Four beings suddenly found themselves nowhere, able to see one another but nothing else. A synthesized voice came out of the nothing surrounding them.
"Alright, let's get this over with. You four, listen up.
"The first of you idiots is just called Anne. Her last name doesn't stay the same, it changes whenever she uses a different ID card. Each one... God, I can't believe this shit. Each one gives her a different ability based on a bleedin' pun.
"Moving on, this teal loser is called Dan 'Digger' Buller. He spent his life away from his homeworld, living on a piece of junk and digging graves to get by. His grasp of English isn't all that great, and I'm not about to coddle him by translating that shit.
"We've also got Ryan Simfitch here. He's some sort of average guy whose accomplishments include 'wearing nice clothes' and 'running some website.' The whole extent of his fighting ability is the training they give nerds in the air force.
"Finally, we have a god-damned safe. Inside is a world-destroying monster abomination or some shit, and it can't do much besides 'be in a safe' and 'be tempting.' Anyone who opens that piece of crap will find themselves and everything around destroyed forever or something."
Generating Setting... Done.
The four generated characters suddenly found themselves moved, scattered in various locations around a section of highway slicing through a massively-hot desert. As far as the eye could see, the road was packed bumper-to-bumper with cars, trucks, and numerous vehicles of intermediate description. All were apparently abandoned, left long enough for sand to be forming piles on the sides but not so long that all the seats had faded.
"Welcome to the I-15, known colloquially as fourteen-hundred miles of jack shit. Right now, you're something like a hundred miles north of Fabulous Las Vegas. Stretching from here to there and for hundreds of miles past is what some call the 'automotive graveyard.' They're the ones who probably decreed this whole place quarantined after what happened in Vegas. Or rather, to Vegas. Others call this place 'the great scrap-yard,' or 'the old nine to five.' They're more likely the marauding raiders who ignore the quarantine and salvage parts to sell elsewhere.
"Now, you four saps get to duke it out here, dealing with the heat, each other, and maybe scavengers. As soon as one of you dies, you're getting picked up and dropped somewhere else, just the three of you who survived. Then, once another one dies, on to somewhere else for just the two of you left to fight it out. You can figure it out from there."
The voice fell silent.
(Characters:)
SpoilerShow
Pick Yer Poison: Dan "Digger" Buller (#33BBCC)
Dragon Fogel: Anne (#FF00AA)
Solaris: Ryan Simfitch (#008000)
Ixcaliber: The Abomination (#800000)
Pick Yer Poison Wrote:Name: Dan "Digger" Buller Gender: Male Font color:#33BBCC Race: Shill Weapons/Abilities: Digger's only weapon is a four foot long shovel. The shaft is thick and made of some sort of wood, although Digger's not really sure what kind. The digging end is metal, and although it's had its share of wear and tear it's still perfectly functional. The word "DIGGER" is engraved on the handle.
Description: Digger is humanoid, but it would be hard to mistake him for one. His skin is a bright teal, and he is completely hairless. He stands nearly seven feet tall and has long, stick-like limbs. His hands have seven similarly stick-like fingers, and his feet have seven stubby little toes. Despite his appearance, Digger is anything but weak; Shills are much stronger than they look. Digger's eyes are about an inch larger in diameter than a human's, and the black iris fills most of them. A tiny pupil lies in the middle of each, although it dilates and contracts as needed, giving him impressive night vision. He has flat discs on the sides of his head that serve as ears.
Biography:
Quote:"Shill culture is heavy with superstitions regarding the afterlife, to the point where much of their daily lives are governed by them. Unlike most civilizations, most of these superstitions were not abandoned by the time they achieved faster-than-light space travel and joined the growing intergalactic community. Most Shills still lived in dirt huts at that time; the vast majority of Shills cared little about the discovery lauded as the most important one in their entire history by the few who did. Those few promptly took all of their families and blasted off into the brave new intergalactic world they'd discovered. They quickly found out that it wasn't as amazing as it had first appeared, and most of them went back home and returned to a quiet tribal life in shame, trying to forget that there was anything more than their peaceful little village.
Others, however, were eager to adjust to a new way of life...or had no other option. Shill spaceships are not known for their workmanship; there are, in fact, only four known working models at this point, and three of them are located in museums. The fourth belongs to Dan "Digger" Buller, a gravedigger living on the largely-human planet Polmer, and one of only a few hundred Shills who did not return to their homeworld. While it may seem odd that the spaceship has not been stolen, it should be noted that Shill spaceships are not even collector's items; a full tank of fuel for one is worth more than the ship itself."
-excerpt from the Narrapedia article on Shills
Digger hefted his shovel, surveying the shallow pit he had just finished digging. Unlike humans, who sweat when they're hot, Shills vent the excess heat directly out as steam; therefore, had you laid a hand on Digger's shoulder just then, you would have felt uncomfortably hot air coming off of him. Digger pulled out a low-tech walkie-talkie and hit the talk button. "Digger to chapel, come in."
A reply squawked back at him. "This is the chapel, Digger. Are you done with those graves?"
"Graves done. Anything else, or can I bed?"
