We've spent a lot of time with the heroes of the Renegades world, now it's time to meet one of its villains: the insatiable Void Eater!
A combination of ravenous human envy and a vengeful force from beyond the stars, this nigh-unstoppable duo will relentlessly hunt down their one objective.
(For more context on what a Vyos is, please read this post here, otherwise I'll have to keep things brief since this is a long one as-is!)
In the Vyos's inevitable spread for extraction and eradication of all life, its most vital resource is refining the cosmic essences other life forms exhibit naturally, then using them as a fuel source to power the traversal of its extended forms. These interstellar vessels can then spread the Vyos further while connected through long-range Syosic communication to the rest of its network.
However, due to an unclear incident, one vessel containing two large reserves of refined Syos and Kyos was damaged and lost its cargo within a relatively sparse region of a galaxy the Vyos had only begun to enter. The cargo was sent flying into unfamiliar space, and so following its trail, another vessel sent a single drone to retrieve the refined essences. This drone landed on a previously unknown but extremely vibrant planet, teeming with some of the highest natural levels of Byos and Syos the Vyos had ever observed.
The drone managed to land near the projected location of both essences, detecting the Kyos deposit closer by. Once it landed, it performed a scan of the surrounding area, and created a form for itself intended to adapt to this environment: a spindly, quadruped body plan, with a long winding tail. It then tracked down the Kyos's signature, leading to a small opening where it had created a sizeable impact site.
However, upon reaching the essence, the drone observed one of this planet's life forms, an unimposing bipedal entity, had also discovered it. To prevent it from interfering, the drone lunged at the creature, which barely dodged out of the way, then tumbled down the crater and directly towards the Kyos. Before the drone could prepare for another strike, the creature reached out to the essence's blinding orange glow. In an unforeseeable moment, the essence was absorbed into this entity, near-instantaneously morphing it into a noticeably larger form. Still seeking to fill its objective, the drone primed itself for one more strike, but the now much stronger being sent it flying away with a single blow.
The drone now laid still, critically damaged and barely functional, its fuel rapidly spilling out and cooling into a black mush.
Fortunately, another one of this planet's creatures, with fate not unlike the first, would soon approach.
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Edith Samson didn't have much to do tonight.
She had been fired from her job five days ago, and rent was overdue a week ago. She'd just spent the last of her money on her vices, hoping to dull any thoughts for as long as they could. She'd already started to feel a pain in her gut a month ago, and just one drink a night apparently wasn't enough to ignore it. So she cashed out, and now figured she didn't have any better plans than to wander out into the woods. Whatever happens now, she wasn't sure she had the time to care anyways.
In her stupor, she walked alongside an interstate road, up until seeing a faint smoke trail nearby. She staggered along to follow it, though walked past the empty crater that the smoke was rising from. Compelled by nothing in particular, she kept walking forward into the darkness of the woods.
Clinging onto the last iota of its functionality, the drone saw the woman weakly limping towards it. It calculated a simple plan for survival: use the last of its strength to overpower the being, then use its essence and biomass to reform a functional body.
Right as she walked past, the drone leaped at the woman, and began melding its form into hers to begin the extraction from within.
However, something unpredictable happened. Whether it was because of the drone's weakened state, or something innate to this species it attempted to overtake, or something cosmically unique to this individual, or a combination of factors, the extraction backfired.
Not unlike the prior human absorbing and adapting to the Kyos, this woman had overpowered and integrated the Vyos drone into her biology. The drone's pseudo-metallic form melded into her skeleton, extending her spinal cord with its tail, and the makeup of her entire body on a cellular level adapted to its presence.
After this violent, sudden transformation, both parties were astounded. This was especially shocking to the drone, previously just a thoughtless extension of the Vyos's instinctive logic. Edith, on the other hand, took it more in stride, oddly open to this new form, though was far more aware of herself now than moments prior.
