((I like; having never really had a convo with Rich (not that one would have got this information) I never really knew your backstory. It's good. I assume Andrew became your nemesis?))
((Good story is good!!!!))
((Thanks for the comments, folks. And since they were so nice, I figured I'd reproduce and tidy up an old story from way back in the day, since it fits the thread's theme. Standard 3rd person prose for this one - I don't really like 1st person style except when I'm trying to put across a single character's feelings.))
{Constellation Row, Galaxy City, September 24, 2005, Approx. 10.40pm}
Blind terror gripped her. They were all around her, clutching, clawing, grasping. She tried to run, to hide in the fog that filled the back alleys, but they were always there. There must be hundreds of them.
She'd just been walking home from an evening shift at the local Up n' Away burger parlour. A journey she'd taken a hundred times. She'd had another... discussion with Diego Juarez, the man who managed the establishment. He was a creep, and she still didn't know why she put up with him, or the job, or the pittance of a wage packet or any of a thousand other things that made her wish she could escape from her own life. They'd cornered her as she took a shortcut, skirting around the Arena and cutting behind some shops. That's where they'd found her, demanded her purse, and now she was running.
She had lost her handbag long since. They obviously weren't after money, now. Maybe kneeing the leader in the groin had been the wrong thing to do. No time to think about that. She stumbled further, and ducked down yet another narrow passage between buildings into... a dead end.
She cast her eyes about, seeing the trash trolleys, the cardboard boxes, the cat running up a drainpipe... There would be a fire escape. There was always a fire escape. Her heart leapt as she realised what it would mean. A way to escape. Freedom.
Looking up she saw it. Fifteen feet above her head. Tears of frustration poured down her cheeks, and she whimpered in terror, her imagination painting a picture of the coming horror that she could not divert. One of her pursuers ran into the alley, saw her, and called to his companions.
Stumbling backwards she tried in vain to escape, as more and more of them blocked the way out. She tripped on a discarded carrier bag, and they laughed as she landed in a puddle, the stale water soaking her trousers. She was amazed when the first thought in her mind was that the dry-cleaning bill would be more than she could afford right now, and these were her favourite pair.
"Here, love, you might want to take those off before you catch your death of cold," one of the gang crowed, to the vast amusement of the others. A last hint of defiance flickered within her, as her tear-streaked face twisted in anguish.
"Leave me alone!" Her scream was met with derisive laughs, and one of them, one of the dozens of them, stepped forward, a knife in his hand.
"Oh, we will, sweet thing, when we're finished." Diffuse light glinted off the knife as she watched it, mesmerised, terror once more gripping her. But she couldn't run. There was nowhere to run. No way to escape. Oh, dear Lord in heaven she was going to die.
"I think the lady wants to be left alone." The strong, cultured, very English voice sounded deafening. She looked around, frantic, but could see nothing. The gang did the same, and as one they took a step back. Hope blossomed within her. A hero! The one thing that could keep this nightmare from becoming real, and hope bloomed within her, to be replaced by a quiet wariness when her frantically seeking eyes couldn't see him. Where was he? Why wasn't he here, hitting them, or something?
The leader of the gang put on a show of bravado. "Leave now, cape, or the lady gets it!" He was the one with the knife. He lunged for her, but she scrabbled backwards out of reach, grazing her hands on the rough concrete floor of the alley.
"Thank you, Miss." Suddenly, in the midst of the gang, she could see a dark silhouette appear. A low rumble could be heard, and an instant later the alley filled with a brilliant light, dazzling her. She heard several thumping noises nearby, and as she blinked to clear her vision, she could see the fog slowly flowing back, and the bodies of the gang lay scattered around her. A lone figure stood there, his face hidden in the shadows. He staggered towards her, obviously winded.
"Are... you... all... right,... miss?" He struggled for breath between each word, and appeared ready to collapse. He stretched out a hand to her, which she grasped and used to pull herself to her feet. She could see his eyes, and the line of his jaw, and a shock of brown hair, and he looked kind of familiar, and there were tears on his face, like tracks of despair, and he was kind of handsome, and...
