Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]
<h1 id="title">Elliquiy Role Playing Forums</h1>
		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Extreme =&gt; Extreme Small Groups =&gt; Topic started by: Karma on 12-03-2009, 23:56:02</h2>
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				Title: <strong>Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Karma</strong> on <strong>12-03-2009, 23:56:02</strong>
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				New York, 1985.<br><br>The world is a mess.<br><br>Eight years after the Keene Act, the only hero of the golden years still active is Doctor Manhattan, and even he no longer fights crime – instead, he works diligently on physics problems, ignoring humanity's minor indiscretions in favor of solving its major issues via science. The Comedian has retired, Silk Spectre II has stopped adventuring, Ozymandias has become Adrian Veidt the businessman, and all other surviving heroes have gone into hiding... until now.<br><br>In a fit of what could be called adolescence, Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II cast aside their inhibitions and donned their costumes for what might have been one last time, until it brought to mind the rush they used to get from helping people in a way only costumed heroes can. The tales of their re-emergence quickly spread across the nation, and within days other heroes had begun to gallivant around once more, aiding the staggered public in this time of useless law enforcement agencies and corruption – and especially in the face of nuclear obliteration.<br><br>The government had stagnated, the state of international relations deteriorated, and it occurred to those who were able that there was no longer any point in obeying this, the preeminently incompetent United States of America. The populace had already started losing coherence as an obedient society, and in order to keep it from going overboard, costumed heroes would once again rise in place of the absent police force. They were the last vanguard against catastrophe, the only hope for the future of the world, the light at the end of the tunnel.<br><br>They were the Watchmen.<br><br>A Chance Dance: Pax/Dancing Asp [Wisti and Kolbrandr] (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32366.0)<br>A Foggy Night: Nite Owl/Miss Demise [Trippingsatyr + Sephora] (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32416.0)
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Sephora</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 00:08:03</strong>
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				Miss Demise<br>New York City steets<br>Evening<br><br>The city was melting.&nbsp; At least, that’s what it looked like.&nbsp; With steam rising up from the wet streets of New York, if you squinted your eyes just the right way, the world looked as though it was slowly sliding into liquid nothingness.&nbsp; It had just rained recently , though Amy couldn’t recall if it had happened tonight or the night before.&nbsp; The days did seem to blur together for a recovering alcoholic. If not for a retired vigilante.&nbsp; Life had become so….boring.&nbsp; Everyday looking like every other, and the future holding little mysteries to the thrill addicted young woman.&nbsp; Except of course, for this cold war with the Russians that was going on.&nbsp; Yet, Amy just couldn’t find the energy to get herself worked up about it.<br><br>Amy rose; her shiny booted heels giving the smallest sound as they press against the wet concrete beneath them, rising up from her seated position from the park bench. Her eye's shone a liquid green, matching the melting city as she peered around her surroundings; the look on her face a mix of consideration and aggressiveness. The night's sky sundered the air and befouled the moon once more. Only clouds and skyscrapers could block something so beautiful.&nbsp; Odd how such meek things could cover something as mighty and eternal as the moon.&nbsp; &nbsp;Short pink hair blows on the cross wind breeze, fluttering around the tan, heart shaped face of the slowly aging adventurer. Her&nbsp; leather jacket fluttered and tore asunder revealing the tanned skin and the tiny vest like material that some might consider a top, and others might consider a nosebleed in the making. She did nothing to fix the jacket, only gazed skyward. A beautiful night indeed, yet there was something…amiss.&nbsp; Something so distinctly wrong that sent shivers through her very soul…..damn, she needed a drink.&nbsp; It was whenever she got introspective like this that she got frustrated.&nbsp; And when she got frustrated, she liked to get drunk.&nbsp; Yet, getting drunk often caused her to become introspective.&nbsp; It was an endless cycle.<br><br>Amy’s long slender hands, agile and perfected, still hang within the pockets of her coat, not moving from there place even as she began walking down the wet streets of New York City.&nbsp; What a night indeed. The silence persisted and the wind only caressed her form; moving about her body like a knowing lover. Tall, increasingly dangerous, and physically demanding; no one could claim that time had done damage to the young woman’s body; her mind...now that was another matter entirely. <br><br>Walking into the alleyway that worked as a shortcut to her favored pub, Amy smiles a predators grin as she see’s the group of gangbangers that began to circle around her.&nbsp; She had been waiting for this opportunity ever since she had hear about Night Owl and Silk Spectre's return to the game.&nbsp; If they could do it....why couldn't the rest of them?&nbsp; She had been becoming more and more restless as the years had gone by; finding none of the thrills that she loved so much in the mundane life of the normal civilian.&nbsp; But this new wave of acting out against the Keene Act....it made her....<em>hungry</em>.&nbsp; <br><br>The smile never wavered on the young woman's face as the group of men came closer and closer to her; tightening the circle around the woman.&nbsp; “Its been awhile, so while I’d like to make this last…I doubt you boys can manage. " her mouth peeled the words out into the open air before the woman spun her heel. Her heavy lifted high heeled boot connected with the face of one of the men who had started moving in. The man dropped instantly, his head collapsing under the blow and several bones in his face shattering. Amy regained her composure a long moment and dusted off her coat from the trail of some wet debris. <br><br>Game on.<br>
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 01:05:34</strong>
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				Dinah Cirzy<br>Landing in New York City Municipal Airport<br>Evening<br><br>Mankind has always dreamed of flight.&nbsp; Only one man has ever achieved such a thing under his own power, and he is the next best thing to a god that we've ever had.&nbsp; <br><br>I sit with my legs crossed, one hand upon the armrest, the other playing one of the many games I often do when waiting.&nbsp; It is not boredom that prompts me.&nbsp; Boredom is a state of mind, and states of mind are such fluid things.&nbsp; The glint of the golden Double Eagle glints, sparking through the eyes of the stewardess as she stares, fascinated by the quick flipping of the glistening coin.&nbsp; I could call her over to me with a simple gesture, frown and crush her spirit with depression, or smile and make her feel good for the rest of the day.&nbsp; I do none of these things and make the coin vanish, watching the lovely stewardess come to her senses with a rather amusing look of befuddlement.&nbsp; <br><br>The coin slides along my wrist with a cool kiss, a faint memory of a kiss I'd given to another so long ago.&nbsp; It slips into the pouch hidden under my sleeve, much like the truth of what happened back then.&nbsp; The plane is descending, the silent engines running on principles and designs created by a god gently lowering us as we approach the&nbsp; center of human attention: New York, New York.&nbsp; Doctor Manhattan is there; Rorschach feared and awe inspiring; the newly returned Nite Owl. <br><br>And Laurie.&nbsp; <br><br>The Comedian has died, an ignominious, seemingly pointless death, a giant felled at the foot of his home, like the one in the faerie tales.&nbsp; But it would take someone with incredible skills, a determination born of either madness or desperation to kill him.&nbsp; I can only guess at the few people who could manage it; the reason any of the people I could think of would have for doing it is another matter entirely, and beyond me.&nbsp; <br><br>"If you wouldn't mind fastening your seat belt, miss?"&nbsp; <br><br>I look up and smile at the stewardess, who blushes and looks down, though she isn't really sure why she should do so.&nbsp; She doesn't remember, and won't ever remember, not really.&nbsp; She might dream about it, or catch herself daydreaming of it, but it will never surface in her memories.&nbsp; "Thank you, Suzy," I reply with a smile and do as she asks.&nbsp; First class is full of tantalizing benefits, such as personal service when a bell and a lit sign could serve as well.&nbsp; And a large and soundproofed washroom.&nbsp; <br><br>I sigh as the plane begins its final run and feel the heavy flutter of my heart.&nbsp; Will Laurie have forgotten, sublimated what she could remember fondly with the reins of her parent's disapproval?&nbsp; I remain very sure she doesn't know about her father; no one does, except her mother, and me.&nbsp; Unless Doctor Manhattan knows.&nbsp; <br><br>And that thought sends shivers down my spine.&nbsp; <br><br>Soon I'll be in New York, and the hunt will begin.&nbsp; Because I have to make sure, have to know that this is one thing Laurie doesn't find out the hard way.&nbsp; Because if she does, it could do something to her, break something fundamental inside her.&nbsp; I don't want that to happen.&nbsp; <br><br>Not unless it's me who does the breaking.&nbsp; I deserve that much, at least.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Wistful Dream</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 01:29:57</strong>
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				Dancing Asp<br>New York City<br>The Streets/ Lita Keroln's apartment<br>Evening<br><br>This was a strange country. To think that people let themselves go because of laws put into place by those who abused the laws. A snort of contempt left the petite females lips as she paced through the ally ways of the city. It was dirty, dank and fill of squalor and death. It was just like Ciaro, like Alexandria, like London. Though, thankfully it was warmer then London. London had been hard on the woman who had grown from the ages three to twenty two in Egypt. She missed the heat of the desert, just as the snake currently sleeping in their new apartment. <br><br>For all that the Dancing Asp scorned big corporations and names she had more then enough money to install herself into the city in style. Her apartment was something that could easily make the inside of any magazine in home decor, decorated with faultless taste and for much cheaper then anyone would imagine, many artifacts from Egypt had come here with her. Many weapons as well. Her fingers slipped down to caress at the daggers that rested in sheaths attached to her upper thighs, hidden slightly as the chiffon of her skirt swirled with the movements of her steps. The black of her outfit was stark against the warm tawny color of her skin, her pale eyes glittered in the night as the air rushed against her when she picked up speed. She was almost home.<br><br>Tonight had not gone overly well, this country was ridiculous, shielding the rich and pampered, giving them the rights to keep the commoners down. At least in her homeland they had not been surprised with rapid rises and falls. A corrupt ruler did not often last long in the desert, for it was harsh and so were its people, humans could not give you fear like a sand storm or lions crouching and snarling. Or asps, swaying and threatening, at that thought a smile quirked the full lips of the lithe young woman. Lita enjoyed it when her work brought down the corrupt, the high and mighty who needed to be toppled. <br><br>Apparently costumed heros were resurfacing here. She found it quaint, they wanted to fight for justice against the thugs, the physical threats to the peace. Yet they were only aiding the higher powers, the powers that had so corrupted America. When there was a problem Lita was the type of girl to go straight to the root of it, the businesses that ran, influenced and basically controlled the current day. <br><br>She vaulted herself up and into the air to catch the lowest rail of the fire escape attached to her building, she swung herself like any gymnast would, and got onto the first rung. It didn't take long for the agile woman to get herself up and to the roof. She had paid for the pent house here for a reason. It took under two minutes for her to work through the security codes and devices, and then she was in and home. She dropped like a cat down to the floor on on all fours before standing. It was dark but she didn't need much light, she knew this apartment inside and out by now, she had made sure of it and sure that she had unlikely weapons stashed in several places that she could grab at a moments notice. She was an outsider to this world here and she doubted anyone would come to kill her but if they did, well they wouldn't find it easy.<br><br>Cleopatra wouldn't like that either she thought with a smile as she went to the climbing tree she had had installed for her pet snake. The coiling serpent was her only friend here so far. "Hello Cleo..." she murmured softly in a sweet husky voice that seemed too big for a slender slip of a thing like her. More voice then woman it appeared, yet her forget me not eyes were bright as she watched the asp move slowly, turning to glance out the window that gave her a view of the glittering lights of the city. "We will fight poison with poison..." she whispered to herself. And she would do it alone.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 01:49:37</strong>
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				Adrian Veidt<br>Veidt's main office<br>Evening<br><br>Talking to several business associates and receiving a report from several of his projects Veidt looks over the information while listening to what everyone has to say.<br><br>His keen intellect and skill allows him to multi-task on reading the reports, sending an e-mail to someone, watching the news, and paying attention to the talking.&nbsp; To his associates however it appears he is completely ignoring them.<br><br><strong>"Mr. Veidt we are talking to you,"</strong> says one of the associatees, <strong>"This is very important on what we need to know how much progress that you have made since Dr. Manhattan's absence to Mars."</strong><br><br><strong>"Everything is going well and according to plans, my life has been threatened once already while I was discussing to a few other associates that I have more power than them,"</strong> Veidt says as he looks at the news of Spectre's and Owl's return to the superhero and rumors of more following suit.&nbsp; He keeps this surprise hidden under his face.<br><br>Bored and tired with the squabbling of his business associates he stands up.<br><br><strong>"It is getting late and I have to finish my work,"</strong> he says and shows them the door <br><br>He gets up and turns around and looks at the sun setting on the city of New York.&nbsp; Adrian reminescences his past and chuckles at the occuring events.<br><br><strong>"A simple revision to the plan,"</strong> he says to himself.<br><br>He heads to his computer and begins to type a message.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 07:17:04</strong>
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				<table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/shinobi42/shinobi.jpg)</td><td><span style="font-size: 2em;" class="bbc_size">Kid Arrow</span><br><br>October 12, 1985; <br>Day of Comedians' Murder<br>Tokyo, Japan<br>Evening</td></tr></tbody></table><br>Built in the shadow of a mushroom cloud, the 23-citied metropolis shone a neon so bright that it captured the starlit sky in a haze.&nbsp; Heat rose from the busy streets below, a million people clamoring as they transitioned from setting to setting, some without a word, others with raucous, satyric glee.&nbsp; Overhead, the whirling blades of a fleet of helicopters darted past ultra-modern high-rise apartments, affording the city a totalitarian spirit that it had not seen since 1945 when half the city was destroyed.&nbsp; But no bombs emanated from the belly of these black flying steeds to-nite; only a man.&nbsp; Garbed in white, he appeared like a shooting star plummeting earthward, hands outstretched and legs coiled for impact.&nbsp; The man landed in a roll atop of a high rise, disappeared in the shadow of the building, then emerged running across rooftops, bounding and vaulting past obstacles, and treading the dizzying heights like an overeager schoolchild when he first sees snow.&nbsp; Near perilous edges, the man accelerated, his running body conducting itself like a missile, his red scarf blowing wildly behind him.<br><br>Taut, lean muscles all worked in unison to draw him skyward near the precipice between two tall buildings, his body outstretched, his arms symmetrical, his feet together.&nbsp; Then, in the apex of the leap, he curled his body at the abdomen and dove down, parallel to the vertical horizon of the building.&nbsp; Windows blurred past him, but he kept count of them.&nbsp; Removing two shafts from his quiver, he expertly drove the cylindrical arrowheads into the concrete, thus gradually decreasing his speed.&nbsp; He braced himself in the frame of a window, peeled the tip of his rough rider leather glove from his wrist to inspect his watch, then tapped the radio on his forearm guard.<br><br>&nbsp;"I'm in position," he said.<br><br><em>Elsewhere.</em><br><br>&nbsp;"We have received confirmation that the Fourth Estate has reached his position," an African American gentleman with a boxed haircut and a crisp white shirt said as he lowered his brick-sized cellular from his ear.&nbsp; He reached over and placed his hand on top of Mrs. Cumberland's hand.&nbsp; &nbsp;"This is almost over."<br><br>Mrs. Cumberland, who appeared to be Italian, had dressed immaculately for the occasion in a shoulder-padded purple blazer with a low cleavage cut.&nbsp; Expensive, custom jewelry adorned her neck, ears, wrists and fingers.&nbsp; Her husband, a middle-aged gentleman with slicked back peppered hair, sat beside her.&nbsp; Of the two, he seemed to be the most in anguish, but that is because Mrs. Cumberland was a proud and strong woman.&nbsp; She eyed the American agent quietly, considered what to say, and then finally said:<br><br>&nbsp;"Then make the call."<br><br>Agent Murphy nodded, then picked up the phone.&nbsp; A number of other agents picked up their phones, too, but no one approached the conference table that had served as the Cumberland's work space and psychiatric couch for the last three days.&nbsp; Murphy made the call.<br><br>Someone on the other side picked up almost immediately.<br><br><strong>"So do you have the money?"</strong> that someone said.<br><br>&nbsp;"Yes, we have the money.&nbsp; We are willing to cooperate."&nbsp; Mr. Cumberland was nearing hysterics.&nbsp; 'The girl!' he mouthed.&nbsp; 'I have to talk to my girl'&nbsp; Murphy nodded at him, put a finger up, and continued to speak in a clear, affirmative voice into the receiver.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Listen, we have to know that the girl is all right."<br><br><strong>"No, first you give me the money!"</strong><br><br>&nbsp;"Look, we are going to give you the money, but first we have to know the girl's all right," Murphy said sternly.&nbsp; <br><br>There was a shuffle on the other end.&nbsp; Then, a soft, melodic voice, filled with a deep understanding of melancholy.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Hello?" the child whispered uncertainly.<br><br>&nbsp;"Hi, Debra," &nbsp;Murphy said in a reassuring voice.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Your parents are sitting right beside me.&nbsp; They want to tell you that they love you, but I only have fifteen seconds to speak to you.&nbsp; I need you to do as I say, okay?&nbsp; But before you do anything, I need you to listen to everything I'm going to say.&nbsp; First, I need you to put the phone down.&nbsp; Then you're going to shut your eyes, cover your ears, and lay on the ground, okay?&nbsp; Can you do that for me?"<br><br>&nbsp;"I think so..."<br><br>"Good.&nbsp; Do it now."<br><br><em>In a lavish apartment in a Japanese high rise.</em><br><br>A tiny little girl of four years of age looked quizzically at the sneering men lounging about on the couch.&nbsp; Then, she placed the heavy cellular on top of the coffee table.&nbsp; The men were a bit puzzled.&nbsp; They were in the depths of savage curiosity when the little girl, dirty but generally unharmed (if a bit mishandled), curled up into a ball on the ground and dutifully covered her ears and shut her eyes.&nbsp; Her handler immediately grabbed the phone.<br><br><strong>"What is all this ab--"</strong><br><br>He was interrupted by a loud crash.&nbsp; An arrow pierced the glass window and soared through the circle created by his arm as he spoke on the phone.&nbsp; Since the rope that it was attached to had given up slack, the arrow sputtered in the air momentarily before the rope caught his wrist in a grapple.&nbsp; After a second of two, the dangerous satellite crashed head-first into the cellphone, piercing it, and then had enough force to penetrate his palm.&nbsp; Before the man could register pain, he was pulled off of his feet and through the window, screaming.&nbsp; Doppler effect came into play.<br><br>The men stood up, looking on in astonishment at what had just occurred.&nbsp; Then, another arrow soared through the window and past them.&nbsp; Their eyes followed it as it lodged itself into drywall on the opposite side of the room.&nbsp; One of the men, the most intrepid of the bunch, thought that the arrow might contain a message; but there was no message at all.&nbsp; Not a comprehensible one anyways.&nbsp; There was only a blinding flash and a thunderous roar, followed by a cloud of smoke that billowed with amazing volume into the room.<br><br>A voice said behind them:<br><br>&nbsp;"Well, boys; guess what time it is...?" <br><br>Kid Arrow stepped forward, his eyes narrowed into two condemning slits of hatred, one set of knuckles being sharpened by a squeezing palm.&nbsp; He was garbed in white, save for a long red scarf; his helmet had six eyes; his presence spelled certain doom.&nbsp; The Kid seemed to cheer up considerably when no one answered his question though.&nbsp; He shrugged his shoulders with indifference and in accordance to what time it was, dashed towards one of the men and socked him in the face, the resulting impact ramming his nose into his brain.&nbsp; &nbsp;"It's hammer time!" &nbsp;Arrow said in monotone: then he broke out with a lyrical:&nbsp; &nbsp;"Woah, woah woah woah woah woah, woah!"&nbsp; He grabbed another man's wrists, jerked his arm out of his shoulder socket, spun him around, kicked him in the spine with enough force to drive another man through the wall, then discarded his immobile body on the couch.&nbsp; Turning, the Kid drove his heel into another man's temple with a roundhouse, crushing his skull.<br><br>At the obscene violence, two of the remaining men attempted to flee.&nbsp; However, their path was blocked by a special sort of arrow.&nbsp; The kind that binds items by freezing them.&nbsp; <br><br>&nbsp;"Only one way to escape, fellows," Arrow said, his hands outstretched sympathetically.&nbsp; Then, he hiked his thumb.&nbsp; &nbsp;"That's through a window."&nbsp; Arrow shrugged.
