Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Didn't back up my hardrive and lost most of my progress (that wasn't already uploaded). I still work on it occasionally, but not particularly frequently.
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Yeah well, what can you do?
Anyone heard from Doliest? Tygre and Executor have vanished as well, but I expect it from them. And I need more updates to be able to keep the game moving.
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Could you repost what you got? I wanna try something with our fan fic side bits. Making a joint fan fic.net account or something to keep track of them all. Not a plot to get us featured on Equestria Daily.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
This is all I could find, without doing an archive trawl. If it helps, I'll write the next chapter.
Spoiler
"So that's about it," said Twilight after explaining everything to her two friends she’d called here. "I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause the earthquake, if he stays up there who knows what might hit Ponyville next. I've tried doing research, but nothing in my books say anything about… whatever he talks about, for some reason. So all we can do is just put our heads together and work with what we have. I called you both, because Fluttershy is good with animals, and even though he’s not really an animal, neither are dragons, so maybe she can get through to him. And Pinkie dealt with those bugs a while ago."
Fluttershy was a quiet filly who expressed herself more through her eyes and the tone of her skin than she did with words. Her flesh had a hue of gold which made her look warm and precious as a sylph or spirit of nature, her mane and tail were a light, delicate shade of pink as soft as seafoam, and here eyes were budding with innocence and gentle understanding.
Fluttershy was almost painfully shy, sensitive and quiet, withdrawn when outside her area of expertise, and terrified of attention. She seemed soft and frail, almost vulnerable, as though a light breeze would make her dissipate, and even her wings were small and delicate.
Looking at her, one found oneself with an instinctive desire to adore and protect her, although she normally did her very best to avoid any attention whatsoever. Which is why she was utterly paralyzed at the moment.
Pinkie Pie was as far from this extreme as it was possible to be without the curvature of space placing you right back where you started. Unlike her withdrawn friend, her every action was larger then life, as though she was trying to encompass the entire world. She was small, with a feminine softness to her, fleshy rather then, due to her fondness for eating, she was extremely colorful and regularly loud. She never sat still, hyperactive to the point of over-stimulation, and was never capable of remaining still for more then a moment. She loves planning big parties, being the center of attention, and otherwise socializing.
She looks at her two friends blank expressions. “So ... any ideas?" said Twilight, a tiny bit desperately.
"Ooh ooh," said Pinkie Pie, suddenly brightening up and speaking a hundred miles per hour. "I've got a plan! We could throw a party! Everypony loves parties, and I’ll bet he does too! I've never met him before, but I’ll bet he still loves parties. We won't have anything to worry about then, no pony is sad or spooky at parties! And then you can tell him what you want, and he’ll be so happy he’ll do whatever you tell him!" She bounced up and down. "Come on, we should do it! I'll get the streamers and the cake! Do you think he eats cake? I’ll bet he does!"
“We’ll keep that in reserve.” Twilight replies, silently vowing that, no matter how stupid Fluttershy’s idea was, they’d go with that instead.
"Um ..." whispered Fluttershy. "I- I don't really think that… Well, I was thinking that we just have to approach it the right way." She says, lowering her eyes and mumbling a little. “We just have to find out what he wants, and then find a way for him to get it that won’t cause earthquakes.”
“That’s a great idea!” Pinkie replies. “What does he want?”
“Um… Should we ask him?”
“He doesn’t make any sense. He just uses a whole lot of made up words to describe things that don’t exist.” Twilight replies. “Trust me.”
“Something the matter, darlings?” Rarity asks, bustling in, her elaborately curled mane sparkling as she does. Rarity is Ponyville's premier designer, a fashionista and artist who uses clothes as her medium, and is another of Twilight’s closest friends since coming to live in Ponyville.
She’d been very busy recently, as Hoity Toity, Owner of the Best of the Best Boutique in Canterlot, had been preparing her designs for a tour, ranging from Manehattan to Stalliongrad to Fillydelphia. Meaning Rarity was looking at the opportunity of a lifetime, and that as the days creapt closer she was working so hard she had barely left her store in a month, except for her weekly spa with Fluttershy. Even the earthquake had passed her by, completely unnoticed.
“You all look downright miserable. Whatever can be the matter?”
* * * * *
Booted feet clamped across the shining metal floor, the panes of steel each fitted together so precisely and seamlessly that they were near totally smooth. Light streaked across the expansive observatory, gleaming out from the flames bellow, which hung in the curving window that dominated the chamber. The ceiling, that too silver, arced high above the head of the armored Titan.
He watched as the crust of the world below slowly beginning to fissure from the force of his blow, as fires bellow seethed and rolled on a sea of molten rock. The planets core was as expected. It was the rest of the world that was so strange.
The ground began to further crack and falter before the onslaught from within, as if the molten core of the planet had grown fists and was trying to relieve its imprisonment. Thanos sighed, and with a stream of energy replaced the cross section, leaving the ground once more as it had been, and ending the tremoring that was throwing around the surrounding regions. That hadn’t been likely anyway.
He considered the sun again, eyes staring into it’s depths without damage or need to look away, as he measured it’s emissions and energy. Again, they didn’t add up. The sun was too close, it should consume this world with it’s heat. And it was too small, it should burn out far sooner, and yet based on his dating it had burned ten thousand years already, despite being barely large enough to have sufficient gravity to hold itself together.
It just didn’t make sense. And that wouldn't do at all.
The mystery had taken over now, he meant to have answers before he left, one way or another. Perhaps if he...
"Hi!"
Thanos turned slowly, to face a small, pink abomination staring up at him brightly. Based on annalysis, it was the same age and species of the previous annoyance.
"How did you get there?" He asks, confused. They were hovering a hundred feet off the ground, and there were no enterances anyway. He would have sensed teleportation as the nearby reality was disttorted, and there was no way she broke through without him noticing. He would have noticed the stray energy from magic, so as far as he could tell there was no way she could be there.
