Genon

World of Light

Donnie

Word Count: 1,253
EXP: (37/40) + 3 = 40/40
LEVEL UP!

A crazy serial killer on the loose. On top of the tower-sized ghost, the horde of zombies that would attack at any moment, and the GIANT DEMONIC TREE they were here to kill. Just what he needed. And on top of that, they were down yet another person. Excellent. He didn't know Louis personally, but he seemed like a good man for the hour or so Donnie knew him, and the monk knew the pain of losing one of your own to something random and out of your control. He didn't envy the survivors, not one bit. And to make matters worse, if the freezing ever wore off, Louis might come back as a zombie, which none of them needed right now. FUCKING. WONDERFUL.

"Dammit, I figured there were multiple ghosts!" Donnie said to Blazermate. "Look, before you tell us everything, you missed a lot. So here's the deal: Fox and I went to the Break Room and found a magazine with an article on numerous monsters. We've got a bunch of potential names for this thing, but we don't know which one it is, because someone ripped out the rest of the pages. I figured the key to stopping the hungry ghost was food, so I picked up some Cup Noodles. But more importantly, Banjo, Kazooie, and Miss Fortune headed to the Library, where there was a door that wasn't supposed to be there and opened into a section that didn't make any spacial sense, at which point the hungry ghost, which is roughly as big as the police station, smashed its arm through the window and they ran away. It looked like Pichai: Small mouth, long neck, and one red eye. Jak and Daxter found a satchel filled with incense, candles, and cursed nails and it might be linked to Pichai's area."

"So now that we've got THAT out of the way," he said with some exasperation, "we need to catch this killer. This is a city guard barracks, right? It's a bit more advanced than what I'm used to, but some tools we can use to help us out."

He turned to Captain Howard. "Captain, I saw cameras on the ceiling here and there. You guys have some kind of surveillance system here? If you can get access to the footage, that might help us track him down, maybe we could see the killing itself."

"Anyway," he continued, "I vote we stick together from now on. We move as a group and make sure someone is always watching our backs. He can strike from any direction and freeze you with the press of a button, we cannot afford to take him lightly. If we keep moving in smaller groups, he will strike again, and easily overwhelm us. But if several sight lines are covering every direction, it becomes exponentially harder for him to take us down. We can rush him, break that camera, and then kill him, assuming he's even willing to engage a group that large at all."

"I also vote we don't try to deal with him right now, but instead focus on Pichai. I've taken out giant monsters before. If we can all focus on him and stay away from his attacks, we might be able to kill him through brute force alone. I'm sure he has some kind of weakness that would let us skip the whole process, but I'm almost 100% sure that our sharp-dressed killer is the one who stole the pages, and we're on a timer. The next wave could come at any moment. And while I don't trust the word of a depraved murderer for even a second, we at least know he's not willing to attack large groups. Otherwise, he would already have made his move. While the fight against Pichai will be brutal for sure, I think it gives us the highest odds of getting out without becoming zombie food."

Speaking of zombie food, Donnie was internally seething at the revelation of just one more stressor to his already-full plate. How were they even supposed to deal with Galeem's Guardian when the Dead Zone's wildlife--or what passed for wildlife, given that everything was dead--was enough to pose a massive threat on its own?

On the other hand, he had heard about Master Hand last night. Apparently, Galeem's agents liked to dress themselves up as patronizing guardians that liked to show false concern for their subjects. But he only had to take a look at the Dead Zone to lay all of Galeem's lies bare.

The Dead Zone was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most vile and disgusting place he had seen in a long time. He could understand a capricious god obsessed with creating an interesting world including a monster-filled area to provide conflict. It was hideously unethical, but he could at least understand it. But these survivors. They didn't willingly travel to the Dead Zone like Donnie and his companions did. These survivors...they had been dropped here and forced to fend for themselves.

What kind of callous monster would willingly throw dozens of people into a disgusting, bloodthirsty, disease-ridden meatgrinder of a city with no escape route, no chance of rescue, and no sense of direction? Galeem, that's who.

Stopping Galeem, at this point, was a matter of principle. For all of the chaos and horror of Donnie's own world, the problems were borne from the fact that it was defined by conflict between powers both great and small. Life fought death, light fought darkness, order fought chaos, Alliance fought Horde, and no one being was responsible for it all. On a certain level, he wouldn't mind a nice vacation from Old God attacks and race wars and cosmic struggles for dominance. But not like this. This world was a sick joke, a prank played by a malicious and unloving god who only cared for his own desires.

And Donovan would personally be there to end him.

But at the end of the day, was he actually Donovan? The body, mind, and soul of the original Donovan had been shredded when Galeem joined the worlds. His body was a cheap fake that would probably turn to ash when he died. The Spirit inhabiting it didn't seem to be a soul per se, more like some kind of conceptual essence. Otherwise, forcing it into someone else wouldn't give them superpowers. He couldn't even say he was the original Donnie in mind, not when he was missing half his memories and two entire disciplines. He supposed it was a side-effect of the Spirit gradually attaining its full power, but at the end of the day, one thing was clear.

What Galeem had done to him was an act of pure, unadulterated, bodily violation. on a cosmic level. Any concept of his body being his had been completely overridden. He had been brutally torn apart, mind, body, and soul, and co-opted to be a set piece for some patronizing prick of a god's little play.

With this single act, Galeem had made himself worse than Arthas, worse than the Old Gods, and worse than Sargeras. At least their corruptive influences didn't completely rewrite who you were on a conceptual level. There was something especially grotesque about treating living beings as playing pieces to do whatever you wanted with.

