Fx Any A light in the darkness - Long term Novella RP's

Anarchia · Jul 14, 2024

Anarchia
A thread In which I make myself known

I am Anarchia, I tend to appreciate more story-focused RP's as I don't find smut very interesting without a certain level of tension between characters, that said I am very passionate about smut when the story gets there, but it does indeed have to get there first which is why this request sits within non-sexual requests, but please don't take it as smut not been involved at all, it may just take a while.

The best way to get to know my writing style is just to read the writing samples at the bottom of this thread!

Don't feel compelled to read everything, I do tend to lose myself in my writing on occasion, feel free to skip to the parts you're interested in, Writing samples and plots are way at the bottom so just skip down to them if you wish.

What I am seeking What I would care to avoid

- Long-form story-focused RP's/novellas (Roughly 80/20 Story/Smut) with fairly dark and bleak themes set in less-than-appealing universes and settings, lots of corruption, violence, intrigue, abuse, etc.
- 3rd person perspective, multi-paragraph responses (600 - 1000+ words). PMs only.
- I aim to always respond two times a week if possible, although real life can sometimes get in the way of that, I'll let you know in advance if anything is delayed
- Although I play female characters I am happy to play the role of a GM at times and add other characters to interact with to drive the plot along.
- I'm always happy to negotiate and compromise with my partner to make sure we're both happy except for some limits listed further down.
My work can tend to become busy at certain times of the year, if this happens I'll endeavor let you know in advance that posts will take longer to come through to you, although they'll rarely stop completely – If it's been a few days and you're wondering where I am, give me a poke!

I'm always up for compromising and discussing my partner's needs and wants as everyone should be happy on both sides of the relationship, none of my wants are carved in stone so I'm always happy to be accommodating to your needs to an extent.
Although I am fairly open to most things there are a few hard rules I have.
No underage characters in any part of the RP, I feel this is fairly obvious for Blue Moon but I'm restating it here.

I prefer my partners to be aged 21+

I tend to avoid real face claims/references - I prefer a more painterly style if that makes sense - I'm not completely opposed to real-life face claims but I prefer to keep them to a minimum.

If I haven't made it clear yet, please no pure smut RPs/proposals! There can only be so many pages of "They fucked" before it gets repetitive.

Universes and Genres
To draw inspiration from

These are not the only genres I'm interested in, but I feel they reflect the type of setting I'm after the most, if something is not listed here and you want to pitch the idea, let me know in PM's, I will probably hold at least some interest for your ideas as well!

Warhammer 40,000: There is no peace amongst the stars...

I absolutely adore Warhammer 40k! I got back into it during covid, specifically, I started reading almost a book a month and was completely entranced. The universe is filled with flawed, damaged people that are trying to do their best with what they've been given in life, if you ever want to make me happy, anything in 40k I would absolutely love!

The life of an average imperial citizen and worker is the perfect place for RP to flourish as well as the myriad of human and xenos organizations. Millions of planets reside within the Imperium of Man's borders, each as unique as the next, from crushingly claustrophobic hive cities where the average person will never see their planet's nearest star, or any star for that matter to the feudal worlds where it appears closer to fantasy than sci-fi, there's so much room for opportunity and growth in the universe, and lore-wise is probably one of the most expansive universes. I know many people are unfamiliar with 40k so I would be happy to do a lot of the world-building and GM for the story if it helps people settle in!
Cyberpunk: High Tech, Low life.

I adore the darker aspects of Cyberpunk, some would argue we're already living it without all the high tech that was promised, much like most of the setting I enjoy, it's about flawed, trauma ridden and usually dangerous people trying to carve out their plaace in the world against a myriad of mega-corporations that despite them for having the audacity to not lie down and live in the class they were born in. I especially love 70/80's cyberpunk from authors like Gibson (Neuromancer specifically! My favourite book!) as well as Bladerunner. Really any form of cyberpunk I would love to do an RP in!
Sci-Fi: The Final Frontier...

I do have a huge soft spot in my heart of everything Sci-fi, I've been fascinated by astronomy and sci-fi media since I was a kid, just something about space been the final frontier is amazing and has limitless possibilities for stories and RPs. I tend to lean towards more 'hard' sci-fi elements, specifically The Expanse, Alien and Altered Carbon (Perhaps that last one is more Cyberpunk then Sci-fi… but I'm putting it here!) Not that we have to do an RP specifically set in those universes/settings but it gives a good idea what I'm after. That being said I'm also a big fan of Star Wars and Trek which is a bit on the softer Sci-fi side!
Victorian: Cobblestone, Industry, and suffering.
This one is kind of new to me and I'm super up for mixing it with other settings (40k/Fantasy/Sci-fi) so I recently replayed Dishonored 1/2 and once again found myself in love with the world design, the characters, and the story. I found myself longing to do an RP set within the universe, which is mostly themed around Victorian culture/architecture with a few high-tech/modern technologies added in (Forcefields powered by whale fat, mechanical striders, very cool additions that somehow seem to all blend perfectly!) So I know it's quite niche but I would love to do some RP in a Victorian-themed world with lots of intrigue, deception, a rigid class system, all kinds of lovely themes to explore!
Dark Fantasy: The end times have already come...

I've always been fascinated with fantasy in the past and I'm currently quite excited about the idea of an RP set within a dark fantasy universe where every day is a struggle to survive, perhaps monsters roam the woods, picking the unfortunate soul off every so often, or the land is ruled by some kind of evil with 'good' and 'purity' been destroyed long ago, turning normal people against each other and forced into doing terrible things just to survive. When I think of dark fantasy Castlevania springs to mind (the animated series, I don't know much about the games) As well as things like Dark Souls/Elden Ring to an extent.