He seemed to have recovered. That was quick. Well, he was a hero, even if he did seem to have forgotten his spandex. "Wh-Who are you?" she asked, tentatively.
"I'm Ri... Ahem," he spoke, and as she watched he faded from view, melting into the darkness. "I'm just a friend." A whistling of air and he was gone, leaving her alone with several utterly unconscious gang members. She saw her handbag lying next to one of them, dashed over and pulled out her cell phone.
"Hello? Police? I'd like to report an... umm... assault... kind of. I need an officer here. Galaxy City. An alley off Constellation Row. Just look out for the bodies. No, they're not dead. But they do need arresting."
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Officer Rachel Harris looked over the scene. Four ambulances stood nearby, and paramedics were clustered around the still-unconscious gang. None were seriously injured - a few bruises was about all - but they had been thrown about like dolls. That meant only one thing. A super. A super running around without a license. She shook her head. This was the last thing she needed on a Monday after a long shift.
The woman was clearly shaken up, but her story supported the evidence. The only problem being that these goons now could not be held - due process had not been observed, damn it!
Well, she might be able to get the attempted assault charge to stick - they were all carrying weapons of one sort or another, but the defence counsel would probably get them to walk on the... unusual nature of their arrest.
Shaking her head, she pulled her radio to her mouth and spoke to Control. "This is Papa Sierra Three-Eight. I need to report a 256 violation. Yes, a 256 violation. Say again, Control? WHAT?"
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"That's correct, Papa Sierra Three-Eight. That's the fourth tonight. Same MO. Criminals engaged in nefarious activity, some chap with an English accent that no one can see, boom - criminals knocked out for about an hour. We have a vigilante."
And there it was. Lieutenant Mills grimaced. A damn vigilante. A damn super vigilante. Now officially declared as such. And Paragon Police Department would go all out to catch him. And probably would never find him, given his apparent ability to dissappear at will. This was not shaping up to be a good night.
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Richard Huntington hugged himself against a breeze he didn't really feel. It was so easy. So simple. This super-power thing was phenomenal. The sensations, the rush of exhilaration, the satisfaction as wrongdoers felt his wrath...
The price wasn't worth it, he knew that. The powers were amazing, but he had to atone. Had to pay for the deaths he had caused. His bank account hadn't really twitched when the company paid out the compensation to the families of the deceased. He was still wealthy, the company was still stable, and he was not being held responsible. But he was. He'd killed them as surely as if he'd slit their throats. When he'd discovered how much he had been changed, it had scared him at first. Heck, how many people in the world wake up in the night floating four feet above their bed? Or can fire a pulse of energy hundreds of feet away? Or can sense the entire electromagnetic spectrum? That last one scared him more than anything else. Sure, it took concentration. Sure, about the only easy things to figure out were the infra-red signatures of living people, with the rest being a constant barrage of white noise. But why? And why did it feel like the rays were just passing through his skin? So many questions that needed to be answered. But he'd found a use for these powers. He could save lives. He could work to make up for the deaths he'd caused.
His grief almost overwhelmed him, but he forced himself to concentrate. That last one had been risky. The woman had come too close to seeing him. He needed to hide himself. He needed a disguise. He snorted to himself as he realised what he was thinking. He needed a costume.
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{Huntington Manor, September 30, 2005, 6.08pm}
"Reports of the new super-powered vigilante are becoming more frequent. A police spokesman today said that they are creating a task force for the purpose of detaining this man, whomever he may be. Popular opinion polls, however, continue to hold him in high regard, as he persistently preys on the criminal element that infests the streets in many areas of the city. It is not clear if the police will actually charge him with anything, or if they just want him to register proper..." <Click>
Samantha Huntington turned to face her brother, a look of fury on her otherwise attractive face. Her brown hair cascaded over her shoulders and she actually shook with rage. "You damned idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing? If you want to act the hero, why not just bloody register? Then you've got a right to go out there and catch crooks!"
