Who Watches The Watchmen IC

Various News Clips of the last two decades...

Keene Act Repealed! November 15th, 1985

In a surprise decision, the Keene Act has been repealed in the recent light of possible alien invasion. Past crimes will be pardoned for any masked hero that serves in defence from this extradimensional threat.




Documents Proving Veidt's Guilt Found January 5th, 1986

Several documents of verified authenticity were turned over to the federal government after being released by the New Frontiersman. Government officials have confirmed that the documents are authentic. Adrian Veidt could not be reached for comment at this time.




Redford Signs Initiative To Relocate Capitol August 14th, 1990

President Redford has signed into law the initiative that will move the capitol of the United States of America from Washington, D.C. to New York City. In the first ever unanimous vote of the entire executive branch, President Redford's initiative to move the capitol to what was once the greatest city in the world has passed. President Redford had the following to say.

"As of November 1st, 1990, we will complete the reimagining of the greatest city that this world has ever known. We will make it the capitol of our great country. It is time that the White House is retired and becomes a hallmark of the past, Construction will be finished on The Great House in just two months. Thank you for your time, and your support."



National Electric Grid to be purchased by Herodotus Electrical Limited April 5th, 1992

In a reversal of policy, the President, has signed a contract officially releasing the National Grid back into private hands for the first time since Adrian Veidt's disappearance.




Masked Heroes Stop Bridge Bombing October 12th, 1993

In the last eight years there have been over 200 reports of a duo of heroes operating out of the Southern California area, all fitting very similar descriptions. These vigilantes are said to be known as Merlyn and Nightingale. They seem to have incredible training and since they first appeared, this part of California has seen a dramatic drop in the violent crime statistics.

Conversion Process From Nuclear Waste to Safe Power Cell Completed February 13th, 1995

A scientific team of US and Russian scientists, working from the notes of Dr. Jon Osterman have discovered a means of safe and efficiently tranferring the nuclear waste of power plants into working power cells for numerous implications.

Knot Tops riot outside The Great House March 31st, 1999

Gang warfare has broken out on the streets of New York in the first serious act of civil disobedience in the city since it was reformed.




Notorious Knot Top Leader Found Dead March 1st 2000

Tomas Ardizzi, the outspoken and notoriously violent leader of the Knot Tops was found beaten to death and left hanging from a street light out side of precinct 13 station house. Police are baffled.




Police Strike Hits NYC June 13th, 2001

Police walk out on negotiations, sighting the state's short sightedness.




"Police Accept New Contract and New Commissioner.




New President Elected! President Gore Eager to Take Office! November 7th, 2004

Adam Thorne 10/14/05 2:17AM

I smelled Al's diner well before I saw it. Not unusual really. I probably could have smelled the place before I was changed. It wasn't the Atelier, but it would do. Healing, even the scratch that punk had given me, always makes me ravenous.

I popped into the place, dripping water and getting a scowl from the guy behind the grill. A tired middle aged woman eventually came over to me when I sat down at the bar.

"What ya havin?" was asked of me.

"Two sausage and egg specials, same plate. and coffee. Eggs over easy."

The waitress startled a bit but took down the order and passed it to the grill. A few moments later I was in bliss with my hands wrapped around a warm mug of hot coffee as meat fried ten feet away.

I took another deep breath. Stale cigarette smoke, grease, food, steel and cordite. I paused and took another sip of my coffee.

I turned and looked at the door as two patrolmen walked in, greeting the guy at the grill and the waitress by name. They sat down by me, ordering "the usual".

Hopefully they didn't figure out that I had just kicked the crap out of some bangers and start anything. I really was hungry! I took a sip and hunched in over my mug.

"Hey buddy, can you pass me the sugar?" I heard from my right. Without thinking I handed it over, exposing my cut and bloody sleeve.

I looked up into the eyes of the older of the two. Eyes are funny. You can look into a man and read him in seconds sometimes. I was doing this now. This was a experienced man. He's walked through fire and come out singed. He knew his shit.

He knew that I was someone that needed to go downtown.

Fuck! I really was looking forward to some food.

I stood and grabbed the cop as his hand went to his gun. In a second I had him in both hands, a firm grip on his vest. With a turn I picked him up and threw him hard! He flew through the air and through the door of the ladies restroom, ending up in a heap on the floor.

His partner, young but not dumb, stepped back, drawing his piece. I stepped forward as he squeezed off a shot, slapping his hand away as the bullet smashed through the plate glass window of the diner. His gun went flying and he tripped, landing on his butt.

"Stay down!" I growled, and I was out the door.

I leapt over a parked car and dodged a truck as it moved by me. I stopped when I heard a screech as a patrol car with two startled cops in it hit the brakes.

Shit. I had to pick the one place that the cops ate regularly to get my second dinner.

I felt the bullet scream past my head before I heard the bang. I jumped up on the roof of the cop's car, then jumped the rest of the way across the street and started running hard.

Cries for me to stop were heard and ignored. I could make out that at least two of them were in foot pursuit. I ducked into a alley, hoping to loose them in the dark. I ran further in and stopped.

Dead end. Dumpster back by the wall, fire escape fifteen feet up.

Cries to stop were getting closer. I moved up under the fire escape and leapt up, grabbing the ladder.

Fifteen feet was not hard for me. Up I went.

I was climbing up when I felt a bullet tear through my shoulder. I screamed and let go, falling down into the filthy dumpster below me.

"Got Him!!!"


I could feel my blood pumping. Sounds were clearer, scents sharper.

Pain was riding high, my skin itching and hot.

I was cornered. By now more cops were here. Only one way out.


I opened my eyes to the bloodred haze as the change swept over me and I let the beast loose.

My skin was on fire. Muscles screaming as pain swept through my body. My clothes shredded as my form grew too large to contain them. I let loose a growl, a low rumble felt as much as heard as my jaw lengthened, teeth growing into something from a nightmare.

I struck the side of the dumpster with a clawed fist, bowing it out and moving it a foot.