But back to the matter at hand. They had a police station to escape.

World of Light

Donnie

Word Count: 2,115

EXP: (34/40) + 3 = 37/40

Donnie examined his options as he looked over the map he had been given. This ghost was a criminal. A dangerous and violent one. Therefore, it would probably want to avoid places associated with punishment, such as the jail in the garage, or the interrogation room. On the other hand, where was the most secure, safe place in a city garrison, where one could afford to breathe easy? The office of the garrison’s commanding officer. The perfect place for someone who craved wealth, lived a fast life and led a petty gang of bandits. Donnie was sure that Pichai would appreciate the irony of being able to kick his feet back and relax in a place where he would have definitely been loathed in life. Hell, he’d probably killed the former police chief back when this place was operational. The other option was this “Break Room.” He assumed that was where the guards had lunch and stuff. Probably another place for him to relax--THAT WAS IT!

“I’m going to the Break Room,” Donnie said. “This ghost is starving, right? Has a mouth the size of a pinhole, unable to eat or drink? Where would a starving man, trapped in a city garrison, go for food? The place the guards eat and drink, obviously.”

“Anyway…” he turned to Fox. “You want to head there with me?”

The vulpine pilot pointed a finger at himself, eyebrows raised in surprise. Evidently, he’d assumed himself out of the running for possible companions given his captain’s distribution of duties, but the monk invited him to join him nonetheless. “Er, well, uh…” There were a million things he could be doing to try and help everyone out, including basic sentry duty, but the heart of a hero beat within Fox’s chest. Not that he’d been petitioned, he couldn’t bring himself to turn the offer down. “Sure, I’ll come with you. Or, since you’re new here, I’ll just take you.” Confident in his newfound comrade’s complicity, Fox took off at a brisk pace, leaving Donnie to follow.

“I mean, I know you weren’t singled out, but I’m not going on my own and I figured the more people on this, the better,” Donnie said.

Fox led the way through the corridors of the museum-turned-police station, past a singular fortified checkpoint established for the purpose of containment in case of an undead breach. Their journey, to a destination also on the first floor, lasted only a couple minutes. With an air of alertness, Fox pushed the door open softly, as if Donnie’s suspicions had manifested some danger in a room in a secure part of the station often frequented by survivors. His taciturn intrusion revealed a single occupant, a big, fluffy white dog in splendid battle armor, sound asleep on a shiny brown leather sofa. Even asnooze the canine exuded an aura of inspiring majesty. Littered around the room were various empty cans, discarded packages, and torn-open wrappers, the byproduct of taken consumables. There were also a number of magazines and comic books, and even a couple of board games.

“...Huh. I’d imagine if the ghost was here, the armored hound over there wouldn’t be happily snoozing...and he seems to have eaten most of the things Mr. Manpaiboon would have wanted anyway.” He walked in and started looking through some of the lockers and boxes. “We might as well see if another newspaper clipping or something turns up, though.”

While Fox broke off to briefly pet the glorious labrador, Donnie got busy searching the room. With only some shelves and tables as storage, nothing lay hidden by anything more formidable than another magazine or book or two, so he could scan his surroundings quickly and easily. He found material covering a variety of subjects, from food to cars to lifestyle, most of it for entertainment. There were more professional works like magazines on vacationing, gardening, fashion, and sports, counterbalanced by more dubious publications covering curated wellness, spiritualism, and celebrity gossip. Once the dog was pet, Fox joined Donnie in looking around, but he didn’t seem to find much of anything interesting on his side of the room.

“Nothing,” Donnie said as he put down a spiritual magazine on several religions with a deeply annoyed sigh, more at the fact that he had to sit through the magazine’s underwhelming list of folklore than anything else, as the stuff he read through seemed quaint at best--wait, what was that?!

“Hey Fox, I found something!”

Monsters from Myth: Incredible Spirits the World Over, the headline of a subsection of the spiritual magazine read. After a brief introduction talking about how fascinating different cultures’ interpretations of supernatural phenomena were, the first page gave a table of contents of the creatures to be outlined. Strigoi, banshee, skondhokata, La Llorona, preta, jiangshi, it read, promising a page-and-a-half look at each complete with illustration. When Donnie turned excitedly to the next page, however, he found the entire subsection ripped out.

“Dammit, the rest of the magazine’s probably in that dog’s stomach!” Donnie said, “We already checked the room enough, it would have turned up by now. Let’s get back to the Main Hall. Hopefully the others had better luck.”

For a moment Fox didn’t move. He leaned over to look at the torn-out magazine. “Huh...a dog wouldn’t eat something like that, especially this guy. Too classy. Actually, someone probably took them, maybe as a reference in case something like this came up. It’d have to be someone with ghosts in their homeworld, otherwise it probably wouldn’t occur to them. But almost everyone was in the Main Hall while the radio was talking, and nobody said anything.” The gears and cogs in his head turned, powering through every one of his acquaintances to determine who might possess the pages. Donnie could practically hear the clockwork.

“You said almost everyone. But it doesn’t need to be one of ours. It could be an outside actor who’s clearly intelligent enough to know exactly what we were going to need before we even realized we needed it. As if they knew about this whole issue ahead of time. Or they’ve rehearsed this scenario.”

