Ash 28th, 521
From far above, a bustling bolt squeezed out of its socket.
Clank
Clank-clank
Clunk-ker-plunk.
The gleaming spotlights of the excavation were marred by the ceaseless whirring of golems working slowly, methodically to extract the truths of an ancient time. The few white-haired elves who chatted busily with clipboards and maintained these creations were bannermen to House Lorraine.
Trodding footsteps hurtled through the tilted muddy arch of this fallen scrap heap known as Meridian. Jean peered up from where he sat, reading the Artificed runes of an old piece of metal. His eyes fell upon the creature that arrived within view.
"War Chariots have been sighted beyond the ridge," announced a breathless Valran, his musculature glistening beneath the silvery light, though his finer features were obscured by a dirty darkness. An Orkhan, from Couronne.
What could they hope to gain, riding to their deaths?
The Madness of the Badlands is a strange thing.
"I will deal with them personally. It is time they knew not to harry us," said Jean, popping the clasp upon his cloak and doffing his uniform piece by piece. "Begin your journey back; do not let them breach the perimeter. Trust in Valran Shaja, she will guide the defense force well."
"For Lady Lorraine," stated the man.
"For Lady Lorraine," Jean agreed.
No sooner had he finished the words before the Ork turned and began his plodding jog through the rippling puddle of highly flammable Wurmblood. Jean sighed, and retrieved his notebook, flipping to his notes upon Malformity. Slipping a clip upon the page, he stood and stared down upon the large font, and rolled his shoulders back.
What a lithe, weak body he had, Jean mused. At least, without the artform of Malformity inscribed upon his soul. Staring at that page, he drank in the details a version of his prior self had so methodically transcribed upon the page; blueprints to a form, a body, a beast, an amalgam of attributes and physiological characteristics bound together by Chimerism. A Daravinic Warform of his own design.
He began with the body of a Grakain, spilling out his Ether with a mere flex of his soul. The growth began, muscles rippling outward before he left that biological wheel to spin. Body crackling as flashes of pain cloyed at his mind, he ascended upwards and hunched forward upon twisted hind legs, snatching at the alterations as they progressed. The surface of his skin was smooth, black and glossy from an inch deep layer of viscous ink held to his form by one of his Quirks.
Chimerism was a series of fluid changes, and that left little time to hesitate. Adding to the amalgam, he yearned for the scales of the Pangolin, feeling them upon his body and even drawing them over the watery nodules pock-marking the Grakain base he was working from. Skin itching as the pores split apart and those arrow-head shaped scales began forming, he pulled them over his hide like a curtain, shortening them along the contours of his body to allow for a freedom of movement. Guiding his transformation, he shifted the spine to match his inherent Sil'Norai bipedalism, keeping the hips somewhat skewed inwards so he could remain upright with a forward slant. Holding his breath, elven vocal chords returned to his shifting body with a calculated imagining of their inherent structure and function guiding them to fruition.
Eyes opening wide, Jean called upon the Dove, and blinked twice with those raptoral eyes as his vision shifted to a strange hue contrasting certain materials over others. They peered down upon his hands, which were now cloven. Wrenching the transformation in another direction, they puffed out into large, thick paws clad with knife-like blades hidden in protective sheaths, feet mirroring the same adaptation. Each keratin claw glowered with the fiery heat of Enkindlement, but he wasn't done yet.
Mouth ablaze with tingling ache as he sculpted a tigrine jaw upon his form, he could feel his face filling out with the tigrine muzzle. Each heated tooth bore his Pyromancy, and as he exhaled his breath was like a steaming fog against the damp air of this place.
As the crest of Grakain began sprouting from his stocky, primal visage, he rolled his shoulders forward and flexed his spine, adapting the spinal configuration of a cheetah to possess its gait. Next, he drew forth the skin of an octopus over his scales, forming a thin layer of adaptive camouflage that adjusted his coloration to the point he seemed transparent from certain angles.
Skin sizzling with a tingling rash, Jean allowed his body to settle as the entropic energies coursing through his body took a toll upon his soul. It was a measured sacrifice; this form ensured success.
