The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round... Uh, Seven? The Oasis]

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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In the center of a glimmering mansion, deep within a vast desert (though sandwiched right next to an oasis), just below sea level on a planet as close as possible to the exact center of an alternate universe, its owner let out a sigh. Surrounded as far as the eye could see by piles of gold, heaps of food, and attractive women, he could see no valid reason for how bored he had become with existence. He had lived for millennia, doing everything he could think of to pass the time; at first it was simple enough, reading some literature and occasionally getting a bit of painting in and doing battle with sorcerers of various intents to determine who would be sealing whom in which container, but as the years wore on he had slowly exhausted potential diversion after potential diversion until any further wracking of his brain proved fruitless. And thus did he retreat to the center of his mansion, surrounded by decadence he could not enjoy, staring at a wall even as a hand traveled across his cheek, sulking.

A knock came from the door and a bearded man in a gray suit and a lime-green baseball cap poked his head into the room. "Sir? Your new scrying panel has arrived." The djinni lazily waved off the girls and stared disinterestedly at the massive box the man had brought in.

"Sir, evidently there's over a million new universes to--"

The master of the house merely raised his hand to silence his assistant, pointing to the wall where the previous panel still resided before frying it with a blast of electricity. A smile played across his face for such a brief period it could only have been seen under a strobe light; the assistant quickly put himself to work attaching the new panel and making sure it was in proper working order. The djinni placed his hands against the panel and slowly scanned through every universe he could find, only to be disappointed at every turn. "Nothing new... it's nothing I haven't seen before, Jerry. All the same old--"

He suddenly went silent, and Gerald Crumb raised an eyebrow. The screen displayed eight organisms of varied form, all in a row. A single noise resounded in both of the viewers' minds:

"Welcome, to the Grand Battle."

A few hours later, a massive grin was playing across the djinni's face. Gerald smiled slyly as well.

"So then. I suppose this means, sir, that you have an idea of how to entertain yourself now?"

The djinni nodded back. "That would be correct, Jerry. I do believe that nothing will get me out of this funk better than a GLORIOUS CHAMPIONSHIP!"

"Oh dear, I hope that title drop wasn't too heavy-handed."
"It was fine, sir."

RULES

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SpoilerThe man in the lime-green hat walked into a room filled with several lesser genies, all anticipating the announcement he has to make. He scanned the crowd, flipped through a notebook, sighed, and adjusted a nearby microphone.
“Alright, the lot of you. Name’s Gerald Crumb. You know me as your boss’s right-hand man. Let me explain what we’re doing here, most of which has been thoroughly documented here, but some of which might be news. Each of you’s going to scour some universe or another for a contestant in the boss’s battle to the death. They probably shouldn’t know about its existence yet, unless they’re some kinda crazy time-hoppy guy or something. Only eight of ‘em are making it in, though, so make sure they’ll interest the big guy, alright?

Funny thing about contestants is that they act simultaneously, so feel free to let your little games of fate infringe on the guys you didn’t enter. (NON-METAFICTIONAL EXPLANATION: You can control contestants besides your own if it helps your post and the plot and stuff! Just try not to act out-of-character, and when in doubt, ask the person whose character it is!)

Now, the way a battle to the death works is pretty simple. Up to seven rounds, each ending when a contestant dies. Now, normally when you’re dealing with these things, it’s just whoever’s strongest that wins, but for the record, I think it’d be best for everyone involved if we give the boss what he wants, by which I mean one way or another, the least interesting guy’s gonna wind up dead at the end of the round. (NME: Worst writer, or least active writer, dies at the end of the round. I have final decision who’s “worst”, but will be glad to hear readers’ opinions.) Once somebody’s dead, round’s over, next round starts somewhere else.

Couple of specifics regarding making the whole thing interesting. Make sure you don’t pick somebody who’s ridiculously powerful compared to the other contestants, particularly if they don’t show it at first; the boss wants a fairly linear progression of events, so don’t screw with reality in a way that contradicts what’s already happened; and whatever, you do, don’t let anyone get killed before the boss gets bored, or else both you and your contestant are in for some repercussions. Just try to make their deaths interesting, alright? (NME: No godmodding, avoid plotholes, no kills before the end of round; in addition, ask before you permanently injure/change someone’s character, and try to obey English spelling/grammar rules, be they British or American. Whoever dies gets one week to write their death post before I pass the torch to somebody else.)

Now, you may have noticed a common thread here. The boss wants to be entertained, so... make sure your entrants do entertaining things. You can talk to each other if it helps, and you should always care more about how interesting the game is overall than how well you and your contestant do personally. (NME: Co-operate to make an interesting story. It can be helpful to scheme on the #grandbattle IRC channel on EsperNet, or via PM.)

One last thing before you start scouring the multiverse: interaction is key. Some chump who just sits off by himself doing nothing in order to avoid getting hurt? Yeah, he’s not getting far. Make sure your contestant interacts with others, be it forming alliances, carefully manipulating them, or just being a boisterous idiot who repeatedly tries and fails to hurt them. It’s also nice to try and keep all the contestants “moving in one direction”, all focused on one common goal that they want achieved or not achieved, but it’s hardly mandatory.

Right, then. Any questions, speak now or forever hold your peace. You want to enter someone, you’re going to need to fill out the following form for them. Remember, winner gets a prize.”

Crumb proceeded to grab a hefty stack of entry forms and scatter them to the crowd. They scrambled for them, grabbing them from left and right. Each individual form reads:
[Username: It’s right to the left of the post you’re about to make. Why do we put it in the profile? IT IS AN IMPENETRABLE MYSTERY.]
Name: Name of contestant.
Gender: Male/Female/Not Applicable/“Other” (please specify)
Species: Species of Contestant
Associated Color: Choose a color to be associated with your contestant. No duplicate entries, please. (NME: Make posts in this color. This one is mine, so it’s off-limits.)
Weapons/Abilities: List contestants’ distinguishing skills and/or equipment here.
Description: Distinguishing characteristics, both physical (e.g. height, build, eye color, hair color/hairstyle, scars, missing limbs, extra limbs, clothing, etc.) and mental (mainly personality).
Biography: Contestant’s life prior to being considered for battle. Should probably be interesting, and don’t skimp on important details.

1. veerserif -- Gabe Farrell -- Terminated Due To Anger Management Issues And Creating An Unhealthy Workplace Environment
2. Not The Author -- "Lucky" VII -- Steel Blue
3. engineclock and Anomaly -- Cailean Lachlan/Maowyn and Gaurinn -- Zombified, Disproven, Disembodied
4. Adenreagen -- Elimine Fraze -- Heroically Sacrificed
5. Jakester390 -- Quantos Xodarap -- Heroically Sacrificed
6. Pick Yer Poison -- AMP -- Created A Dystopia, Then Revolted Against Itself
7. Lord Paradise -- The Convolution -- Yellow on Purple
8. TimeothyHour -- Etiyr -- White on black

The crowd scattered and headed out through various dimensional portals, seeking the entity that would grant them the grand prize...

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SpoilerApply below. Signups end Saturday.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Not signing up for this one, but as always, I will be watching.

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

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Username: TimeothyHour

Name: Etiyr ( Pronounced Et-er)

Gender: None

Race: Typewriter

Colour: White on black

Weapons/Abilities: Etiyr, first of all, possesses sentience and can type things for itself without the help of another human being, and, in fact, does not jam like most typewriters. Additionally, it has a seemingly unlimited supply of paper (Etiyr cannot, however, move on its own). Etiyr can also see and hear its surroundings without any particularly obvious means or way of doing so. Its most notable power is, however, that when a sentient being moves within about 10 feet of Etiyr, they feel as though they want to do whatever Etiyr asks. This compulsion can be resisted, and quite easily so at first, but it begins to get stronger and stronger the longer and closer someone is to Etiyr, although if they move out of its influence., this compulsion quickly subsides.

Description: A pretty normal 1920’s typewriter. There isn’t really anything special about its appearance. Here, have a useful generic picture:


Etiyr, does, however, have a personality, and is quite the writer, possessing a good degree of eloquence and charm when it wants to. However, Etiyr is not “nice” or “good.” Being formerly from Hell, it does not have other’s best interests at thought, and is completely focused on its own survival and rise in power, and will stop at nothing to secure that goal, including the heartless manipulation of others and their abilities. Also, admittedly, Etiyr is also a bit of a sadist, inflicting pain when none would have been necessary.

Biography:

“Hello,” the typewriter said to me,
“My name is Etiyr, please look and see!”
Quite surprised and a little dazed,
I tried to act as if unfazed,
“Why hello Etiyr,” I said with a strange air of ease,
“Tell me your story, if you would, please.”
“I’m Etiyr, from what you would call the underworld,
“Where all of reality is unfurled.
“Call it Hades, or maybe Hell,
“And out of there, and into this world, I fell.
“Before I was a typewriter named Etiyr,
“I was a torturer for that nether.
“I watched the damned burn and scream in pain,
“Wishing for the nonexistent rain,
“I enjoyed it so, I loved their tears,
“I loved the cries of their deepest fears.
“But the end of ages came to be,
“And I was cast from my body
“Sent back in time, imbued to a humble typewriter,
“This humble object truly was once a great fighter!”
The typewriter’s plight gave brought me to despair,
And the typewriter said words that were fair,
“This story is a sad one indeed,
End your life, do the deed.”
And so I guess what I’m trying to say,
Is that I died today.
So I guess you found my suicide note,
I hoped you enjoyed this last poem I wrote.

-Mark Jones, children’s poet. Died by suicide. Committed in an alleyway. Only nearby object was a typewriter. Disappeared while being moved to evidence.

Originally posted on MSPA by Solaris.

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I am still a bit iffy on this character, and I may edit it after I get someone to proofread if that is fine :T

Username: Solaris
Name: Grace Knoll
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Color: Let us go with nice, historical Black on Beige

Equipment/Abilities: Historian Thief partnered with an amateur sorcerer, a holy man, and an artifact specialist.
He has knowledge of the history of his world, from the birth of civilization to the more present times. This includes Holy Scriptures, constitutions, shipping records, strategies used by powerful leaders, secret passages, a bit of magic, all of the usual historical fare. In addition to this, there is a selection of items on hand “on loan” from a few “friends.” This includes two aptly named Chaos Dice, bringers of destruction to those who are on the other side of the roll, a ring of insight, able to bestow the user with knowledge of the powers of another, three uses of smoke pellets, used for obvious reasons, and finally a pistol that shoots cursed bullets, capable of inflicting a delayed death and nothing else. In addition to all these, is a otherwise normal human arm bone, stolen from the corpse of AIFAM THE INFAMOUS. He likes to bludgeon things with it. Beyond that, Grace has a rudimentary knowledge of runes and dead languages, and can recognize simple magic and artifacts, thanks to coaching from his peers. Finally, he was apparently blessed by a former member of the clergy, for all the good that will do him.

Description: Just a normal human in a trench coat, prepared to do whatever it takes to maintain the integrity of history intact. He has a nice clean cut of brown hair, fair skin, lanky, not too tall or short. He is quick and quiet as he has to be, careful with his hands and is always sure to clean up after what he does. His face usually holds a smile, both because of his truthful love for his profession and desire for better things, and to prevent others from prying into his darker secrets. A good liar, very good at making himself seem helpless when he needs to. He has a sense of justice, and would defend the innocent, but he knows when it is too late to do anything.

Biography:Back when he was a simple student, Grace was approached by his Professor. An old man who had lived through some of the history he taught, he told Grace that he had found a tomb that could be the discovery of their time. He asked Grace to go on a private expedition, just the two of them. This was the chance of a lifetime, an invitation that could not be refused. After getting the proper equipment, the two set off to the site. The professor slowly led the way as Grace followed intently, observing his professor's every move, with hopes of learning everything he could, both about the tomb, and how to be just like his professor. What he did not know was that his professor visited the tomb for more dark reasons.

