STATUS:
Starting new YouTube show, Hell Yeah Gaming! Lots of work to do still, but getting me to 100 subs for a custom URL would be of tremendous help! youtube.com/user/DarthGlamd…
5 yrs ago
Current
Starting new YouTube show, Hell Yeah Gaming! Lots of work to do still, but getting me to 100 subs for a custom URL would be of tremendous help! youtube.com/user/DarthGlamd…
Level 5 - (28/50) EXP (+1) Location: Grillby's Word Count: Not enough to bother with counting
The Courier stopped in the entryway of Grillby's to take in the small eatery around him and took a deep breath, almost snorting the air. The atmosphere reminded him of some of the smaller bars and diners back in the Mojave, even if the aesthetics weren't exactly spot on. First his eyes laid upon the bartender, another robot but of different design to the bird one outside, as it seemed to be exuding flames from all around it. An interesting design, he wondered how it generated this fire? Surely it had to have a very efficient fuel source. Next his eyes fell upon the armadillo man standing upon two legs. Now this was an hombre he could get on with, another man of the road with Western sensibilities. A cowboy, er, cowarmadillo? Weird, but hardly the strangest thing he'd seen in this new world.
The Courier was about to approach the armadillo when the largest sight in the whole place practically smacked him in the face: a large number of dog-like creatures sitting at a table, playing poker. Slowly his eyes opened wide, his grin spread across his entire face. Oh yes. Oh yes.
"Deal me in, hombres," he said, taking a seat between masked dog and the abomination looking dog. He placed his hat on the table, minding his manners, and looked at the pot. It didn't matter what was being bet honestly, he'd look to match it if he could. "Bartender! Whiskey me. I'm aiming to take the whole pot."
While others went on ahead to the couple of buildings in the distance, Ratchet was staying behind in order to help fix up some of the damage to the vehicles. An explosion caught his attention, which he just shrugged off once he saw the cause. It wasn’t any kind of surprise that Daxter had done something to blow up the group’s biggest vehicular advantage. Besides, that ice cream truck turned robot was an eyesore anyway, absolutely no class to it. His attention was better put elsewhere, like Bowser’s kid’s hovercraft dohicky.
Ratchet pulled up next to the clown car and surveyed the damaged. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it definitely took a beating from that shot Mr. Grimm put into it. The lombax prepared his omniwrench and gave the vehicle a good whack, not to fix anything but to listen reeeeeal closely. The sounds of the vibrations made his large cat-like ears twitch and told him where some of the internal damage was.
”I can fix this,” he boasted, then dove into it over the top. Ratchet went to work grabbing some loose wires, untangling them then reconnecting where they needed to go.
”Hey. Now that we dealt with those enemies, you want to fill us in on what’s going on?” asked a familiar voice from outside the clown car.
”Yeah! Because last time we saw you everything got all freaky-deaky mish-mashed and I almost lost my tail!” spoke another all too familiar voice.
Ratchet peaked up over the rim of the car to confirm that Jak and Daxter were indeed just a few feet away, then dipped back down to continue his work. ”Well we’ve definitely got the mish-mash thing going on again, that’s for sure. But instead of some dopey aliens wanting to copy our moves or a polygon face pitting us in a tournament, we’ve got to deal with that.” Ratchet’s omniwrench pointed up from down in the car, signalling the two heroes to gaze into the sky. As they did, the ever present ball of light, Galeem, caught their attention.
”Don’t see that every day,” Jak mused, crossing his arms.
”Woah! Dang, that thing’s brighter than you are anytime you use your light eco powers, Jak!” Daxter said, shielding his eyes. ”EXCUSE ME! GIANT BALL OF LIGHT IN THE SKY? WHERE’S THE DIMMER SWITCH? HEEEEY! I don’t think it can hear me, Jak. Man! And just when I was getting excited about going to the beach and sitting in the shade! Watching all the girls run by in their frilly little things. Aaah, that’s the life.”
”What about Tess?” Jak asked, a bit confused considering Daxter’s girlfriend.
”Hey, just because Keira’s a stick in the mud for you doesn’t mean some of us don’t have ladies that understand we can still lookie and no touchie, capiche?” Daxter waved his right hand in a finger gun motion.
Jak shook his head, then refocused on what was important. ”I remember that light. We were driving and it just sort of… Appeared over the horizon.”
”Yeah, that’s Galeem, our new bad guy,” Ratchet continued, still deep in the inner workings of the clown car. ”From what we can tell, he, or it I guess, poured its light all over the multiverse and made this new world that’s an amalgamation of a bunch of different worlds. Everyone in it has some kind of influence from it. Sort of like brainwashing, but I don’t know. More subtle, I guess? But Galeem can take direct control if it wants. We were all under its influence at first, just like the two of you. Ah, so that’s where that wire goes!”
”So how’d we get free? How did you free us?” Jak leaned up against the clown car and peaked inside. He didn’t like how any of this was going.
”Well, there was one person that escaped the light. A little pink guy named Kirby. He had the power to free people, and even gave it to us too. Once you’ve got enough of your strength back you should be able to do it yourself. Ack! Ok, note to self, don’t cross the red and green wires, shocks are bad.” The car jostled a bit under Ratchet’s movements. ”Anyway, we’ve determined that Galeem has a few elite enforcers around this world that need to be beaten before we can go take him on. We already beat one before finding you guys.”
”Pfft. Just one? Sounds like you guys will need our help.”
”Yeah! The dynamic duo, back at it again on a new adventure! Hero and sidekick, Daxter and Jak! I wonder if they’ll make a game out of it? Or even a book. I call 50% of all proceeds!”
”Well, I certainly won’t turn down your help,” Ratchet admitted, ignoring Daxter’s antics. ”If the rest of them are as tough and powerful as the last one, we’ll need all the help we can get. Aha! There we go!” Ratchet popped out of the clown car, wiping his hands together. ”All fixed up, Junior! Your car is ready to go!” he called out.
”Alright, well is there anything else that we need to know before we kick some serious butt?” Jak punched into his open palm for emphasis.
”Oh yeah, there’s plenty. Let’s talk about spirits.”
Ratchet hopped back into the Blue Falcon kart while Jak pulled out his jet board. The three of them took off side by side, keeping up the conversation as they headed for the rest stop the others were already en route to.
The ever impatient monarch that he was, Bowser made sure his car went on ahead of the repair crew, which meant that Courier 6, still sleeping in the Bowsermobile with his Pip-Boy radio hooked into the car’s speakers, went along. The ride wasn’t too long, so his nap didn’t last long either. The Courier awakened with a start as the Bowsermobile came to a stop at a mechanic shop which seemed to house a good number of people all around, each one under the influence of Galeem. Alarmed, the Courier pulled out his shotgun, but thankfully saw that nobody was getting into any fights quickly enough that he didn’t accidentally make one himself.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the Courier put his shotgun away and pulled his hat back on. It looked like some of the others were missing, while others were already striking up conversations with the locals. Tora and Poppi were having some sort of conversation with what appeared to be the head mechanic around these parts, while the new guy (Donnie, was it?) was embroiled in talk with a muscular man in a helmet and spandex, oozing with confidence (and wasn’t all that quiet either). His car looked exactly like that kart that Ratchet had picked out, too! Well, except it was an actual large machine instead of a kart. The real McCoy compared to a child’s plaything as it were. Machine looked fancy enough, the Courier was impressed by it. Not as impressed as he was by its driver, however.
Figuring he hadn’t had a good bang in some time and having nothing to lose by asking, 6 dragged himself out of the Bowsermobile to go schmooze up to the racer, only for him to leave Donnie behind with a rather sour tone. Miffed, the Courier walked right on by Donnie and mumbled, ”Had to fuck it up fer all of us, didn’t ya?” just low enough that he’d only have been heard if the monk was specifically listening to him.
Seeing plenty of other molerats in the junkyard, the Courier went on to grading each of these new faces on a scale of one to ten. Mechanic woman - 8. Old guy in red hat - 4. Drunk with neck tattoo - 3. Buffout frog - 7. Robot bird - 7.5. White haired cyborg - 9. Tattooed van chick - 8.5. Ah, then there was the leather-clad boy band. From left to right their numbers were 9, 6, 6.5, and 7. Damn, there were some pretty attractive people (and a robot) here! And some not very attractive ones, but hey, he couldn’t blame the old guy for being old. Accounting for the extra decades and he’d probably be a very solid 8. Didn’t change his rating now, though.
Before the Courier could act on his impulse to approach any of them however, he noticed the log cabin style diner named “Grillby’s” and his stomach growled. Well, food was a more important necessity than banging one out. Hopefully they took his bottlecaps as currency. The Courier shrugged and went inside the diner, ready to sit down and order some grub.
”Let’s go, partner!” Ratchet affirmed with Clank, who vanished into thin air after nodding. The lombax hopped into his nearby kart, the Blue Falcon, and took off toward the danger. There was so much going on to attack the monster truck that he felt joining in on that fight would’ve been superfluous. Just as many were attacking the transforming mecha, but it seemed more of a threat. For one it could fly, and it also wasn’t stalled out like the monster truck. So Ratchet gave that one a wide berth in order to swing around toward the Sweet Bot.
”Looks like all the action is that way. Let’s go, Dax!” Jak holstered his morph gun and smiled at his best friend, riding atop his shoulder.
”Sure, but how exactly are we supposed to get there Jak? By my last count the Sand Shark was in about a bazillion little pieces, and there ain’t NO WAY I’m letting you take me over there all exposed and in the open like this!” Daxter wildly gesticulated with his arms, ending with them crossed in defiance. Jak merely grinned in eager anticipation.
The eco warrior popped off his jet board and hopped on it like a seasoned pro, without any wasted movement. There was still one car around he could use and he fully intended to do so. Switching the speed setting on his jet board to turbo mode, it truly lived up to the name by jetting him quickly across the sandy road and up alongside the third and final of the ramshackle cars.”You’re up, Dax!”
Looking worried, Daxter jumped from Jak’s shoulder in through the window of the car, landing right on the driver’s face! “What the hell?! Get off me!” the driver cried out. He tried to grab Daxter, but the small rodent person was too quick and slippery. ”Gah!” In a panic, he kicked the steering wheel to the side, forcing the car into a powerful jerking turn which sent the passenger tumbling out the door.
“Get out of my car you piece of-” Before he could finish that sentence Jak dove in through the open passenger door feet first and kicked him right out, taking his place behind the wheel. ”I knew you’d have my back, Dax!” Jak assured as he switched the car into gear. Daxter made a mocking face, but otherwise said nothing and sat down on the dashboard. He was taking this piece of junk straight for that monster truck.
