Command Point 1

[Karl Jak]

Those who teleport down to Command Point 1 will find it being besieged by Unmade forces (just 'mooks' and some heavier monsters that function as heavy weapons -- no giant monsters) due to the momentary failures of the cloaking systems on the island.

You are fighting alongside Fleet Admiral-Commander-King Gilgamesh (who is within 'Gilgamech', a Size 7 golden mech that essentially looks like what you'd expect a giant golden Gilgamesh robot to look like) and the entirety of the forces here. After a while, it is assumed the soldiers will be able to activate and fight in mechanized armor and flying weaponry.

This scene will auto-resolves in about 24 hours as a victory for the defenders. At which point, this will function identically to the other Command Point,.

 

[Karl Jak]

Krampus has joined the battle!

 

[Christopher Chaos]

Alarms blared throughout the compound, waking any poor louse whose slumber had yet to melt away.

Victor had been awake for hours. He found no solace, no respite in the bare-bones barracks the producers of this event had shuffled him into after his registration, but he’d yet to crack the code of casual social interactions. When faced with the choice between staying in or engaging in what would, undoubtedly, be frivolous ice-breaking with the other contestants, he’d chosen to spend the majority of the time between entering the ‘pre-show facility’ and now enjoying the solitude even if there wasn’t much else in his chambers to enjoy.

So when he’d been teleported into the compound, he’d been wide awake — and even if he hadn’t, finding himself with a chain wrapped around his wrist and being dragged forcefully through a very large hangar bay would’ve served as a brutal alarm clock.

He smashed into the floor as the beast he was chained to stampeded through the hangar, bucking and rebelling against any attempts to control it by the purple-shirted Syntech workers scrambling about. A few charged with electricity-tipped spears, trying their best to force the monster into submission and succeeding only at getting it to, momentarily, stop charging. It stared down at the various humans and aliens synced up in a semi-circle around it, licking its lips and preparing for its next meal.

The split-second of stillness was all Fries needed, though, to get back on his feet. He took the chain in his hands and yanked, as forcefully as he could. The beast wasn’t… bothered, per se, being many tons more massive than Victor could ever dream of being, even with the most generous growth spurt. It turned its attention, then, to the cryogenically-enhanced doctor, growling and snarling as he, once again, attempted to yank it.

“Heel, beast,” he panted, already exhausted after just two pulls. The towering beast looked at him with interest, the bloodlust it had aimed at the Syntech employees fading ever so slightly. Fries took a step back, still holding tightly to the chain, and looked up at it, his glowing red goggles fixated on the monster’s own glowing, terrible, dead eyes.

Behind the beast, one of the Syntech employees stepped forward, stabbing at it again with one of the electric spears.

“No, you idiot, stop — ” Fries tried to shout, but the employee’s aim proved true, piercing and shocking the mighty monster on the back of its right thigh. It jumped at the touch of the thing, not injured necessarily but supremely annoyed, and swiped a huge claw at the employee, slicing into his chest and knocking him twenty feet back into a dormant mech. The others watched their comrade soar back, crashing, dead, into the heap of metal, and understandably increased their distance, allowing Fries the opportunity to step in again.

“Beast,” he muttered, “heel.”

The monster turned, swiping toward Fries, who barely dodged beneath his striking claw. It growled something at him, almost as if it was trying to speak to him.

Victor cursed under his breath — he’d known the parameters of this game when he signed up, but he supposed they’d find something like the mech for him to pilot, not a fucking demonic-looking monster he’d have to somehow convince to behave.

A claw raised again, and that was when he saw it. As its cloak was lifted, Victor spotted something glowing golden stuck into the creature’s belt. Leaping closer to try and snag it felt like a suicidal move, but at this point, it was either that or become the monster’s next victim. He dashed forward, collecting the chain as he inched closer to the beast, sliding beneath another claw swipe and leaping up onto its leg. He gained as much purchase as he could grasping bits of the creature’s dark brown fur in his gloves, clambering up its leg until he could get a hand on the bottom of the glowing scroll tucked in its belt.

He pulled, sliding it out of the monster’s belt and kicking off, falling — with document in hand — to the ground and slamming into the floor. He rolled as best he could out of the fall, shaking the document until it unrolled.

It spilled before him, seemingly endless and glowing gold, names etched in deep black ink across it. Next to each of the names was a brief couple of words, so few that Fries couldn’t possibly decipher what they were supposed to mean: ‘Joey Brown, bullied his sister’; ‘Kasey Fleckman, stole another girl’s doll’; ‘Leo Woods, vehicular manslaughter’. His eyes drifted past the mess of names and crimes and down to the bottom, where there was a title — ‘Signatory’ — and a mostly blank line. He could see etchings of red ink where a name had been, an ‘s’ and a ‘n’ and a ‘chol’, very faded, but it looked, for all intents, like the line was blank.

And then there was the quill.

He didn’t think, just grabbed the red quill that had been tucked in the scroll and started writing. V-I-C-T-O-R-space-F-R-I-E-S.

