Random Play Your Favourite Character Story
Since there is nothing in my life I currently wish to think about, here is some tat.
It's a bit shit, mostly because Mercy is a bugger to write about. She has few complex thoughts and lives mainly in the present when not killing people with her 733T psi assassin Sk!77z.
Never the less...
It was the middle of the night somewhere in an abandoned building in a nul-zone in East Berlin. A few stars made the effort to shine through the city’s haze but most were lost to the clouds. There was the quiet swish and growl of a black-ops helicopter that came and went and came again, circling the area like a guard dog.
Mercy was reclining on a heap of sacking and flattened boxes, looking far more comfortable than she ought. This might well have been because she was mostly leaning on a slightly grubby, toast-rack-thin boy with wiry blonde hair and a beatific if somewhat twitchy smile.
The boy had one arm wrapped around her and one hand curled around a pendant that hung at his neck. For the most part the boy’s eyes were closed, but every so often they snapped open and flickered to Mercy as if to check she was still there and not a dream that would vanish upon waking.
His mind did the same, returning time and again to the thoughts of the girl who was beautiful enough to be a model or a movie star - too beautiful to be in his patch of the city and certainly far too beautiful to be in his arms. But she was - just there, see? - and she had given him a present. No one had given him a present before. Not in this life. There was that other life, far away and ill remembered; there had been family and friends and presents then... but they had all been wiped out when the bomb hit.
Mercy didn’t really understand the significance Erik attached to the pendant she had given him; but she was aware there were a lot of things about people that she didn’t understand. She’d never been around enough of them to comprehend all the strange ways they behaved or note all the irrationalities and trivialities they filled their lives with.
She had linked to Erik’s mind to translate what he was saying; his Second State Standard was mangled and she didn’t speak the local language. Once in his head she had discovered he was very excited to meet her (and Bombay Sapphire and the others) and there were a lot of things he wished to do with her of an intimate and biological nature. He seemed to think they would be very enjoyable. So Mercy had scanned him for disease and - finding him healthy - had kissed him, since that was the simplest and least involved of his imaginings.
Erik’s mind had been right, broadly speaking, Mercy had found it both interesting and pleasant - but she hadn’t expected him to attach any significance to it. He had given her the talisman he wore about his neck, a small cross-shaped trinket. It wasn’t nanotech or strongly magical - it didn’t appear to do anything - but she wore it anyway.
When they had gone to buy clothes and supplies the next day in town Mercy had looked for a gift to give him in return. (Besides, the last time she had gone shopping in LoneStar City she had brought back presents for everyone, despite having to dodge the Black Tabs.) She found a pendant made of silver; it was cruciform and had outspread wings and a crown - she thought it the perfect sigil for a Knight.
Erik had grinned and put it on and shown it off proudly to his friends, boasting about pretty girls giving him presents... But in his mind he wasn’t boastful at all. He was quiet and amazed. Mercy had discovered that what Erik said was rarely what was in his mind. He used words like armour, whilst inside his skull he was simpler and more vulnerable...
Although of course now he was a simpler giant lycanthropic rat - a somewhat unexpected side effect of Jenny’s healing flame.
Mercy smiled. She thought that Jenny’s flame had flash-fried the Knight’s DNA: not recreating it, just bringing something latent to the fore. Erik seemed to think a rat suited him too - he was a scavenger, a low-life that ran and fought in the gutters of the city. He’d been rather surprised when Mercy had shown him how he appeared to her: fierce, sleek and strangely beautiful. Beautiful was not a word the boy associated with anything in his life, least of all himself. It wouldn’t do much for his street-cred, but he was pleased she thought it none the less.
Mercy sighed and wriggled closer to the Knight. She was unused to having something to savour, something to look forward to - something to protect. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it...
At the Facility she had enjoyed the tests they gave her and the lessons she had in maths and dancing. She even enjoyed the sessions she couldn’t remember, the ones on Level 3 with the strange triangular symbol on the door. She would look at the symbol and all of a sudden she would be being led out of the room and her heart would be racing, her muscles buzzing and her clothes covered in sweat and blood. The scientists would be looking pleased - apart from the two last times before she escaped when the scientists had looked grey-faced and the blonde technician had been sick. Mercy had never found out why.
