ProPro

*+. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Coldplay .+*

Punk Life

Name: Viscount Caffe Lucidostella
Age: 27
Personality: Despite his noble upbringing, Caffe is quite the rebel. He prefers to buck tradition rather than uphold it, can’t stand the airs of higher society, and spends his time “slumming it” with the commoners. That isn’t to say that he has no manners though, he simply doesn’t see the point in archaic traditions that haven’t evolved with the rest of the world. Despite this, like most Italians he has a strong connection to his family name and history. He doesn’t want to shame them, he just wants to do things his way.

Caffe is naturally a speed demon and an adrenaline junkie, which shows not only with his chosen career as a professional formula 1 racecar driver, but in all the little ways too. He likes to gamble, he’d prefer to skate down the road than walk or bus, and he’s the first to take unnecessary risks despite his own fears. In fact this trait has been exacerbated in the last 8 years. With the death of his parents, Caffe has gone from “thrill seeker” to “death seeker,” legitimately no longer caring whether or not he lives or dies… or at least that’s how he was before finding out he still had family left.

Birra is everything Caffe has left in his life. The manor? The money? The fans? They mean nothing compared to the long lost illegitimate brother he found. Caffe acts as his mentor for stand use, as well as a best friend. His connection to Birra is much stronger and obsessive than should be normal for having only known one another for a month or two. This connection is both a blessing and a curse, as it gives him reason to keep going, but is ultimately very unhealthy on his side.
Height and weight: 5’11” and 210 lbs.
Gender: Male
Backstory: Caffe was born and raised in the regal Lucidostella manor, a noble by birthright in a time when nobility wasn’t as important as it once was. His parents were strict with the rules, always making sure he behaved properly, knew his position and station, and could be proud of his heritage. Proud though he was, Caffe chafed under these rules and, with the advent of modern society, felt more connected with the rest of the world than his own parents ever had the chance to be. For this reason he loved them and understood them, but could hardly find anything to agree with them about. With the world changing and their own money and status beginning to matter less and less, they put large amounts of pressure on Caffe to rise through the ranks of society to “restore” their family name to the status they felt was their birthright. Caffe honestly couldn’t care less about such drivel, but they pushed him to be the best version of himself he could be, and thanked them for that.

While Caffe always did well in school, he felt things were far too boring and mundane. He needed something more thrilling to fulfill his life, and the high society parties his parents would drag him to were oh so very much the opposite of what he wanted out of life. No sooner had he gotten his driver’s license did he start sneaking out at night to take part in illegal drag racing. Naturally he had to hide his identity (wouldn’t want to bring shame to the family or create scandal after all), but found that he had a knack for this sort of extreme sporting. It gave him the outlet he needed to blow off steam and relieve the frustration his parents forced on him. This went on for a couple years until one night he got sloppy. Caffe was found out by his parents and he braced himself for the inevitable scolding… Only it never came. Instead he was “strongly encouraged” to take up legal race training. Rather than stomping out his greatest joy in life, his parents saw fit to put him into the professionals. They saw this as the perfect opportunity to further raise their son in status and wealth to continue the family name. Caffe objected at first, feeling that legitimate racing wasn’t thrilling or dangerous enough, but was quickly overruled and shamed into compliance.

Despite the initial trouble involved in what led Caffe to professional formula 1 racing, over the next few years life was generally quite happy and fine. As it turned out the competition made things almost as fun as illegal drag races, and his parents got what they wanted as well. He could even opt out of the high society events with the excuses of having to train, or be halfway around the world for an event. That all turned upside down one day as Caffe returned home to find the Lucidostella manor under attack. His parents were murdered by an unknown assailant possessing strange powers. Though Caffe knew nothing of stands at the time, he was able to manifest his own stand for the first time in self-defense, causing the assailant to flee, but leaving the 20 year old viscount alone in his home. What had happened? He saw his father manifest one of those things to fight off the killer, but ultimately lost. Who was the killer anyway? And what was this power he now had? None of these questions mattered as much as they should have, for all Caffe knew or cared about at the time was that he was alone, his parents killed, now the single solitary heir of a nobility he didn’t care about but still had the responsibility to uphold.

For years Caffe traveled the world, using his winnings as a professional racer as well as the family fortune to take part in the most dangerous thrills he could find, while also discovering and training his powers. He walked the line between life and death, only being pulled from his depression when his life was on the line. He met many other stand users and learned that they were almost magnetically drawn toward each other, but none of them could offer an explanation as to why his father would keep this power a secret all his life, nor why another stand user would attack and kill the family. He made a name for himself in the celebrity world as a nobleman that pulled all manner of death defying stunts. But none of it really mattered all that much in the long run.