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				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Transgirlenstein</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 14:06:50</strong>
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				Dana Dreiberg/Nite Owl<br>New York City<br>Evening<br><br>Dana sighed as she poured herself a second cup of coffee.&nbsp; The news had just ended, report after report of new costumed hero after new costumed hero.&nbsp; It was the 40s and 60s all over again.&nbsp; She lifted the coffee to her unpainted lips and sipped it before putting it down.&nbsp; sighing she took off the glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose.&nbsp; "I hope we're doing the right thing.." she whispered to no one in particular.&nbsp; "Why is it we seem to infect everyone we touch?"<br><br>She looked over at her basement door trying to decide if tonight was another night of this.&nbsp; Quickly she took a long sip of coffee then put it down and moved to the door.&nbsp; Her hand touched the door handle as she hesitated again.&nbsp; Finally she turned it and headed down into the Owl's Nest.&nbsp; Slowly she started to get dresed, with each piece of the armor she was no longer the meek Dana Dreiberg but the masculine and powerful Nite Owl.&nbsp; &nbsp;All that was left was the goggles.&nbsp; When they slid over her eyes, she flicked them on.&nbsp; <br><br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 17:52:52</strong>
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				<strong>Kid Arrow<br>October 13, 1985,<br>In-Transit,<br>Pacific Ocean</strong><br><br>As far as military flying vessels go, the Dwight D. Eisenhower was all right.&nbsp; A portly ensign continuously made his rounds with an assortment of juices, sodas and snacks, but the Kid was not particularly hungry.&nbsp; Every time that the ensign approached, the masked adventurer bade him away.&nbsp; Arrow seemed too busy reading the debriefing anyway.<br><br>Agent Murphy had been watching the back of the Kid's helmet for a while now, working up the courage to approach him.&nbsp; After considerable deliberation, he quietly got up, approached the costumed crime fighter and gestured to the seat.<br><br>&nbsp;"Is this seat taken?" Murphy asked.<br><br>Kid Arrow glanced up at the man, blew a pink bubble with the gum he was chewing, popped it, and rolled it all back into his mouth.&nbsp; Then he glanced at the seat.<br><br>&nbsp;"Free country, pal," the Kid said.<br><br>&nbsp;"Thanks," Murphy replied.&nbsp; He sighed a bit as he eased into the chair, buckling himself in.&nbsp; &nbsp;"I'm Agent Abel Murphy," he said, extending his hand out to the kid.<br><br>The kid glanced at the hand, raised an eyebrow, and then took Murphy seriously.&nbsp; <br><br>&nbsp;"I know who you are, Agent Murphy.&nbsp; Read the briefing."&nbsp; The Kid tapped the paperwork in front of him brusquely.&nbsp; &nbsp;"Is there something that I can help you with?"<br><br>Murphy frowned, slid his outstretched hand into his own coat pocket and removed a small envelope.&nbsp; He placed the envelope, marked Top Secret, on top of the Kid's papers.<br><br>&nbsp;"The Comedian's dead," he said.&nbsp; If he had wanted to see some sort of reaction from the teen archer, there was none.&nbsp; The young man simply opened the envelope and looked through the crime scene photographs.<br><br>&nbsp;"There's one towards the end that you might find interesting," Murphy said, rubbing his nose.<br><br>The Kid glanced at Murphy, then just went to the last photograph; an image taken by surveillance of a masked prowler entering the Comedian's high rise apartment.&nbsp; It was a close-up of the masked intruder's face; a familiar face indeed.<br><br>"Rorschach."<br><br>"Familiar with him?"<br><br>&nbsp;"Worked a case with him back in '83.&nbsp; Scary guy."<br><br>&nbsp;"But the Comedian was scarier."<br><br>&nbsp;"He had his moments," the Kid said.&nbsp; &nbsp;"So what's the deal?&nbsp; You think Rorschach killed the Comedian?"<br><br>&nbsp;"No.&nbsp; But we have a problem."<br><br>A photograph of Rorschach and a woman, taken from someplace outside of a kitchen window.&nbsp; The image was not clear, and the Kid could not identify the person Rorschach was speaking with.&nbsp; He would not have known who she was anyways.<br><br>&nbsp;"I have no idea who this is," the Kid stated.<br><br>&nbsp;"Dana Dreiberg.&nbsp; Intelligence confirms that she was associated with the Minute Men."&nbsp; <br><br>The Kid shrugged.<br><br>&nbsp;"So what?"<br><br>"We worked this shit out eight years ago, Arrow.&nbsp; No more capes, no more masks, only grunt police work.&nbsp; We put a lot of these whackos on ice, and the few that slipped past us did a good job hiding their midnight crusades.&nbsp; But this..." Murphy slapped an image of the Comedian's dead carcass on a New York city street, &nbsp;"This has the workings of being a shitstorm; mask gets killed, another mask investigates, convenes with another mask.&nbsp; It's bullshit.&nbsp; And it's criminal."<br><br>"Washington wants you to put a stop to Rorschach and eliminate any vigilantes along the way.&nbsp; Failure to commit to this mission will revoke your clearance of the Keene Act and put you up on federal charges if you ever don your ridiculous get-up again."&nbsp; Murphy paused, letting everything sink in.&nbsp; &nbsp;"The Fed is not fucking around on this one."&nbsp; Murphy rose to his feet and began to walk off.<br><br>&nbsp;"Agent Murphy, does it ever bother you how much of a dickhead you are?"<br><br>&nbsp;"Excuse me," Murphy said, turning about, his eyebrows knitted with anger.<br><br>In a very pacific way, the Kid shrugged.&nbsp; &nbsp;"I would have done it if you had just said please.&nbsp; Asshole."&nbsp; But the Kid was not in any way serene on the inside; all he could think about was how fucked he was.&nbsp; Had he been older, he might have relented to quit the hero game; but he was too much of an arrogant prick to quit anything.<br><br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Sephora</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 19:30:08</strong>
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				Miss Demise<br>New York City streets/ Blue Moon Bar<br>Evening<br><br><br><br>A blow to the hip and another man was down. A twist of the arm and there went the third.&nbsp; Fighting was more of an art form than anything else, but she lived for it.&nbsp; One of the few remaining gangbangers actually managed a blow across her shoulder.&nbsp; All that really did was make the adrenaline rush even greater.&nbsp; Slamming her palm into the man in questions nose, Amy pants for breath as she stands in the center of the alleyway, surrounded by a bunch of bodies on the ground who were either unconscious or too afraid and in pain to stand up. “You lucky.” She says, wiping her brow as she gazes at the men with heated eyes.&nbsp; “I’d take you to jail myself, but its only my word against yours so…”<br>With that, the pink haired woman who caused so much destruction walked away.&nbsp; Simply walked away, leaving the thugs to groan, moan, and crawl away with defeat.<br><br>Once she was out of the alleyway, it was all Amy could do to keep from humming.&nbsp; None the less, there was an obvious bounce to the young woman’s step.&nbsp; She felt better than she had in months!&nbsp; Nothing like shattering a man’s jawbone to raise your spirits, that was for sure.&nbsp; She didn’t even feel like drinking any more!<br><br>Eyeing a payphone, the young woman hesitates before heading over to it.&nbsp; It had been awhile since she had talked to la familia, the months had just gone by so quickly….she wasn’t going to the bar, so she might as well.<br><br>Dialing up the out of state number, Amy hesitates for a moment before smiling a smile more fit for a woman that hadn’t just taken out a group of full grown men single handedly. <br>“Hey Papi!&nbsp; I know, I know its been awhile, but I’m still in the city and-“ <br>&nbsp;She is cut off.&nbsp; Quickly and simply with a single simple sentence.<br><br>“El murio el payaso.”&nbsp; <br><br>A minute later, the only thing heard on either end of the phone lines was the dial tone.<br><br>Ten minutes later, she was sitting at her usual bar stool; staring at the half finished pint in her hand like it was a foreign object.&nbsp; El murio el payaso.&nbsp; The clown had died there.&nbsp; He had died in the city.<br>&nbsp; <br>Taking another swig of her drink, Amy shakes her head.&nbsp; “Ese tipo es un agrandado! Vive deciendo tonterias y haciendose el importante!” she groans to the bartender, who nodded his head knowingly; as though he actually understood a single word she was saying, all while refilling her beer mug.<br><br>And the comedian was all the things she just said he was!&nbsp; So….so why did she suddenly feel so hollow?&nbsp; <br><br>When did this happen?&nbsp; And why?&nbsp; And by who?&nbsp; Questions whirled around Amy's fogged mind, but she was definitely not in the position to answer a single one just yet. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 20:21:42</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Dinah Cirzy<br>New York City<br>Dinah's Apartment <br>Evening<br><br>Typically, despite my best efforts, I cannot secure the penthouse suite of the building.&nbsp; It seems someone beat me to it, and I find that mildly irritating, even though I should really have known better.&nbsp; The person living there now has apparently settled in for a nice long stay as well, which is unfortunate but not surprising.&nbsp; I suppose it's my innate desire for superiority that drives me to do that, but then again, the view from the upper floors is pretty impressive.&nbsp; <br><br>And you don't have to worry quite so much about accidentally gassing the people on the floor above you when concocting weaponized drugs.&nbsp; <br><br>The apartment was furnished while i was on my way, but it still remains spartan; I'll eventually add a few homey touches, but for now, I need to prepare myself.&nbsp; I lay out my clothing, and the Case, and start putting things away, considering as I do so the tasks ahead of me.&nbsp; There is Laurie.&nbsp; She's my first concern, really.&nbsp; It bothers me that we haven't been in touch in so long, but I doubt she will have forgotten me.&nbsp; I certainly remember her.&nbsp; Then there is research.&nbsp; The bane of all investigations.&nbsp; At the very least the police will give me what they know - they have to, by Federal Law.&nbsp; Not that they will want to!&nbsp; They hate people like me interfering.&nbsp; <br><br>It was a surprise to hear that Laurie is working with Dreiberg though.&nbsp; I have to wonder why she left Doctor Manhattan.&nbsp; That is also worth looking into.&nbsp; The cancer situation is an obvious ploy - if he had been giving people cancer, I would have discovered it in Laurie's medical files a while ago.&nbsp; Such an obvious mistake.&nbsp; But that was the point, wasn't it?&nbsp; She's not a threat.&nbsp; <br><br>A chill runs down my spine.&nbsp; <br><br>I set the thought aside and continue.&nbsp; There will undoubtedly be others arriving to play here; but I'm not the kind who goes out and fights on the street.&nbsp; My battles are subtle and quiet, usually taking place in homes or offices.&nbsp; And the more I think on it, the more it comes down to me visiting Laurie at home.&nbsp; It won't take too long to figure out where she is....the obvious thing is to ask the Nite Owl, of course.&nbsp; <br><br>I stop, seeing I've put all the clothes away in order, the mild meditation having done little to calm my heart and mind.&nbsp; It's been too long since I've seen her, written to her, spoken to her.&nbsp; Nearly two decades.&nbsp; I undress slowly, looking at the Case.&nbsp; My tools.&nbsp; My real life.&nbsp; I could go out tonight, but it would entail a risk.&nbsp; I don't know this city well, and while there are Watchmen here, there is more violence and danger than back home.&nbsp; The leather is warm and buttery under my hands, and the silk begs to be put on.&nbsp; I slept on the flight, but I also indulged myself....<br><br>I sigh and put my outfit away, tucked safely in the back.&nbsp; The Case goes on the shelf above it.&nbsp; A shower, and then rest, perhaps.&nbsp; <br><br>If I can still my mind and heart long enough.&nbsp; <br><br>I'm afraid, and I'm not sure why.<br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Transgirlenstein</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 20:28:12</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Nite Owl<br>New York City<br>The Nest/Sky<br>Evening<br><br>Nite Owl finished dressing for the evening.&nbsp; As far as most people knew the Nite Owl was a man and she intended to keep that way.&nbsp; The armor was sculpted as such, it had taken her months to design and build this suit.&nbsp; She walked toward Archie, climbing up the ramp and into it.&nbsp; Pressing the button to close the ramp she started to check the console.&nbsp; Flipping a few switches she listened to Archie powering up before very slowly gliding it down the tunnel toward the exit.&nbsp; In no time it roared out of the tunnel and into the night sky.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 20:34:30</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Victoria Barrowe, the Hellion.<br>Club Mercy, New York City<br>11:02 PM</strong><br><br>The downstairs is a teeming sea of bodies, fueled more by passion and desperation than the alcohol and music.&nbsp; She loved to watch, to lean out over the balcony from her loft office to look down the geometric-cornered terrace of balconies to the nightclub floor below.&nbsp; It was easy, even at this meager height, to imagine that she was staring down the tunnel of a microscope at some petrie dish of livid bacteria, its reproduction fever-pitched with the catalyst of body heat and a chain-reaction of chemical release.&nbsp; It was easier, though, to imagine she was staring down the barrel of the world's largest gun, and on the other end wasn't a bullet, but a swarm of them... an arsenal of hot skin and cold drinks, Nostalgia-scented bosoms and fresh-cropped, still bristly hair, low-pay jobs, fear of destruction, anger at parents and lawyers and politicians and doctors.&nbsp; <br><br>Long legs carried her closer, crossing each other with each step, and stared down the barrel of the Desperation Cannon, waiting to be aimed and fired.&nbsp; Club Mercy... god, she was proud of that name.&nbsp; It hinted at baby seals and crumbling cathedrals and broken hospitals all at once.&nbsp; One of a hundred clubs in the Soho district, but somehow the one that defied change and trendification.&nbsp; Where a topknot crew would come without starting a fight, where the trenchcoats danced with the bleach-blondes and the Wall Street crew could get their rocks off after a day of bleeding the country dry.<br><br>War was coming alright.&nbsp; And if the nukes didn't get them, this club would.<br><br>She was wearing only a black silk robe... the temperature on these upper levels would rise steadily from nine at night until three in the morning, then clear out slowly over the next few hours.&nbsp; The office where she was standing was basically an open area, beige and red carpet with a mahogany desk, dressing screen and chiffarobe in art deco.&nbsp; She called it an office, but it was her home; it had once been a building full of 19th century apartments... the stairwell had been gutted like a spine ripped from a fish, then the new stairwell constructed up from the ground, tier by tier.&nbsp; The lower three floors had become one massive area-- an elevated dance floor, recessed bars, and lounge tables filled the massive space, and the upper three floors were essentially Victoria's to do as she wished.<br><br>Tonight, though, she was less concerned with the test-slide below than she was with the little electric window within the sideroom she used for actual work... the lamp on the desk would flicker if the telephone rang, and as she made her way to the desk, she closed the heavy, insulated door to drown out the thrumming of a Joy Division track from downstairs.&nbsp; Bathed in the pale blue glow of the television, she looked again at the newspaper's she'd accumulated over the past few days... images of a massive hovership-- private and unlicensed, no doubt-- balooning like a curious moth near the towering inferno on the east side.&nbsp; A sidebar, days earlier, she'd torn out and laid atop that scenic black and white image-- man falls from highrise window, military honors at the funeral.&nbsp; <br><br>Oh really?&nbsp; Honors, you say?<br><br>She'd recognized the name by luck.&nbsp; The KGB would be smiling and kicking themselves simultaneously to know that the Comedian was dead... one less capitalist icon to shatter on the pavement, but one less treasure-trove of information to pick clean.&nbsp; From her own assessment, the death was clearly an assassination of some kind.... probably to keep that very treasure-trove buried.&nbsp; But she was out of the spy business, and had no interest in re-entering the world of government secrets, even if there was a good chunk of money or leverage to be gained there.&nbsp; And if half the things she'd heard about the dead spook were true... Hell, if a <i>quarter</i> of them were true, then she was quite satisfied to see that he'd been escorted onto the express elevator to hell.<br><br>Beside that stack of newsprint was another.&nbsp; Rash of vigilante violence.&nbsp; Escalation of tensions in Afghanistan.&nbsp; Doomsday clock... <br><br>Fucking Doomsday.&nbsp; She had a drink downstairs called the doomsday clock-- shot of Irish cream, shot of Jager, shot of grain alcohol, taken out of a pipet so it comes on smooth, then gets dark, then turns to fire.&nbsp; Tasted like complete shit, but people thought it was cool.&nbsp; <br><br>More vigilantes.&nbsp; Nothing so noble as the Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's rumored return, but... they were out there. And they wanted... what?&nbsp; Justice?&nbsp; Order?&nbsp; She was laughing as she stepped across the blood-wine carpet and spun the combination-dial of the gunsafe, mid-room in the adjoining, windowless tomb she called her 'working space'.&nbsp; <br><br><i>Fuck the spook,</i> she thought, as she stood from her desk and made her way to the vault that adjoined her office.&nbsp; <i>I'm more interested in the flies his corpse is drawing.</i>&nbsp; <br><br>The steel door swung slowly open, and the skin of her 'costume' gleamed back in the wan light like a beetle carapace.&nbsp; "Hello, you," she said softly.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>13-03-2009, 21:14:54</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Kid Arrow,<br>October 19, 1985,<br>Day Dr. Manhattan Leaves for Mars,<br>Evening</strong><br><br>From McKenzie's Notes:<br><br>Went to funeral, saw Manhattan, Veidt and Dreiberg.&nbsp; Followed investigation into Dreiberg by tailing her.&nbsp; Subject spoke with Veidt, shook hands, made friendly, returned home.&nbsp; Watched subject for half-day.&nbsp; Investigation fruitless.&nbsp; Considered line of questioning stupid.&nbsp; Just stabs at dark.&nbsp; Don't know anything.&nbsp; Relying on military intelligence bad idea.&nbsp; Took better photographs of subject.<br><br>Returned to Fed Building.&nbsp; Picked up Hollis Mason's book, Under the Hood, from a news stand.&nbsp; Thought it was bombastic and egotistical, like most biographies.&nbsp; Strange, reading personal details of people you know not as fun as I thought it might be.&nbsp; Question arises:&nbsp; How many people know Blake's secret identity?<br><br>Revelation:&nbsp; Blake's secret identity worst kept secret ever.<br><br>I go to Hollis Mason's auto garage to look around.&nbsp; Discover pertinent documents that finger Dreiberg as Nite Owl.&nbsp; Dreiberg and Mason chummy.&nbsp; Curious at relationship?&nbsp; Responses to questions seem to indicate that Dreiberg is a homosexual.&nbsp; You are not getting any love, Mr. Mason.&nbsp; What's the connection?&nbsp; I take a black-and-white photo of Mason and Dreiberg together.&nbsp; Wonder who took the picture?&nbsp; Mason lives alone.&nbsp; So does Dreiberg.<br><br>Refuse to believe Mason in any way has formed relationship with Dreiberg just to be friends, grandfatherly, a good samaritan.&nbsp; I have adopted the idea that masked crusaders are sexual deviants.&nbsp; Explain use of spandex otherwise.<br><br>Feel like a heel mistreating Mason in notes.&nbsp; Nice man.&nbsp; Feel bad about the whole age thing.&nbsp; Mason's very lonely, but too persistent for his own good.&nbsp; Might do him good to go to a California resort with somebody like the first Silk Specter.&nbsp; He'd probably never do it.<br><br>Sat and watched Dr. Manhattan on late night TV.&nbsp; Cancer revelation curious.&nbsp; Jon has been Jon for twenty five years; cancer reports 25 years after the fact curious.&nbsp; People get cancer from contaminated water faster.&nbsp; I think.&nbsp; New revelation just came in the last hour:&nbsp; Dr. Manhattan gone to Mars.<br><br>So, Comedian's dead.&nbsp; Dr. Manhattan's gone.<br><br>Thank god we still have a government.<br><br>Tomorrow night, intensify search.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Sephora</strong> on <strong>14-03-2009, 02:15:04</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Miss Demise<br>Blue Moon Bar<br>Evening<br><br>Two more refills later, and Amy was just drunk enough to get the buzz that she loved so much.&nbsp; It wasn’t enough to ease her suffering mind however; as her thoughts circled around the mass of information that she was aware of.<br><br>The comedian was dead.<br><br>The news claimed that Dr. Manhattan was on mars.&nbsp; <br><br>Was there a connection between the two?&nbsp; They both worked for the government after all.&nbsp; Then again, so did that kid, and there was nothing on the news about him.&nbsp; Then again, the news had yet to report the comedians death either; for all she knew the little boy was dead and gone already.&nbsp; Pity, that would be a waste. <br><br>Taking a final gulp of the remainders of that golden elixir she loved so much; Amy places money on the table before rising to her feet.&nbsp; It was late, and she was drunk.<br><br>There!&nbsp; She just admitted to being a drunk…..that was supposed to be progress, right?&nbsp; Like, if someone acknowledged when they were drunk; it meant that they were becoming less of an alcoholic..right?&nbsp; It didn’t sound right.<br>Walking through the crowded bar, Amy scowls as she feels a hand on her ass. Grabbing the wrist of the man who had done it in a tight grip, she pulls him close.&nbsp; “Lets take this outside.” She all but hisses, pulling him through the crowd and out the door.<br>It would feel good to break this guys wrist; but she’d be polite and do it outside.<br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>14-03-2009, 06:02:26</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Adrian Veidt<br>New York City<br>Veidt's Home<br>Nightfall<br><br>After Blake's funeral, Veidt notices a man observing him when he was talking to Nite Owl and keeps a mental note to see what is going on.<br><br>Information links, and networks eventaully come reeling in that someone is watching Dreiberg and like, Rorshach is digging into something he should not be digging into.<br><br>Many heros that he knows of and of their identies come flying into New York due to the Comedian's death and of Nite Owl's and Silk Spectre's return to the public scene.&nbsp; Surely they will all eventually try to investigate the murder of Blake so he must carefully plan his moves.<br><br>Being the casual man he hires a few spies to look into this and to give him the information.&nbsp; He will need to keep a close eye on all of these heroes so that he will be ready to deal with them when the time comes.&nbsp; In the meantime he has work that needs be done.&nbsp; He continues conducting usual business while watching his many TVs in his home.<br><br>He looks in his folder and inside are the pictures of Kid Arrow, Miss Demise, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, and the Hellion.&nbsp; Each one has detailed notes about each hero and what currently knows about them.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>14-03-2009, 23:26:08</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Hellion<br>Club Mercy, New York City<br>11:09 PM</strong><br><br>The Jesus and Mary Chain.&nbsp; Just Like Honey.<br><br>Downstairs, the music has changed, but Victoria was beyond its reach.