"Nothing else, Digger. You may go to bed." The walkie-talkie clicked off and Digger grimaced. His English was still rather shaky, even after two years of work, and the chapel administrator was constantly correcting him in the hopes it would improve. There were only a few hundred Shills not living on the Shill homeworld, and their homeworld had been declared a no-fly zone, at the request of the Shill Science Chief, who was the closest thing to a planetary leader the Shills had available when they entered the intergalactic community. Because of this, there were no mainstream Shill translation programs, and the few privately created ones were only a step above useless anyway. Even with his disjointed sentences, his own English skills were still more reliable than one of them.
Digger strode off to his Shill spaceship that served as his home, in much the same way that a trailer van did for some humans. But not on Polmer, of course; the atmosphere wasn't lethal or anything dangerous like that, but it was much too thin, to the point that if a human stayed out in it for more than about half an hour they'd start to feel increasingly weak and dizzy. Happily, Shill lungs are good at compensating for atmospheric density (or in this case, a lack of it), which allowed Digger to take up odd jobs that were tricky or even impossible for the human colonists to do. Many of these duties were already filled by other aliens that needed work and had the necessary biological, or in some cases mechanical, equipment for it. Fortunately, Digger was able to find work as a gravedigger, a job no one else really wanted, and that was both important enough to need a dedicated worker for but not vital enough to sacrifice digging equipment for. Digger didn't earn much, but the concept of money was novel to him at the time, and he had no way of knowing that he was being paid much too little for his work. Not that he cared; as long as he had food and drink he was satisfied. He did entertain some romantic fantasies of somehow finding a female Shill from time to time, but those of course were free of charge. And in time, he had managed to discard most of his deeply ingrained superstitions about the dead.
Digger carefully pulled open the hatch to what everyone else called the "Shillship." He wasn't really sure what they meant by that, to be honest, not even after the chapel administrator had told him it was a "portmanteau," but he laughed along with everyone else because he didn't want to seem uncool, and didn't want to draw attention to the fact that he couldn't speak English very well, even though everyone in the colony already knew about it. The reason he lived in the Shill spaceship was because it was the living space most suited to a Shill occupant that could be found on the entire colony. Even if it was a terribly-designed spaceship, and even if lifting off in it was like flipping a coin with "LIVE" on one side and "DIE" on the other, it did make for more spacious living quarters than most of the other alien workers got. Racism against non-humans on a primarily human colony was very much a reality, although most of the colonists were used to them. Sadly, the most racist ones were the ones in charge, while most of the civilians and workers who mingled with aliens on a daily basis were on a first-name basis with many of them, or whatever was considered a first-name basis in the differing cultures.
Digger pulled the door hatch closed and dropped the shovel onto the table next to it, then tumbled into the cot on the floor of the ship, drawing the covers over his long figure. Because of the thin atmosphere, Polmer nights were cold, and the days weren't much better. Digger's spaceship had no heating, but one of the colonists, a dark-skinned merchant with graying hair, had been kind enough to sell him a space heater for a reduced price soon after he had gotten his job as a gravedigger. When Digger told him how much he was earning, he had tightened his lips, muttered something Digger still didn't understand, and had taken out a red marker and crossed off the last digit on the price tag. From that point on, the man - whose name was Dyson - had taken Digger under his wing, and made sure Digger consulted with him before spending his little pay on anything, a practice which had saved Digger from making some very bad purchases. Digger had been extremely upset a few months back when Dyson had died of a heart failure, and even moreso when he found himself digging a grave for him. He'd put a coin at the head of Dyson's grave, but it was stolen a few days later. He spent a fruitless day looking for the thief before giving up. Dyson's goods had gone to his daughter, back on Earth, who had decided to auction them off. Digger had picked up the shovel at that sale, deciding it was much nicer than the standard plastic-and-metal one he'd been given to do his job with, and spent a few days' worth of free time carefully carving the word "DIGGER," a nickname he had garnered, into the wooden handle with a sharp piece of metal he had found on the ship.
Digger was just drifting off to sleep when his walkie-talkie squawked at him. "Chapel to Digger, come in."
He rolled over with a groan and picked it up. "This is Digger, chapel. What up?"
"Got another order for you, Digger. Some guy just kicked it due to food poisoning. That's what they're calling it now if you eat alien food and it turns your digestive tract into jelly, apparently. Anyway, I know it's late and it's a rush order, but he's stinking up the place, and they're already setting up the service. Digger? Digger, you there? Darnit, Dan, you didn't just roll over and go back to sleep, did you?"
But Digger had vanished between the words "digestive" and "tract," leaving only a glowing space heater, a cot, and an increasingly annoyed man talking on a walkie-talkie, all inside a defunct spaceship found only in three other places in the universe.
Dragon Fogel Wrote:Name: Anne (Last name varies. See Abilities.)
Race: Human
Color: #FF00AA
Weapons/Abilities: Anne has the power to change her last name by pulling an ID card out of her wallet. Changing her name in this way will grant her one or more abilities based on the resulting pun.
Examples include:
-Anne Orexic - Ability to become dangerously skinny.
-Anne Tidote - Ability to cleanse poisons.
-Anne Tarctic - Ability to create snow.
-Anne Ellid - Ability to communicate with worms.
Unfortunately, Anne's wallet is no longer very organized, due to the accidental use of the Anne Agram ID card followed by the rest of the cards falling out. As such, while she can find a specific card if she has enough time to sort out the confusing names that mark them now, in the heat of battle she has to just take what she can get.