He felt the light once more when the family servant came to him with new information, something pulled straight from his father’s diary! There was hope for more family out there, as it described a love affair with an American woman he kept hush hush. Invigorated by the idea of no longer being alone, Caffe went to work putting together a family genealogy report, grabbed his father’s diary, and set out to track down this woman. What he found did not disappoint him, as she had had a son by the name of Birra Romano. Caffe introduced himself, then took a DNA test and found a match! He had a long lost illegitimate brother! Luck had turned for all three of them, as Caffe invited both Birra and his mother to live with him in Lucidostella Manor. He also found that his little brother was a stand user, and so took to mentoring him while taking a break from the racing gigs, for he had found a new lease on life!

Not long after they all returned to Italy, a man named Diavolo introduced himself to the pair. Unbeknownst to them, things were about to get very bizarre. It was only about a month since they discovered each other, but there was no way that Caffe was going to let them be separated so soon like all these other families being torn apart by abductions or whatever it was going on.
Appearance:

Caffe Lucidostella

---

Stand name: Walk the Line
Ability: Stand can send self, User, or objects along “lines” at tremendous speeds, anywhere there is a “line” on a larger surface is fair game. Cracks on the sidewalk, white and yellow street lanes, chalk lines, etc. The object in question connects like a magnetic force and zips along the line almost like an electric current, and dislodges at the user’s will, at which point it will continue to travel forward in a straight path. As long as an object is connected to a line, it will continue moving at a breakneck pace and never lose momentum. Once it is dislodged from the line, normal physics will affect it.
Stand cry: None, Walk the Line is incapable of speech. However when it moves its arms it has the sound of a blade slicing through the air.
Height: 5’6”
Obtained through: Natural born stand user.
Appearance: An inorganic humanoid short range power type stand. Walk the Line is a fairly short 5’6” with heavily muscled masculine build. Despite the stout nature of this stand, all of its features are very angular and sharp looking, giving it a straight-razor sort of look. All along its body are lines which upon closer inspection are actually a huge collection of edges and ridges in the stand’s body. On the sides of its head where ears would normally be are two lugnuts, while it has no face but instead a blank slate. The legs gradually slope down into a thin point, like swords which it uses to balance on the ground. It has a very metallic coloration along the whole body.

Stats

*+. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Coldplay .+*

Here’s my entry, the first half to the duo with Genon.

Punk Life

Name: Viscount Caffe Lucidostella
Age: 27
Personality: Despite his noble upbringing, Caffe is quite the rebel. He prefers to buck tradition rather than uphold it, can’t stand the airs of higher society, and spends his time “slumming it” with the commoners. That isn’t to say that he has no manners though, he simply doesn’t see the point in archaic traditions that haven’t evolved with the rest of the world. Despite this, like most Italians he has a strong connection to his family name and history. He doesn’t want to shame them, he just wants to do things his way.

Caffe is naturally a speed demon and an adrenaline junkie, which shows not only with his chosen career as a professional formula 1 racecar driver, but in all the little ways too. He likes to gamble, he’d prefer to skate down the road than walk or bus, and he’s the first to take unnecessary risks despite his own fears. In fact this trait has been exacerbated in the last 8 years. With the death of his parents, Caffe has gone from “thrill seeker” to “death seeker,” legitimately no longer caring whether or not he lives or dies… or at least that’s how he was before finding out he still had family left.

Birra is everything Caffe has left in his life. The manor? The money? The fans? They mean nothing compared to the long lost illegitimate brother he found. Caffe acts as his mentor for stand use, as well as a best friend. His connection to Birra is much stronger and obsessive than should be normal for having only known one another for a month or two. This connection is both a blessing and a curse, as it gives him reason to keep going, but is ultimately very unhealthy on his side.
Height and weight: 5’11” and 210 lbs.
Gender: Male
Backstory: Caffe was born and raised in the regal Lucidostella manor, a noble by birthright in a time when nobility wasn’t as important as it once was. His parents were strict with the rules, always making sure he behaved properly, knew his position and station, and could be proud of his heritage. Proud though he was, Caffe chafed under these rules and, with the advent of modern society, felt more connected with the rest of the world than his own parents ever had the chance to be. For this reason he loved them and understood them, but could hardly find anything to agree with them about. With the world changing and their own money and status beginning to matter less and less, they put large amounts of pressure on Caffe to rise through the ranks of society to “restore” their family name to the status they felt was their birthright. Caffe honestly couldn’t care less about such drivel, but they pushed him to be the best version of himself he could be, and thanked them for that.

