Mike couldn't believe it.
It was impossible.
And yet there it was, sitting right here in front of him.
The team leader had been skeptical from the start, but now, the wreckage that lay before him changed everything.
At first glance the wreck looked a lot like a [url] V-22 Osprey [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CV-22_Osprey.jpg], but instead of the propellor blades the rotating engine nacelles had some form of thruster.
No, this was something else.
Just what he didn't know. All he did know was that the only way to find out more was to actually enter the vessel.
"Bill, let's see if we can get this door open." Mike pointed at the bay door on the backside. of the vessel. They were lucky it had landed on it's belly and not crashed into a mountainous glacier. However the impending storm threatened to change that unless they could find a way of moving the mamoth vehicle.
Little did they know they were being watched...
The hunter stood on one knee over a mile away.
He'd been there for most of the day, his attention focused on the wreckage of the spacecraft.
Clad in an insulated suit of armor replete with a cloaking device he was able to blend into the environment. Using his visor's zoom capability he was able to survey the wreckage and keep tabs on Darkvapor.
The arrival of the humans changed things.
He raised his invisble finger to the side of his helmet and clicked the comlink button.
"We may have a problem."
"Oh? What now?"
"The humans have found the wreckage. It looks like they're trying to pry him out of it."
"So? Can't you just eliminate them?"
"You know I can't. The client said not to interfere with human affairs." The hunter's voice was soft but carried an edge that struck terror into those who would think of crossing him.
"Fine, but what can we do to finish the contract?"
The hunter took pause. There really was nothing they could do without interfering with the humans. "Contact our employer and inform him of the situation."
"You know he's not going to like that..."
"I don't care at this point."
-----------------------------
"Any progress yet?"
"No. I swear I've never seen something this durable. It must have taken one hell of a hit to damage it in the first place."
"Just get it open." Mike responded excitedly. The worker gave a nod and then got back to breaking into the dropship.
They'd spent the last half hour cutting through the bay door. So far they'd made no progress, the material around the door aparently capable of taking far more damage then they'd anticipated.
Mike turned back to the makeshift command post he'd made. Mostly it was just a tent with several boxes in it and his laptop. The antenna attached to it gave him connection to the company's satelite network, allowing him access to the internet as well as the company's databases.
He took a seat in the foldable lawn chair behind the makeshift desk and shook of a chill. After logging in with his password he sent a simple message to his superior.
We found it! We found an alien spaceship!
After encrypting the message and sending it he heard someone yelling at him outside the tent. He hastily closed the laptop and then trudged back outside.
"What is it?"
"One of the side doors just opened. I think there's something inside the ship."
The man standing in front of Mike was pointing at a door on the side of the vessel, located just behind the cabin.
"Get a team over there. Tell them to try and take the occupants alive if possible."
The other man gave a nod and then ran over to the onlooking security team. After a few seconds in which he explained their orders the team grabbed their rifles and then set off towards the dropship.
Mike walked back into the tent. After a few seconds of silence he made his decision. Pressing his fingers against the clasps of one of the crates in the tent he propped it open. Inside was a [url] rifle [url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Rifle_FN_F2000.jpg]. He loaded a clip into it and then quickly ran back out the tent.
-----------------------
Darkvapor stood there, waiting. The team assembled outside the door, guns trained on the opening. Their backs against hte side of hte vessel. After a few seconds pasue to catch their breath the team entered the dropship.
The moment the first team member entered Darkvapor was in motion. Dark energy shot from his fingertips and hit the man squarely in the chest. The dark bolt cut through flesh like a hot knife through butter and exited the otherside in a bloody fashion. The second man to enter caught some of it in his gogles.
Darkvapor however was already moving. He ran in front of the troop. His rifle came up far too late, Darkvapor having entered melee range. A dark glove grasped the man's throat. He could feel his very life force being sucked from him, and try as he might he couldn't break free of the icy grip.
There were four more men behind him. They all raised their guns and trained them on the alien.
Darkvapor, having had his fill of the man's life force tossed him in front of the gunmen. The two men in the back of the group depressed the triggers of their weapons.
The bullets harmlessly bounced off Darkvapor's armor. A grin crossed his face beneath the thick helmet he wore. He strode out of the vessel with an arrogance that came from years of tyranny.
