Kobold King

I've only watched the first season. I hope none of your opinions are negative about Tsukiyama, as he is inarguably the best part of that show, and about anime as a whole.

I did the same thing but with Tokyo Ghoul. It... wasn't the intended way to start the experience, but it worked surprisingly well for me.

Don't know what the whole thing would be, but "hypermetabolic" lends itself to "meta" as a shortening pretty easily.

It has a double "Fortify Reputation" enchantment on it, but only for kobolds. Besides which... ...you'd never survive the boss fight you'd need to acquire it.

The morality of the world of Skyrim is broken. I mean, yeah, I conjure daedra, but only to help me fight evil. Yeah, I specialize in destruction magic, but only to kill bandits and draugr. And yeah, sure, technically I killed that innocent guy, but he was wearing great armor and I look awesome in it. But sure, yeah, take me to jail like I'm the bad guy.

"I will finally finish my freakin' fan fiction."

Darkrose fights for women's rights! ...well, she fights for a woman's rights. She fights for her own rights. Specifically her 'right' to murder anyone for little to no reason.

You have the strength to not simply blitz through whatever is the current target of your interest?

No clue. I am not, technically speaking, a member at this point. I know that at some point Comatose was going to get me character profiles for Jenn and Connie so I can write them as needed. (Mostly as Karina's supporting cast, I imagine.) Currently I do not have those profiles, and Karina doesn't appear to be walking through the doors of a Reckoners base as of this very moment, so I don't have anything to write.

