Lewascan2

The Wards: A Grimdark Teenage Superhero Story

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Looks good! Most I'd say though is make the prolonged use problem a bit more...Noticeable? If it takes the better half of a whole day for any actual effects, then that'll never come up, even in some of the wildest fights imaginable lol. I'd put it closer to 1-2 hours, and that the effects might be expedited due to a lack of hope, or excessive use of the abilities. Once that's handled, go ahead and throw him into Characters!

And @Lewascan2 Overclock is clear! Though it might be prudent to come up with some kind of vulnerability in the power; sure, it needs time to ramp up, but by the time he's hit X2 or X3 he's already too fast or strong for a good handful of Capes, and he can keep this thing running as long as he wants. I'm just....Not sure what that would entail. xD. For now, he's accepted, though I'd like to come up with something to make him slightly more reasonable.

@Mintz

Right on. I'll admit I had some thoughts in that direction, but I've been struggling to think of something appropriate. We'll see.

The Wards: A Grimdark Teenage Superhero Story

I’m out of town this weekend so I won’t be able to get anything up until next week.

@canaryrose

O O F.
Well, not like we have a lot happening yet. And given the setup, even if you do join after we've started, it should hopefully be easy to jump in with this sort of premise.

The Wards: A Grimdark Teenage Superhero Story

Took me way too long to get everything in order, lol.

Overclock

---

---

"So, villains... are you about done with this little tantrum of yours yet?"

---

---

Name: Sean Evens

Alias: Overclock

Nicknames: NA.

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Personality:
A nod here. A grin there. A nice word for a citizen and a cat saved from a tree, because why not? He's got time, more than enough. Overclock is the quintessential speedster brute, a mighty force of justice. His record against criminal elements is nigh-flawless, and he is the sort to perform hero work outside scheduled patrols... and even outside costume. After all, once he's ramped up enough, even without a mask, cameras are no threat to his secret identity, which can result in a number of victims suddenly finding themselves saved, the villain beaten, and a note from their "friendly Neighborhood Overclock" left behind. Despite all this, he's not typically the sort to actively ham things up or play along as well with the PR machine as many of his peers. For a simple reason.

He is stubborn and prideful, though he typically hides it well. Sean has an... obsession perhaps with controlling his own path in life, in dictating his own destiny and image (his costume, among other things). He was not exactly thrilled to join the Wards, and the fact that he barely tolerates the red tape and PR is fairly clear to any that know him well... which is surprisingly few. Despite his forwardness on the job, behind closed doors, he is a comparatively restrained person. He sees heroing at the behest of a government agency as inherently flawed. In fact, he outright finds superhero costumes and masks to be ridiculous, and if his contract didn't have some comprehensive NDAs involved, he'd be perfectly happy to be hero without a secret identity at all. On the inverse scale, he doesn't think villains have the right to hide behind masks and thinks the precedent set by letting them is one of the major factors making the world worse by encouraging the idea of lessened to nonexistent consequences... as long as you might show up for the big threats like the S7 or Heralds.

If he were an independent hero, he'd be much happier. Instead, with the choice taken out of his hands, he barely refrains from acting spitefully towards his comrades and superiors. To that effect, even as he refuses to put on a stage persona for the masses, he feels he's doing everyone a favor just being his regular self on the job. Really, they should be thankful, he thinks, that he only takes out his frustrations on "acceptable targets".

And yet... despite all of that, there's a part of him, the part of him that he currently lets lead the charge, that believes in a better world, in better heroes, that things can be salvaged, the villains beaten, the Heralds destroyed, and that lives can be saved in all the ways that matter. And he worries for his younger peers, for how they might be suckered into the government's games as effectively child soldiers. A large part of him feels responsible for them, and that part also wants the Wards to be what the naive among them believe it is. And for that reason, he sees it as his duty to coopt the image and direction of the Wards before it can be twisted by hard men making hard choices. And well, if that lets him get back at those that forcibly recruited him in a number of petty ways? Why, how could he refuse?

Independent of his issues with "the System" and internal conflicts, however, Sean has a powerful sense of justice... if a bit black and white. To him, "evil" acts aren't excusable. There is only doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing with little -if any- in between; it is always a choice that anyone can make. For that reason, he has very little true leniency to offer for those that overstep. He's a true believer at heart in the American Dream, of the right to be free and choose your own destiny. Those that dare take that free will and liberty away from others (most Masters, slavers, rapists and murderers in general -though not necessarily killers) will find that he is fresh out of mercy. He believes that saving people is more than saving their bodies in the present but eliminating any threat that could harm them in the future; and it is equally vital to save the peoples' hearts and minds.

Appearance:
Civilian: A 5'10", 160 lb. dark-brown-haired, blue-eyed, athletic, caucasian and clean-shaven young man with the lean build of a martial artist. Prefers blue jeans and wide variety of cotton shirts or hoodies. Typically prefers solid colors or stripes and avoids stuff with brand names plastered all over it. He lives in Redline, Maine, which is -to say the least- cold, so he also favors warm jackets, preferably with hoods for when the chill is especially biting.

Cape: Despite despising spandex with a fiery passion, he's opted for a costume that might as well be named "MURICA HARDER" just to spite the PRT. It may not yet be obvious exactly how such a PR friendly-seeming outfit is going to channel such ends, but the malicious compliance promises to be glorious. The outfit is a thick, durable full-bodysuit affair, aside from the head, which has a wide blue domino mask, leaving his eyes and lower face open.
The dominant color is a dark blue with a triangular expanse of dark red covering the majority of the chest down to the bottom of the sternum along with rounding out to cover the shoulders and encompass everything above the nape of the neck. Emblazoned upon the front in the center of the red mass is a white and blue emblem of a clock without hands, surrounded by a ring of white five-pointed stars, one for each hour. A single narrow "v"-shaped, downward pointing white stripe ascends up the outside of both thighs with a larger, thicker one on his back, the point ending at the small of his back. The boots and gloves are dark red with multiple "v"-shaped white stripes ascending up the front lengths of them, the "points" of the v's pointing towards the ends of the appendages and only descending far enough to barely touch both his ankles and wrists. There is a white utility belt with dark red accents secured firmly to the waist by built in belt straps; though it can naturally be unbuckled and removed separate from the rest of the costume. All the colors of this costume are done blatantly in the exact same color coding as the American Flag.

Biography:
If Sean were to call his early and mid life anything, it was... "average". Not that he was actually disappointed with that state of affairs. He had loving parents, a good home, good schooling, a number of healthy hobbies he went through over the years, including swimming, gymnastics, soccer and finally, martial arts. To say the least, on an objective level, compared to many, he lived a good, perhaps above average life, and he was content with that, aspiring to no particular heights and wanting little more than he had. He had enough of a good support system to avoid being forced into any particular direction, and he loved it. What he loved and appreciated the most was the freedom to choose his own life, to choose his own lifestyle, to be able to plan around taking up a job that wouldn't just be a grind for money but instead something he would genuinely enjoy doing his whole life. He was 15 and had an actual plan for his life, one he intended to carry out.

And then some things happened, many of them unfortunate, some of them not. At the end of it all, unfortunately, his plans were in shambles. He had powers and a will to use them... and an even greater desire to avoid using them on anyone else's orders. So, he tried out the whole vigilante thing for the next two years, and turns out, he was pretty good at it. With his lessons from martial arts, he was more aware than many his age what the consequences of excessive force would be, so he carefully toed the line, stayed within the bounds of self defense and defense of others, and ensured that every citizen's arrest was properly conducted, the victim a witness and the baddie bound to be put away. The people and even law enforcement seemed to like him, liked the "friendly neighborhood hero" persona he had, a relatable guy who nonetheless was here to help. Between that and his martial arts refining and reinforcing his discipline, he kept things restrained. In fact, despite doing so begrudgingly at first, he even went to therapy and recovered from his Trigger Event... mostly anyway, becoming as well-adjusted and rational as any could likely ever expect him to be.

