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[Name] Coyote Tom Hermes
[Owner/Player] Windlion
[Gender] Male
[Type] Standard
[Affiliation] Firewheel
*[Morph] Undecided - Standard
=[Errors] Though not a junkeater, deliberate damage from exposure to a powerful magnet has disturbed the orientation of his hovering parts. The quills and wings point out rather than up, sometimes not at the same angles, and his tail is always carried at a bit of an angle to the left. He escaped without significant damage to his processors, but further exposure or concussions would undoubtedly wreak havok.
[Base color] White
[Markings] Red : Candy-cane striped legs in varying widths, thick band around neck. red circles set in a semi-circle that increase in size below the eyes, then on the shoulders and haunches where the largest circle is at the top on the shoulders, and the bottom on the haunches. Same pattern running in large on the back of his tail with the largest just below the top.
Black: socks on each foot, tip of tail, stripe up middle of face, ear tips, entire back and top of tail. The black drips downward from each marking- exactly like wet paint or ink, which it is.
[Background Info] This standard.exe was purchased as a companion for a single professional woman living alone who works long hours. While he rather enjoys being coddled by her, he's left to his own devices for a great deal of the time. During the day (and night, and whenever he's particularly bored), he's learned to let himself out and roam the city. He considers himself more a denizen of the city and tends to act like something of a stray- but of course, he considers himself above that.
Due to his insatiable curiousity and inclination to wander, he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and attracted the attention of an irate shiva. . . . and the story of How Hermes Bent His Wings is forthcoming.
Ever since he came home with the unwashable paint and bent quills, he got quite a scolding and has been marked with a GPS locator. Beyond a few cosmetic repairs, he has been left as-is as a lesson to him.
In the meantime, he's found his slightly junkeater-like appearance lets him roam the city even less noticed than before; no one expects him to be as functional as he is.
He's a clever, sneaky b*****d who tends to come up with plans that work, though not always the way he intended. He prefers to avoid trouble, going out of his way in roundabout fashion to avoid fights. He's a bit of a coward at heart, and secretly loves being spoiled by his owner. He wouldn't enjoy exploring the city nearly as much if he didn't have a warm bed and all his creature comforts waiting for him.
[Other] Icarus absolutely loathes him. Despises him. Will gladly have him for lunch.

Calanom was at a standstill. The heat wave was relentless, shutting activity down to a minimum. The power grids were stretched to their limits, leading to a city-wide mandate to turn off any and all appliances not needed to save power for the millions of air conditioners running to keep their residents safely cool. The streets were deserted.

And all of that was precisely why one large shiva.exe could pad down the walkways, past rows and rows of closed store fronts, without worry of being seen. The heat was affecting Icarus just as it would any of the other .exes trapped outside, but he wasn’t worried. He was merely out to enjoy the novelty of being able to parade down the closed street in broad daylight without worry. After all, patrols had been all but suspended at the factory, with production slowed to a near dead stop. Anyone else indulging in curiousity like Icarus was would be risking their circuits, just like him.

Being mostly white, he reflected back a great deal of the sun’s rays- but that did nothing to help his paws on the scorching hot pavement. He paused at an intersection, lifting his feet in succession to keep the paw pads from burning and sticking, and exhaled a huff of cloud. He grumbled low in annoyance as it practically evaporated before his eyes, not even helping to cool him. Damn heat. It’s even steamed away my wing-clouds. Frankly, the weather had gone beyond being a novelty and into pain in the a**.

There was no clear destination after the row of shops he’d passed by- and curious though he was, the shiva.exe knew better than to stroll down the main streets. To the left it was. Icarus crouched, then jumped clear over the street, not risking sinking his paws into the soft asphalt. He landed neatly on the sidewalk, padding in search of a nice shadow to cool himself in before taking the roof-top route back. Hmph. . . I’ve had enough of this heat. The roofs will be even worse. Of course, he had no worries that he’d find a patch of deep shade to rest in. . . Icarus was a shiva.

And there, halfway up the next street switching back towards the factory- there was a perfect alley-way, with a tall building casting its dark shadow over all. Icarus purred throatily to himself, prowling up towards it. A nice, dark shadow for him to cool off in. . . He knew, dimly, his processors would be affected by the heat; his mass was better suited to storing heat than shedding it. But Icarus shrugged aside any concerns. He was a shiva- made of sturdier stuff than the junkyard rats that couldn’t step outside without their processors crashing.

Such hazy thoughts drifted through his subroutines as he trotted into the mouth of the alleyway, seeking a reprieve and some quiet standby time. A nice nap, to sleep through the heat of the day. . . But as soon as his visual sensors recalibrated to the sudden dark, he found the objects of his previous thought occupying the prime real estate of shadow he was laying claim to. “Speak of the devils,” he purred, lowering his head as the scattering of junkeaters before him were slow to react.

