#moonlit path

"OOH, it's like a hologun!" Foxy chirped, snapping photos of the smoking black swathe that cut through the testing grounds. She turned to him, a grin beamed across her face as she jotted down some notes about how the sparks and smoke also crackled from the fanged mouths across his lower torso and limbs. "But... there's nothing in the other readings that indicate this... your body temp is high, but not volcanic." As she muttered to herself-- without his translator, Common might as well be gibberish to him-- she flipped through the papers for her previous notes. "The chorus is weird. Your vocal chords aren't the right shape for that. You've got to have another voice box somewhere." She glanced up as she made her point and caught his good eye locked on her. His fur stood on end as he struggled to hold onto the blazing inferno that had built up. Ludwig scrunched his awkwardly long body to the point his lower half laid down like guilty dog.

A generous lock of his long, black mane hand fallen away from behind his ear and covered the scarred half of his face. Foxy walked around him, noting the blast of heat from the massive mouth on his side.

"Uh, here," she spoke up to avoid spooking him. She lifted her gloved hand to pull back his well-kept hair and spotted the fire boiling in his clouded blind eye. --That was another note for his file.-- She tucked his hair back behind his ear and rested her hand between his lower shoulder blades to let him know she was out of the way. She patted his back. "It's okay! Let it rip bro. No judgement."

He dropped his hands and let out the next refrain.

All shadows shrank behind them as the white-hot beam erupted from his mouth. Foxy raised her arm to protect her eyes, but it did little to keep her from squeezing them shut.

After a moment, the beam dimmed until it sputtered into a trickle. Ludwig gulped down air, thankful that they opted to return his voice. Foxy stared in silence until a sizeable chunk of Testing Grounds crumbled from the wall and crashed into the melted tile. "That. Was. Awesome!" She clapped his lower back and laughed. "Do you know how useful something that hot would be? Made on command?! We got to figure out how your body does it."

One of the species in this world are the Delphteans. They're a race of amphibious fish people that are recovering from nearly being wiped out. They're bouncing back and as a Kingdom are fairly wealthy due to having exclusive access to deep sea pearls, special sea salts, etc. However, they tend to be reckless to a fault.

Which is perfect Big Shot grounds for Spamton. Seriously, he'd make it big there because not many Delphteans care about malware and they love to shop.

But first, lemme talk about themes:

As a species, they all look very similar since they're for intents and purposes clones. They individualize through choices and environmental effects. They also put great importance on developing their skills since their society lacks experts. While their oldest are over 250 years old, their average lifespan is in their mid-20's due to their recklessness and rapid self-replication.

So (using tech left over from prior to the near-extinction event and a little bit of inherent ability known as Flow), the Delphteans save the skills of specific individuals and force it into vat grown clones to build on the skills. That way, they can have rapid deployment of fully trained doctors, computer experts, etc. to replace any that die. Those professions also frequently upload their skills to keep the database up-to-date.

This means, a huge percentage of the population are born as babies and blank slates. A much smaller percentage are essentially born as fully-fledged and educated adults with jobs that they were literally built to do.

So yeah, some Delphteans are pre-determined into their roles, whether they like it or not.

Enter TZ:

TZ is the last computer expert due to problems in the skills database and the memory merging process. However, he no longer officially works for the Kingdom due to self-exile due to failing to disable a highly complex security system while his friends were breaking into a warehouse. (This has also left him with a phobia for robots). He also has anxiety-driven pica with little regard of what it is he's eating. Comms devices, paintbrushes, his tie, napkins, coffee mugs, light bulbs, he's eaten nearly everything.

While he's insanely skilled with computers, his dream is to be the holonet's favourite stuntman.

In nearly every other interaction, he's super sweet and fearless. One of his boyfriends is infected with eldritch powers and the other is big and kind of a jerk and TZ has 0 nerves, just pure curiosity and acceptance.

However, he couldn't like Spamton, even if he wanted to. 1. Spamton kinda looks like a robot

2. He'd very quickly realize that Spamton's basically malware.

TZ doesn't have a hurtful bone in his body, but he'd be very concerned that everyone else likes Spamton. Also, Spamton would have the unique ability that if he ever snuck up on TZ, TZ would get spooked and hiss at him.

Usually Moody Bravo However:

Bravo is about 50 years old. She's a major BIG SHOT in Delphtean Society and is one of the few 2nd generation Delphteans still alive. Bravo is a hero, she's saved her people countless times with her wingsuit and grappling hook. (When your planet has titanic god-like serpents and their aggressive crocodilian worshipers that both have a taste for your species' flesh, you need a few heroes.)

Her fame rocketed her to the upper echelons of her society, complete with adoring fans, lots of money, and power. However, the stress of living as the perfect role model for her species wore her down and grew to hate it.

So, when TZ failed to shut down that security system, she faked her death and ran off-planet to the black-market-infested asteroids. She spends a few years getting blackout drunk, sleeping around, and getting into fights. She basically tore down her whole life to self-destruct because sometimes power just sucks man.

Bravo would wholeheartedly adore Spamton

"you're sellin' me potion little dude? Hell yeah."

"... I don't have Kromer, but I have credits?" She watches Spamton eat it and laughs. "Okay, where's the nearest ATM?"

Bravo is the type of person to choose to spend the night in a dumpster because "cool, why not?"

And she'd take his deals purely to see what happens, then take him to the bar afterward. She'd also explain that, honestly, money and power aren't really freedom. Sometimes, you just gotta go out and self-destruct a little and things'll be cool. (Bravo is not necessarily handling her lot in life well. But she thinks this is good advice.)

Lastly, FU:

She's a young cloned medic who everyone treats as if she was the previous medic. FU is an amazing surgeon and is fairly introverted. She typically wears a medical mask to hide her face (a trait she's had prior to current events). FU is softspoken and prefers to keep to herself, but she enjoys her job. Her hobbies include xenobiology (aka, non-Delphtean biology).

She'd 1000% try to convince Spamton to come in for a physical (I mean, how often have you met a living computer program that has a physical body? NEAT! And he produces eggs called pipis somehow?! This is entirely professional and any suggestion otherwise would upset her. FU is very repulsed by sex) and if he'd let her, they'd end up fast friends. (Also he's so little! And an adult! AWESOME!) I don't see him being enthusiastic about this.

Considering he probably has IBS and potentially other problems, she'd try her best to help him out. Even if she has to bring in TZ as a consult.

She would make deals with him, she's quite used to it and if it makes him happy, why not? She'd also try to help him out with his verbal tics and work through his self-loathing. She basically invented mental health care for the Delphteans, once she realized how ubiquitous it is in the clones.

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Essentially, he'd have friends in this universe, at least in one of the kingdoms. Some of my other OCs would also get a kick out of him. (Honestly, a pic of Ex engaging in a fight with his heart would be awesome. He just really likes fighting for fun.)

Gresham's pack is generally ruthless, nearly all willing to kill or die for their horrible leader. They're also usually stored in a large pit or the metal pack upon Gresham's back. The pack has a strict hierarchy based on the ownership of ribbons and whether or not they're tied to the horns.

Bucky is among the lowest of the pack, but has managed to keep himself just useful enough to keep himself from being torn apart and to eke out an okay existence. He's not much for fighting.

When Mortus gets his spinal augment, Gresham tosses Bucky at him to aid the healing process. Though Mortus is much younger, much smaller and broken, Bucky sees that he's a much better pack leader than Gresham ever was. Mortus talks to him, asks him questions (which Bucky cannot easily answer), and even tells long, strange stories of things like dragons and nights.