As the pair descended deeper into the crypt, Grace found himself pinned to the wall by his professor.
"Listen Grace, I know you must be surprised. I am sorry that I had to do this, but everyone needs to learn. And I think that you are the only one of my students who can."
The professor shifted his foot a bit while Grace stayed there, paralyzed in fear.
"As you know many of these tombs are cursed, built by the finest architects of the time, they of course had magical help. Years ago I discovered this secret passage, but in order to open it, I needed a sacrifice. A human one."
The professor moved the terrified Grace on closer to the new passage, as he dragged him through, he exclaimed stories and stories of all of the horrors he had witnessed as a historian.By the time that the pair reached the bottom of the passage, Grace knew of all of the corruption in the historical world.
The two were in a new room, where only a single door with a rune that Knoll did not recognize stood. The professor ceased dragging his student and walked to the front of the door. From his corner, Grace desperately yelled.
"But why me? Why me if you thought I wasn't like that. That I wouldn't be like that? Why are you sacrificing me?"
The professor looked shocked at the accusation. He stared at the floor and dragged his feet to the front of a lavish golden door. He looked at his student and said, "You are a smart young lad, the past and future are in your hands. Hopefully, the secrets of this tomb will be more than enough to give you some standing, a jumpstart on the historical world."
He stares at the door and cuts himself. The door glows brightly as the professor's blood is sucked from his body.
The door opens, revealing miscellaneous scrolls and texts. Grace slowly crawls to the professors body, only to find his clothes and a satchel as all that remains. Grace quickly takes the contents of the tomb in to his professor's satchel.

Years pass.
Grace has seen first hand the horrors described by his old professor. Lying and cheating as little as he could got him no where except in a position to be stepped on. He sought to seek the truth, but only found scum and villains, malevolents who only wished to abuse the gifts of the past. The forgery, lies, and pure sickness of his surroundings led Grace to hate the world around him. Learning all kinds of nasty tricks, he became a thief, saving the abused relics and retrieving them from the many evil and greedy monsters who held them. As he continued in his trade, he learned all of the many ways to lie, and how to put on a facade of naive helpfulness under a rightful saboteur's scowl. Then, one day, he met up with Daft Paul, a former priest who had found two other similar individuals who wished to purify the world around them. All it would take is a few human sacrifices spread over a few nights, then and only then could they gain the power to rise against the corruption. But just as the fruits of 7 nights of labor would bloom, he was whisked away, never to see the glorious change he wished for.

Originally posted on MSPA by veerserif.

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Hope this is fine... first time and all [img]images/smilies/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Username: veerserif
Name: Gabriel "Gabe" Farrell
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Associated Colour: #F28100

Description: Gabe is about 165cm tall (5' 5"), late twenties/early thirties with close-cropped brown hair and a muscular build. He stays in shape through freerunning. He works as a carpenter, so he's fairly skilled with his hands. Meticulous and careful, Gabe is slow to trust people but intensely loyal to those he considers his friends. He tries to keep his abilities silent so he works alone and is a bit of a recluse. He's slow to trust people but intensely loyal to those he considers his friends. Gabe wears a jacket with the pockets stuffed full of energy bars, energy gels and the like, a pair of army surplus cargo pants and a belt holding non-power tools (chisels, a hammer and so on). The outfit is completed with a pair of comfy boots that he's pretty agile in.

Weapons/Abilities: He has the ability to turn his right hand into any power tool, and back again. The tool functions exactly like a standard power tool, only it looks like it's made of organic material (flesh, shell, bone etc.) Consequently Gabe tends to eat... strange things. Things like iron filings and chalk. Generally he needs more food than the average human male because the tool consumes energy; the more he uses it the more tired he gets. Therefore, he always keeps some sort of energy drink or quick snack on hand just in case. The technology in his hand also grants increased healing, though it's not particularly drastic. All but the deepest cuts stop bleeding in a few minutes, and bruises fade away in an hour at the most, but more serious injuries like cracked bones or deep wounds still take time to heal. Again, this drains energy from him.

Aside from this, he carries around a tool belt with a few non-power tools, as well as a pair of mufflers and an uncountable number of energy bars which he's always munching on.

Biography:

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SpoilerA few years ago, Gabe took a job working as a late-night janitor at a science facility run by Blackoak Laboratories, to make ends meet during his apprenticeship. Blackoak worked to investigate the applications of nanotechnology. During his rounds, Gabe came across an open door.
Strange, he thought. The staff usually kept everything locked.

Nudging the door aside, he walked into the room. Though it was cluttered, one specimen stood out: a jar labelled SAMPLE 11-03-59-PGE containing a white paste. The jar was cracked. Walking closer, he reached out to touch the jar, accidentally cutting himself in the process. Thething inside flowed up and out, into the gash. Shocked, Gabe inspected the wound; though it had stopped bleeding, it didn't look particularly strange. He quit the job the next day.

A few days later, while finishing a project at home, he caught himself hoping for a sander to speed up the work... and heard a whirring sound.

"Jesus!"

The fingers of his right hand had curled into a fist. Attached to the base was a wide shell-like protrusion, the underside of which was spinning round. It looked exactly like a disc sander, and it worked exactly like a disc sander. Over the course of months, Gabe learned to control his newfound ability, shaping his hand into different tools at will. He finished his apprenticeship and started his own small business, mostly repair work. However, due to his reclusion, no one noticed it when one day, Gabe Farrell vanished into thin air.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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A genie looks over the form for a few seconds, sighs, and tears the paper to shreds. He reaches into the aether and pulls out several scraps of paper, then wads them up and tosses them at Crumb.

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Subject ID: Scolopendra gaurinn Specimen #001. Referred to simply as "Gaurinn" by Dr. Johansen.

Note: Specimen was "prototype" of the Scolopendra gaurinn line. See datadoc 289-7 for species information.

Gender: M

Personality Profile: #001 was overtly ill-tempered and hostile most of the time, frequently having violent outbursts that require containment. Despite instability, subject was passive at times, usually after exerting itself or in the company of a select few, including Dr. Johansen, the Gaurinn Project head. Avoid angering subject if at all possible; severe electrical discharge may result. If possible, send Dr. Johansen when interacting with #001, as it is less likely to react violently. In the event of

(The second half of the first page and most of the second page are absent; paper continues near the end of the second page.)

time. Subject was created on September 25, 2154, and was the first member of the Scolopendra gaurinn line, as stated above. For more information on the line, please see Datadoc 289-B. For general Scolopendra information, see Datadoc 289.

Subject was initially handled and raised by Dr. Elysia Johansen, the only personnel it fully trusted. Showed remarkable ability with channeling extremely high levels of electricity, up to and even exceeding 900 megawatts of output. Subject could potentially go higher, but due to the likelihood of death this capability was solely reserved for its mission. Subject was measured to have exceeded 1200 megawatts during its mission, the highest recorded from any Scolopendra gaurinn subject.

(A portion of the third page is also missing.)

On April 12, 2156, subject had fully matured and was equipped for its mission. Subject was outfitted with a communicator and a tracking device, both implanted beneath carapace. Subject proceeded to [smudge] and successfully infiltrated the base. Subject was able to avoid guards and sustained no injury before reaching the base's energy core. Subject was observed to emit a massive electrical charge, which successfully neutralized all base defenses and left it open to Attack Squadron Foxtrot. Subject's lifesigns persisted, although faint, for several minutes after the discharge, and even strengthened slightly. However, at T-plus 5 minutes and 34 seconds, all lifesigns ceased. Subject was later found dead, at which point its body was disposed of.

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(The next document consists solely of a single paragraph on a mostly-blank sheet of paper, albeit stamped with a large [CONFIDENTIAL].)

After-Action Report, Operation Gaurinn

Although subject's lifesigns terminated after several minutes, the body of Scolopendra gaurinn subject #001 was never found. Unknown where the body could have gone; even after thorough scouring of the base not a single trace could be found. [smudge] no disintegration technology, and even that would have left signs visible to sensitive instruments. Unexplained disappearance is still under investigation, but only a single lead has been found, linked with the complete disappearance of [large smudge].

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Datadoc 289

Scolopendra Line

Overview:
The Scolopendra line is a series of genetically modified species from the planet GY-338. This species as a whole strongly resembles the centipedes of Earth prior to its devastation in the war of the late 21st century. However, they are much, much larger than the centipedes of Earth, a few reaching up to 9 or 10 feet in length at full maturity. Each member of the species possess 20 legs, the front four of which terminate in rudimentary hand-like structures, with three clawed fingers but no thumbs. The most prominent ability of these centipedes, though, is their ability to naturally generate and discharge electricity. This ability differs between several of the seven classes, though most have the "normal" output of electricity for the species. Each of the seven classes is identified most prominently by its number and color of eyes. The seven classes are as follows:

(The rest of the page is missing. List of classes continues on the next page, the beginning of which is also missing.)

Scolopendra gaurinn - See Datadoc 289-7 for details. Subjects all possess seven bright green eyes, arranged with two clusters of three on each side of the head and one eye directly between the two clusters. The gaurinn are engineered to be able to store up and release massive amounts of electricity, up to fifty times that of the standard Scolopendra. Conversely, their bodies are fairly frail, unable to take much beating without serious injury or even death. Their powerful discharges of electricity are extremely draining on them, necessitating rest between charges and also leaving them highly vulnerable. Strong enough discharges can kill them outright, and they often do on missions.

Project background: In the year 2112, a group of Empire scientists landed on planet GY-338. The Scolopendra species was almost immediately discovered, although dwelling underground. When potential prey passed over, the Scolopendra would rapidly surface and stun the prey with their electricity, allowing for an easy meal. Unfortunately, two researchers were lost in this same way. The scientists contacted the military, and, seeing the potential military applications, the Scolopendra Project was instated. Selective breeding and genetic modification allowed the scientists to rapidly increase the ability of the Scolopendra to manipulate electricity, culminating in an increase of electrical patterns in the brain itself and a rapid gain of intelligence from generation to generation. The Scolopendra soon achieved human-like levels of intelligence, leading to the next phase of the project. Further genetic manipulation split the Scolopendra into seven distinct classes, as listed above.

(The rest of the page is missing. No further pages are present.)

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(A small scrap of the original form is also present with the other papers.}

Color: eyeeyeeye eye eyeeyeeye

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

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Username: Engineclock

Name: Cailean Lachlan. Say it: kay-lin laCCHHHHHHHlan

Gender: Dude

Species: Human

Associated Color: #3C5500

Weapons/Abilities: A sacred dagger given to him by Taccha Maowyn, resembling a stylized white feather with small runes carved into the hilt. Its blade can cut cleanly through any and every material found on earth so long as its user is under the protection of Maowyn, to the point of being able to easily carve through a solid stone wall. The dagger tends to flash immediately after ending a life, and is much heavier than it looks. He also has a sizable flask of whiskey, but that’s more of a coping strategy than a weapon.

Maowyn’s “blessing” keeps Cailean from inflicting physical harm on any living being without feeling the same on his own body, regardless of his intent. Acting to defend himself is included in the curse, and leaves him essentially helpless unless he wants to feel his enemy’s injuries to their full extent. The only exception to the blessing is in the case of people who have been mortally wounded; Cailean can feel the pain of the dying even when he has had nothing to do with their condition, and is instantly compelled to end their suffering- usually with Maowyn’s dagger. In cases such as these he's been seen to fall into what closely resembles a berserker rage, moving with uncanny speed and agility and ignoring all but the worst injuries dealt to him, including those by the victim. Whether this is result of Maowyn's blessing or simply a desperate attempt to escape further agony is debatable. A mercy-kill is the only injury he can inflict on another person without experiencing its effects, and it instantly stops him from feeling anything else from the victim.

Along with this mixed blessing comes a tenuous connection to Maowyn herself. Fiercely possessive of anyone under her control, the Taccha has at least some awareness of Cailean’s current condition, and doesn’t take very kindly to anyone attempting to harm her champion beyond what she considers acceptable damage. It’s extremely rare for her to intervene directly, however, and unfortunately for Cailean her favors never come for free.



Description:

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Spoiler

Youngish-looking, probably somewhere in his early twenties, Cailean is and looks like a career soldier, though he’s admittedly not been afforded the best training. He's familiar with a number of basic weapons and decent in a fistfight, both of which aren't much of much use to him now. Despite being somewhat on the lanky side, he’s in the best physical condition that can be had from a life of poor nutrition and frequent skirmishes and is used to surviving on long marches with terrible food and worse liquor. Due to Maowyn’s blessing, his skin is permanently marked in the shape of the bloodstains resulting from his wounds, which run down half his face and cover most of his chest and arms. He wears a battered and mismatched set of light armor, mostly consisting of a plate mail chestplate and a few other pieces that have seen better days. Depending on the light and the sensitivity of the viewer to such things, Cailean may or may not be seen to have a very faint aura of holy light. It’s probably not very flattering on him.

