Sepokku

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Doe frowned, he would have raised a hand to his mouth and pantomimed a yawn, if he had time, but the lop-eared assailant flew at him with impressive zeal. Casually tossing Jane’s head behind its shoulder, the charred body readied itself to meet the assailant. “Is now really the time to be shadow boxing?” The rabbimpanzee collided with Doe’s charred body, intent and flesh exploding outward into cloying smoke and a lance of obsidian that embedded itself in the creature’s shoulder. The pressure wave slammed into the wall at almost the same time, rebounding off of it and scattering the cloying smoke further.

The wave of air pressure left mangled and broken cultists in its wake, tossing Jane’s head along like so many dead or dying pigeons. Rather then let them go to waste, the head opened its mouth, unhinging the jaw like a snake and devouring whatever birds it could reach, before using an oversized tongue to pull itself toward a cultist’s corpse. Her tongue shot out like a spike, embedding itself in the throat of the corpse, dragging itself toward the body. The corpse jittered, as a wave of intent swirled into it, causing it to stand up. Jane’s head looked at the cultist she was joined at the neck with, life slowly came back into his eyes as he regained consciousness. The cultist screamed, but his form continued to shift, and before long he lacked the physiology to do so; shortly after that his soul was devoured by Doe, but he never stopped screaming.

Jane looked at the second head on her body, its form began to settle, a face that could have been her brother’s looked back at her. She slapped him awake, “John, focus up, where is Ziinzi?”

He looked at her and pointed with his chin toward the skylight they had smashed into the ceiling.

“Good boy.” The club was filled with smoke by this point, getting thicker as time went on, it smelled vaguely of copal. The two-headed duo dashed toward their rabbimpanzee, intent coalescing around them as they moved. Doe closed the distance, not acting until the chimp did first, swinging both of its massive fists downward. The elastic bands of muscle that were holding them together relaxed, and Doe split into three pieces. John’s head rocketed off the body, hydraulic force propelling it and the spine into the rafters. The legs launched a straight kick, also propelled by the same elastic energy. The Apex would have to finish its strike, or be launched across the room by the force. Jane’s spinal cord ended at the shoulders, her arms distending on either side, hands reaching for the obsidian she had speared the beast with.

The Apex brought its fists down, turning the legs to paste. It let out a hoot and elbowed Jane in the head, but it was too late. The intent that had been gathering in her body dispersed as her left index finger touched the piece of obsidian. The stone jittered and shifted, its shape distorting much like the way Doe’s own form could. Intent bloomed, and the obsidian expanded into an inky black disc, bisecting the rabimpanzee diagonally at the shoulder as it did. Jane swung her arms as she reeled from the Apex’s blow, righting her momentum as she was sent soaring through the air. The skin on her head and shoulders crawled until a torso formed, and then legs, which planted themselves firmly on the ground. She took a few steps toward Kiran, ensuring her face and his looked the exact same, “Splitting into two is kind of my bag, but I guess its true what they say about imitation.” She pretended to examine her nails, "Tell you what, i'm feeling generous this morning. The MegaCorps want something from your workshop, give it to me, and I'll let you off with a warning."

The Apex reproduced again, two smaller versions of itself appearing on either side of the obsidian disc. The first Apex looked at Jane and Kiran before confusedly realizing if it looked in the opposite direction, it could still see Jane and Kiran. The lustrous black stone perfectly reflected the duo, and the four Apexes, resulting in what appeared, at a glance, to be two J-3s, four Kirans, eight Apexes, and enough copal-scented smoke that it was hard to see and breath.

John, for his part, slithered into the ceiling, devouring pigeons as he made his way to the bear pelt. Then the work began, churning out homunculi, moving to another point in the ceiling, before creating another homonculus, rinse and repeat, ad nauseum. Jane always took the more glamorous work, it would have been upsetting if John wasn’t so impossibly handsome and humble.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jane frowned as several evolutionary disasters were forcibly fast-tracked toward extinction at Kiran’s hands. Maybe she should have just ducked out of the city for a bit, lived off people migrating in and out of the place. This was a valuable chance to expand her repertoire, but why did it feel like she was going to be left out to dry? The Undercity Initiative was supposed to be the brainchild of some unknown bigwig who had bought up a majority share of one of the plates; an up-and-coming Corpo, at least that was what Panopticon had said, and he’d never known her to lie. She was purposefully misleading and tended to speak in half-truths, sure, but an outright lie? Not really her style. So what the actual fuck was she supposed to be doing here? An anti-gang movement to win points with Congress? It wouldn't be the first time a Corpo tried that maneuver, but it was far too simple for Panopticon’s M.O.

It didn’t matter at that exact moment, but it was still mental gristle for her to chew on. Organic weapons stood on either side of her, moving in for the kill, and Jane would’ve hated to disappoint. “Irony? You want to talk about irony. The Wiindigoo can’t order anyone to do anything; it amplifies what is already present. If your men are trying to kill you, that’s on you.”

She gave him a shit-eating grin, “Can you blame them? That is easily the worst bottle service I’ve ever seen in a club, and I’ve been to a lot. I’d rather be back with the Founding Fathers trying my damndest to get blasted on wine and cider.” Jane took a few steps to the side as Kiran’s "bottle service” turned the gang member into what could only be described as a rabbimpanzee.

“And the funny thing about people who play God?” The newly created beast threw itself across the room, as Jane jumped ever so slightly into the air, ready to meet the creature’s advance. Her body shifted, along with the flow of manitou in the room, as she turned to meet the Tinker’s creation. The two collided mid-air, the force of the impact sending them flying towards J-3. “They’re predictable.” Jane bit down as her body expanded like a pufferfish, driven by a boiling chemical reaction typically found in ground beetles. Her tail dove into the ground, splitting itself into several anchoring points that were driven further into the ground by spring-like muscle coils, slowing their advance to a manageable speed for her unwilling ally.