Rage filled me. The Beast is hard to control. It's primal. Anger, lust, rage. But I had learned to control it, guide it. Barely.

A clawed and furred hand the size of a dinner plate reached up and grasped the lip of the dumpster, and out of it rose a nightmare of fur and teeth.

Hundreds of years ago man feared the night. feared the howl of a wolf on the Moors. Tonight, the moors were safe.

New York City was pretty damn screwed though.

Condonation: 10-14-2005. 2:27 AM.

Left Nightwatch alone in blood and thunder, perhaps waiting for his own flash of enlightenment.

The rain had started slow and picked up fast.

Came down in torrents.

Cold October rain. Like offensive power ballad. A month early.

Don't overmuch mind elements. Coat and hat remain enough to stave off much of world's meteorology. Coat and hat would be enough to see Noah through from antediluvian period to post-diluvian. Ark unnecessary expenditure.

(Mythology.)

Mind on more pertinent things.

Find myself where many law enforcement officials would like me to remain: flat on back.

The ground was cold. But above her, the thrumming police cruiser lent warmth and it lent shelter. These were secondary concerns, however. Rorschach wasn't under the car to hide from the rain.

The mp8 player was in the pocket of her coat. From this led two cables, one leading to an earbud in her left ear, her face rolled up just enough on that side that the bud was permitted unfettered access, and the other cable, an auxiliary patch connector, was spliced into a CPU access panel on the electric vehicle's undercarriage.

Rorschach wasn't here, ten by ten, to get out of the rain.

She was just here to find out if The NYPD's left hand knew what the right hand was doing.

Usually? Doesn't.

But on off-chance, pays to stay informed.

...dispatch remained abuzz with her exploits from earlier. Knot Tops topped off.

Also, conversations regarding an incident on Edison and Third, more or less simultaneous with Rorschach's conversation with Nightwatch. Apparently, however, this also was ascribed to "Rorschach." Evidently there had been a phone call?

Ridiculous.

Rorschach leaves sigil. (Unless establishing involvement with visual confirmation.)

Anonymous cell call completely at odds with modus operandi.

Still. Admire apparent thoroughness of perpetrator. Numerous fractures.

*shhhzzt* '...all points, repeat, all points: disturbance at Eighth and Green, repeat, disturbance at Eighth and Green. Officer down, badly concussed, officer pursuing on foot. Suspect description matches active BOLO, wanted for questioning regarding incident on Edison and Third. Immediate backup requested at Eighth and Green, proceed with caution, suspect is extremely dangerous. Repeat: suspect is extremely dangerous, proceed with caution.' *shhhzzt*

The red and blue lights went on atop the police cruiser, Rorschach could see the reflections on the road and on the storefronts across the way, the lights filtering in jagged fits and starts through the downpour of the rain.

She heard the door open, heard the uniform swearing as static sizzled, heard the cop unplugging the car from the spark hydrant.

"We're good, let's go!"

"This is Sierra One One Seven," the partner in the driver's seat declared into the radio, "en route to Eighth and Green, ETA two min--"

Briskly, Rorschach reached up and tugged the patch cable from where she'd spliced it, just in time for the vehicle to thrummmm away and for the rain to come hammering back down on her, starting at her head and moving down to her toes as the siren's song began to wail...

She pulled the earbud free, returned this to her pocket with the patch cable, and rolled her face back down over her ear as she sat up on the city street.

A man under an umbrella stood there, wide-eyed, staring at her, this black-clad wraith that had just emerged from beneath the vehicle of the very officers hunting her down like a stray.

She got her shoes underneath her, rose slowly to her feet, put a gloved finger across lips hidden beneath the skin of her face.

"Shhhh."

Goggling, the man simply nodded, his face almost as pale as Rorschach's. He didn't say a word, simply assented.

"Good citizen."

She drew the grappling gun and fired it upwards, rising up and up and out of sight like Icarus challenging The Sun's lofty lordship over the sky...

...but The Sun was nowhere in sight, and even The Moon was hiding.

Rorschach ran through the rain, sprinting o'er rooftops, bounding across alleyways. Surefooted. Unafraid.

Occasionally crackles of electric light danced across the face of the thunderheads, but this was background.

Are those who claim this is City That Never Sleeps.

Inclined to believe this is City of Dreadful Night.

Didn't think there was more Dreadful thing in City's Night than myself.

Could be wrong.

Want to see with own eyes.

Want to see who is this Rorschach who lives.

...she ran...

'O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!

My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope
To find some solace for your wild unrest.

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.'

Conjunction: 10-14-2005. 2:36 AM.

Gunfire. Rorschach ran faster, almost missing a step, almost landing badly, almost twisting an ankle. Dove, rolled, leapt back to feet.

Kept running.

Ran faster.

Ahead of her, she saw the flash of muzzle fire reflecting from wet alleyway walls, heard the report of still another shot, and she poured on the speed, skidding to a halt at the edge of the roof, gazing down.

A writhing mass lay in a dumpster, gaining size at a geometric rate.

Lightning seared the skies, and Rorschach hesitated.

Too much thinking about myth.

Strayed into a legend.

Case by A. Conan Doyle.

Not possible.

Sanity not in question. Not hallucination, not delusion, must be real.

Jung's Collective Unconscious rearing even uglier head than usual.

She glanced at the grappling gun.

Glanced back down at the seething creature of black fur and corded sinew whose impossible limb had just buckled steel.

Saw the looks of horror on the five policemen's faces as they bore witness to the monstrosity emerging from the Dumpster's malodourous depths.

Good men.

Stupid. Weak.

Misguided.

(Standing too close together.)

Would just as soon shoot me as this nightmare hound.

(Somehow doubt bullets can stop it.

Shooting it would kill them.

Can't let them die.

Idiots.)

She paused only a millisecond more, and bounded out into the night, tossing the grappling gun up, high, spinning through space and scattering raindrops...

She dropped.

Grabbed the railing of the fire escape with magnetic fingertips.

Released, dropped, grabbed next railing.

Grabdropgrabdropgrabdrop...