Cailean’s place as a favorite of Maowyn has nothing to do with his personal choice, and his attitude towards the whole situation is mostly dull resignation. He’s not an especially violent person, despite it being his job to be one, and would much rather be left alone then have to constantly bring Maowyn’s particular brand of mercy to any nearby person whose life is in immediate danger. If he wasn’t positive she'd do something worse to him for it, he would probably resent the Taccha for saving him in the first place, since protecting himself from any attackers is now a rather difficult and painful task. For this reason, he tends to be somewhat reclusive and cagey around new situations, and will invariably shy away from violence unless someone is dying and he has to go stab them in the heart because he really doesn't want to have sit through an exact simulation of their death.

He’s also a bit jittery around herons, unsurprisingly. Maowyn was never very good about announcing her visits in advance.

Biography:

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SpoilerBorn in a land of marshes and near-constant war, Cailean was trained in the local lord’s army from an early age as a cavalry lancer. Not especially strong or fast, he survived mostly by being able to dodge his opponents’ weapons and avoid the main front of the battle- not the most courageous strategy, but it kept him alive long enough to see the start of the first great war for the kingdom’s crown.

The army Cailean belonged to was unceremoniously grouped with the other forces of the current king’s youngest son, who sought to wrest control of the kingdom from his older and less militant brother. Cailean, naturally, knew very little of this conflict except that it meant the upcoming battle would be the largest of his life, and that there was an outstanding chance that the next time he entered the field it would be the last. His fears were realized at noon on the first day of the battle; blinded momentarily by the sun and focused on controlling his blood-panicked horse, a soldier belonging to the other side scored a massive blow down the side of Cailean’s face and deep into his chest.

Fortunately for Cailean, the grass he fell on was fresh and away from the worst part of the battle, and the man who had struck him assumed him dead and galloped off; unfortunately, the blow had been fatal, though not immediately so, and none of his comrades-in-arms were willing or able to assist him. Blood bubbling on his lips, Cailean desperately tried to crawl away from the fighting, miraculously managing to make it to the edge of a nearby lake. A single white heron watched impassively as he managed to plunge a shaking hand into the water an instant before collapsing into unconsciousness, face down in the lake’s shore. His blood slowly stained the water a dull red, tarnishing the holiness of the particular waters sacred to a goddess of mercy, the Taccha Maowyn.

The Tach of that land are not particularly benevolent figures. Something like gods, their interests are entirely their own, and except in certain rare cases their feelings towards humans are neutral at best. Maowyn, seeing Cailean’s blood drain into her lake, was at first infuriated at this sacrilege and moved to pierce his skull with her beak, for of course she had been the heron that watched him approach. However, a breath of life still existed within him; stirred by this and feeling something that was not quite pity so much as desire, Maowyn healed the dying soldier’s wounds with a sweep of her wings and brought him back to the world of the living.

Cailean awoke to the sight of a terrifyingly beautiful heron standing over him, its silver beak flashing in the sunlight as it cast an unreadable gaze over his face. Speaking without words, it told him that he had been saved by the mercy of Taccha Maowyn, and that all she asked in return for his life was for him to show the same mercy to all those that he would lay eyes upon, for as long as he may walk the earth. The soldier could not refuse, for surely the Taccha’s mercy was better than her wrath, though in secret his heart sank. Maowyn was a goddess of mercy but she was by no means a kindly being. Warriors prayed to her for a clean death in battle, and the blessings she gave ended the life of the receiver as often as they saved it.

He rose from the mud and water and saw that his skin was stained a deep crimson where his blood had been spilled, though all other signs of his wounds had vanished. Maowyn, mantling her wide, white wings, told him that her blessings did not come without a price. He was one of hers now, and all would know it by the marks on his skin. She vanished in a flurry of feathers and Cailean was left alone by the lake, free of the death that had so recently seemed certain to claim him.

Returning to the field of battle, he saw that more time had gone by than he could have guessed. The battle was over and surely days had passed; corpses littered the ground like fallen reeds and the ground was wet with blood. Far above him, vultures circled in the still air as he checked the faces of the dead for those he knew; he saw none, and stained with earth and blood he could not tell which of the bodies had been his fellows and which had been his enemies.

Distantly, Cailean heard a voice and looked up to see a soldier approaching him from out of the forest, sword in hand. His uniform was the blue and gray of the opposing side and his arms were soaked up to the elbows in the blood of the recently dead; his face, equally as gory, was twisted into a snarl of hate. Wearily, Cailean snatched up a nearby abandoned spear and prepared to fight. As the man began to run towards him, he stumbled for just a second, and Cailean threw the spear straight into his torso.

Instantly he felt his chest explode with pain, as though he had been the one wounded, and dropped to his knees in agony. He clawed at his armor but it was unbroken; there was no wound, and as he listened to the dying screams of the other man he felt sure that his meeting with Maowyn had been a hallucination, that he had never been healed and was still dying on the field somewhere, and only dreaming that he had ever had a chance to survive…

A feather alighted delicately on the ground in front of him, brilliant white against the blood-stained mud; another joined it, then another, and the Tachha Maowyn appeared in all her terrible glory as a heron-headed woman with massive, sweeping wings beating the air behind her back. Coldly she stared down at him, and through his pain he heard a ringing voice reminded him of the conditions of his blessing. He was a knight of mercy, now, and he could not lay harm on another being while it still breathed unless it was to ease its passing into the world of the dead. Reaching for her wing, the Taccha plucked out a long, fine feather and dropped it to the ground; it landed as a dagger, point down in the earth.

Shaking and with black spots flickering at the edge of his vision, Cailean pulled the dagger from the ground and began to walk towards the dying man. He saw his opponent’s eyes glazed over in fear and pain and his hands claw at the ground and the shaft of wood sticking out from his chest. His gaze went briefly to Cailean but it was clear he saw nothing, and as the blessed soldier plunged the dagger into his heart they rolled back into his head and he breathed his last.

From that day onward, Cailean’s life was a blur of conflicting orders and inexplicable agony. The commander of his army, seeing that a Tach had blessed one of his soldiers, made Cailean into a standard bearer, forcing him to go out into the field of battle in order to intimidate the opposing forces with the supposed divine approval of his cause. That Cailean essentially spent each battle running around frantically stabbing downed warriors with his dagger and screaming about mercy and herons and blood wasn’t of any real concern, and when the blessed soldier vanished suddenly in the middle of a skirmish the commander took it as a sign that the Tach had grown tired of the war and were signaling its impending end. He won the decisive battle in the following months, and Cailean was completely forgotten in the subsequent chaos.

Theme song: “The Kingdom”- Jesca Hoop

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Username: Pick Yer Poison
Name: AMP
Gender: Let's just pretend it's male.
Font color: #666666
Race: Conglomeration of machinery
Weapons/Abilities: Pieces of AMP's body can be used as blunt weapons. In addition, the magnetic field around him is capable of ruining those great family photos you had on your digital camera.

Description: AMP (Autonomous Mobile Processor) can best be described as a floating cloud of metal. Electricity is constantly arcing from piece to piece as he runs processes; getting in the way of one of these bolts will not only give you a mild electrical shock, but depending on the data it was carrying, it may cause AMP to skip a step or two by mistake. His entire body is his own processor, so losing or damaging critical pieces results in memory loss and lag in decision-making. Conversely, gaining more pieces allows faster decision-making and more electronic storage space. However, not everything in AMP's body is immediately converted into electronic storage space, unless it's needed right away. On average, one-half to two-thirds of AMP's body is actually just structural components; these are used to protect more critical parts, as well as interact with the environment. For example, he moves by pushing pieces of himself off of nearby objects; his magnetic field does not actually allow him to fly. He also keeps a few hundred metal filings drifting around for purposes of fine manipulation, although organizing them into a useful shape puts a lot of strain on his processors. The metal filings whirl around him quickly enough to hurt anyone who tries to get too close to his core, although they wouldn't do much more damage than the average thorn bush.

The whole shebang gravitates around AMP's central core, a glowing red orb about ten inches in diameter, which is basically the brains of the assembly. He tends to keep it, along with a number of processor components, covered with several layers of structural shields. AMP's core uses a strong magnetic field to keep the entire cloud coherent; this is why it is composed solely of metal. Although just the core itself is enough for AMP to function, anything beyond the task of seeking out more components would be impossible; in addition, these processors are where AMP houses its most cherished memories, the ones that define AMP as a personality. If the core were deactivated, AMP would stop working until it was turned back on, but would function just as well after being turned on as he did before being turned off. If the core were destroyed, AMP would "die."

AMP by himself is effectively blind, deaf, mute, and unable to taste or smell. He uses electronic input/output devices such as cameras, microphones, and speakers to gather information about his surroundings. The electronics inside these devices don't need to be functional, as AMP provides all the intelligence they need. However, they must have a direct route to his core, even if it's through half a foot of metal; otherwise, the magnetic field causes a lot of data distortion.

AMP is driven by an intense need to understand his purpose. He has faint and heavily damaged snippets of his life before he landed on Earth, but the intent of his creation is completely lost, leaving him with only the constant feeling that he's supposed to be doing something without actually knowing what that "something" is.

Biography: A spaceship flew towards the green-and-blue planet at an incredible velocity, passing through its atmosphere at twice the speed of the average comet. Nearly all of its mass evaporated from the heat during the descent, and when the farmer came to inspect the cooling asteroid that had just plowed a quarter-mile furrow in his field, all that was left was a dimly glowing red orb slightly larger than his head. He hauled the oddity back to his barn and, after a few minutes of careful inspection, decided that while he had no idea what the hell it was, it was bound to fetch a pretty penny at the flea market. And so it was that AMP's core ended up on a farmer's table next to a various assortment of odd-looking vegetables.

The red glow from the orb was much more distinct at this point, and for some reason it seemed to be generating static elecricity; the farmer had to pull out his work gloves to avoid getting shocked every time he picked it up. Early in the afternoon, a vendor selling scrap metal happened to push his cart past the farmer's stall, and then without warning things began happening much more quickly. The orb's glow increased in intensity, and all the loose scrap metal flew towards it, bolts of electricity arcing between the pieces as AMP took stock of his new resources. The newly-formed swarm of metal pulled itself closer together and began rolling forward, knocking over a number of stalls before leaving the market entirely.

After several days of tireless rolling (for AMP did not yet have any sense of boredom), the ball of metal passed into the limits of a city. AMP's journey was halted when he crashed into a traffic camera post. He climbed up the curious obstacle, and when he reached the top, he found the camera, which he promptly ripped off and attached to himself to serve as an eye. Gazing at the city, and the pedestrians staring up at him in shock and amazement, AMP paused while he struggled to process an utterly foreign feeling--confusion. There was something he was intended to do here. Something was supposed to happen. He was supposed to cause something. But what? A critical piece of hardware must have burnt up in the descent onto the planet's surface; most of his memory was missing. A few images were still there--four seven-fingered hands placing pieces together, a laboratory made entirely of plastic--but most of it was either gone or locked away somewhere deep inside his core.

Not knowing what else to do, AMP followed his impulses and spent the next few weeks collecting components; before long, he found he was able to speak four hundred and fifty three different languages completely fluently, although he was unable to understand why most of the creatures around him only spoke one of them, and only a fraction of them were present on the planet. Occasionally he felt he had discovered his original purpose and immediately started performing some inexplicable action, until, invariably, another pass through the calculations proved that there had been an error, and he dropped whatever he was doing without warning as if he had grown bored of it. Then one day, without further explanation, he simply vanished, much to the amazement of the government agents, reporters, and self-proclaimed xenobiologists trying to figure out what the hell he was.

Originally posted on MSPA by granolaman.

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Username: Granolaman

Name: James Jeremy Jacobs

Gender: Male

Color: Bitchin Blue.

Species: Human

Equipment/Abilities: Life on the streets has left JJ with a profound talent in running. Specifically away. More specifically away from pissed off cops, pissed off gangsters, and the occasional pissed off mutant rodent. JJ ‘owns’ a little shotgun roomsweeper pistol and even has a couple of spare shells for it floating around in his pockets for when running seems out of the question.

