I glance into the restaurant as my servant and I make our way there, a confident smile on my face as I move forward. As we stride towards the restaurant my companion takes on the form of an ordinary looking human man. What I see in the restaurant is a bit surprising, particularly as my companion and I approach it.
In several booths inside the restaurant are creatures that look, superficially, human. These creatures also sound human, which I can tell as my ally and I reach the front door. However, these beings only superficially resemble humans like Jerry, in the sense that they have the same proportions as humans and are roughly the same size as normal human beings.
There is a… family of yellow humans in one of the booths. They seem like they are hand drawn creatures who have come to life somehow. The curious creatures are also, apparently, not worth paying attention to as no one else in the restaurant seems to really mind them.
I use “Observe” on them and learn that they are all members of the “Simpson” or the “Bouvier” families, and they all hail from a “Cartoon” city named “Springfield”. It seems like cartoon beings just… exist in this world, and no one pays them any real mind at least not based on them being cartoon creatures.
As my servant and I enter the restaurant a waitress spots us and calls us over to a booth she just finished cleaning. We dutifully go to where she tells us to go, and she pulls menus out of her uniform before placing them on the table. She tells us she’ll give us a few minutes to look over the menus, and she walks away as I pull out my phone and glance at the thing. My servant, meanwhile, begins to study the menu, a curious look on his face as he attempts to determines what he wants to get.
The restaurant is a lively place. It is clearly bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and with my enhanced senses I can effortlessly hear hundreds of voices inside of it even though the area I am in can only house perhaps seventy people at once and is nearly full. I have to assume that there are other rooms nearby that connect to other places, probably extra dimensionally, and allow people to come here from other parts of the world or even other worlds altogether.
As I look around, I use “Multisense” to study my menu and to aid me in visually exploring this place. Doing this allows me to see into the kitchen which is nearby and houses a number of anthropomorphic cartoons who are hard at work cooking dozens of meals. Even at a glance the most impressive cook is a large pig-like cartoon who wears a “Wife-Beater” over some jeans as he diligently prepares someone’s bacon burger.
“Joe! Got an order for two burgers and some pancakes.” A voice, from another part of the restaurant, calls out. “Joe”, the pig-like creature which the restaurant must be named after, grunts out that he’s on it, as he speedily dashes from grease trap to grease trap and he singlehandedly mans numerous stovetops. The other chefs are not nearly as speedy, and the man seems to be both the owner of the restaurant and its head chef.
The waitress, a human woman dressed in a bright blue uniform, returns as I continue to study Joe. She asks my companion what he’d like first, and he tells her he wants a water, a burger, and fries. She notes this and she turns to me and I glance up at her and smile.
“Hello! I’d like some water and a BLT.” I explain, before adding that I’d like fries with it as well. She smiles at me, takes my order, and darts away to go and tend to some of the other customers here. I look at my servant and chuckle.
“What is funny, creator?” The creature asks, quietly. I study the creature as I consider where to begin.
“It’s just funny that I am not sure of how to proceed from here.” I remark, causing the creature to look at me curiously, as it mulls over what I said.
“I possess considerable power. I can do things like survive in any mundane environment, and I can recruit people with considerable ease or even create servants out of virtually nothing. It’s a lot of power.” I explain, causing my servant to nod.
It seems likely that he… or rather that they, have a basic understanding of my powers as a true fae, if nothing else. I refuse to say what I truly am so carelessly, as I know that I am far from the only being who has super senses.
There are many viable strategies for me to begin to accrue power in the city. I mentally glance at what I can offer people via “Accord” and I note that while there are things that anyone with the ability can offer people, there are also things I can only offer someone because of my essences.
Anyone with the power can generate wealth or beauty and give them to someone, but as a cosmic space dragon I can offer to restore someone’s youth. I can also give someone superpowers, since I myself drank the “Essence of Xenon”. “Accord” is a very potent power in my hands, and properly using it is important if I am to succeed in gaining more power.
"Well, creator... Why do you want power?” My servant asks, curiously. They look at me intently as they ask this, and I ponder their question for a moment. As I think about the question I recall the information I learned about the city, and the grander world it is situated in, in the packet I was given earlier today. It told me, among other things, about superheroes and supervillains, and that they are real, active, forces here.
“I… I want power because this is a world of superheroes and supervillains. ‘Supergirl’ exists and she regularly fights crime. In this world if I lack power I could be endangered at any time.” I explain, after thinking about why I defaulted to the idea that I should be pursuing power.
