Face to Fate
John Connor, Deadpool, Demetri, Anders, Lilith, Rogue
The survivors were gathered in the lobby of the safehouse.
“The last one,” John Connor muttered as he held up the sixth quest item and released it as it was pulled into the machine. As it settled into its spot, it collapsed into a small, orange rock—the only one of the stones to retain its shape before clicking into the machine.
“What’s it supposed to do?” Demetri asked as he walked around the machine and looked at all the glowing stones. “Green, purple, blue, yellow, red, orange … are these colors supposed to be significant?”
“And why did they change appearance?” Anders inquired as he stared at the soldier woman and scowled.
“You think I know?” She snapped back at the Arcadian. “This was supposed to be a routine mission based off a very reliable piece of intel. You think I wanted half my platoon to be butchered and then have to sit in this metal shack waiting for a bunch of loose cannons and literal children to find some glowing stones for me?”
“Where’s the seventh one?” Rogue asked.
“Seven?” Sergeant Swift sputtered. “The shit said ‘six’, not seven.”
Rogue stepped forward and handed the woman the note. “This was at a site southeast of here… my companions an’ Ah went through a lot of effort.”
Before glancing at the note, the sergeant glanced into the southern woman’s eyes and frowned. “Accent sounds fake. You’ll never make it as a musician.”
“Excuse me?” Rogue asked as the career soldier silently read the scrap of paper and shook her head.
“Bullshit. I was told there were six stones needed to power this device and get us off of Cevanti in one piece. Nothing said anything about a seventh piece.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that we’re still here,” John Connor replied as Sergeant Swift turned to glance at the back door.
“I’ll sort this shit out,” she growled as she stalked away from the machine and headed for the door. “Stop skulking and help us fix this fucking mess! You’re good for no—”
The door swung open with a heavy bang as a spear flew out and impaled itself through the woman’s armored chest. Spinning around, the blonde noncom grimaced as she grabbed the end of the spear and started to yank it out. While she managed to succeed in that task, her knees gave out, and her eyes traveled back up to the remaining survivors.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not dying here for any of you,” her bloodied hand tapped something on her wrist. “You’re on your own,” she added as she collapsed sideways. Before her body crashed into the floor of the bunker, it dematerialized in a flicker of light, leaving the assembled survivors to turn their confused expressions to the door on the far side of the bunker.
“Look at this collection of pitiful mongrels,” a haughty voice laughed as a gold-plated narcissist stepped out through the doorway. Brushing back his perfectly coiffed tresses, Gilgamesh scanned the assemblage. “Connor and Wade,” he said with a smile. “Care to surrender again?”
“Surrender?” John Connor muttered. “We’re here to save everyone.”
Gilgamesh laughed as he held up his right hand. Instead of his expertly and expensively manicured fingers, he was wearing a slightly oversized golden glove. A glove that, oddly enough, had six sockets along its surface.
“You thought you idiots were playing the long game? All you’ve done is bring the six items to the man who has the seventh,” He said with a tut-tut as he clenched his gauntleted fingers into a tight fist and thrust it toward the shuddering machine at the center of the bunker. “I am the long con!” He shouted as the machine imploded, scattering the remaining survivors to the walls of the bunker as the liberated stones started to spin around the smoldering carcass of the device.
Turning his glove, Gilgamesh grinned as the stone—one by one—were drawn into the sockets of his gauntlet. As the green stone was pulled from its orbit above the wreck, a wide-eyed Deadpool leapt forward and snatched it.
“Not that one!” He shouted as he pulled up his mask and swallowed the stone.
Gilgamesh laughed as the fifth stone settled into his gauntlet with an audible clink. “I’ll tear that stone from your dead, stupid carcass.”
“You’re not my type,” Deadpool replied as he drew his Roman gladius.
“Pitful,” da King of Uruk snickered as the purple stone shimmered. A beat later, the monarch thrust his fist out and sent Deadpool crashing through the wall of the bunker with a wave of crushing purple power. Aiming the gauntlet down toward his right foot, Gilgamesh lifted the limb and glared as the Syntech anklet shuddered as the purple stone glowed. After a few moments, the king grit his teeth and set his foot down. “Still with your rules?” He asked as he looked around for a camera. “So be it.”
By this point, the other survivors had risen back up to their feet. While some bore weapons, others steeled themselves in their own way.
“Come now,” Gilgamesh laughed as the red stone flashed, and with a swirl of colors, Cevanti was replaced by one of Uruk’s many glorious streets. “Kneel and I will make your suffering quick.”
You all have until 6 PM on June 28th to post ONE TIME. Collaborate with your peers to make sure no one is 'writing over' each other -- it's on you all to make sure you're talkin' and discussin'.
I expect ONE roleplay from everyone involved. Not everyone will survive this encounter (repeating this again just for the sake of posterity and clarity), so if you’re afraid of dying, you can elect to run away. You will become unmade or can opt to go out on your own terms by pulling your collar and blowing up. "Your Life, Your Choice" (more or less).
One last note – I want everyone involved in this to PM me whether or not they intend to contest the post-Boss prize or not. John Connor returned the final item and has 'dibs' at the moment. Contesting among survivors would trigger one last confrontation after the resolution of this boss fight.
“The hell are you on about, Sugah?” Ah snarled, spitting out the stem of the Karot as ah started to accumulate the energy . The rage was already swellin’ as ah leveled Chara’s nailgun. Ah squeezed the trigger and the nails fired forth in an angry spray. The red stone on that suckah’s gauntlet glowed briefly and the shots wisped into flowery petals. Then the smug bastard just smirked at me!
“Don’t you see? This conflict was over from the moment you all set foot upon the island.” He crossed his arms, starin’ us down, darin’ us to try something. “All of your petty squabbles were amusing to Karl, I suppose, but if any of you were possessed of any intellect you’d have already bent the knee.”
Ah was seein’ red now. My blood was flowin’ in my ears, and ah could feel the energy surgin’ up inside o’ me. He was unstoppable, he was insufferable, he was terrifying, he was pathetic, he was guilty, he was prey. Ah screamed, a wave of energy waftin’ off of me as mah hair turned near as gold an spiky as this guy's was. Weapons forgotten, ah rushed forwards at speeds ah didn’t think were possible.
“Ah’ve been lookin’ for someone that deserved a good smackdown!” Ah sneered, “Let’s see if you can keep up, hun!”
The blue stone on his glove glowed this time, and halfway through mah charge ah was somewhere else, he’d shifted me a good thirty feet past him. Ah skidded to a stop and took off after him again. Ah was behind him this time, but that didn’t seem to account for much. Every damn time ah closed the distance he would just change where ah was. Punches only a few inches from his head would wind up with me diving face-first into a wall or obliteratin’ a statue.
“Knock it OFF!” Ah screamed, whirling back around from the pillar ah’d just punched into a pile of dust an’ rubble. Ah turned face-first into a hunk of stone that erupted from the earth, smackin’ me through a wall. With a grunt ah picked myself outta the wreckage.
This was bad. The sunnuva’gun wasn’t even lookin’ at me, his attention was on the rest of the group. A lotta them were in pretty bad shape. Ah needed to keep this bozo’s focus if ah was goin’ to do anything near what Chara’d asked o’ me. Ah needed to think, needed to be more strategic! Ah had all this energy, all this power. Ah needed to use it!
“Hey golden boy!” Ah shouted, two balls of my own golden ki forming in my gloved hands. He actually turned at this one, the air behind him ripplin’ with a sort of energy as the hilts of blades appeared around him. Ah fired the ki blasts forwards, Gilgamesh intercepted both missiles with a pair o’ his swords, firin’ them from the air behind him and usin’ that red stone to make ‘em bigger mid-flight.
“You come in here, callin’ yourself the ‘long con’…” Ah advanced forwards, step by step, firing more and more blasts of Ki at the man, my gloves all but disintegrated now from the energy ah was outputtin’. It wasn’t enough! Our missiles kept intercepting one another in mid-air. Shards of molten metal were flying off in all directions to splatter against the stone surfaces nearby, but ah wasn’t doin’ damage!
“You try an’ claim stuff that ain’t yours, stealin’ the work that other folks’ve bled an’ cried an’ died over?” This Ki stuff was tyrin’! Ah didn’t feel like ah could keep this barrage up much longer. Ah couldn’t be certain, with all that much o’ a lightshow, but ah didn’t think ah’d landed a hit on him yet! Just keep movin’ closer. Ah was almost there! With a shout I put all of my strength into one last burst of Ki, rushing forwards in the cover it gave me.
“You better be damn careful that someone doesn’t just steal it back!” Ah tackled the man full force, both bare hands clapped on either side of his face as we tumbled to the stony ground.
Sweet mercy, the power! Even with Karl’s inhibitors keepin’ this guy in check ah couldn’t even begin to… process… to understand…
Hands glued to his face, ah screamed.
Ah wanted to let go, wanted to drain every last drop, wanted to destroy this whole damn world, wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. It was too much! Ah couldn’t handle all this! Ah needed to let go before it was too late! Too late? This was exactly what ah needed! With this much power ah could do anything!
“Away from me, harlot!” Gilgamesh snarled, backhandin’ me with the gauntlet so hard ah flew a full block through the air before crashin’ back down in some poor fool’s market stall.
“Touch me again, mongrel, and you will regret it."
Ah coughed, so disoriented already ah didn’t realize that ah was right back in front of his feet until he kicked me away again. Only groggily putting together that ah’d been transported again, ah staggered to my feet near Anders. The old-timer was lookin’ extra crispy, but he wasn’t about to give up. We at least had the golden boy’s attention now.
“You know something?” He sneered, “Perhaps you are right, this victory doesn’t come to me alone!” He held up the glove, the orange stone glowin’ this time.
Ah blinked, There were more people now…. What the hell? Ah musta taken a blow to the head, there, among the others, that was Aster… an’ Chara? How were they here? Ah opened my mouth, coughing out a dusty glob, but they spoke before ah could get any words out.
“You let us die.” Aster smirked, her visage twisting slightly as she uttered the words, “Chose to save only yourself.”
“No, ah didn’t mean to-”
“Who have you saved?” Chara sneered, “Not Aster, not me, Not even Trevor…”
They rushed at me with knives, faces twisted into spiteful leerin’. For a moment, ah couldn't move. Ah didn't have any right ta hurt either o' them any more'n ah'd ahready done! Ah deserved their hatred. They hated me, they cared about me, they were afraid of me, they were disappointed in me, they were counting on me, they were nothing to me!
With a scream of denial, not even knowing quite what it was ah was denying, ah surged forwards to face them.
Rogue has used "Karot" to become super saiyan (0/2 uses remaining)
Power, absolute and implacable, held within the palm of this king’s hand. For the first time since arriving Anders felt fear. That damnable beast Gascoigne was nothing more than an overgrown hound when compared to the might Gilgamesh brought to bear. And as Anders watched his fellow contestants pull themselves from the grips of death he trembled. Had his devotion come to this? Was his fate merely to be brought low before the likes of a god? There was only death to be found here, and Anders was not blind to this. Quietly he strode forth.
Gilgamesh raised a hand, the gem of power glowing purple. But, he paused. Anders had fallen to a knee, a hand crossed over his heart. His head bowed and Gilgamesh merely smirked.
“I have spent my life in service to a long dead monarch,” Anders declared, “In my myopic crusade to avenge their death I failed to recognize true greatness… King Gilgamesh, as a swordmage of yore, I hereby swear fealty to you and your kingdom.”
“Wait, timeout, no fair!” Deadpool shouted before looking at a nearby Syntech drone, “Come on Karl, that can’t be allowed, crispy over there can’t just switch from skins to shirts in the middle of the game!”
“At least one of you mongrels has common sense,” Gilgamesh approached the kneeling Anders, stopping several feet away. His laugh echoed through the empty streets of Uruk, “You’ve made a wise decision, now rise and serve your--”
The words caught in his throat. There was a flash of yellow as the mind stone activated. Anders grew translucent as the king unraveled Demetri’s illusion. A shadow from above cast over him and he turned in time to see Anders leap from a nearby roof. “Ingrate,” Gilgamesh said curtly. Shimmering portals appeared between him and the falling Anders. And, in the next breath, their payload was unleashed. Ornate pikes launched themselves towards the swordmage, skewering him a hundred times over.
But, this was another illusion. His adversary’s vision had been skyward and Anders emerged from an alleyway, abusing the king’s blindspot. Before Gilgamesh could react Anders delivered an uppercut into his gut.
