Lemons

Umbra Rose Condos

I wonder if the pool counts as running water...

Umbra Rose Condos

@BunniesOfDoom Man, Velvet is going to have a minor vendetta against Iris. Not because of any werewolf-vampire pop culture thing, she thinks that's dumb.

No, it's because she's tall and Ms. Born-In-The-Great-Famine is jealous.

Umbra Rose Condos

@Expendable How old is Qaymu? He and Vel could bond over how much the world's changed since they overslept way too long, that'd be kinda fun.

Umbra Rose Condos

This ended up a little longer than I intended, haha. Sorry about that.

Velvet

Name: Velvet Alviva Coventry

Velvet

Fairly short at just under 4'11" ("It was normal then, I swear! I'm not short!") and of a fairly slender build, Velvet lives in an eternal state of early-twenties. Twenty-three, specifically. She doesn't look too unlike a regular human, if a rather short one. However, there are three things that mark her out as being the immortal creature of the night that she is. Her flawless, dead-pale skin; her eyes, brilliant red dancing with starry lights and tending to glow under low light; and of course, the unmistakable hollow fangs, about half inch long and needle sharp. Her charcoal-black hair is smooth and straight, falling down to between her shoulder blades. She looks, for all the world, like exactly what she is.

Which is why when she leaves the condos, she puts on a pair of pale water-blue contact lenses and reflective orange aviator sunglasses (even though it's night 95% of the time). After all, "It's always bright on planet cool!" Generally, she wears light clothing like tanktops and sweats; it's not like she can get cold or uncomfortably hot, after all, so she just wears whatever's comfy and she likes the look of that day.

Race: Vampire (Higher, Ancient)
Racial Traits: As a vampire, Velvet naturally only consumes blood. However, being as old and powerful as she is has resulted in some other interesting wrinkles. What it mostly boils down to is that she is hilariously difficult to actually injure in any meaningful way. Short of exposure to the sun, and even then, she can tolerate sunlight for a while if she's fed recently enough, though it makes her extremely lethargic (notably, just because she only gains energy from blood doesn't mean she can't eat anything else; her vampiric physiology will simply burn it away into nothingness. It's like throwing food down a bottomless pit). She has an enhanced sense of smell, especially sharp for the presence of blood. She's abnormally strong and fast, though exposure to sunlight strips those away from her. Along with the power that most defines her as a higher vampire: compulsion.

Or well, it kind of used to. Ever since her long nap, her ability to look into someone's eyes and dictate the truth to them has been rather...hit-or-miss. More miss than hit, even. She has yet to figure out exactly why.

Before she enters a building, she needs to be invited in. It can make things awkward sometimes, certainly; but being that she's a resident of Building 1, she can at least pass freely into the building and her own room. However, even if invited she can never enter a center of religious worship. Religious symbols such as crosses and six-pointed stars make her uncomfortable; silver burns her severely on touch; and she's repulsed by the smell of garlic flowers (notably, not garlic, the food. It's specifically the flowers) to the point of not being able to, say, pass through a doorway garlanded in them.

Requirements: It kind of goes without saying, but as a vampire, Velvet needs blood. The fresher and purer the better. She'll drink blood bank stuff (with a Capri-Sun straw, ideally) if she has to, but all the preservatives and stabilizers can make her a bit sick. She'd prefer a live-in companion to get overly attached to, as long as they're fine with taking iron supplements. All things being equal, she needs to feed roughly three times a week and drinks somewhere in the neighborhood of a pint or two at a time. If she goes without for a short time she'll just get a bit twitchy, but after two weeks she'll start having to resist going feral and jumping on the first warm-blooded humanoid she sees. And if she feeds when she's been starved and lost control, she'll feed an amount that might be genuinely dangerous for an average human.

Personality: Velvet is a fascinating case study in what happens when you take someone who had a great deal of power and a penchant for using it, and let her take a very long nap.

Because there's so little that can actually pose a threat to her and she no longer really cares for the whole 'malevolent queen of the night' schtick, she's more or less become a creature of pure vibes. Watching TV and playing video games for days at a time ("Is it 11AM already? Man, I need to sleep"), using potato chips to eat extra thick milkshakes like dip, going out on the town at midnight to get sloshed and have a good time...she just does whatever while being FAR too chill compared to most peoples' ideas of vampire. When she got trapped, lightbulbs hadn't been invented yet; she doesn't really want to ruin a good thing now that suddenly she finds herself in a world with TV, Wi-Fi, ice cream, aluminum mirrors that she can actually see herself in ("Is that what I look like? Hello, vampiress, you are stunning and gorgeous!")...you get the idea.

Background: Velvet has been around for...a long time. Over 700 years, now. Though she hasn't always been 'Velvet.' Born in the British town of Coventry as a peasant girl in 1316, her name was simply 'Alviva.'

