Mechagogue

What a great idea for a thread!

Let's see here... *chuckles* as corny as it may be, Helper makes me think of the Theme from Super Mario Bros. (The original 8-bit masterpiece.) It's lighthearted, upbeat, campy as all get out, and by todays standards ridiculously primative, which is how I think of the big guy in my heart of hearts.

As for Kreigg... He's a much deeper and more complex character than I've been able to illustrate thus far, but in fear of giving something away I'd say his theme is Faint by linkin park. I love the interplay of logic and irrationality in this song. That dichotomy really encapsulates what I think of him, and in a way, what he thinks of himself.

What music do I hear for other people? Hehe....

Well, First there's Essex. She makes me think, not of any particular peice of music, but a moment of musical timing. Think of a scary movie, that dramatic part where the music starts to escalate into a quick series of tense chords, and, upon peaking at it's inevitable cresendo there is a sudden silence. That pause is what I think of when I read Essex.

So far, that's all I really have in so far as musical impressions are concerned. I might go and post more as I get more experience with everyone.

Alright, here's two for you...

"Hey, Scirroco.... and I'm just throwing this out there, but.... what are you doing Friday night?"

and....

"Has anyone seen the manual for my spider arms? I can't figure out how to get them to wiggle like the fat guy from that Toby Maguire movie."

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((*dies* Kreigg = WIN. XD XD))

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((ROFL! I aims tah please! ))

Kreigg stared dumbly as Leeni talked about music. He did't have a clue what she was saying, but she spoke with such conviction he just assumed she was right. He smirked in self-satisfaction when she told the assembled room that he inspired the song that had captivated all their attentions, leaning back on his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"I like mayo, too," he added, desperate to try to add something worthwhile to the conversation.

As soon as the words left his mouth he knew he had failed.

((Just when I thought Greek Mythology couldn't get any more convaluted.... Thanks Hermod ))

"Yeah, it ain't no thing," Kreigg said, craning his neck to get a look at the scribbles Leeni was working on. It wouldn't make any sense to him one way or the other for all he knew about music.

((Thanks for the tip, Guy. ))

((I believe in faeries! *clapclapclap*

Uhm... and by the way -- Essex: Chicken Butter? I just about spit Dr. Pepper on my monitor!))

Kreigg took a long, slow draught from his cup and regarded the diminutive creature. It was starting to sound more and more like this Ushlex character had abandoned Leeni on this planet in the hopes of getting rid of her, not left her accidentally as she had been asserting. He eyed her carefully trying to pinpoint why anyone might have done so. Kreiggs gaze rested on her weapons for a fraction of a second and he thought he had figured it out.

Twitch was a loose cannon? But she seemed so... well, normal wasn't the word for it, but she just didn't seem to be the psychotic killer type.

Ain't it always the one ya least suspect? he reminded himself. Maybe, but he sure as smeg wasn't going to be the one to bring it up.

"Well, that's more famous than I ever got, by Gurssk," he blurted out, breaking his unintentional silence. "I get by mostly on my good looks. And whan that falls through, old Kreigg can take a beating like none other."

He winced slightly when he realized he had just reffered to himself in the third person.

"I mean, I can take a beating... And these fists have seen some action too." He presented his mitts to Leeni for her inspection. "Handy skill sets to have in my unpredictable field of business."

"Uhh..." Kreigg muttered stupidly, unable to conceal the fact that he had never heard of any of Leeni's titles before, "So, what's a Felriddg anyway?

"I always wondered that," he added hastily, Thankfully, Frosch arrived with the drinks at that moment and set them down with his usual good tidings

"Pur-tos."

Kreigg snatched up his glass and lifted it in a makeshift toast with one hand, nudging the other one closer to Twitch.

"Uhh... Purr toes to you too, and to a fellow freelancer."

Kreigg got Froschs' attention, signaling for two more drinks and figuring he wasn't going to need to hand out anymore cash for the time being. He vaugely remembered something about 'good for six more drinks,' though if that was not the case he could afford it.

