A Red Alert In Market City.

[Fenris]

Message from the Administration: This thread has had the original posts restored before the player Lord of Flesh deleted them and changed them into insulting pictures. The pictures have have been left as an example of behavior that will not be tolerated on this forum. Due to the disruptive nature of the player to the community this role play has been voided, the player banned and Market City has been reset.  

Market-City, lay in a barren semi-toxic wasteland. An urban spire which jutted out from the dust and rock that stretched out for league upon league around the city. It was a shitty place, mostly inhabited by shitty people. Though of course there were many victims of this place within its stern-walls, innocents which knew nothing else but exploitation and toil for the benefit of the greedy and the lustful. The City itself was relatively well defended, and had access to advanced technology. It could fend off armies of considerable might, and had been laid siege too more than once in its centuries long history.

The harsh lands, and harsher civilization was one where the strong survived and the weak perished. But this place was a perversion of that great law, of "Survival of the fittest". Where many times the strong were exploited by the weak. It was a matter of perspective after all. It was here the Primoris-Ultonis found himself. He wondered if Nebuchadnezzar would ever consider setting up shop here, a second "Heavens-Blade" so to speak, though perhaps not as ritzy unless she wanted to go to the higher levels. She would certainly profit, but perhaps even she found this haven of scum and corruption to be repulsive. Fenris however was used to repulsive.

He was the Wolf of the Imperium afterall. As the Ultonis, it was his lot to do the "dirty-jobs" because somebody had too. He sometimes found them distasteful, but he was better adapted than the other noble born "aristocratic" Primoris which were his peers, and he did not mind more often than not. He sat in a diner on the first tier of "Market". The darkened sky was instead a ceiling which also served as a floor for the next level in the layered city.

The administration was a cartel ran by various crime-families masquerading as politicians. Though Fenris supposed there was actually little difference in the actual professions. The ones here just had a different style. He had not brought a judgement upon this place for several reasons despite the pollution that it wrought both socially and physically. The foremost of those reasons was the place was necessary. It served as neutral ground, and such places needed to exist in the "ecosystem" of humanity. It kept to itself and that was enough. But still there was a certain bit of "adventure" to be had here that was attractive to the Incarnation.

He sat drinking some coffee amidst the patrons of the diner. It was quiet and subdued, the red and green neon from outside illuminating the interior of the establishment. He got his cheeseburger and began to eat it, savoring the rare flavor. You could say what you want about Market-City but it had good cheeseburgers. He was here simply to check it out. See if there was anything of "interest" happening. He kept a low profile as usual. He finished his meal and leaned back listening to murmuring of the urban settlement. It was a different kind of wild, but a wild none the less. The echos of creation spoke to him in subtle whispers amidst the white-noise of this flawed civilization. He contented himself to finish his coffee and pay the bill for now. He liked playing the part of a mortal, something felt "honest" about it.

[Lord of Flesh]

The Day the Universe Cried

Tremors of energy poured through the depths of space surrounding Sanctum, sending ripples of gargantuan proportions pouring along the lines of magic and energy that flowed throughout all of creation. The very nature of them revealed malicious intentions far and beyond what most deemed unnecessary, yet for the Val’gara the heralding of their coming was simply a courtesy. Not that it mattered, once they set their sights on something – nothing could stop them. It was futile to even try, though many fought against their rule – at least for as long as they could. Eventually they all succumbed to the Heralds of Cataclysm*. When your own genetic code turns against you, you really don’t have much of a choice.

And now, they’d set their sights on Sanctum. At least the subset known solely as The Collective had. Their hunger was ever-present, and unending. A hundred thousand planets devoured, churned and sifted into bioforce – fueling their great war machine. Fueling their very bodies themselves, and yet their hunger remained unsated. It was a marvel, really, how so few could ingest so much – and then continue onward as if they’d eaten nothing. Now, though, their sights were set on Sanctum – and while it was a mite bit smaller than the last places they devoured, the amount of diverse life made it a delicacy.

The tremors of energy continued, though, and it seemed they flowed along to a central point – the ending of their path was the singular location, which those studied and learned in such things would know was the thinnest section of their reality. It poured through the darkness of space, and then it simply came to rest. It stopped moving, full-stop at that single point. Coiling around and upon itself, twisting together. It continued, growing ever stronger in that rested state – until the might of it unleashed. A shockwave lashed outward, undulating tendrils of bioforce ripping a hole through reality.

Not with a whisper, but with a bang. The reverberations of that much power would surely be felt Universe-wide, though the Collective gave little thought, nor care, to what might react and in what way. They simply wished to be, and be they would. Splitting open a schism in all of reality, ripping a tear through the very fabric of their reality. Through that tear emitted a blinding, olive light. It spread outward, opening the rift further. What would come through would prove to be the end of all things, much as they had more than once in their history.

First came tentacle-like slivers of translucent flesh, several hundred of them reaching out – grasping at the edges of reality. A mighty jerk, and they ripped open the tear further and further. It expanded until the vast bell-shape of its head fit through, a membrane-like section of living flesh functioning as a transport system. The Scourgebearer was an impressive sight, and its name was the definition of its function. It delivered the Scourge that were Val’gara. With them, they brought utter desolation to everything they touched. Except those they found worthy, those few they converted – their DNA mutated through the Vesuvian Virus. Computer systems, human flesh, nothing was immune to the effect of it; at least in their experience.

Now, though, they brought that might to bear upon a whole new world. Their force of pure will for utter destruction would soon know the lands of Sanctum, and with it would come the trembling of those who thought themselves saviors and heroes. For, aboard the Scourgebearer sat the Collective, and they watched with their blank stares as they drew ever closer to Sanctum, their wandering minds and aching hearts searching only for the one thing they could not live without. At their front sat The Hellion, his arms crossed over his too-human chest, dark eyes closed in contemplation. His wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his brow, dark hair flowing freely in the stirring of the creature’s breaths.