He put a hand to his chin. “And the culprit doesn’t need to be among the living either. This is the Dead Zone, a decaying metropolis full of rotting corpses and demonic trees the size of multiple castles. There were probably thousands of ghosts in this place even before the killing started, all dumped here when the worlds collided. And a ghost could get away with it much easier. Intangibility, invisibility, a lack of breathing, no body heat or scent or ability to collide with anyone they don’t want to...they’d easily have been able to waltz around this place completely unnoticed, doing whatever they wanted with absolute impunity. Maybe even sitting on the sidelines during your battles with the undead and treating it as first-class entertainment. I’ve seen people that depraved, in life and death. They might have even known the other ghost was there the entire time and stolen the papers days ago.”

He caught his breath before he kept rambling on. “Look, I know there’s no direct evidence for what I just cooked up, but I don’t think any of you guys are suicidal enough that you’d opt to screw over yourselves and everyone else here, based on information you couldn’t have even known about without being in the Main Hall at the specific time the radio was playing, then ripped out the pages at just the right time to deny everyone critical information. But a ghost has nothing to fear from another ghost or this place in general. They’re already dead, and they’d know about the hungry ghost anyway. I feel it’s much more plausible.”

The verbosity with which Donnie outlined his theory impressed Fox. “Well, you make a strong point. Why don’t we take both angles? I’ll go and ask the survivors, and you can do...whatever you think will help with your situation.” It didn’t take a leap of logic to conclude that Fox didn’t know how to make use of the monk’s hypothesis, but splitting up made reasonable sense regardless.

“...To be honest, I’m frankly not sure how I’d try to find him if he’s intent on not being found, and it is still an untested theory. But we know Pichai is a threat, so we should focus on him. And now that I think about it, judging by some of the rituals and rites and such in this magazine that I already saw, I’m half-certain that we don’t have to eliminate him, just give him what he wants so he stops screwing with us. Like that ‘ofrenda’ thing in the Day of the Dead article, or that time I had to deal with a depressed banshee and ended up giving her a ghost-thread comb. It was all a plot to make a telescope of all things and it didn’t do much for her mental state, but I got what I wanted. What better to draw out a hungry ghost than food?”

He opened the nearby fridge, looking inside it to see if there was any food left. “I might not know how to make the offering or what words to say or how much to give or if this’ll even work, but I think we’re going to need food if we want to stop this thing. Maybe we’ll even pre-smash it so it’s easy to eat.”

Pivoting from ruminations on the perpetrator of the missing pages to a solution to the haunting itself made for a somewhat quick line of logic to follow, but Fox was all about fast. And he was quick to leave the matter in the hands of an expert. “Alright then, good luck with that. Not really my area. I’ll go and ask around. Be back in a bit.” Then he sped off, gone the way the two came. The general commotion had awoken the dog, who treated Donnie to a regal but not unfriendly stare, the sort a king might offer to the people of his hometown on a visit. He then started panting, what with the slightly warmer air circulating through the station.

There wasn’t much inside the mini-fridge to reward Donnie’s instincts, given that he’d never seen a food-cooling apparatus before. With the whole station low in supplies, it figured that the well-used break room would be no exception. Two bottles of water, a can of beer, and squat. The snack cupboard nearby, the main source of food for a room where people might idly chow down on something small without any preparation, wasn’t much better. The only thing there was a singular unit of Cup Noodles.

Donnie was more of a cat person himself (perhaps his tiger theme had influenced his pet-keeping habits), but he pet the dog anyway out of sheer respect for his aura of majesty. And because it was cute and friendly. After petting Caesar (not that he knew the dog’s name), he looked again at what he’d turned up: Some kind of pre-packaged ramen product. Pre-dried, and judging by the helpful directions printed on the package, it just needed boiling water and something to hold the lid closed. Brain-dead easy to make, but it wasn’t edible in its current state. But that fortunately meant that it would keep at room temperature until it was prepared, which would be critical since he didn’t even know where the ghost was right now.

He had some supplies in his Luggage, of course, but there was no chance that he was going to use any of it on a ghost that could probably be punched anyway unless he needed to. The food, in the absence of any further information, was probably going to be bait. And he was fine with that, as, again, he could always opt for his supplies if he needed anything other than that.

And with that, took the Cup Noodles in hand and headed back to the Main Hall to meet up with the others.

“He’s not in the Break Room,” he told Captain Howard. “I had a hunch that we’re going to need food to stop it, so I took this. I figured we might be able to draw it out with an offering of food, maybe even satisfy it.” he put the Cup Noodles on the front desk. “And Fox,” he turned to the vulpine, “Did you have any luck?”

Fox gave him a look. “I’ve been here about a minute and a half. Asked one guy.” Beside him, Ghalt waved. “Give me a sec.”

Donnie laughed a little at his own mistake. “Sorry about that. I’ll leave you to it.”

World of Light

Donnie and Blazermate

Word Count 3,862
EXP:46/50 for Blazermate, 34/40 for Donnie

@Archmage MC @Lugubrious

On the rooftop, Donnie had just one question for the strange self-dismembering cat-lady: “Do you always make puns about yourself in the middle of combat?” Well, actually, two. “And how do you even have the focus to come up with new ones while fighting? Do you memorize them in advance or something?”

Ms. Fortune winked at him. “Maybe, maybe not. Gotta think on your feet, you know?”

That said, other than that strange tendency, she seemed like an able fighter and a nice-enough girl. The woman with the ax, on the other hand...he got the feeling she would only be a burden. He had no idea how she survived this long.

In any event, once everyone was settled in the Main Hall, it turned out the station was literally haunted.

Donnie put a hand to his chin. “Well, I haven’t dealt with ghosts in a long time, and who even knows how the metaphysics of this world works. These ghosts could literally be from any world with an afterlife, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but…okay.”