"Space Bunny," he repeated and chuckled at the thought. "So, uh... The Twitch, you ever write anything I might have heard?"

Helper sat patiently underneath the chemical spray. He had been dispatched to effect repairs on a leaking nuclear conduit. Subsequently he required several hours of decontamination before it would be safe for him to interact with humans again.

He cast his gaze downward quizically as a green mist slipped out from one of his exhaust vents. It swirled and thickened and formed the familiar image of Hallucinogen.

"Helper, I'm going to need your help."

"Of course, sir," he agreed genially.

"MAGI. Atlas. 11:30."

"I understand, sir," Helper confirmed as the illusion faded.

*BKZT!* he telltale crackle of the communication system ripped through the dull hiss of the chemical spray.

"Did you say something, Helper?" The technicians voice rang out in the tiny room, distorted by the cheaply constructed comm.

"I was reciting a lesson from school to pass the time, sir. I apologize for the confusion," Helper wasn't a very good liar, but he calculated that this would an appropriate time to practice the skill.

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"Finally, I'm gettin off this floatin chunk of space trash!" Kreigg cheered as he rammed the thrusters of his newly 'acquired' vessel forward, punching the ceiling in excitement. "Off to good weather and good times! Oh, Gurssk yeah!"

A klaxxon flared to life in the tiny cockpit, Kreigg looked down at the panel to find out what had triggered the alarm. The 'Enemy Weapon Locked' panel was flashing. His heart sank in his chest.

"Figures," he grumbled as the rocket tore off the tail of his ship, sending it plummeting back towards the planet. He braced for the inevitable crash.

Slamming into the unyeilding rock at near-cosmic velocity, the ship was dashed into millions of tiny shards, the fuel cells exploded, and Kreigg was hurled hundreds of yards. His chest hit the ground flatly and he skipped like a stone for half a mile more. When he came to rest he looked up through bleary eyes. All he could make out was a shadowy, sillouetted figure.

"Ky Glar..." Kreigg said weakly.

"Just as I expected. Time to put you with the others," the figure said blandly. It reached out a hand at Kreigg just as he lost consciousness.

"I'm sure he just lost track of me or something, it's been known to happen. But whatevs, nothin' keeps the Twitch down for long!"

Turning back to Kreigg, she smirked. "A freelancer, huh? That's pretty sweet. Been known to dabble in such things myself when record sales are down."

"Yeah," Kreigg agreed, a hint of concern tugging briefly at one corner of his mouth before vanishing, "Yeah I'm sure they'll swing back around in no time."

A moment of silence hung in the air. Kreigg rubbed the back of his head with one big mitt. "Hey, in the mean time how about I buy you a drink? And don't you worry about the charity or nothing, I'm betting a well-known song writer like yourself has plenty of scratch so you c'n just buy for me on the next planet."

"What?!" Kreigg bellowed in shocked amazement, Cafea all but forgotten in that incredulous instant. "Ditched you here? Wow, that sucks. It's so... backend rock is a good way to say it," he didn't seem to share her concern for the natives.

"Anyhow, names Kreigg, and I'm what you might call a Freelancer."

He made his best effort to keep a straight face, but soon enough Kreigg was smirking and snickering, and pretty soon after that he was rolling with laughter.

"HahaHah! I can't believe I almost got into it with you! *snickers* I get it now. The high and mighty energy race gets whooped on by some fleshies, and in a fit of embarassment, concedes 'superior potential' cause ain't no way they were just better at violence than you folks. And... and... *highly amused giggle* ...and yer distinct genetic lack of an imagination means you have to dispatch an observer to try and figure it out.

"Oh, man, I see what you mean. The truth must suck."

