[i]August, 1998[/i]
Mom kicked me out again. At least its not raining this time. I should really consider checking the weather forecasts before scaring off her boyfriends. Should I care that she's mad at me? Kids on TV and in books care. Last time was annoying, since Ray was hitting her. She really shouldn't put up with that kind of shit. I need her healthy though, so he had to go.
This time, I'm can't find it in me to be mad at her. She doesn't know why I did it to Bob. She thinks I'm just being spiteful. She's silly like that. I could tell her, but she won't believe me. She never does. I wonder if she'll find the pictures. She'd care that he's exploiting kids like that. It's what he had planned for me. He left in such a rush that I'm sure he didn't think to grab his collection first.
I might call the police, but they might arrest mom, then I'd have to deal with other people. Are orphanages still a thing? That might not be so bad, kids aren't as crazy as adults. At least they want to be happy.
Still, people... people are trouble. I probably wouldn't still be waiting here if I didn't need mom to feed me, and I like being able to sleep in a bed.
Still, this is interesting. I see the people passing by. That woman is afraid her husband has found out about her affair, but I saw her with her husband the other day, and he's worried she'll find out about his. One will eventually find out about the other and use it as an excuse to take the house. Stupid people that don't know how to improve their lives by just being honest.
Others actually scare me. People think the man by the playground might be a pedophile, but they'd be wrong. He's something far worse. I've warned Maria to stay away from him. He doesn't hunt kids, I don't think, but he will kill witnesses. I wonder if someone will kill him before he's done.
I like Maria. She's not afraid of me like the other kids. They say she'll give me cooties, but I know that this is just desperation for them. I know I'm weird to them. I see their fear they try to hide behind malicious name-calling. I think some of them have worse parents than my mom, but I haven't met all of them.
Maria has good parents, even if they're afraid of me. Maria told me they think I'm insane or something. I know she defends me to them. She knows that I just see... stuff. She gave me a book about psychics, but they all claim to read thoughts or see the future. I don't see thoughts, I don't think. I just see feelings. I'm pretty sure that most people think far less than they feel, in any case.
Thinkers are interesting to watch, though. They feel all sorts of things out of nowhere, then stop feeling them. I can spot a thinker a mile away. The man by the playground, he's a thinker. That's one of the reasons he scares me. Maybe he'll kill The Sledge, though.
Sledge is that big hero on the news all the time. He lives around the neighborhood. He's not a thinker. He's kind of an asshole though. He's the annoying type of idiot with more power than he knows what to do with. I had to drag Maria out of some rubble because of him. She broke her arm in that. I'm amazed that he hasn't gotten himself arrested or killed yet. It would be really nice if The Sledge and Mr. Playground could manage to kill each other.
Huh. There's Maria... and Bob. Oh no. I never told Maria about Bob. She can't see what I see.
Run!
Shit, he grabbed her! Run faster!
You bastard, like hell I'm going to let you have Maria.
He sees me now. Maria's trying to scream by his hand is on her mouth.
He has something in his other hand... I don't care, I have to stop him.
I hit him, he's lost his balance. I feel a punch to my shoulder, but i don't care, I have to stop him. Maria is free, did she bite his hand? "Run!" I call to her, but I don't have time to see if she's doing the right thing.
Something wretches in my shoulder and I can't help but scream. Bob now has his chance and he throws me against the pavement. The size difference is too great and squirm desperately, pain lancing from my shoulder like nothing I've ever felt before. I see the murderous intent in Bob before I see him pull up the bloody knife that was in my shoulder.
I let him have it. I look into his eyes and twist his feelings into fear. The same fear that drove him from my house. The same fear that kept me safe from mom's drunk boyfriends. He hesitates, but then he keeps moving. I've made a mistake. I've turned his murderous rage into desperate fear.
He drives the knife back down into my chest. It doesn't hurt as much as my shoulder. I wonder why that is. He pulls out the knife from my ribs and a notice a gurgling sound, like sucking too little liquid from a cup with a straw.
I screwed up. I'm going to die at the hands of this pervert because I was dumb and let my feelings get in the way of my thinking. Damn you, Bob. Damn you.
I look into his fear-wide eyes as he pulls the knife up to strike again, probably aiming for my heart. See past that fear into the engine behind his feeble mind. I see that engine like a heart with a unique rhythm of its own. I might consider it beautiful in its way if I didn't hate it so much.
I reach out with an invisible tentacle of my hatred and I [i]squeeze[/i]. The man on top of me spasms but remains rigid. My breathing is becoming painful. He must have got a lung. I'm dying, but I'll kill this bastard first.
Fury augments my grasp on the engine and I pull, I yank, and I [i]tear[/i] it from its anchors. A hideous howl escapes Bob's throat as his body enters a violent seizure. The engine is no longer held in its place, and pull it out through his eyes, though it is not a thing of matter.
Bob slumps, still and wide-eyed. I'm certain I've just killed him, though I don't know how or what I did. I'll probably bleed out in a minute or two anyways. I tilt my head back to at least see that Maria is safe.
Mr. Playground is standing there, looking down at me with a blank face. The edges of my vision are blurring into the center, and I can't be certain, but I think I see him... smiling? Still, Maria isn't there, so she must have gone for help. Mr. Playground wouldn't have a reason to kill her.
He wouldn't have a reason to watch me die either, though. I try to ask him what hes smiling about, but my punctured lung hurts almost too much to breath, let alone speak.
"It's your meal, kid. You earned it." He says, still smirking.
I don't understand, but he looks over to the thing I pulled from Bob, and still had in my ethereal grasp. He can see it? Does he know what it is? What does he mean by meal?
"Why go half way, kid? You already pulled it out of him, just pull it into you." His meaning dawns on me.
I don't see the point, but I'm dying. I draw the incorporeal engine into my mouth, thinking I might need to literally eat it, and too weak to think about it. It dissipates as I close my mouth and I feel a surge of energy flow through my body, even as I hear a chuckle above me.
Strength partially restored, I shove Bob's limp form off me and roll to all fours as an overwhelming nausea comes over me. I vomit forth a bloody mess onto the pavement.
I look up inquisitively at Mr. Playground, coughing and catching my breath. I'm confused, but not afraid. If he wanted me dead, he could have let me just bleed out like I deserved to for my stupidity.
Still I see an amount of sadism in him, though no more than that of a schoolyard bully. "Impressive, kid. How does it feel to make your first kill."
What's the saying? Adrenaline is a hell of a drug, isn't it. I know that people feel bad for killing people from books and TV. I now have time to think, so I look back at the corpse I created.
"Good." I say, flatly, then turn back to Mr. Playground. His brow is furrowed and I notice that he's now surprised and slightly afraid. He wasn't expecting that response.
"Good?" he asks.
I nod. "He deserved to die," I say before thinking. I need to stop acting before thinking. Feelings are what get people into trouble.
Mr. Playground smirks again, and I see his approval. "Do you think it will make you happy to kill more like him?"
I'm taken aback by the question, but I stop, and think, and suppress the surreal feeling of it all, the tingly feeling from consuming the incorporeal engine still on the edge of all my senses.
"Yes, but don't want to leave." I finally respond.
That smugness about it was starting to get annoying. "Figured as much. I've seen the way you look around her." Goddamn he's annoying. He knows too damn much. "You know know what I am, don't you, kid?"
I hesitate, fear creeping back in, before I nod. "I see your hunger, so I have an idea."
"Right. You probably make a lot of assumptions off of that hunger. You wouldn't be all that wrong. I'm a monster by most definitions, and I'd have a hard time disagreeing with them. I am an awesome, evil creature."
I look into his eyes, but realize that I can't go as deep as I could with Bob.
I see that he's noticed my attempt and is amused at my attempt, "And you've just learned that you're potentially something similar. A predator capable of things that most people would rightfully consider monstrous." He sees my incredulity, "Trust me kid, I know monsters, some of my best friends are monsters, after all."
I'm a monster, now? "Screw you," is all I can think to respond with.
"Now, now, language young man." He is enjoying baiting me. So goddamn smug. "Being a monster isn't so bad. After all, rules are for people. Monsters? Monsters can get away with [i]anything[/i], and you're not as special as you might think. Not yet, at least."
I don't like where this conversation is going. Fortunately, I can now hear approaching sirens. Good, the police.
Mr. Playground looks over his shoulder lazily. "Now, you have a choice. No need to rush making it, mind you. You can let the police fail to protect good people of this city like your little puppy-love friend, or you can become an awesome and terrifying creature to people that deserve to die."
He remains looking in the direction of the sirens until the police cars are visible. I can't think of anything to say.
He turns back to me, "I wouldn't tell them how you killed him, by the way. Just say he had a seizure and collapsed. You'll be in the hospital and they'll call you a mutant for not being dead, but those are a dime a dozen, these days."
"What if I choose to become a monster?" I finally manage to ask.
"Put a stake in the ground in front of your house." He has a sense of humor, I guess.
[b][u]To be continued[/b][/u]
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Chris and Maria's relationship had changed after the Bob incident. Maria was more fearful of the world, and more attached to Chris. It was a fair trade, in Chris's mind. He provided her security and protection, and she gave him someone to tell about what he'd seen, and done.
Mr. Playground, who's name was actually Bradly, stayed to give a statement to the police after they bundled Chris off in an ambulance. Once the doctors in the emergency room confirmed that the remaining wounds weren't life threatening, the police questioned him. He told them what they wanted to hear, that he was just saving his friend and wasn't sure what happened to Bob, or why the wounds were partially repaired before he was even to the hospital.
Leave people with barely any information, and they'll fill in the rest of the blanks. To the police, and everyone else, he was a hero. The 11 year old boy that saved a little girl from a man 3 times his size. He survived by virtue of an amazing ability to heal, but that just made everyone expect him to grow up to be the next Sledge. The last person Chris wanted to grow up to be was The Sledge, but he let the simpletons have their delusion.
Maria was the first person he saw after leaving the hospital the hospital after the police let him see visitors. His mom was under investigation for child pornography following the police investigation into Bob. It would be a week before Chris would finally get a chance to clarify to the police that those photos were Bob's.
Maria's parents had offered to take in Chris until things settled down, so Maria met him at the hospital to walk him hope. She clung to his arm, and he could see that she adored him. He'd seen the same thing between couples that hadn't had time to grow weary of each other. That was the first time Chris had ever felt awkward, at a loss of how to react. That's probably why he answered honestly when she asked him about what happened. He told her about about how he had desperately torn the life from Bob in his vindictive rage when he thought he would die. He decided to leave out the conversation with Bradly.
He almost stopped himself mid-story once he regained his mental composure, but he realized that she wasn't afraid of him because of it. Amazed, yes, but not afraid. In her eyes, he'd gone from the weird friend that saved her to... something else. She saw him the same way that people ignorant of his recklessness see The Sledge. "You're like a guardian angel" she had proclaimed after a bit. She didn't seem to loose that view of him in their time apart. He wasn't a friend to her, any more, he was greater than human.
Still, for all her praise, Chris knew that many wouldn't see it the same way. A killer his age wasn't an angel, it was a devil, a monster in the eyes of society. He swore her to secrecy about it, and she knew he would know if she told anyone. She had always known about his sight, after all.
The week in Maria's home had gone uneventfully. Her parents were still disconcerted by him, especially in light that he was some sort of mutant, but they felt obligated to the boy who had saved their daughter. He kept quiet and kept to himself until the police were finally convinced his mom wasn't a child pornographer.
Bradly had apparently been waiting for Chris outside the police station that evening. "I'm amazed they don't arrest you," Chris said to the stocky, dark-haired man.
"Why would they ever do that? I'm nothing if not an upstanding citizen." Bradly struck a faux-noble pose to compound the absurdity of the claim they both knew was false. Returning to a more relaxed posture, "I was curious as to why you bother with her. She's not very nice to you," Bradly was truly curious, in spite of the infuriatingly persistent smirk.
"She feeds me. That's nice enough for me," Chris returned. "Shouldn't you be tearing someone's throat out or something?"
A chuckle escaped Bradley's throat. "It's still early. My prey comes out later." He was as smug as ever. "Oh, and I'm glad you took my advice with the cops. Here's another tidbit that will make your life easier. Be careful with using useful people, or you'll wear them out. Broken tools aren't very useful."
"You're one to speak," was all Chris could think to retort.
"Oh, I am. It takes one to know one, after all." Leaving that childish phrase as his last words, Bradly turned and departed down the sidewalk.
Chris's mom began to fear him more once she learned about what happened to Bob. When she was drunk and brave, she started calling him a freak and monster, cementing Chris's expectation of how people, in their self-righteous stupidity, would see him. He put up with it since she was to afraid to hit him, even when drunk. She was useful still, and Maria was better company, even in her pseudo-worship of him.
So, in spite of his attachment to Maria, Chris leapt at the opportunity to get out of his mother's apartment. The minor celebrity that he had achieved drew the attention of the heads of the Colesmouth school. Between good grades and "demonstrated heroics" he qualified for several scholarships that would pay his tuition and board at the school known for producing celebrity heroes as much as CEOs.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
His first year at Colesmouth School for the Exceptionally Capable had not been as odd as he had expected. Virtually no one in the freshman class knew each other, and they were from all over the state. The odd pair, like the Light Twins, that did know each other were the exception. It was kind of funny to Chris, seeing the massed group of teenagers all nervous, awkward, and aroused. Many of them missed their friends left behind in public high-schools potentially on the other side of the state.
He suspected he had a better idea of what to expect from puberty than most, just from being able to see older kids go through it. Still, it was rough dealing with the changes. Now that he was experiencing it first hand, Chris understood that the depressive and manic bouts he saw in older boys weren't the product of some weakness. This sucked, a lot. Fortunately, he was good at ignoring and suppressing that sort of thing, even if he occasionally slipped up.
He felt a twinge of regret at not being able to see Maria while he was boarded at the school, but he made the effort to keep in touch through phone-calls and online chat. Dealing with distance was tough for Chris, as he now had to figure out how to discern what she was feeling by just words. Plain, hollow symbols on dead paper. It was difficult, but it was worth it when he finally saw Maria on holidays. Their relationship had become romantic, and Chris knew that he could take advantage of her adoration, but he found Bradly's advice to be useful, in spite of the source. Maria was the only companion Chris could trust, and that was too valuable to risk just to sate his body's instinctive urges.
He was a sophomore now, and he had used his sight to make a lot of contacts throughout his class, though rampant suspicion towards him limited how many were willing to call him a friend. Everyone knew he could heal, but he was still the weird kid, even here among the girls with spines for hair and boys that could cling to walls.
