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May 2023 It's been hectic this last year, but we are alive and celebrating our fifth year of adventure and tales. A lot has been worked on to help make the Monoverse one that everyone can enjoy and explore their story while becoming a part of the greater cosmos. All of you, new and long time players, stay safe, and see you in the Sea of Stars!
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
Red was smeared across the halls as the pair carried their unconscious companions through the Faro facility. These streaks were fresh, having been done since they left Pendulu Moda and had investigated the tree Y'dris'al. Gouges could be seen in the walls, caused by something massive, something physically powerful.
As they neared the primary lobby, a scream was heard. Human, a cry for mercy, to be saved from something. And then, silence before a a wet meaty thud could be heard just outside the main lobby doors. On the landing deck.
Forty-five minutes remained. They didn't have time for delays. They had to escape. But something was between them and their ships, outside on the landing pad. Something big, something that could sense them, knew they were there.
“We do, but we have a problem that must be addressed.” The Mawkin replied grimly. “We need to handle whatever abomination that’s between us and escape from this forsaken rock, but we are down two combatants, and I do not know how effectively either of us can fight or maneuver while carrying Queen and Jankins. If our opposition is another hybridized Kromun, or worse, a corrupted Chozo.. we will be at a tremendous disadvantage. Even if one of our comrades awaken this very moment.. the odds of them being combat ready are nil.” He then sighed.
“Which means we may have to make a painful decision.”
He then touched the back of his helmet, removing a small, though surprisingly hefty data chip and held it to Tycho. “If need be I should be able to keep the creature- whatever it is- occupied long enough for you to escape with the humans in tow. If I cannot rejoin you.. make sure this gets to the right hands. Preferably a bounty hunter named Samus Aran or a Confederation soldier called Corporal Lockheed. Either of those two will know what to do with this data.”
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
They crossed the threshold, stepping out onto the landing pad. As first, it was silent. The external lights of the deck had gone out, though the dark shapes of the resting vessels could still be seen. A crunch of glass under their boots would be audible as the pair carried their charges out of the Faro facility. The sky was dark, almost black, and the glow that should have been at the horizon was gone, the visible signs of the terrible fate that awaited the planet.
And then, a groan could be heard. It sounded human, and when lights were turned in the direction of the voice, a trail of smeared blood was visible, leading to ravaged limbs, and eventually to the torn entrails that lay aside the torn torso of a human man. They twitched as the light would settle on them, barely still alive in the most technical sense of the word.d. His lower jaw was missing, exposing his tongue as he tried to talk in futility. A gurgle could be heard from his savaged throat, wet and choked.
And then, something stepped out of the darkness, a withered limb slamming down on the dismembered man's head and smashing it like a watermelon under several tons of pressure. A low guttural sound emanated as the source of that clawed limb would move forward to reveal itself in the mercenaries' lights. Desiccated, ravaged, yet horrifyingly sturdy. Another such limb moved forward, more of the creature traveling itself as the nearly skull-like head now could be seen. It was avian, white feathers adorning its stretched out skin, mottled as if diseased. It continued to emerge from the dark, revealing it to be massive in size, larger than even the Kromus abomination that they had fought only scant hours ago. What looked like long ratted quills were on its stretched spindly arms, barren of feathers and clearly not usable for flight despite their length. The creature gave a low moan as it clicked its beak at the bounty hunters, its size now revealed in length to be over six meters.
And then the voices came again.
"Death! Suffering on everything! They must die, they must suffer! Everything must be rend and slaughtered! Everything must end!"
Eresh would feel a tightening grip on his mind, translating into physical pain like a hot sharp spike. The creature's empty white eyes now locked on him as it raised its hackles, head having snapped to face him directly. That mangled beak rattled, a chortled hissed emanating from the creature's throat as it moved itself now between the ships and the mercenaries, and somehow curved the corners of its beak into the expression of a snarl.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jan 16, 2024 4:25:34 GMT
Tycho eyed the datachip for a moment with a blink, flicking it between his fingers for a moment like a coin. The hardware didn't look compatible with his implants, and the casing felt strangely heavy for its size. There was a weight here that went beyond simple mass, he knew. Everything he had seen here today had made that abundantly clear. Mentally he would make a note of the two listed names.