There she was.
"I walked. You just do it, you know?" She replies, so guilelessly that it was impossible to suspect she was being anything but honest.
Thanos mannaged to keep from replying. It was a near thing. Pinki Pie, however, saw silence as a sin, and strove to fill it up as quickly as she could.
"Do you like parties?"
EDIT:
Here are the other bits:
Spoiler
He had been working on a personal project when she had abducted him. "It'll be fun! Come on, do something different." He couldn't refuse her anything. They both knew that. But that was a low blow.
He was not sure what they were celebrating, assuming that's what they were doing, or the significance of the date, or any of the other elements that brought this decision about. He could think of several possibilities, naturally, although none of them seemed likely. If he had to decide upon a catalyst, he would assume it was just her being herself.
He could understand the appeal. She had forever, and saw and knew everything. It was hard enough for him, and he had the merest fraction of what she did. To remain stable, you had to occasionally allow a sudden and extreme change. Abandoning her purpose and responsibilities for an irrelevant period was simply giving her the opportunity to do so.
Regardless of possible motives, she had taken him here, to this strange dimension, and made it plain the two of them would be here for an arbitrary period of time. So for a month, as the inhabitants measured things, nobody in any of the universes would be born or die, while the two of them existed... here.
Thanos began analyzing the interior with his extra senses, and quickly found the dimension to be a strange place. It was a tiny world, so small that when he utilized his advanced optics he could actually see the back of his head. No more then some dozen hundred kilometers in width then. And, in a valley near some rather severe topography, there was a village, inhabited by a race of quadpedal mammals in a variety of strange hues, who lived in a utopia, or at least a primitive approximation of one.
He places them at around zero point zero four on the great filter, and zero point zero point two on the Kardashev scale. If he was generous. Their society was inefficient and wasteful, with most of the production geared to purely irrelevant constructs, however given that any conceivable material want was within reach (at least, from their very, very limited perspective) he assumed that the roles only actually existed for the purpose of personal direction. He himself had little interest in society, or even spending time with other beings. But even as societies went, this one was lacking. They passed around valueless commodities but attached no value to any of them, giving them no purpose in the transference in the first place. It was all completely arbitrary.
Though it made sense, he supposed, inasmuch as any of their strange society did. He remained confused as to how they built the structures they lived in, given that they had no evidence of harvesting the raw materials for the purpose of construction, and lacked the ability to shape them given their forms and capabilities. All in all, when attempted to analyze them, he met several discrepancies that suggested he had only a fraction of what he needed to really comprehend anything he saw.
He was more confused as to the physics of the place, or lack thereof. It lacked the density and mass to produce a sufficient gravitational field, the atmosphere should be too thin to properly create the required patterns to even have wind, let alone allow them to breathe, and keep the suns rays from burning the planet to create a lifeless rock. At last he'd identified to minor godlings in the heavens, and realized that it was all simply a product of them, and he'd promptly lost interest. For a while, he'd thought of going up there and challenging them, but given the society they'd built he doubted that would actually serve as something to challenge him. And if one did not challenge and seek to surpass oneself, what was the point in anything?
She was having fun, of course, not bothering about any of this. The second she arrived, she transformed into a black and white pony with an Ankh birthmark and began frolicking with the rest, swallowing herself up in their games. He was a bit jealous at their attention, but managed to repress it and refocus. Given he had, as it were, nothing to do, he tried to find a problem to unravel. None of the ones he identified served to do more then irritate him at their inconsistencies. So he spent the first day focussing on the tiny pocket universe, deconstructing and reconstructing it until he was familiar with every inch at a sub-atomic level, understanding everything from the movement of tachyons to the various broken systems that made the world inhabitable for those not as advanced as he.
The next day, he began shifting elements to be more to his liking, without unduly effecting the inhabitants of this world. He didn't much care for them, but she did, and if he ruined their lives she'd be hurt. So reforming it all was hard, as there was precious little ambient energy he was able to manipulate to his will. Their sun was so small it should have burned out in exactly one rotation, and that was the least of it.
"Are you doing magic?" The creature that asked was diminutive, especially by his standards, and soft. If he did not expend significant effort when he touched it, it would break, crushed beyond recognition. It's skin was a shade very different to every other he'd seen so far, and more to the point it had a small nub of bone poking through it's hair at it's forehead. Based on the pheromones it was emitting it was female, based on the age of it's cells it was young and apparently it was too curious for it's own good.
They'd observed him before, but had the sense to let well enough alone, avoiding him for the most part, the way he preferred it. Apparently this one had no sense of self-preservation, or instead was too curious for what it had to make a difference. If natural selection existed on the planet, he would be doing ponies to come a favor by eliminating this one. But given they lived lives free of adversity, he supposed there was really no point. Eventually, some dimensional conqueror would come and then where would they be?
So he didn't respond. He had better things to do then waste time with a being who could not even begin process ten of the verb tenses to explain what he was doing, let alone how he was doing it.
"What are you doing then?"
He narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. "Attempting to reconfigure reality by influencing all matter present on the lowest possible level, to an extent that I can reform aspects of your world. I will then begin restructuring elements, causing alteration at it's most fundamental level. When I succeed, elements should become clearer as to why."
"..." Twilight Sparkle had no idea how to answer that. Thanos resumed his concentration. Realizing she would have to be more proactive to get this big thing to open up, Twilight Sparkle neighs softly. "Why what?" She asks at last.
"Why is the only question that matters. Why this exists. And that will lead me to how this exists, and so I should, if the whim ever took me, be able to recreate it." He replied, one tenth of his mental processing power that should be measuring the energy output of the sun and calculating how it seemed self-sufficient distracted from it's task by her and her questions, superlative mental concentration nonwithstanding. That was irritating.
"That seems silly."