“If possible, I don’t want to rely on others for my own safety. I can trust that, all things being normal, I can rely on you and any other servants I directly create, but I don’t want to even have to do that.” I tell my servant.
“At the moment I want power for the sake of self-defense. I don’t think it goes any deeper than that.” I state, bluntly and honestly.
"Though... sometimes it'd be kind of neat if my actions made this place a bit safer. Like if I took on criminals or something," I add, after thinking about it for a few seconds. "It could be fun to use my powers to terrify criminals. Or wield their own stuff against them." I admit, as I think about how amusing it'd be to turn criminals against each other and to get them to fight each other instead of normal, law-abiding people.
My servant ponders my words for a moment before they nod at me, subtly acknowledging that I’m not wrong. This world IS a dangerous place with real superheroes and supervillains who intend to do each other, and often the world itself, harm or at least significantly change it to better suit their respective agendas.
Internally I sense the “Symbiotic Patron” that has bonded with me per the Xenon essence inarticulately shudder. I possess a powerful sense of empathy, a supernaturally strong one, and that allows me to be sure that while the entity can’t yet speak on its own it is agreeing with me. It also wishes for me to grow stronger for the sake of protecting myself.
I close my eyes for a second and I listen to my surroundings. My senses are extremely refined, and in a moment of concentration like this I can hear every voice around me for miles. I can hear hundreds of conversations, in just as many languages, and after hearing a few words of any language that I didn’t already know I begin to be able to understand what people are saying.
My hearing doesn’t just pick up conversations. I can easily hear actions, from people who are vigorously exercising to the “words” of animals as they interact with each other in hidden corners of the city. I listen silently for a few moments, even as the waitress who took the orders of my servant and I arrives with our food.
Without opening my eyes I thank her for her time and ask her for the check so I can pay as soon as my companion and I finish our food. She looks at me curiously, but says she’ll bring us the check as soon as she can. My servant begins to eat their food, eagerly. I do open my eyes to watch this, and I chuckle as the creature gleefully eats. I begin to eat as well, all while looking for something interesting to do.
After taking a few bites of my sandwich I focus on my senses again. When I am not focused I can feel everything I would learn if I was focused being shunted to a quiet corner in the back of my mind, which I know I can consciously learn just by focusing on that curious mental archive. Nevertheless, I quietly choose to focus on my senses and I allow the wave of sensory input I perpetually receive to wash over me.
Luckily, I quickly find something of interest. Something that will allow me to even practice my combat skills and abilities! I instantly create another essence, one I already possess, and I materialize it in my hand before giving the vial it is in, which this time is the size of a vial fit for a human, to my servant. They catch the thing and down it instantly, without waiting for my instructions which brings a smile to my face.
I then go ahead and create two for me, which materialize inside of my stomach, though thankfully without vials. One of the things tastes of scales and of red-hot fury. The other tastes of shadows and of ancient arcane power.
I don’t mind either taste, and even as they settle in my stomach, I am eager to test out the power they have just afforded me. My servant looks at me curiously, and I can tell that he is excited to see me in combat. Fortunately, he’ll have the chance to do so quite soon. And he’ll be on the field of battle alongside myself, and my symbiotic patron!
I look at my ally, and opt to make use of one of my “Gamer” powers. I send both the servant and my “Symbiotic Patron” an invitation to my “Party”. Violence is minutes from happening and I seek to see to it that those on my faction reap the benefits of my potent powers.
“When you’re done here… Let’s go and recruit some followers.” I say to my servant, causing them to smile happily and to eat their food with a passion they had previously been lacking. It is hard for me to not begin to smirk at the sight of their excitement.
As my companion begins to draw closer to finishing their food, I turn inward. I don’t do this to review the new essences I have just made for myself, as my clone has been studying essences while I have been here and I learned of these two, one of which is a bit of a sister essence to one of my current ones, through the clone. Instead of turning inward to study my powers, I turn inward to construct a character…
I am minutes from combat. I need to be intimidating! That will be new for me, but if I want to gain power I need to become good at both combat and at being intimidating. I will need to be in the right state of mind, which might well prove to be a challenge. This is going to be a learning experience, but thankfully I have several essence-based powers to rely on, even more so now that I drank those two essences in particular.
