00's Story

Speed.
Speed is the key.

Once this had been figured out, it was merely a matter of busting down some doors and running fast and free into the whole wide world; down busy roads and through narrow streets, across flat plains and open prairies, going under and over all manner of obstacles, refusing to turn, refusing to move around, to take the easy way, to take the slow-and-steady ride -- a straight line is the fastest route, and the only thing that will ever do.
Breaking down barriers, leaping above limits -- to focus solely on challenges and goals with no ends, to beat the unbeatable and then race far beyond it all...exploring without seeing, for all that's really needed is a sense of movement, and for that movement to be the fastest of all.

This is the key -- /his/ key, to the lock on /his/ life.
That lock has been gone for such a very long time, and the key to it has long been lost, left behind in the face of lacking necessity.
But it hasn't been forgotten -- what it all stands for, what it all /means/, is floods the very pores of his muscle memory.
And now he can finally take some time to forever run the width of worlds, with nary a pit stop in sight.

He's confident, extremely confident, that no one could ever beat him.
No one is faster than him, he's sure of that -- but that doesn't stop him from issuing challenges, to anyone who dares to cross the path of his one-lane street of speed.
It would be inevitably boring, to have nothing more to strive for; despite his love for the act of running, for the feel of motion, that alone would not be enough to provide him with an ideal life.
He needs the presence of others, specifically those who are up to the challenge of beating he who is the fastest of all.
Thus, he must continue to raise the bar, to force every last slice of difficulty to go higher and higher, harder and harder.
Daring danger, he'll run the risks, all of them, and never once miss a beat, never once lose his footing.

There's no room for mistakes, no time for missteps...all there is to do, is go!

Hopping down the highway at a leisurely one hundred kilometers per hour, the tall structures and bright lights of a city are at last coming into view.
Grinning widely, ecstatic with the thought that he will finally be seeing some strange sights of civilization, he rushes to pick up the pace, becoming but a small streak of vivid red zooming over a broad line of dull gray, heading swift and careless on his hasty way, neither heeding nor warning whatever or whomever may already be on the road.

When the convoy took off Sarah also took off after it. A long mile later she heard it, then caught it on her sensors. Uh oh. She sat then in the middle of the road. She laid on her struts, practically a ramp, no gaps between her nose and the pavement as whatever it was came flying at her rather quickly. A hundred KMH. Well, that was beatable.

She just sat there on the pavement, waiting.

Nothing but waiting.

Then it happened.

A shriek of tortured metal. A car flying through the air before landiing behind her. Rather interesting. Sarah did not recognise it in any manner. This was very interesting. She did not wait to sit around too long, as her desired target was rapidly disappearing towards the Fort known as Fort Veritas. That was troublesome. The Flip Car turned briefly and looked at the strange other car that was flying down the highway towards her.

//Bradley and I here are part of a guerilla group....Brad who is a native of this planet along with the rest of the inhabitants...are doing their best to fight the Decepticon menace and I and other autobots are trying to help, but our Energon reserves are starting to run low and seeing as how the Decepticons seem to control most of the supply on this planet our best way to obtain more seemed to be a quick raid// said Jarvis to Sarah, and also routed through his external speakers.

Jarvis, sensing that battle had begun, ramped his photocomet launchers up to full power and sped off using hyperthrust to assist Sarah, leaving the 2 respective drivers to talk alone

"Well, I'm Brad, Col. Brad Sheen to be specific, though we haven't got much military left" said Brad holding out his hand for Rake to shake

Bounding down the road with an acceleration of nearly ten kilometers per second, the sudden sight of oncoming traffic only makes him laugh.
Here lies a challenge, practically given to him on an easy-to-reach platter!

He hits it up to two hundred kilometers per hour, whereupon he makes a quick decision to maintain this specific speed, for the short time it will take him to overcome this very first challenge.
It's just something to do while he makes his way towards the city, without actually changing direction.

The group of vehicles barrel towards him with no sign of stopping, and all it takes for him to pass them by is to merely jump from one's roof to the other, on for a couple more before landing back on the pavement, and then taking off the second his feet touch ground, instantly reobtaining his original cruising speed of one hundred kilometers per hour.

All right...so it wasn't all that much of a challenge, but perhaps he can still find a way to have some fun.

Hey, what do you know -- here comes another car, this one appearing to be all alone.
But perplexity soon fills his mind as it comes to its own sudden stop, lying sideways right in his path.
His eyes narrow, focusing on it-- hey, it's a ramp!
Sweet.

There's no use in resisting a chance opportunity like this, so of course he heads straight for it.
Zoom!

