Hexaflexagon

Spiritum

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_{F A S T F A C T S
▲ Futuristic Fantasy setting
▲ Action, adventure, drama, romance, and mystery.
▲ Magic, airships, magitek, eldritch abominations and one hell of a road trip.
▲ Story shaped by the players. World-building encouraged.
▲ The RP itself will most likely progress at a slower pace, as people have other commitments that of course must come first.}

_{P I T C H}

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And cometh the swallowing darkness.
A blighted destiny by sinners south,
leaving only tragedy by powers wrought.
By hands of Lyssa and the touch of her lips,
those brought pure will face the tide.
Despair not for those lost in the darkness
but look towards the peace of the new dawn.
Canticle of Fajjar 17:1

The story of Spiritum is about a world known as Yerin, a world where magic and technology have mixed and flowed together for centuries. Long before man had conquered the world, creating massive metropolises, machines that could soar among the very heavens, and highways that stretched seemingly endless across the horizon, before it all a pact was made with the Gods. In exchange for our eternal reverence they taught us the secrets of magic, the ability to draw from the Astral Mist to bend and shape reality in ways thought to be unimaginable. The Gods also gave them a final gift in the form of the Bonding Crystals which breathed life into the still blossoming world. These crystals would form the centers upon which great civilizations would form around.

It would be these crystals which would nearly plunge the world into ruin due to greed and malice in equal parts. One of the kingdoms that had formed around one of the crystals would one day become the sprawling Vangar Empire. Over time the Vangar evolved into a strong military and industrial powerhouse. They used the power of their Bonding Crystal to fuel their army and industry and over time the crystal slowly began to wane in power. To ensure their continued prosperity, Vangar began to invade the many lesser kingdoms around them to secure their crystals for their own use.

This cycle has lead to the current state affairs with the Vangar-Rassvet conflict. The small Kingdom of Rassvet was a small but influential land with a storied history dating back to when the Pact was made. Rassvet followed a policy of strict isolation and neutrality for most of its existence, preferring to keep out of major conflicts whenever they could. Careful guarding and use of their own crystal has preserved it in a state of power unmatched in all of Yerin. Seeing an opportunity to secure a massive boon to their Empire, the Vangar marched into Rassvet with the intent to annex the kingdom and secure their crystal.

Leading the charge against the Vangar invasion is a special branch of the Rassvet military known as WARDEN. Selected from a very young age based upon their aptitude to draw upon the Mist, these warriors possessing both martial and magical skill far above the standard soldier. With the help of these warriors, the Rassvet army has managed to hold the much larger Vangar Excursionary Force at bay for a little over six months now. Though day by day the Vangar continue to gain ground and casualties mount in the thousands on both sides.

All the while the coming darkness as foretold by the Oracles themselves approaches. Many believe it is a product of the war and the dead. The corpses and the smell of blood driving the monsters from their hiding places mad with a ravenous lust for blood. The crystals which once protected the world know being drained of their power allowing the darkness to slip into the cracks.

Among all of this, the story of Spiritum focus upon a group of freshly graduated WARDENs intent on going on one last road trip as a sort of collective 'family' before they are shipped out to the front lines. Par for the course things don't go as planned. One series of unforeseen events later eventually leads to this group coming to escort a young child with a mysterious necklace connected to the coming darkness and hunted by both Rassvet and Vangar on a world spanning journey to save it all.

_{O O C I N F O}

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Welcome one and all to Spiritum, a rather strange little story if I have to say so myself. The easiest way I could describe it would be to take one part Final Fantasy, one part Stand by Me, one part an old home-brew pathfinder game and sprinkle in some Lord of the Rings for flavor and set to purée. A story about nations and nationalism as much as it is about plucky adventures and the lengths at which individuals will go to preserve their power. It's a more somber take on the 'magical artifact of prophecy' that is seen time and time again, as said artifact is essentially a WMD in its own rite.

The world of Yerin is a living and breathing one. A world with its own convoluted and sometimes purely idiotic history spanning backwards thousands of years. It's a world with its own backstabbing aristocrats, religions, cultures, heroes, and prophecies. Yet at the same time much of this background has been intentionally left as vague snippets. Allowing players to add to the lore as little or as much as they please.

The story itself will go at a slower pace focusing more upon character interaction and development in the interest of creating good scenes and interactions between players rather than rushing forward from action set piece to action set piece. The focus always being on telling a good story. It's a strange tale about friendship, war, the inevitability of oblivion, the burden of fate, and the choices we make. But hey if it sounds like your thing well then why don't you come and say hi?

_{T H E C O M P E N D I U M}

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General world-building stuff for your reading pleasure. More will be added as we go on.

M A G I C

Magic is the art of being able to pull from the Astral Mist. The Mist is the surrounding energy that encompass the space around Yerin in its plane of reality. Stars and galaxies are not as we know them but actually points of highly clustered magical energy within the Mist itself. The art of mastering this power comes in two parts. First and arguably the more important of the two is a person's natural aptitude as some are just wired to be more finely tuned to Mist than others. The second is actually learning how to use said magic, the memorization and knowledge of vast sums of knowledge whose complexities and intricacies mean the difference between a successful spell and leveling an entire city block.

The power bound in spell formulae may be used for healing, teleportation, destruction, creating illusions, and altering form. Though the mist also affected by the caster themselves and each magical burst is different from person to person. Magic is considered a danger, a blessing, the future, an art and a science all wrapped into one tight bundle. Despite its dangerous properties and potential for massive abuse, magic is seen as something of a sacred thing. As a gift from the Gods it carries with it a certain amount of weight and wonder that comes from centuries of religious thought. Due to its divine origins, the Church has a strong investment in the magical arts and its oracles are some of the best magic users in all of Yerin.

T E C H N O L O G Y

Technology in the world of Yerin has developed alongside and with advancements of magic. This fusion of the unknown and the rational being a fundamental building block in the world. From a technological level the world is futuristic compared to our own but close enough to our own reality as to not be totally distant. People drive cars, take trains and use airships to get around. They have wireless phones and their own form of the internet. It's a place where soldiers with assault rifles can be seen fighting against flying monsters and men that can call down electricity from the sky. They also have other more stranger things like giant walking war machines, matter replicators, floating cities and gunsblades.

In many places technology and the industries around it is seen as the way forward as especially in the Vangar Empire and its provinces where they have had to focuses heavily on technology rather than magics to reduce the stress and drain on their limited Bonding Crystals in an effort to sustain their large and sprawling empire. It's the general rule in all places, that technology general comes first as a military invention before slowly over time being filtered down into the general public's use.

W A R D E N

WARDEN can trace it starts back to the early years of the Rassvet. Following in the lineage of a monastic order of magic wielding knights who protected the kingdom from evils that normal men could not. WARDEN serves in the same general purpose of defense of the Kingdom but now do it as deceive shock troops using combined technological and magic power to shatter enemy lines and go on general suicide missions for most normal people.

Every year the Rassvet Government conducts a grand survey of all children within their lands ten years of age. They run the children through what amounts to a series of aptitude tests of all kinds. Those who were considered possessing desirable traits were then taken to the Capital to be trained in the Citadel. The sprawling complex that is essentially a city sized military base within a bigger city complete with its own security force, power supply and laws would become the children's home for the next ten years. Within they were put through hell through one of the most rigorous training regimes in all of Yerin.

