Dark_Harrier

[[It's nice, though. ]]

When the converging beams of power let Dennis go, he remained in the air, he could tell, under his own power. Another conduit had been opened in his neural pathways, and he could see it; it kept him aloft, and as the spirit of the Eye seemed a bit quiet [despite the irresistible resurgence it had hit him with merely moments ago], Dennis powered up the pathway himself. It was a good thing, too, as the ground around the well suddenly became swamped. Despite this being the highest tuft of ground in the general area, the foaming water that was covering the town had reached them here. The well wall was breached, and gave up its fight with a faint whuff. Strangely enough, the guy who'd been shot and had fallen in, that deputy from the ramshackle bar, had not floated to the surface with it.

Dennis wondered what had become of him. In the meantime, the Avatar had floated upward too, with a faint look of disgust on his reptilian features. The gang members with Eugene had begun freaking out, and with good cause; this was like the Perfect Storm, except on land. The land they happened to be standing on.

For whatever reason, Dennis felt the rage generated by the Eye taking him over subside; he was too fascinated by watching what was going on around him. It was too huge, monumental, a catastrophe that was so large it simply grabbed and held him, and immediately echoes of the Towers bobbed up to tinge the edges of his intake.

An entire house was charging up the road they'd come by, riding the incoming fatal tide, knocking the edges off buildings which had remained in place framing the street. The contact had been too much and the two walls had collapsed, creating a gate of sorts further damming any path back down.

A gunshot rang out below him. One of the gang members had blasted Eugene in the head. As the leader's corpse fell into the water to crown itself with a huge circle of chum, Dennis wondered if, like sharks, the scent would attract the Deep Ones.

The Avatar said something to him, but Dennis didn't really connect the dots. Once the Lacerta had left the ground the spell that had kept their circle of land almost dry was gone completely, as if someone had lifted an inverted cup from the bottom of a tub.

By now Dennis was fifty feet above where the land should have been, and he had his answer: pouring over the hillocks and tilted roofs with the water came the pale children. There was a horrible sound that came with them, growing when each one breached and lowering as they sunk again, a guttural sucking sound, and it caused panic in the thugs treading water below him. Several of them looked up at him pleadingly, grasping the air with hands, screaming for the floating man to help them, lift them up, but the pale forms swept over the scene. Like a pod of orcas crashing into one of seals, the slick forms curved up and over, and each man disappeared, sometimes leaving behind a clasping desperate hand in the air for a brief moment before being yanked under with such force that whitecaps flopped upward briefly behind them. Dennis knew somehow, that this scene was being played out all over the island.

Dennis could feel the Eye inside him, sunken and hidden again, reveling in this culmination and what was being seen.

The Avatar was below Dennis and slightly to the right. A vast upwelling of water flowed beneath them, a seiche wave humped across the island. Dennis had to rise a bit to keep ahead of it. The Avatar was talking to him but Dennis' attention was caught by a thrashing in the water, a Deep One grappling with a human.

Dennis was pissed, angry that the Eye had used him against his will once more. He felt particularly petulant. So he turned from the Avatar while the Lacerta was making his no-doubt grand pronouncement, and lifted his goggles.

The Deep One had it's wide muzzle buried in the waistline of some hapless sap. Dennis stared at him, and the lifeless dark bugged out eyes swiveled.

Fire filled the Deep One's head. The sensation of burning alive came to it, and instinctive alarm gave voice to its awful clogged-throat shriek and it dove. The human it had been gnawing on upended at the force of his attacker's departure. The man did a dead-man's float, bobbing there with his eyes open and unblinking, being washed over by gore-filled water. Dennis smiled. It looked like the deputy lacky had come up after all, for he could see the town's drab police uniform on the man below, stained dark where the huge shark-bite imprint had been left behind. "Good luck with the water, buddy," Dennis muttered, likely not heard over the sound around him. He was inwardly smug; he'd affected one of the Lacerta's minions. Something he thought the Eye would prevent. He filed this exciting information away for later.

By then, Dennis was grinning his petulant little grin and the Avatar's minions grabbed him from the air and reformed his molecules hundreds of nautical miles away.

"DO YOU WANT TO BE EATEN BY SOME CREATURES, OR NOT!"

The shout startled Dennis awake. He shrieked for a second, an embarrassing shriek. Like a little girl, and he glanced around, realizing he was standing in the indented doorway of a coffee shop in the center of Whitedock's signature town. People were looking at him. he unfolded arms almost asleep with pins and needles.

He had been walking along the beach, down the packed dull sand toward crashing waves. It was still raining [in the dream], and the water felt like silk. He was almost laying in bed, the rain was so comfortable on his skin. But fresh wind rode up in his face, and he was walking into it, and the gray choppy sea wearing at the land, at land that would soon die, looked like a place he wanted to be.

The gray humps of the waves suddenly looked more solid as he came on, and he realized, there were creatures there, swimming along up into the shallows, their lower extremities humping along furiously and propelling them like they had rocket packs. He was reminded of Animal Channel footage of killer whales, running up close to the beach with their bellies sliding in the sand to grab young seals in their ivory-tusked jaws. Only the tall right-angle fins were above the sea, placid water suddenly erupting in toothy hungry death amid the small, sympathetically cute seals.

These humped things were similar in appearance and as Dennis felt [in his dream], similar in purpose. Their skin was definitely reminiscent of the orcas, dark and covered in a living sheen that didn't depend on the water. Their heads were like misplaced grouper heads, with distended jaws full of deep-sea carnivore dagger teeth. As they clawed their way erect, bursting from rising surf on two muscled legs, Dennis realized their hands were weird. They had big, fleshy, square meaty palms, but their fingers were simple needles, wait, actually, fins as the watcher saw more clearly, with fin material webbed between them. With thumbs, like a human. But they clenched spasmodically, like fingers, just the same, as the horde rushed up the beach.

As they closed, Dennis heard the shout, and it was the voice of the Eye, "Do you want to be eaten by some creatures, or not?" And it woke him, to where he was.

The sky had been dark for two days, so he couldn't tell what time it was. But he felt a calling, a need to find Eugene. He needed to see the bald head bobbing along through the crowd toward him. Then, he would feel better.

With this, Dennis became abruptly aware that the Eye was there, sitting quietly. Watching.

"Hey," he said aloud, "what are you doing? Where the [censored] have you been? What-"

We must find the Initiate, the Eye said, The moon is down, it is almost time to begin. Go.

Dennis found a path popping up in his mind. Suddenly no longer alone, he walked off the curb, and away, hands in his pockets.

[[And why wouldn't you want to? ]]

Dennis stalked through the soaking rain like he owned the town. After a breakfast of toasted Eggos and at least an eighth of what had been left in the whiskey bottle, he was feeling pretty good about himself. Confident, full of purpose, invulnerable. The sheeting water ran over him and it didn't bother him in the slightest now. Before, he would have been fussing over his hair in a metrosexual way, and thoroughly uncomfortable at the penetrating dampness and the chill. Now, though, his experience with drowning on his trip to see the Leviathan had burned out yet another long-held foible of his: a distaste for water and the ocean. Dennis was an incapable swimmer, and hated being in rain, except, now, it simply wasn't so bad. He wondered if he weren't becoming more reptilian thanks to his Fate, absorbing odd characteristics from the Lacerta with whom he'd fallen in, picking up their traits thanks to the Eye.

Nobody crossed his path as he walked with determination along the drenched main street, heading back toward the pawn shop on it's lonely side street. A few cars passed dully by him in the rain.

Dennis was pissed, and somebody was going to pay. This town would be a non-issue very very soon, and he intended to start the apocalypse a wee bit early for someone.