Golden eyes would flick up from the chip to the Mawkin, narrowing a little bit as the Vlaka's hand would close (delicately) around it.
"Feel like enough people are gonna die today without one more of them playing hero, but... sure. I got you."
= = =
The stench would be enough to set the Vlaka's heart pounding. This gore was different, like the blood from before. Something fresher, more recent.
When they would step out onto the landing pad, it would be the only thing keeping his attention from the open sky above. It was wrong. The light along the horizon was just gone, even if he knew it would still be day on this planet. Even as he would turn to level the sights of his handcannon with the eviscerated man and feel that nausea build in his throat, the visual sight of the dying sky only compounded his fear.
The weight of the sky itself was coming down on them, the stars themselves ripping apart. The nightmare he had so many times a child had finally come alive. Some of his thoughts would teeter on the edge of irrational, driven by terror, sending static across his vision. How could this be happening? It was if time itself wanted him to experience the nightmare of his people's past. Why him? Was this supposed to mean something?
A word would barely escape his throat before the man's head would be pulverized, and the demon before them stepped out of the shadows to block their path. Tycho's adrenaline would spike to numb the terror, enough to keep him from freezing... but not enough to keep the rage from building. The voices would return, reverberating with the static of his neural link malfunctioning, and the Vlaka would know right then that they belonged to this beast... but he could see nothing at all behind those eyes. It was a corrupted Chozo after all, which only made him feel worse. Both for Eresh, and for how easy it suddenly was to project how he felt.
"SHUT UP! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR SHIT!" He howled, baring his fangs at the nightmare before him, taking one step forward so that his head and gun-arm were between it and Lemon's unconscious form on his shoulder. Even now the pain in his injured wrist was searing, but somehow that was much easier to ignore. One shot would be all he would take-- give the Mawkin an opening, maybe. Then he'd take Makoto and get the two casualties to safety.
"YOU'VE WASTED ENOUGH LIFE." Lifting the handcannon's sights to the point between the creature's dead eyes, putting weight behind the pull of the trigger, the weapon whining up a charge... "GO SEE WHERE THAT'S GOTTEN YOU! COME ON!"
Oh, but how badly he wanted to rip this demon apart. After everything he had seen, and after everything he now felt...
Eresh was silent for a moment after Tycho took the chip, but a quiet and raspy chuckle soon came over the comm link. “Personally I never held much stock in heroes, often sends the wrong message.” He said as he then rapped the knuckles of his fist against the Vlaka’s chest plate.
“I am just doing what’s best to ensure mission success, and that means the team being as intact as possible to give a proper account on Faro’s crimes and the evil they willingly let fester here. Do not worry, I have no intention of dying; simply making sure to have a contingency in place if the worst occurs.” ______________ While the Mawkin’s reaction was less volatile than Tycho’s when they arrived on the surface.. but his grip on Queen was adjusted as he looked at the carnage.. pistol in one hand. The bisected man made him pause.. but just before he could put the wretch out of his misery.. he gave a quick shriek as piercing, blinding hot pain seared at the back of his mind.. the screaming spirits again clawing at his perception.
And that was when he finally took note of the creature.. and every feather on his body pressed against the inside of his suit. Every nerve felt as if it were on fire, the sheer wrongness bleeding from the Chozo.. the former Chozo.. it was hitting his instinct to fight like a sledgehammer- vision becoming a haze of blood and hellfire.
“Tycho… the plan. The Plan! Take Jankins.. take Queen!” And he would , with difficulty attempt to sling the teenager over Tycho’s shoulder after he took his shot.
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
The horror gave a rattled hiss again, its haunches tensing as it locked its eyes, for a moment, with the Vlaka mercenary, then returned its stare at the mawkin. A deep growl rumbled from in its chest, one foreclaw positioned to brace itself while the other lifted off the crush pulp of the human head and slammed down to give the beast more anchor for itself.