"Does it." It's not a question, it's a closed statement, hoping it would close the conversation. He really had no interest in talking to her. Then again, he was not as a whole equipped for a conversation with another being.
"Well, yeah. There are so many more interesting things to dedicate time to. Like friends."
He pauses. His universal communicator was having trouble with that last word. He didn't actually understand her, so much as he read her mind and filtered it through several inhibitors to allow him to understand what she meant. It takes him a moment, then he shudders slightly. "What a terrible concept." He says, with genuine shock.
The pony laughs, not at all understanding how the idea of friends would sound to a failed attempt to create a supreme intelligence, that was driven by extreme nihlism to the point of being unable to see the value of anything that was not written in to the very fabric of reality. "I didn't have any friends at first, either. That's why Princess Celestia sent me here. Did she send you here as well?"
"No."
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that some people like different things to you, and sometimes the best intentions get taken the wrong way. But just because you don't understand something you shouldn't be scared of it.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle.
Spoiler
It was a glorious early afternoon in the village of Ponyville. The sky was clear, the birds were singing, not too hot, not too cold, the rodents were minding their manners...
And then the earth beneath them shook in a great quake as the earth shuddered at tremendous trauma. Shockwaves cracked buildings, knocked over trees and crumbled mountains. Buildings collapsed, trapping ponies aside, and when it finally came to a stop the village was completely demolished to rubble.
A tree house dwelling where lived the resident bookworm and organizer extraordinaire, Twilight Sparkle, protégé of the honorable Princess Celestia herself, was uprooted, the house that had been built between the branches completely gone.
An earthquake like this had never happened before in living memory. The ponies weren't sure what to do, so they all asked for ideas. And so time went on, many ideas were had, but the town remained demolished. Then Twilight Sparkle decided to ask the strange thing that had recently moved to the mountains. It seemed to know a whole lot of things no ponies knew. Maybe it could tell them what had happened, and how to fix it.
Thanos had completed his machine. The entire thing was like a giant, frictionless orb, rotating slowly in the air, so perfectly smooth it would be in perpetual motion with the slightest push. Thanos, however, was nowhere to be seen.
"Hello." Twilight Sparkle called cheerfully.
Thanos emerged. He was enormous, as tall as many trees, and covered in enormous slabs of muscle. His skin was dark bruise, his chin ridged, his eyes milky white pools as bleak and pitiless as the slopes of hell themselves, and the hard lines of his face setting his thin lips into something like a scowl. When he pushed his lips together, he seemed to have no lips at all.
When he didn't say anything, Twilight Sparkle spoke for both of them. "There was an earthquake, and all the buildings got destroyed."
"You have the means to make more."
"But many ponies don't have anywhere to live now, and are cold and frightened."
The Mad Titan was completely unmoved. "You have the means to make more of them as well."
Twilight Sparkle was completely untutored in that, so she simply stores it among the other questions she had to ask, and tried again.
"What should we do?"
"Death is as psychologically important as life. More so, if anything." He replies. "It is inevitable, and will come regardless of what you do. You live at the mercy of cosmic forces, of the laws of the universe. Any moment something beyond your understanding may choose to end your life, that you will be powerless to resist. As powerless as you are now. More so."
He steps closer, and towers over the pony that is desperately trying to digest his explanation. Contrary to many opinions, Thanos is not cruel. Merely completely indifferent about the lives of people in the universe. As he told her a moment ago, there are always more. Life had no trouble perpetuating itself. "A comet could come, and make your atmosphere unbreathable. Your world could collide with another, some multiversal conqueror might defeat your defenders and take your world for itself, this bubble may break down and move on without you. You might be scythed by ice, or fire, or conquest, and your world would end. So live for the moment. Because every moment you had was a gift."
"..." Twilight Sparkle doesn't know where to go with that. "What's Death?" She asked at last, but Thanos was gone.
She went back to the ruins, and helped fixing things.
Dear Princess Celestia,
... I'm not sure what I learned today, but whatever it was, it was definitely something important. Anyway, me and my friends are rebuilding Ponyvile, and it's times like this you learn who your friends are. You learn who you can really count on, and that, to me is important.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Not sure if I still have the magic. Try this.
Spoiler
Passive resistance was not going to be enough anymore. Ignoring his rather clear protestations, they had somehow gotten him here, into the middle of their mostly rebuilt town, and dragged him into one of their structures.
For some reason beyond his understanding, but presumably in order to impress him, garish colors had been draped on every surface, and thin orbs had been filled with buoyant gas to make them float, apparently to keep them out of the way when they weren't in use, though what purpose they served was far beyond him. The ceiling was much to low for hum so they kept bumping against his head.
The pink abomination was bouncing around him, squealing excitedly. "This is going to be fun! You can meet all my friends, and have fun, and do all sorts of things! Twilight says you know magic. I think it would be cool to know magic. Then I could..." He makes a few adjustments to his audio filters, and cuts out her frequency. Blessed silence.
He appreciates this for a while, until he notices that all the beings were looking at him with the same confused expressions. Realizing they expected him to respond he turned off the filters. "Aren't you going to cut the cake? It's your party, afterall."
The cake was a large mound of sugar, animal extract and ground plants. He shook his head. "I do not require sustenance."
Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say, for they only looked more confused. If only to get it over with, he telekinetically divides it into segments, one for each being present (minus himself) then steps back and hopes they'll ignore him so he can make a hasty exit.
"So what do you eat?"
"My body is completely efficient. I have no need to consume anything unless I am replacing damaged tissue, in which I simply substitute the nearest chemical formula I can make and burn off the irregularities."
"Told you." Twilight Sparkle says, sounding just a little smug.
"Well, even if you must tell me how you work gold into your fabrics like that." Rarity said, eyes sparkling with excitement as she stared at his uniform. "It's clearly golden, and yet it moves like silk."
