DeviousMe

Alrighty then, you asked for it. I have been wanting for this guy to pay Azuria back for some of the help she's given him, but nothing's panned out so far. Let's see if it does this time.


1. Name: Vyachslav (Big V)

2. Species: Sun Eater (fictional designation; Vyachslav's species has no true name in the sense of a language and is referred to as Sun Eaters only due to their habit of 'eating' coronal plasma)

3. Physical: Vyachslav is a member of a race of space-dwelling lifeforms comparable in size and weight to an F-14 Tomcat. At home in the vacuum of the void between stars, they are built for and adapted perfectly to that environment, sporting an armored exoskeleton nearly devoid of soft tissue and a hydrogen-based metabolism geared to process just about anything into usable energy. Their favorite 'food' is the plasma found in the coronas of stars, though they will eat just about anything if necessary - including drifting asteroids - their strong claws and teeth enabling them to pick apart nearly any 'food source' into manageable chunks.

Some years ago, Vyachslav's unfortunate encounter with the business end of a heavy impulse cannon left him fatally injured, costing him most of his limbs, the bulk of his exoskeleton, and several major organs. Due to the complexity of his peoples' biology, cyber-reconstructive surgery was the only viable option to restore him to life. Today he is more metal and machine than flesh and blood, though the only true differences are the slick-black sheen of his artificial exoskeleton, the glow of his eyes, the replacement of his wing skin membranes by fields of coherent, formstable energy, and the integration of his formerly worn combat gear directly into his new body.

Vyachslav's physique remained unchanged, and is as long and slender (indeed, almost skeletal) today as it has always been. His hands are fully articulate, holding three fingers and a thumb each, and his feet are plantigrade; three long toes form more than half the base and footbridge, and a fourth points back to form a sort of clawed heel. This structure makes grasping simple (such as in the manner of a bird perching on a tree branch), but also gives Vyachslav an awkward, clumsy waddle when he walks on flat ground. As a result, he avoids walking as much as possible, and when it does become necessary, he either hunches forward to maintain a more comfortable balance, using his long tail as a counterweight, or resorts entirely to walking on both hands and feet.

His face does not presently and has never had expressive features. Lidless eyes, a lipless mouth from which jut a frightening number of large, jagged (and now metal) teeth, and a lack of nostrils or visible ears makes Vyachslav's countenance immobile, hard to read, and frightening to most humans. The fact that he does not breathe, his people lacking lungs (or for that matter, a respiratory system) doesn't much help.




4. Powers: technically none. Vyachslav's 'powers' are part result of natural evolution, part mere functions of the equipment he carries. While today integrated into his cybernetic prosthetics (and thus no longer worn by means of straps and harnesses), the cyber-reconstructive surgery had little overall effect on his capabilities.


Size - Vyachslav's large relative size makes him a tough and resilient opponent, as well as allowing him to stand a good chance at damaging physically imposing adversaries by virtue of sheer momentum. In addition, his stature allows for him to keep large opponents at bay and sufficiently occupied for his allies to operate with greater safety.

Armor - the cybernetic exoskeleton that keeps him alive is composed of Yntercite, an exotic combination of very rare materials. The resulting alloy is more deflective than resilient, decreasing the chance that an attack directed at Vyachslav will do damage, but only moderately protecting against direct harm. Integrated systems allow for adaptation however, making the armor more resilient the more damage it takes.

Claws - Vyachslav's long fingers end in claws. When faced with energy fields or materials too tough for them to cut on their own, Vyachslav can charge them with different types of energy, allowing him to damage to objects and entities that he could not normally harm.

Teeth - Vyachslav's teeth are extremely sharp. Backed by powerful jaws, they are able to cut and/or crush many a material.

Combi-Cannon - each of Vyachslav's lower arms holds a double-barreled artillery piece capable of discharging multiple types of energy, ranging from paralyzer blasts and cryo-cannon sprays to disintegrator beams.

Cutter - having lost the ability to 'spit' coherent energy naturally, Vyachslav has received a replacement: an industrial-strength pulse projector, which allows him to spew cutter beams with no more difficulty than before.

Munitions - Vyachslav carries several types of bombs and charges in his exoskeleton's storage compartments, including fluidic webbing that solidifies in contact with air, and molecular tear gas able to penetrate many kinds of chemical seals.