And if you don't want more Darkrose and Alastair, I regret to inform you that there's now even more of it. Like the unfortunate inhabitants of Bad End Oregon, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Darkrose was thinking of murder—Alastair’s, for one—but Alastair’s mind was on the three Epics before them. None of them were familiar to him—but then, he hadn’t much chance to meet most Epics outside of those Funtimes’ Empire business took him near. They might have been from Thoughttown, they might have been with the Dominion, they might have been a roving band of scavengers out looking for a good time at some vanilla’s expense. If Alastair had to guess, he’d say it was the latter option, if the dismembered body at the feet of the one with the battleaxe was any indication. His powers involved some unholy combination of time-travel and teleporting, but nothing Alastair couldn’t predict. The other’s grin was every bit as obnoxious as his companion’s, though it was paired with spiked blond hair rather than brown and he carried a knife. Something within Alastair twisted and fumed at the sight of it, but a quick peek forward told him that the electricity sparking up and down the length of the blade was a greater threat than the blade itself. Were either to move a few yards closer, Alastair’s thoughts would swirl together and his brain would cloud with a fog thick enough to obscure even precognition, for a time. More than one of these futures concluded at the business end of a blade. The third too wore an infuriating grin, so near to those of the others that Alastair had to wonder if they had practiced in a mirror prior to their little excursion. His powers, unlike those belonging to his compatriots, had already begun to snake toward Alastair. He felt it creep over him like a chill, dampening fury, raising fear and sorrow in one swoop. His thoughts turned from the immediate future and toward the past, toward that Newcago night. Then anger took its place. There was a question in Darkrose’s eyes, seated beside her fury, beside the desire to tear him limb from limb—a change from disembowelment, though no less unwelcome. These three Epics, these three walking atrocities, stood before her, and she was thinking of picking up where Fortuity had left off. Thinking of throwing him out in the alley with the other garbage without so much as acknowledging the value of what she’d destroyed. Do you want to kill them too? The cloaked one raised his paper coffee cup to his lips. Alastair saw it a moment before it happened, saw it without looking in the Epic’s direction. He met Darkrose’s gaze, held it as he raised his pistol. His bullet went straight through the coffee and shattered the Epic’s skull. ***** Actions spoke louder than words. She knew that because words used to be all she had, and even those had their limits; the number of actions she could take to make the slightest difference in her life was roughly the number of ways she could have learned how to fly. Her life was spent pacing around the outskirts of a war zone and hearing that it was off limits to even talk about how much that blowed. So yes, she knew actions had a power to them--the kind of power you could lose yourself reveling in. So she knew how potent that smooth action was. The casual way he hefted his pistol. The way he didn't even break eye contact as he squeezed the trigger, sending off a gunshot that sliced through the chaos in the air like a hot knife. The way he didn't even blink while ending the life of an Epic. That wasn't impressive. He was an Epic himself, after all. The action came as naturally as the roses came to her, so was nothing to be praised for. She'd probably still wind up killing him when his inevitable Epic slontze-ness became too irritating to bear. There was even still a chance that would be today. She still sucked in a breath in spite of herself. Whether she was enraged, begrudgingly impressed, or just surprised by how much hateful intensity could burn out of those eyes, whatever she was feeling right now wasn't anything like she'd ever associated with Nathan Sperry. Maybe she should finally stop making that comparison. Maybe she should wait till later to decide what name belonged to the hot new emotion in her chest. For now she grinned back at his gaze, turning around to face the remaining Epics. "Calamity," said the man with the battleaxe. "You killed Quota." It wasn't exactly a curse, and it wasn't anywhere near an exclamation. Both Epics stared at the corpse of their fallen ally, and then back to Alastair with a set of distinct frowns. There wasn't rage on those expressions. They were slightly put-out grimaces like you might find on a man who'd just spilled his beer. "I mean, we hated him, so good job," the man in the punk jacket went on. "But there was a reason we hadn't done that yet." The man with the battleaxe teleported. It was barely a teleport, at least by the high standards someone like Doctor Funtimes could set. He only moved a couple of feet in their direction. Even so Darkrose found herself tensing at the sudden movement, feeling aggravated by how still and unsurprised Alastair was beside her. "That reason," the axe-wielding Epic went on, smirking, "is that he had a way of making screams even louder and better. Calamity had to have heard them all the way up there." She didn't like anything about him. Not his smirk, his hair, his axe, his eyes, his bravado, or his provocation. There were so many things she wanted to say to him. So many things she wanted to scream in his face before she strangled the life out of him. "Calamity's in space. There's no sound in space, moron." Not her best. But it earned a glare, so she counted it a win. "Smart mouth," said the guy in the jacket. He had a smirk as he looked her up and down that she did not like. "That’s fine. I like 'em feisty. Do you know who we are, darling?" Darkrose folded her arms. "Nope. Can’t say I do. Pretty sure the sex offender registry burned down way back." He threw his head back and laughed at her. Not at her quip, that much was sure. At her. She felt a growing fury that was going to be so sparking satisfying to let loose against him. "Let me tell you, darling. You're talking to the Epic who razed half of Portland all on his own. You're talking to Electro." The man with the battleaxe simply smiled, his voice quieter than his comrade's. More intense. "And you're about to kneel or to die to Calamity's Chosen. The Epic who's spilled more blood in the name of Calamity than anyone else in this city. To Timeport." Now they'd moved on to threats... and to showing their true colors. They were men who couldn't make up their minds whether they wanted to destroy or to rule. They were a destructive maniac and an extremist. "The 'name of Calamity'?" she scoffed. "You can just say you want to kill people, you know. You don’t have to say your imaginary friend told you it was okay." Timeport's gaze darkened once more. "God," he said, "Chose me. I prayed for it. I bargained for it. And Calamity gave me what I was due." A zealot. That's what he talked like. That's what anyone would call him. A man rambling about God telling him to kill and ravage. Claiming that he'd wished his way into becoming an Epic. Sparks, what kind of claim even was that? As if someone who'd asked to become one of the things wouldn't have been lower than dirt to begin with! But he wasn’t a zealot. She knew that much. She was the only one who knew that. Because zealots had to believe in something bigger than themselves, and that was something no Epic could ever truly do. She felt something change inside of her. It was a distinct, unique feeling, one she'd never fully known about before becoming what she was now. It was the feeling of anger changing color inside her chest. It flashed inside of her, changing from the crimson of petty rage into something deeper, darker, bloodier. Electro was eyeing her with condescension, as well as focusing on every part of her that wasn't covered by Funtimes' fabric. Given the bullet holes and other tears, that was more than she'd ever have been comfortable with before. As furious as those things made her, she knew in the back of her mind her rage was the product of something else. It was the product of the same thing that made her kill people she used to love. It was the forced rage in her head that was part and parcel of being an Epic. But Timeport. There was a look in those smarmy eyes that flash forged that Epic rage into something far older. Something more real. Something that half brought her back from the dead, letting the real, human outrage of Samantha Trattner come surging up from whatever cold place in her soul she'd gone to rot. "Liar." She spat it. Something in her tone, she could tell, made the two Epics tense for a fight—even though the gunshot from earlier had barely mustered so much as yawns. Electro began walking towards her. She didn't waste time in pulling a small wall of vines up out of the earth between them, keeping him from getting any closer. She didn't know what he could do, but just him walking her way suggested bad things. Some Epics had powers that only kicked in when they touched you or were close by. Lightwards needed to touch bodies. And... Quasar... had needed to touch people to control them. Timeport didn't make a motion to suggest he might move. Being a teleporter, this meant absolutely nothing. He did raise his axe slightly, his expression one of anger and of malice. "What did you just say to me?" The downside of her vine wall was that she'd just played her hand. They knew half of what she could do now. The advantage of surprise was gone. If this would turn into a fight, it was one she'd have to face head on. The image of Alastair flashed again in her head. Standing tall, arrogantly proud, a gun pointed at an Epic