The bell over Bobby Gunn's door tinkled, and a gust of moist air flowed inside. The proprietor came out from his back room, having just slapped a book shut, laying it down on a pile of others so his personal Superadyne stash would not be found in case the Sheriff had come back to annoy him with more questions. He folded his sleeve down and sniffed, making his way back into the store proper.

And froze. The weird guy with the welding goggles was there, standing rather imperiously in the center of the customer area, dripping water into a wide pool on the floor. He'd gotten himself a nice oilskin longcoat and some other clothes with the money Bobby had given him, the store owner mused, but what really addled Bobby was that his .357 was several steps away, hidden in its spot under the counter.

"Can I help ya," Bobby began nervously, making steps toward where the gun lay.

The stranger didn't talk, he just kind of stood there, and Bobby actually sighed in relief as he made it to the counter top, laying his hands on it in casual indifference but actually jonesing to grab the gun just beneath, and thrust it at the guy through the bars that protected his area. He was safe now, the gun was right near his crotch, all he needed to do was grab it and point, and shoot, just like the Gunslinger in that Stephen King tale, kill with the mind...

"You talk too much, buddy." The stranger's voice cut through the patter of the rain like a knife. There was so much indifferent malice in it that Bobby's blood ran cold, colder than it ever had messing with Rage or Superadyne or anything else. "You talked to someone, and the sheriff came looking for me. Or, I mean, his deputy did." The guy's fists were clenching, but he stood there, not making any other moves. His complete lack of action unnerved Bobby even more than him lunging at the cage would have. Bobby Gunn forgot all pretense and reached for the gun, fumbling it for a second before bringing the huge revolver up and holding it with two hands, his bloodstream racing with his tiny jab of 'dyne, pointing through the bars at the guy. The stability of the two-handed grip, imitating what he'd seen on TV a thousand times, helped keep his hands from shaking. The 'dyne was making him feel like if he held the gun too firmly, it would snap in his grip.

"Get the hell out of here!" he kept the quaver out of his shout, mostly.

"You know, it's funny," the guy in the welder's goggles was saying, "the deputy, he's in on it. I know! Surprised ain't the word, you could have knocked me over with a feather." Darren? Gunn thought will alarm, In on what? Nonetheless this pronouncement and it's unknown meaning worked at Bobby almost to the point of distraction. There were so many things going on in this sleepy town to be in on, but Bobby, one of the most involved people in town, had never suspected...

"Hey," the stranger's blurt broke the shop owner's revelry, "is there anyone in town you know really well? You know, an old grandma or some tart you're banging? You really shoulda called them this morning, said hello." At this, the shop owner clicked back the hammer of the huge black gun. but it didn't bring any solace. The guy still wasn't moving, he was just standing there.

"You just shut the [censored] up and get the [censored] out of here! Or I'm gonna blow your head off!" Bobby wasn't maintaining his shooter's calm very well. The guy's placidness was just too much for him to bear.

"Blow my head off? Hm, I wonder how that would feel."

Bobby showed him.

The .357 thundered in the small shop. The muzzle flash lit the scene briefly, as Dennis' jaw was blasted away and he was spun around to his right by the impact. He gave a kind of gurgled shriek as half his face came off, splattering across the shelves behind him, and Bobby, his shooter, yelped in alarm at what he'd done. Dennis' impact on the floor included some odd material from the shelf and sounded awful and loud to Bobby. But the shop owner did the smart thing, he stood there, in a shaking panic with the gun still at the ready. the shop was really quiet for a few seconds, until real thunder rocked the area and lit the street outside the foggy windows.

A cyclical mewling sound was coming from the stranger, and Bobby strained to look downward from where he stood, but his view was blocked by the safety bars and the counter. That is, until the stranger stood upright.

The agony in Dennis' jaw was incredible, but in the scale of things for him, almost mundane. He reached up to shove the raw meat of the two halves of his lurid dangling jaw together, hoping to help the healing process along and make the pain stop. To see this happen, to watch the shattered bone and flesh meld back together, to see the swollen tongue flopping in open air and then, covered right back up, was too much for Bobby. The barrel of the gun dipped for a second.

The goggled man said wetly, "[censored]! That really did hurt, nice one dude." His lips were flecked with blood, and his teeth clenched. "Glad I ate before I came here."

Bobby made some formless sounds of shock, until Dennis raised his hands abruptly, as if he were surrendering, and went on, "I give up! But hey! Wanna see a neat trick?"

Bobby, feeling safe several yards back from the bars and holding a primed weapon, didn't answer.

With just a fingertip, Dennis began lifting his goggles.

"Wanna see, what I see?"

The storm outside was ramping up, and leaden sheets of water were blanketing the town beneath closing peals of thunder and staccato flashes. The forlorn shriek from Bobby Gunn's shop went largely unheard, even as a squad car drove by and the cry faded down to a simple, last breath..

"The ritual is moving ahead quickly," the Avatar said.

Yes. He has fallen in with the cell that the tome was given to. Sooner than expected, the Deep Ones will be able to feed.

"It is as you say," the towering Lacerta inclined his head. "But, how will your Vessel survive?"

The body is resilient enough, with my help. I will keep it intact for you to retrieve.

"I will send a boat, to be ready." Considering what was coming, the Avatar was skeptical but, kept this to himself. Could any human really survive...?

The mercenary group may be the best to man it, in case any of the townsfolk do escape. And, if the Deep Ones cannot keep their hunger totally in check.. It left the end of that unsaid.

"Yes, Eye of Mu." So, then, the Eye was also uncertain the ritual would be as spectacular or, perhaps not as controllable, as they hoped. The Avatar filed this away. Perhaps he should accompany the boat, to see it happen for himself?

What of the other research I commanded?

"The Circle's library did not contain the Libram of Faustus as we had hoped, but a clue to its whereabouts may have been found in their papers. However, I am loathe to send resources after it until after Whitedock.."

If I am not separated from this human host soon, the prediction will be manifest and the connection will become dangerous to break. My liberation should be one of your top priorities!

"The Vessel seems to be cooperative, though," the Avatar mused, "he did well infiltrating Arachnos for us. We would not have intercepted the orichalcum shipment without the intelligence he provided.."

Spawn! Do not dissemble! I must be freed from this fleshy shell, in all haste.

"We do not have a gem of sufficient size and purity to house you," the Avatar began cautiously, "and as was said, to create a blank living avatar will take us decades. By that time.."

I am aware of the time constraints. If I am not liberated by the next full moon, further efforts will be fruitless, unless..

"Unless the Tome of Faustus holds more than we know."

There was silence between them for a moment. Then obtaining it to discover what it holds just became far more important to you, the Eye pronounced, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

"But, Great Eye of Mu, I am commanded to direct all attention to Whitedock, until it is finished. The dig continues only because the human miners can operate without our direct supervision for short times."

The silence came again, and with it, the chamber filled with the malice and impatience of the Eye, despite the lack of its physical presence. In the miasma of its malice, the Avatar stood, maintaining his composure. In the end, though, he dipped his head.

The silence went on, as the malice departed suddenly, and the Avatar stood, alone.

He turned and departed the Chamber of Visions, leaving the scrying pool and its now uninhabited waters splashing like a quiet comfort. The Lacerta leader was at a quandary: the Eye of Mu was becoming more demanding in it's communions with him while it's Vessel was away, and the Avatar already had his duties. The Eye was becoming more insistent and threatened to get in the way of what the Dark God had already commanded. The Eye was not the God, but it was powerful and perilous in its own right.

With more on his plate than he wanted, the Avatar of Mu returned to the rocky surface of the island, to breathe a bit of the salt air and clear his head for what was to come. It had all gotten a bit more complicated.

"Pssh, [censored]", was Dennis' response. As he hustled up the limestone walkway, he fixed the collar on the new tan oilcloth longcoat he'd gotten in town. He had a clean new shirt, and knee-length combat boots with badass laces all up the front that he'd found in a used clothing store. He felt like he needed a long hot shower.

