Despite some initial… hesitation, the Borg had lurched through the gateway—a shimmering wall of energy that seemed to be obscuring something beyond it.  

Its feet touched down upon grass, and its sensors, both organic and the barely functioning inorganic components, detected a drastic climatic shift.  Aside from the small clearing in which it stood, the horizon was littered with massive, carbon-based lifeforms.  The destruction of the Collective had rendered the drone unable to access its vast and unrivaled databases on organic life.  For the moment, the giant constructs of green and brown remained still.  They were either sleeping or

The Borg continued forward and lifted its remaining hand.  With the failure of nearly all of its implants, its original biology was already beginning to reassert itself.  Its flesh had already started to lose its normal Borg pigmentation.  There was no telling what further exposure to vitamin D would do.

“We must regain our strength,” it spoke beneath its breath as it lowered its hand back to its side.  Its eye returned back to the scene laid out before the gate.  Something in its mind buzzed…

“Forest… Those are trees.  We—I—remember trees.”  The drone shook its head.  “We.  We remember.”

It wasn’t just the human physiology that was reactivating from its slumber.  Memories, knowledge, and thoughts started to coalesce in the void that was the drone’s mind.  It wasn’t the combined understanding of Species 5618… just the fragmentary intelligence of the drone’s former identity.  The fact that it was forced to rely upon an individual sickened the Borg, but there was nothing else it could do at this moment.  It had to utilize the resources available to itself or risk perishing and damning the Borg Collective to extinction.

“Trees,” the Borg whispered as it looked and watched a gentle breeze rustle the green orga—leaves—through the air.  It felt something brush against its flesh, but the tissue lacked the receptors to convey whatever sensation a warm gust of wind contained.  A glance down revealed ash-gray toes where a Borg would normally wear boots.  “Grass.  We are in a forest… a temperature biome.”  The drone stepped closer to the edge of the clearing and swept the area with its functional eye.  “What planet are we on?  Sol III?  Andalusia Prime?”

The Borg looked up at the sky.  It seemed Terran.  

“We require additional data,” the drone whispered as it made its way from the clearing and into the forest proper.

So I was talking with a few people about a theoretical (probably never going to happen) move for Mercer that would bring back some of his previous Canon... at least the part where he is literally a walking, talking Virus...

So this is about an Infect move (generally speaking) but the principle behind it can be expanded on to account for any - what I'm coining - as Dick Moves.

Premise: Charge time is a plausible downside. Longer charge, bigger bang.
Thesis: REALLY long Charge, REALLY big bang.
Theory:
Imagine a move with a Debuff that has a charge up time not meant to deal damage in the current fight. In fact, this move is a means to have the last laugh, hours from its use - days even... Since there's no explicitly stated limit on how long a charge-up timer can be, or how much damage one can yield with a single attack (outside of a Supermove, since they are pretty static) this suggests that the last laugh might be the literally the last laugh...

Using Mercer as an example, imagine the following move: Infect [300] Requirements are Debuff and the Physical and Remote Control Proficiencies. Mercer scratches a target, intentionally doing very little damage and instead leaving them infected with the DX-1118C virus. This does nothing except continue to infect every aspect of the host's physiology, slowly, over time - but otherwise remaining dormant. In one week, the virus hits a critical point. The retrovirus begins drastically restructuring the host's physiology on a micro scale, resulting in a massive amount of damage.

This isn't gamey either, this is basically the Chicken Box. Infection, minor irritation at first then it becomes dormant. Around the age of 60's, the same virus can cause Shingles, which can result in permanent nerve damage, or even blindness if it manifests near the eyes. 

Of course, sixty years in Omniverse is too long, but when ten seconds affords one the power of the Kamehameha, then what would one week do? Even with a Debuff's damage doing significantly less than a straight up attack, its one week of charging.

So now I open this up to discussion... This is a real-world phenomena, and I'm assuming Omniverse has disease, so... what about a Prime Virus?

Please discuss!

Coming back to the old "Cold is the Void" thread where I posted my Void Quest, that I am currently rewriting:

I would like to request for all my Void Quest related posts from that thread to be deleted - which is to say, from this post on to the last post in that thread, or posts #4 through #19.
I don't know how many Rest Points I spent on those posts, unfortunately.


Now, I'm rewriting the quest "offline" (using some pieces from the first version) and I'm planning to post it in one go once it's finished. Could it be done so that when I'm ready to post I request for staff to set my RP to zero first, so that I don't earn double OM for it, and the OM adjustment for deleting my old posts is done according to the 'standard' algorithm, not the double OM gain?

