Divorarel

Celestial Duel — Shinny Vs Anshin

I’d Offer You Some Reading Recommendations

Beramode did not need to understand Kru’s unusual biology to feel the smug aura oozing off of him. Gods were like exaggerated reflections of the people who worshipped them in his experience and those who liked to think of themselves as beyond that simple principle were oft most enslaved by it. And so Beramode listened in silence as the wretched souls serving as Kru’s minions this evening tore into the space-faring metalloids who’d only wanted to play an innocent game…

Until it was his time to speak.

“I find that people are more interested in talking about themselves than you give them credit for, Pepe the Prawn, all you have to do is make them comfortable.” Was that what had happened here? Had Beramode feigned frustration in order to appeal to Kru’s ego or had the weaver of fate merely allowed himself to become tangled in his own web, whichever made him angrier was surely truer, and being unable to tell difference would surely eat away at his opponent for the duration of their match. “You needn’t resist the compulsion, it’s standard fare for rivals to engage in banter during a climatic battle. Speaking of…” Post-mauling the space between them had filled with liquid metal giblets but rather than be swept off the board by the next stellar breeze peeling off from the dying star beside them they remained, burbling en masse until all at once twenty-five of the largest clumps exploded into new bodies that very much resembled their old ones. “I activate Quantum Kindergarten, whenever a monster with the keyword Dog dies on my side of the field they are immediately replaced by five quantum clones of themselves to continue the fight. Then I activate Scorched Earth which immediately dispels all field effects and replaces them with a field of smoldering fire.”

Just like that a wave of heat swept across the space between them until it filled with a distorted haze.

“After that, I sacrifice one Pack of Dogs to upgrade my Black Dog Justicar to a Black Dog Archon.” Heat so hot that the bubbling form of the Justicar lit on fire with a brilliant black-purple plasma before it lurched into the mass of deformed spirits that had taken the shape of Kru’s Zombie Horde with a mighty sweep of its blade, then another, then another, then another. Shearing off another damned soul each time until it became difficult to ignore that real lives were being sacrificed for a petty game. “With four different instances of Suppressing Fire lowering their attack points and Scorched Earth boosting my Archon’s attack power the difference between the two is staggering and the remainder will be removed directly from your life points. After that I play one more card face down in the Spell Zone and I end my turn, you ought to be careful Kru, keep playing at this pace and you’ll run out of cards before we get to the fun stuff.”

Beramode had only one card in his hand, the Archon seemingly drawn from his deck—or his sleeve, but four Pack of Dogs and one Archon supported by the ongoing effects of his Quantum Kindergarten and Scorched Earth.

But I’m Not Convinced Your Shrimp Brain

“We’re surrounded.” “We’re being overwhelmed.” “Requesting evacuation.”

All around him, him being Rodrigo in this case, the favela exploded with activity. Zombies that had once no doubt been the occupants of this dumpy little shanty town burst from every available door, window, chimney, grate and other assorted opening they could find and when there were none available they made their own. The Black Dogs were immediately overwhelmed. There was no universe were any of their number would fall to a single zombie but the sheer weight of that tidal wave dragged them to the ground, and yet, when the first one fell a strange thing happened as if the universe itself were having a seizure before five more appeared in his or her place drawn from extant quantum possibilities where the trooper in question had not died.

This did not save the original trooper, who still died and still turned into a zombie, but rather replaced them and allowed their numbers to grow exponentially until the favela was an overflowing melee of living and dead made all the more chaotic by Rodrigo’s next order.

[Burn them all.]

FWOOSH!!!

Napalm swept across the whole favela from above as the dropships overhead dropped their camouflage and payloads in the same breath, uncaring of whether there were any survivors left or not and expecting the beleaguered Black Dog Clones to weather the storm with their power armor or be replaced by yet more copies wrenched from the cosmic cutting floor.

