is fighting/who his current employer is. Saying that, he hasn’t actually met one yet.
A basic kind of image I have of him is this:
Show Content
Biography: Spoilered for size.
Show Content
SpoilerThe Myrddin was a small Demon Lord class family, which entitled them so some prosperity, strength and a castle. Rhett was the second child of the current head; the first was his older sister Ilea. He was never jealous of this fact, as he was much more interested in his hobbies than being a Lord. Of course, it took many years to force his parents into appreciating his interest in jobs. He had a love of working, something demons are known for not doing for very long. Eventually however he just stopped caring for his parents consent and left for the city to find a job. He returned about a week later wearing a waiting uniform, and even though he was covered in bruises he had a huge grin on his face. To where his ki powers came from, it started when she came back from a short vacation with some internal injuries. Rhett investigated in private, and it turned out that Ilea’s arm was sparking with static whenever she touched anything. Rhett got too close and had his arm jolted, the shock reaching all the way to his heart. Lucky to be alive, Ilea explained that a demon hunter had broken into their world to kill as many demons as he could, and Ilea happened to be nearby at the time. She took a lightning bolt to the chest, and has since has electricity emanating from her body. She managed to kill the human, which didn’t help them receive any answers. It wasn’t until Ilea felt that she was absorbing energy from the air several weeks later that they made a breakthrough. Their bodies where naturally absorbing any human ki they could find in the air. This, according to Ilea is about as plentiful in demon air as there is gold in their tap water. So, about a hundred years later, Ilea forces Rhett to quit yet another job (he never manages to keep them for very long for some reason) because she had another breakthrough. Apparently she had managed to collect enough to waste some to show Rhett how to use the power. Rhett however, had not gathered enough. While Ilea could absorb ki with her whole body, Rhett could only manage with his chest and right arm. He assumed it had been something to do with the initial contact with the lightning, and that it must have ripped open some ki channels, for lack of a better explanation. While Ilea managed to use her ability to shoot a large bolt of lightning and destroy a large boulder, Rhett wasn’t able to do much of anything. In anger he punched the trunk of a tree, which caused his hand to unleash its own bolt of energy and blow the tree to smithereens. They learned that while Ilea could use long range attacks, Rhett could only unleash his power when he was punching something. After a few hundred years, Rhett had full control of his abilities. He was filling out another application form in his room when he felt a presence behind him. Assassination attempts were common place in the demon world, most demons would rather be assassins than bodyguards. This person seemed different, however. When Rhett turned to meet them, he felt the slightest of breezes, and his instincts forced him to throw himself out of the way. His desk was obliterated and shards of wood were strewn across the room. The only thing he could see of his attacker was a blurry dark outline. His door burst open explosively, revealing his sister charging in with a longsword. Rhett had enough time to circle the shadowy intruder and make his way to his sister’s side. However, even together the intruder didn’t seem to take them seriously. His sister attacked skilfully with her blade, yet the assassin simply sidestepped each swing. A quick swing if their arm and Ilea was knocked back outside. Rhett ran towards her, and near half dragged her to the main hall. She was hurt internally. Whoever was fighting them, they weren’t a normal demon. They both decided that if they had to choose between dying and having their powers found out, they’d take the latter option. Rhett knew of a third option, going out with a bang, but kept it to himself.
“So, what’s the plan sis?”
“Get that bugger in between us, I blast a bolt straight through his chest, and you throw it right back into his spine.”
“…Can I even do that?”
“Maybe?”
Rhett laughed a little, even in this crazy situation. To their backs was a large mosaic window. From the front comes a sword wielding super-demon. Rhett had no other word for them. The black shadow that seemed to make up their body didn’t give off any energy that he had felt before. He doubted it even had a life. He and Ilea sidestepped in opposite directions, the suddenly burst into a sprint to get to opposite sides of the shadow being. The shadow picked a target: Rhett. He braced his legs as he saw Ilea launch the bolt of lightning. It pierced the shadow in the back, dark blotches spraying onto the floor from the wound. Rhett caught the blast in his right hand, and the energy forced its way into his body with an intense pain. The shadow turned, prioritising Ilea as a danger. Rhett took his chance with the shadow turned, and used the energy as a rebound. It wasn’t his own energy, so he simply rejected it. Even though he could not fire lightning, the bolt shot from his palm, striking the shadow once more, this time in the spine. The bolt didn’t leave, but circulated to its brain and fried everything in its path. The shadow unleashed a volley of smoke and a horrible burning smell. The room became hazy and the air thick. Rhett called out to his sister, but never got a reply. She was probably keeping quiet to remain hidden.
