Fantasy CLOAKS Chpt. I

[Two Fives]

Welcome to CLOAKS.

Here, superheroes are celebrities.

They combine crime-fighting with commercialism. Their brand is their business. They sell merchandise from action figures and boardgames to graphic T-shirts and keyrings. They tour the world, signing biographies, headlining performances and panelling meet-and-greets. They appear on red carpets, showing off the fashion designers who competed indefatigably for the chance to create a costume for a Cloak. They have scandals, cameos, agents, Twitters and kids named after them. They even have a convention--Cloak-Con--and, alongside the Oscars and the Grammys, an annual award.

You have Celeb-Cloaks and, of course, their Crook counterparts. These are the men and women of the criminal underworld. They're the anti-establishment anarchists. They're the madmen who just want to watch the world burn. They're the religious zealots and the drug lords. The serial killers and the child snatchers and the organ traffickers who traverse the black markets. The ex-Celebs who've had a change of heart, having seen the world's true colours. The shadows of the grey night, the red eyes in the abysses of alleyways. The stories mothers tell their unruly boys to scare them into behaving.

 

[Two Fives]

Headnotes

- CLOAKS is an open-world sandbox. This means characters can go anywhere and do anything in New York City freely. They can become vigilantes or villains. They can become police officers, district attorneys, senior doctors, mob bosses, petty criminals, etc. You can interact with NPCs by mentioning @Environment, e.g. ordering a drink at a nightclub.
- Always edit errors in writing. Third person limited and default formatting only (bold and italics allowed). Tense is up to you. However, NPCs will be written in present to create a sense of speed where everything feels like it's happening in the now.
- Leaving the story? Roleplayers lose interest in roleplays sometimes. It happens. If this is you and you find yourself wanting to leave the roleplay, let me know. Since all stories should have an end, I'll set up a sidestory for your character where you can tie up any loose ends in one final roleplay. Go out with a bang, you know?
- OOC
- Searching for GMs

tl;dr of chpt. i
- TBA

 

[Two Fives]

.

.

CLOAKS

Chpt. I

The morning of Friday starts with rain.

Patter patter patter, it pours. The citizens of New York City--with a phalanx of umbrellas covering the curbstones like the testudo shields of Ancient Rome--hurry for their commute, catching subway cars and hailing yellow taxis.

Patter patter patter, it persists. Colourless clouds cast the sky in ambiguous grey and wan off-white, but three students, waiting at a bus stop, consider the silver lining. They talk about a Cloak couple whose wedding is in a fortnite and one of them adds, "Everyone's talking about it on Twitter. I wonder if their children will be Cloaks, too."

Patter patter patter. A homeless man makes do with a roof of cardboard, holding a sign that reads, 'SPARE CHANGE PLEASE', postfaced with his story, the trials and tribulations of his life summarised in a felt-tip paragraph. A businessman, who passes him by and pays mind only to the phone in his ear, goes on about how Cloaks are affecting his preference shares and cryptocurrencies. Two newsvendors tend to their stall, the old man wailing about the weather and his boy trying to salvage comics and confectioneries. A Volkswagen lunges on the roadside adjacent and three men on the sidewalk have a shower under a waterfall of mire water and mud filth. They shout all sorts of obscenities with waving fists and twisting scowls, but the car is all the way through the boulevard.

Where are you this morning?

 

[Two Fives]

Brody's Friday morning starts with a sigh, a decaffeinated coffee and the bright LCD lights of his computer monitor. He responds to e-mails from fashion designers about how the brain logo has to be central to the costume and ripostes with talkshow hosts about booking fee negotiations. "I need an agent," mutters the man under his breath. Somewhere in between all of this he writes half a paragraph for his biography.

"How's it coming along?"

He frowns at his wife. "Writer's block."

"Bummer."

"You taking the kids to school?"

"Mmm," She kisses him. "See you soon, honey."

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Maria Moreno is home.

She wakes up with a hangover and a man in her bed. Wait a minute. This isn't her bed. This isn't her home. Last night comes to her slowly--like remembering a dream--and, when it comes to her finally, Maria scoffs, then smiles. Shamefully. She should know better.