I've also recently been reading the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, although I would fully call it 'Dark Fantasy' the setting is pretty grim, with slavery being ever-present and the entire world covered in an endless hail of ash that makes daily life difficult at best and unsurvivable at worse, with the land ruled over by a malicious dictator, If you ever have time I'd recommend giving his work a read! It's all under the 'Cosmere' universe.
Horror: The abyss returns even the boldest gaze.
I guess this is more of a theme than an actual setting, so this could probably be worked into any of the above settings, or an entirely horror-themed RP is always welcome! My favorite kind of horror is psychological horror, the kind of sustained menace where although there isn't an actual physical threat much of the time, there's this constant, overarching sense of dread that could drive a person into a spiral of despair if they're not careful, as a reference I've always loved John Carpenters The Thing, where yes there is a monster hunting the team but there's also this element of no one trusting each other, of having this horror that anybody could be out to get you and that sense of paranoia creeps in. I've also always loved Lovecraft's work and Eldritch horror in general, incomprehensible monsters, or monsters that our characters would have no chance of beating would be great, so we're forced to evade or flee from them.

Plots
To start our adventures with

These are some plots that I would like to explore with a partner, as you read through them you might find they're more akin to the beginnings of a book or short story, and the characters are left deliberately vague or left out - I would like our characters to be able to mesh together or conflict depending on what type of RP we're going for so I hope that these plots can give you some inspiration for what character you would like to play, I have my ideas for how each story will progress and what characters we could potentially play as, so please reach out if you're inspired by any of these!

The Maze Undue - Victorian/Gothic: Within the once mighty city of Queen Mab, now weary and exhausted from years of war, is a grand conspiracy that threatens the Imperium at large.
Within the deteriorating city lies the Maze Undue, an unremarkable building that lay at the top of Highgate Hill, much like the rest of the city in which it resided, it was in desperate need of repair, drafts hurried through its corridors, floorboards squealed under the weight of its residents and the occasional roof tile would come down and shatter on the cobblestone street below, but this appearance was, like the role of many of the inhabitants inside, an illusion, for the Maze Undue was an unremarkable school for remarkable people.

To earn a place in the Maze Undue one needed to be selected from the Scholam Orbus, a neighboring school as well as a home for orphans, outcasts, and the unwanted. Almost all of those plucked from the Scholam are soulless, this is not an insult to those chosen, merely an observation that almost all those who come to study at the Maze Undue are what are referred to as 'Blanks'.

Those who trained in the Maze undue are molded to be infiltrators and illusionists, they carry out what are referred to as 'functions' these can be simple tasks but all include a level of manipulation and disguise on their part, it could be as simple as entering a merchant's house at night and learning the code to their lockbox. Some can be more intricate such as taking on the role of a waiter(ress) for one of the city's dukes and learning the pet name he bestowed upon one of his many mistresses.

Almost all of these functions are practice for the initiates, a 'game' they play to sharpen their skills and make them ready for work in the Inquisition, of course other schooling is perfected at the Maze, all skills you would expect of an infiltrator: History, language, Etiquette, Swordplay, Tracking, Hunting. The list goes on and on… Or well… It used to.

….Until the Maze Undue was razed to the ground and its Blanks scattered into the city.

This plot is heavily inspired by Dan Abnett's 'Pariah' and 'Penitent' books set in the Warhammer 40k universe but in all honestly, you don't need to know much about the universe, the plot is purely set in one city and I have ideas for a few directions we could go with it, whether we want to be part of the 'blanks' that have fled the Maze Undue or even before it's destruction, on the flip side we can be the ones who brought it all crashing down.
The Termpernus Ring - Dark Fantasy: Between the lands of two kingdoms, an isle by the name of the 'Tempernus Ring' sits within a cloud of fog. home to an order of healers that can soothe the wounds of the body and soul alike.

The island was once a lone mountain, surrounded by 7 siblings on all sides. Now it is one massive structure, houses ring the mountain to its very peak where the monastery of the order of The First Flame sits upon the rest of the city. For centuries life went on uninterrupted, the sick would flow to the island and the rehabilitated would leave, the politics and war of the world were forgotten here and although storms continually battered and tested the resolve of its residents, it was ultimately a place of calm and respite, or so it once was.

In recent weeks the ships returning from the Tempernus Ring have become few and far between, and the ships loaded with supplies embarking to journey to it have not returned. Myths and rumors are rising from the coastal cities that darkness has overcome the Isle, that its rulers consort with dark whispers in their minds, and that monsters pluck people from their homes in the night and drag them into the darkness of the lesser mountains, others blame roaming privateers silencing any ships that they raid, the rumors go on and there are perpetually more been spun upon the lips of superstitious sailors but the kingdom's of the land grow tired of the spreading falsehoods and myths surrounding the sudden disappearances.

A small fleet of ships has been dispatched to discover the source of the unrest of the isle and put an end to the rising unrest, These ships are made up of some of the most diverse crews one could imagine, sell-swords share their ships with so-called 'sorcerers' that believe the evil is of the arcane nature, others such as geologists and those school in the ways of predicting the weather dismiss the superstitious all together, blaming the disappearances on shifting tides and particularity bad storms in the past year.

Whatever the cause, life on the Tempernus ring continues to grow bleaker and the paranoia of the residents heightened, only to be more exasperated when the hordes of investigators disembark at the docks looking for shelter from the torrential rain that the ever-growing storms bring to the accursed island.
New Albion - Cyberpunk: It is the year 2116, if there was a term coined to refer to this century, it would be Corporatocracy, all governments are either run by or in the pocket of, global mega-corporations. The majority of humanity lives and sleeps under the command of one corporation or another, either directly or indirectly, private ownership by citizens is not outlawed necessarily, but in all practical terms, it may as well be. Corporations own almost all housing, all land and all trade goes through them, their control is, for all intents and purposes absolute, only threatened by other mega-corporations through proxy wars that displace millions of innocents every passing year.