While Caffe always did well in school, he felt things were far too boring and mundane. He needed something more thrilling to fulfill his life, and the high society parties his parents would drag him to were oh so very much the opposite of what he wanted out of life. No sooner had he gotten his driver’s license did he start sneaking out at night to take part in illegal drag racing. Naturally he had to hide his identity (wouldn’t want to bring shame to the family or create scandal after all), but found that he had a knack for this sort of extreme sporting. It gave him the outlet he needed to blow off steam and relieve the frustration his parents forced on him. This went on for a couple years until one night he got sloppy. Caffe was found out by his parents and he braced himself for the inevitable scolding… Only it never came. Instead he was “strongly encouraged” to take up legal race training. Rather than stomping out his greatest joy in life, his parents saw fit to put him into the professionals. They saw this as the perfect opportunity to further raise their son in status and wealth to continue the family name. Caffe objected at first, feeling that legitimate racing wasn’t thrilling or dangerous enough, but was quickly overruled and shamed into compliance.

Despite the initial trouble involved in what led Caffe to professional formula 1 racing, over the next few years life was generally quite happy and fine. As it turned out the competition made things almost as fun as illegal drag races, and his parents got what they wanted as well. He could even opt out of the high society events with the excuses of having to train, or be halfway around the world for an event. That all turned upside down one day as Caffe returned home to find the Lucidostella manor under attack. His parents were murdered by an unknown assailant possessing strange powers. Though Caffe knew nothing of stands at the time, he was able to manifest his own stand for the first time in self-defense, causing the assailant to flee, but leaving the 20 year old viscount alone in his home. What had happened? He saw his father manifest one of those things to fight off the killer, but ultimately lost. Who was the killer anyway? And what was this power he now had? None of these questions mattered as much as they should have, for all Caffe knew or cared about at the time was that he was alone, his parents killed, now the single solitary heir of a nobility he didn’t care about but still had the responsibility to uphold.

For years Caffe traveled the world, using his winnings as a professional racer as well as the family fortune to take part in the most dangerous thrills he could find, while also discovering and training his powers. He walked the line between life and death, only being pulled from his depression when his life was on the line. He met many other stand users and learned that they were almost magnetically drawn toward each other, but none of them could offer an explanation as to why his father would keep this power a secret all his life, nor why another stand user would attack and kill the family. He made a name for himself in the celebrity world as a nobleman that pulled all manner of death defying stunts. But none of it really mattered all that much in the long run.

He felt the light once more when the family servant came to him with new information, something pulled straight from his father’s diary! There was hope for more family out there, as it described a love affair with an American woman he kept hush hush. Invigorated by the idea of no longer being alone, Caffe went to work putting together a family genealogy report, grabbed his father’s diary, and set out to track down this woman. What he found did not disappoint him, as she had had a son by the name of Birra Romano. Caffe introduced himself, then took a DNA test and found a match! He had a long lost illegitimate brother! Luck had turned for all three of them, as Caffe invited both Birra and his mother to live with him in Lucidostella Manor. He also found that his little brother was a stand user, and so took to mentoring him while taking a break from the racing gigs, for he had found a new lease on life!

Not long after they all returned to Italy, a man named Diavolo introduced himself to the pair. Unbeknownst to them, things were about to get very bizarre. It was only about a month since they discovered each other, but there was no way that Caffe was going to let them be separated so soon like all these other families being torn apart by abductions or whatever it was going on.
Appearance:

Caffe Lucidostella

---

Stand name: Walk the Line
Ability: Stand can send self, User, or objects along “lines” at tremendous speeds, anywhere there is a “line” on a larger surface is fair game. Cracks on the sidewalk, white and yellow street lanes, chalk lines, etc. The object in question connects like a magnetic force and zips along the line almost like an electric current, and dislodges at the user’s will, at which point it will continue to travel forward in a straight path. As long as an object is connected to a line, it will continue moving at a breakneck pace and never lose momentum. Once it is dislodged from the line, normal physics will affect it.
Stand cry: None, Walk the Line is incapable of speech. However when it moves its arms it has the sound of a blade slicing through the air.
Height: 5’6”
Obtained through: Natural born stand user.
Appearance: An inorganic humanoid short range power type stand. Walk the Line is a fairly short 5’6” with heavily muscled masculine build. Despite the stout nature of this stand, all of its features are very angular and sharp looking, giving it a straight-razor sort of look. All along its body are lines which upon closer inspection are actually a huge collection of edges and ridges in the stand’s body. On the sides of its head where ears would normally be are two lugnuts, while it has no face but instead a blank slate. The legs gradually slope down into a thin point, like swords which it uses to balance on the ground. It has a very metallic coloration along the whole body.

Stats

*+. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Coldplay .+*

Some of my stand ideas that I’m having difficulty choosing between:

Be Somebody - traditional high power high speed close range punch ghost that creates holes.

Night Prowler - object bound stand, a large sledgehammer that creates building and structure components on impact.

