Whoohoo! Got this one done within the day that I received the inspiration for it, a record for me! If you have an account with NCsoft, then you should check your e-mail- there's a special holiday event coming up for both City of Villains and City of Heroes. The notification that I found in my hotmail this morning was what started this newest chapter of the twisted events that take place on the Rouge Isles. Also in this chapter, I mention two more of my alts- Velom, who for the purposes of this story is now Kandosii's younger brother, and Der Metzgermeister, my newest alt, who is a Soldier/Dark MM. Just like Kandosii, her name is a little nod to a favorite- With Kandosii, its Star Wars, and with Der Metzgermeister it's my favorite band. If you can say where either of these came from, you get… uh… A glass of eggnog! And a glass eye, just because this is the Rouge Isles- we ain't gonna be havin' that gawshdern happy stuff 'round here, by jiminy!
…Carry on….
Well, Kandosii thought as he logged on to his email account, resting his feet on the desk, It could be worse… He had gotten his shiny new X-Box 360 God Box and had blew a good six hours on the thing playing Condemned. Nothing better than a good creepy FPS to start the day. And end it, he realized, as he looked at the clock. Opening up his Inbox, there were several new emails. One, from a N3cr0phi1i4c, was titled "Better Resurrections- never be left with a dead partner again!" Spam. Again. While Lord Recluse might be evil, he couldn't compare to the complete calculated menace of an inbox full of junk e-mail. A lot of it had to do with "Special Holiday Savings", or "Christmas Shopping".
Kandosii had heard about this. Not being a native of the planet, he was still rather confused about it. So far, he'd figured out that the son of some deity had been born on Christmas Day, ushering in a dark age of rampant consumerism headed by a rotund elf by the name of Sandy Claws, attended to by his enslaved brethren and strange equine creatures with branching antlers and glowing noses. He wasn't sure how many of his facts he had gotten right, but there was a lot of 'Christmas' around, whatever it is. The Wolfspiders had been breaking up roving groups of singing miscreants around the residential areas, and he had seen one exceptionally paranoid and slightly familiar-looking Huntsman sniping shoppers weighed down with bags of offerings to the Sandy Claws. Every shop was covered in red and green adornments. Even the Quartermaster Kandosii went to was wearing a pointed, floppy red hat on top of his helmet, along with a dazed expression, as if he had been hit by a truck. Whatever this 'Christmas' was, it had a powerful and sinister effect on the populous.
The spam met its deletion, and Kandosii continued looking through his e-mails. The next was from HK. He frowned- The sociopathic droid had sent him a computer virus he had developed himself for his last birthday. How did he know when my birthday is, anyway? He wondered as he ran the e-mail through multiple virus scans. After all of them returned a clean report, he opened the e-mail. The shortness of HK's letter was rather disappointing, really.
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Are they gone now?
--HK-54
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It seems that HK was still sitting on top of the Arachnos tower in Cap Au Diable. If you looked up "paranoid" in the dictionary… well, you'd find "par·a·noid pérrə nóyd (adj.) 1. distrustful obsessively anxious about something, or unreasonably suspicious of other people and their thoughts or motives." And no picture. But if you were to come across a picture for that entry in the dictionary, it would be of HK. Well, his loss. A few keystrokes later, Kandosii's e-mail was sent, whose abruptness put HK to shame-
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No.
--Kandosii
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He smirked. HK would probably stay up there for another week after that. He returned to his inbox and looked through the remaining unopened e-mails. One was from his little brother Velom, entitled, in his no nonsense matter, "Problems".
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I have just received a package from an "anonymous benefactor", which is approximately 1 x .5 meters. It also bears the words, "A holiday gift." Should I open it, or should I leave it out in front of my neighbor's door- he has been playing rap 'music' at an inordinately high volume while I am trying to study. Please respond promptly; I would not want to be killed or grievously injured because my elder brother couldn't muster up the strength to place his hands on the keyboard and type an answer.
--Velom
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Kandosii sighed. Velom was your average teenage genius you saw around the Rouge Isles- sarcastic, demeaning, and a 'you will do what I say or suffer the wrath of the nerd of doom' sort of air about them. He was going to have a conniption when he saw the holiday jetpack every destined had been gifted over the past few days. He glared at his own, which was sitting forlornly in the corner, covered by an old trench coat. It was still making a nearly inaudible sound of cheerful sleigh bells, and as he watched, an unnaturally large snowflake sneaked out of the back of the red and green eyesore to melt on the carpet. He typed a short response back to his brother-
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Don't worry about it. It's not going to kill you, unless you're allergic to bad taste. Have fun with your gift from Black Scorpion. Oh, and I'd just get rid of the neighbor anyway. No real pretence needed- remember, this is the Rouge Isles, not your prep school. Take some time off from becoming a human encyclopedia and have some fun.
--Kandosii
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He pressed 'Send'. That kid still needed to learn how things worked around here. Most people thought evil was simply random acts of violence and immorality, like kicking over a child's sand castle. They're wrong, though- it is in fact, highly calculated acts of violence and immorality, such as kicking over a child's sandcastle, then heating the grains of sand until they glowed red, then taking the incandescent pieces of the shells of dead microscopic diatoms and placing them with exquisite care on sensitive portions of the sand castle's creator, and anyone else with connections to this person, just to drive the point home. Evil isn't just a day job, it's a way of life.
The last e-mail in his Inbox was from a weird little mastermind he had met the other day- Der Metzgermeister had come to the Rouge Isles almost directly from a German maximum security prison. She employed mercs to get her work done, but the job seemed to have a very high turnover rate. Wonder what her name means… He mused as he clicked on her e-mail.
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Take a look at this- I found it in a raid on an Arachnos base. Should we be worried?
--Der Metzgermeister
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There was an attachment to the e-mail. He clicked again, bringing up a memo from something known only as NCsoft. He skimmed it quickly, looking for key information. What he saw was more than a little bizarre, and all somehow connected to this all encompassing "Christmas" thing
..."Operation Scrooge"?...Okay. What exactly was Recluse on when he came up with this? He read further. …And same goes for Miss Liberty. And who the hells is this "Gamester" it's going on about? Head whirling as he tried to comprehend what he had just read, he typed off a short reply-
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We're going to have to watch out in the next few days. Especially this 'NCsoft'…It has many connections to the highest levels of both the Rouge Isles and Paragon City. Inform me if you find anything else.
--Kandosii
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He sent the e-mail and was just about to shut down his computer when he stopped dead, staring at the report. This NCsoft must truly be powerful. They were in control of Arachnos, and he had proof, in two short words, halfway through the report:
"Lord Recluse ™"