Growing up the daughter of a farmer, she contributed as best she could; weaving textiles, milking cattle, churning butter and cheese with her mother, and so on and so forth. She doesn't remember a lot about it now, it was so long ago. When she was fifteen years old, she was married off to a neighborhood boy six years her elder. She remembers this part even less, because some years later her husband and his family were butchered and their blood drained by a hundred-some year old vampire. When he saw little Alviva, though, he let her live. Kind of. Pity? Perhaps a darker motivation? Whatever the reason, he took her, then force fed her some of his blood and drained her dry. And so, in 1339, Alviva the human died, and Alviva the vampiress was born.

For the next hundred years, she was what amounted to little more than a vampiric slave to Benedict, the vampire who'd turned her. A thrall, to deliver him blood tithes. But then one day he grew just a little bit incautious, and the newly vindictive 120-something-year-old Alviva jammed a stake through his heart. Staked him, burnt her hands badly decapitating him with a silver blade, and left him outside to be taken by the morning light. For the first time in her life, Alviva of Coventry was well and truly beholden to no one. So with that vindictive streak she had now, she renamed herself after the first thing she thought of when she imagined opulence and luxury: Velvet. So as Velvet Coventry, she reigned terror over the shadows of the British Isles for a few hundred years, then traveled the rest of Europe, seeing and causing many kinds of violence. Battles, wars, campaigns, revolutions; blood was her currency, and the Dark Queen would have her dues!

(She cringes a lot thinking about that now. She was such a tryhard!)

Finally, just a couple decades after watching the execution of Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, a vampire hunter started following her trail. Again. She'd dispatched many before; it was extremely hard to kill her now, so she wasn't particularly worried. This one was particularly clever, though; he knew that he probably wasn't going to be able to kill a vampire like her. So he'd need to confine her. He shadowed her across the continent of Eurasia until she finally returned to England, entered her crypt, and had a brief sleep in her tomb.

That's when the vampire hunter struck. Upon her coffin, he placed a silver crucifix and a wild rose. And so, her sleep went far longer than 'brief.' By the time she awoke, disoriented and confused--some teenagers had excavated her now-underground crypt, picked up the neat-looking cross, and brushed the desiccated plant matter away--well over a century had passed. It was all so confusing. Where was she? What had happened to Queen Victoria? What did the map mean, Prussia was gone? What was happening?

But sometime between going down and waking up 150 years later, the whole Dark Queen thing had lost its luster. Why did she care so much, again? She'd been really angry, but like...what was the point, now? She'd had vampire hunters on her ass for so long. Wouldn't it be fine if she just...relaxed for a couple decades?

...Internet? What was an 'Internet?'

Building, Floor, and room: Building 1, Floor 2, Room 5
Room description: You'd expect an ancient vampire's room to be a lot...more than Velvet's. She eschews the trappings of wealth, for the most part. It resembles nothing so much as a streamer's room. Big computer with multiple monitors, tons of gaming consoles. All of it sitting on a relatively nice, modern-looking desk. Couch, coffee table covered in books and manga. Not only that, but it's actually kept brighter than most rooms ("Lightbulbs! You all take them for granted!"). But overall, there's nothing special about it.

Well, except for the bed. Or, what there is instead of a bed: a large tomb of black stone. Spartan-looking enough on the outside, but once she yanks the lid off, you can see the whole thing is lined with a comfy mattress and some very nice cushions. Hence why keeping the lights on so bright isn't a big deal; no light gets in anyway.

Oh, and the window. Instead of being held by a curtain, it's covered entirely by a heavy sheet of plate metal that slots into place so there's never an accident with the sun.

(In order to afford all the games she wants, she works part-time as a bartender on the night shift at a human bar nearby. She's very good at it; I mean, who knows how many times she's mixed drinks over the course of her long and varied life, right? It doesn't hurt that after the centuries of practice, she is an absolute immaculate expert at hiding what she is. It's a real skill to talk and smile while hiding the fangs.)

Umbra Rose Condos

Still working on mine. Should be done before the end of the night.

Umbra Rose Condos

Oooh, this looks fun. How'd you feel about an ancient higher vampire who was once a terror across Europe who then got trapped in her crypt by a vampire hunter for the last 150+ years, and for whom the whole queen of the night thing has lost its charm now that humanity has invented lightbulbs and video games and rum raisin ice cream?

The Things We Fight For

---

Aissi was no stranger to pain.

Quite the opposite, really. Between years of experimentation, augmentation at even the basest level, and the not entirely uncommon rejection, she'd endured a great deal for just about as long as she could remember. So much so that suffering could be argued, and argued well, as the single most unifying and defining experience of her life. From the cruel sting of the scalpel as it carefully flayed her open, to the crushing electricity of nerve girdles being set into her skin, to the agonizing sense of a million needles tearing through her as the biomechanical muscle fibers fused into her own…Aissi was good at being in pain.

