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Post by Bacon on Sept 8, 2008 20:53:24 GMT -5
Quick question, does "TMC" actually stand for anything(and if so, what?), or is it just three random capital letters?
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Post by Shadaras on Sept 8, 2008 20:54:14 GMT -5
Quick question, does "TMC" actually stand for anything(and if so, what?), or is it just three random capital letters? It stands for Too Many Connections, an error message. |
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Post by Bacon on Sept 8, 2008 21:10:26 GMT -5
Quick question, does "TMC" actually stand for anything(and if so, what?), or is it just three random capital letters? It stands for Too Many Connections, an error message. Ah, so his power is probably comparable to Missingno.'s power; that would make him a formidable foe indeed. |
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Post by Rider on Sept 8, 2008 21:39:12 GMT -5
It stands for Too Many Connections, an error message. Ah, so his power is probably comparable to Missingno.'s power; that would make him a formidable foe indeed. [glow=red,2,300]Missingno gave us infinite items. TMC made us unable to 'bloid for thirty seconds at a time, all the time. XD Ahh well.[/glow] |
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Post by Amneiger on Sept 8, 2008 21:49:36 GMT -5
*runs in late* Sorry, sorry. (1.) Yes. (2.) *voice playback* (3.) I'm not sure, let's ask him again.  (4.) Trade relations sound good. (5.) A new one would probably be less trouble than trying to make it coherently fit with the current Spacefleet RP. (6.) ? We could possibly start at the Spacefleet launchpad on the NTWF, and the Pirates could send representatives who're supposed to do quality control or something. It'll give the Pirates a chance to build up trust or learn a bit more about Spacefleet technology; something to make things easier if the Pirates plan on trying to access restricted areas. Ah, so his power is probably comparable to Missingno.'s power; that would make him a formidable foe indeed. [glow=red,2,300]Missingno gave us infinite items. TMC made us unable to 'bloid for thirty seconds at a time, all the time. XD Ahh well.[/glow] TMC is (supposed to be) a semi-graceful response to traffic that would otherwise overwhelm the hardware/software. Missingno is a flat-out bug. |
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Post by Zylaa on Sept 8, 2008 21:58:32 GMT -5
Also, I would like to express my wholehearted support for hijacking a spaceship or airship of some kind.
Stal's nightmare has inspired me.
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Post by Bacon on Sept 8, 2008 22:58:06 GMT -5
We could possibly start at the Spacefleet launchpad on the NTWF, and the Pirates could send representatives who're supposed to do quality control or something. It'll give the Pirates a chance to build up trust or learn a bit more about Spacefleet technology; something to make things easier if the Pirates plan on trying to access restricted areas. Did you just suggest to a foreign power a way they could infiltrate us?  We need to have a long talk about politics, Amnei... |
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Post by Amneiger on Sept 9, 2008 4:14:28 GMT -5
We could possibly start at the Spacefleet launchpad on the NTWF, and the Pirates could send representatives who're supposed to do quality control or something. It'll give the Pirates a chance to build up trust or learn a bit more about Spacefleet technology; something to make things easier if the Pirates plan on trying to access restricted areas. Did you just suggest to a foreign power a way they could infiltrate us? We need to have a long talk about politics, Amnei... Well, it's not like we can't prepare for it now. Also, the RP wouldn't be very interesting if it only consisted of the Pirates dying horribly when confronted with Spacefleet technology. |
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Post by Jina on Sept 9, 2008 5:07:41 GMT -5
Did you just suggest to a foreign power a way they could infiltrate us? We need to have a long talk about politics, Amnei... Well, it's not like we can't prepare for it now. Also, the RP wouldn't be very interesting if it only consisted of the Pirates dying horribly when confronted with Spacefleet technology. Just wait till we steal it >-] |
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Post by Huntress on Sept 9, 2008 6:44:16 GMT -5
... TMC became the fourth horseman of the apocalypse? WHY didn't I keep up with GW2? That sounds so epicly awesome! Personally, I liked Famine more x3 Well, you're free to reread the GW once we get it done and re-spawned in the forum, but since it'll be longer than Order of the Phoenix (seriously, 1,600ish Word pages), the relevant bits are these (and there are spoilers, so if you plan to read up on the entire GW2, be warned x'3 I'm only posting them for relevancy's sake for everyone who wasn't in the GW and wants indepth info on what happened before but generally none of that knowledge is needed to keep up with and understand the upcoming RP.) At the same time above the ancient fleet, the Apocalypse was closing in, according to all rules. The three Horsemen had never quite understood why the Apocalypse was allowed to close in after the arrival of someone who rode a tuned, pimped, and otherwise horribly zombified Harley Chopper.
They didn't want to turn around, but they still had. Getting the fourth horseman - or biker - into focus was hard, always had been. The world lagged slightly when you tried to look at him, as if your glance slowed down in his presence. That affected even the otherwise outside-all-dimensions Horsemen, and that's what irked them so much. That was something You Didn't Do. None of them ever died, or went hungry, or felt like chopping someone's head off. But the biker never excluded them. He played around with everyone. Everyone was in his world.
