54v

Neo Babylon

Black, a little worn, hard, rocky. Lize stared at the asphalt directly in front of her, waiting for her partner to come pick her up. Around her she could hear the mutters of other soldiers, smoking and chatting away while they waited for the vehicle as well. She could hear them talk at her expense, something she had become accustomed to and that she sent back to her headquarters to improve the experience regular human agents had when interacting with robotic ones. Yet, she suspected that no matter how many reports she sent back the situation would not improve.

The last frontier for artificial intelligence development still was interacting with human agents. Despite their endless development, billions spent on trying to interact with real physical agents, they never got past both regulation and what they considered prejudices in most of the population. Everyone knew the machines could work harder, for longer, and for less of a wage, if one at all. For that, they could not be forgiven.

They all had been given human names, human voices, appearances that appeared cute or approachable. In the far east a similar approach had worked wonderfully. They gave all their robotic agents cute animal ears, flashy hair colors, and soft feminine appearances. It reduced the damage inflicted to these machines by a small margin, enough to implement these changes across the board. In a country marred by war, it was cheaper to adapt foreign machines to the local situation, even if it led unintended consequences.

An interrupt cut her thoughts short. In front of her was the vehicle she had been waiting for, alongside her companion for the day. She already knew who she was, the model she was meant to replace that nevertheless would remain in service until she was taken out in some way and irreparably damaged. A body, that which was precious for humans was but a mere sleeve for a machine. She had not experienced total system failure, but the one she accompanied had. Right now, she was wearing a frame not too unlike her own. Bat ears, dark lavender hair and bright cyan-yellow iridescent eyes.

“Good afternoon, Rianne.” Lize said, the other computerized officer remaining silent as she boarded the motorcycle. From then on Rianne decided to communicate only through wireless protocol. It was less human, but much more efficient.

“Target. Medical bill privatized, breach of section 241 article 31. Prioritize damages.” Lize felt coming from Rianne. Though she was the one who said it the signal was signed by a pharmaceutical company. The objective was simple, to incur as expensive of a medical bill as possible upon the rioter knowing his illegal acts will not be covered by insurance. This would help the company made money out of his debt and probably place him in indentured servitude for the next 10 years.

Understanding her assignment she hopped down from the motorbike, a thud followed by thunderous footsteps. The clicking of her boots was bothersome, but the psychological effects it granted were more attractive to law enforcement than any amount of stealth they could provide. The protestor was quick to react, throwing the rock he had in his hand at Liza before he ran away from her. It was useless, before he knew it his rock had missed, and he was on the ground.

There was no feeling going through the enforcer’s mind, simply a subroutine that was practiced so much it had become almost perfect. As she heard her fists become more humid, and the person under her stop resisting she wondered what other tasks she would be assigned next. Though, that thought would quickly be replaced by an unexpected darkness.

Pain. A sensation alien to her microarchitecture. It felt weird, wrong, an unexplainable error that was now etched into her memory. It was written alongside a message, but she had to get up first. She was on the floor, her systems initializing again in a fraction of a second and bringing her back to the real world. The strange memories remained within her system, read and interpreted in parallel to her assessing the situation she was in. She took in the sounds of thousands of tiny legs, the chewing of just as many mouths, the forest, and the sudden display of aggression.

That was not all, as her ears moved about, like satellite dishes, and her eyes darted rapidly between moving objects, she took in more of her surroundings. There were others, some threatened while others not so much. For now, she focused on helping those who seemed most vulnerable, which was not her this time around. Luckily for her one of them seemed to not attract the creatures, though unfortunately another also seemed quite eager to dismember the beasts. Even if they were not social animals, clearly having some of their own killed would not elicit a very warm welcome. Not that they had been welcoming in the beginning, but this could only worsen things.

A few milliseconds passed, and she had to act. Right as the cow pill bug mix tried to consume her, she moved away from it. Her body did not whine, instead moving like an experienced traceuse right as the creature moved, leaving it biting on the forest’s leaf litter. She did not have the dexterity Her baton unfolded as she approached the insect going after the incredibly herbal and well-dressed man. A plastic snap, a metallic ring, and an electrical crack followed rapidly one after the other. She moved like a blur, striking the insect in one of its mouths with both the force of a machine and an electric shock meant for cattle, tuned up slightly for particularly annoying protestors. The sword-like baton left behind deep lacerations despite its blunt edge, charred spots mixing in with bleeding exposed played skin, past the leathery and furry protection of the creature. A fast attack, meant to be quick and uncommitted, not incredibly lethal, but also very painful.

With that done, she would drag the man out of his swampy situation and back towards the tree where the other woman went while she remained in front, ready to hit any incoming tasty-deadly abominations with the wrath of Zeus and the might of strangely durable cheap plastic. She kept her weapon at the ready, her eyes darting rapidly between the incoming bugs, backing away slowly and delivering searing strikes at any that got close to her. She hoped this would give time to the others to move away while also giving her some space with the flyswatter-like movements.