The long-tailed duster drug the membrane-lined ground as he walked to the mucus-wall, eyeing the planet in the distance. It would be years yet before they reached it, but when they did – then all hell would be let loose on the surface. Whatever systems they thought would protect them, whatever hope they held out for saving themselves from such an incursion would falter and fail, as such things always did.

The universe wept for what was to come, the billions of souls floating untethered to flesh crying out in anguish in that single, solitary moment.

And The Hellion only laughed.

Market-City Mayhem

A week ago he’d begun his trek through this dusty tower, its insidious walls encasing him like a tomb. But, one always had to scout out their locations before making their mark. This seemed the best place to start, really. It was a known place of ill repute, whores and criminals lined every street. They got away with literal murder in these walls, a police force all but extinct doing nothing while they lined their pockets with corrupted cash gained from greed. For a week, now, he’d been here. Spreading his influence, watching the people. They saw him, but they ignored him. Another wandered in from the wastelands, they thought, not worth keeping an eye on – and certainly not anyone of importance.

Oh, but they were wrong. See, while they went about their daily lives, many of their friends simply vanished. Where they went, or why they’d gone, nobody seemed to know. Though, very few even gave two fucks that they were gone to begin with. Of course, that was the way he planned it. Find the people in charge, find the ones who run things – and infect them. Turn them into your own, make them what you wanted them to become. That was the Val’garan way, after all. Today, for some, would be a homecoming.

As he walked the levels of the city, his feet carrying him swiftly from one level to another, starting from the top and working his way to the base – he exuded a mist-like essence all around him, almost like smog from a factory. It poured form his pores, but none took notice. They didn’t care. What was he to them, but a drifter who posed no threat? Well, they’d soon find out the true nature of this non-threat. The Mist coated the walls, tore into the machinery and began to corrode the circuitry. Each person it touched upon became infected, their own genetic code betraying them – mutating them. Many would die from the process, and even more would simply become mindless, prattling children for the Heralds to command.

A few of the chosen might become heralds, but that was doubtful. He controlled the Mist like he would control his arm, it was an extension of him – it was him. When he was infected, that was how he changed. His physical body was now nothing more than the Mist heavily compacted down upon itself, two sentient creatures inhabiting the same body, fighting one another for control. It was a work of art, really. Regardless, though, over the years they became one in the same. Though, he did still prefer the use of a physical body for many things.

Like killing.

It was so much more satisfying when you could feel the snap of a neck, or the crunch of bones in your own fingertips. And nothing felt more right in his hands than the large butts of his heavy irons, the Tyrant Guns which lay draped around his hip. With more than twenty-six specialized rounds, it was just a guess at this point what he was even loading into the thing when he rechambered them. Or, well, would be a guess if he didn’t use his own innate mist to create them in the first place.

‘Still’, he thought, ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I expected resistance, from someone…anyone.’ But, that resistance never came – at least not yet, and by now it was too late for most of Market-City. The insidious walls trembled under the weight of being corroded, as if a thousand years passed upon them in the moment the mist roamed across their surface. It mattered little, however, to him. He wouldn’t be killed by the city crumbling down upon itself, and that was the point after-all. All these lives consumed in one instance, when the very walls they thought protected them turned against them.

Already many of them were dying from the virus, their bodies unable to handle the change. Those the Mist ate, encircling their bodies and breaking them down into the pure bioforce needed to fuel his living body. He continued downward, once he reached the base of Market-City, it would be time to enact the full nature of his plan. Once he hit ground level, he’d be able to bring the city crashing down upon itself. And, still, none with the strength or desire to stop him stepped forward.

Some few sought to impede his path, their ignorant mouths speaking words of confusion and question – wanting to know what was happening, why his body was seemingly melting away only to reform. They scantly finished their sentences before his hands, both physical and mist-like, entrapped their throats. The vicious smile on his face struck fear into them, but that fear was short-lived as their lives were snuffed out with a firm, final twist of his wrists.

Those, too, the Mist ate. Constantly fueling him, constantly elevating him. He could see the result already, years spent in the Dark Realm absorbing the knowledge of the Multiverse, both past, present, and future gave him keen understandings of what was to be expected here – hell, those years were why he’d come here in the first place. He needed to feast, and this place was a literal all-you-can-eat buffet for them. Not everything was foretold though, he was sure, and so his guard was never let down. His Mist never stopped moving, protecting him without thought or needing to be asked.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he reached the bottom of the monolithic city, and paused in his tracks. Something…unfamiliar was here. Something he hadn’t expected, despite the forewarning the Dark Realm gave him. A being of considerable power, who sat amongst these as if they were his kin, but without really being one of them. The Hellion was not unaware of such things, and his body positively quivered. Excitement ran through him, and through him the rest of his kin, connected as they were by the hive-mind that allowed them to react instantly for one another, as well as share some minor traits between them. That was why the Collective traveled together, always. They, in their glory, were the most powerful of the Heralds remaining since Anathema’s demise. And they loved to share.

Except today, they stood upon the Scourgebearer – hiding in plain sight in orbit, waiting patiently for the order to attack. From that distance, their sharing of traits was vastly limited, but they still shared thoughts – so they knew of the unexpected nature of what Hellion found, they too quivered with excitement for their brother. But they, too, readied themselves in case they were needed. As far as they were concerned, it was nothing to be that concerned about – but you didn’t live for as long as they did, and topple as many cultures and feast on as many living Gods as they had, by being careless.

Hellion, on the other hand, disagreed with that sentiment entirely. He simply did what any near omnipotent creature would do in that scenario, he let his Mist seep into the ground – replacing it with freshly formed versions as more and more of it lashed out into the surface – entangling itself in the very molecules that made up the planet.

The best part about sharing your mind with two living creatures rather than just one? You had two sets of senses, and through the Mist he could see everything around him. Though, it was more a latent form of psychometry than actual sight. He could sense the movements of those around him, even the most minute stirring of the air was known to him – and so, as he walked along the first level, preparing to pull the entire market down on top of everyone, he felt something.