Meanwhile the Courier sat patiently, watching the events unfold before his eyes. He wasn’t the only one who had the bright idea to attack the truck’s wheels, and the thing was left grounded on only one tire, not to mention some other damage it took. The driver opted to get out and expose himself. A fucking stupid decision, the Courier thought. He switched out the Revolution for the Ratslayer and prepared to take aim for that ghoul-wannabe’s head… Which is when Mr. Grimm shot out what looked like a bunch of ghosts clustered together, all homing in on different targets. And two of those were heading straight for the Bowsermobile! 6 prepared to roll out and away from the attack, only for it to be proven to be totally unnecessary: they weren’t homing in on the car, nor himself. They were going specifically after Kamek! Then there was nothing to worry about. The Courier didn’t even bother to watch as the magikoopa teleported away, figuring his survival to be a forgone conclusion.
Instead he brought up his rifle again, and took aim at Mr. Grimm’s head… Only for his allies to get in the way of the shot! First it was the bear and the bird, then it was the little green girl! The Courier sighed. ”~As I go ridin’ merrily away.~” It was over, there was no point anymore. More of his allies were jumping into melee and ruined any chance of a shot he could take. Instead the mailman opted to put away his gun completely and just watch what was going on.
Meanwhile Ratchet raced around the battle to get in and help against the Sweet Bot. He still didn’t have many useful weapons yet, but enough time had passed that the bombbuilder had recharged another trigger mine. One of those places well with the perfect timing and everything would be all over! One hand on the wheel, he pulled the gun out of hammerspace and! … Needles Kane was dragged out of the mecha. Well he couldn’t just shoot the blasted thing into a group melee! Annoyed, Ratchet swapped out for his omniwrench. If he couldn’t shoot into the crowd then he’d jump in and… Needles was dead.
Ratchet peeled into a stop a few meters away from the action, disappointment clear on his face. ”Man!” He turned around to check on what was going on with the monster truck.
As a few of their number jumped into battle against Mr. Grimm, Jak and Daxter sped along toward the Sweet Bot. They plowed right on past Ratchet, Din, Donnie, and all the others. As they approached, Jak pulled a wheelie in the car, grabbed Daxter, and jumped out the windshield to ride the hood like he was surfing a wave! At the perfect moment he leapt from the car, using the stunt to get a ton of extra height, then double jumped while still airborne, grabbing the very cockpit Needles had been yanked out of only moments before.
Jak settled into the Sweet Bot quickly, identifying what controls what and taking the (metaphorical) reins of the mechanized beast. ”Alright, time for some payback!”
”Yeah! Nobody makes Daxter do their dirty work for them! That’s why I have Jak!”
Jak shook his head and rolled his eyes, then took aim with the mecha’s gatling arm, only to be blindsided by the sight of dozens of spirits suddenly bursting out of Mr. Grimm! Both heroes stared on, utterly dumbfounded. Jak kept eye contact with the spirits scattering skyward, while Daxter alternated his gaze between them and the broken heap that used to be Mr. Grimm’s body.
”Oh my god.”
”Can you believe it, Jak? That guy just stole our kill!” Jak frowned at Daxter. ”What? We totally had dibs on that black metal freakazoid!”
With the defeat of Mr. Grimm, the threat had passed on by. As everyone gathered back together from their scattered positions, Courier 6 held his spot inside the Bowsermobile. He had hooked the radio of his pip-boy to the car’s speakers and was now lying back, eyes closed with his hat over his face. If anybody paid attention they would hear a light snoring coming from inside the hat.
Ratchet regrouped with the others and looked over some of the damage that had been caused by the attack. Jak, while still brainwashed, had destroyed Michael’s scooter. A few of the vehicles were damaged but still fixable. ”I don’t mind doing some repair work,” he offered. ”I missed out on fixing the karts last night, and working on some vehicles again could be kind of fun. Maybe I’ll add some supercharge turbo to Bowser Jr.’s hovercraft!”
Donnie offered the spirit of Needles Kane to some of the more mundane of their group, then turned back to admire the Sweet Bot. No sooner had the monk offered to lay claim to it did it suddenly roar to life, speakers calling out, ”Self destruct initiated! 5-4-3-2-1!” Jak and Daxter dove out the cockpit, rolling along the ground as a large explosion spelled the end of the Sweet Bot.
”I swear, that is the LAST TIME I touch anything made by a freaky-deaky murderhobo clown!” Daxter declared as he dusted himself off. Jak, angry, was about to slap his friend when suddenly a large metal rod fell from the sky and beaned Daxter right in the back of the head.
As Gaston moved in on Cassim, the Frenchman's taller and burlier stature practically eclipsing the muscled but lithe thief, Iago took off to the rafters. He felt it would be safer to watch from up above than be perched on the object of the huntsman's anger, misplaced though it was. Score for Iago, out of trouble again!
Cassim raised an eyebrow as Gaston raised him right off the ground, allowing himself to be dangled without much of a fight. It brought back memories of some of the attempted hangings he escaped back in his... Less skilled days. Still, more interesting things were abound than this muscle-brained brute. For one, Iago was not the only one to express his disdain for the man's boorish song. In the crowd he spotted something truly fantastic! A dragon! A very small dragon, unimpressive by the standards of the literature of the far East he had read, but a dragon all the same! He had to get closer. From his understanding, where there were dragons there was a treasure hoard!
Cassim found himself drug through the air by Gaston (if nothing else this man certainly was as strong as he boasted) and the Gypsy woman came to his defense. He smiled at her noble attempts, but really the efforts were not necessary. "Apologies my fine host," he said to Gaston. "But it is time I found myself elsewhere." The desert man slipped out of his dark blue cloak, and thus out of Gaston's iron grip, landing back on sweet terra firma. In the same motion he undid Gaston's trouser belt then snatched his cloak back up. Belt and cloak in hand, he bounded for Mushu, a golden gleam in his eye.
Level 4- (3/40) And Level 2- (2/20 EXP) Difficulty Level 1 Location: Paved Wilderness Word Count: 3717 A collab between @ProPro@thedman@Simple Unicycle
Insanity spread all across the battlefield as the Courier made his way back to cover with the Bowsermobile. After hurling himself up and over the side he took a moment to get a brief idea of his surroundings. The second buggy had evaded the attack from his heracross, but honestly it was a total chump compared to the rest of the enemies. The reinforcement buggy seemed to have been totally destroyed by one of the newbies and Ratchet and Michael joined in to team up against the guy with the giant ears and his rat, so that wasn’t very concerning. The monster truck had been stalled but still presented the biggest, most clear threat to his immediate position. Meanwhile the ice cream truck had turned into a flying mecha robot, but that was getting swarmed by a bunch of his allies. Ok, this was weird, but as always the Courier was quick to adapt to the situation and do whatever would be the best for himself at the time.
”Howdy,” he said to the resident koopa mage, Kamek, the next seat over as he fiddled with his pip-boy. A second later a song came blaring from the radio function. He tapped his shoe to the beat for a second, humming the tune. ”That jingle, jangle, jingle-” Then he pulled out the weapon he had received from Gaige’s spirit, the Revolution, and took aim on the monster truck’s closest wheel. The machine gun fired volley after volley of acidic rounds directly into the tire’s hub cap, which would eat rapidly through the metal and into the axel. After a good solid few seconds of concentrated fire the driver of the truck would be without a front left wheel, throwing the whole thing off balance and leave it grounded.
”As she goes riding merrily along.” The Courier blew the smoke out from the hot muzzle, a self-satisfied shit eating grin plastered across his face.
As Gene smashed the Sand Shark into unusable scrap metal, its two occupants went flying right passed the God Hand, one with a little more dignity than the other. ”WAAAAAAH!” cried the little orange rat, but the long eared human tucked and rolled with the force, using the momentum to jump back into action. He twisted around, pulling out some sort of firearm, right next to where his little friend had been buried in the sand.
Ratchet also landed nearby, wrench out and ready to fight. ”Jak, Daxter! I don’t want to have to do this.”
Daxter comically pulled himself from the ground, rolling back a moment then jumping to his feet. He patted away the dirt from his fur then jumped up on Jak’s shoulder. ”Ratchet? Is that you? Woah, you got tall! What’s the matter, you got jealous of my boy Jak here the last two times we beat your butt?”
Jak scoffed, cocking his gun and clearly ready for a fight. ”It’s too bad for you that I do want to do this, Ratchet. Bring in all the reinforcements you want.”
”Yeah! Because we’ll pound’em into the pavement! Well, mostly Jak will. Won’t ya Jak?”
With an annoyed grunt, Gene picked himself up off the ground and dusted himself off. He succeeded in disabling the Sand Shark, and while he wasn't hurt, it was still a little embarrassing to get knocked on his ass! Still, he approached the drivers of the buggy, who were facing off against that... Cat thing. Ratchet was his name? Yeah, Ratchet, that sounded right.
The duo consisted of a man of about average height, with long ears and a killer goatee, while the other person ('Is that the right word?') was a small orange creature perched on the man's shoulder. Judging by what Ratchet said, their names were Jak and Daxter. The orange otter-weasel creature thing was smack talking Ratchet, and Gene figured that now was about time to make his entrance.
Walking forward slowly, confidently, Gene cracked his knuckles and shot the pair a grin. "Newsflash, little guy! You can talk shit all you want, we're still gonna wipe the floor with you and your buddy!" He still had a bit of juice left in the God Hand, and was ready to kick ass and take names!
Meanwhile, Michael stopped his scooter behind the now disabled buggy, flicking out the kickstand and setting the vehicle down. Getting up, he took a moment to adjust his aviators before walking over to join Ratchet and Gene. Lifting up his Uzi, he held it in both hands and aimed it at Jak and Daxter. "I'll give you one chance. Drop the gun, and give up. It doesn't have to end like this."
”Don’t underestimate Jak. He’s got great moves,” Ratchet warned, swinging his omniwrench around a bit to showcase his new reach with his longer limbs.
”Hey! And what am I, chopped liver? Kick their asses, Jak!”
”This is gonna be fun!” Jak immediately dashed toward Ratchet, gun forward like a makeshift club, with a sudden rocket-like speed. Ratchet, familiar with Jak’s fighting style, was prepared and backflipped just out of reach, but Jak wasn’t done. He spun upward into a high jump uppercut, clear above everyone’s heads, then spun again with his legs extended out. Ratchet blocked the spinning kick with his wrench but was pushed back. Meanwhile Jak fired several volleys of some sort of yellow energy bullets from his gun, each one deadly accurate and aimed at a different target: one for Gene, Michael, Ratchet, and Michael’s scooter.
Michael, seeing Jak jump up into the air, lifted his Uzi up in an attempt to land a shot on him. As Jak began to fire, Michael was able to activate his Bullet Time, moving to the side to narrowly dodge the yellow projectile fired his way. His scooter, on the other hand, fared much worse as the bullet struck, tearing it apart and rendering it unusable without heavy repairs. With the Bullet Time still active, Michael steadied his aim and fired several shots at Jak, aiming for center mass.
Gene watched in amazement as Jak dashed toward Ratchet, the lombax dodging out of the way with surprising speed. Had they fought before? Well, Ratchet did say that he knew Jak, maybe they had sparred or something in the past. Anyway that wasn't important right now, what was important was that Jak suddenly rocketed up in the air! He was still attacking Ratchet, who blocked, while simultaneously shooting at them!
