Ezekiel

Cyberpunk2077: 5th Corporate War

Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova

Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova
Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova

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^{_{"I’m a blank slate in a broken body wearing a dead woman’s face. Past that? I don’t know who I am."}}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova _________________________________________________________ Age 29 (b.d. 2048) | ♀ | Sexuality Bisexual _________________________________________________________ Single (Divorced) | Muscle | Former USSR Netrunner, links with the Valentinos P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E P H Y S I C A L P R O F I L E [+] ▼ P H Y S I C A L T R A I T S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Build - Toned and chromed ► Ethnicity - Russian ► Hair Colour - White ► Eye Colour - Heterochromic cybernetics, amber and light blue ► Other - Extensive cybernetics, predominantly older models. Prominent scarring on face, neck, and other parts of body. Tattoo on thigh. - C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S [+] ▼ C H A R A C T E R I T E M S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Constitutional Arms Unity (Basic) - a 12-round capacity semiautomatic handgun in .45 caliber. ► Katana (Expensive) - A skillfully crafted katana taken from the body of a dead Tyger Claw. Shaposhnikova’s favored weapon. ► Cyberware (Poor) to (Expensive) - Attempting to list every piece of chrome in Shaposhnikova’s body would be a truly Sisyphean task. It might be easier to list what isn’t artificial. Approximately 60-70% of Shaposhnikova’s body has been replaced with augmetics, and most of them were top of the line, too - thirty years ago. Most of her body has been through at least one, and more likely five or six previous owners before making its way to her. Most of it is incompatible with modern connectors and requires frequent tuneups just to stay functional. As it stands, the cybernetics certainly put her well above the ability of an unaugmented human - but she’d be so much scrap metal against someone packing the equivalent amount in new corp gear. ► Archer Hella EC-D i360 (Basic) - Cheap and reliable. ▼ K N O W N A S S O C I A T E S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► Josefina Costa - Shaposhnikova’s former wife, affiliated with the Valentinos. Zero combat skill, black market connections. ▼ S K I L L S ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ► + Combat - Despite no formal training, Shaposhnikova displays excellent combat skills and is skilled at using her extensive augmentation in melee or at range. The primary and probably only reason you might want to hire her. She’s good. ► + Intelligence - Curiously, Shaposhnikova retains her excellent logical thinking abilities and skill at mathematics. ► + Fearlessness - Shaposhnikova seems completely immune to fear. ► - Language - Shaposhnikova is almost completely unable to write, displays significant difficulty in typing, and struggles to remember many words. ► - Charisma - Though not a cyberpsychosis risk, Shaposhnikova’s odd mannerisms and general “weirdness” make her ill suited to lead any sort of interpersonal assignment. -

C H A R A C T E R H I S T O R Y C H A R A C T E R H I S T O R Y This one? Hah. A true tragedy, fitting for the stage plays of Ancient Greece. Born in the city of Novosibirsk in the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics to midranking employees of SovOil, Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova was easily set up for a relatively comfortable life at first. My sources say she was a bona-fide little tech whiz from day one, and apparently young Svetlana could often be found tinkering with scrap electronics or in the midst of a deep dive into the local net while other children were playing. Raised by loving parents who nurtured her interests from day one, there were, even then, inklings that young Svetlana might have something of the troublemaker in her blood. You see, young Svetlana was not only enamored with technology, but like many of the passionate youth of the world possessed a fierce sense of right and wrong and a determination to enforce it whenever she could. You knew who to call on for righteous vengeance, and vengeance would be swift and uncompromising, it seems. Svetlana picked up more than a few injuries as a result of angering the wrong people or ending up too far in over her head, but never seemed to learn the lesson. Despite all of this, she blossomed into what seems a genuinely skilled Netrunner with the skill and gumption to, according to some, maybe one day break into the big leagues. She found employ first in small time gigs, nothing much I can dig up there, but quickly attracted the attention of SovOil - in part due to her parents’ connections within the corp. Quickly she proved her worth and her skill, and secured generous pay for her hard work. Everything seemed lined up perfectly for the young woman, and she was poised to coast into an easy life. But as before, she could not leave well enough alone. With her newfound skills she redoubled her miniature vigilante crusade, hiding behind skillfully constructed layers of defensive ICE and anonymized signatures. Guy I contacted was genuinely impressed by it at the time. All the same, she was working on borrowed time, and it was not long before she drew the ire of the regional Organitskaya, who placed a price on her head. Left with little in the way of recourse and living every moment with a target painted on her back, our young Svetlana fled the USSR. She had no real destination in mind, distraught over the upending of a comfortable life and like a fish out of water, desperately out of her element. Like detritus from all over the world, she wound up in our absolutely lovely City of Dreams - where, by all accounts, she settled in pretty quickly and established herself as a freelance netrunner of considerable skill. She found a wife, too, Josefina Costa, married her after a year. Everything I found suggests it was nothing less than the perfect picture of a happy marriage. She was a rising star in the netrunning scene and was fielding jobs from the corps in the city, had a nice apartment, a well padded savings account. Even found some inquiries with a local IVF clinic. Wholesome shit. Naturally, it couldn’t last. The hamartia of this little Greek tragedy, dear Svetlana’s justice-dispensing streak crept back up, and seems she spent more than a few of her off hours trawling the net looking for wrongs to right. And boy howdy, she apparently found one. What it was? I can’t figure it out. She didn’t want to say what whenever she did mention it, and she was good at hiding her tracks. ‘Course she can’t answer that question herself, now. Whatever it was, though, she wouldn’t let go. Everyone warned her to drop it. That pursuing it further would only end poorly for her. All the same she kept at it. Persistent, if nothing else. Whatever she was doing it seems to have pissed off some powerful people. Again - girl covered her tracks well, but near I can tell she dodged two prior assassination attempts before they got her. The peripeteia of our little tragedy occurred on June 7th, 2075, at approximately 7:43 PM in her apartment’s living room. Skilled netrunner to the core, they never got her while she was plugged in. A spiked BD though? That’s another story. Should’ve killed her by all accounts, but she survived - just barely. I’ll take Shaposhnikova’s own words here, next. <Snipped quote> Poor thing. She suffered extensive retrograde amnesia. Can barely remember a single thing about Night City. Woke up paralyzed with a stranger standing over her. Can’t even remember her own passwords. Ripper was right - she can’t even write her own name in English or in Russian. Can barely type. Takes a minute to string a simple sentence together and forgets key words anyway. Speaking to her you’d think she was a simpleton among simpletons. She can hold a sword in those antique store find hands of hers just fine, though. Apparently she can still do complex mathematics, too - can even write it just fine. Moment she tries to write actual words? Boom. Nothing. Brain’s a hell of a thing isn’t it? You can probably piece together the rest of what happened next. She and her wife divorced. Shaposhnikova’s big fat savings account was entirely wiped out overnight to pay for whatever chrome she could get - I suppose when your alternative is being bedridden with most of your nerves fried, chrome that’s older than you are is less of a problem isn’t it? ‘Course, the money only partly went to the chrome. The rest of if ensured she was actually able to use it all. Apparently large chunks of her nervous system had to be patched up - and that, at least, seems to be good quality. Guess she was already thinking of future upgrades. Something like 60-70% of her body is cybernetics? She’s pretty much skin stretched over chrome and a few surviving organs at this point so I can’t say it doesn’t make sense. Oh, and all that netrunning skill? Gone. Completely. Seems to have damaged that natural knack for it, too. She’s gone and picked up a sword now. And that’s why I wrote all this up. Despite everything - she’s good with that sword. Real good. Even on chrome old enough they wouldn’t get carded if they were people, she’s good. And good thing too, or she wouldn’t be paying her bills. You might be wondering - that much chrome? That vintage? This chick sounds like if she hasn’t already shown up on a headline with MaxTac she’s due for it any second. That’s the funny thing. Far as I and everyone else in contact with her can tell, she’s perfectly stable - or at least as stable as anyone in her position can be. I have a hypothesis - I don’t need to explain cyberpsychosis to you, hopefully, so I’ll skip over that part of the lecture. She’s talked about clinging to any sense of self she can - she’s already dissociated. Unlike those lovely chums in Maelstrom she didn’t choose to get that extreme, nor did she ever exhibit signs of ever being anything but a genuinely pleasant person beforehand. Now, hear me out - but I think she won’t start seeing us fleshies as beneath her because she mourns what she has already lost, and doesn’t want to lose any more. Heh, something poetic about that. Clinging so hard to any sense of self remaining that it gives her a stronger grip on reality than some people with a quarter of the chrome she’s packing. D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E D E T A I L E D A P P E A R A N C E Svetlana Petrovna Shaposhnikova is a woman of average height, with piercing cybernetic eyes of mismatched color. Catching a glimpse of her on the street might not betray much about the true extent of her augmentation. A long black coat conceals most of her arms, and her hands are usually gloved to conceal any trace of the cybernetics beneath. Baggy pants likewise conceal that her legs, too, are artificial. She is the spitting image of a woman who wishes not to have the extent of her augmentation noticed. By anyone. Unlike most of her body, her leg chrome is actually from this decade, rather than dad’s three times recycled hardware. Some of the only cyberware installed before her ‘accident’, the legs were accompanied by what was at the time a humorous tattoo on her thigh, an in-joke between her and her at the time wife. Now, it serves only as a reminder of what she’s lost. Persuade her to take off the jacket and things change, and drastically. Her arms, legs, most of her organs, and large patches of her torso have been replaced with cybernetics. Svetlana is less “a woman who is part machine” and more “a machine into which a woman has been haphazardly inserted”. Most of this cyberware is self evidently old. Certainly, when it was released, it was top shelf stuff - but that was in the Time of the Red, when Night City denizens were simply happy not to have died in a nuclear firestorm. Now? Outdated is pushing it. Obsolete might be a better term to use. But it still functions - and it was what was affordable for a desperate former netrunner. Her face and body are well adorned with numerous scars and battle injuries, almost all of them recent. Exactly what you might expect of a mid tier solo with a lack of self preservation. Shaposhnikova is certainly pleasant enough in how she carries and presents herself. She’s even genuinely fun, some times. A lovely sense of dark humor, too. However interacting with her is… strange. As though her personality is a painting of the old one, painted purely from memory alone. Certainly there is a resemblance - but it’s fundamentally wrong. She might be described as an empty slate. An incomplete person trying to recover what has been forever lost. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) Despite everything, Shaposhnikova is young and full of energy and determination. Maybe she doesn’t have much of a bright future laying in store - maybe the best she can hope for is to become a mid-level merc patching together a new life from the old. Maybe the bottom will fall out, and we’ll see her on the headlines being gunned down by MaxTac. Maybe, just maybe, she might find closure and resolve whatever it was that brought about such an unpleasant turn of events for her. And then, maybe, she can finally put to rest a dead woman’s past and become her own person.