Behind a pillar a little girl hid, trying her best to keep from being found. Of course, the trembling of her lip and the quiet whimpers of fear told him where she hid. The Mist snatched her, lifting her from the ground and pulling her across the room, until she was face to face with the hideous monstrosity in human form. He looked her up and down, ran a talon-like nail along her cheek, and smiled.

“Hello, little one,” he said, "I take it you’re afraid of me, yes? You probably should be, but my you’re such a darling little thing. I do believe I’ll have some fun out of you, before I end your pathetic, sniveling life. Now, go, hide. When this is done, expect me to find you – I’ll always find you.”

His words were vile, repulsive – but what could he say? Every man had his needs, and his needs were more than just hunger. But first, he had a task to attend to – a job to do. And that job was only just beginning.

[Fenris]

He had come here due to an investigation. Over the past few days rumors had arose that something had come to Market. It did not take the Ultonis long to realize something seemed off. There was a corruption that was strong here, stronger than normal. He had missed it at first due to the natural presence of Market's nature, but it was there. He could have found it sooner had he been looking for it, but the profane influence that was spreading was not the mundane result of pollution and human suffering. This was something else. Something far more vile and repulsive. He moved, paying his tab as he walked out of the diner, and listened to the faint groans of the damned. How could he have missed it? A virus was spreading through this city. He could sense the gibbering masses lose their minds bit by bit as what little semblence of law and order the city retained began to slowly break down.

The "police" of market were little more than enforcers for the gangs, some of which had access to much greater technology, while many of them were mutants themselves. One thing the "Hellion" may not have counted on was running into beings not that disimilar to him. For the most part however he blended in fairly well, and had managed to escape detection, due to this fact. Many of the people he turned did not need much "convincing" biological or otherwise as they seemed ripe to become something abhorrant and profane.

He was right, the city offered little resistance, almost as if it had been waiting for him. The dead and dying littered the streets, crying out in agony for a salvation that was now beyond them. The dark alleyways were shrouded in that tainted miasma "farted" out by the cancer that now sought to eat through the body of this city. It was disgusting. It was everything Fenris was made to fight against. He was at a disadvantage though. For one he had not come in uniform, and for another it seemed this creature had aready established environmental control. He had come too late it seemed. That was when he saw it. In one of the shop-windows. A long beige duster and a cow-boy hat on a mannakin. He grinned showing feral canine-teeth.

The upper eschelons of society were already making their escape seeking to evacuate leaving only their helpless cogs as fodder for the wight. When he began to terrorize the little girl, he found her almost sobbing and backing up in fear seeking to escape but unable to move. That was when finally, when it was far too late for the denizens of Market to strike that someone finally tried to do something. A group of gangers that had gained access to specialized weapons saw The Hellion.

Perhaps they somehow knew he was the source of the cities troubles, or perhaps they were simply taking advantage of the situation and had lost themselves to violence. One of them actually wielding a Torch-Weapon shot a jet of streaming napalm at the would be child-molestor though in the process also enveloped the little girl, arguably sparing her a worse fate down the line. Her screams were frantic but fleeting, as a few other members of the gang opened fire on the creature with assault-weapons, comparible to AK-47's in their rapidity and in the size of their slugs. A hail of bullets joined the stream of liquid-fire seeking to riddle the creature with holes, as well as incinerate the creature to ash. There were several other children nearby however, the little urchins running frantically for cover.

[Lord of Flesh]

On the concept of death and a monstrous rebirth.

The insolence of stupidity was insufferable, and it was on prominent display from these simple-minded cretins who called this world their home. They sought to defend themselves, finally – though why it took them so long to mount an offensive against the incursion was lost to him. Most people who he sought to digest were immediate with their defensive attempts, at trying to save themselves from the murderous intentions that seemed to drive him. So, even as they grabbed their weapons, it was too late for them. Almost without thought, the Mist reacted to the assault. It lashed out, gently inserting itself into the exposed flesh of the gangsters with their guns. They sought to shoot him, but their success was dependent upon independent processes.

They no longer had that luxury. The Mist seeped into their brains, and Hellion’s smile only widened, yellowed teeth baring themselves in more of a snarl than an expression of mirth and happiness. The others could feel their body betraying them, but try as they might they could not fight against it. The incursion of the Mist latched so tightly to their muscle control, implanting itself inside their minds and forcing their hands. Literally. The guns turned, no longer focused to begin firing on Hellion, but instead planting themselves beneath their chins – pointed to the sky. The torch-weapon included, and the already burning heat of its barrel left the smell of burning flesh floating on the still air.

And then they fired. The sound of gunshots rang throughout, reverberating on the walls and drowning out the screams of the unsaved. The little girl who they sought to save through killing her, though that was unintentional, he was sure – did die. Her heart stopped in that instance, fear gripping it so strongly that the very beating of it could no longer sustain itself. A tightening clasp that felt like a hand, ripping through her body and rendering the muscle that controlled her life useless. Her body went limp, and Hellion’s mirthless smile disappeared.

Of course, ever the optimist, he used that to form an advantage. The bodies of the gangsters, blood dripping from the open wounds, shifted – their minds were dead, but the Mist lived on within them. And so, too, did it creep inside the body of the girl. Her muscles twitched, her eyes shifted beneath the lids. It almost appeared as if, perhaps, she was only dealing with the troubles of REM sleep, and yet it was clear by the lack of a rise and fall in her chest that her life was no longer he own.

The Mist poured into her, more and more of it as his body replaced the portions that spread out. Already the outside of the spire that made up the city was covered in the translucent fog that made up his body. Any outside would begin to take notice, but The Collective was prepared – the Scourgebearer watched with its mental eyes, prepared to defend the city against any outsiders who sought to protect it from the incursion. The ground, desolate though it was, around the monolithic municipality shivered with anticipation – or was it something else? The ground quaked, and the city answered with a shake of its own.