Feeling his instincts kick in, Gene sidestepped out of the way of the blast, an impressed whistle escaping his lips at his smooth dodge. Still, reflex wouldn't pull him through this entire fight! He noticed Michael, the guy who pulled up next to them, managing to move out of the way of the shots and firing some of his own at Jak. Gene decided that rushing in while Michael was shooting at Jak would be too risky, so he waited for a lull in the gunfire, ready to pounce as soon as he saw an opening.
Ratchet held up his omniwrench in the path of the yellow eco shot, dispersing the energy with a good heavy swing. Good thing the tool was made to last! But Jak was still right in front of him, as crazy mobile as ever, while Ratchet lacked Clank who was the main source of his own quick mobility. Luckily that wasn’t a major issue, as Michael’s uzi shots drew in Jak’s attention.
Because he aimed for center of mass, the bullets all struck the center chest piece of Jak’s shiny armor, bouncing off relatively harmlessly. The force still put Jak a bit off balance though, interrupting his chain of attack and getting his attention.
”Ooh, that’s gonna leave a nasty bruise! Like that overripe banana nobody wants at the market!” Daxter commented at rapid pace. His capacity for talking, even in the middle of danger, was impressive.
In an instant the gun in Jak’s hands changed, the muzzle shrank by more than half and instead of a yellow magazine it was equipped with a red one. As the gun morphed, Jak rolled into a very long jump away from Ratchet, toward both Gene and Michael. No sooner had his toes touched the ground did he pull the trigger. The gun fired off an impressively large red cone of energy, short range but wide enough to hit both Michael and Gene. Ratchet took advantage of the opening to throw his omniwrench like a spinning boomerang, nailing Jak in the back only to return to the magnetized glove, back home to its owner.
As Gene watched the proceedings, he could feel the God Hand's power draining, slowly, until finally, he cursed and slapped the Deistic Brace back onto his arm. Looks like he was knocked back down to normal for the rest of this fight.
He watched as Jak rolled toward him and Michael, the gun in his hand transforming in an instant, and the moment he stopped he fired the gun in their direction. Oh crap, this thing was like a shotgun! Gene tried to backflip out of the way, but it was too little too late; he felt a burning sensation as he made contact with the cone, and let out a grunt of pain.
He wasn't sure if Michael was alright, but he knew that he needed to get Jak's attention on him. So, with the man now within range, Gene decided to bust out his Roulette Wheel to lay the smackdown on Jak! He could feel the wheels of fate spinning, deciding just what he'd do...
WOOHOO! BALLBUSTER!
Gene found himself running up to Jak and, in the blink of an eye, delivering a kick to the man's poor gonads. Gene let out a laugh as he watched Jak cradle his damaged manhood. "Come on guys, let's beat the crap out of him while he's still reeling!"
Gene himself began to punch the stunned man to keep him in that state while Michael and Ratchet made it over.
Michael, due to his Bullet Time, was able to see Jak transform his weapon and aim it at him, allowing him enough time to leap out of the way, hitting the ground. Unfortunately for him, he didn't anticipate the weapon's large cone of fire, and he soon felt pain shoot up on the right side of his body as he was hit by the far edge of the cone. "Ow, goddamnit!" He shouted out, gritting his teeth through the pain as he lifted himself up. Looking around, he began to walk over to Jak, seeing that Gene had him incapacitated. "Say goodnight, asshole." Lifting up his Uzi, he began to pistol-whip Jak in an attempt to take him down for good.
Ratchet chose to stay back rather than move in on the attack. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, a feeling that was soon proven to be correct. He switched out his omniwrench for the bombuilder and laid down two remote mines near the group, just in case.
”Woah! Ah! I’ll protect you, Jak! Ouch! Gah! Stop it!” Daxter scurried about, trying to take as many hits for Jak as his little ottsel body could, sparing his friend from at least some of the punishment. After one too many smacks to the head, Daxter stumbled around like a drunk, little stars flying around his head. ”Bartender, you should’ve cut me off,” he mumbled through a clear concussion, falling over.
”I’M GONNA KILL YOU!” Bellowed Jak, his voice much deeper and booming with power. In an instant the man’s skin changed to a purple-gray color, his eyes became as black as the void, his muscles bulked, long claws and horns sprouted, and a black-purple energy began crackling in the air around him, surging through his body.
Jak jumped up in a sudden explosion of power, energy surging all around him. Only one word came to mind to describe this transformation: monster. With one swipe of his claws Jak showed off a new impressive power and speed, aiming to gut both Gene and Michael together. Of course even if he missed, the crackling dark eco energy would still leave a nasty mark and cause incredible pain.
”Don’t let him touch you!” Ratchet called out. ”That energy he makes when he’s like this is basically anti-life!” He kept one finger on the detonator trigger. Hopefully the other two noticed the bombs and would lure Dark Jak back a few more feet, or at least get out of the blast zone themselves.
Michael took a step back as the transformation began, looking on in horror. He took a few more steps back, but before he could get away Jak's claw swiped in front of him. He managed to dodge the claw itself, but the energy radiating off it struck his left arm, causing intense pain to shoot through it. Michael cried out in agony, falling to his knees from the pain. Looking around and noticing the bombs laid by Ratchet, he dragged himself back onto his feet, and began to limp away from the blast zone. When he got a decent distance away from the bombs, he turned back towards Jak and lifted his Uzi. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, and his injury forcing him to shoot one-handed, his shots weren't as accurate as they could have been. He pulled down on the trigger and didn't let go, firing around twenty rounds in Jak's direction.
"OH CRAP!" Gene stumbled back away from Jak as the man transformed into some sort of... Demon! He felt panic bubble up within him that he hadn't felt since Azel activated his own God Hand during their fight. Gene knew that he didn't have time to worry about fighting, because if Jak's transformation was anything like the God Hand, it made him nigh-invincible.
He was pulled out of his thoughts by a claw swinging his way, and Gene backflipped away, the energy arching from Jak's claw glancing his side. At first, Gene didn't feel anything... But that was only for a moment, as soon his entire body was screaming out in pain! He gave a short yell of agony, but gritted his teeth. He needed to take down Jak, and, spotting Ratchet's mines, found the perfect opportunity.
"I got one last trick up my sleeve, demon boy!" Gene pointed dramatically at Jak, grinning, before turning around quickly. "AND THAT'S HIGH-TAILING IT OUT OF HEEEEEEEEEERE!" Gene began to sprint away, hoping to lure Jak to the mines so Ratchet could detonate them.
Dark Jak wasted absolutely no time in leaping after his prey. The feral beast-like mind of this form prioritized Gene over Michael as the bigger threat. He leaped high I to the air, nearly twelve feet, diving right for the God Hand user claws first. Bullets whizzed by, most missing or striking his armor but a couple outliers hitting some arm flesh.
”Kaboom!” Ratchet triggered the detonator, setting off both bombs in a large explosion. The shockwave sent Dark Jak, already high in the air, flying even further with greater force than he expected. He overshot everyone by a good several meters, flying overhead, until he crashed into the ground near his wrecked Sand Shark.
”Gragh!” Dark Jak jumped back up to his feet to stare down his three foes. He was covered in a lot of bruises and cuts, the kind of injuries that would have knocked out a lesser man. But Dark Jak was running on more than just adrenaline. He was fueled by the energy of dark eco. It gave him the strength to keep going, and they were about to see that strength first hand. The eco mutant howled in unbridled rage and grabbed the wreckage of his Sand Shark. In one heaving motion Dark Jak hurled the wreckage of the vehicle at all three. Once the car had left terra firma, Jak’s color came back. Claws receded and his eyes turned green. Exhausted from the wounds, Jak collapsed in a miracle of good timing. Of course a scrapped car was still flying at Ratchet, Gene, and Michael.
Gene quickly stopped and pivoted as soon as he heard Ratchet detonate the mines, a goofy grin making its way on his face. With a shouted "YEAH!" and a fist pump, Gene watched as Jak soared through the air from the power of the blast! "That should take him down!" Gene said to his team mates, still grinning as he watched Jak land by his wrecked Sand Shark...
And then get back up. Looking pissed.
Gene's grin fell as he watched Jak grab the wrecked buggy and start sprinting at them. "... If we live through this, remind me to never open my big dumb mouth again," he said to no one in particular, as he watched Jak chuck the buggy at them. He had a little time to notice Jak falling to the ground, back in his human form, before the buggy arrived.
Acting quickly, Gene did a little juke before quickly dropping down further for a sweep kick. It lowered him just barely enough for the Sand Shark to go flying past him overhead, and he released a relieved sigh as he stood back up... Only to wince as he realized that maybe his teammates weren't so lucky.
"Oh, shi-" Michael could barely dodge in time as the wrecked buggy was suddenly thrown at him. He hit the deck, feeling the vehicle pass over him and land in the distance. Getting up and dusting himself off, he took a moment to catch his breath. "Holy fuck...that was insane." After a few deep breaths, he walked over to Jak, making sure he was down. "Alright, someone...someone convert him, and let's get out of here."
Ratchet flipped to the side in an effort to avoid the flying dune buggy, but he was too slow to react. Fast as he was, he just wasn’t expecting it. The lombax squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of the impact… only to suddenly feel himself jerking to the side much faster. Ratchet opened his eyes to see the Sand Shark narrowly avoiding him. As he landed on his feet, he saw what had given him the sudden speed he needed.
”Clank! You really saved my bacon just now, partner!”
“Indeed. I believe the expression is ‘no man gets left behind?’”
Ratchet and Clank both looked over to Jak, collapsed in a heap not too far off. Michael urged someone to convert him, but before Ratchet could respond, Daxter came scurrying in. The itself positioned himself on Jak’s chest and grabbed him by the collar. ”Get up Jak! I’ve got your back, but you can’t expect me to take them all on by myself! You’ve gotta get some of the glory! WAKE UP JAK! Maybe chubby’s breath here can wake you up? Hey, want to try it out for me, round and proud?” he gestured to Michael.
Ratchet strut forward shaking his head to Clank. ”Looks like even Galeem can’t change Daxter.”
“Indubitably!”
”I’ve got this, guys.” Ratchet drew a friend Heart from his chest and cast it down at the duo. Daxter freaked out at first, but the energy soon enveloped both him and Jak. Color returned to the duo, their eyes cleared, and a moment later Jak was regaining consciousness.
”Ugh. Why do I feel like I got run over by a yakcow?” He rubbed his head then looked around, seeing four figures standing over him. Two looked like really weird humans with incredismall ears, but the other two… ”Ratchet? Clank?”
”Oh great!” Daxter cut in. ”Every time we see you yahoos we get roped into some kind of multiple world inter dimensional crisis! If you wanna talk, ever heard of a phone?”
Jak and Ratchet both shook their heads together, each cracking a smile at Daxter’s antics. ”Well I’m game. Who or what do we get to shoot, punch, or blow up?”
Michael grunted at Daxter's remarks, but he was unable to bring himself to do anything other than frown. Right now, they had more important things to worry about. Turning around, he gestured towards the monster truck and Sweet Bot in the distance. "Those guys. We'll explain everything later, all you need to know for now is that they're trying to kill us. And now, that includes you as well."