Alive - wearable armor stand that forces the user and its victims to stay alive through any injury by circumventing the injury without actually healing it (or broken bones are forced into place without fixing fractures, blood loss is made up for by making more blood instead of closing wounds, neural pathways are rewired instead of fixing lost brain matter, etc.).

Enter Sandman - automatic stand the user isn’t even aware of, manifests while user is asleep to protect them from anything it defines as a “threat” (with a very loose definition of what constitutes a threat).

Prisoner of My Eye - close range power stand, uses molecular teleportation (deconstruct objects atomically and reconstruct them elsewhere).

Walk the Line - transports user and objects at super speeds but only along lines on a larger body (street lines, cracks in pavement, grid lines between bricks, etc).

Rag Doll - manipulates all solid matter as though it were cloth.

As you can see, I make a lot of stands that I enjoy. XD I have many many more, but these are the ones that tickle my fancy for a RP setting.

*+. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Coldplay .+*

Ok, assuming that I join this game (and likely may because dammit it keeps gnawing at me), I have a proposal. Would anybody be willing to commit to playing the second half of a pair with me? Siblings or friends or the like? I’m not suggesting they need to have similar stands, but I’m interested in playing someone with a close knit relationship with someone.

*+. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Coldplay .+*

Damn you for tantalizing me with a new JoJo RP! DX I don’t have the time for this! DX I’ll think about this game.

World of Light

Courier 6 and Ratchet and Jak & Daxter

Level 5 - (48/50) EXP (+2, -3 friend heart), Level 5 - (31/50) (+2), Level 3 - (9/30) (+2)
Location: Land of Adventure - Coral Highlands, Redgraccoon City - Charnal Lane
Word Count:775

”Tch,” the Courier spat, rapidly reloading his revolver. Looks like that kid took a real nasty hit. Well, maybe that was a good thing? Would be easier to convert him back to the side of having proper senses with a friend heart and all. Meanwhile the monster was lookin’ none too pleased with itself, full of broken bones and all. If the deathclaw parallels continued, that wouldn’t rightly matter to this fiend; it’d keep on attacking until they, or it, were dead. But maybe it wasn’t entirely like a deathclaw? Maybe in such an injured state they proved to be far more trouble than they were worth as a meal?

Fuck that. It made the mistake of attacking him when he was being nice.It was gonna die.

Ivories was stuck up on the coral, but honestly that wasn’t too much of a problem. The donphan howled in frustration at not being able to properly thrash its foe, but the Courier simply pointed its home pokeball at it, causing a little beam of light to return Ivories back, then immediately deployed it again. It was clear that the brave, powerful donphan was looking for an outlet for its aggression at having gotten stuck up on the coral, and this monster was still a convenient target.

”Show me what else y’can do, Ivories!” The Courier pointed dramatically at the tzitzi-ya-ku.

“Phan! Donphan!” Ivories glared at the enemy and stomped hard on the ground, creating a shockwave that rippled toward the injured monster! It was as though the power of its legs alone were that of a Bulldozer! Not satisfied with its ground attack alone, Ivories used its extra speed boost to curl back up into a rolling ball and shoot high up into the air! It came down hard, uncurling from its ball form and performed a mighty Slam with its trunk!

While Ivories dealt with the injured, now hopefully dead, monster, the Courier rushed over to the Cadet. Snapping his fingers, a large red heart appeared which he then unceremoniously, and without warning, slapped into the young man. ”Howdy, yer all better now, call me the Courier n’follow me if’n ya wanna save the multiverse. If not, I don’ rightly give a fuck what ya do.” He turned back toward the scene of the battle, hoping to catch the end of the tzitzi-ya-ku.

---

---

The damage they had done to the ent so far was intense. The monster was angrily thrashing about, clearly in desperation to finish off the heroes before they could do much more damage to it. Debris flew everywhere, the creature’s noxious poisonous goop shot out like a cannon! Jak was in the perfect position to unload more damage into the monster’s weak point, but unfortunately it focused on shooting directly at him with its nasty rot, and his light eco wings were too clunky to make dodging and weaving a proper tactic. The only way he could avoid it was to rely on gravity!

Jak ended his transformation, deploying his jet board and landing on it with expertise. Of course, he couldn’t use his gun while balancing on the board, and its shockwaves were too weak to really do any measurable damage to the ent’s sturdy exterior. Instead it was back to kickflipping off the hollows and rot warts, planting shockwaves in their faces, in order to keep the swarming masses away from the other fighters.

