Background: One day, a couple of years ago, a
character was submitted. This was not a character of consequence, nor was
it of much note; it probably would’ve never made it past its first several
matches, and should’ve never been submitted in the first place. (So yeah,
instant ‘smack material.) Its graphic was sent to the Graphics Bin via
e-mail, as that was how it was done back then. GIFs, JPGs, and PNGs were
accepted, and TXT or BMP files were frowned upon deeply. But then came the
dreaded day when one creator did not save his file as a GIF or a JPG or a
PNG or even a TXT or BMP, by as much of a slip of chance as it was a slip
of mind. He submitted a PDF file, for his image-editing program was indeed
the newly-released (and recently *ahem* ‘borrowed’) Adobe Photoshop 6.0.
Somehow, someway, by no means of moderation nor administration, the
incorrectly-formatted graphic was paired up with its sheet. And so there
it lay, unawares to the graphics administrators, a character sheet
decaying at everything around it. Well, it was in the stage of its life
comparable with the teenage years of a living being. (ANGST!) And, being
very lonely and having not much to do, it became unwittingly destructive.
Many other sheets were lost along with it, and remain there to this day,
corrupted beyond point of recovery, repair, and even deletion. It wore
away at the very systems the Bin was based upon, and slowly began to break
down its peripheral devices. And so came the day when the Graphics E-mail
was disabled, and a message board was put up in its place. Eventually, the
agitated seed left the bin, learning that there was indeed something
beyond, eventually finding its way to the character directory, found a
new, crisp, clean character sheet, and decided to annex it as your dog
does a finely-cooked steak when you’re in the bathroom picking out flecks
of spinach from your teeth as to not frighten your date (but if a date was
there, then wouldn’t she stop the dog from claiming the... well, we’re
getting off onto a nice little tangent here, aren’t we?). The sheet it
claimed as its own was that of a villain. Though it was born of Photoshop
6.0, a program meant for neither good nor evil (though good was honestly,
y’know, preferred over evil), it became a spawn of evil, and slowly began
to take the characteristics of its mother program. It evolved into
something more than Photoshop 6.0, yet not becoming Photoshop 7.0, instead
becoming something freakishly caught in-between. (Once again, comparable
to high-school years...) So it came to be: Adobe Photoshop 6.66 has
finally found its way to Khazan. And so it shall wreak havoc among the
participants, and graffitize all their lovely pictures (Okay, we shouldn’t
make any assumptions like that. At least we think no one’s used anything
involving Bruce Vilanche and tight leather. Yet.), for it is a really
foolish program and has nothing else to do, really....
Character Personality Oh come on. It’s a sentient computer program that was
really quite hellbent on editing images while it was stuck in the Graphics
Bin, and now that it’s in Khazan it’s really quite hellbent on altering
appearances, shapes, and other such things you might consider valuable if
you have a social life and full bodily mobility. It also wants to hang on
to its existence until it develops more of its commands and options, as
it’s still, well, a growing computer program, so it’ll be around for a
while longer yet. We’re not sure, but we think that’s all it can bloody
DO. Don’t expect it to communicate (its Text Tool has fell into incredible
disuse, so that ends that train of thought right there), and don’t even
try lecturing it on how it’s not nice to turn little Timmy’s hair an
interesting shade of hot pink (or at least it SHOULD’VE...). For that
matter, it doesn’t respond to people well at all. Unless you try yelling
at it, at which point it’ll stop in its.... erm, let’s just say ‘tracks’
for now, and then take that nice wallpaper design over there and plaster
it all over your face. Screw skin conditions, floral patterns will always
be much worse than some piddly acne on your forehead (and a whole lot more
painful to remove). There’s really not much to it beyond that. And you
know the topper? We don’t know WHY. It just goes and DOES what it pleases,
like a kid in an empty candy store. But, unlike a kid, it will not need to
be brought in to have his teeth checked for cavities and then have his
stomach pumped for a lump of sugar the size of a football when he’s done
engorging himself. It’s more like an Energizer Bunny the size of Godzilla
in this regard, in that it keeps going and going and goin’ and we never
question WHY, but instead just continue watching as it goes around and
does what it does and hope it doesn’t change course towards our general
bloody direction, ‘cause we all know things are gonna get messy if and
when it does. Just ask the used car dealership down the street. They got
cropped something nasty, ‘bout half the lot just went *poof*. It’s an
indiscriminate bugger, that it is....
Powers and Abilities
The bloody hell was that...?
- Power: Phasing
- Level: Ultimate
- Kit Power Link: Gadgeteer
What we have here is a
program, a computer program if you’re into specifics. A program is
constructed of data in binary, which happens to be a bunch of assorted
pittings on a hard disk. These pittings are called ‘ones’, while areas
with no pittings are called ‘zeroes’. So, technically, a computer program
is a bunch of 1s and 0s on a spinning disk. Here’s where we run into a
slight problem (amongst the several others we’ve already HAD at this
point). We’ve got a computer program that really isn’t on any sort of
computer hard drive, and it’s free-floating around in the real world,
searching for files to work on. Since its been dubbed ‘a bunch of 1s and
0s’, and since pittings in a surface that’s not supposed to be there would
just be kind of mind-boggling for what can be called a ‘teenage computer
program’, that’s what form it took on, and that’s what it looks like. A
bunch of bloody free-floating 1s and 0s. And I mean a whole lot of ‘em.