Gene gave a sigh of relief as he saw that Jak and Daxter had been turned to their side. Jak asked just who they were after, and Michael pointed out the other cars attacking the rest of the group. Gene gave a nod in confirmation. ”Glad to have you two on board! You sure as hell can pack a punch big guy. Your, uh, pet, on the other hand..." Gene trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid.
”Hey! I’m no pet, biceps-for-brains! You just pissed off the god Orange Lightning! Let’s get outta here Jak.” Jak and Ratchet could only chuckle at Daxter’s antics, but at the end of the day the group had two new powerful heroes.
Just going to leave this here until the time is ready.
Jak and Daxter takes place in a unique world that operates very differently from most others, so to help the unfamiliar understand some of the jargon used in the CS below I composed this little guide so you can understand the context of some things.
Precursors - Ancient beings that existed before recorded time and left the world for unknown reasons. The world is littered with their citadels, artifacts, and technological marvels that far surpass what normal humans can build. They also created and filled the world with eco. Eco - A resource seeded into the planet by the Precursors for unknown reasons that comes in a variety of colors, each with unique properties. Can be in the form of liquids, gases, dense ore, or crystals. It's used for all kinds of stuff from powering machinery to making ammo, and can be channeled through the human body to provide superpowering effects. Dark eco is by far the most common and most dangerous as it warps, corrupts, and utterly annihilates anything it touches. Blue eco possesses the energy of motion, makes you faster, magnetizes/gravitates things, etc. Green eco possesses the power of life and heals wounds, invigorates you, and spreads plant matter. Red eco possesses explosive close range power and can empower a person's physical abilities, make explosions, etc. Yellow eco possesses long range power and enables users to shoot fire blasts, run energy across long distances, create precision-based ammo, etc. Light eco is made from all the others combined (minus dark) and was thought to be a myth. It is divine and can only be used by the one with "The Light Within." Sage - A person who has studied and channeled a particular color of eco to such an extent as to not only be the world’s foremost expert on it, but their bodies adapt to the point of being able to create that eco as a source.
"What would you do without me Dax?"
"Well I wouldn't be two feet tall, fuzzy, and running around the sewer without any pants! God I miss pants."
Name: Jak and Daxter Game Origin: Jak and Daxter franchise Appearance: While Jak’s species is identified as “human” in his own world, other human world’s would more readily compare them to elves thanks to the extremely long, pointed ears and Jak’s are no exception. Another jarring feature one would not typically associate with humans is his hair, which naturally comes in various shades of yellows and greens that fade into one another in a smooth gradient. Once you get past these two strange features the rest of him is decidedly normal human. His white skin is deeply tanned from much desert exposure, and his eyes are a deep blue. Jak’s hair is cut short and swept back, and he maintains a well groomed goatee. He stands at 5’10” and weighs 185 lbs of lean muscle. He wears a blue tunic with white trousers, covered by the armor of Mar, and a pair of goggles with a desert scarf.
Daxter looks absolutely nothing like a human in any definition of the word whatsoever despite (originally) being one. That’s because Daxter was transformed into a little rodent-like animal called an ottsel. Biped or quadruped, Daxter stands at 2’10” long and very slender. He is covered in orange fur, which transitions to yellow over his belly, and has long rounded ears situated at the top of his head. His eyes are blue, though a darker shade than Jak’s. Like Jak, Dax wears goggles over his head (oddly enough the only article of clothing that survived his transformation), and since having his wish granted by the Precursors now has “the most comfortable pair of pants” a set of blue jean shorts with a brown belt. Personality: Jak and Daxter give the impression of a couple guys that you’d never expect to be friends, much less inseparable best friends, if they hadn’t grown up together. They’re complete opposites in a number of ways. Jak is more reserved while Dax is outspoken. Jak is adventurous while Dax is cowardly. Jak is humble to Daxter’s ego. Jak needs no effort to look cool while Dax tries way too hard. They have a number of similarities however, including an almost total lack of respect for authority, which for Jak is shown through his general disobedient attitude and action, while Daxter manifests this through smack talk and insults. They can both also be reckless and impulsive, charging headfirst into a situation without fully understanding it, and they share a fondness for sweet guns and fast vehicles. They are also both incredibly loyal to their friends and each other, willing to suffer any amount of Hell for the other’s benefit. And at the end of the day, they are still benevolent heroes fighting the good fight for the people. Background: The story of Jak and Daxter as heroes is a tale of incredible scope in a bizarre alien land. It covers trials and tribulations, monsters and aliens, ancient artifacts and modern advancements, and transcends time itself. Where to start but at the beginning?
A young boy was born to the king of Haven City, the only stronghold of civilization left in the world to fight back against the threat of the metal heads. This young boy, named Mar in honor of the family’s great ancestor that founded Haven City, was a mute child but possessed an unrivaled capacity for channeling eco through his body. The lineage of Mar was strong, and he possessed a trait given by the Precursors themselves: the light within. Destined to be a hero for all time.
Then Baron Praxis overthrew his father and Count Veger ejected the toddler boy to the slums as an orphan. Oops.
Baron Praxis proved himself a wretched dictator who quickly turned Haven City into a police state in the name of safety from the metal head armies. His personal military, the Crimson Guard, defined “police brutality” in their day to day operations. People went without power, water, food, and anything else they needed to survive if there was the slightest possibility that sector of the city harbored any metal heads or underground rebels. Thankfully those rebels, led by “The Shadow,” quickly found the toddler heir, recognized by the medallion he wore around his neck. The plan was to bide their time and undermine the baron until a coup could be done in order to put the true heir on the throne, then refocus all efforts against the metal heads.
Things were going quite poorly.
Until one day one of Baron Praxis’s VIP prisoners escaped and joined the underground. This mighty warrior slayed metal heads by the dozens, fought off the Crimson Guard, became the Haven City racing champion, overthrew the Baron, and killed the metal head leader. All this done by one man, and his furry orange rat thing. The toddler (whose true name was not known, so they called him Jak) was not put on the throne as originally planned. Instead his medallion was given to the mighty hero, and he traveled through an ancient Precursor ring alongside the Shadow to a more rural land, one devoid of industry and large cities and metal heads. There The Shadow, real name Samos, raised young Jak alongside his own daughter Keira. Being so young, Jak completely forgot about Haven City and everything that happened there…
Jak grew up in Sandover Village with another boy his own age, Daxter, and though Jak was mute Daxter spoke plenty enough for the both of them. Best friends through thick and thin they were, despite their many contrasts. Jak always pushes the more cowardly Daxter to more dangerous adventures in the village while Daxter spoke up for his friend that couldn’t fight his own (verbal) battles. But one day when the pair were 15 would change their lives entirely. Samos always told them to stay away from Misty Island because it was too dangerous, but Jak insisted they go against Dax’s better judgment. While there they found the place infested with monsters called lurkers in the process of trying to unseal ancient silos full of dark eco. The two were attacked and in the struggle Daxter fell into the dark eco. However instead of being vaporized instantly as normal, he emerged as an ottsel.
After a tongue thrashing from Samos and asking him, the Sage of Green Eco, to change Dax back, Samos admitted that his power over green eco could not do it. Only Gol, the sage of dark eco, might have studied the volatile and dangerous substance enough to have such knowledge, and he lived incredibly far north. Left with no other choice the duo went on an adventure north, only to find that the lurkers were spreading and causing damage everywhere. What’s more, the other sages (of blue, red, and yellow eco) were all kidnapped! It turned out that the dark sage Gol, along his sister, had been corrupted by the dark eco they studied and gone mad. They controlled the lurkers and sought to flood the entire world in dark eco. The only person on the planet with any hope of changing Daxter back was actively trying to commit genocide on a planetary level!
Left with no other options, Jak and Daxter faced down Gol and Maia in their ancient Precursor robot, after freeing the sages. In the battle the four sages combined their powers to create light eco, until then thought to be only a myth. Jak, as the one with the Light Within, channeled it to utterly destroy Gol and Maia for good, and sealed their remains within the dark eco silos. But their citadel was large and complex, the biggest collection of Precursor Artifacts around! With all the power cells they’d collected on the way they found something… new. A large Precursor ring. Jak, Daxter, Samos, and Keira brought it back to Sandover Village to study.
Only a few weeks later the genius Keira got the ring setup and working, alongside what appeared to be a navigation drive with preset coordinates and a kart. With curiosity they activated it… and sealed the fate of their world, for the metal heads were now introduced to this peaceful, rural world. Monsters came flooding out while the kart, guided by the nav computer’s coordinates, shot straight through the portal. It broke apart, catapulting everyone a different direction. The last words Jak heard we’re from Samos. “Find yourself, Jak!” Then he crashed into the ground in none other than Haven City, where a platoon of Crimson Guard were waiting for him to take prisoner. Daxter got away, swearing he’d rescue his friend in no time.
2 Years Later
Due to his body’s unique capacity for channeling eco, Jak was made a guinea pig for Baron Praxis’s Dark Warrior Program. For two years he was tortured, having dark eco pumped directly into his body in amounts that should rightfully kill any living thing. For two years Praxis hoped to produce a dark eco monster he could unleash on the meta heads. For two years Jak endured suffering unknown. For two years the program was a complete failure. Until everything went horribly right.
On the night Praxis was ready to give up, Daxter finally made good on his promise. Breaking into a maximum security facility wasn’t easy, but he got in and found Jak. What’s more, he found Jak had been mutated by the dark eco, becoming a terrible monster when his anger got out of hand. But hey, the mutations weren’t all bad. Jak wasn’t a mute anymore! Even if his first words were, ”I’M GONNA KILL PRAXIS!” Regardless the two got out alive and found the underground resistance, under the leadership of The Shadow, and fought to destroy Praxis’s rule over Haven City so the true heir could be put on the throne and-hey, this is all starting to sound very familiar. Isn’t that strange? Huh. Weird.
That’s when the duo found the ruins of Sandover Village and realized the truth. Haven City wasn’t someplace else in the world, nor another world entirely. It was the future. This place, this awful place, was their home. With this revelation in mind Jak and Daxter fought on, becoming race champion, overthrowing the Baron, and killing the metal head leader. It was only when their Samos and the present version of Samos, The Shadow, finally met in person did the full extent of everything become realized. Jak was born here, not Sandover. Jak was that little boy he fought so hard to protect. Jak was the true heir, all grown up. With the war won, everyone knew what had to be done. To preserve the timeline the younger Samos took the toddler Jak back through the ring into the past, but left behind his medallion, the Seal of Mar, as adult Jak’s rightful mark of lineage. But Jak had no interest in ruling Haven City and the Council wasn’t likely to accept all this anyway. Instead Baron Praxis’s daughter Ashelin, notable member of both the Crimson Guard and the Underground resistance, took the mantle of leadership. And all was well.
Hahaha. No.
