Ineffable

Earth, Rogue Islands, Grandville, TV monitor...


High above Spider City, at the top of the Arachnos tower, there was a large monitor that had falled from its cable and was sitting, partially cracked and the last image it had shown, (of Lord Recluse, no less) was flickering on the screen.

Nobody ever tried to fix it. Whenever someone considered doing it, they would get a form telling them to leave it where it was.

Nearby, one of the elevator doors opened, and a thug stepped out. A Mr. Walker Husk thug, to be exact. He rushed over to the monitor.

Checking to make sure nobody was around, he then walked straight into the screen, passed right through it, and vanished.

-----

Lord Diov had long ago had a contact known simply as the television. It was an entity in control of all sight and sound that existed on Earth. At one point, Nemesis had found a way into the television, and had planned on making a trans-dimensional base within a movie.

Lord Diov was pissed that he hadn't come up with this idea first, so he promptly entered the television himself, and beat the Nemesis out. As a reward for helping the television, he was allowed to use the movie of his choice, and use that world as a staging ground for Husk Corp.

Not caring much for movies, and therefore not knowing much about how to tell the good ones from the bad ones, he had picked out "They Devour the Earth!" because it had a large Graveyard complete with cliffside and underground crypt.

He had torn out the tombs within the cliff, and filled everything in with a state of the art technomancy base, all concealed within a moderately malevolent crypt. There were Devouring Earth there as well, hence the name, all of them recieved special implants that allowed direct control.

The only trouble had been with these two atctors running around and screaming after they had figured out the plot wasn't going along as planned, so Diov had them cut into tiny bits and served as breakfast to his Husks.

-----

Mr. Tribal appeared before a towering crypt that had been built into a cliff wall. Ascending it to the highest door, he went up to one of the angel statues.

"Shadows and Dust." He said.

The angel almost seemed to nod slightly. The door into the crypt opened.

Within it seemed like an entirely differant world. Long hallways of silver metal, barraks and meeting rooms, storage and processing rooms. This base was under the control of the seven lords. The seven original thugs that Lord Diov had made all his Husk clones from.

After a good deal of running, and after waiting five minutes on an elevator, he reached the meeting room.

It had a blue tiled floor with tanned leather adorning the walls, various paintings and works of art from from it. A large black sleek conferance table was in the center, and seven thugs sat at it.

They all looked just like normal street thugs, except that these had special emblems of Black and Red stripes embroided on thier coats and pants.

Lord Tribal and Lord Walker sat closest to the door. They lead the "Cannon Fodder" division, as they fondly called it.

Lord Poe was the leader of the arsonists, he sat next to Lord Tribal.

Sitting beyond him was Lord White, and across from him, Lord Nomed. White led the enforcers, and Nomed led the bruisers.

At the head of the table sat Lord Kuro, an enforcer like White. He led them all.

The Mr. Walker Husk saluted smartly as he entered the room. He gently placed a little black orb with a ruby embedded in it on the table, then left.

All the lords stared at it intently.

The gem flashed, and Noitpeced, Lord Diov's A.I. was projected onto the table.

"This is an automated message. Yes, I am saying this to waste time and annoy you." Said Noitpeced's hologram.

"Lord Diov has a message for you, his trusted companions. His gem is gone. He wants you back at Husk Corp. tower five hours ago. This essence sphere will implode in three seconds."

And indeed it did, collapsing upon itself and crushed into an infinitely small point.

'Drama Queen...' They all thought simultaniously. Still, they knew the situaton had already gone from bad to worse the moment it had started, and if Lord Diov wanted ALL seven of them, that meant the party was only getting started.

Lord Kuro suddenly stood.

"Let's go." He said simply. He pressed a button on the desk, and the seven lords promptly vanished.

"-ck." Finished Lord H'taed.

He stared in shock a bit longer.

"Have you tried rifting it back...?" He asked.

"Yes." Siad Lord Diov.

"Dimensional Acceleration?"

"Yes."

"Fluxing?"

"Yes."

"Timelin-"

"You already know I've tried everything." Diov said calmy.

"So shut up."

Lord H'taed and Diov fell silent. The screams of the Husks still loud, and crashes and breaking noises were heard in the distance.

"...So what do we do?" Asked H'taed.

"Well. Obviously I need to bring in a few old friends. I'll need help in locating it and getting it back. As much as I hate it, I'm going to release the Psycho Fear from suspended animation. Oh, and I'll need to call Charles...Then the seven lords, of course."

H'taed nodded.

"Sounds good."

-----

Meanwhile, a few dimensions back, Earth, in some random bar in the rogue islands...