This was…very different.

Even when she was in pain in the lab, she’d known on an instinctual level that no matter how excruciating it might be, she wasn’t in any real danger. It’s not like they wanted to hurt her or anything, it was just an unfortunate side effect. And the whole thing was totally controlled. But as the Bishop slammed into her, then whipped around her faster than she could even process it and pinned her Bladewings back with its spear as she screamed bloody murder; as she slammed into the ground with its knee planted into her back and tasted blood; as she felt, rather than heard or saw, the doomful hand raised above the back of her head, even as she writhed beneath the monstrosity. The knee was still pinning her to the dirt. She gasped for air, but her breath was gone; and though she tried to struggle, all she could do was claw helplessly at the earth. This was a different pain. The frenzied pain that comes with the knowledge: I’m going to die.

Then there was a sound like a breath of wind passing over her, and the pressure on her back was gone. Sucking in a huge breath through clenched teeth, she raised her head in time to hear, “I suggest you dust yourself off.”

She stared at Dombay unthinkingly for a split second before her synapses sparked again, and with an impulse of her engines, she launched herself back upright. “I shall attempt to give you an opening. Three seconds is all I can afford with this difference in ability.” In response, Aissi gave vent to a furious growl, spat out a guttural “Understood,” and flashed forward again.

More carefully this time, though. Even furious as she was, the knot had tightened, and the smoke was gone.

Dombay followed nimbly alongside, their steps light as they joined Aissi in her charge, the Bishop meeting them halfway with its spear already mid swing to cleave them both. The flash of steel and the twang of metal rang out as their sword diverted the strike, long metal rod passing harmlessly overhead. Rather than send the Spearman off-balance, however, the monster redirected its force into a stab, whirling its weapon around to spear straight through Aissi.

In response, her auxiliary jets fired and she zipped to the side just enough to clear the spear’s trajectory, then cranked her engines to their maximum safe limit. Burning pain crawled up her legs as the heat dispersal proved inadequate to manage the overclocking. Hissing in sharp breaths, she locked her biomechanical hand around the Spearman’s weapon, hoping that it would add even one more second to their opening. Then, raising her glowing Wingblades high, she let her momentum carry her straight into the Bishop and brought them down on the barrier like hammerblows: once, twice.

Flickering into existence, the spherical defense of the Spearman fizzled upon contact with the blades, the second follow-up strike negated when the Bishop released its spear to create space. Only for Dombay to fill the gap the opponent made to escape, sword mid-swing. Despite the Spearman still clearing most of the strike, their sword tip struck the barrier yet again, the energy field flickering desperately yet maintaining its form.

“Shallow.” Aissi would hear her fellow Constellation mutter, just before they were sent flying as the Bishop struck their body with a powerful kick. Several tons of force were sent straight though the white-haired figure who tumbled toward the infantry while the Spearman attempted to take on Aissi once again, reaching for its lost spear.

As Aissi watched Dombay soaring away, leaving her alone with the Spearman, something between a growl and a moan seeped from her. The space created was too much and Dombay was gone. If it got its spear again, she was going to die. No more time for “safe limits” now: her engines roared into full meltdown, blazing white-hot. She knew immediately that they weren’t going to maintain full function for long from this point on. But with any luck, her sheer speed would suffice. She narrowed her eyes as the world blurred by. She had enough time. She could do this. She had to.

Right as the Spearman was taking hold of its weapon once more, she slammed into it with a sound like a freight train, screaming as she caught the Bishop between the tips like insect mandibles. The already weakened barrier appeared, fizzled, strained, caved…held. The shield went unscattered. But still, Aissi huffed a breath of relief. The barrier hadn’t been dispersed, not fully. But the first foot or so of her Wingblades had pierced through before they were stopped.

And the first foot was enough.

The Aberrant began to struggle, no doubt sensing the rising energy levels of the figure in front of it, yet the spear in its grip would not budge. Despite having overpowered the half-human beforehand, its weapon refused to move regardless of its strength, and despite having no eyes its head rose to ‘look’ past Aissi’s shoulder.

At that moment, the Wingblades’ laser coating erupted inwards like artillery, turning the Spearman’s barrier into a furnace. For the briefest moment, the sphere of the barrier glowed with the fierce and perfect red of a dying star. Then the barrier ruptured as the Bishop within was vaporized and erased, and the wild light was released straight into her face.

The explosion flung her almost as far as the kick had Dombay, and it took a considerable amount of effort to get herself falling the right way down. All she had time for after that was pulling her now dimmed Bladewings in tight so they wouldn’t hit anyone. Then she followed after Iona, careening down along the human line and carving trenches into the ground with her needlepoint feet before slamming facefirst into the ground. Her engines were clearly malfunctioning; she would’ve been able to stop before she collapsed otherwise, and the vents were spitting out red sparks. While still working, her antigravity wasn’t as smooth, either; weak enough that her momentum had overpowered it.