The list glowed gold, increased in intensity until the light almost blinded Victor and the other Syntech employees in the hangar. Then, just like that — it disappeared. It shriveled in a great golden blast, and Victor shielded his eyes with his arm, scrambling back.

He stopped as he felt the creature’s nose against his back. It was wet and cold, and when the doctor finally managed to stand up and turn around, he could see that it sat at the end of a gigantic, goat-like head. The head sat before him, the creature kneeling and bowing to him. It had heeled.

My will bends to the will of the Signatory, a voice boomed in Fries’ head, gravelly and growling, clearly that of the monster in front of him.

Fries lifted his head triumphantly, a smirk growing on his face. “And that’s me?”

The creature lifted its head. Yes, it said, you are the master, and the Krampus is your tool.

Fries’ grip on the chain tightened as it began to surge with a ferocious, demonic energy. He felt the Krampus’ life force flowing into him, urging him forward. He leapt up, grasping onto one of the monster’s horns and swinging onto its neck. He placed one leg on one side of the beast’s jaw and one leg on the other, grabbing another horn for support.

“Then let’s see what you’re made of, beast,” he snarled, and the Krampus let out a huge, ferocious roar of approval. The pair turned, Syntech employees scattering at their feet, and surged forward. The Krampus’ goat feet trampled the few small mechs between it and the front of the hangar, leaving a mess in its wake as it gathered its strength, bent at the knees, and leapt forward, soaring with some speed into the daylight of the island.

The sun glimmered off the many metallic creatures scattered about the island, principally the impossibly-large golden mech at the head of the battle. Fries spied their god-king commander just as he and Krampus touched down several hundred yards away.

Syntech soldiers screamed as tentacles crawled out of every crack and crevice in the island’s surface. Fries spotted the source a mere hundred feet away, set up in the nearby town-square: a huge, kraken-shaped blob of shadow that had punctured the ground with its limbs, sending them burrowing toward target after target. “Let’s kill the head,” he commanded his Bond, “and take back this block.”

As you wish, Krampus obliged, snapping its long chain forward and wrapping it around the shadow kraken’s head. The wintery monster pulled, hard, tightening the chain until the opposing unmade beast’s head burst and its tentacles relaxed, releasing nearby soldiers.

“Good,” Victor nodded, holding tightly to Krampus’ horns. A small section of the beast’s demonic chain wrapped around its neck and Fries’ waist, further securing him, as they prepared to continue their rampage.

“Let’s put more of these bastards on ice, Krampus.”

As you wish.

 

[Karl Jak]

A Very Large Penguin has joined the Scene

 

[Karl Jak]

Sam has arrived

 

[Amalia Eckern]

Amalia had little time to acquaint herself with the pre-show facility. Getting to the registration booth on Opealon had taken her nearly a week of hitching rides with trade ships, pirates, and wayward sailors. While she had scrounged up enough coin to pay her way for the first few trips she had grossly underestimated just how damned expensive traveling was. Halfway through she was forced to resort to working for her passage. A lifetime spent on the wharfs gave her just enough knowledge to be useful to undercrewed vessels. Her powers picked up whatever slack needed to be picked up. Regardless, by the time she arrived, she was utterly exhausted. So, between bone-soaked exhaustion and her anxious tendencies, she sequestered herself in her bunk and fell asleep.

For about an hour.

Then the mustering call sounded and snapped her back to the land of waking. Her heart raced. Her throat tightened. Reflexively she called for Erin, but Erin’s presence had faded since the collar was locked around her neck. She looked at the exit to her room and found the door wide-opened with several Syntech employees waiting patiently for her while the siren sounded overhead. They made no sudden movements and merely informed her that it was time to deploy. After a moment of self-soothing deep breaths she followed them to the hangar.

Her bond would be waiting for her there. Given Syntech’s technology level she had expected some sort of sleek and well-designed mech. Something made from smooth angles and able to glide through the water like a dolphin. She imagined those specialized vessels that the City of Hope used. The kind of sophisticated crafts that made the ramshackled creations of Opealon’s surface-dwellers look like piles of buoyant trash. She had expected something strange and unfamiliar, gleaming with its state-of-the-art tech. Instead she was given something far more familiar.

The Gashadokuro.

Her bond was a colossal skeleton, held together by sinuous cords of flesh. It sat hugging its knees and completely motionless. Completely motionless save for the slow lub-dub of its fluorescent orange heart. Each contraction sent a thundering boom through the hangar and its tempo only increased as Amalia approached. This was the Gashadokuro’s true form, not the mere slab of bone she was normally only able to conjure. This was the spirit that resided within her leg bone and it was made manifest. She had felt its presence many times, but standing before the leviathan carried an entirely different weight.

“Uhm… hello?” Amalia called up to it. Her voice felt and indeed sounded very small amongst the chaos of the hangar.

It stirred. It was far too large to stand completely within the hangar, even sitting down its head nearly reaching the ceiling. Still, it stirred and shifted, scraping its bones against the cold steel of the hangar until its face was level with Amalia. She inhaled slowly. She had encountered countless spirits and had learned to keep her cool when faced with one, though she had never faced one quite so large.

