Oh, my phrasing and placement of things in the list was quite deliberate.ggs said:
And then Taylor gets a splitting migraine and vows to destroy him for giving her the worst headache she's ever had.
An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
And then Taylor gets a splitting migraine and vows to destroy him for giving her the worst headache she's ever had.
Xicree
Murder.Malice.Might
Heh... sexy...EarthScorpion said:
...Now I WANT Taylor to go staring into the face of 'That which is alien and made itself familiar' just to see how she reacts.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Ah yes, I can hear the inevitable response now.redaeth said:
"Okay, who replaced Scion with a Dwarf Fortress artifact while I wasn't looking?"
What? I never said it would be Taylor's response
Not only are we currently about two-and-a-half months before the canon start date [1], but unless Taylor or someone else destabilises the local power structure by - say - sending bugs to OM NOM NOM on Lung, which leads down a chain of events which leads to the destabilisation of the area, then Leviathan's attention won't be drawn to Brockton Bay (as as per canon, they go for conflict-rife areas).Peanuckle said:
It's actually quite easy to avoid the Leviathan showing up. You just need to be less omfg destabilising to Brockton Bay than canon!Taylor, who clearly received the Nyarlathotep Seal of Approval for her work in bringing chaos and destruction wherever she went [2].
[1] And also the above assumes the Endbringers work like the canon ones exactly, which I shall not comment on at this present time.
[2] Jack Slash: "... what the hell? That little bitch beat me? What do you mean, the judges felt my group act was stale and manufactured and went for an indie chick wearing glasses?"
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
I was going to say this... then you did.Chronic said:
I will add though that we also need to consider that even if Noelle exists in this story, I wouldn't put it past ES to modify her heavily. Given her role in canon and the themes thereof, I'd even expect it, depending on how this story plays out.
I'll make the case for Stranger classification: To my knowledge it's less about messing with your perceptions, though that's certainly a factor, and more about potential Subterfuge applications. Though I will note that there appear to be at least two separate systems of parahuman classifications in canon that use all the same terms: One which describes how a cape actually works and one that says what to expect when fighting them or working alongside them. (Or maybe not, but at times it feels like some people use the classifications for a formal description of the latter purpose and then others co-opted them and attached an entirely different set of definitions to the words.)illhousen said:
From 20.1
Even given what just two powers she's demonstrated so far, (Viewing through another dimension and having an a minion that can affect the normal world by acting within it) Taylor has more than enough subtlety and subterfuge capacity to classify as a stranger.
IIRC, the latter is quite similar to the powers of a canon stranger, Othello.
The Endbringers like to maximise the damage potential of their attacks, and killing her friends in front of her and then releasing her could potentially achieve way more damage than merely tearing up a nuclear power plant or busting a dam.NeonPixieStyx said:
The fact that BB itself was already a powder keg at the time was icing on the proverbial cake.
Ha ha ha, oh man.megamiaouh said:
You have no fucking idea.
(This might be evidence that yes, they have plans, but you can't trust them to be the same as the canon ones because where's the fun in being able to trust things in a setting? Or it might be evidence that I just like making cryptic statements and by saying this, I want you jumping at shadows whenever things go like canon rather than assuming that I'm sticking to the stations. Who knows?)
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Nah, we know exactly what to expect from the Endbringer's plans. And that is that they will be revealed, slowly and over the course of many chapters, in an manner that might be defined as erudite if it weren't for it's even more prominent penchant for lounging luxuriously in it's own wordyness, worldbuilding, and plot. Probably interspersed with between 2 and 2^10th cracks at the English language.EarthScorpion said:
And we will love it for that.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
That, and it will not be the same plans as in canon. Not at all.
Now I'm wondering if Taylor will join the wards, this time around. Normally that's a "Sophia; hell no" kind of deal, but given ES is the writer, the attraction of the potential subplots based around them could well be enough to override things. Things like sanity, reality, shrieking horror...
I'm sure it'll be fun to watch.
Now I'm wondering if Taylor will join the wards, this time around. Normally that's a "Sophia; hell no" kind of deal, but given ES is the writer, the attraction of the potential subplots based around them could well be enough to override things. Things like sanity, reality, shrieking horror...
I'm sure it'll be fun to watch.
If Taylor has no way of knowing the consequences by the time she has the option, she might go for it. Before taking one look at Other Place Piggot or Armsmaster and noping her way out of there.Menma said:
True. Though I ought to point out that the last point made me think of Taylor as The Question.illhousen said:
And now I can't stop laughing for some reason.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Say. If this is a Mage crossover, can we still assume Paradox will affect her?
It's supposed to hit you when you do things that go against the collective unconscious / consensus reality, but consensus reality in this world necessarily includes things like parahumans. Oh, she could do things that exceed even that, but it seems to me that she could get away with a lot of craziness that no-one in canon Mage would have a prayer of succeeding at.
It's supposed to hit you when you do things that go against the collective unconscious / consensus reality, but consensus reality in this world necessarily includes things like parahumans. Oh, she could do things that exceed even that, but it seems to me that she could get away with a lot of craziness that no-one in canon Mage would have a prayer of succeeding at.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Just a side note: the alien Passenger entities seem like an interesting fit for the Avatars in oMage, but the gnostic world-as-prison aesthetic seems much more in tune with nMage. If it's Mage at all, of course,
I'm sure the way that the story opens in a school and then sanitarium is not a metaphor for "world as prison" or anything. That would be cynical.
I'm sure the way that the story opens in a school and then sanitarium is not a metaphor for "world as prison" or anything. That would be cynical.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I think so. You're saying that because Mage gleefully rips off so many sources of symbolism, there isn't a lot of original imagery for us to use to confirm it being Mage.Grosstoad said:
1.0x - Ten of Wands
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chrysalis 1.x
Ten of Wands
A damp, cold clinging chill permeated the city, painting halos around every light and leaving the pavements slightly slick to the foot. It had been raining earlier, and it felt like it was going to rain again tonight. Stepping out of the 24-7, Jamelia Chriswell shivered and tugged her jacket around her. Breath steaming in the winter air, she headed back to the car.
"It is goddamn freezing out there. Gotta be in the twenties," she complained to her partner, clambering into the car and dropping an energy drink in his lap. She dropped the carrier bag in her footwell. "Nice and pre-chilled for you."
Her fellow officer grinned up at her. "You're a life saver," Robert said, breaking the seal and chugging it. He winced. "Urgh. I hate working nights."
"Join the club," she said, fastening her seatbelt. Outside, a few cars were passing along the late night streets, but the sidewalks were nearly empty. Only a few stragglers were out in the cold and wet. No one sensible wanted to be outside when the weather was like this.
"I mean, I don't even like how this crap tastes, but I need it to keep awake," he continued, taking another mouthful.
