Drawings & Paintings Linked

Which story should be Chapter 2 of Linked?

  • The Uniting Force??

    Votes: 6 60.0%

  • Calling All Evildoers!

    Votes: 4 40.0%
  • Total voters
    10
  • Poll closed .
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Doodles, certified raddest dude in the city of Synshiza, has been accused of murder! Bummer! Not just murder though, he's been accused of secretly being a mysterious killer sweeping through the city, known only as the Synshiza Slasher. Now he has two months to prove his innocence and find the true culprit before he's sent off to prison for an indiscernible amount of time. Can he pull this off, all while juggling the responsibility of taking care of two strange new roommates?​

"Shimmering City, Synshiza!!" is one of the three stories that make up Linked, focusing on Doodles and his friends and the city that they live in, Synshiza.
 
Doodles 🌳 said:
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Doodles, certified raddest dude in the city of Synshiza, has been accused of murder! Bummer! Not just murder though, he's been accused of secretly being a mysterious killer sweeping through the city, known only as the Synshiza Slasher. Now he has two months to prove his innocence and find the true culprit before he's sent off to prison for an indiscernible amount of time. Can he pull this off, all while juggling the responsibility of taking care of two strange new roommates?​

"Shimmering City, Synshiza!!" is one of the three stories that make up Linked, focusing on Doodles and his friends and the city that they live in, Synshiza.
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WOOOOOOOOOO
 
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Unum, mysterious stranger from parts unknown, is taking the world of Reyse by storm, and you have been cordially invited to be their newest friend! After being sent by an unknown force with the mission of befriending every person on the planet, they'll do anything to accomplish their goal, even if it means taking lessons in friendship from their extremely unreliable new best friend, Igneo, taking advice from a strangely wise teenage mechanic or even trying to figure out their true origins.​

"The One for All!" is one of the three stories that make up Linked, following Unum's journey to befriend as many people as they possibly can.​

