The Shadow Knows! (Final Update 6/3/04)
- Thread starter The Shadow
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The Shadow
Hero
And with that, the campaign is now caught up to the present. No more deluges of multiple posts all at once, you poor sods! 
But you're in luck! Tuesday is our usual gaming night. Depending on how insane my work-week is, I should have the next update posted sometime between Wednesday and Sunday...
P.S. Lela, just what are these ENnies mentioned in your .sig?
But you're in luck! Tuesday is our usual gaming night. Depending on how insane my work-week is, I should have the next update posted sometime between Wednesday and Sunday...
P.S. Lela, just what are these ENnies mentioned in your .sig?
The Shadow
Hero
Lela said:
It would definitely make for a lively dinner, yes. And, well, if combat solidifies their relationship as much as I suspect it might, Alex may feel honor-bound to include Carlos in family activities. Which David won't like at all, and which could be hazardous to Alex's mental health...
Given that David himself didn't, I'd say no. It was night, it was over quickly, and no doubt they beat a very hasty retreat.
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Swack-Iron
First Post
Ba-da bump!
The Shadow
Hero
Lela said:
This I just don't know. I'll ask SP when I get a chance.
Ran into a snag in the writeup of the Tuesday session... I need to get ahold of SP to refresh my memory about something important that I've got a mental block on. I hope to have it posted by Sunday, or maybe Saturday evening.
The Shadow
Hero
Alex made it to the base a bit later than usual. Going down the stairwell, he paused for an instant in panic when he realized the hat wasn't on the banister knob where it ought to be. Descending a bit more, he saw it sitting on a table near the stairs. Meanwhile, Carlos looked over his shoulder at him in relief and waved to show he was busy but glad Alex was there. He seemed to be listening intently to the headset.
Alex slowly approached the table and looked at the hat; its presence smote him almost like an accusation. It was coming back to him now... It had gotten knocked off during his sparring match with Carlos and he'd forgotten about it afterward. Carlos must have moved it here from the gym... He picked it up but did not put it on. Instead, he went over to the computer and rested a hand on Carlos' shoulder.
The young man looked up at him again with a smile, but immediately jumped into business. "I had a strong feeling I should listen in on the police bands, sir, and I was right. There's an officer missing... he reported he was checking out a drunk-and-disorderly, then didn't check back in when he was supposed to. They've found his car - it's fine, hasn't been stripped, but he just isn't there. They're sending in backup now." Alex nodded. "It sounds like something to check on; it could even be Legion. Are you coming with me?"
Carlos bit his lip in an agony of indecision. "I don't know..." "Then we'll follow your original hunch," Alex decided, "You'll stay here and keep listening." "Yessir." Alex went to the hangar with controlled haste. Only then, glancing down at the hat in his hand, did he put it on.
Soon he was airborne. The address Carlos gave him was outside his usual haunts, so it took him a bit of trial and error to find the cop cars. Along the way, Carlos reported, "Uh oh, sir. Now they've lost radio contact with the three cops who went in to check on the first one!" The Shadow nodded grimly. "This is getting serious."
When he located the cars, he circled over them, straining his mental senses for anything unusual. While he sensed no minds nearby (that couldn't be accounted for, anyway), he did sense, eerily enough, the ripples of telepathic activity - a sensation not unlike hearing a voice out of thin air. "A taste of my own medicine," he muttered, as he tried to home in on those faint traces. There were perhaps six or seven loci, and confusing to triangulate on because their traces were identical, producing strange interference patterns.
"Carlos, how far is my current location from the places Maria said Legion had been spotted in?" "You're only about half a mile from the warehouse, sir." "It figures. And of course the gas grenades are still at Hal's place... at least I have the screamers with me." "You think it's Legion, sir?" "I'm all but positive. Now let me think."
Yes, the traces were in that building, a few stories high. Not on the ground floor, he thought. He reported the address to Carlos and said, "Call in a tip about this address and the missing officers, Carlos." "Yessir. Anonymous?" "Of course." "On it!"
The sable sleuth landed on the roof and got the case of psi-screamers out of the boot. Working swiftly, he set five of them up in a quincunx pattern on the roof - one in the center, one about halfway between the center and each of the corners. That should give me good, overlapping coverage of most of the building, he concluded. Then he got back on the cycle and flew a comfortable distance away before activating the radio device.
