A Game of Gods: A Multiversal Challenge

"Space?" said Hahli. "We have flying machines... but we never go so high we hit the stars."

Craft had woken up with a great sadness inside, but shook it off as he walked outside. Seeing the other planets, he concentrated, and soon a planet with sizeable sections of its' surface covered in what appeared to be circuitry among other things appeared.◊

Pointing to one of the artificial looking sections, he spoke.

"That... is Neo Arcadia. The place I swore to protect, along with the Einherjar Eight Warriors."

Roach joined the group.

"We've gotten people into orbit, and as far as the Moon. But that's it."

"I see," Jorge crossed his arms. "My people have been traveling the stars for many years now. We've developed several colonies across the galaxy."

He raised a brow upon seeing the Mass Relay. "And...what is that?"

-Ships, hundreds of them, all bearing the insignia of the chamber, roar across the sky; the great horseshoe like shape of the Mass Relay appears in the distance, and several of the warships slingshot off into infinity with the use of it-

-Saren turns around, mandibles flared out slightly-

That, human, is one of the arms of empires. Without them, the Council I served would not exist. On the other hand...

-the mandible flare out a bit more, revealing fangs-

Neither I nor my family would have encountered your species.

edited 28th Oct '10 2:44:24 PM by Colonial1.1

"So it's sort of a scaled-up teleportation device? Does it run on the slingshot principle, or does it utilize a more direct variation of teleportation, as in tunneling through dimensions?" Gordon asked, watching the ships, fascinated.

"Let me guess; that's the FTL method your people uses to explore the galaxy." He smiled smugly, though his helmet concealed it. "We have no such objects, nor do we need them. Slipspace serves us well enough."

He then looked at Craft's planet. "Interesting...looks a bit like Ravage's world. What are those circuits?"

Ravage turned to Hahli with a smirk. "Well, my dear, you cannot hit the stars; they are immense, burning balls of gas and plasma floating countless billions of lightyears away. You could not touch them—not even get within a few hundred kilometres of one—without being incinerated by the excess heat."

The jaguar's smirk widened into a grin. "Or at least, you organics can't."

A thin ray of blindingly white energy lanced out from a point on Cybertron's dark side, streaking towards Palaven's sun.

"But we don't need to get close to a star in order to harvest its energy, as you can see; a solar needle accomplishes the job with little difficulty."

edited 28th Oct '10 2:43:43 PM by SullenFrog

Craft pointed at a red station floating high in "space", along with an absolutely massive tower.

"That is Ragnarok - the space station I was assigned to before I came here. The tower is an orbital elevator - we have many of these."

"Can the stars where you come from shoot lightning?" asked Hahli innocently to Ravage.

The sun of Palaven began to flicker and pulsate as the solar needle's ray continue to siphon energy from the star. Ravage was positively grinning with sheer malevolence.

"In a manner of speaking."

Then a large tongue of heat and electromagnetic force erupted from the star's photosphere and gently grazed the atmosphere of Palaven, igniting it in a planetwide firestorm.

edited 28th Oct '10 2:51:08 PM by SullenFrog

Hahli watched this happen in shock.

"You... you did this?" she asked in horror. "There weren't people living on there, were there?"

-The scenery abruptly changes; the sun is dim, and filling the space are hundreds of monstrous, cephalopodian shapes, destroying the ships seen earlier, burning the planet's surface; one begins to approach the chamber, like an immense metal hand-

I must return...

edited 28th Oct '10 2:54:51 PM by Colonial1.1

"Well, where I come from, we haven't actually traveled to other solar systems or anything like that yet. But we do go into space all the time, heck, I went into space plenty of times to make some cash cleaning up garbage."

He eyes the squid-like ship that was flying towards them.

"What the hell is that?"

Jeane was startled by Saren's display, and accidentally knocked a computer monitor down, which fell towards Gordon.

edited 28th Oct '10 2:55:05 PM by Liirian

Gordon stood up in an instant, the computer moniter narrowly missing him, and concentrated. He wasn't sure how it would function, but setting the world on fire probably wasn't a good idea.

He focused as hard as he could, and the flames dissipated. He didn't really think about what he was focusing on, however, and briefly, as the surroundings changed, he caught a glimpse of a thin man in a blue suit, holding a suitcase.

Then, they were all in a large chamber, with an all-too familiar device in the center.

Gordon's thoughts had traveled to Black Mesa, and they were now in the test chamber where, for Gordon, everything had gone to hell.

The window to the massive squid ship remained, however.

"What the hell is that?!"

edited 28th Oct '10 2:59:10 PM by AnnoR

Ravage was about to respond but trailed off when he saw the odd spacecraft. The jaguar frowned; they reminded him far too much of the insane and treacherous Quintessons for his tastes. Worse though, the closing Cephalopodian ship brought to mind the image of a colossal metal hand, far larger than any ship any species could hope to build, so vast that it defied imagination, descending from above to blot out the sun and crush entire continents flat, its shadow filled with pure evil...

