Darcs

Delete this

Lol.

Like, bruh there's no HS RPers on MxRP-- and the last one I saw here was literal years ago.

Delete this

People still do homestuck rps?

I Remain: Desolation (A Zombie apocalypse RP without the zombies!)

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The man Riley had followed up the stairs gave some instructions to the rest of the motley crew fate had decided to cobble together with the glue of "threat of demonic dismemberment." All of this after they descended back down from sealing one of said demons away. In a child's room. Riley had never liked seeing those things up close-- he wanted to get better about that kind of thing, but nothing seemed to help, like the antithesis of what was good about being human. He supposed that was why he was among the first to follow Large Man A's guidelines. There was the anti-establishment part of his brain, forever screaming at him that any form of guidance was oppression, rejection of all advice. Luckily, that part of him lost the argument to another part, one of the newer ones-- called 'Fear by being dismembered.' He figured doing what the man said would give him a break from thinking, that he could focus on the collective goal of making sure none of those other freaks go in. More useful than hyperventilating in some corner. Seeing as the arm chair was easiest for him to move on his own, he wordlessly began to move the thing to put some weight against the back door. Though, he heard the girl's offer of knives-- and reminded him to take her up on that when he was done doing whatever he could here. Maya cowered through all of this.

—————————————————————— MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━ —————————————————————— ━━━🧭 Nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Evening ━━━⛅ Red mist storm ━━━🗣 Everyone ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Tom meanwhile, had led Meifeng first to the kitchen (after introducing himself, of course, you monsters-- he's not rude), where he made sure no gas lines were actually turned on, and then to (eventually) the basement. Tom admitted that wishing for a fully stocked doomsday prepper shed was only going to lead to disappointment, so he didn't lead the way into the basement with much hope-- and while he didn't get a 20 year supply of toilet paper for his trouble-- the basement wasn't a bad find for a scavenger. Of course, while Tom and co. did their due diligence in turning new corners-- it could only help so much against in hiding from any other demons that could have gotten in. So as they descended, Tom spoke under his breath, at first mentioning that this was too dark to do this, then stopping himself from nearly cursing as he flicked on the light switch, only to have a series of hand strewed 20 watt light-bulbs illuminate the area around them. Private generator? Down here, at least. That could be good. Disorganized-- mostly containing odds and ends to versatile to be kept anywhere else in the house. Certainly not the wine cellar Tom was expecting. "We need gauze, towels-- anything like that." Tom spoke. "Your friend did a good job from what I could see, but we need to keep that wound packed and clean-- if we can get the girl to stay still long enough, and it stops bleeding we wont even have to remove the bullet." Honestly, he was happy that someone with something heavy to swing had come with him-- even if they just used it as an excuse to personally loot. He had to admit, he was looking for something heavy and swing-able in addition to the gear from the makeshift first aid kit they were forming. He doubted they would find gauze, but spare towels and linens could definitely do the job. Something to disinfect the wound, and plenty of stuff to pack in there. If she could be stabilized, that would save them the trouble of having to find forceps-- skipping instead to sealing... possibly with cauterization. Though, that was more for later-- they didn't need anyone screaming any time soon.

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Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

VIGIL PERSONNEL DOSSIER: 'Ulrike Arámbula'

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Subject is known to frequently change appearance. ___________________________________________________________ Ulrike Arámbula | Latino and Germanic Heritage | She / Her ___________________________________________________________ Thirty-two | Fluid (AFAB ♀) | 150cm/4'11" | 45kg/99lbs ___________________________________________________________ FC: Selena Quintanilla (among others) | Color: #36AE86 ___________________________________________________________ KNOWN PHYSICAL FEATURES "I like to see myself reflected in the crowd." -- Quote from Ulrike Arámbula's time with a radical leftist student group at University Before her file was mysteriously (but, for reasons I have been made privy too) closed, investigators and criminologists expended many hours of research attempting to track commonalities between Arámbula's various disguises and what can be seen of her clothing in rare public appearances. As of writing, none have yet been made available to me. Likewise, psychological profiles have been conducted vis-à-vis her clothing, and while no common psychological threads can be seen between what she wears-- it has been said that her reflective, typically drab and dark clothing, and disguises, reflect a desire to disappear. That isn't very helpful. It can be assumed that her clothing in any circumstance is 'plain' and doesn't stand out from those around her. That isn't helpful either. However, while she isn't easily identified based on style, she is limited by her physical frame. She is a slight woman, quite small, in fact-- not weighing much more than 100 pounds max, her general figure is an unknown at this time, but based on her disguises (subject to change) she is quite toned or her size. She isn't taller than 5 feet, which limits her male based disguises significantly to certain scenarios. It can be assessed that she prefers female and young male disguises, and in her unaltered appearance she has an androgynous air that she can seemingly choose to switch to feminine or boyish on a whim. While she has changed her hair style and color frequently-- it can be assumed based on pictures of her time in University that she has naturally dark, straight hair, seemingly preferred long. She also has naturally brown eyes and a slightly tan complexion. Her lips are naturally dark, plump and full, and it is unknown if she is missing any teeth or has any scars. COMPILED PHOTOGRAPHS (UPDATED REGULARLY) ___________________________________________________________ Utilizes surgery, chemical substance and other means for 'disguises.' ___________________________________________________________