He raised both arms, open palm towards the gunmen. Dark energy shot out and killed them in much the same fashion as the first troop.
The last one attempted to break away, but far too late. Darkvapor's eyes flashed an eery black and then dark energy shot out. The attack passed harmlessly through the visor of his helmet and hit the retreating trooper in the back. He gave a gasp as his lungs were torn apart by powerful dark energy.
Darkvapor turned his attention now to the huddled group of scientists.
Seeing them as little threat he took a few steps towards them.
"Humans, bow to your new lord and master, Darkvapor..." his deep booming voice took a menacing metallic tone thanks to his helmet. The scientists gave a few startled gasps and mostly stood aghast at the horror that stood before them.
Suddnely the thunderous sound of rifle fire interrupted the dark lord. Immediately he turned his attention to the source of the attack. Standing just outside the confines of his tent Mike Brown had his SC 20K rifle trained on the dark lord's helmet.
"Insolent worm."
Dark energy swirled around in the palm of his hand like a whirlpool before converting into a semi solid form.
It suddenly shot out of his hand towards the tent. As it covered the distacne between Darkvapor and the sniper it made a high pitched whine like someone screaming.
The attack hit the center of the tent, cutting through the thin fabric and making contact with the crates on the other side.
There was an enormous explosion, coupled with a fireball that shot upwards from the tent. Just barely visible amongst the debris that went flying was the body of Mike Brown.
A smile crossed Darkvapor's face.
Suddenly that smile broke into a gasp.
His body gave a quick jerk. There was a sickening sound of metal grinding against metal, and then blood burst from Darkvapor's torso.
A figure clad in silver battle armor decloaked behind him. A spear taht was almost as long as the warrior was tall stuck through Darkvapor. The assassin tightened his grip on the weapon and gave it a twist. Darkvapor cried out in pain as his insides were ripped apart by the weapon. As the dark lord bled out the assassin leaned in closer. "Hades sends his regards."
He then pulled the weapon out of Darkvapor. Blood covered the spear from end to end, but it had done it's part. Satisfied that his mission was complete the assassin cloaked once more and then set off at a sprint away from the body of Darkvapor.
The dark lord crumpled down to the floor, blood pouring out of his wounds. As he faded from consciousness the message kept playing through his mind like a broken record.
"Hades sends his regards."
"Hades...."
"Hades...."
[i] The following transmission is from Antarctic Research Station Omicron to Carter Technologies Research Division Head of Department Dr. Walker:
Dear. Dr. Walker,
I regret to inform you of the deaths of seven team members today. It appears the alien (who called himself Darkvapor), survived the crash and attacked Team Leader Mike Brown as well as the six mercenaries attached to the team.
In fact, the only reason I'm alive now is because this Darkvapor character was killed by another entity. Our mysterious savior apparently used some sort of cloaking technology, and then promptly disappeared.
He seriously wounded Darkvapor, and according to the doctors here he is currently in a coma. We are currently preparing him for transport to a corporate research facility.
His vessel will have to be disassembled and repackaged for transit to a diffrent facility.
I am also requesting that the facility Darkvapor is sent to have it's security redoubled. We have very little understanding of his powers and how they work, but I would hate to think of this alien escaping into the rest of the world.
I cannot stress enough how dangerous this creature is. He was capable of cutting the security team apart with dark energy beams. I wouldn't be suprised if he is capable of tangling with a meta human.
Sincerely,
Eddie McMahon
When you wake up shortly after a surgery, the first thing you're bound to realize is that nothing makes sense. Everything is a blur. Things people say tend to go in one ear, and our the other.
Such ignorant bliss was not the case with Darkvapor.
Instead, pain was the only thing he could feel or think about.
It was a pain he'd felt before. The familiar searing pain, coupled with a strange tingling that ran throughout his side, reminded him of what had happened to him a little over 24 hours ago.
There was no way any normal human could have survived being cut like that. Even if they could get medical attention, the cold would surely kill him.
Such was not the case with Darkvapor.
The doctors had realized this much upon recieving him. The firts thing they did was run a series of tests. Eventually when that didn't pan out they did an X-ray.
What they saw was unlike anything any of the doctors had been prepared for.
A symbiote.
A long snake-like entity was literally inside the alien. The snake, as the doctors quickly learned, was in fact the alien's true form. Darkvapor could quite literally be summed up as the alien symbiote.
The symbiote aparently feeded off of the human, in exchange, giving incredible strength, intelligence, reflexes, and even the ability to make use of dark energy as a weapon. Such a relationship was rather much like the Nictus the doctors had heard rumors about.
This wasn't a Nictus though. The symbiote wasn't infused into the subject, and he couldn't change forms. No, this was at best a distant cousin to the species.
As doctors and scientists alike poured over the tests security personnel remained on guard at all times. This was quite possibly the greatest scientific find of the century, and they weren't about to let it just walk out of the room.
Already the symbiote had healed much of the area around the wounds. While the body had gone into shock, the symbiote had been able to stabilize the host.
From what the doctors could tell, there were still brain wave signals going from the host's brain to the body, but they had decreased in frequency as time went on. It was tough to tell just how bad off the symbiote or host were, considering just how limited the team's scope of how the two entities coexisted was, but if the brainwave signals were any indication, the host might be in critical condition.
Darkvapor gave a sort of grunting noise as he attempted to sit up. There was a blinding light in front of him and he could hear the rhythymic beeping of the various monitors around him. When he failed to actually move anywhere he looked down at the rest of his body. There were large metal bands holding him down. Darkvapor strained against his bonds for some time before finally giving up.
Breathing a dejected sigh he rested his head back against the cold slab of the operating table. "Where am I?" he inquired through gritted teeth.
"A medical facility Mr. Darkvapor." The somewhat jovial and casual tone of the man, startled the dark lord. Vapor craned his neck to get a good view of the doctor. In the ligthing it was difficult to see, but Darkvapor could still make out the man's slicked back hair and clean white lab coat.
"On Earth?"
"Quite so I'm afraid." The man had just confirmed what Darkvapor had both hoped for and feared.
"Tell me, just where on this wretched planet have you stowed me? Who are you?"
"All in good time Vapor, all in good time. For now, I need to ask you a few questions about your physiology."
"My physiology?" Darkvapor quipped, "Just how does my anatomy concern you?"
"It's my job to help you recover from your wounds, and to learn a bit more about how you and your symbiote function."
Darkvapor let out a grim laugh. "You fool, I AM the symbiote. I have achieved total dominance over this peon's brain, just as I would yours if given the chance."
"Dominance?" The man replied, his interest piqued. Darkvapor could hear the man scratching away at his clipboard with a pen. "Could you elaborate?"
"I control his mind. I supress any control he has over his own body. I make him do my bidding. He is but a shell of his former self now. Were I to leave his body, he would die ."
"I see. But there is a problem with that. As far as we can tell, the host is in a rather life threatening condition, and there's no way we can really help. We would like to help you, but the damage is too great. I'd say you're looking at about two more days before the host dies. That is, unless you have a way of repairing the damage."
"Please, your lies are pathetic. You don't really care if I live, you just want to study me. Knowing your primitive species you'd probably just cut me up and look at all the diffrent organs. Your race is pathetic."
"I take it you've had dealings with Earth before?"
"Indeed. In fact, it's my hunting ground; the place where I find new hosts."
"I see." More scratching of pen against paper. The doctor gave a glance at his patient before returning to his clipboard. "But you never did answer my question: can you heal the damage to the host?"
Darkvapor paused for a moment. "No." he said bluntly.
"Well, I'm afraid this is all the time I could spare. I will return in an hour to check up on you. By then, we should be able to come to some sort of way of helping you."
"Somehow I doubt your intentions are truly sincere." Darkvapor retorted.
Two days later Darkvapor's condition hadn't improved much. He was slowly dying, and from what the doctors could discern, it was going to be an excruciatingly painful way to go. Vapor's symbiote was doing it's best, but apparently it was never meant to fix such a large wound. That's what the dark lord's personal team of medics was for.
No, the host would surely die. The doctors had all agreed on that much. The only question now, was what to do with the symbiote. Clearly it was the true Darkvapor, not the host. They might be able to extract the symbiote from the host, but it would be a messy proceedure, and from what little they had discerned from Darkvapor when he was actually conscious told them that he would not live long outside a host.
And so the search for a host began. The team of medical experts poured through thousands of medical files looking for potential host candidates. They even consulted with their patient, asking for any criteria they might need to meet. He informed them that his host had to be in good physical condition. They had to be willing to consent to the symbiote's will. The host had to also be relatively young. Ideally Darkvapor wanted a man age 20-30 as a host.
After they had compiled a list of people they packaged up the list of candidates and then showed their files to the sickly symbiote. They asked Darkvapor for his input and he gave it. He turned down all but three candidates just by looking at them. The last three he took time to actually read the profile of.
Eventually Darkvapor pointed to the picture of the last candidate. "This one." he said in a low voice.
(OOC: Okay, this is basically the backstory for my most recent, and most used character, Darkvapor. Feel free to comment on the story as it progresses.)
Antarctica
Hell had frozen over.
Eddie McMannon rubbed his gloved hands together. The thin and lanky researcher of 32 years had only just arrived here, and his body was hardly used to the subzero temperatures of the South Pole.
Up ahead he could see the rest of the team assembling. Most of the men in the team were scientists, but there were six other men with the team. Eddie recognized them, they were corporate security goons. He imagined that they, much like himself were curious as to why they had been picked for this assignment.
A week ago he and several of his colleagues had been taken aside from their work in the lab by the head of their departemnt. What he told them was as ambiuous as it was intersting. Apparently the corporation's research facility on Antarctica had picked something up on it's radar. From what the bureaucrat had told Eddie there were temperature fluctuations in the area around the radar signature. Furthermore, there was a strange chunk of metal that a patrol had found outside the base. From what they had been able to determine the metal was alien in origin.
That's where things got complicated. Normally the company would be obligated to report something like this to Vanguard or Longbow or someone in charge. Problem was, they had no idea what the research team may have stumbled upon and they couldn't risk missing out on a possible scientfic breakthrough.
Eddie was just a simple lab scientist, but apparently his research into Rikti technology recovered from the war had been good enough to earn him a recommendation for the investigation team.
After riding a private jet out to South America they boarded a C130 Transport. After landing at the research facility's privately owned landing strip they had unloaded their gear and began their long trek across the barren icescape.
And now they were standing here in the midst of the arctic. Actually they had been here close to an hour. Apparently one of the snowmobiles broke down. Luckily one of the security goons knew how to fix it and they would be back on their way soon.
"Hey Eddie, how're you holding up?"
Eddie turned around to see who had called him. From behind came the team leader himself, Mike Brown.
"It's colder than hell out here. When are we gonna get going again?" he asked hopefully.
"They fixed up the snowmobile. We'll be getting underway in a few minutes."
"That's what you said ten minutes ago..."
----------------
This is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into. That's what the sole survivor of the crash thought to himself.
Lying amidst the wreckage of his dropship Darkvapor wondered how he could have possibly survived such a hellish crash.
It was quite simple really. Somone wanted him to live.
Like most people do during a crash Darkvapor forgot about what had caused the incident and instead had focused on survival. As such he had'nt paid attention to where the ship that had shot him down had gone.
For the first time in a week he'd awoken. He was lucky to still be alive. Having lived off of the few supplies in the back of the ship he had given his wounded leg ample time to recover. He held off from actiavting the emergency beacon to call for help, because he knew that would attract unwanted attention.
No, until his wounds healed themselves he would hold back from exposing himself. He was rather shocked his enemy hadn't bothered to search for the wreckage, but now he knew why. Like a cat with a mouse his opponent was toying with him. Until Darkvapor's would-be killer got bored of waiting he would let Darkvapor live.
There was only one man Darkvapor knew who would do such a thing. That didn't encourage him though, because that was also the only person to have ever come close to killing him.
He was awoken from his thoughts by the beep of his alarm going off.
"Oh hell." he muttered under his breath. "He's here."
Rising to his feet he attempted to steady himself by leaning against the hull panel nearest him. Taking a deep breath he slowly walked over to the cockpit.
He had left the dead pilot and copilot in their seats. They would receive a proper burial as soon as the danger had passed, but until then their bodies would have to stay here. Reaching over their lifeless corpses he flicked a switch on the dashboard.
On the flatscreen display built into the center console was the image of the sensor beacon he'd deployed. After a few adjustments to the camera's setting he saw what he was looking for.
Thermal images. Big ones.
A small caravan of snowmobiles was headed straight for him.
"Humans..."