The first to rise was the white-haired Stardust, one hand supporting their upper body while the other clutched their cloak to their stomach. Though they’d survived a blow that would’ve killed a normal human outright, their internal organs would still be a mess of gore and paste, yet as the soldiers not occupied clearing Pawns came to support them the Constellation rose a hand for the men to stop. “Her first,” they ordered softly, gesturing to the crumpled, sparking form of Aissi not far from their position. The footmen paused, the reluctance, hesitation and fear clear in their expressions as they glanced between Dombay and the research subject. The Constellation’s eyebrows were brought together, and while they didn’t change their expression any further, the soldiers felt the air around them become eerie while fixed by the figure’s closed eyed expression. “She saved your lives. She deserves this at least.”

Though slow, some of the men began to approach their abominable ally, unsure for an entirely other reason as they had no idea how they should give first aid to a half-Aberrant. Meanwhile, two soldiers helped Dombay to their feet, another parting their cloak to check the state of their guts as the Constellation lost all strength in their body. Hopefully only temporarily.

Aissi let out a thin, almost silent groan as she propped herself up on one arm, watching with some trepidation as the soldiers crept closer and trying to ignore the searing pain that ran the length of her legs. Forcing them that far past their limits had heated them much hotter than they were designed to be, and she was paying the debt now. So with a few bleary blinks, she she reached her other arm out in the universal unspoken plea: Help me.

They did not.

A bitter taste grew in her mouth as, unable to rise under her own power, she watched them standing there, pretending not to see her. A deep sadness yawned beneath her, and she dropped her eyes. A moment later, though, she heard a pair of footsteps coming towards her, and turned her head in time to see a soldier that couldn’t be much older than her approaching. Another soldier grabbed his shoulder and attempted to mutter something into his ear, but the young man shook him off before reaching down to grasp Aissi’s outstretched arm. It took some doing, but with his help she eventually regained her footing. Aiming at a pile of equipment, she took a deep breath and gave a tentative engine pulse.

She was pleasantly surprised, then—as pleasant as things could reasonably be at that moment—that while the pain was still very much present, there was still some measure of thrust. At the very least, she was functional. Moving slowly to avoid overtaxing again as she waited for the heat to dissipate over what felt like an eternity, she arrived at the pile, leaned up against it, and switched off her antigravity. Her feet sank into the ground, anchoring her in place. Eyes falling to exhausted half-mast, she slid her gaze laconically from the young man who’d helped her up to the injured Dombay.

When she spoke, her voice was ash; The alien ecstasy had gone, leaving her feeling empty and vague. It was deliberate, methodical, like she was struggling to get even just two words out: “Thank…you.” Then she tilted her head up to the sky, closed her eyes, and was silent.

The gaze of the soldier, barely older than she, lingered for a long moment after Aissi had closed her eyes. It took the bump of another to get him to snap out of it, yet even as he loaded his rifle and returned to the firing line, his eyes continued to occasionally glance in the direction of the scrap heap where two heroes lay. One man, one monster.