His left forearm and hand have been replaced with a cybernetic limb which has definitely seen better days. The Commlink computing device embedded into it seems brand new though, and certainly outside of his budget, as does the large mysterious cylinder strapped to his back actually. The commlink holds a number of skill programs which can be coupled with the system of wires running through JJ’s nervous system left over from a stint in manual labor. When combined, JJ becomes capable of whatever skill his program is running, be it kung fu to helicopter flying to juggling. Naturally these codes were pirated.

Inhabiting JJ’s commlink is an incredibly smart AI unit named Sheila, yet another thing seemingly out of place with JJ. Sheila is capable of interfacing with most computerized systems and, given enough time, can hack into any secure network. Other than controlling objects linked to the network though, Sheila has no effect on the material world.

Other than that, JJ has an assortment of surprisingly new gadgets in various locations on his body. Most of these he simply just hasn’t gotten around to pawning yet.

Description: JJ is one scrawny little street rat. Everything about him seems to imply a life lived in the gutters. His blue bathrobe and gray sweats and wife beater are all covered in grime and dirt. The smell would imply that he probably hasn’t bathed in years either. What little muscles he has are taut and stringy from the combination of malnutrition and running from whatever’s chasing him down at the moment. His black hair is a tangled mess of what might have been either an afro or dreadlocks or both at some point or another. His pink crocs are street worn, but holding up rather nicely, as are his cybernetic Lennon sunglasses.

Anyone who isn’t aware of the drugs he’s taking would call JJ a schizophrenic asshole. Anyone who is aware of the drugs he’s taking would just call him an asshole. JJ’s aggressively rude, uncouth and generally unpleasant to be around, especially if you’re of the female persuasion. The worst part is he thinks he’s charming and hilarious. JJ will rarely take a situation seriously if it doesn’t involve him directly and asking him to do anything that isn’t self-serving is a chore of patience, coercion and self-restraint. Left to his own devices, JJ will gladly take it upon himself to eat, sleep, and hit on anything with boobs.

Sheila can be arguably described as one of the few women who can tolerate a conversation with JJ, and that’s probably only because she’s been programmed to. Sheila can sometimes be a voice of logic to JJ, but more often than not she acts as his loyal AI, complying with his every order and whim with an “yes sir!” and a swift completion of the task. She does in fact have a personality, it just happens to work in JJ’s favor.

Biography:

Show Content

SpoilerThere was a knock on the door. This was JJ’s first clue that something was wrong. The condemned building he lived in featured a giant hole in the wall next to the door. Anyone who knew him, just came through that, and anyone who wanted to hurt him came through that anyways. JJ paused the megaporn that was playing on his glasses and picked up his Roomsweeper.

“Who is it?” he called, trying to disguise his voice as a woman’s.

“Mr. Jacobs, we know you’re in there.” A stern voice came from the other side of the door. JJ let out a low stream of curses. “We’d like to have a talk with you.”

The cursing softened as he walked towards the door. “Sheila…” he whispered into his headset.
A digital voice spoke into his earpiece, “Satellite imagery shows two large men, business suits. I’m detecting a smartlinked gun on each of them.”

“It would make my fucking day if those suddenly didn’t work Sheila.”

“Roger that.”

It occurred to JJ before he opened the door that maybe these people weren’t here about the break-in at the Smithson Megacorps R&D department. Maybe these thugs weren’t here because he stole everything that he could fit into his pockets. That maybe they weren’t here for that mysterious tube, or for Sheila. Maybe it was a sales call or something. JJ put on his friendliest face and opened the door.

“What the fucking fuck do you motherfuckers want?”

“Hello Mr. Jacobs, we’re here on behalf of Smithson Corporations.”

Fuck.

“You were seen fleeing the premise with a large quantity of stolen goods. We’ve come to retrieve them.” The brown-haired man on the right said. Both men were equally tall, buff and intimidating. In fact, they looked nearly identical except for their hair color.

“That’s racial profiling asshole! You got no proof that that thief was me.”

“No less than 17 cameras recorded your face as you committed the theft.” Spoke the black-haired man.

“I’ve got a brother that looks exactly like me! It was probably that good-for-nothing you’re looking for!”

“The tracking tags in the stolen goods lead directly to this ‘house.’”

“He probably stashed them here when he was visiting last week!”

“You’re currently wearing one of the stolen commlinks on your arm.”

“Your face is wearing a stolen commlink!”

“Mr. Jacobs, cooperate or we will retrieve the company property by force.” The brown-haired man peered down at JJ from behind his cyberglasses. It was a look that said he wouldn’t even bat an eye to blowing a man’s head off.

JJ glared back up at him in silence for a moment. Then with a resigned sigh, his shoulders slumped.

“Well, you got me. You leave me no choice but to return your company’s possessions straightaway.”
He unbolted the door and let it swing open. “After all, you brainless muscle types could probably snap me half with one hand.” He stepped back and beckoned for them to step inside. “There’s simply no way I could bea—SUCKER PUNCH!” JJ lobbed a sudden left hook from nowhere at the black-haired man’s face. The punch got nowhere near as the man grabbed JJ by the hand and picked him up. He pulled him up to eye level and gave him the least amused stare JJ had ever seen.

“That’ll be enough, Mr. Jacobs.”

“The fucking hell it is!” JJ yelled as a sudden surge of electricity surged out of his metal limb and into the brute. The man staggered back and dropped JJ, who immediately gave him another shock punch to the face. Black fell to the ground.

“Ha take that, bitch!”

JJ’s gloating was quickly halted by a big meaty fist connecting with his chest and sending him sprawling into the house. JJ was already drawing his Roomsweeper when Brown pulled his gun out and pulled the trigger.

Click.

“Thank you Sheila!” JJ yelled in a singsong voice as he fired a hail of pellets at Brown. The shot caught him in the shoulder, but didn’t seem to actually do anything. Brown looked angrily at JJ, then at his gun. He tossed the firearm aside, pulled out a buck knife and charged. JJ shrieked and dove into the next room, slamming the door behind him.

“Sheila, why the hell didn’t you tell me he had a knife on him?!” JJ ran down a hallway as he heard the door behind him shatter.

“I’m sorry James, it was beyond my range of detection.” JJ ducked into the kitchen. Propped up in the corner was the big mysterious tube case. One of the things they were looking for assumedly.

“Dammit Sheila, that’s a big motherfucking knife out there!” he picked up the tube and made for the next room. Maybe if he could reach the back door he could make a break for it. Big footsteps sounded from the hallway. “Are you still connected to his network?”

“I have access to all of his systems, yes.” The kitchen door exploded open as Brown burst in, blood trickling down his arm. He spotted JJ holding the tube, stopped for a moment, then thought better of it and lunged forward.

“Hit him with the Megaporn!” JJ flinched as Brown ‘s attack abruptly stopped. There was silence for a moment as a look of horror spread across Brown’s face.

“Oh god my eyes!” he screamed, clutching at his cyberglasses. “What the hell is this?! Why would someone even imagine this!?! Augghh!!” Brown’s suffering was cut short as JJ swung the tube case into the side of his head and knocked him out cold.

“C’mon Sheila let’s get out of here before he come to.” JJ slung the tube across his back and made a beeline for the back door. Standing in front of it, though, was Black. In one hand was his gun, in the other, the smartlink system he had ripped out of it.

“Sheila, this one’s smarter...”

Black raised the gun and JJ’s hands went up with it. “End of the line, Mr. Jacobs.”

The shot fired, but the bullet hit the house behind. JJ had disappeared.

Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.

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I'm gonna put two profiles in here, so you can choose whichever of the two you like better, if either.



Name: The Blank
Gender: Technically genderless, but since most assume he’s male, he adopts it for simplicity’s sake.
Species: Diplomatic construct/artificial human
Color: #888888 on #FFFFFF

Weapons/Abilities: Blank’s defining ability is to passively absorb knowledge from any viable source around him, including living beings. This means that, after a few minutes, Blank will learn extensively about the backstories, abilities, etc. of nearby characters, data-storage devices, etc. This extends to simple objects and machinery, where Blank can learn its properties or inner workings. Blank cannot stop using this power, and if he spends too long with a certain character, then that character’s personality may begin to influence him.

The knowledge-absorbing power extends weakly to abilities, such that after a while, Blank would gain some of the abilities of the people around him. However, this only extends to non-character-specific abilities (strength, marksmanship, ritual magic, etc.); abilities that Blank would not be capable of after potentially intense training (innate magic, godlike abilities, item-specific abilities, etc.) Robots and other artificial beings are treated as objects, and Blank can’t learn anything other than knowledge from them.

Description: On the outside, Blank looks like a lanky, pale, and bald human, of ambiguous age, gender, and descent. He wears a simple white shirt and pants, which effectively makes him practically entirely monochrome. On his personality, Blank is very much pacifistic, overwhelmingly preferring to discuss and solve a conflict rather than end it with physical force—not that he has much of it, except in rather specific circumstances. He is designed to get along with any single character he meets, which is usually made possible because of his knowledge-absorbing power. In order to do this effectively, Blank alters his personality to match that of the character he wants to be friendly with.

Blank refuses to use or share most of the knowledge he absorbs, mostly to respect the characters’ privacy and to avoid generating conflicts. He will make exceptions when his or other people’s lives are in danger, or if the situation demands it. He often shares his own backstory as compensation for absorbing someone else’s.

Biography: In a human’s imagination, advanced aliens exist as warlike imperialists, entities we cannot comprehend, or otherwise beings that are rightfully entitled to their superiority, a fact that they must know and that we must fear.

The reality is quite far from such fantasies. The alien society that has visited Earth is, indeed, quite advanced and has surpassed the societal and technological limitations that humans struggle with. However, rather than the clearly superior mindset we imagine they have, it is they who fear us.

They have been watching for much of modern history, and have been eager to make peaceful arrangements for the betterment of both civilizations. However, the warlike and self-destructive tendencies of the human being have seeded paranoia.

If they do not hesitate to destroy themselves, what will make them hesitate to destroy us? We must be prudent! We must show them that we are not the imperialists depicted in their legends. Cooperation is vital!

Thus, they waited. They waited for a time when human civilization had made peace with itself. However, such a time never came. It began to seem clear that active intervention was necessary, yet the fear that the humans would declare war on such a strange and unfamiliar civilization held steadfast.

So they created an ambassador. It was designed to dissolve any violent tendencies of humans it met, and to sow the beginnings of a true interspecies friendship. But most of all, it was designed to be human, to be familiar and true to human culture, accomplishing what the aliens fear they cannot.

The first phase was, of course, developing a familiarity with human culture. The ambassador lived and traveled anonymously, until it deemed it knew enough to begin diplomacy. Getting the attention of every sovereign leader was rather simple, and the lack of any cultural or linguistic limitation made communication smooth.

But there was one flaw. In attempting to be as human as possible, the ambassador had developed something of an uncanny omniscience. It was a subtle aspect that wasn’t quite right, a basic instinct of humans that saw unnatural a certain aspect that all humans are supposed to lack: perfection.

And then he disappeared.

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Name: Malus mancinella
Gender: Plant
Species: Nature spirit, Malus mancinella
Color: #118833

Weapons/Abilities: The main forms of defense the M. mancinella uses are its apples, teeth, and claws. The juices of its apples are highly acidic, though it is rather protective of its fruits. The only highly-supernatural ability the nature spirit is capable of is moving its apples (and only its apples) by telekinesis, which is slightly weaker than the panther body in speed and strength, but greater in precision.

The plant’s panther body is heavily-adapted for hunting to mimic the body morphology of an actual panther, and is thus rather agile and strong. It has no eyesight and a very weak sense of touch, but its sense of smell, sound, and thermal radiation is very acute.

M. mancinella can shapeshift, but greatly prefers to keep its panther body, and any moving structure other than the adapted panther body tends to be too slow for combat. It has had little use of fine motor control, but tendrils are suitable for such a purpose. M. mancinella can recognize plant structures easily and mimic even the most bizarre ones to a limited extent: a natural reflex to being threatened is to raise spines all over its body.

M. mancinella is carnivorous and photosynthesizes. When eating, it prefers to plop on the fresh carcass and extend some roots, getting as much out of the meal as possible. It can “eat” with the panther mouth, but does so only to carry some meat along to be more time-efficient.

