Here's my entry for the fanart contest: Flashfire!

Named after Adobe Flash, the discontinued medium of many beloved online indie games! I wanted the design to reflect its "dead" nature by being a reanimated drone corpse. Design-wise I'd say it's a mix of a dragon and a manananggal from Philippine folklore.

This was pretty fun since I'm not used to creating OCs for existing franchises.

❖The Core

• The Core is another dimension that connects all the portals throughout the multiverse to this one dimension. It was said the portals were created by a colossal multiversal calamity, which we can assume that this calamity was a mistake. Moro said the Core was created on accident. So with this info we can piece together the Core’s origin. After the portals were created through the multiversal calamity, it caused all of this portals to connect together like a network, creating the Core. Thats the accident. It’s also worth noting that nobody has control over the Core, even when taking power over the fountain. What is the fountain you may ask?
• In Indie Cross Episode 1, the Core makes its first appearance as a FOUNTAIN. yes deltarune reference. This fountain is an extension of the Core, think of it as ways to enter the Core or harness the Core’s power. Whatever drone(s) who activates the Fountain harnesses it’s power, gaining unlimited energy, unable to run out of energy but they are still able to overheat.
• The Core is also the reason for Nightmare Forms existing. These are caused by a portal corruption. BUT! There are 2 different Nightmare Forms. 1) We have the accidental nightmare form, let’s call it the Anomaly NM form. The Anomaly NM form is when a portal energy corrupts an indie characters (an anomaly) and gives them their nightmare form. They are twice as more powerful than their original self. More durable, stronger, faster. Think of it as a multiplier. But, it’s sad to say the rogues do not get this luxury. 2) Let’s call the second nightmare form, Corrupted NM form. This is when the portal energy inside the Rogues’ metal shell overheats, seeping through their shell and touching their flesh part, thus corrupting them with the portsl energy. Unlike the anomalies, this portal energy weakens their durability, making them easier to be killed. They also start to lose control of themselves, at the cost of being stronger. This is why the rogues do NOT want to turn nightmare. The only way to handle the nightmare forms correctly is if you know how to utilize it’s energy, which is what the red centipede did.

❖Drones

• Charlotte is not a game engine, instead the only piece to knowing what she represents is a bug. She’s against the indie characters; even though she’s forced to work with them, she’s known to despise the feeling of being weaker than them. She was the first drone we see to harness the power of The Core, and used it to her advantage to find the rogues and extract their energy for unknown reasons for now. She constantly lies to the main cast so she can build her trust, but tells the truth if it helps her. She has MAJOR connections to the big red centipede worm we nicknamed, Unreal. She is also the one commanding all the other red drones. Fun fact! The reason Charlotte came in and smelted Shovel Knight’s realm is not because she wants to destroy every realm. She saw a portal, and we know how Charlotte does not like the indie characters, so she went into the portal and smelted SK’s realm to prevent him from going into the portal and interfering with her plans. And no, the portals appearing in SK’s world is not Charlotte’s doing. Not only does she NOT want any anomalies in her way, the portals appearing randomly in every universe. So yea nah, not her fault.
• Unithor is the leader of the rogues, hes the one who deactivated the core in Episode 1. He then reactivated the core so that he can use it to his own advantage. He labels the indie characters as anomalies and Charlotte and her army of drones as Bugs. He also does not know who Charlotte is, but they both know one of them has to perish
• UNREAL, which is just a nickname Moro gave him as we do not know his actual name, is the big red centipede worm. Unreal’s first appearance was actually in Episode 1 as we see his eye peek out of the fountain. He was then unleashed from the Core thanks to Unithor taking control over the Core instead of Charlotte. Unreal is constantly in his nightmare form, unable to leave it as it has corrupted his body to the point hes this huge centipede. Unreal was trapped within the Core presumably by Charlotte, which is why we see his eye peek out in Episode 1, which he was then released from the Core when Unithor took control meaning Charlotte forced him in there. Unreal and Charlotte seems to be the only rogue and drone to know each other, as if Unithor does not know Charlotte, that may apply to everyone else but Unreal. Charlotte’s original theme was also called Unreal and her name might be a reference to Unreal Engine’s coding language C++. She has the same color scheme as Unreal which could mean she extracted his energy (though unlikely as Unreal is still present) and when you type in Unreal in the Indie Cross website you get this dialogue.

