Choices - Part 2

< PART 1

     Sorova resorted to her usual compensating actions while waiting for them. Of course, she had legitimate reason to distract herself: her “home” was filled with tokens of a life that could have been. She attempted to mitigate the inevitable shock by looking at photographs of her other self’s family. 

      There were two children in the pictures. A young girl and a slightly younger boy. They seemed to have mostly taken after their mother’s serpentine nature with the exception of the window drapes that served as ears for her husband, and their grandmother’s rattlesnake lineage was modified in the form of a series of pom-poms at the end of their tails. They were beautiful.

       Their names were Monique and Wynfrith.

       Shuddering, she placed a framed picture down and approached a small shrine focused on something she had never seen, even though it required no introduction: her own skull. She stared transfixed as Wendell cautiously approached her side.

       “She was stricken by the S2 Virus shortly after Wynnie’s birth. Neither of them remember her.”

       “Just like me,” she whispered right before starting at the next sound.

       “Uncle Doxxie!” chimed two young voices from outside the door. Followed by an unusually reassuring rumble informing them that they had someone to meet.

        Sorova turned to the door and reflexively averted her face. She slowly returned it to see the two small children from the pictures and a deja vu of her dreams. 

        She collapsed in tears.

        Tensions melted away over the next few hours. 

        As Sorova demonstrated her renowned talent as a couch for her family, they laughed and reminisced with Pyrodox and Elder Saleria. 

        “Oh, you guys should have seen it. You two were really going at each other! I’ve never seen Saleria so mad.”

        “Good night, Wendy, what did you do?” Pyrodox chuckled. Wendell flinched at this. Sorova observed a slight, but civil tension between the two. 

        “I have a way with people, I guess.”

        “I couldn’t believe it and I saw it! You don’t even know, it was the worst fight I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if they were trying to actually kill each other, because they almost did it by accident so many times! Imagine these two getting into a fight, I mean, y-you cant!”

        “Well…” Pyrodox mumbled. “We did get an impression.”

        “What do you mean?”

        “Wendell and I did partake in a staged fight…for charity.” Saleria answered as he pretended to drink from his gingerly held teacup.

        “That fight was over a charity,” Sorova inanely observed (she had already established that). 

        “It seemed to transpire in a way quite similar to your description,” the Elder observed.

        “Oh.” Sorova made a note to remember that so she could inform Saleria when she got back.

       When she got back.

       “I…I’m a little tired.”

       “You’ve had a long day,” Pyrodox said with genuine concern.

       “You want to go to the spare bedroom, honey?” He showed the way while nodding shyly at Pyrodox. 

       “Yes, thank you. I’m sorry.” Sorova was suddenly exhausted, but she appreciated her “husband’s” apparent restraint.

       Maybe he shared her misgivings.

       Spilling over a bed far too small for her frame, she stared at the ceiling until she fell asleep later than normal.

 

       Sorova’s uncertainty was tempered somewhat by the revelation that this version of Wendell was a not a half-bad cook. She dug into her breakfast with enthusiasm, her Rathi metabolism combining the concentration of a snake’s diet with the frequency of a humanoid’s.

       “Better get used to it,” she smiled at the amazed children. “It’s gonna be you in a couple years.”

       “Okay!” a bemused Wendell exclaimed. “Who’s ready to go to school!”

       “Can Mommy walk us?” Monique asked.

       Mommy.

       “Of course,” Sorova said uncertainly, then with genuine enthusiasm: “I’d love to!”

       “I’m making good grades!” Wynfrith said as they made their way to Education Center in the Compound.

       "Your'e going to be as clever as big Wynfrith, aren't you?"

       “And I want to get into singing, just like you!” Monique volunteered.

       “Oh!”

       After she had escorted the two to their studies, she returned home to find Wendell as he was cleaning up. Unsurprisingly, he was a stay-at-home dad. 

       “Hey,” he said without looking up. “Pyrodox missed you while you were out.”

       “Oh, that’s too bad…awkward without me?”

       “Oh, yeah.” Wendell quipped. 