“Young Amalia…,” It spoke in a voice that carried low and heavy like a distant thunderstorm, “We finally meet… face-to-face.”

“Oh! You… uh… know my name,” She said, “Nice to meet you…uh…?”

“Ken’ichi…” It rumbled, “Call me Ken’ichi, and our meeting is fortuitous… and, I’m sure you have many questions… but, our benefactors expect us to perform… so let us perform. Then we can break bread.”

The alarm had become more insistent. Amalia nodded and watched as Ken’inchi shifted once again, this time placing its open palm in front of her. She stared at it. Normally she had rules against going for rides with strange spirits, especially ones large enough to splat her like a fruit fly. But, she figured that Syntech wouldn’t have paired her with a bond that would kill her. What would the point have been in that? So, she stepped onto the giant’s hand.

“So, how does this whole thing work?” She asked.

“Become my heart… as I have so long been a part of you…”

The giant lifted its hand up suddenly, throwing her to the ground. Syntech wouldn’t have paired her with a bond that would kill her, right? During her ascent she noticed a pale blue man holding a chain attached to some thing hidden beneath a cloak. She also noticed that he was desperately trying to dodge its haymakers while trying to wrangle it. Syntech wouldn’t have paired her with something that would kill her, right? Fucking right? The giant’s hand pitched back and she hadn’t realized just how high he had lifted her until she was sent into a free fall. She screamed. She realized, as she fell, that Syntech hosted an annual bloodsport for the gratification of psychopaths, they would totally pair her with something that would kill her.

She splatted. Well, not like hitting the bulkhead splat. Rather she hit something that splatted. It was warm and sticky and glowed like a bright orange lava lamp. It expanded outward, holding her on its surface like yolk on egg white. For a moment she could see the entire hangar. And the next moment it contracted. She was sucked in and sent tumbling through a soup of orange gelatin. She tried to cry out, but her lungs filled with that gel-like substance. It was body temperature and had the consistency of pudding. And, curiously, she found she could breathe. She inhaled slowly and became aware of The Gashadokuro. It’s presence enveloped her and it felt like throwing on a new coat from the thrift store.

“Okay, so you meant, like, literally with the whole heart thing,” She said.

“What else… could I have meant?”

Right.

--

Amalia arrived to a scene not unlike what she had witnessed when Nausicaa was attacked. Unmade marched across open fields, circled overhead like vultures, and wormed their way through cracks in the ground. It was all frighteningly familiar. However, there was one striking difference between Nausicaa and what she now experienced. At Nausicaa she was nothing more than a frightened woman trying desperately to stay alive. While she was still a frightened woman, she was also piloting a gargantuan skeleton monster. So, that was pretty rad.

“Alright, Ken’ichi,” She said, “Let’s uhm… well, let’s do whatever it is that we can do???”

The Gashadokuro did not respond. It stood hunched over the battlefield like a dilapidated scarecrow.

“Uhm… you there?” She kicked her metaphorical spurs, “Opealon to Ken’ichi, you ready to go?”

The Gashadokuro did not respond. At least not in words. Instead it leaned back and opened its throatless mouth and screeched. It was the sound of a thousand swords scraping across one another. It was the roar of the ocean. It was bloodless and it was frightening. The beast lurched into action. Amalia would not have said she controlled the beast, instead it was more like she was aiming it. Pointing the force of nature in a direction and letting it take its course. The skeleton carried no weapons and instead tore into the unmade forces with its bare claws. Ripping and shredding them apart like a bag of black licorice thrown beneath a lawnmower. Black blood painted the skeleton’s off-white bones and it showed no signs of slowing down.

“Okay, okay, holy fuck,” Amalia said, holding her hands out in vain to calm the rampaging creature, “Good job, good job, but, let’s not get too…”

As she attempted to coax her bond into some level of restraint it reached into the air and plucked out one of the flying unmade creatures. Its plump and soft body wriggled against the skeleton’s grasp. Amalia was reminded of the time she had to carry bags of eels for a fishmonger back on the wharfs. Except the eels didn’t scream. And she didn’t bite their heads off, which her bond seemed gearing up to do. It chomped down on the exposed creature, bursting it open like a pimple. Chunky black blood rained down its empty throat, splattering its glowing heart. She flinched as the greasy remains spattered her cocoon. It was only then that her bond relaxed. Its body slumped as a plume of steam radiated from its slowly beating heart. She could practically hear Ken’ichi sigh of relief. Like an athlete dipping into an ice bath after a grueling session. The Gashadokuro’s malice had been sated.

For now.

 

[Ridley]

When Ridley first appeared from the hangar, off the teleporter, it was in the middle of a firefight. A golden mech, a demon from darkest nightmare, and a skeletal giant… not to mention a betentacled bird with a power that even made Ridley’s hackles raise in disgust.

