Current Energy: 20
Current Training: None
Current Emulation Status:
Scar
Profile: A man who has lost everything, Scar dedicated his life to hunting and kill the Alchemists who helped in the genocide of his people. His Right Arm can break down anything he touches - provided he knows its material composition - and his left can reorganize that material into something new.
Skills
Warrior Monk: Once a monk, then later an unrepentant killer, Scar is experienced in interpreting and applying religious texts and practices in a practical context. His convictions are, as a result of this, nearly inhumanly strong - allowing him to function under duress, and frequently when suffering a near-lethal injury.
Power
Right Hand of Deconstruction: A complex alchemical array in the form of a tattoo. The possessor of this tattoo becomes capable of performing a single step of Alchemy's three-step process. Deconstruction. So long as the owner of this tattoo can lay their hand upon something, and has a working knowledge of its material composition, they can cause it to fall apart - usually in the form of a sudden explosion of matter and a cloud of smoke.
Left Hand of Reconstruction: A complex alchemical array in the form of a tattoo. The possessor of this tattoo becomes capable of performing a single step of Alchemy's three-step process. Reconstruction. So long as the owner of this tattoo can lay their hand upon something, they can rearrange the material to match their needs. This process is complicated and difficult, being highly knowledge-intensive. Its simplest use is often just to reshape something without changing its material composition. Anything else requires significant time and research.
Base Status
The Heap - Current Upgrades:
Tinkertech Castle
Friend or Foe Barrier
Friend In Need
Simple Shikigami Network
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
The Heap, Brockton Bay
Your emulation process is very piecemeal, at least to observe as it happens.
Your base or 'core' form, is a barely matching collage of human parts and features, haphazardly assembled into a more or less human shape. There are no visible seams or obvious points where those features are, but for all you technically look like a human, those features were put in place with the mechanical precision of a mind that could never possibly comprehend what it is to be human.
So the form itself is actually extremely uncanny to look at, in a way most of the natives of the earth would likely be able to feel, but would be completely incapable of explaining.
From the outside, anyone watching you change is therefore likely to notice one thing above all else. It is the fact that once you have settled on a new emulation, pieces of you start to come away, only to be quickly replaced by jigsaw-like pieces of your chosen form. When all of those pieces have been fully integrated - your Emulation is complete.
"Huh. I've never actually watched that happen before," your Master says idly, shooting you a tight-lipped smile when you reflexively twitch in surprise. Looking around, you realize you are in a room you haven't seen before. It's small - about the size of the average study in a normal-sized home - and sparse. The walls are made up of unadorned metal signifying you are somewhere in the Heap, and your Master is sitting in a plain chair with her feet up on a nice looking oak desk with a closed book on it.
"Where..?" You ask curiously, rolling your now broad shoulder and flexing your hands in a way that causes your knuckles to pop.
"Come see," Taylor says playfully, standing from her seat and beckoning you over, Nemesis sheathed at her waist.
You find this all very confusing. In your experience, what you were expecting to happen was for your Emulation to change over, then for you to wait patiently for your Master to awaken from her sleep. You aren't so foolish as to believe that because she is comfortable with one of your forms sleeping near her, that she is comfortable with all of them.
Grumbling to herself under her breath, your Master draws forth a string of multi-colored orbs that she carefully weaves together into a single iridescent ball, then presses it carefully into the wall of the room you are in.
Slowly, then with increasing speed, the walls begin to shift in color, their surfaces taking on an image, not unlike a watercolor painting. More and more detail fills into the image until rather than a painting, you are presented with a practically photorealistic view of what the room would look like if the walls weren't there.
Stretching out before you is Brockton Bay at night. Even at this hour, there are enough lights on in the city to make the entire thing visible on a moonless night, and a wavering reflection of the city is mirrored in the waters of the bay it surrounds.
Your Master smiles at the peaceful sight, and the corners of your lips turn upward slightly as you smile right along with her. Two months ago, you could have looked out on the sight before you and known unequivocally that beneath the beauty of the tableau lay a roiling wasteland of gangs and crime.
Now... now Brockton is well on its way to being almost entirely held by Heroes. There are no criminal gangs, all of them having been destroyed, reformed, or defeated in your Master's prolific rise to power.
'And he shall gaze upon his works, and call them good,' you think to yourself, suppressing a snort as you turn to examine your Master's smiling face.
Your current emulation was once a man of God. When he turned to a path of bloodshed, he gave up all the gifts God had given him, believing himself unworthy of them.
