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Posts: 1673
Join Date: Jan 2008
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As Shadow Hawk pulled various spare parts and a mini toolkit out of his belt he began tinkering with the face covering of his mask. Using a small metal plate he cut it roughly into the shape of a bird and then attached it to his mask completely concealing the hole that had revealed his nose and mouth. Then he pulled the mask back on to test it out. His vision wasn't hindered in the slightest which came as a big relief. But the extra weight of the metal took some getting used too.
With this done he went back to his surveillance and waited for the perfect moment to make his entrance. A few hours later he found it. The Security teams were changing shifts. All he had to do was slip in with them. He reloaded his hawk-star launchers and made to climb down the fire escape to ground level when he heard a noise behind him.
Turning around Shadow Hawk saw to his surprise the leather jacket wearing punk he left unconscious in the street only hours earlier “what the hell?”
“It’s payback time” Raven snarled as he held his nightstick in both hands as if he was wielding a long sword, his wounds were wrapped in dark bandages almost blending in with the rest of his attire and looked to be well rested.
“Damn it all, I don’t have time for this” Shadow Hawk grumbled extending his wrist blades “I have to put you down fast this time for I have places to be.”
“What exactly are you planning on doing here at CIA? You some kind of cape wearing terrorist or just a whack job” Raven said advancing on his target.
“Who are you calling a terrorist, bird boy? You were the one chasing after a scared kid when I found you.”
“The names not bird boy, it’s Raven.”
With that Raven threw himself at Shadow Hawk swinging the nightstick like a club. Shadow Hawk barely had time to block with his blades before another strike came and connected with his shoulder. Staggering back Shadow Hawk launched a hawk-star buying him some time to recover.
The shiny blade whizzed through the air catching Raven in his bandaged left arm reopening his wound. The blood began to flow and the pain shot through the vigilante causing his rage to build. He threw his nightstick at Shadow Hawk’s face but the small metal plate caused the stick to ricochet off without doing too much damage.
[Nice addition, hadn’t expected the upgrade to act as armor] Shadow Hawk thought to himself pleased with the result. Then he launched himself in a jump kick aimed at Raven’s head. His foot was caught midair and Raven used his own momentum against him. Sending Shadow Hawk sailing over the opposite end of the roof and down towards the street below.
Entering a freefall from only twenty stories up was not something Shadow Hawk enjoyed at all. He quickly came to his senses after his initial fear and fired off a grappling cable. He prayed as a grappling claw latched on to the railing of a fire escape and the cable snapped tight halting his descent.
He quickly hit the retract button on his gauntlet hauling himself back up to the rooftop and leaping over the edge with a well placed kick. His booted foot caught Raven on the chin as the other man was peering over after him. They both rolled with the landing coming up on their knees in a defensive pose.
The commotion of their scuffle brought unwanted attention from the CIA security team that was departing from duty. Roughly a dozen men swarmed onto the rooftop from various routes. All armed with either pistols or assault rifles and wearing riot gear.
As the government agents trained their weapons on the two masked vigilantes Shadow Hawk pulled a small explosive device from his belt and threw it into the center of the security team. Each agent took several steps back giving both Raven and Shadow Hawk room to make an exit. Then the device blew showering the rooftop with ash creating an effective smokescreen.
The two bird masked men ducked down a nearby alley and broke into a run. Raven, more familiar with his surroundings, soon lost Shadow Hawk as he found a short cut which would lead him back to his safe house. Shadow Hawk ducked into what appeared to be a condemned convenience store and caught his breath.
“Shadow to Citadel, I need a target lock” he called into his communicator.
“Kind of busy here John” Sebastian replied almost frantic “Talon said Midnight just engaged in combat with an alien hostile.” *see Captain Midnight # 5*
“Listen Sebastian, this Raven punk just blew my shot at infiltrating the facility. I’ve planted a tracer on him; just let me know where he’s headed!”
“Okay John hang on” clearly frustrated at the interruption Sebastian went to work typing on the keyboard and bringing the satellite online “uploading the coordinates to your PDA now.”
