Circ

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: Lakehurst Airforce Base

Light shines sharp through bamboo slats barricading a window, thin glass admitting a chill breeze. Nothing warming this room. Certainly not its chief occupant. Slouching behind a large metal desk, beige with chips exposing dull aluminum flecks, a government-issue therapist's heavyset mass reclines in an straining swivel chair; an old Pollock executive with abundant wear and tear evident in its leather creases. A civilian contractor, the man strains a tan t-shirt and olive slacks, neither of which are stain free. There might be a belt in there somewhere, but his gut isn't telling. Unconscionably, he sports a beard, a ratty ginger affair.

On entering this sanctuary of despair, Dom stands at attention, shaved, short, and sturdy, the operational camouflage of his ACUs ineffectual against the white backdrop of the office walls. Sleeves tight, rolled up, and buttoned, his left shoulder bears the single silver bar of his rank; on his right, the colorful stitching of the Grim Zims, insignia of his remote vehicle operation squad. Taking in the mess of his therapist, Dom masks his contempt with, he hopes, disinterest.

Civs psychoanalyzing fighting personnel and dictating their fitness. Bullshit. Fit for that task as any fool confident in their placement on the Dunning-Kruger spectrum.

Dom's oppugnant opens his lax sore-rife mouth and opines,

"Second Lieutenant Dominic Ruiz-Malavé, is it? Born Dominique. Now you go by Dom. You think you're a man, huh? Taking testosterone, pissing through a funnel, begging someone to staple a cock to your clit. Why should the airforce finance your body-modification? Not merely cosmetic, but fully-functional."

"Sir," Dom coolly readies his prepared speech, tensing his muscles and wordlessly highlighting his more masculine physique, "me and my fellow soldiers are willing to give everything for Earth. Our lives. Many of us have, including my father. He died honorably as a result of his service during the First Contact War. All we ask for in return is for Earth to stand behind us. If it can, make us whole."

"Whole, huh?" the therapist muses, "Sounds like a load of horse semen. This is no recital, you know."

Dom's jaw tightens. He'd clench his fists were they not flat against his thighs. At the moment, he doesn't have the luxury of vomiting out whatever angry nonsense parades through his skull. He needs this charlatan's signature on the approval form for the bottom surgery he's been waiting a year for.

"Sit down," his therapist gestures toward a far less executive vinyl and aluminum stacker, yellow foam escaping through fissures in its cushion.

"For me, Sir, this is no casual affair," Dom answers, and continues to stand. "I know who I am. I know what I am. I've known ever since I was old enough to know there were differences. I know without this, I won't achieve my potential."

The shrink snorts, drums his fingers against the disarray atop his desk, retorting, "Are you not achieving your potential now, as a military officer?"

Dom pauses, collects his thoughts, and answers: "Sir, I mean my potential in life. I am male not because of what I imagine being a man is. I am male because I must be for my life to have meaning. One day, I will meet a girl and fall in love. I'll work up the courage to ask her out. She might say yes, but even if she doesn't, I'll keep asking until she does. I'll insist on paying for everything, even though it is sexist and old fashioned. One day we'll kiss, make out, find somewhere private, and make love. I'll feel myself inside her. Really feel it. Really know I'm getting her off. Eventually, we'll get married and have a kid. I'll be a father. I really want to be a father, Sir. Of my own child. Only then, with a woman and kid my blood boils with the desire to protect, will I achieve my full potential in the defense of Earth against xeno scum."

Opposite, the man pretends to look at a file, and says, "Quite the speech. Seems to me you already have enough reasons to hate this so-called xeno scum. Not the least of which is your father's eventually fatal condition, no treatment at the time, shame. Besides, that was decades ago, and Allure, well, that was just a big acci—"

"With all due respect, Sir," Dom interrupts, "your assessment is … wrong. Making excuses for the xenos? Trivializing millions of dead men and women, deaths for which xenos are to blame? The more reasons I can give myself for hunting them down and exterminating them, the better."

… Ϟ

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: Central Park

Hours later, I'm not sure what I'm planning, thinking. I'm on auto-pilot. Just casually waiting for him to leave the office. Gray sweats, now, great for a winter jog. Casual, anonymous. Uniform hanging back in my locker.

I follow the bastard to Central Park. Maybe I was planning on killing him. Scaring him, at least, that fat fucking fraud. I wasn't expecting a distraction, but that's where it happens. I see her, the damp dank depressing atmosphere striating the scene in my mind's eye like an antebellum photograph. She sits in lonely anguish on a bench, eyes downcast, dove gray cheek against jet black glove, mysterious yet sensuous under a charcoal corduroy duster. Beautiful, sublime; like a grieving angel atop a grave. My heart skips a beat, and not just because of what I am about to do. I focus on what I am there for and play it forward in my imagination.