       Sorova was not surprised at the tension between the two even in this world. Wynfrith had once told her of his own older brother, Olaf. He looked up to him his whole life, like a big friend. Idolized him. But as the younger dragon had fallen short of Gionachbalg standards, he had received so tongue-lashings from the older one. He had learned and improved from them, but there was always that tension henceforth, even if Olaf was unaware of it. They continued to be outwardly friendly, but it was never the same for Wynfrith. A brother cannot treat a brother like a naughty child in adulthood without permanent damage. The resultant feeling of otherness had contributed to his decision to cut himself off from that life, and he made it clear that he never wanted to make that mistake with her. She suspected he had no such qualms about is brother-in-law. Of course, she was not as eloquent about as he.

       “Big brother stuff, I guess.”

       “We have catching up to do, I guess.” 

       “I know. Maybe we should sit down.” She patted her prodigious coils, inviting him to sit.

        Wendell was exceededly pensive after her account was completed. He bit his index finger lightly. “Is that…Is that really what I’m like?”

        “No, its…Wendell, you’re everything I’ve always wanted. I-I…It’s me who’s broken. I’m fat, scarred...I…I’m not…I’m not the mother of your children. I’m a killer.”

        “It was me who did this to you, Sorova! I…I made you this, and yet after all that…you’re still beautiful. More than beautiful than I deserve…”

        “Wendell, you raised two children by yourself with out me…without her. You deserve her. And that doesn’t matter, anyway. This is wrong, and we both know it. We can’t have each other, It isn’t right.”

         Wendell hesitated, defeated. “I know.”

         “It’s just…hold me, just hold me.”

         They held each other tight until the tears stopped.

PART 3

             

Choices - Part 1

by Pyrodox 

So many years that we were one

So many things we've done

The memories alive

But most of me has died

As I struggle with events

I'm offered words of strength

They do not comprehend

The passion we possessed

People tell me what to do

Tell me how I should get through

But they haven't got a clue

Nothing else comes close to you

I see your eyes before they closed

They look right inside my soul

And they asked me not to grieve

I tried but still, I bleed

-Judas Priest, "Close To You"

     Duty supersedes personal plans, especially if one is a minister of the Church. Pyrodox did not want to travel to Varuda, but a high-priority target resided in this backwater planet, one that the Church made a priority that could only be trusted to the likes of him. It was an unpleasantly humid world inconvenient to draconic anatomy, and the harsh sunlight compounded the resultant discomfort by necessitating some protective covering: Pyrodox had to customize an unusually large cloak. Also, due to some arbitrary legalism resulting from the planet’s partisan disputes over arms policy, he could only talk his way into bringing one weapon. Prioritizing reliability over firepower, he brought his Gast projectile pistol. To prevent unwanted attention, he chose a craft more subtle than the Mercygiver. It was not going to be the most enjoyable job, and he was hoping that it would at least be over quickly.

 

     The grime was still palpable on his skin, exacerbated by the sweat that remained safely inside the folds of his ample abdomen. Pyrodox could smell himself, and he was desperate for the shower he did not have the luxury to take. Cameron Bix was too important a target to let go, even if it resulted in a stellar pursuit that could take weeks with the dragon’s jalopy. Pyrodox wiped the sweat from his brow and cursed his foul luck.

     But he was not going to let his man go.

 

 

 

     “I don’t know…” Sorova squeaked, stroking her neck nervously.

     “Sorova, listen,” the wolf responded. “You deserve so much better. There are so many worlds I have seen. Some unrecognizable, some barely different. Some of those differences are complementary, and if you knew how many puzzle pieces in some worlds fit in the spaces of others…you would know that those pieces belong there. I found your space. Believe me, I’ve helped so many in this way, let me help you.”

      “I’m not sure, I have so much to do…”

      “Sorova, trust me. All you have to do is walk through that door.”

       She hesitated.

       “You can come back if you want to.”

       She turned this over for a second and after some time, she cautiously slithered to the portal, and gathering her strength, rushed in.

        Zucca sighed and took a step or two backwards.

        Directly into a soft wall that that apparently materialized in the spot that instant.

        “I really don’t know how you manage to do that,” he quipped as he looked up at slim form that crowned the mass of flesh asnd dug its arms into said blob like the hips so lost in its bulk. It glared at him in a way he had since gotten used to.

         “What do you think you are doing, Zucca?”

         “I can read your mind, Pyrodox, so I know that you’re just saying that for effect.”

         “You know very well that the Church condemns this type of…circumvention of fate.”

