Re: Grand Battle S3G1! (Round One: Vio Maleficat)
01-23-2011, 08:17 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.
Velobo glared suspiciously at the pangolin, who had trotted round in a neat circle and lain down, tail over his nose like an armoured cat. “What?”
“You are a creature of Chaos, are you not, spikebeast?” hazarded the Plazmuth. Benjamin nodded. “Then why do you not attack me like the tiger-worm and the walruses and all the other Chaotic beasts?”
The pangolin rubbed its chin, albeit with that mitt-like hand on the end of its tail. His forelimbs probably wouldnt’ve reached, anyway. He eventually settled for a shrug. “Do you want to fight?”
Velobo traced a gelatinous finger over a ‘2’ in his metal band, considering. He’d thought, and schemed, and fought when commanded to die; and now another foe, one that made that ringmaster seem even more pathetic, had commanded him to kill others. For the entertainment of ‘higher’ beings.
To the Plazmuth, defiance seemed like the only reasonable option. “No. Granted,” he hastily added, “I’ll not throw away my life on such a matter! Were I threatened, rest assured I would give no quarter!”
Benjamin smiled a little at the earnest cuboid, and must’ve made some kind of snickering noise as Velobo hotly asked what he was laughing at.
“Nothing. It’s simply that your sentiment is-”
Benjamin froze as he felt something roiling up the caverns toward him. It was devouring some quality in the air with a hunger comparable to fire. He leapt to his feet, knew without taking a step that he couldn’t outrun the Unity blast, so just lowered his head and braced for impact.
To Velobo (and, I suppose, Tengeri’s sensors) the scene would’ve looked downright strange. The pangolin stood suddenly to aggress something the Plazmuth couldn’t see; spasmed with pain as his form rippled and blurred like a cheap hologram in the amplified, angry glare of the mushrooms; then collapsed into dust.
Jetsam was formed of Chaos, and to Chaos his form returned. Unity, especially Murdoch’s brash, overbearing assertor brand of the stuff, didn’t discriminate to an entity with a soul from another universe. It just didn’t have the subtlety.
Great, thought Benjamin. That was too messy a start. I’ll just rough it as a scavenger, away from civilisation. Fuck escaping, I just need a break… huh?
Something was wrong. Different multiverses are like different textiles, with a different drape and texture and vintage to a being like Jetsam. They feel different. It’s clear when you’ve slipped out of one into the other. This time, he hadn’t.
The pangolin vanished, and less than a minute later a hairless, freakishly tall humanoid with limbs like ribbons pulled itself together from the Unity-exuding mushrooms and the useful organic molecules left over from his previous incarnation. He wore a short tunic of woven hyphae and sported a flattened cone of a hat he couldn't seem to remove, with gills underneath. Every part of him luminesced pale blue, fading a little as the Varalica’s curse dissipated from the surrounding air.
Jetsam didn’t have eyes anymore (though the cap would’ve gotten in their way anyway), but was afforded an omnidirectional shifting lightscape of Unity, Chaos, and digestible substrate. He turned to the delectably avocado-coloured Plazmuth (who had smartly backed away when the dustcloud had started nibbling at him) with confusion, before realising Velobo would have about as much idea as he did.
First that black intermediary, now this. It agitated the pango-sorry, agarican no end, but he wasn’t excited at the prospect of the perfect, horrific cage of a life he was trapped in finally collapsing. On the contrary, Jetsam was scared. Having always thought of his trials as a system he had yet to break, the prospect of some external force having brought it crashing down while he suffered and waited for such rescue felt… wrong.
Maybe it was the realisation he was potentially stuck here. On Vio. It wasn’t the worst place, but it wasn’t home.
More avocado (this time tending to bottle green) hovered his way, encased in a shimmering shell of mouthwatering neon lime. The glassy colour muddied the liquid shell from a slash in Tengeri’s side; she’d evidently escaped a recent brawl of some kind. The sounds of a distant fight, Chaos encroaching, flashes of light in the perpetually disturbed caverns – it all sounded dull and as far away and cruelly irrelevant as home, when the Leviath reformed the lime into a name.
No. No no no “no no no no!” Jetsam discovered at this point he had a mouth, that didn’t lead anywhere and was more of a jagged slash across his face from which that one snarling, hoarse, rasp of a word was repeated. Tengeri began to spell something else out, but was interrupted with a flailing mycelium limb which guzzled the words and gouged thieving across her shell of water. The Leviath growled an unintelligible warning; Velobo dithered behind a half-disintegrated mushroom, still alarmed at what had overcome the pangolin.
Down one tunnel were the brawlers Tengeri had fled from, down others were more Unity fungi. One was pitch-black, and reeked of Chaos. Benjamin paled as he backed out of the fairy ring until his glow was barely noticeable, before he fled into the darkened cavern.
Velobo glared suspiciously at the pangolin, who had trotted round in a neat circle and lain down, tail over his nose like an armoured cat. “What?”