The Psychic Defense lessons in Metaphysical Education were interesting for Chris. The teacher was completely unreadable, though he claimed to have no special powers beyond the determination to finish BUDS. At first, Chris was incredulous that a mere human could deceive him. The lessons proved otherwise, though. The class learned to compartmentalize, obfuscate, and misdirect their own feelings. Chris learned how to compensate for these tricks, but only if he knew the person was using them. At several points he wondered if Bradly was capable of such things. He was probably a lot older than he looked, after all.
Chris came "home" for the summer, several inches taller than when he had left. The bus ride had stunk like BO and piss, but that was to be expected. He dropped off his belongings at his room in his mother's apartment, not even unpacking before informing her that he was heading out. Chris couldn't remember when he had stopped asking his mother for permission, though thinking back on it, he was certain that it was even before Bob.
His extra sight had expanded in scope and range since he began learning about how psychic and spirit based powers operated. He was certain now that his sight was related to the spirit, or soul of a creature, not their mind. He exercised it secretly in his dorm. It's passive nature meant that no one would notice.
The walk to Maria's house was only a few blocks, but he was still half-way there before he noticed something was wrong. There was too much fear and curiosity, and it grew stronger in the vicinity of Maria's house. Something bad had happened. He knew that these were bystanders gawking at a tragedy, like rubberneckers at a traffic accident. Chris's pace gradually quickened.
He saw the flashing Red and blue lights but continued to hold onto hope until he turned the corner.
Police cars were parked in the street. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the porch. A stretcher carried a completely shrouded body to a truck.
Summer break had come like a shotgun in a bouquet.
Chris's stomach knotted and he staggered forward until an officer stopped him. "Back up kid, this is a crime scene."
"No shit!" Chris shot back with all the venom of his coiled guts. Chris didn't think he'd projected his powers, but the officer recoiled. "What the hell happened?"
"I... I can't say, kid. We're investigating. Did you know them or something?" The Officer managed to regain his composure.
"Yeah. That's my girlfriend's house." Chris knew that he couldn't blame the officer for this. The cop was just doing his job, this was unpleasant to him too.
"Well, they took a girl to the hospital. She was still alive when the ambulance left." The cop offered in consolation.
"She was?" Relief broke the tension that Chris didn't even know had built up in his body and mind, and he slumped a little, drained by the emotional roller-coaster.
"Yeah, she was. I think she'll be ok." The cop's outward tone was so reassuring that Chris almost didn't see it.
Chris froze and blinked at the cop before he was certain. "You're a really good liar," Chris spoke flatly. The cop wasn't offended or even surprised by the accusation. He was just sad. "What hospital was she taken to?"
"Memorial, down on 23rd and MLK." Chris saw the pity from the officer, but didn't comment on it.
Numb and not entirely sure why he was so upset, Chris started walking toward the hospital. Part of his mind knew it was too far to walk, but the steps kept following each other until a hand grabbed his shoulder.
"Hey kid, if you're planning on going now, I'll give you a ride. The detectives are running the show now anyways." The officer gave his attempt at a comforting smile, but Chris didn't want pity. He wanted to know what had been done to Maria, he wanted to know who did it, he wanted to know where they were, and he wanted to be the one to kill them.
Chris remained silent during the car-ride over and the cop respected it by not asking questions or trying to make small talk.
The emergency room lobby was crowded as expected, and Chris walked up to the counter, "Hello. There was a girl admitted recently, I'm a friend and I'd like to see her." He focused his effort on keeping his voice from cracking.
The nurse was unconcerned with anything except getting her paperwork correct for the moment, but managed to ask the questions that protocol demanded, "What is your name?"
"Christopher Seppin."
"And the patient's name?"
"Maria Villasenor."
The nurse began scrolling through her computer for the name, then frowned once she located the record. "She's in surgery. Don't expect to be able to see her tonight."
"I can wait." Chris said, the numbness creeping back in. He didn't see hope in the nurse when she saw the record.
"She won't be seeing visitors at least until tomorrow evening," the nurse reiterated, skeptical.
"I can wait." He repeated, and turned to flop down on one of the chairs. His head and heart hurt, he couldn't think straight, and the rational corner of his mind wasn't sure what hurt so much. He closed his eyes and his consciousness retreated from the pain into sleep.
A nightmare of black flames and gnashing fangs jerked Chris to wakefulness, but the details of it faded quickly from his memory as he blinked against the morning light. There was a blanket over him that wasn't there before. Blinking and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Chris regained his surroundings. Emergency room, Memorial hospital. His heart seemed to gain ten pounds as he realized some parts of last night weren't a bad dream. He guessed that one of the nurses must have brought the blanket while he was sleeping.
Still groggy, Chris walked up to the counter. "How is Maria?"
"Maria who?" Asked the nurse. It wasn't the same one from earlier that night. Shift change. Of course.
"Villasenor." Chris responded.
"Hmmmm..." the nurse scanned the computer, "Says here she's out of surgery, no visitors allowed yet, though, until this police have finished talking to her."
Chris nodded, unsurprised that they would want to get to her first. like they did with him, so he waited. His limited cash leftover from the scholarships Went towards buying himself a meal at hospital cafeteria while he waited. It was a toss-up weather the food or the waiting was worse.
He saw the police leave the emergency room and asked the nurse for the room number before heading back. As he approached the room, he felt a growing dread of something he couldn't define growing in a corner of his mind, but his refreshed rational side beat it back well enough for him to enter without hesitation.
Maria was laying in the bed, bandages covering most of her face, with the entire right side concealed. Her right arm was gone, replace by a bandaged stump. Chris could see from the imprint on the sheets that her right leg now ended at the knee. The weight hanging on his heart became hot with rising rage, but without a good target to direct his anger at, Chris took a breath and stilled it.
Maria slowly opened her uncovered left eye, obviously under the influence of lots of pain medication. Chris saw her go from confused, to happy, to terrified in less than two seconds of seeing him. He could guess what she was feeling. He thought of the cop that had driven him here, and tried his best to recreate that comforting smile. He never practiced smiling much, so he could only hope that she would like it.
Her terror faded into powerful sadness, tears welling from her one exposed eye only to be absorbed by bandages.
"It's OK Maria," Chris lied, "I'm here." She reached toward him with her left and and he took it in his gently. Her eye closed and she started trying to speak, though it was weak and difficult for Chris to discern. He frurrowed his brow and leaned in to hear better.
Maria's voice was a hoarse whisper, slurred by the effects of powerful painkillers, but Chris finally made out what she was trying to say.
[i]"I'm a monster now."[/i]
[b][u]To be continued[/u][/b]
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[i]Authors note: While I deliberately leave out details, and I am trying to stay PG-13, this will have disturbing themes and a lot of implicit violence in it.[/i]
Bradly Dracson considered the teenage boy passed out in the emergency room lobby. This timing hinted at being guided by of a thread of destiny. This kid had the makings of something awesome in the more strict meaning of the word.The sort of disconnect from people the kid demonstrated normally lead to systematic exploitation, and occasionally murder, of other people. This string of destiny seemed to be trying to pull him into being another maniac stalking the streets.
Brad hated destiny, and the Fates the guided it. He'd been victim of their whims far too many times in his life. It seemed particularly disturbing now. Brad had hoped he'd steered the kid away from the worst excesses he might be drawn to. Brad knew he was damned good at manipulating people. Back when the kid had saved the girl from what was likely a terrible prolonged death, his humanity hadn't quite been beaten out of him by the din of human emotions around him. As much as the kid tried to suppress them, he still had all the emotions that he saw causing people to act stupidly.
Brad's offer back then was really a warning against indulgence, and it had worked, probably better than he had reason to expect because of the girl fawning over the kid. She was the good sort that didn't fear the strange just for being strange. She might be naive, but she was a rare gem in this city, and she would have provided a good anchor to keep the kid from drifting too far. Between the girl and the strings Brad pulled to get the kid into Colesmouth, Brad had every reason to believe that the kid would grow up to become a decent human being. Still weird, but decent.
Now, the kid had returned home to find that good little girl was now orphaned and horribly maimed by punks so high on Cee that they they probably thought they were hallucinating her screams while they carved her up. On the other hand, that's probably why the one with the shotgun managed to only graze her. At least she was alive. Mostly.
This wasn't a unique occurrence in the city. There were drugs on the street these days that allowed junkies to pose a threat to entire swat-teams. Brad only noticed this one because it was his neighborhood, but the punks weren't local. Locals don't take out poor families for the giggles. They were Black Horns, a petty gang of drug-dealers and muggers that normally stayed near the old rail-yards, but had been trounced by some hero group or another trying to clear out the area. The survivors scattered like rats. Some got finished off when they crossed into unfriendly turf; others joined up with gangs looking for more boppers. A few idiots that refused to recognize that the Horns were dead and were still robbing, raping, and murdering their way through places they didn't belong. Places like Brad's territory.
Brad had contacts in the police and the local gangs that passed along what clues they had. Everyone wanted these guys dead, if for different reasons. The good cops and decent folk wanted justice. The crooked cops wanted to get their bribes in peace. The gangs were pissed that their turf was violated. The dealers hated the increased police presence.
As for Brad, he was [i]thirsty[/i].
He laid a blanket over the sleeping boy. The Fates were yanking the thread, and Brad could practically hear it twanging. He'd smack those crones senseless, given the chance, but he suspected he'd have to settle for some murderers, for now. Brad turned and left the hospital. The kid would have to deal with whatever the Fates had in store for him.
Once he was out of sight from the hospital, Brad spread his arms and flapped hard as shadows formed into black feathery wings. The rest of his form was quickly encased similarly and took the shape of a large crow as he took to the air. The cops had half the clues about where the punks were, and the street-dealers had the other half. Brad was the only person they were both afraid of enough to talk to.
He spotted the place he had reasoned together as their likely hideout. A condemned apartment compled that was next to the sewage plant. Those idiots probably didn't realize the horrors sleeping in this city's sewers, but that was besides the point, for now.
Brad landed on a flat roof across from the designated building and let slip his shadow-form. He watched the buildings to movement. He knew they were in one of the buildings, but not which one. A second shadow dropped from the sky and landed with a [i]thud[/i] of impact next to him. This shadow was indistinct in form, with wisps like smoke projecting out several meters from the center. Brad didn't flinch at the arrival and continued observing the buildings.
"Ah. Here you are, Old Man," a smooth, teasing, and distinctly feminine voice rolled from shapeless shadowy mass. "I was expecting you tonight, but you left me all alone," the voice took a tone of an exaggerated pout.
Brad couldn't help but smile, "Sorry to stand you up, Nyx. Some punks made my list tonight, though."
The smokey tendrils of shadow dissipated slowly, revealing his lover walking towards him to embrace him from behind. Nyx rested her chin on his shoulder and made a show of looking in the same direction as him, in spite of the cloth and barbed-wire wrapping that covered both of her eyes. Brad brushed the pale grey skin of her arm gently with his hand, fingertips passing over several of the many scars she had collected all over her body.
"So, who are they?" She inquired, nuzzling his cheek, her straight, pure white hair tickling his ear.
She was deliberately distracting him, but Brad couldn't say he didn't like it. "Punks out of their depth, Little Girl. They killed a family I wanted alive."
Nyx nibbled his ear a bit before responding, "Hunting for pleasure, then, or just an excuse for a good meal?"
"A bit of both, this time. Want to join in on the fun? I think they may broke the kid."
"Which kid is that?" She cooed, swirling a finger in circles across his chest.
"The one that could see like you."
She suddenly stopped, and Brad could tell that her plans for the night had changed in that instant. "You'd better not be messing with me," she shot him a sightless stare and he stared back at the rags and wire over her face. Seeing that he was serious, she disengaged from the teasing embrace and settled down to join him in his vigil.
"How many are there supposed to be?" She asked, tone pure, cold business now.
"At least four for sure. They're Black Horns, and I think they might be recruiting."
"Small fry. Why not just go door to door and waste whatever's there?"
"Don't want any to escape. I figure I can take a couple home with us for breakfast."
Nyx let out a light chuckle. "Not often you get to have fresh meals, is it?"
"Not often I find people around here that deserve it, any more," Brad smirked.
Nyx sighed, "I guess that's what happens when you abuse All You Can Eat Phychos. By the way, they're in the third building back, on the left. Six in the basement, one or two on the second floor."
"One or two?" Brad raised an eyebrow at the woman next to him "Need glasses."
Nyx gave a cruel smirk. "No, just not sure if she's into that kink."
Brad frowned and nodded, stepping off the edge of the roof and forming his shadowy wings to glide down to a fire-escape balcony on the second floor.
As he landed, His shadow wings reformed and wrapped his body in black plate armor. His listened and slid in the partially boarded window, following the sounds of crying. A quick look informed that there was only one person to kill on this floor, and he moved swiftly. The man's neck was overstretched and Brad had bitten into the carotid before the girl on the floor had gathered the courage to open her eyes. She screamed when she saw the bloody scene, but Brad ignored here. The ones downstairs would just contribute her screams to the now dead man.
Brad let the exsanguinated body drop and stalked down the stairs. The sounds of intoxicated laughing were enough that Brad could probably have come charging in covered in cow-bells and they wouldn't have noticed until it was too late.
Still, with this many targets, and full belly slowing him down, it was best to not abuse advantage. He had not lived this long by half-assing fights.
He willed a curved blade of shadow to form in his hand as he neared the threshold into the basement. The basement was lit by a single bulb, but the hallway above remained dark, allowing him to view the group without being seen. It was a mix of men and women, all wearing the black and green colors of the Black horns. Once was even a "Prince", who had earned the right to go through a ritual that gave the gang's leaders long black horns from their heads. Brad had never been a fan of nobility.
He gathered himself and took a breath. He stepped toward the door and through the shadows to appear, covered in black plate except his bloody mouth, next to the first victim, a wasted looking girl covered in piercings and leaning on a shotgun like a cane. Her head was off her shoulders from a single stroke, and screams and panic set it.
This was not a fight. It was butchery, and Brad quickly dispatched three more of the scum with a single step and strike for each. The cramped basement left nowhere to run, but one of the frighted punks managed to get his sledgehammer into swing before Brad could pierce his heart with his blade. Brad had taken worse blows before, but the mass of the hammer hitting his helmet was still disorienting, and he staggered.
In the second it took for Brad to regain his composure the Prince was crawling out desperately through a small street-level window and running. His armor wouldn't be able to bend enough to allow him passage, and he cursed to himself as he dashed back to ascend the stairs to the entrance. He knocked the front door off its hinges as he barged out into the night.