&nbsp; She was gazing upon the form-fit shell of her second skin, drinking in the beauty of the thing that loved to consume her.&nbsp; Staring into the dull gloss of the sleek costume was like staring into the void, and knew how deeply right Nietzsche was when he said that the abyss stares also into the gazer.<br><br>The silk gown flows off like a single breath of air, and in the fluorescent-washed safe-room she starts the foreplay.&nbsp; She caresses the reinforced shoulder-joint, eases it from the hanger.&nbsp; The material must be worked, this cold, in order to make it supple; once it's on, the heat of her body will keep it fluid, but the polymer won't yield until it's woken up.&nbsp; "That's a good girl," she whispers as she strokes and bends the joints, stretches the sleeves until she feels them slowly, gradually, become more limber.&nbsp; If she kept the room too warm, it would be easy to slip on, but would 'puddle', she was instructed-- it would lose its adherence to her form, and would take days to fit properly again.<br><br>And then, with one leg first, she glides her foot into the resistance of the taut sleeve, her slim leg with its cords of muscle following.&nbsp; Working it deeper, then deeper, she feels the material accept her, and she smiles very faintly as the seat finds its place on her hips.&nbsp; The expanse of pale-amber skin that the suit leaves bare are like a phantom emerging from deep space, as if the black, mylar-like material simply ate the light.<br><br>Her bare legs aren't exposed for long; She steps into the long boots, their reinforced knees and shins all padded in satin-black leather make her look like some kind of dominatrix, she'd often thought. All the better.&nbsp; But the rather than some pin-heeled deathtrap, these boots are soled with removable steel studs and a cross-terrain, high-traction tread.&nbsp; The gauntlets are easier still to don and remove, offering only the resistance of wriggling into a latex surgical glove at the fingers and cinching tight with individual velcro straps, but they'll have to wait; having hooked claws at her fingertips would be advantageous in the street, but they're a pain in the ass in her own home.<br><br>Zipping the skull-faced half-mask along her neck and tucking her goggles over them, she knows she's ready.&nbsp; All of her that is still visibly flesh is between the bridge of her nose and her cropped, wavy-black hair... that, and the several inches of bare leg from her belt to mid-thigh.&nbsp; With a flourish, the trenchcoat passes over her shoulders, and she cinches the belt tight, giving her the tapered-waist look of some kind of Wall Street girlfriend or high-class hooker.&nbsp; Beneath the mask, her own smile at this thought is far more demure than that of the grinning skull painted on it.&nbsp; <br><br>She whispers the same mantra she's uttered before every outing.&nbsp; "Everything dies.&nbsp; Including me."&nbsp; She closes the locker, spins the dial.&nbsp; Lots more goodies in there... guns, blades, drugs, explosives... but she won't need those for this evening's activities.&nbsp; At least, she doesn't believe she will.&nbsp; <br><br>"But if it's tonight, I won't go alone."&nbsp; <br><br>She makes her way to the trap-door at the corner, a flowing black specter.&nbsp; Down the tight spiral stairs of crumbling concrete and chipped, ancient paint.&nbsp; A few gas-lantern fixtures stare coldly out, her only witnesses as she guides herself with a simple plastic flashlight down to the private garage... not much more than a closet, but afforded with an electric lift up from the sidewalk vault to an easily ignored alleyway.&nbsp; She has a Kawasaki GPZ cycle there in the darkness, a few extra liters of gas, a SPAS-12 gauge tactical shotgun.&nbsp; She won't be bringing them tonight.&nbsp; All the "just-in-cases" in the world, and she knows they'd do no good if her number is up.<br><br>When she cuts the light and hangs it on the nail by the lift, she lets the darkness envelop her like she imagines death will.&nbsp; "It'll be a grand bash in hell when I get there."<br><br>When she reaches the autumn wind of the street, she breathes the night air like one newly born.<br><br>*<br><br><strong>Hellion<br>Beneath the streets of New York City<br>11:41 PM</strong><br><br>The trip to the subway terminal was short.&nbsp; With her mask turned down and her hands in her pockets, she drew no stares except from the occasional vagrant, drunk, or lonely male.&nbsp; Her black-lined eyes reflected the panel advertisements in the train like bright blue mirrors, and her lips were wine-red; she might well have been going from club to club, work to home, or John to John.&nbsp; <br><br>A pale-skulled young man with a tattoo of a dragon peeking from the torn collar of his army-green jacket was staring her down.&nbsp; She pretended not to notice, kept her gaze riveted to the gashed-up headrest in front of her.&nbsp; She didn't sense the hostility she might get if someone was eyefucking her hard, or sizing her up.&nbsp; So many ways to be a victim... they'd take your money, your jewelry, your pussy for a quick ride, maybe some or all of your blood.&nbsp; She didn't plan on being a victim again.&nbsp; Ever.<br><br>He was approaching her, sitting beside her.&nbsp; She could smell the lingering reek of reefer and gin on him, mingling with body sweat and oil.&nbsp; His weight found the plastic seat-- he was stocky, unshaven.&nbsp; His head had a shock of mohawk on top, not yet grown out to impressive length.&nbsp; He had sleepy beaten-down eyes and a swelling around one orbital socket.&nbsp; He couldn't have been a day over twenty years old.<br><br>She waited, coiling inside like a spring, but not even flinching outside... she asked herself if she should maybe look scared, sucker him in a bit, but she let that train of thought go as, clearly, it was too late to change tracks now.&nbsp; Wondering how it would be... would he have a knife, a gun, or just try to muscle her?&nbsp; Was it drugs he wanted, or just something to do?<br><br>Would she let this one live to regret it, so he could warn others like him, maybe straighten his life out, or was he too far gone..?<br><br>"Do you have a light?"&nbsp; He asked in a voice thick with exhaustion. <br><br>Blinking once, she turned her eyes to him, looking at him directly for the first time.&nbsp; He'd produced a pack of Marlboros from his pocket, the plastic and paper rustling as he fished out a wear-knuckled cigarette.&nbsp; She watched his face, read the creases around his eyes as he forced a polite smile.&nbsp; <br><br>She produced the zippo from her trenchcoat after a few moments, letting him take it.&nbsp; She waited for him to keep it, but he didn't... after lighting up, he passed it back.&nbsp; "Thanks," he muttered.&nbsp; They neared the next station, its name whirred by the cart in sickly gray on a field of chipping blue paint.&nbsp; The young man stood, dragging from his cigarette.&nbsp; "I didn't freak you out, did I?"<br><br>She didn't bat an eye, stood herself just behind him.&nbsp; "Disappointed?"<br><br>He chuckled softly.&nbsp; "... maybe a little.&nbsp; Maybe just... I dunno.&nbsp; Relieved."<br><br>She tilted her face and smiled at his back.&nbsp; "Is that because somebody saw how fucked up you are, but didn't run away?"<br><br>He turned, his hand looping into the hand-rail as the train slowed to a stop at the terminal.&nbsp; "I guess."<br><br>Nodding, her reply was barely a whisper.&nbsp; "I can imagine that."&nbsp; <br><br><strong>Hellion<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>12:24 AM</strong><br><br>From within her pocket, just beside the epi pens, she draws a pair of headphones-- small, with red foam ear pads, connected to the walkman tape player in the folds of her coat.&nbsp; She hits play, and the wind goes silent as she covers her ears with the tiny metal and plastic speakers.&nbsp; The music's the new Jesus and Mary Chain album... a song called &nbsp;Just Like Honey (http://podcast.xs4all.nl/upload/werksman-the_jesus_and__mary_chain_-_just_like_honey.mp3).&nbsp; She is hovering on the fire escape over an alleyway, perched among the steel landings of rust attached to a burned-out brick shell that used to be a department store.&nbsp; The night's a massive void out there in front of her, and flooding up from the alleyway is the wash of red neon light from the signs of Quincy's Cabaret. <br><br>An 'exotic cabaret'-- really?&nbsp; And a dog licking its balls is performance art, right?<br><br>She eases her back up against the bricked-up window and turns the dial a bit toward the +.&nbsp; She waits, she watches, she listens to the music.&nbsp; One black-painted titanium claw chips idly at the brick until a chunk of it the size of a quarter comes free.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>15-03-2009, 05:32:22</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Dark Aesir (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32223.msg1716730#msg1716730)</strong><br><strong>Morrin Street, Brooklyn</strong><br><strong>1:30 AM</strong><br><br><br>Jonah stepped over the low burned out ruin. It was all that remained of the house that flames ate the days ago, devoured along with a family and a guest while the happy husband was down in the river becoming acquainted with the fish.<br><br>The sound of distant thunder comes rolling across the tall black buildings behind him, thunder filled with the voices of winged anger.<br><br>He tried to ignore it, standing there in his gray hoodie with the wings drawn on the back in black felt tip marker.&nbsp; The sooty earth around his tennis shoes clung to him, clotted with debris, the life of a house bled out into its ruined husk and scabbed into soot. <br><br>A hiss sounds nearby …<br><br>...and&nbsp; Jonah turned his head shadowed into inky nothing by the raised hood. <br><br>Crouching by a shapeless lump that could have been a stove is the figure of a woman, naked and stained in the ash that was the last breath of this place.<br><br>Again thunder sounds, closer this time, and full of wing beats and gnashing teeth, wild screams birdlike, lustful and grating all at once, a knife blade slow across a guitar string, just over the brownstone line behind him. He does not have much time.<br><br>The gray mantled young man strode across the black ground toward the melted appliance and …<br><br>...the figure scuttles away into a corner. Pieces of ash flake off its form. It is a beautiful form, not thin but fleshed in desire, full and rounded in the hips and breasts like a prefect fruit, full in the hand. But the soot keeps flaking away. Her body wavered as if through a heat mirage …<br><br>...letting him know that it was illusionary, just a hallucination. His fevered brain trying to tell him something, trying to make a link for him, a link he could not see on his own. <br><br>And the soot just kept falling off her as she squatted in the shadows, flakes falling away to reveal her beautiful body underneath only to have that flake away as well, over and over.<br><br>Jonah felt he could get no closer. <br><br>She will run, she will disappear. She is not real but even as a fiction he can get no closer. <br><br>He was missing something. something was missing.<br><br>The thunder sounds again and this time it is right over him. The world lights up and the Aesir rises in him like a tide of flame. The clouds above are orange and burning from within, blackening the roiling sky with a hateful heat. In those low laying sheets, always curling, harpy images burn to their bones and scream a harrowing ancient Greek and Phrygian song as they claw the air, swimming with their tattered wings. A quivering ball of viscous fire rolls along the street sweeping out a tentacle of flame toward the ruined house and him.<br><br>But the power of the Aesir grabbed time and dragged it down to a syrupy halt. Panicy breath froze in his chest and the flickering fingers of the fire iced down to static white orange line&nbsp; and the sooty groud shifted under Jonah's feet. <br><br>He launched himself sideways fighting the slow moment to get away from that beam, get behind the stove, get away from that light!<br><br>When the endless power of time shrugged off the mosquito of his will and lurched back into motion the young man hit the ground and rolled to a sudden stop, contorted behind the stove waiting for the lance of fire to spray across him, to lap over the edges of the smoothed metal and taste his pain. But there was only light, no fire, just a white bright light...car lights.<br><br>The long green chevy ground to a halt along the street its light clicked off tipping the world into darkness instantly. Jonah blinked fiercely trying to get his night vision back. The Aesir was gone.<br><br>&nbsp;Suddenly he heard a door open and then close. He cursed silently just in time to hear another door slamming. Two of them. What were they doing? Had the seen him? <br><br>Shifting inch by inch, he raised his head slightly to peek past the smoothed edge of the metal lump and there were two men silhouetted by the sodium streetlight scattered into a white haze behind them. <br><br>Each has red glowing eyes that burn in the black shadow under their perfect fedoras and on their backs crouch a harpy image, burning orange claws digging into the shadowy suits, the creatures look around trying to spot Jonah, they are looking just for him. He knows it. <br><br>What are they doing here? The answer didn't even need the Aesir to surface. When he got Vincent to talk. They knew he would be coming here. <br><br>There is something I am missing, he thought. <br><br>And then she is on him. <br><br>The soot girl suddenly embraces Jonah from behind grasping him high around one shoulder and low around his waist.<br><br>&nbsp;He very nearly cried out in alarm. <br><br>Her lips make a wet sound as she presses a fever hot kiss to his cheek.<br><br>“Oohh baby yes touch me sweety...come on, don't be shy...I know she doesn't beg for it like I do...give me a little taste baby...let me do that for you first...” she says whispering into his ear, words for only him, quiet intimate words and her candy scented breath fell down his ear like a penny down a well clanking off a sudden need somewhere close to the bottom.<br><br>The men shifted slightly and looked around, …<br><br>...their brilliant red eyes tracking over the ruined unnameable shapes that were once a living room, now a tomb. <br><br>One of them opened his coat with a deft flip and pulled out the small revolver. Jonah flinched …<br><br>...against the soft, ashy body. <br><br>Guns, they had guns. Of course they had guns. They had not come here to debate.&nbsp; <br><br>Aboard the shadows shoulders the blazing harpy grins an impossible wide grin full of shark teeth stretching her lips to black wires around her serrated smile.<br><br>The sooty woman's soft breasts presses into Jonah's back and one of her hands flees into his lap finding him suddenly ready for her. She grasps him there, grips his length and …<br><br>...he fights the urge to throw her off, or to give in.<br><br>“Ohh baby ...I'll let you do anything...you have to be quick though baby...Freddy is coming over tonight...just give to me fast....give it to me fast and hard...” She hisses in place of a moan and her grapefruit tongue touches his ear like a battery jolt.<br><br>Freddy! Frederico Valentine! Daddy was humping one of Freddie's girls? One of his special girls? Jonah turned his head …<br><br>...and there she is, Georgina Haley, the beautiful bombshell who sings torch songs at Valentines club. And sings them for Freddy special. <br><br>Her face flaked away with only more beautiful underneath. It was horrible and alluring, the lust in her face....good god, how could any man say no to that. How could... It was then that he noticed the small&nbsp; hole high in her forehead almost where her golden hair cut across in its honey sweet line before sweeping back down her naked back.<br><br>“Hey!”&nbsp; Said one of the shadows fumbling in his coat for his gun. <br><br>The fire-in-glass harpy on his shoulder points at him screeching a keening cry of death and blood, of agony coming. The Aesir rises suddenly like an orgasm, like a cough, like a jump from a building.<br><br>He spun and flung a rock as the gun stretched out toward him. The sonic explosion shook the whole ruin and its blasting sound struck him like a physical blow. That was no little revolver. The blackened timber beside his head exploded shredding the side of his hoodie, he was already in motion though, digging his feet into the dirt and leaning into the motion, the run toward the shadow with his scarlet harpy rider. It was only six of seven steps but it felt like slow city blocks whirling past him as he jammed another foot down pressing himself forward.<br><br>Then, in an instant he was there on the big man, bigger than he had seemed from his hiding place.&nbsp; Aesir swept the big gun aside as it fired again lighting them both up in the primitive flash of an unleashed explosion. The big man looked surprised. Aesir got that a lot. <br><br>He planted his thin palm into the big man's face feeling the shock travel down his arm and into his shoulder, almost jolting it out of its socket. The blow lifted the suit into the air sending his perfect fedora tumbling&nbsp; like a flipped coin. <br><br>The harpy screeches an angry sound right into Aesir's face before lifting off the body...<br><br>...as it tumbled under the earthquake force of the blow.<br><br>Twisting on one foot, Aesir cartwheeled the body, sending it into a burnt heap of wood. The pile scattered, suddenly bowling pins. The big man and his big gun rolled bonelessly to a stop face down and painted black, his arms at unfortunate angles..<br><br>The sky still burns with the shrieking harpies and cinders float in the air around him. In an instant he sees a web of red lines light up around him. Hundreds of red lines like tiny burning threads in the air all around him. The ones that touch him burn like acid, like wasps digging at his skin and they move constantly as if whipped in a phantom wind.<br><br>He cried out,&nbsp; turning and twisting to get away...<br><br>... from the lines that sliced at his arms and legs. <br><br>The first crack sounded behind him but he couldn't move, couldn't jump or run. <br><br>The threads hem him in...<br><br>...and he suddenly wondered if this was the time. The last moment, his one breath before the end.<br><br>Aesir saw the bullet from the other mans revolver blast its way down one of the threads close to his chest. When it passed him other threads winked out making the effort to stay away from them easier.<br><br>Pow!<br><br>Pow!<br><br>Pow!<br><br>Pow!<br><br>Thread after thread blinked out as...<br><br>...Aesir bent and turned flicking his thin body this way and that. <br><br>Suddenly there are no more lines. The harpy looks suddenly surprised and peers down at the shiny metal weapon in the man's hand.<br><br>Click!<br><br>The young man rocketed forward like a charging bull. His feet seemed to shake the ground as they struck, driving him forward like a freight train loosed from its tracks. The shadow brought the gun across Aesir's face when they met but it didn't even faze him as the unstoppable force smashed from the young man and the shadow rocked back off his feet, caught in the great raging wave. Aesir clutched him through his jacked and shirt, his iron fingers holding the shadow by his muscles and the bones of his chest just within reach if...<br><br>They smash though the door frame, it shattered across the shadow's back... <br><br>...as the harpy clawed at Aesir' eyes. <br><br>But he didn't need to see, his rage fueled the tsunami of his movement. A step vaulted him and the shadow onto the bumper of the green chevy, the next step crushed a footprint into the hood, the next step sent both of them through the windshield. Aesir felt the shadows ribs suddenly give up their purchase and speak their own elegies in a chorus of dull pops in concert with the sound of shattered glass chiming around them.<br><br>The back seat gave way as metal and springs complained only for a moment. <br><br>Then they were in the backseat. <br><br>The harpy is long gone and...<br><br>...the figure of the man lays in the ruin of the car, lit by the street light as he gasped for breath flecking pink froth onto his lips. Aesir wanted to ask questions, to grill the man but it was all there. Five shots, the burned body of the guest and a whole family, none of them identifiable in the city morgue, Daddy in the river and none of it leading back to Freddy V.&nbsp; Aesir had never trusted the law to sort out the vagaries of the human animal.<br><br>Still feeling like a god, he kicked the back door open and tasted the coppery tang of his own blood as it ran down his throat. Then the Aesir left him... <br><br>...as the burning clouds above him misted dark and then black into the night sky sending the screaming harpies up into the night.<br><br>The pain blasted across his face and his knees buckled with the intense surge of weakness that sometimes followed the Aesir. Nausea ran into his veins&nbsp; like a vipers poison. Touching his face, his fingers cam away sticky with blood and he turned his head, spitting. Jonah expected a tooth to clatter across the lit asphalt but it was a chunk of bloody glass. With shaking limbs and dry retches heaving through his form he struggled to his feet as the sirens sounded in the distance.<br><br>Spitting again to clear his crimson stained mouth eh shuffled across the street certain he could not clear the scene. <br><br>“What a time to be a hobo again” He groused. If the cops got him it would not be pretty. Not for anyone. He could swear he heard the sound or a harpy wailing in those distant sirens. Fucking harpies.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>15-03-2009, 16:46:36</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Medea<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>Early morning<br><br>I had tried to wash away the tightness in my body and mind with hot water, but it hadn't worked.&nbsp; I suppose it could be jet lag, but I know what it really is.&nbsp; The tightness in the belly, the hammer of my heart, the dry mouth and the need to look down at my feet and hands so I won't have to look up to meet imaginary eyes.&nbsp; I'm just afraid of seeing her again.&nbsp; And once named, a fear is powerless.<br><br>I like to tell myself that, but it's a lie.&nbsp; I can't lie to myself as convincingly as I can lie to an audience.&nbsp; <br><br>The jet lag is real though.&nbsp; I'd still be back stage getting ready for my morning show.&nbsp; Sleeping in the plane didn't help either.&nbsp; So I'm walking down an alley, headed towards a 'cabaret', dressed to kill - not quite literally, but the heavy, sleep leather and shimmer of silk and glitter of jewelry are comforting, empowering.&nbsp; The two heavy crystal orbs in my hand dance around each other easily, sliding around each other silently.&nbsp; My boots tap menacingly along the pavement of the alleyway.&nbsp; <br><br>This is the time when the businessmen come out to play, hiding their decadence in shadows and music and indulging their petty vices and making their quiet deals.&nbsp; Places like this are where the mobsters and the corrupt cops hide themselves away, keeping their dealings to themselves.&nbsp; It's a place to start seeing faces, learning names, and begin to build a network of contacts and potential tools.&nbsp; <br><br>And apparently I'm not the only one interested - a figure, on the fire escape above me.&nbsp; A watcher, and likely not the sort who would want to steal a wallet or bother a young woman.&nbsp; The orbs move faster in my hands, seeming to stick to my hand despite their size and me having my hand towards the ground.&nbsp; The silver of the mask is a bright gleam in the darkness; other than that, only a dark shadow among other dark shadows.&nbsp; <br><br>If I wasn't as watchful as that silhouette, I might not have seen the figure.&nbsp; I'm fairly certain the watcher has seen me; I'm not exactly the most inconspicuous in leather and lace, especially as unusual a design as the dress is of; it would be easy to mistake me for a weird sort of domme, but then, I deal with men and women in power, and they would see a latex costume as laughable; this outfit is too severe to be anything but threatening in an office.<br><br>Off course, out here, it's asking for trouble, I suppose, but then, fools are so easy to take by the head and wrap around my finger.&nbsp; I doubt the watching shadow is any sort of fool....