The sheer scale of the combatants here was massive, towering over even the pirate lord’s massive form. Amidst them were swarms of the unmade - larger creatures, some of which as large as Ridley himself, or even larger, attacked like the endless wave of ants they were. The abominations and mecha stood fast, and their all-too-frail defenders behind were proving capable of holding, to an extent. And yet, the unmade kept coming, and the beachhead was not pushing. A war of attrition favored the unmaking - Ridley knew this all too well.

The purple giant strode forward, not flying, simply stepping, as the titan surveyed the scene.

“unleash me…”

“You will feed. I will see.” Ridley growled, looking towards the battle. What was vital, what was essential to move this line forward…

A monstrous combination caught his eye. Small ship-wrecks, piloted by the reanimated ranks of dead sea life. Titans, though not as large as the true titans here, and Possessed of all the weapons of a galleon, rows of cannons attached directly into their arms and firing on any position the Defenders attempted to create. Standing tall around them was an armor guard of dozens of crustaceans, each easily ten feet tall, and able to shrug off the guns of the Syntech resistance easily enough. The two factors were cutting into the defenders ability to organize, lest their formed ranks be ripped asunder by a hail of cannonfire, and the Arthropods prevented these lesser men from being able to Cut into them.

Ridley strode forward, slowly, as he approached. Black energy wisped around him, and the space dragon’s wings furled outwards, as he Stood up to his full height and let out a long, primal roar.

The wind swept up with a howl and thunder crackled in the distance, as Ridley’s body was covered, his purple glow mixing with a cloak of ebony energy, growing ever larger as the Pirate general Ridley *disappeared* amidst it.

The raw power of the void flowed in a round, shredding mass, as tumultuous as the disturbed waters below, jagged waves of energy pulsing around it.

Eventually, limbs formed - roughly, Hurriedly, like a man pushing his hand into a glove. Clawed arms blasted out as the torso thinner. No legs, but something akin to a cloak, as Flesh rippled…

Amidst the giant mass of energy, a mass of flesh swelled, bulbously forming and congealing, emulsifying into cancerous flesh, before ripping apart and starting anew again, and again. Eventually, a squid-like mass of bulbous flesh was formed - one sporting a sinewy pair of tentacles.

The creature laid still for a moment, the massive entity standing amidst the carnage unmoving.

Then, one by one, the eyes opened. First, the ones on the eldritch horror’s hands, and then the large, bloodshot eye on it’s head.

It spoke to the unmade in front of it, but not in words or pictures. It gave evocations, musings, feelings.

It gave hunger, that they could feel it’s ache as Phantoon felt it himself, and then with a sweep of his massive, astral claws, he gave death

 

[Eszter]

“Preparing bond for deployment!”

“Essence readings stable!”

Eszter followed Dr Orchid along a precarious gangway as scientists milled about above and below them, arms crossed over her chest and a pout on her lips. She hardly even seemed to care that one slip could send her spiralling into the depths of Dante’s Comet, the floor of the research facility out of sight from her vantage point. She had calmed down since her meeting with Smaug, glumly acknowledging that any true dragon would probably react the same way. She simply didn’t command the respect that they did with her little frame and nothing short of an extreme display of strength would change that.

“I heard you used my credentials to get in and meet Shallan’s bond.” The doctor said, adjusting his glasses as the pair approached a massive platform, onto which Karakul had been moved and bound. “I mean, I don’t mind you seeing him, but you should really ask-”

Before he could finish, Eszter, clearly not listening to him, pushed past and rushed to the prone form of Karakul. The dragon raged against her chains, only calming down slightly as her reincarnation placed a gentle hand on her snout.

“It’s ok, it’s ok.” The demi-dragon whispered as she gently stroked her scales, equally reassuring Karakul and herself. “You’ll be out in the open soon. Then we’ll be free to destroy as much as you want.”

Exasperated, Orchid turned his head up to a collection of scientists huddled on a platform overhead, each one attending to a console or scientific instrument of some description.

“How is she looking?”

“Life signs nominal!” one of the scientists called back. “Should be ready any moment now.”

Nodding, the head scientist speed-walked over to Eszter, rummaging through his lab coat. She barely noticed him at first, only glancing his way as he awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Erm… here, I want you to have this. I think it’ll prove useful in the competition.” he said, producing an orange-red shiv of crystal from the depths of his coat and handing it to her. The dragonkin accepted it skeptically, tentatively feeing it’s weight and heat in her hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s a shard of draconic magic. Crush it in your hand and you can use a bit more of Yucatan’s power.” Orchid explained. “Just make sure you channel it through Karakul. If you use it yourself you might, uh… you might explode.”

“Explode?” Eszter gawked incredulously.

“Yeah. So just, y’know, don’t do that.”

With that, the head scientist turned and scurried away, disappearing down the gangway and through a set of sliding doors.

“Bond-pilot integration system functional!” A scientist called from above.

“Preparing for synchronisation!”

“Releasing restraints!”

With that last call, the chains holding Karakul suddenly retracted, setting her free within an instant. Suddenly unrestricted, the great dragon let out a furious, earth-shaking roar and opened her wings wide, flapping them with enough force to threaten to send the scientists tumbling from their observation platform and into the abyss below. Eszter, for her part, simply stared up at her former self in adoration and awe.