          Zucca sensed hesitation in Pyrodox’s mind, and he saw the source of that in Pyrodox’s life, as well as the admittedly logical justification for it.

          “I can assure you, Pyro, she can make a choice. Besides, it could be said that fate allowed my access and power to traverse dimensions. I can solve people’s problems.”

          “Deny the problems, you mean. I do not approve of your influencing my sister in this way. We have our differences, but you do not involve my family. Get…her…back.” He backed the wolf toward the portal, entrusting the work to someone who could physically fit through it.

          Zucca suddenly felt trapped. 

 

       She was in the same place, one of the many portals that had been hidden throughout the galaxy. The only difference was that The Traveler was nowhere to be found in the ruins, save a token of his preparedness: he had left a starship for her. Punching coordinates into its computer, she sought out the one person that drew her like the exaggerated gravity of a black hole.

       As she approached MANNA’s Intra-Galactic Headquarters in the Alpha Sector, she updated herself on the relevant history, which, as it turned out, mooted her current course of action: MANNA CEO Wendell Roussimoff had been missing for seven years. Not being a complete fool, she modified her destination to Church Space.

        Home.

        The Noskaj-class frigate was no doubt perplexed by a humble civilian light freighter’s ability to navigate the storm that protected Church Space, but after some negotiation she was allowed to surrender peacefully. Sorova was detained, scanned, relieved of her suspensor coils, and transported to Notron-class battleship where she was eventually presented to the authority figure she had requested to see.

         As he caught sight of her, Pyrodox’s heavily guarded demeanor melted into bewilderment. Somehow, he knew that this was his sister. “S-Sorova?” he ventured.

         “Winnie…it’s me.”

         Pyrodox’s face hardened into a cold glare. After some visible struggle he stormed toward the door. “Watch. Her,” he ordered one of the marines. “Category 4 precautions.” He gave her one last uncertain look on the way out.

          Sorova was not surprised by this suspion.

             

          Transdimensionality could be confirmed through epigenetic and phenotypical tests, and thankfully non-invasive procedures were sufficient. Sorova was also quizzed extensively, particularly on the location of the Portal. By end of the week, she was allowed to see Pyrodox, who surprised her with a massive hug.

          “I wanted to run to you the first time around, Sis. I’m sorry, for the-“

          “It’s okay, Wyn, you did the right thing.”

           Pyrodox pulled back a bit and regarded her breathlessly with soaked cheeks. “Sorova, you-you’re the size of a house!”

           “Oh, yeah, all this? I’ve learned to live with it. Worked out enough to keep in good health, though.”

           “You…look great!”

            She chuckled knowingly, before something occurred to her. “Oh, Pyro, we have so much to talk about…” She spread her arms and smiled. “I’m a Minister! Just like you!”

            “Oh…” Pyrodox seemed uncertain at this.

            “Don’t worry, I’m one of the best! I’m really good at…”

            She noticed that her brother was nonplussed by the implication that she should have considered and decided not to press the subject further. “Don’t worry, Wynnie, I’m still Sorova.” She caressed his face, satisfying her ersatz brother that she had not lost her soft side.

             After composing himself, Pyrodox had something occur to him.

             “I almost forgot…there’s someone who wants to see you.”

             He stood taller, although he was still extremely short. Even more handsome than the first time she had laid eyes on him. Still present was his flamboyant taste in dress, albeit cleaner, and with a votive skull adorning the collar. He possessed good posture and was well groomed. Gone was the suspicious squint of near-constant inebriation, replaced with wide, alert, and loving eyes. It was Wendell A. Roussimoff as she had always dreamed for. 

             “Sorova!” Sacrificing all bearing, he rushed toward her and embraced her hard. Out of the corner of her eye, Sorova noticed Pyrodox smiling warmly in a way normally recognized to be physically impossible in this situation. It was everything she had ever wanted. 

             “Wendy…” she could not contain her own elated sobs. 

             “That’s okay, let it out, Honey.” 

              Sorova had never though such a sentence could come from Wendell’s mouth. After a small eternity, she finally composed herself.

              “Baby, you look so good, but-I’m sorry…you’re…huge!”

               Sorova was surprised he had not mentioned her scarred.

               She decided it was for the best not to tell him. 

               “Are you ready to see the kids?”