He is cutting through the park, taking a shortcut, probably eager to get home to his penthouse in the canopy where a tepid bath, shot of butterscotch whiskey, and blowjob from his mistress await. She's paid, she has to be. That ugly slob. I'll get to him first, just as the path cuts through a dim copse of gloomy swamp oaks and withered magnolias. Zap him right in the back of the neck with the prongs of my Belkrait. No. That might get me caught. There is a record for everything. I'll pick up a rock instead, there are so many of them nearby. Scenic litter. Pretty. Zen. It'll make for a fine memento once steeped in his blood. Then I'll drag him to the subway tunnel that leads to New Venice, except we won't be going to New Venice. We'll be going to a utility closet full of useful tools like push brooms, crowbars, x-acto knives, and prybar scrapers.

When he comes to, he won't have his tongue, or fingers, or vocal cords. I haven't done this before, so it will be messy. A hatchet job. Still, I know enough field medicine to ensure he survives long enough to see me and know. Know. Know what?

I glance back at the girl.

Is he worth it? Worth possibly losing my life over? Worth definitely losing my soul over? No, he isn't. My pride isn't.

She's my savior.

I abdicate my prey to his karma. I man up. Damn, this is harder than killing a man. Deep breath. Finally, I walk over to the bench and sit down on the other side; next to her, but not so close as to be creepy. I feel creepy anyway, like some stalker or pervert. There are other benches, empty ones; I could easily sit on one of them. It is so awkward. So damn awkward.

I need to say something to break the ice.

Nothing good comes to mind. I don't know what to say. I panic, clench my fists in my pockets, and feel a handkerchief. Heh, fancy. It is really just a paper tissue, fortunately not yet soiled. I don't need to say anything. I offer it to her without a word.

"Thank you."

Her voice isn't shrill, or sharp, or pitched. It is like cool velvet, like jazz, like falling asleep happy and sad at the same time. Melancholic. Yes, that's the word. Somehow it calms me and I find my own voice. False start, I remember it isn't deep on its own yet. The hormones are still doing their work. Gruff, baritone, intentional, I mumble, "You're welcome, ma'am."

It feels good. Warm, almost. My cheeks are suddenly livid, not from anger, and my stomach growls, not from hunger. Not wanting it to end, I push myself to continue the conversation. A side-long glance. She seems so cold, her flesh almost in a pallor.

"It is chilly out here, isn't it? There is a café in the Boathouse if you'd like some tea or coffee."

Somehow she accepts.

… Ϟ

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City: New Venice

Our date is over, I'm already calling that. I'm elated. Terrified. Her name is Vesca and she lives in Kips Bay. She's into military guys, I think. She doesn't know I'm not all the way there, yet. I dread I won't be ready in time. Killing that guy would've just delayed it, anyway. Even so, her and I have parted ways for the moment. I'm on my way to an important meeting at a quick pace, but not so quick as to be conspicuous. My shadow splits five ways as I navigate the tunnels of New Venice, for one long stretch traveling via gondola. Eventually I stand in front of oil-slick bronze double doors, a veritable gate of yore, opulent in contrast to the dilapidation of the rest of this subterranean sprawl.

I push inward, and pass under a red banner hanging on the door of the gate. It depicts knights from the good old days where the only thing a man needed to prove himself was the courage to bash in the skull of anyone who dared to challenge him. It is my first time here, but I've heard good things. I'm excited. For two reasons, now. A nice swing away from the piss-poor start of the day.

Inside the local headquarters for the Honorable Knights of Terra, it smells of cigar smoke and thick coffee. Already, some blonde bimbo is asking for work. What kind of establishment does she think this is? We're here to assassinate the worst in this world. We're here to plan, coordinate, and execute the extermination of xenos.

Nexus Finals: Sóse Oakes vs Ivplec Ulkonotor

Euphomic dropbeads patter the alembic oubliette with a cut-short victory whoop, ceasing whence a singular crystalline goal multiplies and muddies to untold mysteries. At Ivplec's back, destruction and unreality fulminate, beasts beyond ken clawing with rapid violence through the fissures in the roots. Before him, innumerable paths diverge on the precipice of collapse into hypermassive singularity.

Hm.

Seems I'll be unable to keep that promise in the short-term.

Now, stay and be annihilated or venture into the unknown?

Ah well, maybe I'll get lucky and find my way home.

His kyter super-state crystal laser refracts among the fragments of the grand lens, illuminating each with suggestions of what lies beyond the wormholes. Too many to analyze in the fraction of a second he can afford, even when filtering out the multiplicity of voids, he elects at random one among those most colorful.

Yet again, Pffkshwahk barks to the rescue. Then, in the face of repeating shockwaves of impossible force, Ivplec activates his jet engine, propelling himself through the newly-erupting portal and closing the gap between himself and his destination. With desperate vigor, he surges forward through the wormhole an instant before it collapses. The experience is as none he's ever witnessed, folding manifolds rebounding off another in a phantasmagoria of possibilities that briefly come into being within the maelstrom piercing spacetime. Behind him, he hears screeching, baying, snarling, hissing. Shadows carom off the rippling foglight interior surface, hinting at tentacles and formless forms. A mouth within a mouth, fangs traversing in a forever fractal spiral perverting the golden ratio to a baleful maw.

