Warform

[Mercy]

WARFORM
​

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Intent: To create armor for Mercy the only way she knows, through pain and harm.​

Image Source: Modified version of https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oAogKL​

Canon Link: NA​

Permissions: NA​

Primary Source: Srina Talon | Mercy | Humbarine Invasion | Co-written with Srina Talon​

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Manufacturer: Srina Talon | Mercy​

Affiliation: Mercy​

Market Status: Closed-Market​

Model: NA​

Modularity: Yes, since this is a shape Mercy’s body can assume, she can modify it with time and effort.​

Production: Unique​

Material: Altered organic tissue, reinforced bone growth, hardened keratin-like carapace, Sith-alchemized flesh, mutated muscle fiber, trace metallic deposits, rybcoarse.​

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Classification: Multipurpose, Bio-Armor, Organic Power Armor​

Weight: Heavy​

Resistances:​

Energy: Extreme​

Kinetic: Extreme​

Lightsabers: Extreme​

Other:​

Sonic: None​

Acid: None​

EMP/Ion: None​

SPECIAL FEATURES

Living Armor: Warform is an extension of Mercy rather than an external suit of armor. When in battle, she can command a shift in her physique, forcing the carapace to burst out of her flesh and surround her body with material made out of her own bone, flesh, and might. The process can be either slow or fast, but if Mercy forces it to explode out of her, the process will be agonizing and potentially debilitating. The extent of it is still being experimented with, but Mercy has noticed she can manipulate this to an extreme degree, allowing only portions of her body to change and warp by her own will. For instance, creating claws out of her hand and with time, perhaps more.​

​

Living Metal: After the invasion of Humbarine Mercy ordered her Graspborn to collect all the Beskar’gam they collected from the Mandalorians they slaughtered for Srina Talon to analyze with her prowess in Sith Alchemy, they also ransacked the mines of Gromas for Phrik. Together, the two Empresses explored the molecular structure of those two legendary materials. One from the actual metal, the other exploring how to force her bones and the carapace to improve on their structure and adhere to it. Srina, using Sith Alchemy and Magic, together with Mercy’s command of her own body, managed to rearrange the density and strength of her bones to first mimic and then surpass their durability and protective nature. This explains the extreme resistance to energy, kinetic and lightsaber attacks, while having virtually no defenses to Sonic and EMP attacks. Since it is organic material, it also has no defenses against Acid attacks.​

​

Living Exo-Skeleton: Utilizing the lessons from organic cybernetic packages like NeuroSaav’s Cardio-Muscular Packages, Mercy grew rybcoarse through the whole of the exo-skeleton, boosting her already formidable strength and speed even more. The side-effect is also that she no longer needs the Force to push her capacity to the extreme. Now even without it, she can physically match any opponent on the battlefield while deprived of the Force.​

​

Living Forceless: While the initial process of reshaping her cells took the experience and skill of Srina in Sith Alchemy and Magic, the result no longer needs the Force to function and instead has become a biological component of Mercy’s being. It relies on her Firrerreo healing factor to properly function, but Mercy can call on it at will otherwise.​

​

Closed Circuit: These experiments have sealed a connection between Mercy, her flesh and the Force stored within it. The same structure that keeps her strength contained also makes it more difficult for outside effects to interfere with that strength, allowing her to keep using the Force, limited by what was already stored within her. This was designed as a direct answer to White Noise and other forms of Force disruption. When White Noise reaches Mercy, her body separates the hostile resonance from her own presence in the Force. She is able to extend this influence to those she chooses. Anti-Force fields, voidstone and other derivative compounds work somewhat differently. They can still suppress the Force around Mercy, but have more difficulty reaching the reserves of power already sealed within Mercy's flesh and those she is linked to.​

​

Focus: She can use Warform to channel the Force directly through it, allowing more subtle applications of the Force than Mercy is usually used to.​

STRENGTHS

Living Metal: The exo-skeleton formed from Mercy’s being has extreme resistance in the three most conventional forms of damage. Energy, kinetic and lightsaber-grade forces.​

​

At Will: This protection is carried by Mercy wherever she goes and can be summoned at will. However, at a normal pace, it takes effort before it is fully grown out of her flesh. This can be hastened and rapidly summoned, in which case the armor will explode from out of Mercy with some gnarly consequences.​