Hunched over, Jean stalked towards the mouth of the dig site, standing to peer back at the researchers who stared back with frozen gazes. Jean's eyes were glimmering like opals in the warm shadow, but he looked out towards the blistering sun, his translucent form disappearing like a ghost into the desert beyond.
"I did not know Lady Lorraine kept such horrors in her family," remarked one artificer to the other.
Beginning with a brisk jog across the wastes, Jean pointed his nose uphill towards the reddened ridge of earth his bannermen where encamped. His feet stretched for each foothold, grasping and sticking to the earth with the weight of thousands of pounds as his hinds found purchase in front of them, catapulting him forward up a rocky slope.
As he arrived, he found the men bunkered between the rocks, looking down the other end of the hill where black blobs moved across the desert, spewing earthen smoke behind them.
"He's friendly," urged a dark skin woman as someone unfamiliar with Jean grew startled at the sight of his mirrored form creeping up upon them.
"Status report, Shaja," rumbled the carefully sculpted weapon formerly known as Jean.
"Scouting party—they sent back someone to contact the main force. They'll be back by night," she said. "If I cede another one of these dig sites, I hate to think what Lady Lorraine may have in store for us when we return. Think you're enough to push them back?"
Jean's glimmering, bestial eyes leered. "I will ambush them upon this ridge. I want your men stationed on the southern side, so they don't snuff out those working at the excavation site. I've never seen an assault force of more than eight such machines roaming across these wastes; I can maybe handle that many Chariots." He squeezed his claws upon the earth, a hint of doubt in his mind cloying at him; what of those stricken by the Madness? He'd lost his own heart to the bite of a maddened one's axe.
Shaja breathed in and brushed her black hair back, puffing out her chest. "Yes, sir," she stated. As Zaldunire managing a small retinue of Halamveir, Lady Lorraine was her true master, but Jean was a member of her house; he might as well have been her superior out here in this blasted frontier, even without any Halamire rank to speak of. "You lot heard the Lorraine!" She beat her chest and gestured nonverbal commands until all five of the man-fodder jumped up and started down the hill, single file.
Turning his attention to the horizon, Jean's camouflaged face was a tiny smudge with little contrast against the dusky sky. Scrunching his body, he curled up and watched, taking on the color of the rocks around him. Staying as still as a predator in wait, he fell in line with the mind of a feline, watching intently for any new developments.
The scouts never left to scope out another area. As he thought, they wanted this ridge; they couldn't take over the site and its golems without dispatching the soldiers stationed here.
Moon sliding across the sky, Jean waited for hours, his breathing slow. As the night wore on, he Integrated the eyes of a tiger, his orbs becoming reflective and luminous. So as not to give away his position, he shifted behind the rocks and utilized his other senses instead; he'd probably feel and hear those noisy, grinding engines well before he needed his eyes.
Jean's ear-cup twitched at the first faint sound sometime into the night. He tensed, coiling his body beneath himself as the sound approached. One, two, three… four. Four Coursers. Five. Rolling his head, he envisioned their formation—they were riding up in a triangle, likely with the leader riding center line. Fell the leader, break subordinate confidence. But would they be Mad? Jean wouldn't take the chance.
Then, the engines stopped. Jean heard a commotion less than a hundred feet down the slopes. Not too long after, a flurry of flames streaked through the night sky, bottles smashing against the rocks in fiery bursts that licked at the stones. One bounced off Jean's scales, and he watched it with curiosity as the flaming liquid poured over his leg and left it ablaze. It stung, starting to eat away at the camouflage yet failing to make it through his flame resistant scales.
They're smart to think of an ambush, Jean remarked. I would have liked to have such men as Valran. It is a shame their lives will soon be wasted. Crouched behind the rock, he heard the distinct sounds of engines whining and paddles stirring the gravel as those chariots began their ascent.
When that first vehicle nosed its way over the ridge, Jean remained statue-still, the tension in his hind end building. Their formation had broken, and the mage had lost track of the who's who.