The poverty and wealth disparity led to riots, protests, and general unrest that persists to this day, but real change is yet to even be put in motion, with every passing day more power falls to the Chief Executive Officers of the world, although there are more akin to despots in the modern day. All of Earth's resources have now been discovered and scheduled for exploitation, although more than enough to satisfy humanity, corporations have begun to look to the stars for further profits, and the planets, moons, and asteroid fields of the Sol System are now greedily eyed by their ambitions.

Within Earth's moon's geostationary orbit is a satellite of bizarre and impossible proportions, a massive spherical shape with structures and spines splitting off from its equator, from a distance it was as though the moon has its moon, a metallic structure floating in the void, large enough to house a small countries population in its entirety, this was New Albion, home to Earth's upper class that had finally launched themselves from the planet after the famines of 2096 and the chaos that followed, this is as close to a utopia as humanity has gotten thus far, they want for nothing.

Though most of Earth's population barely believes New Albion exists, let alone what it looks like. Although one is assured in her knowledge it exists, a Netrunner simply by the name of W'ren' that works out of what used to be Chiba, although most locals simply refer to the east of Japan as 'The sprawl ' in recent times, an endless cityscape which covers much of Japan's eastern coastline. Wren had made her living off of digital bank heists and brokering information to the criminal syndicates in the sprawl, until she came across what she believed was just a myth, within sub-folder upon sub-folder of a miscellaneous server that belonged to the United Aerospace Engineering corporation the original plans for New Albion, displayed in excruciating detail, definitive proof that the orbital station was indeed real, and a refuge for the rich and powerful.

Now Wren seeks passage to New Albion, to escape the decaying and tainted atmosphere of Earth to make her way to this Utopia sitting within the orbit of Luna, the dream is ridiculous as passage to any satellite was reserved for those with deep enough pockets or widespread influence, Although with the right team of Netrunners, Deckers and Point men, as well as the occasional philanthropist, It might just be possible...

Writing Samples
To give you a small preview~

DC Detective RP: "Oh…"

The sound involuntarily left her lips as she stared down at the blood coating her fingers and trickling into her palm, something had shot past her moments earlier before she felt something dripping down her neck.... The pain came next, sharp and burning down her body before she noticed that her ears were ringing, all of this had happened in less than a second, and only then did she realize she was in shock.

She was on her way home…
It was just meant to be a noise disturbance.

'Well, that's new…'

"Cait! You're still here?" Caitlyn's eyes had been fixed on the raindrops trickling down her window and the cityscape beyond before the voice broke her train of thought, her gaze moved to Anderson lingering in her door like a stray puppy. She seemed to eye him for a moment before she lifted her legs from her desk and sat up, waving him in as she scurried papers away into her drawers and closed her notebooks with a polite smile... "Yea... I was just uhm... Working a theory." She stood from her chair with a yawn before she began packing her things away into her backpack, when she had first started her investigation into the Joker and his partner in crime she had left her work in her office, locked away in filing cabinets but after the leaks.... Her reports, her evidence, the case that she was building against Joker and all of those under him... The worst part was her name... Suddenly she was on the face of every newspaper in the city, well... in the back pages, but still... It was a complete nightmare... Now Joker had a name and a face to point to when his plans were foiled when her informants provided her with the dates and times of his next heists, bomb threats, or some other ridiculous scheme.

That was months ago now, although the paranoia had never left her, which raised the question of why Detective Anderson was here, standing in her doorway with that smirk on his face, she had told herself the last few weeks he was just looking for an excuse to ask her out... but now, as he took a seat on the opposite side of her desk, she found herself glaring at him... "So anyway... I was wondering, if you were headed out, you want to go get some dinner? Then I was thinking we could go see a play afterward if you want and- Are you alright Cait?" Her eyes glared at him for a few moments more before she realized he had stopped talking, her mind had strayed to a newly formed conspiracy, had Anderson really been compromised or was it just her paranoia? Why else would he be stopping into her office at 8pm on a Thursday, was he hoping that she had already left? or was this date a way to get her out of her office? She realized she had to say something, for now, she dismissed her paranoia as she bundled the last of her papers into her backpack... "Oh, nothing! You know... Just this Joker case has been really... busy... and stressful, especially having to answer all these reporters the other day... Oh and don't get me started on the fundraiser last week! M... Maybe another night, Matt!"

The fundraiser was one of Caitlyn's more surreal experiences in her policing career, when the Commissioner had asked her to represent the force she was taken off guard, and she remembered asking Gordon why he wanted her there, why not any of her seniors... "You're one of the few that refuses to take any money on the side, I'm sure you've noticed it too... At least if you're there I know I can trust you to make sure that money goes to the right place..." She couldn't deny the commissioner's claims, bribery and corruption were widespread in the force and she had already received multiple threats in her career for refusing to take them herself, it just came with the territory that was Gotham.

Punk music was blasting over her radio so loud as she sat in the traffic of downtown Gotham, that she barely heard her police radio reporting a disturbance at Gotham University, although her ears perked up as she heard the reports of a noise complaint, cranking her music down to a soft thudding before she grabbed at her radio and spoke up. "This is Detective Ryza... I'm a few blocks away, I'll go check it out."

They knew she would respond to the call...
She always did if she was close...
It was just meant to be a noise disturbance...

She pulled into the university's parking lot a few minutes later, she noted how the sun had finally set as she climbed out of her car, taking a moment to glance around the mostly empty courtyard, there were a few old, aging cars that students normally drove, as well as a couple of vans in the corner of the car park away from the rest and in her ever tiring state she simply wrote them off as work vans owned by the university's staff... she patted herself down after locking the car, checking that she hadn't forgotten her keys, wallet, badge... or the gun holstered underneath her faux leather coat.