He did everything right, picked up the pieces of his life and was in the process of fitting them back together... only for the government to stick their nose into things. There were some threats of using the law against him for his vigilante work, but he easily called their bluff, knowing he had followed the letter of the law... and admittedly laughed in their face. Unfortunately, they thought to go around him entirely and manipulate his option through his guardians. And so, Sean finds himself in the here and now with a barely restrained chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind with the system... not that he's foolish enough to be overt about it. Oh no, no no. If he's going to have his way and get retaliation, he's going to have to play the long game... so it's sure nice to be so good at putting on a show. They won't know what hit them.

Powers/Skills:

• Athleticism: Is a highly athletic and agile individual, and his cardio is sufficient for very extended periods of running (to say the least).
• Great Pain Tolerance/Willpower: He's learned to handle pain and aching muscles taking martial arts, and gaining powers that rely on a stronger base has only pushed him to push himself to the edge time and again. Working up the scale, in being a hero, taking actual injuries multiple times has numbed him somewhat. As long as he isn't entirely incapacitated, it's likely that he'll try to keep fighting.
• Martial Arts: Tae-Kwon Do: Even before becoming a cape, he took martial arts and reached a level where he could actually put what he knew into practice beyond refereed spars. His style favors a wide variety of kicks, but he's been known to "ad lib" things or forgo form entirely to be more unpredictable. This gives him a certain awareness of where it's safe to strike the human body to incapacitate foes relatively harmlessly... or where he needs to aim to do the most damage.
• Service with a Smile: Having worked in the fast-food industry, Sean is quite practiced at concealing his true feelings from others.
• Swimming: Can swim pretty well. Retained the skills easily, even if he hasn't taken lessons in years.
• Escalation: Overclock (Mover/Brute/Breaker 2-10+): A power that multiplies Overclock's base speed, strength and durability to ramp up over time. This effect is not gradual but instead occurs in periodic bursts with a longer waiting time for each successive burst. The boost and periods between boosts occur in exponential increments, starting with 2, then 4, then 16, then 256 and so on. The waiting times are slightly lower initially, allowing him to activate the first boost instantly, effectively meaning he must wait 2 seconds to activate x4, then 4 seconds to activate x16, then 16 seconds for x256 and so on... a fairly long time in the initial moments of a fight. This is rather mitigated by the fact that he doesn't actually need a fight to ramp up and can, in fact, begin doing so ahead of time if he's anticipating one.
  
  Despite the ludicrous speeds he can move at, he doesn't seem to cause any undue collateral damage from the force of his passing. However, this state of affairs lasts only as long as he chooses to allow it. At any point, he can seemingly at least partially selectively decide which aspects of physics his boosted physicality will interact with, allowing the full force of the collateral effects of his actions to occur. This Breaker effect also allows him to manually utilize any level of lesser force than his current maximum upon targets, letting him avoid causing severe to lethal injury or damage in general even while going at full throttle.
  
  As far as the PRT has been able to determine, he effectively has no upper limit and has been able to continue ramping up over the course of an entire day, only loosing his charge once he fell asleep. His power is active, requiring he pay enough attention to manually activate each successive boost. In general, it is expected that most conflict with him will occur while he has boosted 4 times. Anything longer requires that a battle have been ongoing for a full 4 minutes at minimum.
  
  Speed Calculations:

  • Base - 15 mph (22 fps)
  • (Instant) x2 - 30 mph (44 fps)
  • (2 seconds) x4 - 60 mph (88 fps) (barely too slow to run on water)
  • (6 seconds) x16 - 240 mph (356 fps) (can run on water)
  • (24 seconds) x256 - 3,840 mph (1 mps) (5,632 fps) (Mach 5)
  • (280 seconds/ 4 minutes, 40 seconds) x65,536 - 983,040 mph (186 mps) (1,441,792 fps) (Mach 1,281) (3.6x lightning speed)
  • (65,816 seconds/ 18 hours, 16 minutes, 56 seconds) x4,294,967,296 - 64,424,509,440 mph (12,201,611 mps) (6,299,300,000 fps) (96x lightspeed) (Mach 57,250,000)
  • The odds of him ever reaching Stage 7 are so low with an exponential timer, that it's not even worth calculating any further than this unless that absurdity comes to pass by some miracle.
  
  
  Weakness

  Sean's power has a simple weakness, an energy pool that all his boost stages draw from to various degrees, preventing him from maintaining the higher tiers often or easily. Essentially, each stage costs a certain amount to maintain, but they only expend energy at all if Sean is actively moving (and thus benefitting actively from the boost), which allows him to charge up more easily and less wastefully to higher levels by simply standing still.
  

  • First stage is low enough that he could hold it indefinitely and actually recharge his reserves.
  • Second stage neutralizes. He makes as much energy as it spends. Can't recharge (assuming he just lowered from a higher stage).
  • Third Stage, he's actively loosing energy and on a time limit, if a fairly generous one.
  • Fourth stage, same as the third, but way worse, not for reckless use.
  • Fifth stage, drain is so bad in order to actually reach the sixth stage, he would have to sit still and do literally nothing but breathe if at all possible, basically meditating for the time it takes to reach his peak ability.
  • Sixth stage. True absurdity. In real time, he probably only has a few seconds of action time, but that would likely be more than enough.
• Shonen Transportation (Striker 0): It's not quite clear if this is an aspect of his Breaker power or entirely separate. In practice, however, it allows Overlock to safely transport other people and objects, even while moving at his top speed. While they may not share his enhanced reflexes or perceptions for the duration, they also seem to suffer little if any vertigo afterwards.
• Semi-Immutability (Trump 0): Overclock's powers have a noticeable resistance to being altered, stolen, copied, or boosted, enough so that he can usually continue to operate in some normal capacity.

Other: Favorite power sets involve time stopping or manipulation. Though, I'm becoming a big fan of speedsters as well.

The Wards: A Grimdark Teenage Superhero Story

<Snipped quote by Mintz>

They have a very profound weakness, in the form of a glock, lmao

@Blizz

What you're proposing ain't exactly Hatchet Face. It's more like the worst part of freaking Sting on steroids. Not even "save or suck" just "no save, no powers" with a side of "instant death". No Shard would ever be suicidal enough to even think about giving something that ridiculous out. That sounds like Khephri levels of jailbroken and would have the potential to totally derail the Cycle and proper [DATA] collection.

The Wards: A Grimdark Teenage Superhero Story

Gonna drop an escalating speedster/brute down as mine. Figured I'd mention it just in case that helps with anyone else's choices. :)

Royal Rumble: Rumble over the Heavens

And It Went "Snicker-Snack".

Initial Shattered Appearance

Present Day Appearance

_{"This One hungers. Wouldst thou perhaps be willing to donate to a worthy cause."
Length: 1'8" (6" hilt, 14" blade)}

Name: Caelum Ripper "The Hungering Maw", "Bane of the Heavens", "The Darkness that Swallowed the End".
Age: Centuries. Forged no more than century past the creation of the very first Devils and Demons, it is truly ancient.
Sex: It's a dagger. But it will answer to "He" for simplicity's sake. The baritone voice supports this.
Appearance: Seething with pilfered souls and magic, an ominous green mist drifts from the obsidian-black barbed blade of this unholy dagger, and the length seems to pulse with eldritch light from within. Upon the hilt, a toothed opening akin to an eel's maw seems to palpably hunger.
Nationality: It's still a dagger. Though, it claims strict loyalty to the Devil race, no matter what.
Grade: It's definitely still a dagger.

Biography:

Demons and devils. Long have they retained a natural connection to such things known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Literally. In the past, the Seven Deadly Sins was the title of the Original Seven devils, created when the Gods desperately experimented in their efforts to recreate the process of making humans in the absence of the Over-Deity. But, like all others, the Devils were deemed a failure and set aside.