Description: Anne's appearance and personality tend to vary somewhat based on her current last name, but there are some things that are constant across most appearances.
She has shoulder-length brown hair, and wears a large blue ribbon in it. Her outfits tend towards various shades of pink shirts and blue jeans, unless her current name involves a radical alteration.
Radical alterations include Anne Immal, who is near-feral; Anne Tagonist, who is extremely violent; and Anne Arkey, who will immediately attempt to destroy any nearby authority structure. There may be others.
Biography: Anne was raised as Anne Tagonist, and had an immense and irrational hatred of her brother Pro. In actuality, however, she had been adopted by the Tagonist family as part of a scheme by the Evil Empire (headed by Emperor Evil). When she grew old enough, they used her hatred of her adopted brother to recruit her into the army, where her brutal tactics made her a valuable asset.
Then Pro found out about her abilities and her real name (Anne Ticlimax) and she joined up with him. Along the way, she acquired numerous ID cards, which she used to change her last name in order to gain new abilities.
Then one day, she was testing out the Anne Agram ID card, and accidentally dropped her wallet with all the other cards in it. They fell out, and she scrambled all the names on them putting them back in.
She was going to organize the wallet, but before she could, she disappeared and was pulled into a battle...
Solaris Wrote:Username: Sollie Name: Ryan Simfitch Gender: Male Race: Human Colour: This Green, #008000 Biography: Ryan Simfitch is man in his 30's, born and raised in the Boston area, he's spent his life happy and generally normal. Graduating near the top of the class, and happily accepting the "Best Dressed" award for his year, Ryan is more a stickler for fashion than a scholar. That isn't to say he doesn't like conversations about either. After, he joined the Air Force, signing on for an IT position there. Upon his return, he found love and was married. He then got a nice and steady job in his Hometown. In his free time, he met some artistic friends on an unimportant Internet Forum. After one of these friends greatly grew in popularity, he was called in to help with various IT issues and he became an Administrator in those forums. Description: Ryan is a man in his 30's with Brown hair and a nice clean face. He is a stickler for fashion and is very rarely found not wearing a suit. The man himself is serious and business like, perhaps a tad much, but under that is a very nice man who only wishes for the best for his friends. Items/Abilities: Luckily, at the time of abduction, Ryan was in the middle of a fun and happy meet-up with various users of the forum he administrated in. As a result, he is in an outdoors suit. In addition, he currently has a Clever Disguise in the form of a Novelty Fake Glasses and Mustache. Currently unbeknownst to him, he also has an enchanted stuffed rabbit armed with four powerful weapons, but tiny weapons, a spear, nun-chucks, a yo-yo, and a crossbow. His name is Verd and he was passed along by various members of the forum. The only other thing he has with him are his IT knowledge and some basic Air Force Training.
Ixcaliber Wrote:Username: Ixcaliber Name: The Abomination Gender: None. (It is the preferred pronoun though male if you are going to insist on gender specific pronouns) Font colour:Dark red for eviltimes Species: Unknown Abilities: The Abomination has the ability to rip worlds in twain, to enslave entire civilisations to its every whim with nothing but a thought, to consume universes whole in a fiery inferno of death and destruction if it is bored and desires some light entertainment. It has the ability to take control of reality itself, create horrifying creatures out of thin air, to strip the skin from its enemiesâ bones and make them suffer in perpetuity without even lifting a finger.
Technically it can do all of those things... to anything that happens to be within the confines of the safe that it is trapped inside. You know what Iâll write the other stuff first and come back to this.
Description: Inside the safe the Abomination is a vast being, a twisting mass of tentacles and faces forever contorting into horrifying configurations. It is covered with razor sharp gnashing teeth, scores of bloodshot beady eyes staring into your soul. It is the face of death and madness and after seeing it you may never be the same again.
What the others actually see is a 40 centimetre squared safe made from thick black obsidian, carved with glowing red runes. It has a thick black handle, also inscribed with runes, which looks like it would easily turn and open the safe if one was inclined to do so and oh my gosh does it look tempting.
The Abomination is hugely sadistic; it revels in death and destruction even if it is not the one that is causing it. It does however strive to always be the one that is causing it. It is angry, yes, but it is a pent up anger. It knows it needs someone else to help it out of this safe and is prepared to play nice if it believes that it can convince someone to release it, after which it will kill everyone. No exceptions. Seriously do not even think about opening this safe.
Biography: The Abomination was an awful world destroying monster and one day a bunch of heroes or villains or whoever sealed him into this safe to stop him from destroying everything. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Ever since then his powers are slowly starting to manifest on the outside of the safe and now heâs in a Grand Battle.
Abilities Redux: Outside of the safe he has limited telekinesis and the ability to slightly alter other peopleâs perception of the world. He canât take control of people but he can be like that little voice in the back of your head which is all like âhey why not open that cool safe I bet there is some treasure inside it will be so awesomeâ.
"Let's see... spontaneously transported to an abandoned highway in the middle of a desert... have to kill a nerd, some alien gravedigger, and a horrible monstrosity trapped in a safe to get back... okay, I'd have to say this is the sixth weirdest thing that's happened to me this week."
Anne took out her wallet and started scanning through the scrambled names on her ID cards.
