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Post by Hero on Mar 16, 2016 18:54:28 GMT
The Vanishing Dawn...the unspeakable phenomena that brought inconceivable terror into the world of the living. Some called it the ultimate trial of God, some even called it the curse of the enigmatic Merchant of Infinity, but most likened it to the end of all days. From the shadows they emerged with a purpose, and on the day of their birth the capital of Veldime fell, completely annihilated by the mysterious creatures henceforth known as "shades". Impervious to most weaponry, only the keen and skilled could efficiently destroy them, their numbers multiplying daily, threatening to completely overrun the star system, staring with their emergence on the planet of Caanan.
It was then that the Reinbach Corporation, commissioned by the Veldime Empire, with what little of the Army remained, created the Anti-Shadow (AS) program meant to use provide an alternative to being a mercenary throughout the cosmos. Rather than being paid to handle other idle tasks, one could get paid commission for working as a contractor under the Reinbach Corporation as an extension of the Empire: this meant being able to act as they saw fit without being criticized by society or the Empire itself.
Thus the race began. With Caanan completely covered in darkness, and the star system slowly being encroached by the out-pour linked to Caanan itself, the final hope of the star system fell upon the mercenaries who always held the fate of the cosmos in their hands.
"You sure you wanna commission them though?" the unnamed member of the board murmured meekly, "They have a penchant of causing trouble for everyone."
"Yet they have maintained an outstanding relationship with the Reinbach Corporation and Ezeickial Aidoua Reinbach the Sixth, and we are in-fact in their debt for rescuing his highness four years ago back in the space-trafficking incident." Colbert interrupted. "Judging by their track record with us alone as a corporation they're in fine standings."
"How do you expect them to keep up with the demands of an Army though?" another board member replied.
"They are perhaps the greatest mercenary alliance I've ever seen, and quite frankly I can't imagine why we hadn't commissioned them prior to now. Yes they have caused much trouble in the past, but-"
"Enough."
One voice steamrolled over them all, loud and commanding, causing a silent, inaudible intensity to fill the air.
"Retrieve them from Outer Heaven. I will leave the contractual details to you, Asaad."
"Thank you, Lord Hans."
In the reckoning of the Vanishing Dawn, the Outer Heaven had become an utter wasteland, a dark atmosphere where only the most desperate and depraved lived. Criminals, murderers, thugs, the homeless, this outer-shell of Caanan, previously devised as a sanctuary around the world itself, had become the only means of which any from Caanan could live. The sky just outside of the planet's atmosphere was dark and hazy, blocking the view of the stars, giving off the appearance of eternal nighttime throughout, which had become the reality of most who knew peace down below. It was here that the story begins, and not without it's shortage in perpetuating black stereotypes.
That's right, coonery.
"Do you know who yer' fuckin' with? I'll tear you apart ya' piece of shit!" Mario barked, clenching the hilt of his solid white katana in his right hand. "Any of you mother fuckers can get it ya' hear me? You nigga's better wise up!"
Holed up in one of the worst taverns in the east side of Outer Heaven, Mario was making a usual ruckus while waiting on Icarus who was nowhere to be found. After a mission they all usually split up and when fate saw fit, the group of misfits would meet back up somewhere only to undertake another oftentimes ridiculous task. Well known for their selection of only the most absurd and insane ventures from the Galactic Mercenary Board, needless to say the rumor that they were far from human was well within its rights. That being said, their behavior said otherwise.
"I'll cut'chu fuckers up I swear I will!" he howled, slamming his bottle of Jack Daniels into the counter. "Why do these fuckers keep playing with me Jack, huh? Why?"
Ironically, the bartenders name was Jack as well.
"Who are you even talking to? No one's here."
"Huh..."
They both looked around to the completely empty tavern. The Tiger's Eye was in one of the many back-alleys of the most dangerous city in Outer Heaven, New Victoria. It was here that crime, murder, and gang violence had reached its peak.
"Where did they go?!"
"Mario, let's be honest for a second..." Jack sighed, wiping one of the drinking glasses in the sink full of dishes softly, "You're only welcome here because everywhere else has kicked you out. You have a drinking problem hombre. And until you get it fixed you know you won't be accepted around here.
"Who told you I was looking for acceptance?"
A flash of light twinkled from within Mario's eye, and before Jack could blink, a thick needle was poised to his throat. Between the two there didn't appear to be any hostility, and Jack didn't show even a trace of fear in Mario's sudden killer that flooded the room like a flock of elephants stampeding through a gateway in Mario's back. Furniture shifted and the air grew heavy.
"You know why I'm really here don't you?" he spoke in a hushed whisper.
"No idea...but I do know that the Reinbach Corporation's Invincible PQ's are looking for you directly. You had better get a move on before they turn this city upside down."
"Huhhhhhh?!" Mario screamed, removing the needle from Jack's neck. "When were you gonna tell me that?! THE FUCK?!"
"Whenever you decided to stop arguing with the non-existent people in your head..."
"Where's Icarus? Has any of those bozos been here? Ah fuck, he's probably charging his internal circuits in our room like a fucking faggot or something. It's gonna be a pain to find anyone...well shit." Mario rose from his stool, barely able to stand, but doing his best to save his Jack Daniels from hitting the ground in the process. "Thanks for the help Jack, I think it's about time I actually made myself useful."
"Oh is that right...what now?" Jack smiled, watching Mario drive his hands through his perfectly cut afro. After another chug of Jack Daniels his hand rose to push his shades back up over the bridge of his nose, then he grinned. "Time to light a fire under some asses."
The black comedian decided to finally get serious.