Upon graduating WARDENs are placed into one of three tiers:

First Class are the best that WARDEN has to offer. Operating on a level beyond any member of the Rassvet military including their fellow WARDENs and consisting of barely one hundred individuals at any given time these individuals. 1st class WARDENs are given special privileges and are sent in to deal with the most important of matters and are usually working behind the insure the protection of Rassvet. They generally act as singular walking armies going in alone and without backup.

Second Class WARDENs are generally squadron leaders put in charge of Third Class WARDENs above the average cut and skilled combatants and tacticians. Those that are not in command position are sent in squads to deal with direct concerns that while troubling do not require 1st Class intervention. Only the best of the Second Class have even a chance of being promoted up to 1st Class.

Third Class WARDENs are the general face of WARDEN as they are the most numerous and the most commonly seen by the public. They work alongside the regular forces of the Rassvet military as independent detachments working in tandem to complete operations. There most common use is as shock troops designed to create large holes within enemy positions to be exploited.

B O N D I N G<br>C R Y S T A L S

Gargantuan crystalline structures as old as Yerin itself, filled with magic energies and can be harnessed as powerful power supplies. They also have other effects such as keeping monsters away, ensuring the continued vitality of the surrounding land, among others. In short in the world of Yerin civilization cannot exist without the presence of these Crystals for better or for worse.

Mass Effect: Reconstruction

@Arcarius
To be honest with you probably not at the moment. I would really love to but real life kind of threw a sucker punch my way and I'm in the midst of dealing with that and so the affairs of the interwebz have kind of fallen to the wayside. If you or anybody else wants to use the idea feel free though! Anyway thank you all for showing your interest. Maybe next time!

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

Nope

Nope

Maximum Comics

Valkyrie

19 ♦ Barbara Norris ♦ Lawful Good



_{“The lame rides a horse
the maimed drives the herd
the deaf is brave in battle.
A man is better blind than buried
A dead man is deft at nothing."
~ Hávamál}

_{[ ߜ ] O R I G I N}

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_{G O D S A N D L E G E N D S}

The story of Valkyrie begins in the time before time. It was the closing years of the first Ragnarök when Earth was known by a different name Aesheim. This young world had been corrupted by the hands of Cul Borso also known as the Serpent, an Asgardian and the older brother of All-Father Odin. He ruled over the oceans, mountains and forests through fear and destruction with the help of his mighty warriors known as the Worthy. Odin heard the cries of the people upon Aesheim and so gathered up his two other brothers Vili and Ve and a group of mighty warriors from Asgard and lead a campaign to rid Aesheim of the evil that their brother had created.

Battles were fought and warriors on both sides were lost in the fighting but in the end Odin, Vili and Ve triumphed over their older brother and slayed his army of Draumar and every member of the Worthy. They stormed Cul's citadel and in a climactic duel for the fate of Aeshei, brother fought brother. Odin proved the stronger that day, and tossed his brother into the depths of the ocean imprisoned by chains forged by Brokkr himself. The evil was banished, and yet Odin was still plagued by dreams bestowed upon him by the Yggdrasill. In those dreams he saw Cul rising back up from the depths empowered and using said power to destroy the entirety of the nine worlds. To prevent this, Odin began to systematically kill all the man and women that had bore witness to Cul. These people carried within them seeds of fear and darkness that had been planted into their being, it was this fear of Cul which would allow the fallen Asgardian to gain his powers back. The people of course did not understand this and tried their best to fight back against Odin to try and save themselves.

One such man was Sigmund, a warrior and champion of the people that had lead the rebellion against Cul long before Odin intervened. In his long adventures Sigmund had met Brunnhilde, princess of the Wrlstead Arms whom Sigmund had trained in combat under the order of her father, the king. The pair loved each other greatly and were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Upon hearing of the great culling of the humans of Aesheim, Sigmund gathered an army to fight back against the gods. In the end though Odin's great strength and power would result in the shattering of Sigmund's army, and the razing of Wrlstead Arms.

Yet before Odin could strike the deathblow to Sigmund, Brunnhilde leaped in front of Odin and attempted to strike him down with her blade. Odin demanded that Brunnhilde step aside and let him finish his job, but Brunhilde fought onward. The strength and tenacity of the humans even after they had been bested had impressed Odin who came to realize that the warriors of Aeshim needed a paradise of their own. So rather than kill Brunnhilde he made her into his Valkyrie who would bring the souls of honorable warriors up to the paradise known as Valhalla.

_{H O N O R A N D B L O O D S H E D}

Brunnhilde became the leader of the Valkyrior, a group of six warrior goddess tasked by Odin to bring worthy fallen warriors to Valhalla. During this time she came into the view of Amora. Amora saw Brunnhilde's great strength and prowess and saw use for her. Considered on Aeshim to be the god of beauty, love, and sex who had helped Odin before in his battles, Bruunhilde saw no problem in helping the women. And so using Amora with her magics and Brunnhilde with her strength traveled together in an effort to gain items which Amora greatly desired. At first Brunnhilde held only admiration from Amora both in her beauty and her skills. All the while Amora spun her little web ensnaring Brunnhilde further and further making the warrior into her own perfect little champion.

In the end though Bruunhilde realized her mistake when the Yggdrasill revealed to her that Amora was planning to try and overthrow Odin and take Asgard for herself. The artifacts that the two had been collecting if brought together would've allowed for Amora to achieve immortality, making it so that no man or asgardian could defeat her. Brunnhilde learning of her partner's treachery began working on a plot to foil Amora's plans. Brunnhilde destroyed the artifacts and shattered Amora's army before it could even begin with the help of the Valkyrior and others. Amora managed to escape but promised revenge upon the Valkyrie for all that she had done.

Her revenge would come many centuries later after Odin had limited Asgard's connection with Aesheim for the greater good. Odin's sons Thor and Loki and the Warriors Three had been lost on an excursion to recover Gungnir from the giants of Jotunheim. Odin fearing for the worst dispatched Brunnhilde and the Valkyrior to the world of giants to rescue them. Little did Brunnhilde know that Amora had planned all the events which were to occur to spring a trap upon the leader of the Valkyrior. When they arrived at Jotunheim, they found an army waiting for them. The Valkyrior fought bravely against the giants and managed to carve a path to the dungeons of Utgardhall freeing the trapped heroes. In the end Brunnhilde sacrificed herself - holding the line to allow the others to escape from Jotunheim. The great valkyrie being struck down by a combination of the giant king's might and Amora's magic.

While Brunnhilde perished in the snows of Jotunheim, the soul of the Valkyrie lived on imbued with the power of her spirit. Amora banished the spirit and sent it into the void so that Odin could not recover it and bring Brunnhilde back to life. And so many ( Amora included) thought that was the end of the Valkyrie. What they didn't know was that the spirit would eventually find its way to Aesheim over many millennia where it would eventually find itself a host worthy of its mantle.