@Lady Lascivious

Accepted init blud

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

The hardest part of finishing up the editing of my post was deciding which red suited Wanda and which for Magneto.

Either way, pretty sure I've caught the spelling errors as well. Serves me right for writing 2k+ words on a phone.

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

<Snipped quote by Ezekiel>

that is... a long post.

@Sep

Pretend it's two posts and it's not so bad ...

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

To avoid double posting I added my first solo post to the end of my collab with Ruby as I just about finished it now. I will got back and format it when I'm home, but as I wrote it on my phone, you'll have to make do without pretty colours for now XD .

Chronicles of the Grim Crusade - Warhammer 30000 RP Side Thread

The Second Compliance of Praxia
Aulpollriax

“I…. See now…. We die for your perfection.”

The man no longer squirmed in her grip, beyond the natural response to the strain her grasp placed upon his mortal form. The golden mask set upon his features hid the majority of his expression from her, but his eyes shone with a mad delight as his focus sat unwaveringly upon her. The rest of them lay slaughtered around her. They could have been his closest friends, spouses, children even, yet he held only adoration for the one who had brought destruction upon them. The thought sickened her as much as the pleasant yet foul stench that arose from the bodies of the gene-enhanced guardians who had sought to stop her in her retribution. As her spear had cut through them the fluids that had spurted from the monstrously large beings could hardly be described as blood, a mixture of fragrance and effluence pumped from where arteries should have been.

Thankfully their overlords had bled as mortal men, and the creeping taint had been washed clear with a deluge of human ichor. He was the last, or at least, the last that mattered. The warriors of the Pact who had accompanied her yet roamed the halls of the estate, pumping bolter rounds into any remaining Praxians they found. They had responded as swiftly and without question to her commands as if their own Primach had ordered them to do so. That was a praise she would sing to their gene sire once the killing was done.

“You die because you shun the Emperor’s Truth, and cower behind false gods.” Sekhmetara snarled, her armoured grip squeezing around the man’s throat. Something popped within the mortal’s throat, but through a gargle of blood and bone he still spoke.

“You are promised, child of the Serpent’s Nest, The galaxy shall walk in your golden light and know only His perfection.” Even as she brought him pain and suffering beyond which his body could come back from, he did not waver.

“Bask in my Light then. My future is my own.” She witnessed the reflection of her own blazing gaze in the shine of the golden mask the man wore a moment before the heat and fury of her eyes struck him. That was too much even for faith to press beyond and the man screamed and shrieked as the mask began to melt to his features. She could have annihilated him in a moment, but she had enough control of her gifts to allow him to live for the first moments as flesh and metal became one. Even through his shrieks, he gibered about prophecy. That earned him a final death, the solar fury of her eyes increasing to blast flesh from bone, leaving only the gold clad skull which she shook free of the charred corpse. Hot sizzling blood still dripped and hissed from her war plate. Most of the enemy had not been armoured, had practically lined up to be torn apart by her in some form of twisted worship.

As she turned to climb the filigree stairs which made up the far end of the chamber, her footsteps left pools of the substance. The heat exuded from her form refused to allow the tangy liquid to clot and slow, running down her armour in trickling waterfalls as she steadily climbed the decorative stairs. At the summit a marble throne dominated the far wall, the pristine white stone decorated with gold leaf and rising up into a huge frieze. The artistic depiction was beautiful and horrific all the same, human figures depicted writhing with serpents, all surrounding a vast semi-human face which glared from above the back of the throne, the exposed tongue of the collosal visage forming the back of the throne itself. She had not witnessed so perfect a depiction since she had last looked upon her father, her plated fingers reaching up to brush the elevated cheekbones of the sculpture. In truth it wasn’t her father that bore the most resemblance. With careful consideration, she decided it could have been herself, if she had stripped some of her own femininity away. The true brother she had never had.

She knew not what compelled her, but she turned her back to the vast face, looking upon the miasma of slaughter she had left through the room. Her eyes still roared with burning fury, and as she refused to dim the psychic power rushing through her, the deep brown mane of her hair ignited as well turning white then bursting into the fiery locks which denoted the fullest extent of her potential. Then she took the throne, pressing herself into the groove of the tongue with ease. When the High Priest, or whatever ridiculous title he had used, had been sat upon it he had been utterly engulfed, a ridiculous pawn upon a vast throne. She rested within the alcove as if it had been made for her, the width of her hips perfectly held without tightness, the armrests aligned so that the fingers of her hands just draped over the edge. The full length of her height placed her head right at the cusp of the tongue-ridge, so that she appeared framed by the frieze without any of her being obscured. She allowed the image of poised perfection to exist a moment longer before she lent forwards, one elbow resting on her right knee. The image of a conqueror who had seized the throne, rather than the queen it had been crafted for.

”All wings reporting, Encarmine Protocol targets eliminated, Sire.”

The voice crackled in her ear, not as pristine as the audio of her helmet, but she had removed it long before.

“Received, begin retrieval of the Icari.” While she felt a sense of pride for how swiftly her daughters had reacted to the paradigm shift of their deployment, she would wait for true praise. The call of slaughter was upon her, the taste of iron in her mouth and to wax lyrically in his moment would have drip too much of her blood lust into her words.

”Your Eyes Upon Us, Sire.”

She turned the charred skull in her left hand over, regarding the ashen bone held together by the previously molten metal now hardened across its skeletal features, before setting it upon the left armrest of the throne. She shut her eyes, steadying her breathing as the song of conquest still rang in her ears, the pool of blood seeping from her armoured boots growing as it began to run back down the stairs, channels of the slick substance, still refusing to curdle and clot, interrupting the gold and white perfection of the climb to where she sat.

”Your sister approaches”

The voice was Isabis, no doubt monitoring the motion of the Primarchs aside from the military operation. Sekhmetara had no doubt which of her gene-siblings she meant. She did not reply to her adopted mortal sibling, instead simply relaying the message to the Pact securing the compound. There was little chance Daena could be mistaken for any other oncoming aerial blip, but it still seemed reasonable to warn them and alert them to her permission for her sister to join her. She was, afterall, in overall command.

Sekhmetara did not move from the throne, but she did open her eyes, regarding the slaughter one further time before resting on the embossed doorway from which her sister would shortly arrive.