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: Earth’s Extraterrestrial Embassy

Now with a somewhat functional human form, credentials to get through some of the security, and a mission, she continued forwards. Her outfit was plain, drab, the right thing to not call too much attention to herself. Other than her light gray pencil skirt paired with a matching blazer and a white shirt, her attire also consisted of black heels, pink lipstick, black eyeliner, a black pantyhose, and a loose fishtail bun.

Her heels clicked on the floor, feeling the unfamiliarity of a human body slowly vanish as she continued to walk. Her stiffness gave way to a more natural stride right as she passed the security and approached Margaret. In reality, she had no idea what she was doing and simply felt inclined to approach that location. It did seem important and gave her the opportunity to plant bugs into each computer she covertly touched. She moved fast, fast enough to have to dodge people and sometimes lean on things, with these just so happening to coincide with connection ports to each computer. Her fingers adapted fast, enough to elude security cameras, or so she hoped.

Finally, she reached the conference room. Unfortunately however it was far too late for her to enter. Instead, she decided to sit outside, her legs parallel to each other and her back straight. She glanced at her clipboard every now and then, unsure as to what she was supposed to do with it and instead focused her attention on what Fran was doing. It felt like watching television, and perhaps was, but it was better than to sit around looking lost.

— High Neptune Orbit: Just outside the range of the Mainline Defensive Array

Within the strange polygonal ship the two continued to chat in dissipating light, their appendages touching if just to transmit information at Terahertz speeds in multiple frequencies. “Seems like our girl made it out of the host. Not without making quite the scene however.” He said, walking outside the ship after opening one of the access points at the back. “Ah, finally some fresh air.” Cairo said to Giza as he made his shape more humanoid and replicated the gesture of breathing in and out, with both hands on his hips as he stared at the faint pale sun in the distance. He even raised one of his tentacles over his pseudo-forehead as he stared out at the ball of plasma and said. “Looks like it’s gonna be a beautiful day today, excellent for spreading misinformation.” And, finally, Giza spoke back.

“That will compromise camouflage.” She protested, the electromagnetic waves inside the ship finally finding somewhere to go and spread out, filling the cold and empty void of the cosmos over Neptune and further away. It was nothing more than noise but enough for their kind to discern, and even become alarmed. “Eh, it’s not like they’ll do anything anyway. What are they gonna do, shoot us?” He asked, flowing like water to the very back of the ship, his feet remaining where they were as his body stretched, and finally gripped onto the hull to pull it. A large laminate of the ship came loose, revealing a pitch black covering under it and the flesh of the spacecraft itself. It was packed full of interconnects, like an endless highway of information packed in between armor plates. “So, did you ever use social media?” It asked, the antenna rising by itself until it was fully pointing at Earth, the other four flaps on the ship following suit.

“You already know the answer to that question, captain.” Giza replied, already preparing most of her computing modules for the task to come. “Yeah yeah, I just wanted to tease you a little. Anyway, you already know what to do. I’ll give you a hand as well so don’t worry about it.” Cairo added, sliding back into the ship as the antennas began to emit and receive information. Waves upon waves of automated accounts propped up, bypassing filters specifically designed to counter such intrusions. “I think they’ll blow us up for real this time, tachyon comms 3 billion miles away doesn’t sound like a civilian operation at all, does it?” It was very likely their intrusion would be traced and undone in a matter of second once they knew what was going on, but for Cairo and Giza, all they needed were a few milliseconds to get the flood going.

“Are these posts not obvious? I am sure they will not fool anyone.” Giza said, examining the information caught by their receiver after they were done sending information. “Eh… You see, back when information regulations were more lax, and artificial intelligences more primitive, there were these generative models that could make images of anything you asked it to. They were crude and obvious to anyone that knew what to look for, but now, we need not fight against their best, only their weakest, and for that purpose they are more than enough.” An electromagnetic beep echoed through the ship. “Oh, my popcorn is ready.”

Back on Earth the effects of the previous attack presented themselves, hordes of ambiguously valid information about strange beings coming out of people exploding. Some spread through obscure Japanese imageboards while others surfed on the back of the senile users with less cognition than a potato battery. The floodgates had been opened, with many strangely convincing and completely fake posts circulating around about topics both directly correlated and vaguely hallucinated into the discourse. This, the two nanomorphs hoped would keep their agent's secrecy alive.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

—— The Pleiades Casino & Resort: Courtyard - Aeternus

She was about to say something to the man, but the one coming from behind her took priority and left her indebted to speak to the sewer-like being later. Though the bike came to a stop Selena had not yet turned it off. The torque-biased engine was especially made for bursts of speed at the cost of top speed, such as those needed when she saw someone icky, let out an “Ew!” accompanied by a scowl of disgust, and had to get away from the source of her displeasure as fast as possible. Many such cases.