Her ribcage shattered as she was sandwiched between an ape and a rooted bramble-patch of iron spikes she had driven into the ground; her abdomen burst, the boiling chemicals within her body released in a gaseous spray, carrying the last of J-3’s neurotoxins into the air around the rabbimpanzee.

The male Doe let out a low keening noise, all but lost in the chaos of the club. Rather than join the fray and potentially meet the same fate as Jane, it scaled the wall it had been thrown into, body shifting as it tore a hole in the wall and disappeared into the wall cavity. He made his way to the skylight he had created, tearing through wall supports where necessary.

---

J-3 flinched away, leaping straight up into the air when the mutated cultist-turned-Apex sailed in her direction, tangled with Jane as it was. They watched as some cultists tumbled over, writhing with pain as boiling hot acids and potent toxins attacked flesh and nerves alike. Others simply rose and continued fighting, turning their attention to either the Apex in their midst, or the now airborne J-3.

They landed, once again on the back foot as the Apex charged into their space. Its massive arms came down in an overhead slam, leaving cracks in the floor and shaking the foundations of the already trashed building. The shapeshifter had leapt to one side, only to launch themself into the chest of the apex as they dodged another wild swing.

Faster than they expected, J-3 found the arm of the rabbimpanzie rocketing into their chest as it then launched them into the air. For moments in a heartbeat’s span, the Polymorph simply… Watched. A plan had already taken root in their mind, and they prepared their body accordingly.

J-3 watched impassively as the Apex leapt up at them, leaving small craters in the ground as its immense mass rushed up into the air. And then, they acted: ink whorling over their face as a newly formed pair of jaws yawned open. When the rabbimpanzee collided with J-3’s form, their neck flexed against the shoulder that sought to choke them up. The bone blade ridge on the dorsal (the top) side of their skull sliced through flesh, muscle, and then collided roughly with bone. Something in their chest cracked, and the roaring scream that they had been keening, stuttered.

Lightning fizzled along their spine, rippling down from their torso as nerves disconnected from the biological whole. Their roar stopped entirely, cutting off with a sharp, shrieking chirp. The room, for a moment, fell silent.

And then the Apex fell from its surging leap, clutching a twitching J-3 that seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be dead already. The rabbimpanzee turned and began stalking back towards its creator, leaving the now seemingly limp reptilian body of its foe to hang from its shoulder; an awful trophy of visceral, if brief, combat.

Jane sputtered out a last few breaths as she looked at J-3 and the Apex, more a product of leftover gaseous agents than any real attempt at oxygenating herself. Her mangled body spread across iron brambles, flesh necrotizing rapidly due to her being unaccustomed to the toxins. The face she had borrowed from Kiran struggled to look down at the real Dr. Kingsley, the tendons and arteries in its neck using themselves like tentacles to prop up her skull. It had something in its mouth, flesh, fur, and gristle; a piece of forearm from the rabbimpanzee that she chewed slowly, deliberately, making eye contact with Kingsley as she swallowed, life leaving her body.

The male Doe screamed in horror, a dismayed braying noise that sounded like a donkey having intercourse with a hyena. Its voice emanated from the skylight his arrival had created. A vortex of conflicting emotions settled into Doe as his mouth contorted and his form shifted, coughing up a rolled-up bear skin in the process. The skin hit the floor with a wet thud, rolling into the corner of the joist space as he unfolded himself from his hiding spot, falling to the ground in the center of the bramble patch; the phantom taste of rabbimpanzee still in his mouth, despite it not being the one he had used to take the bite. He retrieved Jane’s head from the mess and sighed as a whirlwind of intent rushed into it, flesh knitting itself back together until Kiran’s serenely sleeping face sat in the palm of his hand.

Ink pulsed over the whole of J-3’s form, shocking some of the still living cultists into movement. Brightly glowing bioluminescent markings rippled to life over J-3’s flesh, with their armor pulsing in rapid flashing colors. Their flesh was now dotted with oddly ovoid nodules, each of which had a trailing line of pale gray-blue tissue connecting them.

Doe’s eyes flashed with recognition, “Oh fuck.” He bowled Jane’s head straight up, sending it full of intent soaring through the hole in the roof.

The Apex had enough time to ‘hrrf?!’ with surprise, before a crackling, electric ‘ZAP!!!’ rippled through the room. J-3s form lit up brilliantly, each nodule revealing its purpose as a roughly grapefruit sized sack of specialized cells, along with holding some of the same compounds found in a firefly.. Similar in function and form, even, to a species of South American freshwater eel. From their mouth, their claws, and the base of their tail, pitch black salt water began to pour. Gallons of it, sloshing off their body and spraying in all directions.

The electrical current hit Doe, carried along by the saltwater, causing his muscles to contract violently. His heart ruptured as muscles spasmed, bones breaking in kind, eyes melting, even frying his brain. The Apex’s bodily system was, politely, not quite robust enough to keep up with both being electrocuted with enough volts to knock elephants twice as big as the apex down, alongside a sudden drowning.

J-3’s victorious roar as they rode the Apex to the ground like a predator would a large herbivore was proof enough of that.

They had felt the beast’s breathing stop, felt its heart stutter to a halt; thus their confidence was thorough: the mutant was dead, surely. It was nearly silent for a moment, the shock having put out most combatants; even the pigeons had momentarily ceased their cooing.

“What fun!” Intent slowly coalesced around Doe’s burnt corpse as his flash-fried throat struggled to get the words out. Its arm lurched upward, ulna sticking out at an odd angle as it pointed an index finger toward the sky. “Re-mind-ss me of Tox-cat-lll.” A bolt of elation crashed down from the sky, invisible to the unawakened eye. The skull with Kiran’s face on it landed in the corpse’s upraised hand. The corpse smiled at the actual Kingsley, gesturing with his chin at J-3 and the Apex, all the while metaphysical Haze and cloying physical smoke poured from its mouth, “Seems mine was bigger.”