Still, none of her lessons were something she had thought about, they had just been something that had happened. D’kaa she had liked; the taciturn and economically lethal Predator who was obsessed with reclaiming his stolen weapons and hunting Hard Meat. He was her friend - her first and only friend. But she had never worried about D’kaa, never feared he might die. And she had never kissed him either.
She liked having something new, something to explore - something precious. She didn’t like that her new, precious and interesting thing was a territory obsessed were-rat that possessed no mega-tech, no psi and no magic and was caught in the middle of a Nova war. Nor did she like that this was another world, through another Rift and that she probably wouldn’t stay long here either.
It occurred to Mercy that she was learning new things; chief amongst them how to care about others and how to worry. These things were not enjoyable; also they made her less efficient in a tactical situation and gave her a weakness which could be exploited.
Something in her mind shifted, a core rote of programming that said weakness was not to be tolerated - weakness was to be eliminated... She should kill Erik.
Mercy’s mind isolated the rote, locked it down and shut it away as instinct overcame training and something feral and dangerous uncurled behind her eyes. Erik was hers. She had to protect what was hers because it was hers - and no one (especially a dead scientist in a gutted hospital) had any right to tell her to destroy it.
Erik opened his eyes in surprise as he felt the tips of something sharp and pointed prick the skin of his back. He tried to move but the pressure behind the sharpness increased and turned to pain. It was then he realised that the sharpness came from Mercy’s fingers, where they rested upon his back, and the girl herself was looking at him with burning beast-slit eyes. “What? Das ist...?” he asked her, stumbling between English and German. “What happened - what’s wrong?”
“Mine,” she told him, with the same possessive fervour the scurrying animal part of him felt about his territory. That part of Erik also bristled at being considered ‘claimed’: he was not a possession, he was Alpha...
On the other hand, being claimed by a gorgeous alien model girl who could read his mind and do the sort of crazy shit only ever seen in Hollywood movies... that was probably okay.
So long as no one found out. Otherwise his street cred was definitely shot.
It's a bit shit, mostly because Mercy is a bugger to write about. She has few complex thoughts and lives mainly in the present when not killing people with her 733T psi assassin Sk!77z.
Never the less...
It was the middle of the night somewhere in an abandoned building in a nul-zone in East Berlin. A few stars made the effort to shine through the city’s haze but most were lost to the clouds. There was the quiet swish and growl of a black-ops helicopter that came and went and came again, circling the area like a guard dog.
Mercy was reclining on a heap of sacking and flattened boxes, looking far more comfortable than she ought. This might well have been because she was mostly leaning on a slightly grubby, toast-rack-thin boy with wiry blonde hair and a beatific if somewhat twitchy smile.
The boy had one arm wrapped around her and one hand curled around a pendant that hung at his neck. For the most part the boy’s eyes were closed, but every so often they snapped open and flickered to Mercy as if to check she was still there and not a dream that would vanish upon waking.
His mind did the same, returning time and again to the thoughts of the girl who was beautiful enough to be a model or a movie star - too beautiful to be in his patch of the city and certainly far too beautiful to be in his arms. But she was - just there, see? - and she had given him a present. No one had given him a present before. Not in this life. There was that other life, far away and ill remembered; there had been family and friends and presents then... but they had all been wiped out when the bomb hit.
Mercy didn’t really understand the significance Erik attached to the pendant she had given him; but she was aware there were a lot of things about people that she didn’t understand. She’d never been around enough of them to comprehend all the strange ways they behaved or note all the irrationalities and trivialities they filled their lives with.
She had linked to Erik’s mind to translate what he was saying; his Second State Standard was mangled and she didn’t speak the local language. Once in his head she had discovered he was very excited to meet her (and Bombay Sapphire and the others) and there were a lot of things he wished to do with her of an intimate and biological nature. He seemed to think they would be very enjoyable. So Mercy had scanned him for disease and - finding him healthy - had kissed him, since that was the simplest and least involved of his imaginings.