The troubles started back when Pestilence, similarly to Famine, retired soon after the mages of the NTWF had mastered most of the healing spells. While Famine was something that was still needed in the human psyche field, Pestilence was completely off the picture (though he still kept a cheap and very dirty fast food bar by the main road to Dunburrow, just so that he wouldn't go completely rusty, as he put it). But somehow, outside the Horsemen's understanding, the remaining gap got one day filled with this guy, about whom Pestilence himself had once said 'Wow, this bugger puts me to shame'.
"Nice bike," War said somewhat stiffly. It was. The base color was bright white but there wasn't much of it - any surface that could be chromed was chromed. The rider looked like one of those guys who spend their Sundays terrorizing people at the mall. Except he terrorized the entire land.
TMC leaned forward on the handlebar with a wide grin on his face.
"You still ride these manure-factories?" he asked. "Seriously, I know keeping up with the times never was your forte, but I'd have thought that hanging around with humans would teach you at least something..."
YOU'RE HERE FOR A REASON, Death said, cutting him off. His voice always sounded heavy but now there was something metallic in it. WE HAVE WORK TO DO, A-A-A...
War and Famine watched with a mixture of disdain and horror as Death lapsed into slow motion at a lazy sweep with the fourth Horseman's hand. You didn't mess with Death. Ever. You could deceive him, bargain with him, negotiate with him and kill his accounting with phoenixes, but you never messed with himself.
"I come when I want," said TMC, "and work when I want." He let Death out of the lag. The reaper's eye sockets flashed red for a second, but he didn't finish his sentence. Instead he gathered up the reins of his pale horse who was apparently looking at the fourth rider's bike with its nostrils.
WELL, SINCE YOU DELAYED SO LONG, he said, YOU MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY. THEY'RE BREAKING UP.
Indeed, the fleet below them had finally decided upon something. Officers were getting off the Golden Mast, many of them with bruises, black eyes, and various magical burns, yelling commands to their respective ships. The White Weewoo now had the advantage of several miles, but whether it was enough was still questionable. One after another, sails were being hoisted.
Famine raised her eyebrows at War in a silent question.
"The Apocalypse," War whispered, "can only take place with many people in one place. Like with you, one hungry family is common but an entire famine that consumes the whole land is a catastrophe. Now that we're all together, the time has come, but the final move is up to those people down there."
Famine grimaced.
"But... like, I don't want the apocalypse. We'd be out of work again if this land was destroyed."
War winced. The girl had worded the main loophole in their existence. Sure, there'd be other lands and other Apocalypses but they'd all come to like Dunburrow and the general vicinity. Commuting wasn't for them. You got things rolling nicely, regular little brawls and hunger, then came this little hyena on his shiny bike and poof, move elsewhere and start all over again.
They peered at TMC who sat back in the saddle. His grin had cracked somewhat but he was still full of confidence.
"They'll come together again," he said. "They always do." He didn't care about starting over. His work was personal fun, not work. It didn't make people value life or think about gathering food for winter or developing better relations with their neighbors. It was just a nuisance. The higher-ups had allowed him to be a Horseman simply because it was a nuisance, but the other three had never quite seen it as right, like old potters look at factory-made plastic bowls. There was the purpose, but no feeling, no personal connection in it.
As if on a cue, the three horses cantered forward. The Harley came to life with a slightly lagging roar behind them and followed at a distance, roughly in the direction where the small pirate ship and the fleet was going.
War and Famine peered at Death, expecting him to be seething with rage. Instead, he looked thoughtful and somewhat worried, as much as a skull can.
Somewhere nearby and infinitely far away, a Harley landed on the deck of the Weewoo. The other three Horsemen hadn't in fact planned to follow the brigantine but now they forced their horses closer in order to see better.
"What's he doing?" War asked.
MEDDLING, Death said. For a seven-foot skeleton he managed to sound a surprising lot like he was talking about an annoying mother-in-law.
"Like, he's gonna mess something up," Famine grunted. "I just know it."
HE WANTS THE APOCALYPSE TO COME, said the reaper. HE ACTS IN OUR INTERESTS.
The other two gave him an unconvinced glance. This was one of those politically correct utterances. Famine sighed. War fiddled nervously with the reins.
"Well, we'd better stick around," he said. "When all Four are riding together, they cannot part until the duty is fulfilled."
Famine raised her head. "What?"
WE'RE STUCK WITH THE SELF-CENTERED DONKEY UNTIL THE WORLD BLOWS UP, said Death.
"Ah."
TMC walked across the deck at the same time, invisible to everyone but the other riders, and scanned the surroundings. Had anyone seen him, it would've been hard to imagine someone more out of place on a pirate ship. He could, of course, look like anything he wanted, but for the last few centuries he'd stuck with the good fixed image that came with worn jeans, a leather jacket, dark messy hair, and sunglasses. Not that the latter meant much. You couldn't look into his eyes, glasses or not. Your look simply didn't reach them, or slid right over his face without seeing the eyes. They were there, but even the fellow Horsemen couldn't see them - another fact that irked them a lot.