“There are several types of ghosts where I come from. Regular ghosts, banshees, shades, wraiths, specters, wisps, the list goes on. The only real differences between them are how malicious they are, what species they generate from, and the conditions on which they arise. It’s possible to actually fight them with ordinary weapons if you encounter them, and you can actually put them to rest this way. They’re pretty easy to deal with if you know what you’re doing. The problem is…”

He looked at the radio.

“They don’t usually play these psychological tricks, and they don’t possess machinery like this. Meaning that it’s not a ghost from my world, and that means we’re going to be in for a world of hurt. My hauntings were the best-case scenario.”

Then Blazermate piped up, saying she would heal the people and asking for Donnie to help with the infected. “Yeah, we can help with that.” He looked at Louis. “Also, we need to know where you keep the infected. I can cure any disease or toxin with a quick spell, and I stopped someone from zombifying before. I need to get to them ASAP.”

The swordsman considered the notion for a moment, evidently deciding the new arrivals were worthy of his trust. “If that’s true, you can find the infected on the second floor, in the Art Room. East side. The wounded are though there.” He pointed his mechanical acquaintance in the direction of the main hall’s east door. Past the east office, through the press room. The Observation Room’s where people are being healed.”

Donnie nodded. “Got it.” He turned to leave. “Let’s go, Blazer. Art Room first, unless you want to split up.”

“if the injured aren’t infected, best to do the infected people first, then the injured. No one is so critically injured that another 5 minutes would kill them, right?” Blazermate asked, trying to gesture to the swordsman to guide them. He knew this place better than her and Donnie did after all. “Unless you think you can handle healing and curing them at the same time Donnie. Ghosts complicate things.”

___________________________________________________________________________

At the door to the art room, the well-built metalhead who’d appeared on the roof earlier stood guard. The dour look on his face didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “So, you think you can cure them? After everything I’ve seen I can’t deny the chance, but...things might be bad in there. We’ve been holed up here for a few days, and whenever someone is infected, we put them in here, restrained. Gave ‘em food and all, but yeah, it’s a bad deal. Still better than putting everyone else at risk.” Drawing close to the door introduced the heroes to a repulsive odor, seeping out from under the door. Reluctantly, Eddie unlocked it, and opened it to let the new arrivals inside.

“Worth a try at least,” Donnie said to the man, as he stepped inside. “Yeah, you’d be surprised at the stuff I’ve healed so far.” Blazermate said, stepping in after Donnie.

The first thing that hit them was the smell--rank, wretched, rotten. It was a pong of decay. Inside the Art Room was an awful display. A number of zombie corpses littered it, most attached to heavy furniture or the gallery rails with handcuffs, but a few signs of life stood out. Sitting on the middle of a circular bench in the gallery’s center, a woman watched the newcomers with weary, wary eyes. While she looked ordinary, a certain air of toughness clung to her, the badge of a true survivor. On the opposite side of the room, seated on a watchman’s chair, lurked a blue-haired samurai who glanced only a moment at the heroes, his sharp eyes flashing like a blade. Lastly, some twitching could be seen from one corner, where a bloody, mutated mess knelt, breathing fitfully as she held tight to a split arm with one hand, as if to staunch the grotesque wound.

After a moment the survivor spoke, her voice a southern twang. “Ya here to drop off? Or finish off? Ain’t much of us left, and I ain’t got much time.” As she spoke, the bite wound on the right side of her neck became visible, but she kept it mostly covered.

While Blazermate was immune to the acrid smells of the art room, she wasn’t immune to the ghastly looks of the place. Her scanners went off like crazy in this room, noting who was further along than others. “Phew, glad we came here first. Things don’t look so good here. Donnie, lets get to work. I’ll stabilize them, you cure.” Blazermate said, using her healing beam to stave off the most infected person, the survivor, infection while Donnie did his magic thing.

As for Donnie, his nostrils flared as the absolutely revolting smell of the place hit him. It was at least better than the city streets, but to say that one pile of corpses smelled better than another, bigger pile of corpses was like saying that an Abomination’s distended, rotting, exposed colon smelled better than Darnassus compost. They both smelled terrible, ranking them was splitting hairs.

In any event, onto the business at hand. Two infected humans and one...slab of meat. That one was probably too far gone, but it was worth casting it on her anyway, but only after the other two went.

“I’m not here to finish you off, and we’re not infected. I have a spell that can cure diseases, and I want to see if I can help you. Blazermate here”--he pointed to the robot with the demon-arm--”can track your status and can verify if the infection is gone. This’ll take about 16 seconds. Are you okay with that?”

“Just heal ‘em Donnie. Samurai-Sama there looks really bad.” Blazermate said, almost teasing Donnie.

“Look, I just wanted their consent, but you’re right.”

The pair had the attention of the survivor now. Something like hope shone in her eyes, a battle between cynicism and wonder. “If you think so, by all means.”

One cast later, his hands flashed, and his magic purged disease and toxin alike from the woman’s body. Straightening up, she blinked twice, rubbing a hand over her neck. The tingling and pain, the feeling of invasion...gone. “Well, I’ll be damned…”

“Glad to see it worked,” Donnie said.

Her reaction garnered the interest of the samurai, who stood and approached. As he did, he nearly doubled over, coughing up blood into the hand he slapped over his mouth. After only a moment his own treatment began, ridding his body of virulent bacteria.

Whatever changed, he seemed to recognize it immediately. Eyebrows raised, he murmured, “Shinjirarenai. Iyasa remashita!” Facing his benefactors, he bowed in respect. “Arigatōgozaimashita.” Hearing this, Blazermate gave the man a thumbs up, showing that she fully understood what he had said.