Daena had flown with the haste that only rage could proffer. The plan had been simple - Sekhmetara was to relieve and join forces with the loyalists in the spire, and from there fight upwards, splitting the attention of the hive’s defenders yet another time. With threats from above and below, the decapitation strike would catch them outmaneuvered and out of position. Yet that was not what had happened.

Instead she had found her strike force flanked by reinforcements sent from lower in the spire, the very elements that Sekhmetara and the loyalists were to have tied down. Her only support in that chaotic killing field were the misbegotten and murderous daughters of the Tears, women who seemed to have little understanding of who or what they fought for considering the trail of death they left behind them.

The cost for their victory was far greater than it ought to have been due to this deviation from the plans, and each fallen Doomsayer weighed upon the Angel’s heart as she approached the gutted palace. Her rage, vague and unfocused as it was, already began to cool as she examined the charnel field the Tears had made of the loyalist compound. It had clearly been a slaughter - for the most part, and the sight of the only corpses that had seemed to proffer resistance caused her lips to curl into a sneer of disgust at their warped and inhuman forms.

At last she arrived at her sister’s taken throne, the Angel brushing aside the errant desire to bow before her. Still, she could not but admit that Sekhmetara was sitting where she belonged. Even if that place was surrounded by gore. Calming herself, she remained assured that there must be a reason for such apparent madness. Her sister would not act so otherwise. “What occasioned such foulness, beloved of my heart?”

“The foulness festered here long before our arrival, Sister.” Sekhmetara rested back into the throne as she spoke, straightening back up to perfectly fill the frame of the throne, her hands resting along its edges as she beheld Daena, her eyes focused once more. “This was a cleansing, one that my daughters will complete before we are done here. “ The righteous fury which surged through her had yet to fade, her eyes burning with an intensity which settled on Daena, even if she was not the true focus of the Primach’s ire.

“I have not spoken to you of such things, but you were not the first of our siblings I met. Our father brought Sarghaul and his Lurkers to Mithra. I have spoken of the overlords of my home, the Empire of the Scale, who I drove from Mithra’s surface.” Her attention drifted from Daena as she recounted the tale, a new truth matched with a familiar tale. Her armoured gauntlet lifted the gold-clad skull of the priest up to her own features, the charred icon of her handiwork staring back at her.

“It was not I who threw down the halls of my childhood, who burned the estates of the Empire upon Thotha and vented its environment to the void, only then choking the flames of its destruction..” With a dismissive flick of her fingers, the skull clattered from her grasp, trailing down the stairs to rest beside where Daena stood. “I was present, I knew the necessity, but it was the Lurkers who fought those battles with me, not the people of my home. They wept and raged against the purging, for many we were fighting to free Thotha of the Empire, but our Father had shown me the necessity of it.” Finally, Sekhmetara stood. The fury boiling within her faded, but did not cease, as she descended the steps, the stone, softened by the heat of her, cracking beneath her golden tread.

“Father spoke to me of the beings in the Warp, Xenos creatures more dangerous than any we fight within realspace. They covert humanity, seek the worship of our masses so they might dominate our reality as well. The Imperial Truth is both our cause and our weapon against them. On a thousand worlds you may find cults and hidden enclaves like these.” With a wave of her hand, Sekhmetara motioned to the reliefs along the walls, the works of foul perfection that detailed the entire estate. “That is why Father needs weapons such as the Lurkers. His own monsters, to hunt the tyrants of Old Night.” Finally, her features settled once more on Daena in full, at last with the warmth of expression usually reserved for her, a sad, knowing smile on Sekhmetara’s full lips.

“I am sorry for the loss of your daughters, Stars of my sky, but this cult of Serpents must be put to the pyre, lest they spread among those who claim to be our subjects, not one may escape, and to that task my daughters can be his monsters as well as our brother’s get.”

Were it anyone else who said such things, Daena would have scoffed. The pagan rites of mystery cults and Warp whisperers were dangerous, it was true, she had had lifetimes dealing with them - but this was beyond the pale. If Sekhmetara insisted upon it however, and if she went so far as to claim that the Lurkers were part of Father’s design…

“Very well, Sun of my days, I shall take you upon your word,” the Angel said after a few moments, her wings wilting at the statement. “A full accounting can wait, there are more pressing issues to deal with,” she continued on, attempting to retain the thread of conversation lest she be swept away by her sister’s zeal. It was more difficult than she would like to admit. “But.”

Pulling herself up to her full height, she locked eyes with her enthroned sister. Things might have been simple to Sekhmetara, but these revelations - if she did accept them as truth - only made things far more complicated. “Sekhmetara. If these,” she said with a wave at the carnage around them, “were our loyal functionaries, worthy of death by your hand, then what does that make the rebels?”

“A traitor is a traitor.” As the Mithran primach spoke, her hand came to rest on her sister’s shoulder, the contact felt through the second skin of their ceramite plate. She remembered well, the time before, when she had not known these lessons herself. When she had walked the shattered halls of her home and questioned the justice of her father’s will. Dissent was still dissent, heresy was still heresy. Only the Imperial Truth could strike the centre, the narrow understanding of reality upon which the Imperium could survive.

“What we do here will seed this world for a thousand generations of humanity that might live in peace and prosperity. I am the Unconquered Sun of Mithra, and I will burn away the cancer buried in our father’s realm.” Sekhmetara’s voice was quiet despite her fervor, whispered words of intimate belief to her sister, even as heat and power radiated from her, only dipping as she came upon the one topic she knew would be painful. “My daughters report to me that you encountered my first company, I sense rage and indignity in you sister, speak your piece that I might quell your concerns.”

Daena turned her face away from her sun as it tried to embrace her, wings shrouding her form. Such breezy statements, so certain and filled with conviction, were easy things for Sekhmetara. They had never come easily to her. “Their treason is our failure. If there was any left upon our worlds who followed such foolishness, then it speaks to our inability to root them. To think that such were placed so high says even worse. What use is a conquest without ensuring the Truth is firmly placed in power? What benefit is so hollow a victory?”

Now she overcame her fretfulness, facing her sister full on, eyes gleaming with the light of her genegift. “You are a hunter, o greatest of stars. And you unleashed your hounds. Tell me. Are these wayward souls to be cowed, or prey to be run down?”

“As we do with any failure sister, in our father’s work. We bring Truth to falsehoods, we correct them. Words have failed. It is time for fire and fury.”

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Collab with @Ruby

T H E B R O T H E R H O O D O F M U T A N T S

Present Day
Genosha
Hammer Bay

Bobby Drake already missed the brief window of freedom he had enjoyed on Genosha, able to walk freely across the island without attracting stares of any kind. Then M-Day had happened. The stares were not the same as those he had learned to experience elsewhere, not the outright glare of hate, but the insidious wrath of envy. The Mutates had lived for years as slaves and sacrificed much for freedom, then fate had robed them of their identity, human again when it was finally free to be a mutant. He'd be pretty pissed off as well.

He'd take envy over hatred though, it didn't stop him buying a drink. Hammer Bay was still in the process of rebuilding, a process which had slowed down dramatically following the depowering of most of the population, but the majority of the city now functioned, just with a few lasting scars.

O'Malley's was the typical attempt at an Irish bar by foreign nationals who had never been to the country. It predated the Revolution, but its old owners had either fled or hadn't bothered to return to claim it. New ownership came from among the Mutate population, of which Bobby had heard were some of the few to retain their mutant identity in these trying days. Still, the Guiness wasn't bad. Not that he was purely here for the alcohol.

Sliding up to the bar, quite literally, the blue sheened man took a seat. It was only the early afternoon and service, while not enthusiastic, was immediate.

"I'll take a pint, and I'll pay for five more you can keep if you answer a question of mine."

"Depends on the question." The man was starting the pour even as he spoke, the non-committal reply barely more than a grunt.

"Girl with green hair, think you'll know who I mean if you've seen her."

"I ain't helping you stalk some poor lass now." Bobby didn't know if the somewhat poor attempt at a Gaelic dialect was really part of the act, he hadn't the heart to suggest that was a Scottish term.

"I'm not on personal business." Bobby set the coin down on the bar, a silver piece bearing the Reichsadler, blackened on one side. Much as with the girl he was hunting, if you knew, you knew. "And I'm still paying." The coin was soon joined by several crisp noted, far more than was required for the lonely pint that was already at his lips. Refreshingly cold, but then so was everything he drank once it had touched his lips.

"Came in a couple of times, asking around about folks. We still keep an eye on new folks for Remy, she's staying at Hoffcraft Motel, little down the ways." It was impressive how many syllables the man could fit in a grunt, but it got the point across.