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>15-03-2009, 22:29:37</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Hellion<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>12:27 AM</strong><br><br>The song's ended. A straight in a ballcap and members-only jacket has gone into the club, so she's gotten a glimpse of the thick just inside the door... he looked Samoan, wearing an XXL t-shirt that looked a half-size too small, with biceps like ham hocks and no semblance of a neck.<br><br>Another song after that one, but the batteries are wearing out, and she can hear the tape slowing down, the pitches getting lower.&nbsp; So she flips the tape off and listens to radio waves... some blithering idiot screaming that the demons of hell are in the MTV, static, news... more speculation about the disappearance of Dr. Manhattan.&nbsp; It's a call-in show, so she listens for a few minutes; public opinion always makes for good comedy, and occasionally it provides some insight.<br><br>The caller is making a train-wreck of logic in an attempt to state that Dr. Manhattan is actually behind the border infringements of Russia into Afghanistan, but Hellion listens for long enough to hear a couple more callers.&nbsp; One speculates that Dr. Manhattan is trying to find a cure for cancer.&nbsp; Another says that he's actually dead; he'd disintegrated himself in the sun or something.<br><br><em>How the fuck am I supposed to save people who are this fucking stupid?</em> she wondered.&nbsp; <em>These simpletons are supposed to be the soldiers of a revolution?</em><br><br><strong>12:32</strong><br><br>The hole she's picked in the masonry has left a rounded wedge of brick missing completely, and in the street below, she sees no motion but the changing pattern of green and red light from the bottom of Quincy's' fire door.&nbsp; The last caller sounds female, older-- maybe in her sixties or older, just from the pronunciation of her words-- and she says something so very clearly that the Hellion actually smiles, under her mask, upon hearing it.&nbsp; "The Doctor Manhattan character... he did a lot of things for our country, like some kind of hero.&nbsp; But I remember life before him... World War II, the Depression.&nbsp; Things were bad then, but we survived.&nbsp; This... super human, I don't know where he's gone, or what he's doing, but I hope he's gone for good."&nbsp; The host prompts her to continue.&nbsp; "If there's a god out there, then the only good thing he's done for us since the flood was to let us the hell alone.&nbsp; People will never get any better," she coughs into the receiver.&nbsp; "They won't get any better than they are, unless they have to.&nbsp; No... super-man's gonna save us from Russia.&nbsp; We've got to save ourselves."<br><br>Over the metal grid, she sees a shadow from the streetlights of the main road, indicating that someone's entering the alley. The shadow hems at the edge of a knot of utility meters and the diamond-glimmer of broken glass on the asphalt.&nbsp; Hellion expects her target to be in the building already, so she pays the foot traffic little mind.&nbsp; The call-in host is saying that they're out of time, so she turns the dial a bit more.&nbsp; She hears the strains of The Smiths, How Soon is Now (http://www.commonsaints.us/music/hsin.mp3).&nbsp; It's kind of nice, she thinks.&nbsp; Like the ocean, like some clean black sea broadcast through the air to her ears in this man-made rock and steel bastard of a city, something purifying and alien in this waste-chute of an alley.&nbsp; <br><br>She pivots her face to catch the shadow's caster in her periphery, and feels her breath catch in her throat.&nbsp; Her mind tries to make sense of what she's seeing, and fails momentarily... the woman looks like some kind of Vegas performer, perfectly composed and carrying herself with a preternatural grace.&nbsp; And as she makes her way into that alleyway-- her pin-heels crossing the asphalt and brown crystals of glass, the cracks where brown grass bleeds through like an old wound-- Hellion decides that, if the woman's going inside to work, then she'll have to make a visit there herself.<br><br>She's holding two glass bubbles, spinning them... Hellion hasn't seen it done so well, except, perhaps, a few years ago in the Soviet States, where the circus was a splendor unto itself.&nbsp; And in the security of her shadow, she lets herself stare at the woman's figure, her fluidity, and lets a smile creep beneath the skull's grin of her mask-- at least, that is, until the woman looks up-- and directly at the Hellion.<br><br><i>Son of a bitch.</i><br><br>She delicately eases apart the earphones from her head, tucks them in beside the Walkman in her coat pocket.&nbsp; Is this some kind of... what, a killer?&nbsp; She has the moves, the panache-- maybe she's some kind of dancer?<br><br><i>Fuck, I don't know what she is.&nbsp; But I'm not losing the element of surprise.</i> <br><br>Sighing, she checks her mask, leaves the goggles dangling loose around her neck.<br><br><i>Well.&nbsp; You made me, honey.&nbsp; One point for you.&nbsp; So let's see what you think of this.</i><br><br>She stands, shrugging the coat from her shoulders, and slings it over the rail to hang like some dead beast's slick hide.&nbsp; Emerging from the shadow, the streetlight casts her figure-- slender, feminine, full-busted and dressed in something like a black oil slick.&nbsp; She's not carrying a weapon.&nbsp; Her face, below her eyes, is hidden by the black mask, the silvery paint of a grinning skull, and the October breeze stirs the cropped black hair from her temples.<br><br>She is descending the stairs of the fire escape-- their counterweights yield and let the stairs swing down until they crash into the top of an improperly placed dumpster, and then the black-clad woman hops the rail and lands, soft as a cat if not as silent, some fifteen feet from the figure in leather and lace.<br><br>"Vinnie the Angel," she says aloud, her voice mingling with the disco music from inside the club, muted by the steel door as it is.&nbsp; It's the Beegees-- Loving You Inside Out (http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/12/1/444595/20%20-%20Love%20You%20Inside%20Out.mp3).&nbsp; Hellion hates the Beegees, but the sexual imagery of what goes on inside Quincy's makes it downright comical.&nbsp; "You know Vinnie?&nbsp; Maybe you work for him?"&nbsp; Thick treads on her boots carry her closer.&nbsp; She hesitates there, well beyond arm's reach, and looks the woman over once more.<br><br>No secrets... even a rudimentary study of human behavior would have detected the dilation in Hellion's pupils, the subtle tensing of her eye muscles.&nbsp; She likes what she sees.&nbsp; Half-circling the woman, she makes no attempt to hide that she's studying her.&nbsp; "Though I must say, I rather hope that you don't.&nbsp; You look... more evolved... than that worm."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>15-03-2009, 22:46:54</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Kid Arrow<br>Brooklyn<br>Early Morning</strong><br><br>An information leak at the NYPD revealed that a number of thugs had met with vigilante justice somewhere in Brooklyn.<br><br>Again, the crime fighter took to the rooftops of the island city, forgoing more reasonable methods of transportation.&nbsp; But he would soon regret that decision.&nbsp; New York City was like a bad pizza.&nbsp; No matter how ill you became after you consumed some, you were always going to treat yourself to a slice on another day.&nbsp; Kid Arrow loved to run through dilapidated buildings, run-down neighborhoods and graffiti-marked edifices;&nbsp; he thought that he could feel the city whispering its likes and dislikes with each concrete crack tread underfoot.&nbsp; He was fascinated by the urban decay, the lowlives, the call of the streets; the blinding lights in the night inspired him, compelled him.&nbsp; But each time he came to this storied town, it took the whole of his stamina to stay on his feet.&nbsp; Each intake of air brought with it the cold, polluted cloud that hovered over New York City, installing a thick layer of lead within the pink lungs of the dashing teen archer.&nbsp; It was a burden to run now; the gray soot that propagated in every crevice of this dirty, crime-ridden city covered him inside and out.&nbsp; It had become unbearable, and now, Cristobal was bent over with his head between his knees with his mask off, desperately seeking with each gasp traces of pure oxygen.<br><br>That face, half blackened by a second skin of grime, covered the bottom of his face; for an instant, he appeared like a natural species, a comanche rummaging through the bush holding a tomahawk, part of a society of men that lived in this insipid ecosystem.&nbsp; But his eyes were red and teary.&nbsp; The very city repulsed him physically, warning him.&nbsp; Proceed no further, it said.&nbsp; But his instincts had been sharpened by fearless tenacity and singular determination.&nbsp; Nothing would deter him, not even his conscience.&nbsp; <br><br>His conscience.&nbsp; Arrow had debated throughout his stay in New York whether or not he actually felt sympathy for Rorschach.&nbsp; To the Kid, that creepy, mask-wearing lunatic was a dichotomy of opposing principles; he was judgmental, but refused to be judged; he was attuned to the small details, but never paid attention to the larger picture; he was a conservative, but disliked the Nixon administration.&nbsp; Kid Arrow could not quite figure out whether Rorschach enjoyed the war with the Russians.&nbsp; He didn't understand Rorschach's brand for justice, either.&nbsp; Kid Arrow had convinced himself that it was not justice.&nbsp; Rorschach was always Rorschach, an inhuman outsider, a misguided soul, a figure of counter-culture.&nbsp; He couldn't possibly know what justice truly was, because justice was a product of society-- something Rorschach did not seem to have any desire to partake in.<br><br>"Murphy..." he said, his breaths ragged by the torturous quality of the air.&nbsp; &nbsp;"... I need a car."<br><br>"I didn't know you were old enough to drive, Arrow," Murphy said over the radio.<br><br>&nbsp;"Fuck you."<br><br>A few minutes passed before he pulled his cowl back on, peeling the humid, sweaty cask over his face with a toothy grimace.&nbsp; &nbsp; Inside his cowl, his perspective of the world was more confident; he was distinctly aware of time and space, of location and altitude, of direction and distance.&nbsp; He was master of the night, for he could see in the blackest fog in detailed verdant.&nbsp; It was when he was overlooking the horizon of the city that he saw a small oval-shaped flying device zipping through the buildings.<br><br>In an instant, he was off; a moving body, liquid and hyper, refueled by adrenaline, striding towards Archimedes.&nbsp; Powerful thighs tightened and bounced with each long bound.&nbsp; It felt like acid was pouring down through his arteries, his ankles aching from supporting his body.&nbsp; A well-defined chest felt like it was going to cave in, and his limbs flailed uncontrollably as he attempted to make the best speed.&nbsp; But he couldn't get anywhere near his personal best.&nbsp; The mind was not now the master of his body.&nbsp; The young man was winded, not from not being able to hack it, but because the scenario was not conducive to his methods.&nbsp; By the time that he had arrived, the VTOL was two-hundred yards away and accelerating.<br><br>&nbsp;"Fuck!" he screamed.<br><br>Trying to get a shot off unto the vessel, he collapsed unto his knees, flipped his quiver over and searched through his arrows.&nbsp; Shaking hands ran over the feathers of a number of trick shafts, but frustration at himself and the situation made finding the correct arrow impossible.&nbsp; Then, he removed a small gun from his holster and carefully aimed it at the backside of the vessel, adjusting appropriately for wind, gravity, etc.; when he squeezed the trigger, a small dart attached to a thin cable hurtled towards the VTOL.&nbsp; It successfully attached, but what happened then was a disaster.&nbsp; The rappling mechanism that would reel him up jammed, and since the gun's handle instantly adhered to his glove as a safety measure, Kid Arrow was pulled off his feet by the flying vessel, fell off a tall building, smashed into another one and then was dragged up, over and past another building.&nbsp; The only thing that the Kid could think about as his body crashed through chimneys and wires was, <em>fuck, I would be pissed off at myself if I knocked out my cable box.</em>&nbsp; It took a great deal of effort to remove a combat knife from his ankle-sheath, whilst being turned and battered by concrete and glass.&nbsp; But the Kid managed it and sawed at the cable desperately.&nbsp; He managed to cut it just as he was dropping off a third building.<br><br>Still cognizant, the Kid un-holstered another pistol.&nbsp; The pistol's barrel whirred and spun, and two long limbs held in a small compartment emerged, connected and flexed to become a compound longbow.&nbsp; He quickly knocked an arrow with a thick cylinder as the head and let it fly.&nbsp; No longer was he clueless as to the location of his arrows; the busy road below inspired the teen hero with exactitude.&nbsp; The arrow exploded in mid-air, and immediately thickened water particles into an icy crust.&nbsp; He shot three similar arrows, creating thin bridges between the buildings.&nbsp; Then, at the last possible instant, he turned his shoulder so that it might take the brunt of the impact as he crashed through the first bridge, then the second, then the third, and finally the fourth.&nbsp; His fall had been slowed down considerably, and it was then that he shot another arrow up into the sky.&nbsp; The arrow exploded in the apex of its flight to reveal a grappling hook, attached to a rope hooked to his bow.&nbsp; Once again, he met the surface of wall with bone shattering impact, and he fell approximately 20 more feet down into an alley.&nbsp; Fortunately, a pile of trash broke his final fall.<br><br>Unfortunately, the Kid was not going to get back up.&nbsp; He lifted his head upwards, strained to lift it further, then collapsed back, blood seeping down his mouth and nose.&nbsp; Before he drifted off into unconsciousness, he saw a figure in black standing on a rooftop, photographing him.<br><br>&nbsp;".. urk..?"
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>16-03-2009, 16:38:17</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Medea<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>Early morning</strong><br><br>I slowly bring my hand up, transferring one of the crystal sphere's into it's pouch, while the other remains in hand.&nbsp; It's a simple trick, and the tilt of my head and smile distract her as I speak, drawing her attention away from my hand so that the disappearing orb goes unnoticed.&nbsp; "I'm afraid I don't," I reply, my West Coast accent unmistakable.&nbsp; "I may like to make his acquaintance.&nbsp; People with names like that know secrets, and secrets are valuable."&nbsp; I find her appreciation flattering; but then, I-as-Medea always get looks like that.<br><br>But hope does spring eternal.<br><br>I roll the sphere from my palm to the back of my hand, letting it slide down my arm before twisting my arm and rolling it back to my palm, then up to my fingertips, where I balance it perfectly.&nbsp; I allow her to walk around me, keeping an eye on her reflection inside the orb in case she should try to assault me from behind.&nbsp; My other hand sneaks a tiny vial of dark green liquid, which gets tucked between thumb and palm.&nbsp; I wave my hand back and forth, sliding the orb easily from wrist to palm to back of hand to wrist and in reverse order, timing it to the beat of a not quite calm heart.&nbsp; The movement will distract, pull at the eyes, and when I slow the orb, so will the heartbeat slow, relaxing the person I'm dealing with.&nbsp; <br><br>It's a minor trick, but a very valuable one.&nbsp; <br><br>"I<em> am called Medea.&nbsp; I'm visiting your lovely city, and as a result, I've less knowledge of the ins-and-outs of the society of criminals and victims.&nbsp; In San Francisco, such places as the cabaret belong to their society at night, places where they can plan and plot and hide their dealings from the sight of police and vigilante.</em>"&nbsp; I start to slow the orb down, just a little, enough to draw her attention back to it.&nbsp; "<em>Such people are notoriously weak willed, and the weak willed are terribly easy to manipulate.&nbsp; You aren't weak willed, though; I can see it in your lovely eyes.</em>"&nbsp; The rhythm of my voice is calibrated to help ease her concerns, help her trust me.&nbsp; Not nearly as simple a trick; her body language speaks of paranoia, and a deep thread of something dangerous.&nbsp; The line of tension in her shoulders, the new dust on her talons, the gait with which she arrives back to look me in the face.&nbsp; <br><br>That thread may not be a weakness, but it is definitely something I need to be wary of.&nbsp; "<em>So tell me, my lovely huntress, do we play a game of 'trust me if you dare', or would you like to ruin my expensive dress?</em>"&nbsp; I switch the orb between my hands now, rolling it from the back of one hand to my mid-arm and up the other back of my hand before switching hands, the orb forever sliding from right to left it seems, even as I switch my hands.&nbsp; The tiny vial remains hidden in my left hand, the potent sleeping draught enough to put out the healthiest of people.&nbsp; I let the orb speed up, letting the calm I created dissipate and bringing her attention back up.&nbsp; <br><br>She is a lovely woman, a little younger than I am; and smart too, her eyes are keen and bright even with the mild influences I'm gently giving her.&nbsp; "<em>I'm not much of a fighter, I'll admit, at least outside the bedroom.&nbsp; I am a more subtle sort of creature, drawing secrets and twisting minds until they're quite happily living under my booted heel, returning what they steal from those less powerful than they are.</em>"&nbsp; The mob is just another business to me, and any business can be controlled if you seize it behind the head like the poisonous snake it is.&nbsp; 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>16-03-2009, 20:58:40</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Hellion<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>12:34 AM</strong><br><br>The sound from Hellion's throat is something like a chuckle, something like a growl.&nbsp; "Flattery's a good place to start, lovely."&nbsp; The stranger's presence is far too soothing, and she's too dexterous with those globes... but it's more than that.&nbsp; Something in the back of her mind grasps for connections, and she's vaguely reminded of a moment during the counter-interrogative she'd enjoyed in that quiet, cavernous concrete room some twenty or thirty feet under the tarmacs at Langley.&nbsp; Something about trailing, vaporous lights, something lost to the sodiumpentathol and pulsing lights.&nbsp; What they'd learned about her during that "training session", she may never know, but somehow they didn't find it necessary to kill her for it.&nbsp; Though surely, if they'd dug deep enough, they'd have found a reason or two for her to encounter an unfortunate accident.<br><br>Panic should have knocked her off course into discipline mode, but it didn't.&nbsp; The woman was alluring, and she found the idea of leaving her presence to be... well, unacceptable at the moment.&nbsp; She listened, eying her with those cold blues and letting the skepticism melt away.&nbsp; The drone of music washes low, as if sinking into the current of the blood thrumming in her ears.<br><br>"Medea."&nbsp; She smiles very faintly... not exactly a name to inspire trust.&nbsp; Vengeful, rebellious, infanticidal.&nbsp; <i>But, then again, I <b>like</b> vengeful...</i>&nbsp; "The call me a hellion, and I suppose you can as well."&nbsp; Medea can watch her circling, inverted reflection inside the orb, a figure in black with livid eyes over that morbid smirk of bone, all of her an inky black specter coming full round to <br>Medea's front again.&nbsp; <br><br>She folds her arms under her breasts, studying the woman's face now with the posture of an art critic, one foot gently lifted and placed atop the other, heel to ankle.&nbsp; She doesn't waver, but seems to settle into that scarecrow pose as she shifts her weight and posture in a sinuous roll of shoulders and hips.&nbsp; "Assuming I believe you, that makes you either a criminal, a crusader, or a little of both."&nbsp; She idly traces one talon across each elbow where the hands rest.&nbsp; "An opportunist at least, a vigilante at best."&nbsp; Her eyes glimmer in the amber-wash of the streetlight, and Medea knows that, under the grisly mask, her lips must be pursing to a wry smile.<br><br>"And while I must admit, the notion of ruining that lovely dress is only the first, and most innocuous, step in the elaborate fantasy I'd like to play out on your body..." she's lifted one hand, easing it closer as if to touch, but not reaching the mesmerist... if she were one foot closer to that sinewy woman, then that taloned hand would be stroking the back of its fingers in a gentle crescent along her under-breast.&nbsp; "...I'll settle for the formal introduction."<br><br>The sound of metal and masonry meeting violently accentuates the sudden spike in volume from within the club.&nbsp; The side door-- a loading-bay door of later addition, partly sheltered by ruined canopy of a cabstand long forgotten-- has banged open.&nbsp; Within, the red light and accompanying darkness makes the body of a naked, full-busted dancer into some pink serpent as she dips at the waist, stroking a brass pole between the two globes of her breasts, on a tiny stage within.&nbsp; Another dancer emerges-- she's wearing a robe, red polyester and shiny, and a pair of thick, chunky heels.&nbsp; In the red-lit club, she might be pretty, but in the sodium glare, she's old, desperate.&nbsp; Used up.<br><br>The stripper's holding a cordless telephone, its silver antenna telescoped out from beside her face, and her free hand-- long, blood-red nails like fresh-used meathooks-- is pressed to the other ear.&nbsp; Her voice is swept into the huge range of minor tones and verbal dynamics of the Vietnamese language fueled by high emotion.&nbsp; "Speaking of introductions," Hellion hisses softly.&nbsp; The Asian woman kicks a chunk of wood into the door-frame-- small enough, barely, to prevent the door catch from making it home, and starts screaming what MUST have been obscenities into the mouthpiece of the phone and stalking down the alleyway, fishing in her pocket for what might have been a Kool, or might have been a joint.<br><br>Hellion grins.&nbsp; "You're welcome to make that introduction now."&nbsp; She doesn't bother discussing it, weighing it, threatening or trying to pry out more information.&nbsp; When the time comes, you take what you've got and you go.&nbsp; And, well, maybe she and Medea had each other, for this stroke of fate's brush at least.&nbsp; Maybe.<br><br>*<br><strong>12:36 AM</strong><br><br>The music's different. (http://s3.archive-host.com/membres/playlist/1547443043/UB40-RedRedWine.mp3)&nbsp; Better, Hellion thinks, to some degree, though not what she'd ever choose.&nbsp; Trading that small respite for a more profound offense, the air inside was thick with ganja and cigar, spilled liquor and beer.&nbsp; Sweating pores, cheap perfume.&nbsp; The reek of human lust.<br><br>Regardless of whether Medea follows her or not, Hellion reaches for her mask when her back is toward the mesmerist, and as she rounds the doorframe into the red and black interior she tugs the mask from her mouth with one smooth, subtle pass of her hand.&nbsp; She knew these places, the red light and smokey air and oppressive darkness would make a stranger hard to recognize in real light... psych 101, the brain loses the ability to make connections when the shape isn't defined the same.&nbsp; It was risky, though, because when the brain <i>does</i> make that connection, it can't un-see what it's seeing.&nbsp; Still... this atmosphere was made for anonymity, and a mask would draw eyes-- masks were for robbers, right?&nbsp; But a dark-haired girl with a bow mouth and a slick black bodysuit?&nbsp; Probably just the next act.&nbsp; <br><br>She had closed her eyes for a few moments prior to opening the wedged door, but it still took her a moment to pick out faces in the dark room.&nbsp; Only red, some white at the bar, and black in between.&nbsp; Probably to provide some obfuscation from the ghastly condition some of the drug-addled whores were in.&nbsp; She turned right, putting the front door at her back, and skirted the side-stage's front-row of dollar-flipping toads and toadstools.&nbsp; <br><br>"The Angel" was hard to spot, at first, because she was looking for his face-- the face she'd seen in a mugshot or in the black-and-white sidebar in the Times.&nbsp; It became immediately apparent, though, that her 'made man' lieutenant, Vincent d'Angelo, was face-down on a table full of white lines, and apparently trying to erase everything within the respective dimensions of his cranial cavity.&nbsp; Once she made out the top of a head doing the familiar dance-- the insistent, trembling harvesting down the white stairs-- she knew, somehow, that she could probably not make Vinny's night any worse than it already was.<br><br>Walking the 'fuck me' walk, as she called it-- the ridiculous emphasis of crossing feet, swaying hips, and gently swinging shoulders that screamed 'sex' when she really meant 'kill'-- Hellion made her way to Vinny's table.&nbsp; He was alone, more or less, since the blue-sequin-clad girl on his left was unconscious and limp on his shoulder.<br><br>"My god, he's like a dust-buster," she said-- and suddenly, she realized she wasn't entirely certain that Medea had come along as well.&nbsp; She glanced subtly over her shoulder, just to see.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>17-03-2009, 07:22:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Adrian Veidt<br>Veidt's Private Medical Clinic<br>Early Afternoon<br><br>One of Veidt's spies who has been watching Kid Arrow notifies Veidt of the Arrow's condition.&nbsp; Being mindful of how useful the Kid will be in the future he orders a pick-up team to grab him and bring him to his private medical clinic that him and a few of his business associates and higher-paid employees go to for medical assistance.<br><br>He is immediately brought into emergency care to patch up his cuts and wounds along with fixing any broken bones, and to see if all of his vital signs are good and if there is any damage to his bodily functions.&nbsp; Veidt orders the entire staff overseeing Arrow's care to not remove his mask unless it is the utmost importance and with his permission.<br><br>Everything checks alright with Veidt's crack team of doctors and highly advanced medical equipment.<br><br>The Arrow is moved to a private suite meant for Veidt himself.&nbsp; A big room with a couch, a soft and luxurious bed for the patient to lay on, a TV with every single channel you can possibly think of, a fridge with food in it, and a bathroom with a shower.&nbsp; The suite also has its own team nurses, custodians, and security guards specifically meant to take care of the patient in that room and that room alone.<br><br>Once Arrow awakens Veidt will be notified and will arrive in an hour.<br><br>In the meantime Arrow has some time to relax.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>18-03-2009, 04:15:22</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Obscure memories formed a montage of the unbelievable.&nbsp; In one instant, the Kid recalled a December long ago when the steely bulwarked figure of the Iron Tiger crushed through his home's furniture in a terrific rage.&nbsp; In another, he recalled the creases and pores of the Comedian's nose, and could vividly recall the bitter scent of his thick, brown cigars as he blew clouds of charcoal smoke at him.&nbsp; &nbsp;"That's the joke, kid," the Comedian said, leaning back against the hull of an airplane.&nbsp; Then, in the murky mist of unconscious dreams, he saw himself being lifted by the cuff of his neck by President Richard Nixon, and being tossed into the gigantic grimacing face of Dr. Manhattan.&nbsp; Shattering through the facade, he fell into a gutter of an empty street, lying next to two broken men of undistinguishable features.&nbsp; No longer was he contained by human flesh:&nbsp; now, his hands were paws, his vision was on the grayscale.&nbsp; The men's faces were impossible to discern, but their anguish was physically palpable and filled Cristobal with terror.&nbsp; Nevertheless, he approached their listless bodies, and just as he was approaching something noetic, a feminine figure clad in blue hovered over him.&nbsp; Though the figure was made ambiguous by a blur, Arrow could feel that this was a sexual being, an Ishtar, an Isis.&nbsp; She bent over the corpses and kissed one on the cheek before dashing away.<br><br>The being's familiarity surprised him awake.&nbsp; Looking about himself, he realized that he was in the backseat of a speeding car, heading south.&nbsp; New York City sped past, dizzying star systems of neon signs and brightened billboards forcing bile to rise from his stomach to the back of his tongue.&nbsp; Turning his head slowly to fix his gaze on the front of the car, he saw two heavy eye-lashed eyes peer at him in the rear view mirror and, in the same second, he felt a paralyzing pressure on his wrist.&nbsp; Had someone been sitting beside him?<br><br>Heavy eyes closed, and awoke again in a blindingly bright room.&nbsp; This time, the Kid's vision was blurry from sedatives.&nbsp; He couldn't move his neck; he could only see an askew horizon of a metallic table, a few bloody instruments on the silver surface, an IV bag suspended on a pole, and the bloody digits of a medic fumbling with sutures.&nbsp; The medic peered into Kid Arrow's eyes with a tilt of his head, then increased the medication.&nbsp; Arrow was knocked unconscious again.<br><br>Though Arrow believed that he knew what was happening during his time under, it was impossible to discern whether what he believed happened actually happened.&nbsp; By the time that he woke up in an unfamiliar room, the fogs of sleep had liberated him from his concerns, because the young hero could not recall anything past his brush with death.&nbsp; A large palm pressed against his skull; his mask was still on, and he felt from his careful prods the after effects of a mild concussion caused by severe trauma.&nbsp; Long legs lifted from the bed and swung over the side, planting his large feet on the ground.&nbsp; A debilitating abdominal pain seized him, forcing him to clutch his stomach with his forearms.&nbsp; Fighting through it, Kid Arrow rose to his feet haggardly.<br><br>&nbsp;"... where the hell am I?" he asked himself.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>18-03-2009, 05:07:29</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				A nurse walks in after hearing Arrow's movement and him talking to himself.<br><br>The nurse looks surprised at the masked man trying to get up and and immediately hurries to his aid.<br><br><strong>"Sir, you must lay down and rest,"</strong> she says while trying to get the man back in the bed, <strong>"You took a heavy blow you must please lay back down.&nbsp; It isn't good for you to get up after such an injury."</strong><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>18-03-2009, 15:29:21</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Unaware that someone was in the room, the costumed crusader spun on his heel, planted his feet and prepared for action, but his body simply could not tolerate that sort of movement.&nbsp; He allowed the nurse to escort him back unto the bed with a bit of incredulity in his posture because he was naturally opposed to the idea of anyone aiding him, but complied anyhow.&nbsp; The youth painted a sad image as he crawled unto the bed: he resembled more an 80-year-old man with arthritis than an individual of his age.<br><br>&nbsp;"... Where am I?" he finally asked.&nbsp; &nbsp;"What happened to me?&nbsp; How long have I been out?"&nbsp; All truly valid questions; New York City betrayed no answers behind the glass window panes.<br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>18-03-2009, 16:47:07</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				The nurse gently help him back into bed and gets him some painkillers to take.<br><br><strong>"You are in Mr. Veidt's Private Medical Clinic, in New York sir,"</strong> she replies calmly while grabbing the records at the end of Arrow's bed, <strong>"You took a heavy concussion on your occipital lobe of your brain, two cracked ribs, a chip fracture on your hip, multiple lacerations all of your body, and a dislocated shoulder from your fall.&nbsp; You have been out for a good 36 hours sir.&nbsp; Mr. Veidt should be coming soon to see how you are doing."</strong>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>18-03-2009, 20:06:56</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Medea<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>Early Morning</strong><br><br>I smile as Hellion glances back to see if I've followed, her expression slightly alarmed and relaxing as she sees me.&nbsp; There is a trick to walking stealthily in ballet boots, but it's not as much of one as most people might think; after all, I was already on tip-toes.&nbsp; Vinnie the Angel looks up, his eyes half glazed from the quick inhalation of the potent powder.&nbsp; It's cleaner than the base drug crank, most likely cocaine, but it will addle the mind anyways.&nbsp; His voice is rough and and displeased.&nbsp; "Who th' fuck are you?"&nbsp; He doesn't seem to know who Hellion is, but that may be momentary confusion.&nbsp; I roll the sphere across the top of my hand to palm, and then back to the back of my wrist, the lights of the bar catching in the slightly flawed center of the large crystal.&nbsp; <br><br>"Does it matter who we are?&nbsp; We're beautiful young women, interested in you, Mister Angel," I murmur, modulating my voice to deeper and more intense tones so they penetrate the barrier of noise the club generates.&nbsp; His eyes snap to me, as I intended, and then the crystal catches his attention, and he sits up a little.&nbsp; "This is the man you wished to play with, is it not?" I ask Hellion, keeping his attention away from her.&nbsp; The drugs are not helping, though - at least not yet.&nbsp; The first burst of pain-pleasure distracts and confuses them, and it's harder to maintain my hypnosis on them.&nbsp; <br><br>"Perhaps he should take us somewhere private where we can get....acquainted."&nbsp; My voice is all honey-and-come-hither, and the smile that crosses his lips is lustful and sneering.&nbsp; Men are terribly predictable, and keeping him distracted so that Hellion can deal with him swiftly is taking a lot more effort than I'd like.&nbsp; <br><br>Why can't people just use prescription drugs?&nbsp; They're so much more predictable!