The noise of a sword being swung.
The sound of blade meeting flesh.
The horrible sensation that something horrible has happened.
The thud of a body hitting the floor.
Rhett tried to run to his sister, but he collapsed to the floor after a few steps. He didn’t even feel the blade connect. He’d been hit in the shoulder, but he couldn’t move his left arm. A second later, it fell to the floor next to him, oozing blood from where it once connected to his body. He swore, and fought to get to his feet. He back stepped, but the smoke was clearing. He shadow lunged, and its sword pierced Rhett in the chest. It lifted his feet clear off of the floor. But he didn’t allow himself to bleed violently. Using the ki channels in his chest, he redirected the floor of blood away from his missing arm and around the wound in his chest. He was still losing blood, but nothing close to what he would have normally. He stared the shadow in the face, but couldn’t help but feel it seemed familiar. His body was close to the shadow, and he could still move his main arm. He fed a large amount of ki into his arm, and grabbed hold of the shadows sword arm.
“Never give a Myrddin a chance to think!” He screamed into its face as he caused the arm to explode with the lightning blast. He, the sword and most of the shadow’s arm were sent flying, making his back crash through the family mosaic window. He hoped his ancestors thought it was a good trade, his life for their window. He fell for several seconds before crashing down on something wooden. It was dark, he was in agony, and he had a very small chance of surviving. He didn’t know if he’d broken any bones on his landing. Most of the pain in his shoulder and chest was keeping him occupied. As he stared up into the stars, he wondered if this was the end.
“Tell me, Master Rhett, how long do you plan on lying there?” said a familiar voice. It belonged to Miralda, the Myrddin family healer. She had long kept Rhett’s family in good health through her magic.
“The heck are you doing out here Miralda” he replied, ignoring her question.
“I was on my way to the city to get some supplies. Your father he been restless of late and needs some good exercise.”
“Perfect.” He noticed that he had landed on the back of her old wooden wagon. Miralda was old fashioned and didn’t like to travel any other way. “Get the horses on the right path and get started and closing my wounds, would you? I’d appreciate it. I can’t keep the blood flow moved for much longer.”
Miralda sighed in response, but cracked the reins anyway. As the horses began to move, she stood from her seat and attended to Rhett’s wounds even as he began to pass out. Just before the void took him, he managed to say “Mick’s place. Leave me there. Have to…hide.”
When he awoke, he found himself in a decrepit storeroom filled with hunks of metal and unknown devices that seemed to be ripped to pieces. His shoulder and chest were bandaged. Since they were clean he assumed the wounds were closed. He was lying on some sort of thin comfy mattress. To his right lay the sword the shadow had used, hand still grabbing onto the hilt. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but the hand looks like a woman’s. A regular hand not covered in shadow. Rhett got himself out of bed, wincing the whole time. He casually walked out of the messy storeroom and into a workshop. A messy haired man sitting bent over a workbench, while another similarly messy haired man sat lazily on the end. All four of his limbs were metallic in colour.
“Oh, the young master awakes” Joked the lazy looking man, faux bowing as Rhett walked in.
“Mike.”
The other man, who was called Michael, simply turned and nodded before getting back to his work. On the table lay another metallic arm.
“Took your measurements as you slept, did some work on the shoulder while we were at it.”
“We?” Michael commented.
Mike ignored him, and explained to Rhett in detail as to what surgery had been done. Rhett listened quietly. When he was finished, Rhett asked about what kinds of things he could get in his replacement arm.
“Well, seeing as this is rather short notice, not much I’m afraid. Hidden blades are all reserved, and we’re backed up with orders for guns, so no chance of getting one of those in it either.”
“What about prototypes?”
“We have a few. What are in the market for?”
Rhett thought about his encounter with the shadow. The smoke had distracted it, seeing as it didn’t pierce his heart. Rhett also knew more about the kind of items going in and out of these brother’s warehouse than he’d ever let on to them. They went back a few hundred years when Rhett helped them out with a few debt and hired muscle problems. Even as a bodyguard his employment didn’t last very long. But he heard rumours in his various jobs about prototypes.
“Something that can give me a smoke screen in a split second.”
Mike headed off into a backroom that was full of large metal lockboxes. He returned a short while later with a case containing several large bullet-tip shaped objects.