The vast apartment complex known as The Megablocks is the cheapest housing option in Vaporwave City. There is a reason for this; unsurprisingly, given the vast size of the complex, not all areas of the place are equally safe.
A young man is experiencing this cruel reality firsthand. He is darting through the mostly empty streets of one of the more dangerous neighborhoods within the apartment complex.
The man can faintly hear bloodthirsty laughter emanating from where he had been hiding just minutes ago before he realized that his foes were too close and would find him in short order. Seconds after he begins to hear the laughter, he hears the worrying noise of violence as his enemies begin to trash his hiding place while they hurriedly make for their exit. Under other circumstances, the man might shed a tear at the thought of the destruction of the abandoned restaurant he had once been fond of, but for now, the man rightly prioritizes his immediate safety.
He clutches a package in his arms and even as he darts across one street he glances at the package. The contents of the thing matter a great deal, though the morally grey hacker values his own skin above the package. He manages to enter an alleyway right as the gangsters pursuing him dart out the front door of the now partially wrecked restaurant. They study the nearly empty streets, confused for a few moments, before realizing that the man must have fled into an alleyway.
The gangsters are frightening looking and consist of several men and a pair of women. Eight individuals wielding a series of melee weapons, some of which have shards of glass, splintered wood, and other nasty things imbedded in them, and all of whom wear casual, revealing clothing that shows off the scars they acquired as a result of a violent lifestyle dash out of the restaurant and towards the nearest alleyway. A thirst for violence is visible in their eyes, and the few people on the street quickly make for nearby doors to escape the attention of these warriors.
This game of cat and mouse goes on for several minutes, with the young hacker on the run making increasingly desperate, and foolhardy, moves to evade his pursuers and his pursuers coming increasingly close to catching him. It ultimately culminates in the hacker finding himself in a wide street between two large, apparently abandoned apartment buildings, and the gangsters only fifty or so feet away from him.
The sun is beating down on the street and on all of the people involved in this strange clash as they attempt to either flee violence or inflict it. One of the gangsters, growing tired of the running, growls and hurls one of his weapons at the fleeing hacker.
A blunt baseball bat riddled with shards of nails suddenly begins to sail through the air and for a moment several of the gangsters laugh cruelly as they watch the painful object fly towards their foe. The hacker himself keeps running but also panics as he hears the weapon speed toward him. The weapon will never reach its intended target, as when it gets within less than ten feet from the hacker it is abruptly caught in midair and kept there, its spinning coming to a sudden and clearly unnatural end.
This development surprises the gangsters who have spent the last few minutes pursuing the hacker. They come to a stop for a moment, which is long enough to give the hacker much needed time to flee the scene. The bat, meanwhile, continues to float in mid-air. The gangsters turn and look at each other, in confusion, as the bat suddenly clatters to the ground.
The air behind where the fallen bat is now laying begins to shimmer and darken as it is abruptly displaced by the sudden appearance of a pair of strangers and a single, deeply strange being. The two strangers are human-looking creatures who are anything but, and the stranger creature beside them is a powerful looking, tall, humanoid creature seemingly made of some metal-like substance.
It has a visor-like head, with pink energy emanating out of what looks to be a large triangle-like shape cut into its head. The fierce looking warrior stands in between the two humanoids, saying nothing even as it tilts its featureless head in the direction of the gangsters.
None of the three interlopers speak a single word, but all three begin to act while the gangsters are recovering from the shock they feel at the sudden and powerful intervention of the three, clearly supernatural, beings. The knight-morph, a “Symbiotic Patron” serving Arthur, who has silently activated one of the strangest mutations in his possession to hide his identity for the duration of the battle, dashes at the nearest gangster. The golem-like creature seemingly vanishes from view as it lunges at its chosen target.
The large knight-like morphic being is well over seven feet tall and has limbs that are appropriately muscled for that height. It is built like a truly terrifying quarterback and when it reaches its chosen foe it does not stop or slow down, dashing into the man with the speed and force of a sportscar. The man’s wails of pain manage to snap the gangsters out of their shocked state just in time for one of them to notice green arcane energy gathering in Arthur’s fingers.
“Hey, stop that one!” One of the gangsters manage to yell, which causes Arthur’s servant to hiss in annoyance and dash in front of their master. As the servant moves, they activate one of their new powers and shudder uncomfortably as they nearly instantaneously, grow a pair of prominent fangs with holes in them.