PART 2

 

Marion Mallory's Pop Life

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Fleeting Sobriety

by Groveclearer

It must have been love

But it's over now

It must have been good

But I lost it somehow

- Roxette, "It Must Have Been Love"

     During the scant few hours of his adult life in which Wendell Allen Roussimoff is entirely sober he is pervaded by a sense of emptiness. A deep, disquiet longing not merely for another fix but for something more nurturing. It is during these rare instances that the urge to call his family takes over. Usually his youngest brother, Sylvan. Sylvan always looked up to Wendell and emulated his entrepreneurial spirit. He ran (and still runs) a parking garage in Paris. A very successful one but a parking garage nonetheless. He'll never come close to being a billionaire like Wendell was once. He'll never have his face on Time Magazine. He'll never have women enough to forget their names and have them love you anyway. Money does buy happiness and he was never happier than when he was a billionaire. Not that anyone else in his family would ever understand that. Sylvan would then say that the rest of the family earns their money honestly. That Wendell is an embarrassment to them. That most of his siblings have changed their names so not to be associated with him. That he'd rather die poor than live the way Wendell does. Then one of them would hang up and Wendell would grab the nearest intoxicant and get himself absolutely fucked out of his mind. Pure catharsis. The breaking of the dam. Those were the best highs Wendell ever experienced. The only ones that felt like getting properly high. Overcoming something.

     Wendell understood he was an addict. Intellectually, of course. What else could he be? He'd been told he was such often enough. Eventually if something is spoken enough times it becomes the truth regardless of what reality is. Fortunately, Wendell had been around the block enough times to come to the conclusion that reality is neither objective nor subjective - it simply didn't exist. Everything that supposedly existed was perceived through his senses. If he could alter his senses through the use of drugs that meant perception itself was nothing but a sequence of chemical reactions. The Buddhists were on to something when they claimed that reality was something to be overcome. Wendell had never read any Buddhist writings but that's what he assumed they said; and ultimately what he believed something to be was more important than what it actually was. Like when other people called him an addict. Addicts have no control. Addicts destroy themselves. Wendell had control. Wendell knew exactly what he did and why. He was a connoisseur in the fine French tradition. That it was of a hobby considered abhorrent (and yet curiously enjoyed by many, many people) was the only reason he was demonized. People were morons. Wendell was not a moron. Wendell was not people. That's why Wendell had been a billionaire and Sylvan hadn't.

     He remembered his ex-wife, Sorova. How she'd amused him at first with her courtesies and beautiful voice. She was like an oversized child with all the wonder that entails. But then she held to him too tightly. She wanted to know what he was doing and why. She asked him too many questions a woman should not ask. The secret to a successful marriage is that a man does his job and a woman does hers and they only come together to wine, dine, or fuck. Worked out well enough for his parents. But Sorova did not understand this. She wanted Wendell to be different than he was. She tried to invade his logos, as the Greeks would say. Doing so would warp the entire world. His mind was the filter through which all of existence flowed. Didn't she understand that? Stupid slithering slut. Pale, corpulent worm.

     He began to shift his sobriety tactics on to her. He'd go hours, up to a full day even, without touching anything stronger than coffee. He'd let the frustration build. The little annoyances of her fawning over him, complimenting him, asking him what he was doing, and generally being an obstructive woman. The stupid way she'd ask him if he were alright... what did that even mean? Was he alright? Did he feel right all the time? Was he physically oriented in the right direction? I'm surefooted if that's what you mean, you legless pest of a wife. God, why did I even marry you? Because you sang nicely to me once? Because our colors match? Because I was just really down to have sex with a snake? No, no... he knew why. Because it felt like a good idea at the time. And now it didn't anymore. Things change. Nietzsche said that, probably. Him or Feng Shui. Regardless of its providence, Wendell Allen Roussimoff: CEO of MANNA was saying it right now and that's all that truly mattered.

      One evening, while on a concoction of methadone and crack cocaine, he truth came to him like a bolt from the blue: she was an extraplanar entity worming her way into his reality and attempting to corrupt it into something alien. The horror that he was not alone in the universe overtook him; the horror that there was something other in this world and it disapproved of him to such an extent he needed to be corrected. She of course denied this. In the ensuing struggle he grabbed a log from the fireplace and smashed it into her face. Her scream was terrible enough it shocked him out of his high. He didn't even know that such a feat was possible. They told the police there was an incident with the fireplace. 