He groaned involuntarily at the shrill telepathic shriek they put out. Even at this distance, he had to grit his teeth against the sensation; in THERE it must be horrendous! Then he stared in disbelief as a man crashed through a window on the third floor and fell to his death. The sound of a gunshot followed.
He sped toward the building, grinding his teeth against the strengthening psychic wail. Flashing by the window, he tossed another activated screamer into the hole, getting a glimpse of large amounts of blood as he did so.
He had to psych himself up for the second pass; he almost couldn't force himself to enter the screamer zone, and managed it only by shutting down his mental senses as much as he could. This time he leapt gracefully from the cycle into the room, gun at the ready. [Where are the Olympic judges when you need 'em?] There was a woman dead on the floor; she had viciously knifed herself to death. He recognized her as a Legion-body. "Well, Johnson, they were 'distraught', all right," he muttered as he cautiously made his way to the door. Hearing sounds through it, he hesitated, then took out the Portable Window.
Through it he saw three people in police uniforms bound hand and foot on the ground. A couple of them were twitching, producing the sounds he had heard. Ever cautious, the cloaked crusader decided to wait until the screamers burned themselves out, which they mercifully did a minute or so later. His mental "ears" still ringing somewhat, the Shadow entered the room and took stock. There was a corpse he hadn't been able to see through the Window, lying in a corner of the room; a man who'd blown his own brains out. The three cops were still mostly out; flushed and with dilated pupils. Their right arms were bared, no doubt for an application of the appropriate drugs. Where is it getting them?! he wondered.
Whirling at a sudden noise behind him, the Shadow recognized another Legion-body entering the room through another door, and did not hesitate to shoot. Taking the bullet in the chest, the man - a former Red Shiv, perhaps twenty years old - fell like a sack of potatoes. Rushing forward, he did his best to stop the bleeding, instructing Carlos to call 911. [SP: "911 hates you, you know. All those untraceable calls!"] As he worked, he couldn't help but notice that Legion didn't seem to take good care of its bodies; the man clearly hadn't bathed in some time, and his skin had an unhealthy pasty hue. Once he was assured the thing wouldn't die on the spot, he tried cautiously slipping into its mind... only to find to his horror that it was instead "his" mind. Not "its".
The man was not part of Legion any longer; the screamers had done their work on him as well. He had survived only by completely suppressing his memories of the time he'd spent as part of the monster - in fact, he had stumbled into the room in a state of shock and denial. The man's last clear memory was of Christophilous in the crackhouse, offering him a new designer drug. He had turned the man down, not liking the looks of him, but it clearly hadn't done him much good.
The Shadow knew a moment of panic and guilt that threatened to unhinge him. He'd killed before, many times, but never before had he shot someone who hadn't manifestly and richly deserved it. While no saint, this young man hadn't done anything worth being shot by the Shadow. Legion had, certainly, but with respect to Legion this man - hardly more than a boy - could only be termed a victim. He trembled all over, panting, as he struggled within himself for equilibrium. (His words to David came back to haunt him as he shook: "I am very deliberate in what I do.") Gradually, ruthlessly, he forced the overwhelming feelings down beneath his walls and attended to business - who knew, after all, if the remaining Legion-bodies were still lurking about? Getting to his feet, he attended to the cops, cutting them free of their bonds..
Two of them were clearly in the throes of drug-induced hallucinations, twitching uncontrollably, their minds full of confusing colors and noises. The third, a woman, evinced a more disturbing pattern. While still out, her mind trembled and shimmered with tentative psychic potential, plucking involuntarily at the Shadow's mindscreen. He sighed. This would bear watching. He read off the badge numbers to Carlos, and learned that her name was Michelle Pickens.
Shortly thereafter, sirens began to scream as police cars and an ambulance pulled up. The dark avenger decided to stick around and listen in on whatever conclusions they reached. It didn't take long for a squad of heavily-armed cops to burst into the room. One of them bawled into his walkie-talkie, "We have three officers down, repeat, three officers down! They appear to be unhurt, but are unresponsive!" while the others fanned out with weapons at the ready. He proceeded to identify the three by name (in a brief slip, he called the woman "Shelly", then "Officer Pickens") and noted that the fourth missing officer was nowhere to be found.