She peered at the dashboard. "Yeah, I knew it. Twenty-six outside." She shook her head. "I hope those Patriot idiots are freezing. The overtime'll be nice post-Christmas, but couldn't they have found a warmer night to get everyone called up? Anything come in over the radio when I was out?" Jamelia asked, looking around over the parking lot. She blew on her hands, and held them over the heating grills.
"Disturbance over on Twenty-Fourth and Clayton," Robert said, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. "Low priority, but I said we'd check it out." He winked. "Said you were dealing with someone who wanted to complain that someone's dog had pissed against his car."
"Har-de-har," she said, fastening up her seatbelt. She took a thankful bite into a chocolate bar, and swallowed. "Okay, then," she said. "Did they say what it was?"
"Sounds like a few old drunks setting fire to a car," Rob said, starting the engine.
"At least it'll be warm there," Jamelia said.
"Hah. We can hope. They're probably just doing it to be taken in to the nice warm cells."
She shivered, running her fingers through her hair. "Kinda get where they'd be coming from."
The police car pulled smoothly out of the parking lot, onto the damp streets of Brockton Bay. They drove down, headed towards their destination. This was far from the worst part of the city, but it certainly wasn't the best either. The way one might describe it was 'tired'. Paint flaked from buildings which had been decorated in better days, and periodic patches of darkness interrupted the sodium glow of the street lamps, vandalism or ill-repair leaving a light extinguished.
From behind the barred windows of electronics shops, cathode rays blared into the night's darkness. There weren't any rare, expensive flatscreens on display. Those products of parahuman-run factories would be locked up safely, if those shops even had any to sell. They probably didn't. Such consumer goods only appeared in the elite boutiques on the Boardwalk, and this was definitely not the Boardwalk.
In the distance, the roar of a crowd could be heard. The Patriotic rally. There was a certain pattern to it, a distinct cadence. It would rise and fall, almost like the waves which washed the dirty decaying port to the east.
"At least it doesn't sound like open war has broken out," Robert said jokingly, eyes loitering for a moment at the warmth of a Chinese take-out shop. The owner caught his eye for a moment, looking welcoming, but he continued on.
Jamelia grunted.
On Nineteenth, a gaggle of uniformed twenty-somethings staggered down the sidewalk arm in arm. They were singing, loudly and drunkenly. Some of them were carrying brown paper bags which obviously had alcohol in them; others had carrier bags filled with mixers and snacks. Even as the two police officers watched, one of the women threw up into the street, to jeers and cheers alike.
"Want to do anything?" Jamelia asked, nose wrinkling.
"What, against that many drunk soldiers? Not on your life," Robert said heatedly. "Just tell control about them and let the Army deal with their drunks."
"Yeah, best all around," she replied, reaching out for her handset. "Control, this is Chriswell. We have approximately fifteen – that is, one-five – 390s heading south-east along Nineteenth… currently at the intersection with Brameer. Look like they're Army. Can you 10-5 this to their base and tell them to go pick up their drunks? We don't have the manpower to handle them and are currently on the way to a disturbance on Twenty-Fourth and Clayton."
"10-4, Chriswell," came back the crackly voice over the old radio. "Please stand by." There was a pause. "Okay, will do. Continue on your current assignment. Army will be notified."
The car continued along its way, leaving them behind them. "They're not bad kids, probably," Robert said, the traffic lights painting his face red. "We're all young once."
"I didn't say anything," Jamelia said.
"My kid brother's signed up. So did I, before I came here. Only job we could get. No wonder they go a little wild. It's probably the first time in their life they've had spare cash to burn. I know I did some dumb things when I was in the army."
"They're a bunch of drunk idiots. So much for our last line of defence. It's a waste of taxpayer money. They're being paid to do pretty much nothing, just in case an Endbringer shows up."
"Heh. Probably going to get hell from their officers," Robert said, grinning paternalistically. "We used to get hell whenever someone in our platoon gets picked up from town on charges. That's gotta be… what, three squads?" He accelerated away from the lights. "They're prob'ly gonna wish we picked them up. They'll be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush for that. Hell, for that many, they'll be finding all-new messes for them to clean."
They sat in silence for a while, as shops gave way to cheap office space and rented buildings. It started raining lightly. To their left, a truck was being loaded by tired-looking Asian women parked in front of an industrial-scale laundry. The lights were still on in several of the office blocks, and Jamelia wondered for a moment what they were doing in there so late, when half the city seemed to be deserted because of the rally. But whatever they were doing in there, they were doing it quietly and not-obviously-illegally, so it wasn't her problem.
No, her problem was straight ahead. Three burning cars sat in an otherwise empty parking lot, ablaze. The street lights had been broken and the windows of one of the buildings next to the lot were boarded up, so the fires were the main source of light. Hooded youths were gathered around the fire, warming themselves. There were discarded things which looked like both spray and beer cans around them. More importantly, a prone shape – a body? – lay just at the edge of the fire light.
They looked like gang members.
"Control, we have three 11-24s, vehicles are on fire," she said into her handset. "Possible Code Purple. Multiple 10-66s around vehicles, I can see six. They're wearing hoodies, can't see any masks on them. I think there's a person on the ground. Could just be drunk, but we're going to check."
"10-24. Play it safe, Chriswell."
"10-24, Control," Jamelia put her handset down, and found Robert staring at her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's probably nothing," he said awkwardly. "They're a bunch of gangers who set some abandoned cars on fire in the cold. And there's a bunch of them and they're just young. Can't we just ignore this? Go for something that matters."
Her eyes widened. "It's someone who's totally out of it at best. And they're skinheads," she said in contempt. "What if that's some poor kid who just happened to run across six of them?"
"It's probably just one of them drunk after setting the car on fire," he grumbled, unfastening his seatbelt nonetheless and checking his pistol. "If you're wrong about this, you owe me something warm and full of sugar."
Outside, a fine drizzle continued to sleet down from the skies, keeping the floor slick and visibility poor and sapping all warmth from anyone exposed. The weather was getting worse, but honest, proper rain would be better than this undecided downpour, almost closer to mist than rain. In the distance, a car alarm wailed. The two cops turned on their flashlights. Raindrops danced in the beams.
"Hey!" Robert yelled out, letting his flashlight sweep over the scene. There were chalk markings on the ground around the cars, although in the rain and in the glare of the fires, they were obscured. "What's going on here?"
"Fuck off!" one of the hooded figures yelled back. That one sounded young and female.
"It's the cops!" another one said, this time male.
"I don't care if it's the fucking queen of England," the woman –the girl – retorted. "She can fuck off too."
"Who's that on the ground?" Jamelia shouted, squeezing her pistol tightly. There was a bit of her which wished she had more range time. There were six gangers and if it came down to violence – her stomach clenched, and the shake in her arm made her flashlight dance. She didn't want to die.