“Oh snap!” Deadpool exclaimed, “Say the line! Tell him he got bamboozled!”
Anders grunted. In his exertion he had managed to tear open every scabbed over burn. His fist felt like it had struck concrete, and the king barely reacted. He moved to swing again, but the element of surprise had vanished. Gilgamesh caught his fist and twisted, overpowering Anders to a knee. With his free hand he drew a sword from thin air and leveled it towards Anders’s neck.
“Tell me mongrel, all of that effort to simply die at my feet,” He said, “Was it worth it?”
“Spare me your arrogance,” Anders sputtered, “I’ve dealt with enough petulant children in this contest… besides, as the kids say - you’ve been bamboozled.”
"Oh! He said it!"
“Tch, another illusion!?” Gilgamesh exclaimed as movement appeared in his peripheral. He turned towards the freshly emerging Anders, swinging towards his midsection. The blade phased right through, and in that moment the king realized his mistake. Anders erupted from his feet, manifesting an identical portal to the king’s and drawing a sword from it.
“You think yourself worthy of spellcraft?” Anders demanded, swinging at his opponent. With a sword finally in his hand, decades of training became second nature. He continued, “You condescending whelp, how dare you believe yourself worthy of magic’s grace.”
For a moment, and only a moment, Gilgamesh was caught unbalanced and unprepared. Anders’s onslaught forced him back, only a step, before he managed to stabilize. From there it took only a thought to bring reality back under his reign. Anders’s sword shuddered and twisted upon itself, forming into a set of manacles clamped around his wrists.
“How dare you believe yourself worthy to lecture me,” Gilgamesh muttered, “Begone peasant.”
A burst of energy sent the swordmage flying backwards. He crashed through a nearby building, landing in the structure’s kitchen. The impact ripped the air from his lungs and he allowed himself a moment to wriggle in agony. There was no mistaking the telltale snap of his rib bones. Breathing came laboriously. His vision blurred, but then a hand reached through the rubble and grabbed him. Demetri hoisted him up to a sitting position and set to work on the makeshift manacles.
“Come on big guy,” Demetri muttered, slipping a pin of metal into the lock mechanism, “This is not where you die.”
“No,” Anders agreed, “But, it certainly feels like that would be the easier choice.”
“It would be,” Demetri agreed, popping the lock open, “But, it certainly would not be the fun choice, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t be,” He said, climbing to his feet, “I look forward to ending this fool’s mockery of magic.”
A figure appeared in the hole made by Anders’s entrance. His hair was snow white and set above a wicked grin. Scars covered his flesh and were particularly thick around his arms. Lightning crackled between his fingertips.
“And who are you?” Anders asked, materializing another sword, “Another two-bit magus?
“Name’s Strazio Rockwell, motherfucker,” The man answered, “And the only one that’s going to be two-bits is you after I rip you in fucking half.”
Anders sighed. Such insolence. He was surrounded by barbarians who believed their parlor tricks were archmagus level sorcery. It took only a moment for the swordmage to assess his new opponent’s abilities. The man’s technique, if one could even call it that, was little more than savagery. Savagery, however, was quite effective if used against the unprepared.
Strazio surged forward, his body erupting into a burst of raw destructive magic. Demetri dove to the side, but Anders, still recovering from his impact, was unable to avoid the attack. Energy rushed over his flesh, tearing open his old wounds while searing new ones into his skin. He cried out and swung wildly at the sizzling cloud of electricity. Strazio materialized a few feet behind him and raised his hand. The rage-mage screamed, “DIE YOU FUCKING PRICK!”
Demetri shoulder-checked Strazio, knocking his attack off course. A lance of white-hot light erupted from the mage’s hand, carving through the building’s roof instead of Anders. Demetri and Strazio fell to the ground, wrestling with one another. Anders stepped forward, his arm crackling with a similar energy. It was child’s play to replicate, but he did not anticipate how much it would hurt. His skin split open as chunks of his forearm were converted into raw magical potential. What kind of maniac would willingly use such spellcraft? Demetri screamed as Strazio chomped down onto his shoulder and ripped a chunk free.
“Get off me you bastard!” Strazio screamed, “I’ll rip you apart with my fucking teeth and swallow every last piece if I have to!”
Kids these days.
Anders lowered his hand and grabbed the top of Strazio’s snarling head. A litany of curses was cut short as Anders unleashed the stored energy. In an instant the top of his head was atomized. Demetri exhaled and rolled onto his back. Anders grunted, falling to a knee and catching his breath. His arm had been flayed open and blood trickled quietly to the floor. Silently he shook his head and looked over to Demetri.
“Are you alright?”
“Pretty sure he did swallow that chunk of my shoulder,” Demetri answered, “But, besides that I think I will survive.”
The DA contestants-turned-unmaking-fighters readied their various weapons as they watched the ‘heavies’ part the doors, glancing between each other, the anticipation in the air palpable. The oddly dressed man who Sigmund had come to be known as McNinja gingerly touched his ‘death insurance’, shaking his head a little.
“What are we? Some kind of suicide squad?” He muttered, just loud enough for the other new recruits to hear before he glanced at the cultist, his brow furrowing just a little. “Uh… are you vibrating?”
“Hmm? Oh, me?” The priest asked, fidgeting on the spot like a dog on an invisible chain. Indeed, he was shaking a bit, jittering visibly as he glanced around erratically, finger poised dangerously over the trigger of the BFG. “A little. I’m sure it’ll be fine. If not, I’ll try to take plenty of unmade with me when this thing explodes, haha!”
Before the doctor/ninja could respond, the hulking figure of Caustic burst forward like a sprinter from the starting block, evidently seeing red the moment that the first hint of the unmaking was visible. Letting out another ragged cackle, Sigmund wasn’t far behind, the barrel of his weapon beginning to glow as it started to warm up, it’s wielder all too eager to cut into the unmade swath.
“Run! Cower! The eighth scion of Gal’skap has arrived to pass judgment upon you, unmade filth!” The high priest announced before pulling the trigger on the BFG. Roaring plasma exploded from the barrel and soared through the halls of the fortress. A small cluster of unmade people stood and watched, dumbfounded, as they had but a moment to register what was happening before they were reduced to a cloud of red steam.
The psion cackled joyfully as his new tool purged the unmaking in unforgiving bursts of crackling green plasma, erasing them from existence in an instant. Every pull of the trigger purged another group of the unmade chaff. Strange aliens, some naturally unusual and all mutated by the corruption of Darkseid, registered in the one-armed priest’s brain for just a second before he saw them disappear. Then, a strange alien appeared before him which was actually rather familiar.
“Ah. You again.” Sigmund growled as he found himself face to face with the Malefactor and its wearer, the barrel of the BFG leveled at the symbiotes as his finger twitched on the trigger. However, he didn’t fire just yet, just as Nico didn’t lunge at him to remove his head from his body. There was a tense silence between the two despite the chaos of the fight around them. “Are you with Cevanti or the unmaking here?”
“Cevanti.” The malefactor, or its wearer, it was rather hard to tell, responded with a growl, twitching with barely contained bloodlust as it eyed the barrel of the plasma weapon. Sigmund couldn’t help but furrow his brow at this, unable to read the thing before him at all, but decided to believe that it was telling the truth. “You?”
“Likewise.”
There was a moment of silent acknowledgement between the two as they agreed to put their differences aside for the time being and shot off in different directions to dismember their common enemies. In his hesitation, the mad cultist had failed to notice an unmade man lurching over to him. A barb of mutated bone was Sigmund’s reward for his carelessness, and the best that he could do was to pivot his bad shoulder into the blow to minimize the damage.
Choking back a curse, the cultist kicked off his foe and engaged his energy bayonet. The blade of crackling energy roared to life as it’s wielder swung the BFG, separating the creature’s head from its body. It stumbled back a moment before catching itself, seemingly unphased by the loss of its head, though tragically another blast of plasma halted it for good.
Taking a quick breath and making sure that no other fiends were about to ambush him, Sigmund couldn’t help but acknowledge that this wasn’t going to be a quick job. After a couple more breaths, he raised the BFG and took off again once more, his grin widening.
Nico vomited, and hoped that nothing coming out of him was people or little goblin child. Or a vital organ. He really got his shit rocked out there. Removing Sam's presence took what was left of him after getting stressballed by the multiverse's most stressed out medical professional, and Nico even further regretted this decision as the weight of an entire Abyss' worth of wounds crashed into him all at once, and he collapsed to his knees. Sam, perhaps justifiably, screamed a swear at its former host for this indignation and squiggled off into the woods. Nico didn't even hear what it called him, so preoccupied with emptying his guts and being miserable, he was. Probably something accurate. Maybe 'fucko'. Sam seemed to like that one.
"Well," Nico said, wiping the spittle from his mouth. "There goes my last buddy."
As far as low points went, aiding and abetting in the collaboration of eating a kid was not one Nico ever had any intention of adding to his repertoire. Was it metal as fuck? Yes. Was it cool? No. Not cool, bro. Not at all. Nico went ahead and let the rest of his body hit the ground at this point. Fuckin' Dante's Abyss. Why the fuck was he here again? Paying rent or something? The battered rockstar's fists slammed into the ground - his left pinky touched vomit, ew, but that was a problem for later. Pushing himself up by the knuckles, he managed to sway to a stand. The rocket launcher rested on the ground, cold for the first time in a good long while.
"OLE RELIAB\"
God, he thought, in a silent wish. Why are my only ways of processing pain causing it and swearing?
There was no couch to sit on, this wasn't the time. In his pockets, Nico could still feel the weight of...whatever the hell it is Karl Jak wanted them all to die for. Nico had but one use for dead weight.
---
Relatively painless, that was, walking to the safehouse and back. Besides the walking, and breathing. These two beefy lookin' dudes were posted up at the door, almost like they knew Nico was coming. One of them seemed real keen on the boy sticking around after he brought them the last quest items; that was everyone's ticket out, after all, and everyone had to get there. Deadpool, even, came out to greet Nico and try to convince him to stay for breakfast in the morning.
"-but there won't be a bar to pay rent on if that big hole in the ground over there gets any bigger, so...I'm gonna go jump in it," Nico had told 'em.
Besides, he had been looking for a way out of the game this year from the get-go. And that was that. And now he was here, at the pit. Just Nico, a rocket launcher, and a bag of sharp pointy things. Seemed he was late to the party, buncha footprints stamped along the entrance. That's fine. He's started a mosh pit with less. Just then, the leaves above Nico began to shake, spookin' him. Sam the Symbiote dripped from the branches above, pooling onto Nico's shoulder.
"Fucko..."
Hi Sam.
"Dick..."
I know, Sam.
Sam was...Well, Sam ate people. Sam is the real dick in this situation and most others. Still, Nico felt the little dude swirl around his body, and it didn't hurt. Which, he supposed, could maybe possibly be construed as a sign of affection from this thing.
Maybe.
"You hungry, buddy?" Nico asked it out loud. It made a noise. Nico decided it was a laugh. "You came back because you smelled all that food in there, didn't you, you little pile of silly string?"
"Yis," growled Sam, "but...smells rotten." Nico got the sense that if it could be making a face of disgust, it would be. He patted his little goopy pal.
"That's just because we haven't cooked it yet, friend-o."
Guts, guts, guts. Nico and Sam tore through the tunnels and the unmade meat wall at a blistering pace, rockets finding the broadsides of barns all over the god damned place. The holes they made, the two went tearing through just to make them bigger. This fortress of hell was the perfect place for Nico to let Sam run amok, and boy fuckin' howdy was the mok a-runnin'. A pack of crazy looking alien hellhounds started to give chase to the Goop Devil, but it was no use. The Malefactor leapt, sinking a claw into a passing parademon and hitching a ride. One tried to pounce after it, but Nico's foot meshed into a curved blade and he sent it back to the dirt in a fountain of blood, where it belonged. Trails of smoke spiraled through the air as it began firing missiles blindly, the discordant mixture of Sam and Nico's laughter sometimes bubbling over the explosions.
From his demon's eye view, Nico could see lots of things happening. Most of them were bad. Some giant robots in hockey masks were absolutely wrecking shop, clearing entire bloody lanes through the battlefield in such a vivid display, Nico would've thought he was watching Adult Swim. Machetes came and went, passing through corrupted bugmeat like ghosts through walls. Lots of automatic fire and explosions coming from inside the main structure, but there were plenty of bodies spilling into the courtyard now, too.