“Wait a second-” She let out, looking back through the rearview mirror at the stranger and thought: “That could be the anomaly I detected earlier!” And as she expected, once she brought her PDA up to scan the stranger she found that he was the source of the strange pierce into the dimension. By now she had made some distance which meant she could whip the vehicle around once again to address him directly. “I also need some help, actually…” She said as she attached the phone-like device to the end of her blade and chucked it at the diseased fellow that tried to ambush her, her disposition towards him changing on a dime like a dwarf seeing a particularly blue and large diamond at the mines.

Hair-like metallic tendrils began to pour out of the cell phone-like with disregard to the sewer man’s current disgusting physique, digging deep into his face skin and then attaching itself to him like some sort of long legged metal millipede facehugger. Heat began to come off the device as it began to process whatever information it could suck out of the man, boiling his skin like a frying pan left over the fire too long, and then was set alight from the putrid vapors coming off of the goop that he had been covered with.

While that transpired she turned her attention to the other poop man that seemed far friendlier. “You are yourself? What is that supposed to mean?” She said as she raised a brow. This was far more important of a question than how a turd could talk, and why it was scottish. Though her thoughts would have to wait as the floor suddenly decided to no longer be solid.

Selena acted quickly, her legs moved to stand on the seat of her motorcycle, pushing down as she jumped out of the trap with a “Ha! Outsmarted you, silly magical floor.” but then, she realized she had forgotten about her PDA. “Ah fuck, hold on.” She said, reaching out to try to grab the phone from the blankety courtyard only to fall in regardless. So much for being smarter than the floor.

Her transition into the strange realm made her get on high alert, the surroundings changing as she pocketed the floating device and looked around, unsheathing her blade, her gaze darting around in a predatory manner. The fear was mirrored, though instead of showing it Selena kept her head cold. Her eyes were intense, like a fire piercing through the darkened veil that the demon clone tried to cover her with. No openings were made, they were equal in skill even if not in soul or mind. Eventually either would slip, she knew it, the other knew it, the devil thought it would be her, Selena also thought that, and when it happened, she striked only to find… Nothing. From her focus she had completely ignored the angel, not that she would know it was her as she had not interacted too much with Ilaria past receiving orders through her communicator.

—— The Pleiades Casino & Resort: Thalgrim’s Gambling Quarters - Aeternus

She landed roughly, falling first and then having her bike fall on top of her. “Ow.” She let out, pushing the large vehicle aside and looking around. “Where…?” She thought out loud, squinting her eyes as she looked around at the bright casino. Many things were happening around her, but what she cared about the most was getting out of here. “Where am I?” She asked one of the roulette players, being infuriated by his lack of a response and then asking the next, and then the next, until she finally gave up and instead reached out to grab the roulette ball, hopefully getting the attention she wished to get. This unfortunately left the PDA to crawl back to her, removing itself from the man it had stuck onto, now a charred corpse and with slush for brains.

—— Earth F67X: the Asomatous Détente & Terrestrial Customs

“Very well.” Ilaria replied simply. She reached out and gave the paper a glance, her mind rapidly recognizing the format even if ancient and perhaps purposefully obscure. The document would have no validity if she filled it improperly, leaving her stuck until she figured out the correct way to fill the form were it not for the fact she was gifted with the power to deal with bureaucracy. Inside her brain hundreds of thousands of formats, regulations, typefaces and records came to fill in the blank spaces on the piece of parchment. She had to use a very specific ink, a non-standard font, and precision that only a machine could afford her. The problem of course being the irregular parchment size she was given.

She was silent, her halo spinning in ticks like the rapid dial of a rotary phone both clockwise and counterclockwise as her wings fragmented and slid forwards like thin paper over her arms. The pure white shifted, forming pale transparent yet luminescent rolls and lasers, some crumbling to black dust as the machine formed at the base of the paper, adjusting to its size and giving the document a double pass, backwards then forwards as it filled both sides of the form. The LaserJet finish was impeccable, ink codified as regulation stated would need to be applied from toner rather than regular printer ink, leaving a professional finish on the documentation.

She was showing off clearly. Her office efficiency and capabilities were enough to win the Excel championship from its beginning until the last blackhole would evaporate, beating all other applicants by a 50% time differential every time even after the handicap of only being able to use one hand and a 1992 IBM ThinkPad. A monster of white collar work, and she had to make it severely clear to the feline. “I am done.” She declared, the document detailing with rigor why a stay on Earth was necessary to adjust for the human sensibilities as outlined in the latest version of Regulations on the interactions with mortal beings, page 78, item 67, addendum 1. and Expanded guidelines for the proper treatment of extra-planar entities, page 1172, article 5, subsection 13.