He stopped in front of Leraye's couch and looked at him for a thoughtful moment, then, without any warning or preparations, the demon could see him.
"You," he said. "Come on over to the prow. I want a word with you, and I don't want any of them see you talking to thin air. I have a little... proposition, and I know you'll like it."
[---]
Leraye smiled and set down his book. "You know, I rather preferred Pestilence. He stood by the more traditional garb."
He went to the prow. "Now, your proposition. And please, if you would turn off that noisy engine? It makes concentrating very hard indeed."
In reality, it wasn't the engine that made it hard to concentrate, but the haze around TMC that made it all too clear that time was relative. That fading in and out of the past few seconds. Leraye hypothosized that this was the case, but hey. The engine was annoying too.
[---]
He scowled when Leraye commented on his bike, but still jerked his hand at it and it turned itself off. That demon was far too... polite. He was standing there, smiling back at the Horseman like an amiable schoolteacher. This was a demon? He'd seen demons. Fangs and spikes and fiery breath and the whole shabang.
TMC eyed Leraye, and then, the way Horsemen do, took a closer look, a look into the demon's being and soul...
Wow, he thought. There were no fangs or claws or fire. There was something... nearly human. Something smart and cold. Something deep and heavy and somehow reminding of a mental abyss capable of sucking you in. That wouldn't, of course, have worked on TMC, but...
For a millisecond he was glad that the demon couldn't see his eyes. He had a reputation to keep.
The biker leaned back against the railing with a lazy grin. "Well then, I'll make it short and sweet. You have a gem, don't you? A weak one. And I know that if you got all of them together, the sheep and the wolves, you'd get a strong gem. But you won't be able to get them together, because they," he nodded at the pirates on the bridge, "are running away, and, here's the good part, they're relying on you and your gem as part of the getaway. You tell them that you're too weak to help them, plop," he snapped his fingers, "you cease to be useful to them and are promptly gotten rid of."
He watched those words sink in. Granted, it was hard to tell; TMC was used to humans and demons were more difficult to look into. But nonetheless.
"Now, I could spice up your gem so that you wouldn't need a new one," he continued. "You'd get to keep your new friends, useful allies, I'd think, and watch them blow up the chasers, and have the time of your life. But," the Horseman's grin got wider, "what would I get from it? Nothing.
But," he raised his finger, "let's say we're to do things the old-fashioned way. Let's say we're to get all of them together. Let's say you're gonna go tell them that you know a nice place to hide in these waters, and let's say someone leads the chasers to the same spot... how do they say again – savvy?”
[---]
Watching TMC try to behave like a pirate was excruciating. Leraye had seen real pirates, saltier than Hunty and more obnoxious than Rider and cleverer than Rane and more dangerous than Kat. The very essence of pirate. TMC wasn't the essence of enything, except maybe frustration. But Leraye kept smiling, that quiet, dangerous smile unique to the more scholarly breed of warlords.
Just as TMC was shocked that Leraye was a demon, Leraye was surprised that TMC was a Horseman. He didn't have the style or subtle finesse of the others. More than anything, he didn't have the patience. Leraye felt he could outwait this punk Horseman a thousand years. Pestilence may have been a disgusting creature to behold at work, but at least he understood Horsemanship. He would never come directly to a demon.
"Savvy. Just let me know of this place. You'll have your destruction, Hungry One."
Leraye stared right at the reflective sunglasses for a moment, wishing he could see the eyes beneath. He had known the previous Horsemen before Famine and Pestilence had been replaced. 'Known' being a relative term. They were, after all, only anthropomorthic personifications. It had been what, a thousand years now? How much had changed in such a short time.
"Oh, and give Death my regards," he said, figuring that TMC would be on bad terms with the more traditional Horseman.
[---]
TMC's grin was getting somewhat glassy. But no matter. Things were still going according to plan, even if it meant bending over backwards in some aspects.
"Oh, and give Death my regards." The Horseman's smile nearly faltered. Was that demon messing with him?
At that point Death appared on the deck, or rather in the air above it, still on his pale horse, on the other side of the ship a few dozen yards away. He gave Leraye a curt nod. He wasn't much fond of the demon who had, after all, messed his accounting up big time twice, but he was still giving TMC a hard time, probably the first time in millennia. Besides, as someone who was rarely welcomed despite always doing his job incredibly well, Death could appreciate politeness.
"Well then," TMC said somewhat gruffly, though still with a grin. "See that iceberg over there?"
That iceberg was, frankly, hard to miss. It was actually charted as an island, as it was huge and didn't drift much, but it was still an iceberg. A big, pointy, somewhat snow-cone-like mass of greenish, chilly silence.
"There's an entrance on the north-west side of it, big enough for a ship like this," said the biker. "And it's hollow inside, well, hollow enough, at least. Good hideout." He chuckled. "As long as anyone won't know to look for you in there, at least, which I daresay won't be the case. Tell 'em to turn left after the entrance, there's a semi-hidden pathway with a cove there. Don't mess it up and you'll get your fight... and your gem."