"Nanomachnes bonded to create a dense, flexible material, carbon based. It's not actually gold, it's just the color I happened to make it." He says, without once engaging his brain and having no idea what this meant to Rarity.
Rarity thought for a moment of a fabric that could do anything, anything at all, take on any color, be soft as the kiss of the wind or solid as the foundations of the earth, and her eyes sparkled as though she'd just caught a glimpse of the Holy Grail. "Oh. If it's a matter of fashion you must let me work you over, darling. Something less menacing and more flattering for your rugged countenance." She says, batting her eyes outrageously, and attempting to flirt with him. If she could pry out how exactly that worked, which she had little doubt she could, the entire world (of fashion) was he oyster. She could design anything! The only limits would be the furthest reaches of her imagination!
"Not to say your current attire isn't evoking, even iconic, however I could give it a certain je ne sais quoi that would make you the envy of everyone you meet." She adds, suddenly worried she was sounding a little too eager. She couldn't scare him away, not when the secret could be hers...
Spike flared in the corner, not liking the fact that the object of his affections was paying a complement to that big thing, who he'd already unconsciously labeled as not to be trusted. Of course, if he had the barest inkling of what Thanos actually was, his attitude would be considerably different, however as it was he saw the massive being as a scoundrel, an ogre or troll or something like that, here to tempt poor, innocent, sweet and gentle Rarity away with his smarmy ways. The fact that she was making the approaches and Thanos was utterly clueless were ignored for the sake of perpetuating his delusion.
Thanos, for his part, was so shocked at the suggestion his entire mind, capable of performing calculations on par with any super computer, shut down for a moment. He quickly tried to determine, rationally, what exactly he was saying, but that was his weakness, no capacity for illogic or superficialities, the impracticalities that less enlightened beings spent their existences obsessing over. And so, faced with a question he has no answer for, he can only shrug, and allow himself to be led away by Ponyville's resident fashion designer while he tried to figure out what in all the multiverse was going on.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that Pinkie Pie and Rarity always get what they want.
Your faithful student,
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
I apologize immensly for my...wow, week of not being online.
Let me explain in three words; I. Hate. Biology.
Essentially, to give a longer explanation, I'm in a biology course that I have to pass, but I'm currently averaging a D in. It has a lot of work and I'm been pouring myself into it to try and force at least a C. Throw in the work of applying to a few Universities, and keeping up with my other classes, and I've been...busy. Very busy. I'll try to catch up on things today, as I only have one thing I can work on in the next four or so hours. Tomorrow will be back to busy, but there IS an opening today, as soon as Spanish is over.
__________________
Doliest's crimes against good taste
Spoiler
An Uwe Boll fan, and proud of it. LONG LIVE THE BOLL!
Also a Michael Bay fan.
Likes Jar Jar
Likes FATAL..... No, I'm sorry, but no. Everything else on this list? I like, but while I've done many horrible things in my life, I WILL NOT claim to like FATAL.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Quote:
Originally Posted by Draxx
Not sure if I still have the magic. Try this.
Yes, I'm not as good as Cracklord. Sue me.
You've still got the ponies' and Thanos's voices down flat. Honestly this is going to seem a bit less than Cracklord's stuff because well it's about simpler characters. Despite the show's clever writing the ponies are still quite simple characters with little room for growth and Thanos isn't very complex beyond his feelings for Death.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Updated Space, not sure where I am on the other two-
If someone could point me the right direction, I shouldn't fall behind again; I'm doing better now; I passed my last test with a C, and that's a good step.
__________________
Doliest's crimes against good taste
Spoiler
An Uwe Boll fan, and proud of it. LONG LIVE THE BOLL!
Also a Michael Bay fan.
Likes Jar Jar
Likes FATAL..... No, I'm sorry, but no. Everything else on this list? I like, but while I've done many horrible things in my life, I WILL NOT claim to like FATAL.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
You're watching Alucard kill a whole lot of people, while The Count keeps track of the score.
And in the Fantasy one, Kitiara and Soth are in Dras-Leona. And since the rest of the Varden just lost the war, she's got to decide to either send an olive brach, or a few severed heads.
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
I miss Deadpool. And so the dynamic duo takes a job that will lead up to Darkblade's game. Why did Bruce retire? What is Luthor's plan? Read on, and be amazed. Be astounded.
Spoiler
"Glad you could see me." Luthor said, dressed in white as always, an eyebrow flickering as you step into his office.
"Well you made a very tempting offer." Slade said. "I've never considered losing my independence, but I do like the sound of Chief of Homeland Security, and the paycheck that goes with it."
"Nothing has been decided yet. For one thing, I think I'd be better at it. I even have a few schematics for new uniforms, that I'd like you to take a look at." He holds up some old newspaper scraps. "I designed them myself. In crayon."
Luthor raised an eyebrow, then decided he didn't want to ask. He'd never worked with Deadpool before, and so was little taken aback.
"Well, we'll see." He said diplomatically. "But first there is the matter of a job I'd like you to do."
"I'm not cleaning your pool. Money is no object at all, even for a man with no pride."
"Shut up."
"Not until the bald gentleman asks me to. He's the one cutting the checks."
"Silence."
"Not until I see some money." A terrible thought struck Deadpool. "Wait. This isn't one of those patriotic things, is it? Because my doctor tells me I have a natural deficient in moral fiber and am in desperate need of a spine transplant, making me therefore exempt from saving America."
"No it's not. We're all men of the world here."
"We are? That doesn't mean you're going to pay me in baseball cards, does it?"
"Would you like me to?"
"Yes. I mean no. I mean... I don't even know what I'm saying! Damnit, stop confusing me! You're the most infuriating man I've ever met!"
Luthor did the only thing he could think of to move the conversation on, and back into the direction he'd envisioned. He pressed a button on the remote in his hand, and let what it did speak for itself.