Neo Babylon

Name: Lize van Hemiksem
Alias(es): Klystron (Generic name for robots of her same class, smaller version of Magnetron model enforcers)
Gender: Female.
Hair: Emerald aquamarine.
Eyes: Same as hair.
Skin: Pale white.
Height: 5’10”.
Distinctive Features: Bat ears of the same color as her hair with pink flesh and white inner fluff, quite tall and functional.
Likes: Cleanliness, small trinkets, working with kids or the elderly, pop music, country music.
Dislikes: Unlawful behavior, brown and swarthy colors, disordered/rundown places, heavy metal, EDM.

Appearance:

Lize appears like a regular human from the head up save for her bat animal ears and funky colored hair and eyes. Her skin is soft as is her face, much like that of a late teenager or early 20s adult. Her clothing contrasts with this, however. She wears a blue uniform jacket with khaki pants meant for riot police, as well as a pair of black boots shin and knee protections, and a black tactical vest. Under is a heavy-duty frame designed to deal with unrest, black and made of polymers with tight seams and some marks from manufacturers for identifying each piece.

Personality:

This klystron behaves as its face would indicate. Lize is a public servant before she is a protester mincer and rebel decapitator. She always tries to remain positive and to listen to those around her. Though she has her doubts on whether she is sentient, she always tries to think of humane ways to deal with altercations and misunderstandings. So long as the other person follows the law that is, and when they are not in the way of her objectives or are the objective.

Powers, Skills, and Abilities:

Though lacking magic, Lize makes up for that with raw gamma fusion powered raw mechanical power. Her joins are tight and impede debris from entering the mechanisms inside while also being flexible and ballistically reinforced. Her job was to deal with low intensity combatants, which is what her body is designed to handle. She has fast movements when up close and night perfect aim and technique to immobilize or neutralize targets with the right weapons, but her overall mobility is only 50-60% better than that of a regular human soldier while weighting twice as much.

For sensing and data processing she has a decentralized control system with many brains scattered across her body to avoid terminal damage from just a single hit. Her ears act as antennas and specialized microphones for detecting crimes and intercepting signals. Her head is the only exposed spot she has, but it is also harder to strike due to higher mobility from reduced weight. Though rudimentary at best, her onboard computer can crack commercial encryption and amateurish encryption usually in use by rebels. Her repair systems likewise consist of just a tool cloth that can only fix non-essential components like her limb mechanisms and armor plates, more sensitive equipment will most likely be lost forever if damaged.

Her artificial intelligence model is based on retired Dutch KTC veterans who volunteered to have their brain scanned for the security of their own country and to prevent human deaths in combat. They are now used extensively in unstable areas outside of the Netherlands to kill rebels for corporate interests.

Equipment:

A foldable baton with a built-in taser. A machine pistol with variable trajectory rounds, good for aiming at the knees or head, as well as 4 spare 33 round magazines for it. She also had a motorcycle for better mobility.

Your Last Memory:

Beating up a rioter bare handed, blood dripping from her gloved hand.

Additional Plot Hooks:

Lize is unsure whether she is sentient. Her own programming makes her want to go back to law enforcement, but she is unsure if that is out of her own volition or because of how she was made. Regardless, it is the one career path she thinks will best suit her due to her own physiology.

Xenopunk Dysphoria: Tech, Slime & Bone

Along the near destroyed alien ship, another came. Its shape warped into the outer rings past Neptune, close enough to be seen by the cluster of Earth’s satellites but not close enough to be within weapon’s range. The outer shell of the ship was composed of a strange material, a special composite meant to absorb radio waves and make detection difficult via regular radar. Why such an ancient countermeasure was present was not yet known, nor was any other aspect of the ship past its long and angled shape, like that of a regular naval destroyer mirrored at the level where its hull met the water, if it were made of clay and then flattened so that only a twin mast packed full with antennas and sensors remained. At its nose similar systems were present, feeling the small minutiae of information touching their systems and interpreting it via some unknown means. No electrical noise nor mechanical or thermal signature could be felt from the ship, it felt as if it was simply a dead asteroid even if just mere minutes before it rapidly re-entered space from a warp bubble.

Within, two beings, camouflaged by the ship’s advanced exterior, conversed via contact. The feeling of small particles, energy states shifting, was how they had to make do within the very quiet interior of the large vessel. “So I was watching that game right? and I thought ‘hey, why not do something like that here, just throw in an impostor and see how they deal with it’ it sounds like a good concept in my head. Kind of like a game of werewolf. You do know that game was made by a bunch of college students, right?” The first asked. He was a composition of nanites that was once a man, the memories and neural connections were hardware replicated. These were known as ex-human due to their ‘special’ competences. “Yes sir, we both share the same database.” The other replied. Born out of a synthetic mind she was a non ex-human, completely mechanical from creation and lacking what some referred to as a soul. “Anyway, they found out the werewolves almost always win that game. Now you may be wondering why I am telling you this.” He said, though as they both shared the same L4 cache the other already knew where he was going. “Of course" She replied. “Well Giza, I want us to play that game, I want to see it in action. With the contract we received from these federation guys we can make it happen. I had a nice idea for it too, something iconic, and ironic, a bit of an old tradition” Not wanting to waste more time the second nanomorph replied: “Will you be using the biomorphing Kroppian strains we captured so long ago Cairo?”