Lem's Stash

Burn The Night

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx B A S I C I N F O [Name] Quinnlash Loughvein [Callsign] Ablaze [Gender] Femme [Age] 20 [Rank and Designation] E-5 - Petty Officer, Second Class [Place of Birth] Illun [Official Statement] "Be the lighthouse, and set the night ablaze." C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Mech Model] HMP-XVI Ablaze Custom: <DEATH IN PINK!> [Type] Heavy Bombardment Platform [Size] 50 ft tall. 45 tons; 60 tons fully loaded. [Core] Epsilon. [Armaments] The GHOST System is the core of what Cherri's combat revolves around. While her enormous array of explosives are very useful dumb-fired, blanketing huge swaths of the battlefield in disarray, they're just as likely to fly back on her allies than to annihilate her enemies. Enter the Guided Heavy Ordnance Selective Targeting System, which allows her to designate not just specific targets, but specific [i]areas[/i] as well, upon which the AI in her mech will compensate for movement patterns and tagged allies to ensure that even when she's using devastating firepower, she hits dead on, every time. Back: The SHPM-XX: 'Harpoons' is by far Cherri's most devastating weapon. Fueled by a beta core, each salvo needs plenty of time to charge; but when the canister is primed, activating it launches a barrage of twenty high-energy guided plasma spears that fully interface with the GHOST System, allowing her to call in either precision strikes of devastating power or a rain of plasma across hundreds of feet. Right Hand: The Harpoons may be the most powerful weapon Cherri can bring to bear, but it's got far too long a downtime to be anything approaching a primary weapon. No, her workhorse weapon is the downright terrifying PHOS-CCC: 'Dragon's Breath.' Nominally a chaingun but with a modest fire rate of only 300rpm, the 'Dragon's Breath' wouldn't seem strong. However, it dodges that allegation quite neatly with the simple fact that every one of those 300 rounds per minute is a shell loaded with enough high explosives to level a small building. Integrated fully into the GHOST System, this is her primary vector of raining hell. To put it succinctly: right, down, down, left, down, right, down, down. Left Arm: The MECS-VIII 'Javelin,' while it [i]is[/i] linked into the GHOST System, is the only one of Cherri's weapons that's designed to be dumbfired. Taking the form of a row of slots along her left forearm filled with canisters, they are designed in such as way as to face directly forward when Cherri is hefting 'Dragon's Breath,' and meant to be used in tandem with it. Though there are only eight, and they must be manually reloaded when expended, they're nonetheless a powerful tool, largely because of their versatility. While the HE canister is a common one, equally as common is an airburst canister filled with reflective chaff that baffles laser fire in a large area for a not-inconsiderable period of time. And there are several others as well: napalm for area denial, fragmentation for scattering shrapnel, EMP for disabling electronics, airburst flak for fast-moving targets. Twenty-four spare canisters are kept in a reinforced container on <DEATH IN PINK!>'s hip. Right Thigh: Cherri LOVES her explosives. But that doesn't mean she wants to use one right next to her. In the case that 'Dragon's Breath' isn't viable to use for whatever reason, Cherri employs the ASA-C 'Adjudicator.' A compact SMG-style mech weapon with a 100-round magazine, this portable weapon, unlike most that pilots employ, fire 20mm rounds instead of 30mm, allowing for easier control, higher ammunition capacity, and a faster fire rate at the cost of damage inflicted. But as this is a sidearm for her, control and rapidity are far more important.

