Payback
Good, that's done. I hope the photos turn out well. Zoom lenses can be so finicky.
5/30/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The man behind the wheel of the low-slung blue Chevy takes a drag from his cigarette and jets the smoke out the rolled-down window expertly. "I think that's him," he says to his partner in the driver's seat, who grunts and sits up out of his slouched contemplation of the mysteries of Sudoku. That man, larger and younger, squints through the dirty windshield at the nighttime sidewalks and street, then glances over the seat back at the third in the party. "Boss said you got the face. You see him out there yet?"
And lo and behold, there stands Dorian; walking happily down the sidewalk with his hands shoved into his pockets. Mind is a cavalcade of pointless little notes and memories of the day and a slight smile appears at home across his face. What a great day.
The third party cuts a thin smile in reply; he nods, a quick upward jerk of his chin. Adel says, "Yes, that's him. A moment--" Sliding his fingers through the pockets of his jacket, Adel retrieves glucose tablets, of the sort a diabetic might carry. Telepathy stretches out: Dorian has the sudden urge to divert into the next alley. Shortcut, perhaps. The broad impulse leaves room for Dorian's mind to fill in the blanks, but the desire to enter is unavoidable. "All yours."
The passenger-side goon nods; he's the nervous one, by his mental demeanor, but the nerves that are jangling are the ones revolving around tricksy, messy little thoughts about Adel and crutches and what /is/ he doing on this assignment, anyway? His partner's already halfway out his side's creaking door, and his focus is all on Dorian, focused through the tight little dark eyes that tug his casual stroll toward the alley. No hurry, not yet.
The next alley seems /quite/ tempting to Dorian as he pauses and affords it an unnecessary amount of thought. Hands raise to his mouth to allow a warm breath to coat them and rub together. A sigh, a shrug, and he begins to stroll down the dark alleyway.
Finger tips sliding along brushed metal, Adel follows our edgy friend with a glance, a bare twitch of attention. Lips thin but he soon refocuses on Dorian. He mutes the sound of footsteps coming up behind him; he covers the peripheral movements as paired thugs near. Of necessity, the slightly clumsy touch dims the edges of Dorian's senses in entirety rather than only those parts he chooses: light fades, though a suggestion whispers that it is only because of overhanging buildings; sound mutes, but that is simply because of the close walls now that he is off the street. Empathy mutes any strong adverse reaction, leaving Dorian with no option but calm as the rendezvous comes around.
The older goon slides into the alley some few steps behind Dorian and pauses to check that his partner's left his moment of doubt behind in the car and is ready for action. Which he seems to be, oh, yes: his baby-smooth face creases into a brief, jagged-toothed smile. The other man flicks cool eyes back to Dorian for a second. As the bigger goon sets himself up a pace behind and to the side, his hands out of his zipped-up jacket and slightly flexed, his partner moves up quickly, surely, and knocks knuckles bright with heavy brass reinforcement at the target's temple in a low, flat, controlled swing.
This was a pleasant alley. A comforting one. Dorian's own little concrete Siren; it all went away in a brilliant flash of agony that sends him barreling into a nearby wall. Instead of that original comfort, there's now only confusion as Dorian hollers and holds a hand to where the blow collided as he remains on a knee.
Adel releases his hold on Dorian's emotions as pain strikes across his mind. His grip reforms, looser now: he allows dark emotions freer rein, blossoming under pain's influence. He highlights and reinforces pain, looping it in on itself to feed and grow with each new input. Confusion spikes as he throws Dorian's senses into wild disarray, synesthesia of an extreme sort.
The big guy pounces on Dorian while he's down and hollering and tries to something about both those states of existence. He hauls him up towards standing, holding his arms in a vise-lock behind his back, and his partner steps up to crush the brass knuckles this time across that hollering mouth. Neither goon says a word: short, hoarse breaths, creaking leather, and skidding shoes on the asphalt are their only audible calling cards; and both are tightly focused on their moves, paired and practiced as if from years together.
Once more in a senseless bowel of hell, Dorian's dazed looks glances over the goons distantly as he's hoisted to his feet. Warmth fades from his psyche, fear permeates his being, flashes of gore, carnage and mayhem flash through his mind as a single focal point emerges in Dorian's mind: Storm. Fear is succored like the ewe it is as a more dominant emotion wraps tentacles into the tortured mind. Anger fuels muscles into action, aids them with a localized explosion of force. Nothing too great, heaven's no. Something along the lines of an unseen Peterbilt collides with everything in close proximity to Dorian.