"Okay, this one's Teak... Droid... Thropologist... Ekdote... Kilosaur... Ah! Here we go!"
She held up a card which read Neiam Tean, and activated it. There was a flash of light, and then...
Anne Immate stood where she was before, looking exactly the same. The only difference one might observe was that her movements seemed more lively.
She walked to a nearby truck, and opened the door. It was broken down and out of gas... but that wouldn't matter in a moment.
She sat down and touched the steering wheel. The truck roared to life, moving under Anne's power, and started driving forward rapidly, driving over or tossing aside the other abandoned vehicles in its way.
Digger hefted his shovel and looked around him curiously. He had never visited Vegas, although he had heard it was a very bright and dangerous place and was located on Earth, so he had no idea where he was. To make matters worse, he was also clueless as to what the large, rusting, metal contraptions littered around him were; the closest parallel he could draw was with the colony's monorail car. He tapped the top of one experimentally, hurriedly withdrawing his finger with a pained noise when this revealed how hot metal can get from nonstop sun exposure for such a long period of time.
Digger glanced down at the sand piled up on the sides of the metal structures. He knew what sand was because once he had come across a merchant selling little prickly pieces of vegetation planted in small boxes. The merchant told him that the yellow-brown substance at the bottom of the box was sand; when he had started to ask what the plant was and it became clear he wasn't going to be buying it, the merchant told him to buzz off, so he never found that out. But he knew what sand was.
Digger's reverie was interrupted by a very soft version of the sound of starship's engines made when they started up. He looked around curiously, his head easily a foot above the tops of most of the contraptions. It didn't take him long to locate the source of the noise - one of the large metal contraptions was plowing through a lot of smaller ones, pushing them to the side and off the road. Digger picked his way between the contraptions to get closer to the path the thing was traveling in, although he made sure he had a way out if it didn't feel like stopping; he didn't want to end up crushed between these metal monsters.
Anyone who had seen the obsidian safe would have said that it was floating. To an extent they would be correct, the safe was moving apparently unsupported through the air, though it was not floating. It was being telekinetically hauled around by it's occupant. This was The Abomination's only form of locomotion. Due to the limited amount of power he had over anything outside his prison it was always tiring, but with the heat as it was it was presently exhausting.
After a couple of meters it crashed to the ground. There was a brief pause before the safe resumed movement, this time it didn't so much hover as get dragged along the scorched tarmac. Inside the confines of the safe The Abomination was gasping for breath, and muttering to himself in his deep booming voice about how much he hated the heat.
Truth be told this was the first time in years that The Abomination had had any idea where he was. His sensory organs were locked, along with the rest of him, behind an impenetrable layer of obsidian. He could not see or hear or smell anything from the world around him. For the last decade he had guessed that he was in a deep dungeon (presumably built to contain him), but had never had any real confirmation on that front.
During the introductions he had latched into one of his opponent's senses. The sight of himself and his three adversaries-to-be had been the first thing he had seen in innumerable years. It was jarring to see the safe in which he was entombed. It struck home to him how far he had been brought down. That he had been dragged into a battle to the death with mere mortals. It was almost embarassing, but an opportunity was an opportunity. He was certain that the minds of one of these four could be used to liberate him from this accursed cage, and then the world would have to watch out.
Although he hadn't had another's senses to latch onto when he had been deposited onto this highway, he had recieved the vague description from their host, and formed a sort of mental map based on when he had clanged into the side of a car. Telepathically he reached out. To his left the minds of the others; to far to make use of, and to his right a group of minds approaching fast. He hauled the safe around so that its handle faced towards what it could only presume were the raiders the voice had mentioned, and resumed dragging.
Ryan was shocked. Sitting on his ass, with his eyes open wide, starting at the abyss, he was just shocked.
"....a b-b-battle? w-w-what..."
Still in the same position that he spawned, Ryan silently tried to make sense of his situation.
As the Beagle Puss clad administrator continued his meaningless musings, a certain enchanted tag-along analyzed the surrounding area. The stuffed rabbit's observations were mostly sand and more sand, most features obscured in the darkness of the night. As the bunny frowned from the lack of discovery, it noticed a flicker off in the distance. Concluding that the best course of action was for its ward to find others, the bunny got some sand and tossed it in the direction of the unwitting forum admin, and then quickly hid behind a dune.
Not content with any of his own explanations, and interrupted by what he assumed was the wind, Ryan turned for the light and began walking toward it, hoping that whoever was there would be able to provide him with the answers that he needed.
SpoilerShow
If someone prefers it to be day, I can change the post for that.
A reinforced van plowed along the dunes running adjacent to the abandoned highway. To be honest though if nobody had thought to mention it was a van you would be forgiven for thinking someone had mounted a shed on wheels. It was covered with corrugated sheets of metal, reinforced planks of wood and liberally applied barbed wire. Mounted to the top of the behemoth was a massive spotlight illuminating the path ahead. The front window had been replaced with bulletproof glass and someone had attached a massive steel pilot (the kind that would normally be found on the front of a train) to the front of the van. All in all this van gave the impression that the inhabitants were expecting trouble.