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Post by hello.astronaut on Mar 17, 2016 2:13:42 GMT
A series of beeps, buzzes, and otherwise unpleasant mechanical noises emanated from beneath the chest-piece that housed Icarus. For clarity, of course, Icarus was not the machine that had so loyally followed Mario around doing this and that, killing and maiming in the name of the Empire, or whatever it was they justified their actions with. Icarus was a stone buried in the center of the machine-- much like a pilot sitting in the cockpit of a tricked-out tank. He'd rested comfortably within the stone for centuries, only recently receiving the gift of mobility from some not-so-clever cultists that thought he was the second-coming of some obscure, non-existent god. Plant the stone in the machine, activate the machine, give the god the ability to move about and lead us. That was their plan. Things don't always work out. The stone planted within the 1C4RU5 unit was actually the soul of a seventeen year-old boy that had abandoned his duties as a farm-hand in pursuit of riches and fame some 500 years ago, when farming was still a relevant occupation. Things change.
"How the FUCK am I supposed to sleep with all this ticking and beeping?!" Icarus slapped his metal-plated hand against his chest-- an attempt to silence the machinery keeping him functioning. Several slaps and knocks later, he gave up the useless endeavor. "Two years in this thing. Two. Fuckin'. Years."
Icarus leaned his head back to the wall he'd been sitting against, giving it a thunderous knock. Almost perfectly in time with his angered head-slam, a small glass-housed light on the center of the 1C4RU5 unit's head changed from a neutral blue to an alert red, flashing excitedly. This was a result of Mario's increased agitation at the mention of the Reinbach Corporation's desire to.. speak with them.
"I bet he's drunk." Icarus moved to stand up, straightening out his back as if he had a crick. "Probably forgot about the Emotional Frequency and Alert Device (EFAD) I planted on him. He'll thank me for that one of these days."
A Heads Up Display appeared over the visor that housed the head of the 1C4RU5 unit, showing handy and poignant GPS-based directions to lead Icarus to Mario's location.
"Off we go."
Icarus had been hiding out in an abandoned warehouse, for no other reason than the silence he wanted to enjoy away from Mario and the others. He wasn't anti-social, but sometimes being seventeen and trapped in a militaristic killing machine can weigh heavy on ones' soul.
Moments passed as Icarus ran frantically towards Mario's position, eventually arriving and smashing his way through the front door of The Tiger's Eye. The door split from the hinges, sliding across the floor, as Icarus entered the room with a specialized rifle drawn and aimed directly at Jack. He wasn't aware of the situation, and only knew that there was a distress signal being sent from Mario's EFAD to his internal systems. "What is it, Mario? Shades?"
The rifle had a faint glow coming from lights that lined the barrel. They were a sort of mysterious black-blue, a sign that the weapon was designed solely for the extermination of shades. That being said, of course, a bullet is a bullet, and humans don't tend to take them well. Icarus' finger twitched on the trigger, waiting for Mario to give him some sort of response.
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Post by Hero on Mar 19, 2016 7:46:20 GMT
Four years ago Mario was a helpless beggar scrapping for change in the slums of Au Revire, a hopeless ghost of the world before - forever stuck living in the world where life was so much more simple than it had become. The truth was Mario was usually frightened by anything of complexity, not because he couldn't handle, but mainly because it it just didn't make sense. None of it did. Testing at documented facilities in Mario's short military sentencing revealed he excelled far beyond his peers in almost every mental faculty, leading to the assertion that he was could be more than a human being. Yet one problem disconnected him from the world and flung him into a time without: politics. In the past he had been called only to kill, destroy, and satiate himself: but eventually the time came for him to make decisions in the best interests of others for reasons involving political agendas and quotas.
But why did these standards even exist?
If Mario had figured it out before that day, then he would be living a beautiful life out in a field somewhere, wealthy and in unbelievable power.
"Huh? Why are you so loud?" The dark-skinned drunk groaned. He stood at a tall six feet and four inches, and his wingspan was just as ferocious, but if anything about his appearance was exclamatory it was his outfit and his hair. He wore complete black, a black rain jacket, black slacks, and black Christian Louis Vuittons, with a few wrist bracelets and a katana tucked into his side, helped by a very thin and seemingly non-existent string. Then there was the globe around his head that was a ginormous Afro bigger than his face and neck combined.
Needless to say his appearance was different than others.
"Hey don't aim that at Jack!" He hiccuped. "You kill him then I don't get anymore drinks!" Mario exclaimed, tapping his chin with the same hand that held his precious half bottle of liquor.
"We have an issue that won't be easy to solve..." He muttered, "wait, how the fuck did you find me so quickly? Must have been that fucking cybernetic wizardry! Did you put that on our sexy vampire friend?"
Mario stepped past Icarus, looking up into the total black sky beyond Outer Heaven. "It's time to get going. Things are about to get complicated."
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Post by hello.astronaut on Mar 19, 2016 21:17:07 GMT
Icarus kept his gun raised and pointed at Jack as Mario droned on about cybernetic wizardry and sexy vampires, waiting for his friend to pass him before lowering the weapon.
"Eh. Uh. Sorry about that." Icarus gave a sort of two-fingered salute to Jack before swinging his rifle over onto his back and turning to follow Mario outside. He looked up into the darkness of the sky above them, pondering silently for a moment.
Seconds passed, maybe even minutes. He'd heard Mario's question in regards to planting an EFAD on their female companion, and he'd taken heavy note of his companions concerns for things getting complicated, but he couldn't quite find the words to respond with. "All that darkness is something else."
Icarus twitched a bit, coming to as he finally decided to respond. "Yeah, there's an EFAD on her. You were consensual when I gave you yours. Don't be so shocked that I actually used it, bro'."
He kicked at the dirt beneath the steel plated feet he'd come to know as his own, a small, mechanical sigh emanating from the tiny holes in his head meant to amplify sound. "What do you mean by complicated? Things are always complicated. We never get to sit still anymore."