“Once you’re healed up. I’d recommend waiting outside the room there. Don’t want a re-infection from whatever is making Donnie uneasy in here.~” Blazermate said, happy with how well these two took to the medi-beam/detox treatment.

Donnie got the sentiment, giving him a thumbs-up. His hands flashed a third time, this time targeting the flesh-monster in the corner. Nothing appeared to happen. Definitely too far gone. Well, no use crying over spilt milk. But something had indeed made him uneasy, it just wasn’t the zombies.

“Hey, uh, Blazermate,” he said as he made to leave, gesturing for her to follow him out the door as he walked, “are you sure that swordsman was infected?” he asked as he gestured to the samurai. “Coughing up blood doesn’t appear to be a symptom of the zombie plagues around here….”

Guiding the survivor and samurai out, she said. “Yeah, he was. Although I think it was just a standard disease? Hard to say, this is zombie land after all, could’ve been a new disease. My readout doesn’t tell me exactly what they’re infected with, just that they’re infected. I’m not a nutranurse.” Looking back at the mutated pile, blazermate shrugged. “So, what should we do with that one? She’s not injured, but she doesn’t look like a healthy person. Wanna come back after we heal the infirmary people? Ask around a bit about this one?” Blazermate said, scratching her head in a bit of confusion.

“Yeah, we should ask around, but I think she’s too far gone. That or the mutations don’t just go away if the plague gets cured. Let’s head to the infirmary after we figure out where to drop them off.”

Gesturing to the samurai and survivor girl asking them to follow in both English and Japanese, Blazermate nodded. “We should take them to the infirmary though either way. I don’t think these guys will believe us saying they’re cured without one of their own also confirming. Zombies do that, if the movies are anything to believe.” She said, leading everyone to the infirmary.

“Good point,” Donnie said, and he made to follow her.

___________________________________________________________________________

With nobody posted outside, the Observation Room seemed readily accessible. Pushing open the door greeted the newcomers with the sight of a couple rows of beds, mostly unoccupied, and a few patients grappling with various injuries. Three looked lightly hurt, while two were flat-out unresponsive. Standing over them was a medic in futuristic gear, her countenance grim as she moved between the injured. New arrivals received a momentarily glance from her but no response as she continued to rush about, doing her work.

Walking into the makeshift medical area, Blazermate sighed, happy that people only needed healing here. “Ok, while the infected people weren’t my expertise, healing people is.” Blazermate said to herself. She noticed that there was already someone trying to take care of the people here, but all she seemed to be able to do was keep them stable. Waving, Blazermate said. “Hiya, we’re new here. We’re healers and was told you guys had a lot of injured. Let me see if I can help ‘em.”

The medic nodded. "Excellent. I've been having to make do with conventional for a day now." Eying Blazermate's medigun, she stepped back to let the machine work. Blazermate did just that, healing up the critical and going up the priority list as the two people Donnie had purified came in. “By the way. My monk friend here purified these two of their infections. We just want you to give them a look over while we heal these people.” Blazermate said, pointing her demon arm at the people behind her as she healed and used a revive protocol on one of the people who were unconscious.

He scanned the room briefly. One amputation, some gashes, a few people with mundane illnesses, and a bunch of people in critical condition. He only had Vivify and Detox, but as long as he rationed his stamina and took it slowly, it would be enough.

"Alright, let's get to work," Donnie said succinctly, promptly looking over each of the sick and wounded and applying magic until they were at 100%. As he worked, he progressively got sweatier and his breathing became more labored. Healing a room full of people without tapping into his body’s mana pool wasn’t easy, and he often had to stop to take a brief rest before continuing, all the while Blazermate kept pumping away with her Medigun. He felt inadequate, frankly. Then he remembered he’d killed a Titan and that went away.

The combined effort of the pair, expended steadily and thoroughly across the makeshift infirmary's inhabitants, gradually restored and stabilized them all. Val, a witness to magic and technology that might as well be magic, was clearly impressed. This appeared to be nothing short of a miracle.

"Well, that makes things simpler. Wish you were here this morning." A slight sigh escaped her, but Donnie's condition did not. Brow furrowed, she said, "If that took a lot out of you, I have an energy drink in there." She pointed to a desk in a corner, piled high with notes and medical odds and ends. "Precious stuff, but if you can just magic people back together, you're good for it."

“Thats all you Donnie. Medabots don’t get tired.” Blazermate said. Seeing her charge in uber growing, Blazermate continued to heal even healthy people, as it grew steadily. She hadn’t used this ability before, but from what she could tell, it lost itself at a rapid rate if she wasn’t healing someone.

“No, I’m not sleepy tired, it’s just like doing vigorous exercise. I’ll be fine after taking it easy for a bit, and water would be better anyway.” Donnie said, huffing and puffing as he took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow before putting it back on and fastening the straps.

Val shrugged. “It restores stamina, but suit yourself.”

Blazermate chimed in again, saying, “Oh, the place is haunted too. Maybe all of you could help us figure a way out of here as well? The people in the foyer are looking into it, so I figure more heads would help us figure this out faster.” This reminded Blazermate of what they had saw a few minutes ago, and she asked “Oh, speaking of people, Is that person upstairs in the infected room that looks super mutated a friend of yours, or did they become zombified?”

The medic shook her head. “I haven’t been up there, since I don’t do sickness, so I don’t know what or who you’re talking about. If someone turned and changed unusually, you told someone, right?”