"Cheers, I'll bring the glass back." Bobby stood, still sipping the pint as he left, taking the coin with him but leaving the notes. It was a short walk, but plenty of time to sink the pint before a reunion he wasn't sure he wished to occur took place.

"Jesus, Bobby, would subtly hurt you?"

It was like walking down the street with blue furball Hank McCoy, except the sunlight of early afternoon Hammer Bay reflecting off Bobby Drake and bent as it's rays of light went deeper into the ice blue of one of the original five X-Men. Despite the fact that Magneto was the biggest draw on the island, it was the difference of a royal and a celebrity; there was some cross-over appeal, but the vibe was very different between the two. Magneto was an unofficial royal of Genosha, while the X-Men were celebrities. And the original five X-Men, those the four that were still alive? None seemed to draw more attention than those four.

Lorna's wavy hair was lazily kept up high on her head with a gold jaw-clip, keeping it behind her and down her back. Her denim jacket was time-worn, the back of it covered with flag patches; nearly forty flags from nearly every continent except for Antarctica, including a few unofficial flags, the most unusual of which was a green jungle Xate palm behind the black silhouette of a T-Rex; the Savage Land. With the crimson and gold standard of the Shi'ar Empire a close second. Her jeans were tight things with a thick brown leather belt and silver buckle, coming up a inch or two over her round hips, the teeshirt underneath was black with bold white kanji for Shueisha. Her eyes were covered with black square frame sunglasses, and they never even turned his direction as she walked up from behind him and past, just one pedestrian casually walking past another, shopping bags in hand, the other holding the strap of a brown leather large purse resting off her left shoulder as she marched.

Unlike Bobby Drake, Lorna Dane had no intention of inviting too many eyes and too much attention. She wasn't the 'look-at-me' daughter of Magneto; the other one held that distinction.

He didn't fall into step beside her, nor even more to catch up, watching the figure move past him as any other that moved on the street. That wasn't quite true, she was captivating in a way that no mutant power could replicate, even his own shining skin. The lead had proven true, at least, as he watched her go without directly doing so, had her hips always swayed quite like that?

Suddenly the thought of not arriving empty handed came to mind and he stopped by whatever closest street vendor was hawking something covered in grease, bad for the heart, but oh so good for the soul.

"I'll take two."

By the time he looped back around, several hours had flown by, the Sun burning into low Afternoon. One side effect of his relative fame as a member of the X-men made the iconic look of his frozen exodermis well known, but the very much human look he had been forced to adopt for all the years prior had faded back into obscurity. A change of clothes was all it really required. A second factor, his ability to control temperature and his environment, meant that the wrapped taco shells within the bag he held were good as new.

He waited for her in the lobby, at one of several small cafe tables set up in what had once been a fashionable hall. There was establishment catering, but the place didn't seem to mind him bringing in the package from the outside, still, he did the good favour of at least ordering a rum and coke from their own supply. Long before the Revolution, Genoshan rum had been famous across the world. Perhaps it would be again, particular if this taste was anything to go by, and now it came slavery free.

He had time to kill, and another had been ordered by the time his patience paid off, another set in front of him in the case he wasn't stood up from the engagement he had assumed all on his own.

"Keep cool." He breathed to himself, enjoying the benefits of his own terrible pun.

She stood before the table, arms crossed, shades still concealing her eyes while her tone of voice bordered between intrigue and irritation. “Are you stalking me, Bobby? I didn’t want team pitches, I didn’t want old dramas re-hashed, I didn’t want media attention, I didn’t want anyone to know I’m on the island; in a city where there’s probably a telepath per city block I’m probably hoping against hope there, but even still…what do you want?”

"I'd recommend sitting down then." The look he gave her in turn was all intrigue and no irritation. "No pitches, just carne asada, I hope that sounds a little more appetizing." Long before any of this had all become rather serious, Bobby had always been known as the easy charm of the X-men, and that had carried forth with him into adulthood. It was a little tougher with the weight of history, but he still managed all the same.

Before answering her fully, he began to unwrap his offering, taking up his own portion to manage a bit washed down with the tasting of cola and liquor. "Sometimes we can't avoid all old dramas, and I think you'd prefer me asking you why you're here all of a sudden, instead of Darkholme or Exodus…. Besides, haven't you heard? We're rather down on telepaths these days."

"Sure. You're down telepaths, but all the best ones are still around," she all but snorted, taking a seat and dropping the purse on the floor next to the chair. Then it hit her: his former teammate and friend. Her eyes snapped up to see his face, to see if he was staring, to see if there was some sign the omission had crossed some line, but there was no sign. No outward sign, anyway. One taco wouldn't be enough, but it was a start, especially as she asked the roving waitress for a cerveza, "Right next to Africa and it's Mexican and pizza that I still see everywhere as I walk around Hammer Bay. Well, the more affluent areas, anyway."

There was serious poverty to some of Hammer Bay, much as the mutants, and her father, wanted the issue dealt with there was no magic silver bullet for poverty, but it wasn't a good look...especially when so many of the impoverished were human residents that stayed, or, worse, depowered mutants. Genosha was strange. She'd been there a few days, and it was still just strange. She couldn't help but feel for the depowered; her sister had made her one such victim. It was only Apocalypse that allowed her some restoration of her abilities, and even then...every time she used them it felt more like reading your favourite book, but not your copy, just a copy of it you'd borrowed from someone else. You knew all the words, but everything else about the book was...different, a bit weird.

"I'm sure Raven and Bennet have more pressing matters. Besides, if they knew I was around, he'd know. And if he knew..."

Well. That was obvious, she thought.

"They don't know, I suppose these days I'm meant to tell them about this sort of thing." He spoke with something approaching a defeatist sigh, before carrying on with the easy lack of concern, If you're complaining, I'm sure we can find something more local after, I thought a taste of 'home' made for an alright start, though." It was memories, rather than geography, than tied crunching shell of his second bite to any idea of familiarity. That was the same thought of home that made the sudden memory of Jean burn as brightly as she had in his mind, hot enough to melt even him. Still, he kept the reaction from her, she might have brought it on, but it had never been malicious.

He was tempted to leave it at that, an offer to find somewhere else, to breathe in the tastes of the mutant dom's new home, but he kept talking. "Seemed more likely to work than expecting a text back." There was the usual teasing taunt of his words, but it wasn't entirely untrue. Time apart had made strangers of them, no matter what the past held.

Despite everything, she smiled at her ex-boyfriend, a history that seemed now to be lifetimes ago, “You never answered the question, Iceman,” his codename being used more as a gentle tease, in the moment.

“I’m not stalking you, Lorna.” He replied with a gentle laugh to the use of his codename, another sip of drink as he leant forwards over the table to prevent an errant bite of taco mix ending up on his clothing. “You want to pin down exactly what brings me here, watching you walk away down a street again? Curiosity, concern. Maybe any and all of the above.”

Lifetimes though it may have been, Lorna could still tell when something was up. “Bobby…what are they doing? I’ve been around a few days and all I hear is talk about Charles and my father are up to something. Why are they teaming up? What's changed with Xavier?"

“Your father isn’t the man he was.” There was another munch of taco, swallowed down with a slight laugh, “Normally that’s a negative, but now, it really isn’t. Can’t say it makes up for everything that happened in the past, but I’ll take it.” The pause came afterwards, with a softer sigh, “And, I think Charles is worse, he’s come back, from whoever knows where. It’s like they’ve both been pulled to common ground, an idealistic Magneto and a pragmatic Xavier.” Then the true pain came, the pain which had spurred on his decision to find her without suggesting to the others that there was a mutant unaccounted for on Genosha. “Whatever it is, beyond making this a home for us all, they’ve not told me.”

Lorna Dane took a long drink of the ice cold cerveza, and chuckled at the suddenly grim Bobby Drake. "Guess I'll have to stick around to find out. We need more tacos, and more alcohol, though. Definitely, definitely, more alcohol."

---

In days gone by the district of Havershaw Heights had been the epicentre of the vast, unequal, wealth of Genosha. The human elites had dined in luxury on the spoils earned by the slave labour of the Mutates.

It had suffered some of the worst devastation during the Revolution, furious Mutates, finally free from both their physical and psionic chains, along with their sympathetic human allies, had vented the greater portion of their wrath on the district. Even the most moderate of the partisans had little sympathy for any of the families who had resided in such wealth, although the leadership of the Revolution had done what they could to ensure servants and children would not be harmed.

