Duodecimarch (Worm Multicross)

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
krasnyy_samus.png


@Renu drew this bit of cover art for me on commission!

Samus




You look towards the three setting suns of a world far from Zebes, the colours mingling into a glorious pastel of orange while soft plants bristle at the touch of the wind. A wisened ancient in humble looking armour worn beneath plain robes with purple feathers framing a parrot-like beak and coming in front of pill bug like chitin plates stares down at you, hands atop his plain-looking cane.

His face cannot make a smile, but you understand the warmth and gentleness of his voice as he speaks to you, old eyes beholding his daughter with boundless love. You know his lesson is important, but you would have listened to him talk to you about anything.

"There will be times when you might not understand everything immediately Samus. Some may try to confuse you while other situations will simply be odd."

"So I just need to think on my feet right? Observe, orient, decide, act, right?" You remember saying

"Of course, but beyond that, you will need to deal with situations far beyond the ordinary. But even in the strangest of situations, you should remember my most vital of lessons." He said softly, plate covered fingers shifting atop his cane as you rummaged around your memory.

"...To never turn away those in need? So long as the aid they require is not harmful." You said, brightening your expression and grinning at him as he offered a little bow of appreciation.

"You are wise beyond your years, hatchling. Soon, you will be ready to start being the hero you dream of. And when that day comes, my old heart will swell with endless pride." He said before you found one of his hands on your yellow plated shoulder and his red eyes staring into your own.

"Is there something else you wanted to say, Papa?" You asked, leaning into the offered hand and enjoying the subtle warmth of the plating on your head.

"Yes." He said as the suns dipped below the horizon before the stars started to glow far, far too bright before your eyes, forcing you to shield them.

"You need to wake up."


Samus_future_visions.jpg

(Art by Jellyhammer)​

You are Samus Aran, heiress of the Chozo, sole survivor of K-2L, recently minted fourteen year old, and you are currently nestled in morph ball form on the ground. You don't really remember how you got here after taking out that wormhole station that was being fought over by Space Pirates and enigmatic soldiers identified as the same who had struck at Cylosis last decade, but you find yourself in a pleasant stretch of forest. Snow filled the fields and weighed down the branches, driven by howling winds in what you guess is this planet's winter season. Your mind's eye sees your body from a third-person perspective, a virtual out of body experience that lets you quickly gauge your whole surroundings.

Based on the decent-sized crater in the ground and a number of knocked over trees, you would say you fell from quite the distance. You rise to your feet and find that the snow goes up almost half-way up your thighs. You hold out a hand in curiosity, letting some of the snow melt on your open palm and smiling to yourself.

You offer your apologies to the plants whom your passage has ended the lives of, and take a look for the person you were travelling with.

A figure in blue, cyan, and grey armour lays before you entangled in some branches. The circular visor of his helmet giving the impression of a cyclopean red-eye in front of a smooth, insectile face with a three-pronged crest. A purple cannon covers his right arm, and a quick scan confirms that he's alive and well, simply unconscious. That was good, you've known the boy from Cylosis since you were both twelve, and you'd be besides yourself with grief if he ever got seriously hurt.

Well, you're certainly not going to let him stay in his torpor, not when you have contacts approaching your position on the radar and lurking at the corner of your psychic distant sight. You'd need to get moving quickly if you didn't want to be forced into a confrontation you weren't ready for.

He rarely had enjoyable dreams anyway, something you understood all too well.

Jumping up to him was an easy enough task, and once you were on the branch, you laid your hand on him and gave him a gentle shake.

"Arne, come on, we need to get going."


Arne




You are Arne Skjoldr, last son of Cylosis, squire to the Alimbic remnants.

A shadow haunts your rest. You move down shapeless corridors you can't identify anything in, twisting through passageways all as featureless as the last. You weren't sure if hours passed or merely minutes as the chronometers of your armour give you only gibberish; time is without meaning. Space perhaps even less so as you cross what seems to be the same corridor thrice despite going through different doors every time.

But you hear that awful saurian snarl in the background. You knew it was following you, chasing you. You had to go somewhere as quickly as you could, but could find no respite. Legs that could have taken you faster than your own sound seemed to bring you no farther away from the roaring or the eerie green light that flickers in the darkened halls.

You keep running; your boots start to make something snap beneath your feet as the ground turns to ash and snow. You hazard the briefest look down and hold in the urge to scream.

Skulls, bones, frozen corpses and mangled bodies rent by projectiles that reduced them to so many scattered pieces. You see the apartment you once called home before some eleven years ago. The familiarity made the twisted, shadowy and frostbitten warping of the building all the more chilling; but you had to face it. You had to be brave.

You push through the door, only to find not a floor but a deep drop that seems to go on for eternity while blackness engulfs the space around you. Still, the roaring follows you, an electric hum so close to your ears punctuating its hateful sounds—a sound so similar to your Shock Coil yet different; twisted, wrong.

You hit the ground with a roll. Everything around you is either burning or iced over. Corpses lie on the street, soldiers in unmarked green and silvery armour warped in demonic form shoot through wraiths and ghosts. You spy a machine, an icthyoid, and a digitigrade psychic who all lie dead before you as you run; flickering shadows of sinister shapes surrounding you—five shades surrounding the winged golden beast with five heads.

Two frozen corpses locked in an embrace, one male and one female; standing in defiance before the fivefold one; filling you with a deep sense of ache and longing but far too distant for you to reach now confront your eyes in the distance. The emptiness of bereavement hollows out a hole in your chest, and you can't help but feel the urge to weep, sinking to a knee as the two bodies crumble away and you fall further.

You couldn't help them, nobody can, and you realise this as you hit the ground once more in a circular room with nothing but the dead. Then the lights all came on again, and you felt yourself twisting.

Cold, sterile, painful. Needles in your body, watching yourself get remade. You look into a mirror in these empty hallways and see yourself without a neck; head floating above your torso and limbs far too long. No, this wasn't you, you shouted as you smashed the offending mirror and found its shards dancing around you. Before your eyes was one cluster of shards congregating in blue form, warm and friendly; the other a grey and elongated mass whose cyclopean eye bored into you before you felt a slap to the face and a punch to the gut.

"-Inadequate, a continued disappointment despite bearing our blood. What a waste...-" You heard, words stinging as much as the blows.

"Mom? C-cant you make him stop? Please make dad stop..." You beg of the blue apparition before a blow smashes into your face through the helm and the armour that made you feel invincible now felt like a cage, body refusing to move with your commands.

"-How many times do I have to tell you; Primoris; I am not your father.-" The cold and cruel voice of the grey one sneered before the body making it crumbled away into the same ice shards that the two embracing lovers above had disintegrated into.

"Mom? Are you there?" You asked, pleading to the Blue figure who nodded and offered to embrace you in her lengthy, blue arms.

"-Of course, child. I will always be there for you, my darling knight.-" She said as you rushed towards her for her embrace, only to feel the cyclopean figure fade to dust as well. You looked at her disappear, protesting as you tried to grab at the ash, but there was no time for that.

You froze as you heard that roaring beast get closer and closer. You heard boots clanking against the ground as you tried to not sink into the bones of the dead. Your whole body was shivering with fear as much as cold, breath hitching and heart beating like a drum.

Pain surged through you as blue coils of lightning danced around you. You felt like you were burning from the inside out, every cell screaming even though your armour should have blocked it out. But what armour? It all starts to melt off around you, showing far too slender grey and red Zero-Suit that leaves you feeling far too exposed before you feel a hand around a bare neck that you have once more.

You felt a squeeze, a demand to turn around and face what you were running away from. Blue armoured plating with bright green glowing lines run across the figure's armour suit, bladed pauldrons emerge from its shoulders and the helmet is an almost featureless enigma. No visor, just a green line that vertically bifurcated it down the middle.

"W-who are you!?" You shout.

"Destiny." A far too familiar voice says back to you before the armour opens up and swallows you whole.


Arne_Ghosts_of_Future.jpg

(Art by Jellyhammer)
You wake up with a start caught on some tree branches, gasping for breath as your HUD informs you all systems are functioning as intended. Just a nightmare; you breathe out and relax. You kept on seeing that blue and green figure in your nightmares as of late. Always chasing you and speaking in a voice that felt like family.

They had a name that stuck with you, Sylux. Foreign yet familiar, but you weren't sure if it was just another facet of your nightmares or something more prophetic given to you by your psychic abilities.

You hear Samus calling to you and see her gold plated gauntlet on your chest rocking you back and forth as you reorient yourself and take a closer look at the plant you've landed in. Conifer tree...a...white pine according to your scan visor? That hardly made sense, this species of pine tree was rarely found away from...Earth?

475282bcfa01915bc1288e79c406c8a7.jpg

The subject is a now-deceased Eastern White Pine Tree of the species Pinus Strobus most commonly found in the northeastern region of the North American continent of Earth, particularly in New England. Analysis of the tree's chemical composition contrasted to the surrounding environment confirms an age of 374 years, three months, and 12 days before expiring upon your impact with it.

Addendum: Spatiochronal analysis indicates that the organism is not of your reality. Nor are any of the surrounding features of the environment.

Addition Addendum: Analysis of stellar and planetary positioning of night sky demonstrates 99.9978% similarity to Night Sky of Earth circa the 13th of January 2011 as viewed from what was contemporaneously referred to as the Rockingham County of the United States of America. Discrepancies recorded to user memory. Night Sky positioning confirms a time of 02:37 AM..

Additional Addendum: Radio and Microwave signals consistent with early 21st century North American Standard detected.

Additional Addendum: User craft located in geosynchronous orbit in stealth mode awaiting completion of auto-repair.

Additional Addendum: Anomalous signal has been detected attempting to interface with suit software. Analysis indicates attempted malware upload, undesired software lacks compatibility with armour systems. Precautionary immunisation and treatment protocols engaged for safety; sample of anomalous code has also been isolated. Recording to files for study.

Samus' Notes: I have at least thirty eight different questions I want answered now, how did we even end up all the way over here? It must have had something to do with the device. But what sort of signal is this? It's in nearly everything being broadcast here like some sort of subliminal wave. It's way more sophisticated than most of the other signals here too.

Arne's Notes: Did we land on some sort of simulacrum planet after taking out that generator? No that's...way too much work for something like this. Okay...different universe...need to remember protocol. I should probably try and find the original location of the subversive signal though, that might get me answers.



"Yeah, I'm fine...just a weird dream. Thank you, though." You say as you shake your head and casually unentangle yourself from the branches, dropping down unhesitantly. Certainly was good to be back on firm ground. Shame about the tree though, may its body nourish future generations.

"Samus are you aware that these plants are from e-" You started before she interrupted after jumping down with you, already knowing what you were going to say.

"From the northeastern North American region of Earth. I know Arne."

"We've got to get moving; people are c-." She said, wiping a branch off of your shoulder.

"Coming...yeah, I feel it too." You said, getting your turn to interrupt her to your satisfaction as she gave an amused exhalation before you saw a bit of yellow in the corner of your eye and then did a double-take.

"Samus..." You said, pointing towards the sight a few hundred meters distant from your position to the north.


Samus




You turn and see a yellow...car that wasn't there before. It was...rounded, it had wheels, and from a glance, you would guess it fit maybe four people, five if they squeezed in. You don't see any tire tracks in the snow that would have indicated it drove there though, and the vehicle was clearly out of place.

Not perhaps, quite as out of place as the primitive-looking red and white turbofan jet that was right next to it trying very awkwardly to pretend that it had any business here, roughly about thrice the length of the small yellow beetle-like car with a wingspan about as large as its length.

You didn't need even to scan the vehicle to tell that there was no way that the aircraft could have made a landing this smoothly amidst this much tree cover. It would have needed far more space, and none of the trees behind it shows any signs of having been disturbed by its passage. Your ship couldn't make a landing like that and you designed the damn thing.

Your armour cracked through the encryption of their communications with ease, it was sophisticated, but not quite sophisticated enough. Strange though, you've never seen tech like this before. You'd call it...Living Machinery? Oh you'd just love to know more about it.

Bumblebee: What do you think they are?
Windblade: Minicons perhaps? Not getting any energon readings off of them though. Stay sharp, could be a Decepticon trap.
Bumblebee: I dunno Windblade, never seen Decepticons like that before. Turning into a ball doesn't seem to be their style either.
Windblade: Who knows what they've got calculated up? I've been tracking multiple different extraterrestrial contact groups since we've gotten here. On every Earth we've been tracking.
Bumblebee: Maybe we should just try saying hello? It's always worth a try to make some friends.
Windblade: Bumblebee, one rotation cycle you're going to get us both offline with how adorable you are.
Bumblebee: Don't say you don't love it though.

To your west you also heard shouting between two young voices, you'd guess they'd be about your age. One male, one female. Your suit translates the archaic language they're enthusiastically discussing directions in without much of a hitch.

"I cannot believe you Eudaimonica! Jump through one portal without looking and now we're all the way in New Hampshire?! How are we supposed to get back to Paragon City and out of this fucking dump!? If it weren’t for your demons I’d be freezing my ass off." The male voice shouted, distant, inaudible to normal humans but clear as day to your enhanced hearing. As far as your suit can determine, there is no such city in the United States, certainly not in Rhode Island; which your armour quickly deduces is the origin point of their accent.

"FBSA line's acting really jank though Nightcaster, lot of static when I'm trying to call the Freedom Phalanx too...and my phone's date system is really fucky; says its January 2011. Must be another dimension? Besides, you’re a shadow warlock, you can handle a little cold." The female voice said, trying to defuse her companion's flippant outrage by refocusing him on something else.

"That's almost ten years ago, are you kidding!? Ugh what is with this portal corps bullshit?! I'm supposed to be getting ready for spooksmas! The spirits and I had the BEST fucking decorations planned."

"Halloween?" Arne said to you before you shoosh him to concentrate better.

"Bruh calm down, don't get full doomer on me. We just have to find a place to stay and I'm sure Positron's gonna come in like a chad and get us back home. Or maybe I’ll work out a portal spell or...something, look just stick close to the fire demons and you’ll stay warm. You big baby." You...understand these words but the way they're being used makes you tilt your head. Arne seems to be similarly baffled by the slang, but your armour computers do indicate that these were popular vernacular terms in the later portion of this decade.

But that's hardly the only concern as you turn your head to the sounds of boots crunching into the snow. Quite a lot of boots, actually. The sound is definitely coming from the south, the same direction as one of the region's larger metropolitan areas.

"Impact site's nearby; spread out and investigate." The closest voice says, an adult you discern based on their baritone.

"Why are we hunting meteorites? That's NASA shit." Another said, female, somewhat younger, likely lower ranked.

"Look all I know is that the tinker tech scanners figured they weren't like the other debris from that blast in orbit. Just tell me when you find something."

"God damn space shit couldn't wait until we weren't in the middle of a blizzard?" She complained.

"Do you see the kids complaining half as much as you do?"

"Try to be at least a little professional." Somewhat more grizzled voice, definitely vocoded through a power suit of some sort. Interesting, as far as you were aware Earth never developed more than the very rudiments of that technology this decade.

"Easy for you to say when you're probably nice and toasty in that power suit." The female soldier said, getting an exasperated sigh out of the third voice.

You turned back to Arne.

"What do you think about all of this Arne?" You asked him as he stopped and tapped his chin with his left hand. His mind, as keen as your own, took only a moment for him to come up with his answer.

"Definitely a different spacetime continuum. It'd fit the scan data at least. South is where the local authorities are coming from though." He said, snapping his attention back to you.

"Yeah, agreed. Should we go meet them?" You ask, getting a shrug out of the Squire.

"Come on Arne..." You sigh.

"I don't know. Maybe? Look I...Uh...okay I'd want to wait to see what they're like before we do anything." Well, at least you got your answer, and you rewarded him with a thumbs up.

"You know I don't like guessing but...those vehicles and the two juveniles probably also came through some sort of faultline? Bumblebee and Windblade seem to be here more..." He paused briefly, at first unsure if the word he was going to use was appropriate before going ahead with it, casually making use of the names extracted from their chatlogs. "...Intentionally I'd say? I think we should probably check on the vehicles first though; something's not right about them." He said, turning towards the car and the aircraft.

"No, I think the kids probably need our help first. This kind of weather is easy to get lost in." You say, hoping that the two youths aren't too cold. If they were lacking in climate-controlled gear...you shuddered at the thought, no you weren't going to let it come to that.

"It's going to be too late for that. We've been spotted." Arne said, pointing at some of the shapes turning their heads in their direction, ancient-looking weapons being cautiously brandished. Most would be of no threat to you, but a few of them had unusual energy signatures your armour recommended further studies on and their radio communications indicated they'd start to converge quickly.

Arne looked to you for guidance; the choice would fall on you as you heard a request for identification and status.

latest
Data extracted from communications and wireless systems cross-referenced to Distant Sight and deep analysis information shows a set of equipment largely comparable to known records of early third millennium technology. The standard armour of a PRT is a non-powered combination of kevlar and chain mesh designed to be resistant to primitive chemical slugthrower rounds and steel blades swung at speeds within baseline human ranges. Standard weapons are smokeless powder assault rifles, shotguns, and grenade launchers typically fitted with nonlethal equipment. Threat level is nonexistent. Advise care to avoid unintentional inflicting of fatal injuries.

Advisory: Some members of the unit utilise weapons firing rounds filled with rapidly hardening foam meant to safely immobilise targets or more exotic payloads powered by extradimensional sources in a crude but effective way for the demonstrated baseline of technological capability.

Addendum: Data extraction reveals that this paramilitary outfit is primarily intended to respond to situations created by a population of humans demonstrating abilities outside of the norm of the species within the boundaries of the United States of America and Canada. Jurisdiction also theoretically applies to actions by non-human entities, but no records indicate confirmed contact with sophontic extraterrestrial life.

Addendum: Genetic code of subjects is baseline human and entirely unaugmented, resulting in an inevitably fatal onset of senescence on average by the age of seventy through trivially prevented or cured diseases such as cancer, leukaemia, or assorted cardiovascular ailments. Recommend treatment when available.

Samus’ Notes: These people must be freezing out here in completely non-climate controlled clothing. It’d be really rude to keep them waiting, but is it right to interact with people this lowtech?

Arne’s Notes: Police...of course. I don’t like the way they’re looking at me. Do they think I'm some kind of monster? They aren’t hostile yet, but I should be ready for anything.

Options:

(You may pick two; one for Samus and one for Arne; specifying whether Arne or Samus is to do the action, or have both do the same thing if you think splitting them up is a bad idea.)

[]: Comply with the request, no need to cause any trouble.
[]: Bolt past them and move towards the machines, they need investigation.
[]: Bolt past them and head towards the two kids, they need saving.
[]: Pretend to not understand their language
[]: Make it clear that you’ll be asking the questions here
[]: Contact Bumblebee and Windblade electronically and inform them of the kids in need of pick-up while distracting the PRT from them.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[accordion=bcenter]
{slide= Samus Aran|center}
Samus Eabha Aran

497449_Samus.png

(Art by matsuo95)​


Basic Character Info

Height: 5'11/180.34cm
Mass: 158.73 lbs/72 kg
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Species: Human-Chozo Hybrid
Ethnicity: Celtic (Primarily Irish), Matrilineally Jewish.
Gender: Female
Religion: Chojinzuko Animism (Ak-Ekmat)
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 14
Birthday: 6th of August, 50,000 A.D
Homeworld: K-2L, Zebes
Family: Virginia and Rodney Aran (Biological parents, deceased), Old Bird (Adoptive Father, Alive), August Wings (Adoptive Mother, Alive), Grey Voice (Chozo gene donor, Adoptive Father, Alive),
Other Relations: Sylux/Arne Skjoldr (Romantically Involved)
Aliases: The Huntress, the Hatchling, the Heiress, the Inheritor, Aira-Sekh (Chozo name)
Conventional Abilities: Massively augmented physiology rebuilt by the Chozo from the very most fundamental level. Physiology can achieve nearly 100% energy extraction from consumed mass and use this energy to power bodily functions while also being able to withstand the energies unleashed by it; which can be further bolstered through managing the flow of quintessence through meditation and focusing techniques. In essence, she is far, far faster, more durable, heals much more quickly (though not quite wolverine fast nor could she regrow entire missing limbs), and vastly stronger than a normal human and her mind works vastly more efficiently with reaction times surpassing those of most machines.
Esoteric Abilities: Latent Psychic and sorcerous potential from Chozo DNA that can be used in limited fashion such as precognition, interface with psychic or sorcerous technology, empathy, and armour repair through concentration. Also renders Samus and anything she is wearing virtually immune to most hostile esoteric effects save for direct damage via mundane energy.







Information

The last scion of the Chozo, the final living member of the Aran family, the single remaining survivor of the K-2L raid; Samus is the last of a lost of things. After watching her mother and virtually all of her friends die in front of her and seeing her father give up his own life to take out the guts of the Space Pirate Enforcer Ridley's dreaded Inferno Pack fleet, she was left to wander alone in the dust and ash for hours until the Chozo returned to K-2L to make an exchange for the mining planet's resources. Adopted by the Zebesian Chozo who felt responsible for not being able to prevent the catastrophe she was remoulded by their deft artifice into someone who could live among them; and when she expressed a desire to be a hero who could inspire hope in others and ensure nobody would ever suffer as she did; she was trained as a warrior and explorer. Given peerless education to enrich her superhuman brain, she mastered both the sciences and the arts as well as the ways of battle.

She would meet Arne Skjoldr, her counterpart among the Alimbics, whom she was pitted against in a test between the two ways of raising a warrior despite having befriended. Though the conflict ended in a draw, she and Arne would quickly become much more than friends even if their relationship was pockmarked by their deepset Trauma and relative isolation. The two would, a year later, be sent to the former progenitor world of Zoran to test whether they had fully mastered all there was to know about the basics of progenitor combat, where they found that Old Foes of the Chozo and Alimbics who were supposed to be locked away in a prisoner reality detached from all of existence had somehow slipped through. Through ingenuity and determination, she managed to find a way to stop the two from catastrophically tearing apart the entire sector of the Black Eye Galaxy in an attempt to free their kin and was lauded for her bravery and skill.

Still, she had only finished one phase of her training and would be sent to the Federation's space to learn how to reintegrate with her own kind and satiate her thirst for knowledge and wanderlust. Dispatched to the headquarters of the Federation's Prodigal Program for those with unusual abilities, she would find some difficulty adjusting to a far larger population of peers than she had previously been used to, and no longer having the Chozo more than a few minutes away. However, investigations into the actions of the mysterious R.A.I.D and the Space Pirate Marshal known as Weavel who sought vengeance for his demotion in the military of the Confederacy of Dismor due to the K-2L blunder would reunite her with Arne in battle sooner than expected; and the two traced the trail to a Wormhole generator being fought over by Weavel and a mysterious figure's forces. Stopping the generator from overloading but pulled through anyway, she has landed on a distant world that the two organizations have been visiting regularly for some time to be worth the bother of establishing wormhole facilities.





Appearance
Samus_character_sheet.png


Tall and striking for her age, Samus keeps her hair in a relatively short tomboyish style that she finds practical and comfortable. She's excitable, enthusiastic, wears her emotions on her sleeves, and never is afraid to show that she's interested in someone or something. Lithely muscular and built for almost unparalleled speed, her golden hair and blue eyes demand attention as surely as her armour does. (Art by F4ARTz)​



Miscellaneous Stats

Supplies​
9 Energy Tanks (Total 999 shield points)
2 Resilience Augments (Blocks out 95% of incoming damage)
320 Universal Ammo
40 Super Missiles
200 Regular missiles

Other Stats​
Stress: Low (Magnitude One)
Mental State: Great
Physical Health: Optimal
Social Needs; Somewhat Fulfilled




Status Effects


Relationships
Arne Skjoldr: Romantic Partner. Bonus to cooperation efforts and morale while deployed with him.
Bumblebee: Budding Friendship (Bonus to cooperation efforts and morale when deployed with him)

Special Rules & Abilities

Distant Sight: Samus has the benefits of PRECOGNITION in nearly any circumstance, though she cannot reliably focus it on particularly distant events without extensive meditation. This does allow her to react to attacks before they come however.

Child of Chozodia: Samus is the beloved daughter of the Chozo of Zebes, she is as much a child of the honoured elders as she is of humanity and gladly walks between the two legacies which she has been gifted. She can make use of things normally keyed to Chozo or general Progenitor biometrics and will always be able to find some useful Chozo artifact in any mission she is sent to. Of course, only herself, Arne and those others with similar special rules can benefit from these artifacts without extensive projects.
PTSD: Samus suffers from PTSD incurred by orphaning at K-2L by Ridley's Inferno Pack. While her morale is virtually faultless, if exposed to a PTSD trigger that leads to a failed morale check, Samus will be locked into extremely aggressive or evasive actions to try and remove the source of the trigger or remove herself from its presence at any expense. While she is berserk in this state, she also has a harder time forming plans when hyperfixated to such a degree.





Incarnate Abilities
Alpha Slot unlocked: 0 Shards, 0 Threads, 0 Incarnate relics.




Skill Proficiencies

Technology
Engineering
Biology
Computer Science
Robotics
Space Navigation
Terrestrial Navigation
Geology
History (Chozo)
Extradimensional physics
Astrophysics
Piloting
Arts (Sculpting)
Spiritual Theory
Political Theory



Equipment

Supplies​

9 Energy Tanks (Total 999 shield points)
2 Resilience Augments (Blocks out 95% of incoming damage)
320 Universal Ammo
40 Super Missiles
200 Regular missiles

Alt-Mode equipment​
latest.png


WIP

Curls into a ball to let Samus get into places she normally wouldn't be able to fit into and interact with certain objects. Also lets her duck out of fire and sneak around undetected.

WIP

Lets Samus stick to things.

WIP

Builds up a kinetic charge that is then released to give Samus a burst of speed. Can also be used to ram.

WIP. Drop stuff in morph ball mode to make it go splodey.

Elemental alt-mode bomb, fires a wave of degenerative energy that breaks down matter it comes into contact with.

Crawler limbs allow for the user to engage in close-ranged combat against enemies that might be resistant to bombs and boost attacks or might approach within the time frame of those attacks. They also allow for a boost to the jumping capability of the alt-mode and allow for greater purchase on surfaces that the alt-mode might slip on or when rolling or hovering is otherwise inadvised. Crawler Limbs strike in melee with reduced power compared to the arm-sword, but are still formidable in the right hands.

Samus' Notes: I really hope I don't run into anyone who's afraid of crawling things while we're out there.

Arne's Notes: I uh...I guess this can be useful...sometimes? I'll need to figure out more uses for it besides scaring people.

Mobility Upgrades​

Allows Samus to go extremely fast in after a bit of a running start, can also be used for a limited form of flight by shinesparking. Sheathes Samus in immensely destructive energies that destroy nearly anything touched.

Allows Samus to jump multiple times while in the air.

WIP, It grapples stuff, can be used to pull stuff or drain energy to regenerate your shielding or feed stuff energy to heal allies or overload enemies.

The Flight Pack is derived from Hollenmord's dark magic augmentations to its wings, properly purified before integration and adds a deployable set of wings to the armour suit that can be used for flight, combat, providing cover, or aesthetics. When not needed, the wings are consumed into the armour's zero-point form, whenever they would interfere in user mobility, and at full length have a wingspan equivalent to twice the user's height. The energy membranes of the wings will also serve as an additional layer of defense as well as weapons; as can the outermost fingers of the wings. Flight speed will be equivalent to five times land movement speed, and the speedbooster is able to apply to flight mode. The Flight Pack will also be able to operate in airless conditions; but a liquid movement module will be required for full function in high drag environments such as water.

Samus' Notes: Ahhh! Do I deserve to fly with wings like Old Chozo Warriors did? I guess..I must be if this is what the suit got from Hollenmord. I'll make sure I'm worthy of this gift.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, the bat stylings look a bit threatening...maybe I could modify them into something less scary?

Visors​

Lets you scan things (will be expanded soon)

Lets you direct your gunship and provide tactical data to team mates.(will be expanded soon)

Allows Samus to see heat and track normally invisible targets.

The Echo Visor visualises sonic information and vibrational data to allow the user to "see" sound as well as sonic profiles. Combining both active and passive sonic detection systems, the Echo Visor is well suited to watery environments in particular where its detection systems can often see much farther than electromagnetic signals. Due to its ability to detect vibrations through long-range scanning, it can even work in a limited function in vacuum environments.


Samus' Notes: The Echo Visor's also notably very useful for detecting burrowing enemies as the reverberations they make through the ground are extremely easy to detect with it. Should come in very useful in the future whenever I bring it with me!


Arne's Notes: I won't lie, it's very weird that the visor can let me see things like foetuses still inside of their mothers on ultrasonic mode. But it is a pretty interesting way to perceive the world. I imagine that it'd also be very useful for people who can't hear sounds as low or high as we can.

The Incarnate Visor augments the user's ability to detect objects with connections to the Source of the Sourcewell metaverse as well as threads and fragments of Source connection or power. The Incarnate Visor is also able to perceive into other dimensions as it looks for any possible connection to the Source; revealing many other varieties of extradimensional entities such as ghosts or parahuman shards. However, the Incarnate visor does not counteract conventional visible light cloaking. Note that many forms of Ghosts can utilise conventional spectrum cloaking to evade tracking if their dimensional phasing is foiled.

Samus' Notes: Huh. Definitely going to be needing this a lot in the future now.

Arne's Notes: Well, having warning before my next religious experience would be nice.

Miscellaneous Gear​

The armour and zero suit will adjust its strengths to counter repeated stresses of a specific nature. If continually forced into contests of physical strength, they will augment the user's physicality further. If speed is repeatedly proven necessary, they will add to the user's speed; and if repeatedly impacted by a specific damage type, they will increase the user's resilience against that sort of impact. While only a limited number of adaptations at a time can be deployed or stored, this significantly increases user versatility.

Allows your shielding, armour integrity, and body to recover over time without external input, even regrowing components or limbs. While vulnerable to alpha strikes, the regenerator can consume missiles or power bombs to accelerate its regeneration rate; and it will also steadily recover ammunition and power reserve supplies as well. The more enemies surround you, the faster this upgrade will work. Unlike most upgrades, it does not require your armour or zero suit to function. Acquire more regenerators to bolster regeneration further.

Samus' Notes: Not exactly a glamorous upgrade, but definitely a necessary and useful one.

Arne's Notes: Well, should be useful for taking hits at least.

(More in universe desc to come) Allows the armour and zero suit to augment physicality in a massive rush of energy, while this function does draw on a store of Adrenal power that needs to be restocked over time; it does not come with any drawbacks while active. Initial Berserker Booster functionality offers thirty seconds of massively augmented strength and resilience and significantly enhanced speed, and reflexes. Once used, the Berserker Booster will need to recharge. The Berserker Booster will tend to heighten user confidence and aggression not out of chemical effect, but due to the user's bond with the armour and zero suit imbuing them with the same sense of heightened physical power.



Weapons


Extra-Gear​

WIP. It stuns targets but can also cause them some harm. Has a plasma whip and a blade mode.
Weaker version of the arm cannon. Back up weapon, has an energy bayonet.

The munitions launcher serves as a platform for releasing extra munitions without occupying the attentions of the arm cannon. Primarily a method of firing grenades, specialist projectiles or fluid streams, the Munitions launcher is also able to be utilized while in alternate form to allow for ranged combat capability in the alternate mode. It comes preset with Cluster-Flechette, the AMEAT Mortar, and the Corroder; each of which draws on the Universal Ammo stockpile. Cluster-Flechettes are useful against large numbers of soft targets, the Mortar is best against smaller numbers of hard targets as it launches a directed jet of armour piercing ejecta before impact, while the Corroder is best against targets vulnerable to chemical attack, in hardcover, or against charging foes. All munitions can be charged for greater effect.

Universal Ammo Count: 320/320


Samus' Notes: The range on these weapons is pretty good, you could get a lot of use out of them indirectly bombarding distant targets I'd imagine.


Arne's Notes: Enemies in cover I'd imagine would be a primary target for the munitions launcher; a well-timed airburst could clear out most enemies in hiding.

Beams​

WIP. Rapid-fire spammy gun, hurts ghosts. Can be stacked with other beams.

WIP. It lets you charge your beam or your missiles.

Elemental beam (cannot be stacked with non-augment beams without the elemental stacking upgrade), fires homing electric projectiles at a medium rate of fire that can stun targets. Charge shot electrocutes enemies and stuns them for the duration of the overload. Very effective against targets vulnerable to electricity. Medium damage, medium-high rate of fire, homing, medium area of effect.

Augmentation beam (can be stacked with other beams freely), augments damage output and area of effect by converting shots into nine projectiles fired in a tight shotgun like spread surrounding the central shot that goes where you want it to.

Elemental Beam (cannot be stacked with non-augment beams without the elemental stacking upgrade), fires a spherical projectile undergoing intense nuclear fusion reactions that goes supercritical on impact in a miniature supernova, "sticks" to targets it hits to cause continual burn damage. Medium damage, decent rate of fire, large area of effect. Charge shot fires a larger projectile that will explode in a considerable radius and damage nearby hostiles en route. Lots of knockdown/back.

Augmentation Beam, causes projectiles to refract/chain between multiple targets after impacting, allowing for a single shot to damage multiple enemies or strike one enemy multiple times in different locations until the beam's energies finally expend themselves. Adds to the potency of beam damage and to its anti-area of effect capabilities.

Elemental Beam

Derived from 5th Column and Council Technology by the Nictus, the Quantum Beam allows for the user to fire a special negative quantum globule of energy that is especially destructive against beings that rely on a transdimensional energy bond to link between a symbiont and a host such as Kheldians, Nictus, and Parahumans and Extradimensional projections. The beam deals extremely enhanced damage against these targets and causes numerous debilitating effects that will take some time for the targets to recover from; slowing them down and weakening them for many seconds. As a negative energy weapon, the Quantum Beam also is effective against any target that lacks resistance or has a special vulnerability to negative energy; but is generally less effectual against those inundated in such energies. The charged shot fires the Quark Tornado, which explodes into a swirling Maelstrom of negative energy that will persist for some time after impact and wander around the battlefield damaging enemies caught in its path.

Samus' Notes: I'm wondering why the Nictus would design a weapon that is their own weakness. This sounds like a particularly unpleasant and dangerous culture that bears investigating to find a way to stop them.

Arne's Notes: Well, this beam is probably going to come into use a lot on Earth Bet, though I'm somewhat concerned that this technology also puts our own Parahuman allies at risk.

Augment Beam

The Seismic Beam is a sonic weapon that releases a hyper-pressurised air burst of air in front of it, generating it from the armour's zero point systems and then having it trailed by a powerful vibrational frequency. The more that the beam hits a target, the more it will resonate with the target, increasing the damage with each following hit until the target is destroyed or until the resonance stops. The beam will also traverse through multiple targets and can ignore many forms of cover. Its charged form is known as the Seismoquake and causes the afflicted target to resonate violently, echoing outwards and damaging all nearby enemies.

Samus' Notes: Ah, finally; something to penetrate through multiple enemies. I just need to be careful with missed shots.

Arne's Notes: Thanks to the pressurised air wave, it will work in vacuums. Fortunate since its such a handy beam.

Missiles​

WIP. Shoot to blow stuff up.

The Seeker Missile allows the missile module to fire multiple missiles at a time in a single burst, each capable of independently tracking their own targets with augmented homing capabilities. The initial seeker missile upgrade allows for upwards of five missiles at a time to be fired and may be used with charged missiles, super missiles, elemental missiles, beam combos; or any mixture thereof. Be warned of ammo consumption when utilising this function.

Elemental missile. Fires a projectile that will explode into a wave of anti-energy to freeze nearby targets. Uses missile stockpiles. Can be used with super missiles.

Fires a missile that explodes in a superheated wave of quark-gluon plasma ejecta and sets things it comes into contact with on fire. (WIP)

WIP, more ammo limited but bigger boom.

Sub-weapons​

Designed by Samus Aran based on the ice beam and loosely inspired by old designs on Zebes, the Cryolyte is a powerful weapon that releases a stream of superchilled plasma combined with anti-energy in a long semi-continuous beam. Capable of rapid-fire albeit having somewhat limited range, the Cryolyte is able to freeze multiple targets at a time; penetrating through nearly any obstacles to the extent of its range while generating enormous amounts of frozen matter. The Cryolyte can also be charged to fire the Cryospite; an enlarged blast that will create a wall of cover in addition to freezing anything it comes into contact with. While the Chozo of Zebes and the Alimbics of Sentus Primaris have copied it, Samus' variation has longer range and a wider area of effect as well as a more intense freezing effect that will continue to damage affected enemies while frozen due to her continued refinements.

A devastating continuous fire weapon that fires a guided stream of neutrinos that strip apart the atoms of everything they come into contact while pumping a massive number of protons and electrons into the target as well, when in the hands of Arne, the Shock Coil also can drain targets; feeding energy back into his suit and body. When charged, the shock coil can fire multiple streams at a time.

The Laser Lancer is a continuous fire subweapon that consumes universal ammunition at a rather rapid rate, but is both pinpoint accurate and propagates far faster than many enemies can dodge when aimed well. The rapid heating effect of the laser will burn, cut, and explode its way through most targets, and as a light weapon, the Laser Lancer is also quite effective against light sensitive undead, though less so than true luminal weapons. It is primarily considered a pyronic weapon, and can be charged to temporarily fire a much wider and more powerful Laser Lance known as the Macrolaser. A number of design flaws in the original weapon have been corrected for your usage; eliminating the wind up needed to fire the weapon, the heat build up, and diminishing efficiencies at long range due to diffraction.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, this seems like it should be very useful. I'd need to improve my UA stockpile though to get the best use out of it. Find something to let it penetrate through enemies and cover too...

Arne's Notes: Hrm, so basically a longer ranged shock coil that won't feed back energy into me but can't phase through obstacles as well? Interesting. I'd like to mess around with it a bit at some point.

The Toxolyst is a N'Kren made weapon that continuously fires corrosive disintegration streams. The energies that go into the Toxolyst will alter the bindings of most forms of matter not treated to be resistant to its effects and rapidly cause most substances to corrode into a soup of quarks. Entities that rely heavily on complex chemical reactions to sustain themselves will be significantly adversely affected as it breaks down their chemistry and replicates the effects of virtually every conventional strain of poison at once. The Toxolyst can also be charged to release a hellgout that will travel farther and has a larger cloud. Svihaly's true N'Kren created Toxolyst will leave a long lingering cloud behind, harmless to designated friendlies but leaving areas temporarily impassible; and enemies slain by it will explode into more Toxolyst gas.


Samus' Notes: It's honestly a really gross weapon, and I don't think I'd enjoy using it on most targets. But I suppose if the situation calls for it I'd be willing to make use of it. It shouldn't be too hard to modify the formula to not linger as long in the environment too. At least it kills too quickly to leave people in pain.


Arne's Notes: I know a lot of places outright ban this weapon, but like with the Neutrino weapon ban; I don't see how this is an exceptionally more horrible way to kill something than setting it on fire? The standards of a lot of international law on which weapons are "good" or not seem pretty dumb; war itself is a horrible thing.

The Magnum Cannon serves as a powerful sniper weapon and anti-materiel tool for the user. Accelerating a projectile to near light speed, the Magnum Cannon's projectiles are capable of penetrating through multiple targets at a time and can shear their way through most armour and shielding thanks to the disruption effect of the projectile. While light progenitor grade shielding remains effective, the Magnum Cannon will be more than sufficient against most modern technology. The charge shot will fire a MIRV projectile that will split into submunitions, damaging up to three lines worth of targets.


Samus' Notes: Getting used to aiming the MIRV for maximum effect's going to take just a bit of getting used to, but I think once I properly use my distant sight to do it I'll be lining up group shots like nothing.


Arne's Notes: It's not quite as precise as the Imperialist but quite a lot punchier. I'd call it more of an anti-materiel weapon than a sniper, but I can use it like that in a pinch.


The Autoflak is a somewhat crude but effective weapon that launches hypervelocity fragmentation projectiles that will explode into a shower of subatomically sharp shards; dealing severe damage to any target caught in the blast radius. Capable of sustained rapid-fire, the Autoflak is incredibly deadly against large numbers of soft targets or targets that rely on agility rather than durability for their survivability. The autoflak can be charged to fire a cluster shell that will launch submunitions in addition to the initial wave of shards; annihilating most soft targets in reach.


Samus' Notes: Diamont Weapons are pretty straightforward but hugely fun to use. The Autoflak's proven to be incredible against swarming enemies so far.


Arne's Notes: I'm more familiar with reverse-engineered versions made by later societies, but every time I've seen Spire use one of these, he's put it to good use.


Melee Equipment​

WIP. Retractable wrist mounted energy sheathed sword that can be detached for a conventional hilt grip. It slices, it dices. Can use the energies of any beam.

The Shield projector adds a module to the joints of the arm able to create a reflective barrier that may be used against both melee and ranged attacks. The barrier has a limited diameter, but careful angling can reflect incoming ranged attacks towards their senders. The energy and dimensional field is also able to be utilised as a deadly weapon in melee and can even be detached and thrown, upon which it will gradually dissipate over time but will damage all targets it impacts. A new barrier can be projected immediately afterwards. If the user desires, a physical shield can be extended instead, but only one at a time.

Samus' Notes: Ah, that's to be expected from Heinrich's weapons to be honest. Definitely going to be very handy! Especially now that I've got a good look for it in mind.

Arne's Notes: Feels a bit retrograde as always, but I suppose there's a reason why these kinds of shields have been in use for as long as we've had tools.

The Bayonet Projector allows the arm cannon to fire either a coherent energy blade or extend a physical energy sheathed blade from either beneath or above. The blade, like the Arm-Sword; is upgraded by beam weapons and a certain number of melee blade specific upgrades. The primary effect of this is to double the avenues of bladed melee attack the user can make in combat.

Addendum: With Heinrich's blood lance, the projector can also extend out to a distance roughly three times longer than the user is tall as a spear, which can also be projected from the free hand. Note that doing so will disable its usage from the cannon hand.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, I do need to practice pole-arm fighting more, but I feel like this would work best if I had something to ride atop.

Arne's Notes: Ah, I was wondering how long it'd be until we met again my old friend.

Armor
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Derived from the most basic patterns of Chozo Universal Utility suits, the Mekhtesh Power Suit was designed and constructed by Samus Aran herself with only minor guidance from her caretakers to demonstrate her mastery of her engineering and science lessons. Almost universally compatible with any possible upgrade, even being able to assimilate the abilities of organic life into a format that the armour can make use of; the Armour is also an electronic warfare and data gathering system of unparalleled capability. It also allows for enormous physical augmentations, allowing Samus to move about faster than she can unarmoured and exert amazing degrees of physical force.

Comprised of a combination of Hekh-Aseph alloy plating and Sur-Kadesh composite over a layer of artificial musculature and biomechanical components as well as a Zebetite distributed regenerative power system; the armour is able to sustain itself indefinitely and seems to be incapable of exhausting its endurance. The shielding is comprised of a weave of energy and particle barriers, fractal defences, and dimensional barriers that combine to prevent any known attack from reaching the plating without first depleting the shielding. And the plating's own construction similarly prevents virtually all means of bypassing it to reach the user. The armour will regenerate on its own if damaged or destroyed in a process that can be bolstered by concentration and meditative exercises.

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(Art by RedRambler12, placeholder until I get a better one.)

The Varia suit represents a significant increase in defensive capabilities over the standard power suit. Not only is the physical structure of the suit augmented and its shielding resistance doubled, but the Varia upgrade allows the user to ignore most of the extremes of temperature. While quintessence bolstered thermal or cryogenic attacks can still have some effect, the wearer is now able to operate without shield drain in virtually any temperature. All armour physicals are substantially augmented, and most forms of corrosive agents are rendered ineffective against both the shielding and plating.

Description: Your armour had changed; as did Arne's. It had taken on a ghost green and bedsheet white colour scheme with trimmings of deathly purple and highlights of spectral blue, your visor shifting to a blue colour while your pauldrons had shifted into a more rounded shape, two glowing pools of light in it almost suggestive of eye sockets with glowing orbs within. The armour was a bit more slender now as well, and the limb plating had faint traces of ribbing going across them, as did the chestplate. Your helm changed slightly, with two prongs emerging downwards to the sides of your mouthpiece slightly suggestive of fangs while small hints of wings emerged from the sides of your helm, like a ghostly valkyrie come to collect the dead;

The Ghost Suit is similar to the N'Kren Phantom Suit, albeit less potent. Derived from Maria's phasing capabilities, the Ghost Suit allows for the user to go intangible and phase through incoming objects and weapons or through many forms of obstacles. It also allows for the user to fully interact with intangible objects as if they were solid; augmenting the user's progenitor blood and armour ability to prevent intangible objects from phasing through them. The Ghost Suit also augments defences and user physicality, and allows for the user to enter areas charged with ectoplasm without risk or harm. Unlike the Phantom suit however, the Ghost Suit does not add living metal construction nor does it augment stealth capabilities and it does not ward against dimensional instability. When phased, the user can better track phasing objects, but a visor upgrade is still recommended for best effect.

Samus' Notes: Ah; here's something that should come in very handy! I already loved the Phantom Suit so even an inferior substitute should be very useful!

Arne's Notes: I like the aesthetics of the Phantom Suit better honestly, but this will do.





Vehicles


latest

The Dormach was designed by Samus Aran and assembled in a process she directed as part of a test of her engineering skills after successfully creating her "Metkhesh" power suit with the aid of the Chozo and Mother Brain. The Dormach is designed for versatility, high-grade avionics and service as a long-distance base of operations and as such is made to be a multirole craft with an eye for making aggressive landings in particular. While well-armed and durable, its most critical feature is its ability to elude most forms of targeting with the aid of multiple stealth and countermeasure systems. Its manoeuvre systems allow for excellent atmospheric and vacuum mobility and its multitype array faster than light transit system allows for convenient intergalactic travel. A "Varkasar" type reactor provides power to all systems with reserve reactors ready to take over in case of failure, while the ship boasts all-purpose fabrication systems that allow Samus to live from it indefinitely. The Khazses class A.I fitted to the vessel serves as the overall control system and personality of the Dormach.


Capabilities (WIP)​



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Arne Eriksen Skjoldr

pavel_young_sylux_1.png

(Art by CannibalSarracenian)​



Basic Character Info
Height: 6'1/185.42 Centimetres
Mass: 176.64 lbs/80.124 kg
Hair Color: White
Eye Color: Red
Species: Human-Alimbic Hybrid
Ethnicity: Grendakal (descended from Scandinavian, esp Icelandic heritage.) Matrilineally Jewish.
Religion: Uskarling Polytheism (Vartruar)
Gender: Male
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 14
Birthday: 6th of August, 50,000 A.D
Homeworld: Cylosis, Sentus Primaris
Family: Gyda and Erik Skjoldr (Biological parents, deceased), Zurvduat (Adoptive Father, Alive), Elmorni (Adoptive Mother, Alive), Ygrak (Alimbic gene donor, Adoptive Mother, Alive),
Other Relations: Samus Aran (Romantically involved)
Aliases: Squire of Alinos, Last son of Cylosis, Page of the Tetrarchs, Primoris, Neophyte, Sarxyl Avar (Alimbic Name), Sylux (Seemingly destined future appellation)
Conventional Abilities: Massively augmented physiology rebuilt by the Alimbics from the very most fundamental level. Physiology can achieve nearly 100% energy extraction from consumed mass and use this energy to power bodily functions while also being able to withstand the energies unleashed by it; which can be further bolstered through managing the flow of quintessence through meditation and focusing techniques. In essence, he is far, far faster, more durable, heals much more quickly (though not quite wolverine fast nor could he regrow entire missing limbs), and vastly stronger than a normal human and his mind works vastly more efficiently with reaction times surpassing those of most machines.
Esoteric Abilities: Latent Psychic and sorcerous potential from Alimbic DNA that can be used in limited fashion such as precognition, interface with psychic or sorcerous technology, empathy, and armour repair through concentration. Also renders Arne or anything he is wearing virtually immune to hostile esoteric effects save for direct damage via mundane energy.


Information
To himself, Arne Skjoldr, the sole survivor of Cylosis; is a survivor trying to make sure nobody else goes through what he did. Orphaned by the attack on Cylosis by the Galactic Federation Central Intelligence Network's Reconnaisance & Armed Intelligence Division under the command of the Hydra like alien life form known as Viper after the revolutionary volunteer army cell his parents were part of uncovered an alimbic starship buried beneath the surface as part of the Federation's proxy wars with the Omdyn Democratic Omnipragmatist Council Republics. he was taken in by the Alimbics and raised to be their last knight. However Zurvduat showed him little kindness despite the best efforts of Elmorni to show him gentleness and raise him to maintain the beliefs of his biological parents.

When he was twelve, he was introduced to Samus Aran as the Chozo and Alimbics sought to share their resources towards guarding the universe, but friction between Zurvduat and the Chozo became quite apparent; as did the weight of his abusive parenting on Arne. However, it also introduced him to Samus, and the two entered a very close if sometimes tumultuous and affectionate relationship. The two would complete a joint trial by combat shortly before their thirteenth birthday to explore the planet Zoran, where they encountered ancient enemies of the Chozo and the Alimbics and successfully neutralised them in a high stakes battle where these old foes; somehow beyond their seal; threatened to destroy the entire sector of space with their attempts to break the barriers placed. Following his thirteenth birthday, Arne was returned to the ODOCR's space following Zurvduat losing his custodial rights over Arne when his abuses became known to begin socialization training at the Magnus Academy for the Extranormal.

There he managed to integrate decently well, even if he was slow to trust and make new friends due to the lifetime of abuse that his adoptive father made him suffer. Eventually he even started to find happiness even if he missed his regular contact with Elmorni and Samus; building new relationships amongst his home country where his mother was a legend for her daring Guerilla exploits. However circumstance brought him back to Samus as the pair followed the trail of the RAID; whom neither he nor Samus were aware of its connection to the Federation; to a wormhole station where the RAID was busily engaging with the Confederacy of Dismor's Advanced Strike and Engagement Division; better known as the Space Pirate Black Squadrons. Stopping the device from overloading catastrophically, the pair were pulled to its destination when it surged with energy.

Appearance
Arne_character_sheet.png

Arne is considered attractive by most who meet him, tall, lithely muscular, with surprisingly soft features and distinctively melanin deprived hair and skin. While often pensive or glum, when he does smile, his face has a tendency to light up spectacularly. His pale skin, red eyes, and white hair are born of engineering meant to make living on Cylosis more comfortable due to its low levels of UV radiation thanks to its thick ozone layer and strong magnetosphere. (Art by F4ARTz)​

Miscellaneous Stats

Supplies​
9 Energy Tanks (Total 999 shield points)
2 Resilience Augments (Blocks out 95% of incoming damage)
320 Universal Ammo
40 Super Missiles
200 Regular missiles

Other Stats​
Stress: Low (Magnitude One)
Mental State: Very Good
Physical Health: Optimal
Social Needs; Somewhat Fulfilled



Status Effects


Relationships
Samus Aran: Romantic Partner. Bonus to cooperation efforts and morale while deployed with her.
Bumblebee: Budding Friendship (Bonus to cooperation efforts and morale when deployed with him)

Special Rules & Abilities
Distant Sight: Arne has the benefits of PRECOGNITION in nearly any circumstance, though he cannot reliably focus it on particularly distant events without extensive meditation. This does allow him to react to attacks before they come however.

Scion of Alinos: Arne is the appointed Scion of the Alimbics even if his feelings towards this aspect of his being are complicated at best by the cruelty of General Zurvduat. Arne is able to interface with any and all Alimbic artifice that is normally biometrically keyed to the Alimbic species or other metroid universe progenitors. Arne however, has a somewhat tricky place in fate due to his difficult feelings towards the Legacy of the Tetrarch Order. His presence will usually cause at least one POSITIVE CURVEBALL in any mission he is brought to as the causeways of destiny alter.

PTSD: Arne has had a hard life. Orphaned by the Federation's R.A.I.D on Cylosis then viciously abused by General Zurvduat after being adopted by the Alimbic remnants; he often has difficulty with trust and is skittish around male authority figures. When Arne fails a morale check against a PTSD trigger he will tend to freeze before locking himself into a defensive response to the trigger; seeking to remove it from his presence or shield himself from its influence over all other concerns. This will negatively affect his planning abilities of course.





Incarnate Abilities
Alpha Slot unlocked: 0 Shards, 0 Threads, 0 Incarnate relics.




Skill Proficiencies

Technology
Engineering
Biology
Computer Science
Robotics
Space Navigation
Terrestrial Navigation
Geology
History (Alimbic)
Extradimensional physics
Astrophysics
Piloting
Political Theory
Arts (Painting)
History (ODOCR)



Equipment

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(Art by CryoPhase)
WIP

Curls into a more compact form to let Arne get into places he normally wouldn't be able to fit into and interact with certain objects. Also lets him duck out of fire and sneak around undetected.

WIP

Lets Arne stick to things.

WIP

Builds up a kinetic charge that is then released to give Arne a burst of speed. Can also be used to ram.

WIP. Drop stuff in Psycho Morph mode to make it go splodey.

Elemental alt-mode bomb, fires a wave of degenerative energy that breaks down matter it comes into contact with.

Crawler limbs allow for the user to engage in close-ranged combat against enemies that might be resistant to bombs and boost attacks or might approach within the time frame of those attacks. They also allow for a boost to the jumping capability of the alt-mode and allow for greater purchase on surfaces that the alt-mode might slip on or when rolling or hovering is otherwise inadvised. Crawler Limbs strike in melee with reduced power compared to the arm-sword, but are still formidable in the right hands.

Samus' Notes: I really hope I don't run into anyone who's afraid of crawling things while we're out there.

Arne's Notes: I uh...I guess this can be useful...sometimes? I'll need to figure out more uses for it besides scaring people.

Mobility Upgrades​

Allows Arne to go extremely fast in after a bit of a running start, can also be used for a limited form of flight by shinesparking. Sheathes Arne in immensely destructive energies that destroy nearly anything touched.

Allows Arne to jump multiple times while in the air.

WIP, It grapples stuff, can be used to pull stuff or drain energy to regenerate your shielding or feed stuff energy to heal allies or overload enemies.

The Flight Pack is derived from Hollenmord's dark magic augmentations to its wings, properly purified before integration and adds a deployable set of wings to the armour suit that can be used for flight, combat, providing cover, or aesthetics. When not needed, the wings are consumed into the armour's zero-point form, whenever they would interfere in user mobility, and at full length have a wingspan equivalent to twice the user's height. The energy membranes of the wings will also serve as an additional layer of defense as well as weapons; as can the outermost fingers of the wings. Flight speed will be equivalent to five times land movement speed, and the speedbooster is able to apply to flight mode. The Flight Pack will also be able to operate in airless conditions; but a liquid movement module will be required for full function in high drag environments such as water.

Samus' Notes: Ahhh! Do I deserve to fly with wings like Old Chozo Warriors did? I guess..I must be if this is what the suit got from Hollenmord. I'll make sure I'm worthy of this gift.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, the bat stylings look a bit threatening...maybe I could modify them into something less scary?

Visors​

Lets you scan things (will be expanded soon)

Lets you direct your gunship and provide tactical data to team mates.(will be expanded soon)

Allows Arne to see heat and track normally invisible targets.

The Echo Visor visualises sonic information and vibrational data to allow the user to "see" sound as well as sonic profiles. Combining both active and passive sonic detection systems, the Echo Visor is well suited to watery environments in particular where its detection systems can often see much farther than electromagnetic signals. Due to its ability to detect vibrations through long-range scanning, it can even work in a limited function in vacuum environments.


Samus' Notes: The Echo Visor's also notably very useful for detecting burrowing enemies as the reverberations they make through the ground are extremely easy to detect with it. Should come in very useful in the future whenever I bring it with me!


Arne's Notes: I won't lie, it's very weird that the visor can let me see things like foetuses still inside of their mothers on ultrasonic mode. But it is a pretty interesting way to perceive the world. I imagine that it'd also be very useful for people who can't hear sounds as low or high as we can.

The Incarnate Visor augments the user's ability to detect objects with connections to the Source of the Sourcewell metaverse as well as threads and fragments of Source connection or power. The Incarnate Visor is also able to perceive into other dimensions as it looks for any possible connection to the Source; revealing many other varieties of extradimensional entities such as ghosts or parahuman shards. However, the Incarnate visor does not counteract conventional visible light cloaking. Note that many forms of Ghosts can utilise conventional spectrum cloaking to evade tracking if their dimensional phasing is foiled.

Samus' Notes: Huh. Definitely going to be needing this a lot in the future now.

Arne's Notes: Well, having warning before my next religious experience would be nice.

Miscellaneous Upgrades​

The armour and zero suit will adjust its strengths to counter repeated stresses of a specific nature. If continually forced into contests of physical strength, they will augment the user's physicality further. If speed is repeatedly proven necessary, they will add to the user's speed; and if repeatedly impacted by a specific damage type, they will increase the user's resilience against that sort of impact. While only a limited number of adaptations at a time can be deployed or stored, this significantly increases user versatility.

Allows your shielding, armour integrity, and body to recover over time without external input, even regrowing components or limbs. While vulnerable to alpha strikes, the regenerator can consume missiles or power bombs to accelerate its regeneration rate; and it will also steadily recover ammunition and power reserve supplies as well. The more enemies surround you, the faster this upgrade will work. Unlike most upgrades, it does not require your armour or zero suit to function. Acquire more regenerators to bolster regeneration further.

Samus' Notes: Not exactly a glamorous upgrade, but definitely a necessary and useful one.

Arne's Notes: Well, should be useful for taking hits at least.

(More in universe desc to come) Allows the armour and zero suit to augment physicality in a massive rush of energy, while this function does draw on a store of Adrenal power that needs to be restocked over time; it does not come with any drawbacks while active. Initial Berserker Booster functionality offers thirty seconds of massively augmented strength and resilience and significantly enhanced speed, and reflexes. Once used, the Berserker Booster will need to recharge. The Berserker Booster will tend to heighten user confidence and aggression not out of chemical effect, but due to the user's bond with the armour and zero suit imbuing them with the same sense of heightened physical power.




Weapons

Extra-Gear​

WIP. It stuns targets but can also cause them some harm. Has a plasma whip and a blade mode.
Weaker version of the arm cannon. Back up weapon, has an energy bayonet.

The munitions launcher serves as a platform for releasing extra munitions without occupying the attentions of the arm cannon. Primarily a method of firing grenades, specialist projectiles or fluid streams, the Munitions launcher is also able to be utilized while in alternate form to allow for ranged combat capability in the alternate mode. It comes preset with Cluster-Flechette, the AMEAT Mortar, and the Corroder; each of which draws on the Universal Ammo stockpile. Cluster-Flechettes are useful against large numbers of soft targets, the Mortar is best against smaller numbers of hard targets as it launches a directed jet of armour piercing ejecta before impact, while the Corroder is best against targets vulnerable to chemical attack, in hardcover, or against charging foes. All munitions can be charged for greater effect.

Universal Ammo Count: 320/320


Samus' Notes: The range on these weapons is pretty good, you could get a lot of use out of them indirectly bombarding distant targets I'd imagine.


Arne's Notes: Enemies in cover I'd imagine would be a primary target for the munitions launcher; a well-timed airburst could clear out most enemies in hiding.

Beams​

WIP. Rapid-fire spammy gun, hurts ghosts. Can be stacked with other beams.

WIP. It lets you charge your beam or your missiles.

Elemental beam (cannot be stacked with non-augment beams without the elemental stacking upgrade), fires homing electric projectiles at a medium rate of fire that can stun targets. Charge shot electrocutes enemies and stuns them for the duration of the overload. Very effective against targets vulnerable to electricity. Medium damage, medium-high rate of fire, homing, medium area of effect.

Augmentation beam (can be stacked with other beams freely), augments damage output and area of effect by converting shots into nine projectiles fired in a tight shotgun like spread surrounding the central shot that goes where you want it to.

Elemental Beam (cannot be stacked with non-augment beams without the elemental stacking upgrade), fires a spherical projectile undergoing intense nuclear fusion reactions that goes supercritical on impact in a miniature supernova, "sticks" to targets it hits to cause continual burn damage. Medium damage, decent rate of fire, large area of effect. Charge shot fires a larger projectile that will explode in a considerable radius and damage nearby hostiles en route. Lots of knockdown/back.

Augmentation Beam, causes projectiles to refract/chain between multiple targets after impacting, allowing for a single shot to damage multiple enemies or strike one enemy multiple times in different locations until the beam's energies finally expend themselves. Adds to the potency of beam damage and to its anti-area of effect capabilities.

Elemental Beam

Derived from 5th Column and Council Technology by the Nictus, the Quantum Beam allows for the user to fire a special negative quantum globule of energy that is especially destructive against beings that rely on a transdimensional energy bond to link between a symbiont and a host such as Kheldians, Nictus, and Parahumans and Extradimensional projections. The beam deals extremely enhanced damage against these targets and causes numerous debilitating effects that will take some time for the targets to recover from; slowing them down and weakening them for many seconds. As a negative energy weapon, the Quantum Beam also is effective against any target that lacks resistance or has a special vulnerability to negative energy; but is generally less effectual against those inundated in such energies. The charged shot fires the Quark Tornado, which explodes into a swirling Maelstrom of negative energy that will persist for some time after impact and wander around the battlefield damaging enemies caught in its path.

Samus' Notes: I'm wondering why the Nictus would design a weapon that is their own weakness. This sounds like a particularly unpleasant and dangerous culture that bears investigating to find a way to stop them.

Arne's Notes: Well, this beam is probably going to come into use a lot on Earth Bet, though I'm somewhat concerned that this technology also puts our own Parahuman allies at risk.

Augment Beam

The Seismic Beam is a sonic weapon that releases a hyper-pressurised air burst of air in front of it, generating it from the armour's zero point systems and then having it trailed by a powerful vibrational frequency. The more that the beam hits a target, the more it will resonate with the target, increasing the damage with each following hit until the target is destroyed or until the resonance stops. The beam will also traverse through multiple targets and can ignore many forms of cover. Its charged form is known as the Seismoquake and causes the afflicted target to resonate violently, echoing outwards and damaging all nearby enemies.

Samus' Notes: Ah, finally; something to penetrate through multiple enemies. I just need to be careful with missed shots.

Arne's Notes: Thanks to the pressurised air wave, it will work in vacuums. Fortunate since its such a handy beam.

Missiles​

WIP. Shoot to blow stuff up.

The Seeker Missile allows the missile module to fire multiple missiles at a time in a single burst, each capable of independently tracking their own targets with augmented homing capabilities. The initial seeker missile upgrade allows for upwards of five missiles at a time to be fired and may be used with charged missiles, super missiles, elemental missiles, beam combos; or any mixture thereof. Be warned of ammo consumption when utilising this function.

Elemental missile. Fires a projectile that will explode into a wave of anti-energy to freeze nearby targets. Uses missile stockpiles. Can be used with super missiles.

Fires a missile that explodes in a superheated wave of quark-gluon plasma ejecta and sets things it comes into contact with on fire. (WIP)

WIP, more ammo limited but bigger boom.

Subweapons​

Designed by Samus Aran based on the ice beam and loosely inspired by old designs on Zebes, the Cryolyte is a powerful weapon that releases a stream of superchilled plasma combined with anti-energy in a long semi-continuous beam. Capable of rapid-fire albeit having somewhat limited range, the Cryolyte is able to freeze multiple targets at a time; penetrating through nearly any obstacles to the extent of its range while generating enormous amounts of frozen matter. The Cryolyte can also be charged to fire the Cryospite; an enlarged blast that will create a wall of cover in addition to freezing anything it comes into contact with. While the Chozo of Zebes and the Alimbics of Sentus Primaris have copied it, Samus' variation has longer range and a wider area of effect as well as a more intense freezing effect that will continue to damage affected enemies while frozen due to her continued refinements.

A devastating continuous fire weapon that fires a guided stream of neutrinos that strip apart the atoms of everything they come into contact while pumping a massive number of protons and electrons into the target as well, when in the hands of Arne, the Shock Coil also can drain targets; feeding energy back into his suit and body. When charged, the shock coil can fire multiple streams at a time.

The Laser Lancer is a continuous fire subweapon that consumes universal ammunition at a rather rapid rate, but is both pinpoint accurate and propagates far faster than many enemies can dodge when aimed well. The rapid heating effect of the laser will burn, cut, and explode its way through most targets, and as a light weapon, the Laser Lancer is also quite effective against light sensitive undead, though less so than true luminal weapons. It is primarily considered a pyronic weapon, and can be charged to temporarily fire a much wider and more powerful Laser Lance known as the Macrolaser. A number of design flaws in the original weapon have been corrected for your usage; eliminating the wind up needed to fire the weapon, the heat build up, and diminishing efficiencies at long range due to diffraction.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, this seems like it should be very useful. I'd need to improve my UA stockpile though to get the best use out of it. Find something to let it penetrate through enemies and cover too...

Arne's Notes: Hrm, so basically a longer ranged shock coil that won't feed back energy into me but can't phase through obstacles as well? Interesting. I'd like to mess around with it a bit at some point.

The Toxolyst is a N'Kren made weapon that continuously fires corrosive disintegration streams. The energies that go into the Toxolyst will alter the bindings of most forms of matter not treated to be resistant to its effects and rapidly cause most substances to corrode into a soup of quarks. Entities that rely heavily on complex chemical reactions to sustain themselves will be significantly adversely affected as it breaks down their chemistry and replicates the effects of virtually every conventional strain of poison at once. The Toxolyst can also be charged to release a hellgout that will travel farther and has a larger cloud. Svihaly's true N'Kren created Toxolyst will leave a long lingering cloud behind, harmless to designated friendlies but leaving areas temporarily impassible; and enemies slain by it will explode into more Toxolyst gas.


Samus' Notes: It's honestly a really gross weapon, and I don't think I'd enjoy using it on most targets. But I suppose if the situation calls for it I'd be willing to make use of it. It shouldn't be too hard to modify the formula to not linger as long in the environment too. At least it kills too quickly to leave people in pain.


Arne's Notes: I know a lot of places outright ban this weapon, but like with the Neutrino weapon ban; I don't see how this is an exceptionally more horrible way to kill something than setting it on fire? The standards of a lot of international law on which weapons are "good" or not seem pretty dumb; war itself is a horrible thing.

The Magnum Cannon serves as a powerful sniper weapon and anti-materiel tool for the user. Accelerating a projectile to near light speed, the Magnum Cannon's projectiles are capable of penetrating through multiple targets at a time and can shear their way through most armour and shielding thanks to the disruption effect of the projectile. While light progenitor grade shielding remains effective, the Magnum Cannon will be more than sufficient against most modern technology. The charge shot will fire a MIRV projectile that will split into submunitions, damaging up to three lines worth of targets.


Samus' Notes: Getting used to aiming the MIRV for maximum effect's going to take just a bit of getting used to, but I think once I properly use my distant sight to do it I'll be lining up group shots like nothing.


Arne's Notes: It's not quite as precise as the Imperialist but quite a lot punchier. I'd call it more of an anti-materiel weapon than a sniper, but I can use it like that in a pinch.[/spoiler\


The Autoflak is a somewhat crude but effective weapon that launches hypervelocity fragmentation projectiles that will explode into a shower of subatomically sharp shards; dealing severe damage to any target caught in the blast radius. Capable of sustained rapid-fire, the Autoflak is incredibly deadly against large numbers of soft targets or targets that rely on agility rather than durability for their survivability. The autoflak can be charged to fire a cluster shell that will launch submunitions in addition to the initial wave of shards; annihilating most soft targets in reach.
Samus' Notes: Diamont Weapons are pretty straightforward but hugely fun to use. The Autoflak's proven to be incredible against swarming enemies so far.


Arne's Notes: I'm more familiar with reverse-engineered versions made by later societies, but every time I've seen Spire use one of these, he's put it to good use.

Melee Equipment​

WIP. Retractable wrist mounted energy sheathed sword that can be detached for a conventional hilt grip. It slices, it dices. Can use the energies of any beam.

The Shield projector adds a module to the joints of the arm able to create a reflective barrier that may be used against both melee and ranged attacks. The barrier has a limited diameter, but careful angling can reflect incoming ranged attacks towards their senders. The energy and dimensional field is also able to be utilised as a deadly weapon in melee and can even be detached and thrown, upon which it will gradually dissipate over time but will damage all targets it impacts. A new barrier can be projected immediately afterwards. If the user desires, a physical shield can be extended instead, but only one at a time.

Samus' Notes: Ah, that's to be expected from Heinrich's weapons to be honest. Definitely going to be very handy! Especially now that I've got a good look for it in mind.

Arne's Notes: Feels a bit retrograde as always, but I suppose there's a reason why these kinds of shields have been in use for as long as we've had tools.

The Bayonet Projector allows the arm cannon to fire either a coherent energy blade or extend a physical energy sheathed blade from either beneath or above. The blade, like the Arm-Sword; is upgraded by beam weapons and a certain number of melee blade specific upgrades. The primary effect of this is to double the avenues of bladed melee attack the user can make in combat.

Addendum: With Heinrich's blood lance, the projector can also extend out to a distance roughly three times longer than the user is tall as a spear, which can also be projected from the free hand. Note that doing so will disable its usage from the cannon hand.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, I do need to practice pole-arm fighting more, but I feel like this would work best if I had something to ride atop.

Arne's Notes: Ah, I was wondering how long it'd be until we met again my old friend.


Armor
ddld8uz-50be21aa-851d-4d1a-baec-e2270d53030c.png

(Art by CryoPhase)

Designed by Arne Skjoldr himself from Alimbic designs available to him on Sentus Primaris and the Caesarian Lance to be purpose fitted to his form; Squire Suit forms Arne's primary line of defence as well as his most useful technosorcerous asset. Built to be universally modular and adaptive to ensure that the design will be future proofed for generations to come, the armour's list of capabilities are vast and only grow as the Squire armour absorbs more and more upgrades into itself. Not only is it an all purpose exploration and information gathering system or a defensive construct; but it also serves as a potent electronic warfare system. The squire suit's design makes the history of competitive rivalry between the Alimbic Tetrach Order and the Chozo Wandering Milieu quite clear as every facet of the suit is meant to be broadly comparable to a Chozo base pattern power suit.

The armour provides both incredible physical augmentations as well as a combination of incredibly durable ferrochitin and hypercomposite plating and artificial musculature and multi-layered energy, fractal, and dimensional shielding. Not even attacks that can phase through energy or matter or strike through different dimensions are able to pierce through to the user through either the plating or shielding. The armour's power systems are distributed throughout the entire suit, allowing any portion of it to function at full capacity regardless of which parts are manifested or damaged, and if damaged; the armour will regenerate on its own even if seemingly completely destroyed through its connection to the host, though concentration will be needed to speed the process.

Arne_varia_suit.png


(Art by Nick on Planet Ripple)

The Varia suit represents a significant increase in defensive capabilities over the standard power suit. Not only is the physical structure of the suit augmented and its shielding resistance doubled, but the Varia upgrade allows the user to ignore most of the extremes of temperature. While quintessence bolstered thermal or cryogenic attacks can still have some effect, the wearer is now able to operate without shield drain in virtually any temperature. All armour physicals are substantially augmented, and most forms of corrosive agents are rendered ineffective against both the shielding and plating.

Description: Arne's armour changed as well, his suit a combination of indigo and black, with witchfire green trimmings and menacing blood red highlights that made his armour suggestive of an altogether more malevolent sort of spirit than yours did. The blood red highlights of the wings taken from Hollenmord giving him the suggestion of a demon, and the crest of his helmet moved somewhat formward to suggest either a crown or a set of horns depending on how one looked at it. The ribbing on his limb armour was more pronounced, as were the small fangs on the bottom of his helm. His pauldrons had changed into articulated pieces shaped like extended and distorted versions of his helmet, with glowing "eye"pieces at their centre while the frame of the suit had become a bit more slender.

The Ghost Suit is similar to the N'Kren Phantom Suit, albeit less potent. Derived from Maria's phasing capabilities, the Ghost Suit allows for the user to go intangible and phase through incoming objects and weapons or through many forms of obstacles. It also allows for the user to fully interact with intangible objects as if they were solid; augmenting the user's progenitor blood and armour ability to prevent intangible objects from phasing through them. The Ghost Suit also augments defences and user physicality, and allows for the user to enter areas charged with ectoplasm without risk or harm. Unlike the Phantom suit however, the Ghost Suit does not add living metal construction nor does it augment stealth capabilities and it does not ward against dimensional instability. When phased, the user can better track phasing objects, but a visor upgrade is still recommended for best effect.

Samus' Notes: Ah; here's something that should come in very handy! I already loved the Phantom Suit so even an inferior substitute should be very useful!

Arne's Notes: I like the aesthetics of the Phantom Suit better honestly, but this will do.





Vehicles

Sleipnir.jpg

With oversight and guidance from the Crew of the Caesarian Lance and the Palatine Mind A.I; the Sleipnir was made to suit Arne's simulation tested personal flying style at the end of his engineering exams. A long-range strike fighter capable of serving as a mobile home and making landings even in the roughest of conditions, the Sleipnir is a marvel of engineering. The Sleipnir is made to be incredibly fast and manoeuvrable while still being highly durable, destructive, intelligent, and provide a wide range of utility. However, there can be little doubt that its primary mission is to win engagements and serve as a strike platform before allowing Arne to arrive where he needs to go. Stealth, countermeasure as well as active and passive defence systems combine with its incredible agility and early warning systems to allow Arne to slip past nearly any defensive screen. Its multitype faster than light array draws on the Sol core systems in the strike-fighter and its auxiliary reactors to allow for quick and straightforward intergalactic travel. All-purpose internal fabrication systems allow for indefinite mission durations while mission control is facilitated by the "Volva" A.I programmed into the ship's software.



Capabilities (WIP)​



{/slide}





[/accordion]
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Major Allies
[ACCORDION=bcenter]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Bumblebee[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

29d028710646da7785d6da5412a2feee.jpg


Gender: Male
Species: Cybertronian
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 5,379,129
Ethnicity: Velocitronian
Affiliation: Autobot
Height: 17'6/5.33 meters.
Mass: 1.4 tonnes
Optic Colour: Blue

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Phenomenal
Training: Great
Leadership: Great
Morale: Impeccable

Combat Skill: Incredible
Intrigue Skill: Fantastic
Diplomacy Skill: Great
Administration Skill: Very Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Great
Vehicular Skill: Great
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: Decent

Strength Category: Incredible
Durability Category: Incredible (Shielded, Armoured)
Resilience Category: Incredible (Incredible Shielding, Incredible Armour)
Speed Category: Great/Fantastic (Vehicle mode)
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Incredible

Weapons:
  • Solar Cannon: Very High Rate of fire, Very Highly Chargeable, Great Armour Penetration, Very Good Shield Disruption, Very Good Damage, Very long Range, Targets are considerably more vulnerable to follow up damage, Strongly Incendiary. Charged Shots deal AoE.
  • Laser Cutter: Continuous Rate of Fire, Incredible Armour Penetration, Very Good Damage, Strongly Incendiary, Very Long Range.
  • Stinger: Continuous Rate of Fire, Very Good Armour Penetration, Good Damage, Extreme Shield Disruption, Extreme Stunning Effect, Very Long Range, Chains between multiple targets, Extremely Electrified.
  • Scatter Blaster: High Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Good Multi-Target
  • Multi-missile launcher: Low Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Extreme Range, Large Area of Effect, Great multi-target
  • Mini-missiles High Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Very Long Range, Large Area of Effect
  • Grenade Launcher: Medium rate of fire, extends Grenade range.
  • EMP Grenades: No Armour Penetration, High Shield Disruption, Very High Base damage, weaker against biological targets, stronger against mechanical targets, Very Strong EMP effect, throwing range, large area of effect.
    {*]Plasma Grenades: Very High Armour Penetration, Very High Damage, Throwing Range, Very Large Area of Effect
  • Gamma Grenades: High Armour Penetration, Very High base damage, Weaker against Mechanical targets, Stronger against Biological Targets, Throwing Range, Highly Sickening, Large Area of Effect.
  • Detonation Hammer: Medium Attack Speed Penalty, Great Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Great Concussion, Large Area of Effect, Long reach
  • Energon Blades: Melee Weapon, No Attack Speed Penalty, Very good armour penetration bonus, Good Damage Bonus, Highly Energised, Highly Superheated, Short Reach, x2

Armour:
  • Light Type Cybertronian Armour: Powered, Good Strength and Speed Enhancement, Good Self-Repair, Highly EMP resistant, Shielding generating, Easy to repair, Incredibly Durable, Great Armour Save, Great Damage Reduction. Facemask protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,


Miscellaneous Gear:


Traits
  • +: Expert Scout: Bumblebee is tremendously good at finding out things that he shouldn't and has a critical success range for scouting on a roll of 70 or higher on the D100 and on the confirmation roll.
  • +: Ancient Warrior: Bumblebee is an extremely experienced combatant and is quite literally built for conflict. Bumblebee rerolls all failed combat-related rolls and has his critical hit range increased doubled and needs to triple confirm to critically fail.
  • +: People's Champion: Bumblebee is one of the most empathetic and kind autobots around and naturally gels well with the dispossessed, meek, young, or disadvantaged. Bumblebee gets strong bonuses to positively affecting these people. He also gets this bonus in dealing with mental health issues thanks to his long experience with comforting others who are down on their luck. He also rerolls any failed morale check twice if someone more vulnerable than him would be endangered by him failing that check.
  • +: Goldbug's Luck: Bumblebee is one of the luckiest autobots whom fortune tends to favour. In background rolls, bumblebee gets an additional 3d10 rolled to be added to each dice except when he gets a natural one and a second natural one on the confirmation dice.
  • +: Everyone's Friend: It is very easy to build platonic friendships with bumblebee, with the threshold of positive interaction needed to improve a platonic relation with bumblebee being significantly lower than average, he also gives improved cooperation benefits for friendships.
  • +: You don't seem right: Bumblebee is very good at picking up possible imposters and his success range for picking out any possible infiltrators amongst the ranks is never lower than a roll of 50 or above on a D100 rolled during every social interlude or mission.
  • =: Robot in Disguise: Bumblebee is a Cybertronian and is thus given a robot's list of built-in capabilities, resistances and immunities as well as some particular vulnerabilities, as well as some particular to Cybertronians. For the sake of the Manton Effect and similar limitations, Bumblebee is considered to be partly between life and machinery, making him resistant but not quite immune to powers that only affect organic or inorganic material. He can also transform into vehicles relatively close to his robot mode in overall size.
  • -: Mute: Bumblebee lost his voice box in the Great Cybertronian Civil War and cannot speak conventionally, being limited to sign language, text messages, or soundbite clips. If these are not available or cannot be interpreted by the person he is speaking to, he is incapable of communication and at times he will be incapable of getting across his exact meaning if the other person cannot receive a text message or signage from him.
  • -: We're Here to Protect People!: We're here to Protect: Bumblebee is adamant about protecting people who are in need of defending and will not agree to any plan that will unnecessarily leave people who can't help themselves at risk without a difficult diplomacy check and will insist on accompanying people he sees as more vulnerable and are lacking in other guardians.
  • -: You're my friend, and I want to be there for you: Bumblebee can accumulate stress points at a high rate if someone he has bonded with goes out of contact with him for a long period of time. Especially if he has reason to worry for their safety. He will also be likely to intercede in social complications out of a protective urge.

Subject is a sort of robotic mimic known as a Cybertronian named Bumblebee, presently taking the guise of a 1984 Volkswagen Beetle. Spatiochronal analysis suggests that he is not from either this universe or from yours but reveals an age of 5,379,129 Earth years. Analysis indicates that subject is powered by novel energy source referred to as "Energon". Energy readings are especially concentrated in the core region of the body within a spiritual analogue referred to as the Spark. Bumblebee is fully sapient and is capable of altering configuration between vehicular and bipedal mode. The presence of multiple concealed weapons has been detected, but overall systems are inferior to your own in efficiency and sophistication; compensated for by greater size. Further analysis indicates that subject is incapable of intelligible vocal speech due to relatively recent damage. Bumblebee's records indicate that he is a native of the colony world of Velocitus in the whirlpool galaxy.

Relationships:
  • Strongarm: Bumblebee and Strongarm are close friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points twice between missions and once during a mission. They also gain a strong bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can use a few special techniques when working in tandem.
  • Windblade: Bumblebee and Windblade are best friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points thrice between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a Magnitude very strong bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can use special techniques in tandem.
  • Samus: Bumblebee is forming a budding friendship with Samus and can offer stress relief and some cooperative bonuses to her.
  • Arne: Bumblebee is forming a budding friendship with Samus and can offer stress relief and some cooperative bonuses to him


[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Strongarm[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

3dgcrsz91wu51.png


Gender: Female
Species: Cybertronian
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 3,399,195
Ethnicity: Iaconite
Affiliation: Autobot
Height: 19'9/6.0198 meters.
Mass: 2.89 tonnes
Optic Colour: Blue

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Incredible
Training: Phenomenal
Leadership: Great
Morale: Impeccable

Combat Skill: Fantastic
Intrigue Skill: Very Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Great
Academic Skill: Good

Tech Skill: Great
Vehicular Skill: Great
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: Decent

Strength Category: Phenomenal
Durability Category: Phenomenal (Phenomenal Shielding, Phenomenal Armour)
Resilience Category: Phenomenal (Incredible Shielding, Phenomenal Armour)
Speed Category: Very Good/Excellent (Vehicle mode)
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Incredible

Weapons:
  • Neutron Assault Rifle: Incredible Rate of Fire, Very Good Armour Penetration, Very Good Damage, Very Long Range, Targets become moderately more vulnerable to follow up damage
  • Path Blaster: Medium Rate of Fire, Incredible Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Phenomenal Range
  • Scatter Blaster: High Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Good Multi-Target
  • Subsonic Repeater: Absurd Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Good Damage, Medium Range
  • Magma-Frag Launcher: Low Rate of Fire, High Armour Penetration, Incredible Damage, Long Range, Huge Area of Effect, Very Highly Incendiary
  • Mini-missiles: High Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Very Long Range, Large Area of Effect
  • EMP Grenades: No Armour Penetration, High Shield Disruption, Very High Base damage, weaker against biological targets, stronger against mechanical targets, Very Strong EMP effect, throwing range, large area of effect.
    {*]Plasma Grenades: Very High Armour Penetration, Very High Damage, Throwing Range, Very Large Area of Effect
  • Gamma Grenades: High Armour Penetration, Very High base damage, Weaker against Mechanical targets, Stronger against Biological Targets, Throwing Range, Highly Sickening, Large Area of Effect.
  • Shock Maul: Melee Weapon, Moderate Attack Speed Penalty, Moderate Armour Penetration Bonus, Extreme Damage Bonus, Very Strongly Concussive, Highly Electrified, Medium Reach,
  • Energon Blades: Melee Weapon, No Attack Speed Penalty, Very good armour penetration bonus, Good Damage Bonus, Highly Energised, Highly Superheated, Short Reach, x2.

Armour:
  • Medium Type Cybertronian Armour: Powered, Very Good Strength Enhancement, Good Self-Repair, Highly EMP resistant, Shielding generating, Easy to repair, Phenomenally Durable, Fantastic Armour Save, Fantastic Damage Reduction. Facemask protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Memorised Protocol: Strongarm gets and gives a strong bonus to any checks revolving around protocol, legal codes, rules, regulations and other such structures.
  • +: Autobot Elite Guard Training: As part of the Autobot Elite Guard, Strongarm has received training from a military tradition honed over millions of years of combat. She doesn't need to roll to confirm criticals and never critically fumbles combat rolls.
  • +: Ancient Warrior: Strongarm is an extremely experienced combatant and is quite literally built for conflict. Strongarm rerolls all failed combat-related rolls and has her critical hit range doubled with any weapon and needs to triple confirm to critically fail.
  • +: Made of Sterner Stuff: Strongarm can roll a d100 whenever hit and on a 70 or above she simply ignores the hit entirely even if she otherwise failed to save.
  • +: Cool Head: Thanks to her Elite Guard training, Strongarm keeps a firm head on her shoulders and can never automatically fail a morale check and doesn't take stress penalties to morale or leadership checks.
  • +: Enduring: Strongarm takes three times as long to risk getting stressed from overwork as other characters.
  • =: Robot in Disguise: Strongarm is a Cybertronian and is thus given a robot's list of built-in capabilities, resistances and immunities as well as some particular vulnerabilities, as well as some particular to Cybertronians. For the sake of the Manton Effect and similar limitations, Strongarm is considered to be partly between life and machinery, making him resistant but not quite immune to powers that only affect organic or inorganic material. She can also transform into vehicles relatively close to his robot mode in overall size.
  • -: Bad at improv: Strongarm takes moderate penalties to most types of rolls if forced to act without any sort of plan in mind or if something completely unexpected and unforeseen comes up.
  • -: There are rules for this! Strongarm requires diplomacy checks to convince to do actions that go outside of standard Autobot protocol.
  • -: Underconfident: Strongarm has confidence issues when it comes to working on her own or taking her own initiative without orders and will take a morale penalty if operating without guidance.

Strongarm has been active for about three point three million years, young by Cybertronian Standards, but has spent virtually all of that time in combat or covert duties. As such she is considered a young but dedicated soldier; rather by the book and a stringent observer of protocol. She is one of the most promising newer members of Jetfire's crew and is a stickler for making sure that all protocol is followed, particularly those relating to secrecy and ensuring that the disruption done to Earth's societies isn't overly extreme. Though empathetic, her focus on combat training means that she's not the best negotiator unless she has a rigid system she can navigate and take advantage of. However, her experience in the Elite Guard means that there's rather few combat situations she can't handle, and she's decently well-read. However her inflexibility regarding protocol makes her somewhat poor at stealth operations. While stubborn and willful, she's reasonably humble and always has a mind for making sure that the job is done right.

Relationships
  • Bumblebee: Bumblebee and Strongarm are close friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points twice between missions and once during a mission. They also gain a Magnitude +3 bonus to cooperative checks when working together.

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Molotok[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
Description (In Lieu of Image):

Passage said:
" The Russian girl was wearing some manner of mask and a colourful but practical looking military produced costume with green coloured inset plates, red trimmings, and the occasional gold highlights; she looked rather nice. She was definitely someone who spent a lifetime continually working out, with the armour padding of her suit giving a good impression of the contour of her musculature. Closer examination also showed that the outfit seemed to have attachment points for added plating".

Irinushka wears her black hair long and straight down to about the midsection of her back, her features are slender and agile rather than powerful; clearly built for moving as quickly as possible. When relaxing but in uniform, she wears a mask that can cover most of her face save for her hair with a removable mouth-filter and eyepieces and adjusts her hairstyle with a hairband to keep her identity protected. Like most Soviet bloc heroes, her uniform is meant to be primarily practical with some concessions made to fashion and individual preference within reason. When in battle gear, she attaches carefully weight distributed semi-powered armour designed by the "Spetsproizpo" (Spetsial'noye proizvodstvennoye podrazdeleniye: Special Manufacturing Division), Tinkers with access to the resources of the whole of the Soviet Bloc divided into teams based on speciality.

Her armour is meant to cover her weaknesses without impeding her or requiring too much in the way of intense maintenance. Made with special materials highly resistant to most forms of energy transfer and fitted with semi-powered systems that allow it to carry itself, the plating added to the armour is styled off of Soviet "Ratnik" infantry patterns. A military-style helm fitted with an eyeshield and filtration guard protects her head, keeps her up to date with the OGASnet and communications sent her way, and wards her from atmospheric poisons. The hermetically sealed plated body armour helps screen out radiation, electricity, cold, and heat, and keeps her at a comfortable temperature. Its colouration is largely the same as her underlying uniform, and her helm fits her hair by unknown means.

The insert nature of the plating also makes it easy to repair, simply slotting in replacements for damaged or destroyed portions of her outfit. and stitching up any tears in the dura-fiber construction of the fabric. She wears a service patch on her arms, the Soviet Red star in the midst of her helmet's forehead section, and her personal symbol of a golden rocket carrying a platinum coloured hammer to the stars lies at the midsection of her uniform and on her chestplate. She also usually has an infantryman's backpack on her back to carry supplies when on long missions likely to take her far away from the usual lines of support. Like most Soviet heroes, she rejects wearing actual capes as pointlessly exposing herself to a potential hazard.

Real Name: Irina "Irinushka" Vladmirovna Kuznetsov

Aliaes: "Hammer", Molotok, Probzhen (Short for "punching woman"), Tovarishch pushechnoye yadro (Comrade Cannonball),
Gender: Female
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Bisexual
Age: 14
Ethnicity: Great Russian
Affiliation: Soviet Union (Otmolsoza)
Height: 5'7/171 centimetres.
Mass: 59 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Green
Hair Colour: Black

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Decent
Training: Very Good
Leadership: Good
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Decent
Vehicular Skill: None (Doesn't know how to drive)
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Moderately superhuman
Durability Category: Moderately Superhuman (Augmented by kinetic absorption and redirection, decently durable armour and variably strong shielding)
Resilience Category: Very Good (Shielding can be bled through by energy attacks but is extremely effective against kinetic attacks, low-grade armour)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Decent

Weapons:
  • One Handed Kinetic Hammers: Melee weapon, moderate rate of attack penalty, low armour penetration bonus, low damage bonus, short reach, moderate concussive, x2.
  • Two Handed Kinetic Hammer: Melee weapon, Moderate Rate of Attack Penalty, Low armour penetration bonus, medium damage bonus, medium reach, moderate concussive, two handed
  • Containment Foam Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Restraining Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Long Duration, Throwing Range.
  • Flashbang Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Blinding Effect, Strong Deafening Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • HEAT Grenade: Low Armour Penetration, Low Damage, Incendiery, Small Area of Effect, Short Range.
  • Frag Grenade: Weak Armour Penetration, Weak Damage, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.

Armour:
  • Otmolsoza Thermal-Armoured Costume; Semi-powered, Low Armour Save (improves to medium against energy attacks), Low Damage Reduction (Increases to medium against energy attacks), Highly EMP resistant, Effortless to repair, Helmet protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,
  • Collapsible Riot Shield: Offers cover, increases armour save and damage reduction, can be used as a weapon with somewhat increased melee damage.


Miscellaneous Gear:



Traits:
  • +: Energetic: Irinushka loves being part of the Otmolsoza and the opportunity it gives for her to feel powerful, accomplished, and like she's making a real difference in the world. She always rerolls failed saves against Stress Gain and takes two missions without a break to have to save against Stress gain.
  • +: Star Pioneer: Irinushka is a well-beloved part of the Otmolsoza and gets a significant bonus to diplomacy within the Earth Bet Soviet Bloc.
  • +: Charming: Irinushka gets a moderate bonus to diplomacy checks with people in her age group who are orientation compatible with her.
  • +: Momentum Shard: Irinushka has the Momentum Shard and can absorb, manipulate, and generate kinetic energy in large quantities, she can absorb most kinetic impacts and store the energy inside of herself for usage for nearly any physical purpose, basically storing energy points such as regenerating her shielding, healing some injuries, augmenting her speed or hits, using some special attacks, or giving some boosts to her comrades; making her extremely flexible. However, she needs to consciously absorb energy, otherwise relying on simply passively deflecting incoming energy or imparting it into herself. She also does have a limit to how much energy she can store at once due to her physiological limitations.
  • +: Ready for action: Irinushka never needs to make a morale check to fight a new and unheard-of enemy or situation with confidence.
  • +: Familiar with non-human combatants: Thanks to working extensively with the Autobots, Irinushka does not take inexperience penalties when it comes to fighting non-human enemies.
  • =: Otmolsoza member: As part of the Soviet Union's principal party-aligned hero team, Irinushka has certain special access privileges within the boundaries of the Soviet Bloc. However, she does draw suspicion outside of the Earth bet Soviet bloc, especially within more anti-communist areas.
  • -: Carrier of Burdens: Irinushka needs a diplomacy check to dissuade from taking actions that may cause herself harm when she believes that others would benefit from putting herself at risk.
  • -: I want to help!: She will have to save against stress point accumulation for every mission she is benched without being sent off on side-tasks or joining the main mission.
  • -: I can do this: Irinushka will require a diplomacy check to convince her to accept aid if she feels like she can succeed at a task without it and if helping her would take up significant time or resources from that person.


Actually named Irina "Irinushka" Vladimirovna Kuznetsov, Molotok is a young parahuman attached to the Soviet Otmolsoza (Special Protection Youth Division of the Soviet Union) and a native of the city of Arkhangelsk. Irina bonded to her extradimensional symbiont following an encounter with a rampaging tinker made robot of Swedish origin derived from the illicitly acquired corpse of a Decepticon slain in an aerial engagement acquired by the tinker Svartalfar before the Autobots could recover it. Originally developed with the hopes of helping to fight Endbringers, the lingering code from the fallen machine's repurposed Cybertronian components meshed poorly with its new programming when Svaltalfar thanks in part due to Gesellschaft sabotage; resulting in a monstrosity that rampaged across the baltic for two weeks. Due to the severity of its attack on Arkhangelsk, she has a double bond to her entity.

The incident gave her the ability to store, manipulate, and amplify kinetic energy for various purposes, such as absorbing incoming blows, forming shielding, significantly augmenting the force behind her impacts, move objects, enhance or drain speed, leech energy to accelerate natural healing, or even releasing them as impact blasts or shockwaves. Her status as a general-purpose take all comers melee combatant, and tremendous capacity for punishment has made her indispensable to the Sentinels at Arkhangelsk. However, Irina has been diagnosed with a martyrdom complex and a tendency of unnecessarily taking on the burdens of others and worsened mood if unable to offer assistance. All while she often refuses to ask others for help even when in need out of a feeling of not wanting to burden others.

Relationships
  • Serp: Irinushka and Viktor date each other rather openly and have a strong and healthy romantic relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with doubled modifiers to relieve stress points four times between missions and thrice during a mission. They also gain a great bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.



[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Serp[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

Description: (In lieu of picture)
Passage said:
a nearby companion in a more red outfit as the blond set down his fighter pilot styled helmet and ran his hands through messy locks. He gave the impression of having recently been sweating quite a lot, and you could see a few beads still dripping down his forehead.

Another look at him confirmed that he was built for agility and finesse rather than raw power, and the insets of his suit seemed mostly to accentuate the muscle groups of his body in a rather flattering manner. Like her outfit, it had attachment points, and like her, he wore a small mask that covered part of his face but not quite enough to be likely to guise his identity from anyone who knew him. He shrugged off more of the plating of what you presumed was his full armoursuit, offering it to a drone who took it off of him as he wiped his brow and dabbed at his face with a cloth.

Viktor wears his messy blond hair down to the midsection of his neck, his sharp blue eyes usually highly attentive as he looks around the room. He's a sharp-looking, handsome young man who fits all the ideals of the Soviet Union's youth, almost seeming to have crawled out of a propaganda poster at times When in uniform but not in combat, Viktor wears his red, khaki, and black uniform-costume as well as a mask that can cover his entire face, including with ski-style goggles, or have parts removed to expose his hair, mouth, eyes, nose, ears and the like as needed. When in combat however, he utilises custom-fitted power armour produced for him by the "Spetsproizpo" (Spetsial'noye proizvodstvennoye podrazdeleniye: Special Manufacturing Division), Tinkers with access to the resources of the whole of the Soviet Bloc divided into teams based on speciality.

His armour is meant to take advantage of his ability to improve equipment to greater performance level, thus while it might seem to be somewhat standard as he doesn't have a dedicated Tinker following him around constantly; he is able to force it into capabilities well beyond its designed parameters. Significantly more durable, with a greater degree of augmentation, improving the modular equipment able to be fitted into it as per mission requirements, and far better at absorbing incoming hits without harming his body in his possession, Pasternak is able to function as one of Arkhangelsk's most versatile heroes, who can take the fight without fear or concern of harm in most engagements and taking on most challenges that get in his way.

The armour also helps to store the large number of grenades he uses for many situations, though in the case of operations with the autobots, he swaps out many of the nonlethal instruments he has for devices more likely to cause at least some damage to Decepticon opponents. Though so far the autobots are somewhat resistant to the idea of giving humans their weapons technology, the coming crisis might finally break Jetfire's reluctance as a crisis on many worlds begins to brew. Something he is actually looking forward to.


Real Name: Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak
Aliases: Serp, "Sickle", Rezhumal (Short for "Cutting Boy"), Tovarishch khvatayushchiy (Comrade Grabber, after his tendency to help himself to other people's personal belongings to see how his power works with them)
Gender: Male
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Bisexual
Age: 14
Ethnicity: Great Russian
Affiliation: Soviet Union (Otmolsoza)
Height: 6'0/182.44 centimetres.
Mass: 71 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Blond

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Decent
Training: Very Good
Leadership: Good
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Decent
Vehicular Skill: None (Doesn't know how to drive)
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Significantly Superhuman
Durability Category: Significantly Superhuman
Resilience Category: Decent (Decent armour, no shielding)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Decent

Weapons:
  • Okhotnik Pistol: Medium rate of fire, Dismal Armour Penetration, Dismal Damage, Medium Range, X2
  • Wrist Mounted Submachine Guns: Great Rate of Fire, Dismal Armour Penetration, Dismal Damage, Short Range, x2
  • Wrist Mounted Sawn off Shotguns: Weak Rate of Fire, Weak Damage, Weak Armour Penetration, Very Short Range, x2 (Can fire slugs which have Very Low damage, Very Low armour penetration and short-range, or taser shells which have minuscule damage, moderately electrified, mediocre stunning)
  • Ballistic Knives: (Counts as a melee attack with slightly increased armour penetration and damage and medium range)
  • Gauntlet Chain-Bayonets: Melee weapon, Moderate attack rate penalty, low armour penetration, low damage, more effective against inorganic targets, point blank reach, x2.
  • High-Frequency Sickle: No attack rate penalty, mediocre armour penetration, mediocre damage bonus, short reach.
  • Collapsible High-Frequency Scythe: Significant attack rate penalty, medium armour penetration, medium damage bonus, medium reach.
  • Containment Foam Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Restraining Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Long Duration, Throwing Range.
  • Flashbang Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Blinding Effect, Strong Deafening Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • EMP Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, mediocre EMP effect, throwing range.
  • Napalm Grenades: Very low Armour Penetration, Very Low Burn Damage, Large Area of Effect, Spreading, throwing range.
  • Thermite Grenades: Mediocre Armour Penetration, Mediocre Burn Damage, Mediocre Incendiary, Small Area of Effect, throwing range, Short Duration
  • HEAT Grenade: Low Armour Penetration, Low Damage, Incendiery, Small Area of Effect, throwing range.
  • Frag Grenade: Weak Armour Penetration, Weak Damage, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • Smart Grenade Launcher: Extends grenade range to medium and allows for rerolls to hit.


Armour:
  • Otmolsoza Augmented Suit; Powered, Okay Armour Save and Damage Reduction, Improves strength noticeably, EMP hardened, Helmet protects against blinding and deafening effects and atmospheric toxins, Easy Repair.
  • Collapsible Riot Shield: Offers cover, increases armour save and damage reduction, can be used as a weapon with somewhat increased melee damage.

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits
  • +: Grindstone Shard: Vitya has the "Grindstone" shard which allows him to improve things that he has in his possession or on his person, including himself. He works from a budget of "improvements" he can dole out to increase overall performance. This effect ends shortly after he lets go or stops having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to apply to projectiles or short delay explosives.
  • +: Star Pioneer: Vityais a well-beloved part of the Otmolsoza and gets a strong bonus on all diplomacy checks within the Earth Bet Soviet Bloc.
  • +: Charming: Vitya gets a moderate bonus to diplomacy checks with people in his age group who are orientation compatible with him.
  • +: Soviet New Man: Vitya loses stress points at double the normal rate as he has managed a good deal of control over his own emotional state.
  • +: Friends on the other side: Vitya is actually quite well regarded on the other side of the Iron Curtain and receives a moderate bonus to diplomacy outside of the Soviet Bloc on Earth Bet.
  • +: Familiar with non-human combatants: Thanks to working extensively with the Autobots, Viktor does not take inexperience penalties when it comes to fighting non-human enemies.
  • =: Otmolsoza member: As part of the Soviet Union's principal party-aligned hero team, Viktor has certain special access privileges within the boundaries of the Soviet Bloc. Though of course, as a child such privileges are limited.
  • -: A bit hidebound: Vitya sticks close to Soviet protocol and ideals and to the party line of the VKP(B), substantial deviation from protocol will require a diplomacy check to convince him away from with the difficulty being determined by the magnitude of deviation asked of him.
  • -: Overbearing: Vitya has high standards for everyone he meets and can induce stress in others by his consistent insistence on improvement form just about everyone he meets and is exceedingly difficult to satisfy. This also makes it harder to improve relationship grades (romantic or platonic) with him.
  • -: Please stop Talking: Victor has a bad habit of saying stuff he shouldn't and can cause strain in relations when he voices unneeded and unsolicited criticism that his partner might not take well if he sees something he regards as substandard.

Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak js a parahuman member of the Otmolsoza and one of the Arkhangelsk division's foremost generalists. Vitya is able to "sharpen" objects, reshaping them at the molecular level for additional efficiency such as making a cutting edge a monomolecular blade and reinforcing them with extradimensional energy to prevent them from breaking; including himself. Also a double-trigger, Vitya can apply his sharpening and reinforcing to more esoteric effects, such as sharpening his senses, enhancing his accuracy, self augmentation, and getting more efficiency out of used objects. The sharpening effect ends briefly after he ceases having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to be used with projectile weapons.