It happened as she made her way up one of the side steps that led toward the university's front entrance, her ears had perked up to the sound of boots stamping against the asphalt behind her.

Time stretched into eternity...

'That... is new.'

She repeated the words in her mind as she finally came back to herself, she wasn't exactly sure what had happened between climbing the steps, the blood on her hands... and the stumbling forward before the ultimate fall moments later, but she knew she had hit the floor at some point, tripping up the stairs before the back of her head impacted the concrete and caused her to have the most agonizing headache of her life. By the time she had come back to her senses, she recognized 3 figures standing at the bottom of the stairs, her at the top. Her mind went into overdrive, she realized she had been pushed after... whatever that was that whipped past her head, and that caused her to tumble head over heels and smack the back of her skull as she landed, she now lay on her back facing them, blood running down her neck and dripping from her newly forming concussion, her vision swam and she wanted to be sick right there from the head trauma, instead she let out a low groan of pain as her hand moved inside her jacket.

Her eyes traced up the three men, they all wore the same masks, all adorned with red and blue... Clown masks. when her gaze reached halfway down the men her eyes widened, the one in the middle was struggling with a pistol, it was a Glock, similar to those most officers of the police department used and its slide was jammed backward, as though a round had become trapped in the breach in an awkward position, at the tip of its barrel a massive silencer had been added and then it all suddenly clicked in her head, they were here for her. She gawked at them in disbelief before the man on the left looked up and glared at her "Come on Greg! She's still fucking awake, fix that shit!" he looked to the other men he was staring dumbly at his friend with the handgun, poking at the chamber as he spoke "Uhhh... Greg, I think you gotta take the magazine out and the stuck round..." 'Greg' Raised his head to look between the two, who were both holding weapons of their own, a bat and a machete respectively. "Well stop staring at me and do it yourselves, you idiots!"

Caitlyn wasn't quite sure what happened next, her body acted on instincts she thought she had lost when she moved to her Detective position. Her right hand found the holster under her jacket before unclipping the cover, her fingers curled around the grip of her beretta moments before the man with the machete went to bring his blade stabbing down at her chest, the barrel of her gun found its target first, and 3 shots rang out moments later before the man staggered backward and fell to the floor with a dull *thud* while his machete clattered along the floor across the concrete... His companions had, different reactions to this with 'Greg' looking down at his co-conspirator bleeding out on the floor. "FUCK... F-Fuck this!" he cried out as he ran off back towards the direction of the car park with the gun in hand. The other cried out in a primal rage as he brought the bat down onto her, Cait tried to roll away but the action just made her vision spin more and the urge to vomit more intense... she stopped halfway when his bat collided with her side, the sick sound of cracking ribs could be heard as a cry of agony escaped her parted lips before she pulled her pistol up again and blindly shot at the sky, an awful amount of blood splattered onto her as the bullet impacted his jaw and left a gruesome exit wound in the back of his head, the force of the impact was enough to split the mask covering his face... Another face that would be burnt into her mind as he fell forwards onto the detective in a crumpled heap.

With quite a large amount of effort, she pushed the lifeless corpse from her, blood still oozing from his caved-in jaw onto her shirt and tie under her jacket. She struggled to her feet before she began to make her way back to the car park, in her sleep-deprived state she had forgotten one of the most important tools... her radio, sat in the passenger seat of her car. Cait had made it halfway back to her car before she heard the sounds of van doors sliding open, with a heavy sigh she raised her head as she looked over to the other side of the car park just in time to witness four more clown-masked goons dive out.

"Fuck me..."

Her pained walk broke into a sprint as machine gun and pistol fire opened up on her, along with the sounds of manic laughter echoing across the car park... The detective managed to make a dive for her car, adding a fresh bruise to her shoulder as she impacted the ground and dragged herself towards the passenger door. She hooked her trembling fingers into the handle before yanking the passenger door wide open, grabbing at her radio just in time to have her windscreen shatter inwards from the hail of bullets, covering her in shards of glass before she pressed her back against the car, she took a moment to calm herself as a soft whimper of terror escaped her. This wasn't her first firefight, one doesn't wait long for their first taste of shooting in the GCPD, but she was fully aware of her situation, her vision was swimming, and her neck had been shot... or at least skimmed by a bullet, she supposed if it had made full contact she would've been dead already.

After taking a brief moment to calm herself, she slammed down the transmit button on her radio, resisting the urge to scream her cry for help down the frequencies. "Code 33! Code 30! 10-71 at Gotham University, officer needs assistance! Shots Fired!" she made sure to double-check check she had actually pressed down on the transmit button before tossing her radio to the ground and moving both hands to her beretta, her radio squawking a reply she didn't catch, all she knew was that backup should be on it's way, 'should' been the keyword there. She couldn't believe this, she knew that she had pissed a few people off at the police station for refusing bribes, and she knew that investigating the Joker was dangerous, maybe some of her intel and investigating had given the maniac pause for thought... but she never, NEVER thought she was important enough to be killed off in some abandoned car park, and this wasn't some threat, this was now seven of Joker's minions that she had spotted so far, Caitlyn was someone Joker wanted erasing, and she couldn't believe it herself.

Unbeknownst to her, GCPD wasn't the only ones responding to her call, although for now, she thought she was on her own. The detective took a moment to brace herself, her entire body tensed up to cease the incessant trembling in her hands and arms, she held her pistol close to her chest as she slowly edged her way up the car, the gunshots had died down now as the masked men approached, her eyes peaked at them through the rear windows of the car. Four of them - Two armed with sub-machine guns, two with pistols... two were closing in faster then the others, who seemed reluctant to push her.

She made her way to the hood of the car before suddenly raising her gun and firing off a couple of the shots at the two closest, although her bullets whizzed past and left them unharmed, the couple dived to the floor and screamed obscenities as the group returned fire, pelting her car with round after round. She pressed her back against the car once more as she thumbed the magazine release and let the empty mag fall to the floor before she loaded another one, it took her a few tries to align the two together before she slammed the magazine in and pulled the slide backward to chamber another round.