Inside, Eugene showed him to the woman at the counter. That she was incredibly ordinary and middle aged made Dennis grin. He was given a room key, and glanced at the small bar that ran along the wall next to the lady's front desk. Unlike Louis' this looked like a mirror image, but one that had been built and polished and cared for for at least a full generation of owners and the users they'd known for years. Unlike Louis', yeah; at Louis', it looked like people got their souls sucked out and had fake heart attacks about once a week or so. And whoever was left at the bar at the time ate the bodies.

"Got any food? I'll take it, even if it's microwaved chicken fingers."

"I could make you some spaghetti, to go with the chicken. Um, fingers," the woman said meekly after a short pause.

"Sure," Dennis replied, going to the bar and grabbing one of the amber whiskey bottles by leaning across the bar surface. As he passed the inn keeper, he laid two twenty-dollar bills in front of her, and kept going.

As they climbed the stairs, he tried asking Eugene for the tome to have in his room overnight, but the gang leader looked at him flatly, and kept going, book in hand. Dennis just held up his hands in mock surrender. No need to cause trouble, when it was about to begin for someone else and Dennis would be helping.

He showered, ate, drank, and went to sleep. He never heard from the Eye, not once.

When Eugene mentioned voices, Dennis began the buildup of a low chuckle. It started way back in his throat, and stumbled forward, becoming louder. Eugene went on, and it wasn't until about after he started wondering where Dennis had gotten the book he'd handed him that the laugh had grown and was audible throughout the shack. It matched the shack, it fitted the shack, it bounced around inside the bowed wooden walls as if it belonged in that shack.

The Little Shack of Horrors.

"Voices!" Dennis suddenly said aloud, not apropos of where Eugene's minion was in explaining his boss' little diatribe. "I love the voices! The w-"

At that point, the deputy walked in.

The moment, despite its trappings of madness, was a stomach-drop from murder. Dennis went cold inside. There was enough of a lack of action by the scummy thugs to put Dennis even farther on alert than he'd already been. The booze was burning away from his consciousness as the uniformed man approached, wading through the assembly of madmen like he owned the place. Dennis understood, this was a dirty cop, dirty in a way that made an abattoir worker look like a flower girl.

Nonetheless, his presence was like a pail of thrown water. Dennis tensed. He was panicking in a quiet manner, because the Eye was totally silent and Dennis was feeling lost without it's constant egging on to cause death. He needed that encouragement right now.

Eugene's ridiculous display clinched it: this was a house of madness, alright.

He felt small, as he'd done many times before September, a skinny runt surrounded by big hulking powerhouses.

But, wait.. he'd survived September.

His jaw clenched.

OK, kids. I can play madman, too.

"I was thinking that the money flow in the fish tank isn't enough. I was thinking, dammit I need new clothes. Nice clothes, not standard gray lame polyester." He watched the deputy blanch with annoyance at reference to his own wear. "I was thinking that the stuff I find laying around me, it might be worth something to someone." He tilted his head, and his jaw clenched; his cheeks stood out like he had a walnut stuffed in each. "Is my stuff worth more to you? Because, you know, I can just bring it right to you, cut out the middle-man." Cut out, in a bad way; he might be paying a visit back to that shop some time soon. A final visit. "'Cause there's more stuff. I see a lot of stuff you wouldn't believe..."

His head hung tilted in the air before the deputy; the darkness of the green welding goggles lay flat on his face. Something seemed to be trying to leak its way out from under the edges. Nobody else inside the little shack was moving.

"Do you wanna see what I see?"

Dennis accepted the shot that was slid towards him, but didn't touch it. He was buzzed enough to enjoy it, but not so much that he didn't lose his sense of curiosity. He also didn't want to get so buzzed that these goons could take advantage of him and us him for their ritual. He was also experiencing a subsurface anger; was this lummox calling for a dog to sacrifice? That just didn't sit well with him, in some odd hypocritical way.

He gingerly took the book.

"So, does this book have your ritual in it? Show me the page," he slid it back toward Eugene, though not so far that his fingers left it. Something oddly.. attractive, about the book. It was as if the covering had a textured that his fingers enjoyed. There was no title or other writing on the front to tell him what it was, exactly, just a diagram or sigil, the kind that reminded him of a tattoo some gothic wannabe girl might have.

"And who told you to keep me safe?"

Dennis settled at the lopsided table. He had a shot of whiskey in front of him, which he'd watched Eugene pour, then watched him take a swig from the bottle himself. The liquor probably wasn't poison, but the glass was dirty and Dennis felt his skin crawl. He looked at it with a pinched face as he brought it to his lips and tipped the shot back.

The voice of the Eye had been silent, and wasn't offering any advice.

The 'clubhouse' was typical of a biker hangout or meth/heroin shooting gallery. Small shack on a back alley, reached by a dirty pass-way between the cannery and a dockside warehouse. It could have been airlifted whole from the base of Fort Cerebus and dropped here. A low-watt light bulb hung over the outside of the door, and the interior was lit by similar insufficient lamps. Cig smoke filled the middle layer of air. And Dennis was tense. These guys might seem like psychos, but they were all hulking psychos. There was a palpable air of madness in this little hovel.

Dennis surveyed the ragged group from behind his goggles.

"So? What's this about a festival?"

[[Oh sweet!

Yeah, I'm a happy member of Zeta's page, it's really good. Might as well leave an imprint here too.]]

Name: Eric Drighten [alias; Witness Protection program, true name not released]
Hero alias: the Dark Harrier

Link: at Zeta's page
Crey Industries
scrapper, Martial Arts/Invulnerability
Threads: Whitmoore Apartments, Tales of the Council

Distinguishing Features: always wearing sunglasses, even indoors. Although he is actually 40, he appears to be in his mid 20's. Since the 1990's his costumes have been predominantly black, hence his monicker as 'the Hero in Black' among the public. Previously wearing leather, he now wears reinforced ballistic cloth, and his white eagle blazon is now a lighted flexible LCD construct; his face mask now sports a bulletproof monocular eyepiece. He has always worn a cape.

Unlike many Whitmoore heroes, he maintains a secret identity and almost never appears without his mask, save around those closest to him.
Powers: the Dark Harrier displays intense skill in a variety of Eastern martial arts, and couples it with his mutated strength, stamina, and physical fortitude to attack his foes by main force. He is completely immune to small weapons fire, and once took the impact of a shoulder-fired rocket to his body with no lasting effects. Since then his mutation has strengthened, and he now regularly squares off against the heavy artillery of Council robots and Crey Juggernauts and can withstand their incredible firepower. He can fly at medium speeds, and possesses some skill at aerial combat. His invulnerabilities extend to impact, energy, shadow, fire and intense cold.
First Appearance: summer of 1987, New York City [as seen in 'Heroes of the Empire State' issue 87].

History: Born in a poor neighborhood in Queens, NY, Eric Drighten did not exhibit any of his latent mutant abilities until puberty began. Always a loner in school, his single mother sent him to the best schools available to her limited income. Although she supplied him with great moral support, his emerging mutations, though easily concealable, made him an outsider in his own mind. He eventually fell in with a group of leather-clad gang members calling themselves the Jackyls, and despite a slim frame, found use and status as the group's enforcer. Keeping his gang activities secret from his mother, Eric soon found things spiraling out of his control. Until this time, the gang's activities in drug traffic and protection had netted them only small money, and their leader, Black Jack O'Keefe, wanted more. He soon 'contracted' his group's services out to more violent underworld figures, and wound up getting his peers in way over their heads. Eventually called to the office of the minor mob figure who oversaw the Jackyls, ostensibly for a scolding, Drighten found himself and his gang in a proper mob rubout. His gang friends were gunned down in the dank warehouse office, and Eric took 5 slugs to the body. However, he stood back up, and using his hands and feet alone, beat the 5 mafia goons to death. Realizing he had placed himself in danger of a more serious reckoning than he'd ever imagined, he ransacked the offices, left all the drugs and other illicit goods he found in plain sight and phoned police, then absconded with a bag full of cash.
Tearfully relating the entire tale to his mother, Eric faced yet another shock: his mother felt serious shame that he had been involved in such dangerous illegal activities for so long, after all she had tried to teach him about right and wrong. Mortally shamed, Eric nonetheless escaped the Big Apple with her to flee the inevidable mob retaliation, completely altered his costume, and adopted a new secret- and hero-identity as they settled in a quiet Rhode Island suburb, and went back to school for a degree.