SKILLS AND TALENTS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● DEMOLITIONS ; It is this writer's opinion that this is the chief skill of Arámbula. Having trained with all manner of conventional and improvised bombs, including incendiary and EMT pulse devices of all types for well over a decade-- Arámbula is a threat to any individual, group, or piece of property with a bomb in her hands. And without a bomb, she is more than capable of gathering the material she needs in her environment to make one. She prefers to combine her skills in outright combat, sneaking around the side lines while using mines and explosives strategically. Overall, her accuracy with thrown and launched explosives is near mechanical and there are even rumors that she is capable of disarming a nuclear bomb, though no evidence exists to verify this. ● STEALTH ; While Arámbula's chief skill may be in causing loud explosions-- the clear second is, perhaps funnily enough, easily in her abilities to conceal herself. In public incidents, and other classified instances while she was still an active Eco-terrorist-- she has shown an outright uncanny ability to evade detection. She is nothing less than a master of disguise-- not just using clothing and make-up, but also acting techniques, plastic surgeries, overloading her body with hormones in the case of a male disguise, and even using mental performance enhancing street drugs to better allow her to focus on her character role. ● GYMNASTICS ; Gymnasts tend to be shorter, so it's no surprise Arámbula excels here. Years of urban guerilla fighting and intelligence work with various violent revolutionary anarchist sects and eco-terrorist groups has left Arámbula with the skill and stamina to perform various advanced parkour and gymnastic maneuvers many would be hard pressed to follow up. She is especially effective in city settings, where all of her skills can be utilized to frightening effect. MOST EFFECTIVE FOR ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Intelligence gathering, scouting, undercover operations, assassinations, demolitions and trap setting. MODS AND EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● UPGRADED VIGIL NERVOUS SYSTEM MODS ; Arámbula has many standard issue Vigil implants. While her body is not hearty enough to handle some of the more intensive or combat focused implants, the ones she can take, she has upgraded further in order to make her more effective in what she can do. MENTAL AND OCULAR MODS/UPGRADES ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED COMMUNICATION SUITE ; Along with all the basic features of the communication suite, Ulrike has further upgraded her own to allow her full control of her organs, allowing for her to efficiently control her body and push her limited physical abilities to their max. As well as this, the suite allows her to lessen the potency of some senses, thus boosting the power of others. This feeds into her optical HUD. ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED EYE AUGMENTATION ; Along with all the base abilities of the standard Vigil eye augmentation, Ulrike has upgraded hers with telescopic sight and a simple AI, showing her estimations for angles of throws and shots from her grenade launcher, allowing for more accurate strikes-- as well as constant reminders of traps she has set. The optic ability is boosted by the communication suite's control of her senses, allowing for more accurate environmental information when it comes to angular estimates for explosions. ● CYBERMOD//NEUROREGULATION ; Finally, Ulrike has upgraded her brain with a neuroregulator-- allowing for efficient use of her myelin sheath in each thought, as well as the production of neurochemicals essentially allowing her to do things like stay up for much longer than is humanly possible-- or achieve hyperfocus by producing the effects of a brain enhancing drug. Using these abilities for too long result in her feeling completely drained and typically sleeping for several days. ● VIGIL BODILY MODS ; While her body wasn't capable of dealing with many upgrades outside of her nervous system, the few that Arámbula has undergone, increase her abilities ten-fold. PHYSICAL MODS ● CYBERMOD//ARTIFICIAL HEART ; In her final encounter with a group of Eternals her sect had been dealing with, things went about as wrong as they could have gone for Ulrike Arámbula. Somehow, their plan was discovered, and the Eternals struck them first. Ulrike the group's resident explosives expert, lost a lot-- much more than her legs, and later even her heart-- aside from losing all of the people she knew and loved, she lost most of her body in the beat down she received. It was all the Vigil doctor's could do just to keep her alive-- most of her body is now 'artificial,' but not particularly enhanced beyond average human abilities, as her weak constitution could only handle so much. One of the enhancements she DID opt for, she actually helped to create-- her artificial heart serves as a timed bomb, much more powerful than the one in her head. Connected to her various neural implants, if she registers herself as in combat or danger, and her heart stops-- it will trigger the explosion of something she calls 'a Big Bang Bomb.' Aside from this, the heart is more efficient than her last one, and it has boosted her stamina greatly. ● CYBERMOD//REINFORCED LEGS ; While most of her body was shattered but more or less in tack, the Eternal that had been playing with her cut her legs off from below the knees down. So while most of her augmentations are negligible, and give her the abilities of a human-- her legs are enhanced, allowing her to move with muscle she doesn't have, jump to heights previously unreachable, and kick with a much greater force than her otherwise frail body should be capable of. ● FREQUENTLY USED GEAR ; Aside from a personal abundance of clothing, Arámbula makes frequent use of Vigil electronics. Both in use on their own, and in the development of her own explosives. EXPLOSIVES AND RELATED SUPPLIES Ulrike Arámbula LOVES explosives, this much is apparent after spending jest a few minutes with her. She enjoys supplying her teammates with whatever custom explosives they request and is always excitedly working on some new custom design. Either physically or mentally. It's a bit childlike, really: ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM STANDARD ISSUE GRENADES ; Standard "Disco balls" made to have a higher light yield and be lighter to carry. She always has a few of these on her. Just in case. ● EQUIPMENT//"Dice" CUSTOM INCENDIARY/FLASH BOMBS ; If Ulrike had a signature weapon, this would be it. These small, blue balls of TNT are the size and shape of dice. But rolling these dice causes a toned down, blue version of of the flash of light from the "Disco balls," as well as a small explosion, capable of chipping concrete, and about a foot of a plume of flame, sent in the direction the dice were thrown in. They're impact based bombs, and not grenades-- so duds are a possibility purely due to how hard they may be thrown-- Ulrike compensates for this by throwing multiple dice at once. You can produce custom amounts of explosive yield depending on how many dice are thrown. She carries many of these on her person, more or less depending on the mission-- but always a few. Getting hit with a handful of these in the chest may not always kill, but it will definitely send you to the hospital. ● EQUIPMENT//"Smoke star" CUSTOM SMOKE BOMBS ; Similar to "dice" Ulrike's smoke stars can fill a room with black smoke in less than a second when thrown directly at the ground with force. She likes to keep a few of these on her person, in order to better escape trouble, should it find her. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM EMT GRENADES ; Not proper EMTs-- but they have a similar effect. Essentially these are mini-conductors that release a high voltage . ● EQUIPMENT//"Logic bomb" CUSTOM BOMBS ; A collaborative effort. These "dice" style impact bombs contain nano-tech that can infect computers with custom viruses. Ulrike isn't a hacker, nor is she a nano-technician. She merely built the bombs. Mission specific. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM "BEC" GRENADES ; Bose–Einstein condensate is a scarcely understood 'exotic' state of matter, by creating a seal with gas trapped in this state, hybridized with fermionic condensate are how Ulrike has gone about making 'cryo grenades.' ● EQUIPMENT//"Discus" CUSTOM MINES ; Landmines, with a twist! Aside from being lighter and more powerful than the common landmine, these are built with a sap-like cool-plasma polymer on the bottom. This allows these mines to be places in many more interesting positions than just slide along the ground-- with gyroscopes built in, they detect when they are upright and function normally, or can otherwise be placed against a wall or upside down, and will function based on motion sensors. ● EQUIPMENT//CLAYMORES ; Self-explanatory. Ulrike has built custom claymores to be lighter and deliver a higher yield. Motion triggered, of course. Depending on the mission, she'll bring a few to cover her bases. ● EQUIPMENT//SATCHEL CHARGES ; These are the big boys. Depending on the assignment, Ulrike can make these in the field, but they will always be timed. The custom ones she makes in a lab can be timed or trigger based, and have massive explosive potential. As few as 10 of her charges, properly placed, can take down any average large skyscraper. A single eternal stands no chance if he runs into one of these. ● EQUIPMENT//"Ante Up" CUSTOM 40MM GRENADES ; Standard 40mm grenades for B4. Customized for thrown use as well as to cut down on unnecessary weight. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOMIZED TWIN SWITCHBLADES ; Ulrike isn't an expert in knife combat, but these knives aren't really for that. The metal is hybridized with flint in order to have the two serve as a permanent means for producing fire. These are invaluable for her making improvised bombs that aren't molotovs in the field. ● EQUIPMENT//"Bidi Bidi Bomb Bomb" CUSTOM CHINA LAKE GRENADE LAUNCHER ; Also known as "B4." For when combat is inevitable, this is Ulrike's go to. Instead of magazine loaded, it has been adjusted to be internally loaded, holding three grenades inside at any time, with a pump of the weapon chambering the next grenade. It has been customized to fire all of Ulrike's custom grenades, which can be used with or without the gun. The weapon is painted completely black, has a rudimentary sight (common on the M79), and all along the muzzle are names etched in green (her fallen comrades from the Green Faction), there is a bright green star painted on either side of the stock, and like most of Ulrike's weaponry it has girly phone charms hanging from it-- the muzzle and the stock. ● (EXPERIMENTAL) EQUIPMENT//"Ol' Dirty Bastard" PROTOTYPE XM203-5 ROSE ; It actually is rocket science! This is the 5th incarnation of Ulrike's attempt at improving on the M202 FLASH 4-chambered rocket launcher. She began working on this weapon in an attempt to not only create a single weapon that could destroy a building, but one capable of doing it from up to a mile away. The firing system, as such, is much larger than the original M202 FLASH, over twice the size, in fact-- both to house the 4 much larger rockets, and to house the conductor that generates the power for the launch system-- a large Tesla coil that juts out of the back. The entire weapon is probably 6 feet long and a mess with wires connecting to both the power system and circuitry for the onboard targeting system. The rockets themselves are miracles of science: Essentially, they house miniature hadron colliders-- in each are chambered secondary hydrogen atoms, and primary gold ions-- which, once fired, are pushed to supersonic speeds and repeatedly collided with each other while the rockets fly through the air, this creates a soup of quarks which have extremely high levels of heat. Waste heat from the creation of this slurry is used to further propel the rocket toward it's target. Since the micro colliders in the rocket aren't the same size as LHCs, nor can they generate the power required to produce near light speeds that is typically used to create this gold big bang slurry-- Ulrike compensates for this by trapping the gold ions in an exotic state of matter known as the time crystal, through temporal crystallization, this means the particles rub against themselves through different instances in time, thus producing friction and amplifying their heat by several times, allowing them to easily reach the levels of heat found in the sun. Thus, miniature sub-thermal fusion can be achieved upon impact, when hydrogen atoms are smashed into each other upon impact. These mini-nukes use the energy of the big bang to produce explosions found in the core of stars-- Ulrike appropriately calls them big bang bombs (though she will point out they are rockets) and there are only 4 in existence currently. They only work with this prototype weapon, and they do have a higher than average tendency to dud (the entire weapon system has myriad flaws that Ulrike would gladly discuss with anyone who asked). That being said, this deadly weapon has the potential to allow a single person to destroy a city with enough ammunition. Ulrike can't use it-- it's far too heavy and taxing-- she can't even chamber a single rocket without help, let alone fire it. ___________________________________________________________ KNOWN BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS "Why? If I carried a gun... getting what I want would be too easy. But it would ruin the chance at getting what we need. My passions would lead me to shooting every fucking bloodsucking leech my eyes can identify. That could only go on for so long-- It would be nice for a day, maybe, but it would set us all back in taking out the important ones." "███████████████████████████████?" "Because bombs are honest. With a gun, you basically have to try if you want to hurt yourself... but bombs always carry the threat of, excuse the pun, blowing up in your face. If you want to properly utilize a bomb, you need to be constantly thinking. That makes keeping to your task a lot easier." "██████████████████████?" "The task always has to be the most important thing in your mind. When I thought the enemy of this planet was men in power I was willing to die for it-- and that hasn't changed now that I know who the real enemy is." -- Interview with from Ulrike Arámbula _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Very little is known of Ulrike Arámbula's childhood. The little that is known is either negligible or possibly falsified for her own protection. Here is what is compiled that can be verified: She was born to a single mother, ████████████, on ████████████ in a ████████████████████████████████████. She attended ████████████ and ████████████ for middle and high school, and skipped several grades. Though physically small, frail, and sickly from a young age-- she also displayed clear scholastic ability, and had an affinity for chemistry as early as 8 years old. While the few that knew her would describe her as generally happy, she was also clearly eccentric and imaginative from a young age-- perhaps this is why she was bullied along with her sickly nature, (a trait she quickly learned to hide). She has personally commented, though, that this was due to her overwhelming passions toward what she wants, and the grander task she feels she needs. Arámbula's personality is therefore generally joking and light-heated, if task oriented. She can be quite confrontational about some issues, and is even prone to judging others and applying her own shifting grey morality to them. She is also a bit childish, and resembles a 'mad scientist' to some. There is more that can be directly verified of Ulrike Arámbula's time spent in University and after. Though this is still only a general snapshot: Arámbula graduated high school as early as 16 years old, and though she came from a very poor background she was able to cover most of her expenses with scholarships. Double majoring in physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, after 4 years she had BA's in both subjects, and continued her schooling, hoping to earn a PHD in theoretical chemistry-- it is around this time that her skill in explosives developed, and that her membership in local leftist clubs in the school would turn to her performing illegal acts, allied with groups outside of the school. She would spend her 20's becoming acquainted with the radical underground organizations of ████████████, honing skills she would perfect when coming under the Vigil's employ. It is unclear exactly when, but around the time she was 25, perhaps due to mounting tensions and a need to focus on what she saw as her primary task, Arámbula dropped out of her PHD program, despite nearing completion. Her thesis was on the use of exotic forms of matter in the construction of bombs. After this, Arámbula's public appearances were nearly nonexistent, and her movements became difficult to track. It is known that this is the period that she cemented her connections with Eco-terrorist sects around the globe, and her crimes of minor property destruction and small-time robberies became assassinations and destruction of whole buildings and monuments. Some years after this, her sect met with an underground contingent of the Eternal-- though at first the Eternal merely manipulated her sect into doing what they wanted, soon, her org began to rebel. This directly led to Ulrike Arámbula becoming a member of the Vigil. KNOWN ACTS OF TERRORISM (INCOMPLETE) Throughout her years as a militant anarchist and Eco-terrorist before joining Vigil, Ulrike Arámbula was involved in some way, in dozens, possibly hundreds, of campaigns of foreign and domestic terrorism in the name of saving the environment. First, from the threat of man, and later from the threat of the Eternal. Listed here are a few of her verified campaigns with the Green Faction: ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ███████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first known instance of Arámbula's sect interacting with Eternals. Taking a small job for an underground group of Eternals. Hijacking fuel trucks that were en route to a blood donation center. Occurred approximately three years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first instance of Arámbula's sect actively interfering with Eternals. Bombing of an Eternal owned building. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Freeing of a small group of Eternal blood slaves, failed to keep secret. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Publicly listed as 'the bombing of parliament,' the true goal of this operation was the destruction of a base Eternals frequently used for easy access to trafficked children. It is unknown how the Eternals were tipped off, but the sect was decimated. Members not drained or outright killed were left bloodied, crippled and near death. This is the last known operation by the Green Faction. Occurred approximately two years ago. ___________________________________________________________