Bill the scrapyarder walked into the bar, welcoming a few soothing drinks after a hard day's work in the pit.

He opened the door, half asleep, and wandered over to one of the barstools. He couldn't see very well, everything was fuzzy.

"Gimme my usual Alex." He muttered.

"Alex is...a little stretched out right now...I'm filling in for him." Said a abnormally cold voice.

Bill really didn't care. He just wanted his damn drink. He heard a mug being filled at the tap.

"...So are you usually this tired after working?" Said the cold voice.

"Yea. Cage works us to death and then some. I hate it to, cause I have this meeting I need to go to soon, and I'll most likely sleep through it." Bill said gloomily.

"Here, I'll add something to spice it up a little. Should wake you right up." Said the voice.

"Hey thanks...umm...What's your name there buddy?" Bill asked as he heard the mug hitting the counter.

"Call me Charles." Said the cold voice.

"Eh. Thanks Charles." Bill downed the drink.

Surprising, his vision cleared up almost immediatly.

In front of him was a very tall pale faced man with slick black hair. He was wearing a tenchcoat with torn sleeves and tail, but it was a rough place, after all. Underneath the coat, he wore a non-descript dark grey shirt, and wore white khaks. Strangely, he was wearing reflective and red tinted glasses, but you saw odd things like that in the Rogue Islands every day, so Bill dismissed it.

"Wow Charles, that really worked, I feel really...um...really.....really..."

He suddenly noticed something.

The stuff he had drunk had most definatly not tasted like his usual drink.

He looked down at his mug.

It was brimming with blood.

He looked up in horror, and finally realized the entire surface of the counter was coated in blood, and bits of flesh. Ominous Gray goo was splattered over the walls.

"Feeling horrified, Bill?" Said Charles.

Bill suddenly leapt off the bar stool, and turned around to head for the door.

He saw Alex the barkeeper.

Or bits of him, anyway.

His skin had apparently been flayed off his body, and it was hanging from the cieling like a one long streamer. His organs had been stuffed into pepper shakers and bottles.

His head was floating. FLOATING in midair, gazing lifelessly at Bill. Its scalp had been cut off, and brain matter and gore was still dribbling down the floating head.

"I always did like abstract art..." Said Charle's cold voice from behind Bill.

Bill turned for the side exit.

Then he found out why he hadn't seen any of the other regulars at the bar.

Thier bodies had been roped together. Legs twiststed around arms, arms twisted around legs, and they all interlocked to form a gate of flesh blocking the door out. The heads of all the corpses had either been twisted a full 180 degrees, or been blown off entirely.

And everywhere there was blood.

"Want some pretsels?" Said the cold voice.

Bill turned around very slowly.

Charles indeed had a big pretsel in his hand.

"I personally find these tasteless unless you put sauce on them. Let me do the honors..."

Charles raised his free hand. Alex's head floated from the center of the room. The head tipped forward, and gore and brain slithered out of the opening and onto the Pretsel.

"Enjoy."

Charles threw the thing at Bill.

It went right into Bill's open mouth. The gore clogged his throat, strangling him. He gasped for air, and fell to the floor, writhing in agony.

He heard footsteps.

Charle's form was above him.

"So you don't like the pretsel? Shame. Looks like you are having a bit of indegestion there Bill. Let me help you."

Suddenly Bill was levitated into the air, hovering a few inches in the air.

Suddenly, an invisible force tore a rip down his chest. His heart, lungs, stomach, and liver all clearly visible, beating and shifting slightly.

Bill would have screamed but the gore stained Pretsel was still clogging his throat.

"Well! I've never seen a case this bad before! I'll have to go to extremes!"

Charles walked casually forward, and thrust his hands into Bill's open chest cavity. He ripped out the small and large intestines, and the stomach, casually ripping out body parts, and snapping ribs as he worked his way upwards. All the while, Bill floated helplessly, unable to scream.

"And here we are..."

Charles thrust his arm up Bill's throat from below the neckline. He ripped the prestsel out.

"All better. Now I think you should go to sleep, its good for the body..."

The world suddenly went black for Bill.

-----

After cleaning off the blood on his trenchcoat, Charles Dark Aura left the bar, and headed back for his apartment.

Then his cell phone rang.

He used his telekinetic power to lift it out of his pocket, and bring it to his ear.

"Who is it?" He asked.

"It's H'taed."

Charles Dark Aura paused.

"Fine. Rift away H'taed. As long as I get to have a little fun with all those Husks, I'm good with whatever Lord Diov wants." He said.

"Also, Lord Diov wants you to bring your wife as well." H'taed said from the other side of the line.