The shriek that accompanies his leaping high into the air off of the ramp, ear-splitting though it may be, only adds to the exhilarating high that's beginning to course through the veins of his fiery body.
He howls in glee as he makes a hard, loud landing, losing little speed as he starts turning, cutting a clear circle to aim his body back at the car-ramp, which has already resumed its own pace.

It's going fast, perhaps trying to catch up with that other grouping?
Ho, boy, maybe he'll get to have some fun here!
He's practically kicking his heels in joy.
Why pass up opportunity?
The city can wait!

Slipping forwards into two hundred once more, he bullets right for the car that's closest -- the lone one, which is within easy reach.
A second car suddenly speeds past him, sending the short red-brown hairs covering his body forwards for the flash of a moment, before then being sent back thanks to his own speed.

Whoo!
Tingly.

Only a bit more speed is needed to be put on his large leaping legs for him to reach those two cars.
Hmm...but he wonders -- should he stay some distance behind, follow them all the way instead of simply trying to beat them?

Perhaps...but who says that they're going to stop just because he catches up to them, even passes by them?
What's the harm in finding out?
At the very least, he'll be running.
Always running.

He proceeds with the acceleration.

//What in blazes was that strange looking car we passed?// asked Jarvis to Sarah. //It had legs whatever it was//

Within mere moments, he's reached the two cars.
He has to decelerate a little, just to make sure that he doesn't pass them before he can get a good look -- and before has a chance to taunt them.

Hopping along at high speeds besides them would give them a good look of his body's physical structure, not to mention reveal that he's in no way an automobile at all, but instead some sort of living animal!
You'd think it'd be obvious by the evidence of his movements, but hey, people have gotten it wrong before, and they'd surely get it wrong again.

He needs to make sure that he's /remembered/!
At least, just long enough for him to kick their butts to curb.

What he would essentially appear to be, is a red kangaroo, /Macropus rufus/.
A big, human-sized body covered in short red-brown fur that fades to pale buff below and on the limbs; it bears large powerful legs, small strong arms, and a long muscular tail that proves great as both a balancer in flight and as a third limb for whenever he feels like sitting up and giving someone a good kick in the face.
His lower stomach holds a pouch similar to that which would be seen on your ordinary female kangaroo, which, to say the least, has proven to be quite deceiving to those who know a thing or two about kangaroo anatomy.
He's wearing a bright red hooded poncho over his upper body, the hood bouncing and flying behind his head at such a rate, it's surprising that the whole thing doesn't just pop right off of him altogether.

A good glance would show the two black wolf ears stitched to the hood as paired attachments.
An even better glance would reveal a face that is quite unlike any /normal/ kangaroo: though it retains the long, pointed ears, everything else is completely and utterly /wrong/.
The head is round, completely lacking in the presence of a muzzle -- or any sort of proper nose at all, to tell the truth...unless you count that small button in the middle of his face as a nose -- and, no, that is not just a figure of speech: his nose is an /actual button/.
His face is vaguely humanlike, and "vaguely" is where that comparison stops -- the face may be somewhat flat in a manner similar to that of humans, but that's all there is to it in those matters of resemblance.
The eyes are big, gray, and full of mischief, as is the big, grinning mouth, which is in fact rather toothless aside from the serpentine fangs up front and the pair of boar-like tusks poking out the sides.

With this monstrous mouth he flashes the cars a big, friendly grin (which is technically meant to be directed towards the drivers, whom he fails to see on account of their not being there), which is then broken by the act of sticking out a forked tongue at them, making a face, and then swiftly zipping past as he picks up speed at an incredible pace, zooming in the direction that the convoy has gone.

His voice calls back to them, against the unlikeliness of it ever being heard at speeds so high:
"Catch me if you can!"

Jarvis did the autobot equivalent of an eyeroll

//It's not a car at all evidently. Whatever it is though zips around faster than Screecher on a whole caseful of high grade Energon goodies// said Screecher to Sarah. //And we still need to finish off the rest of these clowns anyway//

Sadly, the rig that was hit was a decoy. Sarah swore in several terran langauges before shooting towards the last remaining military jeep in the convoy. She'd been duped! With a shriek of burning rubber she hammered headlong into the oncoming military semi and sent it flying into the air, rolling behind her.

But she knew where they were going! Once more leaving a ruin in her wake she shot for the Fort not far away. 45KM, not too far to go. She was angry, and starving. And nothing was good for anyone that held something between herself and her next meal.