Shadow Hawk detached the small PDA from his belt buckle and held it up where he could see it. Then he followed the blinking dot around a maze of streets and too an apartment complex. The dot headed up the fire escape and disappeared through a window.
“Well, well, well” Shadow Hawk muttered to himself “maybe I can trap him in there.”
Firing off a grappler he pulled himself up to the window and peered inside. Raven had already closed it and pulled the blinds so that he couldn’t see inside. Without a second thought he launched himself into the glass window causing it to shatter spraying shards into the apartment. He rolled with his landing coming up on his feet.
As he took in the surroundings he couldn’t help but notice the lack of furniture in the apartment. There wasn’t even so much as an end table holding a telephone. The only thing he saw was a smoke detector on the ceiling and a first aid kit sitting on a counter in the kitchen.
Raven, upon hearing the crash, poked his head out of the bedroom doorway so that he could see his living room. He saw Shadow Hawk and became furious at the intrusion.
“How dare you violate the sanctity of my home” he snarled clenching his fists.
“I’ll leave as soon as you pay for your crimes” Shadow Hawk replied.
“What crimes? Do you really think I’m the criminal here?”
“You ruined my chance of rescuing a wrongfully imprisoned man” Shadow Hawk retorted.
This caught Raven by surprise. He had issues with the powers that be as well. He used to be in the Army but after everything that has happened in his life he’s come to the conclusion the entire system is corrupt. It seems as if this other masked man shares the same sentiments.
“Okay there buddy” Raven said taking the initiative to end this fight “I think we got off on the wrong foot. We are more alike than you realize.”
Still wary of some kind of trick Shadow Hawk responded “how so?”
“Something bad has happened to both of us and the system couldn’t help us” Raven said assured he was on the right track “we both sought to cleanup the streets our own way, as vigilantes. Hell we even both chose a bird of prey as our image.”
“What about the kid in the street?” Shadow Hawk asked still not a hundred percent convinced.
“Are you still on that? Come on he was a two bit thug and he shot me! How do you think my arm got wounded in the first place?”
“It could’ve been self defense” Shadow Hawk countered.
“What the…? If you won’t believe me then just get out!”
With that demand Raven advanced three steps in Shadow Hawk’s direction. Sensing the other man must be telling the truth or at least part of it Shadow Hawk retracted his blades in a sign of peace. Then since there was nowhere for him to sit he dropped down in a crouching position and stayed motionless.
Puzzled by this abrupt change Raven stared at him in wonder “okay so now what?”
“First you help me infiltrate the CIA facility” Shadow Hawk advised “then I help you catch the punk that shot you.”
Raven thought it over a minute and figured that sounded like a good compromise “okay Shadow Hawk, deal. But if you try to double cross me…”
“No worries” Shadow Hawk said throwing up his hands in mock surrender.
Twenty-two hours later on the rooftop of a bank building the two vigilantes peered across the street at the CIA Facility while listening to a police radio that Raven had brought with them. From the reports the CIA had given up the search for the two of them after several hours of canvassing the city the night before.
“Who just gives up the hunt like that?”
“Believe me Shadow, these guys are only hired guns. They could care less about actually doing their jobs.”
“Yeah but due to the nature of their prisoner they’ve probably at least beefed up security.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s so important about this guy anyway?”
“Guess there’s no harm in telling you. I’ve been working with this new hero calling himself Captain Midnight. He tells a pretty convincing story of things to come unless a major catastrophe is averted. Thing is he don’t know exactly what this event is. That’s where this prisoner comes in. He has the ability to sense eminent danger to himself before it happens.”
“So you want to use this guy to detect this catastrophe?” Raven asked catching on.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Is that all this guy is good for? Or can he do anything else?”
“No he can also walk through walls, or so I’m told.”
“Then why doesn’t he just walk out instead of waiting to be rescued?”
“Because the CIA has him locked inside a containment energy field which disrupts his powers” Shadow Hawk replied.
The two then turned their conversation towards a plan for breaking into the building. And after several minutes of hashing it out they decided on their course and put there plan into motion. Raven disappeared from the rooftop and flanking the building made his way to the maintenance entrance to wait for the signal.