Meanwhile Ratchet took the opportunity to do some of the most dangerous and skilled platforming he had in his entire career as a galactic hero! As the ent’s tantrum tossed large stone chunks around, he took a running jump up, aided by Clank’s jetpack. He kicked off of a falling stone slab and pounced from another, then another, all the while Clank measuring the trajectories and assisting jumps with small jet thrusts. After kicking off of five stone chunks Ratchet performed a crouched high jump, shooting up even further with Clank’s final burst of jet fuel before being exhausted (and therefore demanifesting).

Ratchet flipped high above the ent, twisting upside down. This was it, his big moment! He pulled out not one, but two guns from his arsenal! In his left hand was the Reaper, while his right held the Bombbuilder! Both trigger fingers twitched and fired, a cluster of demonic energy from one and a powerful remote trigger bomb from the other, both careening straight down into the ent’s weak spot! ”Kaboom!” Ratchet called out, flipping back over to land on his feet on the inside of the cathedral.

Worlds of Disney

Cassim and Iago

Things were only getting crazier. Now the shadows were building up a resistance to light, or there were stronger shadows, one of the two. More were joining into the fray, the drunken Gaelic was cheering on for redheads, the Pumpkin King’s kids were getting wild, and now an abnormally intelligent horse was even jumping in to kick the monsters around. What a night this was!

”Are these the fabled Parisian nights I’m always hearing about?” Cassim asked Esmerelda, getting in close with his back to her, sword ready to defend them at a moment’s notice. A beast charged straight in but quickly found itself bisected. ”Looks like things are going to get worse before they get better! Everyone! Group up together! Around the children!”

Cassim rolled toward Lock, Shock, and Barrel, stabbing into another shadow beast as he went. If everyone followed his example, they would have a strong circle able to defend from every angle, with heavy artillery firing out from the center. Whatever was coming would surely be stronger than what they had faced so far.

”Nuts to that! I wanna li-i-i-aaaaah!” Iago found himself yanked by his tail feathers, forcibly dragged through the air by Cassim’s off-hand.

World of Light

Courier 6 and Ratchet and Jak & Daxter

Level 5 - (49/50) EXP (+2), Level 5 - (29/50) (+2), Level 3 - (7/30) (+2)
Location: Land of Adventure - Coral Highlands, Redgraccoon City - Charnal Lane
Word Count:1033

Everything happened so fast, the Courier couldn’t see what all had happened in the exact moment. His shotgun shells had clearly done some damage to this dinosaur creature, but that didn’t seem to slow it down one bit. By the time he raised his head again, Bastion’s arm was on the ground and the robot was dissipating completely. The Courier’s eyes shot wide for a brief moment as he realized what had happened. Bastion would take some time before he could be deployed again, and in the meantime the threat of this monster was still looming, dangerous enough to cleanly cleave through solid metal. If it could do that, his own armored duster, not to mention his sub-dermal armor, wouldn’t be any better than paper. In an instant the Courier knew what this situation called for: he had to treat this creature just like a deathclaw, only smaller. And that meant it needed to be put down with as much firepower as possible, with extreme prejudice.

While the creature attacked the young man who had appeared and made a ruckus, the Courier dropped the pokeball containing his newest compadre, the donphan Ivories. ”Looks like ya got a chance t’show yer stuff, Ivories!” he said, pulling out what looked to be a normal bottle of water, but was in fact the chem Rushing Water. He downed half the bottle himself, then tossed the rest of the bottle into Ivories’ mouth. In an instant both could feel the invigorating properties of the water, increasing their attack speed by a very solid 50%! The Courier swapped to his magnum, not risking any more down time to reload his shotgun, and quickly fired 6 bullets into the monster as though the revolver were a semi-auto pistol! That on its own would have already been incredible attack speed, increasing his trigger finger by half, but he was a human.

Ivories curled up and began rolling at extreme speeds! The armadillo-elephant creature was already capable of rolling around at some absurd velocity, but increased by half? It used Rollout on the dinosaur! But would it be supereffective?

---

---

Things seemed to be going pretty well against the ent, all things considered! Sure, there were some hiccups, like the thing not catching on fire as they would have expected, but the minions it was summoning weren’t otherwise all that difficult to deal with and the slow, lumbering tree brute was easy enough to avoid. Ratchet even got a bullseye in that sweet, sweet weak spot! Clank’s rocket thrusters stayed on to let him slowly glide back down to terra firma, while he swapped weapons for the Coyote shotgun and cleared a landing zone from those little hollows. Meanwhile Jak was zipping around on his jet board, running over hollows and killing them off with the shockwave it was capable of generating. The things couldn’t even hope to touch him, while he made sure everyone had a better time hitting the ent without being accosted by such trivial minions.