The Prince was there, held fast by black tentacles that had emerged from the pavement. He was uttering a stream of profanities until a tentacle dived into his mouth, gagging him.
"I bet you wish your mother had washed your mouth out with soap now, don't you?" Nyx teased the restrained gang-banger from her seat on the pavement. To Brad she said, "I thought I'd stick around for the show. I think you're getting rusty, though."
Brad smirked. "He was the only one smart enough to run. Bring him with us. Whoever gets hungry first can have him."
"That's not fair! I don't even [i]like[/i] junkie. The meat is too stringy." The squirming thug began making muffled cries at the discussion of him as a meal. One of the tentacles struck him in the head, knocking him unconscious. "Quiet you, it was just a joke," Nyx reprimanded the unaware man. She stood a walked over to Brad, giving him a deep, sensual kiss.
As she pulled back her now bloody lips she licked him clean, prompting Brad to quip, "I thought you didn't like junkie."
"I don't. I like you though," she responded before laying the unconscious prince on the ground and allowing the tentacles to fade. "Doesn't mean I'm carrying your leftovers home for you."
Brad smirked and called forth his shadow form, grasping the prince in his talons and flying off into the night.
[b][u]To Be Continued[/u][/b]
Sic Semper Tyrannis
The pain was worse than the stabbings. I saw that she really believed she was a hideous monster. I would have rather died than know that Maria, my Maria, could think of herself that way. I squeezed her hand and my vision blurred. I was crying. Crying like a pathetic child that scraped his knee. Feelings got people into trouble, they started fights and and drove people to waste away to drugs or other distractions. I spent my whole life trying not be like that, and here I am, sobbing my heart out.
"No, you're not a monster," I managed to choke out, "The people who did this are the monsters, and I will make them pay. By whatever cruel god there is, I will may them pay!"
The pain-killer dosage must have been up there, because at some point in my rambling she had shut her eyes and fallen back to sleep. Good. It hurt too much to see her suffer. I released her hand and stood, wiping my face clear. I grabbed a bus home and ignored my mom's questions on my way to my room.
I let out the rest of my knotted guts into the toilet, and cried the rest of my tears into my pillow. I wasn't there to protect her. I could have stopped them. I could have scared them away or eaten their souls if I had been there. but I wasn't. I was off in boarding school learning how people will try to trick me. The tears left a hollowness that was quickly filled with something that was not quite a plan. I knew what I had to do, but I wasn't sure at the time what that would lead to.
I didn't have any camping supplies, so I left for the hardware store, silencing my mom's questions with a look. I picked out a surveying stake, just a few cents, and drove it into the ground in front of the apartment building. Then I sat, waiting. The sun was setting when he finally announced his presence.
"You people never do look up, do you?" came his voice from above and behind me. I jumped what felt like ten feet in the air from the surprise and turned around and looked up to see him sitting on the outside windowsill of the second story. He got a laugh at my expense, but I was in no mood for his crap.
"You said once that I could make the choice to become like you." I glared at him.
He raised an eyebrow, "No, I didn't. I said you could become a monster. I happen to be a monster as well, but I would never want you to become like me. One is the exactly right number for someone like me." He smiled an nodded to himself before dropping down to the ground, graceful as a cat. "Oh, by the way, everyone has that choice. Most just aren't crazy or desperate enough to make it."
"So am I crazy, or desperate?" I asked, trying to keep my tone as level as I could.
He stared at me, rubbing his chin for a bit, "A bit of both. Maybe even the right mix of the two." He flopped down onto the front steps and gestured for me to take a seat, then shrugged when I remained standing. "Can you tell me, why you [i]think[/i] you want this?"
"Because I want to punish whoever did it," I shot back, possibly too quickly.
"Oh? They didn't do anything to you." He maintained a disinterested expression, like he was still waiting for something.
"They did things to Maria." What was he waiting for?
He watched a squirrel scurry across some tree limbs. "Oh? And why does it bother you what they did to Maria. I'm sure you could find another squeeze, if you wanted."
"What?" Something was off. It wasn't that he was wrong, but that he was right. I [i]could[/i] have been with other girls at school. Some just find weirdness attractive, though they'd never admit it to their friends. I had just ... never thought about it seriously.
Now he was watching me. "What what? Why do you care what they did to Maria, but not her parents. They're dead, by the way." he replied, ever-present smug smile on his lips.
Why [i]did[/i] I care so much? Why did it hurt so much to hear her say she thought she was a monster now? That hurt me more than seeing her injuries.
"Because..." I hesitated, but he seemed to be in rapt anticipation, "Because I love her, and they destroyed her. Not just her body, but her soul. Great, now we're in a stupid love story, are you happy?"
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Great, you realize that you're still human, but this isn't a love story, stupid or otherwise. There isn't a happily ever after for you, and that was probably never really an option. If you want to go through with what I suspect you want to do, though, you're going to have to cut away the human bits."
"I suppose you're an expert on [i]that[/i]," I manage to snark at him. It felt better to be distracted.
"Ha, you have [i]no[/i] idea how good I am with cutting away human bits," He smiled back. "You want to kill them, the guys who messed up your little girl, don't you?"
I nodded back.
"Too bad. I already killed most of them." a shrug was all he offered in consolation.
"What." was all I could manage.
"While you were waiting for Maria to wake up, I found their hideout, snuck in, and tore them to pieces. Literally, in once case."
"What." I slumped and lost my footing. I should have taken the seat he offered earlier.
"Now what, 'Monstrous Avenger'?" He spoke the moniker with an mocking exaggerated dramatic tone and gestures to match.
The hollowness in my heart was now torn open and drained again. There was nothing. Nothing I could do. I couldn't protect her. I couldn't avenge her. And who knows if I could even keep [i]loving[/i] her. The girl I loved was all curiosity and hope, not despair and self-loathing. I'm here, sitting on my ass, useless.
"So, you want to pull up that stake for another time then?" He stood up and was ready to leave me to deal with my grief and continue with my life, and school.
"Wait," I manage before he walked off. Something was filling the hollowness. Something more persistent than rage or sorrow. "I still want to kill them."
He frowned back. "I told you, kid, they're dead."
"All of them. The murderers, the rapists, their bosses and their bosses' bosses. I want to kill them [i]all[/i]."
This got a different reaction from him. Not humor, not surprise, just ... acceptance. "Then I have someone you should meet. Shes a friend of mine that has a lot of hard earned lessons to teach you about your capabilities." He started walking down the street and looked back at me frozen in place, "Come on. You're not going to need anything here. You're no longer a human, after all."
[b][u]End Chapter 1[/b][/u]
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[b][u]Christopher Seppin, AKA Shadowhound[/u][/b]
"I claim your life on behalf of those you have taken."
Age: 28
Hometown: Dinsford, CT (This ought to fake)
Family: Victoria Seppin (Mother, disowned), Maria Villasenor (Wife, unofficial)
Abilities: Spirit-sight, Soul draining, emotional manipulation.
Strengths: Calm under stress, perceptive, decisive, strong sense of justice.
Weaknesses: Selfish, vindictive, likely to abandon other goals for revenge.
Hobbies: Metalworking, reading, cyst popping videos on Youtube
Brief(LOL) Backstory: See above. More to come, including additional characters.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Great read Sand Trout! Looking forward to chapter 2.
Out of what's been listed so far, what Classification would you say Umbra would be?
Ya know, they say never hit a man with a closed fist, but it is on occasion hilarious. -Malcolm Reynolds
Thanks.
I'm thinking of Umbra as a Partisan(Ranger). Nyx is actually a CoV Corruptor that I played back in the day. She won't ever be a CoT character because I'm happy with her retired to my memory, but Umbra will likely be her spiritual successor once we actually get to release.
Brad is an enforcer, I think, but his character and abilities kind of fleshed themselves out as I was writing this. Without giving out too much, I'm debating which tropes to invoke in his regard.
As for Maria... I have plans.... MUAHAHAHAHA!
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[i]February, 2005[/i]
He smiles at me. Its all that keeps me from giving up, that smile, and its just for me. It always was just for me, even before I knew it. Back on the playground, when we were kids, I was the only one he smiled to. I don't think he knew he was smiling sometimes, and I didn't appreciate it then. Then I was just the spoiled little girl that thought the weird little boy was a curiosity. He told me what he saw, and it seemed strange, but not impossible, considering other things like the Sledge flying around.
What he saw made him harden his heart. He closed himself off from the hateful, angry, scared people of the city. Still, he saved me from a terrible man. He would have died, if he didn't heal faster than normal people. I could see it in his eyes that there was more to it than that, though. Even before he told me, I could see it. There was a shadow over his heart then, but he always had a strong heart, and a good one, so I didn't care. He saved me, so who cares if Bob was dead. Still, he smiled at me and I tried to light the shadow.
We grew into adolescence and we grew closer. Though he put up a wall on how far we went, I knew it wasn't rejection. He was a good boy, and I loved him. It made teasing him all the more fun.
He went off to his special school, but I knew he didn't smile to any of the other girls there. When he was home, and he smiled at me, it was like he hadn't done it in months, so I knew that it was just for me. That was when I realized it was just for me.
Then [i]they[/i] came. The did terrible things to my mom after they shot dad. They must have been tired from that by the time they found me, because they only took knives to me. Maybe the drugs kept them from doing anything else. One of them decided that there shouldn't be any witnesses, so she pointed a shotgun at my head and missed. If you can call it that. I only lost an eye and my face instead of my brain.
At first I thought I should finish the job they started. I thought I'd lost everything. My parents were dead, and I didn't believe anyone could love someone with such a wrecked body. Then he came, and smiled to me. He was crying, the first time I'd ever seen him cry since we were out of kindergarten, but he truly cried. Still, he saw me, not my mutilated body, but the me he always saw that no one else did, and he smiled without knowing it.
So I persisted. Through painful months of recovery as my shattered body replaced gaping holes with scar tissue and accepted grafts of skin to replace what would never grow back on its own. Years of physical therapy and adjusting to prosthetics. He didn't come to visit me often, but when he did, he shared that smile just for me, and we sat and talked. He changed the subject whenever I asked what he was up to these days, but I let him. I could see in his eyes that it wasn't shame or doubt he was hiding, but something else. He was afraid for me. Something he thought would hurt me was turning his hard, but good, heart to stone. Still, no matter how hard that heart got, he always chiseled away a spot just for me with that smile.
So I'm here, balancing precariously on a new leg, limping toward him and his smile. The beacon of light and hope that keeps me from throwing this world away. Replacements always took some getting used to, but the doctors thing that I've stopped growing, so I should only need replacements due to ware and tear, now.
The leg does something amazing for me as well. Something I don't believe will happen until it does. It moves.
It bends and pushes against the mat. I haven't balanced without a cane in years, but I let go of the safety bars and take a step not because I should, but because I [i]can[/i].
I take another step toward him and his smile grows as he sees my amazement.
My balance isn't perfect and I have to catch myself from falling forward. My brain is already trying to use its new appendage and the leg kicks out farther than I need it to, sending me stumbling and hopping awkwardly into his arms. He holds me and I wrap my one good arm around him. I need the grip for support at first, but the warmth of his body and the gentle pressure of his arms around me remind me of nights as kids, when we could just enjoy being with each other.
I look up at him from our embrace and we kiss. My mouth is partially paralyzed, but he doesn't care about that any more than my missing arm and leg. He's told me more, over the years. He's told me about how he's training his sight to do more than see. He doesn't tell me who his partners are yet, and I know it's because they're dangerous.
Tonight he arrived as he always does, any more, stepping out of a shadow that I'm sure couldn't have hidden a cat. Usually he just comes so we can be together, or watch a movie. This time was special because of the gifts he brought.
The prosthetic leg and arm were surprisingly simple to attach. Simpler even than normal, static pieces. Experimental tech from someone who wasn't in a position to market it, any more, he says. I'm skeptical, but he assures me that it wasn't anyone who deserved them more than me. I trust him. His heart of stone is still a good heart, if not a nice one.
The new leg is easy to get used to enough to at least limp around, but he warns me that the arm is a bit trickier. He shows me how to control the power-settings on it so I don't hurt myself by accident, and I set it to the lowest power. This satisfies him I tug him toward my bedroom.
The new arm and leg are left by the door for the rest of the night's activities. We'd figured out years ago that prosthetics just got in the way for some things.
I'm the only one that he smiles for, after all.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Pain. So much pain fills my senses, yet I could not tell you what hurt.
I open my mouth to scream but I seem unable to even exhale. My throat muscles are involuntarily tensed to the point of choking. My body is rigid and I see the floor approaching me in what seems like slow motion thought the smokey tendrils she used to reach into me.
Focus! I scream to my own mind as I bring up my own ethereal projections of will to form an imaginary blade and sever the immaterial weapons offending my being.
This seems to work as the pain flooding my brain instantly dissipates without even so much as the trace of ache one expects from a physical blow. This sudden cessation is almost as unsettling as pain itself, but I still manage to catch myself with my hands before the floor catches my face.
“Don't like being on the other end, do you?” a mocking voice said as I catch my breath and composure.
“It's not something I do so they enjoy it,” I manage to retort. Brad is smug, but Nyx is downright cruel.
She laughs, “No? As clumsy and weak as that attack just was I figured you were trying to tickle me.”
“Fuck you.”
“I might, but Brad is the jealous type, and I doubt Maria would approve.”
My jaw clenches. I'm not surprised that she knows about my relationship with Maria, but Nyx's familiarity is still disturbing, as I've taken pains to keep Maria safely distant from my companions, Nyx in particular.
“Oh, don't want me talking about her? What about your little date the other evening. Yeah, I know what you did with the swag you snagged from the Chrome King. Interesting choice, considering the Benjamins you could have pulled.”
“What, you're stalking me now?” my voice accuses as I focus on obfuscating my own feelings behind a mask of random spiritual energy, the equivalent of white noise to her more developed soulsight.
“Only because you took the bits and pieces. Collecting prosthetics isn't something that's a spontaneous hobby.”
“I figured she'd need them more than him.” I shrug, seeing no point in denying it.
Nyx chuckles low, “Oh, don't get me wrong, it was downright romantic. I ended up jumping Brad so hard I think his heart actually started beating again.”
I am suddenly extremely thankful for the harsh course of mental discipline Bradly had subjected me to as I suppress a flush to my cheeks. Bradly is discreet about it, even if the pair had never hidden the nature of their relationship. Nyx seemed to enjoy teasing a reaction out of anything and everything, and I was no exception. I decide to try to change the subject back to the endurance training, which was only slightly more uncomfortable than Nyx talking her sex life and actually serves a productive purpose. “Hit me again. I was able to sever the attack last time, but I'd rather deflect it before it gets that far.”