“You are a creature of Chaos, are you not, spikebeast?” hazarded the Plazmuth. Benjamin nodded. “Then why do you not attack me like the tiger-worm and the walruses and all the other Chaotic beasts?”
The pangolin rubbed its chin, albeit with that mitt-like hand on the end of its tail. His forelimbs probably wouldnt’ve reached, anyway. He eventually settled for a shrug. “Do you want to fight?”
Velobo traced a gelatinous finger over a ‘2’ in his metal band, considering. He’d thought, and schemed, and fought when commanded to die; and now another foe, one that made that ringmaster seem even more pathetic, had commanded him to kill others. For the entertainment of ‘higher’ beings.
To the Plazmuth, defiance seemed like the only reasonable option. “No. Granted,” he hastily added, “I’ll not throw away my life on such a matter! Were I threatened, rest assured I would give no quarter!”
Benjamin smiled a little at the earnest cuboid, and must’ve made some kind of snickering noise as Velobo hotly asked what he was laughing at.
“Nothing. It’s simply that your sentiment is-”
Benjamin froze as he felt something roiling up the caverns toward him. It was devouring some quality in the air with a hunger comparable to fire. He leapt to his feet, knew without taking a step that he couldn’t outrun the Unity blast, so just lowered his head and braced for impact.
To Velobo (and, I suppose, Tengeri’s sensors) the scene would’ve looked downright strange. The pangolin stood suddenly to aggress something the Plazmuth couldn’t see; spasmed with pain as his form rippled and blurred like a cheap hologram in the amplified, angry glare of the mushrooms; then collapsed into dust.
Jetsam was formed of Chaos, and to Chaos his form returned. Unity, especially Murdoch’s brash, overbearing assertor brand of the stuff, didn’t discriminate to an entity with a soul from another universe. It just didn’t have the subtlety.
Great, thought Benjamin. That was too messy a start. I’ll just rough it as a scavenger, away from civilisation. Fuck escaping, I just need a break… huh?
Something was wrong. Different multiverses are like different textiles, with a different drape and texture and vintage to a being like Jetsam. They feel different. It’s clear when you’ve slipped out of one into the other. This time, he hadn’t.
The pangolin vanished, and less than a minute later a hairless, freakishly tall humanoid with limbs like ribbons pulled itself together from the Unity-exuding mushrooms and the useful organic molecules left over from his previous incarnation. He wore a short tunic of woven hyphae and sported a flattened cone of a hat he couldn't seem to remove, with gills underneath. Every part of him luminesced pale blue, fading a little as the Varalica’s curse dissipated from the surrounding air.
Jetsam didn’t have eyes anymore (though the cap would’ve gotten in their way anyway), but was afforded an omnidirectional shifting lightscape of Unity, Chaos, and digestible substrate. He turned to the delectably avocado-coloured Plazmuth (who had smartly backed away when the dustcloud had started nibbling at him) with confusion, before realising Velobo would have about as much idea as he did.
First that black intermediary, now this. It agitated the pango-sorry, agarican no end, but he wasn’t excited at the prospect of the perfect, horrific cage of a life he was trapped in finally collapsing. On the contrary, Jetsam was scared. Having always thought of his trials as a system he had yet to break, the prospect of some external force having brought it crashing down while he suffered and waited for such rescue felt… wrong.
Maybe it was the realisation he was potentially stuck here. On Vio. It wasn’t the worst place, but it wasn’t home.
More avocado (this time tending to bottle green) hovered his way, encased in a shimmering shell of mouthwatering neon lime. The glassy colour muddied the liquid shell from a slash in Tengeri’s side; she’d evidently escaped a recent brawl of some kind. The sounds of a distant fight, Chaos encroaching, flashes of light in the perpetually disturbed caverns – it all sounded dull and as far away and cruelly irrelevant as home, when the Leviath reformed the lime into a name.
No. No no no “no no no no!” Jetsam discovered at this point he had a mouth, that didn’t lead anywhere and was more of a jagged slash across his face from which that one snarling, hoarse, rasp of a word was repeated. Tengeri began to spell something else out, but was interrupted with a flailing mycelium limb which guzzled the words and gouged thieving across her shell of water. The Leviath growled an unintelligible warning; Velobo dithered behind a half-disintegrated mushroom, still alarmed at what had overcome the pangolin.
Down one tunnel were the brawlers Tengeri had fled from, down others were more Unity fungi. One was pitch-black, and reeked of Chaos. Benjamin paled as he backed out of the fairy ring until his glow was barely noticeable, before he fled into the darkened cavern.
peace to the unsung peace to the martyrs | i'm johnny rotten appleseed
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow
clouds is shaky love | broke as hell but i got a bunch of ringtones
eyes blood red bruise aubergine | Sue took something now Sue doesn't sleep | saint average, day in the life of
woke up in the noon smelling doom and death | out the house, great outdoors
staying warm in arctic blizzard | that's my battle 'til I get inanimate | still up in the same clothes living like a gameshow