Suddenly, the wormhole vomits Ivplec out. Like a cannonball, he zips through space and in to a dense, fragrant atmosphere. The air thickens, but not so much that he can't see the sea of foreign stars spreading out behind him. Then he lands in a vale of serenely swaying sungrass, striking with enough force to incinerate several meters beyond his impact crater. For a moment, he experiences disorientation. Then he stands, nearly gets his bearings, nearly enjoys the viridian and gold meadow of drooping dew-flecked lanterns. Then, just as it collapses and folds out of existence, the dwindling Einstein–Rosen bridge barfs forth a mass of puss and tentacles that, as it closes, lops in half, the remaining horror flopping down on Ivplec and setting his senses afire!

Nexus Finals: Sóse Oakes vs Ivplec Ulkonotor

0.000010233242

Strobes of intense gravity violently claw away the arena's interior surface. In evidence, torrents of dull opalescent bark and splinters careen in the wake of such incomprehensible mass, like headless ephemeral serpents in the clutches of a whirlwind. Ivplec knew his creation would threaten to consume him, it was always a question of when. Resolute, he clutches his spatha, blade piercing the ground hilt deep, his anchor against the storm. On purpose, he deadens his tactile sensory array, ignoring the molecule-thin layers of protection shearing off of his exoskeleton. In desperate self-preservation, he consolidates, size diminishing yet again in the final picoseconds of his ridiculous assault's ramp-up. Meanwhile, his multi-dimensional array of portal and multiplicity charges fades.

« PnAP sphere's 2 through 5 destroyed, » intones the auto-prompt.

« PnAP 1 undetected, executing localized MADIF pre-flay cycle and sweeping for anomalies. »

Great! Whatever! Just one more bounce, then boom!

Pointing the limb housing Pffkshwahk at the evanescent matrix's terminus, he fires a final portal charge.

Incessant chaos and impenetrable muddle reduce visibility of the stroboscopic idiospheric holograms coruscating inside the arena's interior to zero. Outside of projections, he has no idea what's going on with Sóse. Really, it doesn't matter. The plan is in motion, it is too late to stop. A vague sense of something incredibly wrong, evil, and twisted emerging through the frays in reality titillates his paresthesic consciousness, but it is nothing immediately actionable. Instead, he works forward, loading hundreds of kyter super-state crystals into Rngswusch's internal high-capacity magazine.

0.000000000134

Unable to withstand the pull, the last of his thaumic shield locus layer peels away. Underneath, miasmic build-up billows out in a xanthic aura. Before another gravimetric pulse spaghettifies him, two thirds of his eyes gamma glint. Yocto-band lasers suddenly shimmer against the deadly aerosol, then space contorts, tessellating around Ivplec in a spheroid of quasi-uniform polytopes in a hyperbolic 9-dimensional subspace configuration.

Just long enough to survive what is coming, he vanishes from local spacetime.

0.000000000002

Nobody would see 0.000000000000.

Through the eruption of devastation, it would be impossible.

In the utterdark defensive well of slipweave migoria, he can only imagine the scene. 400 r-process fusion reaction missiles, each with a galactic rest mass, speeding toward the magic barrier imprisoning him in the arena at a velocity of 99.98c; each striking with the force of an entire universe going nova! Yet, he is not idle; instead, as a pupa in a chrysalis, he repatterns his anatomy, a quartet of demi-black translucent wings flowing from his shoulder blades and a medial-posterior jet propulsion vent.

Beautiful.

Absolute annihilation violates the barrier separating arena from hall, contestants from observers, winners from losers. An impact, an instant, the utter obliteration of a Moser's number's worth of thoughts, dreams, and memories. Not merely an explosion, but the incredibly violent and volatile reaction where iron transmutes to actinium and exotic particles and heaves raw chaos into a system. Its singular nature is primal destruction at a fundamental level. Bevies of linearly-expanding warp bubbles reverse-extrude the very fabric of space. Oscillating the ultramundane to absence expand a vibrato of quark-gluon plasmas, color-glass condensates, and masses complex, negative, and theoretical.

Boring through roots and limits amid a whorl of antimatter collisions, it rises like a monochromatic volcanic eruption, slamming into the ceiling of the Nexus hall, reducing rafters to ash, shingles to cinders, and exposing the lidless host of eyes ever-watching.

May those eyes go blind and the thoughts behind them darken, Ivplec wills, his hypoversal skein unraveling.

Before and above him looms indescribable glorious carnage. Free of this gladiatorial death match, he pounds his feet against the ruin of the arena floor, propelling himself upward. Wings spread, jet engine roars, and his PnAP's MADIF analyzes local events for metanormative markers. Eager to bring this drama to its crescendo, Ivplec activates his Big Ass Sword, stabbing forward, its nigh-infinite laser light in direct alignment with the seat of Kynion's throne.

"Now, Kynion, I shall keep my promise!"