As it reached a point roughly adjacent to where The Abomination was hauling itself the van slowed and stopped. For a moment it was completely still then in a sudden flurry of activity a side door, which moments ago you wouldn't have been able to tell was a door at all, burst open and out came two people. They were covered from head to toe in what vaguely resembled a hazardous materials suit. The suits themselves looked sort of makeshift and as though if it really came down to it they wouldn't keep very much hazardous materials out. The suits were painted dark red and on top of that a crude white skull had been emblazoned. Beneath the clear perspex visors it could be seen that the suit's occupants were a little unconventional.
The first of the pair had a shock of toxic green hair cropped short, though his blonde stubble belied his true hair colour. The second of the two had similarly cut hair; hers dyed a deep purple. She had peircings through her nose, her eyebrow, her lip, essentially anywhere that her body could be peirced it had been. It was not apparent but due to the extreme heat, they were both wearing nothing more than the hazmat suits, and even so both of them were heavily sweating. In their hands makeshift rifles cobbled together from the scraps of various other firearms. Their faces were set in serious scowls as their eyes scanned the horizon for signs of movement; circles of light thrown by the flashlights attached to their rifles danced back and forth along the row of cars as they did so.
Behind them something stepped out of the van, it's very movements causing the sturdy vehicle to tilt. It looked like something that had once been human. The general shape was still discernible as were patches of tanned human skin. The rest of it was jet black. Its limbs were unnaturally proportioned, its chest visibly expanded and detracted with every inhalation and exhalation. The face was still part human, bisected vertically. The human eye was bloodshot and ringed with bags, the other eye a deep green. its nose now nothing more than a pair of nostrils, its mouth curled into a permanent scowl.
"What's the matter?" It rasped.
"We detected movement." The girl replied. "Unusual movement." she elaborated, cutting off the creature's questioning response.
"Lets go and see then." It replied, its bisected mouth attempting a grin and not really managing it. The guy had stopped scanning the cars, his flashlight alighted on a large black object with red markings.
"I think..." he said slowly and uncertainly "...that it was that." The chick regarded it critically.
"I've never seen anything like that out here." she admitted.
Deep in the confines of the safe the Abomination grinned with all of its many mouths. This was going to be easy.
Before the trio could approach the safe, they were interrupted by a loud noise as something collided with their van.
Moments before, Anne had realized two things. First, that her truck was unlikely to have enough force to knock the van out of the way; and second, that her magically animated truck didn't have working brakes.
She jumped out, hitting the ground hard. The shock of the impact changed her back to normal.
As she picked herself up, she noticed the large, hideous man approaching her. This was going to be trouble.
With little time to react, she simply reached into her wallet and took out the first card she found, then activated it.
The flash of light as she changed caught the hideous man by surprise. He was even more surprised when she started speaking into a microphone.
"Good evening, everyone!" she said to nobody in particular. "I'm Anne Korman, and our top story today: I've been entered into a battle to the death! As a result, I'm on this highway in the middle of the desert, where a van full of unsavory types has just stumbled upon a safe containing one of my opponents, the Abomination. Live on the scene, here's Krelgor with the story. Krelgor?"
The hideous man found himself compelled to reply. He didn't even wonder how she knew his name, or why there was a microphone in his hand all of a sudden.
"Thank you, Anne. I have here with me two members of the gang, Johnny and Seagull." He thrust his microphone towards the girl. "Johnny, what do you know about this 'Abomination'?"
Johnny shrugged. "Well, uh... nothin'. Seagull just picked some unusual movement, so we stopped to check it out, and then we found that safe floating over there."
"I see." Krelgor shifted his microphone to the man. "Seagull, can you tell us why you found the movement unusual?"
"Well, uh... it seemed like whatever was moving wasn't touching the ground. But it seemed to big to be a bird, and it wasn't really moving like one? So I figured we should stop and check it out."
"Have you examined the safe yet?"
"Uh, no. We were about to," Johnny said, looking around nervously. "Is that a problem?"
"According to experts, if the Abomination is released from that safe, it will destroy the world. How do you respond to this?"
"Well," Seagull said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "I guess that means it'd be a bad idea to open it."
"Oh, hey!" Johnny cut in. "We could grab it, though! And then we'd say we'd open it unless people gave us stuff!"
"Well, you heard it here first. This unruly gang is going to take the safe and use it to threaten the entire world. We can only hope that the Abomination's powers of temptation will not cause them to open it while it's in their possession. Back to you, Anne."
"Thank you, Krelgor," Anne replied. "And now, over to Ryan Simfitch with the weather."
Ryan had just stepped closer to the shining light that was apparently a formerly moving van when the odd lady had suddenly become an interviewer for the other men. He stared at the scene and slowly began to walk away when she said "And now, over to Ryan Simfitch with the weather."
Right as she said those words, Ryan suddenly felt as if there was a massive amount of pressure on him. This pressure was partially explained when a board showcasing the area suddenly appeared with little weather magnets off to the side. Ryan momentarily stared blankly at the scene, as he felt the pressure grow. "Uh... well.... according to our meteorologists we can expect semi-cloudy days for the next few days, and maybe a few scattered showers over in the weekend."
As Ryan's broadcast distracted himself and the three other men, Anne quietly snuck away, taking the van for herself and driving off.