Though their leader was slain and many of their number killed, the metal heads never ceased their unending war against Haven City. Instead they pressed the attack harder than ever before! Under the new leadership of Ashelin, the former Underground leaders, and Jak, the metal heads could have been dealt with fairly well… if they were attacking alone. A third faction appeared from nowhere to hammer Haven City from the inside: All the Crimson Guard robots suddenly turned on the city without warning, the automated factories now working overtime to pump out killer machines at unprecedented rates. Now with a new enemy to deal with and the loss of a critical asset at the same time, the outer walls were breached and the city became a war zone. The palace itself fell, and thanks to the malicious words of one Count Veger, the city’s Council places the blame squarely on Jak’s shoulders. His sentence was banishment to the wasteland outside the walls of Haven City, as good as a death sentence.
Before their goodbyes, Ashelin slipped Jak a piece of equipment, a distress beacon, and that beacon is the only thing that saved Jak and Daxter from death by exposure. On their last legs they were found by native wastelanders, specifically by King Damas, ruler of Spargus: the only society left outside of Haven City. Due to the harshness of the wastes only the strongest are permitted to live in Spargus, and that made them a threat even to the metal head armies who would dare attack. Jak was not welcomed with open arms, he had to prove his mettle time and again, but prove himself he did. During his many tests to prove himself he found many buried Precursor temples and was gifted new abilities by the Precursors to offset his dark corruption: Light Jak.
Eventually Jak found a way back to Haven City to help the war efforts, but something deeper was going on. Something darker, more sinister, for a bright light in the sky grew larger and brighter every day. “The daystar heralds the end of times,” preached the monks of Spargus, worshipers of the Precursors. Didn’t they already have enough on their plate?! As it turned out, things were not entirely unconnected. The duo discovered this Daystar was a space ship heralding the arrival of the Dark Makers: Precursors corrupted by dark eco, roaming the universe to cause apocalypse after apocalypse. And their arrival was no mere coincidence either. Baron Praxis’s first in command, Errol, was responsible for both the robot rebellion and sending a signal to the Dark Makers. His original fight with Jak left him in such a state he needed to be rebuilt as a cyborg, and his new computerized mind proved quite capable of interfacing with the Crimson Guard bots as well as Dark Maker systems.
The arrival of the Daystar was near, and the only hope of survival was to enter the center of the planet to activate a defense system installed by the Precursors. Just one little problem: the entrance was guarded by a literal army of metal heads! Jak called for backup from the wastelanders, a call that was answered by none other than King Damas himself! Together in their most powerful vehicle they crushed the metal head opposition and first wave of Dark Makers, but a stray shot killed Damas. His final words to Jak were to ask that he find Damas’s son. He would know his son by the family crest he wore around his neck: the symbol of the House of Mar. Damas died as Jak realized for the first time Damas was his father, and they never knew. Count Veger made his arrival known by mocking Jak with the fact that it was Veger himself who cast the young boy into the streets and separated them when Praxis took power. Laughing, he jumped into the system that would transport him to the planet center so he could be the hero that saves the planet.
Jak and Daxter races to the center after Veger, arriving a short time after him where they found the planetary defense system… along with the Precursors themselves. ”Oh. My. God.” [Meeting of Precursors redacted for being the single greatest and funniest twist reveal in video game history and I refuse to spoil it for anybody. Seriously, go see for yourselves!]. After this chance encounter with their creators the defense system was activated, Jak beamed aboard the ship to destroy its cargo and delay it enough to be destroyed before it could cause damage, and made it back before getting blown up with the ship. Unfortunately Errol managed to get ahold of a giant Dark Maker mecha and crash it down planetside safely. Their work not yet done, the two heroes took on a modern, fully functional doomsday weapon of Precursor technology using only the Sand Shark buggy and saved the world.
For their efforts the Precursors offered Jak a chance to travel with them into space (which he declined) and granted Daxter’s greatest wish: the perfect pair of pants! The Precursors departed, leaving everyone to celebrate as some wondered… If Jak’s birth name is Mar, is he THE Mar? He’s time traveled already…
Adventures weren’t over for the Eco Warriors, not by a long shot. Thanks to a convoluted Thanatos gambit by an old enemy they had to win the most dangerous combat racing tournament to get the cure for a deadly poison (which they did of course). Even had some interdimensional crossover adventures down the line. But they absolutely NEVER fought sky pirates it never happened and Daxter never got dark eco powers stop asking it didn’t happen nope. But something tells us that this latest adventure? Oh ho. It’s gonna be the greatest one yet.
Specialty: Eco Warriors/Ace Pilot Level: 1 Experience: 0/10 Powers:
”My boy here gets all mean and nasty when you piss him off. So don’t piss him off. Word to the wise.” - Thanks to 2 years of torture and experimentation with dark eco, Jak’s body and mind have been permanently altered. In moments of intense negative emotion, such as anger, sorrow, or fear, Jak transforms into Dark Jak. His eyes become completely black, his skin turns a dark gray, his nails become long claws, he gains about two feet of solid muscle mass, and his body pulsates with rippling arcs of dark eco. In this form Jak has limited control of himself and viciously attacks his enemies (or just anybody dumb enough to get in the way) by ripping them to shreds with lightning fast dark eco claws. This form can be triggered intentionally, and Jak has more control, but requires the use of dark eco to do so. It’s important to note that this form is not any more durable.
Strengths:
”What are you worried about, Dax? If there’s one thing I can do, it’s race!” - Jak (and to a lesser extent Daxter) is an Ace pilot and driver, the best there is at operating any sort of vehicle whether it be his jet board, zoomer, hellcat, wheeled vehicles, mecha suits, and more. Basically if it’s a machine he can operate, chances are nobody can do it better than Jak.
”Don't you make me come down there and sic Jak on ya!” - Jak and Daxter use the same highly agile form of combat (though Jak is obviously much stronger, Dax is more than capable of handling enemies his own size) which keeps them moving at fast speeds and chain together moves infinitely. They’re capable of double jumping, spinning, changing direction on a dime, boosting forward at sudden acceleration, and ground pounds with their fists.
”Fish in a barrel, baby! Fish! In a barrel!” - Jak and Daxter are both able to handle firearms with expertise (especially surprising for Daxter who shoots for Jak while the latter is driving, and seems to suffer no recoil), but Jak’s real skill lies in integrating his gunplay into his fighting style, such as spinning at high speed and letting loose several shots with great accuracy, or diving into an enemy with the gun as a club then blasting them, or uppercutting a foe into the air then keeping them in place with a constant barrage.
Weaknesses:
”It must be a curse.” - Daxter is extremely prone to misfortune, whether it be random dumb luck or just pissing off the wrong person. As a result he’s the butt of everyone’s jokes, suffers constant abuse, and gets hit with the slapstick nearly nonstop. And since he’s never separated from Jak, well, Dax’s best friend tends to have to go out of his way to fix things.
”STAY OUT OF THE WATER JAK!” - While Jak is a decent swimmer and isn’t prone to drowning on his own, for some reason every time there’s a large body of open water, there’s always something inside ready to snatch him up, zap him, blow him up, or otherwise instantly murder him without a chance to fight back. Jak can’t even ride his jet board over lakes or seas without something nasty letting him know that he isn’t welcome out in the water.
”I’ve got a perch for ya! Twirl on it!” - Jak and Daxter aren’t the nicest of people. Dax is a wise guy shit talker who doesn’t care who he offends, while Jak has some real temper problems since the Dark Warrior experiment. This plants them firmly into the anti side of the hero spectrum, and Jak isn’t a stranger to leaving people to die or suffer. This attitude makes working with others difficult if you haven’t already established a friendship.
Spirits:
None yet
Kindred Spirits:
Crash Bandicoot - A precursor of sorts to Jak and Daxter, and also shares their spin attack.
Samos - The sage of green eco.
Mag Launcher - A 16 year old adventurer that explores the ancient ruins of a lost advanced civilization to collect artifacts. Armed with his bionic arm, the cyframe called the Aircomet.
Inventory:
Morph Gun - A firearm designed to be modular and interface with different parts and pieces to functionally become an entirely different weapon depending on which mode is selected. Could it even integrate spirits as new modes? Currently only has 2 modes: scattergun and blaster.
Scattergun - First mode of the morph gun, a short barrel weapon that fires a concentrated blast of red eco in a short range area attack resembling a shotgun.
Blaster - Second mode of the morph gun, a longer barrel rifle variant that is able to fire much more quickly and precisely than the scattergun with excellent range at the cost of wide area. Fueled by yellow eco.
Vulcan Fury - Third mode of the morph gun, with a spinning multi-barrel chamber it fires at an exceptionally fast rate of high power high precision piercing rounds fueled by blue eco. Chews through ammo at a ludicrous rate.
Jet board - A personal hover board capable of traveling over any solid surface and most liquid ones (notable exceptions are pools of dark eco and lava), which can be used for tricks, grinding railings, jumps, etc. Comes with two speed settings: a low speed that is comparable to a high speed setting meant to cross large distances quickly, comparable to racing vehicles. It can also release stored up kinetic energy as a short range concussive blast for attack purposes.
Mar’s Armor - A thin, lightweight, flexible but very strong and sturdy armor made from Precursor metal woven into fabric.
2 Light Eco Crystals - Eco in its purest, most condensed form, ensuring that Jak always has some light eco to tap into. While all other forms of eco can be used by most people, light eco is only usable by the one with “the light within,” making these crystals useless to anybody but Jak.
2 Dark Eco Crystals - Eco in its purest, most condensed form, ensuring that Jak always has some dark eco to tap into. While all other eco can be safely handled by others, dark eco will instantly maim, kill, and/or warp those who touch it, making it critically dangerous to be handled by anybody other than Jak or Daxter.
10 Precursor power cells - Artifacts left behind by the precursors, these little glowing spheres can attach to machinery to provide infinite energy, but the actual output is pretty low.
Precursor Orbs - Mysterious artifacts left behind by the precursors that are often used as currency and are quite valuable.
The remaining enemy vehicles turned tail and left without so much as a token counterattack. Ratchet pumped his fist in the air and the Courier smiled triumphantly. At least until they mentioned reinforcements. ”There’s always more varmints in the woodwork, ain’t there?” The Courier prepared for the additional attackers by laying down the Eradishield generator down directly behind himself. That was with Bastion at his front in turret mode and the shield behind him, he was in good cover from two directions. He would absolutely be needing it judging from the state of the action now. Three new vehicles were coming in, one absolutely enormous, and all looked to be vastly superior to the junk cars they had already fought off. To make matters worse those same junk cars were coming back around to box the group in on the left. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about Bowser’s erratic driving throwing off his balance since the koopa king elected to just get out of the car!
Meanwhile, Ratchet perked up at the sight of the three additional vehicles heading their way. The monster truck was a complete mystery, but the other two? Something felt familiar about them. No, not the cars, the drivers! He recognized the drivers! ”Clank, are those two who I think they are?” Clank manifested and zoomed in his robotic eyes at the incoming cars, spying the drivers.
“Affirmative.”
”Hey!” Ratchet called out as loud as he could, unsure who would actually be able to hear him. ”I’ve seen two of them before! Take out that ice cream truck, he’s an insane psychopath! But the buggy is driven by two great heroes! I’ve met Jak and Daxter before and they’ll be critical help!”