Following the thread of activated mutation, Adel temporarily wrenches the process that allows Dorian to produce his blasts: a roadblock set up in his mind of Adel's power. He starts chewing a tablet, slumping against the side of the car with an unheard sigh. He encourages Dorian to focus on Storm, but only half-hearted; the majority of his attention focuses on maintaining the pain loop and keeping mutation in check.
Not in check in time enough for the goons, though. The big guy holding Dorian up grunts back into the alley wall, and the shock of doubled impact, force then wall, loosens his clutch on the other man's arms. While he scrabbles to regain balance and hold, his partner is picking himself out of the garbage in which he just found himself staggering on the other side of the narrow corridor. A McDonald's wrapper is still clinging lovingly to his heavy work boot as he strides back to Dorian and administers a steel-toed kick at his legs. "Freak," he spits -- the other goon looks alarmed, shakes his head in warning reminder -- then silences himself. Grimly, angrily, he adjusts the brass knuckles and eyes Dorian carefully, looking for the next opening for pain.
As soon as any form of hope seemed to manifest, it dissipates as Dorian collapses into a heap back onto his knees. Teeth gnash together as his head hangs low and eyelids clench. << Die! Die! Die! >> That growing demon at the back of Dorian's head wails in frustration as that path to mutation is desperately ripped at. Pain becomes tangible blood, it rises and mingles with that contempt for Storm, that soaring hatred and lust for revenge. More importantly, that pain and rage coalesces with absolute need. Each heartbeat summons more and more wild gropes for that power.
Dropping all other attempts to control and coerce Dorian's mind, Adel focuses with grim determination on two things: sight and mutation. Thugs remain obscured, no more than misty haloes; the mutation remains frustratingly out of reach. A tease of gravitational response might just as easily be wishful thinking.
The goons step in to do their part, now that the target seems more or less neutralized as far as they're concerned. While the one holds Dorian in place on his knees, maybe hauled up a little higher than that, the other one starts a rain of calculated blows of fist and feet to the mutant's face and gut. The assailant's face has lost its cool reserve apparently for good, replaced by a frozen, hard grimace while he works with professional steadiness to beat his target into submission, even unconsciousness.
<< It's raining. It's raining a bloodied, painful, bone-crunching blows from something. What are those shapes...those shapes...God? Angels? >> The quiet, timid boy behind the orgy of horror in Dorian's head murmurs in nervous anxiety. Devilish claws relent in their scrapings at the power, an instant of respite soars above a bloodied ocean of hell like a feather caught in the breeze within as brutes pound at wet flesh without. Chitinous claws rush the timid boy into the horror, rage and wrath boil the respite into an afterthought, a final nightmare howls through his mind as a single battering ram pounds into the power's efficient blockade as consciousness fades in one final hurrah. << DIIIIEEEEE! >>
Adel helps the physical along with a neat telepathic jab, hastening the fall of darkness. Under the assault of emotion, he finally gives way; gravity hiccups in a rather disappointing show, all out of proportion to the violence of the mind behind it -- but quite in keeping with the falling darkness of consciousness. The ground ripples and then settles.
The goons are a little better prepared this time for physical law misbehaving, and they ride out the hiccup with only swaying, a huffed noise of surprise, a scowl at Dorian. They both scowl, in fact, and then the leader removes the brass knuckles. They're splashed and spotted with blood, but he tidily stows them in his jacket pocket all the same while nodding to his partner, who goes down on a knee to check Dorian's vitals. A return nod, and they both relax and spend that moment catching their breath and looking and listening for any witnesses. "Right," the leader mutters and nods again. Thus signalled, with tender care the big goon straightens out Dorian's right arm, balances the forearm on his knee, braces his hands on wrist and elbow -- and cracks radius and ulna bones in a heaving, grunting burst of exertion, like snapping thick firewood.
Adel's telepathy winds around Dorian's mind, keeping conciousness at bay. He flinches, behind the plastic and metal of the car, at sympathy pain.
A disheartening snap echoes through the quiet alley. This certainly can't be healthy.
