Arganthone-056

Arganthone-056
Character Information
Species	Clockwork Cherub
Gender	Non-Binary (they/them)
Residence	The Cupid Homeworld
Occupation	Scarlet Wings operative (retired)
Behind the Scenes
First seen in	PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker
Also seen in	PROSE: The Winter Quests (novel)
Copyright	Aristide Twain

Arganthone-056 was a Mark 1 Clockwork Cherub, one of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids's expert fighters. They joined in Juliet-178 in December 2020 on a dimension-spanning quest to rescue Madame Tarsa, during which they also encountered Jenny Everywhere.

Description

Physical appearance

As a Clockwork Cherub, Arganthone was winged, humanoid robot with a round, sketchy face and short. Their copper-plated skin was a brilliant golden. They were a green laurel wreath on their head and were somewhat taller than Pythagoras-858 and Juliet-178. Their was a glowing blue ‘core’ in the middle of their chest. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)

Personality

Arganthone was loyal and courageous, but not as recklessly adventurous as Juliet-178. They were perfectly happy with having been retired from active duty. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)

Powers & abilities

Like other Clockwork Cherubs, Arganthone could fly for limited amounts of time through the use of an anti-gravity circuit. They were also a uniquely capable physical fighter. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)

Biography

Early life

As a Mark 1 Cupid, Arganthone was old enough to have witnessed the Devastation of Alexas, at a time before even the Mark 2s were deemed old enough to participate in such dangerous off-world missions. At some later point, they also participated in the Rio P’Brytje campaign.

On Thanksgiving Day 1992, Arganthone defeated the Ghost of the First Premium Turkey. They would go on to remember the Turkey as one of the most fearsome foes they had faced, trumping even the Snap-Dragon of the Christmas Toyland. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)

The Christmas crisis

After Pythagoras-858 found Madame Tarsa magically frozen in her Worshop in December 2020, he dispatched Juliet-178 and Arganthone-056 to the Workshop while he went off in the Multiverse to try and find the culprit(s). They were soon attacked by some of Tarsa's sentient marionettes, who believed them to be responsible, but Arganthone quickly defeated them, tying them up in their own strings. After they determined that Tarsa's sentient marionettes didn't know anything of value, Juliet got the idea to try and match the unnatural ice with unnatural heat, and dragged Arganthone to New Wellsia to try and get a Wellsian Heat Ray.

The two were shot down, and as they retreated it back to their Fog Ship, it was damaged by the Wellsians' artillery. Tumbling across the dimensions, it crashed in 1895 London in the Prime Universe. Luckily, this was witnessed by Jenny Everywhere, who joined the two Cupids, using her shifting abilities to take them back to the Workshop where she thought Tarsa might have left some kind of failsage to reanimate her in an emergency. There, Arganthone tried to interrogate the Mechanical Fortune Teller to little effect before following Juliet and Jenny into Madame Tarsa's Toybox. There, they found their way to Wild West Town, where the Frog Mayor advised the three visitors to look for the “oldest toy in the Toybox”, who resided in the Christmas Toyland area of the magical toybox. When they met her, however, she was only able to show them the relevant rhyming clue left by Tarsa (which spoke of a “key” in a “distant star”), but not explain its meaning.

The three travellers decided to look for further clues in the forms of legends and myths which other civilisations in the Multiverse might have about Tarsa. They first, unsuccessfully tried the Euclidean Plane (where they engaged in a snowball fight with the Citadel's Octaser and Triangry guards) before heading to the Cupid Homeworld itself to check the Cupid Archives. There, they introduced Jenny to Lord Thymon, with whom she got along quite well. They then headed to the Archives, where Bibliophile-962 helped them make their way to the relevant section, sneaking past the Mechanical Sphinx. They did not find anything directly related to Tarsa, but were inspired to go to New Subcinctus to see if any of the Consistency Imperium's records had survived the Imperium's fall. However, they did not find anything there which they did not already know, despite being granted an audience by Vertolin himself. They headed to the Interdimensional Tavern in defeat, hoping to simply ask around for relevant intel. They found none, but, reconsidering the rhyming riddle, Juliet realised that the key was actually hidden inside the Star Atop the Tree in the Christmas Toyland, rather than a literal star.

Going back to the Toyland, they conferred briefly with the Toy, who gave them climbing gear, and eventually made their way to the top of the tree with the help of a toy nutcracker called the General. The trio opened the Star, uncovering the magical mallet it contained, only to discover that tampering with the Star awakened the very literal Snap-Dragon that lived at the bottom of Snapdragon Lake. Nevertheless, the three soon defeated the creature through trickery and made their way out of the Toyland. The three agreed that Juliet, whose reputation back hom “needed the polish”, be the one to strike the ice, freeing Tarsa. After the appropriate thanks, the Cupids all returned to the Homeworld. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)

During the next year's Christmas adventure, in which Arganthone was not otherwise involved, Juliet-178 bemoaned that they were not there with her to help her fight Fenrir, being confident that although she could not beat the humongous wolf alone, she could have managed it with Arganthone there to help. (PROSE: The Winter Quests)

Behind the scenes

Origins

Arganthone-056 is a recurring character in the The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids series who predated The Time of the Toymaker, although it was their first turn as a major supporting character in a long-form story.