Stone broke free from its home, falling from on high and smashing the skulls of would be escapees. Those who tried to make it out found themselves in an even worse position, faced with an overwhelming number of general cataclysm, whose only goal was to murder and maim. They were not there to convert, they only knew to consume. To control. The city-goers ran out of the frying pan, only to be met with the proverbial fire.

The Hellion, on the other hand, continued his distinct mission – to take the city for himself, and begin the process that would siphon the living essence, the Bioforce, of every living thing on the planet into the Horde. The would-be defenders of the city stood now, the holes in their head obvious as they turned their attention from their new Master, the man who controlled them like the puppets they’d become – and started to walk through the bottom tier. Their guns at the ready, they swept the floor putting bullets into the head of any they found trying to escape.

Along with those bullets came tendrils of mist, flowing freely into the opened wounds and pores of each of them. They, too, stood and took up arms. Whatever weapon they could find. Intricately tied to Hellion, they became the personal army he set for himself wherever he decided to go. They swept the floor for him, while he let a mist-throne form and sat himself upon it, floating idly along behind them – encircled by them. He sought out any sign of threat that these few could not handle. Surely something of the sort existed here, it always existed. His hands clasped the ends of the chair-arms, tightening their grip as he let his mind flow along the Mist, along himself, until he found what he sought.

A single man at a shop window. It was unclear what he was doing, but The Hellion could sense from the way the man acted that he was beyond the capabilities of any of his single soldiers – but could he withstand the brute force of all of them? Who knew, really. Hellion had many weapons at his disposal, many skills he could tap into and utilize on a whim – but even he couldn’t tell everything about a person just by seeing them. So, in the face of the unknown, he sought only to enlighten himself.

Their trajectory immediately changed, moving on an intercept course that – in a few moments – had him confronting the other. His eyes looked him up and down, and his army raised their weapons, ranged and melee alike. The ones with the guns opened fire, the napalm torch flung its flames forward. And The Hellion simply sat there, one hand lifting and the knuckles allowing his chin to have a stoop upon which to rest. He tapped into his power, though, opening himself completely to the other sections of himself. The walls corruption was almost complete, the ground outside was beginning to crack and break apart from itself.

The city was his, even if this other might think differently. He was no longer in a territory of semi-friendly denizens of his world. He was standing in the middle of hostile territory unlike any he’d found himself in before, and the Hellion ruled it all. The man’s two options were clear to anyone with a brain. Run, and perhaps escape – giving up the city and losing this singe battle, but capable of preparing the world for the war to come, or stand and fight. The second option was likely the one he’d take, it was the one they always took. They saw only the battle at hand, and not the war that was to come.

Lose the battle and maybe win the war, or lose the battle and definitely lose the war – those were the options he was faced with, those were the choices the Hellion gave him. What would the man choose? Probably the ignorantly brave choice, which even The Master of the Mist respected, though it would not bring mercy upon this one. He would die, either way. If he fought, that death would come to him today. If he ran, that death would come in time. There was no escape, no true escape, where the Cataclysm was concerned.

[Fenris]

The men were of course turned. There was nothing they could do to stop it. They were merely thugs, and now they were little more than empty husks. Drones existing for the will of a greater whole. They of course obeyed without resistance, bleeding from the wounds they had inflicted upon each other, even as the little girl mercifully passed from fear only for that mercy to be rescinded as she joined the viral evil that had infected this forsaken city. It had always been forsaken, this wight had merely brought that corruption to the surface and gave it its final rest.

The higher leveled fat-cats got away via aerial transport, and even spatial-gateways for the patriarchs, as always the poor were the ones that suffered first. Many more who could not afford such lavish travel were taken down with cruel efficiency. Fenris knew he could not save them, and perhaps in its own way this was a mercy. But it seemed he was now met by the threat, as a mob of puppets began to make their way towards them. He sensed the foreign presence, how could he not? He who was an incarnation of creation could feel the cancer that came as it corrupted the land around it. Well enough was enough. And perhaps some hope was left for Market City, because Fenris of Olfwood, the Primoris Ultonis was there. It seemed his attempt at a bit of a wardrobe change was interupted.

He felt them coming, and turned to look as the mob approached. He loosened the bindings on his body, and continued to do so. He was going to approach this unbound. As they readied their weapons to fire, his own mist was brought into play, erupting from him as he was concealed in silver shadow. His own presence extended in the area around him, as the force and energy of their weapons met the cloud it would solidify and disperse that force throughout its structure relaying it effects as Fenris growled.

Each strike of the bullet would create an echo that would resonate with the area, and with each echo that force would grow in the area causing the already precarious area to grown further, as something "different" emerged through the tortured moans of the fallen city. The growl of something beastial, which answered the challenge of the creature that sought to taint this world. That same growl exerted a pressure upon the very air itself exerting influence upon it. It was worth noting that whatever was causing this force... Was not sound alone, it was if the sound was coming from somewhere else, the result of a seperate cause entirely not the true source. This force sought to crush the men AND the Hellion as pressure built all but liquifying them before... BOOM.

The man with the "Blaze-Torch" had his tank erupt in an oxygen rich environment, from the compression which took place, the ignition caused by the fuel caught the air and fed on it creating an explosive inferno that sought to envelope what was left of the improvised army and the Hellion itself in a brilliant flash. When everything was said and done Fenris... Was gone? Had he done the unexpected and done something sensible? Had he literally ran from a fight or even more embarassingly blew himself up? He hoped his opponent who may or may not have appreciated the "kill it with fire" approach for his particular brand of cancer was not about to hold his breath, there was more than one way to skin a cat. And Fenris was more than aware that the current environment was a losing battle, but he was not quite done, oh no not by a long shot. Where had he gone? He had gone to ground, deep to ground, further than the influence of his opponents power, and the withering pollution of Market-City. If his opponent wanted a fight, he was going to get one.