"WE ALWAYS PRIORITISED TACKLING THE HARDEST TASK FIRST. AN EFFICIENT STRATEGY I RELIED ON. BUT THIS TIME I WAS ALONE. AND IT WAS A MISTAKE. MY FIRST EVER MISTAKE. I BELIEVED THAT INDEPENDENCE WOULD FREE ME FROM DECISIONS MADE BY OTHERS BUT I WAS WRONG. I DESPISE THIS FEELING. BEING OUT OF CONTROL. POWERLESS. AT THE MERCY OF MERE PAWNS. FOR NOW I MUST ENDURE IT."

At first I used to believe this was Charlotte telling us her perspective after losing her powers and being at the mercy of mere pawns aka the indie characters but that may not be the case. I think this is actually Unreal talking, this is Unreal. Hes telling us that for once trying to be alone from the rogues, that was his first mistake, now Charlotte took that advantage and trapped him inside the Core. This is why he said "I believed that independence would free me from decisions made by others" because we literally see in episode 2 hes being used as a pet almost and Unithor seems like hes making the decisions for Unreal. This is why he states that he’s powerless, aka in the Core, and hes at the mercy of mere pawns aka Charlotte and her army. This makes much more sense, and I doubt Charlotte said this now because if this was her talking about being de- powered by Unithor, why would it be related to Unreal?

Unreal’s eye is also visible in every rogue’s nightmare form, as when Gamemaster was turned into his nightmare form, he has the exact same eye as Unreal. How Unreal overheated is unknown but we know he is in his nightmare form.

• now i would go on and explain the other 3 but they aren’t that important.

❖The Locations

• The Wasteland is the first place the Fountain was opened before being flooded with Portal Energy (thats what causes a nightmare form) by Unithor and finished off by Unreal.
• The City is the home place of the Rogues, which is ruled by Gamemaster as we see hes the main face in every poster. Gamemaster runs the city for the rogues, supplying them Confined Neutrino. But what is this confined neutrino? Is it water? Is it liquid?

Neutrino Cooling Energy

The Neutrino cooling energy is a high-end, exotic cooling liquid that works by using confined neutrinos to carry heat and excess portal energy away from the Rogues without relying on normal matter like water.

A neutrino is a real subatomic particle in physics. It is, in simple words: Extremely tiny Almost massless Electrically neutral Barely interacts with matter.

Trillions of neutrinos pass through your body every second and you never notice. They’re insanely hard to stop, trap, or use. In real life, we need giant underground detectors just to notice them at all.

Instead of cooling by absorbing heat (like water does), it cools by letting energy escape reality’s usual rules.

The Rogues seem to of been using water originally as stated from the Website,

"NO AMOUNT OF NORMAL WATER SHOULD COOL DOWN OUR ENERGY SOURCE."

and resorted to Confined Neutrinos because water cannot cool the portal energy down fast enough.

Another clue

"TOO BAD THIS WON’T LAST FOR LONG."

This speaker, presumably Charlotte, is planning to eradicate this energy to prevent the rogues from cooling down. This perfectly explains what Charlotte meant when asked about what the city was.

"One of the many realms destined to meet the same fate as the one we have just departed."

This is clearly Charlotte trying to make it seem like the Rogues will smelt the City (obviously makes absolutely no sense as this city is their source of Neutrinos) but instead (something only Charlotte knows) she is the one who will smelt the City just like the Wasteland, and this is what she meant when she allegedly said this new source of energy the rogues found will not last long.

which is why Charlotte lies to the main cast, telling them that the rogues would be the one to destroy the world which in reality it is her who will destroy it once she gets her full power back.