corpse that he couldn't be bothered to so much as look at. That image that filled her with fury... and... also, that weird excitement. She wanted to outdo him. She would outdo him. "I called you a liar," she replied simply, meeting Timeport's eyes. "Because that's what you are. As if I'm supposed to believe you murder people with a battleaxe because you think it’s okay? Because you think you’re better than actual good people? Because you think God chose you?" She threw her head back and laughed. Pure, cruel, mirthful, scathing laughter. "No—don't even try to convince me of that. You murder people for the same reason I do. The same reason all of us do! Because nothing's telling us 'no' anymore... and because it feels sparking amazing." ***** Darkrose, Alastair was learning, was one of those Epics. Every Epic had a theme. That fact was as plain as the one that all Epics had powers. Some of those themes were subtle, some were more apparent, but every Epic had one and those who didn’t were among the lowest of the Low Epics. Ones like Curveball, who seemed to have arrived to the gathering well after Calamity finished passing out the decent ones and could only manage to swipe rude slontze who is bad with firearms for himself. But there were others who didn’t so much choose a theme and stick to it as wave it in the face of anyone who approached, lest they forget who they faced and why they were about to die. Yes, Darkrose, we get it. You can do what you want and what you want is to kill people. Please put down the baseball bat and step away from the dead horse. If he valued her reputation more and his own life less, he might tell her to write a sparking manifesto and be done with it. What commanded his attention, more than Darkrose’s relentless hammering of the same point, was the Epic with the knife. Electro, he was called. The one with the battleaxe—Timeport, nearly as bad a name as Quota though at least somewhat descriptive—was less threat to him than he thought. His porting could take him into the future, true, allowing him to reappear when and where the element of surprise could do the most damage--but the ability to see where he’d land negated much of that advantage. Electro, though—Electro was trouble. The thought of having his precognition muddled and confused beyond function was nearly as disturbing as the thought of Darkrose realizing she had his weakness. Alastair scanned every future containing Electro, searching for a moment when he got close enough to engage that ability, a moment he could avoid or stop in its— With one swift motion, Timeport severed Darkrose’s head from her neck. It flashed through his mind seconds before it happened. The axe flashing in the smoke-dimmed light. Her head hitting the ground with a dull thud. Timeport’s face twisted in abject fury. When Alastair met his gaze, anger had melted into a smile, fury still burning behind his eyes. “We’re the Dominion now,” he said. “CorpseMaker left room for heretics. I don’t.” He strode forward. Electro hung back—would hang back, giving Timeport the chance to have his fun. “So what do you say….whatever-your-name-is? You believe in God?” Alastair plucked a tarot card from his pocket, seeing it before his fingers grasped it, but its face wasn’t near as interesting as what Darkrose was about to do. Still, he kept his smile at bay until the card was within Timeport’s field of vision: the Magician, reversed. “I believe you didn’t think this through.” **** And then Darkrose died. It happened too quickly for her to stop. One minute Timeport was glaring at her with a hilariously pissed off expression. She was radiating in the heat of his glare, reveling in it; it felt even better than when Lightwards had shot her that look. Back then she'd have been afraid even as she smiled. Now, she thought. The next minute Timeport was standing right in front of her, and with a lurching feeling she realized there was an axe jutting through her neck. Next was that she couldn't feel her body. Next was the sensation of falling to the ground, her body thudding loudly beside her. Everything blurred. And then, nothing but darkness. It didn't last very long. Somehow, even though her senses had blacked out, she was aware of her flesh crawling. It was the feeling she had when her tissue turned into vines and sutured her back together; she'd taken enough bullets the previous evening that she had a good idea what it felt like. Even so... even knowing she could survive this... she felt terrified. The blackness was all consuming. The sensation, or lack of sensation in her body was a sudden and panic-inducing realization. If she had any power over her own lungs, she was afraid she would have screamed. The itching feeling of her vines became stronger. All in a single moment she could feel again, and it was as though she could see a light shining somewhere in the distance. The light condensed into a gray blob, the blurry gray Portland sky spreading out above her. She was lying flat on her back now. There was a crick in her neck—at least there was for a moment, until her bones reconnected with a satisfying pop. A gasp of air filled her lungs, but her mind was flooding with questions. Had she actually died? Had her brain actually shut down? Could she be killed permanently if someone cut off her head and moved it too far for her body to grab and reconnect it? Oh Calamity... dying wouldn’t make her go crazy like Lightwards did, would it? Where was Timeport? All other questions flitted away like leaves before a storm. Where the Calamity was he? She climbed shakily to her feet, swaying back and forth with a dizzy gait. Technically, she supposed her head had just been spinning a minute ago. Her ears were ringing slightly, but she could hear Alastair's voice saying something. Turning in place she she could see Timeport with his back to her, with Alastair showing off one of his tarot cards. There wasn't a smile on her face now. Nor did she have any interest in listening to the two of them chat. She simply raised a hand, flexing her fingers and unleashing hell. A solid wall of thorn-covered vines crashed into Timeport from behind, wrapping him up, squeezing him, and slicing him to ribbons all in the same second. His joints came undone and his body became the consistency of raw eggs, her vines obliterating him until there was nothing left. He didn't get the chance to teleport... or to scream. Her ears popped just in time for her to hear Electro's footsteps coming forward again, curving around her previous roses and trying to make a beeline for her. She rolled her eyes, sending a wave of vines in his direction that sent a convoy truck flying and Electro backing away as quickly as he could. "Don't think I'm not watching you," she said. "Sit tight and I'll kill you in a minute. As for you-" One of her closer vines curved to point accusingly at Alastair, as though it were a particularly long and lethal finger. The slontze must have been internally laughing like a madman when he saw what Timeport was about to do to her. She wasn’t sure what made her so angry about that--wasn’t it a good thing that he now knew decapitation only annoyed her? Maybe she was angry at the thought of him getting one over on her. Maybe it was the idea that this might have been his way of testing to see if he could kill her that way. She fixed him with a cutting glare. "Don't think I didn't catch that you decided it'd be hilarious to watch me get my head cut off. Is that just gonna be a thing with you? 'Cause you're about to see if it's funny from the other end." Maybe it wasn’t about ego or pragmatics. Maybe it was just the memory that a friend would have said ‘Duck.’ **** Darkrose’s jabs had changed. Oh, they were as biting as ever, as snide as before. Had he been graced with some other power than the ability to see the future, he might have still taken them as threats. But now, as he peered forward, he still saw violence on her part. He still saw those thorns lashing toward him, seeking his blood, his screams. Yet those were merely glimpses, and few of them at that—nothing like the multiple permutations of various manglings he’d seen before. Alastair couldn’t say what had prompted the change. Perhaps she’d seen his smile for the confidence it was and her threats were simply a cover for it. Perhaps she’d recognized him as a lesser threat than Timeport and Electro. Or perhaps she just remembered the old days better than she cared to admit. Whatever the case, she posed less of a threat to his safety than she had while eating oatmeal that morning. “You might want to save that fury for Timeport,” he said, fighting the urge to brush away her thorn as one might swat a pointing finger. Danger aside, this was no time to assert himself. This was a time to make himself useful. “That is, if you want to stick around here longer than a few minutes.” He cast a glance in the direction Electro had gone. “Or, if you’d rather take care of Electro first, I’d recommend doing it at a safe distance.” ****** Darkrose rolled her eyes, but turned them in the direction Alastair indicated. "Like I'd get near him even if he didn't have powers. He looks like a serial killer tried to start a punk rock band in his garage. During his mid-life cri—sparks!" That was more literal than she would have liked. Electro swept his hand out in front of himself, sending a powerful slicing beam of lightning along the edge of his knife. It crackled as it cut, separating the roof of a truck from the rest of it just as easily as it sliced through the air. It forced her to use her vines to carry her rapidly to the side and out of its path; if she hadn't moved—or hadn't followed Alastair's gaze to the new source of danger—she'd have been decapitated. Again. Alastair himself stood calmly where he was, letting the beam sail harmlessly a few feet over his