 
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It had been a long day for Doodles and he was tired. Not something he wouldn’t normally admit, but as the sun started to creep down the horizon of the city of Synshiza’s dim purple sky, he could feel himself wanting to just go home and rest. At least the blinding lights of the city were enough to keep him going. Doodles lived in an apartment complex in the middle of the city. Not the most glamorous home, but it definitely worked for someone like him. Finally arriving at his place, he opened the door, stepped inside and-
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It didn’t take long for Doodles to wake up after being hit.
‘Excuse me??’, he thought to himself as any normal person would after opening the door to their home and immediately being pounced on. He tried to move around to observe his surroundings, but couldn’t. He was tied up in a cocoon of some sort of white silky substance, so he settled for observing from where he was right now. The door to the apartment had been closed since he was knocked out, so there was nothing to focus on but the mysterious intruder who had attacked him. With her dark gray body, eyes that gave off a harsh red glow and the four legs coming out of her back, she was obviously an Arachnid, but why here of all places? The fact that she was obviously a child made it even more confusing. The stranger stood there, slightly hunched over, spider legs spread out far, probably trying to look more intimidating.
Doodles finally broke the silence, “What are you doing out here, dude? I thought Arachnids didn’t live out in cities?”
The stranger straightened up and smiled smugly, “Well, I do!”, she proclaimed proudly.
“Sure,” Doodles replied, “and how’d you even get in here?”
She gestured to an open window, “Like that. And now that I’m here,” she pointed a finger uncomfortably close to Doodles’ face, “you’re gonna let me stay.”
Doodles was even more confused now, “Maybe let me out of… this, first?”
The stranger waved her hand and the bind around Doodles fell off like it was nothing.
“Now, you’re gonna let me stay here.”, she insisted again. Doodles gave her a clean “No.”
She shot another blast of silk almost immediately after she got her answer. Doodles barely dodged it.
“If I’m not gonna stay here, then I’m not gonna LEAVE here any easier!”, she said as she entered a battle stance.
Doodles paused for a moment. “Are we really gonna’ do this?”
“Only if you want me to get outta’ here.”
“Then I guess you’ve got yourself a fight.” He began to move towards her at as quick of a pace that the interior of a cramped apartment would allow. However, his approach was cut short when he encountered the cube.
Yeah, the big wooden cube in the middle of the apartment that Doodles knew for a fact was not there before. That one.
“Oh- Come on! What is this?”
“Hiiiiii.” The stranger was on the ceiling behind him, clinging on with her spider legs. She had gone up there while Doodles was distracted
“Were you the one who-” The cube had disappeared. “Oh, thanks. That thing totally clashed with this place’s vibe.”
“WHAT vibe?” The Arachnid questioned, gesturing at the bare bones apartment that they were in.
“Yeah, I’m working on it, dude!” Suddenly, the Arachnid grabbed Doodles with a shot of silk and spun him towards her.
“Which is WHY I think we shouldn’t go messing this place up.”
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Doodles was standing on the side of the building with silk that had been stuck to his feet.
The Arachnid suddenly appeared above him, clinging onto the wall with her spider legs.
“Meet me on the roof, if you can make it that far!!” She imitated an evil laugh while she scurried up the building. Doodles attempted to make chase, but in the literal blink of an eye, there was somehow a barrage of clones of the Arachnid stampeding down the side of the building. Doodles yelped in shock, instinctively creating a blue-ish crystal in front of him, its color reminiscent of that of the calm waters of a tropical beach. He threw it out towards the oncoming horde, parting a small path through the middle. He started to move towards the gap, only for the clones to close the gap.
“Alright then, you got this, Doodles!” Doodles said to himself. He created 4 crystals
instead, bonding them together to create a rectangular shield of light. He charged ahead through the barrage. The clones all dissipated when coming in contact with the shield. Running up the building, he began to come up with a plan.
“Hi again! You saw what I can do, right?” The Arachnid asked Doodles excitedly as he arrived on the roof of the building.
“I saw. Pretty rad. Was it your Link?” He asked.
“Huh?”
Doodles realized the advantage he suddenly had, “She doesn’t even know what the Connection is.” he thought to himself.
“Whatever. Forget about that. That power you have is pretty cool. The clones? The box? All you?”
“Yep! That was me!” She said gleefully. “I can do a whole lotta’ other stuff too, and it’s all because of those webs on your feet there. Once you’ve got that on you, I can make you see crazy things! It’s my Web Of Lies!” she shouted, reaching up to try and look big.
“Cool.” he paused, “But my power’s cooler.”