Landed in a crouch, shattering a puddle like stained glass, held out her gloved hand, stayed crouching...

...the grappler landed in her outstretched hand, pointed at the five policemen, pointed low...

She fired.

The hook blurred, the cable whined, the rain poured, the grappling hook whirled in a circle, and again, looping, the hook flew onwards, buried itself in brickwork...

...even as she drew the gas gun she was takking the grappler's secondary trigger for a split-second, the cable pulled taut, the circle closed, tackling all five officers, bringing them down with a collective yell...

FWOOOOSH.

...sickly green billowed from the gas gun and the impact of their tumble combined with the knockout fumes and they were silenced.

Rorschach shot to standing position, tall, unyielding, the gas gun now leveled at this stinking wet-dog beast.

Even in the rain, the gas would burn. One false move, and the night would be filled with the sickening acrid odour of burnt wet dog...

"Time is short."

"Cold rainwater means The Old Bill soon to waken."

"Most monsters from my subconscious capable of speech."

"Talk to me."

"Give me reason not to burn you alive."

"New York City... Center of the Universe... Times are Shitty, but I'm pretty sure they can't get worse." Angel Dumott Schunard

New York is a city unlike any other. Buildings stretch to the sky, brushing the great blue. Millions of lives exist together in a metropolis of glass and steel. However, New York has a darker, twisted side. Beneath the streets of the sprawling Megalopolis, there lays a whole other world. A world of darkness. A world of the forgotten.

In this world, there are few rules, for rules mean little with out a ruler. But there is a savior. For the last twenty years a coven has slowly formed. It began with one man. Then spread like a cancerous cyst. Now threatening to burst from the lands of the forgotten, to sweep through the city like a plague.

There is a mass being held. A mass lead by a man that has those around him convinced that he is a God.

Twenty Years ago...

Jonah Damascus was always different. From birth he was able to see and feel that which others could not. When he was 12 he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. He began taking cocktails of drugs to stop the visions. But every where he looked he saw them. The Avatars. By the age of 17, Jonah had left home. And was living in the streets. He had stopped taking the drugs. He had found that the Avatars he was seeing were not psychological, but were psychic. He was seeing the true form of the people around him. Jonah used this information to survive. He takes odd jobs and keeps a low profile. It is thus his fate that on the fateful night that Ozymandias unleashed his ungodly beast, Jonah Damascus was working as a janitor. He was directly at ground zero.

Yet he survived.


Now...

Jonah Damascus stands on an altar hew from the rubble of a city lost. Jonah Damascus looks out at his acolytes.

"My brothers and sisters... the time has come to hand. Our Master wishes us to move. To release him from his prison. Twenty years ago his messenger chose me... touched me with his wisdom and his power. Now I bring this blessing to you my friends! This world has forgotten us. Forgotten Him. It shuns us and pushes us into the shadows, the dark, the dirt. I alone survived the arrival of our Savior. He touched me and granted me clarity. I call now on you, lash out at the world that cares not if you live or die. Strike out with fierce anger and furious vengeance. You are the weapons of our Lord, and you alone shall help me deliver him. Go now, go forth into the light, and prepare them. Warn the faithful, The Dark One approaches... and this time... this time he will not be merciful!" The horde of people gathered around the makeshift altar regale in the words of their messiah. As he reaches to the stone ceiling above a wicked grin spreads on his face. "I bring among thee... the first of my blessings. Let yourselves become on the outside, that which you are with in!"

Suddenly the cheering become screams and screeches of agony. The forms of the people below twist and shudder. Twisting they become like demons, beasts straight from the bowels of an underworld long forgotten. These demons tear at one another, gouging and ripping. The demonic beast stagger toward the doors to the subway tunnels. Howling and yipping.

From his coat pocket, Jonah removes a scale like object and strokes and caresses it lovingly. "Soon, you will return. Soon..."

Fenris 10/14/05 2:37AM

"Time is short."

"Cold rainwater means The Old Bill soon to waken."

"Most monsters from my subconscious capable of speech."

"Talk to me."

"Give me reason not to burn you alive."

Click to expand...

The figure stood before the me. It did not smell of fear. It did not smell of madness. Through the stink of the chemicals I could smell sweat and something i could only describe as purpose.

And that this was a woman.

I growled, the low rumbling filling the alleyway. Red and blue lights whirled in the darkness, making things even more surreal.

"Not kill. Not prey. Go now."

I bounded over the woman, landing on the hood of a cruiser and crumpling it, buckling the tires. Another leap took me halfway up a fire escape, and the next to the roof of the brownstone. Then I ran off into the night, leaping from rooftop to rooftop until I was blocks away.

I howled then, accompanied by the crash of thunder, then kept moving, making my way to central park. Once there my form shifted, changed. Wet popping and crackling noises until the beast was gone, and a black wolf stood in it's place.

Nose to the ground I began hunting. I would have preferred sausage and eggs, but rabbit would do.

Back at the alley, the car sat silent, lights still washing the wet walls with color, dashboard cam still rolling.

"Not kill. Not prey. Go now."

Beneath the face of Rorschach's sanity, a chocolate-brown eyebrow arched.

And then muscles like ramjets launched the beast skyward, once and again and again, and it was gone.

She stood in the rain and watched the space into which it had vanished.

She holstered the gas gun.

"Hurm."

The cruiser was ruined, and its undercarriage grated the pavement beneath in such a way as to no longer permit anyone to hide beneath.

Not raving beast.

Not random fleck of foam to be wiped from lips of rabid city.

Thinking.

Reasoning.

Powerful.

Briefly, Rorschach considered following.

But then it occurred to her that if this was indeed the act of a reasoning predator, it might be leading her away so that it might feed on the downed, easier prey. The police officers.

Best to stay with them until they began, at least, to regain consciousness.

Her predecessor, the true Rorschach, had once, in the riots of 1977, held down the entire Lower East Side of Manhattan all by himself. This Rorschach doubted she would be capable of such a feat, but she understood the lesson from this.

Sometimes fools needed nannying.