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

The snakes dispersed, driven by nothing but instinct and an insatiable hunger for human flesh, a hunger that very few ever experienced. Hunger that required one to understand the nuance of starvation, and to make a horrific choice to avoid that fate. Most of them were cleaned up, made short work of by the bars' genetically enhanced patrons. The unluckiest of the patrons, however, had pod-shaped growths in his ears, tumors that picked up on 2.4 gigahertz frequency, and he was currently on the toilet rocking out to the song that had started playing throughout the club.

Doe hated to murder someone while they were on the john, but she was working and there was no room for mercy in her line of work. A tiny iridescently scaled reptile made its way into the stall, biting the man and injecting him with a sample of stored neurotoxins J-3 had created. The man slumped to the ground immediately, his enhanced physiology unable to keep up with the slurry of harm that the Thinker had created. Jane hopped down from the rafters, fluttering her pigeon wings as they shifted into arms and landing in the stall. The snake turned and bit her, its body going limp as it made contact, being subsumed into Doe's as suddenly as it struck.

The man before her was butt-ugly, function taking precedent over form as he made bodily modifications, and for some absurd reason, he had entirely removed his neck. It was no wonder these people were wanted dead or alive; they were disgusting. She placed a hand on the man's stomach, sliding her hand up to his bare chest. Digging her fingers into his flesh, she pulled her arm back, taking his skin off in one fluid motion, sending his body slumping to the floor. "Let's see here. There's a specialized tissue giving off identifying secretions... Not near the pineal, then the pituitary perhaps?" She continued haruspicy for several moments before finding what she was looking for.

---

There was a pause as Kiran threw open the back doors and entered the room. The male Doe extricated himself from the wall that he had been thrown into, the poor thing looking both confused and hurt; one of its horns missing after the violent collision with the club interior. He stood up woozily and shook his head as if it would shake off the fatigue from all his recent activity. He raised a hand to the missing horn, rubbing the spot where it would've sprouted from his head and letting out a low whine. Pigeons continued to filter in at regular intervals until it seemed as if every pigeon in the Undercity had gathered at Cortex. One of the more handsome birds began to coo, and several females responded in kind, prompting their fellows to act; before long, there was a constant dissonance of pigeon sounds that was audible in the lulls between musical notes.

Jane pressed her foot against the door, kicking it open as she practically skipped into the main room of the club, moving with the undeniable swagger of someone on their own turf. She found herself nearly halfway between J-3 and Kiran, her appearance tweaked to resemble none other than Kiran Kingsley himself. The mimicry wasn't perfect; she'd acquired cult pheromones but had no way of creating a tinker alloy tail. Instead, it was an osseous frame covered with an iron shell she copied from a particular gastropod, then colored with pigments. She had rolled the sleeves up to her elbows on her white dress shirt, the left arm halfway buttoned. Polka-dotted red suspenders supported black pants that led to bare feet, all with a lab coat thrown haphazardly over everything.

She used Kiran's borrowed face to look around the club as she walked, "Well!? You heard me, this is going to take some time, so get to it! Whoever disposes of these eye-sores will be rewarded with a lifetime supply of my chems, and oh, what the hell, bring the velociraptor thing in alive, for vivisection, and I'll even throw in some biomods, as a treat." She hooked a thumb back at J-3. When no one immediately moved, her tail darted out, coiling around the legs of one of the unfortunate souls who didn't flee. She held him upside down, so that his face roughly aligned with her own. "Perhaps a little chemical assistance will get my point across." Her hand went into the lab coat, producing a grainy red powder that she blew into the man's face. "Anyone who flees or doesn't act will be dosed with Berzerk, which I don't recommend, as those who metaphorically lose their heads in this fight, will likely do so quite literally. Have fun, my dearies."

Her tail relaxed, dropping the wolf-faced man she had been holding. For a moment, he didn't move, his eyes staring at something far, far away; then the Wiindigo overtook him. Crouching down, he sprang at Jane, who used her tail to bat him away from Kiran. The man scrambled upright and threw himself at a nearby trio of lizard-like men, sinking his teeth into one of their necks. The remaining two took a few steps back and reached for their autoguns, spraying bullets at the man, filling him full of holes as a keenly amplified sense of fear caused ricochets and stray shots to be fired at J-3.

The wolf-face man kept chewing right up until his body went limp, at which point one of the lizardmen turned and bit his companion, who dropped his weapon and bit back. The two scuffled for a half second more before hissing and redirecting their rage at nearby gang members. Another spray of hastily fired bullets went through Cortex, chaos breaking loose as an infectious psychosis swept through the bar patrons, as cult members attacked J-3 in a desperate bid to acquire Kiran's tinkertech.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jemma hadn’t really expected a lot out of the day. After all, getting kidnapped within hours of reuniting with people that were family really left her… Unsure of how to approach the world. She had wanted to hope that the furry-legged woman who approached her was normal. That’s all. Just a little hope!

Having Jane Doe crackle and snap her shape into a distinctly monstrous recreation of her own already unique physiology was not anywhere on the list of things expected today. It wasn’t surprising, per se, just unexpected. And deeply irritating.

The instincts in Jemma’s psyche hissed, writhing in her thoughts like worms on a salt pile. “It threatens! Subjugate— Oh— Is that a f—”
Jemma screeched, letting the whirling bloom of [Indignation-Confusion] run wild in her chest. “Is that a FUCKING BEAR?!”