It didn't take long for the paramedics to be cleared to enter the building. They quickly rushed off the former Legion-member, and attended to the drugged officers. Pickens was able to get up, rather woozily, and make her own way out. Analysis of the crime scene continued... The Shadow groaned to himself when one of the cops said, "What the hell is this?" as he picked up the spent screamer he'd thrown in the window. He'd forgotten about it completely... then he had to grin as he realized that it wasn't his problem. It might be good for OmniMetal to be forced onto their collective toes. He did send the cycle up higher, though, so it wouldn't accidentally get caught in any photos.
He stayed long enough to hear that the fourth cop's body had been found in a dumpster. On the way out, the Shadow pricked up his ears when a hard-bitten detective said, "OK, who was Number 8?" "Number 8, sir?" "Yeah, there was an eighth person in the room. Somebody shot Golden Boy there. Somebody cut our people free. Seems like he was on our side, or at least not on the others'. So who was #8, and what does he want?" With any luck, the sable sleuth thought, you'll never know.
Having heard enough, he slipped out of the building, then flew up to the roof to collect the other screamers. "One is a curiosity; six is a conspiracy. I want OmniMetal on their toes; not a subpoena asking for information about 'Van Helsing'."
Filling Carlos in on events, the boy's ever-practical mind produced the following highly relevant question: "What now, sir?"
"Now, Carlos, I intend to visit Legion's other haunts, pressing this momentary advantage. Losing four bodies has to at least hurt. I want it confused; I want to keep it off balance."
"I want to hit it hard."
[I knew instantly that shooting the former Legion-body would nail Alex right where he lived. For once, SP was easier on him than I was. I asked, "Are you telling me I just shot an innocent man?" and got a bemused, "Define 'innocent'."]
[And does it worry anyone else that Legion seems to be systematically targeting cops for its next "acquisitions"...?]
[I hope the writing isn't too choppy. I wrote it in two widely-separated sections.]
Alex slowly approached the table and looked at the hat; its presence smote him almost like an accusation. It was coming back to him now... It had gotten knocked off during his sparring match with Carlos and he'd forgotten about it afterward. Carlos must have moved it here from the gym... He picked it up but did not put it on. Instead, he went over to the computer and rested a hand on Carlos' shoulder.
The young man looked up at him again with a smile, but immediately jumped into business. "I had a strong feeling I should listen in on the police bands, sir, and I was right. There's an officer missing... he reported he was checking out a drunk-and-disorderly, then didn't check back in when he was supposed to. They've found his car - it's fine, hasn't been stripped, but he just isn't there. They're sending in backup now." Alex nodded. "It sounds like something to check on; it could even be Legion. Are you coming with me?"
Carlos bit his lip in an agony of indecision. "I don't know..." "Then we'll follow your original hunch," Alex decided, "You'll stay here and keep listening." "Yessir." Alex went to the hangar with controlled haste. Only then, glancing down at the hat in his hand, did he put it on.
Soon he was airborne. The address Carlos gave him was outside his usual haunts, so it took him a bit of trial and error to find the cop cars. Along the way, Carlos reported, "Uh oh, sir. Now they've lost radio contact with the three cops who went in to check on the first one!" The Shadow nodded grimly. "This is getting serious."
When he located the cars, he circled over them, straining his mental senses for anything unusual. While he sensed no minds nearby (that couldn't be accounted for, anyway), he did sense, eerily enough, the ripples of telepathic activity - a sensation not unlike hearing a voice out of thin air. "A taste of my own medicine," he muttered, as he tried to home in on those faint traces. There were perhaps six or seven loci, and confusing to triangulate on because their traces were identical, producing strange interference patterns.
"Carlos, how far is my current location from the places Maria said Legion had been spotted in?" "You're only about half a mile from the warehouse, sir." "It figures. And of course the gas grenades are still at Hal's place... at least I have the screamers with me." "You think it's Legion, sir?" "I'm all but positive. Now let me think."
Yes, the traces were in that building, a few stories high. Not on the ground floor, he thought. He reported the address to Carlos and said, "Call in a tip about this address and the missing officers, Carlos." "Yessir. Anonymous?" "Of course." "On it!"
The sable sleuth landed on the roof and got the case of psi-screamers out of the boot. Working swiftly, he set five of them up in a quincunx pattern on the roof - one in the center, one about halfway between the center and each of the corners. That should give me good, overlapping coverage of most of the building, he concluded. Then he got back on the cycle and flew a comfortable distance away before activating the radio device.