head. He hadn't been Electro's target, which he clearly knew. Annoying slontze. "You know, I'm almost impressed, babe." Electro's condescending tone helpfully reminded her how much she wanted to kill him. Rising herself higher into the air she extended her hand, causing yet another cluster of vines to erupt out of the earth and go spearing towards him at full speed. He remained light on his feet, weaving out of their way while parrying with a slash of lightning. Apparently her vines had a limited tensile strength. Although they'd pulled apart metal and concrete without so much as tearing, the vines closest to Electro were neatly slashed down their middles, dissolving into dust the moment they were no longer connected by stalk to the ground. Her only consolation was that the cutting hadn't been quite as quick as the cars he'd sliced in two. While not indestructible, her vines were still considerably more durable than the city they sprouted out of. She wondered if he could slice them faster than she could grow them, if it really came down to it. Electro didn't look impressed, calling out to her again as he made another vertical slash in her direction. She was almost bisected top to bottom, only just managing to carry herself out of the way on a wave of thorny roses. He was walking briskly forward, bits of car shrapnel sliding away from his feet as he did. Some kind of metal-repelling power, then? That was probably why Alastair hadn't tried shooting him. The bullet would go wild. She wondered if there was anything around that he couldn't repel, if it really came down to it. "The last thing that did Timeport that much damage was a dinosaur," Electro went on."Which I killed. For the record." Darkrose hadn't wanted him to come close to her from the start. Alastair's warning only confirmed what she suspected, which was that the number of reasons not to let Electro close to her was roughly the number of annoyingly unkillable Epics in this city. Apparently even if she managed to kill Electro in the next minute, Timeport was still gonna be an issue. How did that work? Healing, or resurrection? If reducing him to the consistency of cake batter hadn't permanently killed him, what would? That was a problem for a couple of minutes from now. She raised both hands in the air, feeling stupid for the pose but finding the action helped her concentrate. A wall with the thickness of a topiary sprung up in front of Electro, looking alive with the writhing of vines and flowers that made up its form. He made a slashing motion with his knife, electricity carving through the foliage—but it didn't carve deeply enough. She tied the vines in layers and layers in front of him, creating an interwoven lace with a complexity that surprised even her. It was almost like she could feel the vines through her power, intermingling them as easily as she could clasp her fingers. Her wall of thorny lace kept him about twelve feet away, and she expanded it into a perimeter around herself to keep him that way. No matter what angle he tried, he wouldn't be able to get close. Which was a good thing because that hair gel had an odor all the way from here. "But you know..." Electro's voice was more strained this time, sounding aggravated even though he retained his smirk. "It doesn't have to be like that. You're not bad for a new player on the block. And I've got a bit of a soft spot for goth chicks." "That's all about your 'spots' I need to hear about, thanks." Even with twelve feet between them she could see his smile clench. "I'm making you a generous offer, sweetheart. A couple, actually." "I can be generous, too," Darkrose retorted. "I'm offering to kill you before you run out of condescending words for 'woman.' It'll be better for all of us." Another slash of lightning flowed off the blade of his knife, slicing a couple of her vines at once. Her fine lace wall quickly wove itself back together, but it was clear she couldn't do it forever. It was also clear from the strain in his voice that the slontze was done talking. Darkrose's own voice was showing a similar strain, she was sure. But she didn't try to hide that. No, let him hear an Epic at her limits. It made his slontze-y smirk light up, which would make it all the better to wipe off the floor. But he was confident for a reason. The way his feet glided across the street made it clear he was no stranger to fighting. He avoided her vines, but he could also sever them if they got too close; he wasn't some terrified vanilla she could overwhelm by sheer multitude of attacks. He knew how to duel with another Epic, which was more than Darkrose could honestly say. But it got worse than that. Their fight was starting to drag on, and Timeport was going to pull his prophesied Jesus impression any minute now. Once he came back from the dead she could get overwhelmed by the two of them. Worse than losing, she might need Alastair to come swooping in to help her. ...where had he run off to, actually? She became aware of a presence behind her. It wasn’t Electro, because he was still outside her perimeter. It wasn’t Timeport, because there wasn’t an axe in her neck. It had to have been someone who’d slipped in before she grew the barrier. Probably someone equally smug about being able to get in as he would be in his ability to get out any time he wanted to. “What’s the matter?” she asked out of the blue, her focus still on replacing the vines in her barricade as Electro sliced through them. “Ran out of cover, so you decided to hide behind me? I guess that’s not the worst strategy.” **** “Not when Electro forgot there were two of us.” Alastair couldn’t help a small chuckle. “Right under his nose and he hardly noticed.” It wasn’t so much that fury flashed through her eyes. That emotion had been present since her resurrection and even before, and Electro’s brutal offensive had only deepened her rage. But up to that moment, her anger had been focused solely on the man slicing through her vines with the ease of a sharpened knife cutting thread. Now that he had made his presence known, her fury had briefly shifted targets. He peered out at the mass of vines, flowers and thorns woven so tightly together they blotted out light and cast a shadow over their hiding place. It held, and it would for a few minutes more, but beyond that were darker futures. She didn’t have twelve feet between herself and Electro; she had two. Once he bridged that gap, she’d be in no shape to keep those vines in place. “I do have a better strategy,” he said, shaking the shards of glass in his hand. They clinked a discordant melody he barely heard above the sounds of twisting vines and rapid growth interrupted by the buzz of electricity. Electro could have seen him pluck the glass from the ground, but his priorities had been elsewhere. Namely, objectifying Darkrose in new and uncreative ways. “I’d be willing to share, unless you’d rather keep pushing him back indefinitely.” ***** "Maybe I would," Darkrose retorted. "I'm having the time of my life, if you couldn't tell." She punctuated the remark by trying—and failing—to have one of her vines skewer Electro from behind. The slontze was clearly prepared for that sort of trick, easily turning in time to sever it and render the attack moot. That was one of the differences between this guy and the other Epics she'd seen. He didn't move his feet the same way—he moved like the half-feral vanillas that she'd once avoided with almost the same fear she had for the local Epics. She had the distinct impression that if Calamity hadn't 'graced' him with powers, he'd still be fighting on the streets for some gang or another. It gave him an edge of experience when it came to fighting. She needed more than twelve feet of distance and brute force. She needed a plan. Alastair continued to practically shove his shards of glass in her face, clearly dying for her to ask him for help. The worst part was that she could almost piece it together in her head. Electro repelled metal. The glass wasn't metal, but it was sharp enough to slice a slontze's arteries wide open. But how could she deliver those shards to the arteries they very much needed to slice? That was the frustrating question, and she had an infuriating feeling that the answer was hidden somewhere in his freaky visions of the future. She let out a groan of frustration. "Alright, fine. Tell me your idea. It had better be better than your old ideas, 'cause I don't see him surrendering if we ask him nicely and non-confrontationally." **** Alastair was tempted to draw it out a little longer, keep Darkrose guessing as to what his plan was until the situation demanded he reveal it all. He did have a little while longer—not much longer, about forty seconds—to make her wait, and the longer he kept her waiting, the longer he held the upper hand. The longer she stayed in the dark, the longer he could bask in the knowledge that he, and only he, knew exactly what to do. Never in all his years would he have thought being surrounded by the blindfolded would be so empowering. But the longer he waited, the more precision his plan called for. And the more precision his plan called for, the less chance it had of working. Electro might have set his sights on Darkrose, but he already knew there were two Epics after him, not one. “Go on the offensive,” he said. “Drop the wall, fling vines at him as if you’re trying to tear him apart. Enhance a few of them with these.” He opened his hand to reveal the shards of glass that would kill Electro. He didn’t know which one, exactly, would do the deed; but one of them would. “One of them will hit an artery. You’ll have blood and gurgling screams galore, and if that doesn’t cheer you up, I don’t know what will.” ****** Credit where credit was due: the thought did put a smile on her face. But it wasn't as eager a smile as