“Your friend has some interesting tricks, Hector, but I see what you’re trying to do.” Rodrigo marched forward through the sweeping flames seemingly ignorant of the headless gaunt that had once been David galloping a sharp semi-circle through the perimeter, crushing zombie and human underfoot, howling through the flames that every crevice of its twisted grey body on a mission to collide with the Black Dog Commander from behind. ‘The fool,’ Before becoming a techno savant Rodrigo had trained his body into a weapon such that he could physically feel any threat upon his person regardless of where he might perceive it, in other words, he knew the gaunt was coming at him from behind and just when it seemed ready to tackle him from behind he hopped into the air. Not much. Just enough that he was able to vault off the thing’s face before it passed under him with a pair of kicks so powerful they sent a shockwave rippling through the favela. Of David’s corpse there was naught but a messy splatter of blood spread out across a twenty-foot runway, steaming from contact with the jets at Rodrigo’s heels, carrying him past the fleeing Hector. Carving a burning trench through the muddy streets as he wheeled in the man’s direction and extended a single burly forearm to collide with his opponent mid-retreat and potentially decapitate that overgrown thaumatic bong the Narco Lich called a body. “I’ll figure out what he’s up to after I’m done with you!”

Is Capable of Processing High-Literature Just Yet

The Yarniverse: Circ & Anshin

Alice made her way down the alley one shaky wobble at a time, as it turns out, bipedal locomotion was a tad more difficult than she was used to without any bones to keep you upright against gravity. So imagine her surprise when, just as the though passed through her head, the entirety of her lower body fused into a single amorphous mass of glitter that oozed out from the bottom of her dress and left a slinky pink trail behind her as she moved—or rather oozed—across the woolen floor.

“That’s not quite as subtle as I was hoping, I don’t suppose glitter monsters are commonplace?”

“Not in the Youknitted Kingdom they ain’t, ma’am.”

It would just have to do, so on Alice roved, diving into the waiting sea of partygoers with her guards, leaving behind a pair of half-melted plastic heels bubbling and hissing in the alley where she’d come. Ten thousand years of navigating political parties just like this one had taught her a great deal about the art of ducking, dodging, diving, and weaving around unwanted conversation. that no matter how diligent you were someone was always going to get the drop on you and drag you into at least one.

==========

“Goodness, I don’t remember any monsters being on the guest list.” The little man gasped.

“Well I never—” Alice was just about tired of all these comments and ready to snap back when one of the guardsmen she’d commandeered earlier spoke up to say something clever on her behalf. “Would watch your mouth if I was you, sir. That’s the Duchess of Gluesington you’re speaking too.” Traveled a long way to get here just for you to insult her, did she?”

“You’re lucky she’s so forgiving.” The other chimed in.

“Otherwise you might find yourself stuck to a wall somewhere.”

Flabbergasted beyond words the snooty little woolen man wandered away and the last of Alice’s anger dispersed like carbonated bubbles across the surface of her sticky pink flesh, then it was gone, she adjusted her skirts which were themselves made of a nice sturdy fabric that didn’t cling overmuch to her new body type. She was getting more and more used to this.

“Thank you for standing up for me gentlemen.”

“Think nothin’ of it, Miss Ansegisel.”

“You’re our boss now.”

“And I’ve wanted an excuse to threaten someone at one of these parties for a while now anyways.”

“That’s a very bad habit,” She chastised. “But I will forgive it for the time being. That said, I did not come here to mingle, I am here on a mission--”

“To spread your love to the whole Yarniverse.”

“To bind everyone together for eternity.”

“No.” She said sharply, decisively, and they seemed crestfallen at the finality of it. “I’m here at the request of a friend but he is—how do I say this in the politest way possible—very obtuse I’m afraid. I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. Nor am I familiar with your dimension. If you boys could spread out and begin scanning the crowd for anything out of place, then I would be most thankful.”

One raised his stubby doll arm.

“I found somethin’.”

“Is it me?”

“It’s you.”

“Something other than me.”

The other raised his arm.

“I also found something.”

“Is it also me?”

“No ma’am.”

“Well out with it then.”

“Would you consider a red panda on the roof of the palace to be strange?”

“I suppose it depends on where you are, Red Pandas are fairly common in some zoos, are they here?” Alice adjusted her glasses and recalling her time on Earth-T0R3 deduced that Cookieham Palace was a very unclever attempt at naming the life-sized recreation of Buckingham Palace which loomed over all of them. Sweeping past wafer walls and ice cream cone ballistae she spotted a very fuzzy little red man on the periphery of her vision peering down at them all from above, dressed in a manner almost as out of place as her own though tragically without the cozy comfort of a blanket to protect him from the cold breeze all around them.