“Hot off the black market. Human’s call them “Smoke grenades”, and they just need to be launched out of something and connect with a surface. Instant smoke cloud.”
“That would take up a large part of the arm. I need something smaller. I already know exactly what is going to take up almost all the arm.”
Mike scratched at his head, seeming to be deep in thought.
“So, something really small then. I think we may have just the thing.”
He simply discarded the case into a corner of the room and went searching in the back room. Rhett turned his attention to the other brother who was hard at work on the prosthetic arm.
“So, what model am I getting?”
“Zemthus. TBN. Mk.IV”
Rhett was genuinely surprised. That was a hardcore military prototype. The only way to stop that kind of arm was to cut around it and sever it from the person using it, if you weren’t able to kill the owner anyway. It also allowed for a large amount of customization.
“Just to let you know, I want that Tesla railgun you keep in the back. I need it. I’ll double the pay for the whole package as well.”
His words caused Michael’s work to slow down some, obviously he wasn’t supposed to know that. When Mike returned, he had two crates instead of one. The first was smaller than a briefcase, while the other could easily fit a rocket launcher into it.
“AN13 smoke pellets” He said, placing it on the edge of the table, “And the Evangelic Hunter. Prototype Tesla railgun, just like you said. How you know about this monster is beyond me. Frankly I don’t give a damn. Nobody wanted it, because it doesn’t work.”
“Oh, it works. It just doesn’t have a power source.” Rhett countered.
Mike gave Rhett an annoyed look, but laughed it off a second later.
“Right you are. ‘Course, due to the lightshow you were giving off when you were out of it I assume you won’t have that problem.”
“If that’s everything, go back to sleep. You need it. The arm will be here waiting for you.”
Rhett assured them that is was, and took the hint to leave the brothers to their work.
He wasn’t worried about them finding out about his taboo breaking powers. Both of the Mick’s were complete renegades anyway. So long as he paid, they wouldn’t care.
When Rhett groggily awoke again, the brothers treated him to a very terrible and obviously instant breakfast. Luckily Rhett was used to buying this kind food himself whenever he was running low on pay on his long trips from home. Afterwards they began the painful operation of attaching the prosthetic arm to his shoulder. Like they had said, several obvious changes had been made to his shoulder when he was unconscious. Pieces of machinery showed up where flesh or bone should have been. Rhett soon let himself fall to the effects of the anaesthetic, leaving the ‘Mick’ brothers to work in peace. When he awoke for a third time, the operation was over. Michael was standing ready to walk him through the tutorial of using the arm. After two or three hours, Rhett was able to wiggle his fingers and move the arm slightly.
It took several months of physiotherapy for him to move it perfectly. But now he had full control. He was once again wearing his waiting outfit, minus the left shirt sleeve. He had also adopted a shortsword with a sheath which hung from his waist. He’d started staying at a medium rate hotel, the fancy ones were too obvious, and the low down ones were always where people who didn’t want to be found went. He’d taken to keeping toothpicks on himself, a strange quirk he picked up seemingly from nowhere. He’d heard news reports about his family. Every member assassinated, his corpse not found but his left arm being left behind didn’t give much hope of him being alive. He was saddened by the losses. Even as a demon, they shared a familial bond. Especially his sister. Most demons would have killed him for finding out about them breaking a taboo. But his sister helped him, and in return he helped her.
Rhett was going back to the Mick brother’s place to gather some more information. When he got there, however, he was startled to see a young girl in the middle of getting a replacement right arm.
A very familiar looking girl.
“Hey Rhett, don’t worry, she’s completely out right now. Came in with an assload of cash and wanted the ‘don’t-tell-anyone’ treatment. ‘Course, we saw that hand that came with the sword in your chest and we thought ahead. The arm’s got a bomb in it, up to you if you want to detonate it or not.”
Mike handed him a small remote with a single button in the centre. It had to be the same person that had killed his sister, yet the shadow was completely missing.
“You should have seen her when she was covered in that ‘shadow’ you were talking about. Seemed like the damn stuff had a mind of its own. She talks in her sleep, too. Sounds a lot different than the voice we heard when she came in though.”
Rhett assumed that she shadow was some sort of manipulator. There were rumours of such beings, though they were always baseless. Rhett decided to wait it out in the storeroom. An hour later, the he could hear that the girl had woken up.
“Ah, we thank you for you business.” It spoke, definitely not sounding like it should. It paused for several seconds before speaking again.
“Do you know why we came to this place?”
“For a replacement arm?”