“We see them in your mind. You pity them, after they admitted what they did! After they admitted that they betrayed us!” The rumble in its chest grew deeper and louder, the creature tilting its head and snapping its beak while a hoarse chuff escaped its throat. “You still give them sympathy, after what they did to us! Made us into monsters, caged us in the city that they abandoned to leave us in darkness! For all their talk of the accepting Light…and it was only Darkness that showed mercy on us! It was Darkness that answered our prayers for vengeance! And it was Darkness that will consume us all this day, as the fires of cosmic death purge this damned world of its crimes!”
Even as it saw Eresh move to hand off his cargo to Tycho, the massive beast let out a deep and guttural screech before launching itself toward the Mawkin, over half a metric ton of mass slamming itself into the nearly three meter tall avia-ra and sending them both skidding across the launch deck. Another horrific screech loosed itself from the monster's throat, empty eyes boring into the young Mawkin's own illuminated reds. It raised the gore drenched claw, readying to bring every kilogram of force it could muster to crush Eresh like it had the human.
And something would begin to bring a light to the sky. What had appeared as a pinpoint in the night sky suddenly erupted into a terrifying yet mesmerizing cascade of light and gasses that were clearly rapidly expanding, even as far away as it was. The sky began to light up as if it were daytime, a pair of brilliant beams surging from opposite ends of what had once been Zeta Aurigae A. The destructive blast from the supernova didn't hit the planet itself for days, but the radiation surge was nothing to take a chance with. The facility VI had advised evacuating within the four hours it had been expected for the light of the blast to reach the planet, and that light was there now. Radiation bombardment would not be far behind.
And yet, the monstrosity only gave a sickening smirk at the edges of its beak. It knew. Death was upon them all.
She was cornered, all other perspectives lost to the hunt, and the thing paced back and forth in front of her. Mocking, gloating, delaying. Her fear turned to annoyance, why didn't it simply get it over with, why did she have to deal with this bullshit. Why the fuck was she even running in the first place? Annoyance swiftly became indignation, anger. She leapt at the hunter, locking her jaws around it's neck- ----- Her eyes snapped open, mouth full of fur, and found herself upside down, slung like a sack of potatoes. The Adrenaline rushing into her system from before reaching consciousness did nothing to help her reorient, starting to flail about. Her incoherent rage leaked out for all to "hear". Several bits of rubble in the immediate vicinity began to wobble and jump.
Eresh would hiss at the fallen Chozo when it addressed them, and he was about to respond when it then attacked. Bracing himself as best he could in the second or two he had before impact, the Mawkin Warrior wouldn’t take being scraped across the of the landing pad without a fight, driving his fist into the creatures ribs several times as hard as he could manage before they came to a stop as his other hand tried to pry the beasts own off of him.
“I can’t undo what has been wrought upon you, and I can’t ignore what your kin have done! The only thing we can do, is end your suffering—“ his retort was cut short once the sky was set ablaze with light. Seeing what was happening.. he gave a keening curse as he glanced around the landing pad.. searching for anything that might give him a possible vector for escaping from beneath his corrupted opponent. That was when his eyes locked onto the metal mooring of one of the pad’s guide lights.
His left arm dropped to the ground, pointing at the light a moment later as he then activated his Grapple Beam- the tether lashing To it as he tried to shorten the beam.. aiming to drag himself from the damned Chozo’s clutches.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Jan 22, 2024 22:15:30 GMT
Tycho's aim leveled with the monster for another lingering moment in a pause, before his eyes would snap once again to the sky beyond the beast. That wasn't a natural glow... it approached far too fast. As if his pounding heart wasn't screaming loud enough thus far, that was a better indicator than anything else.
They were out of time.
The Vlaka would let out a frustrated, dejected snarl and let fly the shot he had been charging, not even bothering to aim it. The handcannon was stuffed back into its holster with haste, before he would take the unconscious human from Eresh, sling her over his other shoulder, and bolt.
- - -
There was an unspoken rule, between the members of his old Crew. The only one that was obvious enough to not even be addressed, ever-present in everyone's minds. Night City was a churn that would suck you in, rip you apart, and spit you back out in broken pieces. Sometimes that went even beyond metaphorical, with the level of zeal some corps showed in keeping the public in their place... keeping prying hands off of what wasn't supposed to ever be theirs.