Richard watched her, trying to keep any expression from his face. He couldn't explain it to her. It had gone too far for that. She must be giving the doctors hell. Two weeks laid up in bed had wound her up so tightly that anything he said would only irritate her more. He waited while her rant ran its course.
"Sis, I've got to do it. I need to do it. Please don't try to stop me. I'd like your support in this, but I'll settle for you not doing anything. I've thought long and hard, and I'm creating an identity. One I'm going to register. The vigilante will vanish into obscurity, and I'll become just another hero, fighting the good fight."
Samantha huffed for a while, but calmed down quickly. For a while they chatted about the business, what was happening in the rebuilding work, and other trivialities. Then Richard stood up.
"Listen, Sam, I've got to go. I have a date tonight, and want to spend some time getting ready, okay?"
A familiar glint formed in her eyes as she considered this. "A date, hmm? Who's the unlucky lady?" He smiled at her response. It was so typical of her.
"You might remember her. She was one of the police officers after the... accident. Rachel Harris. She likes Italian food, so I'm taking her to that new place in Founder's Falls."
Sam chuckled. Richard had standing reservations at most of the posh eateries in town, and he was taking the girl to a Pizzeria. Okay, a posh one, but still...
Shaking her head, she smiled at him. "All right, off with you, Dicky. Enjoy yourself, you hear?" He grinned, kissed her on the cheek and left.
When he was gone, she slumped back onto her pillows, and started to glow. It was a strain to keep it in, sometimes, but she didn't want anyone to know yet.
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{Talos Island, October 1, 2005, Very early morning}
Well, that had been a nice date. But she wasn't interested. You could be rich, witty, charming and clever, but if the girl didn't want to know, she didn't want to know. Maybe she was intimidated. Maybe they just didn't have enough in common. Ah, well. It had been fun. She'd laughed at his jokes, smiled and nodded at his stories, and had some great tales of her own, but they just hadn't connected.
He'd walked her home, and was now strolling through the streets toward the Talos Island maglev station. He skirted some areas widely - he didn't want to attract too much attention tonight, and a battle with Freaks in the street at two in the morning was not a good way to remain inconspicuous.
The situation was decided for him when a long black limousine pulled up next to him, and the window wound down smoothly. He peered inside, and grinned. "Brian! What on Earth are you doing out at this time?"
The burly chauffeur smiled back, and mumbled something about Sam wanting to make sure he got home safely. Chuckling quietly, Richard clambered into the back and poured himself a beer. "Thanks, Brian. I owe you one."
They drove swiftly through the almost silent streets, and passed through the tunnel that connected Talos to Skyway City. As they pulled into the zone, Richard slapped his hand on the partition.
"Stop the car, Brian! I'll walk from here, thanks!" Richard didn't wait for a reply, just scrambled out of the passenger compartment and dashed to a nearby building. Once he was safely hidden from view, he wrapped light around himself, effectively becoming invisible, and concentrated for the instant it required for the black cloth costume that was Shadowe to wrap itself around him.
He leapt into the air, narrowly avoiding a pigeon, and flew closely over the building. It always churned his stomach to see the ground vanishing below him. In seconds he spotted what had grabbed his attention - a group of trolls beating up a car with its terrified owner still inside.
He was about to let loose when a cloaked figure swooped down out of the sky and proceeded to hurl them about by the simple expedient of holding a finger to his temple. Some sort of mental power. Telekinesis? Could be. Ah, well. Not being prepared to step on another hero's toes, and especially not wanting to attract super-powered attention in this outfit, Richard snuck away.
Feeling slightly disheartened, he shifted into his normal clothes and walked into the darkness. Date goes wrong. Attempt to be a hero goes wrong. What else can go wrong tonight?