Abruptly, Sam climbed atop the winged beast, and bit its head off. Mmm. Crunchy. Nico figured this was the part where they fall to their death, but Sam had seen what he hadn't, leaping to another innocent byflying parademon and taking it for a spin. This was perhaps the most dangerous game of "The Floor is Not Fucking There" Nico had ever played. They flew for a while, raining death and distraction for as long as they could.
Above all the sirens and explosions and maniacal laughter going on, a single shot was fired that was heard above all the rest. The sniper round ripped right through the symbiotic pair's mount, winging them in the shoulder. The parademon dropped directly into the side of the fortress, crashing through the wall. Somewhere along the ramparts, Saren scoffed, watching them sail overhead. He handed the rifle back to his accompanying officer.
"Surely they won't all be that easy," he chuckled, before turning on his heel to tend to the rest of the trash scattered around his base.
Inside, Nico shoved the parademon caracass off of himself and sprung to his feet, a little disappointed he wouldn't be able to finish that particular meal. Without fail, a mob of corrupted Taurian soldiers already had him circled, guns clacking as they were readied and aimed. One of them was shouting something at Nico, but he couldn't fuckin' hear the guy, even if he cared.
Sam? Nico said, looking at the perfect circle these goons made around him with a spooky grin on his face.
"Yes, Nico?" Sam said, his voice a low hum.
You ever been in a mosh pit?
"Fire!" shouted the corrupted officer.
The bullets came, but the Nico Factor ain't there. He was already on the ceiling, taking motherfucking heads off. A smattering of rockets lit up the conveniently spacious room as bullet holes sewed their way upwards. Nico jumped back down into the pit to continue his business of misery. Lead was starting to find its way into his goop armor, but he didn't care, Nico Cinder was all elbows and kicks tonight. His left fist tapered into a spike, so he sent it into the nearest soldier's chest. The impaled Taurian made for an excellent bullet sponge, Sam holding the body up for mobile cover as Nico sent more gummy worms flying. Six minutes. That's how long it took to clear the room. Plus an extra two to snack, of course.
Dr. McNinja rounded the corner and wished he hadn't.
"Uhhhh," he said.
Sam slid his face shield back to reveal Nico's red, malefactor touched eyes. "Sup."
"Good to see you again," The Doc said, pausing before adding, "I hope."
"Yeah, I already did the whole, 'I'm hungry but not for you' thing with the one-armed wonder over...ah fuck," Nico said, shrugging in exasperation. "Wherever the fuck I saw him. Honestly, I'm probably lucky he didn't evaporate me with that shiny gun of his. Hope he managed to regroup, this place is a fucking maze."
"That's a word you could use for it, yeah. Maybe not the one I would, but hey. It's there," McNinja scratched his head sheepishly. "Say, you wouldn't happen to have anything pointy on you, would ya?"
Without looking away, Nico let his Abyss rucksack fall off his shoulder to the floor in a clattering heap. More dead weight.
"Go wild," Nico said. He looked around, and gestured with his hands. It was oddly empty and quiet in here, this room full of bodies. The sounds of fighting and alarms were quietly muffled, despite their proximity. "What was the plan here, again?"
"Kill everything in sight. Paraphrasing, mind you, don't quote me," came the Doctor's response.
Nico sighed. Sam giggled, because it tickled. Yeah, he reckoned he could do that.
Chaos pours out in the breached underground fortified traitor fortress for everyone's eyes to watch that tuned into the finale of this annual Dante's Abyss. Josuke has been thrown into this grim situation, thinking of what his buddy said before about them becoming a suicide squad. He never imagined a day in his life that it would come down to this moment. Back before they set one foot into the sinkhole, they had to build up encouragement to decide this would be their fate. Becoming a grand champion for everyone to witness on their televisions, including his mother, friends, and sensei Speedwagon would be a dream come true.
Still, there's a feeling tugging deep within him.
Something was telling him becoming a champion wouldn't bring peace and protection to the Crossroads. Other than that, he would become a celebrity, and are there any famous stars going to help stop the unmaking from happening? Maybe some, but the Joestar spirit that dwells with him tells otherwise. No, there was no time to win this game and call it another great day. People have died in this game, and if they don't stop this evil from spreading, all is for nothing.
Nearl and Chara became perished in this game, firmly creating sorrow in him, but if they still stood by his side, they would support his decision to take on this suicidal mission.
Now was the time to stand for the whole Crossroads to observe and start to gain optimism that heroes still stand in this current day and age of negativity.
For, Cevanti.
For, Morioh.
For the Crossroads.
After the first breach boomed throughout the underground armed complex, gunshots rang out in the hallways. Josuke's newly doc friend is separated from him just as the raid becomes disorderly. Following behind a few marines and one Uber Jason, Josuke arms himself with his grenade launcher. On the other end, the one hallway they entered becomes heavily fortified for defense, a mix of armed cultists and unmade akatas standing behind the barricades. Each side started to trade gunfire in the fight for fire superiority.
Luckily, the marines had a demoman to clear them, Josuke with his trusty grenade launcher. He pulls the hair-trigger, and a little bomb-omb goes sailing toward where the enemies remain standing. The cute little bomb lands on the cold hard floor, bouncing and rolling between the barricades. It sprouts little legs and blinks for a second, already igniting the single strand of fuse that you could call its hair. The adorable-looking bomb walks up to its targets with instinct and waits to detonate.
"A BOMB!" One cultist shouts out before picking it up and attempting to toss it back at the Lonely Hearts marines, but the fuse burns entirely and explodes in mid-air before leaving the barricaded position.
A few get killed in the process, and others appear to have scars/burns from the fiery explosion. The unmade attack akatas jump over the burnt barricade, sprinting toward their enemies instinctively. An uber Jason leads the way and violently swipes his steel sharp machete at the first akata that pounces at him. The unmade akata gets cleaved in half by the impressive strength that one uber Jason holds. Josuke rushes forward and passes the tall giant Jason, running toward the remaining akatas. Two of them get shotten up badly by the remains while one meets his stand.
"Crazy Diamond!"
"DORA!"
A punch lands on the akata's snout harshly by the hardened fist that belongs to Crazy Diamond.
"DORARARARARARARARARA!!!!!!"
Finishing off the darkened beast, Crazy Diamond smashes it into the wall with many fists barraging onto the battered body. After finishing the unmade akatas, they successfully cleared the hallway and moved onto the area. Being thrown into this combat, Josuke has wounds that still hurt throughout his body, causing a reminder of how much pain his body holds. Adrenaline pumps through him, helping put the agony off to the side and focus on saving Cevanti from another unmade mess.
Entering the next area of the fortress, a Turian cultist gets thrown nearly into Josuke's head. Thankfully at the last minute, the teenage pompadour boy ducks and stands back up to gaze at more bloodshed unfolding. The hulking doctor storms into a group of cultists, causing them to scatter before they get crushed by his big feet and fists. A roaring scream erupts and rattles their surroundings that Dr. Caustic unleashes.
Sheesh, talk about lousy temper…
"Why, Hello again! I was wondering when I would see that awful hairstyle again." The battered ridiculous clown comes out of nowhere and stands by Josuke's side, showing off a cocky grin to see what kind of reaction he would receive from the young boy.
Those words immediately trigger Josuke's anger, making his violent manner boil significantly before erupting.
"Oi, what did you say about my hair?" The stand user angrily growls at the clown known as Kefka, ready to deck his face without no remorse.
"Didn't you hear me? Wow, you must of be deaf. Your. Hair. Is. Toxic." Kefka taunts Josuke even more with such mockery, strolling and turning to face the angry teen's face. His colorful remaining makeup face grins even more, seeing the young boy gripping his fist tightly in a fury.
"Now you're starting to make me hate clowns even more now." Josuke threatens Kefka considerably; his stand's aura glows around him brightly.
Kefka can see the stand belonging to Josuke summons, curious to know the type of power his once victim didn't perform in their last encounter. A smile curls greatly on the devious clown's face, his plan working well to get his supposedly "teammate" riled up.
"Excellent! Now use that nasty anger on those idiotic unmade lunatics." The clown laughs in Jouske's face and waves goodbye, happy that he annoyed someone's day even more, and leaves before Josuke decides to send his rage upon Kefka.
"Fine, clown. You want anger? I'll show you anger, but if I see your face again. You owe me a dora to your nose." Josuke seethes in rage and looks at other cultists approaching the stand user to outnumber him. Close combat is engaged, and the pompadour teen wasn't having any more, ready to release the flood gates of pain. "I'll make you bastards feel my rage!"
Before one of the cultists makes a move, Josuke has his stand floating beside him and sharing the same vastly angry emotion that the stand user feels. Crazy Diamond sends more barrages of violent fists at an impressive speed into whoever stands before him.
They came in waves at our little army, weak fleshy soldiers shooting ineffective bullets at the wave of Jasonbots as they marched forward, each one like the tine if a blender as they literally pulped the Unmade defenders. It was a beautiful symphony of science harnessed to deal death. Much like myself at the moment.
The serum had made me incredibly angry at..everything. It was hard to think of any one subject for too long before my simmering resentments goaded me to physical displays of power. Which were what was needed at the moment. From the minute I injected the serum and felt it's effects on my mind, I knew I would not win this game without killing everyone. A futule endeavor at this stage. Better to harness the power in a more constructive manner, to assault the Unmaking directly and gather combat data for future endeavors.
I pondered this as my fist crushed a man's skull in half and threw his limp body at his compatriots, my nouth wide in a furious scream of rage. It was like I was observing events, with limited control over what would happen. The effects of the Serum were fascinating, and I would have to request notes from the Sergeant after....after I'd recomposed myself. And died.
I'd died before. It was little more than an inconvenience, and becoming more and more of something I could recover from. The utter violence I was leaving in my wake attested to that, the other insects in our assault squad either following behind me or clearing paths towards targets, using me like a battering ram. Smart. I was hardly capable of reason at the moment.
If it was possible for a person to sound like they were sneering, then that’s what Kefka was doing. His laughter had started out as giddy, when the walls were battered open, then excited, when the two more monstrous creatures leapt into the fray.
He nearly gave himself side stitches toying with Josuke. Actually, his hair wasn’t even that bad, but it was just… it was like popping a little kid’s balloon. It’s so easy you can’t not do it.
Kefka jumped immediately after definitely-not-Venom, landing in what appeared to be some sort of corridor, only huge. A promenade?
His laughter became mean, thick with a taunting mockery as he took in his new surroundings. All around him, there was gunfire, actual fire, explosions, blood, crying, death, suffering in all sorts of glorious forms!
And still so many more to choose from…
Strange, swirly-black looking things, like the creatures underneath Inverxe only… shaped differently. Corrupted, still. Same as them. Kefka’s laughter stopped, abruptly, what little remaining of his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“You creatures!” he boomed, even as they opened fire on him. “Die.”
He lifted his hands and two streams of fire erupted down the hall, consuming a half dozen soldiers who had nowhere to go, but through the flames burst a larger, angrier, more fire-resistant creature, suffused with the same inky black slime as the rest.
Kefka clapped his hands together, and the larger creature staggered. There was a crack. Then another. The monster screamed as its legs suddenly gave way, collapsing under their own weight like a demolished skyscraper. His arms retracted in with a crunch, then his neck.
After some more disgusting pops, crunching, and squelching, all that was left of the giant krogan warrior was a small, gory, vaguely ball-shaped mass quivering on the floor. A shriek of light and sound erupted, knocking Kefka off his feet as the wall just ahead of him erupted. An errant missile or energy blast.
Frightening and unwelcome for some.
A convenient exit from the very-much-still-on-fire hallway he’d sort of trapped himself in for Kefka. He walked out to the piece of wall that had suddenly been violently redecorated and looked out onto the larger battle at play out in the hive.
They moved so obviously. Like insects protecting a hive. At the outside edge, they fought fiercely and chaotically, but further and further in they orbited, always returning to protect whatever was at the center.
But to get there?
Kefka looked around, craning his neck as best he could with his innumerable injuries.
Oh. That’s how.
“Whoop!” he exclaimed, hopping from his hallway and into a four-storey drop. Wind whistled past his ears as he dove downward, flipping forward at the last moment to drive his heels into the back of an unmade soldier, driving him face-first into rock, or concrete, or bone.
“I’m not sorry!” he shouted, having already thrown himself in a roll to avoid the angry gunfire rebuke.