A light came on in another section of the room, revealing a table covered with all a manner of the latest of Luthorcorp weapons innovations, ranging from small gadgets that could double as surgical instruments to guns the size of your leg. Some Stark equipment fleshed it out for good measure.
"Sweet buttery biscuits!" Deadpool skipped over like a giddy school girl and picked up one of the shiny…oh so shiny…weapons. He couldn't help it. He squealed happily, then coughed.
"I did that out loud, didn’t I? That was meant to be an internal thing… You stabbed me in the medulla oblongata. How rude."
"Using surgical terms doesn't make you smart." Slade replies as he removes the bowie knife from the top of Deadpools skull. "Particularly when you use them to describe being stabbed in wrong portion of the brain."
"You think I'm stupid? I'd like to see you even talk when you have a knife in you're brain, let alone incorrectly label your grey matter."
"I have told you that I think you're stupid, to your face, almost as many times as I've told you I don't respect you."
"That's a very hurtful thing to say, when all I really want is to be just like you."
This time Slade stabbed him through the midsection and out the other side.
"ARGH! Ooo! Must…resist…iron in diet…jokes…"
"If the two of you could stop this delightful insight into the exact definition of the word dysfunction long enough for me to explain why you are both here."
"Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. It would really be a shame if I didn't have anyone to use all this shiny weaponry on."
Luthor pressed a button, activating the screens behind him. One showed a stately manor in Gotham, built in the gothic style that defined so much of that cities architecture. Another showed a huge man strapped to a table with tubes feeding directly into his bloodstream, a third a high class party somewhere.
Deadpool whistled, his quip about the fact that the remote only seemed to have one button that did everything dying on his lips. "Nice. You get Cinamax?"
Luthor shrugged. Cinamax, HBO, all the channels."
"Would you cut that out?" Slade asked, rolling his eye in exasperation. That was his little brothers effect. Even the most serious and stoic of people will become morons in his presence. He was immune himself, but that only made it worse. Because he had to put up with him all the time.
"Hey, if I had a buck for every time somebody said that, I wouldn’t need this job."
"Well, if we could focus on that for a moment..."
"Of course Mr Luthor."
"Right. The man I want you to kill is Bruce Wayne. You all know who I mean, the billionaire philanthropist who continues to act like an adolescent playboy, and constantly makes a fool of himself on the tabloids. Hard to believe he won't see his forties much longer, he could be in his prime given his state of fitness, yet he's been injured more then any prize fighter. An incongruity I couldn't help but notice." Luthor says. "I've had my attention on him in general and Gotham in particular for a while now. And with some experimental therapy, I've managed to recover certain memories Bane had lost." He indicates the screen where the big man was restrained "And came to some very interesting conclusions. Bruce Wayne is more then he appears. I considered simply publicizing it, and letting Gotham's underworld deal with it's own problem, but I decided I want to make sure."
"Is there a job in there somewhere?"
"Go to Gotham. Kill him. Frame somebody, preferably one of his erstwhile allies." Luthor says, than hands them a check. A blank check. "You do that for me, and you can fill in any number you like up there."
"Kill Batman? I always knew I'd amount to something one day. Look at me mom!" He fell silent, because Slade stabbed him again.
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
Last edited by Cracklord : 10-23-2011 at 02:28 AM.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
There we go with everyones favorite pairing. Next one will focus on why Slade stopped his easy work for Kobra, the breakout at Arkham, and Deadpool's unique brand of helping. Here is Part II: The plan.
Spoiler
They pulled up to the club, the bass already thumping from inside somewhere. Slade had hoped for an inconspicuous, out of the way place, but Deadpool had insisted, and had somehow talked his brother around.
So here they were. The Iceberg Lounge. A whole lo of sad rich people wanting a feeling of danger so drinking with the villians and greasing their palms as they did. And then the even more exclusive part of town, the backroom. Deadpool apparently didn't have the credibility to get a table, so Slade had pointedly pulled a gun on the Maitre'D, and the issue had ceased to exist.
Recruiting local help was the first step in a successful job, given that they knew the lay of the land, what had been tried before, and could add their own expertise to yours. And it gave you someone to sacrifice if it became necessary.
Slade was in costume, his body armor, kevlar and chainmail, though he had managed to leave the mask and most of his weapons at the Townhouse Luthor had leant them that was usually given to visiting employees. In contrast, Deadpool was in the suit his older brother wore on casual occasions (mostly to funerals), with the addition of his mask, and the ridiculous belts covered in pouches he didn't seem able to live without, despite the fact Slade knew for a fact they were all empty.
A pretty waitress wearing a very small pair of shorts and a bikini top came by and asked if the guys would like a drink.
"How about your number? Humina, humina, humina…" asked Deadpool, never one to be shy. The girl smiled and winked at him, given that to do so was what her job, and quite possibly her life depending on the instability of the asker, depended on.
Slade ordered a double bourbon on the rocks, Deadpool ordered four Jello shots with a whipped cream topping, a bottle of White Zinfandel, and a nice little side plate of quiche, and the two got to work.
"I hate to break it to you, but they're all kinda crazy." Deadpool said, sipping his drink through a straw and trying to look coy, while Slade pointedly looked anywhere but at his brother. "And not even well-adjusted, charming crazy like me. Someone should lock them all away."
"They just have to serve as a distraction while we set up. Anyone can manage that."
"Not too distracting. We don't want him to forget to pay attention to me."
"That's exactly what we want. Remember, we know where he lives."
A passing lunatic with a Glasgow smile and plenty of facepaint stopped at their table in a desperate bid for attention. "Hey, do want to know how I got these scars?"
"No." Slade replied, then pointed a gun at the mans face. "Do you want to know how I lost this eye?"
"Um. I'll - I'll just go over here now."