      It was a relatively satisfying cathartic high after the education in pain he received from that bloated, drooling brute she calls a brother.

      And now here he was, sober again. No telephone in sight. No Sorova. How the fuck was he gonna get high without building up to it? What's the point? Why did he choose to be sober anyway? He sat back into the chair, arms looped over the backrest. He stared at the wall.

      “I wish I were dead,” he said to nobody in particular. He paused for a second. “Shut up,” he said to himself. “You've got nobody left,” he said to nobody. “You've got me,” he said to himself. “That's what I said,” he said to the empty room.

      The absurdity of sobriety was getting to him. He scratched behind his ear. “I'm not nobody. I'm a billionaire,” he said. “Was a billionaire,” he corrected himself. “Could be one again if I wanted.” “And what's stopping you?” nobody in particular asked him. “What's stopping you?” he deflected the question back. “Nothing,” said nobody.

      Wendell lowered his head. “You fucking midget. You really are nothing. Nothing at all. Not rich, not handsome, not charming. Not even famous, really. They laugh at you. And they should. You're a one-bit druggie in a two-bit world. I wish your father had beat you as a child. You'd at least have an excuse for being a fuck up if he did. That's what all the scumbags on the street do. They blame the world for making them as they are. But you? You chose this, Wendell. You know it. You keep doing it. 'Cause you like it. You're worse than a scumbag. Scumbags at least have something inside.”

       His pulse was rising. It was working.

       His eyes began to itch. He clawed at the armrests. He got up from the chair and stormed his way towards his stash.

       “Your family hates you. Your girl hates you. You hate you. And you deserve it. You wouldn't cry if your own mother died. You aren't worthy of the world, you greedy little deluded bastard. Can't even get high anymore without hurting someone. Sadistic little prick. Grumbling. Talking to yourself. Rambling. Trying to keep yourself mad enough so you feel something when you shoot up. Gonna start killing people next? Huh? Worthless little bastard. They should have drowned you as a child.”

      The thing he distantly identified as his own heartbeat pounded in his ears as he prepped the shot. As marked as his arms were there was still some space above the sleeve. He hadn't used needles in almost a year but he was in a nostalgic mood tonight. Shooting right into the bicep to reach the vein was never ideal but hell with it. If he was gonna die he was gonna die high.

      “You're talking to yourself, you fucking dust mite. 'Cause nobody else will. You could pay someone to talk to you. If you were still a billionaire. Which you aren't. And why's that? Because you fucked and snorted all the money away? Because that inbred gypsy tailor pulled a fast one on you? Or was it because you stuck a needle in your arm thirty-something years ago and it's all been downhill since then? I can tell you which one I think is the most likely and you're not gonna like it, Wendy.”

       He pressed the plunger and snapped the band.

       “Not gonna like it at all,” was the last thing he blurbled out before the wave hit him and carried him over the wall.

Image by Pyrodox

The Artificier

Name: Mirko Mairon Mallory

Aliases: The Artificer, The Mechanic

Sex: Male

Species: Rathi (red fox/rabbit) Hybrid

Age: 33

Place of Birth: Birr, County Offaly, Ireland, Earth-660

Occupation: Freelance “Technical Adviser," Pirate, Supervillain

Legal Status: Wanted 

Allegiance: Mallory Family (formerly)

Height: 5'8”

Weight: ~140lbs

Sexuality: Homosexual

Marital Status: Single

Known relatives: Mallory Mallory (mother; deceased), Edvin Mallory (father), Margo Mallory (triplet sister), Morgan Mallory (triplet sister), Mira Jane Mallory (clone of triplet sister), Doc Mallory (half-brother), Rebecca Mallory (niece), Zahra Xerfantes (sister-in-law)

Vehicle of Choice: The Theseus

Weapons of Choice: Tasers, Multiple Snare and Gas traps, Mentally and Remotely Controlled Androids

Creator: Groveclearer

Voiceclaim: Kefin Mahon

 

 

        Mirko Mallory was born alongside his twin sisters, Margo and Morgan, in the fall of 1989, nineteen years the junior of his older brother Doc Mallory. The trio were fairly rough hybrids, fox and rabbit traits' not exactly having the smoothest blend. Whereas his sisters were far more vulpine, he inherited the brunt of the lapine traits, being almost fully capable of passing for a full-blooded rabbit save for the all-important teeth and eyes. This naturally got him labeled “creepy” by other children, something he's resented the bulk of his life and compensated (many would say overcompensated) for by becoming extremely personable thanks to public speaking and improv courses. He never shuts up, to put a point on it.