In this new awareness, the drone's consciousness managed to speak to Edith directly through her mind. The drone relayed what it could, able to reference and replicate her understanding of language to communicate. Edith was only so sober and, in truth, only cared so much about the Vyos's wider goals. The drone meanwhile, new to the concept of "care", was much more unnerved by the fact it could no longer communicate with the rest of its hive.
Later it would be realized that this merging, not unlike the understanding of eukaryotic cells as being composed of smaller organelles in endosymbiosis, the drone had integrated into Edith's body not unlike an organ. While remaining a separate thinking consciousness (developed due to her influence), the drone is biologically subservient to Edith as part of an organism. This merging broke its similar relation with the wider Vyos network, as well as created a dependency that can no longer be broken without killing the drone, along with potentially Edith depending on how reckless the separation is.
As part of both its nature as a Vyos entity, capable of rearranging its form to the microscopic level based on available data, and its new role as part of Edith's body, the drone near-instantly "optimized" her body for "irregularities", explaining her sudden sobering.
Edith asked her new bodily co-pilot what else it could do, to which it responded by explaining it had complete control over her physiology, barring anything outright harmful to either of them. Testing this, Edith asked if she could have longer hair. The drone complied, and her hair rapidly extended past her shoulders and nearly to her waist. After gleefully running her hands through this new hair, she glanced at the rest of her body. It hadn't changed much since merging, aside from general length and a tail to fit the drone's mass, leaving her body mostly in tact. Resenting this, she began to truly understand the scope of what she'd just uncovered.
She had a rapid list of requests: she want to be shapelier, then bulkier. Elated feeling her new frame, she wanted to be even taller, stretching out as far as the drone could accommodate with their combined mass. She then began to indulge her more specific and repressed desires: among other things, she asked for sharpened claws and teeth, fully relishing her monstrous capabilities.
After calming down from the excitement of her transformation, Edith realized she still wasn't entirely sure who to thank for her request. Asking the drone for its name, they attempted to explain that was something entirely foreign to the Vyos's nature. It was merely a piece of Vyos, the essenceless presence of the void. Already exhausted by this, Edith decided to name the drone "Void", to which they complied with some confusion.
Now Edith and Void stood alone in the woods. She definitely wouldn't be let back into her apartment, not like she wanted to anyways. In her view, she had finally gotten everything she could ask for. After all, she had been treated like a freak, an outcast, a threat for years. Now, she decided she might as well give them something to really be afraid of.
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Edith had been back in town for several weeks now. They remained in the shadows of back alleys or otherwise out of sight, generally laying low. She'd keep to herself, but if anyone made the mistake of bothering her, then she'd have a chance to indulge her new vices.
However, while crossing through the back streets, she saw a commotion going down out in the open, and carefully snuck a look.
There, she saw a fleet of massive robots firing energy weapons down a city street. She wasn't one to judge how unusual this was, but she was truly captivated by what they were shooting at: a woman, with glowing orange hair, an ill-fitting jacket, and a skin-tight suit, launching like a rocket between the robots. She blitzed past one with her arm out to smash its legs in half, then jumped up and cratered another with a window-shuddering punch, before going back to the remains of the first robot to pick it up and send it flying at another, thoroughly demolishing both. She then took a second to compose herself, taking a deep breath while wiping her brow with her forearm, before taking off again with one final boom. Unsure of why, Edith couldn't take her eyes off of her.
Void however, using their unique receivers through Edith's eyes, knew exactly what was so special about her.
The human that nearly destroyed them after absorbing the Kyos was still alive. Not only did the essence not destroy her, the mutation was apparently stable enough to let her control its massive power.
Now having the full picture, Void told Edith the full story of what happened that night, and this time she understood it completely.
This bitch, she thought. If I was just a few minutes earlier, that would've been me. If she was just a little luckier, she would've killed Void too, and I wouldn't have ANYTHING now.
Hearing this too, Void offered Edith a solution. Using their abilities, Void could reclaim the lost Kyos reserve, along with the mutation it caused this other human, then integrate it into Edith's body. With the raw power of the Kyos and Void's fine control, Edith would be virtually unstoppable.
