Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Apollosarcher
Raw
Avatar of Apollosarcher

Apollosarcher Knight with the Rowan Shield

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



The blonde young agent sat buckled to the side of the little bird, a team of black ops were checking guns all around as he slotted his combat knife back into the pouch, pair of brass knuckles, and a bow his main choice of weapons. "Command, touch down in five... You sure the Ghoul is present? That Varient is volatile and number one the list right now, as well. He killed and ate ten people last month." Black Knight answered, he was a specialist better for bringing in individuals with abilities alive than dead... Mostly.

The female voice on the comms was new, must have been a new support agent... Few could take the stress of the job for long, as they got closer. The white haired young man grabbed his line. "Yes Agent Knight, this operation is of vytal importance... It's also important forces in the area do not know about our presence."

"So you want to fight to a man eating monster stealthy while being shelled by Russians firing North Korean made rounds?" He snarked into the comm as he descended the rope at a steady pace, the shells exploding half a mile away but he could still feel it from here.

"Yes. You've done more with less Agent Knight." The exasperated handler groaned into the phone clearly she had read his file at least once and she didn't seem to enjoy who she was assigned to support.

The tall white haired young man began the slow careful trek through the dark of the Ukrainian forest, picking his way around trees and limbs slowly... Moving towards the ruins of soviet era bunker, where the locals and soldiers were probably sheltering. The flashes of explosion occasionally lit him up as his handlers drone finally got sight of the near six and half foot tall man, in a black turtleneck and combat pants tucked into brown expensive combat boots. As he reached the mouth the cave near the bunker he could see a shambling almost human looking figure moving.

The wet and slimy sound of liquid drenched meat filled the air as special agent Knight slowly took in the sight as the Ghoul stripped meat from the bone devour whole strips of flesh and tissue as the beasts eyes turned to rest on him. She turned to run as drew back the bow and fired an arrow that burst acid at it. The haunting screams of the beast, filled the air as he tried to drive it away from the bunker... Yet he saw it glance up... He realized no artillery had landed for nearly five minutes... When he glanced up the shells hovered in the air, as if suspended there.
Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Ruby
Raw
GM
Avatar of Ruby

Ruby No One

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago





Hi. I’m Estella.

No, she sighed, so faint the sound of wind at two thousand feet above the ground easily swallowed the sigh whole, her golden strand hair a constant stream carried by the constant air moving around her as she floated, liquid gold eyes pouring down to what she saw below her. It all happened in slow-motion to her, and all of it so easily the sigh took more effort than stopping all the artillery shells, or the floating in place flight at a few thousand feet above ground level.

It had always been instinctive, intuitive, easy. The hardest part had been dying, and even that wasn’t quite true: learning to live isolated, surviving without her parents had taken her most of the last year of her…post-life? New life?

Of all the things that came easily to her, answers were never, ever, one of them.

Hello, I’m Dawn.

It held an overbearing hint of ‘hello, fellow children, I am, of course, one of you’ meme to it, but she couldn’t think of anything better. Not intervening in Syria had proven difficult. Not getting involved in Africa was even harder, even though the more she learned about the conflict, the more she questioned if she would do any actual good there or just make it worse.

Ukraine felt differently. One, Imperialist country, invaded another, smaller, non-Imperialist nation. A former client state that had been drifting westward. But would that make her some kind of champion for the west? Would she introduce herself by picking some side? The series of gaming out what the world would do when they found her, what people would think, how they would contort and distort what she tried to do with their own spin…dizzied her head to the point of nothingness.

She saved people. She had saved no less than a thousand, and more, families in the past year. None of them saw anything, at least, none of them remembered anything. ‘Angels of golden light’ had been talked about in increasing frequency, but no one had made any connection to a new metahuman. The second sigh was louder. Then something unexpected happened:

He sees me.

She knew he was one of them. She’d seen him before. She’d stalked them, watched them, listened in on them. They thought they were safe; no one was safe if she wanted to see them, if she wanted to listen. It violated so many norms of privacy and secrecy, and she was certain her mother would give her a lecture on national security, but mom was dead, and Estella had finally had enough of watching.

