What happened

Jean-Paul was doing a fine job of not making friends, and not finding allies. On the flip side, he was also doing a fine job of not getting shot, beat up, killed, maimed, tortured or mugged. Not that he had much to steal, of course. He'd found a little place - no, it wasn't really a place, so much as an abandoned attic-type space, complete with bats, and had taken to going out in uniform, just to try and deter petty thieves. There was, oddly enough, something about seeing a man in spandex that translated to, "Don't try to attack me, as I will hand you your ass on a platter."

It didn't help with actually figuring out what was going on, other than the obvious, which was... chaos. Gunshots and shouts, the sounds of a city being overrun by crime. Something unfamiliar to him, because Alpha Flight had always dealt with the superhuman and the supernatural. Never anything so simple as bank robbers, unless they also had tentacles or three eyes, or something odd.

Now it was nighttime, and hardly quieter than the day. At least he had the atmosphere to flee to. The sky was the only free space, and even that was restricted, somehow. Sometimes he went up to look for people he knew - Aurora, Vindicator, even Sasquatch - and sometimes, like tonight, he was trying to escape from the bats. They were harmless enough, but the fluttering of wings going in and out of the window grated. Up here, he'd see the occasional winged shape, but it was easy to ignore in favor of the stars and the clouds. Mostly clouds, tonight.

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

The gun war began at rush hour. Or rather, at what should have been rush hour. People should have been driving home from work in the evening, getting ready to settle into their house shoes to eat dinner, or just getting back with little Jimmy, from soccer practice. Getting back with Candace, from ballet.

Throughout the City, no one could have not heard it. The first shot was more like a car backfiring than anything else. A sharp, rough sound at City Centre. And then there was a second, and a third. A downpour of these hard, piercing bursts of noise came.

No one wanted to step outside, to brave the criss-crossing of bullets.

The City was shifting, through all of this, scattering the firefight to every end and every beginning of its streets. Citizens kept their eyes down, and hoped from inside their safe, warm homes or their drab office buildings. The City didn't have a masked protector. Not that had shown his face yet.

Not really.


(( Bombs away, kiddies. All you do-gooders, go out and do good. All you baddies, soak in the chaos and join in the fun!))

( Read more... )

Apollo was not a happy bunny.

A single day of flying around the city had taught him the limits. He couldn't get past the wall, or above about two thousand meters. Didn't matter what speed he was going; he either slowed down like he was flying through treacle, or he was snapped to another part of the city.

He'd tried his debit card, thanking whatever semblance of wit had been present when he'd pulled regular clothes over his uniform. He had an account (with CityBank?), and money, although less than he expected. The cash was regular American dollars, and everything seemed to be priced pretty much the same.

No one else seemed to realise anything was wrong. His polite inquires were met with blank faces at best, and open hostility at worst. And the forest outside of the wall seemed to be a no-go topic.

This wasn't funny anymore.

While he didn't really need to eat, he did need tie to think, and that was best done over something sticky and sweet. He found a nice enough little coffee house, ordered a brownie and a huge cappuccino, and sat down to mull over the day's events.

He ignored the people who stared at his halo.

beep-beep-beep

One heavy fist crashed down onto the alarm clock.

Ten minutes later, Apollo rolled out of bed, rubbing said fist across his eyes. He still felt tired; drained, in fact. Not much of a surprise. Sleepless nights weren't odd, without Midnighter near him. But there would be time to sit and mope about that later. He pulled a teeshirt on, and dragged himself out into the living room.



"Jenny, get your ass out of bed! You need to get ready for school!" Coffee. Coffee was good, even if he didn't strictly need it. "No excuses!"

Pouring himself a cup (thank God for coffee machines with timers) he idly flicked on the TV. Static. He changed the channel. Static.

Huh.

Sipping his coffee and running a hand though tangled hair, Apollo shuffled over to the window. It was a nasty, dreary morning, still grey and raining. No wonder he felt shitty. He couldn't even see the...

"...where am I?"

The view from his window had changed. Instead of the sprawling metropolis of New York, he could only see a jumble of unfamiliar buildings. Frowning, he tried to access the radiotelepathic chips Angie had implanted in them all.

"Angie? Where am I? Angie? Shen? Jack?" What the hell? Why wasn't anyone responding? He couldn't hear anything but static. "Are you so hungover you've crashed your blood system, Angie?"

He paused. Then, quietly, "Midnighter? Can you...can you hear me?"

Nothing.

He moved back to the TV, trying to patch into the Carrier video system. Again, nothing but static. It only took a few seconds of staring at the fuzzy screen to work out his priorities. His feet literally didn't touch the ground as he cross the room to Jenny's door, and burst right through it into-

-an empty room. No wallpaper, no carpet, not bed, no toys. No Jenny.

Tears threatened to blind him; no time for that. No time at all. Apollo knew what this was; the Authority had plenty of experience with people trying to fuck them over. Well, they were in for a surprise if they thought they had Jenny against her will. She was a devious little bitch, and Apollo wasn't worried about her.

Okay, not much

Well, not quite enough to incapacitate him, anyway. But certainly more than enough to make him incandescent with rage. And that wasn't a metaphor with Apollo.

Within three minutes he had pulled on his costume and, after a moment's thought, a pair of trousers and a black shirt over the top of it. He kicked open the balcony door, and jumped off into this new landscape, a golden nimbus glowing around him.

He was going hunting.