Originally posted December 21, 2009
((This was a fun bit for forum RP between Cam and I. I think it illustrates good hand-offs between entries and a respect for the characters involved. We made additions from December 21 until January 2.))
"I feel slightly silly," he whispered to her in the gentle moonlight. She wrinkled her face at him, questioning. "There comes a time, not usually when you're on a stake out with the girl you're dating, when one realizes that no matter how much you hope, you just don't look as good in tights as you might think." Chance could see her widening smile in the semi darkness. "Except you, Dani. You look great in spandex."
Chance had gone with his lightest weight costume for the evening. The tight ballistic weave revealed a physique that his usual wardrobe of sweatshirts and jeans hid. A thin gray mask obscured the lines of his face. A dark crimson harrier emblem adorned his chest. A multi-compartmental belt circled his waist. Dani noticed as his hand moved from katar handle to pistol grip, katar handle to pistol grip in a regular nervous motion. At one point, she slid her hand into his, happy for the contact and momentary reprieve from fidgeting.
They had gone over the plan earlier. Eddie tipped Chance to an incoming package, a payment from the Chicago tong to the leader of the Chinese gang of Millennium City. The item, an object d'art, came from a Beijing museum and the mother country wanted it back. Knowing the proclivities of the clientele in MC, the Chinese authorities acquiesced to Harrier's involvement in the recovery effort. Chance hadn't mentioned that he'd bring along a date.
Detective Alejandro had emailed Chance pictures of the item: an ornate, jade canister standing about six inches tall. The Chinese Consulate did not pass on many details regarding the piece, but, not for the first time, Chance felt happy Dani was in his life. Under a magnifying glass, he read the pictograms for "demon," "death," and "trap." Most of the time, these arcane warnings didn't amount to much. Still, it didn't hurt to have a magical heavyweight on hand.
A two hour delay tempted Chance to call off the stake out. He could easily think of other ways he'd rather spend with Dani on a moonlight rooftop than watching a deserted street. He didn't want to keep her apart from Keelie for too long, either. For the nth time that night, her raised her hand to his cheek, kissed it, and wondered what she was thinking.
-- by Camille Brown
She'd been surprised at how much the idea of joining Chance on a stakeout had appealed to her. She had jumped at the opportunity, only belatedly considering her Hero Gear. She'd reminded herself that she shouldn't be blamed if it looks a little odd. She'd designed it when she was fourteen and her favorite colors had been teal and pink. Sometimes she considered updating the costume, but it had become so much a part of her hero persona.
The tight bodysuit is the same gray tint as her own skin. What would normally just be spandex has been magically enhanced with her necromancy. As she shifted slightly in place to take Chances hand, violet symbols appear across her suit, fading away almost instantly. In Teal, the bones of the body have been meticulously painted in their appropriate places. As a young girl, the bones had represented to her the fact that she had died. When she would put the suit on, she would think how she was really just a skeleton herself. As the now grown up Danielle's gray eyes flicked from Chance and back to the deserted street, she reflected on how even at that age she had been pushing people away.
Movement from below caused her to stop on her reflection and slip her hand out of Chances, moving it to the ceremonial knife strapped to her right thigh. She sniffed lightly at the air, taking in the various smells of rotting garbage, wet cardboard, dirty snow, and yes... just the slightest wiff of death. It could mean a lot of things, but it at least meant that whoever was moving around down there had been around something dead fairly recently. They were possibly even dead themselves.
Dani considered using her senses to check out the person, but worried that the being might sense her magical touch. Instead, she silently tilted her head towards the movement, to warn Chance of what she'd caught, though he'd probably already noticed it himself.
-- by Rex Celestis
Chance sensed Dani stiffen as he heard the sound of trucks slowly making their way up the street. Pulling a set of small binoculars from his belt, he turned his attention to the pavement. Early in his career, he would have swooped down on them at this moment. One of the vehicles would have gotten away in his impatience. Now he waited; waited for the badguys to get out on the street, get comfortable, get sloppy.
"Well hello Tony," Chance muttered quietly to himself as the two sets of men exited the vehicles. The flat panel trucks faced each other with four Asian men filling the 10 foot, headlight lit space between them. That would totally fuck up their night vision, mused Chance. Perfect.
Chance puzzled over the choice of panel vans. Fai "just call me Tony" Yao liked to travel in comfortable style. A bumpy five hour ride from Chicago in that beast didn't suit him.
Chance caught a flash of jade through his glasses as Tony showed the garishly dressed Red Banner member the goods. Harrier couldn't make out the words, buts after a few moments of conversation, a cultist moved around to the back of the truck to retrieve whatever On Leong was willing to trade an ancient artifact for.