"Ok then. It'll take me a while to get to her though, She's out tonight working at the Black Heart Hospital. We should be ready in about an hour." Charles said into the phone.

"Good." H'taed said, sounding relieved.

"And H'taed...Not that I don't think this isn't important...but how bad is the situation?" Charles asked.

There was a pause.

"It's god bad Charles. God bad."

The line went dead.

"Hmph." Charles muttered.

He started to walk towards the hospital. A pedestrian accidentally tripped and spilled his drink on Charle's coat.

Charles glared at the man. His head exploded in a shower of gore as the Psychic Pressure overloaded the man's brain.

He continued to walk towards the hospital.



To be Continued

It was another peaceful day in the Dimension of Mists. For once all the shifting creatures and monsters beyond the scope or comprehension of mortals were at rest, and the infinite mist swirled lazily about.

The only thing out of place was the huge 150 story tall and 30 story wide tower made of a strange smooth black material that floated in the mists. The Husk Corperation Tower drifted like a missile of darkness in the mist.

-----

Lord Diov was thinking.

Some may have called it sleeping, but after uncounted Aeons of untold Dimensional Energy Exposure, it was unlikely Diov would ever be able to blink again, let alone sleep.

However, when he had nothing better to do, he could sink into a vegetative state to ponder and think.

Little did he know his most valued possession was about to be stolen from right under his nose.

-----

The being known as Twisted Essence woke up. He was definatly not human in any way. His entire body was formed of a strange chintonous armor, and he had spines and thorns growing from his shoulders. A crown of honrs was on his insectoid head.

He couldn't remember falling asleep, one second he had been robbing a bank, next he had blacked out for no apparentreason and awoken here. He was floating in a vast expanse of mist. There was a large bubble of force surrounding him.

Before Twisted Essence floated a presence.

"Being known as Twisted Essence...I have summoned you before me to offer you the chance to gain unlimited power."

Essence blinked.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"The question is not who I am, but what am I? And I am afraid not even I know the answer to that question anymore. Am I a god? An entity of infinite power? I have existed for so long, that even my seemingly infinite memory has consigned my nature to nothing." The presence said.

Essence considered this.

"You said something about ultimate power?" He asked.

"Yes." Said the presence. "A being known as Lord Diov has an artifact of potentially unlimited power. You shall steal this artifact for yourself. If you attempted this without my help...I assure you, you wouldn't get anywhere within a trillion lightyears of him. However, to one such as me, I can combat his defenses like they arn't even there. Once you reach him, you shall find him occupied. Steal the Red Gem from him. That is all."

Essence nodded.

"I understand."

Suddenly the presence vanished, and the bubble of force popped. Twisted Essence vanished.

-----

Twisted Essence suddenly appeared in a darkened room.

Lord Diov was standing in the center, glaring straight at Essence.

Essence froze.

"[censored], caught..."

Several seconds passed.

"...The calm before a storm..." Essence thought.

Several minutes passed.

An hour passed before Essence decided that either the guy was brain dead, or sleeping. He couldn't tell with those reflective red tinted monocles on his completely covered face anyway.

Essence walked over to Diov and waved his hand in front of his face a few times.

Nothing.

".....Sweet."

Noticing the Blood Red Gem on Lord Diov's right collar, he snatched it with his greedy hands.

The next second, he was gone.

-----

Twsited Essence reappeared.

He was shocked at his new location.

"What IS this place?" He muttered.

"This is where it all began." Said a heavy voice.

The presence was there.

"It will take time to activate the gem. Simply activate it, and keep drawing power until I say stop. It may be several days, weeks even, before I tell you to cease. Be warned. Are you ready?" The presence said.

Essence nodded.

"Then begin. Simply attempting to crush the gem will activate it. Remember...Do NOT let go until I say so."

Twisted Essence held the gem in the air.

He squeezed.

-----

Lord Diov suddenly awoke from his stupor.

He immediatly noticed the gem was gone.

-----

In Barraks number ~, Husk thugs were running around, screaming and yelling in blind panic. Some were sobbing on the floor. Others jumped into Acid pits or the nearby convienient hole into devouring oblivion. Some enforcers were rushing around in random directions with supply crates and random objects. Bruisers pounded on and smashed thier heads against the walls.

Lord H'taed raised an eyebrow as he walked into the room.

He pulled aside a thug about to leap into a Dimensional Furnace and asked him...

"What the hell is going on Tribal?"

"Lord H'taed! Lord Diov! He...It...Gone...Glared...GAAAAAAAAAAAH!" With that, the Mr. Tribal Husk ripped himself from H'taed's grip and flung himself into the furnace.

H'taed rolled his red eyes beneath his hood.

