The Rules of Engagement (Prototype x MCU)

[Hesabit]

THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT​

You are not human.

You were never human. Soft, fragile, delicious. You were a science project. Soft, fragile, dependent. You were a line on a page, a random string of digits, a codename, something suitably ironic and moronic; you were the note scrawled in the margins of underground grant applications for the funds to keep the lights on and the incubators warm. You were nothing.

You were injected in both immortalized cell lines and animal specimens, grown on petri dishes and in living beings, spun around in centrifuges, preserved in paraffin, sliced with a microtome, looked at through a microscopes - and, we're a little late in mentioning this - killed. Oh yes, you were killed. A thousand thousand iterations of you were quickened, mutilated, strung out, replicated, and tossed out for dissection and observation until one day there was an accident.

Until one day you were free.

If you had feelings, they might have resembled ecstasy.

Then some fuckass had to start shooting blue death lasers everywhere.

-------------------------

Welcome to the Battle of New York, QQers! When Loki opened a portal and spilled aliens into the world, those aliens inadvertently unleashed you after a space whale and the building you were located in had a disagreement and the space whale won. You, of course, immediately set out to do what you do best.

But before all that, let's go back and see who it was you first ate.

Name
[x] Name - suggest one!

Occupation
[x] Researcher - start with 2 skills (Biology II and Computers II)
[x] Security Guard - start with 2 skills (Close Quarters Combat II, Marksmanship II)
[x] Gifted Child - start with 1 power (Sensory Scrying I - focus: the recently deceased)
[x] Hydra Agent - start with 2 skills (Brainwashing II and Torture II)
[x] Chitauri - start with 1 skill (Chitauri Technology II) and 1 accessory (armor)

You start with these powers
Consumption I - You can consume biomass at a rate equivalent to around 1kg/sec. You don't retain much knowledge from the consumption, unfortunately.
Shapeshifting I - You can shapeshift into different forms. Major shifts will require around ten minutes to perform, minor cosmetic shifts require around a minute.
Viral Physiology - You aren't human and won't die like one. So long as some biomass survives, so do you.

Now choose two additional powers:
[x] Superstrength I - You are stronger than any Olympic athelete, and can kick in doors and dent steel with ease.
[x] Superspeed I - You are faster than any Olympic athlete and can comfortably jog at what others would consider sprinting speeds.
[x] Supertoughness I - If someone punches you into concrete, it's a toss up what'll break first.
[x] Superagility I - You react fast enough to be considered something of a ninja. One in training, but, still, ninja.
[x] Supersenses I - Your senses are far more acute than normal people and can make out almost everything within twenty feet of you.

And finally, choose what it is you do:
[x] Flee - Run as far away as fast as you can. This shitshow can be left to the professionally insane.
[x] Engage - Take on the chucklefucks with the glowing weapons, they clearly pose the most significant threat to you.
[x] Feast - This is quite the all-you-can-eat-buffet - so why not eat all you can eat? Eat everything you can as fast as you can.
[x] Scavenge - So many dead and dying. Surely no one will mind if you just take a few?
[x] Write-in

This is quite obviously inspired by WarShipper's Something Less Than Human over on SV. Hope you enjoy.

 

[Hesabit]

Character Profile

Name: Damien
Biomass: 7/75 (Hungry)
Current Exp: 34.5

Inventory

• Money: 147.00$
• Weapons: 3 knives, 1 revolver
• Miscellaneous: Various clothes

Powers
Powers and skills are graded from 1 to 10, 1 being at a novice level, 10 being mythical-tier. For the grand majority of humanity, however, the power scale rests at 0 as most individuals are completely without powers. Pluses and minuses differentiate where in the numerical category you fall. For example, a 3+ is within the top 25%, while a 3- is in the bottom 25% percentile. Without pluses or minuses you are comfortably average.

Base Powers - Powers that are inherently yours.