        Having two twin sisters is a pain, but what's even worse is having two twin sisters with superpowers. Seems that's a common enough thing on Earth-660. Probably has something to do with the widespread use of nuclear energy or that time Zucca vented some “harmless radiation” into the solar system a few centuries ago. Not helping matters was his mother's near veneration of her eldest son, Marion, who'd left home before the triplets were even born and had not contacted the family since. Marion, known better as Doc Mallory, had become a star in the world of wrestling and had seemingly no interest at all in ever sharing his success with the family (or even acknowledging their existence) as they struggled through the slow death of the Irish wrestling scene, having to switch lifestyles towards running a family medical practice with wrestling training on the side. Either way, his sisters and brother won the lottery as far as extraordinary abilities go and he was stuck with the lame consolation prize of being your stereotypical “gifted” kid. Numbers and words just came naturally to him...but his real passion was for engineering. He became fascinated with how systems locked together, particularly how electronics and invisible waves controlled the entire support network of society. It's amazing how something you never see can hold so much power over you.

        At age fifteen Mallory Mallory caught him in a...compromised position with one of her wrestling trainees, who was promptly sent packing. She never discussed this with Mirko, seemingly trying to compartmentalize it away as quickly as possible, but the look of disappointment she gave him stuck with him forever.

        Shortly thereafter he discovered, through trial and error, that he could psionically manipulate any bit of technology he tinkered with. He couched this information for several years while he fine-tuned his control over it. What better way to show up his siblings than to burst onto the scene as a brand new superhero: The Mechanic! (working title; planning still in process), and steal all the press without them being any the wiser? He'd leave clues as to his identity, sure, but he'd do everything through proxies until eventually his mother, father, and three litter-sisters (he was born with two but now had three – it's a long story) would catch on and be forced to acknowledge him as being a genius who deserved all the praise. Delightfully devilish.

       He eventually lost interest in that pie-in-the-sky fantasy as he entered college early and met his first long-term boyfriend and devoted most of his mental energy to either school or romance. He got contact lenses to hide his creepy fox eyes and dental implants to hide his pointy fangs. He started doing talk radio and running improv classes. He got to be student teacher – the kind that everyone loves – and he enjoyed pure, unmolested freedom for the first time in his life. What a hit.

        Then he got the best news of all – Marion was dead! Apparently his big, aloof, selfish, millionaire older brother that was oh-so-handsome and a far better man than he'd ever be had just wandered off one Christmas Eve and never came home, leading to a manhunt all over Japan and the eventual determination that he was legally dead. Good stuff! Everything was turning up Mirko!

         With Doc Mallory seemingly deceased, his teenage daughter Rebecca was sent over to Ireland to live with her extended family. A shock for all involved as Doc had never enlightened either party about the existence of the other. As if Mirko needed any more reason to hate his brother, this pretty much cemented his legacy as a world class bellend in his mind. Despite this, Rebecca (or Bex, as he called her) got along just fine with the Mallories. Hell, it turned out she even had some crazy reflexes and precision superpowers. It didn't take much sweet-talking to get her to join up with her aunts and form the freelance hero squad the Marvelous Mallories. With the dough rolling in from their mother's clever marketing, Mirko finally pulled the trigger on showing off his own powers to his family and joined Marathon, Multitude, and Markswoman (though Bex preferred the appellation “Pinpoint” in honor of her late father's tailoring career) as The Mechanic. Those four years were the happiest of Mirko's life.

 

        ...and then Marion came back to life.