Then everything changed when the ent let out a huge roar, and Nero was tossed aside like a rag doll. ”Uh oh,” Ratchet said, seeing the big globs of nastiness spraying everywhere. The nimble, acrobatic lombax jumped and dodged and blackflipped away, thankfully safe from getting struck. Jak was likewise able to avoid his own projectile with a well timed kickflip. But that severely changed the battle arena, the environment was going to be more difficult to traverse now. On top of that, more enemies, these ones of a completely different type, were now spawning!

”Great, more small fries.”

”Lock and load, Jak!”

”Don’t worry, I’ve got this one!” Ratchet fired off his shotgun at one of the rot warts coming right for him, blowing it to smithereens! Aaaand also releasing its toxic miasma right into his face. Ratchet immediately dropped to the ground, coughing and wheezing, his normally untouchably agile self unable to hardly move.

”Ratchet! I’ll save you, fuzzball!” Jak altered course on his jet board, but was too late. The ent prepared another shockwave and he had to ride it out on his board to avoid getting tossed to the ground. He pulled the stunt off expertly, but Ratchet couldn’t move. The hero of Veldin was sent flying, his fragile body breaking several bones in the process. Jak frowned, anger rising. His eyes turned black, his teeth became fangs, but only for a second. He hadn’t recharged his dark eco yet, and not even this rage was enough to trigger his Dark Jak transformation. Instead he calmed his mine to call upon another power.

Jak’s jet board shrank down and attached to his back as a Heavenly light transformed him into Light Jak, ethereal membraneous wings sprouting from his back. Jak took flight up high, morph gun still in hand in its yellow eco Blaster formation. From his new vantage point, Jak unloaded shot after shot of yellow eco into the ent’s weak spot.

Meanwhile, Ratchet was clinging onto dear life. His tenacity meant that no matter what injuries he suffered he could always move around at full power. Unfortunately that tenacity didn’t account for a body paralyzing goopy infection, just injury. But that didn’t mean he was going to go out like a pansy! A true hero would go down swinging, no matter what! One of the hollows approached, ready to finish him off. Ratchet coughed, moving the Coyote into place, and summoned the power to pull the trigger. BLAM! The hollow was blasted away, its life ended, but something else truly remarkable happened.

SECOND WIND

These words flashed across Ratchet’s visor, confusing him for a brief moment, when he felt all his strength returning. His wounds closed up, his bones knit back together, the toxic poison was expelled from his body. For all intents and purposes Ratchet was back on his feet as though nothing had ever happened! ”Wow. Heh. No wonder you kept calling yourself a badass, Zer0.” Ratchet pumped the shotgun, then charged back into the fray!

World of Light

Courier 6 and Ratchet and Jak & Daxter

Level 5 - (47/50) EXP (+2), Level 5 - (27/50) (+2), Level 3 - (5/30) (+2)
Location: Land of Adventure - Coral Highlands, Redgraccoon City - Charnal Lane
Word Count:1129

Jak new power: You do well to rid the world of this metal scourge. As a reward, I grant you a dark power. - In Dark Jak form, Jak is able to manipulate dark eco in the form of energy attacks which come in two flavors. Small hand blasts that are relatively slow moving, but plow through obstacles with great force capable of toppling huge walls (which use a moderate chunk of his dark eco), and the Dark Bomb which releases all his currently absorbed eco in a single blast around him, completely destroying any but the most durable of enemies… But of course, dark eco cannot recognize friendlies and will harm all life indiscriminately.

The situation wasn’t looking too good, if the Courier were to admit it. The dinosaur monster wasn’t so receptive of him as most critters were. He thought that maybe if it weren’t for the offering of meat, the thing would have already been at his neck. Even so it was clearly a highly aggressive monster, looking for any reason to strike. His hand gripped his shotgun in its holster, ready to pull it out and fire the moment this creature moved, as it would undoubtedly come down to a fight. No befriending this hombre.

“I’d cover my eyes if I were you!” shouted a voice from afar, startling both the Courier and the monster he was attempting to tame. The dinosaur used some bizarre quirk of its biology to focus a blast of concentrated sunlight right at his eyes, but luckily the Courier was an adaptable fellow. Rather than be put off balance by the sudden warning of this stranger, it gave him the ample preparation he needed to do exactly that.

Time seemingly froze to a standstill as the Courier activated V.A.T.S., allowing him to observe the dinosaur creature in an extremely slow motion and pickout the best strategy. Its head seemed to be unfurling some sort of reflective membrane. In the slow motion he could already see how it was gathering light for what he presumed would be some sort of blinding tactic. Amazing quirk of biology this thing had, and very deadly when paired with those talons. Luckily, technology was on his side, as was luck. He had enough time to queue up 2 shots with his shotgun on the critter. Target head: Probability to hit - 95%

BOOM BOOM!