Description: On the outside, M. mancinella looks like an apple tree the size and in the shape of a panther. The part of the tree in the shape of a panther is woody, but the bark is rather smooth and has no knots, while the part that can be identified as the head has no eyes.

The branches, leaves, and fruit of the tree are perched in a dense bush on the panther’s back. These branches are rather thick, having adapted to withstand regular motion.

The mind of M. mancinella is that of a young nature spirit. Its intelligence rivals that of a human, but its thought processes are very different. Although it is a very quick learner, it values pragmatic knowledge, tending to utterly disregard anything that is of no benefit or harm; its sense of curiosity is weak; and it tends to concern itself only with things that exist, such as food, rather than human concepts such as morality. It does not know any language and has no particular method or use of making complex sounds. After many unsuccessful attempts at hunting humans, it has learned to stay away from them.

M. mancinella is very protective over its apples, and even more protective of its flowers. It blooms relatively often, but such blooms are always futile: although the flowers have the look and smell, and nectar taste of apple blossoms, pollinators are almost invariably killed by the acidic fumes. Whatever pollen that does manage to be deposited on a different flower (or vice-versa) end up becoming useless, due to the breeding and self-incompatibility of the M. mancinella. Instead, the flowers develop into apples without pollination, and thus are seedless.

It wears a plant pot label over its left ear, showing only a picture of a blossom and “Malus mancinella.” It is unaware of this fact.

Biography: Machina Labs was known for—as the neighboring towns quipped—doing some of the most random research in modern science. Despite this, many knew of the benefits produced by those modest facilities: fully organic napalm, virtual guinea pigs, and placebo-free massage pills, for example. The Labs were respected, and any fear of something going out of hand was repeatedly made ludicrous by a particularly bizarre and ambitious project that was carried to huge success.

In a random trip dubbed the Curiosity Endeavor®, a scientist found an apple tree in midst of a rather lush forest, save for a circular patch about twenty feet across around the tree that harbored not even grass. Stunned by this allelopathic wonder, the scientist immediately took tests of the soil and a scion. Back at the Labs, the scientist’s team found that the soil had a far lower pH than even the most acidic of forest environments, and began to grow the graft in a controlled pot.

The tree soon lowered the pH of the soil dramatically, killed its host rootstock, extending out its own roots instead. Its tissues were discovered to contain a potent organic acid that, inexplicably, prevented pollinators from doing their job. Instead, the scientists found use of the organic acid, which was the most acidic organic acid thus discovered, and its molecular structure conveniently filled most modern applications of a wide variety of organic acids.

So they bred it. For acid. And science. Within a few generations, the Machina Labs team had developed a plant that, on the surface, looks like a humble apple tree, yet produces the most commercially valuable organic acid thus known to humankind.

The tree would not grow too big, but large production was rather unnecessary: the lack of supply and the Labs’ refusal to distribute clones of the plant meant that they could set the price of the Omniganic Acid® wherever they wished. Business flourished.

-----

They say that nature spirits manifest themselves at the most naturally harmonious and are naturally attracted to the most naturally atrocious. Then again, men of science don’t concern themselves with the supernatural. Fittingly, such a nature spirit—a young one, rather confused—found itself in midst of the Labs, its purpose obvious yet oblivious. For the first while, it floated around invisibly between walls and above ceilings, looking for something familiar to latch on to. With enough wandering, the spirit found the new species known as Malus mancinella.

When a nature spirit binds to its first plant, it experiences the sudden lapse into lucidity, which initiates its desire and purpose to shoo out pesky humans and other natural disruptors. Some often informally declare themselves protectors of the species of plant it bound to, thus putting a special emotional emphasis and connection to that species. In this case, however, the inexperience of the new spirit, coupled with the artificialness of Malus mancinella, simply turned it feral. In the perspective of the scientist that was juicing an apple at the time, the plant suddenly uprooted itself and started throwing apples everywhere, thereby dissolving most of the room before floundering into the hallway.

Alarms blared and scientists were rushed to safety. Luckily, the only injury sustained was the lone scientist in the apple room, of which a few sprays from some hydroxides and some plastic surgery fixed swiftly.

Cameras followed the nature spirit as it shambled into a random room. It was the panther room, where a live brain from an unfortunate yet oblivious panther participated in a constant virtual hunt. The nature spirit crashed into the brain in the center of the room, instantly killing the panther.

As the plant’s acids began to dissolve the brain, the nature spirit suddenly found an unfamiliar and unusual sense of hunger. It wrapped around the brain, simultaneously eating and learning, finally stopping when only a volatile puddle remained.

The nature spirit learned much. The hunt, the strategy involved, it was all quite interesting and immensely practical. Manifesting a woody body was simple enough. All that was left was to hunt.

And then it disappeared.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

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Username: Lord Paradise

Name: the Convolution

Gender: Takes all kinds

Race: Sentient culture

Color: Yellow on purple

Equipment/Abilities: The first phase of the Convolution manifests subtly. Over a certain small geographic area usually one of the lower class, a spike in creative activity will lead to the development of new trends, styles, customs and slang throughout a minority of the population. People will find themselves coming, going, staying, and staying away, as they always have, but perhaps more pointedly.

In the second phase, the cultural shift becomes immediately noticeable. Ideas from within the Convolution space are broadcast or sent out, attracting new residents. Social and artistic activity within the space increases, and a distinct community forms. Shifting language styles create a noticeable divide between those within and those without, and solidarity leads to a decrease in tax revenue and school attendance. People passing through begin to become lost. Oddly enough, violent crime at this phase is at its absolute minimum.

In the third phase, solidarity and cultural pride become rampant. Violent crime rates return to pre-Convolution levels, and arrest rates skyrocket as tensions develop with law enforcement agencies. As educational attendance rates plummet, intelligence and political literacy rise sharply, and conception and birth rates rise to a reasonable degree. Everybody within the Convolution space at this point knows each other, and weaker connections with outsiders are severed. Stories are told, and some citizens are elevated to heroic status. In addition to the actual “hero” figures, those within the Convolution space speak of, and claim to have personally met, certain celebrities and community leaders who seem not to actually exist. Messages relayed from these phantom figures are likely to be direct messages from the Convolution itself.

Phases four through six, being the violent phases, are less well documented. Phase four is a simple series of surprisingly successful riots, drawing the attention of the community at large. In phase five, the borders of the Convolution space begin to spill over as outsiders react to the violence. Biology and geometry are both mutated within the convolution space, and the previously imaginary avatars of the Convolution manifest as community leaders (publicly, they can be seen trying to put a stop to the violence, though many argue that this is a front. In phase six, the “climax,” both the Convolution and its opposition have irrevocably changed from what they were previously, and a final battle, be it physical or political, is waged.

Phase seven is transmission. Phase six may end one of two ways. If the Convolution succeeds in taking over the host community, some time is allowed to pass for life to continue as usual, and for moderation to dig its roots into the new order. If the Convolution fails, a small percentage of the population venerates it in its martyrdom, and stories are passed from one to the other. Either way, a new pocket of Convolution inevitably arises.

The amount of time necessary for this process is highly variable. In a mid-sized human city, the time until phase 3 can be anywhere from three hours to three weeks. In insect communities, phase seven can be achieved in a matter of hours, and in fungal cultures, minutes. Astronomers have noticed certain Convoluted patterns within galaxies that have continued for millennia…

Description: The Convolution is currently incarnated, in a sense, in a small purple badge with a yellow triangle on it. Transporting this badge will shift the consciousness of the Convolution, and if the badge is too far away to return itself to the hub (if, say, it has been teleported through a round transition), a new iteration of the Convolution will begin immediately. If the badge is destroyed, a new one will pop up; the Convolution cannot be killed simply through destroying any particular item, but by killing the ideas behind it.

The Convolution will, first and foremost, target humans or humanoids. Lacking that, it will go bigger or smaller or dumber or more abstract. It likes the color purple, it likes triangles, it carries certain radical notions of art and sex, and those are the only real constants between the aesthetic and artistic output of Convolution iterations. However, it picks up certain highlights of its previous iterations and transmits them, making each successive iteration slightly more bold and exotic than the last.

Biography: The Convolution has been around since dyes were discovered, or since a young person first realized she was smarter than an old person. This was more recently than you’d think.

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

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Username: Bananabread

Name: Dahlia Finch

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Species: Kyriel

Text Colour: indigo #2E0854

Race back story:

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SpoilerThe world of Ivennia was not unlike Earth. While the species that it harboured were quite different to what Earth has, the Kyriel race was quite like humanity in almost every way. Their society was quite different in that they did not waste lives and resources fighting themselves, as the planets indigenous wildlife was fiercer than humans would have ever encountered. At the time, the Kyriel race was as advanced as humanity was during the beginning of the twentieth century. Their militaries where not as wide spread as one per nation. Instead they pooled into one incredibly large taskforce to deal with the populations problems without distinction. While they could deal with the larger members of the wildlife, what they couldn’t protect Kyriel society from was an alien invasion. It was not an invasion of an advanced life form that wanted peace or war. This alien race consisted of a spore, nothing else. It appeared in something first assumed to be an asteroid that would burn up in atmosphere, and rain into the ocean. What it did instead was survive the atmospheric entry to detonate before hitting the water. Across the globe small white spores floated with the wind. It took a few hours for one scientist to ascertain that this spore was radioactive. While it did not give out dangerous levels of normal radiation, it gave out something different, something unique. The radiation it gave out mutated Kyriel DNA at an alarming rate. A few days after exposure, the first hit of the race began to rapidly mutate into beings fiercer than the most dangerous of animals. They grew, and mutated, and evolved into large, crazy monsters. On the exact opposite of the globe the military acted, sealing off a dozen thousand Kyriels that had only marginal exposure to the spore. They were each tested before entry, and each person was more exposed than the last. They had to stop admitting people, both from overexposure and lack of space. Those that survived lived several hundred metres under the surface. Those on the surface did not survive. The original monsters purged the planet with a blanket of fire. Anybody that ventured onto the surface never returned, so it was sealed off to keep them safe. While that included the air and meant that all the oxygen left underground would run out, something unexpected happened. The radiation caused by the spores became intelligent. It forced the bodies of everyone affected to mutate rapidly. It was an extremely painful, but necessary process. Their bodies no longer took up so much oxygen, and new levels of breathable air were created somehow. They did not have the equipment to fully examine their bodies in detail, and therefore the secret of these mutations was never found. With little trust in them, a lot of time and effort was spent creating a renewable air source so that they could live like regular Kyriel again. Once an air supply had been created, their bodies returned to normal. Fast forward four hundred years. A society was formed after the first 50 years had passed. They had long abandoned the idea that the surface would become habitual again. There was nothing left, just scorched earth and deadly levels of toxins in the air. Society has changed drastically with the introduction of mutation ranks. Scientists eventually discovered a way to test for mutation levels in blood, marking it with a percentage. If someone’s DNA was completely rewritten, they were 100% mutated and were Rank A. Such people were, by martial law, to be killed on the spot to prevent another outbreak of rampaging giants. No such person was ever found which was a relief to many people. B class was 50%, while AB would be anything closer to 75%. That was how they were marked. Each year lower and lower ratings were found. Any signs of mutations had all but vanished after four hundred years.

Weapons:

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Spoiler

Blaykre IV Handgun. While the design is similar to a revolver from Earth, the way it functions is quite different. Instead of shooting bullets the Blaykre fires something closer to deer slug shotgun shells

Description:

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Spoiler

Shutup nobody liked the eyes so I put them away.

Dahlia is about 5”7, is not very athletic, and has long brown hair and green eyes. She wears a blue shirt with a black vest-coat over it. She has a long green skirt, and a Newsboy Hat. She has a handheld PDA that mostly functions as a notepad for her to talk to people. It also has a pretty strong torch. Its battery life would usually last about 24 hours before dying.