Quietly, quickly, she untangled the policemen from the cable of her grappling hook and wound it all back up again.

Just as the hook clonked into place, she heard a sniffle behind her. A sniffle and a cough and a sneeze and a curse, and the hammer-back click of a gun.

"Hands behind your head," the cop mumbled, "dirtbag."

Beneath her true face, Rorschach's lip twitched. But otherwise she did not react.

She holstered the grappler.

Buttoned up her coat.

"Woke up faster than others," she mused.

"Hands on your head!"

She turned to face him.

He was young, and his hands were shaking, and he held that gun in both hands as he pointed it at her face in the rain.

"Hands. On your head!"

She put her hands in the pockets of her coat.

"Was told certain chemical dependencies would reduce effectiveness of gas."

The cop had lost his hat and was blinking at the rain.

"Stop talking! Get, ah, get your hands on your head!"

"Alcoholism?" Rorschach tilted her head. "Perhaps Ritalin. Perhaps something more illegal."

The cop's eye twitched. "Working double-shifts. Have to stay awake somehow."

He flinched, shook his head. "Anyway, shut the fuck up, judging me, no proof, you're a murderer!"

Her hand came out of her pocket, holding the mp8 player. Her finger on the voice memo recorder. ...a little bit of rain wouldn't hurt it, its terabytes were stored on a solid-state drive.

"Poorly-recorded confession proof enough to begin formal Internal Affairs investigation. Or: could just kill you."

"Fucking crazy," the rookie snarled, trembling, "talking like that. I got a gun to your head!"

"Hhh," Rorschach seemed given pause by that.

But then the cop blinked again at the tumbling of the rain and with one hand Rorschach lashed at the cop's bare cheek with the gleaming jack of the patch cable while the other hand, the other wrist, came out and up like a iron rod unyielding, smashing the gun up and away as the little bit of metallic scored red on the boy's face.

The boy howled, staggering backwards, slapping his cut cheek reflexively before thinking to bring the gun back down properly...

...it only had bought Rorschach instants, but instants were all she had needed.

Her fist crashed into the center of his face as the mp8 player again vanished into pocketed depths. He dropped to one knee in the puddling rain and she yanked the gun from his grasp with the same hand with which she'd punched him, tossing the weapon immediately into the Dumpster abandoned by the wolf.

Her other hand returned from its pocketing errand, grabbing the half-kneeling cop by the front of his uniform and hauling him very nearly back to a standing position. And her knee slammed into his scrotum, aramid plate and all.

The colour went out of the cop's face, and he nearly went limp. "...hhhnnhhh..."

"Can find proper proof if necessary. Make it unnecessary. Get yourself clean."

"Or you will be removed from police force. One way or other."

Gagging, the young cop could do aught but nod as blood from his broken nose trickled down along with the rainwater, dripping over his lip.

"Only one world is real. Only this. Only this."

"Dreams result of cerebral misfires. Heaven result of misplaced hope."

"Chemical abuse only compounds issue."

"Have a duty to this world and your fellow man to stay rooted in this world."

"Everything else is distraction. Understand?"

The cop gurbled, shook his head helplessly.

"Hhhh," Rorschach scoffed. "Give you something easier to comprehend."

And with that one hand she dragged the cop over towards the crippled police cruiser.

"Cellphones just technology. Like evolution. Be replaced soon enough."

"Like humans, if unclassified lupine monstrosity is any indication."

"('Canis unfamiliaris,' hehhhh.)"

She slammed the cop down hard against the hood of the cruiser, and she reached into the other pocket of her coat.

Came out with a folded piece of cardboard, unfolded it with her fingers.

The Sigil of Rorschach was drawn upon the cardboard in black Sharpie marker.

"Symbols only have power ascribed to them by minds of people."

"No such thing as magic, with or without 'k.' Only imagination."

"This symbol given power."

"By all those that fear it."

"This is Rorschach."

"Symbol of which evil can be afraid."

"Not anonymous phone call."

"Rorschach not voice in night."

She reached out and she wedged the bit of cardboard in between the windshield and the wipers, blocking the dashboard cam, so that it could see nothing but the fearful symmetry of the sigil. So there was no question as to who this was.

The cop bled, and swallowed hard, and wondered if he should go for his truncheon. (Decided not to.)

"Rorschach is night."

She shoved him again hard against the side of the car and then turned and walked away, putting her hands in her pockets and at long last turning the collar of her coat against the cold and the damp.

"Watch over your friends."

"Have more important things to think about."

The young cop steadied his panicky pulse as he watched Rorschach vanish around the corner, depart the mouth of the alley.

And then he slumped slumped down to sit in a puddle formed beside the buckled wheel of the cruiser.

And he was afraid.

Through the dark and dingy tunnels that sprawl beneath the great city, monsters roam. Filthy, ragged they come. Slashing and devouring their own.

A group breaks into a tunnel still in use, and see the life they once had flash before their eyes as they are torn asunder by a train. Their bodies splattered and pulverized into so much goo and bone. Yet one survives. One, a lone survivor moves through the abandoned tunnels. And into the streets. A nightmare given flesh and form. A twisted avatar of the warped mind of a madman.

As a Wolf and Maiden meet, a new monster stalks the night.

A woman and her daughter. Walking home from ballet lessons. Laughing. Teasing. The scent of their warm, soft, flesh tears through the night and fills the senses of a beast that seeks only to destroy. To maul. To wrathfully deliver vengeance on a world that had shunned it. The beast moves with preternatural grace, scrabbling through the dark. As the woman and her daughter round a corner they see evil incarnate. And it is hungry.

"Mommy, what is that?!" The frightened girl shrieks.

"Run baby... just run..." The woman clutches tight her innocent daughter by the hand. And into the night they streak.

Behind them a monster stalks. Toying with them, stalking them. Reveling in their fear. The scent of there terror intoxicating.

As she runs the woman pulls a phone from her pocket and calls for help.

"Help... a monster... Avenue A. Please..." the woman staggers as she runs, dropping the phone. Pleading to god and all that is holy to deliver her and her daughter safely from this evil. Shrieking into the night the woman screams "GOD HELP US! PLEASE!"