“Huh??” The Arachnid hadn’t seen Doodles use his abilities on his way up, so she had an invalid air of confidence to her. Doodles began to create a bunch of crystals, trying his best to make a big show of his incoming attack, before finally unleashing a giant barrage of crystals- which all proceeded to land on the floor around the Arachnid, not a single one actually hitting her.
“You- Hey, you missed- AUGH!” She was cut off after being pinned down by a net of light strung between all of the crystals lying on the ground.
“Haha!! Exactly as I planned!” Doodles exclaimed.
“I- Tha… You- You cheated! I didn’t know you were gonna do that!” She stammered out, struggling against her prison.
Doodles walked towards her and squatted down so they could talk face-to-face, “You let your guard down, little dude, I faked you out.”
She glared at him angrily, “Let me out. Now.”
“No ‘please’?”
The Arachnid thrashed around and growled angrily.
“Hey hey hey! Hey. Hey.” Doodles said as he tried to calm her, “Breathe. I’m gonna’ let you out now, got it?”
“Ok..” She muttered. Doodles got rid of the beams of light and absorbed all of the crystals into his body.
“My name’s Doodles, you?”
She stood up, with not much energy left to be angry, “Athnia.” she said slowly, as if she wasn’t really sure about it, “I think.”
“You aren’t even sure?”
“I don’t know a lotta’ stuff about myself. I dunno’ where I lived, I dunno’ if I have a mom or dad. I don’t remember anything other than just coming here.”“Does that make you upset?”
“Huh?”
“Being on your own all the time. Does it make you sad or anything?”
“Oh! Um. A little. It feels like nobody likes me. Or wants to be my friend.”
“I could easily be your friend, dude. No sweat.”
“Can I stay with you too?” Athnia asked hopefully.
“Sure. I’ll figure something out.”
Athnia wanted to be more excited, but she was very tired from the fight. And being extremely angry, “Oh. Wow. Thanks. That’s the first time someone hasn’t tried to kick me out.”
“Don’t worry about it. D’you wanna go back inside so we can get you set up?”
“No, wait.” Athnia ran over to the edge of the building and looked back at Doodles, “I’ve never gotten to look out at the city like this before.”
“Oh, yeah? Sure, we can do that.” Doodles answered, going over to Athnia. They looked over the railing on the edge of the building.
“Y’know,” Athnia started, looking over at Doodles, “you look a lot like this city.”
“Haha, yeah.” Doodles chuckled, “Me and Synshiza have got a lot in common. Literally! We’re made of the exact same stuff!”
Athnia was starting to get worked up again, “Really? How?”
“Okay, you know over there?” Doodles shifted Athnia’s view to a mountain just outside of the city’s outskirts, “That there is Shining Peak.”
“Oh, that place? Yeah, I’ve seen it all the time going around the city!”
“Well, it's super important to Synshiza, cause in there, there’s these special crystals that we call Synthegems, and, for some reason, these things can do pretty much whatever you want them to do. It sounds fake but I swear it’s real! They’re the entire reason why Synshiza looks like this, it’s all cause’ of the Synthegems!”
“That’s so cool!!” Athnia exclaimed, fully invested now.
“Yeah!! Yeah, it is! The gems are also just, a complete substitute for electricity! Everywhere else uses electricity but we use Synthegems to do everything!! And you know what’s the most awesome part?”
“What? What?”
“I’m powered by them too!”
“Wh- huh?” Athnia paused, confused.
“Okay, this is going back to what you said about me and Synshiza looking the same. So, this one time, a long time ago back when I was a kid, like you, I had this sports game coming up, yeah? This big, big sports game. Well, at least big for someone that age. And, I really, REALLY wanted to win. So I thought, ‘Hey, these Synthegems that everybody loves so much. Maybe I could use one of them to give myself some sorta’ boost before the game-’”
“Is that cheating?” Athnia interjected.
“Yeah, probably, but that’s not important. So, in the middle of the night I sneak off aaaaaall the way to Shining Peak and I find some Synthegems by the base of the mountain.”
“What’d you do with em’?”
“I ate em’.”
“Wh- how? Would that hurt?”
“They were small, they were brittle. I crushed them up into dust and ate them no problem.”
“So, did you win?”
“Nah. I got super sick. I had to stay home all day the next day. And once I began to heal I just started looking like this. Maybe it had to do with the projections all the other gems were doing around the city? Cause’ I can glow now and my hair and body are completely different colors, and it was also how I was Connected!”
“How you were what?”
“Oh, yeah! I forgot you don’t even know about The Connection! That’s a whole other thing. A long time ago, there was this sort of phenomenon created that we call the Connection. It gives all the people around the worlds their own special abilities called Links, which are different for everybody. Like, my Link is the crystals I can make and yours is probably your webs.”
“Why was it created?”
“Well. Uhhhhhh. We don’t know. Leading theory is that it’s caused by the Synthegems somehow. At one point people thought it was a gift from Gods, but at this point that’s just a really old legend.”
“That’d be cool. If that was true.”
“I guess it’d be pretty neat.”
Doodles and Athnia stood there looking out at Synshiza for a while.
“Hey, would it be cool with you if I just called you Nia, or do you like your full name better?” Doodles asked her.
“Yeah! Yeah. I like that a lot. Thanks.” Nia replied.