Ink pulsed in her core as her voice ripped into the air, stretching fractal veins of pitch running along her flesh with each beat of her heart. Her form shifted, quieter perhaps than Jane’s, but no less rapid. Hair became bristled fur, layered throughout with barbs to hook into skin and fur, and coated with an anticoagulant venom. Another pair of limbs rose from her torso as it extended, ending in three-toed claws in the shape of daggers. Her first pair of arms slid behind this new pair and resolved into legs that were almost tiger-like in shape.

Jane paused for a second, her steps slowing to a halt, head tilted to the side as the other shapechanger became battle-ready. “You threw off that human suit quickly enough; perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

Jemma’s hind legs followed suit, taking on that tiger-like shape, before the whole of her form began to swell in size. Five feet and seven inches in height became seven feet, which then became nine at the shoulder. Scales erupted over her body, growing into thick scutes on her extremities and along her spine, neck, and back. Those same scutes, vaguely turtle-like, began growing fur in the spaces between, which would break off like a tarantula’s. The difference was the agonizingly potent neurotoxic venom they would secrete when lodged.

A tail whipped out behind her, stretching out from her spine and growing in length until it was longer than her body. Once it was her body length, and then half of that again, the growing stopped. The latter quarter of the tail ended in an odd, blade-like length of bone and enamel. It too was coated in scales, scutes, and quill-fur, and had an oddly eel-y quality. All together, she had become some fifteen feet in length.

Her skull changed last, lengthening and broadening until she bore a snout that resembled something like the offspring of a stork, a snapping turtle, and a shark. She had a beak, one that was lined with triangular protrusions and backed by additional triangular fangs. There was no tongue, only an adjustable tube that sat near the back of the mouth, like a snake. The ridges of her head were heavily armored, and so were the sides of her neck. With a pulse of pitch, a pair of horns rose from the sides of her head, seeming to curl down and protect her jaws like a helmet, before jutting forward.

Lastly, Jemma’s eyes shifted, ink whorling into the sockets as the changes finished. She had four small yet powerful optical organs, that were beady little things. Two settled where one would expect them to rest on a turtle's face, while the others took shape on her second pair of shoulders.

Muscles flexed and tendons groaned as the ink writhed away, leaving the changes for all to see. Her eyes locked on Jane, on the waves and ripples the other shapeshifter left in that otherworldly vision, just long enough to mark her position. The special agent sat eerily still as she met Jemma’s gaze, the sort of stillness that did not normally exist in nature, no heartbeat, no breath, just horizontally slitted eyes watching and assessing.

Then, Jemma— As the world began to slide back, so that her instincts could drive— turned and met the massive ursine, giving it an apoplectic roar of challenge as she leapt upwards. Her landing zone of choice? Its spine, if she timed her pounce right.
J-3 would rip the flesh apart.

The bear growled, low and guttural, instinct begging it to rear up so that it could meet its opponent. Jane’s will held stronger than any instinct, and instead the bear faltered and froze, as if it would fall over with the slightest provocation. As J-3 soared down, perfectly on target, the bear’s body spasmed, shoulders and ribcage breaking themselves open as sinew and bone met with her impact.

There was a beat of surprise from the shapeshifter, before viscera flew. Toxins were delivered through J-3's defensive hairs, and her claws sheared through flesh, causing rivulets of blood to pour, but despite the carnage, the bear’s bones continued to move. Gnashing jaws made of broken ribs clamped down on Jemma wherever they could, the end of its spine wrapping around two of her forelimbs like a constrictor. Then the bear started to claw its way to Northbridge, dragging the two of them forward.

“What in Shieldtown is so important anyways?” Jane goaded from a short distance away, hooves keeping pace with the bear as it started to slow. “People who claim to be your friends? People who aren’t like you and could never even begin to realize what it’s like to be you. People who don’t share your hunger.” Her throat made several changes, and she probed further, ”People who don’t trust you to control it.”

J-3 remained silent, one eye indignantly noting Jane as she avoided joining the melee. The hooved lady smiled earnestly in response, pearl-white teeth clashing with caramel-colored skin as her doe eyes looked the shapechanger up and down. The bear's movements started to falter, blood pouring from its mouth, ears, and nostrils as its body rapidly underwent neurotoxic failure. The trapped shapeshifter continued their silence, staring balefully at Jane while the not-a-bear’s body ceased to move.

“Can you blame them?” Doe reached into her inner suit pocket and produced a cigarette case. She flicked it open and grabbed a cigarillo. “People like us? We’re monsters.” Doe flicked the case closed and returned it to her pocket, “Ishkwaase.”

The bearskin beast began to stir, as if Jane’s words alone granted it strength. Two extra forelimbs clawed their way out of its flesh, and despite J-3 pulverizing its lower half, the beast began to crawl again, leaving a bloody smear in its wake. Neurotoxins flowed through its blood, bright red arterial sprays pumping blood into the dirt as it began to pick up speed, flesh scraping onto the ground as it moved.

It assumes. Speaks too much. No creed. No geas. Seems… Impulsive... Is Leashed? Irrelevant. … Seeks emotional instability. Not good enough. ‘Mother’ better. J-3 thought, the embers of hate in their gut beginning to churn. A thought sparked in their mind, and rather abruptly, the turtle-tiger-shark shape they wore exploded with ink. Veins of pitch raced across the myriad bones holding them in place.

The special agent let out a low whistle of appreciation as she lit her cigarillo with a match and took a drag.

There was then a, perhaps unexpected, ‘ssssLSH!’ sound. The noise was akin to water pressing through a faucet: weak and soft at first before sunderingly loud. Calcium-phosphate and collagen, blood and plasma, even the provided enamel from the teeth that had latched onto her scutes; biological material rushed away from the not-a-bear and into her. The veins of ink pulsed twice, even as the bones of the puppet-monster seemed to fill in whatever J-3 stole.

That was fine; there was enough material for conversion. The ink receded as quickly as it came, before J-3 rammed their bladed tail and what available claws they had into the ground.