Nexus Finals: Sóse Oakes vs Ivplec Ulkonotor

Dandelion graffiti upswells from the rent roots coruscating on the chamber's roof, stage, and walls like frayed fiber optics, vomiting streams of thoughts and dreams to inevitable doom in singularities lurking beyond the 200 portals. A kessel run race through darkness and space, the ravenous reaction missiles slingshot around black holes, stealing mass and speed, and rush from Ivplec's portals with ever-mounting vigor.

Fleeting yet incredible in quantity, images wisp from the roots into the muddy milieu of already present phantasms. What began as vivid chimeras saturates to a wild kaleidoscopic of ridiculous enormity. Din, cacophony, utter visual discord with occasional motes of crystallizing clarity in colorful churn: a figure standing before a crowd in only their underwear, another in a frantic search for that which they cannot recall, another fleeing indescribable terror, another lustily pursuing that which is not theirs to own. Lost in the mess, in the serpentine flow of gas and light, are the obsidian trees, the colorful kingfishers, the crisp hiss of guillotines relieving a mob's bloodlust in their dramatic descent.

The lost thoughts of millions, billions, trillions, more ...

Minds throughout this multiverse that for a time find rest, no longer suffering the pollution of incessant facile futile noise.

Matters Ivplec ignores, focusing instead on the optimization of his matter increase and acceleration loop, infusing violence with greater violence until it becomes an untamable monstrosity, erupts free, and rids from him of bonds of this place's false gods.

Toward that, he determines bits of bark and incidental feed are inadequate to slake his thirst for destruction.

Augmenting the exponential increase of his reaction missiles, bloating from a mere 100 grams to 1,000,000,000 each in the few moments thus far flown, he engages the molecular cultivation rays of his quartet of Partex spheres within the arena. The roots, slowly maturing over untold eons, burgeon to bud and leaf in real-time, inundating the interior of the arena. From torn branches springs new life, branches twisting and writhing and weaving together like art animating from the pages of the Leabhar Cheanannais. Feed for AIMAB's consumption. As swiftly as it grows, m-Thief Glutton devours.

"More!" bellows Ivplec, reeling back and bashing his fist against his massive gorillian chest.

Almost immunerable on Ivplec's body, solid white corneas retract into scelaras along reverse triptych spirals, exposing inside igneous cavities seething with anger and plasma. Not for long. A wash of cold light resonates out in a thousand-meter radius, fixing virtual particles to a frequency aligning them with the active spacial manifold. Unable to depart, matter builds up and clarifies at an exponential rate, thickening the atmosphere of the arena and providing his railgun missiles an endless supply of matter on which to gorge.

Another second passes and the mass of his missiles transitions from billions to trillions. Slingshoting through portals and passing through multiplicity bubbles in an endless loop, their speed surpasses 0.5c.

« 38.349… seconds to impact, » auto-prompts his databank substrate.

Now we wait.

Seconds count down, each stretching like minutes. Maybe it is the increase in gravity, an effect hitting like a strobe as his missiles race from portal to portal, phasing in and out of local spacetime. Sóse's admixture of ionizing antimatter whorls around each, comas on comets. Thus far, his counterpart appears safe in Turtle, the machine's pincering limbs securing it to the stage in defiance of the gargantuan masses. At the core of those forces, Ivplec has no such need; at least, not until they threaten to rip him asunder. In anticipation of that inevitability, he compacts himself by a third, overlaying his exoskeleton with his shield locus' luminal ward and durability that cover his dark gray-green exoskeleton in an shimmering magenta sheen.

Skulls, fractal, explosion. Yup. He gets it. No further communication needed.

Hmm. A countdown wouldn't hurt.

Might even pique the curiosity of the audience.

The network of eyes atop Ivplec's angular flat skull suddenly emit a bright gold ray, hitting the barrier separating them from the Nexus observers like it is a projector screen. Selecting a random typeface—Comic Sans—from his databank substrate, he broadcasts a sequence of numeric symbols that radiate on the barrier's surface with a precision of 12 decimal places.

18.209325023952

Gravitonic surges vibrate his body violently, siphoning his miasma along a wending trail through the network of portals. Each missile is now as massive as a planetoid racing along at 0.81c. Dangerous, even for him. Rather than letting it be fuel, he closes the gaps in his shield locus, allowing his otherwise airborne acid to gather beneath it in preparation for the final step in this dangerous waltz.

7.232305923030

Missiles once as massive as planetoids balloon to the equal of neutron stars, inducing relativistic effects as they bowshock in their flashes from present to absent at a rate of 0.88c, forcing Ivplec to further compact, further increase his thaumatic shield, and gird himself in his guarding presence.

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City, Chinatown

"AAAH! How dare you collar and chain me like a dog to the scrub-n-tug!" gurgles Mateo from the spa, his voice reverberating through the skyway connecting the highrise to the warehouse. Seussian contraptions flail about on pneumatic hinges from apertures in the bathhouse wall, erupting torrents of sudsy soap froth and scourging him with nzw-Martex antimicrobial microfiber tassels. Eyes stinging, he can't even decipher color or shape, just that, through his clenching eyelids, everything is shining bright red.