“Ok! Get in!”

“Huh?” the dragonkin spluttered, turning to the scientist who had called out to her. “Did you just say in?”

As if on queue, the jaw-like contraption sealing Karakul’s chest wound snapped open above Eszter and magmatic tendrils shot out, binding around her like constricting serpents. She didn’t even have a moment to react before she was yanked upwards, into the reforged dragon’s belly, with the seal slamming shut behind her.

~~~~~~~~~

Soaring above the battlefield, a maelstrom of sensations and emotions assailed the reincarnations of Yucatan. Eszter saw her fellow colossi massacring verminous unmade just as she saw the red-hot cocoon she was wrapped securely within. She heard the screams of dying monstrosities just as she heard the steady thumping of Karakul’s heart like a massive war drum. She felt the thermals beneath her wings and the sun on her scales just as she felt the claustrophobic binding of igneous tendrils that melded with her flesh and nervous system.

And, most of all, she felt cold, bitter hatred simmering just below the surface which only built as she scanned the melee beneath her. The dragon hated what Syntech had done to her, she hated that anyone other than her had been assigned a position of leadership.

Then, abruptly, a cannon shot glanced harmlessly off of her scales and sailed into the distance. Glancing down, Eszter quickly located the perpetrator: a bulky unmade creature that sat somewhere between crustacean and reptile, a large, smoking cannon emerging from the mass of its shell. Without an instant of hesitation, Karakul adjusted her flight path and tucked her wings.

That son of a bitch was fucking dead.

The dragon descended like a meteor towards the unmade ranks, pulling out of her dive and spreading her wings just before she smashed into the ground. She allowed herself to glide forward for a moment before touching down, quickly transitioning into a crushing charge.

Though she wasn’t exceptionally quick for her size, Karakul’s sheer strength more than allowed her to plot through the unmade chaff that stood haplessly between her and her prey. Shredding a crowd of aberrations with her claws and crushing another with a swipe of her tail, the dragon opened her maw and unleashed a wordless scream of primal rage, Eszter’s voice audibly overlaid with Karakul’s.

The cannon-beast, to its credit, did not flee. Rather, it stood its ground as the monstrous dragon rampaged towards it, not flinching right up until she raised a massive claw and batted it aside like a cat with its toy. The creature was sent bouncing across the battlefield, half-alive as it careened through its allies, crushing the weaker monsters in its path. When it finally came to a stop, rolling onto its back, Eszter and Karakul were already in pursuit.

“Get up!” the pair howled, looming over the cannon beast. Whether it was following the order or simply following its instinctive drive to destroy for Darkseid, the creature hefted itself back and forth, building momentum before finally flipping itself upright. For an instant, it began to aim its cannon, but before it could even line up a shot another swipe sent it back from where it came, bowling through another crowd of unmade.

“GET UP!” the draconic duo roared as they charged across the battlefield. This time, the unmade artillery did not try to right itself, visibly damaged to the point of immobility. It was, however, still alive, feebly trying and failing to move itself into a position where it could aim its cannon at Syntech’s soldiers. With a frustrated hiss, Karakul opened her jaws wide before slamming her head down, snapping the creature up before taking off, soaring above the battlefield with the unmade creature in her mouth.

Parting her jaws just enough for the cannon beast to be visible without giving it a large enough gap to escape, Karakul inhaled deeply, the draconic magic building in her breast. Eszter doubted that the creature was lucid enough to understand what was about to happen, but she sincerely hoped that the growing heat against its shell triggered some deep, primal acknowledgment of its imminent end.

With a deafening roar, a furious jet of starfire exploded from Karakul’s maw. Pressed against the dragon’s jaws by the force of the stream but simply unable to pass through the gap in her teeth, it was forced to endure the brunt of the breath weapon until there was simply nothing left. Red-hot ash gently rained down over the battlefield as Karakul continued to spew celestial flame into the air.

“Flee, vermin!” the duo howled. “The desolation has begun!”

 

[Karl Jak]

(Obviously, all these people who already posted being here are in the scene!, because they're smart enough to know when a man in purple is asleep! <3)

 

[Karl Jak]

Updates:

Command Point 1 has been properly defended, with the unmade thrown into the seas and the systems securing (and cloaking) the base restored.

Someone who wrote here is free to post a 'resolving' post, or you all can simply move forward with operations. Assume the Command Point will look and feel mostly identical to Command Point 2 within another half day of repairs and troubleshooting.

Everyone who posted here receives +1 Operational Points

 

[Shallan Davar]

“What’s the hold up? They should’ve been in the air hours ago!”

“They haven’t achieved appropriate mental diffusion yet sir! If we open the bond the full way then the odds of a successful equilibrium are-”

“Do you SEE what’s out there right now? I’ll authorize an extra forty CCs of the control fluid, just get those two active before somebody starts asking questions!”

Shallan had fallen asleep? When?

The last she recalled she had been speaking with Smaug. What had she been saying?