Two shots quickly blasted from the shotgun, depleting all its loaded shells and rendering the weapon useless until it could be reloaded. V.A.T.S. deactivated in the same instant as the creature came flying at him with razor sharp claws exposed, and he rolled off to the side. In his place manifested the large robotic striker Bastion in humanoid form, steel body ready to receive the damage and gun ready to unload into the monster.

---

---

Jak emerged from the van with Daxter on his shoulder, the two firing finger guns at one another playfully. Ratchet had since put away his new shotgun and was conversing with the others on minor small talk, nothing important, when Nero decided that enough preparations had been made and it was time to go kick some ass.

”Hold up,” Jak interrupted before they all head out, clearly bothered by something. When he spoke, it was uncomfortable and he avoided eye contact. ”I owe everyone an apology. I’m used to running in guns blazing and taking everything out without a problem, but that doesn’t seem to always work here. What I’m saying is, I guess if I’m the best there is on my world, I shouldn’t underestimate the dangers posed by the best of everyone else’s worlds too. So I got hurt when I had other ways to kill those things without the same risk and… Sorry that I made myself dead weight.” He met the other’s eyes for the first time, glaring in both determination, and anger. ”Nobody is going to have to come to my rescue again.”

Ratchet had to chuckle. ”Is that actually some humility from you, Jak? I’m surprised! Hahaha! I guess you’re forfeiting the contest to me, then?”

Ratchet and Jak clapped hands together, squeezing in a firm grip. ”Not on your life, furball.”

”Don’t underestimate us just because Jak had to get a bit sappy for a minute! I’m still the same hard as steel bad boy I’ve always been, capiche?” Daxter added.

”Sure, Dax.” Ratchet released his grip from Jak, who did the same, and the two heroes followed Nero through the cathedral plaza.

Up the stairs and out to the opening, a large creature stood silent and lonely amidst the gothic background. The ent looked to be a fearsome foe indeed, though also a passive one. It did not seem to recognize their presence, allowing them all to get setup however the group decided was best. Recognizing the enemy as being made of wood, Ratchet pulled out the bombbuilder as his main weapon for the battle, hoping the heat from the blasts might set the thing on fire. Jak pulled out his trusty morph gun and set it to the Vulcan Fury.

Then Nero called the monster out, and the battle had begun. Ratchet quickly took aim and fired two proximity mines at the ent’s feet, where they immediately exploded a safe distance beneath Nero as the demon hunter pulled off his own combo. Jak began to unload with rapid fire the high speed, high penetration rounds of his Vulcan Fury, sending more than 40 rounds of blue eco into the ent in just a couple of seconds. That was, until…

Click

Out of blue eco? Gah! Jak swapped the morph gun over to the Blaster mode and rolled away from a small group of hollows that sought him out. His roll jumps propelled him several meters at a time, allowing him to build distance, then take them out before they even got close. Once the hollows chasing him were blasted to smithereens, he turned back to the ent.

Meanwhile Ratchet had swapped out the bombbuilder for his trusty old omniwrench, standing at attention as the hollows began to swarm around him. He gave a couple warning swings to keep them off, but the creatures were not so easily dissuaded. They all jumped into Ratchet at once and… Moved right through him?

”I love this power! Zer0 had style!” Ratchet decloaked right behind the ent, Reaper in hand. He unleashed a shot of Hell energy directly into its back at point blank, all 6 shots concentrated together to hit the enemy.

In response to this, or perhaps to Nero, the ent slammed its arms down to create a shockwave in every direction, the whole plaza rattling with the force! Jak, being a good distance away, was able to spot the telegraphed move and hop onto his jet board and ride the wave out no problem. But Ratchet being so close and relatively easy to harm…

“I’ve got you, Ratchet!” Clank reaffirmed, appearing on the lombax’s back and taking on jet form. The little robot propelled Ratchet high up in the air to avoid the shockwave.

”Thanks, little buddy!” Ratchet said back, now taking another shot with the Reaper, down toward the ent’s head.

World of Light

Courier 6 and Ratchet and Jak & Daxter

Level 5 - (45/50) EXP (+2), Level 5 - (12/50) (+2), Level 2 - (10/20) (+2)
Location: Land of Adventure - Coral Highlands, Redgraccoon City - Charnal Lane
Word Count:1089

The Courier looked over his small gains from those bullet creatures as he hopped back up onto his chocobo mount. A small gun, significantly lower caliber than his regular pistol, some strange half-hearts, and bullet casings of various colors. He could definitely use the casings to make some new ammunition. Maybe the casings were magical and the colors represented different effects? It was difficult to tell in this mishmash world what was used for what purpose, but he supposed it didn’t matter much. He’d find out by doing, but that was for the future. For the present he spurred Drumstick onward into the corral.