Since taking up residence at the Whitmoore, he's been involved in a large number of high profile events and disasters. His current nemesis are the Council, and he is theirs as well, swearing to prevent a foreseen end-of-the-world nuclear scenario initiated by them in an alternate [he hopes] future.

His romantic relationship with Jai Revenza is a new but very important facet of his life, though he and Jai are still getting used to being two suerpheroes living in Paragon amid the chaos. he maintains close friendships with several other heroes there, and is in general an outgoing and gregarious hero, hoping to develope one day into a personage with the power and public fame of Statesman.

He is a recipient of the Atlas Medallion.


Name: Jai Revenza
Alias: Jai Revenant
Link: at Zeta's page
scrapper, Claws/Regen

Distinguishing Features: Jai appears a normal woman until her claws become obvious. She is in great physical shape as an ex-soldier. When heroing, she has been given the Mark 1 Magnolia Armor suit by her friend, Steele Magnolia/Dr. Helen Markov for protection and travel power and to augment her regeneration. She tends to otherwise dress in fatigues and keep her hair short, throwbacks to her days as a Metaforces combat soldier.
Powers: Originally, none. Now she has claws and regenerative capabilities.
First Appearance: Whitmoore Apartments 12/05/04

History: Jai began her career as another Metaforces soldier, a normal person fighting alongside superheroes using government technology. She had no powers, and served in Operation Virtue with Staff Sgt Gevin Riley, one of the corps' most decorated mortal soldiers. She later fell in love and moved in with the Dark Harrier. When she decided to retire from service, she felt the need to still be 'out there' fighting the good fight, and began working as a protective hero while trying to figure out where her life was going. While doing her thing in Indie Port protecting a fish seller's business from the Family, she was assassinated and died on the street.

While being mourned over by her friends at the hospital, Jai's corpse was infused with nanobots meant for limb regeneration by Maggie Riley, Gevin's daughter-from-the-future. The nano culture instead reshaped her bio systems, and ressussitated her. It was discovered shortly after that the bots had used excess metals to regenerate her injuries and create metal claws embedded inside her forearms, which she can unsheathe at will. The bots also store extra materials for emergency conversion inside her intestinal system for rapid regeneration of injuries. They can also absorb outside substances for use as such directly via physical contact, including absorbing bullets that lodge in her body.

Still learning about her newfound powers, Jai is trying to understand her new place in the world.


Name:Samhein Greystar
Hero alias: none at this time

Links: at Zeta's page
Crey Industries

defender, Force Field/Energy Blast

Distinguishing Features: dark olive/tan skin, to the point where he could be a white man living on a Pacific island; he favors a dark suit of almost formal clothing, thin frock coat, black pants and worn boots, white frilly tuxedo-like shirt. His left eye is surrounded by a pentacle tattoo which grants him some small mystical powers involving his sight. He has other tattoos of simliar nature on his body, not usually visible. Although he is actually nearly 60 years old, a magic potion taken before coming to Earth allows him to pass as a college student.
Powers: Shaped magical eneries performing a variety of functions. His defensive abilities outstrip his offensive ones.
First Appearance: Paragon University 6/16/2006
Appearances:
History: Samhein Greystar is a favored mage working for a God of Law in another dimension. His god's concern over Earth cultures use of dimensinal gates has sent the wizard to Paragon, seeking the source of this danger and hoping to prevent Portal Corp from ever opening a gate to his home world.
Part of his task on Earth is to guard a magic item, lent by his deity to the wizards of MAGI: the Rod of Seven Parts. The presence of the Rod allows MAGI to tilt odds in the direction of Law triumphing over Chaos, and the item may be pivotal in preventing all out war from encompassing the Earth. As long as its presence is a closely guarded secret, all should be safe...

Meanwhile, Samhein finds himself stripped of most of his power. Earth's magical system is quite alien to his own world's, so Samhein has begun over again almost at an apprentice level, using Paragon University to relearn Earth's mystic systems. In his own dimension he was a wizardly teacher, so it's conceivable that he could adapt and return to his former abilities to both teach magic to others, and to construct and deconstruct magical items and enchantments.

A blessing from his God allows Samhein to understand any spoken Earth language, and to speak English fluently; he can also read any printed language, but might not understand its meaning, especially if slang is used. He can also see slightly into the infrared and ultraviolet. He is currently learning written English to write it natively. His contact with the Rod of Seven Parts, an artifact of Law, tends to place Samhein coincidentally in places where he is needed or where he can further his quests on Earth. Chance tends to behave strangely around him.


Name: Sergeant Bobby ‘Brooklyn’ Blutarski
Hero alias: none

Links: forthcoming
blaster: AR/Devices

Distinguishing features: none to speak of
Powers: none
First appearance: Whitmoore Apartments
History: Bobby Blutarski is a support character for the Metaforces story element for the Whitmoore apartments. Like the rest of Metaforces, ‘Brooklyn’ is a normal human army soldier operating beside superheroes using only the latest government technology to go toe to toe with super villains and giant robots. Metaforces uses super advanced technology to create armor, weapons, and support androids to give the Army a chance against such threats.

Sgt. Blutarski wears the standard combat uniform of an urban combat unit, as well as the M41 ‘Supersoaker’ modular rifle weapons system used by Metaforces, and other assistive devices. He possesses no super powers nor a travel power, although his backstory indicates his genes contained a failed form of the Superspeed sequence; discovery of this medical condition is what got him dropped from his tank platoon and sent to Operation Virtue.

When he appears in the narrative, Blutarski speaks in the first person; we are essentially peeking in on his experiences amid the mayhem.



Coming soon!

Demiise
Deep Shadow Dragon

[Nice Av, very nice. Love the atmosphere.]




Dennis rode the passenger elevator up from the warrens of the dig. The run had been productive in more ways than garnering artifacts; Dennis had gathered some items the Lacerta had left behind. Pieces of jade, rune-covered stones, an odd pneumatic armature of some sort. In all, he had about five pounds or so of odds and ends, weird things he'd never seen before but things that shone with silver or gems or unfamiliar technology that he'd grabbed off corpses in the Circle of Thorn complex or the Longbow he'd encountered. He'd surrendered the orichalcum object to Sword of Mu, but.. these things were his. And he intended to make some cash off them.

Whitedock, and Drentcliff. Two communities staked down on the tips of seamounts, nautical miles from Talos Island, Rhode Island. These two out of the way barrel-bottoms were where he was headed. Someone in the mine had said Whitedock had a thriving antique-buying subculture, so Dennis hoped to pawn these curios he now carried in a cast-off toolbox and use the cash to supply himself with better clothes and some booze. Sleepy seaside towns where nobody had any real connection to outside law enforcement and would part with some gelt for the odds and ends he'd brought back from the raid. Sleepy town, sleepy people, sleepy minds, nobody to raise any alarms.

As he passed the last group of dirty miners having lunch near the open mouth into the tunnels, he heard the same worker who'd pushed crates passed him the other day; the guy recognised him, and said to the man beside him, "Dat's the guy. He was down wit de mercs, skinny [censored] white boy. Why de bosses like him. What he do dat dey need? And he got dem eyes, really weird and glowin', bad voodoo dat. Dem eyes is evil, I tell ya."