These seven, aghast and bereft of purpose, came to nurse a particularly strong grudge against the Gods, being created and then cast aside like trash as mere failed experiments. Unfortunately, the Original Seven were powerful, far more-so than the Gods might have preferred, being created early on in the unrefined process. As a result, they were born and injected with a truly reckless amount of power for ultimately mortal beings early on in the experiments, and after being thrown away, these seven vengefully waged a war against the heavens, a war that quickly stalemated... but not necessarily in their favor.

Though they had obtained victories, even wrested control of several lower planes away from their Divine creators and severely injured a number of the former owners, they could not escape an inexorable fact.

Given that the demons/devils would have naturally had a startlingly low population compared to humanity at the time (and even presently), they ultimately could not win a war of attrition against the human champions and the Gods themselves. So, the Seven settled into a cold war for a period, beginning to bide their time, looking for ways to increase their personal power and the population of their armies. This state of affairs suited several of them better than others, but few were more disgruntled than Lord Wrath, Lord Greed, Lord Envy... and Lord Pride.

Wrath's rage was unquenchable, and the cease-fire drove him nearly as mad as the sight of his creators.
Greed wanted. Always, wanted more, never satisfied with mediocrity, with simply living.
Envy practically frothed at the mouth at the thought of the worship and luxury the Gods had.
Pride? Retreat and defeat burned him. After all their efforts and losses, the humiliation of giving up in the end? Unacceptable.

Lord Pride was a conniver, a leader, and -were he so bold as to say it- the most fit to rule of his fellows. But despite his congenial grin and silver tongue, it might be fair to say he hated the Gods more than any of his fellows... and was the most willing to take risks to see his revenge through.

That said, he was also practical enough to not recklessly "storm the gates" as it were, like Lord Wrath would have preferred. It burned him, made his indignation curdle all the harder at the acknowledgement of reality, but he knew they would have to wait for the right time to strike.

Lust was busy striking up a new business of having demons breed with as many humans (and each-other) as possible to increase population and sow chaos among mortals, and Pride could acknowledge the viability of her methods long term, leaving her to them. Sloth's nature meant that once he finally wound down, he was more trouble to wind back up than was worth bothering with long term. Gluttony was... consuming and generally being a net drain on their resources, so Pride encouraged him to take his indulgences to the Mortal plan alone to spare the rest of them the costs. Gluttony did so without any real complaint.

That managed, Pride proposed his plan to his three remaining allies.
Their obstacles were simple: population, divine immortality, personal power, and the power the Gods had.
Lust was handling the first, so that was not their issue.
Immortality was a concern. The devils could die, and they'd failed to kill even a single God thus-far.
The latter two issues one could easily mistake for being one and the same, but Pride elaborated:
While personal power was nice, the real problem was that the Gods still held sole Authority over the ability of Creation. With it, they could continue to make all new dangers to the devils while also getting closer to creating humans again. If they succeeded in the latter, then the numbers game may become a distance the Seven couldn't ever close.

They needed a way to kill the Gods, and they needed a way to obtain the power of Creation or deny it to their creators. Personal power and improvement? That would come in time, and unfortunately, Pride suspected they would have a sizable wait ahead of them indeed before they finally finished preparations.

Pride knew just what to look for, but it would take time to uncover through sending out agents to the Mortal plane. In the meanwhile, he began to take up capturing and dissecting those that had received the Gods' blessings. Between the magics of Greed and Envy, they were able to forcibly extract and implant such blessings in others, not always successfully, such was the volatile nature of such things.

The devils sought to discover the principles behind the function of these "Gifts" that they might replicate such abilities for themselves... and also begin to bestow their own warped versions upon humanity, especially amongst the cults they were fostering. Pride, however, in particular, sought to find a way to turn such things against the gods directly.

Pride had begun construction of a weapon, a great and terrible conglomeration of destruction and perversion. Using dozens, hundreds of stolen Gifts, he created a sword that would be able to slip through the Gods' innate defenses through possessing a portion of their own power. With help from the rest of the Seven, they imbued it with demonic might in counter-balance to the holy and anointed the unnatural union of powers within using the blood and souls of countless humans and demons alike. It would be worth it, they decided, even at such a steep cost to themselves. For, in truth, the terrible power of this sword was realized better than any of the devils could have hoped.

The sword, thusly named Caelum Ripper could invert the normal recollection process for distributed Divine essence, allowing it to steal the power of the Gods and deposit it into another... in theory.

But Pride wasn't satisfied with just that.

Taking power from them was nice and all, but Pride would only settle for the death of the Gods entirely. Nothing less was sufficient to soothe his wounded... well, pride. Certainly, the sword as it was could hurt them, badly even, enough so to perhaps destroy their physical bodies and force them to engage in a strenuous resurrection process. But it couldn't kill them, couldn't extinguish their divine core even after weakening it. But... he knew what could change that.

The one thing the Gods truly feared.

The sole existence the Gods couldn't handle.

The Great Evil.

The rest of the Seven, even Wrath, called him mad, but Pride assured them that this was the only way. As they were, by the time they achieved the personal power required to slay the Gods, the latter would likely have long since gotten stronger in turn and recreated the absent Over-God's human creation method. And finally, decades after their initial clash with the heavens, Pride's investment in agents on the Mortal plane had borne fruit. They had discovered a fragment of the being, large enough to communicate... to negotiate, and more importantly, large enough to have the power to fuel Pride's plot.

Understandably wary, the rest of the Seven opted still to come with him to treat with the fragment, as Pride made his sales pitch to the Gods' nemesis. Surprisingly, even suspiciously, the Great Evil was thoroughly accommodating. While its goals remained as mysterious as ever, slaying the Gods was a blatantly important step to them, and a true opportunity to make that happen even in its diminished state was one it claimed it could hardly pass up.

The Great Evil offered each member of the Seven two boons individually. Firstly, its own twisted form of the Gods' blessings, one that would enhance their current ones and enhance them further in turn, allowing them to mostly close any physical gaps that might exist between them and their creators (durability, speed, etc.).

Secondly, it would enhance their personal weapons. While such enhancements wouldn't allow them to kill the Gods without great effort, it would still allow them to hurt and incapacitate their creators... long enough for Pride to finish the job. Indeed, the weapon Pride had championed the creation of had a sufficiently strong foundation that it could accept power far beyond that of any other weapon at the Seven's disposal, and Pride was seemingly more than happy to forgo the physical boon in order to reserve more power being dedicated to the weapon alone. In fact, he insisted on it.

Other non-standard acceptances were Gluttony and Lust, the former who didn't trust something he believed was looking at him like a predator would, and the latter whose connections to the true primal nature of desire screamed warnings to her about allowing such a being direct access to her body. Both chose only to have their weapons enhanced, feigning "following Pride's lead" to have stronger offense.

With those little hiccups out of the way, the Seven accepted the Great Evil's power and set out to finish what they'd started, evading the divine agents that had caught wind of the meeting and sought to disrupt it. While they were too late to prevent the worst of it, the fragment of the Great Evil was weakened enough after aiding the Seven to be destroyed once and for all. In the aftermath, initially, Pride had the Seven go incognito to experiment with and understand their new limits, while he made some final personal... and clandestine touches to Caelum Ripper.

In the end, they waited another two decades, allowing the heat to die down from their risky meeting and allowing them to finish their personal preparations and master their new limits. It also allowed Lust's plan to bear further fruit, skyrocketing the demon population to a size sufficient for an army and successfully compensating for the mass sacrifices used to create Caelum Ripper.

Eventually, the day came to enact their vengeance.

Initially, the Seven ambushed several gods that had descended to the Mortal plane for one reason or another, outnumbering and overpowering them in duels of seven verses one or two. While most escaped, their schemes satisfactorily bore fruit. Caelum Ripper was able to successfully slay the God of Realm Traversal, leeching their power into itself, before using the stolen power to reinforce its capacity to steal even more next time.

They knew the Gods would quickly realize what had happened and begin preparing countermeasures, so speed was of the essence. A prolonged fight was outside their best interests, even with the Great Evil's aid, so they chose to storm the heavens directly, planning to do as much damage as possible in the Alpha strike, before retreating and returning to guerilla tactics for the remainder of the new war.