"Good." The leader stops, judges the injury inflicted and the cost required of his partner, and repeats in distinct satisfaction, "Good. I'll go get the hammer and check on our passenger." The big guy doesn't respond, just shuffles down the length of Dorian's body and starts futzing with his legs: straightening them out, too, arranging them just so on the dirty ground. The other goon makes a strolling way back to the car. He leans into the driver-side door and looks at Adel with dutiful curiosity. "You still with us, man? Nearly done, then we'll take you home, okay?"
Something tickles at the edges of Goon One's mind, but Adel manages to recall himself and answer aloud after a second: "Fine. With you. God, hurry up out there." He blocks his mouth as if yawning; feigned though /that/ is, the exhaustion that deadens his eyes is genuine.
Hammers are ominous. Soccer seems as if it may become quite difficult for young Dorian very shortly.
"Just doing my job," the goon snaps back, on the raggedy edge of some weariness and fading adrenaline high, himself, though it's enough to zing back at Adel's tickling, all unintentional, like white blood cells mindlessly rejecting foreign invaders. He grabs the mini-sledge behind his seat and slams the door shut (<< Take that, >> his brain snarls sullenly, with a smear of uppity-pansy and dirty-raghead) with enough momentum to spin him around a few steps toward the alley again. His partner glances up when he returns, looking tired, too, but calm. He's holding Dorian's right leg steady at knee and ankle. The other man hefts the hammer. Ambient light licks weakly along the heavy iron head before getting swallowed back into shadow and in the motion of the first swing onto the exposed, braced lower leg.
Bone makes way for the mass of the hammer with a sickening snap. The foot at the end of said leg gives a few violent twitches which don't make the wound any prettier.
Adel, safely in the car, is completely disengaged from Dorian's mind; as the hammer falls, he eyes his cuticles.
Another swing; another brutal impact, a little higher up the snapping bones. The goon waves his partner back and, just for fun, by his sudden thin grin, smashes the hammer into Dorian's ankle, too. The big guy looks worried at this addition, but doesn't say anything. He pushes himself to his feet, grunting with the effort and the exhaustion. They look at each other for a second, big and not-so-big, calm and not-so-calm. Then the one takes off his jacket, careful of the brass knuckles in the pocket, wraps the hammer in its bulky folds, and takes off for the car for the last time. After one last visual and aural check of the area, the other trails behind, leaves Dorian behind like so much spilled garbage.
[Log ends.]
5/30/2006
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The man behind the wheel of the low-slung blue Chevy takes a drag from his cigarette and jets the smoke out the rolled-down window expertly. "I think that's him," he says to his partner in the driver's seat, who grunts and sits up out of his slouched contemplation of the mysteries of Sudoku. That man, larger and younger, squints through the dirty windshield at the nighttime sidewalks and street, then glances over the seat back at the third in the party. "Boss said you got the face. You see him out there yet?"
And lo and behold, there stands Dorian; walking happily down the sidewalk with his hands shoved into his pockets. Mind is a cavalcade of pointless little notes and memories of the day and a slight smile appears at home across his face. What a great day.
The third party cuts a thin smile in reply; he nods, a quick upward jerk of his chin. Adel says, "Yes, that's him. A moment--" Sliding his fingers through the pockets of his jacket, Adel retrieves glucose tablets, of the sort a diabetic might carry. Telepathy stretches out: Dorian has the sudden urge to divert into the next alley. Shortcut, perhaps. The broad impulse leaves room for Dorian's mind to fill in the blanks, but the desire to enter is unavoidable. "All yours."
The passenger-side goon nods; he's the nervous one, by his mental demeanor, but the nerves that are jangling are the ones revolving around tricksy, messy little thoughts about Adel and crutches and what /is/ he doing on this assignment, anyway? His partner's already halfway out his side's creaking door, and his focus is all on Dorian, focused through the tight little dark eyes that tug his casual stroll toward the alley. No hurry, not yet.
The next alley seems /quite/ tempting to Dorian as he pauses and affords it an unnecessary amount of thought. Hands raise to his mouth to allow a warm breath to coat them and rub together. A sigh, a shrug, and he begins to stroll down the dark alleyway.
Finger tips sliding along brushed metal, Adel follows our edgy friend with a glance, a bare twitch of attention. Lips thin but he soon refocuses on Dorian. He mutes the sound of footsteps coming up behind him; he covers the peripheral movements as paired thugs near. Of necessity, the slightly clumsy touch dims the edges of Dorian's senses in entirety rather than only those parts he chooses: light fades, though a suggestion whispers that it is only because of overhanging buildings; sound mutes, but that is simply because of the close walls now that he is off the street. Empathy mutes any strong adverse reaction, leaving Dorian with no option but calm as the rendezvous comes around.