Vitya was "triggered" in the same incident that saw Irina being bonded to her entity, albeit in a separate part of the city during the rogue machine's rampage. The Otmolsoza partnered the two, due to being the same age and having had a prior relationship before manifesting their abilities, thus leading to the aliases "Hammer and Sickle" under the tutelage of the experienced Soviet parahuman "Nakoval'nya" or "Anvil". Vitya's profile lists him as a brave but sometimes overbearing would-be classical hero and party loyalist who holds people to high standards. While well-meaning and making an effort to be kind, Vitya has difficulties with holding back criticism even when entirely unsolicited. However, his versatility and commitment have ensured that he commands a significant deal of respect within Arkhangelsk

Relationships:
  • Molotok: Irinushka and Viktor date each other rather openly and have a strong and healthy romantic relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with doubled modifiers to relieve stress points four times between missions and thrice during a mission. They also gain a great bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Battery[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
450.png


Gender: Female
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Heterosexual
Age: 22
Ethnicity: English-American
Affiliation: United States of America (Protectorate)
Height: 5'4/162.56 centimetres.
Mass: 61 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Brown

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Troubled
Experience: Very Good
Training: Acceptable
Leadership: Great
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Very Good
Intrigue Skill: Decent
Diplomacy Skill: Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Decent

Tech Skill: Good
Vehicular Skill: Good
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Variable (Peak human to substantially superhuman)
Durability Category: Variable (Peak human to excellent)
Resilience Category: Variable (Peak human to excellent)
Speed Category: Variable (Peak Human to excellent)
Cleverness: Good
Perception: Very Good

Weapons:
Unarmed

Armour:
Unarmoured Costume

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Charging Up!: Battery can take time to build up a reserve of energy for up to twelve seconds to spend it on various needs and abilities such as strength, speed, impact, resilience, and durability. Each second spent charging translates to six seconds of usage for a total of seventy-two seconds at maximum power. She can also expend the energy in a large electromagnetic burst whose power is dependent on how much energy she has stored up. This can be used to infuse objects with energy, repel objects sensitive to electromagnetism, shut down electronics, or magnetise targets. As the limitation is physiological, improvements to her physiology would allow her to store more energy.
  • +: All in-worker: Battery is significantly more resistant to stress than most and takes at least two consecutive missions without downtime to start having to roll against stress.
  • +: Dedicated to the Cause: Battery can reroll failed morale checks if failing puts her mission at significant risk of failure.
  • +: Role Model: When working in Earth Bet's United States, Battery is an inspiration to many young heroes, giving her a diplomacy bonus with younger American parahumans.
  • +: In the Know: As an adult member of the Protectorate, Battery is given access to certain classified information that most people aren't privy to, including materials still recorded purely in paper format to prevent hacking.
  • +: Former Ward Leader: As a former leader of the Brockton Bay Wards as well as a former member of the New York Wards, Battery starts off with strong relations with members of other organisations.
  • =: Protectorate Member: As part of the Protectorate Battery has special access privileges within the territorial boundaries of the Earth Bet United States of America and to a lesser degree, other NATO or American aligned countries. She also gets a diplomacy bonus in interacting with military, governmental, or law enforcement personnel within these areas and commands a degree of respect from other heroes in the area. However she also draws the ire of the less than law-abiding and draws suspicion from those outside of the American bloc.
  • -: Ties to Cauldron: Battery's powers originate from her contacts with Cauldron and making a bargain with the proverbial devil means that she owes them three favours, she has already completed two, with the last one still to be called by the organisation.
  • -: Guilt: Battery feels guilty for receiving her powers through such an illicit source and this doubt weighs on her mind, every arc it goes unresolved, the Guilt will threaten to consume her entirely.
  • -: Unfamiliarity with Inhuman Opponents: Up until very recently, Battery had no idea that aliens were amongst us or that at least one Earth from an entirely different multiverse was in contact with Earth Bet. Battery's combat skill and to-hit bonuses are reduced against alien opponents.

Battery received her abilities from an underground organisation known as Cauldron that works behind the scenes to engender the formation of Parahumans and guide the Parahuman community along certain lines of development that suit its endgoal. The daughter of a Police Detective who wanted to stop Madcap from breaking out villains from prisons that they worked hard at putting away, she was contacted at an early age by the organisation while looking for equipment that might help her provide assistance to the police. In exchange for three favours, she was given her current abilities; the ability to store energy up to her body's limit and then release it for whatever purpose she could need. This made her a versatile combatant capable of rapid movement or extreme force while still having a tremendous deal of control. While initially working with the New York City Wards, she eventually was transferred to Brockton Bay in her later teen years and eventually grew up to be a fully-fledged member of the protectorate where she has served with distinction. Following a long and difficult courtship by the claimed to be reformed Madcap, the two would marry at a young age as well.

Relationships:
  • Assault: Assault and Battery are married and seem to have a healthy relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with 50% increased modifiers to relieve stress points three times between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a very good bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.


[SLIDE]

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Assault[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
L9t10IA.jpeg


Real Name: Ethan
Gender: Male
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Heterosexual
Age: 22
Ethnicity: English-American
Affiliation: United States of America (Protectorate)
Height: 6'2/187.96 centimetres.
Mass: 94 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Green
Hair Colour: Orange

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Very Good
Training: Passable
Leadership: Decent
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Very Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Great
Administration Skill: Decent
Academic Skill: Low

Tech Skill: Good
Vehicular Skill: Good
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Moderately superhuman
Durability Category: Moderately Superhuman (Augmented by kinetic absorption and redirection, decently durable armour and variably strong shielding)
Resilience Category: Very Good (Against kinetic attacks)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Good
Perception: Very Good

Weapons:
Unarmed

Armour:
Unarmoured Costume

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Kinetic Shift: Assault's powers are quite similar to Irinushka's, though more limited. On the other hand he can make use of his abilities much more quickly and to a greater degree of fine-tuning. Whereas Irinushka needs to consciously keep up a barrier, Assault reflexively transfers energy attempting to move into him away and he's able to shape the energy he imparts in such a way that he can avoid hurting someone even if he launches them across the room. He can also use energy that he comes into contact with to quickly give himself a boost. Though his greatest limitation is that he needs to be grounded to properly use his abilities.
  • +: Great with Kids: Assault has a Great diplomacy bonus when it comes to interacting with underaged characters under virtually all circumstances and can easily establish positive avuncular relationships with most children he's allowed to interact with for long durations.
  • +: This is Fun: Assault has significant resistance to stress accumulation due to greatly enjoying his job, needing at least three missions without a break before accumulating stress.
  • +: Streetwise: As a former villain, Assault has a perspective of how life is like at the bottom that most of his colleagues don't. He's got a great bonus to checks relating to figuring out how the underworld might work or what might be going on at the street level.
  • +: In the Know: As an adult member of the Protectorate, Battery is given access to certain classified information that most people aren't privy to, including materials still recorded purely in paper format to prevent hacking.
  • +: Slippery as an Eel: Assault needs at least two successful checks in a row to restrain or immobiliser and can always reroll attempts to escape from such attempts.
  • =: Protectorate Member: As part of the Protectorate Assault has special access privileges within the territorial boundaries of the Earth Bet United States of America and to a lesser degree, other NATO or American aligned countries. He also gets a diplomacy bonus in interacting with military, governmental, or law enforcement personnel within these areas and commands a degree of respect from other heroes in the area. However he also draws the ire of the less than law-abiding and draws suspicion from those outside of the American bloc.
  • -: Criminal Past: Assault's reputation is predicated in large part to his past as the villain madcap remaining buried in the past. If his past is uncovered and revealed, he will take a substantial reputation hit and be forced to give up many of his current privileges.
  • -: No Energy for me Please: Assault's powers do not work against directed energy attacks, even those of a purely kinetic nature due to only being a single trigger.
  • -: Unfamiliarity with Inhuman Opponents: Up until very recently, Battery had no idea that aliens were amongst us or that at least one Earth from an entirely different multiverse was in contact with Earth Bet. Battery's combat skill and to-hit bonuses are reduced against alien opponents.

Formerly the Villain known as Madcap, Ethan has the ability to manipulate the transfer of kinetic energy towards his own ends as long as he's on the ground. This gives him a tremendous deal of versatility as he can impact foes with significantly above normal force, move at constantly increasing acceleration limited only by his reflexes, and shrug off the vast majority of hits. After encountering Battery however, he decided to reform in order to win her over and spent much of his time trying to earn forgiveness from the law and her affection. After some time, he managed to succeed to get her to start dating and the two young heroes would form a close affiliation that would see them transferred through teams together and ensured that he would remain close by her side. Considered to be an expert with working with children, Assault is also considered exceptional at needling people into certain responses that he finds amusing.

Relations:
  • Battery: Assault and Battery are married and seem to have a healthy relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with 50% increased modifiers to relieve stress points three times between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a very good bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.

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[/ACCORDION]
Extra Rules

VEHICLE & CRAFTING MECHANIC & STRATEGIC PHASE INTRODUCTION


Like the foot portions of the game, vehicular combat will be handled by the Kriegsspiel referee system rather than via dice except in particularly convoluted situations, and usually just to determine background events that we can't agree on. This deals with both the tremendous swinginess of most dice based systems while allowing for more consistent results. The referees are myself and my two good friends on the google hangout RazorLaserCrusader and Stacy the Chudslayer who will hopefully be joining the discord soon.

Vehicular gear and health is tracked separately from player equivalents and combat options also tend to be somewhat different. There is for one thing, a much lesser emphasis on melee and the distances involved tend to be more extreme; Mechs will be more involved in close quarters combat, while strike craft tend to keep their distance to a large degree. Some craft are capable of interstellar travel and thus are needed to go to certain missions without access to the Autobot Spacebridge technology or similar rapid transit systems; and the carry capacity of these craft will also affect what allies you can bring.

Note though, that at this stage you're not going to be leaving the earths very often, and throughout the game the Earths will remain important planets you'll frequently find yourself going back to. They wouldn't be in the crossfire if they weren't important after all. Ensuring that the Earths hold is going to be of vital importance as the Coming Storm approaches.

Vehicles can also serve as bases of operations and if they have the right modules installed, critically injured characters or those rendered combat ineffective can be teleported back to them as a sort of mobile rally point. They will also replenish ammo, immediately repair damaged or lost machinery or equipment, provide extra supplies, can provide additional fire support on certain missions or environments, do long range scanning, can allow you to craft items or upgrades, and provide a safe place to relax when needed.

Vehicles can be built or upgraded. Currently you have your strike craft. Samus and Arne also have access to escort screen sized basecraft that can serve as a mobile base of operations that can be unlocked after finishing a mission chain. Capital ships are rarer and harder to build and will require significant investment at this stage of the game and will serve more as a major hub once you get the revolution going; though the Autobots have some of their own. You can also build other vehicles generally sorted into bikes, cars, tanks, and mechs of assorted size categories. Which can be useful against large combatants, when there's a lot of area to traverse on land, when even more firepower is needed, or what have you.

Vehicles carrying more than one person will also be able to have passengers fight from inside if they have the appropriate powers. They will usually be treated as part of the vehicle's overall actions unless noted otherwise.

Tl;dr basically the same stuff but with different gear and contexts. Also the two will fight differently when behind the wheel.

Crafting is done with currencies which for simplicity's sake will be sorted into Salvage, Resources, and Influence. Projects will list their requirements and note whether your Salvage and Resources are valid for that project (rather than tracking a dozen different resources because screw that.) Some projects will need to be researched before they're craftable, and those researches will have their likely time of completion as well as costs listed. Crafting (should it be something that would take time; like say; upteching allies) and Research can both be accelerated by having the right allies on hand to take care of it.

Samus and Arne can also both develop additional powers, particularly through their Magic, Psionic, Genetic, Meta, Warp, and Incarnate trees. This is also handled by the crafting system in tandem with a level system; with levels unlocking slots and giving you valid resources and salvage for those slots. Being trained can help bolster your level progress but will take time and stuff can happen while you're busy.

While tech can be swapped and is an incredibly important part of the two's abilities; developing the power of their bodies, minds, and souls is also important. But to make it simple I'll be doing a lot of the tracking work for you and this will largely come up when you're able to make something.

As you have joined with the Autobots, they'll also handle a great deal of the process of acquiring resources, making stuff, equipping allies, and will also periodically hand out upgrades and bonus gear. They will also take care of bases for the most part. However note that as you re part of Autobot command, the missions they offer will be structured around their needs and they do expect a certain number of Autobot missions to be taken per arc and act. This is going to be a long quest so bear that in mind.

On the other hand, Wheeljack is one of the best crafters and researchers you could hope for and will be taking a huge burden off of your shoulders in that regard, and you do have Dream Doctor to help with many other things. As your movement grows you'll be able to get more like them to help save the Omniverse from the Coming Storm.

Villains groups will also have progress meters to track how close they are to pulling off something important and whether you're likely to need to stop them. Their progress can be limited by either going on missions against them or sending B-teams against them. As you are with the Autobots, much of the B-team deployment will be automated due to Jetfire and Optimus having seniority over you. Optimus can be expected to generally speaking, make the best choice. Whenever a villain progress meter reaches an interval, a crisis mission will need to be done to stop them from doing major damage and weakening confidence in your ability to help them. And even then, that it happened at all will cause some damage.

Villain groups will also have infiltration meters, one to represent how deep into their information networks you have pierced, another to show how much sway they seem to have behind the scenes. The higher the latter, the more behind the scenes issues you can expect to have.

Most of this is rendered in a few simple stats and meters and will be pretty easy to follow. This isn't going to be very math heavy so this is all very qualitative.
Arne (Sylux) & Samus

[/B]​
Character TrackerLevelSRI (Salvage, Resources, Influence)Crafted PowersVehiclesRelationsStatus
Samus Eabha Aran2100, 100, 100None YetDormach (Strike Craft)Arne (Romantic Partner), Bumblebee (Friend), Alice (Friend), Joseph (Friend)Stress: Level 2
Mood: Good
Health: Perfect
Arne Eriksen Skjoldr2100, 100 , 100None YetSleipnir (Strike Craft)Samus (Romantic Partner), Bumblebee (Friend), Alice (Friend), Joseph (Friend)Stress: Level 2
Mood: Good
Health: Perfect



Relationships

Units

Bases

Resources

Vehicles


VehiclesUtility ModulesWeaponsDefencesManoeuvrabilityStatusOther
DormachCrafting Facility, Restore Station, Scanners, N-Space Drive, Teleporter, Fabricator, Ship Synthetic Consciousness, Cloak and StealthEnergy Bomb Generator, Star Charge Generator, Missile batteries (775 missiles), Super Missile launchers (150 super missiles), Four Deployable heavy beam turrets, Four retractable light anti-personnel turrets, Nasal Rotary Cannon, Wingmounted twin Subweapon guns, rear mounted twin subweapon gunsSelf-repairing varia type armour, multi-layered multi-type shielding (7 energy tanks), Active Defence turrets, ECMGreat (Flier)Undamaged
SleipnirCrafting Facility, Restore Station, Scanners, N-Space Drive, Teleporter, Fabricator, Ship Synthetic Consciousness, Cloak and StealthEnergy Bomb Generator, Star Charge Generator, Missile batteries (775 missiles), Super Missile launchers (150 super missiles), Twin rear-facing heavy beam turrets, Six wingmounted Subweapon cannons, twin forward facing side mounted beam guns, nasal rotary cannon, Four retractable light-anti-personnel turrets.Self-repairing varia type armour, multi-layered multi-type shielding (7 energy tanks), Active Defence turrets, ECMExcellent (Flier)Undamaged



Political Support

Worldtracker


World NameWorld MoraleYearLargest ThreatYour reputationWorldfall ProgressMost trusting polityLeast trusting Polity
Earth BetShakyJanuary 2011WeltreichGood5Soviet UnionUnited States
Primal EarthGreatNovember 2020WeltreichWeak2N/ARogue Islands
Monster WorldPoorAugust 2587NebulonsNonexistent15N/AN/A
Items

Villain Groups


Villain GroupsMetaverse of OriginProgress to SchemeStatusYour InfiltrationTheir Infiltration
WeltreichSourcewell5 (20 more to next Interval)Strong, Mobilising.25 (Information Network compromised, Names, some capabilities, some resources and weaknesses known)30-50 (Substantial ability to manipulate global opinions and enforcement, widespread economic power and influence, local law enforcement dubiously reliable ally, unlikely to have direct agents in the Autobots.)
Rikti Lineage of WarSourcewell15 (10 more to next interval)Strong, Mobilising.25 (Information Network compromised, Names, some capabilities, some resources and weaknesses known)25 (Less ability to manipulate global opinions, substantial preprepared forces in place for operations)











 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Foreword

The intent here is to in essence, examine the alien invasion story and its relation to superhero fiction. Originally the Alien Invasion story was meant to be a parable for imperialism to present a scenario where a powerful, dominant country such as Britain could be imperialised by a superior force. But over time the Alien Invasion story has become a pretty empty HFY romp devoid of its original subtext. The Chitauri barely kill anyone in the Avengers, the Parademons flail around aimlessly, the Rikti are punching bags on Homecoming, the Decepticons rarely get to show the true extent of their malice rather than engaging in the same old playfights with the autobots, and I presume enough of us have played XCOM to know how the Ethereals have lost a lot of their oompf.

No more.

An alien invasion and infiltration is the systematic turning upside down of the entire world we live in, a raw, painful and vicious rearrangement of every facet of the world we hold dear. It is a fight that must be fought, a sacred war, but it's not just a fun romp; its having a boot shoved down on your neck by a superior power that hungers for what you have. And in history, usually this is a process all too few have been able to fight off until the invading power simply gets too exhausted to keep on stomping on the conquered one.

But the superhero story is also fundamentally about giving people at a smaller scale the ability to affect changes on a much greater level. Where getting the right people into the right place at the right time is a matter of a circle of friends of comprehensible size rather than army sized formations and movements. In a superhero story, a few plucky teens can save the world; and that's what we're here to do. We are cancelling space Imperialism.

DA RULES & MECHANICS
  1. Don’t Be a Creep. Underage characters are underage. This isn’t QQ. Be a creep and get yeeted. Do not try and ruleslawyer with edge cases. Err on the side of caution. This is not up for debate. Trying to change this will also result in getting yeeted. If you feel you will not be able to abide by this save yourself some trouble and don’t participate.
  2. Romance. Romance is not up to player choice beyond choosing to spend time with certain people. If you want monogamous male gaze lesbians look elsewhere. Respect character sexuality and learn to live with pan/polyam protagonists, or get yeeted
  3. No HFY Xenocide. Mass muder = bad. The deuteragonists were raised in multi-species societies. You can satisfy your HFY needs in a plethora of places. This isn't one of them.
  4. Minimal dice rolls and Simple mechanics. This quest will have minimal stats and dice rolls for several reasons. First, we seek to have as little to keep track of as possible. There are four crossovers and many characters involved, that is plenty enough to deal with on its own. Second, we hope to avoid the fairly common quest issue where some players will pick what they view as the optimal decision based on whatever mechanics the QM has implemented. Third, this story is intended to be driven more by the interpersonal relationships and decisions of the characters, as well as the personal, local, national, and global social consequences of both superpowers (and how governments react to potential loss of monopoly of force, etc.) and alien invasion.
    • There are two primary scenarios where dice will be used. First, in the case of simple success/failure checks. This will be done by rolling a single 10-sided die. The probability assignments won’t be precise, but suppose, for example, that the players have voted on decision B. If the QM feels that decision B is more likely to succeed than not then we would say that the action is successful if say the die face comes up greater than or equal to 5. (this would correspond to a success probability of 3/5, though we generally won’t be that precise about it). Similarly we might set a threshold of less than or equal to 3 (probability 3/10) if we think a decision is less likely to succeed. A higher face number die may be used if after some time we feel it necessary, but it will always be one die.
    • The second case where there will be die involved is when there are events that may result in random effects to many characters, such as casualties in a large battle. In this circumstance there will be two n-sided die involved, where 2n is the minimal number of sides needed to cover all the characters we wish to consider for the effect. This results in a geometric probability, with the possible outcomes being 2, 3, …, 2n, and greatest weight towards the middle values. Characters more essential t the plot will be assigned numbers either towards the extreme values or middle values depending if the effect is deleterious or beneficial respectively. The die will then be rolled as many times as we want the effect to occur.
  5. Actions and Consequences. We want the actions of the characters and their interpersonal relationships, as well as the social consequences of powers and alien invasion to play a key part in decision making and the progression of the quest. To that end at the QM’s discretion there may be buffs and nerfs added to decision success and failure chances. One such example of this would be a stress nerf for characters is the questers have made a series of decisions that have led to high action events with no rest in between.
    • Such nerfs or buffs can be shortened or lengthened in duration by quest decisions, and questers are advised to ignore the personal needs and interpersonal relationships of characters at their own risk. Additionally, there will be buffs to success chances if characters have spent the time to develop good working relationships, and nerfs if they have not, or are actively antagonistic.
  6. Decisions. Generally there will be 4-6 decision options not counting a write in. The QM retains the right to veto a write in decision. Decisions that a character would not make under any circumstances will not be considered.
  7. Updates and Voting. Currently the plan is to update, roughly, once weekly. Votes will be open for 72 hours unless indicated otherwise for large actions and 48 hours unless indicated otherwise for smaller actions. This is subject to change as the quest continues.
    • To avoid potential conflict between chosen actions and characters which carry out those actions in voting the deuteragonists will act in concert, otherwise we will have votes counted separately for the characters and actions


FAQ
Q: You draw massively from your fanfic Saga? Do I have to read that first? It looks awfully long and updates really quickly.
A: No, anything pulled from there will get explained in as succinct a manner as possible. Duodecimarch diverges from Saga shortly after Samus and Arne's shared 14th birthday.

Q: *Quibbles about power levels*
A: My game, my rules. Everyone will find ways to be useful, threatening, and cool. Sometimes even the no-name mooks.

Q: Have you read Hatchling Quest?
A: Yes.

Q: Are you going to rip it o-
A: No. For one thing, my own take on Samus is rather different by the age of fourteen. Then there's the whole "I'm using a significantly different scenario that also dives a lot into politics and imperialism and also helping to deal with the messes of two very screwed up Earths and preventing them from killing each other" thing. Whatever similarities you might see with Hatchling Quest will probably fade quickly as the story goes on.

Q: What continuity of transformers is this?
A: I'm not really picking one so much as I'm hybridizing aspects of various ones I like. Mostly the 2005-2018 IDW series, the Aligned Continuity, and bits and pieces of the others. Overall aesthetic would lie somewhere between Aligned and Bumblebee 2018.

Q: What continuity of Warhammer is this?
A: Galaxies of Darkness, my never quite completed reimagining of 40k featuring added fantasy factions, female space marines, more chaos gods, female primarchs, Sigmar's Dominion in opposition to the Imperium and more.

Q: What continuity of Godzilla is this
A: Age of Monsters, my very much ephemeral kaiju mash up fanon work that ties all the various kaiju media together. Currently in the distant future of the 26th century.

Q: How will the metaphysics interact?
A: Stick around and find out.

Q: Shipping????
A: Yes.

Q: Is your pfp Arne?
A: My pfp is Ezekiel, a character from an unreleased webcomic I help work on called Primalborn.

Q: Doesn't Duodecimarch mean twelve rulers?
A: It does indeed.

Q: What's the significance of that?
A: You'll see.

Q: Why is it called Duodecimarch if there's sixteen settings?
A: Because of spoilerriffic interactions between the original and fanon settings.

Q: What's "????" mean?
A: It means there are mysteries yet to be revealed.

Q: Can we get a hint?
A: No.

Q: Wasn't this Tetrarch Revolution?
A: The change happened for reasons that were always planned but I decided to vaguely tease just now as a bit of a hook.

Q: Your headcanon doesn't match mine!
A: Well shucks there, sport.
Bumblebee-Trailer-700x300.jpg



Recap

Arc 1: Fourfold Endeavour

Introduction
Samus and Arne have ended up on Earth Bet circa January 2011 after dealing with a wormhole generator station being fought over by the Space Pirates and the mysterious unmarked army that destroyed Cylosis' population when Arne was 3. Arne, who in the primary timeline of Metroid is fated to become Sylux and split with Samus when the last knight of the Alimbics has a severe breakdown shortly before zero-mission and goes off to confront this army, has a vision of his possible future as Sylux. The two wake up near Brockton Bay and meet with the Autobot scouts Windblade and Bumblebee, who came to investigate their fall from orbit; and they find that two teenaged metahumans from Primal Earth; Nightcaster and Eudaimonica, are lost in the snowstorm, while the PRT is sent out to investigate the impact as well.

Uninjured, they manage to find the pair and that they're being pursued by extradimensional invaders who have menaced Primal Earth many times; the Rikti, in which a battle ensues showing the PRT that it is rather outmatched technologically by the Rikti leaving many officers injured or dead and many protectorate parahumans with a rather unpleasant experience of battling the technologically superior psionic extradimensionals. They are then invited by the Autobots to speak to their leader on Earth Bet; Jetfire; who manages the operations the Autobots have on a connected series of Earths. They have some talks with the PRT's representatives, Piggot and Legend, as well as the Soviet Otmolsoza minder Maulenov and surprisingly, a Metroid universe official known as Kyrion, part of the Omdyn of Democratic Council Omnipgramatist Republics' Section 13, the indigenous protection unit of its intelligence agency.

Mission 1: Nazi Punks Fuck Off

As part of the Omdyn's cold war with the Federation and its open hostility to entities like the Space Pirate Confederacy of Dismor or the Kriken Empire, Kyrion is often sent out to help protect pre-space faring societies from imperial depredations; and Samus and Arne find themselves recruited into the cause of trying to protect the linked earths. Earths which are rich in resources from every linked universe of high interest to a large number of alien or extradimensional invaders. They find that there is heightened neo-nazi activity in West Germany, and are dispatched to Munich to investigate its origins, finding that the Gesellschaft and thus the Empire-88 have been getting support from Primal Earth's fifth column and even worse; the Weltreich; a multi-timeline spanning Empire from Primal earth's attached "Sourcewell Metaverse" with its core being a timeline where Nazi Germany won world war two.

The Nictus who are backers of virtually every Sourcewell Metaverse fascist movement also make their revelation, as the team; joined by the young Soviet capes Molotok and Serp and the Protectorate capes Assault and Battery, go to the university of Munich and find a massive research facility funded and managed by a mysterious benefactor underneath. They find that the facility seems to be dedicated to the study of all manner of odd artifacts, whether they are alien, such as Chozo or Alimbic or Cybertronian, magical, or even incarnate powered; offering links to the Source power from the Sourcewell Metaverse that the Well of Furies; the primary link humanity in the Sourcewell metaverse has to the Source; can strengthen to grant those deemed worthy or interesting a taste of godly power. They also find that a mysterious army of psychics, a deranged cult of multi-armed monsters, and a sealed tomb of black stone and green heiroglyphed horrors are also present; though the tomb seems dormant and the psychics and monsters both leave before they can be engaged.

After defeating many meta and parahumans under the Weltreich's control, culminating in a battle with the vampire Heinrich and his mount Hollenmord, they find not only a collection of upgrades and start their path to incarnate power, but also that the Nazis are planning a move on Brockton Bay for unknown reasons. They also discover that a central figure in this plan is a Nictus merged entity known as Bose Hexe, the mother of one of the magic-using villains they encountered and bested. Samus and Arne form a bond with Bumblebee, Battery, Molotok, Serp, Eudaimonica, and Nightcaster; the latter four of which start to clearly show growing signs of attraction to the pair. They also are left with questions regarding why the Chozo and Alimbics established themselves on this place only to leave, left with uncertainty regarding their plans. They're also confronted with the troubling implications of there being this many Nazis in this time period, as well as a brief look at the conditions of the twenty-first century and its comparative squalor that serves to trouble them significantly.

Intermission 1

After the Autobots arrive to take over the operations of the base, they return to the Autobot headquarters in northern Russia to debrief; having gained the attentions of the Well of Furies. With no open activity by the enemy so far, they take the time to unwind and speak to a Battery on the verge of a breakdown after her experiences with actual magic, aliens, and the direct attentions of the Well of Furies; joined by Eudaimonica and Nightcaster; who lacking a way back to Primal Earth, will likely have to accompany them to the bay.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Objects:

475282bcfa01915bc1288e79c406c8a7.jpg


The subject is a now-deceased Eastern White Pine Tree of the species Pinus Strobus most commonly found in the northeastern region of the North American continent of Earth, particularly in New England. Analysis of the tree's chemical composition contrasted to the surrounding environment confirms an age of 374 years, three months, and 12 days before expiring upon your impact with it.

Addendum: Spatiochronal analysis indicates that the organism is not of your reality. Nor are any of the surrounding features of the environment.

Addition Addendum: Analysis of stellar and planetary positioning of night sky demonstrates 99.9978% similarity to Night Sky of Earth circa the 13th of January 2011 as viewed from what was contemporaneously referred to as the Rockingham County of the United States of America. Discrepancies recorded to user memory. Night Sky positioning confirms a time of 02:37 AM..

Additional Addendum: Radio and Microwave signals consistent with early 21st century North American Standard detected.

Additional Addendum: User craft located in geosynchronous orbit in stealth mode awaiting completion of auto-repair.

Additional Addendum: Anomalous signal has been detected attempting to interface with suit software. Analysis indicates attempted malware upload, undesired software lacks compatibility with armour systems. Precautionary immunisation and treatment protocols engaged for safety; sample of anomalous code has also been isolated. Recording to files for study.

Samus' Notes: I have at least thirty eight different questions I want answered now, how did we even end up all the way over here? It must have had something to do with the device. But what sort of signal is this? It's in nearly everything being broadcast here like some sort of subliminal wave. It's way more sophisticated than most of the other signals here too.

Arne's Notes: Did we land on some sort of simulacrum planet after taking out that generator? No that's...way too much work for something like this. Okay...different universe...need to remember protocol. I should probably try and find the original location of the subversive signal though, that might get me answers.

Upgrades

The armour and zero suit will adjust its strengths to counter repeated stresses of a specific nature. If continually forced into contests of physical strength, they will augment the user's physicality further. If speed is repeatedly proven necessary, they will add to the user's speed; and if repeatedly impacted by a specific damage type, they will increase the user's resilience against that sort of impact. While only a limited number of adaptations at a time can be deployed or stored, this significantly increases user versatility.

The Seeker Missile allows the missile module to fire multiple missiles at a time in a single burst, each capable of independently tracking their own targets with augmented homing capabilities. The initial seeker missile upgrade allows for upwards of five missiles at a time to be fired and may be used with charged missiles, super missiles, elemental missiles, beam combos; or any mixture thereof. Be warned of ammo consumption when utilising this function.

The Blink Pack is useful for allowing the user to teleport to any place they can perceive or have sufficient data about to enable them to transit safely. The device works through warping the fabric of spacetime to eliminate all distance between two points and circumventing most forms of obstacles, with the transition being instantaneous. Momentum will still be carried through when teleportation commences and is finished. If teleportation is made into a solid object or a dangerous environment; the user will be shunted to the nearest safe distance. However, if the target lacks sufficient Vitae, they will instead be destroyed by the teleportation, allowing the Blink Pack to be used offensively to finish off weakened opponents.

Allows the armour and zero suit to augment physicality in a massive rush of energy, while this function does draw on a store of Adrenal power that needs to be restocked over time; it does not come with any drawbacks while active. Initial Berserker Booster functionality offers thirty seconds of massively augmented strength and resilience and significantly enhanced speed, and reflexes. Once used, the Berserker Booster will need to recharge. The Berserker Booster will tend to heighten user confidence and aggression not out of chemical effect, but due to the user's bond with the armour and zero suit imbuing them with the same sense of heightened physical power.


Elemental Beam

Derived from 5th Column and Council Technology. Allows for the user to fire a special negative quantum globule of energy that is especially destructive against beings that rely on a transdimensional energy bond to link between a symbiont and a host such as Kheldians, Nictus, and Parahumans. The beam deals extremely enhanced damage against these targets and causes numerous debilitating effects that will take some time for the targets to recover from; slowing them down and weakening them for many seconds. As a negative energy weapon, the Quantum Beam also is effective against any target that lacks resistance or has a special vulnerability to negative energy; but is generally less effectual against those inundated in such energies.

The charged shot fires the Quark Tornado, which explodes into a swirling Maelstrom of negative energy that will persist for some time after impact and wander around the battlefield damaging enemies caught in its path.

In your alt-mode, release a continual discharge of omni-directional electricity that can be used to power objects, eradicate large numbers of enemies surrounding you, stun and continually damage more powerful enemies, or even be used to magnetize objects or pick-ups to draw them into your alt-mode. The Lightning Sphere has a reserve of energy that will build up rapidly when not in use, but will not recover while being discharged; this reserve can be increased with further upgrades that the user discovers.

Inheritor (Metroid) Metaverse Topics
Progenitor Topics
Analysis of the Statue indicates it was deposited here roughly one hundred thousand years ago relative to your own timestream at the height of the Milieu-Order cold war. The Alimbic statue is designed to represent the personification of Triumph, styled after the Alimbic Tetrarch who ordered the sealing of the Old Foe. The statue is conventional by Alimbic standards, with a highly typical array of defences as well as a gift for those who prove worthy of it through discovery and having the proper equipment to make use of its prize. It has been significantly displaced from its point of origin, and appears to have originally been part of a complete set.

Its presence further suggests that the network of Alimbic ruins on this planet is extremely extensive, likely representing continuous low-level settlement over the course of thousands of years. The eventual fate of these colonists remains unknown, but further exhumations might reveal the pertinent details. The statue shows recent signs of attempted tampering, likely by 5th Column agents attracted to its energy signature but incapable of earning its gift. This statue is paired with another nearby statue and once that statue is activated by the appropriate tools, its true function will be revealed.

Samus' Notes: The Alimbics are much more secretive about their presence here than the Chozo are! Their statues keep so quiet and try to avoid communing with each other unless necessary. It's so frustrating! But luckily it shouldn't be impossible to find them.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, if I had to guess there would be at least seven other statues of this set. Probably all built by the same person in the same day. It'd only be a small portion of the statues on the planet, but it'd be a start.

This statue was deposited on the planet roughly one hundred thousand years ago by the Milieu as part of its cold war with the Tetrarch Order. Representing the Far-Strider; this statue offers the gift of instantaneous travel to the worthies who earn its truth and pass the trial of liberation to reach it. It is an entirely standard statue within the design paradigms of the "Ranging Maker" subculture of the Chozo, developed to furnish the colony established on this iteration of Earth. As is typical of ranging maker statues, this statue carries a secondary function that is currently barred from you until you find and activate its twin statue; the Parter of Foes.

Attempts by the 5th Column, Weltreich, and Gesellschaft to study the statue have been noted but have been unsuccessful. Earth Bet instruments have also been used extensively, representing the full range of capabilities of contemporary scientific analysis to similarly negligible effect. The Statue's spirit is currently pleased to have fulfilled its obligation to you, and waits for you to complete further trials on your journey here. Some communication with Alimbic and other progenitor relics have also been detected.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, interesting. I think I have a theory on what the Parter of Foes might be, but I'll need to actually see it in person to know for sure!

Arne's Notes: I like all these colourful if cryptic names for Chozo statuary. It feels so...artsy in a way Alimbic statues often aren't.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Shardworm (Worm) Metaverse Topics
Earth Bet Topics
Research Logs
This statue makes no sense. It's not made out of anything that makes sense. Spectroscopic analysis gives out gibberish and the energy readouts make my head hurt. It's like it refuses to be understood and I always feel it staring at me, judging me like I'm some pigeon about to make a mess all over it. From what we've been able to discern with the help of Grabspecher, this was given as a gift to the Celtic Tribal King Birucatis by the fair folk; tall and without necks. But then further probing showed that the statue is much older than the Celtic period and that Birucatis just found it buried in the dirt. It's been around for longer than any of the remains Grabspecher has been able to find and probe. Radiological dating has proven fruitless too so we're at a loss for its age.

There's something inside the prism that the statue holds though, some kind of artefact whose energies can't be read by most of our instruments. Parahuman readouts are only a little more helpful, but it might be some kind of technology? I have no idea, this predates any known origins of tinkertech and the sculpture style doesn't match that of any culture known to have had a presence in the area. The subject is also bizarre, some kind of insectoid figure without a neck and tripod legs. It doesn't match any known legends or mythological creatures, and I don't know how any of them could manage the floating but still attached head.

What is unmistakable though is that the statue is incredibly resilient. Even some of the weirder parahuman powers we've tried out don't so much as scratch the thing. The impossibility of getting samples has also made studying it far harder. But at this point I'm willing to concede on the idea that it might be alien. Nothing else seems to fit, but as to why its left here? I have no idea. Could be for any reason really. I'm not qualified to guess at the mindset of inhuman entities or why they leave behind their sculptures. Now I'm sure if you're reading this you're already writing up a complaint about my lack of formality, but honestly at this point I've been studying this thing for ten years and can't tell you the first thing about it. I'm pissed off and feel like a moron wasting my time. Standing around this thing just gives me the worst inferiority complex. Morale in the rest of the team is also low.

- Amanda Strauss

Samus' Notes: I can get their apprehension. It's not a statue meant to make you feel comfortable near it. It's trying to get your submission. Very much the sort of thing Zurvduat would have done.

Arne's Notes: They're being driven away because the statue doesn't recognise them as worthy of its presence. They're lucky its more serious defense systems haven't been activated though.

Well, we can dismiss the theory that this was Egyptian because it's not made with any substance you could ever find in Egypt. It's also definitely not Roman, Germanic, or Celtic either, being far too old. My best guess would be that it's not of human origin. Definitely extraterrestrial in design but not necessarily origin. Perhaps built by ancient visitors on the planet? I know it sounds crazy, like that wild-haired guy on the History Channel, but all the attempts to make it fit into existing historical models contort themselves into even more impossible leaps of logic and this seems like the only answer that makes sense, especially as there is nothing to indicate it had parahuman origin.

Like the other statues we've been able to recover; none of our instruments are able to tell us anything about it. Even spectroscopes just return babbling nonsense. Something that seems to be common to all statues of this sort of make and time period. We're categorizing this as belonging to Ancient Alien culture A; for Avian. We can't really determine a whole lot about how their culture operated or worked or even much about what it was like. We can guess that they had a strong artistic streak with an emphasis on sculpture based on what they left behind, and that they were extremely technologically sophisticated. Beyond that? Maybe Eva's wild theory about them leaving this here expecting someone is as good as anyone else's ideas.

We can't really tell if this culture was hostile, but those who spend time near this statue report a feeling of wanting to go out on adventures. To wander around and see distant places and they show increased interest in ideas regarding other dimensions or space travel. If you will permit me to get speculative, I think this statue has some sort of mind-altering effect. Which means that it would be best to ensure that any similar such statues in the hands of private collections or curated museums are quickly moved into safekeeping and out of public hands lest one of the recently activated statues cause a serious incident.

- Ayaka Aratani

Samus' Notes: So much in here is wrong. I hope Aratani is still alive so I can explain to her what the Chozo were really like! The Ranging Maker culture was so fascinating in particular!

Arne's Notes: Why does everyone say that the Chozo are like birds? Is it the beak and feathers? Does the carapace mean nothing to them? Maybe I'm not thinking about this with the right perspective.

Earth Bet Americans: Protectorate and PRT

latest
Data extracted from communications and wireless systems cross-referenced to Distant Sight and deep analysis information shows a set of equipment largely comparable to known records of early third millennium technology. The standard armour of a PRT is a non-powered combination of kevlar and chain mesh designed to be resistant to primitive chemical slugthrower rounds and steel blades swung at speeds within baseline human ranges. Standard weapons are smokeless powder assault rifles, shotguns, and grenade launchers typically fitted with nonlethal equipment. Threat level is nonexistent. Advise care to avoid unintentional inflicting of fatal injuries.

Advisory: Some members of the unit utilise weapons firing rounds filled with rapidly hardening foam meant to safely immobilise targets or more exotic payloads powered by extradimensional sources in a crude but effective way for the demonstrated baseline of technological capability.

Addendum: Data extraction reveals that this paramilitary outfit is primarily intended to respond to situations created by a population of humans demonstrating abilities outside of the norm of the species within the boundaries of the United States of America and Canada. Jurisdiction also theoretically applies to actions by non-human entities, but no records indicate confirmed contact with sophontic extraterrestrial life.

Addendum: Genetic code of subjects is baseline human and entirely unaugmented, resulting in an inevitably fatal onset of senescence on average by the age of seventy through trivially prevented or cured diseases such as cancer, leukaemia, or assorted cardiovascular ailments. Recommend treatment when available.

Samus’ Notes: These people must be freezing out here in completely non-climate controlled clothing. It’d be really rude to keep them waiting, but is it right to interact with people this lowtech?

Arne’s Notes: Police...of course. I don’t like the way they’re looking at me. Do they think I'm some kind of monster? They aren’t hostile yet, but I should be ready for anything.

Armsmaster: Real Name: Collin Wallis.

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General: Armsmaster is a Veteran "Cape" attached to an organisation known as the Protectorate meant to consolidate large numbers of parahumans under the aegis of the governments of the United States and Canada. While broadly fitting within the genetic norms expected of fully matured human of the early 21st century, an extradimensional symbiont has formed a connection to the subject. It has altered the Brain to create a new segment referred to as the Corona Pollentia and appears able to modify specific patterns of behaviour subtly. Symbiont appears to implant suggestions for technology that it adjusts to function in particular formats into the memory of the host. Recommendations based on armour suit analysis revolve around efficiency and miniaturisation, further modified by symbiont's extradimensional energies to allow for additional effects.

Personal information: Collin Wallis is a resident of the City of Brockton Bay (Notice: No such city is known to have existed in this time within the United States, discrepancy recorded) and a former student of Psychology. Collin Wallis bonded with the symbiont during his adult years and was thus able to directly join the Protectorate rather than first serving within its youth program. Over his years of service, Collin has demonstrated a high degree of competence, skill, and professionalism that has made many see him as an ideal hero. However, Collin occasionally clashes with others over his disdainfulness towards individuals who do not take "Hero-Work" seriously enough. Despite this, many regard him as highly approachable in the right circumstances.

Combat Capabilities: Armsmaster's armour is well outside of the norm for the present era and contains a large quantity of miniaturised equipment greatly exceeding what would usually be possible with the demonstrated technology of this planet. Armour provides for general survival capabilities, physical augmentations, mental shielding, electronic warfare capabilities, and battle-prediction systems. Halberd demonstrates numerous additional capabilities that the weapon may transform into including flails, plasma blades, rotary capability, grappling hooks, and extension.

Addendum: Subject armour software compromised by same malware programs as all other electronic devices scanned thus far. Comparing program architecture reveals that the malware was not designed by Armsmaster or anyone operating under a similar technological base. Xenological origin is extremely likely given the intelligent nature of the malware systems.

Samus' Notes: I'm guessing that "Capes" function a lot like Lancers do back home. The Protectorate must be Statelancers then; but hrm. I'd like to know why he's so set on taking his job seriously? And why they would send him out to investigate our re-entry when he doesn't have any useful ranged weapons either. I have so many questions! I'll be sure to talk to him later once I've rescued the two children. I think with some tech upgrades though he could be a very helpful ally as long as he doesn't try to force us to follow his rules.

Arne's Notes: Seemed like the kind of person my mother would have come to blows with the second I saw him. It looks like I wasn't wrong in that assessment either. Mostly uses his abilities to enforce the way things are too, which I'm not exactly fond of. He's clearly important though so I'll try to be nice. But I don't think I'll get along that well with him. Not really a huge concern though, I don't really want to be friends with law enforcement.

Legend, actual name Keith serves as the overall commander of the Protectorate parahuman team and is considered to be one of the most important and respected parahuman heroes within the United States of America. Considered a gay rights icon and an upstanding paragon of all a hero should be, Legend is well known for his incredible resilience, speed, and luminokinetic firepower. Able to convert his body into light or bend the passage of his light beams to gain an advantage in combat situations, Legend is often referred to as a "flying artillery weapon"; though such statements belie the significant degree to which his firepower exceeds the standard of artillery weapons in this time period. Though well regarded, Legend upholds standard contemporary American viewpoints on criminal justice.

Samus' Notes: Oh, he can shift from matter to energy? Hrm, I'm wondering what mechanism that the symbiont taps into in order to let him do that. I'm disappointed in his views on Law and Order though. But I suppose the Orthodoxy here is what it is. I'm hoping to change that though.

Arne's Notes: So essentially he's the biggest policeman in the precinct and a glorified mascot. The less I have to interact with him the better.

Subject is an ordinary if unhealthy human whose genetic code fits into the norms of the current era, including a predisposition towards heart disease, stomach cancer, and low metabolism. While lacking in any abilities above the baseline human norm and possessing a physique poorly suited for combat or survival situations, Emily has significant influence as the Director of PRT affairs within the Eastern New England region. A survivor of an incident with a quarantined parahuman known as Nilbog, Emily is often regarded as spiteful towards parahumans whom she considers to be prone to grandiose showboating over getting actual results.

Samus' Notes: Oh, a bureaucrat that's...do I have to deal with her? I really don't like talking to stylus draggers.

Arne's Notes: So she's both prejudiced and a police bureaucrat. Gods give me strength.

Earth Bet Soviets

Actually named Irina "Irinushka" Vladimirovna Kuznetsov, Molotok is a young parahuman attached to the Soviet Otmolsoza (Special Protection Youth Division of the Soviet Union) and a native of the city of Arkhangelsk. Irina bonded to her extradimensional symbiont following an encounter with a rampaging tinker made robot of Swedish origin derived from the illicitly acquired corpse of a Decepticon slain in an aerial engagement acquired by the tinker Svartalfar before the Autobots could recover it. Originally developed with the hopes of helping to fight Endbringers, the lingering code from the fallen machine's repurposed Cybertronian components meshed poorly with its new programming when Svaltalfar thanks in part due to Gesellschaft sabotage; resulting in a monstrosity that rampaged across the baltic for two weeks. Due to the severity of its attack on Arkhangelsk, she has a double bond to her entity.

The incident gave her the ability to store, manipulate, and amplify kinetic energy for various purposes, such as absorbing incoming blows, forming shielding, significantly augmenting the force behind her impacts, move objects, enhance or drain speed, leech energy to accelerate natural healing, or even releasing them as impact blasts or shockwaves. Her status as a general-purpose take all comers melee combatant, and tremendous capacity for punishment has made her indispensable to the Sentinels at Arkhangelsk. However, Irina has been diagnosed with a martyrdom complex and a tendency of unnecessarily taking on the burdens of others and worsened mood if unable to offer assistance. All while she often refuses to ask others for help even when in need out of a feeling of not wanting to burden others.

Samus' Notes:

Based on the records that I can access she's done really well for herself even at a young age! I'm hoping her therapy is going well at least. I can emphasise with the pain of having so many people you know killed in a single moment. Maybe I should talk to her when I can?

Arne's Notes:

She reminds me of myself in a few ways, but I'm not sure what I can really do to offer help besides commiserating with her. And would that be what she needs? It works with Samus, but her circumstances are so different in a lot of ways. I think I'd need to get to know her better to say for sure.

Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak js a parahuman member of the Otmolsoza and one of the Arkhangelsk division's foremost generalists. Vitya is able to "sharpen" objects, reshaping them at the molecular level for additional efficiency such as making a cutting edge a monomolecular blade and reinforcing them with extradimensional energy to prevent them from breaking; including himself. Also a double-trigger, Vitya can apply his sharpening and reinforcing to more esoteric effects, such as sharpening his senses, enhancing his accuracy, self augmentation, and getting more efficiency out of used objects. The sharpening effect ends briefly after he ceases having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to be used with projectile weapons.

Vitya was "triggered" in the same incident that saw Irina being bonded to her entity, albeit in a separate part of the city during the rogue machine's rampage. The Otmolsoza partnered the two, due to being the same age and having had a prior relationship before manifesting their abilities, thus leading to the aliases "Hammer and Sickle" under the tutelage of the experienced Soviet parahuman "Nakoval'nya" or "Anvil". Vitya's profile lists him as a brave but sometimes overbearing would-be classical hero and party loyalist who holds people to high standards. While well-meaning and making an effort to be kind, Vitya has difficulties with holding back criticism even when entirely unsolicited. However, his versatility and commitment have ensured that he commands a significant deal of respect within Arkhangelsk.

Samus' Notes:

Hrm, I think I can see why he's something of a local favourite! Very committed to his tasks and also pretty striking to look at. I wonder how aware he is of how his abilities work? There might be ways I could help improve on his process if he wants my help with that. I am, however, less sure on his commitment to party loyalty.

Arne's Notes:

His tendency to follow orders without exercising his freedom to question them enough aside, he seems to be somewhat reasonable to work with. I'm not sure I'm going to like hearing him needle me about perceived faults though, I've gotten more than enough of that over the years.

Commissar Nurzhan Maulenov serves as the political officer in overall command of overseeing the Arkhangelsk Oblast's Divzasovyuz division's morale, mental health, commitment, and ties to civilian life. Kept deliberately separate from the Divzasovyuz (Special Protection Division of the Soviet Union) Stavka in order allow him more freedom to operate, Nurzhan takes his work with a relaxed and understanding attitude and tries his best to ensure that the parahumans he works with remain happy and healthy. Nurzhan also holds the secret position of the Soviet Union's primary political liaison to the Autobots based in the outskirts of Arkhangelsk, a task that he feels overstretches his time between these two duties. However, the Kazakh officer remains determined to do the best he can with the resources he has at his disposal, even if he often regards the Autobots as less than sensitive to the possible geopolitical effects of their actions.

Nurzhan is also known for his deep-set hatred of the Gesellschaft organisation not merely out of ideological reasons, but also due to the suffering his Jewish matrilineal family has suffered at the hands of Nazi movements. He has long entertained dreams of one day destroying the entire organisation, which have only intensified as the Gesellschaft and its vassal organisations such as the Empire-88 have begun to militarise and expand their operations with the aid of unknown benefactors at ever-growing rates.

Samus' Notes:

...Nazis? Here? I...I hadn't thought about this possibility of such movements existing here...hurting people. I'm going to help him get what he wants out of this Gesellschaft. They're all going to pay.

Arne's Notes:

If he seeks Nakam, then I'm all for helping him. He doesn't need to offer me anything in return. This...if there was nothing else was on this planet to worry about I'd still help him with this.

Earth Bet Gesellschaft
The Gesellschaft is the largest and most well funded Neonazi and Volkische organization on this incarnation of Earth and its most prolific international terrorist group in size, frequency of attacks, scale of operations, and number of fatalities caused by its operations. Operating primarily within Europe but also controlling subsidiary organisations around the world such as the Empire-88 in North America (referring to the numerical position of the letter H in the German alphabet as a means of referencing "Heil Hitler"), the Southern African SVDV, the Oceanian White Guard, and the Legion Buitre in Latin America; the group is largely regarded as having global reach. With a network of wealthy sympathizers and controlled enterprises of both a criminal and legitimate network, the Gesellschaft's resources far outstrip those of most other similar groups, and the offers of its wealth, technological resources, and prestige have allowed it to subordinate most other similar groups.

The Gesellschaft violently advocates for German reunification and the reintegration of Austria and the "lost territories" Germany was forced to cede at the end of the second world war into a reborn Reich and the subjugation and eventual eradication of the "asiatic subhumans of the east" as well as the eradication of "undesireables" within Europe proper, particularly within the realm of what is seen as rightfully Aryan territory. These include, but not limited to Jews, Roma, the disabled, Black Africans, Slavs, East and Central Asians, Muslims, Queer people, the Neurodivergent, Indigenous Americans and Oceanians, Freemasons, Communists, Liberals, Feminists, "Racial Traitors", Anarchists, Pacifists, "Cultural Degenerates" and more. Attacks on these groups are seen as a vital step in progressing through the ladder of the Gesellschaft's hierarchy and its vassal organisations are expected to meet certain quotas of violence against these groups per year to ensure that the progress of the "Volkskrieg" continues unabated.

The Gesellschaft's leader bears the title of "Kriegsfuhrer" and is entrusted with the prosecution of the conflict until its completion, with the aim of complete revenge for Germany's defeat in the second world war and the triumph of the Herrenvolk being non-negotiable to its plans and aims. The Gesellschaft also commands the ability to artificially induce parahumanization within individuals, allowing it to produce "Ubermenschen" for its goals and seduce the simply power-hungry to its objectives and cause. This has likely been one of the principal causes for its dominance over the white supremacy movement, but another has been a surge in support from an unknown and likely extradimensional benefactor that has provided it with a massive influx of funding, material support, technology, and manpower that has allowed it to step up its objectives to an unprecedented degree.

The Organisation is principally based in Bavaria, German-speaking Switzerland, and rural Austria, where the traditionally reactionary countryside of the Catholic German-speaking areas has long proven to be fertile recruiting ground. It also has assets in other areas of Germany such as the Democratic Republic and parts of Hannover and the Netherlands left devastated by Endbringer attacks. It has expanded beyond these regions, though its anti-slavicism has left its presence east of the Oder river somewhat weak. With its aspirations for controlling all current and former Germanic territories however, it hardly shies away from attacks against the eastern bloc, particularly due to its virulent anti-communist rhetoric. The Gesellschaft's leadership however, is believed to primarily visit in London rather than its heartland in Catholic Germany.

Samus' Notes: I'm not going to let them keep on carrying out whatever operations they please. Or any at all even. This all comes to an end now. Then once we've dealt with them, maybe we can help these regions heal? I'm not sure how much I can do on that front, but I want to try.

Arne's Notes: The dispossessed with nowhere left to turn but told to crave leadership turn to people like these as they always have. Repairing that will take mending the damage already done. But in the meantime, we should smash them at every turn.

While the sudden arrival of the unexpected interference has proven to be exceedingly costly in lives and materiel for our operation, we have managed to procure much of what our allies have asked us to. The research on parahumans was largely standard issue, little that we do not already know and most of it served to confirm what we have told many of our allies. More intriguing is the research done on aliens and other dimensions. The artifacts of the highest technological grade have awakened spectacularly and now shimmer with energies we can scarcely comprehend. A power that taunts us with our lack of understanding of it and demands our rightful harvest. But one day we shall master it, as is the destiny of our nation.

It's all quite fascinating, but sadly so much of the staff had nothing of value to learn from and so had to be liquidated for operational security reasons. The staff who had valuable information, as per orders; were taken away for interrogation and await your careful ministrations. While I don't doubt that many will struggle to give any information of note, that we could not figure out ourselves, their greater experience with working with these curiosos should prove useful. Particularly for our operations in the United States and Canada where what we gain here will doubtlessly allow us to outmuscle the competition and bring the PRT to heel for good once we show to the Yankees just how deep our roots go into their protectors.

Some of these finds could make even the Dragon quail before us and perhaps even humble the Endbringers themselves; and will doubtlessly allow us to make ready for a higher form of war. Which will certainly be necessary, if our nation is to survive what the 5th Column tells is will be an Oncoming Storm of terrible proportions and magnitude unlike anything the Earth has ever seen. Humanity will survive what is to come, under a glorious Weltreich devoid of the degenerate and the impure. Our Volk will triumph, and soon our Empire-88 assets will be in place to make their play. Our glorious allies will lead us to the inevitable triumph of the Aryan race over all of its foes. And when the world sees only our way shall save them from the fire that will come, they will praise us!

Glory to the Kriegsfuhrer! Glory to the Spaltefuhrer! Glory to the Weltfuhrer! Heil Dreher! Heil Requiem! Heil Ziegler!!

- Johann Schmidt

Samus' Notes: I should get this to the Americans as soon as possible but I don't know who might already be compromised. Might be best to deliver it in person once I'm sure that I can get it to someone I can trust.

Arne's Notes: If these people think that their Kriegsfuhrer is at all on the same level as Weltfuhrer Ziegler, then they're going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they outlive their usefulness.

Gesellschaft Personnel & Units

Born as Reinhardt Vogl, Stahlschadel was bonded to his extradimensional symbiont at an early age following an accident in Norway that left him and his parents trapped in a cave in with a thirty-two strong hiking expedition. The symbiont gave him the ability to devise things that could help him or others survive scenarios that he could think of as well as fed into his conviction that the flesh was weak; seeing it fail so many people before he managed to device a blaster that freed the group. From then on, Reinhardt progressively replaced more and more of his body with machinery to become an impenetrable fortress of metal, plastic, and composite. Following Reich Earth and the 5th Column's acquisition of the Gesellschaft, he was given a more advanced technological base to work with and soon upgraded himself to fit newer standards.

In combat, Reinhardt is a swiss army knife with a large variety of survival tools including rapid repair nanites, multi-layered shielding, teleportation devices to move out of the way, energy absorbers, holographic decoys to distract foes, uberalloy and super-composite construction and armour plating, and an extensive array of life support systems including a miniaturised biopod to take care of what few remaining biological components he has left. An extensive arsenal is also built into him, including plasma casters, quantum guns, a fusion torch, electrolasers, grenade launchers, and micro-missile launchers all fitted into various components of his body. He is most vulnerable to attacks in the abdomen where his primary power systems are located, and energy drain should also substantially reduce his ability to fight.

Samus' Notes: I almost pity him, but given the choices he's made, there's nothing we can do but try to stop him.

Arne's Notes: The Shock Coil should be my most effective weapon against him, especially aimed towards his centre of mass.

Quick Stats (By Mini-Boss standards):

Durability: Resilient
Strength: Good
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable, Great Manoeuvrability)
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Jack-of-all trades combatant.


Born as Evangeline Schwarzkopf, Nektar was a brute given powers by the Gesellschaft able to engage armoured fighting vehicles and withstand anti-tank weapons fire of only modest note. While difficult to deal with, her ambitions were limited and her grab bag power set of enhanced physicality and being able to store and then release energy imparted into her was easy enough to grasp and counter. This changed following the acquisition of the Gesellschaft as she was given access to a serum that the 5th Column had acquired from other sources on Primal Earth. The serum allows her to massively bulk up in rapid succession, making her a far more difficult opponent to deal with; escalating her strength, durability, and reflexes immensely while also charging her with kinetic energy she can release at will. She was then given a suit to allow her to maintain contact with command and control assets, augment her protection, and synergies with her energy based powers; though to ensure she cannot turn against her creators; should the flow of the serum be stopped for any reason she will crash out and fall unconscious.

In combat, she is difficult to harm, heals extremely quickly, possesses tremendous physical strength and durability, and is able to absorb energy and then release it back in various forms; including shockwaves, blasts, or even bolts of electricity or explosions. However she is a borderline irrational fighter with little skill or finesse, largely attacking to intimidate and is unused to the very idea of being met with anyone who could possibly match her in strength. She responds poorly to insults, being extremely irritable and will focus her efforts on the last person to hit her to the exclusion of most everything else unless actively prevented from retaliating.

Samus' Notes: Hardly seems fair for Arne to get to have all the fun with her, but I'm a bit concerned that this 5th Column seems so set on upgrading the threat the Gesellschaft poses.

Arne's notes: I still have the edge in strength against her, but playing into her game of fisticuffs seems like a poor idea with her energy absorbtion. On the other hand, the Shock Coil should work well against her. I just need to tear out the tubing afterwards.

(Rated by Miniboss standards)

Durability: Great
Strength: Great
Firepower: Mediocre
Speed: Acceptable
Combat Skill: Feral
Type of Combatant: Brute type melee combatant.

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Soldats are soldiers pressganged into the ranks of the Gesellschaft as part of its recent efforts to expand following contact with the 5th Column and Weltreich. While only possessing basic augmentations and relatively simple equipment, if advanced by the standards of this planet, they are numerous and thanks to hypno-indoctrination programs and cloning technology; are endlessly expendable. Armed with a large assortment of enhanced conventional weaponry, they do not pose a substantive threat to yourself, but are a danger to civilians and less durable allies. Efforts however, are being continually made to improve their equipment and augmentations at low cost.

Samus' Notes: It feels sick to throw people this poorly equipped into battle. So many of them have debilitating genetic conditions, long-term health risks, and they're sending them into a fight with basic tools while filling their heads with so many lies! I hope there's something I can do to save them.

Arne's Notes: I feel bad for them in a way. They're being sent to die for causes they barely understand. But they've been filled with so much hate that they're going to die for them all the same. Best I can do is take apart the Gesellschaft so nobody else suffers like this.


(Rated by Underling Standards)
Durability: Mediocre
Strength: Mediocre
Firepower: Mediocre
Speed: Mediocre
Combat Skill: Mediocre
Type of Combatant: Basic infantry
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Sourcewell (City of Heroes) Metaverse Topics
Rikti Earth Beings and Topics
Rikti Units

298px-AdvancedDrone1.jpg

Rikti drones are simple hover capable disposable infantry units armed with simple Rikti Plasma weapons that can be swapped out for other forms of Rikti ranged attack. Fast but on the fragile side for Rikti technology, Drones are expended with very little thought given to their long term survival as Rikti fabrication devices can rapidly create more with access to the appropriate materials. Rikti Drones are typically slaved to the overall psychic battle network of Rikti combat units which regulates their independent artificial intelligence systems to the needs of a Rikti formation. Rikti Drones are particularly vulnerable to electrical damage or dark energy.

Samus' Notes: They almost look cute actually. I could see myself reprogramming some to take home with me.

Arne's Notes: I hate rapidly moving head-sized drones so much...at least they're not as durable as psychobits.

Rikti_Infantry.jpg

Rikti Infantry are equipped with basic battle armour to allow them to engage with the enemies of the Rikti Collective's Lineage of War. After more than eighteen years of continual conflict with the Primal Earth dimension that Nightcaster and Eudaimonica both hail from, the Lineage of War has grown bitter in its prosecution of the conflict. While all Rikti have the potential for psionics, most do not have combat useful psychic abilities. As such Rikti Infantry focus primarily on the damage offered by their power swords and plasma caster rifles or the brute strength of their power armour. While shielded and made of resilient composited alloys, Rikti technology is well behind the standard of your own universe. However it is well ahead of the standards of both Primal Earth and the present dimension you are residing in, making them a lethal threat to allies and civilians. Like all Rikti, when critically injured; Rikti infantry will be teleported back to the nearest Rikti base into a biopod chamber that will restore their bodies and equipment.

Addendum: All Rikti technology is compromised by identical malware seen in human technology from both local reality and Primal Earth. Analysis of software eliminates the Rikti as a possible origin point for the malicious program; lacking the sophistication needed to program such an intelligent virus.

Samus' Notes: The DNA that I'm picking up is...human, partly. There's some sort of mutagenic helix that's been spliced into the human genome to turn them into...this. I think it can be reversed though, but I'd need my ship's restore station to do it. Just what sort of monster would have originally designed this mutagen though? But I think I could help the indigenous humans understand this technology.

Arne's Notes: Their psychic coordination makes them very difficult to sneak up on. As soon as one Rikti knows about something, they all know. Bad news for the locals here who can't take many hits from them. But some of these Rikti show spatialchronal signatures similar to the locals...the Rikti must be converting local humans into more of themselves.

Rikti_Guardian.jpg

Rikti Guardians are the medics of the Rikti. Each squad has a pair of additional Rikti Guardians attached to it to provide medical support with advanced radiological nanotechnology. This technology can seal up the wounds and mend armour breaches of Rikti and their mechanical assistants within seconds, even restoring lost limbs and destroyed armour components. The technology is also able to be used to overclock the biologies and machinery of Rikti combatants, allowing them to fight at increased speed and increase their rate of fire significantly for a short time. Rikti Guardians are also armed, though they do not habitually carry more than Plasma submachine guns and combat knives.

Samus' Notes: As much as it hurts me to do it, I think I'll have to target the medics first. They don't seem to care about not participating in the fight themselves, and they'll continually keep injured Rikti in the fight. Why did they have to turn healers into combatants? It's profane to have medics as warriors who only heal one side's fighters.

Arne's Notes: It seems Rikti medical teleporters will delay their action if a Guardian signals that they are ready and able to offer medical support. I don't think I want to cross the bridge of exploiting this though. Forcing them to teleport out still takes them out of the battle even if it doesn't kill them.

Rikti_HeadmanGunman.jpg


Rikti Headmen are equipped with full grade Rikti battlesuits that allow for the usage of more powerful energy or energy intensive weapons as well as more powerful melee instruments. Rikti headmen are an order of magnitude stronger than standard infantry with their power suits and have enough firepower to vaporise local main battle tanks in single shots. Rikti Headmen are once again primarily equipped with plasma caster weapons and power blades, which they wield with more skill than standard Rikti Infantry. However, Rikti Headmen do have a vulnerability to dark energy, which their systems are not rated to offer full defence against.

Samus' Notes: Unfortunately, I don't have any dark energy weapons at the moment. I'll just have to do this the hard way then.

Arne's Notes: Headmen seem to serve as lieutenants in the Rikti military hierarchy. Taking them out seems to disrupt their command and control temporarily.

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While most Rikti do not develop their psionic abilities to the point of battlefield usefulness, Rikti Mentalists have honed their psychic potential into a formidable weapon. Able to manifest lethal darts of psionic energy, make combat usage of telepathy and telekinesis, and still having access to Rikti Power Armour and weapons, Rikti Mentalists are a formidable danger if less physically imposing than Headmen. Given user immunity to most psionic abilities, it is recommended that the user draw Mentalist attacks to prevent them from focusing on those with higher vulnerability to Rikti mental assault.

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These advanced Rikti Psions have focused their psionic abilities into the fields of direct offence and utility via dynakinetics and telekinesis. This essentially turns the Rikti practitioner into a living artillery weapon whose mind is able to devastate the battlefield on their own. Wielding even more advanced power suits than their lesser counterparts, Mentalists can be expected to face down many high-security level metahumans on Primal Earth with confidence.

Samus' Notes: Just Mentalists but more so. Need to watch for them throwing projectiles at me if they realise that they can't directly affect me with most psychic bolts. Their telekinetic barriers can also shield allies.

Arne's Notes: They're the less disruptive of the two types of higher grade Rikti psions honestly. The direct nature of their psychic abilities makes it a lot easier to predict what they're going to do with them.

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Mesmerists take their psionic powers in a differing direction, seeking to enhance their telepathic abilities to cause maximum disarray and confusion in the ranks of their foes. Masters of Mind Control and mental state alteration, Mesmerists excel at preventing enemies from acting or turning their foes against each other. Many also serve as the primary means of indoctrinating those meant to become servants of the Lineage of War; overwriting thoughts and personalities until the subject is left in complete compliance. However, they also are somewhat weak in direct combat with enemies who can resist their control.

Samus' Notes: With these, I think I'll have to worry more about my allies than myself. I'll have to keep a close eye on any mind control attempts on allies in particular. Papa always talked about how mind control was an obscenity...I won't let them puppet people however they like.

Arne's Notes: Battlefield mind control is incredibly dangerous at absolute best I hate the idea that an entire army builds much of its strategy around it. They're not going to focus on me either when they realise that they can't really directly affect me too. Need to adjust tactics then...

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Rikti Chief Soldiers spend their professional lifetimes mastering the arts of the Lineage of War. Each is a seasoned veteran or at the very least a graduate of a prestigious military training program and a recipient of Rikti Supersoldier treatments. All are outfitted with a high-end mass-produced battlesuit that allows them to go toe to toe with even hard-hitting Primal Earth Tankers and Brutes. Though lacking in combat psionics, Rikti Chief Soldiers carry high-grade weapons that can lay down rapid volleys of fire or explosive charged orbs. In close combat, their power blades are of a higher grade mark meant to augment their own swing better than the armour alone can, moving faster than they have any right to.

Samus' Notes: After eighteen years of continual variable intensity warfare with Primal Earth, I'm not sure how the Rikti still find it in themselves to fight so viciously. Surely they'd have come to some sort of agreement to negotiate by now? Something must be keeping them invested in a decisive victory then. But if I'm here to end this war, then I'm going to end it.

Arne's Notes: Most of these Rikti know what they're doing pretty well, but they seem to have some sort of honour code at least. They don't seem to go out of their way to engage anyone lacking in a weapon to fight back with. I get a sense of professionalism from them, but what good is professionalism when it can't tell you that a war that's been fought for a generation might be futile?

Primal Earth Topics

Primal Earth American Metahumans

5th Column Topics
As has been directed by the command of Fuhrer Requiem, we have intensified efforts to understand the Parahuman phenomenon and what sets it apart from our own metahumans. We conclude that this cluster of dimensions has no equivalent to our Well of Furies, nor does it have any inherent sources of magic or many of the cosmic energies we have come to associate with various forms of superpowers. Instead, all powers seem to stem from a single extradimensional source. Our mystics have traced this source to fragments of a large transdimensional entity; fragments which bond to a select host after detecting certain forms of traumatic duress. The host then grows a special organ able to properly channel the energies that the symbiote channels through it, though it rarely seems to provide any working knowledge of how the abilities it offers function. Our Gesellschaft acquisitions have figured out a reliable means of artificially inducing this bonding, even tailoring the circumstances to encourage a select set of powers.

These powers appear to typically have limitations programmed into them to avoid or minimise backlash. Which typically reduces or eliminates their ability to directly affect organic matter. These limitations can often be removed through a second triggering event to redouble the powers granted by the shard; but efforts to triple trigger our subjects have usually resulted in gruesome and painful demises or uncontrollable insanity with no evidence of further power gain. Due to the necessity of trauma in inducing these events; we must unfortunately report that the incidence of these events is lower in those of Aryan racial stock due to the superior civilization developed by our extradimensional kin. Concerningly, as efforts by the Gesellschaft and its associates to combat the Judeo-Bolshevik menace increase; so too does the rate of Jewish or Bolshevik parahumans. Efforts to combat this have been deemed of high importance to the command of the Gesellschaft and the Weltreich.

We also have noted that as the contact between our two multiverses increases; the incidence of parahuman triggering in our own dimensions seems to be rising, while a number of metahumans whose powers operate according to the loose rules we are more familiar with has been growing. We have also demonstrated the possibility of mixing parahuman and metahuman abilities, though we await your permission to test with incarnate empowered volunteers. From this, we can determine that the efforts of our organisation as well as those of our rivals to exploit this bounty of dimensional contact are accelerating the already existing trend of more and more of the population displaying superhuman abilities. A trend that we will be able to exploit to our advantage and ensure the domination of a Reich of all humanity and the downfall of all our enemies. Only then, will ourselves and our Nictus allies be able to save the worthiest of the human species from the Coming Storm.
5th Column Units
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Stahlwalküre were originally designed by the Fascist Scientist by the alias of Vandal during the second world war on both the "Primal Earth" timeline that Nightcaster and Eudaimonica hail from and both the "Reich-Earth" timeline that appears to be supplying this operation. These models of the concept of a fast-moving, missile-equipped drone are of course, a great improvement on their counterparts from the 20th century and are capable of high-speed manoeuvres and carry a versatile load-out of missiles for usage against most conceivable types of opponents. However, they are vulnerable to virtually all of your weapons and lack the ability to move quickly enough to evade your seeking weapons. They will, however, come in very large numbers with reinforcements frequently being teleported in as soon as they are manufactured to augment existing forces; viewed as utterly expendable.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Dismal
Strength: Very Weak
Firepower: Very Weak
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable)
Combat Skill: Dismal (Negligible melee capability)
Type of Combatant: High Speed Aerial Ranged Attacker

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The 5th Column is well known for its extremely extensive supersoldier programs and its strict hierarchy divided by rank, section, and enhancement grade. The higher the rank, section, and enhancement grade of a 5th column soldier; the more superhuman capabilities they possess. The Nacht section forms the 5th Column's special forces unit and the Elites are those given middle stage supersoldier enhancements. Those of soldat rank may lack the more developed powers of the Unteroffizers and the Obersts, but Nacht Elites still possess the strength to shatter steel plating with their fists, withstand explosive weapons even unassisted by their advanced shielding capable electromesh powered fibril-armour, and dodge automatic weapons fire. Armed with special "Werwolf" weapons that can transform between rotary ETC machine guns firing specially treated hypervelocity armour piercing rounds; smart guns with incendiary, chemical, electric, cryogenic or explosive round options; ultra-high temperature flamethrowers; or grenade or rocket launchers, the Elite are also extremely capable melee combatants for a mass-trained formation, making use of many esoteric martial arts to augment their striking power and movement beyond their strength. Like all Nacht troopers, Nacht Elite Soldaten are capable of multi-spectrum cloaking, silencing their movements, and are well trained in stealth and marksmanship.

Samus' Notes: It seems that the 5th Column is the most elite part of this alliance. These soldiers have decent equipment and enhancements for this time's standards. I'll need to put more focus on the 5th Column then. They must be up to something.

Arne's Notes: A lot of these soldiers seem to be clones or at least vat grown. Possibly a sign of recruitment not turning out as many potentials as they hoped for? They're nearly all brainwashed to a fault though, can't expect many of them to surrender.

(Rated by minion standards)

Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando

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The Unteroffizers of the 5th Column's Nacht Elite formations are stronger than five of their subordinates put together and have similarly improved reflexes, durability, endurance; and access to higher grade weapons and equipment. Each one is a master of death and has killed dozens of high-value targets on both Primal Earth and Earth Bet and all other dimensions in which the 5th Column operates. Their techniques and equipment are simply a superlative on that of their lower-ranking counterparts, and it is their duty to coordinate much of the ground-level tasks of the Nacht segment of the 5th Column. Each is not only a well trained elite combatant, but also a skilled small unit tactician and an expert in stealth assaults.

(Rated by Lieutenant standards)

Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando

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The Obersts of the Nacht Elite are a further fivefold improvement on the prior unteroffizers. Elite Obersts are able to deal crushing blows with nothing but their bodies, but also carry high powered weapons perfected for dealing with metahuman adversaries of the 5th Column that have proven to be extremely effective against Earth Bet's parahumans. Though you maintain the absolute advantage in all physical and mental fields, Nacht Elite Obersts are also dangerous for their mastery of special operations warfare and their skillful handling of their soldiery. They will coordinate their fellows with deft precision and are well trained in dealing with significantly more powerful enemies than themselves.


(Rated by Officer standards)
Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando

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Derived from designs first conceived in Primal Earth's second world war, Mekmen serve as all-purpose infantry combat units and an invaluable aid to the 5th Column's combat efforts. Deceptively durable despite their slender construction, Mekmen are equipped with a cyclotronic cannon and a power claw as well as ultra-high-strength actuators for multi-ranged combat. Shielded and well armoured as well as fitted with self-repair nanites in newer models; the Mekmen also have an advanced A.I that allows them to think and reason as any other infantryman in the 5th Column. This intelligence is, however, designed from the ground up to be utterly subservient to the ideals of Nazism and Volkische ideology; believing its place; as a merely artificial being; to be at the service of the Aryan Herrenvolk.

Current models of Mekmen are also fitted with frag and concussion grenade launchers and can set their cyclotronic cannons to stun through feedback inducement should the 5th column require someone to be captured alive and need to be disabled first before taser net-grenades can be used. Their claws are also able to run a stunning charge through themselves to allow for disabling rather than outright killing, and all evidence suggests that the 5th Column has been working to capture Earth Bet parahumans for comparative analysis with their stock of Primal Earth metahumans. Countering Mekmen is a simple matter of overwhelming their defences, electrical or concussive weapons are particularly effective.

Samus' Notes: The thought of creating life capable of thinking and reasoning just to throw it away like this is obscene. How could these people just create something with wants and needs and twist them towards wanting to die for something as awful as the Reich?

Arne's Notes: There's a lot of ugly hacks made to ensure the subservience of the synthetic consciousness' personality and that it can't develop past a certain way. Ugly hacks for an ugly work I suppose. I guess they're afraid of the Mekmen questioning who's on top or whether anyone should be at all?

(Rated by Minion Standards)
Durability: Good
Strength: Good
Firepower: Good
Speed: Mediocre
Combat Skill: Mediocre
Type of Combatant: Robotic Infantry

5th Column Personnel
A native of Primal Earth named Maude de Martin who had once been a registered superhero in France named Sauveur Rapide; he defected to the 5th Column out of a belief that immigration by those who could not assimilate into French culture was the primary cause of the crime he battled. Dispatched to Earth Bet to help monitor the 5th Column's efforts to combine and distill the best of both multiverseS' superhuman abilities into a new breed of ubermensch; Maude takes with him the engineering talent that allowed him to develop the "Mars" armour. Developing his armour around an extraterrestrial power source; continued exposure to the power source is also gradually mutating him, a process that the 5th Column promises a method to not simply cure, but to neutralise the negative side effects thereof while maintaining the benefits it has given him. So far, the treatments have been effective in maintaining morphological stability while retaining the greatly enhanced physique and neurology the mutations have given him.

In battle, Maude is fast and highly mobile; making use of a wide variety of combat techniques downloaded into his memory by his armour to keep his opponents off-balance. However, he primarily prefers to fight at melee, dodging around efforts to keep him pinned in place or absorbing attacks not strong enough to harm him through his shielding or composited armour plating. He channels energy through his armour to greatly augment his striking power. At a distance, he primarily relies on channeling this energy at range outside of focusing points on his suit, though he has some built-in weapon systems such as micro-missiles, coilguns, and acid sprayers. His armour's primary weakness is a lack of resistance against cryogenic weapons and a need to diminish offensive capability to boost self-repairs without a source of energy that it can drain should the armour start to receive component damage.

Samus' Notes: The power suit is reasonably sophisticated for what they have to work with, but there's plenty of flaws as far as I can tell. The suit's overly dependent on a central power source, any part of the suit severed from it loses all power. Not like the distributed power systems in my armour. I think I might just have to rip his armour apart by hand.

Arne's Notes: As much as that would appeal to me, I think it'd be better to just tear out the power source and disable his suit all at once. While he's still superhuman without it, he'd be a much smaller concern. You'd be able to do this bare handed; with your armour it should be overkill.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne, as a miniboss character all categories are more meaty than for standard enemies):

Durability: Good
Strength: Good (Great Striking power)
Firepower: Middling
Speed: Good (Flight Capable)
Combat Skill: Great
Type of Combatant: High Speed Melee Striker

Once Jennifer Wentworth; Wildes Kind used to be the self-appointed "lethal protector" of Paragon City, infamous for her resorting to lethal force repeatedly in virtually all scenarios even when not warranted. Stripped of her hero license by the Superhero community and forced into vigilanteism; Wildes was picked up by the 5th Column who reported an "appreciation" of her talents. A mutant with the ability to radically alter her own biomass and generate additional biomass in violation of mass-energy conservation; Jennifer is able to adapt to differing forms of trauma on command and shift her precise set of strengths and weaknesses. However emphasising one ability and form of defence will usually come at the expense of other; contradicting capabilities. For Example: becoming faster comes at the expense of bulk, mass, and durability, resisting heat through ablative plating makes her more vulnerable to concussive impacts, and so on so forth. She also has a greatly accelerated healing factor, though to make the most of it, she requires additional biomass to absorb. Shielding or armour will block her ability to absorb biomass, and your own progenitor genetic coding would be impossible for her to consume or assimilate, causing cell-death within her feeding spores on contact.

In combat, Wentworth relies primarily on a combination of biologically generated spines, claws, combat usage of the spores she can generate, and biochemicals. She possesses greatly augmented strength, durability, and reflexes, though still inferior to your own by a large margin. A vicious and often savage combatant, Wentworth will typically maul opponents to tear open flesh to absorb biomass from the viscera she leaves behind to augment her own abilities. Finally, she will leave behind a cloud of defensive spores to refract incoming energy attacks or prematurely intercept projectile weapons in an effort to force melee conflict, where she has the greatest ability to cause damage. However parts of her body severed from her nervous system will die if not reattached and cauterizing or cryonically rupturing her cells will permanently remove biomass, making the power blade, pyronic, or extremely cold weapons such as the pyromissile and cryolyte an effective means of removing biomass from her body; particularly when she isn't adapted to such impacts. She is also capable of cloaking herself; though simply switching between visors will foil her present means of stealth and she cannot fully disguise her sound.

Samus' Notes: Okay, I just need to separate her from the rest of the combat and keep her from absorbing extra biomass. And deal with everything else happening at once. Maybe I should contact Arne and rejoin our efforts? There's so much to keep track of to make sure nobody gets hurt.

Arne's Notes: All she needs to do is to alternate between regular and pyromissiles and add in some cryolyte shots. Step in a few times with the power blade and some tearing motions...It's going to be a pain to deal with her and keep everyone else safe, but I think Samus might be able to use her cold-based weapons to create some cover.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne, as a miniboss character all categories are more meaty than for standard enemies):

Durability: Resilient (Extreme regeneration)
Strength: Acceptable
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Morphable)
Combat Skill: Good (Savage)
Type of Combatant: Hyper-adaptive jack-of-all trades.
Reich Earth Topics

Reich Earth Logs

The intuition of our Nictus allies that there would be more of the incomprehensible artefacts here proved to be a correct one. While Spaltefuhrer Requiem of course is not to be trusted entirely, the Deutschfuhrer and yourself will be pleased to learn that since the anomalous dimensional event these objects have since become active. Though this was not the initial target of our raid, the relics seem to have been waiting for some manner of signal before they would activate their hidden functions. This raises the importance of acquiring these objects before the other forces at play who would seek to take these worlds do so for themselves. Even if it will be yet some time before the keen minds of Aryan science can decipher the secrets of these miraculous alien devices, it would be wise to deny them to the others or to the locals.

We will also likely require higher grade combatants in the near future. I suspect that the race for influence and domination over our objectives will intensify very soon. And it would not do us well to fail to meet this higher grade of war with lesser examples of the Herrenvolk. We must step up the recruitment of those who show promise for our desires, to ensure that our soldiers are both of high quality and the proper quantities. The colonies should be readied for warfare, and our resources turned increasingly towards understanding those foes who have managed to temporarily exceed our understanding of nature through the cheat of having had an earlier start. The foes will bring out heavier weapons in response to greater prizes, and we must beat them to the punch before they can steal our triumph from us.

Though if you would permit me to break with formality my Reichsfuhrer, the calibre of most of the so-called "Neo-Nazis" of this Earth Bet is appalling. Even with some of our superior equipment and metaenergetic augmentations to strike with more ferocity than they should and resist more than they ought to; they still disappoint. Less than one in a thousand seems to fully meet our standards and I cannot abide by the shaved heads and degenerate tattoo work so many indulge in. They also lack proper racial conscious. Far too many believe in the impossibility of accepting Slavs as fellow "whites" or have allowed themselves to be poisoned with Asian entertainment commodities. The time must come for the wheat to be separated from the chaff at some point, and proper discipline should be enforced should we seek to wring the necessary potential out of these failures.

- With faith and honour, Gruppenfuhrer Erhard Rickenbacker

Samus' Notes: So that's why their weapons were able to cause any damage to my shielding at all despite their low firepower. I'll need to update the projectors for these meta-energies then. I'm concerned though, if they're preparing to send more then this planet is in serious danger; they can't fight off enemies of this magnitude.

Arne's Notes: Important revelations about their disproportionate ability to do damage aside, we'll need to find some way to prepare this incarnation of Earth fro what's likely going to be a full scale invasion. These people aren't going to limit themselves to quiet raids in the night for long.

The contents of this facility are far more than simple parahuman studies. A wealth of relics both extraterrestrial and extradimensional reside within here. So far the inferior minds of this facility have been unable to crack many useful secrets from it, but once our Aryan minds are able to properly examine these relics we will doubtlessly solve the riddles they cannot. Eliminate anyone who attempts to pose an obstacle, and then be ready for deployment to Brockton Bay. The relics located beneath there will also be of significant importance to us and our cause.

The Coming Storm is almost here, Oberst. We must make ready ourselves for all of humanity's fates hang in the balance. Not just in Primal Earth or this reality; but all realities connected to them. Advance without remorse or hesitation or our race will be swept away by the tide of xenos that descends upon it.

Believe in our inevitable triumph, or be crushed with the rising tide of the Herrenvolk.

Deutschland Uber Alles.

- Bose Hexe.

Reich Earth Units
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Experimental soldiers created by the Weltreich exposed to extradimensional energies after undergoing numerous augmentations. The extradimensional energy exposure process induces berserker like psychosis in the soldier in question but results in a wide variety of extreme physical augmentations that have lead to the Waffen-SS deeming the price worth it, particularly for the purposes of cultivating supersoldiers without relying on the other major organisations of the Reich. Ungehesen are named for their particular variety of powers which include the ability to teleport, become invisible, phase through objects (though you yourself cannot be phased through), and other ghostly abilities. They can also project this energy into directed blasts, augments to their melee attacks, or blades emerging from their wrists.

Tracking them is possible through X-ray spectrum or multidimensional visor technology (warning: User lacks capability), and while in a phased state, a non-elementally stacked beam or similar weapon remains capable of damaging them. Due to their berserker condition, they are also easily prone to being baited out of position by taunts or targets to work their aggression out against. This will also typically lead them to abandon ranged combat to try to close in melee as soon as possible and will also cause them to abandon other targets to focus on the last irritant to have gained their attention.

Samus' Notes: I would pity them if they hadn't so gleefully accepted becoming monsters themselves. But luckily dealing with them should be easy enough even without the visor technology to track them. Especially if they decide to get close.

Arne's Notes: Not a big fan of mentally scarring sophontic experimentation I'd have to say. They're going to be a problem when it comes to protecting other people though, I'll need to get out a warning about these types of troops in particular.

(Elite Officer Standard)
Durability: Very Good
Strength: Very Good
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Very Good
Combat Skill: Very Good
Type of Combatant: Stealthed assault infantry

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Analysis of the Wachroboter's construction confirms its extraversal origins. Manufacture and datalogs suggests that this particular machine was assembled in "Reichskomissariat Neu-Deutschland" in what was once Detroit, currently renamed "Kruppstadt" to service the needs of the so-called "Reich-Earth" in its continual wars of expansion with other dimensions to satiate the Third Reich's unending need for more resources and fresh conquests to smooth over internal political difficulties. Analysis of datalogs suggests that this unit is on loan to the Gesellschaft to serve in a capacity that the unit is not privy to beyond that it is to follow the orders of local commanders. Likelihood of transdimensional invasion is very high. Wachroboters are armed with high energy particle cannons and a laser cutter and fitted with high strength reinforcement fields to augment their hyperalloy construction for greater durability. In close-quarters combat they make use of ultra-intensity hydraulic systems to rapidly exert enormous amounts of force. Target the central optic for the most efficient results.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Low (Shielded, Armoured)
Strength: Low
Firepower: Low
Speed: Slow
Combat Skill: Low
Type of Combatant: Ranged firepower

Samus' Notes: An entire timeline...won't be for much longer. Not if this is what they're going to use to fight.

Arne's Notes: Large, bulky, inefficient and unsubtle. I see some things don't change. Good.

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Mechanical caniform combatant devised by KUKA Aktiengesellschaft as per the orders of the Wehrmacht Roboter-Kampfkorps to scout out areas with known resistance organisations or infiltrate into cramped conditions and outflank enemies. The Panzerhund makes use of high-intensity flamethrowers augmented by systems designed by superengineers to enhance temperature, spray reach, and fuel efficiency to allow for burns at temperatures high enough to rapidly melt steel. Panzerhunde are most vulnerable to attack against the head, though damage to their fuel tanks will usually prove sufficient in lowering their offensive capabilities. Panzerhunde are incapable of engaging foes at long range, and as such preventing them from closing into melee will suffice in avoiding unnecessary risk. Keeping them away from more fragile team members is highly recommended.


Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Weak (Shielded, Armoured)
Strength: Weak
Firepower: Weak
Speed: Low
Combat Skill: Low
Type of Combatant: High Speed Melee fighter

Samus' Notes: Many team members aren't going to be able to withstand heat like this. If any of them get close to them, I'll need to jump in. With my current equipment, withstanding the heat shouldn't be an issue.

Arne's Notes: Like poorly built copies of Geri and Freki, dangerous to less durable allies but I should be alright. Seems almost insulting to pattern them off of an animal as nice as a dog though.

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Produced by the Focke-Wulf GmbH for the requirements of the Waffen-SS on Reich Earth, the Kolibri is extremely agile and capable of stealthed operations, crucial for deploying small commando teams or sudden surprise attacks. Extremely manoeuvrable with the amazing ability to make upwards of 45 full rotations per second should the Pilot have a death wish or not be particularly attached to their lunch; the Kolibri is able to move like a hummingbird and can thus make extremely sudden manoeuvres limited primarily by the pilot and copilot's ability to endure them.

The extremely modular design also allows for the Kolibri to have its armament switched out to a wide array of possible configurations and to be upgraded as the situation demands, a crucial factor in allowing it to keep pace with more potent metahuman opponents and the evolution of technology. Its typical armament will include a nose-mounted rapid-fire weapon, homing missiles, and precision rocket pods; and many will carry small teams of soldiers to important locations. However, the Kolibri is not a particularly durable craft, and the loss of a single tail rotor will typically send the craft into a death spin that few pilots are skilled enough to recover from before crashing.

Quick Stats (Rated by Low end Gunship Standards):

Durability: Fragile
Strength: Weak
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable, Great Manoeuvrability)
Combat Skill: Decent (Negligible melee capability)
Type of Combatant: High Speed Aerial Ranged Attacker

Samus' Notes: That rotor configuration seems like it's asking for trouble with how close the blades are to touching each other. Just jamming them a bit should cause problems, but I think I should freeze them before impact to make their descent more predictable.

Arne's Notes: The grapple beam should be good enough to yank off their rotors and send them crashing; or just pull them into the ground. The only concern would be the possibility of collateral damage.

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(Pretend that they have the double lightning bolt of the SS rather than the Swastika)

Waffen-SS Dunkel Ageten make use of advanced power armour, superhuman augmentations, high end weaponry, and metaenergetic enhancements to turn them into powerful basic special operations soldiers for the Schutzstaffel of the Weltreich. Making use of ETC assisted mass driver weapons, missile launchers, charged particle rifles, and directed energy guns; the Dunkel Ageten fight with lethal firepower augmented by micro-thermonuclear grenades, plasma cutters, power knuckles, and shock bayonets for pressing in assaults. Teleporters also allow them to redeploy extremely quickly, while chameleon systems allow them to cloak to evade fire. Dunkel Ageten also make heavy usage of drug based augmentations that allow them to completely ignore pain, regenerate injuries at incredible rates, and push their bodies to extremes. More esoteric enhancements based on magic can also be detected. Thrusters and energy shields also allow them to defend their present positions and quickly move to new ones or rush down enemies who stick to cover.

The SS distrusts the NSDAP, the Wehrmacht, the Corporations, the Sturmkorps, and the Nictus to a significant degree; resulting in the fragmentation of the Weltreich into fiefdoms ruled by the organs of the National Socialist state and de facto dividing the Weltreich into a number of competing state bodies with a significant degree of mutual distrust and hostility. As such the SS has increasingly taken to completely internalising its procurement process, research and development, and its training courses to be wholly independent of other organs of the Weltreich. While this prevents outsiders with access to the SS' files from deciphering what the other bodies of the Weltreich are planning; it also inhibits coordination with the rest of the Reich. As such, Dunkel Ageten will very rarely call in reinforcements from other subfactions of the Reichblock.

Dunkel Ageten are best combated by freezing them. Pain based debilitation will be largely ineffectual and their armour is well suited to resisting extreme temperatures or chemical agents and is strongly insulated against electricity. Your weapons will be able to overpower this resistance, but metaenergetic defenses will still allow them to punch above their weight. Dunkel Ageten are coordinated but also contemptuous of perceived racial inferiors and when in a drug haze, tend towards extreme overconfidence. The user is to be cautioned that should a Dunkel Ageten suffer a mortal injury but not have their body be sufficiently destroyed to force a mediport out, the Dunkel Ageten will activate their drug-haze and put self repair nanites into overdrive; engaging a berserker rage that will revive them and allow them to continue fighting. Freezing them inhibits this process.

Samus' Notes: Now I'm really wishing I had my ice beam right about now. The cryolyte should be able to do the job though. I should have guessed that the Weltreich would have better soldiers thanks to its resources.

Arne's Notes: Keeping myself between their fire and the more fragile parts of the team is going to be absolutely vital. They can't hope to consistently take the kind of firepower theyré going to dish out besides maybe the Kinetic weapons.

(Minion, Lieutenant and Officer Standard)

Durability: Good
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Good
Speed: Acceptable
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Elite Line-Infantry

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Designed for the needs of the Waffen-SS of the Weltreich in the Parisien Mechanic facility in Ordenstaat Burgund, the Robotsoldat takes to the fight with extreme agility and a wide array of built in weaponry with aggressively modular chassis. Reverse engineered from the work of the Sturmkorps, the Robotsoldat is considered the Soldier's comrade of the SS, and is designed to distract enemies from its flesh and blood soldiers, take the fight to where living soldiers might have trouble, and deal with enemies close up that other troopers might hesitate with engaging in short distances.

Robotsoldat are most vulnerable to electric weapons and attacks, due to their relatively poor insulation as a sacrifice to gain more speed and agility. However as they require high temperature tolerance to withstand the energy generation of their reactors, pyronic weapons are generally poorly suited to dealing with them. Also fitted with teleporters, thrusters, and a combination of physical and energy weapons including shields, blades, mauls and more; the Robotsoldat will seek to disrupt threats to the flesh and blood soldiers of the SS.


Samus' Notes: Okay, I think I should be able to command their attention to stop them from getting in close to my friends. I've got the beam weapon to put them down too.

Arne's Notes: I think I should focus on these while Samus deals with the living troops. I'm comfortable close up at least, and absolutely wouldn't mind tearing some Nazi tin apart.

(Minion, Lieutenant, and Officer Standard)
Durability: Good
Strength: Good
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Good
Combat Skill: Decent
Type of Combatant: Disposable robotic assault trooper.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Sparkshifter (Transformers) Metaverse Topics
Autobots
Autobot Personnel

Subject is a sort of robotic mimic known as a Cybertronian named Bumblebee, presently taking the guise of a 1984 Volkswagen Beetle. Spatiochronal analysis suggests that he is not from either this universe or from yours but reveals an age of 5,379,129 Earth years. Analysis indicates that subject is powered by novel energy source referred to as "Energon". Energy readings are especially concentrated in the core region of the body within a spiritual analogue referred to as the Spark. Bumblebee is fully sapient and is capable of altering configuration between vehicular and bipedal mode. The presence of multiple concealed weapons has been detected, but overall systems are inferior to your own in efficiency and sophistication; compensated for by greater size. Further analysis indicates that subject is incapable of intelligible vocal speech due to relatively recent damage. Bumblebee's records indicate that he is a native of the colony world of Velocitus in the whirlpool galaxy.

Addendum: Scans of the subject demonstrate that Bumblebee has a similar technological basis to subversive signal but has not been compromised by it.

Samus' Notes: Aww, poor guy! Who hurt him like this? Maybe they're still around, and I could help out? Hopefully, he'll have some answers for us.

Arne's Notes: We must have spooked him pretty badly if he's disguising himself this poorly for someone who's five million years old. I don't think he's behind the signal though.

Target is a Cybertronian taking the form of a HondaJet referred to as Windblade. Windblade is capable of unusual psionic abilities referred to as "city speaking" due to quirks within her Spark. Windblade also demonstrates similar components to Bumblebee and is of a similar age at 5,382,764 Earth years. Cross-referencing between Distant Sight probing, electromagnetic scans, and signal interception suggests that Windblade primarily prefers to fight in close quarters combat with an energy sword over long-distance combat. Scan data confirms that subject would demonstrate capabilities well in excess of what her alt-mode should be capable of, allowing for vertical take-off and landing. The subject is also not the source of the attempted subversive signal.

Addendum: Subject is aware of scans.

Samus' Notes: A psychic fully mechanical machine not made by a Progenitor culture? That's really interesti-Oh blessed Spirits of the departed she knows.

Arne's Notes: I'm curious as to why it's called "city-speaking?" Might be a specific type of Cybertronian that takes the form of an entire city? That'd have to be an absolutely huge ro-oh. Uh sorry.

Windblade's Notes: Ask next time, please.

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Jetfire is an Autobot Aerial Commander and a trusted compatriot of the leader of the Autobot Revolutionary movement; Optimus Prime. The commander of the decorated Crimson Comet Wing of Aerialbots and the squadron leader for the Red Meteor Squadron, Jetfire is one of the most well regarded Autobot aerial aces. Jetfire is 286,989,731 earth years of age and has spent more than 225,733,127 years of that time fighting the Cybertronian Civil War. With an aerial victory count in the trillions, Jetfire is feared by his enemies and borderline worshipped by his allies. But to those who work directly with him, he is also fondly regarded as a surprisingly easy-going and understanding commander who works to help others improve; maintaining a down to earth attitude towards his soldiers and allies. Jetfire also is a highly dedicated scientist and works continually to keep his equipment up to date, improving his combat chassis continually with an ever-changing arsenal of equipment suited to the needs of his mission.

Jetfire is currently posted to this incarnation of Earth on the orders of Optimus Prime to monitor and counteract potential imperialist efforts not only by the Decepticons but by other powers. Due to choosing to base within the territory of the Soviet Union which his Autobot team has helped to stabilise to provide a safe operating area, Jetfire takes the form of a Soviet Su-57 jet to help blend into one of his primary fields of operation. This form suits his highly manoeuvre focused fighting style exceptionally well, and his ability to remain airborne in both robot and vehicle mode and fight with highly augmented reflexes gives him a crucial edge over many opponents.

Samus' Notes:

He doesn't initially give the impression of being that old, but there's a lot of wisdom hidden behind that image of just being a friendly face. Oh I can't wait to ask him all the questions I have in my head. He must have so many interesting experiences if he really is that old. And hrm, if he's intervened on Earth to preserve the Soviet Union, he's probably got a very developed understanding of what this Earth's politics are like.

Arne's Notes:

When I get the chance, I really want to talk to him about his thoughts on how I can improve the Sleipnir. I'm sure he'd have some opinions once he gets to have a look at it. Maybe he'll even like what I worked on? I just hope he doesn't find me to be bothersome. It shouldn't be too hard to get into his good graces at least; we'd probably agree on a lot of things.

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Hot Shot is a relatively Young Autobot and a longtime companion of Bumblebee. Part of the Autobot Scouting corps, Hot Shot is sometimes criticised for a habit of not looking before he leaps, but is regarded as extremely dependable and reliable despite this. Compassionate if sometimes inattentive and inventive if often absent-minded, Hot Shot greatly enjoys working with less advanced indigenous cultures and has typically refused transfer out of sectors with human civilization, considering protecting indigenous life to be one of the most important duties of the Autobots. He is a fast and versatile combatant with a preference for hit and run combat and a preference for high-speed civilian vehicle alt modes.

Samus' Notes: Well, if his heart's in the right place, who cares if he's a bit forgetful right?

Arne's Notes: I like the colour scheme honestly, but I might be a little biased.

340


Arcee is a long-time member of the Autobot Special Forces unit known as the Scalpel. Comprised of autobots trained in Cyber-ninjitsu and with a preference for nimble, small alternate modes able to fit into smaller spaces. Nimble, agile, and equally at home both up close and at a distance, Arcee is deeply committed to final victory for the Autobot revolutionary army against the Decepticon State and other hostile factions in the long running Cybertronian civil war. Accustomed to working on Earth, Arcee is adept at finding her way around various locales and is heavily familiarised with most human cultures. Exceedingly adept at both close and midrange combat and able to make use of tight spaces that many other cybertronians would struggle in, Arcee packs a varied and potent arsenal and millions of years of battle experience.

Samus' Notes: Oh I'd love to get a chance to work with her some time, but right now, I'm glad she's guarding this spot.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, size changing huh? She's as tall as bumblebee despite her alternate mode being a motorcycle. Interesting
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
(This will be a bit of an atypically long post. In the future, don't expect this much to happen in a single post except when plots get started or shifted in huge ways. This post also had like, three different drafts that I think I've edited out the remnants of.)

Samus

[X]: Bolt past them and head towards the two kids, they need saving

Arne

[X]: Make it clear that you'll be asking the questions here: 5 votes

Samus

You can't delay here for too long. Baseline humans in temperatures like this would freeze to death in very little time at all. While you might have some trepidations about leaving Arne on his own to handle the lowtechs, you need someone to stick behind and run interference while you worked.

"Who left their car here? How did it get left here!?" You can hear from behind you, confirming that the PRT had moved to encircle you, towards where the two mysterious vehicles were hiding out. You couldn't quite blame them, encircling you was a tactically sound option, but you hated the sense of having your freedom of movement constrained in such a way.

"Nevermind that, why is there an entire fucking Jet in the middle of the forest?!" A rather more confused voice shouted. You giggled a bit under your helmet at that. It seemed you weren't the only one who had severe doubts about the ability of that jet to hide.

Still, you had your other concerns, and wouldn't let the presence of the PRT distract you from that for too long. Not when you could feel the causeways of fate pulsating with your need to act as soon as you could.

"+Arne, keep them busy. Don't let them get the wrong idea about what we're doing.+" You said to Arne, you trusted he could handle this. He's come a while away from the utterly awkward boy you met two years ago...but then, you both have, haven't you?

You take only a moment to analyse the group that's come out to meet you, their bodies seeming to be moving in slow motion as your mind shifted into combat time before they appeared to stop altogether. You scanned them for any individuals of particular interest, drawing yourself towards the one in power armour in particular.

His systems were secured yes, but you could have sliced the firewall yourself once you understood the operating system; nevermind when you had the aid of one of the most powerful shackled A.Is ever developed. His suit had quantum entanglement alarms meant to immediately close off such unwanted access at the speed of conjoined particles. Still, your armour's scanning systems transcended mere quantum mechanics and bypassed such things faster than even his systems could detect the breach.

Armsmaster: Real Name: Collin Wallis.

450
General: Armsmaster is a Veteran "Cape" attached to an organisation known as the Protectorate meant to consolidate large numbers of parahumans under the aegis of the governments of the United States and Canada. While broadly fitting within the genetic norms expected of fully matured human of the early 21st century, an extradimensional symbiont has formed a connection to the subject. It has altered the Brain to create a new segment referred to as the Corona Pollentia and appears able to modify specific patterns of behaviour subtly. Symbiont appears to implant suggestions for technology that it adjusts to function in particular formats into the memory of the host. Recommendations based on armour suit analysis revolve around efficiency and miniaturisation, further modified by symbiont's extradimensional energies to allow for additional effects.

Personal information: Collin Wallis is a resident of the City of Brockton Bay (Notice: No such city is known to have existed in this time within the United States, discrepancy recorded) and a former student of Psychology. Collin Wallis bonded with the symbiont during his adult years and was thus able to directly join the Protectorate rather than first serving within its youth program. Over his years of service, Collin has demonstrated a high degree of competence, skill, and professionalism that has made many see him as an ideal hero. However, Collin occasionally clashes with others over his disdainfulness towards individuals who do not take "Hero-Work" seriously enough. Despite this, many regard him as highly approachable in the right circumstances.