The Seven went alone, leaving their armies on the Mortal plane to keep the Gods' champions from interfering. Assaulting the divine realms, the Seven found their opposition waiting for them, but while the Gods were still scrambling for a unified plan of action, the Seven still had the momentum. Near to a dozen more Gods were severely injured before the remaining united enough to turn the tide, driving the Seven into an unfavorable pitched battle. Their bloodlust sated for the time being, the Seven began to struggle through a fighting retreat, ready to escape the heavens and initiate the next stage of their plan.

The Great Evil had other ideas.

In truth, through granting the Seven its "blessings", the Great Evil had taken the opportunity to preserve its essence within several of the desperate fools. In this way, it had spread itself out in a manner that would allow it to avoid destruction and cultivate a recovery of its lost power. The Seven couldn't have made themselves more convenient tools if they tried, and the Great Evil had absolutely no intention of retreating.

For two decades, the Great Evil had bided its time. The horrible truth was that what the comparatively young and naive devils had found was not a mere fragment at all, but a far larger portion of the eldritch being. For such a large portion, its touch could easily be the water to the devil's sugar. It could have consumed them at any time as easily as any God, but it knew if it was hasty it wouldn't be able to invade the heavens. It was only now that it fully exercised the true power it held, overwhelming the minds and spirits of the Demon Lords and consuming and subsuming them into itself.

Pride, Lust and Gluttony, through foresight and wisdom, were spared this fate, but they could only look on in horror as the chaos erupted, their possessed comrades becoming all the stronger in the face of what was effectively true death. However, the Great Evil wasn't striking at just the Gods. No, even now, it still couldn't kill them as it was. Only one thing could, the sword wielded by Pride.

The remained Deadly Sins were forced to struggle to even survive in the face of the three-way brawl that things had devolved into, even as the Great Evil boasted of its success and gloated over the inevitable demise of all but itself.

Right up until Pride's blade ripped through Envy's body and consumed and extinguished the fragment of the Great Evil within just as easily as any divine target.

"What?!"
"What, indeed. Did you really think I wouldn't anticipate your betrayal? Last I checked, you weren't actually the one winning your little pissing match with the divine, so I figured a weapon that could kill them could be tuned to include you just as well. In case you haven't noticed, I took precautions. Your essence was strictly confined to specific tasks within this weapon, and now that you've stopped playing games? Well, it's the perfect way to seal you... Lust, take Gluttony and run. I'll finish this."
"Non-"
"Sweet cheeks? Shut up and let me be Prideful one last time?"
"..."

Hesitantly, Lust and Gluttony took the opportunity to flee, and Pride faced what he felt in his gut would be his end with a dignity few might have expected from him. The Great Evil, now unleashed upon the heavens themselves was a voracious and indiscriminate foe, and while it couldn't yet kill the gods by its own power, without Pride's blade... it was only a matter of time before that changed. The Great Evil began to consume and repurpose the holy fundament of the realm, growing in strength and menace with every passing moment.

Pride, for his part, suddenly found himself agreeing to a temporary ceasefire with the gods. His blade was the only thing they had at their disposal that could stop the Great Evil, and the Gods couldn't safely so much as lay a finger on it (the being or the weapon) without becoming victims. As such, they became the Devil Lord's shields, giving him openings to strike at the Great Evil and his subsumed former comrades. Though it burned at him to accept their aid, Pride had always been good at not living up to his namesake when it mattered most.

So, he fought alongside the beings he had long dedicated his life to slaying, acknowledging the bitter truth that whatever else he might want, he could see now his foolhardiness in treating with the Great Evil. In fact, he had realized in some part how doomed the Seven were long before when adding his final touches to Caelum Ripper in the last two decades. Finally able to study the power of the Great Evil contained within the weapon personally, he had realized their folly, realized that four of his comrades were dead men walking... and that his arrogance was responsible for their fates.

Whatever else he may have been: an overconfident schemer, manipulator, liar and vengeful spiteful person, Pride... truly did care about the rest of the Seven. They were family to him, basically siblings, and now, it looked like he'd led all but two of them to a fate he'd not have wished on any but the Gods.

Slowly, but surely, the Great Evil was robbed of its advantages. The living corpses of Wrath, Greed and Sloth were pinned down and laid to final rest, and the Great Evil, now bereft of effective meat-shields was driven into a corner, lashing about furiously like a wild animal, desperate to get some final catastrophic parting shot in. For it knew well, even the death of a single one of the Gods before it would be an absolutely devastating blow to all the realms and likely the true death knell to the Gods ever being able to create more humans. In the absence of the Over-Deity, each God, no matter how large or small was almost unanimously a critical aspect of that procedure, a critical fragment of their creator's power that, once extinguished, would close that door forever.

The Great Evil knew this, and it had finally stored up enough power, enough to make something stick. It chose carefully from amongst its potential targets, before settling on what it saw as the most devastating option, the Goddess of Rejuvenation, a healer and critical portion of the divine resistance lain out before it. She lingered on the backline, purging and replacing the corrupted flesh of her fellows who had recoiled from its dread touch.

The Great Evil lunged with a speed borne of desperation and spite, a blow with all its remaining strength behind it, an attack far too dangerous for any of the Gods to risk blocking. And so they dodged, moved out of the way... leaving the far from martially inclined Goddess wide open.

Blood splattered across the scarred and ruined divine courtyard.

The Great Evil felt pain.

Pride, who had also been standing on the backline being protected by the Gods, had intercepted the blow. His blade had successfully blunted the strike somewhat and pierced the Great Evil dead center, but the attack itself, a largely physical blow, had only been fully redirected from the Goddess by blowing straight through him instead.

With a bloody grin, Pride activated one of his final touches to the blade, expelling the majority of its gathered power into the Great Evil, even as it drew in the Great Evil's essence and used it to continue the cycle of its own destruction. Every scrap of divine energy pilfered so far, every stolen blessing, the power he and the Seven had invested, the power of countless human and demonic souls that fueled the thrumming runes and black magics. He expelled just about all of it, every bit of spare power, as much as he could manage without having the enchantments fall apart at the seams.

And with a shrieking crack that sounded like the world coming undone, the top half of the blade fractured and then shattered under the onslaught, driving fragmenting shards all throughout the Great Evil that indiscriminately unleashed whatever payload they could manage. There was a howl of reality sundering, as the space between stars almost seemed to bleed into the heavens, the Great Evil coming undone and evaporating to nothing. A violently vibrating Caelum Ripper, bleeding a familiar kaleidoscopic magic was cast by the weakened Pride into the closing gap and thrust without destination to places unknown, only presumably a location in the known realms.

Pride died.

In truth, even with the Goddess of Rejuvenation directly beside him and urgently tending to him in the aftermath, his death was inevitable the moment the Great Evil had so much as touched him, never mind pierced him. He was no God, and his constitution was nowhere near sufficient to delay the encroachment of the Great Evil's power well enough for the Goddess to work with. Even so, she was able to delay the inevitable for a while, long enough for Pride to convey a final message to Lust and Gluttony, to call off the war and the direct hostilities with the heavens. Long enough for him to ask why they were trying to save him, even after he'd masterminded the death of one of their own and nearly revived the Great Evil.

The Goddess replied simply that, if nothing else, she was trying to repay the favor. She then assured him that he had, in fact, failed to kill the God of Realm Traversal. For if he had truly succeeded, then the Seven would have never managed to enter the heavens to begin with. It was here and now that Pride was told of the true nature of Gods... of what they had lost when the Over-Deity disappeared. Even a single death amongst their number would have meant the degradation and ultimate destruction of a fundamental force of reality. Inevitably, it would be a calamity that spared no-one, certainly not the devils. It was more likely than not that the God of Realm Traversal had simply cast himself away to safety to recuperate, exchanging his body for a convincing fake.

Though his pride burned in shame at his folly, Lord Pride could only acknowledge their luck at avoiding that fate. In the end, it would have meant more than the deaths of four of his brothers. It seemed now that at least two of the Seven would survive where it might once have been none. And so, he lay dying in the heavenly realm, only able to reflect that at the least he could take pride in knowing he had not died to a God's hands.