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{Behind the Freedom Corps Building, Galaxy City, 16 May, 2006, approx 9.15pm}
Richard watched nervously. There were so many of them. He tugged his tie a little straighter, and stared down the steps. There were three clusters of them, all busily engaged. He was a stranger here. An unknown. For the last seven months he had been rebuilding his life. He had made a name for himself. He had learned a lot about people in that time. But what he hadn't learned was about himself. He still ached. He still cried himself to sleep sometimes. He had been involved in half-a-dozen extremely short relationships. Was he wasting his life? Should he carry on? What good was he really doing?
There was nothing for it. He needed to know. He needed to find out the truth.
It was time to walk down these steps, stroll up to the base of the statue, and talk to other heroes for the first time.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.* ((Oh, and in answer to your question, Infi (yes, I did read it when you first posted, but I have a terrible memory) - Andrew Martin went on to become the Super Villain Psychonova, who is Shadowe's nemesis. I hate him. Hate him, hate him, HATE HIM with so much passion it's indescribable, but... that's the point. He's a bad guy.))
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
{Huntington Technologies, Independence Port, 13 September 2005, Approx 11.00am}
"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. For those of you who don't know me, I am Doctor Richard Huntington III, head of applied research here at Huntington Technologies, and I would like to welcome you, and thank you for accepting your invitation to an historic day." Damn, I was different back then. Anyone who knows me now would think that I've changed a lot - well, I guess I have. Yes, that's me. The slightly nervous, bespectacled geek at the front of the room. I may be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and I may seem like a self-assured, utterly confident man, but actually I'm still that chap there. I just got very good at hiding myself from the world.
To understand why, you need to know the rest of the story, I suppose. I think I'd better mention that I don't like remembering that day. And I'm not about to give a completely independent, unbiased view. This is what happened to me.
For the best part of two years I'd been working on SEER, the Singularity Energy Extraction Reactor, and it wasn't until some of the technological breakthroughs that occured after the Rikti War - the first one - that I was able to do the job and do it properly. Construction of the containment chamber was completed, all the equipment was in place, and I was ready to run the program.
There were fifteen people present at the time. I was there, obviously. So was my sister, Samantha, as chief programmer of the software governing the process. Andrew Martin, my friend, long-time colleague, and chief engineer, was there, too. The rest were a smattering of other technicians - including Andrew's fiancee - and two members of the press, there for an exclusive, a three-star General from the US Army, his Lieutenant, and Simeon Kechowski from Portal Corp. This was a test run, not the official announcement. That would wait until the following week, when we switched Huntington Technologies off from the City power grid. I was quite looking forward to that day - it would bring with it a nice level of independence, as well as securing some phenomenal purchase orders from Portal Corp.
But today was the first test run. Everyone present had signed the Non-Disclosure Agreement, with my two friends from the local press able to publish the first details.
I winked at Sam, got the thumbs up from a grinning Andrew, and drew a deep breath. "I know it's unusual for a scientist like myself to unleash two brand-new technologies on the world at the same time, but this was unavoidable. SEER is a revolution in power supply - a fully self-sustaining, reactionless energy source, with a projected lifespan in excess of four-thousand years. Great care has been taken to ensure the complete safety of SEER - before anyone worries about what we're doing, making miniature black-holes, I have personally made six, under rigourous laboratory conditions, and, well, we're still alive, so none of them went out of control and ate the planet. SEER is even safer than that, for reasons that are explained in the technical brochures you will all have been provided."
Sam stepped up beside me, patted me on the arm to show that she knew I was starting to babble, and took over. "SEER is controlled by the Huntington Engineering Lifeform Emulation Neural Assembly - or HELENA - which I designed and built with my own two hands." She flashed her perfectly manicured fingernails at the small crowd, drawing a ripple of laughter from them. "HELENA is a revolution in supercomputing, faster than the human brain, capable of complex cognitive reasoning, moral choices, and deduction. While the computer is not a true 'Artificial Intelligence', we foresee the technology being expanded to provide that facility, perhaps as soon as the next 12 months. HELENA's main computer core is stored at a secure, and secret, facility, so in the event of catastrophic failure here - which is highly unlikely - the fully holographic recording that we are making will be retained." Having taken the heat off me for a moment - I had spent the reprieve mopping my brow like a fool - I was again ready to take up the slack. After all, I'm the 'face' of Huntington International. No matter how much I hate to be.