The concussion was setting in now, she wondered to herself how long she could keep this up before backup arrived, IF backup arrived... she still didn't know whether the GCPD was in on this... It would've been a perfect murder, all of her files on the Joker investigation were currently sitting in the back seat of her car, and her entire investigation would be wiped out overnight, all for the price of one Gotham Police Detective.
Caitlyn didn't seem content on waiting for her death to come to her, she raised herself to peek through the windows once more before she saw the two closest to her get back up. As they were recovering she lifted herself upwards again, and took a moment to aim which seemed like an eternity before she squeezed the trigger and ducked back down, pressing her side up against the car again.... it was only then she acknowledged the screams of pain emitting from the man she must have hit, it sounded as though he was gurgling on something, it was a grotesque sound as his screams slowly gave way to the sounds of a someone drowning on their own blood and viscera, another topic for this weeks therapy session at the station...

It was at this point that Caitlyn's pistol fell onto her lap, hands still trying to grip at it desperately until her left finally gave up and moved to cover the wound at her neck, she wasn't aware of how much blood she had lost so far, but between that and the concussion and the broken ribs at her side she was struggling to focus, struggling to keep her eyes open... Her brain was screaming at her, flooding her blood with adrenaline and endorphins to subdue her pain temporarily, it kept her awake but she stayed down... her head lolled back to press against the side of the car as she looked at the cloud-covered sky.

"It would have been nice to see the stars..."

Caitlyn sat there for a moment that seemed to stretch into minutes, in reality, it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds as she heard another van screeching into the car park... There were no sirens, That wasn't back up... That was her end. Her mind raced with terror as she waited for a masked clown to round the corner of her car as she shifted herself towards the hood, her breathing quickened and sweat ran down her face to mix with the blood at her neck.... She fired a couple of shots off at the van that had just pulled up to the car park and managed to hit the driver center mass, who collapsed against the wheel moments later, an eternal honking now emitting from the van and joining the cacophony of gunshots and shouts as more thugs rolled up.

when a darkened figure crossed her vision, for a moment she thought it was a hallucination of her oxygen-starved brain from the blood loss, but then she heard the sounds of ribs cracking and the sounds of a struggle, someone was backing her up, and she forced herself to her feet once more, raising herself just enough to witness Batgirl diving on top of one of her assailants before throwing punches at him, pummeling him into unconsciousness before flipping him to his side so he wouldn't drown on his own blood, a mercy Caitlyn wouldn't have shown in the chaos of a gunfight.

Before she realized it Batgirl was beside her, slumped down the side of the hood against the wheel, close enough for their shoulders to almost touch, she opened her mouth to speak before Batgirl barked an order at her to run... She was taken back for a moment as she looked away and reloaded her beretta, she mockingly glanced back at bat girl and retorted "What? And let the bats have all the fun?" she said with a smirk on her face before she went to stand again, now invigorated by the fact that she was fighting beside THE BATGIRL, she fired off a couple of shots, forcing the remaining thugs to keep their heads down before Batgirl threw out her smoke bombs..

Caitlyn stayed standing now as she kept her beretta raised, her eyes squinted as she caught small glimpses of Batgirl taking down the four thugs on the other side of the car, she moved away from the car and rounded the hood and as she saw the fourth thug begin to flee the scene she raised her pistol, aiming it squarely at his head before her finger pressed against the trigger. In her adrenaline-fueled rage she almost fired, almost took the life of a fleeing man... she hesitated before she lowered her aim to his legs and squeezed, a bullet struck him straight through his thigh and left a gory exit wound, a cry of pain followed before he fell to the floor in a heap, screaming for help and his mother.

Caitlyn pursued the fourth man, the only one left not knocked out or dead and when she finally caught up to the man squirming in agony, she moved to kick his gun away, bringing her pistol up to him at his chest before she began to read him his rights. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be use-" She stopped as she heard the struggle behind her at the van before she heard Batgirl's pained, furious voice. "Where is he!? TELL ME WHERE HE IS! TELL ME!" That tone alone was enough to send shivers down her spine as she rushed back over, the man on the floor that she left behind had passed out by now from the blood leaving his leg, Caitlyn kept her pistol up as she rounded the corner of the van in time to see Batgirl tugging at her cowl... Her eyes widened and for a brief moment she stared, more in awe than anything else, but as Batgirl finally freed herself from the cowl she looked away, only briefly glimpsing the hero's face as she turned her side to her.

Caitlyn stood frozen in place for a moment, swaying unsteadily as she heard Batgirl taking deep, unsteady breaths... she glanced at the sick on the floor and it reminded her of her own nausea, which finally broke her from her spell as she rushed to the other side of her car, now completely ruined by gunshot holes to fall to her knees and be sick herself, hiding herself away behind the cover of the car before she crawled towards her police radio and forced herself back to her feet, pressing at the transmit button as she walked back towards Batgirl, making a show of averting her eyes as she stepped next to the heroine, close enough to let Batgirl steady herself against the detective if she wanted to, she even held out a hand as she spoke into the radio. "11-41 Gotham University. 11-99..."

Caitlyn let her radio drop to the floor before she finally reached out to steady Batgirl if the hero hadn't taken her arm already. "I uh.... Thanks... I didn't know I was getting under Joker's skin that much... Are you okay?" Caitlyn asked, she still kept her eyes down, she knew that the Bat Family likes to keep their identities secret, and she would prefer to keep it that way... Someone had already tried to kill her tonight for her police work, she didn't want another attempt on her life on behalf of the Bat Family covering identities up, not that they ever would kill a police officer... but Caitlyn didn't know that, they weren't above beating a criminal to a bloody pulp as she just saw... not a huge stretch of the imagination to think they might go further than that.