Rather than speaking, he sent in the details through photons, the entire genetic makeup of the species they would be sending through the border. “These will ensure a slow and painful death for these alien’s reputations. But of course, these humans are very smart and have placed detectors along their borders. This is where our own knowledge comes in. I have placed a special kind of tapeworm egg in one of the coming migrants, a fat man of olive skin that really likes pork burritos, once he goes in to clean his bowels our trojan horse will emerge” He said, turning to a composite feed of what one might imagine was how a computer would ‘see’, or rather, shifted his focus as his body lacked any sensory organs.

“Sup’ Larry” A large man said, wearing a stained white shirt worn under an open red plaid, his bald head being covered by a blue and white mesh cap that said: ‘I’m eggscellent’ other than that he wore white socks, khaki sandals, and cargo shorts. One hand had a very large burrito and another a big soda that he sipped while waiting for the guard to respond. “Sup’ Barry, I see you lost a few pounds huh? You hitting the gym or something wey?” Which made Larry let out a laugh. “Nah man, I’m just cutting down on the ranch dressing” Though clearly neither would be able to run for 50 meters without suffering from heart failure by the time they were halfway done with that. He was a known crosser and knew his friend so getting past the teleporters into the city was easy, once there he felt his stomach grumble and rushed to the bathroom. “Dios mio!” Was the last thing that could be heard within the stall before the large man exploded into a large cloud of blood and viscera, staining the floor, ceiling, and the walls inside his stall. “Jaja taco bell am I right compadre?” Another man replied from the next stall, turning a page on his newspaper as the intruder made its way out of the male bathroom.

Formless but not senseless, the small thing covered in blood immediately got on a computer like a gen alpha kid who got separated from his iPad for more than 0.032 nanoseconds. Its small appendages were able to interface with whatever outdated port the office computer had and got a new identity that would help it infiltrate the alien city. It ended up converging on a new applicant that was about to be accepted, instead intercepting the letter, and appointing itself to the post. “Deanna Mestrovic” It pronounced, eating part of the Hispanic foie gras she got from the explosive burrito lover. Her form had by now adapted to that of the woman she was imitating, but she needed clothes. Sure, she could imitate their appearance, but when felt it would be no different from chitin. She walked out to an ATM and got a few bucks from one of the accounts her masters had created and bought what she needed. Only then would she begin her own journey of becoming a bureaucrat, or democrat, one of those she thought was the right word for it.

Her first task of the day would be to provide cultural supervision for one of the alien agencies in the city. She took a clipboard with her, wore a pencil skirt, slightly open shirt and blazer that matched and made her features more prominent, and then walked in. Her hair was a nice inky black and her eyes a soft brown, her skin was fair, a bit sun touched and her age just in the right bracket to be a secretary. She stepped in through the door, her badge for the DIS brand new as she looked around the area. It was completely new to her, but she would have to work here for the rest of her days. “Good afternoon, sir. I was sent here by the Department of Integration Security. I hope you are doing well; my name is Deanna Mestrovic, it should be on the database.”

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

Aeternus, outside the Speakeasy

Both Selena and her phone angel were about ready to depart. That minotaur was quite bothersome with his sentient fire and it was clear to both of them that the human hunter had come underprepared. For her punishment Selena thought it would be the usual: A long corporate meeting on why going into the hotel alone and without a clear plan for escape was a very bad idea and how she could have died if her guardian was not there in a 90s Nokia, all stuff she knew but that she had disregarded just to have some fun with the local demon hotspot.

Things would not be so simple however.

The lights suddenly shut off for a brief moment, darkness enveloping Selena and her electro-mechanical holy power relay. She would have been left quite literally in the dark were it not for the flashlight the device had installed. “This reminds me of my neighborhood.” She said, looking around the bottom of the city and seeing chaos begin to develop. Selena readied her machete again, shifting the phone’s light into the infrared to not be seen and instead used her eye’s infrared vision mode. After attaching it to her chest she prepared to leave again the way she came in, but before she could she heard, or rather felt, a very peculiar entering into the city. Somewhere in a foul fountain a good distance away someone had entered from Aeternus, in a very unorthodox way too. Such an access point would be quite desirable if she could extract it.

Wasting no time the young hunter went to the location, waiting a little bit for a demon in a motorcycle to come by. The fat orange demon exited the speakeasy once again, his wounds sealed and his tie and suit redone. “Pesky hunters, can’t have a nice evening out without being gutted by one.” He huffed, getting ready to depart before being grabbed and thrown forwards. “Waitwaitwa- AA-” The demon screamed and wailed as he was once again chopped to bits by the chain of an oncoming demon. The hunter had used the stranger again to block an incoming hell chain, using the extended weapon and running over it to get to the bike and then throw off the rider. “Fuck off.” She said, watching in the rear view mirror of her motorcycle how the rider that stole her motorcycle rolled on the ground and then got split in half after striking a light pole. Now ready, she accelerated to the fountain and once she arrived descended from her bike. “Who are you all?” She asked the group that had formed around the fountain from a distance, raising her voice slightly.