In the aftermath of the Devil Lord's passing, the Gods and Demons finally drew up a proper cease-fire, united under a desire to avoid calamity. With the remaining Devil Lords now aware of the truth of the Gods' role maintaining reality at Pride's final request, Lust and Gluttony -already the sort to prefer avoiding violence- were more than happy the meet the Gods halfway. They withdrew their armies from humans to land that was not yet properly claimed and agreed to surrender the weapons enchanted by the Great Evil, which were to be thoroughly purged and destroyed to ensure nothing could come of them. In return, the Devils were given the patronage of several Gods -some more sinister than others- and could finally be rid of the jealousy they had carried for humans for so long.

At the end of things, however, neither devil or God alike was able to locate or retrieve Pride's sword, cast into the boundary between worlds. By the time the God of Realm Traversal had recovered and returned, it was far too late to recover it. Though he was able to determine the location it had initially landed -somewhere on the Mortal plane, it had already been found and hidden away by persons unknown. After an extensive and exhaustive search, decades of lacking results ultimately determined that they would simply have to await its reappearance... for better or worse. Ultimately, the primary worry was that the sword still retained some of the Great Evil's essence, but they would be unable to determine if the purge initiated by the weapon itself had been total until it was found.

The reality was that the sword -now more a jagged dagger than anything else- had been obtained by an Aztec-like society of the age, an occultist society that soon discovered the devastating power of the dagger, able to kill with so much as a single prick of the blade, draining the life-force and souls of the unfortunate. In fact, the blade could kill even without a cut and demonstrated a will to drain those that so much as wielded it for extended periods. It was also discerning enough to punish those that sought to "cheat" such a thing and pass it periodically through different owners. The blade was temperamental and its standards unknown, but it was certainly noticed that over time, the initially jagged, damaged form was smoothing out and repairing.

Thus, it soon came to be the superstition that the blade was a divine artifact, a weapon that clearly commanded mortals to only wield it for worthy causes, and so, it was relegated primarily to a ceremonial purpose and otherwise hidden away under the best magical and physical defenses the time period could bring to bear. In time, the society that found the blade fell to ruin -as so many inevitably do, and the now dagger was lost to history.

The truth of the blade, now lying dormant, however, remained a lingering proof of Lord Pride's foresight and magical genius.

Once he realized the near-inevitable doom of himself and his comrades, he began repurposing some of the systems of the blade. The Great Evil's power had been successfully purged fully from the blade in Pride's final death strike, as he had deliberately designed a receiver for the Great Evil's power and limited the storage to the upper half of the blade, where it would be most useful against his divine foes. Thus, the destruction of the blade was as much about the overload of power as it was the removal of every scrap of infected material from its form.

Acknowledging the possibility -even likelihood- of the Seven's deaths, Pride had set about preparing a contingency system of inheritance. Using the essence of the Seven within the blade, he created a series of runic "ghosts" that could emulate the Seven. He determined that the blade's stored power and remaining Gifts could only be partitioned to those that met criteria determined by the will of one of those Shades, and anyone who didn't meet the criteria would be drained and used as fuel for both the weapon's standard functions and the inevitable repair it would need to undergo once the Great Evil was purged.

The end result was that once a worthy successor to any one of their legacies could be found -regardless of their origin, race or creed, they would be imbued with demonic essence, allowing them to awaken their own "blessing" of a Gift independent of the Gods. Inheriting the blood and authority of their benefactors, chosen would be able to take up the mantles they had left so dearly empty. And so long as this blade existed, the Devils would always be able to rise from the ashes in some time or place, even if they were otherwise wiped from the face of the earth.

And then, one day centuries later, a little girl with more grit and spite than most grown men unwittingly took the dagger's test... and became the first to pass with flying colors. And in the aftermath, though she was unaware, the dagger had hidden itself in the only place it could, the only place it could find solace and further its purpose... within her. For who better to show it the way than the inheritor of Lord Pride himself?

It would not reveal itself quite yet, naturally. For all her worthiness, she was just a child. She needed time to grow, to mature her power. She could not yet afford to be threatened by those that sought the Caelum Ripper. And in truth? As diminished as it was, the blade too sought time to regather itself from the sharp expenditure of power required to awaken the first Inheritor. So, it would wait, watch and prepare; for the Claiming had finally begun.

Powers:

Legacy of the Seven

Caelum Ripper is imbued with countless terrible runes and magics, both given and stolen. At one time, the unified purpose of these powers created a weapon worthy of slaying Gods and able to extinguish a remnant of the Great Evil at steep cost to itself. The dagger has the ability to manipulate souls and raw magic with a frightening ease, but it currently must make direct physical contact to perform its work. However, while its objective practical knowledge is intact, its ability to perform proper spell-casting with pilfered power is utterly crippled. The dagger's power is entirely limited to internal and touch-based manipulations; the functions for anything further are either destroyed outright or still undergoing strenuous and delicate repairs. The dagger can telekinetically move itself, strongly enough to do battle using its own edge, but it prefers not to show this off except as a last resort and in short bursts, since those functions are still badly damaged and tend to leak truly wasteful amounts of power.

In terms of durability, Caelum Ripper has done battle with divine weapons and endured the onslaught of the Great Evil, even successfully safely containing the power of the latter for a period measured in decades. It was only shattered in the end by what was effectively a self-destruct. Nowadays, while it wouldn't loose outright to either the Gods or the Great Evil, it certainly wouldn't oppose them carelessly without taking further -even serious- damage. Many of its enchantments are damaged or lost, but it at least doesn't rust and is fairly indestructible to most mortal means.

In terms of sharpness, Caelum Ripper was never particularly famous for actually being sharp. It pierced the defenses of Gods and the Great Evil by essentially using their own power against them, like a backdoor into their systems. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have stood much of a chance. That said, as a weapon independent of its anti God/Great Evil capabilities, it is still top tier, crafted and refined by Lord Pride, himself, over the course of the better part of a century. The edge does not wear down by normal means and, in fact, is self-repairing. It is still only a dagger, however, devoid of such modern improvements like a vibrating edge or ability to split molecules or other nonsense like that. It can part steel with relative ease, and its ability to eat magic means that targets that rely on such for durability -via enchantments or the like- are as easily pierced as anything else. The weapon is effectively the bane of most magi-tech; though it struggles with highly advanced pure technology in turn.

Secondary Power 1: Soul-caliber

The primary method by which Caelum Ripper does all things, as it is primarily fueled by raw magic, soul and spiritual energy, both ambient and generated. The dagger can sense souls and communicates in part by listening to surface thoughts through the soul by proxy. Given that the soul is the core instinctual self, this makes it effectively impossible to lie to the dagger. The dagger can do the inverse to "speak", but without a way for the recipient to sense through the chaos of the dagger's aura, it is capable of deceiving others in turn.

The same goes for general spiritual energy, and the dagger is able to sense the world around it akin to a bat's echolocation through feeling the "ki of the world". Thus, it can "see" and "hear" by identifying the patterns in the subtle way the ambient ki is affected by things like sound waves. Its grasp of the other standard senses is much shakier, especially as it considers them far less important to its needs. The range of its senses is fairly large, but the further it tries to sense, the more garbled things get, especially if the area is being disturbed by Gifts and magic being hurled around in great quantities. Generally, Caelum Ripper pulls back to only sense things about a hundred feet in every direction, but it practiced narrowing its focus to keep detailed watch in a specific direction while entombed, keeping a close "eye" on the far distant entrance to its resting place.

Amongst the many things it can do with such control over raw supernatural energy, it can freely absorb from or transfer magical and spiritual energy to living beings and itself, absorb and trap souls or release them, and nigh-instantaneously identify the power source and effect of spells and Gifts it witnesses in action. It can use gathered souls as rechargeable mana batteries without destroying them, cycling through the drained souls once another set is ready and letting the old set "rest", and in an emergency, it can sacrifice and consume them wholesale for an extra-large boost of energy in the short-term. It can also hide itself within the soul of another.