Ratchet put the pedal to the metal and dashed off in his Blue Falcon kart, making a beeline straight for Jak and Daxter. He couldn’t guarantee that his allies heard him and he needed to make certain the eco warriors survived long enough to be freed. Besides, there were so many of them that the others had the other guys handled, no problem.
The Courier kept out his Ratslayer, taking careful aim and shooting at the ice cream truck and monster truck, but to no avail. The caliber on his small rifle wasn’t enough to pierce their reinforced armor. Clearly these weren’t pieced together ramshackle junk cars like the others, but were designed from the ground up for insane vehicle mayhem. The only one with a gun strong enough to do any damage to those guys would be that asshole with the anti-material rifle, but the Courier wasn’t about to ask him for help. It was time for a new strategy. He picked up the Eradshield generator and transformed Bastion into walker. On the left flank were two of the surviving junk cars, coming in to make their day worse, and he could do something about them. With a simple command Bastion tossed the Courier with great robotic strength then de-manifested. The Courier kept his hand on the pokeball containing his new friend and threw it out in front of him as he came to a dirty landing.
“Heracross!” cried the bug, holding out its arms in a sumo-like stance.
”Time t’show me what you can do, heracross! Hit those cars as hard as you fucking can!”
“Cross!” The heracross’s eyes narrowed in determination, waiting in anticipation as the cars came toward it. Then it lowered its head, pointing its large impressive horn outward. “Hera!” It began charging forward with an impressive gait. “CROSS!” The Megahorn collided into the first car head on, but the heracross wasn’t trampled underwheel. Instead it threw up its head with incredible strength, tearing the car apart while at the same time hurling it up into the air on a collision course with the second car behind it!
Heracross did not make it out of the scuffle unharmed however, and was equally tossed back from the matched force of the raider vehicle. “Croooooss!” It slammed hard on the ground, rolling over a few times, its eyes spinning in little dizzy circles. Its hard shell was scuffed and bruised. Courier Six’s eyes were wide in shock. He hadn’t expected this pokemon to be that strong! Still, it was out for the count for the time being, so he returned it to its pokeball.
”Great job, hombre. I’m glad you joined my posse-Oh shit those are bullets!” The Courier had neglected to think about how diving out from the Bowsermobile would leave him without cover in a mostly empty field with tons of enemy fire. A shot whizzed right by his head, a near miss but only because he was never the intended target to begin with. ”Shit shit shit shit shit!” he hustled back to the Bowsermobile, keeping his head down.
Ratchet had caught up to Jak in the Sand Shark just in time to see one of their newer allies, the one that showed up to kick Bowser in the face, went all angelic lightshow and went to dive straight into the duo’s car. ”Careful!” he cried out. Once again Ratchet summoned Clank in place to pilot the kart while the lombax himself took a leap toward his old rival/friend through the air, omniwrench out in an overhead strike.
Well this was disappointing. Nobody bothered to offer the Courier a ride in their kart even when he had asked the group as a whole. Ratchet would have let the wasteland wanderer ride with him but the Blue Falcon he had chosen was built for maximum speed, and that meant compensating by dropping space. Just himself, and of course occasionally Clank, were overfilling the thing with no room on the sleek design for a rider on the chassis. A bit dismayed, the Courier resigned himself to riding with the rabbids, though not before spotting that box of rifle ammo produced by Princess Peach that nobody else had seen fit to snag. He grabbed the rounds and boarded the truck, ready to fire into any oncoming enemies with his Ratslayer rifle… If he could survive the annoyance of the rabbids’ singing.
”Woohoo! Now this is what I’m talking about!” Ratchet cried out, following behind Bowser’s big car in his kart. It could go faster, he just knew it! He wanted to push the pedal to the metal and take full advantage of the Blue Falcon, so he did! Feeling the wind blowing through his fur, Ratchet sped passed all his fellow heroes and into the thick of things with the marauding bandits and their ramshackle cars.
”Only five? We could take them all on!” Ratchet pulled down his goggles to protect his eyes from the rushing wind. Clank appeared, taking the wheel of the Blue Falcon kart and piloting it.
“Do not underestimate our opponents, Ratchet. Remember that most of the people Galeem has brought to this world appear to be heroes of our own calibur.”
The Bombuilder materialized in Ratchet’s hands, to which he said while cocking the gun, ”Long as we’re together little buddy, there are no heroes of our calibur!” The enemies began unloading their chain guns on the lone kart, so far ahead of its allies. Clank’s programmed piloting skills coupled with the Blue Falcon’s inherent speed kept them safe from the errant bullets, albeit only barely. A projectile whizzed by uncomfortably close to Ratchet’s long ears.
One of the unarmed buggies came careening toward them. Before it got close enough to ram them Ratchet fired off a proximity bomb, which narrowly missed the target. Still the explosion knocked the buggy off course, so they were safe from being rammed. “You appear to be aiming as though we were flying a ship in the weightlessness of space,” Clank chimed in.
”Yeah, I’m not used to shooting from a vehicle with gravity. I won’t make that mistake again.” He brought up the explosive lobbing gun for another shot, this one landing directly under the buggy as it tried backing up. The resulting explosion flipped the car over onto its top, no doubt killing the driver in the process.
”Thanks for the fun! I had a blast! Hahahaha-WOAH!” Ratchet had to duck back down to narrowly avoid a spinning blade of death as the largest of the cars nearly took him out. ”Alright, that was too close for comfort. No more Mr. Nice Lombax!” Ratchet readied his gun for another shot.
“Pardon me Ratchet, but if I may interject. My time is almost up and I will have to recharge.” Ratchet looked down at Clank, then back to the largest, most dangerous enemy car. It had already moved out of reliable range.
”Gotcha. Don’t worry about it, little buddy. The cavalry is here.” Clank vanished as Ratchet took the wheel just in time to drift out of the way of a chain gun volley. Without a copilot he could shoot, so there was only one course of action: retreat. Thankfully the rest of the group had closed in the distance so the enemy fire wasn’t entirely focused on just him.
As Ratchet sped back to regroup with the others, the Courier unplugged his ears (the only solace from the annoying as hell rabbids), explosions having caught his attention. Running to the edge he spotted what all was going on: enemy vehicles slapped together by what looked to be ramshackle chicken wire and duct tape. Good lord, even he could build a better junkyard scrap car than those things! Let’s see, Bowser was spitting fire into the fray, no surprise there. Bowser’s son deployed a bunch of footsoldiers, that was new but ok. And the funny looking wizard guy just grew the Centurion into a giant, well that’s fucking delightful.
The Courier readied his rifle and took aim, only for a bump in the sandy road to throw him off. Gah! He readied himself again, only this time an errant rabbid bumped into his knee. ”GGGRRRR!” He glared at the small creature which instantly backed off nervously in a cartoonish manner. ”Fine. Time to bring in some heavier duty firepower anyway.”
Courier Six slung his rifle over the shoulder and went to work climbing up to the top of the truck’s cab. He almost lost his grip as it swerved once but that was no problem. He hoisted himself all the way up then crouched down. His striker, the robot Bastion, appeared in its sentry turret mode. ”Fill any enemies full o’holes, Bastion! Protect the truck and Bowser’s car to keep’em off my back.”
Bastion immediately went to work, firing at whatever was closest to the rabbid’s trailer and Bowser’s car. For all intents and purposes this caravan was protected by its own personal automated sentry of death. Meanwhile the Courier was finally able to take aim, proper aim, with his Ratslayer. The target was the buggy with the tire blown off as the easiest target. Time slowed to a near still as VAST activated.
Target vehicle engine. Probability of hit: 98%. Unlikely to do a whole lot of damage that way though. The windshield is visible. Alter target, driver’s head. Accounting for range, firepower, size of target, and windshield barrier: 71%. I’d easily bet on those odds.
Two bullets shot out from the Ratslayer and time resumed its normal pace.
"How long did it take you to build this? Hours? Days? Weeks? How would you like to see your life’s work dismantled in a matter of seconds?"
[ ♦ ] Bio
♦ Name: Cynthia “Sin” Rose ♦ Age: 29 ♦ Loyalty: Founder of The Lost ♦ Appearance: Cynthia Rose stands at a respectable 5’10” with a lean athletic build. She has fair white skin with a slight complexion of freckles and is described as being very sexy by most conventional standards. Her green eyes tint toward the darker end of the spectrum while her blonde hair rests at just past the shoulders, though she’s often seen wearing various wigs and contact lenses.
Cynthia’s costume as Sabotage has undergone many changes throughout the years that are mostly utilitarian, but the aesthetic side has been mostly static. Her current costume is a thin padded fabric that accentuates her curves but gives her maximum flexibility, with a few built in hidden compartments. In color it’s mostly off-white with various gray highlights, and a tight hood with red goggles that pulls up over her head. Her nose, lips, and chin are exposed but can quickly be covered up by a retractable breathing apparatus built into the suit.
♦ History:
Cynthia was born Michelle Johnson in a small town in Colorado in very poor circumstances. Her parents were meth cookers and Cynthia was the fifth child they had popped out in order to qualify for ever increasing government assistance, which they turned around and spent on drugs. It wasn’t until the little Michelle had grown to age five that her parents were found out, arrested, and she was placed in the foster care system.
The young girl might’ve thought that being in foster care would have been a better life for her, but she was tossed into an uncaring and unfair system that favored babies and toddlers, while older kids (and especially those with behavior problems, such as a girl coming from a meth house) were left to be traded around between various homes that ultimately didn’t want to put in the work to really get to know them. For more than a decade the little Michelle was moved from home to home, each with completely different values and expectations and problems of their own. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad. Occasionally the family would try, but found her disposition to be too much of a hassle, so off to another house she’d go. Sometimes it was horrible. The worst she can recall was a couple that took in eight foster children, including her, and gave them all the same small bedroom to share. Dinner every night was the same: 2 cans of cold soup they would have to split. The home was very minimalist so the couple could spend all their money, including the government foster stipend, on lotto tickets. Of course they never won. Nobody ever won in that house.
Young Michelle survived by trying to mentor any kids she came across younger than her. They were all in it together, after all. Helping out the less able boys and girls was the only way to keep herself focused, keep herself sane. In houses that wouldn’t provide for them, she did her best to provide the only way she could: by stealing. At night she’d sneak out and pick pockets or shoplift from convenience stores and bring back her bounty to her foster siblings. Sometimes she’d get caught. Sometimes the person that caught her was more caring than the system that trapped her and let her take it. Most of the time they didn’t.
In a “good Catholic house” she earned a nickname, “Sin.” They’d tell her that because your actions are forever stained on your immortal soul you were your actions, so she was nothing more than a sin. She had learned not to take to heart anything bastard fosters had to say, but she admitted that she actually liked the name. Once Michelle aged out of the system she legally changed her name to distance herself from her birth parents, becoming Cynthia Rose as a point of pride. Cynthia because it contained “sin” in it, and Rose to symbolize the hope of new beginnings.
