A P.E.R.+ is an unrealized sci-fi/fantasy series which currently exists solely in the creator's head and a few Google Docs.
The Known Multiverse is in shambles. Realities collide and die brutally by the trillions every day while the organization dedicated to preventing such things watches helplessly. Vengeful and selfish gods run rampant, sowing chaos as they see fit, no regards for the ants beneath them. A gigantic anarchist empire spreads across countless universes like a plague, assimilating boundless numbers of individuals - those who're able to survive each other. All the while, uncaring, all-powerful beings watch the near infinite devastation with mild interest.
Fortunately for one small band of mercenaries, that isn't their problem to fix. Assassinations, Protections, Extractions, Reconnaissance, and More Ltd (A.P.E.R.+) is only concerned with the next job to complete. Under the infallible leadership of one Rusty, this merry band go on their merry way each day, performing their clients' wishes with exceptional performance.
A.P.E.R.+ is a small but somewhat skilled band of mercenaries made up of Rusty, Vixa, Chlo, Kem, Gray, and Tragedy.note Although they stand low in the Grim Infinity's chaotic hierarchy, they've carved a somewhat comfortable living nonetheless. While the Dreadlords pull their strings and the Infinity expands ever further, this crew is content to stay in their shadows.
Unfortunately for them, the narrative has other plans, as their already unstable Multiverse slowly starts to break down even further.
Above Good and Evil: Rusty - along with most others - claims to adhere to this philosophy, viewing morality as a concept regulated for those lucky enough to have them. Swoo sees this as a poor excuse for evil actions. However, Rusty later admits that there are some things that even he won't do.
- Rusty murders an opponent's life partner in front of her just as she's about to grab an Artifact of Power. Rusty quickly dispatches her before she can go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and takes the artifact for himself. Rusty steps on her wrist as she bleeds out while trying to reach for her partner's body.
- Rusty himself gets this when he's stabbed through the heart by Lord Vale while trying to kill Orador. He apologizes to Swoo for his treatment of her as blood fills his lungs, and with no medical treatment available, soon dies.
All for Nothing: Orador seemingly succeeds in ripping a portal into our plane of fiction and confronts the terrified author. He destroyed the entire Known Multiverse to get to this, killing unfathomable and throwing away everything he accomplished and loved. Only for him to discover that the author was writing an erotic fanfic. Orador didn't escape the narrative, only escaped the Known Multiverse and into the Wider Multiverse.
All Men Are Perverts: Most people (who evolved Human-like reproduction) in the Grim Infinity see sex simply as a method of reproduction and/or gratification and thus have little restraint when voicing their desires and making sexual advances. The few exceptions are asexuals/aromantics - such as Rusty - and those who weren't programmed with such desires or never evolved sexual reproduction as we know it - such as Tragedy.
All Women Are Lustful: See All Men Are Perverts.
Artistic License – Gun Safety: Lamp Shaded. Rusty has a bad habit of swinging his guns around haphazardly when talking, even using them to point at people. Needless to say, for anyone not used to his mannerisms, this can be a bit distressing.
Author Appeal: There are a lot of powerful and unkind women throughout the series who have no qualms in hurting the people under them. Mafa in particular.
Back-to-Back Badasses: Rusty, after rescuing Swoo from yet another band of people that he pissed off some time ago, hands her her weapon and fights off the remaining vigilantes.
Badass in Distress: Rusty is kidnapped by a pair of people who's lives he ruined some time ago and is subjected to various tortures. Rusty is almost completely unfazed during most of the ordeal, having suffered far worse in the past, laughing as they torment him and never missing an opportunity to snark at them. The only time they get a satisfying reaction out of him is by forcing him to relive the time he was raped. Swoo eventually finds and rescues him, ruthlessly killing the kidnappers.
Bait-and-Switch: Lamp Shaded by Swoo on multiple occasions, assuming that a seemingly ominous-sounding thing is actually a subversion. It's usually not.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Orador stares into the camera multiple times, usually when referring to the audience, though he never goes as far as to directly address them.
Chivalrous Pervert: Swoo. Most of the time. After realizing her attraction to Rusty, Swoo starts making constant advances onto him, some less chivalrous than most. The two times she crosses the line is when she tries to spike Rusty's drink with a Love Potion, not fully understanding the implications of such an act, and second after getting drunk and attempting to actively force herself onto Rusty, who quickly shuts her down. Violently. Name dropped by her when reassuring Gray that she'd (ironically) never force herself onto Rusty while contemplating which sins are the worst to commit.
Cluster F-Bomb: Some characters, like Rusty and Swoo, have a particular affinity for this kind of explosive. Down Played by Rusty, who uses the term "burning" in place of "fucking," like most people in the show. Orador, in a jarring deviation from the behavior of other individuals with high status in society who almost never swear, Orador's sentences are riddled with swears.
Crapsack World: The Grim Infinity has spread across a significant portion of the Known Multiverse, leaving a trail of chaos in its wake. There are no laws other than the unspoken rule of "don't fuck with the Grim." Morals have long been thrown out the window in favor of survival and selfish desires. One can expect to die in any of an infinite number of ways at any moment, from a simple stabbing to annihilation of your very memory and being.
Dark and Troubled Past: Practically every character to some degree. Kem, Vixa, Swoo, Rusty. Oh, Rusty. Lamp Shaded by himself in fact.
Early-Bird Cameo: Swoo briefly appears during Rusty's fourth death during his Groundhogday Loop before she's officially introduced.
Even Evil Has Standards: For Rusty, it's rape and telling unnecessary lies. Murder, torture, genocide and the like, however? Fair game. Lampshaded by Rusty when Swoo confronts him over his nonsensical moral code.