Something pinches his neck, inside the collar. Hot, heavy, and soaking wet, he slams his fist down on the floor.

"Fesyen, I'm going to kill y-arrooooo! Arrrrf! Arrrf! A-wooooo!"

He pants, ears flicking back against his skull. Suddenly, he feels his tailbone twist back on itself, unfurling just above his asshole, and his joints reverse.

"What the—grrrr! Arrrrrroooof!"

A spray of fresh cold water slaps against his face, clearing away the soap. His tongue slaps out, licking some beads from his cold wet snout. Then, he sees his reflection. Oh fuck no, that ain't me! I'm not a fucking kinker, Fesyen! Staring back at him are twin chocolate eyes framed in a dense light gray-brown furry fox face, a bright red flecktarn collar around his neck with a blank name tag, and the body of a chilla.

… Ϟ

Fesyen refocuses on his second guest of—well, whatever the time be. Han, the Nazi regalia aficionado.

"Wel~l," Fesyen contemplates, reaching both his hands out to close Han's own, hiding in her grip the Iron Cross, "I'll take care of these rare and precious boots. You, meanwhile, may return when you have the bits. As for a fixer, well, I'm not tha~at well connected, bu~ut I hear if you goosestep your way down to New Venice you'll find some luck. Follow the scarlet swatches, once you get down there. When you feel you've found the kingdom of nerds, you're there. Then again, if the suffering of xenos is not to your liking, maybe you'll find something more agreeable at 4 Pennsylvania Plaza."

He turns around and scampers up to his work dais, clutching her boots.

There'll be a buyer for these if she can't get the bits, I'm sure.

Nexus Finals: Sóse Oakes vs Ivplec Ulkonotor

Filling the cylindrical vastness, a material hologram of intermingling dreams riven from the roots. Ivplec towers through its axis, an imposing edifice darkening the vibrant mirage. Day, gaudy and gay, deceives the senses, inflecting distinct hues cast from a cycling quartet of nascent stars. Miasma mates with fog, accreting around him in a slow-moving vortex shifting from sepia, to mauve, to bole; overhead, the matrix of translucent cubes spread step-wise, edges intense neon deviations to the gas' agnate pastels. The ignition of his core heats the chamber, lifting and warping the nebulous veil to dense a formation of globular mammatus clouds.

Sharp, naked trees with trunks and limbs as dark as obsidian hew around him in a queer mimicry, appearing to erupt in sync with rising fog. Not an explosion of their own matter, but via a multitude of birds bursting from their boughs, dashing wings of feathers in curvelinear chaos, scattering pinions to entangling rainbows in a mad cacophonic descent. Hissing, ephemeral, they alight on the water, dissolving to opalescent sheens.

The very essence of mirrors and smoke, Ivplec muses.

Four of his five Partex spheres levitate along an arciform path through the cloaking brume, n-Band Sensor Arrays scanning the arena along 90 degree steps. They detect a hole rapidly skirting the perimeter, a trail of self-canceling kinetic anomalies in its wake. Less stealthy, an armored hexapedal unit projecting a lepton near-field. Sóse enters the latter, a mechanical man with the lingering taint of meat: the person this place insists he defeat.

A logic pattern cascades along Ivplec's exoskeletal frame. Its properties are unique enough that they warrant analysis by his q-nervous bramble. Co-routines propagate up through his data substrate's exception interface, reducing the noise via Perlin antipodal artifact sanitization and translating the message.

Interesting.

Ivplec's vague approximation of a face confronts Turtle's own comidic abstraction. Briefly, he drops his muzzle; a gesture of acknowledgment that transcends species and worlds. Rather than settle for an answer imprecise, he festoons it with fact that emerge as his soul projects beyond mundane mineral matter and violently bludgeons the thoughtscape into order via violet astral astroblemes, afterimages of his presence hammering the floating cubic platform into a pillar and imprinting upon it a multitude of fiery mathematical glyphs in a serpentine block-step helix a kilometer long.

Sóse made it this far, perhaps he can ascertain to whom I am pointing and the meaning behind my equation.

Restoring Rngswusch to his sinistral talons, he reconfigures its firing mode to maximize output, activating three of its four modalities: Overheat, m-Thief Glutton, and Chandrasekhar Limit Breaker. Soon its parallel railguns will unload mass-increase fusion reaction missiles at a rate of 100 rounds a second and a velocity approaching a third the speed of light. Meanwhile, in his other arm, serving as shield, beat stick, and mortar housing, he imprints in Pffkshwahk an alternating pattern of matter multiplicity and portal charges and loads its teleportation telemetry to the same matrix seen on the pillar.

Pausing a moment, Ivplec scrutinizes the way a tree's spidery shadow depict upon the billowing meadow grass scenes akin to France's most notable revolution, awash with crashing guillotines, splashing blood, rolling heads, and bestial cruel children, women, men.

Scenes of thoughts and dreams almost exclusively humanoid in nature, yet they come from the roots, a supposed multiverse's worth of real-time experiences. What a horrid foreshadowing of the Verse's dominant species, like locusts, spreading through the cosmos and imposing their rule of asinine absurdity.