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I Remain: Desolation (A Zombie apocalypse RP without the zombies!)

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"Ha!" Riley whispered as Maya stood in front of him, response-less, "I guarantee you no one cares what I say, dude. A chick just got shot and dude got... knifed, and there's demons. No one cares." "Shut up, Hattie." Maya gave a small 'tsk' as the gun continued to be trained on everyone-- while deflated slightly, she hadn't dropped the character. Yet. Then came the noise from upstairs. Maya gave a shrill, but contained 'yipe' practically jumping at the thump. As it became clear from the input of the others that that was one of... them. Maya, as if a switch had been flicked, immediately went back to hiding behind the teenager. He had, conversely, seemed unsurprised by the noise, or at least unshaken. At the request of the woman treating knife girl's gunshot wound for 'Somebody to go kill it[sic]' a woman and a one of the men with rifles went up the stairs-- Riley followed far behind, intending to wait at the base of the stairs and see what he could. Maya's grip on the boy loosened as the boy took steps forward. "Riley! What are you doing? Hattie." The woman whisper-yelled. Riley shrugged. He figured they were trapped in this capitalist McMansion of excess no matter what while Red Dawn was going on outside. If one monster could get in, more could-- Riley would at least like to know if the one they knew of was headed their way if those two couldn't kill it. He moved slowly, not trying to creak any floorboards as he moved, but move he did. Maya's teenaged 'cover' was gone after mere seconds.

—————————————————————— MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━ —————————————————————— ━━━🧭 Nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Evening ━━━⛅ Red mist storm ━━━🗣 Everyone ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She whined as he went, slumping against the heavy door of the mansion. Tom, on the other hand, was snapped to full attention by the more imminent threat of a demon being this close to them. His attention turned from the treating of the less pressing knife wound, admittedly for self-preservation, to the more pressing gun wound the girl had sustained. He had been trying to ignore it-- but luckily someone else hadn't. Clearly military trained-- she was already treating the wound with skill, despite a lack of supplies, and the less than ideal circumstances. Still... getting the bullet out was only half the job. To stop the bleeding and prevent infection they would need to cauterize. The idea of this worried him, as it would cause... some noise... for sure. But not would probably be worse down the line. "I'll go see if this place had a private gas line... or... anything to start a fire." He primarily addressed the woman with the braids treating the girl who had been shot, but turned to the man with the knife wound and the others as he finished, "Both of those wounds will require sealing sooner or later-- ideally sooner-- and I'm not sure anyone has any actual, proper supplies for sealing them. Anyone want to come with? There may be other... things lurking."

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Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

@ZAVAZggg I kinda stole your idea for the theme of my CS sorry-- though I don't think I did it as well.

@HeySeuss Here's a character. Tell me if I made her too OP? I tried to balance her, but she still may have a bit much in the way of destructive power, and I can dial that back if you need. My thinking was since I figured there may be more "strong" characters, that are complete Ubermensches (in a good way), I wanted to make someone who was kind of very physically frail, and used other means to keep up, and used the technology to enhance her pursuit of those means. She's a bit like a scorpion-- easy to step on, but if she can get her sting out it's probably over for you.

Anyway--

COLLECTED FILES ON VIGIL PERSONNEL/(DEFUNCT) DOSSIER: 'Ulrike Arámbula' INFORMATION COMPILED BY [CENSORED

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Subject is known to frequently change appearance. ___________________________________________________________ Ulrike Arámbula | Latino and Germanic Heritage | She / Her ___________________________________________________________ Thirty-two | Fluid (AFAB ♀) | 150cm/4'11" | 45kg/99lbs ___________________________________________________________ FC: Selena Quintanilla (among others) | Color: #36AE86 ___________________________________________________________ KNOWN PHYSICAL FEATURES "I like to see myself reflected in the crowd." -- Quote from Ulrike Arámbula's time with a radical leftist student group at University Before her file was mysteriously (but, for reasons I have been made privy too) closed, investigators and criminologists expended many hours of research attempting to track commonalities between Arámbula's various disguises and what can be seen of her clothing in rare public appearances. As of writing, none have yet been made available to me. Likewise, psychological profiles have been conducted vis-à-vis her clothing, and while no common psychological threads can be seen between what she wears-- it has been said that her reflective, typically drab and dark clothing, and disguises, reflect a desire to disappear. That isn't very helpful. It can be assumed that her clothing in any circumstance is 'plain' and doesn't stand out from those around her. That isn't helpful either. However, while she isn't easily identified based on style, she is limited by her physical frame. She is a slight woman, quite small, in fact-- not weighing much more than 100 pounds max, her general figure is an unknown at this time, but based on her disguises (subject to change) she is quite toned or her size. She isn't taller than 5 feet, which limits her male based disguises significantly to certain scenarios. It can be assessed that she prefers female and young male disguises, and in her unaltered appearance she has an androgynous air that she can seemingly choose to switch to feminine or boyish on a whim. While she has changed her hair style and color frequently-- it can be assumed based on pictures of her time in University that she has naturally dark, straight hair, seemingly preferred long. She also has naturally brown eyes and a slightly tan complexion. Her lips are naturally dark, plump and full, and it is unknown if she is missing any teeth or has any scars. COMPILED PHOTOGRAPHS (UPDATED REGULARLY) ___________________________________________________________ Utilizes surgery, chemical substance and other means for 'disguises.' ___________________________________________________________