Jane wrinkled her nose, “You can’t eat bear meat raw like that, it’s too gamey! Not to mention thousands of years old. That is so gross.” She continued to feed flesh from her reservoir to the bear, carefully assessing how fast it was being consumed.

In that other vision, where [emotions] and [MANA] were more real than instincts and ephemera, a ring of concentric circles bloomed into existence at J-3’s feet. There were five circles in all, with writhing script fluttering along the exterior edges of each circle. The edges of the largest circle were only barely behind Jane’s hooves. With a snarling roar, J-3 physically twisted their upper torso, uncaring of the physiological damage wrought by yanking her shoulders, neck, and arms out of the grip of the not-a-bear.

Salty black water erupted into existence below them and the not-a-bear, rising up like a spontaneous geyser. Earth ripped, pulling itself up in chunks and flinging J-3, the not-a-bear, and Jane up into the air, tossing them away from each other.

As she was lifted off the ground, Jane hurriedly adjusted the proportions of her mouth and used her tongue to pull her cigarillo into it. As she soared through the air, she contemplated the morning sky, how the plates overhead couldn’t quite blot out the rising sun, and how she would rather have been anywhere but where she currently was. Landing on her hooves, suit soaked, hair coated in saltwater, mud on her boots, she spat the cigarillo back out and readjusted her mouth. The apakozigan mixture had remained lit, so she inhaled again, grabbing it out of her mouth with her left hand to admire the ember. “Small miracles, right?”

The last of the water fell to the ground, dousing the end of the special agent’s rolled tobacco medley. For a moment, she was too stunned to move, then she crushed the cigarillo with her hand. “Oh, ha-fucking-ha. That was my last smoke, and the guy who mixes my tobacco is out of town for the rest of the fucking week. I’m not going to be able to-” Crossing her arms, one of Jane’s hooves started to tap unrelentingly against the ground, something that should have been impossible with ungulate legs. “Mother is going to…” She glared at J-3, murder in her doe eyes, then turned to her bear companion; an explosion of emotions bubbling over into cold, ruthless logic. “Fine, we do this the hard way.”

The bearskin’s flesh finished being pulled over its bones, the fractured skeletal system snapping back into place, bones knitted together with fresh marrow. It stood up on its hind legs, just over twelve feet tall, and began to shrink, rapidly losing fur in the process. In just a few seconds, it resembled Jane exactly, except it was a man with impressive antlers, and completely naked. The deer and doe stood stock still for a few moments, left and right index fingers pointed toward the sky.

Jane’s furrowed brow relaxed as she exhaled, then took a deep breath, “Ambe!” The male let out an angry bellowing noise, starting low and then transitioning into a high-pitched shriek. The moment it opened its mouth, Doe sprinted forward, wings reminiscent of a mantid opening on her back, increasing lift and speed as she once again threw herself into a flip over J-3’s head.

At the apex of her jump, her left arm exploded into eight distinct tentacles, J-3 launched themselves upwards, maw open wide to snap shut around the woman’s torso. Then each one of Jane’s tentacles dove into the ground around her target, creating an octagonal prism. Every tentacle sprouted another eight tentacles, crisscrossing the others, before suddenly constricting towards J-3.

One trunk-tentacle whipped around J-3’s throat, wrenching their head to the side as it sprouted its branches. Their snapping jaws closed around empty air. Hate bloomed in their heart, especially when that Fucking. Deer. Made its own move.

The deer version of Jane sprinted forward, spit flying from its mouth as it continued to bellow at an ever-increasing pitch. It collided with the constricting tentacles, tearing them from Jane’s arm as it leaped into the air, membranous wings unfolding from its back as it soared into Northbridge proper.

Jane landed, raising her now missing arm to the sky, envisioning herself still holding her finger pointed toward the sky. Several pigeons landed on her shoulders, the rest not far behind.

---

Glass shattered throughout Northbridge, an ultrasound shriek emanating from the biomass speeding through the air on dozens of pairs of jittering dragonfly wings. It crashed into Cortex, smashing unceremoniously through the roof, upper level, and landing on the base floor, turning a literal toad of a man into paste as it did. The bellowing lowered to levels audible to human ears, shattering every glass in the room, then died off altogether. Several patrons seemed unfazed by the biological monstrosity, but it drew confused stares from the rest.

A brightly-feathered bartender wondered idly if it had something to do with Kiran being here, and if that made it one of his pets. There was something that itched at the back of his mind about Kiran’s best pets, but he couldn’t quite place it. Pigeons flew in after the beast, no doubt looking to make homes in the rafters. He sighed, at this rate, he would be the one climbing up there to deal with the pests.

The writhing tentacles relaxed, extricating themselves from the mass, before losing suckers and growing scales, teeth, and fangs. The newly formed snakes dispersed into the bar, turning on its patrons, leaving only the male Doe standing next to J-3 as they rose, all while hissing and seething furiously; their form becoming more unnatural and yet taller. Their tail thrashed, slamming against Doe and throwing him into the nearest wall. Their head rippled with ink, only became more like an action movie “velociraptor” while a pair of sharpened bone-blade crests rose from the tip of the snout.

Ink whirled over the body of J-3, before their changes settled. Two arms, two legs, hardened plates of calcified enamel as body-armor— not terribly dissimilar to a modernized set of S.W.A.T. armor in a way— and six digits on each limb with wicked sickle claws. Only two eyes, though the pupils were five pointed stars in seas of purple-orange.

A furious shrieking roar sundered the quiet of the room, following on the heels of the male Doe’s screeching.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Jane frowned at Jemma. She gripped one wrist loosely, the bear skin slipping over both of her hands as she let out a sigh. "No, we haven't met before. A little birdy told me your name." Idly kicking a stray rock, Jane grumbled, "And I lost my phone earlier today. There was a... software issue." She stuck her tongue in her cheek, biting down on it lightly while she thought about what to do next. "I warned them that people tend to be inherently wary of me, especially Thinkers. What to do, what to do..."