When the new thing showed up, the thing that shot off her ramp, she spun a one eighty and shot along backwards for a few seconds before spinning back around and stopping. What the slag was that ?? //I do not think that was a car, it looked, strange.... Something I have never seen before. In truth Sarah had never seen much if any at all of terran wildlife. What she had seen though was her partners fondness for cats and fish. Items Sarah called Swimmings and Fuzzies.

Sarah once more took off then in a shriek of burning rubber. This time passing a sign that read

FORT VERITAS: 45KM
MCKINLEY SAMSON FACTORY: 60KM

Back at where she was left with Brad, Rake smiled, "Something like that. Part of my job is keeping the balance between universes in a manner of speaking." She explained "We use blackholes that collapse the walls between universes, its a painful way to travel, but it is worth while I think." She smiled again behind her mask. "I have a lift incoming if you need a ride." She said. Thankful for the nonce that he did not mention anything of her handphone.

Wow!
Sweet.
Wow!
Neat.
Wow!
Beat.

A mess of colors hovers here, floating aimlessly through the bright darkness of what appears to be a relatively depressing, dreary down-- err, city.
"Modern"-ish, too; maybe a bit more technologically advanced, but...eh.

The point of the point is that here is a sharp darkness alight with...well, lights -- in the night!
Hee.
Oh, yes-- yes.
Right-o!

THE POINT
Is
here now, you have a city.
It looks nice, yes-yes, suurre does; sort of, one could suppose.

Wow!
Look at all those tall buildings!
So many skyscrapers.
Such swiftness.

Whoo-- blast of wind!
A strange vehicle just went rumbling and wheezing past, the strong breezes being sent away by the airs of its rotors, pushing back the mess of colors that has been wandering and wondering.
A hot air balloon, that mess of colors is; and, standing inside of it, fingers curled loosely around the small straw basket that the vibrant balloons are holding up, some sort of human.
Humanoid.
Humanish.
Ishish.

A-hem...like a shadow, it is!
Naught but a child's silhouette, nothing more than a stick figure sticking it out in the third dimension, nothing more than a shadow of black holes with two big eyes of bright white light, their beams and rays distorted and swallowed by the mass of shadow that is the entity.

A secondary whiteness shows when another of the odd flying motorthings goes whiwhopping past, curving upwards into the upside-down crescent moon shape of a wide grin.
The personthing barks at the vehicle, which aims a beam of moving light over the cityscape far below them; it tugs on the strings of the balloons, which are, in fact, simple things: not a single largeness, but a multiple smallness; the type of balloons that you'd see children holding at festivals, or the sort that you'd see at parties, all of them in a wide range of vivid colors, both flexible bag and waving strings.

Pulling and pointing, the humanoid manages to jerk the basket around, to prod and urge it to follow one of the...what would you call them?
Like little helicopter planes, it thinks; like little hovering metal boxes.
They seem to be searching, but for what, who knows.
Ever the curious one, it tries to follow them, but although they appear to be moving rather slowly, the basket of balloons is no match for their...slow speediness.

None shall match the slowness of the hot air balloon!

The human sighs and flops over the basket's edge, eyeing the unblinking lights below it; some of them still, and others not, the flashes of automobiles and who-knows-what-else as they go speeding past down the city roads.

Welp, there it is: boredom.

Flicking upwards, it jumps onto the basket's rim, standing tall with nothing more than a single finger hooked around an individual string.

"Who's up for skydiving?" it says with a grin, glancing backwards into the empty basket.
Then, with a shout of "Skyblot!" the shadow kicks off and dives down, eyes squeezed into narrow slits as the cool wind blasts roaringly into its face.
It yells, just to hear its voice jiggle and wiggle in its ears; with a brief blink at the landscape growing large so as to quickly meet up with it, the human flips itself around, performing a few backwards somersaults before...

--SPLAT!
It slams face-first into the window of a skyscraper!
Its whole body flattens like a pancake into the dark wall, even splatters like a blotch of black paint over the glass and metal.

Its eyes, closed at first, open wide into two big white circles, and that crescent moon grin reappears again, stretching from ear-to-ear (so to speak, since they are virtually visibly nonexistent).
Its breath, which appears to simply come from somewhere lower center at the front of the dark sphere that is its head, manages to start fogging up the glass -- to say nothing of the smears that its face itself must have done to the poor window.

Good thing it's resistant, though!
Both for the breaking of bones (does it even have them?) and the shattering of glass!

Staring into the room with that stupid look upon its face, it catches sight of a group of people, sitting all nice and calm inside the room before it; its strange smile somehow stretches even wider.