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>19-03-2009, 00:30:06</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Hellion<br>Quincy's, Brooklyn<br>12:38 AM</strong><br><br>Hellion feels a tinge of wonder, somewhere in the back of her mind, as to when she's somehow decided that company would be preferable to the ceaseless solitude she'd come to accept as a natural state.&nbsp; The spook in her had planned three different exits from her presence, though she found each more distasteful than its predecessor.&nbsp; Medea's presence was a little exciting.&nbsp; <br><br>How ironic a contrast to her prior life as a counter-intelligence agent... she once had operated in deadly secrecy with no masks at all, but now that she hid her face behind a <i>physical</i> mask, she needed more than ever to be seen, talked about, and remembered.&nbsp; She had to stir things up, to counter-punch the fear of Armageddon with a more righteous and personal fear-- godless, we must rise up to fight out battles again; if the people came for her with pitchforks or laurels, it was all the same.&nbsp; They'd have to rise up.&nbsp; They'd have to act.<br><br>All that's miles from where she is now, and she can see from the pinpoint pupils of D'Angelo's eyes that he's donned his own mask... he's masked the whole world, shut himself into a white room and blown his mind to pieces so that he can't recognize a single damned thing.&nbsp; His facial muscles flutter subtly, and sweat darkens the trim of his pink cotton collar.&nbsp; Beneath, a diamond-crusted gold chain twinkles, telegraphs the nervous dancing of his throat.&nbsp; He's tweaked out of reality.&nbsp; Probably fringing on an overdose.<br><br>His attention is like some kind of rampant, terrified creature, bolting from corner to corner of a tiny cage.&nbsp; That cage is made up of everything around, but the corners seem to be Medea's crystal, Hellion's thighs, the blow on the tabletop, Medea's chest-- no one's eyes, no one's faces.&nbsp; Sentences run together like the output of a wood chipper as he stares up at Medea and Hellion-- "Donnie, the boys.&nbsp; They sent you huh.&nbsp; They... Freddy's pissed, I know but... I mean I know.&nbsp; I know he is but I'm gonna fix-- you shoulda seen what it was.&nbsp; It was a mess but that kid ain't gonna bring no heat down.&nbsp; He just--"<br><br>"Shut up, Angel," Hellion says, her voice rising with mock sweetness at the end of his name.&nbsp; "You're strung out--" he's blinking almost constantly, and while his attention for one moment seems riveted to Medea, the next he's looking back to Hellion again, his lips fighting to hold back the pressure of unsaid words.&nbsp; It doesn't require a PhD to see how terrified he is.&nbsp; <br><br>"Freddy's gon' kill me, man.&nbsp; I'm dead.&nbsp; I'm dead i'm dead i'm dead."&nbsp; He lifts a gun from his jacket,&nbsp; but before it's even visible in the red-lit club, Hellion's hand is closed on his.&nbsp; "Angel," Hellion says softlyand she's gliding into the booth beside him.&nbsp; "You don't have to be scared, now.&nbsp; All that's over."&nbsp; Almost tenderly, gingerly for certain, she guides his hand, leading it to the table where the gun lands in the dregs of one of the consumed lines, the white powder speckling the hairy, knotty knuckle of his hand, and leaves the short-barrelled .38 resting there like a forgotten toy.&nbsp; &nbsp;"You just don't know it yet."<br><br>He nods, continues fishing into his pocket.&nbsp; He hasn't looked at the gun, and doesn't appear to care for it any more-- it's left his existence, disappeared behind the mask outside his head.&nbsp; "Angel," Hellion says softly, smiling, meeting his eyes with a dipping of her head so she can look up at a slant to his lowered face.&nbsp; The gesture is universal-- in anger, it masks the face and makes one seem more menacing, as if readied for battle.&nbsp; Accompanied with the right hunching of shoulders to make the body seem smaller, though, it's a submissive approach, a coy, coquettish ploy like a child asking for a candy.&nbsp; Hopefully, some of her act is cracking the white-glazed surface of his consciousness.<br><br>"Angel, it took me a while to find you... we want to be your friends, and we want to show you just how much.&nbsp; But... sweetie, you HAVE to tell us--" at this, she grips his arm.&nbsp; Medea can see the muscles in Hellion's arm tense under the slick black material.&nbsp; "What, exactly, have you done..?"&nbsp; and she's tugging him up and away from the table.&nbsp; She catches Medea's eye and shoots a purposeful glance toward the inert revolver.&nbsp; As they rise to their feet, the unconscious woman beside Angel collapses into the red vinyl booth with a whine of complaint, but doesn't stir.<br><br><strong>12:58 AM<br>Quincy's, back office</strong><br>The music's less offensive, the smells less biological, but the cramped office is no less offensive. It reeks of the same cigars that Angel himself reeks of.&nbsp; The room's little more than a closet; the fluorescent fixture overhead is down to one functioning bulb, and a faulty ballast seems to be causing that light to stutter wickedly... Hellion's first action, when the reinforced oak door swings open, is to reach for its switch... she finds it quickly, and the glaring, flickering light goes dead immediately.&nbsp; The room's only light now is the glare of a blue-white fish tank bulb, distorted by a haze of greenish-brown algae and bubbling water.<br><br>Hellion's encouraging, motherly sort of mock-authority with the coked-up mobster is amusing, at least.&nbsp; She listens more than she speaks, but when she does, she seems to direct him like a rail guiding a speed-frenzied train.&nbsp; Once Angel's prattle strings together enough coherence for Medea and Hellion to sort out a vague sort of story, though, her tone shifts, she becomes more cautious and intent.&nbsp; <br><br>Evidently, some strange kid had visited him about a fire.&nbsp; <br><br>Hellion's outward reaction is minimal, but it's clear to Medea's trained eye that she's not happy.&nbsp; Even the thought of the fire, discussing it, tenses her upper lip like she's ready to bite.<br><br>"Was it this fire?"&nbsp; A tiny seam to the inside of her forearm unzips.&nbsp; A fold of paper-- newsprint, ragged.&nbsp; &nbsp;Names underlined with red pen.&nbsp; The highlights are clear enough.&nbsp; No photo accompanies this sidebar from the Post.&nbsp; <i>TRAGIC FIRE CLAIMS BROOKLYN FAMILY...&nbsp; Wendy Nolan Parker, 33,&nbsp; Britney Nolan, 7, and Joseph Nolan, 4, were in the upstairs bedrooms when... investigation into the disappearance of Michael Parker, Wendy's husband... Police have indicated that foul play is suspected. </i><br><br>Another torn page comes out of that tiny pocket in her sleeve.&nbsp; "This is where you come in, Angel."&nbsp; <i>HARBOR BODY CONNECTS TO BROOKLYN FIRE INVESTIGATION... body was recovered near the mouth of the Hudson yesterday morning is that of Michael Parker... possible suicide, does not rule out Parker's role in the early morning arson that claimed the lives...</i>&nbsp; "Who was in that house?&nbsp; The woman they haven't identified yet?"<br><br>Angel's sweating is profuse, and he can't seem to keep his hands or feet still.&nbsp; <br><br>The article has photos.&nbsp; Small-scale reproductions of school pictures.&nbsp; "Michael Parker wasn't suicidal, he was connected.&nbsp; He worked the books for you and your buddies."&nbsp; She tips her face, the mock-coddling having melted away.&nbsp; "And why are you so scared you're going to die..?"<br><br>In his trainwreck of linguistics, Angel explains, and it's not quite pretty.&nbsp; Some weird, homeless guy that was sniffing around the club.&nbsp; He'd talked Angel into a corner, asking questions about Parker.&nbsp; The thick out front had set in on him, but never managed to put a hand on the kid... now, word had come around to Freddy that questions were asked, and Angel was slated for a meeting.&nbsp; Evidently, this was but an instance in a string of instances that would be put to rest, one way or another.<br><br>"So you're killing yourself with blow?&nbsp; A preemptive strike."&nbsp; She shakes her head leans forward.&nbsp; Angel's in the desk chair, but she's on the desk.&nbsp; Her silhouette against the watery light seems to smile as she speaks.&nbsp; <br><br>"Medea here is going to save your life, Angel."&nbsp; Her eyes emerge from the black shape of her form as she smiles over to the woman beside her.&nbsp; "She's going to give you some information that you can use to get leverage on Freddy, to bargain with.&nbsp; Between that information, and the massive amount of money and junk you move through this building?&nbsp; You're going to be just fine.&nbsp; Understand?"&nbsp; <br><br>One black-taloned hand cups his subbled face, and she lifts it.&nbsp; White crusts the rim of his nostrils.&nbsp; "But you're going to take care of us, too.&nbsp; You're going to give us information that makes our work easier.&nbsp; And you're going to be very happy you did, Angel, because we can help you get to the top of your game.&nbsp; The top of the world, Angel, like in the old days... when you were younger, and working with criminals had its rewards."<br><br>She laughs softly.&nbsp; "Cloud nine, Angel.&nbsp; You'll be back on cloud nine.&nbsp; Are we clear?"<br><br>The face nods, the eyes flickering wildly in the skull.&nbsp; "Yeah.&nbsp; I understand."&nbsp; <br><br>Grinning, Hellion shakes his chin and purses her lips in an approving smile.&nbsp; "That's right... now... when did this strange kid leave?"<br><br><b>1:30 AM</b><br>When they reach the alley again, Hellion's mask slips right back onto her face.&nbsp; The clanging of the metal door gives them the welcoming ether of fresh air-- as fresh as can be expected with its undercurrent of oil and pollution.&nbsp; <br><br>"That fire killed four people.&nbsp; At least three, apparently, were innocent of all crimes but being related by marriage to a complete asshole."&nbsp; She sighs and makes a running hop onto the fire escape, retrieving her trenchcoat, and returns to ground level with the same casual drama of fluid muscles.&nbsp; "I'll have that information delivered.&nbsp; You can thank me later."&nbsp; She turns her gaze sidelong back to the lovely woman in Victorian-punk dress.&nbsp; "I like to do favors."&nbsp; The smile in her eyes is deviously coy.<br><br>The two set off through the grid of Brooklyn, their footfalls echoing like music to the accompaniment of a passing ambulance, in the direction of a residential neighborhood three blocks east.&nbsp; The moon is watching them, laughing and huge and alone.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>19-03-2009, 05:45:38</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Dark Aesir (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32223.msg1716730#msg1716730)<br>Morrin Street, Brooklyn<br>1:40 AM</strong> <br><br><br>Jonah Staggered away from the broken car, the Detroit steel and glass coffin for one of Valentine's tough boys. He could not longer hear the man gasping through the frothy mix of his own lungs, a dry fish in a three piece. He could barely stand though, barely walk. His wobbling gait was the chemical price of Olympic prowess on a cheeseburger diet, and he had skipped more than a few cheeseburgers lately.<br><br>As he stepped carefully over the grainy cracked bump of the sidewalk his hand missed the fluted metal streetlight, waved in mid air comically ...<br><br>...and a rough grasp snatches him from mid tumble, snatches him up and spins him like a toy to press his back against the brick wall. He thumps into the uneven masonry with a grunt and the solitary sound of debris bouncing on the concrete at his feet. The opening of the alley looms like a sudden maw to his right and it moans to have him so near, a sound like vertigo and hunger. Jonah's is dazzled by a bright golden glow. It shines in his eyes like the sun come to call. <br><br>He tries to speak and something raps across his sooty face with the power of a major leaguer, an infield double's worth of stars slide away from his vision to reveal a figure in the floodlight glare. There is a form there, a shape like a female, big hair like a TV star, that chick from Knight Rider, whats-her-name.<br><br>“Pay attention.” It says in a familiar voice. My god! he knows the voice, he has heard it...where? Downtown or Queens, somewhere he has heard it.<br><br>The form is beautiful, it is glowing and on fire with a glory that Jonah can barely take in, barely stand. He slits his eyes to get a look at the face and makes out armor. The woman is armored with ...with another woman behind her looking on. The armor is metal and fur and bolts and straps.<br><br>Jonah's blood prickles cold. Valkyries? Choosers of the slain? Was he dead?<br><br>“Listen.” the voice says again and the sound shatters into a spasm of butterflies that shower through his system, winged opium slushing into his weak limbs making them light, sweet and light.<br><br>“Do what I say.” she hisses in that maddeningly familiar voice bringing her face closer to Jonah's. The light from her 100 watt skin warms him straight down to his thighs, he feels energy flood back into his body, feels his spine shift back into shape. It is like someone pulling the cord that lines him right back up. <br><br>Her fingers take his face in their grip like something disgusting that one must touch. The vision of light grabs him like an offensive remark in a tattered hoodie. He can see her teeth gritting as she speaks, grinning like a skull. He can smell her body, sheened with the sweat of running, climbing, her voice is a threat set to poetry, lyrics to a hard city's tune.<br><br>“You had better be worth it.” She grinds out as her companion looks over her shoulder interested and delighted. <br><br>Then the lights went out. Darkness blasted into sudden technicolor sparks of blindness before his eyes and even though he felt full of energy again, he sank down the rough rounded-brick wall. <br><br>It was a moment before he realized that the streetlight had just flickered out. It hummed like a hornet and glared down with a single hot, orange spot burning lightlessly under the ancient, webbed glass. Two more heartbeats passed before Jonah realized he was holding his breath and gasped for a bitter taste of the night, a breath plated with the copper of his own blood.<br><br>“Son of a bitch...”he said in a shaky voice while the sirens whined out their cat sex melody and the ghost yellow moon danced through spilled glass.<br><br>“Son of a bitch.”<br><br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>20-03-2009, 00:04:54</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Kid Arrow<br>Veidt Industrial Complex, Tower II<br>Afternoon</strong><br><br>Somewhere, Arrow's mother is saying 'I told you so.'&nbsp; Sure, she didn't know where he was or that he got hurt, but if she had known, that's exactly what she'd say.&nbsp; Her lack of support for his masked lifestyle often frustrated him, but he begrudgingly conceded that she might have had a point.&nbsp; Cristobal was not in any way any more extraordinary than an olympic-level athlete, and in the world of the ubermensch, he posed no competition.&nbsp; But that was it.&nbsp; He had not been sidelined squaring off with an extranormal.&nbsp; No, he had been sidelined by an accident.&nbsp; An accident during an act deemed by the general populace as insane, but considered mundane in his line of work.<br><br>What really chapped Arrow's ass was that this could have been avoided if he hadn't been so negligent with his equipment.&nbsp; The injuries, though severe, didn't bother him as much as the two blows to his ego.&nbsp; The first blow was complex on a number of levels:&nbsp; his mother was right, he was too weak, he couldn't hack it.&nbsp; The second was equally as intolerable:&nbsp; Adrian Veidt saved his life.&nbsp; Now, Arrow didn't actually know what Veidt's status as an extranormal was:&nbsp; all he knew was that his marketing machine depicted him as the most intelligent individual on the planet.&nbsp; That was enough for Arrow to resent him.<br><br>But Arrow didn't hate Veidt.&nbsp; No, Veidt deserved to be admired.&nbsp; He had become a man of great importance, so much so that the Kid wondered what Veidt could possibly want with him.&nbsp; In between his deals with the most powerful men in the country, good ole' Ozymandias was going to visit some stupid kid in a mask.&nbsp; This did not compute:&nbsp; Veidt was, like every other powerful man Arrow had ever encountered, self-serving and shrewd.&nbsp; There was going to be a point to this meeting.<br><br>So Arrow waited, holding his abdomen by pressing his forearms against it.&nbsp; It felt like someone was stabbing him just to make him vomit.&nbsp; But he didn't move or say anything, not for want to be mysterious, but because he felt awkward being vocal with normal citizens.&nbsp; It seemed that he forfeited a great deal of professionalism whenever he spoke because his allusions and "witty verbage" oft revealed his youth.&nbsp; So, he folded his arms and said nothing.<br><br>But... admired the nurse's shapely figure from the corner of his eye, waiting for Mr. Veidt.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>20-03-2009, 01:57:39</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				An hour later, Veidt comes in dressed in the usual black business suit and hair styled like a pretty boy.<br><br>He dismisses the nurse that is tending to Arrow and walks towards Arrow's and takes a seat on the couch while propping his leg up on the other.&nbsp; Veidt could see the disappointment and shame and the blow to his ego.&nbsp; Veidt knew little of Arrow's actual identity.&nbsp; As Ozymandias he never encountered the Arrow and he only saw the Arrow in action in a few clips that the CIA and FBI managed to get of the hero.<br><br><strong>"You took quite a fall Arrow,"</strong> Veidt says while watching Arrow holding his abdomen, <strong>"If you were an ordinary man you would have most likely died or would have permanently injured.&nbsp; But you are not Arrow, due to that and the fact that I have been keeping an eye on you managed to allow me to save your life with little to no collateral damage to you.&nbsp; It doesn't take the world's smartest man to know of your importance Arrow.&nbsp; You have been hunting down offenders of the Keenes Act correct?&nbsp; If that is so, I would like to help you out."</strong>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>20-03-2009, 01:59:33</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Medea<br>Alley of Quincy's<br>Early Morning</strong><br><br>"I think that what you mean is you like to be owed favors," I gently admonish the excitable woman.&nbsp; The gentle hypnosis I used to help the distraught Vincent give her what she wanted to know also left me with a way to get back into his psyche.&nbsp; He can be useful to me - if he doesn't kill himself first.<br><br>"While this is not my typical sort of work, it does seem you'll need some help with this strange Watchman.&nbsp; He seems a rather volatile sort of fell - as well as exceedingly lucky."&nbsp; And something else.&nbsp; Superhuman strength, seeming invulnerability, inhuman swiftness....I recall a file I read in my government listings.&nbsp; "In fact, he might even be a madman.&nbsp; If so, I'm likely going to have to rely on other tricks besides my voice and crystal balls."&nbsp; Hypnosis doesn't work well on truly insane people, or at least not predictably.&nbsp; Chemical hypnosis might work better, but if he's an actual Watchman or a government project gone amok, then even that won't be reliable.&nbsp; <br><br>I watch Hellion move, that slippery, feline sort of grace that is both alluring and threatening.&nbsp; Our boot heels clack softly on the pavement, and I smile at her, enjoying how sleek and predatory she seems.&nbsp; But there's still that undercurrent of tension, that strange sense of something she's looking for.&nbsp; I could figure it out, given time, but we have other business.&nbsp; "How long have you been haunting this city, Hellion?&nbsp; You seem to know it's slime rather well."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>20-03-2009, 20:28:17</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Cropped black hair flutters at the nape of Hellion's neck as she skirts them past the orange glow of a trash-fire lit alleyway... it's October, and the cold is encroaching, the shapes of the ghosts of human lives are gathering, losing their summer-born solitude in favor of shared bottles and fires.&nbsp; Everything's dark, especially the woman in front.&nbsp; Her hands are in her coat pockets, and she matches her footfalls to Medea's so that, when they round the corner of&nbsp; an alley with a streetlight, it's almost surprising how very close she's walking to the woman beside her.&nbsp; <br><br>"I've known this city for a while.&nbsp; I've known the slime longer."&nbsp; The two catch sight of a parked minivan in the next alley, some twenty feet ahead, not slowing as she moves to a crouch and duck-walks a few steps-- she's changed her angle to look beneath the vehicle from the distance.&nbsp; "I prefer desperate city-scum.&nbsp; They're more honest."&nbsp; Hands still in her pockets, she straightens and edges to the left side of the shadowy alley, where a windowless wall still is feathery with the shredded remnants of advertising bills.<br><br>Medea, with practiced certainty, is aware that they're being watched.&nbsp; Hellion seems aware of it, too, and the predatory roll of her stride seems to become more pronounced and her hands come free from the pockets very slowly.&nbsp; "I'm curious as to how you know of this vagrant... Angel didn't give us much to go on.&nbsp; And you think he's possibly one of the Watchmen?"&nbsp; She narrows her eyes at that, casts a sidelong glance of skepticism toward Medea.&nbsp; "They were disbanded years ago, and I don't think that retiree's club is accepting new members... or do you know something I don't?"&nbsp; <br><br>She laughs softly, the mask stretching slightly with the motion of her mouth.&nbsp; "That would be something, wouldn't it..?&nbsp; Nukes enough to turn the seas into vapor are pointing in our direction right now, and what do we do?&nbsp; Drag out some jingoistic old farts and stick them in spandex.&nbsp; That'd inspire public order alright."&nbsp; Her eyes are laughing still, flicking back from their path through labyrinthine alleyways and looming shadows on streetcorners to study Medea's elegant form.&nbsp; "Lions would lay down with lambs, Tricky Dick and Castro would have a three-way with Lady Liberty, and Jesus would ride a dinosaur through downtown."&nbsp; Medea can see the silhouette of a top-knotted head at the mouth of the alley, just as they enter the pool of yellowish light at the foot of a streetlamp-- just the moment where visual recognition would be possible, just when Hellion's mask could be made out clearly-- and the top-knot disappears.&nbsp; Leaves behind him the sound of pumping sneakers as he vacates the alley.&nbsp; "So... what exactly can you <i>do</i> with those crystal balls, anyway?&nbsp; They're clearly in <i>capable</i> hands."&nbsp; Somehow, she manages to make the adjective into something more sensual.<br><br>Hellion pretends not to notice the thug's retreat.&nbsp; "Next street's a right.&nbsp; We should hit the 1600 block, and then--" her words stop suddenly as they hear a sharp, distance-muffled pop, echoing from several streets away.&nbsp; Instinct says it's a car backfiring for the first one, always does.&nbsp; The second, instinct says it's firecrackers... at the third, no one suspects anything but gunplay.&nbsp; This time, there are actually four, removing all doubt even for the most naive.&nbsp; Neither of these women, however, is slow to make the connection.&nbsp; Hellion even guesses that it's a large caliber handgun... semi-auto, from the speed of it.&nbsp; This isn't wild west firing; it's a tight group, evenly spaced-- the carefully aimed but quick delivery of someone who's fired a gun many times before.<br><br>A moment's pause, and she's locked eyes with Medea... their cool blue eyes could be traits of sisters, oddly enough, a point emphasized by the cold calculation, the hunter in them both.&nbsp; The contrasting distinctions were just as clear, and Hellion's contained a ferocity that fringed on desperation, while Medea's seemed almost amused with the absurdity of the world.&nbsp; <br><br>Whoever was watching them before is watching them no longer; gunshots tend to do that.&nbsp; If you're not up to anything illegal, they make you curious.&nbsp; If you are, they make you flee; the exception being this strange breed of would-be heroes who roamed the streets in Kevlar and leather and latex and lace.&nbsp; The freaks, the vigilantes, the heroes and villains-- their reaction is to jump onto the tiger's back, whichever way he might intend to run.<br><br>Hellion breaks into a sprint, knowing Medea isn't far behind.&nbsp; Her long stride burns three city blocks-- half a thousand meters, in a minute and a half-- that's too long.&nbsp; The scene's easy to piece together... a pale yellow sedan parked streetside, the motor still idling quietly.&nbsp; The driver's head is leaned to the open window at an awkward angle with no fog coming from his mouth.&nbsp; The shell of a building blackened and gutted by fire, fluttering yellow tape in the October breeze.&nbsp; White streetlights, the distant wail of sirens.&nbsp; Too late.<br><br>A streetlight flickers...