She didn’t float down, she didn’t fly down, she went down like a beam of golden light, quick as a lightning bolt, she was simply there, in front of him. “Stop.” Her big, gold, eyes looked afraid, her typically sing-song voice uncharacteristically shaky, but very human.

Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Apollosarcher
Raw
Avatar of Apollosarcher

Apollosarcher Knight with the Rowan Shield

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



Knight had stopped, eyes focusing on the near angelic woman with her hair flutter in the breeze who seemed at the center of all this. He been about to reach for his binoculars when she stood before, she had moved not like lightning but as it. His hand gripped the combat knife as she got close to his face.

"Hi there... Goldielocks." He spoke easing his hand back from the knife, as he tried to glance towards where the Ghoul had gone. "I am Special Agent Knight... His white blonde hair of his looking rather Stark compared to her long flowing gold.

"You... Wanna tell me why you are interfering with me helping people?" He asked moving slow and keeping weapons down, he could hear it in her tone this girl had power but she was scared. His comm link going crazy trying to figure out who she was back at command.

He tapped his ear muting them all as he kept eyes on her, he couldn't move faster but he was certain if he made a move she didn't like he'd find out exactly how she dealt with threats.
Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Ruby
Raw
GM
Avatar of Ruby

Ruby No One

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago

Her red lipped mouth only tugged at the corners; the apparition of a smile, not even quite a full hint of the thing. She heard the scramble of his handlers and superiors, but not from the earpiece—she could just see them, hear them, like she was in the corner of the control room, even as she stood before Agent Knight.

“It wasn’t always gold,” she said in pure afterthought, remembering her dark hair, her dark eyes. Mom and dad were both dark haired. That she was gold-haired and gold-eyed would have made them laugh. Sometimes it made her smile, just imagining them making fun of it, “I know who you are.”

Despite the cave and the wooded surroundings, there were signs of life and chaos all around, trash flittered about the mouth of the cave, old tarps, as if someone had thought to use the area for hiding…from soldiers, from drones, from each other. She could smell the fear and the metallic stench of blood, even if it had been at least a year since it was spelled, from the faintness of it.

She walked around him like he was little more than a tree. She had been stabbed. She had been shot. The thing about dying is that dying again didn’t hold the same level of fear, so you were a little more adventurous, especially if you were likewise depressed, or racked with survivor’s guilt. No knife pierced her, no bullet she’d ever seen lacerated or broke any surface of her body. She’d let them get close, too.

Very close. It didn’t matter.

“Who do you help with knives and guns, Agent?” Her sing-song tone held bitter undertones, her head turning sharply to regard him as she stopped to give him a slight glare. “I’m scared you’ll try to help with those weapons. If you want to help, call in a medical team…but I imagine they’d have better things to do out here, anyway.”

Again, she just sounded sad as she walked into the cave, towards the variant, the grotesque ‘reject’, whatever numb buzzword or cruel label you wanted to throw on them. Dawn just thought of them as poor souls. The screeching scream came echoed and blasted from the cave minutes after Dawn went in, the ghoul finding a new target.

Then the light came. First, gold, bold, and brilliant. Then brighter, and brighter…and warm, without ever threatening to become hot. When it went white in its pure brightness, the screech became a woman’s scream. Over the span of a minute, the light died down, until the golden girl in the white suit with the gold shimmer cape and the fine, delicate, gold line details upon both suit and part of her skin just walked out.

“She’ll rest. Try to get her to a place where she can emotionally and psychologically recover. Preferably away from the corporation that failed her.”

It all came so matter-of-factly. She had considered healing variants before, but she knew so many of them either didn’t want saving, weren’t sure, or would struggle just as much either way, that she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The Ghoul was one of the very few that she knew, in her heart, would be better off.

If the poor woman wasn’t plucked up and studied. Dawn pitied the people who did that, if they did.
Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Apollosarcher
Raw
Avatar of Apollosarcher

Apollosarcher Knight with the Rowan Shield

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



"Because for most us... All we can do is end someone's pain." He added very quietly, as the light flared from the cave he slowly tried to move closer... Just to see what she did, to try and understand who he was dealing with. Before he could see... She was back, he slowly stared and tapped his earpiece. "Yeah... Medical team now... Full recovery unit." He spoke turning back towards her, reaching out a hand a bit.