Behind the reinforced and heavily enchanted steel The Abomination was beyond the reach of Anne's influence, and so he just watched bewilderedly from the viewpoint of Johnny's eyes. He had silently cursed as this bizarre woman clued in his victims on just what would happen if they released him. If he was going to convince these people to release him from his cell now he was going to have to be incredibly clever and incredibly subtle. Luckily this was something he was incredibly good at.
While Ryan struggled to play weatherman in keeping with Anne's now fading influence The Abomination whispered sweet temptations into Johnny's head.
'Hey you know what would be really cool and not at all supremely dangerous?' The Abomination whispered. 'You should totally disregard all warnings you have recieved thus far on the subject and just take a good old look at whatever cool thing is inside.'
Johnny frowned, for a moment there she could have sworn she heard someone talking to her. It was probably this heat, the hazmat suit didn't help either, but it was the only way to come out to the automative graveyard without fear of being infected. In fact, now that she had shaken off the influence of that strange newscaster woman, she felt maybe she should warn this guy about The Contagion.
'That safe looks pretty cool, I wish I knew for sure what kind of cool thing is in there.' The Abomination tried again. 'I bet it's pretty cool and not at all malevolent and all-powerful.
"Hey guy." she said, pressing her hand to her temple. "Ryan, was it? Where's your Hazmat suit?"
"I... uh... I don't have one." He said hesitantly.
'This guy is really dull I wish he would leave me alone so I could open that safe.' The Abomination would not be deterred. 'Which is an action I intend to carry out the moment I get a chance.
"Out here, without one, you're dead meat." Johnny said irritably. "If you want to live a little longer stay away from Krelgor and hey who knows you might not run into any more of The Contaminated." She paused. "Not that I can see that happening."
The Abomination was impressed. Clearly these raiders were cleverer than he had given them credit for. He couldn't even begin to imagine how he could be more subtle than he already was being, but it was evident that he would have to, if he ever wanted to get out of this safe.
Meanwhile Seagull and Krelgor, not distracted by mysterious voices, or the wellbeing of their fellow man, had noticed their van had been hijacked. Krelgor, taking advantage of his mutated form had dropped to all fours and started all but galloping after the slow heavy vehicle. Seagull just kept a watch out for Contaminated.
Digger had stared at the approaching vehicle, less and less confident that it would come to a stop with each second that passed. As it closed in on him he had no choice but to throw himself out of the way, landing hard against the asphault. He lay there as the truck crashed past him, careening off the road and into a van in the distance. That landing had knocked the wind out of him pretty hard and he opted to take a minute or two to get his breath back. Before he had mustered the effort to climb back to his feet he heard a noise off to the side the truck had originally came from. He turned to look to see something climbing over the overturned cars. It was humanoid in shape alone, its skin jet black and with the seeming consistency of tar, it left parts of its own slimy body behind on every surface that it touched. Where its face was there was only two points of sickly green light. It drew its head back and howled into the night.
--------
Not far away and not long ago Ryan Samfitch was receiving a lesson in the dangers of the automotive graveyard.
"The Contaminated?" He repeated dumbly. Johnny nodded.
"They're fast, ugly and highly contagious." Johnny said. "No offense Krelgor." she quickly amended before glancing around and noticing that their Contaminated companion was not there. "Krel got in contaminated, and I guess it just goes to show that it needn't ruin your life, if you keep up with the anti-contaminants. It can't ever be cured but at least it doesn't get any worse..." She was cut off by a howling in the distance.
"Was that...?" Ryan asked nervously.
"You better believe it." Seagull replied through gritted teeth. He glanced at Johnny, who quickly had her rifle in her hand and nodded.
"What about Ryan?" she asked.
"Leave him." Seagull said bluntly. "He's not one of us, he's not our concern." Without a further word he took off towards the howling of the Contaminated.
"Sorry kid, guess you're on your own." Johnny said, hurrying after him. For a long moment Ryan stood there deliberating whether or not it was a good idea to follow them towards one of these Contaminated...
I was listening to this as I wrote this post. Is that bad? (Warning: Explicit language)
The Contaminated creature, known to his friends in the pack of Contaminated creatures he lived in as Hurgrar, lowered his gaze and stared contemplatively at Digger. Like any untreated Contaminated, Hurgrar was about as intelligent as a particularly dim-witted dog, and about as friendly as a hungry wolverine. However, lacking as it may have been, Hurgrar had enough brainpower to realize that the creature in front of him looked a good deal different from his usual prey. As the pack's scout, he was aware that if he died, the pack would avoid the prey that had killed him, but he also knew that pack customs entitled him to the full prize if he killed it. He crept slowly towards the thing, jumping from car to car where necessary, survival instincts kicking in and causing him to poise himself to flee at a moment's notice if this strange new creature proved to be more than he had bargained for.
Digger, on the other hand, was quaking in his colonist surplus boots. It had only occurred to him that the advancing beast was interested in him after he had wasted several precious seconds watching its progress as it leaped from car to car, watching him constantly as it did so. He scrambled away along the asphalt, then after a few seconds stumbled to his feet, using a low-seated car's hood as leverage to enable him to keep moving as he did so. He leaned into the run, darting recklessly between the cars, not even stopping to look back to see if the thing was still following him.