[Lord of Flesh]

Mutations and Ministration

The density of Market-City was such that it would be nearly impossible to overtake everyone, at least so quickly. So, some escaped. Not many, but a few – and only because The Collective willed it to be so – why would they not, after all? Where were they really going to go, that the Val’gara wouldn’t find them again anyway? The planet was large, but not that large – and they were building their own base of operations right here on the planet, where they could begin to extend out their hands and touch upon the world around them. The Hellion was seeing to that, as he let his considerable influence and power corrupt everything it touched.

In that moment, they were reminded of Mire, the planet of the Psions. They’d taken the planet, but only after a considerable war effort waged. The grounds of Mire were covered in the blood of its home denizens, and that blood still filled their nostrils with its scent. The Psions fought valiantly, well some of them had, anyway. Yet, what do you do when your own world turns against you? When your own world tries to kill you at every step you take? You can’t fight that, no one can – the only choices are to leave, or to die. The choice to die was theirs, and now only a few Psions remained in the entire Multiverse, dispersed and no longer working together to foster themselves into influence.

The Val’gara saw to that, saw the utter destruction of their kind. The Hellion was there, among those who killed them, one-by-one. Much of their blood was on his hands, but those stains were only the beginning. From there he’d gone out, murdering for the sheer sake of murdering – and finding the one who created him, finding the true Father. Finding Anathema, that search lead him from universe to universe. Seeking out all that might have information on him, until the day he found Magnus. Of course, Magnus gave him what he sought – but at a considerable price. The price of his physical body. Now, he simply was The Mist. He was nothing more, nothing less.

So, when the pressure mounted upon those filled with his essence, with him – they did not die, but they pressed back. Their own wills ceded control to the Mist, and Hellion pushed back against that “force” with his own considerable willpower, which was only bolstered by the link established between himself and his kind. His eyes closed, he didn’t need them to track or see anyway. None of those human senses meant anything to him. The physical bodies of the others, though, could not withstand the pressure – they exploded, blood and flesh and organ-bits strewn everywhere. The fire hurt him none, but the bodies that remained after the explosions seared away to leave only the tendrils of mist behind.

Those sections did not return to the main body, though, they flowed down into the floors, the walls – they broke through and shredded everything that anchored the city to the ground. The entirety of Market-City lifted, the ground ripping and tearing all around it – until the city floated in the sky, a hundred feet from its original standing point. The darkened monolith was a testament to who they were, and what they were – and it floated on the Mist like some living entity heralding the devastation of everything around it.

What remained of the people began to simmer, a slight boil of their blood-pooled bodies and mush-made flesh. It sank into the Mist, pulled through the sections of himself and into the main body. He feasted upon them, growing in strength from the bioforce he ingested from each once-living entity. The feast was amazing, it was one of pure joy and the possibility of more to come. He hungered constantly, and even when well-fed his hunger could not be sated. Nor would it ever be, truly. The very nature of the beings was such. They ate and they ate, always eating. Always hungering.

Now, his eyes opened and though he did not need them to see, he looked about anyway. Fenris was simply gone, it seemed. Perhaps he’d run, or perhaps he sought to try and brook some offensive. It didn’t matter, Hellion would not remain in the same spot long enough for any offensive to come, he immediately burst – the Mist slinging itself out and removing any semblance of a physical body from the playing field.

Instead, it flowed through the molecules. It slipped between subatomic particles, until it phased through the wall – reconstituting itself against the backdrop of the floating city, and he looked down upon the fissure of where it once stood. Any intelligent opponent would seek to remove themselves from the influence he exerted, and that spot on the ground was the only place someone could be that wasn’t under his influence, currently. So, it stood to reason Fenris was there, somewhere beneath the surface waiting to attack.

The Hellion pulled his revolvers, turning the right handed one toward the ground – the hammer cocked back of its own volition. His finger tensed, the muscles in his hand tightening as he squeezed ever so slightly. It took less than a single foot-pound of force. The explosion from the end of his weapon was massive, and the round that followed that explosion was more than impressive in size. Roughly four times the size of a natural .44 caliber handgun, the round zoomed through the air before exploding.

It homed in on life-signs not infected by the Vesuvian Virus. And only one of those remained in the area. The round broke apart, twenty-six projectiles from the original – and growing exponentially until a thousand tiny, miniscule slivers of microscopic metal filled the air before him – their homing beacons activated, and they found the life-sign they sought. Though Hellion, himself, could no longer see Fenris, the smart round could. They flew with imperceptible speed, directly toward the spot Fenris sought to hide himself. Within a few feet of him, they exploded – and the sheer force of it caused Market-City to rumble and shake.

It even rose another hundred feet from the force. The ground was turned to ashe, the sandy desolation pure, molten glass from the intense heat and power of the explosion. Fenris, likely, would find a way to survive the utter destruction of the wasteland around him – since it was, again, the only logical place to mount an offensive without remaining inside the Hellion’s sphere of influence. But, survive as he might, he would no longer be able to hide within the ground, if that was where he truly had hidden himself, anyway.

Hellion shifted himself on his seat, and made preparation for the mutation of the city itself, turning the monolithic structure into a living entity would be easy, deciding which portions of that city should look like and giving it a malleable genetic code, however, would take some time and some pondering. Though, The Mist left inside was already doing that task, with or without him.

[Fenris]

Fenris already was well aware with what he was dealing with. He had no intention on fighting the body, he half expected to do so, would merely lead to some sort of respawning. No this kind of coward had to be taken out at the source, but in the meantime Fenris had to deal with this. Some people had escaped Market mostly the ones that did not deserve too. Perhaps Fenris would track them down one by one and kill them when this was done, but that was a story for another time. It was time to make some tough moral decisions. The whole had to be saved from this rot, and that is what he would do. As he had phased deeper into the earth, his opponents smart rounds would have to drill through mile and miles of earth below the foundations of Market itself. His taint had not reached the heart of the planet, and as the bullets sought Fenris they would find themselves unable to differentiate between him and the rest of the world as he communed with the planet. They could destroy the wasteland but he was beyond their destructive range.