Alastair no doubt hoped. His idea made absolute sense to her, and she could easily imagine it working. It was close to what she herself might have wound up trying even without his insistence on getting to call the shots. And while she'd rather beat Electro purely by her own power, the slontze's grin, condescending tone, and annoying degree of competence were all making Alastair's projected outcome more appealing by the second. But that was where the problem came in. Alastair's proposal was appealing—too appealing. His power was more subtle than hers, and in a way that made it way more dangerous. Getting people to do what you wanted was one of the most dangerous abilities anyone could have, and you didn't have to be an Epic to do it. Maybe he thought she'd forgotten the way he'd given her advice back in Tillamook. How he'd kindly, softly walked her through the exact set of dialogue she'd need to make Funtimes give her a dress more akin to her style. How his advice had worked to a tee. Nathan hadn't realized exactly what kind of power he possessed; that knowing exactly what to say to an Epic was a power many vanillas would die for and many more would die for not having. That was because Nathan had probably never included the words 'power' and 'Nathan' in the same conscious thought before Funtimes' charade had forced him to. Alastair, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was doing. The same casual, confident ease with which he'd killed Quota could just as easily apply to a longer scheme. If she dropped her wall like Alastair suggested, one of two things would happen: either her attack would kill Electro where he stood, or he would have an opening to slice her down the middle before crossing the deadly distance and doing Calamity knew what to her. Either one of those, or both, could be Alastair's desired outcome. He was the only one who knew all the steps to his goal as surely as a cook following a recipe. Funtimes had been a predictable piece of clockwork to Nathan's experienced eyes, one with a simple set of steps for soothing and navigating—to Alastair, were Electro and Darkrose just as predictable? Electro shouted something she couldn't make out. Lightning carved through her vines, turning them to dust as quickly as she could replace them. She couldn't do this forever. Sparks, it was like fighting Altermind all over again. Except instead of wondering if her reality was real, she had to wonder if her reality was just a slowly marked-off checklist in Alastair's head. And unlike the night before, she didn't have a weakness in reserve she could use for a reality check. She had to make a gamble; to pick a card at random, or however it was that tarot worked. She had to guess whether she was an ally or just a domino to be knocked over, just like the tiresome trifecta were. Were it Nathan, the choice would be immediate. With Alastair she had a moment of hesitation… but at another lightning strike from Electro, she still sucked in a breath and made the same decision. She reached out with her real hand instead of a vine, taking the shards from Alastair's grasp. She met his eyes, and without speaking did her best to make clear to him that whether he was trying to help her or not, the slightest miscalculation meant death. Then she turned her back to him, facing in Electro's direction just as she dropped her vine wall. Electro looked surprised, but grinned as he saw her take a step forward. He cocked his head, his entire body tensing in the way only an Epic's could. It was the stance of an Epic whose entire being was energized with the intent to kill. His knife flashed upwards. Darkrose said nothing. Actions spoke louder than words. And in that sense she shouted. She waved her hand. The ground obeyed. A row of vines erupted out of the dust at the speed of thought, rapidly bending to grow in Electro's direction at full speed. His gaze was sharp, and he reacted with a knife strike so fast that it might as well have been the lightning he themed himself around. If that attack had been aimed at her, there'd have been no time to get out of the way. But it wasn't. And she didn't need to be fast; nor did it matter that his attention was sharp. It wasn't sharp enough to have noticed the invisible glass shards she'd dropped to the vines as they surged forward. Electro's grin was wide and frenzied as he severed the incoming attack at the roots, reducing the wave of city-crushing vines to nothing but a cloud of dust. His knife kept moving, and the look in his eyes made it clear the next slash of lightning would spill blood. With nothing now in between him and Darkrose, there'd be a lot of it. But though the vines disintegrated, the glass shards didn't—and they kept on flying. Transparent and twelve feet away, there was no way to get a good luck at them entering his throat. The mark of their presence was solely in the sudden flash of scarlet that stretched across Electro's neck, a flash that became a froth as some mocking remark turned into a gurgle on the way to his lips. Triumph and belittlement left Electro's expression. With a look of sheer shock he fell to his knees, knives clanging to the street as his hands futilely grasped around his own neck. So this was Alastair's desired outcome. Not another decapitation for Darkrose. Not her body sliced down the middle. Not the death she very much deserved but was loath to imagine. It was Electro falling to the dirty Thoughttown street, dying not to a street-leveling blast or a wave of vines, but to a razor sharp edge so small it wasn't even visible amid the red-pink froth gushing out of his throat. He cried out, but the cry cracked and came out as a gurgle that pierced the stagnant air nonetheless. Soaking in the sight, shivering at the sound, she almost felt silly for doubting. The futures that Alastair hoarded in his mind were infuriating... but he and she were in agreement. Seeing them through could be sparking beautiful. **** Keeping Epics happy had never been Sam’s strong suit. With advice, she could do it. Give her some guidance and a few instructions, and she’d survive her encounter—provided, of course, she was inclined to do so. That was her difficulty: she marched to the beat of her own drum. Unless her life was at stake, she would rather do as she pleased and suffer the consequences then avoid consequences altogether by doing as she was told. A charming trait, when danger was not present; but when danger suffused every aspect of existence, such stubbornness was more alarming than winsome. Alastair still recalled the mingling fear and wonder he’d felt hearing the insults Sam heaped upon any Epic who happened to cross her path. Alastair hadn’t fully understood it back then. The way to survive Epics was to serve them, to bow to them, to keep them happy at one’s own expense. If you stood for hours out in the cold for an Epic’s amusement, their amusement was worth the chill. Their amusement kept friends alive, kept an Epic’s simmering rage from boiling over. To crack a joke in an Epic’s hearing was dangerous. To crack a joke at an Epic’s expense was unthinkable. At times, Nathan had wondered if Sam had a death wish; at others, he simply assumed she’d never been taught proper conduct. Portland was the modern equivalent of the Wild West, after all, and there likely hadn’t been much room for manners. But now, as he watched her anxious distrust melt into glee, Alastair understood precisely what had led to all those jokes. Power. She’d had very little of it back then, being a smart-mouthed vanilla with a still-living mother to worry about. There had been no laws mandating she bow and scrape before Epics, but Lightwards and Nighthound and all the rest hadn’t seemed to care. She had no powers, and in their eyes, she had been powerless in every sense of the word. But not in her own imaginings. Lightwards became a bit less frightening when Revolution pronounced him a joyous leprechaun. He hadn’t realized it then, but in retrospect the difference was clear. His fondness for murder and his ability to raise the dead had been no laughing matter, but his hat, his ridiculous air of grandeur whilst wearing it—those had been funny. Those had been all but an invitation to laugh, and Sam had invited him to partake in that laughter. And in those moments, when they had all laughed until their sides hurt, Lightwards had lost a small piece of his power. Now she was the one with the power, the one with the ability to break the laws of nature and bend them to her whim. She had it, and she took every opportunity to revel in it. Slicing Electro’s throat in three places gave her what she craved, and from the look she turned on him, Alastair knew she recognized the moment as a gift and he as the giver. He couldn’t name the emotions flooding him then, couldn’t describe his thoughts with words. He recalled feeling something similar in Newcago when one Epic or another tossed him a compliment the way a medieval lord might toss scraps to his dog, but that was more akin to relief and the simple joy of knowing his death would not come by their hand, not immediately anyway. This, this was something stronger, something as sweet as strawberry jam and as heady as wine. Darkrose wasn’t under his power. Alastair doubted she would ever allow herself to be taken under another Epic’s sway. Give her a position in Steelheart’s government, and she’d sooner kill everyone under her authority and flee the city with an armful of valuables than savor the chance to rule. He knew better than to give her a direct order; strong suggestions were the closest he would ever manage with her. Yet now…. Now there were more chances. He couldn’t yet see them, being further in the future than his powers allowed him to see, but he could sense them. He’d have another chance to prove himself indispensable, to give her a