​

Forceless: At heart Mercy has only ever relied on the Force to amplify her own natural gifts. This armor is an extension of that, allowing her to forego the Force entirely and still push her strength, resistance and speed to inhuman extremes that ensures she can physically go toe-to-toe against any opponent on the battlefield even if she does not have access to the Force.​

​

Closed Circuit: Seals and shields the Force within her from outside interference, allowing her and those she chooses to resist the effects of anti-force technology and compounds.​

WEAKNESSES

Living Armor: Warform is an extension of Mercy. That means that any damage to it, is damage directly to Mercy, which is a very Mercy thing to do but in some ways misses the point of armor entirely. When armor should insulate a person from pain, damage and wounds, Mercy will feel every hit as if she is directly hit by it. Because in essence she is, even if her true self is protected underneath this armored layer.​

​

Explosive Summon: While it is possible for Mercy to summon Warform practically instantaneously, this is not advisable. In this case the armor physically explodes from under her skin, causing grievous damage to her physical form and agonizing pain to her physique. This can be distracting at best, or completely debilitating at worst for a while depending on the situation.​

​

Organic Tissue: While Mercy’s bones and internal workings have been altered by Srina’s Sith Alchemy and Magic, it is in essence still organic tissue. That means it has no protection against acid, or sonic/vibrational or ionic attacks.​

​

Metabolic Cost: forming and maintaining Warform consumes huge amounts of biological energy. Hunger, exhaustion, blood loss, poison, or healing-factor disruption can make it harder to sustain.​

​

Heat Build-Up: Heavy organic armor plus enhanced muscle output means Mercy can overheat in prolonged engagements.​

​

Pain Feedback / Sensory Overload: because the armor is her body, heavy impacts, sonic resonance, and repeated damage can overwhelm her nerves even if they do not penetrate.​

DESCRIPTION
Location: Jutrand [Capital] – Estate of the Empress

Deep beneath the obsidian foundations of the palace, entire wings had been long ago converted into research facilities that were dedicated to dozens of clandestine projects. The former Emperor, the Dead God, had frequented these levels far more often than she…But that didn’t mean Srina didn’t find a use for them. That didn’t mean she didn’t track what her scientists were working on, even while handling matters abroad. She was incredibly efficient in her silence, minding her people, while refusing to suffocate them. If they knew she was looking over their shoulder…

They wouldn’t be as daring.

They would seek swift results rather than inventive solutions in an attempt to please her. Not knowing that speed which sacrificed ingenuity had the opposite effect.

The Fifth Wing had been vacated under the premise of one of the Relics from the Holy World's going terminal after advanced study. The Empress personally sealed the area and cut surveillance to “deal with” the situation before it got out of hand. The last thing most people wanted to see was the palace and part of the synth city turn into a crater, as it would slow down infrastructure, and thus she was met with very little resistance. Gold-hewn eyes took in clean rooms and operating theaters that overlooked an alchemical vault. In this place…The Order’s obsession with understanding life had become a pursuit of mastering it. Sure—Some Sith had evaded death for centuries.

But that knowledge was closely guarded, hidden not only from the outside world, but from each other. The decision to make a study of it was necessary. To know life was to know death, while that led to more effective ways of culling those who stood against them across the divide. It made her Sith not only conquerors but hunters, destroyers, for which none could stand against.

Srina found this line of thought, this arrangement…Practical.

The laboratory itself was mostly buried in silence. There was the low hum of machinery and the steady pulse of containment fields buzzing, but otherwise, it might as well have been a tomb. Holographic displays offered the vitals of an “unknown” test subject while another monitor gave microscopic scans of Mandalorian beskar. Plates had been stripped from the dead on Humbarine and delivered to Jutrand without ceremony, then patiently dismantled. It wasn’t the only alloy present…But it was probably the most controversial thing to set foot in her domain. It could not be helped.

Mercy needed armor.

Not that the woman would admit to it…Not even with half her face missing. Her battle-sister had only relented when the pale Echani had reframed the situation in such a way that suggested Mercy was easing her burdens by accepting it. Srina had very little ego. It didn’t harm her in the slightest to know this was a “favor” the Core Empress was indulging on her behalf—But it did get her what she wanted and that was more than enough.

