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    1. GrandDM2 11 yrs ago

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"Have I ever lived outside here?"

He goes quiet and looks out of the window for a minute or two. When he next speaks, it's in a cold, detached tone, almost as if he's forcing himself not to feel what he's talking about.

"Yes, once. Up until I was five, I lived with my mother, down there in the Ruins. One day I came home from scavenging and found that a gang of thugs had come to our house. They'd stolen everything, and my mother had been beaten and violated. She died three days later. After that, I was alone, except for Sam, my brother. He was killed a year later by the same gang of thugs."
The Demon Lord watches with a faint twitch of his lips as she steps away, his mouth widening into a genuine smile as she challenges him.

"I am impressed, I will admit. Most would not be so cautious. But if you want a taste of what is to come..."

Suddenly, in a flash of red, he's gone. In the same instant, a corresponding flash comes from behind Gwen, and Ar'khash reappears, stepping forward and slipping his arms around her waist. His chest is pressed against her back, and his hot breath rushes across her ear as he whispers:

"Then I will show you."

Suddenly, a rush of hot power flows through her from him. Crackling red sparks leap between her fingers, and outside the window the city is illuminated in countless points of blue, green and yellow lights, on the streets and in the buildings.

"The auras of every person out there. They change colour depending on mood, age, how good or evil a person is. Nobody could lie to you. Nobody could conceal a crime."

Now, the rush intensifies, and the lab is gone. Gwen is bombarded with a torrent of visions. A sinking ship, people on the shore screaming and crying. A second Gwen walks up to the sea, clad in a magnificent dress, and raises her hand. A red light glows, and the ship begins to rise from the water. The people stop screaming and crying and begin to cheer. Quickly, a chant forms, a chant of her name that slowly turns into all-out adulation as she sets the ship and all the crew safely on the beach.

A prison, empty and unused. A courtroom, where a criminal sits before her. He says something, and his aura flashes. A lie. She shakes her head. The attendees of the hearing grin and nudge each other.

Green grass blowing in the wind on a hill. A view of the sea and the land. The vison-Gwen snaps her fingers, and a host of demons, eight-foot brutes (all with distortions and deformities, but still extremely capable) immediately appear and begin to build. Within minutes, a shining palace is set upon the hill.

Inside the palace, at sunset. A long table. Gwen sits in a throne at one end, wearing a dress even more beautiful and impressive than in the first vision. Down one side sit seven humans, instantly recognisable as the most powerful people in the world. On the other sit seven demons, all varying wildly in shape and form. One is massively fat and is shovelling food into its mouth at an obscene rate. One is nearly human-looking, and is shaped to fit Gwen's ideal of attractiveness. Another is asleep, drool running from its mouth. A fourth is huge, covered in spines. A fifth, even just in bearing, is incredibly arrogant, its expression as it looks on all those around the table that of someone who has found dog poo on the bottom of their shoe. A sixth has piles and piles of money around it, on the floor, the table and in its lap. The seventh is small and green, and is constantly staring at the food and possessions of the others.

Through this final vision cuts the voice of Ar'khash, hot breath once again caressing her ear.

"See what you can become. The power to lift at a whim something that would normally never come off the ground. Infallible in judgement. Mistress of both humans and demons, whose leaders dine as one at your table."

He chuckles.

"I appreciate that all this is still nothing concrete, but there is a simple enough proof. The power you can feel coursing through you is but the tiniest sliver of what I possess. Use it. Lift a bench, throw a fireball. Then imagine what you could do with unlimited access to my energies."

Although he brings her out of the visions, he keeps hold of her and keeps the power flowing for her to draw on should she choose.
As the lights go out, three of the waiters rip off their uniforms to reveal compact bulletproof vests and several pistols. They quickly move to cover the door and the windows in the direction of the gunfire. Each of them has an Omicron symbol (an O) on their vests.

"Sir, please don't be alarmed. Omicron stationed us here for your protection."

The Mayor's phone will suddenly begin to ring. If he answers it, he'll find a digitally distorted voice on the other end. In the background, two of the waiters are firing through the windows at the attacking Resistance members. Nearly every shot is marked by a scream.

"Mr. Mayor, please follow the instructions of the three men. They will convey you through the escape route I have set up to a safe location where you can await the conclusion of the Resistance ambush."

The call is terminated, and the lead waiter moves over quickly.

"Sir, follow me. The escape route is this way."
The language was not anything Gwen would have ever heard, and nor did it have noticeable connections to any extant or dead tongues. At Bradley's shout, the grin widened for a moment, before settling into a confident, oddly compelling smile. As she stared at him, Ar'khash's features shifted subtly, rearranging themselves to become more attractive to her.