Immediately life all around him made itself known, strange and alien creatures that were utterly fascinating. Flying jellyfish and huge bugs lazily drifted around the air, apparently unafraid of his presence (not that many animals were ever afraid of him even when anybody else would drive them to hostility). Crustaceans, birds, and all manner of other creatures made these corrals their homes. This sort of beauty, it wasn’t anything he was used to seeing. Still, he had to focus on finding the wigglers, but a little souvenir wouldn’t hurt right? The Courier broke off a sizable chunk of choral, something to experiment with. Surely it’d have some chemical properties that’d make a nice chem.

A few minutes later and drumstick took them to a dip in the choral hills. There, at the bottom with some standing water, were little creatures that matched the description given by the quest card… But not the description given by Bowser. ”Can’t blame the big oaf I ‘spose. Lotta worlds mashed together, makes sense some have shared words.” Maybe he’d find the wigglers Bowser spoke of another time? He loved seeing new things after all, and-Oh my. Speaking of new things…

The wigglers were proven to be frightened of something. Not the Courier himself, but something else. An utterly amazing monster, something that looked like it stepped right out of the old pre-war history books: a dinosaur. 6 had to admit he didn’t know too much about dinosaurs (they weren’t a relevant topic even among academics in the wasteland) but it didn’t match any he knew about. Oh well. He hopped off Drumstick and pat the bird to reassure it, to keep it calm, then slowly approached the reptilian creature.

”Howdy,” he said, keeping one hand out as a gesture of good will while keeping his other hand at his holster just in case this animal wasn’t as friendly as the others. He was a magnet for goodwill from non-sapient animals, but it didn’t work on the monstrous, the especially mutated, or even some of the most vicious of even normal creatures. He had to be careful. ”You hungry feller? I got some meat saved from a castle feast none too long ago if’n you want some.” He held out a bit of turkey from his sack, offering to the Tzitzi-ya-ku.

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Unable to help with the large suffering remaining, at least not without risk of explosions causing some friendly fire, Ratchet took to hopping and flipping around the battlefield, braining zombies left and right with his omniwrench. Now that the van had been pulled up safely he knew he could move away from Nero to join the battle proper. Smack, thwap, bam! Brains splattered to and fro while none of the creatures were able to keep pace with the fast and agile lombax.

Clank zoomed in on Jak’s unconscious body and snagged him up, pushing the long-eared human out of the danger zone. A couple seconds later and the giant shockwave made from a giant Gene would have left Jak in an even worse state. Once he was pushed out a few meters though, Clank could no longer move him. The rocket thrusters on the little robot were only good for small bursts, and he wasn’t strong enough to lift a fully grown man by himself. His temporary use expended, Clank vanished, his spirit returning to Ratchet.

”AAAAAAAAAAH!” Daxter ran screaming between the gravestones to escape his undead predators, inadvertently running toward the second suffering demon after Nero had unleashed his wrath upon it! The little ottsel climbed up its back like a big dirt mound, realizing his mistake only after reaching the summit. ”Oh dear…” Donnie’s kick brought the monster’s life to an end, something Daxter himself was turned away form and thus did not see. That’s because he was too preoccupied with the large van heading straight for him!

Nico’s van rammed right into the suffering’s limp body, and with that Daxter hit the windshield like a bug, limbs outstretched and tongue hanging out comically. Once Nico slammed the brakes, Daxter went flying once again, bouncing off the ground like a stone skipping across the water. ”Ow! Oof! Gah! Uh! Yeowchies!” Once he came to a stop, Daxter stood up and shook himself off, brushing the dirt and grime from his pants. ”One of these days, I tell ya!” he shook a tiny fist at Nico, not that she’d be able to see beneath the dash thanks to his small height.

With the main threats taken down and the zombies reanimated by the suffering no longer following the tactics of their masters, Ratchet chuckled. ”These guys are just way too easy!” He kept the slow shamblers off the group’s back while Donnie made pleasantries with the lightning hurling skeleton and everyone else got on board the van again. He was about to hop back into his kart when realization kicked in: Jak destroyed it! And Jak was still unconscious on the ground! Grumbling, Ratchet hopped on over and grabbed his friendly rival and hauled him up by the shoulder. ”Alright, come on, let’s get going.”

”Yeah, hurry up!” We ain’t got all eternal-dark-and-spooky-night to wait on you!” Daxter called out from just inside the van.

Ratchet shook his head but hurried all the same. ”Hey Blazer, you might want to focus on Jak here. He really let loose with that dark eco attack.” Once he got them both safely aboard the van, Ratchet accepted Donnie’s offer of a suffering spirit and crushed in in hopes of another gun. A big gun. He needed a lot more firepower to rebuild his arsenal.