Combat Capabilities: Armsmaster's armour is well outside of the norm for the present era and contains a large quantity of miniaturised equipment greatly exceeding what would usually be possible with the demonstrated technology of this planet. Armour provides for general survival capabilities, physical augmentations, mental shielding, electronic warfare capabilities, and battle-prediction systems. Halberd demonstrates numerous additional capabilities that the weapon may transform into including flails, plasma blades, rotary capability, grappling hooks, and extension.

Addendum: Subject armour software compromised by same malware programs as all other electronic devices scanned thus far. Comparing program architecture reveals that the malware was not designed by Armsmaster or anyone operating under a similar technological base. Xenological origin is extremely likely given the intelligent nature of the malware systems.

Samus' Notes: I'm guessing that "Capes" function a lot like Lancers do back home. The Protectorate must be Statelancers then; but hrm. I'd like to know why he's so set on taking his job seriously? And why they would send him out to investigate our re-entry when he doesn't have any useful ranged weapons either. I have so many questions! I'll be sure to talk to him later once I've rescued the two children. I think with some tech upgrades though he could be a very helpful ally as long as he doesn't try to force us to follow his rules.

Arne's Notes: Seemed like the kind of person my mother would have come to blows with the second I saw him. It looks like I wasn't wrong in that assessment either. Mostly uses his abilities to enforce the way things are too, which I'm not exactly fond of. He's clearly important though so I'll try to be nice. But I don't think I'll get along that well with him. Not really a huge concern though, I don't really want to be friends with law enforcement.

Arne

"Do you two understand me? We're not here to hurt you. We're just here to determine your intentions." Armsmaster said to you, raising his halberd to show that he was no threat to you. Huh, it seems some gestures remained universal across the millennia. His language was long dead, but your suit had already uploaded how to speak it fluently directly into your memory—still, no need to demonstrate your clarity of understanding just yet.

"Are you injured at all? You fell a pretty long way. If you could please come with us, we could discuss this in a place more comfortable for all of us. " He asked, your attentions turning towards Samus as the two of you shared a quiet suit to suit exchange.

"+I don't think we should take him up on that offer. They're probably going to try and recruit us.+" You said over the link.

"+I don't think they'll be able to reach Nightcaster and Eudaimonica in time either. I'm going to get them now. Won't be more than a minute Arne.+" She said before backing off and then turning her head in the direction of the two voices she'd heard earlier and getting her legs going. A whipcrack was heard as she moved faster than any of the gathered figures could follow, and her gilded yellow, orange and red suit charged off into the distance while your own visor glinted a bit from the lights they tried to shine at you.

"Whoa, what the fuck?!" One of the PRT troops shouted in surprise as Samus just about teleported out of their line of sight as far as they were concerned. Guns were raised, and you realised now was the time to defuse the situation. You didn't entirely enjoy being the one to do this, but you figured someone would have to.

"Velocity, can you follow her?" The power armoured one said, getting a somewhat concerned squint from you. How did he already figure Samus for female? Sure her suit had some feminine aesthetics but

You noted one figure in a red outfit sprinting off to chase after her. Hrm, speedster.

You raised your left hand and made a "one" gesture with your thumb finger. "I speak your language, fluently." You started before you extended another finger. "We are uninjured." Third finger. "We do not mean you any harm." Fourth finger. "We are not coming with you just yet until you answer some of our questions." Fifth finger. "I would think your lack of ability to hurt us would be obvious from none of you being able to survive re-entry."

Blunt, to the point, brusque. You didn't completely revel in the sight of them seeming to be stunned by you speaking in fluent English, albeit with a somewhat noticeable accent that they would have likely pegged for Scandinavian. Oh sure you smirked at it, but you didn't hold onto that momentary pleasure. That'd just be rude.

"What is your name, and how did you get here?" Armsmaster asked, regaining his composure remarkably quickly to a degree that actually impressed you somewhat.

"Wormhole station with an exit in your planet's orbit. Got separated from our ships and fell the long way down. Now, you. A computer virus has compromised all of your software systems. Why is that?" You asked. Everyone seems to be taken aback by your words, and you get the impression none of them were even aware of that.

"What do you mean a Virus?" He asks, once again recovering remarkably quickly from getting broadsided by your revelations.

"An intelligent hyper adaptive sequence of scrap code is present in literally every computer system on your planet I can analyse. Including every system in your armour." You said, letting him ruminate on that as he looked at his armour briefly. Did he assume you were trying to trick him? Quite possibly, probably even but it did give him something to think about as you heard knuckles rapping on a windshield.

"Hey, you in the car. Come on out of there. There's an ongoing investigation that you don't have the clearance to be here for." Ah, so it's definitely not one of theirs then.

"You still haven't given me a name. Are you human?" Armsmaster asked, still courteous but somewhat on edge. You had to give him credit, though; he was holding his own in this conversation remarkably well.

"We'll get to that later. Have you had any prior extraterrestrial cont-" You said before you heard a CHKT CHKT BZZ CHKT in the background as one of the PRT officers tried to apply a windshield breaker to the yellow Volkswagen only for the car to...stand up?

You did a double-take as you saw the vehicle shift plating around, splitting open its sections and unfurling limbs, a torso, and a head with big blue optics. You blinked a few times as if to confirm what you were seeing was happening, having had "the car is a transforming robot" so far down the list of things you were going to be seeing today that you're somewhat doubtful it was ever on the proverbial list.

"*Get your damn dirty hands off me!*" The car...no...the radio of the car said, sounding like some sort of clipped footage rather than something the machine itself actually said.

bumblebee.jpg



The jet would follow suit in transformation shortly afterwards, seeming to compact itself into a size much closer to the yellow one as she. Yes, you were guessing the robot was a she based on the very overtly feminine shape of the chassis...why did a robot have breasts? Focus, focus...stood up to her two feet fully upright, wings folding onto her back like those of an angel and blue optics analysing the humans who scattered before her intently.

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"...Wow that's...something?" You said before you found Armsmaster having used your distraction to get closer to you. Damn, you let yourself lose sight of the objective. You flick your eyes away from the machines as the PRT's attentions turn towards them; guns clicking and loading while a mechanoid in armour rather more advanced than even Armsmaster's backed away slightly from the advancing alien machines as Bumblebee, the yellow one, raised his hands up to try and indicate a willingness to speak.

"Trying to sneak up on me?" You say with a slightly bemused tone, quirking a brow beneath your helmet as you turn towards him.

"I'm trying to show you that I'm not dangerous." He said, planting the head of his halberd into the ground. He wasn't willing to drop it altogether, but you couldn't fault him. You'd probably also want some extra insurance if faced with a progenitor touched warrior.

"I never thought you were. What do you want from me?" You say, not even looking at him as you tilt your head at the unfolding drama involving the machines and the scurrying PRT officers who seemed ready to let loose the second anything went not according to plan. You found it so interesting...

"The same as what you want from me, answers." He said, studying the way you moved as you shifted on your feet and moved to avoid having to look directly at him. You disliked the feeling of older men staring down at you, far too reminiscent of the painful solar glare of the one you call Father.

"Answers about what?" You said; a slight shake in your voice as you tried to avoid directly meeting his gaze, attempting to focus squarely on the machines, to try and break down what made them tick as you put your mind at work. It was relaxing really, the engaging problem of unpacking the mechanisms of such wonderfully complicated mechanical organisms.

"How old are you? Early teens?" Your eyes widened a bit beneath your helmet, as he folded his arms and looked down at you. How would he know to ask a question like that? You control the urge to sputter and stammer, if only briefly as you give your head a minute shake.

"Your voice, mannerisms, and the way you carry yourself suggest you're not yet fully grown. And neither is she, isn't she? You're not quite as mysterious as you think you are." He asks, making you sweat a bit beneath your helmet as you flinch from his gaze.

You could crush this man's skull with a squeeze of your fingers. It'd be a motion with all the effort of popping a bubble, but that couldn't remove a fundamental fact. You were fourteen and had only been in regular contact with other humanoids for two years, and he was at the very least twice your age and while a bit of a loner for sure; was nowhere near as isolated as you were. You gave too many tells, too many open pages in your book for others to read. You gave him what he wanted and spoke too much.

But you were able to follow his radio comms. You tried to console yourself with the fact that at the very least, he didn't know that you had bugged his comms from the very beginning.

At least...did he?

Armsmaster: "+Battery how are you with the...vehicles?+"
Battery: "+They're not tinker tech.+"
Armsmaster: "+How did you figure?+"
Battery: "+They said so. Something about a Cybertron? They refer to it as their home planet.+"
Adamant: "+The metal they're made out of isn't anything from Earth either.+"
Miss Militia: "+They said they were part of an army called the Autobots?+"
Armsmaster: "+So aliens.+"
Battery: "+Alien robots.+"
Armsmaster: "+Who are they controlled by?+"
Assault: "+Uh, nobody. They're autonomous.+"
Miss Militia: "+Autonomous Robotic Organisms.+"
Adamant: "+There's some weird sort of energy presence in them too, it's something I can almost...taste in the metal. It'd make them resistant to my abilities.+"
Battery: "+Oh so we're screwed if they decide to kill us?+"
Adamant: "+I said resistant, not immune.+"
Miss Militia: "+How about we not try to start a fight as soon as we meet extraterrestrial life?+"
Assault: "+Yeah I'm with her, I could do without having "started an interstellar war" on my resume.+"
Armsmaster: "+I'm going to enjoy writing this report to the higher-ups.+"
Battery: "+Wow really, you having fun?+"
Assault: "+Without showing off too?+"
Armsmaster: "+No, not even a little. That was sarcasm.+"
Battery: "+Thank god, for a second I thought you got replaced by an alien robot in disguise.+"
Adamant: "+Can they do that?+"
Battery: "+...I...fuck.+"
Assault: "+Thank you Adamant, I greatly appreciate the helping of paranoia.+"
Miss Militia: "+I would also very much appreciate not rushing to conclusions about alien infiltration.+"
Armsmaster: "+The boy in the blue power suit did bring up something unusual though. Said all of our computer systems were compromised by malware.+"
Battery: "+You know he's a boy?+"
Armsmaster: "+Awkward unless in complete control of a conversation, doesn't like to be confronted by older men, changes the subject when uncomfortable. Voice suggests early puberty.+"
Assault: "+Wow you got all that from studying him for a bit?+"
Armsmaster: "+It helps when you can pay attention for more than thirty seconds.+"

Samus

Snow particles glanced off of your shielding as you ran. A vaulting jump took you into a spin that saw you land directly on top of the last known location of the two children's voices. The snow crunches beneath your boots, and you listened again while your visor flicked into Thermal mode. You heard rather monstrous grunts and howling not too far away. You almost fired off a shot in surprise when you saw the source of the noise.

Surrounding the two children; one wearing black and blue armoured robes with a witch's hat and blue goggles and the other wearing white and green armour with splendid hood, a gasmask, and cape; were six creatures you recognised as fitting the Christian idea of demons. Red skin almost like flayed musculature, flicking tails, horned heads like the skulls of beasts, and cloven-hooved feet. Near the boy were dark, wraith-like figures who moved around like additional shadows attached to him, two having "peeled" themselves upwards with wispy tails trailing off into infinity and whispering what they've been able to find into his ears.

Nine were the size of the average adult human, three wrapped in orange flames, three emitting further cold, three engulfed in toxic green hellfire; Demonlings. Three were twice as large as average humans, with a more bestial posture and head shape and more muscular form; one of fire, one of frost, and the other of hellflame; Demon Soldiers. The last, whose body stood more than three times your height and stood with a decidedly regal posture, was a creature of bitter frosts, conventional flame, and that corrosive green hellfire, that your visor identified as a Demon Prince. Your visor further noted that the Prince was a creature whose power was heavily constrained, only a portion of his body was allowed to manifest in this realm thanks to restrictions he had imposed himself.

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Yet you sensed no danger from them. Indeed the fiery Demons were sticking close to the boy while the white-clad girl weaved a spell of fire with deft hand gestures, cloaking both of them in a harmless sphere of protective flame. She sat upon the shoulders of the Prince, unharmed by the nimbuses of energy that surrounded the Prince of Demons. She even seemed outright relaxed.

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Analysis of data on the subject reveals that this individual's real name is Alice Wetticks Dahl. Data extracted from FBSA issued metahuman registration card, personal phone, and laptop further indicates that Alice is the daughter of Anette Dahl and James Canonchet; a Norwegian Witch and a Narragansett Magician. Educated in the ways of magic that have been passed down her two lineages, Alice specialises in Daemonomancy and Pyromancy and has a pact with the benign Demon Prince Winterpyre, who helps to instruct her in further magic. Alice is capable of using her magic in many ways but is most well suited to offering support, healing, augmentation, and hexes with her Pyromancy and summoning additional aid with her Daemonomancy. Her direct offensive capabilities are somewhat limited but not nonexistent.

Addendum: Subject's technology shows identical Malware compromising it despite originating from a differing universe. Likelihood of Malware being of xenological make increased to 100%.

Samus' Notes: She seems like she'll be a fun person to befriend! I'm curious as to how her relationship with her demons works though. Especially when her demons are so visibly monstrous, it must get inconvenient at times to continually explain that they mean no harm when she does not ask for it.

Arne's Notes: She seems like a happy person. I'm glad for that, at least some people get to enjoy power without pain to accompany it. I can't say I'm not at least a little jealous that she still has her parents and even a guardian demon. But if Winterpyre is anything to go by, they're probably all pretty great parents.

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Nightcaster's actual name is Joseph Willow Black. Born to a Pequot practitioner of magic named Sarah Willow and to an English-American warlock named James Black under an eclipse at Halloween, Joseph was infused with extraordinarily high potential for umbramancy. Quickly befriending many spirits of the night which helped him master his magical abilities, Joseph seeks to use his powers to help as much as possible and follow in both of his parents' footsteps. Joseph's offensive capabilities are moderate as his magic is primarily focused on offering support. Still, his ability to enervate enemies and bolster allies with the strength he steals is regarded as a tremendous asset to the Starsetters in Paragon City.

Samus' Notes: Umbrakinetics are an underrespected art, and it's a shame that so many people automatically associate it with evil. I'd be more than honoured if he'd teach me some of what he's learned though. Even if I am not to start learning how to use my sorcerous and psychic potential until I'm fully matured.

Arne's Notes: I wonder what it's like to have a circle of friends who are literally shadowing you at all times. It seems like it'd be nice, but on the other hand, what if you want some privacy from them sometimes? I should speak to him some day, ask him what it's like. I could think of a lot of times I'd have liked that sort of company.

"There? Better?" She asked, folding her arms and exhaling a puff of condensation filled air through her mask.

"Yeah...but how do you think we're going to get back?" The boy said, rubbing at his arms through his gloves and casting a spell that your scan visor identified as a spell of dark vision. He looked towards you and froze briefly while each and every one of Eudaimonica's demons snapped their attention towards you and let loose long, crocodilian hisses.

You pause and sidestep, moving out the way of the speeding red streak of a man you recognised was under the effects of a temporal distortion field. As a bit of snow was driven up by his movements and he pulled up a mouth-cover to keep his face warm while he rubbed his hands and looked between you before almost falling over when he saw the demons.

"Jesus!" He shouted, catching himself on a tree and pushing himself back up.

"Hrm, rather far off the mark there my good chap. Call me Winterpyre, Prince of the Frostflame." The Demon Prince chuckled with a jovial tone, offering a small curtsy to the human while you couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"Wow look at the tech on that one...what archetype are you? Sentinel? No no...Striker maybe? Warden? Bastion? Guardian?" He said, getting you to scrunch up your face briefly. The words he was saying all made sense but the way he was using them didn't register with you at all. You figured them to be some sort of classification system, but you were less sure of how the system worked. You'd need to get in a scan to do that.

"Don't worry about them, they're friendly," Eudaimonica said as the Demons hissed and crackled like boiling soup. You felt at peace with them, sensing no danger in your distant sight, and offered a varia-suit clad hand to one of the demons who happily rubbed their head against the extended hand. Through the synaptic feedback of your armour, you felt its skull-like head as if your hands were bare, and you let out a small and affectionate laugh as the demonling rolled around, melting snow boiling against its flames.

"You are not from here, are you?" One of the shadowy wraiths said, coiling around you and staring through its empty hood into your visor.

"No. And if I had to guess, neither are you, honoured spirit." You said with appropriate respect given to the ancient creature of darkness as it laughed with its hands clasped and body whisking away to its charge.

"I like this one." He whispered to Nightcaster.

"Okay, before we get onto that. I'm Velocity, with the Brockton Protectorate. Are you kids...alright?" Velocity said, dusting off some of the snow that had accumulated on him. He seems to have sussed out your age, likely based on your voice as you rarely bothered with a voice modulator. Though you were curious as to how he figured the two were children, and you couldn't help but notice how uncomfortable he was with the presence of the demons and the shadow spirits.

"Nightcaster I'm with the Paragon City Starsetters. How are you native of dimension...whatever this one is." Nightcaster said with a genuflection.

"...What's a Paragon City?" Velocity said in confusion before you shrugged yourself, not being any more familiar with the concept.

"Eudaimonica. These are my demon friends! But hey, I don't know what a Brockton Bay is either. Ayyyyyy." She said, giving double finger pistols and a head tilt you surmised was meant to indicate she had just given a wink.

"And who are you?" Nightcaster asked, frowning when he tried to cast an identification spell upon you only for your progenitor blood to block out his sorcery entirely. You could hear him curse beneath his breath, but he quickly regained his composure, rocking on his feet.

"You can call me Aira-Sekh." You said, typically your Chozo name sufficed as an alias until you felt like you could trust someone enough to give them your birth name. Your accent, usually having a bit of an Irish lilt, shifted to something closer to Coptic Egyptian as you seamlessly pronounced the name given to you by your adoptive family, and the two looked at each other with grins beneath their masks.

"Whoa...dank." Eudaimonica said as you furrowed your brow once again.

"I'm not...wet as far as I know?" You said, looking at your armour and then back at them.

"It means like, cool my dude." That bit of slang was long-lived enough for you to recognise at least.

"Okay so I'm going not to try and contest the idea that two of you aren't from this dimension and that she's from...space I think?" Velocity said, bringing his hands out to indicate he wanted the conversation to slow down at least several notches.

"But do any of you kids have adult chaperones?" He asked before Winterpyre and the shadow spirits made a series of harrumphs to make it clear they were not amused with being overlooked in such a way.

"...You know what I'll take it." He said, looking up at the hulking Demon Prince and giving a confident thumbs up.

"Huh, so, how did the two of you get here exactly?" You asked, firing up your scan visor to get what information you could one after the other. They were all so young...but you supposed that it would hardly be fair for you to call them out on that, you weren't any older than they were.

"Well, we were trying to escape from a Rikti patrol and jumped straight through the first portal we could in a base they had on primal earth and wham, we ended up here in the middle of nowhere." Eudaimonica said, spreading her arms wide for emphasis as you tilted your head briefly.

"Rikti?" You asked.

"Oh, they're...not exactly aliens but like...humans from another timeline who were altered by aliens to be more like them? Shit's wack as fuck. Hype as fuck tech and invaded Earth god...eighteen years ago? Won't leave still." Nightcaster said, getting a nod out of you as you sensed something moving in the background.

You turned your head towards the movement and gasped before you tackled the two kids and threw them both to the ground as a green sphere of plasma sizzled overhead. You could hear the snow boiling away from its radiant heat before it discharged into a tree and exploded in an eerie green flash, a pulsating sound accompanying the sound of tree trunk crumbling to ash.

You analysed the shot, not as powerful as your weapons or even space pirate weapons, but well beyond most of the armaments seen on this iteration of earth. The umbral spirits and the demons swivelled around and made their haunting noises, lobbing projectiles and threads of magic in the direction of the shots as more torso sized plasma orbs roiled downrange into your path.

You picked yourself up and vaulted around one of the incoming shots, taking stock of your opposition. You counted at least thirty-nine Rikti plus sixty of their nautiloid drones. It seems the two had managed to stir up an entire platoon of them.

more_rikti_love__i_mean_fan_art_by_techta_d627ybr-fullview.jpg

Each of them was clad in powered armour suits, though the rank and file seemed to have their heads; shaped oddly like that of a mouthless and hornless triceratops; exposed to the elements for reasons you didn't quite understand. Some of the higher-ranking ones also exposed their heads, but your scan visor quickly confirmed that these were Rikti who had developed their psychic powers; standing alongside those who instead chose to focus on sheer martial prowess.

"Target: Eudaimonica. Of Paramount Importance: Retrieval of data. Elimination of Hostiles: Demanded by General." The tallest among them ordered, making a hand slicing across the throat gesture after pointing at Eudaimonica. The enemy spread itself out into three squads of thirteen, each with a trio of more heavily armoured headmasters and a pair of psionic mentalists, five infantry, and two guardians and a single commander.

You identified three commanders; two were psions; a mentalist and a mesmerist, the last; a chief soldier in steely grey power armour; drew a sizzling power blade from his other arm while his plasma cannon charged up. The squads had split up, the Chief Soldier's squad would try to pin you down with the Drone Swarm spitting out plasma in a chorus of suppressive fire while the other two sought to flank around.

You could take the hits, but you weren't sure about your companions as they scattered; Eudaimonica's fiery magic shields sparking as they were impacted by alien plasma and pulse cannon blasts. That seemed to give encouraging signs, as did the outraged howling of the Demon Prince as he smashed his hands into the ground to create walls of ice to absorb Rikti Fusion missiles. But if they had been running away from this patrol, they had to have thought they weren't able to take them on their own especially as Nightcaster released a shroud of magical darkness to try and conceal you and the others.

"We need to ollie the fuck outie, come on!" He shouted. But...you could take them. You knew it; there was no need to run, save maybe to consolidate forces with Arne. Velocity was already on his way to withdraw, probably to report what he had just seen in person.

Arne

Your fuming attempts at a comeback were interrupted by the flashing visions of something about to teleport in. Your hairs on your back stood up, and your spine shivered with sudden alarm.

"Get cover now!" You shouted as you rolled to the side and dodged a volley of plasma fire from Rikti who had just managed to teleport into the fray through shimmering green portals.

Everything began to unfurl in the span of a few seconds while you were busy dodging shots thrown at you from all angles.

A PRT officer who wasn't so lucky took a hit dead-on, his kevlar and mail starting to sublime away before the plasma had even hit his already charring away flesh. He barely had enough time to scream before the plasma orb detonated and reduced him to charred ash and steaming offal emitting from the stumps of his legs.

Another who had tried to get off a containment foam grenade found the Rikti headman getting into his reach a bit too quickly, three-fingered hands grabbing at his arms and pulling them out of their sockets with a spray of blood before a boot to his chest imploded it. Bullets rained harmlessly off of the shielded power armour of the Rikti, who drew a power sword and gave the blade a flick, sending another officer in steaming halves where they stood.

A quick headcount of the enemy was made in your head and confirmed by your armour suit. Thirty-nine troopers, sixty flying drones; split into three combat groups. They'd formed a triangular killbox around you, equidistant. North had some taking position atop a hill to lay down suppressive fire; southeast had a squad waiting to target those who had moved out of concealment into their waiting guns; southwest was spreading out to cover a wider field of fire. Fairly conventional small unit tactics, but lethally effective if not broken out of.

You made your frank assessment of the situation. The PRT officers were, for the most part, useless besides as distractions. And you were not going to use people who couldn't take a hit as bait. Bumblebee and Windblade were able to absorb the shots just fine though, and their guns were bigger than the Rikti's. You could take them all out yourself, your power beam hit harder than their plasma casters, but the question was whether you could do it without letting too many people die. Fast as you were, you couldn't be everywhere at once. The parahumans, whom your infiltration of Protectorate Comms had designated as Armsmaster, Battery, Assault, Miss Militia, and Adamant, were generally speaking; fragile. Except for the last one...hrm.

"Are you able to fight?" Armsmaster asked you, giving you the briefest of glances as you stood yourself up and looked for where to intervene. As much as you weren't fond of the PRT from the moment you laid eyes on it, the Rikti were quite clearly the more immediate problem.

"I was raised for it." You said, your cannon starting to hum as you flicked through your options.

"Good, you wouldn't happen to have a plan for this sort of situation? It seems like something pretty ordinary for you." He said with a hint of what you recognised as sarcasm. You still weren't good with it, but you were able to catch his intended meaning with a bit of focus.

"I haven't seen this culture before. But their capabilities aren't too hard to grasp. You could probably figure most of it out if you had some samples." You said as you raised your arm cannon into a ready position.

"Wouldn't that be something." Armsmaster mused with a slight whistle.

"Your Technology: Inferior to Rikti Make. General Rass'Illon's Victory: Assured beyond doubt. Your Demise: Mandated immediately." The leading Chief Soldier said, pointing towards Armsmaster and levelling its arm cannon at him.

"Your speech patterns: Extremely irritating." Armsmaster snarled.

"Extradimensional interlopers: To be captured. Unknown Technology: To be studied. Lineage of War: Acquisitions demanded." The Chief Soldier barked at its subordinates as the Rikti started to open fire in earnest. But before another PRT squad could be wiped off the map; Bumblebee and Windblade moved to block the incoming shots which skipped into oblivion off of the autobots' shielding. The Rikti seemed to be astonished, but came to realise the two Autobots had a technological edge over them and started to focus fire towards them.

This gave you some time to think.

298px-AdvancedDrone1.jpg

Rikti drones are simple hover capable disposable infantry units armed with simple Rikti Plasma weapons that can be swapped out for other forms of Rikti ranged attack. Fast but on the fragile side for Rikti technology, Drones are expended with very little thought given to their long term survival as Rikti fabrication devices can rapidly create more with access to the appropriate materials. Rikti Drones are typically slaved to the overall psychic battle network of Rikti combat units which regulates their independent artificial intelligence systems to the needs of a Rikti formation. Rikti Drones are particularly vulnerable to electrical damage or dark energy.

Samus' Notes: They almost look cute actually. I could see myself reprogramming some to take home with me.

Arne's Notes: I hate rapidly moving head-sized drones so much...at least they're not as durable as psychobits.

Rikti_Infantry.jpg

Rikti Infantry are equipped with basic battle armour to allow them to engage with the enemies of the Rikti Collective's Lineage of War. After more than eighteen years of continual conflict with the Primal Earth dimension that Nightcaster and Eudaimonica both hail from, the Lineage of War has grown bitter in its prosecution of the conflict. While all Rikti have the potential for psionics, most do not have combat useful psychic abilities. As such Rikti Infantry focus primarily on the damage offered by their power swords and plasma caster rifles or the brute strength of their power armour. While shielded and made of resilient composited alloys, Rikti technology is well behind the standard of your own universe. However it is well ahead of the standards of both Primal Earth and the present dimension you are residing in, making them a lethal threat to allies and civilians. Like all Rikti, when critically injured; Rikti infantry will be teleported back to the nearest Rikti base into a biopod chamber that will restore their bodies and equipment.

Addendum: All Rikti technology is compromised by identical malware seen in human technology from both local reality and Primal Earth. Analysis of software eliminates the Rikti as a possible origin point for the malicious program; lacking the sophistication needed to program such an intelligent virus.

Samus' Notes: The DNA that I'm picking up is...human, partly. There's some sort of mutagenic helix that's been spliced into the human genome to turn them into...this. I think it can be reversed though, but I'd need my ship's restore station to do it. Just what sort of monster would have originally designed this mutagen though? But I think I could help the indigenous humans understand this technology.

Arne's Notes: Their psychic coordination makes them very difficult to sneak up on. As soon as one Rikti knows about something, they all know. Bad news for the locals here who can't take many hits from them. But some of these Rikti show spatialchronal signatures similar to the locals...the Rikti must be converting local humans into more of themselves.

Rikti_Guardian.jpg

Rikti Guardians are the medics of the Rikti. Each squad has a pair of additional Rikti Guardians attached to it to provide medical support with advanced radiological nanotechnology. This technology can seal up the wounds and mend armour breaches of Rikti and their mechanical assistants within seconds, even restoring lost limbs and destroyed armour components. The technology is also able to be used to overclock the biologies and machinery of Rikti combatants, allowing them to fight at increased speed and increase their rate of fire significantly for a short time. Rikti Guardians are also armed, though they do not habitually carry more than Plasma submachine guns and combat knives.

Samus' Notes: As much as it hurts me to do it, I think I'll have to target the medics first. They don't seem to care about not participating in the fight themselves, and they'll continually keep injured Rikti in the fight. Why did they have to turn healers into combatants? It's profane to have medics as warriors who only heal one side's fighters.

Arne's Notes: It seems Rikti medical teleporters will delay their action if a Guardian signals that they are ready and able to offer medical support. I don't think I want to cross the bridge of exploiting this though. Forcing them to teleport out still takes them out of the battle even if it doesn't kill them.

Rikti_HeadmanGunman.jpg


Rikti Headmen are equipped with full grade Rikti battlesuits that allow for the usage of more powerful energy or energy intensive weapons as well as more powerful melee instruments. Rikti headmen are an order of magnitude stronger than standard infantry with their power suits and have enough firepower to vaporise local main battle tanks in single shots. Rikti Headmen are once again primarily equipped with plasma caster weapons and power blades, which they wield with more skill than standard Rikti Infantry. However, Rikti Headmen do have a vulnerability to dark energy, which their systems are not rated to offer full defence against.

Samus' Notes: Unfortunately, I don't have any dark energy weapons at the moment. I'll just have to do this the hard way then.

Arne's Notes: Headmen seem to serve as lieutenants in the Rikti military hierarchy. Taking them out seems to disrupt their command and control temporarily.

Rikti_ChiefMentalist.jpg


While most Rikti do not develop their psionic abilities to the point of battlefield usefulness, Rikti Mentalists have honed their psychic potential into a formidable weapon. Able to manifest lethal darts of psionic energy, make combat usage of telepathy and telekinesis, and still having access to Rikti Power Armour and weapons, Rikti Mentalists are a formidable danger if less physically imposing than Headmen. Given user immunity to most psionic abilities, it is recommended that the user draw Mentalist attacks to prevent them from focusing on those with higher vulnerability to Rikti mental assault.

Costume_Rikti_Mentalist.jpg

These advanced Rikti Psions have focused their psionic abilities into the fields of direct offence and utility via dynakinetics and telekinesis. This essentially turns the Rikti practitioner into a living artillery weapon whose mind is able to devastate the battlefield on their own. Wielding even more advanced power suits than their lesser counterparts, Mentalists can be expected to face down many high-security level metahumans on Primal Earth with confidence.

Samus' Notes: Just Mentalists but more so. Need to watch for them throwing projectiles at me if they realise that they can't directly affect me with most psychic bolts. Their telekinetic barriers can also shield allies.

Arne's Notes: They're the less disruptive of the two types of higher grade Rikti psions honestly. The direct nature of their psychic abilities makes it a lot easier to predict what they're going to do with them.

Rikti_ChiefMesmerist.jpg


Mesmerists take their psionic powers in a differing direction, seeking to enhance their telepathic abilities to cause maximum disarray and confusion in the ranks of their foes. Masters of Mind Control and mental state alteration, Mesmerists excel at preventing enemies from acting or turning their foes against each other. Many also serve as the primary means of indoctrinating those meant to become servants of the Lineage of War; overwriting thoughts and personalities until the subject is left in complete compliance. However, they also are somewhat weak in direct combat with enemies who can resist their control.

Samus' Notes: With these, I think I'll have to worry more about my allies than myself. I'll have to keep a close eye on any mind control attempts on allies in particular. Papa always talked about how mind control was an obscenity...I won't let them puppet people however they like.

Arne's Notes: Battlefield mind control is incredibly dangerous at absolute best I hate the idea that an entire army builds much of its strategy around it. They're not going to focus on me either when they realise that they can't really directly affect me too. Need to adjust tactics then...

Rikti_ChiefSoldier.jpg


Rikti Chief Soldiers spend their professional lifetimes mastering the arts of the Lineage of War. Each is a seasoned veteran or at the very least a graduate of a prestigious military training program and a recipient of Rikti Supersoldier treatments. All are outfitted with a high-end mass-produced battlesuit that allows them to go toe to toe with even hard-hitting Primal Earth Tankers and Brutes. Though lacking in combat psionics, Rikti Chief Soldiers carry high-grade weapons that can lay down rapid volleys of fire or explosive charged orbs. In close combat, their power blades are of a higher grade mark meant to augment their own swing better than the armour alone can, moving faster than they have any right to.

Samus' Notes: After eighteen years of continual variable intensity warfare with Primal Earth, I'm not sure how the Rikti still find it in themselves to fight so viciously. Surely they'd have come to some sort of agreement to negotiate by now? Something must be keeping them invested in a decisive victory then. But if I'm here to end this war, then I'm going to end it.

Arne's Notes: Most of these Rikti know what they're doing pretty well, but they seem to have some sort of honour code at least. They don't seem to go out of their way to engage anyone lacking in a weapon to fight back with. I get a sense of professionalism from them, but what good is professionalism when it can't tell you that a war that's been fought for a generation might be futile?

Options:

For both
[]: Reconverge positions to assist each other (will double the number of Rikti in the overall fight but allow Samus and Arne's groups to directly fight alongside each other)
[]: Continue to fight separately (Fights will be resolved separately)
[]: Draw combats close enough to support but not close enough to merge (Fights will be separate but characters may offer support to each other)


For Samus: Pick One
[]: Engage Rikti in close-quarters combat to prevent them from being able to focus on allies. You are the most durable person in the group and would attract the most attention. This will keep your allies the safest.
[]: Engage the Rikti in hit and run attacks. Constantly weave in and out of close-quarters combat and ranged assault, swapping between targets at will and never allowing the Rikti to concentrate on any one position. This keeps you the safest but the Rikti might decide to reorient rather than try to pin you down.
[]: Fight the Rikti at range to maximise your firepower advantages and coordinate with the ranged firepower of your allies, focusing down Rikti Squadrons to more quickly eliminate them.
[]: Fight a rearguard action to allow your allies to withdraw to a more advantageous position. This will require you to try and distract the Rikti long enough for your allies to flee rather than seek to engage them to destruction.
[]: Make a fighting retreat to a different position, this will have you take less hits than if you decided to stay and fight a rearguard but does make it more dangerous for your allies.
[]: Don't bother to fight, just run to a different position. This will allow for the highest chance of moving to a new position without interference but allows the Rikti to engage your formation freely.
[]: Write in.

For Arne: Pick One (retreat is impossible due to the number of PRT casualties that would be incurred trying to break the Rikti cordon)
[]: Engage Rikti in close-quarters combat to prevent them from being able to focus on allies. You are the most durable person in the group and would attract the most attention. This will keep your allies the safest.
[]: Engage the Rikti in hit and run attacks. Constantly weave in and out of close-quarters combat and ranged assault, swapping between targets at will and never allowing the Rikti to concentrate on any one position. This keeps you the safest but the Rikti might decide to reorient rather than try to pin you down.
[]: Fight the Rikti at range to maximise your firepower advantages and coordinate with the ranged firepower of your allies, focusing down Rikti Squadrons to more quickly eliminate them.
[]: Write in

Pick one suboption:
[]: Have yourself and the autobots split up to engage different squadrons separately, holding down all their attention and keeping the less durable humans out of harm's way. Allow PRT and Protectorate to split up to engage as they will.
[]: Have the PRT and Protectorate concentrate against one squad, the autobots against another, and yourself against a third.
[]: Focus all efforts on a single squad at a time to eliminate them as quickly as possible.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Draw combats close enough to support but not close enough to merge (Fights will be separate but characters may offer support to each other)
[X] Samus
- [X]: Fight a rearguard action to allow your allies to withdraw to a more advantageous position. This will require you to try and distract the Rikti long enough for your allies to flee rather than seek to engage them to destruction.
[X] Arne
- [X]: Engage Rikti in close-quarters combat to prevent them from being able to focus on allies. You are the most durable person in the group and would attract the most attention. This will keep your allies the safest.

[X]: Have yourself and the autobots split up to engage different squadrons separately, holding down all their attention and keeping the less durable humans out of harm's way. Allow PRT and Protectorate to split up to engage as they will.


Samus

Okay, this was way too poorly defensible of a position for your more vulnerable allies to stick around here. Trusting your foresight and pointing in a direction given to you by esoteric instinct you pointed them towards. A hill that the demons and shadow spirits could marshal from while keeping the more vulnerable members of the party from harm's way.

It'd also be a position that should give them commanding overwatch ability over the nearby battlezone Arne was in. Trusting that he would be able to handle the situation; you didn't feel the need to burden him with a doubled enemy presence; simply getting close enough to lend him a hand.

"Head over to that hill; I'll hold them off." You grit your teeth a bit and step out in front to get the Rikti's attentions; the orange plating of your varia suit shifting as you moved ahead. Not too far, just enough to get the Riktis' attentions. Eudaimonica and Nightcaster both looked at you as if you'd grown a second head, with Velocity, in particular, looking at you as if you'd gone completely stark raving mad.

"Whoa, young lady, you can't just take on that much firepower all at once." He said, trying to get you to come with him, extending a hand out to try and reach for you before you shrugged him off.

"I can handle it. Don't try to argue with me right now. Just...go! I'll keep you guys safe. Promise." You said, giving them one of your traditional thumbs-ups to try and help them share your easy confidence. You weren't sure if they bought it, but you felt tendrils of mystic energy wash over you as both Nightcaster and Eudaimonica passed onto you the benefit of their spellcraft.

Their chanting in the old language of the Mu filling your ears. Your armour reported the effects; fiery shields to increase your resistance to most forms of damage, ensuring that the impact of the Rikti's blasters on your shields was as weak as possible from Eudaimonica. And from Nightcaster came smothering whispy darkness that made you harder to see and strike in the first place.

"Thanks for the help. But you should probably focus on yourselves. I can handle myself." You tell them. You can feel their doubt, and you sympathise with it. You'd be worried about someone going out there to fight dozens of enemies on their own too. But you know what you're doing, and you hope they'll understand too.

"Alright but I'm keeping a close eye on you. Just uh, don't get yourself hurt out there." Nightcaster said with a hesitant returning of your thumbs up before Eudaimonica fired up a spell of teleportation to drag the trio and their pets a bit farther away from the focus of the Rikti as you felt all their eyes shift towards you. They seemed to be going in with confidence, but also caution. They did not know you; they weren't sure of what you could do besides that your technology did not seem to register on any of their databases.

Good, you were going to show them.

Your arm cannon started to charge up a shot as your arm cannon shifted and extended to the sides; building up a purple electric orb within its barrel. You've done this so many times before it felt almost automatic. Yet you didn't let yourself get complacent. You always had to keep mindful of your surroundings and the opposition; this was something your caretakers have warned you about a million times over.

You strike first as the Rikti decide to make their move. When possible, strike after the enemy has committed to a decision before they can think otherwise of their actions. One of Grey Voice's most frequent and essential lessons. Nine projectiles erupt from your cannon and home in on the Rikti you designate as your foe. Nine orbs find three targets, and each target essentially disintegrates from the impact as a cascade of lightning erupts over their bodies. Shielding pops out of existence and Rikti forged armour is shredded down to the atomic level by the electrical surge to create wisps of free-floating particles.

Their medical teleportation systems pull them back before the moment of death to the location of their medical facilities; with your scan visor quickly and efficiently slicing into the data stream to determine where they were going. You make a mental note to investigate that later as you flip yourself to the side to dodge a scalding Fusion Lance. The solar hot ejecta flash vaporised a hill's worth of snow before firing again, but you simply took the blow head-on and rushed the heavy weapons Headman responsible.

Energy: (07 energy tanks: 97 energy remaining in current tank)

Your power blade crackled to life as it extended from your left arm; a green claymore esque weapon emerging from the vambrace and swung with blinding speed. The Headman's shields burst, and your blade began to cut into its neck after gliding through its armour plating right before it disappeared in a green flash, forcing you to catch yourself. That was going to be more than a bit annoying.

A Rikti trying to strike at you with its power blade at a speed that seemed like it was stuck in Honey barely noticed an incoming fireball thrown its way by one of Eudaimonica's demonlings, the howling hellspawn's fire latching onto the hybrid's shielding.

It flickered and burned for a moment before being followed by an Ice Demon's cold spell, the temperature shock briefly getting the Infantryman to stumble. More fire and frost followed suit as Eudaimonica's demons took point, scattering snow and tree debris in all directions.

With the opening given to you as you blasted apart the other Headman with your Electrowave Beam, you threw yourself into a kickflip. A motion that brought your boots onto the Infantry man's head hard enough to create a shockwave; jumping away just as it teleported to let loose a pair of missiles into the midst of the next Rikti Drone swarm.

The satisfying eruption of noise from the exploding missiles made part of you quite pleased, but the rest of you knew that; given the number of shots still going your way, you weren't done just yet. A few shots winged you, skipping off of your shields, but you weren't trying too hard to dodge every single hit.

Energy: (07 energy tanks: 95 energy remaining in current tank)
Missiles: 153/155

Especially not when the Rikti were having a hard time even making out your position as the twisting shadow magic made you seem to disappear whenever you were too far away. Letting you weave to and from targets, striking down another drone swarm with a speed booster charge that disintegrated the shell-like drones by the dozens.

A fireteam of the pseudo-aliens who were preparing to lay suppressive fire upon you dropped their weapons from their hands. Something prompted by the wispy curls of dark magic you saw emanating from Nightcaster's stare; nightmares made manifest. Fear overtook the five Rikti and left them unable to stop you from electrocuting them; joining forces with Eudaimonica's demon team who raked across their position with fire, hellflame, and cold.

Alice spoke in tongues to conjure up a lash of hellfire to scourge one of the terrified Rikti headmen, who flinched from the stinging impact to its shielding and the embers of fel magics that clung to it.

A gout of fire from Winterpyre scorched the unfortunate Headman into oblivion, a wisp of teleportation energy being the sole reminder of her former presence as the Demon Prince rampaged forward. You could hear the howling outrage from the Prince as a sharp cry of pain came from one of the Demonlings, its arm severed by the Chief Mentalist's psi-sword before they were cast aside like trash; and briefly pitied the Rikti who had aroused the hellspawn's rage.

"Fuck it I'm not sitting around here doing nothing." Velocity grumbled as he dodged around a cascade of Rikti shots; moving around a thicket, you lessened with a burst from your Cryolyte that encased many of the remaining drones in ice. He wasn't fast enough to avoid every shot as the Rikti adjusted their aim; one striking him against the fiery magical shielding that Eudaimonica had cast for him. He looked at himself and patted his body, surprised he wasn't dead but glad for it before he grinned.

"Okay let's try interrupting some of those plays of yours." He said before springing into action while you snapped a Rikti powersword with your gauntlet and smashed the wielder's head into your knee.

Seemingly committed to action on the logic that children could kick these things around; he could too; Velocity rushed up to quickly push one of the Rikti out of its firing position as Nightcaster wailed and threw up a barrier of dark magic to block a concentrated burst of fire. Strobe lights danced on his shielding and he fell to a knee, throwing back his own offensive magic that managed to bowl over a Mentalist but clearly unable to take much more.

Just before his barrier could fail, the one missed shot gave him enough room to teleport and direct his shadowy wraiths forward to harry the enemy, negative energy laced touches draining vitality and twisting away at defences. Shadowy tendrils of dark magic erupted from the ground at his behest, grabbing onto and holding down the pseudo-aliens while Velocity shoved them into the pit of shadowy magicks to let more tendrils spawn to grab them.

You took a moment to scan around and smiled as you spotted the Chief Mesmerist trying to focus on Eudaimonica's demon legionaries while they started to throw down a cascade of offensive magic towards Arne's group. As the mesmerist's thoughts raced through its body, you were already there with your grapple beam; pulling it towards you before it could complete that thought and roping it into charged missile strike that cut straight through it and much of its surrounding company.

Missiles: 150/155

The remaining Rikti, now fully aware that you were the greatest threat, started to turn all their fire towards you. You shrugged off a few incoming hits, not wanting them to get too frustrated with trying to land blows on you. The green and blue energies flickered against your shielding and dissipated, your cannon's power beam hammering away at full blast to shred through those who still stood.

A quick morph ball jaunt and you were already in their midst, determined to prevent them from focusing on anyone but you and the bombs you just left in their midst. You weren't going to let them hurt anyone except you, because you could take it and dish it out in spades.

This was exactly where you wanted to be.

Arne

"Bumblebee, Windblade. Can you split up? Each of us take on a squad and keep the fragiles out of the field of fire?" You said as you deflected an incoming plasma sphere with a swing of your power blade back to its sender to prevent it from striking a PRT officer. You looked over the Officer who seemed to be in something of a fugue state, staring at the severed halves of her companion and felt bile in your throat.

You weren't sure what to do for them, but there was too much going on for you to offer them the comfort they needed. You felt bad, sick almost, but you had to save at least some of the people here.

"-You're damn right I can-!" Bumblebee's radio crackled, playing off of some clip you didn't recognise. The solar cannon his arm transformed into whined before making a high pitched pinging sound to send a yellow ovoid of radiant energy that neatly dispatched of a pair of Rikti.

"Good call, but what about the humans?" Windblade asked, her twisting energy sword glancing a fusion lance off into the side before she spun up her turbofans to throw the chief mentalist off his feet before he could try to engage the cityspeaker in a telepathy duel.

"They can pick their own targets, can't they?" You said, not exactly sure what to make of their capabilities just yet. You felt bad about letting them get close to weapons they couldn't tank the way you could, but you gauged that they weren't going to be backing away anytime soon.

You had curled into your psycho morph form and threw aside a Mentalist with a barrage of pulse bursts before unfurling atop a Guardian and smashing your cannon down hard enough to cause something grotesque sounding to snap.

Leaping off the body as its broken vertebrate collapsed beneath it and a green flash indicated it had teleported out, your shock coil erupted to life with blue lightning and the growl of electricity and neutrino flow. It was your favoured weapon, your old reliable and the system best integrated into the capabilities of your suit.

You took a charged shot from a Headman, you didn't care, focusing the coil on the Grey Armoured chief soldier who writhed from the bolts seeping into them and flowing through their suit. Energy flowed from them into your own shielding, and the Rikti busily pouring fire into you hardly noticed Armsmaster behind them.

As your attentions were briefly distracted by Bumblebee launching a barrage of mini-missiles from unfolding launchers in his arms, a Headman tried to stab its powerblade into your back while your free hand was busy grabbing and throwing a Drone that sought to ram you.

Twisting out of its way without looking, you pushed the Rikti into the forward stab of Armsmaster with a backwards kick that cracked its energy shielding. The extra momentum and the dissipated shielding allowed his plasma blade to start burning into the strange composite of the Headman's armour.

"Always watch your six. I figured they'd at least teach that on whatever planet you came from." Armsmaster grunted as he pushed the halberd through just as the Rikti teleported out for treatment.

He huffed and spun around, forewarned of an incoming plasma shot from a drone and with a single, clean motion used his halberd to bat the shot away as you had.

He groaned from the unexpected effort, but was able to rush forward and get the drone off your back the moment you disengaged from the chief soldier; letting it slump to the ground and vanish in a puff.

You paused, analysed for the briefest moment. You had to keep looking for people in need of assistance. The autobots seemed able to handle themselves, Bumblebee making some sort of beeping sound as he swung an energon hammer of some sort and sent half a dozen drones and two infantry flying. Windblade seemed to be doing just as well, missiles erupting from her wings to keep a woman with the most patriotic outfit you've ever seen from being focused down by her opponents.

So that left you, a missile shivering out of your cannon and tearing through a trio of drones with another PRT officer's death scream ringing in your ears as the remaining Headman blasted his upper body off. You analysed the situation again, and saw its Mentalist companion turning their attentions away from you and towards one of the indigenous humans.

You barely even thought through what you were doing and then threw yourself at the Mentalist as it sought to disengage from you and target Battery; fixing her in place by overwhelming her thoughts with psychic noise. Hearing the thrum of its psi-sword roaring to life, you stepped into the swing, grabbed the psi-blade by the hilt and crushed the hilt and the wielder's hands with a squeeze of your fingers.

You let loose another missile, ripping apart the Mentalist right before your cannon converted to beam mode and selected the star beam; letting the highlights turn a rich orange while the cannon expanded vertically. When combined with the prism beam, your shots skipped through the remaining Rikti. Each hit bouncing around and searing through them all the while.

Missiles: 154/155

A cry went out and your heart briefly stopped as you saw the patriotic woman grasp at an arm that had been caught too close to a Rikti plasma sphere, much of the tissue on her shoulder burnt by the radiant heat. Busy with crushing the head of the remaining mentalist and targeting for a charged missile strike on the last batch of drones in your vicinity, you couldn't quite reach them. Windblade too was busy, shielding PRT officers from the drones with her body.

Missiles: 151/155

But fire ruptured from the ground and engulfed the offending Rikti, sizzling shields of magic enshrouding the remaining allies. Nightcaster had sent forth a spell of healing, sapping vital energies from the Rikti and radiating them outwards was issued forth. Dying PRT soldiers gasped with sudden breath; Miss Militia looking at her now mended arm with astonishment before scorching spells of weakening entrapped the Rikti in front of her as its shielding broke down.

Her shotgun actually bowled over the Rikti infantry; its defences weakened to the point that her arsenal was effective and her eyes flicking towards Eudaimonica in acknowledgement.

For your part, you were about wrapping up, taking a power blade to the chin and charging up a beam shot to scorch the offending Rikti. Another death cry, inhuman and anguished as a Demonling found itself blown in half by a Headman rattled in your ears; hellish ichor dripping out as the icy creature cried in pain. Another PRT trooper's scream followed suit, ash wafting onto your helmet as you blew away the alien that had sought to duel you.

Energy: (07 energy tanks: 96 energy remaining in current tank)

More life taken, more life you couldn't help. But your helmet informed you of an Arcane event taking place, and it wasn't the Demon Prince seeming to pull what looked like a small comet of magical ice from a portal to smash into a defensive position of aliens. No, it was Nightcaster pulling life energy; not enough to hurt, but enough to stun enemies in line of sight; from his foes and radiating it outwards.

A legionary that had lost half of its face to a Rikti sword found the bone regrowing in moments, and a trio of bisected PRT troopers found tendrils of darkness pulling their corpses together. Shadow became flesh, and stolen life force wove itself into them. Breath drew itself into restarting lungs, and the dead picked themselves up refreshed and ready, bullets flying into mystically weakened Rikti to cut down the last of the drones.

Even to you, it was an impressive sight to watch, though Nightcaster seemed winded by it and had to pull back, his shadow spirits orbiting around him to intercept shots while his own offensive spells stopped.

Bumblebee certainly seemed to think so, playing a clip of "-Great work kiddo!" after having finished off his mass of Rikti with a burst of electrical energy from his stinger and punting the last one to Windblade whose hand reached out and smashed the alien into the snow.

"I think that's all of them on our end." Windblade said.

"D...don't say stuff like that, please." You said, frowning at the Cybertronian woman's reckless temptation of fate. Didn't she know never to tempt the sentinels of destiny?

Samus

You had cut down nearly all of the remaining Rikti, the last Headman standing after Winterpyre had charbroiled the other trapped in Alice's whip with his hellfire at Eudaimonica's command raising their gun to strike at Armsmaster. With a whistle to get Alice's attention, she muttered an incantation and made a few hand gestures to send tendrils of fiery energy into a nearby PRT corpse. You were treated to the splendid sight of the dead woman's eyes flinging open as her rent armour and ruined flesh knitted back together. But your keen mind's eye could tell that wasn't the only trick, as the coiling energy waited to spring outwards in an orange burst of phoenix-like flames. Harmless to the woman or her possessions, but very much not so to the foe. An inferno hotter than even Rikti plasma weapons engulfed the remaining Headman and turned the snow to molten water or even steam for hundreds of meters. A combination of Alice's shields of magic flame and her shaping of the energies of the Witch's spells protecting the soldiers from the heat while the Headman fried.

You whistled, impressed as you looked to see where the last of the enemies were, ducking as Windblade's neutron assault rifle scythed down three infantry and cheering internally at Bumblebee's cannon smiting a Guardian before they could heal a fallen comrade. You shot at the Guardian's companion with a barrage of beam fire and sent the medic crumpling onto the ground, bleeding red blood before it vanished in a fade of green light.

Two left.

Directing yourself via the distant sight, you catch the last Mentalist wreathing themselves in a psi-cloak and teleporting towards Nightcaster's side with a psi-blade in hand. Not on your watch, you swore as your legs exploded into action.

You vaulted into his direction, spinning and grabbing the foe and smashing its head into the ground before pushing off when you caught sight of Adamant smashing his fist into its back. Ferrokinetic power surged into the shield deprived Rikti and turned the metallic elements of its composites against it, a grunt of alien pain coming from it as bones snapped in its body before its teleport went off.

One last Infantryman, sneaking up behind you, was promptly shoved into Battery's way by Velocity and took a sucker punch to the face that tossed it to the side. Without even looking; you fired off a missile and smirked beneath your helmet as the distant explosion erupted.

Missiles: 149/155.

"Is everyone alright?" You asked, gulping when you did a quick headcount of the PRT officers. There were once forty, not counting the ones that Nightcaster had resurrected, only eighteen still stood. Twenty-two lost souls.

You muttered a prayer for their safe passage into the hereafter and sighed as you sat down on the snow, the wind blowing more flakes into your visor while Arne hovered to your position and unmorphed besides you, taking a knee and then a seat.

"Okay...what was any of that?" Velocity said, panting breathlessly while Eudaimonica pulled some energy from her thermal magics to heal what injuries she could. You could tell that she wasn't as good at it as Nightcaster, but unlike him, she didn't need to leech some energy first to catalyse her healing abilities.

"Rikti, extradimensional invaders who bug our Earth a lot. We got lost in one of their bases beneath Paragon City and well...now we're in New Hampshire I guess? Eye dee kay, Eudai yeeted us through the nearest portal when a patrol saw us.." Nightcaster said between pants.

"...Yeet?" Battery said as she walked up, panting a bit and seeming almost hopelessly confused. Good, that made two of you. However, Bumblebee seemed to approve based on his prompt usage of a clip that said that word with an absolutely enthusiastic voice.

"You know...yeet that motherfucker." Eudaimonica said.

"...I don't get it." Arne admitted. You offered him a sympathetic pat and nodded towards him before sending him a text message to the effect of "Neither do I."

"Throw it like, really fucking good, you know?" Nightcaster said with a shrug and a mimed throwing action.

"I think these people are a bit behind on the slang." One of Nightcasters shadow spirits whispered into his ear as he made an "ooooh" sound of realisation before fishing into his utility belt and pulling out a card.

You took a quick look at it, not asking to hold it when you could make out all the details just fine with your vision. The top was blue with some red while the bulk of the card was white, with a picture of Nightcaster in full costume doing...something with his arms that looked like sneezing. Looking at the pose, he was holding both of his arms diagonally upwards in one direction while he put his face into the fulcrum of the arm closest to it.

You noticed the date on the card read "March 22nd, 2020" and that at the bottom read the text "Issued by the Paragon City Department of the Federal Bureau of Superpowered Affairs and the Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation." It seemed to be some sort of license to carry out vigilante work as well as a brief rundown on his abilities and the team of his association.

"...Kid I cannot even begin to list every reason why this card isn't valid." Armsmaster said with a prolonged sigh.

"Yeah well, we're certified for interdimensional activities by PortalCorp so we're super valid." Eudaimonica huffed while Winterpyre leaned in and snorted, the fiery pits that served as his eyes looming menacingly close to the PRT.

"Can someone make that thing back off before I start feeling uncomfortable?" Battery said, stepping back quickly as the Demon Prince hissed steam from his maw.

"Do not badger my charge mortal, and show some respect for the one who helped save you." Winterpyre grunted.

"-Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the war room!-" Bumblebee chimed in, interposing himself between all the competing parties and flipping their battle mask back up to show his face, blue optics scanning between the two groups while you gave an excited wave to the yellow Autobot.

"Nightcaster." You ask, Arne, turning to you to try and gauge what you're trying to do.

"Yeah?" He says, flicking his attention your way.

"What are you planning on doing here? This isn't your reality so...where would you even go?" You ask, giving him a head tilt.

"Oh you see that's uh...easy we're just gonna well. Find a Rikti base and call PortalCorp to pick us up. Super simple." He said, gesticulating nervously.

"So you're going to stumble around a planet you don't know for a base you're not sure about the location of and then fight your way inside a facility full of hostile Rikti and just...wait to be extracted?" Arne asked, his voice genuinely curious rather than the sort of deadpan snark that sort of statement was usually accompanied by.

"...We uh...never said it was a smart plan?" Eudaimonica admitted as Winterpyre clacked the jaws of his exposed skull together.

"...Yeah we're kind of dumbasses." Nightcaster said before you decided to intercede. You were never going to let people who had done so amazingly well insult themselves like that.

"You're not a dumbass! You did amazing there! What you could do with your magic?! That's incredible! You're so young, and you've got so many genetic health issues, and you've never even met a progenitor and...you're just absolutely not stupid!" You say, shooting up and looming over a now very overwhelmed looking Nightcaster who gulps and raises his hands defensively.

"Pep-talks aside, now that we've shown our presence to you, we need to get you debriefed by Jetfire." Windblade said, making a metallic finger snap to get everyone's attention.

"...Is that a codename or an actual name?" Arne said quizzically.

"We'll request a ground bridge to get you all to our nearby base. I'm sure the Decepticons are involved in this." She said as she tapped at the side of her head.

"Hold on, shouldn't we try and find the Rikti base first? If there's more of them out there this planet would be in so much danger with its low tech level. And I've got the signal tracked already." You said, raising your hand and getting an almost astonished look from Eudaimonica.

"Yooooo my gal cracked Rikti cryptography that's sooooooo sweeeeet!" She cheered.

"Okay okay everyone calm down for five seconds. We're not going anywhere because we have four unattended minors, two aliens, and...whatever you are." Armsmaster said, looking between the four of you, the two Autobots and then at Winterpyre before looking back at Nightcaster.

"What protocol says to do is to bring you in for PRT debriefing. We just need to get the right paperwork cleared and get you comfortable in the system before we let you go off and cowboy your way through the planet." Armsmaster said, raising a finger and then pointing it to the Autobots.

"And you two, did you just admit to already having a presence on the planet?"

"Autobot command's been monitoring your planet and putting down scouts since 1984 to counteract Decepticon activity." Windblade said casually as if these were words that made any sense to anyone but herself and Bumblebee.

"...Okay, I'm calling this in." Armsmaster said after giving her a hard look.

"STOP!" You shout.

"STOP FIGHTING!" You scream loud enough to get everyone's attention.

Arne

You felt overwhelmed by all the shouting as Samus looked to you with concern on her face beneath her helmet. Why was everyone already being so hostile towards each other immediately after fighting together against the Rikti? Is this what passes for solidarity here?

"She's right..." You say, standing up yourself and looking at the group.

"I don't think any of this is normal for any of us?" You say, shrugging as you tried to think of what to do. You were rather annoyed by how unclear the next course of action was...you liked being able to always think of the next plan or the next route. This sort of confusion made you feel helpless.

"But I don't think it'd be right for us to try and leave when there's clearly a lot of stuff going on. Maybe we're here for a reason?" You say, looking towards Samus who nodded in approval.

"Yeah, there's definitely a lot of weird stuff going on already and I think we can help out. Especially if we all try to help each other, right?" She said.

"Yeah...but first." You say before Samus pulls you to the side in a predicted motion to share some words with you in secret. You needed to decide what to go for first.

Options:

These actions will be done in unison by Samus and Arne/Sylux and as such there won't be separate options for them. You can also put in a suboption to convince the other groups to come with you.

[]: Go with the autobots to meet Jetfire
[]: Go with Eudaimonica and Nightcaster to try and uncover the Rikti portal base
[]: Go with the Protectorate to the PRT
[]: Go to the Rikti medical base to see their operations
[]: Try to see what's going on in the nearby Urban area
[]: Focus efforts on learning more about the omnipresent malware.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
((Images will be added to the scan logs later))

[X]: Go with the Autobots to meet Jetfire
-[X]: Convince Eudaimonica and Nightcaster to come with you so they can rest and recharge before heading into another fight.
-[X]: Convince the local primitive law enforcement the Protectorate to send a representative with you to the Autobot base to discuss what's going on and coordinate.

Samus

Subject is a sort of robotic mimic known as a Cybertronian named Bumblebee, presently taking the guise of a 1984 Volkswagen Beetle. Spatiochronal analysis suggests that he is not from either this universe or from yours but reveals an age of 5,379,129 Earth years. Analysis indicates that subject is powered by novel energy source referred to as "Energon". Energy readings are especially concentrated in the core region of the body within a spiritual analogue referred to as the Spark. Bumblebee is fully sapient and is capable of altering configuration between vehicular and bipedal mode. The presence of multiple concealed weapons has been detected, but overall systems are inferior to your own in efficiency and sophistication; compensated for by greater size. Further analysis indicates that subject is incapable of intelligible vocal speech due to relatively recent damage. Bumblebee's records indicate that he is a native of the colony world of Velocitus in the whirlpool galaxy.

Addendum: Scans of the subject demonstrate that Bumblebee has a similar technological basis to subversive signal but has not been compromised by it.

Samus' Notes: Aww, poor guy! Who hurt him like this? Maybe they're still around, and I could help out? Hopefully, he'll have some answers for us.

Arne's Notes: We must have spooked him pretty badly if he's disguising himself this poorly for someone who's five million years old. I don't think he's behind the signal though.

Target is a Cybertronian taking the form of a HondaJet referred to as Windblade. Windblade is capable of unusual psionic abilities referred to as "city speaking" due to quirks within her Spark. Windblade also demonstrates similar components to Bumblebee and is of a similar age at 5,382,764 Earth years. Cross-referencing between Distant Sight probing, electromagnetic scans, and signal interception suggests that Windblade primarily prefers to fight in close quarters combat with an energy sword over long-distance combat. Scan data confirms that subject would demonstrate capabilities well in excess of what her alt-mode should be capable of, allowing for vertical take-off and landing. The subject is also not the source of the attempted subversive signal.

Addendum: Subject is aware of scans.

Samus' Notes: A psychic fully mechanical machine not made by a Progenitor culture? That's really interesti-Oh blessed Spirits of the departed she knows.

Arne's Notes: I'm curious as to why it's called "city-speaking?" Might be a specific type of Cybertronian that takes the form of an entire city? That'd have to be an absolutely huge ro-oh. Uh sorry.

Windblade's Notes: Ask next time, please.

"We'll go with you then." You said, offering a brief nod to Bumblebee who gives you a finger pistol gesture.

"-An excellent choice!-" He played, probably from some game show based on the sounds before he started signing at you in a series of gestures your armour translated as soon as he made them.

"<You'll do great with us minicon. We just need to get you sorted with Jetfire, and Red Alert and everything should be good to go. What's your name though? I'm Bumblebee.>"

"+I'm Samus! Samus Eabha Aran. This is my bondsmatch; Arne Eriksen Skjoldr.+" You said back via text message to Bumblebee who seemed to have a moment of realisation.

"+You're not a Cybertronian?+" He texted back as you nodded and dismissed your helmet with a flash of light while everyone else was talking, Arne following suit.

The fade of yellow and blue exposed your young faces to the air of winter and the frost of an early morning blizzard, but you had suffered far colder. You stroked back your ponytail, the golden hair in its usual tomboyish, practical cut that so many people couldn't peel their eyes away from whenever they looked over you. After a year of mingling with your own kind again, and two years of socialisation practice, you were starting to become somewhat aware of how beautiful most people your age found you.

Arne's red eyes had, for the most part, lost the characteristic bags beneath them that you first saw him with two years ago. He had improved so much healthwise after starting to leave Zurvduat's care more often, and his everything seemed to improve after he left his auspices entirely. His platinum coloured hair blew slightly with the winds, and his slender, boyish face sucked in a breath of this planet's air for the first time.

He wrinkled his nose a bit though and muttered about the stench of air pollution that you found noxious yourself until you willed yourself to ignore it. Your suit had informed you that this planet had an overabundance of pollutants associated with primitive chemical fuel usage, but smelling it with your unfiltered nose was another thing entirely. You almost wanted to vomit; how could people live with a smell like that?

Bumblebee studied your face and made a beeping noise of wonderment before signing something that, thanks to downloading the relevant sign language into your memory you were able to decipher unassisted. "<You look great, Samus! You too, Arne!>" You beamed at that, you were quite self-confident regarding your appearance and had come to enjoy the compliments you got, as long as they were respectful of course.

"Thanks! So, I'm guessing a ground bridge would be some sort of terrestrially limited portal right?" You said it didn't take much to piece that together based on the way they talked about it. It seemed pretty self-evident to you. However, you could probably forgive the other humans here for not guessing it if they weren't used to regularly using teleporters.

"Which means you either want us to get there really quickly or don't want us to be able to figure out where the base is from the journey there. Right?" Arne added, getting a quirked metallic brow from Windblade that you found quite curious. Despite being so much older than humanity, they both seemed so oddly human. Fascinating...what could possibly drive this level of convergence you wonder?

"You two are clever. Reminds me of some of the kids we used to work with back on the Earth in our universe." She said with genuine praise, Arne gave a quiet but thankful nod and a bit of a bashful smile while you just widened your grin.

You had however, noticed that both Eudaimonica and Nightcaster were staring at the two of you; gobsmacked by your countenance. You didn't need to be a psychic to guess at their emotional state, though you cleared your throat briefly. There was work to attend to and things that needed doing after all. There'd be time to see if they were worth indulging the interest of later.

"Hold on, power armour or not, the two of you are still minors, and this is not in your pay grade to handle." Armsaster cut in; everyone quickly turning their attention towards him.

"They're not citizens of your country, relax. We're pretty good with taking care of other people's trouble anyway." You felt a bit miffed at that; you weren't anyone's trouble! You frowned and pouted, getting a look of realisationrealisation from the Autobot.

"It means we're good with kids! Don't worry. Bumblebee here's worked with thousands of human children over the years. You'll be in great hands." Windblade said before she extended a hand and kneeled down to something closer to your level, the ground shaking slightly from the movement of a large robot.

"We are Autonomous Robotic Organisms from the Planet Cy-" She started before you interrupted, not quite able to contain the urge to speak out.

"Cybertron, but Bumblebee wasn't created there because he was from the colony world of Velocitus, right?" You said, Windblade seemed to be slightly annoyed by you blurting out, but quickly got over it as her expression changed back to a neutral one.

"Yes. That's it. Though there's something rather interesting." She says as she looks at her left arm's vambrace and brings up a panel of some sort.

"What is?" Arne asks.

"The two of you aren't from this universal cluster or stream. Nor from theirs, or even from ours." She said, though to you it seemed mostly like declaring the obvious. This wasn't the 51st millennium after all. The stars were slightly wrong, and there were many anomalies regarding the planet's chemical makeup that didn't quite fit existing records of this period that you had access to.

"Mhrm, we fell in through a wormhole junction." You started explaining before Arne raised his hand to speak. Something you granted to him as he nodded in gratitude and started his explanation from the top. Tracking down some mysterious interlopers who were present at the facilities you were studying how to properly socialise within before finding both groups of interlopers were fighting for access to a wormhole station—one which was about to go supercritical and vaporise large chunks of the solar system.

"Sounds like space bridge tech to me. But we know groups somewhat matching that description. It's been a difficult time tracking them though. We're too used to tracking other robotic infiltrators to get our heads around organic espionage tactics sometimes." Windblade said, not quite sighing though the disappointment in her voice was evident. But then, could she even sigh to begin with? It's not like she had lungs.

"We could help locate them. We're...pretty familiar with how they work. Studied them in a lot of detail for," He paused, hesitating before finishing his sentence. "Personal reasons. The raiders took my homeworld; the Pirates took Samus'. But I'd think it'd be better to just...give you the data about them. It's not really," He steadied himself, making sure he was breathing properly. "Something that's fun to talk about."

Arne was hesitant to talk about the interlopers in too much detail. You were too. They were cruel, evil organisations who revelled in carnage and slaughter and had to be stopped; but focusing on the memories they left behind was painful. The feeling of the hot ash and the radiant warmth of a burning world lingered in your memory like a phantom, a raw nightmare.

Bumblebee looked with understanding and reached out a hand for the two of you to touch. "-You've got a friend in me-" He clipped, pulling the quote from a song to show his sympathetic nature.

"So why exactly are we putting this much trust in two traumatised teenagers?" You flicked your eyes over to the PRT Officer who overheard that statement and glowered at him.

"Come on, did you see them? They're already superheroes in my book!" Nightcaster said enthusiastically.

"Whatever their capabilities are, it's not wise to trust these sorts of negotiations to minors, it would be more efficient to get a proper governmental representative to handle this sort of diplomacy." Armsmaster said, exhaling with a sigh.

"They're not going to speaking on your behalf. Have you been paying attention at all to what I'm saying? They're not under your jurisdiction." Windblade said, palming her faceplate briefly.

"Apologies for interrupting. But given that these are unattended and stateless minors with clearly parahuman abilities; they would in fact, fall under our jurisdiction. I don't mean any disrespect, but you are an alien and a machine. We would be better suited to handle them and find them cover identities while they stay here." The patriotic one, Miss Militia you gathered, said, stepping up and rubbing at her arm.

"No way, I wanna go with the robots!" Eudaimonica said, folding her arms and stamping her feet into the snow and huffing.

"They are not unattended mortal! A Demon Prince of the Underrealm stands before you with a solemn duty to watch over at least one of them! And I will be happy to look after the other three!" Winterpyre snarls.

"We can make our own choices. And I'm going to choose to go with the Autobots. Come on Arne, Eudaimonica, Nightcaster. I want to see what they have waiting there." You say with a cheery and excitable grin.

Arne

You stifle an odd look thrown at Miss Militia's direction. She was clearly trying to be as nice as she could, but the American themed garb she wore put you off.

In the history texts you read, Omdynisch historians did not regard America's two hundred and sixty eight-year history kindly. A minor footnote in history mostly remembered by late pre-space faring human history students founded in genocide, built by slavery, empowered by empire, and then choked to death under its own failings decades in the making. Something remembered alongside other variably obscure mistakes such as Rome, the United Kingdom, the Third Reich, the Japanese Empire, Terra Prima, or the Hominid Domain.

All this made her seem suspicious to you, untrustworthy. Your distant sight didn't inform you of any immediate danger from her but you had your eye kept firmly on her at all times. A venomous snake would have set you off less, and you can tell Samus had some trepidations herself. While the Federation remembered the United States somewhat less bleakly, the Chozo had little regard for it.

But you were willing to give her at least a chance to speak.

"Would you not be willing to at least allow someone to speak for us to accompany these children and present our case? It would do a great deal to alleviate potential conflict." Miss Militia said, clearly insistent on getting at least a bit of her foot in through the proverbial door. A turn of phrase you were still not entirely sure about the meaning of, but the English engrams you had downloaded into your memory told you it was common now.

Bumblebee raised a pair of fingers to indicate that he recommended at least two people.

"Shouldn't they be someone actually authorised to speak at this level? Most of these people are just...police." You say, doing your best to avoid scorn in your voice and noticing that the officers gathered couldn't help but stare at your platinum hair and scarlet eyes. You academically knew your hair and eye colouration was exotic at best at this time, but you still felt uneasy with the way they were looking at you, talking as if you couldn't hear.

"(They're cute kids but the boy looks like some kind of vampire.)" You heard one of them say as you almost felt a twitch go down your arm.

"(They ever even get any sunlight in those suits? The girl would get sunburned to death and the boy would probably just burst into flames.)"

"(Knock it off, we're still here because of them.)"

"(Space shit, I'm telling you. Probably not even really human. Could be a hologram or some terminator shit. Both of them changed shape like one of them.)" You clenched your fist and seethed but Samus' anger always burned hotter than yours.

"I CAN HEAR YOU! We're not robots and he's not a vampire!" She shouted, snapping her head back towards them and then resting a hand on your shoulder and nodding at you.

"Yeah, please...don't talk about us like we can't hear you." You said, not quite shooting a death glare at them, but making it clear you weren't happy with the way they were talking about you.

"...Oh man that is some amazing hearing." Nightcaster said with a gulp, tugging at his scarf and whispering something about hoping you couldn't read minds too. You couldn't, not yet, the training for that had yet to commence. But you were able to get a read on his mood, nervous, excited, a bit at a loss of what to say.

"Hey, you two." You said, pointing towards the teenaged outverser heroes who looked towards each other and then nodded in acknowledgement. "Come here. It's probably better than standing out in the open like that." He said as the two made a quick teleportation jaunt right to where you were standing. Your eyes scanned over them, seeing the fatigued exertion in their movements and their quicker than normal breaths.

"You should come with us, get a bit of rest at the Autobot base." You said, Samus nodding enthusiastically as the two seemed to realise just how much taller you were than the two of them. Especially fully geared up; where the few extra centimetres of height added by the armour made the gap in height even more marked.

"<We were already planning on letting them do that, but thanks for getting them to get over here! I'd love to let them hang around the base.>" Bumblebee signed.

"Now, you all. When can your representative get here? I'd rather get the kids out of the cold as quickly as possible." Windblade said, resting her metallic hands on her hips and looking down at the PRT officials.

"Negotiators have been on their way since we first spotted you." Armsmaster said cooly as you were alerted to the sounds of distant movement. You hadn't regarded the PRT as a threat and so had largely ignored their presence in the causeways of destiny, and thus only now when they were in hearing range were you aware of the helicopters surrounding the area. Loaded guns clicked around you and orders to move out were given as a short, plain-looking and ungainly woman stepped out of the winding down blades of a Helicopter and the demons of Eudaimonia barked, snapped, and hissed at the sudden presences around them.

A handsome if a bit overly square-jawed for your tastes, clean-shaven brown-haired man in a blue domino mask also descended from the skies, seeming to carry a tremendous deal of reverence from the other protectorate heroes gathered here.

"Oh god oh fuck I don't wanna go to jail!" Nightcaster said as he backed up towards Winterpyre who snorted steam from his nostrils in apparent contempt.

"Yo, what the fuck dude you bring the entire precinct down on us?" Eudaimonica hissed.

"I've come to understand that this is a first contact situation yes? So please, take me to your leader." The man said as both you and Samus' helmets flashed back into existence.

Legend, actual name Keith serves as the overall commander of the Protectorate parahuman team and is considered to be one of the most important and respected parahuman heroes within the United States of America. Considered a gay rights icon and an upstanding paragon of all a hero should be, Legend is well known for his incredible resilience, speed, and luminokinetic firepower. Able to convert his body into light or bend the passage of his light beams to gain an advantage in combat situations, Legend is often referred to as a "flying artillery weapon"; though such statements belie the significant degree to which his firepower exceeds the standard of artillery weapons in this time period. Though well regarded, Legend upholds standard contemporary American viewpoints on criminal justice.

Samus' Notes: Oh, he can shift from matter to energy? Hrm, I'm wondering what mechanism that the symbiont taps into in order to let him do that. I'm disappointed in his views on Law and Order though. But I suppose the Orthodoxy here is what it is. I'm hoping to change that though.

Arne's Notes: So essentially he's the biggest policeman in the precinct and a glorified mascot. The less I have to interact with him the better.

Subject is an ordinary if unhealthy human whose genetic code fits into the norms of the current era, including a predisposition towards heart disease, stomach cancer, and low metabolism. While lacking in any abilities above the baseline human norm and possessing a physique poorly suited for combat or survival situations, Emily has significant influence as the Director of PRT affairs within the Eastern New England region. A survivor of an incident with a quarantined parahuman known as Nilbog, Emily is often regarded as spiteful towards parahumans whom she considers to be prone to grandiose showboating over getting actual results.

Samus' Notes: Oh, a bureaucrat that's...do I have to deal with her? I really don't like talking to stylus draggers.

Arne's Notes: So she's both prejudiced and a police bureaucrat. Gods give me strength.

"So is that your choice of representatives?" Windblade asked.

"At ease please, let's avoid an intestellar incident. Clean up whatever salvage is left." Piggot said as she looked at the situation with a quirked brow. Clearly trying to give the impression that she was maintaining her cool despite how bizarre everything was.

"Now hold on a minute, this tech is several grades above anything this planet mass produces. You can't just help yourself to it without thinking of the possible consequences." Windblade said, raising a hand as Piggot raised a brow.

"This isn't your country I'm afraid." She said somewhat coldly before a swirling green vortex opened up behind the two autobots.

"So, I guess we'll be riding in style. Take me to your leader." Legend said, getting Bumbelbee to palm his face and play a prolonged clip of groaning.

"Wow jeeze dude watch the cringe. How long did you wait to say that line?" Eudaimonica hissed after exaggeratingly recoiling away from Legend.

You didn't get it. You understood it was a reference, but you didn't comprehend how it was meant to be funny.

"Okay before the next attempt at comedy makes me want to offline myself, Jetfire's waiting." Windblade said, ushering those welcome to join through the groundbridge, taking you through a swirling corridor of...green.

Fascinating. You'd love to talk to the builder.

Samus

On the other side of the portal was an extensive base built to accommodate the varying sized frames of the Autobots. It seems like it had been here quite a while, and your scan visor identified the minerals in the still visible parts of the rock as common to the Arkhangelsk oblast of Russia, near the arctic circle.

"Heads up, humans." A slender feminine Autobot said, wheels on her feet spinning slightly as her blue frame shifted to turn her blue optics to you. You dismissed your helmet and arm cannon in flashes of light and offered an enthused wave, getting a smile back from her in return as she muttered "kids" in an appreciative tone.

"Bit busy Arcee, if I don't get the polarity of these couplings right I could do one of two things. Teleport a chunk of Mars on top of Arkhangelsk or form a black hole." A plaintive and somewhat scatterbrained voice shouted back over the intercoms.

"...Black Hole?" Eudaimonica gulped.

"That's just Wheeljack. Don't worry, if one of his experiments goes wrong we've got a spacebridge ready to dump it into infraspace." Arcee said. This put you at ease, at least proper safety protocol was being observed, but it certainly seemed to cause Piggot and Legend no small amount of concern.

"Bee! You creep, why did you reveal yourself in front of this many hum-" A blue and white female Cybertronian said before stopping when she got a look at the two of you and then at Eudaimonica, her Demons, and Nightcaster.

"...Oh scrap, a multiversal event. Perfect." She said with a prolonged sigh.

"Glad to see you too Strongarm." Windblade said as Bumblebee simply shrugged at her accusations.

"Alright, as much as I'd like to get the full procession of everyone in the base, I was promised a meeting with your leader." Legend said, dusting off his hands while Nightcaster whispered something to one of his shadows; a command for it to go scout around the base.

As if on cue, a red and white Su-57 flew through another swirling vortex before shifting into a bipedal form; standing tall amongst the other autobots who mostly took the forms of cars of various stripes.

"So anyway, as I was sayin', Iacon Dreams is fine an' all but if ya want proppa bloody banter ya gotta hit up Maccadam's; absolute ledge that one." He said as a humanoid figure popped out of the cockpit that had formed part of his chest. A figure that your scan visor indicated had technology it recognised.

Arne's eyes lit up as he made a realisation and then preformed a fist on chest salute that was recripocated by the figure in the apparent shape of a Russian fighter pilot. The ebony nanite shell around their robotic endoskeleton rippled and transformed into a more combat standard form to reveal a smooth plated robotic body; black, red, gold, and white plated with a crimson V shaped "visor" that formed its optics. The optic and solar corona symbol of Section 13 of the Commissariat of Public Security of the Omdyn of Democratic Omnipragmatist Council Republics decorated their pauldrons. A grilled mouthpiece glowed red as they spoke in a courteous, androgynous voice.

"Skjoldr? Certainly not the person I was expecting to see here. Miss Aran, a pleasure to meet you too." They said, pausing briefly before folding their arms behind their back. "I am Operative Kyrion, Section 13. I understand that you dealt with a Space Pirate Wormhole station? Certainly, you live up to my expectations for progenitor touched such as yourselves." They said, getting you to almost flush your cheeks with pride at his praise.

"Yeah! Then we ended up here, but well...how did you get here if you're from our reality?" You asked as Kyrion nodded and adjusted the antennae on the sides of their head into a flattened position.

"Similar methods, different goals. So I'd like to ask you, would you care to assist my erstwhile compatriots and I with something?" Kyrion said.

"Of course!" You responded.

"What do you need Urglik?" Arne asked.

"Are you keen on halting efforts at Imperial acquisition and expansion? These iterations of Earth have eyes on them. Dangerous eyes. Not just from our universe but others." They explained, and you nodded enthusiatically. This sounded like your chance to continue on your journey to be the hero the universe needs. Arne of course gave a nod as well, as well as an affirmative.

"Part of Section 13's mission directive is to halt all forms of imperialism, and to protect indigenous pre-FTL cultures from those who would seek to conquer them. We don't know why they're interested in these realities. We're not even sure on who all of them are. But we can't let them have it." Kyrion said.

"See, this chap's got the right bloody idea. Autobot priority is to ensure the liberation of all sapient life. So me an' Kyrie 'ere 've been busy. Then you dropped in and well, from the looks of it; you could 'elp out with our lack of lads." Jetfire said before Piggot finally harrumphed, tired of being outspoken.

"Aren't you forgetting something? You're all extraterrestrials on American soil and are going to have to go through the appropriate channels. You can't just d-" Piggot wasn't allowed to finish her sentence.

"Actually this is Russian soil!" Wheeljack cut in over the intercoms.

"...I'm going to need a drink." Legend sighed while you and Arne shared a laugh.

"Well...I suppose that we all need to begin some rather...involved talks. I could speak on your behalf if you'd like; though it's of course up to you." Kyrion said.

"Yeah, there's probably going to be a lot to speak about." You said.

"Though of course, you have a Rikti problem near Brockton Bay to deal with. Perhaps that would be best dealt with first?" Kyrion said.

"Well, I could show the kids around instead. Get them used to the place if they're going to work with us." Arcee said.

You then remembered something else, the Virus. "Excuse me, do you have any information about some malware going through the information networks on this planet?" You asked, Arne briefly looking towards you before turning to the Autobots as he dismissed his helmet and arm cannon.

"Maybe we should see what's the strategic situation first?" Arne said, always laser-focused on duty first. Something Zurvduat drilled into him for years.

Options:

[]: Participate in the talks under Kyrion's wing
[]: Participate in the talks as peers
[]: Hit the Rikti near Brockton Bay first
[]: Tour the base with Arcee
[]: Investigate the computer virus
[]: Take a look at the strategic situation on Earth Bet.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Participate in the talks as peers

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Jetfire is an Autobot Aerial Commander and a trusted compatriot of the leader of the Autobot Revolutionary movement; Optimus Prime. The commander of the decorated Crimson Comet Wing of Aerialbots and the squadron leader for the Red Meteor Squadron, Jetfire is one of the most well regarded Autobot aerial aces. Jetfire is 286,989,731 earth years of age and has spent more than 225,733,127 years of that time fighting the Cybertronian Civil War. With an aerial victory count in the trillions, Jetfire is feared by his enemies and borderline worshipped by his allies. But to those who work directly with him, he is also fondly regarded as a surprisingly easy-going and understanding commander who works to help others improve; maintaining a down to earth attitude towards his soldiers and allies. Jetfire also is a highly dedicated scientist and works continually to keep his equipment up to date, improving his combat chassis continually with an ever-changing arsenal of equipment suited to the needs of his mission.

Jetfire is currently posted to this incarnation of Earth on the orders of Optimus Prime to monitor and counteract potential imperialist efforts not only by the Decepticons but by other powers. Due to choosing to base within the territory of the Soviet Union which his Autobot team has helped to stabilise to provide a safe operating area, Jetfire takes the form of a Soviet Su-57 jet to help blend into one of his primary fields of operation. This form suits his highly manoeuvre focused fighting style exceptionally well, and his ability to remain airborne in both robot and vehicle mode and fight with highly augmented reflexes gives him a crucial edge over many opponents.

Samus' Notes:

He doesn't initially give the impression of being that old, but there's a lot of wisdom hidden behind that image of just being a friendly face. Oh I can't wait to ask him all the questions I have in my head. He must have so many interesting experiences if he really is that old. And hrm, if he's intervened on Earth to preserve the Soviet Union, he's probably got a very developed understanding of what this Earth's politics are like.

Arne's Notes:

When I get the chance, I really want to talk to him about his thoughts on how I can improve the Sleipnir. I'm sure he'd have some opinions once he gets to have a look at it. Maybe he'll even like what I worked on? I just hope he doesn't find me to be bothersome. It shouldn't be too hard to get into his good graces at least; we'd probably agree on a lot of things.

Arne

Samus, of course, spoke up first, always the outgoing one. She cleared her throat and raised her hand, getting the attention of Jetfire who flicked his optics away from Piggot and Legend almost immediately.

"Ey, the twist and twirl wants ta speak up lads. So why don't ya put a sock in it fer a tick er two? Go on Samus; my receptors are open wide as the Channel." You were unsure of why an alien robot who was more than two hundred and fifty million years old spoke like a working-class east Londoner from the 21st century, but you at least were able to follow his words.

"We'd like to sit in on the negotiations, but as our own party. All due respect to you Kyrion." She said, looking towards the Section 13 agent who offered a nod and a fist on chest salute in acknowledgement. "It's just that; I'd rather we be free to voice our own concerns. We're not here officially or anything after all." She said.

"Of course Samus, Arne. It would do me a great deal of honour to listen to what progenitor-touched would have to say regarding our present situation." Kyrion said with a friendly but not overly formal salute.

"We just need to get our bearings. I think we'll be able to start figuring out what to do once we've got all the pieces." You say, getting some nods of approval from the gathered autobots.

"Well, we're kind of out of our like, depth here. But I guess as the Primal Earthers here we kind of have to speak for our dimension?" Nightcaster said with a shrug, having a hard time peeling his eyes away from all the technology on display. At the same time Eudaimonica was trying to poke at a console before a minicon arrived at its post.

"You are rather young however. Perhaps it would be best to allow me to handle such business until portal corps can send a representative?" Winterpyre suggested as Eudaimonica groaned in frustration in the background.

"As much as the four of you impressed in the frenzied AAR I was passed, you're all minors. With all due respect, and I do mean that; this sort of diplomacy is best left to adults. You should probably get acquainted with..." He paused, looking around for a second as if he himself was not quite sure what to say, finding all this to be about as overwhelming as you did.

"All of this." He finished.

"With all due respect, you have no authority over us. We're not here to represent any country or group. We're just going to be there to well...speak for ourselves." You said, laying a hand on your hip as you spoke.

"If you're going to make decisions that affect us, it's only fair to let us be involved with them!" Samus added, stepping forward a bit and puffing out her chest slightly beneath her varia suit.

"I don't know, just call me uncomfortable with the idea of letting kids sit through an alien contact scenario without supervision. Neither of you even have the proper papers for your legal existence." Legend said with a somewhat resigned sigh, clearly thinking that he was only trying to be reasonable in the face of a very unreasonable situation.

"We don't need supervision. We're able to handle ourselves." You say, cutting in. Legend gave you the impression of meaning well, but probably being too set in the ways of what he was familiar with to mesh all that neatly with you.

"Be that as it may, there are rules and protocols that still need to be followed, young man." He said placing both of his hands on his hips and looking at you with a pose you figured was meant to be heroic and inspiring. But to you, it came off as perhaps a bit patronising.

"We're not babies! We've dealt with things like this before!" Samus said, huffing and narrowing her eyes at Legend.

"Yes, you clearly do have a level of experience somewhat atypical for your age. Mayhaps we should be a touch flexible?" Piggot said, giving Legend a brief look before he gave a nod.

"Alright, I suppose this is out of my jurisdiction. I'm not even sure what jurisdiction means at the moment when I've got two kids who've fallen from space who sound like they tumbled out of Dublin and Reykjavik. Then a demon prince, two kids from the near future, and now apparently robot aliens have been among us since the Reagan administration." Legend admitted with a sigh, briefly rubbing his face and murmuring about how a warm mug of coffee would do him wonders right about now.

"...Who wins the twenty twelve presidential election?" Legend hazarded an ask, looking at you and then at Eudaimonica.

"...Barack Obama?" You say, shrugging. American history was a short-lived footnote over forty-eight thousand years of history; it didn't really command that much interest from you beyond it being held up as an archetypical pre-spacefaring dystopia in Omdyn history.

"Nat Brown." Eudaimonica said with an enthusiastic nod.

"...I have no idea who either of those people are." Legend admitted, shrugging.

"For what it's worth, our answer would be different too." Arcee said.

Bumblebee signed a message to the group, indicating his relief that the gathered parties here could be reasonable at the end of the day and offering his assurances regarding his experience with children. His movements were energetic, quick, but always easy to follow, fingers and joints moving with incredible flexibility for a machine to make every word discernable even for novices at sign reading.

"I mean if the Volkswagen says it's okay..." Legend said in a way that you thought was meant to be a joke based on his inflexion, but you weren't entirely sure on all the nuances of early 2010s American English. Especially when the English you downloaded into your memory was of the British variant due to its greater longevity and ease of availability.

The uncertainty made you nervous about possible responses. Was it alright to laugh? Laughing at the wrong time tended to make people give you weird looks, so you decided to hold off on it for now. So instead you decided to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"What are we going to do with Eudaimonica and Nightcaster?" You asked, looking to the two mages as they played around with some spellcraft energy to while away the time, a matrix of shadowy and pyronic magic weaved from tendrils of arcane energy. You weren't sure if they were forced to be as precocious as yourself or Samus, they seemed to be much more...like normal kids, chattering away and focusing their attentions on silly games.

"I can speak on their behalf for now." Winterpyre said with a polite tone, one hand behind his back and the other offering a surprisingly gentlemanly genuflection even as mystical energy crackled dangerously around him.

"Is it...he legally permitted to do that? Are we even certain that their claims of being from another reality are true?" Piggot said, dusting her coat off to push away some of the snow that had accumulated onto it while she was outside.

"Well, I know what's bloody what on their royal berth, so I'm giving it the jolly ol' plums' cup." He said while giving what was rather clearly a thumbs up and not a plums' cup. Based on his accent you figured "royal berth" was also some sort of rhyming slang...Earth? Strange way to express it but as long as he wasn't diving headfirst into incomprehensibility, you supposed it was fine.

"Well, if they're not going to be sitting in themselves, mind if I show them around?" Arcee asked, looking towards the two children who looked towards one another with excitement blazing in their eyes. An expectant, almost pleading sensation radiated from them like the sword of Damocles, almost choking you with how badly they wanted to poke around every nook and cranny. And the cheer they gave when Jetfire, Bee, and Windblade gave their thumbs up almost hurt your ears.

"Aww, look at how eager they are to explore! Ah, we're going to be such great friends I can tell!" Samus says, grinning like a maniac while you made your own coy look of appreciation for a fellow explorer's eagerness to dive into the unknown and uncharted.

"Yeah, we should probably well...do that too when we've got time." You say to her, making her tap her chin and nod energetically at you in agreement.

"Very good idea Arne! Probably after we've cleared some immediate priority missions? Then we should have enough free time to relax a bit." She said, giving you a thumbs up that turned into a shared fist bump and armlock between the two of you—your secret handshake.

"Now that's sorted. Come on then chinas we've got some biz ta sort out. Come on, off ya go then, chop-chop!" He said jokingly as he gestured to the door that had just slid open to let them through.

The walk down the hall was somewhat uneventful save for when you spotted some other human children in costume looking down from a walkway built to allow humans or minicons to access some higher up areas easily.

You offered one of them a wave as she looked in your direction and gave a bashful smile upon seeing your face after having dismissed your helmet. Though bashfulness gave way to pure interest, and you sensed a number of other emotions curling from her; coloured sensations tingling your mental senses.

"Hello." You said plainly, not trying to embellish your statements too much since all you were doing was offering a greeting.

"Privet tovarisch." She said with an interested, raised eyebrow expression and a wide grin. One that made you feel seen in a distinctly pleasant way that gave you a rather warm sensation inside. You figured her for about the same age as yourself, and if you had to guess she probably wasn't in full costume, especially given how poorly her outfit disguised her face.

The Russian girl was wearing some manner of domino mask and a colourful but practical looking military produced costume with green coloured inset plates, red trimmings, and the occasional gold highlights; she looked rather nice. She was definitely someone who spent a lifetime continually working out, with the armour padding of her suit giving a good impression of the contour of her musculature. Closer examination also showed that the outfit seemed to have attachment points, confirming your suspicions that it was meant to be worn with another outfit.

"Hi there!" Samus said with distinctly more energy, waving with enough force to create a whipcrack sound from her arm as she had a large grin on her face.

Shortly after making contact, the slender black-haired and green-eyed Russian girl whispered something to a nearby companion in a more red outfit as the blond set down his fighter pilot styled helmet and ran his hands through messy locks. He gave the impression of having recently been sweating quite a lot, and you could see a few beads still dripping down his forehead.

Another look at him confirmed that he was built for agility and finesse rather than raw power, and the insets of his suit seemed mostly to accentuate the muscle groups of his body in a rather flattering manner. Like her outfit, it had attachment points, and like her, he wore a small mask that covered part of his face but not quite enough to be likely to guise his identity from anyone who knew him. He shrugged off more of the plating of what you presumed was his full armoursuit, offering it to a drone who took it off of him as he wiped his brow and dabbed at his face with a cloth.

He said something to the girl as she called to him, waving to the both of you and giving a nod of acknowledgement to the man in the commissar cap.

Your armour immediately downloaded knowledge of the languages commonly spoken in the region into your memory, and you were able to pick up on what you heard.

"Jetfire must have found more aliens Molotok." The boy had said before you understood them, though with the knowledge of the Russian language you had now you were able to decipher it.

"Yes, though right now they look more like cute teens, no Serp? The girl's hair is like gold and the boy? Ah, Nichjose!" She said back with some excited chatter while a man in an officer's cap sipped at his coffee behind them and glowered at Piggot and Legend.

"Ah, da. They are easy on the eyes. But they're probably going to be busy with the Autobots for a while. Especially when they've got the Protectorate golden boy with them." He said in response. He said the word protectorate with notable scorn, and looked at Legend as if he were some roadkill a cat dragged into the house.

Legend muttered something about having fully expected a frosty welcome from this country while the Russian boy and girl giggled to each other.

"Fucking hell how are we going to keep this quiet." The man in the officer cap said before palming his face.

"I think we've got uh...some appreciators." You say to Samus who smirks with enthusiasm and a raised eyebrow.

"Mhrm. Which one do you like better?" She asks with a sly, cunning grin on her face as the two of you begin to flush.

"...Come on you know that's not a fair question." You say as you bashfully turn away from directly facing her.

"Yoohoo, snowhair! Welcome to the Rodina! Come see us when you have the time, da?" The girl said before blowing a kiss towards you and smiling. Samus giggled at you and pinched your cheek in a way that only made you feel more embarrassed.

"Maybe we could all get together hrm?" Samus said daringly while you made a little smirk and a scoff before wiggling your eyebrows at her.

"Ah, a salute to you is in order krasotka. I look forward to getting to know you both." The boy said, smirking and giving Samus a quick, informal salute that Samus grinned at, but met with a thumbs up rather than anything quite so stiff as a formal military gesture.

Actually named Irina "Irinushka" Vladimirovna Kuznetsov, Molotok is a young parahuman attached to the Soviet Otmolsoza (Special Protection Youth Division of the Soviet Union) and a native of the city of Arkhangelsk. Irina bonded to her extradimensional symbiont following an encounter with a rampaging tinker made robot of Swedish origin derived from the illicitly acquired corpse of a Decepticon slain in an aerial engagement acquired by the tinker Svartalfar before the Autobots could recover it. Originally developed with the hopes of helping to fight Endbringers, the lingering code from the fallen machine's repurposed Cybertronian components meshed poorly with its new programming when Svaltalfar thanks in part due to Gesellschaft sabotage; resulting in a monstrosity that rampaged across the baltic for two weeks. Due to the severity of its attack on Arkhangelsk, she has a double bond to her entity.

The incident gave her the ability to store, manipulate, and amplify kinetic energy for various purposes, such as absorbing incoming blows, forming shielding, significantly augmenting the force behind her impacts, move objects, enhance or drain speed, leech energy to accelerate natural healing, or even releasing them as impact blasts or shockwaves. Her status as a general-purpose take all comers melee combatant, and tremendous capacity for punishment has made her indispensable to the Sentinels at Arkhangelsk. However, Irina has been diagnosed with a martyrdom complex and a tendency of unnecessarily taking on the burdens of others and worsened mood if unable to offer assistance. All while she often refuses to ask others for help even when in need out of a feeling of not wanting to burden others.

Samus' Notes:

Based on the records that I can access she's done really well for herself even at a young age! I'm hoping her therapy is going well at least. I can emphasise with the pain of having so many people you know killed in a single moment. Maybe I should talk to her when I can?

Arne's Notes:

She reminds me of myself in a few ways, but I'm not sure what I can really do to offer help besides commiserating with her. And would that be what she needs? It works with Samus, but her circumstances are so different in a lot of ways. I think I'd need to get to know her better to say for sure.

Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak js a parahuman member of the Otmolsoza and one of the Arkhangelsk division's foremost generalists. Vitya is able to "sharpen" objects, reshaping them at the molecular level for additional efficiency such as making a cutting edge a monomolecular blade and reinforcing them with extradimensional energy to prevent them from breaking; including himself. Also a double-trigger, Vitya can apply his sharpening and reinforcing to more esoteric effects, such as sharpening his senses, enhancing his accuracy, self augmentation, and getting more efficiency out of used objects. The sharpening effect ends briefly after he ceases having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to be used with projectile weapons.

Vitya was "triggered" in the same incident that saw Irina being bonded to her entity, albeit in a separate part of the city during the rogue machine's rampage. The Otmolsoza partnered the two, due to being the same age and having had a prior relationship before manifesting their abilities, thus leading to the aliases "Hammer and Sickle" under the tutelage of the experienced Soviet parahuman "Nakoval'nya" or "Anvil". Vitya's profile lists him as a brave but sometimes overbearing would-be classical hero and party loyalist who holds people to high standards. While well-meaning and making an effort to be kind, Vitya has difficulties with holding back criticism even when entirely unsolicited. However, his versatility and commitment have ensured that he commands a significant deal of respect within Arkhangelsk.

Samus' Notes:

Hrm, I think I can see why he's something of a local favourite! Very committed to his tasks and also pretty striking to look at. I wonder how aware he is of how his abilities work? There might be ways I could help improve on his process if he wants my help with that. I am, however, less sure on his commitment to party loyalty.

Arne's Notes:

His tendency to follow orders without exercising his freedom to question them enough aside, he seems to be somewhat reasonable to work with. I'm not sure I'm going to like hearing him needle me about perceived faults though, I've gotten more than enough of that over the years.

Commissar Nurzhan Maulenov serves as the political officer in overall command of overseeing the Arkhangelsk Oblast's Divzasovyuz division's morale, mental health, commitment, and ties to civilian life. Kept deliberately separate from the Divzasovyuz (Special Protection Division of the Soviet Union) Stavka in order allow him more freedom to operate, Nurzhan takes his work with a relaxed and understanding attitude and tries his best to ensure that the parahumans he works with remain happy and healthy. Nurzhan also holds the secret position of the Soviet Union's primary political liaison to the Autobots based in the outskirts of Arkhangelsk, a task that he feels overstretches his time between these two duties. However, the Kazakh officer remains determined to do the best he can with the resources he has at his disposal, even if he often regards the Autobots as less than sensitive to the possible geopolitical effects of their actions.

Nurzhan is also known for his deep-set hatred of the Gesellschaft organisation not merely out of ideological reasons, but also due to the suffering his Jewish matrilineal family has suffered at the hands of Nazi movements. He has long entertained dreams of one day destroying the entire organisation, which have only intensified as the Gesellschaft and its vassal organisations such as the Empire-88 have begun to militarise and expand their operations with the aid of unknown benefactors at ever-growing rates.

Samus' Notes:

...Nazis? Here? I...I hadn't thought about this possibility of such movements existing here...hurting people. I'm going to help him get what he wants out of this Gesellschaft. They're all going to pay.

Arne's Notes:

If he seeks Nakam, then I'm all for helping him. He doesn't need to offer me anything in return. This...if there was nothing else was on this planet to worry about I'd still help him with this.



Behind you, Piggot glared daggers at Nurzhan who responded with his own gesture of pointing both fingers at his eyes and then back at her. Clearly, while the records you were able to access say that the Cold War had, for the most part, faded into the background; there were still geopolitical rivalries of substantial intensity. A tension that you could feel in your bones and just about see making sparks in the air as Nurzhan stroked his moustache and said something to a dark blue and red minicon who tended to a terminal behind him.

"I'm hoping Jetfire has an amazing explanation for this." You hardly needed to be a psychic to tell that he was certainly not pleased.

It was rather like home, for all you and Samus enjoyed each other's company, your home countries were long at each other's throats with civility enforced primarily by the existence of more pressing mutual threats. Samus, despite her beliefs being quite close to yours, still believed in the Federation's potential to live up to the Chozo's dream for it. You, of course, were somewhat more sceptical.

"Alright loves, 'ere we are. Got plenty of seats sized fer all sorts and if ye can't find one well...they transform so there's that. Nifty innit?" Jetfire said as he opened a large door for all of you to go through. Kyrion had already found their way to a seat which shifted in proportions and configuration to let them ease into a seat without seeming overly tiny within it, something the two of you did shortly afterwards.

The seats raised themselves up to the level of a table-sized for Jetfire as he sat himself down in a far larger chair, waiting for Winterpyre and the two Americans to make themselves comfortable. At last, Nurzhan joined in, sighing as he folded his hands together and tapped his earpiece to make sure that if he needed to hear anything important, he would.

"Hrm, I noticed something interesting Arne." Samus whispered to you, your head turning towards her and tilting in questioning.

"Yeah?" You asked.

"We're the only two people here not representing anyone else." She says, swinging her feet in the chair and humming jauntily.

"Right, so first order fer today. We got ourselves a bit of a buggered situation. Got more possible extraterrestrial er extraversal problems rubbish bargin' their way into these earths. Now for the longest time, they kept all quiet-like. Working in the background, then you came in." He said, flicking a finger over to the both of you.

"So...us arriving caused things to escalate?" You asked.

"I did feel some sort of...presence when we first came here?" Samus added.