Flight - rather than relying on air and other gaseous media, Vyachslav's flight capabilities are based on flows of cosmic energies and stellar background radiation, enabling him to easily traverse the vacuum of space, and his cyber-reconstructive surgery impedes neither his atmospheric nor interstellar flight capabilities. Indeed, the compact linear module that has long since replaced his 'organic FTL drive' allows him to travel between star systems more quickly than ever before. In addition, the energy-based nature of his new wings enables him to deactivate them and store the 'projection fingers' in the shape of two pods against his back. While this has no functional difference from the former folding of wing skin membranes, it does reduce the space needed for storage.

Space-Faring - Vyachslav can comfortably tolerate both in extreme heat and tremendous cold and is able to survive without any sort of atmosphere.

Stealth - Vyachslav can easily mask his presence from other telepaths, and sophisticated deflector allows him to cloak himself in multiple layers of obfusciation, making him invisible across a wide band of the EM spectrum - including visual, thermal, and ultraviolet wavelengths - and narrow pieces of other bands.

Telepathy - naturally telepathic, Vyachslav communicates almost exclusively via his mind, and is able to shield himself from the ambient 'mind noise' that humans and many other intelligent creatures produce when they process conscious thought. By noting the 'mental frequency' of a person, however, he can choose lift this block to that specific frequency and 'listen' to the surface thoughts of that person, (at least in theory) regardless of distance.


5. Skills: Vyachslav is a skilled tactical coordinator and likes to operate in the background. He's also a surprisingly capable infiltrator.


Leadership - when able to, Vyachslav makes an excellent tactical coordinator. His own speed of thought, coupled with telepathic ability, allows him to not only convey instantaneous instructions to his allies, but also warn them of the plans of opponents. In addition, he is able to knit those he chooses together in a sort of 'mind link', routing their thoughts across the group and granting them direct access to one another's ideas, perceptions, and senses, all while maintaining complete individuality and independent creativity.

Covert Operations - though his deflector does not protect Vyachslav from detection by means such as echolocation, he is surprisingly lithe and stealthy for a creature of his size. So long as he has somewhere to hide that he can fit into, he can be quite difficult to detect - even when directing his allies in a combat situation.


6. Limitations: despite the volume of his bag of tricks, (and no matter how much he'd like to be) Vyachslav is mortal and by no means invincible. Just as his armor has its weak spots, so do his capabilities. In addition, though he does not have an ironclad code against it, he dislikes killing, and will usually go to great lengths to avoid it (if reasonable) by 'pulling his punches' so to speak - especially if there are noncombatants in the area.


Size - Vyachslav's large size makes him a prominent target along human-sized opponents. In addition, he simply cannot fit into places where humans can go very easily. Even when this is not the case, areas defined as spacious by humans more often than not are cramped conditions for him, forcing him to retract his wings (nullifying his ability to fly) and severely reducing his maneuverability.

Claws - though sharp to him, in human-size terms Vyachslav's claws are rather dull, and will not cut opponents of that scale so much as bludgeon them, often resulting in a lesser amount of harm than expected.

Teeth - Vyachslav's teeth cannot be charged with energy. If they cannot cut or crush something by virtue of being sharp or having a great deal of pressure behind them, they cannot do any damage.

Combi-Cannon - Vyachslav's preferred firing mode is that of the heavy paralyzer. While capable of knocking out large numbers of average beings for several hours in a single blast, the same is hardly ever true with supers. Many are able to mitigate the effects to that of being struck with a large poison darts or moderate-strength psionic blasts, and even the cryo-cannon doesn't always hold his opponents frozen for long before they are able to break free, emerge from, or otherwise escape the containment.

Telepathy - Vyachslav cannot 'enter the mind' of another individual. Only surface thought is accessible to him, though with some effort he can 'listen harder' to gain knowledge of the associated details of a thought - even ones the thinker may be unaware of, such as the mint date of a penny the thinker has been asked to picture and does not consciously remember. He cannot break through mental shields or barriers. In addition, if among a sufficiently large population of intelligent beings, were his ability to shield himself from the ambient 'mind noise' to fail, the resulting cascade of uncountable thoughts would likely drive him insane (or even kill him).

Lack of vocal cords - Vyachslav cannot speak. His only methods of communication are telepathy and (very crude) writing. The only sound he is able to produce is a high-pitched screech, created by repidly forcing any atmosphere currently in his throat out through the mouth. If caught in an area where telepathy is inhibited (or worse, not possible), Vyachslav may be entirely unable to communicate.