He leapt onto his target – a small missile battery. Kefka stood on the exposed nose cone of one of the missiles, a gun pointed at what he assumed was his operator. “If you don’t shoot me at your boss right now, I swear to whatever it is you believe in that they won’t have enough left of you to remake you as a caterpillar.”
Kefka rolled his eyes and opened fire, decapitating the hapless soldier. Evidently 0.7 seconds wasn’t enough to make a critical decision. Who knew?
Hilariously, the shambling corpse, still spurting blood, or ichor, or whatever, from its stump, fell against the controls and evidently did something.
With a rumbling roar, Kefka found himself literally holding on to a rocket as it raced through the air. He found he could steer it by leaning his body, and ended up pointing it straight toward the heart of the hive. To whatever in the middle they were protecting.
“This was a bad idea!!” he could be heard shouting – only barely – above the implacably loud sounds of war below. “But! I! Stand! By it!”
He leapt from the missile and it screamed to its target with a flash of bright white, and then a thunderous blast of heat and fire. Kefka disappeared into it, using the smoke and noise to his advantage. He cut down or shot the Unmade between him and-
“Who’re you?” Kefka demanded, pointing his gun at Saren.
“I could ask you the same ques-”
Kefka interrupted him by pulling the trigger.
CLICK
“Are you fucking serious?” he demanded, before slamming the butt of his gun against Saren’s forehead. He staggered back, leaving Kefka open to draw his sword and hurl it at the infected Turian who’d tried to flank him. The sword impaled him and tugged him down to the floor while Kefka fiddled with the gun for a moment.
Something satisfactorily clicked into place and Kefka pulled the trigger at another encroaching Unmade. It exploded with a satisfying hiss.
Kefka grinned, retrieving his sword and turning back to Saren, who’d pointed some kind of strange future rifle at him.
Kefka blew a raspberry at him. “You’re what this is all about? Seriously? What even are you? Some kind of a lizard- HEY!”
Saren had disappeared, the mad god only barely perceiving a ripple in the light as the cloaked Spectre took off in a sprint.
“Oh, come on!” he shrieked, stabbing the nearest unmade combatant straight through the mouth, while blasting a couple of pistol holes into another. “Do I have to do everything around here?!”
Dr. McNinja shuffled through the unwieldy melee weapons. Beggars can’t be choosers, but Doc would rather not carry around a flimsy little machete.
And that’s when he found it.
The weapon that had called for him.
The weapon he’d wanted to wield since he was a child.
Dr. McNinja lifted the lightsaber hilt with awe, staring at it even as bullets, lasers and explosions were scattered around him. Gripping the hilt with two hands, he reverently pressed the button to ignite the blade. A beam of blue light and intense heat blasted out of the hilt, scattering a fog of darkness Doc didn’t even know was there. Blue light filled the chamber the battle was in, warbling and pulsing with sheer energy.
“Oh my God I’m the Star Wars kid.”
Without hesitation, Doc surged forward. His blade formed arcs of deadly light, cutting through the alien bug-men like they were paper. Without looking, Doc tumbled onto one hand, kicking one turian in the face while stabbing another in the leg with the lightsaber. With a sweeping somersault, Doc converted these attacks into an axe kick and a sweeping upward slash. Doc tumbled forward, kneeing a human while jamming the lightsaber into his face.
“Heavier than I thought it would be,” Doc said as he swiped away another turian.
It was then that bullets began firing at Doc. He wasn’t quite the Jedi who could reflect these projectiles back, so Doc tumbled out of the way and took cover behind a pillar. There, he bumped into Josuke. His eyes were filled with a berserker fury that Doc recognized from the best Viking warriors.
“What’s got you so riled up?” Doc said, flourishing the lightsaber and readying himself for the next wave.
“Clown talked shit about my hair,” Josuke growled, his “Crazy Diamond” thing pulsing with rage, “And then he ran off!”
Doc raised an eyebrow. “Wait, that’s it?”
The pair ducked as the pillar was detonated with some sort of plasma grenade. Doc looked up, then grabbed Josuke’s shoulder.
“Where did the clown go?”
“Down there,” Josuke snarled, pointing at the center of the swarming mob of turians.
Ugh. Of course the crazy clown decided to jump into the thick of it. Well, Doc was planning on doing the same anyway. Not much of a suicide squad if you don’t actually finish what you were doing.
The pillar behind them crackled with discontent.
“Josuke, I need you to cover me,” Doc said, “Distract them so I can sneak out and make my way to the center. Join me when you can.”
Josuke gripped his own fist, grinning excitedly. “Roger that. DORA!”
“What, like the explorer-”
With that battle-cry, Crazy Diamond slammed his fist into the pillar. This part of the cavern started to crumble, boulders and bits of pillar starting to fall on the enemy troops. The column itself teetered and fell, crushing at least a dozen blue women.
Instantly, Doc was tumbling and sprinting towards Kefka. He deigned to use acrobatics to navigate his way through the swarming troops - a lightsaber would be too flashy for his hopefully sneaky entrance. But it was getting harder and harder - eventually, Doc was using the enemy as platforms to jump around.
And that’s when he saw it. A slight shimmer of an outline.
Doc reignited his lightsaber and swiped at the obviously cloaked alien. A different-looking turian stumbled back, sparks flying from his armor. Doc smiled as the lightsaber withdrew into the hilt.
“You must be Saren.”
Kefka was by his side in no time. Doc sneered at the insane clown, before entering a combat stance. Kefka’s tongue was coiled in a crooked smile, apparently delighted to have located his prey again. Doc hoped that his prey was still Saren, for the moment.
Saren looked at the pair of them. His face was singed, and his armor was starting to crack. Alright, Doc liked his chances, even with his MANY burns.
Saren looked at Dr. McNinja with pity. “Don’t you understand? Darkseid is unstoppable. He is an ARBITER. If the Crossroads is to survive extinction, we need to make an alliance with-”
“I can see why you thought I’d be the more reasonable one here,” Doc interrupted, “But we’re super gonna kill you here.”
Saren sneered. “Then you will die a fool.”
McNinja scoffed as he reignited his lightsaber. “You know, I feel like I should be getting a real kick out of teaming up with a psycho clown.”
Kefka stretched. “Brave words, silly ninja man. I could destory you in an instant.”
“Yeah, if I nick you with the laser sword, just consider it compensation for stealing my gun.”
Kefka gave Caster a thorough lick along the barrel while maintaining eye contact with McNinja. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m cherishing this.”
What was my fate? For years in my life, I always thought things would go according to a certain plan. I was very strict on that. My life was always on track. I could count on everything that would happen in my life. My life always played a certain way and there was nothing I could do to change that. Until I heard my mom utter that phrase: No fate but what we have in life for ourselves.
Life has its ways of always denying fate.
Did it make sense to have hope in this situation? Why was I here? What did I come to Dante’s Abyss for? For a cause greater than myself. I watched as the remaining fighters, as strong as soldiers I’ve seen fighting out on the battlefields for me, do something greater than themselves.
Fear…
Why was I hiding it? Why did the golden king want us dead?
Perhaps last year's question held answers I didn’t want to answer for myself.
The little voice inside myself called out like a brand being struck on my head “Traitor.” I tried my best to avoid that voice hidden inside my head.
It repeated several times, the same words reverberating in my head. Is that what 30 years of combat training got me? I was not a traitor. I spent my life training and surviving all these years in combat doing what most people said I couldn’t do all my life.
Dante’s Abyss was full of sides that would turn on you as soon as you did the opposite of what they had in mind.
I knew it would be a war against myself out there and a war against those who didn’t see the value in a man such as myself.
But plans meant nothing in the game of war.
I placed white pieces on the makeshift chessboard in my mind. They represented each soldier on the battlefield in front of him. Those still remaining to fight with him: Deadpool, the Terminator, Rogue, Demetri, Anders, Lilith, and of course me. I placed a dark black piece with gold on it representing Gilgamesh.
Time to play 4d chess again in my mind.
Speaking of disappearances, Sergeant Swift was gone within seconds leaving the group with their own thoughts.
Chaos turned to action as the sandy scene was filled with Rouge’s screams as she rushed after Gilthanos without a second thought.
I never knew blonde hair and energy attacks would change the outcome of our fight, but it seemed to be working out great at the time.
Demetri gave Anders time to mess with the golden king’s mind enough to make him believe the team of warriors was giving up when it was just an illusion. Even with all their resources, my improvised team could barely hold off the Commander-King busy.
Eventually we'd be overwhelmed by this army of the undead. I realized it was now or never.
As Gilgamesh touched the orange soul stone to summon more nightmares of the past to haunt us, I aimed my rifle to his back, unloading the clip while I shouted for his attention, "Hey, Commander! You think you're fit to be a leader?"
As I predicted, the bullets bounced harmlessly off the god king. He turned to face me, barely registering my teammates' assault. "I'm the only one capable enough to rule the masses! Now your men get the honor of serving me!" He raised the golden glove and summoned the soldiers that fought under my command in Dante’s Abyss, their faces appearing before my very eyes.
If my comrades turning their weapons on me didn't seem dire enough, we had to deal with that fearsome dragon, back from the grave to terrorize the battlefield. But I couldn't give up, not when everyone counted on me the most. Years of military experience taught me that to overcome impossible odds, I had to put it all on the line. Before the ghost soldiers gunned me down, I ordered them, "Halt!"
For a second I thought my effort was in vain, until one of my soldiers spoke up. "General, what do you ask of us?"
I had done it, I don't know how but I managed to break through. "Show big, bright and yellow over there who's the real leader around here!"
Meanwhile, Gilgamesh busied himself boasting his infinite power. “It’s over, you mongrels. Give up now and I’ll make it easier on you.” His focus soon turned back onto me as I rallied my troops and signaled them to valiantly charge ahead.
I called out the cocky bastard, "Those fancy gems can't change what's in our hearts, Commander." With the resurrected souls learning where their true loyalty lies, they joined our fight against the king's rampage.
"NOW, TO VICTORY!"
Gilgamesh sneered at the traitorous army, sending the mutilated, mechanical, unmade Ridley and other past contestants to dismantle the uprising.
I directed the return of the Miniskirt Armada as each soldier lined up into their familiar formation. I hoped to hell we could hold back the incoming threat long enough for the others to press the advantage.
Somewhere in the middle of the fray, Trevor showed up covered in Unmade corruption, fused with some sort of arm cannon. Gilgamesh was more than willing to offer an imitation of Jak in exchange for his allegiance. I grit my teeth, seeing my old ally so easily persuaded to betray us. Damn it, I didn't have time to deal with this! And neither did my allies. Maybe they could convince him to join our cause.
“FORWARD! MARCH!” I ordered my soldiers to maintain the fight for freedom. “STAND YOUR GROUND!”
With Gilgamesh's spirit legion redirected, the 5 surviving contestants pulled everything they had to put down the arrogant dictator for good. I knew I couldn't help directly, but I didn't need to.
I watched my father figure, Uncle Bob, nudge me in the side.
“It’s time Connor, you have to give me the gun!”
I tossed the 90-Watt Plasma Rifle to the terminator, who rushed in without concern for himself. We only had one chance to hit Gilgamesh where it hurt. If we didn't take it now, the battle was lost.
A superheated blast of plasma, ready to go. All he needed was the perfect opening.
"Release me you filthy mongrels! Kneel before the might of a god!" whined the king, surrounded on all fronts.
"Not gonna happen, bucko! Now you just hold yer horses while we take care o' that arm o' yers," hollered Deadpool, twirling a revolver and nailgun in each hand.
Target locked.
The terminator used 90-Watt Plasma Rifle consumable.
1 Focus used to turn Gilgamesh's minions against him.
Hopefully, attacking the king of the city of which your guild resides in does not incur any tax penalties. Surely, the great Gilgamesh would have the decency to let bygones be bygones? Appreciate the attempt of wit and enginuity? If not, there was always knocking him on his ass so hard he wouldn’t remember who did it to him.
It was perhaps a stroke of luck that the ruler was bound by the same rules that they were, which meant that he was powerless to see through his illusion. The thief could not help but smirk as he dashed out of the line of sight of the golden monarch, attempting to catch his breath. Unfortunately, having one functioning lung slowed that endeavor to take twice as much time.