(Also: just in case, I have a raw-code backup of all the posts I am requesting to have deleted, so I don't need to have anything sent to me :frogbon: I can provide a link to the GDoc on request)

Welcome! To be honest, this is the first time I touched this old series in YEARS. When Flipnote Hatena shut down, I wanted to move on. But, well, my cringey days caught up to me. I wanted to revisit this series and make it brand new. Less "oh my god this is unbearable" and more "hey, this is actually interesting".

Did you know this started as a rip-off of another series on Hatena?

Yeah, that's how I was back then. A copier.

(CAN ALSO BE VIEWED ON PIXTON, COMICFURY, AND LINE WEBTOONS)

Part 1
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Part 2
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Using Standard rules with the exception of time for post(72 hours because I have an odd work schedule.)

We need a judge.

In Character Thread

Quote:Memories of the consumed biker in New Beginning or Repeating History

(11-13-2017, 03:20 PM)Alex Wrote:

(11-13-2017, 01:43 PM)Gunther Stein Wrote: Weird question; if two Secondaries share the same gun, is the gun's power still based on what their ATK stat would be? If so is the "More powerful the man, more powerful the weapon" fact somewhat known to NPC's? Sort of like just another fact of Omniphysics?

The power of a gun or any weapon is related to who summoned it and the OM used in it... unless said gun was designed to like, alter based upon who held it.

The obvious "omniphysics" moment is "incidental weapons" in combat situations, but you're talking hypotheticals with secondaries not combat involving primes.

This was it! Haseo would finally get his revenge for Shino against someone he had admired for years, the supposed friend and guide known as Ovan but now revealed to be the true Tri-Edge! Haseo had his team ready to fight Ovan but he was too strong and overwhelmed Haseo with his Avatar Coorbenik the Rebirth. On the edge of defeat Haseo could not escape Ovan's data drain and had for the second time been drained of all his power but much worse, he fell into a coma. 

It almost felt like a dream as he had been in his standard black armor from before he was defeated as he was now in a dark and empty space devoid of color except the one part of the entire space he had been in, a white silhouette sitting in the dark empty void by itself. "Who the hell are you?!" Haseo would have said but couldn't say it because for some odd reason he could not speak at all. 

Quote:“My name is Omni. This is not the world you know. This is the Omniverse. You interest me, so I have made you part of it. The Omniverse is a place that reflects the wishes of those who are part of it. But! There are rules. I will explain them only once, so listen carefully.” 

Quote:“This is Omnilium. It’s what ties the Omniverse together. Without it, you are nothing. With it, anything you desire can be yours. But you will need more than this. If you desire it enough, you will find it. You will find that using it comes naturally. Just think of what you desire most. 

Quote:“You will not be alone in the Omniverse. There are others. Of course, they, too desire Omnilium. Do not fear death. For as long as you interest me, you will be reborn. 

Quote:“That’s all you need to know right now. You’ll figure out the rest soon enough. I’ll be watching … and waiting.” 

“Hi, boss-lady!”
 
The irreverent greeting burst from the communications device resting in the palm of T’Jung’s hand— far, far too familiar of an address from the subordinate officer she knew to be on the other end.
 
T’Jung had been in the process of preparing her evening meal and was thus standing in her kitchen when the call came through. Held precisely in her left hand was a pestle, the companion mortar having been set aside so that she could answer the call, and over her hands she wore a pair of sterile blue gloves to prevent any contamination. The blunt pestle, a tool made of finely polished soapstone, was pinched between the fingers of one hand, and scattered across the countertop before her were a mixture of ingredients, one of the most eye-catching and exotic being a bright, smooth-skinned crimson root similar to a carrot in appearance. A bowl of water, too, was set off to the side, bits of red dust already beginning to form a chalky brown paste inside.
 
Her apartment was sparsely decorated despite the large amount of space it contained, the wallpaper a demure shade of brown that reminded T’Jung of the harsh desert sun and swirling grains of sand. A meditation mat was rolled up and placed against the far wall, and that was adjacent to a low table adorned solely with a bronze-colored incense holder in the center of the room. Several potted cacti were scattered about the open area, a spray bottle half-filled with water sitting beside one of the clay-swaddled desert plants. A long, fan-bladed lirpa was buttressed against the space over her desk and supported by two simple hooks; the deadly pole-arm seemed especially conspicuous in comparison to the placid atmosphere hanging about the rest of her home. It was one of the few ornaments she had allowed from her home world, not for sentimental purposes as one might expect, but solely because it might prove useful in the event of an invasion of her place of living. The weapon appeared fierce even in its resting state, familiar characters carved into it and the polished, curved blade glistening under the low light.
 
Placing the communicator on the countertop with a click, T’Jung returned to her task. The steady flick of her wrist as she turned the pestle was the only motion in the kitchen area, her tall, trim figure backlit both by the electric-blue neon sign outside her window and the open sky of Coruscant, grandiose spires and shiny glass windows sparkling and unsoiled by dirt or grime as far as the eye could see. While she could easily create the same dish using much more efficient, less primitive means, she found the repetitive movements soothing, and so continued to prepare her meal by hand.
 