One of them made an oinking sound, and her knuckles whitened. She forced herself to breathe. To stay calm. "Who's that?" she asked again, her light pooled over the prone figure.
"Just one of us, piggy!" the loud-mouthed girl shouted back. "Go off and hassle some actual criminals."
"Like those slanty pocs down towards the docks," another one called out. "They're all criminals anyway. We're just keeping the place safe from those shits."
Grumbling, though, the youths dispersed into the darkness. Advancing, she checked the prone figure. Up close, she could see it was a Asian man, with blood running from an open cut on his forehead. He looked bruised and battered, and had a prominent black eye. She raised an eyebrow at her partner.
Robert looked vaguely embarrassed, but shrugged.
Despite his injuries, the victim was conscious. "They're gone?" he asked, speech slurred from what might be a bitten tongue. "I... not move and they stop... kicking, but…"
"Yes, they've gone," she said.
With a wince, he pulled himself to his feet, and immediately doubled over, groaning. Between the two of them, the two cops managed to lead the man back to the car.
"Okay, sir, we're just going to have to check you to see how hurt you are. Can you tell me your name?" Jamelia said, while her partner talked to the control centre.
"Jim Lee," he replied with a strong accent, sitting in the car out of the rain.
"And your current address?"
"11003 Seventeenth. I live in Flat 21c."
She noted that down. He seemed responsive, and didn't seem confused. "Are you married? Do you have children?"
"Not married. Not anymore. One daughter, lives with ex-wife."
"What is your daughter's name?"
"Xiulan."
"Can you advise if we have an 11-40?" her radio asked.
His eyes were responsive and dilated normally when she shone the light in them. He was bleeding from his scalp, but it looked like a shallow cut. "Do you want us to call for an ambulance?" she asked the man.
"No. No, I... I'm fine," he answered. "No ambulance need... for me. My car! My wallet! Go arrest them!"
"11-42, according to the victim. No signs of a concussion," she said, a tad dubiously. "Mr Lee, are you sure that you don't…"
"Fine!"
"Confirmed that the victim doesn't want an ambulance," she said into her radio.
Robert approached her. "I'll take his statement," he said. "You check the scene."
"It's wet out there," she said.
"Yes?" He shrugged. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads."
It was tails.
Grumbling, Jamelia headed back out into the cold and wet. At least it was warm around the cars, and as long as she kept upwind she didn't have to breathe in the fumes. The falling water hissed as it touched the hot metal of the burning vehicles, and she swept her eyes and flashlight over the nearby buildings.
A stylised shape was painted in white onto the abandoned office block that backed onto the parking lot, fresher than the rest of the graffiti that tattooed it. It suggested a little girl holding a red balloon, and sprayed under it was-
Jamelia's nose wrinkled in contempt.
Three years ago or so, there had been a nasty incident where the five year-old daughter of a prominent figure in the Patriot Movement had been killed in a fight between Chinese and Japanese gangs. It hadn't been a political thing. She'd just been caught in the crossfire and hit by a stray bullet. It happened.
Except most of the children caught in random crossfires weren't so pretty, blonde and photogenic, didn't have parents who had lots of Movement contacts and press support and certainly weren't such a convenient martyr.
Come to mention it, almost all children who died in such a manner didn't have the initials 'EE' leading to local skinheads taking her as a cause celebre, either.
She shook her head in disgust. It was pretty clear what had happened here. Some poor bastard got beat up, his car set on fire, and now this graffiti? Yeah. It was just another bubble in a city which was set to boil. She'd been on the scene when that mob had set on those Asian workers down at the docks, where people had died. And a week ago, Lung, the parahuman leader of the Bomei, burned down several warehouses in the docks owned by companies linked to the Empire-88 and the Iron Eagles. And then there had been the shootings, up in the northern parts of the city…
The gangers here had been looking for revenge.
She doubted that the skinheads here had even known that the man they'd attacked had been Chinese, rather than Japanese. They probably thought every Asian in the city went around as part of one big gang, if they cared that much. Jamelia had worked the street beat long enough to know that it was laughable that the Chinese-Americans who made up the White Lion Association and the local branch of the 14K Triad would want anything to do with the first generation Japanese refugees who named their gang for their 'exile'.
She worked her way along the wall. More gang graffiti. Most of it looked recent, and it was all done in a similar style. There was that recurring runic theme these racist groups seemed to love, tugged straight off the front cover of a heavy metal album. Some of it was actually pretty artistic, by the standards of some of the crap she'd seen scrawled on walls, which suggested they'd had time to work here.
She reached the edge of the building, where it led over to the next lot and a still-active building, and glanced down the alleyway which separated the two. The other building had been freshly painted in the past few months, but had still managed to gather a thinner layer of spray-paint. Patches of off-grey marked areas where some of the larger or more obnoxious gang marks had been painted over.
Trash cans littered the narrow alleyway, their contents split over the ground. The entire place smelt vile, and she was just about to go when something caught her eye.
There seemed to be a shape lying behind one of the overturned bins. It just caught the light for a moment, but its shape brought dreadful imaginings to mind. Jamelia swallowed, and shone her flashlight over it again. Yes, it looked sort of like a body. In a bag.
The rain was getting heavier. The buildings on one side of the alleyway were only a single storey, and the rain bounced off the metal roof, making a racket which drowned out the noise of the city.
"Rob," she said into her radio, holding her flashlight between her shoulder and cheek, "back me up. I've got something suspicious here."
He arrived, and a little bit of her took schadenfreude in the fact that he, too, was now out in this heavy rain. "Look," she said. "There."
He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I see it."
Side by side, they advanced, lights dancing over the graffiti-covered walls and the filthy floor. There, a split-open bag disgorged used condoms and old razors; here, old broken beer bottles lay in gleaming piles. It seemed like this alley had been used for tipping junk from the entire block. Those empty noodle cartons looked like they'd come all the way from the Vietnamese takeaway they'd seen on the way in.
"Hey, is that door open?" Robert asked, shining his light at the fire escape of the open building. It was slightly ajar, propped open with some trash. It didn't look like it had been broken into.
"Sucks to be them," Jamelia said, trying not to breathe too deeply. Stepping closer, she swallowed, the scent of rotten meat so strong she could taste it in the back of her throat. There was a dark stain around the suspicious bag, a leak from some small tear in its black plastic. Reaching out, she nudged it with her foot.
Like a dam breaking, it split open entirely in a flood of half-cooked noodles and raw chicken. Maggots crawled in the rot and filth, squirming in the sudden brightness.
Jamelia gagged, but mixed with revulsion was relief. It was just a normal black bag filled with normal trash. No body. It had been nothing but a trick of dim light and overstrained plastic. She laughed nervously to herself. She was just jumpy.
"Shit, that stinks!" Rob said, snorting nervously along with her. "Wow. That… fuck, I thought it was… man, don't scare me like that."