The older goon slides into the alley some few steps behind Dorian and pauses to check that his partner's left his moment of doubt behind in the car and is ready for action. Which he seems to be, oh, yes: his baby-smooth face creases into a brief, jagged-toothed smile. The other man flicks cool eyes back to Dorian for a second. As the bigger goon sets himself up a pace behind and to the side, his hands out of his zipped-up jacket and slightly flexed, his partner moves up quickly, surely, and knocks knuckles bright with heavy brass reinforcement at the target's temple in a low, flat, controlled swing.
This was a pleasant alley. A comforting one. Dorian's own little concrete Siren; it all went away in a brilliant flash of agony that sends him barreling into a nearby wall. Instead of that original comfort, there's now only confusion as Dorian hollers and holds a hand to where the blow collided as he remains on a knee.
Adel releases his hold on Dorian's emotions as pain strikes across his mind. His grip reforms, looser now: he allows dark emotions freer rein, blossoming under pain's influence. He highlights and reinforces pain, looping it in on itself to feed and grow with each new input. Confusion spikes as he throws Dorian's senses into wild disarray, synesthesia of an extreme sort.
The big guy pounces on Dorian while he's down and hollering and tries to something about both those states of existence. He hauls him up towards standing, holding his arms in a vise-lock behind his back, and his partner steps up to crush the brass knuckles this time across that hollering mouth. Neither goon says a word: short, hoarse breaths, creaking leather, and skidding shoes on the asphalt are their only audible calling cards; and both are tightly focused on their moves, paired and practiced as if from years together.
Once more in a senseless bowel of hell, Dorian's dazed looks glances over the goons distantly as he's hoisted to his feet. Warmth fades from his psyche, fear permeates his being, flashes of gore, carnage and mayhem flash through his mind as a single focal point emerges in Dorian's mind: Storm. Fear is succored like the ewe it is as a more dominant emotion wraps tentacles into the tortured mind. Anger fuels muscles into action, aids them with a localized explosion of force. Nothing too great, heaven's no. Something along the lines of an unseen Peterbilt collides with everything in close proximity to Dorian.
Following the thread of activated mutation, Adel temporarily wrenches the process that allows Dorian to produce his blasts: a roadblock set up in his mind of Adel's power. He starts chewing a tablet, slumping against the side of the car with an unheard sigh. He encourages Dorian to focus on Storm, but only half-hearted; the majority of his attention focuses on maintaining the pain loop and keeping mutation in check.
Not in check in time enough for the goons, though. The big guy holding Dorian up grunts back into the alley wall, and the shock of doubled impact, force then wall, loosens his clutch on the other man's arms. While he scrabbles to regain balance and hold, his partner is picking himself out of the garbage in which he just found himself staggering on the other side of the narrow corridor. A McDonald's wrapper is still clinging lovingly to his heavy work boot as he strides back to Dorian and administers a steel-toed kick at his legs. "Freak," he spits -- the other goon looks alarmed, shakes his head in warning reminder -- then silences himself. Grimly, angrily, he adjusts the brass knuckles and eyes Dorian carefully, looking for the next opening for pain.
As soon as any form of hope seemed to manifest, it dissipates as Dorian collapses into a heap back onto his knees. Teeth gnash together as his head hangs low and eyelids clench. << Die! Die! Die! >> That growing demon at the back of Dorian's head wails in frustration as that path to mutation is desperately ripped at. Pain becomes tangible blood, it rises and mingles with that contempt for Storm, that soaring hatred and lust for revenge. More importantly, that pain and rage coalesces with absolute need. Each heartbeat summons more and more wild gropes for that power.
Dropping all other attempts to control and coerce Dorian's mind, Adel focuses with grim determination on two things: sight and mutation. Thugs remain obscured, no more than misty haloes; the mutation remains frustratingly out of reach. A tease of gravitational response might just as easily be wishful thinking.
The goons step in to do their part, now that the target seems more or less neutralized as far as they're concerned. While the one holds Dorian in place on his knees, maybe hauled up a little higher than that, the other one starts a rain of calculated blows of fist and feet to the mutant's face and gut. The assailant's face has lost its cool reserve apparently for good, replaced by a frozen, hard grimace while he works with professional steadiness to beat his target into submission, even unconsciousness.