"Startin' with you takin' out the bell ends runnin' that bloody awful wormhole party function" More rhyming slang, probably Junction. "We got spikes of unusual energy. Gubbins that usually won't even turn on when we try ta muck around with the Primus damned things started flashin' on. Now we can't bloody use the damn things bu-" He said as he brought up a series of holograms that made Samus just about leap out of her seat and slam her hands into the table.

Samus

"I know what those are!" You shout as your expression transforms into a wide grin. You were positively ecstatic, your whole body almost alight with energy as the implications of what lay before you sank in. You were just about trembling with joy and excitement and had to calm yourself with a quick breathing exercise not to make quite as much of a scene.

"Young lady, perhaps it would be best for you to wait for your turn to speak instead of interrupting?" Legend said, less than impressed by your outburst only to be met with a sour look from you to inform him that you were less than appreciative of his demand. You weren't a baby, and you resented being treated like one when you could more than handle yourself.

"Tovarisch, perhaps you should consider the unusual circumstances of this meeting and assume that she has good reasons to speak up?" Nurzhan said in surprisingly fluent English, stroking his brown moustache and ruminating on the situation.

"He's correct Legend. Given her, unusual capabilities, we shouldn't treat her or her companion too much like other children." Piggot said, getting a look of concern from Legend before he sighed and nodded.

"Now, I think I didn't catch your name mister and miss?" She said.

"Samus Aran. Samus Eabha Aran. But just Samus is fine. Don't call me Sammy though, it's...weird when I don't know any of you enough." You say, perking up a bit and shifting in your seat.

"Arne Eriksen Skjoldr." Arne said, straightening himself to avoid slouching in his chair. A reflex you've tried to help him avoid after recognising exactly where his fear of not sitting exactly properly came from, and a tap from your hand onto his shoulder broke him out of the reverie and got him to relax just a bit.

"Irish and Icelandic, yet your technology is not of tinker origin from the report Bumblebee forwarded. You are from space or perhaps a different universe da?" Nurzhan said with curiosity.

"Yes! It's the year fifty thousand and fourteen where we're from. We turned fourteen just yesterday!" You said before you ran down the usual explanation for him, noting him quickly getting out a tablet and furiously writing down notes onto it with a stylus.

"He doesn't even need to look at what he's writing." Arne said, his voice a low whisper with no small amount of impressed awe at it. Especially for an unaugmented human.

"Forty-eight thousand years in the future...hopefully this is not time travel." He said with a look of concern, steepling his fingers.

"They do not taste of the sands of years to come from the time deserts of this realm. Their soulsong quivers in tempos unique to them, just as mine does yours and Jetfire's does to the rest of us." Winterpyre crackled as he clenched his skull like jaw and snorted out a gust of steam.

"I figured as soon as you mentioned the president. So, I suppose it would be useless to ask what is in store then. Shame, I was going to ask for lottery ticket numbers." Piggott said with a slightly mirthful smile.

"Well obviously, even if this were time travel our presence here would either ensure a stable time-loop or create a differing branch; it would take very specific circumstances to really alter his-" You make a realisation after blurting out once more that fires off in your brain like a fusebox having some switches turned.

"Oh that's a...joke...sorry...but uh...ahem." You clear your throat and flush a bit red, feeling embarrassed at having missed the humour in that sentence.

"But to ah, get back on topic. We do recognise those holograms." Arne said, gesturing to the vaguely avian, partly insectoid, all lanky but definitely humanoid statue holding something in its outstretched arms while a cyclopean monolith sheltered another prize in a humming field of energy. While you looked at the avian statue with enthused joy, Arne's expression was one best described as "emotionally mixed" as he looked at the cyclopean edifice and its teardrop-shaped head.

"Chozo and Alimbic artifice. And many other progenitor cultures too! They must have visited this place during some extraversal research and left behind some relics. Ah, I wish my papas and mamas were here, I'd love to show you them in person!" You said, looking wistfully at the Chozo hologram in particular, reaching towards it briefly and making a soft smile.

"Hahah, well guvnah Kyrion's given us some details but if yer keen on giving us the rundown." Jetfire said, a jovial laugh coming from the Autobot.

"Oh, of course, the two of you are outright Progenitor-Touched, raised even. I'm just a spy at the end of the day. On this, I defer to both of you." Kyrion said respectfully.

"Oh, the Chozo are fantastic. Wise, ancient, and benevolent beyond measure. When I lost my first family, they took me in even when I had nothing to give them. Just out of the kindness of their hearts." You said with a beatific smile. Warm memories washed over you like the golden rays of the sun on a pleasant spring day.

"Most have left the material realm for one reason or another. But the ones who stayed still watch over the stars, helping to stop conflicts before they can happen. They even formed the Federation to help bring different cultures together peacefully." You said wistfully, brushing a bit of hair away from your face. A splotch of blackness on the causeways of destiny however gave you reason to flash a look of concern towards Arne.

"The Alimbics were...an Empire, the Tetrarch Order. Allies, then rivals of the Chozo until they all disappeared fifty thousand years ago." He said, avoiding describing them in overly specific details. His face wrenched itself with confused emotions. Love and resentment clashed inside of his troubled mind, and you laid a hand on his hair and scratched at his scalp in a way that made his tension just melt.

"Thank you." He muttered to you before taking the offered hand in his own and giving you a quick smile before turning back to the gathered group.

"They were...extremely advanced, more militaristic than the Chozo, more dominating. Some were buried on my homeworld in a deactivated battlecruiser and chose to take me in after Cylosis was...Kyrion can tell you the details." He said, fearful of confronting those memories head-on.

"The Chozo raised me on Zebes; the Alimbics raised him on Sentus Primaris. They augmented us with their DNA and helped us design our power armour and ships. Though we had to do all the hard work there, really." You said, deciding to take up the speaking role for him as he tensed at having to talk about his adoptive family. You didn't blame him; you wanted to scream whenever you had to retrace the steps made on K-2L in anything but the vaguest terms.

"They even educated us in well...nearly everything. But when we finished learning about the sciences, philosophy, history, and combat a year ago; they sent us to get social education amongst our home countries. We're in our first year of it. I think we're doing pretty good! At least, I know I've had a lot of fun." You say, beaming a bit as the gathered group nods intently.

"Yeah it's...been pretty good to get away from Sentus Primaris. Hang around other children more. Learn what I've been missing." Arne added, smiling a bit and giving you a sly smirk.

"Oi, so how'd you two meet anyway?" Jetfire cut in.

"Oh. On our twelfth birthday our guardians thought it'd be for the best if we were introduced to each other. Cultural exchange, we got along uh...very well." He said, his knowing look towards you making the both of you glow a bit as you snorted and shared his flush, breaking down into a bit of a giggle.

"So the gist is that both of you are only partly human." Legend said, making you narrow your eyes at him. You didn't like being called "half" human or "half" chozo. You considered yourself both in equal measure. A child of two worlds but wholly of both. You were Samus Aran just as much as you were Aira-Sekh. Being called partly human felt...denigrating.

Arne's mood outright soured in response, and he muttered "says the man with a symbiont stuck to his brain" under his breath. His humanity was always essential to him, and the very implication that he might be less than entirely human made his spine crawl.

"Tovarisch, perhaps you should leave the American obsession with hyphens at home, da?" Nurzhan said, raising a brow and looking up from his tablet.

"Remind me again why we're letting the Soviets sit in on this when this conversation is about an American incident?" Legend said, looking towards Jetfire with a mixture of displeasure and demanding curiosity.

"Cuz' yank, we got this base 'ere on their permission. Yer government wasn't exactly keen on letting a revolutionary movement set up camp so we bounced off over and 'fore you know it bob's your uncle. We gotta liaison with your government though, guess you're just not wearin' a fancy enough hat to speak to 'em." Jetfire answered casually.

"...Wait are you saying that they?" Legend started.

"Area 51 china. Relations' kinda frosty though."

"...Of course." He said. He felt clearly troubled that his own government would decide to keep something like this a secret from him. You sympathised with him.

"Hrm, now I'm curious as to whether you have a similar presence in Primal Earth's Soviet Union." Winterpyre said, licking their teeth and smouldering in the corner.

"'Course we do." Jetfire said with a shrug before looking back over to you.

"Right, anyways. We popped off onto your planet in the eighties, followin' Decepticon Space bridges in our Primus-Damned forever scrap. Turns out this planet, like the version of Earth we're familiar with; soddin' full of energon and other sundry resources too. Absolute motherlode 'ere. Dark Energon too." Jetfire said, his robotic interface with the holographic table showing Jetfire's ship entering orbit, sending out shuttles to more than one incarnation of earth.

Then it cut to autobot prospectors finding all manner of ample resources; especially powerful looking red crystals and glowing liquid red ores. This must be the energy that you detected in Bumblebee and the other Cybertronians and based on how it was shown being used; their whole society must depend on it. You saw it being used for everything from making more of themselves to fuel, weaponry, and even blood transfusions; using seeds of naturally occurring Energon to create far larger batches of pure grade synthetics.

Then it cut to images taken of a dark purple and malevolent looking counterpart to that red substance, the necrotic energies of the twisted energy making your skin crawl even in holographic form. Your spirit recoiled at the very sight of a substance like this, an offence to the very soul itself.

Even worse were the images of clearly dead beings twisted back into a horrible unlife, mauled transformers pulling themselves back up hungering for sparks or changed into more...advanced undead monstrosities and even dead organics lurching to mutated undeath. Inanimate machines twitched into a dark parody of life and animus, transforming into fearful robots with purple eyes of malice. Living beings shooting themselves with its sinister power to gain a clearly unholy power from it that made you lay a hand on your chest and muttered a prayer while Arne made a knot symbol with his fingers to ward himself against evil.

Nurzhan had already seen this before, but Legend and Piggott whispered amongst each other with concern. At the same time, Winterpyre howled with hissing hatred at the sight of the Dark Energon, pulling back and making a sound like a disturbed crocodile.

"So why didn't you see fit to tell us about the presence of materials valuable to your civilisation before?" Piggot said with a soft but definitely displeased tone.

"Because Autobot Prime protocol is ta try an' fix up these cock-ups with minimal disruption. We just start blowin' all this wide-open an' they ain't gonna keep playin' all sneaky like. Then, of course, yer end; we act openly, and we flip yer whole bloody world topsy-turvy. We'd have every bell-end starting an arms race or worse." He started.

"Course that's startin' ta get damn near impossible as every smarmy git tries ta knick off with more and more dosh makin' a right fraggin' omnishambles out the whole planet. Then ye got the knock-on effects from all these wazzocks havin' a butcher's and blimey the whole thing's buggered."

There was a profound silence.

"...What?" Legend finally said.

"What I'm sayin' is that we're probably gonna have to shift to public knowledge soon, even if your governments want us ta stay secret. Efforts at keeping this contained are gettin' undoable. Activity's bein' stepped up all across the board." He said, folding his hands together.

"I 'aven't got a lot of lads 'ere. Stretched thin as is. I was 'opin' that you could put in a word and ask for us ta cooperate. We're not gonna share our weapons kit as a rule unless absolutely necessary. But maybe we could coordinate." He explained further.

"We will primarily seek to deal with...extraterrestrial and dimensional affairs rather than overtly interfere in your local business. Though as the scale of interdimensional and terrestrial contact continues to increase the sustainability of noninterference decreases." Kyrion said, gesticulating naturally and calmly.

"We are in the dark regarding much of what goes on in the shadows just as you are. But I think this breach in secrecy can be put to good use. Especially with some noted centers of non-native activity already afoot; much of which is clustered around Brockton Bay." Kyrion added.

"What about us? We're obviously not of this Earth." You ask, turning to Kyrion whose visored optics flicked over to you.

"For the time being, a cover identity will suffice. As for your armoured operations, well; falling from orbit wasn't that subtle. Especially when we probably won't be able to keep the answer to whether you are alone in the stars secret for much longer." Kyrion said as Nurzhan and Piggot both looked towards them with alarm.

"What exactly are you referring to?" Piggot said.

"That the Rikti were willing to commit two platoons to chasing after two primal earthers suggests they've built up a formidable presence. They're going to make use of it soon." Kyrion said bluntly.

"Yes, the altered bloods must be amassing an army from the local population. Tell me Piggot, has there been word of monsters in the sewers and the homeless disappearing?" Winterpyre said, tapping at his skeletal nostril pit and then flicking his blazing gaze towards her.

"Yes...but there's rumours of monsters in every sewer and the homeless disappear all the time." She said.

"Doesn't that concern you? Ever?!" You say, blurting out and standing out of your seat.

"It's...not a good thing if poor people disappearing is just a normal thing." Arne added.

"Missing persons is not my jurisdiction miss Aran and mister Skjoldr. We're as...Jetfire said, stretched thin enough dealing with parahuman problems."

"Well, we can help with that!" You said, thumping your fist against your chest.

"Ay, I can groundbridge in some support meself. Might 'elp the squishies avoid gettin' fragged." Jetfire added.

"Tovarisch, would you be open to some international support? This is a matter of the whole of the Earth after all." Nurzhan said, looking up from his tablet.

"I will...likely need to refer to my superiors on that." Piggot said.

"If it would please you, we are well aware of what the Rikti can do. We could help navigate their bases if it would please you, mortals." Winterpyre said.

"Course, Windblade says ye've got some fancy scan bitz there ye two. Might be able to 'elp with IT on trying to crack the virus programs disseminated through all our monitored earths. Then we've got some local stuff 'ere in Arkhangelsk ye might wanna look at. Finally, there's something over 'ere in Germany that might be worth yer concern. Been buggin' Nurzhan for ages." Jetfire said, forwarding your suit some mission data.

Options:

Asking for more info/assistance: Pick three (limited due to time-sensitive nature of available missions)
[]: Ask more about the Autobot presence on Earth
[]: Inquire more about the PRT
[]: Look more into the situation in Europe
[]: Ask for more information on the Rikti
[]: Ask if Jetfire can retrieve your ships for you
[]: Ask Kyrion about Section 13's presence on the planet.

Mission choices:

Pick one mission to undertake.

[]: Mission 1: Rikti Tikti Tavi
Enemy: Rikti
Location: Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America, Earth Bet
Mission Type: Search and destroy
Objectives: Determine scope, nature, and intention of Rikti presence near Brockton Bay, eliminate hostile Rikti forces.
Difficulty: Moderate
Rewards: 2 Chozo artifacts, 2 Alimbic relics, High quantity Rikti Salvage, improved relation with PRT and Brockton Bay characters, access to Brockton Bay PRT facility.

[]: Mission 1a: Computer Woes
Enemy: ???
Location: Various, Earth Bet.
Mission Type: Investigate and extract
Objectives: Find at least three clues on Unknown Computer Virus, will require multiple destination visits.
Difficulty: Unknown.
Rewards: 2 Chozo artifacts, 2 Alimbic relics, reduced ability for Virus disseminator to track movements and monitor activities, unknown salvage, improved relations with Autobots.

[]: Mission 1c: Nazi punks fuck off
Enemy: Gesellschaft, Empire-88, Mysterious Benefactors
Location: Munich, Bavaria, Federal Republic of Germany, Earth Bet
Mission Type: Party crash.
Objectives: Uncover nature of the Gesellschaft's newest benefactors allowing the organisation to operate at far higher threat levels than normal, interrupt scheduled trade deal between Gesellschaft and Benefactors.
Difficulty: Easy.
Rewards: 2 Chozo artifacts, 2 Alimbic relics, unknown salvage, improved relation with Divzasovyuz and Primal Earth, access to Divzasovyuz facilities.

[]: Mission 1d: Tundra Terror
Enemy: Unknown
Location: Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Earth Bet
Mission Type: Track and rescue
Objectives: Investigate monster presence and rash of disappearing persons; locate and rescue missing persons.
Difficulty: Unknown
Rewards: 2 Chozo artifacts, 2 Alimbic relics, unknown salvage, improved relation with Divzasovyuz and Section 13.

(Squad composition select is currently unavailable)
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Inquire more about the PRT
[X]: Look more into the situation in Europe
[X]: Ask if Jetfire can retrieve your ships for you

[X]: Mission 1c: Nazi punks fuck off


wolfenstein_051414_1600.jpg


Mission 1: Nazi Punks, Fuck off!

Headlines

Freak Snowstorm shuts down schools in New England

Students face an extended vacation from school as a result of the sudden January blizzard sweeping in southwards from Canada in what meteorologists are describing as a record-breaking polar vortex. Many however, are baffled by the polar vortex's sudden shift further southwards, diverting from a continued westward approach to sweep over the eastern seaboard. With temperatures continuing to hold well below zero, residents of the area are strongly recommended to avoid going outdoors.

UFO Sightings increase dramatically following meteor shower

After a sudden and unexpected meteor shower earlier tonight following an unexplained detonation in high-earth-orbit, the incidence of UFO sightings across the world has increased dramatically. UFO enthusiasts consistently and repeatedly cite a consistent list of UFO shapes in their sightings and have posted many attempts at categorising them. Authorities have continued to refuse to offer comment regarding the sightings or if they have anything to do with it.

Neo-Nazi paramilitary activity on the rise

Neo-Nazi paramilitary groups have increasingly exploded in number, aggression, organisation, and lethality over the past few years, showing ever-increasing dominance of middle-class white suburbs pressured by political and economic uncertainty and Endbringer attacks. Attacks on non-white communities, left-leaning groups, Jewish areas, Romani peoples, Slavic immigrants, LGBT organisations, and disability advocates have more than tripled in the past year alone. As these groups grow increasingly bold and have begun to seize control of a number of populated areas and hold more openly violent rallies, authorities seem reluctant to properly confront the growing menace of the far right.

Japanese far-right paramilitary launches coup

With the Japanese economy in ruins following the devastation of Kyushu and mass exodus from the home islands, the Kōtei no kaze; a recently formed Japanese far-right organisation that openly claims the legacy of the Empire has amassed its forces to seize control over what remains of Japan, moving soldiers into the capital and declaring that it will rebirth the Japanese nation as it prepares to confront the remainder of the Japanese government. The group's ability to rapidly build-up such numbers, organisation, training, and equipment continues to baffle experts who are still at a loss to explain where the Kotei no kaze had even originated from.

Scion's disappearance continues to baffle experts

Scion's disappearance shortly into the new decade continues to be one of the most vexing mysteries of the parahuman community. While his whereabouts have always been somewhat difficult to track, his complete absence over the course of the past twenty months has been a cause for enormous concern, particularly due to the Parahuman community's continued reliance on him to deal with Endbringer attacks. While Endbringer attacks have also been on the decline, the lack of certainty as to his location has been cited as a pressing worry for multiple governments and parahuman teams.

Strange wildlife continues to appear around the world

Unusual fauna never before encountered by biologists has only continued to increase in the frequency of sightings and appearances. While only some are hostile, many are considered to be extremely dangerous and are a matter of parahuman or military concern. Few patterns seem to exist that can serve as a predictor for when and where these creatures will appear, but the damage to the ecosystem caused by their appearance has heightened ecological worries by many scientists as they race to try and find answers.

New Religions continue to grow

New faiths such as the Cult of the Void Father, the Temple of the Changemaker, the Church of the One, and the Faithful of the All-Knowing have continued to grow alongside a rash of Satanic, Angelic, and Neopagan cults of varying size and openness. Few unifying trends can be found among the various new religions save for an eagerness to acquire more converts and a predilection towards mystery cult structures that keep certain secrets of the faith beyond the prying eyes of outsiders.

Disappearances among the Homeless spike once again

Once again, the rate of disappearances among homeless persons has increased substantially. With a lack of discernable cause or reason for these disappearances, authorities have found themselves unable to offer any theories and have generally declined to comment or speculate. Common theories often link them to the increased sighting of monstrous potential Case-53s rumoured to be seen in underground cavern or sewer networks in cities around the world.

Samus
You flicked your eyes over to Legend and Piggot who were busily whispering about what their superiors would likely think of the situation. It was clear they hadn't counted on you being able to listen in on their conversation so closely but you weren't in a rush to spoil the surprise for them just yet. As they started to finish up with a mention of how Eidolon would likely need to be informed of several of the going-ons here, you spoke up to catch them off guard. A trick that Ian had taught you, catching people mid-sentence with a question tends to interrupt their train of thought and makes it harder for them to formulate a coherent lie to you. And you never liked being lied to.

"You said you were with the Parahuman Response Team yes? How exactly do you carry out your duties and why do you want me to join you?" You asked, politely but plainly, getting straight to the point while you swung your legs beneath the table and leaned in to make it clear that you expected an answer soon.

"We act in full accordance to the law and to the constitution of the United States, miss Aran." Piggot's seemingly reflexive canned answer almost made you roll your eyes. So old fashioned, why single out your unmarried status?

"But what does that mean exactly?" Arne asked, clearly about to say something likely to make Piggot outraged. You could see it in the way he quirked his brow, emphasising his right one. That was usually a prelude to the Cylosian boy asking something he had a feeling was likely to make the other person uncomfortable.

"Yeah, the police of your country in this time period are already well known for brutality and a strong bias in enforcement! Are your police like that at all? I haven't seen...anything really to suggest they aren't." You added as Jetfire let out a robotic laugh while Legend's face formed a hard line.

"We can't not enforce laws if we want a stable and safe society. Especially when so many existing threats to the general peace would gladly take advantage of any lapses in security." Legend said calmly, clearly trying to avoid coming off as lecturing you out of his courtesy towards younger people.

"But why do people turn to crime in the first place?" Arne asked, clearly interested in the answer as he shifted a bit forward and rested his cheek on the palm of his hand, bent on top of a seat. Different societies would tend to give him different answers to this question, and he was always interested in seeing just how they differed. The look on his face was difficult to read beyond curiosity, but then Arne had a habit of flipping between easy as an open book to read to being outright inscrutable to people lacking in psychic empathy.

"There aren't enough resources to try and quash every incident of poverty, desperation, or emotional disturbance. People need to be able to function on their own merits once they've been put on their feet. I'm sorry but we don't live in the sort of ideal world where everyone's needs can be taken care of." Piggot seemed to already know of the sort of angle that Arne was going for, which you figured was from an experience with dealing with people who'd prod her about the system she represented.

"Do you?" You asked.

"I'm sure even your far flung future has crime to deal with." She said.

"And in my country, we try to treat those people too." Arne said coldly.

"We are rather technologically behind where you say your societies are at. We don't have the same sort of Star Trek means of providing for a Utopia. We're trying to work with what's realistically achievable. Even the Soviets have laws to enforce and peace to keep." Legend tried to explain in an effort to defuse the situation. You weren't so sure about that yourself. More could always be done to make a situation better. Anyone who said that things were good enough was either deluding themselves or had a vested interest in keeping them from getting better.

"I'm not here to enforce your laws though, I'm here to help people." You say.

"We can work together then, but you need to understand why the rules we have are there. We can't have loose cannons enforcing their own personal vision of justice as they see fit." He responded.

"Joining us would also likely mean fast-tracking you both into receiving American citizenship, finding caretakers for the duration of your stay here, and ensuring that you will continue to receive a top-quality education. Not doing so will mean you will need to handle the system on your own." Piggot said, trying her best to sound reasonable even if you were having a hard time believing a lot of what she was saying was necessary. Why would you want to become a citizen of any of the countries here? You already had parents who loved and cared for you, and you were probably better educated than nearly anyone on this planet.

Did they just want to have access to your abilities on demand?

"Tovarisch, in the spirit of international solidarity I must note that you would be asking them to commit to a single nation's priorities and defence when we face threats than endanger mankind as a whole. Not to mention that you are hardly the only person in this room who could offer such deals. The Soviet Union would be pleased to accept your residency here, should you desire it." Nurzhan said, straightening himself to add to his posture. It seemed almost petty, an offer made partly to counter the other one.

"Please...stop with the recruitment ads. I just want to focus on the mission." Arne said, rubbing at his temples with clear and visible irritation. You lay a hand on his shoulder as he exhaled and looked ahead, rapping his fingers against the table while Winterpyre once again proved to be a surprising voice of reason following one of his demonic bellows.

"Indeed, we are here to discuss matters of very dire importance that concern at least two Earths. Let the star child say what he needs to." The Demon said.

"Yeh, we're on somethin' of a timer 'ere. Got a lotta blokes muckin' about an' not enough manpower to deal with 'em all."

Arne
"What are things like in Europe? How did neonazi groups become such a problem at this point in time?" You decide to ask, attempting to form a picture of the situation in your head. Your mother was of the people, and thus by the law of the Talmud you were also of the people. Beyond that, the idealist, racialist, imperialist, fascist, and darwinist vision offered by the heirs of the NSDAP rankled at the very core of your worldview. So the threat of a forty-eight thousand-year-old ghost in the form of Nazism that even into your distant future refused to rest quietly in its grave clawing its way back into relevance disquieted you tremendously. Especially when this was rather sooner than Nazism started to crawl its way back into the mainstream in your historical recollection. But then, the Soviet Union had dissolved by this point too.

"After Scion appeared in 1982 and got rid of the world's nuclear weapons, the Cold war basically came to an end. NATO and the Warsaw Pact decided to focus on their ends of the table and let the other be. There were some bumpy snags here and there, but the onset of parahumans meant that both sides had more to worry about at home than abroad." Legend started, alright so far that all seemed to make sense. It would explain why the political map of Europe seemed to be in almost...stasis really. Nothing being allowed to really shift or change.

"There were even efforts at trying to broaden cooperation between both blocs to deal with parahuman threats. But a lot of cold warriors got miffed that their pet issues were being ignored, and many of them decided to form their own groups. One of the most commonly problematic is the Gesellschaft, Neonazi nationalist group that got its start in west and east Germany from people who wanted reunification at all costs."

Samus drew her eyes to a hard glare and stopped her fidgeting as her lips pulled into a frown. You yourself felt your fingers come to a stop, and you straightened yourself in your chair to let Legend know you had his full attention.

"They truly got their start following the first endbringer attack in Iran, in 1992. The chaos and havoc caused by the appearance of giant monsters like in the old movies made many people very anxious. Made them want to know someone was looking to protect them and would stop the refugees that many media sources were scaremongering about from disrupting their way of life." Nurzhan picked up from where Legend left off, but Samus blurted out the question that was already on your mind before you could voice it. Always quick to voice what she thought she was.

"Endbringer? I saw that on your news but I'm not sure what they are besides being overly large monsters." She said.

"You know of how the Japanese would say, Kaiju movies da?" Nurzhan said.

You both gave a somewhat blank stare at the Commissar who realised his mistake to the satisfaction of Legend and a slight smirk from Piggot.

"Ah, so the local giant monsters then. Primal Earth has many such creatures. Each of Paragon's boroughs has at least one famous for regularly rampaging through it." Winterpyre said, getting a nod of affirmation out of Jetfire.

"Bloody awful it is, dunno 'ow anyone stands it."

"...Paragon City sounds awful." Legend said, quirking a brow high over his mask.

"It has its charms." The demon snorted.

"We're getting off...topic, can we refocus, please?" You said, slightly annoyed at the adults derrailing into whatever they fancied talking about while you were still fixated on what you saw as important. You let the tightness in your chest uncoil, breathing out to let them know that you had calmed down.

"Of course. They are a group with many sympathizers with substantial resources, and this has allowed them to claim the ability to induce parahuman triggers, creating their own supersoldiers. Or so they say." Nurzhan said, stroking his moustache as he ruminated.

"And with their money and those kinds of assets, they came to dominate most other Neonazi groups, folding almost all of them into their hierarchy as subdivisions. Their leader keeps to the shadows, but many believe he is a parahuman with the ability to convince people who listen to him talk of just about anything he tells them. Of course, that's only a theory. He's clearly charismatic, but tries to avoid getting into the limelight." Legend pipped in.

"The Empire-88 in my district has often been a nuisance, but I don't really have the resources to spare to properly contain them." Piggot said with a sigh. You had your doubts on that, but you kept them to yourself. While you did not trust Piggot, you weren't going to make an incident here. But you did turn to Samus and whisper something into her ear.


Samus

"Can we take a look at their actual resources? See where their efforts are actually going?" Arne asked, getting a nod out of you. You were willing to extend some benefit of the doubt to the grown ups here, but you operated under the philosophy of trust but verify. If Piggot here wasn't forthcoming about how much effort she was putting into dealing with the troubles in her backyard you'd soon know all about it. This often made you a touch..annoying to many authorities due to your inability to leave well enough alone and insatiable desire to know more, but if it was the right thing to do; why keep it a secret?

"So...you basically have an ultranationalist problem right?" You said, taking a look at the data offered to you.

"That would be the long and short of it da. These groups have been increasing their numbers, organisation, and the lethality of their equipment tremendously these past few years and we're struggling to find the sources. We know that Bavaria is one of their major nests, Bavaria has long been a hotbed of the German far-right and if I had to guess, they're probably hoping to succeed where Hitler failed." Nurzhan said, flicking through a few files on his tablet to find the report he needed and tapping it to display the gathered intelligence on the holographic screen.

"Beer Hall putsch? Why haven't you warned us?" Piggot stammered.

"I have, but your government doesn't seem to think you have the clearance for it." He said bluntly.

"I know about it." Legend assured her, drawing a hard glare from Piggot. Secrets once again proving their greatest power is to spoil relationships.

"Well, can we stop it?" You asked. If they were really planning to try and march on Munich there really wasn't enough time to be dilly-dallying around with twenty questions. You had half a mind to just go out there and handle it yourself but well...you didn't have access to your starship at the moment. That drew a pout out of you. You were doubtful you could fashion anything to a similar standard with the materials available on this planet.

"'Course we can. Just a bit of a matter of having to slip into Germany an' getting an idea of what exactly is goin' on there. The bleedin' gits gone and got themselves a yummy mummy rollin' them in dosh and sneakin' them the flashest bits an' I'm keen ta learn who the silly sod is." Jetfire said, bringing up some scans of Gesellschaft Soldaten with clearly atypical augmentations and access to military grade or even beyond weapons that they should not have been able to access in the Federal Republic of Germany.

"Oh, Jetfire. Would you please be kind enough to allow me to request a favour?" You said with the utmost politeness, almost offering him a bow as the Autobot turned his head towards you.

"'Course ducky, go ahead."

"I'm not a duck..." You murmured before clearing your throat.

"Arne and I have our starships still in orbit but cloaked. If we give you the telemetry data for them, could you fetch them please?" You said, making pleading eyes at the autobot, having learned well the power of giving a stare like a puppy to the right person to make their hearts just melt. Jetfire let out a bit of a laugh and nodded.

"'Course, 'course. I'll have the spacebridge on it on the jiff." He said, your armour mentally sending a command to the ship to allow this transition to take place as you gave him a wide, cheerful grin.

"Thank you so, so so much!" You said excitedly while Arne flashed a small grin.

"Well, at least I won't have to wait to see what the damage is in person." He said, relaxing slightly before Nurzhan put down another file onto the computer, letting the projector demonstrate the profiles of Molotok and Serp.

"You will be travelling with Molotok and Serp in their civilian guises, given the nature of this operation you may find it wise to only make use of your power armour when necessary. The Gesellschaft's benefactor may flee if spooked too soon, or the fight you would end up drawing may cause heavy damage to Munich. As this country is a NATO member, the PRT will be providing you with chaperones and a trusted West German confidant will keep in touch." Nurzhan said as he seemed satisfied that his operation was the one you decided to go with first, a beatific smile on his olive-skinned face while he threaded his fingers through his moustache.

A few minutes were needed to discuss things between the various groups, plans had to be arranged and calls made. You'd have to go out first and wait for the designated chaperones to arrive after receiving some civilian disguise clothes that let you fit into the general populace of Munich. But with the rather ad hoc nature of this mission it'd take a bit of time for everyone to arrive, especially as at least one of the parties had to arrive on relatively short notice. But how bad could a few minutes of waiting be?

Arne, Munich Airport, 2 hours later.

The January air of Munich was cold but not overly so. Certainly not within the confines of the airport as you stared at the food they had on offer and couldn't believe how it almost seemed to assail your nostrils with low-quality ingredients. The meat probably even came from an actual animal. While not above hunting in the right circumstances, the thought of eating something raised for the slaughter rankled at you, and you pushed the pork on the plate to the side. Every moment of waiting was agonising and you were bored out of your mind. You fidgeted intensely, Samus occasionally laying a hand on yours to get you to stop shuffling your fingers before you'd eventually resume again out of anxiety. The seconds all seemed to stretch onto infinity and you've probably memorised every inch of the food court here by now, adjusting your blue hoodie and glaring at someone staring at your distinctive red eyes and white hair and then doubling the intensity of that glare when they saw Samus and began to leer.

"Fraulein, if you want a good time with a proper man instead of a boy look my way!" The boy said in German, probably two years older than either of you. Roughly shaved with dirty blond hair and dull blue eyes. Samus looked towards him and raised a brow before shaking her head. Even if he hadn't insulted you, she'd have turned him down based on his half-hearted attempt to look rugged and his noxious personality.

"When are they going to be here? I'm sick of waiting..." You said, hazarding a sip from the soda and sighing. Passable, not good, but passable. It would have been better if your tongue couldn't taste some of the less pleasant substances that went into it.

"The food is awful." You say with a pronounced sigh at the end, speaking in Federal Galaxan to Samus so that no eavesdropper would be able to understand either of you.

"I knoooow, right?" Samus says, making a face at the Pizza she had half-finished.

"I can taste the despair this cow felt when it was milked." Samus said with a displeased expression.

"Too much salt on everything. No seasoning." You mumbled until you sensed the presence of people approaching to your left, a blond young man and a black haired young woman pulling up the seats next to you with trays at the ready.

"Privet!" Irina said as she scooched in close with a grin.

"Aren't we supposed to be speaking English or German here?" You said as she laughed a little.

"It's only one word of Russian." Samus said reassuringly.

"Oh of course, of course, my bad. I am Irinia, this silly lad here is Viktor, but I'm sure he'll let you call him Vitya soon!" She said, offering the two of you watches pulled from her purple sleeve.

"Gifts from the motherland, special communicators that won't draw attention. Also tells time with atomic clock precision and can play some games." She said as Viktor straightened out his green coloured jacket and unbuttoned it a bit, murmuring about how he hated going from cold to warm weather so quickly.

"Where's the rest of the group?" You said, looking over at a man in sunglasses with his arms folded who seemed to be trying to read a newspaper but from your glances at the direction his muscles were twitching was clearly monitoring you periodically. His occasional coughs or brushing of his face to seemingly wipe it clear guises for when he had to lower his head closer to a communicator in his neck cuff.

"We're being monitored." You said frankly, gesturing towards the seemingly unassuming brown-haired man.

"Ah, that's the westie. Don't mind Hans. He's shy." Viktor said with a snort.

You still had your suspicions, but you decided to keep them to yourself for now as Samus spotted someone approaching and waved over enthusiastically. "Guten tag!" She said with a voice so energetic that it could be used to power every city in a star system if only its dynamism could be tapped into.

You recognised the red hair of the man and the way he walked from the outskirts of Brockton Bay and figured him to be Ethan. "Hello, dad." You said with your best effort to avoid sounding sarcastic. You weren't too sure if you succeeded given that you weren't really too sure on how people intoned things in this period. "Where's mother?" You said, taking a look around to see where your senses were pointing you towards and well, Battery was about who'd you guess would come if Assault was being sent your way. But there was a particularly serious problem that cropped up in your mind as you let out a sigh.

"...Who thought this was a good idea?" You said with an exasperated sigh.

"Something wrong there kiddo?" Assault said.

"We don't look related." You said flatly, palming your face and looking to Samus for backup.

"Maybe they could say we're adopted or are from a different coupling?" She said with a thoughtful expression.

"Yes, this could work. Stranger arrangements have existed, but there is one problem, genosse." Viktor said in flawless German from the years he spent in East Germany.

"Look, I don't really care about the whole Iron Curtain thing, I just came over because Piggot said you guys needed two people who had met you before and could pose as a couple...and could speak some German. So...not a very wide list admittedly." He said with an exaggerated shrug.

"You two are in your early twenties. We are mid teenagers. The ruse will be very obvious to an observer." He said bluntly.

"Look, Victor, son." He said, patting the Russian on the shoulder in a way that briefly made him flinch but got no further reaction out of him.

"...That is my alias, seriously?" He muttered in a tiny voice.

"The key to getting into places you shouldn't be in is looking like you belong there and acting confident. Just roll with it and I'm sure people will just pass me and Jamie here as having aged well, right?" He said, pulling Battery in towards her, rustling his red coat against hers as she made an "oof" sound.

"So. You'll be called Gemma." Ethan said to Samus who squinted a bit at the name. The crass anglicization of her Irish name kind of sat wrong with her. She was proud of her Celtic heritage, however distant she was in time and space from Ireland.

"You." He said pointing to you "Are now Arnold and I strongly recommend you do something about that hair and eye colour." You frowned at that, you were very...fond of the way you looked, it was one of the most consistently praised features of yours, and so you ended up taking pride in it as one of the few things nobody ever criticised you over. Sure it was...exotic in this time period but changing it felt so...unnecessary.

"And you miss, copycat powers, are just Irene." He said, thumbing to Molotok who looked around and did a faux-look of shock and gasped as if she were surprised that he would dare level such accusations towards her before putting on her best New Yorker accent.

"Why I oughta show you wise guy!" She said in a voice that got everyone to break out into laughter.

"So...you're all done with that food right? ...Can I have some? I got up on incredibly early notice and I could honestly eat a whole herd of horses." Assault said, rubbing his stomach and eyeing Samus' pizza like a starving beast.

"Believe me, he can. Especially when he's not the one paying for the restaurant bill." She said, elbowing him and raising her brows at him pointedly, getting him to raise his hands in mock surrender. She held that glare for a moment before looking both ways and sneaking a slice of pizza into her mouth anyway despite what she had just said. This whole relationship just struck you as very...odd. But once the adults were done snacking and stood up to summon you to get going, Samus stopped you to point out the way that Serp and Molotok's pants accentuated their features, prompting you to stare at them both and nod in approval.

"Do you want to try with them?" You asked her as she gave a wide grin and nod.

"Absolutely!" She cackled quietly, that impish grin so distinct to hers giving you the distinct impression of troublemaking in the future.

...

A blue and white SUV waited for you in the parking garage while a sleek yellow and black camaro rolled up to the agent behind you. The car door opening before you had even reached for the handle confirmed your premonition that it was one of the autobots as Assault and Battery slipped into the front seats and the four of you piled into the rear area. The seatbelts pulled themselves over you all automatically and the GPS screen on the dashboard flashed with Strongarm's face immediately after.

"Bumblebee's more the kind of 'bot to work with humans but he doesn't have enough seats for all of you even with the alt-mode change. And you do all have to ride together to maintain cover. I'm Strongarm by the way. Uh, still doing okay in class Irinna? Vitya?" She said with her tone going from professional to familiar in an instant as the two Russian teenagers gave an enthused thumbs up.

"Right, there's a hotel already booked in that will serve as our base of operations. Hans and Eva already have equipment set up there."

"Hans and Eva working together without either fighting or fucking?" Viktor said quizzically.

"Or fighting and fucking." Irinna said with a cackle.

"Hey come on, little respect for the professional staring contest champions." Ethan said, making a "whoa there" gesture as Strongarm pulled out of the garage and presented a ticket for Assault to punch in.

"Hey I mean, sometimes they don't completely hate each other despite the whole curtain thing." She said with a shrug.

"So how does this whole...robots in disguise thing work?" Battery asked.

"We keep out of sight when we have to exit vehicle mode. Or at least, we erase security footage, sometimes memories too. We've tried to avoid getting close to parahumans by tracking that extradimensional signal you all have in your brains. Jetfire doesn't want us too entangled in that mess." She explained with a bit of nervousness, clearly not being used to speaking to people before Bumblebee cut in over the comms with a few beeps and whistles.

"How much does Area 51 actually know?" Samus asks, leaning in with curiosity as Strongarm seamlessly merged into the traffic of the winding roads of Germany, the low buildings of Bavaria's capital stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see.

"Not really much. They're not even really aware that we're aliens and we'd prefer to keep it that way. The Soviets forced an answer out of us to get permission to set up bases in their territory but most countries that even know we're there just think we're tinker robots." She said with an exhalation of relief. Hrm, you conferred with Samus briefly as Strongarm kept on driving.

"You think we can trust them?" You asked.

"I think so! They seem to be good people. But I'm not sure why they need to keep things so secret."

"Yeah, I'm not entirely sure of Jetfire's explanation." You whispered, speaking as quietly as possible to avoid the Autobot from hearing.

You glanced away from her and towards Munich. A small city of only somewhat over a million people at this point in time, but there was an uneasy tension to it. People on the streets moved with either braggadocious swagger or with cowed intimidation. Your eyes caught a lack of people who didn't fit a certain aryan standard, even though you knew that in this time period Munich was supposed to have at least something of an immigrant community.

Samus pulled your eyes towards some odd-looking helicopters moving in formation overhead, buzzing ahead unchallenged despite not bearing any Bundeswehr marks upon them. They were clearly on patrol of some kind, and moved like they owned the city, one of them ferrying some manner of cargo held closely to its cage like body by means of winch and crane. When one person tried to raise their phone to take a picture of the procession while you were stopped in some traffic, a Policeman seemed to be on the scene immediately. Through the door you could hear them shouting that this was a matter of national security and they couldn't be taking those pictures, roughly snatching the phone out of their hand.

"Something's not right." Samus said, squinting at the scene as Battery tensed herself.

"I'll say, he was on that kid faster than Velocity on a coffee machine." Battery said wryly.

The teenager shouted something at the police officer about having rights only for the officer and his partner to corner her, the girl backing up and reflexively trying to shove back only for her hands to be snatched into the cuffs of the officers and body flung onto the pavement. "Striking an officer? You know where that gets you." He said as he dragged her up and towards his car. Your heart almost stopped and Samus positively radiated anger outwards like a star of seething resentment. You wanted to leap out there and crack some skulls, but you were held back by the need to maintain cover. You might not have any substantial ties to this planet, but the people you were with did, and you couldn't put them at risk with your recklessness.

Samus grabbed at one of the pillows and let out a muffled scream into them, frustrated and digging her nails into them as she tried to work her way through her rising choler. She counted down, she breathed, she seethed, but she didn't explode just yet, in...out...she sighed and exhaled with visible frustration.

Samus

You were Samus Aran and you were bloody fucking furious. Such a blatant violation of that person. Such brutal thuggery on someone merely taking pictures of a curious sight. Something here was rotten and you bet it probably flew Swastikas all day and night. But you couldn't let your temper erupt just yet. The quarry would be lost to the wind if you just let out your rage all at once, and then where would you be? But you had an idea, one that brought a modicum of calm to you.

"Can we track that phone?" You asked.

"Easily, think it's related to the mission?" Strongarm said.

"It has to be. They don't want people seeing that cargo, and its not marked by the local government. I think those policemen were agents for the Gesellschaft even. I don't think they'll be taking her to prison." You said, going down your fingers as you listed off your reasonings. But the oddities of Munich had yet to fully exhaust themselves even in this car trip.

"Hey, look at that!" Irina said, pointing over to a veritable herd of shapes going down the road and melting into the traffic of the city. Trucks moving close together, but not so close that they might immediately draw suspicion moved down the road, all hauling clearly heavy loads in their trailers as they sorted themselves out towards a number of destinations. Warehouses, storage facilities, all with rather large numbers of people waiting for them.

Many of the trucks in particular moved as if burdened with something significantly heavier than trucks would normally be hauling. Overpowered engines letting them haul weights that based on the way the vehicles were moving, had to be in the scores of tons. While an ordinary person might have missed such details it all seemed so insultingly obvious to you. Who did they think they were fooling? This has to be some kind of major weapons shipment. Vehicles, robots, power suits and heavy weapons no doubt. These people were clearly preparing for some kind of putsch shortly and this city seemed to be borderline asleep to the possibility!

"This place gives me the creeps. Something is about to happen." Serp said with a gulp.

"Yeah, I get ya. I've counted what seems to be a small army's worth of likely goons so far. It's like they're barely even bothering to hide anymore. Probably figure they already own the place." Assault said, scowling a bit as he got a read on the area.

"Then why aren't people doing anything!?" You blurt out, getting a few beeps and whistles from bumblebee over the comms in response. Though Assault and Battery were clearly baffled by it, you managed to decipher his warbling just fine. Most people were just afraid to act out, and the authorities were largely either cowed to submission or weren't overly bothered with the idea of what was about to h happen when they were focused on "more immediate concerns". That made your blood boil, you could almost feel your heart attempting to leap out of your throat and wanted to scream once again, but the car ride soon ended as you briefly caught notice of two people pulling into an alleyway to have a quick conversation with each other about how the weather was and the likely forecast, though you recognised that forecast as inaccurate. Likely some sort of code, and your suspicions only hardened as they raised their arms at each other, quickly making a salute that made you go cold before you dashed inside.

The check-in was relatively uneventful, and the relatively meagre possessions the two of you brought with you were easy enough to put away as you filed into the cozy but not really extravagant looking room.

"Home sweet home." Assault said.

"Don't grab from the mini-bar, the prices are high-way robbery." Battery cautioned as Arne looked at the drinks stored within and then shrugged.

"I don't see any robbers hidden there."He said to you, prompting a nod of agreement.

"Oh...right...expressions uh...they're very expensive." Battery said before the door knocked and a blonde woman dressed as Hotel service staff harrumphed and urged you all a little closer.

"We have a few targets of interest for you. If you are ready to move out as soon as possible. Things are accelerating quite quickly." She said with a rather flawless Bavarian accent. A bit too flawless, probably Eva in all likelihood.

"You've already seen the helicopter and the police infiltrators. The trucks a third. My best guess is that the Helicopters are bringing in some time-sensitive equipment that requires a rush-delivery, while the police infiltrators are looking for people they can...pressgang shall we say?" Eva said with a hurried, hushed voice as if she were perennially worried about the possibility of someone eavesdropping on her, though she wasn't too obvious with the fact that she was leaning in.

"The trucks are likely bringing in heavy munitions of all kinds, enough to drive out the Bundeswehr and non-compromised police assets with ease. I however, have some leads on where the trucks might be coming from, as Hans and I have determined that they use fake license plates to guise the fact that they were manufactured from a different timeline; the models being ever so slightly off from what is commonly available. All trucks seem to stop by this building here." She said, quickly passing you a phone and tapping on a marker on the map.

"Probably the primary loading point. Good odds of someone important being there. Hans has also pulled up records of the employees of the parahuman research facility being replaced steadily but surely. Likely looking to steal some important data. Finally, a large number of very expensive hotel suites close to the mayoral office were recently purchased en masse. They're likely gathering troops there. I'm not sure which one is likely to bring you to the benefactor the fastest, if I had to guess maybe the Trucks or the Helicopter, but once you have confirmed information on their intentions; we need you to act as soon as possible." She said, her serious and business-like voice almost never breaking its practiced monotone, revealing virtually nothing of her emotional state. Even with your psychic empathy she was hard to read.

"We should probably check on the mayor first. I'm not comfortable with letting them get that close to the municipal authority. Especially with what happened the last time Nazis gathered in large numbers at Munich's beer halls." Battery said before Vitya shook his head.

"Nyet, the munitions need to be stopped from reaching their staging areas above all other priorities. They are going to cause havoc if we let them get their forces into place." Serp said. He spoke with genuine concern, waving his arms and then folding them over. He looked out at the city and then back at the room. "There are more than a million people here at risk if they get their soldiers armed in time."

"I need to know what they're doing with the people they're dragging away. The Gesellschaft's file said they often experimented on people. We can't let that keep happening." Arne said, adjusting his jacket and looking back out at the city as he tried to imagine where they might have taken that girl, what sort of building would they stash her away in and what sort of fate she might be suffering. It was something you emphasised with. "I'm not sure if they're actually planning an invasion, it seems too obvious and too out of line with the trade deal initially suspected. But I know that they're going to do something awful to people like her they just...snatched from the street." You sympathised the most with Arne's position and his focus on the human scale issue. But was it really the most important target?

"You said that Helicopter had time-sensitive equipment yes? Or at least, think you did?" Strongarm asked over the comms.

"Ja." Eva answered.

"That seems to be the most important target then. Whether this is a planned attack or simply a trade show, whatever's in there is going to be something valuable enough to demand attention at the highest level. I'd bet my spark that we'll find what we're looking for there." Strongarm wasn't super committal to that answer it seemed, but she did have a certain logic to it. If it was an important rush job, they were likely to have someone who mattered look over it.

"Look, if we cut their supplies off at the head then we shut the whole thing down. Seems to be the easiest way to cut the knot. Whether its an attack or a sale, no merchandise, no operation. Seems simple to me." Assault shrugged. Ahah, you understood that reference. You'd cheer at that if you weren't already so busy with everything else going on.

"The Parahuman research is almost certainly going to be used to torture people tovarischi, we can't let them get away with it. We could probably rush in, take the data quick, and still have time for the rest." Irina said, seeming firm in her answer.

Bumblebee buzzed in to tell you that he'd back whichever play you'd go for, trusting your judgement which would make you the deciding vote. Though in his opinion, it didn't quite matter as he believed all of these were going to be interlinked, disrupting one event in the chain was likely to unwind the whole plan. And in his experience as a scout, they were likely going to converge their assets towards a more central area to maximise their chances of success. Probably in a space where they could assemble troops without being spotted like an emptied warehouse. Furthermore, the initial intelligence said that this was a financial deal, and he wagers that the appearance of preparing an invasion might be a ruse to intimidate most parahumans away from their operation by a show of overwhelming force when in reality they're probably planning something besides a second beer hall putsch.

"Once you make your choice, you'll need to scope out what's going on and shut it down."

*Mezhdunarodnaya operativnaya gruppa spetsial'noy oborony "International Special Defence Task Force", aka Mezopsepts.

Options:​

[]: Arne is right, go for where the cell phone signal is.
[]: Assault is right: Hit the depot
[]: Battery is right: Look at where they're renting out hotels.
[]: Irinna is right: Check on the laboratories.
[]: Serp is right: Stop their munitions from reaching staging areas.
[]: Strongarm is Right: Track the helicopter
[]: Bumblebee is right, they're going to congregate into a recently acquired space to assemble everything for a big show and they're bluffing about how strong they actually are.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Irinna is right: Check on the laboratories


wolfenstein-TNO_RoW_BFFs.jpg



The Gesellschaft is the largest and most well funded Neonazi and Volkische organization on this incarnation of Earth and its most prolific international terrorist group in size, frequency of attacks, scale of operations, and number of fatalities caused by its operations. Operating primarily within Europe but also controlling subsidiary organisations around the world such as the Empire-88 in North America (referring to the numerical position of the letter H in the German alphabet as a means of referencing "Heil Hitler"), the Southern African SVDV, the Oceanian White Guard, and the Legion Buitre in Latin America; the group is largely regarded as having global reach. With a network of wealthy sympathizers and controlled enterprises of both a criminal and legitimate network, the Gesellschaft's resources far outstrip those of most other similar groups, and the offers of its wealth, technological resources, and prestige have allowed it to subordinate most other similar groups.

The Gesellschaft violently advocates for German reunification and the reintegration of Austria and the "lost territories" Germany was forced to cede at the end of the second world war into a reborn Reich and the subjugation and eventual eradication of the "asiatic subhumans of the east" as well as the eradication of "undesireables" within Europe proper, particularly within the realm of what is seen as rightfully Aryan territory. These include, but not limited to Jews, Roma, the disabled, Black Africans, Slavs, East and Central Asians, Muslims, Queer people, the Neurodivergent, Indigenous Americans and Oceanians, Freemasons, Communists, Liberals, Feminists, "Racial Traitors", Anarchists, Pacifists, "Cultural Degenerates" and more. Attacks on these groups are seen as a vital step in progressing through the ladder of the Gesellschaft's hierarchy and its vassal organisations are expected to meet certain quotas of violence against these groups per year to ensure that the progress of the "Volkskrieg" continues unabated.

The Gesellschaft's leader bears the title of "Kriegsfuhrer" and is entrusted with the prosecution of the conflict until its completion, with the aim of complete revenge for Germany's defeat in the second world war and the triumph of the Herrenvolk being non-negotiable to its plans and aims. The Gesellschaft also commands the ability to artificially induce parahumanization within individuals, allowing it to produce "Ubermenschen" for its goals and seduce the simply power-hungry to its objectives and cause. This has likely been one of the principal causes for its dominance over the white supremacy movement, but another has been a surge in support from an unknown and likely extradimensional benefactor that has provided it with a massive influx of funding, material support, technology, and manpower that has allowed it to step up its objectives to an unprecedented degree.

The Organisation is principally based in Bavaria, German-speaking Switzerland, and rural Austria, where the traditionally reactionary countryside of the Catholic German-speaking areas has long proven to be fertile recruiting ground. It also has assets in other areas of Germany such as the Democratic Republic and parts of Hannover and the Netherlands left devastated by Endbringer attacks. It has expanded beyond these regions, though its anti-slavicism has left its presence east of the Oder river somewhat weak. With its aspirations for controlling all current and former Germanic territories however, it hardly shies away from attacks against the eastern bloc, particularly due to its virulent anti-communist rhetoric. The Gesellschaft's leadership however, is believed to primarily visit in London rather than its heartland in Catholic Germany.

Samus' Notes: I'm not going to let them keep on carrying out whatever operations they please. Or any at all even. This all comes to an end now. Then once we've dealt with them, maybe we can help these regions heal? I'm not sure how much I can do on that front, but I want to try.

Arne's Notes: The dispossessed with nowhere left to turn but told to crave leadership turn to people like these as they always have. Repairing that will take mending the damage already done. But in the meantime, we should smash them at every turn.


Samus

"Where did you say those laboratories were?" You asked, Eva's eyes flicking over to you behind her shades. She passed a data packet from her equipment to your watch, your eyes looking down and seeing where it was marked on the GPS. Easy enough to reach, you could probably be there in about ten minutes if you went with bumblebee or strongarm, sooner if you went on foot. But you weren't exactly keen on waiting that long given that they were probably ransacking the facility for all the research they could. Research they were doubtlessly hoping to use to augment horrific programs that would serve to hurt millions more in the future. Not on your watch.

"Should we all head there? It doesn't seem like their most important objective. Likely to be a secondary task honestly." Serp asked. Your attention fixed on him briefly as your lips drew into a hard line.

"You don't know their capabilities all that well, I don't think splitting up would be a very good idea. Instead, we should you know...go together as a squad and take it out fast. And besides, we should think about long term threats." You explained, Arne stopping and having a thought about your point before nodding and speaking up.

"They probably want to further their understanding of the source of your abilities. If they're producing parahumans, they probably want to get any information on them anyone else has." Arne said, getting an affirmation out of you. He was speaking sense, as he usually did.

"And what about all their forces elsewhere?" Serp asked.

Bumblebee cut in once more with a series of chips, chirps, and whistles. He spoke of how they likely didn't really need to make such an obvious show of force in a city that was already essentially the heartland of their operations in Europe. They were unlikely to need to use an army to take over Munich given that they essentially already controlled the city down to the mayoral authority being in their pockets. He said that in all likelihood; all the forces being gathered here were likely being prepared to be moved out elsewhere, possibly to efforts to try and secure a power base in the north or plan an attack to the west or east.

His words had a ring of truth to them, and it seemed to convince Strongarm at least.

"Right, I won't claim to understand human politics all that well, but I do know that trying to stage a takeover of a city you already have in the palm of your hand is a waste." She said.

"Alright, I'm convinced. But what can we expect there? I'm not exactly bulletproof so I'd like to avoid running face-first into machine gun fire." Assault said while you had a think about tactics. You and Arne were immensely durable, as were the two autobots. Molotok could shrug off most impacts but had a vulnerability to thermal DEWs, Serp was somewhat tough but still not remotely rated for taking heavy-duty firepower head on. Looking at assault and battery, blessed spirits of the sacred departed you weren't sure if they could withstand the pistols here.

"Well, we just need to get close to surprise them before they can try to cover their tracks. We will, as you westerners say; get the drop on them. We will just need a bit of Maskirovka." Irinna said with a daredevil look that you immediately took a shining to. Oh you think you would like her quite a lot, especially as she started to rub her hands together in eager anticipation and formed a particularly impish grin on her face.

"So we're not just going to kick down the door?" Assault asked.

"No, she's got the right idea. If we come in guns blazing they'll probably try to pack up and leave. But if we can sneak up on them..." Battery said before Arne finished her sentence for her.

"We could take in some for questioning before they have a chance to flee. With a proper cordon not a whole lot of the-" He said before Battery, who would already displeased at being interrupted glanced over at him as soon as she caught the word "some" and then harrumphed rather noticeably as soon as she deemed that she had heard enough. Arne paused and you sensed a fleck of trouble in the causeways of destiny, a tangled snarl of potentially difficult fates stemming from this particular moment.

"What do you mean "some", Arne?" She said rather pointedly, folding her arms and raising a brow as if she were speaking to her son rather than a stranger from the stars.

"...A lot of them will choose to fight to the death and will have to be eliminated?" He said, clearly confused at the line of questioning.

"Yeah, I thought that was obvious? They're going to use lethal force against us and most won't de-escalate." You say, a frown slowly creeping its way onto your face as you study Battery's transforming expressions and then a slow sigh escaping her lips as she palmed her face. Frustration, that was something you recognised pretty easily. The loosening serpent of tension being replaced with a malaise of disappointment that made you question what you had done wrong.

"Alright, kids. You two are guests on this planet, and all of us are guests in this country. That makes it especially important that we don't kill people we don't have to. It's not our place to decide who lives or who dies without first letting them have the benefit of their day in court." She started, this lecture almost seeming to come off like an automatic script as if she had given it a thousand times before. She very well could have even, given that she was often in contact with the Wards of her home city.

"You do realise these people have enough firepower to flatten large sections of this city right?" Strongarm said incredulously.

"Look, I'm all for protocol, but this seems to be more of a military situation than simply a criminal one. They're armed for a major conflict and they already have the city under control. You can't just treat them like street punks in need of resocialisation." Strongarm continued, clearly baffled by this line of thinking.

"This city doesn't even have enough prison capacity for the sheer number of people we would be arresting!" You blurted out.

"...H-how do you know that?" Ethan said before you resummoned your gauntlet in a fizzle of light and let out a stream of data from the green orb at the centre of the back of its hand Serp's phone which buzzed in his pocket briefly before he took it out; sliding out the mechanical keyboard and squinting at it as he input his passcode; Chekov413 if you were following where his fingers were going correctly.

His eyes widened and he almost dropped the phone. "Nichego Sebe..." He murmured.

"...What's up Victor?" Assault said with concern.

"Based on this data she pulled, the whole city's police force is compromised going by their internet traffic. Bundeswehr facilities too. The mayor? Attends their secret rallies. Every major corporate head? On secret electronic messaging lists. This -entire fucking city- is in the pocket of the Gesellschaft." He said with alarm, running his other hand through his hair and murmuring to himself rapidly in Russian.

"How did you get all that?" Assault asked.

"My armour is part of me, a piece of my soul." You started as if this was a completely normal sentence to make. "I can access some of its abilities even without it on. Scanning is one of them." You said, hardening your expression as you dismissed your gauntlet and let your normal hand show itself again, wriggling your fingers a bit.

Bumblebee cut in to confirm your report, having been running his own electronic reconnaissance while everyone was busy. Arne and Strongarm would add their own affirmations soon afterwards after thinking to double check your information.

"Hahaha so Munich, safest city in West Germany..." Assault said as if he was about to have a panic attack.

"Is basically completely overrun by fascists. Well, tovarischi, I think this makes our work simpler, nyet? We need not bother with cooperating with authorities." Irinna said, cracking her knuckles and looking like this was the best news she had ever received in her life.

"Right, but I still like that quiet approach idea of yours better, works better for us squishies." Assault said, sighing a bit as he didn't look forward to going up against groups armed to military standards.

"Wait...maybe the two of us and one of the autobots could pull their attention from the front and you go in with another one of them from behind?" Arne proposed, snapping his fingers in realisation. You rather liked that idea.

Arne

You summoned up your gauntlet and projected a hologram from the crystal at the back of its palm bringing up a map of the university's Parahuman studies wing attached to its Chemistry and Pharmacy facilities.

campus.jpg


You had studied the floor plans in your mind after scrounging through the internet for them, vaguely annoying but not at all difficult work. Why so much of this information was restricted to students and faculty was beyond you, but it was a simple matter to slice in through the code.

"Okay here's the stuff I've got. tTe entrance to the parahuman studies facility is accessed through an entrance beneath building B of the LMU Fakultat fur Chemie und Pharmazie." You said, highlighting the structure and its modified floorplan, showing a tunnel into a subterranean facility where the city of Munich's premier university conducted most of its research on the parahuman phenomenon. It seemed kind of basic to you, but you guessed they may have run out of space for a proper above-ground building.

universitaet_stuttgart_technische_fakultaet_4_3rd_floor_plan.jpg


"So what sort of opposition are we up against then, kid?" Assault said, getting a bit of a glare from you as you rankled at the descriptor of "kid". You knew what you were doing, you'd been literally raised for stuff like this. You sighed, relented and let go of the annoyance, focusing on just presenting the data you had like you were supposed to.

"Based on the posted guard schedules sent through their internal messaging systems; they've established a perimeter around the red lines of roughly fifty groups of five patrolmen." You said, drawing a hard look of worry from Irinna as she stroked at her chin.

"Two hundred and fifty men?"

"I'm not done. Reserve patrols of another two hundred and fifty personnel are waiting to rotate in but would be called in if it gets serious. They've also got parahumans and "special assets" on stand by to deal with any hardcore resistance." You said flatly. "Based on this...they're not expecting a fight, but they're prepared for one. If they're moving around this many people in the open, they probably think nobody's going to stop them." You said with concern, rubbing a bit at your chin and shaking your head.

"So thankfully, we're here to make sure they don't keep believing that." You smiled a little.

"The local police department also would report anything suspicious to the Gesellschaft's command too." Samus added, showing a series of messages showing the precinct command of the police department reporting quite happily to the Gesellschaft's Gautier for the city of Munich and that their forces were at their disposal. "It's disgusting, but it's what we have to deal with."

"You know, when I came here I wasn't expecting to have to fight the cops..." Battery grumbled before shaking her head and trying to move past it.

"When German police and intelligence tried to infiltrate neonazi groups, they decided to infiltrate back. Now infiltration is one of their chief sources of money and organization. I've been trying to untangle the network of compromised double-agents fo years. Wish I had more luck." Hans' voice crackled over the radio link to Battery's concern, surprise, and no small amount of fear.

"I mean, it does make sense. Infiltrate the people with the most power to shut you down and turn them into assets. We see it a bunch back in the Bay with the Riot cops." Assault said, to which you nodded. Based on your studies of these kinds of extremists, law enforcement was nearly always the first target for their subversion.

"Meanwhile, a group of about fifty people are busy rifling through the information in the university to locate anything of interest. They've been waiting for an excuse to raid into the university for years now. Not sure what's been holding them back for so long, but it's no longer there." You added.

Bumblebee chimed in to add some more information pilfered from his cyberscouting; being almost as skilled at electronic reconnaissance as he was at conventional exploration and discovery. He informed you that motorised patrols were also present, generally distributed along the lines of a single car's worth of people per group. In the rough area there were about twenty two such groups who would likely come if called. Not to mention the "heavy assets" who would bring military grade force if particularly fierce resistance was encountered.

The Gesellschaft owned this city to the point of regularly holding rallies and expanding its operations from merely focusing on parahumans to trying to build a new brownshirt army of street fighters among unpowered individuals as well as a paramilitary outfit. But most concerning was that they were constantly getting supplies for military grade ordnance despite not making any discernable purchases from any known arms dealers. It was as if the weapons they were getting were just popping out of the ether. Which to bumblebee, indicated that their dealer was almost certainly not of this earth.

"So with that in mind...I think I could maybe, crack into their communications and divert some patrols to clear out a way for infiltrators to get in through? I'd want at least one of the Autobots to follow you though. Take the heat for you." You said, looking at the gathered group.

"Yeah, if you can't reliably survive low velocity munitions like these it would be horrible to ask you to jump in front of them. Even if you're all so brave to try it with your damaged genetic code and substandard armour." Samus said with an easy smile, the unknowing insult getting a tch out of Assault and a raised brow from Irinna.

"Damaged?" She said with a quirked brow.

"You people have so many genetic diseases...most of you won't even last a century." You said with a sad sigh, they looked like nice people too. It'd be a shame to have to see them age and die if they didn't accept treatment for their poor health.

"Wow, here I thought I was on the right diet and exercise plan. Thanks for that." Ethan laughed, seeming to be in good heart about it all to your immense confusion. With a risk of cancer like his and the extremely poor methods of treating such a trivial disease available to this world he shouldn't be laughing so hard about it. It seemed like a horrific way to die.

"Honestly, unless you have some magic gene editor doohickey to fix that in five seconds don't worry about it. Living to fifty in this line of work is enough of an accomplishment." Battery said, trying to blow it all off like a joke as she cracked her knuckles and thought of a plan.

"Well...with a restore station it wouldn't take five seconds...it'd take much less time than that." Samus said with a shrug to the confused staring of Assault and Battery while Serp and Molotok looked at each other and then simply shrugged and muttered something about people from space being very confusing.

"Primus don't get me started on organic life spans...you all act so weird when we tell you that five million of your stellar cycles isn't that long." Strongarm added.

"Five million years ago there weren't even any humans Strongarm! Perspective, please!" Irinna snipped at her.

"Okay, okay, please focus..." You said, disgruntled at the off topic derailing of this conversation and the lapsing into what you saw as annoying, childish bickering about stuff that didn't matter.

"We need a plan of approach. Once we're close, I can send you guys local camera footage for some additional intel, but we need to decide how to get there. All in on sneaking around, guns blazing, or splitting up?" You said, pondering the map's information like it was a holy text.



Options:

[]: Everyone go in and kick down the door, gives the Gesellschaft the least time to complete their theft but carries the most risk for more fragile members of the team.
[]: Go all in on stealth, everyone moves in to sneak in, only revealing themselves when fairly close. This will take the most time, but ensures that more fragile members of the team will be put at little risk.
[]: Divide team into stealthy and loud groups; even balance between prior two options.
[]: Write in

Suboptions:

[]: Keep team unified; Move as a single group (not compatible with Divide team)
[]: Divide Team; Specify who goes into which group

Free options:

[]: Request character profiles for Strongarm, Molotok, Serp, Assault, Battery, and Bumblebee.
[]: Local news headlines
[]: Additional scan logs (request three things that Arne or Samus have seen that do not have scan logs)
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
My apologies for the massive delay with this post but I was initially thinking to create this whole magnitude-based stat system before I realised that this was delaying the post by an unacceptably long margin and decided to just stick with purely qualitative descriptors of strengths and weaknesses that would both be much easier on myself and also allow this post to just come out already. Maybe I'll keep working on the new stat systems in the background, but for now; we're not going to be touching that mess.

Especially because this has been holding up literally ever other writing project because of my perfectionist tendencies.

Stats aren't really equalised, especially at the beginning. Samus and Arne are far and away more your primary instruments in combat, while the Cybertronians are much tankier and hit harder than the Parahumans and Metahumans as a rule until you've put enough effort into helping them catch up. Parahumans and Metahumans have a wide variety of special effects though.

Samus and Arne will have their sheets redone in a style similar to this at some point.

[ACCORDION]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Bumblebee[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

29d028710646da7785d6da5412a2feee.jpg


Gender: Male
Species: Cybertronian
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 5,379,129
Ethnicity: Velocitronian
Affiliation: Autobot
Height: 17'6/5.33 meters.
Mass: 1.4 tonnes
Optic Colour: Blue

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Phenomenal
Training: Great
Leadership: Great
Morale: Impeccable

Combat Skill: Incredible
Intrigue Skill: Fantastic
Diplomacy Skill: Great
Administration Skill: Very Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Great
Vehicular Skill: Great
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: Decent

Strength Category: Incredible
Durability Category: Incredible (Shielded, Armoured)
Resilience Category: Incredible (Incredible Shielding, Incredible Armour)
Speed Category: Great/Fantastic (Vehicle mode)
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Incredible

Weapons:
  • Solar Cannon: Very High Rate of fire, Very Highly Chargeable, Great Armour Penetration, Very Good Shield Disruption, Very Good Damage, Very long Range, Targets are considerably more vulnerable to follow up damage, Strongly Incendiary. Charged Shots deal AoE.
  • Laser Cutter: Continuous Rate of Fire, Incredible Armour Penetration, Very Good Damage, Strongly Incendiary, Very Long Range.
  • Stinger: Continuous Rate of Fire, Very Good Armour Penetration, Good Damage, Extreme Shield Disruption, Extreme Stunning Effect, Very Long Range, Chains between multiple targets, Extremely Electrified.
  • Scatter Blaster: High Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Good Multi-Target
  • Multi-missile launcher: Low Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Extreme Range, Large Area of Effect, Great multi-target
  • Mini-missiles High Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Very Long Range, Large Area of Effect
  • Grenade Launcher: Medium rate of fire, extends Grenade range.
  • EMP Grenades: No Armour Penetration, High Shield Disruption, Very High Base damage, weaker against biological targets, stronger against mechanical targets, Very Strong EMP effect, throwing range, large area of effect.
    {*]Plasma Grenades: Very High Armour Penetration, Very High Damage, Throwing Range, Very Large Area of Effect
  • Gamma Grenades: High Armour Penetration, Very High base damage, Weaker against Mechanical targets, Stronger against Biological Targets, Throwing Range, Highly Sickening, Large Area of Effect.
  • Detonation Hammer: Medium Attack Speed Penalty, Great Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Great Concussion, Large Area of Effect, Long reach
  • Energon Blades: Melee Weapon, No Attack Speed Penalty, Very good armour penetration bonus, Good Damage Bonus, Highly Energised, Highly Superheated, Short Reach, x2

Armour:
  • Light Type Cybertronian Armour: Powered, Good Strength and Speed Enhancement, Good Self-Repair, Highly EMP resistant, Shielding generating, Easy to repair, Incredibly Durable, Great Armour Save, Great Damage Reduction. Facemask protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,


Miscellaneous Gear:


Traits
  • +: Expert Scout: Bumblebee is tremendously good at finding out things that he shouldn't and has a critical success range for scouting on a roll of 70 or higher on the D100 and on the confirmation roll.
  • +: Ancient Warrior: Bumblebee is an extremely experienced combatant and is quite literally built for conflict. Bumblebee rerolls all failed combat-related rolls and has his critical hit range increased doubled and needs to triple confirm to critically fail.
  • +: People's Champion: Bumblebee is one of the most empathetic and kind autobots around and naturally gels well with the dispossessed, meek, young, or disadvantaged. Bumblebee gets strong bonuses to positively affecting these people. He also gets this bonus in dealing with mental health issues thanks to his long experience with comforting others who are down on their luck. He also rerolls any failed morale check twice if someone more vulnerable than him would be endangered by him failing that check.
  • +: Goldbug's Luck: Bumblebee is one of the luckiest autobots whom fortune tends to favour. In background rolls, bumblebee gets an additional 3d10 rolled to be added to each dice except when he gets a natural one and a second natural one on the confirmation dice.
  • +: Everyone's Friend: It is very easy to build platonic friendships with bumblebee, with the threshold of positive interaction needed to improve a platonic relation with bumblebee being significantly lower than average, he also gives improved cooperation benefits for friendships.
  • +: You don't seem right: Bumblebee is very good at picking up possible imposters and his success range for picking out any possible infiltrators amongst the ranks is never lower than a roll of 50 or above on a D100 rolled during every social interlude or mission.
  • =: Robot in Disguise: Bumblebee is a Cybertronian and is thus given a robot's list of built-in capabilities, resistances and immunities as well as some particular vulnerabilities, as well as some particular to Cybertronians. For the sake of the Manton Effect and similar limitations, Bumblebee is considered to be partly between life and machinery, making him resistant but not quite immune to powers that only affect organic or inorganic material. He can also transform into vehicles relatively close to his robot mode in overall size.
  • -: Mute: Bumblebee lost his voice box in the Great Cybertronian Civil War and cannot speak conventionally, being limited to sign language, text messages, or soundbite clips. If these are not available or cannot be interpreted by the person he is speaking to, he is incapable of communication and at times he will be incapable of getting across his exact meaning if the other person cannot receive a text message or signage from him.
  • -: We're Here to Protect People!: We're here to Protect: Bumblebee is adamant about protecting people who are in need of defending and will not agree to any plan that will unnecessarily leave people who can't help themselves at risk without a difficult diplomacy check and will insist on accompanying people he sees as more vulnerable and are lacking in other guardians.
  • -: You're my friend, and I want to be there for you: Bumblebee can accumulate stress points at a high rate if someone he has bonded with goes out of contact with him for a long period of time. Especially if he has reason to worry for their safety. He will also be likely to intercede in social complications out of a protective urge.

Subject is a sort of robotic mimic known as a Cybertronian named Bumblebee, presently taking the guise of a 1984 Volkswagen Beetle. Spatiochronal analysis suggests that he is not from either this universe or from yours but reveals an age of 5,379,129 Earth years. Analysis indicates that subject is powered by novel energy source referred to as "Energon". Energy readings are especially concentrated in the core region of the body within a spiritual analogue referred to as the Spark. Bumblebee is fully sapient and is capable of altering configuration between vehicular and bipedal mode. The presence of multiple concealed weapons has been detected, but overall systems are inferior to your own in efficiency and sophistication; compensated for by greater size. Further analysis indicates that subject is incapable of intelligible vocal speech due to relatively recent damage. Bumblebee's records indicate that he is a native of the colony world of Velocitus in the whirlpool galaxy.

Relationships:
  • Strongarm: Bumblebee and Strongarm are close friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points twice between missions and once during a mission. They also gain a strong bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can use a few special techniques when working in tandem.
  • Windblade: Bumblebee and Windblade are best friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points thrice between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a Magnitude very strong bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can use special techniques in tandem.


[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Strongarm[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

3dgcrsz91wu51.png


Gender: Female
Species: Cybertronian
Orientation: Pansexual
Age: 3,399,195
Ethnicity: Iaconite
Affiliation: Autobot
Height: 19'9/6.0198 meters.
Mass: 2.89 tonnes
Optic Colour: Blue

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Incredible
Training: Phenomenal
Leadership: Great
Morale: Impeccable

Combat Skill: Fantastic
Intrigue Skill: Very Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Great
Academic Skill: Good

Tech Skill: Great
Vehicular Skill: Great
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: Decent

Strength Category: Phenomenal
Durability Category: Phenomenal (Phenomenal Shielding, Phenomenal Armour)
Resilience Category: Phenomenal (Incredible Shielding, Phenomenal Armour)
Speed Category: Very Good/Excellent (Vehicle mode)
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Incredible

Weapons:
  • Neutron Assault Rifle: Incredible Rate of Fire, Very Good Armour Penetration, Very Good Damage, Very Long Range, Targets become moderately more vulnerable to follow up damage
  • Path Blaster: Medium Rate of Fire, Incredible Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Phenomenal Range
  • Scatter Blaster: High Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Extreme Damage, Good Multi-Target
  • Subsonic Repeater: Absurd Rate of Fire, Good Armour Penetration, Good Damage, Medium Range
  • Magma-Frag Launcher: Low Rate of Fire, High Armour Penetration, Incredible Damage, Long Range, Huge Area of Effect, Very Highly Incendiary
  • Mini-missiles: High Rate of Fire, Great Armour Penetration, Great Damage, Very Long Range, Large Area of Effect
  • EMP Grenades: No Armour Penetration, High Shield Disruption, Very High Base damage, weaker against biological targets, stronger against mechanical targets, Very Strong EMP effect, throwing range, large area of effect.
    {*]Plasma Grenades: Very High Armour Penetration, Very High Damage, Throwing Range, Very Large Area of Effect
  • Gamma Grenades: High Armour Penetration, Very High base damage, Weaker against Mechanical targets, Stronger against Biological Targets, Throwing Range, Highly Sickening, Large Area of Effect.
  • Shock Maul: Melee Weapon, Moderate Attack Speed Penalty, Moderate Armour Penetration Bonus, Extreme Damage Bonus, Very Strongly Concussive, Highly Electrified, Medium Reach,
  • Energon Blades: Melee Weapon, No Attack Speed Penalty, Very good armour penetration bonus, Good Damage Bonus, Highly Energised, Highly Superheated, Short Reach, x2.

Armour:
  • Medium Type Cybertronian Armour: Powered, Very Good Strength Enhancement, Good Self-Repair, Highly EMP resistant, Shielding generating, Easy to repair, Phenomenally Durable, Fantastic Armour Save, Fantastic Damage Reduction. Facemask protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Memorised Protocol: Strongarm gets and gives a strong bonus to any checks revolving around protocol, legal codes, rules, regulations and other such structures.
  • +: Autobot Elite Guard Training: As part of the Autobot Elite Guard, Strongarm has received training from a military tradition honed over millions of years of combat. She doesn't need to roll to confirm criticals and never critically fumbles combat rolls.
  • +: Ancient Warrior: Strongarm is an extremely experienced combatant and is quite literally built for conflict. Strongarm rerolls all failed combat-related rolls and has her critical hit range doubled with any weapon and needs to triple confirm to critically fail.
  • +: Made of Sterner Stuff: Strongarm can roll a d100 whenever hit and on a 70 or above she simply ignores the hit entirely even if she otherwise failed to save.
  • +: Cool Head: Thanks to her Elite Guard training, Strongarm keeps a firm head on her shoulders and can never automatically fail a morale check and doesn't take stress penalties to morale or leadership checks.
  • +: Enduring: Strongarm takes three times as long to risk getting stressed from overwork as other characters.
  • =: Robot in Disguise: Strongarm is a Cybertronian and is thus given a robot's list of built-in capabilities, resistances and immunities as well as some particular vulnerabilities, as well as some particular to Cybertronians. For the sake of the Manton Effect and similar limitations, Strongarm is considered to be partly between life and machinery, making him resistant but not quite immune to powers that only affect organic or inorganic material. She can also transform into vehicles relatively close to his robot mode in overall size.
  • -: Bad at improv: Strongarm takes moderate penalties to most types of rolls if forced to act without any sort of plan in mind or if something completely unexpected and unforeseen comes up.
  • -: There are rules for this! Strongarm requires diplomacy checks to convince to do actions that go outside of standard Autobot protocol.
  • -: Underconfident: Strongarm has confidence issues when it comes to working on her own or taking her own initiative without orders and will take a morale penalty if operating without guidance.

Strongarm has been active for about three point three million years, young by Cybertronian Standards, but has spent virtually all of that time in combat or covert duties. As such she is considered a young but dedicated soldier; rather by the book and a stringent observer of protocol. She is one of the most promising newer members of Jetfire's crew and is a stickler for making sure that all protocol is followed, particularly those relating to secrecy and ensuring that the disruption done to Earth's societies isn't overly extreme. Though empathetic, her focus on combat training means that she's not the best negotiator unless she has a rigid system she can navigate and take advantage of. However, her experience in the Elite Guard means that there's rather few combat situations she can't handle, and she's decently well-read. However her inflexibility regarding protocol makes her somewhat poor at stealth operations. While stubborn and willful, she's reasonably humble and always has a mind for making sure that the job is done right.

Relationships
  • Bumblebee: Bumblebee and Strongarm are close friends, and as such can roll a diplomacy check with full modifiers to relieve stress points twice between missions and once during a mission. They also gain a Magnitude +3 bonus to cooperative checks when working together.

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Molotok[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
Description (In Lieu of Image):

Passage said:
" The Russian girl was wearing some manner of mask and a colourful but practical looking military produced costume with green coloured inset plates, red trimmings, and the occasional gold highlights; she looked rather nice. She was definitely someone who spent a lifetime continually working out, with the armour padding of her suit giving a good impression of the contour of her musculature. Closer examination also showed that the outfit seemed to have attachment points for added plating".

Irinushka wears her black hair long and straight down to about the midsection of her back, her features are slender and agile rather than powerful; clearly built for moving as quickly as possible. When relaxing but in uniform, she wears a mask that can cover most of her face save for her hair with a removable mouth-filter and eyepieces and adjusts her hairstyle with a hairband to keep her identity protected. Like most Soviet bloc heroes, her uniform is meant to be primarily practical with some concessions made to fashion and individual preference within reason. When in battle gear, she attaches carefully weight distributed semi-powered armour designed by the "Spetsproizpo" (Spetsial'noye proizvodstvennoye podrazdeleniye: Special Manufacturing Division), Tinkers with access to the resources of the whole of the Soviet Bloc divided into teams based on speciality.

Her armour is meant to cover her weaknesses without impeding her or requiring too much in the way of intense maintenance. Made with special materials highly resistant to most forms of energy transfer and fitted with semi-powered systems that allow it to carry itself, the plating added to the armour is styled off of Soviet "Ratnik" infantry patterns. A military-style helm fitted with an eyeshield and filtration guard protects her head, keeps her up to date with the OGASnet and communications sent her way, and wards her from atmospheric poisons. The hermetically sealed plated body armour helps screen out radiation, electricity, cold, and heat, and keeps her at a comfortable temperature. Its colouration is largely the same as her underlying uniform, and her helm fits her hair by unknown means.

The insert nature of the plating also makes it easy to repair, simply slotting in replacements for damaged or destroyed portions of her outfit. and stitching up any tears in the dura-fiber construction of the fabric. She wears a service patch on her arms, the Soviet Red star in the midst of her helmet's forehead section, and her personal symbol of a golden rocket carrying a platinum coloured hammer to the stars lies at the midsection of her uniform and on her chestplate. She also usually has an infantryman's backpack on her back to carry supplies when on long missions likely to take her far away from the usual lines of support. Like most Soviet heroes, she rejects wearing actual capes as pointlessly exposing herself to a potential hazard.

Real Name: Irina "Irinushka" Vladmirovna Kuznetsov

Aliaes: "Hammer", Molotok, Probzhen (Short for "punching woman"), Tovarishch pushechnoye yadro (Comrade Cannonball),
Gender: Female
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Bisexual
Age: 14
Ethnicity: Great Russian
Affiliation: Soviet Union (Otmolsoza)
Height: 5'7/171 centimetres.
Mass: 59 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Green
Hair Colour: Black

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Decent
Training: Very Good
Leadership: Good
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Decent
Vehicular Skill: None (Doesn't know how to drive)
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Moderately superhuman
Durability Category: Moderately Superhuman (Augmented by kinetic absorption and redirection, decently durable armour and variably strong shielding)
Resilience Category: Very Good (Shielding can be bled through by energy attacks but is extremely effective against kinetic attacks, low-grade armour)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Decent

Weapons:
  • One Handed Kinetic Hammers: Melee weapon, moderate rate of attack penalty, low armour penetration bonus, low damage bonus, short reach, moderate concussive, x2.
  • Two Handed Kinetic Hammer: Melee weapon, Moderate Rate of Attack Penalty, Low armour penetration bonus, medium damage bonus, medium reach, moderate concussive, two handed
  • Containment Foam Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Restraining Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Long Duration, Throwing Range.
  • Flashbang Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Blinding Effect, Strong Deafening Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • HEAT Grenade: Low Armour Penetration, Low Damage, Incendiery, Small Area of Effect, Short Range.
  • Frag Grenade: Weak Armour Penetration, Weak Damage, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.

Armour:
  • Otmolsoza Thermal-Armoured Costume; Semi-powered, Low Armour Save (improves to medium against energy attacks), Low Damage Reduction (Increases to medium against energy attacks), Highly EMP resistant, Effortless to repair, Helmet protects against blinding, deafening, and atmospheric effects,
  • Collapsible Riot Shield: Offers cover, increases armour save and damage reduction, can be used as a weapon with somewhat increased melee damage.


Miscellaneous Gear:



Traits:
  • +: Energetic: Irinushka loves being part of the Otmolsoza and the opportunity it gives for her to feel powerful, accomplished, and like she's making a real difference in the world. She always rerolls failed saves against Stress Gain and takes two missions without a break to have to save against Stress gain.
  • +: Star Pioneer: Irinushka is a well-beloved part of the Otmolsoza and gets a significant bonus to diplomacy within the Earth Bet Soviet Bloc.
  • +: Charming: Irinushka gets a moderate bonus to diplomacy checks with people in her age group who are orientation compatible with her.
  • +: Momentum Shard: Irinushka has the Momentum Shard and can absorb, manipulate, and generate kinetic energy in large quantities, she can absorb most kinetic impacts and store the energy inside of herself for usage for nearly any physical purpose, basically storing energy points such as regenerating her shielding, healing some injuries, augmenting her speed or hits, using some special attacks, or giving some boosts to her comrades; making her extremely flexible. However, she needs to consciously absorb energy, otherwise relying on simply passively deflecting incoming energy or imparting it into herself. She also does have a limit to how much energy she can store at once due to her physiological limitations.
  • +: Ready for action: Irinushka never needs to make a morale check to fight a new and unheard-of enemy or situation with confidence.
  • +: Familiar with non-human combatants: Thanks to working extensively with the Autobots, Irinushka does not take inexperience penalties when it comes to fighting non-human enemies.
  • =: Otmolsoza member: As part of the Soviet Union's principal party-aligned hero team, Irinushka has certain special access privileges within the boundaries of the Soviet Bloc. However, she does draw suspicion outside of the Earth bet Soviet bloc, especially within more anti-communist areas.
  • -: Carrier of Burdens: Irinushka needs a diplomacy check to dissuade from taking actions that may cause herself harm when she believes that others would benefit from putting herself at risk.
  • -: I want to help!: She will have to save against stress point accumulation for every mission she is benched without being sent off on side-tasks or joining the main mission.
  • -: I can do this: Irinushka will require a diplomacy check to convince her to accept aid if she feels like she can succeed at a task without it and if helping her would take up significant time or resources from that person.


Actually named Irina "Irinushka" Vladimirovna Kuznetsov, Molotok is a young parahuman attached to the Soviet Otmolsoza (Special Protection Youth Division of the Soviet Union) and a native of the city of Arkhangelsk. Irina bonded to her extradimensional symbiont following an encounter with a rampaging tinker made robot of Swedish origin derived from the illicitly acquired corpse of a Decepticon slain in an aerial engagement acquired by the tinker Svartalfar before the Autobots could recover it. Originally developed with the hopes of helping to fight Endbringers, the lingering code from the fallen machine's repurposed Cybertronian components meshed poorly with its new programming when Svaltalfar thanks in part due to Gesellschaft sabotage; resulting in a monstrosity that rampaged across the baltic for two weeks. Due to the severity of its attack on Arkhangelsk, she has a double bond to her entity.

The incident gave her the ability to store, manipulate, and amplify kinetic energy for various purposes, such as absorbing incoming blows, forming shielding, significantly augmenting the force behind her impacts, move objects, enhance or drain speed, leech energy to accelerate natural healing, or even releasing them as impact blasts or shockwaves. Her status as a general-purpose take all comers melee combatant, and tremendous capacity for punishment has made her indispensable to the Sentinels at Arkhangelsk. However, Irina has been diagnosed with a martyrdom complex and a tendency of unnecessarily taking on the burdens of others and worsened mood if unable to offer assistance. All while she often refuses to ask others for help even when in need out of a feeling of not wanting to burden others.

Relationships
  • Serp: Irinushka and Viktor date each other rather openly and have a strong and healthy romantic relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with doubled modifiers to relieve stress points four times between missions and thrice during a mission. They also gain a great bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.



[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Serp[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]

Description: (In lieu of picture)
Passage said:
a nearby companion in a more red outfit as the blond set down his fighter pilot styled helmet and ran his hands through messy locks. He gave the impression of having recently been sweating quite a lot, and you could see a few beads still dripping down his forehead.

Another look at him confirmed that he was built for agility and finesse rather than raw power, and the insets of his suit seemed mostly to accentuate the muscle groups of his body in a rather flattering manner. Like her outfit, it had attachment points, and like her, he wore a small mask that covered part of his face but not quite enough to be likely to guise his identity from anyone who knew him. He shrugged off more of the plating of what you presumed was his full armoursuit, offering it to a drone who took it off of him as he wiped his brow and dabbed at his face with a cloth.

Viktor wears his messy blond hair down to the midsection of his neck, his sharp blue eyes usually highly attentive as he looks around the room. He's a sharp-looking, handsome young man who fits all the ideals of the Soviet Union's youth, almost seeming to have crawled out of a propaganda poster at times When in uniform but not in combat, Viktor wears his red, khaki, and black uniform-costume as well as a mask that can cover his entire face, including with ski-style goggles, or have parts removed to expose his hair, mouth, eyes, nose, ears and the like as needed. When in combat however, he utilises custom-fitted power armour produced for him by the "Spetsproizpo" (Spetsial'noye proizvodstvennoye podrazdeleniye: Special Manufacturing Division), Tinkers with access to the resources of the whole of the Soviet Bloc divided into teams based on speciality.

His armour is meant to take advantage of his ability to improve equipment to greater performance level, thus while it might seem to be somewhat standard as he doesn't have a dedicated Tinker following him around constantly; he is able to force it into capabilities well beyond its designed parameters. Significantly more durable, with a greater degree of augmentation, improving the modular equipment able to be fitted into it as per mission requirements, and far better at absorbing incoming hits without harming his body in his possession, Pasternak is able to function as one of Arkhangelsk's most versatile heroes, who can take the fight without fear or concern of harm in most engagements and taking on most challenges that get in his way.

The armour also helps to store the large number of grenades he uses for many situations, though in the case of operations with the autobots, he swaps out many of the nonlethal instruments he has for devices more likely to cause at least some damage to Decepticon opponents. Though so far the autobots are somewhat resistant to the idea of giving humans their weapons technology, the coming crisis might finally break Jetfire's reluctance as a crisis on many worlds begins to brew. Something he is actually looking forward to.


Real Name: Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak
Aliases: Serp, "Sickle", Rezhumal (Short for "Cutting Boy"), Tovarishch khvatayushchiy (Comrade Grabber, after his tendency to help himself to other people's personal belongings to see how his power works with them)
Gender: Male
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Bisexual
Age: 14
Ethnicity: Great Russian
Affiliation: Soviet Union (Otmolsoza)
Height: 6'0/182.44 centimetres.
Mass: 71 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Blond

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Decent
Training: Very Good
Leadership: Good
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Very Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Very Good

Tech Skill: Decent
Vehicular Skill: None (Doesn't know how to drive)
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Significantly Superhuman
Durability Category: Significantly Superhuman
Resilience Category: Decent (Decent armour, no shielding)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Very Good
Perception: Decent

Weapons:
  • Okhotnik Pistol: Medium rate of fire, Dismal Armour Penetration, Dismal Damage, Medium Range, X2
  • Wrist Mounted Submachine Guns: Great Rate of Fire, Dismal Armour Penetration, Dismal Damage, Short Range, x2
  • Wrist Mounted Sawn off Shotguns: Weak Rate of Fire, Weak Damage, Weak Armour Penetration, Very Short Range, x2 (Can fire slugs which have Very Low damage, Very Low armour penetration and short-range, or taser shells which have minuscule damage, moderately electrified, mediocre stunning)
  • Ballistic Knives: (Counts as a melee attack with slightly increased armour penetration and damage and medium range)
  • Gauntlet Chain-Bayonets: Melee weapon, Moderate attack rate penalty, low armour penetration, low damage, more effective against inorganic targets, point blank reach, x2.
  • High-Frequency Sickle: No attack rate penalty, mediocre armour penetration, mediocre damage bonus, short reach.
  • Collapsible High-Frequency Scythe: Significant attack rate penalty, medium armour penetration, medium damage bonus, medium reach.
  • Containment Foam Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Restraining Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Long Duration, Throwing Range.
  • Flashbang Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, Strong Blinding Effect, Strong Deafening Effect, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • EMP Grenades: N/A armour penetration, N/A damage, mediocre EMP effect, throwing range.
  • Napalm Grenades: Very low Armour Penetration, Very Low Burn Damage, Large Area of Effect, Spreading, throwing range.
  • Thermite Grenades: Mediocre Armour Penetration, Mediocre Burn Damage, Mediocre Incendiary, Small Area of Effect, throwing range, Short Duration
  • HEAT Grenade: Low Armour Penetration, Low Damage, Incendiery, Small Area of Effect, throwing range.
  • Frag Grenade: Weak Armour Penetration, Weak Damage, Medium Area of Effect, Throwing Range.
  • Smart Grenade Launcher: Extends grenade range to medium and allows for rerolls to hit.


Armour:
  • Otmolsoza Augmented Suit; Powered, Okay Armour Save and Damage Reduction, Improves strength noticeably, EMP hardened, Helmet protects against blinding and deafening effects and atmospheric toxins, Easy Repair.
  • Collapsible Riot Shield: Offers cover, increases armour save and damage reduction, can be used as a weapon with somewhat increased melee damage.

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits
  • +: Grindstone Shard: Vitya has the "Grindstone" shard which allows him to improve things that he has in his possession or on his person, including himself. He works from a budget of "improvements" he can dole out to increase overall performance. This effect ends shortly after he lets go or stops having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to apply to projectiles or short delay explosives.
  • +: Star Pioneer: Vityais a well-beloved part of the Otmolsoza and gets a strong bonus on all diplomacy checks within the Earth Bet Soviet Bloc.
  • +: Charming: Vitya gets a moderate bonus to diplomacy checks with people in his age group who are orientation compatible with him.
  • +: Soviet New Man: Vitya loses stress points at double the normal rate as he has managed a good deal of control over his own emotional state.
  • +: Friends on the other side: Vitya is actually quite well regarded on the other side of the Iron Curtain and receives a moderate bonus to diplomacy outside of the Soviet Bloc on Earth Bet.
  • +: Familiar with non-human combatants: Thanks to working extensively with the Autobots, Viktor does not take inexperience penalties when it comes to fighting non-human enemies.
  • =: Otmolsoza member: As part of the Soviet Union's principal party-aligned hero team, Viktor has certain special access privileges within the boundaries of the Soviet Bloc. Though of course, as a child such privileges are limited.
  • -: A bit hidebound: Vitya sticks close to Soviet protocol and ideals and to the party line of the VKP(B), substantial deviation from protocol will require a diplomacy check to convince him away from with the difficulty being determined by the magnitude of deviation asked of him.
  • -: Overbearing: Vitya has high standards for everyone he meets and can induce stress in others by his consistent insistence on improvement form just about everyone he meets and is exceedingly difficult to satisfy. This also makes it harder to improve relationship grades (romantic or platonic) with him.
  • -: Please stop Talking: Victor has a bad habit of saying stuff he shouldn't and can cause strain in relations when he voices unneeded and unsolicited criticism that his partner might not take well if he sees something he regards as substandard.

Viktor "Vitya" Zinovyevich Pasternak js a parahuman member of the Otmolsoza and one of the Arkhangelsk division's foremost generalists. Vitya is able to "sharpen" objects, reshaping them at the molecular level for additional efficiency such as making a cutting edge a monomolecular blade and reinforcing them with extradimensional energy to prevent them from breaking; including himself. Also a double-trigger, Vitya can apply his sharpening and reinforcing to more esoteric effects, such as sharpening his senses, enhancing his accuracy, self augmentation, and getting more efficiency out of used objects. The sharpening effect ends briefly after he ceases having contact with the object, but lasts long enough to be used with projectile weapons.

Vitya was "triggered" in the same incident that saw Irina being bonded to her entity, albeit in a separate part of the city during the rogue machine's rampage. The Otmolsoza partnered the two, due to being the same age and having had a prior relationship before manifesting their abilities, thus leading to the aliases "Hammer and Sickle" under the tutelage of the experienced Soviet parahuman "Nakoval'nya" or "Anvil". Vitya's profile lists him as a brave but sometimes overbearing would-be classical hero and party loyalist who holds people to high standards. While well-meaning and making an effort to be kind, Vitya has difficulties with holding back criticism even when entirely unsolicited. However, his versatility and commitment have ensured that he commands a significant deal of respect within Arkhangelsk

Relationships:
  • Molotok: Irinushka and Viktor date each other rather openly and have a strong and healthy romantic relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with doubled modifiers to relieve stress points four times between missions and thrice during a mission. They also gain a great bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Battery[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
450.png


Gender: Female
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Heterosexual
Age: 22
Ethnicity: English-American
Affiliation: United States of America (Protectorate)
Height: 5'4/162.56 centimetres.
Mass: 61 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Blue
Hair Colour: Brown

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Troubled
Experience: Very Good
Training: Acceptable
Leadership: Great
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Very Good
Intrigue Skill: Decent
Diplomacy Skill: Good
Administration Skill: Good
Academic Skill: Decent

Tech Skill: Good
Vehicular Skill: Good
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Variable (Peak human to substantially superhuman)
Durability Category: Variable (Peak human to excellent)
Resilience Category: Variable (Peak human to excellent)
Speed Category: Variable (Peak Human to excellent)
Cleverness: Good
Perception: Very Good

Weapons:
Unarmed

Armour:
Unarmoured Costume

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Charging Up!: Battery can take time to build up a reserve of energy for up to twelve seconds to spend it on various needs and abilities such as strength, speed, impact, resilience, and durability. Each second spent charging translates to six seconds of usage for a total of seventy-two seconds at maximum power. She can also expend the energy in a large electromagnetic burst whose power is dependent on how much energy she has stored up. This can be used to infuse objects with energy, repel objects sensitive to electromagnetism, shut down electronics, or magnetise targets. As the limitation is physiological, improvements to her physiology would allow her to store more energy.
  • +: All in-worker: Battery is significantly more resistant to stress than most and takes at least two consecutive missions without downtime to start having to roll against stress.
  • +: Dedicated to the Cause: Battery can reroll failed morale checks if failing puts her mission at significant risk of failure.
  • +: Role Model: When working in Earth Bet's United States, Battery is an inspiration to many young heroes, giving her a diplomacy bonus with younger American parahumans.
  • +: In the Know: As an adult member of the Protectorate, Battery is given access to certain classified information that most people aren't privy to, including materials still recorded purely in paper format to prevent hacking.
  • +: Former Ward Leader: As a former leader of the Brockton Bay Wards as well as a former member of the New York Wards, Battery starts off with strong relations with members of other organisations.
  • =: Protectorate Member: As part of the Protectorate Battery has special access privileges within the territorial boundaries of the Earth Bet United States of America and to a lesser degree, other NATO or American aligned countries. She also gets a diplomacy bonus in interacting with military, governmental, or law enforcement personnel within these areas and commands a degree of respect from other heroes in the area. However she also draws the ire of the less than law-abiding and draws suspicion from those outside of the American bloc.
  • -: Ties to Cauldron: Battery's powers originate from her contacts with Cauldron and making a bargain with the proverbial devil means that she owes them three favours, she has already completed two, with the last one still to be called by the organisation.
  • -: Guilt: Battery feels guilty for receiving her powers through such an illicit source and this doubt weighs on her mind, every arc it goes unresolved, the Guilt will threaten to consume her entirely.
  • -: Unfamiliarity with Inhuman Opponents: Up until very recently, Battery had no idea that aliens were amongst us or that at least one Earth from an entirely different multiverse was in contact with Earth Bet. Battery's combat skill and to-hit bonuses are reduced against alien opponents.

Battery received her abilities from an underground organisation known as Cauldron that works behind the scenes to engender the formation of Parahumans and guide the Parahuman community along certain lines of development that suit its endgoal. The daughter of a Police Detective who wanted to stop Madcap from breaking out villains from prisons that they worked hard at putting away, she was contacted at an early age by the organisation while looking for equipment that might help her provide assistance to the police. In exchange for three favours, she was given her current abilities; the ability to store energy up to her body's limit and then release it for whatever purpose she could need. This made her a versatile combatant capable of rapid movement or extreme force while still having a tremendous deal of control. While initially working with the New York City Wards, she eventually was transferred to Brockton Bay in her later teen years and eventually grew up to be a fully-fledged member of the protectorate where she has served with distinction. Following a long and difficult courtship by the claimed to be reformed Madcap, the two would marry at a young age as well.

Relationships:
  • Assault: Assault and Battery are married and seem to have a healthy relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with 50% increased modifiers to relieve stress points three times between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a very good bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.


[SLIDE]

[/SLIDE]
[SLIDE_HEADER]Assault[/SLIDE_HEADER]
[SLIDE]
L9t10IA.jpeg


Real Name: Ethan
Gender: Male
Species: Parahuman
Orientation: Heterosexual
Age: 22
Ethnicity: English-American
Affiliation: United States of America (Protectorate)
Height: 6'2/187.96 centimetres.
Mass: 94 Kilograms
Eye Colour: Green
Hair Colour: Orange

Physical Health: Great
Stress Levels: Healthy
Experience: Very Good
Training: Passable
Leadership: Decent
Morale: Great

Combat Skill: Very Good
Intrigue Skill: Good
Diplomacy Skill: Great
Administration Skill: Decent
Academic Skill: Low

Tech Skill: Good
Vehicular Skill: Good
Esoterical Skill: None
Esoterical Potential: None known
Esoterical Resistance: None

Strength Category: Moderately superhuman
Durability Category: Moderately Superhuman (Augmented by kinetic absorption and redirection, decently durable armour and variably strong shielding)
Resilience Category: Very Good (Against kinetic attacks)
Speed Category: Great
Cleverness: Good
Perception: Very Good

Weapons:
Unarmed

Armour:
Unarmoured Costume

Miscellaneous Gear:

Traits:
  • +: Kinetic Shift: Assault's powers are quite similar to Irinushka's, though more limited. On the other hand he can make use of his abilities much more quickly and to a greater degree of fine-tuning. Whereas Irinushka needs to consciously keep up a barrier, Assault reflexively transfers energy attempting to move into him away and he's able to shape the energy he imparts in such a way that he can avoid hurting someone even if he launches them across the room. He can also use energy that he comes into contact with to quickly give himself a boost. Though his greatest limitation is that he needs to be grounded to properly use his abilities.
  • +: Great with Kids: Assault has a Great diplomacy bonus when it comes to interacting with underaged characters under virtually all circumstances and can easily establish positive avuncular relationships with most children he's allowed to interact with for long durations.
  • +: This is Fun: Assault has significant resistance to stress accumulation due to greatly enjoying his job, needing at least three missions without a break before accumulating stress.
  • +: Streetwise: As a former villain, Assault has a perspective of how life is like at the bottom that most of his colleagues don't. He's got a great bonus to checks relating to figuring out how the underworld might work or what might be going on at the street level.
  • +: In the Know: As an adult member of the Protectorate, Battery is given access to certain classified information that most people aren't privy to, including materials still recorded purely in paper format to prevent hacking.
  • +: Slippery as an Eel: Assault needs at least two successful checks in a row to restrain or immobiliser and can always reroll attempts to escape from such attempts.
  • =: Protectorate Member: As part of the Protectorate Assault has special access privileges within the territorial boundaries of the Earth Bet United States of America and to a lesser degree, other NATO or American aligned countries. He also gets a diplomacy bonus in interacting with military, governmental, or law enforcement personnel within these areas and commands a degree of respect from other heroes in the area. However he also draws the ire of the less than law-abiding and draws suspicion from those outside of the American bloc.
  • -: Criminal Past: Assault's reputation is predicated in large part to his past as the villain madcap remaining buried in the past. If his past is uncovered and revealed, he will take a substantial reputation hit and be forced to give up many of his current privileges.
  • -: No Energy for me Please: Assault's powers do not work against directed energy attacks, even those of a purely kinetic nature due to only being a single trigger.
  • -: Unfamiliarity with Inhuman Opponents: Up until very recently, Battery had no idea that aliens were amongst us or that at least one Earth from an entirely different multiverse was in contact with Earth Bet. Battery's combat skill and to-hit bonuses are reduced against alien opponents.