SKILLS AND TALENTS ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● DEMOLITIONS ; It is this writer's opinion that this is the chief skill of Arámbula. Having trained with all manner of conventional and improvised bombs, including incendiary and EMT pulse devices of all types for well over a decade-- Arámbula is a threat to any individual, group, or piece of property with a bomb in her hands. And without a bomb, she is more than capable of gathering the material she needs in her environment to make one. She prefers to combine her skills in outright combat, sneaking around the side lines while using mines and explosives strategically. Overall, her accuracy with thrown and launched explosives is near mechanical and there are even rumors that she is capable of disarming a nuclear bomb, though no evidence exists to verify this. ● STEALTH ; While Arámbula's chief skill may be in causing loud explosions-- the clear second is, perhaps funnily enough, easily in her abilities to conceal herself. In public incidents, and other classified instances while she was still an active Eco-terrorist-- she has shown an outright uncanny ability to evade detection. She is nothing less than a master of disguise-- not just using clothing and make-up, but also acting techniques, plastic surgeries, overloading her body with hormones in the case of a male disguise, and even using mental performance enhancing street drugs to better allow her to focus on her character role. ● GYMNASTICS ; Gymnasts tend to be shorter, so it's no surprise Arámbula excels here. Years of urban guerilla fighting and intelligence work with various violent revolutionary anarchist sects and eco-terrorist groups has left Arámbula with the skill and stamina to perform various advanced parkour and gymnastic maneuvers many would be hard pressed to follow up. She is especially effective in city settings, where all of her skills can be utilized to frightening effect. MOST EFFECTIVE FOR ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Intelligence gathering, scouting, undercover operations, assassinations, demolitions and trap setting. MODS AND EQUIPMENT ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ● UPGRADED VIGIL NERVOUS SYSTEM MODS ; Arámbula has many standard issue Vigil implants. While her body is not hearty enough to handle some of the more intensive or combat focused implants, the ones she can take, she has upgraded further in order to make her more effective in what she can do. MENTAL AND OCULAR MODS/UPGRADES ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED COMMUNICATION SUITE ; Along with all the basic features of the communication suite, Ulrike has further upgraded her own to allow her full control of her organs, allowing for her to efficiently control her body and push her limited physical abilities to their max. As well as this, the suite allows her to lessen the potency of some senses, thus boosting the power of others. This feeds into her optical HUD. ● CYBERMOD//UPGRADED EYE AUGMENTATION ; Along with all the base abilities of the standard Vigil eye augmentation, Ulrike has upgraded hers with telescopic sight and a simple AI, showing her estimations for angles of throws and shots from her grenade launcher, allowing for more accurate strikes-- as well as constant reminders of traps she has set. The optic ability is boosted by the communication suite's control of her senses, allowing for more accurate environmental information when it comes to angular estimates for explosions. ● CYBERMOD//NEUROREGULATION ; Finally, Ulrike has upgraded her brain with a neuroregulator-- allowing for efficient use of her myelin sheath in each thought, as well as the production of neurochemicals essentially allowing her to do things like stay up for much longer than is humanly possible-- or achieve hyperfocus by producing the effects of a brain enhancing drug. Using these abilities for too long result in her feeling completely drained and typically sleeping for several days. ● VIGIL BODILY MODS ; While her body wasn't capable of dealing with many upgrades outside of her nervous system, the few that Arámbula has undergone, increase her abilities ten-fold. PHYSICAL MODS ● CYBERMOD//ARTIFICIAL HEART ; In her final encounter with a group of Eternals her sect had been dealing with, things went about as wrong as they could have gone for Ulrike Arámbula. Somehow, their plan was discovered, and the Eternals struck them first. Ulrike the group's resident explosives expert, lost a lot-- much more than her legs, and later even her heart-- aside from losing all of the people she knew and loved, she lost most of her body in the beat down she received. It was all the Vigil doctor's could do just to keep her alive-- most of her body is now 'artificial,' but not particularly enhanced beyond average human abilities, as her weak constitution could only handle so much. One of the enhancements she DID opt for, she actually helped to create-- her artificial heart serves as a timed bomb, much more powerful than the one in her head. Connected to her various neural implants, if she registers herself as in combat or danger, and her heart stops-- it will trigger the explosion of something she calls 'a Big Bang Bomb.' Aside from this, the heart is more efficient than her last one, and it has boosted her stamina greatly. ● CYBERMOD//REINFORCED LEGS ; While most of her body was shattered but more or less in tack, the Eternal that had been playing with her cut her legs off from below the knees down. So while most of her augmentations are negligible, and give her the abilities of a human-- her legs are enhanced, allowing her to move with muscle she doesn't have, jump to heights previously unreachable, and kick with a much greater force than her otherwise frail body should be capable of. ● FREQUENTLY USED GEAR ; Aside from a personal abundance of clothing, Arámbula makes frequent use of Vigil electronics. Both in use on their own, and in the development of her own explosives. EXPLOSIVES AND RELATED SUPPLIES Ulrike Arámbula LOVES explosives, this much is apparent after spending jest a few minutes with her. She enjoys supplying her teammates with whatever custom explosives they request and is always excitedly working on some new custom design. Either physically or mentally. It's a bit childlike, really: ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM STANDARD ISSUE GRENADES ; Standard "Disco balls" made to have a higher light yield and be lighter to carry. She always has a few of these on her. Just in case. ● EQUIPMENT//"Dice" CUSTOM INCENDIARY/FLASH BOMBS ; If Ulrike had a signature weapon, this would be it. These small, blue balls of TNT are the size and shape of dice. But rolling these dice causes a toned down, blue version of of the flash of light from the "Disco balls," as well as a small explosion, capable of chipping concrete, and about a foot of a plume of flame, sent in the direction the dice were thrown in. They're impact based bombs, and not grenades-- so duds are a possibility purely due to how hard they may be thrown-- Ulrike compensates for this by throwing multiple dice at once. You can produce custom amounts of explosive yield depending on how many dice are thrown. She carries many of these on her person, more or less depending on the mission-- but always a few. Getting hit with a handful of these in the chest may not always kill, but it will definitely send you to the hospital. ● EQUIPMENT//"Smoke star" CUSTOM SMOKE BOMBS ; Similar to "dice" Ulrike's smoke stars can fill a room with black smoke in less than a second when thrown directly at the ground with force. She likes to keep a few of these on her person, in order to better escape trouble, should it find her. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM EMT GRENADES ; Not proper EMTs-- but they have a similar effect. Essentially these are mini-conductors that release a high voltage . ● EQUIPMENT//"Logic bomb" CUSTOM BOMBS ; A collaborative effort. These "dice" style impact bombs contain nano-tech that can infect computers with custom viruses. Ulrike isn't a hacker, nor is she a nano-technician. She merely built the bombs. Mission specific. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOM "BEC" GRENADES ; Bose–Einstein condensate is a scarcely understood 'exotic' state of matter, by creating a seal with gas trapped in this state, hybridized with fermionic condensate are how Ulrike has gone about making 'cryo grenades.' ● EQUIPMENT//"Discus" CUSTOM MINES ; Landmines, with a twist! Aside from being lighter and more powerful than the common landmine, these are built with a sap-like cool-plasma polymer on the bottom. This allows these mines to be places in many more interesting positions than just slide along the ground-- with gyroscopes built in, they detect when they are upright and function normally, or can otherwise be placed against a wall or upside down, and will function based on motion sensors. ● EQUIPMENT//CLAYMORES ; Self-explanatory. Ulrike has built custom claymores to be lighter and deliver a higher yield. Motion triggered, of course. Depending on the mission, she'll bring a few to cover her bases. ● EQUIPMENT//SATCHEL CHARGES ; These are the big boys. Depending on the assignment, Ulrike can make these in the field, but they will always be timed. The custom ones she makes in a lab can be timed or trigger based, and have massive explosive potential. As few as 10 of her charges, properly placed, can take down any average large skyscraper. A single eternal stands no chance if he runs into one of these. ● EQUIPMENT//"Ante Up" CUSTOM 40MM GRENADES ; Standard 40mm grenades for B4. Customized for thrown use as well as to cut down on unnecessary weight. ● EQUIPMENT//CUSTOMIZED TWIN SWITCHBLADES ; Ulrike isn't an expert in knife combat, but these knives aren't really for that. The metal is hybridized with flint in order to have the two serve as a permanent means for producing fire. These are invaluable for her making improvised bombs that aren't molotovs in the field. ● EQUIPMENT//"Bidi Bidi Bomb Bomb" CUSTOM CHINA LAKE GRENADE LAUNCHER ; Also known as "B4." For when combat is inevitable, this is Ulrike's go to. Instead of magazine loaded, it has been adjusted to be internally loaded, holding three grenades inside at any time, with a pump of the weapon chambering the next grenade. It has been customized to fire all of Ulrike's custom grenades, which can be used with or without the gun. The weapon is painted completely black, has a rudimentary sight (common on the M79), and all along the muzzle are names etched in green (her fallen comrades from the Green Faction), there is a bright green star painted on either side of the stock, and like most of Ulrike's weaponry it has girly phone charms hanging from it-- the muzzle and the stock. ● (EXPERIMENTAL) EQUIPMENT//"Ol' Dirty Bastard" PROTOTYPE XM203-5 ROSE ; It actually is rocket science! This is the 5th incarnation of Ulrike's attempt at improving on the M202 FLASH 4-chambered rocket launcher. She began working on this weapon in an attempt to not only create a single weapon that could destroy a building, but one capable of doing it from up to a mile away. The firing system, as such, is much larger than the original M202 FLASH, over twice the size, in fact-- both to house the 4 much larger rockets, and to house the conductor that generates the power for the launch system-- a large Tesla coil that juts out of the back. The entire weapon is probably 6 feet long and a mess with wires connecting to both the power system and circuitry for the onboard targeting system. The rockets themselves are miracles of science: Essentially, they house miniature hadron colliders-- in each are chambered secondary hydrogen atoms, and primary gold ions-- which, once fired, are pushed to supersonic speeds and repeatedly collided with each other while the rockets fly through the air, this creates a soup of quarks which have extremely high levels of heat. Waste heat from the creation of this slurry is used to further propel the rocket toward it's target. Since the micro colliders in the rocket aren't the same size as LHCs, nor can they generate the power required to produce near light speeds that is typically used to create this gold big bang slurry-- Ulrike compensates for this by trapping the gold ions in an exotic state of matter known as the time crystal, through temporal crystallization, this means the particles rub against themselves through different instances in time, thus producing friction and amplifying their heat by several times, allowing them to easily reach the levels of heat found in the sun. Thus, miniature sub-thermal fusion can be achieved upon impact, when hydrogen atoms are smashed into each other upon impact. These mini-nukes use the energy of the big bang to produce explosions found in the core of stars-- Ulrike appropriately calls them big bang bombs (though she will point out they are rockets) and there are only 4 in existence currently. They only work with this prototype weapon, and they do have a higher than average tendency to dud (the entire weapon system has myriad flaws that Ulrike would gladly discuss with anyone who asked). That being said, this deadly weapon has the potential to allow a single person to destroy a city with enough ammunition. Ulrike can't use it-- it's far too heavy and taxing-- she can't even chamber a single rocket without help, let alone fire it. ___________________________________________________________ KNOWN BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS "Why? If I carried a gun... getting what I want would be too easy. But it would ruin the chance at getting what we need. My passions would lead me to shooting every fucking bloodsucking leech my eyes can identify. That could only go on for so long-- It would be nice for a day, maybe, but it would set us all back in taking out the important ones." "███████████████████████████████?" "Because bombs are honest. With a gun, you basically have to try if you want to hurt yourself... but bombs always carry the threat of, excuse the pun, blowing up in your face. If you want to properly utilize a bomb, you need to be constantly thinking. That makes keeping to your task a lot easier." "██████████████████████?" "The task always has to be the most important thing in your mind. When I thought the enemy of this planet was men in power I was willing to die for it-- and that hasn't changed now that I know who the real enemy is." -- Interview with from Ulrike Arámbula _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Very little is known of Ulrike Arámbula's childhood. The little that is known is either negligible or possibly falsified for her own protection. Here is what is compiled that can be verified: She was born to a single mother, ████████████, on ████████████ in a ████████████████████████████████████. She attended ████████████ and ████████████ for middle and high school, and skipped several grades. Though physically small, frail, and sickly from a young age-- she also displayed clear scholastic ability, and had an affinity for chemistry as early as 8 years old. While the few that knew her would describe her as generally happy, she was also clearly eccentric and imaginative from a young age-- perhaps this is why she was bullied along with her sickly nature, (a trait she quickly learned to hide). She has personally commented, though, that this was due to her overwhelming passions toward what she wants, and the grander task she feels she needs. Arámbula's personality is therefore generally joking and light-heated, if task oriented. She can be quite confrontational about some issues, and is even prone to judging others and applying her own shifting grey morality to them. She is also a bit childish, and resembles a 'mad scientist' to some. There is more that can be directly verified of Ulrike Arámbula's time spent in University and after. Though this is still only a general snapshot: Arámbula graduated high school as early as 16 years old, and though she came from a very poor background she was able to cover most of her expenses with scholarships. Double majoring in physical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, after 4 years she had BA's in both subjects, and continued her schooling, hoping to earn a PHD in theoretical chemistry-- it is around this time that her skill in explosives developed, and that her membership in local leftist clubs in the school would turn to her performing illegal acts, allied with groups outside of the school. She would spend her 20's becoming acquainted with the radical underground organizations of ████████████, honing skills she would perfect when coming under the Vigil's employ. It is unclear exactly when, but around the time she was 25, perhaps due to mounting tensions and a need to focus on what she saw as her primary task, Arámbula dropped out of her PHD program, despite nearing completion. Her thesis was on the use of exotic forms of matter in the construction of bombs. After this, Arámbula's public appearances were nearly nonexistent, and her movements became difficult to track. It is known that this is the period that she cemented her connections with Eco-terrorist sects around the globe, and her crimes of minor property destruction and small-time robberies became assassinations and destruction of whole buildings and monuments. Some years after this, her sect met with an underground contingent of the Eternal-- though at first the Eternal merely manipulated her sect into doing what they wanted, soon, her org began to rebel. This directly led to Ulrike Arámbula becoming a member of the Vigil. KNOWN ACTS OF TERRORISM (INCOMPLETE) Throughout her years as a militant anarchist and Eco-terrorist before joining Vigil, Ulrike Arámbula was involved in some way, in dozens, possibly hundreds, of campaigns of foreign and domestic terrorism in the name of saving the environment. First, from the threat of man, and later from the threat of the Eternal. Listed here are a few of her verified campaigns with the Green Faction: ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ███████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ████████████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first known instance of Arámbula's sect interacting with Eternals. Taking a small job for an underground group of Eternals. Hijacking fuel trucks that were en route to a blood donation center. Occurred approximately three years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████████████████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; ██████████████████████. ████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; The first instance of Arámbula's sect actively interfering with Eternals. Bombing of an Eternal owned building. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Freeing of a small group of Eternal blood slaves, failed to keep secret. Occurred approximately two years ago. ● CRIME AND DATE ; █████████████. ████████. ● CRIME AND DATE ; Publicly listed as 'the bombing of parliament,' the true goal of this operation was the destruction of a base Eternals frequently used for easy access to trafficked children. It is unknown how the Eternals were tipped off, but the sect was decimated. Members not drained or outright killed were left bloodied, crippled and near death. This is the last known operation by the Green Faction. Occurred approximately two years ago. ___________________________________________________________