It was a lot to keep track of, the new enemies that the King had summoned, along with those who had now betrayed him in honor of the soldier that led their ranks. John Connor. He had seen enough of the last DA to know that there was a lot of history being brought up here, and took his time getting back into the fight. Each set of moves nearly had him wheezing. It was hard to stay out of the line of fire and in the range to control the illusion, especially with so much action going on.
The thief reached up his sleeve and activated the device that held his cards. A little something to spice things up. He peeked out and began to take aim, when the King suddenly spat his way. “Mongrel, thief, and magician. Had I known that you had learned new tricks since the last time I had seen you, I would have taken you out first. Truly, you are the most infuriating of them all.” Speaking of history, what was up with people from Babylonia seeming to recognize him? Uruk had only sprung up on his radar recently in his stay in Mesa Roja, and even on Inverxe, the arrogant Victor Wolfe had managed to call his name.
“Ah, but you have heard of me? Glad to know that my reputation still holds. It is a shame, my good king, that I must use your blood to increase its grandeur.” He held his side as the King’s gauntlet shone purple and threw a wave of energy to him, letting it crash through his illusory body and against the side of a city building. “No hard feelings though, yeah? I’ll make a nice donation to the treasury when we get back.” Demetri appeared on top of the building that was struck, just barely having managed to avoid the attack he had predicted would come his way. Managing parkour without his chains was cumbersome, especially with his injuries.
“Play your mind game while you can. I have my own hall of mirrors to play with, and you will slip up eventually.” With his words, he raised his gloved hand, the orange and red stone shining brightly as nothing seemed to happen.
“Ha, you got bamboozled!”
Great, another hallucin-
THWACK
The Mirage that had suddenly appeared beside him gave him an all too real smack. As ironic as it was before when he had stolen it, that catchphrase was really wearing out its welcome. Demetri swung back, the trickster dodging his swing and attempting to grapple his arm until the thief turned into a wide kick, slamming the legend straight in his noggin. Anders jumped across from a nearby rooftop and thrust his blade into the back of the summoned nuisance, scowling as it turned into a fading bamboozle.
“He is trying to waste our time,” spoke the sizzled heir.
“More like you are a waste of time,” came a sarcastic voice.
Not now. Not her again.
“I know, if he tries to pull this on us then he will pick us apart.” Demetri ducked as a fragment of metal was thrown his way in the crossfire beside them. The two ducked behind the small rooftop ledge, hoping to catch a short break. For now, it seemed the other competitors were keeping the Golden King busy.
“Admitting to it, or are you ignoring me again? Won’t make me go away.”
“What do you suggest we do? Those stones give him too much power for us to make any measurable difference. Can you counter it at all?”
“Maybe you should sacrifice yourself, give him something to really go to town with. It's what you deserve anyways. Then again you won’t last a minute out there.”
One minute. He could work with that, but he needed to know something first.
“You’re taking me seriously? How pathetic! You’re even more stupid that I thought.”
“Anders.”
His companion raised an eyebrow. What could the thief be asking this time? “What is it? If it’s not to do with the battle, then make it quick.”
“Show me what a true ruler looks like, yeah?” Anders met his gaze, and could understand the sincerity and resolve. “Don’t send any scoundrels to the orphanage when you make it to the top of Arcadia.”
Before Anders could respond, the image of Demetri faded out of existence.
Deadpool dove out of a window and began to fire both of his guns as he somersaulted through the air and landed next to where Demetri had appeared, ducking behind some rubble close to the King.
“Guys, guys! Oh, this is the montage part! Come on, don’t miss out!”
Rogue dashed out beside him, the golden glow of her saiyan form fainter than before, but still holding. Lilith rose from a nearby market stall, while John Connor stood in the front with his trusted companion.
“Ooh, I always wanted to be a part of the Avengers!” Deadpool quipped as he posed with the others, holding his hand out in a peace sign, though how ironic it was supposed to be was hardly decipherable.
“Ah don’t know what this is all about but how about we just kick that golden bastard’s ass?”
“I’m down for a little fun~”
“Alright, team, let’s move out, get us a clear shot!” John Connor led the final assault.
Demetri immediately blanketed the team in his illusion, pulling back the feeling of their wounds as much as he could focus while they darted towards the King.
“You are all wasting your time.”
Mirages sprouted from the ground, but they garnered no reaction from the group, leading Gilgamesh to raise a brow. Demetri kept one hand on his illusion, shaking as he raised his other arm to each of the trickster duplicates. Cards began to fly out of the device on his arm and struck each Mirage before exploding with fire. Gilgamesh narrowed his eyes at the thief as the rest of the group focused on the golden-plated king.
Demetri could only respond to the King’s glare with a smirk, his breath too heavy for anything else as he masked the distracting decoys from his allies’ vision. The thief stumbled forward, his allies helping to keep the King busy as he followed along, blasts of ki, metal, and gunfire filling the air. Each fighter could feel their senses dulled to all but their objective, racing to find an opening in the King’s defenses.
It was Lilith who made the first mark, slipping up behind Gilgamesh and under his ungloved arm and pinning it upwards, sticking him in her gooey form. “Not my favorite position, but we can work with it~”
Deadpool shot a barrage of nails and bullets as the blue stone brightened, warping them enough to redirect most of the fire towards Lilith. She ducked behind him, barely avoiding most of the damage.
John Connor was next on the scene, leaping forward to shoulder bash the kings gloved hand, allowing Rogue to flank and grab a hold of it. She held on tight as her legs braced against the King’s side.
“Come on now, we can’t let him get loose!”
Another burst of purple let loose a staggering pulse, enough for Demetri to fall to the floor and gasp for air. His companions were slowly managing to pin the King down.
He reached out and pulled at the King’s mind, forcing his senses to dull to nothing, a void in which Demetri now shared.
“You think this will stop me?”
The King struggled against the weary fighters and raised his hand in front of him, while the Terminator and Anders took position on nearby rooftops. Just as John Connor and Deadpool managed to finish grappling the king, a small portal opened up in front of the thief, thrusting a lance directly into his chest, and piercing his other lung.
The man coughed up blood and fell over as the King gave an audible laugh, “Know your place, mongrel.”
Demetri’s vision waived as he hacked and struggled to sit up, but he could make out Anders preparing his attack. He laid in his own pooling blood as he smirked and responded. “Just a pawn, and you King, are in checkmate~”
Face to Fate
#09 Sigmund Vrell, #25 Kefka, #26 Dr. McNinja, #15 Josuke, #20 Nico Cinder, #14 Dr .Caustic
Saren scowled at these idiots.
A year of operating at this facility, and the elite strike force that Markov had assembled consisted of a bunch of glorified teenagers, a clown, and a ninja? That was leaving out the number of armored goliaths, particularly the one who to ooze toxic chemicals as he rampaged through the fortress.
“I grow tired of this charade,” Saren whispered as he stepped back and vanished once again, leaving McNinja and Kefka on their toes as the sounds of the battle intensified throughout the complex.
“There!” McNinja muttered as he saw a gate swing open of its own accord.
***
The surprise attack had positively sundered the unmade defenses throughout the bulk of the fortress. The strike force of Über Jasons and the tactical precision of the Lonely Hearts marines, when paired with the utter chaos of the volunteers from Dante’s Abyss, had served as a sort of perfect storm whose initial strikes had devastating results. Yet, even as the underground armory was blown to pieces in an earth-shuddering peel of thunder, the reality of the situation came crashing back down onto the collection of brave warriors.
Scattered unmade soldiers reformed in their assigned strike teams and squads. Training that had been drilled into them reasserted itself through the initial haze of panic as the corrupted troops settled into defensive positions throughout the ravaged structure. Parademons and other monstrous entities who had been shook by the initial chaos settled themselves. Heavy equipment left scattered throughout the facility was collected and turned against the attackers.
In the left wing of the sprawling fortress, a bellowing Caustic crashed angrily against a reinforced steel door. With a scream, he punched through the wall on both sides of the door before smashing into its once again. With its lock mechanism and one of its heavy hinges nonexistent, the reinforced bulwark tore away from the interior wall and crashed to the ground. As it did, however, it revealed about thirty unmade soldiers entrenched throughout what appeared to be some type of nesting ground. Near the far end of the chamber, a trio of cannons whirred to life as they started to spew plasma.
With a guttural roar, Hulk Caustic charged. His massive bulk shrugged of the small weapons’ fire as easily as it always had, but the impact of the heavier guns was staggering, even for him. Thrown nearly to the ground by the trio of weapons, the doctor had a brief moment where his vision threatened to spiral into darkness before he was able to shake his head and right himself. Clenching his fists, he shoved off the ground and into a massive leap that took him within arm’s reach of one of the heavy guns.
Slapping the barrel of the weapon up at the ceiling as it continued to discharge its energized cargo, Caustic hooked his hands underneath the massive device and—screaming, sweating, and bleeding from a growing number of wounds on his impressive physique—uprooted the gun and flipped it over. Plasma scythed through the ceiling and the far wall before the cannon fell silent.
Twisting his head, Caustic grimaced as one of the other heavy weapons fired into his chest. Swatting aside nearby unmade soldiers, the doctor stumbled forward as his anatomy continued to fail him. Chunks of flesh and blood sheared away, yet in the end, it was his arm being blown apart that sealed the doom for all involved.
With nothing pushing him back, Caustic lunged forward. His good arm hooked the barrel of the cannon and swung it so its stream of death was aimed at the remaining heavy gun. By the time the crew had stopped, the other weapon was a smoldering heap, and with yet another enraged bellow, Caustic jammed the barrel into the ground and threw his bulk against it.
Collapsing to the ground as the surviving unmade foot soldiers closed in around him, a sneering Dr. Caustic apparently noticed to pieces of plaster and steel raining down from the high ceilings before the rest of the unmade did. With a grin, the man lifted his head and laughed as three stories of fortress collapsed down upon him.
***
Dr. McNinja burst through the door and reignited the lightsaber. Something shifted beneath his feet, and he swore he heard what sounded like yet another armory exploding, but the arrival of a stumbling Kefka reminded him of the pressing concern.
“Did we lose him?” Kefka wheezed as he swept the small room for a sign of their elusive quarry. “Does this fool not understand that cloaking is illegal?”
McNInja twisted to make a comment, but the room light up with the rattle of a fully automatic energy rifle. The pair of unlikely allies dove to opposite sides of the room and pulled themselves into the closest thing that could count as cover.
“Cover me?” The ninja shouted as he pointed to the gun in Kefka’s hands.
“How do you know I won’t just shoot you in the spine?”
“Because that would be a grossly impersonable way to betray me?”
“Fair enough,” Kefka rasped as he flashed what remained of his blackened teeth. The maniac twisted out and fired a rapid succession of magical rounds at Saren, who backpedaled before kicking open a door. “He’s back out of the room.”
Dr. McNinja shook his head as he popped up and gave chased toward the rear of the small room. He crashed shoulder first through the door and swung the lightsaber in a frantic effort to deflect the gunfire.
With an incoherent turn of phrase, Saren stumbled backwards. He glanced down to see that his armor had been struck with a ricocheted bolt from his assault rifle, and while McNInja was momentarily shocked that he’d pulled off the ‘deflect laser bolts’ maneuver with close to zero experience, he wasted little time in moving to close the gap.
Lightsaber in hand, McNinja swung and clipped the tip of Saren’s assault rifle. The turian grunted as he stepped forward and whipped the smoldering end of the weapon against the man’s masked face. Now finding himself in the position to let out a gurgled curse, the ninja attempted to turn his weapon back against Saren, but the highly trained soldier disarmed him, drew a pistol, and had spun McNInja around as a human shield to confront Kefka.
The mad tyrant, Caster hoisted, paused at the scene of Saren holding his own sidearm to the doctor’s temple.
“Stand down, or I execute your companion.”
Kefka’s eyes met those of the doctor-ninja. “Is this personal enough?” He asked as he pulled the trigger and sent a round blast through McNinja and into the chest of Saren. The turian, in a literal thunderclap, was thrown backwards through a thin steel wall as an extremely dead Doctor McNinja collapsed in a heap. Leaping over his dead frienemy, Kefka slipped awkwardly through the gap in the wall and found himself aiming his gun at an empty piece of floor.
“Where?”
A cold voice spoke from the shadows behind the clown. “You’re as stupid as you are looking to think you’d had a chance.”
The last thing Kefka heard was the discharge of the plasma pistol.
#14 Dr. Caustic DEAD
#26 Dr. McNinja DEAD
#25 Kefka DEAD
Siggy, Josuke, and Nico – you owe me at least one more post by the 30th at 6 PM EST.
