08-16-2017, 10:36 PM
Luci catches Doctor Doom’s eye in the rearview mirror. She quickly blinks away her tears and glares into the mirror, holding his gaze through his mask. She slows the car, and cuts the headlights. Jacket perks up, but behind his mask, Doctor Doom does not flinch. Luci eases the car between two crumbling apartment building into a pitch black alley.
“Shhhh,” she says calmly as she cuts the engine on the Oldsmobile and lets it drift down the alley in neutral. Eventually it comes to a stop, and Luci pulls the emergency brake. The trio sit in perfect, silent darkness for several tense moments.
“Do you feel it?” Luci asks in a hushed whisper. She cannot see her companions, an inch from her face.
“Yeah,” whispers Jacket solemnly.
“No,” declares Doctor Doom flatly, his voice unquieted and impatient.
Luci nods, but they do not see her. They hear the shaking of her aerosol can. Doom is wary, but after a moment she sprays herself in the face with a luminescent white coat of paint. Jacket and Doom watches the glowing fumes die down, briefly illuminating Luci’s new disguise as a fully uniformed stormtrooper, before they are again plunged into darkness.
“Your turn,” Luci whispers, and Jacket leans in without hesitation. Luci sprays him with the white paint, coating him fully until a second stormtrooper sat in the passenger seat.
“Now you, good doctor,” Luci says patiently.
“Bah!” Doctor Doom replies harshly. “I am sick of your games, your disguises, your sneak thievery! Your low cunning will only take you so far, might is what is needed from here! I will not skulk in the shadows-”
“Fine,” Luci cuts in, her voice muffled by the stormtroopers helmet. “If you want to kick down the front door, be my guest, but I’m not going with you. We do this my way, or find someone else to get their hands dirty.”
A silence stretches thin.
“Then do it,” the super villain says curtly.
***
Three stormtroopers surround an oldsmobile in a back alley in Tier-6 lit only by a dim yellow light.
One of them is crouched down next to the oldsmobile with a magic spraycan, erasing the body of the vehicle. It slowly disappears until a sparkling new hovercraft is revealed. The stormtrooper then slowly paints over the hovercar, creating a new body, tires, and interior, until a bright white military Hummer is squeezed into the tight alley.
“Ready!” says Luci brightly beneath her helmet. “But...do you feel that?”
***
Meanwhile, on Tier-5.
[spoiler]
Mikey the Lightfoot walks slowly around a cramped compartment on the T5 Reading Westbound train, his yellow eyes slowly scanning the walls for graffiti.
Like most Lightfootz, Mikey is a half orc, mostly human looking but green skinned and with small tusks jutting from his mouth. The Lightfootz gang is comprised of apprentice magic users employed by Orc Mafia as couriers, spies, and graffiti vandals. They use graffiti to show the strength of the Orc Mafia, as well as to communicate with each other and spy on their enemies. They have been engaged in a shadow war with Luci and the Hufflepunks, each side using their magical graffiti to spy on each other. They have also been charged with protecting the Orc Mafia’s presence on the trains of Eastside Tier-5.
Tonight Mikey is trying to focus on his mission, trying to keep his graffiti wards up and running to hide his compartment from the prying magical eyes of the Westside, but he cannot help but be distracted by the company of the train compartment, and it’s collective smell.
The T5 Eastsyd Gangsta Ork Warryorz are in the house.
Nearly twenty of the hulking leather-clad ork bikerz stand shoulder to shoulder, swords clinking against guns as they growl at each other. Mikey knows some of them by reputation. Tiny Argah, known for slaying the Sprinkles the Ewok in single combat, stands tall and silent in the back holding his double-headed battleaxe over his head to make room. On the opposite side is Warslut, the female orc famed for holding the 7th Street Bridge alone against a pack of knife ears. She lost a hand in the battle, but it has since been replaced with a machine gun. Though the gang is cramped, they create a wide circle around their Prezident.
Jarl Elfbane, Prezident of the T5 Eastsyd Gangsta Ork Warryorz, is a black-furred ork instantly recognized by the necklace of gold-coated elf and human ears around his neck. Jarl is one of the most respected bikerz in the Orc Mafia, and a veteran of countless coruscant battles, but most famously the battle of Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
The rumble marked a turning point in the last war between the Orc Mafia and the Westside, when the Westside met an entire train full of Orcs at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. The Orcs were unable to break through the lines, and were forced to retreat onto the Eastbound train. The battle would go down in history as one of the bloodiest losses the Orc Mafia has ever suffered.