A cruel smile plays across her pallid face. She was probably beautiful once, before she was marred by the scars and wrinkles that come with a life of desperate and violent struggle. She hold holds out a hand palm up, suddenly clenching it into a fist and pulling it toward her body as if yanking on a chain. Somatic associations chafe my sensibilities as overly dramatic, but I can't deny that Nyx is well beyond me in skill and power.
I see the thin smoky tendrils this time. I will need to ask her how she keeps them so subtle before they are in place, but still applies the full strength of her will once they are in place.
I spread my own hands before me and extend my own will to resist the incoming threats. My eyes dart between each as my less delicate ethereal appendages extend and take form. I imagine a sphere of flowing water to dissipate the thin wisps approaching, hoping to deflect and redirect, and at first it seems to work, and Nyx's subtle tendrils dissipate and lose their coherence against the perpendicular current of energy.
I see her tilt her head, looking through the brutal blindfold she favored that cover what I know to be charred, empty sockets. In her case, physical eyes would be redundant. Suddenly, she eschews subtlety and the tendrils, barely visible even to my soulsight, swell to become sinuous tentacles that brutally crash through the flowing defensive barrier that only partially tore away the essence of this more substantial projection.
I blink and make a snap decision. I realize that Nyx will not allow me any victory even in training, so I instead must deny her victory.
I focus my efforts on half the tentacles, knowing that if I try to stop them all, I am likely to stop none. The other half penetrate my physical form, seeking my soul to squeeze me into submission again.
As I feel the first chilling brush of darkness against my soul I pull my own arms in close to my body in a somatic gesture of binding. I hear a gasp from across the room and give the woman a vicious, toothy snarle. I bring my own will to bare not in pushing back against the ethereal intrusion, but twisting it. I imagine a ball of yarn as I work perpendicular to her own efforts. I confuse and disorienting the attempt to constrict my soul and the smoky tentacles instead constrict and tangle themselves.
My victory is short lived though, as Nyx realizes and adapts herself. She stops trying to untangle the ball of her psychic attack and brutally whips it to break free, unsubtly bashing against my soul on its way out.
The room is spinning and my hands clench by belly as a bout of nausea threatens to overwhelm me and my ears ring. Once my mind and soul stop fighting amongst themselves I realize Nyx is laughing.
“That was good, kid,” she is grinning broadly, “When you can't stop them, trap them.”
I scowl back at her, “You didn't need to go full power, you spiteful bitch.”
Unphased, she plopped back into a beaten old sofa at the edge of the room. “Oh, if I went full power you'd be a gibbering wreck incapable of thinking in more than two letters at a time.”
I stagger over to a chair of my own and take a seat. “How am I supposed to improve when you just overpower me every time?”
“Psht!” she waves a hand dismissively, “Power is nice and all, but there's always someone more powerful. Always. The trick isn't being more powerful, it's using the power you have better than the other guy.”
“You sacrificed your eyes for power, though. Seems a bit hypocritical.” I shoot back.
“Oh, is that what you think I did?” she smriks.
“Yeah. There's no other reason that they would still be charred and black rather than healing over after all these years.” The nausea has subsided now, and my balance is no longer fighting itself.
She shrugs, “Well, I guess you're not too far off, but no, I didn't sacrifice my eyes for power. I sacrificed them for knowledge.”
“Knowledge is power,” I recite the old adage.
“And friendship is magic,” she snorts back, “No, power and knowledge are two different things that just happen to be useful for gaining each other. Specifically, I needed the knowledge to use my power to kill the guy who thought I'd make a great conduit to summon some demon. That demon was apparently cranky about getting woke up in the middle of the night and offered me a deal where I traded my eyes for the knowledge of stripping souls, and if I used it to kill the mage he would go back to bed.”
I blink. “So you're literally teaching me demonic arts...”
“Well, yeah. What, you don't think dismantling and digesting the immortal essence of living creatures is common practice among legit psychics and mages, do you? This isn't one of your Senior Scrolls video games.”
I ignore her likely deliberate misnomer and ponder this revelation in silence.
Nyx apparently bores quickly and summons her semicorporial shadow familiar, likely to fetch a beer. “You want anything from the fridge? I figured you earned it today.” she asks.
“Water” I reply.
The vaguely humanoid mass of black spiritual energy pads silently to the refrigerator in the corner and retrieves two bottles for us. I take a sip before speaking again, “How do you change the strength and nature of your attacks so quickly?”
She bites the cap of her beer to leverage it off the bottle. “Huh? Oh, yeah, that. I hardly even think about it much any more.” She pauses, taking a contemplative expression that seems alien to her maimed face. “I... how the hells do I explain it? I just kind of do it and never thought much about it. I mean, you're clumsy as an infant, but I guess that's because you don't depend on the sight as much as I do.”
She leans forward and takes a swig of beer before continuing “I don't think it's a... functional limitation. More like a mindset thing, maybe? You probably are used to seeing souls on top of your normal sight, right?”
It seems a reasonably enough description, “Sure, something like that.”
“Right. So you probably are only used to seeing the broad strokes of emotion immediately surrounding a person, right?”
“Well, yeah, unless I'm focusing really closely like when I'm sparring or fighting.”
She suddenly smiles, which is cause for concern. “Oo! I got an idea! Lets head to the roof!” She springs up and hops through a tear in space-time, presumably teleporting to the roof.
I stand and close my eyes, as I know what's coming next. I sense the space around me chill and bend. There's a brief sensation of falling and the floor disappearing under my feet. The shock of the cold night air and the rooftop under my feet informs me that I'm at my destination and I open my eyes.
The cityscape is a strange sort of beautiful at night, and as late as it is, peaceful as well. I've become nocturnal in my work with Bradly and Nyx, picking off the worst villains that tread the neighborhood.
“No no no!” Nyx chastises me, “Keep your eyes closed!” She's quite excited, so she must think she has a really good idea.
I sigh at her antics but close my eyes. My soulsight remains active though. I sense the towering hives of semi-dormant souls sleeping in appartments, the isolated specs of a vagrant huddled in a cardboard box, and the occasional bored aura of some poor sop on the graveyard shift.
“Do you see it?” Nyx asks eagerly.
“See what? Dreamers? Homeless? The security guard so bored that he's half-ready to shoot himself in the head?”
Nyx sighs, “Yes and no? Find a dark spot that's between some places with a bunch of people, but doesn't have anything in it itself.”
Eyes still close, my eyebrows furrow and I do as asked. I can sense the eager anticipation in the silence from Nyx even without my soulsight. I stare at a school that is located between two sections of neighborhood just enough that it can serve for both, yet be convenient for neither.
I stare at it, at first seen nothing but darkness and the weak haze of insects and other small animals that only come out at night. Then I notice a dim pattern in the area, like a residue that is not distinct enough to be seen on its own through the noise of mice and grasshoppers, but more apparent if one has enough distance to see the whole rather than the parts.
“I see.... something? Like lines crossing each other, but not at any particular angle.”
“Pick one and follow it to one of its ends.”
Its more difficult than it seems as it is not a coherent thread to follow, but I manage. “It goes to... a home? Someone asleep.”
“Uh huh. Follow it the other way now.”
After a few minutes of silence as I backtrack and trace the line to its other terminus, “It's another sleeper... How are they connected?” I open my eyes and look questioningly to the scarred woman sharing the rooftop with me.
She shrugs, “Dunknow, but it's strong enough to see from this distance. Could be love, could be hate, could be envy. Thing is, that's just a stronger thread of connection. If you look close enough, there's some thread that connects every person to every other person they have any sort of connection to.”
“Everyone is connected to everyone?”
“Well not quite everyone, but humans, and creatures that are close enough to human, are quick to establish a connection of some sort as soon as the meet by instinct. When we use our abilities, we can create new connections through brute force, and you're coming along nicely in that area. If I can find existing threads of connection, I can also ride those to my target and swell them with power once I am past their defenses rather than trying to hammer in a connection where there is none.”
“I saw your attack, though. I didn't see any thread before you were using it.” I counter, trying to understand.
“You're blinded by your eyes. I don't have that handicap.” She smirks and taps her temple with a finger. “Your eyes feed you information from the material world, but the threads are normally too faint to see past the incandescent and florescent lighting you're used to depending on until I started tracing it in.”
“Hm.” I consider, “But the stronger the connection, positive or negative, the more the thread stands out?”
Nyx nods. “Usually, yep.”
“And that includes anger and fear, right?”
She nods again, smirking now. I suspect she know where my train of thought is leading.
“I'm going to need a mask.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[i]Left, right, left, right, LEFT![/i]
Gravel compressed and broke under the force applied by the metal appendage as it launched her into the the air. It was a glorious feeling, to see the world fall away, freed from the oppression of gravity holding her to the Earth.
Yet, the pair would not be denied forever, and as quickly as it had been thrown away, the ground rushed back. Maria landed as she had been practicing, catching as much of the landing with her prosthetic leg, which was apparently capable of telescoping just for this purpose, before tucking her shoulder to dissipate the remaining energy into a roll.
Maria regained her footing and brushed the dirt from her clothes. A deep breath cleared the minor discomforts that accompanied rolling across the ground of unoccupied gravel yard. Her artificial limbs were not simple, prosthetics, she was sure, but they were gifts from Chris, and so this was hardly surprising.
Learning to walk again had been a struggle after so many years of depending on a cane, but that reward itself had been worth it. Now she was testing just how far she could push them, as the artificial arm and leg were significantly more powerful than her organic limbs. Still, as powerful as they were, it was difficult to use them with precision, as they lacked the feedback of a living limb.
And so she practiced a strange off-kilter run where her intact right leg only touched the ground long enough for the mechanical left to apply its power stroke, and jumping with all the weight balanced on her left foot.
That, and lots of weight-training for her organic limbs.
Worn from the days workout, she changed out of her clothes and strode back towards the parking lot that was empty aside from her old beater car this Sunday. She frowned as she heard voices from around the gravel pile currently blocking her field of view, but continued.
Her frown deepened as she saw a group of young men dressed in ill-fitting clothes around the vehicle looking in the windows and tugging on the trunk hatch.
“Excuse me. That's mine.” She called out, getting their attention.
“Oh yeah, Honey?” the one that had been peering in the driver-side window swaggered toward her, sagging pants not tripping him by some unholy miracle of fashion.
Maria stares down the thug and tucked her right thumb into her pocket, resting her palm on a folding knife she kept with her. “Yeah, and there's nothing worth stealing it it.”
“Dude lets bail. There ain't nothin' in this piece of shit,” one of the others said as he kicked a tire.
“I don't know about all that, we got her, at least,” the leader said.
Maria tensed at the implication of what was likely to happen next.
“Shit man, she's already beat to hell. She's only even got half a face,” the tire-kicker responded.
“All pink in the middle.” Their leader now had a predatory grin and was reached up to grab her shoulder.
Maria swung her prosthetic arm at his elbow faster than even she expected, and was rewarded with a crunching sound strangely similar to the gravel underfoot from earlier. Her right hand pulled the knife from the lip of her pocket and flicked open the blade with a movement from her thumb.
The thug fell to his knees in pain and held the ruined joint of his elbow in his remaining hand. The others rushed in, in spite of the blade in her hand that lashed out, slashing at hands and faces.
She retreated, forcing them to approach to offend her, and approach they did, though in their undisciplined and uncoordinated way.
She stepped away from telegraphed punches, punishing the attacks by lashing out with her knife to cut arms and hands. When one attempted to grab her left arm, she simply anchored herself and allowed the prosthetic to do the work of flinging him into his fellows.
Suddenly there was a boom of impact behind her and dust kicked up, forcing her attackers to shield their faces to keep the dust from their eyes. Maria squinted, but retained degraded vision.
Maria caught only a glimpse of a figure with a curved red crest on a polished silver full helm, and an oval shield painted with red and gold leaping from where it had just landed.
In the moment it took for her to turn back around, the armored figure had already defeated most of her remaining assailants and was standing above the last one, holding a sword-point at his face. “Go, and tell your idiot friends that the Praetorian will not tolerate this dishonorable behavior.”
The thug nodded fearfully and scrambled back a few feet before regaining his feet and entering a full run.
“Are you injured, Ma'am?” the Praetorian turned to Maria.
“Uh, yeah,” she responded uncertainly.
The Praetorian nodded before continuing, “You fought with good strategy and strength, but I think you need a bigger sword.” A slight chuckle followed the deadpan delivery.
Maria blinked once before she looked to the pocket-knife in her hand, now partially covered in blood from the shallow cuts she had delivered. “I... well, wasn't planning on a fight.” Now that the dust had cleared, Maria could see the Praetorian more clearly. Though clearly modeled after popular depictions of Roman equipment, she could now see that the suit was as advanced as anything out there, with bundles of wiring slightly visible at the joints and the eye slots of the helm actually being lenses. “Did you kill them?” She asks?
“What? No, that would be unnecessary, and why I intervened. You would have had to kill them.”
Now it was Maria's turn, “What? I was barely fighting them off.”
The praetorian shook his head, “No, you were doing quite well at fighting them off, but they would have kept coming even after you stabbed one in the heart or neck, thinking it was a luck on your part. You would have had to kill them not because you were too weak to kill them, but because you weren't strong enough to fight them without going for killing blows.” He turned to look upon the unconscious thugs, “Speaking of which. Do you want to help me tie them up for the police?” He offered a set of flexible zip-tie style cuffs.
Maria nodded and accepted the surprisingly mundane means of restraint and set about the task quietly.
“Can you teach me?” she finally asks.
“Hm... Maybe. Why” The Praetorian's voice did not seem teasing.
“Because you're right. I would have had to kill them in order to prevail. If I want to avoid killing, I need to be stronger and faster.” Maria turned to stare the Praetorian in the eye-lenses and the man under the suit stared back.
“You'll also need to be more intimidating. The threat of violence can many times avoid the need for violence altogether.”
“So that's the reason for the theatrics?” Maria inquired.
The Praetorian nodded, “Yes, but I won't lie, it [i]is[/i] also pretty fun.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
You lounge back on the makeshift sofa composed of shipping crates and tarps. Your buddies are a boisterous group shouting crude boasts and taunting each other good naturedly. The Boss might normally chastise them, but instead a slight smile plays upon her lips. You and your gang had earned the celebration, and though the Boss didn't partake, she seemed to appreciate the need for you all to blow off steam after snagging an entire convoy of trucks out from under the nose of an entire contingent of Corporate Security.