“We smelled the blood of a dead man. Yes, but now we smell all that much more than when we came in.”
Rhett heard the sound of a sword being drawn and burst from the room. Mike was already sliced clean in two. Michael tried to move, but his head came clean off a split moment later. The shadow being stood between the bodies. Rhett pressed the button just as it lunged. Its left side detonated, losing even more of the arm than it had before. The shadow crashed into Rhett’s body, and he grabbed its head with his false arm and smashed it right into the wall.
“Why did you kill my family?!”
“Ha. Haha. Yes, this is why. I killed everyone at that castle, and more, because I want to die.”
“What?!”
“This world is coming to an end. It will simply cease to exist. Didn’t you know? There’s nothing that can be done to save it. But I, I do not want to simply cease to exist. I wanted to know death. But shadow beings cannot simply die, we posses, we fight, and then we may die.”
Rhett couldn’t believe his ears. End of the world, wanting to die, nothing the body of shadow said made sense. He twisted his left arm, changing it into the Railgun form. His hand slits down the middle to become the two end ’prongs’ that made up the barrel. Vents opened up to allow the heat to escape when he fired. He pressed the weapon into the shadows neck, savouring the crunching noises it made. With his free arm he charged enough ki to get the railgun working, before slamming it into the shoulder joint and letting the energy flow. The railgun lit up and began to whir. Sparks shot back and forth through the entire casing. It was a very uncomfortable feeling on his torso, but he didn’t care. He wanted his revenge, even if it meant killing the host of the shadow with it. He closed his eyes, focused his mind on the electrified arm, and fired.
He was no longer standing in that workshop when the blood splatter hit the floor, or when the girl’s corpse slipped to the floor.
“So, what’s the plan sis?”
“Get that bugger in between us, I blast a bolt straight through his chest, and you throw it right back into his spine.”
“…Can I even do that?”
“Maybe?”
Rhett laughed a little, even in this crazy situation. To their backs was a large mosaic window. From the front comes a sword wielding super-demon. Rhett had no other word for them. The black shadow that seemed to make up their body didn’t give off any energy that he had felt before. He doubted it even had a life. He and Ilea sidestepped in opposite directions, the suddenly burst into a sprint to get to opposite sides of the shadow being. The shadow picked a target: Rhett. He braced his legs as he saw Ilea launch the bolt of lightning. It pierced the shadow in the back, dark blotches spraying onto the floor from the wound. Rhett caught the blast in his right hand, and the energy forced its way into his body with an intense pain. The shadow turned, prioritising Ilea as a danger. Rhett took his chance with the shadow turned, and used the energy as a rebound. It wasn’t his own energy, so he simply rejected it. Even though he could not fire lightning, the bolt shot from his palm, striking the shadow once more, this time in the spine. The bolt didn’t leave, but circulated to its brain and fried everything in its path. The shadow unleashed a volley of smoke and a horrible burning smell. The room became hazy and the air thick. Rhett called out to his sister, but never got a reply. She was probably keeping quiet to remain hidden.
The noise of a sword being swung.
The sound of blade meeting flesh.
The horrible sensation that something horrible has happened.
The thud of a body hitting the floor.
Rhett tried to run to his sister, but he collapsed to the floor after a few steps. He didn’t even feel the blade connect. He’d been hit in the shoulder, but he couldn’t move his left arm. A second later, it fell to the floor next to him, oozing blood from where it once connected to his body. He swore, and fought to get to his feet. He back stepped, but the smoke was clearing. He shadow lunged, and its sword pierced Rhett in the chest. It lifted his feet clear off of the floor. But he didn’t allow himself to bleed violently. Using the ki channels in his chest, he redirected the floor of blood away from his missing arm and around the wound in his chest. He was still losing blood, but nothing close to what he would have normally. He stared the shadow in the face, but couldn’t help but feel it seemed familiar. His body was close to the shadow, and he could still move his main arm. He fed a large amount of ki into his arm, and grabbed hold of the shadows sword arm.
“Never give a Myrddin a chance to think!” He screamed into its face as he caused the arm to explode with the lightning blast. He, the sword and most of the shadow’s arm were sent flying, making his back crash through the family mosaic window. He hoped his ancestors thought it was a good trade, his life for their window. He fell for several seconds before crashing down on something wooden. It was dark, he was in agony, and he had a very small chance of surviving. He didn’t know if he’d broken any bones on his landing. Most of the pain in his shoulder and chest was keeping him occupied. As he stared up into the stars, he wondered if this was the end.