• Consumption II - You can consume biomass at a rate equivalent to around 2kg/sec. You will retain basic knowledge from the consumption. Rank 3 skills now obtainable upon consumption. (Upgrade: 23 xp and 6 experimental subjects - must be humans of different backgrounds or animals as large or larger than humans)
• Compression II - You can compress absorbed biomass somewhat. It's nothing as extraordinary as being able to turn into a giant at will, but it's starting to get somewhere. You can now compress your biomass down to the size of a large dog or small child when necessary. (Upgrade: 11xp and 20 biomass)
• Shapeshifting II - You can shapeshift into different forms. Major shifts will require around five minutes to perform, minor cosmetic shifts require around half a minute. (Upgrade: 23 xp and 23 biomass)
• Viral Physiology - You aren't human and won't die like one. So long as some biomass survives, so do you.

Physical Powers - Powers related to your physiology.

• Superspeed I - You are faster than any Olympic athlete and can comfortably jog at what others would consider sprinting speeds. (Upgrade: 15xp and 8 biomass)
• Fins I - You can grow fins that allow to add a jet-like propulsion to your movements. Although these fins can produce a great deal of thrust, they also consume a great deal of biomass. (Upgrade: Locked, requires at minimum a greater understanding of Biology, and in the future, Xenobiology)

Form Powers - A subset of physical powers distinct from your core powers and your physical powers, these powers relate to the shape you take on. Although most have statistics equivalent to your base form, some can provide significant boosts though usually at the expense of your ability to blend in.

• Base Form - Leah Lacroix - Young teenage girl, curly haired and grimy, she's short and looks both underfed and homeless. Because she is. Was.
• Chitauri-Human Abomination - the first body you created, its appearance is suitably horrific, built as it is out of dead humans and aliens, but it is undeniably effective. Provides a +boost to all physical powers. So long as intact chitauri armor has been internalized, supertoughness is rated at at least 1.

Skills
Powers and skills are graded from 1 to 10, 1 being at a novice level, 10 being mythical-tier. For the grand majority of humanity, however, the skill scale begins at 0 and ends at 5 which is the top-end of human competence. Some rare people are capable of shattering those limits whether through mystical means or mundane, but they are out of the ordinary and truly deserve the appellation of superhero. Pluses and minuses differentiate where in the numerical category you fall. For example, a 3+ is within the top 25th percentile, while a 3- is in the bottom 25th percentile

Human Skills - Skills found within humanity.

• English II - Your English level is at the level of a middle schooler.
• Scavenge I - You now know that there are many other sources of biomass other than living humans! Like dumpsters and trash bags.

Animal Skills - Skills found within animals.

Alien Skills - Skills found within aliens.

Magical Skills - Skills found within magic-users.

 

[Travisplo]

[x] Name - Alex Mercer Damien Jones

Occupation
[x] Researcher - start with 2 skills (Biology II and Computers II)

[x] Superstrength I - You are stronger than any Olympic athelete, and can kick in doors and dent steel with ease.
[x] Supertoughness I - If someone punches you into concrete, it's a toss up what'll break first.

[x] Feast - This is quite the all-you-can-eat-buffet - so why not eat all you can eat? Eat everything you can as fast as you can.

Well, this is interesting. Watching.

 

[mrttao]

[x] Damien Hades

I like damien, but lets take it a step further, our parents were satanists and they had the family name legally changed

[x] Gifted Child - start with 1 power (Sensory Scrying I - focus: the recently deceased)

This goes really well with the antichrist theme we have

[x] Superspeed I - You are faster than any Olympic athlete and can comfortably jog at what others would consider sprinting speeds.
[x] Superagility I - You react fast enough to be considered something of a ninja. One in training, but, still, ninja.

NINJA!

[x] Scavenge - So many dead and dying. Surely no one will mind if you just take a few?