He walked through the Chaos into the center of the room. Lord Diov stood there, sitting at a table, staring at a cup of tea.

"Lord Diov...What is it?" H'taed asked in a respectful tone.

Lord Diov turned and glanced at H'taed through his red tinted monocles.

"The gem is gone."

H'taed was stunned.

He stood speechless for a full ten minutes while Husks ran around screaming incoherently.

Finally, he managed to gather enough wits to say...

"Oh for the hate of fu-"



To be continued.

Lord H'taed raised an eyebrow as he watched Garret appear.

"So that schmuck survived my little mini-apocalypse bomb...Peachy. My day is complete."

H'taed thought for a second.

"Hmmm...Those two stealthed fools arn't going to do anything unless someone else acts first...and seeing as he is probably not going to provoke either of them...Noitpeced."

"Yes Lord H'taed?" Said a voice in his ear.

"I know Diov said I wouldn't be recieiving support...but could you help me out a little?" H'taed asked.

"But of course. What do you need?" Replied Noitpeced.

"Project an illusion through the portal and onto that guy on the statue. Make him look like that dark heroine." H'taed said.

"Done." Said a smug Noitpeced.

-----

Outside the portal on the statue, anyone looking at Garret would notice that he had suddenly transformed into Nether Mistress for no apparent reason.

((I'd join, except that I REALLY don't want to join any more RPs until I heal all the slow bat bruises on my head and find the ladder that gets me out of the boiling point tempature pool. ))

OOC

I'm waiting for you two to start attacking each other...Maybe Thunder or Garret could pop in but until then, all three of us are stuck.

OOC

Hey, its no problem. I can actually imangine that scene happening in-game.

BIC

As H'taed fell and weaved his spell, he suddenly noticed something.

There were islands BELOW him.

"Huh?" he said.

He smacked into the ground at well over the speed of sound.

".....Pain....."

Fortunately, he was able to drain the endurance out of nearby vegetation and regain enough energy to recover. Then he noticed something.

The remains of the Storm Palace were floating in this distance.

"Aha! So the sky ISN'T never-ending! It loops back onto its self from the top to the bottom! This makes things MUCH easier..."

Spotting a group of brutes shouting, "Rularuu, Rularuu!" in the distance, he charged toward them, fists blazing with electricity.

-----

Several bloody minutes later, H'taed had ripped the crystal faces out of the brutes' heads, and arrayed them in a circle. Using the mystic energies within, he considerable shortened the time it took him to weave the portal.

He spotted Nether at the base of the statue just before she cloaked herself and vanished. He panned the portal upwards a little, and saw Aoleleb atop the statue.

Deciding to jump in after they had beaten each other to a pulp, Lord H'taed watched and waited.

OOC

Ummm...I'm pretty sure you can't lie to mind readers...*the fortunata seers*

Ah to hell with it, you probably still had obsidian shield up.

BIC

H'taed eventually came back to his senses. He was still falling, and his beacon was gone.

"Ok. Let's see..."

H'taed started to weave a dimensional portal spell. Since portals were not his specialty, this could take hours, even days, to finish, but he had plenty of time.

Whicxh, unfortunatly for Nether, it did.

She warpped into the Grandville tower portal room. There werte Bane Spider executioners, Arbiter Drones, Mu gaurdians, Fortunata Seers, Turantula Queens, and Crab Spiders.

All of them turned to look at her.

Silence filled the normally noisy room. You could have heard a mouse fart if you had been listening hard enough.

As Nether pushed of H'taed...

He flew back and smashed into a nearby piller of rock that had hung down from the island above. It knocked the air right out of him, effectively stunning him.

".....Ow....."

The stunned H'taed began to fall again, only this time, he had no control over his electrical body seeking ground. It only kept speeding up.

-----

Nether was surprised to see H'taed swoosh past her, and eventually vanish into the distance of the never-ending sky paradox.

OOC

(Shrugs) I'll tone H'taed down a little then. But I have no control over how others react to him. Remember my mud bombs? I never specified how powerful they were. Nether's first post said...

"With enough force to level a building."

That's her own view of my attack. I'm not TRYING to make it that powerful. It is possible to escape or be prepared for any situation, and H'taed knows this.

But sill, I'll tone him down. Matter of fact, I have a good start for his semi-weakening right now, matter of fact. Just need to wait for Nether to post.

H'taed tossed Nether's beacon to the ground, and smelted it with an electric ray. Then he set his own beacon for manual activation, and jumped down after Nether.

As electricity always sought the ground, H'taed commanded his electric body to accelerate in its search for ground to land on. He started to fall faster, quickly catching up with Nether.