The creature is making use of the “Essence of the Superorganism” and emulating a deadly spitting cobra. Before the gangsters can properly follow up on the strategy devised by the tactical mastermind of the bunch, the servant opens their mouth and fires a foul smelling toxungen at a few of the warrior’s intent on hurting their creator.
The disgusting fluid flies through the air and accurately hits two of the gangsters in the eyes, causing them to reel back and drop to their knees as the powerful fluid begins to assail their senses. At the same time, Arthur kneels and lightly places one of his fingers on the floor underneath his feet.
Green energy seeps into the floor underneath the warriors and darts forward in every direction for hundreds of feet, stopping just short of touching the few onlookers observing the battle. This is the result of him casting a spell, one that subtly changes the location of the battlefield by kidnapping the gangsters and teleporting them, and Arthur’s faction, somewhere else entirely.
To those watching the battle, and a few people are watching it from behind tinted windows in supposedly abandoned buildings, the group seems to abruptly vanish. One second the violent bunch are there, on the street, and the next the street is completely empty. The gangsters themselves subtly sense a change in the air, but none of them has enough knowledge of the supernatural to try and gleam the true nature of the action their foe has just undertaken.
“Now I can go all out,” Arthur says, as he places a hand on his servant’s shoulders and gently but firmly moves his creation out of the way. “After all, out there I must worry about, or at least consider, collateral damage. In here… I don’t.” He adds, as his eyes begin to shift from being dark brown orbs to being seas of scarlet light.
He steps forward and places a single hand on his face, his fingertips digging into his skin and causing dark blood to seep from the holes he just cut into himself. The nightmarish demon-like being then forcefully rips off his own skin, and as he does he begins to grow in size. This causes all the gangsters, aside from the two on their knees screeching in pain as toxins assault their ability to see, and the one taking a beating from the knight-morph, to feel their courage curl up and die in their hearts.
The creature that has torn itself free from the meatsuit Arthur was wearing is a long, powerful looking dragon with four visibly muscular limbs covered in scarlet scales. It is gigantic, standing more than one story tall, and being as long as even one of the factory buildings is.
The beast glares at the gangsters, and each of them begins to fervently regret the day they pledged their loyalty to their leader, a man who suddenly seems a lot less scary when the ones who were once scared of him find themselves face to face with a demonic dragon. None of the gangsters who are still standing can move a muscle, and they can scarcely breathe in the presence of the mythical reptile. The creature studies them, and then lets out a chuckle, a sound that is impossibly deep.
“Each and every one of you has the same deepest desires… All of you wish that you never met the man who started your gang. That’s a good sign, but you see… That’s not the right desire to have.” The dragon says, having examined all five of them with “Accord” and feeling smug as he subjects them to his power.
“You should want… to live!” The mythic beast roars, the sound washing over them like shockwaves from a grenade that went off close enough to the group to send them flying but not strong enough to kill them. The dragon then begins to laugh, even as he glares at the lowly gangsters.
“Knight… Toss your man at me.” The dragon commands, causing the knight-morph to nod and spring into action. For several moments the morphic being has been beating the shit out of the human he targeted, pounding the man with speedy, super strength empowered blows, but the second after he gets his orders the knight grabs the man.
Without really exerting his power the knight-morph easily tosses the man into the air in the direction of his master. The dragon’s head lunges outward and catches the man in mid-air, his sword-like teeth easily ripping the man apart and ending the criminal’s life.
The dragon stops biting the man the instant the hooligan perishes and the man’s lifeless, torn up, body is dropped to the ground. It hits the ground and a sickening thud echoes out from where it collided with the hard floor.
Arthur smiles at his foes, the expression cruel and inhuman on his unholy lips before he mutters a single word. As his mouth opens to utter the word, thin almost drool-like strands of dark magic escape from his open maw and drip onto the fallen, mangled body he is towering over.
“Arise.” He utters, the powerful dark magic in the dragon that has dripped onto the corpse suddenly filling the man’s shadow with enough necromantic energy to rip itself free from the body of the common criminal. The sight of this is enough to make several gangsters wet themselves and almost servilely whimper in such terror that it threatens their sanity.
A seemingly living shadow ripped from the corpse of one of the gang’s very own members gazes at them with dark, malicious intent visible in his gaze. He points in the direction of the gang and makes a gesture they all understand to be a powerful threat, even as the dragon continues to gaze at them.