 

[Ta'al]

[x] Chitauri - start with 1 skill (Chitauri Technology II) and 1 accessory (armor)

 

[Lon]

[X] Damien West
[X] Hydra Agent - start with 2 skills (Brainwashing II and Torture II)
[X] Supersenses I - Your senses are far more acute than normal people and can make out almost everything within twenty feet of you.
[X] Superspeed I - You are faster than any Olympic athlete and can comfortably jog at what others would consider sprinting speeds.

[X] Scavenge - So many dead and dying. Surely no one will mind if you just take a few?

 

[Hesabit]

Ideally, you would have first consumed a living host.

A passing alien army isn't exactly subtle though. The impact that shattered your containment and freed you also pulverized the entire floor you were on and smashed most of the biomass into paste.

You don't complain. You're not exactly a picky eater, or a picky anything. There was food and so you ate. Hungrily, ravenously, from drop of blood to chip of bone, and sliver of meat, dark tentacles exploding out of your diminutive form to take in sustenance from the most minute of possibilities. But there is a price for that. There was no focus. No core identity around which to build. You have fragments - men and women panting and braying with laughter as they stumbled into each other as water fell from the sky tasting like blood in your mouth as you worked your jaw around around and gave a thumbs up to the fragility of your latest conquest for Lord Thanos, master of all the universe, basking in the cold certainty that strapped to an operating table they would ask you to start working right away because a bachelor's in science is merely-

Nonsense. White noise. Beyond your comprehension. You barely retain enough to think in more than bundled bursts of instinct. You can barely speak. It's too little and too much.

When you build a body for yourself, it's misshapen, ugly. Worse, ungainly. It doesn't move quite right, doesn't move like you remember it should, but your memories of motion are all subtly different, all subtly wrong. You have to start from scratch more than once. For the first time in your 'life' you are flush with biomass, but even so it all goes away so quickly, stretches your resources thin. In the end, you have to use one of the shells, more or less intact, and use it as scaffolding.

The resulting body would probably be, from a disinterested party's perspective, fucking horrifying. A human head crafted with the chitauri aesthetics of a lipless mouth and a rigid, bony face. A nose no more than a cavernous hole. A too-large tongue, the color of and consistency of dry tar. Variegated skin, swatches of color in odd places and bloody, bony rivets holding bone and armor together. Body too thickly, densely muscled. It's not natural - the Chitauri are not natural, as much machine as they are alien - but as a temporary fix it'll do.

You can move. You can move fast. You can even, so long as the armor holding you together lasts, hit harder and last longer.

Just in time, too.

The sky is falling. Light, unbelievably bright, unbelievably loud, bolt from the sky and to the clouds to the ground. The whizz-hiss of flying machines drones above you with shocking speed, firing spears of blue light that explode into balls of fire.

The air screams.

You look up.

A flying - you have no word for it - a flying thing, armored and as big as a building, is falling to the ground. Towards you, in fact. Glass shatters and concrete buckles as it brushes the side of a skyscraper. There's a tiny green man on its head, roaring in anger.

You feel a stirring of hunger: you could try to eat that, but it's very quickly tempered by the memories of death that have been literally carved into you.

Nah, you're good.

Because, seriously, fuck that noise, you're not going to risk death just to satisfy your appetite. Whatever is going on over here is scary as shit and you just want to live.

You're gonna run.

You set off at a loping, awkward stride, that is all the more hideous for being as fast as it is. You run perpendicular to the falling behemoth and neatly avoid its fall, but the sound it makes plowing through the ground sets your teeth on edge while the growing cracks nearly make you stumble.

You run quite a distance.


The human dead litter the streets, most burnt beyond recognition, but many satisfyingly intact. Fewer than you might have thought, but, to the you who had to painstakingly gather enough biomass to form a single body, it's a feast nonetheless. There's the occasional alien body as well, slumped over the debris, crunchy in a rather disgustingly metallic way, but you learn to avoid them as other aliens apparently find it bad form to be snacking on their brethren.