_{V A L K Y R I E I}
The spirit would first find its way into Samantha Parrington, a rich socialite born and raised in Gotham. Born into a wealthy family and raised on ideals of empowerment and the betterment of all. The spirit bestowed upon Ms. Parrington amazing powers and the ability to a make a difference in the world. Ms. Parrington became a crime fighter that the news dubbed as Valkyrie known for her sword Dragonfang and her flying steed Aragon. Samantha would end up joining the Justice Society of America and fight alongside the likes of Wesley Dodds, Ted Knight, Jeffrey Mace and others. An impressive feat at the time considered at the time of her joining the league in 1960 she was barely seventeen years old.

The heroic acts of this new Valkyrie had caught the eyes and attention of Asgard. Odin summoned the young girl from Earth to speak with her and learn of her story. After spending some time bouncing between Asgard and Earth, it was decided that Ms. Parrington would become Odin's voice upon the planet and act in his stead as he was forbidden too. Samantha would continue to fight alongside the JSA and face many foes that had fallen from the other nine worlds as well. Her actions would bring her into conflict with a villain known as the Enchantress otherwise known as Amora who saw this semi-reincarnation of Brunnhilde as nothing more than a simple pain in her side.

At the age of thirty five, the JSA had disbanded and Samantha was at a lost at what to do with her life. With nowhere else to go she turned back towards the origin of her powers and went to Asgard. Here Ms. Parrington would join up with the Valkyrior. The group of warrior goddesses had become a shadow of its former self in the time since their original leaders death. War against giants and other foes had resulted in great losses and forced many of the original Valkyrior to be replaced with newer warriors with less experience in battle. Samantha then made it her duty and task to train the Valkyrior back into fighting shape as a force to help defend Asgard.

Eventually though Samantha would perish in battle against Hela, the goddess of death after she tried to steal a piece of Odin's soul. And once more the Spirit of the Valkyrie would continue to live on jettisoned back into the void until it could find a worthy host once more.

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_{D A Y S O F Y O U T H}

Born to Steve and Krista Norris in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the first of their eventual three children. Barbara lived a normal life in a city that was small by most standards with only around three thousand and five hundred residents at any given time. Her family life was simple at best, her mother a waitress at a truck stop and her father a local journalist that earned his pay writing about high school football. It was the kind of place that people spent their entire lives trying to get out of, because if you didn't do it fast it had a habit of keeping you stuck for the rest of your life.

The early years were normal , she spent much of it with her father as her mother's work schedule was erratic at best. Her father wasn't the best parent in the world with the inability to cook and a permanent stoic distance that he seemed to keep to his children. As a result the routine was established early though with the same dinner of deli meats on white bread with a small selection of condiments every night, they eat at a dinner table where little small talk was engaged. Sometimes though on the rare occasion that the pestering of his children managed to crack his resolve of stone he would tell his children stories. His favorite were the ones he read when he was young boy enraptured with Norse Mythology. For all his lacking in other fields Steve was a grand story teller who was able to fill his children's minds with vivid pictures of Thor, Odin and others battling Stygian terrible foes like giants. Though it would be Barbara that would be sucked into them the most.

In the ended though times of storytelling and the freedoms of early childhood were replaced with School. Unlike some Barbara had found little difficulty adapting to the school setting. Able to run to the jungle gym and back quicker than any of her classmates, and recite the alphabet without messing up forwards and backwards she was on the quick road to popularity. Her teachers could only say good things about her to her parents that she was a 'bright child', a 'pleasure to have in class', among others. But she did have one issue, one that would follow her through most of her life her constant spats with bullies.

You see like many children her age Barbara grew up with more than just the stories of mythological heroes, she grew up with the stories of real heroes. Heroes such as the Flash, The Sandman, Star Man and others. While the time of the JSA had long since passed their dreams and ideals continued to live on and imbued themselves into the hearts of the people that they once protected. Children in particular having an inexplicable draw to the heroes stories and legends. So when Barbara saw her fellow classmates being picked on she would step in to intervene. This lead to many days of her coming home on the bus with a black eye and a call home to her parents. Her parents worried about her and in response to at least give the girl the chance to defend herself they signed her up for karate lessons which she would take throughout high school.

Junior High school came and went with it the first steps into puberty, boys, and all the other not so fun things to do in the world. She excelled once again in most of her classes except for the dreaded fear that was Sarah Keller's Algebra I class in Seventh Grade. She bounced around a lot between groups and friends trying to find her place among them as she was stuck at the epicenter of many intersecting circles. She stayed fairly popular though both among the students and the teachers and things seemed to go alright.

High School rolled around and much of the same followed. She passed through her advance placement classes not with the best grades but ones that didn't have her parents trying to kill her. She stayed active with things such as the student government and leading the girl's volleyball team to the State Championships where they lost in the closing minutes of the game. Relationships, a troubling pastime that she had been dealing with since Junior High continued, nothing ever truly deep or meaningful occurred though and she was smart enough not to get pregnant or anything like that. Senior year rolled right on along and she found herself applying to college something that was easily enough with her good grades and athletic ability.

In the end though she ended up going to Metropolis University where she went to go play Volleyball for the Bulldogs studying political science with law school on her mind for the future. To go from a small city in Minnesota to one of the largest metropolitan centers in the world was something of a shock. Expectations rose, the general craziness of life mounted higher and higher. She almost lost her scholarship by almost getting kicked off the volleyball team, she struggled in some of her classes and found herself scrambling for purchase. Mid-way through her second semester she found her footing again, doubling down in an effort to not disappoint her parents and anyone else.

She thought she had finally found even footing. She thought it was going to be easy from that point forward. She was wrong.

_{H E I R O F G L O R Y}
The truth of the matter was that Barbara had forgotten about the heroes of her youth. It wasn't until the Kryptonians attacked that she remembered them. The attack hit Metropolis pretty hard and a whole lot of lives were lost in the process, hell half of Barbara's dorm at Met U had been completely demolished when a Kryptoian mech was tossed into it by Superman. But like the many other civilians who there that day, she watched as the Superman, Steel and Supergirl fought against the Kryptonians. Watching them almost immediately her mind was brought back to the days of her youth playing pretend with her siblings.

In the weeks following the attack Barbara found herself thinking about the superheros more and more. Her notebook was filled with sketches of the heroes that she had pretended to be in her youth. It was a stupid fantasy of course, something to get her mind off of the stress for a minute. She knew she was enraptured with the idea of being a superhero, she could never be one herself. She was just Barbara Norris from Minnesota, she played volleyball and she wanted to become a lawyer some day. She wasn't like them, the best she had done was get beat up trying to stop bullies in elementary school.

That changed of course.

April 20^th, 2016 it was a day that would become ingrained in Barbara's head for the rest of her life. She was walking back to her dorm after going out to go see some punk rock band with her friends. The rest of them were staying out getting drunk with their fake I.Ds and what not. In all her heart she wanted to go them but she couldn't, she couldn't afford to get caught by the police it would mean the end for a whole lot of things she worked far too long for. And so she trudged it alone back to the campus grounds. She had made such treks what seemed like a million times and she suspected it to be the same as always.