He groaned involuntarily at the shrill telepathic shriek they put out. Even at this distance, he had to grit his teeth against the sensation; in THERE it must be horrendous! Then he stared in disbelief as a man crashed through a window on the third floor and fell to his death. The sound of a gunshot followed.
He sped toward the building, grinding his teeth against the strengthening psychic wail. Flashing by the window, he tossed another activated screamer into the hole, getting a glimpse of large amounts of blood as he did so.
He had to psych himself up for the second pass; he almost couldn't force himself to enter the screamer zone, and managed it only by shutting down his mental senses as much as he could. This time he leapt gracefully from the cycle into the room, gun at the ready. [Where are the Olympic judges when you need 'em?
] There was a woman dead on the floor; she had viciously knifed herself to death. He recognized her as a Legion-body. "Well, Johnson, they were 'distraught', all right," he muttered as he cautiously made his way to the door. Hearing sounds through it, he hesitated, then took out the Portable Window.Through it he saw three people in police uniforms bound hand and foot on the ground. A couple of them were twitching, producing the sounds he had heard. Ever cautious, the cloaked crusader decided to wait until the screamers burned themselves out, which they mercifully did a minute or so later. His mental "ears" still ringing somewhat, the Shadow entered the room and took stock. There was a corpse he hadn't been able to see through the Window, lying in a corner of the room; a man who'd blown his own brains out. The three cops were still mostly out; flushed and with dilated pupils. Their right arms were bared, no doubt for an application of the appropriate drugs. Where is it getting them?! he wondered.
Whirling at a sudden noise behind him, the Shadow recognized another Legion-body entering the room through another door, and did not hesitate to shoot. Taking the bullet in the chest, the man - a former Red Shiv, perhaps twenty years old - fell like a sack of potatoes. Rushing forward, he did his best to stop the bleeding, instructing Carlos to call 911. [SP: "911 hates you, you know. All those untraceable calls!"] As he worked, he couldn't help but notice that Legion didn't seem to take good care of its bodies; the man clearly hadn't bathed in some time, and his skin had an unhealthy pasty hue. Once he was assured the thing wouldn't die on the spot, he tried cautiously slipping into its mind... only to find to his horror that it was instead "his" mind. Not "its".
The man was not part of Legion any longer; the screamers had done their work on him as well. He had survived only by completely suppressing his memories of the time he'd spent as part of the monster - in fact, he had stumbled into the room in a state of shock and denial. The man's last clear memory was of Christophilous in the crackhouse, offering him a new designer drug. He had turned the man down, not liking the looks of him, but it clearly hadn't done him much good.
The Shadow knew a moment of panic and guilt that threatened to unhinge him. He'd killed before, many times, but never before had he shot someone who hadn't manifestly and richly deserved it. While no saint, this young man hadn't done anything worth being shot by the Shadow. Legion had, certainly, but with respect to Legion this man - hardly more than a boy - could only be termed a victim. He trembled all over, panting, as he struggled within himself for equilibrium. (His words to David came back to haunt him as he shook: "I am very deliberate in what I do.") Gradually, ruthlessly, he forced the overwhelming feelings down beneath his walls and attended to business - who knew, after all, if the remaining Legion-bodies were still lurking about? Getting to his feet, he attended to the cops, cutting them free of their bonds..
Two of them were clearly in the throes of drug-induced hallucinations, twitching uncontrollably, their minds full of confusing colors and noises. The third, a woman, evinced a more disturbing pattern. While still out, her mind trembled and shimmered with tentative psychic potential, plucking involuntarily at the Shadow's mindscreen. He sighed. This would bear watching. He read off the badge numbers to Carlos, and learned that her name was Michelle Pickens.
Shortly thereafter, sirens began to scream as police cars and an ambulance pulled up. The dark avenger decided to stick around and listen in on whatever conclusions they reached. It didn't take long for a squad of heavily-armed cops to burst into the room. One of them bawled into his walkie-talkie, "We have three officers down, repeat, three officers down! They appear to be unhurt, but are unresponsive!" while the others fanned out with weapons at the ready. He proceeded to identify the three by name (in a brief slip, he called the woman "Shelly", then "Officer Pickens") and noted that the fourth missing officer was nowhere to be found.