Inexperience - though technically only 2.5 seconds younger than his twin brother, Vyachslav has always been much less calculating and meticulous than his 'elder'. Though highly intelligent, he usually leaves it to others to concoct plans and strategies, focusing more on the tactical details in the local theater. While this is sometimes and advantage, it leaves him with a lack of mental adaptability and knowledge that comes with experience. While not often a problem, when left on his own against an opponent he's not faced before, this can become truly debilitating.


7. Reason: Vyachslav has long been an acquaintance of Azuria, and every now and then calls upon her for support. While at first reluctant to aid a 'villain', the administrator of MAGI has since put aside her reservations, aiding him when she can. To date, she has not asked for any help in return, but she knows that any time Vyachslav is present on the planet Earth, he is literally but a thought away...


Wow. That got long. >_> Well, there ya go. Oversized male alien nonhumanoid Night Widow with a few temp powers and a fudged epic pool because villains get no ice to play with.

"Oh, there's one on the way." Jade said with a sigh in response to Lady Aineruda, looking toward the sky in the direction the Harvester had been, "At least one. They always come. Can take a while, though. Depends on where the they are when they're called. Not the fastest thing around. I've never..."

He stopped speaking upon Dr. Mechano's beginning transformation, the frills of his ears widening a bit in instinct as they picked up the noise. The Drokar refrained from commenting until Edward had returned to the group, telling the scientist, "Um...that...might've not been the best idea. Now it'll see you as raw materials, and..."

The mildest of shudders ran through him, noticeable only to a truly keen observer, but even the pause to take breath made it obvious that this prospect greatly distressed the Dragon, "...and...yeah, that's not a good thing."

"I like it." Akat's tone was the exact opposite, the scaleless reptilian smiling lightheartedly to the ground while she stepped toward the rear of the range runner's underside and reached toward the craft, "And don't worry. We'll be fine. I haven't seen something yet that can take an impulse beam, and if I remember right, there should be a-"

A sharp hiss cut her off, the touch of her palm against the runner's hull producing an oval crack through which sulphurous fumes rushed into the air with a suddenness that caused the Khelari to jump, then slam both hands against the hull behind the crack, which was apparently a descending entry ramp - well, if anyone could tell this through the billow of toxic, corrosive gases the thing belched forward.

"No! Stop! Close!" she shouted frantically, and less than two seconds later, the ramp had done exactly that, leaving little lingering harm in the area aside from the pungent odor of acidic compounds. For Jade, the smell was so severe he had to cover his nose with both hands to stop his gag reflex. Still, he'd gotten enough of a whiff for his stomach to romp around inside his guts. Okay, so feeling sick wasn't something he'd really missed.

"Sorry." Akat meanwhile apologized sheepishly, looking quite ashamed, "Forgot this came straight from At, not the transition zone."

From the pronunciation of At as the same 'aht' in her name, it was likely clear this was some sort of name. Of what however, the Khelari didn't say, instead directing her attention to where the crack had been and tracing her claws along the metal, causing a hologram to appear, displaying some grid-like bar graph.. Running a pair of fingers through that in turn caused it to become a blank outline, as well as six green lights - three on each side of the ramp, spaced equally from front to rear - to begin a gradual sequence of coming on and off, accompanied by a soft sound variation that resembled an alert. Within the outline of the hologram, alien glyphs appeared, but thanks to the nature of Patches, these were easily legible to all about.

AIR LOCK CYCLING_

Meanwhile, the hunter-killer that was the topic of the hour was still nearly a quarter of one away. The Desert was a big place, and took a long time to cross at subsonic speeds - and the craft hadn't been designed to head above the sound barrier. Usually this didn't really matter, as there were units on patrol throughout the place, but on this occasion the machine had been launched from the 'Twin Cities' the elves had heard tales of across the once-green rockscape. Furthermore, Ildela was quite right, for the Harvester had set coruse there. Roughly ten minutes from now, it and the hunter-killer would pass by one another...

Looks interesting. Any specific sort of character preference, or anything and everything that might be connected with MAGI?

"Oh. Sorry." Jade apologized to Paxtera, wrapping an arm and a wing protectively about Bisys to grant her some measure of shelter by blocking direct line of sight from her to the ship, "I, uh, kind of got distracted by the flaming comet thing. And like I said...well okay, I don't actually know. But like I said, I doubt it. I've never had a reason to think otherwise. It's just a killing machine."