His bike came to life with a roar and he got on without further comments, unwilling to admit that he simply didn't want to stick around the demon any longer. Horsemen weren't meant to deal with demons, and he'd always thought of that rule as some stupid mumbo-jumbo... but now he could see the reason behind it.
"Come on, stooges," he grunted, turning towards the Gates.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Death asked, his voice even grimmer than usually. TMC rolled his eyes at him.
"He's meddling," War said; he'd been right next to Death though invisible to Leraye. "He's pushing things around. Which we very much aren't supposed to d-d-d-d-"
"I'm bringing the Apocalypse," TMC snapped, pushing War into a particularly strong time-lag. "Which is ultimately our job."
NO, said Death. THE APOCALYPSE IS HUMAN BUSINESS. WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO MEDDLE. WE JUST HAVE TO RIDE OUT WHEN IT HAPPENS.
"Says who?"
THE RULES.
TMC gave a 'pfft' and rode off towards the fleet. The other three, bound by the duty, followed him.
((Takes place after Death's patience goes 'ping' and he shows up in the middle of action, making himself as well as TMC visible for everyone))
"Frigate... who let the Harley on board?"
Shiva's cry of shock directed everyone's attention in Leraye's general direction. Things happened in quick succession after that. Something blocked Fraze like blue lightning. Leraye had been prepared for the horse, so he managed to sidestep that. The bird... no one ever expects the bird. Leraye gave a rare scowl as the gem fell to his feet and rolled away. The gel wall over the entrance to the iceberg melted away.
Thankfully, everyone had forgotten about Leraye's wings since the battle at the castle. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rider imagined little Clara calling him an angel. Leraye flew until he almost brushed the icy ceiling of the iceberg. As he flew, he drew almost all of the mist from the Weewoo and enshrouded himself in it. It was, after all, made from the energy of one of his gems. He would be able to draw alchemical energy from it.
"Well," he said from his cloud, "You seem perturbed, Horseman. I see that unlike myself, you have no Plan B. Nor, Captain, have you come prepared for this singularly unusual chain of events. I knew another captain like that. Young, intelligent, with a temperment not unlike your own. I wonder where he has been the past 1000 years."
"Frigate, I wish I could throw a knife that high," Rider muttered.
"Now, Hungry One, we don't have to have an apocolypse tonight."
A deep growl sounded from below.
"Another Hungry One seems to agree with me. Now these people," He made a grand sweeping gesture that seemed insincere, almost mocking, "Will either belong to myself or the wyrm, but I regret to inform you and your brethren that they do not belong to you."
[---]
TMC shrunk back against the railing, glaring at Fraze. He knew that the game was lost, but with Death present he couldn't do anything. Granted, strictly speaking he could've done quite a bit, but something in the reaper's deep eyesockets told him that nothing along those lines would be a good idea.
Death moved himself a little, raising the scythe. As an instant result, the battle, the warcries from the approaching ancient ships, and the whizzing of the cannonballs died down. Sure, everyone knows that when you run into battle, you have to be prepared to meet your death. And everyone on those ships had long accepted that. But accepting it is one thing, actually seeing a robed skeleton holding a gleaming bright scythe that's casting blue light on the deck of the ship you're about to attack is completely another.
"Really, Death." TMC's voice, still bearing that arrogant note, now had a little despair in it. "Isn't this what we all want? Our job? It's not your place to get in the way."
IT WASN'T YOUR PLACE TO INTERFERE WITH THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS. Death's hollow voice echoed back from the walls of the cavern.
"What is natural order?" TMC demanded with so much heat in his voice that his face rippled in a time-space lag for a moment. "Don't they interfere? Don't they push things around in this world any way they like? Don't they attack each other, and destroy fertile soil so that their own crops fail, and think that only a good smell keeps the evil demons of sickness away?"
"Hey, I always liked that attitude," Pestilence said from his wagon.
"We're created by humans, Death." The biker gazed at the reaper. "So you can't blame us for doing what humans do. It's our purpose."
Death seemed to ponder that for a moment. There was still somewhat halfhearted fighting going on, something with the gem, something with the demon and people delivering messages, but he didn't see a reason to pay attention to any of that.
YES, he finally said. BUT YOU FORGOT SOMETHING.
TMC blinked, which showed as the momentuous clearing of the lag around him. "What?"
HUMANS PAY A PRICE FOR WHAT THEY DO.
The scythe drew a clear, beautiful arc in the air, something the Weewoo's mist would've been proud of. When it reached TMC, it slowed down for a second, lapsed into a lag - but nothing, absolutely nothing stops Death.
"Son of a-!"
And those were his last words.
[---]
Leraye watched TMC's destruction with, at most, mild amusement. So now even the power of Hell was open for any demonic alchemist. He extracted a piece as big as his fist. He compressed it so tightly that it seemed to be solid. Many authors have tried to express this color, so black that it was more than just an extremely dark brown or grey or purple. The absolute blackness that you get when you can't even imagine color.
He extracted another piece of mist and murmured some words in an ancient language. He thought about the chaos that made TMC. He focused his entire being on the disorder, the randomness, the fact that even the constant flow of time can be dammed or stretched or sundered.