reason to keep him around. He’d have that chance followed by another, and another, so long as he kept his predictions on point and his anger more or less in check. Keep things going along this same path, and he would have one of the more powerful Epics in Oregon on his side for the foreseeable future and beyond. Darkrose likely didn’t care one whit about him. But she valued what he could do, and that was more than Nathan Sperry would have dared hope for. “Timeport will resurrect soon,” he said once he’d given Darkrose a chance to relish Electro’s dying moments. “What do you say we go someplace else and let him wonder what the sparks happened while he was dead?” ****** Funnily enough, Darkrose hadn't always enjoyed blood. Blood used to make her squeamish whenever she'd had the misfortune to come across it. An accidental knife cut in the kitchen would make her cringe, and when forced to watch Lightwards slaughtering his own zombies she'd always been sure to avert her gaze with a well-timed eye roll. Not anymore. There was a thrill to its presence now; it sent a hot tingle up her spine and made her own veins feel so much more alive. Its taste was familiar but so much sweeter than it had ever been before; it was the taste of knowingly doing something wrong, but without the pang of guilt that would come from snapping at Mom after a hard day, or the fear of consequences she couldn't shrug off when she spread jabs about an Epic throughout the neighborhood. Was that emotion always what had accompanied the sight of blood? Had the sight of slaughter and mayhem only disgusted her because she knew enjoying it was wrong—or was it perhaps because she had no control over it? Was bloodlust a brand new emotion that Calamity had endowed her with, or had it always only been a couple of inhibitions away from making Sam feel as alive as Darkrose did now? She supposed it didn't matter either way. A man—an Epic—was dead. His blood pooled in the street and it was hers to revel in. Hers and Alastair's, anyway, and she found she didn't mind sharing the moment. In its own way it felt like the times they'd laughed until their sides hurt, mocking an Epic's image until it lost all potency. Alastair also had the tact not to talk to her until the blood show was over, which was a plus in his favor. He was quickly becoming an Epic she didn't mind having around—oh, she hated him, to be sure, but hate didn't have to be an unenjoyable emotion. Sharing happy moments with someone you hated was better than passing through them alone. But eventually all good things had to come to an end. The sun was always going to set, a bowl of sweets would always run out, and there was only so much blood in Electro's arteries. "Guess we might as well," she said finally. "I don't know if I'm crazy enough to kill the same guy fifty times in a row." That was a lie. She could rip Timeport apart for hours and barely get bored of it. If Lightwards were within reach she could flit away the day toying with him. But at the same time, what she'd told Alastair the night before was even truer now than it was then. She was curious what kind of carnage he could cause. If they both intended to drown the world in blood and chaos, she wanted the entertainment of doing it together—and she craved more creative outlets for her new bloodlust than the repetition of killing a resurrecter. "Anywhere—anyone—in mind?" **** Alastair’s fingers brushed the tarot deck in his pocket. Briefly he considered leaving it there; he knew what card he would draw and there seemed little point in removing it. Yet the moment the thought crossed his mind, he knew he needed to draw it. He had to see the figures, the weapons, the color. He had to feel the glossy texture of the card, the near-absent weight of it in his hand. He drew the card. A lone figure held two swords over one shoulder and another in his hand. Two more lay in the ground, ripe for the taking—and by the smile he cast at a retreating foe’s back, the man with the swords intended to do just this. The Five of Swords. Holding the card did nothing to make the associated future a reality, but it made it feel more solid, less like a daydream and more like a course of action. “I don’t have a destination in mind,” he told Darkrose. “Just a path.” He looked to her, needing to see the response he already knew to expect. “There’s someone I want to run into.” It had been a while since Timeport had met God. The shock of appearing in the barren nothingness that was death still startled him after all the times he'd been through it. The sensation of not having sensation was a bitter one no matter how many times he didn't feel it, and it was always aggravating. There was always a full five minutes before he could return to the world—a full five minutes before he could wreak God's own vengeance on whatever slontzes had thought it was a good idea to kill him. It was like waking up in the middle of the night with nothing to do but to stare up at the ceiling, except there was no ceiling, or eyes to stare with. There was only God. And God was a quiet sort, at least for the vast majority of Timeport's deaths. But every once in a while... "Child," said God, "Once again you have forsaken Me." "What?" Timeport started, jolted out of his bored reverie. Somehow he was always able to speak, though he had nothing resembling a body. "No, I'd never!" "You lie to Me," God replied. The voice was not angry, nor was it calm. The voice of God went beyond any human or Epic emotion. "Over and over and over once more you forsake the mission I gave to you. You were meant to right all that is wrong with humanity. Instead you chase your own chaotic desires, destroying when you should be building and playing when you should be ruling. Like the stray dog that I watched on the streets of dead Portland, you bound away from your purpose at the slightest scent of fresh meat." This was different, Timeport realized with a rising panic. Never before had God spoken at such length, rebuking him with such harshness. And never before had God reminded him of the street rat that had been Seth Nathsha. "I have never forsaken you, Calamity!" he shouted. "Everything I've done has been at your command—including serving CorpseMaker! I don't know what you want from me!" "What I want from you, child, is focus. CorpseMaker had focus, though it failed him in the end. But here I find you toying with those whose broken lives have no meaning, siding with those who only hold you from your purpose. You are not working as the Chosen I willed you to be." Timeport had no body, no eyes, no voice, no soul, and no response. Somewhere in all the chaos that had been the Battle of Portland, somewhere amid all the sweet screams and the amazing mechs, he had left his purpose behind. Coming to Thoughttown to slaughter refugees did nothing to to rebuild the Dominion like he claimed he wanted—it was nothing but the playful diversion of an Epic who had no idea what to do next. It was clear to him now. As usual God had told him nothing new. He told him that which he had already known but refused to admit to himself. He had lost his way. Dying to the goth chick and the dweeb with the cards was his due punishment for that crime. He was meant to be a worker of deathly miracles to rival even Steelheart or Obliteration, but he acted like nothing more than a minor Epic who had lost his master. CorpseMaker had not been his master. Calamity was. He could not afford to forget that again. He could not afford to act like anything less than Calamity's Chosen. Calamity's Chosen was something special. Calamity's Chosen was the Epic who had learned how to kill other Epics from the Reckoners, before offering them up as sacrifice. Calamity's Chosen was not the most powerful Epic, but he was the most persistent and the most deadly. Calamity's Chosen was a little spark of the red star, sent down to Earth to burn everything he touched. God whispered to him a Truth. Timeport took it eagerly, greedily even, with all the desperation of a drowning man given a gasp of air. The nothingness around the absence of his body faded away to light and dismal air, Portland rushing back to him at full speed. For sending him to God to see the light, he owed these two new Epics everything. As reward he would make sure their ends were special. The goth girl would regret mocking his mission and reveling in her purposeless power; he would see her die feeling as powerless as the false 'friends' that he'd stripped and cut down in the street. The man with the cards, whose face had shown such smug certainty of what the future would bring, would come to regret his past. He would live long enough to wish he'd fallen to his knees praying for his life, but would die in the dirt where vanillas and Calamity's disowned Epics belonged. Vengeance would be had. If not today, then tomorrow. Timeport knew as well as Seth Nathsha that good things came to those who waited and schemed. He would rebuild and there would be Calamity's own reckoning to all who had dared oppose him. He reincarnated on an empty street between the bodies of Quota and Electro, but neither corpse diminished the smile growing on his lips and the anticipation building in his veins. Those two and the trifecta they'd established were nothing but a diversion that had held him back. Now the true terror had been unleashed. He could face any direction and find a city ripe for the rending, stocked with the Epics and human-cattle he'd need to build something with true power. The goth and the card master had disappeared, but he would find them. The empire ruled by Calamity’s Chosen would be of a kind no one could hide from, or could hope to resist by brawn. It would make everything ever built by CorpseMaker look like nothing but a nest for street rats. The Dominion, like Timeport himself, would be Reborn.