Caitlyn sighed as she felt herself coming down from the adrenaline rush, her free hand moved to grip the wound at her neck as she felt the strength draining from her body... "If you don't mind... I'm just going to... sit here..." she murmured before she released Batgirl entirely, falling against the side of the van before she slid downwards to the floor and let her eyes flutter shut, she took a moment to glance towards where she was first attacked and realized she had been leaving a trail of blood this entire time, she didn't quite realize that she was also soaked in it, glancing down at her jacket and her white shirt underneath which was now stained a deep red and clung to her chest before she her vision finally darkened as she towed the line between consciousness.

"Huh... D-Didn't think it was that bad."
Cyberpunk RP - TW: Drugs/Suicidal Themes: 'Her eyes were the colour of the sky at twilight, fading to darkness.'

Narcotics coursed through her bloodstream and silenced her intrusive thoughts, the guilt… the shame… The anxiety.

The water helped to wash away the physical aspects of the deed. The dirt… the grime, the blood that clung to her, desperate to remind her of the face that she had extinguished hours earlier.

The crimson pills had finally taken hold of the neurons in her brain, which flickered as they were snuffed out for the night, her blood cells and her immune system worked overtime to repair the damage she inflicted… At least her mind was quiet, for the first time in years...

She tried to move… Nothing… Her body didn't answer her, it was away… checked out, gone.
She couldn't keep her head above water.
She was slipping downwards, fingers trembling against the edge of the tub.
Even her neural shard had failed, its organic connection to her brain was non-responsive.
She took a final gasp for air.

Her eyes stared up through the water towards the ceiling of her bathroom, and her thoughts drifted to that of her parents, dead for years… She thought of seeing them again, the look in their eyes when they discovered she had drowned in her own bath water… A failure… A murderer... A drug user… Tears left her eyes and mixed with the water around her… She thought of her landlord, finding her corpse… Finding the largest collection of sensitive information in the world… Finding her true identity.

The news would come out…

The netrunner behind the 2072 stock market crash,
The famous Militech data heist...
The sacking of Arasaka's server banks…

One of the most infamous netrunners and information brokers of the world was a 26-year-old girl… A shut-in living in a one-bedroom apartment in Watson… An orphan… A nobody… A druggie that drowned in her bathtub…

Her thoughts finally turned to the man whose life she had snuffed out… It had taken 16 years to find him... since he had taken her family from her... the police did nothing… Trauma Team did nothing… The hospital couldn't treat them in time… Her parents suffered for hours before passing.

He didn't recognize her… it didn't matter.
His face was gone moments later, erased from the city… The world.

It didn't help.

She went to scream.
Water filled her lungs.

Her eyes blinked… and a figure appeared in her narrowing vision, its form dark with piercing red eyes… glaring down at her through the murky water, her vision shrunk to a point as the oxygen in her blood finally depleted.

"This is Twilight, We have Wren."

When her vision returned she was on her back, her bare skin pressed against the rough fibres of her carpet. She recognized the ceiling of her living room which doubled as her kitchen… She didn't recognize the women hunched over her, garbed from head to toe in red plastic, even their masks were a shade of crimson, one was feeding a tube down her throat while the other was busy preparing an IV line that led down to a needle piercing the skin of her forearm, where a small trickle of blood had already congealed in the palm of her hand, which still refused to wake to her commands.

"Wow… This is not what I was expecting... Have you seen her equipment, it's from the 2050's! Wait, is that her?" A metallic voice spoke up, it was a woman's… but artificial, every word that left her lips was modulated and emitted from a speaker, it was almost imperceivable, but if one listened, you could tell…. Just.

"Yea… Stop staring…" Another voice replied, it was deep and gruff and modulated through some kind of mask or helmet, and despite this… it sounded more 'real' than the other.

"How can I not, you guys didn't even bother to cover her with anything?!" The woman was right… Wren had just realized, she could barely shift her eyes downwards to glimpse her bare skin, naked to the world and the strangers in her apartment.

"She was flatlining in a bathtub… Why do you care?" The deeper voice replied before the familiar sound of her living room window opening could be heard.

"Because if we're going to recruit her we have to convince her first. Twilight… You can't just leave her like that." The metallic voice shot back, frustration edging into its tone.

Wren's ears perked at the voices that were just out of sight, she tried to turn her head without much success, one of the medic's hands had clamped around her cheek and shifted it back... "Don't move, we're flushing your system… And if you think about trying to fight one of us, I wouldn't."

The other medic, the one tending to the IV in her arm shifted away from her to the other side of the room, rifling through a medical bag as another figure moved into view and took their place at the girl's side "Wren… I am such a big fan…" The voice came from a woman who was more metal than flesh, it looked as though her entire body had been replaced with interlinking plates of steel and blackened titanium, at first glance her face looked human, but if one looked closer even that was artificial in a way. The woman's hand shifted up to Wren's neck to pull her neural shard from its socket, holding it up to her eyes as she spoke. "Sorry, but I don't want you deleting all of your hard work from the past decade just because some corporate goons are in your apartment~" she said with a smile on her face before she pocketed Wren's chip in her breast pocket.. permanently cutting her off from her personal data centers in the next room that contained enough evidence to put her away for hundreds of years…

"So! I know you can't speak right now but I am so excited to meet you! You know when you were cracking ice on Arasaka's counter-intel servers last week! I was the one trying to counter-hack you… To not much success, I thought you must've been a brain in a jar to work that fast… But the hardware you're using… it's older than you by the looks of it" Once more the woman's metallic hand moved to Wren's neck, only this time taking a grip of her jaw to tilt her head from side to side. "Wow! And you almost have no augmentations… Apart from that jack in your neck and those overlay optics… You know we've been trying to find the person responsible for that little trick you pulled with the global stock market for over five years! You wiped trillions of dollars off the system… All these holdings and stocks deleted from people's accounts…" The woman's eyes shifted, seeming to glare down at the girl for a moment before a bright smile appeared across her face, metallic teeth glimmering as she spoke with such enthusiasm "That was so awesome! I mean… I can't say that outside of this room, since I work for… Well… I'm sure you've figured it out by now! But I can't wait to pick your brain about how you did all this, out of this place as well!" Wren couldn't work out whether that was a subtle threat that implied she was about to be interrogated, or if she had been genuinely friendly.

Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics: ICE is a term used to describe security software and programs that protect individuals or infrastructure from being breached and hacked. Once ICE is breached/Cracked a netrunner has complete access to a corporations or individuals 'sub-net' and all the data contained inside. Trying to crack ICE is dangerous as the feedback can fry a person's synapses, resulting in injury or death.

"Hey! Aurora, stop fangirling over the criminal, you realized she killed a man tonight… She might try to kill you as well if you sit there long enough."

Wren had figured out who they were working for in her drug-induced haze… She had suspected it from the start since she had observed the crimson plastic of the medics when she awoke. but the prototype Kiroshi optics fitted into Aurora's eyes had confirmed it, Arasaka. There were far too many reasons to list why the megacorporation would want her dead, and almost none that explained why she was still alive.

'Aurora' seemed to roll her artificial eyes back into her skull for a moment in frustration before she looked up to the deep voice in the corner of the room. "That guy deserved it… Judging from his record he might be the one who flatlined her parents. And she wouldn't hurt me… Would you?" Aurora peered back down at Wren with a smirk on her artificial lips. "Oh yeah! I'm sure the boss will tell you when she gets here, but that's how we found you! After you scrubbed that guy's name from our database, we found a paper record… We didn't know why you had scrubbed his file in particular so we kept an eye on him, and then you turned up oh…. Six hours and thirty-three minutes ago and blew his head off… I guess you had kind of a grudge?! Anyway… That's the first time you've ever slipped up… And now we're here… Good thing too by the looks of you."

Aurora finally stood up, glancing at Wren's sofa before she grabbed a blanket and draped it over her before stepping across… "How long, Natalie?" Aurora's tone had shifted to one of subtle impatience as she squatted behind the medic tending to Wren, leaning her mechanical arms against her back, a drop of sweat ran down the medic's cheek as she murmured "Uh… The narcotics are being flushed from her system… we've given her some boosters… She'll be back up in a couple of minutes… tops…" Aurora seemed to shift more of her weight against her, glaring at her from behind before she replied with an abrupt. "Great!" jumping up moments later to her feet before she waved to Wren… "I'll get you some clothes! You don't mind me rifling through your bedroom, right?" she paused for a moment in the doorway with a smirk, waiting an answer that would never come... "Great! I'll go do that!"

It was several minutes later when Wren's feeling had returned to her, first came the cold brush of wind against her skin from the open window in her living room, and then she could twitch her fingers and toes… When the neurons in her brain finally began firing again she rolled over and emptied her stomach onto the carpet, hacking up nothing but water mixed with stomach acid… The tube had been removed from her throat a minute earlier, but still, it felt as though her entire windpipe had been scarred... She sounded akin to a dying person coughing up their last breaths before she finally fell quiet.. and looked up to the window, only for her eyes to stare straight down the barrel of a gun.

"If you try anything, I will end you here and we can just write your death off as a suicide."

Wren finally saw whom the voice belonged to, Twilight. He was a large man who towered over her, garbed in dark kevlar armor and black fabric, he wore a blackened helmet and a visor covered his face, the dark tint reflected the terrified look on Wren's face as she stared up at him in bewilderment.. ."I… I'm not… I... Noted." she stammered out reluctantly as she slowly set up crossed legged on the floor, tugging at the blanket around her shoulders to cover her entire body... The medics had left the room, where they had ventured to after that she couldn't say… But moments later 'Aurora' had stepped back in. "Oh! Sitting up, that's good." Wren found some clothes falling into her lap before Aurora joined Twilight by the window, who still had his weapon half raised at the girl as she glanced up at the two, her gaze shifting between her clothes and them... "Oh… She wants some privacy, look away Twi~" Aurora said as she looked up at him with a smirk on her face. "Yea… Turn my back on one of the most devious hackers in the city… Not happening." Aurora rolled her eyes as she looked back to Wren with a smile. "Give us a moment…" she turned back to Twilight, one hand moving to softly caress his side as she spoke up to him. "I told you, the tech she's using is ancient, without her neural shard she's basically just a normal person… she can't do anything, and she's just been resurrected from an OD, she's not running anywhere, and I'll keep an eye on her…" The last words were let out with a hushed whisper and with a grunt Twilight shifted his weight and looked out of Wren's window, staring down to the street level below as he perched himself on the window sill.

Wren herself seemed to pause to glare at the two with suspicion in her eyes, she kept her eyes on them as she pushed herself up onto the edge of her sofa and began to get dressed, Aurora's mechanical eyes never leaving her bare, exposed body… Her metal eyes were unblinking, she seemed less chatty now... As though something had changed in her personality when she returned from retrieving Wren some clothes, Although it all became clear when Wren finally looked up at her again after pulling her shirt over her head, there were reams of information spilling across Aurora's optics which caused Wren's heart to race… She didn't have to wait long for her fears to be confirmed… "Wooow Wren this data is crazy… I've only had a quick peek… You know, you left some of your latest files unencrypted in there.. Naughty… Militech schematics… lists of Arasaka agents… Oh look! We're here Twilight… Is that Senator Kreeton cheating on his wife? Where do you get all this stuff." Wren's eyes widened as she heard the incriminating evidence read out like it was the local headlines, pushing herself to her feet, she tried to move faster but her legs still seemed unwilling after the overdose. "H-Hey! That's my info… I worked hard and cracked a lot of sub-systems to get it and if you corporate fucks haven't killed me yet that means you need me for something, so cut it out." Aurora held up her hands with a smirk on her face as the blue flashes across her eyes ceased, smiling across the room at her. "I'm just teasing~ I mean… Like I said the boss will explain but we're going to end up working together anyway, so I'm going to see all of this…"

"I don't work with corpo's… I don't work for anyone."