&nbsp; an upper-story window lights up, and the shape of a curler-ribbed head peeks at the edge of the yellow square of light.&nbsp; The breeze picks up, the sirens are lazily rising and falling; they have only minutes.&nbsp; "I recognize that one--" Hellion calls, gesturing toward the car with taloned gloves.&nbsp; "Henry Bolinski.&nbsp; He's an enforcer for Valentine."&nbsp; She spots the gleam of spent brass by the ruined frame of a window.&nbsp; A heap inside that's not ashen and charred-- brown coat, toppled, crumpled hat beside a brown face.&nbsp; "Louie Pepper.&nbsp; Same-same."&nbsp; <br><br>By streetlight, the two women pick up the faint gleam of something dark, a spatter trail, along the cracked concrete.&nbsp; Hellion follows it with her eyes... up the street, across-- a heap of rubbish by the fluted steel of a dead streetlamp gradually takes form... it's a man's body, slumped against the post, upright and dazed.&nbsp; A living, breathing mystery, who the spooky-lingerie model called Medea seemed to recognize by his description, who dropped Bolie and Pepper like a couple of schoolyard bullies... she closes distance, ready to roll, run, or strike if he more than flinches.<br><br>Her knees spread and she crouches before him, balancing on the balls of her feet like a perching bird.&nbsp; The streetlight springs back to life with a locust's electric buzz; her black hair's rimmed in white light from its glare, but the black sheen of her suit gleams like an adder's back.&nbsp; Her blue eyes rest on the young man's lashes, study the gentle features, the hardened edges.&nbsp; They watch his eyes meet hers.&nbsp; "It's time to go," she says, the skull half-face of her mask fluttering with the movement of her mouth.&nbsp; She grips his shoulders and straightens upright, her thighs flexing as she heaves back to her feet.&nbsp; Unless he resists, she manages to balance him on her shoulder and heave him over her back in a fireman's carry... he's a slender young man, despite his athletic build, but it clearly takes some effort for Hellion.&nbsp; "Let's borrow Henry's ride... you think?"&nbsp; <br><br>She heads for the sedan with Aesir in tow.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>21-03-2009, 05:57:07</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Jonah felt the blood in his mouth. He didn't mind it at all. The pain was mostly gone now and his limbs swam in the sweet helium of his last vision. He didn't mind the taste of his own blood, his own heart beat, the feel of his own breathing. There were times when life came down to just that. Just those few things that separated the real from the impossible, or the far too real.<br><br>He looked like a murder victim. His mouth wound bled like a head wound and his whole chin gleamed, painted in the silk water crimson of blood and spit. Dots of it speckled his face&nbsp; in black constellations around his sword metal eyes. And a jagged brown stain flowered down the front of the gray hoodie, the ties soaked at the top like surgical wicks.<br><br>Around him the world looked darker. As if the light had just seeped away, flooded into the gutters and run away to join the bacterial circus under the city.<br><br>It is black like a curtain and quiet. The wailing of the sirens is lathered away behind the hum of some low pitched sound that thumps through his body like phantom voltage.<br><br>Jonah slowly looks up at the streetlight and it peers down, tired and dim, just a faint firefly against the vaulted ceiling of night. He knew how it felt.<br><br>Then the ground shakes. It crumps as if under attack, the shock of faraway explosions hammering some distant place to abstract ruble. <br><br>Thoomp thoomp thoomp thoomp… Thoomp thoomp... thoomp thoomp<br><br>Cluster bombing, rockets perhaps. The muffled booming sounds rock steadily like hoof beats, or footsteps. A running rhythm, each step hitting the ground like an elephant without a parachute, or a hollywood T-Rex.<br><br>Jonah sees them emerge from the row of buildings. The two figures, they are stick figures, just lines connecting dots that move on the curtain of darkness around him. They come sprinting out and the booming of their footsteps fades down to a silent movie hiss as soon as he sees them. Even as cartoony gesture drawings each has a certain character. <br><br>The first one moves like a fighter. The casual mark that is its spine is bent and ready to snap, spring-like. Its legs pump, knees first. Jonah knows how is was, knees in case you need knees. The hands, crude scribbled balls, stay in line with the face , the front of the body. Those are striking balls, punching and kicking balls. She is clearly a Scrapper<br><br>In an almost comical contrast, the other drawing&nbsp; comes bounding out with its spine straight and tall, ready to bend. The arms move freely and gracefully like vipers. The swish of its form is not hunched over in the least, not defensive but moving with the ball of its head upright. The figure seems to float on the scribbles of its feet. Jonah imagines pointed toes there, walking on its toes like a Dancer. Yes that was it exactly, it moves like a Dancer.<br><br>The Scrapper slows to a halt, scuttling forward still tucked and ready while the Dancer floats up with bouncing gazelle strides. The car is there somewhere with its shattered windshield and lifelessly reluctant passenger. He cannot see it. The world is dark save for the chalk figures now, but he knows that they must be near it, they must see it. <br><br>The Scrapper motions with one balled up hand bulb. There and there, it points. The Dancer leans forward interested as much with the Scrapper as the object of her martial perceptions. <br><br>Then they both look around. He can see the two dimensional balls of their heads change to mark the swivel. The glass. Jonah suddenly feels like a complete idiot, not for the first time certainly, but this time he has an audience .<br><br>A light riverbed of glass sparkled like a pixie dust trail from the car straight to the shadows in which he huddled. It shone in the moons mocking light like all the stars behind the bruisey clouds above. It even twinkled across his form, tucked into folds and glinting boldly from his shoulder and knees. Jonah groaned inwardly.<br><br>The figures move toward him in their individual ways, the Scrapper, panther ready, the Dancer, an agile angel. And as they grow closer they change. Like walking through the candied layers of a dream they alter with each step, as quick as a foot fall, slipping from one form into another. <br><br>Both scribbles become skeletons, then they are each a body cadaverous, skinless and muscled white, like the medical dead. Then they adopt their skins and for the first time Johan can see that they are women. And each with a distinct beauty. <br><br>The Dancer is obviously beautiful, very obviously, almost obnoxiously lovely. The fighter has a scary feline grace that is as hard to ignore as an oncoming car crash. For that one step they are both naked and, of course, things get complicated. <br><br>He catches&nbsp; nipples and the curve of breasts. The Dancer's collarbones and shoulders are leaping deer beautiful. The Scrapper has her front covered and as soon as Jonah even thinks to look for thighs or any secrets they might hold, the next step lands. Suddenly the Scrapper has small metal pins biting into her flesh and a knife? Is that a knife, hidden? A piece of wire wrapped around something. The Dancer is covered in fasteners and buttons. Then she has glass globes of different sizes and shapes around her while the Scrappers face seems to rip off at the bottom leaving only a clean white skull full of teeth. It is too much to follow. After naked, everything just flickers in too fast to scan and tag.<br><br>Suddenly the street light came back to life with a god fearing POP, and there was her face. Her cobalt eyes reached out with the force of a vision grabbing him by his awareness and whispering “You better be worth it” without saying a single word. Her hair fanned out in a halo of night fired around its edges with the sodium glare of the resurrected light.<br><br>The Dancer looked on with her oddly violet eyes, her low, lacy&nbsp; ascot waved in the fish water breeze from the coming rain. Captivating eyes. Jonah could not look away, not until the Scrapper spoke. Her words were as as dreadful as those eyes, ready, everything about her was ready.<br><br>“It's time to go.” She said and there it was! The voice! Jonah knew that voice, the voice of the Valkyrie. It spooked him and he jumped, feeling an icy frog scurry down his spine. As he sat there stunned she unceremoniously hoisted up across her shoulders. He half expected a mexican spin or a body slam, maybe something from the top rope, but instead she grunted "Let's borrow Henry's ride... you think?" And made a&nbsp; line for the sedan with the ruined front seat and the still and quiet body Henry Bolinski crushed into the back. He noticed the hooked claws on her armored gauntlets and rather wished he had seen those a little earlier. The nipples had really thrown him off.<br><br>A casual shifting of the shoulders worthy of a judo master sennt him sprawling into the remains of the backseat still coated with chunks of&nbsp; shatterproof&nbsp; glass, shattered. The Scrapper tried to close the door but something in its gut was bent and it stubbornly wobbled with a grating metal on metal sound. She wasted no time. Going from zero to ninety, she threw a kick that rang the door like a sheet metal bell and it slammed in Jonah's face, likely never to open again. He blinked at his own surprised&nbsp; ghost image in the dusty glass. <br><br>As the two women of action split to take their places in the car with the dented hood, the conquered door and a friendly neighborhood corpse, the whirling strobe of blue lights bathed the building row in moments of neon. The top of the hill glowed with the milky glare of onrushing headlights just below its rim.<br><br>Trapped between a corpse and a kick welded door Jonah wondered what else might go south. And that was when the first few fat greasy drops of rain hit the glass.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>21-03-2009, 08:57:29</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Medea<br>Alley of Quincy's<br>Early Morning<br><br>I don't have time to answer her questions immediately, as we arrive at the scene of carnage.&nbsp; It looks inhuman, and it might be inhuman.&nbsp; When she points out the one who caused it, my heart jumps into my throat.&nbsp; It IS him.&nbsp; "Don't make any sudden or threatening moves towards him, Hellion.&nbsp; He might react badly."&nbsp; It answers part of one of her questions.&nbsp; The Valkyrie Files are supposed to be locked and sealed, and all traces of them erased.&nbsp; He's one of the traces that didn't get erased....and I can guess why, looking at all the damage he's caused.&nbsp; Damn these people for thinking they could purposefully make another Doc Manhattan or Ozymandias!&nbsp; <br><br>Helping remove the dead body - and they never do tell you how much of a mess they are in the movies, do they? - is one of those chores I really have no love for.&nbsp; But then he's tumbled out, and this poor bastard is in.&nbsp; I pitch my voice very carefully to be the sweetest, most soothing it can be.&nbsp; "Do not be afraid, brave warrior; you may rest easy in our care."&nbsp; I don't touch him; he might be too dangerous for that, as sedate and semi-conscious as he seems.&nbsp; <br><br>I slide into the car next to Hellion and sigh softly, tucking the vial of potent narcoleptizine into my utility belt as I fasten the seat belt.&nbsp; No need for it now, and in a vehicle it would gas me as well.&nbsp; "He's the product of a little known government project to design a perfect soldier.&nbsp; It failed miserably, except in one particular instance, mostly because the soldiers turned on themselves and everyone around them like mad animals.&nbsp; the exception didn't turn on everyone - only the ones who tried to keep him confined.&nbsp; He escaped, and...well, you've seen what he does.&nbsp; He's uncontrollable, but more importantly, he's uncontainable.&nbsp; So they cover up behind them as best they can."&nbsp; On the other hand, I have a few advantages; ifI'm very careful, I might be able to get through to him. <br><br>"i use the crystals to hypnotize people.&nbsp; I don't need them - there are dozens of ways i can take your conscious mind and gently suppress it.&nbsp; But they're flashy and attractive, and no one ever thinks of them as weapons, since they aren't.&nbsp; The people I deal with aren't typical street thugs or gunmen; I deal with a higher level of crime, in the governments and the corporations."&nbsp; I glance back at the poor devil behind us.&nbsp; "I try and keep things like this from happening before they start."&nbsp; <br><br>Leaning back, I watch the rain spatter along the windshield, the moisture seeping in through the cracks.&nbsp; "I'm here because I need to find the person who killed Edward Blake - the Comedian.&nbsp; Not for justice, but because there is something very personal that he knew that I can't really let become public.&nbsp; If people find out about it, there will be a second visitation of the Keene's law, or worse, more riots."&nbsp; Not to mention the mess it would make out of someone's life.&nbsp; That's the one thing that pushes me onwards.&nbsp; "It might be as simple as finding out that the killer doesn't know....in which case, he's all yours, or Rorsharch's, or...well, whomever.&nbsp; If he does know....then he won't know for very long."&nbsp; <br><br>It's not easy to utterly wipe a bit of knowledge from someone's mind, but with drugs and skill, you can make it impossible to access.&nbsp; I don't even need the drugs, anymore.&nbsp; But first I have to find the murderer.&nbsp; "It's possible he could have killed the Comedian," I say, glancing back at the moaning heap in the back seat.&nbsp; "But finding out is not going to be easy - or very safe."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>23-03-2009, 06:02:09</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Brushing a heap of glass chunks from under her ass, Hellion steers the sedan at a tire-blistering acceleration and corners hard.&nbsp; Through the destroyed side-window, rain begins to patter at her arm, and a cool, stinging drop pats her cheek like an admonishing pixie.&nbsp; "Now you're speaking my language, Medea."&nbsp; She smirks, staring ahead still, her gaze wandering for a moment to check the passenger in the back seat.&nbsp; "The Valkyrie project... that <i>does</i> ring a bell.&nbsp; I never read the files, but I heard rumors."&nbsp; <br><br>Cornering with a minimal slide, the tires chirp more than she'd like, but they don't scream-- Hellion's direction seems to be for the expressway.&nbsp; Maybe across the bridge.&nbsp; "I'm surprised that a person with sufficient talent to control the human will didn't settle for a seven-figure-a-year job in corporate advertising."&nbsp; As if on queue, they pass one of the massive, hovering advertising bots, its searchlights giving Hellion a moment's pause before she discerns that their purpose isn't to seek, but to be seen.&nbsp; The advertisement: "Nostalgia: Let Not the Night's Dream Fade".&nbsp; <br><br>The cops are almost certainly locking down their scene; no one in pursuit yet, apparently, so their only need now is to cross the bridge, lose the car, and catch a train into Manhattan.&nbsp; Hellion takes a moment to scan the young man's face again in the rearview-- ruddy and streaked with fresh blood, sure, but pretty underneath.&nbsp; She smiles faintly under the mask.&nbsp; <br><br>"Are you saying he's your suspect?&nbsp; Because I'm not sure this guy's jacking-up enforcers and sniffing for clues at a fire scene connect back to tossing a washed-up spook out a highrise window."&nbsp; Her eyes pivot back to Medea's.&nbsp; She's almost proud to have the knowledge she has so far revealed, but makes no motion to share more.&nbsp; "You know that he was a complete monster, I hope.&nbsp; No hero, but rather an empowered extension of a corrupt society's fears and hatred."<br><br>Without further explanation, she sets into a steady pace of five-miles-per-hour above the posted speed limit as they start across the East River.&nbsp; "Damned if you don't, damned if you do."&nbsp; She leans back slightly in the seat.&nbsp; "I tell you what... I'll help you talk to this gentleman.&nbsp; Gently, politely.&nbsp; We'll all play Hunkey-Dorey as long as we can."&nbsp; She reaches for the mask with one hand as the lamp-posts roll by like sentinel candles.&nbsp; "You ask me questions, if you like.&nbsp; And I'll try to help you out, like I've said."&nbsp; She changes lanes, makes their way around a tractor-trailer bound out of New Jersey.&nbsp; "I'll worry about the 'safe' part."<br><br>Her face, beneath the mask, is lovely.&nbsp; Full lips, huge eyes uptilted at the corners.&nbsp; Soft smile lingering at her mouth.&nbsp; "I'm even going to show you my place, if you'd like.&nbsp; But you gotta promise me something."&nbsp; She glances aside at the woman beside her, letting her gaze roam from face to thigh before returning to the road ahead.&nbsp; "No tricks, no masks.&nbsp; You've got to let me see the real you."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>23-03-2009, 17:56:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				They drove through the little islands of moth-eaten light that sprang from the poles and posts along the streets then the highway. Even in those patches of illumination, black bars slid across the interior of the scared vehicle bending over the features of the driving Scrapper and her accomplice the beautiful Dancer. The two talked about someone being thrown out a window and real faces. It was hard to hear over the roar of the wet wind and the rumble of truck traffic. <br><br>Jonah leaned over to let some of the rain dashing into their car hit him in the face and hands. It didn’t feel hot or cold, just wet but wet was good enough. Cupping his hands, he rubbed his face into them trying to use the rain to clean off his horror show mouth. The pistol whipping left only a vague memory of the impact. With a finger, he probed in and around his teeth and gums locating an additional chunk of windshield glass but finding all of his teeth in place.<br><br>When he straightened up, the Scrapper had pulled away the grinning skull mask to reveal lovely full lips and a sculpted chin to match her black shoulder length hair. She really was a looker and not of the street variety. She was a girlfriend looker, a high-end fiancé looker. Not arm candy, no, but honest and direct. Jonah mentally traced the almond shape of her eyes and memorized her profile from habit. <br><br>The Dancer was also talking under the noise of the highway. Her eyes were powerful, deep but not like holes. Her eyes were like flowers; their color drew him in, beckoned to him. Between streetlights, when the shadow shuttered across her features he wanted those eyes back, those beautiful violet eyes.<br><br>Then the flicker of a streetlight slowly rolled across her porcelain features again…<br><br>…and her beautiful face runs back with tiny diamond chip scales that slide around warm glowing purple eyes. The slopes of her face wash upward toward a flowing hairline that swims with snakes thin and large. His reflection lives in the glittering jaws of each diamond scale and all the snakes have those shining chips for eyes. If he looks just a moment longer, he will be trapped, bound to the opium of her image, lost in the deep pool of her beauty.<br><br>Jonah looked away from the Dancer quickly suddenly aware of her danger. It seemed he was nowhere near out of trouble. Her face shifted back in the next drift of light but Jonah did not look back, but he sure did want to<br><br>Time to figure out if this was the frying pan or the fire.<br><br>“I guess I need to thank you ladies for coming to my rescue. Since we are playing rabbit in part of a crime scene I think it is safe to assume neither of you are cops?” he said speaking up over the rain and wind.<br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>24-03-2009, 08:30:30</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Medea<br>En Route<br>Early Morning<br><br>"No, we're not the police," I reply to the question from the back seat.&nbsp; It gives me a chance to consider what Hellion is asking, and I think it has a little more to do with what's under the suit than just knowing who I really am.&nbsp; "You might be in trouble, but you might not be.&nbsp; We just need to know a few answers to questions you will probably be able to answer.&nbsp; You don't have to be afraid of us.&nbsp; I know some things about you, and I really haven't any interest in harming you."&nbsp; Not that we could; Hellion might be able to put up a fight, but he'd kill me, like he'd killed the other men.<br><br>I keep my voice soothing, calm, the rhythm engaging without being sonorous.&nbsp; Giving Hellion a case of highway hypnosis would be very unfortunate for everyone involved.&nbsp; "You may call me Medea, and this lovely young lady is Hellion."&nbsp; I brush the back of my fingers along Hellion's shoulder, a light brush that could be taken any number of ways.&nbsp; And from the looks she's been giving me, I'm fairly certain she'll take it the way I want her to.&nbsp; Tacit agreement.&nbsp; <br><br>Besides, if I want her to forget my face, she will.&nbsp; This fellow though....this victim.&nbsp; I might not be able to do that with him.&nbsp; And while I suspect that no one will be able to catch him, if I'm wrong, he would give away a secret I've kept from the government despite the Keene Act - my real identity.&nbsp; Not even the Federals know who Medea is when she's not herself.<br><br>"Is there anything we can do for you, to make you feel less threatened?" I ask the ragged, rather homeless looking fellow in the back seat.&nbsp; "You do not look very well."&nbsp; I pitch my voice slightly, testing, seeing if he responds to it in the way he's supposed to.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>24-03-2009, 19:38:37</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote"><a href="https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32329.msg1731970#msg1731970">Quote from: Idej on 20-03-2009, 01:57:39</a></div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote"><strong>"You took quite a fall Arrow,"</strong> Veidt says while watching Arrow holding his abdomen, <strong>"If you were an ordinary man you would have most likely died or would have permanently injured.&nbsp; But you are not Arrow, due to that and the fact that I have been keeping an eye on you managed to allow me to save your life with little to no collateral damage to you.&nbsp; It doesn't take the world's smartest man to know of your importance Arrow.&nbsp; You have been hunting down offenders of the Keenes Act correct?&nbsp; If that is so, I would like to help you out."</strong><br></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>Arrow liked the image of Veidt:&nbsp; handsome billionaire playboy with a checkered crime-fighting career.&nbsp; Any young man would.&nbsp; The limitless flow of cash, the harems of women.&nbsp; He had read somewhere that Veidt owned Club 54 and hung out with Ziggy Stardust himself.&nbsp; But Arrow took an immediate dislike towards Veidt upon first seeing him.&nbsp; He was a cheeky, well-to-do yank, dressed to excess, an icon of the 80s.&nbsp; Cristobal felt gipped, as if Veidt couldn't possibly be Ozymandias.&nbsp; No, the guy who stood in front of him was just a nerd with too much money.<br><br>&nbsp;"No offense to you, Mr. Veidt," Arrow said, &nbsp;"but your manipulation skills come straight from a textbook.&nbsp; First, you probably know that I'm not extra-normal.&nbsp; Using samples of my blood, you can probably gauge how old I am, and you've extrapolated from all that information an accurate psychological profile.&nbsp; You're courting my feelings of insecurity to create a connection between us."<br><br>Arrow slowly sat up by swinging his legs over the lab table, his head lowered.&nbsp; He then lifted his eyes slowly towards Veidt, assessing him while he was becoming adjusted to the idea of sitting up.<br><br>&nbsp;"It ain't going to work," Arrow said.&nbsp; &nbsp;"The CIA sent me to a mesmerist to increase my resistance to psychological and mental attacks."<br><br>During his first visit, the young hero had been utterly terrified of Medea because he couldn't get his thoughts in order prior to his visit with her.&nbsp; One can't ever quite think normal thoughts around telepaths.&nbsp; He was certain that Medea thought him to be an adolescent pervert, a homosexual, an incestual mother lover and a murderer.&nbsp; That is, at least that's what Arrow thought.&nbsp; Arrow assumed that Medea was a telepath, but he didn't really know what she could do.<br><br>At that instant, Arrow thought it was funny to suddenly recall Medea, since she was someone whom he desperately wanted to forget about.&nbsp; The idea that people like Medea existed freaked him out.<br><br>&nbsp;"Yes.&nbsp; I am hunting down a certain cape.&nbsp; You already knew that, though, didn't you?&nbsp; So I wonder why you would be so willing to help me.&nbsp; ... But we both know the truth, don't we, Mr. Veidt?&nbsp; You wouldn't be helping me.&nbsp; I would be helping you.&nbsp; That's how rich guys get ahead in life, isn't it?"<br><br>Arrow was evidently stalling.<br><br>&nbsp;"What, Rorschach steal your girlfriend or something?"