Something fell on his head, and he flinched. Feathers drifted down from above.
Jamelia flinched back in instinctual shock, and then blanched as the thing in the pool of light made itself clear. The half-eaten pigeon stared up at her, its dead eyes wide open and its organs spilling out. She looked up in slow horror, and caught sight of the dark shape on the low roof. Something black and horrific and utterly inhuman lurked in the shadows. A single drop of drool drooped down from its mouth, and splashed at the edge of the light, steaming in the cold.
It growled, a deep bass rumble that shook the guts. It was not a very loud growl. It didn't need to be. It was coming from a mouth which could swallow a man's head whole.
"What the fuck!" the man beside her snapped, scrabbling to draw his pistol. In the rain, he lost his grip on the handle, and it went flying. The clatter in the filth of the alley was almost lost.
Jamelia simply froze. The canine, reptilian shape was much bigger, much more than any real animal should be. There was something about its teeth, which glinted in the low light, which screamed to her that if she stopped moving, she might survive. And there was something almost human about the way its arms bent. Something handlike about the claws that grasped the edge of the tin roof.
The next minute was a gap in her memory. One that started with adrenaline and panic, and ended with her sprawling in a filthy, soaking-wet alleyway. She'd lost sight of Robert, but she'd also lost sight of that thing. Groggily, she pulled herself to her feet, and noticed she'd kept hold of her handgun.
She'd emptied it.
She didn't remember firing it. She slotted in a fresh magazine, and worked the slide.
"There she is!" she heard a young-sounding voice shout, and she whirled.
And everything went black.
It was somehow darker than a powercut. It was a darkness which went beyond a lack of light, a darkness which numbed every sense. Jamelia screamed and didn't even hear her own voice. Pistol in hand, she opened fire wildly on instinct. She couldn't hear the bark of her weapon, or see the flashes. All she felt was the reassuring kick. It was the only thing which told her the rest of the world still existed. And then it stopped kicking and she was left in nothingness.
Something hit her, hard, in the stomach. She flailed in the darkness, trying to protect herself, but whatever it was grabbed her wrist, spun her around, and kneed her in the small of the back. Red pain danced across her vision, and she was almost glad of it, because it was a respite from the nothing. Someone held her, someone strong, and she was sure she screamed when they delivered a breathtaking punch to her kidneys.
Whoever they were, they were strong, fast, and knew exactly how to take down a person who couldn't even see to fight back.
She barely felt the tape around her wrists.
Light re-emerged, or perhaps the darkness fled. Either way, she found herself staring into the face of death, and tried to kick and scream. She couldn't shout, because there was tape across her mouth and her legs were bound together. The white skull under a black motorcycle helmet just stared back.
"Ow, fuck, fuck, fuck you Grue," a white figure on the floor behind the skull-faced man managed. "There's always one who freaks out and..." he gasped for air, "… and starts shooting wildly."
"He's only bruised," a blonde girl Jamelia hadn't noticed before said, stepping out of a patch of shadows. They seemed barely deserving of that name; the shadows of the alleyway, compared to the terrible blackness of the darkness, seemed faded and grey. Still, they were enough to conceal someone in an almost skintight costume of blacks and purples, who wore a Grecian theatrical masque which left her lips exposed. "Aren't you glad we insisted you get that armour in your costume, Regent?" she said teasingly. "Although if you'd made it thicker, you won't have that nasty bruise on your collarbone."
"Fuck… ow, ow, ow, fuck you, Tatt," the boy – yes, he was just a boy, only in his mid-teens from the voice – gasped. "That was way too close to my head. Fuck you."
"Tell you what, I'm not up for that, but if you ask nicely, maybe Dr Bitch will kiss it better? And maybe a little more, if you're going to keep on playing up how hurt you are."
"Enough," the skull-faced man in black said. "What do we do with her and the other one?"
The blonde shrugged. "She wasn't expecting to see us here. That means she was here for another reason. Patrol?" Her eyes flickered to Jamelia. "No. She was responding to another call. But with the rally going on, they won't respond to her failure to check in for quite a while." She smiled down at the officer. "Imagine what could happen in that time, before your buddies show up. All alone, in the hands of some wicked criminals."
Jamelia kicked and struggled, but she was trussed up like a fly caught by spiders.
The girl leant in, squatting down by her. "There's no point being like that," she told Jamelia. "We're not going to kill you, and you're not going to get free. You really might as well settle down. It'll be easier for all of us, you included." The girl gave her a sunny grin. "After all, you don't like being out here, sent out to do the scut work with no backup, right?" she said. "I guess everyone else was too busy to help you. They were busy watching those good patriotic Americans down by the docks march up and down and shout about how anyone who isn't like them should go back to where they came from."
"Funny thing, isn't it? You don't see many of them with Native American heritage. They mostly seem to be pretty pale. Sort of like the 'where they came from' themselves is Europe. They don't seem to mention that, do they? Especially when all those guys you work with parrot the same kind of thing, and they don't even bother trying to hide that they think that all 'real Americans' look just like them. They sent you out here, and of course they didn't say anything about it, but the way he looked at you didn't feel too good, did it?"
The girl's grin widened. "Hey, remember how your partner totally has sympathies that way, too?" she added, with casual afterthought. "Not really a surprise, is it?" She leaned forwards, and tucked a pigeon-feather behind Jamelia's ear. "He sent you into the alleyway first, didn't he? Out in the rain, while he talked to your witness. Wonder if he left anything out of his report." She patted the older woman on the head. "Nah, that's probably just vile insinuation from an untrustworthy criminal," she said. "I mean, it's not like he's done anything else that would suggest that he'd rather be off marching with the Patriots, right?"
"We'll leave them in the bathrooms in the building, out of the rain," the skull-faced man said. Behind him, a monstrous hound growled, and Jamelia stopped moving, trying to not even breathe. There was another figure standing back there, beside the hound. How many of them were there?
"And I bet your bosses are going to cover up what we took from there," the blonde continued, heedless. "Hey, I wonder who runs this place? What's worth taking, out in some run down office space? Well, I guess we're just like them, eh? Neither of us want news of this nice little toy getting out. So please don't think of it when you're tied up, 'kay?"
"We'd do worse, but Grue is a softie," the white-clad boy said, clutching his shoulder. His costume was almost as dirty as she was, from his fall in the alley. He hefted a sceptre he held in his uninjured arm. "I'm not going to enjoy this," he said, the grin on his face putting lie to the statement.
Then there was only pain, followed by the relief of blackness.
Just another attack by powered criminals, the after action report said. A minor parahuman gang, called the Undersiders. No police casualties and no other violence involved, so it was low priority.
When Jamelia asked around once she got out of hospital, she was told that the gang had stolen hard drives from the premises. The safes had been opened with the passwords, and emptied. It was suspected they were working for hire, carrying out industrial espionage.