The larger woman sat before her on a reinforced examination platform as she had time and time again. It had originally been built for cybernetic implantation before its weight tolerances had been quietly reinforced for this particular work. Mercy’s back was bare with old scars crossing powerful muscle beneath harsh fluorescent lights. Srina was no stranger to the marks that war left behind…But her body healed far more cleanly than this. The Star-Arm shifted, already antsy.

“…Do stop moving.”

“I barely did.”

“You did.”

“We’ve been here for hours…”

“It’s been five minutes, Sestra.”

The giantess didn’t bother looking over her shoulder because she knew full well that would only make her move more. Srina didn’t reply again but the soft touch to scarred skin would tell the woman in the examination chair volumes. Beskar, Phrik and other metals weren’t working out as they might have hoped…So the plan shifted. Technique, changed. It was no longer merely a problem that was strictly bound in practical science but something rooted in what had never been done before. “….Do not move…”

Between her fingers stretched dozens of impossibly fine threads of Force energy. They shimmered like crimson spider-silk when the light caught them correctly, weaving effortlessly through flesh without breaking skin. She could not heal as a Jedi might, but rather, manipulated threads like a seamstress. Where a medical-droid might require incisions the ivory-haired woman simply persuaded the body to open itself to her. Muscle yielded. Nerves separated. Bone revealed itself without a single drop of blood…But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Mercy’s innate regeneration was inactive, partially held in check with her threading, and partially by the patient herself. Technology could display every nerve in the Titan’s body but only the Force allowed her to touch them, change them, without a failing cascade leaving her more harmed than the White Noise. Crimson threads slipped deeper until one settled on her spinal cord while another whispered along the brachial plexus toward her shoulders. Hundreds more branched out until Mercy’s nervous system resembled a constellation that only Srina could see.

“Don’t fight me. I know…It’s your instinct.”

“Don’t this, don’t that…You worry too much. I can take it.”

The flippant response might have fooled some…But not Srina. She knew exactly what she was doing and knew exactly what it felt like. Pain in places no other injury could ever reach, the urge to rip off your own skin just to make it stop. The lights dimmed, not because of any machine, but because the alchemical runes that were carved into the examination platform awakened beneath them. Red light crawled across polished durasteel floors before disappearing into diagnostic equipment…The mystical and the mundane existing together without conflict. Srina closed her eyes.

When all else failed? It was always blood and bone…The answer was always the same: Blood and bone.

Far beneath the flesh of her battle-sister, marrow stirred beneath her careful guidance. The molecular scans nearby ceased being legible diagrams while they were flooded with data the machines could not comprehend. Srina had to keep Mercy’s body from rejecting the alterations and the easiest way to do that was to convince it that this was the default. This was the new normal. It wouldn’t fight what had always been—This was what it always healed.

This was what it always repaired.

The vertebrae responded first with strength folding inward as density increased. Microscopic crystalline structures reorganized themselves until the geometry began to mirror the molecular arrangement of the beskar samples nearby. It wasn’t creating metal within Mercy…But bone. Living bone that was persuaded to evolve and endure as beskar endured. The white witch guided every change and correction with painstaking patience…Backing off when Mercy’s body fought her. Pushing forward when it accepted her.

Too much density would cause the marrow to die. Too little…And the entire process became meaningless. Every piece of the red-haired woman required its own adjustment. Hours would pass unnoticed, though, Mercy would suffer every excruciating second of it. Her focus shifted seamlessly to the rybcoarse and their procedure temporarily stalled. It was usually used for enhancement packages for cardiac muscles…But once perversed from its original intent? It would work here, all the same.

She began again.

Dark biological fibers had already been cultivated within her own engineered tissue and it looked to have matured. Srina gathered each living strand individually and guided them alongside Mercy’s nervous system until they lay along every major pathway. She didn’t replace what the giantess had, but supported it, reinforcing her in ways that were terrifying. When Mercy moved, these fibers would move before muscle. When she struck? The living exoskeleton would already be accelerating the motion.

Should the Force abandon her again, as it nearly had beneath the White Noise, her body would never notice. She would remain exactly what she had always been.

A Titan.

“This is your last chance to stop…You’ll have to force the transformation. It will be a new muscle for you to learn how to flex…Like picking up a new skill. It is not the Force.”, the whispered words echoed with an exhaustion that went unmentioned. Srina could not keep Mercy from endangering herself…But she could do this. She could give her a way to fight back. “It is biological. It will tear you apart…It will hurt...”