You can't help but wonder why she doesn't join in the celebration. This was more her success than everyone else's combined. It was her plan that had gotten they away safely, it was her brutal audacity that had gotten you all replacing the drivers, and it was her contacts that had picked the target.
Your ponderings are interrupted suddenly by a scream. *What the hell? That sounded like Carlos. Hadn't he just stepped off to take a piss?* You and the rest of your friends turn suddenly towards the sound, Jack sputtering on the liquor he was in the middle of chugging.
You look to the Boss for guidance, and she has a hard frown upon her face. After a moment of silence that stretches for an eternity, she finally commands you all. “Everyone, get a weapon. We've got a Mask.”
You scramble to comply, seeking something, anything to defend yourself with. Finally, you find one of the cheep machine-pistols that was really more useful for drive-bys than anything else, but it was a gun, and its presence in your hands provides some small comfort. Who was it, though? [i]Some green newbie? The Sledge? Another like the Boss that just wanted to steal the loot second-hand? Whoever it was caught Carlos by surprise, but the rest of you were now ready to face them head-on.[/i]
You wait for the flash of spandex and gold plating of The Sledge, the grotesque mutilated visage of some spawn of a one-night-stand with an acid bath, or the hissing movement of steam-powered armor. You hear nothing, though the shadows seem to deepen. [i]Must be nerves*, you mentally dismiss the sense of claustrophobia in the cluttered, but plenty large, warehouse.
“I know you're out there!” the Boss calls, tendrils of smoke and light-bending heat lazily wafting from her hands, “Come out and face me!”
“But I can't face you,” the voice of a small child comes from a corner behind you, well away from the direction Carlos had screamed from, “You took my face.”
*Oh God, it **knows**.* Flashes of memory better left ignored reach unbidden to your mind. The look of psychotic glee as the Boss worked the knife. The muffled screams of the little girl.
That cop deserved what he got, you think to yourself. You and the boys had to uphold your rep or some punk-ass would be all up in your turf. You had to put the pig down, but the Boss did the girl because she wanted to. You hadn't said anything then because the Boss would have just roasted you.
Your jaw clenches tight and you twist your grip on your gun, ready to spray bullets in the general direction of where you think the voice came from when another voice comes from your left, “I surrendered so that you would leave my family alone,” This time the voice was deeper, and adult man with no more accent than the typical cube-jockeys 9-to-5 wage slaves. This time you do not hesitate and unleash a burst of lead into the empty corner. You hit nothing but sheet-metal and plaster.
A differnet voice; a different corner. “I threw myself at you to buy just a few seconds of life for our daughter,” this time distinctly feminine, with slight shrillness of a scolding matron.
You all turn again, and you see your friends are wide-eyed and sweating. Who was this? These voices are from people you know are dead. Hell, you'd put a bullet in the girl to put her out of her misery yourself. The shadows... you're certain now that they are getting darker. Oh hell, are you fighting ghosts? Demons? The rush of blood roars through your ears and there's a quiet rattle from the gun shaking in your hand.
“Th... thh... the shadows!” You manage to squeak out through adrenaline-clenched teeth.
As if by command, the shadows exploded into black, tarry tentacles that lash out at all of your companions. You shoot one by instinct and dive away as that proves useless. The Boss has better luck and envelops herself in a brilliant flaming aura that causes the tendrils of shadow to evaporate as they get too close.
“YOU STOLE AND KILLED AND DESTROYED!” Roars some twisted combination of the three voices from... everywhere. There's more screams as several of your friends go rigid before collapsing into unceremonious heaps.
Heat flashes past your face as the Boss angrily flings fireballs and lances of thermal radiation in random directions. Jack is caught in one of the stray fireballs, and though his mouth opens as if to scream, you hear nothing over the roar of his instant immolation.
You scramble low to hide behind one of the many crates that litter the warehouse to wait out the burning fury around you.
“There you are!” You hear the Boss shout and suddenly it seems like her blasts are less random.
You risk a peak and are rewarded with the sight of Shadow vs Flame. Black smoke envelops the Boss, as if trying to suffocate her, but she trades back with attacks of incandescent, super-heated air at a swirling flowing mass of blackness that is leaping from crate, to rack, to rafter. Transfixed by the strange beauty of the display, you suddenly find the reassuring weight of the gun in your hand as inadequate in this exchange between inhuman embodiments of distilled elemental power.
The Boss apparently becomes frustrated at evasive shadow and lets loos a less focused, but still powerful, pulse of conclusive power which finally seems to hit the shadow, sending it hurtling back. It lands with a decidedly material *thump* and slides past your hiding-spot.
As it slides to a stop the smoky shadow dissipates enough for you to clearly see a humanoid figure in black robes and a silver half-mask that covers the top half of its face. *And it sees you.*
In a panic, you bring up your gun and squeeze the trigger, emptying the magazine at point-blank range. It staggers back and excitement fills your senses as you realize *you hurt it!* The excitement drains to dread as it doesn't fall and reaches toward you.
There is a sudden chilling pain as immaterial blades claw at you. The image of a dozen black, barbed tentacles dragging past you comes to mind, each barbed tooth taking only a small portion, but each bit stripped away leaves exposed more for the next tooth to draw towards its dark master.
The chill is suddenly replaced with searing heat as the Boss recovers from generating the concussive blast enough to resume her more direct attacks. You collapse and slump against the crate that had been your hiding place, certain that you would be dead, every bit of what makes you, you consumed, had the shadow not been forced to leap away to avoid the thermal lance. Still, though alive, the will to stand, or do anything other than watch, leaves you.
The Boss is tiring, though, and you can tell. The lances of super-heated air are coming slower, and fly wider of their mark. Still, you can see the intent fury of battle possessing her driving her well past where most would succumb to the draining power that you had just felt from this wielder of shadows. It was that drive and determination that had gotten you to follow her in the first place. You could tell, though, that *it won't last.*
She slowed further, focused beams of heat sluggishly decaying into smoldering blobs that while still dangerous, lacked the visceral lethality you had come to know from the Boss. Meanwhile the Shadow remained agile as ever, barring its brief time it spent as your target. It seems to be feeding its strength from the Boss's weakness.
Then, sensing the end, the Shadow stopped and its aura grew into a massive tentacled avatar of darkness. These tentacles strike forth with speed and precision, as if tracing predetermined paths into their target, and you see the defiant anger of the Boss twist into an expression of unimaginable agony, and then stillness. You don't know weather to mourn her death or sign in relief, as urges to do both play across your shaken, drained mind.
The shadow lets its immaterial shroud fall and approaches you, the last loose end. The silver mask looks down at you. You notice that the mask is intricately detailed and forms a lifelike face where it covers. Where it doesn't, you see nothing but the darkest of black. I gaping, hungry maw which would draw everything it could into it, but never be filled.
“Tell me, what do you fear?” the bizarre triple-voice says to you as black tendrils grow from the empty blackness under mask to reach into you.
“No... No! NO!” You scream as visions of a little girl fill your mind.
----
“Why did you leave that one alive?” Brad asked over his coffee, though his eyes remain fixed on the newspaper he was reading.
“I pulled forth his greatest fears, and saw something surprising,” Chris responded
“And what was that?”
“Regret.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
He held the door for her as she stepped into the store out of the downpour. He was traditional like that, which was charming in a way, Maria supposed, along with his overcoat and full brimmed hat that was at least 50 years out of fashion.
Strange that someone with a sense of style locked in the 50s would be ushering her into the most exclusive tailor in town. Did he save the owner's kitten from a tree or something? She had asked Horace “The Praetorian” DeSantis, but he had decided to play up the mystery.
“Uncle Horace! It's been ages!” a sultry voice calls their attention to the left, where a middle-aged woman stepped quickly toward them, taking Horace in a warm embrace and kissing him on the cheek. She was dressed in a find silk dress that accentuated the positive aspects of her slightly overweight figure.
For his part, he took it in stride and returned the embrace, “Athena, it's good to see you!”
“Wish I could say the same!” Athena released the hug to hold him at arm's length and look him over. “You're still insisting on dressing as if you're expecting to meet a bootlegger!”
Horace chuckled at the admonishment, “I like the old fashions, but I'm not here for me, today.” He looked toward Maria and nodded, “Athena, this is Maria. Maria, my... niece Athena.”
Maria smiled as best she could considering the scarring and paralysis of the left side of her face, offering her flesh and bone right hand in greeting. “A pleasure to meet you.” Athena shook her hand, returning the smile, and noticed it seemed unusually calloused, even for a tailor. Maria noticed that she was also unphased by the scarred half of her face. Maria had become so used to the macabre fascination of others that the lack of attention paid to her injuries was more disturbing than the stares.
“Like wise, my dear girl.” Athena turned back to Horace, “Are you here for a wedding dress...?”
Horace laughed, “No, and you know it. We need a Business Casual outfit for her. I've got most of the specs, just looking for your expert touch on the style.”
“Business Casual?” Maria blinked in confusion, “I have plenty of...” She was cut off by Athena's finger darting up to her lips.
“Everyone needs a new outfit for a new job dear. Just follow me.” Athena turned and beckoned toward one of the fitting stalls in the corner of the store. Once they entered and with a final visual search of their surroundings by Horace, Athena closed the shutter and the floor immediately started dropping beneath them in a smooth, silent descent.
“Now is the time for awkward questions and honest answers, dear,” Athena's expression had lost some of the warm maternal smile and her tone was all business. “How will you be engaging your enemies?”
Maria hesitated slightly before answering, “Um, with a variable-current electrical discharge pole and a pressure-reactive composite armor shield.”
Athena nodded, thinking of this as the elevator lowered past the false foundation of the tailor's shop above to a workshop riddled with 3D printers, CNC machines, drills, saws, and a few devices of unclear purpose. “Spear and shield then. Any asthetic preferences? Steampunk, cyberpunk, Medieval,” Athena hesitated with a smirk to Horace, “Roman?”
“I... I don't know,” Maria was taken aback, “I didn't know I was coming here for this. I need armor before I decide on a costume.”
Athena's head tilted back and she let out a hearty laugh, “My dear, Armor is a costume, and costume is armor! I have doctorates in materials engineering and fashion design. I can make you a ballroom gown that will withstand over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit or a stiletto heels that will penetrate a combat helmet. If you want to go with a minimalist, utilitarian look, I can do that too.”
Horace chuckled lightly, “Sorry, should have warned you. Athena is very supportive of my superheroing habit.”
Athena waved a hand dismissively at Horace with a wide smile, “Bah, you're just as supportive of my costuming habit. Back to the issue at hand though, what do you want to look like while parading my design skills about?”
“Hm...” Maria pondered a bit “Well, lets start with the basics, maybe?” She looked to Athena who nodded encouragingly.
“Excellent idea, I shouldn't forget this is your first,” The smirk on Athena's lips implied the innuendo was not accidental. Horace just shook his head and busied himself watching a 3D printer manufacture some arcane component.
“Ok... I'll need a helmet, something that covers my face, for... obvious reasons.” Maria's metallic left hand raised to her face instinctively. Though most were kind enough not to voice the issue, the scars would do her no favors in calming hostages or presenting a positive image to the press. Athena gave her a hard look briefly before nodding.
“So we're to hide behind a noble visage then. There are several options from robotic helmets, to knights' hems, to deathmasks,” Athena rattled off the options idly.
“Deathmasks? I thought you said noble, not frightening,” Maria queried.
“What? Oh, no, not a Death's Head Mask. A death mask is a mold of the face taken, then recast in some other material. In silver, bronze, or gold they are quite evocative of hard, uncompromising nobility.”
“Hard, uncompromising nobility? That reminds me of someone I know...” Maria's thoughts drifted to her lover, and the mask he had made of his own face to shield himself from the knowledge he had never wanted. Finally, she nodded. “A deathmask, then, of red copper. Left eye blanked and smoothed.”
Athena's brow furrowed, but she nodded in ascent, “Copper-red deathmask with one eye. Of anyone in particular, or should I get a stock image of a beautiful maiden? I could make a mold of your face as well, but that seems likely to defeat the point of a costume.”
“A maiden...” Maria pondered this “Yes! A Shield Maiden!” Maria smiled as inspiration hit her, “Themed with Norse iconography, maybe a winged helm? No, that's overdone with the Valkyries. More minimal, but with a flowing mane of blonde hair. Silver with red highlights.”
Athena smiled and quickly began tapping notes down onto a tablet. “Maybe a raven symbol on the breastplate, since you're going the one-eyed route, like Odin?”
“Yes!” Maria exclaimed happily as one of the screens lit up in response to Athena's commands entered into the tablet in her hands.
The screen displayed a crude impression of what they had described and Maria was imagining. Athena spoke up when she saw Maria staring at it, “Don't worry dear. We're just getting started.”
_____________
Hours had passed as the Maria trialed various accessories and motifs on the digital representation of her armor, taking the occasional suggestion from Horace and Athena.
“It's beautiful...” Maria smiled, oblivious to the scar tissue pulling the cheery gesture into a sneer.
Horace nodded, then looked toward Athena “What are the technical specs?”
Athena scanned over her tablet, still apparently still making tweaks to the schematics, “Nanofiber-titanium composite plates for all hard armor, including the helmet and breastplate, and high density type 4 kevlar at the joints. Those parts should be able to take anything up to a 50 cal, but they're conductive as hell, so stay clear of flamethrowers. The waste, hips, and right-side extremities include electrical movement assist that should put those limbs at about half-strength relative to your prostheics, and should keep you moving like an Olympian sprinter in spite of the weight.”
Athena glanced at Maira's right arm with a raised eyebrow, “I'd love to get a chance to examine those, by the way, they're amazing.”
Maria's metalic left hand clenched involuntarily, “Uh, I don't think that would be a good idea. They're...” she hesitated, pondering explaining how she got the appendages, “... a gift from someone very important to me. He would probably be upset if they got damage.”
A forlorn sigh escaped Athena's lips before her warm smile returned, “I can't say I'm surprised, dear. I usually get declined when I ask to examine my clients' unique anatomical features.” Maria was quite certain at this point that Athena was being completely serious. “The suit should be ready in about a week."
“How much do I owe you?” Horace asked
“All new costume fee, minus the first-time customer discount with referral...” Athena's eyes drifted up to nothing in particular in the ceiling as she mentally calculated, “200 thousand, a dozen of those fancy fire runes that you tend to find among the demon-summoning sorts, and don't string her along!” Athena jabbed an accusing finger into Horace's chest while nodding toward Maria at the last demand.