Vrrm! A second vehicle clambered in past the first, engine sputtering. Its rider held a rifle with a sawed-off barrel, a spear in the other hand. As he turned, his goggle-spectacled eyes began to see the outline of something against the rocks, but by then Jean's teeth were bleeding flame from behind his lips.
Without making a sound, Jean forced his feet into the ground and flipped to the side through the air, extending his rear paws into both bike and man. Extended claws gleaming with Shrivenflame, that bright orange light drew confused shouts from the Raiders. Thousands of pounds of weight sent the man flying, and he screamed as body and bike whistled through the air, a burning pile of machinery hurtling down the slope.
Click.
Bright lights more luminous than the sun itself blinded Jean's eyes as his paws hit the earth, the mage rushing back to the safety of the tall rocks. Angered shouting ensued, and the engines grew louder. Clack! A bullet crashed into the mage's shoulder before he could fully sidle up to cover, prompting a pained shudder; his scales took most of the force, but he could feel his flesh knotted and tangled just beneath. Above him, something burst, the deafening crunch of stone and rock showering over him and leaving his ears to ring.
Standing upon his hinds, Jean drew a spire of flame into his paw and hurled it within the same fluid motion. That angry, burning lance soared for the light, crashing into the vehicle with a violent screech of metal and wounded man. Another near to the blast lept from the back of the large chariot, abandoning his bombard as the Shrivenflame ate away at the explosives without setting them off.
Clawing forward, Jean jumped the gap towards the fire, landing atop the smoldering heap of burning metal. As a gun popped to his flank, he turned and fell upon the man, his paw landing upon the skull of a raider there upon the ground, slamming it back and crumpling it to a flat mess. Twisting on his heels, Jean tore up the dirt and chased down the one who was now tumbling down the slopes in fear. No athlete in this world with human legs could outrun Jean.
Rolling his neck, Jean skidded past the man, the huge crest upon his head slicing cleanly through bone and cartilage. The scent of blood became foully apparent as the Malformist reversed his momentum and started climbing back up the hill. He gave pause when he sighted a firing squad of four men and women gathered up above, their rifles lowered at him, shadowy forms backlit by the flame.
"Ya freak!" shouted a balding man with neon green hair, the gauges in his ears casting a shadow upon the rock face.
"Stay back, fucking mage!"
"I'll fucking kill you!"
Staying still, Jean shuddered as his body rippled with energy. Through conscious effort, he shored up the scales upon his front and head, Catabolizing them with rampant ether. As his body vibrated with an ache of near-Overstepping, he could feel the hot heat of his own crimson seeping from his nose onto the wastes below.
Rising, Jean thrust his body forwards as a firestorm of gunshots rang into the night. His paws stomped the earth, dragging it down with him as he sprinted up the slope. Their bullets dented his scales as they struck, another chipping at the crest upon his head. They were still trying to reload by the time he was upon them.
Pouncing the two in the center, he dashed them against the rocks as his weighty paws popped their sternums like grapes. Holding them to the rocks through their last moments as the blood sizzled away to the earth beneath him, he drew upon Emblem and fell forward onto the paralyzed third in that next moment, immolating him into a pyre of shriek-filled Shrivenflame.
Behind him, Jean could hear the last woman clambering back. She swore again, her hands too unsteady as Jean turned to face her. With one clean swipe, he batted away the musket and pressed his heavy paw to her neck, ink flowing freely across her cheeks with tell-tale heat. "Answer me this, and I may just take you back to Ciseperant to sell as a slave instead of burning you alive," Jean rasped from the meaty channel down his muscular throat.
"—Don't!" the woman pleaded.
"Whom do you serve?"
The tough woman was bone thin, her bug eyes searching for traps in the question. "I serve—I serve the baddest. Fuck it, I'll serve you. I serve you!" Squeezing his claws against her, Jean began applying pressure, those hot needles burning until she screamed her answers. "The cap'n's dead, and—and f-fuck! You killed all of us, man! We're a small crew!"