<< It's raining. It's raining a bloodied, painful, bone-crunching blows from something. What are those shapes...those shapes...God? Angels? >> The quiet, timid boy behind the orgy of horror in Dorian's head murmurs in nervous anxiety. Devilish claws relent in their scrapings at the power, an instant of respite soars above a bloodied ocean of hell like a feather caught in the breeze within as brutes pound at wet flesh without. Chitinous claws rush the timid boy into the horror, rage and wrath boil the respite into an afterthought, a final nightmare howls through his mind as a single battering ram pounds into the power's efficient blockade as consciousness fades in one final hurrah. << DIIIIEEEEE! >>
Adel helps the physical along with a neat telepathic jab, hastening the fall of darkness. Under the assault of emotion, he finally gives way; gravity hiccups in a rather disappointing show, all out of proportion to the violence of the mind behind it -- but quite in keeping with the falling darkness of consciousness. The ground ripples and then settles.
The goons are a little better prepared this time for physical law misbehaving, and they ride out the hiccup with only swaying, a huffed noise of surprise, a scowl at Dorian. They both scowl, in fact, and then the leader removes the brass knuckles. They're splashed and spotted with blood, but he tidily stows them in his jacket pocket all the same while nodding to his partner, who goes down on a knee to check Dorian's vitals. A return nod, and they both relax and spend that moment catching their breath and looking and listening for any witnesses. "Right," the leader mutters and nods again. Thus signalled, with tender care the big goon straightens out Dorian's right arm, balances the forearm on his knee, braces his hands on wrist and elbow -- and cracks radius and ulna bones in a heaving, grunting burst of exertion, like snapping thick firewood.
Adel's telepathy winds around Dorian's mind, keeping conciousness at bay. He flinches, behind the plastic and metal of the car, at sympathy pain.
A disheartening snap echoes through the quiet alley. This certainly can't be healthy.
"Good." The leader stops, judges the injury inflicted and the cost required of his partner, and repeats in distinct satisfaction, "Good. I'll go get the hammer and check on our passenger." The big guy doesn't respond, just shuffles down the length of Dorian's body and starts futzing with his legs: straightening them out, too, arranging them just so on the dirty ground. The other goon makes a strolling way back to the car. He leans into the driver-side door and looks at Adel with dutiful curiosity. "You still with us, man? Nearly done, then we'll take you home, okay?"
Something tickles at the edges of Goon One's mind, but Adel manages to recall himself and answer aloud after a second: "Fine. With you. God, hurry up out there." He blocks his mouth as if yawning; feigned though /that/ is, the exhaustion that deadens his eyes is genuine.
Hammers are ominous. Soccer seems as if it may become quite difficult for young Dorian very shortly.
"Just doing my job," the goon snaps back, on the raggedy edge of some weariness and fading adrenaline high, himself, though it's enough to zing back at Adel's tickling, all unintentional, like white blood cells mindlessly rejecting foreign invaders. He grabs the mini-sledge behind his seat and slams the door shut (<< Take that, >> his brain snarls sullenly, with a smear of uppity-pansy and dirty-raghead) with enough momentum to spin him around a few steps toward the alley again. His partner glances up when he returns, looking tired, too, but calm. He's holding Dorian's right leg steady at knee and ankle. The other man hefts the hammer. Ambient light licks weakly along the heavy iron head before getting swallowed back into shadow and in the motion of the first swing onto the exposed, braced lower leg.
Bone makes way for the mass of the hammer with a sickening snap. The foot at the end of said leg gives a few violent twitches which don't make the wound any prettier.
Adel, safely in the car, is completely disengaged from Dorian's mind; as the hammer falls, he eyes his cuticles.
Another swing; another brutal impact, a little higher up the snapping bones. The goon waves his partner back and, just for fun, by his sudden thin grin, smashes the hammer into Dorian's ankle, too. The big guy looks worried at this addition, but doesn't say anything. He pushes himself to his feet, grunting with the effort and the exhaustion. They look at each other for a second, big and not-so-big, calm and not-so-calm. Then the one takes off his jacket, careful of the brass knuckles in the pocket, wraps the hammer in its bulky folds, and takes off for the car for the last time. After one last visual and aural check of the area, the other trails behind, leaves Dorian behind like so much spilled garbage.
[Log ends.]