Thread: Return of the Exalted (closed for me and Kaybee)

December 21st, 2012. Despite professional recalculations putting the Mayan calender's long-count ending earlier, this day marked the beginning of what some have said was the end of the world. Stories vary as to what happened on that day, but an asteroid the size of Manhattan Island appeared suddenly in the skies over New York. Not long before impact, reports tell of a man on the street suddenly becoming engulfed in brilliant golden light, leaping high into the air and obliterating the asteroid with a single blow before disappearing entirely. Over the following weeks, isolated townships and small rural communities around the world started to go silent, as did anyone travelling to them to investigate. Satellite footage showed nothing. Eventually the truth reached the world at large through social media - photos and videos uploaded from smartphones showed strange and horrible beings attacking these smaller communities and tearing the people apart. The militarys of the world soon realised that, whatever these creatures were, they were keeping their distance from major population centres. Needless to say the rush of people towards larger cities across the world was almost crippling as the cities tried to cope with the massive influx of refugees. Though the actual counts were well below what people estimated, suggesting the worst had happened to the rest. Military cordons sprang up to help seal the cities from these creatures but many took a considerable amount of firepower to bring down and many outposts were simply overwhelmed once they ran out of ammunition. Then the Exalted appeared. The first was in England, a young man leading a large number of refugees to a camp on the outskirts of London. He did not really know how he had gained such power, but reports said that he tore the monsters apart with almost no effort and with nothing but his bare hands though footage recently surfaced on YouTube of him killing one monster by tearing the brick wall off a public toilet block and throwing it. He was not the only one and soon there were reports across the globe of people developing such incredible, almost godlike power. This power came with memories of another time and world, as well as answers to what they were. The Exalted - people gifted with the power of the mightiest gods of the Celestial Bureaucracy. The Solars, who blazed with the light of the Unconquered Sun. The Lunars, who's ability to become animals reflected their many-faced goddess, Luna. And the Dragon-Blooded, empowered by the Primordial Gaia, their bloodlines were re-awakened where they wielded the elements against the monsters. The memories contained in their Exaltations quickly revealed much - that at one stage, reality consisted of a single flat world called Creation, but incursions from a realm known as Malfeas triggered an unprecedented change. Not only physically changing the world to the one we know, but creating several billion years of history that was no less real than the present or Creation. The world is still reeling from this change - history and religion challenged in their entireties while the Exalted routinely break the laws of physics. For a time, it seemed the cities were safe - the larger populations somehow stopping the demons as they'd been identified as from manifesting in reality while handfuls of Exalted and large military defences held them at bay with long ranged munitions. Until the Battle of Chicago... The truck we'd been carried on pulled to a sudden stop inside the gate and we were hurried off it before a team of soldiers clambered in to grab a sealed and armoured container that was about the size of a very narrow coffin. Whatever was inside must have been heavy as they struggled to get it out of the truck. I wasn't able to watch, though, as we were hurried into the checkpoint, the artillery guns already firing while the soldiers manning the .50 cal machine guns waited for the enemy to be in effective range. It was a swarm of demons. Even without a proper vantage point, I knew that what was bearing down on Chicago's southern checkpoint was one of the larger demonic forces seen in recent weeks. Despite how much of the horde were being torn apart by artillery shells, the larger creatures were still coming. For a moment I wished I was back home in Australia with my parents before remembering that my hometown of Toowoomba had been almost entirely turned into a military cordon - it being one of the few ways through the Great Dividing Range. I had been in the US on holiday when the invasion started and now had no way to leave the country. I had been on a bus to Chicago when we were attacked - I'd figured if I'd be stuck in the States during the invasion I might as well do it in the city from one of my favourite book series. The bus got knocked off the road by some sort of cross between a rhino and an elephant but were saved by a military convoy that managed to drive it off and had room to transport us all. As I stepped into the checkpoint, I could see several other refugees clutching makeshift symbols to the Celestial Incarnae and praying to be saved. The religious implications of the Exalted might've been one