The version of Erik Lehnsherr that had waged nearly a century of war against the human dominated globe would likely have simply rebuilt the district to house elite mutant overlords, but now free of the worst of his madness and paranoia, he had forged a different path. Opulent estates were rebuilt as buildings of governance, of institutions that would support the community and nation. Of great personal note had been The Piotr Rasputin Memorial Orphanage, alongside the latest incarnation of Jean Grey Institute of Gifted Youngsters. All the problems of nation building had hardly been solved, poverty had still sunk its claws into the recently ruined nation, but the demolishment of the estates had gone someway to at least removing the visual markers of inequality.

There did, however, remain one private household in the district, the Palatine House, the home of Magneto. Far more humble than the Presidential Home it had replaced, it nevertheless provided a commanding view over the entire city of Hammer Bay. It was not, however, the man himself, enjoying the view of the city sprawling to the sea. The wind caught in her hair, the red and gold of her gown, Wanda Maximoff tried to drown out the weight of memory and her own power with the vast sensation of the view before her. For the moment, it wasn’t working. No power was without cost, and very little compared to the terrifying force of chaos magic she had worked upon reality. With a single desperate cry she had irreversibly altered her own world, and while she did not know, she felt the echoes had passed beyond, spilling forth into alternate realities she had never even witnessed.

To put it mildly, it was a lot.

Had she meant to do it? There seemed little doubt from those who had witnessed it. Her own memory, her own recollection, was flawed. She couldn’t recall the act, but her heart ached with grief and guilt. Those were not the emotions of an innocent woman, so she must have.

Any further time she may have had to ponder events was interrupted by the sound of the wall unmaking behind her. The Palatine House had been crafted by those with great power for beings of their own ilk to live within. It was deliberately impossible for those reliant on simple human locomotion to navigate, few doorways, even fewer staircases. An impossible maze carved into less space than your average McMansion.

Magneto stepped through the already sealing archway he had formed in the wall behind her, leading out onto the balcony. The house appeared to be made from stone, but there was enough metal running through it to make his act less than a moment’s thought for the ruler of Free Genosha. He made a habit of not wearing his helm these days, signifying the lack of discord among mutants. There was nothing hidden between him and the great telepaths of Mutantkind anymore.

An unforeseen side effect of this for Wanda, and she would imagine her twin brother and the rumoured cases of other children, was a constant reminder of how time and worked differently upon her father. His features were closer to her own in age than a man who had been born close to the dawn of the previous century. Yet another reminder that they were far from a normal family, not even a normal estranged one.

“Wanda, how are you feeling?” Still, the age sometimes crept into his voice. The feeling of the concerned, doting, father he could have been, had the fates been less cruel. Had he been less cruel.

“Better than yesterday.” She didn’t expand on the specifics further. Most days she couldn’t maintain consciousness for long. This was likely the longest she had been awake and present since The Decimation. That should have been a good thing, but illness and madness were a shield against what she had done. Lucidity felt too painful.

He paced close to her, but not enough to be truly familiar, his hands behind his back. She would have to make do with the concern in his voice and expression. In truth, she did not know if she would have appreciated anything more.

“You’re wearing the gown.” The doubt was in his words as he drew in the painful vision of her, a comment which made her own eyes draw down to herself, to the loosely flowing red and gold of royal majesty she was clad in. The casual outfit of a Princess. Exactly that.

“I know, I like it.” It was a harmless enough statement. Never mind the gown was one of the few surviving relics of the world she had built, a world where she had been a princess, and the gown within which she had annihilated her own people. Thankfully, the man across from her was one of few witnesses who could recall such details. Eventually, perhaps, even that would fade. She hoped so. It really was a lovely gown. It wasn’t the fabric’s fault she was a monster.

Eric either conceded the point or gave up the purpose of engaging within it, moving himself, walking, to the edge of the balcony, alongside, but apart from her. “It looks almost peaceful from up here.” He was quite correct, everything substantial enough to be visible from this distance had been rebuilt, many districts were thriving in a way they never had even at the height of Genoshan wealth. The greatest conflicts that remained were those hidden from on heigh, that dwelled in the hearts of the disenfranchised and disempowered, in this case, more literally than most.

“This sounds like the beginning of a warning.” Her voice was a soft sigh, barely heard over the call of the ocean wind, roaring up to the nearly mountainous heights of the city’s premier districts. “Must I fear you too, father?” Since reawakening in this version of reality, she had rarely called him that. She hadn’t meant it to be something of note, but it evidently was.

“Never, Wanda. I know that has not always been true, I cannot claim to have ever been a parent, let alone a good one. But no harm shall come to you, or Pietro, whenever he wishes to return, by my hand, never again.” The words were carefully chosen, expressing the truth of his feelings while accounting for the errors of his past and the difficulties of the present. He had always been good with words, even when there was little else good in him. “But I cannot hold this nation to that standard. They are angry, and I cannot say they are wrong to be. So long as I am here, you will be welcome, but I understanding of them will only bring you further hurt.”

“And you fear what I might do when hurt again?” Once again she did not mean the sense of betrayal that forced itself into her words, but when her large, glistening, eyes turned on her father, she could not help but read the hurt they had caused him. She didn’t regret it, not quite, but she didn’t mean it either.

“Wanda, I…”

”You are with the Decimator” The archaic tone of Exodus burned into his mind. Charles, even Emma, were always easier to have in his consciousness than Exodus. His telepathy ignited with the zeal of his cause.

”I am with my daughter, Exodus”

”It is not my place to question, Sire, but..”

”Then do not, what is it you wish, Exodus?” It had been difficult enough to prevent the zealous mutant from referring to him as such out loud, he had given up the attempt within the privacy of their minds. He was not sure Exodus was capable of that change.

”Scott Summers is with a representative of the US Navy in Hammer Bay.”

”Indeed, both myself and Miss Frost have approved this.” He still avoided using Xavier’s name when communicating with Exodus, his old friend’s role in the governance of Genosha would have to be made official before the ancient mutant would accept Xavier’s prominent role as anything more than a citizen and adviser of the nation.

”Did you approve an escort of seven score souls and world ending fury?” Exodus lacked subtlty just as much as his words often fell into poetry and allegory. It was a genuine question, damn him.

”Show me.”

The conversation took all of a heartbeat, well adjusted minds speaking directly to each other. Already Magento had begun to float into the air as he fixed Wanda with a sad smile. “I will return, Daughter.”

“Fly safe, Father. Rememver they only do what they must.”

“As do I.”

It was not true flight, that enabled Eric to soar, the way the world distorted around him as the magnetic forces of the Earth propelled him could never be mistaken for it. The air hummed with too much power, crackled with potential. Like a continuous sonic boom, Magneto screamed through the air. He moved with purpose and pace. Had Genosha relied on typical human technologies of electromagnetic detection, they would have gone haywire and winked out. Soon the streaking figure of red in the sky was joined by another, a literally blazing trail, a comet of vengeance.

The land of Genosha quickly gave way to the sparkling expanse of the Indian Ocean. A small land mass, it wasn’t long before it was a distant smudge on the horzion, yet still well within the waters claimed by the sovereign nation. Magneto did not feel they guarded their waters too jealously. Any could pass through the waters of Genosha so long as they meant no harm to Mutantkind, and accepted the status of Genosha as a sovereign state. The fact that none of the UN had yet admitted to such a thing changed nothing. The waters were closed, until the world opened to Genosha.

When the pair of flying mutants came to halt above the crashing tide below, there was little of note to mark it from any other part of the wide expanse. A small outcrop several hundreds of meters to their right denoted volanic activity that might one day, in tens of thousands of years, grow the ambition to become an island, was all that interrupted the sparkling sea. To the nake eye, anyway, to one who could sense through the magnetic currents of the Earth and perhaps the third strongest surviving telepath, it was everything but clear.

”What would you have of me, Sire?” Exodus’ thoughts were not concealed and betrayed him. He would scour the sea if it was his will, end nearly two hundred lives in conflagration for the crime of ignoring the will of Genosha, of Magneto. There was a time when Eric would have agreed, but for now, he would settle for Awe, over Shock.

”Give me their minds, the rest, I shall see to.” While Exodus drifted in the currents of air, the true flight of his telekensis apparent, Magneto appeared utterly static in the air, rooted by forces far beyond the raging winds of Earth. His power ran deep. It was this power he called upon with outstretched hand. At first, nothing about the sight before them changed. Steadily, new waves began to ripple out for the water, a vast shape displacing the tide above it. Soon the creaking groan of tortured metal became audible even over the surf, dark shape rising below.