The beast is savoring the hunt. Other people are fleeing in terror, but it stays focused. It stay's on target. It dances out from the shadows and drags a long hideous claw across the woman's back. It could have ripped her apart. But that would have ended the fun.

Nightwatch

After his talk with Rorschach, Nightwatch took to the skies. Even with the lights from the buildings it would be deficult to see him. He was just about to call it a night when his internal communications intercepted a call from a frantic woman. She was claiming that there was a monster chasing her. Nightwatch used the information from the police computers to track the phone. He only hoped that he wouldn't arrive to late.

From far above he witnessed the beast swipe at the woman, who was protecting her daughter. The beast could have killed them anytime he wanted, he was playing with them. He didn't know how much force it would take to stop that thing, but he wasn't going to allow it to hurt that woman anymore. He targeted and fired the force beams from his guantlets. The blast would be as if a mack truck had hit the creature.

As the shadow beast tore through the streets chasing his prey, he didn't hear the arrival of a new enemy. Luckily, the blast only grazed him as he darted around a dumpster. But he was still knocked staggering. The beast stopped and focused. His eyes peering through the darkness, he saw his new prey. With fury and rage boiling through him, he hurls a trash can with such speed and strength that it was almost a blur.

Meanwhile the woman runs. As she rounds the corner a hand darts out and grabs her and her daughter.

"This way baby, I'll get you home. Just come with me hun." a short hispanic woman darts into the alley and starts dragging the woman and her daughter. "Come on sugar, which is worse, a drag queen or that thing. Look, go down this street, take a left at the end and you will find a restaurant. Go in, and sit down. Call yourself a cab. It'll be ok baby. I promise."

As the woman and her daughter escape into the night, the beast howls in rage and starts scrabbling up the side of the building. Claws tearing chunks out of the building. In the blink of an eye it is 5 stories and climbing.

"Why can it never be easy." Nightwatch thought to himself as he watched his hud, the tracking computers had no problem keeping up with the beast as it climbed up the side of the building, even if he did. "Thank god for computer target lock."

Inside of his helmet he could hear the computer calling out the rapidly decreasing distance as he increased the strength of his force blasts. He had no idea what this thing might be as yet, so he still didn't want to kill it. But he damn sure wasn't going to let it kill him. It was just as the creature reached the edge of the roof top that he fired both barrels at it.

14/Oct/5, continued.

The cellphone holstered at her hip was tied in with the silvertooth headset hooked 'round her ear.

She nudged her glasses back up onto her nose with the knuckle of her thumb, and then fingerless gloves curled once more 'round the steering wheel.

It was a 2003 H2 Hummer, one of the worst vehicles for electrical consumption that had ever graced the American road. But she'd made it a little more efficient, and there was a prototype hydrogen fuel cell in place if the beleagured lithium battery ever gave up its ghost.

She'd bought it a year ago for purely sentimental reasons from a used car lot on the outskirts of Newark: the thing was silver in colour, right down to its hubcaps. And call it a thematic necessity, but Qualia Jones needed a silver set of wheels.

A mask covered the lower half of her face. Green and blue, ribbed, it climbed to just above her nostrils. Her hair was bound back tightly, hopefully no loose strands would escape. Latex-based fauxskin covered her fingertips, providing a falsified set of prints. And her glasses would prevent any clear retinal scan.

(The soundtrack for "Fog-Dancing" filtered out from the vehicle's disc player. The soundtrack for the first version, the good version. This was a guitar instrumental featuring that guy from Krystalnacht, the climactic tune used for the sequence where all the strands of the Byzantine plot had come together flawlessly. According to the track listing, the song was called "Banned Books and The Vaults of The Vatican," which had next to nothing to do with the actual contents of "Fog-Dancing" and everything to do with tribute to the works of Max Shea.

In any case, the tune was doing wonders for her adrenaline. She had it on repeat.)

Her body was in remarkable shape considering the turns of events that had rendered her immobile below the hips. ...and this was, perhaps, a good thing, because the outfit she wore hugged her curves like a second epidermis, its ribbed blue-green edging matching perfectly with the mask that shrouded her face.

Here and there, pouches held little necessities for tech-piracy wetwork.

The trunk and the backseat held larger things, that which wouldn't fit in any sort of pouch.

Her wheelchair was folded up behind the passenger seat, tucked in.

She hadn't been able to call the woman back. Emily.

The towers in this part of town were in worse shape than she could have imagined, and she instantly regretted not bringing a satphone of her own for backup. But she had the woman's co-ordinates on her onboard GPS unit and that was still working fine. Hopefully she hadn't gone far.

Fingerlessly gloved hands flexed on the steering wheel as she idled down the road, using pushbutton gearshifts on the wheel, her thumb hovering near the accelerator without quite touching it.

Red/blue lights danced through the puddles and the mist left by the torrential downpours of the previous night. Red/blue and gold.

According to her police scanner, the cruiser was there with the tow truck to take away a car from an arrested feuding couple. She shook her head quietly. Why were people so het up on committed relationships if they resulted in such violence, such destruction?

Of course, Qualia was the first to admit that the way she did things wasn't without its own set of dramatic problems.

She paused, and double-checked her GPS while she was waiting for the truck to tow off the Caddy, waiting for the cruiser to pull away. Best not to ask for trouble. Yes, her windows were tinted, they couldn't see the masked woman inside, but if they decided to run her plates, routine traffic stop...

As she paused, the tow moved along. And shortly behind it, there went the black-and-white.

As she paused, there pulled in at the kerb, she watched a guy on one of those little delivery scooters, an Italian place's logo stickered onto the sides of it, watched him trundle up to a ramshackle phone booth and stop, give it a strange look, then frown at the slip of paper in his hand.

He turned slowly, and looked around, and frowned again at the slip of paper.

She wound her passenger-side window down as she pulled a little closer.

And heard him swear softly, shaking his head.