Maria's eyes went wide with the implication, but Horace just laughed. “No worries there, we've avoided that misunderstanding. I haven't met her boyfriend, but she's met mine.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Horace looked up at the figure silhouetted against the moonlight before leaping to the flat roof of the dilapidated hotel in a single bound. Sword and shield were in hand, but he let them hang low instead of in a guard.
“I'm glad you came in spite of our... history,” the figure spoke calmly, unperturbed by Horace's armament. He gestured to a pair of chairs he had apparently arranged. One was a crude, but sturdy device of welded metal, apparently intended to bare more weight than it's simple wooden counterpart.
“I'm fine standing,” Horace responded.
The other man smirked with a sigh before taking the wooden seat. “No reason for the hostility. I asked you to come here, after all.”
“It's been a while, but I remember who, and what you are. What are you calling yourself these days? I seem to remember exposing your nature to the media last time. You were Victor Shelly back then.”
“Bradley now. Though still also the Night Lord with the locals. I'll reserve the last name since you're apparently just as zealous as ever,” Bradley's smirk faded to a disappointed frown. “That was a nice house you and your compatriots burned down, by the way.”
Horace shrugged, “You probably shouldn't have plastered necromantic sigls all over the walls then. Everlasting Eye was convinced fire was the only way to make sure the area could be sanctified, and I'm not exactly qualified to contradict her in that field.”
“Or you could have knocked, bought the deed, and I would have assisted in the removal.”
“You were wanted for murder and kidnapping, not real-estate fraud.”
Bradley chuckled, “The look on your face when you figured out what was going on is what convinced me that I needed a camera on me at all times.”
Horace's scowl was hidden by his mask, but bled through to his tone, “You're still wanted for murder for what you did to those guards. Why shouldn't I bring you in?”
“They had it coming, each an every one, and you're welcome to try, but then you won't know why I contacted you. Now, put up that sword before you make me teach you another lesson in blade-work.”
“I've learned a few tricks since the last time that I might want to test on you,” Horace brought his weapons up into a ready stance briefly before sliding the sword into the sheath on his hip and slapping the shield to the magnetic catch on his back. “... but that's not why either of us are here.”
Bradley smiled and nodded, “Excellent. Perhaps some other time, as I've found myself lacking opponents with even your own amateurish skill.”
Horace ignored the barb not because it was false, but because it was true. The man in front of him currently going by the name Bradley had literally centuries of practice with swords, and had quite efficiently, if brutally, proven his mettle as superior to any challengers to his domination of the criminals in this town. Everyone knew he was in the authority over the gangs, but everyone also knew that his brutal tyranny had a form of honor, even if that of a medieval count. The gangs were there, paying tribute to their Night Lord of blood and shadow, but they took their fights away from where the regular people lived, lest he visit bloody reprisals upon them.
Though his weapons were now stowed, Horace remained standing, “What's this about, then?”
“Your new sidekick. I want you to convince her to cease her career before you get her killed.”
Horace was quiet and very still for several seconds as he processed the request, “Shield Maiden? Why? I've worked with plenty of others before now and you haven't given damn about them, even when Rainbow Wings suck-started a shotgun.”
“Because miss Villasenor is currently serving a particular purpose by simply remaining alive and whole. Well, as whole as she can be any more, at least.”
Horace's eyes narrowed behind his visor. Maria had only been on a few missions, and had so far had avoided needing to reveal the her identity as Shield Maiden to the public, or even the police. If Bradley knew of her new occupation, it meant that he had been surveilling her already. “Not saying that I can convince her, or that I can even try in good conscience, but why should I do you any favors?”
Bradley leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers in front of his face, “The Titan Slayers are bringing in a shipment of contraband weapons. The sort you in particular should be very concerned about. I can provide you time, location, and approximate volume of the shipment.”
Horace was incredulous, “I can't imagine that you would let those fanatics set up on your turf if I don't help you with this. Seems like I can get that information for free.”
Bradley smirked, “Oh, you're right that I won't be letting them set up shop in my little corner of influence. Thing is, if you don't do this for me, I'll just hand over the information to the local gangs that are already under my thumb. There are a few that are competent enough to either pull off the heist or leave the Slayers with crippling casualties.”
Horace closed his eyes and took a breath to think about the situation. If he took the deal, he would subvert one of the few things that allowed Maria a bit of real happiness and satisfaction with her life. If he didn't, he risked a shipment of anti-metahuman weapons moving into town in the hands of either the anti-metahuman extremists of the Titan Slayers or the criminal gangs.
Taking another breath to gather his resolve, Horace met eyes with Bradley, who, for his part, was patiently waiting. “I can't,” he finally stated, “I only offered to train her to defend herself. She made the decision to become a hero to people on the streets and take up the Mask. If I agree to this, it will be subverting her as a person and stripping her life of the rarest commodity: self-determined purpose.”
Bradley stared back hard, and the shadows around him seem to waver and flicker. Horace tensed, unsure if the monster hiding behind that human face was about to attack in a rage. When Bradley did stand though, it was slow, as if in resignation. He extended his right hand to Horace, inviting a shake. “I understand.”
After a brief hesitation, Horace took the hand in a firm shake, and had the inexplicable sense that this notoriously manipulative and devious creature was being completely and absolutely sincere.
_____________
“He's going to try to track them down anyways,” Nyx said in a mildly amused tone as she stepped out of the deepest shadows of the roof.
Bradley looked in the direction The Praetorian had leapt off to, propelled by that iconic, and impressive, suit of armor. “I know. That's why I told him I'd be sending one of the gangs. He'll waste his time reminding the few ambitious leaders that they are small fry in this world of ours,” Bradley's tone was distant, a mannerism that the pallid-skinned woman recognized from more than a decade of intimacy.
Nyx smirked as she straddled his lap and draped her arms loosely over his shoulders, “The gangbangers you've tamed barely hold their turf against beat cops. Who are you really sending?”
“The only person I trust with this sort of mission, of course,” it was Bradley's turn to smirk.
Nyx chuckled, “I'm retired.”
“So you say, but I don't need your sight to recognize that you're itching for a bit of action. Besides, these are amateurs compared to those old islanders you used to take down. I doubt you'll break a sweat.”
She leaned in, face passing close enough to allow the barbed wire from her eye-wrap to graze his cheek, creating a small, dark line. She whispered into his ear, “I don't mind breaking a sweat sometimes...” her voice rich with insinuation, “but it would be such a shame if I had to leave because the hunters caught a whiff.” She blew lightly on his ear as she spoke.
Bradley's body was now tense, but his voice remained level, “It's a good thing our little Nightmare has taken it upon himself to make sure everyone knows that he is the only shadow stealing souls around here, then.”
“You magnificent bastard. I love you.” Nyx traced the tip of her finger along the back of Bradley's neck.
Bradley's illusion of calm suddenly broke from instinctive pressure caused by the stimulation and his mouth opened, wider than human anatomy would allow. His instincts caused him to twitch toward Nyx's neck in a bite.
Nyx squealed in glee at the reaction and jerked away in time to avoid the predatory attack aimed and the pulsing arteries of her neck, “I still know you, Old Man.” She slid off him slowly, cheek brushing against his clenched jaw.
Bradley's teeth had elongated into piercing needles, and his jaw had lowered itself into a secondary joint to accommodate the dental mutation.
“You, and the Beast inside you,” Nyx's face was a satisfied smirk looking without eyes at the hungry visage Bradley now wore, “I'll do it, but not because you're making me. I'll do it because you're cute when you stop pretending to be in control.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Soft sloshing echoed lightly in the hard acoustics of the access tunnel as they advanced cautiously. The lighted, well maintained, and modern subway tunnels had been breached into an older, abandoned section several hundred meters previously in the manhunt.
“Why is it always sewers?” Cobalt Magnum asked to no one in particular.
“It's not a sewer, and can't you just switch off your olfactory input?” Shieldmaiden retorted.
“It's dank, dark, and underground, so that's close enough to 'sewer' to me. As for switching off smell, sadly, no. My designer didn't install such conveniences in me,” the hybrid golem/android/whatever stated with resignation.
“Quiet both of you,” Praetorian's voice was distorted over his throat-mic, indicating he was sub-vocalizing, “I've got something on thermal.”
Cobalt Magnum and Shieldmaiden refocused along with the remaining members of the group, Tectonic Sheer the magically talented mime, and Painsink, who had not yet revealed the origin of his own peculiar powers of healing.
“I've got a body, still warm. Tec?” Praetorian sub-vocally reported and queried.
“Just a sec ta get a scry...” Tectonic Sheer's concentration was clear even through the distortions of the small radio transceiver, “Dead. Survivor ahead, though.”
The team was trying to track down a group of Chop Shoppers that had kidnapped several members of a local gym by collapsing the ceiling of a subway tunnel below the gym. They were less a gang in the classic sense, but more of a bunch of degenerates that were addicted to swapping out their original, worn-out body parts with those from unwilling donors. Shieldmaiden and Praetorian had been on patrol together when the report went out, and the other three were solo operators Sheidmaiden hadn't met before. They had all decided that it was worth it to combine forces to hopefully get the victims back alive.
The slow, sloshing advance continued past the corpse and Shieldmaiden got a good look at the body through the monochrome of her helmet's night-vision. The outfit and pattern of scars on his face was consistent with the Chop Shoppers. There was no evidence of physical trauma, but the face, what was left of it and not covered in surgical scarring at least, was contorted in terror.
“Someone else is ahead of us,” Shieldmaiden sub-vocalized, “Psionic maybe?”
“Could be electrical,” Painsink suggested, “Cardiac arrest can be instigated through appropriate voltage and frequency.”
“Pain, come check the survivor,” Praetorian had naturally fallen into leading the ad-hoc team in both moving and ordering the team. He was both willing to play point-man and not overly-harsh in his demands.
Painsink knelt in front of the quivering figure of a Chop Shopper curled into the fetal position. “Hm... unconscious with signs of extreme psychosomatic stress causing erratic parasympathetic responses.”
“So that's where the smell came from,” muttered Cobalt Magnum, and Shieldmaiden wasn't certain if he realized, or cared, that the comment would be picked up on their communications channel.
“So some sorta Psionic, then,” Tectonic Sheer stated, apparently ignoring the android's snark.
“We should pick up the pace,” Shieldmaiden urged, “Someone's clearing the way, and they don't seem too concerned about anyone following their trail of victims.”
Praetorian nodded, “Good point, and we don't know if whoever it is will care about protecting the hostages, since non-lethal force seems to be the exception rather than the rule for them.” With that, their pace increased to a jog, Praetorian taking point closely followed by Shieldmaiden.
A few twists later, the came into sight of an individual covered in loose black robes standing over a gibbering Chop Shopper on his knees and clawing at his own eyes.
“Take him alive!” Praetorian announced as he charged.
The robed figure jerked up at the sound, revealing a silver crescent mask covering its upper face. It jumped away from the oncoming man covered in metallic armor, but a wave of shadowy smoke billowed forth and consumed Praetorian. Shieldmaiden grimaced as she followed up, unwilling to leave her mentor to wither under this unknown power. However, for all the pain, fear, or other typical effects of a psychic attack, she sensed only a gentle warmth.
Bemused by this unexpected feeling, she almost didn't notice as Praetorian emerged from the black smoke still advancing shield up, though noticeably staggered. Shieldmaiden lept forward to take the lead from Praetorian as the staccato of automatic rifle fire rung out. Cobalt Magnum had apparently acquired his target. Shieldmaiden saw the robes of their target jerk, but the figure was already diving to the side, and she couldn't determine if the shots had actual hit their mark underneath.
She brought up her spear and thumbed it to its stun setting as she thrust it forwards, catching cloth but no impact on the person wearing the garment. Twisting her grip, she pulled the cloth to the side, hoping to limit the movement of her target.
A series of stalagmites suddenly burst forth from the ground to surround the robed figure in a prison of rock. Though they ripped their robe free of Shieldmaiden's spear as they desperately attempted to slip past the animated stone, they were slowed enough that the largest gap was already too small for the to fit through.
“Nice work, Maiden, Tec,” Praetorian stated as Painsink grasped his shoulder, taking the pain from the armored man onto himself.
“No appreciation for judicious marksmanship.” Cobalt grumbled has the smoking barrels retracted into their storage compartments in his forearms.
“I said nonlethal take-down.”
“A few FMJs aren't going to stop this fellow,” Cobalt retorted to Praetorian before turning to their captive with a smirk, “Takes more than a few rounds to put you down for the count, doesn't it?”
For their part, the robed figure barely spared Cobalt a glance, and seemed silently fixated on Shieldmaiden, who stood with spear at the ready if they attempted anything. Though the attention was unnerving, she sensed no malice, and their powers had not had any negative effect on her earlier.
“Who are you and why are you killing the Chop Shoppers?” Praetorian demanded, finally drawing the robed figure's attention away from Shieldmaiden.
“They deserved it,” the figure finally said. When it finally spoke, its voice came out as a dozen, or more, voices together, some male, some female, some old, some young. Some advanced voice masker, she concluded. Not terribly impressive to those even modestly experienced with metahuman criminals, but likely a reasonably effective psychological weapon against street thugs.
“Oh, and you're the judge, jury and executioner with perfect knowledge of who deserves to die?” Praetorian responded with dismissive anger. He and shieldmaiden had dealt with several overzealous vigilantes. “Let me guess, we deserve it too because we go in the way of 'justice'.”
“No. You're just ignorant,” the figure responded, the voice mask conveying a remarkably nuanced tone of patronizing disappointment. That sort of control was somewhat impressive, if mainly on a technical level. “I am very certain all the dead ones deserved it.” Apparently resigned to their captivity, they leaned back against the stone
“He's telling the truth,” Painsink chimed in.
“They all think they are,” Praetorian growled back.
“They're Chop Shoppers. Even if he is crazy, he's probably right.” Painsink remained calm and clinical in tone.
“[i]Probably[/i] isn't good enough! We can stop crimes in progress, but this is God damned America! We don't kill suspects because of [i]probably[/i]!”
Praetorian was leaning forward at the impassive Painsink, the tension and rising volume of his voice drawing everyone's attention when a sudden crack reminded everyone that they had a captive. The appropriate emphasis now being on the past tense of that state, as the robed figure had apparently braced their legs and back and simply broken themselves out of the sedimentary prison. In the half-second for the group to realize what had happened, the figure was already vanishing behind a wall of black smoke they had conjured to conceal their exit.