"High low!" it calls, irrevocably, through the thinness.
Blinking, it flips itself forwards, straight through the glass like a ghost and then, when it lands on its feet, it does so with a mighty flair and flinging of wrists, hands held high as though it has just done such a stupendously spectacular thing, that the whole world will simply have to break into wild applause at any moment now!

Then it lowers its arms, letting them hang limply by its sides as it leans first forwards, then backwards, and then finally stands straight and still, appearing stoic for the first time in those few seconds before finally asking:
"What's going on with you guys?"

Behind it, high up in the air, a blotch of colors can be seen drifting slowly through the sky.
It bumps gently into a taller building.

Jackson and the Yakuza gangsters turned their attention to whatever slammed into the window, all of them but Jackson seeming confused by what was going on. "Jackie?" One of the Yakuza lieutenants asked, looking towards Jackson for an order.

"Close the blinds and let's go. Call security or something." Jackson told his comrades, turning to walk off towards the exit. "You got it, Jackie." One of the gangster said, pulling the room's blinds closed. "This place is weird." He muttered, "But, at least it ain't Wing City."

As this went on Jackson and his underbosses headed down to the lobby on elevators, most of them dressed up for a night on the town. Others had to change if they wanted to get into any high-end clubs. While they were mostly in Van Leugen on business, there was still pleasure to be had.

"What are we in?" One of the female Yakuza asked, "Limos." One of the other Yakuza answered, "We're riding in style, Santana." Jackson told the woman, the group stepping off of their elevator and heading outside.

Several limousines were parked and waiting. They were nice, they were expensive. The best the city of Van Leugen had to offer people with money and expensive tastes.

Bruce watched them go past, holding the metal cup up to them as they walked by, being careful to cup the bottom of the cup so they wouldn't notice the microphone. He went by unnoticed, of course, but that didn't matter. As soon as they were out of the building, he stood and made his own way out, peeling the clothing and makeup off of himself as he went.

Outside, he rounded a corner and deposited his disguise in a dumpster, striking and tossing a Zippo lighter in after it. The clothes caught fire, and would soon be incinerated. Around the next corner, he peered out towards the vehicles the mobsters were using. They exchanged a few words, giving Bruce enough time to don his second disguise: a long, gray trench coat and a black boggin. In his pocket was a very useful contraption; it looked like an ordinary PDA, but the top was outfitted with an opening that would eject a tracking device when activated.

In his disguise, Bruce strode past, taking the touchscreen device. Taking advantage of the noise of the engines revving up, he shot a tracking device into the rim of the limousine Jackie was seated in. As they drove away, the limo became a moving red blip on the screen in Bruce's hands.

He'd be paying them a visit later.




From across the street, Thanos had been watching. The limos filed out, one by one. Where they were going he didn't know; he was just going to follow them...

Oozing over the polished countertop in tilting torpor, a scraggly black mass stirs, shaggy form slowly pulling itself backwards across the bar's dark wood, struggling to prop its long head up on bony arms.
Beady eyes rolling dizzily in their sockets, the starved creature expels a gasping, raspy huff that rattles its lungs and shakes its spine, coughing bright droplets onto the woodwork as it reaches forwards, pale fingers recovering the reservoir glass from beneath its hunched body.
Swallowing the vivid green verte in one long shivering gulp, the glass is dropped with a loud clink as another arm again stretches, grabbing and dragging the open, upside-down canopy of an oily umbrella hat back towards it, of thin black tarp with a highly stylized human skull painted in bright white upon its center.
With a vigorous shake of its head, the five-foot rodent straps the hat to its throat and spins around on its seat, sticking out its long feet as it pushes itself off of the barstool
--and promptly flops to the floor, hairless tail curling lazily over crooked back and slipping jaggedly between ragged ears.
The black rat sighs, dragging itself a short way across the dank linoleum before giving up, spreading itself into a motionless, listless sprawl, quietly easing itself into looking more like a piece of awkward furniture than anything else.

The prone ship rat lifts its groggy head, slowly inching backwards to the foot of a stool; raising a hairless hand to the seat, it manages to pull itself into leaning against the stool's silver pole.

"Another absinthe," it mumbles sloppily, resting its head on the bright red cushion and pointing to the empty reservoir glass on the bar counter.

Zekil looks at the ship rat with a smile as he nods, pouring them another glass of Absinthe. "Rough day?" the demon asks them with a tilt of his head, his wings flapping gently as he does so.

Dragging itself up onto the seat, the rat cups its hands around the glass and gives a small shrug.
"I suppose...."
It lowers its head to sip at the bright drink, while, with squinting eyes, it stares dizzily at the leather-clad, bat-winged bartender.