Two World Trade Center, Heaven

As all large hierarchical structures did, Heaven had its own bureaucratic centers dedicated to dealing with whatever paperwork an infinitely large domain produced. Many of the buildings were reused from old destroyed human ones to reduce costs and also to bring an air of familiarity to all humans who perished and went up from their good deeds, repenting, breaking the karmic cycle, among other things. This small subdivision was transferred from Earth not too long ago, a little bit before Spain was obliterated and a large number of devout white collar workers got transferred to the new vacant buildings that began to pop up all around the place.

Instead of getting a nice apartment in Barcelona or the hanging gardens of Babylon, this angel was assigned to the south tower. This commercial center served as the largest on Earth at some point in the past, with unimaginable office space ready to be filled by an equally endless supply of bureaucrats ready to do some paperwork. Known by a more human name, Ilaria, she was gifted with technological abilities that would allow her to excel in Excel, make the best coffee machine possible from her feathers, and also keep the electricity bill low by powering her own electronics. Her current job was to supervise one of the many human agents heaven employed irregularly to gather demonic data to then analyze for a more efficient day of judgment. However, the person she was supervising decided that perhaps things were far too easy for her assigned angel and had ventured unprepared into Aeternus.

Sighing, she got up, placing her halo on top of her head and finishing her coffee before taking the elevator down to the bottom floor. As much as she loved to drive, this was no time to take it slow and so she instead flew to the gates, passing through many strategically positioned portals until she was at the Earth-Heaven checkpoint. Walking forwards, she looked up to the demon running the checkpoint and spoke: “Excuse me, may I go through?” And then waited for him to either give her the go ahead or to complicate things, expecting the latter more than the former. Appearance wise she was human shaped, 6’7”, clearly female with soft skin, ink black hair, golden irises, paper white skin, and eyebags fitting of a dot com bubble era office worker. She also had a regalia fitting of a powerful angel: A white shirt, black tie, black trousers and white sneakers.

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

Right after she exited Han began to walk back towards her car. An old relic from before Spain was obliterated by a giant alien city. The silver Mercedes was as sharp feeling and sophisticated as when it was manufactured, mostly thanks to Han being able to service it constantly, feeling every minutiae detail about it and adjusting it whenever she had some freetime. The results were not visible but rather could be felt from the air suspension being lofty yet grounded, enough to feel the road but not so much as to make the ride overly stiff, seats that were black leather yet lacking any sun discoloration or rips from the years of use, and tinted windows that like transitions lenses let just the right amount of light through yet were nigh impossible to see through from the outside. “Us living organisms do not like temperatures that are too high or low so how about some air conditioning?” She said as she strapped herself and took the wheel, letting Dom ride shotgun.

Her driving was not very featureful, in fact, it was almost too stale. She let people merge and any passerby cross the sidewalk, something not very common in New New York. After a few minutes of driving around alternate routes, considering a large highway was still destroyed, she suddenly shifted her demeanor. She shifted down gears and kept the revolutions of the car’s engine a little bit too high before she took a turn at a sketchy road. Her eyes remained locked on a car not too far away from the two, a moment later she spoke: “Sorry Dom but I don’t really like those guys. I saw them from this area’s CCTV before I arrived here and they don’t seem very nice at all!” In reality, she had just watched them as she got close to the local network and decided to let out her inner violence on the probably, definitely, totally, criminal aliens.

What came next was expected. She rolled down her window and pointed her machine gun out of the window like a MAC-11, though not sideways as she was too white for that. Adjusting the fire rate she let a two second long burst out of the gun, her aim unwavering as she sprayed her target. What she aimed for was a parked car, one with quite nice alloys and some aliens chilling. They were listening to some song she did not recognize but assumed was some alien thing that was horrendous, definitely. One of them almost managed to aim his sidearm though being the quicker draw Han managed to gun him down. All three of them were left with between 10 to 13 shots on their bodies from a full power cartridge, mostly knocked out from shock and left to die either from blood loss or organ failure. Once the casing hit the floor, and Han pulled the machine gun back into her car she rolled up the window and sped off to the location. “Sorry about that but I had to really let them know they cannot just park there you know? That’s like loitering and stuff.” She said, her face brighter now.