She heard a cry for help and instinctively she turned down an alleyway heading off of the main street. There she saw a woman being assaulted by a man. Barbara froze unsure what to do, the pair having not noticed him yet. She could run back to the safety of the main street and head on with her day, no that wasn't right. She could call the cops and hope they arrived quick enough, they wouldn't. She could stick around to see what happened, things were getting worse by the second. No. She knew what she had to do. She yelled out at the culprit starling him and charging into him. The culprit pulled a gun as the young Norris wrestled him to the ground. He fired.

The bullet should of killed her. The man left her for dead in a pile of her own blood. She could feel her heartbeat getting slower and slower. Then a warmth of light surrounded her and the pain vanished. She was no longer in her own clothes but out of something of some fantasy viking novel. She felt the strongest she had ever been in her life. On her back was a sword of all things. She chased after the man that had shot her and found him easily enough as the scratches that she had left on him left a blood trail. The next morning, the cops found him tied up in front of their police station, bickering about some golden haired warrior that had come down from the skies.

It's been a week and a couple days since. In that time Barbara had been introduced to a slew of interesting things including a flying horse and ghosts of dead warriors talking in her head. For now though she's playing it cool, not jumping to any conclusions or doing anything that would draw the media to her. In fact she hasn't even stopped a single crime since the one that got her stuck in this mess. She's got a long road ahead to becoming anything close to a hero, but everybody has to start somewhere right?

_{[ ߜ ] A L L I E S}

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Mercedes Knight | A close friend of Barbara and another student at Metropolis University. Studying Criminal Justice, wants to be a cop some day.
Elsa Bloodstone | Barbara's roommate. A friendly girl from Boston that is studying biology. She has vampire problems. Currently they are the only people that know of one another's respective problems.
Felix Alvarez | One of the best lawyers working in America and a total dream boat. He's Barbara boss down at her current internship at Luthor Law Solutions.
Detective Ry Sovereign | Works for the metropolis police department, specializing in super human related crimes. Hasn't got to know Ms. Norris just yet.
Odin | The big man himself, is aware that a new Valkyrie is up and about it somewhere but has more important things to deal with at the moment.
Yggdrasill | Less of a person and more a tree that is central to the very fabric of reality and all but you know. It can communicate though by sending people prophetic dreams about usually very bad things.
Balder Odinson | Son of Odin sent to Earth to try and find the new Valkyrie. He landed in Russia, probably going to be awhile.
Aragon | Flying horse. Yep you read that right, flying horse.

_{[ ߜ ] F A M I L Y}

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Steve Norris | Barbara's father, a journalist from Minnesota who is pretty good at telling stories. Kind of a grump.
Krista Norris | Barbara's mother, a waitress from Minnesota. Barbara's biggest fan.
Jack Norris | Barbara's younger brother. Sixteen years old and full of hormones, he likes drawing things.
Kathryn 'Kate' Norris | Barbara's younger sister and twin of Jack. She throws a mean softball.

_{[ ߜ ] E N E M I E S}

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Adaliah Hazlewood/ Hela | Asgardian and Goddess of Death. Currently pretending to be a human and budding up to Barbara who is taking a strange liking to her. Hela has plans of course.
The Enchantress | Amora is the age old enemy of the first Valkyrie and probably won't like the new one that much either. Right now though she doesn't even now that she exists or cares. That might change in the future.
Malekith the Accursed | Ruler of Svartalfheim and generally a pretty big jerk. He sometimes comes to earth to try and conquer, destroy, exploit, et cetra.
The Doom Maidens | Harbingers of the end times.
Nathan Garrett/ Black Knight | One time British scientist set to win the noble prize in Physics turned evil man with a sword that corrupts all that it touches.
More to come

_{[ ߜ ] N O T E S}

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At the start of Maximum, Valkyrie has been well Valkyrie for like two weeks. She stopped one crime in the middle of the night and that was it. As a result the world doesn't really now about her yet as he hasn't had her big revel yet. That will happen soon enough though.

Nᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ: Uɴɪᴛʏ Oʀ Fʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ

Rin Takahashi

Introductions came and went without much of a note as Rin was only paying half-attention to the others as they spoke finding it hard to keep her attention straight. The faces and names seemed to all blend together into something of an uneasy mess, all a combination of straight faced intent and personality's about as flat as the sand around her home. That really didn't matter to her though, they were there to do their job and nothing else and if the Commander had selected all of them then she figured that they all were capable of the mission ahead of them. The mission which as it turned out was going to coincide with the Hamajo-day celebrations as she had figured. She didn't expect an attack straight at Amegakure though. She expected an attack in one of the outer laying provinces such as Konoha or Iwa, she didn't think they were ready to go into the belly of the beast just yet. Though if they managed to pull it off, well it at least side something about the credibility of their threat, something the government sponsored media was very keen on demonstrating as minuscule at best.

From the looks of it she was on the Perimeter Security Interception Team with the scary lady, the medic and the weird lighting boy with the spikes. Takashi spoke up first and while his first question had some actually valuable results the second one was a little bit stranger, complaining about the idea of the President being called the Dragon. Rin couldn't really understand it they were planning what most people would considered a suicide mission, while he was getting offended at the man's nickname. She added the lines of possible mentally damaged to her internal assessment of Takashi being both loud and obnoxious. The older Osuushi though answered both of his questions in stride. Answering firstly what there job actually was (Running security for Team 2 dealt with the statue, something that she was totally fine with as staying as far away from Hamajō's Blue Voice as possible was always a bonus.) and giving a tactful response to his comments about dragons.

Though something that the commander had said made Rin's ears perk up just a little bit. If something beyond there level was to show up then, she herself would enter the field as well as a 14 man backup contingent. They were betting more highly on this operation than anyone seemed to be wanting to let on if they were willing to blow 23 souls on it including four Jōnin and their own commander. The morale blow that it provided to the Confederation and the boost that it provided to the evidently lagging troops of the Jiyuna no Guntai wouldn't matter for crap if the only person holding the disorganized band of rebels together died for it. Rin opened her mouth to speak on that regard when Tsukiko began to talk.

The former Jōnin commander took charge of the room with a blunt efficiency that was befitting of her character. Rin's assumptions that she knew what she was doing only being further cemented. Though it did disappoint her that rather than addressing the remainder of the room as comrades she rather spoke to them like they were specks of dust. She wasted no time on small talk, describing the power of the upper echelon of the Confederation like she had each of their skillets and moves memorized by heart. You always heard rumors growing up about the likes of the President and his closet allies but you always just assumed they were rumors. It seemed those rumors were more than just the fancies of children playing games as she had first thought they were. Thinking about this she didn't even notice that Tsukiko had moved until she found her moving across her line of sight on the other side of the table. As the Jōnin continued to speak her eyes glanced over towards Osuushi wondering how she was feeling about Tsukiko essentially taking her own meeting away from her without as much as a second thought or anything else.