Hurgrar bared his fangs gleefully. The concept of a fleeing meal caused his mind to give off a curious mix of endorphins and adrenaline, making him increasingly pumped and ecstatic the longer a chase went on. Not that Hurgrar knew any of this, or would even be able to comprehend any of it if he had had it explained to him; in fact, he'd most likely have started chewing on the speaker a few seconds into the explanation. All he knew was that he loved it when his prey ran, and he loved to prolong the chase until the prey simply refused to run any further. Then he ate it. He liked that part a lot too.
Digger was already getting tired. Having spent two years shoveling tough colonial soil in order to make graves had made him fairly strong - especially given the size of some of the alien graves he'd had to dig - but when it came to endurance running, he had a lot to learn, and no time to learn it. He'd wasted most of his energy in an initial sprint that hadn't actually gained him much ground, and he was moving noticeably slower after less than a minute of running. Had he cared to look back, he might have noticed that the beast had been matching his speed the entire time, intent on prolonging the chase until he ran out of stamina and collapsed, but he didn't even consider it for a moment, and thus never had the chance to notice. As he felt himself flagging, his mind began to churn, struggling to come up with a way out.
Confused, Hurgrar slowed down, squinting at his prey. It had been showing all the signs of stopping, but then without warning had turned around and hefted something that looked like it could be dangerous. Hurgrar snarled and bared his fangs again, this time not out of enjoyment, but in the hopes of intimidating his prey. The chase had stopped and his brain had stopped producing endorphins, and Hurgrar was not particularly happy about either of these things. Prey wasn't supposed to fight back - it was supposed to run until it couldn't run any more, and then he was supposed to eat it. That was how things worked. Why didn't this prey understand that? Hurgrar howled at it and leaped forward, intent on making his prey understand why it was supposed to run from him.
Adrenaline raced through Digger's body, and time seemed to slow down. He was painfully aware that the next several seconds would decide if he lived or died. He looked up at the creature leaping towards him - black, ugly, and fanged, it was a picture perfect nightmare. He steeled himself and gazed right back into its bright green eyes, letting it know he was prepared to fight for his life. Half a moment passed by, seeming to take several minutes to Digger's adrenaline-filled mind, and suddenly the creature was within range. He swung his shovel as hard as he could, slamming the flat side into the side of the creature's face. It let out a howl, but its path of motion didn't allow it to avoid colliding awkwardly with Digger. He screwed his eyes shut as the thing rammed into him, covering his front with the black tar and knocking him to the ground. Just as he was bracing himself for the end, a loud CRACK sounded, and Digger felt the weight of the beast vanish from his chest. He wiped the black gunk off of his face and sat up, opening his eyes, to see the beast running at a rapid clip away from him, smearing black gunk everywhere in its hurry. He stood up and looked around to see what had happened, and was surprised to see a human in some kind of suit not too far off, aiming a rifle at the retreating creature. Digger blinked, then hesitantly waved. "Uh, thanks, much," he called out.
A human girl popped up behind a car and pointed another rifle at Digger. "What the fuck're you?"
Digger blinked and slowly put his hands up in the air. Dyson had told him stories about people on Earth who pointed guns at others for various reasons, and he'd been told to do that if anyone pointed a gun at him and asked him a question. "I am Dan. I am a Shill. I speak English, but not very well." He spoke slowly and carefully, reciting the introductory speech from memory. "You can call me Digger," he added as an afterthought. He extended a black goop-covered hand towards the girl. "What your name?"
She eyed the hand, then lowered her rifle and stepped forward to shake it. "I'm Johnny, and you're the fourth weird thing that's happened today."
After a few moments of deliberation, and after feeling a little lonely, Ryan ran after the group. He hoped that he could at least find some sort of protection, or at the very least not just sit out in the open, completley defenseless and just waiting prey.
Meanwhile, the enchanted rabbit was beating the crap out of the mutants scattered around. The small bunny zipped from Contaminated to Contaminated, trying it's best not to allow any harm to befall Ryan. As he walked through the road, completely unaware of the plight of the bunny. Heaps of mutants rose up as the bunny continued to fight them off, away from the eyes of any others.
However, one small contaminated made it past. As the bunny was dealing with a large behemoth of a Contaminated, a smaller one rushed through, and leaped at Ryan.
As the Contaminated clinged to his back, Ryan panicked. He ran in a circle, grabbing at the little man on his back, hoping to remove him before damage could be done. In his spastic running around, he hit a pole and was knocked out.
When Ryan woke up, he was surprised to him himself relatively well. His clothes were intact, he seemed to still be able to see and hear. He could even talk without sounding stupid. However, he felt an odd itch on his back. When he went to scratch it, he felt a great amount of pain, and then he realized that his hands were similarly itchy.
Far away from his view, a green bunny watched in sorrow, as the man it had to protect had his arms and back mutated into unsightly and disgusting appendages.
Anne had reverted to her normal self soon after stealing the van. Her overall plan was to drive to the city, Las Veggies or whatever it was, and then figure out the rest from there.
Her main goal was getting rid of that monstrosity in the safe. The other two didn't seem particularly dangerous, and heck, it might even be a bad idea to kill them. Maybe she could get them to join the fight against the Evil Empire or something. Oh, sure, there would be a detail or two to work out, like "how do we get there" and "wait, what about our home dimensions?", but that could wait until the Abomination was dealt with.
She hit a snag when the road ahead of her suddenly lifted up and a huge monster burst out of the ground. Thinking quickly, she pulled out one of her cards, hoping for the best, and got ready to jump out of the van.