Unsurprisingly, Edith liked this plan very much.
Now Edith has one goal: subdue this other girl, Crush Comet, then take back the power she and Void rightfully deserved. Then, this whole world, no, all worlds, would be hers to devour. Even the all-encompassing void of the Vyos would be no match for her theoretical unlimited power.
And so she proclaimed herself: Void Eater
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Void Eater is an exceptionally powerful supervillain who can only get stronger. By default, her "optimized form", a merging between Void's Vyosin form and Edith's wild desires, is both extremely strong and durable. Her skin is mostly covered in a nano-organic alloy, a material resembling metal but able to bend and flex like organic matter. This is a natural staple of most extensions of Vyos, though Void specifically refined it for adapting to Edith. As such, it's nearly impossible to penetrate, and is resistant to almost everything, while being light and flexible enough to let Edith move as if it was her natural skin. Her physical strength is also immense, capable of throwing a semi-truck with relative ease. She also has several natural weapons built into her physiology. She has extremely sharp claws made of an even more durable variant of her body's normal alloy, able to slice through steel, which she can extend and retract on a whim. Her tail is extremely flexible for its power, and at its tip is a sharpened blade comparable to her claws. The tail can also extend slightly past its normal length if needed. While less practical in terms of range, her teeth are also exceptionally sharp and durable, combining with her ludicrous bite force to let her bite through almost anything she wants with ease.
However, the intended purpose of these weapons is to let Void Eater access her true power: by intaking genetic material (either through Void absorbing it through her skin or by ingesting it directly), Void can then analyze it and replicate it into Edith's body, letting her integrate it into her physiology. In simpler terms, she can absorb the powers of whatever she eats. While this can apply to almost anything, such as letting her replicate traits of ordinary animals just by eating their meat (even if processed), this more strikingly applies to unique innate abilities found in other humans. As long as the abilities are genetic in some capacity, just a few drops of blood will be enough for Void to replicate them. This does exclude powers granted by non-innate means, such as Vitalia's magical abilities as a vanguard of hope, but can include abilities innate from birth (such as Lightshow's and Knight Diamond's) or from mutations that occurred later in life. Crucially, this category includes Crush Comet and Rising Star, the ones who absorbed the Kyos and Syos deposits Void was first sent to retrieve. Not only can their mutations be absorbed, which would let Void Eater replicate their exact abilities, but she can also absorb the raw cosmic essences they store and generate. While this doesn't grant any unique abilities on its own, Void can use their Vyos nature to process this as raw energy, and extremely powerful energy at that, giving Edith a major power boost in the process she can use to enhance her default abilities.
This incredible ability-stealing-ability comes with a limitation though. While Void is stabilized as a part of Edith's biology, any further extracted material will be prone to rapid Vyosin decay. This decay will then deplete Void's ability to use the material's data, and any augmentations to Edith's body using this data will quickly revert in advance to avoid being irreparably damaged by the decay. This means any powers absorbed from another source are on a time limit, with more material giving Void more time to utilize it. A few drops of blood can grant a minute or two of access to those powers, while something as drastic as a full limb's worth of material could be utilized for at least a week, and a full body of material could last for over a month, should Void Eater be so lucky.
With her powers, Void Eater has one goal: take back the Kyos from Crush Comet.
Unfortunately, this is a more difficult task than she would like. Crush Comet and Void Eater are almost equally matched in power level, with similar strength and durability. Crush Comet has definitive edge in mobility thanks to the explosive speeds her powers let her achieve, while Void Eater outmatches her in reach and adaptability. She can theoretically adjust her physiology and tactics to respond to whatever Crush Comet attempts to fight back with. This is often limited by Edith's imagination however, and Void can only analyze and adapt so much on their own. Adding this all together, in a one-on-one match, Crush Comet usually has the advantage, and can wear her down into submission with a few especially strong attacks when she has a clean opening.