- Orador has conquered countless universes, each with countless civilizations and brought them to ruin. Dreadlords and corporations run unrestricted, taking advantage of the people under them. He discarded the civilization that believed him to be their Messiah and committed terrible acts in his name for eons the moment their usefulness had run out, and completely annihilated the Known Multiverse. All so he could escape his layer of fiction - which he saw as nothing more than a Multiverse of slaves for our entertainment - and enter our own.
- Downplayed with Rusty. He suffered abuse from his parents and in-universe Double Standard Rape: Female on Male, brutally stabbed his rapist to death in self-defense, was grievously injured when the Grim Infinity invaded his dimension, and endured a long Trauma Conga Line afterwards. However, at 8,000 years old, the scars have mostly faded and he does what he does merely because he can.
Gray-and-Black Morality: Morals as we know them have no place in this Crapsack World. Everyone commits terrible deeds, the only difference being whether it's for survival or For the Evulz. Unless they're really, really lucky, those on the White spectrum don't last long.
Greater-Scope Villain: Lord Orador founded and leads the Grim Infinity, a powerful multiversal empire. His actions have created a hellhole for the crew and countless others to survive in in his quest for freedom from the narrative. However, he never interacts with or even knows of the existence of APER+ until the end of the series and they in turn rarely gave him any thought.
Groundhogday Loop: Rusty accidentally damages an unidentified artifact during a job which results in him and Gray being caught in a seemingly unbreakable time loop that resets upon either of their deaths. Due to Gray's regenerative immortality, this doesn't affect him, while Rusty undergoes Sanity Slippage as he dies over and over. He is eventually Driven to Suicide, which unsurprisingly doesn't fix things either. He is only rescued when the loop starts to break local reality, catching the attention of the Multiversal Anti-Paradox Agency, who wipes his memories of the loop and fixes reality.
Haunted Technology: Vale is a spindly android with a soul embedded into the metal.
- When questioned by a shocked Grim how he was able to circumvent the prophecy and destroy the Known Multiverse, Orador reminds them that all it said was that he would lead the Grim to glory, which he already did.
- Rusty decides to save Swoo before she can be sold into slavery by killing his client and her Evil Minions. Rusty points out that he only agreed to bring Swoo to her when accused of breaking the contract.
Mechanical Abomination: Parallel, one of the 12 Heirs to the Grim Infinity, is a massive supercomputer that dwarfs galaxies'.
Naïve Newcomer: Despite everything she's suffered since her dimension was invaded, Swoo remains confidant that she can make a difference for good. As the series goes on, her morals start to fray and it seems as if she'll become another victim of the system. By the end of the series, she comes to the realization that she can't change other people, but she can stay true to herself.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: See Alas, Poor Villain. Rusty's opponent is right next to the Artifact of Power. All she has to do is take it and kill Rusty. Instead, she attempts to physically attack him, giving him the opportunity to shoot her.
Older Than They Look: Rusty and Gray are roughly 8,000 and 300 years old respectively, despite looking like they're in their mid-20s. Rusty took a standard Longevity Treatment procedure and got lucky with survival while Gray was cursed by Death, Embodied to eternal life via Healing Factor, something that he does not appreciate.
Seven Deadly Sins: Each member of APER+ represents this concept and its detrimental effects.
- Vixa = Pride. Views herself as superior to organic life, usually inciting arguments.
- Rusty = Wrath. His first reaction when instigated is usually physical violence or even murder, no matter the offense.
- Chlo = Gluttony. Has a bad habit of devouring the dead, and constantly gets drunk, high, dazzled, or some combination of the three.
- Kem = Greed. Is only in it for the money, often leading to him bailing on a job if he thinks it's above his pay grade.
- Swoo = Lust. Obsessed with getting into Rusty's pants and, after having a talk with him about her unwanted advances, spreads her attention to other people.
- Gray = Envy. Constantly after Rusty's position as de-facto leader of the crew, and often gets in trouble while trying to prove himself.
- Tragedy = Sloth. Nine times out of ten, they'll never respond when you call them, preferring to stay in a dormant state. Usually leads to a lack of vital support during jobs.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Averted. PTSD is easily curable via removal/suppression of memories, or by rearranging the brain structure, ect., allowing Grim soldiers to fight and kill for millennia.
Supernatural Elite: Downplayed. Not a hard rule, but generally, the more powerful you are, the more influence you possess. Again, not a strict rule, as the most influencal Dreadlord merely possesses Mind Control, while some of her weaker (but still dangerous) fellow Dreadlords exert control over time and reality, while others have no special abilities at all.
The Antichrist: Orador is the prophesized individual who led the Grim species of his universe out of slavery and into glory. However, for everyone else, he's a multiversal conquerer who brings ruin wherever he goes.
The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The main plot point. Lord Orador, after coming to the realization that he exists in a fictional narrative, dedicates himself to escaping to our plane of fiction, no matter what he has to do to accomplish this.
Inverted in that that author gave himself a physical presence in the story that characters can interact with, usually causing Sanity Slippage as they realize that their entire existence is a lie.
To Serve Man: Many unclaimed corpses are dragged off or devoured in the streets by animals and desperate sapients.
- Chlo has an almost uncontrollable urge to brutally devour her victims, usually leaving a mess that can be a problem on stealth-based jobs.
Villain Protagonists: Between all the murder, destruction, torture, and other heinous deeds they're paid to commit, it's safe to say that APER+ are in no way good people. Even Swoo starts to stretch what she will and won't do after some time.
You're Insane!: Rusty slings this at Orador before he begins opening the portal to our plane of fiction.