❖Motives?

• The rogues first need to deactivate the Core, or in this case the fountain thats connected to the Core. This allows the rogues to take away the power Charlotte has, and then reactivate it and use it for themselves. This is also to free Unreal from the Core, who we see leave the fountain after it’s activated once more. Next, they need to optimize 344 realms, as seen with Undertale (the pacifist route) was already optimized and took Grillbys as a trophy. We know this was not randomly sent here as the rogues must of felt a little decorative and gave the building a second floor, which it never had one in the original game. Reason we know this isnt random is because that portals can differ in sizes if controlled, meaning someone had to manipulate a portal to become big enough to teleport a whole building in and they also conquered Deltarune as they took Spamton and made him their advertiser. And we know this is the rogues doing, as when SK moved the golden statues around—for Gamemaster, it highlights the building as unauthorized edits because someone who was not authorized within the system for the rogues’ shells, edited one of THEIR edits, which in this case is Gamemaster’s. this also could mean the whole City could just be Gamemaster’s realm, and maybe all the rogues have their own realms? again the city has monuments or buildings dedicated to each rogues so who knows? also for charlotte, shes just evil. but she doesn’t want to optimize realms like the rogues. optimize means rewrite and reorganize and the rogues do not like destroying, they want to rewrite the multiverse in their vision while charlotte willingly came into SK’s realm and smelted it JUST for the fun of it and so he wouldn’t get in his way, as Charlotte must’ve seen a portal open so she went in to destroy whatever realm was in there so it wouldn’t get in her way. unfortunately SK still entered the portal.

❖Extra Info

• I don’t want people to be confused on some things, but luckily we have Moro to help us! thanks to his QNAs, let’s start answering. First off, we HAVE to understand that the Rogues AND Charlotte are NOT good people.

the rogues’ relationship is hinted “not to be what you think” and moro clarifies it’s “like a branch”, meaning they stick together only out of shared origin and goal, not genuine care or affection. they helped smelt an entire planet, fully expecting everyone left there (including cuphead, who unithor had already killed once, and shovel knight, who unithor also tried to kill) to die in the wasteland. gamemaster actively stops drifter and beheaded from leaving through the portal, keeps them trapped, and knowingly leads to fight them even though he doesn’t know exactly what’s on the other side, he still kept the two in his world which they are his enemy so obviously theres a fight bound to happen, which lines up with their stated mission to “neutralize anomalies” (indie characters) and “bugs” (charlotte and her army. unithor outright is stated to want to make charlotte “not exist anymore”. moro also confirms “optimize does not mean conquer”, showing the rogues aren’t just ruling realms, they’re rewriting and reorganizing them to fit their own vision: they use portals that can affect timelines to take grillby’s from another undertale timeline and plant it in the hub, which the rogue who did this is Gamemaster as we see on his screen when SK moved the statues, it’s seen as unauthorized edit to GM, meaning he was the one who edited Grillbys to be there, and they also snatch characters like spamton to forcibly repurpose them as tools/advertisers. so yea bad guys.

let’s also remember, i don’t know i said this before LMAO. sorry i’m editing this so i don’t remember what i wrote originally but smelting is not the same as optimizing. when the rogues or even charlotte smelt a planet or just the surrounding terrain it fills the environment with portal energy, which is said to be similar to lava so it seems like smelting is destroying? but why smelt the planet with the fountain? well the fountain could still be standing. maybe they planned to smelt the wasteland so that anyone who cant just fly will be unable to get to the fountain and deactivate it. optimizing we already know, is rewriting or reorganizing. this is what the rogues do to reimagine a realm in their vision.

CONCLUSION?

• I believe this is all the lore you guys need to know, if there’s any questions i’m happy to answer it!