"The premise is fairly simple," I began, warming to my favourite subject. "Stephen Hawking hypothesised that quantum fluctuations close to the Event Horizon of a black hole can result in the hole emitting energy. This energy quite litteraly comes from nothing, with the only side-effect of its production being the gradual erosion of the black hole itself, as it releases its energy to the universe. Devices to capture this radiation, placed close to the Event Horizon, can extract this energy. Thus, the singularity is encased in a semi-permeable 'soft' forcefield.
"Like this."
I hit the switch.
The lights in the containment chamber, visible through the toughened window, seemed to dim. Technically, they redshifted. A lot. Six high-powered particle accelerators shunted into overdrive, hurling a stream of matter at the same point in space, precisely timed to collide and produce a singularity. The floor-plates of the containment room were, in fact, a massive anti-grav generator, and I felt the lurch as HELENA brought it online. The singularity grew, not that we could see it, as it was smaller than a single atom, but then the particle cannons de-phased. This was the true heart of SEER. Another reality, unknown to mankind as far as I could tell, a fraction away from our own, in dimensional terms, and barren of all life. The de-phased projectors continued to launch their particles at the singularity, but now their fuel source was an entire other world. Another world that I could exploit. So I did. Mercilessly. The other world has some interesting properties, though. Most notable being that the matter from it regenerates. Quite quickly. If it is damaged, it regrows. The world heals itself. The physics is clear, if a little esoteric, and there are no moral implications in me basically strip-mining the place. I strip-mined the entire planet in about a minute.
The singularity grew rapidly, swelling in size, sucking the light out of the room. There was a low growl as the anti-grav field shifted into overdrive, and I sensed a slight tug toward the window.
"No need to worry, everyone. This is perfectly normal, and completely expected. Things will only stay like this for a whort while."
More odd facts about the other world. The more things that are destroyed, the faster they grow back. So within five minutes I was able to repeat the de-phase and strip the world again.
The singularity inside the containment chamber was now about the size of a golf ball. This is what I'd been waiting for. Nodding to Andrew, I threw another switch and the scene in the chamber shifted again. Macro-field generators - similar to those that project the War Walls protecting the different parts of this fair city - came online, encasing the singularity inside their hyperdense field. The world returned to normal, and I let out a tiny sigh of relief. Turning to face the crowd of nervous-loooking people, I cleared my throat, unclenched my fists and tried to muster a smile. "As you can see, at this stage of the process we now have a contained singularity. We are already beginning to draw power from it, by the process of inverse-field-induction, so... well, in layman's terms, the forcefield projectors are also the power-lines. They do both at once."
I had my back to the containment room, much as I longed to be staring at the technological marvel I'd created. I didn't see the twitch. But I sure as hell felt it. All I remember is feeling sick. A bit queasy, as if I was standing on the deck of a boat being wracked by a horrendous storm on the high seas. I knew what it meant, and trusted HELENA to compensate automatically, as it had been designed to do.
This next part I can't speak of from memory, as I didn't see it. Like I said, my back was turned. But I've seen the recordings, and studied them in detail, and this is what happened.
When the power being extracted by the force-field projectors exceeded the power being used to create the forcefield, there was a half-phase fluctuation that partially shifted two of the projectors into the other world. I should have predicted it, but it didn't show up in any of the simulations. Hindsight lets you see all sorts of things. Well, suffice to say that the remaining projectors simply weren't strong enough to cope on their own. But they didn't fail, and that is the only thing I can think of that saved anybody.