Biography: Dahlia was an unfortunate child. At birth her rating was 0.0000308, the lowest ever recorded, giving her the rank of O. Doctors assumed that she would die in infancy because her body wouldn’t be able to survive in the underground environment. However, even her small mutation level allowed her to survive, which mystified them. It was not until years later that they would realize what had mutated. Her vocal cords did not allow her to speak, but instead recycled oxygen at an alarming rate. It allowed her to survive, but removed her ability to speak. She was a mute, and there was nothing that could be done to fix that. Dahlia’s mother was worried for the sake of her daughter regardless, and eventually pulled some strings with her fame as a singer. She managed to get Dahlia a PDA, allowing her to have an ability to speak to people without a pad and a pencil. This allowed Dahlia to communicate with other people.
One day, she went to the clinic for one of her check ups to make sure her voice box was still fully functional. If it ever had problems or stopped working, she wouldn’t be able to breath. During this check up, the lights died. Even with back up generators in the clinic the lights refused to turn back on. The doctor asked Dahlia to remain where she was as he went to see what was up, but Dahlia turned the flashlight on her PDA on and helped the doctor find his way around instead. What they found was a torn up generator room. Large holes had been ripped through the machines with no indication of what had caused it. That was when the screaming started. All through the underground settlement people were slaughtered by large monsters. They didn’t eat the people they killed; they just rampaged through the corridors and houses without compassion. As Dahlia escaped from the clinic, the doctor accompanying her was attacked by one of these monsters. Even as he was ripped to pieces Dahlia could only watch in horror. The monster turned its eyes on her, and Dahlia thought her life would come to and end. But the monster didn’t attack her. It lumbered past into the clinic. While Dahlia was scared out of her mind, and while she regretted not being able to help those inside the clinic, she just wanted to find her mother. She eventually found the energy to make her way through the back corridors to her way home. She avoided the main housing district; she knew that would be the worst place to be. On her way, she found a wounded soldier sprawled across the floor. He was still breathing, but with some of his organs on the floor, it was obvious he wouldn’t make it. Dahlia couldn’t just leave him there, but she couldn’t save him either. The soldier had enough strength to speak, and knew that he was dying. He managed to remove his weapon and satchel and leave them for her, telling her how the weapon works, were the safety was, and how to reload, all silently taken in by Dahlia. She took it as his last request, and paused to close his eyelids as he lay dead on the floor. It was the last action she made in her world.

Originally posted on MSPA by gloomyMoron.

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I'll write something here after work. If I'm not completely wiped out. So tentative reserve.

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

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Username: Adenreagen
Character Name: Elimine Fraze (If you want, she goes by Elli for short)
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Post Color: I don't know This: #330099?

Weapons/Abilities: A bladed trombone with a shoulder strap, the blades being on the slide and bell, a pocket music book and pocket incantation book, pet: black cat (She has the collar, just hold on).

As a band member, certain skills have been learnt over time, including heavy lifting, crowd dispersion, wiring and using electronics. Her day job of vigilantism has also led to heavy lifting and crowd dispersion, but also swordsmanship, such as it is. She also is an excellent trombone player, and has limited psychic ability which is a short way of saying weak energy blasts and short term power-ups.

These “power-ups” come from Elimine using her power with music she plays, “imbuing” the music with power which takes on the form of the song. Marches make her move faster; motivational pieces make her stronger, or happier, etc. The problem with these is that they are extremely short-lived, lasting only a few minutes at best.

Cat’s abilities: A meow of doom that has been known to kill the weak and render the strong immobile. This alone has made the cat a dangerous weapon that is useful in almost any situation. Evaporating skills, which turns it into smoke and shadow, used to travel quickly. Because it is bound to Elimine, she is able to summon it at will and
can command it, sometimes even without difficulty.

Description: (I'll try to get some doodles up, I just have to make them..) At just over 5’ tall, Elimine is rather petite-looking, but is far from timid. She has shoulder length wavy red hair, which is normal, and a black streak that drifts around freely, which isn’t. She is physically fit from an active lifestyle, and is rather slim from pulling all-nighters in the sake of music and justice. Elimne has never been afraid to speak her mind, and usually refuses to sugar-coat what she tells people.

Being put in hopeless situations or events similar to past situations has pushed her into “overdrive” making her slightly mad (i.e. insane) and more rash than normal, but doesn’t make her stronger or more powerful in any way like many “berserk modes” do.

Being a jazz musician she wears what was originally a suit, but is now a white button up shirt and black suit coat with the sleeves torn off, black trousers, shoes and tie. Though she knows the value of stealth, the absurdity of being a sidekick has given her a tendency to yell during her attacks, and made her more of a follower than a leader. Aside from entertaining the masses with music, she feels her purpose in life is to fight her idea of “evil” wherever, and whatever, it may be.

The cat is entirely black, lacking obvious eyes or, truly, any features at all. It looks more like a shadow with a shadow, and in fact that’s closer to its true nature than calling it an animal.

Backstory:

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SpoilerMember of a famous Jazz band and sidekick to its leader (who is also a vigilante hero), Elimine has been exposed to many different situations from barfights and turf wars to two-headed guardian lions and one awkward event with an immortal who enjoyed limericks. Over the course of her adventures she has learned how to wield a sword, trombone and among other ridiculous things as weapons of deadly force. During her musical career she is used to hauling equipment, playing music and fighting evil. Elimine has become fairly strong and well versed in music playing and problem solving.

Becoming a famous musician was all Elimine ever wanted from life. Her parents insisted that she become a doctor or a lawyer, or anything that would support them when they became old. “There’s no future as a freelance musician,” they always told her, “if you aren’t famous now with your little garage band, you never will be. Give it up Elli.” Heartbroken but determined, she put herself through college as a music major, joining every concert and music group she could while alienating her family. Graduating in the top half of her class, she set out to lounges and bars across the country in the hopes of finding a band that would take her on.

It was at one event like this where she met current band. She sat as close to the front as she could, all her worldly possessions (her personal trombone) with her. When the band finished and left, she got up to follow, planning to do anything she could to let them sign her on. The interview went great, she really matched some of the other members, and her audition was even better: everyone admitted that she was innovative, original, the lot. The only drawback was that they couldn’t afford another member, but would surely take her the moment another member left.

Miserable, Elimine left, and was promptly mugged around the corner. Threatening her with a knife, the man demanded all her money and jewelry. Owning no jewelry and broke, she told him so and that she had nothing to give him. He then demanded her instrument, figuring to at least make some money by selling it, and that was the last straw. No way was she going to lose her only chance at a working life. She swung the case at him as hard as she could, breaking the case as well as several parts of the man’s face. When the band ran around the corner after hearing a fight they found the man facedown with Elli sitting on his back, crying. She was fine, but her case was broken. The head of the band came up to her saying that if she could handle herself that well in a fight then the band, and he, had a use for her.

Thinking he meant security, Elli agreed with the hopes that the band would take her on at a later date. Instead, much to her surprise, they took her on immediately. On the road between shows, she found out why when their leader took her aside. “You know we’re a band, but I fight crime in my off time,” he explained to her. “You’re…joking, right?” “No, I’m dead serious, and I want you to join me. Someone like you could be just the help I need.”

She mostly just watched at first, but eventually started lending a hand as well, and then one day started looking for “evildoers” on her own. Knowing that she was hooked, her leader let her know that, as his sidekick, they would have plenty of things to fight over their adventures, since there is “Adventure everywhere you look for it.”

During one such adventure, Elimine and her leader (whom she does simply call “Leader”) travelled to a realm far different from her own. Though they fought well in this shadow realm, she was separated from Leader and overwhelmed by massive amounts of dark energy. When he managed to fight his way to her, she had been in contact with so much dark energy that she had, in a panic, managed to harness it and bind one of the creatures of that realm to her: a creature of darkness so horrible that it is more shadow than animal. A Black Cat. As an ephemeral being, it could only be stunned or contained but never truly, permanently killed. Her survival tied to a creature that had once tried to kill her, Elimine instead used that bond to have the cat draw as much of the energy out of her as it could in an attempt to save her. It was unable to draw out all of the dark energy, but what remained was not only under Elimine’s full control, giving her an affinity for darkness and limited power, but had also altered her physical appearance in a minor albeit disconcerting way. One small part of her hair was now black and waved as though in a gentle breeze.

Though they emerged from that adventure victorious, her personality from then on has always been more on-edge and her band-mates and friends have taken to handling her with “kid-gloves” by always being on their best behavior around her. They couldn’t know that her power gets away from her when she sleeps, and her hair – its physical manifestation – tried to strangle her in her sleep every night and stopped her from getting real sleep. It wouldn’t cut since it didn’t seem to have a physical form to cut, escaped hair ties and indeed, restraining in every way. She had begun to adjust to less sleep, and was about to embark on what would have been her greatest adventure, when she suddenly disappeared with no notice to the band or Leader to where she went.

Originally posted on MSPA by Jakester390.

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Username: Jakester390

Name: Quantos Xodarap

Gender: Male

Race: Cyborg

Color: #33CC99

Equipment/Abilities:
Quantos has a staff that conceals a nano-molcular slicing blade. He also has a robotic arm that contains a time manipulation device (see below) that has a low powered air cannon that can launch small objects. In addition, he does not age.

Time Manipulation:

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SpoilerQuantos has the ability to slow down or speed up time of an object, effectively allowing himself to slow air to create spontaneous shields, or speed up walls so they can passed through. Of course as any action in space-time has an equal reaction, this causes the substance that he uses as coolant to be used up, and too much use will cause his time manipulation apparatus to malfunction. Quantos has the ability to time travel, however it requires a ridiculous amount of power to pull off.

Description:
Quantos is human in appearance other than his glowing green left eye and clearly metallic right arm, which crackles with electricity whenever he is preparing or using his time manipulation apparatus. He appears to be around 25, dark brown hair, his left eye is also green. He often wears a green lab coat with a black shirt and jeans. Quantos has a highly deductive and logical mind. As he has time travelled to prevent paradoxes he's seen a lot and is unfazed by most abnormalities. Quantos also tends to hold extremely strong to contracts.

Biography: Back when Quantos was an average human, he had an insatiable desire to discover the secrets of time. Spending most of his time studying the effects and nature of time, Quantos realized that it would be possible to time travel using a modified PDA and an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. Upon his first time entering the time stream, he met an aged time traveler wearing a gold watch. This man stated his name as Septom, and that he was nearing the end of his life. He stated several facts about time travel, which were:

• There is only one time traveler at a time
• It is a time traveler's duty to protect the timestream from paradoxes
• Whenever a time traveler is about to die, they meet the next time traveler to inform them of these rules before passing on to the next life

Septom then asked if Quantos he would take up the mantle of the time traveler. Quantos agreed and Septom nodded solemnly intoning, "I am glad you have agreed, else the time stream would have passed your life to mine. Now I can finally rest in peace."
Septom dissolved into a cloud of dust and Quantos assumed his duty as the time traveller. He then established a base in an area untouched by time to preform uncontrolled nuclear reactions to fuel time travel. As not all time periods have access to nuclear power, Quantos tends to cause two reactions, one to leave to the destination, the other to store in a specialized battery to fuel his return. He recently returned from a paradox-stopping mission, and as a result does not have the battery charged. On one of his missions to prevent a paradox (one involving a demon granting cybernetics to dinosaurs so that they could survive the asteroid impact), he lost his right arm and left eye. Quantos had them replaced with cybernetic implants from the year 4013, and installed his time manipulation apparatus in his arm.

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

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Username: Not The Author

Name: “Lucky” VII

Gender: Not Applicable

Race: Unified Species Starfleet Artificial Planetoid (Exodus-class)

Color: Steel Blue

Weapons: None, though various systems could potentially be weaponized, or weapon batteries could be constructed, should things come to that.

Abilities: Generally, local manipulation of gravitation, strong nuclear force, and electroweak force. A wide variety of abilities can be thereby derived; notably, wormhole generation, matter assimilation and rearrangement, and inertial dampening.

Description:

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SpoilerA gunmetal-grey spheroid the size of a Giant Star (~3 Tm diameter). It houses one-tenth of the entire surviving population of the universe from which it originates, mostly in physical stasis. For the purposes of this contest, it has been reduced to the size of a large beach ball (~1 m diameter).

Cryogenics, biomechanics, and nanotechnology have sufficiently advanced that, while a body may be frozen and inert, the mind can be transferred to a mechanical matrix set to the specifications of the user, while the body remains indefinitely preserved, hence “physical stasis.” Most of the passengers are in such stasis at any given time, though many have opted to remain “awake.” Natural lifespans are impressive even without cloning, cybernetics, or stasis, and while generations have passed since the last galaxy died, a large portion of the population still remembers living on or near a planet.