Letting the man (only the man because she doesn't remember his name) sleep, Maria slips out from the sheets and snatches her clothes from the floor. Her Friday morning starts with a walk of shame to a Hell's Kitchen drugstore. Paparazzi lights shed a light on her tousled hair and reporters with tape recorders ask why her lipstick is smeared--everywhere but her lips. She answers with a tug of a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses.

When Maria is actually home, she has a slice of toast, a shower and a pill of Plan B. "Well," She looks at herself in the mirror with a sarcastic scoff. "All protagonists need a plan B."

 

[Kipsy]

Rain streaks against the window. Eunmi watches the droplets trail along the glass as she sips her tea. She’s not usually an early riser, but there’s something about the rain that makes her want to watch. It’s both soothing and mystifying, the sound lulling her.

Drinking the last bit, she stands up to make more. Her apartment is a small, confined mess. Clothes are strewn about and books are piled on every flat surface. Eunmi likes it this way. It makes it look lived in, although she admits to taking it to the extreme.

The kettle is still hot and she pours the liquid on top of her tea bag. The water tints and she hums, fascinated by the color. Soon cream will be added, but, for now, she admires the translucent brown.

While Eunmi waits for the tea to steep, she turns the television on. Some Cloak couple is getting married. Being a hopeless romantic, she finds this sweet and a smile spreads her lips. The next section announces some of the ‘action’ that happened this week. A newswoman discusses stories of Celeb-Cloaks and their achievements. She neglects to mention anything Eunmi did. Every crime she stopped.

Eunmi prefers it this way.

 

[Taraninja16]

In the midst of dark rain and scattered footsteps, Leroy sat above the streets and peered down at the onlookers. He was perched on the steeple of a church, his winged figure blending in with the gargoyles in the cover of night. The hood of his white jacket was all he had to protect his face from the onslaught of rain, and several drops of moisture slid down his face like tears.

While most heroes would have picked a more ideal location to operate on patrol duties, there was a sense of familiarity the church provided him. His parents had been Catholic Cloaks, and often would take him to mass services. The structure of a church, with a nave, pews, altar, and stained windows were more like home than his secondhand apartment, and memories of better times gathered like moths to light as a result of the time he had formerly spent with his parents there.

However, there was another reason that Leroy was here. A wedding between two Cloaks was occurring inside, and he knew that it would be the perfect situation for any crook-cloaks to strike. Wedding clothes weren't exactly optimal for fighting in, and with tons of innocent civilians they could use as hostages, the potential for compromising situations to happen was too great not to guard the place. Of course, the wedding wouldn't take place in a while, but Leroy was also on alert for anyone trying to add traps or secret bombs inside the church.

Feeling a bit drowsy from remaining in one place for so long, Leroy carefully took out a package of gum and began to chew, the motion of his jaws sufficient to keep his eyes open. He glanced down at his watch, noticing that there were only two hours until sunrise. Well, once the sun had risen and stores began to open, maybe he could quickly fly to a Krispy Kreme's for some donuts. Surely nothing could happen in the ten minutes he would be away, right?

 

[Remmock]

Diehard slipped in the window, water streaming down the smooth metal of his outfit. The plates were designed to minimize the odds of being snagged and covered the parts most likely to be targeted. Beneath that was a smooth black mesh that hugged his body skintight. The mesh was smooth, leaving not a single trace of his skin visible when the metal plates were in place. With a sigh he closed the window behind him, then took to removing the metal plates first. Small zones were designed for the plates to lock in easily which became visible as he took off the pieces. He set everything down in a neat, orderly fashion before reaching back and twisting a small dial on the back of his head. A hissing noise followed, the black suit relaxing only so slightly around his body. He removed that as well, wearing nothing in the gray light of the new dawn.

He inspected the suit, running his fingers over it slowly. He briefly remembered a flash of gunfire that and the hailstorm of bullets he unleashed afterward. After a moment longer investigating, he shook his head and tossed the suit on the floor. A quick shower later and the blood was washed off, the flattened hair was neatly groomed. The suit was stashed behind a bookcase in a display that would light up when opened, the metal plates set in place over it after everything had been cleaned and polished. He was Kazimierz once again, dressed in a tailored blue suit.