She shifted her bear skin to one arm, scratching the back of her head with her free hand, "Agh, this is so freakin' annoying!" Her foot tapped impatiently against the ground while she wondered what would happen if she just went home. Panopticon flashed through his head, along with the glut of psychic information she delivered when they lost their target in Argentina; it still gave her a headache to think about. What in hell even was a Labubu? "Whatever," Jane turned, as if she meant to walk away, taking a few steps in the opposite direction from Jemma. Her emotions went wild, voices screaming to eat, while others whimpered to be spared.

She took a few more steps, then threw her bear skin into the air, causing it to splay out and hover in the air for far longer than a bear skin should have been able to. Halting, but still facing away from Jemma, she put her hands on her hips and straightened out to her full height. "Perhaps I wasn't clear. I am Special Agent Doe, and pursuant to HR-4272, the Undercity cleanup initiative, you are to accompany me to Northbridge now, causing no further delays. We're already late." Jane's rampant emotions boiled away, leaving one single thought: Violence.

The bear skin began its descent to the ground, and in that same moment, without turning around, Jane made her move. Her joints dislocated, snapping back into place wrong, and extending with great force, launching herself at Jemma and closing the gap in several disjointed strides. She stopped in front of Jemma, bringing one knee up, as if ready to kick, but instead brought that foot down, launching herself in an arc over Jemma. "Naazh," Jane looked up (which was currently down) and pointed at her target before landing behind it.

The bear skin finally fell to the ground, just a few feet from where Jane had thrown it, its flesh filling out the skin until it stood larger than any extant species of bear. Wasting no time to follow orders, its claws found purchase in the dirt, and the over two-ton beast charged at Jemma, intent on forcing her back.

"Just help the poor deer, Jemma." Jane spoke in a borrowed voice behind her target, as the voices in her head screamed in terror. Memories of being eaten alive by a creature very much like Jemma flashed vividly as she moved, hands clasped behind her back, feet dancing backward, ready to lead the way to Northbridge. Those voices were quickly drowned out by excited laughter, like hyenas jostling for food, and Jane became suddenly aware that the noise was bubbling up from her throat.

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

John frowned down at his phone. As technology advanced, it became increasingly difficult to misinterpret what they were saying. Lately, the kind little machine spirit that lived on the phone would even read aloud messages you received, which had led him to his current predicament.

“Special Agent Doe: Report immediately for assignment pursuant to HR-4272; attendance is mandatory.”

“I heard you the first time Xeri. Make it stop, block the number, or whatever.”

“It is part of the Emergency Alert System and cannot be disabled.”

He took a deep breath. That was the problem with the government these days: always looking to stick its nose into facets of life that were previously considered sacred, just like in the 19th century. He cocked his arm back and threw the phone, watching it soar into the sky and disappear behind several particularly ominous-looking buildings. For a few seconds, all he could think about was being rid of the earsplitting alert sound. Then he remembered that he had been using that phone to find his way to a seafood buffet.

“Son of a-” John jerked his head to the right thirty degrees, a rifle bullet barreling through where it had just been.

“I told you he wouldn’t come quietly.” An Echo-Zero unit landed in front of John, one of the newest corporate enforcers, its propulsion system throwing up a cloud of dirt as it did. ØTech brand drones came crawling out of the woodwork, no less than a hundred, not that it mattered; thousands of them wouldn’t change the outcome of this fight. After a moment he realized he had crossed paths with the person in the corporate mech before.

“Well, what have we got here?” John pursed his lips and let out a low droning whistle, eerily similar to a cicada. “Long time no see! Did ya ever find Lou?” He braced himself to move, ready to cover the distance in a few inhuman strides. The Ech0 unit readied herself on reflex, one spear held reverse, as if it would give her a fighting chance. He darted forward, a hail of bullets going up from the drones, tiny pinpricks of hot metal tearing through his flesh as he moved. A spear stabbed into his shoulder, the one she’d been holding in the reverse, then it exploded into white-hot fire.

“That’s new,” He mused before ducking the second spear and grabbing Ech0 by her throat. He held her off the ground, his proportions seeming to grow and extend as her feet moved further from the ground. Burned flesh sloughed from his shoulder, falling to the ground unceremoniously.

A voice crackled to life from each of the drones, “I didn’t say he’d come quietly. I said there was a .00012 percent chance he refused our offer.” The words echoed out of the drones, the ones furthest away seeming to whisper. It was a familiar voice. He let go of Ech0’s neck.

---

Doe laid lazily in the dirt, his stomach protesting his current assignment. Why should he have to chase a rabbit when there was plenty of food in Shieldtown, just right behind him? Not that he was going to argue with his current handler. He figured it was an infinitely smaller headache to just do as he was told and get it over with.

“She’s approaching.”

He didn’t move. There was a particularly fat pigeon fluttering about in the eaves of a nearby building. He thought briefly about the plight of the bird, having been almost entirely reliant on humans before they were deemed obsolete and made pests; that thought was quickly replaced by what the pigeon would taste like, and whether or not it was worth the energy expenditure to catch it.

“If you don’t leave now you’re going to miss her.” The handler was starting to sound annoyed.

Pursing his lips, he lifted a hand and let out a cooing noise. The pigeon responded in kind, flying down to alight on his fingers. It was cute; the tail feathers wildly frilled out, some kind of designer pigeon. They stared at each other for a moment, sharing a few silent words. He put his palm on the bird's back, cradling it in his hands and jumped to his feet. “Run this by me one more time, Panopticon. I need to intercept Jemma and funnel her back to Northbridge… Why exactly? How does that help me catch my rabbit?”