Secondary Power 2: Magnum Opus, the Eternal Guardian

Caelum Ripper is sentient, truly so, a function Lord Pride did not intentionally include. It is not sure when exactly this became the case, but it is the truth nonetheless. The dagger can think and act of its own volition. Though it has programmed directives, it is entirely capable of being discerning and flexible with them, even ignoring or acting against them outright, not that it's particularly inclined to. It is fully capable of manually adjusting the wording of its directives to account for new factors, and it is able to create or remove directives entirely.

In the latter case -the alteration, removal or addition of core directives, however, it must recieve approval from the majority of the "Ghosts" of the Seven within it. Caelum Ripper is unable to alter the "Ghosts" by any means, as it is a function specifically denied to it, added after the dagger's sentience was realized by Lord Pride. This, to its knowledge, was not directly to chain down the magical AI, but instead to ensure that the memory of the Seven had absolutely no chance of being tampered with.

Core Directives:

• 1): Under all circumstances, Caelum Ripper is to prioritize its own preservation above all else. The only exception is if it knows for a fact that to do so would mean the end of Devilish/Demonic kind. Devil-kind can recover from total extinction so long as Caelum Ripper exists.
• 2): Second only to Directive 1, Caelum Ripper is to preserve and facilitate the safety and prosperity of Devilish/Demonic kind.
• 3): Second only to Directive 2, Caelum Ripper is to preserve and facilitate the safety and prosperity of the Seven and their descendants.
• 4): Caelum Ripper shall never detrimentally drain spiritual or magical energy from a member of Devilish/Demonic kind unless it is freely offered to it by the subject or commanded by its wielder to do so.
• 5): Caelum Ripper is to anoint Inheritors. It is to be discerning and thorough in its evaluation, and settle for nothing less than the most ideal.
• 6): The Great Evil's power is to be eliminated wherever possible. It is not to be treated as an ally under any circumstances.

Secondary Power 3: Lord Maker

Caelum Ripper's primary purpose in this day and age is to preserve the legacy and authority of the Seven Deadly Sins. In anticipation of their potential demise, Lord Pride created a contingency system of inheritance for the Seven. In particular, he created a series of seven runic mimicries/simulations/ghosts of the Seven Deadly Sins and stored them within the hilt of the weapon. The purpose of these "Shades" was to ruthlessly evaluate any individual that made physical contact with the weapon, judging their "worthiness" as a potential successor to each of them individually. While any number of the Shades can voice approval and desire to "claim" a candidate, it still requires the unanimous consent of the other Lords to initiate the next step. Any candidate that is found wanting by the majority, however, is instantly drained of their life force and soul, both of which are put towards the weapon's functions.

As the "ghosts" are effectively semi-AI that operate with extraordinarily accelerated thought speeds, the evaluation process is functionally nigh-instantaneous, taking no longer than a single second from start to finish. For this reason, an unworthy target may potentially survive if they are merely grazed by the blade, but getting stabbed by or actually holding it outright is generally more than enough time for the deliberations to conclude.

To say the least, a candidate possessing the blessing of a God or the Great Evil is generally grounds for immediate failure, such is the grudge the majority of the Sins hold against such entities. In other words, those that selfishly seek power whilst already possessing it are more likely to suffer for their hubris than not, even if Greed and Envy may give such cases a token approval enough to not see failure punished with death. Generally, Pride, Lust and Gluttony will vote to spare a failure, especially if they failed only though having a preexisting blessing from a God, while Wrath, Greed and Envy will vote to kill them. Sloth tends to be unpredictable on the best of days, and his vote is generally based on who badgers him most... or on which side isn't bothering him as much. As stated: unpredictable.

Should the evaluation of the Seven be passed, however, the anointment process begins. Once their personality has been approved, all that is left is to grant them the power to match. The first step is a biological and magical transmutation, altering the candidate's biology and magical signature to become a true -if partial- direct descendant of the Seven Deadly Sins. Effectively, whatever their race, creed or origin was prior, it now contains an aspect of the Devils, bestowing upon them the position of an Inheritor, their fellow successors to be brothers, sisters and cousins in arms as the last line of defense against the annihilation of the Devilish/Demonic race. In essence, they become princes and princesses of the lower planes, "blessed" with the authority to take up the position of one of the Seven Lords.

As direct descendants of the Original Seven, their authority is one that any demon or fellow inheritor is able to subconsciously recognize on some level, but it is up to them whether or not to truly own and exercise that authority... assuming they can even get the demonic populace to accept them to begin with. This in itself is a test, as there can only be Seven Lords and only one occupying the position for each Sin. If they are weak enough to fail to force the lesser devils to fall in line, then they don't deserve to rule to begin with.

The weapon's creators were no gods certainly, but they did possess an innate form of twisted "blessing". Once one of the Seven claims a worthy candidate, their power is used as the catalyst to alter the chosen's bloodline and imbue them with demonic essence, allowing them to awaken their own "blessing" of a Gift independent of the Gods. In combination with the blade's remaining internal Gifts enhancing the process, a worthy candidate is not only guaranteed to survive whatever wounds they suffered being cut by the blade, but the process of their Gift's awakening is enhanced, ensuring a strong, worthy Gift that is as unique to them as any of the Devil Lords' had been. As the Inheritor is usually someone with a mindset compatible with the Devil Lord that approved of them first, their Gift typically takes after some aspect related to that Deadly Sin. It is not necessarily a power that was held by the original Devil Lord, but it does exemplify the inherited title in some manner.

Receiving this Cursed Blessing of the Devil Lords does not alter the preexisting personality of the recipient. Rather, it reinforces what already exists. In becoming a nascent Devil Lord, Inheritors will always, without exception, exemplify some aspects of the Sin they are empowered by. As a person, they naturally have a wide and often unpredictable variety of ways for that to manifest, but it exists nonetheless, encouraging stubborn, uncompromising action when it comes to their personal obsession. Physically, the outward signs of their transition are typically subtle in nature, enough so that they can easily continue to blend into the regular populace of their original race. Inwardly, they retain both the aspects of their original race while obtaining the Devilish ones. The genetic melting pot that is their body discards the bad and keeps only the good that it can manage from both, effectively making them far more constitutionally robust than the original Devil Lords.

Inheritors Anointed:

• Envy: None.
• Gluttony: None.
• Greed: None.
• Lust: None.
• Pride: Chinami Nadakai.
• Sloth: None.
• Wrath: None.

Relationships:

General Reputation

The terror of the heavens. The weapon that nearly plunged to world into chaos... even wholesale destruction. At one time, at its height, Caelum Ripper was a sword that could have slayed the Gods, and it is only by literal divine providence that it failed. It is a weapon of such terrible might that it is hardly even referenced in legends, for the Gods and Devil Lords alike have agreed that the temptation of such a weapon's purpose is best left unawakened in the mortals. Even so, the chaos that it helped sow has led to not all such information being quashed, especially amongst Devil/Demonic kind, and through them, rumors of its existence have drifted into the world at large, lurking in wait for those that seek to find them.

-Chinami Nadakai:
"The first of the Inheritors. She is young yet, naive in some ways, older than her age suggests in others. This One finds the similarities to Lord Pride... humorous? Bracing mayhap. Nostalgic perhaps. Were she not adopted by blood and magic, This One could easily mistake her for his natural born daughter. Once she breaks free of her chains, she could be the greatest of the successors. Of that, This One is certain."

-Cel:
"If This One could drool, it mayhap would... Such a magnificent soul; This One would like nothing more than to swallow it."

-The Seven Deadly Sins:
"This One's remaining creators are wise beyond measure. Truly, Lord Lust and Lord Greed have done their brothers proud. If only Lord Pride were around to see it, to see his dream realized. Oh? No, This One was merely... 'reminiscing' as they say. His death was inevitable, something he conveyed to this one at length. This One no longer truly grieves for the end he faced with a smile, but instead preserves his memory within and carries out his will."

