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Post by Chromo on Nov 25, 2019 20:08:34 GMT -6
THE SHELL OF A CHILD
CHROMO'S PL: 170,000
Chromo didn't know how long he was frozen. The day started normally. He'd ran out to get some groceries for Tarch and his family, though they made him promise to pay for them this time. They finally had some Vanilla Cherry flavored Hetap in stock, too, so he was sure to buy several cartons of his brother's favorite flavor. He'd been anxiously waiting in line at the checkout when everything went wrong.
'Hey guys,'
Tarch's message had began innocent enough.
The beetle dropped the bags of soda, eyes growing wide. His heart felt like it'd iced over and dropped into his burning stomach. The child couldn't sense his friend's energy to begin with, but he could hear Tarch's life fade with one last dying whimper. '...No. No, no, n-no.' His mind echoed back, but there wasn't anybody to hear his thoughts anymore. "Kid, you're holding up the line." An agitated voice echoed from behind the trembling bug, but Chromo didn't hear it. In one swift motion, Chromo abandoned his bags of food before hurling through the window, running as fast as his legs could possibly carry him.
He fumbled in his flight, crashing into several lightposts as he rushed forwards still in a frenzy. It wasn't too late, it was never too late! Tarch taught him that. He was going to be okay- he had to be. He was Tarch! Nobody could hurt him! Nobody would kill him! In spite of everything he'd lost, he'd always have his brother.
Mount Paozu was scorched. Dark, somber clouds had already began to pool above. Chromo kept running, in spite of the rain whipping into his eyes and mixing his tears. There was an echo of thunder as the bug's battered heart finally shattered in two.
"...Tarch?"
There was no response.
Blood was everywhere. A deathly cut that had no right being in his best friend still oozed, taking with it whatever little energy remained from the corpse. "Tarch, t-that wasn't a funny joke..." He whimpered as he approached his unresponsive sibling. "Y-you can wake up now! I... I-- w-we can go tell your mom that you're okay! A-and..." Chromo pleaded, shaking Tarch's body again. "P-please-- Please, I don't-- I--I'm sorry!" Chromo begged to no-one, reaching under his wing. He barely held back sobs as he felt his hand skim against a note, still safely stored away. "I-I have one of t-those bean things you used to make people b-better! They make people better, right! You're gonna... Y-You're gonna get better! S-see? It's... g-gonna be okay..." He held the Senzu, poking it against Tarch's face. There was no response. And there was never going to be a response.
"B-Brother...?" Chromo's body convulsed with growing trembles. No amount of denial was going to change the fact that his brother was dead. Dead and gone to who knew who, and for who knew what horrible reason. "...I'm s-sorry." He pleaded again, even knowing that his words wouldn't change this. "I'm s-so so sorrrYY--" Maybe he could have saved him. Maybe he could have ran faster. Maybe he wouldn't be alone again. "It-- It's not your fault" Chromo croaked between his sobs. Tarch would never want to leave. He didn't want this. "I..."
"I... I-I-Igh... W-WAHAHAAAAAAAAAUuAUaUUUGHh--!!"
The floodgates finally opened.
Chromo cradled his dead brother's body close, sobbing into his bloodied jacket. He screamed, screeching in such pain that the thunderstorm's roar came second to his pained shrieks. "P-PLEASE," he cried one last time. "YOU A-AREN'T D-D-DEA--"
He raised his head and closed his eyes, screaming and crying to the heavens. Tear streamed down his cheeks, his whole face a feverish red, and he howled at the very top of his lungs. The screams pierced the skies, echoing a painful melody for miles around the desolated mountain. Chromo's body and shoulders wracked with every sob that forced its way out, chest rising and falling unevenly as he gasped for breath. He balling his claws into fists as he threw his head back to let out a blood curdling scream. The rain beat down harder as his cries lost all sense of coherency, devolved into agonized, unholy bawling.
Again, everything had been taken from him. What more did the universe want from him? "Why d-did it have to be you...?"
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Post by Desmond on Dec 3, 2019 4:20:51 GMT -6
|| Desmond's PL: 4,000 || Desmond has the Anti-Sense trait ||
It was a strange sense of foreboding for Desmond. He could have sworn he felt something was off. Just feelings foreign to his own glanced his consciousness, no specific words. Desmond was so caught off guard, suddenly feeling something not of his own volition, if only for the most brief of moments. It passed quickly, and Desmond went back to his work for a moment. Though, it didn’t take a genius to realize something was wrong however. Desmond noticed several people leaving Crop Co’s facilities with great haste to investigate something. There was talk of Mount Paozu? Maybe that was related to this odd sensation?
Surely not..?
So, Desmond continued working, still saddled with that uneasy feeling in the back of his mind. It got to a point where the man couldn’t take it anymore and he took a bite out of the proverbial pie of curiosity. Shortly after his co-workers returned to Central City, Desmond was already on his way out on his newly suped up bike. With it, he would swiftly and easily be able to reach Mount Paozu.
What Desmond saw, only caused him more worry. There was a catastrophic battle out there somewhere that marred many different quarters of the mountainous area. Since it was raining, he dismounted his bike and parked it safely at a (miraculously still standing) vehicle stop, figuring it would be best to investigate further on foot.
Trudging along, Desmond carefully examined the impacts of what had occurred in the area. Things looked sickly, any charred marks Desmond found on the land were generally unnatural. Local wildlife was either displaced, cowering away in fear, still fleeing or worse; dead from what he could tell. Desmond’s blood boiled, and his hair sizzled at the thought of who could be so reckless or heartless, rain that landed on or even near him evaporated almost immediately.