The energy flowing from the ruined Horseman was like a stream sweeping along thousands of shards of broken glass. Reflections were distorted, light sent of crazy patterns. Time fragmented in places, and as Rider looked through it, it seemed as though Kat had several sets of feet all in one place. It hurt her head to look at it too long.
It all rushed to Leraye's concentrated mist just as a river or a gull or a pirate are bound to rush to the sea. the mist glowed white-hot. The essence, the very soul of TMC formed a glistening, rough coating over the concentrated mist. Leraye drew some more mist close and formed a smooth black shell over TMC's soul.
The new Gem shone as black as midnight. A gem forged from the power of a Horseman.
The approach of the wyrm was evident now. The seas and ice all shook as though they too were afraid.
"I would love to stay for dinner," Leraye said, "Particularly to reclaim the useless trinket that your invisible friend has taken from me, but this is neither my time nor my place to die. Our Reaper knows this well."
And, without so much as a dramatic flash, Leraye teleported out of the NTWF.
And hey, infiltrating other powers' bases is politics xD Better put, it's diplomacy. |
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Post by Zylaa on Sept 9, 2008 11:21:27 GMT -5
... TMC became the fourth horseman of the apocalypse? WHY didn't I keep up with GW2? That sounds so epicly awesome! Personally, I liked Famine more x3 Well, you're free to reread the GW once we get it done and re-spawned in the forum, but since it'll be longer than Order of the Phoenix (seriously, 1,600ish Word pages), the relevant bits are these (and there are spoilers, so if you plan to read up on the entire GW2, be warned x'3 I'm only posting them for relevancy's sake for everyone who wasn't in the GW and wants indepth info on what happened before but generally none of that knowledge is needed to keep up with and understand the upcoming RP.) At the same time above the ancient fleet, the Apocalypse was closing in, according to all rules. The three Horsemen had never quite understood why the Apocalypse was allowed to close in after the arrival of someone who rode a tuned, pimped, and otherwise horribly zombified Harley Chopper.
They didn't want to turn around, but they still had. Getting the fourth horseman - or biker - into focus was hard, always had been. The world lagged slightly when you tried to look at him, as if your glance slowed down in his presence. That affected even the otherwise outside-all-dimensions Horsemen, and that's what irked them so much. That was something You Didn't Do. None of them ever died, or went hungry, or felt like chopping someone's head off. But the biker never excluded them. He played around with everyone. Everyone was in his world.
The troubles started back when Pestilence, similarly to Famine, retired soon after the mages of the NTWF had mastered most of the healing spells. While Famine was something that was still needed in the human psyche field, Pestilence was completely off the picture (though he still kept a cheap and very dirty fast food bar by the main road to Dunburrow, just so that he wouldn't go completely rusty, as he put it). But somehow, outside the Horsemen's understanding, the remaining gap got one day filled with this guy, about whom Pestilence himself had once said 'Wow, this bugger puts me to shame'.
"Nice bike," War said somewhat stiffly. It was. The base color was bright white but there wasn't much of it - any surface that could be chromed was chromed. The rider looked like one of those guys who spend their Sundays terrorizing people at the mall. Except he terrorized the entire land.
TMC leaned forward on the handlebar with a wide grin on his face.
"You still ride these manure-factories?" he asked. "Seriously, I know keeping up with the times never was your forte, but I'd have thought that hanging around with humans would teach you at least something..."
YOU'RE HERE FOR A REASON, Death said, cutting him off. His voice always sounded heavy but now there was something metallic in it. WE HAVE WORK TO DO, A-A-A...
War and Famine watched with a mixture of disdain and horror as Death lapsed into slow motion at a lazy sweep with the fourth Horseman's hand. You didn't mess with Death. Ever. You could deceive him, bargain with him, negotiate with him and kill his accounting with phoenixes, but you never messed with himself.
"I come when I want," said TMC, "and work when I want." He let Death out of the lag. The reaper's eye sockets flashed red for a second, but he didn't finish his sentence. Instead he gathered up the reins of his pale horse who was apparently looking at the fourth rider's bike with its nostrils.
WELL, SINCE YOU DELAYED SO LONG, he said, YOU MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY. THEY'RE BREAKING UP.
Indeed, the fleet below them had finally decided upon something. Officers were getting off the Golden Mast, many of them with bruises, black eyes, and various magical burns, yelling commands to their respective ships. The White Weewoo now had the advantage of several miles, but whether it was enough was still questionable. One after another, sails were being hoisted.
Famine raised her eyebrows at War in a silent question.
"The Apocalypse," War whispered, "can only take place with many people in one place. Like with you, one hungry family is common but an entire famine that consumes the whole land is a catastrophe. Now that we're all together, the time has come, but the final move is up to those people down there."
Famine grimaced.
"But... like, I don't want the apocalypse. We'd be out of work again if this land was destroyed."
War winced. The girl had worded the main loophole in their existence. Sure, there'd be other lands and other Apocalypses but they'd all come to like Dunburrow and the general vicinity. Commuting wasn't for them. You got things rolling nicely, regular little brawls and hunger, then came this little hyena on his shiny bike and poof, move elsewhere and start all over again.