Maybe I should kill Sóse—eh, no, substance cannot be found in such a meaningless act.

He makes a note of Owl and Turtle's locations, verifying they are not within the immediate threat radius of his fire-control systems. No point in waiting for an affirmation. What's going to happen is going to happen, and he will force his will with or without assistance. A nanosecond passes as Ivplec reins in his presence, focusing it inward, into his q-nervous bramble, and unifies his processing capacity with the idle processes of his ancestral Lodika. More than adequate time to validate and fine tune the mathematical integrity of his formula.

I bet the observers are getting bored, looking down at that shaft-pierced cloud for a whole half-second.

Here's to more boredom!

« Firing solution optimized. Ready to commence code-name "AIMABP": accelerated infinite matter accretion bombardment protocol. »

"It's go time!"

With that, Pffkshwahk erupts for a solid second, scattering 400 charges throughout the arena, the iridescent bubbles ranging from anywhere between 5 and 100 meters in diameter. The array almost entirely fills the arena, although there is plenty of space in the gaps. Near the end of the burst, he levels Rngswusch, targets the first portal bubble, and over the course of the next second his railsword turns bright red from the heat of blasting out 200 bolts fusion reaction missiles.

Nexus Finals: Sóse Oakes vs Ivplec Ulkonotor

The Nexus Roots

… 🗲...

Rage, wrath, vengeance—emotions raze his soul's placidity, still inciting Ivplec to annihilate Kynion.

I promised him I would kill him.

Resolve quells his blazing inner landscape. A minute of torment in puerile putrid flesh, a moment of fatalistic rapport, an infinitesimal mote of introspection, just totems of fate on his present path. His torso heaves, then he remembers he doesn't breathe. Focus is spiritual, inward. Silent, still, he hones his senses. Within, the rime of determination proliferates, a dread simulacrum contorting his will to a haunt, a ghost sound, a ceaseless vicious wail from the lone high cleft of a hoarfrost-ensnared spire.

I will break the spire.

Clenching Rngswusch's haft in his gorillian grip, he feels strong. Stronger. A whisper reverberates up his arm, his massive black blade divulging its increasing potency. Concealed in his club-form fist, Pffkshwahk echoes an accord. A surge of power, a display of guile. Sheathing Rngswusch in the reverse ribs protruding from his spine, Ivplec spreads wide his arms and bows to Kynion with excessive flourish. Inchoate, that faceless mound atop his trunk lengthens, splits, snarls. He recalls his sword arm to his fore, fist up, knuckles out, and casually extends a solitary central digit.

« Audience body language indicative of successful contempt translation: rolling eyes. »

No reason to leave any space for doubt.

Viridian fangs burst from his mound's gash, menacing, dripping pungent acidic bands. It contorts, a rictus, a fiendish gaping mad grin. He clamps down on his finger, root and all, rears his head back, and rips it off. A multitude of eyes glare at Kynion. Acid spills from the corners of his mouth, translucent hissing yellow. Then Ivplec vomits the digit on the ground at the foot of Kynion's throne, a chunk of dark malachite writhing to a rough sphere in a pool of noxious phlegm.

Deserved or otherwise, his contempt seeks its locus. He senses aught else, even as the platform on which he tarries descends through an arcane patina and as the nexus tree's roots twine overhead in a sinister canopy. Raw instinct alone exposes the for him the contemptuous warden lazing on his throne, tormenting his hostages, a vain melodramatic wretch.

Suddenly, most of Ivplec, mostly, is alone.

"When I get outta here I’m gonna rip yer head off!" resounds throughout the cavity, terminating Ivplec's brooding.

Pause, analysis, recollection. From the brackets, he internally recites the name of his counterpart: Sóse Tekaronhióken Oakes, a formerly-human cyborg. A sizable fellow, a person with whom Ivplec shares an important aim in common.

"Enough of their games. Let's forge our own path home," Ivplec offers, his endoskeletal chimes ringing soft and low, audible only to Sóse.

What passes for his face lifts up to the unseen watchers, and the false enormity of the would-be battlefield flows over him. Around, above, below twist and grasp the roots, contrivances to contain; unimaginably thick, a few fine, each awash in a pallor of blue-tinged dim gray, as the flesh of a dead thing.

Odd that things so dark, so weary, nevertheless glow, he observes, the diffusing light delineating a chamber infinitely far and oppressively near; an optical illusion.

Cold, weary, bored, rife with a false light.

This place longs for action.

Deep in his trunk, his core rouses, fusing iron to actinium, radiating his inner flame through the cold liminal misery of this pathetic fastness. Acid flowing through his countless crevasses evaporates, a xanthic miasma billowing along the floor in a scene akin to dry ice drifting across a pop concert stage. Again, he raises his fist, his display defiant. The gap between four digits, his reminder to the audience. Fuel for their sadism, he again clamps down, bites, tears off his four remaining digits, and heaves them forth.