And now tonight, they are going into Platform Nine and Three Quarters again.
It is understandable then, that Jarl is a bit jumpy when Mikey’s dog starts barking.
“Shut up!” Mikey snaps to his dog quickly, and the barking stiffles to a low growl. Mikey sweats as he feels Jarl’s eyes on him, but he walks over to his dog Twitch.
Twitch is not an ordinary dog, but a graffiti dog. Twitch is Mikey’s familiar, a two dimensional red outline of a jack russel terrier that lives in the Graffiti Plane, transporting messages for Mikey and keeping an eye out for spies. Twitch has his hackles up, barking and snapping at a silver graffiti outline of a opossum. Mikey recognizes it as a Patronus, the preferred agent of graffiti spying for the Westside Hufflepunks. The opossum hisses as Twitch gets a hold of its ankle.
“Kill it,” comes the deep growl of Jarl Elfbane, sounding like nothing less than the lead singer of a death metal band. Mikey hurries to obey.
With a shaking hand the half-orc pulls out a fat red marker, and crosses over the opossum with three quick slashes, performing the somatic component of the spell, and the patronus is gone. Twitch stops barking.
Prezident Jarl leans back in his seat again, and Mikey lets out a tense breath.
[/spoiler]
***
One of the stormtroopers, Jacket, nods. “Yeah, I feel it.” he says again, inclining his head sharply. If Luci did not know Jacket so well, she might have missed his cue. Behind her helmet, her gaze flicker to the wall, where she sees a pair of dimly glowing red eyes.
In a flash Luci is across the alley. She plunges her arm deep into the wall, phasing through it, and tiny squeals echo around. When she pulls it back out, a two dimensional graffiti outline of an imp is wriggling in her hand. Before they can react, it dissolves into paint fumes.
“The fuck was that?” Jacket asks reasonably.
“A spy,” Luci replies curtly. Her hand is shaking when she pulls out a fat, brightly glowing marker, and draws a brilliant owl owl in different neon colors on the alley wall. The owls ruffles its feathers, and opens it’s eyes.
“Hello Luci,” it says politely, it’s eyes slowly scanning her company.
“Hey Mr. Owl,” Luci says hurriedly. “We’re gonna be coming in hot, you know where to go.”
The owls closes it’s eyes and nods dutifully. It spreads its two dimensional wings, and soars down the alley on the wall, until it hits a corner and disappears.
Doctor Doom and Jacket shrug at each other; that wasn’t even the weirdest thing they had seen today.
***
Three stormtroopers arrive at T6 Active Community Military base at 23:00 on a school night in a standard issue white military Hummer.
The base is universally loathed, with good reason. It’s recruits are the poorest, most desperate citizens in Coruscant, and their only assignments are oppressing their fellow poor and desperate. Ostensibly, the base is designed for quick deployment of imperial troops in case something is getting out of hand in the lower tiers. Realistically, they exist to quell insurrection with deadly force.
The most heavily guarded facility on the base is the Armory, an ugly steel dome with a high tech laser defense system built into it. The weapons are all locked in laser guarded steel vaults, ran off a private generator in the Control Room, in the heart of the Armory.
Surrounding the entire base is a twenty-foot-high razor wire electric fence, buzzing faintly and sending out little sparks. A pair of stormtroopers stand on either side of the entrance, each apparently vying for employee of the month, as they each walk up to the driver's side of the Hummer.
“I.D.” says one of the troopers boredly to Luci, the one who arrived first. Luci hands over an ID card. The guard glances at the I.D., which shows a Stormtroopers helmet, then looks back to Luci. He nods, and hands the card back.
“Go ahead,” he says, as he moves to open the gate.
Lucis lets out a sigh of relief.
“What was that?” the guard asks.
“Uh, what?” says Luci intelligently.
“It sounded like you just sighed in relief,” he says. On the other side of the car, his friends hand slips casually onto the hilt of his blaster. Jacket tenses.
“Oh, no, I didn’t,” Luci explains.
“Oh,” says the guard. “Yeah ok, sorry. You can go ahead.”
Luci and Jacket sigh in releif.
“But uh,” the guard says as he turns back to the car. “Do you remember today’s color?”
The car is silent for perhaps a moment too long, but then Luci speaks from behind her helmet.