The thug led out a string of young women, stumbling, roped together at the wrists. The group of ten of so Filipinos, Thai, perhaps some Koreans, moved slowly, unsure of their surroundings, heads lolling languidly from side to side. Chance stiffed, inhaling sharply as he tucked the glasses back into his belt. Dani had voiced concern that he might not want to see her world; that he might rethink his attraction after experiencing her necromantic powers. He had forgotten this world, the world he operated in. A world filled with drugs, gangs, prostitution, and slavery. A world not of the dead. A world of the not quite alive.
The lieutenant of the On Leong handed the jade canister to his minion as he moved forward to examine the goods. Chance clicked off the targets in his mind. The two Red Banners would have to go first. You never know when they're going to start breathing fire or some shit like that. Tony's man had his hands full and it would take his boss a few moments to clear his gun from his jacket.
Chance readied his grapple and looked back to Dani. He hadn't wanted her to see this dark part of his life, not yet. Still, he was thankful she was here. The odds of saving those women just increased.
As Tony pawed his way down the line, Chance took a step forward on the rooftop. The time for waiting had passed. Now was the time to act.
-- by Camille Brown
Dani's eyes had narrowed as she caught sight of the women. She could tell, even from their location that the women were tied to one another. The very way that they moved dejectedly forward told her what use the women would be to their new masters. She clenched her teeth, momentarily remembering the feeling of her own wrists strapped to a chair. She felt horrified, nay enraged by their treatment. It was only when she felt the wetness on her wrist that she realized she had subconsciously grabbed her ceremonial knife and cut into her wrist.
She took in a sharp breath of the cold air and then another, forcing herself to calm down. If she rushed in like a fool, she could ruin their chances to save the women. She knew she had to think before she acted. However, since her blood was already spilled, she may as well make use of it. She looked to Chance, wishing she could warn him in advance, but knowing that she shouldn't speak aloud. He'd been looking back at her, his grappling hook in his hand.
As Chance steps forward, Dani steps inwards. She gave Chance a thumbs up to show him in those remaining seconds that what she was doing was intentional. She wouldn't want to send him into a panic. Within moments she's faded away completely from view.
She calls it The Halfway, the place between life and limbo. As she's told so many that have asked, there are levels to death... Paths upon paths upon paths. The Halfway is somewhere right before, yet beyond. Sound is muffled here, except for the whispers. Ray, Dani's Necromancer Master, told Dani to never listen to the whispers, as they will lead you farther into death. She stood on the rooftop, just as before, but the world is in shades of gray. The living show up as brilliantly colored, almost painful to look at. Dani takes a moment to see where Chance is headed, Time is slowed here, though not by too much.
When she was ready, she ran and jumped off the roof. The air feels fluid yet thick. She floated through it, as if gravity has only remembered part of his duties to this version of the world. Dani lands crouched, standing right beside the man holding the jade canister.
The whispers get louder, all around her. She felt something beginning to focus on her from within The Halfway. That is always her signal to step back into the normal world. She breathed out words in an unknown language, just a whisper among all the others.
Sound immediately returned. Dani flipped her blade, catching the sharp end carefully and used the handle of her ceremonial knife to hit near the base of the man's neck. He ends up being knocked out. As he slumped to his knees, she returns her knife to the sheath at her thigh and relieves him of the Jade canister.
She had no idea what was in the canister, but if it was enough to trade for human flesh, she was going to keep it out of their hands. She only realized after Chance had entered the fray, that when she'd held her knife to knock out the minion, she'd accidentally cut a bit into her flesh, and the blood of her right palm has smeared over the symbols of the canister.
-- by Rex Celestis
The thumbs up from Dani settled Chance's mind. They would face this, together. Started as she stepped out of this reality, he set his hook and swung down on the two Red Banner Cultists. Chance's lithe body flowed between them in a fluid mixture of styles Detective Alejandro dubbed "The Chicago Shuffle." The flashing katar blades pinned arms and protected their owner, creating openings for knees, elbows, and feet to deliver disabling damage, leaving the two unconscious on the ground in just moments.
The ugly sound of a gun slide told him he took too long. He drew his pistol and turned on the On Leong lieutenant.
"Kid Harrier," spat Tony Yao from behind a human shield. "I should have killed you in Chicago."
"Tony," Chance chuckled down his gunsight, "I hear that a lot."
Chance cursed to himself. Tony had wrapped an arm around one of the women and held her close, his pistol shifting from her head to point at Chance and then back. Harrier could take the shot at the Chinese gangster's head, but Chance's modified Type 17 c96 Mausers were likely to kill him at this range. Chance waited, deciding to draw out Tony with banter while circling him to get a better shot. Tony wasn't going anywhere attached to ten women.
"It's just Harrier, now…" Chance began.
In her hands, the jade canister drank the blood Dani offered it; a crimson stain fading then giving way to long fractures, lit by an internal, ethereal light. The artifact shook and hummed in her hands, cracking open as if an egg, revealing, releasing, its terrible contents.