Shallan had wanted to speak in Eszter’s defense. Veil found this to be a useless gesture, perhaps even a stupid one if it brought Smaug’s ire onto their own heads. Who had the right to tell a dragon how to deal with its own kind? It was better to focus their efforts on their own trials. Radiant was incised. A knight radiant was exactly who would be willing to right the injustices of the world. Wasn’t that what she had sworn to do? Veil didn’t buy it. The oaths they had sworn, the truths they had spoken, none of them applied to this situation. Shallan just wanted the excuse to jeopardize her own situation on a whim for a dragon girl that had caught her attention. Eszter wasn’t important.

Indeed she was not.

Shallan’s mind roiled as the filter of a new presence was removed. Smaug the great was there, inside her mind. It was time to move, to fly with fury borne of insult. There was death to be dealt and harrowing to be sewn upon the unmade that dared to destroy what did not belong to them, and the Syntech fools who dared to deceive! All would feel the fires of calamity for their arrogance!

She trembled in fear as senses returned, in a way that she had never before experienced. She could taste the air, could smell the emotions of awe and fear that swirled from the onlookers. She could hear the footfalls, hear the heartbeats of the Syntech scientists as they scrambled away in fear. They could eat one, casually. A twist of the neck and a snap of the jaws. The pitiful beings deserved no less for daring to contain them while they affixed the girl to their back!

Life before Death.

That oath was one she had sworn. Someone had to take control from Smaug. They laughed, beginning to unfurl their wings. Smaug was not one of her pitiful pieces. She could not hope to wrest control from him! Shallan was hiding already, overwhelmed by the sensory information and the sheer ferocity of the newest member of their inner congress. Veil suggested they bide their time, let Smaug enjoy himself for a spell, then step in before it got dangerously out of hand. Shallan didn’t even respond, which Veil took as agreement. Radiant objected, but too slowly. Their neck twisted around as they rose, jaws snatching up one of the fleeing attendants without effort. The taste reviled them. What was this? They knew this taste, and though it was not dwarf, it should not have revolted them so strongly! With a snarl, they released the horrible morsel, simply flinging the man against a nearby wall. Bleeding, but alive.

Doors opened above them, and the call of the sky overpowered their confusion. Powerful wingbeats buffeted the chamber, as They slowly lifted into the air. She should probably have used this respite to marshal some measure of a strategy for how to direct Smaug effectively. She knew she would have to if she wanted to keep him from wanton destruction. But Shallan was utterly distracted by the novelty of their flight. It wasn’t like lashing, where you were just falling in the wrong direction, this was flying, truly flying with the power and control of a chicken. A utterly massive, incredibly heavy chicken.

Part of her whispered that she could just stay quiet. She hadn’t been properly prepared in the least for this ordeal. She’d been mentally attached to a great and terrible all-mighty being of terror and majesty. And they expected her to control it? She could stay like this, just watch as the events unfolded. It would be a great learning experience to see what someone this powerful could do when their fury was fully unleashed, wouldn’t it?

Strength before weakness.

Radiant stopped herself from closing her eyes. She’d been tasked with directing them in this conflict. In steering this beast’s great fury. That was her charge and that was her burden. She had a responsibility to take action in the conflict. Radiant refocused her attention, she had been lulled towards inaction. Towards letting Smaug have his way on the battlefield unfettered. They were circling in the air, turning to rain fire down upon those who cowered below.

But the enemy was not there.

Radiant could see that the fight was won already. The beings below them were Syntech’s pawns, yes, but they had a purpose here. They raged, demanding to burn all they beheld! Pathetic beings had dared to lay hands upon them! But they had to stop. They would stop! Radiant refused to give ground before Smaug’s wrath, but she could tell she was losing the fight. He demanded destruction! She dared to deny him? She could not think her power was able to meet with his own! No… Smaug would have his revenge. There would be fire!

With a roar and a tempest of wings, the fire drake twisted about in the air, and struck out. They soared away from the command post on the ocean's currents, heedless of any calls to formation or orders to wait. They were in agreement now. It was time that something felt their power!

 

[King Ghidorah]

Ponderously, Rory opened his eyes. The Syntech sub-basement was dark and quiet. His legs felt weird – not painful, but somehow… diffuse. Over-articulated. Abundant and slithery. Confusing, in a word, but less so with every passing second as he remembered standing in the middle of the circle of scorched and corroded imperial accessories, drinking a grape-flavored concoction that gave off sheets of pearlescent green light and reading an orientation pamphlet while Dave muttered in a language the penguin didn’t know.

A quiet droning filled his aural canals, a continuous windy hiss of voices layered on voices that he could almost, but not quite understand. He couldn’t tell whether they were excited or extremely upset with him. Everything positively reeked of brine, and after another moment, he realized it was coming from him.

Rory had tentacles now, his lower body vanishing into a mass of powerful tapered trunks as long as he was tall. His plumage and bill were bleached white, covered bare patches crusted with barnacles and bony sores. His eyes were bloodshot and flaming red, and his flippers were festooned with tumorous pustules. Normally, he would have been upset about the ruination of his glorious bod, but there was something like a fire inside him, a light, sheets of light coruscating across his soul, throughout his body, sending lines of cold fire out along his tentacles to gather in prismatic nodules at the tapered tips of the four largest of his many new limbs.

It was like being on all the very best drugs – the ones that gave you superpowers and fucked with time, or made you glib as hell for two hours and then unable to lie for the following six, and also unable to tell the difference. Rory could deal with being ugly, because he was pretty sure he’d never felt this good before in his entire life.

There was a little toy platform made of corrugated metal, intricate in its construction, floating directly in front of his gnarled and barnacle-crusted bill, with a dainty little toy model of a D00d in a purple robe on it, standing int the middle of faint cone of light from a single overhead lamp.

The little man lifted a bullhorn, and the hideously mutated penguin’s sense of scale snapped into perspective: that toy was a full-grown d00d, and Rory was the size of a thirty-story building.

“Okay,” Dave said, his voice echoing from the bullhorn, comically small, but surprisingly clear.

“That took longer than we expected, and we lost most of the Regalia doing it, but you should be good to go. Just a couple of things: stay out of really deep water – the narrative foundations of this invocation are in tatters, and the abyssopelagic depths have a strong resonance with this kind of entity, so if you fully submerge for too long the Last Emperor is going to overwhelm your neural engrams. If that happens, you’ll either dissolve into protoplasmic slime or ascend to a higher plane of existence. Possibly both. Second, a few of your biggest tentacles should feel… well, I guess tingly? The ones with the glowing prisms at the ends. Point them at stuff you want gone and clench.”

Rory blinked. There was something miniscule clutched against the very tip of one his flippers, like he was holding onto a metal splinter. He looked down. He squinted. He held his flipper up to his face, nearly smacking the platform and causing Dave to stumble backwards in a moment of panic. A wet flopping slither echoed in the underground canyon as the penguin abomination’s weight shifted, one subway-tunnel-thick, corpse-pale tentacle passing over another.

He could barely see it, but it was there: Rory was holding the Scepter.

DOOD

he said.

There was a whine of feedback as Dave re-engaged his bullhorn and scrambled back to his feet..

“Oh! Yes. The scepter survived the ritual. If this invocation had been fully optimized – if you’d done the quest and all the rest of it like the prophecy says, it would have grown with you and you’d be able to use it to devour the souls of entire populations. As is, you’ve probably got one good shot at ripping chunks off something’s essence before that thing crumbles into dust. So uh, make it count.”

Rory blinked again.

COOL BEANS

“Yes,” muttered Dave, clipping the bullhorn to the sash of his robe. He didn’t believe he was nearly as good at this as he’d managed to convince his employers he was, and he was both amazed and terrified that this stripped-down and hijacked prophecy had actually worked the way he thought it would. Now that it was done, he just wanted Rory out of his sight before the mutated bird did something unexpected.

“Right. Okay. Job done. Invoking the winds of Yggdrasil in five…. Four… three…

-----------------------------

The battle was over. A beach stretched out before Rory, suburbs, fields, and military facilities behind, and everywhere he looked he saw the blasted and ruined bodies of the unmade.

A shambling horror, thirty feet high, emerged from the sea – a straggler, like himself. In response, a tentacle emerged from the writhing mass below the Last Emperor’s waist, a prism the size of a two-bedroom house glittering at its tip. The limb kinked, pointing imperiously, and a shimmering green ray speared forth, slicing the comparatively miniscule creature neatly in half.

Breeeeeeeeen

Thud

No other foes presented themselves.

AW MANG. I WANTED TO SMASH SOME DOODS.

The mutated penguin looked around, and then out to sea. He wasn’t supposed to submerge himself, and figuring out how to swim with this body could take ages – but this was an island, and that likely meant the ocean was shallow here. He could probably wade. Or, like, catch a ride on an aircraft carrier.

There ought to be one around: According to the orientation pamphlet, he’d been back-door drafted into an island-hopping war.

 

[Nico Cinder]

It was dark, but soft.

Nico hung freely suspended somewhere deep within Sam's chest cavity, a cocoon of pitch-squish, and metal. He had room to move his arms, or perhaps Sam made room for him, adjusting to his host's squirming. Nico didn't really remember falling asleep in here, but it doesn't take long for him to decide that this is on brand. Explosions and other frightening noises in the distance, but they were warped. Far away from this place of black and night. Nico couldn't see a thing, but as soon as the thought occurred to him, there was a slither sound. A pulsating fleshorb descended from the 'ceiling', as Sam filled his chest with a soft white glow.

"Nico Cinder..."

"Hi, Sam."

"Some sunny day..."

"It sure is, buddy," the host couldn't hold back his smirk, staring at the little white meat sun hanging from a thread of flesh. "Good to see you again, you little demon."