“Tell me, Master Rhett, how long do you plan on lying there?” said a familiar voice. It belonged to Miralda, the Myrddin family healer. She had long kept Rhett’s family in good health through her magic.
“The heck are you doing out here Miralda” he replied, ignoring her question.
“I was on my way to the city to get some supplies. Your father he been restless of late and needs some good exercise.”
“Perfect.” He noticed that he had landed on the back of her old wooden wagon. Miralda was old fashioned and didn’t like to travel any other way. “Get the horses on the right path and get started and closing my wounds, would you? I’d appreciate it. I can’t keep the blood flow moved for much longer.”
Miralda sighed in response, but cracked the reins anyway. As the horses began to move, she stood from her seat and attended to Rhett’s wounds even as he began to pass out. Just before the void took him, he managed to say “Mick’s place. Leave me there. Have to…hide.”
When he awoke, he found himself in a decrepit storeroom filled with hunks of metal and unknown devices that seemed to be ripped to pieces. His shoulder and chest were bandaged. Since they were clean he assumed the wounds were closed. He was lying on some sort of thin comfy mattress. To his right lay the sword the shadow had used, hand still grabbing onto the hilt. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but the hand looks like a woman’s. A regular hand not covered in shadow. Rhett got himself out of bed, wincing the whole time. He casually walked out of the messy storeroom and into a workshop. A messy haired man sitting bent over a workbench, while another similarly messy haired man sat lazily on the end. All four of his limbs were metallic in colour.
“Oh, the young master awakes” Joked the lazy looking man, faux bowing as Rhett walked in.
“Mike.”
The other man, who was called Michael, simply turned and nodded before getting back to his work. On the table lay another metallic arm.
“Took your measurements as you slept, did some work on the shoulder while we were at it.”
“We?” Michael commented.
Mike ignored him, and explained to Rhett in detail as to what surgery had been done. Rhett listened quietly. When he was finished, Rhett asked about what kinds of things he could get in his replacement arm.
“Well, seeing as this is rather short notice, not much I’m afraid. Hidden blades are all reserved, and we’re backed up with orders for guns, so no chance of getting one of those in it either.”
“What about prototypes?”
“We have a few. What are in the market for?”
Rhett thought about his encounter with the shadow. The smoke had distracted it, seeing as it didn’t pierce his heart. Rhett also knew more about the kind of items going in and out of these brother’s warehouse than he’d ever let on to them. They went back a few hundred years when Rhett helped them out with a few debt and hired muscle problems. Even as a bodyguard his employment didn’t last very long. But he heard rumours in his various jobs about prototypes.
“Something that can give me a smoke screen in a split second.”
Mike headed off into a backroom that was full of large metal lockboxes. He returned a short while later with a case containing several large bullet-tip shaped objects.
“Hot off the black market. Human’s call them “Smoke grenades”, and they just need to be launched out of something and connect with a surface. Instant smoke cloud.”
“That would take up a large part of the arm. I need something smaller. I already know exactly what is going to take up almost all the arm.”
Mike scratched at his head, seeming to be deep in thought.
“So, something really small then. I think we may have just the thing.”
He simply discarded the case into a corner of the room and went searching in the back room. Rhett turned his attention to the other brother who was hard at work on the prosthetic arm.
“So, what model am I getting?”
“Zemthus. TBN. Mk.IV”
Rhett was genuinely surprised. That was a hardcore military prototype. The only way to stop that kind of arm was to cut around it and sever it from the person using it, if you weren’t able to kill the owner anyway. It also allowed for a large amount of customization.
“Just to let you know, I want that Tesla railgun you keep in the back. I need it. I’ll double the pay for the whole package as well.”
His words caused Michael’s work to slow down some, obviously he wasn’t supposed to know that. When Mike returned, he had two crates instead of one. The first was smaller than a briefcase, while the other could easily fit a rocket launcher into it.
“AN13 smoke pellets” He said, placing it on the edge of the table, “And the Evangelic Hunter. Prototype Tesla railgun, just like you said. How you know about this monster is beyond me. Frankly I don’t give a damn. Nobody wanted it, because it doesn’t work.”
“Oh, it works. It just doesn’t have a power source.” Rhett countered.
Mike gave Rhett an annoyed look, but laughed it off a second later.
“Right you are. ‘Course, due to the lightshow you were giving off when you were out of it I assume you won’t have that problem.”
“If that’s everything, go back to sleep. You need it. The arm will be here waiting for you.”