They peered at TMC who sat back in the saddle. His grin had cracked somewhat but he was still full of confidence.
"They'll come together again," he said. "They always do." He didn't care about starting over. His work was personal fun, not work. It didn't make people value life or think about gathering food for winter or developing better relations with their neighbors. It was just a nuisance. The higher-ups had allowed him to be a Horseman simply because it was a nuisance, but the other three had never quite seen it as right, like old potters look at factory-made plastic bowls. There was the purpose, but no feeling, no personal connection in it.
As if on a cue, the three horses cantered forward. The Harley came to life with a slightly lagging roar behind them and followed at a distance, roughly in the direction where the small pirate ship and the fleet was going.
War and Famine peered at Death, expecting him to be seething with rage. Instead, he looked thoughtful and somewhat worried, as much as a skull can.
Somewhere nearby and infinitely far away, a Harley landed on the deck of the Weewoo. The other three Horsemen hadn't in fact planned to follow the brigantine but now they forced their horses closer in order to see better.
"What's he doing?" War asked.
MEDDLING, Death said. For a seven-foot skeleton he managed to sound a surprising lot like he was talking about an annoying mother-in-law.
"Like, he's gonna mess something up," Famine grunted. "I just know it."
HE WANTS THE APOCALYPSE TO COME, said the reaper. HE ACTS IN OUR INTERESTS.
The other two gave him an unconvinced glance. This was one of those politically correct utterances. Famine sighed. War fiddled nervously with the reins.
"Well, we'd better stick around," he said. "When all Four are riding together, they cannot part until the duty is fulfilled."
Famine raised her head. "What?"
WE'RE STUCK WITH THE SELF-CENTERED DONKEY UNTIL THE WORLD BLOWS UP, said Death.
"Ah."
TMC walked across the deck at the same time, invisible to everyone but the other riders, and scanned the surroundings. Had anyone seen him, it would've been hard to imagine someone more out of place on a pirate ship. He could, of course, look like anything he wanted, but for the last few centuries he'd stuck with the good fixed image that came with worn jeans, a leather jacket, dark messy hair, and sunglasses. Not that the latter meant much. You couldn't look into his eyes, glasses or not. Your look simply didn't reach them, or slid right over his face without seeing the eyes. They were there, but even the fellow Horsemen couldn't see them - another fact that irked them a lot.
He stopped in front of Leraye's couch and looked at him for a thoughtful moment, then, without any warning or preparations, the demon could see him.
"You," he said. "Come on over to the prow. I want a word with you, and I don't want any of them see you talking to thin air. I have a little... proposition, and I know you'll like it."
[---]
Leraye smiled and set down his book. "You know, I rather preferred Pestilence. He stood by the more traditional garb."
He went to the prow. "Now, your proposition. And please, if you would turn off that noisy engine? It makes concentrating very hard indeed."
In reality, it wasn't the engine that made it hard to concentrate, but the haze around TMC that made it all too clear that time was relative. That fading in and out of the past few seconds. Leraye hypothosized that this was the case, but hey. The engine was annoying too.
[---]
He scowled when Leraye commented on his bike, but still jerked his hand at it and it turned itself off. That demon was far too... polite. He was standing there, smiling back at the Horseman like an amiable schoolteacher. This was a demon? He'd seen demons. Fangs and spikes and fiery breath and the whole shabang.
TMC eyed Leraye, and then, the way Horsemen do, took a closer look, a look into the demon's being and soul...
Wow, he thought. There were no fangs or claws or fire. There was something... nearly human. Something smart and cold. Something deep and heavy and somehow reminding of a mental abyss capable of sucking you in. That wouldn't, of course, have worked on TMC, but...
For a millisecond he was glad that the demon couldn't see his eyes. He had a reputation to keep.
The biker leaned back against the railing with a lazy grin. "Well then, I'll make it short and sweet. You have a gem, don't you? A weak one. And I know that if you got all of them together, the sheep and the wolves, you'd get a strong gem. But you won't be able to get them together, because they," he nodded at the pirates on the bridge, "are running away, and, here's the good part, they're relying on you and your gem as part of the getaway. You tell them that you're too weak to help them, plop," he snapped his fingers, "you cease to be useful to them and are promptly gotten rid of."
He watched those words sink in. Granted, it was hard to tell; TMC was used to humans and demons were more difficult to look into. But nonetheless.
"Now, I could spice up your gem so that you wouldn't need a new one," he continued. "You'd get to keep your new friends, useful allies, I'd think, and watch them blow up the chasers, and have the time of your life. But," the Horseman's grin got wider, "what would I get from it? Nothing.
But," he raised his finger, "let's say we're to do things the old-fashioned way. Let's say we're to get all of them together. Let's say you're gonna go tell them that you know a nice place to hide in these waters, and let's say someone leads the chasers to the same spot... how do they say again – savvy?”