Erik’s mind had been right, broadly speaking, Mercy had found it both interesting and pleasant - but she hadn’t expected him to attach any significance to it. He had given her the talisman he wore about his neck, a small cross-shaped trinket. It wasn’t nanotech or strongly magical - it didn’t appear to do anything - but she wore it anyway.
When they had gone to buy clothes and supplies the next day in town Mercy had looked for a gift to give him in return. (Besides, the last time she had gone shopping in LoneStar City she had brought back presents for everyone, despite having to dodge the Black Tabs.) She found a pendant made of silver; it was cruciform and had outspread wings and a crown - she thought it the perfect sigil for a Knight.
Erik had grinned and put it on and shown it off proudly to his friends, boasting about pretty girls giving him presents... But in his mind he wasn’t boastful at all. He was quiet and amazed. Mercy had discovered that what Erik said was rarely what was in his mind. He used words like armour, whilst inside his skull he was simpler and more vulnerable...
Although of course now he was a simpler giant lycanthropic rat - a somewhat unexpected side effect of Jenny’s healing flame.
Mercy smiled. She thought that Jenny’s flame had flash-fried the Knight’s DNA: not recreating it, just bringing something latent to the fore. Erik seemed to think a rat suited him too - he was a scavenger, a low-life that ran and fought in the gutters of the city. He’d been rather surprised when Mercy had shown him how he appeared to her: fierce, sleek and strangely beautiful. Beautiful was not a word the boy associated with anything in his life, least of all himself. It wouldn’t do much for his street-cred, but he was pleased she thought it none the less.
Mercy sighed and wriggled closer to the Knight. She was unused to having something to savour, something to look forward to - something to protect. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it...
At the Facility she had enjoyed the tests they gave her and the lessons she had in maths and dancing. She even enjoyed the sessions she couldn’t remember, the ones on Level 3 with the strange triangular symbol on the door. She would look at the symbol and all of a sudden she would be being led out of the room and her heart would be racing, her muscles buzzing and her clothes covered in sweat and blood. The scientists would be looking pleased - apart from the two last times before she escaped when the scientists had looked grey-faced and the blonde technician had been sick. Mercy had never found out why.
Still, none of her lessons were something she had thought about, they had just been something that had happened. D’kaa she had liked; the taciturn and economically lethal Predator who was obsessed with reclaiming his stolen weapons and hunting Hard Meat. He was her friend - her first and only friend. But she had never worried about D’kaa, never feared he might die. And she had never kissed him either.
She liked having something new, something to explore - something precious. She didn’t like that her new, precious and interesting thing was a territory obsessed were-rat that possessed no mega-tech, no psi and no magic and was caught in the middle of a Nova war. Nor did she like that this was another world, through another Rift and that she probably wouldn’t stay long here either.
It occurred to Mercy that she was learning new things; chief amongst them how to care about others and how to worry. These things were not enjoyable; also they made her less efficient in a tactical situation and gave her a weakness which could be exploited.
Something in her mind shifted, a core rote of programming that said weakness was not to be tolerated - weakness was to be eliminated... She should kill Erik.
Mercy’s mind isolated the rote, locked it down and shut it away as instinct overcame training and something feral and dangerous uncurled behind her eyes. Erik was hers. She had to protect what was hers because it was hers - and no one (especially a dead scientist in a gutted hospital) had any right to tell her to destroy it.
Erik opened his eyes in surprise as he felt the tips of something sharp and pointed prick the skin of his back. He tried to move but the pressure behind the sharpness increased and turned to pain. It was then he realised that the sharpness came from Mercy’s fingers, where they rested upon his back, and the girl herself was looking at him with burning beast-slit eyes. “What? Das ist...?” he asked her, stumbling between English and German. “What happened - what’s wrong?”
“Mine,” she told him, with the same possessive fervour the scurrying animal part of him felt about his territory. That part of Erik also bristled at being considered ‘claimed’: he was not a possession, he was Alpha...
On the other hand, being claimed by a gorgeous alien model girl who could read his mind and do the sort of crazy shit only ever seen in Hollywood movies... that was probably okay.
So long as no one found out. Otherwise his street cred was definitely shot.