When she asked again, more forcefully, she was put on compassionate leave and was booked in for a psychiatric evaluation.
Chrysalis 1.x
Ten of Wands
A damp, cold clinging chill permeated the city, painting halos around every light and leaving the pavements slightly slick to the foot. It had been raining earlier, and it felt like it was going to rain again tonight. Stepping out of the 24-7, Jamelia Chriswell shivered and tugged her jacket around her. Breath steaming in the winter air, she headed back to the car.
"It is goddamn freezing out there. Gotta be in the twenties," she complained to her partner, clambering into the car and dropping an energy drink in his lap. She dropped the carrier bag in her footwell. "Nice and pre-chilled for you."
Her fellow officer grinned up at her. "You're a life saver," Robert said, breaking the seal and chugging it. He winced. "Urgh. I hate working nights."
"Join the club," she said, fastening her seatbelt. Outside, a few cars were passing along the late night streets, but the sidewalks were nearly empty. Only a few stragglers were out in the cold and wet. No one sensible wanted to be outside when the weather was like this.
"I mean, I don't even like how this crap tastes, but I need it to keep awake," he continued, taking another mouthful.
She peered at the dashboard. "Yeah, I knew it. Twenty-six outside." She shook her head. "I hope those Patriot idiots are freezing. The overtime'll be nice post-Christmas, but couldn't they have found a warmer night to get everyone called up? Anything come in over the radio when I was out?" Jamelia asked, looking around over the parking lot. She blew on her hands, and held them over the heating grills.
"Disturbance over on Twenty-Fourth and Clayton," Robert said, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. "Low priority, but I said we'd check it out." He winked. "Said you were dealing with someone who wanted to complain that someone's dog had pissed against his car."
"Har-de-har," she said, fastening up her seatbelt. She took a thankful bite into a chocolate bar, and swallowed. "Okay, then," she said. "Did they say what it was?"
"Sounds like a few old drunks setting fire to a car," Rob said, starting the engine.
"At least it'll be warm there," Jamelia said.
"Hah. We can hope. They're probably just doing it to be taken in to the nice warm cells."
She shivered, running her fingers through her hair. "Kinda get where they'd be coming from."
The police car pulled smoothly out of the parking lot, onto the damp streets of Brockton Bay. They drove down, headed towards their destination. This was far from the worst part of the city, but it certainly wasn't the best either. The way one might describe it was 'tired'. Paint flaked from buildings which had been decorated in better days, and periodic patches of darkness interrupted the sodium glow of the street lamps, vandalism or ill-repair leaving a light extinguished.
From behind the barred windows of electronics shops, cathode rays blared into the night's darkness. There weren't any rare, expensive flatscreens on display. Those products of parahuman-run factories would be locked up safely, if those shops even had any to sell. They probably didn't. Such consumer goods only appeared in the elite boutiques on the Boardwalk, and this was definitely not the Boardwalk.
In the distance, the roar of a crowd could be heard. The Patriotic rally. There was a certain pattern to it, a distinct cadence. It would rise and fall, almost like the waves which washed the dirty decaying port to the east.
"At least it doesn't sound like open war has broken out," Robert said jokingly, eyes loitering for a moment at the warmth of a Chinese take-out shop. The owner caught his eye for a moment, looking welcoming, but he continued on.
Jamelia grunted.
On Nineteenth, a gaggle of uniformed twenty-somethings staggered down the sidewalk arm in arm. They were singing, loudly and drunkenly. Some of them were carrying brown paper bags which obviously had alcohol in them; others had carrier bags filled with mixers and snacks. Even as the two police officers watched, one of the women threw up into the street, to jeers and cheers alike.
"Want to do anything?" Jamelia asked, nose wrinkling.
"What, against that many drunk soldiers? Not on your life," Robert said heatedly. "Just tell control about them and let the Army deal with their drunks."
"Yeah, best all around," she replied, reaching out for her handset. "Control, this is Chriswell. We have approximately fifteen – that is, one-five – 390s heading south-east along Nineteenth… currently at the intersection with Brameer. Look like they're Army. Can you 10-5 this to their base and tell them to go pick up their drunks? We don't have the manpower to handle them and are currently on the way to a disturbance on Twenty-Fourth and Clayton."
"10-4, Chriswell," came back the crackly voice over the old radio. "Please stand by." There was a pause. "Okay, will do. Continue on your current assignment. Army will be notified."
The car continued along its way, leaving them behind them. "They're not bad kids, probably," Robert said, the traffic lights painting his face red. "We're all young once."
"I didn't say anything," Jamelia said.
"My kid brother's signed up. So did I, before I came here. Only job we could get. No wonder they go a little wild. It's probably the first time in their life they've had spare cash to burn. I know I did some dumb things when I was in the army."
"They're a bunch of drunk idiots. So much for our last line of defence. It's a waste of taxpayer money. They're being paid to do pretty much nothing, just in case an Endbringer shows up."
"Heh. Probably going to get hell from their officers," Robert said, grinning paternalistically. "We used to get hell whenever someone in our platoon gets picked up from town on charges. That's gotta be… what, three squads?" He accelerated away from the lights. "They're prob'ly gonna wish we picked them up. They'll be scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush for that. Hell, for that many, they'll be finding all-new messes for them to clean."
They sat in silence for a while, as shops gave way to cheap office space and rented buildings. It started raining lightly. To their left, a truck was being loaded by tired-looking Asian women parked in front of an industrial-scale laundry. The lights were still on in several of the office blocks, and Jamelia wondered for a moment what they were doing in there so late, when half the city seemed to be deserted because of the rally. But whatever they were doing in there, they were doing it quietly and not-obviously-illegally, so it wasn't her problem.
No, her problem was straight ahead. Three burning cars sat in an otherwise empty parking lot, ablaze. The street lights had been broken and the windows of one of the buildings next to the lot were boarded up, so the fires were the main source of light. Hooded youths were gathered around the fire, warming themselves. There were discarded things which looked like both spray and beer cans around them. More importantly, a prone shape – a body? – lay just at the edge of the fire light.
They looked like gang members.
"Control, we have three 11-24s, vehicles are on fire," she said into her handset. "Possible Code Purple. Multiple 10-66s around vehicles, I can see six. They're wearing hoodies, can't see any masks on them. I think there's a person on the ground. Could just be drunk, but we're going to check."
"10-24. Play it safe, Chriswell."
"10-24, Control," Jamelia put her handset down, and found Robert staring at her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's probably nothing," he said awkwardly. "They're a bunch of gangers who set some abandoned cars on fire in the cold. And there's a bunch of them and they're just young. Can't we just ignore this? Go for something that matters."
Her eyes widened. "It's someone who's totally out of it at best. And they're skinheads," she said in contempt. "What if that's some poor kid who just happened to run across six of them?"