A moment later, and the shape of the USS Florida broke from the surf, the vast submersible, almost 200 meters of human power, was wrenched from the safety of water. It took more of Magneto’s effort to hold the vehicle together than it did to wrench it from the tide, a structure never designed to exist without the pressure of water suddenly finding itself in the sky. The odd system still broke, although its surface hummed with Magneto’s power, preventing any burst or leak that would spell doom once reset, he had little concern for the death dealing weaponry which failed to survive the transit from nautical vessal to unwilling airforce. Sirens blared from within the hull as instruments gave back impossible readings.

Then the voice of Eric Lehnsherr resounded within the mind of every crew member aboard.

”United States Vessel, you act in transgression of the laws of Genosha, Free and Soverign Republic. Be thankful you recieve the clemency your kind have so often denied our own. You have built these weapons to terrify and subdue, but we are no longer afraid, and you will find we have weapons of our own. Do not return.” Even as the words were projected across the vessel, it was in motion, Magneto, Exodus, and the vast submersible traversing the air away from the island nation, the vast bulk of the USS Florida steadily turning as it did, pointing away from the island, as if there was any doubt as to which direction they were being commanded to go.

”Inform Scott Summers of this, and provide my best wishes to him and his guest.” The continuation of Magneto’s thoughts were directed to Exodus, but were still felt by the crew within the Submarine as it was set back into the water. Let them know of the error they had committed.

Exodus’ thought reply was heard only by Magneto, however, before the ‘fire’ wreathed mutant arced away in the sky. ”By Your Will, Sire.”

Our Final Nights: A World of Darkness Roleplay

"Sic semper tyrannis"

Name: Abraham, Gaius, Praetor, and many more.

Age: Over two thousand

Species: Kindred

Powers: Fortitude, Potence, Celerity, Auspex, Necromancy

Clan: Caitiff

Generation: 5th

Appearance: He carries himself upright and with a quick step, remnants of his days on the march for glory and conquest. His list of names and titles is long, so the short and sweet name of Abraham was taken after an old friend. His clothes clean and freshly pressed, he carries himself well but their a sadness in him and tiredness. He looks remarkably alive for a Kindred, though he carries an aura of man who carries the weight of the world. His body is fit and lean, a surprising amount of scaring dots his chest and his chin is a familiar scar of chin strap from a Legion helmet. With raven black hair and short beard, he looks the part of a young soldier and even has the manners and discipline to prove it.

Personality

Personality: Rugged, careful, and patient. One does not live two thousand years without serious consideration and planning, even as a kindred it comes down to skill and planning. Yet behind his eyes there is a burning hatred, for himself, for kindred, for all his misbegotten species. To the mortals he meets he a caring and compassionate man, yet against vampires especially those that lord and rule over he colder than artic wind. For he believes that the mortal world ought to rule over all, that men kindred, not werewolves, or magic should rule over those mortals beneath them. An eternal soldier, who refuses to stand for anything but the man he once was and hopes to be again one day.

Bio

Biography: Once, long ago in the city of Pompey, he was the man, the general, the soldier Gaius Aurelias Antonius Britannia. Praetorian, general, commander, explorer, but most of all son of Rome. He was enthralled by a leader, a general, and a good man, at the end of the Republic... The world was short on those. So he followed into war, first in the Legion then from the back of a horse his uncle in politics and him exchanged letters often. His uncle a friend of Caesar noticed his skill an competence, so under the tutelage of the man who would birth an empire Gaius would find himself a personal guard to the conqueror. Then they set for Britannia, Gaius remembers the way Caesar brought order and strength to those savage lands. Even gaining his first true glory slaying a tribal chieftain and earning glory in battle after battle. This is when he first caught the eye of his betters, the kindred of the era took note as they realized

Gaius became a general when they decided to march on Rome, to take what they were owed and to save the Empire from the greed and stupidity of it's ruling elite. Yet as this clever and capable young general fought and won, with no other ambition than to serve his commander and people. When death of the Caesar came, he wept and swore to avenge the death of his leader at any cost. When it was won he faced a choice Octavian or his uncle Marc Antony? So blood being blood he swore to follow his uncle, but Clan Ventrue saw the winds blowing and bet on Octavian. In a Skirmish in Anatolia with Gaius would meet his end. Yet fate is strange, Ventrue's warriors fell upon the General and though the mortals were brave and honorable they could not hope to win. A miracle of sorts came, a woman, Gaius himself remembers muttering the name Bellona for she fought like a good of war struck down his foes. Then without a word of explanations she took the wounded general into her arms and drank of his blood... Then gave of her own, before collecting weapons and armor then vanishing back towards the desert.

Gaius awoke in the coolness of night alone and thirsting for blood, he drained half a dozen cattle that night before starting to realized what had happened to him. He could not go home, so he vanished only appearing rarely he learned much of what he could from others... More importantly he learned of the Ventrue's secretive rule of Rome, the secrets of the world he'd never fully understood as a soldier. But he knew one thing when he saw it, tyrants ruling in secret like cowards. Taking the alias Praetor he donned his old praetorian gear he would silently strike again and again, he had no one to educate him instead traveling from Europe to Asia and into Africa learning bits and pieces. But where he went he brought his sword and a promise, to bring low those who their power to become rulers and despots.

It would take centuries for him to start to understand what he was, by then he grown to view this as an order from Roman Goddess of war. Bellona had commanded him, bring war to those who had so quietly and underhanded ruled he would bring war in all forms to those like himself an eternal war for the freedom of mankind. The Praetor learned more as he violently survived year to year alone, feeding off animals or asking humans to offer him the blood in exchange for service. He never took or demanded of mortals, no instead he consume his own kind. Upon learning that the blood of another vampire could nourish him and kill them, he turned to that as a solution. He walked many paths in his new state sometimes with trusted friends, others with childer, and sometimes at the head of forces.

The Dark Ages as they are known were a tough time for many, yet when forces needed to hunt and kill a vampire a full plated warrior would arrive. He would teach knights how to decapitate, the cleansing power of fire, and remind the strength faith can have should they truly be devote. One could say Praetor was not only outside vampire culture but actively culling it, yet unlike so many of his kin he depends not on others but on his own hands. He lived in wilds, traveled from place to place served in armies and more. He chose a life spent learning to kill man, beast, or kindred at any turn. Serving with knights, mercenaries, and more from one side of the world to the other he fought and bled Cainites where ever he found them.

When the Masquerade began he learned to fade in among them, princes would hire a Caitiff to handle problems then one day when he was close he would kill the prince and vanish. He had one simple rule to his violence, no harm to mortals and no feeding without permission few took his threats seriously one Caitiff alone? What could they do? Over the centuries, quite a lot. Though as he grew older his targets became more powerful and high generationally the only way to feed well enough to survive without the topor. Fighting in one war to the next, from one continent to another he would one day be remembered Abraham. Taking the name from a friend of an Abraham Van Helsing with whom he had once challenged the rule Dracula unsuccessfully. Now two thousands years of warfare later he knows the final battle is coming, he knows he cannot fight the topor for many more years unless he commits Diablerie upon someone a greater rank than himself.

So he chooses to face the end times sword in hand, spitting in the face of his enemies ready to die a final death in much the way he died his first death.

@Apollosarcher

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, we're discussing this now!

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

B R O T H E R H O O D O F M U T A N T S

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^{_{T H E R E P U B L I C O F G E N O S H A}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{“Some would be offended at a wolf presenting as a sheep, but I have learned hard lessons from your kind, so I know the truth … you are all wolves.”}

The foundation of the Brotherhood of Mutants formed as a result of great oppression, not initially against mutantkind but under the horrific rule of the Third Reich. Born Max Eisenhardt, the boy who would become Magneto witnessed the death of his family and community first hand, all allegiance his father had shown to the German nation in the First World War forgotten in the racially motivated hatred of the Nazi Regime. A young, broken child, mistakenly buried alongside the dead, would later be recaptured by the SS and subject to the same horror again and again within the walls of Vernichtungslager in Auschwitz. Through lessons learned during his family’s efforts to flee into Poland and beyond, Max survived, narrowly avoiding the worst of the experiments done on populace as the mysteries of mutantkind began to be understood. Equally he was able to aid another young prisoner of the camps, a young girl named Magda. A blight of grave illness delayed the development of Max’s powers, beyond the usual manifestation during adolescence which is common among mutants. Together with Magda he eventually escaped into the Soviet Union, taking on the name Eric Lehnsherr and starting a new life in the Carpathian Mountains.