Profile [Surface-level Impression] Suspect's Psychiatric Profile, Dr. Wraul While of course the suspect Ms. Cade is upset about the entire situation, she still agreed to a session to gauge her psychiatric state. Arranged in no particular order: Cheerful - Despite everything, Ms. Cade finds it difficult to not be chipper, and more than once, I found her catching herself smiling, and forcing it back down. Talkative - It certainly wasn't difficult to have this session. I can't say from one brief session whether or not it's a compulsion or simply a personality trait, but Ms. Cade is EXTREMELY chatty. I expected to be prodding her for much of the time, but after the first few minutes of frosty silence, she started talking my ear off almost immediately. Teasing - I was quite taken aback at some points, where she said something that made me raise my eyebrows in some way, at which point she chuckled--the fact she's laughing through this entire thing is frankly admirable--and revealed that she'd been teasing me the entire time. After I interrogated that for a bit with her, I came to the conclusion that she doesn't enjoy malicious teasing; she simply likes watching the looks on peoples' faces when she says something harmless but questionable. Earnest - I find myself wondering through her PAINFUL sincerity--though it's not my job, of course--if my experience as a criminal psychologist gives me any level of credence when I say that I'm slowly becoming convinced that Ms. Cade may be innocent, and perhaps other leads should be explored. I simply cannot understand her as a domestic terrorist and killer. [Personal History] 3rd District, Vianno, Planet Willowit - Warrant for Cherri Lily Cade's Arrest WARRANT OF ARREST FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM, VANDALISM, ARSON, CRIMINAL USE OF EXPLOSIVES AND FIRST-DEGREE MANSLAUGHTER To: Vianno 3rd District Arresting Officer Zhiti Ayajjai, ID MLE4136, 423rd VLE Unit YOU ARE COMMANDED to serve the herein Warrant of Arrest to seize and take into custody the accused person named below: Cherri Lily Cade, ID GZM4442, U88 Olympus Building And bring forth said person before this court before the next day following his or her arrest. A handwritten note is scrawled at the bottom of the document in meticulous red pen: I swear to all that is holy, Zhiti. You have ONE JOB. You'd better actually stick this one, I don't like being embarrassed. Police Report - The Telluride Building Incident Case No: 18462 Date: 12.04.382 Reporting Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee Incident: Massive property damage and loss of life via explosion on floor 233 of the Telluride Building Detail of Events: At 22:23 of 12.04.379, there was a sudden explosion near the support beam on floor 233 of 240 of the Telluride Building. According to witness reports, there was the smell of smoke prior; that, as well as the presence of scorch marks near the damaged area, shows that the explosion was likely set off using fire. My unit was dispatched to assist those in danger and investigate the scene of the crime. The top five floors of the Telluride Building are used exclusively for press conferences, of which there were none; however, the 234th floor had several people working in it. Luckily, the building didn't collapse; however, the explosion itself killed two people in the floor immediately above it. Directly beside the damaged support beam, we found an unconscious Ms. Cherri Cade. Upon regaining consciousness, she seemed confused, asked why we were there. Likely concussed. However, there is explosive reside on her fingers, and a damaged, now-nonfunctional pink lighter bearing her fingerprints was found near her on the scene. She is currently being medically assessed before questioning. Excerpt of Police Log - Cherri Cade's Questioning Case No: 18462 Date: 12.06.379 Present Officer: Ewelyn Tyvee ET: Do you know why you're here, miss Cade? CC: I have no idea! I know I've been accused of something really bad, but I don't know what! ET: On December fourth, you were found unconscious next to a heavily-damaged support strut on the 233rd floor of the Telluride Building with explosive residue on your fingers immediately after an explosion that killed two people. CC: WHAT? But...but that...I would never! ET: I'm sure. Do you have an alibi? CC: Huh? I...no, but of course I was there, maintenance of floor 233 is my job! I just--I would never--I couldn't-- ET: Please state for the record that you do not have an alibi, miss Cade. CC: What? That's not fair! ET: Will you or will you not state it for the record? ET: Is this your personal datapad, miss Cade? CC: ...Yeah. Why? ET: Do you know what your search history is? CC: Yes. ET: Could you explain why your search history includes information about explosives? CC: My sister Apricot was a pyrotechnician for a few years. I got interested in explosives through that. I swear, I never hurt anyone! CC: ...By the way, what explosive residue did they say they found on my fingers? You keep saying that, but you won't go into any detail. ET: I'm not at liberty to say. CC: *Sigh* Mayoral Resolution Draft, Never Published Fellow citizens of Vianno, of Willowit: I know you're all afraid. An attack has been waged against the very heart of our city, our very soul. Who wouldn't be afraid? I know I was. But thanks to the tireless efforts of the VLE, the culprit has been apprehended and convicted. The Telluride Building coming under attack is a grievous blow to our city and planetary pride, and that will never be forgotten or forgiven. The criminal charged with the crime used homemade explosives that she created at home following instructions that she found on the 'net. And that's not all; in fact, it's just the beginning. Preliminary research has shown that a huge amount of people have begun searching for information on building such devices recently. I hate to do this, I truly do; but the safety of our people is paramount. Because the lives of those in our city are at clear and obvious risk, I mean to implement ways to keep people from accessing such information, and tracking down those that already have. Never let it be said that the people of Vianno aren't always at the forefront of my mind. Remember: we fight for you! Handwritten Note We're probably pretty good. She doesn't have any good excuses. But for appearances' sake, give her a plea deal. Just find something nobody would ever agree to. Public'll eat it up. Plea Deal, Cherri Cade Case No: 18462 CITY OF VIANNO V. CHERRI LILY CADE Plea Deal The defendant and the defendant's counsel, Cherri Lily Cade and Atty. Mia Tyler, and the prosecution, Jerring Vesslain, have entered into an agreement outside of court, pursuant to Rule 11 of the ICC. The terms of the agreement are as follows: The prosecution agrees to waive prosecution and accept a plea of not guilty from the defendant for the crimes of Domestic Terrorism, Arson, Vandalism, Unlawful Use of Explosives, and First-Degree Manslaughter. All charges will be dropped, and they will not receive a major mark on their criminal record. In exchange, the