Formerly the Villain known as Madcap, Ethan has the ability to manipulate the transfer of kinetic energy towards his own ends as long as he's on the ground. This gives him a tremendous deal of versatility as he can impact foes with significantly above normal force, move at constantly increasing acceleration limited only by his reflexes, and shrug off the vast majority of hits. After encountering Battery however, he decided to reform in order to win her over and spent much of his time trying to earn forgiveness from the law and her affection. After some time, he managed to succeed to get her to start dating and the two young heroes would form a close affiliation that would see them transferred through teams together and ensured that he would remain close by her side. Considered to be an expert with working with children, Assault is also considered exceptional at needling people into certain responses that he finds amusing.

Relations:
  • Battery: Assault and Battery are married and seem to have a healthy relationship. As such can roll a diplomacy check with 50% increased modifiers to relieve stress points three times between missions and twice during a mission. They also gain a very good bonus to cooperative checks when working together and can utilise a great many powerful cooperative techniques.

[/SLIDE]
[/ACCORDION]

[X]: Divide team into stealthy and loud groups; even balance between prior two options.

[X]: Divide Team; loud team Arne + both Autobots stealth team Samus + humans


Samus




"Why don't we split up?" You propose after taking a look at the information offered.

Arne's eyes flicked over to you with concern at the idea of splitting up given how well the two of you worked together and your lack of familiarity with most of the other combatants here. He already knew that you were proposing for the two of you to spin off apart from each other, something that made him a touch anxious. Just a touch, his anxiety was still manageable for now from what you could sense of the pulsating currents of emotion inside of him. The pale blue of worry and concern, the coiling serpent of not being sure if he can handle being in a past that never was.

Especially in an area crawling with Neonazi groups that stretched all the way up to Franconia and into deindustrialising cities in the north. He could handle himself physically, but socially...this was a supremely hostile set of circumstances. Especially from someone used to societies that had answers to many of the social ills that plagued this country that he already knew wouldn't be accepted at this moment in time. You felt that anguish too, of knowing that there are answers but also that people won't listen to them; so much of your experience with the Federation was coloured by disappointment by its refusal to fully follow the Chozo's example for one reason or the other. And now, even the Federation and Omdyn for all their warts and flaws seemed paradisical.

"I think we'll be fine. I just need to keep the other humans here safe. Someone needs to take hits for them, right?" You said to reassure him as his expression softened and he gave a nod of understanding. You understood the unwillingness to part from you, even for a brief while, in an unfamiliar setting. The two of you were each other's anchors. But there was logic in what you said, and that seemed to be accepted by him as he defaulted to the mindset of a warrior considering his options in battle.

"That makes sense. Are you sure you want to be the one to take it for them though? I have more equipment for regenerating shielding than you...and I favour close range combat more. It'd be more logical for me to..." He started before you stopped him in the midst of his mind's wondering with a hand to his shoulder, a glance into his eyes and a firm nod.

"Arne, I'll be fine. Don't worry. The Autobots will need someone human-sized to help them out anyway." You assured him, feeling the pale blue start to shift in colour towards something warmer as he accepted your answer and let go of his doubts and fears, even if only for a moment. You were happy to see that you could help, happy to take another step towards feeling more like the champion of the downtrodden and the defender of the meek you so dearly wished to be. If you could help him, you could surely help anyone right?

He gave you a thumbs up and you beamed back at him, returning it with gusto before you two traded your usual secret handshake of clasping your arms together, pulling each other in until your elbows touched and then giving a gentle headbutt before parting ways.

"So I'm guessing that the autobot team will be for the less stealthy approach?" He asked.

"Yep!" You chirped.

"Probably for the best. Arne's...distinctive appearance would make him grab attention without a change in hair and eye colour." Eva said, writing something down onto a paper clipboard. Clever, she was probably aware of the impoverished state of cybersecurity around here. So many backdoors that were so trivial to exploit with anything capable of wireless communication.

"I...alright, fair I guess." Arne said with a sigh.

"I'll accompany the other four. Once we're in, I'll fire up my suit and we'll try to meet up inside." You said, it seemed like a fairly simple and therefore good plan. You'd work out the specifics once you got closer and your distant sight and scan visor could give you a better read of what to expect. That tended to be more useful in your experience than just trying to draw out every contingency well in advance...besides...that was always pretty boring. It was fun to think about the possibilities but a strict plan for every response was just so constricting. Bleh.

"Okay from my scans, all of you can move faster than baseline humans but to get there as quickly as possible without being noticed we'll need to take the autobots." He said, rubbing a bit at his chin and then threading some fingers through his silky white hair as he thought, pacing slightly. He had restless energy he needed to work out, and you couldn't help but pace yourself, walking a bit back and forth to try and shake out some of the tension in your legs. You hated standing around, you hated that slow build-up of lethargy that came with just keeping still.

"Everyone in Strongarm right? Seems like the most efficient setup." Battery said before Bumblebee cut in.

Bumblebee's chirps and whirs over the communications suggested that Arne go with him if he's to accompany the autobots. Thus not giving anyone paying attention reason to wonder why one of the passengers in the SUV decided to stay in the car. It seemed reasonable, you'd assume that the guards would have control over the Campus' security footage systems and would probably wonder why they left one person in the vehicle unattended. Though you stopped to think, wouldn't they notice Strongarm dropping you all off and then moving to rejoin Bumblebee?

"Actually we can handle transport for the quiet team." Hans said, nibbling a bit on his thumbnail that made you briefly aware that it was rather short; likely out of habitually biting off the edges of his nails. You should recommend him some meditative exercises to break that habit at some point, it's a bit unhygienic and there's far better ways of getting keratin into your system.

"This way Strongarm will be able to move into position without having to drop you off. Much simpler you'll find." Hans' answer was more than satisfactory to you, though you were kind of curious as to what vehicle you'd be using. It couldn't be quite as mechanically fascinating as Strongarm was...could it?

"Ah yes, going from a car that can hear everything you say to a car bugged by spooks to hear everything you say." Assault said, making you briefly wonder where in this conversation did Stirner's sociological concepts creep in, or why he was suddenly so concerned with the insect problem. It was a bit hard to keep track of all the period slang of a long-dead language swimming around in your head after a neural download. It was annoying to say the least, but you were determined to overcome the challenge.

"There's insects with proboscises in nearly every motor vehicle here." Arne blurted out to the raised eyebrows of Irina who slowly tilted her head at the white-haired boy. There was a silence, and you suddenly felt bad for Arne as he realised he made a faux pas and shyly looked away from the gathered humans staring him down, Eva confiding in Hans in German about how he was definitely not suited for infiltration ops. That seemed a little rude in all honesty.

"...It's true." He said before Viktor shook his head and muttered a complaint about cultural compatibilities.

"+Hey I don't listen in all that closely.+" Strongarm protested, only for Bumblebee to cut in with a reminder that she recorded everything that went on inside of her to her stammering and plaintive embarrassment.

"You two, how are you going to get your gear on in short notice?" Battery flicked her thumb towards Irina and Viktor.

"Yes, that's a very important question. I haven't seen anything to indicate either of you can teleport your equipment onto your persons!" You said, raising a finger to interject with your point.

"+Oh we'll just groundbridge them in the equipment, shouldn't be that much of an issue.+" Strongarm said almost dismissively, getting a nod out of you before Arne looked at Assault and Battery and sized them up.

"Do you two have any way of protecting yourself from small arms fire?" He asked, his expression was concerned, eyebrows raised in questioning.

"Our abilities should keep us safe, don't worry too much about us kid." Battery said, folding her arms and giving him a confident smile.

"If you say so." Arne said, less than convinced. Of course, you also shared his doubts. Even though you could easily shrug off any of the small arms used in this time, and many of those used in your own time, you wouldn't go unarmoured and unshielded habitually anyway. It just seemed like taking unnecessary risks.

"So I think we are ready then...come with me." Eva said, gesturing the group to follow her.

"Except for you, genosse Skjoldr. Head down to the garage to meet up with Bumblebee. I'm sure you'll be able to find your way." She said, stopping Arne and getting a brief frown out of him before you looked over to him and gave him a hug for good luck, feeling his arms wrap around you and a bit of warmth being shared between the two of you. For a moment your sight seemed to catch a glimmer of an apparition of things to come, the blue and green bifurcated mask almost seeming to flicker over his face as doubt crept into his mind. He was still afraid, and you were too. You squeezed his hand, hoping that you two could reassure each other that everything was going to be alright. And then the figure's visage faded from the unreal sight of your mind's eye and all you could see was his smile, returning one you had given him.

"See you there Arne." You said gently as the two of you gave each other some distance and you moved to catch up with the group.

...

You stopped before some sleek-looking Van with a Volkswagen logo about where you'd expect cars of this era to have. The silver and yellow Kombi vehicle looking nice, but striking you as perhaps difficult to clean. From a glance, you guessed that the engine was a battery-combustion hybrid. Probably meant more to subsist in situations where diesel might be a bit difficult to come by than for any major concern for the environment. You delicately laid your fingers on the door, making sure to not squeeze too hard lest you tear through the metal like sheets of paper.

Suitcases were put into the storage spaces of the van while Battery got onto the carseat and took a look at the manual stick drive and tensed briefly.

"God I'm hoping the manual lessons I took at driving school are still somewhere in my memory." She said as she gulped and caught the keys tossed to her by Eva while she got into her own vehicle with Hans and chatted to him about her expectations for the operations. Hopeful but not wanting to dismiss the possibility of something going wrong just yet. Sensible you figured, but on the other hand, you were you, you could do this. You had to if you wanted to stop this plan from being carried out.

"Relax it's like riding a bicycle. Once you learn you'll never forget." Ethan said, folding his arms behind his head and easing himself into the seat after placing his seatbelt.

"Do you know what west German traffic laws are like?" Viktor asked, Battery paling slightly.

"Oh fuck...I uh..." Battery said as she gulped a bit before wiping a bead of sweat off of her face and setting the car into reverse gear.

"I can help!" You said, beaming. You had memorised the entire legal corpus of the Federal German Republic, this should be easy enough for you to assist with.

"Well...alright, I'll follow your lead then." Battery said, calming down slightly.

"Why could we not just take the metro..." Irina grumbled to herself.

"Aw come on, think of this as a road trip. It'll be fun....I think." He said, shrugging.

"It's not going to be that long of a trip anyway." You said, swinging your legs a bit in the passenger seat and tapping on the suitcase containing assault's costume to your left.

"Nobody has to go to the bathroom right?" Battery asked. Luckily, everyone answered no.


Arne







You inserted your seatbelt as you got into Bumblebee's passenger seat and looked out the window of his Camaro form. His motor vehicle mode pulled out of the garage and checked out seamlessly after manifesting a holomatter avatar. A young blonde man with messy, barely brushed hair that formed a few spikes with a yellow and black coat and nicely fitting jeans. Someone who looked like they'd be about the right age to attend a university actually. You sighed a bit at the sight of the buildings passing you by, your eyes catching sight of Samus hanging by the window of her van and the two of you passing a wave to each other before you went separate roads.

"Earth looks a lot less impressive than I thought." You said, to no one in particular before Bumblebee responded with a few radio clips.

"*There's no place like home!*"

You weren't quite sure you agreed. Nothing about this really felt like home. It was all so dirty, noxious, full of want and need that went by without anyone making more than a token effort at answering it. So full of people who simply just lived without ever getting to go for what they really wanted to do. So much...melancholic acceptance of life just being the way it is without aspiration for anything better. The grey melancholy weighed heavy on your mind, and you pulled your eyes from the sight of dour office buildings to look dead ahead. A stick of gum was extended out of the glove box of the vehicle, held by a mechanidrite to ensure that it was in front of your face.

More of the droidspeak from Bumblebee met your ears. He said that this might help keep your mind off of things, and not wanting to be rude you accepted the offer and placed it inside of your mouth and started chewing.

Hmm...strawberry.

"How do you just stay here and see all these people with so many problems and...not help them with the day to day stuff?" You asked.

"*I try where I can*" Bumblebee responded, splicing in a few clips to make that sentence work with the tone he wanted to give. Melancholic, upset that he couldn't do more and that he was so laser focused on more extranormal problems rather than the mundane stuff that affected the most people.

"That never gets frustrating? Only getting to help a few people at a time?" You ask.

"*Every day.*"

"I, yeah that must feel awful. Sorry for poking into it." You said, deciding to be quiet now rather than continuing to bother him around stuff that only really mattered to you. You probably shouldn't have even brought all that up. You were being inconsiderate of whether he wanted to talk about that.

"*You have nothing to apologise for!*" He seemed to be jovial, as if he liked just having someone to talk to. That felt nice actually, that you hadn't in fact, made another mistake. You almost didn't believe it for a moment, but you came to accept it. You smiled a bit, unsure of whether to look at the dashboard or the holomatter avatar.

"How did you lose your voice exactly?" You asked, hoping you weren't prying into anything too personal. You knew all too well how uncomfortable a lot of probing could be when the questioner didn't mind their space.

Bumblebee's droidspeak was frank, he lost it in the war. Not just any war, The War. The thing that had defined his entire existence, a concept so all-consuming that it had encompassed virtually the entirety of his thoughtspace, his culture, even weighing on his language. It was not simply a conflict, it was the very bedrock of existence to him. And the way he spoke added a weight to his words, one that made the air feel heavy with an overbearing presence while you swallowed slightly, wondering you misstepped for real this time.

He assured you though, that it wasn't your fault. He had come to terms with his injury and didn't really want to bother Ratchet or Red Alert with having it repaired when there were others who needed replacement parts like that more than he did. Though to be honest, you weren't sure that he would have accepted such a transplant even if he were offered. Some people disabled by injury just preferred to learn to adjust to it rather than accept treatment, and while you didn't fully understand that mindset, you didn't really have an issue with it.

"Are you feeling confident about this plan?" You asked.

"*Hell no I ain't scared.*" He said.

"Is that a yes?"

"*You bet!*" You kind of wished he'd stick with the droid speak at times, the clip splicing made it a bit distracting to determine who was speaking as his voice kept on changing with every clip he pulled. Still, it got the point across so you supposed that you couldn't fault it too much as long as it worked.

"+Bee, Arne, we're getting close to the facility. Are you guys ready?+" Strongarm said as her vehicle form followed close behind Bumblebee's, racing down the roadways whenever the traffic would permit Bumblebee to accelerate a bit more. You almost felt like this was likely to get more attention than was really necessary, but it seemed that most people saw how nice Bumblebee's current vehicle mode looked and decided it wasn't their problem. People were really weird sometimes.

Bumblebee chirped and whirred a bit, his speech rapid and information-dense as he went over what he wanted to do. He wanted to scout out the area as best as he could before allowing the others to go forward. As the Scout, it was his job to head in first and pull out only once his mission had been accomplished and everyone would be able to head into the combat zone armed with the optimal information. And even then, depending on the mission, such as one like this; it might still need his direct involvement even after reconnaissance had ended. He'd check over every detail he could and then from there, the group would be able to descend on the weaknesses and critical points he had found.

"Aren't we meant to be the distraction though? All we need to do is find an entrance route for them, make some noise and head in." You said, shrugging as the buildings of the university loomed in your sight as Bumblebee drove ever closer to it. As you had expected, patrols were moving around, trying their best to not draw too much attention to themselves but clearly moving in rough sync. They had some degree of military style training you figured, but their armaments weren't designed to repel anyone of your caliber. Even entirely unarmoured you could take a place like this on without ever worrying about your safety. Though on the same token, it never paid to be reckless.

DC Check of 50

Roll of 46 on D100.

Arne's superhuman senses reduce DC down to 5, contextual bonuses not counted due to roll overkill already providing the best possible result.


You took a quick glance over at the procession and spotted something that might be of interest. A vulnerable point in their patrols through which Samus' group could easily slip on by. Funnily enough, it was the front entrance that they had largely neglected to patrol, believing nobody would be so brazen as to simply try and slip in through the front. At least, nobody who wasn't supposed to be there anyway. Their mistake. But for you and the autobots however, it would be better for you to find a different route to draw even further attention away.

It wasn't that hard for you to pick up on however, they were many things but they weren't particularly invested in trying to hide in a town they figured they essentially owned. The proverbial troops were gathered towards the cargo entrance where a truck was driving into a procession area for its cargo to be processed and handled by the personnel who were currently occupying the university. Just a bit out of sight for most people, but most had seemed to just learn to accept that this was their new life. Well, things were going to get loud shortly. Especially with the reconnaissance data that Bumblebee was gathering and sending to the other team so the two groups could build an entry plan. Though you'd need to get inside to actually decide how you were going to approach the fight for the interior.

It seemed that they had set up a teleportation network that would quickly move reinforcements to the area if they were engaged. And had already begun moving in fresh troops to reinforce their positions as if they were expecting a fight. If you had to guess, they had someone there who had some degree of clairvoyance or precognitive awareness who had told them to expect a much more serious fight than they had initially anticipated. You didn't think it would be enough, but you were now getting a bit worried for Samus' group.

"+Samus, they're bringing in a lot of extra soldiers. I think they're expecting us to be arriving soon.+" You said over a private communications link. You took another look and saw that what were rather clearly armed attack helicopters making use of some kind of holographic disguise to merely appear like civilian aircraft making the rounds, sweeping ominously overhead as they tried to search for what might be causing their seers so much worry. New soldiers also caught your eye, stepping out of the building to man the barricades set up around the university and discourage any interlopers from snooping around.

"+I know, I can see it too. Can you do something to make sure that as few of them are in our way as possible? I don't think most of my team mates can withstand the kind of firepower that they're going to be bringing.+" She said back. Of course, she already had the safety of others in mind, that was the most her thing to do. You couldn't blame her of course, your thoughts on the issue were more or less the same.

"+The front door's the least defended point. Just a conventional checkpoint there, if you want to go in quietly; that will be your best bet. Don't think you should bother with the disguises to get inside though.+" You said to Samus. Of course, you weren't super big on the idea of trying to sneak in at all, especially since it seemed like the soldiers had tightened up security. But if Samus thought it could reduce civilian losses it might be worth a shot.

"+Thanks. But Arne, try to make sure nobody who doesn't have to get hurt does.+" She said with a soft tone.

"+...I, yeah, I'll keep them out of harm's way. You take care with your team, alright?+" You said gently.

"+Thank you, Arne. See you soon.+"

"+See you.+" You said back.

"+So, how do you want to do this?+" Strongarm said before Bumblebee began to beep and whistle with his cunning but simple plan to make as much of a mess as possible.

...


"Halt! Sie benötigen eine Erlaubnis, um zu bestehen!" One of the guards shouted, a blue and white van approaching him at high speeds. The mask clad soldier's stahlhelm glimmered a bit in some of the city lights while the goggles on their mask gleamed with menace, hiding the face of the monster behind. But it didn't take mind reading to know that he was growing rapidly more alarmed as the van approached ever faster without any sign or hint of slowing down.

"Scheiße! Sie wird nicht langsamer! Ausweichen!" His companion shouted as the two bailed out of the checkbox they had set up to monitor incoming traffic before the gleaming white beams of light from Strongarm's headlights started to narrow as she approached at a velocity that should have been unattainable by a car of her make. Engines seeming to roar and the rubber-like substances of her tires gripping the road fiercely before she ramped a bit up an incline and smashed into the checkbox, bouncing just a little once she made contact with the ground again and drove ahead.

"Eröffne das Feuer, du Idioten! Töte das verdammte Auto!" The bark of ETC assault rifle rounds drowned out the frantic commands in German, bullets bouncing off of the chassis of Strongarm before she opened up some speakers on either side of her vehicle and released an ear-piercing shriek in either direction. A horrific assault on the ears that most humans couldn't withstand for all too long without shutting down. Weapons fire stopped and heads were clutched by screaming and groaning men who fell to the ground one by one, but some had enough sense to fire up their helmet's mufflers and cancel out any further noise before heavier weapons fire started raining down on Strongarm.

A heavy machine gun clearly not of NATO make, seeming to have been more something that would have been produced by the Third Reich had it endured past its historical death date than anything NATO would have considered using, started to tear at the pavement with what your visor helpfully noted were depleted Uranium slugs. Someone clearly went hard for the equipment these clowns were making use of, but as Bumblebee ramped over a truck's trailer and slammed into the ground, his vehicle mode unfurling his stinger in the form of a top mounted turret to let loose a stream of nonlethal electricity, you couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them with how outgunned they were.

"Sie sind keine normalen Autos, hol die Panzerfausts!" No sooner was that order given than a barrage of anti-tank rockets was sent forth by some of the soldiers popping out of cover while others fell to the ground sparking with electricity and gurgling as they twitched with pain. Bumblebee swerved around two and took one head on without a scratch, his shielding glimmering briefly until he transformed and ejected you out of the passenger's seat, your blizzard subweapon venting a stream of anti-energy over some of the Gesellschaft troopers popping out to toss grenades in your direction. The blue-white gout of frostflame encasing all caught within it in a delightful sheathe of ice.

Strongarm transformed shortly after, her subsonic repeater thrumming with one shot with every oscillation of the weapon's internal mechanisms, Bumblebee's shoulder pods opening up to reveal a series of missiles that went flying out to seek their targets. Whatever hope the people of Munich had for a quiet day was definitively shattered as they were met with the "pom-pom-pom" of an autocannon going off, your hand catching one of the shells as it moved towards you in slow motion to let you take a better look at it.

55mm recoilless round. Quite decently heavy artillery for a paramilitary group, definitely not any type of ammunition that should be made in this era either. Another look confirms an earlier suspicion you had; Rheinmetall-Borsig make. Supposedly produced in Strassburg which also made little sense.

"Must be from a different timeline then." You said, already forming a theory in your head. The supplies of the Gesellschaft had to be from a nightmarish timeline where Nazi Germany was triumphant to a far greater degree than it historically was, and against all odds; lasted long enough to develop technology that would be considered useful in the early 21st century. But there was something else also interesting, the materials used to make the shell were not found at all on this planet. The atomic structure in fact was something that shouldn't quite be able to form in this universe under normal conditions. Not with a nucleus layout like that. That likely meant a reality with somewhat divergent laws of physics, which largely eliminated most possible branching timelines.

Hrm, you'd need to think about this later, right now you were being accosted by snipers. Not able to harm you, but the fact that they had snipers posted here at all told you that they considered the security of this operation to be deadly serious.

They were fighting quite well, with coordinated calls to action going across their lines as they set up their defensive positions or moved into preplanned avenues of counter-attack. Automated turrets popped out of deployable hatches and roared out with the buzzsaw ripping sound of rotary guns sending large amounts of lead downrange, the ETC flash of

The red lance of energy that spat forth from a wall that exploded outwards with the clanking form of a five meter tall robot however, certainly was rather more concerning. Especially when it was followed by the thunderous sounds of a large number of other machines that had been shunted into the area via teleportation to respond to the threat that was now facing them. Ah, well at least you got their attention.

latest.png





Analysis of the Wachroboter's construction confirms its extraversal origins. Manufacture and datalogs suggests that this particular machine was assembled in "Reichskomissariat Neu-Deutschland" in what was once Detroit, currently renamed "Kruppstadt" to service the needs of the so-called "Reich-Earth" in its continual wars of expansion with other dimensions to satiate the Third Reich's unending need for more resources and fresh conquests to smooth over internal political difficulties. Analysis of datalogs suggests that this unit is on loan to the Gesellschaft to serve in a capacity that the unit is not privy to beyond that it is to follow the orders of local commanders. Likelihood of transdimensional invasion is very high. Wachroboters are armed with high energy particle cannons and a laser cutter and fitted with high strength reinforcement fields to augment their hyperalloy construction for greater durability. In close-quarters combat they make use of ultra-intensity hydraulic systems to rapidly exert enormous amounts of force. Target the central optic for the most efficient results.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Low (Shielded, Armoured)
Strength: Low
Firepower: Low
Speed: Slow
Combat Skill: Low
Type of Combatant: Ranged firepower

Samus' Notes: An entire timeline...won't be for much longer. Not if this is what they're going to use to fight.

Arne's Notes: Large, bulky, inefficient and unsubtle. I see some things don't change. Good.

DuXdf-bWkAAx7gX.jpg


Mechanical caniform combatant devised by KUKA Aktiengesellschaft as per the orders of the Wehrmacht Roboter-Kampfkorps to scout out areas with known resistance organisations or infiltrate into cramped conditions and outflank enemies. The Panzerhund makes use of high-intensity flamethrowers augmented by systems designed by superengineers to enhance temperature, spray reach, and fuel efficiency to allow for burns at temperatures high enough to rapidly melt steel. Panzerhunde are most vulnerable to attack against the head, though damage to their fuel tanks will usually prove sufficient in lowering their offensive capabilities. Panzerhunde are incapable of engaging foes at long range, and as such preventing them from closing into melee will suffice in avoiding unnecessary risk. Keeping them away from more fragile team members is highly recommended.


Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Weak (Shielded, Armoured)
Strength: Weak
Firepower: Weak
Speed: Low
Combat Skill: Low
Type of Combatant: High Speed Melee fighter

Samus' Notes: Many team members aren't going to be able to withstand heat like this. If any of them get close to them, I'll need to jump in. With my current equipment, withstanding the heat shouldn't be an issue.

Arne's Notes: Like poorly built copies of Geri and Freki, dangerous to less durable allies but I should be alright. Seems almost insulting to pattern them off of an animal as nice as a dog though.

Steel_Valkyrie.jpg



Stahlwalküre were originally designed by the Fascist Scientist by the alias of Vandal during the second world war on both the "Primal Earth" timeline that Nightcaster and Eudaimonica hail from and both the "Reich-Earth" timeline that appears to be supplying this operation. These models of the concept of a fast-moving, missile-equipped drone are of course, a great improvement on their counterparts from the 20th century and are capable of high-speed manoeuvres and carry a versatile load-out of missiles for usage against most conceivable types of opponents. However, they are vulnerable to virtually all of your weapons and lack the ability to move quickly enough to evade your seeking weapons. They will, however, come in very large numbers with reinforcements frequently being teleported in as soon as they are manufactured to augment existing forces; viewed as utterly expendable.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne):

Durability: Dismal
Strength: Very Weak
Firepower: Very Weak
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable)
Combat Skill: Dismal (Negligible melee capability)
Type of Combatant: High Speed Aerial Ranged Attacker

"Feinde entdeckt: beseitigen!" Boomed a deep metallic voice, full of completely unguised killing intent as the lead machine approached the three of you. Here we go.


Samus
The car dropped you off at an apartment a reasonably short distance away from the university where you saw that the patrols had been intensified just as Arne reported. The Front entrance was the least guarded of course, simply checkpoints as the Gesellschaft clearly regarded the idea that anyone would just go in through the most obvious route as ridiculous. But they also seemed to keep the rooftops a bit less defended than the rest. There were some people watching the skies of course, but it seemed that most of them expected enemies trying to sneak around through less obvious routes.

"Huh, no use trying to sneak in now. We should wait for some of the patrols to be redirected to Arne's group, then slip in. Easy, keeps us out of trouble." Assault said, sighing as he drew a hand over his face and sighed.

"Nyet, that would take too much time. We should just suit up, rush in, take out the guards from the distance and then storm into the main room. Then we will have a beachhead. We could explore further from there I think." Molotok said, drawing her index finger and thumb over her slender chin.

"From above might be better if you want to go so quickly. Just have Samus crash through the windows, then we follow. Little time to respond, we might get spotted but I think it won't matter." Serp said.

"And expose yourself to all the guns here? No dice. We should just force open a hole in the barricade and cut our way through from there, straighter path, less likely to have guards in places they don't expect people to use as entryways." Battery contested.

Hrm, seems like you'd have to be the tie-breaker here.


Situation:​

Arne's group is facing a group of Sixteen Wachroboter, Twenty one Panzerhunde, and eighty-four Stahlwalküre split into three groups each. At least nine platoons of Gesellschaft Soldaten are moving to confront Arne's trio.

This is a medium intensity encounter, with VERY LOW injury risk but HIGH RISK of further reinforcements arriving and GREAT risk of collateral damage.

The objective is to advance deeper into the university while ensuring no or minimal civilian casualties and ensure that Samus' group encounters as little difficulty with enemies capable of posing a HIGH INJURY RISK to its more fragile members.

The enemy is SURPRISED and will take SIGNIFICANT penalties to organising a response.

You are EXPECTING this encounter and thus gain bonuses to combat rolls for the initial two rounds of engagement.

ROBOTIC COMBATANTS are advancing head-on and do not gain flanking bonuses, Soldaten are moving into cover, assuming high ground, and are attempting to both vertically and horizontally flank.

Gesellschaft Parahuman reinforcements are en route and will arrive the next round.

Wehrmacht combat aircraft have been notified and will divert from patrols to provide air support.

The Bundeswehr is unwilling to engage Gesellschaft, 5th Column, and Reich-Earth forces due to numerical disparity.

The Police are CONFUSED and will not respond.

Samus' objective is to uncover the plans of the Nazis at the university while minimising loss of civilian life and to prevent as much of the enemy from escaping with valuable research information as possible. Uncovering secondary Gesellschaft priorities will increase the rewards given.

There are multiple avenues of entry for Samus' group. One is from above, going through a window or a rooftop. This will give the enemy the least time to respond but is also the most visible route. The other is simply kicking in the front door, which will cause the most alarm but will neutralise the largest number of enemies in the initial attack. The next is barging through the barricade, circumventing the most enemies and giving the shortest route to the objective but carries a higher risk of collateral damage as the enemy will likely respond with heavier munitions in areas less likely to be cleared of civilians. The last is just waiting for the enemy to reroute patrols to deal with the chaos Arne is causing. This will take the most time, but carries the least risk to the civilian populace.

Enemy patrols are moving to the opposite end of the university from Samus, resulting in their defences being at under half strength due to assuming that Arne is the primary threat. Primary opposition will be Infantry, Lighter robots, Light Parahuman/Metahuman response teams, and minimal vehicular support.

The Civilian populace in the area is 75% evacuated. The Student body and faculty is 90% expelled, but some might be still on the premise to assist the Gesellschaft with finding what they desire.

Local parahumans are focused on EVACUATION and are UNLIKELY to interfere.

No major known parahumans seem to be involved.


Actions:

Arne:​
[]: Go for a highly aggressive approach, draw as much attention to yourself as possible to minimise risk of collateral damage. More likely to take hits and be pressed into melee, but will also give Bumblebee and Strongarm the most freedom of action. Given that you are small however, you will need to take more aggressive action to read as a higher priority threat than the autobots than you would with the humans. You will also need to trust the autobots to deal with stragglers.
[]: Hang back and Support: Let Bumblebee and Strongarm draw the most attention due to their greater size and seemingly threatening nature. This keeps you safe and allows you to move around to eliminate smaller enemies that the two autobots might have issues with, and allows you to eliminate threats at your leisure and also puts you in a position to deal with reinforcements directly. However the Gesellschaft will use heavier munitions on the autobots, increasing risk of collateral damage. The Autobots also suffer from size based manoeuvre penalties and so the engagement will mostly happen in larger spaces.
[]: Balanced approach: Do not favour any particular subset of the team in who draws the most aggression. While not quite having the drawbacks of either, it also lacks the particular strengths of either approach. It will generally require the three of you to move as a group and thus packs the advantage of maximising firepower against enemies, but also minimises your ability to cover a larger area.
[]: Mixed approach: This will require military skill rolls to ensure that the three of you can properly coordinate, with a SIGNIFICANT penalty due to the lack of any existing relationship between you and the two autobots. If successful however, it will allow you to swap between the three approaches as the situation calls for, but if failed you will be locked into one of the prior approaches with a SIGNIFICANT penalty to further military checks for two rounds due to poor coordination.

Target priority (Rank from highest to lowest);​

[]: Panzerhunde first: Deals with the enemies most likely to start widespread fires and most able to slip by unnoticed into more populated areas as well as the principal melee threat.
[]: Wachroboter First: Deals with the enemies with the largest amount of firepower and durability first as well as the primary ranged threat.
[]: Stahlwalküre first: Deals with the enemies most able to manoeuvre around the battlefield and attack other characters.
[]: Infantry first: Deals with the most numerous and versatile threat who are most able to control the field of engagement.


Samus:​

[]: Assault's Plan
[]: Battery's Plan
[]: Molotok's Plan
[]: Serp's Plan
[]: Write in plan
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Sorry for the delay, from now on I'm going to shorten the voting duration to avoid getting distracted. Also trying to experiment with the dice lead me to conclude that I was overcomplicating the stats and will be returning to a wholly qualitative stat system that I can abstract a lot more with less dice. I'll adjust the already written character profiles to account for this later. Next posts will be shorter I swear to make the combat flow better.

[X]: Highly aggressive approach
[X]: Panzerhunde
[X]: Assault's plan

Arne​

Time to get dangerous then, you reasoned as you sidestepped the missile fire of some of the Nazi drones, grabbing one of the warheads as it passed you by, giving yourself a spin and throwing it back at the sender's exposed warhead racks to explode the machine all at once. Nothing too fancy and hardly the most impressive use of your reflexes, but it certainly seemed to put the Soldaten at unease.

"The short one moves fast!" You of course understood what they were saying just fine, and they didn't know the half of it. ETC launched rounds screamed towards you at speeds far in excess of what normal bullets could manage, augmented by flickers of unknown and dark energy after the Soldaten slammed home new magazines with purple marks. Whatever those energies were, it didn't really matter when their bullets all seemed to move in slow motion to your eyes.

The crack of weapons fire told you they had other marksmen trained on you with disciplined volleys; the tearing sound of machine guns loud as ever in an attempt to pin you down. Their snipers were well trained, but simply not good enough at what they did to land a bead on you, with every round going wildly off the mark without you once having to trust your shielding against the impacts. Almost like showing off really, your precognition told you not to fear the blows, but demoralising them was always good.

You shot back while dashing around their clumsy retaliation fire; stretching out your arm and taking aim. A lesser combatant would have found these shots difficult to make while darting around faster than a bullet, but you were trained for this from an incredibly early age. Letting yourself get into the battle zone, you marked your enemies in your sight and got ready to fire.

Your cannon shifted into beam mode and spat out a refracting beam of white that split into a burst of different colours on impact. And then another and another and another at rates to surpass their machine guns; your cannon's barrel disappearing behind the stream of white energy as you walked it into positions of cover; angling the bounce so that the rainbow light would deflect into anyone in cover or between targets.

The scalding light of the prism beam combined with your power beam's kinetic force vaporized men and armour alike with contemptuous ease, mediporter flashes working frantically to try and pull the Soldaten out of harm's way before they could finish crumbling into ash as the light just about breakdanced amidst their ranks.

Even the refracted pulses were overkill against human targets such as this; reducing everything men to clouds of dust and scattered electrons and ionising weapons and armour plating into an electron haze. The soldiers certainly seemed to realise that you were a greater priority and redirected more of their effort towards you, trying to corral you towards their street thug auxiliaries who brandish pistols, shotguns, carbines and other basic weapons that you don't even bother to avoid.

You sweep your beam fire over them for a few shots and turn away, letting the dust billow away from you without a second thought, your mind shutting itself off to the severing of the connection between their souls and disintegrated bodies. Ninety gone in an eyeblink, they probably didn't even know what they were being asked to fight before you simply killed them; but they could have threatened combatants who couldn't have just ignored them; which you couldn't have allowed.

Fifteen try to get close to you as you vaporise a machine gun position with a single shot of your prism beam, you flick your eyes towards one of them, shouting curses and damnations at you; rapid firing a large number of slurs at you before you simply lurched your hand forward and ripped his heart out with the ease of pulling tissues out of a box. His flesh and bones yielding as if they weren't there and his organ imploding with a brief squeeze of your finger.

The next got his entire body reduced to a smear by an elbow from you, the other broke a pipe over you without getting you to so much as flinch before you extended your blade and stepped back, letting them all rush towards you in a semi-circle and try to jump at you at once. With a single motion you decapitated them all, not letting the Soldaten feel any less pressure as you kept on bombarding them with the prism beam without quite looking at them.

The remaining street toughs looked at the thirteen headless bodies you had produced and got understandably cold feet; running away when you cast a glance towards them before continuing on. One of the platoons was gone to the last man, another was wavering, one though; seemed to cheer at the prospect of such a bold fight and urged themselves further into the fray, determined to fight to the bitter end with a grim sort of courage that would have been mildly respectable had it not come from people who thought the Holocaust was a great idea.

The Panzerhunde are upon you soon enough, seven of them breaking off to try and take the heat off of the Soldaten while the drones overhead sought to pound at your position with an endless rain of missiles; your beam fire shredding through them with each shot and your body twisting and alternating between forms to dodge out of the way of the homing rockets thrown your way in ever greater numbers. Weapons fire continued to bark in your direction in greater numbers, but none of it was able to quite land a shot on you.

They ran alongside the walls, jumped onto platforms and tried to engulf you flames that were melting the concrete they brushed against in dramatically rapid fashion. Sidestepping out of the way and firing off your grapple beam, you dragged one of the Panzerhunde as it sought to leap towards you into the path of the incoming rounds of the emboldened platoon and the Stahlwalkures trying to get you pinned down.

Based on the scratch marks the rounds left in the Panzerhund's armour, you surmised that you could safely take impacts from the dark energy augmented rounds without worrying too much and rushed into the Panzerhunde before gravity could reunite it with the ground. Checking it with your shoulder, you launched it into the next Panzerhund before it could recover its bearings, outpacing the rate that its neural processors could register your movements. The two exploded into scrap metal from the velocity of the impact, the thunderclap of shattering machinery muffled in your ears by your helmet before another machine leapt at you, your hand swinging to grab jaws trying to clamp down with the force of a mountain's face collapsing downwards.

You felt a brief surge of resistance, the jaws trying to push with force meant to overcome most metahumans that the Panzerhund was likely to encounter, but this was a contest you'd win with ease even in civilian clothing. With your current armour; you pulled back and the machine's head tore off in a spray of metal and sparks before you tossed the shorn piece into the next Panzerhunde as it opened its mouth to spit out its fire; giving the top half of the head a spin like a discus to smash into and through large sections of the Panzerhund. Damaged but not quite disabled, which reminded you of the other one.

Knowing that the other one could function with only half its head, you let your beam spark out; prismatic energy bounding around the machine's body and rendering it so much molten ejecta. Easy enough, though you felt your senses warning you of something coming from behind, turning on your feet with a step and lashing out with your left hand balled into a fist. The thunderclap of the impact caved in the damaged Panzerhund and reduced it to shrapnel, raining onto another that you clocked with a pair of missiles to tear to pieces with a loud click and bang. So far, so good.

Missile Count: 153/155

Your shock coil erupted to life, spewing energy into the next Panzerhunde to approach while your armblade shivered out of your gauntlet and swung in a wide arc to bisect the last one in a single sweep. Steaming halves of the machine flying in separate directions while your blade glowed with the energy sent running through the ferrochitin structure, suit withdrawing it back into the gauntlet as soon as you no longer needed it to prevent it from interfering with your movements. The sizzling halves of the panzerhunde jerked slightly, but came to a halt soon enough, letting you move on to other targets.

And you'd need to move soon; as the final Panzerhunde of the group was already and roaring before it disintegrated as neutrino flow tore apart its atomic structure in a burst of electrons and protons freed from its atoms with carefully aimed impacts. A process charged by your universal ammo feed and arm cannon with a power output to make the thunderbolts of Zeus seem like playground static sparks next to a weaponised tesla coil in comparison.

Atomic soup crumbled around the shock coil's path and energy flowed back into your shielding. The process of disintegration was quite painful in the brief time it took to disintegrate a foe; at least, so you were told; which is why neutrino-disintegrator weapons like the Shock Coil were banned in many countries, but to you, a weapon was a weapon. Battle is not a pleasant or pain free process, and at the end of the day, all methods of dealing out death sever a thread of life.

Universal Ammo Count: 239/240

Something you reminded the remaining enemies of with a burst of no less than seven missiles from your cannon to shred through the remaining Walkures and soldaten that had decided to stick around and fight to the bitter finish. Missile plumes raced over the heads of the soldaten and then erupted in contained detonations that simply reduced the soldiers to so much mush and ash; while Stahlwalkures that tried to evade them were simply obliterated in a storm of steel. Then the bouncing beams of death pinged between their formations; shattering their lines and ripping open ragged holes in their defences against you.

Missile Count: 146/155

Your allies weren't unbusy either, as you turned to see Bumblebee grabbing two of the panzerhunde, one in each hand and then smashing them into each other with a loud thundercrack and an explosion of metal before he spun around on foot to smash a Wachroboter into the ground with his hammer; unfurling it out of storage and rupturing the Teutonic Tin Can like foil. Weapons fire skipping off of his shielding, he skipped an EMP grenade downrange to neutralise much of the remaining Wachroboter force, letting them fall to the ground.

Two of the large machines sought to strike him from behind, and already being in a position to h elp him you charged up and released a missile to strike between them; the shiver of the missile's release going through your arm while you grabbed at the trusted bayonet of a Soldaten with your free hand and casually flicked the rifle and the soldier attached to it up into the sky, the increasingly distant screaming of the Soldaten fading from your attention.

Bumblebee's cannon charged up with a loud whine before the ping of the charged solar energy resounded in your ears, coring three of the Wachroboters in a spray of plasmafied ejecta that annihilated a nearby Panzerhunde with the wash of heat and vaporising some of the Steel Valkyries. His shoulder pods extended out of their containers and a burst of warheads streamed out, redirecting themselves to strike at the decloaking gunships that emerged to the sides with shadow energy cannons snarling to life.

latest


Produced by the Focke-Wulf GmbH for the requirements of the Waffen-SS on Reich Earth, the Kolibri is extremely agile and capable of stealthed operations, crucial for deploying small commando teams or sudden surprise attacks. Extremely manoeuvrable with the amazing ability to make upwards of 45 full rotations per second should the Pilot have a death wish or not be particularly attached to their lunch; the Kolibri is able to move like a hummingbird and can thus make extremely sudden manoeuvres limited primarily by the pilot and copilot's ability to endure them.

The extremely modular design also allows for the Kolibri to have its armament switched out to a wide array of possible configurations and to be upgraded as the situation demands, a crucial factor in allowing it to keep pace with more potent metahuman opponents and the evolution of technology. Its typical armament will include a nose-mounted rapid-fire weapon, homing missiles, and precision rocket pods; and many will carry small teams of soldiers to important locations. However, the Kolibri is not a particularly durable craft, and the loss of a single tail rotor will typically send the craft into a death spin that few pilots are skilled enough to recover from before crashing.

Quick Stats (Rated by Low end Gunship Standards):

Durability: Fragile
Strength: Weak
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable, Great Manoeuvrability)
Combat Skill: Decent (Negligible melee capability)
Type of Combatant: High Speed Aerial Ranged Attacker

Samus' Notes: That rotor configuration seems like it's asking for trouble with how close the blades are to touching each other. Just jamming them a bit should cause problems, but I think I should freeze them before impact to make their descent more predictable.

Arne's Notes: The grapple beam should be good enough to yank off their rotors and send them crashing; or just pull them into the ground. The only concern would be the possibility of collateral damage.

With a deft roll, he evaded the stabbing lances of corroding negative energy and brought himself into position to catch one of the falling gunships before it could fall out of the bounds of the walls and onto some children who had yet to take a hint and leave the area. Shooing them out of the way, Bumblebee interposed himself into the path of some anti-tank missiles, shrugging them off as they impacted his shielding and then throwing the helicopter wreck into another of the chopper pack of six that remained from his initial attack.

Though the pilot to his credit managed to dodge out of the way of Bumblebee's throw, you were already on the case; jumping off of a Panzerhund as it sought to bite you, backflipping and firing off your grapple beam to yank the Kolibri into its wrecked counterpart to collide in a fiery detonation.

Bumblebee smashed his fist into one of the Wachroboter that sought to teleport into closer range of him, the Autobot scout's hand crumpling the Teutonic war machine like foil and sending it crumpling to the ground a good distance away. You danced below his feet, cannon sparking with star beam fire to suppress the Soldaten who were trying to move to regain their flanking positions around you, soldiers flying back or flinching behind cover to escape your wrath right before your eye caught sight of a series of blurs just as Bumblebee grabbed a Wachroboter thrown his way by Strongarm and smashed it into the ground hard enough to shatter most of it.

The infernal metal howl of the german machines told you that the hunt was on, and the scampering of metal claws on the ground let you narrow down their avenue of attack. The remaining Panzerhunde packs had clearly identified you as a threat, and were already converging rapidly towards your position with surprisingly agile motions, running along the sides of walls to get better angles of attack. Jets of fire leapt out towards you, the ground boiling away. Your arm cannon clicked and released an ice missile, a shiver going through the appendage as the rocket detonated amidst the cloud of superheated debris to annihilate the heat and produce a thick layer of frost.

Missile Count: 145/155

A punch to the ground from Strongarm was enough to while the Valkyries swarmed around; trying to overwhelm the wall of fire represented by Strongarm's subsonic repeater and neutron assault rifle to funnel you and bumblebee into a more confined space; Kolibri rocket pods lighting up with red flares of released projectiles and crimson energy beams stabbing downrange with a riotous piercing noise towards you.

You barely even noticed the clink of grenades being rolled towards you as you vaulted into the air and took a few of the rockets head on to give you more room to manoeuvre. Not the hardest impacts you've ever had, but definitely a surprise to the Kolibri pilot when you smashed through the autocannon resistant cockpit back first and smashed your elbow into his skull hard enough to reduce his upper body to paste before your free hand grabbed the gunner and crushed his throat.

You were sure that the mediporters would find some way to put them back together. Something you had mixed feelings about, on one hand taking life was something you had to exercise caution about. On the other hand, these people had more than forfeited their right for you to really care whether they got a second chance or not.

The frantic manoeuvring of another Kolibri reminded you had other priorities; charging up and then firing off a star beam shot to vaporise most of the helicopter to prevent it from crashing into anything, firing off another ice missile to drop the mass of gaseous metal on top of some of the Panzerhunde. Your star beam shot out again, destroying another Kolibri as it sought to indiscriminately bombard your position with rockets.

The machine erupted in a flash of plasmafying matter that split it into pieces, its crew reduced to dust in the process. Seeing its front half spiralling out of control, you whipped forward with your grapple beam to prevent it from falling down on top of some cars outside the barricade to the awe of the children inside. You smiled briefly, turning towards them despite their distance to you so that you could give a little nod of acknowledgement to before vaulting upwards.

One more target, this Kolibri moving fast and furiously to avoid your movements, but you simply fired off your thrusters again mid air, correcting your course and landing atop one of its missiles launched out towards you. You grimaced a bit at the scourging sensation of its nose cannon pushing you back, but you redirected its second volley into the turret with your blade before jumping beneath. Spinning around with an arm extended and slicing off the remaining Kolibri's tail section before twisting it rotor first back into the ground.

Missile Count 144/155

Energy Count 07(95)

One Panzerhunde managed to get around to your side as you tried to dodge out of the way of a volley of dark energy missiles, flipping out of the vortexes they generated and then grunting as the Panzerhunde snapped its jaw onto your arm. Your shielding count ticked downwards a bit as the Panzerhund sought to worry you with shakes of its head in either direction. But despite the Panzerhund applying the sort of pressure that would be bessed expressed in "sauropods per square millimetre" you were able to push your arm free by wedging it downwards until the Panzerhund's jaw broke, getting your legs into a position to kangaroo kick the next Panzerhund to leap at you hard enough to shatter it into pieces.

You weren't about to let some half-rate mechanocanine be the one to reunite you with your parents. Preferably nobody would ever get that honour.

Energy Count 07(89)

The wounded panzerhund's ignition chamber sparked to life while Bumblebee's cannon fire sent two more Wachroboter falling to the ground and Strongarm flung a car through a mass of Soldaten like a frisbee; men and machinery flying in all directions while you turned your prism beam onto the Walkures. You sidestepped, moving out of the way of the tongue of flame, then found more and more of the heat being thrown your way. Your armour didn't give you a heat danger warning, but the glare of the fire was making it hard to see, especially for your sensitive red eyes.

You grit your teeth and fired off a charged ice missile, just in time as three more Panzerhunde leaped into the inferno to try and pin you down; engulfing them in the blue-white wave of frost and rewarding you with the satisfying sound of their bodies shattering against the ground. The ruins of Nazi artifice were a pleasure you never thought you'd get to see in person, but it was immensely gratifying to watch all their toys crumble away.

Missile Count: 141/155

Another managed to reach you, clawing at your side while you reduced a Wachroboter to slag and spun out of the way of a missile, a grunt coming from you as you slammed into a wall. You let the highlights of your cannon shift into a blue colouration and let it extend its subweapon chamber before your shock coil erupted outwards and lashed through the machine. Your energy tanks refilled and every machine you exposed to a taste of the shock coil disintegrated to ash shortly afterwards.

Energy Count: 07(99)

Looking around you, all you could see were the scrapped remains of aircraft and machinery. You shook your head a bit and saw Bumblebee dusting the remains of a Helicopter off of his hands before he flashed you a thumbs up, getting a small smile out of you.

This was hardly the end of the affair however, as the Gesellschaft and Reich-Earth were now increasingly aware that they had quite the serious situation on their hands and would need to deploy greater force to contain the bulldozing trio of hyper-advanced aliens rummaging through their defensive line.

Your visor detected heat signatures moving around in the building while additional forces were moving around outside. From what you could see, outside would be the heavier troops, while inside would be an assortment of lighter but more mobile units, likely some of their superhuman help too.

You paused a bit, trusting your ears. There was definitely the rumble of vehicular wheels and treads and the heavy footfall of more robots outside. They were definitely mad, but inside you could hear them shouting frantically about not having expected this sort of extraterrestrial intervention this soon. Two voices told them to not worry, they would take care of it. Bumblebee and Strongarm hardly looked worse for wear, though you hadn't managed to coordinate all that well; not having much in the way of a rapport with each other. They wouldn't be able to support you inside the building, but taking their more esoteric reinforcements out of the equation might not be such a bad idea.

You paused and considered; looking through the window of the building and launching a scan of the two figures. One a figure with the appearance of a black, white, and red mechanical skeleton with a multitude of reinforcing augmentations to enhance his durability and prowess, the other a woman fitted with some sort of heavily segmented plating and a series of tubes that fed into body to pump what was clearly a chemical into her.

Born as Reinhardt Vogl, Stahlschadel was bonded to his extradimensional symbiont at an early age following an accident in Norway that left him and his parents trapped in a cave in with a thirty-two strong hiking expedition. The symbiont gave him the ability to devise things that could help him or others survive scenarios that he could think of as well as fed into his conviction that the flesh was weak; seeing it fail so many people before he managed to device a blaster that freed the group. From then on, Reinhardt progressively replaced more and more of his body with machinery to become an impenetrable fortress of metal, plastic, and composite. Following Reich Earth and the 5th Column's acquisition of the Gesellschaft, he was given a more advanced technological base to work with and soon upgraded himself to fit newer standards.

In combat, Reinhardt is a swiss army knife with a large variety of survival tools including rapid repair nanites, multi-layered shielding, teleportation devices to move out of the way, energy absorbers, holographic decoys to distract foes, uberalloy and super-composite construction and armour plating, and an extensive array of life support systems including a miniaturised biopod to take care of what few remaining biological components he has left. An extensive arsenal is also built into him, including plasma casters, quantum guns, a fusion torch, electrolasers, grenade launchers, and micro-missile launchers all fitted into various components of his body. He is most vulnerable to attacks in the abdomen where his primary power systems are located, and energy drain should also substantially reduce his ability to fight.

Samus' Notes: I almost pity him, but given the choices he's made, there's nothing we can do but try to stop him.

Arne's Notes: The Shock Coil should be my most effective weapon against him, especially aimed towards his centre of mass.

Quick Stats (By Mini-Boss standards):

Durability: Resilient
Strength: Good
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Flight capable, Great Manoeuvrability)
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Jack-of-all trades combatant.


Born as Evangeline Schwarzkopf, Nektar was a brute given powers by the Gesellschaft able to engage armoured fighting vehicles and withstand anti-tank weapons fire of only modest note. While difficult to deal with, her ambitions were limited and her grab bag power set of enhanced physicality and being able to store and then release energy imparted into her was easy enough to grasp and counter. This changed following the acquisition of the Gesellschaft as she was given access to a serum that the 5th Column had acquired from other sources on Primal Earth. The serum allows her to massively bulk up in rapid succession, making her a far more difficult opponent to deal with; escalating her strength, durability, and reflexes immensely while also charging her with kinetic energy she can release at will. She was then given a suit to allow her to maintain contact with command and control assets, augment her protection, and synergies with her energy based powers; though to ensure she cannot turn against her creators; should the flow of the serum be stopped for any reason she will crash out and fall unconscious.

In combat, she is difficult to harm, heals extremely quickly, possesses tremendous physical strength and durability, and is able to absorb energy and then release it back in various forms; including shockwaves, blasts, or even bolts of electricity or explosions. However she is a borderline irrational fighter with little skill or finesse, largely attacking to intimidate and is unused to the very idea of being met with anyone who could possibly match her in strength. She responds poorly to insults, being extremely irritable and will focus her efforts on the last person to hit her to the exclusion of most everything else unless actively prevented from retaliating.

Samus' Notes: Hardly seems fair for Arne to get to have all the fun with her, but I'm a bit concerned that this 5th Column seems so set on upgrading the threat the Gesellschaft poses.

Arne's notes: I still have the edge in strength against her, but playing into her game of fisticuffs seems like a poor idea with her energy absorbtion. On the other hand, the Shock Coil should work well against her. I just need to tear out the tubing afterwards.

(Rated by Miniboss standards)

Durability: Great
Strength: Great
Firepower: Mediocre
Speed: Acceptable
Combat Skill: Feral
Type of Combatant: Brute type melee combatant.

"We'll be able to take care of these creeps. You should probably head inside, you're small." Strongarm said over the comms before Bumblebee looked towards her and then back at you and then shook his head.

"-A house divided cannot stand.-" Bumblebee said as the enemy patrol rounded the corner. It seems that the vehicles had yet to arrive just yet, but in addition to a fresh wave of Panzerhunde, Kolibri, Wachroboter, Soldaten, and Stahlwalkures were adeptly moving soldiers in threatening dark grey uniforms whose bodies disappeared with shimmering cloak fields; lithe frames vaulting onto fvantage points to try and encircle the Autobots as they stood ready to engage the newly enlarged enemy force. Thus leaving you with the important choice of whether to assist the autobots, draw the parahumans out for a fight on your terms, or split off and take them on your own.

Nacht_Elite_Rifle.jpg


The 5th Column is well known for its extremely extensive supersoldier programs and its strict hierarchy divided by rank, section, and enhancement grade. The higher the rank, section, and enhancement grade of a 5th column soldier; the more superhuman capabilities they possess. The Nacht section forms the 5th Column's special forces unit and the Elites are those given middle stage supersoldier enhancements. Those of soldat rank may lack the more developed powers of the Unteroffizers and the Obersts, but Nacht Elites still possess the strength to shatter steel plating with their fists, withstand explosive weapons even unassisted by their advanced shielding capable electromesh powered fibril-armour, and dodge automatic weapons fire. Armed with special "Werwolf" weapons that can transform between rotary ETC machine guns firing specially treated hypervelocity armour piercing rounds; smart guns with incendiary, chemical, electric, cryogenic or explosive round options; ultra-high temperature flamethrowers; or grenade or rocket launchers, the Elite are also extremely capable melee combatants for a mass-trained formation, making use of many esoteric martial arts to augment their striking power and movement beyond their strength. Like all Nacht troopers, Nacht Elite Soldaten are capable of multi-spectrum cloaking, silencing their movements, and are well trained in stealth and marksmanship.

Samus' Notes: It seems that the 5th Column is the most elite part of this alliance. These soldiers have decent equipment and enhancements for this time's standards. I'll need to put more focus on the 5th Column then. They must be up to something.

Arne's Notes: A lot of these soldiers seem to be clones or at least vat grown. Possibly a sign of recruitment not turning out as many potentials as they hoped for? They're nearly all brainwashed to a fault though, can't expect many of them to surrender.

(Rated by minion standards)

Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando

Nacht_Elite_Unter.jpg


The Unteroffizers of the 5th Column's Nacht Elite formations are stronger than five of their subordinates put together and have similarly improved reflexes, durability, endurance; and access to higher grade weapons and equipment. Each one is a master of death and has killed dozens of high-value targets on both Primal Earth and Earth Bet and all other dimensions in which the 5th Column operates. Their techniques and equipment are simply a superlative on that of their lower-ranking counterparts, and it is their duty to coordinate much of the ground-level tasks of the Nacht segment of the 5th Column. Each is not only a well trained elite combatant, but also a skilled small unit tactician and an expert in stealth assaults.

(Rated by Lieutenant standards)

Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando

Nacht_Elite_Oberst.jpg


The Obersts of the Nacht Elite are a further fivefold improvement on the prior unteroffizers. Elite Obersts are able to deal crushing blows with nothing but their bodies, but also carry high powered weapons perfected for dealing with metahuman adversaries of the 5th Column that have proven to be extremely effective against Earth Bet's parahumans. Though you maintain the absolute advantage in all physical and mental fields, Nacht Elite Obersts are also dangerous for their mastery of special operations warfare and their skillful handling of their soldiery. They will coordinate their fellows with deft precision and are well trained in dealing with significantly more powerful enemies than themselves.


(Rated by Officer standards)
Durability: Decent
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Decent
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Special Forces Commando
Samus
"We'll wait." You say as the thunderclap of distant explosions and the rumble of fading detonations rings in your ears. People are clearly fleeing the area in a hurry, not wanting to be caught up in the maelstrom of sudden high impact violence, and you make a small prayer to the sacred ascended ancestors pleading for everyone there to be alright.

"Shto?! The entire force is probably going to be busy brawling with your boyfriend!" Molotok said, shaking her head as she quickly slipped on her costume and armour via groundbridge portal. She clearly was going to need some kind of justification for your choice of action.

"If we rush in, they'll draw forces back here where the evacuation hasn't finished and put people in danger." You said, standing up with more confidence as you let your armour manifest around you, letting your shoulders sink a bit as the red, yellow, and orange varia suit surrounded your body.

"I'm not going to put people at risk when I can do something about it." You said, watching closely as the guards began to shift their position; forming a perimeter to watch the movements of Arne and his group.

"She's right." Assault said as a Soldat thrown into the air by Arne finally started to descend back towards the ground with a prolonged scream of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" as he fell back down from a height best expressed in kilometers.

"...Good throwing arm, he play baseball?" Assault said before the Soldat hit the ground in front of the window with a pronounced and slightly sickening crunching sound.

"...I'm going to have a long talk to that kid about lethal force." Battery said with a sigh while Serp took a second look at the corpse on the ground to confirm that he was dead.

"This is a combat situation though?" You said as a Helicopter exploded in the distance, its missiles being shot down by rapid fire projectiles from Strongarm's weapons suite. The shorn halves of the helicopter being caught by Bumblebee before they could make impact with the ground; prismatic sprays of light bouncing around the embattled area, each carefully aimed to avoid even the slightest chance of an improper bounce.

"These are soldiers who chose to fight to the death. Not criminals. And I know Arne, he'd never shoot anyone who was surrendering." You said as everyone suited up, taking a second glance towards the entrance and noting that the last of the guards in that direction had made themselves scrace.
"The kind of firepower you two use is something I'm not sure I'm comfortable with children having at their disposal." Battery said with a shake of her head.

"Hey, hey, let's put that on hold for a bit. We've got our opening now, don't know how long it's going to last." Assault said.

"Finally, getting tired of watching others have all the fun." Irinna said, cracking her knuckles.

"I'll lead." You said, not waiting for anyone else to contradict you as you rushed to the exit as a blur of motion.

...

You rushed through the opened door where the sounds of heavy combat kept on reverberating through the air, impacts felt as much as they were heard. Some computer terminals were plugged into the facility, and not being able to help yourself you turned your scan visor over to them eagerly, looking for anything that might be of interest. Firewalls and failsafe designed by cunning minds were broken into with ease; with not even the Synthetically Conscious guardian software meant to combat superhuman hackers able to stop you from getting what you wanted once your suit pacified it.

As has been directed by the command of Fuhrer Requiem, we have intensified efforts to understand the Parahuman phenomenon and what sets it apart from our own metahumans. We conclude that this cluster of dimensions has no equivalent to our Well of Furies, nor does it have any inherent sources of magic or many of the cosmic energies we have come to associate with various forms of superpowers. Instead, all powers seem to stem from a single extradimensional source. Our mystics have traced this source to fragments of a large transdimensional entity; fragments which bond to a select host after detecting certain forms of traumatic duress. The host then grows a special organ able to properly channel the energies that the symbiote channels through it, though it rarely seems to provide any working knowledge of how the abilities it offers function. Our Gesellschaft acquisitions have figured out a reliable means of artificially inducing this bonding, even tailoring the circumstances to encourage a select set of powers.

These powers appear to typically have limitations programmed into them to avoid or minimise backlash. Which typically reduces or eliminates their ability to directly affect organic matter. These limitations can often be removed through a second triggering event to redouble the powers granted by the shard; but efforts to triple trigger our subjects have usually resulted in gruesome and painful demises or uncontrollable insanity with no evidence of further power gain. Due to the necessity of trauma in inducing these events; we must unfortunately report that the incidence of these events is lower in those of Aryan racial stock due to the superior civilization developed by our extradimensional kin. Concerningly, as efforts by the Gesellschaft and its associates to combat the Judeo-Bolshevik menace increase; so too does the rate of Jewish or Bolshevik parahumans. Efforts to combat this have been deemed of high importance to the command of the Gesellschaft and the Weltreich.

We also have noted that as the contact between our two multiverses increases; the incidence of parahuman triggering in our own dimensions seems to be rising, while a number of metahumans whose powers operate according to the loose rules we are more familiar with has been growing. We have also demonstrated the possibility of mixing parahuman and metahuman abilities, though we await your permission to test with incarnate empowered volunteers. From this, we can determine that the efforts of our organisation as well as those of our rivals to exploit this bounty of dimensional contact are accelerating the already existing trend of more and more of the population displaying superhuman abilities. A trend that we will be able to exploit to our advantage and ensure the domination of a Reich of all humanity and the downfall of all our enemies. Only then, will ourselves and our Nictus allies be able to save the worthiest of the human species from the Coming Storm.

Coming Storm was bolded for a good reason, but what exactly it referred to was not kept on the network; as if the 5th Column simply expected everyone to automatically know what it referred to and felt no need to record it. The term filled you with a sense of worry and dread, the sort of pensive fear that you imagined people felt when the risk of human extinction due to nuclear war or climate change hung heavy over everyone's heads in the 20th and 21st century. A shadow over your thoughts and a strangling python of unwanted anticipation whose coils fixated your attentions on catastrophes. What could go wrong, what would happen if you couldn't save these people. What would happen if you weren't strong enough to save them...like back in the.

...The memories of fire and smoke drifted around you, the wraith of nightmarish recollection circling around you as you froze briefly. Your breath hitched, and your attentions briefly drifted from reality to what your powers of vision were able to pluck from the strands of fate. Devastation, apocalypse, and the unfathomable heat of destruction.

Everything was burning...

Your suit sensed your alarm and quickly administered corrective procedures, drawing your attention back to reality as your spacing out had made you miss that you had lost the advantage of surprise. Nothing too shocking given how visible your armour was, but you now heard chatter in german and your suit sliced into the radio feeds going between Soldaten who were investigating what was all the ruckus from your end of the room. You started to walk away from the terminal, raising your cannon and checking your suit's radar and motion trackers as well as trusting your body's own senses.

You sensed someone nearby who had hostile intentions and stopped, turning to confront them with your cannon raised.

16edab42dbb154a5e26f8ab532c9e24a.png


Soldats are soldiers pressganged into the ranks of the Gesellschaft as part of its recent efforts to expand following contact with the 5th Column and Weltreich. While only possessing basic augmentations and relatively simple equipment, if advanced by the standards of this planet, they are numerous and thanks to hypno-indoctrination programs and cloning technology; are endlessly expendable. Armed with a large assortment of enhanced conventional weaponry, they do not pose a substantive threat to yourself, but are a danger to civilians and less durable allies. Efforts however, are being continually made to improve their equipment and augmentations at low cost.

Samus' Notes: It feels sick to throw people this poorly equipped into battle. So many of them have debilitating genetic conditions, long-term health risks, and they're sending them into a fight with basic tools while filling their heads with so many lies! I hope there's something I can do to save them.

Arne's Notes: I feel bad for them in a way. They're being sent to die for causes they barely understand. But they've been filled with so much hate that they're going to die for them all the same. Best I can do is take apart the Gesellschaft so nobody else suffers like this.


(Rated by Underling Standards)
Durability: Mediocre
Strength: Mediocre
Firepower: Mediocre
Speed: Mediocre
Combat Skill: Mediocre
Type of Combatant: Basic infantry

A Soldat armed with a shotgun fired at you, the pellets incinerating on your shielding without a single shield point lost before your cannon extended and set to the white highlights of the cryolyte. A single shot went out from your cannon and engulfed the Soldat in a wave of anti-energy that turned the very air around them into a solid sheet of ice.

Universal Ammo Count: 239/240

Assault was quick behind, absorbing a bit of the kinetic energy you were leaving behind yourself to rush into the next Soldat with a shotgun, a fist swung out and catching the Nazi by his gas masked face and throwing him clear through the wall.

"So, not even going to bother asking how many of you guys are dimensional transplants or locals." He said as he took a rifle butt to the face without so much as flinching before retaliating with a knee tot he gut that sent the offending Soldat head over heels.

An ETC weapon erupted to life, spraying plasma coated lead downrange before a fully charged Battery rushed downrange, letting the rounds bounce off of her fully charged form before she tackled him into the next room and tossed him into the closet before twisting a metal bar over the door to lock him inside.

"Guten Tag." Molotok said as she tapped on a Soldat's shoulder, prompting him to turn around with an angry burst of German ranting about not wanting to be bothered unless it's by the Kommandant just before he got a fist to the face and got tossed out a window by the hallway.

"Intruder alert!" One of the soldiers shouted before a bouncing grenade detonated amongst them, pink foam erupting outwards and sealing up the squad who had started to wheel their weapons around.

"Where is that teleporter bringing in all these Fritzes?" Serp said with a hint of irritation in his voice as the soldiers groaned in protest in an attempt to break free of their containment.

"Couldn't tell you, they're using something to obscure scans." You said, your suit analysing the interference that was in the air. You didn't tarry for too long however, launching yourself into a kickflip as a snarling hulk of metal rushed down towards you, claws extended and jaws snapping with shockwave inducing force as they just missed you.

The Panzerhund howled with frustration, having just missed you while its robotic mind turned its thought processes towards your allies, its jaws opening up and the nozzle of a flamethrower extending outwards before letting a river of fire out.

Your eyes widened and you shot your cryolyte into the river of fire just as Battery tackled Assault out of the way; frost overcoming the burning superfuel and turning the stream into a frozen sculpture connecting the Panzerhund to the wall. It took only a second for it to break free, but Serp struck at the machine's exposed fuel tanks with a HEAT warhead, the eruption of burning fluid engulfing the war machine and drawing a high pitched roar from it.

"Thanks, now, lemme see if this dog's housebroken." Assault said, standing himself up and throwing a blow into the panzerhund's face to knock it to the ground.

Already on the move, you flinched at a nearby panzerfaust detonation, not harmful but definitely an annoyance as it filled the room with smoke and debris. A burst high-energy blue laser fire skidded off of your shielding from a volley sent down range by Soldats marked with blue highlighted uniforms. However you weren't overly concerned, deciding it was more important to start dealing with this formation than to try dodging.

Energy Count: 07(97)

Easily acquiring them through the smoke, the hallway ahead of you with spazer-split cryolyte fire. The soldiers let out a series of shouts as they ducked out of the way, though plenty failed to make it as the sheets of cold encased not only their bodies but the very hall in sheets of frost to provide your allies with cover; letting them advance safely into the sides to flank the Soldaten trying to blockade the room.

Universal Ammo Count: 235/240

A soldat setting up a machine gun to try and suppress your position was grabbed by the throat by Assault before he could set the bolt into firing position.

"Sorry, gun show's over." He said before tossing the trooper out an already broken window to crumple onto the ground below; dazed but not seriously hurt. A bayonet thrust towards him, skidding off of him as he redirected the energy away from his body and grabbed the soldier into a hammer toss through several more of his compatriots.

Molotok launched out a wall of kinetic energy, bowling over a six more of the soldiers and barely even flinching when an ETC shotgun erupted in her chest. The energy flowed into her body, her armour scorching slightly from the heat of the plasma sheathed rounds before she threw her hands together and shaped the resulting thunderclap forward to sweep through the room; overwhelming the hearing of the soldiers caught in it.

Battery had moved around as fast as she was able after taking the requisite time to charge; borrowing containment foam grenades to take down the Soldats by the dozens from Serp as he duelled with a squad trying to pour down through the staircase, standing in the open and letting impacts glance off of his armour while his submachine guns rattled out lead down range.

"So how many of these krauts are there?" Serp said, punting a grenade tossed at him back to its senders and ducking out of the way of laser rifle fire.

You were about to shout out your estimation, revised for the clear presence of some teleporter letting more enemies move into position before you got a sense of warning. A sharp red sensation of imminent danger for one of your companions and jumped in front of him, taking a barrage of crimson bolts of energy for him and skidding back slightly.

Energy Count: 07(93)

You saw that the 5th Column had not been idle, dispatching Nacht Elites accompanied by Mek Men to support the outmatched Soldaten. From your point of view there were at least ten mekmen and ten elites moving into position; accompanied by a pair of Unteroffizers. There were more of them coming; you could feel it and their heavy weight on the causeways of destiny compared to the fodder you had so far been mowing your way through.

Mek_Man.jpg


Derived from designs first conceived in Primal Earth's second world war, Mekmen serve as all-purpose infantry combat units and an invaluable aid to the 5th Column's combat efforts. Deceptively durable despite their slender construction, Mekmen are equipped with a cyclotronic cannon and a power claw as well as ultra-high-strength actuators for multi-ranged combat. Shielded and well armoured as well as fitted with self-repair nanites in newer models; the Mekmen also have an advanced A.I that allows them to think and reason as any other infantryman in the 5th Column. This intelligence is, however, designed from the ground up to be utterly subservient to the ideals of Nazism and Volkische ideology; believing its place; as a merely artificial being; to be at the service of the Aryan Herrenvolk.

Current models of Mekmen are also fitted with frag and concussion grenade launchers and can set their cyclotronic cannons to stun through feedback inducement should the 5th column require someone to be captured alive and need to be disabled first before taser net-grenades can be used. Their claws are also able to run a stunning charge through themselves to allow for disabling rather than outright killing, and all evidence suggests that the 5th Column has been working to capture Earth Bet parahumans for comparative analysis with their stock of Primal Earth metahumans. Countering Mekmen is a simple matter of overwhelming their defences, electrical or concussive weapons are particularly effective.

Samus' Notes: The thought of creating life capable of thinking and reasoning just to throw it away like this is obscene. How could these people just create something with wants and needs and twist them towards wanting to die for something as awful as the Reich?

Arne's Notes: There's a lot of ugly hacks made to ensure the subservience of the synthetic consciousness' personality and that it can't develop past a certain way. Ugly hacks for an ugly work I suppose. I guess they're afraid of the Mekmen questioning who's on top or whether anyone should be at all?

(Rated by Minion Standards)
Durability: Good
Strength: Good
Firepower: Good
Speed: Mediocre
Combat Skill: Mediocre
Type of Combatant: Robotic Infantry

There were likely at least two more groups like this; moving around; using the Soldaten as cannon fodder to distract your team from their motions and pick at the more vulnerable sections of the team. One was setting itself up for a dynamic entry from above to ambush Battery while she slugged three more Soldaten to the ground and berated them for not living up to the ubermensch standards, the other was likely to move into a bathroom whose walls were right by where Molotok and Assault were to hose them down with weapons fire as soon as they breached the door.

But the highest concern was not more elite grades of fodder; it was what they had decided to send after you specifically.

The floor beneath you exploded just as you moved out of the way and shoved Serp aside, getting a protest out of him as stone exploded all around the room. A pair of figures emerged from the ground below, one a man in power armour; the other a woman encased in an organic chitinous armour that extended wicked looking bone like claws from her wrists as she pulled herself free of the mess that their entry had made.

The first one caught your attention a bit, his power armour's gauntlets and boots being rather enlarged in a way that suggested that they had special weapons fitted into them. Power fists and boots for especially augmented kicks and punches you surmised. Their feldgrau, Prussian blue, and stark white armour had a smooth; shell-like helmet with two obnoxiously bright spotlight like lenses where his eyes were, the way the facemask fitted over the rebreather adding to the illusion of the blue and grey helmet giving a severe frown. A powerful array of thrusters and a rather agile construction suggested that this was a suit meant for speed as much as power; likely explaining the reliance on power gauntlets and boots over raw strength.

The woman's carapace was quite similar to a mixture of an insect's, a mollusc's shell, an armadillo's scutes, and a coral's mineral layer. Scaled and segmented, even flexible where bending was needed, bony and rigid and menacing where such movement wasn't required. Spiralling horns emerged from her temples, while her eyes were shielded by some manner of film-lens that gave her glare a bioluminescent blue colouration. Bone white and mottled green made up the colouration of her armour, with bioluminescent blue patches here and there. A lash like tail coiled out from behind her, ending in a serrated tip that whipped around back and forth as she exhaled through the semi-permeable grille around her mouth.


A native of Primal Earth named Maude de Martin who had once been a registered superhero in France named Sauveur Rapide; he defected to the 5th Column out of a belief that immigration by those who could not assimilate into French culture was the primary cause of the crime he battled. Dispatched to Earth Bet to help monitor the 5th Column's efforts to combine and distill the best of both multiverseS' superhuman abilities into a new breed of ubermensch; Maude takes with him the engineering talent that allowed him to develop the "Mars" armour. Developing his armour around an extraterrestrial power source; continued exposure to the power source is also gradually mutating him, a process that the 5th Column promises a method to not simply cure, but to neutralise the negative side effects thereof while maintaining the benefits it has given him. So far, the treatments have been effective in maintaining morphological stability while retaining the greatly enhanced physique and neurology the mutations have given him.

In battle, Maude is fast and highly mobile; making use of a wide variety of combat techniques downloaded into his memory by his armour to keep his opponents off-balance. However, he primarily prefers to fight at melee, dodging around efforts to keep him pinned in place or absorbing attacks not strong enough to harm him through his shielding or composited armour plating. He channels energy through his armour to greatly augment his striking power. At a distance, he primarily relies on channeling this energy at range outside of focusing points on his suit, though he has some built-in weapon systems such as micro-missiles, coilguns, and acid sprayers. His armour's primary weakness is a lack of resistance against cryogenic weapons and a need to diminish offensive capability to boost self-repairs without a source of energy that it can drain should the armour start to receive component damage.

Samus' Notes: The power suit is reasonably sophisticated for what they have to work with, but there's plenty of flaws as far as I can tell. The suit's overly dependent on a central power source, any part of the suit severed from it loses all power. Not like the distributed power systems in my armour. I think I might just have to rip his armour apart by hand.

Arne's Notes: As much as that would appeal to me, I think it'd be better to just tear out the power source and disable his suit all at once. While he's still superhuman without it, he'd be a much smaller concern. You'd be able to do this bare handed; with your armour it should be overkill.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne, as a miniboss character all categories are more meaty than for standard enemies):

Durability: Good
Strength: Good (Great Striking power)
Firepower: Middling
Speed: Good (Flight Capable)
Combat Skill: Great
Type of Combatant: High Speed Melee Striker

Once Jennifer Wentworth; Wildes Kind used to be the self-appointed "lethal protector" of Paragon City, infamous for her resorting to lethal force repeatedly in virtually all scenarios even when not warranted. Stripped of her hero license by the Superhero community and forced into vigilanteism; Wildes was picked up by the 5th Column who reported an "appreciation" of her talents. A mutant with the ability to radically alter her own biomass and generate additional biomass in violation of mass-energy conservation; Jennifer is able to adapt to differing forms of trauma on command and shift her precise set of strengths and weaknesses. However emphasising one ability and form of defence will usually come at the expense of other; contradicting capabilities. For Example: becoming faster comes at the expense of bulk, mass, and durability, resisting heat through ablative plating makes her more vulnerable to concussive impacts, and so on so forth. She also has a greatly accelerated healing factor, though to make the most of it, she requires additional biomass to absorb. Shielding or armour will block her ability to absorb biomass, and your own progenitor genetic coding would be impossible for her to consume or assimilate, causing cell-death within her feeding spores on contact.

In combat, Wentworth relies primarily on a combination of biologically generated spines, claws, combat usage of the spores she can generate, and biochemicals. She possesses greatly augmented strength, durability, and reflexes, though still inferior to your own by a large margin. A vicious and often savage combatant, Wentworth will typically maul opponents to tear open flesh to absorb biomass from the viscera she leaves behind to augment her own abilities. Finally, she will leave behind a cloud of defensive spores to refract incoming energy attacks or prematurely intercept projectile weapons in an effort to force melee conflict, where she has the greatest ability to cause damage. However parts of her body severed from her nervous system will die if not reattached and cauterizing or cryonically rupturing her cells will permanently remove biomass, making the power blade, pyronic, or extremely cold weapons such as the pyromissile and cryolyte an effective means of removing biomass from her body; particularly when she isn't adapted to such impacts. She is also capable of cloaking herself; though simply switching between visors will foil her present means of stealth and she cannot fully disguise her sound.

Samus' Notes: Okay, I just need to separate her from the rest of the combat and keep her from absorbing extra biomass. And deal with everything else happening at once. Maybe I should contact Arne and rejoin our efforts? There's so much to keep track of to make sure nobody gets hurt.

Arne's Notes: All she needs to do is to alternate between regular and pyromissiles and add in some cryolyte shots. Step in a few times with the power blade and some tearing motions...It's going to be a pain to deal with her and keep everyone else safe, but I think Samus might be able to use her cold-based weapons to create some cover.

Quick Stats (Relative to Samus and Arne, as a miniboss character all categories are more meaty than for standard enemies):

Durability: Resilient (Extreme regeneration)
Strength: Acceptable
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Acceptable (Morphable)
Combat Skill: Good (Savage)
Type of Combatant: Hyper-adaptive jack-of-all trades.

Situation

Arne, Bumblebee, and Strongarm have successfully breached the most defended point of the Campus without taking any substantive damage.

Most of the initial enemy forces have been wiped out.

The enemy is bringing in additional reinforcements totalling triple the original strike force plus three platoons of Elites lead by three Obersts each to deal with Arne, Bumblebee and Strongarm.

They are moving in a triangle formation to try and enclose the three from three sides to prevent withdrawing.

Civilian population is 90% evacuated from the danger zone.

Two parahumans and a Nacht Elite Squadron are ready to engage Arne, directly in front of him; and will try to separate him from the two autobots.

Arne is in a MODERATE RISK, HIGH INTENSITY engagement.

Arne is 30% of the way to the objective.

Samus' group has successfully entered the university.

Additional enemy patrols were rerouted to deal with Samus' team after reaching 50% of the way to the objective

No injuries have been recorded on Samus' team.

A Nacht Elite and Mekman platoon have been dispatched to engage the Parahumans; splitting into three groups; one to deal with Serp, one to deal with Battery, another with Molotok and Assault.

Samus' team stands at SUBSTANTIAL risk of injury from a HIGH-INTENSITY engagement and will require intervention to ensure nobody gets hurt.

Arne and Samus' groups can MERGE COMBATS with moderate difficulty, increasing engagement intensity but allowing for supporting actions.

Two metahumans are ENGAGING Samus for a miniboss battle.

The Munich Police has not responded.

Local Parahumans are focused on evacuation.

The Bundeswehr has not responded.

Additional enemy reinforcements en route.

CHOZO ARTIFACT NEARBY

Actions

[]: Write in plan

Due to the complexity of this engagement the distant sight (I.E my G.M recommendations) is a bit fuzzier. Ergo it will be up to you to write up a plan, which I will mark in colours (Green, Yellow, or Red) to give you a gauge on how good of an idea it is. Specify which of the two characters will do what.

Your priorities are:

Ensure your squishier team mates aren't harmed.

Defeat the mini-boss characters.

Defeat the deployed enemy formations.

Ensure no/minimal civilian casualties.

Secure the objective (central data repository)

Locate Chozo Artifact (Alimbic artifact has not yet been approached).

The usual recommendations are as follows:

Aggressive point-blank strategies will prevent enemies from focusing on nearly anything else, but also narrows your focus onto the engaged group of enemies.

Ranged attacks let you support more people of your choosing but makes it harder to intervene and block shots when needed.

Scattering your team is good at covering multiple objectives, but can make it difficult to support each other and protect them.

Your human team mates are vastly less durable than you are and cannot be expected to take heavy duty firepower for long. While Assault and Molotok can take kinetic impacts, directed energy weapons are much more of a problem for them.

The Autobots will generally speaking, be fine with any punishment thrown their way.

The Autobots cannot fit indoors without damaging the structure.

Due to Samus' stealthy entry, most of the enemies In her route will be bypassed, but more of the enemy reinforcements will be targeted towards Arne.

The enemy has realised that Samus and Arne are the greatest individual threats and are focusing their firepower on them.

You can give NPC allies recommendations, but they might not necessarily follow them.

The follow up posts will come out sooner and be a lot shorter than this. This one got way longer than expected to make up for the delay.

Feel free to ask me questions.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X] Plan Lupercal

[X]: Priority arrangement Samus (Luper):
Ensure no/minimal civilian casualties.
Ensure your squishier team mates aren't harmed.
Secure the objective (central data repository)
Locate Chozo Artifact (Alimbic artifact has not yet been approached).
Defeat the mini-boss characters.
Defeat the deployed enemy formations.

[X]: Priority arrangement Arne (Luper):
Ensure no/minimal civilian casualties.
Defeat the mini-boss characters.
Defeat the deployed enemy formations.
Secure the objective (central data repository)
Locate Chozo Artifact (Alimbic artifact has not yet been approached).
Ensure your squishier team mates aren't harmed.

Target priorities: (Rank per character)

Arne:
[1]: Nektar
[2]: Stahlschadel
[4]: Panzerhunde
[5]: Wachroboter
[3]: Kolibri Gunships
[6]: Nacht Elites
[7]: Soldaten

Samus:
[2]: Die Metallrakete
[1]: Wildes Kind
[4]: Nacht Elites
[3]: Mekmen
[5]: Soldaten


Tactics Arne:
[X]: Furious assault: Close in and make use of short range subweapons combined with melee tactics, short ranged beam and missile fire and other high damage techniques to simply destroy everything in your way; you will do the most damage this way and probably command the greatest amount of attention as you fully unleash the frightful breadth of your firepower. However this is likely to make your enemies scatter to get out of the way without having as much chance to lock them down as melee and lacks the command of the battlefield of firepower or the speed of alt-mode and hit and run.

Tactics Samus:
[X]: Alt-Mode combat: Use your alt-mode to surprise the enemy with bombs/pulses, boost impacts, dashing in and out of areas only your alt-mode can fit into to cause trouble with pot shots or sneak attacks, lower damage output but very frustrating for enemies and has good AOE due to the heavy emphasis on explosives. This keeps the enemy from being sure who you're going to assist and allows you to frequently gain the benefit of surprise or move to suddenly block shots.

Samus

Wildes Kind was the person who posed the most substantial possible problem due to her unpredictability and the lack of protection most of your allies had against her biological consumption abilities. However, you couldn't exactly neglect the other threats facing your team; especially with the powerful Nacht Elites and Mek Men on the way or Metallrakete's power suit-clad firepower to handle. So much to do, yet you couldn't be everywhere at once.

The sensation of a nearby Chozo reliquary was a touch distracting, you so desperately wanted to see what your caretakers could have left behind for you and Arne, but you needed to focus on the here and now. Wildes Kind was about to speak, some sort of declaration of intent if your brief visions of the future were anything to go by. You weren't going to let her even start talking.

You curled into the morph ball with a flash of orange light, her words dying before they even left her throat as she started on a "What the fu-" before you finished charging up a mass of kinetic energy until the sphere started glowing orange-yellow. Then you launched forward like a railgun projectile and smashed into Wildes Kind before she could process what happened.

The impact made a loud thunderclap, Jennifer just barely moving in time for your form to smash into her arm rather than her midsection. The loud crack of splintering bone and a broken carapace from a glancing hit accompanying the spray of toxic blood as she cried out with a voice your armour's vibration analysers translated into audio inputs to make up for moving too fast for the sound to catch up to you. She was already regenerating though, her bio-armour was hurt, but her limb remained intact as she adjusted her body to withstand further kinetic impacts.

Maude brought up a shield as you careened towards him, skidding backwards as you smashed into his defensive screens and sent him into a spin; a loud cry of "Merde!" coming from him as you skidded up a half-pipe and launched yousefl again with the spring ball to drop between the Nacht Elites about to drop down on Assault.

A corrosion bomb was dropped from your morph ball, green energy lashing out and eating away at the defenses in its path. The ordinary soldiers mixed in with the Elites dissolved instantly; elite and mekmen shielding sputtering briefly before you transformed in a flash.

From the left; a snap kick came towards you, strong enough to crush an armoured car. You chose to absorb the attack, a minor impact.

Energy: 07(096)

Your cannon clicked and the offending soldier ate a three-shot burst of spazer-wave blasts from your cannon; scattershotted electric-purple bolts leaping outwards and reducing the soldier to dust as the electric and spazer energy brought him to a shuddering standstill, his body convulsing with electricity that would have reduced an ordinary person to ionic ash countless times over. But he and the others near him who were also struck pushed themselves to their feet while a rotary gun spat forth hundreds of hypersonic rounds at you per second.

Dodging between the individual rounds as the gunner sprayed them towards you, you caught the gunner in a cryolyte blast before the nearest Mekman's charged particle cannon struck out at you with a stream of protons at near light speed. Knowing where they were aiming, you twisted out of the way then allowed yourself to take the follow up shot from their compatriot before responding with five missiles in one burst to annihilate the Soldaten and the Panzerhunde who accompanied them.

Universal Ammo Count: 234/240

Missile Count: 150/155

Energy 07(94)

Your power blade extended and arced with electricity and the spazer effect before you swung it in a wide arc and met brief resistance from its shielding and then its clawed hand. Then you pushed forwards and snapped its power fields in twain before carving through its armour and cutting it into nine pieces with one swing. Rapid-fire proton packs were thrown down range at you, but you had already disappeared with the morph ball and latched onto another, rapidly dropping bombs to reduce three of the mekmen to scrap. Every bit of nazi artifice reduced to scrap metal made you feel a little better about today, that your time on this planet had a reason as you absorbed the scrap metal to create more missiles.

Missile Count: 155/155

You unfurled again, your boot slamming into the head of another Nacht Elite with a thundercrack and their body going limp as something snapped rather loudly; their body flopping around on the ground as Wildes Kind smashed their way through the floor with claws extended; raking towards you. You ducked beneath her and shoulder checked her, throwing her back as she let out a roar of frustration and regurgitated a stream of corrosive at you. Your shielding absorbed the puke, and your cannon clicked once to fire a super missile that threw Jennifer clean out of the building; the shockwave reducing nearby elites and mekmen into paste and dust while Jennifer's limbs were shorn from her body.

You'd perhaps feel bad for the carnage inflicted on them, but you remembered what the Swastika they wore proudly represented and all thoughts of pity for them vanished. You remembered reading about Babi Yar, and your hand reached towards the throat of an Elite in a red rage and crushed it with a squeeze; almost feeling disappointed when the thunderclap of displaced air informed you he was no longer there.

Super Missile Count: 29/30

"What is this? A Striker 50?" One Elite snarled before you grabbed at the nearest Mekman as it sought to smash an energy sheathed claw into you. Moving it into the path of ETC Rifle fire, you shot a charged blast at the Unteroffizer leading the Elites, his body convulsing as he was tossed out the same hole Jennifer went through; armour particulates wafting away from the shrieking charge of nine electrowave spheres crashing into him. Tossing the damaged Mekman away, you rolled back into the morph ball and shot back down, dropping bombs in your wake while Battery smashed a table over the head of a Soldat just beside you.

"Doing alright?" Battery said with a grin, her body sparking as Soldaten emptied clips into her to no avail before she kicked another table through the lot of them. Her confidence melted as an Elite dropped down, checking her punch with a quick parry and then rolling her into a knee to the gut and an over the shoulder toss.

You let out a missile to hit the Elite, the canny superhuman moving just quickly enough to evade the warhead's lock-on thanks to some repulsion device to give him a dash of speed; but not fast enough to stop the shockwave from knocking him on his ass.

Missile Count: 154/155

"Yeah, I'm fine." You said as you found Metallrakete jetting towards you with a power fist swung in your direction; trying to push you towards the direction of the Oberst who rocketed downwards with a jumping crane kick. You flinched slightly forwards from the supersonic impact of the Oberst and; busy trying to line up a cryolyte shot to freeze two of the mekmen that had arrived to target Battery while she was trying to recharge; weren't able to avoid the power uppercut into your stomach that sent you back a bit farther.

Universal Ammo Count: 234/240

Energy 07(88)

Martin's follow up blow never connected though, as you had already transformed and used the spider-ball to grip onto him and hit him face first with a full volley of three regular bombs followed up with a corrosion bomb before boosting off of him to smash into the Oberst to throw him through the wall, uncurling and letting your grapple beam yank Metallrakete into a wheel kick that smashed him headfirst into the ground. More bombs greeted him before you rolled away, disappearing from his sight as the frustrated 5th Column Warrior charged a great burst of energy into his gauntlets and released them in a massive cone; erupting in an all consuming flash that could have levelled this complex if it weren't so focused that forced you to uncurl and move in the way to stop it from consuming Serp.

Energy 07(79)

His shoulder pods opened up and released a spray of bunker buster missiles, much of which were shot down before they could reach anything of import, but the others were aimed towards Serp as he ducked out of the way of Mekmen fire. You swatted some out of the way, cut more in half, and intercepted a half dozen more with your body, letting the impacts rumble through you but remaining standing.

Energy 07(75)

"You think you've mastered the metal around you? I built this suit myself! I know its every feature and limitation! I have features for every occasion and weapons for every contingency! Your scrap-iron can't hope to match my ingenuity! So prepare to meet your maker!" He shouted, clearly full of confidence as his helmet's optics erupted with laser cutters that you moved once again to prevent from hitting anything else, not letting the energy cut its way into the street.

Energy 07(72)

"I am an epitome of Aryan mechanical ingenuity and genius! And when Requiem sees my talents I'll no longer be troubled with wastrels like you!" He ranted as you decided to let him exhaust his options, moving closer to him as he rapid fired his proton pulses before rushing in to clock you with a power fist with a deafening thunderclap.

Energy 07(68)

"And now, you're finished!" He said, smashing down into you with double hammer fists charged with energy, releasing the stored up power into your armour with everything he could build up at the moment a blow to shift mountains and lay out foes who could stand up after an impact form a tactical nuclear missile.

Energy 07(54)

And you were still standing, rising up to your full height and glaring at him through your helmet. You had let him vent his fury and found it desperately wanting. Now you were going to show him the difference between you and some jumped up Nazi in a tin suit.

"...Oh, Merde." He said, his voice getting very small as he realised his mistake before you grabbed at one of his arms casually and pried them open. There was a rush of triumph as you pushed him back, relishing in his realisation that he made a terrible miscalculation.

"Neither your speeches nor your power armour are worth a damn." You said, having had about enough of toying with him before you pulled him in for a brutal knee to the stomach that got a sharp cry of pain from him before you swung him around and slammed him through the cavalcade of 5th column troops threatening Serp as he let volleys of shotgun fire from his suit go down range; the young Russian stepping out of the way before the screaming french neo-nazi rocketed past him.

"Serp, you need to rejoin the others. You guys are too spread out!" You said as he sent grenades down range towards the Mekmen, thrown clean on his ass by a bolt from a Mekmen and groaning from the impact. Your heart briefly faltered, you let him get hurt. You shook off the feeling of guilt, no, he was still in the fight.

"Bit busy. Gonna lie down here a bit. Regret life choices that lead me here and all." He said, the score of protonic energy dug into his suit glowing hot before you grabbed at him with the grapple beam and swung him into the room where Battery was at, crushing a wave of Soldaten beneath him as he let out a wailing cry followed by a distant "...I'm okay..." Followed by a cough as he stood back up.

"Battery, can you get with Assault?" You asked before Assault was thrown down onto the ground by the vicious tackle of a Panzerhund, its jaws snapping at his head and its flame thrower extending outwards while Molotok tried to pull back on the metallic canine.

"Bad dog! SIT! HEEL!" Molotok shouted as she yanked on its tail while Assault tried to keep its jaws from snapping around his head with his kinetic energy manipulation. Were it a contest of raw strength, his head would be pulp; he wasn't physically strong enough to contest the hydraulics of a machine that could bite with the force of triple digit tonnes per square millimetre. But he could cheat, pushing the energy of the machine's jaws back into itself to prevent it from closing.

Battery had fully charged by this point, and slammed into the opened jaws of the Panzerhund to spark its internal fuel system with an electromagnetic wave that cooked its internals and let Molotok grab and fling it into an Unteroffizer before it exploded, flincing away and bringing up a shield to block a tank smashing impact from the now back in the fray Oberst. She dropped to a knee and took a deafening cracking punch to the face from the superhuman nazi, followed by at least six more punches before she could blink as you found yourself beset by multiple Panzerhund leaping from the background, all trying to bite down at you while you darted around in morph ball mode.

Assault had recovered and intercepted a thunderkick from the Oberst, flincing and grunting at the impact before a headbutt forced him to put his redirection powers into overdrive; cracking the ground as he pushed the energy into the earth. Serp stabbed at the Oberst's back with his sickle, making the superhuman Elite flinch forwards and letting Battery clasp her hands together and swing them in a diagonal double uppercut that smashed the Oberst through the wall, panting a bit as she was then forced to intercept a magazine of fire from an elite; whom Assault treated to a fateful reunion with the hulk of a ruined Panzerhund that bowled over three of the elites and half a dozen mekmen as he absorbed the needed kinetic energy and released it forwards.

You rolled through while evading the Panzerhund, dropping a few toxic bombs in the midst of the elites before transforming and releasing a quick burst of missiles to eliminate the elites hosing down your friends' position just before you moved out of the way of Molotok releasing her charged kinetic energy in a hammerblast. The remaining minions were scattered like bowling pins and Serp had just finished cleaning house with the Soldaten, letting emptied magazines click to the floor as the last of the soldiers mediported out with ragged holes in them; multiple mekmen in ruins around him while his armour plaintively requested repairs as he slunk down.

Missile Count: 150/155

Bouncing between the remaining panzerhunde with your boost ball like the world's deadliest pinball, you racked up an impressive array of smashed machines for your effort before you spotted your quarry once again and bounced off of the broken open jaw of another panzerhunde to smash into the earth in the direction of Wildes Kind.

Jennifer had recovered by this point and was ready for your boost charge, moving out of the way of your impact but taking a few bombs to the face for her troubles. She snarled with frustration and let her barbed tail reach towards you, your boost ball ramming into Metallrakete as he tried to intercept you and tossing him aside, letting him bounce across the courtyard like a ball before you transformed, grappled off of a column and swung around to kick right into the adapter.

Her body quivered as you threw her into and through a mass of lockers and walls, landing on the ground with a skid and firing another grapple beam from your arm cannon to rope her into a headbutt to smash her into the ground.

She was by now, thoroughly used to blunt force trauma and stood up, lashing out with a volley of spines coated in vile chemicals that hissed their way through the floor and walls that managed to resist their hypersonic impact. With the wide area burst, it wasn't quite possible to dodge them, but you weren't overly concerned with the impacts.

Energy 07(52)

She extended long tendrils, roping out of her back and lashing towards you to try and grab onto you and pull your arm out of firing position, wiping her face as she made a reptilian growl beneath her carapace helm, clicking as her boots extended raptor like claws. You smirked as you yanked her towards you with a harsh pull of your arm, throwing her off her feet and putting her directly into the path of a fully charged electrowave-spazer beam that flooded her body with a massive quantity of electricity.

"Gonna k-kil-killlllll youuuyoyouyou!" She jittered as her whole body spasmed from the dumping of an utterly obscene quantity of lightning into her body, her biocarapace disintegrating immediately and her scales flaking away while her spines burnt off. Beneath the carapace she was just about naked, a woman whom you figured the 5th column allowed to rise in their misogynistic ranks at least partly because of her appeal to some of its kommandants. But she was a bit too old for you and you had work to do. The electricity continued to spasm through her as her cells broke down into ash, but you didn't finish it there; you charged up your cryolyte and smirked beneath your helmet.

"That doesn't seem very likely right now, does it?" You said as you unleashed a torrent of anti-energy that enveloped her now unarmoured frame before she could start regenerating before your cannon clicked once more and a super missile flew out; striking at her hard enough to immediately force her to mediport out to avoid dying right there on the spot as her cellular structure broke down.

Universal Ammo Count: 228/240

Super Missile Count: 28/30

That only left Martin, who predictably tried to fly at you from behind for a flying tackle, only for you to deflect his arm with a shoulder check and rope him into a fist to his face that shattered his shielding, his armour sparking as he was thrown backwards with a thunderclap only to be pulled back in with the grapple beam; your grapple voltage tearing his suit's power reserves out of his armour. His armour shut down with a fading whir, his movements becoming more sluggish as his suit no longer carried its own weight while your shielding shot back up to full.

Energy 07(99)

"W-what is th-this!?" He shouted as he tried to restart his armour suit, sparks flying out of the now encumbering armour as systems tried to reignite deactivated fuses.

"Let's see what's under that." You said as your hand crunched through his power suit and grabbed at the man beneath before you pulled back hard enough to pull him out of his coverings, letting a blond french man with a military buzzcut squirm in your grasp as his armour tore open for your pull with the shriek of violated metal. You could have beaten him in just your zero suit; even unarmoured honestly, it wouldn't have been that hard if you could focus him down, but right now?

You twisted your thumb and he and the remains of his suit were forced to teleport out; save for some components left behind, along with what your suit had managed to compile from the DNA of the recently defeated Wildes Kind. You were sure that when they next met you, they'd be better prepared for you, getting the feeling that they hadn't expected anyone of your fighting caliber to be present here. Indeed they seemed to not have expected people with substantially superhuman durability combined with agility to have arrived here at all. All the better for you; your allies would appreciate not having to take those kinds of hits and you hadn't brought any shielding or armour resilience upgrades so your durability was a bit under par. You had some in your ship but of course, you couldn't reach it just yet.

But on the matter of your spoils of victory well, you were always interested in that sort of thing; you reached over and touched the upgrades.

Their energy sources and missile feeds were combined into an energy tank and a bonus of about 15 missiles, 40 Universal Ammo, and four super missiles each as well as a resilience upgrade. As you and Arne have a semi-linked pool; these upgrades will pass onto him as well as soon as you have access to either of your ships.

Energy 08(99)
Missile Count: 170
Universal Ammo Count: 280
Super Missile Count: 34
Resilience modifier 1 (Take less damage in general)

Quite the bounty from a single fight if you do say so yourself, but what interested you more was what your armour deemed of sufficient interest from their ability sets.

From him, you received something quite intriguing; the Seeker missile.

The Seeker Missile allows the missile module to fire multiple missiles at a time in a single burst, each capable of independently tracking their own targets with augmented homing capabilities. The initial seeker missile upgrade allows for upwards of five missiles at a time to be fired and may be used with charged missiles, super missiles, elemental missiles, beam combos; or any mixture thereof. Be warned of ammo consumption when utilising this function.

From her, you got something just as intriguing.

The armour and zero suit will adjust its strengths to counter repeated stresses of a specific nature. If continually forced into contests of physical strength, they will augment the user's physicality further. If speed is repeatedly proven necessary, they will add to the user's speed; and if repeatedly impacted by a specific damage type, they will increase the user's resilience against that sort of impact. While only a limited number of adaptations at a time can be deployed or stored, this significantly increases user versatility.

Nice...

"Hey, uh...do you have a codename?" Serp said, shouting down into the hole in the ceiling above you while the others dropped down towards you.

"...Uhm." The thought never occurred to you what sort of codename to use on this planet. Aira-Sekh still felt like giving out a name after all.

"...Eh, we'll figure that out later." Serp said, dropping down after everyone else while Battery patted you on the shoulder.

"Nice work kid." She said with avuncular pride as you smiled beneath your helmet at her while Serp raised his hand.

"Going to need to fix up this suit, give me a moment please comrades." He said, using some autorepair systems and applying some sealant to help fix up the dings in his armour.

But your attentions were called down the hall by the top secret barred door ahead of you, the sounds of everyone's chatter fading away.