Deadpool shook his head. "I can't take you anywhere." Then he belched hugely, and yawned. "Do we have to come to a place like this?" he asks, forgetting he was the one who insisted. "I'm worried someone will spike my drinks and take advantage of me in my incapacitated state." Then he paused. "I think I'll drink straight from the bottle."
"We need local blood. If I bring in the Deathstrike Clan-"
"That's still a really stupid name. You should have gone with-"
"The Deathstrike clan." Slade repeated, raising his voice slightly. "He'll know something is up, someone new in town is up to something. Where a local causing trouble is just a Tuesday."
"Won't we kinda give it away ourselves? Because I'm not going in disguise. I have my dignity, and people have the right to know that they are being killed by. I've killed hundreds of people, but I refuse to tell a fib."
"By the time he knows we're here, we'll be ready and it'll be much too late."
"Ah. OK. Well, how about we pick up some girls in the meantime?" Wade says.
"Pickings are a little slim here."
"You mean none of them are blond and underage."
"None of them are blind, brain-damaged, and have a substance abuse problem either, so you're certainly out of luck."
"Touche." Deadpool closed his mouth. He fidgeted. He finished his third jello shot, then placed the forth one on his head. "Feel like going all William Tell?"
Slade ignored him, looking at the list again. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Time for a new plan."
"If this plan involves me dressing in drag, I require the dress to be slinky and the pumps to be black. Actually, better let me pick the costume myself."
For the sake of his sanity, Slade ignored him. "Lets arrange a mass breakout. Blow open Arkham and Blackgate and see that they all escape. That'll certainly get his attention."
"That plan is poorly envisioned, has holes you could drive an armored convoy through, but if I don't go with it there isn't anywhere to go with this, so lets do it!"
"Oh, I know it's not airtight, but it doesn't need to be. Because he's his own worse enemy, he'll fight with all he has even though it will wear him down in no time, and he's too proud to ask for help."
"And if he does?"
"Well, we'll just have to make sure he doesn't get a chance."
And here we have John Taylor and, could this be, the glimmerings of a plot? I know it's long, it kinda grew in the telling. The Knights are just so fun to write as.
Spoiler
Nightside. I've spent lifetimes walking up and down it's streets. All roads lead here sooner or later, though most people stop well and truly before they can follow the path all the way, to which they should be grateful. It's always four in the morning. It's always dark, and usually drizzling with rain. And the streets and allies lead both to places real and places that might have been, should have been, could have been, and never where. It's growing bigger all the time as more and more are lured into the cracks in the pavement, and it's all a man can do to keep up.
Michael was walking with me. I like Michael, he's a good, righteous, virtuous and benevolent man who could kick me up the street and back if it came to it, or just lay my soul bare with a gaze in a pinch. He was pulled out of retirement in strange circumstances, and his conviction was then tested with a quest only previously completed by two people in all of history. And with it, he's changed. The years have fallen away, the wrinkles are gone, and they took most of the grey with them. The limp is still there, but all but unnoticeable, certainly not more then a nuisance at most, and he seems more. More alive, more there, more vital, more. I can't explain it better then that.
Even to me, and I have quite the reputation myself, he seemed like an immortal, divine paladin, a faultless living legend, and strength, majesty and faith radiated from him with such force that even the perpetual gloom of Nightside could not dispel it. When he walked, you almost expected to see the clouds part above him and a single sunbeam to shine down directly onto his face and bathe him in gold. It didn't, but I got the feeling that was only because it was physically impossible.
His armor was simple, functional more than anything, but shone like silver, and a shimmering cloak of blue lined with white fluttered behind him, held in place with a heavy golden crucifix. And it was all pristine. Dirt, mud, whatever, it slid off it as though it couldn't find purchase. My white coat was almost grey.
I probably sound as though I'm resentful. Let me assure you, I'm not. Michael is one of the best men I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and if I could see that, it should be no surprise that God can see it too. I hear he's fairly perceptive. I'm who I am, and he is who he is.
The two of us were traveling together because company is a wonderful thing, and because the others had jobs of their own. We were getting that a lot, now with the ongoing shadow war between us and our enemies (all of whom are yet to reveal their hands directly) is underway. Time doesn't really pass here, but periodically we'd drag in their men, and ours would go missing, occasionally for bits and pieces of them to later be found scattered all over the place.
Eddie took care of the actual questioning, but was yet to get answers, which was past cause for concern and well and truly into outright baffling. What was worrying was the sheer variety they dragged in. Low-men, vampires, little people (not so many now that there maker was dead and buried and they had no way to replace them) machines, faceless, shadows and demons and ghouls, oh my. Whatever it was that we were facing, it had more resources then I was entirely comfortable with anyone having.
And so we followed leads, thwarted them when we could, and otherwise did our best to increase the size of our organization and discourage people from The Tower.
I glanced over at Michael and cleared my throat. Sometimes an awkward, painful subject has to be breached. It's never easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. "So, your family?"
"Safe." Michael said, his deep, comforting voice. "Charity is well, the children are growing up into fine young men and women. I'm proud of all of them."
"And Mollie?"
For a moment his eyes tightened. Then he hangs his head. "No. She continues her path."
"You know it's not your fault."
"Then who's fault is it? Who was to protect her if not her father?" He sighs. "I only hope. There is little else I can do, it is not in me to raise myself against my own flesh and blood." He stops walking, and I continue a few steps before I stop as well. He indicated the 'Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill', the perfect psychedelic monument paying tribute to the absolute best and worst of the sixties.
"Enough. There's enough darkness in the world." He said. "Better not to dwell on it. Have the serenity to accept what you cannot change, and the courage to fight what you can."
"That a prayer?"
"It might be. That wording was from a fortune cookie, but as an old mentor of mine said, it's all different ways of looking at the same thing."
For a moment there was silence, and then I laughed. I couldn't help it, and a moment later he was laughing too, and the two of us were leaning on each other. When I finally wiped my eyes and stood up, I couldn't keep the smile from my face.