Rubbing the thumb of your left hand over your pointer finger, you can't help but contemplate the realization he had at the end of his adventures. He no longer believed in his god by that point.
"I decided to stop treating it like you died, every time this happens," Taylor says out of the blue, drawing you from your contemplation and turning toward you with a wide smile.
"Before, I always sent you off with a frown. And I was too busy or afraid to greet you when you came back. I think I get now, that you never really left." She says.
"I do describe it like that, don't I?" You muse aloud.
"Only 'cus you're stupid," Nemesis chimes in, vanishing from your Master's waist and throwing herself into your arms, where she hangs from your neck like an excitable child. Off-balance because of the sudden weight, you stumble forward, and your Master catches your shoulder and holds you upright long enough for you to regain your balance. Then she too hugs you briefly before letting go. Nemesis giggles the entire time.
Pausing to consider the statement from the sword spirit, you contemplate not just your existence, but that of the man you are emulating.
"So I have been told." You answer with dry humor in your tone, readjusting your arm to hold Nemesis up.
"Since I could feel it when you changed, I made myself wake up and came here. We're in my Wizard tower," Taylor explains smugly - as she always is when describing her tower - and then returns to her seat, waving a hand over the table. A small gap opens, though much slower and with obviously greater focus than is normal for your Master. Which makes sense, because she didn't use Nemesis to make it.
With quick dextrous hands, she pulls two slices of cake from the gap, along with some utensils. Nemesis makes an audible growling noise from where she is hanging from your neck, and your Master rolls her eyes and retrieves a third plate.
"You... made yourself wake up?" You ask incredulously.
You don't know why, but you just find the idea of willing yourself to consciousness from sleep strange somehow.
"I can see what you're doing when I sleep remember? So I knew you were changing," she explains, shifting her Gap across the table to deposit a chair for you to sit in.
Nemesis happily declines similar, opting to sit in your lap instead.
"Anyway, I just thought that instead of making you deal with another problem or something, this time around we could just celebrate? And talk a little? It's kind of been a while," Taylor says sheepishly.
You smile at her, though you aren't sure Taylor can tell. Your new emulation's face is set into something of a permanent scowl. Even his smiles only barely qualify as happy expressions.
"What did you have in mind? I should warn you, this emulations home is much less... interesting... than the last," you tell her, pointedly focusing on the world war two analog instead of the state-sponsored murder wizards you made a habit of hunting.
"More like here then?" She asks quizzically, digging into her slice of cake.
"Somewhat, yes," you concede.
"Tell me about it anyway. It's always interesting to know the little differences," she asks, then shoots you a knowing smirk when you hesitate for a moment.
"Not that similar at all, is it?" She jokes.
You furrow your brows while thinking about the nationwide conspiracy to help an artificial being become God that your Emulation stumbled face-first into.
"...No, it is not," you begrudgingly admit with a sigh before launching into an explanation of Amestris and the various atrocities you encountered there - along with what bits of Ishvalan (the culture your emulation derives from) culture are required to understand the situation.
Close to an hour and several slices of cake later, Taylor and Nemesis are staring blankly at you.
"What?" You ask defensively, having long since stopped eating and instead transitioned to scratching Nemesis's head with one hand.
"...so there were bad guys turning souls into magic rocks-" she begins.
"Alchemists, and Philosophers Stones - but yes," you correct.
"-and there were these other bad guys made from the magic rocks-" she continues as if you hadn't spoken.
"Homunculi," you correct again.
"-and those bad guys were trying to turn the big bad guy into a God. And during all of that, you were mostly just randomly killing any Wizard you came across." she finishes, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"...that is accurate, yes." You conclude, although you feel strongly that boiling your involvement in things down to such is somewhat insulting. You did, after all, turn over a new leaf and help those two brothers thwart the whole plot.
You just... did that by murdering every Alchemist they pointed you at.
And several non-alchemists.
Hm.
"How- how is that less interesting?!" Your Master blurts out incredulously.
"It's less interesting than Zeus being a spaceship," you point out, drawing your Master up short.
"...point," she concedes before pondering something. "So does this guy have a name?" She asks eventually.
You look at her quizzically then shake your head no, because of course, he does not. Seeing your Master's confusion you elaborate.
"The Ishvalan people believe that their names are a gift given to them by God. They speak them with great pride. This emulation gave up on his name when he turned his back on God," you say, cracking the knuckles in your right hand.
"However, I think I still prefer 'Emmy'," you declare proudly, sharing a smile with your Master.