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I Remain: Desolation (A Zombie apocalypse RP without the zombies!)

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"Yeah, yeah-- and then--" Maya attempted to chime on to the explanation the pair was giving to Tom, of what they had just seen take place-- in medias res, of course. Riley cut her off-- "They were staring each other down with guns, they took their eyes off the girl in the middle-- which was a mistake-- when she had an opening she pulled out a knife and straight GORED this one big dude's shoulder. Shit was gnarly and cash as FUCK!" Tom gripped the ridge of his brow, "That doesn't sound very 'cash' to me, Hattie." Riley smiled wide, "Pops-- you're alone in the desert-- four assholes who probably want the same thing you want all greet you-- not with a fucking--" "Language." "--hello, but with their fucking... 'boom-boom-me-have-big-dick sticks' instead of laying down and taking that she decided to go out like a G." Riley shrugged, "I think it was cash. Plus they didn't even actually kill her... which... now that that I'm thinking about that..." "..." "..."

—————————————————————— MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━ —————————————————————— ━━━🧭 Parked near nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Evening ━━━⛅ Red mist storm approaching ━━━🗣 Maya, Tom, Riley ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Yeah." Tom squinted toward the house. Riley had been able to make out everything in detail, but Tom could at least confirm there were others besides just the 5 involved in the altercation being attracted to its promise of relative safety."At least this gives us an in. One of them is injured and needs medical attention, and whatever reason they kept the girl alive-- hopefully out of pure altruism-- they probably don't want her concussed, or worse." He winced at the thought of worse. Tom's heart rate was still a bit high after hearing the gunshot. "Wait!" Maya objected, a half-smile on her face, "Wait wait wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait." "Okay. Maya looked between Riley and Tom nervously, "W-well why do we need an 'In?' What the hell does that even mean? It was fun to watch, but we're not dealing with those guys, right? We're looking for another house, right??? I know we have the gas for it!" Tom looked calmly toward Riley, both of them had already begun to gather some of their things, "You didn't tell her? Riley sucked in air through his teeth, and gave a sigh, "I didn't want to worry her, or you... I thought I could outrun it, you know?" "If we were in a new car with 200 less pounds, maybe!!" Maya exploded. "You're a good driver, Hattie." Tom looked out of the rear windshield, Hattie had done a decent job outpacing it, but they still had less than 5 minutes before it would be upon them, "But you have to remember. You're still so young-- and those demons don't have to follow the same rules you do." "I guess so..." Riley opened the driver door, ready with his bags to approach. He noticed a man with an axe running past him. Riley smiled and gave a wave-- the man was in no position to return-- before finishing his point. "I'm also worried about the car... I've noticed gunk in the engine. I think the break downs might have something to do with that red shit. I think it might be fucking things up." "Hmm." The theory gave Tom pause, it was certainly an interesting train of thought-- and he could follow it easily enough. Though, while he wasn't a car expert, he knew enough to know that Riley's expertise was only a few rungs above his own. Besides that, it wasn't really the time. "It'll have to wait. Right now, we have to make ourselves useful enough to that estate full of... what you so aptly called 'Boom boom sticks' so that we don't have to--" "I called them--" "SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO SEE WHAT THE MIST DOES FIRST HAND." Tom said flatly and sternly, "Bring any food and essential supplies we can spare. No weapons-- they would just confiscate them. I'm going to offer my services to the man with the injury and the girl. You two do your thing. Break!" The tan woman gave a sigh, "B-break..." He voice was completely downtrodden and laden with sighs. She didn't want to be doing this. "Fuck football." Riley wondered if the knife girl would loan him one. To say the three "descended" the slight incline to approach the mansion from the side would be a bit of an overstatement. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Maya practically sprinted toward the door of the mansion once she saw how close the mist was. Who knew the skinny alcoholic was capable of technically beating Usain Bolt's best time in the 100 meter dash? While slightly buzzed-- in heels, through sand, no less? It was all Riley and Tom could do to keep up with her. Surprisingly, the door to the mansion was open. Or, rather-- someone had been watching for the possibility of others seeking refuge there. The three stumbled in to quite a scene. A nervous Korean woman, the man with the fire axe that had passed them moments prior, The five from the stand off from before-- the young woman and large man had a third with them, apparently. Only Riley noticed the other two new faces who had also been in the house the whole time. What Tom saw was the knife girl was on the floor, she needed assistance-- with the other two gun toting women near her-- pretty much engaged in a much more complicated version of the Mexican standoff from before. More guns, more people without gun, even MORE nerves. It made Riley upset, it was close to triggering Tom, Maya was scared shitless. She had entered first. Scrambling in moments after the man with the axe. Tom entered slowly, with his hands raised coolly, Riley was somewhere in between the two, not running, but not moving so slowly as to capitulate-- and his arms were crossed. Maya swerved behind Riley, hiding behind him as he spoke to himself, loud enough for others to hear. "Ugh." Riley rolled his eyes, "More guns. More people threatening to kill each other while there are literal hell beasts outside. Very sexy, very cool. Glad it was more of this instead of something cool at this place, guys." "R-riley, shut up..." Maya's whimper of a whisper was barely legible, let alone audible behind the boy. Usually Tom would reign Riley's destructive idealism in, in moments like this-- but it seemed that gunfire really shook him. His hands were up, and he'd closed the door-- but he hadn't introduced himself as a medic. Hadn't looked at the still bleeding man, who seemed more concerned with maintaining order than tending to himself. Maya had only seen behavior like that before in the bodyguards some of her celebrity friends once had. Tom wasn't taking his eyes off the girl on the couch with the gun. Was she not practicing proper trigger discipline, or whatever he went on about? Man. Maya. didn't like all this tension. To her, doctors usually got a free pass in moments like this, right? And she was with the doctor! All she needed to do was get the doctor moving. She could do that. She would just... 'do her thing.' "I'm just fucking saying, it's--" "That's enough, Riley." Maya spoke in voice Riley had never heard before-- but as Maya continued, Riley knew what she was trying, and could only sigh, holding up his hands like his father did. "You'll have to excuse my son," Maya addressed the room, but primarily the woman on the couch and the men who she assumed were her guards in some capacity. She gave a wry laugh, "He's a bit stressed out by all of this, as I think we all are!" Her voice was that of a cheery suburbanite mother. A role Rico had gone over with her once when she was younger-- bringing life to extras, he had called it. She continued. "But please-- my husband saw your altercation and said we had to stop to help anyone who was injured!" She loudly whispered, "He says it's a Hippocratic oath, but I think he's just a big ol' soft teddy bear! Why not even the end of the world can harden his heart!" She sighed, looking over to Tom, who had been nodding when appropriate as he caught on, "But that's why I love him."She finished by adding, "Anyway, sir, he'll say he's only a medic, but I've never met a General Practitioner as able as him! He can get your arm properly checked out if you'd like? He even thinks the girl may have a concussion-- so you could keep an eye on her while he checks you both?"

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Staring Back with Chrome Eyes (Cyberpunk/Vampires)

Into it.

I do wish I could be a devious vampiric bimbo villain, but this looks fun as hell.

Shelter

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^{Location: Stockbridge Academy, Teacher’s Lounge}

^{Date: 3/6/19}

^{With: Everyone}

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It really did feel like everyone was trying a bit too hard to keep their cool.

Maybe that was for the best? Colmillo really didn't know. She was sure, though, at this point that someone would tell her it was. That it was like, 'better and more practical' or whatever to use their feelings for whatever task at hand the people who wanted to rush out and bash people-- or rather zombie skulls-- wanted. Maybe all of that was for the best? Maybe she should try her best to swallow the fear that she had thought had always consumed her, until she had been dipped into a pure vat of it earlier today-- she felt she hadn't been allowed to come up for air. Like, these discussions were sinking her further into the depths of what she thought she already knew as fear and it made her want to scream. Like, actually scream. But she knew she couldn't. Every few minutes, despite her blank stare, her lips trembled-- her mind was racing, much faster than she could deal with and she didn't think there was anything to do. She didn't want to feel like she was keeping her cool through this-- she wanted to completely explode and be a cloud of mist-- but a hand was wrapped around her throat, threatening to snap it if she showed how she really felt.

The powerlessness was familiar, at least.