Never leave a body. Never leave something to scrub. Never leave a trail.
Nobody gets left behind. Alive, dead, or somewhere in-between. Those you love always come home with you.
He could still remember their cold, lifeless body. The way it felt slung against his shoulder, the way he knew just by that touch alone that there wasn't anything left in that shell. The warmth he knew of them, both in body and heart, snuffed in an instant. There was nothing he could have done but follow the rule, no matter what. Follow it to the very end, even if they were already gone.
They were smiling to sweetly, only moments before.
- - -
At a certain point, Tycho could only hear his own beating heart, and his own muffled panting. EM interference from their approaching doom had slowly begun to bleed into his cyberware to the point that now only static could be heard of the outside world, something only barely noticed while memories tore through his mind. The only think to snap the Vlaka back to reality in that moment, as the mercenary sprinted towards escape under a flaming sky, was the feeling of a tiny catgirl sinking her teeth into his shoulder.
Static within the mind began to mix with the static without, as he could feel some of the less secure items in his kit begin to rattle around against his body. Tycho could only ever assume that such a thing meant Lemon was probably awake, assuming the teeth he felt sinking into the meat of his shoulder were hers, and not those of that demon...
There was no time to waste, and certainly no time to stop. He could only bare his fangs and bear the pain, just like his mangled wrist. The ship that he could only assume to be Eresh's was just ahead... just a little closer...
The Mawkin for his part was far too occupied to agonize over loss and the tragedy of seeing everyone one loved dying at that moment, for he was in a struggle to keep the beast on top of him from crushing his body into a mash of organic goo and flattened armor. This would turn out to be more difficult than it might at first seem- the corrupted Chozo may not have been untenably heavy for Eresh.. but it was massive in comparison to himself. For a moment it felt as though he wouldn’t be able to get himself.. but by a stroke of luck he was able to get both feet under the creature and push up just enough that his grapplebeam was able to retract- pulling him across the landing pad towards the guide light.
A moment later he was back on his feet, unused plasma carbine now brought up as he disgorged a white-hot volley of star bolts at the behemoth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Tycho making for the Strix-12, and with a subvocal command his suit re-established contact with the gunship.
“Security system disengage, starboard access hatch open!” He barked, and the ship responded, its hatch opening up to allow the trio to board.
“Unlock Gunner weapon’s console,” Eresh then commanded before switching to the personal comms.
++”Tycho, if you can hear me I need you to get to my ships gunner seat and take the fire controls, it’s the seat to the far right of the cabin. Get the fore plasma cannons online and prime the missile pods. Let me know when you’ve done that. I’ll try to lure it into an optimal lane of fire,”++
He then fired another volley of plasma at the fallen Chozo to keep its attention. “If you are that eager to be consumed by Darkness, then allow me to send you on your way!”
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
The horror clicked its beak, the sound akin to that of an automatic firearm as it stabilized itself after having been forced off of the mawkin and taking the bolt of plasma with its side. Once more, it held itself on all fours, now letting the gutteral sound in its throat emerge. Despite the armored form of the mercenary standing back to his feet, despite the wound that was still smoking and filling the air with the stench of burnt flesh, the creature seemed to smile as the corners of its beak pulled back and curled. A massive talon came forward, digging into the deck material with a high pitched scraping sound. Despite everything, the adversaries it faced and the oncoming destruction that approached from the dying stars more than forty astronomical units away, it seemed to be enthused by it all.
“Do you hear it? The voice of the deep, the song in the darkness where stars can not shine. It speaks, a truth of all things, the truth that the light hides from it all. It speaks of what must be broken so that it may be remade, for order is an abomination, and chaos must reign!”
That voice reverberated inside the Mawkin’s head, and only Eresh’s head. The creature rattled its lower beak, emitting that same rapid ‘shot’ tapping sound from the impacting tips. The ground seems to sink under the creature’s mass, even though such would never have been possible. One last chuff, and then it left out a haunting and guttural hoot before it charged Eresh again.