"Goddamn nutcases," he mumbled, as he crumpled up the slip of paper and gave the finger to the large brown paper bag strapped to the wire-frame rack on the back of his scooter. "Call me out to the middle of nowhere, and they can't even stick around to pay for their order. Prolly come out of my paycheck..."

He paused, though, and scowled at the phone booth, with its vast array of decals obscuring much of the contents from view.

"Well," he decided, "shits and giggles."

He walked over to the phone booth just as Qualia pulled level with him and trundled to a stop. Something about this was just...

...Qualia was a firm believer in synchronicity and synaesthesia and the right thing happening at just the right time, and she was getting that little crawly feeling on the back of her neck as she watched the man try to open the phone booth, watched him find it jammed, listened to him swear a blue streak.

In his frustration, he hauled again on the door and it broke and twisted and came open.

There was an unconscious man in the bottom of the phone booth. Looked familiar.

No, an unconscious woman, whose transvestitism was impressive though disheveled, and the delivery man swore now in incredulity, lifting his booted foot to kick the creature in the side...

Qualia's eyes narrowed. Emily.

"Hey, jackass!" she snapped, and the delivery guy wheeled around to look at her in startlement, hadn't heard the electric motor creeping up on him, and he was even more startled when a dart hissed into the side of his neck.

Concentrated serum version of the Dodds-Hawkins gas she'd developed for A.

The delivery guy was dead to the world before he'd even hit the sidewalk, and he'd be under for hours and hours.

Emily looked in an awful way, and Jones cursed herself for being slow off the mark. If only she'd glanced at the booth through thermal filters, she could have saved so much time.

Tossing the handheld bolt-launcher onto the dash, Qualia hauled herself across into the passenger seat with a protracted grunt, grabbed the first-aid kit one of the boys had put together from under the seat, reached back and grabbed hold of her wheelchair...

...the chair popped into shape out of its telescopic folded state, silver wheels glinting in the new-day light. With a bit of a snarl, she lowered herself down from the too-tall vehicle using custom-rigged pulleys and straps and without a second's further delay, she wheeled herself and the first aid kit to Emily's side.

She was a mess.

Goya was the real combat medic, he'd know what to do, and Qualia was definitely more on the technical side of things. She understood genetics, biochemistry, but really more she was more metal and plastic...

Qualia leaned down and pressed an injector-gun into the side of Emily's leg, squeezing the trigger and venting a fast-acting general anti-toxin into the woman's system. Clean up the bloodstream first, if she'd been drugged or what have you, and then they could see about her actual physical injuries.

For that, Qualia needed the woman to be awake and at least partially mobile.

The anti-toxin popped out of the injector gun, replaced with an artificial adrenaline boost... and with a hiss, the energy serum flushed straight through Emily's clothes and straight through her skin into those already-beleaguered blood vessels.

"C'mon, c'mon," Qualia growled, snapping the kit shut in her lap. "Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey. Not in the habit of letting my customers die before I even give them a quote."

As the beast reached the top he is blasted hard in the chest. He falls. Tumbling backwards. Shadows dissolve. And the body of a gaunt homeless man is folded in half in the wrong direction on the edge of the dumpster. The sound of the man's spine snapping in half is sickening. The man dies in agony.

The police finally round the corner as the body hits. They look up at the space in which Nightwatch occupies.

"Surrender now, we don't want any more deaths." The cop taks his radio as he draws his gun. "Dispatch, we have a visual, vigilante, just killed a guy, send back up."

Nightwatch

He didn't kill the man-beast, at least not intentially. But these officers wouldn't believe that. Fortunately Nightwatch had his own plan. "You are correct, there is no need for further deaths. However if the people of this city are to be kept safe, the Nightwatch cannot allow himself to be taken." was the cold distorted reply. "Tell the woman she is safe now." he added and then flew away before the police could do anything.

"MERLIN, transmit the visual recording of the incident to the media. Including the call of help and the images of the woman and child that the beast was stalking."

Yes Mister Saint, standard media relations protocols activated.

This was a ware that was going on, and as much as he was striving to help Law Enforcement, he couldn't allow them to take him in. There were no helicopters heading his way, however he decided it was better for him to return to Saint Tower. The suit may give him enhanced endurance when he wore it, but once he took it off he was beyond tired.

Feral

October 12, 2005

“Disengage. Disengage.” The team leader yelled into his headset. “Goddamn it I said disengage.”

This whole situation had gone from weird and fucked up to hell and totally fucked. And it had taken lee time than it too him to reload the weapon in his hands.

Mackenzies head flew past him, still in the helmet. That was it. Mcfearson turned and ran. Ran as fast as his black clad legs could carry him. But it wasn’t fast enough. It would never have been fast enough.

The creature slammed into his back, propelling him into the wall. A red brick wall that was very unyielding. Bones snapped and pulverized. Eyes exploded from their sockets. But the heart continued to beat. Blood pumped from dozens of deadly wounds. Wounds that would have killed him anyway, but within moments he’d bled out. And then his body collapsed, falling to the ground in the dirty, trash strewn alley were they’d tracked the test subject.

A test subject that wouldn’t be going back tonight.

Feral

October 11, 2005

Leaping from railing to railing Feral didn’t bother with steps and ladders anymore. They were to slow, too clumsy for her.

At least they were now.

Feral

March 10, 2003

Walking through the jewelry store Feral ignored all the petty baubles. She was here for a specific item. A very specific trinket.

Crossing the room she stopped, her head tilted to the side, she could smell something. Something… wrong.

Blinking she refocused her eyes and looked again. There. Just at the edge of the spectrum she could see the wavering line. Stepping over it she continued on, approaching her target. She’d be paid well for this one. So very well indeed.

Her target was inside a glass case. A simple glass case, surround by other petty baubles. Why they wanted it wasn’t important. What they were paying her was.

Flexing her fingers she felt the claws spouting, peeling back her flesh as they grew. Within seconds she was scratching the glass with those claws. Peeling away a thin line of silicate in a tight circle. A finger snapped and glass tinkled as it fell, shattering inside.