Now living in Denver, the 18 year old Cynthia got a job as a barista in a cafe, making coffee and tea for customers and couldn’t have been happier to be fully independent. When you’re in customer service, you’d be surprised what people say assuming that you aren’t listening or don’t care. One day, a few months into her job, she overheard some people from the local gang that basically ran Denver: The Community. She was wary of them, of course, but how they talked about the group as one big caring family appealed to her in some way. She became distraught. Should she report this criminal activity? Or should she approach them? Ultimately Cynthia decided on a middle ground between the two: she followed them silently, unseen, to get to know more. She tailed them to a remote location and slipped inside, where a number of the Community had gathered around for some sort of event. There was the man who never showed himself in public, the leader of the Community: Patriarch. Flanking him were all three of his lieutenants, Xolotl, Eyeblight, and Limbo, but a fifth person stood with them, a small mousey looking girl with an extremely unpleasant looking face, as though she were in a constant shitty mood.
Cynthia’s perceptions of the world changed that night as she witnessed Patriarch giving a presentation of some sort of liquid bottle which was ingested by the young girl. It gave her powers! Not super flashy ones, nothing immediately noticeable, but a potent thinker ability to guide her actions toward creating negative emotions in others. Cynthia had to flee that night to avoid being spotted, but the young girl came up in the news shortly after. The media called her Troll, and she was instantly the nastiest of the Community’s enforcers, with the city believing a number of suicides could be traced back to her (though this wasn’t proven for a few years). She immediately hit the books and the web to find any record of this phenomena, these powers in a bottle, but came up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. It seemed that she had a conspiracy on her hands.
Over the next few months Cynthia spied on the Community as much as she could in an effort to track down the source of these powers. She came into contact with their goons more times than she could count, so she decided to don a mask and costume herself to keep from being recognized. If she could blow the lid off of this case, then she knew that she’d have done something that truly mattered! She wouldn’t be some worthless daughter of a drug dealer, some lost child in the world, she would have accomplished something nobody else could! Unfortunately it never did work out that way.
Cynthia got closer, eventually even catching a meeting with Patriarch with some strange woman in a fedora. The meeting was short and involved the woman handing over a case to Patriarch and telling him that this would be their final business transaction, so he should be careful as to who he used the new powers on. Patriarch seemed annoyed but he didn’t dare to cross the woman, just saying he’d really have to think about it and told one of his goons to put the box in a storage site. The two parted ways and Cynthia went on the pursuit of this woman knowing it would be her last and final chance to make headway in this investigation. The fedora lady ascended a ladder to exit the meeting place, so Cynthia followed quickly. However as soon as she reached for the top rung the woman reappeared and pushed the ladder down. Cynthia fell back, arm reaching out to grab her quarry, but she never had a chance. This conspiracy, these shadows she had been chasing, it had completely turned on her in an instant. The lady vanished, completely out of reach. The answers were now completely out of reach. She wasn’t good enough. As Cynthia fell down to the ground, she triggered in her despair.
Head pounding, seeing spots, Cynthia came to in the same spot she had landed, only this time there was a gun in her face. One of the Community goons was barking some kind of order she couldn’t hear due to still being groggy from the impact. All she could make out was the gun and exactly how it was designed. Instinctively, in a flash, her hands reached up and blurred around the weapon while still in her assailant’s hands. Startled the man pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He blinked and realized he only held the pistol grip: the rest of the weapon lay on the floor. In his confusion Cynthia got up and ran, the man giving chase after a moment of recollecting his senses, though the chase was short lived. Through superior physical training Cynthia got away.
Over the next several months Cynthia practiced with this new power of hers and thought of what she could do with it. Locks meant nothing to her whether they were mechanical or electronic. Security systems were easily disabled. In fact anything was easily disabled, and what’s more she retained all the details of anything she took apart! Giving her costume a bit more design work Cynthia took to the streets as a not-so-common cat burglar. She hit up banks and the homes of the wealthy to take what she felt was better spent on the less fortunate (keeping a sizable amount for herself, naturally). Even tinker designed security systems were easily dismantled! She became a thief for hire for any who would pay her (usually the Community, which she loathed but put up with because she always hoped one day to get another lead on that conspiracy). Her escapades earned her the public name of Sabotage, which she took to quite well. After all, even when captured by the heroes the prison transport designed by the local tinker Decoy couldn’t hold her!
Thanks to how Decoy’s tinker powers worked (everything connected to a single large scale communications system) in conjunction with her own powers, Sabotage was able to monitor communications from the Denver PRT and Protectorate and learned a great deal about the city she never would have known before. This information she kept to herself, never letting the other villains of Denver know what she had access to. She was a humble thief, but others? Best they never find out.
Then came what she expected to be a big break in her search for the people that gave out powers. In a villain meeting hosted by a fellow calling himself the Broker, he handed out some of the very same vials! Cynthia didn’t show her reaction at the time but it unnerved her tremendously. She finally had another chance! Obtaining one of the vials, she gave it to a close confidante in the foster system, a girl 2 years younger than her, who took the cape name Circuit. At the same time she left a message for one of the Wards about this Broker bastard, but found she could never use his name without suffering an extreme headache. He did something to her. Probably everyone at that meeting.
Behemoth arrived shortly afterward during a time when the Community was waging war on the city. Sabotage and Circuit helped out as much as they could and Patriarch died in the event. The next few months changed the shape of Denver entirely as the Broker’s plans nearly came to fruition, but he was defeated. In the aftermath Cynthia hung up her suit and cowl in order to focus on college. She had decided that she really wanted to help those like her in a more meaningful way: by working to change the foster system from the inside. The next several years were nothing but school and work. Even the Echidna Incident, which revealed the conspiracy she fought so hard to unravel, wasn’t enough to pull her back into the world of parahumans.
Then Gold Morning happened. There isn’t much to say during this period that isn’t said by everyone else. Scion attacked and slaughtered billions across multiple worlds. They fought back. Then Khepri took control of everyone and they won. In the aftermath Cynthia worked to save as many lives as possible, escorting refugees to Earth Samekh. She established a loose association of others in the process, including one Judah Raines, formerly known as Mantis. Once the smoke had cleared Cynthia set up shop in Serstol. She worked long and hard toward citizenship status, aided by her degree and experience in social services (something which was no doubt in very high demand with the influx of refugees). Cynthia established her own orphanage in Serstol which catered specifically to the care of children who had lost their parents in Gold Morning, but found that support for these poor kids to be lacking in the city’s blatantly unfair systems that favored citizens and seemed to despise outsiders. Once again she found herself stuck in a broken and uncaring system. No more.
Once again Synthia donned her costume as Sabotage. She became a thief now for the express purpose of helping her children not only survive, but thrive in this world. Money, tinker tech, anything that could help would help. She got together with her old associates and told them what she would be doing. That day she founded The Lost, a loose association of individuals that wouldn’t necessarily always go out together on missions, but would look out for one another. Would look out for the children. Circuit joined her, while Judah (now SWAT) agreed to be a silent ally. Whatever trials and tribulations Samekh would throw their way, Synthia knew only one thing: the children need not fear.
[ ♦ ] Personality
♦ Motivation: Cynthia believes in building up the children of the world more than anything else. While she can be a little selfish and steal for personal gain, mostly she wants to help children and teenagers in disparate situations.
♦ Derangement: While Cynthia has always had sticky fingers due to the way that she was raised, her powers have only made it worse. She has crossed the threshold into full blown kleptomania. Additionally, she has become intensely curious about how things work.
[ ♦ ] Parahumanism
♦ Skills:
Expert acrobatic and gymnist
Excellent social skills
Skilled pickpocket
Master’s degree in social services
Hardcore parkour!
Decent hand to hand skills, enough to hold her own against thugs but not on the level of any dedicated fighter
Decent shot, comparable to her fighting ability
♦ Classification: Thinker|Trump ♦ Mechanics: In many respects Sabotage is what some have observed and called the “anti-tinker” ability. Any piece of technology, machinery, system or what have you, regardless as to how simple or complex, can be taken apart by her. Her shard analyzes and feeds her with the exact method needed to completely disassemble the item in question with her bare hands. Her arms are capable of moving at superhuman speeds in order to achieve this effect at an incredibly rapid rate (though only her arms, and as such truly large pieces of technology that require reorienting herself to reach new pieces will take more time if only to account for traveling from one end to the other). This analyzation is Manton limited, meaning that she cannot dissect a living creature like a human being based purely on the guidance of her shard (however she can still analyze and take apart bionic technology made by bio-tinkers, such as robotic arms, etc.).
However there is a second part to Cynthia’s power that few are allowed to know about, as she does not advertise the ability nor make great use of it. Anything taken apart becomes “mapped” to her brain permanently, allowing her to (assuming she has the materials to do so) reconstruct it or build duplicates. For all intents and purposes she has become a tinker able to build and maintain that piece of technology, but only as it was designed. She is not able to tweak the parts to optimize output or combine tech she has memorize to create something new, only replicate exactly what she has previously taken apart.
♦ Equipment: When in costume Sabotage follows the old saying that less is more in order to facilitate mobility and make escape more practical. After all, she’s a thief, not a fighter.
ITEM: Lockpicking kit, hidden in both sleeves of her costume and even the ankles, just in case. ITEM: Taser gloves, built directly into her costume for defensive purposes. ITEM: Two telescopic titanium batons for defensive purposes, made without an insulating grip to allow the shock current of the gloves to travel through them in a fight, just in case.
"How long did it take you to build this? Hours? Days? Weeks? How would you like to see your life’s work dismantled in a matter of seconds?"
[ ♦ ] Bio
♦ Name: Cynthia “Sin” Rose ♦ Age: 29 ♦ Loyalty: Founder of The Lost ♦ Appearance: Cynthia Rose stands at a respectable 5’10” with a lean athletic build. She has fair white skin with a slight complexion of freckles and is described as being very sexy by most conventional standards. Her green eyes tint toward the darker end of the spectrum while her blonde hair rests at just past the shoulders, though she’s often seen wearing various wigs and contact lenses.
Cynthia’s costume as Sabotage has undergone many changes throughout the years that are mostly utilitarian, but the aesthetic side has been mostly static. Her current costume is a thin padded fabric that accentuates her curves but gives her maximum flexibility, with a few built in hidden compartments. In color it’s mostly off-white with various gray highlights, and a tight hood with red goggles that pulls up over her head. Her nose, lips, and chin are exposed but can quickly be covered up by a retractable breathing apparatus built into the suit.
♦ History:
Cynthia was born Michelle Johnson in a small town in Colorado in very poor circumstances. Her parents were meth cookers and Cynthia was the fifth child they had popped out in order to qualify for ever increasing government assistance, which they turned around and spent on drugs. It wasn’t until the little Michelle had grown to age five that her parents were found out, arrested, and she was placed in the foster care system.