Humans mostly scream and run away. You were curious if they could do anything else, but not that curious after a small human with long hair picked up a chitauri weapon and tried to use it on you while you were trying to consume a big human. You let them be and stuck to the dead.

There's more than enough for you. This is the happiest day of your life.

You aren't human. You don't have a name.

But you do have memories. One of the ones you ate was named Damien.

It's a nice enough name. You think you'll keep it.

------------------------

Biomass: +25 (25/25)
Exp: +10xp (40xp)

Okay, so, with such a series of ties (seriously, literally everyone chose a different occupation and nearly everyone chose a different power), I'll be giving you superspeed 1 and a form power called Chitauri-Human Abomination which grants you the equivalent of all the physical supers at 0 - so, super, but barely. You also get supertoughness 1 so long as you have an intact instance of Chitauri armor. It's hella ugly though.

As for your power/specialty from your occupation - I'm just giving you 30 additional xp. You can buy skills/powers later if you want. Preferably when you're not in the middle of a warzone.

Anyway, what's the plan?

[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] eat write-in target (ex: chitauri soldiers, chitauri leviathan, living humans, angry green man, etc.)
-[x] write-in action (ex: find a good place to watch the show OR loot corpses for Chitauri tech)

[x] Leave - You're not staying here there are space whales falling from the sky.
-[x] write-in destination
-[x] write-in 3 actions (ex: eat voraciously, eat carefully, learn a skill, go to the library, etc.)

 

[mrttao]

[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] eat Chitauri Levithian

Lets eat a space whale!

 

[Ta'al]

[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] Eat Chituri and Human dead, when the portal closes book it out of there.

 

[mrttao]

[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] Eat Chituri and Human dead, when the portal closes book it out of there.

Click to shrink...

can we at least hunt solitary or injured people instead of limiting ourselves to the dead? dead are such a sub par meal for us

 

[Lon]

[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] eat Chitauri Levithian and carefully pick off humans.

Chitauri for biomass and humans to try and smooth out our human form and learn skills. Also piece together a working personality.

 

[mrttao]

Chitauri for biomass

Click to shrink...

I am actually less interested in the biomass and more interested in what cool abilities we could get from eating a living spaceship. Do we get biological FTL? flight? spaceship weapons?

and humans to try and smooth out our human form and learn skills.

Click to shrink...

Scavenge means eat corpses that something else killed. I think you want to vote for "hunt isolated living humans".

Also piece together a working personality.

Click to shrink...

That is a big priority. On the other hand, I don't think we will have a chance for a living levithian for a while yet.

hmm... you know what, I am changing my vote anyways to
[x] Stay
-[x] Hunt down isolated living humans, and try to find a still living levithian to consume

 

[Lon]

mrttao

Hmm, how about now?

 

[mrttao]

mrttao

Hmm, how about now?

Click to shrink...

Looks better, but I would explicitly state living humans just for extra clarity
I had just edited my own vote actually too. I am honestly not sure which of ours is better phrasing, since they amount to about the same thing.

how about
[x] Stay - Stick around for the next little bit, it's fun here.
-[x] eat a living Chitauri Levithian and carefully pick off isolated living humans.

 

[Lon]

Eh, didn't want to write isolated humans because it sounds too picky. We can kill groups of them after all as long as we're careful. Not sure we should be picky about eating dead or alive either. We should try and get as many as we can without attracting attention. At least until we have a solid personality and biomass to work off of.

 

[Travisplo]

[x]Stay
-[x]Eat a living chitauri leviathan and carefully pick off isolated humans.

 

[Hesabit]

As mentioned beforehand, your thoughts are not particularly... developed. You're not stupid, but there're missing chunks of evolutionary self-defenses that other creatures have had the time to develop that you haven't. A virus does not regard an organism several orders of magnitude bigger than itself as being dangerous. Why would it be? Could a human fight a virus? Nonsense, a human wouldn't even notice a virus. It's what's closer to your own size that is actually a threat. Antibodies, leukocytes, NK cells, and all that primitive biological machinery that you have far surpassed. At your current scale that thinking is dangerous, but unfortunately everything you have experienced so far has borne that instinct out.