Reaching through opening Feral retrieved the item. It was easy. In fact it was too easy, especially with what she was being paid for this.

Then she heard the soft hissing. The clicks as doors and windows were secured even further than they had been. The swishing of extra panels sliding into place. And what little moonlight that there had been vanished behind hermetically sealed plate armour.

“Interesting..” she said as she looked around.

From events near the ceiling she watched the fog descending towards her. A normal thief would be fucked right about now. A normal thief, now that was funny.

Reaching under her cloak she grabbed the rebreather and affixed it to the lower half of her face. A moment later and she had a clear mask affixed to the upper half of her face, at least her eyes wouldn’t allow whatever was coming down to enter her bloodstream.

Looking around she analyzed what was where, and how to ascend. And then she leaped.

****

Crashing to the ground outside she wondered how the company would explain that one to the insurance agency. Not that she really cared.

Walking calmly to her ride she slipped onto the back of the motorcycle and grinned to herself. Pulling the box from her waist he looked at the building as her finger depressed a switch.

The implosion was beautiful in it’s simplicity. The inner columns collapsing pulled the roof down on top of it. The outer walls remained, but every shard of glass was broken. Nothing more than fragments of nothing.

Riding off into the night she wondered what the company was gonna say about all those extra things that were missing. All those extra sparkly things.

A soft feminine laughter tinkled through the night.

Feral

March 25, 2003

Moving down the hall, her cloak rippling with her stride she walked beside the priest as he guided her through the cathedral.

She spoke not a word, simply nodding to various individuals as she crossed their path. Speaking in this place out of turn could be bad, or at least rude.

Granted it didn’t help that a great many of them stopped and stood next to wall. But well, that was either cause SHE was HERE, or because she was female. Most likely because she was female, since if any of them knew who, or what, she was she’d have to kill all of them. Granted the upper half of her face was hidden by the cowl, and the half mask that covered her nose, lips, and jaw. But that didn’t matter. Any of them could be a spy.

They stopped in front of a door and her escort spoke with a secretary. It didn’t matter if he was in or not officially. He’d see her. Or he wouldn’t get his trinket.

She turned her head and stared at the secretary. She wasn’t impatient. Oh no.. not her. She just liked to watch people. It tended to creep them out, or something.

She heard a clipboard fall and clatter on the floor behind her but didn’t deign to turn and look. Instead she kept watching the secretary. The secretary with soft brown hair and frightened brown eyes.

She blinked and the secretary jerked backwards, pushing a button that made a buzzing sound. Turning the scary woman walked through the door. Ignoring the escort. Ignoring everyone. Her client was inside. She could smell him sitting there.

Sweating.

****

“Did you need to destroy the place?!?” the Bishop demanded.

“You said no evidence, there were surveillance devices you failed to disclose. As well as chemical deterrents. The insurance will cover everything. But it’s not like you owned the building.”

“That doesn’t matter..”

“I don’t care. You have what you wanted. And I got it for you. Pay the piper.”

Snarling the Bishop lifted the phone from it’s cradle and snapped out a short phrase in Latin. “It’s done.”

A hand snapped out, the bo staff crushing fingers against the desk, like a nun scolding a schoolboy. With a much bigger stick. “Try again, cocksucker.” The woman said in perfect Latin. “Did you think I was that much of an idiot? Ordering lunch isn’t the same as paying me Twelve million Dollars.. American.”

In a blink the staff was back in a holster on her back. “Next time.. I break them. And then I’ll proceed to shatter every bone in your body. The last will be your jaw.”

Stammering the Bishop cradled his bruised fingers in his lap while the other hand dialed. “Pay it.” He said, and then waited.

Reaching down to her belt the woman lifted up a small black device and looked at it. “Very good. Payment received…”

March 26, 2003

March 26, 2003

Leaning against the wall Feral watched the Bishop as he prepared for bed, the darkness enveloping her like a glove, she was unnoticed.

She waited in the darkness until he was comfy, the covers pulled up and he was reaching for the light. Only then did she step forward, making a small sound as her boot clicked on the cold marble floor.

“What? How’s there..” he asked, his hand frozen at the switch.

“Just me..”

“What do you want? I paid you for your services.”

“I know. But you see, I had another client here. I just finished meeting with them and had to come see you.”

“Why?”

“Well,” she said, leaping across the space and landing on the bed, straddling his blanket covered waist and hips. “I have another assignment.”

Reaching up she dragged a single finger along his cheek, then tapped his nose with it.

“And what does that have to do with me?” the Bishop asked.

“Oh, not much.” Feral said, brushing her finger across his moist lips. “Nothing much at all.”

Rolling off the bed she slid to her feet and looked back. Looking over her shoulder at him, “I get to kill you. But you already know that don’t you?”

Looking up at the ceiling the Bishop couldn’t say anything, the neurotoxin had already immobilized his nerves and muscles

He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t breath. Oh he wanted to alright, his lungs burned to inhale. Burned to take in that sweet sweet breathe of life. But they wouldn’t. They couldn’t.

“A heart attack. That’s what they’ll determine.” She said walking across the room and opening the door. On the other side stood a man.

“You really should have taken a better shower before our meeting dear Bishop Alfonso. I could smell him on you. The mingling of sweat.. and other things.”

Reaching out she closed the doors, then laid an arm on the mans shoulder and walked off with him.

Nightwatch 10/14/2005

:0330:

Nightwatch could see the Saint Tower coming closer and closer. He had gone to great lengths to keep anyone from discovering that Nightwatch and Steven Saint were one in the same. Although he knew that Rorschach was getting to close to the truth. Why couldn't she leave well enough alone. Probably had something to do with the name and personality is what he decided as a section of the helipad opened up. Just a small opening, big enough for him to slip through and enter or exit the building whenever he desired.

:0400:

He closed the locker and activated the security code. As he walked away the locker retracted into the wall of the lab back into it's secure slot allowing the suit to recharge and repair itself. Steven exited his private lab and went to his bedroom. Fortunately he didn't have any guests that evening, or else they'd wonder what he was doing walking around naked. "Merlin make sure no one bothers me until at least 9:00 am. Give me a wake up call at 8:00 am"

Yes Mr. Saint.