"Shh." You said, walking forward and pushing open the locked doors, stepping through to see the Chozo Statue simply sitting there with its claws opened and its hand holding an orb. It was in the midst of a cold laboratory; surrounded by instruments with the boards filled with readouts that indicated that the people studying it had absolutely no idea what to make of it. You barely needed to look at their theorems to know they were wrong. They knew it was not of this earth, but try as they might they couldn't make the statue live.

But you knew, you understood the old magic of the ancients, and you were all too eager to go ahead.

"Samus, are you sure you should be touching that thing? It's got to be behind reinforced glass for a reason." Battery said, trying to reach out for you before you slipped past her grasp.

"I think she recognizes the thing." Molotok said, squatting down and relaxing a bit, exhaling through her helmet and peeling it off to let herself cool down a bit, wiping her plated hand across her brow and grabbing for a flask of water on her pouch to take a big sip.

"Personally, eh; always wanted to poke the stuff in museums that say do not touch." Irina said with a coy smirk as she whipped her hair back.

"I like this kid." Assault cackled.

You smiled at the sight and rushed towards it while Serp caught up, forcing the plexiglass open to shoot at the statue's containment field for its treasure and reaching for it like your birthright. The armour analysed what it had been offered and then through a combination of sorcery and science, melded it into its systems as if it were always part of it.

Your armour received a few seamless attachments to it of golden colour, mostly at points such as the seams between the chestplate, at the edges of your pauldrons, at the sides of your boots, and other similar points. This was an upgrade you realised was quite familiar to you, something seen on Zoran.

You looked through the plexiglass next to where Assault was, and then time and space's distances were eliminated as you took a step and ended up right next to him; a simple blinking flash being the only warning that you had moved.

The Blink Pack is useful for allowing the user to teleport to any place they can perceive or have sufficient data about to enable them to transit safely. The device works through warping the fabric of spacetime to eliminate all distance between two points and circumventing most forms of obstacles, with the transition being instantaneous. Momentum will still be carried through when teleportation commences and is finished. If teleportation is made into a solid object or a dangerous environment; the user will be shunted to the nearest safe distance. However, if the target lacks sufficient Vitae, they will instead be destroyed by the teleportation, allowing the Blink Pack to be used offensively to finish off weakened opponents.​

"Whoa, since when could you teleport?" Assault said, almost jumping back as you straightened yourself up.

"Since now actually." You said as your suit pinged you with a notice that you were quite close to the heart of the 5th column's operations here based on the degree of radio traffic.

Arne
You exploded into action without thinking very much. Battle was something automatic to you. Exciting, exhilarating, but something you worked on by reflex and instinct almost as much as by plan and tactic. Nektar was the most immediate danger, having the strength to contest many of your allies due to her 5th Column augmentations bolstering her parahuman abilities to a degree far beyond their norms. You smashed into the window the two parahumans were in and already opened up with beam fire to fry their help, forcing the two to scatter as you fired at a rate so fast it seemed continuous.

She was already bulking up, her body expanding in defiance of mass conservation until she was a hulk of muscle as tall as strongarm and as wide as a small dump truck with arms like the trunks of oak trees. Her musculature rippled beneath her armour plating as the titanness slammed her fists into the ground to try and catch you before you could close the distance with her, but you punched your arm cannon into her left arm to give her a jolt of pain before releasing a missile into it.

Missile Count: 140/155


Then you pulled her back out of the building with your grapple beam, spinning her around to choke slam her into the ground and then jumping off to evade her meaty fist. She stood herself up and you dodged out of the way of the Cyborg's lasers, keeping your eye on the hulking foe and catching her hammer blow with your free hand; shoving it back towards her to make her stumble.

She lurched back and gave you an opening to flip kick your boot into her head and knock her overboard; Bumblebee and Strongarm forming a defensive formation behind you as the ground behind you erupted into a series of explosions.

You flipped out of the way of a homing missile fired by a gunship, grabbing at the helicopter with your cannon grapple beam and slamming the aircraft into Nektar before she could regain her bearings, nodding at the explosion left behind before you shot off an ice missile to temporarily take her out of the fight. With her engulfed in a sheet of frigid matter released by the anti-energy field, you were now free to turn your attention to her companion.

Missile Count: 139/155


Stahlschadel's right arm transformed into a cannon and hummed before vomiting out a discharge of plasma, missing you as you flipped to the side and then curled into the psychomorph to boost into the cyborg and throw him off of his feet. You didn't let him fly away though, transforming back into humanoid mode to grab him by his feet and smash him against a Panzerhund trying to jump at you, throwing the machine back into the ground while your shock coil stabbed out like a tether of lightning into a mass of Elites trying to close with you.

Three disintegrated into subatomic dust, the Oberst forced you back with a punch to the stomach as you turned to fire off a missile at a Kolibri whose field of fire would have endangered apartments outside the battlezone, the aircraft erupting into shrapnel while you skidded backwards. Your fault, you were careless, slow. You shouldn't have taken a hit like that.

Missile Count: 138/155
Energy Count: 07(96)

You looked up and dug your heels in, bringing out your arm blade to intercept a crackling power zweihander from an unteroffizer swung down at you from the cover of a cloaking field. The muffled sounds he made giving him away even if you weren't prescient. Stahlschadel emerged again, his arms transformed into power fists and managing to clock you backwards into the grasp of a waiting Nektar as she broke free of her icy prison; your attention focused on kicking panzerhunde out of the way, shrapnel flying from your boot as the machine's head ruptured.

Energy Count: 07(90)

Nektar tried to crush downwards into you, squeezing at you to try and pulp you. You flexed outwards to force open her grip, swinging your power blade in a wide arc that sliced through her composite armour and enhanced flesh, drawing blood from her as she staggered backwards and held at her chest to let flesh, bone and armour knit back together.

Energy Count: 07(87)

"-You guys ever heard of baseball?-" Bumblebee quipped from the radio as he tossed a crumpled up Wachroboter into Nektar while Strongarm punted the Oberst trying to fix on you with his missile launcher through a window; her maul sweeping around to send Elites bowling into the sky like pins.

You were already moving to a Wachroboter, your shock coil lashing out to sap energy from it and crumble it into ash before you leaped into the next one behind it, smashing your cannon down into its head to rupture its optic and blasting open its core with a prismatic star-beam burst, absorbing its materials to refill your missile count as you batted a particle blast back into another one of the five meter robots, coring out its optics and vaulting back to slice it in half.

"You are fast, but how fast can you move in containment foam?" The Cyborg shouted at you as his chest opened up to let loose a volley of grenades that erupted into pink foam. The foam did manage to catch onto you, trying to hold your movements down. It was a good ploy, leverage was a necessity for most forms of strength and he was pouring it on to prevent you from moving freely.

But your shielding prevented it from properly latching onto you, and even if it had; the ice missile you fired would have frozen it into something far more brittle for you to shatter your way out of, pulling the surprised Cyborg with your Grapple Beam to swing him into Strongarm's fist with smashed him into an indentation on the ground.

She gave you a nod of acknowledgement. "Not bad human." She said as she stabbed the rotor blade of a fallen kolibri into a panzerhund trying to snap its jaws around her hand, her neutron assault rifle ripping another panzerhund in half while you darted between the Elites trying to plant charges on her.

You elbowed one, grabbed his explosive and planted it on his head; then you sidestepped the power dagger of another, took his knee without flinching and gutted him with your own power blade after shifting it into a sword grip, letting him mediport out while you twisted the arm of an Unteroffizer trying to coldcock you with a jab. They were good, you were born and bred for war when you were a child under the tutelage of those who had conquered so much of the known universe.

You let your contempt for them and everything they stood for guide your next move, you pulled the Offizer's arm off with a tug and gazed into his gas mask clad eyes with cold fury. To still believe what he did after everything someone like him had participated in, had done with his own hands, and had heard from the cries of the dying he had left behind. You didn't even need to question whether he was worth vaporising the lower half of with your beam weapon.

He disappeared, and you felt frustrated. Cheated almost. You were sure you'd be madder if you saw first hand what atrocities they were doing, your imagination was already running wild and you had to fight to retain focus and remember that you were in an incredibly bewildering firefight. You sidestepped out of the way of a crashing aircraft that slammed into the ground as Bumblebee shot off its rear with his solar cannon, your grapple beam yanking a Stahlwalkure around and slamming it into Soldaten who were trying to move into cover; the missiles still inside detonating and sending men flying in all directions.

Seemingly sensing your desire to keep the fight contained, a Kolibri rotated around towards the nearby apartments and your eyes shot wide open as you dropped your current engagement tasks. You threw yourself into a flying leap to take the incoming volley of missiles that would have ripped the bloc to dust and ash in the stead of the buildings. You were rewarded with a feeling of getting kicked in the gut, flying back and having to space jump to right yourself before vaulting back into the machine. Extending your blade and spinning around, you sliced open the helicopter and kicked it into another of its kin; firing off an ice missile and then a regular missile to shatter both into harmless shards.

Energy: 07(94)
Missile Count: 153/155

You landed near some awestruck children and looked back at them.

"Whoa...what kind of hero are you?" One asked.

"Not important, get out of here now!" You said, looking at the Stahlwalkure drones approaching and then looking towards the two children and their parents. You remembered for a moment the sights of Cylosis; of men in armour with their terrible weapons cutting down everyone in Stygna city. Hot blood on your face from the dead of the planet, your mother running so furiously to get you to safety and that horrific monster chasing after you to the ends of the earth.

They knew they couldn't beat you, but they could pull your attention away by killing these people. They were going to die and it would be your fault. Like mom and dad, whom you could do nothing but watch as they fought without hope before being snuffed out.

You were not a helpless three year old caught in the end of his homeworld. You were a proud knight and squire. A posthuman warrior and the shield and sword. You jumped directly into the path of the Stahlwalkure as its missiles began to fire, taking each impact before you smashed your fist into the robot's face and yanked out its core to throw into the next one's missile bay; causing it to erupt into shards.

Energy: 07(92)

Shards that would have caused injury had you not pulled the next drone into the way of them, riding the sputtering machine into the ground and stamping down onto its engines to kill it while your beam ripped out, sawing dozens more into puffs of vaporised metal. A falling helicopter sputtered down towards you, its tail shot off by one of bumblebee's missile and its pilot killed by Strongarm's subsonic repeater.

The helicopter spiralled towards the family who panicked as it loomed over them, but you were there; and the machine's descent was stopped cold by your raw strength. You tossed the helicopter back into the battlezone and looked back at the family; shrugging as Bumblebee could be seen trading blows with Nektar, dancing around her fists and drubbing her with a lightning quick series of jabs.

"...What...What's your name? What can we call you?" The mother hesitated to ask as the youngest of them; a girl of about eight, approached you hesitantly to offer you her lollipop.

You turned around as Strongarm suplexed a Wachroboter behind you, bleating commands in german being silenced while some kind of tank shot at the autobot and made her lurch forwards from the impact. You inquired as to her status, but she assured you that she had a handle on it. Having a bit of time, you kneeled down towards the curious girl and took the offered candy in hand.

"You'll find it out later. But right now, this city isn't safe. Is there anywhere you could hide? Where you know there aren't any Nazis at? Somewhere lots of people can hide?" You said, letting your visor go transluscent to let them see that beneath the armour wasn't some kind of robot, but very much human eyes; caring and worried.

"Some of the old raid shelters are here. Are you saying this whole city's at risk?" The Dad said.

"Yes, I am. Tell everyone you can to find cover." You said, working on automatic; simply giving the information they needed to hear, not adding your own opinion. Nobody really wanted to hear it unless they were your close friends anyway. Zurvduat always made that clear to you, often painfully.

"What's going on? Why is there so much shooting?" The mother asked.

"The organisation you call the Gesellschaft is preparing a take over. They're bringing in an army. We're trying to stop them. Please, tell everyone you can that this place isn't safe." You said.

"Is that what the safety advisory was about? Why was it so coded?" They said, and then you felt a bit of outrage. You were under the impression that the civilians would have been told exactly what was about to go down. That they would have been told why it was so important that they get out of here as quickly as possible. Instead you...

You looked at the advisory warning with your armour.

"Heightened risk of parahuman violence at Munich due to gang activity. Please refrain from utilising the university until the situation is resolved."

That's it? Just...something that happens every other day? So many gawkers and passerby trying to investigate all the noise when this was an actual warzone? What the fuck are they thinking? Is their precious normalcy really that important to them? Do they think that the populace is just so compliant they'd all heed a mild warning and a long but vague list of advisories attached to that warning?

You choked back anger and blinked away angry tears before shaking your head.

"It's much worse than they say, please. Don't stick around here. Can you do that for me?" You said, looking down at the family as your visor became one-way once more.

"I...yeah." The older son said as you gave him a nod.

"Thanks, if you really want to know what we're like well...I can give you some video footage of my companion and I in action?" You said.

"...Comapnion huh?" The son said with a sly smirk as you flushed and realised you said a bit too much and jumped back into the fray. Right, still need to work on the opsec thing. You reflexively cringed at the thought of the hide tanning Zurvduat would have given you were you still under the Old General's tutelage. But you landed back into the fray after space jumping to make sure you had crashed onto Nektar's back.

"INSECT!" She shouted with a loud and hostile voice.

"Ogre." You said back in a fairly lame attempt at wit as you flipped her head over heels and then piledrived her head into the ground.

Bumblebee was busy spinning around, hammer extended as smashed up robots piled around the tornado of destruction his hammer produced as he rotated his upper torso like a top; somehow managing to carefully aim his solar cannon while rotating as fast as a circular saw. You smiled at the sight, but the Obersts were soon on you, one smashing into the ground like a meteor feet first, the other throwing up a wall of cryogenic rounds from his super-rifle to try and catch you in an icy prison, and the last showering the area in sonic grenades.

The grenades reverberated through you, causing your shields to drain a bit while you ducked underneath the volley of lead. You caught the Oberst's fist with your own hand and spun him around, letting him take Stahlschadel's incoming rocket punch and doubling over in pain.

Energy Count: 07(86)

"You are getting very annoying!" The Cyborg shouted in a bestial voice as his skull like head opened up and let loose a plasma vent of heat towards you.

You pushed through the heat and simply tackled him into the ground, pushing off and grabbing his head to slam him face first into the ground before running forwards in the direction of some of the wheeled tank destroyers the Gesellschaft had brought up to the field. Your suit began to flash cyan and then you erupted in the energy of the speed booster, still dragging the cyborg with you and grinding his faceplate into the ground. The comet of energy you were surrounded by shredded through the armoured vehicles and their retinue like nothing; incoming projectiles vaporising before ever touching you before you stopped suddenly and dumped the speed booster's energy into your suit.

Impressively Stahlschadel's chassis was still functional after his ride, but the Elites who had come to surround you had failed to account for your shinespark as you rocketed backwards away from Stahlschadel before he could recover his bearings. Dust was all that was left of the nazis who had come at you, and only when you deemed nothing else to be in your way did you stop, bringing your blade in a wide arc to decapitate two Unteroffizers harasshing Strongarm as she held back a mob of Panzerhunde.

Nektar had since re-emerged, smashing the wreckage of a vehicle on top of you while you were too busy dodging around laser fire from beam weapon armed elites to get out of the way. She smashed another onto you, detonating its ammo on top of you in a fireball. The plasma munitions cooking off in a brilliant fireball. Stahlschadel arriving to dump missile fire into it along with the Kolibris and the Obersts; explosives raining all around you as Nektar kept on piling more and more wreckage onto you. A barrage that could have given many of Paragon City's very most veteran heroes a stay in the hospital.

Energy Count: 07(68)

You stood up out of the wreckage and dusted yourself off, now quite thoroughly sick of this woman. You cracked your neck and met her next punch with one of your own, your smaller fist colliding with hers and smashing her back right before you extended the power blade and cut into her hand. She let out a snarl of pain before you let the Shock Coil sing.

Energy leeched from her into your suit, drawing energy from her body into your own as her hand regenerated. The neutrinos tore at her atoms, guided by the shock coil's energies into her atomic structure to plink apart nuclei and electron shells in an electric storm of ions. She let out a scream as she felt her body being pulled apart at the subatomic level by the storm of particles, but you kept walking relentlessly; letting everyone else fire as you simply recovered any energy lost.

Energy Count: 07(99)

Universal Ammo Count: 230/240

You stopped, her body smoking and large chunks of it little more than ash as she wavered, stumbling forwards as her drugs tried to regenerate the lost tissue before she fell forwards; trying to regrow her incinerated arms and midsection. You walked towards her calmly, your cannon clicking into super missile mode and then charging up a projectile before releasing it into the midst of the Kolibris; the warhead seeking the middle of the pack before erupting in a brilliant, blinding fireball whose shockwave swatted the remaining aircraft out of the sky.

Super Missile Count: 27/30

You kept walking, those whose organs and bones were reduced by dust by the overpressure wave teleporting out around you as you turned briefly towards Stahlschadel as the Cyborg lashed out at you again; his skull like head a partly self repaired mess of damaged metal. He had thrown a rocket fist at you, you caught it with your hand and glared at him.

"Fall already you worthless degenerate!" He shouted.

"What do you think I am?" You said.

"Does it matter? You are scum in the way of the glory of our racial destiny!" He growled as you twisted his arm and made him fall to a knee.

"My mother was Jewish by blood. You wear the swastika proudly. Forty eight thousand years may have passed; and you're still scum. You can't beat us, so you target civilians. What kind of warriors are you then?" You said coldly, you weren't like Samus. You didn't tend to engage in Samus' cold death glares or fiery ragesunless you had already lost your composure before hand. Your anger was just as disruptive to your normal pattern of thinking, but it was something a more invisible except in the bursts of violence. Coiling electricity building up waiting for something to discharge into or wind about to be riled into a sudden tornado rather than her roiling maelstroms or her continual raging blizzard like furor. Anger could come and go for you as suddenly as the Breeze.

"Juden? Future Juden at that? What's the matter, trying to change the past for your race of k-" You knew what he was going to say and didn't let him finish as you froze the top half of his body with an ice missile. He wasn't going to say anything worth listening to anyway, none of these people were going to say anything you were very interested in listening to.

Missile Count: 152/155

Nektar was about regenerated, you rushed at her; sweeping your blade in an arc to sever her arm at the elbow and then jump over her other swing as she let out a gasp at the sight of her cauterised limb. You grabbed at one of the tubes feeding her drugs and yanked it to sever her connection.

"No!" She shouted as you stabbed her through the chest and shot into her back as her body began to become unstable, letting the shock coil work on her once again until she at last vanished with a the green flash of a mediporter. The cyborg had emerged with the Obersts, grunting and straining to reach towards you as you cracked your neck.

Universal Ammo Count: 226/240

The first oberst tried to get in your reach again, but Bumblebee and Strongarm had eliminated the last of their assistance, so you simply jumped over them and swung your sword down into his head. He disappeared in a flash and your cannon clicked and released a supermissile into the second; not even breaking your stride as he disappeared.

Super Missile Count: 26/30

The last emptied his clip into you, but your shock coil proved the deadlier weapon, and his screams were the last to be heard before he disappeared after Bumblebee shot him in the back with his Solar Cannon.

Universal Ammo Count: 223/240

The cyborg stepped forward, you sidestepped and punched your head into his chest and tore out his power core; ripping back and stepping backwards to let Stahlschadel fall to the ground, lifeless and empty before he too teleported out; leaving damaged components behind as you examined the power core in your hand.

The battlefield was a mess of carnage, but you had come out on top, and with some judicious usage of ice missiles and concentration missile regeneration; you put out the fires started by the fight. You couldn't fix the structural damage with your current tools, but for now the fighting was over.

You looked over the defeated remains of the nazis and collected anything that might be of value before you let yourself be drawn in by the distraction of an Alimbic Artifact nearby in a part of the university's underground exposed by the fighting.

Mostly minor things, but the two parahumans had left behind things of interest.

Minor Upgrades: one Energy tank, three missile expansions, two super missile expansions, one universal ammo expansion, one resilience booster.

Energy 08(99)
Missile Count: 170
Universal Ammo Count: 280
Super Missile Count: 34
Resilience modifier 1 (Take less damage in general)


From Nektar you got about what you expected. The drug wouldn't really have that kind of an effect on your physiology, and you wouldn't want to be shooting yourself up with it anyway even if it did, but the armour could understand how that drug enhanced the user, and synthesised a way to tap into that principle for temporary augmentations for critical moments.

(More in universe desc to come) Allows the armour and zero suit to augment physicality in a massive rush of energy, while this function does draw on a store of Adrenal power that needs to be restocked over time; it does not come with any drawbacks while active. Initial Berserker Booster functionality offers thirty seconds of massively augmented strength and resilience and significantly enhanced speed, and reflexes. Once used, the Berserker Booster will need to recharge. The Berserker Booster will tend to heighten user confidence and aggression not out of chemical effect, but due to the user's bond with the armour and zero suit imbuing them with the same sense of heightened physical power.

Stahlschadel you were surprised to have actually gotten something from given how you weren't particularly impressed with his tinker technology; given that he was a glorified low grade flunkie for the Gesellschaft and the 5th Column. Nevertheless, your armour determined there was something worth extracting from him.

(More in universe desc to come)

Elemental Beam

Derived from 5th Column and Council Technology. Allows for the user to fire a special negative quantum globule of energy that is especially destructive against beings that rely on a transdimensional energy bond to link between a symbiont and a host such as Kheldians, Nictus, and Parahumans. The beam deals extremely enhanced damage against these targets and causes numerous debilitating effects that will take some time for the targets to recover from; slowing them down and weakening them for many seconds. As a negative energy weapon, the Quantum Beam also is effective against any target that lacks resistance or has a special vulnerability to negative energy; but is generally less effectual against those inundated in such energies.

The charged shot fires the Quark Tornado, which explodes into a swirling Maelstrom of negative energy that will persist for some time after impact and wander around the battlefield damaging enemies caught in its path.

Very nice. You're sure Samus would like to get her hands on this too once you have access to your ships again and can share the gear you've acquired with each other.

Now, the Alimbic Artifact was contained in a lab that had clearly seen better days before a Kolibri crashed through an open door, leaving sparking ruins in all directions and more than a few fires that you walked through without trouble. Alimbic statues lacked the humble gift giving posture of Chozo statues, the arrogant knightly warrior holding the relic in one hand like a prize rather than an offering, contemplating its glories with its monocular eye.

Bumblebee and Strongarm dropped down with you, finding more than enough space and looking up at the tall Alimbic statue that towered over them; Bumblebee warbling in surprise once his scanners gave him feedback on just how advanced the thing he was looking at was.

"Primus blessed..." She said as you jumped into the hands of the statue and cracked open the shell of the relic.

Bumblebee asked if you were sure if this was safe.

"These are...sort of my people. I've got...very complicated feelings about them, but I've got a feeling that this was put here for me." You said, sighing as you steeled yourself. The Alimbics had given you as much pain as they had given you love and care. You envied Samus' ability to just...uncomplicatedly love her alien foster culture. You were only here because of their generosity, yet you fear the sight of authority figures raising their hands at you for good reason.

You exhaled and touched the trophy offered to the victor, and your armour recognised the heritage it had claimed and absorbed it in a flash of blue light that prompted you to curl into your alt-mode and then lit up with electricity in all directions, coiling arcs of energy stabbing out of your psycho-sphere as if you were a living tesla coil. The electronics in the room howled and went on the fritz as lightning curled around you, but you unmorphed and stood up, nodding in appreciation for what you were given.

In your alt-mode, release a continual discharge of omni-directional electricity that can be used to power objects, eradicate large numbers of enemies surrounding you, stun and continually damage more powerful enemies, or even be used to magnetize objects or pick-ups to draw them into your alt-mode. The Lightning Sphere has a reserve of energy that will build up rapidly when not in use, but will not recover while being discharged; this reserve can be increased with further upgrades that the user discovers.

"...Okay, I'm jealous now." Strongarm said with a smirk while Bumblebee blurted out with a clip referring to Santa Claus. You didn't quite get it.

"+Samus, is everything alright on your end?+" You asked.

"+Oh hey Arne, yeah, we've cleared out just about everything here.+" She said back.

"+I was thinking, should we meet back up? We can hold position here a little bit while you guys get here. Or we could meet half way.+" She said.

"+Hey, not to interrupt but we're not exactly human sized here. We'd need to find some alternate routes.+" Strongarm said.

"+I kind of want to know what this university is even doing with alien artifacts. Let alone Progenitor ones. How did they get here?+" You said.

"+Oh, you want to do some fact finding?+" She said.

"+I mean...yeah, the logs here might give some hints, and now that the Gesellschaft's troops are scattered we could find some more of their logs.+" You said.

"+Hrm, that's a decent idea, though we are kind of on a timer here. They're probably getting ready to leave after we've trashed a small army's worth of them.+" She said.

"+True...How is your team holding up?+" You asked.

"+Regretting not having armour that can survive a fall from orbit.+" Assault said in what you think was a joke. After all, he did laugh at the end of it. You weren't sure why that was funny, but he did laugh.

"+Well, based on the caliber of opposition here, this is probably their main objective. We should probably move quickly to stop it.+" Battery said with a sigh.

"+Honestly, this is very fun. We should do it more often.+" Irina cut in.

"+She's...like that. You get used to it.+" Strongarm said. You felt like you were missing out on context that you might never get and were not sure whether to be at peace with this.

Choices


[]: Arne's team should rejoin Samus' and move together towards the objective, Samus' team should hold position, only Arne's team will gather clues beyond their immediate area.
[]: Arne and Samus' should meet up half-way; gathering what clues they can on the way.
[]: Arne and Samus' teams should continue to be divided to cover more ground and head to the objective immediately. Clues will be gathered en route.
[]: Arne should split from the Autobots but rejoin Samus' team because he's human sized. Clues will be gathered en route.
[]: Arne should split from the Autobots but rejoin Samus' team who will meet him half-way. Clues will be gathered en route.
[]: Arne should split from the Autobots but go Solo so they can move in three groups.
[]: Write in
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Okay for real after this I'm going for shorter posts ahh why do these keep on turning out to be doorstoppers?

[X]: Arne should split from the Autobots but rejoin Samus' team because he's human sized. Clues will be gathered en route.

Arne

The Alimbic Statue's amethyst, onyx, and topaz colouration glowed briefly after you had claimed your prize from it, turning its head in acknowledgement of a Knight of the Order and briefly making a salute before it resumed its prior position and became far more rigid, its tri-pronged crest extending outwards and the singular eye glowing a fierce yellow as you stood up and then looked back towards the autobots.

"+Samus, I'll catch up with you shortly. Just need to gather a few facts.+" You said over the comm with Samus.

"+Great! We'll scout out the area a bit, don't think there's going to be a whole lot to worry about by the time you get here.+" She said with a chipper tone back.

Now...

You were curious about how this thing got here, and quickly filched your way through the data of the room. Your scan visor casually going through security systems even the best hackers here wouldn't be able to brute force their way through.

This statue makes no sense. It's not made out of anything that makes sense. Spectroscopic analysis gives out gibberish and the energy readouts make my head hurt. It's like it refuses to be understood and I always feel it staring at me, judging me like I'm some pigeon about to make a mess all over it. From what we've been able to discern with the help of Grabspecher, this was given as a gift to the Celtic Tribal King Birucatis by the fair folk; tall and without necks. But then further probing showed that the statue is much older than the Celtic period and that Birucatis just found it buried in the dirt. It's been around for longer than any of the remains Grabspecher has been able to find and probe. Radiological dating has proven fruitless too so we're at a loss for its age.

There's something inside the prism that the statue holds though, some kind of artefact whose energies can't be read by most of our instruments. Parahuman readouts are only a little more helpful, but it might be some kind of technology? I have no idea, this predates any known origins of tinkertech and the sculpture style doesn't match that of any culture known to have had a presence in the area. The subject is also bizarre, some kind of insectoid figure without a neck and tripod legs. It doesn't match any known legends or mythological creatures, and I don't know how any of them could manage the floating but still attached head.

What is unmistakable though is that the statue is incredibly resilient. Even some of the weirder parahuman powers we've tried out don't so much as scratch the thing. The impossibility of getting samples has also made studying it far harder. But at this point I'm willing to concede on the idea that it might be alien. Nothing else seems to fit, but as to why its left here? I have no idea. Could be for any reason really. I'm not qualified to guess at the mindset of inhuman entities or why they leave behind their sculptures. Now I'm sure if you're reading this you're already writing up a complaint about my lack of formality, but honestly at this point I've been studying this thing for ten years and can't tell you the first thing about it. I'm pissed off and feel like a moron wasting my time. Standing around this thing just gives me the worst inferiority complex. Morale in the rest of the team is also low.

- Amanda Strauss

Samus' Notes: I can get their apprehension. It's not a statue meant to make you feel comfortable near it. It's trying to get your submission. Very much the sort of thing Zurvduat would have done.

Arne's Notes: They're being driven away because the statue doesn't recognise them as worthy of its presence. They're lucky its more serious defense systems haven't been activated though.

You overheard Strongarm and Bumblebee's chatter behind you, well not heard so much as poked a bit into their conversation via your armour's signal intrusion systems.

Strongarm: I really don't like the way that Statue seems to always be looking at me out the corner of its eye.
Bumblebee: Feels like something a Decepticon would leave behind, doesn't it?
Strongarm: Yeah, super egotistical sort of stance to it.
Bumblebee: Arne seems to have gotten something out of it though.
Strongarm: Well, he's wearing armour from the same culture as whoever made this. Just...human shaped.
Strongarm: And you know that's weird. His armour doesn't really tell you that there's a human wearing that suit. Except maybe his arms and legs I guess.
Strongarm: I dunno, it feels a little dehumanising? Like the modifications Shockwave was forced to go through.
Bumblebee: Hey, I'm sure he has a reason for it. Besides, does it really matter how his armour looks as long as he can use it?
Strongarm: Says the bot who complains whenever his finish gets damaged.
Bumblebee: Hey, it takes work to manually polish my chassis.
Bumblebee: But to wheel back around to the statue...Arne's great! But the statue doesn't make me feel the same way.
Bumblebee: Like, I swear by Primus that whomever made that statue didn't exactly think highly of the planet's humans.
Strongarm: If there even were humans when they set this down. This thing's older than any of the other samples they collected to compare its age to.
Strongarm: Arne's got a strong heart, he'd have to to just jump out to save those civilians like that. But I'm not so sure on the Alimbics if this is what they leave behind on worlds they find.
Bumblebee: Hey, if you had to judge our species off of Megatron what would you think of Cybertron?
Strongarm: That we suck exhaust fumes and need to be stopped at all costs?
Bumblebee; Exactly! Besides, they left a present for him.
Strongarm: Fair I guess.
Bumblebee: Relax Strongarm, everything's going to work out fine.
Strongarm: And what do you think of this mission so far?
Bumblebee: Primus knows that cross-multiversal travel's weird enough already. I'm very concerned about this Earth though, everything's just falling apart and there's now all this heading its way.
Bumblebee; But Prime entrusted us to protect the Earths linked by these faultlines. And we're gonna do that, no matter what. Because we're Autobots, and Freedom is the Right of All Sentient Beings.
Strongarm: Yeah I'm not used to fighting so many humans. Didn't expect to have to fight so many non-cybertronians when I joined the revolutionary cause you know?
Strongarm: But Prime is right, these people need to be protected. And well, I'm glad to have a human who can help out with that. Two or more even.
Bumblebee: You know, when I was first posted here I thought Optimus was just typecasting me because I get along with humans so easily. But I'm starting to see why he thinks fronts like this are so important.
Strongarm: Why's that?
Bumblebee: Well, I see kids like Arne who've been put through our kind of stuff. War stuff, and then I just think about how many other young people hurt like does. How many people get victimised by more powerful invaders that we could be helping.
Strongarm: With how old Optimus is, I think he's come to feel the same way.

Interesting. It was strange to see them speak in so...familiar a manner, despite the enormous gulf in age between the two of them and yourself, they felt like people you could approach and call peers. Not quite like the tremendous gulf in lived experiences and circumstances that characterised your interaction with the progenitors. They might be older than mother Elmorni sure, but they carried themselves in a way that was so...young. And they were talking about you

You pinged a request to join the conversation to Bumblebee's surprise as he turned his head from strongarm towards you and widened his big blue optics and made a beeping warble of shock; his equivalent of a gasp you figured. Then he looked back at Strongarm busily quirking her...why does a robot have a brow? You have so many questions about Cybertronian physiology and there are so few answers to be found. You still weren't exactly sure why they had gender identities or corresponded so much to human anatomy despite being so removed in time and space from humans...did you even want to know the answers? Were some things just not meant for the human mind to understand.

Arne: Hey, mind if I intrude?
Bumblebee: Hey how did you...oh well, since you're here, sure!
Arne: What is...Optimus like? You speak of him like he's your father yet, you're not related to him are you?
Bumblebee: Primus no. He's just the Paramount Leader of the Autobots. Of well, our movement. On the military side of things anyway.
Strongarm: The Congress of the Supreme Council's more of our well; Civilian Leadership. But Optimus well, he's been guiding the war effort since its began.
Bumblebee: He's the wisest and nicest person you'll ever meet, even if he's kind of sad about all the stuff that's happened.
Arne: Two hundred and twenty five million years of war can't be easy on his conscience. But, is there any way I could meet him?
Bumblebee: He's a very busy bot but...I think I could arrange for you and Samus to talk to him when Jetfire gives him his personal report? I think he'd like to speak to you two honestly.
Arne: You could do that for us? I...
Strongarm: Prime's always got along with kids. I guess he feels bad for never getting a chance to have any of his own with the whole war and how hard his job was before the war.
Arne: What did he do before he became your leader? Some great theorist? A guerilla leader? Explorer?
Bumblebee: Nah, he was a Librarian.
Arne: Just...that? No prior combat experience or anything?
Bumblebee: No, I guess the Matrix of Leadership might count but, he wasn't a warlord before he became Prime. He was just a regular bot.
Arne: That sounds like some sort of artifact, presumably something to augment someone into a leadership role?
Strongarm: Smart! It's a talisman from our God, containing his offered wisdom and some of his power to anoint well...one of us he thinks is particularly noble into someone able to fight for justice.
Strongarm: Primes are chosen because of their virtue, you aren't just born one.
Arne: I...ah I think I get it.
Arne: He sounds great, I'd really like to meet him! I think Samus would too.
Arne: I just hope he doesn't mind all the lethal force I've been using.
Bumblebee: Hey, Arne. He'll understand. These kinds of people are the exact kind that drive Prime's gears to a halt.
Bumblebee: Honestly, I can't wait to find something to shut these creeps down for good.
Arne: Yeah.

Not exactly the strongest conclusion to that line of thought, but Bumblebee stopped to take a look at the Statue and then turned his attention back to you, seeming to be concerned as he did so. You definitely felt concern radiating off of him. Disquiet, unease. Like he was worried for you. You imagined this would be a little like having an older brother, but being an only child made an imagination all you had to work off of to figure out how that could work. It was strongarm who spoke firs though, and you could figure out why; Bumblebee wasn't sure if the topic was something he should poke into at all. Strongarm had no such hesitations.

Strongarm: So these Alimbics, why didn't they make your armour look human at all?
Arne: I...I don't know? I've been working on some modifications to my armour to make it look less hostile, a new helmet for one thing. But it's on my ship at the moment.
Arne: I think it's because I'm supposed to represent the Tetrarch Order, not myself. So I don't have any personal insignias on my armour or zero suit.
Strongarm: What is your personal insignia?
Arne: For my family it'd be a Shield Knot and sun cross. For myself, an eagle spreading lightning from its wings.
Strongarm: Those would look pretty good on you honestly. Why not try those looks out?
Arne: Well...
Strongarm: What are the Alimbics even like?
Arne: They're, complicated. They're people. What are Cybertronians like?
Bumblebee: Hey, he's got you there.
Strongarm: Okay, what are the ones that raised you like?
Arne: My primary mother, Elmorni is really nice to me. Secondary-Father Mortirk and Secondary-Mother Ygrak are also nice. Tertiary Mother Agrama and Tertiary-Father Ildimi also have been good to me.
Strongarm: What about Primary-Father? You seem to have a really big family.
Arne: All the Alimbics of Sentus Primaris are Mother and Father to me. Yes, so there is the crew of a battlecruiser and a few stasis awakened remnants to help raise me.
Strongarm: Oh interesting, but you still haven't talked about Primary-Father.
Bumblebee: So how many are we talking about?
Arne: Oh about nineteen point seven three million individuals. Slowly rising as they collect more stasis locked populations and reawaken them. There aren't a huge number of them though.
Strongarm: Arne, is there something about Primary-Father you don't want to talk about?
Arne: He's...someone I don't like to think about.
Bumblebee: Arne, what happened?
Arne: Zurvduat is...someone I...have very complicated feelings about. I'd really prefer to not have to think of him.
Strongarm: What did he do to you?
Arne: Please, not now. I don't want to think about it now.
Bumblebee: Hey, Strongarm; let it rest a bit alright? We've got a mission to do.
Strongarm: Right.
Bumblebee: Hey kid, you okay?
Arne: Yeah, I'll be fine.
Arne: It seems that the nazis have evacuated the premises though.
Strongarm: Must have cleared out some of what they were looking for already though, can't find a whole lot of leftovers from their experiments.
Bumblebee: Which is why we should hurry before these goons get away.
Arne: Yeah, I agree. But, we should split up.
Arne: Samus' group needs a second person to take hits from them more than either of you need me.
Bumblebee: Hey, Arne; you were great out there, don't talk yourself down like that. But well, I get it.
Arne: Thanks.

You ended the text conversation there, wanting to get some more usage out of your actual vocal cords. Partly because you found bumblebee's odd way of speaking to be rather intriguing and wanted to see more of it in action.

Well, no sense in continuing to tag along with them when they weren't going to be able to fit into the primary pathway and Samus probably could use another person to run interference for the sake of the less durable members of the team. They were able to handle themselves quite nicely as well, and with the amount of damage already done to the facility not bringing around the robots who would tear apart the innards of the building by their evasive manoeuvres seemed to be the best idea.

"You two should be able to find your own way through the facility. I should probably help Samus out. And well..." You started before Strongarm gave an understanding nod. She hadn't known you long but it wasn't too hard to guess that Samus and yourself were very close. After all, you wouldn't fall out of the sky together with just anyone. And of course, you were rather visibly reluctant to part ways from Samus when the time came to split up into separate groups.

"Hey, if you want to join up with your partner that's fine with me. Just uh, one question." She said, kneeling down towards your level and resting a hand on her knee.

"Yeah?" You asked, eyes occasionally glancing towards Bumblebee as he examined the statue, tracing his fingers along it and then backing away slightly and playing a sound clip that simply said "-Wack.-"

"I'm not the biggest expert on humans and I'm not at all rated for psych duty, but. You said you were Jewish right?" You nodded in response as she spoke with some concern, like a big sister more than a giant robot.

"You going to be alright? I know what...people like this represent to you." She asked.

"I'll be fine. There's plenty of distance between now and then anyway. Just...people I need to deal with, that's all." You said back as she gave a nod of understanding.

"-Break a leg kid!-" Bumblebee said, playing another clip and throwing you a thumbs up that you swiftly returned before dashing out the door, though not before picking up two more scan logs.

Analysis of the Statue indicates it was deposited here roughly one hundred thousand years ago relative to your own timestream at the height of the Milieu-Order cold war. The Alimbic statue is designed to represent the personification of Triumph, styled after the Alimbic Tetrarch who ordered the sealing of the Old Foe. The statue is conventional by Alimbic standards, with a highly typical array of defences as well as a gift for those who prove worthy of it through discovery and having the proper equipment to make use of its prize. It has been significantly displaced from its point of origin, and appears to have originally been part of a complete set.

Its presence further suggests that the network of Alimbic ruins on this planet is extremely extensive, likely representing continuous low-level settlement over the course of thousands of years. The eventual fate of these colonists remains unknown, but further exhumations might reveal the pertinent details. The statue shows recent signs of attempted tampering, likely by 5th Column agents attracted to its energy signature but incapable of earning its gift. This statue is paired with another nearby statue and once that statue is activated by the appropriate tools, its true function will be revealed.

Samus' Notes: The Alimbics are much more secretive about their presence here than the Chozo are! Their statues keep so quiet and try to avoid communing with each other unless necessary. It's so frustrating! But luckily it shouldn't be impossible to find them.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, if I had to guess there would be at least seven other statues of this set. Probably all built by the same person in the same day. It'd only be a small portion of the statues on the planet, but it'd be a start.

The intuition of our Nictus allies that there would be more of the incomprehensible artefacts here proved to be a correct one. While Spaltefuhrer Requiem of course is not to be trusted entirely, the Deutschfuhrer and yourself will be pleased to learn that since the anomalous dimensional event these objects have since become active. Though this was not the initial target of our raid, the relics seem to have been waiting for some manner of signal before they would activate their hidden functions. This raises the importance of acquiring these objects before the other forces at play who would seek to take these worlds do so for themselves. Even if it will be yet some time before the keen minds of Aryan science can decipher the secrets of these miraculous alien devices, it would be wise to deny them to the others or to the locals.

We will also likely require higher grade combatants in the near future. I suspect that the race for influence and domination over our objectives will intensify very soon. And it would not do us well to fail to meet this higher grade of war with lesser examples of the Herrenvolk. We must step up the recruitment of those who show promise for our desires, to ensure that our soldiers are both of high quality and the proper quantities. The colonies should be readied for warfare, and our resources turned increasingly towards understanding those foes who have managed to temporarily exceed our understanding of nature through the cheat of having had an earlier start. The foes will bring out heavier weapons in response to greater prizes, and we must beat them to the punch before they can steal our triumph from us.

Though if you would permit me to break with formality my Reichsfuhrer, the calibre of most of the so-called "Neo-Nazis" of this Earth Bet is appalling. Even with some of our superior equipment and metaenergetic augmentations to strike with more ferocity than they should and resist more than they ought to; they still disappoint. Less than one in a thousand seems to fully meet our standards and I cannot abide by the shaved heads and degenerate tattoo work so many indulge in. They also lack proper racial conscious. Far too many believe in the impossibility of accepting Slavs as fellow "whites" or have allowed themselves to be poisoned with Asian entertainment commodities. The time must come for the wheat to be separated from the chaff at some point, and proper discipline should be enforced should we seek to wring the necessary potential out of these failures.

- With faith and honour, Gruppenfuhrer Erhard Rickenbacker

Samus' Notes: So that's why their weapons were able to cause any damage to my shielding at all despite their low firepower. I'll need to update the projectors for these meta-energies then. I'm concerned though, if they're preparing to send more then this planet is in serious danger; they can't fight off enemies of this magnitude.

Arne's Notes: Important revelations about their disproportionate ability to do damage aside, we'll need to find some way to prepare this incarnation of Earth fro what's likely going to be a full scale invasion. These people aren't going to limit themselves to quiet raids in the night for long.

The statue was about what you expected. But the report that was left behind on some materials abandoned in their haste by the rush to evacuate the facility when they realised they were losing made your blood both boil and your sense of worry flare up. There were wheels in motion in this plan, and your arrival to this planet had set off a cascade of events that would likely decide the fate of this and many other worlds. You almost felt sick at the thought of so much weight on your shoulders, and you came to a brief halt as you rested a hand on the wall outside of the door to the containment room. You breathed in, breathed out, closed your eyes and then concentrated.

You had dealt with crises of high magnitude before. You held the fates of numbers of people more easily written in scientific notation in the palm of your hands so many times before hand. You could do this. You had to do this. Too much was at stake if you couldn't.

You swallowed your anxiety as Bumblebee beeped in your direction and sent you a message, noting that you had stopped.

Bumblebee: Something wrong?
Arne: Just...a lot to think about, I'll send you the scan log.
Bumblebee: By the Primes...I'm going to need to report this to Jetfire as fast as I can. And that's really fast.
Arne: I don't doubt it.
Bumblebee: Meanwhile, I'm looking at the layout of the underground part of this university. Seems like there should be a way for Strongarm and I to link up with you.
Arne: Good to know.
Bumblebee: And Arne.
Arne: Yeah?
Bumblebee: You and Samus are doing just great. You've got this.
Arne: Thanks.

You took those words of encouragement like Nectar, praise rarely was sent in your direction by people that much older than you than Bumblebee was. And with those honeyed words, you dashed down the halls, moving through the eerily quiet facility with seemingly nothing else in the facility save for more hallways. The lights were a bit helter-skelter with the damage done to the facility, but you weren't really afraid of the dark.

Your hearing picked up something else though, the faint thrush of objects being moved around in the distance, little tumbles of disturbed paper or shifting chairs. Your armour picked up communication signals nearby that didn't belong to your group, but only some of them were speaking on frequencies the Nazi alliance had been known to use; or even speaking in German for that matter.

Out of curiosity you decided to take a look at the wifi in the campus, your armour tapping into it and then screening through. It warned you of that omnipresent malware and almost invisible even to your own scanners packets of data being sent somewhere. Someone was watching the datafeeds, and given that the Nazis did not act as if they had that much prior warning of your movements; you don't think it was them. At least, if it were; they weren't sharing that intel with everyone which to be entirely fair, was a common problem with darwinian management.

Perhaps even more curiously though, the signals weren't going on similar frequencies to either set of frequency chatter. So that left two mysteries. Who was making the second set of frequency chatter, and who was monitoring all the feeds? The maker of the virus was certainly clever enough to guise their tracks. Countless dummy signals, dead ends, duplicates. Whomever had made it had done a ton of work in making their monitoring so omnipresent that not even your suit could properly pinpoint where it was coming from. It was everywhere, and thus nowhere. Perfectly distributed across several timelines. Technologically inferior to what you could do, but done so skillfully you couldn't help but respect it.

The second set of signals wasn't speaking in German or English but in a language your suit hadn't encountered before. The speakers were probably some sort of humanoid based on the sounds they made, but altered somehow. You'd need to examine them more closely to get a proper analysis unfortunately, and none of them seemed to be in viewing range for now. But they disappeared soon enough and you were left to the sound of water being displaced by someone's boot dropping down into the water. You paused briefly and picked up more German communications.

Kommando #1: Target spotted.
Kommandant: Urge caution, the blue figure is extremely potent.
Kommando #2: Of course, we will observe for now.
Kommando #3: What can be discerned of this one and the orange one?
Kommandant: Agents within the PRT reported them falling from orbit following the detonation of the cloaked gate in the vicinity of Brockton Bay. They were reportedly unharmed and engaging Rikti forces with ease.
Kommandant: The PRT believes them to be children, human at that.
Kommando #1: Aryan?
Kommandant: According to the files we are able to access they are classified as white. Thank God for American record keeping.
Kommando #2: Possibility of recruitment?
Kommandant: Unknown. Stahlschadel had some intel concerning the blue one's racial characteristics but has suffered memory loss.
Kommando #1: Concerning.
Kommando #3: Do we engage?
Kommandant: Avoid conflict. We are at an intelligence disadvantage.
Kommando #2: We have some other busybodies poking around our business here.
Kommandant: Identification?
Kommando #2: Uncertain. Will monitor.

You turned your head briefly at the sound of more splashing and briefly caught a glimpse of one of the soldiers who seemed to realise that you had pinpointed his location and disappeared into another dimension as soon as you met his gaze. But not before you managed to get off a scan on him.

latest.png


Experimental soldiers created by the Weltreich exposed to extradimensional energies after undergoing numerous augmentations. The extradimensional energy exposure process induces berserker like psychosis in the soldier in question but results in a wide variety of extreme physical augmentations that have lead to the Waffen-SS deeming the price worth it, particularly for the purposes of cultivating supersoldiers without relying on the other major organisations of the Reich. Ungehesen are named for their particular variety of powers which include the ability to teleport, become invisible, phase through objects (though you yourself cannot be phased through), and other ghostly abilities. They can also project this energy into directed blasts, augments to their melee attacks, or blades emerging from their wrists.

Tracking them is possible through X-ray spectrum or multidimensional visor technology (warning: User lacks capability), and while in a phased state, a non-elementally stacked beam or similar weapon remains capable of damaging them. Due to their berserker condition, they are also easily prone to being baited out of position by taunts or targets to work their aggression out against. This will also typically lead them to abandon ranged combat to try to close in melee as soon as possible and will also cause them to abandon other targets to focus on the last irritant to have gained their attention.

Samus' Notes: I would pity them if they hadn't so gleefully accepted becoming monsters themselves. But luckily dealing with them should be easy enough even without the visor technology to track them. Especially if they decide to get close.

Arne's Notes: Not a big fan of mentally scarring sophontic experimentation I'd have to say. They're going to be a problem when it comes to protecting other people though, I'll need to get out a warning about these types of troops in particular.

You squinted your eyes but carried on through, taking a look at the now heavily ransacked facility's innards. Executed personnel lay around in all directions, those deemed not worth capturing simply silenced to prevent them from speaking of the raiders' plans. A momentary glance told you most of these people were simply executed at point blank range with a swift bullet to the head and then left to rot. That they didn't even bother to dispose of most of the bodies was a sickening reminder of their power here. They could get away with murder and nobody would do a thing about it.

Well, you weren't nobody.

You looked briefly at a young intern's corpse, face in shock as the cause of death lay plainly apparent in their forehead. A young life full of passion for the future cut down at the flower of adulthood. Their nametag smeared with blood and defaced by a bayonet to cut out their name. Turkish you figured, probably an immigrant. Someone who moved with hope of being accepted only to find their grave. You held back some bile and took note of dozens of other bodies laid across the room in similar ways.

One a young French woman, another a Jew, a third a Namibian, a fourth a young man with a picture of his boyfriend still in his locket, with the faces stabbed inwards by a bayonet, a fifth a Korean emigre woman, the sixth someone burned in such a way that their wheelchair had melted into their charred flesh. This pattern repeated. The undesireable, the unwanted, the overly young and inexperienced, the politically disagreeable, the simply deemed not useful. It brought back unwanted memories of Cylosis and how the mysterious skull-masked soldiers simply lined up people to be shot, row after row; or dragged them from their homes and burst their skulls with their munitions; or simply set fire to their homes and locked them inside.

You shivered at the sensation. Your breath was shallow and panicked. You were just three years old, there was hot blood on your face from the ruptured heads of the slain, the armoured figure of your parents and their squadron clearing a path out of a world on fire.

You tried to clear your mind, focus your thoughts on what mattered, swearing vengeance for the slain. The shriek of aircraft like daggers in your ears, the hellish quintuple cackle of the Golden Hydra so close and inescapable, bell-like cackles following you like the shadow of death itself, it's so loud. Why is it so loud?

You would have to be their knight and their warrior. You would need to face the terror with pride and strength, clenching your fist and hitching your breath as you tried to walk forward. And the dead lay everywhere, unburied, unmourned, unwanted. All of them dying in helpless terror, all of them looking to you, why couldn't you help them? Zurvduat was right...you were weak, useless, you couldn't save anyone. Dead stares all accusing you of weakness.

No! You wouldn't let yourself be lost in the nightmares now. You were brave, you could do this. You had done this so many times before. You clenched your hand and repeated a mantra taught to you by Elmorni.

"Fear is welcome, terror is not. I may be afraid, but I shan't be terrorised. I can fight the dark, and the dawn will come again." Sweet words by your adoptive mother, her blue carapace so gentle and affectionate you could almost feel its warm embrace now, and found yourself longing for her guidance even now.

"I won't let any of you down." You said to the bodies, then upwards; wondering where your adoptive Alimbic mother was relative to you. "Especially not you, mom." You said, returning to the gathering of evidence.


Doors leading to experimental facilities were still opened, showing rooms stripped bare of their belongings and functions. Looted of what was surely a significant quantity of scientific and technological wealth meant to analyse the parahuman phenomenon and other esoterica of interest to the academia of west Germany and much of Earth as a whole. But the process was partial, not yet complete; your arrival had spurred them into action as some of the devices they were studying came to life, but the battle had alerted them to the fact that they had not enough time to finish their theft.

One thing that was only partially disassembled was a device that your scan visor informed you was being used to study ways to understand the source of powers. A crude dimensional drill device, ingenious with the methods used to create it despite the limited means, but this team was starting to go onto the right track of understanding where parahuman abilities were coming from. While some of the components were stripped out, you needed only a few seconds to figure out how to get it operational again. The most important component of course, being something you could supply with a shot of your quantum beam.

Something you'd have to come back to later though, your suit was telling you Samus was relatively close. You moved out of this laboratory wing and rushed over towards Samus' position, going through a few doors that you needed to hack through to open without damaging the building. Samus hadn't kept still herself, her group still moving cautiously through the much emptier facility, but you were dashing towards her faster than any of her companions could even see. They perceived you not as a blur; to them you just teleported into position next to Samus, a thunderclap following you and the sound of your movement lagging well behind yourself as you stood yourself up.

"Sorry for the delay, there were some...distressing detours I had to make." You said, standing up as Samus was busy eating something a peach gathered from the cafeteria she was now in and offering a fresh one to you while she chewed; her helmet off and cheeks chipmunked out with fruit.

"You want some?" She offered, and out of courtesy you dismissed your helm and obliged, smiling a bit.

Samus

Some minutes earlier.

This statue was deposited on the planet roughly one hundred thousand years ago by the Milieu as part of its cold war with the Tetrarch Order. Representing the Far-Strider; this statue offers the gift of instantaneous travel to the worthies who earn its truth and pass the trial of liberation to reach it. It is an entirely standard statue within the design paradigms of the "Ranging Maker" subculture of the Chozo, developed to furnish the colony established on this iteration of Earth. As is typical of ranging maker statues, this statue carries a secondary function that is currently barred from you until you find and activate its twin statue; the Parter of Foes.

Attempts by the 5th Column, Weltreich, and Gesellschaft to study the statue have been noted but have been unsuccessful. Earth Bet instruments have also been used extensively, representing the full range of capabilities of contemporary scientific analysis to similarly negligible effect. The Statue's spirit is currently pleased to have fulfilled its obligation to you, and waits for you to complete further trials on your journey here. Some communication with Alimbic and other progenitor relics have also been detected.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, interesting. I think I have a theory on what the Parter of Foes might be, but I'll need to actually see it in person to know for sure!

Arne's Notes: I like all these colourful if cryptic names for Chozo statuary. It feels so...artsy in a way Alimbic statues often aren't.

Well, we can dismiss the theory that this was Egyptian because it's not made with any substance you could ever find in Egypt. It's also definitely not Roman, Germanic, or Celtic either, being far too old. My best guess would be that it's not of human origin. Definitely extraterrestrial in design but not necessarily origin. Perhaps built by ancient visitors on the planet? I know it sounds crazy, like that wild-haired guy on the History Channel, but all the attempts to make it fit into existing historical models contort themselves into even more impossible leaps of logic and this seems like the only answer that makes sense, especially as there is nothing to indicate it had parahuman origin.

Like the other statues we've been able to recover; none of our instruments are able to tell us anything about it. Even spectroscopes just return babbling nonsense. Something that seems to be common to all statues of this sort of make and time period. We're categorizing this as belonging to Ancient Alien culture A; for Avian. We can't really determine a whole lot about how their culture operated or worked or even much about what it was like. We can guess that they had a strong artistic streak with an emphasis on sculpture based on what they left behind, and that they were extremely technologically sophisticated. Beyond that? Maybe Eva's wild theory about them leaving this here expecting someone is as good as anyone else's ideas.

We can't really tell if this culture was hostile, but those who spend time near this statue report a feeling of wanting to go out on adventures. To wander around and see distant places and they show increased interest in ideas regarding other dimensions or space travel. If you will permit me to get speculative, I think this statue has some sort of mind-altering effect. Which means that it would be best to ensure that any similar such statues in the hands of private collections or curated museums are quickly moved into safekeeping and out of public hands lest one of the recently activated statues cause a serious incident.

- Ayaka Aratani

Samus' Notes: So much in here is wrong. I hope Aratani is still alive so I can explain to her what the Chozo were really like! The Ranging Maker culture was so fascinating in particular!

Arne's Notes: Why does everyone say that the Chozo are like birds? Is it the beak and feathers? Does the carapace mean nothing to them? Maybe I'm not thinking about this with the right perspective.

The statue glowed briefly as it cradled you in its outstretched hands before it lowered you onto the ground and resumed sitting on its throne, the Far Ranging Statue's body encased in a graceful explorer's armoursuit. Whereas the overall headshape of Zebesian Chozo was closer to parrot like, the Far Rangers called that of a Crane to mind, with a long, thin beak and a lengthy, sauropod like neck. However the head behind the beak called to mind a Brachiosaurus more than any winged bird from earth. The visor was wider than your own suit's; a simple C shaped curve providing vision for the wearer, and whereas many Chozo were robed, this statue instead wore a cloak and tunic over its armour instead, setting you between its impressive legs as tall at their knees as you were at full height.

Its task done, the emerald, gold, and azure statue seemed to become inert once again, silently watching ahead. Its hands turned to grip the armrests of its seat, and its head straightened as if something just in front of it had caught its full attention. The glow it had made when it was gifting you had faded into duller background lights, and the instrumentation in the room stopped having a minor crisis of confidence brought about by the statue's ministrations.

You could immediately tell though, that what you had just done came off as magic to the people in front of you, and smiled reassuringly to them before giving them a thumbs up.

"So uh, what was that?" Assault asked, deciding to broach the topic after the requisite silence.

"it was a Chozo statue offering a gift to me! So I just...accepted it. It's no big deal." You said, confused as to why he seemed to be so...mystified by what had gone on. Was it really all that strange to him? You just accepted a modular upgrade offered to you in good faith. Hardly anything to get all up in arms or confused about.

"How do you know that it was offering a gift to you specifically?" Battery interjected, raising a hand now to let it be known she wanted to speak.

"I mean, I found it here. If they didn't want me to find it, they wouldn't have put it where I can find it." You said, this line of questioning was all quite bizarre to you. Did they not get that the Chozo were prescient? Or was the idea of that degree of precognition just out of their normal frame of reference.

"This thing looks like it was around for the Dinosaurs!" Viktor said, gesturing towards the statue and then back towards you, pulling off his helmet and wiping off his brow with a cloth as he seemed envious of your armour's superior climate control and body waste disposal systems. Something you couldn't fault him for, it must be awful to be stuck in a suit full of your own sweat.

"That's an exaggeration, it's only a hundred thousand years old." You said, beaming with pride and then being confused about why Irina was sniggering out loud before she doubled over and had herself a riotous belly laugh. There was that sensation of not being sure if you said something wrong once again. You racked your brain over what could have been the cause and came to the conclusion that...oh right that was still a very, very long time for humans.

"You are a very funny Irish girl you know?" Irina said with the biggest grin on her face as she set down her helmet and made a confident smirk before she looked to the statue and seemed about ready to poke it before she retracted her hand and frowned slightly.

"Irish?" Viktor asked.

"Samus Eabha Aran is a very celtic name Vitya. Makes me think of IRA songs." She said with a smirk.

"Up the IRA eh?" Assault said with a grin before being elbowed by Battery and making an "ow" sound after taking the hit to his side, rubbing it and looking towards her with an apologetic frown.

"What did I say about cheering on terrorists?" Battery glowered, which got another confused look out of you. From what you remembered of your homeland's history, the PIRA were celebrated heroes who fought one of the most evil pre-spacefaring societies to have ever existed to liberate their sundered homeland. You were about to bring this up but stopped yourself when you sensed that this would likely make Assault mad. An unpleasant snarl in the future.

"So ah...who made this? Bird people?" Irina asked.

"I...wouldn't call them that but it is non-human yes! Chozo, the species that raised me after I...was on my own when I was little." You hoped they'd be able to get that without you having to elaborate.

"Oooh so you were basically raised by alien monks da?" She said, taking a swig of her flask of electrolyte water to replenish her fluid supply and cleaning her forehead of accumulated sweat. My goodness how these people were in need of some upteching if they were going to handle some space pirates.

"Uh-huh. They can see the future! So they must have known that I'd be coming here at some point. Maybe it was even left by my mamas and papas?"

"Communal parents huh? Very interesting!" Irina said with a nod.

"Why are you so far from home exactly?" Battery asked pointedly.

"Because I left for a boarding school to get socialization training." You said proudly.

"...Why aren't you in school right now?" She asked, seemingly suspicious of the motivations of your caretakers in a way that made you frown beneath your helmet. How could anyone think of the Chozo as anything other than the epitome of benevolence? To raise someone they barely knew from the ashes of K-2L, to love and care for you so strongly and to make you one of their own without condition or expectation of repayment and to indulge your wish to become an adventuring hero. How could that be anything but the purest love?

"Because I was following some evidence trails with Arne that lead us to that wormhole station. We had to clear out some Space Pirates and some...other combatants that I don't know much about but Arne feels the same way about them that I do about the Pirates." You said as if this explained everything, mystified as to why you needed to explain so many basic things. It felt like having to educate a baby honestly.

"...And they just...let you do this?" Battery was clearly completely baffled.

"Well, they know that when I go out on that sort of adventure its something important!" You said happily.

"...I am going to have a headache." Battery said, grabbing at her head and rubbing it while Irina patted her on the back.

"Don't worry, I don't get half of it either!" Irina said with a beaming smile to your laughter.

A little bit later​

You hadn't seen much of interest as you made your way deeper into the facility, it seemed that a lot of the fight had just gone out of the Nazis altogether. You, of course, picked up on a number of important scan logs here and there. But it seemed that the bulk of the fighting was over and all there was left to do was gather clues and figure out a few puzzles for the benefit of your team mates who couldn't traverse things as quickly or as well as yourself; repowering some bridges and opening some doors that lead to paths they could take but you didn't need to move from point A to point B.
A few interesting bits of information presented themselves to your scan visor as you dug through yet another terminal, taking a look at the plans of the raiders of this facility.

While the sudden arrival of the unexpected interference has proven to be exceedingly costly in lives and materiel for our operation, we have managed to procure much of what our allies have asked us to. The research on parahumans was largely standard issue, little that we do not already know and most of it served to confirm what we have told many of our allies. More intriguing is the research done on aliens and other dimensions. The artifacts of the highest technological grade have awakened spectacularly and now shimmer with energies we can scarcely comprehend. A power that taunts us with our lack of understanding of it and demands our rightful harvest. But one day we shall master it, as is the destiny of our nation.

It's all quite fascinating, but sadly so much of the staff had nothing of value to learn from and so had to be liquidated for operational security reasons. The staff who had valuable information, as per orders; were taken away for interrogation and await your careful ministrations. While I don't doubt that many will struggle to give any information of note, that we could not figure out ourselves, their greater experience with working with these curiosos should prove useful. Particularly for our operations in the United States and Canada where what we gain here will doubtlessly allow us to outmuscle the competition and bring the PRT to heel for good once we show to the Yankees just how deep our roots go into their protectors.

Some of these finds could make even the Dragon quail before us and perhaps even humble the Endbringers themselves; and will doubtlessly allow us to make ready for a higher form of war. Which will certainly be necessary, if our nation is to survive what the 5th Column tells is will be an Oncoming Storm of terrible proportions and magnitude unlike anything the Earth has ever seen. Humanity will survive what is to come, under a glorious Weltreich devoid of the degenerate and the impure. Our Volk will triumph, and soon our Empire-88 assets will be in place to make their play. Our glorious allies will lead us to the inevitable triumph of the Aryan race over all of its foes. And when the world sees only our way shall save them from the fire that will come, they will praise us!

Glory to the Kriegsfuhrer! Glory to the Spaltefuhrer! Glory to the Weltfuhrer! Heil Dreher! Heil Requiem! Heil Ziegler!!

- Johann Schmidt

Samus' Notes: I should get this to the Americans as soon as possible but I don't know who might already be compromised. Might be best to deliver it in person once I'm sure that I can get it to someone I can trust.

Arne's Notes: If these people think that their Kriegsfuhrer is at all on the same level as Weltfuhrer Ziegler, then they're going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise when they outlive their usefulness.

It seems that they've already gotten at least part of the way through with their objectives. You worried you might be too late, but you cracked into their communications just to be sure that there was still a chance. Their signal discipline was poor, especially given that you knew you weren't the only one listening in and you bet they were aware of at least some of the other signals. But their laxity was to your benefit.

Kommando #1: We are approaching the primary target, advise.
Kommandant: Await for the arrival of Gheist team. That target is extremely valuable to the Gruppenfuhrer's desires.
Kommando #2: All this security for the layabouts from this dimension?
Kommando #3: The last of the security here is quite stubborn. Foolish, but stubborn.
Kommando #1: I believe they have what they call "Tinkertech" and a number of Parahumans.
Kommando #4: Certainly brave to still be holding out now. What a waste of good Aryan life.
Kommando #2: Bah, I counted several non-Deutsch in their ranks, plenty of women too. They pollute the Fatherland.
Kommandant: Focus, the last of the obstacles will be a high grade hero quartet who are veterans of multiple endbringer encounters.
Kommando #5: Primal Earth had plenty of famous heroes to kill. We shall be fine.
Kommandant: Contempt for your enemy is healthy, but do not allow it to lead you to the grave.
Kommando #5: What they are guarding must be of tremendous importance if they are willing to commit so much to it.
Kommando #1: Must be why they chose to hide it beneath a university. Hoping their "unwritten rules" will offer them protection from the more squeamish.
Kommando #2: What dishonour they bring to Deutschland with their degeneracy. Death is a mercy to most of these filth, better to give them an easy death than to let them wallow in this filth.
Kommandant: The cleansing will come soon enough. Keep pressing, the armoured duo is approaching your position according to observers.
Kommando #5: Scheisse, is there anything that can be done to slow them down?
Kommando #2: Send more Gesellschaft scum their way, maybe bother the 5th Column to spare some men too.
Kommando #1: Do we have an extraction plan should they catch up to us? And what of the large robots?
Kommandant: Mediporters should still work to pull you out of the situation if your task becomes too risky, Grauer team. You are valuable to our Reich, fine men of the Waffen-SS. You will not be allowed to die uselessly.
Kommando #4: Comforting.
Kommandant: Have you forgotten the teachings of Himmler so quickly? Comedy is a useless distraction for our Spartanist way. Focus on your mission absolutely, and you will have victory. Banter is for lesser men.
Kommando #4: How close are they?
Kommandant: Based on the security footage, the human sized members of their team are far away. However the robots are quite close. Expect them to run interference shortly.
Kommando #1: Deploy teams to intercept them immediately; we must complete the objective.
Kommando #2: We already have the second objective at least, and many of the secondary and tertiary objectives.
Kommando #1: These objectives are of high importance. That vault must be cracked.


Based on the map of the facility you had, it would primarily be up to Bumblebee and Strongarm to run interference against these Kommandos, which left you feeling frustrated but you couldn't exactly leave behind all of your allies to rush off and join them. They could handle themselves anyway, and so you just sighed and kept on advancing; letting your friends follow suit.

Now deeper into the facility, you stopped the group at one of the cafeterias meant for the underground staff right before Irina could complain about being hungry. Once of your precognitive hunches and perhaps a more frivolous use of your prescience than usual; but definitely useful all the same.

You yourself were craving something sweet, and decided to help yourself to some of the fruits and sorbets present. You couldn't touch the meat out of knowledge of where that flesh came from and the agony that the animals lived in before they perished; and for that matter the dairy was also out of the question for similar reasons. Some poor cow's baby was stolen from it to steal its milk from it and you just couldn't be part of that. It would make you sad and give you flashes of the memories of the animal as you consumed its produce.

"So how did they fit this whole place beneath a famous university?" Assault asked as he helped himself to some of the ice cream.

"Probably parahuman assisted construction if I had to guess." Viktor said, taking a moment to do some deeper repairs to his armour while you restrained yourself from pointing out all the ways he could do it more efficiently or improve that woefully obsolete armour he wore. It wasn't something he designed so you weren't sure how much of your advice he would actually be able to understand. And it might be rude to lay into him with so much criticism, however honest it was. Still, it was definitely a struggle and your eyes kept on turning towards Viktor's suit multiple times until Irina poked you.

"Do you want to kiss him or something?" She asked with a smirk.

"Well...either of you would be fine. Both at once would be great!" You figured that this was an attempt to fluster you, but honestly why would people be ashamed of admitting their attractions? It made no sense. Hiding it only seemed to make more trouble than it was worth when everything would be so much simpler if people were just honest.

Viktor just about choked on his tea in response and Irina turned an interesting shade of red before looking away from you and harrumphing loudly. You had sensed that the two thought you were pretty since the first time you met them, and you weren't quite sure why they found you showing interest in them caught them off guard. People without psionic or mystic senses could be so weird sometimes.

Assault let out a laugh while Battery seemed like she was on the verge of having a stroke. Something she really should get checked, allowing herself to be stressed so often couldn't at all be good for her. Especially when she was eating food like that burger which had been processed and preserved with such primitive techniques you wondered how anyone could eat it without vomiting immediately.

Arne appeared like a bolt of lightning, dropping down from his sprint and jump and landing hard on the ground, standing himself up to his rather considerable full height to the surprise of the others, with Viktor almost falling out of his seat in sheer surprise as Arne's sound caught up to him with a thunderclap that rang across the room.

Present​

The two of you shared what you'd learned with each other as everyone quickly finished up what they had to eat to waste as little time as possible. Arne's revelations made you ponder in ever greater concern. This was clearly the first stage of some greater plan, yet there was the question of who else was watching events unfold. You had both found references to the Reichblock believing that a greater conflict was soon on the horizon, and Arne's discovery that the foe was trying to monitor you with special forces heightened your sense of healthy paranoia.

There was a sense of unease in Arne's heart that you decided to prod him a bit about, no sense in going into this with doubt in the mind of your closest compatriot here when you'd be facing increasingly heightened danger. You were sure that the opposition you'd be facing would take the fight with far more gravity than your prior opponents and would be better prepared for your abilities.

"Arne, is something wrong?" You said quietly, too quietly for the others to hear.

"I...I'm fi-" He stopped himself when you placed your hand on his shoulder and straightened him to face you, looking into each other's eyes; red into blue. You pouted a bit and let him know that you weren't going to accept the "everything is fine" lie.

"...I saw so many corpses just left on the wayside like trash and had some flashbacks. You know how it is." He said, sighing and closing his eyes as if he was too ashamed to meet your gaze. Fear of his weakness and seeming like he was unable to keep up with you always ate at him. You understood the poison of self-doubt and the coils of past trauma very well, and you laid a finger on his chin to turn his head up towards you; letting him look down at you. He was starting to get visibly taller than you; but he never stopped being soft beneath his shell.

"Arne, we're going to stop them from doing stuff like that for good. No more early graves will have to be dug when we're done here." You said reassuringly. To yourself as much as to Arne while he gave an understanding nod, your infectious confidence helping to restore his own as he breathed in and out.

"Are you going to take your own advice into heart?" He asked, a wry smile on his face.

"Obviously...when have I ever been a hypocrite?" You said before he started to make a catlike smirk that made you roll your eyes, already anticipating his playful needling coming before Irinia butted in.

"Oy! You two can make out and do the horizontal ballet when we are done! We have fashishty to break! Davai! Davai!" She said, pushing the two of you out the door to Battery's sniggering while Viktor snapped his helmet onto his head and Assault made a quick check.

"Everyone ready?" He asked.

"DA! MOVE FASTER HAMBURGER EATER!" Irina shouted.

"...Ow...personal much?" Assault said, miming being shot in the heart.

You all moved in a hurry, your visor catching the sight of a recently dislodged panel that had been hastily moved back into place; probably in an attempt to guise the fact that some of the enemy had just moved through here recently. You breathed in and then punched a hand outwards, smashing in the tinkertech augmented sliding like cardboard even though it was meant to resist a direct impact by thermobaric bunkerbuster munitions. Hardly a challenge for you, but then; when was the real challenge in ever just entering?

The sounds of a firefight greeted you as soon as you passed through a soundproofed door, the remaining guards of the facility being swept up by a team of Reichblock troops. Nacht Elites, Stahl walkures, Soldats, Panzerhund, Wachrobots, Mekmen, and a new force of SS soldiers from the weltreich; teleporting into flanking positions to eliminate the facility guards who were trying to pin down the advancing nazis with tinkertech weapons.

Fast moving robots bounced from target to target, harassing or simply crushing those in their way, and your slicing into the security camera feeds in the facility showed that this was only part of what was increasingly obviously the real offensive thrust of the Nazis. They were pouring into the lower levels of the facility, coordinated combat groups engaging and eliminating the outnumbered and outgunned guards of this place.

The primary fight was in a central access tunnel that was meant to move supplies underground well beneath the city of Munich's conventional underground infrastructure, allowing for shipments to be shipped without anyone on the surface being the wiser. But instead of a shipment, the guards of this facility were met with an assault train full of nazis; an attack locomotive whose cars cut through the guards to the side and disgorged dozens of squads at a time; clearly having some sort of teleporter to shift large numbers of soldiers around.

The train had reached its destination, unleashing a frenzy of nazis who were slicing their way through the most heavily guarded part of the facility; including an A team of four high-grade parahumans who were the ace in the hole of the facility's defences; those who could be expected to hold the line against endbringers until reinforcements came. Along with an assorted bunch of also-rans and powerless...fodder would be a generous word for them.

The four and their entrouge were seeming to do okay until a masked figure in a trench coat and a woman in some manner of medieval looking armour that formed over her SS uniform arrived followed by six others. The Trench coated figure extended blades from his wrist and moved at speeds that impressed even you, reducing dozens of guard troops to red mists not even through force but by simply slicing them so often that no whole chunks of them were left before any part of their body could hit the ground.

Weapons fire aimed his way was futile as he easily deflected the incoming rounds, carefully aiming the rounds back to their senders, killing dozens more soldiers while his help got to work; including another speedster who resorted to more...electrically blunt methods of dealing with his foes. The woman was spitting spellfire from one hand while her sword in the other hand carved through foes by the dozens, mystic cutting arcs expanding outwards and reducing guards and guard robots to shreds with each swing while sinister magics danced around; burning many from the inside out or other, crueller fates.

The four retreated deeper into the facility; while the autobots were driving down the tunnel as fast as they could; stopping as they were pinned down by large amounts of fire to the point of having to call in added reinforcements. While the superhuman nazis had already advanced in, the two autobots were not taking chances with the assault train nearby while it chugged forward once more. But a ping from bumblebee at least gave you some comfort.

Bumblebee: Wow okay this is way more heat than I expected from these creeps.
Bumblebee: We'll be calling in some reinforcements from autobot HQ. Doesn't look like we'll be able to meet back up for a bit.
Samus: Who are you calling in?
Bumblebee: Windblade and Bulkhead, gonna need the Cityspeaking support and Bulkhead's...Bulk. Gonna bring in some of our minicons too; human sized support and power links should come in handy.
Bumblebee: For you though; Eudaimonica and Nightcaster should help out a lot.
Bumblebee: Good luck Samus, I believe in you :)
Samus: I believe in you too. Now come on, show those Nazis where they belong!
Bumblebee: My pleasure!

The large form of Bulkhead and the agile body of Windblade emerged from a groundbridge along with four human-sized cybertronians, weapons blazing out straight away to try and break the blockade of nazis and their hastily set up defensive positions. The tunnel was massive to say the least; more than a hundred meters wide, opening into an even larger docking area in what was rapidly becoming apparent as a massive scale research facility hidden in plain sight. Likely some lynchpin of west germany's R&D, but was now target number one for the nazi assault.

On your end though, Eudaimonica and Nightcaster came tumbling out of another groundbridge; the boy falling on his face and giving a thumbs up and the girl riding on the shoulders of winterpyre as he came roaring into the fray; Eudaimonica's summoned demons and Nightcaster's spirits of darkness coming rushing out along side them. On one hand this meant you had a lot more fodder to throw into the fray, on the other hand; the Nazis immediately turned their attention towards you and shouted "OPEN FIRE!" almost instantly.

You jumped out ahead while Eudaimonica cast out magic shields with her fire magic and laid out her usual array of buffs as she filled the battlefield with fiery control spells; dividing squads from each other or entrapping foes in cages of fire; Nightcaster pushing himself up and throwing out some of his hexes to thwart the foe's ability to fight properly. Rounds that should have hit going astray, coils of darkness grabbing at foes or possessing spirits hijacking the bodies of those who seemed suitable to cause them to fight amongst each other or petrifying visions of fear trapping them in their worst nightmares.

"Hey, sorry we were late! The autobot base is suuuuuper fun!" Eudaimonica said with a cheer as a black coloured upgraded Wachroboter turned to your direction and let out a burst of deadly particle cannon light; taking a chunk out of the wall when it missed that seemed to go for dozens of meters through reinforced concrete.

"Jesus..." Assault said as he ducked behind some cover; demons and spirits of darkness throwing out magic projectiles while being peppered by German made weapons fire in return.

"I love this job. No such thing as an ordinary day." Irina said with two thumbs up while you shot down a trio of Robotsoldats jumping towards your group at mach speed with power blades extended, Serp rapid firing grenades to reduce some of the Soldats to pulp and swearing profusely under his breath; describing in exhausting detail the sexual anatomy of his opponents' mothers and how he'd prefer them to engage in intercourse with them.

With the magic augmentations flooded into her though, Battery chanced a charge; and to her surprise found that she could go above the limit she normally expected of herself. Quite considerably beyond. Whereas she could normally store sixty seconds of power after a twelve second charge session; she drew on the magic enhancing her physiology and...twelve seconds would give her about twelve minutes now. She let out a laugh and jumped into the fray, smashing a large Mekmen with her fist into dozens of pieces while even direct hits from laser cutters just skimmed off of her.

"Wow I haven't seen this many Nazis since the last time I read a youtube comment section!" Nightcaster said as he tossed a torso sized sphere of darkness down range that exploded in the midst of a bunch of soldaten, the dark energy seeming to suck the warmth out of them until they froze into blackened and purpled statues wreathed in inky tendrils.

"....I am never moving to Paragon City if this is all just normal to you." Assault said.

"Eh it's not that bad...sometimes." Eudaimonica shrugged.

"Good day to you once more mortal. A pity we have to meet in such circumstances." Winterpyre said to Assault.

Now...what could you two do?

d7sncz9-af9f6fe1-afc0-4424-aa9f-cad390f5bf1a.png

(Pretend that they have the double lightning bolt of the SS rather than the Swastika)

Waffen-SS Dunkel Ageten make use of advanced power armour, superhuman augmentations, high end weaponry, and metaenergetic enhancements to turn them into powerful basic special operations soldiers for the Schutzstaffel of the Weltreich. Making use of ETC assisted mass driver weapons, missile launchers, charged particle rifles, and directed energy guns; the Dunkel Ageten fight with lethal firepower augmented by micro-thermonuclear grenades, plasma cutters, power knuckles, and shock bayonets for pressing in assaults. Teleporters also allow them to redeploy extremely quickly, while chameleon systems allow them to cloak to evade fire. Dunkel Ageten also make heavy usage of drug based augmentations that allow them to completely ignore pain, regenerate injuries at incredible rates, and push their bodies to extremes. More esoteric enhancements based on magic can also be detected. Thrusters and energy shields also allow them to defend their present positions and quickly move to new ones or rush down enemies who stick to cover.

The SS distrusts the NSDAP, the Wehrmacht, the Corporations, the Sturmkorps, and the Nictus to a significant degree; resulting in the fragmentation of the Weltreich into fiefdoms ruled by the organs of the National Socialist state and de facto dividing the Weltreich into a number of competing state bodies with a significant degree of mutual distrust and hostility. As such the SS has increasingly taken to completely internalising its procurement process, research and development, and its training courses to be wholly independent of other organs of the Weltreich. While this prevents outsiders with access to the SS' files from deciphering what the other bodies of the Weltreich are planning; it also inhibits coordination with the rest of the Reich. As such, Dunkel Ageten will very rarely call in reinforcements from other subfactions of the Reichblock.

Dunkel Ageten are best combated by freezing them. Pain based debilitation will be largely ineffectual and their armour is well suited to resisting extreme temperatures or chemical agents and is strongly insulated against electricity. Your weapons will be able to overpower this resistance, but metaenergetic defenses will still allow them to punch above their weight. Dunkel Ageten are coordinated but also contemptuous of perceived racial inferiors and when in a drug haze, tend towards extreme overconfidence. The user is to be cautioned that should a Dunkel Ageten suffer a mortal injury but not have their body be sufficiently destroyed to force a mediport out, the Dunkel Ageten will activate their drug-haze and put self repair nanites into overdrive; engaging a berserker rage that will revive them and allow them to continue fighting. Freezing them inhibits this process.

Samus' Notes: Now I'm really wishing I had my ice beam right about now. The cryolyte should be able to do the job though. I should have guessed that the Weltreich would have better soldiers thanks to its resources.

Arne's Notes: Keeping myself between their fire and the more fragile parts of the team is going to be absolutely vital. They can't hope to consistently take the kind of firepower theyré going to dish out besides maybe the Kinetic weapons.

latest.png


Designed for the needs of the Waffen-SS of the Weltreich in the Parisien Mechanic facility in Ordenstaat Burgund, the Robotsoldat takes to the fight with extreme agility and a wide array of built in weaponry with aggressively modular chassis. Reverse engineered from the work of the Sturmkorps, the Robotsoldat is considered the Soldier's comrade of the SS, and is designed to distract enemies from its flesh and blood soldiers, take the fight to where living soldiers might have trouble, and deal with enemies close up that other troopers might hesitate with engaging in short distances.

Robotsoldat are most vulnerable to electric weapons and attacks, due to their relatively poor insulation as a sacrifice to gain more speed and agility. However as they require high temperature tolerance to withstand the energy generation of their reactors, pyronic weapons are generally poorly suited to dealing with them. Also fitted with teleporters, thrusters, and a combination of physical and energy weapons including shields, blades, mauls and more; the Robotsoldat will seek to disrupt threats to the flesh and blood soldiers of the SS.


Samus' Notes: Okay, I think I should be able to command their attention to stop them from getting in close to my friends. I've got the beam weapon to put them down too.

Arne's Notes: I think I should focus on these while Samus deals with the living troops. I'm comfortable close up at least, and absolutely wouldn't mind tearing some Nazi tin apart.

SITUATION​


Samus and Arne's group are ENGAGED by a large number of Nazis

The enemy force immediately engaging you is comprised of two companies of Soldats, two platoons of Nacht Elites, two platoons of Mekmen, a Platoon of SS Dunkel Ageten, a company of Stahlwalkure, a platoon of Robotsoldaten, two squadrons of Wachroboter, and two squadrons of Panzerhunde.

You have been reinforced with EUDAIMONICA and NIGHTCASTER who can provide summoned minions, control, support, and primarily ranged firepower. Eudaimonica is focused on MINIONS while Nightcaster is primarily focused on SUPPORT.

Eudaimonica has provided you with one Demon Prince (Winterpyre), a fire incarnate, three Demons, three fire elementals, nine demonlings, nine fire sparkborn, twenty-seven hellfire imps, and twenty-seven flaming imps. Nightcaster provides you with one Umbral Beast, three dark servants, nine shades, and twenty seven living shadows. For simplicity's sake, these will be consolidated into units.

You are FLANKING the enemy along with a platoon of Facility Guards and two squads of Guard robots and a squad of turrets and so have the advantage.

The location of the Ungehesen is UNKNOWN.

The Nazis are ASSAULTING the facility's core to retrieve something of great importance to their plans for North America.

The initial theory of the reason for the attack is only PARTIALLY TRUE. The nazis are more interested in the alien research than the parahuman research.

There are NO CIVILIANS AT RISK at this point in time.

There is still two alimbic and two chozo statues to be found.

The Nazis are deploying multiple NAMED CHARACTER grade enemies for the primary assault.

You are at least three tunnels removed from the primary tunnel where the fighting is at its heaviest.

The Autobots are making DECENT PROGRESS against the weight of resistance in their way.

There is an UNKNOWN THIRD PARTY chattering in the background.

The OMNIPRESENT VIRUS is sending data to an unknown receiver.

The other tunnels between you and the primary objective total to about TWICE the current number of engaged enemy forces. Rescuing them might make the entry into the facility easier.

There are FOOT ACCESS tunnels between the train tunnels that will make entering the heart of the facility quicker but will delay linkup with the autobots and may be awkward with all of Eudaimonica and Nightcaster's summons.

Eudaimonic and Nightcaster have BUFFED your entire team and can provide healing or resurrections; though resurrection spells take a long time to recharge. They can now be expected to take much more damage and will be much more resistant to many of their traditional weaknesses; and will also be able to deal more damage.

The enemies are DEBUFFED and will take more damage, be easier to hit, hit less frequently, and strike for less damaged.

One fourth of the enemy is currently CONFUSED due to Nightcaster's possession spell and is currently fighting itself and the rest of the Nazi formation.


Plans:

Priorities (Per character)

Protect more vulnerable team members
Eliminate enemies
Enter heart of facility
Assist autobots
Assist facility guards
Gather additional Nazi clues
Find Virus clues
Find third party clues


Target priorities (Per character)

Wachroboter
Soldaten
Dunkel Ageten
Robotsoldaten
Stahwalkures
Panzerhunde
Mekmen
Nacht Elites

Tactics:

[]: Aggressive Melee: Get in close to an enemy and attack them in melee with only limited usage of range weapons, this will focus most of your damage output on the first two priority targets and largely prevent them from engaging anything else while having a good chance of eliminating them in one turn. However it does limit your area of effect damage a bit and your melee options still remain a bit more limited than they could be so your attacks will mostly be blunt force or blade work based.
[]: All out firepower: Focus primarily on getting in shots to damage and destroy enemies while keeping your distance; making use of your ranged weapons, particularly your powerful missiles and charged shots, dealing severe damage, having some risk of collateral damage, being quite the obvious target while blasting anyone who gets your attention and allows you to intervene in other combats, but prevents you from physically intercepting attempts to engage allies in melee if they can survive the hits due to your focus on staying away.
[]: Hit and run: Go from target to target, never letting them lock you into a combat but bouncing from melee to range as needed, attacking most of your priority targets at least somewhat. You will also be in a good position to move and intercept shots meant for allies; tanking them for them and keeping them safe or quickly moving squishies out of harm's way if they're in over their heads as they can quite easily be.
[]: Alt-Mode combat: Use your alt-mode to surprise the enemy with bombs/pulses, boost impacts, dashing in and out of areas only your alt-mode can fit into to cause trouble with pot shots or sneak attacks, lower damage output but very frustrating for enemies and has good AOE due to the heavy emphasis on explosives. This keeps the enemy from being sure who you're going to assist and allows you to frequently gain the benefit of surprise or move to suddenly block shots.
[]: Furious assault: Close in and make use of short range subweapons combined with melee tactics, short ranged beam and missile fire and other high damage techniques to simply destroy everything in your way; you will do the most damage this way and probably command the greatest amount of attention as you fully unleash the frightful breadth of your firepower. However this is likely to make your enemies scatter to get out of the way without having as much chance to lock them down as melee and lacks the command of the battlefield of firepower or the speed of alt-mode and hit and run.
[]: Balance: Engage in a balanced set of tactics not favouring any one particular weapon for a middle of the road approach to battle. No particular benefits or penalties.

Suboption:

[] Advance through train tunnels
[] Advance through foot tunnels

Free option:

[] Ask for relative stat readouts for new enemies.

Write ins are acceptable

Moratorium on votes until I have breakfast tomorrow in about 12 hours; please discuss your strategies and put down your thoughts.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[x] Plan Kick Circle

(Minion, Lieutenant and Officer Standard)

Durability: Good
Strength: Decent
Firepower: Good
Speed: Acceptable
Combat Skill: Good
Type of Combatant: Elite Line-Infantry

(Elite Officer Standard)
Durability: Very Good
Strength: Very Good
Firepower: Decent
Speed: Very Good
Combat Skill: Very Good
Type of Combatant: Stealthed assault infantry

(Minion, Lieutenant, and Officer Standard)
Durability: Good
Strength: Good
Firepower: Acceptable
Speed: Good
Combat Skill: Decent
Type of Combatant: Disposable robotic assault trooper.

Samus​

"KIll that Defender!" One of the armband wearing soldiers shouted, raising his weapon in the direction of your group. The SS soldier seeming to for once, take his attention away from you and towards something he understood, one of the two close to you.

"Ah shit they mean me!" Nightcaster said as he fired up a spell of invisibility to quickly make himself scarce as a series of purple particle bolts streaked towards him, yelping as the sides of the tunnel were rapidly being gouged out with torso sized molten chunks being left behind by the soldiers of the SS.

"Arne, we need to stop them from concentrating their fire on the fragiles." You said, vaulting over the cover and ducking beneath a particle blast after it had already been fired, striking the sender with one of five missiles released from your arm cannon; curling contrails following the rocket propelled warheads as they assumed their normal size and found their targets. SS Ageten reduced to smears and Nacht Elites mangled beyond recognition were your reward; the pyronic warheads engulfing others in plasma flame that not even the specially treated concrete could withstand.

Missile Count: 165/170

You hoped at least that their demise would be swift, Arne leaping ahead to catch a Panzerhunde trying to get in flamethrower range of Nightcaster and then throwing it into one of the thundering Wachroboter hard enough to reduce both to scrap. Prism light emerging from his cannon and bouncing off of walls in complicated calculated angles and the guidance of his willpower to deflect between the Walkures trying to hose Assault down after he had been injured by a cryolaser from a specially modified drone.

Nodding in appreciation, the redhead pushed himself back up as dark energy nursed his injury, repairing damaged flesh and uniform while a dozen soldiers around him tried to strangle each other.

"Any of you guys hurt?" Arne asked of the soldiers defending the barricade to his right, which made you smile. He was learning to make sure more vulnerable people on the battlefield were taken care of so well.

"We'll be fine, thanks for the assist." One of the Commanders said, eyeing Demons tossing fireballs down range to roast Soldaten who flailed and screamed as they ignited before teleporting out with a clearly nervous demeanour.

"They're friendly, don't worry!" You said with a thumbs up before firing off a charged wave-spazer beam directly into a mass of elites; letting the orbs of lightning seek and obliterate, the sounds of jittering cancelled out by your helmet as you kept on rushing forwards.

"...Who are these two?" One said, getting a shrug from the other.

"Uh...not important right now." Arne said, even in the midst of reducing a Wachroboter to scrap with a quick counter from his cannon, swinging it to strike the machine across the head after jumping up just as it lurched forward at him with its grabbing claw. Yanking it in with his grapple beam and then extracting his wrist sword; he impaled it through the eye and sliced it in half, while you had thrown yourself into the midst of a dozen Elites.

You shrugged off the impact of a fist that could have flipped a tank, reinforced not simply through sheer strength but through esoteric martial art skill that compounded the power of the palm strike. But with an eye towards the technique used you figured you got the gist of it.

Energy 08(97)

You responded in kind, channeling inner energy forward and palm striking back; rippling bone and tissue and a sickening crack making you wince as the supersoldier flashed away with a teleport. Ducking beneath a swarm of kicks and punches thrown in synchronous harmony to try and catch you with their martial arts mastery; you threw yourself onto your left hand and made a spinning break dance kick; twisting around and cracking bone, armour, and flesh alike before boosting yourself up, tagging Assault to pass him some kinetic energy, letting him uppercut a Mekman sky high afterwards.

You fired off the blink pack, appearing behind an Ageten who was in the midst of charging his particle rifle. Your Cryolyte fired off, freezing him solid before you smashed him with an elbow, teleporting out of the way of the return fire of his officer before switching your wrist-sword to a reverse hand grip and striking twice; once to break through the shield, the second to run him through. He moved out of the way just in time to avoid death, but you smashed him across the head with your cannon, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Rapid-fire particle blasts sparked against you, Arne kicking a Roboter through the mass of soldiers you were busy with just as you teleported out of there, letting him curl into his alt mode and let loose with the winding coils of electricity to tear his way through the machines in his path. This felt good, natural. You weren't sure on what everyone else was doing at times; besides Nightcaster resummoning some of his living shadows as they were banished with weapons fire from the enemy; drawing energy for a healing spell to sap speed and strength from the foe so that an injured Serp; overwhelmed with a thicket of powerful enemies; could stand back up, throwing aside those around him.

Energy Count 08(95)

"+We need reinforcements. This group is unstoppable!+" An Elite Oberst shouted before Winterpyre personally punted him across the train tracks, roaring in exultation as he soaked up the weapons fire thrown his way like so much rain. Lethal frost exploded from his body, engulfing the Ageten who had sought to overwhelm him and freezing them solid for you to shatter with a seeker burst of missiles over their heads.

Missile Count: 160/170

"+WIthdraw your forces. Consolidate with other troops herr Oberst.+"

Irinna was already in the thick of it, laughing at the misfortune of her foes. She was thrown back into a wall by the impact of a particle cannon that should have vaporised her were it not for Eudaimonica's mystic protections, but she looked at herself with a coy smirk and pushed herself up while Arne spun through the offending robot and cut it into pieces. Taking a healing spell of flame from Eudaimonica; Irinna surged through her foes, blows like hammers smashing into weaker enemies and sending debris in all directions.

You sawed through the mess of Walkures with your beams while Eudaimonica cracked her fire whip and lashed it into the optic of a Wachroboter. It stood still for a moment, turning its attention towards her while shades crawled around its feet, pulling at it to try and force it down, possessed soldiers raking it with bullets. But the Incarnate of Flame was also at her command, and the swirling mass of Arcane flame that covered you in the face of incoming missile fire from the Walkures surged forward like a tidal wave as Eudaimonica smirked.

"Looking the wrong way?" She said in a mockingly sweet voice before the Avatar melted its hand through the robot and carved it in half.

But even then, most of the forces were still aimed towards you, skittishly backing off and raking your position with their weapons. Some particle shots winged you, or struck Arne as he flung himself between formations, but you pushed through, beam fire cutting its way through the Robots thrown your way and hand crushing the throat of an Elite. They were trying to withdraw in good order, laying down covering fire. But while they were doing poorly against your ambush; they could be a problem for others.

Energy Count 08(94)

"You remember Ergyll station right?" You asked, taking potshots at some of the Soldaten, one of them falling to the ground missing most of his body from a casually aimed shot from yourself; leaving you quite sure that not even the mediporter was going to be saving him.

"You mean the thing that relied on power bombs...which we don't have? And would be very dangerous here?" Arne said, clearly concerned beneath his helmet as he shot at one of the Wachroboter, sending it falling to the ground in a heap after a pair of missiles put paid to it.

Missile Count: 168/170

"No, not that thing, the other one!" You said, shaking your head. Was he ever going to let you live that one down? Probably not. It wasn't like anyone got hurt, but you felt bad that he wasn't a huge fan of what you did there. Still, this seemed like the best time to do it.

""Oh that one. Right, I thought we were gonna...well, glad we're not!" Arne said, drawing a head tilt from Irina as she panted after having intercepted a railgun slug, shaking her hand as if it had been punched and then spitting the kinetic energy back to the sender, launching the trooper through a railing with a shout in German about the state of his leg.

"What is he referring to? It sounds...exciting." She said before Arne jumped down, disregarding the fire he was taking and reaching his hand out towards you before you hit the ground and grabbed it firmly. He gave you a nod as weapons fire disintegrated against your shielding and he started to spin himself in a circle while you started to run in a circle.

"Eh...what is this? We're not at the merry go-round!" Serp said as he swung his sickle, slicing a Robotsoldaten in half after Eudaimonica cast an armour degrading spell that weakened its chassis.

Winterpyre was already in the midst of the foe in a fiery and frost filled blaze of power. Scrap metal flew into the air around him, a Panzerhunde in one claw while the Demon Lord engulfed the Walkures with a gout of frost from his mouth. Battery kicked down on the foot of an elite, knocking him slightly upwards before she "bounced" him with a fist to the face; letting Assault tap into the energy released to dive into the nearest mob of Soldaten and knock them skywards as they levelled machine guns in the direction of shades charging towards them.

All that though, was almost immediately drowned out by yourself glowing red before being engulfed in a comet. As Arne's armour was tagged as friendly, the energy of the speedbooster posed no threat to him, but it was always a massive rush to activate this power. You didn't really bother to count the machs you were going at, beyond that it was a lot. Breaking the speed of sound was easy enough under your own power; this was something far more extreme than that. You could vault past the surly bounds of gravity altogether if you wanted, but you just needed to make some room.

"Ready!"

"Go!" He shouted, his voice loud in your helmet as he released you before you could carve out a trench in the floor with nothing but your bootsteps in an eyeblink. You raced forwards fast enough that the railgun slugs of the Nazi mass drivers seemed virtually still to you, while the charged particles of their ion weapons moved at a relatively glacial pace. Projectiles that brushed against the comet of your speed boosted form simply disintegrated or were nullified by its power, and you just ran past all obstacles. Or rather, through them.

People disintegrated, robots were reduced to plasma, most of them didn't even know what had happened before you ran through each and every one of them, coming to a sudden halt and dragging your feet to a halt, letting out a sigh of satisfaction as the top part of a Wachroboter fell to the ground, its bottom half disintegrated early on in your rampage. You looked behind y

"Get a load of Synapse over here, yikes." Nightcaster said as the survivors mediported out in green flashes.

"Who's Synapse?" Assault said, looking on with some concern as Battery seemed to be busily jittering and the facility guards kept their weapons trained firmly on the demons and shadow spirits that were now infesting the room.

"Speedster, zappy powers too." He said; a Mekman trying to crawl to its feet and take a potshot at you before you, without even looking, shot it once with your beam and vaporised it.


Arne
With things cooling down, you looked towards the Guards as they gathered their wounded, Eudaimonica stepping forward clapping her hands. "Come on up for some healing hands!" She said, smiling beneath her mask as she conjured up her infernal and pyronic magics to restore the injured as best she could, reattaching limbs and regrowing missing organs as well as repairing damaged tissue.

You looked towards a commander who pulled off her helmet and sucked in a breath, her dark skin dimly lit by the tunnel's lamps while she slumped forwards; clearly drained of stamina.

"What are you guarding here?" You asked.

"Classified." She breathed.

"We are here on Otmolsoza business, we have clearance." Serp said, giving a quick stand to attention salute.

"...Molotok and Serp huh? Well if you're on this side of the curtain...sure." She said with a sigh.

"You two have clearance?" Battery said, cracking her neck and then looking at Nightcaster with a smirk as he gave her two thumbs up and a nod.

"Da, quite high." Molotok said as she looked at the removed head of one of the robots and turned it around, trying to figure out how it worked and then yelping a bit when it blurted out a kill order in German before tossing it down the tunnel and spitting out a "Blyat!" to the giggling of some of the demons whom she swiftly hissed at to shut up.

"I would recommend giving the Azure Cyclops here the details quickly before he hacks into it first." Assault said, folding his arms and smirking confidently.

The nickname made you cringe. A Cyclops was a deformed monster, either rejected for its ugliness and valued only for what it could produce for the Gods or for their lesser kin; living a life of barbarism and sheep herding on islands harassing mythic heroes. It wasn't glorious, it was...demeaning. It made you feel gross. Like a thing. It was imposing and frightful, but you didn't want to be a monster.

"...You're not calling me that." You said, scowling beneath your helmet and giving him a withering glare that made him bring his hands up in defence and an apology in short order.

"So you've got a tinkersuit like that and you haven't decided on a codename?"

You recalled your callsign at Magnus and then looked towards her.

"Sigtyr." One of the more obscure names of Odin. God of Victory, fitting for the greatest warrior to ever be born of the Grendakal clan. At least, that's what people told you. You didn't feel like you truly surpassed your mother some times. But Solveig kept on telling you that you had made good progress.

"Aine." Samus said, the Celtic Sun Goddess; a reference to the solar colour palette that made up her favourites. Also, Ian trying his best to make himself look smart to impress her.

"Right..." She said, seeming to study you for a bit and muttering something about people getting taller every year that you didn't quite understand. It was a pretty common inaccuracy, but you were kind of exceptionally tall even among the Grendakal.

"I'm not exactly privy to a lot of the details here, but ever since Scion disappeared we've been getting a massive increase in UFO and USO sightings all around the world. That has many people very nervous. I think they've got some alien devices here they are trying to study, but most of it is way above my qualifications." Right, that would explain it. Though you weren't sure what they could mean by alien. There was a very broad range of alien societies whose technological capacities would probably be impressive to this place.

"Is there anything you can say about it?" Samus asked, leaning in curiously.

"Looks kind of Egyptian, not as pleasant as the Bird Stuff though. Very...sinister look to it. Keep on needing to escort tinkers out of here when they try to study it too closely and it scrambles their brains somehow." She said.

"What, driving them insane? Like "oooh the fish foot prints stand on two legs?" Assault said.

"No, no. Well...I'm not sure if it's because it's too much for their brains to handle or if it's because it's some kind of defense mechanism. But the scientists say it was placed some time in the cretaceous era and got buried by tectonic plate shifts." Okay, that was pretty old even the way Alimbics reckoned time.

"Ah that stuff is cursed, keep on finding flesh stripped skeletons left behind every time someone gets brave enough to poke it and god, the sounds of awful stuff skittering in the background." One of the soldiers complained, shaking his head.

"Yeah, I swear I see ghosts in the corner of my eyes here sometimes. Passing through the walls. And the whole place feels like a graveyard." A third complained.

"Will you guys be alright here?" You asked. They certainly looked like a pitiable sight, seemingly resigned to defeat despite your rescue. Shellshock probably.

"Yeah, we can hold this position." A lie, you didn't even need to be psychic to know that was a bald faced lie.

"No, you can't." You said, getting stammering out of her as you confronted her on her words. She seemed shocked, offended, and then ashamed all in quick succession, looking back at her soldiers and then at you.

"We can't just leave this place." She said.

"And we can't split up either." You said before Samus tapped your shoulder and then looked at Molotok who was busy signing some autographs from a few fans among the soldiers; or at least, people who said they were parents of fans. Some of them seemed to be interested in her of their own accord. Some of them for reasons that made you queasy.

"Molotok." Samus said, getting the ravenette to turn her head in your direction before zipping towards you in the space of a normal human eyeblink, making a mock salute while Eudaimonica rolled her eyes and muttered about speedsters.

"Can you get Jetfire to spare an Autobot or two to guard this place?" Samus asked.

"Ah! Hold on!"

"...Who's Jetfire?" One of the soldiers muttered.

"+Hey Jetfire, can you groundbridge us in some spare autobots, we have ah...low-grade combatants in need of evac but this position is too important.+" She said over the comms.

"+Bleedin' me fer' every shilling of botpower eh Molly? Right, can scrounge up some in a jiff. 'Old on.+"

"You're being reinforced." You said, gesturing to where you came from so that the facility guards could leave in a hurry.