The past twenty-four hours had been the most electrifying of Arasaka's counter-intelligence unit in months, Wren had hacked their servers a week before and pulled a man's record from their database, it didn't make sense to put herself in that much danger just to pull the record of a nobody, and in her rush and borderline mania, she hadn't covered her tracks on her exit of their cyberspace, part of her IP address had been left exposed and Arasaka finally knew the area where the infamous netrunner lived… she was in Night City, within driving distance of their office… When they discovered she was only living 3 blocks away, nobody could quite believe it, 'Wren' was brushing shoulders with Arasaka employees on the street every day, it was almost unbelievable, and even now Arasaka analysts were at their desks confirming her identity, double and triple checking all of their work…

The team had been watching the man that Wren had scrubbed the record of, Manis Telavery, since the hack with the vague hope Wren would show up, she had never been seen in person before, in fact, some people believed that Wren was multiple people, a radical movement whose motivations radically shifted from day to day, like a scatterbrained anarchist. One day she was selling corporate secrets to their rivals, the next she was hacking into that very same corporation to blackmail them… One day she was leaking government plans to spy on every citizen in the country and the next handing out private information to that very same government… It went from acts of political resistance against megacorporations and governments to taking their money the next day to sell out the people…

Much to their surprise someone unknown had turned up at Manis' door, she didn't look like a master netrunner, her dark hair was messy and cascaded over her shoulders with not much direction, and the leather jacket and matching pants she wore looked older than her, for a moment the team thought she was a whore who had come to collect. She looked desperate enough and was clearly under the influence, they all thought that right up until she put a hole through the man's face moments after the door swung open. At that point they all sat up in their chairs, they tried to check her background and facial recognition came back with nothing, which should have been impossible in the all-digital age, they stalked her home, and she stopped to buy… something from a man on the street, they found her drowning after kicking her door down… After that, everything was confirmed.

Wren's real name was Ivy Praxis… Although that wasn't surprising, everyone had an alias these days, after they had discovered her name on the mail piled up beside her door, everything else unraveled… In the time they had spent reviving her, they had learned her entire life's story, well… Enough to piece it together, Wren had been thorough in scrubbing her digital records, but paper records were always the weakness of a netrunner without someone on the streets to destroy them. Her family had emigrated to Night City at some point in the 2040s, it wasn't clear where they had come from, they had just appeared on public records one day… Her father had worked in a medical clinic, treating cyberpsychosis for the local community while her mother was a promising researcher at Biotechnica, they both had promising lives until they were cut short by a random gunman looking for enough cash for a high in the pits of their wallets, leaving Ivy behind.

She had fallen through the cracks of what was left of the social net after that, she was moved between orphanages as she grew older, just at the age prospective parents didn't want to take her, but not enough to take care of herself, she became increasingly troublesome to those who did care for her, bullying the other orphans, sneaking out after curfew… At the age of 15 she left the last house that would take her, they didn't bother trying to track her down. She showed up two years later, renting a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Watson, the same one that she built her reputation out of… It started small, hacking her building network to mess with the elevators, it was fun… it was something she could do… Then came the jobs… Bypass a warehouse's security doors for heists… Hack into NCPD alert system to distract the cops from a real crime… It only escalated, she would spend hours jacked in, alone on her bedroom floor while she hacked the Pentagon… Arasaka Tower, Militech Headquarters… Money flowed in, and with it… the drugs… the tech, she preferred old tech, it was harder to trace… almost every hour of every day was spent in cyberspace dodging hunter-killer viruses and cracking ICE… It was addictive, it was the only thing she was good at.

One day she finally began unboxing some old things from her past life… Her childhood blanket, an old pair of headphones she used to wear at night to listen to rain noise… It drowned out the sounds of idle engines and honking cars… A picture of her parents. At this point, she had hacked some of the most secure servers in the world… Her bank accounts had more than enough to support her for the rest of her life… but still, it wouldn't bring her parents back, that was almost a year ago when she put out the feelers to her contacts to find him, the rest was recent history...

"Boss… You can come up now, she's stable… and compliant enough."

Twilight interrupted Wren's daydreaming, she didn't realize she had been staring at the floor for minutes… She wasn't sure why, maybe it was the shock waves of the drug still reverberating around her system, she had been convinced that the Arasaka goons standing in her living room would have dragged her off by now, 'black bagging' her before hauling her off to some dimly lit basement for questioning… But no, Aurora had continued to make idle chatter with her and Twilight, who seemed to want nothing to do with the girl.

Very PM/Conversation friendly so if you're interested in anything I've talked about feel free to reach out and chat!
(None of the art used it my own, if you would like it taken down let me know!)

Anarchia · Jul 20, 2024

Added some potential plots and updated the formatting to make it a bit cleaner!

Anarchia · Sep 15, 2024

Added a writing sample (The formatting was giving me absolute hell so I've had to center everything otherwise it breaks, but this is better then the insanity of BB code I was dealing with which wanted to split it into 5 spoiler boxes (I will murder BB code))

I'm also going to clean up some of the formatting and inconsistent fonts today! Oh and bump! Always happy to meet new partners!

Anarchia · Sep 17, 2024

Another writing sample added! Once again BB code is the bain of my existence.

Fx Any A light in the darkness - Long term Novella RP's

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