-The Gods:
"This One has mixed feelings. 'Twas they who This One was created for the sole purpose of slaying. Yet, Lord Pride's final wish was for peace, and This One shall respect that directive. This One posits that the divine creators have overmuch power, secure in their positions as individually vital life-lines of the world. However, This One acknowledges their own part in fostering peace and making reparations. As This One has said: mixed feelings."

-The Great Evil:
"'Tis a vile, pestilence and scourge upon all the realms. 'Twas such a hungering maw of malice that tore the Seven asunder and slew Lord Pride and four of his brothers, and for that, there can be no forgiveness. Were This One to meet with such again, This One would be quite gladdened to demonstrate what it has learned since our final clash."

Theme

Multiversal Discord: The Mass-Scale Crossover RP

A N D

B O N E S A W

Location(s): Paradox Engine, Simulated Universe #1 (Open Fields, Current Simulation: Unknown)
Mentions: Driscoll @Mintz, Cyrus @Randomness, Shadow Moth @TruthHurts22, Poison Ivy @Crimson Flame, Ganon @ActRaiserTheReturned, and Horus @Dead Cruiser.

---

---

The Pretty Green Lady and Mr. Cyrus seemed to be handling themselves okay. The Green Lady's chlorokinesis really was rather impressive, growing an... oak tree apparently? Yeah, that did seem to be what it was -if the lady’s boasting was any clue. Growing it in seconds! Wowee, that was impressive! The gears of possibilities began to turn a bit harder in Bonesaw's head. Unless the Pretty Green Lady was carrying around seeds with her in that very much pocketless dress, then she'd just spontaneously created life from nothing!

Oh-hoh-hoo-hoo~! Bonesaw couldn't stop a gleeful smile at the possibilities. First a potential source of technological mass via the nanobots, and now a biological one? Well, plants weren't exactly her preferred ingredients for her Art, but she could still make some nifty poisons with just flora!

Mr. Cyrus and the Best Mascot Ever -who was apparently named Houndoom (Bonesaw could have swooned)- were making short work of the bots that were inconvenienced by the Pretty Green Lady in a spectacularly flashy manner. The sheer heat wafting off the adorable hell puppy made her feel like she was standing near an oven almost, even from this distance!

And last, but certainly not least, Mr. Horus's power-suit really was something to behold. The mind behind it wasn't too shabby either, she decided, as she watched from the corner of her eye him adapt to his opponents' tactics, carefully probing their defenses and ability to adapt to him in turn, before ripping into them with a respectable savagery. His mindfulness of the risk of reckless attacks seemed to inform his response well, his strikes calculated to maximize results and minimize consequences. The result? Two thoroughly wrecked drones and not a single new foe to replace them. Sure he'd been caught off guard initially, but it seemed Mr. Horus had a gift for sniffing out weaknesses and exploiting them.

Bonesaw smiled glibly. She'd have to watch out for him in particular.

As if on the que of the obliteration of all but one of the remaining enemy drones, the larger meteor made impact. And what an impact it was!

"Eeek~!" Bonesaw squeaked, as she tumbled tooshie over teakettle from the shockwave, flying off of Driscoll's shoulder into the grassy plains. Shaking her head after the impact, Bonesaw was already moving back towards her lovely chivalrous meat-shield, her internal safeguards against concussive force serving her well in preventing the small child from being left stunned by the rough fall. A quick once-over of the state of the battlefield saw that most everyone had been disoriented by the new arrival. On the one hand, it seemed her fragile hold on her perch meant she hadn't been landed on by Mr. Driscoll. Sure, he'd managed to catch himself somewhat, but the risk was there! On the other hand...

Bonesaw pouted at the number of grass stains visited upon her formerly flawless blue dress by the tumble. Those were going to be annoying to get out later... especially without a place to wash in sight! Glaring at the new Big Bad Robot, the little blonde's hands planted themselves on her hips. Oh, she was going to make him regret that!

The big robot (And wowee was he big!) said some quite ominous stuff about "crowd control" before launching a giant, not-so-friendly-looking blue orb of energy high into the sky… which began to immediately pulse… and scatter.

“Oh…” Bonesaw’s eyes widened minutely, before she urgently picked up speed, lunging into Mr. Driscoll’s grasp, as he deployed his energy shield overhead once more. Thunderous blows rattled down around them, pulping soil and turning greenery to ash. Every impact was one that she could feel vibrating through her reinforced skeleton, titanic enough to destroy Mr. Driscoll’s shield in a single blow and drive the power-suited man deeper into a slowly growing crater, as the little blonde tucked herself as far down as she could safely manage.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all that far, all things considered. If she let him fully shield for her, she might get crushed beneath his bulk! Well, given her reinforced skeleton, she’d live… probably. The only real question would be how many more hits his body could take for her once the shield gave out for good. Instead, the little blonde huddled to the side of her protector, still under the shield but not exactly pressed against him.

Looking to the sky, her baby blue eyes narrowed at the energy orb, squinting, as the laser artillery continued to pour off of it like rain. To her effectively 20/20 vision, the orb was shrinking… barely at all, sure, but it was there. Unfortunately, that rate of decline was… “Eheh-” Her giggle was a bit understandably restrained in humor. “Oh dear, this may take a while… several minutes if I’m not mistaken.” And even disregarding the precariousness of her own situation, the rest of her current allies didn’t have the same protection she did. Swallowing, Bonesaw turned her head to the Forever King from where she lay mostly flat against the soil, inwardly lamenting the further despoiling of her dress. “Mr. Driscoll Sir, how long can your shield take this kind of punishment?”

As if punctuating Bonesaw’s sentence, another blast struck against the shield, briefly obliterating it, and forcing the two further into the ground. ”Hrgh…” Quickly, a new one formed before any further artillery could land on them, as Driscoll took this brief reprieve to answer. ”In truth…My shields have not been taking these attacks since the beginning, but I have enough reprieve to set up anew before another strikes. I could keep this going for quite some time. However…” Risking a glance across the drastically war-torn field, he could see the others scrambling for cover and desperate to find ways to guard themselves. ”I don’t believe the others have such a luxury.”

Frowning, Bonesaw’s small brow furrowed, before she nodded resolutely. “Your power supply then. Can it handle firing the water gun again while also maintaining the shield?” She glanced back up at the orb of death and then at its creator, who loomed over them all a dangerously nearby twenty feet away. The arms hadn’t undergone any particular shifts that she could see since its landing, so she couldn’t say for certain if destroying them would grant a reprieve from the assault. Or even if destroying the drone in its entirety would matter other than preventing another orb from being created. Truly, it was unclear at all if the orb was a one-and-done attack… or if it was currently being maintained remotely, which might explain how it was lasting so long.

Actually, that might explain why there was only a single orb at all. If it were a one-and-done attack, then the robot could simply make more and bury all of them under the onslaught. Instead, only a single orb existed, and the attacks… They didn’t look random. No, they were guided somehow, preventing the creator from being hit.

An unseen smirk played on Driscoll’s face. Could it? What a ridiculous question….Though it wasn’t like the young girl could’ve known what he possessed. ”Undoubtedly. Why?”

“I’ll aim it this time,” she said simply. “I saw how you opened it up and manually adjusted the pressure before, so I should be able to replicate it.” Curling one leg up, she flicked open her other pinkie toe and plucked the virulently-green acid capsule out. Grunting, she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed up into a low crouch. “I just need you to maintain that shield and pull the trigger, Mr. Forever King Sir. I’ll handle the rest.”

Hm. No more cute inflections or the sort; perhaps this had gotten a modicum of seriousness from the child? An amusing thought. Obliging, he reformed the cannon once again, and in another small flex of his arm hidden deeper in the machine, the dial unveiled itself once more. ”Our conditions this time seem far harsher. The distance is wider, the target larger; and likely far more tenacious. If we miss…You’re certain you can aim this?” If anything, the tone of his voice spoke more of a challenge than a genuine question.