"Yeah," Kreigg exploded, unable to tolerate anymore of Cafeas pontificating, "I think we're all pretty smeggin' clear on what your races 'superiority criteria' are. You know what burns me? The fact that you're just like every other non-mass event I ever met. Haugty, aloof, or just plain arrogant. And you know what makes you folks that way? The way where you come into bars and start insulting all us 'inferior' life forms? AIN'T NOBODY EVER PUNCHED YOUR TEETH IN FOR IT, THAT'S WHY!! Y'all ain't nothin but a bunch of self-righteous cowards tryin to bully us inta feelin worse about our own central nervous systems. But I like mine, so bite me! Oh wait, you can't! And you better not be thinking I can't harm you.

"Hey, Frosch, how much for a bottle of that Reahu?"

Kreigg kept right on staring at Cafea and didn't even notice the Warshade enter.

Grunting in disgust, Kreigg returned to his food, shoveling more into his mouth and chewing on it several times before spitting it out. He pushed the plate away, signaling that he was finished.

"Was it not to your liking," Frosch asked with concern as he gathered up the remains.

"Nah, it was fine," Kreigg said, "Just something about the smell of self-righteousness makes me lose my appetite." The comment was clearly directed at Cafea.

Kreigg considered Cafea for a long moment after Auraks head his the table.

"So I guess what you're saying is that your philosophy could be summed up as the phase 'I'm-stupid-and-you're-dead'"

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"Yes, and for every one 'baddie' who dies, two of its relatives take its place," returned Cafea. "And they shall return the favor, and the feud shall grow ever greater and fiercer as the entire world begins to form two sides. One that says 'You hit me first,' and the other saying 'You deserved it'."

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"Oh, come on, man! You make it sound like every bar fight that ever happened ended up wit a galaxy collapsing into a smeggin black hole."

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"Daaamn straight!" Leeni said, turning back towards the conversation. "Besides, I gotta stand up for the Ush. 'S what I'm here for ya know. All the peeps are all like kablamblam! And I'm like, 'Oh hell no you di'int! Twitch gonna mess you up now!' Blamblamblam! An' then it's all--"


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Kreigg chuckled at the fiesty little rodent. He was starting to like her.

"That's the way to do it, Spunky!" he cheered encouragingly.

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Teide frowned a bit looking at the collection of bills, coins, and cards presented to her. "I'm really sorry, but most of this is useless to me. I rarely trade with any of these races."

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"Put the Twitch on my tab," he called across to Teide.

"Exactly," Kreigg agreed emphatically with Rulaag, "And, if you do it in a...." he chuckled from somewhere deep in his gut, obviously amused by his next thought, "...creative enough way, that's a hundred less people that'll be willin to mess with ya."

"Hold on just a smeggin second," Kreigg blurted into Cafeas' conversation, "Yer obviously missin the point of violence. It only leads to more violence if ya do it wrong."

Kreigg pushed the vegetables around on his plate for a few seconds before picking up one of the blue beads between his fingers. He lifted it up to the light and inspected it and he ripped off a hunk of the meat and shoved it into his mouth.

"Wha's this" he asked mid-chew, "Caviar or sumtin?" He glanced around at the assembled patrons, taking notice of some newcomers. His gaze settled for a long moment on Leeni. There was something familiar about her...

Short...

Rodent...

Sarcastic and jerky...

..........nah, couldn't be.

He returned his attention to the food, deciding to give the vegetables a try.

A sudden sharp sound of tearing ripped through the air, and Kreigg felt a sense of relief wash over him as he slowly woke. The dream was already fading from his mind. He couldn't clearly remember why the tearing had been so important nor why he felt such relief. Grogily he wondered what had made the noise. He looked down at his hands, in beetween them was a blanket torn in half. His skin was flecked with rocky outcroppings.

"Ahh, smeg," he said, wondering how much the ruined blanket was going to cost. He could feel his head starting to throb, at the same time he started to remember where he was.

Kreigg stumbled back down to the common, dropping himself heavily on a stool in front of the bar. With a quick glance around the room he decided that it was pretty much all the same folks. He gestured at Frosch, indicating that he wanted his food now.

"Anyone got a stopwatch? I bet this guy my next hangover would last longer than it took me to smash his face into the wall."