"Of course." Akat meanwhile regarded the questioning confusion about the range runner's living nature with a measure of her own, though she visibly didn't take her attention off Dr. Mechano. She was quite curious about this strange creature and how he would answer her question, "What other kind is there? If it weren't living, it couldn't hold the spirit of those who came before us...could it?"

At this point, it became quite clear that the scaleless reptilian had no concept of a spaceship the way humans often imagined them. Her people's ships were the only ones she'd ever known. Until today, until in fact right now, it had never even occurred to her that there might be other ways to make space-capable craft - and judging by her last sentence and the blood affixed as permanently as possible to the runner's hull, the Khelari way involved quite a bit more than simply rearranging materials.

Indeed, the Heart tree found this out right away, and chances were long before anyone else. While the runner didn't have the awareness to respond to targeted communication, it certainly didn't have any reason to shy away and hide anything from the forest, which meant the Heart tree would have no trouble analyzing it from top to bottom. Depending on the forest's capabilities, results would of course vary, but nothing barred a gleam at the ship's nature.

In short, the runner had been both built and grown. It had started as a crystal tree, a common form of 'flora' on Khelaris, though as a somewhat special sort. From there, it had been shaped and nurtured into the roughest form of a ship, and eventually modified and added to in detail, taking on propulsion, sensors, protection from the spatial environment, and all the other essentials required to be a space-faring vessel. Some of these had been in the form of machines, such as the reactors that provided its energy, others in different shapes entirely. The final 'component' however, which was technically still incomplete, was (at least to the builders) the most significant: the marks of spirit.

The Khelari used the bodies of their dead in everyday life. To a human, the practice must've been savage and barbaric. In their society, it was simply recycling. Hides were used to make durable, leather-like materials. Flesh was eaten. Bones had a number of uses. Every part of the dead served a purpose among the living - and not just in a physical sense. Though the Khelari didn't know what happened after death, it didn't stop them from treating those who'd passed on as present and among them. With their remains all about and in contact with the living, this was true in a very real sense, regardless of belief.

Blood, however, served only one purpose. The marks of spirit. The blood of a dead Khelari served to mark the presence of that person's wisdom on the physical world. The blood of architects marked their buildings with strength and durability. The blood of artists marked their works with essence and meaning. And the blood of explorers marked starships with guidance and wisdom, such that they might gain advantage where those whose marks they bore had made their lives.

This didn't mean Khelari ships were haunted. Indeed, there were no spirits of the deceased within the runner. The echoes associated with them, however, now that was another matter. While not true experiences, and even less memories, they very much gave the ship both a sense of and intrinsic assistance in its duty. They were a part of it, and it was a part of them, forming a single entity whose presence could not be denied. The marks of spirit that covered the runner were just as much a part of it as the blood that flowed within Jade or Akat was a part of them - something that Bisys may have been gradually getting a sense of as the Heart tree 'looked over' the runner through the forest.

Of course, it was just as likely that none of that mattered. Biologically, the stuff was dead, and had been so a long time. Still, the runner itself was biologically dead, and yet it was alive...

Yep. Card-carrying member of Temp Hoarders Anonymous here. >_>

Gotcha, heh. In that case, I'd much appreciate if you could do me a favor and refrain from turning my characters into statues - within a reasonable time frame, of course. And yeah I know it's too late for that in this thread. I mean for future stuff and such.

"Hm?" Jade let out as he came to attention in response to Bisys' whimper, looking at first to the runner and then down at her, taking a hand of hers into his own, "What's blood? The ship? It's made of blood?"

A moment later, he could've smacked himself for saying that, but he really didn't have any idea what she spoke of. He may have had his nose back, but even a Dragon's sense of smell couldn't pick up a scent from blood that had been bound, hardened, and vacuum-proofed on- and into the hull of a starship. As a result, he was somewhat clueless.

Akat meanwhile stood relaxed and casual, answering Lady Aineruda, "Well, because I called it. Right before the smacking. Sorry, heh. Getting bashed like that kiiind of made a few things slip my mind."

"So multiversal at least." the Khelari grinned back to Mechano suggestively, her tail swishing form side to side in the manner of a cat that had just discovered a ball of yarn, "And a gentleman too. Why would you want a flying fortress of doom, though? The point of a fortress is to protect those it shelters, not doom them...isn't it?"

She'd missed Cerelassion's question, but chances were the elven man had more than enough capability to determine that the runner's primary element base was carbon. There were silicone-based materials in it too though, as well as several with metals as their core, but what may have appeared strangest (or may not have; he did live in a magical forest, after all) was the densely-packed, almost organic-looking wave of the molecular strands. They joined just about everywhere, in essence making the primary components of the ship nothing but single, giant molecules that looked as though they'd been grown, not manufactured.