 

        Doc Mallory showed up on their doorstep one Christmas morning, exactly four years after going missing, and was absolutely incensed by everything he saw. He'd spent four years in an extra-dimensional time bubble but to him it at only been an hour. He raged at his mother for turning his daughter into a "soldier of fortune,” and the whole thing nearly came to blows before he could be talked down. Doc spent the next several months living with the Mallories while his legal statuses were restored and it became glaringly obvious – at least to Mirko – that he hated them as much as he hated him. Clearly being stressed out by a major traumatic event and missing several years of his daughter's life was just an excuse to express his real feelings of impatience and loathing towards his family. Marion was a selfish bellend and everything was better off when he was dead. Mirko made sure to tell him this, resoundingly, during one tense family dinner. Marion responded in kind by revealing Mirko's homosexuality to his whole family; something that only he and his mother had been abreast of. Clearly this was deliberate. Marion wanted to ruin his life. Marion had always ruined his life, even when he wasn't present. Now Marion had some back from the dead specifically to ruin his life.

        It was only through the intercession of fellow dinner guest Zucca Xerfantes that Mirko didn't try to kill his brother back to death right then and there.

        Zucca attempted to bond the Mallory family together by taking them aboard his impossibly sized starship, The Cryok. Turns out Zucca was an alien time-traveler from another dimension. Mirko had just assumed he was Marion's under-the-table boyfriend. Most homophobes were closeted, he reckoned. College had taught him that.

        Mirko fell in love with the technology of The Cyrok. Hundreds of millions of square miles of civilization all operated with minimal systems, controlled by forces that were largely invisible to the naked eye. It was just like Heaven, if you believed in that sort of thing. He almost forgot his hatred towards his half-brother during the Mallory family's extended stay aboard the ship. They even got to talking a bit and it usually didn't end in arguments. Even when it did it was the kinda half-joking, needling sort you'd expect from an older brother.

        Mirko decided he could stay here. Live aboard The Cryok. Learn its systems and improve them if he could (and if Zucca would let him, but that was beside the point – Zucca could hardly be everywhere at once, could he?). To have a whole world at your fingertips, mentally tuning its every facet like some great instrument would be... indescribable.

         During this time Bex celebrated her eighteenth birthday along with all the other children that Zucca and Mari-... Doc Mallory had rescued from something called the Fa'tik Empire. It was a large communal ceremony aboard The Cryok with food, live music, and the whole Mallory family in attendance. He amazed whole families, royalty from a dozen different realities, with little technological cantrips he'd learned over the years. Hell, even got to do his stand-up routine in front of everyone. It was the grandest thing Mirko had ever seen. It felt right. It felt like he were at the center of the universe. It felt like H-

 

         Mirko could not recall how the Fa'tik sleeper program had been activated but within a matter of minutes hundreds of people were dead and several more injured. Zucca had been rendered inoperable. Half of his family was missing in the fray. Bex and the other Fa'tik children had gone crazy. She'd leveled a four story building. The last he saw of Doc Mallory, he'd been pushing some green-haired pop singer out of the way before it fell on top of him, crushing him down into the Cryok's undercroft and presumably killing him.

        He watched his mother catch a blast to the side of the head and another to the neck before he could get to her. Mirko straddled her and tried to tend to her wounds before it dawned on him he had no idea what he was doing. Knots formed in his throat and his gut. Even if he voice could be heard above the din he would've been incapable of screaming.

       Where was his father? Why hadn't he paid closer attention to his first aid lessons? Why wouldn't his hands stop shaking? Why wouldn't the bleeding stop? Where was his toolbox? His automatons? Why couldn't she be made out of metal or plastic or... or something he could fix? Why... why couldn't he fix this?

        He held his mother close and pressed on her wounds as much as he could. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could do. Nothing he could-

        “'s'okay,” she muttered weakly. “Did your best. Forgive... you. Everything. Always.... Love you, son. Always love you... Marion.”

         She went stiff in his arms. The reek of death overpowered him. He laid on his side and stared at her corpse, for how many hours he'd never know.

 

 

          It was several months before The Siege of the Cryok was ended. Bex was alive. His father was alive. His sisters were alive. 

          Marion was somehow alive.

 

          Of course.

          Of fucking course.

 

          Mirko discharged himself from the hospital with the help of an EMP grenade he'd whipped together from miscellaneous parts. The localized blackout it created caused a power failure leading to several patients in intensive care to pass away. Sadly none of them were Marion. Hijacking the nearest shuttlecraft he could, Mirko left The Cryok's orbit and entered free space. And there, alone in the unrestrained beauty of a cold cosmos, he wept; a little bit for his family, but mostly for himself.