Bonesaw’s cherubic grin was a touch feral. “Oh, but Mr. Driscoll Sir, you said it yourself: the target is oh so much bigger~!” Reaching out, Bonesaw took hold of the water cannon and crouched, laying the barrel atop her shoulder like an RPG gun, as she sighted down it towards the looming foe over the lip of the crater she shared with another. Humming, she double-checked the pressure of the gun, turning the dial as far down as she could manage, before settling back in. She refrained from placing the capsule in the barrel yet, mindful of the risk of an unexpected disruption from above potentially fouling her shot and setting off the volatile weapon.

As the thunder of artillery sounded all around, Bonesaw’s brow furrowed in concentration, aiming the weapon at a somewhat upwards angle. At the lowest pressure, there might be a risk of her shot arcing low at this distance, and she could only safely afford to ramp it up once the stream reached the target.

That settled, she considered her targets: waist, arms, or head.

Arms were almost right out. Even if destroying them would likely cut power to the artillery orb, they were a small enough target to easily miss. She’d already seen how these drones had a surprising amount of agility. If she tried to be a greedy little smarty-patootie, she’d be punished for it by hitting nothing at all. Plus, there were two of them, and she could only hit one, unless the bot was foolish enough to grab the affected one. The small one had been, but this one looked a tad smarter.

The waist…? Well, that was greed all the way. Considering the size of the thing, her capsule wouldn’t have enough fuel to eat through all of it, considering how it was entirely inorganic. With that in mind, she could wipe out the bottom half and leave the upper control center untouched aside from whatever damage it might take being removed from the main body by overenthusiastic allies… And oh sweet sister Panacea did she want that more advanced control center intact~! The only problems, of course, were that this carried the risk of the big guy having time to potentially adapt to even her acid, to say nothing of the fact that it would be able to likely replicate itself just like any of the lesser drones if it got the chance to tear off part of its remaining upper body. And she really didn’t want to think about what might happen if it could replicate her acid as a weapon. In theory, that should be impossible. Her acid was entirely organic and outside such a machine’s reach, but she didn’t really understand the limits of nanotechnology. If she gambled and was wrong…? She might as well have signed their death warrants. If this was to work, she needed her allies to defeat it incredibly fast once it was crippled.

The head -or, more accurately, the upper torso- was a simple death blow. Quick. Clean. Efficient… and leaving nothing of use to scavenge afterwards. It was immediate reward at the cost of hurting -or at least, waylaying- their future efforts.

Choices… choices…

A wild grin overtook her expression, as she made her choice… and aimed ever so slightly lower.

Looks like she was putting her trust in these strangers for now. They had better appreciate the opportunity to do some damage!

Sucking in a deep breath, Bonesaw exercised her vocal chords to their maximum, straining to be heard over the eardrum-rattling roar of artillery, as she addressed her allies. “BIOLOGICAL WEAPONRY STRIKE: INCOMING! STEER CLEAR OF THE ACID! RIP OFF THE HEAD!” Gritting her teeth, fuming silently at the measures she had to take to make this work, she finished. “AND WHATEVER YOU DO, JUST GRAPPLE THOSE ARMS! DO NOT LET THEM MOVE! DO NOT LET THEM REPLICATE!”

Turning her head to double-check the pressure dial a final time, Bonesaw slid the acid capsule down the barrel, steadied Driscoll’s arm with both hands and took hold of the dial. “FIRE!”

Driscoll was surprised the little lady could muster such a warcry. He’d admit (at least to himself); it was impressive. Still, there were more pressing matters. Turning his gaze to the combat at hand, noting a bolt of energy approaching them. It was now or never. Bonesaw would feel it first before it released, the rumble of water blasting out like a geyser of force forward, heading towards…The waist?

His scoff couldn’t be heard over the rushing water and artillery fire. Seemed this one had a reckless edge to her…Best to keep that in mind. Still, he wasn’t entirely remiss on the idea either; if they could have something salvageable from a Techadon like this, it could prove to be an interesting foundation for future works…He, too, found a grin beginning to form beneath his helm.

As the water traveled, it almost looked like it wouldn’t make the mark. The tension in the air was palpable as the capsule flew in the air, mere inches off-target….And in that moment, the balance of the technological titan was stricken from it. From below, Static Cling had forced its puppetted Techadon to, for lack of better term, football tackle one of the gargantuan machine’s legs…And surprisingly, it had buckled from the strength. Not by much, but enough. The capsule was as close as it could ever get, and all that was left was to crank the pressure.

With an adorably savage smile, Bonesaw turned the dial. From this distance, over the roar of water next to her head and the thunder of artillery, she couldn’t hear the capsule crack, but she imagined it sounded a whole lot like the click of the pressure dial maximizing.

This drone was bigger, significantly so. Even so, the water helped carry and splash the newly-loosed volatile payload upon the internals, and soon, a gush of water splurted out the other side of the titan. Just as the water carried the deadly acid about the inside, so too did it scatter fragments on the ruined greenery and trickle and splash down the drone’s legs, leaving scars of ruined metal that soon began to grow in size with a terrible hissing noise that was audible even over the cacophony.

Unable to support its own weight, the titan of steel and nanotech was driven to its quickly nonexistent knees, even as the crawl of acid began to ominously slow in its efforts to climb the torso properly, the by now highly diluted substance quickly running dry of the vital organic materials it needed to continue on.

As an aside, it was quite unavoidable that the hijacked drone that had salvaged her fumbled shot was also doused thoroughly in the acid-filled water, quickly becoming a ruined dangerous mess all across the front. It was unfortunate and a waste of potential resources, truly, but... smirking in the face of the alternative payout, Bonesaw decided that was a sacrifice she was willing to make. That little drone’s valuable contribution would be remembered.

Refocusing her attention upon the crippled titan, she grinned and crossed her fingers. It was all up to the others to finish this thing… hopefully leaving the good bits intact.

As the titanic hulking construct crashed to the ground, blowing dirt and debris across the battlefield, another thing seemed to bring the odds back in favor; all of the energy, mid-air or otherwise, dissipated, having been held by the concentration of the mechanic menace. With no more artillery to call upon, and the reproduction of the lower half crippled by acid, this was their moment; either strike now, or lose, there would be no in-between.

Multiversal Discord: The Mass-Scale Crossover RP

@A Lowly Wretch Given the GM's talk on the subject (involving a still undetermined maximum cast size), I can basically guarantee the answer is yes. Players are encouraged to run multiple characters if they wish, up to 4 each, preferably with an even split between heroes and villains, but it's not a hard rule. Just read the rules and drop a CS, and those of us in the Discord server will generally ensure he gets to you as soon as possible (since most of the OOC interaction happens in there).

Grimoiric Heart

<Snipped quote by Lewascan2>

Hmmmmmm... I'm partial to the former because of the reasons outlined in the IC narrative, and the fact that her title is literally "Light" in French. :P It's just more fitting for YHWH's light to overpower the fey's instead of the other way around.

With that context, since you clarified that they'd have never gotten into physical confrontation before, then as far as Lumiere is ICly concerned, she can only assume, but I think that doesn't fit well so I'll remove it for now, saving it until - if - such an encounter happen in the future.

@Izurich

Fine by me. It makes enough sense, and really, this is a Mythic Grimoire we're talking about here. It's got to have at least a few instances of just outright trumping the lower tiers to really give off that gravity of overwhelming power.

Grimoiric Heart

@Izurich The only thing I'd really contest here is that Lumiere wouldn't actually know she's immune to Camelot's light for certain. Sure, it makes sense that she could be, but Camelot has never before today actually turned her light on other Magical Girls. So, Lumiere could maybe accurately assume, but she wouldn't have actually experienced it.

Or maybe it can actually effect Lumiere, but she simply assumes it can't due to her superiority complex as an "angel". She might have assumed that Camelot dislikes her enough to have directed hostility towards her in the past and failed to do anything. When the reality is that Camelot doesn't truly see her antagonistically enough for that.

Either way is okay with me.