"So... What? You're a golden goddess come to save people from themselves? ...You know this is the kinda of thing they write storybooks and novels about... Who are you?" He asked quietly as he stepped back resisting the urge to touch her, to try and gain some control of the situation that had been lost.

His blue eyes searched all over her as he tried to understand, he spotted one thing in her appearance the nervousness from her even with all that power. "Come with me... Let's talk. Not to an agency, not to politicians... To me, someone who protects and cares about people. Let me help calm others down about you... Gotta make a lot of enemies." He spoke calmly trying to get her to understand his position here with everything that was going on, with her talking a quiet mission on foreign soil and making it much louder.

As a Seahawk descended to make a quick rescue of the once Ghoul Varient woman, he took off the comm and pulled the knife out of it's sheath and dropped it on the ground. "Talk unarmed man, to unarmed and incredibly powerful goddess?" He smiled at her, charming and sweet hoping he could get her to at least playball with him... Answered in any regard to who or what she was would calm down brass back at base, his eyes flicking up and down her body praying she decided he was worth talking to.

He placed a hand on her shoulder gently. "So... How about names and what I can help you with?" He offered trying to reassure her he wasn't the kind of person to just try and force her to comply and obey... Certainly he could think of someone like that in the taskforce.
Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Ruby
Raw
GM
Avatar of Ruby

Ruby No One

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago





There was little reaction, until he touched her. Her body froze like a sudden snap freeze in the coldest winter; just immediate stiffness in her entire being, from her face to her body to her very heart, at least, it felt to her.

Are ya STUPID?

It surprised her, it very nearly shocked her. Reaction was delayed, but once it happened, it happened with the same photonic speed of light; she was there, where he put his hand on her, the sudden sensation of warmth and the overwhelming sensation of calm, like touching her was some kind of emotional anesthetic—but she was also behind him, untouched, literally a blur of motion and being.

Once he looked behind him, she’d be gone in front of him, as if she was Shrodinger’s metahuman. Both there, and not there, depending on the observation. Her eyes were big, their golden color shining and shadowing as she moved, the very human emotion of slight anger very present, though, it was closer to irritation.

“What if touching me was dangerous? What if I was dangerous? What if I…” her eyes darted, searching for the words, finding only things she did not want to say out loud. There was an underlying truth, and she knew it: she wasn’t used to being touched. The last person to hug her was her mother. The last person to touch her was her dad, handing her a drink as they settled into the car that night after the restaurant, and the drive back.

She re-lived it. She re-lived it every day, in one way or another, and the sadness could creep in like a fog before the dawn light of a new day. “Don’t do that,” she half-whispered at him, just shaking her head, slowly, absently. He was staring into her eyes, and it was the easiest moment, she just…knew. So she moved them.

To the beach; where the distant drum and roar of waves could sooth her, where the sun shined bright as any gold upon her being, where the warmth could soak into her. She liked the sun. It was that it was a star. She knew that, somehow…it gave her power. Like the star, itself, brought her back to life and gave her purpose.

And because this stretch of beach on the Massachusetts coast was not fluffy sand, but darker, browner, harder stuff that crabs used for burrowing, and the shrubs of the dunes nearby were used by thousands of birds. It was a bird sanctuary; one her father had taken her to for bird watching when she was a little girl.

There was no one nearby. She was no fool, she understood what happened now. Just as a scientist made describe the chain reaction of a chemical compound as it lost a carbon here, broke an atomic bond there, so she started to describe what would take place: “Your people will want to know. Finding me won’t be easy. I don’t appear on satellites. I don’t have metadata to mine. I have a phone, but I can just…make myself a digital ghost. I’m not sure how, exactly, I just…will it. Like flying. Like healing that variant. Like saving those families. Like saving that woman.”