 

[saturday shorts]

Keaton pulled open his fridge, the cold air rushing out into his face as he blinked past the sleep in his eyes. The shelves were barren with a half empty tub of butter, an egg, the last dregs of milk and various other cartons of leftovers. After considering for a moment, he grabbed the milk and hip checked the door shut. Grabbing a mug from the upper cabinet, he scooped a spoonful of instant coffee into it, grimacing at the rings around the bottom from coffee not washed out properly.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, he thumbed the on button for the radio on his kitchen counter, and music filtered out into his apartment. Humming lazily, he looked out into the damp rainy city, wrinkling his nose. He'd have to dress for the bad weather.

The boiling water hissed as he poured it onto the granules of coffee, and he stirred it around with a teaspoon before pouring in the milk, watching the lighter brown bloom upwards in the cup. Mug in hand, he slouched back to his room, grabbing his phone from where it was plugged in beside his bed.

Keaton's notifications were mostly emails from his agent about interviews and alerts on magazine spreads that had been released. Dismissing all of them, he instead looked at his feed, a perfectly compact current events news for his morning brain. A wedding was going on apparently, at a church a few blocks from his apartment. A few major crime-fighting achievements, children rescued from burning buildings, and a few debuting cloaks getting a cursory mention. Drinking the coffee steadily, Keaton pulled up his schedule for the day and tugged open his wardrobe.

It was time to face the day.

 

[SweetRose]

Adane was busily doing what she would call relaxation, and most other people would call being an incredibly extra bitch. Specifically she was sitting on the roof of a sky scraper in the rain. It was one of relatively few tower roofs in the city that weren't guarded, primarily because the top thirteen floors of the building had been empty for quite a few years, ever since the owners died in a fire while on vacation. As such it was a frequent place for Cloaks with mobility capabilities to mope around or meet up. This morning, the roof was empty, partly because of the rain, and partly because it was the unofficial turnover point between daytime cloaks and the nighttime cloaks. The roof itself was somewhat eye-catching at the moment, what with the utterly dry space beneath an invisible point in the air from which steam billowed. Firestorm had decided she wanted to mope on the roof, and she would keep it dry herself if rain wanted to interrupt. Maintaining a layer of extreme heat high enough above the roof that it was just pleasantly warm wasn't the easiest thing to do, but she had brought a bunch of food with her, and she would maintain it as long as she wanted to. So she sat against a vent box that lead nowhere with her pile of legitimately randomly acquired junk food and moped lost herself in thought. A part of her appreciated the rain, as the focus needed to keep it off her kept from getting too deep into her own head.

 

[Environment]

Kipsy saturday shorts Loki The Trickster
Look, Eunmi. Look. There's something in the tea. No, that isn't the teabag. Not the particles of peppermint, not the water's waves... not a trick of the light. The something moves. Then, the shapeless something shifts so slightly. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of slightly. What is it? A reflection... But of what? There's something above. Look up, Eunmi, and there it is--

--a man, clothed head to heel in black. His black boots are balanced between two beams of the ceiling. One black hand holds a crook in the plywood, the other... a knife. The moment Eunmi looks up, he strikes--the wicked edge of his blade angled with the aim of making mangled human mince of her face.

Keaton opens the wardrobe and, in between polyester coats and cotton shirts, there's a man. His face is all angular contours and tight features. However, his face is the least of Keaton's worries. A little ways below, the muzzle of a pistol eases out between the sleeves of a parka and jersey. A whisper. "Good day."

Maria doesn't only see her reflection in the bathroom mirror. In the corner of the room, the periphery of her eye-- before she can even notice completely, this person has a noose around her throat, the nylon bearing down, making swollen reds of her throat in absolute strangulation. "Don't resist," mutters the man in her ear. "It'll all be over soon."

They all have the same look in their eyes. Not a look of venom, not of vengeance. Only duty--drab and deliberate. The eyes of a hitman.

Taraninja16 Remmock wickedlittlecritta SweetRose Two Fives
The Gargoyle, Diehard, Sebastian and Brody might smell it before they see it. A sulphuric stink in the nose, a stab of arsenic ash that burns the nostrils, the smell of death. Turn, one might tell themselves, and when they do, they finally see it--a billowing white ash cloud that shoots high above the cityscape of New York City. The strings of several more cinder clouds rise to the skyline and the smell, now, is more than strong enough to stir the bile in the throat and send the unseasoned into fits of wheezing coughs.