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Ina didn’t expect this mission to be particularly difficult. Of course, none of their missions were particularly easy either. Ina was a Soulhunter, an individual who takes contracts to hunt down and contain rogue spirits named Mali, whose misdeeds and evil acts throughout their lives cause their souls to be reduced to violent and feral husks after death.
This building was an old facility that originally served as an outpost for a defunct tech company, which made sense to house a Malice in it. Despite their hostile nature, Mali tend to dwell in places that not a lot of others would realistically visit. Although, there were a lot more signs of life here than there should’ve been. Crudely constructed barricades were set up all over the halls of the facility, some adorning ominous messages like “TURN BACK NOW” or “ENEMY TERRITORY”, clearly showing that somebody was occupying the place. Somebody who, unfortunately, didn't sound friendly. Ina wasn’t worried. They had encountered much more threatening presences in the form of Mali.
Despite that, in their time as a Soulhunter, Ina had become desensitized to the whole business of it. Risking their life hunting down these dangerous entities loses its sense of danger once you’ve been doing it long enough, and Ina had been doing it a very, VERY long time. They felt as if they had seen everything that their supernatural pest control line of work had to offer.
Ina navigated through the cold, monochrome halls. They noticed that they felt nothing like the nearby Synshiza, which was probably one of the flashiest and most colorful cities they had ever seen. Reyse was like that, very glamorous and focused on its looks, while its counterpart, Phaara was more practical. Ina traveled a lot between the two worlds for their job so they had had a lot of time to pick up on differences like this.
After all their time as a Soulhunter, Ina had developed the skill of being able to sense a paranormal presence, but it was challenging to do so here. The thick steel walls of the facility combined with the supposed presence of at least one other individual made it difficult to parse out the Mali’s aura, but Ina could feel it faintly.
Passing through many samey-feeling metallic rooms and corridors, Ina took particular notice of a room adorned in blueprints and bulletin boards, appearing to be a creative workshop of some kind. Just like all the others, it was abandoned and broken down, but very orderly. However, whoever was working here seemed to be struggling with whatever project they had been taking on. Ina stopped to read a printed out progress log lying on one of the tables:
“Progress Report: None. There’s been no progress. We’re still trying to improve the prototype’s absorption abilities but no matter how many Synthegems we pour into this thing we just can’t seem to stabilize it. I’ve been thinking about telling the higher ups that we should just probably scratch the idea when making our final design draft so that we can focus on it’s raw strength instead but something tells me they wouldn’t be too happy with that. They wanted the ULTIMATE combat machine after all. On a side note, the others in the department came up with a name for the project. Too bad the name that they chose is horrible. Someone suggested naming it “Roko”, an ancient Phaaran word for “agony”. I tried to go against it, but I was somehow outvoted by everyone in the department. A bunch of edgelords, those people.”
Ina moved on. They began to dwell on the so-called Project Roko mentioned in the document. Whatever this “absorption technique” was was kept vague, but the mention of Synthegems rubbed Ina the wrong way. There were no limits to the things those mysterious minerals could do. Ina was forced out of their thoughts when they eventually reached the heart of the facility, arriving at a door marked “Testing Chamber 2”. There was also giant red painted text next to the door that said “WELCOME TO OUR LAIR. YOU WERE WARNED…”
Ina wasn’t too happy about the Mali hiding out around the same place as these occupiers, but they had no choice but to enter and see what was going on. The room was very large as well as open, presumably in order to provide ample space for whatever they were testing in here.
At the end of the room, Ina could make out some sort of machine adorned in an surrounded by monitors atop a higher ledge. It appeared to be a sort of capsule, but there was no way to clearly see through the glass on the front and tell if anything was inside.
The Mali was nearby, Ina knew that for a fact. They continued to search the room for any sort of paranormal presence. Maybe some sort of hidden alcove? A broken passage through a wall? Or-
A metal stake flew by Ina’s head and stuck itself into the wall next to them.
“Who’s there??” They shouted out.
“Well, well, well.” An unknown voice called out. Three figures emerged on top of a pile of rubble.
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Doodles 🌳 said:
Yeah, the big wooden cube in the middle of the apartment that Doodles knew for a fact was not there before. That one.
“This isn’t mine by the way.” Doodles reassured Aeira.
“Good. I could never be friends with a Big Wooden Cube fan.”
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This part of the old one is still so good that I can't even begin to describe how good it is
 
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