Caustic – You have lost Relic (Deathmaul) Please send me a PM reminder this weekend and I’ll create a Custom WQ for you.
McNinja – Ditto about Relic (Jar of Dirt).
The last thing Chara Dreemurr hears is the sultry voice of her murderer asserting their dominance, before crushing her determination into a thousand pitiful pieces.
"You're mine."
Jaw hanging on by a thread, the broken mage gave an almost genuine smile. Then her throat blossomed red.
Rapturous euphoria engulfed Lilith. With her fantasy fulfilled, she bathed in the vital fluids of her cherished pet. Exposing the last grand display of their true emotions made the pain worth it. This is what I live for.
Face drizzled in blood, she lapped up her stained lips like a thirsty animal, satiated for the first time since her arrival. The executioner felt pure, complete, cleansed of her sins and stress and imperfections. Only possible through this sacrilegious baptism.
"Oooaaaahhh~" Lilith howled to the cold, dead human. "What were you saying earlier? The best you can do is stop me from killing others? Well, you better hurry back to me. Not that you'll actually succeed, no… I need more of that divine taste."
Chara is unresponsive.
Although the sadist knew the whole production was live, it wouldn't feel authentic if she didn't capture it herself. She summoned a camcorder to her palms and placed it in the air, positioned to film every meticulous detail. After finding a suitable tree to arrange the body, she admired her macabre work. Drenched in wounds, lacerations infesting every segment of flesh, incisions penetrating veins and bones, color draining from the skin, clothes shredded, gouged limbs revealing their interior. Short brown hair, lifeless maroon eyes. Still recognizable. Still a person.
"You're almost perfect. I think a few decorations should do it."
Lilith twirled her hands and manipulated the freely flowing blood, sprouting thorny stems from the plethora of gaping holes and weaving a web of vines from the split open neck. The corpse became a flowerbed, seeds planted in the tilled soil, cultivating a meadow of crystalline roses. Surely her victim would appreciate their velvet tomb.
This composition deviated from her usual art style, but with a host of new opportunities for gruesome self-expression, why not spice things up? A shame it would be defiled so soon. Though, it hardly mattered when billions had witnessed the scene.
"Yknow, I've never had a toy I could use more than once. Isn't that special?" Before Chara could respond, Lilith received the alert from her collar.
"Mm. Our little date was fun, but I have to get going. Let's do this again sometime~"
The butcher pilfered a weapon befitting her line of work, and with one improperly formed arm, she trudged to the bunker. As the smog crawled behind her, the once gleaming roses wilted to a sickly shade of purple.
Lilith had taken less than 10 steps inside when the piss-tinted prick barged in and blindsided everyone's powerless asses. There was always the option of self elimination, if only to get back to Ridley's lap sooner, but she couldn't pass up stomping that pretentious snob's head into the dirt. Besides, it's not like she wanted to see any of these clowns after the finale. May as well take the rich asshole down with her.
Rogue seemed to be having a fantastic time slapping around the king, but for all that flare she didn't last very long. Naturally, it fell to Lilith to handle this mess, not because she particularly cared about alleviating a mental breakdown. Nah, she just wanted to chop Chara's head off with the machete.
"Huh, really doesn't feel as good as the real thing. Ey broad, quit whining and stab these ghosts will ya? Trust me, I deal with this stuff all the time." With blatant disregard for the southern belle's trauma, Lilith tossed the serial killer blade and pummeled the apparitions of people whose names she forgot.
Rogue, however, had a different reaction to the machete. "Ya expect a queen to arm herself like a brute?!" she spat.
"Geez, as if one wasn't bad enough… Take it or leave it, kay?" Lilith impaled a wolfgirl with her fist and sliced through some other lady.
"Ah oughta have you executed fer all 'at disrespect, but ah've got a crown to return to its rightful owner!" Eyes teeming with excessive pride, Rogue clasped the blade and rushed to unseat the mad king.
Lilith dove in head first as well, shouting, "After I'm done with you you're gonna be Gilgamush!"
The royal demigod in all of his infinite knowledge easily evaded her, phasing right through her in a spark of blue. "Uncivilized wench! You will conform to my glorious image, and as for your master, he has the honor of being my servant!" Gauntlet glowing red and orange, Gilgamesh transfigured the corrosive tramp into a solid gold statue of himself. A moment later, he resurrected the former Unmade general Ridley.
While the petulant king threw a fit over Anders' antics, the monument to his hubris bubbled and oozed, shattering apart as Lilith escaped her glittery prison.
"Oi, piss face! Stroke yourself with that glove all you want, but don't fuck with my boss!" The dragon obsessed woman formed a mallet in her hands, ready to bash the yellow cunt's skull. One small obstacle. The Ridley from the previous year landed in front of her.
"Uhh, how's it going, master? Didn't expect to see you here." Lilith backed up anxiously. She'd heard rumors about what happened to her scaly lover, but to see it in person…
"SSCCREEEAAAAAWWW!!!" roared the furious cybernetic dragon, steel and tainted meat haphazardly stitched together.
"I don't suppose I can romance you again— Geahh, fuck!" A bolt of plasma breath crashed into the acid woman, flaming black sludge scattering across the sandy streets. Could she really bring herself to fight back, even if it's a copy? "Urrghh… Please don't be mad at me later." After rolling her shoulders, Lilith launched the mallet at Ridley, smacking his maw directly. Thankfully, this version was on the verge of destruction.
"I don't need to be lectured by a prostitute. Can't you see you're outnumbered—" Gilgamesh's premature gloating paused as bullets pecked at him. From his own men. "John Connor," he seethed.
"Pay attention dumbass!" As the ruler of Uruk threw a tantrum, Lilith swung an arm and sent the bloody hammer flying.
THWUNK
She walloped the agitated king, denting his nose and tarnishing his smug face.
"Insufferable whore!" Gilgamesh scowled as the 5 stones beamed all at once, intending to smite the corrosive nuisance from existence. Before he could carry out his revenge, his boots sank into the earth and he struggled to raise the gauntlet. "You think you can stop me, you worthless mongrels?!"
"That's no way to speak to a queen, city boy." With her haughty attitude cranked up to 11, Rogue encased the false king in dazzling chains, restraining his indomitable abilities for a few precious seconds.
Lilith found it an appropriate time to taunt. "I think he likes women tying him up~ Very kinky."
Explosions rumble throughout the underground complex, creating artificial miniature quakes that shake the planet's crust. So far, the infiltration is going alright from Josuke's perspective, but he wasn't sure if his side was suffering from heavy causalities. It seems like they are putting up an acceptable offensive to create a dent in this fort's defense, but they're not out of the woods yet. Just how gruesome this mission appeared on paper, they may never leave the woods with their heads intact. None of the less, one thing was on his mind, and it was to make the Crossroads safe for another day.
Josuke launches more bomb-ombs at anything that appears affiliated with the unmaking, helping to add more points to the Lonely Hearts marines kill count. A parademon hisses at the sight of a pure lifeform killing others that benefit the unmade arbiter's vision. The naturally unmade drone jumps from its perch and swoops down to ambush Josuke from above. Instinctively, Crazy Diamond reappears to protect his stand user from any harm that could also harm him. He doesn't even bother paying attention above him, remaining to keep his eyes forward on any hostiles.
"DORA!"
A swift punch to the face catches the parademon off guard from the bizarre superpower that Josuke possesses. The unmade monster's body gets sent skidding across the floor and immediately gets back on its feet. An ear-piercing screech rings Josuke's ears, coming from the horrific parademon. It charges again for Josuke, but he remains focused on enemies and using his grenade launch, trusting his stand to ward off any dangers that threaten him. Once again, the parademon couldn't match avoiding Crazy Diamond's incredibly speedy, hardened fist.
"DORARARARARARARARARA!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
His stand sends a rain full of fists that immensely damages its body and defeats the parademon successfully. More explosions erupt, making parts of the unmade complex cave in from the amount of destruction. In the middle of the fight, Josuke does hope his doctor friend is still hanging on and fighting to cause all these unmade bastards to pay for their evil actions. Still, the rage runs through Josuke with those rude words on repeat, reminding him that the annoying clown still deserves a broken nose. While fighting his way through the base alongside other Lonely Hearts marines and uber Jasons, he discovers where this darkening travesty's leader remains.
His eyes gaze upon the recent aftermath of a fight that concluded earlier but not in their favor. Kefka's lifeless body remains on the steel floor, with a plasma-made burnt hole in a vital area. Seeing the dead clown didn't get to his emotions, but what pulled his heart strings was seeing Dr. McNinja suffering the same fate.
Sorrow overwhelms him immensely, seeing another good friend suffering a deadly fate. Tears start once more streaming down Josuke's face from his tearful eyes. He bites his lip in anguish after witnessing another tragic scene and fearing the experience of this challenging situation. This boy had to suffer watching Nearl succumb to the unmaking and now seeing Dr. McNinja falling to death's grasp. While experiencing sadness, his emotions shift gears and turn to anger immediately.
He puts his fear aside and focuses on releasing wrath upon the murderer. Josuke gives the leader of this unmaking operation a deadly gaze, already locking his eyes on him. Saren slightly smiles at the fact that he already toys with the boy's mind by killing his friend.
"And then they send a boy to kill me. My nemesis must be running out of real men." The professional soldier turian chuckles at Josuke appearing before him and noticing his body language that gives off signs that this boy wants him dead.
Gazing at the turian's armor integrity, the stand user can tell that Dr. McNinja and Kefka manage to give him trouble before going down. A silent standoff begins between the two before anyone pulls a firearm out quickly. Josuke breathes heavily from the amount of fighting he's achieved for about an hour while his wounds throb in pain.
"I've already been through so much hell today, watching my friend become unmade when we separated and now seeing another good friend that doesn't deserve this kind of fate. Now, it's your turn to suffer. I'm no longer taking this shit and standing aside watching my friends die! Get ready for the taste of justice. You're going straight into the ground!" The rageful stand user threatens Saren significantly, making him keep a careful eye on this boy not to underestimate him.
Before the pompadour teen or turian makes a move to engage in battle, a steel door bursts open right behind Josuke, caused by brute force from someone. Could this be a new enemy trying to sandwich him between the unmade-aligned leader? Thankfully, this was no crazy monstrosity of the unmaking ready to take him out. Well, this guy did have a monster bound to him, but Josuke realizes this is another squad member on his side. The punk rockstar walks in on the standoff that occurs and smiles devilishly at the target that stands across from Josuke.
"Finally found this motherfucker, ay Sammy?" Nico grins greatly, already thinking about the amount of torture he would afflict on this turian.
"Yes, this one seems to give off a spicy whiff of appetizing fresh meat." The symbiote replies straight back to his punk host, already hungry for something to fulfill his gluttony.
The rockstar contestant walks up beside Josuke, standing with him to help in this upcoming final fight for this fort's destiny. He sees the other squad mates' corpses, realizing there's probably only him and Josuke left in this skirmish. His symbiote armor pulses full of strength that gives Nico an upper in this ongoing battle they have faced. Before they advance on where Saren stands, another interruption catches Josuke's and Nico's attention. A BFG charge goes off, turning a bunch of unmaking cultists into fleshly gore meat piles that dared to surround the two Lonley Hearts key squad members from their flank.
A hooded figure walks calmly toward them through a smoldering red mist of blood.
"Praise Gal'skap for this godly machinery been gifted to me!" the hooded boy excitedly brandishes his weapon, pointing it toward where Saren stands.
There is relief building in Josuke, knowing his others haven't fallen yet to this bloody battle. He smiles a little at how the situation is now turning out. Even though his friends have died, more will come ahead and not let him fight alone on this journey of purifying the crossroads from the fallen arbiter's influence. The trio of boys stands before the captain of this underground fortress, crumbling before his eyes. Saren arms himself once more and gets ready for another fight, except this time, he's got more bodies to worry about slicing his throat.
"Fantastic. It looks like those assholes sent the goonies instead." The well-combat turian laughs at the fact that he now must fight teenage boys and not real men that could make an actual brawl.
"We're not the goonies dickhead." Nico locks and loads his shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, wickedly smiling at what will be bounding to happen next. "We're the suicide squad."
The line delivery Nico sends to pierce Saren's morale makes Josuke confidently smiles at the fellowship finally forming to stop this madness.