"It's probably just one of them drunk after setting the car on fire," he grumbled, unfastening his seatbelt nonetheless and checking his pistol. "If you're wrong about this, you owe me something warm and full of sugar."
Outside, a fine drizzle continued to sleet down from the skies, keeping the floor slick and visibility poor and sapping all warmth from anyone exposed. The weather was getting worse, but honest, proper rain would be better than this undecided downpour, almost closer to mist than rain. In the distance, a car alarm wailed. The two cops turned on their flashlights. Raindrops danced in the beams.
"Hey!" Robert yelled out, letting his flashlight sweep over the scene. There were chalk markings on the ground around the cars, although in the rain and in the glare of the fires, they were obscured. "What's going on here?"
"Fuck off!" one of the hooded figures yelled back. That one sounded young and female.
"It's the cops!" another one said, this time male.
"I don't care if it's the fucking queen of England," the woman –the girl – retorted. "She can fuck off too."
"Who's that on the ground?" Jamelia shouted, squeezing her pistol tightly. There was a bit of her which wished she had more range time. There were six gangers and if it came down to violence – her stomach clenched, and the shake in her arm made her flashlight dance. She didn't want to die.
One of them made an oinking sound, and her knuckles whitened. She forced herself to breathe. To stay calm. "Who's that?" she asked again, her light pooled over the prone figure.
"Just one of us, piggy!" the loud-mouthed girl shouted back. "Go off and hassle some actual criminals."
"Like those slanty pocs down towards the docks," another one called out. "They're all criminals anyway. We're just keeping the place safe from those shits."
Grumbling, though, the youths dispersed into the darkness. Advancing, she checked the prone figure. Up close, she could see it was a Asian man, with blood running from an open cut on his forehead. He looked bruised and battered, and had a prominent black eye. She raised an eyebrow at her partner.
Robert looked vaguely embarrassed, but shrugged.
Despite his injuries, the victim was conscious. "They're gone?" he asked, speech slurred from what might be a bitten tongue. "I... not move and they stop... kicking, but…"
"Yes, they've gone," she said.
With a wince, he pulled himself to his feet, and immediately doubled over, groaning. Between the two of them, the two cops managed to lead the man back to the car.
"Okay, sir, we're just going to have to check you to see how hurt you are. Can you tell me your name?" Jamelia said, while her partner talked to the control centre.
"Jim Lee," he replied with a strong accent, sitting in the car out of the rain.
"And your current address?"
"11003 Seventeenth. I live in Flat 21c."
She noted that down. He seemed responsive, and didn't seem confused. "Are you married? Do you have children?"
"Not married. Not anymore. One daughter, lives with ex-wife."
"What is your daughter's name?"
"Xiulan."
"Can you advise if we have an 11-40?" her radio asked.
His eyes were responsive and dilated normally when she shone the light in them. He was bleeding from his scalp, but it looked like a shallow cut. "Do you want us to call for an ambulance?" she asked the man.
"No. No, I... I'm fine," he answered. "No ambulance need... for me. My car! My wallet! Go arrest them!"
"11-42, according to the victim. No signs of a concussion," she said, a tad dubiously. "Mr Lee, are you sure that you don't…"
"Fine!"
"Confirmed that the victim doesn't want an ambulance," she said into her radio.
Robert approached her. "I'll take his statement," he said. "You check the scene."
"It's wet out there," she said.
"Yes?" He shrugged. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads."
It was tails.
Grumbling, Jamelia headed back out into the cold and wet. At least it was warm around the cars, and as long as she kept upwind she didn't have to breathe in the fumes. The falling water hissed as it touched the hot metal of the burning vehicles, and she swept her eyes and flashlight over the nearby buildings.
A stylised shape was painted in white onto the abandoned office block that backed onto the parking lot, fresher than the rest of the graffiti that tattooed it. It suggested a little girl holding a red balloon, and sprayed under it was-
RIP ENID EMILTON
-in crude capital letters.Jamelia's nose wrinkled in contempt.
Three years ago or so, there had been a nasty incident where the five year-old daughter of a prominent figure in the Patriot Movement had been killed in a fight between Chinese and Japanese gangs. It hadn't been a political thing. She'd just been caught in the crossfire and hit by a stray bullet. It happened.
Except most of the children caught in random crossfires weren't so pretty, blonde and photogenic, didn't have parents who had lots of Movement contacts and press support and certainly weren't such a convenient martyr.
Come to mention it, almost all children who died in such a manner didn't have the initials 'EE' leading to local skinheads taking her as a cause celebre, either.
She shook her head in disgust. It was pretty clear what had happened here. Some poor bastard got beat up, his car set on fire, and now this graffiti? Yeah. It was just another bubble in a city which was set to boil. She'd been on the scene when that mob had set on those Asian workers down at the docks, where people had died. And a week ago, Lung, the parahuman leader of the Bomei, burned down several warehouses in the docks owned by companies linked to the Empire-88 and the Iron Eagles. And then there had been the shootings, up in the northern parts of the city…
The gangers here had been looking for revenge.
She doubted that the skinheads here had even known that the man they'd attacked had been Chinese, rather than Japanese. They probably thought every Asian in the city went around as part of one big gang, if they cared that much. Jamelia had worked the street beat long enough to know that it was laughable that the Chinese-Americans who made up the White Lion Association and the local branch of the 14K Triad would want anything to do with the first generation Japanese refugees who named their gang for their 'exile'.
She worked her way along the wall. More gang graffiti. Most of it looked recent, and it was all done in a similar style. There was that recurring runic theme these racist groups seemed to love, tugged straight off the front cover of a heavy metal album. Some of it was actually pretty artistic, by the standards of some of the crap she'd seen scrawled on walls, which suggested they'd had time to work here.
She reached the edge of the building, where it led over to the next lot and a still-active building, and glanced down the alleyway which separated the two. The other building had been freshly painted in the past few months, but had still managed to gather a thinner layer of spray-paint. Patches of off-grey marked areas where some of the larger or more obnoxious gang marks had been painted over.
Trash cans littered the narrow alleyway, their contents split over the ground. The entire place smelt vile, and she was just about to go when something caught her eye.
There seemed to be a shape lying behind one of the overturned bins. It just caught the light for a moment, but its shape brought dreadful imaginings to mind. Jamelia swallowed, and shone her flashlight over it again. Yes, it looked sort of like a body. In a bag.
The rain was getting heavier. The buildings on one side of the alleyway were only a single storey, and the rain bounced off the metal roof, making a racket which drowned out the noise of the city.
"Rob," she said into her radio, holding her flashlight between her shoulder and cheek, "back me up. I've got something suspicious here."
He arrived, and a little bit of her took schadenfreude in the fact that he, too, was now out in this heavy rain. "Look," she said. "There."
He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I see it."