With that Steven collapsed on his bed, not even taking the time to turn down the bed.

As dawn reaches the city of New York, there is already a buzz. A video was delivered to the news stations. A video that apparently, was a taunt to the people of New York. A "superhero", a masked vigilante, had brutally murdered a homeless man.

Every news station was playing the video. What appeared to be a severely inebriated homeless man standing on the edge of a building, getting blasted full force by this "hero" and tumbling backwards to his death. Most shockingly,the video appeared to have been sent in by this vigilante himself.

By 10 AM the entirety of Alphabet City is full of protesters. Marching and screaming for blood. The police joining rather than stopping them. The senate announces at noon that there is an emergency session scheduled to vote on an amended Keene Act.

Adrian Veidt watches all of this on his array of screens. And he smiles.

March 14, 2005

The helicopter moved over Saint Tower, it didn’t bother landing, since that wasn’t in the plan, and it didn’t have time. As it was the pilot was off course and would end up paying a fine, but was being compensated more than enough for that.

And then he felt the door open and the weight shift as his solo passenger jumped. And that was his clue to move on and keep his mouth shut.

Dropping through air like a feather Feral twisted and landed on her feet, balanced on a railing. Anybody else.. well… it was a very long drop.

Very long indeed.

Hooking the rappelling rope to the base of the rail for better stabilization, and control, Feral leaped outwards, and began Australian Rappelling.

She kept to the main support beams, keeping weight of windows. Pressure sensors could be tricky indeed, and very few criminals, or assassins wore high heels.

Once she found the right room, which was not where it was supposed to be she was rather irritated. But she’d found it. And there was prince charming himself. At least her client would be happy that they didn’t have to pay for a second killing.

Placing the shaped charges against the window she moved back upwards, and once she was clear she depressed the trigger.

Five detonations in one, and the reinforced glass vaporized inwards, with her following a heart beat later. The rope went taunt as she swung down and in, and before it even went slack she was shifting into the Himsati. The Bringer of Death Incarnate. The Killing Form.

Twisting as she rolled she landed, facing the bed.

Steven's eyes opened wide at the sound of the explosion and he found himself pushing his body off his bed as he stood up. The lights had already activated in the room and MERLIN had already activated the alarm alerting security. Sirens were going off loudly, as Steven focused his eyes on what it was that had just crashed through his window.

Steven found himself slowly looking up. Whatever this thing was it was easily over 8 feet in height. "Oh fuck me." he said softly. He knew he was screwed, he had to think and think fast.

Of course MERLIN didn't have the fight or flight emotions that a human had since he was a computer. Already he was sealing the outer windows with the titanium shields. Steven saw the bedroom door was beginning to lower. He knew this was his chance to get away from this thing. So he ran towards it hoping it would get trapped in the titanium box, or at least buy sometime for security to arrive.

Snarling Feral twisted, and leaped, body slamming both her and the target into the wall. Backflipping she waited, and listened as the door closed, sealing them both in.

Purrrrfect..

"So close." Steven knew it would take five minutes for MERLIN to reverse the lockdown (even longer for a human to do it), he just needed to survive that long. But Steven wasn’t really the sit and wait type. "Level 1 breach, restrain!" he called out. Panels slid out of the way and gun like devices emerged, laser sights immediately began searching the room for the intruder and began firing at the large Cat-like beast. Little black balls were firing at it, easily avoiding Saint. The defense system was working as planed.

Leaping and twisting with inhuman agility Feral bounced off the bed, but her claws had things in them. Big fluffy things.

Launching the pillows at the weapons she shredded them, the white stuffing, a combination of beads and chopped pits, started hitting those black balls, and gave the systems thousands of new targets to shoot at.

Bouncing off the bed once more Feral's return flip had her dragging blankets. just in case the weapons compensated and tracked body heat.

Slamming into the human she rolled them together in a ball, Shifting as they rolled, she punched him, hard in the kidney's. Contract was alive or dead. But it paid more alive. And she seriously needed to replace some lost equipment.

And his weapons killed innocent's, she'd seen the evidence, she’d smelled the bodies, the chemicals in the air.

Steven groaned in pain as he felt the shot to his kidneys, however it didn't see to hurt as much as he would have thought. The thing also didn't seem as big, so he just let loose an elbow in order to try and separate himself from it. He didn't get much separation, but it was enough for him to turn around and see.... a woman.

And with him turned around Feral used the best shot she had. Misses Knee.. let me introduce you to Mister Male groin. Hard and fast.

Steven was shocked, but not enough that his instincts were distracted. Although the blanket was keeping him from being able to do anything major, he was able shift just a bit to where her knee connected with his hip instead of his groin. And although he was loathed to do it, it was a matter of life and death so he started trying for elbows and uppercuts. Of course knowing what one of her primary targets was wasn't helping him since he had to worry about defending what was out in all it's glory. This was enough to make him decide to start wearing pajamas to bed.

Tired of the fight, and possible reinforcements soon, Feral twisted and buckled. One hand darting down between her legs and grabbing his pride and joy. Even as she grew in height and doubled in mass. Then tripled.

"Stop.. or crush.." she snarled. Although it came out with much more of a throaty purr than she'd intended. This shape was made for killing and eating. Not communication. She'd been delighted to find out she could still talk. It had saved on costumes at Halloween time for several years. Granted it meant she didn't have too many dates.

"There's no way out of here. This room is designed to serve as an advanced panic room. The plates that have slid into place are solid titanium. So if your going to kill me then kill me, but as soon as the computer detects I'm dead it will suck all the air out of this room and kill you as well." he told her as he groaned in pain. "Now let me tell you I don't like the idea of dying, or having my cock and balls ripped off. So why don't we talk about this and see if there's away out of this stalemate."

"You. Kill. Innocent. Weapons. Many. Die. Much. Payment. Kill. More. Alive." God she hated talking in this form, but it gave her time to think.