Eventually, the two would reach their destination, Han stopping the car a good distance away while Dom was sightseeing. “So, how are we getting this guy to follow us?” She asked her colleague for this mission, her hands on her legs as she turned off the car and simply watched from a distance and her gaze moving between Dom and Azot. She really did not understand what he was doing, or that the people around him were poor, but she recalled her mission being something along the lines of teaching him a lesson but not killing him.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

“Easy, perhaps too easy…” Selena thought with suspicion, her blade cleanly searing through the construct’s flesh as if it were not there. Her gaze eventually rose from the attacker, looking around for the sponsor of the strange apparition, but to no avail. “Oh, it was a distraction. Fucking coward.” She shook her head, extracting a single magazine-like cartridge from her weapon, ejected out like a cycled round, a crack being heard as the last of its liquid was ejected and burned out before being replaced by a brand-new supercapacitor. With a click, she turned to the demon that had left, but only found a raging wall of hellfire left behind from a single cigar. “Bullshit.” She let out audibly, taking out her phone as her head turned to the two other demons there, vapors from the sizzling demon blood on her blade being let into the device as it began to think, its tendrils reaching out and latching onto the fading apparition next to her and keeping it from disappearing. Luckily the other two had plenty to talk about.

In fact, the time it took the others to begin their synchronous speech was more than enough for Selena to recognize who it was that sat next to the other demon. “Her-” She thought, analyzing her for a moment just like how the two gazed into her. “I can’t.” She decided silently, receiving a response from her device, magical and opposite in nature to the fire. “You have done enough. Get out.” The device replied.

Regardless of the news, it was something that worked out with her current plan. Before the fire had spread to the very edge of the door that opened, Selena entered the hollowed-out body of her alter-ego, blood and the remaining entrails covering her from the fire just enough for her to not be erased from existence. The innards of the being were instead transfigured by her device to open a path through the flames, having reloaded the spent cartridge she had discarded not too long before, turning it into a partially extinguishing anti-demonic cloud to further alleviate the flames.

Once she got to the other side she too began to escape, her flesh suit being discarded in a quick chop, spreading the altered blood all over the still partying attendees, soaking them with the same soul essence of Selena to confuse the sentient fire into consuming the other demons. Unlike the mini-centaur, the hunter hopped over the heads of some of the demons to get out of view as quickly as possible and out into the wild, crashing through a wall and breaking a few bones. Looking up, she would notice Rory, and would hear the ‘Find me’ echoing from within the hotel, making her turn to face it once again.

“What a reckless execution. It was wise for me to come with you for this small mission.” The device spoke again, white light fibers extending from it similarly to what it had done to the corpse to mend the injuries Selena had caused to herself. Meanwhile, she looked at the group of strangers outside. They were far too strange to be naturally from here, especially the guys with the crocs. “Who are these people?” She thought silently, waiting for her angel to be done fixing her body.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

“Ugh…” Selena groaned as she heard the demon’s voice sprout from the same stall she had left him at. She knew it would not be the first, or last time she’d have to kill him. For whatever reason, it seemed that fat bastard simply refused to die. Before, she had tried to dice him into small little chunks, something that did not work as next week after Dr. Ottovordemgentschenfelde put the jigsaw puzzle back together and let him go with more stitches than flesh back home. The next week she tried to dissolve him in acid, but a special division from the French multinational Péter-Puant condensed his gases back into a solid form and modeled him again from the play-dough they got. After that fiasco, she had simply decided that whenever she had to ‘slay’ him all she would do was leave him incapacitated enough to get what she wanted.

Still, the blunder left her somewhat frustrated, and so she tied a rope to her machete and flung it through the door, “Fuck you!” splitting the demon into two one last time. After she recalled her weapon, her face turned to the rest of her environment. *‘Well shit.’* She thought to herself, everything silent and loud at the same time as she glanced around at the demons, her weapon in hand as she readied herself to escape, only to be confronted by another one of the demons.

Her gaze lowered to the stranger, her height more than half a foot taller than the small centaur looking thing. She was not truly listening to him as much as she was trying to figure out what it was that he was trying to say. Something about a family perhaps, and a ridiculously long name that probably belonged to that Ixxa demoness she read earlier.

Before she could collect her thoughts however, one of those small future crystals she had failed to look at whilst scanning the room was hurled at her. She took a quick leap back, watching as the smoke escaped the strange rhombus and produced some malformed copy of herself. “Huh, what a neat party trick.” She commented, readying her blade to meet the bat wings as she lowered her posture. Both of the edges of the wing and the blade Selena held met, letting out sparks and a cloud of boiled electrolytic fluid, a brief hum that lasted as long as the machete cut through the wing followed, with the end result being the destruction of the tool’s edge, and the wing being cut off and flying off before it lodged itself into one of the walls.

The vapors, blessed beforehand and noxious to a demon, enveloped the spinning copy of Selena as she had made a vortex, and before the second wing could reach its target, the young demon hunter pressed a button atop her machete’s handle, letting out a strong lighting bolt that bridged across the demon and into the ground, forcing her muscles to spasm and making her other wing miss Selena. “So, your idea of showing them I am not a threat is to have me fight some mutant that vaguely looks like me? How does that even work shorty?” She asked the Minotaur as she readied her stance again, a smile spreading on her face. “I don’t even think I’ll need to take out my rifle to deal with this one.” Selena continued, confidence running through her as she kept her defensive stance up, still trying to figure out her enemy and what tricks they would have up their sleeve. As for her blade, the chipped part receded into it, and was replaced by another part of the weapon that still had a finely tuned razor thin cutting edge, one of the perks of a free geometry melee weapon.