Sam, Andrew and I all dove for the emergency shutdown, which would activate a hideously expensive teleport node and send the entire containment chamber somewhere out past the orbit of Saturn, but it was far, far too late.
The faltering forcefield deformed, slicing through the singularity. I've run the maths, and it's a complete freak event, but it is possible. About a third of the mass split off, and suddenly there were two miniature black holes floating in the containment chamber. HELENA wasn't able to cope, and I tried to scream as the words "Containment Breach" repeated over and over again in a perky female voice.
Spinning objects, free-floating in a micro-gravity environment, act gyroscopically, and were by no means spin-stabilised. They may as well have had missiles strapped to them.
One - the smaller of the two - flew in an arc, punched through the containment chamber window and suddenly everyone in the room was subjected to a burst of intense radiation under massive gravity. Lethal radiation, of the sort usually associated with the heart of a star or a nuclear blast. Samantha was partially shielded by my body, so I caught the full impact and she got a reduced dose, but it's what happened a split second later that changed the course of the world forever. Both singularities had whipped out of the containment chamber. The smaller of them - the one that killed everyone - slammed into Andrew's head. Right between the eyes, as if it had been aimed there. The other one hit me.
I could write a thesis on the impact of planetary-mass singularities on the human body, but the short answer is simple: Dead. As a Dodo. Yes, I killed myself. A rather exotic accidental suicide, I suppose, but the only real survivor that day was Samantha. To one degree or another, everyone else in the room died.
Oddly, though, the singularities didn't continue their flight, didn't escape - they stayed there. One in my head, one in Andrew's. Sam caught a second blast of radiation, and I maintain that it is the only thing that saved her life. It's certainly the one that triggered her telepathic powers. That's why she and I share a low-grade empathic link - her telepathy is intrinsically linked to what was happening in my head at that moment.
Something - I still don't know what, though I have some ideas - allowed a miracle to occur. In the bath of exotic particles, combined with the presence of the singularities in our heads, Andrew and I changed. It's a pity I didn't know about all of this sooner, because everyone believed he had died, and that only Sam and I survived. That would have been a better outcome. Anyway, the complex electrochemical structure that made up what was my mind was somehow transposed into a semi-crystalised energy matrix, in permanent orbit outside the event horizon of the black hole. My mind survived.
If you want a philosophical explanation for what happened after that, go and watch The Matrix - while trying to avoid cringing at Keanu Reeves' bland acting - and listen to the bit about residual self image. The short explanation is that your mind makes you appear the way you do. Well, that's what happened to me. My singularity is constantly absorbing and emitting particles and energy, and my mind converts those into matter that it uses to build a body for me. If you cut me, do I not bleed? Well, no, I don't. The particles and energy tend to decay quite rapidly once they leave my body. Good luck finding any hair samples for use in cloning experiments, because there sure as hell aren't any new ones after that.
I remember waking up in hospital, three days later. I remember seeing Sam in a shielded chamber. I remember being amazed that I was still alive.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Huntington - apart from you and your sister, there were no other survivors."
I can think of more diplomatic ways to tell you that you've killed a lot of people. Those words stayed with me for days, eating at my insides, scaring me, and even after I was medically cleared, I couldn't function. Then the powers started to manifest. I woke up, flying. I destroyed the wall of my bedroom with an uncontrolled blast of energy. I started to research what had happened, and I discovered more about what I now was than I ever wanted to. A freak. Not human. Probably not even alive.
I resolved to do some good with my life. The kind of good that you read about Statesman and the Freedom Phalanx doing. I'd killed a lot of people, and for the sake of my soul, I needed to make amends.
I was a shadow of my former existence, a memory really. But I was a shadow that could act. A shadow that could repair the wrongs of the world. And so Shadowe I became.
That's it. The story of me. How I went from being a wealthy scientist to being a wealthy black hole. The powers are just a side-effect. The rest of the story is for another day.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.