In defiance of death, Nico Cinder and Sam the Symbiote stood atop a puddle of bodies and various shades of blood. They were holding a half eaten gummy worm by the wrist, but discarded it with a grunt. Sam's tummy was feeling kinda upset. Maybe too many sweets. Nico, perhaps drunk on the satiating of Sam's bloodlust, could feel his arms losing sensation. A dull, warm, thrumming inhabited his limbs more than anything resembling the sense of touch. He was too tired to walk, but Sam was kind enough to do all the work for him and for the past however long, Nico might as well have been a floating torso. Enemies of varying shapes and degrees of horrid approached the Malefactor, but most were cut down with heartless, quick efficiency, before fang reached flesh or fingers to triggers. It was not long before no one was approaching them anymore. Sam stopped walking Nico, and they were standing in a quiet room full of bodies again. Sam and the room were both full of food.
Sam was having the time of its life, at the cost of its life. Aside from the quality of the meat, this was perhaps all it could have ever asked for - a food gallery, a never ending buffet. It had Nico to thank for that. But it also had Nico to thank for the rips and tears in it. The holes and creaks. If it had bones, they would be cracked. Self-preservation battled with thirst, hunger. Sam supposed then, in this moment, that they were the same thing.
Which meant it was time to move.
---
When Nico opened his eyes, he was in the middle of exchanging blows with an angry bug person. Saren had fucking moves. Sam feinted spikes and flung rockets, but something was moving the taurian, some sort of wind beneath his fucking fists and legs. It felt like this guy was pushing rockets aside, letting them brush past his movements and limbs. The Unmade Lieutenant's eyes seemed to suck in the light around them, brimming with some sort of dark, hungry energy. Saren weaved past another stab, planting a kick right in Nico's chest that sent him spiraling into a heap at Josuke's feet. The cultist with the shiny gun let loose a few rounds to cover them, as his new comrade picked him up by the scruff, and dusted him off.
Pompadour was spunky. Nico liked this guy. Sigmund as well, and not just because he tasted delicious. There was something to be said about being drawn together with total strangers against a common enemy. Instant comrades. If ever there were a group of suicidal death game warriors as cool as them, Nico sure had never heard of 'em. Shame they all had to die here; it'd be cool to hang out sometime. Briefly, Nico wondered if Sam could even conceive its end being here, in this hellish place.
"Nico," Sam whispered.
Sam, Nico said back.
"Let's kill 'em," Sam growled, eloquent as always.
And the dance began again. Josuke roared with a righteous fury, setting his fists to work with Nico rushing in after him, sneaking in blows as he could. Sigmund sent flares of virulent green energy at encroaching party-crashers, keeping the odds as favorable as they can be, given the circumstances. Saren would send one of the boys flying or to the floor, and Sigmund would buy them the time they needed to get back to their feet. It's a shame time was getting more and more expensive. Nico's breath sounded as ragged as his teammates looked. Saren stared at them, unimpressed.
God, Nico just wanted to make it his life's mission to wipe looks like that off people's faces. Conveniently, Sam really liked eating faces.
The air exploded with the sound of crackling plasma as yet another round was launched from the BFG. The unmade zoid it was aimed at let out a shriek, somewhere between the cry of a wounded animal and the screech of tearing metal as its front left leg was reduced to molten slag and charred unmade flesh.
“Come now, let me put you out of your misery.” Sigmund said, his wild grin not reaching his gaze, the scion’s eyes laser-focused on his foe. “That Pretender Darkseid has his hooks in you. I will tear you free.”
The corrupted, wolf-like beast, ironically looking slightly closer to a real animal that it’s original mechanical form due to the fleshy growths projecting from between armored plates, responded with a distorted howl and gave a lame pounce towards the cultist, hampered by its lost leg. Quickly, the priest darted away from the monster, ducking behind a pillar for a moment of safety before a pair of metal jaws closed around it, slowly but surely crushing it into dust and pebbles.
Anticipating this, Sigmund hopped backwards and raised the BFG, waiting for his moment. As he did, his eyes locked with those of the zoid, dozens of reptilian pupils peering out from behind the fractured glass of the creature’s faceplate, each one burning with pain and hatred from the not-yet-unmade. This menacing stare only intensified as the pillar gave way, crumbling to pieces as the beast snapped its jaws shut and lunged one more time.
The zoid attempted to howl once more, but it was cut abruptly short by the roar of the BFG as a sphere of plasma shot down its throat, taking the howl with it. Strange distorted groans came from the beast as it stumbled backwards, jittering uncontrollably as its corrupted body attempted to hold itself together despite the extent of the damage it had taken. For a moment, it actually looked like it would succeed, and Sigmund prepared himself to take another shot moments before the fortress seemed to collapse around the beast, chunks of stone smashing it into the floor before abducting it to another level.
The scion stared, dumbstruck for a moment, before realizing that the floor wasn’t done falling apart yet, the destruction rushing towards him like the tide. Turning on his heels, the psion sprinted in the opposite direction, cackling uncontrollably as adrenaline rushed through his veins. For a moment, he felt his bad foot give way and he began to stumble, but by the grace of Gal’skap the stone that had fallen from beneath his foot was the last one to fall, and he landed on solid ground with a hard thump, though undoubtedly far less hard than the one he would have taken if the floor had caved in beneath him.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, the priest took a moment to look himself over. He was drenched in blood, though exactly how much of it was his and how much belonged to the poor souls who had been turned into gore clouds was ambiguous. That said, his vitals seemed fine. No good reason to slow down, then. Getting back to his feet, the cultist rushed off to join the others, and moments later, he found himself alongside Josuke and Nico (and Sam?), facing off against their prey.
As the stand-user and the Malefactor-empowered punk continued their brutal melee with Saren, Sigmund’s grin turned down at the edges, just a little. He would have loved to turn his magnificent weapon upon the unmade leader, but there was the tiny problem of friendly fire. For all it’s boons, the BFG was not a precise weapon. If a rifle was a scalpel, the plasma cannon was a sledgehammer, sweeping away everything at once, and the cultist was an honorable man. Even if he was sure that he could take the taurien out, he simply wouldn’t if it meant annihilating an ally in the process.
So, the scion turned to clearing the chaff. Whenever a lesser unmade came to their leader’s aid, a quick pull of the trigger would turn entire groups of them into stains on the ground. And the walls. Sometimes the roof too. The BFG was an incredibly effective pest control tool, but the wretched things just kept coming!.
Every so often, he would glance behind him to see how the comrades were doing, and though Saren was still in dishearteningly good condition, the psion got the sense that his back was being forced closer and closer to the proverbial wall. Stand rushes and tendril stabs that were initially dodged effortlessly were turning into heart-stopping near misses, and while the explosives still weren’t hitting their marks, the taurien was subtly accumulating small cuts from shrapnel, all the while the bursts from his massive rifle were growing more and more erratic. The three boys were exhausted, at the end of their top, but Saren was exactly fresh either!
To top it all off, when the lieutenant leaned into his communicator and shouted “Get in here and help me!”, his voice subtly cracked in a way that made Sigmund’s spine tingle.
The insidious onset of fear in a brave man. Scintillating!
A response to the lieutenant’s command came in the form of another wave surging into the room, more having slipped past the Lonely Hearts and Uber Jasons. The BFG belched out plasma in a steady rhythm, but Sigmund could barely hear it. As more and more unmade rushed into the room only to be turned into red steam, he could only hear his heart thumping in his ears like war drums and his ragged, labored breathing. When one of the unmade tauriens broke through the defensive line and came charging towards him, it’s grotesquely overgrown arm brandishing a slapped-together excuse for a sword, the cultist was too consumed in the depths of his mad fervour to do anything but meet him.
Igniting the energy bayonet, the high priest let out another mad cackle as he surged forward. Slightly caught off guard by the comparatively diminutive man’s charge, the taurien soldier hesitated for just a moment before swinging down. Sigmund knee that he had committed far too much to dodge the blow, so he simply contorted his body as well as he could before the blow struck home, allowing it to cleave down into mangled remnants of his bad arm.
Victory monetarily crossed the visage of the unmade turian before it felt a sharp pain in its chest and glanced down to see a wickedly grinning cultist, the bayonet piercing its chest.
“I have saved you, condemned soul. Rest now.” The priest said, his grin so wide that it seemed as if the skin around his mouth might split. Then, he pulled the trigger. An instant later, the priest was showered in scalding hot blood, simply ignoring the burning pain sprinkled across his face, unable to hear even his own maniacal laughter over the ringing in his ears and the thumping of his heart. Another soul free of their unmade corruption! Then, when no more enemies flooded in to replace his fallen foe, he slowly turned to Saren, who was far too preoccupied with Nico and Josuke to take much notice of the cultist.
Face to Fate #09 Sigmund Vrell, #15 Josuke, #20 Nico Cinder
In another time or place, it was quite possible that Saren Arterius would have viewed this rabble with something close to a begrudging respect.
That would have been longer before Darkseid had enlightened him and likely before the Reapers had likewise shared their message with him.
On this particular day, Saren simply wanted all of these fools dead.
Thick, dark spoke wafted from collapsed sections of the fortress, and there was no telling just how many soldiers and how much materiel had been lost in this attack. Most of the soldiers were already dead, and the bulk of his forces had dispatched to deal with the hulking cyborgs.
That left Saren and these three fools, after one more game of cat and mouse throughout part of the complex, to wage their final war atop a wide deck near the northern side of the fortress. A platform for aerial takeoffs and landings, the area had spent the last few months amassing little more than empty crates and a few pieces of broken equipment.
“Come now,” Saren shouted as a BFG blast ricocheted off a reinforced-yet-very dead zoid chassis. “This is your last warning.”
“We blew past last warnings the moment we teleported down onto this World,” Sigmund clapped back as he fired toward the base of Saren’s cover and forced the Spectre to flee as whole piece of dead cyber-animal skidded back toward him.
Cloaking himself, Saren shifted around the platform and emerged within striking distance of the Malefactor. As he advanced to close the short gap, the turian was stopped cold when Sam’s face slithered around to the opposite side of his head.
“We see you,” he laughed as tendrils spewed out from his back and slammed into Saren’s armor. The highly trained warrior bit down to prevent a scream as the cold, black flesh of the monster managed to shatter through his chest plate and scrape into the underlying skin.
“Grotesque aberration,” Saren growled as he activated an energy blade mounted to his wrist and sliced through the undulating tendrils. Drawing his pistol, he fired into Nico’s chest and scowled when only fragments of black ichor ruptured from collapsed alien. Before the turian could press the advantage, he caught the sight of Crazy Diamond as the stand rampaged toward him. “More inferior species,” Saren scowled as he evaded the right hook and vanished, leaving a confused Josuke once again on the defensive.
“I lost him!” He shouted, with the hopes that Sigmund would hear him as he flashed his gaze over toward a winded Nico. “Are you okay?”
“We endure,” Sam rasped as the symbiote point a hand. “Behind you!”
Josuke spun and managed to get around Saren’s bladed thrust. As the adolescent opened his mouth and willed his stand into action, his foe suddenly vanished.
“What?” Josuke muttered as he glanced around. Had the soldier fled rather than face the might of Crazy Diamond.
A subtle beeping drew the young man’s focus down to the barrel of his weapon, which had a blinking grenade attached to it.
“Oh… oh, no,” Josuke whispered in the moments before the sticky grenade erupted, triggering the detonation of the Bob-omb Launcher a split-second later. Not only did the be-pompadour’d prodigy vaporize into a fine, rest mist, but the entire platform beneath his feet and for several meters in all directions simply seemed to cease to exist in this reality.
Sigmund nearly lost his balance as the landing platform tilted—some integral structure component likely compromised as a result of the massive explosion. Unwilling to lose his balance, lest he be unable to get up and rearm himself quick enough, the scion dropped down to his knees and maintained a death grip on the BFG as the platform stopped its tilt and settled into a stable, albeit angled position. “Where are you?” He grumbled as he tried to take into account the shifted positions of the various crates and other pieces of ‘cover’ that hadn’t yet slipped off the platform and into the abyss that lay below.
“Resilient, aren’t you?” A voice taunted as Sigmund popped up to his knees, pivoted, and discharged the BFG into a crate. The puff of vaporized wood and rope held none of the organic matter that would had signified a dead turian, so Sigmund backed himself away from the direction of the voice and waited for some sign of the stealth soldier.
