<div class="floatright">(http://orig10.deviantart.net/3f32/f/2012/002/5/6/dust_and_smoke_by_shimmering_sword-d4l4dg7.jpg)</div>Name: Darclight<br/>Where: Simport City Harbor<br/>Doing What: Playing a Game I'm not Supposed to Be<br/>Milestones: Riders on the Storm and Peeling the Onion<br/>1 PP | 0 Physical | 0 Mental | 0 Emotional | 25xp<br/><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Mechanics</div><div class="spoiler_body"></div></div><hr/><br/><tt class="bbc_tt">"A moment." </tt>Boushh had finally picked up.<tt class="bbc_tt">"Yes, it's me.  Listen, did Ghost say where he was going?"</tt>Hearing that the man himself had vanished the moment that he was gone just now provoked more suspicion.  Granted, if Auxilia hadn't told him that he was dead-dead, not spy-dead, he would have just assumed that it was Ghost being Ghost...which was still a possibility, but Darclight was now keeping all his cards on the table, rather than removing them.<tt class="bbc_tt">"I need to ask him about something, and it could be time-critical."  </tt>Thinking quickly, he wove in another line of questioning.<tt class="bbc_tt"> "There was something else, too.  Something we didn't really get the time to ask because we wanted to act on our information as quickly as possible.  When did you and Ghost meet?  I mean...he came to you, right, and somehow he got word that I was still active..." </tt>He would have asked anyways, but now things took on a bit of a different cast when he knew what he did now.  Darclight would listen patiently to whatever info Boushh had on the matters, and then...<tt class="bbc_tt"> "Alright.  Thanks much for your time.  If it's not too much trouble, could I have your contact frequency so I can call you myself?  This is getting patched through Kanina's ship.  Oh, and if you see Ghost, or hear from him, let me know how I can get in touch with him, okay?"</tt><br/><br/>Once all that business was handled, and Darclight hung up with the bounty hunter, he turned back to Auxilia.<tt class="bbc_tt">"Black Team - collectively - had access to a terrifying amount of information and real-world resources.  Most of those went offline after Stormwatch was dissolved, but there's still whatever each of the individual members held onto.  That's why I want to find Night Owl, last I heard, she was still active and had quite the array at her disposal.  And I know that it seems wrong, but...let's face it.  While the team itself might have broken up, none of Black's operatives would have gone into inactivity, which rules the vast majority of them out.  Of my team, two of us left, one of us was still working, and the last embraced retirement.  I was the only one cast adrift, and that's because of...my particular history.  As for Blue Team - Strikeout is still public, he uses his tactile telekinesis to help with construction work - he's with Habitat for Humanity - half the team took Farscape's ship, the <em>Crichton</em>, and left Earth...the only blank slate is Iktomi, she disappeared, but the last I had heard she was in the American Southwest doing cave hunting amongst the old pueblos of the Anasazi."</tt>She would be worth looking up, if he could find her.<br/><br/><tt class="bbc_tt">"In short, your question about our ex-Weatherman is not together wholly unmerited." </tt>As for the person themselves, Darclight would explain in a moment, but first, Zohar.<tt class="bbc_tt">"Hmmmm...your analogy does make sense, in a John Carter of Mars sort of sense.  If it spent its entire existence traipsing around a different part of the galaxy, and then suddenly came here...if what you say is correct, though, then we have a problem.  Because it's definitely clear that Zohar is powerful, and has a bit of a pretentious streak.  If the only thing really keeping him from exercising his full ability is his unfamiliarity with the terrain, then that puts a bit of a time limit on how long we can potentially challenge Zohar without having to throw every last thing we have at him, or get help from outside our solar system.  Hopefully he takes a long time to adjust."</tt><br/><br/>Now, back to the Weather...man.<tt class="bbc_tt">"You probably know from previous run-ins that Stormwatch was reorganized at the turn of the millennium, and divided into three teams, who operated based on threat classification - Red, Blue, and Black.  I was actually brought onboard after the reorganization and selection of the second Weatherman took place, so what I can tell you about the process that installed him is secondhand at best."</tt><br/><br/>Disclaimers given, he continued.<tt class="bbc_tt"> "William Hillery.  Currently aged forty-three.  Graduate of Stanford University, with a double major in Political Science and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and a minor in Business.  Given his doctorate for Political Science at the age of twenty-nine, went on to serve in a political think-tank on K Street in DC until Stormwatch came calling four years later.  Served as Weatherman of third-generation Stormwatch until Retirement, at which time he left and headed to...somewhere in China, I had heard, to pursue opportunities there."  </tt><br/><br/>He continued.<tt class="bbc_tt">"My own personal observations?  Hillery is calculating and the driven sort...throws himself totally into whatever he's doing.  In that sense, he isn't very different from a good number of heroes...or villains.  As for what I know about his time there before I came onboard, here's what I have.  Five heroes were responsible for the choice of successor for the original Weatherman.  At the end, the committee was down to two choices.  Hillery and Alice Cassidy.  To share, Cassidy went on to head Firewall, one of the major superteams that operated on the Pacific Rim, from California to Indochina.  Stormwatch and Firewall actually conducted joint operations in Japan a few times, so I got to know her and did my research.  I'd liked working with her.  She's almost sixty now, but she had a good background for being the Weatherman."</tt><br/><br/>Pause.<tt class="bbc_tt">"The real question, the thing that the committee was trying to resolve, was to decide who to go with.  The argument for Hillery is that he is clearly a genius - something the founder was - and was multidisciplinary, so he could understand a great many aspects of the job.  The argument for Cassidy is her experience and personal connections to various governments, particularly in the West, which was still dealing with no more Soviet Union as well as a resurgence in terrorism.  In the end, the vote was four to one for Hillery, but I understand that the lone dissenter harbored some serious reservations about hiring someone so young, someone who was inexperienced and possibly not mature enough for the job."</tt>