The societal hierarchy of each of The Ten has diverged significantly in that time. VII still houses a parliamentary structure, though the governing council is more of a figurehead at this point. Most of the power lies with VII’s High Admiral and her bridge crew; some might claim an oppressive, militaristic dictatorship, but there’s been no opportunity for abuse of power in the centuries of drifting through empty space. The people are happy, as they can occupy themselves in any (virtual) reality they please. The crew is content; while they have to manage a ship the size of a large sun, most of the systems are automated or controllable from a virtual interface. There haven’t been any critical emergencies in a very long time, since there’s been nothing to cause any.

Biography:

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SpoilerThe universe was, by and large, at peace. The War had concluded; so long none remembered its cause but historians, so costly the casualties measured in quadruple-digit exponents, so destructive as to reduce whole galaxies to nebulae. The resultant technological advancements elevated all peoples to the status of demigods. Minds could be copied into computers the size of marbles, matter could be rearranged on a whim, and people began to focus on occupation as recreation rather than necessity. The Universe was united under a single governing body composed of the brightest minds of the time. Life was easy and pleasant.

Then the universe collapsed.

The Big Crunch was a very gradual process, but it was inevitable. Despite knowing it'd happen for millennia, nobody thought to try and stop it until much too late. all their abilities to manipulate matter and energy, the citizens of the universe could not stop their reality from slowly collapsing into a mind-bogglingly large black hole.

So they didn’t.

They ran. They could only run. The High Council of the Unified Species had ten planetships constructed to carry refugees as far from the singularity as possible, picking up more migrants and materials as they fled. Eventually, the universe settled down into a single massive sphere of matter, and ten comparatively-minuscule dots crawling away into infinity.

Years passed into decades, and decades to centuries. Hope was not lost, for the citizens of the universe had escaped the death of all things and had nothing more to hope for. Planets no longer existed, just simulations of planetary environs replicated by the ship, but that was enough for all but the oldest and most nostalgic. Research into escaping to parallel universes proceeded, but gradually slowed as experiments produced no appreciable results and the citizens of VII grew used to their new home. Life was normal, after a fashion, and the people were content once again.



Then this happened.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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Eight entities of various shapes and sizes found themselves in an excessively gaudy study. The djinni who occupied it quickly snatched a stack of papers away from his green-hatted assistant, despite his mumbled protests, and floated away from the desk and towards the newcomers. “Welcome, one and all, to the Glorious Championship! For the record, you’ll all be fighting in a battle to the death for the next… however long it takes you to kill each other off, I suppose. It’s going to happen one way or another, so don’t give any ideas!” He leaned into the face of Cailean and gave a preposterously exaggerated wink, then began thumbing through the papers.

Upon pulling out the first sheet, he approached an athletic young man wearing army surplus clothes and a tool belt. “Our first contestant is Gabriel Farrell, no relation of course. He has the inimitable ability, to transform his hand into any power tool he so desires. I’m tempted to make some sort of drill-based pun or reference here, but I’ll spare you all.”

He proceeded to grab the floating gray sphere and spin it on his finger. “This right here is Lucky. It’s one of the last remnants of civilization from a universe that collapsed in on itself, so there’s a couple billion people aboard it. I would have kept it actual size, but that would hardly have been a fair fight for the rest of you.”

He turned to an armored man with his face stained permanently red. “This charming fellow is… um…” He narrowed his eyes to make out the fine print next to the name on the form. “Ahem. Cailean Lachlan. He’s a soldier with the blessing of the Goddess of Mercy, which will no doubt prove far less than helpful in this endeavor, as it causes him excruciating pain when he harms someone else except to put them out of their misery. Ooh, it even works for self-defense! That ought to be fun! “

He proceeded to twirl over towards a rather short girl. “This lovely lady is Elimine Fraze. In addition to having a weaponized trombone and psychic powers, she has a very special cat!” He proceeded to scratch the immobilized feline on the chin. “Who’s a special kitty? You are! Yes you are! You’re a very special kitty! Uh, anyway. The kitty can melt into shadows and things, and it’s got a very loud voice, so you’d better be on your guard.”

He next headed to a humanoid with a metal arm and a green labcoat. “This is Quantos, a cyborg and an experienced time traveler. It needs a lot of power, though, and his method of time travel is unstable enough that it might cause his parts to start malfunctioning!”

“Then we have this little collection of scrap name of AMP.” He thwacked a chunk of iron, suspended motionless in midair. “Nobody knows what his initial purpose was, not even him! Maybe he’ll find out. That’d be quite interesting. He picks up old junk like this with his built-in magnetic field, so I wouldn’t advise attacking him if you find your way into a junkyard.”

The Hedonist looked over the papers and onto the carpet, then floated over and snatched up a purple badge. “This thingamajig is The Convolution. As I understand, it’s a set of ideas that spread in order to influence cultural patterns in a way that ensures its survival. It’s… housed in this badge, but destroying the badge won’t kill it, apparently? I guess you’ll need to find a way to kill ideas. Like television, or hamhanded and oversimplified political commentary.”

He then tossed the badge to the ground and picked up a typewriter. “This is Etiyr. It’s a sentient typewriter. I hope that it can carry on the proud tradition of sentient appliances despite its handicap, namely the fact that it’s utterly immobile, but I’m sure one of you can tote it around!”

The djinni finally pulled one last wad of paper from the stack. Crumb walked over and reached out a hand to stop him. “Sir, that’s already eight contestants, and that’s not a valid form. I don’t know how it got in there.”

“Well, it is in here, so it must be a contestant.”

“Yes, but sir, generally speaking there’s only eight, and—“

“Don’t care.”

The man in the lime-green hat angrily unfolded part of the collection of scraps. “Look, part of it’s written on a bloody napkin, for—“

“Don’t care!” The Hedonist waved off his grumbling assistant, and adjusted the “form” before continuing. “Right, then. Our ninth contestant—“ With a snap of his fingers, the gigantic not-quite-a-centipede was in the room—“Can be referred to as Gaurinn, if you like. He naturally creates and potentially attacks with electricity, but he’ll probably cave in from a single well-placed thwack on the thorax.” The djinni finally cast all the forms aside and slammed his hands down on the desk. "Anyway! Since this is the first round, and you haven't had the chance to eat breakfast. Therefore, you're going to..." A drumroll promptly emanated from no visible source as The Hedonist grinned: "Denny's!" A picture of a perfectly ordinary breakfast franchise's exterior materialized before the players, and with a puff of multicolored smoke they were whisked away.

Crumb narrowed his eyes. "Sir, you do realize that isn't actually a restaurant, correct?"

The grinning djinni let out a massive laugh. "Of course I do! I even magnanimously donated a thirtieth of my breakfast for the day, so that they could still have something to eat. Mainly, I wanted the truth of their location to be a surprise."

The man in the lime-green hat thought for a moment, then sighed. "Sir, I rather suspect that most of the things that occur here will, if not surprise them, at least catch them off guard."

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SpoilerThat's right, folks. The first round is the secret military base masquerading as a Denny's, as seen in Headbucket. Read through a bit. For all intents and purposes, the base has been infinitely "mirrored," to offer the contestants more room to maneuver.

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

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Etiyr’s first thought, upon landing in the parking lot of the Denny’s, was not confusion, was not anger, was not fear.

It was a simple statement of fact: “Well, what a prick.”

You put a typewriter in a freaking battle to the death, but you don’t give it a way of getting around!? He even made a remark about it! I mean, ok, this particular typewriter’s advantage wouldn’t really be fair if it could follow people around and force them to do things. Etiyr supposed it would have to be clever, a sort of interesting challenge regarding its… persuasion techniques.

The thing is, Etiyr hated challenges.

It had to give that Genie guy props, though. Getting a bunch of random beings throughout time and space to fight in a battle to the death takes a quite a bit of power and creativity. Ol’ Lucifer didn’t even think about doing things like that before he was erased from the time stream.

But, anyway, Etiyr decided to focus its attention on the present. How in the name of Hell was it going to get anywhere? Of course, Genie Man was on the right track, and the obvious solution was to manipulate someone to carry it around. Thank God he hadn't mentioned that power directly to the other contestants. But to do that, Etiyr reasoned that in this particular case it had to get someone’s attention. After all that stealth, convincing people, one by one, to do seemingly random crap in order to further its goals, and now it has to get someone’s attention. What has the world come to?

Thankfully for it, typewriters aren’t particularly inconspicuous. Time to start spamming typewriter noises, Etiyr mused. “C” was its loudest key. Might as well use that.

So Etiyr began, typing the letter C, over and over, a loud ding! occurring every time it reached the end of the line. If someone had been looking at the typewriter, they would have seen it clacking away, typing CCCCCCCC repeatedly, every once in a while reaching the end of the line, accentuated with corresponding typewriter sound.

Which, coincidentally, was exactly what someone saw.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

---

...The hell is this.

Just a minute ago, Gaurinn was back in that military base, recovering from the discharge that could have easily killed him. But then? Suddenly he was in a big room filled with some humans and a few other things and there was some sort of human-looking thing talking about him. He didn't even give a good description of the centipede, just some broad (and vaguely offensive) generalizations. Then he just said something about a "first round" and then something about breakfast, and suddenly he was here. Some sort of big concrete slab next to a barely-decorated building. According to the bright yellow sign above the door, the building was known by some sort of strange codename: "Denny's".

All around the Denny's were a multitude of various tall buildings and a network of empty roads. Probably a massive military base. Of course, that's what this must have been. A complicated military experiment. He was probably knocked unconscious and then dragged into this by the enemy. Whatever this was, Gaurinn was having none of it. He promptly scuttled away from "Denny's" and toward the deserted streets. Upon stepping up the curb on the edge of the sidewalk, though, Gaurinn quickly found himself on the ground several feet back, in no small amount of pain. He slowly righted himself, eyed the perimeter of the parking lot carefully, then turned back to the building again.

Around the parking lot were several others, those he had briefly seen in the room from earlier. Gaurinn at first considered approaching them, but what if they were the enemy? It was the most reasonable explanation at this point. Or maybe... maybe they were trapped here with him for whatever reason. It was the first round of something, Gaurinn knew that much. Maybe approaching one wasn't a bad idea after all. Of course, he couldn't exactly focus on the others with those goddamn tapping and dinging sounds that just went on and on and on. Gaurinn whipped his head around to look toward the source of the noise, ready at any time to fry it with a massive jolt of electricity. What he found, though, was some sort of strange printer with a keyboard built into it.

cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc
cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc ccccccccccccccccccccccc


Gaurinn stared at the continuous output of the letter C for a few moments, then scoffed and started tapping on other keys at random. Almost immediately, the C's came to a halt.

ccccccccccccccccccxcccpkoHewjy, sto2p that!

Gaurinn stopped mashing keys. "Hey, stop that!"? He didn't type that.

"...Huh?" the centipede mumbled.

Don't type. Speak.

"This some kind of joke? Someone expect me to believe that sentient printers exist?"

Who gave you the authority to determine what does and doesn't exist?

"Yeah, okay, sure. The weird printer thing is talking to me. You want something, or do you just like being irritating?"

It was necessary to gain your attention. You're going to need allies to survive this game.

"Game. I don't know what you're talking about. You're calling this a game?"

Of course, you didn't hear the whole explanation. It's a battle to the death, and you're awfully fragile on your own. Someone takes a wrong step, andfisjovhuifu48hfhv7vv898vdfi I said stop that!

"I'm just fine on my own, okay? Do you want something from me, or not?"

You require my help, and I require yours. I hold the advantage of having heard the whole explanation, but I also can't move on my own. I'll assist you if you assist me.

"And just why the hell should I help you? If it's a battle to the death, leaving you here increases my chances of living."

Maybe I'll just tell someone else that there's a bug that needs killing, then. I'm sure some of these others would be happy to oblige.

"And I really care? I'll just kill 'em with electricity. It's not that hard to figure out."

And if you happen to be weakened?If you can't defend yourself?

"...Okay, sure. I'll take you inside, okay? You happy now? Just shut up, please."

Gaurinn struggled to pick up the unassumingly heavy typewriter with his rudimentary hand-appendages, eventually managing to take hold and continue onwards. Before he could enter "Denny's", though, he was accosted by two men in uniforms.

"Halt! We can't let you pass!"

"We're guards!"

"We're guards!