[---]
Watching TMC try to behave like a pirate was excruciating. Leraye had seen real pirates, saltier than Hunty and more obnoxious than Rider and cleverer than Rane and more dangerous than Kat. The very essence of pirate. TMC wasn't the essence of enything, except maybe frustration. But Leraye kept smiling, that quiet, dangerous smile unique to the more scholarly breed of warlords.
Just as TMC was shocked that Leraye was a demon, Leraye was surprised that TMC was a Horseman. He didn't have the style or subtle finesse of the others. More than anything, he didn't have the patience. Leraye felt he could outwait this punk Horseman a thousand years. Pestilence may have been a disgusting creature to behold at work, but at least he understood Horsemanship. He would never come directly to a demon.
"Savvy. Just let me know of this place. You'll have your destruction, Hungry One."
Leraye stared right at the reflective sunglasses for a moment, wishing he could see the eyes beneath. He had known the previous Horsemen before Famine and Pestilence had been replaced. 'Known' being a relative term. They were, after all, only anthropomorthic personifications. It had been what, a thousand years now? How much had changed in such a short time.
"Oh, and give Death my regards," he said, figuring that TMC would be on bad terms with the more traditional Horseman.
[---]
TMC's grin was getting somewhat glassy. But no matter. Things were still going according to plan, even if it meant bending over backwards in some aspects.
"Oh, and give Death my regards." The Horseman's smile nearly faltered. Was that demon messing with him?
At that point Death appared on the deck, or rather in the air above it, still on his pale horse, on the other side of the ship a few dozen yards away. He gave Leraye a curt nod. He wasn't much fond of the demon who had, after all, messed his accounting up big time twice, but he was still giving TMC a hard time, probably the first time in millennia. Besides, as someone who was rarely welcomed despite always doing his job incredibly well, Death could appreciate politeness.
"Well then," TMC said somewhat gruffly, though still with a grin. "See that iceberg over there?"
That iceberg was, frankly, hard to miss. It was actually charted as an island, as it was huge and didn't drift much, but it was still an iceberg. A big, pointy, somewhat snow-cone-like mass of greenish, chilly silence.
"There's an entrance on the north-west side of it, big enough for a ship like this," said the biker. "And it's hollow inside, well, hollow enough, at least. Good hideout." He chuckled. "As long as anyone won't know to look for you in there, at least, which I daresay won't be the case. Tell 'em to turn left after the entrance, there's a semi-hidden pathway with a cove there. Don't mess it up and you'll get your fight... and your gem."
His bike came to life with a roar and he got on without further comments, unwilling to admit that he simply didn't want to stick around the demon any longer. Horsemen weren't meant to deal with demons, and he'd always thought of that rule as some stupid mumbo-jumbo... but now he could see the reason behind it.
"Come on, stooges," he grunted, turning towards the Gates.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Death asked, his voice even grimmer than usually. TMC rolled his eyes at him.
"He's meddling," War said; he'd been right next to Death though invisible to Leraye. "He's pushing things around. Which we very much aren't supposed to d-d-d-d-"
"I'm bringing the Apocalypse," TMC snapped, pushing War into a particularly strong time-lag. "Which is ultimately our job."
NO, said Death. THE APOCALYPSE IS HUMAN BUSINESS. WE'RE NOT ALLOWED TO MEDDLE. WE JUST HAVE TO RIDE OUT WHEN IT HAPPENS.
"Says who?"
THE RULES.
TMC gave a 'pfft' and rode off towards the fleet. The other three, bound by the duty, followed him.
((Takes place after Death's patience goes 'ping' and he shows up in the middle of action, making himself as well as TMC visible for everyone))
"Frigate... who let the Harley on board?"
Shiva's cry of shock directed everyone's attention in Leraye's general direction. Things happened in quick succession after that. Something blocked Fraze like blue lightning. Leraye had been prepared for the horse, so he managed to sidestep that. The bird... no one ever expects the bird. Leraye gave a rare scowl as the gem fell to his feet and rolled away. The gel wall over the entrance to the iceberg melted away.
Thankfully, everyone had forgotten about Leraye's wings since the battle at the castle. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rider imagined little Clara calling him an angel. Leraye flew until he almost brushed the icy ceiling of the iceberg. As he flew, he drew almost all of the mist from the Weewoo and enshrouded himself in it. It was, after all, made from the energy of one of his gems. He would be able to draw alchemical energy from it.
"Well," he said from his cloud, "You seem perturbed, Horseman. I see that unlike myself, you have no Plan B. Nor, Captain, have you come prepared for this singularly unusual chain of events. I knew another captain like that. Young, intelligent, with a temperment not unlike your own. I wonder where he has been the past 1000 years."
"Frigate, I wish I could throw a knife that high," Rider muttered.
"Now, Hungry One, we don't have to have an apocolypse tonight."
A deep growl sounded from below.
"Another Hungry One seems to agree with me. Now these people," He made a grand sweeping gesture that seemed insincere, almost mocking, "Will either belong to myself or the wyrm, but I regret to inform you and your brethren that they do not belong to you."