          Five months later, the first of many ship disappearances was logged by the local authorities. Entire vehicles vanishing; their transponders disabled and their crews found floating dead in the orbit of local planetoids. As if the ships themselves had come alive and thrown them out into the void before scrubbing itself on sensor readings. It started slowly. First a couple pirate ships which few wept over. Then a peacekeeper vessel. Finally, an entire industrial cargo ship owned by Lelantos Labs. That one turned a lot of heads. Finally, the broadcasts began. Intrusive, infrequent, immutable broadcasts that overwrote the programming on subspace radio frequencies. Most of them sounded something like this:

 

        “Hoiya, folks! It's yer old pal The Artificer! Which Artificer? The. As in me. Lovely stuff ya got in this sector. Truly lovely. Lotsa nice, usable technowhatzit. I still dunno what half of it does but that's the fun! If ya don't wanna end up like them poor sods aboard The Pedestro, I'd suggest stayin' outta the curly bit at the end'a the Rhimar fer the next... month or so. And whatever ya do, please don't send more securidrones my way. The last ones were just... tooooo... sweeeet!”

 

 

 

 

STRENGTHS

 

- Omega level technokinesis / mechanokinesis: The Artificer has complete psionic control over any bit of technology he creates or improves. If that sounds like a vague, drastically overpowered superhuman lottery winning ability... that's because it is. He doesn't even really understand the limitations of it himself, and he's a genius. There seems to be no upper limit to the physical size or quantity of the devices he can control at a given time, and the definition of “technology” seems to be extremely generous, apparently covering any crafted object with one or more moving parts. The only hard limitations he's discovered thus far are that:

1)    He has to be conscious to affect his devices.

2)    Without the aid of a pscionic amplifier his range is restricted to a roughly  500 foot bubble around himself.

3)    The ability is systemic – the more complex the technology, the more tinkering he has to do on it to control it. Say he replaces the cover on a light switch. He can now remotely flip that switch on and off. Say he rotated the tires on your car. He can now cause them to spin and turn the driveshaft. If he wanted to engage the ignition and drive the car mentally, he'd have to tinker with those as well...

- Cascade Effect: ...or build a device to do it for him. Because his ability also has an exponential cascade effect in play. Say he builds a robot. He now has control over that robot. Say he programs that robot to build another robot. He now has control over two robots. Anything that he controls can be instructed to build or modify something that he will also control in turn. And once touched by him, it's always susceptible to his will. In this sense he is a one-man technological virus; capable of spreading his domination over entire ships, stations, and even planetoids if given enough time and resources.

- Personable: A very nice, chummy guy. Assuming you don't have something he wants. Or happen to be named Marion. In which case, he's faux affably evil.

 

 

 

WEAKNESSES

 

- Insecure: Despite being a charismatic, adorkably square genius who could realistically excel at most anything he puts his mind to, Mirko simply feels that he isn't as good as his siblings or parents. More than anything, he craves validation and tangible assurance of his worth. As good as he is at cajoling folks, he's easy to manipulate if you know how to push him.

- Duplicitous: The Artificer has exactly two goals in life – accumulate as much technological power as possible...and kill Marion. He'll stab anyone in the back as long as it serves one of those two goals. He's gotten on the bad side of a lot of powerful people as a result.

- Indirect Combatant: Mirko's an average physical specimen with very little real combat training and your average Joe on the street could feasibly take him in a fistfight. His power also requires a lot of prep time. As such he's only as good in a fight as whatever gimmick he's got on his person or within psionic reach at the time. Strip away all the accouterments and he's a fairly average, unathletic guy who could realistically be taken down by anyone who can throw a solid punch.

- Creatively Lazy: While a genius in his own right, Mirko more often than not just mashes together existing tech (usually stolen from other geniuses: JAQ/L, the Fa'Tik Empire, and Kristie Sparks are not fans of his) for a quick fix. His original designs tend to be rudimentary and far less sturdy compared to his peers in the tech genius game. His personal transportation, the Theseus, is a customized pirate ship created from several different cruisers and trade vessels crudely smashed together. Craftsmanship is ironically the first thing to go once the ability to completely control everything you build is an option.

- Cowardly: His plans usually involve one big shock-and-awe ploy... that invariably end with him turning tail and running at the first sign of failure.

POWER GRID

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Bio by Groveclearer

Image 1 by Pyrodox