defendant agrees to report for seventeen years of service into the Aberrant War, arranged into training and combat as necessary but not to include fewer than ten years of active service. As of now, the defendant has not been enlisted; so they are still considered liable. She has one month to arrange her affairs on Willowit before she is required to be off-planet. As long as she has been enlisted before the designated time period has expired, the defendant will not be prosecuted upon their return to Willowit given that one of the following requirements has been met: 1) The defendant has served seventeen full years in the military and all other terms have been met; 2) The Aberrant war has concluded and all other terms have been met. The defendant has also asked that a note be added to the record along with her signature: 'Oh my GOD, this is TOO FUNNY! I was planning to enlist soon anyway if I could find an excuse to get me away from my job! And now I get to spit in your stupid corrupt faces too! Like, how could this get any better?' Frustrated Memo Dellan, don't you dare try and blame this shit on me. I did my job, I got her right into the palm of your hand for god's sake. Why the fuck did you try to give her a plea deal? For appearance's sake? The appearance was FINE, do you have any idea how long this took to organize? Fuck right off. Certification to Pilot This document serves to certify that that the pilot trainee Petty Officer Third Class Cherri 'Cherry Bomb' Cade, has undergone the requisite five years of training necessary, and been authorized to pilot a mech in the war against the Aberrants. Per Audacia ad Astra. Home World [Planet Description] A technological utopia. A metropolitan marvel. The jewel of the Soha Binary System. Willowit has many names, and most of them are flattering. And, at least to appearance, it lives up to them. From space, it seems almost more like an enormous space station than a planet at first glance; the entire planet is covered in vast cities, right up to the coasts. Powered almost exclusively by solar, they take advantage of the fact they orbit a binary star to harvest massive amounts of power from it, fueling their grand dreams. From the air, the enormous superstructure skyscrapers of Willowit come into focus. The tallest of them, the Telluride Building, has 240 floors, containing everything one could require. The skyscrapers of Willowit are, for all intents and purposes, microcities in themselves, and there are thousands across the planet. Thus, Willowit can comfortably support a population larger than one would think for a planet its size; 25 billion people live in these great spires. Finally, we droop to ground level, to the 'undercity.' Those unfortunate enough to be kicked out of their building--one typically has to commit a crime, though the severity of the crime can vary depending on the district they live in--typically are required to live for a certain amount of time outside of the superstructures. While there's food to eat, it's certainly not a comfortable existence. The skyscrapers block almost all of the light, and unlike the buildings, the surface isn't climate controlled; so it's incredibly cold down below. Typically, ganglike organizations form, as there's little to no oversight outside of the skyscrapers. Once their tenure on the surface is finished--as long as they survived--they are once more allowed to reenter their building, or any other building that might catch their fancy; after ten years, property is repossessed, so they won't have any place to go back to if more time than that passes. One might wonder how Willowit is able to maintain this strange living structure. The answer is simple: owing to the particular resources that can be found underground and some closely guarded industry secrets, they are historically one of the known universe's greatest purveyors of holographic technology. Many resort worlds find themselves with Willowit-made holograph projectors; many military training sims have a Willowit stamp on them as well. Useful both in peacetime and in war, Willowit's holographic and simulation technology will ALWAYS be useful. [Culture] Remember that bit about the 'technological utopia?' Well, the people of Willowit are completely convinced. Living in relative luxury from even the less fortunate upwards, purely in terms of quality of living, Willowit is a very nice place to live. However, not everything about Willowit is so utopian. They bill themselves as a utopia with a firm rule of law that keeps things running smoothly. And they do have a very powerful law system. HOWEVER: their legal system, while very powerful, has very little oversight. As a result, the thing that plagues Willowit more than anything else isn't wealth disparity, or war, discontent of the populace. No, Willowit has a MASSIVE problem with corruption in governance. Because the legal system has so much power and so little oversight, the people who pay them the most money can effectively pick and choose which laws apply to them, and furthermore, which laws apply to other people. A great deal of propaganda keeps the general populace from realizing the extent of this corruption. But a lawyer, a police officer, a judge...they have to put forth EFFORT to NOT be hilariously corrupt, as bribes and quid-pro-quo are more the rule than the exception from even modestly well-off individuals. Notable Contacts Mia Tyler, Criminal Defense Atty. and Engineer [Name] Mia Tyler [Relation to Subject] Cherri's defense attorney, close friend, engineer, and post-op specialist. [Analysis] Mia was Cherri's lawyer during the extended and corrupt trial that threatened to put her either behind bars for the rest of her life, or put her in the ground. The two of them grew quite close over the years, and when it was decided that Cherri would enter the service (and specifically, would become a pilot), Mia immediately entered an intensive training course to get certified in engineering and maintenance of mechs. Possessed of a truly unreasonable level of willpower, she, well, succeeded, and now serves as the primary maintenance worker for <DEATH IN PINK!> As you may be able to glean, Mia does not like giving up. Filled with willpower and SPITE, she managed to become a dedicated attorney, despite participating in the corrupt games of her planet's legal system as little as possible. She is possessed of a wide streak of wry humor; appearing deadpan while cracking strange jokes is second nature to her, and Cherri seems to have a sixth sense for when she's not being serious. Speaking of Cherri, if you watch the two of them interact for more than a minute, it becomes blatantly obvious how much they care for each other. Yes, Mia is permanently exhausted and lives off caffeine; she picked up a habit of reading case law online in the middle of the night in law school, and somehow it stuck even when she genuinely has no time for it. But the two of them are pretty much inseparable. She won't maintain anybody else's mechs; and Cherri refuses to let anybody else maintain hers, unless there's no other choice.