Rhett assured them that is was, and took the hint to leave the brothers to their work.
He wasn’t worried about them finding out about his taboo breaking powers. Both of the Mick’s were complete renegades anyway. So long as he paid, they wouldn’t care.
When Rhett groggily awoke again, the brothers treated him to a very terrible and obviously instant breakfast. Luckily Rhett was used to buying this kind food himself whenever he was running low on pay on his long trips from home. Afterwards they began the painful operation of attaching the prosthetic arm to his shoulder. Like they had said, several obvious changes had been made to his shoulder when he was unconscious. Pieces of machinery showed up where flesh or bone should have been. Rhett soon let himself fall to the effects of the anaesthetic, leaving the ‘Mick’ brothers to work in peace. When he awoke for a third time, the operation was over. Michael was standing ready to walk him through the tutorial of using the arm. After two or three hours, Rhett was able to wiggle his fingers and move the arm slightly.
It took several months of physiotherapy for him to move it perfectly. But now he had full control. He was once again wearing his waiting outfit, minus the left shirt sleeve. He had also adopted a shortsword with a sheath which hung from his waist. He’d started staying at a medium rate hotel, the fancy ones were too obvious, and the low down ones were always where people who didn’t want to be found went. He’d taken to keeping toothpicks on himself, a strange quirk he picked up seemingly from nowhere. He’d heard news reports about his family. Every member assassinated, his corpse not found but his left arm being left behind didn’t give much hope of him being alive. He was saddened by the losses. Even as a demon, they shared a familial bond. Especially his sister. Most demons would have killed him for finding out about them breaking a taboo. But his sister helped him, and in return he helped her.
Rhett was going back to the Mick brother’s place to gather some more information. When he got there, however, he was startled to see a young girl in the middle of getting a replacement right arm.
A very familiar looking girl.
“Hey Rhett, don’t worry, she’s completely out right now. Came in with an assload of cash and wanted the ‘don’t-tell-anyone’ treatment. ‘Course, we saw that hand that came with the sword in your chest and we thought ahead. The arm’s got a bomb in it, up to you if you want to detonate it or not.”
Mike handed him a small remote with a single button in the centre. It had to be the same person that had killed his sister, yet the shadow was completely missing.
“You should have seen her when she was covered in that ‘shadow’ you were talking about. Seemed like the damn stuff had a mind of its own. She talks in her sleep, too. Sounds a lot different than the voice we heard when she came in though.”
Rhett assumed that she shadow was some sort of manipulator. There were rumours of such beings, though they were always baseless. Rhett decided to wait it out in the storeroom. An hour later, the he could hear that the girl had woken up.
“Ah, we thank you for you business.” It spoke, definitely not sounding like it should. It paused for several seconds before speaking again.
“Do you know why we came to this place?”
“For a replacement arm?”
“We smelled the blood of a dead man. Yes, but now we smell all that much more than when we came in.”
Rhett heard the sound of a sword being drawn and burst from the room. Mike was already sliced clean in two. Michael tried to move, but his head came clean off a split moment later. The shadow being stood between the bodies. Rhett pressed the button just as it lunged. Its left side detonated, losing even more of the arm than it had before. The shadow crashed into Rhett’s body, and he grabbed its head with his false arm and smashed it right into the wall.
“Why did you kill my family?!”
“Ha. Haha. Yes, this is why. I killed everyone at that castle, and more, because I want to die.”
“What?!”
“This world is coming to an end. It will simply cease to exist. Didn’t you know? There’s nothing that can be done to save it. But I, I do not want to simply cease to exist. I wanted to know death. But shadow beings cannot simply die, we posses, we fight, and then we may die.”
Rhett couldn’t believe his ears. End of the world, wanting to die, nothing the body of shadow said made sense. He twisted his left arm, changing it into the Railgun form. His hand slits down the middle to become the two end ’prongs’ that made up the barrel. Vents opened up to allow the heat to escape when he fired. He pressed the weapon into the shadows neck, savouring the crunching noises it made. With his free arm he charged enough ki to get the railgun working, before slamming it into the shoulder joint and letting the energy flow. The railgun lit up and began to whir. Sparks shot back and forth through the entire casing. It was a very uncomfortable feeling on his torso, but he didn’t care. He wanted his revenge, even if it meant killing the host of the shadow with it. He closed his eyes, focused his mind on the electrified arm, and fired.
He was no longer standing in that workshop when the blood splatter hit the floor, or when the girl’s corpse slipped to the floor.