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Post by Reverie on Mar 20, 2016 4:17:17 GMT
What had happened to the universe? Ever since man ventured out beyond their own galaxy the paradigm shifted out of control. They saw themselves as equals to the supernals of the universe and in some religions that was the ultimate sin. The religions of their old earth shifted however. The taboo became common practice.
That was fine with Dreki of course. He had been called many names since his creation and each reincarnation of his spirit grew both in dominion and in knowledge but his preffered moniker The only issue was he kind of missed it. They use to call his name in a chorus of fear and praise and to fill that void he's had to venture to other parts of the universe. He's resorted to petty mercenary work.
Again, fine. He still got a hard on from the killing and the bloodshed and still was able to lay a path of destruction; he was just told where to aim that path. Authority over a "god" was hard to come by and revered in the most formal of senses but in recent times and with his choice in career the lack of respect became so common practice that he became numb to it until Dreki reached the battlefield..
He was well aware of Icarus' tracking methods and he had his own but it wasn't until Mario looked to the sky that his location became truly apparent.
"It's time to get going. Things are about to get complicated."
The crack of thunder seemed to add a sense of urgency to the half-assed prayer. As. He arose from his meditative position and as his hands lifted to bring the hood of his cloak above his head to shield his eyes a portal opened before him. His lips had murmured the language of old to produce it and as he stepped through they continued to move.
"Things aren't quite so complicated on the battlefield though are they, boy?"
Dreki stepped from the portal that appeared on the side of the building behind them. His battle-worn visage, half-concealed by the grey of his cloak, smiled at the both of them as he withdrew deeper into the confines of his cloak. The air had a slight chill that he wasn't all too prepared for.
"Fuckin' cold." He rubbed his arms a couple of times and hopped a few steps before he grew to a more serious note, "Where to?"
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Post by Hero on Mar 27, 2016 8:01:37 GMT
Across the cosmos there were tales of a great "God" who's powers were unparalleled and could match that of overlords and even the inconceivable. It was said that with such power even the heart of the worlds greatest threat could be extinguished and the balance restored. With the legend of the enigmatic God that fed off of chaos, war, and death, there was also a more hysterical counterpart to go with it, one more recent than its predecessor.
As it went, a gamble of life and death was waged between a beggar and a God. If the beggar lost, his life would be taken and he would exist as one of the exhaustible slaves of the great God. Should he win, however, the God would turn his servitude and give his power to the beggar, never to question his authority under their eternal alliance.
Do what you will with the rest of the story.
"Oh you came?! I was starting to worry, this would be hard without the power of a God!" Mario crooned, popping his neck habitually. "Complicated as in the Reinbach Corporation are actively pursuing us for once. Ya' know, the strongest military presence in the star system. I don't care what for, we gotta ditch Outer Heaven before they corner us. We're in a bad place right now."
Regardless of their upstanding relationship with the organization, Mario had no intention of having any talks with any official parties from any kingdom; one way or another it always led to a pitfall of bullshit.
"Track our lady-friend so we can get a move on. Also how's our ship looking? Dreki's teleportation is as reliable as my pull-out game."
Mario's head swung towards Dreki before he could finish the insanity his head was creating.
"Can you take up directly to the coordinates Icarus has? That'll make having to fight through hordes of pissy brats much easier."
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Post by shifter on Mar 28, 2016 3:30:40 GMT
Stasis. Vex had fought for three days to achieve it, strapped to this godforsaken table. The scientists had taken many precautions, despite her being a simple, lowly vampire. She was pinned down to the table by three metallic arms, and her hands and feet had been clamped down. A wide assortment of tubes were hooked up to various parts of her body, each one with a different purpose, although none were designed to keep her alive. Her body was emaciated, eating itself for lack of food, and she had only a fraction of her usual strength. She hadn't fed since two days before she was captured, and on top of that, they were slowly harvesting her blood. Vex was still alive partly because of Stasis, and partly because fuck these people.
She needed to feed.
Vex felt the object of her desire come within range of her senses--a lab assistant who had been attending to her. She had silently studied him during these past three days, learning everything about him, his habits, his schedule...his thoughts. Each day, she matched the frequency of her brain waves with his, monitoring his thoughts, entering partial Stasis in order to do so. After the third day of constant concentration, she fully entered Stasis, and she was ready for a complete takeover. As he came closer to her room, she could feel his heartbeat--slow, calm, and steady. Everything was normal; he was coming to check on her vitals, as per his routine. Closer and closer he came, until he entered within the range of her Stasis. And in that instant, his mind became hers.
She didn’t miss a step as her vision transferred to his, and she had her vessel continue his path to the room she was locked in. His mind didn’t struggle--it couldn’t; he didn’t feel like anything was wrong. The guard outside the door nodded to him, and the assistant nodded back. All routine. A swipe of a keycard gained them entry, and the door automatically locked behind him. With Vex controlling his mind and body, the assistant walked up to the control panel, and began the protocol to release her from the table. Vex let the necessary information float up from the depths of his mind, and let his hands take over the keys as he initiated the protocol. A few seconds later, the giant metal arms cracked open, and slowly receded into the sides of the table. The clamps holding her hands and feet also opened and retreated, giving her body full mobility.
Her body didn’t move. Looking at herself from afar was always interesting, but today it was grotesque; she was naked, and she could see almost all of her bones poking through her skin. it was easy to see that she was on the verge of death. She had the assistant gently remove all of the tubes attached to her, excluding the two that were slowly draining her body of blood. She hated these people, and how they felt that they could sell her blood for profit. Stupid fucks. Stupid, stupid fucks.
She had her vessel reverse the flow of the blood, so that it went down the tubes connected to her wrists and back into her body. The process took about ten minutes to get all of the blood they had taken from her for that day; the blood from the previous days had already been harvested and taken away. While she was waiting for the blood to transfer, she made a detailed account of what was in the room, and wracked the assistant’s brain for anything and everything he knew about the facility she was trapped in. From there, she crafted an exit route.