Little known behind-the-scenes fact: Dilaf is actually an acronym for: Don't I Love Attacking Fjordell's enemies, the heretics have been allowed to blight the presence of our fair Sel for too long; for no longer shall we tolerate it! Their nation and wretched blasphemous city must burn, the charred remnants washed away in a river of blood! Devoted to my cause am I--devoted to Fjordell's dominion! With that knowledge, Elantrians, despair and die!

The random image that popped into my head today is of Kokichi rendering Alastair's precognition completely useless, because his vision is completely drowned out by the infinite numbers of possible Kokichi's with eyepatches, scars, and black trenchcoats trying to shout him warnings about the grimdark future of five minutes from now.

Effort and reward, sadly, are not always companions. All too often our own struggles go unnoticed while those we feel are undeserving reap all the reward in the world. But I don't think that makes our own efforts irrelevant. There's a small but incredible feeling that goes along solely with the feeling of having created something good. I know that's easier said than felt. I spend way more time than I should refreshing my statistics page on AO3 to see if I've gotten any new kudos, which are basically the tiny shards of validation that I need to get me through the month. That's not healthy, and I'm speaking as someone who's usually teetering on the verge of depression and a self-destructive emotional meltdown. But I think that gives me the ability to recognize the power inherent in simply believing what you made is good and feeling proud of it. There are a few times I've posted something and genuinely not cared if anyone else liked it; as rare as those fleeting moments are, as quickly as they fade away, they stick out in my head as the moments when I was truly invincible. In those moments I felt fulfilled, fully content with my creations and the time that went into them. I guess what I'm saying is that, although it's incredibly difficult to earnestly see it that way, it's okay if only one person is glad you put the time into creating something. And it's okay if that person is yourself.