Crossing her arms, Val glanced back at the desk. “Ghosts aren’t my thing either, but if there’s any information around here, it’ll be in there somewhere. I’ve been scribbling notes to try and keep records, but there were a few someone else made too. Now that I think of it, they were here before this I set up in here.”

“Well, no, we didn’t,” Donnie said sheepishly, “but if it’s any consolation, she’s not spreading the disease anytime soon. It turns out that my cure-disease spell gets rid of the zombie plague, just not the mutations associated with it. So even if she broke out, she’s not turning anyone even if she gets to you. Just a weird-looking zombie. However, while we should probably shoot her at some point, I just thought I’d talk to a medical professional first.” Blazermate nodded along with Donnie’s explanation.

Frowning, Val replied, "If this thing looked dangerous, you should report it immediately."

Blazermate shrugged, saying. “Well, if it was dangerous, it would’ve attacked everyone. It kinda just sat there in a corner minding its own business. And trust me, we’ve seen weird things out there that are actually friendly. You should see Bowser! He’s a giant fire breathing turtle monster!”

“Either way, she’s right, we should report it.” He turned to Val. “Anyway, do you mind if I look through these documents?”

“Yeah sure. Probably for the best, this thing is acting up..” Blazermate said, her demon hand spazzing out a bit at the fingers at strange intervals. So, I’ll go out and tell everyone the good news, and the bad. Hehe.” With that, Blazermate stepped out of the room, making her way back to the foyer to tell the other survivors about the thing up in the room and the good news about all their healed comrades. Hopefully Donnie could find something about these ghosts.

Digging through the medical records turned up nothing until, near the bottom of the mess, the monk turned up a couple pages of newspaper. Its distinctiveness among the notes caught his eye, but the cover story kept them.

Vile thieves! Old Woman Robbed and Beaten!
Neighbors reported a fight the night before!

March 8, it was reported to the police that Mrs. Chinda Manapaiboon, 60, was badly wounded and found unconscious. She was taken to the hospital before the police arrived on the scene. Investigators revealed that there may have been more than 3 people that inflicted such a brutal beating. Her son, Mr. Pichai Manapaiboon is believed to be the one leading the robbery…
(more on page 13)

No pages beyond the second were there.

To be frank, Donnie didn’t know the terminology at first. “Police” was a foreign word to him, but context clues got the point across quickly enough. “Police” was clearly the term for the city guard around here.

It was pretty clear what this was, though. A murder report, clearly intended for public consumption, in the city guards’ barracks. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. What was strange was a humble newspaper clipping was doing on a guardsman’s desk. Didn’t they have reports for this kind of thing?

Well, that’s the next step then, isn’t it? the monk thought to himself, grinning with satisfaction at finding the first clue.

___________________________________________________________________________

Heading back to the main foyer, leaving the samurai and the lady survivor back at the makeshift medical area, Blazermate found a few people still looking about. As Blazermate approached them, she said. “Hey guys!” When she got to a standstill, she put her healing beam on one of them and said. “Good news, we’ve healed up everyone and cured the infected. Bad news? One of them looks really mutated. Don’t know who or what they are, but they didn’t attack us so… are they a friend of yours?”

Captain Howard took in the announcement, briefly turned back to give a few parting words to Fox, then hailed Blazermate. “I don’t know who you mean, but if someone in that room changed drastically, we should take immediate precautions.” His right hand slid a folded-up rod from its holster on his waist, and he gave the android a firm nod. “I’ll do it myself. You’ll back me up in case it attacks, right?” Blazermate nodded, putting her healing beam on Howard as he moved up to the Art room with her in toe. “I don’t know if they’re aggressive or not, they didn’t attack us or the other people who we cured.” Blazermate noted.

Howard nodded. “But you didn’t get close, did you? Aberrations always wait for suckers to get too close, then spring the ambush.” After a brief exchange with Eddie Riggs he pushed inside. It a few seconds for him to overcome the grisly scene, but once he had, he settled on the thing in the corner. While it looked at least in part like a beautiful woman, he knew that it needed to be put down. In the middle of the device on his left wrist, a blue cube span and clattered ceaselessly, as if hungry for action.

As he raised his hand, his weapon changed, shifting into an energy pistol that he used to fire a three-round burst of blue bolts at the creature. She stirred the instant they struck, jerking to her feet and staggering forward. Unperturbed, Howard held his ground and changed his weapon again, turning it into a long greatsword with a blunt edge. As the monster lurched closer, Blazermate became aware of something appearing in front of her beside Howard, completely invisible, but there nonetheless. On Howard’s wrist, the cube had disappeared, and a chain reached into the empty air. The monster finally lunged, the top of her head hinging open to reveal a pulsating sucker as she attacked. Her arms cleaved the air, but instead of touching the Captain they bounced off some unseen barrier so solidly as to send her reeling back.

Baffled, the creature attacked again, beating uselessly against a whatever shield that appeared around the smirking policeman for a few seconds before he went on the offense. Howard swung his X-Baton overhead, then thrust with both hands, pushing his enemy back. It charged forward the next moment, but he pivoted with his sword’s weight on his back and came down with a crushing overhead smash. An upward swing then sent the thing tumbling back, and as it hit the bookshelf it bounced forward again. Howard grabbed the chain and swung it. Whatever it was attached to whirled about him before zooming forward, wrapping the special infected in the chain before swoosh-ing straight back to the Captain. A blue glimmer appeared for just a second, and Howard took the chance to hurl the chain forward. His unseen companion dashed in, the air split apart, and a giant slash appeared through the creature’s torso--and the entire bookshelf behind her. Sliced paper fluttered about as the monster looked down at itself, confused, before falling apart into two pieces. The halves rapidly turned to ash, leaving a spirit behind.