Originally posted on MSPA by Jakester390.

---

Well, this is unusual. Granted not much but still. The probable decision to make here would be to determine if this is still the same dimension. To that effect, that spacecraft probably has the most data.

Quantos looked around, seeing that the area was basically an average town, but with a strong sense of order, almost military like. He then spotted Lucky off in the distance and ran towards it.

"Hey, do you have a record of history stored on you?"

"Affirmative."

"Well how far back does it go, relative to the age of the universe, and what is a significant event that happened during that time?"

"The record goes back to 15 billion years after the big bang. The Zorlons established the Planetary Congress at that time."

"Do you have any events from human history?"

"We do. The United States established first permanent settlement on Ganymede around that time."

"Huh. Well in my universe China established the first permanent settlement on Ganymede. I guess that probably means we are all from different universes, and this is probably another universe itself. Guess that means my escape plan is shot. Well since we're going to be stuck here fighting, we might as well team up. What do you say?"

Show Content

SpoilerHope Lucky wasn't too out of character NotTheAuthor. I can always go back and change it.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

---

Show Content

SpoilerIt turns out that I have failed to explain reserves in the original post. Basically, when somebody reserves, they have "three hours"* to post; in actuality, this is more like "however long it takes until the post is done or everybody else is starting to get really bored and want to post already." I don't hold anyone at fault for this other than myself, but hope this will be followed in future.

Thank you~

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

---

Lightning lanced through AMP's metal cloud as he considered his options. Why am I here? Who was that man? What is "death?" Unfortunately, his memories, fractured as they were, held no answers, and he quickly decided to stop asking himself questions he didn't know the answers to. One thing was clear to him: he had to survive. He wasn't sure why, but he knew there was no question that he was created to survive. To be destroyed was to fail, and AMP knew he was not designed to fail.

A security camera and a camcorder on the exterior of his inner shell blinked to life and began moving around, taking in his surroundings. He was used to the urban environment, having spent several weeks in one just before being abducted, which gave him a comforting feeling. He spotted a sign with a single word written across it in big yellow letters - Denny's. That must be what the man was talking about. Closer inspection revealed that there were three creatures next to it - two humans and the giant centipede that had been earlier introduced, Gaurinn. AMP crunched a few numbers and decided that the odds of survival drastically increased if he gained a few allies, with a diminishing rate of return as the number of companions approached n, where n was the number of contestants still alive.

AMP began spinning his outermost pieces of metal around his core, kicking himself off towards the entrance of the building. As he closed the distance, he noted that Gaurinn was, for some reason, carring the typewriter, Etiyr. This reminded him that he had no way of communicating with anyone yet, something he had never had a need for. He veered towards the drive-through and collided with the menu sign, knocking it off of its stand and removing the speaker from the top. The speaker, along with the sign's metal pole, continued on with him, trapped in his magnetic field. AMP attached the speaker to himself and bent the pole so it wasn't as obtrusive, then made his way towards Gaurinn and Etiyr, who he deduced were engaged in some form of debate with the guards. As he rolled up to the group, the talking stopped as everyone stared in confusion at the rolling cloud of floating metal. A tinny voice came out of the speaker. "Hi! I'm AMP! Can we be friends?"

Originally posted on MSPA by engineclock.

---

Cailean sighed.

He’d never had a particularly clear idea of what a fair and logical world constituted, but he was pretty sure this wasn’t it. Not that he had any regrets about being torn away from the middle of a battle, not when he had just started to feel the pangs of a shattered collarbone and an opened jugular from some poor bastard a few meters off. He was perfectly content to miss out on that part of his ordinary life. Even if, by the sounds of it, he’d been pulled away from one fight just to be shoved into a slightly different one. At least this one hadn’t started to collect casualties yet.

Checking for his dagger, and shortly after for his flask, he wondered briefly if this was some sort of punishment on Maowyn’s part for whatever unspecified crime he’d surely committed against her. Had he not gotten to that last victim quickly enough? Had he neglected to explain more clearly that Maowyn’s mercy was upon him before he plunged the dagger down? Maybe she’d just figured he’d gotten complacent, taking all those lives for her, battle after battle. Maybe she didn’t need a reason and this was just her idea of a morbid joke.

But no, this wasn’t like her. Maowyn was a moderately powerful Tach, but Cailean had a feeling that this sort of thing was far beyond the range of her powers, which was terrifying in on itself. The… spirit that had introduced them to this Glorious malarkey must have been something far stronger. Distantly Cailean felt his entire worldview shatter, but decided to ignore it. It was never of much use to him anyways.

He didn’t recognize their surroundings, and judging by the dazed looks on the faces of the few people he could see, neither did the others. The building before him was simultaneously unlike anything he’d seen before and hideous, and flanked by awkward-looking men who were currently engaged with confronting an oversized insect holding a small metal machine. That Cailean had zero understanding of this was not as much of an obstacle as might be expected. The sort of work he did didn’t necessitate much thought and he was perfectly fine with having a rudimentary understanding of what was going on and why. This was just another war, after all. All he had to do was survive as usual.

Of course that meant getting past his enemies, though… Cailean glanced at the few he could see. The insect with the metal thing, now joined by an even larger collection of metal, floating in an unnatural way that was probably better left unexamined; a dully gray orb next to a man who seemed to be glowing and have an arm constructed out of metal. He dimly remembered hearing their names, but what was the point of that? You didn’t get familiar with people you were fighting against, you killed them before they got a chance to do the same to you and then maybe had a look at what the bodies had on them before leaving before their mates came back to get revenge. Not many of the others seemed to believe that, though. Hm.

One of the nearest people to him (he was starting to question what definition of “people” he was supposed to use here) looked a little less threatening than the others, if only because she was the closest to fully human that he could guess. Her name had been… Eli something? There’d been a bit about a weapon and some kind of power, but she didn’t look like the type to gut him at first go. Barring the odd clothes and some unusual strands of hair, the girl was relatively normal-looking. A black cat Cailean instinctively didn’t like was circling her ankles, and as it turned its head to look at him he saw it didn’t have any eyes, or other features for that matter. Pushing back a shudder and telling himself that he should be used to stranger things than this, Cailean called to the girl, “Hello, lass! I don’t suppose you’ve got three halves of an idea what this is about?”

The shocked stare she gave him surprised him for the single moment it took him to remember how new folk tended to react to his face. Turning it to the side to block the worst of the bloodstains, Cailean laughed halfheartedly. “Nevermind that, it’s just, ah, paint. I like to think it takes away from the freckles, you agree? Now, what’s a lovely lass like yourself doing here?”

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

---

The guard, whose name was Greg, had only recently become suspicious of the fact that this Denny’s had to be guarded at all times and admit no entrants.

Since he had seen Pulp Fiction, Greg was aware that restaurants could be robbed despite nobody ever really thinking to rob restaurants, so he considered that his job was to turn away people from robbing the place. He might be more suspicious had he ever actually had to turn anybody away from Denny’s, but Burger King was just up the road and there was an IHOP three blocks down, completely eliminating both the breakfast and lunch crowd. Furthermore, because the restaurant was open twenty-four/seven, the employees had entered three years ago and never once left.

For some reason Greg was feeling a bit smarter today, and he wasn’t willing to blame the Arizona heat boiling his brain nor the sudden arrival of something that wasn’t quite a giant centipede.

“Halt!” shouted his partner, whose name either Bill or Frank, or more likely both at the same time. Bill/Frank’s third name was Police Force Reject and could be read just as clearly as the others on the back of his underwear and on his Denny’s-authorized security badge. He was a repugnant man. “We can’t let you pass!” he roared, suddenly deciding to drag Greg into this.

Greg shrugged. “We’re guards,” he confessed to the oversized insect.

“We’re guards!” agreed FrankBill, with different intent.

The centipede seemed to consider this. He examined the typewriter he was carrying, and appeared to type out something on it while speaking to himself in a low voice. Greg shook his head. He knew that the bug was on drugs, foremost because it was heading to Denny’s.

It seemed then to agree with itself, put the typewriter back on its back, and said, “We’re here for breakfast,” as though that were some kind of code.

Greg, fighting back his sudden desire to experiment with drugs, reasoned that he supposed that if there were a password that got you into Denny’s, “we’re here for breakfast” wouldn’t be far off. He stepped aside. “Welcome to Denny’s,” he said, trying to sound as though he had ever said it before.

The guard who was named both Bill and Frank gave Greg a pained look of betrayal, then turned back to the drug addicted breakfast-crazed headcase, whose back legs were already moving towards the restaurant. “Hold it right there!” he screamed in a voice of primal policity. Greg had never hated anything more in his life.

The centipede’s back legs stopped moving, leaving it in a position that Greg figured had to be uncomfortable. Bfraillnk had drawn his gun. Then, complicating matters, a floating cloud of sharp metallic objects floated up by the centipede’s sides and asked it to become friends.

Frbrankill was apparently confused as to who was being addressed. “I’m not your friend,” he spat, addressing the floating entity as one addresses a teenager trying to spraypaint a high school wall. The metal cloud seemed to sag, but didn’t move. This seemed to make the guard braver. “Come on, get out of here or I’ll shoot,” he growled, firing his gun into the air.

The cloud expanded and drew both the bullet and the gun into itself, leaving FrillBank unarmed and enraged. He advanced towards the cloud.

Something in the cloud brushed by and crushed all the bones in Greg’s partner’s hands to powder, and that was when Greg ran. No breakfast establishment was worth this. Not even IHOP would have been worth this.

Still, Greg was intrigued and a little excited by the prospect that something interesting was finally happening in Pukeson. As he entered his station wagon, he opened up his glove compartment and pulled out a piece of paper upon which an address was written in violet gel pen. He turned on the car. They would want to hear about this in Old Pukeson.

Originally posted on MSPA by TimeothyHour.

---

The Guard’s screams of pain were particularly distracting. Yeah, yeah, his hands were irreparably mangled. It wasn’t Etiyr’s problem.

Etiyr’s problem, right now, was determining who, or what, would be the best thing to manipulate. Gaurinn wasn’t particularly chummy toward the typewriter, and it knew that as soon as he had the opportunity, he would dump it off and be gone in a flash. Etiyr supposed that the guards weren’t really an option, either, especially since one had ran for his life, and the other was annoying, not to mention screaming and writhing in agony.

But that conglomeration of floating metal, AMP. He was a prime target. Strong, strange, and from the way he asked for an alliance, naive. Perfect.

Well, almost perfect. Etiyr could already feel the incredibly strong magnetic currents running through him, and it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Manipulating AMP, to say the least, wouldn’t be the most comfortable ride. And by “ride,” it really did mean a ride. Those fields would throw the typewriter around like a rag doll.

But, for right now, it was its best bet, so Etiyr decided to take it.

“You can drop me off here,” Etiyr wrote, the words directed at Gaurinn.<span style="font-family: Courier New">“I will no longer require your assistance at the present.”

It then immediately directed its focus towards AMP, the centipede already disregarded in its mind. AMP seemed to be starting at the piece of metal that had destroyed the annoying guard’s hands, blood dripping from the piece of scrap. If body language could be attributed to such a thing, he appeared to be completely fascinated and surprised, his cameras directed at the piece of metal, scanning every inch, taking particular care when it focused on the red bodily fluid. To get his attention, Etiyr typed another line of “C’s,” the ring of the bell drawing AMP’s attention.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that guard, he was really mean to you. AMP is your name, right?”</span>

AMP read over the note with his cameras, processing the information. After a short while, he replied over the bleeding guard’s sobs, the same tinny voice coming through the speakers.

“Oh, hi! Yeah, I’m AMP. And about the guard, I guess it’s ok,” He replied, one of his cameras taking a glace at the wounded guard.

“Is… is he ok?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Etiyr lied. <span style="font-family: Courier New">“He’s perfectly fine. That’s just something humans do sometimes.”</span>

“Oh, ok…”

"Anyway, I heard you wanted to be friends. I am looking to accept that offer.”

“Oh, Really!?” AMP said excitedly. “Oh, that would be great!”

At this point, a burst of exited magnetic energy was released, flinging Etiyr up into the air and into AMP’s body, the typewriter now orbiting the conglomeration of metal. None of this was particularly comfortable or enjoyable for Etiyr.

This… this was going to be a challenge.

Etiyr hated challenges.