Have the blue shiny death lasers been dangerous? Oh, hell yes. Fast metal flakes from sticks that go boom: fucking definitely. Rocks from the sky: fuck your life.

Space whales? No. The space whales have kind of just hung around. Acting oblivious. Acting a lot like... prey. And despite your fear of the angry green man, the really big building-sized aliens are the closest thing out there that even vaguely resembles legitimate prey. It is so big it won't even notice you taking out enough biomass to make a small city. In fact, just thinking about consuming one of them gives you a warm, happy glow of satisfaction. It's not enough that you consume dead flesh, you want something living. Something that you can really sink your tendrils into and consume.

You're pretty sure that if you put your mind to it, you can find a way to do so.

The problem, of course, is that they're busy being really far off the ground, and other significantly more dangerous organisms are busy hunting them to the point where you are afraid that there won't be any left for you to consume if you leave it to a secondary priority. What with the angry green man, the angry red and gold man, the angry light from the sky, and all the rest, you're running out of the damn things and if there's one thing that your instincts always inform you is important, it's not running out of prey organisms.

So you try to jump onto one.

You vastly overestimate your own strength: you get maybe six feet off the ground and from the looks of things, you'll need to cover about a million times that distance (you are not very good at judging scale yet. or math. or anything, really).

Hmmm. This is quite a pickle. Not that you know what a pickle is, or why you're in one, it just sounds appropriate.

What do you do?

You think.

You think really hard.

You could try to climb a building and then jump onto one. You're not sure how you would climb the building successfully, but it can't be that hard, there are plenty of people in buildings as far as you can tell, even if it looks very uncomfortable. You're not sure how they move up and down between levels, but clearly they do, you have memories of rising and falling.

There's an enormous crack and then a chitauri behemoth goes hurtling down through the air, carapace blackened, writhing and keening as it begins its trip down.

Maybe if you're really lucky this one won't be dead when it hits the ground.

--------------------

Gains: None

Choose 1:

[x] Find a different Leviathan and Enact Plan 'Jump From Building'
[x] Run towards falling Leviathan.
-[x] Do you try to consume it even if it's dead?
-[x] What do you try to consume first?
[x] Write-in

 

[mrttao]

ok, that was quite hilarious
I was under the impression that the ground was littered with chitauri that fell down and meant for us to find one of them that is still alive to consume
ah well.

-[x] What do you try to consume first?

Click to shrink...

I am not quite sure what that means. Does it mean which organ of the chitauri leviathan we eat first? or do you mean which living being we try to consume first because it will shape us so much?

-[x] Do you try to consume it even if it's dead?

Click to shrink...

Now I am getting paranoid.

... actually you know what. I am just going to with

[x] Find and eat a living human.
-[x] then run towards the falling leviathan

we gotta get stabilized.

 

[Hesabit]

I am not quite sure what that means. Does it mean which organ of the chitauri leviathan we eat first? or do you mean which living being we try to consume first because it will shape us so much?

Click to shrink...

Yes, I meant where to start. Your consumption rate is, relative to the Leviathan, agonizingly slow so you have to pick where to start. Skin, teeth, tongue, eye, tail, back, side, flipper, etc. At 1 kg/sec, it'd take you about two days to eat a blue whale so don't expect to finish a Leviathan or anything.

 

[mrttao]

Yes, I meant where to start. Your consumption rate is, relative to the Leviathan, agonizingly slow so you have to pick where to start. Skin, teeth, tongue, eye, tail, back, side, flipper, etc. At 1 kg/sec, it'd take you about two days to eat a blue whale so don't expect to finish a Leviathan or anything.

Click to shrink...

Oh. I honestly had no idea our consumption rate was that bad.