"Free fall battle. This is gonna be awsome."

Coming up above her, he raised his fists, then brought them down towards her head...

Nether thought she felt a swish of wind right before she stepped off the island.

She started to fall.

Her beacon wasn't activating.

"Looking for this?" H'taed shouted down at her. He held the teleport beacon out over the edge of the cliff for her to see.

He had guessed what she had been about to do, seeing as villains came equipped with standard Grandville beacons for Shadow Shard situations. As of such, he knew perfectly well about the never-ending sky paradox, and how heroes had thier beacons to save them. He had then supersped over to her and snatched her beacon before she had even finished her first step off the island.

H'taed swung his light-speed and electrically charged fist at Nether...

(Check out my previous post. Waiting for your response Nether.)

H'taed watched as Aoleleb vanished through a portal.

"Show time..."

He muttered.

He activated his super speed and lightning reflexes, and shot towards Nether at almost the speed of light, aiming to knock her out with one well placed electrically charged and super accelerated punch.

What was only minutes in the Shadow Shard was hours to H'taed in the Husk Corperation Dimension.

A rift opened up in the shadow shard, and Lord H'taed leapt out, fully healed and ready for combat.

He stared around, looking for the two heroes. He spotted them on a hillside about two miles away.

"Ready or not, here I come..." He growled.

However, he knew the heroes would not share the device. A fight was going to break between the two soon, and H'taed would be sure he was there to pick up the pieces, and maybe break them up a little bit more.

Instead of using a lightning bolt to instantly get there, he quickly began to walk towards their location.

OOC

And no, that's not what happened...

What happened was, the portal was still destabalized wqhen H'taed flew into it. It was currently selecting the location it was supposed to link to, but H'taed's signature threw it off, cutting off the opposite site. So the portal is still stable, it just doesn't go anywhere.

H'taed fumed in the Void, completely ignoring Aoleleb.

"Now I'm [censored] stuck here for the rest of [censored] eternity...Just PEACHY." He screamed.

"Now now, H'taed. No need to yell. You're forgetting something." Said a mysterious voice.

"Oh great I've gone insane and started to hear imanginary voices already! DAMNIT!" He screamed again.

"Or your boss sensed you were in a tight spot and sent me here to whisk you to safety?"

H'taed blinked.

He whirled around.

There was a little bubble floating in space. Inside the bubble was a little mini-garden with a glass table in it, and a few lawn chairs.

A man with long white hair in a toga was cheerfully sipping a cup of tea from one of the chairs.

"NOITPECED!" H'taed said.

"Glad to see me Lord H'taed?" The hologram grinned.

"Hop in, I have room for one more, directly to Husk Corp. We'll fix you up and send you after the device again."

"Sounds good to me." H'taed nodded, and began to drift towards the bubble.

OOC

And what do you mean "destabalized again?" Its still stable. What I said was that the portal was one way, so you can't GO BACK after using it, and that it was destabalized when it was interupted by H'taed's interuption, so it never locked onto its intended location...

OOC

Where do you plan to teleport in the endless Void good sir? Maybe that patch of empty space a mile away looks more promising then the one you're already occupying hmm?

Unless you have a dimensional teleport...in which case, yea, it would work.

OOC

(Facepalms) Silly me. Here goes...

BIC

H'taed's armor suddenly stopped smoking. He glared at Aolelb as he drifted into the chaotic currents of the portal.

"Great work schmuck. Sure, you stabalized the portal...but it became destabalized before it had the location set! We are now STUCK HERE FOR ETERNITY since this was a one way portal! And I can't even kill you since we are both intangible! BAH!"

He glared at Aoleleb.

"And in the meantime, the Rularuu now have the device. Even with that blast of yours, you couldn't have killed all of them. Then there is Lanaruu the Mad himself. She's probably dead by now."

-----

The surviving Rularuu surrounded Nether Mistress. There appeared to be two ways out of the temple.

A very nasty and painful death, or through the portal.

OOC

I have a plan to get us all out of the portal, but I want to give Nether a chance to dive in or miraculously escape before I use it.

OOC

H'taed is living lightning but he holds himself together using his armor...

So he'll "die" if the portal chews through all of it. But I have a special plan...

Waiting for Element to post.

I DIDN'T edit! Check the post! It's the original!

OOC

Yes. It is. And remember, one of the energy arcs from the portal knocked it out of your hands. Also, Nether just flew into you, knocking you TOWARDS the portal...

All praise the edit button.

OOC

Yay! We'll all be one big happy family in the portal of death and slow painful process of disintergration by Dimensional Exposure!

Hmmm...Dimensional Exposure...

(Get's an evil idea.)