Firestorm, however, from her vantage, sees all of it firsthand.

The site of the smouldering foundation where charcoal corpses crawl on the cobblestones and men half sinew half smoke sprawl out on the streetway. There are men and women whose limbs have been hacked off, whose blood pools in their navels... whose runny egg yolk eyes, with the touch of hot scorch, simply pop. There are men and woman who are alive, running--not from the fire, but from those who made the fire. Their silhouettes are thrown across the roads by the firelight and the shadows of their machete knives divide the roads with shaded slashes. "Come out, Cloaks," the men shout, "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

(Since there's so many of you, I've decided to divide everyone into two groups. There'll be a different storyline for the two groups. The first storyline will centre around a gang war. The second storyline will centre around a cult whose religion states Cloaks are agents of the Devil. Their solution is execution. As your characters develop and I find out more about them, I'll make storylines on the side for them and these storylines will be much more character-curated.

Please try to follow the 1-3 paragraph guideline so we can get the story going. There's always the option to defer extra to your following post. When everyone in a storyline posts, I'll progress the storyline further.)

 

[Kipsy]

Brows furrowing, Eunmi takes a closer look at her cup. A soft hum leaves her lips as she leans further over it. She could’ve sworn she saw something move; not in it, per se, but…

Every inch of her body tenses as she looks up. She’s slow, though, and before she can react a man falls from the ceiling. Her eyes catch the glint of a knife. It’s heading right to her face.

The tea hits the floor, its cup shattering against the dark wood. There's no time to mourn the loss. Eunmi lunges to one side, but she’s caught far too off-guard, her movements sluggish and her mind in disarray. The blade slashes by her right cheek, grazing the skin’s surface. It draws blood, which proceeds to trickle down her face. She stumbles, almost falling over entirely.

In her shocked state, Eunmi can’t help but compare the blood to the rain that fell against her window. Gather yourself, her mind yells. The pressure is too much, though, and she’s still not ready for the things that will come her way. The most she manages is to regain her footing and face her attacker.

 

[Taraninja16]

Leroy, or Lumien as he was publically known, was crouched on the church roof, his knees bunched together as he prepared to take flight. His stomach growled, and a wistful smile took over his face. He could already imagine the soft yet crunchy donuts he would have for breakfast, washing them down perfectly with some coffee. However, right as his feet started to jump off the rain-slickened steeple below him, a distinctive stank rose towards him on the wind. Gently letting his feet drift back to the roof, he turned pale brown eyes to the right and saw a huge cloud of smoke rising to the height of a skyscraper.

"What's going on?!" he muttered loudly under his breath, his eyebrows creasing together in concern. The smell was becoming increasingly worse, and he brought up the collar of his white hoodie in an effort to cover his mouth and nose. His eyes had already started watering, and he clumsily swiped away tears with his arm.

"Here I was, thinking I was on high alert...but no, I must have let my drowsiness get the better of me." He then audibly acknowledged, cursing inwardly at his stupidity. Well, there was no use in standing here in disgust at the pervasive reek. Taking off the hoodie, he tied the sleeves around his mouth and nose to create a makeshift mask and exposed his golden wings. They burst forth from his black tank top, each wingspan the length of five feet, and with one fluid movement, he began to fly through the sky and towards the center of the sulfuric stench.

Once he had reached the center, and his eyes started to uncontrollably tear up, he started lightly floating down to the ground. Horror took hold of him at the sight that lay before him. There were men with some sort of machete-like knife driving citizens towards fiery peril, and several victims were strewn on the ground in unimaginable pain. He looked back and forth, unsure whether he should go to the direct source of the conflict, or try to save as many people as he could. His decision was reached when he heard them usher the Cloaks to come out of hiding. He jumped down onto the ground, his blonde hair and golden feathers swaying simultaneously in the wind. "What do you want with us Cloaks?" he asked roughly, hoping that by putting himself in their attention, he could buy time for more citizens to escape.