Side by side, they advanced, lights dancing over the graffiti-covered walls and the filthy floor. There, a split-open bag disgorged used condoms and old razors; here, old broken beer bottles lay in gleaming piles. It seemed like this alley had been used for tipping junk from the entire block. Those empty noodle cartons looked like they'd come all the way from the Vietnamese takeaway they'd seen on the way in.
"Hey, is that door open?" Robert asked, shining his light at the fire escape of the open building. It was slightly ajar, propped open with some trash. It didn't look like it had been broken into.
"Sucks to be them," Jamelia said, trying not to breathe too deeply. Stepping closer, she swallowed, the scent of rotten meat so strong she could taste it in the back of her throat. There was a dark stain around the suspicious bag, a leak from some small tear in its black plastic. Reaching out, she nudged it with her foot.
Like a dam breaking, it split open entirely in a flood of half-cooked noodles and raw chicken. Maggots crawled in the rot and filth, squirming in the sudden brightness.
Jamelia gagged, but mixed with revulsion was relief. It was just a normal black bag filled with normal trash. No body. It had been nothing but a trick of dim light and overstrained plastic. She laughed nervously to herself. She was just jumpy.
"Shit, that stinks!" Rob said, snorting nervously along with her. "Wow. That… fuck, I thought it was… man, don't scare me like that."
Something fell on his head, and he flinched. Feathers drifted down from above.
Jamelia flinched back in instinctual shock, and then blanched as the thing in the pool of light made itself clear. The half-eaten pigeon stared up at her, its dead eyes wide open and its organs spilling out. She looked up in slow horror, and caught sight of the dark shape on the low roof. Something black and horrific and utterly inhuman lurked in the shadows. A single drop of drool drooped down from its mouth, and splashed at the edge of the light, steaming in the cold.
It growled, a deep bass rumble that shook the guts. It was not a very loud growl. It didn't need to be. It was coming from a mouth which could swallow a man's head whole.
"What the fuck!" the man beside her snapped, scrabbling to draw his pistol. In the rain, he lost his grip on the handle, and it went flying. The clatter in the filth of the alley was almost lost.
Jamelia simply froze. The canine, reptilian shape was much bigger, much more than any real animal should be. There was something about its teeth, which glinted in the low light, which screamed to her that if she stopped moving, she might survive. And there was something almost human about the way its arms bent. Something handlike about the claws that grasped the edge of the tin roof.
The next minute was a gap in her memory. One that started with adrenaline and panic, and ended with her sprawling in a filthy, soaking-wet alleyway. She'd lost sight of Robert, but she'd also lost sight of that thing. Groggily, she pulled herself to her feet, and noticed she'd kept hold of her handgun.
She'd emptied it.
She didn't remember firing it. She slotted in a fresh magazine, and worked the slide.
"There she is!" she heard a young-sounding voice shout, and she whirled.
And everything went black.
It was somehow darker than a powercut. It was a darkness which went beyond a lack of light, a darkness which numbed every sense. Jamelia screamed and didn't even hear her own voice. Pistol in hand, she opened fire wildly on instinct. She couldn't hear the bark of her weapon, or see the flashes. All she felt was the reassuring kick. It was the only thing which told her the rest of the world still existed. And then it stopped kicking and she was left in nothingness.
Something hit her, hard, in the stomach. She flailed in the darkness, trying to protect herself, but whatever it was grabbed her wrist, spun her around, and kneed her in the small of the back. Red pain danced across her vision, and she was almost glad of it, because it was a respite from the nothing. Someone held her, someone strong, and she was sure she screamed when they delivered a breathtaking punch to her kidneys.
Whoever they were, they were strong, fast, and knew exactly how to take down a person who couldn't even see to fight back.
She barely felt the tape around her wrists.
Light re-emerged, or perhaps the darkness fled. Either way, she found herself staring into the face of death, and tried to kick and scream. She couldn't shout, because there was tape across her mouth and her legs were bound together. The white skull under a black motorcycle helmet just stared back.
"Ow, fuck, fuck, fuck you Grue," a white figure on the floor behind the skull-faced man managed. "There's always one who freaks out and..." he gasped for air, "… and starts shooting wildly."
"He's only bruised," a blonde girl Jamelia hadn't noticed before said, stepping out of a patch of shadows. They seemed barely deserving of that name; the shadows of the alleyway, compared to the terrible blackness of the darkness, seemed faded and grey. Still, they were enough to conceal someone in an almost skintight costume of blacks and purples, who wore a Grecian theatrical masque which left her lips exposed. "Aren't you glad we insisted you get that armour in your costume, Regent?" she said teasingly. "Although if you'd made it thicker, you won't have that nasty bruise on your collarbone."
"Fuck… ow, ow, ow, fuck you, Tatt," the boy – yes, he was just a boy, only in his mid-teens from the voice – gasped. "That was way too close to my head. Fuck you."
"Tell you what, I'm not up for that, but if you ask nicely, maybe Dr Bitch will kiss it better? And maybe a little more, if you're going to keep on playing up how hurt you are."
"Enough," the skull-faced man in black said. "What do we do with her and the other one?"
The blonde shrugged. "She wasn't expecting to see us here. That means she was here for another reason. Patrol?" Her eyes flickered to Jamelia. "No. She was responding to another call. But with the rally going on, they won't respond to her failure to check in for quite a while." She smiled down at the officer. "Imagine what could happen in that time, before your buddies show up. All alone, in the hands of some wicked criminals."
Jamelia kicked and struggled, but she was trussed up like a fly caught by spiders.
The girl leant in, squatting down by her. "There's no point being like that," she told Jamelia. "We're not going to kill you, and you're not going to get free. You really might as well settle down. It'll be easier for all of us, you included." The girl gave her a sunny grin. "After all, you don't like being out here, sent out to do the scut work with no backup, right?" she said. "I guess everyone else was too busy to help you. They were busy watching those good patriotic Americans down by the docks march up and down and shout about how anyone who isn't like them should go back to where they came from."
"Funny thing, isn't it? You don't see many of them with Native American heritage. They mostly seem to be pretty pale. Sort of like the 'where they came from' themselves is Europe. They don't seem to mention that, do they? Especially when all those guys you work with parrot the same kind of thing, and they don't even bother trying to hide that they think that all 'real Americans' look just like them. They sent you out here, and of course they didn't say anything about it, but the way he looked at you didn't feel too good, did it?"
The girl's grin widened. "Hey, remember how your partner totally has sympathies that way, too?" she added, with casual afterthought. "Not really a surprise, is it?" She leaned forwards, and tucked a pigeon-feather behind Jamelia's ear. "He sent you into the alleyway first, didn't he? Out in the rain, while he talked to your witness. Wonder if he left anything out of his report." She patted the older woman on the head. "Nah, that's probably just vile insinuation from an untrustworthy criminal," she said. "I mean, it's not like he's done anything else that would suggest that he'd rather be off marching with the Patriots, right?"