"Are you entertained?", he roars up to the crowd.

"WELL, ARE YOU?"

Talons erupt from the stumps of his sword hand, black, vicious, glinting. He drops to a knee, punches down, and impales the ground. A trillion trillion dreams writhe and flow around his quartet of nibs; fantasies, desires, ambitions, night terrors, a coagulation of minds and souls for whom sleep is an everlasting panopticon. Insufficient to whelm either his q-bramble or his ancestral presence, he diverts the current to drown in a data lake.

So this is it? Mere numbers, mundane minds; monotonous, repetitious, scarce as aggregates.

A hail of splinters and shattering dreams accompanies his claws as he excises his fist from the roots. Ivplec stands, retrieves his spatha. From his miasma, four objects ascend, his discarded digits reclaiming their purpose as Panoptic n-Axical-Partex spheres. Around him, the air crystallizes, an n-dimensional sheen casting his image from myriad angles, reflecting with it the afterburn of dreams, the splinters of their former confinement fading to dead wood. His will envelopes them, crushing the dregs, empowering the exemplary to soar.

Empty space, wood—a wireframe of orange light courses through it, transfiguring the battlefield with vivid contours of light, dark, form, and void. A vast geometry of intersecting neon cubes expands above him, adrift over a meadow without expanse, lakes of billowing waterglass surging with electric eels and penetrated by emetic conifers bowing under a burden of prismatic kingfishers. Stars shine overhead, near and fierce, a sign of neither night nor day.

In an enthusiastic imitation of Michael Buffer, Ivplec calls out to Sóse across the polychromatic expanse, "Let's get ready to RUMBLE!"

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City, Chinatown

Footsteps tapped an approach on concrete behind Mateo. Defensive of his tarp-draped treasure, he turned and beheld a pale, blonde, blue-eyed hipster adorned, of all things, in wrinkle-free washed attire—she even smelled good! As Mateo prepared to address her, Fesyen darted around a massive stack of color-sorted denim and pleaded, "No~o! That filthy lout a designer? Puh-leez!"

He paused to catch his breath, his hands on his knees, looking like a sage-crowned white parakeet.

"You're here for the, uh, oh my," — a digital display scrolled through his bobbing opera glass lens — "the historical footwear; yes?" he peered at her appreciatively, finally eye-level with an actual customer rather than a penniless scamp, dollar signs evident in his dark brown eyes.

"Hey, first come, first serve!" complained Mateo.

Fesyen scowled at Mateo and grumbled, "Without an appointment, my sexy little catamite cesspool! No business until we've cleaned you up, if what you're trading is worth waving the spa fee! Now!" — he turned his attention back to Han — "a moment please, while I look under this tarp."

He lifted up the edge, appraised the corpse of, he hoped, just an io; an implant overdoser. Glasses glinted as they switched to x-ray, and he gasped at the sheer number of mods. He stood up, clapped, and sent a silent signal through his local mindnet cluster. In response, a loader bot slid off the wall, grasped the tarped corpse in one of its grippers and plucked Mateo up in the other. Of course, Mateo struggled, and perhaps fortunately for him the clamps were layered in a rubber-foam tricoat that gave in around his form rather than crushed him with the raw brutality of metal.

"Put me down, Jose-Queen-Mo! I'm not walking out of here empty-handed!"

"Tut tut tut," Fesyen waved his finger, "Bath time for you, dirty boy! As a reward for this trove, you'll walk out fully clothed with your pick of accessories, whatever you can hold, within reason! Or does the purist want daddy Fesyen to touch his insides and leave some mods behind?"

The loader strutted through a set of bay doors opposite from where Mateo and Han entered, and Mateo shouted back, "Clothes, a weapon, and the io's cy-weave!" Through an up-tilted ramp across the boulevard, it eventually reached a pleasant commercial services complex, in particular the spa: a high-end bathhouse body rejuvenation salon, with options for fish, maggot, laser, or wage slave skin exfoliation; stone, goat, machine, or wave slave massage; showers, saunas, hot and cold jacuzzis, a heated olympic-sized pool, scent-select enema pump stations, and of course solicitation. Freed from its tarp, which went directly into an incinerator, the io was dropped in a private maggot exfoliation tub where, within 24 hours, every gram of dead flesh would be consumed. Mateo, meanwhile, was stripped of his socks and swim trunks, all he had on in the first place, and confined to a scrub-in-plug to be thoroughly groomed while his clothes were laundered.

Fesyen turned to Han and said, "Please, remind me of our communication? Did you want your genuine war-era marschstiefel professionally restored or are you looking to buy? If the former, you can enjoy the full services of the spa while I attend to your request."

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

—— Earth-F67X: North Capital City, Chinatown

Mateo flung himself off his mattress. A plastifoam container crunched under foot, empty, wrapper torn. He kicked it, an aluminum Aquafinka can, and a half-empty bottle of ÜberSilk party lubricant. Necessities for young men gone feral. After a bit of a shuffle, a patch of filthy green acrylic carpet. Maggots, maybe. He'd spray again, soon.