Scchhsh, schssh, schssh—
 
The call had come as a surprise to T’Jung. She could almost hear the human breathing into his comm, their connection simmering with static from the volume of his words, but the only outward sign of puzzlement she allowed was the slightest lift of her sharply-upswept eyebrows. She would overlook this blatant disregard of their place of work’s hierarchy for now. There were more pressing matters to consider, after all.
 
First and foremost, it was… unusual for one of her fellow researchers to contact her while she was outside of the research laboratories, forcibly separated from her experimentation by the facility's security due to the long hours she typically kept, but most unusual of all was her subordinate’s lack of explanation for the initiation of said contact. This must be rectified at once, the woman concluded, and immediately sought to do just that.
 
“Science Officer Myers. What is your purpose for contacting me?” T’Jung asked, and if she was displeased by the man’s impertinence, she did not elect to verbalize or acknowledge it for the sake of brevity. Unlike her human coworker, she made sure to posit a question right at the start of her speech to make her purpose clear.
 
A sound like crumpling paper flittered over the speakers, as if Myers was searching for a report to read from. As if he had not already prepared said report before initiating contact. T’Jung tilted her head to the side, the shell of one pointed ear grazing against the phone’s hard plastic surface. Most illogical.
 
Scssch, schssch. T’Jung paused to scoop the contents of the mortar into the bowl of water, observing with mild interest as the pulverized dust sucked in moisture, becoming clumpy and wet in a matter of seconds. Taking another handful of finely-chopped root pieces and dropping them into the mortar, T’Jung resumed her earlier ministrations.
 
Myers continued to speak.
 
“Well, ah, you know..."

Ah, 'you know.' Another expression that T'Jung was swiftly becoming accustomed to, although the phrase still grated over her own, much more literal understanding of the common language. It was no small wonder that she was able to restrain herself from sighing, her focus again slipping toward the very labor-intensive recipe.

"There’s been a small… accident. A very tiny one! The teeniest, tiniest accident possible. It was just an oversight that we really should’ve caught on to, and, uh.”
 
Ssscchh!
 
T’Jung was silent. She stared expressionlessly at the wall of her apartment, all efficient movements having ceased. Her head bowed over the bitter root paste she had been preparing, pitch-black hair encircled by a halo of bluish light cast by the massive, glowing neon emblem looming outside of her window.
 
Her next words were toneless. As was her way, she did not allow for any emotion to creep into her voice, and yet T’Jung found herself struggling to quell the mounting panic within the boundaries of her own mind. Any error in their line of work, even a small one, could prove disastrous.
 
“An accident,” repeated T’Jung, her meal now thoroughly abandoned.

"Yeah," said Myers, and this time T'Jung recognized the nervousness trembling in his voice, the audible hesitance of his tongue as it painstakingly inched over each damning syllable. "You need to get down here. Now."

The white was blinding. It was so pure, so clean, it almost hurt his soul to look at. Mercer had almost preferred the blackness from before, with the ominous figure staring him down without eyes. It seemed more justified. Here, though, he felt unclean and sickened by the innocence of this world.
 
“The Omniverse,” Mercer mumbled to himself. He could not help a small laugh, this whole situation would have been unbelievable – had he not been who he was. As codename Zues and ground zero for Blacklight, he had already lived through the unbelievable. This? This was just another path that ‘Unbelieveable’ could, and seemingly did, take.
 
Cold, steely blue eyes span across the distance. There was no one in his immediate vicinity, so for a few moments he sat on the edge of the fountain. It was the only discernable structure for quite a while, except for little blips on the horizon, what he could only assume to be exits from this horrible hellhole of absolute purity.
 
Memories were foggy, but that was nothing new. He had to concentrate, to clear his head of millions of thoughts and memories not his own. What was the last thing he remembered? A crow… and… water… It was not drowning, exactly. Something happened and once again his memories had been scrambled. It was not nearly as bad as the first time. He could still remember most of his life, and whatever you would call what came after.
 
As he sorted through his memories, the memories of those he had consumed and the scrambled thoughts and remnants that came before his first death, he noticed something else. His body felt different. His hands, his skin, his innards… in the silence he could feel the beating of his heart. Maybe this was the longest silence he had been a part of, but he could not remember the last time he could feel or hear his heart beat. It felt wrong.
 