of the most hotly-debated topics at the moment, but that didn't stop people praying for the Unconquered Sun to send an Exalt or two their way. My attention was drawn away by a loud scream from the checkpoint's walls. A whip-thin creature with three arms and a quartet of black wings perched on one of the mounted machine guns, the severed head of the soldier manning it clutched in one hand. As another soldier tried to swing his gun around to bear on it, the demon flung the severed head with such force that I could hear the second soldier's neck snap from the impact. The demon leapt down right into the midst of the soldiers carrying the sealed container, the thick steel buckling under the creature's weight before it hopped up, ripping the container's lid off in the process and using it to bludgeon the nearby soldiers to death. One brave man started firing his rifle at it, though even I could see the bullets simply bouncing off the creature's armoured hide. We had to do something to stop it whatever reinforcements were on the way wouldn't arrive until it started tearing its way through the civilians. Then I saw it, the now-open container. Inside was a curved sword, three feet long and that seemed to be made of a golden metal. I had heard about it - orichalcum, one of the newly-discovered magical materials. If any weapon here could kill that demon, it would be one infused with the might of the Unconquered Sun. I know now that there was no way for a mortal to lift that sword - orichalcum being many times heavier than any other known metal. And yet, as I grasped the sword's hilt, I felt something flow into me. Not from the sword, but from elsewhere. Deciding to worry about it later, I hefted the blade - which now felt as light as a feather - and charged at the creature. It must have sensed danger because it took off to get away from me, flying back over the checkpoint wall. Without thinking, I leapt up after it - leaping five metres straight up onto the wall before leaping off there towards the creature. Despite it lacking a face, I got the impression it was panicking as it saw me reach it high in the air and swinging the sword through it, that one stroke separating the demon's torso from the rest of it and the two halves fell to the ground in a spray of black ichor. It was only then that I realised what I'd just done. I had hefted a blade of orichalcum, leapt many metres into the air without a hint of effort and neatly bisected a demon that had slaughtered several trained soldiers. Then I noticed the glow I was emitting and it hit me. I, Erik Blakson, was one of the Solar Exalted. The horde beyond the checkpoint must have seen the glow as well and, thinking I was a far greater threat, backed off. The next few days where something of a whirlwind as I was rapidly conscripted into the IESF - the International Exalted Strike Force. Apparently the name was still a work-in-progress. Like other Exalted I was put up in a comfortable apartment that I would be sharing with the next person to Exalt in the city. I was a bit surprised by the accommodations until they explained that it was a way of placating any Exalted who thought they deserved the best and since there was no real way for mortals to stop such individuals and battles between two Exalts often caused a fair bit of property damage, a bit of pandering was considered the best option. Alone in my new lodgings, I decided to take a proper look at myself, having heard rumours of some Exalts undergoing minor physical changes along with the Exaltation. Other than Lunars developing animal parts and Dragon-Blooded manifesting some of their elements, I mean. Nothing major seemed to have changed - I was still about 5'8, still had long dark hair though it no longer seemed to become tangled at the drop of a hat, which I was grateful for, green eyes, a decently-muscled physique from years of martial arts. I didn't notice the lack of sleep I'd had for the last few weeks and the bags under my eyes from it were gone. The headcold I'd felt developing before arriving in Chicago was gone along with the odd ache or pain I'd felt. None of that was a surprise - I'd heard that Exaltation fixes your body into its prime. What I was looking for were changes beyond that. I finally found one, but I don't see why Exaltation would make that particular part of my anatomy bigger. Still, no sense to look a gift horse in the mouth. Putting that out of my mind for now, I got dressed again and took a closer look at the daiklave that had been the catalyst for my Exaltation. The hilt had felt strangely familiar when I'd picked it up to slay that demon and as I studied it closer, I remembered something about it - how the last person to bear my Exaltation had found it in an ancient tomb within a vast desert, protected by his own previous incarnation's honour guard who'd become the tomb's deathless guardians. I could recall other people with me there - two of whom I was particularly close to, but nothing more. I shook my head to get myself back in the present before sheathing the sword and setting it down next to the couch, though I couldn't help but wonder if my future roommate was going to bear the Exaltation of one of my past self's companions.