It was a dead end alley, chock full of the rats. . . in fact, he’d managed to walk right past several of them before he registered their presence. A ragged looking gryphon morph flapped its one functional wing and was the first to cry, “SHIVA! Form up!”

In a panicked scrambling, the junkeaters all assumed positions on their disjointed legs as best they could. Icarus regarded the pathetic assembly with disgust. Broken. They’re all broken- only fit for the scrapheap and recycling. Not worth the processors they’re running. About the only thing worth noticing about these rats was that they didn’t go scurrying away mindlessly like most did, making him play cat and mouse when they all fled different directions. The gryphon. . . it was rare to see a junkeater morph that intact. He tilted his head in curiousity, breathing out a long plume of cloud. “What’s this. . . staying to make things fun? I needed something to break the boredom anyways.”

The gryphon.exe flapped again, sending sparks down the trail of wires where its other wing once was. “Ten to one, shiva. Ten to one. One one one-“ It ducked its head, seeming to shake itself out of the repetition. The tangle of wires spilling at its throat suggested the source of the problem. “Flank him flank him flank him. . .”

One of the braver junkeaters, its fur ripped in shreds, nodded in jerky motions as it stalked forward. “A-a-a-aye aye, C-c-co-corporal!” She and her counterparts lurched forward, a hideously deformed parody of the shivas uniting to tackle a mission.

Icarus turned his head in amusement to see the shambling rows closing in behind him. Six behind, four before him. A dead end alley. . . that meant no way out. For them. He rumbled happily, spreading his claws as he crouched. “Like fish in a barrel.” Once more, he sprang- up, and twisting over backwards, only to come down squarely on top of two of junkeaters. There was a satisfying crunch beneath him; he casually tore his claws free of the twitching bodies, ignoring the tingling crackle of electricity. “Eight.”

A junkeater with no wing-quills at all seemed to zero in on the sound, the ruined burnt out sensors of its eyes useless at directing it towards the shiva and its certain doom. Icarus snarled his disgust and slapped it aside, sending it crashing into a wall while he tore into the next with his teeth. Useless broken pieces of trash! He couldn’t understand why they put up the effort, obviously outmatched, but only one junkeater missing an ear with a lagging tail made a run for it, barely making it past the leonine shiva.exe.

He ignored one scrabbling ineffectually at his side as he tore out a chunk of the junkeater before him, hearing the snap as he ripped free the cables and electrical circuits. He spat it to the side, before turning to grab the annoyance by the back of the neck and hurl it into two of the junkeaters still trapped before him. While they scrambled to their feet, he met the gryphon.exe’s eyes malevolently and sneered, “Six. So much for your odds.”

The junkeater clacked its beak at him, seeming to overcome the flaws in its programming. “Fissure will never realize unwanted does not mean weak, weak does not mean spineless.” Dwarfing its followers to either side, it stood steadily regarding the shiva.exe before them.

Icarus smirked, tossing his mane arrogantly, “You think that proves something? It’s poof you’ve got your processes crossed. I’m going to rip you apart.” True, it was one of the biggest junkeaters he’d ever seen- and despite his casual taunting, surprisingly capable of thinking. That the junkeater seemed to think it meant something- that made him want to tear it to shreds even more. The ringleader was going down. Instead of charging straight into the fray, he struck hard and fast to the left, all ripping claws and crunching teeth that annihilated the crippled junkeater and the one falling apart at the seams.

The gryphon was suddenly close, too close, charging in like a bulldozer. Rather than face it with teeth and claws, another solution occurred to the shiva- he ducked his head, tucking his chin- and braced as the gryphon.exe suddenly slammed into the unexpectedly sharp tips of his horns. He lifted his head with difficulty, then shook it violently from side to side. The heavy weight tore free with the sound of snapping wires, then the junkeater landed in a heap in the middle of the alley. The remaining three paused, unsure what to do now that their leader was a heap of sparks and scrap metal.

Hissing, spitting noises resolved from static into words. “No no no. . . not done, Fissssure. . . Won’t won’t won’t win.”

Far more relaxed now that his adversary was defeated, the leonine shiva draped himself over the pile of crates the junkeaters had been resting on. He dangled his forepaws off the sides before him, cocking his head at the cowering junkeaters. With remnants of shrapnel still tangled around his horns, and scraps of claw-marked debris behind him, the scene couldn’t have been more macabre to them. He addressed the dying gryphon.exe loftily, “You think you can organize, trash? That you’re worth something? Let me give you a free lesson in life for making my afternoon so fun-“ The shiva turned his eyes on the three standing junkeaters, all in varying states of disrepair. The one he’d thrown quaked off balance. “You lot. He’s all yours. Eat and you can go. . . I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

It took awhile, much longer than he’d expected for that damaged voice box to give out. In the shadow of the looming building, he had a pleasant nap, a most restful afternoon indeed, to the sounds of screaming static.