^Thud

A kunai slammed into the table drawing Rin's attention back towards Tsukiko. She wanted the rest of the team to speak now but rather than speak the room sort of just sat in a limbo of stunned silence at the ferocity of the rant that they had all just witness. Rin looked towards Takashi, Kazuki and even Osuushi slowly before she finally began to speak standing up as she did so. The words coming out where the same as they always were a certain non assuming flatness accompanied by a small hint of bristling fire. "We do remember the Kages. That is the whole reason we are here in the first place, and the same reason you are here. We might of been kids but we remember a time when people could speak freely without worrying about the Confederation taking them away, we remember a time when you could sit up on your roof and watch the stars without having to worry about breaking a government sponsored curfew to keep crime down, and we remember everything else that we lost and the people that the Confederation has taken away from us. We are here for the same reason you are, because we want to fight back. Newsflash you might of been a Jōnin Commander once, but now you are just a rebel like the rest of us." Rin explained as she grabbed the Kunai on the table and wrenched it out of the table before laying it down upon the table. For a moment she thought she had envied

"Never the less you do have a point. If we are to act as a team we need to know each others strengths and weakness. Bōjutsu and Taijutsu supplemented by Wind and Earth Releases. I'm probably not the fastest person in this room or the strongest for that matter but I can guarantee that I can take more hits than the rest of you. Solid all-rounder, I guess I can cover wherever you need me and at whatever range but I lack the specializing that some others have. I also worked in Amegakure before I rebelled, I know the place like the back of my hand and I know the typical routes that the patrols use. Also, I have my clan's hiden of course." She explained as she picked up the Kunai laying on the table and concentrated on it imbuing it with the energy from the yang release. Dropping the Kunai in plain view of everyone allowing it to fall and hit point first into the stone floor and rather than the blade bouncing off of the solid surface like one might of expected, the blade sunk into the earth like hot butter submerging itself almost completely into the ground. "It's worse with the Bō. I didn't lie when I said I can hit things pretty hard."

Nᴀʀᴜᴛᴏ: Uɴɪᴛʏ Oʀ Fʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ

@RyoRyoRyoken
Post will be up today. Work has been a little crazy so I haven't had time to finish writing it/proof reading it until now.

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

Trapp, Maki went to great lengths to keep you from hurtling to your doom on Jehan, and you repay her BY KISSING HER WAIFU?!

@Reaper

It was either kiss the waifu or creepy Ardin stayed creepy and continue trying to propose to her! Maki would of been cocked blocked for life! He saved your Waifu! SAVED!
_{What has become my life?}

@Sen@Deadnaut
Basically the 7th has too much of a history blowing shit up and wasting valuable military resources in the pursuit of blowing shit up. So the logistics guys get back at them by giving them what amounts to water with coffee aftertaste.

Hex's Repository For Things Lost and Now Found.

Valkyrie

19 ♦ Barbara Norris ♦ Lawful Good



_{“The lame rides a horse
the maimed drives the herd
the deaf is brave in battle.
A man is better blind than buried
A dead man is deft at nothing."
~ Hávamál}

_{[ ߜ ] O R I G I N}

---

_{G O D S A N D L E G E N D S}

The story of Valkyrie begins in the time before time. It was the closing years of the first Ragnarök in a time when Earth was known by a different name Aesheim. This young world had been corrupted by the hands of Cul Borso also known as the Serpent, an Asgardian and the older brother of All-Father Odin. He ruled over the oceans, mountains and forests through fear and destruction with the help of his mighty warriors known as the Worthy. Odin heard the cries of the people upon Aesheim and so gathered up his two other brothers Vili and Ve and a group of mighty warriors from Asgard and lead a campaign to rid Aesheim of the evil that their brother had created.

Battles were fought and warriors on both sides were lost in the fighting but in the end Odin, Vili and Ve triumphed over their older brother and slayed his army of Draumar and every member of the Worthy. They stormed Cul's citadel and in a climactic duel for the fate of Aeshei, brother fought brother. Odin proved the stronger that day, and tossed his brother into the depths of the ocean imprisoned by chains forged by Brokkr himself. The evil was banished, and yet Odin was still plagued by dreams bestowed upon him by the Yggdrasill. In those dreams he saw Cul rising back up from the depths empowered and using said power to destroy the entirety of the nine worlds. To prevent this, Odin began to systematically kill all the man and women that had bore witness to Cul. These people carried within them seeds of fear and darkness that had been planted into their being, it was this fear of Cul which would allow the fallen Asgardian to gain his powers back. The people of course did not understand this and tried their best to fight back against Odin to try and save themselves.

One such man was Sigmund, a warrior and champion of the people that had lead the rebellion against Cul long before Odin intervened. In his long adventures Sigmund had met Brunnhilde, princess of the Wrlstead Arms whom Sigmund had trained in combat under the order of her father, the king. The pair loved each other greatly and were a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Upon hearing of the great culling of the humans of Aesheim, Sigmund gathered an army to fight back against the gods. In the end though Odin's great strength and power would result in the shattering of Sigmund's army, and the razing of Wrlstead Arms.

Yet before Odin could strike the deathblow to Sigmund, Brunnhilde leaped in front of Odin and attempted to strike him down with her blade. Odin demanded that Brunnhilde step aside and let him finish his job, but Brunhilde fought onward. The strength and tenacity of the humans even after they had been bested had impressed Odin who came to realize that the warriors of Aeshim needed a paradise of their own. So rather than kill Brunnhilde he made her into his Valkyrie who would bring the souls of honorable warriors up to the paradise known as Valhalla.

_{H O N O R A N D B L O O D S H E D}

Brunnhilde became the leader of the Valkyrior, a group of six warrior goddess tasked by Odin to bring worthy fallen warriors to Valhalla. During this time she came into the view of Amora. Amora saw Brunnhilde's great strength and prowess and saw use for her. Considered on Aeshim to be the god of beauty, love, and sex who had helped Odin before in his battles, Bruunhilde saw no problem in helping the women. And so using Amora with her magics and Brunnhilde with her strength traveled together in an effort to gain items which Amora greatly desired. At first Brunnhilde held only admiration from Amora both in her beauty and her skills. All the while Amora spun her little web ensnaring Brunnhilde further and further making the warrior into her own perfect little champion.

In the end though Bruunhilde realized her mistake when the Yggdrasill revealed to her that Amora was planning to try and overthrow Odin and take Asgard for herself. The artifacts that the two had been collecting if brought together would've allowed for Amora to achieve immortality, making it so that no man or asgardian could defeat her. Brunnhilde learning of her partner's treachery began working on a plot to foil Amora's plans. Brunnhilde destroyed the artifacts and shattered Amora's army before it could even begin with the help of the Valkyrior and others. Amora managed to escape but promised revenge upon the Valkyrie for all that she had done.

Her revenge would come many centuries later after Odin had limited Asgard's connection with Aesheim for the greater good. Odin's sons Thor and Loki and the Warriors Three had been lost on an excursion to recover Gungnir from the giants of Jotunheim. Odin fearing for the worst dispatched Brunnhilde and the Valkyrior to the world of giants to rescue them. Little did Brunnhilde know that Amora had planned all the events which were to occur to spring a trap upon the leader of the Valkyrior. When they arrived at Jotunheim, they found an army waiting for them. The Valkyrior fought bravely against the giants and managed to carve a path to the dungeons of Utgardhall freeing the trapped heroes. In the end Brunnhilde sacrificed herself - holding the line to allow the others to escape from Jotunheim. The great valkyrie being struck down by a combination of the giant king's might and Amora's magic.