She shrugged, looking back at him, briefly. He was cute, at least, for an old guy. “So, good luck, anyway.” She looked away for a moment, a long one, before finally starting to talk, turning her head to look at him, as if she couldn’t just bend the soundwaves to him no matter which way she turned, “Don’t call me that. I’m not that. I don’t know what I am, exactly, but I’m not that. Just…call me Dawn. It’s my ‘name’…at least the one I want to answer to. I’m tired of watching, being afraid of getting involved…so, I’m coming. I’m not a bad person. I’ll do what good I can do, just don’t try to ‘help’ me.”

Awkwardly, she paused, and looked this way, upward, than back his way, “I’m, uh, gonna fly off now. We’re in Massachusetts. Your people know where you are. They’ll come get you soon. Sorry about the long flight back.”

Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Apollosarcher
Raw
Avatar of Apollosarcher

Apollosarcher Knight with the Rowan Shield

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



"Dawn... Alright well... Guess your gonna leave me abandoned here for a few hours? ...Yeesh and I thought you wanted to be my friend." He gave her a bit of a smile, making a mental note of everything she said and cataloging it for later. This would be important, very important if everything she said was true.

"Sorry if the touch was off putting... A lot of people who... Go through things like this, no one touches them. No one listens. No one reassures them. I prefer to be someone who tries to do those things... Give those who are different a voice in all this." He explained as to why he had touched her given the reaction she clearly didn't like it. "Since you are going... I'll just go sit over there and watch birds I guess... Unless you wanna ask a little about me and what we do... And maybe see if we are the sort of people or if I'm the sort of person you wanna be around?" He spoke, trying to coax her into staying a minute.

He moved to take a seat on the sand spreading out his legs, as he glanced along the ocean view. "...This is nice." He added, mostly speaking to himself as he tried to come to terms with all the happens. His mind reeled, thoughts of arguments with his bosses and co-workers over all this... How fucked the mission would be for awhile... And how much they would worry she'd just appear again and destroy a plan.

He pressed his hands into the sand softly as he entered thought the tip of tongue poked at between his lips as he glanced looking towards the east. Wishing he could do something, understand better... Hell even get other people to work more in lockstep and carefully with each other over just wanting their goal to take precedent. Chewing his lip a bit he was buried in thought, knowing that she'd probably just gone by now... Whatever he was dealing with trying to argue or convince her to stay would do no good, she was fully independent of any need to work with someone like him.
Hidden 9 mos ago 9 mos ago Post by Ruby
Raw
GM
Avatar of Ruby

Ruby No One

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



You're only given a little spark of madness. Lose that, and you're dead.

In the grey matter between logic and reason, she found herself, braced and prepared for the weight of all that was going to drift into her reality. Strangely, she found herself grinning at the opportunity.

You ask yourself some pretty strange fucking questions, man, like—why me? No, really, of all the people out there, why me? Make that make sense. I dare you. You think back on yourself, all the little private moments of your own private worlds. What great magnitude of the universe looks down upon those times and goes, ‘Yep, them!’

Make it make sense. I dare you.’


That surge of warmth and serenity reached out and took him by the hand as it blurred by in gold, as she walked by and snatched his hand into her own. The heavens. The back alley behind the Circle K on Sampson Ave. The mall food court. The International Arrivals halls of the airport. The bass and thump and sweat of a crowded nightclub doing what she always loved to do best.

Feet sliding, hips hopping this way and that, shoulders pivoting in unison as she danced all on her own. In the sunlight, in the dim wattage of the living room table lamp at midnight all alone, spinning, hopping, bouncing back and forth. Except now she wasn’t alone, as reality twirled fast as she could dance from scene to scene, a living trip of time and space, at every age she had ever been; it was the little girl who finally stopped the dizzying display of perceptual bending, who stopped at the metallic government gray doors, and whispered in his ear with devious, playful, intent:

The whisper of a child, within the scope of a goddess, “They’re going to be confused, and very, very, upset.”

To music only she could hear and beats that were infectious and undeniable, the very costumed golden girl he’d met on a battlefield and took him to the beach, hip-bumped through the door and nodded her head in repressed dance down the hall, as faces shocked and unbelieving started to take notice…but that tended to happen in the cavernous control room of his home agency.