“No ma’am, I do believe this is the first one I’ve ever seen in person.”

“Then I suppose that wouldn’t be a bad place to start…”

Neo Babylon

Despite of their best efforts, the Rats were unable to get the drop on the travelers.

The drug-addled vulture was the first to wake and the first to react, screeching at them in her horrible alien language that somehow only became more unbearable as the city’s barrier began to translate her screeching into something passably human, but it was 017 who demanded all of their attention. Although not much taller than a child she released a blinding white light that lit up the entire street as if it were day, and though the effect diminished the further one was from her, not a single soul in the retreating tide of flesh left that evening without spots blooming in the corner of their vision.

And run they did, all of their confidence evaporating like shadows in the daylight.

Some were fast, some were slow, but by the time 017 was railing against the warehouse door there was not a one left to tell her that these storage units were not only locked but well protected too. Nothing but the rattling chain as she pulled and the presence of a relatively new lock. Perhaps the large man in stone might be able to split it if he applied a bit of the herculean strength he must have but given the minimal presence of rust this close to the ocean it stood to reason that this place was not quite as abandoned as the howling wind and empty alleys seemed to imply.

Then there were the three.

“That’s fucked up,” The man snarled as he wrenched his way out of Hafadac’s grip with a visible limp. His disposition was not nearly so pleasant, losing the life he’d clearly left behind had embittered him, being beaten by a glorified flashlight before the first blow had landed only made things worse. If allowed to keep pulling away he’d half-fall and half-sit on the ground before the group with smoldering hatred in his eyes.

thunk

Not long after the largest of the Rats surrendered too, in spirit if not verbally. Dropping the piece of rebar stuck in concrete that he’d been preparing to use like a sledgehammer after one look at Gregor, fighting was hopeless, his black face littered with visible scars that only made the defeated stare towards their leader all the more profound. ‘Say something’ his eyes pleaded, less prepared to die than he’d first imagined.

“P-please don’t kill us.”

It was the girl who swallowed her pride first, hands in the air, face so smudged with dirt it had become a part of her complexion and knees shaking as she stepped to the fore. She’d seen Rats beaten to death just for showing their faces in other parts of Neo Babylon, but these were travelers, and perhaps on the off chance that they came from somewhere mercy was still a thing she pleaded again.

“We won’t do it again, we promise, so please don’t kill us.”

“Or at least get it over with,” The sour man spat. “Your little light show is bound to attract attention and I’d rather die quick than be turned into an example by syndicate scum.”

***

Somewhere on the distant moon forty-nine members of CNTRL ALT ELITE that had logged into the Mega Dungeon alongside Haia awoke to find themselves in space, standing upon the pock marked ridge of Luna’s bleeding crust with a distant blue marble staring at them in the background, oddly they’d no trouble breathing in space and their UI seemed largely absent in favor of a more…

Immersive experience.

It took a minute for them to wake up and chatter among themselves, discovering what powers they retained and which ones had been removed with the latest update to realize that they were not alone. For somewhere roughly approximate to the crater’s center there sat the makings of a lonely city formed entirely of crystal, barely visible if not for the stark contrast it cut with the landscape and which each gust of stellar wind it seemed to whistle for them to come closer.

@Shinny @Circ @THE ADORATION @odium

Celestial Duel — Shinny Vs Anshin

I KNOW

“How unexpectedly childish,” Beramode’s mask did not have any discernible facial features and yet still managed to capture his disappointment perfectly in the abstract dance of shadows across its smooth black surface, then he draw one card and placed a second face down in the spell/trap zone. “Very well then, I shall squeeze the information from you once I’m done demolishing your deck, until then I play the Black Dog Justicar in attack mode. Like all Black Dog Mercenaries he gains a bonus for every member of the corporation on the playing field. The Pack of Dogs then lowers your Zombie Knights defense points with suppressing fire leaving him woefully exposed to my Justicar’s attack.”

As he spoke, another metalloid appeared amid the crowd, it took the form of a bolder mercenary. Like all the others its power armor still had that faintly canine aesthetic, especially the helmet, but this one carried a large electrified blade which it proudly stabbed through the largest of the ghosts whilst it was busy being peppered with little metal flechettes and seemingly banished the wailing spirit to oblivion merely for existing.