"Seen my trunks, Kost?"

"Might've used 'em as a jizz rag," Kostas yawned in his bunk to a telltale syncopated fist pump.

"Nasty. Abso vile," Mateo sneered, "Wait til I'm out of the van, at least."

"Bro, all the time you tap my skeet feed and beat to the rhythm. Mmmph. Yeah," Kostas' laugh slowed to a husky sigh, "Or what about that time you nightfreaked, jumped my bunk."

Trunks were under a recycoseal bag, full given Kostas and he were too broke to afford drop service. The bag, that is. As for his trunks, Mateo picked them up and examined them under black light. Clean, mostly. He risked a sniff, smelled only his own ass. Weird, but a locus or else deck Kostas for reanimating dead memories. Again. Dread dream or gApsmAck hacksoft glitch, no matter, he was out of his mind and craved comfort. Kostas was warm arms, a weight blanket. Mateo's tears dried and cold sweat turned hot, nature's lube.

"You're a liar, too."

"Check inside."

Didn't bother. Pulled them on, hassled getting the waistband over his dumpster; mother nature's gift, great for Little League, now a curse. Priests wanted it. Kostas wanted it … again. Trunks always seemed to catch, lift his shelf, then snap and smack his spine while his cheeks clapped. Swim trunks in lieu of shorts and briefs were simpler, anyway; fewer garments to purchase, hold on to, wash. They were also waterproof, soilproof, with a neat neon red flecktarn pattern that matched his socks. A possession from age 12 onward, they sparked joy.

Kostas was just another name on his list. Two down, a bunch to go.

"Gotta be somewhere," Mateo exchanged the hotbox van for the covered alleyways of North Capitol City's Kips Bay enclave, the gutter-valve heartbeat of what everyone called New New York. No breeze, but still cooler than a MercSadé hiding two male horndogs pumping chud.

A walk, solitary, long, Mateo a skinny sheen on a silhouette in a dark grotto with old pavers, older foundation blocks. Indirect incandescence, people merely shades, outlines, snakes in water. His moon shone in Heaven as an ad-stream of eternal ultra-vibrant diode manipulation, one moment scarlet, then ultramarine, then harlequin, and always he its penumbra, undulating, coruscating, an ugly cross-hatch curve. A partial outline. Less than a person. Real, the way society felt he was real.

Mateo tucked his thumbs in his trunks and wrinkled his nose. Grease. Food truck, maybe; no, grittier, but nobody around, much less a mobile diner. El overpass, above, abandoned. Flanked by windowless, doorless, boarded-up walls. The utterdark, where even Heaven's light didn't flow. Above the el, an impenetrable crisscross of pedestrian and highway trestles. Quiet. Too quiet. Thumbs down, his trunk legs drooped midway on his knees to the thick of his calves. Sprung, he pissed. All the world a gutter, his gutter. Eyes traced urine through pavers, to crumbled sideway. A lump, trenched up, big.

An hour later, he heaved a corpse through an old Salvation Army warehouse freight door, the kind where you pull a big strap and it lifts on pulleys. Rows of lights buzzed, long tubes that flickered just outside his scotoma, an inducement to a migraine. Concrete blocks painted red, white, pealed, chipped. Corrugated tin or aluminum rather than windows. All that just the husk. Its ribs, rows of folding tables bowed under fabric, limbs, shoes, jewelry. In the center, the crown jewel: a heavy duty piece of cutter tech that could do all the sewing, slicing, dicing, and modding its operator imagined.

"You in, Fesyen?" Mateo's words echoed.

Hantu Fesyen lifted his head dreamily off his cutter station's desk, "Ah, poor Mateo boy, here to sweet talk himself into some wares? I've told you, I only accept crypto."

"Pfft, what, too good for trade?" Mateo shot back, nonchalant. He sat on his tarp-trapped barter, ankle to knee, and inspected his nails. Dirty. Time for another plunge in the Hudson.

Somewhere in a lilac and green hydrangea explosion that approximated hair, opera glasses folded out and over Hantu's eyes; hammered palladium frames, rose gold arabesques, hexagonal rose lenses. Leisurely, he stood, smoothed out his trans-linen frock coat around his brief, thin figure; vaguely opaque eggshell embroidered in hues of lilac, silver, then emerald in hydro-thread needlepoint that rippled in an arrangement that complemented the arabesques in his frames. A translucent fingernail, synced to his trench's hue shifts, pressed his brown cheek and Fesyen crooned insincerely, "Don't da~are bemuse me, Mateo boye~e. What bi~ig thing are you hiding from du~addy?"

Mateo stepped forward, but Fesyen held up his hand.

"Stay, Filth!" screeched Fesyen, "You'll pollute the product!"

Coattails billowed in his descent as he scampered down the platform.

Gaslands: a Palimpsest’s Tale

@Liaison

Unless your GM comes back and the two of you can soldier through: I don't think so. You're probably better off looking for an RP that wasn't necro'd from the depths.

@Dinh AaronMk

What is dead can never die! Hello, from the GM.