"This wasn't the man who got you started on your quest, is he?"
"No. The man who did that, was nothing more than a STRANGER."
The world is full of enigmas, the unexplainable, the incomprehensible, the plain bizarre but none were quite so resolutely so then the man who had just appeared. He wore a blue fedora that shadowed his eyes, and a blue suit that gave of a more then faint operatic vibe, particularly thanks to the heavy cape and medallion. We'd met.
"John Taylor. Michael Carpenter. You look well." he said, in a tone nothing at all like the pronouncement he'd made a few seconds before.
"And you seem to have satisfied the requirements for a suitably dramatic and appropriate entrance." I replied.
"That is so." He opens a gloved hand, and I see six little shapes that look like they'd fit together snugly in an almost limitless amount of ways. "But I come not without purpose. These are instrumentalities, and they link you to each of the myriad of worlds, in both time and space."
I knew what they were. They were at once incredibly risky and incredibly convenient. They tended not to last too long, however, and they were not without considerable risks. I took them somewhat apprehensively. "Am I going traveling?"
"Yes."
Well, couldn't argue with that. Lucky to get that much out of him, really. "What am I looking for?"
"Your destiny." Then he was gone, fading away in a moment leaving me with the six little shapes in my hand. I sigh and check my pockets, finding everything was in place and that I was as prepared as I'd ever be, then looked up at Michael and shrugged. "I'll have to take a raincheck. It looks like I have a quest myself." I then began fiddling with the Instrumentalities, trying to fit them together in a way that felt natural, and hoped this wouldn't turn out to be too complex. It was probably a forgone conclusion, but what's wrong with a little hope?
The bottom dropped out of the universe.
I was a living spark, sucked through an endless, serpentine tunnel of light. On it's subtle walls flashed endless images of other realities, moving so fast they were a blur. And beyond that shaft, I could see an even more breath-taking actuality: A limitless canopy smothered in countless billions of stars.
But I was in no position to appreciate this. My only sensation was of hopeless falling. A ceaseless and unremitting plunge into the black maw of the unknown.
Then, after an eternity, I dropped towards a particular chasm, a stomach-turning tumble into a whirlpool of sallow, churning light.
It swallowed me whole.
I landed hard. The collision with solid ground, or what seemed to be solid ground, was bone-shaking. Normally I'd take a moment to roll with it, but I had no leisure to recover from the impact. Wherever I was, it was hostile. Murderously so.
The place was in the grip of a violent sandstorm. Trillions of grains of sand lashed at me like shards of glass or tiny needles, bathing me in pain wherever my skin was exposed. The sand not only pummeled me, it all but blinded me, so that I could see practically nothing. It was hard to stand, let alone walk. And the heat was terrific, and in no way mitigated by the never-ending, roaring wind. Make no mistake, I consider myself as tough as they come, but this was intolerable.
The sand filled up my mouth, and I could feel myself evaporating, as though I'd stepped into a walk-in oven and turned up the heat. The cluster of instrumentalities was still in my hands, but I couldn't see what I was doing, so was battling to re-arrange them. After what seemed an agonizingly long time, choking on the sand that filled my mouth and nose, I managed to slot them together into another random assembly.
I was pitched into a blizzard, exchanging insufferable heat for unspeakable cold. All I could see was white. Stinging snow pricled me, and the temperature was so low I found it difficult to breathe. My fingers froze instantly, and it was all I could do to manipulate them again. Teeth chattering, hands shaking uncontrollably, skin so cold in burned where it wasn't completely numb, I finally altered them.
Once more, the cosmic trapdoor flipped open.
I was standing in torrential rain in a landscape that seemed to consist of mud that was nearly liquid itself. The air was uncomfortably humid. What's more, said rain was corrosive. It nipped at my flesh and singed my clothing as though the sky was dropping vitriol.
This time I wasn't careful. I forced them together as quickly as I could.
A jungle embraced me, lush and velvet. At first it seemed more then tolerable, even pleasant. Then, just as I was letting my guard down, a low droning buzz filled the air, and gigantic swarms of insects appeared, tenacious and hungry. The dived towards me, fibrous wings beating, stingers dripping venom and seeking unprotected skin. I maneuvered the instrumentalities and was gone before any of them could touch me.
This time I was deposited on a vast, featureless plain, the only variation being a distant range of blue-black mountains. Three suns beat dow, one of them twice the size of the others and a deep, bloody red. Of more immediate concern where the two armies I was caught between, like a nut in a vice. One consisted of creatures resembling giant lizards, albeit with purple hides and flicking barbed tongues. The other was made up of beasts that seemed to be a cross-between bears and apes, looking unsettlingly like the bouncer at Honest Johns. Each horde numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and were moving rapidly forward, with myself standing squarely between the two of them like an idiot. I didn't wait around to see if they were friendly. I fiddled with the instrumentalities again, and hoped I wouldn't be sent even further away from the center.
Icy salt spray splashed my face. I was on a tiny rock in the middle of a turbulent ocean, battered by winds and towering waves, beneath an angry sky. The rock was jagged and slippery, and I clung on for dear life as the first wall of water hit, hoping to avoid being swept away. For a moment, i was tossed about, battered and with no sense of direction, then it was over and I lay gasping as another wave rose. I acted quickly.
I kept on readjusting the instrumentalities, as I was transported from world to world in dizzying succession, trying to find somewhere bearable.
I flashed in and out of worlds of startling diversity where the only constant seemed to be of terrible danger, including some I found incomprehensible as well as hostile.