His opponent had made a grave-error in assuming Sanctum was like any planet he had come across. It was alive, sentient in its own way. Fenris had transmuted his own presence to synergize with the worlds, as he stirred it from its natural slumber. It had merely tolerated the blight of Market for all these years, but this was different. It would not allow this profanity to go any further. His presence became one with the planets, not dominating it, but rather working with it to achieve the same goal...

The bullets which tried to home in on him, would probably explode as soon as they couldnt find him, as Fenris listened to the whispers of the earth. They told him secrets, secrets that were his to know, save one that would be revealed to the Hellion in spectacular fashion. The super-structure of and the area surrounding Market had been weakened in the enemies attempt to take the city, while there had nought been but a few singular points within the bed-rock that had kept the massive pillar city stable. The earth itself began to growl...

This was different from the tortured groans that had been imposed upon the city, they were an answer to that moan, as the ground, around the city itself began to reverberate. Fenris was not trying to affect Market, that ship had clearly sailed. No He was affecting the planet around Market. The ash riddled wastes still hot from the explosive attack beneath the city began to crack, as the foundations were finally offered rest from their hard work. The growling continued, permeating not just the earth, but the wind and air around Market. The North-Wind blew, while what was left of the land destabilized. The earth rose as geysers of water erupted into the tempest as the winds around the city spiraled into a freezing wind funnel drawing the city back down and solidifying the area around it into ice to both form a foundation and keep the land locked, as well as further weigh it down in the forming glaciers. The fog would also be subject to the freezing temperatures turning the city into a frozen hulk.

The city would start to lean like the Tower of Piza slightly, as the ground beneath the ice started to swallow the city whole in an enormous fissure. The North-wind seeking to freeze the fog and blow the rest back up into space, while the city of Market began to collapse under the weight of its own sin, and sink to a final resting place, as chunks of the city fell off and fragmented. The earth beneath Market giving way further and further until it would reach the living and purifying inner fire of sanctums outer bowels. Molten liquid light would begin to flow from the veins of creation as if animated.  It was worth noting that his opponent had done some of the work for him by weakening the area so much, that it only took a "relatively" little nudge to bring the whole mess crashing down, as Sanctum initiated some "hygiene" protocols on itself.

Soon the frozen corrupted city would be enveloped in a lake of fire, drowning in flame. If the Hellion tried to be cute and corrupt the magma somehow (Which would be very questionable to begin with.) it would find that the "presence" of the magma was now actively resisting that influence while the heat extended to metaphysical spectrums as well. If nothing else trying to corrupt deeper components of the planet would lead too absolutely nothing, as there was simply "too much" influence to fight against. His opponent had merely taken a city, while Fenris was working with the planet itself. There was something to be said for cooperation rather than domination, the former was typically the path of least resistance, and would make Fenris' actions far easier.  

Judgement had been passed upon Market-City, his opponent had underestimated his opposition in more ways than one. The Hellion still had his ship up in orbit, but his first forray into sanctum had been greedy and ill-conceived. He had not done proper recon, nor intelligence on what he was dealing with here, and one could not fight what one did not see. The area where market had stood was soon going to become home to an intense blizzard to boot as ice and fire sought to clean up the mess that had been created. So much for establishing a foot-hold.

Fenris' only regret was he had not gotten here in time to stop it, but when it came to making the tough decisions, he was a Primoris and that was his job. He would cut out this cancer without hesitation, amputating, disinfecting, and burning the invasive agent with ruthless and merciless efficiency. If this entity fancied itself a god, there was more than one to deal with on Sanctum, so it would have to get in line and learn how to play ball. Still The Hive-Mind was unlucky to encounter a Primoris in its first outing, much less the Incarnation of the Wild a being designed to deal with this sorta thing.

[Lord of Flesh]

Simple Deductions and Understanding Friction

The ground rumbled and shook with Fenris’ burrowing, digging himself deeper and deeper into the terrain to commune with Sanctum itself. This did little to bother the Hellion, whose shells hit the ground and exploded a few inches in. The planet could come to his aide all it wanted, it only proved to Hellion that the man lacked the capabilities to combat the invasion, and had to coerce help from entities far stronger than himself. That was fine, he supposed, since it was far from the first time someone needed this kind of being to come to his aide.

But to assume that Sanctum was unlike any planet Hellion ever walked upon was asinine. Living planets were a pretty well-known thing, and it seemed like everyone and everything gave their planets some sentience or another these days. Be it biochemical or engineered from computer processes, there was very few planets left that weren’t sentient in their own way. It was annoying, but that annoyance was one Hellion dealt with a million times a week, really. So, even as Fenris communed with the planet and got its aid, Hellion was already preparing to go on the offensive…again.

The cold winds coming in forming a wind tunnel did nothing, their vacuum was – at best – a minor annoyance. Hellion and, by extension, the city began to simply vibrate their molecules at an exponential rate. They ran across one another much faster, though the naked eye couldn’t see that. The resultant friction created heat, and that heat extended well beyond Hellion’s own location. Throughout the city, it began to do the same – the city needed no pylons or beams to hold it together anymore, The Mist held it together while it mutated itself. The Mist held it aloft while the wind tried to suck it back down to the surface.

And the friction kept them from freezing, though in all honesty there was barely enough moisture there to even consider freezing to begin with. To assume Hellion, simply because he appeared to be, was like any other type of Mist you could find floating over the roadways on a chilly morning as the sun rose, was ignorant. Had he not proven already that he was far and beyond any of those silly notions? He thought he had, but perhaps Fenris simply lacked the computing power to fully grasp the situation. Freezing occurs when the molecules lose energy, and stop moving. Creating movement that counteracts that, such as two molecules continuously rubbing against one another, counteracts that exact happening. So, while the wind blew cold, Hellion was comfortably warm – and the City itself was as well, intricately linked to him as it had become. To the point that it had become him.