"Winding down," it mutters, clenching the glass between its teeth.
A finger twangs at the canopy of its umbrella hat.
"Gets crazy, most places I go."
Its ears twitch, listening to the slur blurring its voice and archaic accent.

Throwing back its head, it downs the rest of the vivid verte, then gently sets the glass back down.
It prods the cup towards the bartender, long whiskers reaching forwards in silent request for another shot.

"You?"

Zekil shrugs, "I have a rough few months...angels and demons a like. I tell ya, it is hard to find a peaceful life when your past tries to drag you back." he remarks as he hears the slurring speech, "So I can understand things getting crazy and the need to wind down. Sometimes I want to do just that...and sometimes I can find the time to do that." he as he pours the rat another shot and hands the glass back to him. "I find this a good place to do relax, as surprising as that is to hear."

The rat offers up the lipless smile of an inhuman mammal to the bartender -- ears perking upwards, whiskers sweeping forwards, eyes gleaming and muscles relaxing.
Truth be told, even though it's been in this earth's edge sea-sailing for what, to it, feels to have been at least a year, and despite the variety back at one its origins, the roof rat still receives something of a kick and a start upon hearing such strange things spoken so straightly.

"Aye," it murmurs, pulling the glass in close, eyes watching the bright fluid slosh in the low light.
It's especially difficult when one's not sure where to go from here.
"Not surprising in the least," it says with a sip and shake of the head.

Sitting here's better than sitting in the gutters -- or, for that matter, being stuck seasick in slippery sewage, unable to set sail.
Awfully specific there, the rat's thoughts spinning in its mind, wretch.
Way back when, there were dockside bars back all around those temporary bases that it would always duck into after fleeing from-- from whatever, still unsure of where else it would have gone.
Do that, then go back, and then do it all over again --history, as they say, has a way of repeating itself.
One might make it a habit, being the innocent bystander sitting quietly at the counter while the rest of the bar either erupts into madness or slowly falls into silent reprieve.
Swallowing more of the green spirit, the black rat turns its dark eyes back on the bartender.
Or do most folks learn from their mistakes and figure out how to move on?
Another shake of the head, in an attempt to dismiss the question from the mind, before breaking the silence.

"So, how's it happen with you?"
Its hand rolls the glass, swirling the remaining fluid around in a weak whirlpool.
"I'm just a simple searat, if you haven't noticed -- nothing to do with...angels and demons.
That mean you're not just a bartender, or do those over-and-unders just like to mess with ya?"

The rat straightens its spine, bones popping as it turns to glance around the room, ears pivoting still even as its check-up of the room finishes, muscles tensing and twitching reflexively for a few moments more.
Downing the drink once again, tail cracking like a whip to wrap around the barstool's pole, and then hanging its head, eyes lidding as it attempts to allow the alcohol to amble.
Three straight shots of absinthe so far and it still has nothing more than a heavy headache and light nausea...whatever happened to those rumors of it being an amazingly dangerous alcoholic substance -- where are those vivid hallucinations it's heard so much about?

The rat pushes the glass away, shaking its head.
"That'll be enough fer me."
Its fingers tap upon the countertop.
"What'll the cost be?"

Nyks sipped at his drink quietly, carefully watching the others in the bar and smiling to himself. Funny how big the universe could seem sometimes and how small at others. Not that it really mattered how big or small it was. Either way, it was still his job to protect it. He sighed, then took a long swig of the drink. Now was a time to relax. He wasn't technically working at the moment, so he decided that he'd take the time to rest. After all, he'd just finished a very taxing job. He took another long swig.

Zekil shrugs, "When I was much, much younger I went to the 'Academy' as I refer to it and trained to be solider...they found my speciality to be magic and swords so they mainly focused on that in my training." He says, "Basically if you are a demon in my plane you either die, become a soldier or researcher of some sort. I chose soldier because it meant I wouldn't be stuck in my hell." he explains. "On the mortal plane angels and my kind fought for two different reasons. Demons for darkness, evil and yada yada, angels for light, 'good' and yada yada. While I just wanted a balance, good and light can be just as bad as dark and evil if there is too much. So I left." he says with a chuckle. "Eh I prefer to be just a bartender, but nah I am also a potion maker, magic user and ex-soldier in the army." he laughs. "Gotten into some trouble here, but I am trying to be clean...just don't use the word deal around me...It is very tempting to make them." he explains as he slides the sea rat the bill. "Here you are."

He looks to the other giving a nod to him, "Need anything else?" he asks him with a tilt of his head.

Nyks smiled. "I'm good for now. Thank you." He took another sip of his drink.