“Promise?”

“I do”, she responded, plain, while entirely missing the dark humor. Her words were honest to the point of brutality. Completely clinical. ”…Every time.”

Mercy’s laugh echoed through the lab, as though Srina had just mentioned something hilarious.

“A little pain makes everything clearer. Better. If it works out like you said…It’s worth it.”

If it didn’t turn her into a mindless, savage beast of bone and nothingness…Yes. It would be worth it. The perfect combination of joy and madness in Mercy was currently in equilibrium. That balance was what allowed her to be a Lord of the Sith, rather than a crazed beast, sinking her teeth into flesh at the mere hint of insult. If the Blackwall Empress disrupted or destroyed that balance…Would Mercy even recognize her before tearing her throat out?

Srina sighed. A distant sound but there was an edge of fondness…

“I dislike your enthusiasm for self-inflicted injury…But it is the only way.”

Armor that could withstand the giantess had to be made out of something she wouldn’t get frustrated with and take it off because it slowed her down. Because it felt like a crutch. Because, it didn’t feel like her. It was the only solution Srina could come to after weeks of research.

The armor, the material, had to be made out of herself.

"Don't see it as self-inflicted injury, sweetheart. See it as continued fuel on the drive to excellence. The more I hurt... the stronger I am... that is what these sheep will never understand with their funny little gadgets."

The white-haired woman breathed in again before exhaling slowly. Clearly…Her battle-sister had sensed her momentary hesitation. The intent of the procedure was sound and while science mostly supported it? There was still so much left unaccounted for. But…It was the only way.

The only way to possibly keep Mercy from bleeding, dying, for her.

“As you wish, Sestra.”

Srina’s head bowed faintly as she reached the final stage, waiting for Mercy’s voice to leave the air before continuing. The threads of the Force gathered together and with an almost violent pull drew down the newly grown biological lattice into perfect alignment with the larger woman’s nervous system. Her fingers curled in the threads, pulling tight like corset strings, while everything forcibly cinched together. One by one, excruciatingly, every living pathway settled into place until flesh accepted it as naturally as any other tendon or ligament.

This armor would no longer be something they had created…It would be something Mercy was.

A thought, a reflex, the biological instinct and imperative to survive. The red light slowly faded from the chamber as Srina slowly withdrew from her battle-sister. Metallic eyes lingered on the monitors to watch Mercy stabilize beneath the watchful lens of medical scanners. The instruments confirmed what the Force had already told her. The integration was complete.

The white-haired woman watched Mercy’s back in silence for several moments while her gaze lingered on scars by the dozen, layered, with some likely caused by the battle on Humbarine. Caused…Because Mercy thought of her first. Herself, second. Srina never wanted to see the Titan like that again. Missing half her face—Unable to speak. Finally…The runes beneath them died down and the presence of the wintry woman coalesced into something much smaller. Drained.

“It is finished.”

Mercy rolled her shoulders experimentally and something beneath her skin answered the movement almost instantly. She was faster—If that was possible. The living framework that they had threaded into her being was already listening, answering her needs, with barely a thought. Srina noted the cold sweat the larger woman was covered in and reached for a light robe to wrap around her shoulders…Giving her a moment to feel her way through the alterations. Everything would be new. “How does it feel?”

“Good…Like I can take on anything. Good and strange…”

Srina began to unhook her from the equipment, quietly, making herself busy until there was nothing left to do. Her eyes were quiet but everything she did was deliberate, allowing time, even if it wasn’t needed. “Every impact against the exoskeleton will still be yours to bear. Your body is your armor. It cannot separate your pain from your protection…”, she warned softly, even though they'd already run through this before. Mercy gave a quiet grunt that sounded suspiciously like agreement…But she was somewhere else. It wouldn’t be until Srina reached out to touch her cheek that she turned to look at the Echani that was ever at her side. “You will overheat if you maintain it too long. It will demand blood, calories, and time to heal. This doesn’t make you invincible.”

“I know.”

“I know you know.”, Srina returned, though her voice never raised in volume. It was only then that the diminutive woman met the eyes of the Core Empress. Her expression composed, almost severe as her hand slipped away… “Which is why I keep saying it. I need you to remember…”

Mercy caught her hand as it was falling, examining it, wondering for a moment how something so small could affect so much.

“I won’t forget.”

.