“Today’s color,” she says confidently, her eyes glowing brightly behind her helmet. “Is turtle.”
With an annoying buzz, the gates swing open.
***
“Shhhh,” she says calmly as she cuts the engine on the Oldsmobile and lets it drift down the alley in neutral. Eventually it comes to a stop, and Luci pulls the emergency brake. The trio sit in perfect, silent darkness for several tense moments.
“Do you feel it?” Luci asks in a hushed whisper. She cannot see her companions, an inch from her face.
“Yeah,” whispers Jacket solemnly.
“No,” declares Doctor Doom flatly, his voice unquieted and impatient.
Luci nods, but they do not see her. They hear the shaking of her aerosol can. Doom is wary, but after a moment she sprays herself in the face with a luminescent white coat of paint. Jacket and Doom watches the glowing fumes die down, briefly illuminating Luci’s new disguise as a fully uniformed stormtrooper, before they are again plunged into darkness.
“Your turn,” Luci whispers, and Jacket leans in without hesitation. Luci sprays him with the white paint, coating him fully until a second stormtrooper sat in the passenger seat.
“Now you, good doctor,” Luci says patiently.
“Bah!” Doctor Doom replies harshly. “I am sick of your games, your disguises, your sneak thievery! Your low cunning will only take you so far, might is what is needed from here! I will not skulk in the shadows-”
“Fine,” Luci cuts in, her voice muffled by the stormtroopers helmet. “If you want to kick down the front door, be my guest, but I’m not going with you. We do this my way, or find someone else to get their hands dirty.”
A silence stretches thin.
“Then do it,” the super villain says curtly.
***
Three stormtroopers surround an oldsmobile in a back alley in Tier-6 lit only by a dim yellow light.
One of them is crouched down next to the oldsmobile with a magic spraycan, erasing the body of the vehicle. It slowly disappears until a sparkling new hovercraft is revealed. The stormtrooper then slowly paints over the hovercar, creating a new body, tires, and interior, until a bright white military Hummer is squeezed into the tight alley.
“Ready!” says Luci brightly beneath her helmet. “But...do you feel that?”
***
Meanwhile, on Tier-5.
[spoiler]
Mikey the Lightfoot walks slowly around a cramped compartment on the T5 Reading Westbound train, his yellow eyes slowly scanning the walls for graffiti.
Like most Lightfootz, Mikey is a half orc, mostly human looking but green skinned and with small tusks jutting from his mouth. The Lightfootz gang is comprised of apprentice magic users employed by Orc Mafia as couriers, spies, and graffiti vandals. They use graffiti to show the strength of the Orc Mafia, as well as to communicate with each other and spy on their enemies. They have been engaged in a shadow war with Luci and the Hufflepunks, each side using their magical graffiti to spy on each other. They have also been charged with protecting the Orc Mafia’s presence on the trains of Eastside Tier-5.
Tonight Mikey is trying to focus on his mission, trying to keep his graffiti wards up and running to hide his compartment from the prying magical eyes of the Westside, but he cannot help but be distracted by the company of the train compartment, and it’s collective smell.
The T5 Eastsyd Gangsta Ork Warryorz are in the house.
Nearly twenty of the hulking leather-clad ork bikerz stand shoulder to shoulder, swords clinking against guns as they growl at each other. Mikey knows some of them by reputation. Tiny Argah, known for slaying the Sprinkles the Ewok in single combat, stands tall and silent in the back holding his double-headed battleaxe over his head to make room. On the opposite side is Warslut, the female orc famed for holding the 7th Street Bridge alone against a pack of knife ears. She lost a hand in the battle, but it has since been replaced with a machine gun. Though the gang is cramped, they create a wide circle around their Prezident.
Jarl Elfbane, Prezident of the T5 Eastsyd Gangsta Ork Warryorz, is a black-furred ork instantly recognized by the necklace of gold-coated elf and human ears around his neck. Jarl is one of the most respected bikerz in the Orc Mafia, and a veteran of countless coruscant battles, but most famously the battle of Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
The rumble marked a turning point in the last war between the Orc Mafia and the Westside, when the Westside met an entire train full of Orcs at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. The Orcs were unable to break through the lines, and were forced to retreat onto the Eastbound train. The battle would go down in history as one of the bloodiest losses the Orc Mafia has ever suffered.
And now tonight, they are going into Platform Nine and Three Quarters again.