Aside from that. She really couldn't say she was familiar with anything anyone was saying, in regards to the plan for the group. Just as she learned she hadn't really known fear. She knew now, too, she hadn't really known ignorance. She thought she was stupid before, this morning even, for something as simple as not eating as much as she should... but as she thought, she continued to discover how deeply out of her depth she truly was. Half listening to the continued conversations of the group, she mentally scolded herself for how ill she'd been in her thinking to some of her new companions. She couldn't understand all of them, or their thinking, of course. That much was clear. But, she realized they couldn't stay here forever, and despite not understanding it, they were working past whatever they feeling (regardless of how unhealthy it may be) and trying to do something about... all of this. Colmillo wasn't there yet, but she could at least respect it. She needed more time.

Perhaps enough time, that she didn't feel like there was a cancerous side of her that wanted to go around grabbing everyone, and delivering ear shattering screams that they needed to wait, so that they could actually be more chill, instead of just putting on the front so no one else panics and rushing out. She wasn't sure. Maybe that wasn't productive. Maybe acting as quickly as possible was best for her peers. Not her though-- and at least not a few others. She supposed she was calm enough now that she could at least acknowledge that.

Talking to the the shorter girl had loosened Colmillo up a bit. She was definitely feeling less of her typical neurosis after actually vocalizing how she was feeling about all of this. She had said a lot to the girl... probably an obnoxious amount... over the course of a short whisper. Turning a bit, her eyes flitted over to her-- the girl hadn't really responded to her-- her admittedly very silly-- way of communicating. But that may have been a good thing, actually, considering she had requested that no one know she could even speak. Or maybe she was doing her best to ignore the tall crazy stoner rambling about shared psychosis or whatever. Colmillo's eye went back to the countertop, she had turned away from everyone again. They were planning their route and such. Colmillo wasn't going to protest... she couldn't. But she didn't want any part of it.

That being said, she hoped the group the left for the cafeteria would be okay. Whether they were killing people that could be saved or not. They were... all she had, for the time being, at least. She wanted them to come back safe. She wanted to be well enough to help.

---

^{Location: Stockbridge Academy, Teacher’s Lounge}

^{Date: 3/6/19}

^{With: Bill, Tony, Dontae}

---

Whole lot of good *wishing* they would be fine does them, Colmillo.

She wasn't sure how long the group that had left to... go somewhere else? Had been gone. Seconds? Months? Less than an hour? It was definitely one of those, and every option made Colmillo nervous. They had a loose agreement that if things were clear, they'd come back for those who stayed behind. If things weren't? They'd probably die, honestly. But, those who could would probably run back here anyway. That was where Tony came in-- the guy who had some liquor-- he'd be quick enough on the draw to get the door open for whoever came running back, and kick away anything that was biting at their heels. Truthfully? He made Colmillo nervous. But everyone made Colmillo nervous. She wasn't a big drinker, but at least she'd have access to SOMETHING if things took a turn for the worse. That was...

Goddddddddddd...

Colmillo really wished she had a blunt right about now.

Of course such a line of thinking led down another avenue of mental misery for her. Of course it did. She could almost imagine herself being the object of an incomprehensible otherworldly being existing beyond some grey veil, who gained some sick nourishment from her teenage sadness exacerbated by a circumstance as extraordinary as this-- dictating that no line of thought lead her to bliss, purely by the drunken gnashing of its flesh tendrils against the runes of the 5th dimension. She sighed, shaking aside the tangent. She was worried about her step-siblings. It wasn't a priority, and it made her feel like shit for even thinking about it-- but it was more than just them being her friends, or the closest things she had to those here-- she could deal with this so much better if she was high. Hell, she could at least endure the Waiting Room from hell this room had become.

Her mind thankfully drifted. She was sitting on the counter, near the coffee pot (at the rate she was going she'd need to brew a new pot soon), enjoying... her second cup of the stuff? Since the cafeteria group had left. 'Enjoying' it was a bit of an overstatement, she supposed. The simple espresso the lounge's auto-drip coffee maker produced was heavily watered down-- designed to make as much coffee as possible for as many people as possible with as few, non-fresh grounds. While that wasn't a bad if you were attempting to serve hundreds with a single pot (and the grounds were kept in the brew, not passed through)-- this lounge, to Colmillo's knowledge, only served dozens. And the machine was old. Despite the expensive renovations, it seemed the school couldn't shell out for decent coffee for the teachers and staff.

Colmillo looked down at the coffee that filled her thermos. She had to admit to herself, though. This brown slop was better than the several days old elixir she'd had in it beforehand. She took a sip and let out a soft sigh. Paradoxically, it made her feel more relaxed. Enough so that she felt confident peering around the (much quieter and more empty) room. Aside from Tony, who currently had his back turned to her, glancing nervously into the hallway. There was Dontae, seemingly conflicted at being treated like the baby of the group, having food given to him and being sidelined from the cafeteria expedition, as well as still feeling... everything. And then there was Bill... Colmillo couldn't really get a good read on her. The two hadn't explicitly interacted, she'd scoffed (appropriately so) when Colmillo dropped all of her belongings (now, save for some trash, snugly in her bag by her side) and whatever else she could find in the room on the table before everyone. Like a complete maniac.

And then Colmillo whispered to her that she thought everyone else was crazy.

So, they weren't off to a great start. But Colmillo was hoping to change that. The girl wasn't good at much-- but her family had always told her that she was a great listener. She wasn't really sure that was a skill-- but-- right now, with everyone doing what they could, Colmillo figured she'd at least... try? There were fewer people now... this was probably the closest she'd get to being one on one with someone in a while, so she may as well. Talking to anyone period may have been bad, but crowds were worse. And she wanted to talk to all three of the people she was with. Bill to clear things up, Tony to see if she could Irish up her coffee, and Dontae to offer support-- though, she supposed she wanted to offer some form of support to all three of them. If serving as a sounding board for how messed up all this was could help anyone here would help... well... good! Right? Yes? Maybe?

yES!

So that was good! She had a plan. Something she could do that wouldn't catastrophically ruin everything for everyone.

But she wanted to finish her coffee before she got into all of that. Swinging her legs to her left, she scooted forward and laid on her back against the counter. Digging in her bag, she pulled out her phone and earbuds with at least one functional ear. It still had power, at least. A combination of bumming chargers from her astray step-siblings and simply not using it for anything besides music had left it at a fairly high charge. She had a few playlists saved offline. Opening one, merely titled 'gay' she pressed shuffle and listened to the song that played. Once again, trying her best to process all that was happening without screaming.

_{Let me ignore the world. Just a minute more...}

---

I Remain: Desolation (A Zombie apocalypse RP without the zombies!)

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---

The (very) familiar album wasn't quite blasting out of the speakers, it was pretty soft in fact, but it was certainly ringing loudly enough to serve as an annoyance in Maya's ears. The woman's wild mane of hair was tied back and flared out behind her as they sped down the lone desert road. She had been leaned out of the passenger side window, elbow propped where the window had been rolled down, allowing her head to rest against her had as she looked blankly into the ever flat horizon. She tried to ignore her companions for the moment, the father-son duo she had come to affectionately refer to as her 'boys' over the past few months of their travels. She wasn't paying particular attention to their surroundings as they sped by, instead blankly focusing on single features in the distance and tracking them until they passed her letting the whirring wind drown out the softly playing punk of the car speakers, occasionally, she'd check for any imperfections in her appearance in the side mirror. While she wasn't paying attention visually, she was growing increasingly aware that the once warm desert air was cooling as it blew through her hair. An unfortunate feature of the night, she supposed. Glancing sidelong in the cabin, she saw their driver tapping his fingers on the wheel to the beat eyes focused on the road and the world ahead., Riley... Hattie. She had come up with her own nicknames for the youth, though, to her amusement, none he was particularly fond of. The pair must've looked strange sitting in such close proximity to each other--