While Brunnhilde perished in the snows of Jotunheim, the soul of the Valkyrie lived on imbued with the power of her spirit. Amora banished the spirit and sent it into the void so that Odin could not recover it and bring Brunnhilde back to life. And so many ( Amora included) thought that was the end of the Valkyrie. What they didn't know was that the spirit would eventually find its way to Aesheim over many millennia where it would eventually find itself a host worthy of its mantle.

_{V A L K Y R I E I}
The spirit would first find its way into Samantha Parrington, a rich socialite born and raised in Gotham. Born into a wealthy family and raised on ideals of empowerment and the betterment of all. The spirit bestowed upon Ms. Parrington amazing powers and the ability to a make a difference in the world. Ms. Parrington became a crime fighter that the news dubbed as Valkyrie known for her sword Dragonfang and her flying steed Aragon. Samantha would end up joining the Justice Society of America and fight alongside the likes of Wesley Dodds, Ted Knight, Jeffrey Mace and others. An impressive feat at the time considered at the time of her joining the league in 1960 she was barely seventeen years old.

The heroic acts of this new Valkyrie had caught the eyes and attention of Asgard. Odin summoned the young girl from Earth to speak with her and learn of her story. After spending some time bouncing between Asgard and Earth, it was decided that Ms. Parrington would become Odin's voice upon the planet and act in his stead as he was forbidden too. Samantha would continue to fight alongside the JSA and face many foes that had fallen from the other nine worlds as well. Her actions would bring her into conflict with a villain known as the Enchantress otherwise known as Amora who saw this semi-reincarnation of Brunnhilde as nothing more than a simple pain in her side.

At the age of thirty five, the JSA had disbanded and Samantha was at a lost at what to do with her life. With nowhere else to go she turned back towards the origin of her powers and went to Asgard. Here Ms. Parrington would join up with the Valkyrior. The group of warrior goddesses had become a shadow of its former self in the time since their original leaders death. War against giants and other foes had resulted in great losses and forced many of the original Valkyrior to be replaced with newer warriors with less experience in battle. Samantha then made it her duty and task to train the Valkyrior back into fighting shape as a force to help defend Asgard.

Eventually though Samantha would perish in battle against Hela, the goddess of death after she tried to steal a piece of Odin's soul. And once more the Spirit of the Valkyrie would continue to live on jettisoned back into the void until it could find a worthy host once more.

---

_{D A Y S O F Y O U T H}

Born to Steve and Krista Norris in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the first of their eventual three children. Barbara lived a normal life in a city that was small by most standards with only around three thousand and five hundred residents at any given time. Her family life was simple at best, her mother a waitress at a truck stop and her father a local journalist that earned his pay writing about high school football. It was the kind of place that people spent their entire lives trying to get out of, because if you didn't do it fast it had a habit of keeping you stuck for the rest of your life.

The early years were normal , she spent much of it with her father as her mother's work schedule was erratic at best. Her father wasn't the best parent in the world with the inability to cook and a permanent stoic distance that he seemed to keep to his children. As a result the routine was established early though with the same dinner of deli meats on white bread with a small selection of condiments every night, they eat at a dinner table where little small talk was engaged. Sometimes though on the rare occasion that the pestering of his children managed to crack his resolve of stone he would tell his children stories. His favorite were the ones he read when he was young boy enraptured with Norse Mythology. For all his lacking in other fields Steve was a grand story teller who was able to fill his children's minds with vivid pictures of Thor, Odin and others battling Stygian terrible foes like giants. Though it would be Barbara that would be sucked into them the most.

In the ended though times of storytelling and the freedoms of early childhood were replaced with School. Unlike some Barbara had found little difficulty adapting to the school setting. Able to run to the jungle gym and back quicker than any of her classmates, and recite the alphabet without messing up forwards and backwards she was on the quick road to popularity. Her teachers could only say good things about her to her parents that she was a 'bright child', a 'pleasure to have in class', among others. But she did have one issue, one that would follow her through most of her life her constant spats with bullies.

You see like many children her age Barbara grew up with more than just the stories of mythological heroes, she grew up with the stories of real heroes. Heroes such as the Flash, The Sandman, Star Man and others. While the time of the JSA had long since passed their dreams and ideals continued to live on and imbued themselves into the hearts of the people that they once protected. Children in particular having an inexplicable draw to the heroes stories and legends. So when Barbara saw her fellow classmates being picked on she would step in to intervene. This lead to many days of her coming home on the bus with a black eye and a call home to her parents. Her parents worried about her and in response to at least give the girl the chance to defend herself they signed her up for karate lessons which she would take throughout high school.

Junior High school came and went with it the first steps into puberty, boys, and all the other not so fun things to do in the world. She excelled once again in most of her classes except for the dreaded fear that was Sarah Keller's Algebra I class in Seventh Grade. She bounced around a lot between groups and friends trying to find her place among them as she was stuck at the epicenter of many intersecting circles. She stayed fairly popular though both among the students and the teachers and things seemed to go alright.

High School rolled around and much of the same followed. She passed through her advance placement classes not with the best grades but ones that didn't have her parents trying to kill her. She stayed active with things such as the student government and leading the girl's volleyball team to the State Championships where they lost in the closing minutes of the game. Relationships, a troubling pastime that she had been dealing with since Junior High continued, nothing ever truly deep or meaningful occurred though and she was smart enough not to get pregnant or anything like that. Senior year rolled right on along and she found herself applying to college something that was easily enough with her good grades and athletic ability.

In the end though she ended up going to Metropolis University where she went to go play Volleyball for the Bulldogs studying political science with law school on her mind for the future. To go from a small city in Minnesota to one of the largest metropolitan centers in the world was something of a shock. Expectations rose, the general craziness of life mounted higher and higher. She almost lost her scholarship by almost getting kicked off the volleyball team, she struggled in some of her classes and found herself scrambling for purchase. Mid-way through her second semester she found her footing again, doubling down in an effort to not disappoint her parents and anyone else.

She thought she had finally found even footing. She thought it was going to be easy from that point forward. She was wrong.

_{H E I R O F G L O R Y}
The truth of the matter was that Barbara had forgotten about the heroes of her youth. It wasn't until the Kryptonians attacked that she remembered them. The attack hit Metropolis pretty hard and a whole lot of lives were lost in the process, hell half of Barbara's dorm at Met U had been completely demolished when a Kryptoian mech was tossed into it by Superman. But like the many other civilians who there that day, she watched as the Superman, Steel and Supergirl fought against the Kryptonians. Watching them almost immediately her mind was brought back to the days of her youth playing pretend with her siblings.

In the weeks following the attack Barbara found herself thinking about the superheros more and more. Her notebook was filled with sketches of the heroes that she had pretended to be in her youth. It was a stupid fantasy of course, something to get her mind off of the stress for a minute. She knew she was enraptured with the idea of being a superhero, she could never be one herself. She was just Barbara Norris from Minnesota, she played volleyball and she wanted to become a lawyer some day. She wasn't like them, the best she had done was get beat up trying to stop bullies in elementary school.

That changed of course.

