Crownless King: The Setup 2/2

It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!
- Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa (2006)

No friend's a friend till [he shall] prove a friend.
- Beaumont and Fletcher, The Faithful Friends (c. 1608), Act III, scene 3, line 50.

It was definitely a cave.

Nicodemus had deduced that before he'd even seen the ground rushing up to meet him. Firstly, rock is not hollow by nature. If that were the case, then every coastline in Britain would have been swallowed up by the sea, and Mount Everest would be full of holes from all the suicidal morons trying to climb it. Secondly, there were already plenty of them in this particular area, which no doubt would make good hiding spots for the suspected murderer/thief he'd been fighting a few moments ago. Although finding the correct one would be-

"OOF!"

That was as far as he got before he hit the sand-covered floor, the impact throwing up a plume of the stuff alongside knocking the breath from his lungs. The fact that Grandius landed blade-first next to him, embedded in the sand as if in a coquettish "tah-dah" pose, served as no comfort to the blond warrior, who was alternating fighting for breath and spitting out the grit that had found its way into his mouth. Oh, yeah, and there was sand in his eyes now - a thing that, as far as Nicodemus was concerned, had occurred for the sole purpose of annoying him even further.

Fortunately for him, sunlight was streaming plentifully through the hole in the ceiling he'd just unwillingly made. With the interior of the hollow cave illuminated, Nicodemus was able to see just enough to wipe the sand off his face and then, with his view now unobstructed, locate Grandius off to his side. Grabbing the blade by the hilt, the young man pushed the blade down into the sand, and almost immediately felt it hit something solid beneath the sand - a perfect brace to get himself back on his feet.

"The path of my life," he grumbled as he slowly and painfully hauled himself upright, "is strewn with cowpats from Chakravartin's own divine herds."

There was a hissing noise, as if in response, that made his blood run cold. And then a scrape of dry scales against rock and sand that finally did the job and made it freeze.

He looked up.

Art by Cloister

"Oh, fuck me!" he screamed, just before the Cave Naga struck.

Crownless King: The Setup 1/2

You think being a hero is fun?

I know most of the people around me do. They just won't just up about it - always going on about how amazing I am and how I'm going to defeat the evil Morpheus and save the world. Here comes the Destined Hero with his mighty sword and his party of loyal friends, here to save us! He's so sefless and heroic he'll do whatever we ask of him with no complaint, and he'll solve everyone's problems because he's nice like that! Save us, Destined Hero, and make your ancestors proud, for fate has chosen you to bear their burden for the good of the world!

Let me tell you why that's bullshit.

Jam: Origins

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Midly NSFW image has been linked in this post. Original art made by Legend20x)

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~Undisclosed Island in the Pacific~

All evil villains have secret bases. This is an immutable fact of the universe, in the same way that sheep bleat and the sky is blue. Doctor Vortex was no exception - he'd paid good money for his new Fortress of Doom, and he was desperate to avoid the torrid financial difficulty his previous one suffered. He'd paid off the loan early this time, and had gone to great lengths to ensure it looked the part - radar dishes, a giant freeze ray sticking out of the top and robot guards patrolling the ground 24/7. All in all, it was a place a criminal mastermind like him could call home.

All evil villains also have secret doomsday weapons, too. The freeze ray, however, was not one of them - what with most superheroes able to deflect it's beam with a mere flick of their chin nowadays, it had spent most of it's time gathering dust. On top of this, funding for anything bigger was stymied by his diamond-smuggling operations in Kenya being repeatedly foiled by animal-themed heroes with increasingly ridiculous names and costumes. Knowing full well that it was only a matter of time before the United Nations hunted him down, Vortex had figured out that what he needed was a nuclear option, a last-ditch resort that would ensure his legacy wouldn't be trampled to dust by the judgmental feet of law-abiding society.

Three whole months of planning, graft and shouting at his employees later, and he had it. It was genius. It was a miracle of science.

And it was currently slopping it's way out of the jar onto the table of the labs in Science Department V.

Outwardly, it resembled a dark blue liquid, similar in consistency and appearance (and scent) to blueberry jam. In reality, it was a cluster of thousands of nanobots, granted a small amount of self-awareness via a shared intelligence network. It's primary directive was to consume organic matter by breaking it down into it's component molecules, then convert those molecules into more nanobots of it's type, effectively growing in size. The idea was that, should the forces of justice finally get the better of him, Vortex would release it, allowing it to consume everything on his secluded island base and destroy all traces of his operation.

The idea looked good on paper. But paper is a flimsy thing that goes see-through when you rub grease on it.

The Jam, as it was informally known, was slowly slithering it's way towards a laptop computer that had been left on the table by a careless scientist who had gotten sick of entering data. Since the action of converting molecules from one type to another consumed large amounts of energy, the nanobots were also programmed to seek out sources of electricity to recharge themselves. And right now, their sensors were telling them that there was a source of electricity right up ahead, and they needed to recharge promptly after a whole day of exhausting tests that had drained their batteries.

Sadly, whilst they were very good at finding electrical sources, they hadn't been programmed to distinguish different types of outlets very well - it had been made on a budget, after all. And thus when the Jam oozed alongside the laptop and prepared to recharge, it inserted itself not into a mains socket, as it had assumed it was doing, but rather the USB port.

This is what it thought as it found itself suddenly absorbing the entirety of the Internet into itself.

All five million terabytes of it.

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-aaaaaaaaaaarrrrggghlblboklpbfojgidonejignjrekbgjerbadger don't care! Honey badger don't give a-

...wait, what are we on about?