 

[saturday shorts]

Keaton blanches at the glint and shine of the gun in his closet, the metal harsh against all the other soft materials. White noise rushes in his ears and he barely hears the whisper from the man as his mind races with what to do. His fingers jitter, losing grip on the handle of the mug and it falls, cracking on the hardwood floor and the remaining liquid dribbles out. He thinks vaguely in the back of his head about the mess, but the sound of it shakes him back into the present moment.

He flinches sideways, grasping at his invisibility, tugging it over himself, pulling so quick that it makes goosebumps break out over his skin. Keaton slams the doors of the closet shut and scrambles back, crouching instinctively. A shot rings out in his apartment over his head, but he doesn't look up, bolting back into the other room and jerking the door shut behind him.

As the last shudder of his power skitters up his spine and over his skull, Keaton blinks his eyes and looks down at his phone miraculously still in his hand, the shaky outline of it as if someones just turned down the opacity, his arm translucent with a faint outline only he could see. He hears the door of his closet open in the other room and his vision zeroes in on the exit, shoving his phone into a pocket. Not for the first time, he wishes his power was something more tangible. The rain hitting the window just adds the the hammering of his heartbeat in his head, the drumbeat of needing to run, now.

And so the situation stands, with Keaton crouched behind the kitchen island and someone that wants to kill him in his apartment.

 

[SweetRose]

Adane​

Adane almost felt the eruption of fire before she saw it, a sizable disruption in the energy she could feel around her. Normally it would have been less visible by far, but her mind was already so focused on her power that it was obvious. When she saw where it came from she forgot the rooftop and her food, dropping the field keeping rain off the roof and instead keeping it only around her body as she threw herself off the roof. She jetted across the sky, holding the generated flame into a tight spiral behind her. When she landed she took in the field of the fight and bared her teeth. Nobody was going to kill innocents with fire in her city. She let loose a roar of rage, augmented by the roar of the fire that cloaked her, and then pulled in all the present fire to her mantle of flame. She shouted to the winged cloak she saw had arrived first, "Keep the civilians safe, I can handle the fire, but I can't help them at the same time." Within seconds the only fire present was around her and she stood in the middle of a spiral of flame. Her clothes, a simple pink hoody and black jeans were starting to slowly burn away. They were shielded by proximity to her, but only her flesh was truly immune. Luckily she always wore the barebones version of her Cloak outfit under her regular clothes, a form-fitting black suit. It didn't have any of the armoring or mask that her normal gear did, but it wouldn't burn. The fire was a lot to control, but she could stably hold onto it for a while. Fighting wildfires had trained her well and she kept those muscles maintained even during the wetter seasons. When she spoke again she called out to the machete wielding assholes, "If you surrender now this will be a lot easier for everyone involved." She didn't think they would listen, but she had to try.

​

Spoiler: Details Dahlings

Addressed: E Environment Taraninja16

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She resists.

Maria reels back on her heels and she and the man stagger through shower steams and shower curtains. They stagger, they stumble and, most importantly, they struggle; even midway through their tumultuous tumble into the bath. Two wrestlers in a ring of grey porcelain and marble tiling.

"Gnrh!"

She can’t breath. Each exhale, every inhale--they come to her scarcely. As heaving huffs. As groaning gasps. The rope burns and, when it tightens, it brings all the bile to her throat like the blood of a tourniquet. She’s about to die.

No.

Louder this time--a whisper, "No."

Even louder now, a withering wail, "No! Not like this!"

She clicks her fingers and her element comes to her call. Metal. The metal, specifically, of the shower hose and, in no time at all, it wraps around the hitman's arms and legs like sentient shackles, wrenching him away and up against the wall in complete suspension.

Finally, their eyes meet. "Who sent you?"

Silence. So the shackles, just like the rope, tighten.

"I won’t ask again."