After the process was finished, Vex had the assistant unhook the last tubes from her body. A little color had returned to her body, but she knew that when she regained consciousness, she would need to feed immediately. She had her vessel sit on the floor next to the table, and she shut him down. With his unconsciousness activated, he was set to be out for at least another five minutes.
Vex’s mind was transferred back to her body, and she opened her eyes. Stasis had been broken, and she immediately flexed her hands and feet. They were sore, and it was painful to move, but she managed to push herself up off the table. She knelt on the floor next to the assistant. She could smell the blood flowing through his veins, feel it as pumped through his heart and to the major arteries in his body. She jumped on top of him, knocking him down to a flat position, and sank her fangs into his throat.
Her mind glazed over, and faded away into the fog of starvation. She drank ravenously, not spilling any blood on the floor. She couldn’t afford to lose any of it--she had to completely drain him in order for her cells to rejuvenate, and allow her muscles to regrow. For her, cellular regeneration happened at a thousand times the normal rate, resulting in instantaneous healing if she was hurt (and well fed). If she was starved, however...her body would turn on itself, resulting in emaciation if she did not feed regularly.
The effect of the sustenance was immediate. Her muscles began to reform, and her wounds from the tubes began to heal. She could feel herself regaining strength, and her body returning to its former fullness. One human wasn’t going to do it though. She needed more--a lot more. She would kill everyone in this fucking place.
The draining process happened quickly. She stood up, dropping the body with a thud. She licked her lips. According to the information she obtained from the assistant’s mind, her effects were being held in another room closer to the exit. They had thrown away her clothes, probably because they didn't expect her to walk out of here alive. That was irritating-- not because she was naked, but because she’d have to actually spend money to get more clothes. She bent down and grabbed the lanyard with the assistant’s keycard and put it around her own neck. She stepped over his drained body and walked to the door, her muscles still regrowing. She let her mind float to check on the guard who was still standing outside the door; he had heard nothing, and suspected nothing.
She swung the door open, and as the guard turned towards her, she shoved her hand into his chest--through his armor, and into his flesh-- and latched onto his heart. She smiled at him as she ripped her hand out, taking his heart with her. He had no time to scream, and he didn't even groan. His face was cemented in pain and confusion as he died, falling backwards onto the white linoleum. She quickly got on top of him and drank the blood that was pouring from his body.
When she had drained him too, she stood up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Naked and completely covered in the guard’s blood, Vex’s body continued to rejuvenate as she walked toward the room she knew held her weapons.
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Post by hello.astronaut on Mar 29, 2016 22:01:48 GMT
Icarus looked to Dreki as he appeared, giving him a friendly nod. "I miss the fuckin' cold." He'd have grinned if he had a mouth to do so with.
"Track our lady-friend so we can get a move on. Also how's our ship looking? Dreki's teleportation is as reliable as my pull-out game."
Any other time Icarus' adolescent mind trapped within the mechanical vehicle would have found a joke of that immature nature hilarious. This, of course, was not any other time. Tension seemed to be rising as he processed the idea of being hunted by yet another overpowered, over-funded organization over-equipped to overkill him and his companions. Icarus looked to the ground-- a moment of introspection before nodding towards Mario.
His left hand raised up, palm facing the sky at chest-height. A small crystal embedded within Icarus' hand lit up, projecting a hologram up and out in front of everyone. "Give me a minute." The hologram presented a map of the entire star system and those surrounding it, but nothing was marked yet. Icarus raised his right hand, palm facing the ground, to the same height. A similar crystal projected a smaller hologram beneath his mechanical fingers: a holographic keyboard. He began keying away at the floating, false buttons. The clicking of the keys was quick and loud, almost obnoxious, as Icarus began to run complex algorithms to track Vex's EFAD.
"She's too calm. Too calculated. The EFAD works best during times of emotional instability. You know Vex. She's too cool for her own good in situations where we'd piss ourselves." Icarus stopped typing momentarily, frozen. "I miss taking pisses."
Moments passed after his statement, the silence seeming to grow. He let out an almost mechanical chuckle, shrugging. His fingers returned to typing.
"I'm having to search for the signal the EFAD gives off by default. Typically the user's emotions resonate with the EFAD's core, amplifying the signal to an almost obnoxious level. Without that amplification, the signal is really only suitable for local operations-- Smaller cities, compounds, that sort of thing." Screens of the map flickered in and out, zooming to different star systems as Icarus continued the hunt. "Where are you, Vex? Give me something."
It was around that time that elsewhere Vex had began her escape from her captors. She'd sank her fangs into the neck of the assistant she'd been using as a vessel, that starvation for blood taking over.
Icarus looked up from the hologram of the map, the screen on his face and sensors all immediately turning to an intense red. Icarus spoke in an unusually robotic way, as if it wasn't him at all, but rather the actual machine. "WARNING. EMOTIONAL FREQUENCY AND ALERT DEVICE RECEIVING ABNORMAL READINGS FROM USER A-3, VEX. RESPOND IMMEDIATELY." The map zoomed, flashed, and eventually displayed a red blip at a specific location along with coordinates floating above. "STAR SYSTEM ARTEMIS-11, SECTOR 6, PLANET PLEAIDES."
The coordinates were recorded onto Icarus' internal memory before the map was shut off and the red lights faded. Icarus returned to normal, looking between Mario and Dreki. "We should probably get a move on."
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Post by Reverie on Apr 1, 2016 2:26:34 GMT
Their creation was a miracle in and of itself. As the metaphoric manifestation of the carnal thirst of man that ultimately led to their demise the Vampire proved that the Creator does have a sense of humor. It's just sociopathic.
The hunger and the power had intrigued him but intrigue wasn't the feeling that was coming up inside of him. It was anger and it was aimed towards himself for his failure and ignorance; and it was anger towards those who wished to do him and his comrades harm. This emotion flowed red hot through his veins and he no longer felt the chill of the night air.