The team broke into a dead sprint, disregarding whatever effects the black smoke would have in this form. Shieldmaiden noticed nothing, not even the strange warmth that had been present before, but as they reach the first intersection of tunnels there was no sign of the figure.
Tectonic Sheer cussed once they realized they'd lost the trail, “Sorry, I shoulda been more aware of tha stone 'round here. Too weak ta hold a git that's got some movement.”
“Hey now, little miss,” Cobalt chimed in with his characteristic obnoxious overconfidence, “It's not like capturing that person was why we came here. They are.” As he raised his armed and extended the guns from their storage compartments, the rest followed his gaze to one of the tunnels where more than a dozen Chop Shoppers were emerging from the gloom.
Most of them were the typical recruits with relatively minimal scarring from replacement surgeries, but among them were veteran members sporting limbs torn from weight-lifters and sprinters.
“Ah shit, didn't know parts were getting delivered these days,” a deep, commanding voice came from within the mob of thugs. “Most of you are just metal though. Pity, but there's always a need for a bit of simply flesh for patching the boys up.” The group of Chop Shoppers stepped away from their middle to make a path for the apparent source of the voice. Though no taller than the weaker recruits, and noticeably shorter than the veterans, the bloody light emitting from his eyes and the distinct lack of unhealed scars left no question that this was a Hotrod, one of the Chop Shopper leaders.
Praetorian stepped forward, shield and sword raised, “Let the people you took go. You give them over and we'll leave it to the cops to bring you in.”
The Hotrod let out a hearty laugh, “You don't really expect me to accept that offer do you? That's some quality product the boys snagged, and you lot aren't even a big enough deal for me to name you.”
Praetorian's stance remained steady as he spoke back, “No, I don't expect you to accept, but I like surprises sometimes.”
“Same here. Already got a few bits and pieces for the boys. You'd make a nice addition, even if it's just for, heh, entertainment.” the Hotrod lick his lips as if anticipating a good meal.
Praetorian's head shifted slightly to speak over his shoulder. “Cobalt, this isn't 'probably' any more.”
Cobalt Arsenal's voice was thick with the sarcastic smirk on his face, “You don't say.”
“Get 'em!” the Hotrod called out and the Chop Shoppers charged as Cobalt Arsenal unleashed a pitiless hail of armor-piercing ordinance into their ranks.
Shieldmaiden pushed forward into the oncoming rush of modified bodies, triggering her shield to emit a blinding flash of light as they neared then striking with spear and shield at the disoriented criminals.
Tectonic Sheer summoned a violent quake within me midst of the oncoming enemies, tripping their footing like a trampoline with a second person on it as stalagmites violently erupted into legs and groins.
Painsink took onto himself the damage from any blows from cudgels, blades, and gunfire that managed to make it into the rest of the team, then projected it back out into the violent gangsters.
Praetorian pushed forward like a man possessed, batting oncoming gangsters violently aside and only sparing a quick thrust into to ribs of any that remained between himself and the smiling Hotrod. “COWARD!” Praetorian called to the leader opposite him, “Face justice!”
The Hotrod responded with a predatory grin and unleashed a blast of force from his glowing eyes at Praetorian. It was deflected by the shield but forced Praetorian to break his stance. Even with his primary defense compromised, he advanced and thrust his blade into the chest of the meta-human criminal.
Unfortunately, this was insufficient to incapacitate a creature that was entirely composed of parts harvested from meta-humans that could give a main battle tank a run for its money in terms of durability. The Hotrod's fists began glowing with energy as he grasped them above his head and brought them down onto Praetorian's shoulder in a low thum of impact and sudden energy discharge. Praetorian was dropped to the ground by the impact, but rolled away as a follow up blow attempted to crush his head into the stone floor.
As Praetorian regained his footing to a kneel, he lashed out with his sword, slashing across the hamstring of the Hotrod. The Hotrod howled in pain but lashed out with his glowing fist again, which Praetorian caught on his shield this time, mitigating the energy discharge of blow to a more manageable level. This was quickly followed by another blow, preventing Praetorian from rising above a kneel lest he take the full brunt of those blows.
Amid the noticeably dwindling gunfire, several blazing streaks lodged them into the Hotrod's chest and continued to burn, compelling him to slap vainly at the shards of phosphorous eating at his flesh. Praetorian finally rose in a lunge that drove the edge of his shield into the Hotrod's teeth, breaking several and staggering him.
Now motivated to ignore the burning bullets in his chest, the Hotrod returned his attention to shattering the Praetorian and landed a punch low, to the Praetorian's abdomen, then another across his jaw as the shield lowered in response to the first blow. “Jimmy! Kill the product!” the Hotrod called out to one of the veterans that was currently engaged with Shieldmaiden. Jimmy seemed to be more than happy to break and run from Shieldmaiden's electrical spear and booked it back down the passage the gang had originally come from.
The command was rewarded by another volley of gunfire peppering the Hotrod's chest. “That doesn't sound good boss!” Cobalt Arsenal called out to Praetorian as his chest-plates opened to reveal a cannon of absurd caliber. The thunderous boom firing the gun had enough concussive power on its own to disorient an unprotected human, and the round it fired flew past the fleeing gangster to detonate against the far wall. “Don't worry, got him!” Cobalt called out cheerfully before emptying another burst of fire into the Hotrod.
“No, you didn't,” Painsink choaked out, blood dripping from his mouth, the constant absorption and redirection of the team's wounds taking its toll. As he pointed, Cobalt cussed at the veteran gangster staggering back to he feet.
“Focus on this guy!” Praetorian called out as he delivered a series of rapid thrusts and cuts at the Hotrod's face and neck, “Shieldmaiden! You take care of the runner!”
“Got it!” she responded, blocking the parting blows from her current opponents with her shield as she dashed after the staggering veteran.
As the Chop Shoppers turned to pursue, they found their legs encased with animated stone growing from the floor. “Ya gits ain't goin' nowhere.” Tectonic Sheer informed them as she coaxed the stone further up their bodies until they were encased head to toe.
With most of the Chop Shoppers unconscious, dead, or securely encased in stone molds, the team could focus their efforts onto the last foe standing, the Hotrod who's gunshot wounds and various cuts were healing before their eyes.
Tectonic Sheer caught his feet in stone decomposed to quicksand, which allowed Cobalt Arsenal to empty another pair of magazines into his chest to create a single gaping wound of the multiple independent smaller holes. Praetorian finished the job by thrusting his sword up under the Hotrod's jaw, into his brain, and out the top of his skull.
Breathing heavily under the dented plates of his armor, Praetorian gestured forward, “Lets catch up with Shieldmaiden.
Shieldmaiden sprinted after the fleeing veteran Chop Shopper, grabbing a pipe in one hand to turn the corner sharper than friction and inertia would normally allow.
She found herself stopping short regardless as the Chop Shopper was laying face down, immobile, and the black robed figure from before standing over him. She brought herself up into a defensive stance, keeping the shield between herself and the robed figure who was now looking at her and simply standing and not making any motions, aggressive or otherwise.
“I won't hurt you, Maria,” his voice was perfectly clear and perfectly recognizable without the voice-mask active.
“Chris?” she whispered in return her stance relaxed and she lowered her weapons.
He nodded and gestured her to follow, ignoring the body laid out in front of him.
Shieldmaiden saw a light further down the passageway as they moved at a quick jog, and when they reached the origin, it made her wish for darkness again.
The kidnapped citizens were all strapped to tables and gurneys, several of which were limbs, either portions or in their entirety, with the wounds having seen only the most basic care to stop bleeding from immediately killing them. The groans and rapid breathing from the patients revealed that conscious ones were in incredible pain.
“Oh, God...” Shieldmaiden held her hands to her head, attempting to comprehend what must have been going on here. Chris set a hand on her shoulder and she felt a calming touch along the edges of her mind.
The sound of footsteps from the tunnel drew her attention and she saw the remainder of the team join them in the holding chamber. All except Painsink held expressions of shocked horror. Painsink moved forward rapidly with a grim determination, examining each of the captives. He and Chris exchanged looks and Painsink nodded slightly.
“Shit.” Cobalt Arsenal spoke the single profanity without inflection.
“We need to get these people out of here ASAP,” Praetorian stated the obvious, but no one complained about the call to action so they distract themselves from this reality.
“Holy crap, is this The Sledge?!” Cobalt called out as he was preparing to loosen the restraints on one of the subjects.
Painsink rushed over and nodded after a brief examination, “It is. They must have him on some pretty heavy stuff if he's still out.” He yanked the IV drip from the muscular man's arm rather unceremoniously.
“How the hell did these jokers subdue The Sledge? No offense, Praetorian, but you went head-to-head with their leader and The Sledge is a whole other league from us.” Cobalt Arsenal wondered out-loud.
“None taken, and I don't know. We can deal with that later. If he is out cold, he might not be coherent for a few hours.”
“Let me help,” one of the men that Tectonic Sheer released said as he slowly sat up.
“Look, we could use a hand, but you literally only have one hand right now, buddy,” Cobalt Arsenal's words were his classic snark, but the tone carried sincere regret, as if he knew it was the wrong thing to say, but didn't know how to put it any other way.
The man looked at the stump of this left shoulder with a frown, “Yeah, I've got exactly one hand, but let me use it. I can carry Danielle, since they took her legs.”
“You're the medic, what's your call?” Praetorian deferred to Painsink who responded with a silent nod as he began maneuvering a gurney over take one of the amputees that was on an operating slab. “Alright, if you can walk, follow us. If you can carry, grab someone who can't walk. If you can't carry, find someone you can push.”
Organized such, they each took as much as they could bear and followed Tectonic Sheer as she used her magical talents to carve a gently sloping tunnel to the surface.
Praetorian noticed that the black robed figure was also carrying one of the victims on their back and following. “I'm surprised you're helping, considering we tried to arrest you. Hell, we should still try to arrest you once we get topside.”
The figure nodded, distorted multi-voice emanating from under the hood as it spoke, “You should, but you won't. You are ignorant, not stupid or... dishonorable.” The last word seemed like the figure wasn't certain if that was the right word.
Praetorian smirked under his helm, “Thanks, I think. What should we call you by the way?”
The figure hesitated to answer. Praetorian wondered if they were operating at this level but hadn't actually considered a moniker.
“Shadow Hunter,” the figure finally stated.
“Not especially original, but I suppose it fits,” Praetorian mused.
“We're nearing the surface, you are safe to break through,” Shadow Hunter said to Tectonic Sheer, who glanced at Shadow Hunter suspiciously until Praetorian nodded.
Fresh night air rushed into their senses as the last layer of earth rolled back to reveal that they had emerged in a school's playground. Cheers went up from the rescued citizens. Praetorian set about contacting authorities and Painsink made sure the citizens were as comfortable as they could be in the conditions.
Shieldmaiden, unsure of what to do but unhappy with the idea of sitting around and waiting assisted Painsink. After everything was settled, she looked around and realized Chris, [i]No, Shadow Hunter,[/i] she reminded herself, was nowhere to be found in the ad-hoc triage camp.
“Do you know him?” She heard Praetorian behind her ask and started a bit at the implication of the question as she turned, only to realize that the question was directed at Painsink, not herself.
Painsink shook his head, “No. Never met him before. I know his type though. They deny their pain through rage. They contain their rage through purpose. You should pray to whatever god you hold dear that they never lose their purpose.”
Praetorian nodded and left to see off Cobalt Arsenal and Tectonic Sheer, as they had little reason to wait for the ambulances to arrive.
As Praetorian turned away, Painsink turned toward Shieldmaiden and gave a meaningful, sad smile.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[i]Article from Metahuman Quarterly, June 2010
-Jacklyn Roberts[/i]
The dramatic daylight kidnapping of over a dozen gym bunnies and bros in Dinsford, CT in May had all of the markings of a tragedy for the community, but the worst was averted by the rapid, if controversial response of local superheroes: The Praetorian, Painsink, Cobalt Magnum, Tectonic Sheer, and a new addition to the rosters of East Cost Cape Clingers, Shieldmaiden. I arranged an meeting with this new addition to the superhero community in a classic Rooftop Interview.
With the ongoing heatwave, I was glad for the breeze available at the rooftop to dispel some of the mid-afternoon sun and humidity. Shieldmaiden arrives on the concrete roof with dramatic tuck-and-roll landing, which was a surprising deviation from the classic three-point landing favored by those meta-humans who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Her bright red cape was slightly dusty from the maneuver, but disappeared with a quick shake.
Jacklyn Roberts: Thank you for seeing me. I'm excited to be here to witness a new superhero career get started, and judging by your debut entrance to the national stage, yours looks to be exciting.
Shieldmaiden is an intimidating figure when she quietly regards you. Her costume is almost entirely polished metal, and her helmet has a fully concealing faceplate that bears only a single eye, which has led to rampant speculation. I was relieved when she finally spoke, and her voice was not the distorted, emotionless monotone of a killer robot. Rather, she spoke as someone who's entered the public eye reluctantly out of a sense of duty.
Shieldmaiden: Thank you for contacting me. Meta-human Quarterly has been a great platform for those of us who have found ourselves on the public stage due to our capabilities.
JR: You seem reluctant to use the term 'Superheroes' there. Any particular reason?
SM: It just seems so self-congratulatory. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of this much attention.
JR: That is somewhat surprising, if you don't mind me saying. Your choice of costume has been at least half the cause for the attention. The other half, of course, being split between you being a superhero and a woman.
Shieldmaiden didn't seem surprised by the implication, and turns her attention to her cape.
SM: The costume... Where do I start? The Praetorian is mostly to blame there. He got me into this, and he pointed out, correctly I should point out, that I was going to be subject to a lot of media attention regardless. When he put me in contact with his own personal designer and I started customizing it, it really took on a life of its own. What can I say? I'm still a little girl with her Barbie, but this time I get to actually be Barbie, and Barbie gets to kick ass.
This got a shared chuckle between us.
JR: What about the details? A lot has been made about the asymmetry, particularly of your mask.
SM: That's a personal matter. Let me put it this way: If they saw me under the mask, I doubt there would be as much fan-art of me online. However, when I was designing it, I decided to go off a nordic theme and play off the story of Odin trading his eye for knowledge. Also, before you ask, I am specifically not a Valkyrie.
JR: Maybe, maybe not. The internet is a strange place.
Shieldmaiden groaned at that.
SM: Don't remind me.
JR: Speaking of fans, any comment on rumors of a romantic relationship between you and The Praetorian?
SM: I would say I'm sorry to break it to that batch of fans, but I'm really not sorry. No, The Praetorian and I are not, and will not ever be in a romantic relationship. We both have relationships outside of work, and I am quite certain neither of us wishes to go down that route.