April 20^th, 2016 it was a day that would become ingrained in Barbara's head for the rest of her life. She was walking back to her dorm after going out to go see some punk rock band with her friends. The rest of them were staying out getting drunk with their fake I.Ds and what not. In all her heart she wanted to go them but she couldn't, she couldn't afford to get caught by the police it would mean the end for a whole lot of things she worked far too long for. And so she trudged it alone back to the campus grounds. She had made such treks what seemed like a million times and she suspected it to be the same as always.

She heard a cry for help and instinctively she turned down an alleyway heading off of the main street. There she saw a woman being assaulted by a man. Barbara froze unsure what to do, the pair having not noticed him yet. She could run back to the safety of the main street and head on with her day, no that wasn't right. She could call the cops and hope they arrived quick enough, they wouldn't. She could stick around to see what happened, things were getting worse by the second. No. She knew what she had to do. She yelled out at the culprit starling him and charging into him. The culprit pulled a gun as the young Norris wrestled him to the ground. He fired.

The bullet should of killed her. The man left her for dead in a pile of her own blood. She could feel her heartbeat getting slower and slower. Then a warmth of light surrounded her and the pain vanished. She was no longer in her own clothes but out of something of some fantasy viking novel. She felt the strongest she had ever been in her life. On her back was a sword of all things. She chased after the man that had shot her and found him easily enough as the scratches that she had left on him left a blood trail. The next morning, the cops found him tied up in front of their police station, bickering about some golden haired warrior that had come down from the skies.

It's been a week and a couple days since. In that time Barbara had been introduced to a slew of interesting things including a flying horse and ghosts of dead warriors talking in her head. For now though she's playing it cool, not jumping to any conclusions or doing anything that would draw the media to her. In fact she hasn't even stopped a single crime since the one that got her stuck in this mess. She's got a long road ahead to becoming anything close to a hero, but everybody has to start somewhere right?

_{[ ߜ ] A L L I E S}

---

Mercedes Knight | A close friend of Barbara and another student at Metropolis University. Studying Criminal Justice, wants to be a cop some day.
Elsa Bloodstone | Barbara's roommate. A friendly girl from Boston that is studying biology. She has vampire problems. Currently they are the only people that know of one another's respective problems.
Felix Alvarez | One of the best lawyers working in America and a total dream boat. He's Barbara boss down at her current internship at Luthor Law Solutions.
Detective Ry Sovereign | Works for the metropolis police department, specializing in super human related crimes. Hasn't got to know Ms. Norris just yet.
Odin | The big man himself, is aware that a new Valkyrie is up and about it somewhere but has more important things to deal with at the moment.
Yggdrasill | Less of a person and more a tree that is central to the very fabric of reality and all but you know. It can communicate though by sending people prophetic dreams about usually very bad things.
Balder Odinson | Son of Odin sent to Earth to try and find the new Valkyrie. He landed in Russia, probably going to be awhile.
Aragon | Flying horse. Yep you read that right, flying horse.

_{[ ߜ ] F A M I L Y}

---

Steve Norris | Barbara's father, a journalist from Minnesota who is pretty good at telling stories. Kind of a grump.
Krista Norris | Barbara's mother, a waitress from Minnesota. Barbara's biggest fan.
Jack Norris | Barbara's younger brother. Sixteen years old and full of hormones, he likes drawing things.
Kathryn 'Kate' Norris | Barbara's younger sister and twin of Jack. She throws a mean softball.

_{[ ߜ ] E N E M I E S}

---

Adaliah Hazlewood/ Hela | Asgardian and Goddess of Death. Currently pretending to be a human and budding up to Barbara who is taking a strange liking to her. Hela has plans of course.
The Enchantress | Amora is the age old enemy of the first Valkyrie and probably won't like the new one that much either. Right now though she doesn't even now that she exists or cares. That might change in the future.
Malekith the Accursed | Ruler of Svartalfheim and generally a pretty big jerk. He sometimes comes to earth to try and conquer, destroy, exploit, et cetra.
The Doom Maidens | Harbingers of the end times.
Nathan Garrett/ Black Knight | One time British scientist set to win the noble prize in Physics turned evil man with a sword that corrupts all that it touches.
More to come

_{[ ߜ ] N O T E S}

---

At the start of Maximum, Valkyrie has been well Valkyrie for like two weeks. She stopped one crime in the middle of the night and that was it. As a result the world doesn't really now about her yet as he hasn't had her big revel yet. That will happen soon enough though.

Maximum Comics

May 2nd, 2016 ♦ 3:00 AM ♦ Monterey, California

---

Lorena Marquez should've been sleeping. Instead she was riding down California 1 on a bike trying her best to get the hell out of Monterey. It was for the same reasons she had tried to run away the last ten times, her parents were fighting again. They were always fighting about something: money, the car that always had one tyre on the road and other one in the shop, and of recently just one another in general. She knew kids whose parents had gotten divorced before, they had normal lives and everything. But it just wasn’t something that happened to you, it wasn’t something that you had to deal with. It wasn’t something that you had to wake up to in the morning. So she chose to ignore it, drown it out in any way she could. Sometimes though when they thought she was sleeping, the arguments would get worse and worse until they just seemed to swallow up the whole damn house. Tonight was one of those nights.

So there she was riding down the highway at an hour considered obscene by most. White earphones tucked into her ears (bought a week ago at the 7-Eleven and already falling apart at the seams) as she peddled down slick asphalt. Music blasting as loud as her phone could go. It didn’t have any lyrics, just noise on top of noise getting steadily more complex, time signatures jumped all over the places while melody and countermelody were up against one another’s throats with razor blades. She didn’t want to pay attention to words or artist's intent, she just wanted to get lost in the sound of it all. She wanted to get her mind lost on anything else beside the argument that was without a doubt still raging at her house.

Sixteen, it was supposed to be something of a big deal but her sixteenth birthday had come and gone like all the others. She just continued to count down the days until she turned eighteen, until she was free of that house, free of her parents and could do whatever she really wanted. For now though she would stick to riding her bike down the side of the highway. It reminded her of when she was little and her father would take her out in his old red pickup truck out past Swanton where it just seemed to be the two of them and nobody else in the world. He would fish and she would just sit there and talk to him, maybe chase the seagulls around and play in the water. The fresh pacific breeze dancing playfully around them. The truck was gone of course, her father had to sell it awhile back to pay the mortgage besides, he never had time to go fishing anymore. The memories still comforted her though when she needed them.

Lost in her thoughts, she almost missed as two forms were jettisoned out of the water and into the air. Thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her, she slowed down and peered over the side at the bay. Moments later two large forms hit slapped against the sand like hunks of meat hitting the counter before the butcher chops them up. She peered into the darkness seeing what could only be described as two human like shapes.

And for a moment the girl stood motionless unsure what to do. One hand automatically began sneaking down to grasp at her phone, the response being drilled into her brain from a young age. Fingers froze as soon as they grasped at the hard plastic case. She could end it right there, call up the police and they could come and deal with whatever the ocean had just spat up. She could continue with her plan to run away from her parents, eventually grow tired and realize she had been stupid and have to peddle all the way back to her house. Or she could go and investigate herself... She had to make sure it wasn’t just some driftwood before she went and bothered the police about it right?

Lorena parked her bike on the side of the road, flipping the kickstand up in a rush before it came tumbling down. Sneakers hit the sand sinking in part way, small granules getting inside and rubbing against her socks as she made her way down the beach.