—————————————————————— MAYA STARLESS RILEY LACEY TOM LACEY━━━ —————————————————————— ━━━🧭 Interstate > Parked near nowhere manor, Nevada ━━━🕑 Early evening > Evening ━━━⛅ Relatively clear > Distant red mist storm ━━━🗣 Maya, Riley > Maya, Riley, Tom ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(of course, no one would have seen them, unless someone approached unrealistically fast from behind, but even then, the kid would probably catch it. Their driver preferred to have meetings with people be on his terms)-- But the simple fact was that they contrasted quite a bit in appearance. Riley was wearing, more less, what he always wore-- dark clothing, roughed up and stitched fixed, and a practical leather jacket-- he easily fit into the archetype of post apocalyptic survivor, with a bit of youthful flair. Maya, meanwhile, wore an asymmetric ivory and silver sequins top and purposefully distressed jeans that would have been better suited for getting brunch than looking for gas supplies in the desert. Her black sandals were at least silent-- but not suited for running in the slightest (though, she could still run fairly quickly in them), and the platinum and silver jewelry she wore, the pendants, rings, and earrings, only had some functionality in being used for bartering and mostly in making Maya an even bigger target than women already were. Of course, Maya wasn't particularly worried about all that. Her boys might not have always looked it-- but they were pretty tough! Together, the three of them made an effective team-- they could get in and get out, get the things they needed pretty quickly. The boy had even been in a few scraps before-- not as many as Doc Lacey-- but they somehow got out a bit strong each time, even if they lost things, they were all still alive... Maya frowned. This was a common line of thinking for her nowadays. Yeah, they were alive, but they sure as shit weren't living. Never going after what they wanted, always what they needed! And never even getting enough of that! As Maya huffed, Riley split his attention from the road and the album to include Maya. He completely knew what was coming-- the pair had had a variation on this conversation nearly every day for the past few weeks. He didn't blame her, all this driving could be boring, and they'd been doing a lot of it. She was open book about some aspects of her past, too, and Riley had learned enough to know that sleeping in a passenger seat for most days was not exactly Maya's idea of comfort-- even if he'd managed to adjust the seats to go much further back so that they were almost cot-like. Talking helped break up the monotony of... whatever they were doing. Maya leaned back into the car, "Fucking bullshit." Reaching between her legs, she unclasped her satchel and downed one of her mini bottles of vodka in one swift movement. It went down like water. Riley didn't take his eyes off the road, but sheepishly smirked as she downed her booze with practiced ease, "What's bullshit, Maya?" He knew the answer would be something like-- "You know! This! All of this!" She gestured with her arms, throwing the bottle out to the desert sands as she did, "It's all bullshit. I hate it-- Don't fucking give me that look! You know exactly what I mean, little man." "I guess so." He shrugged. His smile became a full grin as he glanced over at her, "I think littering is bullshit, personally." Maya's face flashed red as her eyes went wide with faux-anger, "SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" "... Mm..." A grumble came from the back seat, interrupting the rhythmic light snoring that had been coming from the sleeping Doctor Lacey moments prior. The pair waited in silence for his snoring to resume before they continued their exchange. Maya whispered, "... Bruh, I'm going to hang you by your shitty fucking dreadlocks. Giving me shit for a fucking bottle..." Riley just laughed, though after a moment he added, "Don't call them that, dude." "Oh, fuck right. I'm sorry." Maya rolled up her window, slightly regretful that it was getting too cold for her to leave the thing open-- the car was no dutch oven... but... Well, the group's patchwork hygiene was starting to catch up to them, was all. She continued. "Black is beautiful. Your locs aren't dreadful, they're beautiful. Fuck the Afro-oppressive patriarchy. Don't touch my hair." "Thanks, comrade." Maya looked ahead, "You know, I once worked with Solange?" "I know, Maya." Her eyes glazed a bit as she reminisced, "Craziest parties. I think you two would have gotten along." She smiled, "Could never hook up with Bey, but--" "Sure, sure. Almeda was a really good song, Maya. Not usually my style, but you did a good job." There was a silence for a moment. Compliments like that were rare nowadays, even traveling with her former therapist. Maya was going to cherish the moment for a bit. Riley, meanwhile, had returned his eyes to the road-- though his head was leaned against the "window." His side of the car didn't have a window-- neither did the back seat-- the only functioning window in the car was on Maya's side. The rest of the "windows" were pieces of plywood, with thick glass quick cemented as makeshift portholes in the middle. From the outside, these looked like normal windows to most passerby's-- as the wood had been spray painted black, and the glass had been tinted as dark as possible-- like the other windows and windshields in the car had been after the fall. Riley figured it helped if you couldn't actually see inside the car. "Soooooooo...." She stretched the word out for a minute, basking in the praise a second longer. A part of her worried that she may never get such praise again. She buried that part of her deep down, focusing instead on the moment, the task at hand. "So, speaking of music..." "Ugh." "Look, man!" She made a pleading gesture with her hands, "I'm not saying it's bad! I'm just saying variety is the spice of life, you know? Artistic variety is one of the keys to a good life! Philosophers and shit said this stuff. I'm not an animal! I want to do drugs and listen to some fucking Mariah, is all!" "And get laid, right?" "YES! Someone finally gets me! AND get laid." She ran a hand through her hair, "But it's like your dad would never go for it, and I'm not sooo depraved as to be jailbait's first--" "--You actually wouldn't be my first." "Sure thing, mop head." She continued. "Anyway, it's like that fucking pyramid of needs or whatever your dad always goes on about. I need drugs and weed and booze and music before I can move on to getting laid and showering." "Those are really good priorities, man." "I know!" They were quiet for a moment, before Riley asked; "Anyway, isn't it repetitive to say you need drugs AND weed?" "Nah," She held up a finger, as if to say she was making a Very Important Point, "Weed isn't a drug, dear Watson. God, the things I would do for a bong right now..." Riley gave a nod that was clearly playing into the bit as she continued. "Anyway-- a person can't live like this! Just because things are a little shitty right now--" " 'A little.' " "Shut up." She continued, undeterred, "We need more music! Or I'm going to die! Of boredom! And possibly also for real if I end up thinking whatever that red shit is sounds better than this shit!" Her chain hit against her chest as she banged on the radio. "Alright, first of all," Riley held up a single hand, as if to say 'stop,' "Poison Girls are fucking dope." The hand shifted to hold up one finger, "That's one-- two-- It's not like I had a whole hell of a lot of time to look through my fucking collection. Downtown was going to shit and we had maybe 5 minutes to get enough shit to last us for... fucking... until we could see shit wasn't getting any better. You know how many mixtapes from my friends and local bands I'm never going to hear again because all the broadcasts were like 'Oh, this will be over in a week...'? So you're right about that, I guess it is bullshit." He huffed at the tragedy of his lost record collection. "Hey..." Maya said with a calming voice and a sympathetic touch, "I'm not blaming you for any of this, okay? I can't thank you enough-- you're one half of the reason I'm even alive right now." She heaved a sigh, looking upward, "I just think a lot of this is hard, okay? All this driving, all this running and hiding... it takes a toll. I think you could use a break? I know I could." "Looking for more food and gas might be nice..." Riley muttered under his breath. He sighed, louder... he hated to admit it, but she was right. Since his father served as their dedicated lookout, this made Riley the defacto leader of sorts as they drove during the night. Making decisions was EXHAUSTING and he absolutely hated every part of it. When he was with his friends, the group always came to a consensus, but now-- major decisions fell to him, because Maya assumed he had his dad's vote. "Alright. Fuck it. You're right. Did you have anything in mind?" For a moment, he considered waking his father to see what he thought-- but he quickly discarded the though-- if he had his father's vote, he may as well use it. Her smile widened as she fumbled with the dash, opening up a map, "Well, according to the map we got at the one outside of Lovelock, there's not anymore rest stops until we're east of Vegas. But, still being north, as far away as we are... there should be some assorted towns... and just, random places people used to live, far away from other people, maybe?" "Rich people, who wanted to be secluded from the hungry masses, you mean." "Always forget to add that part..." She blushed weakly, rubbing the back of their head. "Still..." He put one hand to his chin, the other on the wheel, "Might have gas and car parts." "Could have weed and booze." "Probably have food, somewhere..." "Actual beds..." The pair looked at each other, practically speaking in unison; "Dude-- CDs?" "NEW MUSIC!?" Riley slowed the car, looking for the next exit. His grin was smug as he spoke, "Let's go." "The fuck is all this?" It was rare for Tom Lacey to curse. Being stirred by the car alarm wasn't enough to cause such a phenomenon-- but being woken up-- jolted awake-- by the sound of gunfire might be enough do it for anyone. He was about to ask what going on again, as he leaned over the front seats, where Maya and Riley were still sitting. Their expressions were mixtures of excitement, joy, and horror. The ridge they had parked on gave them all a full vantage of what had them making such expressions. Tom was sure Riley could make things out the best, but from what he could see-- there was a complete Mexican stand-off happening a ways off. At least, as he adjusted his glasses in the dimming evening light, he assumed that's where the gunfire was coming from. Everything was blurring, and getting harder to see. He could just barely make out more figures approaching the commotion. Like moths to a flame. "Sweet Jesus, you two..."

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