[---]
TMC shrunk back against the railing, glaring at Fraze. He knew that the game was lost, but with Death present he couldn't do anything. Granted, strictly speaking he could've done quite a bit, but something in the reaper's deep eyesockets told him that nothing along those lines would be a good idea.
Death moved himself a little, raising the scythe. As an instant result, the battle, the warcries from the approaching ancient ships, and the whizzing of the cannonballs died down. Sure, everyone knows that when you run into battle, you have to be prepared to meet your death. And everyone on those ships had long accepted that. But accepting it is one thing, actually seeing a robed skeleton holding a gleaming bright scythe that's casting blue light on the deck of the ship you're about to attack is completely another.
"Really, Death." TMC's voice, still bearing that arrogant note, now had a little despair in it. "Isn't this what we all want? Our job? It's not your place to get in the way."
IT WASN'T YOUR PLACE TO INTERFERE WITH THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS. Death's hollow voice echoed back from the walls of the cavern.
"What is natural order?" TMC demanded with so much heat in his voice that his face rippled in a time-space lag for a moment. "Don't they interfere? Don't they push things around in this world any way they like? Don't they attack each other, and destroy fertile soil so that their own crops fail, and think that only a good smell keeps the evil demons of sickness away?"
"Hey, I always liked that attitude," Pestilence said from his wagon.
"We're created by humans, Death." The biker gazed at the reaper. "So you can't blame us for doing what humans do. It's our purpose."
Death seemed to ponder that for a moment. There was still somewhat halfhearted fighting going on, something with the gem, something with the demon and people delivering messages, but he didn't see a reason to pay attention to any of that.
YES, he finally said. BUT YOU FORGOT SOMETHING.
TMC blinked, which showed as the momentuous clearing of the lag around him. "What?"
HUMANS PAY A PRICE FOR WHAT THEY DO.
The scythe drew a clear, beautiful arc in the air, something the Weewoo's mist would've been proud of. When it reached TMC, it slowed down for a second, lapsed into a lag - but nothing, absolutely nothing stops Death.
"Son of a-!"
And those were his last words.
[---]
Leraye watched TMC's destruction with, at most, mild amusement. So now even the power of Hell was open for any demonic alchemist. He extracted a piece as big as his fist. He compressed it so tightly that it seemed to be solid. Many authors have tried to express this color, so black that it was more than just an extremely dark brown or grey or purple. The absolute blackness that you get when you can't even imagine color.
He extracted another piece of mist and murmured some words in an ancient language. He thought about the chaos that made TMC. He focused his entire being on the disorder, the randomness, the fact that even the constant flow of time can be dammed or stretched or sundered.
The energy flowing from the ruined Horseman was like a stream sweeping along thousands of shards of broken glass. Reflections were distorted, light sent of crazy patterns. Time fragmented in places, and as Rider looked through it, it seemed as though Kat had several sets of feet all in one place. It hurt her head to look at it too long.
It all rushed to Leraye's concentrated mist just as a river or a gull or a pirate are bound to rush to the sea. the mist glowed white-hot. The essence, the very soul of TMC formed a glistening, rough coating over the concentrated mist. Leraye drew some more mist close and formed a smooth black shell over TMC's soul.
The new Gem shone as black as midnight. A gem forged from the power of a Horseman.
The approach of the wyrm was evident now. The seas and ice all shook as though they too were afraid.
"I would love to stay for dinner," Leraye said, "Particularly to reclaim the useless trinket that your invisible friend has taken from me, but this is neither my time nor my place to die. Our Reaper knows this well."
And, without so much as a dramatic flash, Leraye teleported out of the NTWF.
And hey, infiltrating other powers' bases is politics xD Better put, it's diplomacy. Wow. We've pwned J.K. Rowling. At least in prolific-ness. XD I think I will read the whole thing once it's up-- it was a lot of fun while I was in it, and I want to see what happened once we lemon-bombed the castle (I left off there). |
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Post by Huntress on Sept 9, 2008 13:30:17 GMT -5
Wow. We've pwned J.K. Rowling. At least in prolific-ness. XD I think I will read the whole thing once it's up-- it was a lot of fun while I was in it, and I want to see what happened once we lemon-bombed the castle (I left off there). Yay, more motivation to get it done x3 And the show has begun, people *jerks thumb at the general Guilds board* Plunge in :3 |
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Post by Clocky: Activity is a Thing on Sept 9, 2008 14:21:54 GMT -5
1) So long as I don't forget. |D
2) Can't say; I'm not one of them.
3) Read above, except replace "one of them" with "him."
4) TELEPATHY.
5) … TELEPATHY. (Seriously, I have no idea. [> _ >;;])
6) All the Guild members… go to… a school where they can all train their individual skills sorta like Harry Potter except with more variety? D:
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Post by Rider on Sept 9, 2008 14:33:42 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Hey Clocky, I didn't know you were a pirate. ^_^
EDIT: You're not, go sign up if you want to participate. XD[/glow]
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Post by Clocky: Activity is a Thing on Sept 9, 2008 15:02:24 GMT -5
Can I be a part of more than one Guild?
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We need to have a long talk about politics, Amnei...