Their fights can take a drastic twist though, forcing the hero to operate on a somewhat literal razor's edge. If Void Eater can get so much as a drop of her blood, then she can get a truly obscene power boost from both Crush Comet's genetic material and the small traces of Kyos her blood contains. With this major boost, she easily overwhelms Crush Comet in strength and resilience. However, this has two major weaknesses. For one, she still can't match Crush Comet's raw speed, not helped whatsoever by Edith using much of the power boost to further increase her physical mass, which can make traversal even more cumbersome than it would be otherwise. This only compounds the main weakness of such a boost, being the short time limit before Void burns through it. With these two facts combined, Crush Comet's counter-strategy is relatively simple: outrun Void Eater until she loses the boost. She has a fairly one-track mind in her fights, and can very easily be goaded into a chase she can't hope to win.
Void Eater's straightforward ambitions are a blessing in another sense, as very few other heroes are able to match up against even her base form. She's nearly impossible to harm by commonly available means, and engaging with her can not only lead to likely death, but can let her even more easily overpower other heroes. If Crush Comet isn't available, then other heroes are advised to keep their distance and avoid an engagement if at all possible. If forced to intervene for the sake of other innocent lives, then the ideal strategy is to fight from a distance and overwhelm her. She's exceptionally powerful, but struggles with tactics.
Of course, one other hero handily beats Void Eater: Rising Star. Not only does she multiplicatively outmatch her in raw power, but her energy projection gives her both ranged offense and exceptionally thorough defense. Even just barely past her base height, Rising Star's skin is too durable to meaningfully cut through, making her power nearly impossible for Void Eater to utilize easily. As such, Void Eater attempts to fight Rising Star when she's certain her massive girlfriend isn't able to save her, though sometimes she makes a poor judgement on when this is the case. Void Eater is keenly aware of Rising Star as her one true challenge to total domination however. Once she takes Crush Comet's power, her goal is to use it to do the same for Rising Star's. With their powers combined under Void, then she would become truly, cosmically, Unstoppable.
Of course, until that lucky day, it's just another day losing to Crush Comet.
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I HAVE FINALLY SHARED VOID EATER WITH THE WORLD!!!!!!!
This is a character I've had in the works for a WHILE, honestly not long after CC and RS themselves. Crush Comet felt like a perfect hero to give a lethal rival-esque counterpart to her amazing abilities. What I think brings them together though is their shared inspiration beyond their obvious ones. They're two sides of the same coin: one the pretty superficial side and the other the "unpleasant" functional side. Fitting I finally get her ready when that inspiration becomes relevant, huh.
If it wasn't clear by the uhh... all this, from the teasers in advance to the private DMs and barely professional rambles to the [REDACTED] tags on unrelated posts (yep, those were for Void Eater), I've been pretty excited about her for a while. Or... them, collectively, I should say. Void's a character on their own too, even if they naturally take a back seat to Edith. There's a lot more I could say about them, but you could probably guess Void Eater is a major antagonist in a way that's really hard to elaborate on without giving away too much for my liking. I'll at least say that they're a character(s) I like a lot, even if they're obviously kind of "messy", and all I'm apprehensive of is how people will react to that. She's incredibly shameless at least, so I hope at least that's something people can get behind. among. other things.
With this brief dip onto the other side of the field though, my goal for the rest of the year in terms of personal projects is to finally assemble our main team. We've got two Renegades left before the founding lineup is complete, and I've got some fresh new ideas to bring both of them in line with this revitalized team. I'm already buzzing with excitement, but I'll stop myself here before spinning out of control.
After that, well... I mean, what excuse do I have to not start... writing Renegades? It's wild to think that I'm that close to being able to start a major project like that in earnest. We're at a point where I can't be afraid of being stuck with an early mistake, I'm gonna have to commit to something eventually. Aside from a bit more polish to some of the backstories, there's really not much left to go before I can just... do it.
The bigger picture's coming into view, folks. Hope you're as excited as I am.