Now tell me, just how in the blooming hell do you plan on hitting a bunch
of flying binary code? Oh, it’s real fun at parties. Better than a piñata
stuffed with festering relish and mayonnaise that’s been left out in the
sun for a week in the middle of summertime. You can swat ‘em like flies,
but that won’t do you a fat lot of good. It got hit by a bloody AIRLINER
JET once, and nothing happened to it. The only thing that you can call a
‘happening’ is that the jet now has a permanent blur. Not a motion blur
even, it’s one of those Gaussian blurs, and it’s a damn blurry one too.
Can’t see the bolts worth the shirt on your back, and good luck trying to
guess what airline it’s from now....
The ‘Open File’ Command
- Power: Regeneration
- Level: Superior
- Kit Power Link: Gadgeteer
When using Photoshop, it’s
not hard to make a mistake. And if you do make a mistake, then you should
correct it IMMEDIATELY, else it will be biting your ass the entire way
through whatever project you have in mind. And after all the stress from
that one little accident, the end result will probably be worth (as one
congenial fellow from a movie once put it) f--- all. It’s suggested that
you either change the flaw manually (and that WILL be a pain if you know
not what you’re doing), hit ‘Undo Last Action’ repeatedly, or revert to a
saved file, assuming you save that bloody often. Now back to the subject
at hand. At this point in time, this floating cloud of 1s and 0s is both
the program and the file being used. It being awful paranoid for a
computer program, it DOES save that bloody often. So, if you do somehow
succeed in hitting the damn thing, it’ll just reload a previous version of
itself, and it’s all well and done. Fixed without fixing. As anything that
gets in its way suddenly becomes another file being used, and it’s bloody
good at multi-tasking, there’s also the incredibly remote chance that
it’ll reload YOU, but I doubt you’ll ever know that’s happened....
The ‘Crop’ Tool
- Power: Disintegration
- Level: Supreme
- Advantage: Armor Piercing This attack ignores normal defenses
which are not Reinforced.
Well, this
sucks, don’t it? You’re walkin’ around, mindin’ your own business, when
suddenly, you’re missing your legs, and a bit off the top of your head. Do
you have any bloody clue why? I bet not. My guess is that it thought you
were just a bit too much to work on, so it decided to resize you, and make
you an easier job. I s--- you not. This one lazy bastard of a computer
program. Must’ve gotten it from the user. *cough* Not a doubt about it.
The ‘Delete Layer’ Tool
Now, at this
point, you’re possibly asking me ‘Does it get worse?’ Bloody hell yes, it
gets worse. It can only GET worse. Imagine you’re fighting this cloud of
locusts you can almost swear is made of 1s and 0s, and suddenly you’re
missing most of your outer clothing. You’ve got your underwear, maybe your
weapon, and nothing else. Embarrassing, ain’t it? Well, imagine it gets
worse, and you suddenly find yourself with NOTHING ON AT ALL. Now you’re
turning shades of red or what have you that usually aren’t considered
bein’ seen on your form of sentient life AT ALL. And YES it can still get
bloody worse. You could suddenly have your skin missing, or maybe lose
everything down to the bloody BONE. Really, this is pretty much an
equivalent of getting cropped, just more gradual, probably more painful,
and maybe just as pleasant to look at.
The ‘Lasso’ Tool
- Power: Tractor
Beam
- Level: Standard
- Advantage: Ranged Attack Attack usable at a distance.
This little tool’s used to wrap stuff
up. Image-wise, it’s used to create this thing called a ‘mask’ that
surrounds a manually-created field, in which things can be edited freely
without worrying about the stuff that’s outside the mask. In reality, it’s
used to snag whatever’s handy, and hold it so it don’t move. Ain’t called
a ‘lasso’ for nothing, you know. Just be thankful it don’t swing it around
its head and hogtie you with it when you’re done falling flat on your
face. On second thought, what it might do when it’s got you lassoed might
actually be a whole mess WORSE than that.
The ‘Blur’ Filter
- Power: Smoke
Screen
- Level: Standard
- Advantage: Area Effect This attack causes damage in a large,
circular area.
Oh, hell. We all know
what blurs do. Yeah, they make things blurry. We’ve got motion blurs,
radial blurs, smart blurs, Gaussian blurs, but when you get down to it,
they all do they same bloody thing; they fuzz stuff up. It might add just
a little bit of reality to pictures, but here, it just makes things a lot
harder to see. When you’re attempting to fight something, seeing a blur
where you shouldn’t will really screw you up. You have any idea how
disorientating it is to walk down a hallway that’s been motion-blurred? No
you don’t, ‘cause it hasn’t happened to you I betting. It’s pretty much
comparable to instant vertigo, as your mind assumes you’re moving from the
visual information being received, but your body knows it’s NOT BLOODY
MOVING. The end result? Just hope you’re not standing at the top of a
flight of stairs when it happens, or, at least, that it’s not a long trip
down.
Anti-virus protection?
(What do you
mean it’s got a bloody anti-virus program? What’d it pick one up for,
thought it might get the flu?) Ahem. Right. Apparently, the little program
found out that it was quite defenseless against people attempting to
invade and alter its programming, those people being mentalists,
telepaths, and those creepy mind-control fellows. So it decided to get a
little security and somehow pirated an anti-virus program while worming
its way to Khazan. It’s an awful old one, so it’ll take a lot of updating
before it reaches its fullest potential. Why it’s programming exists on
the same level as the consciousness of sentient beings we have no idea.
Hell, we’re still grappling with where it learned to pirate software. I
still say it must’ve been the *ahem* bloody user.
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