Jean lifted his paw off of her, and patted down her thighs, dextrous yet brutal claws disarming her of every knife and gadget. The woman seemed bewildered that something so huge cared for weapons, but Jean had a responsibility not to waste life if he could help it. Trained slaves could be effective servants, or at least suitable blood sport. Someone would want her, however crude and barbaric she might seem.
"I am taking you prisoner," he told her. "Surrender, and do not resist or you will immediately be in forfeiture of your life." Slipping a claw into her duster, he yanked her along the wastes and threw her up against the rocks, where she bore her teeth, wincing from the rough handling.
Taking a seat, Jean sat beside the flame with the wreckage all around him, keeping watch for more Raiders; he was sure he'd killed them all, but letting his guard down now seemed unwise. "Reinforcements will be here soon," he told her with a quaint toothy smile, his silvery camouflaged skin giving him an ethereal appearance, though he was pockmarked with dark red streaks where the thin layer had torn in places. "Was it your idea to blind me with the lights?" he asked. "They were... disorienting."
"That was Rubio, our engineer. He was the real brains, but you gottem there... he's ash for brains now." The woman grunted and pulled herself up against the rock, groaning. "We were just a bunch of rats in Shitport til not too long ago."
"Crime rarely pays a sum worth more than your life," Jean sighed. "Powerful people seek to protect their interests. What hope did you have? The value in all those Chariots could have bought a cushy start for each of you in any country. You Badlanders have such narrow horizons," muttered Jean.
"Why're you so chummy after you murked us all?" she grunted back.
Jean lifted his nose, blinking at her. "I just want to understand. I find myself in a position of difference to your kind; I may as well make conversation while I wait for my liege's Halamire to mete out justice. It is up to them, more than I, whether you will live or die. After all, they're the ones who will have to be your warden in the coming weeks until we are done here."
The woman rolled her head back, reaching up to grasp her shoulder and squeeze. "Aw, come on. That's—that's so unfair! You aren't gonna let 'em kill me, right?"
Jean shrugged. She would probably die. This whole charade was only procedure.
Soon enough, the battalion of Halamire arrived, led by the Valran who held her beret upon her breast. "Ulen's name, Jean! Did you do all this?" she breathed. "I'll never again make light of a Malformist in the pub." Poking her rifle into that crushed corpse, she turned it over before settling her sights on the prisoner. "Who's this little dove?" she asked.
"I'm not sure yet," said Jean, looking between them. "But she could be useful."
Shaja took one look at the woman and sucked in her cheeks. "I don't think we've got the supplies, Jean. We only have water for nine, plus emergency rations—it's policy not to fork those over unless the prisoner is of political importance. Is she important in some way?"
Jean shrugged, and the prisoner immediately started panicking.
"Wait, wah-wait, I'm important I swear!" she shouted. "I won't drink a drop; just let me go! I don't wanna die!"
"She could make a good slave. Is that reason enough?" Jean asked with a roll of his paw. His nose was still dripping, and he was sure his skin was festering with boils beneath the scales; assuming the Warform always left him vulnerable to Magithermal Entropy.
"Well, no…" said Shaja, staring at his leaking face.
"Well, then we have our answer." He looked to the prisoner with a cold expression and stepped forward. She started to scramble away and rise, but Jean stamped her back and broke her like a bug. She twitched with life, but the Shrivenflame bathing her proved to be a quicker mercy than a crumpled body, lungs whistling out their final pains.
Turning to Shaja, he looked over his bloody paw. "It always hurts to kill the savages when they don't want to die, and they're not fighting back. No matter how necessary it might be. A different kind of pain from the physical."
Shaja bit her lip, but she didn't dare offer a hint of compassion. Insinuating he might need help only brought her more risk. Such was the life of Daravinic nobility. "Let's get these Chariots broken down. Lady Lorraine will appreciate the Unbroken engines should any of them remain intact, I'm sure."
"Yes," said Jean with a quick nod as he stared off into space, playing over the events in his mind. Peering over the burning wreckage, he tore his gaze away. "They were just a small crew from Shitport," he mumbled to Shaja. "All of them were so young."
"They often are," she shrugged. "They should have known better than to plan a raid against the Empire."