---

In his dreams he was always a child again. His mother was calling out to him to come in for dinner. Her hair fiery red hair skipping in the summer’s breeze. In his dreams she was always smiling, always kind, young, and full of life. She wasn’t like the tired old woman that he had met later on full of sorrow and sadness. And he ran after her on his tiny little toddler legs but the closer he got the further away she always she seemed. Until just like that she was gone and he was tumbling through darkness, tumbling, tumbling, and tumbling some more until he hit the ground a world away.

Eyes shot open as air filled his lungs, not water but fresh air. Hands found shaky purchase on cool sand, without much effort Orin slowly pushed himself out of the sand and into a kneeling position. His eyes adjusted to the scene around him, he was on a beach somewhere. He tried to focus past the pain that was flaring up on the left side of his head. He turned to see the other form that had washed up on the shore next to him. Pale skin, sharp ears, jet black haired slicked backwards. Namor, the one that had up to recently been trying to kill him.

Slowly Orin made his way over to the his fallen form and without much grace flipped the young man onto his back. Blood streamed from a deep gash on the upper left-hand corner of his face from when the seabed had collapsed around them. When the two of them had nearly died because of Orin’s half-brother Orm who had played them both like the fools that they were. He pressed two fingers against the man’s neck feeling and there it was._Badump^badump_badump. The pulse was strong despite the trauma has body had been through. Orin could at least gave the young man that, he could sure as hell take a beating.

His mind drifted back to the events the lead him there. Orm, he had once considered the man the closest thing he had to a brother. They had toppled kings together, they had saved the oceans time and time again. Was all of it a lie? He dared not to think about, lest his entire being became filled with frothing unadulterated rage. So he silenced that part of him the best that he could, the part of him that wanted to turn around and leap back into the ocean and rip Orm’s head from his body. Charging in now would only get him killed. He needed a plan before he started charging in. Problem was Orm was always the one with the plan, he just hit enough of the bad guys to make the plan a reality.

He heard it first, the sound of footsteps displacing sand. Orin’s head snapped in the direction of the sound where he saw a source of light coming straight towards him, the bright sphere bobbing up and down erratically. Reflexively he reached for his trident usually strapped to his back but he found nothing. Orm had has trident, he had given it to Orm and the bastard used it to nearly try and kill him. That was okay though, he didn’t need the trident to defend himself. You didn’t become king of the oceans without learning a few tricks.

The light then spoke out to him. “Yo! Are you guys alive down there?” the light asked as it closed the distance. English, the light spoke English. At least Orin remembered how to speak English. Soon Orin could see the form of a teenage girl from behind the light holding up what seemed to be a small rectangular device that fit into the palm of her hand.

Orin pushed himself up and onto his feet brushing the sand off of him. The girl tilted her head following his head upward and he rose to his full height dwarfing her in the process. “We are fine. Thank you for your concern child.”

“Dude. I’m sixteen not five, not a kid.” The girl responded with a sharpness to her tone that Orin was not used to. “You sure? Cause I saw you like get spit out of the ocean. I might of almost flunked out of health class, but I know that’s not good for you.”

“I assure you, we are fine.” Orin insisted, but the girl was too busy looking at Namor and the gash in his head. Orin stepped between her and the boy’s body speaking again more sternly. “Where are we exactly child?”

“Monterey... California? You sure you didn’t hit your head or something, like your friend over there?” The girl asked eyebrow raised as she pointed between Orin's legs at Namor.

California... The last time he had been in California was when his father was still alive. His father was doing some work with the staff at Birch Aquarium in San Diego. He tried to rack his memory for the lessons his father had taught him about California. Though it was hard going that was some time ago and his memories on the surface world had become increasingly faded the more time he spent down in Atlantis. He could barely remember his father’s own face at this point.

“Is Jerry Brown still your governor?”

“No? I mean not since like my parents were still in school... Just who are you exactly?” The girl explained starting to slowly regret not calling the police earlier.

“I’m Orin, King of Atlantis.” Orin responded nonchalantly even as the girl took one large step backwards.

“Sureeeee. And I’m the Queen of England.”

”Well that’s just ridiculous. Why would you be in California?”

“Oh yeah, I’m the ridiculous one. Not the crazy man that washed up on the beach at three in the morning claiming that he came from Atlantis.” She fired back heatedly. “The Darling it's better. Down where it's wetter. That Atlantis.”

“Yes. Atlantis like I told you.” Orin responded exasperated.

“Well I'm sorryyy. But I can't just believe you are from fucking Atlantis.” She responded but much too her annoyance Orin was looking back at the sea, right hand against his temple with his eyes closed. “Wait... What the hell are you doing?”

“Showing you.” Orin explained as he closed his eyes and reached out into the surrounding area around him. He could feel them, all the creatures of the sea just waiting beyond the reaches of the shore. The sand crabs laying in their burrows, the small fish swimming just a few feet ahead of him in the water, he could feel all of them like he was at the center of a web stretching out infinitely into every direction. All he had to do was pluck the strings.

So he did.

The girl watched in silent awe as the very ocean around her which seemed calm and without life mere moments ago rustled as dozens of creatures began swimming towards the shore. Crabs, fish, and even sea gulls all coming to cluster around the man who stood there hand outreach as if he was summoning them all to him. She had never seen so many animals in one place before, let alone sea creatures and this close to the beach. They all seemed to be trying to get closer to the man, to be able to touch him. Then he dropped his hand and turned back to face her, and the fantasy vanished. All the creatures immediately began to scurry, swim, or fly away in a flurry of movement and soon it was just her and him once more.

“H...How?” She asked mouth slightly open in shock.

“I’m their king.” Orin explained with a small smile barely ghosting his face. ”Now tell me is there someplace my friend and I can recuperate for the night?”

“I’m guessing that you don’t have any money do you?”

“King’s don’t need money.”

“Yeah, kind of walked into that one didn’t I? So hotels and shit like that are out...” She explained scratching her head. An idea was already dawning upon her but she didn’t really like it. “I mean... we have a shed in our backyard that we really don’t use anymore. You guys could probably sleep there for a night.”

“That... could work.” A shed was no bedroom in the royal palace but he wasn’t about to look a gifted horse in the mouth.

“Alright, well my parents are probably still arguing, so I can sneak you in.” The girl explained playing with her hands. “I mean we should probably go now if you're ready.”

“I agree.” Orin replied as he walked over to the unconscious Namor and easily lifted him up and onto his shoulder.

“My name’s Lorena by the way. Lorena Marquez.” She explained as she began to walk back up the beach towards her bike, Orin following in step.

“Well then thank you Ms. Marquez. I will remember you when I return to Atlantis.”

“Hey. If you're the king down there or whatever. Why are you up here?” She asked flicking her head backwards at Orin. The man’s face looked decidedly tired as he turned away from her.

”It’s a long story.” Orin replied bluntly.

“Well it’s a long way to my house.... And you know since I’m helping you, you could at least fill me in on this shit.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I said no child.”

“Come on. And I'm not a kid.”

Orin let out a defeated sigh as he looked down at the girl. “Well it all began some time ago.....”