“And that will be all for this turn.”

Beramode had two cards in hand, two monsters on the field—one in attack and the other on defense, and two face-down spells. Momentum was seemingly in his favor but Kur had control of the field. Things could take a nasty turn next round but then that was the fun of this sort of thing was it not…?

THAT'S WHY I STUCK

All around the perimeter choice members of the assembled Black Dogs drew electrified long swords, each one snarling with ether and carving deep burning gouges in those zomboids unlucky enough to make it past the hail of gunfire. Burns that did not heal via magic. For the time being it seemed as though their kill box was well-maintained with Rodrigo himself being the only one bold enough to penetrate it and that from the outside.

“Am I supposed to be impressed, Hector? You had the chance to rebuild the world from the ashes. You could have been a king, a hero, a god. Instead you choose to be a petty drug lord always nipping at the heels of men greater then you…” Rodrigo drew his own enlarged version of the longswords the other Black Dogs were wielding, in his hands it was a standard length weapon, but he was also an eight foot tall cyber mutant and the sword he carried was easily longer than this Cavalerio was tall. “Together we could have taken down Solomon, if only you’d had the foresight to see past your nose. Now you will die standing side-by-side with this gringo.”

The fight did not seem a fair one, Rodrigo was toying with it, parrying each blow with criminal ease. Even sending the hunk of junk stumbling with a well-placed kick that nearly tore it in half. But That honor was reserved for the final sweep of his blade—the snarl of electricity as it passed through the amalgamated sheet metal armor and the explosion that followed a solid cover for his next command.

[I have him distracted, take the shot.]

Rodrigo knew Hector’s tricks well enough, nothing short of obliteration would kill the Narco Lich… His friend though? David seemed to be a regular guy by all accounts and if he was a regular guy then he would die an extraordinary death as one of the Black Dog Scouts on a roof hundreds of meters away pulled the trigger, firing a single Ether Piercing Round, it punched through Hector’s barrier leaving a smoldering hole in the mystic barrier on its mission for a one-way meeting with David’s temple—his brain—and then the other side if all things worked as planned.

“You ought to take better care of your associates, Hector. Knowing you is liable to shorten lifespans.”

TO JUST ONE

Purr-fect Betrayal

Anfield was used to dealing with bickering women, with seven beautiful aunts and two doting sisters, he’d been trained in the art of handling the fairer sex since before he could walk . Always the charmer, there was nobody in their big bickering family who did not like the Serpent’s Second Son, even his big brother tolerated him and Mikhail very didn’t like anyone.

It was surely a shock to anyone familiar with Anshin’s reputation, infamous for being terse and rude, to find that the child who most resembled him physically was the least like him in terms of personality. By the time he was a teenager he’d become an infamous heartbreaker around Lescatie. Now that he was in his early twenties it would not be unfair to call him something of a man whore, though he’d bristle at the harshness of the term. He was also pretty strong. Every one of his siblings was required to train in the family martial art lest they grow up incapable of controlling the prodigious strength they had inherited from their father and he considered a burden, publicly, once upon a time he'd—no no—it wasn’t worth remembering that dream…

“Ladies, ladies.” Anfield’s voice was calming, smooth, and deep. “There’s no need to fi—YOWCH!”

KZZZAP

Before he could finish the first proper sentence one of the women standing beside his gilded cage jabbed him in the side with what looked like a golden fishing pole, its blunt head blue with electricity, the pain was more in the surprise of it but the way the static snarled at the air it was made clear that it could do much more if the woman on the other side wished it so.

“Your opinion is unwanted and unneeded by this council, male, your silver tongue is charming. But do not think that we have encountered your kind before. Now be quiet and await your fate.”

Anfield’s handsome brow furrowed into a pout but he said nothing further. Standing before them with a pair of golden shackles on his wrists that appeared designed to mitigate his supernatural abilities and bars of hard light beside him, they had stripped him to examine him earlier, but had been kind enough to return his work uniform to him after they were done including the scalped Krillian head that served as his hat. The amazon on his right was mousy for her kind and still a foot taller than him. The other one, with bandages over her still broken nose, was significantly larger than that and leaning as close to him as the shimmering cage bars would allow with a sneer on her face.