A few seconds afterwards, the van collided with the beast in a massive explosion. Anne Timatter, luckily, was a safe distance away. She reverted, and began looking for another vehicle to use.
Then the dust settled from the explosion. The monster was still alive. It had lost an arm, but it had five more as far as she could see.
"Dammit!" she shouted. "Guess I'd better go back and get some help."
She ran, with the beast chasing her. Fortunately, for all its size, it was relatively slow, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep up her pace.
And when she saw another mutant in front of her screaming, she saw little choice but to pull out another card in desperation.
SpoilerShow
That second mutant is Ryan, by the way. Just so we're all clear.
The Abomination was alone again. The humans it had encountered had been completely oblivious to its machinations, convincing the monstrosity that it had been far too subtle. In the future it would have to be more direct if it hoped to leave its prison. It had attempted to chase the fleeing humans, but they were too quick for it. Normally it would have been able to keep pace, but the sweltering heat of this place was too much.
Still The Abomination believed the individual known as Ryan would be the best bet to release it, and so blindly dragged itself in his rough direction. Along the way it 'watched' as his mind flickered and darkened. The Abomination allowed his safe to drop to the ground for the moment while it worked out what was going on. It knew Ryan had not died; his mind had not been extinguished completely. It resembled the mind of that creature Krelgor. The Abomination, had he had an eyebrow might have raised it quizzically at this. Presumably Ryan was 'Contaminated' now. It did not matter, in fact this might even prove advantageous. In this mutated state Ryan might prove easier to convince. In fact...
The Abomination began to really focus as it searched for the minds of others. It ignored the strong signals of the humans and Digger, it even ignored the mediocre signs of Ryan and Krelgor. With enough scrutiny it found them; the Contaminated. Their mental facilities were still working, just about, but they were so faint as to be almost unnoticable until you went looking for them. The Contaminated, even dumber than than the half-breeds, would be easy to convince, maybe even... control? Without a second thought The Abomination dragged itself towards the largest pack of Contaminated it could find.
As Anne Ticipation rang out across the Gridlock, everyone temporarily froze, feeling a sudden sense of good things to come.
And for Anne and Ryan a good thing did come. The magical rabbit jumped forward and kicked the ever-loving crap out of the mutant that had been chasing after Anne.
Meanwhile, the Abomination had reached it's destination. It neared the many mutants, sending its powerful messages.
"Hey dudes, this safe is totally cool and not very dangerous at all. There's candy! Or brains! Candy Brains?"
Normally, this would fail miserably, even with the very low intelligence level he was dealing with. However, with the wave of Anne Ticipation sent outward, some of the mutants now felt that opening the safe would be good.
One of the mutants placed his hand on the safes door. Then, a large flying mutant knocked itself straight into the back of the Abomination, toppling it over, and crushing the mutant that had reached for it, and causing the rest to scatter.
The Abomination was displeased.
"So.. wait, you are Ryan."
The newly made mutant nodded in sorrow."
"Hmmm... I suppose I can just get my Anne Tidote card, just step back a bit I don't want to catch this... whatever."
Anne reached into her wallet and looked through the cards for the "Tidote" one.
She was successful! She held up the sword into the air... only for the wind to carry it away. Anne had trouble standing after both a small stuffed rabbit and a newly hideous mutant began to chase after the card that would hopefully heal Ryan.
Rushing to recapture the lost card, Anne had little choice but to use the first one she pulled out and hope it was useful.
Then Anne Gur started shouting at Ryan.
"This is all your fault!" she screamed. "If you hadn't gotten yourself turned into a mutant, I could have focused on stopping that stupid monster in that stupid safe instead of trying to heal you!"
Ryan simply whimpered in response.
Meanwhile, the bunny continued to chase after the lost card, heading in the direction of the Abomination.
"Geez, Johnny, are you just gonna make friends with every weirdo we find out here?" Seagull grumbled. "We got things to do! Like gettin' our van back!"
"Hey, Krelgor," Johnny shouted at her partially-mutated companion. "Remember when we first met, and how Seagull just wanted to shoot you?"
Krelgor turned towards Seagull's hazmat suit and growled.
"Yeah. I remember."
"Ugh! Are you ever gonna drop that? I apologized like eighty times already!" Seagull grumbled. "Anyways, I'm not saying we gotta shoot this Digger Dan guy, just that we ain't got time for him. Not unless he can help us get our van back."
Johnny rolled her eyes.
"All right, Digger," she said, with a sarcastic intonation that the alien completely missed. "Can you help us get our van back?"
***
"Get back here, you moron!" Anne Gur shouted as she chased after the mutant. "I'm not done yelling at you yet!"
Ryan didn't have time to think about why, exactly, he was so afraid of Anne. Or about how he was running faster than usual, or whether this was the result of further mutation, or simply a side effect of how afraid he was.
All he knew was that he had to get away before she could hit him. That single drive pushed aside all of his thoughts, making him rush forward.
Closer and closer to the Abomination, which sensed his single-mindedness.
It realized that it could take advantage of this.
She won't be able to find you in this safe, it said. Open it up and you can get far, far away from her.
Ryan was currently too afraid to refuse the offer. He turned towards the safe, Anne following close behind.
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