-- by Camille Brown
Dani looked horrified at the jade container as it cracked open in her hands. The pieces of jade tumbled to the street and shattered noisily, until her hands held nothing. The noise caught Tony's attention, and his eyes snapped over to stare into Dani's. Though the distance between him and the necromancer was great he still caught the flash of her unusually pale gray eyes. As many people often were, he found himself slightly unnerved.
"You brought a friend, and I see she broke the goods. You know how much that piece was worth?" Tony pressed his gun against the head of his captive, making the woman cry out repeatedly begging for her life in Chinese until he yelled for her to shut up. He kept his eyes on Chance, "Tell your friend to get her ass over here, or I kill the woman."
Dani didn't wait for Chance to speak, just stepped forward. She kept her hands raised to show that she held no weapons. She was terrified, but not of the man with the gun. Though none of the others could sense it, she could. A dark presence had exited the canister, and even now was gaining strength. Dani could not define what it was, and had no idea what was going to happen. She knew one thing, however, it was hungry.
A wind started up, moving in circles low to the ground. It started picking up speed and strength. By the time Dani had reached Chance's side, the wind was spinning dirt, small pebbles, and other tiny debris in a rapidly rising cyclone. The women were starting to raise their heads, looking past Dani to the activity. Tony still kept his eye on Chance.
"Kid or not, it won't matter when I-" Tony's statement was cut off by a scream from one of the captive women.
The frame of the demon was large, but there appeared so little muscle that she seemed all bone. Her arms were elongated, claw like hands hanging nearly to her knees. The wind had stopped, but the long black hair still twisted around the demon's face, as if each strand had life breathing through it. Her face was beautiful, though her eyes were pure black and did not reflect the light so much as swallow it whole.
When the demon smiled, the contrast between her fine features and her distorted body was even more disturbing. The women had all begun screaming, and Tony no longer pointed the gun at his captive, but directly at the Demon. He fired several shots at it and though the struck flesh, the demon just smiled.
As soon as Chance had himself seen the horror, he had stepped in front of Dani. He'd moved her out of harms way, not thinking about how this was more up her alley than his.
It was when one of the demon's long arms lifted the body of Tony's minion up from the street and the demon's torso split into a large mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, that Dani decided she had better do something or they were all going to die.
"STOP!" Arm upraised, Dani sent out a violet burst with the word, attempting to gain control of the beast as she would one of her shambling zombies. The demon cocked her head to one side, not understanding the language spoken, but understanding the feel of the spell cast against her. She focused her black eyes on the necromancer, almost quizzical as she paused in her actions.
Tony looked from the beast to the necromancer and then to Chance. "What the fuck, Harrier. You come to Millennium City and now you fight with demons. She controls that fucking thing, doesn't she. Make her stop it now." The gun in Tony's hand moved from pointing to the demon to pointing at the back of Dani's head.
-- by Rex Celestis
Chance cursed himself, momentarily shamed by whatever Neanderthal part of his brain forgot that Dani could handle a demon far better than his body could protect her. He forced a deep focusing breath, returning his gunsights to Tony.
He hoped he had practiced enough with Bavani and Bituin. He hoped he could be heard above the din. He hoped that one of the women on either side of Tony wasn't high enough she couldn't act.
The words sounded alien to him, different from the languages he knew and spoke so well. He shouted, then shouted again. Some of the women just stared out into space, uncomprehending. One dove to the ground pulling Tony's human shield away from him.
Chance fired, spraying Tony's chest with gelatin bullets, driving the Tong leader into painful unconsciousness. Chance shouted in Tagalog to the women again. " Run!"
The pieces of the jade canister lay spread out over the pavement, glistening in some internal supernatural light. Wary of the creature and believing in Dani's powers, he set himself to gather the shards, diving and weaving in the street with an acrobat's grace.
"Just like a puzzle," he muttered. "It will be just like a puzzle." Provided Dani didn't come up with a solution first.
-- by Camille Brown
Dani looked desperately from the scrambling Chance to the Demon. The Demon's black eyes stayed focused on the necromancer, eyes blinking in a slow mockery of life. A voice entered Dani's head, sounding of burning agony. It caused great pain for her to hear, as if she should not be able to understand it, and she staggered, nearly falling to her knees. Her hands were cupped over her ears, though the simple flesh and bone could not keep it out.
“You attempt to bind us?” The voice seemed to carry with it a great amount of amusement. The body held in one grotesquely distorted hand was dropped. The demon turned towards Dani, moving forward though there was no movement from it's “legs”.
Dani lowered her hands slowly, attempting to appear in control of herself again, before responding. “You aren't allowed here. You have no hold on these people.” The Demon's pretty lips, on her pretty face, pulled back to reveal jagged teeth. The second mouth, upon the abdomen of the creature, moved this time as another response buzzed angrily through Dani's bones, The voice was deeper, giving Dani an indication that the demon was actually two beings in one.