It is understandable then, that Jarl is a bit jumpy when Mikey’s dog starts barking.
“Shut up!” Mikey snaps to his dog quickly, and the barking stiffles to a low growl. Mikey sweats as he feels Jarl’s eyes on him, but he walks over to his dog Twitch.
Twitch is not an ordinary dog, but a graffiti dog. Twitch is Mikey’s familiar, a two dimensional red outline of a jack russel terrier that lives in the Graffiti Plane, transporting messages for Mikey and keeping an eye out for spies. Twitch has his hackles up, barking and snapping at a silver graffiti outline of a opossum. Mikey recognizes it as a Patronus, the preferred agent of graffiti spying for the Westside Hufflepunks. The opossum hisses as Twitch gets a hold of its ankle.
“Kill it,” comes the deep growl of Jarl Elfbane, sounding like nothing less than the lead singer of a death metal band. Mikey hurries to obey.
With a shaking hand the half-orc pulls out a fat red marker, and crosses over the opossum with three quick slashes, performing the somatic component of the spell, and the patronus is gone. Twitch stops barking.
Prezident Jarl leans back in his seat again, and Mikey lets out a tense breath.
[/spoiler]
***
One of the stormtroopers, Jacket, nods. “Yeah, I feel it.” he says again, inclining his head sharply. If Luci did not know Jacket so well, she might have missed his cue. Behind her helmet, her gaze flicker to the wall, where she sees a pair of dimly glowing red eyes.
In a flash Luci is across the alley. She plunges her arm deep into the wall, phasing through it, and tiny squeals echo around. When she pulls it back out, a two dimensional graffiti outline of an imp is wriggling in her hand. Before they can react, it dissolves into paint fumes.
“The fuck was that?” Jacket asks reasonably.
“A spy,” Luci replies curtly. Her hand is shaking when she pulls out a fat, brightly glowing marker, and draws a brilliant owl owl in different neon colors on the alley wall. The owls ruffles its feathers, and opens it’s eyes.
“Hello Luci,” it says politely, it’s eyes slowly scanning her company.
“Hey Mr. Owl,” Luci says hurriedly. “We’re gonna be coming in hot, you know where to go.”
The owls closes it’s eyes and nods dutifully. It spreads its two dimensional wings, and soars down the alley on the wall, until it hits a corner and disappears.
Doctor Doom and Jacket shrug at each other; that wasn’t even the weirdest thing they had seen today.
***
Three stormtroopers arrive at T6 Active Community Military base at 23:00 on a school night in a standard issue white military Hummer.
The base is universally loathed, with good reason. It’s recruits are the poorest, most desperate citizens in Coruscant, and their only assignments are oppressing their fellow poor and desperate. Ostensibly, the base is designed for quick deployment of imperial troops in case something is getting out of hand in the lower tiers. Realistically, they exist to quell insurrection with deadly force.
The most heavily guarded facility on the base is the Armory, an ugly steel dome with a high tech laser defense system built into it. The weapons are all locked in laser guarded steel vaults, ran off a private generator in the Control Room, in the heart of the Armory.
Surrounding the entire base is a twenty-foot-high razor wire electric fence, buzzing faintly and sending out little sparks. A pair of stormtroopers stand on either side of the entrance, each apparently vying for employee of the month, as they each walk up to the driver's side of the Hummer.
“I.D.” says one of the troopers boredly to Luci, the one who arrived first. Luci hands over an ID card. The guard glances at the I.D., which shows a Stormtroopers helmet, then looks back to Luci. He nods, and hands the card back.
“Go ahead,” he says, as he moves to open the gate.
Lucis lets out a sigh of relief.
“What was that?” the guard asks.
“Uh, what?” says Luci intelligently.
“It sounded like you just sighed in relief,” he says. On the other side of the car, his friends hand slips casually onto the hilt of his blaster. Jacket tenses.
“Oh, no, I didn’t,” Luci explains.
“Oh,” says the guard. “Yeah ok, sorry. You can go ahead.”
Luci and Jacket sigh in releif.
“But uh,” the guard says as he turns back to the car. “Do you remember today’s color?”
The car is silent for perhaps a moment too long, but then Luci speaks from behind her helmet.
“Today’s color,” she says confidently, her eyes glowing brightly behind her helmet. “Is turtle.”
With an annoying buzz, the gates swing open.
***
![[Image: V4Dvvfy.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/V4Dvvfy.gif)