His hands swung out and swept the cloak back behind his armored shoulders and ultimately it stashed rather nicely in a thin flicker of cloth between his shoulder blades. The armor that appeared was nothing short of befitting for a being of his nature and it clung to his body as though it feared being free from immortal flesh. With glorious simplicity it bore the same dull grey that his cloak did save for a single draconic figure that encased his left arm in a stark white brilliance of foreshadowing. From jaw to foot he was encased in the physical manifestation of supernal energies, their very essence binding the fabrics into one piece. He was ready to begin.
As Icarus began sweeping the galaxies for the vampire's whereabouts he himself began to conjure up the portal that would relocate all three of them. Such a feat wasn't all that simple of a task, especially with the fact that everyone seemed to be producing an engine of sorts. A generator that produced a field capable of deflecting his gateways. The location became known but when attempting to link the bridge the environment became muddled and just beyond the grasp of his scrying eye.
Intense focus swept across his face and in its ferocity the dragon began to glow. He outstretched the glowing arm and with fingers oustretched thin wisps began to emerge from the center of his palm only to feed into the vortex that began with the utterance of the ancient language.
"I cannot get us to her exactly." He sounded happy about the issue. "Prepare for battle. I found their air support
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Post by Hero on Apr 2, 2016 3:55:02 GMT
Therein Vex's discovery lie the veritable quandary regarding their entire situation. If not for their lackadaisical disposition (or atleast his own), their partner's location made Mario's stomach feel uneasy. As arguably the most controversial mercenary in the star-system Artemis-11 (Dawn) he had never had a positive social interaction with the Silver Medical Agency (SMA); infact every single time he encountered the dark underworld organization he'd regretted it. The fact that Vex was anywhere near one of their branch's meant that she was probably dead or near death, though judging by Icarus' technology she seemed to be alive and kicking. Every second they spent discovering just how deep their hole got, the situation grew even deeper. SMA had an infamous reputation in the eyes of the Reinbach Corporation and had many times participated in isolated conflicts not known to the public for each other's cooperation - which happened to also get in the way of each other's ideals.
"Fuck that, she's dead." Mario coughed, revealing a blunt rolled in backwoods paper. "Just kidding just kidding...this won't be easy. We're looking at a lot of collateral, so before we drop in lets get a game plan together."
Mario placed the blunt in between his ear and his afro then turned to Dreki. "Your job is to find, locate, and bring Vex back. You're fast and can teleport and if you die I won't feel bad, you're a God anyways."
Snapping his head back to Icarus he continued barking like a snappy dog with a master plan. "And your job is to blow as much shit up as possible, torch the whole fucking place. You're a walking armory make it work aight'?"
He nodded his head and Icarus and a small light appeared from a circuit in his finger, lighting his blunt, slowly but carefully. "Appreciate it...anyways, and as for me..."
"I'm going to crucify Jesus."
Jesus was the ephitet of SMA's infamous CEO, who made his claim to power by illegally selling blood, organs, and all forms of biological madness that seemed to be a result of his cunning intelligence and unmatched charisma. Before hand he had made his name as a beast of legend, giant in stature and utterly impossible to kill by conventional means. He wasn't a werewolf, a vampire, a Titan or anything so simple; he was a chimera of such a ridiculous hybrid that even the kingdom of Nibiru Alliance and the Veldime Empire (prior to the Vanishing Dawn) had turned a blind eye to his treachery. Only two people had survived in a direct conflict with the fabled scientist: Lord Hansfield Medina of the Reinbach Corporation, otherwise known as the White Comet, and one odd mercenary who had made his name as a trick of all trades and fucking badass of enigma.
Somewhere inbetween everything and nothingness Dreki twisted reality like a program at his command and projected them through a dimensional phenomena that eventually landed them-
"Wait, where the fuck are we?" Mario muttered, taking a short drag of his blunt. They stood in what appeared to be a lobby of grandiose proportions, pedestrians in suits and armored guards marching all over, and all the noise of a downtown district of any social society ringing through his ears. To think that the corporation housed such an immense hub for which to conduct their treachery. The SMA was no more than a covered ruse for the rich and powerful to commit acts of terror.
"Shit we must be on the first floor, if this place is anything like the other facility it's built into the ground for about fifteen floors, and expands probably throughout from there on. But wait, how did we get here..."
It would have been impossible for Dreki to teleport them there directly without their defensive mechanisms being offline. Were they being expected? Suddenly gleams of light appeared throughout the grand foyer, and the people and guards dissolved into nothingness. All that remained was the empty building Dreki had warped them into.
"Impressed?" A single voice echoed ominously behind them. Mario and the others twisted around to see the giant six foot eight inches of a beast, with half of his body symmetrically down the middle being black as the night and the other side as pale as the moon. Large and stocky, buzz cut was military-esque but offset by his true-to fit white suit that seemed to match his powerful presence perfectly. There was only one person this could be, and Mario's face reflected just how excited and anxious he was to see him again.
"JESUS! Thank God you're still alive, so I can shove my foot down your fucking throat!" Mario roared, tossing his blunt to the ground dramatically. "There's guards all over this place, and experiments, and creepy shit watch ya' step fellas. Get a move on."
"I would kill your friends but...I owe you for our last encounter. Think you can survive this time?" Jesus sighed, releasing his hands from behind his back.
"Who knows?" Mario chuckled, "but I like my chances."