"Right...thanks I guess." The commander said before she whistled to get everyone's attention and order a roll out, the bedraggled remains of the soldiery pulling out just before another groundbridge could open and another pair of Autobots could roll on out, with two minicon companions to help them cover smaller spaces and give them the chance to powerline as necessary.

d5d2viq-ef7cbabb-1ebd-406f-ad61-ea56aaf89271.png


Hot Shot is a relatively Young Autobot and a longtime companion of Bumblebee. Part of the Autobot Scouting corps, Hot Shot is sometimes criticised for a habit of not looking before he leaps, but is regarded as extremely dependable and reliable despite this. Compassionate if sometimes inattentive and inventive if often absent-minded, Hot Shot greatly enjoys working with less advanced indigenous cultures and has typically refused transfer out of sectors with human civilization, considering protecting indigenous life to be one of the most important duties of the Autobots. He is a fast and versatile combatant with a preference for hit and run combat and a preference for high-speed civilian vehicle alt modes.

Samus' Notes: Well, if his heart's in the right place, who cares if he's a bit forgetful right?

Arne's Notes: I like the colour scheme honestly, but I might be a little biased.

340


Arcee is a long-time member of the Autobot Special Forces unit known as the Scalpel. Comprised of autobots trained in Cyber-ninjitsu and with a preference for nimble, small alternate modes able to fit into smaller spaces. Nimble, agile, and equally at home both up close and at a distance, Arcee is deeply committed to final victory for the Autobot revolutionary army against the Decepticon State and other hostile factions in the long running Cybertronian civil war. Accustomed to working on Earth, Arcee is adept at finding her way around various locales and is heavily familiarised with most human cultures. Exceedingly adept at both close and midrange combat and able to make use of tight spaces that many other cybertronians would struggle in, Arcee packs a varied and potent arsenal and millions of years of battle experience.

Samus' Notes: Oh I'd love to get a chance to work with her some time, but right now, I'm glad she's guarding this spot.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, size changing huh? She's as tall as bumblebee despite her alternate mode being a motorcycle. Interesting

"Right, thanks." You said, Serp offering a salute as you turned away and Samus made a "follow me" gesture to get everyone going into the foot passageways after picking up some leftover data from one of the fallen nazi commanders.

The contents of this facility are far more than simple parahuman studies. A wealth of relics both extraterrestrial and extradimensional reside within here. So far the inferior minds of this facility have been unable to crack many useful secrets from it, but once our Aryan minds are able to properly examine these relics we will doubtlessly solve the riddles they cannot. Eliminate anyone who attempts to pose an obstacle, and then be ready for deployment to Brockton Bay. The relics located beneath there will also be of significant importance to us and our cause.

The Coming Storm is almost here, Oberst. We must make ready ourselves for all of humanity's fates hang in the balance. Not just in Primal Earth or this reality; but all realities connected to them. Advance without remorse or hesitation or our race will be swept away by the tide of xenos that descends upon it.

Believe in our inevitable triumph, or be crushed with the rising tide of the Herrenvolk.

Deutschland Uber Alles.

- Bose Hexe.

...Wicked Witch? That's a ridiculous codename, why would anyone openly call themselves that? Gods of your clan these people are absolutely absurd. Do they think this makes them look cool? Or do they just not care what other people think of them anymore?

Putting that out of your mind, you descend down into the foot tunnels, leaving the prior tunnel behind and taking point with your group while the minions of Eudaimonica and Nightcaster follow behind; the two Primal Earthers riding atop his Umbral Beast to keep pace without having to run after you.

The stairs and pathways wound in a descending, angular spiral pattern, sort of like a hedge maze which left you pitying people who had to navigate this place without access to either an eidectic memory or a map built into armour they wore around everywhere. The sounds of combat were audible through the walls, but those weren't what was holding your attention for now.

Your armour informed you of unknown energies within the facility starting to build up, but you didn't really need the armour computer to tell you that. Something just felt off in here, something malignant and very old.

It wasn't of a similar signature to the strange Virus. Which it seems that none of the computers you were able to crack through were able to tell you anything about. It seems like they just didn't know about the degree of software infiltration that their society had suffered. Perhaps it was just always there for them. Troubling, that'd make finding the origin point of the infection harder.

"Samus, are you getting that too?" You asked.

"Yeah it's...creepy." She said with a hiss at the end of her sentence.

"It's not magic whatever it is, definitely gives me a bad vibe though." Nightcaster said, rubbing his arms a bit before looking towards Winterpyre who tapped at his skull like head as the Demon stalked through the halls with seemingly impossible grace for something of his size, crawling along the ceiling to give everyone more space before skittering downwards like some manner of demented four legged spider.

"I am unfamiliar with these energies, sadly. My apologies Eudaimonica." He said with an almost apologetic bow to his charge.

"Hey, it's fine. We'll handle it when we get there, right guys?" She said, brimming with confidence and folding her arms as a chorus of approval came from the demons and fire elementals who accompanied her just about everywhere, barking and hissing voices of every pitch and volume audible throughout the room.

"Well, I like their spirit at least!" Samus said as she pushed ahead, humming slightly beneath her helmet while Assault muttered under his breath about never seeing any of this in the brochure.

However, as you kept advancing, you saw a door where some of the Nazi forces were piling on inside; shouting as they sought to reinforce the position ahead of them where it seemed that someone was fighting them quite vigorously. Quite a few someones based on their shouts of "eight metas!", but it seemed that; at least based on the nazi robot flung through one of the walls, they had a good handle on it. To the left were some hostages being taken as the Nazi soldiers started shouting at scientists to speak up; shouting and gesturing towards a locked door while they had dedicated machines try to slice through it. A process they were clearly rather impatient with given their demands for the scientists to spill the codes already.

Ahead, you saw a large chamber where the Nazis had already passed through; and where sounds of active battle were still going on. Fading, some of the sounds clearly being parahumans giving their all against superpowered combatants, but one where the guards were almost certainly losing. And to the northeast, was an eerie hallway where one of the skeletons mentioned before was laying there, wholly stripped of meat and dumped down like garbage. It seemed that based on the abandoned weapons, the Nazis had tried going down that route but then quickly thought otherwise. It was a straighter shot towards the heart of the facility, but seemed to be a dangerous route that many of your allies would likely refuse to take. Especially with Assault furiously muttering "nope" beneath his breath.

To the northwest was the distinct trail of ectoplasm and the unnerving stench of necrotic magics and the sensation of a nearby Chozo and Alimbic reliquary along that route. A fast path towards an upgrade that you could likely immediately use. But there were other situations that needed your help. So much to do. But there was one thing both you and Samus agreed on.

"Hostages first." You said in unison, getting a look at you from Battery.

"Those people are in immediate danger, we can't just stand by." You said, looking towards the situation where Nazi soldiers in purple and black armour were moving from one side to another, probing the minds of the scientists to try and tear the information from their memories while hooded and robed figures bearing the circular swastika symbol of the Thule society clad in black and white waited impatiently for the results.

Ghostly figures of Teutonic Knights and skeletal undead clad in somewhat decayed but dark magic strengthened germanic barbarian armour holding ancient weapons milled around, sniffing for weakness while fanged thule society officers looked at the scientists like so much cattle; giving dirty looks to more Nosferatu like creatures that a glance could tell you were not true undead; merely altered to resemble them; beings who seemed to return the disdain of their true vampiric cousins. Perhaps most intimidating though were hulking figures in plate armour encrusted with magic alongside larger versions of the Mekmen, the armour exaggerated parodies of teutonic, gothic, and germanic armour worn by supermen with glowing medieval weapons.

Clearly the Nazis thought that the simply superpowered was not enough to seize this facility, they also brought the supernatural out in force. So far though, it seemed that they were so concerned with breaking the will of the staff, including two women in damaged costumes who were likely parahumans, one blonde, one redheaded; that they had failed to notice you. However the Nacht Elites and even taller, stronger 5th column soldiers clad in black would likely let rip on the hostages if you surprised them. A vexing issue to be sure, but Winterpyre grinned a bit.

"It should be a simple matter to pull the hostages to safety with a gate spell. I could rescue them quite easily, but once I do; they're going to turn all attention our way immediately. Shall I take the fire then mortals?" The Demon Prince offered.

"Yeah I'm...fine with letting the big scary hellbeast take hits." Assault said, looking up towards Winterpyre who snorted in appreciation.

"Myself and Caustos should be ample protection for you." He said with a grin.

"Well, first we should probably analyse the perimeter and take them out just as Winterpyre finishes his power usage. You have that fancy scan device da?" Serp asked.

"Magic." Winterpyre corrected before Serp stared at him.

"You know, this day is very strange, so I won't contest that. But yes." Serp said, Viktor pacing a bit as he thought.

"Arne, we should probably take point again, don't want to let these poor guys take all the hits." She said, stroking the head of one of the demons who purred at the touch of her hand and smiling beneath her helmet. She really could find it in herself to show kindness to just about anything, and honestly; they were pretty cute in an unconventional way.

"Spellcasters should probably go down first. Necromancers can do all kinds of fucky stuff you know. Won't hit the hardest but they'll make life hell for a lot of you guys and I'd be stretching my spells thin keeping up with them all." Nightcaster said, grimacing beneath his mask and adjusting his goggles and producing a proper staff from his pocket. Definitely some sort of dimension he could access from his belt, pretty handy spellcraft to have. He clearly thought this was going to be difficult enough to need a bit of extra help to pull off. As did Eudaimonica, based on her procuring a rapier...wand...was that a wand or a sword? It was sharp for sure, but the arcane sigils written on it were more like a wand. Maybe both?

"Psychics first Nightcaster. You know how much of a pain in the ass those holds they can lay down are? Or the mind control they can drop down on our summons?" She said, based on your knowledge of this era; it seemed that in her reality, video game lingo had leaked rather heavily into superheroics. Which...wasn't too unsensible you guessed?

"Okay this hocus pocus stuff is making my head spin, those two parahumans should be able to help us out if we can rescue them early. That would make everything much easier. But yeah let the...Demon guy do his thing first. Get civvies out of the way." Battery Said, looking nervously at Winterpyre who waved back to her, getting a brief cringe of fear from her as she shook her head and looked forwards.

"Assault, Molotok, your opinions?" You asked.

"Uh...right well...nazis are bad, so I'm just going to punch any of them I can get close to." Assault said.

"Da, good plan." Irinna said, giving him two finger pistols and a wink that he quickly returned after making and "eyyyy" sound.



Situation:

To the West is a LARGE force of Nazis of unknown composition engaged with an UNKNOWN Metahuman team, the Nazis seem to be LOSING but the team is moving away from your objective.

To the EAST is a hostage situation with a LARGE force of Nazis, including several new enemy types who are likely of SIGNIFICANT THREAT to team mates; attempting to access an important Vault in the facility.

To the NORTH is a significant BATTLE going on between the facility guards and the Nazis, the GUARDS are losing.

To the NORTHWEST is a high concentration of ECTOPLASM suggesting a powerful spectral entity as well as Progenitor relic signals leading towards immediately useful upgrades.

To the NORTHEAST is a quiet but INTIMIDATING path that leads straight towards the facility core, but this path is likely very dangerous.

Samus and Arne are PROTECTORS and so will not take actions that will put the hostages in harm's way. Thus they will go EAST.

To the EAST is a VERY LARGE force of Nazis with significant SUPERNATURAL assistance and guards including at least one boss level enemy which will provide a reward for defeating them. New unit types have yet to be scanned.

You have at least one free round to SCAN new enemies to add another round bonus to planning, but the Nazis might kill hostages in that time.

The Nazis have weak perimeter guard forces, with most of their ranged troops currently menacing the hostages. Their guards are MELEE oriented and will be vulnerable to being sniped.

Winterpyre can TELEPORT out hostages, but this will immediately initiate combat.

The Nazis have NECROMANCERS who can provide SUPPORT and SUMMONS for their forces.

The Nazis have PSYCHICS who can read the minds of unshielded allies.

The Nazis have multiple HIGH GRADE melee combatants who can pose a problem for characters who are vulnerable to them.


Actions:

[]: Take a round to scan enemies and get a detailed idea of the layout and composition of enemy forces to add to preparation bonus, risk losing hostages
[]: Act immediately, giving the Nazis no time to kill hostages.

Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one char):

[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.

Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities.)

[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offense.


 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Okay I swear, no more giga-updates after this. Relative stats will be added later but as I said, they don't really matter and can generally be grokked by scan log descriptions. Next post will be under 3k words not counting scan logs and vote text and the voting for it will be much shorter to represent the frantic pace of a boss fight better. Which will apply to all fights hence.

I really need to cut down the amount of stuff that happens per post holy fuck. Sorry, this is the last time I do this.

The Thule Society is the Weltreich's primary method of enforcing control over the supernatural or mystical, formed out of an esoteric brotherhood devoted to volkische mysticism in the years before Adolf Hitler's takeover of Reich Earth's incarnation of Germany and then absorbed into the Nazi Hierarchy at the urging of Heinrich Himmler. Despite the initial patronage of the SS, the Thule Society has come to diverge from the organisation to carve out its own state within a state within the Weltreich, and its Mystikiststaats have come to serve as exclusive power bases for its sole usage. The Thule Society delves into dark magic and the art of binding unholy entities to the Reich's service; confident in its ability to force "Mephistopheles to be Faust's slave" and is wholly convinced of the spiritual superiority of the Herrenvolk over other races of humanity and most alien species save for the Nictus.

Addendum: Due to the Thule Society's obsession with bloodline purity and concentrating the Mu lineage that serves as the basis of the Sourcewell Metaverse incarnation of humanity's access to magic into "purer" sorcerers, most Thule society mystics have significant inbreeding and most are forced into arranged marriages in an attempt to breed superior magic users. The results of this project are of dubious value after more than a century of mage breeding and have fractured the Thule Society into the pseudo-aristocratic Mage houses. Houses infamous for their high rate of fratricide and long running familial rivalries.

Samus' Notes: Using the arcane arts for this kind of purpose is absolutely unconsciable! I'm not going to let them continue to abuse mystic rites and arcane gifts in this way! And forcing children to marry cousins just to "purify" the blood is absolutely disgusting! I can't believe people like this are allowed to exist! And to work for such racist agendas it's just...absolutely beyond the pale!

Arne's Notes: Even in timelines where they actually were onto something, the Thule Society remains a bunch of rotheads. Dangerous, cruel, and tyrannical rotheads, but nothing in their skulls but poison. We're going to need to put a stop to all of this, nothing they're doing can be allowed to continue. Every profanity will be avenged, every dark rite dispelled.

The Fifth Column was founded on Primal earth within the Sourcewell Metaverse by the government of Fascist Italy to serve as a pan-fascist superhuman task force that would cement the alliance between Italy and Germany in the leadup to the second world war. While its leader has been the Italian man Ridolfo Uzzano, close associate of Mussolini; or more correctly, the merging of the Nictus known as the Dirge of Entropy and Ridolfo into the composite entity Requiem; much of the remainder of the leadership of the 5th Column was made out of Germans, and in the post-war era; out of Americans, Spaniards, Britons, Canadians, Argentines, and other ethnicities deemed racially acceptable to the 5th Column's leadership. The 5th Column rejected the surrender of May 8th 1945 as illegitimate and has continued to wage the second world war against the countries of Primal Earth ever since, making use of a stable of superhuman soldiers, metahuman recruits, advanced technology, and seemingly limitless funding to continue to fight the conflict in a prolonged guerilla and terrorist campaign primarily aimed at the victors of the second world war, the post-war governments of their former home countries, and nations deemed strategically useful. With their partnership with the Nictus as well as a large number of esoteric resources and hidden pocket bases, the Fifth Column has proven to be virtually impossible to permanently destroy despite its hostility to most of the rest of Primal Earth.

Recently however, Requiem has come to swallow much of his pride and make overtures of fealty towards the Weltreich and its associates; an association of Fascist Countries that successfully conquered their timelines and began to expand outside of their native dimensions under the general leadership of the Weltreich; the Cosmic Axis. All sharing the partnership of the Nictus Shadow Conclave. This seems to be heavily driven by his continuing conflict with the also Fascist but more Italian styled Paramilitary organisation known as the Council, which is partnered with another faction of the Nictus who seek to determine which strain of Fascism is best. Tensions also exist with the Imperial Wind that continues to fight the second world war on behalf of the Japanese Empire despite the official surrender and dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Military; with the Fifth Column largely regarding the Imperial Wind as "crafty asiatics". The Cosmic Axis is reportedly, no more unified due to the Nictus' apathy towards forcing cooperation amongst their allies so long as they don't overly interfere with their plans.

However, despite this, the 5th Column remains a highly dangerous organisation. Far more organised and well resourced than the Gesellschaft, the 5th Column has come to increasingly dominate the Gesellschaft in their shared partnership with the Weltreich. The 5th Column has also taken to increasingly tapping into more esoteric sources of power to ensure that its soldiers are able to keep up with the steadily growing ceiling of power among metahumans and metatechnology assisted entities and to prepare for a future catastrophe known as the Coming Storm that the 5th Column believes will beget the dnd of humanity and the Kheldians and Nictus across all known realities if certain measures are not taken. The 5th Column of course, believes that only its ideology can save the pureness of humanity from the oncoming apocalypse.

Samus' Notes: Still fighting world war two seventy-five years after its end? It'd almost be pathetic if they hadn't killed so many people refusing to accept defeat. But I'm here now, and it must be for a reason. With luck, they won't get to have seventy-six years of tormenting innocent people to avenge their defeats. I just know that I can do this. I have to.

Arne's Notes: Mom's notes on guerilla warfare made note of how far-right insurgents differ from other political orientations. The reliance on in-groups fearful of out-groups as opposed to general mass appeal, the heightened reliance on terrorism and repression to establish dominance. These people are going to fight to the bitter end, until we crush the entire beast. Fine by me I guess.

Samus

"No time to lose, we need to rescue them now!" You say, clenching your fist and extending your arm-sword and setting your visor opacity up while you immediately start charging up an attack with your arm cannon, letting your seeker missiles designate up to five targets for your super missiles. A massive alpha strike to be sure, but you needed to quickly throw them off balance before they could stop Winterpyre's spell of teleportation or disrupt Nightcaster and Eudaimonica's laying out of enhancing magics. A nimbus of magical energy circled around you, and your eyes studied the gestures and incantations the two primal Earthers were making.

"Izamyros, Kazylimra atimaxas imatir!" Nightcaster said with emphasis despite the quietness of his voice, your armour quickly translating the Mu-Ven tongue into something you could understand as threads of darkness began to weave around the group once again to reinforce the decaying tendrils of magic from his prior spell.

"Shroud of Night, guard my friends from harm!"

"You really think we're friends?" You said with an eager note as Nightcaster briefly stammered beneath his hood before Eudaimonica put her hand over his masked mouth and nodded.

"Duh, you're pretty cool so far uh...Aine." Eudaimonica said, taking a scant second to recall what you said your codename now was. You might change it later...you definitely needed to settle on one at some point. Secret identities are weird.

"Okay okay, let me focus." Nightcaster said as he made the next incantation. With the Chozo genetics grafted into your helix, you could see things most couldn't. Like the way the mystic energy flowed around him in tune with his gestures and how it wobbled with his words. The differences in the blue and black energies used by Nightcaster and the Green and Orange power used by Eudaimonica. Shadow, fire, and hellpower mingling together.

Eudaimonica approaches her magic more like a cheerleader, encouraging the spirits she partners with to "do their thing!", encouragement and praise coming freely from her. "One two three four, I want you to set the score!" She said in a demonic tongue, asking the demons she had pacted with to wreathe you all in fiery defences. "Five, six, seven, eight, Nazis we really hate!" She said as she set up a few contingent spells that would explode into hexes to weaken the foe when the right conditions were met, all dancing around her twin wands that she procured and beat at the air with like drum sticks or pom poms.

Nightcaster though, seemed to be more of a stage magician, heavily focused on the performance despite his shadowy spells. "Don't look away now, but with a wave of my staff and an alakazam! Paerseval kasevrani elemptior hazakal irath! Become a foe the enemy can ill perceive!" He said, bringing out a Blackwood staff with a white tip and blue runes running across it, swinging it around like a conductor and sending out his next wave of spells outwards.

"So that's magic you say?" Assault said, rubbing his chin.

"Yeah, my mom was a medicine woman and my dad was a shadow-warlock and I was born under a lunar eclipse at Halloween and conceived at witching hour!" Joseph said with a proud smile beneath his mask as Ethan just...nodded like that made sense to him. Not doubting so much as not quite understanding. It made perfect sense to you honestly, though you were surprised that strong magic was available so early in the timeline compared to you when it was a far rarer gift among humans.

"Same here but parent genders were reversed." Alice said with a satisfied smirk as she finished the last of her incantations. The spellcasters in the group each laid down runes of protection and spirit wards, spells you identified as being meant to defend against methods of locking down the squishies, provide some additional durability, and guard them against various forms of mesmerizations or mental attacks; even keeping them on their feet in the face of attacks meant to knock them around.

So interesting...you just had to ask them to teach you everything they knew about their craft! You were sure you'd be able to figure it out once you got a chance to play around with it. Oh the possibilities...being able to use your magic much earlier than you were expected to. You could do so much good with it...ahhh. You couldn't wait to get started..and maybe they could point you to someone to help with your psychic abilities too.

You were interrupted from your train of thought by Irinna cracking her knuckles and putting her helmet back on. "We are done with prep yes?" She said. Oh you definitely liked the attitude she had. That sort of energy and the fire within her waiting to scorch something ahead of her as she slammed her knuckles into each other and stared ahead.

"Alright, I'll take lead. Arne, can you take the hits? You have the easiest time restoring shielding. Everyone else; hit them as hard as you can." You said, surmising the situation quickly. You'd come up with the deeper details on the fly once you got into the thick of it. A bit of improv was good at countering foresight in your experience, and with the number of mystics among the Nazis; you were betting that they had more than a few who fit that particular description amongst them.

"Yeah, I can take it." He said with the confidence of someone who regarded pain as simply an old friend. You frowned a bit at that. His cavalier attitude towards getting hurt as if his own health wasn't worth worrying about. But then, he also gave you looks when you put yourself ahead, putting yourself at risk. Always complaining whenever you took a hit for him. Two of the hardest to harm warriors in the universe and the two of you had a hard time seeing each other take the smallest scrape.

"Well, miss, if you're calling the shots. Can you give us some stuff to do? Or are you just letting us go hog wild?" Ethan asked.

You closed your eyes and let the distant sight take you to what you wanted and needed to see, meshing it with your intellect and quickly working through the complex problems of battlefield command. You wouldn't make a detailed plan, you just needed to point people in the right direction. The rest would come to you once you were actually there. Maybe if you were more patient you could figure out how to do the Chozo habit of planning things out thousands of years in advance, but right now...ahah there we go.

"Alright, Arne; you make the biggest possible mess you can, head right into the centre between those guards." You thumb to where two of the Knightly guards were standing, burly armoured brutes that stood about eight feet tall. Eudaimonica; Nightcaster, hang back and send three fourths of your forces out, keep some in the backline to support and cover." You said, letting them prepare to file out into the positions you indicated with pings to Eudaimonica's phone, getting her to nod after a quick glance.

"Assault, Battery, Molotok; mid-line; plug any gaps you see, Winterpyre, Caustos and the uh..." You looked at the Wolf-like umbral beast as she panted with a longue purple tongue, curls of black smoke wisping off of her body as she looked excitedly ahead for any action.

"Jackie Noir!" Nightcaster said as he patted the rhinoceros sized wolf. You felt like he was referencing something with that name, but you weren't exactly sure what. The Earth Bet adults didn't seem to know it either, Arne gave you a shrug when you looked at him while Eudaimonica whispered something about how "it keeps happening" to Nightcaster while Irinna made a prolonged "eyyyyy" of recognition and Serp made a double handed facepalm that made you glad for the zone of silence that prevented the Nazis from hearing you all blabber...you were so lost.

"You'll take the frontline behind Arne and I. Serp, keep Eudaimonica and Nightcaster guarded, you've got the more ranged loadout. Everyone got it?" You said, getting some nods in response.

"I'll go first." Arne said as he looked over to the scene of the hostage situation as Pyre made the last gestures of his spell.

"You'll be alright, right?" You said as your visor had not stopped desginating the seeker missile targets since you started talking. You knew he'd probably be fine, but you just wanted to hear him speak confidently. It was nice to hear him not doubt himself for a change.

"I mean...we've both had way worse." Arne said.

"Worse than diving into that mess?" Assault asked.

"Oh definitely." You gave a thumbs up.

"Man who raises you two?" He said with a snort.

The air exploded with magic as Winterpyre's spell snapped into motion like a whip, lashing and grabbing the hostages just before a tall, burly man in a fifth column outfit could rev up a rotary gun and hose them down to make an example of them, his bullets hitting nothing and an exclamation of confusion coming from him before you made the signal and sprinted down; Arne already taking lead of the pack and firing off his speedbooster.


Consolidated Enemy Scan Logs

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(Like this but all black)

The Ubermensch are some of the deadliest soldiers of Primal Earth. Enhanced by arduous but effective techniques perfected since the 30s, Ubermensch are augmented to a degree that even five Elites in tandem cannot match their raw physical might. Surpassing even Nacht Elite Obersts, the Nacht Ubermensch Soldat is a peerless soldier of special operations and stealth assault. They make use of some of the very best weapons available to the 5th Column as well as highly sophisticated cyber-armour that assists their stealth operations. They do not have any particular weaknesses, but their defences are weakest against psionic attack. Possibly as a result of backdoors installed to ensure compliance. They also have a lower threshold for emergency teleportation, likely due to their perceived value.

Addendum: Comparisons to other 5th Column personnel show that many 5th Column soldiers are chronologically displaced. 5th Column records indicate heavy usage of bases located in "temporal sinkholes" that allow them to recruit from eras in the past or future in pockets of warped spacetime without risk of disrupting the timestream. Dating shows that many personnel, particularly those who reach Ubermensch rank, are from a number of points in the Roman Era and have a high concentration of magical energy in their bodies.

Samus' Notes: The Fifth Column's Eagerness to mould people into monsters is...honestly what did I expect from people still fighting world war two?

Arne's Notes: I...these people bring up bad memories. Skull-helms, giant super-soldiers...Why do so many of the worst things remain so consistent?

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(Like this but all Black)

Lower level commanders of the Nacht Divisions, Unteroffizers surpass their lower rank and file significantly and are armed with higher-grade equipment out of the laboratories of the 5th Column. Unteroffizers of the Nacht Division who have achieved Ubermensch status are masters of small unit tactics and surgical operations meant to disrupt and confuse their enemies and achieve goals with minimal resistance. Each is not merely superbly trained, but is a longtime veteran of service in the 5th Column and as such the fascist organization is loathe to send them to the field without multiple mediportation failsafe. Nacht Unteroffizer Ubermensch are extremely competitive with one another, seeking to climb up the ranks and continually plotting against their compatriots. They have little regard for the fate of their rivals, and cannot be intimidated by harm dealt to allies of equal rank due to seeing them as obstacles in their path to power.

Samus' Notes: These people carry themselves like Space Pirates. Just...awful energy and demeanour. I can't see their eyes through their helmets, but I can tell that the way they regard the world is full of that same evil mindset. Strong and weak. Conqueror and conquered. I need to be strong enough to put a stop to them.

Arne's Notes: After seventy five years of underground warfare against the winners of world war two, I can't imagine that their special ops skills are anything short of impeccable. Just how far does their net spread? Can two people even unroot something that goes this deep?

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(Like this but all black)

The Obersts of the Nacht Ubermensch are some of the most trusted and dangerous field operatives of the special forces division of the Fifth Column. Commanders of shadowy far-right terrorist cells and made of those whose deeds have garnered them immense favour from the 5th Column's shadow warfare wing, each one represents an investment of many years by the Column to create. Each one is steeply indoctrinated in the ideology of the column and is considered virtually wholly politically reliable, though each has his own goals for advancement within the organisation and frequently plots against his fellows. This is encouraged among the Fifth Column not only due to social Darwinian management philosophies, but also to ensure that the Nacht Division is never given an opportunity to use its permission to engage in independent thinking to plot against their superiors.

Every Nacht Ubermensch Oberst is augmented to a tremendous degree and is able to tear into the tank armour in use on most of Earth Bet with their bare hands like foil. Even without their armoured and shielded uniforms, they are able to withstand a degree of punishment that makes engaging them without careful preparation extremely inadvisable for most of Earth Bet and much of Primal Earth. Each is also given their pick of some of the finest mass produced weapons of the 5th Column and can be expected to be a wily and versatile combatant. It is highly recommended to force them to engage yourself or similarly durable combatants to prevent them from gaining opportunities to target more fragile team mates. Means of quickly removing them from a fight such as freezing or electrocution also are quite effective.

Samus' Notes: Focusing on them should be a major blow to the overall command structure of the Fifth Column. There can't be that many of them and each one takes so much effort to produce.

Arne's Notes: I've seen the way these people look at people they consider beneath them on Cylosis, from Weavel, from Trace...this kind of mindset needs to be destroyed, immediately.

Powerful lieutenant grade robots surpassing the fighting capabilities of Primal Earth standard main battle tanks and conventional Mekmen, Wolfpacks can also serve as lower officers due to their intelligent A.Is that are utterly loyal to National Socialism's tenets and doctrines. Armed with energy blasters and missile launchers as well as deadly melee instruments and overwhelming brute strength, Mark I wolfpacks are most vulnerable to concussive and electrical weapons, but are varying degrees of resistant to most other forms of damage. They are also rather cheap to produce and will usually come in substantial numbers as the 5th column regards its robotic auxiliaries as disposable.

Samus' Notes: Creating life for the sole purpose of expending it remains profane and disgusting. How could you program something able to understand and comprehend the world and just...toss it into the battlefield to die like a remote controlled drone? I hope I can free them some how. Make them wake up to how they're being used.

Arne's Notes: It's a shame that so much talent is wasted on a cause so vile that twists their work with so many inefficiencies. All because they exist to be a servitor class, not to have any ideas or real independence of their own. I feel sorry for them...being used like a tool by the people who put them together...it reminds me of...best not to think about that now.

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Large and powerful robots with the firepower and durability to take on entire companies of Primal Earth standard main battle tanks on its own, Wolfpacks Mark IIs also possess A.I sophisticated enough to serve as commanders for 5th Column soldiers and are built already utterly indoctrinated in the 5th Column's nazi ideology. Armed with a wide array of energy and missile weapons as well as potent power claws and enormous strength and durability, a Wolfpack Mark II is a somewhat ponderous but powerful combatant best dealt with via concussive or electrical weapons to overcome its resilience towards edged weapons, cold, heat, corrosion, and psychic assault.

Samus' Notes: These machines are geniuses! So much capacity for strategic and tactical thought, political philosophy, even engineering! And yet...they're just fodder! Given life just to die. Why do so many people have such a hard time accepting the value of life born of metal rather than flesh? It's not right!

Arne's Notes: I'd like to take one and reprogram it, there's probably shackles placed on the A.I to prevent it from coming to other conclusions that would be inconvenient to their makers. Maybe some sort of malware...might be a project for later, Samus would be a huge help there.

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Subject is not genuinely undead but is instead the product of a carefully planned supersoldier regimen designed to transform a soldier of the 5th Column into an intelligent predator. While imbued with a number of unnatural abilities, Vampyr Soldats remain living beings even if whether they can classify as human is a measure of debate within the Column. As such they do not have any special vulnerability to light based weapons, but are able to make use of a number of dark energy-based attacks and mesmerising powers inspired by Vampiric lore. They also heal swiftly and have greatly enhanced strength, natural claws, unnaturally resilient tissue and tremendous reflexes, and can even cast forth negative energy for distance-based attacks. However, heat-based weapons negatively affect their ability to regenerate and their psychic attacks have less effect on the strong-willed.

Samus' Notes: Why go through all this trouble to look so ugly? To sacrifice so much of yourself to become a monster that eats people?

Arne's Notes: Further research suggests the creator of this program took up the moniker of Nosferatu so I'm guessing the 5th column is lead by old movie buffs.

Simple creations of necromancy that imbue a still fleshy corpse with dark magic to force a false-life state into the body, Necromantic Zombies are virtually mindless and clumsy. They pose very little threat even to normal human combatants without significant augmentation, and even then their lack of strategic capability, tool usage, and even basic dexterity means that well armed humans should generally be able to keep them at bay for substantial durations of time. However their immunity to pain, their overwhelming desire to consume the flesh of their former living compatriots, and their instinctual aggression makes them terrifying; as is the quickness of those slain within proximity to Necromantic energies to rise again as more zombies or even greater varieties of undead. Zombies have little willpower of their own and are incapable of sensing pain, but sufficient dismemberment or tissue disruption will interrupt the flow of magic that keeps them animate and cause them to collapse again unless reinvigorated by magic. Disintegration or sufficiently violent dismemberment will prevent further reanimation. Even without armour, Thule Zombies pose no threat to you.

Samus' Notes: Ameut most gracious, give those whose bodies are defiled so cruelly your mercy. Ameut the gravekeeper; take these lost into your garden.

Arne's Notes: Need to take out the necromancers to put them down as fast as possible. Can't waste time with destroying corpses they'll keep on reanimating and rebuilding.

Wights, often called Grave Knights, are higher-grade forms of the undead who retain the majority of their mortal intellect and have an enhanced sort of power through their unloving nature. Though requiring more effort to properly raise into unlife, the Thule Wights are valued elites among the unliving who serve the society for eternity until their true death. Wights are charged with dark energy and will pass it on upon contact, and lack the stiff and slow motions or the mindless rage of either zombies or skeletons. Wights are entirely unhindered by their state of decay and many willingly allow their flesh to rot off completely or strip it from their bones for hygeine's sake; while others prefer mummification. Most Thule Wights are raised from ancient warriors and as such make use of enchanted melee weapons and old armour, striking almost exclusively in melee. Hard hitting and resilient, Wights are most vulnerable to solar, pyronic, or luminal weapons and to anything blessed by spiritual traditions opposed to necromancy. They are also weak to undiluted life energy, and struggle with airborne opponents.

Samus' Notes: Please, forgive me for what I am about to do to those who have violated your sacred rest with unholy sorceries.

Arne's Notes: Most of these bodies are centuries or even millennia old. I can't imagine having your rest violated after that long...

Degenerated creatures caught between life and undeath by exposure to dark magic and cannibalistic acts, Thule Ghouls are branded by the Thule Society and disposed of as shock troopers with little regard for their long term survival as most of them regard the Ghouls as disgusting degenerates not worthy of their company. Typically gathering them from famine-stricken areas under Thule Society rule beset by Nazi hunger policies meant to slowly starve undesireables to death, Ghouls instinctually obey those who can use the proper magic; and after the years of conditioning that the Nazi regime has given to their kind, members of the Nazi hierarchy as well. Thule Ghouls will never attack members of the NSDAP or those otherwise considered to be protected by the Hierarchy unless forcibly compelled to magically. Ghouls are no longer fully living and will continue to fight until motor function is destroyed. Centre of mass or head shots are fast ways to deal with them. While their claws carry many virulent diseases, they are poorly suited for fighting armoured combatants, and you yourself are immune to their pathogens.

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Samus' Notes: There has to be some way to cure these people of their affliction. There's always a way to help these people, I'm not going to accept that these people are lost forever.

Arne's Notes: This isn't living. Better to be dead than to be like this, may your next life be better.

Unlike the Vampyr, the Thule Vampires are indeed, genuinely undead. Animated by dark magics and possessed of "the red thirst", a need to consume blood, Thule Vampires are ironically considerably more attractive by conventional standards than their artificial counterparts. While lacking in the sheer magnitude of carefully engineered abilities and honed supersoldier prowess of their counterparts; Thule Vampires make use of dark magic in addition to enhanced physiology, and being undead are able to ignore injuries that would debilitate lesser beings. Able to heal swiftly and recover even more swiftly with access to blood, Thule Vampires are also able to; as with all true vampires; spread their affliction with the "blood kiss". Vampirification exaggerates all personality traits to a caricature of the person's former self, and while continuity of consciousness is maintained; becoming undead can be a radical shift in personality. Thule vampires are most vulnerable to light based weapons, strong displays of faith in positive causes, silvered weapons, bio-energy, and impalement through the heart with an object that can keep the corpse pinned. Fresh blood to consume enhances their regeneration, vigour, and power.

Samus' Note: I never really understood the appeal of vampire romance novels as much as yllamir and solveig seemed interested in them. Looking at an actual Vampire I...I think I'm going to pass on that. As pretty as their faces are I can't stop looking at how awful what's beneath is. Evil spirits wearing too perfect corpses devouring the living. But well, I did write about killing Nazi Vampires when I was a much younger girl, so this should be fun!

Arne's Notes:

Thule Necromancers are the still living practitioners of the Dark art of Necromancy who work for the Thule Society; making ample usage of undead servants to assail their opponents and reinforcing them with dark magic. While their offensive abilities are somewhat limited compared to Dark Mages who more exclusively focus on the destructive side of Dark Energy, their ability to quickly swarm a battlefield with enemies should not be underestimated. Necromancers are also infamous for their ability to reanimate their own dead and the fallen on the battlefield, and will also knit undead warriors back together continually so long as they are still on the battlefield. They also provide a wide range of augmentations and hexes to enhance and hinder allies and enemies, and with some time to make the proper incantation; can cast more powerfully damaging spells. However, Thule Necromancers are relatively weak combatants and will not last long if singled out in melee or by ranged firepower.

Addendum: Not all of the magic used by the Thule society is properly native to the Sourcewell Metaverse. Acquire additional examples to study to determine the true origin point of the magic. Preliminary analysis suggests strong emotional and ideological component and a windlike nature.

Samus' Notes: This absolute profanity cannot and will not be allowed to stand! How dare they defile the dead with so little regard for their wishes? How dare they pilfer souls from their rest with such abandon!? Is there anything this Weltreich won't lower itself to?! That not even their victims can know any peace after their lives are snuffed out?! If Old Bird were here he'd show these creeps what magic in good hands can do! Certainly far more than this...abomination!

Arne's Notes: To disrupt the cycle of reincarnation and Slauganth this way is just...obscene. Every dead creature they call on that didn't ask to be called is a miserable wretch begging for release.

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Imbued with the powers of sinister magics by the Thule Society, the Volksritter are clad in rune encrusted armour and wield potent mystic weapons; primarily swords, shields, polearms, and other such retrograde tools. Despite their seemingly archaic weapons however, the Volksritters are formidable combatants due to the amount of magic charged through their bodies and implements, allowing them to contend with much higher technology foes and to demonstrate truly superhuman feats. Volksritters are most vulnerable to electrical weapons able to conduct through their armour into their bodies, it is advised to prevent allies from closing in melee with them unless they are able to withstand runic edged weapons. Volksritters are powerful combatants who can withstand great punishment, and their runic armour deflects most cold or darkness aimed their way. Each is considered a martial champion of the Thule Society, and will fight with skill honed over the course of at least fourteen years of training starting at the age of seven in shadowy subdimensions filled with monsters.

Undead animated by the Thule Society, Skeleton Warriors are the bones of the dead given false life through dark magic to serve the Necromancers of the Thule Society or other organisations within the Weltreich and thus the Reich as a whole. More nimble and agile than zombies and considerable more dextrous, skeleton warriors are also more difficult to put down; with their bones given additional resilience by the energies flowing through them. Skeletal warriors fight with the weapons they were familiar with in life, and when lacking in any orders to follow will pursue a virtually instinctual desire to kill any life forms they encounter. Skeleton warriors are most vulnerable to concussive impacts and blunt force but are resistant to electricity and cold. Skeletons are easily reanimated endlessly by dark magic unless disintegrated sufficiently due to the thaumatological connections that necromancy has with bones. Skeletons also retain remnant memories of fighting skills they had in life, and are entirely without fear. They are far more dangerous than zombies, but are of nonexistent threat to yourself with or without armour.

Unliving fragments of souls tethered to existence by Thule Society sorcerers, Thule Shades are merely fragmentary portions of the souls of the lost, driven mad by their incompleteness and seeking to replace the warmth they have been deprived of. They make for reliable fodder who cannot be harmed by many weapons reliably and are able to bypass many forms of conventional defences; though your armour and progenitor physiology will prevent their phasing efforts. As incorporeal undead, Thule Shades cannot be harmed by elemental weapons with the exception of light elemental weapons with your current upgrade suite. Target them with the power beam modified by an augment beam only to cause damage to them. Thule Shades are able to phase wholly out of this plane of existence, requiring X-Ray or Multidimensional analysis to properly track. Shades are very weak to light-based weapons and cannot sustain themselves in brightly lit conditions.

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Wraiths are a higher form of incorporeal undead than shades, though they remain beings with extremely warped personalities due to the noxious effects of the necromantic magics used on their souls. Wraiths are also incapable of withstanding bright lights, particularly those of stars, and are weak to light-based weapons as well as magical weapons and attacks, your non-elemental weapons, and your progenitor physiology. However, Thule Wraiths will ignore the defences of much of your allies, and will seek to drain portions of their souls and body heat to fill the sensation of emptiness that constantly gnaws at them. Eudaimonica and Nightcaster's spells are able to allow your allies extra defence and attack against Wraiths, and Wraiths for the most part require melee to engage with foes capable of withstanding their fear aura or terror inducing shrieks. Lesser combatants can be killed simply through the wraith's fear abilities, but most prefer to finish combat with their draining touch. Wraiths however, lack in durability and anything capable of harming them will dispatch them quickly.

A collection of Weltreich psychics under the banner of the Soldaten der Geistes (SDG) division who rule the Geiststaats of the Weltreich, Geistiger Krieger serve as mid-range psionic warriors often seconded out to other formations of the Reich to lend them their psychic powers whenever these divisions cannot provide their own psychics. Geistiger Kriegers make use of a combination of powerful psionic control abilities as well as many forms of direct mental assault, including short ranged psychic melee attacks such as psionic blades and psionic defences. Geistiger Kriegers are best dealt with via overloading their defences via rapid-fire attacks. Singular strong attacks are likely to be deflected by them.


Arne



Move in quick, draw in as much fire as possible and give everyone else a bit of breathing space. Absolutely routine. You did this against Prince Trace's Principate Guard, you could handle a bunch of downtimers just fine. You smashed into the first Volksritter in your path and left behind nothing but dust. You bull rushed the first of the Thule Vampirs in your sight, obliterating her body too, as well as the bodies of several other Nazis clustered around her before you collapsed into the psychosphere and dropped a corrosion pulse bomb or three after boosting into the nearest mass of Nacht Elites; teleporting flashes informing you of enemies no longer caring to be in this battlezone.





It seemed that the room was rather larger than you expected, a great chamber with a high ceiling large enough for an air battle to be waged, divided into subchambers; seemingly serving as some manner of lobby with the expectation of having to hold the attention of something rather big. What were clearly meant to be sniper nests were now occupied by new tenants. Corpses were strewn about, the remains of the security team here, and the occasional fire was still burning here and there. There were some rec areas too, likely for people to wait while their security passes were being okayed by the checkpoint.

Another thing that was clear was that this place was crawling with vast numbers of undead who had been called forth from hidden dark dimensions. Some were busily eating the remains of the security staff. Others clearly rose from the security staff and other personnel deemed disposable. The Thule Society clearly was somewhat loathe to commit its living members, or they had already moved on to carry on their work elsewhere. Most of the fresh undead were simple, dumb shambling zombies, still bleeding from the injuries that killed them. It seemed that they lacked the time or skill for more complex creations, but it also seemed that the enemy's psychics had up and left the field in a hurry.

You steeled yourself for battle against the risen spawn of the grave and made ready for the rotting wave to crash upon you. They could barely make you out, and their attempted suppressive fire was clumsily aimed, often hitting their own undead while coils of weakening magic flowed out from Eudaimonica and Nightcaster, making it all too easy to knock over their minions like matchsticks.

You uncurled, a higher ranking 5th Column Vampyr, a Mesmerist it would seem; lashed out with extended claws at you. Your starbeam quickly put his aspirations of mixing it up with you to an end, a charged shot catching many of the Vampyr's squad in roiling starmatter that exploded in miniature novas. With their resilience against heat being negatively affected by Eudaimonica's melting magics, a whole swathe of enemies fell over as the bouncing star globs vaporized everything they touched before scattering into new targets. The true Vampires disintegrated virtually on contact with the beam; unable to handle miniature suns or prismatic light; while enemy return fire skimmed off of your pyromancy augmented shielding.

Five pyro-super missiles followed suit from Samus; each of them charged for maximum impact. A hefty chunk of her super missiles to be sure, but the explosions from each charged super missile detonating in a thermal apocalypse were nothing short of awe-inspiring. The brief spread of ignition materials followed by a spark that at first pulled inwards and then billowed outwards with supra-atomic force. A thermobaric detonation for the far future of warfare.

Had the containment fields not limited the gluon-plasmic thermobaric shockwaves the explosions probably would have emptied large portions of this facility with the overpressure and the violent vacuuming in of oxygen so forceful it imploded internal organs; even ripping them out of some of the Vampires' mouths. As it was, it was more than hot enough to leave nothing but burnt shadows in the ground where many a foe stood. Your armour's visor systems had cancelled out the bright flash and you looked around to see that there was plenty of fight to still be had.

You could already hear Zurvduat's beratement for not ending the fight already.

Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34


The chaff was largely cleared out, but it seemed much was preserved by a quick spell to shunt their forces into an ethereal plane where the blast wave would harmlessly pass them over; rematerialising shortly afterwards with yourself caught in the thick of what seemed to be a sea of hostiles.

Elmorni would have told you that it would be best to avoid getting surrounded like this in the first place, but would have understood as your adoptive mother did her best to. Zurvduat would have struck and berated you as your adoptive father nearly always did when you failed his impossible standards. But you had neither of them in mind. You turned to another part of the Adoptive Family of Alimbics that raised and nurtured you after Cylosis' fall.

The Palatine Mind of course, that wondrous A.I who would have given you quite succinct advice. "When surrounded by an ocean of softer foes who cannot immobiliser you; part the waves."

A Spectre with clawing ghostly hands reaching towards you had its chest obliterated by a power-prism beam shot, the bouncing light scattering its way through many more foes as you got to work.

You didn't shout a battlecry, you just made a gentle benediction to a Grendakal War Deity; Tharif; and to the spirit of your mother and father for guidance.

The zombies were the first in and the first to die, your Prism beam bounced between them with abandon; burning and disintegrating the fodder to the ground while Samus rushed around, the massive bulk of Winterpyre following suit and sending enemies flying like so many bowling pins; inhuman screeching being heard as the Demon Prince engulfed many foes in hellfire alongside Caustos and Jackie's own breath weapons, lesser magic spawn swarming in to get to grips with the spawn of dark magic and nazism.

You stood upon a pile of dust, your sword severing a Thule Vampir into sizzling halves and then destroying the head in a follow up sweep to scythe down half a dozen more of its counterparts. Battery bulldozed through living Soldaten, electricity rippling from her as she briefly got close to you.

"You shouldn't stay here." You said as you moved to intercept a necrotic spell lobbed her way; the black bolt of energy sizzling against your shielding and hissing as it tried to eat away at it further. She didn't seem to listen though, uppercutting a ghoul into the ceiling as it tried to sink its rot dirtied teeth into her, a flurry of fists coming from her smashing the skeletal hordes that followed behind the ghoul to powder.

Energy Count 08(96)

"Just passing by, don't worry kid." She said, though you recoiled at the patronization even while pulling one of the Wolfpack Robots into the way of a barrage of ubermensch missiles, holding the towering machine steady just long enough to then throw it right back at the Ubermensch; knocking them and a horde of the unliving aside while Samus gunned down a swarm of specters trying to surround assault as he found himself engulfed by wave after wave of clumsy zombies unable to find purchase through his kinetic field. With a shift of his legs he sent the undead automatons flying and swung Molotok on through like a Cannon Ball.

"Then get going!" You said with a hint of irritation beneath your voice as you pressed through a tsunami of skeletons, smashing through the bones sent into the air and tearing your way to the nearest necromancer. You took a hit from a Vampyr's dark energy bolts while dodging around lobbed spells of enervation, not letting it slow you down as you tore through the triad of corpse thieves.

Energy Count 08(94)

Your cannon clicked and its systems set themselves to missile mode and you filled the air with warheads. A hundred missiles unloaded in less than a second, a huge chunk of your arsenal right then and there, but the results were nothing if not spectacular as the rocket contrails streaked through the sky and exploded in the midst of your foes. To your surprise though, one of the Ubermensch Obersts who was struck by many of the missiles simply stood up after being thrown across the room and cracked his knuckles even after taking a half-dozen of your standard missiles. The Oberst leapt at you and struck you as your plan to get everyone's attention worked a bit too well.

Missile Count 75/170

Energy Count 08(92)

Another blow as you tried to focus on your foresight to determine who was heading over to you, this one to your head.

Energy Count 08(88)

"Your missiles hurt. My fists will hurt you far more." He said as he unleashed an esoteric martial art augmented claw strike that threw you back several meters until you brought yourself to a halt.

Energy Count 08(80)

You took a claw from a Vampyr Kommandant, the supersoldier's gaze upon you a vicious sneer as you shot a charged shot through another pile of zombies, clearing out rotting minions in the way of Molotok as she fell onto a knee trying to stop the Halberd of a Volksritter from touching her face Battery slugged the knight off his feet and helped her up. The time you had bought her came at the expense of more high grade foes surrounding you, an Axe finding its way into your back from one of the Knights as you were finding it harder to move without getting into someone's threat range.

Energy Count 08(64)

A sphere of death magic struck into you, a command to die bolstered by spellcraft attempting to weave its way into you. Your progenitor physiology and armour blocked that out altogether, but the amount of deathly magic flowing into that sphere launched forth by a cabal of Thule society casters was still enormous, and your shielding was both lacking in all that many resiliency upgrades and in special defence against such spells. The energy sizzled as you fired off a charged super missile in their direction, letting it scatter them around and vaporise others while you tried to get moving again, knocking away two of the Kommandant's adjutant and throwing the Vampyur himself out of your path with a duo of super missiles.

Energy Count 07(88)

You let the super missiles fly out at a heightened pace, machine gunning them out of your cannon in a burst of nine. The wolfpack robots in your path were reduced to smithereens, their escorts obliterated with similar wrath and fury. Still so many of them...you wish you had something to modulate the explosive radius of your missiles, especially when you noticed that Serp was in trouble as he faced a batch of Ubermensch on his own, downing one who disappeared in a flash, but rocking back on his heels from a volley of rotary gun fire.

Super Missile Count: 20/34

"Serp, down!" You said, looking to Caustos as their body thrashed its limbs of fire. The fire elemental's wild displays of heat made it stand out amidst the crowd of summons as Demons, Shadow Creatures, and Fire Elementals did battle with Nazis and the living dead, and you got an idea as Caustos called forth a rain of fireballs from a portal above.

"Caustos, hit the rocket troops, I'm going in." You said, pulling your attention away from cutting down what felt like the three hundredth ghoul with another sweep of your blade, your beam coming out so constantly in an attempt to clear out the chaff undead, robots, and soldiers you could see the heat distortions in front of your cannon. You redirected your beam fire, charging up and then releasing a shot to strike the first Ubermensch who stumbled briefly before you hit them with a second charged shot as the bouncing prismatic-star blast ricoheted around, incinerating the undead with tremendous vigour as they couldn't stand the solar light.

One of the rocket troops made a rather satisfying alarmed shriek before he detonated, his body teleporting out while you looked for a way to help Serp. Too far away for your Shock Coil, but close enough for your beam to shoot at one of the Necromancers reanimating the horde of skeletons trying to hack away at Serb after he had smashed them with a volley of enhanced fiery grenades that had reduced them to ash. More of the dead crumbled and you sighed with relief even while flipping around, shifting between forms and dropping explosives. He'd be safe, but a Wolfpack Robot's cannon striking you dead on mid-leap reminded you of just how much attention was on you; laser-sniper fire scalding into your shielding from hidden elites afterwards.

Energy Count 07(55)

You shot at the wolfpacks with your super missiles and then bombarded the snipers with the follow up burst; not even looking at the results while your sword stabbed into the chest of another Vampir who crumbled hissing and cursing at you after surging more dark energy into your shielding. So many incoming hits, so many enemies just digging into you as you fought your way towards Serp; rushing through the fire fields made by the elementals that were driving back many of the Nazis.

Super Missile Count: 15/34

Energy Count 07(39)

You charged in, jumping over a Volksritter and hitting him head on with a charged ice missile to encapsulate him in frost mid-swing before smashing him apart with a kick; grabbing his weapon before it could disappear with the mediport flash and throwing it into the eye of a Vampyr who had Serp pinned after he hacked apart a row of mekmen with his sickle, pressing through the burning shield around him and smashing aside a Demon. The Vampyr stood up and staggered with howling pain as the sword dug into his eye, flailing backwards before you slammed your fist into his back hard enough to shatter his spine and blocked a nictus missile lobbed Serp's way with your chest, scooting backwards a bit and panting as the dark energy rolled off of you.

Energy Count 07(28)

The Vampyr's attempts to get back up as its skeletal system regenerated in seconds and smother you in darkness were interrupted by Eudaimonica's whip curling around his neck and a sudden snapping sound as Battery tugged on the whip after running by it in a way that made you cringe reflexively. This time at least, the Vampyr teleported out while Eudaimonica sent forth some regenerative energy your way.

"Siggy don't let this be a biggy, just shine a bit brighter you knight!" She said as you drew in quintessence from fallen foes to restore some munitions and replenish the rest of your energy. You smiled a bit, it was...corny you supposed, but the cheer made you feel good about yourself. The enemy's numbers were thinning at least, filling you with two sensations...you didn't want this to be over already, but having to draw so much attention from everyone else was taxing your reflexes as you constantly moved out of the way of every incoming blow, getting tagged now and then from sheer mystically guided volume. It wasn't physically tiring, but your armour informing you that you had put down a four-digit count of foes and they were still coming was a bit disheartening. Not even the good sense to withdraw.

Super Missile Count: 30/34

Missile Count: 128/170

Energy Count 08(99)

"Sigtyr, Ghosts behind you!" Samus shouted as she looked to Nightcaster; busily engaging in a magical duel with a dozen mystics of the Thule society; clashing energies roiling in the sky like snakes wrestling with one another. No dice...but his Dark Servant...she whistled towards the shadowy mass of living darkness who was busy with sending forth a wave of inky tendrils to pull down Soldaten and Zombies alike and crush them into the dirt. You turned around and gritted your teeth; preparing the appropriate weapon for the situation.

Samus
Energy Count 07(97)

Missile Count: 105/175

Super Missile Count: 20/34

Universal Ammo Count: 160/240

The tricky thing about fighting the undead is that it was rather easier to get them back up and going than it was with the living. And your own beam weapon wasn't quite the absolute bane of just about everything unliving that Arne's was; due to being based on the Spazer and Electro-Wave beams. The Spazer Beam's bright light components did have an extra benefit, but it didn't mesh together quite as well as the Star Beam and Prism beam against the unliving. The sight of skeletons powering through incidental electric shocks that don't disintegrate them is getting rather tiresome. On the other hand, the machines that the foe brought have fallen before you by the hundreds; so you suppose it balances out.

"Winterpyre, anything you can do to..." You paused as you flipped over an Ubermensch trying to catch you with his fancy fisticuffs that you found rather flashy but perhaps not the most overly practical of movements. You shot him in the back with the Cryolyte and moved on, letting him and his friends stew in the icy cold that was now their prison. "Get the two into the fight?" You said, looking at Arne hacking through some of the ghosts with his arm-sword set wholly to Prism and Power beam mode. At least he seemed to be handling himself alright, that was good to know.

"Certainly young warrior, but if you would but give me a few moments while I am indisposed with this conflict." Winterpyre boomed as he smashed one robot headfirst into another, freezing a horde of zombies where they stood to shatter them with a hard clap of his hands and the resulting shockwave. When dark magic was thrown Ethan's way as he was trying to catch his breath after finding and then shoving a piece of chair through a vampire's chest; Winterpyre threw forth a wall of ice magic to block the bolt of destruction and then shoved the glacier wall forward to flatten the offending sorcerers, roaring in triumph.

He cracked open the earth and reached his h and through, dragging the two out of their confinement proofed against her prior mass teleportation spell and then tossing a fireball through the portal to send a pack of Wights scattering, shrieking and burning.

"Good day to you mortals, this may not be in your usual purview, but my young friend has made request for your assistance." He said in as polite a voice as possible while he grabbed an Ubermensch and flung him through a wall, the Demon Lord's minions rallying around him as corroding, burning, and freezing magics were thrown ahead of them as a curtain of firepower.

"I...are you the back up?" The Blonde One asked, her accent clearly German. With a closer look, her costume was relatively simple, a red and orange coloured tactical outfit with some extra armour gilded armour plating, clearly a few injuries here and there that Eudaimonica helped heal up before passing you a thumbs up, and some tears in the outfit's arms while bullet proofed vest had clearly seen better days. She was quite fit, and based on her appearance, probably in her mid twenties with a physique honed by a lifetime of conditioning and training, her blonde hair allowed to run past her shoulders plain and straight and her face covered by a half-mask with polarised lenses over the eyes that protected the upper half of her face, a flight oxygen mask she had detached; probably to protect against inhaled attacks; while her head had a military style helmet covering much of the rest.

"No I don't believe you summoned us." He said.

"Hey there! You can call me Aine! We came here to...investigate reports of nazi build up." You said, trying to figure out what you could and couldn't say on the fly before giving Battery some warning of an incoming barrage of missiles before, at your signal Arne jumped into their path and shook his head once he hit the ground; returning fire with his shock coil to lash through the Nacht Elites who had tried to paste the woman.

Arne Universal Ammo Count: 237/240

"Well...help is help." The redheaded one said, your suit informing you she was likely from the American southwest based on her accent. Her outfit seemed to have virtually no intention of protecting her, rather seeming to focus on being stretchy and elastic. Her form was heavily toned, even rather powerful, a two piece with an apparently discarded jacket, her red hair in a pony tail, and it seemed that she had either lost or had disposed of her gloves and boots. Though the way her skin shifted and rippled suggested that it might be because she might have altered her form in a way that damaged them, specially given that the damage to her outfit matched about where her musculature would have shi-you were staring...bad. You shook your head.

Gold Render is a Striker type Parahuman noted for her ability to damage most targets on touching them through violent spatial distortions. While this effect would have greatly reduced effect on your tissue and armour and would simply be registered as shielding damage, it lacks most limitations that these sorts of abilities have; with a low level version of these powers being used to offer Gertrude Braun defence against most projectiles and attacks, distorting space to cause them to miss or simply not connect. However she has a limited number of "tokens" to expend on this power every six seconds, the more damage she wishes to inflict the more energy she will have to expend; and exhausting her six-second store will lead to her defences failing entirely until recharging is complete. Esoteric forms of durability still protect against Render's abilities, and regenerative powers are ideal at surviving what she can dish out. She can imbue throwable objects with her Rending effect, usually making use of frisbees for control and distance. One of her most noted weaknesses though, is to gas attacks should she not have advanced warning of them, as her defences are usually permeable to gas to allow her to breathe. She's patient and relies on setting up the finishing blow in fights, rarely rushing in until she's got the touch needed to end a fight lined up and conserving her energy as best she can to avoid running out at the wrong time.

Gertude Braun was triggered by a sudden collapse of a building she was in at an early age by bright lights descending from a series of UFOs engaged in a dogfight overhead Wilhelmshaven. The trigger effect allowed her to escape the confinement, but the deaths of most of her family forced her into a long stay in the foster care system for a period of many years before being formally adopted into the Weiss Family. In that time, she was also taken care of by the state, which provided her with some degree of training and a salary for her work as part of a parahuman youth outfit dedicated to fighting superpowered criminals. But with the often gruesome effects of her powers when using them in combat should she not withhold from affecting organic tissue, she has struggled to gain much in the way of acclaim and always fights with a hand tied behind her back against most enemies outside of the endbringer fights she was often brought to due to the near certainty of her survival and ability to reliablydamage them. Something that frustrated her until she graduated out into a professional career that eventually brought her to the attention of the makers of the current facility where she found a new lease as a security officer following her hiring out by a Mysterious Benefactor.

Originally from Nevada, Betty Hargreave was triggered by being bitten by a rattlesnake without anyone around to provide her with the treatment necessary to preserve her life. In agonising pain for hours, the extradimensional shard bonded with her and provided her with the ability to adapt to pressures and situations; gradually growing more and more adapted to certain tasks and against certain threatening stimuli over time and repeat exposure; though adaptations usually come with trade-offs that require her to reset her adaptations for differing tasks. Rated as a Changer by the PRT, Betty gained a substantial deal of acclaim due to the versatility of her powers and excellent combat record even when holding back her ability to prevent herself from undergoing particularly visually unpleasant transformations due to the tendency to disturb people as well as the possibility of damaging her costume which is not protected from changes in size, the formation of sharp spikes, acidic secretions, or other adaptations she can make. However, her primary weakness has always been enemies who can present her with stimuli that would require contradicting adaptations to counter. She's boisterous and ready for a brawl however, confident with her abilities and eager to get into the thick of things.

Her adaptations also allow for an immensely accelerated healing factor, drawing from mass she doesn't have through alternate dimensions to keep her functional. It also makes her extremely difficult to kill for good, as her body will adapt to function with the missing organs while attempting to regrow them. Atomization or induced cellular degeneration is believed to be necessary to kill her for good as her regeneration can function from even extremely disrupted remains; though the more damage she has suffered the more time she needs to recover; and equipment lost will remain lost. Additionally, while difficult to kill; she is still possible to incapacitate through freezing, suddenly being rendered unconscious, being grappled, or removed from the battlefield. Her offensive ability is also generally inferior to her defensive ability, especially with her reluctance to undergo particularly extreme transformations. However, her ability to stand up to any of the endbringers and simply take their hits on the chin unless knocked out swiftly has made her a worldwide asset, leading to her recruitment to the cause of protecting this facility by a Mysterious Benefactor.


Right, then you had your ideas for where they should go. "Gold Render, take out the enemy knights with Battery. Sidewinder, help Sigtyr take hits." You said, analysing the situation briefly and then looking at them as Caustos turned into a fire tornado behind them and whirled their way through a whole horde of the undead who simply disintegrated into dust in the inferno generated by their swirling movements.

"...Hot." Gold Render said, making you tilt your head. Was that just a statement of the obvious or did they actually find that attracti-

Sidewinder slapped her across the head and shook at her. "Not the time for puns." She said, adjusting her thief style mask and looked at the situation before nodding at you.

"Come on, go!" You said while Molotok crashed next to you and made an audible "oof" upon impact.

"Very rude that man is..." Irinna complained, picking herself up and waving to you before she darted off again.

"Molotok, can you take out those last few snipers?" You said, seeing some of the Nacht soldiers lining up shots while you shot away some of the incoming wraiths, dispersing their forms with precision and grit and muttering an apology for each one slain.

"Ah yes, people with guns. Normal. Can do that! Should be much better than running from...ghosts. They are ghosts right? Trying to not think too hard about stuff I don't understand." You nodded and pushed her briefly out of the way before shooting a charging wraith; recoiling at its shriek that made Irinna cover her ears and grind her teeth before it vanished.

"Yes. Don't worry about them, we can take them. Just, take out the snipers. We can handle that." You said, trying your best to be inspiring and not sure if you managed to get past awkward and stilted. Irinna simply laughed in a way that made you a bit confused before running off, pushing herself with a kinetic burst to tackle straight into one of the Nacht Elites targeting the group.

"Anyone else need help?" You asked, trying to identify how things have changed so far and feeling a strange mix of...good but also disappointed when most everyone said they were fine for the moment, letting you bounce between some of the remaining enemies.

You dragged a necromancer into the air with the grapple beam and slammed him through some of his own zombies in between raking across the field with beam fire to cut down softer enemies as the magic duel that Nightcaster was engaged in ended in a spectacular blue, black, and white fireball of backlashing magics that vaporised an entire cabal of necromancers at once; causing countless undead to start to fall apart or go feral and directionless with their control networks cut. You made use of the opening, firing off your blink pack jumping into some now exposed knights and smashing into them with a shoulder check and pushing the lead one back far enough for you to line up a charged shot into them. Nine orbs of electricity slamming into their body and making them vanish in a satisfying pop.

You spared only a moment to glance back while you vaulted over the next knight's halberd swing, missiles clicking and coming out in a five shot rapid burst that pushed the foe backwards and set them up for a super missile to the back after blinking behind them; the obstacle clearing out of the way to let you see how your plan was going so far.

Samus Missile Count: 100/175

Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34

"Hey, you two; one second! Lemme do a trick for you!" He said as he made a rapid fire series of gestures that seemed to tire himself out a bit before casting out a quickened version of his usual suite of protections, shortly followed by Eudaimonica doing the same. A sight so heartwarming you barely even noticed the sword being driven into your back shielding by a knight as it caught you mid-leap. You grunted, but your adaptive systems had reduced the impact to a shadow of its former self.

Energy Count: 07(96)

You grabbed at the Volksritter's right hand with your left hand and then stabbed the sword into the Ritter's own throat, pulling back just as they mediported out and then swinging your own blade in a sweep with enough violence to hack through the pollaxe of another volksritter before yanking him in with the grapple beam eyefirst into the sharpened knee of your boot. Blinking out, you smiled as the Vampires; unable to see through the shadows Nightcaster protected you with, flailed around, trying to sniff you out as you looked back at Nightcaster.

"Are you doing alright?" You asked, seeing that the boy was slowing down, lurched over with his hands on his knees while he lazily cast a spell of Shade summoning again, barely even getting the gesture right and slurring the words a bit until he managed to replace some of his lost minions. Soldaten grabbed by them screamed in alarm as the shades leeched at their warmth, but you could tell that he was sweating from a brief glance at the colour of his scart.

"Yeah that'll....last ya...I can...do this all day...gonna, haaaah need to...pop some blues..." Nightcaster said taking out some blue square packaging and cracking them open to let a wash of fresh stamina flow into him. He stood up refreshed, giving you a thumbs up while his Umbral Beast Jackie grabbed a Panzerhunde by the neck and snapped her jaws until a popping sound was made, tail sweeping aside some ghouls before a sharp yelp came from her as a Volksritter stabbed his halberd into her.

"Jackie!" He shouted in alarm even as Eudaimonica shouted some words you were...pretty sure you shouldn't repeat in polite company about the man's parentage and mother before he found a hellfire whip wrapped around his neck and Nightcaster's staff smacking into his face. The sound of the umbral wolf's pain made your heart drop briefly, and you resolved to avenge it, shooting rapidly into the Volksritter until he vanished and leaping off to press your boot on the head of one of the vampires and smash it into the floor with a resounding crack.

"Is she hurt?" You asked, looking at purple blood oozing from the Umbral Beast's shoulder. A monstrosity of shadow magic it may be, but that halberd had drawn dark blood from it, and the creature was whimpering between her snarls and howls at her foes. However, a shadowman with a hat and some manner of plague doctor mask stepped from the darkness, tipping his hat to you as he infused fresh darkness into the wound, pulling from the shadows around you.

"Keep better care of her boss. I'm going around patching up enough injuries as is." The Shadow Doctor said, ducking beneath a clumsy swing from a Zombie and pulling out shadows from the skull of three skeletons and then launching them as darts into the Zombie's head until it ruptured. Such a fascinating creature...you wondered if he had a name, even as you completely thinned out a rank of skeletons until the remainder began to collapse after the disruption to their magic you had inflicted upon them.

"Hey, do you have a name?" You asked, the Doctor turning his head towards you while he grabbed at a Nacht Elite and did something that made the Elite stop struggling after screaming intensely for a few moments.

"Doctor Black will suffice." He said, adjusting his hat and looking ahead.

"You should handle your...hrm, partner would be the professional term." He said, dusting himself off while Nightcaster offered him a fistbump and received one in turn.

"Will do, keep doing that, you're great at it!" You said, grinning beneath your helmet and giving him a thumbs-up as an Uberoberst tried to deck you in the head with his fist, impacting and pushing you a bit to the side.

Energy Count 07(92)

"God damn extradimensional! What are you doing interfering in our business? This is to save far more worlds than you could possibly imagine!" He snarled as he swung again,your arm going out to check his swing while your cannon was sweeping through more and more enemies; exploding particles going in all directions and his gut getting a headbutt from you. While he lurched forward, you jumped onto his back; freezing his squad behind him with the cryolyte before pulling him off his feet and onto the ground.

"So you know something don't you?" You said, voice colder now. "Assault, Serp, get ready to disable this one once I get him closer to you."

"You can't make me talk hero." He growled, trying to kangaroo kick you only for you to teleport out of the way. His laser rifle flared to life, being used to sweep around while you raced ahead of his aim, baiting him into carving through a horde of wights threatening Battery and Gold Render. As Gold Render dealt with one of the Ritters and Battery suplexed one of the rights, plenty of undead trying to come to grips with them found themselves sawed in half just at the right moment, Battery looking up in confusion as a Mekmen she was preparing to kick into fell in half.

You teleported behind him again, smashing into his superhuman back to throw him forward, only for him to recover and turn around with a haymaker of his own this time getting his fist caught in your hand before you shoved him towards a waiting Assault who smashed him over the head with a steel chair hard enough to shatter the entire object, knocking him around with a loud CLANG that let Serp fire off a containment foam grenade that ensnared the oberst in rapidly expanding sticky pink goo.

"God damn you and your wretched team!" He shouted as he tried to tear off the foam with strength to throw tanks like toys, only to find that the foam expanded more and more as he tried to remove it.

"Make sure he's in a state to interrogate." You said as you blinked again, finding yourself in a position to drive your blade into the back of a Vampyr Kommandant, lifting him into the air and away from Arne and Betty. Shooting four super missiles into the remaining pack of Vampyrs as Arne finished off the last Necromancer with his shock coil, you dropped the Vampyr down while Sidewinder pulled the head off of a remaining robot. And for a moment, everything was silent.

Samus Super Missile Count: 15/34
Arne Universal Ammo Count: 229/240

"Hey, are you okay?" You asked, getting an affirmative nod out of him as he stood himself up straight out of his combat reflex position.


Arne


You stood amidst a field of the broken and the defeated and felt pretty good about yourself as Samus offered you a hand for you to pull each other in and give a gentle headbutt to one another. Your total counter for defeated enemies in this arena alone had increased to the thousands; most of them undead. Only the uberoberst remained, struggling against the foam that had sealed even his colossal strength for the time being; though he'd likely break free soon. He was an almost four meter tall behemoth; and taking him down seemed far too easy. Too simple. You had traded dozens of blows with him, he kept on recovering from them and pushing through.

For Samus to take him down so quickly seemed...something was amiss here and you didn't want to find out what it was in the wrong circumstances. Though on the other hand, was there such a thing as good circumstances for a trap?

A loyal and veteran member of the Nacht service of the Fifth Column for decades named Hermann Mannfred Vogt; Vogt has enhanced his biology with a combination of technology, magic, and organic engineering to turn himself into a fitting and unwavering example of the Uberobersts that serve as some of the 5th Column's most dangerous and reliable field commanders; below only those whose rank is high enough to place them into the Generalship of the organization. His strength is astonishing, and rises the more excited he gets or the more he hates a foe or values an objective; along with his durability and regeneration. Though he is outranked by the Generals of the Fifth Column, this is only because he refuses to leave field ops and wishes to remain where he can fight and make full usage of not only his strength and large arsenal, but also the wide array of combat techniques and skills learned over the years. He has also taken the sometimes dangerous route of ensuring that his intelligence is augmented as much as his body, braving the risk of personality alteration and meddling by the neurosurgeons to become an example of aryan perfection in body and mind.

With weapons teleporters, he can make use of a very large arsenal of weapons, and his powered armour not only provides the standard suite of power suit capabilities, but also fits an advanced command and control system that allows him to coordinate soldiers throughout the battlefield as if he were playing a video game. A task he can manage while focused on other high concentration jobs such as personal combat or engineering. Vogt's armour also self-repairs alongside him, and is extremely resistant to being disabled by EMP or electricity and is treated with a great deal of defences against magic. This allows him to wade into most confrontations with little worry or risk, and with the ability to shift thousands of tons with his raw muscle alone, his arsenal, skill, and power have allowed him to carry out countless missions.

Vogt is a dedicated Nazi and has been raised from birth in the ideals of the 5th Column and regards himself as impossible to subvert. While for the most part this is largely true, it does lead to a certain arrogance to his demeanour that can allow information to slip from his tongue when he deems those he's speaking to to be too inferior to figure out his actual meaning or make use of the information he offers. While resistant to most forms of damage, brain death will still suffice to end the fight due to the memory loss associated with it and the need to have his memory restored from back ups. He is also significantly prone to speaking at length whenever prompted, often distracting himself with his monologues.

Samus' Notes: He's lucky that he has information we need or I'd be happy to see just how good biopods are at repairing the body compared to restore stations. He's got the arrogance of someone who's never learned any humility in his entire life and everything about him just reeks with hubris.

Arne's Notes: There are so many people like him in the shadow group on Cylosis and at that space station. Buried in secrets and conspiracies, thinking they're above everyone else, and drunk on their own raw power. Gods willing, there will be less people like him shortly.

You turned your eyes towards Samus, looking a bit down at her and smiling as she stood a bit on her tiptoes. Every year the height difference between you two grew as she was approaching the tail end of her height growing years while you were still in the peak swing of yours.

"You think we can get anything out of him?" You asked, the both of you drawing in scattered quintessence pickups to put your ammo and energy back up to full.

"We have to. He's the best chance we have of understanding why they're here in the first place." She said.

"Yeah...but well...I'm not good at interrogating?" You said.

"Oh come on Ar-err Sigtyr you can always get answers out of well...me! And I'm really hard to read!" She said.

"Uhh...well...you like me, he doesn't." You said as she shrugged and made a little chuckle.

"I guess so. But come on, it's something we have to well, learn how to do and you know. Better start now than never right?" She said, her composure relaxing as she came out of the combat high. The battle focus dissipating and being replaced by the goofy, awkward girl you knew outside of the clarity of violence.

"Hey I happen to be great at interrogating." Ethan said as he stepped up to the Oberst as he struggled against his confinements.

"Should we let him do that or should we step in?" You asked, Samus seeming to freeze a bit when she realised everyone was looking at her. She nodded and walked towards the Uberoberst as he snarled beneath his helmet.

"Well hey there big guy, thought you'd prefer to talk to me, mister fellow white male. Gotta say, really nice work on the whole moving an entire army without anyone noticing thing. Now that's a hat trick that would have the PRT pissing itself if I've ever seen it." Assault said, leaning a bit closer towards the Oberst but not close enough for him to headbutt him.

"Ah so they send the babbling wisecracker to try to get secrets out of me?" He said, and you could see Samus clenching her fist and felt the warmth of her anger. And to be honest, the way this guy seemed so confident even in this situation was pretty infuriating in and of itself.

"Yeah I talk a lot, some people even call me annoying. Isn't that right Battery?" he asked before she flipped him the middle finger in response before looking back at the Oberst and pulling out one of the steel chairs to sit down, chuckling and shaking his head.

"She digs me."

"Were my hands free I'd dig you all the way into a grave. And your usage of American slang in Deutsch is abominable. I will hear no more of it." He said in flawless English, changing the language from German at the drop of a hat to try and catch Assault off guard, only for him to roll with it and shrug.

"Do you have a name or are you just another Oberst?" Samus asked, approaching him as he turned his helmeted head towards her, and then towards you in a way that made you flinch as brief memories of cylosis dug their way into your mind's eye. The callous glare, the skull-like rebreather, the immense stature of this nearly four meter tall behemoth of a man with muscles that could crack open the glacis of a tank-like an eggshell.

"Uberoberst Vogt, Nacht Division, Fifth Column, proud servant of the Weltreich and the Cosmic Axis. You are wearing alien armour." He said, making Samus flinch a bit and gasp slightly beneath her helmet before he looked straight at you and spoke. "As is he. Your armour reacted to the technology of the statues and the Nictus can smell the extraterrestrialness that clings to you like stench on rotten meat." He said confidently as you felt the urge to raise your arm cannon and shut him up.

"I cannot claim to understand the hieroglyphs near the bird statues, but I do recognise your sihlouettes on them. You are prophecised to come here, aren't you? From the same reality that those relics came in." He said with a voice so poisonously confident you wanted to smash his head in.

"Whoa, how does some Column clown like you know that much?" Nightcaster said as Doctor Black walked to his side, the summoned Shadowman dusting off his hands while the young wizard rode upon his umbral beast.

"The Column knows a great deal Paragonite. I'd advise you to focus on finding a way to go back home before we put how secure the FBSA's database of minor secret identities really is to the test. Can your spells protect your entire family I wonder? Your friends? Maybe there's something in your internet search history you'd rather people not know hrm? A teenage boy gets up to many scandalous things." He said before Samus slapped him hard enough to create a shockwave that echoed across the room, a pained grunt coming from him as he adjusted his jaw beneath his facemask.

"Torture doesn't get answers Fraulein, you should know that." He said, smugly confident even now as he seemed to be much less hurt than he was letting on, your eyes narrowing beneath your helmet.

"Stop faking it." You said, catching him on his wounded gambit as he let out a sigh and shook his head.

"And I was having such fun too. Shame." He said before Serp approached him and offered him a soda from the vending machine and tilted it towards him.

"I offer this to you freely, Tovarisch." He said with a smile beneath his helmet.

"Hahahahahaha! You get the communist slav to play nice with me? Are you people stupid or are you just that naive?" His laugh was unpleasant and made your stomach do knots, but it was starting to awaken something much less pleasant in Samus.

"Hermann." You said, getting him to glare at you in a way so cold you could almost imagine the icicles forming on your armour.

"Hermann Mannfred Vogt, age fifty-three, born to Eva Weiss Kohl and Paul Werner Vogt." You said, hoping to catch him off guard and turn the tables by showing him that he wasn't as secretive as he thought he was.

"Expecting me to be impressed?" He said, trying to regain his composure.

"I'm expecting you to shut up." You snapped back with only the barest hint of irritation in your voice.

"What did they call you? Sigtyr? Going around with the name of Odin and speaking with an impeccable nordic accent. What a waste it is that we have to fight you." He said, but Samus beat you to the response.

"He's not joining you, ever." She hissed.

"Celtic furor, wonderful aine, absolutely splendid." He snorted before you decided to push your advantage.

"You don't know who provided the funding for this facility do you? It's part of why you're here isn't it, to find out?" You said, noting that not one of the scan logs you were able to pick up could provide any details as to who provided the surely enormous amounts of money needed to set this place up.

"Clever."

"You've allowed yourself to be captured. So I'm guessing you need us to do something. Open this vault I guess? Do you even know what's on the other side?" You said, gesturing towards it and then looking back at him.

"Maybe they don't think he's important enough to know?" Samus offered.

"Hrm, he's just a Colonel I guess. Couldn't have that much clearance." Battery offered before you sensed a flash of anger from the Oberst.

"That vault contains treasures that these idiots don't even understand the proper usage of! They think it's just another alien artifact to lock away, to poke at according to instructions they don't comprehend! Godhood lies on the other side of those doors, more certain than any number of xenos black boxes!"

"So...a power granter?" Molotok said.

"No and yes." Winterpyre said, snorting as he approached the Uberoberst and snorted out coils of green corrosive hellfire.

"Wait, which one is it?" Assault asked.

"Now that Vogt has volunteered the information. Yes, I sense shards of truly old power in there. That is your primary objective isn't it? The power of the Incarnates. Fire of the Gods; here in a different metaverse through means unknown to me." The Demon Lord said, his deep voice crackling with internal fire.

"We talking metaphorical power of the gods here or what Beelzebub?" Golden Render said.

"Not one of my names but I'll let it slide. But no, I mean it very viscerally. Incarnate power is one of the primary ingredients of divinity. A path to greater things than even standard metahuman powers. Which makes the rest of this raid..." He said before Samus stopped him.

"A distraction."

"You all must think you're terribly clever for figuring out that one. And after all your giant robot friends have gone and tied themselves down. Pity you couldn't figure it out sooner. Oh well, I've stalled long enough. My pick-up should be arriving soon. Now, to telepo-" He said before Winterpyre snapped his fingers and made infernal incantations to open a gateway beneath Vogt.

"What the f-" He shouted before fiery chains grabbed at him; erupting into fire that seemed to burn at the soul rather than the flesh while low pitched laughter and the smell of sulphur filled the air. The screams of the damned echoed throughout the air and monsters beyond counting leered at their new guest as visions of citadels in hellblasted wastes and rivers of fire filled the eyes of all who looked into the portal. The realm of the Demon Winterpyre, the Chillblaze. The now damned man clearly recognised his now inescapable fate and screamed as the chains began to reel inwards while demonic hands reached out for him, chanting his many sins into his ears and pulled him into a green and orange fiery abyss with cackling demons slavering to greet him, his screams of sudden realization silenced as a beast of molten metal and chains dragged him rather literally into hell.

"...Miss, please don't do that...ever... with that projection of yours...at least where I can see...like...fuck." Battery said as everyone alternated between staring at the Demon, staring at Eudaimonica who offered a shrug, and then staring at the ground where the Hellmouth was briefly opened.

An upgrade was left behind from his powerful lance laser rifle, something that only recently caught your attention as you decided to quickly claim it for yourself and the nearby Samus before anything else could happen.

The Laser Lancer is a continuous fire subweapon that consumes universal ammunition at a rather rapid rate, but is both pinpoint accurate and propagates far faster than many enemies can dodge when aimed well. The rapid heating effect of the laser will burn, cut, and explode its way through most targets, and as a light weapon, the Laser Lancer is also quite effective against light sensitive undead, though less so than true luminal weapons. It is primarily considered a pyronic weapon, and can be charged to temporarily fire a much wider and more powerful Laser Lance known as the Macrolaser. A number of design flaws in the original weapon have been corrected for your usage; eliminating the wind up needed to fire the weapon, the heat build up, and diminishing efficiencies at long range due to diffraction.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, this seems like it should be very useful. I'd need to improve my UA stockpile though to get the best use out of it. Find something to let it penetrate through enemies and cover too...

Arne's Notes: Hrm, so basically a longer ranged shock coil that won't feed back energy into me but can't phase through obstacles as well? Interesting. I'd like to mess around with it a bit at some point.

"She does that. They don't get like, tortured or anything...they just get spooked, it's like summer camp except not fun. So...basically summer camp." Was all nightcaster had to say before the lights began to dim and darken while electricity started to gather in large quantities and all the hairs on the back of your neck began to stand themselves up as the distant sight warned you of an incoming fight.
------CAUTION------

THULE SOCIETY COUNTER-META TEAM

Schwarze Hexarchie



Samus
They came a group of six seemingly on their own, but their menace exceeded that of the army which preceded them, and one need only look at them to tell that six could easily become more if they so desired to fill the field with bodies. At their centre was a fourteen year old girl dressed as a rather stereotypical witch, her scarlet red hair extending well past her shoulders, fierce green eyes full of mischief, left hand clutching a staff that crackled with electricity and was capped with a large emerald grasped in a claw on either end. Long boots and a splendid red coat completed her look along with black gloves, her countenance too young and pretty for the Thule society Swastika armband she wore around both arms or the corrupted Nordic runes she wore as lapels; speaking of the glory of Volk and Vaterland.

"Ta-da! We're all here everyone! You can thank me whenever you like!" She said, seeing all this as just a game and clearly enjoying herself based on the way she was flashing a performer like grin as everyone got into fighting positions.

A monstrous bat like creature was the next to catch your eye, the shape of their leathery wings which stretched for fifteen meters and complemented a body some ten meters tall giving you a brief fright as you found yourself briefly at the site of the pyre of K-2L; waist deep in the dead and smothered in smoke as the malignant purple beast ahead delighted in his savage cruelty. Barbed tail and fingers covered in blood and teeth dirtied with the fruits of a crimson feast. Fight or flight, kill or be killed, to the end to the death.

But the roar of the creature was wrong, they were not the self proclaimed cunning god of death, just an undead monstrosity and you snapped back to reality, realising you had been just standing there as Arne stepped back and clenched his teeth, gasping slightly before you grasped at his hand; the two of you calming down slightly. You were still tense, still afraid, you didn't want to be here, but you had to be. It had to be bested if that power the demon spoke of was to be kept out of the hands of the beasts who held the vampire's leash.

Vampiric fangs emerged from their mouth, their body alternating between walking upon their wings in a quadrepedal stance or stomping along like some kind of predatory dinosaur, quilled tail lashing behind them. They were cunning, but the savagery in their eyes was all animalistic, lacking the true forward-thinking sophontic cunning that made the beast of your nightmares so fearsome. Their ladel like tongue slavering for blood as their rider stepped down.

A monster in the shape of a man, worse than even the creature he was riding on, clad in unholy plate and wielding a sinister sword in one hand and a powerful shield on the other, his eyes burning a sinister red through the openings in his drake winged helmet as a predatory growl emerged from his throat. Dark power congealed around him, spite and disdain radiating from him as he looked at the Demon Lord as perhaps the only worthy challenge in the whole group.

"So you are the group that has caused us so much trouble. It would seem that our hired help was not able to best you then. How very much like them to disappoint us in this way. Nevertheless, you do not face the dregs of the Column or the Gesellschaft, but the wrath of the Thule Society and the Nictus, red and raw. Something not even the Demon Lord you cavort with could hope to stand against." He says with a voice that was deep and menacing yet smooth and pleasant. A seductive, fatherly sort of evil promising power and grandeur if one would but succumb to him and what he offered as his eyes lit up with starker flames.

"You presume a great deal, bloodsucker." Winterpyre snorted as a man in a much more conventional caped and armoured costume stepped forward, your visor informing you that this man shared his body with another. A Nictus Nightspawn, one of the alien benefactors of the Reich that you've heard a bit about so far but were now confronted with the stark reality of. A beast wearing a man as a glove, the shadowy monster within stalking forward, walking around at the edges while a forlorn looking ghost white woman floated nearby him as his burning purple eyes studied you all a little closer.

"How a team such as yours was formed is beyond me. But now that you know of our purpose here, you won't be getting any farther."

"Why do you want to hit Brockton Bay?" You said, walking in pace with him with your arm cannon out.

"Our reasons are not for you to question. Only know that these worlds are to be the site of a war far beyond the imaginings of these single planet dwellers. You can either join the only side that will guarantee humanity's future, or you can perish with the rest." He said with his self-echoing and malevolent voice that sounded like someone whispering into a megaphone.

"Like hell you're hitting the Bay." Assault growled.

"Things are already in motion. Even if this goal is denied to us...there are other things we desire here. And there are things your city is built atop you would never rest well knowing about." The ghost said while the Witch made a "blah blah blah" motion with her hands.

"Look, we're here for a fight aren't we?" She said, a miserable wretch like creature in a gas mask that crawled on too many legs that seemed to explode into stilts at odd angles, hellish wailing and dozens of screams emerging from it in muffled form between rapid fire filtrated breaths; its body periodically melting into the shadows while the eyepieces of its gas mask constantly burned a sinister white. The trench coat and stahlhelm it wore seemed overly well fitting for something so obviously inhuman, its head twisting and cracking at grotesque angles while it screamed in a dozen languages; all as incoherent as each other. The girl seemed to flinch at that, and everyone was clearly giving it considerable berth as the stand off continued.

The Kheldians are an energy symbiont species native to a star in the Sourcewell Metaverse with a natural lifespan of roughly ten years, however, they can indefinitely extend this through the process of melding. The melding process composites the abilities of the Kheldian itself and the host; as well as their personalities and identities into a new individual referred to as the merged. During the period of being merged, the composite will usually take on a new name and have a wide array of powerful abilities including enhanced durability, flight, gravity alteration, energy projection and manipulation, increased reflexes and strength, the ability to self-regenerate through energy expenditure, and even shapeshifting by assuming the form of prior hosts that the Kheldian had. When a Kheldian and a host separate, both resume their prior identities, though they retain memories of the merged personality's actions and will relapse into the merged personality if they ever recombine. Aging after maturity ceases after melding, allowing a merged entity to sustain themselves seemingly indefinitely so long as the host lives.

Kheldians are most vulnerable to quantum fluctuation weapons specifically designed to disrupt their energy form, causing tremendous damage to the energy body of the Kheldian and debilitating injury to the host that requires significant power or preparation to resist and avoid swift defeat by. However, Kheldian mergers are considered some of the most versatile and consistently powerful metahumans in the Primal Earth Dimension and are never to be taken lightly. Kheldians primarily seek out traditionally heroic hosts, preferring the company of the noble and pure-hearted; with mergers typically being called Peacebringers on Primal Earth. The Kheldian government is well known as an intergalactic socialist republic, with no concept of private property amongst Kheldians and mutual aid and common planning of resource use to ensure all have their needs met being hallmarks of the Kheldian Community. Kheldians prefer to resolve matters democratically, but do elect delegates when needed.

The Kheldian Community has been locked in a millions of years long civil war with a fascistic splinter of their society known as the Nictus who modified themselves into beings of darkness and gave themselves the ability to merge without consent and consume life force. The Kheldian-Nictus War has been the focal point of Kheldian society for its duration, even above attacks on both by third parties who seek to utilise their power for their own ends or simply be rid of them.

Samus' Notes: It's a shame we aren't meeting too many of these at the moment though, such an interesting society. I'd love to just have some conversations with them, their experiences would be so different! I'm wondering if any might want to merge with me...it'd be an interesting experience. But I still have so many other things to do and see. Not sure if I could take on another aeon long war on top of everything else. Maybe Arne would be good with a Kheldian? It'd sure help him to deal with Zurvduat's abuse. On the other hand, both of us have a lot of painful memories to share; I wouldn't want to pass that on to anyone else, would it be as hurt as I am when it remembers K-2L? And to be at war for so long...there must be so much pain in so many of their veterans to see that much death.

Arne's Notes: I don't think they'd be too interested in me. It seems like a fascinating culture, but could I really meet their criteria for a good host? I'm still just...trying. I don't think I'm actually there, still so many pieces to put back together. An interview with one would be very interesting though, just the...idea of such a mutable sense of self must result in some really unique perspectives. I feel concerned though, that an entire class of weapons exists just to counter this species' physiology. Is the divide in their own species that serious? But I'm glad that despite the length of their war they seem to have held onto the better parts of their society. But what can we do to put an end to that magnitude of hatred?

The Nictus are an artificial species derived from the Kheldians from the Sourcewell Metaverse. While the ability to meld with another being into a new composite entity remains present in both the Kheldians and the Nictus; the Nictus are differentiated by their modifications to allow themselves to take over a body without consent and to drain energy. The transformations have also transformed them into beings of negative energy and darkness as opposed to the luminous natures of the species they branched off of. Nictus have mirrored versions of Kheldian abilities based on darkness and crushing usage of gravity as opposed to light and repulsion. The Nictus prefer to partner with fascists, viewing their ideology as compatible with the Nictus worldview and philosophy of the Path of the Dark, where all life exists to feed and bolster the strongest and the fittest who are able to enforce their will on the weak. This is mirrored in their own heavily stratified hierarchy.

Nictus also give themselves and their hosts the ability to teleport, and typically a Nictus merging that is done unwillingly sees the Nictus completely take over the host. Nictus hosts retain enhanced abilities but typically have a lesser focus on raw, direct offensive power; relying instead on versatility, debilitation, and rapidly alternating between forms to keep a foe off balance. They are also able to drain many forms of energy, even using it to spawn temporary controllable entities of dark energy from slain opponents. However, they also remain vulnerable to quantum weapons like Kheldians. Some Nictus however, reject the Path of the Dark and instead return to Kheldian values of consent and oppose the Nictus Conclave; becoming Warshades. Whereas Kheldians primarily seek hosts who fit more traditional definitions of heroism, Warshades are more likely to seek out those of a rougher cut in their opposition to evil; but remain committed to defeating tyranny and the Nictus Conclave.

The Nictus define themselves in opposition to the Kheldians and their philosophy and society. The Nictus-Kheldian war is one of the longest and oldest in the Sourcewell metaverse and has seen many planets and civilizations utterly consumed by it in their relentless battle to the annihilation. The Nictus have rebuffed every overture of peace by the Kheldians, their leadership being content with nothing less than total victory, and have gleefully moulded many species towards their own ends to wage their war and build a vast and powerful empire under the Path of Dark.

Samus' Notes: I...feel certain premonitions about the idea of darkness derived creatures possessing things against their will or beings that feed off of life force. None of them good, and everything about these creatures gives me an unpleasant feeling. Such a monstrous set of abilities in the hands of something so evil. I shudder to think of what their plans for this dimension would entail. But I'm going to put a stop to them! Just wait! As for the warshades, it's good to know that evil is a choice for the Nictus rather than anything inherent. I'm glad a lot of them can find redemption, but I don't think either of us would suit a Warshade.

Arne's Notes: I think I would have more in common with a Warshade than a Kheldian. Assuming one would have any interest in merging with someone still trying to pull themselves together...but the thought of a species that specifically modified itself to violate consent makes me feel so gross. To change yourself to violate another being in that way is abominable. And to devour life force of other beings just to sustain your own life is so monstrously selfish. I'm hoping an end can be put to the Empire as a whole. We can probably at least stop whatever they want with these two versions of Earth. That'd be a start.


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Dunkleskind is a monstrous creation of Reich Earth's meddling in Dark Magic and its willingness to disregard any ethics or risks when it comes to the pursuit of power. Born of the stiched together souls of dozens of Children with talent in dark and shadow magic, Dunkleskind was infused into an artificial body that writhes in constant pain; kept loyal by continual psychic assault into its senses by a number of implants distributed throughout its body, infusing it with loyalty to Nazi ideology and hierarchy. The spawn of the Thule Society's works, Dunkleskind turns its pain into rage and an instinctual usage of dark magic patterned off of the talents of Bose Hexe who regards the creature proudly as the fruit of her labour.

Dunkleskind is virtually immune to further pain and as such is extremely difficult to stagger when struck. They are able to melt into the shadows to avoid attacks, teleport into dark places not occupied by objects, or extend shadows for usage as weapons, though this is reliant on their ability to concentrate on the proper targets. They can also mould shadow to form armour and heal themselves, leading to them being more vulnerable when brightly illuminated as this reduces the number of avenues they can attack a foe through. However as shadows grow starker in more intense light, while they can use less darkness under such conditions; the shadow they can use is more intense, allowing them to single out a target to a greater degree.

When slain, the Dunkleskind will leech life energy from nearby enemies to reanimate itself. While insufficient to cause damage, this will stun targets with weaker constitutions. Ensure that no allies are within its line of sight when it dies to prevent it from resurrecting itself to avoid disruption ot the team; and eliminate it before this ability is able to be recharged. Due to the Dunkleskind's savage temperament and animalistic demeanour, it also lacks much in the way of complex strategization and can be easily kited between multiple combatants, lashing out at the last being to injure it due to its relatively primitive decision making abilities. They are classified as a stalker, indicating a preference for melee combat, stealth tactics, some additional durability measures, and the ability to deal greater critical damage on surprised or unwary foes that they can access weak points of.

Samus' Notes: Hopefully it won't be suffering for much longer. I'm sorry for what we have to do now. But I won't be sorry for what I'm going to do to the people who made you this way.

Arne's Notes: I can just feel the pain radiating off of it. I can hear it screaming inside. Existing like this is worse than whatever death we can give it. Maybe it'll find a better existence in its next life.

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Ermendrud Rotkopf von Horstmann is one of the many children of Idonia Jarvia von Horstmann; the human half of the composite known as Bose Hexe; and is regarded as her least favourite due to a number of factors; such as her being the product of a bargain with a Fae Prince captured by idonia in exchange for his freedom and her having scarlet red hair and brilliant green eyes instead of the blonde and blue pairing of all of Idonia's other children. Ermendrud is noted as a poor student of the tenets of national socialism and while a skilled and capable Witch, has never quite earned the approval of her Mother, particularly after her merging with the Nictus Cold Malice. Ermendrud however has strived for excellence in the fields of Electromantic magic in particular; though she dabbles in other fields. Her magical education is prioritised in descending order around battlefield control, attack, summoning, defence, and support. While versatile, she has clear preferences in how she uses her magic and is obviously more skilled in some places than others; and as such is generally considered a Dominator by Primal Earth's classification scheme for metahumans.

While capable of substantial damage output, much of her defence relies on preventing enemies from hitting back through offensive output or locking them down with her spells. And while her battlefield control abilities are potent, many of them either rely on her getting close to do her best work, and to lock down more powerful opponents requires either repeat castings or building up a charge of magic over repeat castings that unlocks a heightened state where her spells are considerably more potent. In this state; she is also virtually impossible to lock down herself and considerably more durable, making her more willing to get in close to do her work before retiring to the backlines and focusing on more isolated or distracted opponents. However, her spellcasting requires focus, stamina, and verbal-somatic gestures to cast properly. Interfering in her ability to preform the proper rites will limit her ability to cast her spells and if she should tire out; her ability to cast spells will diminish. Thus making her reliant on leeching energy from other sources for long fights or support metahumans feeding her with more energy.

In terms of physical strength, reflexes, and durability; she is broadly inferior to you and due to being a child of one of the leaders of the Thule Society; is a high priority for mediportation and will evacuate the battlefield upon taking any injury that draws blood. As a child, she also lacks in a great deal of emotional maturity and due to her extensive inferiority complex; handles taunts poorly. She is also ill-disciplined and rowdy and will often ignore the commands of her superiors to pursue objectives that she feels are more important. According to her mandatory social media profile's compulsory thrice daily posts, she keeps an Affenpinscher known as Donar as her familiar but rarely risks injury to him by bringing him to the battlefield. According to this profile, the Dog's name comes from the loudness of his barks and its tendency to wake her up at night by speaking to other familiars at her academy. He is however "the bestest boy".

Samus' Notes: Despite everything, I think she can be a good person if we just help her get free from her regime. She's too young to die for this kind of fight...but how can I free her without making her an orphan? Is it right to kill her mother to remove her influence over her? I'll need to think about it...something has to be done. Old Bird would know what to do, and I think I know what he would do now. Her family of blood might be terrible, but we can help her find a new one. I'm going to try.

Arne's Notes: A family that doesn't love you back, a home that never offers any comfort. Pushing yourself constantly to try and impress people who don't ever seem to care. Who am I describing? But, if it wasn't too late for me. Maybe it won't be for her? But what can I even say to someone like her? I still don't...know how to feel about my own adoptive family, what good can I be for her?

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A native of Reich Earth and an observer from the Nictus sent to monitor their allies, Dammerungsmann was once Johann Kemmler, a young recruit in the Hitlerjugend before the Nictus known as the Unquiet Dusk; a spawn of the Nictus known as Cold Malice who forms one half of the composite entity known as Bose Hexe took over Johann's body at a young age following the death of their prior host during a pacification operation on a newly conquered world. The Unquiet Dusk, having the opportunity to alter Johann's body from prepubescence, quickly came to dominate Johann and subjugated his personality almost completely. Dammerungsmann is a powerful Nictus Nightspawn, and has all the abilities expected of a potent Nictus-Human merger. Abilities include gravitic manipulation (Alert: User lacks gravity modules, movement may be impeded), dark energy generation and manipulation, super strength, reflexes, and durability, the ability to self heal, usage of darkness to empower self, teleportation of self and others (Alert: Allies lack your immunity to forcible teleportation), and transformation into energy replicas of prior hosts; such as the Black Dwarf form for greater physical strength and resilience or the Dark Nova form for greatly increased firepower and flying capabilities.

Dammerungsmann is resilient against nearly all forms of damage, but has a weakness to Quantum modulation weapons (Alert: Only Arne has this weapon. Share upgrades with Samus immediately to increase number of combatants with viable weapons. This will require some time for the armour to replicate the upgrades and must be timed well), and is somewhat less vulnerable to corrosion and heat based attacks than he is to most other attacks. And while having a large array of ranged attacks, his lack of dedicated melee weapons gives you an advantage in close quarters with the arm-sword due to superior reach. If damaged sufficiently, Dammerungsmann will teleport out of the battlefield rather than fight to the death or mediportation. Forcing a battle without letting him flee will require a dimensional lock device or ability.

Another weakness is that Dammerungsmann's abilities are optimised for dealing with large numbers of opponents, forcing him to deal with one target at a time limits his ability to deal damage. He also has difficulty with maintaining his tempo of attacks due to his significant energy draw; typically relying on allies to give him small and harmless portions of stamina to keep his abilities charged. Removing him from the presence of allies also weakens him as the power he siphons from them is cut off; power usually corresponding to the role that ally serves; durable allies enhance his resilience, high firepower allies enhance his striking power and so on so forth. Separating him from his allies will decrease his ability to cause harm, but this can be difficult due to his ability to teleport. They are classified as a Nightspawn, indicating a highly versatile mix of abilities derived from unreformed Nictus physiology.

Samus' Notes: I hope Arne can pass me that Quantum beam in a hurry. And I'm really wishing we had the gravity boost right about now. I'm also wishing there was something, anything we could do to separate Johann from Dusk. Maybe if I had more data I could figure something out. But would there even be a lot left of him after all this time?

Arne's Notes: To have your entire life stolen from you like this to be someone else's puppet. To grow up without once being in control of your own thoughts and to mature without ever being yourself. Was this going to be my fate under Zurvduat? Could I have ended up like this?

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A heavily degenerated Vampire of exceptional power that has regressed into an animalistic Chiropteran state due to Bose Hexe's magic to punish an unruly subordinate, Todesscheri retains their prior intellect, but their personality has been wholly subsumed into a violent bloodthirsty predatory instinct. While the transformation has dulled much of Todesscheri's former magical capabilities into simple augmentations or instinctual usage of detection spells and other direct aids for finding and dealing with prey without having to think about or make complex incantations. In exchange, their physical prowess has increased tremendously, as has their ability to absorb damage and regenerate it through many unnatural means of defense and contingent bursts of dark magical energy to knit themselves back together. An instinctual ability to push other undead into its service allows Todesscheri to serve something of a command role within the Thule Society despite their degenerated state.