Shadow Hawk gave him time to get into position and then fired off several explosive hawk-stars. These blades each hit their intended target windows and went off causing a shower of broken glass to be blown inward injuring anyone unlucky enough to have been in the rooms that were hit. This caused panic to ensue inside.
The security teams in the building rushed toward the rooms in which the alarms had been set off. This left the ground floor entrances completely unguarded. Raven broke the lock on the maintenance door and entered the building as stealthily as a cat. He raced down the empty corridor and ducked into a computer room that Shadow Hawk had assured him would be there.
So far the blueprints of the building were right on. Typing away at the console Raven quickly brought up the power grid for the detention block. Then he shut it down. As the west wing plunged into darkness Shadow Hawk was already moving. He dove through one of the broken windows and slammed his fist into the guard that was poking around in the room.
When his prison cell plunged into darkness, Corey Wraithe felt his constraints fall free from his wrists and ankles. The containment energy had been shut down! He had no idea where this miracle had come from but he was definitely going to make the most of it. The lab tech who had been monitoring his vitals looked up in surprise as the heart monitor came crashing through the Plexiglas window that separated him from his patient.
Corey paid no heed to the lab tech and phased through the locked door on the other side of the room. Then he activated his radar senses. During his time locked up here they experimented on him. Subjected him to torturous treatments, but in the end he gained a few new abilities. Not only did his vision spread a thin red aura out in an effort to detect targets but his hearing became more acute. He could hear several guards three halls over whispering about what they were going to do when the got off work in the morning.
What he needed was to find the room where they were keeping his weapons. So he concentrated harder and his hearing changed into mental telepathy. He was able to dig into the guard’s mind and extract the information he wanted. That was good, his weapons were real close. Corey smiled to himself as he phased through the next door he came to and entered the armory.
He found his overly large energy rifle complete with a backpack style power supply attached to it “looks like they’ve been upgrading my weapons. I’ll have to remember to thank them for that.”
Corey knew instinctively what they were planning. Once these new treatments were complete they were hoping he’d be nothing more than an obedient drone. Then they could send him on suicide missions that no sane soldier would even dare attempt. He laughed to himself at the thought and strapped on the power supply. Then he noticed a smaller pistol type energy weapon and grabbed that as well.
After loading up on weapons he turned to leave the armory. His radar flared up as several hostiles entered his sensory range. They were headed down the corridor in his direction. The lab tech must’ve sold him out. He phased through the wall and into the hallway. Then he powered up the weapons and target locked all seven of the men rushing to greet him.
As the security team came to an abrupt halt each man looked at his companions wondering if they stood a chance against the heavily armed ‘super’ soldier. A couple of them had thoughts of running away but they had their standing orders. ‘Detain Wraithe at all costs’.
The last man in the group was hit from behind with an armored fist as another was struck upside his head with a nightstick. The two guards crumpled to the ground as their attackers came into view. One work an armored bird faced mask and cape and the other wore a bird mask and leather jacket. The security team realized they were surrounded and closed up together in a tight circle.
Corey Wraithe looked intently at the ‘masks’ and decided they were of no threat, seeing as how their auras remained clear. Before he could tell anymore however the lead guard opened fire on him. These guys must’ve been the perimeter guards because they were only equipped with normal assault rifles and not containment energy nets. So it was nothing for him to simply phase allowing the bullets to sail harmless through his body.
Then He opened fire, the energy from his weapons barked harshly and the kickback was immense. Corey actually felt his shoulder bruise under the impact and was awed by its power. The lead guard was instantly vaporized by the energy and his body left nothing behind but ash.
Everything that happened next was a blur. Shadow Hawk and Raven went toe to toe with a couple of guards while the others entered a firefight with Wraith. The battle seemed to rage for hours but in actuality was only a mere thirty seconds. Then all the guards had either been dropped or vaporized.
“Wraith I presume?” Shadow Hawk asked casually.
“Who are you?” the big man replied.
“Your rescuer, I was sent by a third party. The world needs your help.”
“Let’s get out of here first. Then we’ll talk about whether what the world needs coincides with what I need” Wraith replied bitterly.
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