The Things We Fight For

---

This was what the end of the world must look like, thought Aissi.

As she stood atop the Corvo, she stared at the death that was unfolding before her, brilliant crimson eyes almost glassy as she gazed at the carnage. There was something...beautiful about it, in some twisted way. The chaos, the confusion; they stroked comfortingly against something deep in her brain, something she hadn't felt in any of the countless simulations she'd run back in the lab. The knot. The bloom of plasma that had ripped across the Aberrant line ahead of them from the colossal cannon she was only a few dozen feet from, setting her ears ringing and her teeth on edge, only sharpened that feeling. It was all just so...so real. The Aberrants, the people, everything splayed out before her; it wasn't just fragments of stitched-together code being projected in front of her anymore. The sights of slaughter and fire, the sounds of pounding artillery and agonized screaming, of explosions and plasma and Alto's voice buzzing in her ear. The smells of boiling blood, scorched ozone, and the oil of shattered machines. The feeling of danger as blasts of annihilating light tore by her. As high off the ground as she was, it all still felt so close, and her heart was racing faster than it ever had. Her lips curled into a trembling smile. All the sims were so woefully inadequate. This was what it meant to be outside the lab. This was what it was like to live.

Before she could make another move or entertain another thought, another spike of the alien-yet-not feeling she'd felt in the hanger pierced through her brain again as the Corvo darted around, this time much stronger, and she sucked in a shuddering breath scented with gunsmoke. No longer just elation, but a delicious compulsion. Euphoria. And not only euphoria, either. A seething excitement that she barely had the presence of mind to realize wasn't quite her own. The magnets on one of her palms released, and her taloned fingers raked down the mech's hull with the sparking screech of metal against metal as she fought against the urge to throw herself from the mech and butcher everything beneath her. An altogether out of place sound dripped from her mouth as the oh-so-alluring impulses coiled around her like smoke: "Ah..."

"...A-haha..."

"...AhahahahaaahAHAHA!"

She threw her head back as her laugh grew steadily louder and less controlled, and her Wingblades flared out to their full span and reared back like scorpion tails poised to strike. Laserfire sparked from the generator placed on each, then raced down the edges with a sizzling sound, engulfing them in a shroud of violent red light that shone through the gloom. The smoke had crawled its way inside her now, casting a beautiful haze over her thoughts. Beneath her, an Aberrant Bishop plowed through the defensive line, its spear crushing and slashing with brutal ease. She could feel her core pulsing in her back, beating with savage glee alongside her heart. The laugh finally cut off and, although a choked-back giggle mangled it, a single word was spoken into Alto's cockpit as she succumbed to her desire:

"Descending."

If there was a response, she couldn't hear it, or understand it; words dissolved into the haze and turned to garbled radio static in her head. The only thing that mattered was cleaving and slicing and tearing and KILL KILL KILL her target and anything that tried to get in her way.

She ripped her fingers from where they'd seized in the Corvo's hull, leaving jagged gashes in their wake. The sound of scraping metal shredded against her ears once more, and she shuddered at the beauty of it, a crazed smile that bared far too many teeth spreading across her face. Then, body taut with nerves and joy, she released her final clamp and activated her engines again. They roared to full throttle in a split second, and she screamed forwards at a speed she didn't know she could reach, cleared the edge of the Corvo's shoulder in the space of a blink, and catapulted herself into space. Blazing over the throngs below like a meteor and descending on the Spearman before a single laser could hope to draw a bead on her, she snapped her Wingblades forward. With all the force behind her strike, her engines running at top speed, and her absurdly fast descent, they seemed nothing so much as twin bolts of red lightning.

She was AIS S1.

She was built to fight.

Made to kill.

---

The Things We Fight For

---

Alto wouldn't have to wait long for a response, as a soft and somewhat monotone voice came back through his radio before too long: "Aissi reporting, Eight-Ball. I--I'll ride with you."

As the implant in her inner ear went quiet, Aissi slid backwards from her brief waiting-post, turned, and glided across the floor, dodging people as she went, until arriving at the active mech. It was just as well she take this one; it was shorter than the other less-occupied behemoth nearby, and she had no idea how she was going to get up it anyway.

When she arrived, close enough to touch the sturdy metallic chassis, she frowned slightly. This close, there was something that felt kind of...vaguely familiar about it, in a way that she couldn't explain. She reached out to caress an emitter on the side of the ankle...

...Before it lit up with a bright glow in response even before she made contact, and Aissi blinked as she began to slowly drift upwards, as though even the gravity that had kept her feet hovering a few inches above the ground had fallen away. Tilting her head back, she saw another of the emitters. And then another, and another, spiderwebbed across the mech's hardpoints all the way to the top. Taking a gamble and hoping it wouldn't result in her falling on her face on the hangar floor, she gave a small boost downwards.

A strange expression resembling a distorted smile grew on her face as she zipped upwards.

Beneath her, the emitter blinked out, and she felt herself slowing--before the next one in line went on in turn, and her upward momentum resumed. In this fashion, boosting from one hardpoint to the next, she skated her way up the side of the mech until she landed atop its shoulder, where she stabilized again. Jetting over towards the head, she settled at the corner of two plates of metal. Pressing a hand against each, she activated the electromagnetic clamps in her hands, and so anchored herself to the mech quite securely even as her feet remained aloft.

Then she turned and inspected the head for a moment before releasing the clamp on her right hand and lifting it towards the cockpit--along with her right Bladewing purely from reflex--in an awkward wave.

---

_@Feyblue