Eric had not escaped the long arm of oppression, as his powers would eventually manifest while trying to save his young family. For his efforts, Eric was restrained and beaten, prevented from saving his young daughter and terrifying his now-wife Magda in the process. She fled, thankfully not witnessing the destruction Eric brought upon the authorities of their home. Once again a lone survivor, Eric fled into Israel, taking yet another name as Erik Magnus. Here he found perhaps the one peaceful occupation of his life, working as a medical orderly in a psychiatric ward for fellow Holocaust survivors. These years would also result in the defining relationship of Eric’s life, meeting Charles Xavier. The pair had much in common, more than both immediately revealed, and enjoyed each other’s company through the latter’s study of the mind. When Hydra forces later attacked the facility while Xavier was still present as a part of his research, their mutant powers were exposed to each other. While they parted over matters of incompatible philosophy, to think they would end as rivals was yet to cross either mind.

As Eric’s powers grew, he began to work various Western Intelligence agencies, aiding in the hunting down of missing Nazi war criminals and the nascent Hyrda. Eric would often report his targets had died in his pursuit, instead handing over the captured fascists to Mossad, while increasingly viewing the world in a matter of mutants vs humans, he still felt enough connection to his Jewish roots to support their cause of restitution. While the Western agencies were willing to turn a blind eye to this practice when he was primarily focused on ex-Nazis the Soviets were looking to benefit from, eventually the time came when the individual in question had been earmarked for repatriation within the United States in exchange for information on key Soviet projects. As a consequence several Western spy agencies orchestrated a string of attempts to punish, and later kill, Eric. After a particularly brutal string of attacks he resolved to travel to the United States to put an end to those who hunted him at the source, taking on another false name, Magnus Xavier, for this journey.

The choice of name, obviously a reference to the last true friend Eric remembered, proved prophetic as after arriving in New York the use of the surname soon attracted the attention of the true Xavier, recently returned from service in the Korean War. Momentarily distracted from his efforts of vengeance by Charles’ optimism, he assisted in the creation of Cerebro and the first generation of X-men. Ultimately this momentary break from conflict came to an end when the agents who were hunting Eric began to strike at him through personal connections, resulting in yet further tragedy. Driven finally to the conclusion that humanity and mutantkind could not peacefully coexist, and armed with important data from Cerebro, Eric took the name of Magneto and left his work with the nascent X-men to form the Brotherhood.

Using the knowledge gleaned from Cerebro, Magneto was able to recruit powerful and willing mutants to his cause, shortly afterwards creating Asteroid M as their isolated base of operations. Principally among them at first were the Maximoff Twins and Mystique. The membership, even leadership, of the Brotherhood has changed over the years and so has their approach, ranging from supporting partisan mutant factions, championing mutant isolationism and at times, global mutant domination. Their relationship with the X-men has equally shifted over the years, ranging from mistrusted allies to hated foes, several individuals of both teams having even found themselves switching between the two groups of mutants.

Even more pressing to the purpose of the Brotherhood than their ‘cousins’ in the X-men is the changing state of the world and its view of mutants. Regimes have come and gone, the hatred burning on and on. In many ways while the X-men have always shone as the brightness of the world, the Brotherhood have reflected the wrath brought upon mutants and those who support them. They have been the vengeance to Xavier’s justice. In the most extreme of Magneto’s actions he truly threatened the safety of the whole world, although it became apparent that the use of his powers, particularly in the construction and maintenance of Asteroid M, had a powerfully deteriorating effect on his mind and stability. In the greatest of these conflicts, a battle between the X-men and Brotherhood that would eventually destroy much of Asteroid M, the true reality of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver was revealed to Magneto. On the day he lost his first child, he had unknowingly lost twins of his own blood, carried by Magda as she fled from the destruction wrought by her enraged husband. At the time, this shattered the fractured loyalties of the Brotherhood, as much as the physical structure of Asteroid M. With the strain of the battle shattering the last of Magneto’s sanity, even the most cruel hearted of the Brotherhood scattered from his leadership. In a desperate effort to once again achieve domination, Magneto attempted to create the ultimate mutant, Alpha. While successful, his creation rebelled against him, using its distorting power to revert Magneto to an infant. The effect proved temporary, if only from Erik the Red eventually restoring Magneto to adulthood, if not to his same advanced age, the restorative work on him rectified the mental damage his powers had inflicted upon him and stabilised their use. He would never cease to be Magneto, but without the gradual slide into madness resuming again, he abandoned the worst of his aggressive schemes.

In his absence, the other members of the Brotherhood had not been idle. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver spent the interim as heroes of humanity, rather than mutant kind, while the rest fractured, many coming to eventually aid their previous rivals in the X-men while others descended into simple self serving anarchism. By the time Magento’s identity and faculties had been restored, he had no wish to immediately call upon them, recognising that perhaps his children would experience only pain from his sudden return to their lives, and having little need of either the soft hearted or the entirely callous in the new task he had set himself.

The isolated but prosperous nation of Genosha had built its great wealth on the back of vast mutant slavery, a situation that even in Magneto’s calmed state he could not allow to persist. Seeking out the one other member of the brotherhood he could still trust to act in Mystique, the pair set about kindling the fires of a mutant uprising. With her guile and the force of his power it was a matter of months before the revolution swept the island nation. A bloody civil war raged for an extended period, but the mutants were eventually successful, placing Magneto as the new head of state. This began a period of reconciliation for both Magneto and the Brotherhood among mutants, particularly of the younger generation. Painted as a revolutionary and hero, word of his return soon spread from the island of Genosha across the world, and the Brotherhood was reformed, no longer dedicated to violent overthrow of the global order, but instead the preservation of the new mutant homeland of Genosha.

They did not sit idle, however, and were instrumental in rescuing both the X-men, and the wider world, from the ravages of Apocalypse, Magneto stepping in to fill the absence of his old friend Xavier and rebuilding his educational efforts on Genosha. This is not to say the idealistic X-Men and hard line Brotherhood do not still clash, although the conflict is often of a more competitive or theoretical nature these days, the latter are certainly still maintained to do what the heroes of Xavier’s dream could not, especially with the return of Charles to Earth.

C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:

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Unlike the X-Men, the Brotherhood does not simply seek to ensure the survival of mutantkind, but to ruthlessly protect its prosperity and security. They may hold hopes of a similar future, but they do not have the luxury of compassion, instead playing the zero-sum game of realist politik. They have abandoned their mad dreams of global domination (at least openly) but will never be afraid to risk, and take, human lives to safeguard mutant ones.

Currently while the X-Men and Genosha react to the return of Charles Xavier, the Brotherhood continues to work both at home and abroad to safeguard mutant (Genoshan) interests, in much the same manner as any secret service of the human world. Difficult choices have, will and can be made. Recently, with yet another upswing of anti-mutant sentiment festering across the world, their activities have increased greatly, hunting down rumours of yet another planned desolation of their homeland, one they are desperate to prevent.

TLDR: Super fun mutant black ops

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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Magneto

Known in the past as one of the great villains of the post-war era, the revitalised Magneto has undergone not just a physical transformation, but a correct of the maddening effect his powers had upon his mental state. On many occasions assisting, and even leading, his long term rivals in the X-Men. An accidental pop-culture icon of rebellion, this has reached new levels following the successful revolution in Genosha, now acting as leader of the nation as well as the Brotherhood, Magneto seeks to forge a safe haven for mutants across the globe and prevent any chance of the genocide he most fears.

Mystique

Raven Darkholme has fought for the cause that the Brotherhood represents for far longer than it has existed. One of the first documented mutants in the modern era, she seeks to bring about a better, more secure, future of Mutantkind and has no qualms about what may become of humanity in the process. She was an early recruit to Magneto's cause, and later reformed the Brotherhood during Magneto's absence. Despite being mother, both through adoption and biologically, to at least two X-men, she has a cold relationship with the group, in particular holding ill will towards Xavier for turning Rogue against her. Currently, she is one of the most active members of the Brotherhood in the various campaigns of espionage designed to ensure the safety of Genosha, as befits her skills and traits.

Polaris

Years prior, Lorna Dane was manipulated into the belief that her true father was none other than Magneto, an easy explanation for her ability to manipulate magnatism in much the same way. Having lead a lift of forcibly hiding the physical side effect of her mutation by her adoptive parents and other suffering at the hands of humankind, she had little desire to further endanger herself or become mixed up in the myriad battles of the X-Men and Brotherhood. Despite her efforts to lead a normal life, as Polaris, she has often been dragged into the conflicts of Mutantkind. While she has, out of neccesity, fought alongside the X-Men previously, she has grown increasingly disillusioned with the hope that humanity can ever be taught to accept mutants from good deeds alone. Most recently, the thought of a potential family connection with Magneto has spurred her to covertly enter the nation of Genosha, avoiding direct contact with both the X-Men and Brotherhood, seeking some evidence that the old lie may have in fact been a truth of coincidence.