His handler scoffed, ire slowly building in her voice, “You don’t need to know the full plan, you just need to know it was approved by command and executed flawlessly in all the simulations. Not that any of that matters because you are [missing] your window.”

“Hmm…” Doe pondered that notion for a moment. The pigeon flew away with purpose.

“Three… Two… One… You missed her. You no longer have enough time to catch her. Mission failed. The boss is going to be so pissed. Remind me to have you executed for insubordination.”

“After I intercept Jemma, you go elsewhere to execute the next part of the plan, like the briefing said? ”

“Yes, but you can’t possibly catch her anymore.”

Doe smiled smugly and allowed his thoughts to clear.

“Are you fucking with me right now? You were half-assing it for all of Argentina. Why!?”

“Thinkers are overpowered. It's half the reason I’m even here.” He stretched his arms and set himself into a runner’s stance, phalanges forming themselves into ones more suited for a dead sprint. “The easiest way to trip your type up is to feed them bad info. Now give me room to work.” Doe launched themself into action, their body making alterations as necessary.

---

Doe landed in the no man’s land between Shieldtown and Northbridge, directly in Jemma’s projected path. She took a few moments to make final adjustments to her body. Long raven-colored hair pinned back tight, her sunkissed skin extended down to her waist, where it turned to dark almost black fur, ending in hooves. She matched her height to that of her suit, making her just over six foot, and folded the bear skin over her arm like an overcoat.

Jemma could be seen in the distance, leaving the Ripper hideout at exactly the time Panopticon had given. Doe frowned, “Let’s get started then.”

She waved at the person in the distance, smiling as she called out, “Bonjour.” She took a few more quick strides forward, no malice or ill intent behind the movement, just the look of someone eager to see an old friend. “I’m Jane Doe and I was wondering if you knew this area well, Jemma?” She smiled and took a few more tentative steps forward, then several to the right. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. They’re an albino rabbit. It’s quite a bother really, I took too long getting ready and now I’m running late.” She continued walking as she talked, so that Cortex was straight ahead, into the city, with Jemma in between. “It won’t take long.”

Worldbreaker

Vorona

《 Vorona Gerasimov 》

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❖ February 14th, 27 ❖ Female ❖



A P P E A R A N C E:

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- Standing at 6’1 / 185cm, Vorona can be hard to miss, a problem which is only compounded by her need to dress in clothing that demands attention. Her ears tend to hide amongst the mess of unkempt hair, though there is no mistaking her wolfish smile. More often than not, her clothing has stray tufts of dog fur stuck to it.

Her dogs go everywhere with her, and she rarely shows up to a job without her white and black Magitech Spear, affectionately dubbed Fragarach. The nearly ten-foot-long hunk of metal ends in spiraling dual points of ivory and vantablack. Vorona and her dogs both sport compatible Magitech to provide general utility to the spear's power.

Gestalt Morph:
Wolf Therian. Sporting canine ears, pronounced fangs, and a tail that can seem to have a mind of its own.

"You'd think after spending thousands on a suit, they would find a material that didn't inevitably get covered in dander."

B I O G R A P H Y:

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- Vorona grew up in a fairly affluent neighborhood located safely on the outskirts of the Silicon Fortified Valley. Her life was relatively uneventful until her freshman year of college when a Mage Alumni drowned and slaughtered half her class.

She found it hard to get back into education afterward. She dropped out, drifting slowly southward with a few classmates who also survived the slaughter, eventually ending up in the New Hono Complex working as a Fixer. It wasn't long before she made a name for herself, taking to social media for every job that would allow it. It wasn't long before @FairVerona became a pseudo-celebrity in New Hono.

"All publicity is good publicity babe."

P E R S O N A L I T Y:

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Snarky and cocky to a fault, Vorona is just as comfortable ruffling feathers as she is at running down prey. Easily amused, and more than eager to let people know, she can often be found at the bar after work, barking out peals of laughter in between drinks.

She is more professional in the field, but only to people she deems worth her time, which generally boils down to those with a greater social media following. Unless of course, she deems their content "hacky," though her definition of which changes like the wind.

"We should do a stream together sometime! If we market it right we could double our fanbase overnight. Think it over. Here's my number for when you come to the right decision."

A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:

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❖ Fathom level: High ❖ Hemomancy, Fleshwarping ❖

Vorona focuses on biological manifestations of magic, altering the physiology of herself or her pets and then tearing things apart, rather than using magic directly on her enemies. Her pack works as a unit to bring down larger prey, a tactic that has made her a first choice for Kaiju suppression missions.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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In @FairVerona we set out story, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. Whole misadventured piteous overthrows; Like and Subscribe for more content! You can follow Ulfr and Ylgr at @Старшинароти for more of their off-hour antics. Stay hungry my #MurderOfWolves ~ !

Face claim: Lappland | Arkknights

Magic Color/ Hex Code: Darkslateblue | #483d8b

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Astrid frowned slightly while looking at Wolf. She pondered how to answer the question, running her her left hand through her mess of raven hair, subconsciously working her fingers through a tangle. "Uhhh...." She drew a blank before puffing out both of her cheeks and admitting, "No. Not really. If I had any of the sort, I wouldn't have came to you." Crossing her arms, she added lamely, "I don't like asking people for help..."

Never one to be deterred, she clapped a hand onto Wolf's shoulder, "I assume the brute force attempt counts as 'too big' of disturbance?" In an instant Astrid shifted, her skin becoming a whirling pool of quicksilver. "Then... I don't suppose you could add a motorcycle to the freight manifest?"

The Scottish woman's form whirled before rising up slightly, like a mini tsunami, crashing down onto the bike, engulfing it in a wash of silver liquid. Then, in half a second, her form stabilized the bike, its engine letting out a low drone as the turbine started up. "You might also need to cause a distraction so no one notices a bike driving itself onto the elevator."