Indeed, this wasn't far from the truth - a truth which the forest itself by now knew. The runner wasn't composed of organic materials, but that hadn't stopped it from starting to reach out to the earth around it in curiosity. It didn't do this physically of course, or even mentally for that matter. The means was closest to a form of spiritual communication, though a very rudimentary and instinctual sort. The ship wasn't intelligent. It wasn't even really self-aware. But it was alive, and that life suffused every part of it.

Even the blood that was dead and gone by all other definitions of the word...

Okay then, first off please know that wasn't my intent. I wasn't being serious. That's why I put the shifty eyes there. And it wasn't any particular person, or even people - it's the whole writer pacing style, which I've noticed seems to be one of the big differences that developed when the American and EU boards were still separate.

What I mean by that is that we on this side of the pond, we're very shifty and malicious when it comes to plotting, and as a result things can change at any given time and at a moment's notice. So we learned to always pay close attention to what the people in the same vicinity as our characters are doing because chances are they'd have a reaction to the happenings, even if it seems very minor at the time. Over time, that developed into the common sense that you should never assume that a present character does nothing when there's stuff happening around them.

Now, please don't take common sense to mean something insulting. It's just to convey that it's an understanding that the American RP community collectively developed. Maybe it's because American RP was more board-based than the EU one, which seems to be more in-game-based. I'm not sure. Either way, it's a difference that's not technically anyone's 'fault'. It's just there.

Please tell me you're kidding with the insert peeved argument deal there.

Oh sure, now you're willing to wait. >_>

Sigh...aiight, don't worry about it. I think I'm just gonna go ahead and bow out here. I can't seem to make a meaningful contribution to the thread anyhow. Maybe I'm just the guy making it too many people. Y'know what they say about cooks an' all, heh. Good huntin'.

Nope. Went for the wielder, not the weapon.

Um, not to be a detail picker, but how did Julia escape the detention field?

"That's okay." Jade replied to Bisys in a neutral fashion. It was clear he wasn't happy with that result, but that was mostly because he didn't really know what Toy was or what he could do. He was worried the Harvester would capture and process him - or worse, that the android would join the machines willingly, "Thanks for trying."

He then turned his attention to she skies - and his eyes widened in surprise. Whatever that thing was coming it from the high atmosphere at breakneck speed, it wasn't something he'd ever seen.

"That's no H-K..." was all he managed to say before the glowing plasma that encircled the thing dissipated, the craft more than close enough for everyone present to easily observe the agglomerate of sharp and smooth shapes peel itself out of the ram wake as it hit the brakes, stopping seemingly dead overhead.

It was a complex form of reflective and dull parts, mostly triangular metal plates covering a frame that appeared constructed from carefully assembled composites, yet at the same time somehow organically grown. it basic shape reminded of a trimaran, the main body roughly a dozen meters long and half as wide. Its geometry stood reminiscent of an isosceles triangle that someone had combined with an ellipse, and the two long 'pods' attached to either side seemed to follow that same guideline, though their nature stood more cylindrical, perhaps two or three meters in diameter and a few longer than the main body.

Said main body merged smoothly with the outriggers however, and the somewhat stubby deltoid wings that protruded from their other sides at the centroid of connection to the main body made it clear that these were no mere attachments. The whole shape was a single-piece structure, even the winglets that extended up and town at the rear of the outriggers in the fashion of vertical stabilizers. Judging by the cold, bluish-white glow at said rear endpoints, this thing was clearly some sort of vehicle, though whether manned or not wasn't easy to determine. Not only did the whole upper surface seed to be one smooth, reflective piece of metal (meaning that if it held a windshield in there somewhere, it was completely invisible), but a myriad of strange glyphs and patterns decorated the whole craft like some gigantic tribal tattoo.

Composed both of etchings and the application of surface paint, the sometimes-smooth, sometimes-jagged patterns held almost exclusively earth tones - browns, reds, yellows, and blacks - and looked as if they'd been painted by fingers instead of brushes. To Bisys, it may have been easy to tell that was exactly the case. Moreover, she might've still been able to easily tell what the binder (and sometimes the main component) of the pattern paints had been.

Blood.