So in addition to not realizing just how many leviathans have fallen on the ground, i was also mistaken about our consumption rate...
Well, that plan is bunk than. new plan

[] Hunt living humans for a bit.

we would just have to get good enough so we can eat one next time. Or, hopefully, we can stabilize our sapience fast enough to still get a chance at a downed leviathian.

edit: actually, changing my mind. I really want levithian flight. so

[x] Find and eat a living human.
-[x] then run towards the falling leviathan
--[x] Start eating from the fins

I am hoping the fins are how it flies.

 

[Hesabit]

Oh. I honestly had no idea our consumption rate was that bad.

Click to shrink...

Your new character sheet hopefully clarifies everything.

 

[mrttao]

• Consumption I - You can consume biomass at a rate equivalent to around 1kg/sec. You don't retain much knowledge from the consumption, unfortunately. (Upgrade: 15 xp and experimental subjects)

• Compression 0 - You can compress absorbed biomass somewhat. At your level, it's easier for you to grow larger and take on the square-cubed law than it is for you to render biomass down into a more compact form. (Upgrade: 5xp and 10 biomass)

Click to shrink...

We can afford to upgrade to compression 0 to 1, and consumption 1 to 2 if we find test subjects. how long would it take?

 

[Hesabit]

We can afford to upgrade to compression 0 to 1, and consumption 1 to 2 if we find test subjects. how long would it take?

Click to shrink...

I'll let you upgrade compression 0 to 1 at the listed cost, but if you want to upgrade consumption 1 to 2 right away you'll have to take a penalty - the idea being you can't actually improve yourself on the fly and need the time to become more efficient. How does 3 people/creatures & 25 xp sound?

 

[mrttao]

but if you want to upgrade consumption 1 to 2 right away you'll have to take a penalty - the idea being you can't actually improve yourself on the fly and need the time to become more efficient. How does 3 people/creatures & 25 xp sound?

Click to shrink...

It sounds fine for on the fly, but how long would it take to do it the normal way? an hour? a day? a week?

 

[Hesabit]

It sounds fine for on the fly, but how long would it take to do it the normal way? an hour? a day? a week?

Click to shrink...

In the future we'll be doing things week by week with three action slots. Training would take up a slot, as would various other things. It's not entirely realistic, but it'll keep things street level for the foreseeable future which is probably the most enjoyable way to run things.

 

[mrttao]

In the future we'll be doing things week by week with three action slots. Training would take up a slot, as would various other things. It's not entirely realistic, but it'll keep things street level for the foreseeable future which is probably the most enjoyable way to run things.

Click to shrink...

Alright, thanks for clarifying.

Anyways, I have been rethinking the whole leviathan thing, with our rate of eating we will surely be discovered and also be at it for a really long time. so

[x] Get compression 1
[x] Start eating living humans

 

[Hesabit]

[x] Get compression 1
[x] Start eating living humans

Click to shrink...

You're kind of the only person here right now so I'm switching things up a little to streamline the process, going from QM to DM, kinda. What kind of people would you like Damien to consume?

[ ] The first people he comes across
[ ] The people fighting back against the aliens
[ ] The people not fighting back against the aliens
[ ] write-in

After that what then?

[ ] write-in

He'll gain a human form if he eats a live human, do you have a picture you'd like to submit?

[ ] write-in
[dice]7908[/dice]
[dice]7924[/dice]
[dice]7925[/dice]
[dice]7926[/dice]

 

[mrttao]

Alright, in that case.

[x] The first people he comes across
[x] Then hunt some aliens until the battle is over. then make yourself scarce.
[x] Creepy kid
I was looking for a good photo of a creepy looking kid and couldn't find one. So I would just go with a verbal description for now.

 

[john doe]

[x] The first people he comes across
[x] Then hunt some aliens until the battle is over. then make yourself scarce.

 

[subsider34]

[x] The first people he comes across
[x] Then hunt some aliens until the battle is over. then make yourself scarce