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

"You know your Tafsirs. Lockdown would be pleased."

Astrid did her best to appear blank-faced as she thought backward from their conversation to try and piece together the meaning of the word Tafsir. For a moment she thought about asking, but the notion was as lost as quickly as it came. 'Just another name for the Classics I guess.'

The hologram continued circling her, disappearing behind her then suddenly jittering back into view. Its words seemed to resound deep into her bones, a sound she could feel as much as hear. Her gaze followed her assessor's as it swept across the veritable pack of robo-hounds and their sleek designs; their charm was undeniable. She suddenly became aware that Megahertz had finished talking, a moment passed before the words she had heard fully registered. "Wait... You want me to investigate the Justice Square bombing?!"

Her right hand balled into a fist, a reflexive ripple running along her arm as she unconsciously shifted her form. "I don't know anything about what happens topside, I haven't been to the surface-" The rest of her words were swallowed as quickly as they rose. "In a while," she finished lamely. Scrutinizing the hologram, Astrid suddenly cursed how impersonal video calls could be. Did this person know she had come from the surface, that her family had ties to the Corpos? The whole thing suddenly felt like a set-up, she knew better than to trust the Ripperdocs in the Undercity, and yet...

"I'll find them. Whoever orchestrated the whole shebang." A wolfish grin spread across her face, "Pun intended." Esme had probably heard something up on the plates, at least more than most slum dwellers, which already gave her a lead. If that was supposed to be one of those impossible Herculean labours, Megahertz was going to be sorely disappointed.

Closing her eyes, she extended an index finger to the sky and rattled off part of the bedtime stories that she had first heard the name Jahannam from, "Danger, mine to overcome, and in recognition of such valorous acts, an audience with the King will be granted that the true measure of one's character may be taken." Her eyes opened again, fixed on Megahertz, her demeanor lax with sudden ease now that she had actual work to do, "I don't suppose you have a lead? Or some sort of Bloodhound unit among these dogs?"

Titan's Fall: The Abyssal Paradox

Astrid tried to watch with disinterest as the robotic mutt ran off, instead she felt an inexplicable need to follow the creature, even though her sister had advised her against following strangers to secondary locations. Biting the inside of her cheek, she mulled her options over. It could have easily been a trap, certainly, but at this point she was basically lost, clueless as to where in Northbridge she could find the people she was looking for. The robo-dog, at least, seemed to be headed somewhere, the question was whether or not it intended to try and eviscerate her once they were there.

There was only one way to find out. The engine of her bike hummed along, almost silently as she followed the canine further into town, around a corner, and into a dark alleyway. More hounds came pouring out of the proverbial (and literal) brickwork. They all appeared the same, except for one, which joined her on street level. Despite being veritably surrounded, she felt relatively nonplussed. The most pressing issue was whether or not they'd damage her bike if things got dicey.

The robotic hound that was not like the others emitted a beam of light. The light coalesced into a video feed, cloaked figure staring back at her, a deep void where its face should have been. With a bored expression on her face, she resisted the urge to make a comment about the importance of a firm handshake when meeting someone for the first time. With the adrenaline from earlier starting to leave her, she wondered what time it was. She had ridden here nonstop from the Ripper's, if she was forced to hazard a guess, she'd have assumed afternoon, but the chronic fog made it hard to tell an exact time. Thinking about it for a moment, she realized she'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours now; she fought back the urge to yawn.

The individual in the projected video interrupted her thoughts with a proclamation. "So you're the one who tore through the blockade in Bridge Street, I am Megahertz. I speak for JAHANNAM."

Astrid's eyes lit up, her posture suddenly straightening out as she did her best to appear as if she hadn't just been daydreaming about where the best place to nap would be.

"And we were watching."

The projection started to circle her. She didn't move, letting the figure move in and out of her sight; watching Megahertz too intently would be interpreted as weakness. Instead, she forced herself to relax, standing with a casual ease while she waited.

"You were crude. Messy. And the collateral damage you've left behind will cost a fortune of time and money to SILENCE…!"

She rolled her eyes, ever so slightly, 'Starting to sound like Esme.'

"...But I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't… inspiring. Such spectacle and disaster you have left in your wake, Stranger. Who are you, and why have you come to Northbridge?"

With a smug look, Astrid scratched the back of her head, "Well, shit, if you thought watching was a thrill, you should enjoy a BD featuring some of my more... artisanal work." It wasn't often that people appreciated her; she'd been pulling her younger siblings out of the holes they'd dug so often, they had grown to expect it. The thought of her family reminded her why she was in Northbridge, and all mirth left her face.

"I'm looking for work, sort of... My," her middle and index fingers curled into air quotes, “superhero name,” her hands dropped to her side, one of them resting on her hip, “is really lame. It essentially translates out to fucked up monster, or something like that.” Her free hand started to nervously fidget with a stray strand of her hair, like it always did when she thought about the name the SPA had branded her with. “Just call me Astrid.”

She contemplated explaining everything to the enigmatic projection, including the fact that she was technically a representative of a faction on the Plates, but decided to keep it succinct. "Word on the street is, Lockdown takes care of his crew. Not only that, but your turf is also one of few that the Horde respects enough to stay out." Cocking her head to the side, she continued, "Disregarding all that, I'm interested in the type of person holding JAHANNAM’s reins."

Crossing her arms, she stared directly at the hologram, where its eyes would have been, were it a human. "Al-Qurtubi once said that wherever Jahannam goes, the uninitiated will hear its fury and roaring. When the eschaton comes, God will ask Jahannam if it is full, and it will answer, 'Are there yet more to consume?'"

​It was silent for a moment, even the ambient sounds of Northbridge seemed to fade away, then Astrid broke the silence by barking out a laugh, "Sounds like a riot of a good time to me."