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>24-03-2009, 23:39:43</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>"Hehe, you certainly think you are capable of gauging all of my motives don't you Arrow.&nbsp; It also doesn't take high intelligence or a multi-billion dollar corporate CEO to know your profile Arrow, your insecurities, and what your next action will be,"</strong> he replies as he gets up off the couch walks to the foot of the bed, <strong>"and please, lets be civil I am not here to attack you otherwise I would have left you for dead out there."</strong><br><br>Veidt smiles as he looks at the hero's mask.&nbsp; Remembering the past and knowing what it was like, but now is the present and the time of the mask is no more.&nbsp; When Arrow mentions of Rorshach he smiles faintly.<br><br><strong>"Rorshach believes that someone is out to get masked vigilantes and is investigating deeper into this conspiracy,"</strong> he says, <strong>"From what I hear Rorshach is doing more harm than good to the people and is making it hard for me to run my business due to my past affiliations with the man.&nbsp; And yes chasing after Rorshach is one of the reasons you are here, the second is that despite what is going on other heroes who have retired are now donning their costumes once more.&nbsp; I know that the law is supposed to take care of this problem, but they have to go through so many channels just get one hero locked away it would take quite a while.&nbsp; You on the other hand are still sanctioned by the government to wear your mask and work for the government.&nbsp; I want you to take down these other heroes and lock them up or do whatever.&nbsp; Despite what many people think of Rorshach he has some close friends and they will eventually believe him on this conspiracy of his.&nbsp; I believe you know the outcome if that is happen."</strong>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 02:43:59</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				There was something evidently amiss.&nbsp; Ozymandias was asking Arrow, almost as a favor, to do what he had already set out to do.&nbsp; If anything, Arrow had expected Ozymandias to help out his previous associates.&nbsp; Did what Ozymandias ask of him follow?&nbsp; The question answers itself.&nbsp; Something wasn't right.<br><br>Was Rorschach's investigation into the Comedian's death driving previous heroes to their masks?&nbsp; The answer was no.&nbsp; He seriously doubted that Rorschach had even communicated with many of his former associates, and some of the heroes returning to the streets had no previous recorded contact with the masked vigilante whatsoever.&nbsp; But he did see Nite-Owl.&nbsp; Funny that Nite-Owl should be out patrolling the streets after a chance meeting with Rorschach.&nbsp; So perhaps the initial question wasn't a full no.<br><br>Nevertheless, could Ozymandias be entirely against the prospect of having heroes patrolling the streets?&nbsp; Especially when the entire world was so close to the brink of disaster?<br><br>Veidt said that he benefitted from Rorschach's capture because his company couldn't afford to be associated with him.&nbsp; But the company, in one way or another, was associated with Rorschach;&nbsp; Arrow owned the Rorschach action figure, produced by Veidt's parent company.&nbsp; Also, Veidt's marketing machine had fooled the entire world into thinking that he was the smartest fellow in the entire planet;&nbsp; certainly, they could come up with something, anything, that could separate the company from a vigilante.<br><br>So, while Arrow had no doubt that Veidt wanted Rorschach captured, he knew that he was benefitting from it some other way.&nbsp; What had Rorschach's unraveling revealed?&nbsp; Or was he about to stumble onto something?&nbsp; Whatever it was, it got the Comedian killed.&nbsp; Perhaps Veidt didn't want his friend to meet the same end.&nbsp; Did Ozymandias have a soft spot for ole' black-and-white face?&nbsp; Were they lovers?&nbsp; Impossible.&nbsp; Rorschach smells like&nbsp; a can of tuna that's sat in the sun for three days.&nbsp; But it wasn't unreasonable...<br><br>Of course, Veidt hadn't mentioned Rorschach by name.&nbsp; Arrow had.<br><br>&nbsp;"The outcome:&nbsp; masked heroes will retaliate against shadows, find fault where there is none and become enemies of the state.&nbsp; Public fear of extranormals will become a reality."<br><br>Arrow got up and began to pace calmly in front of Veidt.<br><br>&nbsp;"But it does not make sense.&nbsp; You once worked as a masked vigilante.&nbsp; You believed that you could change the world.&nbsp; And, for the most part, you did.&nbsp; Now, you do the same thing you did before, just without the mask.&nbsp; Question:&nbsp; why is Ozymandias, or the man who used to be Ozymandias," &nbsp;Arrow says this pointedly, &nbsp;"suddenly out to stop former heroes?"<br><br>Arrow stopped to look at his own reflection on a glass window.&nbsp; Then, he glanced over his shoulder at Veidt.<br><br>&nbsp;"Answer:&nbsp; it doesn't matter.&nbsp; It's none of my business.&nbsp; It would only be my business if you were somehow trying to stop me from performing my mission.&nbsp; I shouldn't blame you if you were, and I must admit that I'm surprised to receive any help from you.&nbsp; But that's it, isn't it?&nbsp; You have information and you're going to give it to me.&nbsp; Somehow, you benefit, but it isn't for the reason you just gave me.&nbsp; The reason isn't important to me because I get what I want anyway."<br><br>Arrow folded his arms.<br><br>&nbsp;"So what is it, Veidt?&nbsp; Do you have any leads?"<br><br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 03:09:42</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Dark Aesir (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32223.msg1716730#msg1716730)<br>En Route with Medea and Hellion<br>Early Morning</strong> <br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">"Is there anything we can do for you, to make you feel less threatened?" I ask the ragged, rather homeless looking fellow in the back seat.&nbsp; "You do not look very well."&nbsp; I pitch my voice slightly, testing, seeing if he responds to it in the way he's supposed to. </blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br>Jonah heard the Dancer speak and her voice echoed as if sang by a hundred monks, the open throated groaning chant of the high Himalayas sang through the innocent words. It rang his head like a bell briefly doubling his vision.<br><br>He slapped his hand to his head as the ache arced from temple to temple, a brief icepick and then it was gone. He shook a finger at the beautiful Dancer and wiped at his face. <br><br>“That – that's enough of that, young lady. I will turn this car around right now.” he said grimacing into a grin at his own vague humor while massaging his forehead even after the spike had past..<br><br>“And I look grubby, not ill.” he said, stalling. His katana blade eyes flicked around the car careful to dodge those of the lovely woman in the front, even though he dearly wanted to just melt into them, her deep orchid eyes. <br><br>He tried to notice anything, whatever might help his situation. But there were no glowing weak points, no slowing of time, no flaming demons grinning trough the remaining windows. He felt abandoned, let down by the Aesir. Jonah never realized how quiet his brain was when the Aesir force wasn't banging around through it like a palsied tinker. <br><br>He looked back to the Scrapper, her black hair whipping around the the wind, the mask just a mall grade fashion statement now, hugging her neck. She sat in the seat ready. My god, was she ever not ready. And this antelope woman with the endless eyes...these were not walk in's. He didn't need the Aesir to know that these women were trained. Trained hard, and it was looking like the fire for him. <br><br>“You don't look like company girls.” he said carefully, sitting back. He casually hiked one leg up to rest his dirty sneaker on the seat.<br><br>“Well, <em>you</em> don't anyway.” he said to the Dancer while keeping the Scrapper in his vision, just off center. She would be the one to really hurt him when the fireworks started. The cool industrial air of Jersey flapped against his face making him squint.<br><br>&nbsp;“You mercs? Bounty hunters?” he asked calmly, waiting for it, waiting for that inbreathing of the universe when the Aesir rose and the world gave way to its prowess. But it didn't happen, not even a little. As the bridge whined past them, bumping underneath with a rail car click at each stay, it became clear to Jonah that he was on his own. And so he gave a mental shrug, what the hell.<br><br>“Ooorr maybe you're just looking for a good time?” <br><br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Idej</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 03:37:48</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Adrian Veidt<br>Veidt Industrial Complex, Tower II<br>Afternoon</strong><br><br>Veidt merely nods at Arrow's speculations.&nbsp; He smiles and listens before he replies once more.<br><br><strong>"Rorshach is digging into something that is dangerous Arrow, and he needs to be stopped before he unravels it more.&nbsp; The world is already at the brink of destruction I fear that whatever Rorshach finds will only complicate matters in the world,"</strong> Veidt replies, <strong>"And yes I do have information for you, the location of where Rorshach will be in tomorrow night.&nbsp; And I am here to provide you some new equipment for you as your old gear was the cause of your fall.&nbsp; It shall all be given to you in the morning the doctors said that you need at least one more night of rest.&nbsp; Feel free to use any of the accomodations in my private medical suite Arrow take off your mask there is no cameras in this room as this is my private suite Arrow,"</strong> he replies, <strong>"I will give you my leads and information and your new equipment provided you stay here for the night and rest.&nbsp; I wouldn't want to have the person going after Rorshach not be in near tip-top shape when he reaches the him."</strong><br><br>Veidt heads towards the door and the same nurse walks in before he leaves he says one last thing, <strong>"And I mean all of the accomadations that is here Arrow."</strong><br><br>He walks out smiling knowing that his agenda is advancing along.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 05:34:58</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Medea<br>En Route<br>Early Morning <br><br>"Not mercenary, no; I am a company girl, but not the company that you are talking about."&nbsp; I manage to hide my surprise at his reaction to my Voice.&nbsp; He's much more sensitive than I'd thought, and I count myself lucky he doesn't decide to off us both.&nbsp; "I deal with the kinds of crimes that people above the law usually think they can get away with.&nbsp; The kind of crimes they trick people like you into doing for them, sometimes.&nbsp; But I'm not going to turn you over to anyone - I just need a few questions answered, and that's all."&nbsp; <br><br>I smile and let my hand slide over Hellion's thigh lightly.&nbsp; "As for a good time, I'm already having one, really.&nbsp; You're not quite my type."&nbsp; The only results I'd get from trying to hypnotize him would be broken bones and blood - my blood - everywhere.&nbsp; I keep my voice calm and engaging, not pushing any further.&nbsp; "I don't have any way to keep you from doing what you want, really; you've made that point quite well."&nbsp; <br><br>Hellion, on the other hand, is not going to be so easily cowed.&nbsp; i can tell by the light in her eyes as she watches him.&nbsp; I don't think it's a mere thrill-junky sort of thing either - I've seen the look in the eyes of straight edges as well, a sort of self-nihilistic hyper activity, a step before self destruction and a step behind not caring.&nbsp; I run my gloved fingers back and forth along her leg, keeping her aware of me, gently drawing a little of the tension from her with a mesmeric trick.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>PhantomPistoleer</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 06:40:10</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Kid Arrow<br>Veidt Industrial Complex, Tower II<br>Afternoon<br><br>As the billionaire tycoon bestrode towards the door, the Kid glanced over his shoulder and said:&nbsp; &nbsp;"Mr. Veidt?&nbsp; Thanks.&nbsp; For saving my life, I mean."<br><br>Alone, the Kid quietly pressed his forehead against the window pane before him.&nbsp; All of the Financial District stretched out below, and he could see a thousand little ants in suits busily going about their day.&nbsp; It was fascinating watching strangers, but the amateur investigator within him saw the distinctive traits of fear and of sorrow in their gaits.<br><br>It became difficult to breathe, so Arrow peeled his cowl off.&nbsp; A mop of sweaty and bloodied brown hair hung over his narrow verdant gaze, but the side of his face had been sullied by burst blood vessels and a bruise the size of a golf ball near his left eye.&nbsp; For an instant, Cristobal did not know that he was looking at himself, but upon realizing the identity of that sad reflection, the young man felt like vomiting.<br><br>&nbsp;"Why am I doing this?" he asked himself.<br><br>He sat in a chair for two hours, his chin pressed against his collar bone and his hands in between his knees.&nbsp; Everything was up for consideration, but almost the whole of those two hours were spent in mentally steeling himself against doubt.&nbsp; The next four hours were spent in bed reading--but he wasn't actually reading.&nbsp; Words were glanced over, yes, but he had been in thought the entire time.&nbsp; Once was he interrupted by the voluptuous nurse that had attended to him previously, but Cristobal politely declined her 'visits.'<br><br>Then, he fell asleep, but he didn't remember if he had dreamed.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Wistful Dream</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 07:00:54</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Lita Keroln<br>Penthouse Apartment<br>Late Afternoon<br><br>She was a touch sore. <br><br>Well actually more then a touch and her temper was certainly fuming, simmering just under the surface as she let herself into her apartment with a sigh, kicking off her shoes and not caring when they went sliding across the marble foyer and smashed into the wall. Not even scruff marks would worsen her temper, it was simply impossible to add fuel to the fire already raging under her delicate countenance. Last night had been a bust, a failure in so many ways she didn't even want to contemplate. No one had ever stood up to her with such logic, with such surety before. Because before those she had targeted had always been corrupt. Last night had only been meant to be a gathering of information. But of course no, she had been caught and by Judah himself. The slender woman rubbed her temples as she dumped her purse on a low table and collapsed backward into a lounge chaise made of chocolate and golden velvet. <br><br>Judah. She couldn't stop thinking about him, about their encounter, their sparring. He had met and matched her in almost everything. And his conviction ran as deeply as her own. <br><br>Her blue violet eyes snapped for a moment and she shoved thoughts of the tall, dark haired and blue eyed devil who possessed her thoughts for so much of the day already. Cleo was sleeping, in the sunlight, coiled against the window in a low pet bed she had placed there just for that reason. The translator regarded her apartment with baleful eyes, there was nothing to distract her here. She climbed to her feet, slipping into her bedroom, the decor just as tasteful and high quality as the rest of her apartment. It didn't take long for Lita to change into a more comfortable outfit then the presentable suit like clothing that her work required. Low, tight dark jeans clung to her lithe legs, a loose flowing black silk shirt set off the gleams in her long dark hair which she pulled up and into a pony tail, also setting off her pale tawny skin and her forget me not eyes. The shirt rode up now and then when she walked, flashing a view of the taunt bare skin of her stomach and she slipped a dagger into the sheath she had added to her bra strap. No reason to go out unarmed. <br><br>She slipped on black leather boots and grabbed her purse again before locking up her apartment. She could do a little light grocery shopping for food tonight. And perhaps find something to take her frustration out on. A smirk touched her lips, pounding the faces of petty thieves might make her feel better. Yes, that might be just what the doctor ordered. 