“You tricks won’t fool me,” the cultist shouted with an almost manic smile. “You should have taken my offer to repent your false deity. I could have shown you the way.”
Something toppled a few yards away, and Sigmund was quick to turn and fire. In the process, he punched another hole clean through the elevated platform.
“The fact that they chose to send a bunch of freaks and outcasts to undo my work is the most insulting part about all of this,” Saren spoke as he decloaked atop a nearby zoid carcass. The Spectre hopped down to avoid the BFG burst and fired his own weapon. Sigmund felt a lancing burst of pain as his knee exploded in a buff of super-charged plasma. “Not even an army. Not even some true soldiers,” Saren growled as he vanished.
Lifting himself away from the tilted ground on what remained of his partially eaten limb, Sigmund tried to line up another shot as the turian reemerge and strode over to him, but after four days of violence and trauma, the scion’s body had reached its limit, even if his mind remained just as driven as always.
“Last words?” Saren whispered as he pressed the pistol against the top of Sigmund’s skull.
“Naturally.”
“Go on.”
“We’re not alone.”
Saren scowled and shifted his eyes just enough to see the black shape as it crashed into him. Teeth and bladed digits tore at his face and chest in a frenetic burst of animal strength as Sam tried to bore into the Spectre’s flesh. The turian, grimacing and growling, managed to overpower what was essentially a wounded animal, and with the help of the energy blade mounted to his gauntlet, he cut a deep, burning slash through symbiote and human host alike, and that seemed to sap the fervor from the creature.
Shoving Nico to the ground, Saren turned just in time to have the energy bayonet driven into his gut. The barrel of the BFG started to hum, but before Sigmund could pull the switch, his brains were blown out the back of his skull by a quartet of frantic pistol shots.
Wrenching the energized weapon from his gut, a bloodied and cursing Saren turned to see that the last of this motley collection of nuisances had risen once more from the ground. A sturdy kick sent Nico bowling over backwards, and the slope of the platform nearly send him careening off of its edge.
“C’mon,” Nico rasped—his own face partially visible given the degradation of the Malefactor’s biological coherence. “I’ll tear ya limb from limb,” he sputtered as he tried to life his hands and clench them into fists. At this stage, the symbiote clung to his body less like a sentient and organism and more like a sweaty shirt.
“You disgust me,” Saren growled as he stared into the barely stable visage of Sam. “You know what we do with trash, right?” With that, the Spectre threw the bonded pair off the side of the platform, and despite Sam’s initial efforts to fire off adhesive tendrils, his alien anatomy simply lacked the cohesion and strength it once had. Apparently, a few hours of virtually bare-knuckle brawling will do that to a monster.
“It was a good ride,” Nico muttered as the plunged toward the rocky terrain below.
“Yes, you were,” the symbiote replied as it suddenly began to retreat from Nico’s ravaged body.
“H-Hey!” Nico shouted before he crashed hard against the unyielding surface that awaited him. While the initial impact didn’t kill him, it essentially reduced his insides to an incoherent blend of variously colored organic pastes. As he lay dying, the punk eyes caught Sam slithering down his arm. “Th-the fuck was that?” The man wheezed through bubbles of blood.
“I thank you for your sacrifice to ensure my safety,” Sam spoke—his voice projected into Nico’s mind as the symbiote hovered at the edge of his maimed and misshapen fingers.
Mouth and eyes failing him rapidly, Nico took to his thoughts. “What about ‘we’, Pal?”
“Don’t you worry,” Sam replied. “We’ll meet again… don’t know where, don’t know when… but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day, Nico Cinder.”
“… wait, is that fucking Johnny Cash?”
“Confused. Is this not why you wear all black? Is host not ‘the Man in Black’?”
By some twisted miracle, Nico’s virtually toothless mouth twisted up into a smile. “Look, Sam, I…”
Sam tilted his biomass as he waited for the man to finish his thought. “Nico? … Nico?”
***
Karl scowled at the people fighting Gilgamesh. “None of them have the suit? That would have been hilarious.”
Kevin furrowed his brow as he pointed to the viewing station further down the command center. “Nico went into the pit, Sir.”
“Wait, what,” Karl remarked as he pushed up out of his chair and rushed to see the tail end of the conversation between a now dead Nico Cinder and ‘Sam’ the Malefactor. “You let the Malefactor escape the confines of the event field?”
The man’s PA shuffled through some various protocols. “There was nothing in the fi—”
Karl slapped the younger man’s tablet to the ground. “It’s common fucking sense, Kevin! You don’t let the murder suit escape!”
“I’ll scramble the response teams?”
“No, you’re gonna go handle this yourself.”
Kevin’s face took on a particular paler shade of white as he looked at his boss. “One more time, Sir?”
“I want you on the first shuttle to Cevanti. We’ll drop you in a few clicks from this fortress, and you will get the suit.”
“I don’t have any combat training or operations understanding of power suits or…”
Karl snapped his finger, causing Kevin to stop talking mid-sentence. “Now you do. Get the suit back, Kevin.”
“What about my duties?”
“I’ll call Charlie up to replace you in the interim.”
“You’ll whot?”
Karl waved Kevin away as he went back to his duties. “Who knows, maybe this runs in the ‘family’ and she’ll let Voorhees out of confinement. I do love me a little mystery theatre,” the producer muttered spitefully as he sat into his chair and rang Charlie.
#15 Josuke DEAD
#09 Sigmund Vrell DEAD
#20 Nico Cinder DEAD
Sigmund – You have lost Relic (Warhorn) Please send me a PM reminder this weekend and I’ll create a Custom WQ for you.
The ‘in character’ information about this will be present, but while the squad is dead, they have struck a serious blow to Saren and his fortress:
The quest “Some Kind of Suicide Squad” has had its word count reduced to 12,500 words for the remainder of the calendar year. More than that, any character that participated in Dante’s Abyss can waive the requisite unmaking quests needed to participate in the quest. In six months (OOC), Saren will have fully recovered and relocated his base of operations, so the quest requirements will revert.
Be on the lookout for a World Quest on Cevanti called “Kevin and Sam’s Big Adventure”.
Dante's Abyss 2022 Finale
"Face to Fate/Zero"
#02 Trevor O’Skully, #03 Deadpool, #07 Anders Nazrat, #12 Lilith, #18 Demetri, #21 Rogue, # 23 John Connor, #30 Gilgamesh
They fell upon him in waves like the peasants they were. Mangled, half-dead mongrels who deigned themselves worthy enough to stand up against a true king.
His body partially immobilized in chains, and the women making comments no one cared to listen to, Gilgamesh sneered as a number of the stones flared to life. In a moment, he went from chains to drifting atop a floating, gilded platform above the city streets. The fighting had died down momentarily, but this was just the start of what he planned for these ingrates.
Hoisting the glove, Gilgamesh smiled as the Soul Stone shimmered. “I think it’s time you face the villainous king you desire,” he said with a haughty laugh as a fog settled over the city streets.
Their focus split apart into a dozen different places as figures started to laugh and giggle in the shadows of Uruk’s street, the surviving contestants drifted together—their eyes outward as they tried to get a head start on whatever hell the king had designed to throw against them.
An almost singsong-y voice seemed to call out from all the shadows of the nearby streets and alleyways. “Welp! By golly, it looks like we have a heck of a lot of sons of bitches who need murdered, uh-huh!”
“Mother of God,” Deadpool whispered as he reflexively rubbed something tucked into the crotch of his pants for good luck.
“Stay on guard,” Connor whispered as he checked the condition of his Gauss rifle and met the unflinching gaze of the Terminator. “Do you know what we’re up against, Wade?”
“Death incarnate,” he whispered as a beam a spiraling yellow energy roared out from an alleyway and scattered the group to the four winds.
Despite his injuries, Anders was one of the first to rise to his feet, but the swordmage immediately found himself confronted by a two-foot mouse brandishing an oversized key. “What lunacy is this?”
Mickey Mouse tilted his head. “Welcome to the Clubhouse … Bitch.” The mouse swung the keyblade and caved in Ander’s skull, collapsing him into a somehow barely conscious heap as the tiny fighter cartwheeled over his prone form and leashed another horrifying bolt of light energy at the assembled ‘heroes’.
“Keep the pressure on Gilgamesh!” Connor barked. “He’s the source of all this.”
“I’ll handle the mouse,” Demetri whispered as he already started crafting an illusionary net for the new pest.
Rogue, the air around her still thrumming with energy, glanced up at Gilgamesh and launched into the sky. The southern belle landed atop a building a couple yards from the gold-plated demigod, and on the other side of the street, Lilith likewise found a perch.
“Look at this,” Gilgamesh laughed as gunfire broke out in the streets beneath him. “What an unlikely tandem.” The man had to redirect his floating disk to avoid a burst of ki. “Ahaha! Such passion,” he sneered as he used the Space Stone to prevent Lilith from getting any ideas. “I’m sure that teenage friend of yours will be happy when I destroy not just her killer but also the woman who couldn’t have cared a less about her.”
“Shut up,” Rogue growled as she kicked off the building and burned through the air like a literal comet of yellow energy. Cocking her fist back, she threw it forward as the man’s face came into view.
…and then she was frozen dead in her tracks two inches from his nose.
Power Stone surging in the Infinity Gauntlet, Gilgamesh stared the rage-fueled southern belle right into her narrowed eyes. “All that glitters is not gold,” he coldly intoned. “You’re living proof that some gold just masks the trash underneath.” His fist then crashed into Rogue’s cheek, and the woman was sent through the side of a nearby city building, which promptly collapsed down upon her.
“Now then,” Gilgamesh remarked as he turned to see Lilith missing from her rooftop. “Where has the courtesan gone?”
With a coy smile, Lilith twisted and leapt off the side of the nearest structure. Flipping up onto the platform, she snatched at the Infinity Gauntlet. When she failed to find reliable purchase on the glove, she clasped at Gilgamesh’s forearm, and while her acidic touch was quick to compromise his gilded plate mail, she was unable to feel the warm embrace of the skin that lay beneath.
The air around her shimmered purple as Lilith was wrenched backward off the platform.
“I find it ironic,” the king rasped as he clenched his gauntleted finger and watched the woman writhe as the Power Strone punished her on a molecular level. “There are two women remaining, and both of you are literally poisonous.”
Lilith, whose face didn’t necessarily scream ‘being tortured by cosmic rock’, managed to wink. “That’s not all I am, Gold Daddy.”
Gilgamesh clenched his fist tighter as the Space Stone shimmered. Unable to move, Lilith could only stare into the man’s sinister eyes as he tilted his head and grinned at his immobile quarry. “You and I are both going to enjoy this, I believe.”
Lilith blew a kiss just before she was ripped apart at the quantum level.
***
On the streets below, the survivors found themselves out gunned and outclassed by a mouse.
Now, had they taken any time to speak with Wade, he would have warned them, and who knows, maybe they had seen Mickey Mouse’s previous ‘Master Classes’ on murder and carnage. If they had, that experience didn’t seem to show, because no one seemed to have an answer for the situation unfolding around them.
Beams of light flared intermittently through streets and building facades. For his part, Demetri tried to stall and preoccupy the mouse with illusions, but nothing seemed to slow him.
“We need a new strategy,” Demetri rasped as he stumbled across the waste refuse bin that housed Deadpool.
“The strategy is to run,” the mercenary replied. “How many times do I have to warn you people about these types.”
Demetri furrowed his brow. “What are you on about?”
Deadpool shook his head as a he heard the haunting, soul-curdling toot-toot of a train whistle. [color]“Get in here, you handsome, crippled idiot.”[/color]
Trevor O’Skully dove as the beam of light tore through the ground behind him. In the distance, he heard the clank of infernal technologies as the earth began to shudder. He had tried so hard to will himself to this location. After all, Rogue had emerged as someone he could trust, but even now, he found himself separated from her and struggling to maintain his grip on a reality that was besieged not only by Gilgamesh but also by the influence of the Fallen Arbiter.
“I… I must not give in,” the shadow assassin whispered as he heard what sounded like a whistle somewhere behind him.
With a frown, he turned just in time to see the locomotive as it came roaring like a bat out of Hell from the nearest intersection and slammed into him.
Inside the conductor’s box, Mickey smiled as the blood spattered his face and tiny conductor’s hat. Reaching his hand out, he snatched the Proto Buster out of the air and slotted it onto his left hand.
“Choo-choo!” The mouse king laughed as he laid out the coal supply and bulldozed through a block of homes.