Excuse you, boss monsters are always taller than the lower levels.

Don't listen to it! Your brain is wrong and stupid! ... ...you know... within the context of this fictional conversation? Hmm, that didn't come out quite right. This is why I stopped posting encouragement here.

What if I can shapeshift into a guy made of fire? Checkmate, atheists.

I made superpowers explicitly magical and tied to the soul in mine, which similarly skips complicated problems.

That's fantastic! Best of luck to you!

Reminder, the Vault is located here and is open for all to peruse. But no, Metronome doesn't appear to be there. His power could never be condensed into a cartoon equine, it appears.

Like all of them he's in my Pony Vault. It seems we need him now more than ever.

You guys are going to get our sub-forum privileges taken away if you're not careful.

I'm actually seeing them more as a dimensional Epic like Firefight, but with a connection to murky and eldritch realms full of tentacled monsters. His MO would be opening these portals and then hightailing it out of there before they come through, since like Lovecraft, he'd be a xenophobe whose root fear is the fear of the unknown. It'd make an interesting dynamic, to be sure: an Epic who summons monsters, but whose weakness is set off by actually seeing these madness-inducing alien monstrosities in the flesh. He'd be employed by a more powerful Epic as a terror tactic against enemies. Take him to an enemy city--have him open a bunch of portals--leave--repeat.

Now I'm wondering what an Epic themed around Lovecraft would look like.