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Post by hello.astronaut on Apr 2, 2016 7:45:04 GMT
Icarus watched in bemusement as Dreki conjured up a portal to lead them directly to the heart of the beast. His head tilted left, then right, watching carefully as his internal systems ran its most complex algorithms in an attempt to understand Dreki's mystical abilities. Binary code mixed with an ancient, lost language scrolled across the screen that paneled Icarus' face. "FASCINATING." The mechanical voice from before, the one that gave the warning about Vex, spoke. "THIS DEFIES LOGIC." Icarus reached up to the side of his metal head, giving it a firm knock with his closed fist. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
There was clearly some less-than-passive discomfort with 1C4RU5 speaking in Icarus' place. "Stupid fucking machine."
"And your job is to blow as much shit up as possible, torch the whole fucking place. You're a walking armory make it work aight'?" Icarus received his objective and no longer needed to hear another word, nodding. "Just remember that you gave me permission." Icarus grabbed the stock of the rifle at his back, bringing it around to his chest. He slid a finger in front of the trigger, wrapping his left hand around a short red grip at the bottom of the rifle's barrel. He pulled the grip towards himself, cocking the rifle. A loud sound echoed from the rifle, like a laser charging up to be fired. Pzzzzzzzzzzzt!
"Activate offensive protocol A-00."
"ACTIVATING OFFENSIVE PROTOCOLS: OMNI-RIFLE SET TO DISINTEGRATE. PROPULSION SYSTEMS ACTIVE..." As the machine spoke once again, two vents on Icarus' back slowly opened up, a red light glowing from within them. Almost immediately, Icarus lifted up off the ground, hovering beside Dreki and Mario. "ADRENO-AMPLIFICATION SYSTEMS ACTIVE: EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSORS ACTIVE." The machine was following orders, which might lead the others to wonder why Icarus had such an issue with it speaking on its own free will. The 1C4RU5 systems were created with emotional suppressors in order to stop the user, Icarus in this case, from feeling certain emotions during the heat of battle. Fear was deactivated, and a rare side of Icarus was revealed.
It was about that time that the gang arrived in the heart of the beast, with Jesus' appearance taking Mario's attention. Icarus gave Dreki an informal pat on the chest. "Be careful, Dreki. Find Vex. Please."
Icarus turned away towards a large hangar door that had been sealed shut. He cleared his throat, or at least recreated the sound of a throat clearing. The crystal at the center of Icarus' chest, glowing a bright, violent red, began to emit small bursts of electricity. "FIRING BREACHING LASER. CLEAR BACK BLAST." The machine spoke and immediately released a large rail of energy hurdling towards the hangar doors. Behind Icarus, a shock wave shot out. It shook Dreki, Mario, and Jesus' clothes, causing them to slide several inches in the same direction. The hangar door exploded into fractured debris as Icarus leaned forward and flew through the opening. "Good luck, Mario! I'm off to run interference."
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. - George Gurdjieff
Icarus blazed through the hallways of the facility, moving room to room with no sense of strategy. He'd enter a room, blast holes in everything that moved, then proceed to the next room. No problem.
After several minutes of this repeated behavior, he entered into what seemed like a control and surveillance room. He came to a stop, landing on his feet behind the man in control of the computers. "Ahem." He mimicked a throat clearing sound again. The man turned around, startled by the sound. "Wha-?! Who the fuck are you?" The security guard grabbed the pistol at his side, raising it to Icarus and firing a shot. The bullet slammed into the metal plating the housed Icarus, flattening and falling to the grounnd. Icarus chuckled. "They gave you a fuckin' pistol?" Icarus reached out, slapping the pistol out of the man's hand before grabbing the guard by his throat and lifting him off the ground. "They didn't tell you who you'd be up against when you took Vex, then?"
"W-who... the fu.. the fuck.. is Vex?" The guard struggled to speak as Icarus slowly dug his fingers into the man's flesh. "You know who Vex is. She's our friend." The fear in the man's eyes was apparent as he replied. "Our..? There's.. more.. of.. you?" Icarus' grip loosened momentarily. "Three of us. A machine. A god. A trained, bloodthirsty mercenary. You're fucked every way you turn, my man." Without hesitation, Icarus launched the security guard backwards into the large grouping of television monitors he'd been watching. The force was so great that the fractured and splintered glass of the screens pierced through the guard, impaling him and holding him there above the ground.
"W--why..?"
"TERMINATING DISTURBANCE. STANDBY." The machine spoke, Icarus' chest beginning to emit electricity. "H-hey.. don't do that. Cut it out." Icarus pleaded with the machine he was housed within, but to no avail. "FIRING BREACHING LASER." The same beam of energy from before fired from Icarus' chest, forcing its way through the guard, the monitors, and the wall behind them. After the dust cleared, there was nothing left. The explosion and following collapse of walls and ceilings would have been enough to alert the entire compound of the presence of Icarus and his friends. On the bright side, maybe Vex would find some hope in knowing they were there. "Stupid.. fucking.. machine." Icarus' energy sources were low after firing a second breaching charge, but he had to press on. He stepped through the giant hole in the wall, moving forward past a train of torn limbs and blood the breaching charge had left as it fired through dozens of unaware SMA members that were unlucky enough to be in the mess hall behind the security room Icarus had entirely obliterated. Those few standing away from the blast within the mess hall watched in terror as Icarus simply stepped past them.
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Post by shifter on Apr 3, 2016 6:54:15 GMT
Vex had only taken two steps away from her last victim when an irritatingly loud alarm echoed through the hallways. She glanced behind her--that guard hadn’t had time to trigger any sort of alarm, and there was no one else in the hallway. She highly doubted that she had been spotted that quickly on a security camera; it was the middle of the night, most of the researchers on this level had gone home, and the security guard monitoring the cameras was probably asleep anyways. It must be her friends, valiantly trying to rescue her despite being three days late. Took them fucking long enough.
Vex continued her path down the hall at a brisk pace, and took a left when she reached the intersection of a corridor. In front of her, guards were piling into an elevator farther down the hall. They noticed her only as the doors were almost closed, and she gave them a little wave as the doors pushed closed and they went on their merry way. She made her way to a stairwell, because the information she got from the assistant’s brain had shown her weapons located in a room on the 6th floor, and she was currently on the 7th.