Demise. That was the first time that name snagged in Dennis psyche. The first time a cool villain name became something for him to even think about. With the monikers taken by the mercs, and stylish Lacerta brood names being bandied all around him, 'Dennis' seemed beyond blase. 'The vessel of the Eye of Mu' was too long, and just didn't come out right.

Demise. Demise, with two eyes.... Demiise?

Yeah. Maybe.

Dennis came off the ferry to Whitedock, sniffing the salt air and rotting algae as he trudged down the rickety wood slats to the shore with the gaggle of miners looking to blow a few bucks in the small local bars. He looked like them, blended with them, but they gave him a wide berth, and he had the goggles on to hide the bloody glow emanating from his face. He asked a struggling elderly woman which way the pawn shop was, and followed where her gnarly finger pointed.

The bell over the door rang in Bobby Gunn's shop. The curio shop smelled of moldy paper and polished metal, with counters of glass harboring jewelry, old wedding rings sold by widowers and lost or hocked football championship bands from several small high schools scattered around the islands.

Bobby looked up from some magazine to see Dennis walk in. The welding goggles he wore struck the shop owner as odd, immediately. Bobby licked suddenly dry lips, h is body flushed with heat, his mind racing with the idea he was being robbed. But the man had a case, and as he closed the shop door it made a settling sound Bobby could easily associate with soft metals all lumped together. The .357 he kept close at hand prominent in his thoughts [though it hadn't been lifted in 3 years, and then only to try cleaning it], he said, "Hi, can I help ya?"

"Yeah." The case came open on the counter. The contents fascinated. "I wanna sell this stuff."

The proprietor paused a brief moment before gesturing for the case to be passed under the bars to his window. Dennis obliged. Bobby poured briefly over the collection of pendants, stones and metal cylinders. "Where did ya get this stuff," he said, voice hovering between a whisper and words muffled by saliva.

"The dig," Dennis replied without pause. "I'm a miner."

Bobby's eyes were still focused inside the case. "Good money there," Bobby asked by rote, his small talk for any customer and his mind on the precious metal laid out before him, and not really taking in anything else at present.

"Only when you pay me for this stuff," the stranger muttered.

Say as little as possible.

"Bobby's eyes came up. "You a welder?"

Yes

"Yeah."

"Three hundred bucks," Bobby announced without preamble. He leaned on an elbow on the counter. His hands were close to jump to the case and grab it, if the deal were done. He wanted to inventory this find as soon as possible, preferably preambled by this miner getting the hell out so he could jump to it.

Dennis paused only for a second. His happy surprise wasn't entirely evident. "Three fifty," he tried.

"Yep. Done" The case was grabbed away behind the low barred window right away. He reached to the unsecuerd strongbox and fished out the money, counting it in the customer's view. "Three fifty, there ya go. If you get any more of this, bring it my way!" he chirped.

Dennis took up the money, his hidden eyes rising up to the manager's face briefly before he turned and slipped out of the door. The bell tinkled his departure.

When the sidewalk outside his store was clear, Bobby Gunn opened the case at his desk and rifled through the treasure there. He took out several objects and laid them aside. Bundling them in a paper bag with some twine, he slid them into one of the hollowed books he kept on a shelf with some tax binders and inventory tallies. In several others was a decent supply of Superdyne ampules, the ones he had for sale.

The rest, he inventoried in those same books, described in detail as if the lighter load had been what he paid for, then, called the sheriff.

Bobby knew a few things about knick knacks. And these weren't knick knacks.

Dennis was getting up from the floor, as the Avatar's attack had blasted him where he'd stood, pounding on the other side of the door to the cell. "I aim to please, chief," he drawled, unsure whether this supernatural champion or whatever he was, would get the sarcasm, and be offended. He was clad in shredded Arachnos blacks, and his Longbow uniform had been lost somewhere.

HIs eyes dropped for a second; he then said aloud, "Haven't you already told him?" He glanced up at the titan reptile, as the latter was turning to other things. "Well, seemed like you probably had. We'll do it later," he ended, glancing around at the animated corpses the Avatar had in tow. He followed the vanguard, asking if the Eye could let him raise similar servants, and being told in the negative. "Whatever," he muttered at one point.

The troop moved with precision, and Dennis went along.

WTH, this is for the 13th! Too late.

Brains....

Dennis awoke inside a large oblong of green crystal.

He had taken down 8 of the Circle before they'd pulled him down likewise. The dark spiritual damage the Demon minions were capable of could slow the progress of the Eye's healing of it's vessel. As they crawled erect, both Dennis and the Eye could feel the dampening power of the mystical prison.

We must get out, urged the Eye. It tried very hard not to communicate the incredible twist of Fate it would be for the Circle of Thorns to actually examine it in it's host/symbiont state. Enough leaked through to make Dennis nervous.

"No duh," Dennis growled. He tried a few of his psychic darts; the slim door seemed to be affected. "This is gonna take a while."

***

Several Circle mages raced down the hall, away from where Dennis had been taken, and toward the general vicinity of the main prong of attack. They were winded and beaten up; only one fell Daemon torso flowed through the air after them.

"Who as that," demanded the Death mage.

"I don't know, Master," his Thorn lackey responded, "a human helping the Lecerta? His clothing was tattered, but it suggested Arachnos.. that makes no sense. And, the glowing eyes, his font of power.. what does it mean?"

"He took one of the Spectrals down through psychic combat; not something the uninitiated survive," the Circle mage uttered, with dread and uncertainty. He almost felt respect, but, he was Circle of Thorns; this feeling was overwhelmed by the greed for secrets.

"Perhaps we should alert our superiors," the Thorn offered cautiously.

The Mage raced on, slowing though to peek around corners before proceeding. "Yes, in this case that would be wise, surely. Such a chaotic foe loose in the caverns on our flank, we must divert resources to neutralize him. If he joins with the main Lacerta force, it's one more foe with good offense we need to contend with."

They rounded more corners, crossed more bridges, ducked through corridors. Moving toward the inner areas that had already been exterminated, survivors going back, not realizing they'd been a few hundred yards from the surface, and safety. They were trying to contact dead men. When Lacerta came out from a side passage, the Thorn threw himself in front of his master, blocking the initial attack.

Dennis' hand quivered over the lump of silver-steel set in a crown of green crystal. "Are you sure about this?" he asked aloud, to the Eye.

Yes. Do it, the Eye said, imperiously.

Dennis caught the cube of orichalcum between two fingers and lifted it. Once it was freed from the glowing base, an odd burst of sensation erupted; for Dennis, it was as if a blip had burst from the crystal and turned immediately into a flat plane level with his solar plexus that rushed immediately up and out in all directions; he could feel it pass through the top of his head.

"What [expletive deleted] was that?"

An alarm. We are discovered.

"I gotta get out of here," the human groaned. He pocketed the heavy square, and turned. The column of stone he stood atop dominated the huge cavern beneath the city. It towered stories above its base, a moat filled with natural stream outflows. Passages lead outward from it as spokes from a wheel into the Circle base. As he looked for the wooden pathway back down, he heard booted feet rushing up along the boards from below.

"Crap!"

Cap Au Diable was a far cry from Mercy Island for Dennis.

The rabble of Mercy, including even the Longbow and corrupt RIPs, were spread thin there, and traveled in small groups. Here on the outskirts of Aeon City, bigger fish were swimming, and in bigger schools.

Dennis shied away from the Jet-pack-equipped Gooldbrickers and the large masses of protesting Luddites, only learning these names from passersby while he asked for directions. Other than this, there were Arachnos patrols everywhere in the concreted sections of the island, but since he wore matching colors he slipped by them.