_{“I will enjoy being the first one to take you,”} She hissed.

‘As if…’

Anfield may have seemed sleazy to anyone who knew about his body count but he was pretty big on the whole consent thing, and this wasn’t it, even if a few of those body colors were pretty interesting to think about he just wasn’t terribly interested in women who were that much bigger than he was. Being shorter than six-two wasn’t that big an ask was it? With long dark brown hair and tanned skin, he had the same pretty face his dad had when he was younger with all the charm he’d never had to pull it off, emerald eyes and sharp teeth and a big—not now. And when the women weren’t looking he smoothed his hands over the large golden padlock that chained his wrists together at the center, one on top and one below, using vibrations he figured out the lock mechanisms so that when he plucked out one of his eyelashes and used it as a pick he was able to flip it in a matter of moments.

_{‘Unaru no Hebi: Persistence Opens All Doors’}

“Hey, is he like, whispering something stupid right now?”

Click-Click

Just like that the shackles on his wrist came undone and the padlock dropped to the floor between his feet with a heavy ding. Thirty angry stares closed in on him from all around the room. The two guards on the other hand seemed almost excited to finally have the opportunity to take a swing at him as they thrust their staves into the bars, and right before they struck he jumped, using naught but his palms he gripped the near smooth roof his cage and coiled his legs up over the twin thrusts. Then in the millisecond that the friction died he came crashing back down heels first. The golden staves snapped beneath his feet and died sputtering deaths while the very solid floor fell out beneath the three of them, bars unbroken and cage unbent, he’d still managed to free himself via the path of least resistance before using the shackles that had fell from his wrists like a pair of whips to smack one guard in the face then the other.

“Sorry to disappoint you ladies, you’re all lovely, but I am very not interested in your proposal.”

Struck by the incredulity of it all the amazons didn’t move an inch as he jogged out of the chancery, only to come jogging back in half-a-second later so he could yank the keys from the hip of the very mean one whose nose he’d fractured twice on one day. And that was too much. Alarms sounded behind him and where first guards were too befuddled to do anything about the bright orange shrimp rushing just beneath their line of sight now they started attacking, up and over and below, he dodged every swing along the way as he tried his hardest to remember where the other prisoners were kept. Likely below ground. But just as his brow furrowed the sweetest scent hit his nose, food—glorious food, he’d eaten nothing but the Krillians protein bile for the past three months he’d been at sea and the smell of it struck him so hard he very nearly tripped into a wall.

“Sh-shit… they can wait for a few minutes.” He muttered with hands splayed before him. Waiting until the last moment to juke out of the way of an incoming strike and between the woman responsible’s legs, tripping her into the gaudy picture frame of some teal-skinned noble that was too high-up and too-tall for him to truly appreciate, and most importantly freeing him to dash towards the kitchen. “Just a detour lads, that’s all, to get my strength back, I promise!”

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

I made a post and it's just pawful.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

Samantha Ansegisel—Sammie if she liked you; and she didn’t like you—was a girl on a mission. Marching through the streets of Aeternus with her back straight and her nose in the air. Once upon a time she might have right there beside the devils and demons of this blighted city bargaining for the souls of the unaware but not anymore, she’d turned over a new leaf, she was an agent of high heaven.

An angel, in-training, an intern if you will.

So determined was she that Samantha walked right past a man being turned into stone by a gorgon. Drunkards pissed in fountains and dragons tore through buildings and she ignored every one of them, marching all the way up to Pleiades Casino & Resort with the black gym bag carrying her magic staff clutched against her side. Samantha was not particularly large by any standard. Only four-foot-ten, but that made her two inches taller than her master and exceptionally large for a cat, which she almost certainly was. Don’t be fooled by black sailor uniform with its pink ascot and pleated skirt. Samantha was covered in fine white fur from head to toe, despite trotting on two legs, with cat ears hanging lopsidedly out either side of an off-kilter black hat. Sure she had pink hair but some cats do. Do not be fooled by the fake wings on her back or the mask that she wears, depicting a cats face, because only an idiot would think a cat (demonic) would disguise herself as a cat (also demonic).