There and back at the start, next to him, she stood, in duplicate, full sized and fully aged grinning in his ear, “I don’t mean any harm. But let’s not pretend I don’t know where you all are, who you all are, and if you want to know the first thing about me? My mom and dad would tell you it’s just me, dancing, alone, together, everywhere we ever were.”

Her face glowed as warm as the gold shine of her eyes as she sat, Indian style, as she looked at him, where he sat, cross-legged like her, smiling at him with the undeniable charm and magnetism of someone who certainly knew how to have a good time. Even as she sat, mostly still, her shoulders did the slightest shimmy to the left and right. The pale milk white glow of the moon on one side of them, the blue and white swirl of the earth on the other, the former far closer than the latter as they sat in the dark vacuum between, blissfully unaware of the solar radiation or crushing vacuum of space.

Like they were just sitting on the living room carpet, sharing a secret, “Loneliness is a disease of the spirit, I just finally figured out how to come back to life: I’d just stop being lonely. I’d just start sharing my spark with the world. Afraid? Why? It’s easier than it seems at first, you just put one foot in front of the other, and dance. So, here’s the deal,” she said, reaching across, taking his left hand in both of her own, tracing fingertips along his palm like a palm reader, golden eyes hidden under long, black, lashes, as she looked downward to his palm, “tell them not to get too upset guessing at everything I’ve said and done. It won’t make sense right now, but I’m just…learning to love again. I’m just coming back to life, spiritually. The world will decide I’m a god,” she admitted, pressing the bottom pad of his palm with one finger, while delicately tracing the bottom edge of his index finger with another, “and others will declare I’m the end of things, and yet more will look at me dance through their control center, and fear and control will flash through their eyes because they don’t understand, and it scares them,” she said as her thumbs wiped across the upper width of his hand, her lips cocking in a small grin, “but look at the whole of it,” she finished, her flattened palm pressed against his palm, both hands meeting midair between them, “and it’s just meeting someone new.”

“Demons will want their pound of flesh. The ghouls will come out to play.” Her voice remarked, more distant, as they stood beside each other in the entrance of his government agency, watching men and women in suits and jumpsuits carefully, like she was watching them from thousands of feet in the air, invisible to their eye, “Tell you a secret? I think the high will be worth the pain, but we’ll let them play out their game. It won’t always be fun…” she shrugged, gilded lips almost coming to a giggle, “screaming, crying…but that’s life, hon. I’ll see you later.”

Lights dimmed, lights brightened, and she left him in the entrance to his agency, suddenly alone, and fully visible, the ride over—for now.

Hidden 9 mos ago Post by Apollosarcher
Raw
Avatar of Apollosarcher

Apollosarcher Knight with the Rowan Shield

Member Seen 0-24 hrs ago



The moment was... Beautiful, surreal... Almost like a really life changing high, yet... When she moved the music she seemed to simply play in his head was infectious. He felt it his body seemed to tap it's toe in time or nod his head to the beat even as he tried to control his movements. Her mind was sharing all this, sometimes it was hard to know what he was exactly doing at any given moment as they moved between the real world and her mind... Or was it her emotions playing out as scenes of memories?

He did not know why she chose him to share this with or why he couldn't help but smile want to get to know her more... Or as to why he felt like he'd known and could trust her... He didn't understand but he did know this, she was not going to hurt anyone as long as she could help, she would. But behind all that... Was a girl, just a regular girl.

He did not manage to speak much as they reeled back and forth he did manage something he felt important, telling her that would not let the agency harm her or try to harm others to get to her, he wasn't sure if he spoke it or she heard it through the moments flashing before them he knew one thing as the reached the entrance to the task force office. Like he was a stumbling twenty something again he gave her his number. "Please... Reach out if you need something or if I can help you... In some way. Guessing this is one of those you call me when you want want kinda things?"

He laughed a little and smiled, for a moment he was a nervous poor farm boy standing on a front porch waiting for the pretty Valedictorian he'd asked to prom for answer he'd never get. He felt unburdened free... Just back at the core what he was before college, the military, the agency, and everything else... When he finally regained control he was stepping into the office, where half the agency seemed frozen in place wondering how he'd travel half the world in an hour.
↑ Top
© 2007-2026
BBCode Cheatsheet