Wait, enter this building. Dennis eyed the tall skyscraper in front of the large outdoor square featuring a huge moving sculpture of an atom. "Hm, atomic weight of 8, and the electron shells are wrong. Hope he was a good artist, 'cause he ain't no scientist," he observed. Inside the offices, the Eye guided him to one of the quatermasters stationed there. Dennis showed him a stolen ID, then made some purchases as the Eye quietly guided him.

He then made his way to an observation deck atop the sky scraper. Up there, the Eye guided Dennis in the application of the powders, salves, and trinkets he'd just bought. There. We are now slightly enervated. An extra boost to our power. We must perpare for the mission coming.

Dennis did some internal poking and did, indeed, feel the boost in the levels of his powers. It was because of this that he did no notice the Mu Striker hovering toward him from around the corner of the platform.

"Hold, soldier," it said, and the sudden voice intrusion nearly made Dennis squeak. "What is your assignment, why are you up here?"

"What! Er, I mean, what did you say.. sir?" Dennis realized he was still in uniform.

"Identify yourself immediately." The Striker floated closer, a red nimbus appearing over its head. Inside him, the Eye was hissing in loathing.

Abomination! Arachnos has stolen our crystals technology and used it in perverse experiments to boost their followers mind powers! We must destroy this one!

"Um, but, what about our mission?" Dennis replied.

"'Our' mission? What are you talking about? Identify yourself! Comply or I will slay you!" The Striker had answered, because Dennis was losing track of when he was answering the Eye aloud and when he was thinking at it.

Dennis licked his lips, his mouth sour with the taste of the powders he'd imbibed; they reminded him of the stuff they tossed on throw-up back in grade school.

"Hold on, I wasn't talking to you," Dennis began. The Striker responded with a corruscating blast that stunned him and threw him back, hard.

He got his senses back with his body in wracking pain, staring up a the sky and the edge of the building top. He rolled slightly and screamed, realizing the Striker had knocked or shoved him onto the lip of the ballustrade that surrounded the deck. One small roll to his left and Dennis would have dropped off the edge of the building.

"What are you doing? You son of a [censored]!"

Destroy the abomination!

Dennis ripped one hand from his desperate gripping of the stonework and pulled up his goggles. An energy dart appeared at the center of his forehead and speared at the Striker, but the thing's own defenses cast it aside. Another red blast kicked Dennis off his perch; he gave a brief scream but the force was so intense that he was cast over a fatal gap and onto another edge, snagging on a sculpted gargoyle there.

Dangling by his hands, Dennis experienced a little deja vu of the Tower, gazing down all the way to the street below; with fear flooding him and the Eye raging at him to kill, kill!, Dennis focused this fear and hurled it across the gap at the Arachnos horror.

The floating bound-up body shivered; it's mind became grasped in Dennis' attack and it could not focus its mind enough to blast him off the ledge. He then filled the air with darts and concentrated mental blasts, knocking it all around and into the stone of the walls. Its defenses were formidable though, and before Dennis could finish it, it regained its senses enough to form and release a blazing red mind blast of its own.

With a wavering shriek Dennis was torn from his perch and fell.

Accompanied by a piece of masonry, Dennis fell. In his spinning plummet he screamed and screamed, watching the ground rise up toward him very fast. His own mind was gripped by a gibbering terror.

Concentrate! the Eye was demanding, Hover! Hover! Hover...

With a pulping impact only a dozen yards away, Dennis abruptly hung up in the air. His teeth clacked together and his legs snapped downward so hard he sprained both knees. he cried ou in surpise and pain. Some passersby below looked up at the noise; a woman screamed in surprise. Still mewling with the pain, the Eye took over now that it knew Dennis could shape this power, and lowered him to a landing.

Dennis collasped on his bad knees, then yelped as the Eye healed them. Get up. We must move before others investigate. Images of Arachnos torture cells were shown to him; Dennis needed no other impetus. He got up and ran, despite the small crowd standing around him staring.

"Freaking thing almost killed me!" Dennis was more sure the Striker could have crushed him psyonically, though he was actually reacting more to the fall.

Had it caught us before the application of the magic powders, it may have.

"Nice. I need more cash, gotta get me as much of that mojo as I can stand. Gotta be another place to ge 'em, there a black market around here somewhere? There must be.." People looked askance at the man carrying on a loud conversation with himself.

Time enough for that later. We must go that way.. the mission is more important....

Cease what you are doing.

"What? Why?" The Eye of Mu had spoken with such certainty and force that Dennis paused immediately. He was lingering around an isolated strongpoint of Longbow heroes about a half mile from the base of Fort Cerebus, lurking and trying to figure out of he could time their patrol schedules to slip into the little bunker and try killing the handful of soldiers in there. He already had nearly a dozen Longbow shields collected to turn over to the Huntsman after this foray, his third, and he wanted to go for twenty. He'd get extra cash for a score that high, Teller had said. The stolen uniform had gotten him in close more than once.

There was a moment of silence, and then: The Cult of Mu are conducting a raid as we speak. We are required to act as a diversion. We must travel to Cap Au Diable and await orders.

"Huh? Where are you getting this, who are you talking to?" Dennis was perplexed.

Inside his mind, the Eye was smug; Dennis had not heard the Avatar's telepathic conversation with the Eye. The Avatar is in Cap Au Diable. Make haste.

"What? Aw, goddammit, sure, whatever." Dennis pulled back from the edge of the corner and headed away from the shantytown.

"What about my clothes," Dennis said aloud as he sprinted across the rubble.

There was quiet for a moment. But it was merely the Eye, pondering. We will need alternative garments, but the Longbow uniform may yet come in handy. I suggest we acquire an Arachnos uniform as well.

Dennis scowled as he ran. "Great." They were headed back the way they'd come, toward Cerebus and the helipad they had there for the Arachnos flyers.

When the elevator came up, the Arachnos men Huntsman Teller had left guarding it nearly shot the lone figure in it to pieces, for he was in the red and white of a Longbow agent still, but since his helmet was off, they realized it was the guy Teller had sent down there a few times now. They gave him a good hassle as usual but sent him forward.

Teller was unhappily surprised at the number of Longbow badges that were turned over to him and the total Dennis was accumulating. However, he had to give the little runt some credit; there were three Warden badges in among them this trip. With his usual gruff demeanor he handed over some cash and a few odd stims, then kicked Dennis out of his office. Less than ten minutes later he answered a call, and found out that the two elevator guards at the service lift that led outside had been killed, and one had been stripped of his uniform. By the time the electronics were checked and it was found that the elevator had not descended, a general alert had already gone out that there may be Longbow infiltrators. But Dennis had by then changed, and with the red-and-whites folded under one arm in a paper bag, he got on board the next flyer to Cap Au Diable dressed in spiffy Arachnos blacks and was gone.

[[Long, I know, but I got on a roll ]]


"Almost got it, almost got it." The repetative sound of a ratchet could be heard as Longbow Guardian Pellias unwound the last heavy bolt holding on the access plate. According to their stolen papers, behind this panel was another smaller duct system. Lined with Romex and large conduits, it would lead them up and into the Arachnos fort above.

The bolts were all frozen in place by rust, and were eighteen inches long, so things were taking time.

"Time's something we're in short supply of," Longbow Sergeant Manns whispered with prospicience, adjusting his polished red-and-white helmet as he looked around. "If there are any alarm wires attached to the backside of the plate, we may tip off the spiders before we can get deep enough to throw off pursuit."

"Shouldn't be. Schematics say it's clear," Pellias muttered as she coaxed the final inches of screw from the wall. "There, got it," she gave a grunt of triumph as the final bolt dropped clanging to the floor. She was disappointed though, as the freed plate remained staunchly in place even without visible support. "Crap, must be welded closed by buildup, sir, sorry. Mike, hand me the crowbar, would you?" She turned to Guardian Michael Biggs, who hadn't responded, as a chill seemed to pass over her shoulders.