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>25-03-2009, 21:16:31</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Hellion<br>Lower Manhattan<br>2:25</strong><br><br>Hellion's old life left a tinge of social hypersensitivity in her, and Medea's subtle, careful shifts of demeanor are not lost on her.&nbsp; She listens, her eyes slip to the rearview mirror again to assess the young man in the back.&nbsp; "What we're here for isn't really clear yet." She says this as she meets his eyes in the glass, then returns her attention to the roadway as she continues.&nbsp; "What we <i>are</i>, however, is a result of circumstances too outlandish to be coincidental."&nbsp; <br><br>She hesistates for a moment as Medea's hand rests on her thigh.&nbsp; The reinforced, slick polymer leaves a span of bare skin between the tops of her boots and the hip, and she's aware, with the trenchcoat swept aside, just how exposed her leg is to the touch.&nbsp; Even more so, she she's aware of a tingle in her body, like a tiny silent-alarm, at Medea's touch.&nbsp; Not for the first time tonight, Hellion tries to dismiss the temptation to stare at the fancily-wrapped woman's form.<br><br>"I may not be looking for a good time, but I am looking for something."&nbsp; She takes the steep incline of an exit ramp, slowing the car somewhat.&nbsp; "Now, we're approaching a park-and-ride.&nbsp; I plan to ditch this car, take a train deeper into Manhattan, and go back to my place.&nbsp; You're welcome to come with me," a fluttering of her eyelashes accompanies that, as if some invisible little creature just crept behind her eyes, "in fact... I'd really appreciate it if you did."&nbsp; The blue orbs behind half-veiled, calm lashes flicker momentarily to Medea.&nbsp; Trying not to be obvious, perhaps, but knowing that it's useless.<br><br>"If you don't... the top of this exit ramp would probably be the best place to tuck and roll.&nbsp; But you should know that what I'm looking for has to do with a fire, a mother and two kids, and a guy fished out of the Hudson."&nbsp; She starts to take the turn.&nbsp; "What I am is an agent and advocate of vengeance.&nbsp; And I'd like your help."<br><br>She reaches the top of the ramp, and has slowed to ten miles per hour.&nbsp; The gasoline engine thrums as she takes the turn, prepares to fire the old-fasioned V-8 back to life.&nbsp; After that, it's a quick park, a short hike to the terminal, and a two-station ride on the tomb-quiet subway-- the last train of the night-shift closers, the stone-drunk wanderers, the night-spent prostitutes and hung-down losers, back to the street-elevator outside Club Mercy.&nbsp; The opportunity to follow is theirs.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>26-03-2009, 01:12:48</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Dark Aesir<br>on the subway&nbsp; with Medea and Hellion<br>Early Morning <br><br><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">But you should know that what I'm looking for has to do with a fire, a mother and two kids, and a guy fished out of the Hudson."&nbsp; She starts to take the turn.&nbsp; "What I am is an agent and advocate of vengeance.&nbsp; And I'd like your help."</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div> <br><br>Jonah felt the tentacles of amazement creep up into his face. He didn't bother to hide it. The shock of the words strangled his pithy comment, shooed away all his witty remarks like a cat among chickens. He knew he had the look of someone suddenly thinking, all of a sudden furious in thought. Not mercs. Not Company. Not Skinners. The memory of the sooty girl begging for just one quick go zoomed past him. Also the memory of the soggy balding man-corpse stalking him through the halls of the county morgue, hall he usually cleaned. He could almost hear that voice, sounding muted, as if under the dirty water of his river tomb, calling out that name. <br><br>As the car slowed at the top of the hill and the dark wet night flowed by the remaining windows in a blur of streaky lights, just a mass of lens flares rolling by. But through the window to his left, across the turn and down the black soaked concrete hill that swept down to the highway they just left, he could see the sign. It was lit green and bright in the oncoming headlights of the late night comes and goers. Its scratches and dents showed plainly, its flaking spots glowing only slightly less as the cars passed it making it pulse, making it breath.<br><br>It read “Exit Here”. Maybe it was broken, missing some part of its original message or maybe it was just a joke. God knows there was room enough for comedy in the works of men. But Jonah looked there, right into the heartbeat of that faraway green torch. The car slowed and he saw the Scrapper look away from the rear view. She wouldn't make him stay, wouldn't even let him guess. She said what she wanted to say and that was all. He got the feeling that she was like that.<br><br>He waited a full two seconds, two long, empty stadium moments for the Aesir to do something, to give him some sign. But the broken god in him had nothing to add. Jonah felt an uncomfortable confusion. He looked from the rear view to the door switching his gunmetal grays uneasily. Being led through life by spirits and demons made for some strange codependencies. She did ask for help though. A chance to be worth it. He hadn't helped the drowned man, hadn't helped his family. He hadn't even helped the singing harlot who shared their pyre. And just like that, the question was answered.<br><br>“Okay.” he said sitting back into the seat as the car gunned forward again. “I know the case your working on. We can talk about it when we are safe.” <br><br>The blazing green sign winked out as if someone had pulled its little chain and the car sat down in its groaning acceleration, heaving its bulk toward the car park.<br><br>Riding on the train with the hook fingered Scrapper and the victorian Dancer he felt out of place, clumsy and perplexed. But Jonah knew that there was only one direction to go when you didn't know where to go. Forward.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>26-03-2009, 06:44:25</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Medea<br>Subway with Dark Aesir and Hellion<br>Early Morning</strong><br><br>I smile and slip out of the car with the other two, and pulling out two of the larger crystal orbs, rolling them from hand to hand even as I walk.&nbsp; Hellion has managed, with a real cause, to get Aesir to come along not only willingly but with the intent of helping.&nbsp; It sounds like she isn't working on the same case I am, but that isn't a surprise.&nbsp; Even my own interest in the death of the Comedian is solely personal.&nbsp; I know there are others for whom his death is very personal, and others for whom his death was necessary.&nbsp; But these two....I have the feeling it's a dead end.&nbsp; <br><br>Which would not be such a bad thing.&nbsp; <br><br>And then there is Hellion's other offer, the one she did not make to this strange, dangerous renegade from the government's pens.&nbsp; It is tempting, except for the one thing she wants.&nbsp; No masks, no hidden faces.&nbsp; It would not require me to change much...but it would be something that no one has ever known.&nbsp; Not even the government knows my civilian identities.&nbsp; It is something to consider.&nbsp; Still, an ally here can not hurt in any way.<br><br>"I'll come along and listen to the situation.&nbsp; I may be of some help, but my work is usually of a less visceral nature."&nbsp; As we step onto the train I fascinate the few people in the car - a drunk and an old bag lady, and they find themselves mesmerized, haunted....it isn't long before I have them on their feet, their precious belongings clutched to them, and they follow the movements of the crystal spheres which slide along my arms, over my hands, shifting in a bewildering array of improbable, slippery shapes.&nbsp; A few whispered words of encouragement, and they shuffle slowly out to one of the other cars, leaving us alone.&nbsp; <br><br>I slide both spheres into their pouches, all a single continuous, fluid movement from start to finish.&nbsp; I close the door after them, leaving them to waken on their own.&nbsp; They won't remember - it will become part of the strange half-waking dream they live inside their entire lives.&nbsp; "I prefer my privacy," I say with a slight smile as i turn and study this strange young man more carefully in the well lit tram.&nbsp; <br><br>Strange to think that his undernourished, seemingly frail body could manage the things I've read in his report....<br>
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>28-03-2009, 02:49:12</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<b>Hellion<br>Lower Manhattan</b><br>Hellion studies the young man's face by the glaring, unreliable light of the subway.&nbsp; "You'll need some stitches, I think," she says softly.&nbsp; Without her mask, the features of her own face are almost Hellenic in their even proportion and subtle gestures of emotion.&nbsp; "I'm going to have to get you cleaned up a bit first."&nbsp; <br><br>Looking up from her seat, she fixes her gaze on the rhythmic swing of the hand-holds from the ribbed aluminum roof.&nbsp; The electric train is saturnine with the vagrants now gone, except for the constant, muffled cry of the wheels as the electric engine drives them onward.&nbsp; "You know," she says, and somehow in her posture, the phrasing, the way she holds her head at a slight, curious little angle, Medea knows that Hellion's addressing her, not Aesir.&nbsp; And somehow, Hellion knows Medea will understand this.&nbsp; "That's not necessarily a <i>bad</i> thing... our targets will always connect at <i>some</i> point... even some of the must simplistic thugs have connections higher up.&nbsp; Whether its the money-launderer for whom they perform violent services, or it's the priest who molested them as a young child and made them into a rapist, or the gilded-throned demagogues who wring an unemployed man's blood from his pores until he's so desperate that robbery becomes a viable option."&nbsp; <br><br>She stands as the train slows, exits so quickly that the doors barely have time to open, then leads the two up the shadowy throat of a street-exit that lands them one block from her club, past the autumn-drying sycamores and slumbering electric cars, past the search-lit towers and the billboards for Nostalgia cologne, the newest lithium fuel-celled motorbike, the high-end gala of Portian Dynamics' Masquerade Ball.&nbsp; "It might be that my passing you a snitch might do us both some good."&nbsp; <br><br>Her footfalls-- long strides punctuated only by the leathery flapping sounds of her long, light coat-- suddenly ring with the hollow metal tone of a sidewalk lift.&nbsp; "Step on."&nbsp; She crouches, opens the access hatch, inserts a key and turns it.&nbsp; The lift decends, and they're swallowed by darkness.&nbsp; There's the quiet for a moment, the musty redolence of the basement as the metal doors overhead grind into place... not quiet, for certain, but more subtle than one might think, and as the overhead doors close, the night stars and gray-light city sky becoming a narrower and narrower band, she says one more thing.&nbsp; "I'll get the light momentarily."<br><br>In that moment... seven, eight seconds at best, Medea feels the warmth of skin, smells the hint of clove on Hellion's breath, and feels the tingle of caught breath as a warm woman's face brushes gently at her cheek.&nbsp; No voice, not even a whisper, but lips at her ear touch almost soudlessly.&nbsp; "I like the dark."&nbsp; <br><br>A tiny click as she lights the cheap plastic flashlight... a tarp-covered heap the size of a street motorcycle sits next to the now-quiet platform, and a tight staircase of worn cement leads up and around to one of Hellion's 'safe' rooms... Club Mercy is closed, so the four-storied brick edifice is silent and stoic.&nbsp; <br><br>The decor is remarkably classy... Hellion flicks a couple of switches as she speaks to them both, gestures to an art-deco style couch in the dark, massive chamber of the remodeled upper-floor.&nbsp; The open stairwell opens to the abyss of the dark club below like a cliff at the edge of the universe.&nbsp; "Get comfortable, please," she says softly as she makes her way across the open-floored foyer.&nbsp; "There's a bathroom, peroxide's in the medicine cabinet.&nbsp; Please clean it as best you can."&nbsp; A few more steps and she's at her desk, opening it to find what she needs.&nbsp; An EMT-bag, modified to suit the needs of someone used to being hurt in unusual ways.&nbsp; Sutures in individual plastic-and-paper pouches.&nbsp; Liquid stiches, if the young man's cut isn't too deep, with some butterfly bandages.&nbsp; She brings the bag and drops it onto a slate-topped coffee table between a few carefully arranged armchairs.&nbsp; "Care for a drink?&nbsp; I've got a minibar over there.&nbsp; And a not so mini-bar down there."<br><br>She works at the fastening of a gauntlet as she leans against the side of the chair.&nbsp; And despite the seeming air of casual professionalism, her eyes are speaking in a language without lies or pretense as she stares down Medea, raking those blue-crystal eyes over her as she speaks.&nbsp; Her voice is husky, accentless.&nbsp; "You can call me Victoria, if you like."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>28-03-2009, 21:30:25</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Medea<br>Hellion Club<br>Early Morning</strong><br><br>I can't ignore the fact that Hellion's cheek against mine, her lips caressing my ear in the darkness, those things are exciting.&nbsp; And they're a little frightening, because I know what she wants in return.&nbsp; Honesty is a dangerous thing in the work I do.&nbsp; And you can never tell when someone is going to turn on you, especially in the games that I'm forced to play.<br><br>The proffered drink is pleasant, but I'm forced to shake my head.&nbsp; Father's first rule was not to indulge in what the clubs offered.&nbsp; It's a good rule, too, since trying to modulate my voice could be troublesome with a dose of alcohol in me.&nbsp; I look down at the club, the strange lights and frenetic attempts to loose themselves in the risque drama of a carefree existence, even if it is only another illusion.&nbsp; The strange young man - Code Name: Aesir, I suddenly recall - has access to the medical supplies he needs; I haven't any idea if he knows how to use them though.&nbsp; Files tell you very little, in the long run.<br><br>"You can call me Dinah," I finally reply.&nbsp; It's a start, I suppose, but I work very hard to keep my identities separate.&nbsp; The people I work against are powerful, and a slip up means worse than mere death.&nbsp; Prison, legal battles, the swirl of unending corruption crawling after me.&nbsp; It's a threat I'd rather not live with.&nbsp; &nbsp;I pulls one of the crystal balls, and cup my fingers around, it, before rollign though and around the arch of my hands and thumbs.&nbsp; I'm not trying to hypnotize her or Aesir - deities no! - but I'm nervous, and I need to keep my hands busy.&nbsp; <br><br>"The only thing I need to know is who killed the Comedian.&nbsp; And I only need to know that so I can make certain they didn't discover one of his secrets.&nbsp; Even if they did, I'd just make certain they couldn't tell that one secret.&nbsp; It's not even a valuable or state secret, just a piece of personal information that is important to one person out of the entire six billion."&nbsp; I let the sphere rest on my hand, rolling my hand under it while it remains stationary, the lights from the club making it sparkle becomingly.&nbsp; "It's a trivial matter, in light of many, but this isn't my territory, either."<br><br><br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>29-03-2009, 07:12:41</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Without a word Jonah took the medical bag in hand and moved into the bathroom. The soft lights flicked on immediately without so much as a flicker. The bathroom was a quiet sea of ivory and, what was that? Taupe? Small nameless bottles collected themselves neatly behind the silver arch of the faucet, the toilet sat to the side, out of the way. The bath hid behind a dusky vanilla curtain. The whole scene was most remarkable to him for what it did not have. No flies, no reek of waste or chemicals. Jonah briefly stopped in the doorway wondering how he had drifted so far from a normal life that it seemed as insane as his normal delusions.<br><br>Stepping into the cool room he set the bag on the table top area between the sink and the toilet. He scanned the array of implements in the compact leather bag. Suturing needles, several weights of stitch material, bandages, was that slap on morphine patches? Medical clamps? This girl was the real deal and judging from the Dancer's performance in the subway car, she had serious skills as well. He felt in over his head, again.<br><br>Looking up at the mirror he sees not only his own Nordic features...<br><br>...but both women are standing right behind him. <br><br>His heart leaped straight into his throat and he whirled around without a plan in his head. But the room was empty, feeling a little closer with his heart hammering in his chest but still empty. The shower curtain didn't even shift. Turning back to the mirror, shifting his eyes slowly he saw... <br><br>...that they are still there standing behind him. They are lit top down with a hard light that throws their features into deep shadow, dark pool of night are their eyes, gathered under their delicate noses and painted their lips.<br><br>The Scrapper opens her mouth and says the word “Victoria” but her voice sounded strange, accented, Balkan, Slavic? Jonah doesn't know but the “V” is almost a “W”, just enough to give it an old world curl in her mouth. Victoria. <br><br>Jonah almost nodded to the glass.<br><br>The Dancer looks nervous, shy, timid. She rubs her arms below the frame of the refection like one dies when one needs something to do. Her lovely curves suddenly seem out of place in the steam age costuming. She says the word “Dina” and Jonah realizes that he cannot hear them speak but just sees their lips moving and understands the words. <br><br>Behind them in the reflection the room seems to open up to a wide screen of windows, floor to ceiling windows, walls of glass. It seems to be raining outside but as he leans closer to the glass Jonah realizes that it is not rain, it is a stream of glass. Shards and pieces of glass rain down past the window, soundless as a silent movie but glittering and winking in the night as they shower past.<br><br>Then in an instant someone is staring back at him, looking him right in&nbsp; the eyes, not a inch away from his face. <br><br>Jonah jerks his head back with a cry only to see that it is himself. Finally he is seeing himself in the mirror.&nbsp; <br><br>For a moment he breathed heavily in the cool bathroom before lowering his eyes and then ducking his face into the sink, flipping on the faucet. He washed his face with heedless strokes, the cool water, the faint twinges of pain right around his mouth. They were good things. The spoke to him like a body should speak, they spoke the languages of living moment to moment, and in the clean too. <br><br>Without even thinking Jonah stripped off his ruined hoodie and the AC/DC shirt he lifted from the street dealer in Queens. Shoes, no socks, over large jeans, stretch belt, it all found a home in a pile on the floor. Pale and naked he swept the curtain to one side and stepped into the shower, awkward and gangly in his haste.<br><br>He didn't need stitches, didn't need bactine or bandages or even a band aid. The Aesir would take care of all that. What he needed was water, to be clean, to finally be clean. Jonah needed that more than air. <br><br>He blindly flipped a level and turned a knob and when the ice cold stream lanced into him, jittering in its massage setting, he sucked in his breath and started scrubbing himself new.<br>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Ixy</strong> on <strong>30-03-2009, 22:06:49</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong><br>Victoria Barrowe's "Perch"<br>Club Mercy, NYC<br></strong><br><br>Her hand had seemed to tense momentarily as the young man had taken the EMT bag from her hand... she had seemed, perhaps, a little put-off, but it was more likely that she was simply unused to being around others as solitary as her self.&nbsp; Regardless, that tension has faded, and as Dinah speaks, Victoria watches and listens.&nbsp; She begins the cursory easing of her visible guard as she works the last of the fastenings free from her forearms and glides her hands out of the gauntlets, blinking slowly like a studious cat as she regards Dinah's explanation.&nbsp; <br><br>"Crossing the line into enemy territory for a friend?"&nbsp; She smiles faintly, the cold light of her subdued mirth like a gem's luster in her eyes.&nbsp; "Must be quite a friend..." she eases closer, settling onto the overstuffed arm of a comfortable-looking couch and leaving the gauntlets on the floor.&nbsp; "How did you say it, exactly... visceral, perhaps?"&nbsp; <br><br>The shower hissing to life draws her attention momentarily.&nbsp; "The Comedian again. Quite a trove of government secrets spilled on the concrete that night."&nbsp; She tilts her face, counter-analyzing now, without the deft touch of hypnosis to misdirect the eye.&nbsp; She seems to tune out the bogglingly deft motions with which Dinah manipulates the glass orb, looks through it to the woman, rips away the layers of satin and velvet and discipline and talent, looking for a human in there somewhere.&nbsp; "But you only care about something that might embarrass, or disgrace, someone uninvolved?"&nbsp; She stands and circles the room.&nbsp; "The Comedian wore atrocity like a plume in his hat, Medea-- <i>Dinah</i>. Isn't anything, whatever died with him, most likely best left dead?"<br><br>She fishes a navy-blue tracksuit, white pinstripes down the arms and legs, 'Puma' on the breast', from a heavy drawer, then closes it softly.&nbsp; "I hope you'll forgive me, Dinah, but since I don't have your ability to turn minds around my finger, I have to ask the baser questions."&nbsp; <br><br>Her lips seem to slip from a natural, subtle pout to a serpentine smile as she glances back over her shoulder-- the steamy whisper of the shower, the trickling of water from limbs onto tile, grows louder as she opens the door-- the shift of air pressures rustles the curtain softly.&nbsp; She glides her foot over the coral-colored tiles to scoop Aesir's clothes into a small pile, and she lays the track suit on the closed lid of the toilet.&nbsp; She opens the mirrored cabinet after studying his form through the modest clouding of the semitransparent plastic&nbsp; She sets a plastic toothbrush, still in its small cardboard sleeve, and a travel-sized toothpaste on top of the suit.&nbsp; <br><br>She calls to him over the noise of water, a tone of humor in the edges of her voice.&nbsp; "Don't get the wrong idea... I don't do this for all the young men I bring home."&nbsp; Her fingers trail at the droplet streaked plastic as if impulsively trying to tug it wide, but she reels them back in.&nbsp; She balls up his old clothes, tucks them into a spare wastebasket liner, and is tying it off as she makes her way back out to the open-sided room toward where Medea has, hopefully, begun to make herself comfortable.&nbsp; <br><br>"Look... you seem like a woman who loves her secrets."&nbsp; The bag falls from her hand as she moves closer to the exquisite young woman. She keeps her hands folded behind her until she grows close enough to Medea to speak at a whisper.&nbsp; "So I'll back off with the questions.&nbsp; I do want to know more... about you, about your interest in the Comedian."&nbsp; With her head dipped in a coy gesture of modesty, she steps closer, her thick-soled shoes silent as cats' paws on the carpet.&nbsp; "I may be able to help you, after all."&nbsp; <br><br>Her hands then encircle the tapered waist of the crystalline-eyed woman, fingers entwining behind her waist-- .&nbsp; Not as tall in her flat soles, she, finds it easy to nudge her soft-raven, lavender-smelling head along Dinah's cheek, to breathe against her skin as she steps into the embrace as casually as one might open a door, or tie a shoe.&nbsp; "But I'm not going to dance some kind of ceremonial ritual to put on some affectation. I go after what I want, what I need.&nbsp; I do what needs to be done regardless of whether it's right or wrong... propriety doesn't even hold a candle for me."&nbsp; Her fingers spread along Dinah's supple lower back, fingers tracing the spine and delving along to her hip, slipping lower to cup the side of her ass.&nbsp; "So... I hope it doesn't upset you," she says into the woman's eyes, "because I don't mean any disrespect."&nbsp; She tips her face aside and places her bee-stung lips at the crevice of Dinah's jaw.&nbsp; "Quite the contrary," she says as her teeth graze, then tug at, the woman's earlobe.&nbsp; "Wanting to fuck you is my most earnest compliment."
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>08-04-2009, 01:50:25</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				Medea<br>Victoria Barrowe's "Perch"<br>Club Mercy, NYC<br><br>Stiffening slightly under the other woman's attentions, I become very aware of the musky warmth of Hellion's - Victoria's - skin.&nbsp; Her body is hard, muscled and powerful, yet thoroughly feminine.&nbsp; Forcing myself to relax I drop the crystal sphere to the floor behind her, the soft thud loud even in the noise of the dance hall below us.&nbsp; It rolls only a little; the thin layer of wax that makes the heavy sphere sticky to keep it from slipping from my hands and arms keeps it from rolling far.&nbsp; My hands slide down her arms to gently grasp her wrists, but I let them remain where they are, cupping my derriere in a very, perhaps overly, familiar manner.&nbsp; <br><br>It also lets me feel what her hands are doing, so that I can tell if she tries to steal any of the tiny glass vials of condensed sleep, terror, or pain.&nbsp; <br><br>I let her remain as she is, and speak in a normal tone of voice....at first.&nbsp; "The death of the Comedian should let all those secrets remain with him in his grave, I agree.&nbsp; But what if they don't?&nbsp; The man or....<em>woman</em>...." I say, giving a menacing inflection to the word, suggesting something improbable in the mere tone of my voice, reminding her of how dangerous we can be.&nbsp; "....who killed him, may have wrested a secret from him as he died.&nbsp; And I would risk a great deal to keep one of those secrets hidden."&nbsp; <br><br>I roll my fingers along her wrists, tightening them now, and keeping them there.&nbsp; I have the leverage to do so - she's leaning into me, and has to pull up and back, while all I have to do is keep my hands down - my body weight will do the rest.&nbsp; And there is no denying her teeth, her lips are hot, and they do feel good.&nbsp; It's been so long that it almost hurts.&nbsp; I lean forward, pitching my voice for her ears alone, and putting into it all the potent menace I can, despite the words I speak.&nbsp; And that, I know from experience, is a significant amount.&nbsp; <br><br>"I can feel how excited I make you.&nbsp; But you wanted to see me without the mask, without the armour.&nbsp; But that is not really what you want, is it?"&nbsp; I let my breasts rub against her more firmly as I turn my head, my lips brushing along her ear so very lightly.&nbsp; "No, that is not what you want.&nbsp; Poor little Dinah is not dangerous enough for you, is not threatening enough for you.&nbsp; And that is what you want, is it not?&nbsp; A threat.&nbsp; A danger.&nbsp; Someone....anyone....who can make you feel...."&nbsp; I lower my lips, kissing her soft, warm neck, tasting the sweat along her throbbing artery.&nbsp; I roll my had around, closing my eyes so she cannot see them, and then play my mouth against her other her, my hands maintaining an iron grip on her wrists, keeping her trapped against me.&nbsp; "...delicate....vulnerable....make you feel <em>endangered</em>."&nbsp; I pull away and look into her eyes, piercing her own eyes with the calculated expression of knowing what she wants.&nbsp; <br><br>"I can make you feel that way.&nbsp; Dinah cannot."&nbsp; I hear the shower turn off, and despite the imminent arrival of our half-captive, half-watchdog, I keep her there, not letting her pull back.&nbsp; Again, I have the leverage, the strength to keep her here with me....but when he nearly walks in, I will let her go.<br><br>But deities, I don't want to.
			</dd>
			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Who Watches the Watchers Game Thread [EX]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Lucifael</strong> on <strong>14-04-2009, 16:17:27</strong>
			</dt>
			<dd class="postbody">
				<strong>Dark Aesir (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=32223.msg1716730#msg1716730)<br>Victoria Barrowe's "Perch"<br>Club Mercy, NYC </strong><br><br>The water shut off with a suddenness of silence, a swift cessation of the harsh hissing water that left Jonah naked and still leaning against the tile wall with one hand watching the streaming water falling away toward the drain at his feet. His body faintly steamed from the heat of the water and he felt he knew something of his host now. Hot water, strong water.<br><br>Clean now, he looked little like the street hood the girls had picked up. His hair shone a vibrant honey gold and his skin was pale and clean except for the scars that started around his shoulder marking his violent past in lines short and long, curling lines like questions and splotchy splatters of dark marred flesh, flat punctuations. <br><br>The dark scars light up in the mirror as if lit from within, as if touched with painless fire.<br><br>He did not touch them but looked away from the glass. His greasy, ragged clothes lay huddled at his feet, lumped there as if begging his favor. He could barely look at them. He swept them to one side with a foot, then stopped, and bent, arranging them into a folded pile. It was hard to say that he would not need them but until he did…<br><br>Jonah emerged from the bathroom with a white towel wrapped around his waist. It hung to just above his knees like some pharonic vestment. Another towel shawled over his shoulders hiding most of his past’s tracery. Even as he stepped out of the hallway, thinking that he had left the medical bag beside the sink, he saw the Scrapper and the Dancer, Victoria and Dinah, clasped close and unmistakably intimate. Victoria’s hands on Dinah, clearly the aggressor, but Dinah holding her there with deft bit of finger length judo. <br><br>He stopped in his tracks like a panther alerted.<br>
			</dd>
		</dl>
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