Samantha strategically times her approach behind a man she did not know was named Aleck with all the confidence of a bodyguard before breaking away as he exchanged a—frankly absurd—sum of money and turned her attention to the front lobby. A demons age did not correlate with its height. Some of them were very tiny and would always be that way, like imps for example, but they were oft bullied because of it which is why there was no ‘short people’ service desk beside the one that she could barely peek over with slitted feline eyes and stare at the attractive vaguely female thing they put up front.

“Can I help you, young lady.”

Her tail crinkled with elation, the disguise was working.

“Purrhaps, I’m here on very important mission, can mew direct me to Mister Vileiro’s office?”

“I’m afraid he’s busy, can I help you with something?”

Expecting this answer already, Samantha had chosen her smuggest mask for the day, reaching into her coat pocket to produce a sky-blue business card that she promptly slid across the desk and in the demon’s direction. There was a golden cross on front and doves flying away from it. And in florid gold script it read: [Ansegisel Exorcism Services]

“It’s furry important that I see him as soon as pawssible, I’m here to kill him you see.”

“. . .”

“In the name of God, pawcourse.”

Celestial Duel — Shinny Vs Anshin

EVERY MAN IS GUILTY

Beramode could not help the invisible smirk that passed over his face when Krü revealed that he was not only prepared to duel but had been hiding his very own game mat in plain sight this entire time. Unlike Krü, the King of the Night had ascended beyond hatred long ago, had quite literally torn it from his chest and cast it out into the stars where it had evolved over the course of thousands of years to become its own lifeform.

What the people of Neo Babylon now called The Dragon.

With a snap of his wrist one of the shadows hiding up his sleeve shot straight out and then back, forming what by outward appearances was the blade of a scythe stretching back along the outside of his forearm. A modification of, one might even say edgier version, the infamous duel disk. When Beramode placed his deck against the bulky pivot point connecting the blade to his wrist it sank into the shadows, melding with them, disappearing from sight completely before depositing five into his waiting hands. “Excellent,” Was his only reply. Whether he meant the game or his hand unknown. “Tell me about yourself, Krü, I do not mean to brag but I am at least somewhat infamous on this side of the central finite curve while you have managed to elude my senses until this very moment.”

Beramode placed two cards face down on the bottom rung another face up.

“I play Pack of Dogs in defense mode, as you can see, they will open fire on any monsters you play. Suppressing Fire, I believe they call it, the overall effect will lower their attack and defense for the next turn if you don’t do anything about it and leave you open to my next ploy.”

Just as he spoke, one of the floating metalloids picked up on the divine exchange between them, it splits into five different bodies like a peeling fruit and each took the form of a Black Dog soldier. Crouching on Beramode’s side of the field, guns aimed in Krü’s direction, they too wanted to play.

OF ALL THE GOOD

[We’ve lost visual on the target.] [Switching to ether vision.] [Retreating to a safe altitude.]

The Black Dog’s comms were a buzz with chatter about the newest development but if the troops felt anything akin to fear or intimidation, it did not show in the hollow static of their voices, that alone pleased Rodrigo who did naught but raise his right hand to flag down his second-in-command.

“Maintain suppressive fire, I’m going in.”

With Ether Vision the world was a glow, the flow of potential energy laid bare for his men to see, Rodrigo did not need goggles when he had already upgraded his eyes to see the nascent dreams of the world. Stronger in living entities than in inanimate objects. Webbing itself through the fetid flesh of newly made corpses exposing the lich’s cursed magic for it really was, parasitism, he weaved around the nearest weed zombie with criminal ease moments before it exploded a second time from incoming suppressing fire and made his way towards the center.

Juanito Deleto had been Hector’s right-hand for quite a while, his nickname though silly had been well-earned, many of the drug lords enemies political or otherwise had disappeared from this life so to see him twitching back into being with fetid mold springing out of the gaping bullet wounds brought no small joy to Rodrigo. His body took to the mutagenic agents with frightening alacrity, growing stronger than before where already he’d been a massive man in every sense of the word, but even the crustacean claw that ripped out of the fragile flesh of his right arm was not enough to catch Rodrigo with its first sweeping snip.