A rather agile flier, Todesscheri is heavily driven by a ravenous desire to consume blood and will overlook heavily armoured or shielded targets to go after softer foes unless forced to engage with them to access easier prey. As an undead being, Todesscheri does not truly feel pain and will ignore most injury until destroyed. Even missing limbs will be rapidly regrown by Todesscheri even without a supply of blood to draw on, and so long as more blood is available, Todesscheri is nearly unkillable without the means to exploit a Vampire's weaknesses or raw firepower to incinerate them all at once. Todesscheri has access to tremendous strength and magically sharpened claws and can release powerful dark magic assisted shrieks that can be shaped for wide area bursts, powerful cones, or cutting beams of sonic pressure and death magic. Their effects can range from shattering to cutting to explosive shockwaves or even stunning attacks, and serve as Todesccheri's primary ranged attack followed by quills released from their tail or cutting shockwaves from their claws.

Light-based weapons, strong displays of faith, silver implements, and being impaled through the chest with wooden implements all serve as weaknesses for the Vampiric monstrosity. They are also remarkably poor at dealing with agile land targets, especially ones that assail their hearing and make their echolocation more difficult to use should line of sight be broken. Certain sonic frequencies do cause it to feel something akin to pain and panic, particularly of frequencies consistent with religious hymns spoken with true devotion. Todesscheri often serves as a mount for the Vampire Blutsspitze when they aren't bringing in other creatures to ride into battle or are not fighting on foot, and Blutspitze serves as Todesscheri's primary handler. Todesscheri will respond violently to attempts to cause harm to Blutspitze unless he directs them elsewhere, and will seek to intercept attacks aimed at him. Todesscheri only seems to fear Bose Hexe, showing a tremendous degree of fear and deference to the Nictus Nightspawn that is seen from virtually no other being without necromantic compulsion. They are classified as a Brute, indicating a focus towards receiving hits for team mates, a great ability to force enemies to focus upon them to the exclusion of other targets, a strong emphasis on melee attack, and some manner of ramp up where the longer and more intense of a fight they are in, the more damage they are able to deal.

Samus' Notes: This thing is suffering constantly, so much hate and...fury. It's so...awful. What kind of monster is Bose Hexe to transform anything into this? The way the wings move and the evil in its eyes make me...uneasy...but I can do this...I have to...I have to kill it. I need to.

Arne's Notes: Mother, Father, keep me from these winged beasts. Preserve me from fear, so I don't succumb in the worst moment. I see the leathery wings of a monster, but you are there...so I shan't fear. I shan't...

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Once Baron Heinrich Werner von Geltmann, Blutspitze was a nobleman of the Holy Roman Empire in the 900s before an encounter with a Vampire transformed him into the ancient monstrosity Blutspitze in 987 A.D. Though eventually banished to Nifelheim by a priestess of Freyja in 1056 during a genocidal expedition to northern Scandinavia to purge pagan hold outs; he managed to survive and thrive. Wandering through other dimensions and preying on the inhabitants he could find, honing his skills until Weltreich sorcerers extracted him to serve a new Reich and leader. Heinrich swore fealty to the Thule Society, the Nazi Party, and the Reich and proudly serves as one of the Thule Society's most well regarded elites and generals. While his magic is almost entirely support and summoning oriented with just a few handfuls of ranged attack options, he is a durable and wily combatant with tremendous skill and monstrously enhanced physicality not merely due to his dark magic and nature as an ancient vampire, but also through his arsenal of enchanted gear. His plate armour, forged in a dark dimension is capable of withstanding sustained super missile fire from yourself and his weapons of choice; his lance and blade, are able to threaten your shielding with a combination of their magic and his raw power. His shield is virtually impervious to your current weapons, and will deflect any attack that strikes it back to the sender with doubled strength while recharging him with dark energy.

The more foes he is surrounded by, the more powerful his attacks become, and his aura of dread makes it difficult for foes to respond rationally when he has their attention, forcing them to engage with him when he approaches them and strikes them. He is also capable of moving extremely quickly, especially when on the charge; and grants his mounts some of his swiftness and vigour; while his shield enhances the defences of all allies close to him; while the more allies he has near himself the greater his defences become. He is virtually impossible to knock over, freeze in place, or otherwise lock down with control abilities and both himself and his equipment regenerate with unnatural speed even without using spells to reinforce his dark magic constitution; especially when he has access to blood to feed his unnatural hunger. Due to his magical equipment, he has enhanced resilience against heat based attacks and electricity and the ability to outright teleport short distances as well as enhanced resilience to magic. Due to being gifted with a Nictus shard by Bose Hexe, he also has some measure of Nictus powers such as Dark Energy projection and life drain; but he also has a weakness to Quantum Modulation weapons in exchange.

He retains most of the typical weaknesses of Vampires, and his arrogant demeanour and unbearable pride will lead him to rising to any challenge thrown his way. While close combat with him is suboptimal, he will easily tunnel vision on a single opponent; especially if they can provide him with a worthy fight. Both himself and his armour are weak to light based weapons and due to the nature of his banishing curse, he is particularly vulnerable to displays of faith and attacks made with sincerely made prayers before them. He is also specifically barred from striking lethal blows or inflicting long term injuries on children and cannot order anyone under his authority to do the same due to Freyja's curse. Violating this curse injures him as if he were in sunlight and should he ever slay a child by his hand or direct order, he would be destroyed. He may however, fight to render a child unable to keep fighting so long as it is done without maiming, or he may fight to destroy equipment. He is classified as an Overlord, indicating a spread of abilities split between Melee, Defence, Support, and Summoning capabilities with a particular emphasis on leading their forces from the front.

Addendum: Thaumatological analysis indicates that Heinrich is not necessarily the same variety of vampire as the others, showing similar deviations from Sourcewell Metaverse norms as much of the Necromancy utilised by the Thule Society.

Samus' Notes: If he can't fight to kill me, then I should try to exploit that. I can't let him get near the adults or he's going to slaughter them. Spirits and Gods of the Elders, watch over me as I put this leech back in the ground.

Arne's Notes: There are many things I imagined doing after turning fourteen. I'm...not entirely sure that fighting a vampire lord was on that list. But he's got plenty of exploitable weaknesses at least. I figure he's the actual leader of this team; so if I can just split him off from his group.

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Once the Noblewoman Maria von Tirpitz in life; Maria dabbled extensively in dark magics in an attempt to save her county from the ravages of the thirty years war until she was burned to death for witchcraft at the command of a Protestant Witchslayer who then had the entirety of the town she was attempting to protect razed. The barbarity of her punishment for her efforts to save her people and the cruelty of the punishment visited upon those people trapped her in the world without any hope of passing on into the afterlife due to her rage against Heaven that would allow such a thing to happen in its name. Now the Wailing Queen, Maria would start to manifest in her old haunt when her murderer visited the field again at the helm of another mercenary army to ready to fight the Spanish. The outrage of her resting place being defiled by the same man made her manifest in ethereal rage and slaughter the man and scatter his army to the winds. And to this day, she still cannot bear to suffer the presence of Huguenots and while repelled by the symbols of most faiths to some degree depending on the faith of the user; Protestant religious symbols only serve to enrage and empower her.


Maria was then bound into the service of the Thule Society by Bose Hexe, who forced the Wailing Queen into the service of the Third Reich with her incantations. Though Maria resents her servitude, she is unable to resist the commands of one of the high mistresses of the Thule Society and as such now kills at the behest of the Weltreich's Nazi regime. She longs to free herself, but has little means of retaliating against the Thule society. And so she suffers her service in relative silence. Ironic given her name. Though she has been known to vent her rage against some German protestants now and then, the leash that the Thule society keeps upon her is tight enough to prevent her from causing any long term issues.

Her magics have only grown stronger and deadlier in undeath, and her ethereal body is difficult to harm while slipping past many forms of mundane protection; and while somewhat fragile to attacks that can connect with her, hitting her in the first place is difficult. Most dangerous however, is her banshee wail which can not only cause great damage but can also cause the weaker minded or willed to simply die outright upon hearing it; though your progenitor physiology, armour, and the magic of Nightcaster, Eudaimonica, Doctor Black, and Winterpyre will block it out. She is also a mediocre melee combatant against those who can both close with her and actually touch her body. She is classified as a Corruptor, indicating that her abilities are focused on ranged damage and support with relatively weak defences, little focus on summoning or control, and that she explicitly excels at taking down weakened opponents.

Samus' Notes: I feel so sorry for her, nobody deserves to go through what she's been through. I can only hope I can speed her way to the hereafter.

Arne's Notes: It's not often I feel pity for nobility, but I can't think of many other things to feel about her.

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SITUATION

You are joined by temporary party members Gold Render and Sidewinder.

You are met with a BOSS fight in the form of a six villain squad.

The Weltreich wishes to access not simply the alien artifacts here but the INCARNATE SHARDS within the vault.

The makers of the facility do not seem to understand most of what they collect, doing so primarily at the behest of a MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR.

The Weltreich has plans on BROCKTON BAY to be launched at an unspecified point in time later.

This is the PRIMARY VILLAIN GOAL

All villains seem to be connected to BOSE HEXE

Most villains will RETREAT if sufficiently injured.

You can use NONLETHAL WEAPONS in the form of your paralyzed pistol if desired.

Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):

[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in

Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )

[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in

Priority (Which enemy needs to have the most focus put on them this round, rate from 1 to 6)

[]: Dunkleskind (Most damaging in melee)
[]: Hexenhammer (Crowd control, summons, and damage)
[]: Dammerungsmann (Extremely versatile and can fill nearly any role in a pinch, will constantly mix up forms and tactics, has a preference towards ranged attacks though)
[]: Todesscheri (Primary Tank, very hard to put down, very big and distracting, can cause a lot of hurt if it closes the distance)
[]: Blutspitze (Broad skilled anti-paladin type character; tanky and able to fill a bunch of roles)
[]: Wehklagende Konigin (Significant damage and supporting abilities)
[voteresult]617675[/voteresult]
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X] Lupercal

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Theme:


Arne
"So uh...this is going to be new...you've got a plan right? Please tell me you've got a plan." Assault said, chuckling slightly nervously as the stand off continued for a moment more; Hexenhammer summoning a massive creature of electricity and storm clouds that seemed to blow its way into being, forming into tighter and higher and ever more humanoid clouds before its dark and stormy body congealed into the shape of a genie like figure without a distinct face save for a pair of eyes that crackled like lightning. A sight followed by smaller, human-sized vaguely humanoid clumps of living red and white electricity pooling beneath her and giggling like giddy children; just excited to be alive and have a chance to fight you.

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A Storm Elemental Lord summoned from subdimensions attached to the greater multiverse of the Sourcewell, Der Donnerer has served Hexenhammer faithfully throughout the tenure of his service to her, using his awesome powers of lightning and all the elements within a storm itself to lay waste to almost anything he touches. As his form is primarily held together by magic, he has a degree of solidity despite being primarily composed of electricity, water, air, and dust. His affinity for Hexenhammer extends largely to the girl alone, and he has little fondness for Hexenhammer's mother, something that he does not go out of his way to inform her about to avoid the wrath of the Witch Queen of Thule. The Storm Elemental Lord is resistant to most elemental weapons and particularly to electricity, the extremes of temperature, or sonic vibrations; all of which they can freely utilise as weapons even without weapons.

However the Storm Elemental Lord is vulnerable to being drained of energy through methods such as the grapple voltage, the shock coil, and while resistant to conventional cold; anti-energy bypasses his conventional resistances by converting the energy that comprises his body into icy matter. He can however, draw exposed electricity from various sources to charge himself up further, and warm water or especially water vapour will feed him with extra power and regenerate the injuries his body has suffered. Freeze water before it can reach him to prevent this from occurring. Strong magnetic fields will also cause him some disruption depending on the intensity of the field. Donnerer is also vulnerable to being grounded into objects should his control over the shape of his body be sufficiently disrupted by damage.

Donnerer has little real loyalty to the Volkische ideology of the Thule Society or the Weltreich, and is primarily concerned for the safety of Hexenhammer, and as such will divert attention from accomplishing mission objectives towards protecting his summoner from harm. Distracting him is a matter of threatening his charge through any means, even non-lethal weapons or weapons he is vulnerable to. In addition, if Ermendrud is knocked out or otherwise incapacitated, he will no longer be able to maintain his form in this plane of reality and will be forced to return to his native subdimension.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, as long as Winterpyre keeps them busy we shouldn't have that much issue with him. But I feel kind of bad for having to fight someone mostly motivated by loyalty to his charge.

Arne's Notes: Fight well, brave guardian. Know that at least one person appreciates your valour.

Gremlins are a form of animated electricity that often serve electrokines or electromancers as pets, cannon fodder, or may spontaneously form from particularly unusual electric conditions. Electro-Gremlins are of course, resistant to electricity though not immune, and prefer to attack in close combat with electrically charged swipes and punches that hit as though they were solid. They can of course attack at a distance as well. Gremlins are most vulnerable to anti-energy or magnetic weapons or any sort of attack that disrupts their animus.

Samus' Notes: Aww, they're kind of cute for what they are honestly! I'd love to maybe...keep one?

Arne's Notes: Living electricity huh? Should be an interesting challenge to deal with. Wonder if I could summon some myself some day.

You weren't keen on having to hurt Hexenhammer seriously. She wasn't any older than you, and you felt empathy for her struggles with her parents and her lack of self-esteem. You conjured up your twin paralyzed pistols with a thought and a flash of blue light and quickly attached them to a shoulder mount as your armour readjusted itself to fit the temporary add-on, quickly forming a turreted armature over your left shoulder and giving your HUD a quick readout. You'd be able to detach it whenever necessary, but right now you needed both arms; your sizzling purple sword in your left hand shifting into a hilt grip from your wrist as you got into a combat stance.

"Samus, you've got that new adaptation module right?" You said over private comms between your armoursuits as you felt the air crackle with energy in a manner that you were rather doubtful most of your teammates could even perceive. Magic. A power in your blood but yet unmastered by you, almost taunting you with how you understood it but could not yet grasp at it in any but the most crude of manners. Father...Zurvduat believed you weren't ready for it, that it was something you should only try when you were a man. Was he right? No...you had seen plenty of people your age playing with it...he couldn't be.

"Yeah, I'll take their attention. Don't worry. The rest of you; advance. Durables out front. Focus on the screaming...thing first, witch second. Ghost next if you can hit her." She said, looking back at the group as they made ready.

"Ah, what of the scary man with the sword?" Serp said with a nervous chuckle.

"Haaah no do not take that guy on. More of us surround him; the stronger he gets. He can also take hits for days. Trust me, I know an Overlord type when I see one." Nightcaster said with a chuckle. "That shield? It'll bounce anything that hits it right back to you. Just stay out of his reach. Doc Black will try to keep him busy." He continued, the Shadowman looking down towards Nightcaster and raising one of his eerily luminescent eyes.

"You certainly have a lot of confidence in my ability to hold down a blender like that kid."

"Come on, you're an ancient spirit of darkness, we believe in you! Besides, Caustos can help right?" Eudaimonica said, looking to the Avatar of Flame which made a pyronic series of hisses and cracks that your suit translated into...words that made you blush beneath your helmet.

"Heeeey language!" She said before Heinrich pointed his sword forward and let loose a howling hunting roar followed by a rapid fire series of commands to "Advance! Lay the cretins low!" He demanded as his necrotic magics flared to life and swirled beneath his feet to conjure a troop of armoured wights bearing sinister magical weapons and a terrible hatred in their flame filled eye sockets, dark magic binding to them and strengthening them beyond their natural limits as he charged forward.

Thinking fast, you fired off an ice missile at his feet, freezing the floor in slick ice and sending him careening off to the side as he snarled with hateful spite towards you, your eye turning to where you last heard the screams of the Dunkleskind; dodging around a series of lightning cages thrown forward by Hexenhammer. Realising that the Dunkleskind was behind you, you turned and dodged one of its raking rapier limbs, the beast appearing from the shadows with its insane howling ringing in your ears.

The creature's misery was a powerful aura, demanding you to take pity on it and spare it retaliation. That it did not know what it was doing even as your blade parried two more of its arm sweeps before it chittered and disappeared once again; invisible both to your superhuman eyes and the thermal visor. But you were well aware of what this was; a placation effect trying to get you to lower your guard. Something that simply did not take effect on you through your progenitor defences, and you trusted your senses to direct you to jump behind Winterpyre as he slammed into Donnerer with enough force to create a shockwave across the room; giving you distance as Dunkleskind appeared to stab at where you just were.

You charged up and fired off a beam, hitting the monster in the chest and making it screech with outrage as the charged star-prism beam bounced outwards, pinging between many of Hexenhammer's summoned electric gremlins and the undead of Blutspitze; ending with ramming into Todesscheri's back with enough force to send it out of its dive towards Battery, letting her clock the monster in the face while you redirected your attention to the dark one; cannon spitting hot death towards the agile beast.

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Seeing it disappear once again, your attention shifted towards Hexenhammer as she sought to get close to you, her staff crackling with lightning while she charged energy into it, a mystic electric field providing her body with added strength, speed, and durability as she made a relatively inexperienced swing.

"Hold still boy!" She said as her lightning charged staff whizzed over your head, your thrusters pushing you back and the paralyzers firing off a twin bolt of charged shots into her, making her choke a bit on her breath as she came to a sudden halt.

A gremlin caught onto you, sending jolts into your suit as it transited through a wire and leaped onto you while you were in the process of relieving Eudaimonica and Nightcaster from having to deal with the wailing queen's howls, sending the spectre away in a hurry.

Arne Energy Count: 08(96)

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You grabbed at the gremlin and crushed its electric mass with your hand, your blade shifting back into a wrist position as the Dunkleskind leaped forwards to jab two of its darkness shrouded arms into your back.

It hurt to say the least, A jolt of pain from your suit to warn you not to take hits like that again. You felt like someone had actually driven a knife into you and twisted, a grunt of pain coming out from you as you staggered forward. An Assassin's strike while you were distracted and a particularly unpleasant critical blow at that. That blow would have outright killed nearly anyone you've seen on this planet so far, and the beast seemed somewhat surprised to see you still standing.

Arne Energy Count 07(33)

This time you turned around, catching the Dunkleskind off guard with your superior reflexes and reaction time. A blade into its chest that made it howl before you fired your beam right into its proboscis; fully charged and then followed by a charged super missile to send it flying across the arena. You were lazy and complacent, you let yourself get set up for a powerful blow, you wouldn't let it happen again.

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Arne Super Missile Count: 31/34

"...Scheisse you're still standing after that boy?" Hexenhamer said, clearly having thrown off her stunning as she clutched her staff.

"How do you know I'm a boy?" You asked, she seemed uncertain, maybe you could strike a bit of an accord?

"Your voice Siggy." She said with a wink that you did your best to ignore. "It sounds so nice and smooth." She giggled before you; realizing she was distracting you, jumped out of the way of the massive arms of Dammerungsman rampaging towards you in Black Dwarf form.

"Assault!" You shouted as he threw off a wight and ducked beneath the five meter tall hulking form of the Nictus and grabbed at his leg.

"Yoink!" Assault shouted, redirecting the Nictus' knetic energy to send him careening into Dunkleskind just as they got back up; swearing all the way while the two smashed through about a dozen walls before the Dunkleskind howled as energy flowed back into it and a number of panicked security guards fired off futilely at it.

DUNKLESKIND HEALTH: EMPTIED

DUNKLESKIND: REVIVED

"What in Primus' name..." You heard a distant voice grumble, deep and heavy before the Dunkleskind was smashed right back into the arena through the holes it had made, smashing into a wall and then wriggling back into place as bones snapped into their proper form with sickening crunches and the Nictus teleported back into the fray, clearly angry.

DUNKLESKIND SECOND HEALTH: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

The quantum beam was selected, striking Dammerungsmann dead on with a cloud like globule of subatomic darkness, vibrating with deadly oscillations and then slamming into him with a subsonic reverberation. The Nictus clutched at their head and screamed in two voices as the modulator pulled at the bond between symbiont and host. You felt briefly bad for using it, the agony of the symbiont crashing into your psychic senses like a wave, but the shifting Nictus' transformation into Dark Nova form and a dark beam that struck you while you laid down supporting fire on Todesccheri brought you out of that stupor, sizzling energy pushing you to the extremities of the room.

DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||

TODESSCHERI HEALTH: |||||||||||||||||

Arne Energy Count: 07(01)

"You would dare strike me with such a weapon? Have you any idea who I am tinman? The power I can wield to destroy you and the shell you wear?!" He snarled with a degree of hatred you could just about smell. Rotten and bitter, just like the speaker themselves were.

"I've read your file. You aren't that strong, especially in this form." You said as you started to rapid fire the Quantum beam into him, getting more howled outrage from him as the beam began to eat into his conjoined form; the tendrils of the Nova body writhing and undulating while a sound like nails on chalk ground their way into your ears just before your last bolt was deflected by a magical screen set up by the Wailing Queen, who'd clearly been a bit worse for wear from fighting Samus.

"Cease your screeching already Nictus." Maria growled before Samus leaped behind her and stabbed her sword into her back and made her jitter and shake; her form briefly being disrupted as she let out a howl of her own.

WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||

DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||

Samus Energy Count: 07(94)

Samus Missile Count: 150/175

"Thanks." You said while looking to where most of the team had gone, busily trying to knock out Todesscheri as fast as possible as the horrid bat Monster was regenerating even after having a wing screwed off by Gold Render's touch. A swing was made and Render flew off to the side, Molotok trying her best to hold it back while Serp emptied yet another series of rounds into them.

"Running a little low on ammo here!" He shouted before a fresh wing tore itself free from Todesscheri's body in a display that made assault pale.

You rushed in, taking in some buff spells from Eudaimonica as she passed them onto you, your body wreathed with flames and your already fiery projectiles lashing out with more power; consuming Todesscheri's midsection as it was flung back; a burning crater in their chest as they howled.

Battery, wreathed in the same fiery energy; jumped out and tackled Todesscheri, trying to hold the beast steady and burn it into the ground before the monster let out its death keen and forced everyone without hearing protection to cover their ears; Gold Render outright dropping to the ground and screaming as she bled from her ears.

TODESSCHERI HEALTH: ||||||||||||||||


Samus
You moved into the heart of the fray, letting your new Laser Lance stab into the mass of wights and hack them down with a crimson pole of light, twirling as you shifted out of Dunkleskind's ability to see; letting Nightcaster's darkness hide you away while it growled in outrage, skittering into the distance.

Samus Universal Ammo Count: 230/240

Hexenhammer banished the Darkness with a spell of her own, pointing towards you and enveloping the area around you with crackling lightning. You had been working overtime with making sure all attention was on you as often as you could, and Hexenhammer's ability to lock down people; such as Molotok who was busily flailing on the ground after being caught in a cage of lightning or the frozen form of nightcaster; paralysed by a lightning bolt; was testament to that.

"So is the boy in blue your boyfriend? Such similar suits...hrm, I wonder who made them?" She said, thinking out loud as she pitched ball lightning packing enough juice to meet this world's energy needs for a human lifetime; a devastating sphere of lightning whose electric arcs sought to ground themselves into any nearby target. Your constant jumping from one place to the next prevented the lightning from connecting to you, bolts streaming into the ether as you outpaced and outturned them while she grunted with annoyance.

"Oh come on! Hold still you silly girl!" She shouted as she cast forth a bolt of neural disrupting electricity, once again seeing you dodge even after she had sent forth the spell to her amazement.

"Blutspitze she won't hold still!" Hexenhammer snarled as the Vampire carved his way through a mess of demons like a blender; the legions of shadows, shadebeasts, fire elementals, and demons tossed at the Vampiric Lord going down with seemingly no progress in stopping him as he and his undead hacked their way towards Doctor Black and Caustos.

Tendrils of black tried to grab at the Overlord while he turned his hateful gaze towards you and were quickly severed while you jumped to the side, let your blade extend and hacked into Todesscheri's neck; forcing them to let go of battery before they could sink their teeth into them and landing in front of the Wailing Queen to absorb the brunt of a death shriek. It hurt, you could feel the necrotic energy crashing against your shielding and attempting to worm its way towards your inviolable soul, but you had adapted to it by now and met her in the face with a charged spazer beam to send her back.

WEHKLAGENDE KONIGIN HEALTH: |||||||||||||||

"Useless." The Vampiric Overlord snarled as he split a Demonic Brute in twain with a sweep of his sword, hellfire tainted blood seeping into the Vampire and seeming to invigorate him as he moved with unnatural speed to close towards you.

He swung out at you, your own sword moving to intercept and parry him, the two of you testing supernatural strength against strength.

You stepped forward, and pushed him back to his surprise, his arm giving way and the snap of a bone warning him that something was amiss as he grabbed at his arm.

"What manner of girl are you?" He howled as black magic reknit his arm before you spun into a flip and kicked him hard enough to send him crashing into the Hexenhammer who let out a loud protest.

"GET OFF ME YOU HEAVY BASTARD!" She growled as she flailed and the Vampire Lord stood himself up, cracking his neck and batting Assault aside like a softball when he tried to sneak up behind him.

BLUTSPITZE HEALTH: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

"Hey, what part of don't take on a vampire like that in CQC did you not get?" Doctor Black said as he threw forth a mass of black tar at the Vampire's feet; inky shadows dragging him to a crawl as he strained against the slowing effect of the magic while Nightcaster threw forth a dark Orb that engulfed the Vampire for some time.

"Haaahhh...that's not gonna...hold him..." He said, panting before Dammerungskind teleported behind him and grabbed him by the throat.

"I wonder, does your mediporter work?" He said before he grabbed at one of Joseph's hands and began to squeeze until he heard bones snapping, a gasp of pain coming from the boy.

"Nightcaster!" You shouted, rushing forward into a speed boosted tackle that slammed into the Nictus with enough force to throw him off his feet before he transformed into his crustaceoid black dwarf form and dug his feet into the ground. In his black dwarf form he was hugely resistant to damage, enough to survive even the speed booster which had torn through everything in its way so far. The buzzsaw energies that could easily carve through mountains met his dark nimbus as you expended the charge into a burst to force him to let go before you punched him in the face. Taking the speedbooster for that long clearly hurt, even with the Black Dwarf's armour; made for life on the Pulsars that served as the home of the species this form was born on combined with the dark aura of the Nictus; but he was more than ready to fight.

DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: |||||||||||

A fortress would have shattered at that punch, yet the Black Dwarf stood and simply spat ichor to the side before throwing his hands into the ground hard enough to create an eruption of black energies, catching you off guard and knocking you up for him to grab by the legs and then slam into the ground before stomping down on your back and trying to grab at an arm in an attempt to break it, finding resistance as you started to overpower his arm and pull it back into place despite his pulsar shaped strength.

Samus Energy Count: 06(74)

It hurt, as did the punch into your back, followed by another and another, and the immense weight of his body behind it just added to the sensation of every impact. This was a form meant to stand up at this height in the immense surface gravity of a degenerate matter star, the strength he had was phenomenal even if he was hardly fast.

Samus Energy Count: 06(34)

Molotok had moved into its next punch as he charged black energy into it and threw it down, taking his hand and grunting as she felt the energy flow into her, standing atop you and gritting her teeth while the Nictus seemed rather surprised.

"You ever see Kung Fu panda?" She said with a chuckle as she lowered a pinky.

"Skadoosh." The force of the accumulated nova punches that he had been throwing to build up to his finisher launched back into the Nictus and sent him off of his feet; flying up and then landing directly atop the Dunkleskind as it prepared to leap at Arne. The immense weight of the Nictus' dwarf form crashed atop the dark monster with a thunderclap, smashing it through the floor...and then several further floors down.

"Hahaha! Kid that was great." Assault said with a laugh before patting her on the back.

"That's also not how the scene goes." He smiled.

DUNKLESKIND: | | | | |

DUNKLESKIND WITHDRAWS

DAMMERUNGSMANN HEALTH: | | | | | | |

DAMMERUNGSMANN WITHDRAWS

The sounds of someone screaming brought your attention elsewhere though, as Serp was being lifted into the air in the claws of Todesscheri while Arne was trying to zap the Wailing Queen into submission, Sidewinder doing her best to hold back Blutspitze as the Vampire tore off a limb and stabbed her through the gut; her body working overtime to recover the lost mass and adapt to his raw power.

With Eudaimonica caught in a magical duel with Hexenhammer that she seemed to be losing, the latter's electricity pushing back her hellfire, you leaped into the fray. "Gold Render, grab them!" You shouted at Gold Render as she was trying to hold back a tide of skeletons; yanking at her with your grapple beam and roping her directly into the path of Todesscheri as she let out a yelp of surprise.

Todesscheri was trying to get Serp into their mouth to sink their massive vampiric fangs into the boy, only to find Gold Render flying into their mouth. The creature let out a sudden series of hacking sounds of alarm before she burst out of their chest, Serp falling back down to the ground while Todesscheri fell back to the Earth, writhing and screaming with a fresh injury.

TODESSCHERI HEALTH: | | | | | | |

"Arne, we need to paralyse Hexenhammer, hurry!" You shouted as Hexenhammer's staff began glowing and the Witch's spells started to overpower both Nightcaster and Eudaimonica's combined.

"Augggh stupid...artifact level staffs...fucking...cheating ass...rich girl bullshit!" Nightcaster grunted as his own staff strained beneath the lightning of the teenaged witch.

"Sorry, I'll try to make sure they don't hurt you." She said with sincerity before Arne and yourself struck her with four paralyctic bolts that got her to grimace, look quite shocked, and lock completely up mid-air with a red flash around her before the magical backlash struck her and sent her out of the battlefield.

HEXENHAMMER HEALTH: | | | | | | |

HEXENHAMMER WITHDRAWS

"Wow...thanks...I...ow..." Eudaimonica said with a pant as Battery seemed to be having the time of her life, joining with Winterpyre by tackling Donnerer and trying to sap at the electricity coursing through the storm lord's body.

"Useless incompetents! Can you not best a smattering of children!?" Blutspitze howled with rage as he started to draw energy into his sword, red and black tendrils of dark magic flowing into his blade as he summoned a steed for himself to ride on; a vampiric nightmare clad in foul and evil looking barding, bat like wings stretched from the destrier's wings and blade shod hooves kicking into the air while his hand reached out to grab a new lance. The mount did not remain long in the world however, as he twisted his hand and made the horse begin to melt before it flowed into Todesscheri; barding and new strength invigorating the monster vampire as a third set of limbs tore its way from the chest, bladed arms like a mantis stabbing into the ground and its head elongating like a horse's skull.

With the Wailing Queen remaining and joining Blutspitze as he jumped on top of the head of the now far more monstrous bat, necrotic magic leaped forth and stabbed into the fallen undead across the room, twitching the viable back into unlife while the nonviable had their energy torn out and fed into Blutspitze in a surge of unholy energies while he let out a monstrous roar. You steeled yourself, looking back behind you.

"Is everyone able to keep fighting?" You asked, Nightcaster nursing his only recently healed arm with a grunt and nodding while Arne shifted position once more.

Arne Energy Count: 07(93)

Arne Universal Ammo Count: 220/240

"Fuck he's a two phaser." Eudaimonica said, making you squint a bit.

"Come on, don't lose courage now. We can take him down! Just, have faith." You said, trying to be encouraging.

"I will not have my prize denied by you simpletons." He growled as the newly mutated Todesscheri stalked forwards with a horrific growl.

An augmented form of Todesscheri joined by Bludspitze and the Wailing Queen with some abilities mimicked from leftover energy from the rest of Bludspitze's unit, Hollenmord fights with many of the strengths and few of the weaknesses of its compatriots while being assisted by Bludspitze and the Wailing Queen. Bludspitze's arsenal has also been added to with a cavalry lance able to project his magic in an offensive manner, adding to their overall ranged capabilities. Hollenmord demonstrates significant electromantic capabilities, the umbrokinetics of a nictus shard, and Dunkleskind's stealth abilities. Their regenerative abilities and physicality have also been augmented, as has their resilience thanks to the barding they are now fitted with. Hollenmord however, retains traditional vampiric weaknesses and the magical binding between their riders and itself will mean that damage taken by one of the trio riding upon it will be shared between all. Multi-shot, area of effect, or bouncing weapons will thus have greater damage.

Samus' Notes: Alright, that's what he was saving in reserve then. We just need to keep pushing at him and I think we'll get him out of the way for at least a little while. Let's do this. Last thing in our way.

Arne's Notes: Okay, so he's the last obstacle here then? I think we can overload his focus by coming at him from all sides, he can't cast spells in all directions at once.


SITUATION:

Dunkleskind, Dammerungsmann, and Hexenhammer have withdrawn.

Todesscheri, the Wailing Queen, and Heinrich have consolidated into HOLLENMORD.

Undead minions are gathering for final fight.

Hollenmord Health: ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):

[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in

Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )

[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in


Write in Suggestions:

[]: Write in any extra thing you want the team or characters to do such as finding wooden stakes for Todesscheri, holy symbols, praying, contacting outside help, or the like. You may pick up to three write ins.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.

[x]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.


Theme


HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 100%

Samus

"Keep at a distance, they're hurting." You said, clutching your arm cannon and steeling yourself, sucking in a breath as you charged up another super missile barrage. Five super missiles, all charged. The explosive force to shave mountain ranges down to size.

"I will protect them with my life." Winterpyre said with a hiss, steam curling forward from his nostrils as he conjured orange flame in one hand, cool blue frost in another, and noxious hellflame at the tip of his tail.

"Hey, don't worry, I'll keep them patched up." Doctor Black said, tipping his hat.

"I've seen these kids bring back the dead, I'm confident." Assault said as Doc Black attended to Nightcaster's arm as he grunted with a dull ache as the shadow magic was used to set and knit the bones back into place. Soothing sensations emanated from the Shadow Doctor as he recharged your shielding and, after sensing how your ammo worked; managed to refill that too; leeching energy from the undead to feed his spell. It took a bit out of him, and he seemed slightly less distinct afterwards, passing a bit into the background while Nightcaster gave him a thumbs up.

"Try not to die too often, resurrecting people isn't exactly easy." He said.

"Okay, I've got all ammo back to full. Let's do this." Serp said, locking in his HEAT grenades into his launcher before you had an idea, grabbing one of the ubermensch particle rifles and tossing it to Serp who fumbled briefly before grabbing onto it and accidentally pulling the trigger at Hollenmord, starting the fight as a powerful crimson packet of ions streamed down range; striking Hollenmord hard enough to briefly stagger them before they released a death shriek.

Caustos exploded into position, their fiery form writhing with arcane energies to absorb the killing sonic waves of the Banshee and the Vampire Bat before spitting it back in the form of a gout of fire as hot as a star and as wide as Caustos' truck sized body.

"Weak magics for a weak foe!" Heinrich snarled, twisting threads of foul magic and then binding them into a barrier made of blood coloured energies. Seeing your chance as Arne's shock coil erupted into the side of the beast, you took aim and fired, your missiles exploding out of your cannon in a rapid-fire set of contrails and burst shrieks. The vampire deflected one back to you, which thanks to the shroud of darkness you had been given by Nightcaster, passed by without harm, disappearing into the comforting embrace of shadow and never so much as detonating.

Samus Super Missile Count: 19/34

The explosion walloped across the room, Hollenmord letting out a pained shriek before the Demon Prince spat forth tongues of hellfire that clung to and crackled at the Undead's frame, hellish faces writing themselves into the air and cackling as the Vampire bat lurched forwards and brought the Vampire riding atop it in lance range of the Demon Lord, jabbing his cursed spear into the Demon's Shoulder and getting an unnatural and unearthly wail of anguish from the Demon Lord as cursed magics sucked away at its vitality.

"Winter!" Eudaimonica shouted, lashing her hellflame whip at Hollenmord's eye before they could start siphoning blood from the Demon Lord after sinking their teeth into his neck, pushing through many room shaking punches by the Demon and the earthquaking bite of Jackie Noir to their left leg. Hollenmord fell back, howling while a missile fired from a launcher grabbed by Serp was bounced back via Heinrich's shield, Caustos' body shifting to absorb the impact. The Bat's attempt at blasting the Demon with its shriek though, just gave Arne a chance to feed a charged shot into its maw paired with a quick burst of fifty standard missiles from you; the individual sounds of your missiles leaving your cannon not even being audible to many of your team mates.

Hollenmord Health: 93%

Samus Missile Count: 125/175

You ducked beneath the sweeping crimson ray fired forth from Heinrich's lance, charging and releasing your beam into a spread shot cascade of electric spheres that curved around and homed in on the mass of Hollenmord, striking its wing as it started to beat its wings and toss a barrage of quills in the direction of the team; prompting Sidewinder to move up and take the impacts, her body now covered in a hardened armadillo like carapace. She grunted as she was pushed slightly back, but Serp's retaliatory particle rifle fire got Hollenmord to hiss in displeasure as they took to the skies; augmented blasts making Hollenmord's armour glow in threatening colours.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 90%

Irina, Assault, Battery, and Gold Render moved ahead to keep the less close combat oriented members of the team from harm; diving into the mass of undead with flaming shields surrounding them and comforting darkness shrouding them. Enervating hexes duelled with empowering augments, and the dead hacked at the four with unliving vigour; shadows, fire elementals, and demons joining the melee with similar vigour. Another lance from the Vampire cut through the lines of the summoned minions, tearing apart demons, elementals and shadows while Hollenmord shrieked at the energy being thrown back in its way, augmenting magic latching onto the hurled bolts of energy to sizzle at its armoured hide.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 85%

You took the brunt of the Wailing Queen's howl as she turned her head towards you, the banshee's wail fraying at your shielding and pushing you back with the sound of death itself ringing in your ears.

Samus Energy Count: 08(72)

"Eudaimonica, augment!" You shouted as she nodded and made a gesture with her wand, sending out a wave of fiery magics that engulfed you and your allies; your armour reading out a substantial firepower increase just as Nightcaster managed to snag Hollenmord with a Tar Patch spell; dragging the monster bat to the ground as roping tendrils of ichor tugged at it, weakening their shared defences. You gritted your teeth and pushed through Hollenmord's death shriek aimed directly at you, just about avoiding another one of Heinrich's lance blasts and ignoring the sword impact of the Wights that managed to catch you while you cut through their ranks, not really paying the effort of dodging around the unnaturally fast revenants that much mind.

Samus Energy Count: 07(78)

Hollenmord opened their mouth again, only to meet five charged pyro-super missiles to the head.

The dead surrounding Hollenmord were reduced to stains on the ground, the explosion harmlessly passed by those deemed friends by the sorceries of Chozo mysticism, and you flinched briefly at the higher than expected power output of the missiles the three unliving combatants were thrown across the room.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 63%

Samus Super Missile Count: 4/34

Hollenmord's body shook without a head, a charred stump where its maw used to be and Maria's form seemed slightly more ephemeral than usual. Heinrich though, howled in frustration and called forth more magics, knitting Hollenmord's head back together with an expenditure of the mystic winds he was drawing on, infusing that same unnatural vigour into his mount who began to charge towards you fast enough to catch you off guard as you were busy trying to get Nightcaster out of the way of the Wailing Queen's barrage of death bolt spells. You slammed into the wall behind you and then went through, Eudaimonica's defensive augments bolstering your ability to take the blow but still not preventing you from being pushed off your feet.

Samus Energy Count: 07(53)


Arne

Arne Universal Ammo Count: 193/240

Arne Energy Count: 08(23)

You activated the berserker pack for the first time as Samus used her blink pack to move out of the way of Heinrich's rapid fire lance stabbing; charging forward and letting loose a charged super missile at their back. You knew that Heinrich would deflect it back at you, but under the Berserker Booster's power you didn't even break your stride when it impacted you; the detonation washing over you without effort as the Wailing Queen tried to bypass your durability to lash out at your soul; attempting to tear it from your body.

Arne Energy Count: 08(01)

The threads of magic dug into you, and found no purchase, the progenitor spirit within burning away her tendrils and sending feedback to her that made her wither slightly more while you charged forwards, grabbed Hollenmord by their tail and swung them overhead and into the ground before they could respond.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 60%

Your Shock coil erupted with greater power than before, fed by the Berserker Booster to be a torrent of guided neutrinos as wide as you were tall that ripped into Hollenmord's torso as their flesh began to regenerate. Your shielding recovered to full in no time, and one of Hollenmord's wings began to burn off before Heinrich's lance extended to smash you in the shoulder while you weaved your way around Maria's death bolts; a disintegrating demon below you testifying to their power.

Arne Energy Count: 08(97)

Arne Universal Ammo Count: 190/240

With the Berserker Booster though, you grabbed at Heinrich's lance and shoved it aside while he fired off his lance, turning it towards his minions and tearing them apart while Samus rolled into her Morph Ball, clung to them in spider-ball form and dropped a rapid fire series of bombs augmented by the magics of the demons and Eudaimonica; each erupting detonation gouging into Hollenmord and opening up a hole for Serp to exploit with the Gatling cannon he had just picked up.

Hypersonic railgun spikes tore into Hollenmord, the horrid monster dragging itself to a halt and throwing a quill that struck Serp in the shoulder and ran his arm through with a shout of pain; quickly getting Doctor Black's attention. You didn't slow down though, looking at Gold Render.

"Need me to touch him again?" She asked before you nodded and grabbed her with the grapple beam, yanking her into Hollenmord's path and twisting apart their tail with her warp-touch, diving back out of the way and letting her spacewarp field deflect the incoming sweep of a scythe arm from the monster only for the Wailing Queen to turn her focus towards her. Jackie Black's timely intervention; dragging her into a shadow realm and then back out into the material world; saved her from taking the full brunt of the death shriek; leaving you free to barrage the hellbeast with one super missile after the other.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 52%

Sensing an opportunity, the two of you stabbed into the creature with your laser cutters, your new subweapons quickly augmented by another casting of forging to bolster the damage output and Nightcaster's twilight spell drawing more defense and vitality from Hollenmord to reinvigorate yourself and Samus.

But a sonic shell of twisted magic enveloped Hollenmord, absorbing much of the laser impact while the Wailing Queen gritted her teeth upon the bat. You sighed in annoyance, trying to figure out how to bypass this new barrier. You had to keep the momentum going, Hollenmord could regenerate quickly and any time not spent hammering its healing powers was time that Hollenmord would have to recover.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 50%

Maria von Tirpitz's sonomancy barrier will reduce the effectiveness of most attacks made against Hollenmord, however the effect can be dispelled. Your magic casting team mates can disrupt the barrier, as can your armoursuit or blade in close proximity. Charged beam weapons will also weaken the barrier due to the techno-sorcerery of progenitor devices.

"Can any of you hit that barrier with some counterspell?" You asked, looking towards Winterpyre as he sucked the dark magic out of a pack of vampires threatening the team, guarding them with all the attention he could muster before turning towards you and nodding.

"Come, join me in seance." He cackled as he made his incantations; hellrunes writing themselves into the air.

"Yes, I do mean you two. You need to exercise that potential in your blood at some point!" He said, looking at you and Samus as you looked at the threads of magic being woven and reached towards them in your minds eye, your fingers making a few gestures while you and Samus danced around a flurry of deathbolts and blood lance strikes from Hollenmord; ducking beneath a wing sweep so fast that the shockwave it created could cut a dozen fire elementals in half and dig meters into the wall. Weapons fire kept on striking Hollenmord, irrespective of the barrier while you reached in and worked on instinct, letting your distant sight guide you.

It was clusmy, hardly as skilled as you'd like, but it was a start and you looked to Samus briefly for confirmation that you were ready to throw the spell at Hollenmord.

"Ready." She said, a smile forming beneath her helmet as Eudaimonica whipped the magic forwards.

"Come on team let's make that bat scream!" She said with the energy of a cheerleader, a sinewave of magic smashing into Hollenmord's defensive barrier and shattering the magic involved. You felt your heart soaring, you'd managed to do something that Zurvduat had always insisted you were years away from even attempting, and while it was crude, it was exhilarating, the arcane power at your finger tips, the sensation of the cosmos acknowledging you in such a way. You exhaled and smiled beneath your helm, pummeling the foe with the beam fire you were now free to make full use of, the whole team hammering into Hollenmord with the enhancements you had been given by the augment magic; making Hollenmord wail and shriek with every impact.

Hollenmord Health: 33%

Hollenmord dropped to a leg, allowing Winterpyre to wrap the foe in a vortex of cold, ice starting to form around the Undead trio before Maria channeled the energy into her staff.

"Cold on the dead? I would have thought a demon lord smarter than that." She said before she cast the cold into Sidewinder, freezing her over almost completely while making Caustos' flaming form flicker and wail in anguish; Doctor Black working overtime to throw up a shield of darkness to stop Hollenmord's death shriek from shattering Sidewinder immediately afterwards. Hollenmord's form glowed red, blood seeming to arc like electricity from its injuries as it started to thrash with fury and outrage, hate glowing in its eyes.

Situation:

SIDEWINDER: Incapacitated

SERP: Injured (Being healed)

NIGHTCASTER: Tired

CAUSTOS: Seriously Damaged

DOCTOR BLACK: Preoccupied with healing.

WINTERPYRE: Regenerating

SUMMONED ALLIES: Half-strength.

EUDAIMONICA: Summoning more.

All other team mates: Uninjured

HOLLENMORD is ENRAGED and will fight harder


Tactics (Specify whether Samus or Arne can take them. Both can take the same action, which provides a bonus due to their strong cooperative bonds. The exception is lead, which only one character can do):

[]: Mobile assault. Using a combination of the speedbooster, melee attacks, space jump, and alt-mode, rapidly clear out chaff that can't respond to your speed, make heavy usage of melee attacks as well as short ranged combat as well; prioritise support enemies and keeping other foes focused on you.
[]: Ranged assault. Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.
[]: Tanking: Distract the enemies and engage them in the open, forcing them to divert attention to you due to your intimidating presence and thus keep allies from harm's way; split between close and long ranged attacks as opportunities arise. Will take more damage though, though it advances leadership somewhat.
[]: Support: Remain in a flexible position, support allies in their actions as situations arise and let them take the initiative; especially useful if you want Winterpyre to take the role of primary tank. Keeps allies safe and yourself reasonably out of harm's way. This helps build bonds with current team mates but does not advance leadership.
[]: Be tricky: Find alternative routes to outflank the enemy so you can surprise and pincer them between yourself and your friends, allowing them to be quickly swept aside. This keeps you the farthest away from your allies and minimises support benefits.
[]: Lead: Take a commanding position where you make use of your leadership skills to be a flexible anchor for the rest of the team, whereas tanking is mostly about absorbing hits and supporting is about keeping people's heads above the water and assault is about damage; leading is about guiding allies to their optimal usage. This helps build bonds with current team mates and advances leadership. This is the most flexible Action.
[]: Write in

Team Tactics (Battery, Molotok, Assault are versatile melee combatants who are capable of slipping by unnoticed. Nightcaster is excellent support, good crowd control and good ranged damage and good summons. Eudaimonica is good support, great crowd control, and good ranged damage with massive summons. Serp is an all rounder who can be committed to support, crowd control, ranged or melee damage, or even tanking without too much fuss. Summons from Nightcaster and Eudaimonica will respond according to their priorities. Doctor Black is great at summoning, crowd control, and support but has relatively lacklustre damage and due to being summoned by Nightcaster; if Nightcaster is incapacitated he will vanish. Winterpyre is enormously powerful at nearly everything but has much of his power bound for a number of reasons and is bound to Eudaimonica. Caustos is the best tank in the group and causes great melee damage and great ranged damage but is largely incapable of subtlety and is also bound to Eudaimonica. Sidewinder is a highly adaptable tank. )

[]: Advance by Fire: The team will move its tankier combatants forward to help take hits and tie up the enemy in close range combat while ranged combatants and support offer assistance, suppressing enemies, dropping down crowd control, and passing out buffs/debuffs.
[]: Sneak: Thanks to Nightcaster's stealth magic, the team can be snuck into position to surprise the enemy with a sudden attack, though this limits other avenues of support that Nightcaster can give.
[]: Anvil: The team will be the anvil to Arne and Samus' hammer, letting the two do the most damage while keeping the enemy from escaping or properly reacting to them; this puts them at more risk though.
[]: Hammer: The team will take the role of being the primary damage dealers while Samus and Arne occupy the most attention. This puts them at less risk but means they have to be the ones who must be entrusted with the bulk of damage dealing.
[]: Steamroll: The whole team advances forward as one or as close to it as possible to seek to overwhelm the enemy with the most powerful possible advance. This has the highest risk but the highest damage to the enemy and if the steamroll is successful enough, the damage it does is risk mitigation in and of itself.
[]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offence.
[]: Write in


Write in Suggestions:

[]: Write in any extra thing you want the team or characters to do such as finding wooden stakes for Todesscheri, holy symbols, praying, contacting outside help, or the like. You may pick up to three write ins.
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
[X]: Ranged assault. (Samus and Arne) Use your superior firepower to gun down high priority targets such as spellcasters before they can act, shooting down enemies as they pop up and suppressing them; preventing them from having free movement towards allies.

[X]: Bastion: The least risky and most defensive tactic, the team works primarily to guard each other and prevent people from getting hurt as best they can. Low risk but low offense.

[X] If anyone's religious start praying. Focus on good and righteous things. Certainly couldn't hurt.

Arne


HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 33%

"If you believe in anything, pray to it." You said, holding your cannon and muttering a few words to your Gods, your parents, and your guardians; finishing with a request for the watcher of the dead to forever keep you in her care. Samus had made her own requests to ancient Chozo spirits and ancestor-gods, and both Eudaimonica and Nightcaster made benediction to a number of spirits whose names you didn't recognise. The Vampire recoiled, hissing with seeming pain as the lights in the room seemed to get a little brighter.

"Hey, he's a vampire right?" Assault asked.

"Yes!" Samus responded enthusiastically, seemingly enjoying this way too much as she just about bounced from step to step.

"What's the biggest piece of wood in this place?" He said, realisation flashing before your eyes as you pointed to a broken column.

"If we can impale that through Todesscheri we should be able to end this." You said as you rushed into action, a spray of multiple charged beam shots emerging from your cannon, dancing between the hordes of ghosts that streamed to you, moving too quickly for them to even touch you as you tried to clear a way towards the wood while Heinrich snarled and conjured a blood red mist of death and hurled it forward like a wind; the energy of raw destruction having a considerable tell as it moved towards you with supersonic speeds.

"Clever boy, but cleverness will not be enough to save you. I will have those shards, and I will see you and all your allies as my bloodkin." He howled as Maria let loose a simple sigh and pushed the deathwind closer to you as you dodged around; demons touched by it being rent apart and dissipated into oblivion as the death wind homed in on you like it had a personal vendetta against you. Missile fire from your cannon raked against Hollenmord's wings, tearing holes in them, but as you kept on trying to avoid the wind of death, you noticed that the spell was losing energy far too slowly for you to practically wind it down.

Arne Missile Count: 95/170

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 25%

It would only dissipate upon contact with you, and until then it posed a risk to your team mates.

To Samus' alarm, you threw yourself into the magic, her shout at your direction being barely audible as the necromantic magic tried to tear at your body, armour, and soul. You endured without harm to your flesh, but you could feel your pulse pounding. Your soul was inviolate, safe both with its progenitor blood and your armour, and your shielding stood up to the foul energies as whispering and howling of death and despair surrounded you. You kept to your feet, and pushed through, continuing to fire at the Vampire as he reflected a charged shot back at you, crashing into you and throwing you out of the dissipated cloud.

The dull ache that pervaded you cleared as you picked yourself up, shaking your head as the fog of the magic vanished.

Arne Energy Count: 05(34)

That hurt for sure, but you weren't properly guarded by the augment magic, and Samus' sigh of relief when it seemed that you were okay made you feel better about yourself while you stood back up.

Winterpyre, shifting some of the invisible chains around their enormous power to let loose with just a bit more of it; conjured forth the powers of abyssal cold and the corrosive potency of hellfire to further shield the team with cryonic and infernal magics that mingled with the shadows and fire of your other allies. The magic tingled slightly as it wrapped around you and you allowed it to seep into you, grabbing at the energy and letting it sink into you; allowing you to enjoy a substantially higher chance to deflect incoming attacks and a sudden infusion of unnatural speed and regeneration interfering enervation while you activated the Berserker Boost; letting the energy surge through you like what you imagined stimulants would have felt like if you weren't so insistent on going completely straight edge.

Hollenmord, with the assistance of the magic of Maria and Heinrich was rapidly patching themselves up; ruined flesh pulling itself into one piece as they let out their hellish howl once again, taking to the skies with a single beat of their wings and spiralling as they swept the ground with their deathshriek, cascades of dark magic infused sound pulverising into the ground with force to rock the earth.

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 50%

"Keep close and keep them off." You said, looking to Eudaimonica as she directed her demons and fire elementals with the professionalism of a dedicated commander. You smiled a bit at her as she gave you a thumbs up and brought forth her wand, twirling it like a baton and using her cheerleader skills to push the team forward as she threw a wave of magic into the team to reinvigorate them as fast as she could.

"Come on! Hit 'em hard and mop the floor with 'em all over the yard!" She cheered, calling forth her demons and letting them throw a cascade of mystic firepower at Hollenmord's direction, her hellfire whip extending and cracking into Heinrich's face as he prepared yet another spell to augment his creature.

"You really are a wretched little brat aren't you?" Heinrich glowered before you took the opportunity to let the shock coil explode out of your cannon in a storm of neutrinos and the electric pulsation of the shredded atoms following the stream with an eruption of blue-white lightning while Samus let loose with the Laser-Cutter; a red ray stabbing into Hollenmord and stabbing into the bat beast's chest.

"Aaaaaaarghh!" Heinrich snarled as he tried to move his shield into the path of the shock coil, your will moving the stream around his barrier to still stab into his face while Hollenmord stumbled backwards.

"Hey, Gold Render, you up for a teleport?" Eudaimonica asked as Samus grabbed onto Hollenmord with her grapple beam, twisting her body to avoid its raking claws and sweeping the cutting laser downwards, Hollenmord's quills shrieking through the air and glancing off of Assault while he rushed towards a missile launcher left behind by one of the Ubermensch, grunting a bit before hitting the monster in its face with a rocket that made it snarl and stop its flight.

"I uh...sure." She said before a rune flew over her to her surprised yelping, engulfing her and then spitting her out on top of Hollenmord where Heinrich was there to quickly slash his sword at her. She was pushed back by her spacewarp field, but knew she couldn't hope to match the Vampire at this range, and ducked down to grab hollenmord's back and start tearing at his spine. Undying tissue came apart, twisting with an awful noise as she pulled at the directions of its cells, horrific sprays of ichor meeting her before another rune was cast to pull her out just as Maria caught her in a death howl.

You flinched at that sensation, briefly stopping your shock coil as you switched to super missiles. You could feel Gold Render's spirit frayed and body harrowed by the experience as she dropped to the ground, vomiting out blood profusely and shaking as she seemed to have aged a decade in a second while Doctor Black tended to her; holding back the unliving hordes that reached her with black shadows and undoing the curse to the best of his ability.

Arne Universal Ammo Count: 140/240

Arne Energy Count: 08(99)

Samus Universal Ammo Count: 140/240

You took a blood beam and a full power banshee wail and about a dozen hypersonic quills to the face that sent you head over heels and smashing into the wall behind you, groaning a bit before you picked yourself out of the indentation you had made a few dozen rooms behind you, finding yourself face to face with a Vampir whom you quickly impaled through the chest with a nearby piece of wood, not looking at them as you ran back into the fray with your speedbooster.

Arne Energy Count 07(22)

HOLLENMORD HEALTH: 15%

Samus​

Your heart briefly quailed inside of you at seeing Arne take more hits and Gold Render seemed drained and scarcely able to carry on fighting. Molotok was backing herself into a corner with a group of fire elementals, panting as their heat made her sweat profusely while she was surrounded by ghouls. The team formed a circle around its wounded, Serp's sickle slashing around while Molotok's hammer crashed into the skull of another pair of whites, splintering them while Battery panted and tried to recover her energy after expending it, Winterpyre's hellfire breath scouring the unliving who had the gall to touch it.

But you had almost won, Assault had finished shaping a sharpened point out of the wooden column, using his kinetic energy manipulation to let the axe he stole from a fallen wight do the word of hours in seconds. He just needed a bit more time. And you'd give him that, firing away at Hollenmord's chestpiece with pyromissiles to open up its chestplate and alternating with spazer beam fire at Maria to disrupt her spellcasting whenever possible; using your thrusters to manoeuvre around Hollenmord's flailing.

Making a twist of your body, you flung Hollenmord back onto the ground, arresting its flight and emptying your remaining super missiles into the creature; which staggered backwards with each powerful blow as you made a prayer with each one, asking a different spirit to bless each warhead and tearing increasingly jagged holes into the creature's chest as it vomited out blood and scurried away from you on ragged, damaged wings.

"I fear not the darkness, for I am light's warrior; I stand in the light of Zotek-Xa and I smite the evil of the unliving denied their rest." You said as you charged and fired off the last super missile, exposing Hollenmord's unbeating heart and sending splinters of bone outwards while the beast tried to spread its wings and fly away.

"What sort of warrior are you, girl?!" Heinrich said, alarm in his voice as you dodged around his blood lance and yanked the weapon out of his hand with your grapple beam, roping him towards you off of his footing as you jumped ahead; your arm-sword emerging and clashing against his broadblade briefly atop of Hollenmord's head. You traded sword blows at incredible speed, strikes going between you too fast for the observers to follow until you got in an opening and severed his shield arm at the elbow; the Vampire letting out a howl of outrage as the blade dug into armour weakened by hell-magics before you teleported out of the way of his next swing and shoved him into the path of Maria's banshee wail, getting the Vampire to vomit out blood and his teeth until you shot the Banshee in her face and teleported out once again.

"Heiress of the Chozo. And now, protector of this world. I'm giving you one chance to leave." You said as you shot Hollenmord through the neck with a pair of fully charged shots, tearing open ragged holes in its ruined flesh and creating panic in the beast as it sought to fly away right before you teleported off.

Arne crashed into it hard enough to completely tear off a wing; a red comet of speedboosted energy and his shinespark form arresting its glow as he brought himself to a halt and Winterpyre let forth scalding hellfire on its other wing; Eudaimonica and Nightcaster chanting to bring forth chains of hellfire and darkness around hollenmord.

You and Arne fired off your grapple beams, the Brute's desperate desire to continue its unlife and the magic that the two spellcasters upon it were dumping into it giving it incredible strength. But it could not escape and it fell to a knee as Heinrich realised which way the wind was blowing. Fear clenched at the old vampire's still heart, and his eyes widened with alarm as Assault got onto Jackie Noir with his massive stake in hand. If Hollenmord were to perish; in his bound state; so would he. Good, let the coward run.

"Minions, guard my escape!" Heinrich shouted as he disintegrated into a swarm of bats; the remaining undead hurling themselves at you with all they had, crashing into the demons, elementals and shadows with a wild frenzy in an effort to cover their master's escape while Maria tried to hold you back, only to receive a barrage of beam fire into her ghostly form that made her already transluscent body start to flicker in and out of existence.

"Assault! Come on! Finish him!" You shouted, firing off the grapple voltage to sap energy from Hollenmord and counteract their regeneration; Serp, Molotok, Render, and a newly recovered Battery and Sidewinder focusing on clearing a path for the bounding umbral wolf even as Caustos wreathed their fiery body around Hollenmord to continue burning its flesh; the fire elemental lord whispering prayers of hatred for the unliving as it flowed into the vampire's eyes and mouth.

"God, please let this work." Assault said as the wolf rushed forwards into the Vampire bat and he shoved the stake into its still heart with all the force he could muster, breaking its skin and pushing into its still damaged back. All at once, Hollenmord began to jerk around like a puppet in the hands of a possessed man, shrieking, flailing and howling as its body began to steam. Its regenerating wings stopped dregrowing, and the evil force in its body began to leave like air seeping out of a balloon. With a final jerking motion, it tried to snap its jaws at you and then once more, it was a corpse, greedily drained blood flowing out of it in a foul smelling pool.

The undead, abandoned by their masters, began to crumble once more. Bones clattered to the ground, followed by weapons and armour, Serp's attempt to sword fight a plate armoured Wight who had his black armoured hands around his throat coming to an end when the Wight Knight fell behind him, Molotok's wrestling with dozens of ghouls ending as the ghouls felt a sudden panic and abandoned her, fleeing and hissing before you shot at them to end their miserable existences; dust flowing from their corpses as your prizes were left standing in the open in the wake of the battle; Maria shrieking as her incorporeal body unravelled into tendrils of ectoplasmic smoke, leaving behind some prizes in her wake.

"...Holy shit we did it." Battery said, panting and wiping off her sweat encrusted brow as she threw off a massive monstrosity made out of the bones of hundreds of corpses before it could crumble into a pile of remains, sidestepping away from a loose jaw that rattled towards her with a grimace on her face.

Even better, it seemed that the signals your suit were picking up were indicating that the fighting really was over.

Ubermensch: What does יור mean? I can't read Jew-Script.
Vampir: Does it matter, kill them!
Wolfpack Mk II: High concentrations of lethal pathogenic gas detected, recommend non-NBC combatants evacuate battlezone.
Wight: Death to the psychics!
Warwolf: Loud Howling sounds
Necromancer: At least they seem to have as much trouble going through the machine infested areas as we do.
Ubermensch: Tch, or the freaks below, an utterly miserable collection of mutated monstrosities.
Obersturmbannfuhrer: The Pyroclast teams should have purged most of the degenerates, have yourselves screened and detoxed afterwards, exposure to such mutation must be met with assurances of purity. Especially after the psychics' mutation gas.
Gruppenfuhrer: You are all hereby ordered to withdraw. We have our secondary objectives.
Necromancer: But what of Heinrich?
Gruppenfuhrer: Let Bose Hexe deal with him for his failures.

Captain Wolfgang: How many of us are left?
Sparkstart: We're at 25% strength at this point.
Captain Wolfgang: Fantastic, where are the reinforcements the boss promised us?
Razorblade: Fuck knows, between the psychics throwing around the wildest shit I've seen, the magic undead nazis, the...things downstairs or the people eating machines you assholes let loose by poking around where you shouldn't have I'd wager the reinforcements probably all got killed off.
Captain Wolfgang: Team in one of the tunnels say they got an assist from some parahumans and giant robots.
Razorblade: Great more corpses. Or more monsters spat out by whatever the fuck it is they've got up their sleeves.
Sparkstart: Hey, the boss pays great.
Razorblade: ONE IN FOUR OF US IS STILL ALIVE! I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE FUCKING MONEY AT THIS POINT!
Kickflip: Hey they're pulling out.
Captain Wolfgang: Are you serious?
Kickflip: Yeah they're in full retreat. Did we win?

Unknown #1: Ramiel team has the objective in hand. Begin exfiltration now.
Unknown #2: Glory be, let us be done with this accursed place. Return to the portal.
Unknown #3: Provide us with cover, my kin.
Unknown #2: Psychic Communications only from here on out. The psychic static from the monsters has diminished with their destruction.
Unknown #1: The Disciple will see us through.
Unknown All: Hail to the great one.

HOLLENMORD DEFEATED

You had won, and you had just the right idea for how to handle it.

You grabbed each and every one of your friends that you could, Arne included; into a fierce hug and jumped a bit with them in hand.

"WE DID IT! OH SPIRITS AND GODS YOU'RE ALL STILL HERE! OOOHHH YOU MADE ME WORRY SO MUCH! AHHH PLEASE DON'T GET HURT LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN FRIENDS! HOW COULD YOU BE SO BRAVE WITH SUCH POOR ARMOUR?! AAAAAAAAAH" You squealed in rapid succession as a choke informed you that some were not quite happy to be hugged by someone who won an arm wrestling contest with a being who could stand upright on a neutron star.

"Oh Please...don't wanna...die being hugged...after all this...please...restrain yourself..." Viktor gurgled before you let him go and he flopped onto his back with a metallic thud, giving you a thumbs up as he hit the ground.

"Good to see such...enthusiasm comrade...I will...call a chiropractor..." He said breathlessly as you and Arne shared another armlock and headbutt gesture that lingered for a moment; your visors going transparent for you to stare into each other's eyes before you pushed a finger onto where his nose would be.

"Arne...don't make me worry like that about you. We've talked about this before." You said as he looked a bit guiltily and nodded.

"It was just the best way to keep anyone important from getting hurt." He said before you shook your head.

"You are important too. Not just to me either." You said as you brushed a hand against the side of his helmet, his own hand resting atop yours and nodding as you gave him leave to separate. "Check on them, okay?" You said as you looked at the lock of the door ahead of you, letting your scan visor get to work at unlocking it. The code was sophisticated by this planet's standards, but hardly beyond your ability to force open. You set it to an open position, and looked behind you at what the foe had left behind.

"Anyone need any assistance?" Arne asked, Doc Black assuring him that everyone would be in fighting shape.

You tapped Arne on the shoulder and directed his attention to the menagerie of upgrades left behind, and he smirked beneath his helmet shortly afterwards. With a nod, the two of you went out to fetch them together.

The items split in two and passed themselves into each other's suits; gathered from the defeated enemies and the prizes they left behind. Heinrich's lance and shield, Todesscheri's body and the armour peeled from its Hollenmord form, and Maria's remaining sonerous screech and her ectoplasm were all pulled into your armoursuits in a flash as you were carried aloft. Brilliant light flickered around your forms as you curled into a ball and then flicked your arms outwards to complete the transformation, all eyes on you with interest and fascination. Winterpyre perhaps most of all, the ancient Demon having the best understanding of what was happening as sorcery, psionics, and science came together to make for a miracle.

Your armour had changed; as did Arne's. It had taken on a ghost green and bedsheet white colour scheme with trimmings of deathly purple and highlights of spectral blue, your visor shifting to a blue colour while your pauldrons had shifted into a more rounded shape, two glowing pools of light in it almost suggestive of eye sockets with glowing orbs within. The armour was a bit more slender now as well, and the limb plating had faint traces of ribbing going across them, as did the chestplate. Your helm changed slightly, with two prongs emerging downwards to the sides of your mouthpiece slightly suggestive of fangs while small hints of wings emerged from the sides of your helm, like a ghostly valkyrie come to collect the dead; completed by the sift of two wings emerging from your armour's back with spectral blue energy membranes that stretched out before curling back into yourself and disappearing as you hit the ground.

Arne's armour changed as well, his suit a combination of indigo and black, with witchfire green trimmings and menacing blood red highlights that made his armour suggestive of an altogether more malevolent sort of spirit than yours did. The blood red highlights of the wings taken from Hollenmord giving him the suggestion of a demon, and the crest of his helmet moved somewhat formward to suggest either a crown or a set of horns depending on how one looked at it. The ribbing on his limb armour was more pronounced, as were the small fangs on the bottom of his helm. His pauldrons had changed into articulated pieces shaped like extended and distorted versions of his helmet, with glowing "eye"pieces at their centre while the frame of the suit had become a bit more slender. He looked at his armour and projected a shield from his left hand, and a scarlet energy blade from the barrel of his cannon.

You however, checked out a rather familiar beam now made accessible to you once more, firing off a burst of sonerous energy that accompanied the electric and light energy of your current beam stack; leaping outwards and passing through a wall with a reverberating jackhammer noise; your armour noting the rapid recovery of your lost shield energy. During the upgrade process, you had also taken the time to "handshake" with Arne, passing on to him a copy of the upgrades you had just as he had to you; and your suit noted the acquisition of the Star Beam, Prism Beam, Quantum Beam, Shock Coil, Lightning Sphere, and Berserker Booster just as his noted the acquisition of the Adaptation Module, the Blink Pack, the Seeker Missile, and the Electro-Wave and Spazer beams.

Not quite what you had in the battle with Trace, Sketch, Kanden, and Weavel or the engagement with the Moon Hunter and Sun Stalker, but definitely a very formidable arsenal all things told.

Allows your shielding, armour integrity, and body to recover over time without external input, even regrowing components or limbs. While vulnerable to alpha strikes, the regenerator can consume missiles or power bombs to accelerate its regeneration rate; and it will also steadily recover ammunition and power reserve supplies as well. The more enemies surround you, the faster this upgrade will work. Unlike most upgrades, it does not require your armour or zero suit to function. Acquire more regenerators to bolster regeneration further.

Samus' Notes: Not exactly a glamorous upgrade, but definitely a necessary and useful one.

Arne's Notes: Well, should be useful for taking hits at least.

Augment Beam

The Seismic Beam is a sonic weapon that releases a hyper-pressurised air burst of air in front of it, generating it from the armour's zero point systems and then having it trailed by a powerful vibrational frequency. The more that the beam hits a target, the more it will resonate with the target, increasing the damage with each following hit until the target is destroyed or until the resonance stops. The beam will also traverse through multiple targets and can ignore many forms of cover. Its charged form is known as the Seismoquake and causes the afflicted target to resonate violently, echoing outwards and damaging all nearby enemies.

Samus' Notes: Ah, finally; something to penetrate through multiple enemies. I just need to be careful with missed shots.

Arne's Notes: Thanks to the pressurised air wave, it will work in vacuums. Fortunate since its such a handy beam.

The Ghost Suit is similar to the N'Kren Phantom Suit, albeit less potent. Derived from Maria's phasing capabilities, the Ghost Suit allows for the user to go intangible and phase through incoming objects and weapons or through many forms of obstacles. It also allows for the user to fully interact with intangible objects as if they were solid; augmenting the user's progenitor blood and armour ability to prevent intangible objects from phasing through them. The Ghost Suit also augments defences and user physicality, and allows for the user to enter areas charged with ectoplasm without risk or harm. Unlike the Phantom suit however, the Ghost Suit does not add living metal construction nor does it augment stealth capabilities and it does not ward against dimensional instability. When phased, the user can better track phasing objects, but a visor upgrade is still recommended for best effect.

Samus' Notes: Ah; here's something that should come in very handy! I already loved the Phantom Suit so even an inferior substitute should be very useful!

Arne's Notes: I like the aesthetics of the Phantom Suit better honestly, but this will do.


The Shield projector adds a module to the joints of the arm able to create a reflective barrier that may be used against both melee and ranged attacks. The barrier has a limited diameter, but careful angling can reflect incoming ranged attacks towards their senders. The energy and dimensional field is also able to be utilised as a deadly weapon in melee and can even be detached and thrown, upon which it will gradually dissipate over time but will damage all targets it impacts. A new barrier can be projected immediately afterwards. If the user desires, a physical shield can be extended instead, but only one at a time.

Samus' Notes: Ah, that's to be expected from Heinrich's weapons to be honest. Definitely going to be very handy! Especially now that I've got a good look for it in mind.

Arne's Notes: Feels a bit retrograde as always, but I suppose there's a reason why these kinds of shields have been in use for as long as we've had tools.

The Bayonet Projector allows the arm cannon to fire either a coherent energy blade or extend a physical energy sheathed blade from either beneath or above. The blade, like the Arm-Sword; is upgraded by beam weapons and a certain number of melee blade specific upgrades. The primary effect of this is to double the avenues of bladed melee attack the user can make in combat.

Addendum: With Heinrich's blood lance, the projector can also extend out to a distance roughly three times longer than the user is tall as a spear, which can also be projected from the free hand. Note that doing so will disable its usage from the cannon hand.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, I do need to practice pole-arm fighting more, but I feel like this would work best if I had something to ride atop.

Arne's Notes: Ah, I was wondering how long it'd be until we met again my old friend.


The Flight Pack is derived from Hollenmord's dark magic augmentations to its wings, properly purified before integration and adds a deployable set of wings to the armour suit that can be used for flight, combat, providing cover, or aesthetics. When not needed, the wings are consumed into the armour's zero-point form, whenever they would interfere in user mobility, and at full length have a wingspan equivalent to twice the user's height. The energy membranes of the wings will also serve as an additional layer of defense as well as weapons; as can the outermost fingers of the wings. Flight speed will be equivalent to five times land movement speed, and the speedbooster is able to apply to flight mode. The Flight Pack will also be able to operate in airless conditions; but a liquid movement module will be required for full function in high drag environments such as water.

Samus' Notes: Ahhh! Do I deserve to fly with wings like Old Chozo Warriors did? I guess..I must be if this is what the suit got from Hollenmord. I'll make sure I'm worthy of this gift.

Arne's Notes: Hrm, the bat stylings look a bit threatening...maybe I could modify them into something less scary?


Energy Tank Acquired (Energy Total now 09(99)

Missile expansions acquired (Missile total now 200/200)

Super missile expansion acquired (Missile total now 40/40)

Universal Ammo Acquired (UA total now 280/280)

Shield Resilience upgrade acquired (Damage reduction now at 90%)

Charge accelerator acquired (Charge speed now at x4)

This was quite the significant haul from a single battle to be sure, and there was still the shard and the two remaining statues to acquire. So overall this had been a good day. But on the other hand, this was a menagerie of alien artifacts and a major invasion focal point. You were unsure of whether other places would be so generous with their bounty. But with everything in hand, you turned ahead and looked down the hall.

"Hrm, we seem to have the run of the facility now. Shall we take the time to examine what is left to us?" Winterpyre offered. It was a tempting offer to be sure...

"Well...as long as we're not going into combat again any time soon because...oww..." Assault said, shaking his hands and rubbing them, a cursory glance telling you his knuckles were bruised and bleeding as he wiped more sweat off of his brow.

"Yeah I...ah...you don't suppose they've got something to drink here? I am...running on like...zero hydration." Nightcaster said, inhaling and exhaling rapidly.

"Da...the tank is...empty as you say." Molotok wheezed out, kicking a skull aside.

Author's Notes:

While this is a very generous haul, this was a large and complex battle (and a learning experience), and generally most missions won't be quite this generous. This is also the early game where your team is very dependent on you to do a lot of the work or fight a lot of weirder opponents. So you're kind of crutch characters. Consider this a crutch for your player characters to better carry the team until they can start to catch up later.

Suit wise; Arne and Samus' abilities will largely be broadly similar with the exception of some particular upgrade affinities, where they'll diverge is in more spiritual and esoteric abilities once you start unlocking them.


Actions: (Sort in order of priority to finish. The mission is complete and no further combat encounters will be had. Voting period will be shorter due to the next post coming out sooner.)

[]: Collect all pick-ups (The Incarnate Fragments in the Vault, the remaining Chozo and Alimbic artifacts etc)
[]: Check where that team of eight metas went (if they are metas)
[]: Check on survivors and allies (Autobots, remaining security staff, team mates.)
[]: Check the haunted path.
[]: Investigate any leftover clues regarding the Weltreich assault or the other parties involved.
[]: Investigate nature of the facility itself
[]: Write in (You may have up to two.)
 

Princet Valiant

Nonbinary Judeo-Bolshevik
Pronouns
Fae/Faer
Okay going to do a sort of ranked voting for this.

1 and 6 are unanimously:

1 Check on allies

6 Check the Haunted path

Ultralickus, Coffeelatte, Lupercal, Baron, Premise, Steel, and Patrick put pick-up collection second.

3 is split fairly evenly between investigating everything the Weltreich wanted out of this place and finding out who was the other metahuman team, but jwolfe put this at 2, which I'll count as a vote for 3. Putting it at 5 votes to the Weltreich's four.

4 will have investigate the Weltreich's votes filtered into it.

5 will be looking at the facility itself.

6 will be looking at that path where people got demeated.

Samus

You were the somewhat more social out of the two, so you decided to make the call. You cracked into the autobot network to make a quick check for vitals, and were relieved to see that most of them were fine, and the few injuries were already being taken care of. Your heart sank at the sight of how much of the site's security staff were injured. 75% of the security staff was outright dead, much of the research staff was missing, presumably kidnapped. By any reasonable definition this facility was utterly gutted and would never be operating back at its full capacity any time soon.

Arne and yourself were fine, but most of your own team were injured. Only Molotok, Battery, Assault, and Eudaimonica had avoided getting seriously hurt throughout this battle, and Sidewinder had only just finished begin thawed out of the ice she was frozen in. You felt bad, like you weren't able to be there to guard them properly against the beating being thrown their way. You knew academically that there was only so much you could do; you couldn't force your enemies to prioritise you over less agile and durable opponents. But every hit more vulnerable people took made you feel like you hadn't done enough.

Arne remained quiet, looking at the readout with a sigh and muttering that they should have been here sooner.

Winterpyre gazed towards you with a sad look in his eyesockets.

"It is hardly my place to offer comfort, but you have given them rest at least. Take pride in that, if nothing else." He said, as avuncularly as a massive fiery demon could manage.

You let yourself calm down for a bit, shaking and nodding as you used the meditative exercises taught to you by old bird to regain control over yourself.

"Maybe we should...just commhail everyone?" Arne said, trying to push himself back into the focus of duty. Tasks to do, objectives to complete, missions to finish. Those were certain things, there was comfort in certainty, safety. You understood that, but yet you wondered if he was latching onto it too much. The comfort friends could offer was better therapy than work in your experience, yet Arne was always choosing the latter. You then thought more about it, what sort of people raised him after he lost everything on Cylosis...you dropped the thought, chiding yourself for even going down it.

"You're right. You guys are alright at least yeah?" You said, trying a smile beneath your helmet.

"Yeah just epic here. Hey uh...can I try cheering you up?" Nightcaster said, clearing his throat.

"I...sure...go ahead." You said, giving it a thought and then nodding, having a good feeling about it based on your distant sight.

"That was totally BDE as fuck just taking on a thousand-year-old vampire knight in a swordfight like that." Nightcaster said, giving you a thumbs up with his good arm even though his other arm had by now, been fully healed.

"...B...D...E?" You asked, head racing through possible acronyms, eyes narrowing at him.

"You know...big dick energy...just...you were badass." He was fumbling his words, was this some sort of complicated concept important to 2020s culture. But...you didn't have those genitals, let alone a big one...and how would it have energy? Even the Earth Bet humans were confused, quizzically looking to each other and whispering before scratching their heads and shrugging their shoulders.

"I'm...still lost? I don't...what?" You said, even more confused now.

"It just means like...confident, you know you had me like, pogging watching you kick ass."

"...What's pogging?" Arne asked, equally confused.

"Well you see it all starts with this streame-" Eudaimonica cast a spell of Silence on Joseph before he could finish and sighed, pinching her brow.

"Please don't get the memelord going." She said as you couldn't help but start to double over and laugh. Ah, you got it now, this was all some sort of joke to make you feel better! Even Arne started to make some wheezing laughing noises at how stupid this all was.

"You're good friends you know! Making such fools of yourselves just to make me feel better. I'm very glad I got to meet you." You said bluntly as Nightcaster seemed to do his best impression of a chameleon trying to hide as he gave off a confusing array of emotions mostly revolving around shame and regret.

"I told you that trying to shitpost in real life wasn't going to get you a date with her." Eudaimonica chided him as if you couldn't hear them just fine as you continued to laugh and shook your head, your mood brightened considerably.

"This conversation is making me feel like my parents...God...I can just feel my hip throwing itself out already." Battery said, rubbing at her side.

"Boomer Alert." Nightcaster said across the room before Eudiamonica pinched his ear and dragged him off to his protests.

"...What?" Battery asked, more confused than offended. Giggling a bit, you decided to patch into the comms before they made you laugh even harder.

"You're good with kids you tell me what that means." Battery asked, Assault simply shrugging.

"I...I have no idea. I...I think I'm scared of the next decade now." He admitted.

Samus: Hey, is everyone alright? This is uh, Aine. The enemy's pulled out. You're all okay right?
Bumblebee: Just peachy.
Arne: You're not a peach nor do you possess peach-like qualities.
Bumblebee: Haha, I'm fine is what I'm saying.
Bulkhead: These the two?
Captain Wolfgang: Who's the two? Who are you guys?
Bulkhead: Scrap...open comms.
Captain Wolfgang: Look, we've taken enormous losses but...the survivors will make it at least.
Samus: Well, that's great! Or...it's not great that you took those losses but it's great you're still here!
Starstreaker: Can't believe we got bailed out by this rookie.
Strongarm: Hey, watch it! That Rookie took down an entire army of these creeps!
Arne: You don't uh, need to stand up for us. It's fine, I think.
Bumblebee: Hey I don't let people talk scrap about my friends.
Captain Wolfgang: Who the fuck says scrap?

Well, it seemed that everyone was fine on that front at least.

There was still the matter of the leftover relics to pick up. The Incarnate fragments were the items that the Reich wanted the most desperately, and so you couldn't let them have it at any cost.

"Come on, let's hurry before any of them get other ideas." You said, gesturing for them to follow you as you rushed forward.

You raced past a menagerie of objects under less than careful guard, all filed into an array of storage units. An archaeologist's dream come true. Your eyes couldn't help but drift over the catalogued and stored items, your visor feeding you a wealth of information about what the people working here were devoting so much resources into trying to understand.

I've got no idea who the boss is, but they've got so much money I don't think I really care at this point. Still, from what I've been able to discern from my time here, many of these relics date back to antiquity and the bronze age and are charged with some unknown sort of force that lets them defy numerous laws of reality. Sort of like parahuman powers for objects I suppose? Reading the tablets here speaks of how they were blessed by some sort of secret society. The Fellowship of Marduk seems to be the first iteration of them, but the society seems to have stopped functioning after Emperor Theodosius banned all non-Christian religions, and the newest of these artefacts dates to the Plains Indians wars. They call it a form of magic, but I'm not willing to accept that sort of Hocus Pocus when there's much simpler explanations. Just some form of pre-scion parahumans, which mind you is still big; especially as these items still retain their unusual properties centuries after the death of the parahumans involved.

Some of the more unusual relics are the remains of some strange animals and humanoids that I presume are either severely mutated parahumans or are animals afflicted by some form of transformative Master Power. Maybe this might explain some of the creatures of classical mythology? Though the weirdest thing is that the radiological dating is all a little off. Like it's happening at a very slightly wrong rate and some of the Thinkers we've gathered keep on reporting that they're extradimensional. Which I suppose would explain some of the discrepancies. Hrm, I'm sure I'd get castigated in mythological studies circles if I came to them with my thesis that religions and mythologies were just early parahumans; especially since I'd need to explain why they only became easily verifiable recently and where so many of them went in the intervening time. Best to not risk my career until I have enough evidence to prove I'm not a crank.

There's something that they had a particular reverence for though. A number of relics they say came directly from the will of a distant God. Thinkers say they definitely have power, but most of them can't get any response out of it. A few, usually the most powerful, well known, or just plain stubborn; do cause the relics to disappear though after bringing the relics in contact with fragmentary crystals or threads, and this causes the individual in question to show a steady but dramatic increase in powers and a receptiveness to other similar objects, even weaving the fragments and threads into new relics for them to consume. Like they're collecting pieces of themselves to build themselves into something more. Some of them also report, very briefly, a feeling of something else watching them when they collect these items, one or two even saying whatever is on the other side is talking to them. Laserbolt straight up proclaimed herself to be a goddess and took off and I'm pretty sure she's gone and founded a cult in South America after making Behemoth decide he had better things to do.

Until we understand what exactly is going on though, we've stopped running tests, but the boss is very adamant on collecting any items with this sort of signature and putting them in drop-off points for his men to collect after making sure that they're the real deal. Not sure if being as rich as Smaug and Scrooge McDuck put together counts for whatever the criteria of this stuff is, but hey maybe he'll get lucky and being an enigmatic billionaire with endless wellsprings of fuck you money is a path to godhood.

Well, as long as he's paying for a private jet of mine or three he can do whatever he wants with it. If he's even a he. I don't even mind him signing off his letters with "Mysterious Benefactor" at this point.

- Doctor Werner von Gelt

Samus' Notes; I can't get any record of this benefactor's identity from any of the computers. But this all seems interesting...Primal Earth and Earth Bet must have had contact for a long time.

Arne's Notes: This guy's stubborn refusal to accept that something might not fit into his preconceived notions is both amazing and infuriating.

You looked at one such crate under the most scrutiny, and you chanced opening it to find a few scraps of paper covering some broken fragments of crystal and in a box next to it a number of artifacts gathered together in a container labelled "fragment reactant" that drew your interest.

These artefacts originate from the Sourcewell metaverse and possess a steady link to an extradimensional power source of enormous potential which itself serves as a well into a reservoir of "source" power normally inaccessible to conventional reality. Analysis shows they are not related to the extradimensional entities within the native parahumans. They respond to individuals or items deemed to be of sufficient power, will, or notoriety to draw the interest of the Well entity that manages the connection to the Source; though due to the steady-state of the link, the entity does not control access to the power that they will grant as would be the case with methods that would forge an instant dynamic connection to the Well. Sufficient accumulation of these Well-links would allow for the user to forge their own direct link to the source as well; which wou-

Your head starts to spin as you reach for the artefacts and touch it, cosmic energy swirling around you and the minds of yourself and Arne accepting an invitation into a strange and dark plane with nothing but a luminous vortex at the other end, countless strands and tendrils emerging from the pit and reaching into many realities. It was bright, and you squinted at it, looking briefly away before refocusing your eyes and getting a somewhat feminine impression from the vortex, as well as a distinct feeling of interest.


Samus, Arne, approach. You are not of my realities, but you have potential.

You will have your path to what I offer, though I sense I will never get you to accept the fast path.

I would expect nothing less of you, nor would I have the interest in you that I do if I knew you to be so easily tempted by easy power.

But know that I am the Well of Furies, I have waited eight long years for one suitable to be humanity's defenders against the Coming Storm that seeks to snuff it out.

You are young, orphans of alien worlds in a distant future, yes, but I see the same possibilities in you that your caretakers did.

The power of the Source is not good or evil, it is not a force of chaos or order. It is whatever those who claim it will make of it.

The power you will claim will need care, time, and collecting to flourish. But through it, you will be able to fend off what may very well be the demise of humanity itself.

Not just in this reality, but all realities; yours included. Discord seeps through the firmament of existence, you must be ready for it.

I watch the progress of yourself and many others with great interest, for humanity's fate is my highest concern.

Now claim it, see who among you is worthy to start the path of the Incarnate.

INCARNATE ALPHA UNLOCKED; COLLECT OR FORGE MORE INCARNATE RELICS, THREADS, AND SHARDS TO PREPARE INCARNATE ALPHA POWERS. INCARNATE RELIQUARY ACQUIRED, OFF-DUTY OR SECONDARY CHARACTERS THAT HAVE GAINED SUFFICIENT NOTORIETY CAN BEGIN THE PATH OF THE INCARNATE.
"What's with you guys?" Gold Render asked, touching the relic and the shard and getting absolutely nothing out of it, shrugging and putting them back where she found them. However, the items that were touched by Eudaimonica, Assault, Molotok, Serp, and Nightcaster had disappeared, just as the ones you did had. You felt a bit...different? Good different though, somewhat tingling, almost like you were flying just a bit. But so far, unless you could properly form that connection to the source into a coherent link; it would do relatively little for you besides a few important interactions. But your eyes could also see a faint glow to some of the other objects. As could your visor.

The Incarnate Visor augments the user's ability to detect objects with connections to the Source of the Sourcewell metaverse as well as threads and fragments of Source connection or power. The Incarnate Visor is also able to perceive into other dimensions as it looks for any possible connection to the Source; revealing many other varieties of extradimensional entities such as ghosts or parahuman shards. However, the Incarnate visor does not counteract conventional visible light cloaking. Note that many forms of Ghosts can utilise conventional spectrum cloaking to evade tracking if their dimensional phasing is foiled.

Samus' Notes: Huh. Definitely going to be needing this a lot in the future now.

Arne's Notes: Well, having warning before my next religious experience would be nice.

Arne​

"...Felt like talking to the Politburo blech." Molotok said with a shake of her head, removing her helmet and blinking a few times as she banged on a vending machine to get out some Gatorade and just guzzled that liquid as fast as she could, panting and shaking her head, sweat-stained hair clinging to her face in a less than flattering way and a few bruises already visible on her skin.

Serp coughed a bit as he took a sip for himself, finishing the second bottle in a hurry while Nightcaster sat atop the back of Jackie Black while a groundbridge opened up to reveal Jetfire with an autobot team behind him, getting Nightcaster to almost fumble with the tea he was trying to drink before Doctor Black caught it for him and patted him on the head. You stepped back a bit, unsure of what possessed the autobot to bring him here in humanoid mode, but assuming it was serious based on his demeanour and the force he was bringing.

"Oi, gud work luv. But we've ran some checks an' well...this facility's a bit dodgy. 'Ad meself a look at the dosht rail. It's legit, but ain't connected ta anyone on the up-and-up or anyone down-low either. Lot a' fumbles on the trail though, someone ain't to keen on other people pokin' 'round the trail. Also...twist and twirly..." You....still had some issues following everything he was saying but nodded as if you understood. After finishing his little speech, he looked down to a very surprised looking Gold Render as one of his minicons slid down his shoulder and presented her a pink slip. You got a feeling of unease from the slip, knowing what it signified in this culture.

"'Found this in the company e-mail. Figured ya lot deserved ta know 'fore ya got back to that computers."

"...Termination of employment? What?!" Gold Render said before Sidewinder grabbed it and looked at it quizzically. You felt bad for her, money was so important to cultures like these that to have no source of it was a death sentence.

"Came as soon as the raid breached some of the vaults. Cuttin' loose ends an' focusin' on other prospects." He said before the Minicon offered another slip.

"...A job offer?" She said. Ah, well, at least that would work out well.

"See, this facility's pretty hush-hush...location's the bee's knees. Could do with some Autobot repainting and refitting. But I got word from the big man that we're escalatin'; so we need some new bases. Now, you lot already gone an' seen of us metal lads so we figure if ya can keep it a secret fer now, we could keep the paychecks rollin' in if ya switch jobs?" Jetfire offered.

"I...we...yes...I need the money." Gold Render sighed as she leaned back.

"Smashing luv! Smashing!" He said as the minicons started to catalogue the inventory of the vault closely while Jetfire turned around, hands folded behind his back.

"Aren't you worried about what they're going to do to Brockton Bay?" You asked as Jetfire took a look at some of the relics, opening the container gently with his giant hands, nodding and then putting them back where he found it.

"Damn right I'm worried. Got Rikti and now bloody Nazis and Primus knows what else. Gonna drive me circuits in a tizzy." He said with a sigh as he shook his head.

"Enemy's gone low for now so you'd just be well....long-duration recon is what they call it in the biz." He said, shrugging as you groaned internally. Sitting around for long periods of time waiting for things to happen was the very worst sort of mission to both you and Samus.

"Anyway...I can't make use of these bloody things...but I think these belong to you lot eh?" He said, holding a Chozo item sphere and an Alimbic relic pyramid and lowering them towards you.

The two of you reached out and repeated the fantastical process once again, your suits shifting as a new weapon fitted itself to your other shoulder, an armature fitted barrel with a somewhat wide opening like a mortar, while you both felt a sudden desire to curl into your alt-modes and extend a set of spidery-limbs from them, crawling in a manner somewhat like some rather horrible sort of insect, finding purchase that your more roll prone forms would sometimes struggle with, and extending energy sheathed scythe claws and leaping around a bit, making a few testing stabbing motions before uncurling.

The munitions launcher serves as a platform for releasing extra munitions without occupying the attentions of the arm cannon. Primarily a method of firing grenades, specialist projectiles or fluid streams, the Munitions launcher is also able to be utilized while in alternate form to allow for ranged combat capability in the alternate mode. It comes preset with Cluster-Flechette, the AMEAT Mortar, and the Corroder; each of which draws on the Universal Ammo stockpile. Cluster-Flechettes are useful against large numbers of soft targets, the Mortar is best against smaller numbers of hard targets as it launches a directed jet of armour piercing ejecta before impact, while the Corroder is best against targets vulnerable to chemical attack, in hardcover, or against charging foes. All munitions can be charged for greater effect.

Universal Ammo Count: 320/320


Samus' Notes: The range on these weapons is pretty good, you could get a lot of use out of them indirectly bombarding distant targets I'd imagine.


Arne's Notes: Enemies in cover I'd imagine would be a primary target for the munitions launcher; a well-timed airburst could clear out most enemies in hiding.

Crawler limbs allow for the user to engage in close-ranged combat against enemies that might be resistant to bombs and boost attacks or might approach within the time frame of those attacks. They also allow for a boost to the jumping capability of the alt-mode and allow for greater purchase on surfaces that the alt-mode might slip on or when rolling or hovering is otherwise inadvised. Crawler Limbs strike in melee with reduced power compared to the arm-sword, but are still formidable in the right hands.

Samus' Notes: I really hope I don't run into anyone who's afraid of crawling things while we're out there.

Arne's Notes: I uh...I guess this can be useful...sometimes? I'll need to figure out more uses for it besides scaring people.

Hrm...rather disappointing, just another weapon and well...a sort of utility upgrade? It wouldn't change a great deal but the option was there you guessed. They couldn't all be winners though.

"Flash innit?" Jetfire said, prompting you to just...nod like you understood that.

"Do you know anything of a second metahuman team sent here?" You asked.

"Yeah, were they from uh, Primal Earth?" Eudaimonica stopped to tilt her head at Jetfire who gave a large shrug.

"Sorry mates, 'aven't the foggiest. Was a portal there though...not from the Sourcewell metaverse. It's from a reality we're monitoring but it's one where I haven't really checked through the files of. Looked through the records, lots of psychic mumbo-jumbo I'll let the city-speaker boffings 'ave a go at. I do on the other 'and, got meself the dimensional siggy of that portal. Any gate to that reality opens anytime soon, we'll know." He said proudly. So...not a whole lot of answers then.

"What sort of psychic powers?" Samus asked.

"TK, TP, PK, whole nine yards, one of 'em could even turn the living into big 'ulkin' things with some kind of beam. Caused a lot of ruckus they did." He said. No that...didn't narrow things down any, but it was good to know you could follow them later on.

"What do they look like?" Eudaimonica asked.

"That's the thing...some kinda cloakin' field. Part of 'ow just eight of 'em could rummage through without being stopped." Well, that was concerning.

"Thank you." You said as you looked at one of the computers here and let your gauntlet rest on it.

"How much of this places files do you have?"

"Most of it...Seems like this place was just...built to stash up weird gubbinz for the "mysterious benefactor" 'ere. Certainly seems to be the draw for the Fash. Best guess, someone blabbed." He said while you looked into the files with your suit, digging through all the various communications in and out of this place. You stopped and had a look at one brief exchange that drew your interest.

Oculos: The Old Man collects his crops, the field is fallow.
Kriegsfresser: The Wolf will howl for his sheep at full moon.
Oculos: What sheep does it bay for?
Kreigsfresser: The sheep that drink of wellwater, the sheep that eat of heavenly grass, the sheep that trod the wizard's fields, and the sheep that dream beyond the stars.
Oculos: Where should I sow next?
Kriegsfresser: By the bay of the Imperial Apothecary.
Oculos: Will the witch be there?
Kriegsfresser: She will sample his wares.
Oculos: A fine game.
Kriegsfresser: The most excellent game.

Cryptic, but you weren't stupid. The Old Man was the benefactor, whoever he was, the field is fallow; as in he has no further interest in this base. The howl means the attack, the full moon means when they are ready. They're looking for artefacts relating to the Well, to space, to magic, or from other dimensions. The Witch was probably Bose Hexe, and while you weren't sure what the Imperial Apothecary meant, you figured it was Brockton bay.

"They really want to get to Brockton Bay for some reason." You said, passing the conversation out to everyone else's devices.

"I should probably get back to my team then, give them the heads up." Battery said with a sigh as Serp and Molotok shrugged.

"We'd need permits to reach America anyway. We will probably have to sit that one out for...just a bit..." Molotok said before winking at the two of you.

"But if you are in the mood to come to the Soviet Union, visit Arkhangelsk eh? I can show you a good time." Irina said with a wide, mischievous grin.

"So...that just leaves the..." You said before Samus finished for you.

"Path of the Dead." She said.

Samus

You had brought Arne to the last hallway, where a number of corpses were strewn about, stripped of flesh; reduced to dust or floating particulates, or reduced to charred remnants. A glowing green ankh symbol that made your stomach churn blocked the way forward, black stone immobile and unmoving. The chill of the air had diminished from earlier as the Ankh's glow began to fade, but the sensation of not belonging here remained strong. As if this was not a place that life was allowed to prosper in.

You scanned the door, hoping to find some manner of entrance.

This Door cannot be opened by any means presently available to you. No weapon currently available to yourself, the Autobots, or the local strain of humanity can breach it. Analysis of this door indicates an age of at least sixty five million years, and study of the movement of dust particles nearby suggests the door was opened some hours ago before closing upon sensing weapons discharge. Residual energy signatures confirm recent teleportation, likely of defenders moving in to eliminate the attempted intruders. The lack of defensive casualties is suggestive of a significant disparity in the combat capabilities of the Weltreich assault soldiers and the defenders.

The door might be openable by means of a key device created by the civilisation that invented it, but is also impervious to attempts to teleport or phase through it. The original makers of the Door are not of this Metaverse based on dimensional signature analysis.

Samus' Notes: Hrm, the culture that made this door was clearly highly advanced. But I don't recognise them. Best to not disturb it until we're ready.

Arne's Notes: I'd...really prefer to not poke into this at this moment. It feels cursed and I don't like how the bodies left behind all seemed to die in a panic.

You backed out of the room and nodded at Jetfire. "Let's get going." You said, letting the groundbridge take you back to the Autobot base in Russia; stepping through the swirling green portal as calmly as you could manage, looking around to see that a number of new Autobots had arrived, being directed to their new stations while Jetfire walked alongside you. A salute was given to Jetfire as he approached a heavy set Autobot festooned with weapons, red in armour plating and clearly heavily armoured, a massive cannon emerging from his centre.

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A long time veteran of the Cybertronian Civil war and one of the relatively few military officials who joined with the Autobot Revolution rather than staying with the Imperidroids or defecting to the Decepticons. Loud, boisterous, belligerent, and an afficianado of all forms of firepower, Warpath is called when conflict with other Cybertronian factions or hostile powers increases to a point where his often reckless aggression is needed to push back the tide. Due to using military alt-modes exclusively, he is less able to sneak about unnoticed on the planets that the Autobots operate on than those who use civilian alt-modes. Warpath takes pride in his raw durability, with his regenerative armour plating and multi-layered shielding allowing him to take a degree of punishment more often associated with warships than individuals. As such, he also fits himself with gravimetric and magnetic devices to attract harm his way so that more fragile combatants will avoid being harmed; all while he taunts, berates, and mocks his foes to direct them into a brawl with his superior firepower and strength.

Samus' Notes: Oooh, I've always wanted to drive a tank! He seems like he'd be a lot of fun to hang around with...but with that alternate mode I'm not sure how I could get him to sneak around.

Arne's Notes: It's a shame that he'd be hard to sneak into position because he'd make it so much easier to protect more vulnerable team members.

"Heard you needed some help and came rushing over for some KAPOW!" He said with a hearty laugh as Jetfire rested a hand on his shoulder and laughed with him before nodding.

"Good ta see ya ya cheeky bugger. Ya ready ta krump some fash eh?" Jetfire asked.

"Damn right I am! These servos were BUILT to smash some creeps. When do I get started?" He said, slamming his fists together with a resounding thunderclap before

Maulenov harrumped as he held a tablet in his hand to grab the attention of the autobots.

"Jetfire, I have people breathing down my necks demanding to know what on this Earth drove you to trash the University of Muni-" He said before he looked at his tablet as it pinged, his eyes widening as he read the title and abstract of the report before calming down.

"Multiple extradimensional invaders...an entire multiversal empire of nazis...and someone with impossible sums of money we can't even put a name to?" He said before Jetfire gave him a thumbs up.

"...Blyat." He said under his breath as he stroked his moustache firmly before handing the Tablet to Piggot as she got close, ready to belt out the exact same line of questioning and then having a roughly similar response.

"So...Brockton Bay is next, is that right?" She said, gulping a bit hard.

"'Fraid so luv." Jetfire said.

"If the Empire-88 gets word of thi-" She started before Wheeljack once again cut in over the intercom.

"Already have! Have been for YEARS based on the data I'm going through. Got all kinds of people poking stuff in that little city of yours." He said as she paled and looked around at one of the Minicons.

"You...you get me a coffee! I n-n" The minicon shook her head and stepped back.

"I'm not your service maid lady, just ask the fabricator machine for some! Primus...I swear some of you just act so entitled!" She said before storming off to her work station in a huff while you and Arne had a small snigger.

"Oh, by the by; kiddies. Got you your ships back, all spick and spam and ready ta go!" Jetfire said with an excited voice as you looked at Arne with a wide grin.

"Hold up, if we're heading to the bay, can I at least have a word with you two?" Battery said, stepping up and sidestepping some autobots moving some heavy looking equipment to reach you.

"Aw shoot, we were gonna try talking to them first!" Eudaimonica said with a huff, folding her arms.

"...What for?" You asked.

"Well, stuff you should know about like...incarnate stuff...and stuff...hangoutwithusplease." She said, awkwardly and then jolitng a bit forward with her hands clasped in prayer.

"I mean...I've got the ground bridge ready to go so you can just...go whenever and check the bay out, or have a look around. Don't have anything for you right now but give it a bit of time." Wheeljack said over the intercom before something crashed in the background.

"Ah...scrap, hold on a second let me make sure that doesn't blow up and reverse the local flow of time. Or was it invert the strength of gravity and the strong atomic force?" Wheeljack muttered.

"Could I just have...one moment to get a debrief from you two?" Emily managed, looking at the Demon eyeballing her cup of coffee as if it was out to steal her soul through its eyes before the bovine skull managed a grin that made her offer a nervous smile in response.

Actions

Choose one. Voting period will be truncated because the next posts will be shorter and less plot-heavy.

[]: Head to Brockton Bay, handle the talking on the way (Arne, Samus, Assault, Battery, Eudaimonica, Nightcaster, Bumbelbee, and Strongarm have all done multiple missions in a row and are at heightened risk of stress build-up without destressing. Thus even if you pick this option, you shouldn't go straight into the first sign of trouble and should instead do some casual stuff, chilling and walking around. Going straight away also means being less prepared for the civilian/social phase which is likely to result in more hijinks).
[]: Speak to Eudaimonica and Nightcaster about the incarnates. (More incarnate and primal earth information, destress)
[]: Debrief with Piggot and Maulenov (More Earth Bet information, starts contact with Parahuman agencies)
[]: Speak to Battery for her advice (Minor destress, more information about life in the bay in particular)
[]: Check around the autobot base (Quick base mechanic tutorial, greater contact with Autobot command)
[]: Check on your ship (Quick introduction to your starships)
 
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