Howard relaxed. Whatever had appeared to assist him had gone, perhaps back into that device of his. The core sat in the middle of it once again, shifting in place. “Well, that’s one problem solved.” A quick look around confirmed what he saw earlier. “And it looks like there’s no more infected. Not in the way I woulda hoped, but…” Trailing off, he shook his head and turned to leave, collapsing his X-Baton as he did. “Neat! Didn’t even need to heal ya.” Blazermate said.

___________________________________________________________________________

Blazermate followed Howard back to the hall, skipping along.

When she arrived back at the Main Hall, she found Donnie waiting for her. “Hey Blazermate, I found something!” He walked up to her and handed her page from the newspaper. “This newspaper clipping was in the notes.”

Giving her time to look it over, he said, “A man killed his 60-year-old mother in an assault and robbery case. This is useful, because that’s definitely the kind of tragic death that would spawn a ghost, and Val said that this was here before she set up, so odds are good records on the man were kept here back when the police were active. We might be able to use this to find out more about the haunting.”

He then turned to Captain Howard, recently arrived. “I think we should head to the Record Room. We might find documents on the robbery case there.”

Howard gave a nod. “Go ahead. Let me know what you find.”

World of Light

Short but sweet. Again, no crossover elements present, though this time because it was a complete rush-job. I got an extension for Black Friday, but then an opportunity to spend time with an RL family member ended up eating up the entire day and I was left with a grand total of two and a half hours to finish it. It only got done because Lugubrious thankfully offered me credit for everything I wrote before 2 AM. I should have worked on it earlier in the month, but I had writer's block for most of it and ended up pontificating over whether to scrap the entire thing or not and start fresh.

Anyway, here it is. A measly 644 words.

A Cause for Celebration

The snow fell heavily in Elwynn Forest that night. But the small hamlet of Goldshire, located a short ride by Gryphon from the mighty walls of Stormwind, was warm and prosperous as the stars shone in the sky and the cold winter air tried and failed to breach the Lion’s Pride Inn.

Tonight, the town was merry. Because tonight was the night of not a mere ceasefire, but the signing of a peace treaty that ended the Alliance-Horde conflict. Tonight, orcs and Forsaken could relax alongside humans and night elves.

And for those who a certain monk picked as his companions, that meant one thing.

Donnie gripped his tankard tightly as he looked across the long table he had reserved, taking in the faces of all of the people present.

There was Tokala Mountainwater, the Tauren shaman who had worked with him for many years. He was known for his patience and ability to curry favor with elemental spirits even easier than most shamans. He looked at Donnie with his normal calm, perhaps helped by the fact that he was on his tenth glass owing to his massive size.

Next to him was the Blood Elven warlock known as Tervumir Violetkind, who had frankly always felt somewhat out-of-place among his boisterous cross-faction guild, and would normally be in his study poring over a demonic or arcane text right about now, but he had insisted on accompanying them this time: He didn’t want to miss this for the world, he said. Unfortunately, he had dramatically overestimated his willingness to party and was already looking quite uncomfortable.

Then there was Aenren Silentwing, a Void Elven Huntress and the guild’s resident tracker, markswoman and beastmaster. If there was something you wanted found and full of arrows, she was your girl. She was also a total lightweight, and looked like she was barely conscious of her surroundings at the moment.

And that was just a few of those who had gathered here today.

The Peaceblades were a guild that Donnie formed as a refuge from those who wanted an out from the constant war that had plagued the world. Not the wars for survival against lich kings, corrupted black dragons, and demonic hordes, but that damned Alliance-Horde conflict that had sowed distrust, bloodshed, and sorrow. Like any adventurer’s guild, the Peaceblades had an allegiance, but it was to Azeroth itself.

As such, this was a momentous day for all of them.

Donnie raised a glass, saying, “My friends, companions, and fellow adventurers from across Azeroth, I propose a toast. To peace. To cultural exchange. To the fact that we can feast together as equals in this inn for the first time in history. But most importantly of all…TO DRINKING THIS TAVERN DRY!”

A roar of approval went out from the tavern as a whole at that, and the drinking began in earnest.

The night was merry and raucous, as the barmaid kept up diligently with a record-breaking quantity of drink orders, delicious food was consumed by all, games were played, songs were sung, and Donnie won at least three impromptu Hearthstone tournaments.

By the end of it all, the monk and all of his guildmates were staggering out the door. Donnie, carrying a sleeping Aenren over his shoulder, managed to be sober enough to tell the Gryphon Master to get everyone a ride to Stormwind, and thankfully no-one fell off their gryphons. Also, no idiots tried to fly drunk, a first this time.

And with that, Donnie staggered into his original home. Sure, he had an excellent bed at the Temple of Five Dawns, but like hell was he going to try Zen Pilgrimage while completely shitfaced. Luckily, he had bought his original house back a few months ago.

And so, he collapsed into bed as the festivities continued throughout the city. He’d had enough for one night.

World of Light

@Majoras End

Um...don't take this the wrong way, but I'm actually REALLY worried about the implications of bringing a character like Frisk into...literally any roleplay.

Mainly, Determination. Saving and Loading are real forces of nature in Undertale. Most of these characters we're playing are based on some combination of game mechanics and narrative/lore stuff, sure, but Determination, in Undertale, is functionally like time-travel. Sans even says during your fight with him that when you save and load, you're jumping timelines.