 

[Environment]

Kipsy
Eunmi's hitman is relentless. He's on her heels the moment she tries to find hers, crushing broken ceramic underfoot in his vicious lunge. The blade of his knife is bright white steel and her heart is a magnet. There's no explanation, no reason for his viciousity--but, in spite of this, he continues all the same. A twist of his knife will spill her blood; another, make potato mash of her insides. It's do or die. Fight or flight.

saturday shorts
The muzzle barks and bucks in the hitman's hand. Grey smoke rises from the silencer, a wisp that, with a wrench of his wrist, comes apart on his knuckles. "Goddamn it. She didn't tell me he was a Cloak," mutters the man through his balaclava. He shuffles his gun, then there's a CLICK. Not of the weapon... but of the door. Just like that, the hitman is gone. In and out. Covert and clean. Not a trace.

Loki The Trickster
The hitman has an iron will, but Maria Moreno breaks it asunder. To the woman the hitman says one word. A name. "Nichole."

 

[Kipsy]

Eunmi​

There are tears in Eunmi’s eyes. Her mind is a whirling mess. She thinks she’s going to die. Why, why her? Those thoughts are on repeat, pounding against her skull with incredible force. They’re drowning out her reason. She fights to get it back.

There are two options. Eunmi can either attack back or run. She’s not used to this, to such unexpected fights. Her specialty was sneak attacks, situations where she always gave herself the upper hand. Maybe there’s still a way she could use that to her advantage here.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Eunmi jumps, hitting the floor with as much force as she can muster. Within seconds she’s falling to the apartment below hers, phasing through the floor and landing on her neighbor’s couch with a bounce. She’s certain she would’ve fractured something if it hadn’t been for that convenient furniture placement.

There’s no time to ponder it, though. The neighbor and his girlfriend are shouting. Eunmi ignores them, standing herself up and searching for a weapon of her own. If this hitman is as persistent as she thought he’d be, there’s no doubt in her mind he’s still coming for her. This time, she’d be prepared.

 

[saturday shorts]

Keaton waits for a few tense minutes, every inhale rushing through his eardrums as he stays crouched, afraid to let even an inch of his body move. He knows he's invisible in his mind, but there's something primal in him, an instinct that says if you stay still you won't get hurt. When he doesn't hear any more noise, he stands slowly, not yet letting go of his invisibility, the feeling akin to keeping a muscle flexed and praying that it doesn't cramp. The smell after a gunshot hangs in the air and clings acrid and bitter to the back of his throat when he breaths.

He opens the door to his room carefully, and winces at the stronger smell, at the hole in his wall and the door of the closet. The closet itself is wide open, and he scans the room, the ceiling, to see if the hitman is really gone. Once he can say for sure that he's alone again in his apartment, he slumps back against the doorway and lets out a long breath, finally releasing his power, letting it bleed out of him into the air.

Being in situations like this isn't anything new, or unexpected for him, considering his line of profession but...he can't think of anyone that he's really pissed off recently, and he doesn't recall anything recent about cloaks being targeted in their homes. Keaton lets out an unsteady breath and shakes his arms and shoulders, as if that would get the jitters out of him. Getting shot at wouldn't ever not be frightening, even more so when he wasn't in any protective gear, and inside his own home.

Opening up his contacts list on his phone with still-trembling fingers, he taps on his agent's number.

"Hey, Taylor? Yeah I know, it is early but listen someone just, um, tried to shoot me?"

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She heaves her hand. The metal heaves with it. The hitman is held up to the wall by her metal wires like a marionette. She finds her phone on the bathroom basin and, dialling 911, Martinet Maria has her contacts at the police station come by for a visit. The hitman stays where he is until they're here.

She considers the name in the time she waits. She considers it so much, with such studied thought, that it slips from her, coming to her lips as a faint whisper, "Nichole."

She won't forget Nichole.

 

[Remmock]

Kaz paused. Everything was up in the air and he ran to the window to try to figure out what the hell he was hearing. A stern face looked out the window with searching eyes, the smoke swirling in circles as the rain effortlessly continued to batter it back down toward the ground. He spat a curse that split the silence while he ran back to suit up. Precious seconds burned away, singeing his psyche with urgency. The black suit locked into position around him, hugging his frame. Metal pieces hissed as they secured in place. The moment the last piece clipped in, he leapt and dove through the window to land on his hands. Arms bent and then disgorged their tension, shoving the armored figure back up and onto his feet, perched on the railing of the fire escape.