The ice-bridge that tried to form found itself unable to do so, as it drew closer upon the city the heat created from the friction of molecules caused it to shatter and melt, falling back into the magma pool it was somehow trying to pull the city into. Hellion, for his part, simply remained where he was – watching, eyeing. It would be nothing for him to send out the call, to bring the whole of the Cataclysm down on the planet. TerraCrusher, for example, would make short work of this planet. As would any of the Sons of Idea. Yet, he did not. He needed no help, he needed nothing other than himself. Which was more than could be said for this guy.

Hellion watched from on high, his eyes focused intently on the magma pool – and then an idea struck him. He hadn’t used the Grammaton-Hammer round in a long, long time. The last time he did was probably back on Fortis, though he couldn’t be for sure that he’d used it then. So, he cycled through the rounds in his weapon, and found the one he wanted. Pointing it directly downward, he pulled the trigger – and the Mist formed the bullet as it fired.

It slammed into the magma with expedient force, and for some reason didn’t melt on impact. Instead, it burrowed down until it found solid ground. There it opened, an explosion that sent the magma flying upwards, though it came back down just as quick and did nothing to harm the city nor Hellion. Immediately the magma pool began to twist, turning like water going down a drain. The what of it all was unseen, but to Hellion it was simple. The grammaton-hammer opened beneath it, and pulled through it the magma, taking it…somewhere. Even Hellion wasn’t quite sure where the portal opened by Grammaton-Hammer rounds took things.

All he knew was they worked.

So, the wind blew and did nothing. It was a simple biochemical process of heating and friction that, simply him refusing to allow his molecules to reach that state of rest that was the way to obtain a freeze through rapidly falling temperatures – and the magma found itself somewhere else entirely. All that work, all that effort, all that cowardly backup from the planet itself. And it was for nothing, the battlefield remained the same. Save for a few geysers spouting their water, though the Mist recurved around those and twisted its trajectory so that it began to populate the wasteland around the city’s destruction.

Someday, that water would have a story behind it – likely not the true story, but a story of how an errant God so loved the land that he brought new life back into it. Regardless of that, though, Hellion simply purged the water off to the sides – unfazed and unharmed by such mundane, elemental attacks as these. It really was quite sad, how so many people seemed to lack the understanding required to fight him. They saw him as nothing more than a Mist-form, they treated him as if he was common, ordinary fog. They didn’t even begin to comprehend the true nature of his power.

But, as the city mutated and changed from the inside out. As its walls became something so much more dangerous than it’d already been, he knew they would soon find out. They would soon begin to understand why The Master of the Mist was so feared throughout the Multiverse. Soon, they would know the utter destruction that would befall them. Assuming they didn’t run to ground and hide, letting others fight for them. It wasn’t so bad, though. Not everyone had the testicular fortitude required to stand toe-to-toe with him. They always had to bring in the backup.

[Fenris]

His opponents foundless pride in thinking Fenris needed help to take him out was merely more hubris and quite frankly ignorance on his part. A being who had turned an entire city into an extension of his will was bitching that someone else was doing the same only on a larger scale? Apparently this creature had some sort of twisted morality that made absolutely no sense, but it was a moot point. The Hellion also still did not seem to understand who or what exactly he was up against but he was about to find out. Once again he had been fighting an aspect of creation all along, for a being who had traversed and ended so many worlds he seemed to be pretty thick-headed.

The "minor annoyance" of the cataclysmic twister which surrounded the city was not just cold, it was also force, and the city was probably being bombarded with chunks of earth and hail that were fairly apocalyptic in both size and quantity. Regardless Fenris was now "unbound" and was now acting through creation, using it as an extension of his presence. A shadow fell upon the world, as an inkling of what Fenris truly was began to manifest. As the bullet formed from mist to drain the worlds magma, the twister would simply pull it in as it was formed while the entire tempest became as a great rippling shadow.

The winds which pulled in the fog were not mundane winds, it was as if the fundamental forces, or rather something beyond them was tugging on the stray projectile, while the winds themselves seemed to almost solidify, "demi-phasing" in a flickering broken rhythm moving constantly between material and immaterial wherein the bullet would simply be "phased" out by the rematerializing dense particles being imposed upon its vector snuffing it out of creation. The mass and power produced by the rate of change in the matter would also protect it from undue influences, as pressure would build in the "eye" of the storm, as the fundamental forces slowly started to go haywire.

The Hellion wanted more than "simple mundane elemental attacks" then that was what he was going to get. A similar fate would await the city, as the twister compressed together, and the rate of its "flickering" intensified. The shape of the obsidian maelstrom forming into the shape of a great wolfs head which would snap its jaws shut upon the city for a fleeting instant there would be no effect until the shape rematerialized back into being, seeking to snuff out the city just as it had snuffed out the bullet. The "mass" suddenly materializing once more in the cities vector displacing it and creating a paradox as Fenris pushed the construct through the ambient-space which the city occupied. He however had the benefit of acting from the core of the ambient cosmos. The ebon-storm which already enveloped the city sought to eclipse it and simply displace it. But unlike his opponent with his magic-bullets Fenris knew exactly where the city was going, which was to say everywhere and nowhere.

[Lord of Flesh]

The Cataclysm Awakens.

Some people simply couldn’t begin to fathom what was going on. They sought only to fight and to battle, without ever understanding what it was they were pitting their will against. The city was not an extension of his will, it had never been an extension of his will. It became an extension of himself. It was him. It seemed that many people found that impossible to grasp, that the city was no longer a standalone monolith that belied a corruption of the people within. No, it was now an intricate part of the Hellion himself, a force of him that existed in direct correlation with his body. It wasn’t just a city any longer, it was the same as his arm, or his leg. Though, it wouldn’t remain that way for long.