"Did you feel that?" her Sergeant hissed, looking away and around them.

Pellias had her own puzzle though; Mike had been looming over them the whole time she'd been working on the plate, but he stood in place now with his head down, chin almost touching his chest. His eyes were clearly closed; he was dead asleep on his feet.

"Mike, what the hell," Sandra Pellias swore as she reached out to start her fellow awake, but she never got the chance.

"Look out!" the Sergeant shouted as a grubby figure stepped out from one the the tangles of conduit, lurid red light streaming from his eyes. As the cones of light fell upon them, Manns shuddered again as a more potent, focused chill dropped on his mind. This time, the desire to sleep was greater than he could bear; the Longbow lieutenant was abruptly unconscious on his feet, swaying impotantly like Biggs beside him.

Agent Pellias cleared her sidearm and rose to a shooter's stance, but the nightmare eyes were swerving towards her. She cleared leather as panic kicked her into overdrive, and fired a shot that burst through the intruder's thigh. She saw him go down to one knee, a grimace on his face, but the angry red eyes rose back up to her. A red nimbus surrounded his head and a conical dart of power formed at his forehead; it rocketed out at her and burst in her face, and she felt the physical impact along with a horrible clawing sensation inside her brain. As she staggered, a second more diffuse feeling came. The new attack was more mental than physical. Rapid fire glimpses of being flayed alive, of being burned, falling, of being dismembered, battered at her consciousness, and the Longbow agent half-fell against the grimy wall of tubes, grasping at the sides of her helmet, mewling in fear and agony. She was being forcefed snippets of death, and as each piece got through, her rebelling psyche screamed. She couldn't focus.

Another physical blast struck her head, then another. She was thrown against the lumpy wall as around her, her comrades swayed somnambulantly. The illusory pictures of death were driving deeper; she was dieing, and her support was doing nothing; they were unaware. She slumped with a whimper, blood streaming from her nose and tear ducts.

Biggs was next, dragged from a completely unaware unconsciousness with a two-pronged blast to the face. He came awake but had already been gripped by the slideshow of agony. Deaths cardflipped across his mind's eye [and this metaphor is what Dennis was in fact trying, his evil glee growing as the mnemonics the Eye of Mu had suggested were indeed working as desired, the entity piggybacking on the assault and relishing the helplessness of the foe]. The hero's response was sluggish, and his spasming hand could not find his holster. Beside him, his Sergeant waited in line without reply.

Though surprised and hindered, Biggs managed to slump to the floor where the group's long arm had been put. He managed to grasp and activate the pilot on his flame thrower, but the incessant parade of horror across his mind was being supported by a sudden assault of darts detonating all over his face and head. His helmet fragmented. He was knocked off balance, and sprawled across the cold floor. A final blast kicked his head to one side and he ceased moving forever.

Sergeant Manns came aware, shaking off the illusions just as Biggs died. "[censored] you!" he shouted in his commanding baritone. With the reflexes of a Longbow commander he assessed his situation in a single sweeping glance and lunged for the active flamer. A shuddering chill passed over him as a grasping try for his psyche failed. From a secure crouch he triggered the flamethrower and turned it on his attacker.

Lurid red light in the tunnel was replaced by roaring yellow. A cone of liquid fire deluged Dennis from the front, and he lit up, a living torch. His mental assault was checkmated as he burned, his mouth drawing open in an animal shriek.

Manns kept the weapon cone on his foe as the lone figure staggered to one side. "Yes! Burn you [censored]!" he crowed in triumph.

Dennis was reliving his initial experience inside the tower, dieing ablaze. His consciousness had been through this before, and as it had then, the Eye of Mu was holding him, cradling his body, even as searing air flowed down into his lungs, as flesh began sloughing off his face and arms, as his hair evaporated.

You wil not perish in this. You will live. You will go on. With merciless calm the Eye of Mu reknit Dennis' flesh. His regenerating nerve endings sang new waves of agony. It was awful and almost counterproductive, unceasing as it had been before. Destroy him. Focus the pain and return it. Step closer to him. Embrace his mind and consume it. Without pity th Eye had taken command of Dennis' failing body, and with puppet steps it walked into the cone of fire, toward the Longbow Sergeant.

"What the hell! By all that's holy!" Mann had never seen a human withstand this kind of punishment before, even among the mutated cursed environs of Mercy Island. Longbow groups included a flamer because this weapon pretty much equalised any situation. If it wasn't a giant robot, a flamethrower could pretty much put down anything stalking this part of the archipelago. Most things in the archepelago knew what a flamethrower looked like and tended to run before the thing spouted it's brand of death.

From within the raging conflagration the red searchlight eyes had opened again and were zeroing in on him even as the horrid matchstick was stalking closer to him. "Oh God! Die you son of a [censored]! Die!"

The jet of fire ran out as the living torch stepped with a yard of the Longbow agent. He was trying to reprime the flamer when Dennis reached toward him. With a tearing moan power bridged the gap between the men, humming from Dennis' outstretched hands and pouring into the hero. Manns vibrated as his nerves were flooded with baneful energy. The beam seemed to reverse itself and Manns felt his strength leech out of him. The smouldering attacker stood taller, his features, withered by relentless flame, flowed like wax back into shape. His skull face smoothed over with flesh, his exposed teeth still gnashing even as perfect lips crawled back into place around them. The impossibility of it held the Longbow agent pinned in place even as the searchlight eyes fixed him on the end of that pin.

The smouldering man stood motionless as what he'd just experienced was forcefed back into Longbow Sergeant Mann's mind. The tunnel was filled with a long, hopeless baritone shriek that rebounded down it's length. When the echoes died, there were no further sounds for Mann to make.

Then, it was Dennis' turn to gasp aloud. He was completely spent, and it was his turn to fall to the side against the wall. The agony had been unspeakable, and prolonged far past what any human could experience and remain conscious. Dennis gave random bleates of sound, formless animal noises as his mind echoed once again with such ordeal.

His clothes were nearly gone, and smoked, the rags still smoldering and harming regenerating skin. The tunnel was obscured by the ordure of his own cooking, but he was alive. And he saw that the other three were most definitely dead. The first thing he managed to coherently choke out, was a manic laugh.

His formless noises settled down into words. "Yeah! I got you, you [censored], I got you. Look.. not a mark on 'em."

Well done, the Eye cooed.

"That's not [censored] funny," Dennis growled.

The irony of possible word play was lost on his symbiant. You have learned well. Shapes to make them sleep, shapes to make them unable to act, shapes to damage their flesh. All as you burned. You are growing, Vessel. Arise. We have more work to do. More of this is to come.

Dennis was hyperventillating, but he managed to search the fallen Longbow. The male who'd put up the least resistance was more or less his size; soon, Dennis was wearing Longbow colors to replace his burned rags. He also grabbed one sidearm and about thirty rounds of ammo. The flamer was out of fuel and useless or that would have gone too. By the time he'd dressed he was once again whole. As if he had never been burned alive. Again.

Dennis looked down from the towering walls of Fort Cerebus. The blighted ghetto spread out as far as he could see below; a miasma of human smells wafted up over the black walls of the Arachnos stronghold and clogged his nostrils.

"We have Longbow agents trying to sneak in through our air ducts and access tunnels-"

"You got air intakes down there?" Dennis interrupted the Arachnos Huntsman.

Through his faceless helmet, the Wolfspider soldier glared at this worm. "And we want them flushed out." His tone was imperial and stern. He did not like this new recruit, panned out of the scum when the steamer came in from that island where the big dig was going on. Another scab miner, unable to hack even digging holes in the ground, come to try his hand at being a paramount soldier in Lord Recluse's glorious army. Huntsman Teller hoped the Darwinian proving grounds below would take care of him; if this ugly loner killed a few Longbow agents before they shot him, so much the better.