But literally bloody or not, the craft didn't seem overtly hostile. At the very least, it didn't attack anything. It was quite direct however, dropping toward ground right after its midair stop, the front cones of its outriggers tilting downward at an angle in tandem with the side-stayed wings, forming four impromptu landing struts that softly caught and feathered the vehicle's weight as it touched down with only a deep hum of energy to accompany the landing.

"I would hope so." Akat remarked to the Dragon's spoken thought with a smirk, "That's a range runner. It's one of our ships..."

"It's just a machine." Jade stated added to the conversation with a hint of disgust in his tone, "It was built to fight. You can't 'make peace' with it. I doubt it even knows what peace is. And I think a whole city of superheroes appearing out of nowhere qualifies as at least a small miracle."

The last sentence he'd spoken with a smirk, the idea of overrunning the central machine base (if such a thing existed; he really hoped Toy would be able to locate something like that) with an army of super and leveling the place was strangely satisfying.

"Couldn't we just program it to know?" Akat's question therefore took him somewhat aback, the Khelari stretching on the ground in the manner of a large, predatory cat, "I mean, that's what we do when ours malfunction. Just change the programming."

"My name is Akat-Ietan Ariam'n." she transitioned to an introduction to the new arrivals as she stood upright again, brushing the final flakes of ash that had once been her robe from her deep-green, scaleless hide, "Feel free to just call me Akat. You are Edward, yes? You are from a different dimension? I don't understand. You seem to be 4-dimensional. Aren't you?"

Meanwhile, the orange streak decelerated drastically, ramping down its approach speed with such suddenness that it was already over the eleven forest before returning to subsonic speeds, finally emitting a sound of approach. It wasn't booming or anything like that, the noise more akin to a soft, rolling thunder...

"Hey!" Acid shouted to those mulling about the alley, still using the frame of the open fire door as cover from potential further attacks from the assassin, "Not that it's any of my business, but yalls might not wanna stand in line of sight of the yahoo who just barbecued the loudmouth!"

By now, he'd managed to mentally follow Whisper's teleportation - meaning he had a viable destination in his mind. Just where they were, this he didn't know. He just felt the trail, and presently carried no means to gather actual coordinates thereof. If anyone else had said capability however, they just might be able to pass on the information that Whisper's jaunt had been a building in Talos Island. Specifically, it lead underneath the structure, to some manner of slightly shielded basement. Intriguingly enough, said shield wouldn't block attempts to find it or teleport inside.

For the Khelari, this was presently of secondary importance, though. He was still trying to find the 'shooter'. Where the heck was this guy? Did he have some sort of cloak, or was the local atmosphere just finally getting to Acid in severity...?

Say, those are pretty good. I really like the one for Humanity First. Looks very 'civilized', heh heh.

Thanks for clearing that up. I've edited my post accordingly. Too bad, actually. I really enjoyed writing the satellite break-in. <_< Ah well. Standing by for answer.

With Fox and Wolf taking their attention off him, Acid took the opportunity to bolt after Soap Box. His leg hurt, but it wasn't anything that laying in a fire for a while wouldn't fix, and that he could do later on. Right now he had to...

Aw spit.

The scaleless reptilian arrived outside just in time to catch the Humanity First underman in the process of soaking up some kind of green blast with his back, then come apart at the seams. Ouch. That looked rather painful. Things got even stranger when a leftover arm was grabbed by the oddball he'd seen wrestling with that PPD officer earlier - and Acid found himself unable to do a single thing about their disappearance. Fortunately, he at least recognized the characteristic flash of light of the vanishing act.

Type 4 matter transmission. Damn.

Judging from the smell of cooked human that pervaded the air, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened. The Khelari leaped back into the doorway via which he'd left the building, peeking carefully around the corner of the doorframe as he tried to spot the source of the green flash. With eyes that could see exceptionally well in even the lowest light, as well as possessed a modicum of sense in the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum, his sight in Earth's environment was keen under just about any conditions.

Well, or at least it would've been if the atmosphere didn't result in Acid being nearsighted here. So on the chance that he wouldn't be able to find the 'shooter', he also did something else.

He concentrated.

It wasn't too hard, but it wasn't exactly easy either. Type 4 wasn't Acid's forte, and due to its lack of dependence on hyperspace much harder for him to feel. Still, they weren't impossible to track. He'd done it before. He just had to focus enough to pick up the scent, so to speak. Yeah. Just. Easier said than done.

Despite the difficulties, he gave it the best attempt he could. Where had Whisper and Soap Box gotten to...?