As she opened the door to the 6th floor hallway, the lights flickered for a few seconds before going out completely. A few seconds later, what must have been the backup generators kicked on. Vex paused before opening the door to the hallway. For something to have caused a power outage in a facility this large...she wondered what the fuck her friends were doing.
She moved out into the hallway, and she felt the heartbeat of a researcher close by. She really only needed one more human to return to full strength, so she followed the heartbeat into a room about two doors down from the stairwell. The keycard swiper thingy was flashing red, like the security system had gone down because some freak robot had blown it to hell. Vex tried her keycard that she had stolen from the assistant, to no avail. She tried the handle. Locked.
She backed up a few feet, raised her leg, and kicked the damn door off its damn hinges. It flew backward with such a force that the researcher--who apparently had been in just a few feet on the other side--was crushed beneath the door and the metal countertop behind her. Blood spattered the whitewashed wall, and the heartbeat went out immediately.
“Whoops”.
Vex moved in to drink the woman’s blood before it got cold. The researcher’s head had been completely smashed, but her arm still poked out from beneath the heavy metal door. Vex sank her fangs into the artery of the researcher’s wrist, and drank greedily. She could feel her body’s cells reach their max potential. Vex nearly smiled with delight as what she had been waiting for finally happened--the pouches behind her fangs filled with a neurotoxin. The neurotoxin took a massive amount of energy to produce, which is why Vex needed to be at full strength before the pouches refilled, but it was incredibly powerful. A couple of drops in a major artery could paralyze a human for hours. Less than a teaspoon full would kill them.
After she was finished with the woman, Vex stood up and moved the door off of the body with ease. She quickly undressed the woman--everything was a size too small, so she ended up taking just the long white lab coat--and shook the bits of brain and skull off the clothes. After she shoved the coat on, she walked to the room that contained her weapons at the far end of the hallway. She saw no one else--the research floors were deserted, all the guards having run to the cause of the major disturbance. She kicked the door in (with a little less force this time) and found herself in a room with hundreds of lockboxes lining the walls. From the assistant's information, she knew that her stuff was in #154. She moved toward the one that contained her things and shoved her fist into the metal, creating a puncture wound in the center. She bent back the metal and pulled out her gun, her leather pouches that would hold extra reserves of blood, and a very tiny obsidian ball. Vex smiled. Time to go find her friends.
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Post by Reverie on Apr 4, 2016 2:34:24 GMT
In the midst of their lapse from both time and space they were wrenched from his control but it wasn't all too soon. As they entered the newfound location Dreki still held fast to his minute grasp upon that which until now was his own little plain of existence between the folds of the Universe and he could feel his hold loosening. His power was being suppressed and a slight panic overtook him.
With his mental welfare stripping away he mustered the strength to pull from that existence his own celestial blade. A lumenescence stark against the black of the vortex the four foot double-edged blade held just enough room for a hand and a half and every single knuckle grasping that blade was as white as snow. The pommel held in four distinct claws a pellucid stone but the hilt was much less significant in aesthetics. It was obviously still functional.
As he slipped into Reality his knees buckled but his foundation remained and with a sudden realization of what had just happened in those few precious seconds his very essence became yet again that rage-seared spirit. It was a good thing too because it was at that moment that Dreki slid backwards from the blast of air that erupted from Icarus.
One might assume that with such emotion his eyes would perhaps turn red just as the human berserkers did eons ago but he was not a human. His eyes became completely white and he knew exactly what his role would be in the grand scheme of things as soon as the Chimera came into sight. Finding Vex was his main priority, her safety was the entire reason for the meetup.
It wasn't that he couldn't take the true abomination, it was moreso that he did not want to disbar Mario from the chance of finally wrenching the innards free from the confines of the fuck's flesh and ridding him of all the planes. Their history was apparent and all too well known to Dreki was the amount of emotion that exuded from the afro bastard so instead he began to weaken the masses just as Icarus was.
The more he killed now the less he had to kill later, just a fact of life, and one he enjoyed very much. The Chimera may have found a way to keep him from teleporting out but his combative tendencies were still fully intact. His focus shifted itself from the oddly named Jesus to the shifting of numbers on the holographic display of the nearby elevator. Blade in hand he made his way with a bloodlusting smile upon the only visible portion of his visage he awaited the obvious ding that would get him closer to what he wanted.
The elevator moved fast, must've been due to the blaring sirens but Dreki didn't much pay them any heed, they weren't for him. The flash of his sword met the doors, the sound travelled faster than the machinery and before the first four soldiers could see the enemy he had already severed them with an inverted V-stroke from left to right. Shots fired from the barrels with no regard for the life of the dumbasses that never stood a chance and as they danced in their trajectories he somehow found a way to remain unscathed. Not bad at all.
Blood eventually spurted in streams that defied gravity momentarily before averting to a bubbling of rhythmic beats and as Dreki stood in their wake and smelled the sanguine scent his finger smashed the button that caused the doors to remain open. The doors shuddered against the command yet their open state completely removed them from a usable state. He instead took the opposite corridor from Icarus.
Time passed and his rage exponentially increased with each blow that he received. As few as the connections were the wretched things had no idea of the blasphemy that they were committing but their forgiveness came in the arcing grace that was his blade. Once enough blood soaked the entirety of the relic there appeqred runes inscribed along the center of either side as beautifully chromatic as their plasmic discoverer. They pulsed as though with a beat of their own and it was going to stay that way for a while, it was all too soon to awaken Uphiminnlogi but the temptation was all too real.
"1C4RU5, where is she?"
The telepathic question reached out to the cybernetically inclined half of the boy-wonder simply because efficiency and speed were needed in this moment in time. With all the sirens and shit going on if she was still in their custody Vex would have been moved by now and time was of the essence.