He watched impassively as she stumbled back and fell, and didn't so much as twitch at her scream, but when she had got up and regained enough control to speak, he flicked a finger and all the dust came off her clothes. Another flick brought her shoe to his hand. Stepping slowly towards her, he bent down and slipped it back onto her foot, his touch lingering for perhaps a little too long before he straightened up.

"What am I? I have already told you. I am the Demon Lord Ar'khash. What do I want from you? Your aid. You are obviously wealthy, intelligent and influential to have set this up. As such, you will inform me of the state of the world. You will hide me from whatever authorities may exist. You will convey me where I wish to go, and you will point out to me the individuals who run this world. You need not fear destruction; I am not here to annihilate humanity, though other Demon Lords wish to do so. I see you as a resource, and one I intend to cultivate. Even now, my four lieutenants are seeking those humans who would ally with me in exchange for my promise of protection and reward... for make no mistake, you will be rewarded. Someone like you could easily become my voice and my hand in the new world I seek to create."

His deep, rich voice surrounds Gwen like a warm fog - confusing, yet strangely comforting. He stands close to her, close enough that she can feel the warmth emanating from him. She should say yes. Everything would be better if she said yes. All the things she wanted could be hers, if only she said yes. The glow of his solid blue eyes is compelling, drawing her in gently. If she said yes, she would have power beyond her wildest dreams. She could perform all the research she wanted. Unlimited resources and funding. As many staff as she needed. All she had to do was say yes. A city, built to her plans, with her technology. A perfect city. All she had to do to make it happen was say yes. A world, sculpted and shaped at her direction, should she say but one, simple word.

"Well?"
"I've never understood the fascination with oneself that seems so common among the populace. Surely disclosing personal information merely facilitates your opponent's superiority?"

He pauses and frowns.

"Sorry, I'm being verbose, aren't I..? Er, using big words. Sorry, I do that when I'm nervous."

He clears his throat awkwardly and his fingers flicker in a complicated pattern.

"The main problem I have is that there's no way in for me. I'm rich, comfortable and I have so much Ancient tech that I can give it away freely without a care. I'm so far apart from the average life of a Ruins dweller that I have almost nothing in common with them. A lot of people hate me just for that superiority. Then there's those who get to know me and decide that they hate me for other reasons - I can only assume that it's something to do with my manner that they find disagreeable. I haven't had a friend for a decade and a half, and I have no idea how to go about it."

Sighing, he moves over to the tale and sits down next to Ren.

"I honestly have very little experience of not being good at something. Mathematics was self-evident. Sport was just a matter of angles and forces and so forth. All the Ancient treatises I've found make perfect sense to me. I suppose that's part of the reason I'm floundering so much about it."
Well, I made a post that should lead into that fight you were wanting.
Looks good. I'm in.


Auzar grinned at Shae's eye-roll, floating after her up the stairs.

"You'd better buy more! These things are so much better than Shinigami apples..."

He trailed off into silence as he watched her struggle over the Death Note, a sinister grin suffusing his face as he hovered in the corner of the room. For the whole ten minutes he just watched, smiling silently. The smile widened as she wrote his name in the Note, and he dropped to the ground, walking over and staring down at her.

"Risky. Two people connected to you in the same day, dying of the same cause. You need to be careful..."

The sinister grin hasn't left his face for the whole time. He bites into an apple slowly, ripping out a crisp chunk.

"Or they'll snap you up."

Crunch.
I'm back! Sorry I was away, stuff happened. Did I miss anything important?


Jack was also in the workshop, two benches along from Bruce. His armour was standing next to the bench, but on it was what appeared to be a robot. The silvery chassis was nearly complete, although some of the insides were still being tinkered with. It was female in form - that was pretty obvious - but it didn't appear to have a face. Or at least, not until Jack reached into a bag next to him and brought out something folded, which turned out to be a synthetic skin that he laid next to the robot, comparing the sizes. He put it away again with a nod, then dived back into the insides of the bot. As he worked, an excited female voice emanated from the watch that lay on the bench next to the robot's head.

"Hey, get on with the work and stop gawping at the skin! You finally get around to a new personality for me, and then you prefer to look at a fake rather than talk to the real thing!"

"Oh, shut up. I just needed to make sure it fitted."

"Sure, sure... I believe you! Just make sure it fits the plans I drew for you!"

"You mean the appearance you sketched and told me it had to look like? We both know it was me who planned the inside from scratch, and then I had to make all sorts of last-minute modifications because, firstly, you turned out female, and then you told me you wanted completely different proportions to what I'd already built. Do you know how difficult that was?"

"Of course I do! I was just teasing."

Grinning, Jack shook his head. As he worked, a small part suddenly pinged out and went flying at Bruce.
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