Then the ship changed, and it was a colossal metal hand; the roof disappeared, and far above the terrifying figure of Unicron loomed over the horizon. Ravage dropped low to the ground, spitting and hissing at the bafflingly huge transformer in abject terror.

edited 28th Oct '10 3:01:50 PM by SullenFrog

-Saren puts his face in his hands; the view changes to that of the massive Citadel, the chamber changing into the Presidium tower top-

Well. Now you know what we "bastards" are afraid of. Are you happy now?

"That was way too many scenery changes in one go," said Gordon, looking out at their new location.

The rusty test chamber being suspended above a futuristic metropolis. That was weird enough.

edited 28th Oct '10 3:15:21 PM by AnnoR

A portal appeared in front of the group. Unlike the one that led to the ocean, which was blue and smelled of salt, this one was jet-black, tinged with orange. The smell of fresh earth and decaying leaves emanated through the room, as did a sudden drop in temperature. But what was most prominent (and unnerving, Hahli noted mentally to herself) about this new portal were the sounds- the crackling and rustling of dead leaves as someone- or something- howled and moaned, a half-heard wind whispering through the room.

After a moment's consideration, Hahli stepped towards it.

"Well," she said, "shall we enter?"

"Great, sounds just like Ravenholm. Exactly where I wanted to go," remarked Gordon as he regarded the portal.

"Whatever, we're not going to be any closer to finishing the challenge around here," with that, the orange-and-black clad physicist made his way through the portal.

edited 28th Oct '10 3:29:01 PM by AnnoR

Narumi gets up and walks to Hahli. "I think we should." Narumi said.

Still on-edge from the recent appearance of the Ultimate Evil that is Unicron, Ravage eyed the portal with apprehension. After a moment, the panther steeled his courage and stepped through.

"Here we go again..."

Roach stepped into the portal.

Hahli took a deep breath and stepped through the portal, hoping that, despite appearances, it wasn't going to be a trip straight to Karzahni.

The familiar blackness closed in on her once more...

Hahli plummeted through the darkness once more, before falling- rather undignified for an acrobatic Toa of Water- flat on her face, her head still light from the travels. She adjusted her mask, and took note of her surroundings as her vision cleared.

She was standing at the foot of a long cobblestone street. The houses were long and crooked; they cast dark and ominous shadows over everything. The sky was gray and cloudy; the sun a dull orange rather than the usual yellow. As she walked, she heard the consistent crunch of dead leaves crushed underfoot. Where was everyone else? she wondered to herself. She heard chatter, and laughter, and turned a corner to see who was there- hopefully it was her friends and allies.

Instead, what she saw made her fluids run cold.

The streets were populated by... well... things, were the only accurate way to describe them. Some of them were laughing and talking, for reasons only the Great Spirit knew. Some of them were humanoid in appearance, others looked as if they had been dreamt up by a particularily mad Makuta. None of them seem to note her presence; she wondered why and silently thanked Mata Nui- there was no way that she could take on that many beasts. Using her Kanohi powers to amplify her stealth, as to not disturb the hideous crowd, she crept away as fast as her legs would take her until she reached a large, gray, stone fountain, and knelt down in the water, feeling relieved as she basked in her element.

"Hello?" she called nervously, reaching up a hand to adjust her mask.

A black-armored hand.

With a sudden gasp, Hahli was on her feet, examining what had happened to her. Her armor had changed and warped as she had travelled here. Her normally green underarmor was now a dull gray, and her heavier armor was jet black, emblazoned with several skulls and spikes. She even took off her mask, briefly, and examined it; it had been mostly unchanged, save for a color swap and the fact that it now had several sets of spikes running up and down its sides. Her fins were thinner and more skeletal; they resembled the wings of a huge and hideous bat rather than the graceful fins of a Toa of Water. Even her tools had been transformed- her Cordak blaster was now rusty and decrepit looking, with an antiquated scope mounted on top, while her claw was longer, thinner, and more lethal-looking. She cautiously created a sphere of water, relieved to note that she still had her powers.

Still shaky from the shock of her transformation, she clambered up the walls of a nearby house, scanning for anyone else who had arrived via portal.

edited 28th Oct '10 3:42:00 PM by CrowT.Robot

Craft joined Hahli, and found himself in a rather different state than when he'd entered:

His cape, once a rich green gilded with yellow, was now a tattered, wretched thing mainly coloured black with orange gilding. Craft also noted the appearance of several massive gashes and holes in his body, though this did not impede his functioning at all. If he could have looked at himself, he would have noted that his face was an unearthly white colour.

Nevertheless, he dusted himself off.