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Post by Hero on Apr 4, 2016 17:18:08 GMT
The Silver Medical Agency headquarters on Pleaides was far more unique than its structuring and security would allow them to believe. Contrary to popular belief their most private and secluded works were all either founded or usually concluded in the very research facility that the mercenaries had taken upon themselves to demolish, but more importantly the information, materials, sources, and variables that gave the corporation most of their power? Here. That was the very reason Jesus had canceled his recently scheduled vacation to make his way to the abandoned wasteland that was Pleaides. Once a planet where life flourished, the barren world had long since lost any signs of life. And that was just as much Jesus' fault as it was the research they were performing.
"Do you know what you are actually doing?" Jesus interrupted Mario before he could act. "This world, everything we know. If I don't conclude my research? Everyone will die."
Mario became a ghost of unimaginable strength instantaneously, as if triggered by Jesus' ridiculous words, a blade sheathed in its scabbard descended upon Jesus' head and was met firmly by the back of his right hand, sending monstrous cracks of stress through the world around them for several meters. Palpable waves of kinetic force flowed upwards and gave the impression of an upside down waterfall ascending into the sky above. With a powerful glow in Mario's eyes, that one strike became the anchor of which thousands manifested, becoming an onslaught of several powerful attacks.
But for every attack Mario had, Jesus had an answer, and be made every gesture appear effortless. Every spin, pivot, side-step, and deflection, carried the grace and elegance of true experience and mastery, while Mario's attacks resembled true savagery representing his tenacious spirit and willpower alone. If anyone could have guessed they would have noticed Jesus appeared to be in an entirely different league than Mario, and was clearly playing with him.
One final strike came in the form of a thrust, and to Mario's dismay, Jesus would be no-where to be found by the time his muscles pushed his katana forward into a committed thrust.
Instead the shadow of Jesus could be seen and a giant hand descended upon the back of Mario's head, grabbing it tightly before smashing it into the ground beneath him. Then he rose, and with his mighty left hand, brought down a punch so powerful that concussive waves threatened the foundation of the facility neutral first floor. Beams collapses, structuring became faulty, and before Jesus knew it he was standing in an enigmatic labyrinth in the wake of his destruction. Jesus let go of Mario's head and rose, clapping his bloody hands together as if to remove the dirt.
"I'm surprised you're still alive honestly..." Jesus praised Mario, who's hands cut themselves against the rigid ground around him to raise his himself from the ground and to his knees. His black jacket was torn from the force, and his white wife-beater was hardly making it, but his black slacks had survived as bad his boots.
"Look mother fucker..." Mario spit a tooth out, blood spilling in the ground from the corners of Mario's lips. "If you wanna kill someone you gotta punch harder than that...what happened to the strongest man on the battlefield?"
"Oh is that what you want to see?" Jesus grinned, watching Mario ramble on in his insanity, obviously gone mad from Jesus' punishment. "Don't blink...ill see you in hell."
Both of Jesus' hands rose as if stretching them to the sky, the sound of stillness filling the unstable world around them in the short moment between his words and his actions.
Then he clenched his hands shut, and the world around Jesus became nothingness.
"You find everything okay?" A friendly, feminine voice questioned Vex from behind, "your friends, they're a destructive bunch. It must be nice to have friends..."
In the entrance to the storage facility she stood, wearing an average stereotypical white lab coat with grey slacks, a white dress shirt, black tie, and matching black shoes. She wore thick grey glasses and behind the lenses were bright purple eyes that seemed naive as they were excited, and her bust was equally as amazing as her eyes. Her grey hair, wrapped in a short ponytail, have her slender face a younger appearance than she preferred, but business was business.
"I never got to finish my operation on you, what are you doing wandering around?"
Before Vex stood the Dragon of Silver, Samantha Grey, known throughout the underworld as one of the most formidable assassins, previously a mentor of one of the more infamous keep's in the Nibiru Alliance's star systems - yet this wouldn't be the first time she had met Vex nor her friends.
"I'm sorry it had to be this way honestly, I really was starting to like you..." she muttered, the shadow of her appearance large and grotesque beginning to warp in the lights of the hallway. "But if we want to save Veldime, or even ourselves? We need you. Please try to understand."
Those large, naive eyes behind her glasses only grew, as if giving Vex the treatment as her dog.
"If not..." she whispered, a scalpel slipping from the inside of her labcoat sleeve into her fingers, "I'll have to give my condolences to Matsuro-sensei."
As Dreki struck the final blow against his enemies in the midst of his slaughter the corridor eventually led him into a green house filled with thousands of different plants and trees. To say it was an impregnable rainforest was doing it little justice, and it was obvious that some of the life within was genetically altered. Before he could much less step through the entrance, he'd notice a tall bearded man standing yonder, his gloved digits gently stroking the orange scales of an unknown plant that rose at the sign of his touch. Technological vestments in a similar vein of technology related to ICARUS was armament, yet rather than being an android himself be appeared to be very much human. The bald man's black eyes turned coldly to Dreki, then there was a faint smile.
"Did you think there would be no reinforcements?" He started, a small chuckle spacing his statements. "Do you know who I am?"
An ironic question to ask a God, considering neither of them knew the other. Who was more important or impactful? A God, or...
"I am Asaad Cayare, but you may call me Yodfree. I am the Immortal Sword, envoy of the Nibiru Alliance, and famous A-rank agent of Horizon. My duty is to defend this place, so I'm afraid I won't be able to let you press on any further."
Although his name implied he was a swordsman there was no sword to be found, no weapons at all. As the tension between the two grew, the scarlet bearded man nodded.
"No need to say your name. Defeat me and I'll prove you worthy to utter it."
A large earthquake shook the foundation of the facility. Jesus was obviously putting on a show.
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