Nico could feel his mouth move as he went to speak, but their voices seemed to be coming from somewhere else. The walls were mostly made of Sam, but apparently Nico's chamber was close to a HUD for the exoskeleton the symbiote inhabited. He could see a few plates of metal with various bars and meters, light up displays and dials. Numbers. Lotta numbers. Numbers made his head hurt.

"Get yourself captured, didja?"

Sam growled, "Yiss..." Apparently he didn't have much more to add to that.

"Ah, that's okay, man, happens to the best of us. I'm sure you'll find a way out again before you know it." Silence, for a bit. Save for the sounds of battle, somewhere that wasn't here. "Hey, I got that bug back for us. Put a bullet in Saren for ya. Toasted him."

There was a skittering sort of purr from the walls. "Fuck. We weren't there...Mmm oh well. Bugthings weren't tasty, anyways."

"It was pretty fun though, you woulda loved it," Nico lamented. "No hard feelings about leaving me dead on the floor, by the way. I probably would've done the same thing, if it were my only shot at freedom. Or survival, or whatever."

Sam purred again, but did not have much to say in response. Nico couldn't imagine this thing apologizing or feeling some semblance of guilt for its actions, like ever, and he didn't really expect it from his goopy pal. But he did feel that there was some affection in the symbiote's undulations and vibrations - perhaps it felt some kind of gratitude, for the attempt at understanding. Or maybe Nico was just projecting. Maybe Sam was just hungry. Around this time, Nico noticed that it had gotten very quiet outside.

"Maybe the food tastes better this year?" The punk offered.

"We always hunger."

From his place of suspension, Nico could feel the entire bulk of Sam's new frame come to life and move, shift, with sordid, clawing purpose.

"You can run on, for a long time,
run on, for a long time," Nico sang, low and slow.

"Sooner or later
we're gonna cut you down
Sooner or later,
we're gonna cut you down," came the response, a howl from the walls.

 

[Christopher Chaos]

They’d been iced out.

The two dragons had swept the fort on the island, Victor and Nico — and their respective scary monsters — left to sweep up the scraps. They’d done their level best to make sure the forests of North Point were freed of the unmade, then they’d been unceremoniously sent packing back to the start.

“You’re to report back to Command Point 1,” a bite-size major had said, looking up at the symbiote and the Krampus.

“The fuck?” Nico’s head popped out of Sam’s chest, scowling.

“I believe what my compatriot is trying to say,” Fries droned, attempting to curb his partner’s less civilized instincts, “is that we assumed we’d be sent to the front lines with the dragons. Our beasts are just as capable.”

“Capable, maybe,” the major nodded, hands on his hips, “but we’ve gotta be honest, Doc. They’re kinda… fuckin’ freakin’ out the troops.”

A quick scan of a detachment of nearby privates confirmed this; the young men and women and non-binary folk of Syntech’s armies cowered in the presence of the Krampus and the symbiote monster. Nico had protested a bit more at being pushed back to the original command point to wait for future orders, but Victor had done his best to curb the young man’s frustration. These types of setbacks were to be expected, of course. Not everyone was meant for a front-facing role, he’d explain to the boy. Sometimes being back at the base was just as useful as cutting a bloody path through the enemy forces.

…which was bullshit, of course, especially in a game like this — and Victor knew it. He wondered, idly, if their abrupt, disrespectful dismissal was, in fact, a challenge presented by the game’s master. He admired how Karl Jak toyed with fate so flippantly; running a game in the midst of an actual horror show, a veritable war-zone, took some serious snow balls.

That, of course, meant that Fries had to tune his senses to look at this game as just that: a game. 'Real lives' might be on the line, but at the end of the day, the cryogenically-frozen doctor cared only about one life: his wife’s. If he was going to win this prize money and properly fund his research to save Nora, then… well, he had to actually win. While some might view the most compelling path to that goal as parading their way through hordes of unmade and killing as many as possible, Victor knew that there was more to this. More to Karl’s game than just a raw kill count.

“This is fucking bullshit,” Nico growled as they crossed the border back into Command Point 1.

Victor smirked, nodding. “That it is, my boy.”

“Ah, fuck off, dude,” the boy in the symbiote sighed, “you caved so quick.”

Fries tugged on the chain, and the Krampus held out Naughty, blocking Sam’s path forward. The symbiote reacted, leaping off to the side and crouching in a battle position, looking at the other monster with sharp teeth gleaming angrily behind his alien, goopy lips. Its long, blood-red tongue unfurled, ready to snatch the Krampus and Fries from the spot if necessary. Victor held up a hand.

“They’ve sent us back here, Nico,” he smiled. “They’ve written us off.”

Peeking out from Sam’s chest, Nico’s eyebrow twitched a little bit. He was starting to float down to Fries’ level. “They wanted to cut us off,” he nodded, “before we could even make our masterpiece.”

“Wanted to ice us out,” Victor lifted his own brow.

“Let us have two pretty good outings, in the first battle here and then on the island,” Nico continued, “then got all up in our business when we tried to show ‘em something really fuckin’ cool.”

Fries smiled.

“Exactly, my boy,” Victor smiled. “But now it’s time… for the deep freeze.”