Turning on his seat, Mercer’s gaze fell to his rippling reflection in the fountain. He felt more human than he had in a long time. The thought made him chuckle. Not really that long… what had it been? A month, maybe a month and a half since he was shot down in Penn Station; he had no idea how long he had been adrift in the water after all. It feels longer. It feels like forever…
 
Mercer swept a hand through the water, ruining the image of him before standing. The man turned and began walking. He put space between himself and the fountain, and by extension, the past that he had been ripped from. Not that he could ever escape it; the screaming in his head reminded him of every life he had consumed. He could not distinguish them, in death they all sounded the same. It was all he could do to silence them, to squash the voices and memories so they would not drive him to insanity.
 
 
 
It promised to be a long walk. He was in no rush. He timed his pace with that foreign sound of his heart. Every other beat would be matched with another step. It was a calm stride that helped him keep his mind clear. The silence lasted all of twenty minutes.
 
In the distance he could see someone approaching. He could hear the faint roar of an engine. He stopped walking. The stranger was petal to the metal. Mercer rose onto the tips of his toes, bouncing a few times. His body felt heavier than it once did. It took more effort to move, he had become much slower. He could use a ride.
 
As the glint of a barrel caught his eye, his right arm slowly transformed. Tendrils of biomass break away from his limb and his fingers elongate into wicked blades.  The shotgun touting motorist waits just a moment too late to fire and dared to come just a little too close. Buckshot littered his left shoulder, but the right hand was quickly buried into the man’s chest. His legs swept up and for a moment Mercer was riding bitch, his arm around the man in front of him.
 
The guttural sounds were overtaken by a sickening slurp as more tendrils of biomass leap from Mercer’s torso and into the back of his attacker. He was torn asunder and pulled back into his unwanted passenger. As the biker’s feet were torn away from the rests, Mercer’s replaced them. The clawed hand tenderly took the accelerator, and the other caught that shotgun before it could fall to the ground ripping past.
 
A streak of black was left behind as the bloodied cannibal hooked a sharp U-turn. Wherever this man came from seemed like the kind of place Mercer would fit in… Not likely… He may have a heart beat, but who knows how temporary that would be? The buckshot numbing his right shoulder was reminder that his body was not just pure Biomass anymore, but how long would that last?
 
The roar of the engine overwhelmed the sound of his heart beat. It reminded him of the heavy traffic during his earlier days as Codename Zeus; when the population did not realize just how royally fucked they were – how badly Alexander J. Mercer had screwed them over. This time it felt like a precursor, like history was doomed to repeat itself.
 
 
Closer to the gate he saw more riders. They were stationary until they saw that the man riding back was not one of theirs. Even as Mercer raced towards them, they mounted up and pealed out, leaving more black streaks on the pearl white floor of the Nexus. With his right hand still formed into the wicked claws, the left clinched into a fist. His biomass, how limited it was, shifted into the fist. It expanded, growing denser and larger over a few seconds.
 
There were three bikers on their way; two with pistols, one with a long double barrel shotgun. Mercer did not expect they would make the same mistake and come close enough, so he had to veer towards them. At the last second with a turn of the handle bars, his bike near tipped to the right if it had not been for that massive weight of his left hand swinging out.
 
Number one had not even managed to get a shot off, trying to steer away, before his back tire was obliterated. The shriek of tearing metal assaulted his ears, but it was nothing compared to the rider. His body slammed into the ground with his heavy cruiser rolling on top of him, skidding and grinding his body into the white earth. Gasoline and blood streaked the Nexus, along with a severed leg, shredded by the twisted remains of a steel tailpipe, flattened into a cutting edge.
 
Even as one fell, another took a shot. Alex had ruined the shotgunner, but the pistol was no easier to take. It sank into his back, narrowly missing his shoulder blade. The pain was immense, far more than he remembered ever feeling. The clawed hand revved the engine, nearly tipping the beast back as he picked up speed.
 
“You want some of this!” Mercer shouted at the bikers. He could not see past their dark visors, but the way they were tailing him across the grand terrain, they did not seem quite ready to quit. They were on his tail, side by side, taking aim. He could gain no ground and they were quickly closing in the gap. “I warned you!”
 
His feet lifted to the higher rests of the cruiser. With a mighty push, he leaped backwards, nearly stopping his forward motion. Between the roar of three engines and the wind past his ears, he could hear the yells – the screams – of his pursuers. One received a clubbed hand to the face, shattering the helmet and skull in one mighty blow, while the other just… fell apart. Mercer’s talons cut through the soft leather and flesh beneath.
 
Mercer touched ground before the bodies did. Once again his ears were assaulted by the shriek of metal and the wet plopping of flesh. He turned to the corpses. One no longer had a head, while the other was only half there, the other half carried quite a ways off. It was still in motion as the motorcycle slowed but maintained balance with less than half of its original rider still present. His bike was on done for; the foot rests bent horribly and the front fork warped. The third bike was not much better, his hammerfist had cleaved through the windshield and ruined one of the handlebars in the process.
 
This place already feels like home…