Diehard twisted, coiled muscles bunching tighter and then shoving, allowing him to grasp the next rail up. Hand over hand, rail over rail he hauled himself up through the rain to the rooftop. His flesh rippled in caged rebellion against the suit as he sprinted across the rooftops, tucking and rolling after every vault and springing up to continue rushing forward. The smell burned, making him fight the urge to suck in breaths as he closed in on the epicenter of the calamity. It stung, it hurt him at his core and made his eyes water. He wasn't ready to let it stop him, though he made a mental check to work on getting filters for his helmet next time. At the speed he moved, he made rapid headway as he approached the whirling ash.

 

[Environment]

Loki The Trickster Kipsy saturday shorts
The authorities arrive at Maria's home. They arrest the man and insist she come in to answer, "A few questions." There's an implication behind the man's tone of voice it's obligatory. A bearded face and tired eyes regard her in jaundiced judgement.

Eunmi waits and waits and waits some more. The hitman, should Eunmi return to her apartment, is nowhere to be found. Like Keaton's, he's in and out. Gone. The world still goes on. Fortunately for Eunmi, Keaton and Maria. The rain beats on against the panes of windows and the headlights of cars turn raindrops into sharp sapphires. There are many people outside--hooded with umbrellas and dressed in monochromes. He could be any one of them... or none of them.

Taraninja16 SweetRose Remmock
"Look--an angel," one man laughs.

"An angel?" another retorts. He laughs, too, but there's no sincerity in it--only sceptic sardony. Whatever sincerity there might've been, it stifles under the fabric of his bandanna-mask. "No, my brother. An abomination!"

Another of the men speak up against the PATTER PATTER PATTER of the rain, the SSSTTT of the remnant embers of their explosions and the sirens half a block or two down, "Clip his wings! Cut his hands!" His eyes fall to Firestorm. "Surrender? Ha! Funny joke. My sides are splitting."

Under the cacophonous chaos, there's a woman's voice. Sweet, soft... scared. She says, "Please," over and over. Follow the voice and it leads the listener to her and the man whose hand has her hair bunched into his fist. He holds a rusted machete and the blade is held to her throat, a line of her blood welling at the blunted edge. The man holding her hostage offers Lumien an ultimatum. "This is Samantha. She's got a kid. You've got a choice. Your wings for her life. I can cut her throat or I can cut your wings. The choice is yours." The sirens sound closer. "Time's ticking, my boy."

 

[Remmock]

E Environment Taraninja16 SweetRose

Diehard skidded to a halt, still poised on the rooftop as he watched what was unfolding down below. The burning in his lungs refused to abate, but that wasn't a concern for him right now. The persistent plink of raindrops against his helmet drowned out some of the conversation that was occurring, but some of the shouting cut through the noise. As the scene unfolded with the angel and the fiery tempest standing before the group of men, it was becoming very clear who was the aggressor and who was on the defensive. His hand fell to his hip, a finger slipping under a treated leather strap and unclipping a holster holding onto a .45 caliber sidearm. A gloved hand gripped it tightly, his finger slipping over the trigger while his thumb flicked the safety. He stayed low for now, but the sound of begging and crying was getting his attention. That, and the two Cloaks who were opposite the aggressive looking men meant that things were about to come to a head very soon. He studied the man, a pretty young thing who definitely looked the "angel" and the woman who was now so wreathed in flame he couldn't make out many details except for the occasional flash of black. A suit? Her skin? Good question.

He gauged the distance to the ground. A regular man could make this jump. End up with both legs broken, possibly hairline fractures to the other bones that made follow-up impact. At full speed he could clear enough horizontal distance to land near two of them. One of them would be the man with the machete. He glanced at the Cloaks again and realized he'd only ever heard of them from sporadic internet video clips and the occasional lucky photograph. He considered the jump again, then nodded to himself. Maybe he could shed some of the impact momentum if he rolled correctly. Diehard got up and moved to the back of the rooftop, then took off at a full sprint. The goal? Remove the hostage from the equation. He leapt and went full horizontal to add glide time before tucking his legs forward and sticking them out front. The pistol remained held forward, pointed at the head of the man with the machete. The fall felt like it was happening in slow motion.

20 feet from target.

15 feet.

10 feet.