“It is you that has no hold on these people. Why should we listen to one such as you?” The demon gave another very slow blink and then the more feminine voice cut in, “She smells of one we are familiar with.”
Dani watched as Chance pulled a tube from his belt. He was quickly trying to put the pieces of jade back together. She hoped that it would work, because she was starting to feel like she was far out of her league with the double demon.
Again, the creature moved forward, without appearing to move. The deeper voice, started up, “You're right Sister. She smells of one we have many disagreements with. We should take her, taste her, consume her and make her part of us.” With each word, Dani felt herself shaking more, until she was surprised herself that she still stood on her feet instead of clinging to the ground.
“We should begin, Brother, before she finds the strength to fight back. Look how weak she is right now. Pathetic in her own bloodline.”
“Yes, Sister, let us begin to feast.”
Dani found herself staring right into the black emptiness of the eyes, her chin held almost carefully by the clawed hand, tilting her face. A long blue tongue crept from the feminine face to lick against Dani's cheek. She flinched from the contact, but found she could not move away. A low whimpering sound reached her ears, and it took a moment for the necromancer to realize it was herself.
“Oh her fear tastes good, Brother.”
“Sister...” It was then that Dani realized there were other bodies, hands, tugging on her, pulling her away from the demons. They came in waves, their bodies held together only by the light violet shimmer of her own necromancy. She still felt the stunning affects of whatever the demon had done, but she was being slowly moved away, as her friends pushed themselves forward. It was when the first of her friends was shoved bodily into the open maw on the abdomen of the demon and shredded to pieces that she started to cry. As if it signaled her release, her muscles began to work again.
Dani desperately tried to pull them back, “STOP! Stop, you're killing yourselves!” They kept on moving. One by one the demon was making short work of them, shredding the rotted skin and muscle from bone.
“They cannot last. Your army will end, Necromancer, and you will be ours” The female voice shrieked.
-- by Rex Celestis
Chance did not look up. He felt the edges of the fear nipping at his trembling fingers. He heard Dani scream at the creature, howl at the loss of her undead servants. He held another piece in place. "Just a puzzle. Just a puzzle."
He flipped the canister over in his hands. A jagged opening stared at him. He kept his eyes low as he scanned the pavement, smoothly slipping onto his belly to look under the truck. He did not listen to the screams, the wails of the undead.
There. He stretched to retrieve the large shard, retreating out from under the vehicle. He applied the fast setting epoxy to the edges of the piece then fitted it into the canister. Nothing.
He examined the jade, looked for gaps, more missing pieces. Blood. Dani had said her powers needed blood. Chance drew a katar and ran each palm against the blade. He pressed his bleeding hands against the cylinder.
It wasn't working.
The fear threaten to devour him. The beast meant nothing. He feared he would lose her. He heard her cries, felt cold tears on his own cheeks. He blinked, clearing his eyes. There should be more blood. The piece had fed from him, was feeding on him. The pictograms around the base glowed faintly beneath the fading headlights. He read them in the best Chinese he could muster, carefully, clearly, forcefully.
"Demon,... Death,... Trap."
-- by Camille Brown
Dani found herself on her knees, hands trembling against the rough ground of the street. Tears fell, hot against the cold of her skin as they splashed down. They hadn't screamed in pain, not a single one. She had felt their loss... each pulse of a soul blinking out as it disappeared into the dual demon. 1... 2... 3... 4... That number always haunts her, always stays with her. Four friends lost forever, their quest to seek peace ending at the hands of an abomination.
She heard Chance speaking in a foreign language, perhaps trying to reason with the demon. The sound of flesh being ripped wetly from bone stopped. Dani raised her head, wondering if the beast was going to ignore the rest of her loyal zombies in order to finally make short work of herself. She wondered if it would hurt, having her soul devoured. She hoped that she could think of something more to do, a way to protect Chance from the fate she was sure to be facing.
A wind picked up, throwing small bits of gravel against her face, and she raised her hands to protect her eyes. The demon shrieked aloud in both high and low pitches, the sound jarring against Dani's nerves. The wind dropped so abruptly that she heard as pebbles and rocks were grasped once again by gravity, and dropped to the ground. She lowered her hands to see Chance holding the, now whole, Jade canister.
Dani pushed up from her feet and ran to him. She, careful of the canister, threw her arms around him and started sobbing. She'd been such a fool. Through her own folly, she had released a demon. Through her actions, she'd lost four friends their souls and their peace...
-- by Rex Celestis
He held her; held her through the sobs, his arms wrapped tightly around her pain. There would be time for police, to make sure those women would return safely home, later. For now, there was just the two of them. Filled with loss, and fears of the nearly lost.
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