Huntsman Teller didn't really care, either way.

To show his scorn he gave Dennis a shove with his powered club, a weapon of rank [unignited, alas, he thought] toward the dark service elevator that lead down from the aerie to the street level.

The erzats flunkie's dirty mining boots clumped onto the floor grating; the metal grid allowed a view down into dark depths. Dennis' face was blank as he stared back at the Arachnos contact, wondering if he should pull his goggles up and show the guy the light.

He is needed, for now, the Eye advised quietly, and Dennis remained as he was.

The Huntsman slid the accordian gate fast behind Dennis and with some relief, locked it sent him on his way down. Into Hell, he thought snidely to himself.

The upwelling of foul air carressed Dennis as he slid down through the shaft. Vertiguous feelings followed; he didn't think he'd look at elevators calmly ever again. The Eye was amused. The rattling cage settled abruptly at the bottom, and the doors opposite the way he'd entered hissed open. Dennis cautiously peered out into the access tunnel, dank and lit with yellow emercency light boxes. Dripping water pooled on grimy metal flooring.

Dennis had several ideas to try on this proving ground, and went looking for victims. On the boatride over to Mercy Island, he had taken lessons from the Eye over how to interpret the echoes of mental patterns he'd been exposed to thusfar with his new, open psyche. Channeling the flow of experiential malice and fear and agony, Dennis had formed gateways through which he'd expel shaped force, some gentle and seductive, some a bit more heavy-handed and direct. Naturally though, thusfar he'd only been able to hold the gates open and look through; no-one on the journey had provided any fodder on which to try and actually let loose to see what exactly would happen. People travelling to these islands knew better than to wind up alone with someone else traversing the same seaway.

The Eye seemed just as eager to experiment.

"Whoo!" Dennis was wavering slightly on his feet. Now that his own psyche was aggressively active, any similar experience caused by an outsider only elated him; it gave him a deeper glimpse of the pathways, the possibilities. More than any other power, psionic abilities were like a classroom; even if something overwhelmed you, it left an echo that could be examined later, and if the will were strong enough, imitated as a dojo student imitates his master.

He stumbled down to the floor before stabilizing. His face was manic.

"OK. I gotta head into Mercy, or maybe Aeon City, and look around for guys in black uniforms. Arachnos, I gotta get me an in on them, greenskin." He sniffed. "And I think I need a better wardrobe. This place is [censored] for fashion."

This is why jetpacks are better.

Dennis noted the Lacerta's posture of submission; he doubted it was honest, but rather from necessity; he had gotten his goggles back, but hadn't put them on yet. He understood that the Eye would not allow him to kill one of the reptile men, not without a huge internal fight. Dennis simply wasn't ready for that kind of thing, not yet anyway. Indeed, he was seriously considering making some kind of overture to try and establish some cooperation between he and it, beyond what was already in place. Such thoughts filtered through the shared link, and he could sense the skepticism and emotinal detachment it generated.

"Gee, I wonder when would be a good time to call them and ask," he muttered caustically at the towering man-lizard. Here was this creature, built to kill and to eat things like him, averting its eyes like a pet dog in trouble. It wasn't pleased about it's discomfort, but... It could scythe him open in a heartbeat... but no, wait, would that even matter? Aside from the inconvenience of the feeling of pain, Dennis realized the Eye was confirming such torture would matter little, save putting him through the agony; his body would be made whole again rather instantly.

Dennis' cockiness shot up a notch at that one.

"No time like the present," he muttered. He stepped over to the circle, raised his arms in what he imagined was a sufficiently wizard-ish pose, and asked with a bit of a drawl, "I'm here, Dark Gods, what can I do to serve you today?"

[[Wow, an interesting story with the Fourth Wall broken! Or nearly. Pretty cool, keep it up!]]

But it was a little boy.

Consider the cow. It's flesh was just as tasty.

But, it was a little boy.

Each day, thousands of cattle wander under the weapons of those who would eat them. They bellow and they die. Their flesh is needed. In fact, they would not be alive if there was no need for their flesh. They are born on purpose, and that purpose is to be consumed. If the farms were not there they would never know life, and that life would never succor those who eat them. This is in the nature of all things.

But...

The sandwich, it was delicious, was it not?

Yes.

And your body craved it, and it satisfied, did it not?

Yes.

And was that not the same thing you felt in the vision?

...

That child was born to be eaten. That island is a farm, though the cattle upon it do not know it. Their matings are guided by unseen hands, and the lives chosen to feed the farmers go to the fate they are given. The farmers have not eaten, regularly, for a thousand years. It is almost time for their hunger to be sated.

But, it was..

See now in your mind the two sensations, together. Hot flesh, juices of life soothing your hungry throat. Fullness, after eating, the joy that life has been given so your life goes on. Do you see this? Do you feel this? They are the same. There is no difference. There will be no difference.

Are you saying I will be eating other people?

Not necessarily. Though the opportunity will exist. When your kind still marveled at their own ability to stir fire from small sticks, they did not know such qualms; they understood that in the flesh lives the power of life. To eat of the flesh not only grants you another day's life, but confirms your joy of the successful hunt, that you are justified in hunting. And the life given is also justified, for if it were not meant to go to your mouth, it would not have lived at all. How could it have? For this is what happened. Fate cannot be denied, it flows as permanently as the water.

Were we fated to be like this?

[pause] Yes. It could not have been otherwise. Else you would be drying meat beneath a million tons of dust, like the rest. Flesh uneaten, life wasted.

I.. don't think I want to eat meat that's the same as me.

Then do not. Other meat will be provided. We must go on, so flesh you must have.

The mercenary women.. that's the kind of meat I want, and not for eating. Exactly.

This may also be provided. I have an opportunity that I never have had. I have shown you visions, and you will show me others, in your way. The glory of Mu will return, but though the process is proceeding it willl take time. In between time, there will be.. opportunity, for other things.


***

Dennis remained more or less somnambulant over the emptied styrofoam plate. Though his eyes were unfocused, they still broadcast their eerie red glow. The humans moving around him soon realized that satifying their curiosity over the beacon lamps in the naked guy's face gave them a dreadful feeling if they were foolish enough to look directly at them. The women there, tougher by far than the rest of the lackeys, felt it when the lamps passed over them in some odd speculation. They didn't like it one bit, and busied themselves to avoid thinking about it.

Some of the men moving large boxes through the mess area mumbled to themselves about the newcomer, annoyed that he was supping nude with one of the reptiles, and was not being treated like the rest of them; like potential cattle.

"Man, what's wit dem eyes," one of them wondered aloud to his partner as they labored. "Dem eyes is crazy!'

A short time later, Dennis got up and walked toward the large chambers where the reptiles slept. He needed clothing now, and once he'd gotten some, he wandered off, unsupervised it seemed. In his wake were left whispers about the strange new figure with the dreadful eyes.

Dennis wasn't sure if the Lacerta was being cheeky with him, or not. He followed, nonetheless. What the reptile-man said made him realise the horrid taste left behind when he choked up the squirming things that had tried taking up residence in his gullet, courtesy of the Leviathan's cave. He spat several times.

It occured to him that some of the Eye's casual disregard for many human things was rubbing off on him. Though dry, he walked naked into the lab, and resisted the urge to cover himself in front of the two human women. Or the merc type who seemed on an important errand. The food pouch made his stomach grumble, and he wolfed the items down hot. Hunched over his meal in an almost feral way, still chewing, he took in what he could, then looked at Flame. He was trying to maintain whatever momentary authority his demonstration might have granted him as he asked, "Seems like alot going on down here. What are your plans, exactly? Who are these women, what are they doing?"