The dropship heaved violently as it suddenly decelerated. There was an unbelievably loud noise from the port side of the ship and it rocked hard. They were under fire.

"Thank Gurssk," Kreigg breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was going to be a fight, the confusion would be an exellent cover for what he had to do. Then came the tell-tale hiss of equalizing pressure. Soon the hatch would fall open and they'd be launched. Kreigg couldn't wait, his neck hurt like hell.

The hatch started sliding open, but just at that moment the dropship took a direct hit to the nose. It bucked and the launch system shorted out. The hatch froze in place and the rodent folks looked around at each other in confusion.

"What should we do now," one of them squeaked quizically.

Apparently, noone had told the dropships automated computer to abort the launch sequence. Kreigg watched as mouseman after mouseman was shot out a partially opened hatch, each one being disassembled as it's body was forced through an opening far too small.

He would have laughed at their misfortune if he hadn't been strapped into the death machine.

The dropship was listing badly and starting to fall faster. Kreigg scrambled to undo the straps holding him into the launch unit, but the emergency release had been fried.

"They must be using EMPs," he thought out loud as he tore at the straps securing him to his imminent death. "Nah, can't be... then why didn't the launcher stop? Oh, hell. Smeg it," he decided, letting his body produce a massive amount of thick granite. The straps streched and strained, but held. Kreigg growled and forced more of the stone to build up around himself, thicker and thicker, watching in a near panic as the line to the jammed hatch of doom got shorter and shorter....

((looks like I pretty much wrote myself out for a while. *slaps self in the head* Oh well, I'm bored, it's late at night and I can't sleep, so here comes some backstory))

Kreigg slowly became aware of the bed. He pulled the pillow off his head and looked around. Some weird looking plants and a bunch of water out the window... At least it was pleasantly warm.

He belched violently, and the room spun so hard Kreigg lost all sense of gravity. He fell back on the bed and the world around his dissolved to black...

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"Kreigg!" a disembodied voice called out. He shook his head in a vain effort to clear it, "Stop goofing off and get your [censored] up to the launch bay!"

He looked down at himself. He was wearing that familiar, wretched blue jumpsuit with the sissy-purple zipper. There was an insignia on the chest, but he couldn't focus enough to make it out.

"Kreigg!!"

"Yeah," he grumbled, "I'm comin! Quit yer naggin!" His fist pounded the door-release and he made his way out into the corridor.

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Something hit Kreigg in the face and jostled him awake. He leapt out of bed and reflexively coated his body in a thick layer of granite. He looked around for the intruder.

Nothing.

"Hmmph," he grunted at the empty room, figuring he must have slapped himself in his sleep, "Freakin ridiculous."

He climbed back in bed as the granite crumbled off him and made sure to get his hands under his head. In no time he was sleeping soundly again.

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The rest of the crew was assembled in the launch bay by the time Kreigg arrived.

"So good you could make it," the captain said sarcastically. The captain was a member of one of the more annoying types of rodent species, the short ones who acted like jerks to compensate.

"Maybe if I didn't have to put on this sissy suit..."

"Enough out of you!" the little mousy bum squeaked. "As you know, our target is on the planet below. If you get killed, then the others know what to do. If you screw up I'll kill you myself. Then you'll be dead and the others will know what to do." The captain was looking straight at Kreigg as he said all that.

Yeah, you better not take yer eyes off me you lump of rat crap, Kreigg thought.

"To the dropships," mouse captain ordered.

Kreigg clambered up the ramp of Dropship II and grinned. Statistically speaking it was the most likely to be blown out of the sky before making planetfall. Typical.

He tightened the shoulder straps and leaned back against the smooth curve of the inside of the ship. For these half-sized mice it was probably comfortable, but his neck was forced to an odd angle. There was some banging and grinding from outside the ship, followed by the distinct feeling of zero gravity. Then came the stomach lurching twist and gravity reasserting itself. Then came the falling... falling.... falling....

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Kreig hit the floor with a thud.

"Son-of-a-bit...."

He was asleep again before the sentiment fully escaped him.