“All will burn, all suffer, and all will be consumed! All will be undone!"
Eresh hissed at that noise, glad his helmet obscured his face. “The only voice I hear is your infuriating screeching, beast!”
Eresh wouldn’t dare turn his head to see if Tycho had made it inside his ship, hoping the Vlaka was following his plan. But while he refuted it, the corrupted Chozo’s words bothered him.. was there a voice? He didn’t get to dwell on the implications for longer than a few seconds as the horribly twisted being then charged again. Firing another salvo of plasma, the Mawkin attempted to leap to the side to avoid being caught by the beast once again.
And with agility that frankly shocked Eresh, he was able to dart around the horror, landing one, then two kicks into its side, using his metal talons as weapons to dig into the beast and keep its attention away from the ship. “If this is the power of Darkness, I feel even more sorry for everything you lost— are you sure you even got anything from it?” He taunted.. though that pressure in the back of his head only grew more painful.
Post by Tycho Kalhalati on Feb 8, 2024 11:26:33 GMT
The crackling of the Vlaka's radio helped to keep the mind off the pain, helping to keep his attention centered on something actionable. Ahead of him he could see the hatch on the starboard side of the ship open, and it would make him all but bolt the rest of the way there, nearly dropping Makoto in the process.
He knew he didn't have much time. Tycho would reach up to double-tap a key to his radio as he would look around hurriedly for a place to set the two down, opting for what he assumed to be either some kind of crash-couch or passenger seat. Makoto went easily, but Lemon didn't. Ultimately the Vlaka decided it was easier to let her stay latched to his shoulder like a leech, knowing he didn't have the time to pry her off him.
Making a break for the far right side of the ship's center console, it wouldn't take long to figure out what handled what. Tycho knew enough about those kinds of systems to spot them at least somewhat easily across a wide range of ships-- a duck was a duck, no matter what color the feathers. Eresh's ship seemed to have very expensive ones.
Plasma cannons behaved well enough like ballistic projectiles, surely? The Vlaka wouldn't know, but also wouldn't have time to figure it out. The missile pods were primed in seconds with ease, but those cannons were brought online with a hesitance that Tycho knew, even now, that he could really do without.
++"We're hot, get clear!"++ He would bark over the radio, once everything seemed ready. ++"Let's hope these plasma weapons can soften this fucking thing up a bit..."++
Lemon's addled brain continued to struggle with processing information after being yanked out of unconsciousness, but it had at least confirmed that she was no longer trapped in a labyrinth filled with wolves, and that the fur and blood in her mouth tasted fucking nasty. Her mouth unlatched as she sputtered, limbs flailing a little as she tried to pull the mouthful of hair off her tongue. Flopping unceremoniously on the ground she smacked her head and an incoherent stream of curses and growling interrupted with gagging filled the small space of the cockpit.
The headache was still there, but at least it wasn't bad enough to knock her out again.
URA MAR ILI AS'RÁM. URA'MAHÀR TANÚMAR HABÁR BÓK URA OM.
The horror snapped its beak as it somehow barely missed catching the mawkin, more bolts of plasma impacting its mottled skin, yet seeming to do little to the monstrosity save to annoy it. A series of deep screeches came from its throat as it brought itself about to face Eresh, and the creature once more clicked its beak to create that sound of gunfire. It raised its haunches, slowly side stepping to put the mercenary in a place that kept it out of a safe line of fire from the now powered up ship.
A guttural rumble in its chest just before the creature gave out the same deep screeches and launched itself at Eresh with blinding speed that defied its size and mass. Even as the mawkin would resist it, the warped being managed to get him in a grapple hold, then allow him to see the malicious curl on its beak before hurling him across the deck and into the viewport of his own ship. He would hold there at the impact for a split second, before dropping to the deck with a sickening *crunch*.
The creature gave a chortled sound, moving to grab the downed mawkin again. Claws dug into the deck plates, giving a horrible sound as the tip gouged out scratches in the plates. It's beak rattled again as it approached, determined to make the young mercenary regret ever coming to this planet.