In one, I was attacked by carnivorous birds. In another, the environment had noxious gas for an atmosphere, and I only just escaped in time. I witnessed man-sized fish emerging from a huge lake, revealing not just legs but jaws bristling with fangs, and snakes as big as elephants devouring each other mindlessly. I saw a land of perpetual earthquakes where enormous fissures opened and closed with frightening rapidity, a world stifled with sulfur and riddled with blue lava flows, a mighty river wider then the eye could see inhabited by enormous multi-tentacled beasts with the faces of rodents (I'll admit, I wasn't in any obvious danger there, I just found the place was creeping me out); flies the size of apartment blocks that supped on struggling spiders in in sticky webs that spanned entire valleys, a place where great sentient prides of felines waged a war amongst themselves; rampaging worms the size of mature oaks, dominions ruled by plagues of rats. Seas of liquid fire and skies of boiling skin. Terrible creatures with eyes that had beheld the first night of the world. And beyond, I feared I was lost forever, like a handful of sand tossed into a stormy sea. It was all I could do to keep on going.
Eventually, I landed somewhere that didn't seem immediately threatening. It was a dead world, which says all you need to hear about the day I've been having. Normally, I find them depressing, but after all I'd been through it was a welcome relief. I couldn't tell if the devastation was the result of war or natural disaster, give it time and it all looks the same, harsh though it sounds, but it seemed fairly complete. I could be wrong, it could just be this part and the rest of the world teeming with life, but I trusted my instincts on this one.
Not far away stood acres of debris and twisted uprights, just recognizable as the ruins of a city. There was no signs of life anywhere, not even vegetation, which the soil looked incapable of supporting in any event. Everything was grey and spent, as far as the eye could see.
I collapsed onto a half-melted rock, doubling up as I struggled to catch my breath, and spent the next ten minutes or so recuperating and getting my head straight. This place might only be fit to break hearts, but at least it wasn't trying to kill me. It was about then I realized I had no idea how to set them to get me home. For a moment I wanted to throw them away in a fit of pique, then with a weary sigh I pocketed them and glanced around. Finding a doorway to Nightside might be tough, but there would be one. There always was.
I was just getting up and mentally groping for my gift when I heard faint sounds, on the very edge of my senses, and a chill crept down my spine, making me shudder all over. A terrible premonition grabbed me, and wouldn't let go, but it wasn't needed. I knew. God help me, I knew. I'd been here before. To make matters worse, apparently I did this.
"No.” I said softly, my voice sounding so very lost and weak and alone. This couldn’t still be the future. So much had changed. It just couldn’t.
I turned as I heard a scuff of a foot against the ground, expecting to see one of the giant insects making its way towards me in order to string me up and lay eggs in me, eat me from inside out so as to incubate their young. Instead saw something both infinitely relieving and considerably worse then any insect.
The demon was almost close enough to touch me. I'd thought my instincts were better then that, but apparently my ordeal had him me worse then I'd thought, because I'd had no idea it had been there. The thing was taller then me, but thanks to it's hunched, twisted build it didn't look it. It' head was lower then it's crooked shoulders, and it's back was curved like a bow. It looked like a cross between a reptile and a toad, with a bit of ape thrown in for good measure. It's overlarge head nonetheless seemed too small for it's mouth, which bore too many sharp teeth. It's hunched, twisted shoulders were gnarled like the branches of ancient oaks, knotted with masses of muscles and thews built to the point of over-development, every sinew and tendon standing individually distinct, like an iron cable. It's head was decorated with scales and horny protrusions that put one in mind of a dragon, and it dressed in a tunic and tattered cape.
It had wings, black, tattered wings like some immense crow, but they were upside down, which was possibly the most terrible aspect of the thing. This wasn’t any demon, this was a bonafide fallen angel.
“Men who did uproot where worlds begin,
And read the name of the nameless sin;
And sought the final war to win
Are lost beneath the sky.”
“For the old world is sundered, none know when,
By gods, or beasts, or what things then
Now walk the world instead of men
And plot how God shall die”
Etrigan then threw back it’s head and burst into laughter, mad, rolling laughter, but it was tinged with a hint of hysteria and desperation, as though this empty world could drive even a demon to madness.
Then suddenly he stopped with a choking noise, and I noted the chain fastened around his neck. It jerked back again, dragging the demon scrambling of his feet, and I heard footsteps, heaving, sedate footsteps drawing closer. After a few moments, they rounded the corner of one of the ancient, rusted hunks, and the master came into view.
I would have sworn, except language hasn’t kept up with me enough for any word to do my situation justice.
He was a tall, hulking being who towered over me, with cracked rock-like features, and eyes that glow with a deep, throbbing red light. His features were set into a stern, hard expression, bleak and pitiless as the slopes of hell. But the harsh physical look was contrasted by a stillness, a soft-spoken bearing and speech pattern, and a supreme self-confidence. It was a simple look. Not one worthy of a power mad tyrant or a god. But it was one known and feared even in Nightside. “John Taylor.” He said, his voice deep and powerful, but constrained. This was a being who let nothing escape his iron control. Certainly not something like his speech. Etrigan struggled against the chain, spittle dripping from his jaws as he franticly tried to get at me, but Darkseid was unyielding and the demon couldn’t make any progress. “I’ve heard of you.”
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
Last edited by Cracklord : 10-25-2011 at 08:01 AM.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
This is just a thought, but would anyone be interested in doing a game based on the fall of Shatterworld? I figure it could be fun to write, though given we'd all die (villains and heroes alike) it'd be a bit more Ragnorak then most of our games.
I'd run it, if anyone was interested.
Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
Yeah, I'll play. Though it might be a bit big to do the way we've been playing so far.
Also, on an entirely unrelated note, I finished Ghost Story. I don't take back anything, it's still got the same problems it always had. But I'll spare you all a rant. Also, Kincaid. Knew it.
__________________
Nadir We,
Youth Born,
Blood Letters,
Axe Weilders,
Victors Still.
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Re: [Twi]Chronicles of the Impaler: Crisis of Infinite Draculas OOC