JR: So there is a Mr. Shieldmaiden then?
SM: Yes, but that's all I'm saying about that.
JR: You know that will just fuel more speculation right?
SM: I know.
JR: About the kidnapping and response that made you and your friends famous. A lot has come up in the news about the apparent use of lethal force by your team. Granted, the Chopshop gang was notorious, and you were responding under the 'Hot Pursuit' and 'Dire Need' provisions in state law, but some criticism has been leveled on grounds of excessive force.
SM: My lawyer has advised me against any statements directly about the incident, but I will address the general question that it is getting at. When we respond to anything, it is because the police can't respond as quickly as we can. Additionally, the rate of suspect morality by 'Superhero' teams is approximately one quarter that of normal police. Have you ever considered why that is?
JR: It does raise an interesting question. I assume you have an answer.
SM: I do. Counterintuitively, the power that individual superheroes wield lets us take in more live suspects. We are usually so far above and beyond the power of those we are arresting that we can afford to be careful with them. It can still be dangerous, but when it takes sustained fire from a machine-gun to crack your breastplate, you can take it easy on the mugger with a knife. The Chopshop gang is not a mugger with a knife. They make a habit of taking down meta-humans for... parts.
JR: So your team wasn't so above and beyond the Chopshoppers that you could afford restraint?
SM: They captured The Sledge somehow, so I don't feel ashamed of entertaining the idea that they were a threat.
JR: That brings up another point. Your team found The Sledge, apparently sedated. Any theories on how he ended up there, as the gym claims he wasn't a member?
SM: Your guess is as good as mine. I just assumed they were restraining him to use his parts for their boss, or something.
JR: On a lighter note, have any other established meta-human groups reached out to you?
SM: Oh, a few Heroic groups, a couple from villain groups, amazingly, and a marriage proposals from that time-traveling Prince that reestablished his family holdings in Norway.
JR: Really?
SM: Yes, apparently he suspected I might be of a Nordic background based on my costume themes.
JR: I can't blame him too much for the assumption. Do you claim a particular cultural background?
SM: I was born in Connecticut. My mother born in New Mexico and my Father in Texas. I'm American.
JR: An admirably patriot sentiment to end on. Thank you for your time, Shieldmaiden.
SM: Thank you for your understanding.
--------
Maria roller her eye as Horace read the article aloud over afternoon coffee.
Jerry, Horace's boyfriend, chuckled at the question about Shieldmaiden and The Praetorian's relationship, “To be fair, if I didn't know Horace better, I might be making jealous assumptions as well.”
“She really laid it on in the commentary. 'Intimidating figure' my ass. I was so nervous I forgot how to talk,” Maria took a sip of her latte.
“They know their audience and they need to stay on the good side of the superhero community to keep getting interviews,” Horace countered. “That's why I recommended you take MQ up on the interview before anyone else. Your first impression with the media will set public perception.”
Jerry spoke up again, “By the way, mentioning what's under the mask set you up for a reveal. Now, since I'm acting as your agent with regards to this, this is something we can essentially auction off to the news outlet.”
“You want to sell my face?” Maria gave him a hard look, “Isn't it enough for me to have an official media contact?”
“Well, kind of, yes. How do you think superheroes stay solvent without day jobs? Especially you and Horace, who don't have a healing factor to mitigate medical bills? You're going to have to sell yourself to the media now.”
“Ugh, this deal is getting worse all the time.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis
“Are you sure you want to try this? We can't know what might happen. I was born with this. What if I can't control the connection? What if you...”
I cut off the twentieth repetition of his objections with a gentle touch to his face and a smile. “I trust you,” I spoke softly, and honestly. This calmed his words, but I could see the turmoil still in his eyes.
“I don't trust me,” he said, refusing to meet my eyes. “I've never used my power like this. It's like trimming a beard with a chainsaw, and I really don't know what I would do if I hurt you. If I... lost you.”
I pulled his face back towards mine and forced him to look into my eyes, to see that even when he didn't have faith in himself, I still did. Finally, he relented. “Fine, but if we do this, you need to be ready to do whatever you need to to stop me if I can't stop myself.”
I nod, “You've always been there for me, and I will always be there for you.”
He shifted the coffee table to make room for us to sit directly in front of each other on the floor.
“Try to calm yourself,” his words came quiet like they were never truly meant for any ears except his own. “Your will is a ball of energy reaching for everything you crave. Turn inward and shut out everything but my voice.” In retrospect, it was a cheesy TV mantra, but it still helped. “You rest in my arms, protected from the universe. There is only you and me. Nothing else maters. Nothing else exists.”
I closed my eyes as a tingling sensation started in my fingers, but that was him, cautious as ever. It spread, slowly, becoming a warmth in my arms, then a heat in my chest. Then, a feint aurora in the blackness of my shut eyes, almost indistinguishable from the normal misfiring of the optic nerve when it lacked other stimulation. It was marked only by its lack of transience that resolved into something that was too hazy to call a shape, and not quite a color.
“I think I see something...” I whisper.
“Calm,” his voice implored with uncharacteristic patience. “The connection is there, but it is fragile.”
I focus on my breathing and the heat in my chest to allow the connection to strengthen, choosing through conscious effort to simply accept the impossible image forming in my mind. Strangeness was no stranger to me any more, having pursued aliens, demons, and cultists worshiping things that should not be. In those cases, I had at least the filter of my own senses that assigned shape to the formless and abstracted some analog to the impossible. This was something... else. Information that bypassed the limited resolution of the retina and needed no translation by the brain to convey its message.
It was exhilarating, and I fought to maintain my composure as it became more distinct and stretched to encompass are greater range. I was suddenly very glad that I was no painter, for no mix of oil and pigment could ever recapture the vibrant glee of a small child receiving a gift. No canvas could contain the furious anger of a father who caught his daughter doing drugs. No shading could communicate the peaceful bliss of a retired couple that knew all their conflicts were in the past. If I were a painter, this would have ruined me; doomed me to a fate of frustration and sense of inadequacy. Yes, I was very, very glad that I never took up painting.
“This is... truth,” I hesitate with the word, knowing it was both inadequate and overbroad.
“It is a truth, but only the most limited,” he replied, “It can lack context, and it is always fleeting.”
“It is also a truth you can never tell anyone else, isn't it?” I was probing with the question, and even before the words passed his lips, he had spoken without speaking with a sense of resignation that I knew is not my own.
“No one but you. You believed me when no one else would, or could,” his voice cracked.
“And I always will,” I opened my eyes, the link between us growing stronger by the moment. He was smiling. I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen him genuinely smile, and with the link sharing his vision between us, I knew he loved me with all his heart, and now he knew I would return that love.
We embraced each other in a kiss, as awkward as a pair of kids that never dated, and passionate as lovers that had met again in their thousandth lifetime. For all that, we were very, very careful to not wake my parents.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
I prowl forward toward my prey. It is simple, prey which can only run, not retaliate in any meaningful way. Still, I'm a hunter, and it is what I do. I pounce and the prey freezes, not fighting, not running as if, hoping that I haven't seen it.
Too late, I see the string leading from the prey to an anchor in the ground. It is not prey, it's bait.
I hear growling behind me and I can feel hot breath on the back of my neck. I was the hunter, but now I am the hunted of a new beast who's presence I hadn't previously recognized. There is nowhere to run, though, so I must fight. My racing mind reflects in the mutating environment that follows no discernible logic. I brace a foot and pivot into the beast, striking forth with my weapon.
It is massive in a scale that seems to violate reality. Its body is scales, fur, and spines all at once. Its mouth is not so much form as intent. An all consuming hunger of which I am the subject. A lonely eye meets my own and I see loss within it. I know there is a connection and I struggle to trace it in the instant eternity of a reality without time.
I am fighting it. I dodge pounces and lunges but my own blows find no gaps in the beast's armor. It is on all sides at once and my body is sluggish and unresponsive, but this doesn't frighten me. It enrages me. “Fight!” I command by body to no avail.
As my fury grows, the beast becomes faster, lashing out with tooth and claw against my dulled response. Finally the mouth with a thousand teeth and none closes around my arm and I know I have lost.
-----------
My eye jerked open as breath was drawn into my lungs from my forceful gasp. I blinked a few times before I realized that I was home, in my own apartment. I closed my eye again and took a few more breaths to reassure myself it was just a dream.
A hand touched my shoulder, “Nightmare?” Chris asked.
I turned my head and looked to him, smiling as I could, “Nightmare.” His worried look faded some, but not completely. He knew I wasn't completely certain, but he didn't push the issue and helped me to a chair while retrieved my prosthetic arm and leg.
He knelt in front of my chair and began working the attachment point at my hip. Athena, engineer and superhero fashionista, had wanted to examine the prosthetic directly, but had settled for improving the contact points with my organic body.
“You should stay more often,” I said as I plugged the arm into its mechanical link. It whirred as start-up diagnostics and feedback calibration ran.
“I... wish I could,” he looked away.
I grasped his shoulder, and immediately feel the tension. “They're just people, feeling things like we do.”
“Do they?” he asked in return. I felt a strange rush, and I must have winced, for his face went suddenly horrified. The sensation that had suddenly come over me immediately dissipated. “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!”
I held up my mechanical hand to stop further apologies, “It's OK, I know it was an accident.”
“No, it's not OK. I hurt you because I didn't control myself.”
I smiled and leaned in for a quick kiss, “You give yourself too much credit. I've fought psionics and ghosts, and I wasn't ignoring your lessons. It was more like just a cold lump in my stomach. What was that, anyways?”
His eyebrows furrowed, “I'm... not sure? I've read descriptions of the effects of my power, but they're usually closer to just pain or some clear emotion.”
“Read?” my eyebrow raised.
“I acquired the police records on the survivors.”
My head tilted back and I let out an exasperated sigh, “Do you know how illegal it is to hack those systems?”
His expression went flat, “Maria. If I ever get arrested, unauthorized access to a network is the least of my concerns, but no, I didn't hack anything. I bought it.”
I scowled, “Why are you keeping tabs on the survivors, anyways? To finish the job if they reoffend?”
“No.”
I realized from his tone that I was the one lashing out now, and took a breath. He could know his targets in ways few others could. “I'm sorry. Why do keep track of them?”
“To keep them from forgetting what they've done. I can't be everywhere all the time to keep them from committing another crime, but they are always with their own minds.”
I look at him, considering, “That makes sense, I guess.”
“You have patrol with The Praetorian tonight, don't you?” He asked.
I nodded, “No, following up on a tip about some illegal weapons stores.”
Chris snorted and shook his head, “People fly around with kiloton ordinance at their literal fingertips, and the politicians still worry about guns.”
I laughed, “Well, if they're grabbing the guns illegally, they're exactly the sort of people we don't want with weapons of any kind.”
This finally earned a smile from him, “That makes sense, I guess.”
---------
Chris stepped out of Maria's apartment building to let her don her armor and do her work. As much as he wanted to stay with her, he was too far onto the wrong side of the law to accompany Maria and her mentor, and they all knew it.
The Praetorian had held himself back from arresting Shadowhound when their paths had crossed during the gym incident out of a sense of honor. That same sense of honor put Shadowhound and Praetorian at odds if they met again, so it was best to avoid each other.
Chris had his own work to do. Work he kept from Maria as much as he could without lying. Maria, for her part, didn't ask all the questions she had.
Once he found a suitably secluded alley, he pulled on his own costume. Ragged charcoal robe over Kevlar and ceramic ballistic plates, finished with a black balaclava with silver wolf's-face half-mask.
His work began with tracking. Shadowhound closed his eyes to peer at the threads extending from himself. He knew the brightest, the one he once though he had forged with his power, but now new to be more natural in origin. He ignored it.
He focused on the more tenuous strands. The connections created by the desire to escape. One was more tenuous, starting to falter. Shadowhound followed that thread. Entered it like a tunnel between two points.
Breath, dive, slip, step. Breath, dive, slip, step. Miles closed to his target in instants of immaterial existence between steps.
Shadowhound pondered that this must seem less strange to those who lack understanding. To them, he must simply be another demigod rending spacetime and making Einstein spin in his grave to run some errands. The blissfully ignorant would find that no stranger to than an android composed entirely of guns or a brawny man with a winning smile and world-class PR agent flying and swinging a sledgehammer. He reasoned it would raise far more questions if he told told them that relativity is only tangentially relevant to the process.
He found himself in the bedroom of an unfamiliar apartment. A quick look confirmed the occupant was asleep, resting peacefully.
Standing over the foot of the bed, Shadowhound stretched his will to grasp the soul of the one before him. Fear would wake him, and thus Shadowhound flooded the dreaming mind with fear. The man jerked and took a deep breath as nightmare-inspired adrenaline flooded his system. Shadowhound released his malicious grip, allowing the man the brief respite of waking from a nightmare.
“Sleeping well, Sean?” Shadowhound asked through his voice-changer.
The man's fading fear returned instantly without Shadowhound even needing to utilize his powers. “OH GOD!” the man shouted and began scrambling for his nightstand
“Don't you remember the last time you went to sleep that well?” Shadowhound continued, “You woke up with a crate of inconvenient people in the warehouse.”
“What? The cops let me go! You can't prove anything!” the man found what he was looking for, a handgun which was now aimed at Shadowhound's chest, albeit in violently shaking hands.
“Proof? Proof is for sending people to jail. We both know you left them to rot because the Coyotes cut you in on the ransom.”
“You don't know nuthin'! Get outa my room before I hose you, freak!”
Shadowhound ignored the gun and stoked the growing embers of regret as the memory of the incident, and likely the images of bloated bodies, dead from dehydration, rose in his mind. “They died because you wanted a new car for your wife. How was the divorce? I heard she got full custody along with the car. Too bad no one is getting custody for Sofia and Alejandro.”
Tears were visible in Seans eyes and the gun lowered, “You're never going to leave it, are you? You got the Coyotes, they were dead when the cops showed up. Why come back now, right when I was getting back to a good place in my life?”
Shadowhound leaned forward, pushing his influence “You think you deserve a good place in your life. Ten people dead, including two kids, left to rot inside a shipping container, and you think you deserve a good place in life? I did not spare you out of mercy. I spared you because you were the only one that would hate yourself, as you should.”
Sean raised the gun back towards Shadowhound, who finally acknowledged the weapon with an unconcerned glance.
After a brief pause, Shadowhound spoke again, “If you want mercy, you're pointing that at the wrong person.” He then turned and stepped through space to the street outside.
A single gunshot rang out from the apartment.
Sic Semper Tyrannis