Ljiljana Kovac (Mantis) by Sell

Name: 

World: Overwatch

Story

Due to Lijilianas father beeing a soldier and very strict, she was trained from an early age on. Different kinds of sports and a millitary school prepared her for the real military, which she joined as soon as it was possible.
She was always someone who loved the challange, the adrenalin, and ofcourse, winning. Having the same hot temper as her father, she is not a very good looser. However, she is loyal and pumped with energy. Her rather fragile figure help her to be fast and very agile so se can fit through tiny holes or navigate herself well through thight spaces, but if she gets ghaught, she is rather weak, can’t stand many bullets and is in no way a tank.
In military, she was trained to be a flank soldier, not one on the front, but one that comes from the side or behind the enemy and executes them.
Due to her fathers contacts to the higher commanders and generals, she got elected for the ‘Mantis’-Project, where some especialy good soldiers got equipped with a new kind of mechanic dress that gave you the ability to fly and was nearly bulletproof, despite beeing skin thight.
About five Mantis soldiers were trained to the extrem to become a warmashine, with this technology, she became thight friends with. But befor the project was finished, an army of battle omnics attaked Croatia.
Despite the army fighting desperatly, the omnics where way to many. And they kept comin.
Her father died in this war, leaving her only with a little brother, and her mother, who lived in a whole other country.
Eventually, they had to give up most of the soldiers, leaving with their families, trying to start a new life.
But some of them could not accept defeat. They built up an alliance, Ljiliana beeing a part of it, trying desperatly to fight back the omnics, and regain their city.
They kept loosing their allies to the robots, only a few even had weapons and the whole situation seemed hopeless…. until overwatch joined in. In her eyes, they where the knights in shining armor, coming to safe and free them….
Sadly, things did not go as planed. The city was lost. Not even overwatch could retrieve it.
But, they saw the courage and the potential of the alliance and offered them a month of training. In war, you can use every soldier you get. And thats how she joined the team.

To remember that time and her fellow soldiers, she now goes by the name Mantis.

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Check out more of Sell’s work on her art page, personal page, and Tapas Media. 

Huzundar by Alkh

Name: Huzundar 

World: Starcraft

Story

When the UED(United Earth Directorate) were sent fleeing from the Koprulu sector by the vicious pursuit of Kerrigan’s zerg forces, they left behind secret bases and laboratories, scattered on obscure planets and moons. With the main force annihilated, these isolated bases, cut off from all contact with earth, alone in the darkness of space, realized that in order to survive, they would need to be prepared for any inevitable situation. Thus, they developed techs unheard of before, out of sheer desperation. Anything that fell on their secluded planets, whether a displaced protoss vessel, a zerg corpse, or even a dominion ship, was studied, scavenged and incorporated into a grand design of surveillance and observation. And all this was the means, by which an unfortunate Dark Templar, the sullen Huzundar, became prisoner to the schemes of these terrans, an instrument of their surveillance, and a prisoner of a robotic shell that his essence was bound to.

 

Now during the second war, the protoss Dark Tempar of the planet Shakuras, developed the Stalker weapons, cybernetic walkers that rather than being piloted or having an AI, required a Templar to permanently infuse his own life essence into the machine. The Stalker thus being a fusion of life and machine, could utilize Templar’s psionic power, in order to teleport and attack with void blasts. Huzundar was one of the volunteers, who sacrificed themselves, even though beforehand he did not find it to his liking to abandon his true living body for a cybernetic one, he was nevertheless proud of this sacrifice, and considered such acts as both an honor and necessity for the protection of his people.

 

But in a horrific battle with a zerg force, on a mineral-rich moon of an un-documented planet, he was stricken down, his husk could not be rescued, he was left stranded. Still bound to the broken cyborg shell, Huzundar’s essence did not die when the body went offline, rather he was forced to endure this hopeless isolation for what seemed like an eternity. He was finally picked up by the scavengers of the secret UED base, and this was not the end of his pain. The scientists of the UED were delighted to experiment with protoss tech, and even more so when they realized that a living protoss was somehow fused into the machine.

They picked and prodded at the design, intent on finding the locus that connected the living consciousness of the templar, and the cybernetic frame, for with this knowledge they could modify the design to their liking. After years, they remodeled Huzundar, and installed a virtual brain system that subjugated the intent of his consciousness, a soul cage. They then let Huzundar loose, for he was their slave, with an agile neo-steel frame, DT cloaking, psionic shields and short range teleportation, he was their eye, travelling across the stars, undetected by many. But can a digital brain and a metal frame truly contain a soul, a question remains to be answered.

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Check out more of Alkh’s work on Tapas Media.

Sereg Tauron by HawkHunting

Name: Sereg Tauron

World:  Lord of the Rings

Story

In the First Age of Middle Earth, during the Fifth Battle against Morgoth, fought Hulyas member of the house of Dor-Iómin. He was on horseback at the forefront when Glaurung the Father of Dragons was unleashed. No match was Hulyas and his brothers in arms. One after another fell to the devastating force of a dragon. Then, Glaurung’s talon went down on Hulyas. Red turned his vision, and he lost consciousness. The dragon missed its target, but left a deep wound on the warrior. Presuming him dead, Glaurung went on killing the forces against Morgoth. Hulyas’ horse fled the battlefield into the safety of nearby woods.
Hulyas awoke in the middle of the forest, bereft of all sense of time. The loss of blood made his body limp. Soon after, he lost consciousness again.
As fate would have it, Hulyas’ life would be saved by an elf named Kemendil.
Hulyas awoke on a bed made out of leaves and twigs, in a hut not larger than a two-man tent.
“Mára arin. Good morning, Sereg Tauron”, was Hulyas greeted by his saviour.
“Sereg Tauron?”, asked Hulyas, his thoughts still on the battlefield.
“That is how we called you, since you weren’t available for an answer and your horse insisted on being secretive about it.”
Hulyas could hear a neigh from outside the hut.
“A month ago, a horse covered in blood came to our settlement. It led us to a man, in battle-worn armor, on death’s door.
Sereg Tauron. It means Blood Forester in your tongue. The soil was soaked in your blood.”
“You have my thanks, …”, Hulyas paused, not knowing the name of his host.
“Kemendil”, offered the elf with a smile.
Only now noticed Hulyas the pain on his left side. Under the bandages, the dragon’s nearly fatal wound throbbed.
Kemendil instructed him how to treat his wound and invited him to stay for as long as he wanted. Hulyas stayed for his remaining days in the settlement. The wound healed but left a scar down his chest. The elves asked him for his name, but he was fine with them calling him Sereg Tauron.

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Check out more of Hawk’s work on Tapas Media and twitter.