No one seemed to be paying attention to the changes happening with the city, how the walls seemed to break down and simply disappear on their own. Long before the wind came, the Mist was gnawing away at the structure – siphoning the material and changing it, purifying it as it ingested it. He was eating that larger portion of himself, sucking it dry and using it to bolster his body. Yet, none seemed to notice the rapidly diminishing size of it – as it broke apart from the top down. Long before the winds tried to teleport its “vector”, the city was disintegrating. So, once the wolf-headed wind bit down upon the city, and in succession himself (since, you know, Hellion was the city), there was little left but a couple layers. Those layers were fundamentally useless, and so losing them – and by extension a part of himself, which now exerted its corruption on the influence holding the winds in control, was barely a loss at all.

For Fenris’ part, though, he’d opened the maw of the great wolf head and allowed the Hellion’s taint in, the corruption of the Mist flowed along the influence which held the wind together, which sought to keep the phase-shifting happening, and his own influence grasped it around its proverbial throat, cutting off the supply of energy. The result was a simple cascade failure, the winds themselves stopped blowing immediately. No longer was there anything there to direct their ebb and flow, to keep them moving and to keep the shifting nature of them alive. The Hellion clasped them like a bouncer grasps a too drunk fraternity student.

At the touch of the Mist, the corrupting nature of it consumed the influence – purified it, changed it, and redirected it all at once. Now, the more influence Fenris tried to feed into those same winds would only empower the Mist, and Hellion so hoped he continued. Already the Mist was spreading out further, turning upward and becoming a drill-shape so large that it could clearly be seen from orbit, and probably several hundred miles away. At this point, Fenris was only feeding him the power he needed to complete the whole of his task in one go. He was only making the Hellion stronger, with each passing moment that he continued to try and reassert dominance over his own influence with more power pushed through.

Hellion cared little for that, though. His task was, theoretically, completed. His job was to take the city, to feast upon it and regain a manner of strength for The Collective. He’d done that, quite a few times over. He could sense the power of his comrades boosting, he could feel them growing stronger by the moment. It was wondrous, feeling that power begin to flow once more. The Hivemind opened, and if Fenris wanted to pool outside resources – well then, Hellion could do the same. Opening his mind, he allowed their shared dominant traits to become available to him. The Voidmistress, The Enigmatic Storm, The Beast-Reaper, even Issak Lindt, who had yet to pick a title for himself, allowed him their powers. Their energy. This man wanted to see the true face of a monster, the true face of pure, unadulterated evil – then it was time to show him.

Sinuous red lines formed around his body, tears in the fabric of reality that ripped asunder. The wind was pulled into them, the magma pooled on the ground held no power, and it too was pulled inside. The bioluminescent red flickered, and similar lines began to lay across the physical body of Hellion’s manifestation. The Void opened itself to him, and all around him Fenris would feel his metaphysical powers failing if they came within twenty yards of him.

The Mist no longer needed a strangle-hold on the other’s influence, but it kept it anyway. It kept purifying and absorbing that energy, turning it into the Bioforce necessary for the Val’gara to live, and to thrive. All the while, Hellion continued to compile Mist into that giant, drill-shaped structure. It was almost time to end this, once and for all, but would Fenris finally show his face, and get his teeth knocked down his throat?

Probably not.

[Fenris]

More Irony that his opponent apparently felt Fenris did not understand him, and was bemoaning this fact, when in fact he could not understand that Fenris was extending himself through the ambient as well. "aid" merely a euphism of synchronization. But this was a moot point. Fenris would have thanked The Hellion for doing the work for him and cleaning up his own mess, if not for the fact he was cancer.

Something between boredom and amusement would "eminate" from the presence. Fenris saw him take the bait, confirming that Hellion was in fact what Fenris had always thought he was. A one trick pony. Fenris knew it would come down to this in the end. No ability was absolute, least of all corruption.

The presence he was facing was Fenris himself extending through creation as a medium. He still did not get that Fenris was already "showing" himself. He was the wind, he was the phasing mass all around his opponent. Only now might he understand. He was already in the belly of the beast. As he tried to "grab" around the throat of the presence, he would find it simply did not work that way, and trying to do so was like trying to hold onto water with the palm of ones hands, as Fenris simply shifted the influence to slip between the "proverbial" fingers of his opponents brutish and clumsy attempts. He denied The Hellion control over the influence Fenris had already gained, while his own presence established the purity of the environment within its manifestation. His opponent could not "stem the energy" because the source of the effect was too "deep" within creation. He could not "stop" the energy supply because it was coming from everywhere at once, echoing from somewhere between the endless vista between cause and effect.

The mist sought to consume, and was consumed in turn, creating an ouroborus effect that began to rapidly compress around The Hellion himself from all sides in a mutually corrosive effect. The voidal manifestation which occurred would only hasten the destruction as the phase effect carried on unhindered. Only this time he would materialize the portion around the Hellion himself, while seamlessly unphasing himself as his physical manifestation once more as the self-consuming mass continued to compress below the Lupine who hung in the air slowly drifting downward.

As that "20 yard" line was met from all angles, the shade would become "reflective" as the two presences met, and sought to consume each other, Fenris having shed that portion of his essence in order to maintain the chain-link while his own essence in turn sought to consume itself, warping the void around his opponent as it had tried to corrupt and link with the self-destructing rift. The consumption of that essence would open a "counter" void as both manifestations would seek too consume each other before stabilizing to aquiesce to the natural laws of creation both The Hellion and the sacraficed portion of Fenris' Intrinsic-Arming joined with the infinite and all permeating cycle of destruction and creation.

[Lord of Flesh]

Fenris kept cheating, so Hellion won and killed him. The end.

[Arbitrator]

Currently as it has in fact been reviewed several times through out the day by several members of the admin staff, we can say at this moment there has been no signs of blatant cheating by either parties involved. That said if you need more time to properly come up with a reasonable counter to what is happening you are more than welcome to that and if not then the scene will come to a close.

Thank you the moderation staff. <3

[Arbitrator]

As the player of Lord of Flesh has deleted his posts and replaced them with images in attempts to insult his opponent. It will be deemed as a forfeiture, the thread has been locked and the posts will be restored pending the discussion of a ban from the forums for malicious disruption of role play.

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