It didn't take long for the paramedics to be cleared to enter the building. They quickly rushed off the former Legion-member, and attended to the drugged officers. Pickens was able to get up, rather woozily, and make her own way out. Analysis of the crime scene continued... The Shadow groaned to himself when one of the cops said, "What the hell is this?" as he picked up the spent screamer he'd thrown in the window. He'd forgotten about it completely... then he had to grin as he realized that it wasn't his problem. It might be good for OmniMetal to be forced onto their collective toes. He did send the cycle up higher, though, so it wouldn't accidentally get caught in any photos.
He stayed long enough to hear that the fourth cop's body had been found in a dumpster. On the way out, the Shadow pricked up his ears when a hard-bitten detective said, "OK, who was Number 8?" "Number 8, sir?" "Yeah, there was an eighth person in the room. Somebody shot Golden Boy there. Somebody cut our people free. Seems like he was on our side, or at least not on the others'. So who was #8, and what does he want?" With any luck, the sable sleuth thought, you'll never know.
Having heard enough, he slipped out of the building, then flew up to the roof to collect the other screamers. "One is a curiosity; six is a conspiracy. I want OmniMetal on their toes; not a subpoena asking for information about 'Van Helsing'."
Filling Carlos in on events, the boy's ever-practical mind produced the following highly relevant question: "What now, sir?"
"Now, Carlos, I intend to visit Legion's other haunts, pressing this momentary advantage. Losing four bodies has to at least hurt. I want it confused; I want to keep it off balance."
"I want to hit it hard."
[I knew instantly that shooting the former Legion-body would nail Alex right where he lived. For once, SP was easier on him than I was. I asked, "Are you telling me I just shot an innocent man?" and got a bemused, "Define 'innocent'."
][And does it worry anyone else that Legion seems to be systematically targeting cops for its next "acquisitions"...?]
[I hope the writing isn't too choppy. I wrote it in two widely-separated sections.]
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The Shadow
Hero
Lela said:
Thanks. And the screamers are single-use only. The Shadow has ten of them left in the case; presumably he can get more from OmniMetal if need be.
I'm not sure what your other question is asking.
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The Shadow
Hero
By the way, SP and I spent at least five minutes discussing whether Carlos would move the hat at all, and if so, where he would move it to. SP said, quite seriously, that Carlos himself probably spent at least a couple times that long thinking over the exact same questions... it's a very loaded action that can speak volumes about how he feels about Alex, the Shadow, and where he wants their relationship to go.
SP insisted he wouldn't leave it on the floor, as that would be disrespectful. Although I'd wanted to do a scene with Alex picking it up, I eventually agreed. We both concurred that Carlos wouldn't put it on the banister knob, though. That would have been rather too familiar, and also have said that he was satisfied with the status quo. (Perhaps also that he saw the Shadow's work as paramount.)
But he equally couldn't put it on his desk, or Alex's desk, or by the computer... none felt right. We eventually decided he'd put it in a neutral location near where it was supposed to be, but not quite there. I read it as a silent appeal to Alex: "I want to be part of your life."
Alex's reaction was equally carefully thought-out, by me this time. The fact that he didn't put it on at once but instead went over and made an affectionate gesture to Carlos also speaks volumes. Yes, you are seeing Alex-the-man rebelling a bit against Alex-the-Shadow.
We'll just have to see where it ends up...
SP insisted he wouldn't leave it on the floor, as that would be disrespectful. Although I'd wanted to do a scene with Alex picking it up, I eventually agreed. We both concurred that Carlos wouldn't put it on the banister knob, though. That would have been rather too familiar, and also have said that he was satisfied with the status quo. (Perhaps also that he saw the Shadow's work as paramount.)
But he equally couldn't put it on his desk, or Alex's desk, or by the computer... none felt right. We eventually decided he'd put it in a neutral location near where it was supposed to be, but not quite there. I read it as a silent appeal to Alex: "I want to be part of your life."
Alex's reaction was equally carefully thought-out, by me this time. The fact that he didn't put it on at once but instead went over and made an affectionate gesture to Carlos also speaks volumes. Yes, you are seeing Alex-the-man rebelling a bit against Alex-the-Shadow.
We'll just have to see where it ends up...
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