“You’ve always been an arrogant prick, Rodrigo.” He said with blood bubbling in his throat. “Always bragging about how tough you are but all you ever do is dodg—”

With but a single tap of his knuckles the conversation came to a close. It seemed no faster than a pat on the shoulder but the ripples that flowed throughout Juanito’s belly pulverized what remained of his skeleton like crashing waves before all at once, he exploded backwards, broad shouldered back bursting open to shoot chunks of bone and smoldering gore in the direction of Hector and his friend. There was a lot of killing ground left between him and his quart. Plenty of time for them to bring a new trick to bear, but with the helicarrier drawing back into position and the scouts taking their bead, it wasn’t like Rodrigo planed to let his quarry rest easy while he stalked towards them.

“Is this what you signed your life away, Hector? All I’m seeing are the same old tricks.”

HE DID NOT DO

Neo Babylon

Group one is green.

Neo Babylon

For a phenomenon that scientists routinely describe as falling through a crack between universes, the process of surprisingly gentle, one moment you are:

Fighting for your life in a battle you cannot hope to win…

Dying in the back of an ambulance…

Passing through the veil in search of a cure for the uncurable…

Blissfully binging a brand new game…

And the next you’re gone, the world goes black, and you’re dreaming.

***

When next you wake it is to the sound of a bell ringing in the distance, deep and loud, cutting clean through the midnight fog that crept up on you while you were sleeping and thrusting you into the stark reality of your current situation. Beneath you damp concrete. The sky is dark and waves can be heard breaking against the shore in the distance if your hearing is keen enough, the area is all but empty, empty save for you and the bodies around you and the many keen eyes peering at you from between the many locked warehouses that pen you in. You cannot see the ocean but you can hear it nearby. In the sky hangs the moon, just one, wide as a saucer but with a visible chunk torn from the northeastern hemisphere like someone detonated a massive bomb beneath the surface and the wound continued to bleed into the vast empty sky even now.

But most of all, you cannot sense anything; long range sensors, divine connections, spiritual bonds. You are completely and totally alone in this world. For some of you this means nothing, of course, you’ve lived your whole life an autonomous individual but for others separation is worse than death. What you can feel is an intense spiritual pressure pressing down on you from every angle.

This is the Wharf, the safest place in Neo Babylon, but you don’t know that yet. It’s also the only place in the city where the homeless population is treated better than garbage on the side of the road, frequent patrols and the presence of shelters make it the most ideal place to live a life on the street, as if such a thing were possible. And it has made the rats bold. In Neo Babylon those without power, money, or the technology to make up for a lack of both are better off death. The average survival rate of someone living on the streets can be measured in months and the possibility of bouncing back is next to none, once you’re there it’s over, nobody thinks about it with how widely publicized all the supernatural occurrences that happen on a daily basis are but most of the people who fall in through the so-called Rift are normal versions of whatever passes for human in their corner of the universe.

It’s a tough life, and it only gets tougher.

The man in the lead seems like he might have been someone once, he’s still a bit handsome beneath the unkempt facial hair and bolder than usual as he stalks his way towards the group in a low crouch, behind him two more follow. A large man and a mousy woman. His hands twitch in their emptiness. He’s sizing up the group, it’s easy to see maybe—he thinks—he ought to try and kill the man in the armor before he can make trouble for himself. The boy who glows could be toxic for all he knows. Though that overgrown chicken sure looks like a fine meal…

In the end he settles for the small one, the robot, grabbing a large stone with two hands. He figures that metal chassis of hers will stand up to knives and fingers but a heavy blow from a blunt object might crack her open, technology is valuable in the city, scavenging it is one of the few get rich quick schemes that people on the lower end of society still clint too and she looks so much cleaner and smoother than any other machine he’s come across. So he hefts the stone high. Will you stop him? He doesn’t look particularly strong, none of them do, the rats are starving and even a moderate blow would likely snap them like twigs. Excepting maybe the large one. Will you talk to them instead? Surely they have valuable information to share being so close to the ground floor of this new place than anyone else…

Whatever it is, you better do it fast, you can see more of them are beginning to slip out of the shadows. Emboldened by the adventurous looters before them. You could stomp out any one of the rats as easy as taking a step but as your eyes adjust to this new dimension you start to realize that there are more of them than anticipated, a whole swarm of them, and the prospect of fighting the tidal wave at its apex is unappealing even for those of you blessed with unusual strength.

@Shinny @Circ @THE ADORATION @odium