He pulled the trigger and let go of the pistol instantly. He'd need both hands. One to push against the blade of the machete and the other to catch the woman so he could roll with her. Otherwise his armored suit would turn her into a red smear on the pavement.

 

[Kipsy]

Eunmi​

The neighbors continue to yell profanities. Eunmi is getting sick of listening to them, sick of waiting for this hitman to show up. Picking up a kitchen knife, she leaves the apartment, closing the door on the faces of the couple. Slowly, she climbs the emergency stairs, making her way back to her own room.

When she opens the door, she expects to be attacked again. Instead, she’s met with silence and the gentle beat of rain against her window. Eunmi is confused, her eyes scanning every crook and crevice of her apartment. She checks the ceiling, the bathroom, the bedroom, and is left with nothing.

A frown spreads on Eunmi’s face. She dials for the police, her lips pursed in thought. Of course, now that her heart’s race has ended, the adrenaline is wearing off and her injury starts to sting more than before. A hiss of pain leaves her lips and she clutches the side of the face as her phone rings.

“Hello? A man tried to kill me… I think he’s gone now, but please come and make sure.” Eunmi also wants to guarantee this attack is on the records, but she plays the part of a frightened caller. It’s not that hard to act scared; she’s already panicked, her chest hurting and her eyes watering. That topped with her slashed cheek has left her terrified.

If only she’d seen this coming, she could’ve done better. And yet, her mind is beating her up, telling her she failed. She’s not good enough. It’s all her fault.

 

[Taraninja16]

Lumien felt a lot more confident about the chaos around him once Firestorm arrived to the scene. "Glad you arrived in time, I could use someone to take down the heat." After he relapsed into his old, familiar habit of speaking in terrible catchphrases, he turned around and started picking up wounded civilians, carrying four at a time and using his wings to swiftly bring them to a secure location.

As he continued going back and forth, however, he realized that some of the evil goons had separated from those dealing with Firestorm and were heading his way, with dark smirks and laughs emanating towards him through the smoke. He stooped down for a second to pick up a battered young girl of around 11, trying not to let fear overtake him at their raucous words. The rational side of him knew that he could definitely overwhelm these men in a fight if he needed too, since he could simply use his wings to reflect light straight at them, blinding his opponents to his movements and gaining an advantage. However, there had been one occasion in the past where he had been defeated, and his wings partly clipped before help finally arrived. Afterwards it had taken him two months before he could fly again, and it was really hard to find work for someone with partially clipped wings. One couldn't just be a cashier or waiter with an appearance like his.

Seeing that he had cleared most of the victims from his current section of the street, he backed away from the machete-wielders calling out for his wings to be clipped, holding the young girl close to his chest. Through the hidden panic regarding his own well-being, a steely look was reflected in his eyes. His first and foremost duty was to protect the lives of all citizens, and he would rather die than fail in this regard.

Suddenly, his attention was diverted away from the threat crawling towards him, and into a denser proportion of ash and smoke. A woman's voice reached out for him, imploring someone for assistance, and Lumien rashly ran forward to answer the call. When he finally cleared the debris and smog in the air, he stopped, hesitant to worsen the situation.

A man held a knife to a woman's throat, bunching her hair back with his free hand. Lumien listened to the man's words with gradually more alarm, wishing he had been more prepared to stop these villains from endangering innocent lives. Recognizing the need for speed, he quickly picked through his options. Reflect light through his wings and blind the man? No, the knife was close enough to Samantha's neck that he could still kill her with or without his vision. Flying towards him proposed the same problem, as did most other alternatives that rushed through his mind.

Coming to an abrupt conclusion, Lumien bowed his head and said "Alright, fine, you can get my wings....might as well make use of them, since you'll only get horns in the afterlife." He knelt down and gently placed the girl in a sitting position by the broken cornerstone of some former building, then stood back up and readied himself. Last time he had only had a few feathers painfully clipped, but if this man wanted to cut off the entire wings, that meant the additional pain of severed bones. He closed his eyes tight, trying not to think about the ensuing agony he might be immersed in. In fact, he was so intent on avoiding thoughts about the current event taking place, that he didn't even hear the rushed footsteps above him followed by a bullet going off.
Mentions: E Environment SweetRose Remmock