Think about what that means for everyone else. Yes, you could probably be permanently eliminated by being killed at a save point (if such things exist, I'd have to ask @Lugubrious) in such a way that you revive unto death infinitely, so I'm not calling you INVINCIBLE, but when you save and load, what you're doing is forcing everyone in the world to replay their actions until you get the desired result.

Frisk IS about dodging, sure, but they're also about saving and loading. Try, try again and all that. And I'm not sure that having a character that has Save Scumming as part of their M.O. is really a good idea. Even if you remove that, you're still dealing with a character that's a complete glass cannon and is either completely overpowered, a complete pacifist, or is a bit of the best of both worlds if you go the neutral route but you should probably take that into account beforehand.

Again, I don't want to backseat-drive. Do whatever you want, if you can make it work. But I'm really concerned about Frisk.

World of Light

@Majoras End

I personally would like to see Joker, as I've been waiting to run into him for a while and it would be pretty neat to have him as a PC. That said, I don't want to backseat-drive. Pick whoever you feel like playing.

World of Light

Donnie

Location: Police Station Roof

Word Count: 408

EXP: (30/40) + 1 = 31/40

---

"A simple spear charge? Really? I've seen better," Donnie mocked as he jumped up and over the charging Acceptances with a front flip and landed on the back of one of the centaur-like pegasi, riding it like a horse against its will. It bucked and tried to force him off, but he managed to stay on. He charged his hands full of chi and his fists into its golden spine, one after another, shattering the gold that encased its back and revealing the nightmarish flesh within. He then jammed his right hand into the open wound and, in a first in this battle, slashed at it with his right handblade, cutting something important, before it managed to strike him in the face with the butt-end of its lance.

Donnie saw stars as the Acceptance finally bucked him off of it, sending him up into the air and crashing back to Earth, the Acceptance standing above him. It attempted a coup de grace with its lance, but Donnie managed to catch it in both hands as he cracked a smile and pushed it back.

While the Acceptance was preoccupied with this, Donnie kicked at its forelegs with a sweep, tripping it over. It babbled something in a language he didn't understand from the mouth in its chest. He understood the sentiment, though. Something something patience my child, something something divine fury. He'd heard it before, and from the mouth of something actually worth worshipping.

It had dropped its lance in the confusion, and Donnie was quick to pick it up. Their positions now reversed, he wasted no time jamming the lance all the way through its side, skewering it, before finishing it off with a chi-enhanced boot directly what passed for its face.

It sprayed blood from its open wound and disappeared into light. Its weapon, however, stayed.

So Donnie picked up the lance and hurled it like a javelin from an arm with quite a lot of chi dumped straight into it, hurling it at a speed not unlike a high-caliber bullet, straight at the Cachet he had wounded earlier, followed by running right for it with a Rising Sun Kick aimed directly to its already-wounded face. if it landed, he'd follow up with a ferocious combo of hand and leg strikes while watching out for that blade. Hopefully, this finally killed the golden nightmare. He was getting tired of dealing with these self-righteous horrors already.

One Piece: The Scarlet Pirates (Reboot!) [Chapter 1 END]

Adrian "Shadow" Hex

Well, this was what he had signed up for. A pirate's life for him, huh? He disliked pirates. Somewhat intensely in fact. But he had always been willing to compromise his ethics. He had killed for a living for the past few years, and then the whole thing came crashing down after he left. One man and his little daggers couldn't fix the world. He'd known it now for so long.

Besides, more likely than not the riches on that ship were going in some World Noble's pocket. Better they go in his hands than some fat despot's paws.

He stood on deck, pulling out one of his daggers and getting ready to resolve this without fighting if he could.

Then they started talking.

Prince Bayonnes? Scum of Benniad? What were they on about? Had the crew just stumbled across a conspiracy of some kind? He'd never operated in a place called Benniad. And he had no idea who these so-called Ravens were.

It sounded juicy, but it also sounded like something way in over their heads. Still, it could be interesting.

He decided to get into the intimidation game. He took out a long metal dart, speaking at a loud volume to be heard from the other ship.

"I'm afraid I have no idea who this 'Prince Bayonnes' is, nor do I care. Hand over all your treasure or a hundred of these darts go through your hull and out the other side at the speed of sound."

Dragon Ball Gaiden

Juze

@Double

It all happened so fast. The Saiyan charged at him in a rage that made Juze's blood run cold. He put up his arms to defend himself in a high guard, but was saved by the blue fellow...who promptly sacrificed himself to rip off Korun's tail.

He'd never seen anything so brutal in his entire life. Korun executed the man.

...That was it. He hated the concept of it. But he was not going to show mercy unless they outright surrendered.

Korun was quickly backed up by incoming alien fighters, the other two who had been on the ground.

Juze's face twisted into something cold and angry. He was just focusing on the battle now, with tranquil fury.

He put out an arm in front of him, the coldness of his expression belying what would happen next, as the air in front of him rapidly began to heat up. His ki coalesced into a brilliant ball of flame-like plasma that crackled and twisted.

"Flame Sphere!"

The ball went out towards his the bigger of the two Saiyans, the one he didn't know was named Jagen, and he would make it home in on him until it got near enough to explode. Of course, if he could make contact and set him on fire, that would be nice too.

He didn't want to kill a child if he could help it.

Dragon Ball Gaiden

@Double
I was waiting on your response to Chev, actually. I wasn't going to post based on actions that could have potentially been edited away. Now that you've given him the all-clear, I can actually get to work.