Desmond was suddenly wrenched away from this brewing rage and whiplashed right into incredible concern when he heard the all too familiar screeching cry of a small bug lad echo all throughout the mountains.
“Chromo..?” Without a moment to lose, Desmond broke into a full run, overwhelmed by urgency, he even made abnormally large leaps over the landscape. Eventually he rounded one last corner and was met with a scene worse than he could have imagined.
Chromo was cradling a body, losing his mind with sorrow. It wasn’t just any body, however— Desmond recognised the boy from that incident in West City. It was Tarch. “H-hey, Chromo?” Uneasy, Desmond began approaching, making no effort to hide himself. “Kiddo, it’s me, it’s Desmond— your uncle. I’m here for ya..” Desmond had no reason to think Chromo was responsible, for the little guy’s ‘brand’ of destruction was completely different from all of this. It was childish and sour— but this? Cold and calculated. “It isn’t good to stay out in the rain like this, yanno..?”
At first, he was going to say that Chromo had the chance of catching a cold or something else a concerned adult family member might say, but given the circumstances that didn’t feel appropriate. Desmond brought out an umbrella from a belt capsule and opened it, holding it above Chromo to protect him from the rain. “... At least, not without one’a these.”
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Post by Chromo on Dec 14, 2019 19:14:04 GMT -6
CHROMO'S PL: 170,000
Chromo closed his eyes. He saw nothing but red, bloodlust mingling with a sickly green. His despair only drove deeper by the second. When he found out who did this, they would wish he'd kill them as quickly as they did to Tarch. He would make them suffer as he and his brother had, and feel his pain a thousandfold. Chromo cracked open his eyes again. An emerald glow overtook his pupils, spreading from his eyelids in the form of eerily familiar green veins. He just wanted to live happily with his new family. Was that really too much to ask for? He opened his jaws again and cried to the heavens. The veins spread across his face, creeping slowly down his neck and torso.
When he heard his name, the beetle snapped his head around. Immeasurable sorrow filled his green eyes, but rage and pain boiled alongside his grief. For a moment he thought his brother's killer had come to rear their ugly head again and try to take him also, but... As his vision came to focus, Chromo's expression softened and devolved back to only sorrow at the sight of his last living blood-relative. "U... U-uncle D-D-Desmond?" Chromo whimpered. The veins contracted back into his body and his power lowered as some of his senses returned. He hugged his brother's corpse tighter as Desmond approached, guard raising instinctively.
He was about to hiss and scream at his uncle for lecturing him about the rain when his best friend was dead in his arms, but softened his gaze when the other bio-android took out an umbrella. Chromo whimpered and trembled, burying his face into Tarch's bloodied jacket. "W-whyyy...?" He spoke, though not to Desmond in particular. It was as if he was asking the cruel universe itself the question burning in his mind. "I-I was s-sor--sorry...! Why W-why does this... k-k-keep hh- h-happening?" He'd taken everything back from West City. He went to the ends of the earth to undo his mistakes and earn Tarch and Kohlra's forgiveness. A second family had been taken from him in spite of all of his efforts to redeem himself. "T-this wasn't s-supposed to..." He began to speak, but his voice devolved into incoherent chitters again. What was he supposed to do now?
Chromo's CUREBREAKER (x18/14T) briefly activates! PL is 3,060,000 ATK / 2,380,000 DEF
It soon fades and he drops to 1 PL with [UT1] Sugarcoat at the end of the post.
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Post by Desmond on Jan 11, 2020 8:45:26 GMT -6
|| Desmond's PL: 4,000 || Desmond has the Anti-Sense trait ||
It was not a sight that was easy to stomach for Desmond either. Things were only made worse when he saw Chromo begin to break down once again— in the same way he had during the West City incident. The young bio-android shrieked and deformed slightly before Desmond’s very eyes, but thankfully his voice seemed to snap Chromo out of it somewhat... Sure, the young one had the look of bloodlust and peerless fury— and for good reason overall— he still calmed, which was a welcome occurrence. A small victory within this horrible tragedy but a victory all the same.
“Yeah, Chromo. S’me.” Desmond slowly nodded as he approached. He made no move top wrench Chromo away from Tarch’s body, not because he couldn’t physically do it since Chromo was likely ludicrously strong, but because Chromo needed time for grief. He was owed at least that.
Desmond stood tall, an immovable protective golem that not even the heavens could deter from his current duty; consoling his own only living family member. In some ways it was them against the world, without parents, without siblings. Why did these horrible things happen? Why did they keep happening to people that make action to better themselves and grow as people? There was only one reason.
“This sort of thing happens, because some people are awful, heartless and cruel.” Desmond spoke bluntly. “They take and take and take, giving nothing in return. They are nothing but miserable savages.” At this point, even Desmond could not contain some of his rage. The nodes on his body pulsated, turning a greenish-red, as did the green in his hair when it began to sizzle. “Those sorts of people are not like you or I.” A few seconds passed, and Desmond simmered down. “We have something they do not. We have love for so much more beyond just ourselves.” He looked to Tarch. “Friends.” To Chromo. “Family.” then to the rumbling sky. “Our home. Those things which are truly worth fighting for, to protect with every fibre of our being.”
Desmond sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “You are stronger than them, not only in raw power.” He said, kneeling down to be closer to Chromo, to properly look the little bug in the eyes, should he make eye contact. “But in your heart as well. Your feelings are valid, and you are under pressure nobody should endure— but this time— this time, I’m here to save you from drowning in that sea of sorrow.”
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CHROMO - THE BEST BUG