The Family Biz [Open To Apply]

Feeling the roar of the engine under her, and the wind blowing past her helmet never got old. Zigzagging between cars, going off the road into alleys, the never ending loop of adrenaline was just what she needed to start off her job. Eventually of course, she would reach her desired destination. Kicking down the kickstand of her motorcycle and taking the keys, she was quick to dismount and remove her helmet, walking with hastened pace into a fairly regular building, from the terrace where she managed to land her vehicle on.

Tobacco smoke and gloominess only interrupted by neon lights greeted her inside. “Can’t help yourself huh? Quite the show you put out there, almost makes me think you want us found out.” A man inside said, his feet kicked over a large expensive mahogany desk while he smoked a Habano; he shook it lightly over an ashtray. Placing a hand on her hip and staring back at him, the woman replied. “Just enjoying this a little bit, can’t be all serious about hunting those silly things can we?” She said as she took one of the documents laid on the table, perfectly placed to let her know it was for her. Her faint smile vanished as she focused on the document, quickly reading through all its contents.

“Hm, that’s it? Alright boss, consider it done.” She said, mocking a salute as she went downstairs, the man continuing to enjoy his cigar as the woman descended into the bowels of the city. Winding paths and strange geometrical aberrations awaited her, being swiftly dealt with, as was routine. As she traversed the inverted staircases and swirling pipes she checked her weaponry. A duffel bag on her back was brought forwards, opened, and examined. The first was her knife, a special resonant uranium self sharpening blade, useful for cutting things, hard and soft, flesh or tool steel. Its modular construction allowed it to deform, splitting into smaller triangles and automatically changing its geometry as to accommodate for the wielder’s desires. Nimble and deadly, she would be able to drive it like a quill on paper even without her extensive cybernetic enhancements.

Dropping down, she used the blade to slow down her fall, generating another ravine onto a long shaft wall, long abandoned yet still useful for entering the underground city. Feeling the wind blow past her and knowing it would take a few moments for her fall to be over, she moved on to her rifle. With a chrome finish, black matte polymer grip, hand-guard, and stock, a ceramic barrel, and a rosary wrapped around its front, her rifle was her second weapon choice in case things got heated. Over-pressure electrothermal-chemical telescoped case-less munitions were loaded in place of its regular 7.62x51mm rounds. The modified Galil ACE 52 had both electronic and regular mechanical components, making for a deadly mix of mechanical reliability and the ease of use granted by a fully integrated computerized firing system. Each round was made of mercury-silver amalgam with an outer aluminum jacket. The white bullets would spell doom for any demon particularly sensible to its holy might; even the capacitors used to fire the rifle had holy electrolytic fluid.

Landing with a thud, the woman continued further in. “Alright-” Saving her weapons, she sneaked past the same distracted receptionist and went into the hotel. “Oh right, I should wear these-” She thought to herself as she put on a pair of red horns bought from a local dollar store, their built-in systems immediately generating a disguise for her, adding a programmable tail and allowing the horns to glow red. “No, not that color, it sucks.” She said to herself, stepping into the elevator and using the time it took to get her to her desired location to make both the tail and horn a hot pink. “Much better.” And then stepped out. In spite of not needing a disguise, she really loved the pink horns and the color options.

Other than that, her attire consisted of black military boots, a camouflage service jacket with a small ‘Castañeda’ tag on it, a white shirt, and light gray cargo pants. Considering the strange atmosphere of the bar, the loud music, and flashing lights, she did not even need to blend in at all. “Now all I’ve gotta do is find that lard-ass demon.” She thought, looking around aimlessly as if expecting her target to suddenly materialize. Without clues, the search would take quite a while, the human woman walking amongst the sin and opulence of the demons and some humans for what felt like a good few minutes. She checked the booths, waited, and finally followed her target to a bathroom.

She made quick work of the demon, only hearing him say. “Selena-!” Before she slit his throat with her special blade and placed him in one of the many stalls inside the bathroom. Locking the door, she sat atop the corpse of the fat orange skinned demon and scanned his memories with a modified Nokia 9110. “That looks familiar.” She mumbled, looking at the reconstruction of a strange succubus, a high value target that could perhaps bring her closer to a proper big hit. “Right, I know what I’m doing this evening.” And with a smile, exited the bathroom, leaving the dead demon and going over to the booths she was at earlier.

Surely by waiting for a bit the snow haired succubus would come out and she would be able to interact with her. Without blood on weapons on her she was sure it would not seem suspicious at all.