The young girl might’ve thought that being in foster care would have been a better life for her, but she was tossed into an uncaring and unfair system that favored babies and toddlers, while older kids (and especially those with behavior problems, such as a girl coming from a meth house) were left to be traded around between various homes that ultimately didn’t want to put in the work to really get to know them. For more than a decade the little Michelle was moved from home to home, each with completely different values and expectations and problems of their own. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad. Occasionally the family would try, but found her disposition to be too much of a hassle, so off to another house she’d go. Sometimes it was horrible. The worst she can recall was a couple that took in eight foster children, including her, and gave them all the same small bedroom to share. Dinner every night was the same: 2 cans of cold soup they would have to split. The home was very minimalist so the couple could spend all their money, including the government foster stipend, on lotto tickets. Of course they never won. Nobody ever won in that house.
Young Michelle survived by trying to mentor any kids she came across younger than her. They were all in it together, after all. Helping out the less able boys and girls was the only way to keep herself focused, keep herself sane. In houses that wouldn’t provide for them, she did her best to provide the only way she could: by stealing. At night she’d sneak out and pick pockets or shoplift from convenience stores and bring back her bounty to her foster siblings. Sometimes she’d get caught. Sometimes the person that caught her was more caring than the system that trapped her and let her take it. Most of the time they didn’t.
In a “good Catholic house” she earned a nickname, “Sin.” They’d tell her that because your actions are forever stained on your immortal soul you were your actions, so she was nothing more than a sin. She had learned not to take to heart anything bastard fosters had to say, but she admitted that she actually liked the name. Once Michelle aged out of the system she legally changed her name to distance herself from her birth parents, becoming Cynthia Rose as a point of pride. Cynthia because it contained “sin” in it, and Rose to symbolize the hope of new beginnings.
Now living in Denver, the 18 year old Cynthia got a job as a barista in a cafe, making coffee and tea for customers and couldn’t have been happier to be fully independent. When you’re in customer service, you’d be surprised what people say assuming that you aren’t listening or don’t care. One day, a few months into her job, she overheard some people from the local gang that basically ran Denver: The Community. She was wary of them, of course, but how they talked about the group as one big caring family appealed to her in some way. She became distraught. Should she report this criminal activity? Or should she approach them? Ultimately Cynthia decided on a middle ground between the two: she followed them silently, unseen, to get to know more. She tailed them to a remote location and slipped inside, where a number of the Community had gathered around for some sort of event. There was the man who never showed himself in public, the leader of the Community: Patriarch. Flanking him were all three of his lieutenants, Xolotl, Eyeblight, and Limbo, but a fifth person stood with them, a small mousey looking girl with an extremely unpleasant looking face, as though she were in a constant shitty mood.
Cynthia’s perceptions of the world changed that night as she witnessed Patriarch giving a presentation of some sort of liquid bottle which was ingested by the young girl. It gave her powers! Not super flashy ones, nothing immediately noticeable, but a potent thinker ability to guide her actions toward creating negative emotions in others. Cynthia had to flee that night to avoid being spotted, but the young girl came up in the news shortly after. The media called her Troll, and she was instantly the nastiest of the Community’s enforcers, with the city believing a number of suicides could be traced back to her (though this wasn’t proven for a few years). She immediately hit the books and the web to find any record of this phenomena, these powers in a bottle, but came up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. It seemed that she had a conspiracy on her hands.
Over the next few months Cynthia spied on the Community as much as she could in an effort to track down the source of these powers. She came into contact with their goons more times than she could count, so she decided to don a mask and costume herself to keep from being recognized. If she could blow the lid off of this case, then she knew that she’d have done something that truly mattered! She wouldn’t be some worthless daughter of a drug dealer, some lost child in the world, she would have accomplished something nobody else could! Unfortunately it never did work out that way.
Cynthia got closer, eventually even catching a meeting with Patriarch with some strange woman in a fedora. The meeting was short and involved the woman handing over a case to Patriarch and telling him that this would be their final business transaction, so he should be careful as to who he used the new powers on. Patriarch seemed annoyed but he didn’t dare to cross the woman, just saying he’d really have to think about it and told one of his goons to put the box in a storage site. The two parted ways and Cynthia went on the pursuit of this woman knowing it would be her last and final chance to make headway in this investigation. The fedora lady ascended a ladder to exit the meeting place, so Cynthia followed quickly. However as soon as she reached for the top rung the woman reappeared and pushed the ladder down. Cynthia fell back, arm reaching out to grab her quarry, but she never had a chance. This conspiracy, these shadows she had been chasing, it had completely turned on her in an instant. The lady vanished, completely out of reach. The answers were now completely out of reach. She wasn’t good enough. As Cynthia fell down to the ground, she triggered in her despair.
Head pounding, seeing spots, Cynthia came to in the same spot she had landed, only this time there was a gun in her face. One of the Community goons was barking some kind of order she couldn’t hear due to still being groggy from the impact. All she could make out was the gun and exactly how it was designed. Instinctively, in a flash, her hands reached up and blurred around the weapon while still in her assailant’s hands. Startled the man pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He blinked and realized he only held the pistol grip: the rest of the weapon lay on the floor. In his confusion Cynthia got up and ran, the man giving chase after a moment of recollecting his senses, though the chase was short lived. Through superior physical training Cynthia got away.
Over the next several months Cynthia practiced with this new power of hers and thought of what she could do with it. Locks meant nothing to her whether they were mechanical or electronic. Security systems were easily disabled. In fact anything was easily disabled, and what’s more she retained all the details of anything she took apart! Giving her costume a bit more design work Cynthia took to the streets as a not-so-common cat burglar. She hit up banks and the homes of the wealthy to take what she felt was better spent on the less fortunate (keeping a sizable amount for herself, naturally). Even tinker designed security systems were easily dismantled! She became a thief for hire for any who would pay her (usually the Community, which she loathed but put up with because she always hoped one day to get another lead on that conspiracy). Her escapades earned her the public name of Sabotage, which she took to quite well. After all, even when captured by the heroes the prison transport designed by the local tinker Decoy couldn’t hold her!
Thanks to how Decoy’s tinker powers worked (everything connected to a single large scale communications system) in conjunction with her own powers, Sabotage was able to monitor communications from the Denver PRT and Protectorate and learned a great deal about the city she never would have known before. This information she kept to herself, never letting the other villains of Denver know what she had access to. She was a humble thief, but others? Best they never find out.
Then came what she expected to be a big break in her search for the people that gave out powers. In a villain meeting hosted by a fellow calling himself the Broker, he handed out some of the very same vials! Cynthia didn’t show her reaction at the time but it unnerved her tremendously. She finally had another chance! Obtaining one of the vials, she gave it to a close confidante in the foster system, a girl 2 years younger than her, who took the cape name Circuit. At the same time she left a message for one of the Wards about this Broker bastard, but found she could never use his name without suffering an extreme headache. He did something to her. Probably everyone at that meeting.
Behemoth arrived shortly afterward during a time when the Community was waging war on the city. Sabotage and Circuit helped out as much as they could and Patriarch died in the event. The next few months changed the shape of Denver entirely as the Broker’s plans nearly came to fruition, but he was defeated. In the aftermath Cynthia hung up her suit and cowl in order to focus on college. She had decided that she really wanted to help those like her in a more meaningful way: by working to change the foster system from the inside. The next several years were nothing but school and work. Even the Echidna Incident, which revealed the conspiracy she fought so hard to unravel, wasn’t enough to pull her back into the world of parahumans.
Then Gold Morning happened. There isn’t much to say during this period that isn’t said by everyone else. Scion attacked and slaughtered billions across multiple worlds. They fought back. Then Khepri took control of everyone and they won. In the aftermath Cynthia worked to save as many lives as possible, escorting refugees to Earth Samekh. She established a loose association of others in the process, including one Judah Raines, formerly known as Mantis. Once the smoke had cleared Cynthia set up shop in Serstol. She worked long and hard toward citizenship status, aided by her degree and experience in social services (something which was no doubt in very high demand with the influx of refugees). Cynthia established her own orphanage in Serstol which catered specifically to the care of children who had lost their parents in Gold Morning, but found that support for these poor kids to be lacking in the city’s blatantly unfair systems that favored citizens and seemed to despise outsiders. Once again she found herself stuck in a broken and uncaring system. No more.
Once again Synthia donned her costume as Sabotage. She became a thief now for the express purpose of helping her children not only survive, but thrive in this world. Money, tinker tech, anything that could help would help. She got together with her old associates and told them what she would be doing. That day she founded The Lost, a loose association of individuals that wouldn’t necessarily always go out together on missions, but would look out for one another. Would look out for the children. Circuit joined her, while Judah (now SWAT) agreed to be a silent ally. Whatever trials and tribulations Samekh would throw their way, Synthia knew only one thing: the children need not fear.
[ ♦ ] Personality
♦ Motivation: Cynthia believes in building up the children of the world more than anything else. While she can be a little selfish and steal for personal gain, mostly she wants to help children and teenagers in disparate situations.
♦ Derangement: While Cynthia has always had sticky fingers due to the way that she was raised, her powers have only made it worse. She has crossed the threshold into full blown kleptomania. Additionally, she has become intensely curious about how things work.
[ ♦ ] Parahumanism
♦ Skills:
Expert acrobatic and gymnist
Excellent social skills
Skilled pickpocket
Master’s degree in social services
Hardcore parkour!
Decent hand to hand skills, enough to hold her own against thugs but not on the level of any dedicated fighter
Decent shot, comparable to her fighting ability
♦ Classification: Thinker|Trump ♦ Mechanics: In many respects Sabotage is what some have observed and called the “anti-tinker” ability. Any piece of technology, machinery, system or what have you, regardless as to how simple or complex, can be taken apart by her. Her shard analyzes and feeds her with the exact method needed to completely disassemble the item in question with her bare hands. Her arms are capable of moving at superhuman speeds in order to achieve this effect at an incredibly rapid rate (though only her arms, and as such truly large pieces of technology that require reorienting herself to reach new pieces will take more time if only to account for traveling from one end to the other). This analyzation is Manton limited, meaning that she cannot dissect a living creature like a human being based purely on the guidance of her shard (however she can still analyze and take apart bionic technology made by bio-tinkers, such as robotic arms, etc.).
However there is a second part to Cynthia’s power that few are allowed to know about, as she does not advertise the ability nor make great use of it. Anything taken apart becomes “mapped” to her brain permanently, allowing her to (assuming she has the materials to do so) reconstruct it or build duplicates. For all intents and purposes she has become a tinker able to build and maintain that piece of technology, but only as it was designed. She is not able to tweak the parts to optimize output or combine tech she has memorize to create something new, only replicate exactly what she has previously taken apart.
♦ Equipment: When in costume Sabotage follows the old saying that less is more in order to facilitate mobility and make escape more practical. After all, she’s a thief, not a fighter.
ITEM: Lockpicking kit, hidden in both sleeves of her costume and even the ankles, just in case. ITEM: Taser gloves, built directly into her costume for defensive purposes. ITEM: Two telescopic titanium batons for defensive purposes, made without an insulating grip to allow the shock current of the gloves to travel through them in a fight, just in case.
Izurich
Strosivadan