Quicksilver

One half of the troubled Maximoff twins, Pietro has long had a complicated relationship with the Brotherhood, initially a part of the group only due to his sister, he has since become increasingly aligned with their mission, believing in the superiority of Mutantkind. The revelation that Magneto was their true father was taken poorly by Pietro, and during Magneto's absence, both twins left the Brotherhood to live among humanity as superpowered heroes. With Wanda's mind having deteriorated, resulting in several incidents of increasing danger, the pair returned to the Brotherhood as a safe haven where their powers were free to be unleashed. While Magneto and Pietro's relationship remains almost hostile, he now fights aggresively to maintain Genosha as a place he and his sister can be free from the persecution of the outside world.

Scarlet Witch

With the ability to alter probability, often unwillingly, Wanda Maximoff has long been both a blessing and a curse to those around her. Initially a part of the Brotherhood out of olbigation to Magneto for saving her and Pietro's life, Wanda freely left the Brotherhood after the disappearance of Magneto and has had little interaction with the struggles of Mutankind ever since. However, after a mental breakdown caused her to rewrite reality and repeatedly fall into catatonic states, Quicksilver has fled with her, seeking out their father once more.

This would culminate in the disaster of the House of M, and later M-day, with the Scarlet Witch rewriting reality one further time to drastically reduce the mutant population, declaring 'No More Mutants.' The shock of this act continues to echo across the Mutant population, and for a crime so dire, it is unlikely Magneto can shield his daughter from the wrath of those mutants still empowered.

Gambit

Few mutants exemplify the complicated and convoluted nature of the mutant factions than Gambit. Raised as a member of the Thieves' Guild and having worked alongside the X-men, Marauders and most recently the Brotherhood, his past is as chequered as it is varied. Most ironically (or perhaps apt) considering the code name of his long term off and on again paramour, Gambit could most certainly be described as the rogue of the mutant conflict.

First brought to the attention of the X-men while assisting in recovering a de-aged Storm from grave danger, the adventuring criminal had little in common with Xavier or other important members of the X-Men, and those who he might have aligned with were the kind to be most suspicious of him. Despite this, after several further encounters he would ultimately join the team. Whether this was due to a true change of heart from the Ex-Thief, or rather more to do with the Southern charms of a certain member, remains up for debate. He would, over time, become a well liked and valued member of the team. This made the revelation that he had long been a double agent working for Sinister, despite his reasons, all the more painful for the X-Men, in particular for Rogue. In their rage, the team abandoned Gambit in the Antarctic, a situation he was unlikely to survive.

The poles are a great source of magnatic power, however, and so eventually the wandering mutant became known to Magneto. He had little love for the individual who had contributed to spoiling many of his plans, but he was also in the process of building his new union of all mutants, and so Gambit was rescued from the ice, and given a place in the New Brotherhood. Since then, Gambit has worked to further the aims of the Brotherhood, taking part in the Second Genoshan Revolution, and now being sent out into the wider world to assess the existing threats to the island nation.

Exodus

A being out of time, freed from centuries of imprisonment by Magneto during the darkest years of his maddness, Exodus has been an ardent, if unhinged, supporter of the cause ever since. A mutant of frightening ability, he possesses vast superhuman powers, including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, and durability.

Much like Mystique, during Magneto's absence Exodus lead a splinter faction of the Brotherhood, known as the Acolytes. While Mystique's brotherhood may have represented the cunning, more reasonable, aspect of Mutant extremists, Exodus took the most aggressive and damaged souls. This compounded the most extreme elements of the Brotherhood, creating a small yet destructive faction that has caused trouble for the X-Men and wider world since their creation.

The return of Magneto and the rebuilding of bridges between the X-men and many of the Brotherhood has been a complicated issue for Exodus, a rare cause of strife between himself and Magneto. To suggest the members of the X-men are uncomfortable with his presence would be a vast understatement, yet he remains a key aspect of Genosha's defence against the hostility of mankind.

Psylocke

The mutant Kwannon has more reason than most to hate the human regimes of the world. Raised to be the perfect killer by The Hand, even before her state as a mutant was discovered she was forcibly outcast from the normal strata of society. Her loyalty was ensured through a combination of coercion and indoctrination, but it wasn't perfect. Even as she was making a name for herself as the deadliest of assassins in the Japanese underworld, she fell in love and fell pregnant. In displeasure, the Hand slew her lover and took her daughter from her, giving them yet more control over the peerless assassin. Eventually, however, she was able to break free and slay her masters, before setting out to locate her daughter.

Sadly, before she could proceed further in her task, a series of events resulted in the mind of Betsy Braddock taking over Kwannon's body. For this time, Betsy continued under the name of Psylocke, despite wearing the skin of a different woman, and carried on fighting as a member of Xavier's X-men. Eventually Kwannon was able to return to her true form. The blooded murderess had little in common with the idealistic X-men, and so while she continued to use the name Psylocke, she drifted away from the team. Eventually, she would join the Brotherhood, a union of mutants with more place for her deadly skills, under the promise of vengeance upon those who had wronged her and assistance in locating her daughter.

Of the active members of the Brotherhood, she has one of the most workable relationships with the membership of the X-Men, having little in the way of direct conflict with them, and benefitting from many of the X-Men not being entirely able to differentiate her from the Psylocke who fought by their side for years.

S A M P L E P O S T:

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"You aren't supposed to be in here, trooper."

"No, but you are." As the man turned from the terminal to face the approaching soldier, the features he confronted began to swim and shift, a flash of blue, before they reformed. For the briefest of moment's, it was like gazing into a mirror. A mirror which immediately punched him straight in the throat. The system shock was immediate, doubling over in a splutter of desperate breathing. He was utterly unable to anticipate the elbow, his elbow for all appearances, which slammed down into the back of his head, his cranium immediately rebounding off the desk he had been sitting at, the pain of both strikes only interrupted by the sudden loss of consciousness. The figure now wearing the officer's face easily slid into the chair, drawing themselves up to the station.

"Identification required, please complete iris scan." The security fell away as the body double lent down to provide the reading. Around the capital of Hammer Bay, similar terminals were being accessed as the Resistance launched their great gambit. This, however, was the nexus, the primary access point that could only be interfaced by the highest ranking of the Magistrates.

That, or someone wearing their faces.

Once she had passed the scans, Mystique allowed the false skin of the Magistrate office to fall away, her own deep blue skin swallowing the light cast by the computer screen in a matter wholly different to baseline humans. Her fingers still worked away, inputting the code she had written herself. Some things you couldn't leave up to others, no matter how many hands you could now command. With a flick of her wrist, she placed a finger to her ear, triggering the comm-bead within.

"All cells reporting green, terminating broadcast." As she spoke, the virus placed within each of the government's broadcasting stations began to work, eating away at the code to leave it an inoperable tangle of scrambled data. Far from simply cutting off communication, the psychic signals influencing the minds of the countless slave-mutates began to fizzle and fade across the capital, the greatest main holdout of the Magistrate government. A momentary lapse, before the Brotherhood's transmission replaced it, forcibly played across screens and radios over the entire Genoshan nation.

"You're live, Eric." Mystique lent back in the comfortable padding of the chair as the very same screen she had used to begin the pirate broadcast had the very same message imposed upon it.

From imposed darkness, the figure of Magneto drifted into view, his iconic helm, a symbol that had been rallied to by free mutants across the state of Genosha, framing the details of his face as piercing, charismatic, eye bore into the camera.

"Brothers and Sisters, Mutants of Genosha, bask now in the freedom we have won for you." The magnetism of metal was not the only form that Magneto commanded, the fiery zeal of his words flooding across the nation to both current freedom fighters and those newly freed by the failing mental controls the Magistrates had reinstated since their return to power. "Now is not the time for reconciliation, the humans were offered peace, and they repaid it with throwing you back in bonds, no, it is time they learn what we already know, that there is no place to hide. Rise up, Children of Atom, and claim the future that is our right." As the simple but direct message came to an end, the seat from which Mystique had instigated the broadcast was already empty, the Magistrate slumped across the floor waking up to a Genosha entirely changed in the scant moments of his unconsciousness.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

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TBC

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Woo!

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5361387 is complete! Minus me finding some art I like for a few of the primary characters, but don't suppose that matters for judging if I'm good to start writing!