"We'll leave them in the bathrooms in the building, out of the rain," the skull-faced man said. Behind him, a monstrous hound growled, and Jamelia stopped moving, trying to not even breathe. There was another figure standing back there, beside the hound. How many of them were there?
"And I bet your bosses are going to cover up what we took from there," the blonde continued, heedless. "Hey, I wonder who runs this place? What's worth taking, out in some run down office space? Well, I guess we're just like them, eh? Neither of us want news of this nice little toy getting out. So please don't think of it when you're tied up, 'kay?"
"We'd do worse, but Grue is a softie," the white-clad boy said, clutching his shoulder. His costume was almost as dirty as she was, from his fall in the alley. He hefted a sceptre he held in his uninjured arm. "I'm not going to enjoy this," he said, the grin on his face putting lie to the statement.
Then there was only pain, followed by the relief of blackness.
...
Just another attack by powered criminals, the after action report said. A minor parahuman gang, called the Undersiders. No police casualties and no other violence involved, so it was low priority.
When Jamelia asked around once she got out of hospital, she was told that the gang had stolen hard drives from the premises. The safes had been opened with the passwords, and emptied. It was suspected they were working for hire, carrying out industrial espionage.
When she asked again, more forcefully, she was put on compassionate leave and was booked in for a psychiatric evaluation.
...
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TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Yeah, that's the Undersiders. Grue is pretty much perfect for hitting all of those little buttons, Agoraphobia, Claustrophobia, and Nyctophobia all at the same time. Bitch hit all of those little instincts that remember what it means to be prey on the savanna, and then Tattletale makes you feel about three inches tall.
Really, the odd one out is Regent; his power is certainly scary - worse then Grue once he really gets going, but it's not the instant fear and demoralization of the others.
Really, the odd one out is Regent; his power is certainly scary - worse then Grue once he really gets going, but it's not the instant fear and demoralization of the others.
Hmm.
Either it's gonna be a case of Intermissions in the middle of an arc (which I am cool with) with more chapters to follow (very cool), or a case of multiple stacked intermissions (also cool). But ES hasen't revealed the crossover, so I feel it's safe to say the arc is not yet resolved.
Either it's gonna be a case of Intermissions in the middle of an arc (which I am cool with) with more chapters to follow (very cool), or a case of multiple stacked intermissions (also cool). But ES hasen't revealed the crossover, so I feel it's safe to say the arc is not yet resolved.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Eh, I also thought Lunacy when I saw how she sort of blacked out for a bit, right before the real darkness dropped on her. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's power was subtly (or not subtly) changed to draw upon the supernatural nature of the nWoD...
Assuming this is the nWoD.
It wouldn't be that obvious with Grue. Dropping all consuming Darkness on someone is already pretty occulty, and Tatt's power happens all in her head, but Bitches dogs being more like Warewolfs then giant-lizard monsters would fit nicely into that.
Regent... he has that legacy thing going on, and that decadence and emotional coldness thing going on... maybe his power is more like Vinculum? Just throwing random things at the wall here. No, that doesn't work, that's more Heartbreaker's Shtick. Huh... We'll see where this goes.
Assuming this is the nWoD.
It wouldn't be that obvious with Grue. Dropping all consuming Darkness on someone is already pretty occulty, and Tatt's power happens all in her head, but Bitches dogs being more like Warewolfs then giant-lizard monsters would fit nicely into that.
Regent... he has that legacy thing going on, and that decadence and emotional coldness thing going on... maybe his power is more like Vinculum? Just throwing random things at the wall here. No, that doesn't work, that's more Heartbreaker's Shtick. Huh... We'll see where this goes.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Or maybe, he think that a pan-asian gang, to use the man's own wording, is fuckstupid. Seriously, most of East Asia *still* hates Japan for their brutal imperialism in the first half of the 20th century. Vietnam still bristles at China in memory of many previous invasions and China has more than a few beefs with Vietnam over the ethnically Han minorities that get mistreated quite often in Vietnam. And so on so forth.RazorSmile said:
Common joke in China: We're making progress in the scope and quality of our TV broadcast programming. "Fightan' th' Japanese Devils" serials are down to only 64% of stuff on air. We're finally below 2/3!
It doesn't help that not that long ago - a decade or so at most, a bunch of tactless douchebag Japanese men hired out an entire hotel in Nanjing, as well as several hundred hookers, to "Celebrate the Anniversary of the Rape of Nanjing." Bastards are lucky CNN caught on - they only got deported. I suspect their fate would have been suitably grisly otherwise.
A lot of Americans don't realize we were total assholes to the Filipinos in the Spanish-American war. We sent over soldiers to "liberate" them from Spain's evil colonial empire - then turned right around and arrested the freedom figthers we had been supporting and installed our own colonial presence. The filipinos actually tends to like us, on the balance. Because the Japanese kicked out the US and took over in WWII, this time without a 'betrayal', and were that much worse.
Interesting tidbit: the Associated Press style manual says to use "black" and "white", but "Latin American" and "Asian American". Why? Because conciseness and the cultural inclinations of the majority favor breaking people into a small set of "races", but while Anglo-Saxons readily identify as "white" and African-Americans as "black", most 'Asians' still think of themselves in terms of smaller ethnic or national groups. Calling a Korean a "Jap" is a good way to start a fight in a lot of places. Likewise, its only very recently that there's been any large scale effort to build any pan-'Hispanic' solidarity, and it's pretty weak/shallow.
tl;dr: A lot of "Asians" hate each other. WWII and a host of other conflicts full of brutality, have not been forgiven. Pan-asian gangs are unlikely to attract anything but relatively prosperous 3rd-gen plus kids who are about as culturally Asian as chicken salad.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Yeah, Wildbow might have tried to justify it by making Lung Half-Japanese Half-Chinese, but frankly that doesn't help. He still would need to commit to one or the other to be accepted by any racially motivated gang.Satori said:
I'm torn. I'm sure if they did it would be amazing, but no way in hell do I have the time to read another Worm.Kia said:
If he is more vampiric, he probably isn't the Blood and Smoke version of a Daeva. He's too detached from everything.TheLastOne said:
More like a Ventrue. Makes sense given his cape name and all.
(also makes me wonder what the Entities are in this setting. Given their partially science fiction elements, perhaps rogue elements of the God-Machine after it bungled an order?)
(And if so, will we see Arnold Diefenbach, the engineer-turned-AI of an oil rig? He seems like what would happen if the God-Machine managed to hijack a Tinker/Thinker trigger event and spin it to its uses. And he's a pretty darned good rapper, too.)
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
My thought basically. He's emotionally dead, only feeling alive vicariously through an act of theft that is very much a rape metaphor, aping a morality he can't experience except by proxy. It's pretty hard be more Vampire then that.Leliel said: