User:Austin Bison/CrossRealm/Roleplay

Rules

1. This RP is strictly invite-only and story-based. One may apply and be invited any time during the RP, but their character may not actually join until that episode is over.
2. Characters and their pages must be made or altered specifically for the universe of CrossRealm and will be reviewed by the creator before allowed entry into the main story line. There must be at least a history, personality, appearance (or image), and abilities/powers section on the page. The first must be at least 3 paragraphs in length with the history detailing their home-life, current living situation/notable events, and how they began to awaken to their higher self or become involved within the plot
3. Follow the turn order for the RP and put effort into writing posts. You don't have to write a whole essay, but please at least try to write something meaningful that contributes something worth reading.
4. the DM (dungeonmaster) is in charge of managing monster encounters, fights, and random events within an RP. They have a turn for the enemies, deciding how they should react to a fight.
5. If a fight is between two player characters, dice rolls will be used to decide who hits, misses, etc.
6. The creator of CrossRealm gets final say in the plot and outcome of the RP, but feel free to share any suggestions or ideas.
7. More rules may be modified or added in the future according to needs. If one of these seems wrong, unfair, or otherwise, don't be afraid to approach Austin Bison as he will explain, fix compromise, or even help work around a rule if something turns out to be off.
8. Personal story-arcs and RPs are recommended to be summarized in a characters page just in case, but the outcomes of these smaller scenarios may be included on the plot summary page if there is significant or interesting character development or side-stories.

Episode 1

Find Yourself

February had recently ended and March rolled around at Rubyheights City and with it came lukewarm temperatures and tempest-force winds. Sunday traffic was as dense as usual. Folks here were just as busy today as they would be during the week. Within the hustling crowd, an adolescent red panda strolled through the boulevard. His hands sat in the pockets of his pants, crumpling receipts in his left and fumbling a flash drive in his right to occupy his mind.

The red panda, Yazi, had a cluster of different thoughts rolling around in his head. Not only had his school, Sterling University, become unsafe recently, suffering multiple instances of animal attacks, but Yazi himself had been fighting unusual bouts of epilepsy in the past few months. It was that, and his own relatively recent encounter with a strange wolf that had been disheartening him. Yazi had become a sort of anti-pariah on campus. All that most people wanted to say to him was that they were "sorry this happened to him" and that "they were praying for his sake". Whether or not the seizure was just a sickness like any other, he just wished to move on and forget it happened.

Suddenly, the blast of a motorcycle engine flew down the street and weaved through the semi-dense traffic. It just looked like a blur to Yazi, but it pissed him off. The last thing that Rubyheights needs is more maniac drivers. It wouldn't be long before the cops busted that guy's ass.

Turning his head back to the sidewalk, he finally approached his destination: a printing shop. Yazi needed to turn a document into a full-sized poster for a school project. A current of relief traveled through his body, knowing he was on the last leg of the taxing assignment.

-

Inside the print shop was a number of computers and-of course- printers, as well as a front desk where a sand-yellow cobra seemed to be arguing with the receptionist.

"Thirty dollars!?" the reptile exclaimed, "Last time it was twenty!"

"I'm sorry Miss, but we need the funding to stay afloat," the receptionist, who was a female grizzly bear, said. "Besides, I'm sure it'll lower back down later."

"Fine, fine," the cobra said, pulling a wallet out of her vest's pocket and rummaging through it.

-

Yazi overheard the surrounding commotion at the front desk, he turned his head at the snake's indignation.

"Geez," he thought, "Thirty Bucks, is she printing out a whole textbook?"

Regardless, he labelled the situation as "none of his business" and turned back to his screen. Just as the panda's cursor hovered above the print-button though, The screen suddenly turned to black. In fact, the whole building suddenly found itself without power. Yazi groaned in exasperation.

He pulled his drive from the PC's tower and arose from his chair. A prognosis of "this weird shit again..." filled the back of his mind. Looking around, it seemed that even the staff had no clue what was going on. He walked to the front desk, taking place next to the cobra-girl.

"Hey, uh... I hate to intrude but can I get my money back for the poster I paid for? If this outage is gonna take awhile, I need to find somewhere to print it before the day's out."

-

The female bear gave a short sigh before saying "We're terribly sorry for the inconvenience, and yes, you may have a refund." She then grabbed a small plastic container containing a number of bills and coins and fished out four bucks and some change, carefully giving it back to the red panda.

Meanwhile the cobra had been studying Yazi in the darkness, flicking her forked tongue out while trying to figure out why he seemed familiar, when it hit her. "Wait a minute... you're the kid who was attacked outside the bathrooms, aren't you?"

-

Yazi's ears perked up. He looked towards back to the cobra girl.

"Wait," he thought, "Does she even go to Sterling?" He certainly didn't recognize her from anywhere and she certainly wasn't in the library when the monsters attacked. The lights began to flicker vigorously, as if trying to fight off whatever had suppressed their power, but after a moment their energy faded out once more.

"How'd you hear about that?"

Even with the reports of wolves attacking students during the evening, Yazi still wasn't sure whether what he saw was some sort of some illusion as a result of epileptic delirium or some sort of psychotic episode. Whatever had attacked, it was definitely more than a plain-ol' wolf.

-

"I have my ways," the cobra answered coyly, briefly flicking her tongue again, "Anyway, my name's Nakara, I write the 'Strange Events' section in the school's newspaper and- while now may not be the best time- I was wondering if you'd like to have an interview." She spoke almost autonomously, as if she had said that sentence hundreds of times by now. "And it doesn't have to be about the attack if you don't want it to be; it could be about anything weird or strange you've noticed recently."

-

Yazi cracked a small smile in the name of common decency, but was laughing on the inside over the cobra's seemingly automated rehearsal.

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Yazi."

It was pretty clear that Nakara has a penchant for sticking her nose in places that one normally would not want to be a part of. After a moment of thought though, Yazi's own curious side kicked in. He had not heard many concrete details about the other attacks, but perhaps Nakara was the perfect opportunity to "snoop by proxy".

"Say though, do you know anything about what else has been going on? Like, do we know how many pe-"

Yazi was suddenly cut off. A giant chrome and black amalgamation suddenly crashed through the shop's window, toppling and destroying a (luckily uninhabited) section of computers. smoke and the stench of gasoline suddenly filled the air. The red panda and many other found themselves kneeling on the ground, coughing and gasping for clean air. Everything faded into chaos.

After what felt like a century, the room finally cleared. While they were not met with the abomination that bursted through, the entity left a trace, a clue of what exactly the Hell it was: a 10 yard long piece of what looked like a bike chain.

Yazi arose from the ground and walked over to inspect the large, metallic remnant. he dusted the soot and debris from his clothes and sighed.

"So, is this the kind of weird stuff you were hoping to find?"

-

"Wh...what...?" Nakara asked, clearly confused- though her voice seemed to be coming from inside Yazi's head. "Where..."

Suddenly the reptile shot upright, gasping for air. She looked confused and terrified, as if she had just stared into the face Death itself, but was ignored. She began to feel light-headed, and started to lay back down.

-

Yazi looked over to find Nakara struggling to remain conscious and started to feel a tinge of guilt from his smart-ass question. Dropping the chain on the ground and rushed over to Nakara, kneeling at her side. He held her by the shoulders in an attempt to keep her upright and stay aware. The cobra had apparently suffered far more damage from the ambush than most others in the building.

"Hey, don't black out on me now! We're gonna have to make a break for it and get out of this warzone."

Many of the other patrons and staff had already scrambled out of the building. If Yazi had better sense, he would have fled too, but a part of him wouldn't let him abandon a dazed, vulnerable acquaintance in the middle of such a crisis. He shook Nakara, hoping to get her attention.

"Come on, stay with me!"

Suddenly, he heard a clinking noise. He immediately turned towards the bike chain. The piece was violently shaking and undulating, and even coming apart. The next thing he knew, the links started to morph, mutate. He even heard a faint revving of an engine. Suddenly, there were about three or four small motorcycles, floating vertically in the air with tentacle-like chains trailing down from the front wheel. They gained color and grew bigger with every passing second.

"GODDAMNIT, WAKE UP!"

Shaking her wasn't cutting it, so he stood up and did his best to hoist Nakara on her feet in a wobbly stance. He started dragging the girl towards the door. The bike-squids followed suit and Yazi suddenly found himself surrounded in a circle of burgeoning, mechanical beasts. He thought about trying to repeat that thing that happened when he got attacked by the Crystalwere.

"No, we'd both be knocked out somewhere..."

Out of necessity, he set Nakara on the ground and faced the monsters, his body rigid with terror. One of them drew near, and out of instinctual fear, he yelled and punted that sucker across the room. It flew to the back of the room and smashed the wall. It fell to the floor, seizing and malfunctioning, but after a moment, it seemed to recover and scurry back to the circle.

Yazi was out of ideas.

-

Nakara didn't know what was happening. She was somehow outside of her own body, looking down upon both Yazi and herself- surrounded by strange motorcycle-like monsters in the destroyed print shop. Was this a dream? No, it seemed far too real. Was she dead? She didn't think so, as she could still feel herself on the floor. What was going on?

Just then, Nakara noticed that one of the beasts was about to attack. She didn't know what to do, and was still extremely confused. The mechanical amalgamation then charged at Yazi, and without thinking, the cobra moved in front of it and braced for impact. But impact never came. Instead, Nakara felt herself become heavy and metallic, then she felt herself fall over and skid across the floor, coming to a stop on the other side of the circle.

'What just happened? Did I just become that... thing? W-what's going on!? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!?' she frantically asked herself, beginning to freak out. She had- in fact- possessed the monstrosity, and her freaking out caused her newfound body to begin overheating- which only made her freak out even more. After a moment of writhing and flailing on the floor, Nakara's host detonated from the heat. The explosion also took out a some of the squid-bikes blocking the exit, giving Yazi a chance to escape.

-

Yazi didn't quite know how to process the situation. He saw the beast explode into oil-greased shrapnel and initiate a chain reaction, wiping a good chunk of the mob. Before his next thought, Yazi took advantage of this opening and dragged Nakara out of the ruinous shop.

He ran through the street, holding the Cobra girl by the shoulders. She was just conscious enough to run with him, but she seemed unresponsive to his voice. She seemed to be recovering from the whole ordeal though, slowly regaining her awareness.

The red panda heard the giant monstrosity in the distance, wrecking the Southeastern portion of Rubyheight. That would have to be something to worry about later. Their immediate safety was more important.

After a bit of running, Yazi finally arrived on the school campus and finally rested on one of the benches. He hoisted Nakara up, simply waiting for her full recovery.

"Hey Nakara, are you okay? I don't know what happened back there, but we made it out."

-

Nakara took a deep, shaky breath before leaning against the red panda. "I... I don't... either..." she said with a weak voice that sounded on the verge of tears, "I was... o-outside my body a-and I saw one of those things attack so I went to block it b-but then I... possessed it or something and I was freaking out a-and it was getting hot and then it exploded and-" she cut herself off, leaning a bit harder against Yazi and taking a few more shaky breaths. The reptile was clearly in need of comfort.

-

Yazi sighed. He wish he could give Nakara all of the details and find a way to explain everything that was going on, but that wasn't an option. It was obvious that she too had some sort of ability like his, or at least an extremely fortunate miracle. He looked back towards the destruction. There was plenty of others in that section who were trapped.

"The important part is that we made it out alive."

Car alarms and the sound of crunching metal rang from the distance. Chills ran through Yazi's body. It was hard to tell whether it was dread or just the Winter wind.

"I just wish I knew what to do next."

Suddenly from behind the park bench, Yazi heard the noise of cloth rustling. He immediately turned around to be greeted by a small, purple marquee. Great, just what he needed: more weirdness. The red panda just stared at the tent for a minute until a hand emerged from the door-flaps, gesturing them forward.

-

Participating Users

• Austin Bison* - Yazi Galatean the Red Panda
• XophPsycho - Nakara Hebi the Cobra

_*-DM